Let's Play a Blame Game: The Baroness and the Drawbridge
Who's more responsible: you or the system that made you?
My new ice breaker is to whip out this mental exercise I found after trying to decipher a Bastille song.
As you read, think about who is most responsible for the fate of the baroness:
The Baroness and the Drawbridge
As he left for a visit to his outlying districts, the jealous baron warned his pretty vile: “Do not leave the castle while I am gone, or I will punish you severely when I return!”
But as the hours passed, the young baroness grew lonely, and despite her husband's warning, she decided to visit her lover, who lived in the countryside nearby.
The castle was situated on an island in a wide, fast-flowing river. A drawbridge linked the island to the mainland at the narrowest point in the river.
“Surely my husband will not return before me,” she thought, and ordered the servant to lower the drawbridge and leave it down until she returned.
After spending several pleasant hours with her lover the baroness returned to the drawbridge. Only to find it blocked by a gateman wildly waving a long, cruel knife.
“Do not attempt to cross this bridge, Baroness, or I will have to kill you,” the gateman cried. “The baron ordered me to do so.”
Fearing for her life, the bareness returned to her lover and asked him for help.
“Our relationship is only a romantic one,” her lover said. – “I will not help.”
The bareness then sought out a boatman on the river, explained her plight to him and asked him to take her across the river in his boat.
“I will do it but only if you can pay the fee of five marks.”
“But I have no money with me!” the baroness protested.
“That is too bad. No money, no, ride,” the boatmen said flatly.
Her fear growing, the baroness ran crying to the home of a friend and, after explaining her desperate situation begged for enough money to pay the boatman his fee.
“If you had not disobeyed your husband this would not have happened,” the friend said. “I will give you no money.”
With dawn approaching and her last resource exhausted, the baroness returned to the bridge in desperation, and waited to cross to the castle, and was slain by the gateman.
Note: Slightly edited for my purposes. Emphasis mine.
Fun! Now rank the characters you think are most responsible for the baroness’s demise:
Baron (“the system” who creates the law)
Baroness (“the oppressed” who is expected to obey the system)
Gateman (“the authority” who enacts the system’s rules)
Boatman (“the institution” who provides services… for a price)
Lover (“the false symbol” whom we idolize but won’t come to our rescue)
Friend (“the judge” who conditionally accepts you when you share their values)
A sticky web we weave.
I’ll tell you my answer after you tell me yours.