Opinion Piece (Circles 6 and 7.

1)
- In your opinion, does the punishment fit the crime?
For Circle 7.1, yes, we believe that the punishment fits the crime. If you killed
others in life, then it seems fitting that you’re wallowing in the blood that you spilled.
And if that blood happens to be boiling…well, then, that’s just an added bonus. However,
we don’t believe that the punishment for Circle 6 totally fits the crime. The sin of its
inhabitants was heresy, which is generally defined as a belief system that differs from a
widely accepted religion (in this case, Christianity). So the heretics are imprisoned in
flaming tombs with cast-off lids. Now, if you symbolize the flames to be their beliefs,
then you could say that the heretics are being eternally burned in their blasphemous
ideals. But that’s kind of a long shot. Also, what the heck are the tombs supposed to
symbolize? Maybe it’s the idea that the heretics didn’t believe in an afterlife, so they’re
technically as “dead” as they thought they were going to be. But some heretics probably
did believe in an afterlife (for example, if they just had a different religion), so that
doesn’t make sense, either. And it doesn’t seem fair to punish someone just because of his
or her belief system. So, because the punishment isn’t symbolically retributive to the
crime, then no, the punishment doesn’t fit the crime in this case.

- Do you believe this crime fits where Dante has placed it? How does it relate
within the grander scheme of Hell?
We believe the crime of heresy fits where Dante put it. Heretics are placed at the
top of Lower Hell, which makes sense because heresy is much less severe a sin than, say,
falsifying and murdering. However, we disagree with the fact that mass murdering is the
second-least-severe sin within Lower Hell (in other words, Circle 7.1 is the second round
after Dis). Human life is very valuable, and to destroy large amounts of it is unforgivable.
And yet murderers are punished less severely than, say, petty thieves or fortune-tellers. In
our opinion, fraudulence is generally a less-harmful sin than mass killing (and not that
many people mass-kill, anyways), so murdering should be punished in a circle closer to
Satan.
 - In relation to the other circles of Hell, what is the most terrifying or memorable
feature of your section? What stands out in the readers’ mind?
Well, in Circle 6, Farinata (a Jellybean/Ghibelline sinner who Dante talks to)
seems totally unaffected by the burning flames. He carries himself with great majesty,
even in the utmost pain of Hell. And we thought, “wow,” because it’s kind of cool, but
it’s a little scary that this guy can just sit there, totally unaffected, in the middle of the
ultimate bonfire. Either he has a scary amount of mental self-control (like, the kind where
you know your own mind so well, you can telekinetically move rocks with it) or he’s a
robot. Also, the same guy brings up an interesting idea: the damned souls of Hell can only
see far into the distant future. They can’t see the present, or the past. It would be like
knowing that the world is going to end, but not being able to do anything about it because
it isn’t actually happening, and then when it does happen, you can’t do anything about it
because you don’t know it’s happening anymore, and besides, you’re focused on the next
step in time. This scares us a bit.

- What beast of oppression does your section fall under and why?
Our section (circles 6 and 7.1) falls under the Lion, who represents violence. This
definitely applies to the darling little circle of 7.1, where murderers (who are, needless to
say, very violent) stew in boiling blood. But how does it apply to Circle 6? Well, here’s
the answer: according to the book, the beginning of violence is to defy God. Well, in this
context, heresy just happens to mean, “not-Christian.” So this makes sense. Even though
the heretics weren’t always literally violent, they were “mentally” violent.

Whatever the Hell that means.