Leebra

I've been wondering for a while why the name of this book is Libra, and now it's finally clear why, so that's cool. Today in discussion we kind of compared Lee's qualities to the supposed qualities of a Libra, and I figured it'd be fun to think about it some more.

According to http://www.astrology-zodiac-signs.com/zodiac-signs/libra/ :

"People born under the sign of Libra are peaceful and fair, and they hate being alone. Partnership is very important for Libra -born, and with their victorious mentality and cooperation, they cannot stand to be alone."

When I first read this I disagreed, since the Lee we've seen likes to be different and weird, but I guess you could say that Lee wanting partnership makes sense since he does all of these different and weird things to try and get people's attention. Additionally, he always wants to move around since he thinks he'll be better accepted in other places. A few contrasting points: Lee has partnership in Marina but he doesn't seem to want to be her companion, despite the fact that they're married. I think that Lee has a hard time listening to others and prioritizing, since he only really thinks about himself, which is why he always wants to move, even though he probably should be thinking about his wife and child who he is unable to support. Also I wouldn't say he's peaceful, considering one night with his old friend he decided he wanted to murder someone. 

"The Libra is an Air sign, with expressed intellect and a keen mind. They can be inspired by good books, insurmountable discussions and interesting people."

I would say that Lee was pretty inspired by Das Kapital, and that led to a lot of what's happened in the book. He's almost too influenced by these communist figures, it's taken over his life, and like I said earlier, he always wants to move around to find a place where his ideals will be praised and he will be lauded for his beliefs. I would say that Lee is fairly intelligent, but he's so easily manipulated or influenced that it causes problems.

"The ruling planet of Libra is Venus, who is a lover of beautiful things, so the quality is always more important than the quantity for people born under the Libra sign. They are often surrounded by art, music and beautiful places. They are cooperative by nature, so they often work in teams."

Eh, questionable.

"Libra is fascinated by the balance and symmetry. Libra-born prefer justice and equality, and they cannot tolerate injustice. They avoid indulging in all types of conflicts and prefer to keep the peace, where this is possible. They like to do everything in pairs and not alone."

I find the last part of that quote to be interesting because Lee attempted to kill Walker with Dupard, not by himself. Along with that, I suppose that Lee could consider all his fairly violent acts as being "just". To be fair, Walker was a terrible person. While Lee probably didn't try to shoot Walker for that reason, but rather, for his own personal gain, the argument could be made that he believes his actions are to uphold justice. 

"The biggest problem for Libra-born, is when they are forced to choose sides, because they are very indecisive and sometimes they forget that they have their own opinion."

It seems like Lee has tried to be very different and individualistic throughout this whole novel, so I'm not sure about the indecisive or forgetting that he has his own opinion part, BUT I think this does fit, since we've seen how easily Lee can be influenced or manipulated. This is the only weakness that this website gave me for Libras, but I still think we can get a decent amount of character from these descriptions (surprisingly). He definitely doesn't completely fit this image, but I think it's interesting how Lee and Libras line up.

Lee has made quite the transformation since my last blog post, which talked about how sympathetic I found him to be, especially when considering his upbringing. Now his character is definitely more complex, and I guess that can kind of be seen when thinking about Lee as a Libra.