- missing characters -


1.Hebrew tradition
Hebrew letters are invested with special meaning in Judaism in general, and the creative power of letters is particularly evident in Sefer Yetzirah, a mystical text that tells a story of the creation which is based on the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, a story which diverges greatly from that in the Book of Genesis. The creative power of letters is also explored in the Talmud and Zohar.

13th-century scholar Nahmanides asserted that the Torah could be read differently through different pronunciation and word divisions. Building on this idea, the author of Sefer ha-Temunah asserted that one Hebrew letter is missing altogether from the Torah, and will be revealed only when the world moves to the next sephira.

According to Lawrence Kushner, author of The Book of Letters: A Mystical Alef-Bait, Sefer ha-Temunah teaches that "every defect in our present universe is mysteriously connected with this unimaginable consonant", and that as soon as the missing letter is given to us, our Universe will be filled with undreamed of new words, the words that will turn repression into loving.

Kushner states that the letter Shin (ש) is of special interest. The letter shin that appears on the small leather cube that holds the tefillin has four prongs rather than the standard three. Some scholars say that this is the missing letter. According to these scholars, the coming revelation of the name and pronunciation of this letter will be what repairs the universe.

2. Greek tradition

Sampi is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet. It was used in addition to the classical 24 letters of the alphabet to denote some type of a sibilant sound, probably [ss] or [ts], in some eastern Ionic dialects of ancient Greek in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. It remained in use as a numeral symbol for 900 in the alphabetic system of Greek numerals. Its current name, sampi, originally probably meant "san pi", i.e. "like a pi", and is also of medieval origin. The letter's original name in antiquity is not known. It has been proposed that sampi was a reincarnation of the archaic letter san, which was originally shaped like an M and denoted the sound [s] in some other dialects. Besides san, names that have been proposed for sampi include parakyisma and angma, while other historically attested terms for it are enacosis, sincope, and o charaktir.

3. Computers

It is very difficult to define ALT+255 because it is a void of unkown possibilities and endless nothingness. ALT+255 is the last one in set of characters that can be created by pressing ALT and adding some numbers. You can see it below:

- creating a human character -

Humans are made in God's image: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." (Genesis 1:27)

The Hebrew word used here for 'created' is bara' = creation out of nothing (ex nihilo). 

So, God created man out of nothing. But in Genesis 2:7 we read that: "The Lord God formed man out of the dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being."

The Hebrew word for 'formed' is yasar = created out of existing substance.

So, this is the difference between creation and form. We cannot create in the material world. We can only form the matter.

So what was actually the item that God created out of nothing? Not a man nor a woman, but his own image, both male and female.

- personification and character of Mona Lisa -

In extreme urge to figure out what is the real meaning behind the character of Mona Lisa, painted by Leonardo,  many different individuals with the backup of science and the media, came up with many different hipothesis.

Most recent one is an attempt to read the letters, possibly written in the eyes of Mona Lisa by the author, letters LV (initials of Leonardo) in right and possible CE (or BS) in her left eye. The idea is to introduce the light (in Italian luce: LV CE) as the entire message of the painting, or to see Mona Lisa as a personification of the light itself.

Although Leonardo was extremely supersticious as a character himself, and his works most certenly include certain secret messages and techniques, it is important to understand that symbolism in art is not there necessarilly to be revealed. Symbols often have certain ambiguity, art works sometimes reconcile meaning and the reality itself. 

Before, there was another theory, a possible reading of Mona Lisa as an autoportait, where the name of the painting stands for mon analyse (my analysis) or analysis of myself.

Other than that, nature does not open the door of the sanctuary to anyone. And in Science and in Goodness, the true wise man must evermore 

keep silent.

- non living objects, things and abstractions as characters -

Personification is an ontological metaphor in which a thing or abstraction is represented as a person. You can personify objects, concepts or animals, with intention to avoid vulgarity of objectification. Authors use personification to make stories more dramatic and interesting and because it is easier for the reader or viewer to relate to something with human attributes, a character. 

This is one of the techniques to express complicated or abstract ideas.

- character and action in "Psalm" by Paul Celan -

No one moulds us again out of earth and clay,

    no one conjures our dust.

    No one.

    Praised be your name, no one.

    For your sake

    we shall flower.

    Towards

    you.

    A nothing

    we were, are, shall

    remain, flowering:

    the nothing-, the no one's rose.

    With

    our pistil soul-bright,

    with our stamen heaven-ravaged,

    our corolla red

    with the crimson word which we sang

    over, O over

    the thorn.

 

- character, symbol, act and reality -

One of the important aspects of the character element in film or drama is the fact that either because of contradictory action or incomplete description the character cannot be viewed as an individual, or the reader is left confused about the character. Every character is, therefore, some sort of Golem, incomplete being.

One method of reconciling this would be to consider characters to be flat, or type-caste, instead of round. This would mean that most of the information about the character centers around one main quality or viewpoint. Comparable to the flat character option, the reader could also view the character as a symbol. 

Another aspect is that there is a component of language, character, and action, and the interactions of these three components; these are fused together throughout the film or a play. Action normally determines the major means of characterization. Another principle is the importance of these three components’ effect on each other; the important repercussion of this being character’s impact on action.

This is the mark of the act: a basic rupture in the weave of reality that opens up new possibilities and creates the space for a reconfiguration of reality itself. Like the miracle, the act is ultimately unsustainable - it cannot be reduced to, or incorporated directly within, the symbolic order. Yet it is through the act that we touch (and are touched by) the Real in such a way that the bonds of our symbolic universe are broken and that an alternative construction is enabled; reality is transformed in a Real sense. (Zizek)

- plot or character -


In his Poetics, Aristotle says that Plot is the “first principle,” the most important feature of tragedy. He defines plot as “the arrangement of the incidents” and according to him, tragedies where the outcome depends on a tightly constructed cause-and-effect chain of actions are superior to those that depend primarily on the character and personality of the protagonist.


Foster-Harris, a 1950's era writing instructor said that plot is an emotional problem caused by two conflicting emotions being felt by the same person (the main character), and the working-out of that conflict. 

People often say that there are only a certain number of basic plots in all of literature, and that any story is really just a variation on these plots. Since Foster-Harris claims that all plots stem from conflict, he describes this in terms of what the main character feels: "I have an inner conflict of emotions, feelings.... What, in any case, can I do to resolve the inner problems?" This is in accord with the canonical view that the basic elements of plot revolve around a problem dealt with in sequence: "Exposition - Rising Action - Climax - Falling Action - Denouement". 

- mark of Cain -


In Christianity and Judaism, the mark of Cain refer to the passages in the Biblical Book of Genesis where God declared that Cain, the firstborn son of Adam and Eve, was cursed for murdering his brother, and placed a mark upon him to warn others that killing Cain would provoke the vengeance of God.


There is no clear consensus as to what Cain's mark would be. The word translated as "mark" in Gen. 4:15 is 'owth, which could mean a sign, an omen, a warning, or a remembrance. In the Torah, the same word is used to describe the stars as signs or omens, the rainbow as the sign of the flood (Gen. 9:12), circumcision as a token of God's covenant with Abraham, and the miracles performed by Moses before the Pharaoh. Thus, the text of the Bible only explicitly describes how the mark was to function as a sign or warning, not what form the mark took.

Cain's mark has been interpreted in several ways. Following the literal Biblical text, most scholars interpret the "mark" as a warning to others, but are unable to determine the form of the mark from the Biblical text.

In 18th century America and Europe, it was commonly assumed that Cain's "mark" was black skin, and that Cain's descendants were black and still under Cain's curse. However, it is now widely considered to be a justification of racism.

The Zohar, a Kabbalistic text, states that the mark of Cain was one of the twenty-two Hebrew letters of the Torah, although the Zohar's native Aramaic doesn't actually tell us which of the letters it was. Some commentators, such as Rabbi Michael Bergin in his English commentary on the Zohar, suggest that the mark of Cain was the letter vav.

- Koran phrases appear on Russian baby’s skin -

A year ago, the words begin to appear on arms, legs and stomach of the nine month old Ali – before fading away and being replaced with new verses. Local MP Akhmedpasha Amiralaev said: ‘This boy is a pure sign of God. Allah sent him to Dagestan in order to stop revolts and tension in our republic.’  

The boy’s mother claims, ‘Normally those signs appear twice a week – on Mondays and on the nights between Thursdays and Fridays.’ Ali always feels bad when it is happening. He cries and his temperature goes up. It’s impossible to hold him when it’s happening, his body is actively moving, so we put him into his cradle. It’s so hard to watch him suffering. 

The local doctors deny that the marks are from someone writing on the child’s skin. Local imam Abdulla has told locals that the Koran forecasts that before the end of the world, there may be people with its sayings on their bodies. 

Regardlessly of our beleifs or scepticism, it is important to understand that the parrents are creating here a specific character out of their own child. It is some kind of monstruous being, with a sign on his body either of god (as Cain) if we beleive the story, or, if we don't, by someone else, a man or a woman or rabi Loew (as Golem). Every symbolic contextualization here is pure exploatation and abuse, and in political instrumentalization, as well as in religious the end always justifies the means.

- forehead inscription as identification of a character -

In Jewish tradition, the golem is most widely known as an artificial creature created by magic, often to serve its creator. The word "golem" appears only once in the Bible (Psalms139:16). In Hebrew, "golem" stands for "shapeless mass." The Talmud uses the word as "unformed" or "imperfect" and according to Talmudic legend, Adam is called "golem," meaning "body without a soul" (Sanhedrin 38b) for the first 12 hours of his existence. The golem appears in other places in the Talmud as well. One legend says the prophet Jeremiah made a golem However, some mystics believe the creation of a golem has symbolic meaning only, like a spiritual experience following a religious rite.

The Sefer Yezirah ("Book of Creation"), often referred to as a guide to magical usage by some Western European Jews in the Middle Ages, contains instructions on how to make a golem. Several rabbis, in their commentaries on Sefer Yezirah have come up with different understandings of the directions on how to make a golem. Most versions include shaping the golem into a figure resembling a human being and using God's name to bring him to life, since God is the ultimate creator of life.

According to one story, to make a golem come alive, one would shape it out of soil, and then walk or dance around it saying combination of letters from the alphabet and the secret name of God. To "kill" the golem, its creators would walk in the opposite direction saying and making the order of the words backwards.

Other sources say once the golem had been physically made one needed to write the letters aleph, mem, tav, which is emet and means "truth," on the golem's forehead and the golem would come alive. Erase the aleph and you are left withmem and tav, which is met, meaning "death."

- number as identification of a person -


Numbers as identification of a person was used by SS in Auschwitz concentration camp. They used tattooing, and victims were stamped with the indelible number in a dehumanizing effort to keep track of them like widgets in the supply chain.

These numbers obviously weren’t chosen at random. They were part of a coded system, with each number tracked as the unlucky person who bore it was moved through the system.

Edwin Black made headlines in 2001 when his painstakingly researched book, IBM and the Holocaust, showed that IBM machines were used to automate the “Final Solution” and the jackbooted takeover of Europe. Worse, he showed that the top levels of the company either knew or willfully turned a blind eye.

A year and a half after that book gave Big Blue a black eye, the author made more startling discoveries. IBM equipment was on-site at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Furthermore:

Thanks to the new discoveries, researchers can now trace how Hollerith numbers assigned to inmates evolved into the horrific tattooed numbers so symbolic of the Nazi era. (Herman Hollerith was the German American who first automated US census information in the late 19th century and founded the company that became IBM. Hollerith’s name became synonymous with the machines and the Nazi “departments” that operated them.) In one case, records show, a timber merchant from Bendzin, Poland, arrived at Auschwitz in August 1943 and was assigned a characteristic five digit IBM Hollerith number, 44673. The number was part of a custom punch-card system devised by IBM to track prisoners in all Nazi concentration camps, including the slave labor at Auschwitz. Later in the summer of 1943, the Polish timber merchant’s same five-digit Hollerith number, 44673, was tattooed on his forearm. Eventually, during the summer of 1943, all non- Germans at Auschwitz were similarly tattooed.

The Hollerith numbering system was soon scrapped at Auschwitz because so many inmates
died. Eventually, the Nazis developed their own haphazard system.

- character names reduced to a letter or a number -


The parallel between character as personality in literature, theatre or film and character as a letter or a number go back to "K", character in Kafka's novels that actually represent the writer himself. 


Other characters with names reduced to letters or numbers usually represent personalities unworthy or unwilling to be named publicly because of taboos connected to sexuality, "O" in "Histoire d "O" , or some mysterious personalities associated with crime or terrorism ("M" from Fritz Lang film, "V" from "V for vendetta").


In Slavko Vorkapitch "Life and death of Hollywood extra 9413" a character (personality) is reduced to a character (number) by power of bureaucracy. 

 

  

- characters in film, theatre and other media -

1. A character is the representation of a person in a narrative or dramatic work of art (such as a novel, play, or film). Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr (χαρακτήρ "engraved or stamped mark, branding mark, symbol"). Starting from Tom Jones in 1749. the sense of "a part played by an actor" developed. Character, particularly when enacted by an actor in the theatre or cinema, involves "the illusion of being a human person."


2. In computer and machine-based telecommunications terminology, a character is a unit of information that roughly corresponds to a grapheme or a symbol, such as in an alphabet. Examples of characters include letters, numerical digits, and common punctuation marks. 

3. From the esoteric or mystical meanings, Early Modern learned authors abstracted a notion of Character as a code or hierarchical system that embodied all knowledge or all of reality, or a written representation of a philosophical language that would recover the "true names" lost in the confusion of tongues.


4. In Serbian, character in novel, play, or film, is pronounced "lik" and it means face, image or shape.

character

character