Why Is The Pied Piper Bad?

I have been fascinated by Germany for quite some time now, specifically due to its marvellous cities and some mouth watering cuisines, also mentioning about the German culture, that I am a great admirer of.

Culture is incomplete without literature, and the first literary work that comes to my mind is the Pied Piper of Hamelin. A Pied Piper, is basically a person that is indulging you to do something, somewhat by risking yourself. However I read somewhere while I was in school that you can get exploited only because you want to be exploited...

So, now if you’re falling for A Pied Piper like a Jim Morrison or a John Lennon, do you think you are going astray?

John Lennon had said once that, 'Everything would be okay at the end, if it’s not okay, it’s not the end.' I am a person who would definitely fall for this statement, and I have had people and acquaintances telling me that this is the reality of life.

I have fallen for it, believe me, I have. Now when I think of John Lennon as a Pied Piper, I can never imagine him to be a con man. When I get back to the poem Pied Piper, I think the Piper out there also has done a fair job. Scholars have pointed out that there are two aspects of the poem; one says that the Pied Piper has been glorified to be a hero, because he was successful in eradicating rats, and others have called him a villain, because when people refuse to pay him he called all the children from the house and asked them to tag along.

Well, if you think of it from a moral and objective perspective, you would see that this was his way of getting things done, because he was successful in solving a problem that nobody else could. Now, he started getting cocky when people refused to pay him for his deeds. In order to nip it in the bud, he coaxed all the children to join him, and they did.

This is precisely why he is called the villain. Also, in our daily lives we encounter a number of situations when we fall prey before, and have construed it in different ways, usually derogatory. We say that the Pied Pipers are bad. Why don’t we use our analytical minds to analyse situations, and also gauge the effects of it? Why always blame the Pied Piper?

Poor thing, he is just doing his job. And, slaying it.

How's the Pied Piper bad then?

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