At its most extreme, this impulse involved a symbolic killing of the self, a taking up of a new life and a new name.
The kind of dragons I'm talking about are those confidence-killing moments of self-doubt, fear, procrastination, or unworthiness that we all encounter from time to time.
While much of this background information proved inadmissible at trial, the characterizations of the two men helped drive an often racially charged polarization on the issue at the heart of the case -- whether the killing of Trayvon Martin was self-defense or murder.
This week, one of the original founders and spokesmen of the autodefensa movement was arrested by state authorities in connection with the killings of another self-defense militia leader and his driver last weekend.
Although Ms. Crane was acquitted of the killing on grounds of self-defense, her next few years were marked by run-ins with the law and detention in institutions.
There is one school of thought, they note, that suggests that for war to be moral, as opposed to just legal, "it must link the killing of enemies with an element of self-sacrifice, or at least risk to oneself".
Krikler comments that Mansfield's conclusions ignored the ruling precedent of his predecessor, Matthew Hale, that the killing of innocents in the name of self-preservation was unlawful.
Rock musician Ted Nugent responded Sunday to the acquittal of George Zimmerman by calling his killing of Trayvon Martin "the purest form of self-defense there is".
But the most obvious way to justify killing combatants is to link such killing to the notion of self-defense.
As for Bedelia, the full story of her self-defence killing of a murderous patient – Neal Frank, whom Hannibal sent her way – has yet to be told, but we're sure to see more; Frank was played by Zachary Quinto, an actor who is too big a name to appear only as a corpse in a brief flashback sequence.
