A battle of wits

"But behold, the life of my servant shall be in my hand; therefore they shall not hurt him, although he shall be marred because of them. Yet I will heal him, for I will show unto them that my wisdom is greater than the cunning of the devil."

-- 3 Nephi 21:10

At Bountiful, in discussing a latter day work that, in my opinion, has not yet commenced, Jesus mentions both a servant, as well as an interesting statement about himself and the devil.

In essence, Jesus seems to set the stage for this work as a battle of wits, and that ultimately his wisdom will prove greater than any cunning or schemes of the devil.  Basically, the devil will find he is outmatched.  My own view is that we are pretty lucky to live in a universe where the Being who represents ultimate Goodness, is also the most intelligent and wisest.  Our circumstances and future outlook would be very different if this wasn't the case.

We have already identified Saruman as a Being likely associated with the Devil mentioned - A Wizard of skill, cunning, and power.  How he relates to Melkor (seemingly the original Devil?), Sauron, and other fallen but powerful Beings is not fully clear in my mind, nor necessarily which of these Devils Jesus is referring to.  In some ways it doesn't matter - Jesus is smarter than all of them, no matter how smart they think they are, or who is specifically being referenced.

I was reminded of this statement by Jesus at Bountiful, actually, as I thought of another 'battle of wits':  The poison-drinking challenge between Westley and Vizzini from the movie The Princess Bride.

Here is the clip (its a great scene):

Here, you have a mysterious masked man clad in black taking on a shorter, bald man (there is the bald thing again!) whose name and meaning is definitely known to a battle of wits.  The participants must drink from cups placed before them (filled with wine in this case).

Vizzini is from Sicily, as he says himself.  Sicily is, of course, famous for the Sicilian Mafia (not to be confused with the Russian mafia).  This brings me back to a funny memory.  When I went with my dad to get my Patriarchal Blessing from our Stake Patriarch as a teenager, the Patriarch reviewed my paperwork quickly before conducting the blessing.  He noted that there was likely an error, as it said I was born in Cosa Nostra county.  Cosa Nostra is the name for the Sicilian Mafia.  I was born in the East Bay of San Francisco, CA, which is the Contra Costa county.  A strange mix up, and he laughed about me being part of the mafia, and then corrected the name to the correct county.

I don't think the fact that Vizzini is from Sicily is irrelevant to the scene here.  I believe in our own reality we are dealing with secret combinations and organized crime of a spiritual nature that extends to very high places, indeed.

He also considers himself to be the smartest person in history, essentially, which becomes his downfall.  With all of his brains, he doesn't consider that the game is already stacked against him - in fact, it is unwinnable.  Just by agreeing to play, he has lost.

Think of William Tychonievich's commentary on Tim in this post where he indicates both a game is being played, and that Tim is 'very smart', but hates sports (that post link here).  Why?  Because he is bad at them.  In fact, William further links to an older post where he included a Dr. Seuss picture with the caption "Mr. Fox!  I hate this game, sir."

Why does Tim-Vizzini-Saruman lose the games?  Because he gets outfoxed.  Despite all of his self-proclaimed smarts and cunning, he loses, and this is because the game has been rigged as to be unwinnable for Evil - in the end, at least.

The better choice for Vizzini would be not to play, and to hand over what he has "rightfully stolen".  But he is so sure and smug in his own intelligence, that he can't resist the game.  He is caught in a trap, and he lost the moment he entered.

Vizzini actually does, if you pay attention, guess correctly what Westley's intention or plan for winning the game is.  Westley will rely on his strength, in a very real way.  He has built up an immunity to iocane powder, we find out, and he is counting on that immunity that he has built up over the preceding few years to see keep him alive through the encounter.

Meaning this:  That Westley has placed himself in the same peril as Vizzini - they will both drink the same wine and poison from a cup, but Westley has built up the strength to not die from the encounter, whereas Vizzini obviously has not.  It is beyond Vizzini's comprehension that Westley would willingly poison himself, and further that it is even possible for a Being to acquire such strength and immunity.  I am also reminded here of Moroni's commentary about drinking deadly drinks in Mormon 9 (which also includes the reference to snakes):

And these signs shall follow them that believe—in my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover;

In Vizzini's overconfidence in his intelligence, I also hear echoes of Tim's encounter with William, laying out all sorts of complicated strategies and reasons.  From William's description (post link here):

The main thrust of the lecture was that he and his colleagues were engaged in directing my attention -- the words directing your attention were displayed in English, in very large white italics -- and that this was an extremely complex and delicate operation. Its complexity was illustrated by means of a dizzyingly complicated multidimensional diagram that kept moving and changing and reassembling itself. Each attentional decision -- whether a choice of my own or a successful nudge from them -- opened up new attentional pathways and closed off others, and so the whole thing had to be played like chess, thinking several moves in advance and taking into account various contingencies. The purpose of any particular move might not become apparent until many, many moves later.

This strikes me as, in some ways, how Vizzini would think and act.  Complex chess-like moves will win the day.  Whereas, I think the Good Guys are more of the Westley variety.  The preparation and strength have already been put in place, and the game has been set - there isn't anything that can be done about it now.  And what is that preparation?  The Stone, of course!  Prepared from the foundation of the world, and I believe that it was Eru-Jesus' wisdom in that time before time, even, that led to the events surrounding the creation of that Stone.  Which is why, perhaps, he was able to speak so confidently to those at Bountiful that no amount of cunning on the devil's part could overcome his own wisdom.

As Fall Out Boy once said "The war was won before it's begun".

Also, for those keeping score of potential elvish words and names popping up, lets take Iocane Powder, which doesn't appear to be either an actual thing, or even a real English word.  It is (apparently) made up just for this movie scene.  So, lets have some fun with it.  I have broken up Iocane into "Io" and "Cane".  Looking at Eldamo, we get:

Io = Wine

Cane = "Kan" = Dare

As you can see, for Cane I found the closest thing I could as the elvish word of "Kan".  Kan can mean several things, but one of them is, interestingly enough, Dare.  You also have Valour, Rule, Power, etc., which could all work here also, but I liked dare the most since it fit so well.

With this definition, you have Iocane Powder literally meaning "Wine Dare Powder", which is exactly how Westley used it - as part of a wine dare.