True Blood and abstract thoughts about "ki"..

This post may seem a little abstract on the surface.. and maybe even a little bit like it was written in streams of consciousness... this is how my brain works. Bear with me. For those of you who know me, either from our dojo or from Facebook, you are probably well aware with my obsession with True Blood. If you don't know me, or were not previously aware, you are now. :) In any case, I have been watching the season 2 DVDs over the last week or so, and have become inspired by the character Godric. He is a 2000 year old vampire who, after so many centuries of bloodshed and violence, grew a conscience and has since been ruling over his territory with peace and fairness. (By now you are either wondering how a vampire relates to aikido or you're familiar with the show and are already ahead of me.. I'm getting to it)
The following is a YouTube video showing different Godric scenes...

Within this video, there is a particular dialogue between Godric and Eric that I want to highlight. This takes place after Godric has been freed from The Fellowship of the Sun, a vampire-hating church, who had taken him with the intent to tie him to a platform and let him burn in the sun before a cheering crowd of their members.

Godric: You'd be shocked at how ordinary most of them are.

Eric: They do nothing but fan the flames of hated for us.

Godric: Let's be honest. We are frightening. After thousands of years, we haven't evolved. We've only grown more brutal, more predetory. I don't see the danger in treating humans as equals. The Fellowship of the Sun arose because we never did so.

Eric: Is that why you wouldn't fight when they took you?

Godric: I could have killed every last one of them within minutes... and what would that have proven?

Aikido in practice is way of dealing with conflict and confrontation once it has reached the physical level. It seeks to manipulate kinetic energy in such a way that neither party becomes seriously injured. Yet, the philosophies behind aikido come into play long before the conflict becomes physical. In the dialogue above, Godric tries to relate to Eric the bigger picture.. that while it is true this church lashes out in hatred, those feelings and actions have come about because of the way vampires have acted over the years. Whether we are pragmatically trying to keep conflict from escalating, or idealically trying to prevent conflict altogether, we need to keep ourselves open to the feelings and perspectives of others, even when it means seeing ourselves as faulted. Just as we practice on the mat to get a feel of the ebb and flow of kinetic energy our partners give us, we need to allow ourselves to see ourselves and the world from varying perscpectives and understand how people work.. Religion, language, psychology, history, culture as a whole.. all of these things come into play. We cannot overlook or forget that the "ki" in "aikido" means mind as well as spirit/energy. No one ever said this was easy... but nothing worthwhile is ever attained easily.