Master as a Warrior

The Warrior is also known as the action taker. It is the part of yourself that allows you to move forward with purpose and mission in life. It is the part of yourself that gives us a sense of power and agency in the world and to take affection action.

The word warrior can provide many impressions, both positive and negative. Warriors are the people who go to war, kill, and may rape and maim. In societies, we have used warriors to idealise conflict and show masculinity’s more toxic side.

But when we speak about the archetypal warrior, we mean a person of integrity. A person who will give themselves to a higher cause – their purpose – and will train to become the best they can be.

Warriors appear in many of our stories. Russell Crowe playing the Maximus in the movie Gladiator or a Jedi Knight in Star Wars are examples of the warrior archetype. 

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Master as Warrior can be broken down into several areas:

  • Boundaries
  • Self-discipline – Leads with Justice and Wisdom
  • Resilience
  • Protector
  • Understands the limits of his power

Boundaries

Boundaries can be physical, emotional and psychological. They provide a safe place for you to inhabit yourself and, in a Masters’s case, what they own. A good warrior has territorial instinct allowing them to claim and defend territory. For a Master, this includes the slaves he owns.

And when those boundaries are crossed, you feel angry – the fundamental emotion of the warrior.

When we talk about boundaries, we can imagine they are fixed rules for treating others and protecting ourselves. Whereas in reality, boundaries are flexible and changeable. What we hold to be true in one situation might be dealt with differently in another. 

For example, how much you support or do not support a slave could change depending on their situation.  

We must be careful in the Master/slave community around boundaries in general. According to mainstream society, we have already chosen a lifestyle that can be seen as taboo or crossing the boundary of what is acceptable.

And because we have broken these boundaries, we might want to think there are no boundaries for us in any area of our life.

But of course, there will be boundaries, what is acceptable, and what is not.

Consent is an example of this.

Consent is one of the core parts of BDSM and Master/slave, meaning what we do is ethically and morally right.

Mutually fulfilling each other’s needs in a Master/slave relationship is another boundary between what is ethical and proper and what is toxic Master/slave relationships. There are many Master/slave relationships out there where either Master or slave might have stopped fulfilling the needs of the other. These are often unhealthy relationships.

Understand who you are

To understand your boundaries, you must clearly understand who you are. What are your values, what do you stand for, and your beliefs? If you struggle to answer those questions, working and understanding who you are, is the first step to knowing your boundaries.

And be alert when you feel anger. Is this a sign of a boundary being crossed? If so, make a note so you can start to build your knowledge of your boundaries.

SELF-DISCIPLINE – LEAD WITH JUSTICE AND WISDOM

A Master has a good sense of justice and wisdom. A Master always makes decisions objectively from this point of justice and does not act out of anger. A good Master always works to let go of his anger before acting on a slave – in training or punishment. 

So although you can feel anger, this anger can lead us to act and make decisions. You should not act in the heat of anger.

There is a story of a samurai who vowed vengeance on a killer who had killed his Master. He found the killer and was about to enact vengeance by killing him. But just as he went to make the killing blow, the person spat into his face. The samurai stopped and, rather than killing him, let him go. Why? Because if he felt rage at this moment, he would not have acted from a warrior’s self-discipline.

And this is true for a Master’s self discipline as well. A Master does not act out of anger but with justice and wisdom to get the best from the slave as possible. 

How can you become wise? Wisdom comes from life experience. Only through living, growing and reflecting can a Master accumulate wisdom and make decisions based on justice and wisdom.

PROTECTOR

A Master protects those who serve Him. Many true slaves have a wonderful childlike innocence about them. It is a pure, beautiful energy from a being that wants to please and serve. But the unpleasant fact is that we live in a world where many people see this energy and want to abuse it or take advantage of it.

Therefore, a Master, to allow His slave to really embrace his submission, must also protect the slave against these people who want to take advantage of it. So a good Master protects.

The Mandalorian is an excellent example of the Protector Archetype, with the main character looking after and protecting Baby Yoda. Another example is the recent series The Last of Us, where a hardened survivor of an apocalypse reluctantly protects a young 14-year-old girl on a journey. Pedro Pascal, who plays Mandalorian and the hardened survivor in The Last of Us, embodies the Protector Archetype. 

UNDERSTAND THE LIMITS OF HIS POWER

A good Master understands the limits and constraints of his power.

Many myths and tales talk of heroes who refused to understand their limits and ended up in tragedy. The story of Icarus is a good example. 

Icarus and his son are trapped in a labyrinth to escape. Icarus fashions wings for his son and himself so they can fly and escape. He warns his son not to fly too close to the sun. But when they escape, the son is so taken with the power of flying that he ignores his father’s warning and flies up close to the sun. The sun’s heat melts the wax in the wings, and the wings break, causing Icarus’s son to plummet into the sea and die.

The story is a warning of what happens if you do not understand the limits of your power and believe yourself to be all-powerful and invincible.

It is easy when you have an adoring slave staring at you to believe you are invincible. As a good Master, you must remain honest with yourself about your limits and work within the limits of your power. By embracing the limits of your power, you can strategise and use the correct tactics to move forward and succeed.

Such a skill is also essential when training slaves. A clear understanding of the limits and constraints of both the Master and slave allows the Master to use the most effective tactics and approaches to train a slave.

THE SHADOW OF THE WARRIOR 

YOU DO NOT EXIST

One of the leading shadow states of the warrior can be the thought or feeling that you have no right to exist. That you have no identity. This might seem more of a slave state. But it can heavily impact Masters as well.

No right to exist can come from our past:

  • Shame of being gay when you were growing up in childhood
  • Shame of your fetishes
  • Shame of being a Master or slave
  • Shame of wanting to control and own someone

This shame can impact you hugely and go into your shadow.

A Master might struggle with confidence with this and show up as deflated and lacking confidence.

But often, with Masters, this can manifest oppositely.

SHADOWS OF MASTER AS A WARRIOR

Shadow Master as Warrior can be broken down into several areas:

  • Overinflated
  • Bigging yourself up
  • The Contradiction
  • Master as a Non-Consensual Predator
  • Dehumanising the other

OVERINFLATED

A Master might overcompensate for their shame and uncertainty and then project this insecurity onto others. They do this to make themselves feel better.

Examples of such behaviour of when Masters make slaves feel insecure. For example, a dysfunctional master messages slaves to put them down as unworthy, as they are not acting and behaving correctly. That they do not deserve to be a slave.

Correcting slaves for bad behaviour is good. But when done to attack someone’s identity and make them feel worthless or inadequate about themselves, that they should not exist or be a slave, is unhealthy and toxic.

The worst example I have encountered was one I experienced shortly after breaking up with my Master in 2017. I was in a terrible place, I had been very ill with tonsillitis and had been out of the gym for two months, and the repeatedly aggressive courses of antibiotics were ripping the muscle out of me. I had moved from a fantastic body to one that could be improved.

I reached out to a Master, who did not like that I had put on weight. And he decided to fat-shame me on his Tumblr blog. You can imagine how I felt when I went to his website and found a picture of myself in an article about how slaves should not look.

It destroyed the remaining confidence I had left at the time.

But what was interesting was that this Master was very overweight. He was taking out his insecurity of himself onto me.

BIGGING YOURSELF UP

Other behaviours a Master can do when they feel deflated are: 

  • Argumentative and combative
  • Inflexible
  • Stonewalling
  • Not listening to other people’s opinions
  • Flatten others around them

By making themselves bigger, by pushing other people’s boundaries, and by generally being a pain in the arse, they can feel secure that they do exist and can prove they are, in fact, a Master. These are often signs that someone is feeling insecure.

If you find yourself doing this, steps to improve are to build your confidence, how who you are, and find more healthy techniques to exert your dominance.

THE CONTRADICTION

The Master’s need to own and protect can lead to a shadow state. 

Many Masters have this territorial instinct to claim and own someone as a slave – this is why we often use the word ownership when discussing Master/slave relationships. 

A slave can often see this need to claim and own in how a Master stares at you.

In this stare lies part of the tension between healthy and non-healthy Master/slave relationships. At the height of an intense Master/slave scene, when you see that stare, it can be the most erotic and fantastic thing to see as a slave. 

There is nothing wrong with this stare; it is a healthy part of the relationship.

But when this leads to unhealthy actions and behaviour, it is toxic.

So part of this is healthy, and part of it is not.

How far you go depends on the sort of relationship. But at a certain point, you can fall off the cliff’s edge into the shadow. This is an example of that pull to the edge of the cliff.

How does this unhealthy part come out in a Master?

MASTER AS A NON-CONSENSUAL PREDATOR 

Connected to the Tyrant, a Master can also start to persecute. They cannot take no for an answer and will keep coming after someone, and in some cases, this turns into full-on persecution.

The Predator will do anything to keep or claim the slave. They cannot have a life if they cannot have the person.

This is a Master who cannot take no for an answer. They want the slave, and they will do anything to get them. 

Or when they have a slave, they will not let the slave go.

An example of this is a Master/slave couple whose relationship was coming to an end. However, the Master did not want the slave to leave, so he started to blackmail the slave by saying he would tell the slave’s family the truth about their Master/slave relationship.

When the slave still left the Master, the Master carried out his threat, destroying the slave’s relationship with his family.

Consent

When a Master cannot take no for an answer, this becomes a topic of consent. So a Master as a Predator has turned into someone who ignores consent. The consent for a slave to say:

  • No, I do not want you
  • No, I do not want to do that
  • No, I wish to leave

And rather than hearing that consent, they will do anything to get what they want. And the further into the shadow a Master goes, the more they will do that is toxic and unethical.

DEHUMANISING THE OTHER

The other aspect of Master as a Predator is dehumanising the slave and giving in to the demon of cruelty.

This is not to be confused with sadism. Many healthy Master/slave relationships contain sadists and masochists who mutually fulfil each other’s needs.

When we fulfil each other’s needs – even in strange and beautiful ways – all is healthy and good.

But when a Master starts to make a slave suffer just because they can. When a Master starts to ignore the slave’s needs, when the joy starts to leave the relationship, the Master has given in to the demon of cruelty.

A popular phrase in M/s is that a slave has no needs. This is not true.

A slave does have needs. This can be basic such as health, structure, control, humiliation etc. Though in most relationships, there are many other needs as well. A Master/slave relationship can exist where none of these things is given to a slave. This is toxic.

A good Master/slave relationship makes sure that the mutual needs of each other are taken into account.

In a relationship that does want dehumanisation, a healthy version of this is when the Master still remembers that the slave is human and does have other needs. For example, the need to vent after a bad day at work. Or the need for care and love. As well as all the other depraved needs as well.

When a Master ignores all needs of a slave, then they are heading into the shadow.

A good sign of a healthy master/slave relationship is how much joy there is. If both sides are fulfilling each other’s needs, there should be joy in the relationship. Not all the time, as this is not possible. But most of the time.

Suppose the relationship has no joy. If the slave finds themselves never enjoying serving the Master – something has gone wrong, and it might be the Master has given into the shadow.As someone who does enjoy the dehumanisation aspects of slavery, this is something I always need to watch out for. 

? Check out this article on a slave’s needs

KNOW YOUR BEAST 

When coaching clients, I talk to Masters about befriending your beast. We all have a beast inside us. The monster inside that wants to do whatever it can and wants to a slave. Regardless of consent, regardless of ethics or morality.

Many Masters can be fearful or anxious about their beast. Then other Masters let the beast rule them and often are dangerous people.

Repressing something will fight us and often emerge when we least expect it, leading us to actions we regret. Because of this, many Masters keep even tighter control of their beast in case they do something they regret.

Although this keeps the slave safe, the Master often cuts themself from what they really need as a top.

Instead, a Master can befriend their beast to listen to its needs truly. And then create rituals and scenes that allow that to happen consensually.

Often when you listen to your beast, what comes out can be very strong and, at first glance, something you cannot do. But when I work with clients to go deeper, we often find what the beast wants out of what it asksβ€”for example, total control or consuming the slave.

Once we understand what is needed, we can create scenes that will allow those needs to be met without going into the dark side.

In these scenes, it is essential to note that the beast is not in control. Another part of the Master remains in control. But the scene is created to provide the beast with what it needs without needing that control. This way, the Master and beast can get what they need while the slave remains safe.

 This way, a Master can balance his beast and the need for heavy control, along with the realisation that this slave is still a human that needs to be looked after.

Movie recommendation

I recommend watching the movie: The Northman. Near the end of the first third of the movie, there is a warrior ritual. They perform a ritual to let out their inner beasts and for their warriors to come out. And shortly after, we see them treating the people of a conquered village as chattel burning and killing those with no value. Here is an example of the Warrior moving into the shadow and dehumanising human life to kill and sell it without feeling or emotion.

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