El Condor Pasa, to attempt to give credit where it is due, is originally a Peruvian folk song, that was later covered by Simon and Garfunkel. The song itself speaks to the very nature of being – a sparrow over a snail, a forest over a street – along with all the bias that goes into one’s preference. Raven, in regurgitating the lyrics, would prefer to be a sparrow over a snail, which is a fitting choice given Raven is already a bird (though if the song had been different Raven would have squawked whatever that altered preference was instead). Objectively a sparrow may not be a better choice than a snail, although not being an objective observer I could not say if this was true or not. For better and, certainly for the innumerable who have suffered or endured discrimination, for worse, it is impossible to predetermine who or what one is at birth. If given the opportunity Stoke would rather not be, thank you very much. This is similar to Stoke’s response in the comic To Be, where Stoke answers the Shakespearean question with ‘Not to be’. Stoke may sound a bit repetitive with Raven, but one should not forget the desire to not exist, is never far from the mind for many of us. – Zachary