Ritual Humiliation of the Conquered Hero
In ancient Roman times, the hero of a conquered people would be paraded through the streets of Rome, insulted, mocked and abused, and (often though not always) ritually sacrificed to the gods of Rome. This was a symbolic slaying of the old culture of the conquered people, and their assimilation into the empire.
Even so today we see our own hero paraded before us, insulted, mocked and abused, and finally sacrificed... The message is clear: We are a conquered people. Our stories, our heroes are no longer our own, and we can only watch helplessly, a captive population, as a giant diseased rodent devours what remains of our culture.