Maiden still scares kids

Perun

Perun

His name struck fear into hearts of men
Staff member
Since this is already starting to pop up on international sites, I guess you'll all see it sooner or later. I might as well be the first one to post it.

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This photo was taken in a Berlin neighbourhood called Kreuzberg. The banner says, "There are several kindergartens and an elementary school in the immediate area. Therefore, this poster has no business here!"

The photo was first published on the website of a Berlin newspaper. The original article (in German) is here. Among other things, it states that the banner was gone a few hours after the photo was taken and discusses that the same district banned "sexist" advertisement posters last year. There are more socio-political implications contained in this story than you'd believe, but I will leave it at this. What this essentially is, is an overprotective helicopter mom doing something that's been blown out of proportion. It's already on Metalsucks, which now says that Germany is banning art.
 
I reckon something similar would happen here if there was a Book of Souls poster up. My town, that is, not the UK in general. I've been told before that my Maiden t-shirt (Killers Eddie) would upset the children. Metalsucks is overgeneralising like crazy, though.
 
I have a large print Piece of Mind shirt in green and my girlfriend's mom said it looked creepy.
 
From one of the comments on Blabbermouth:
Good job Berlin, cover up a musical ad but don't cover up TWO ads I saw for "DildoKing". A German sex store. The photo was a guy sitting on a throne of dildos btw. Priorities.......
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Ya, they really have their priorities in order!
 
Travis The Dragon said:
From one of the comments on Blabbermouth:

Ya, they really have their priorities in order!
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To be fair, the districts in Berlin have a very high degree of autonomy. But again, it's not the district, or the city doing it. It's one single person. It's nothing official.
 
As I said in the opening post, it was already down after a few hours.
 
Hah, thanks to my Dad the very first song I learned (except from nursery rhymes) was Number of the Beast, I've thought Eddie was cool since I was four years old!
 
Unfortunately, the BOS album poster has been banned from the walls of Parisian public transport stations too. :(
 
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I once worked in a primary school with children aged 7-8 and I would wear Maiden t-shirts there. The children loved them, the headmistress less so.
 
I wore a Maiden shirt to get groceries once. A toddler in the grocery cart was obviously interested in it. Young soccer mom turns around, sees my shirt - and proceeds to educate the toddler who Eddie and Maiden is and why my shirt is awesome, which fills the toddler with glee. Made my day.

I wasn't scared by such stuff as a kid and I didn't meet anyone who was. Overprotective parents for sure. Kids love scary monster stuff.

The Flash said:
I had a Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg t-shirt on today. An old man kept staring at it on the subway.
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He was singing the song in his head ;) You'd be surprised. On the same grocery store I spent 15 minutes talking about Maiden records with the 60-70 year old women at the register.

This reminds me that I need more Maiden shirts, one isn't enough.
 
My 6 year old son is very intrigued by Eddie since Speed of Light has been unleashed. Sometimes it worries me that he is busy with the darker/violent side of the character, e.g. his favourite moment is the Eddie/devil fight in the Speed of Light video. But at the same time, that sequence seems to have been an accelerator as well for liking Maiden guitar solos! He said that the Dave solo in that song is his favourite (happens during that fight) and "I didn't know guitar solos could tell a story". (extremely nice to hear that!) First I thought it had purely to do with the exciting sequence in the vid, but now he's asking questions about other guitar parts on the album. My point?

Eddie has lead him more directly into a world of guitar solos / music.
And he is not afraid of Eddie. Instead he is busy with the character's different appearances and behaviour. E.g. he does not understand why Eddie sets Icarus on fire in the Flight of Icarus clip (I'll just try to explain that he symbolizes the sun in a "funny" manner, but it looks a bit horrible though for the victim). My son has trouble with finding him a bad character. That means he likes Eddie, he does not want him to be bad. :)
 
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Dr. Eddies Wingman said:
Maiden still scares parents.
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That's the plain truth. As a parent and a teacher, I can definitely say Eddie is generally loved by kids. The same way kids love dinosaurs, aliens and monsters in general. And yes, they don't see them as bad - they see them as cool because they have power.

In fact, children are more scared of real people who might do bad things to them, like take them away, for example, but they fully realise monsters like Eddie are fictional. At least, after the age of 4-5. And I think the efforts of the parents, teachers and other adults should be focused on educating kids how to protect themselves in the real world, rather than keeping them in isolation.
 
Impressions can work different on different children though. The Killers artwork e.g., I don't really know what to say about it when my son asks questions about it. Saying Eddie is a murderer (killer) would effect him more than the average child, I think.
 
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