Part III

What a wrong approach to ideal knots can do to a man.

Contemporary artists are also interested in the ideal knots problem.
Obviously, their view is completely different. It is so, because the world around them is different:
more aggressive, dangerous, terrifying. People involved in the knot untangling business are often perverted.
A good example of what a wrong approach to the untangling activity may do to a man has been
illustrated by Starowieyski. His "Serial knot untangler" shows a monster ready to use his
brutal skill on a completely helpless knot. To me it is awesome.
Certainly, not all means leading to the ideal goal are permitted.

Serial knot untangler
(based on: Nieuchwytny morderca by Franciszek Starowieyski)

That untangling knot can be connected with perversion was known already to ancient Greeks.
As I have found out, the activity for which Oedipus gained such a terrible reputation was but a cover
to something even more terrifying. Not only he was untangling knots by himself using non-Reidemeister moves,
 but he also was ordering it to his own son! Henry Fuseli revealed this horrifying truth.
Just look at the poor juvenile. How hideous this order must have been to him.
Non-Reidemeister moves! Gosh!

Oedipus ordering his son to use non-Reidemeister moves
(based on: Oedipus Cursing his Son, Polyneices, Henry Fuseli)

Entangled knots are not good for human minds.
Among the artists who knew this simple truth was Edgar Degas.
He seems to be the first to discover the cause of the blue mood ubiquitous among the absinth drinkers:
nastily entangled, knotted molecules of higher cyclic alcohols.
Today we know: mind is not able to untangle them.
On the contrary, the naughty molecules easily entangle the mind.
(Try. With caution!)