A cookie without rasins

I'm not a fan of rasins. When I was a toddler, I apparently tore through boxes like there was no tomorrow, but I've changed since then. Rasins single-handedly ruin trail-mix for me. I'll eat anything BUT the rasins. I like almost every other kind of dried fruit, but it's usually more expensive. Rasins are dirt cheap. I think they're like five cents per-pound or something. In the "Stories are Cookies" presentation, the rasins, representing the old wise man, were added in the mock-mix, but not the actual cookies. It appears I am not alone in my anti-rasin sentiment. There will always be characters in stories who would rather not interact with rasins; these chacters dislike the voice of reason.

Characters don't like the old wise man because they usually have a clouded judgement and tend to march to the beat of their own drum. In many stories, the rasins are the only thing keeping the story worthwhile. Imagine if the Brothers K didn't have the character Father Zossima. There would be no counter-arguement to Ivan's "Grand Inquistor" because Alyosha certainly wouldn't have enough wisdom to muster up a response. Look at the description on the Middlebury site:

Elders occupy a pivotal role in Russian ecclesiastical society and Father Zossima becomes the ideological focal point of the novel. Based on the philosophy of asceticism, Elders such as Zossima were in charge of their community's souls. At sixty-five, Zossima is a former soldier who has now stepped into a life of helping others and has hours during which the townspeople come to him in order to get answers and predictions on the future. Zossima's greatest thematic role in the novel is that of a sage. His teachings of communal responsibility and his ideas of universally shared guild will end up being part of what Dostoyevsky considers to be the true path. Zossima's teachings become engrained in Alyosha who becomes a sort of apostle not only for his family but also for the children of the book

Without Father Zossima, the entire community within the Brothers K becomes souless. No one is there to guide Ivan and especially Alyosha. Alyosha is so dependent on Father Zossima, he ceases to exist as an influential character. The entire notion of responsibility is lost within the Karamazov family and their only role model left becomes Fydor Karamazov. The novel becomes about a tragic sense of life and offers no answers other than: life is cruel. If you thought the Brothers K was dark before, imagine how dark it would be without Father Zossima.

Maybe those cookies should've had rasins in them.