Let It Go – No! A Frozen Review

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Here at somewherepostculture.com, we aim to bring you only the most relevant, up-to-date information and opinions. Which is why I’m going to do my review today on Frozen. You know this movie, everyone does. It came out last Thanksgiving and when I saw the trailer I thought to myself “Hey, here’s a movie that looks stupid and filled with annoying characters!”

And boy, was I right.

Frozen and all it's imagery belongs to Disney. Because I sure as hell wouldn't create such creepy bobble headed design.

Frozen and all it’s imagery belongs to Disney. Because I sure as hell wouldn’t create such creepy bobble headed design.

So, yeah. Most people who are likely to read this are already going to hate my opinion. I, of course, hate everything so clearly I don’t know what I’m talking about, right? But I would be complaining about either Frozen or X-men and I have it on good authority that the latter is going to be dealt with shortly.

Now, the reasonable question to ask would be, “Kevin, if you thought this movie looked terrible then why did you see it?” Well, my imaginary conversational partner, it was almost under duress that I watched this movie. If you don’t share this delightful space under this rock with me then you will be aware that Frozen is Disney’s highest grossing movie. Ever. It’s incredibly popular. Everyone who has seen it raves about how good it is. I was told, repeatedly, that it was better than Tangled (which I also didn’t like but felt part of that was due to excessive hype – the other half was due to it being an unfinished story stretched way too long) and was probably Disney’s best modern movie. Hell, it’s been likened as the benchmark for a new ‘Golden Age’ of Disney movies.

If you are one of these believers, you’re probably best of skipping the rest of this rant. If, however, you do want something a little more from our entertainment and are like me then there is value in criticism. Creating echo chambers that serve solely to feed self congratulations does not improve our art. As artists it is our responsibility to constantly strive for improvement and learn to hone our craft. Part of this is listening to the dissenters and asking if their complaints are valid.

And I can guarantee you that my complaints are very valid.

Let me get this out there. Frozen is one of Disney’s worst recent ventures. I didn’t like Tangled but on any metric for the valuation of a movie it was far better than Frozen. I’ll state my biases now – as a writer I am most concerned with plot, narrative, characters, theme and tone. This is where I focus my attention and critiques. If you’re someone who doesn’t think story is important – then get off my blog because I’ve iterated numerous times how narratives and stories are the most important aspect in artistic expression.

Alright, now that I’ve chased most people away, I’m not going to do my normal routine. Frozen is broken on nearly every level with so much inconsistency and contradicting ideas. There are so many problems with this story that I don’t understand how it’s received all this praise. Chief amongst its failings is being an hour and a half of zero conflict. Characters constantly spout problems which are neither shown or addressed. The primary issue of the story stems ultimately from bad parenting and terrible medical advice.

But let’s use an example. The major conflict in the movie revolves around Elsa and her ability to conjure snow and ice. When an accident occurs while her and her sister Anna are playing as children, her parents break into a front hall to find that Elsa accidentally struck Anna in the forehead with an icicle. To remind those that have seen the movie, the foyer is at this moment filled with hills of snow and mounds of ice. The parents first reaction to entering isn’t wonder over seeing all this snow inside but worry over their daughter injured in the middle of it. What does this tell us? They are well aware of sorcery and that Elsa controls it. They immediately whisk the two girls to seek the medical consultation of the trolls who just… well… troll them and tell the worried parents to lock Elsa up and never speak of this event again. Staff must be fired and somehow this must become a secret… for reasons. We’re later introduced to the idea that magic is considered an abomination.

But never once has there been any indication from ANYONE that this is the case. The staff never expressed concern (and they certainly would know what is going on when they have to clean all that ice and snow out the front door). Never once do we get an explanation for why people don’t like magic and we never had any concern from the king and queen until they spoke to a bunch of talking rocks.

Instead of doing an entire review of the movie and how it’s ultimately about nothing, instead I’m going to focus on review its award winning musical number ‘Let it Go.’ Fortunately, for me, Disney has been kind enough to upload the sequence on youtube. Please, enjoy the number for a moment. Don’t worry, I have lots to discuss on it.

idina-menzel-as-elsa-sings-let-it-go-in-disneys-2013-hit-film-frozen

Click Me!

Nice, uplifting song, right? Makes you feel empowered and sympathize with Elsa, doesn’t it?

Well, here’s the thing. This sequence is terrible. But I think it really helps highlight my sense that this movie passed through three or four different hands all trying to take it in vastly different directions. Watch it again and pay attention to the interplay between visuals and lyrics. Keep in mind the context – this is the moment Elsa has fled the kingdom after unintentionally revealing her magic powers and basically must give up on everything she knew because of a slip-up.

While you watch it again, I’d like to take a moment to highlight important details. Don’t worry, I’ll time stamp them.

1:00 – Elsa Tosses Glove

I want to take a moment and really highlight the time stamp. My first comment on this number occurs at one minute. One minute! This is a three and a half minute song. I need to ask, what has happened in nearly one third of the musical number?

Absolutely nothing. We’ve just had over fifty seconds of Elsa standing on a snowy hill singing. Here’s a thing about movies, their adaptations are almost universally considered worse than their book sources. The challenge with movies is you are working within a very tight time constraint. A children’s movie is even more constrained as they almost always last for an hour and a half since their target audience can’t concentrate that long. In the case of Frozen, the creators admit that they desired to have a scene explaining how Elsa got magic but had to cut it due to time constraints.

And yet we’ve wasted an entire minute already with absolutely nothing happening in that time. The significant action in this moment is Elsa tossing her glove to the wind – a symbol of her shedding the restraint and control forced upon her by her parents and the expectations of her station as the next in line for the throne. That is an important symbol to use. Unfortunately, this moment really lacks any impact. One big reason is that it’s not the only time in this song that Elsa symbolically discards the responsibilities and constraints placed upon her by society. This brings me to:

1:28 – Elsa Tosses Cloak

After almost thirty seconds of creating pretty snowflakes (presumably to demonstrate that she still has the power to make ice and snow which is really unremarkable given that the movie OPENS with Elsa creating a far more complex and spectacular winter landscape when she was half her age) Elsa loosens and discards her cloak. Once again, here is a symbol of her abdicating her responsibility for leadership as this was part of her coronation ensemble. This symbolic moment really serves no further purpose than the glove and the audience is still just watching this bobble-headed girl warbling on the world’s most blandest mountain top while she spins in circles.

2:08 – Elsa Creates a Staircase

Seriously, what is the obsession with staircases in this movie? Is it because the creators made Tangled and were really annoyed that they had to replace them with Rapunzel’s luscious golden locks that they’re over-compensating. The number of times action occurs on stairs in this movie is ridiculous. More specifically, I want to highlight that this is the first big “action” moment of the song. Elsa is faced with a gaping chasm and must cross. She creates a rather icy and unremarkable half bridge to start then bolts up it, refining it with her touch into an incredibly bland and boring modern design.

Take particular note of the lyrics, however. Throughout this song (and the whole movie in fact) the characters sing using common imagery. This almost never aligns with what’s actually happening in the song. At this moment, Elsa is saying she is “one with the wind and sky” and yet, there is no wind. In fact, what little wind there was at the start of this number has completely died. She’s hardly one with the sky, either, as she’s still surrounded by a mountain and standing on some stupid ice staircase.

2:17 – Elsa Heel Stomps

This is the song’s one good moment. Here is the only time the lyrics and the action actually align. Elsa cries “Here I stand!” and slams her foot down on the ground creating a stylistic snowflake. It’s probably the song’s most powerful moment too as it combines what’s happening on the screen with the audio. Idina’s delivery conveys the emotional punch of her finally taking a stand against perpetuating the charade she’s been doing all her life and all this is demonstrated emotionally, visually and audibly.

But this happens more than halfway through the song. Two minutes and seventeen second and only now the song is actually accomplishing anything. We’ve wasted so much time on nothing for this small emotional reward. It’s not enough.

3:09 – Elsa “Magics” Her Shirt Away

This just pisses me off. This is the sort of laziness that drives me crazy. After creating the world’s blandest ice castle, Elsa covers herself in ice to create a new wardrobe and her shirt “magically” disappears. Yet, the only established power Elsa has is that she can create ice and snow. What are we to assume – the ice just gobbled up the material? Where did it go?! This is the sort of error which fractures the sense of world verisimilitude. And it’s done for no other reason than to sex up the character. Who looks like a blow-up doll in the first place. I also hate her stupid turquoise slip dress.

But I want to take a moment to highlight the castle and chandelier which take far more importance during this than the moment when Elsa tosses her crown away (moment three of discarding past responsibilities). The visual design they have of this tower and it’s accouterments is so boring. This is the Imagination Studio, or whatever Disney is calling their movie making department. This is suppose to be the greatest artists they can hire. And they make the least inspiring tower I have ever seen. This thing is just boring. Later, we find it’s mostly a few platforms and a curving staircase (mhmmm staircases). Seriously, if I was an artist and this was the best I could come up with for a winter palace, I’d be embarrassed. I’m sure I could search deviantart for a better design.

Queue the rest of the song with Elsa’s stupid sashaying dance as she flap her arms onto the balcony as though she’s a spring chick trying to fly from the nest. Her final lines “Let the storm rage on” once more highlights this complete and utter disconnect between lyrics and visuals. There isn’t the slightest hint of a storm here.

It’s like the creators don’t even care.

Frozen-poster

Now, I don’t believe that criticism alone is the best way to encourage improvement. It is one thing to point out flaws and yet another to correct them. So, for this final part of my review, I’m going to describe to you how I would have directed this three and a half minutes.

0:00 – Elsa Struggles Against a Blizzard

Open the damn song with some conflict. Elsa is in emotional turmoil – show it. Have a blizzard on the mountain and she’s fighting against it to escape the troubles behind her. This blizzard is not natural – it’s the unconscious manifestation of her own inner turmoils. Panting and tired, she comes to an overhang and looks back over where she came.

0:15 – Elsa Looks Back

Notice that I only wait fifteen seconds before having something of importance happen next. Not a minute. The moment Elsa opens her mouth, she’s looking back where she came, seeing the storm raging behind her. Her footprints are eaten up in the snow, discouraging her from returning where she came. There’s nothing around her (kingdom of isolation) and she pulls her cloak tighter around her to keep warm. She touches her crown (and it looks like I’m the Queen). As the blizzard rushes around her (wind is howling), her hand drops in despair (couldn’t keep it in, heaven knows I tried) and ice forms where she brushes against the rock.

This way we’re showing that she’s still struggling with her choice to run away. She’s holding tight to these symbols of her old life and responsibilities (the cloak and crown) while still unable to control this power flowing from her (the ice against the rock).

0:43 – Elsa Braves the Blizzard Old Style

Elsa turns from her safety to take on the mountain again (don’t let them in). But the wind, falling snow and ice impede her. She doesn’t get very far before she’s forced against the rocks again, her cloak and stubbornness not enough to see her through. She tries to pull herself up again and her hand once more creates a great sheet of ice – stylized in some interesting way, personally I’d make it jagged – and she looks at it realizing how futile trying to maintain her parents wishes really are since everyone knows that she is a witch (Well now they know!).

Were not a full minute in and I’m already adding conflict and action with this blizzard. We’re also seeing the progression of her character as she tries and tries to be the ‘good daughter’ and fails every time. Finally, she realizes how useless it really is.

1:00 – Let it Go

The wind picks up and Elsa shields herself with a pillar of ice (let it go). She gathers her strength and bursts forward into the blizzard. Losing the last of her inhibitions, she uses her powers to force her progression: she forms arches of stylish snow to cover her from falling snow. she creates icy steps to lift her up the incline and finally she begins to control the weather itself to create a peaceful passage through which she can pass finally emerging from the blizzard unscathed as she unwraps herself from her cloak (the cold never bothered me anyway).

One important note for this section. As Elsa gives in to the use of her powers, the storm should build in intensity. Every time she “magics” the blizzard grows more forceful and violent. The blizzard represents the uncontrolled emotions and manifest as this turmoil that she’s not truly addressing but, essentially, fleeing. The rest of the song should follow suit – anytime Elsa “magics” the storm gets deeper and darker.

1:30 – Crossing the Chasm

Elsa emerges onto an overhang and walks to the edge to see the town below. It’s nearly swallowed up in the blizzard now but seems so unimportant to her now (it’s funny how some distance makes everything seem so small – Come on! How wasn’t this obvious?!). Elsa turns away and approaches the chasm, removing her glove (the fears that once controlled me) and tosses it into the abyss to signify that she’s not going to let others keep her restrained (can’t get to me at all). Elsa then gauges the expanse and tries to create a crossing. She fails. She tries again. She fails again. Finally she makes a precipitous ledge and tentatively walks out. She then takes the plunge, using the blizzard and a spectacular display of snow and ice to get across in a hectic manner (I am one with the wind and sky – and make sure there’s wind!). As she lands on the other side, the camera pans around to her exuberant face while in the background the town is finally consumed in the raging blizzard, not to be seen again (never see me cry).

2:17 – Heel Stomp

As I said, this is the best moment so we can keep it. She then starts the first of her ice tower. But make it interesting and exciting. Have icicles bursting from the ground like crystal stalagmites. Elsa raises her tower but this should be a physically trying and taxing experience. The audience should get a feeling that she is making it in a very physical sense. Have her bend, sweat and struggle. For example, you can have her stumble and jagged ice shoots out. She then expands it in a quick burst, accepting the flaw as the ice projection lifts her up. This tower should be wild and free – just as Elsa feels now. Nothing clean and pretty. Make it look almost terrific – as in inspiring terror – and make the sequence focused on. When she talks about fractals, a sheet of ice forms across the screen with her face reflected in every broken piece. Elsa should be the centre of attention, not the tower. And shit, get rid of that stupid chandelier.

2:56 – Crown Toss 

Elsa takes a moment to remove her crown and throw it away (I’m never going back). For the first real time, the camera leaves Elsa and follows the crown to the base of her growing tower. The blizzard greedily swallows up the crown in its snowy maw (the past is in the past). Make this moment feel really dark as its suppose to communicate to the audience finally that, perhaps, Elsa has gone too far. The fact the tower looks more scary isn’t an accident. The whole idea behind this sequence is to show Elsa’s crossing into “villain” territory and the audience should cheer her along until they realized that she’s gone too far. Elsa isn’t being liberated anymore, she’s completely burying her past at the expense of all the people she knows. And the crown represents this. It’s not just a symbol of the throne but the responsibility of the throne to its people. The camera can follow the raging blizzard to the horizon where the town is no longer visible. The sun crests over the mountain tops (And I’ll rise like the break of dawn) and follows the sunlight back to the tower. Suddenly, the ice lights up as though the morning has breathed life into the structure and filled it with millions of refracting candles. Elsa stands in the centre covered in ice and bursts forth with her new outfit – that covers the old one and doesn’t eat it will looking more terrific – and moves towards the sun. She magics out a balcony and stands to look over her new kingdom of the mountain’s summit with the largest, most terrifying blizzard raging uncontrolled below. She greets this ‘guardian’ with open arms (Let the storm rage on!) and as its ferocious fingers reach up to grasp her, the camera pans in on her smiling face (the cold never bothered me anyway). The camera is then consumed in the snow.

 

Now I’ve introduced a character progression, emphasized and strengthened the story’s themes and symbols while adding an actual conflict for Anna to face (the blizzard that is now threatening to literally destroy the kingdom and kill it’s people). Elsa maintains her sympathy as she’s done this all unintentionally but she’s still maintaining her villainous as she as given up on all her responsibilities and sealed herself away from having to worry over the feelings and fate of others.

And all of that in one hour. Seriously, Disney, get your shit together!

Why I Hate Qunari – Racism and Fantasy

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E3 is happening and I’m… disinterested.

E3 banner accessed from http://whachow.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/e3.jpg

E3 imagery and whatnot does not belong to me.

For those not aware, E3 (short for Electronic Entertainment Expo) is a yearly conference that covers the developments from the biggest studios in the video gaming industry. It’s a trade’s fair meant to announce and build interest in upcoming products from the major players (Ubisoft, Microsoft, EA, Sony and Nintendo). As a young, modern individual, I naturally have an interest in video games as they’re becoming one of the largest mediums of entertainment. Unfortunately, my interest lies in PC (personal computer) gaming whereas this conference mostly focuses around the home entertainment consoles. All I have to look forward to is the glimpse of the multiplatform releases which will inevitably arrive to the PC space some three to six months after they’re console launch.

So, while others are pumped for the exposition, I really can not get into all the hype. That said, I tried and turned on the stream for a few minutes to see how the conference is going. In prior years they had been really embarrassing for the members of the more enthusiast portion of the hobby with a greater focus on gimmick and generic titles that often involved presenters dancing or waving foolishly on stage as they tried to peddle the next motion sensor device as the hottest new thing. So, in one way, this E3 seems to be off to a better start. With the recent release of a new generation of consoles the focus is back to announcing and promoting games. The major studios have taken a more traditional, trailer focussed approach too which is a step above the antics of yesteryear.

What does this have to do with my title? That’s a good question as I’ve three paragraphs in and haven’t touched anything writing or speculative fiction related. So here’s the bridge!

One of the first trailers shown during EA’s presentation was for the upcoming Dragon Age 3 by BioWare. I’m a little surprised my colleague has not written about Dragon Age as he is the one to have played its most recent release. I used to be a great fan of BioWare when I was younger. They produced the nostalgia inducing, widely acclaimed Baldur’s  Gate Trilogy which stands, if I may be so bold, as the single most influential western role-playing game in the entire industry.

Image accessed from http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Dragon_Age:_Inquisition

Dragon Age Inquisition, outside of representing BioWare’s disdain for orderly naming in their titles, belongs to EA and Bioware and not me.

Sadly, their output after that has been lackluster at best. Part of that may have been a problem of coming out the gate too strong. Inevitably, all their newest work is going to get compared to that magnum opus and draw up short. Part of its problem, I think, is that BioWare was working with a proprietary intellectual property. Baldur’s Gate was set in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting for Dungeons and Dragons. This world has had years and years of development and re-iteration by the time the company picked it up. It had a lengthy history which the writers could tap into and the different regions they set the story across were pre-created with interesting and connected cultures. The process of world building is a long and involved one and when they adopted the world for their first games, all they had to focus on was the narrative they wished to tell and the components of creating a video game.

Of course, the downside with licencing is that you have to pay the owner a sizable fee. It’s reasonable any successful studio would want to create their own free of the constraints of licencing and adhering to established works. It gives them the freedom to develop their own world filled with its own peoples and histories and stories.

The downside is they have to make all this.

And the downside of that is we get racism.

I have come to loathe fantasy and its handling of races. I complained about this before when I felt that most writers essentially are rehashing the work Tolkien did with his re-envisioning of mythological creatures into a cohesive and internally consistent world. He established the repetitive trope of dwarves being incurable alcoholics obsessed with mining wealth and loathing elves. Elves, likewise, have morphed in the collective unconsciousness to become these tall, elegant and beautiful peoples with pointy ears and a dying culture. Orcs are a shorthand for middle easterners.

Sten belongs to Bioware and image was accessed from http://www.polishtheconsole.com/tag/sten/

Sten as he appears in Dragon Age: Origins. He is a member of the Qunari who are both a race, religion and culture all in one!

And that’s, unfortunately, become the issue. So often when I see fantasy races in fiction it’s as a cultural shorthand for a real life peoples. It creates a rather uncomfortable situation especially given the rampant racism that erupts in these stories because now these peoples are actual different races. I feel there’s an issue when you conflate real cultures with fantastical peoples as it almost dehumanizes or “others” these cultures from which you borrow.

For example, Dragon Age features the Qunari instead of your standard orc. When we were first introduced to them in Dragon Age: Origins, the only member you met was a man named Sten. He was, by all appearances, a human with darker skin and lighter hair. I welcomed this as the shorthand for culture=race, I feel, has a tendency to draw upon and highlight differences between peoples rather than commonalities. Sten carried the appearance as being the same as the player (assuming a non-dwarf or elf background) with the biggest difference in his personality and beliefs being the cultural heritage of his distant upbringing.

Accessed from http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Qunari

Qunari concept art re-envisioning them for Dragon Age 2 so they’re clearly not human.

Dragon Age 2, however, made sure to clarify that this was not the case. Sten and the Qunari were shunted into the fantastical race segregation giving this air that culture and beliefs are tied to some bizarre genetic composition. We see this with the other races – all dwarves and elves essentially struggle beneath the expectations of their physical appearance intimately connecting behaviour and potential with one’s birthright. Of course, given this expectation from the audience one would imagine that fantasy would be a ripe area to undermine racist beliefs and tendencies. However, invariably, the narratives reinforce the core separation of racial thinking even if they attempt to express that racist behaviour is bad at the same time. Which is, of course, reasonable given the world’s creation in that these two entities are separate along racial lines.

So fantasy basically writes a creator into a corner. They have, biologically speaking, separate races but these races invariably take the cultural shorthands and iconographies of real life peoples. Even if the author attempts to argue that discrimination based along these lines they’ve created themselves is bad it does not ignore the problem that they’ve fallen into the trapped thinking these people fundamentally are different. Course, there are ways around this. For one, Dungeons and Dragons breaks down the different races into even more variable culture groups disassociating the race with any real world analogy. In the Forgotten Realms alone we have the High Elves, Moon Elves, Wood Elves, Dark Elves and just about any other permutation you could require. And though the difference between the factions is often represented physically with their bodily attributes (like the black skin of a Dark Elf or the golden skin of a High Elf) the biggest separation is their cultural and philosophical heritage. Furthermore, you generally do not have a genetic incompatibility with these different groups thus reinforcing their differences are not tied to inherent characteristics.

Unfortunately for new worlds like Dragon Age, they do not have the development to portray this distinction. There are only one group of humans, elves, dwarves and qunari which leads one to assume their differences are tied to genetic inheritance as it is to cultural education.

Sten updated to appear in the sequel's design for his race. Personally, I feel it detracts from his story and the character in general. Mod can be found at: http://www.nexusmods.com/dragonage/mods/3803/?

Sten updated to appear in the sequel’s design for his race. Personally, I feel it detracts from his story and the character in general. Mod can be found at: http://www.nexusmods.com/dragonage/mods/3803/?

The long and the short of it is I hate the Qunari’s stupid horns. I’d rather fantasy focus on creating unique peoples and beliefs without taking the lazy shortcut of highlighting people’s differences through physical characteristics. Take humanity in its entirety and there is a staggering breath of variety amongst our own race – we don’t need to put funny horns or ears on their heads in order to experience it.

It’s a Glandular Problem! Body Image and Writing

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As is sometimes the case, I will engage with my fellows over interesting topics of worldly happenings. Sometimes I learn something new. Sometimes I annoy Derek with questions about transgenderism. And sometimes my sister direct me to something I had already known but she was just discovering. Last week, this was fat apologists. I suppose I should preface this with the typical “trigger warnings.” This is an unnecessarily political tinged rant about body image and societal perceptions. If you have strong feelings on the matter, then great! So do I. I simply feel sorry for you if they do not align.

Source, my own damn picture. Awww yeeeeeah!

Dwarf on Turtle by Valerie Cioli 1560 and photo copyright of me!

I’ll just lay it out right now – modern western society is facing an epidemic of obesity. We’ve developed a culture obsessed with both extremes of harmful expectations for people’s appearances. A 2014 study found that two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese(1).  That is, simply put, ludicrous. Because I often work best with benchmarks, there are 212 million people in America alone who are overweight or obese. That’s almost six time the entire population of Canada. This is an issue. Near every class on health, nutrition and psychology state this. It is not something I would consider up for debate given my background in science and the need for studies and statistics to demonstrate one’s point. There are no benefits to being obese and a long laundry list of detriments that make any other position for a rational person impossible to hold. It is near impossible to live in western society and not know someone who is overweight or obese. If you’re in North America, you know these people.

Now, this isn’t to say that there are some issues with these classifications. But, for the vast majority of people, these issues are not really worth noting. Technically, I am overweight according to the BMI. So our measurements aren’t perfect. My sister is overweight and she’s one of the most active people I know. The standardization of a scale will inevitably create some wonky results given the natural variance in our society. Now, my sister’s lifelong struggles has given me quite a bit of first hand experience people face with body images. I am sympathetic to their plight and I recognize a lot of the difficulties they have to face.

I am, by no means, condoning the idea that “fat shaming” is anything but unhelpful. The general idea is that by ridiculing and making fat people feel bad about themselves will somehow promote and encourage them to lose weight. This does not hold up to any scientific scrutiny. It would be like ridiculing schizophrenics and making fun of them for being crazy without actually offering them some suitable help (if we’re going the route of unhelpful comparisons). Encouragement, support and education demonstrate far more effective results than shaming. So, I will agree with the sentiment that insulting fat people because they’re fat is not the way to encourage improvement.

Accessed from http://www.wga.hu/framex-e.html?file=html/b/baldung/1/06_1adam.html

Our conception of beauty is not a static thing. Larger physiques were considered more attractive like in this Adam and Eve by Hans Baldung Grien (1531).

But, you’ll notice I’m focused on getting healthier. I am not a fat apologist and the blog my sister directed to my attention was one such thing. Here was a “social justice warrior” railing against the prevalence of thin privilege within our literary media. Heroes are, near universally, young and athletic or thin. Fat people are often characters of ridicule or villains. This blog went on a bit of a tirade about the injustice of it all and how they, as a fat person, are more than just a lot of extra pounds. Of course, this tirade reached humorous proportions when, near they end, they started claiming pride in their size and turning into the same cognitive gymnastics that people perform in order to justify their problems instead of taking the harder approach of trying to address them.

Now, there is a thing to be said for falling into standard literary cliches. It is an overtired trope that the jolly fat sidekick be used as comedic relief. I have no issue with authors putting more effort into their character building than automatically making their main lead a muscle bound marine if the story doesn’t call for it. Granted, the vast majority of fantasy is, inevitably, going to feature thin or athletic protagonists. How can it not? I suppose you could feature a fantastical world where obese people are capable of physical feats impossible in the real world due to their lack of fitness. As someone with a focus on creating fictional worlds, however, I feel this breach of verisimilitude and ignoring basic common sense is going to put a lot of strain on your audience’s suspension of disbelief. When writing stories about daring knights and wild sword fights, is anyone really going to expect an overweight hero capable of holding their own?

All rights of 300 and Gerard Butler's CGI abs belong to their respective owners. Accessed from: http://www.rankopedia.com/CandidatePix/29026.gif

I could be wrong but I don’t think the Ancient Greeks possessed airbrushing.

Of course, bodies come in many shapes and sizes. One can be strong and healthy and still have a wide variety of appearances. In fact, I’d maintain that if you were shooting for historical accuracy, it’s quite unlikely you’d have well defined muscular individuals. Classic warriors would likely be closer to Andre the Giant than Gerard Butler’s King Leonidas since, last I checked, there aren’t a lot of medieval weight lifting clubs.

Picture retrieved from wikipedia: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Andre_in_the_late_%2780s.jpg

Well, ok, maybe they wouldn’t have giantism but you get the general idea.

I, personally, would welcome a wider representation in our fictional characters. Body shape can and does make just as effective a characteristic for an individual as any other property. I’ve posted my Bannock short story and the antagonist, Nikolai, is fat. However, this isn’t presented as a negative but as a sign of his success for he inhabits a frontier world where most people are too poor to maintain a healthy diet. His ability to have survived long enough to a point where he can indulge in a more sedentary lifestyle is a testament to his ruthlessness and strength than a point of shame.

Likewise, another antagonist is a rather lean and muscular man met later on in the story. His fitnesses stems from a philosophical approach where mind and body are meant to be tuned and focused in order to bring prosperity to oneself. Care of the body represents the care of one’s soul so having him both able and capable of maintaining a fit form is likewise a sign of power and control. I have two wildly different shaped antagonists but both these lend a sense of strength and control to their character. Likewise, the overabundance of thinness in my protagonist cast is a reflection of the difficult lifestyle they led and a sign of the trials they face – not an aspect meant to be celebrated and held up as ideal.

However, I want to end on one very particular point and that is refuting the typical fat apologist stance of denying the importance of health. Though I was unable to find Kait’s original blog, I did come across thisisthinprivilege.tumblr.com in my research. Specifically, I want to address their arguments over health and the denial of the obesity epidemic. No words but their own, I feel, best highlight the ridiculousness these people take:

“Let me make it completely clear from the outset that I do not believe ‘health,’ however defined, is a reasonable measure to determine whether or not someone deserves respect, civil rights, and fair treatment. If you have a problem with how health markets apportion your premiums or where your taxes go, then by all means, rage against the system. But do not think for a minute your assholish behavior towards people you imagine use more than their ‘fair share’ is justified.”

Ok, fair enough. I’ve already addressed that shaming a person does not actually help them get better. There are more supportive ways to encourage someone to become healthier and treating people with respect regardless of their station in life is always admirable. People should lose respect due to their actions and beliefs. Which, coincidentally, is what happens next!

“In fact, I’ll go further and state that in my opinion the modern conception of ‘health’ is bullshit. It’s an ever-changing, largely arbitrary definition that seems to serve a single purpose: to blame modern ills on so-called ‘unhealthy’ people then define so-called ‘unhealthy’ people as unpopular social ‘deviants’ like fat people, poor people, and the disabled. The philosophy of vaunting the modern notion of ‘health’ to some kind of societal/moral imperative is called healthism.”

Wow, I’m sure this individual has a lot of research and knowledge on the subject of health, nutrition and medicine to back up their opinion that the modern conception is bullshit. Oh wait, no, they don’t and they’re basically now just making up a bunch of nonsense in order to feel better about themselves. I understand how difficult it can be for people to lose weight. As I mentioned, my sister has struggled with it all her life. For the vast majority of us, it is impossible to actually reach the idealized bodies presented by the media. There’s really two ways you can approach this truth: either you strive for achieving health in what is reasonable for your own body or you can bury your head in the sand and come up with bullshit arguments for why health is bad you don’t need to do anything about it. In case it might have not been clear enough, health is a thing and we should strive to be healthy for a number of reasons: it reduces risk for serious diseases, lengthens your lifespan, puts less strain on those closest to you and makes you feel better being the chief amongst them.

Accessed from http://www.wga.hu/index1.html

Hendrickje Stoffels Bathing by Rembrandt van Rijn (1654).

“Perhaps there are those of you who ask: What about when someone’s so fat it’s medically unhealthy, shouldn’t you tell them to lose weight, out of friendly/familial concern? – Hell no. Why would your friends be a better witness to your experience than you are? If they are, then don’t you have bigger presumed problems than your weight? Why would they know what’s healthy for you, better than you do? Again, if they do, don’t you have bigger presumed problems than your weight? How in the world could you possibly avoid hearing, in our current cultural climate, that fat people should ‘lose weight for their health’? Treat people with respect. Don’t infantilize or condescend to them. This is Adult Interaction 101, here.”

Can you imagine what would be someone’s reaction if we changed obesity to some other health problem. Let’s pretend you are friends or family to someone with a drug problem. Basically, this individual is arguing you shouldn’t strive for them to seek help because you can’t “possibly” know what’s good for them. Except, there’s reams and reams of research this individual has blindly dismissed because they simply don’t want to believe in it. I’m sorry, when science disagrees with you and all you have to back up your position is a really flawed argument on… I don’t even know what… then I think it’s pretty clear when someone has ceased engaging in rational discourse and is not looking for empathy but excuses. That’s my grief with fat apologists. We have a very real, definable and measurable problem but because it’s too difficult to address, acknowledge and change we’re going to try and promote lies and misinformation so we can ignore and dismiss a real issue with very serious consequences. All so we can feel fleeting joy over an issue which ultimately affects the afflicted more than anyone else. It’s in unhealthy people’s best interest to get healthy but these people would rather work against their own self interest because it’s seemingly easier to create a false issue like thin privilege than actually improve.

And it is that “choice” which is quite reasonable to shame.

1. Ogden C. L., Carroll, M. D., Kit, B.K., & Flegal K. M. (2014). Prevalence of childhood and adult obesity in the United States, 2011-2012. Journal of the American Medical Association, 311(8), 806-814.

The Winner’s Curse – Book Review

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According to the author the concept for the Winner’s Curse comes from a discussion about economics. In particular the idea that those at an auction who outbid everyone else have also been foolish enough to pay way more for something that the rest of the company thinks is worth considerably less. It is an interesting idea.

The book jacket designed by Elizabeth H. Clark.

The book jacket designed by Elizabeth H. Clark.

However, that was not discussed or mentioned in the book jacket. The brief synopsis, like so many of its kind, misleads the potential reader. Or perhaps the attempt to simplify an entire story inevitably must distill down to something only vaguely connected to the actual plot. I know from the few lines I read before requesting the book from my local library, I had certain expectations about what I was going to read. I knew the main characters were young adults, that the main female, Kestrel, was going to purchase a slave, Arin, and that incident was going to change her life. I suppose that is in fact vague enough that anything could happen. However, as is the case I started to supplement the limited information with probable scenarios. It is something I am wont to do on a regular basis. In the past this has led to disappointment. However, I was pleasantly surprised by the Winner’s Curse. It was both well written and unpredictable.

I particularly enjoyed the manner in which the author dealt with slavery and conquering by foreign peoples. There was just the right balance justification so the reader could appreciate how both of the main countries involved in this relationship would see its rise and fall differently. It was power in the way it was subtle. There was not long-winded preaching paragraph about how slavery was bad, how war was bad or how being invaded and conquered was bad. Or even how rebelling was bad. There were atrocities committed on both sides, though happily not in graphic detail. Characters challenged preconceived ideas in realistic manners.

Kestrel and Arin were both strong characters with distinct points of view and ideas that shifted slightly over time. They worked well together, and the romantic in me kept trying to write a happy ending to their story. The final was not precisely sad, but it was a touch melancholy. In many ways it made the book. A more weak-willed author would have concluded with something light, fluffy and ultimately unrealistic. Rutkoski concluded the Winner’s Curse in a manner that was both satisfying and hopeful and yet, sacrifices had to be made. Neither character got everything they wanted. That was same sentiment was shared by the reader (at least it was for me). I wanted them to ‘win’, completely. To outsmart the rest of the world and pull of something that only works in books. Still, I cannot complain because this ending, the fast pacing of the rest of the book and the engaging characters kept me reading. In fact, had the book ended the way I wanted it too, then it would have been more like so many poorly written pieces out there – predictable.

In short, I thought the Winner’s Curse was surprisingly well written, fun to read and nothing like the book jacket suggested. I would recommend this for those interested in young adult reads.

* * * *

Well, I just was reading the fine print and discovered this is actually book one of a triology. I have to say this does indeed lower my opinion of the book. As a stand-alone, I thought it was great, as a trilogy…. Well, I haven’t read the second or third book yet, but I am not feeling it.

Ermergerd, erts Mernercer – A Monaco Review

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My head hurts. I can’t tell if I’m dying or my body is trying to do that obnoxious migraine thing again. It’s also gotten warm here recently. I can’t tell if the two are connected. Neither can modern science.

So, in my agitation, what better topic to write about than a review of Monaco – What’s Yours is Mine!

Accessed from http://assets1.ignimgs.com/2013/04/22/monaco0419131600jpg-acb114.jpg

Monaco: What’s yours is Mine belongs to Pocketwatch games and all associated media belongs to everyone appropriately that isn’t me.

Now, I know I haven’t done a review of a piece of media for awhile. What between my procrastinating, ranting and own scribblings it’s not like I haven’t consumed media in that time. Granted, on the video game front I’ve mostly been taking a look at older work. I decided that, since I’m a PC gamer, it was foolish of me to be spending gobs of money on new releases when I have easy access to a large library of very inexpensive games. That is a Steam endorsement, if you did not catch it.

What this means, however, is that I’ve been focused on clearing my growing backlog of older titles as well as achievement grinding while I wait for the annual Steam Summer Sale to purchase something of moderate relevancy at an affordable price (mainly $2). Thus, between my rage inducing games of Dota 2, I have mostly been focused on a modded playthrough of Fallout: New Vegas in order to try and get as many achievements as possible, and working through this article’s titular piece with Derek when both of us are too tired of doing our respective writing.

So, what is Monaco? Well, it’s an independently made 8-bit inspired four player heist game which sees the player playing one of eight possible personalities as they work through the French gibbering city-state in an attempt to collect as many ambiguously shaped valuables as possible without getting bludgeoned, beaten or shot into a skeleton.

Accessed from http://images.gizorama.com/2013/08/Monaco-Whats-Yours-is-Mine.jpg

I warned you about the graphics, dawg.

It isn’t a looker, I’m not going to lie, but part of the charm and difficulty arises from trying to parse and understand what the stylized graphics are trying to display. I can tell you, there have been many botched missions due to Derek’s inability to perceive alarms and I’ve been stuck more than once in adrenaline pumping retreats upon the peculiarly impassable edges of a swimming pool. However, graphics are one thing that is often sacrificed in independent games. It would be like expecting Little Miss Sunshine to wow people with its CGI effects. On the other hand, I can’t help but feel that the game would work with a more cleaner style if, at the very least, to provide the player with more distinct objects with which to interact.

Now, normally I would spend a great deal of my review discussing the characters, narrative and world of a game as usually those are my focus. This is impossible with Monaco. Partly because of its multiplayer aspect, the narrative elements are diminished in the name of gameplay. The window dressing for why we must steal into a museum and rob its eight great works is inconsequential to why we are performing this task. Due to their interactivity, telling a narrative in a game is tricky enough with one person who can and often will wander away from the points of interest the story-teller wishes to focus upon. Throw in upwards of three or four people wandering in all directions and you have a veritable narrative nightmare.

This isn’t to say that Monaco doesn’t try to tell a story. This is mostly to say that Derek and I completely avoided it. The only thing that I can remember are the wild proclamations of “Gyaaaard,” “Oui. C’est bon,” “C’etait seulement une chat,” and “Cerveau?” Each mission begins with a short description to set up the reason for whatever haphazard task we must accomplish. But the justification is terrible and not just because the developers were trying for some cutesy unreliable narrator shtick. I mean, you can only blame character bias so far when one of the missions is you breaking into a diamond store to steal the redhead a bunch of jewelry so she can get over having to murder people in cold blood.

I will say that the one narrative element I enjoyed about the game was its setting. Not that it was used to any useful degree, but the fact that the story took place in Monaco was refreshing and highlights the sort of lazy writing which I have complained against in past articles. Most stories do not necessitate a specific location and the vast majority of settings default to a handful standard locations. Typically, in American media, this will be New York City or Washington D.C. If you’re in Britland, the place where everything happens is almost always London. The number of movies that involve the poor Statute of Liberty being destroyed makes you wonder why people would want to visit such a high value target for just about every terrorist plot imaginable.

Which is a shame because we live in a large world filled with interesting locations. Monaco demonstrates that you can take a very standard, unremarkable tale and set it somewhere that isn’t a tried and tired locale. Nothing in its game truly requires it to be in that specific setting but it is able to adopt certain elements to give it an interesting flair. The guards and workers now shout French sentences when pursuing or fleeing you and even one level has you break into Prince Albert’s palace which, obviously, is impossible if you’re in the Big Apple.

Granted, I am not immune to this criticism. My first story takes place in a fantasy city analogous to London. I truly understand the automatic impulse of picking one of the default locations to set your tale especially if you don’t have anything specific in mind. The media we consume creates an almost internally feeding loop where we read about stories in New York, London and Tokyo so we write stories set in New York, London and Tokyo. However, I imagine a lot of us have lived or visited other places which we can draw on inspiration. And you never really know what you’ll get out of shaking things up and packing your protagonists to more remote, exotic or even mundane areas. It also gives a really great excuse to travel – you see, we have to do it for our research!

Anyway, my head is getting distracting again so I’ll wrap this promptly up.

Accessed from http://images.wikia.com/monacowhatsyoursismine/images/archive/1/12/20130426013345!Monaco_What's_Yours_Is_Mine_Wallpaper.png

I like how big the mole is. Probably to represent how absolutely broken he is.

I wouldn’t recommend Monaco to anyone unless you had friends who would play it. It is certainly doable with one or two people but the levels (especially the later ones) are designed with three to four players and I think a large part of its appeal is in co-ordinating your team to successfully pull of these heists. It is much the same as Left 4 Dead only you aren’t saddled with atrocious AI teammates if you are misanthropic.

Rules for Writing

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Grabbed from my favourite site for classic art: wga.hu

Paul Alexis Reading to Zola by Paul Cezanne (1869-1870).

I participate in online discussions and sometimes they end up touching upon subjects a little close to heart. The other week, I happened to be in a discourse over the representation of racial and sexual minorities in media and how the under representation of these people was a rather unfortunate habit which should be addressed. The usual suspects arrived to the argument – creatives merely write what they know and one shouldn’t demand otherwise; if minorities wished to see more representation then they should produce their own entertainment; stories featuring minorities don’t sell because the majority audience is unable to identify or sympathize with them etc…

I’m not going to address those arguments mostly because any sort of discussion on diversity in media is going to have those trotted out like some sick horse for a carnival’s grotesque show and if someone were truly interested in learning why those positions are weak, they wouldn’t need to look far for the counter points.

Instead, the discussion spurred a rather curious comment from a poster. This individual stated, with a remarkable amount of conviction, that everything presented to the audience about a character in a narrative must be there for a reason and that reason should reveal their desires and intentions. It is not an outlandish claim on its own and seems rather reasonable on first blush.

It is this statement which I wish to rant about today. Though the original discussion was not aimed squarely at writing, the argument presented was and, as such, I shall argue against it from a writing perspective and ignore other media forms and whether such a statement holds merit in them or not.

It’s a curious position since, whenever in an editorial role, I am constantly asking either myself or the author of the work what is the point for scenes and characters to the story. I do maintain that events, actions, characters and scenes should be added for a purpose. It must seem rather hypocritical that I’ll edit out scenes and dialogue because I feel it adds nothing while simultaneously writing long paragraphs on the Internet why someone who purportedly is expressing the same values is inherently wrong. However, outside of being a rather strong dictum, I feel this sort of rigid regulation of how art should be is rather insidious and dangerous.

Not that this individual is alone. Like I mentioned, I often wield this decree towards my own writing. Even Kurt Vonnegut, when publishing his eight rules for writing fiction, had something similar in his list which is produced below for this discussion and interest sake:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel that time is wasted.

2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

4. Every sentence must do one of two things – either reveal character or advance the action.

5. Start as close to the end as possible.

6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet or innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them.

7. Write to please just one person. If you open your window to make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

8. Give your readers as much information as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the stories themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

I don’t know about you but not only are these decent suggestions but right there, plain as day, is rule four supporting this anonymous individual’s bold stance. Granted, it has a bit more elegance as surely a writer as successful and proficient as Kurt Vonnegut would recognize that mere character alone does not create all works of good fiction.

So why my umbrage?

Well, the context of the debate is immensely important. I have written some articles before about modern feminism and diversity and it is my goal to try and adapt some of those philosophies in my own work. I need to stress that this debate started over the question about the viability of racial and sexual minorities in media. Ultimately, the statement expressing that all details given by an author must reveal character is, in essence, stating that “You must only use minority individuals as protagonists if your story is dealing with the issues a minority would face in that narrative.”

Basically, we must suffer Shia the Beef’s and Megan Vixen’s god awful performances in Transformers because the Transformers movies are not dealing with the hardships that African Americans or Jewish immigrants face in modern America. It is an argument which carries certain inherent biases. If you are to write any fiction not dealing with discrimination based on racial, sexual or gender difficulties then you must make your protagonist a white, heterosexual male. Otherwise, the argument purports, it is bad writing for you are presenting unneeded information.

Pacific Rim and all associated media is not owned by us and belongs to Warner Bros, del Toro and whoever else.

Raliegh and Mako’s head bump – platonic or romantic? You decide.

I want to stress again that this is not me twisting the posters words as this dialogue was occurring in a thread bemoaning the lack of diversity present in main protagonists across modern Western media. It is a discriminatory position since it puts forward that the characteristics which make these groups disadvantaged minorities must have deep bearing upon their identity. You can not, as the argument goes, make the lead brother of Pacific Rim gay “just because” since his sexuality must have some grander bearing on the story. Of course, his heterosexuality is, essentially, assumed thus it need not be justified in its expression. He can make some passing comment on pretty girls and not have that line considered “bad writing” since it is, essentially, the audience’s expected “default.”

I would counter that this is a very dangerous stance to take and thus, ultimately, I must disagree with Kurt Vonnegut’s fourth rule. I feel an author should be free to make their character hispanic, female, transgendered or whatever and not be weighed down by the challenges faced by any of these groups if the narrative does not call for it. Ultimately, our stories are expressions of ourselves and our experiences. The majority of them will feature humans or analogous individuals which explore the vast array of characteristics and lives that a diverse species will face. When writing a story about my characters, I am necessitated in choosing a gender for them – not because that gender weighs heavily upon that narrative but because humans have gender.

Of course, the immediate counter argument is that stating a person is female is revealing character and the proclamation in of itself satisfies Vonnegut’s requirement. In fact, this person probably intended to communicate just that with this response when I questioned his position about an off-handed comment on a character’s marriage status:

“I said it should affect their character, not that it should define them. If we run with marriage, then what does that mean? It means the main character made a commitment with someone else. Is that a happy marriage? Are they constantly arguing? If so, why? If not, to what extent is that person the most important part of our main character’s life? Maybe the marriage won’t change their decisions, but if they’re happily married it should at least weigh on their conscience if their decisions will impact the other person. If they’re not happily married, how does that impact the character’s decisions? Maybe it’ll make it easier for them to make decisions that put themselves in harms way… All I’m saying is that if we learn that a character is married, that should, in at least a small way, have a bearing on what happens or the nature of the character. That they have a dog, a specific type of car, where they live, what they eat for breakfast, where they work etc. If it doesn’t matter, and it doesn’t tell us anything about the character, why is the author telling the reader?” ~ Anonymous Poster On Internet

And this is when, I feel, the argument really breaks down upon itself. Now we are no longer insuring our lines are revealing character or advancing action but bogging down the narrative with constant explanation for why every small detail is necessary for inclusion. Make mention of a character’s blonde hair – we will need some justification for how that blonde hair shaped this individual’s life or they must be identified later in the story by their hair. If you wish to make your character a woman but do not go into great length about the impact of her womanhood on her personality or pivot a key narrative scene on her gender, then you should not have included it in the first place. 

But as stated, we’re writing humans, so these characters need a gender and physical features. Most stories do not trip over these requirements so, unless this individual is arguing that essentially there is no well written stories, then some combination must be free of this restriction.

I don’t think it necessary to state what that combination inherently is.

I discussed this rather odious position with my co-contributors and Derek provided an expanded rule to Vonnegut’s fourth: Each sentence must do one of the following: reveal character, explain the world, advance action or reinforce tone.

I, personally, subscribe to a different approach. If I were to include this in my “Rules of Writing” it would be as such: Each sentence must be added for a reason. That’s it. Every line you write should be put to serve a purpose. What that purpose is, however, is entirely up to the author and it need not be inherently apparent for the reader. Perhaps you wish to make your lead in a sci-fi space opera transgendered for no other reason than you want to feature more transgendered individuals in fiction. Art is not a solitary experience but shared amongst the creator and consumer. This most peculiar of relationships is what inevitably determines what “works” and what “does not.” No list of simple rules will create a foolproof method for creation. No mandates from anonymous individuals can insure your writing is widely acclaimed.

And Kurt Vonnegut would agree. After creating his rules for good fiction writing, even he admitted that his great contemporaries had a habit of breaking many of his rules and that the best writers tend to do just that.

Mirror Sight by Kristen Britain – Part 2

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Well, I can formally say that all my predictions for Mirror Sight by Kristen Britain were wrong. As for my final verdict on the book: it was largely a waste of time. It reads like filler, a story that has no real bearing on the great arch of the world.

So what went wrong? The primary culprit was the time travel. This was a problem in many different ways.

First, the reader was disconnected from the Green Rider world. The fantasy medieval setting with its largely equal views on the role of women and hate of slaves was replaced with a repressive society. Two hundred years in the future, women are treated more like Victorian Era ladies, to be barely seen and rarely heard. In fact they are to wear fully covered bodies and long veils. Further slaves abound (mostly to show how Evil the future is). This was disconcerting in many ways. While the author tried to use Karigan’s perspective to show how bad society in the future was, it was all tell and no show. It came across as preachy and utterly unnecessary. The entire set up of the Green Rider world with its strong female characters does more for equality than Mirror Sight’s long-winded rants ever could.

Book 4 in the series. I was not fond of this one either.

Book 4 in the series. I was not fond of this one either.

The steampunk elements served no apparent purpose in the world other than making it different. Long sections were spent describing some of the mechanicals. This bloated the book but added nothing as the descriptions were not engaging. There was no sense of wonder when reading about Enforcers. In fact, machines seemed to be present as further evidence the Emperor was Evil. If anything was to come out of it, I would say the author was once again expressing a negative (preachy) view against technology.

Finally, being in the future stripped the reader of all their favourite secondary characters. Personally, I feel the previous books became too tangled with secondary plot lines and additional points of view. So in principal I appreciated the more focused story telling in Mirror Sight. On the other hand, we had glimpses of other characters, teasers, to remind us that we would certainly be returning to the ‘proper’ time. This lessened all the experiences of the future. Ultimately, the author undercut her long-winded novel herself when she returned Karigan to the past (the main-character’s present) with hints the future was completely changed (unmade) and the main character now forgetting all her experiences (because they never happened). If this doesn’t scream Waste Of Time, I don’t know what else would.

Now, I might have been able to forgive such terrible set up if the writing had been brilliant. It wasn’t. This was the least engagingly written book in the series. After a little thought, I believe there were a couple of very obvious and correctable problems. First, it was by far too long. I don’t know the word count of a novel with 770 pages, but it felt like it was well over 300 000 words. The author cannot even claim that she was rushed and didn’t have time for editing as it has been three years since Blackveil.

Book 5 in the Green Rider Series.

Book 5 in the Green Rider Series.

Another complaint (that I will reiterate from the previous mess of a post) was the long exposition about what was happening without ever doing anything. Description is both good and important. However, every chapter in the book should serve a purpose. The first half …. Hell, the entire book dragged because of its inflated word count and lengthy paragraphs of explanation. The book should NOT have summarized every previous novel. It should NOT have described events like a log-book of a scientist. The reader didn’t need the information and they can read the earlier works to better understand the references. Also, I am pretty sure it was repetitive in its descriptions. One clear example stands out. About 4/5 into the book Karigan ‘explains’ her experiences from Blackveil (previous book) to another character in the world. The reader gets a one page paragraph rehashing old information. This could have been handled in several ways. For example one sentence could have been used to indicate what Karigan was talking about (topic only). Or Karigan could have related her experiences in dialogue in some interesting manner.

Further, the character development was weak and often last minute. There was little progression of the characters and when they did ‘grow/change’ it was rushed, requiring more paragraphs of explanation. For example, the kindly Professor that shelters Karigan is driven to turn against her. The explanation of why he is doing this comes mostly as he is giving her a large dose of morphine (or the fantasy world equivalent). Now, I will grant the lead up to this decision was not entirely out of nowhere. It was not well structured, but not entirely surprising. However, within two sentences, the Professor instantly regrets his decision, has a complete about face, helps Karigan to escape and kills himself in part to protect her. Really?! If it only took 10 seconds for the character to go from betrayer to martyr why did he have to betray her in the first place?

Like the above, there were too many instances when characters did things only to drive the plot. Which is amusing as this was the slowest moving plot in the world. But while Miriam never betrayed Karigan, the Professor, Arhys, and Luke all did. Why? Well, we were given explanations as needed to help explain why these characters did what they did. Sure, the explanations were reasonable, but that doesn’t change the feeling everything is more than a little contrived.

Book 1 in the series. The best book I think.

Book 1 in the series. The best book I think.

Finally, I would like to take a moment to indicate how disappointed I am with the manner in which the Author dealt with her other great creation, the Black Shields (Weapons). This order of elite swordfighters has dedicated their lives to their monarchs. They are cultish in their oaths and highly secretive. Yet, throughout all the books the Author has teased her readers with the idea of ancient order of Weapon masters. In the first books there was just enough mention and reaction to the Weapons to make their mysteriousness intriguing. However, here we are in book 5 and the Author is trying to incorporate a Black Shield (well, a want-be-Weapon) into the story. Now is the time to unravel some of the mysteries, at least to the reader if not the main character. Only she still only teases about the goals and beliefs of the Weapons. Why? Well, I have come to the conclusion the Author does not herself know anything about this elite order. It is a great shame, because this was an opportunity for her to do something new and interesting that was still tied to the familiar world of the ‘past’.

I could continue to complain about the introduction of p’hedrose (half human half moose creatures – which don’t make any sense), the suggestion of a half-Eletian (half-elf), the tediously drawn out relationship between Karigan and her King (please let it end) or any other of things that irk me. But I won’t.

Instead I will say in my own self-defence that I do not hate everything. In fact I am still quite fond of the first Green Rider book. It was good. It was fast paced. I had magic, adventure, structure and compelling characters. Even the second book, though much dark, held a world in change. So, while I might not continue with this increasingly ridiculous series, I will fondly reread the Green Rider (book 1) periodically.

Road to The International 4

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The International, Dota 2 and all related material belongs to Valve.

 

It’s been some time since we’ve covered more broad topics than writing and fiction. Partly because the whole point of somewherepostculture is to create a repository for our own musings and explorations of the written medium and partly because we’re not very exciting people. However, today begins the first of a series of four regional qualifiers for Valve’s The International tournament. Those who have been browsing for awhile know of my fondness for Valve and their little game called Dota 2. Those who haven’t, well, I am fond of Valve and their little game called Dota 2.

This year, Valve has made the lead-up to the annual tournament and possibly biggest e-sport event a little different. Prior, they had teams fight for a coveted Wildcard position, inviting around ten teams to fight for the chance to get to the other-wise “invite only” competition. This proved to be so successful that Valve has opened the slots this year for five teams to battle each other to get a chance at the $3.8 million dollar and growing prize pool.

That’s right, there is $3.8 million dollars on the table for these teams.

E-sports, as ludicrous as its name may be, is a very new and often misunderstood competition. Yes, they are video games. Yes, people play them professionally. My sister struggled with this when she was first introduced to it because of our preconceived notions of athleticism, competition and the way technology historically interacted with our lives. Personally, I see this sort of event as a glimpse of the future. No longer are the ideas of virtual arenas and cyber-athletes the sort of idea regulated to science fiction visions of possible technological achievements. We are living in a transitory age where the established sport industry is being demonstrated that a physical interaction on a field not only is an unnecessary component but also an outdated one. The advent of the Internet and the gross amounts of money to be made through offering spectators a chance to watch people devoted to mastering the complexities of their games as created a seemingly sustainable enterprise which shows only signs of becoming larger.

I, for one, am excited to be a part of this landmark movement and draw inspiration in how technology will change the face of society and our way of life with each successive invention.

Though, mostly, I just enjoy watching the game being played. Which is weird since I used to loathe watching games being played. I could not understand how people got excited over football teams and matches. I found even our national sport to be rather dull when enjoyed from the bench. I always enjoyed playing the games but the activity of passively observing simply seemed a strange and pointless activity. Now, I understand the appeal. The one thing I really like about e-sports is the interesting connection between spectator and players. I can’t think of any other competition which is boosted and funded by the willing participation of its audience.

The International, in that regard, is both a new and exciting event. As the sole tournament sponsored and run by Valve – the creators of the game – the tournament is available for free in the game client itself. The only tickets to be bought are ones for physical admission to the arena in Seattle where the event will occur. I will not, obviously, be attending but I don’t see that as a missed opportunity because of I can enjoy the commentary right in the game itself rendering the need for visiting moot. It’s the sort of thing I can easily see transitioning to the realm of virtual space and exploration should virtual reality technology develop and catch on with the public. No, the interaction provided for the fans and teams is that Valve offers a digital book for sale which has challenges for the purchaser to attempt and predictions to make with the promise of free items when certain milestones are reached. Furthermore, twenty five percent of the purchase goes directly to the tournament’s prize pool itself.

This creates and easy excuse to rid oneself of the guilt over purchasing an item which will never have a physical component. You aren’t just buying this imaginary book but you are making the livelihood of your favourite teams and players easier by increasing their rewards for placing well in the tournament. It provides the spectator the feeling they are directly impacting the players and the production just by watching and participating in the event.

Clearly this is a valuable idea as the community doubled Valve’s initial 1.6 million starting prize pool in a mere two days. Reaching a prize pool of 4 million dollars seems a very real possibility and its kind of impressive and exciting to see how passionate the audience is for this game. It’s the sort of passion realized by fans who paint themselves and dress in their team’s memorabilia but realized in a space where most of the people involved may never meet face-to-face. I’m glad Valve is the company behind this enterprise since they have a history for innovation and ingenuity unrivaled by their peers.

Anyway, the long and the short of it is, the American qualifiers are on for the next three days followed by the South East Asia, Chinese and European qualifiers. I’m going to be watching quite a lot of Dota so my posts may not be of interest to many of you who come solely for short fiction and writing topics. I’m sure my lovely co-contributors will still provide their quality content but as I’m currently in Dota 2 fever, do not expect a lot of other culture commentary from me in the meanwhile.

If you are interested in Dota 2 and the International, I suggest you check out the official website at blog.dota2.com. Streams of the tournament are found on twitch.tv under the Dota 2 category. They should be easy to find since they’ll all say American Qualifiers and are the ones everyone’s watching.

Game on, team!

Mirror Sight by Kristen Britain – Part 1

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Book 5 in the Green Rider Series.

Book 5 in the Green Rider Series.

I was terribly excited when the library called to inform me that my hold had arrived – and on the day the book was released! Mirror Sight is the latest book in the Green Rider Series by Kristen Britain. Over the past 20 hours I have managed to consume 276 of the 770 pages in this thick novel. So, while this post will be full of Spoilers. It is part one for a reason.

Before I start, I just want to clarify. I really enjoyed the Green Rider (book 1 of the series). I really appreciated what Britain tried to do with book 2 (First Rider’s Call). I thought book 3 was lots of fun (The High King’s Tomb). I was sorely disappointed with Blackveil (book 4) and so started Mirror Sight with mixed emotions. On one hand it is very exciting to read something new in a world I generally enjoy, especially when the author takes 3-4 years to write the next work in the series. However after the abysmal failure that was Blackveil I could only foresee disappointment in the newest novel.

Fortunately the book starts by dealing with the cruel and unnecessary cliff-hanger that ended the previous story. So far that is the best thing to have happened. Almost 300 hundred pages into the book we have finally started to create a plot.

The story takes place nearly 200 hundred years in the future. This leap in time travel is a bit weird to say the least. It is as though Britain became bored with her standard fantasy world – more medieval in feel than anything else – and decided she wanted to do something Steampunk because that is the latest greatest thing. Well, the attempt to add steampunk is meh at best. It mostly comes across as preachy against technology. And the leap forward 200 hundred years is silly – at least when you try to think of the mechanisms. Sure time travel has cropped up in the previous tales, but in small bursts and largely into the past (far more acceptable).

Green Rider - book coverThe future world lacks the feel of the original setting. It comes across as flat, underdeveloped and largely uninteresting. It is too much evil emperor à cartoonish in the villain. Granted, the villains in the stories do tend towards the Evil variety. It is one of the drawbacks of the writing. Evil villains (with a capital E) are really bland. It was one of the strengths of the earlier books. While Evil existed in the world, each story centred around a much more approachable villain – a force with clearly defined motivation.

The huge surprise that the Emperor in the future is not the Evil Mornhavon the Black was so clearly set up from the beginning as to be unsurprising. It is not entirely a bad thing; at least this was set up in advance.

I heard Mirror Sight was supposed to be a stand-alone story in the series. Not dependant on the previous books. Again, I have not finished the story, but thus far I would not recommend it to anyone not already indoctrinated. Mostly because I still feel the first story is the author’s strongest. This book suffers from weak writing and some silly characters. The silliest characters are the Eltians à Tolkien’s elves reused in a different setting. Yup I am bored with these immortal, perfect, beautiful, arrogant, tree-hugging non-humans. They are tiresome in the extreme. Their use is lazy and their character traits are all derivatives of Elves. There is nothing particularly new in these magical beings that are superior to humans in every obvious quality.

The weak writing surfaces most in the telling and not showing. There is far too much info dumping in these first 300 pages. Everything is description and explanation. Sure you could argue the author is providing a recap of all previous books so a new reader doesn’t feel lost – but it sucks! If there is something that has to be retold then find an interesting way of doing so. Don’t just have our main character think about it. At the very least make sure her perspective is biased. But the fact of the matter is I have read all the previous books. If I wanted to know more about them, I would pull them from my shelf to reread. Just to be clear, I totally love the idea of referencing previous events/books. Again it should be done in a new and refreshing way. It can be done obliquely so those familiar with the early part of the series are able to make the connection and those new just skim over that part as unimportant.

Which brings me to one of the interesting connections I had the pleasure of making. The earlier books deal with an underground movement (secret society) dedicated to replacing the world’s king with an ancient emperor (the Evil Mornhavon the Black). This group skulks in the shadows and plots against the good guys. Well, fast forward to book five where our heroine finds herself on the other side of things. Now she is part of the group wanting to over through their emperor and hiding in the shadows. I rather like the symmetry of the situation. Only of course, in this case everything is so decidedly black-and-white we know the emperor is Evil and has to be overthrown.

I feel like I should wrap this up with some sort of unifying comment. I don’t have one, so instead I will put down some of my predictions for the rest of the story.

*Mirriam will end up betraying the underground movement in some fashion.

*Karigan will help to burn the future capital but have to return to the past to prevent Amberhill from becoming the Sea King Reborn.

*The weapon they seek is really a jewel used to trap the spirit of the dragons (possible akin to gods).

Now it is time to find out how are sword yielding, horseback riding heroine fares at a dinner party in a restrained Victorian-esp social setting.

 

Pleroma Groups – Merrin Lankester Foundation

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I am faced with an unfortunate predicament. While I was lax on my duties towards this site during April as I toiled away on a 90,000 word project, I failed to realize that upon completion of that work and the loosening of my very constrained timetable I would be left with nothing to offer this website in terms of thoughts or work. I have spent little time enjoying the modern expressions of art in order to offer a worthwhile review of movies or literature. I have not written anything of my own accord that could be posted for enjoyment either. Alas, it seems, I must fall back on Derek’s own excuse for a topic and put up some more Pleroma information.

Accessed from wga.hu

A Friar Tempted by Demons by Salvator Rosa (1660-1665).

After checking to see which groups I have posted before, I realized that I had been focusing only on daemonic groups (of a nature). The goal behind Plemora, at least from a flavour perspective, is to create a world. As such, my musings and thoughts are still relevant to this website unlike some drab examples of gameplay – Derek! But, as part of that world creation I knew that I wanted more than one explanation for existence. I wanted to reflect the complexity of actual modern life and this is demonstrated in the Paradigm theming of different groups. To take that idea further, I wanted to include the taste of systems and ideas that would only tangentially affect our players but hint at happenings and struggles faced by others in this universe.

Today’s offering, thus, is a short glimpse into that idea. The Merrin Lankester Foundation is unique, from a flavour perspective, in that none of the members are daemonkin. They do not derive their gameplay from housing the essence of a supernatural entity within their body. Instead, they are but one face of the people living in a world plagued with possessions and invasions from the supernatural world. They are normal (to a degree) people reacting to this startling and terrifying revelation. In my mind, if Pleroma were successful, one of the many directions would could expand it would be towards fleshing out and detailing the systems that govern these groups. While in the base creation they would follow the standard rules Derek makes in regards to draws and how they interact with the players, if we were to open gameplay up to these “hunter” characters for playing we would have a different tweak to the system to demonstrate their unique experiences and abilities. However, for now, they represent the most likely organization disconnect from the daemonkin system that would be involved with daemonkin.

This is because the Merrin Lankester Foundation (M.L.F.) actively seeks and destroys these entities. They are the Van Helsings, Buffy Summers and Saint Georges of the Pleroma universe. In their eyes, these creatures are monsters, plain and simple. They feed and devour man and society in their own selfish and destructive desires. The only defence humanity can hope to raise is to entrust these special individuals who walk their own damned path in the hopes of stemming a tide that could very well destroy all the world. Of course they’re going to feature the similar self-damnation theme that daemonkin examines, I’m not looking at completely ignoring all that daemon stuff.

Accessed from web gallery of art, my go to for classical art www.wga.hu

Manfred and the Alpine Witch by John Martin (1837).

Merrin Lankester Foundation (M.L.F.)

Leader: Elsa Kostopulos
 
            The Merrin Lankester Foundation is a private security company and research/development firm established in Europe. They hire themselves out to whoever can afford their services be they governmental, private or religious. Aside from a steep price tag, the MLF appears to have a keen interest in historical texts and documents. But they do not run standard protection services. The MLF deals specifically with the supernatural. Armed with a suite of custom designed technology, the MLF hunts and destroys daemonkin wherever they are given clearance. They are no Technocrats or magi, however. Operatives for the MLF rely on their skill and knowledge. Where once they were dismissed as inconsequential, the MLF have risen as one of the world’s leaders in exterminating the supernatural and developed a comprehensive network of resources and allies that can make even the most organized daemonkin nervous.
            Like most other organizations, the MLF has a vested interest in keeping the daemonkin threat restricted to a “need to know” basis. They typically seek out clients who are already aware of the dangers of the pleroma unless they have gathered information of an immediate threat that would warrant the revelation of the supernatural at a localized level. This restriction in their dealings have kept them safe from agents infiltrated in the world’s government as well as limit the information their enemies can gather of their goals and motivations.
            The MLF has attempted to open branches in both America and Asia but have made little progress with either. God’s Hand serves a similar function in America and they view MLF as rivals to their own aims and keep senators and legislators from allowing the MLF operational access to American soil. There has been little headway into Asian countries as well, and a few leaked documents from the MLF hints that they perceive a great threat is undermining their efforts. There has even been some clashes between MLF with the other humanistic organizations of H.A.I and the Institute though over what, none of them will admit.
 
Paradigm:
            The MLF identifies itself as a humanistic organization. This, of course, flies in the face of the actual humanism movement with its focus on the spirit of reason and free inquiry at the rejection of supernatural and theistic framework. Of course, this isn’t entirely doable when the supernatural is a very real and constant threat. Instead, the MLF follow a more ‘militaristic humanism.’ They believe that humans possess the right to govern and live without the interference or influence of the supernatural. They believe there is a certain “experience” to being human that carries its own responsibilities both ethically and morally and that this experience is under threat by the supernatural. A structure based on reason and social justice is impossible with the spectre of the supernatural that hangs over it.
            The MLF views all supernatural entities as foreign invaders who do not carry any interest in the betterment of humanity and actively interfere with a reasonable and democratic society. They argue that true equality is impossible with such wholly alien entities who exert an unnatural influence on the functioning of the world. It makes the Minimum Statement (Affirm that human beings have the right and responsibility to give meaning and shape to their own lives. Stands for the building of a more humane society through an ethic based on human and other natural values in the spirit of reason and free inquiry through human capabilities.) impossible and threatens the free will of its citizens through immoral and unnatural abilities. The supernatural is not meant to be bargained with and are an external threat which they must face and expunge.
Accessed from wga.hu

Witches in the Air by Francis de Goya (1797-1798).

Cult of Reason:
            The roots of the MLF stretch back to the French Revolution and its attempt to replace Christianity. One could see the basic principles of the ancient Cult of Reason as the foundation stones for the Foundation. These directives are to push for the perfection of mankind through the attainment of Truth and Liberty through the guiding principles of Reason. The old Cult went so far as to promote congregational worship to the ideal of Reason represented by Lady Liberty in the place of Mary.
            With the growing understanding of the pleroma and faith, the MLF has realized that a completely secular approach to humanism is, currently, impossible. Thus, they have adopted the old trappings of the Cult of Reason and encourage the veneration of the triumvirate of Libery, Reason and Truth. However, the highest ranking members are quite and ceaseless in the recitation that these are not gods but abstract beings. For too much veneration of a singular entity could potentially bring into existence that which the MLF seeks to expunge. Instead, they maintain that the properties of the Cult’s worship do not belong to some external being but are fundamental components of humans themselves. This they argue through the collection and accumulation of ancient magical documents pertaining to ascension and the generation of power within the individual.
 
Vanguard of the Damned:
             In a sense, the MLF recognizes itself as a necessary evil. They must become that which they fear in order to combat their foes to pave the way for a future where neither shall exist. They strengthen themselves with dogma and faith in order to allow an environment where a society free of dogma and blind faith can exist. In the vision of the future held by the MLF, they will be no longer necessary. In their world, the following elements and principles would hold sway:
      1. Need to Test Beliefs – conviction that dogmas, ideologies and traditions, regardless of political, social or religious origin must be tested and not accepted on faith.
      2. Reason, Evidence and Scientific Method – a commitment to the use of critical reason, facts and science in seeking solutions to human problems
      3. Fulfillment, Growth and Creativity – the three concerns for humanity in general.
      4. Search for Truth – a constant examination for objective truths under the knowledge that our perceptions are imperfect and new information and experience alter our biases.
      5. This Life – no concern for an afterlife. If successful, the MLF would sever the connections between the physical plane and the other planes isolating the cycle of energy and keeping a land freed from higher powers
      6. Ethics – a codification of universal conduct and principles that enhance all human well-being and individual responsibility.
      7. Justice and Fairness – elimination of discrimination, inequality and intolerance.
      8. A Better World – the founding principles of Reason, Truth and Justice will create a more tolerant, progressive and idealistic future.
            As such, the MLF is incapable of fulfilling all these principles if they hope to combat the threats to human interests. In particular, they dismiss the first and second in order to strive for the seventh and eighth. In creating their own rigorous dogma, they insulate themselves from corrupting influences from the pleroma which gives them the tools to fight its threats but makes them incompatible for the future they desire. Thus, in order to fight the damned, they must become damned themselves.
 
Any Means Necessary:
            Recognizing the scale and power of the threat they oppose, the MLF takes a very broad approach. They do not have the technologies of the H.A.I or other Technocratic groups nor do they have the divine blessing of more faith based Hunters. They strive the middle ground, strengthening themselves through their devotion to their own principles or adopting what new advances and technology they can in order to be strong enough to face their foes.
            In essence, the MLF is composed of all three types of Hunters. They have those that utilize technology to level the playing field with daemons. These MLF operators will utilize body armour, a slew of military hardware both experimental and conventional and whatever local resources they can obtain to eliminate their targets. They will be the first to attempt controversial implants or utilize the most stable of a Technocrat’s arsenal.
            Then there are the devotees. These agents are more like faith based Hunters, having given their entire dedication to the Cult of Reason. They shield themselves through the worship and blessings of Reason, Justice and Truth and tapped into the pleroma energy generated by this veneration to fight.
            Finally, the MLF will employ the vagabond Hunter. These are the solitary and often isolated individuals without any remarkable resources to combat the supernatural. Many maintain this is how the true MLF first began before its organization. It was just a few individuals who came to the horrific realization that there are other things that stalk our world and tried to put a stop to them without any remarkable methods or tools. Armed with just knives, handguns and their own wits, they rely on superstitious local rituals and luck to get them through their battles. More often than not, these Hunters discover that most “traditional” hunting tools was essentially to dope up before combating a monster. The mental heightening properties of many drugs can give almost a supernatural level of prowess unachievable through sobriety. Needless to say, the vast majority of these hunters usually succumb to the inevitable addictions developed in their hunting careers. With their access to alternative methods, the MLF doesn’t encourage this route with its agents but more often than not, their recruits are usually already experienced in this method to embrace another route.  These are also the recruits that are usually brought in with prior experience and, as such, the MLF has been attempting to institute a new hiring method that will find suitable candidates which they can then train in a less dangerous hunting method though given the ease of use, many recruits fall into habitual drug use anyway often as a supplement to their other tools before wholly embracing the addiction.