Category Archives: Criticism

The Alliance of the Century Part 1

Summoner Wars and its art belongs to Plaid Hat Games and Cupidsart. Find Alliances at their website http://www.plaidhatgames.om

Summoner Wars and its art here and below belongs to Plaid Hat Games and Cupidsart. Find Alliances at their website http://www.plaidhatgames.om

I’ve written a few words on the board game Summoner Wars before. It’s a fun little 2-player game that Derek will never discuss because it lacks the deep strategic element found in Netrunner or Tanto Cuore. However, my sister enjoys the game, the rules are pretty simple and the gameplay itself is straightforward enough that you don’t need a lot of investment into it to have some fun.

So as Kait gets more and more involved with the game, I’m hoping it serves as a gateway drug so that one day she may actually want to play Diplomacy or the Republic of Rome.

Hey, a man can dream.

Anyway, there is a big release coming up for Summoner Wars. For those not in the know, Summoner Wars is a cross between a board game and a collectible card game. Each player chooses a summoner which comes with a preset deck of cards that is customizable–to a point–which they then play upon a 8×8 (I think, I’m too lazy to check the box) grid that adds an element of positioning to an otherwise simplified game of Magic: the Gathering. We got into the game with the Master Box release that had six different factions to choose. Since then, we’ve grabbed three separate faction decks to add a little more variety bringing our total options up to nine.

Summoner Wars: Alliances will add eight new summoners. That nearly doubles our current holdings. Even more exciting, for me, is that each summoner represents a union between two factions. An “alliance” if you will. A couple of these new pairings has resulted in unique game elements and mechanics but all of them follow the same deck building rules: an alliance summoner is free to add any cards from its composite factions to its deck. Essentially, the Alliances box will give us the tools to customize all the factions we’ve bought so far. If I were to get this product (wink, wink) then I would be nearly doubling the content which I currently own and expand the possibilities for decks even further.

So, yeah, I’m a little excited. In the lead up to the launch of the box, the developers at Plaid Hat Games have been giving weekly teasers for all the cards which will be released. Furthermore, if you pre-order from their website, you get all four of the promotional champions only available through purchases on their website. The lead designer will also sign… something, but that’s nowhere near as important as four mercenaries and a second play mat so we can hold 2v2 battles.

Hint, hint.

I’m telling you, Kait, that I want this for Christmas. Pre-order would be better with all the goodies it includes.

At any rate, in my excitement, I’ve been analyzing the revealed factions and comparing them amongst those already released. While the deck building possibilities amongst all the cards released thus far makes a true measure of each summoner’s strength quite difficult (especially for those which I haven’t yet played) I’m going to judge the factions and briefly discuss my thoughts towards game design, balance and functionality. This is a long winded intro do say that I’m doing a pre-review of the Summoner Wars: Alliances product before it even releases.

Yes, there’s very little going on in my life at the moment.

To start off, the eight combined factions being released are:

The Fallen Phoenixes: The “controversial” Prince Elien of the Phoenix Elves has partnered up with the ever decaying Ret-Talus of the horribly ineffective Fallen Kingdoms. Since I’ll never buy a starter box (they only contain two factions but come with more boards, dice and tokens that I don’t need anymore) I’ll never have to worry about those awkward Elien vs Elien battles as though we were recreating the epic battle between Luke Skywalker and the Swamp in The Empire Strikes Back.
The Tundra Guild: The Tundra Orcs and Guild Dwarves are considered two of the best and most frustrating factions to fight… if you’re stuck on the game’s iOS version. Personally, I think they’re overrated but, once again, their first summoners feature in a product which I’ll never purchase. A curious decision to combine the two which has led to the revealed Rune Events which adds an interesting twist to improving units seen in both faction’s second summoner sets.
The Cave Filth: Ermergerd erts teh ferth!
The Vargath Vanguard: Missed labeling opportunity. They should have been the Mountain Vanguard. Mountain Vargath and the Vanguard regularly come up on the short end of the stick when people discuss tier lists so the question lies whether their alliance will actually improve their original summoners.
The Sand Cloaks: I love Cloaks. I love Sand Goblins. I’m going to love Sand Cloaks. Kait is going to hate them.
The Jungle Shadow: In our impromptu tournament with the factions we owned (Master Box plus Cloaks and Filth) the Shadow Elves managed to get into the top four. We just recently grabbed the Jungle Elves. They make sense as a combined faction as both play fast and aggressive but how will their alliance play on these themes of mobility and assassination?
The Deep Benders: Now here is an actually controversial pairing. The Deep Dwarves and Benders are two of the most powerful factions despite not being expanded with a second summoner like half the other factions. The Benders came out on top in our tournament and, had Kait not sabotaged the Deep Dwarves, they probably would have been second. Will their first real expansion be even more dominating?
The Swamp Mercenaries: Kait loves the horribly misleading Swamp Orcs. They grow vine walls (I know, they should be Jungle Orcs or they should grow root walls but here we are) which spread like a plague across the board choking out strategic locations and being generally obnoxious. The very close second place finisher in our tournament their combination with the Mercenary faction is a little odd but someone had to be stuck with the sellswords, I suppose.

Obviously, all that comes next is going to be speculation. I could do indepth posts on each faction and what I think of them but, in the sake of time, I’m simply going to give them a short ranking and a small blurb on why I think they deserve their spots. Let’s begin with the best.

1. Ermergerd erts teh ferth! (Cave Filth)

Personally, I think the original Filth faction is a top bet for being the best in the game. It’s certainly top three and balancing the faction is incredibly difficult because the Filth play incredibly different from everyone else. In a metagame that has revolved strongly around defensive play and heavy champion line-ups, the Filth stand out as being neither. Their unique mechanic, mutations, allows them to change one of their common units into a unique summon which is neither champion or common but something in between. The original summoner The Demagogue is especially powerful for his inherent ability allows him to search his deck or discard for the mutations he needs as well as give him a slow economic advantage by pulling cards from his discard pile which he can then burn for magic at the sacrifice of an attack.

Put simply, the Filth are a mid to late game deck that looks to play defensive until they generate a strong economic advantage by fueling their summoning costs with recycled mutations before flooding their opponent with powerful units that will tear apart commons and champions alike. I love them. Kait even loves them. All hail the Filth!

The new dude, The Warden, is interesting in that his alliance with the Cave Goblins is anything but an alliance. Presenting himself as an antiquated tyrant, the Warden introduces the “Prison Pile.” This acts as a sort of economic “bank.” Abilities that affect a player’s magic pile do not affect the Warden’s prison pile. Thus, the dreaded Magic Drain event can possibly be mitigated by the Warden by leaving his magic pile empty and undrainable.

This guy is probably the worst mutation coming out. Just so… you know… you have some idea of the faction’s measure when the worst is a 4 strength, 3 health for 3 magic.

For the most part, the Prison Pile doesn’t add a lot of strategic depth. The Warden can, for free, shuffle a single card from the prison pile to his magic pile. More than anything, the Prison creates an extra step for him to interact with his army. This would be an issue if the Cave Filth weren’t designed along the same vein as the Filth: make everything so damn amazing that the extra hassle is irrelevant. Technically, the Filth require two cards to get their “mutations” going and when they die they give twice the magic power to their opponent.

On the other hand, you can spend 3 magic to get a 3 strength, 3 health monster which enemies are too terrified to strike back and if it gets weakened you can always mutate that baby back to your hand to inflict upon your next devotee. The Warden has a similar “flawed advantage” which is really just an advantage for him. His basic unit, the Prisoner, has a 50% chance upon being summoned to just pop into your Prison. Course for a 1 strength 2 health unit for free, it’s a bit of a steal on its own. Combined with the fact the Warden himself can just turned “failed summons” into magic once per turn, the Cave Filth player hasn’t lost anything with his unruly subjects.

Furthermore, a lot of his cards require fuel from the Prison. Legion, Soul Eater, Scabbicus and Hector all need or grow stronger the more suckers you’ve locked up. The Warden will start stockpiling subjugates long before his inherent enslaving ability of sending destroyed units to Prison kicks in. To “balance” this “negative” the Cave Filth come with some of the best priced units. 3 strength 7 health for 4 magic is something you won’t find anywhere else. Plus they can have the most powerful unboosted unit in the game: 5 strength and 6 health. Granted, you pay out the nose for that guy. Hilarious enough, even Hector can grow astronomically if enough pressure isn’t applied to the Warden and he can get a rowdy Prison built. He gains 1 strength for every two prisoners beneath his care, has 6 health and a measly 4 cost. To compare, Leah Goodwin is the only other 0 strength card in the game who grows with an increasing economy pool and she has 5 health for 3 cost and maxes out her strength at 4.

Yeah, the Cave Filth are silly.

2. I’m not biased! (Sand Cloaks)

The Sand Goblins were the faction with which I was introduced to Summoner Wars. The Cloaks were my first faction received after the Master’s Box. Both hold a fond place in my heart even though they’re a little lackluster without second summoners or reinforcement decks. The alliance, however, is easily the top in the box.

The scholar both makes the Sand Cloaks and is easy builds for magic. Free (yay 0 magic!) and melee means he’ll be hiding in the back just quietly keeping your event abilities coming back and pumping your troops.

The Sand Cloaks introduce Event Abilities. These events are like prior summoners’ upgrades which went under a unit to improve them. Unlike Bolvi and Torgan, however, these cards can be moved around and synchronized with all the pieces of the deck. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the two stand out factions in the Alliance box are also the two decks that introduce their own unique mechanics which almost every unit reinforces or improves. All nine abilities open to Marek are strong abilities and they can not be lost like Filth mutations. Though they can only improve one unit at a time, Marek’s inherent ability lets her grant the bonus she holds to another unit once per round. Considering that you can enchant her with Camouflage (which makes it that she can only be attacked by adjacent units), you can make a very robust force with very few individuals. Nearly every unit in this deck is ranged as well, the sole exception being the unobtrusive scholar who allows you to move around your event abilities even from your own discard pile.

The only weakness the Sand Cloaks have is that there isn’t inherently any source of strong damage amongst their cards. Only one card naturally has 3 strength and all the commons natively have 2. However, their champions are cheap (4, 5 and 6 respectively) as are their units. That you can then give abilities to each of them to strengthen them or make them hard to kill gives the Sand Cloaks a very strong advantage that will overcome their inherent frailty.

3. Swamp Mercenaries

I’ll just say it: Glurblub, the new summoner, is worse than Mugglug. Yes, the swamp orcs have stupid names. No, it’s not a good idea to say that to their face.

It’s the god damn Boarboon! RAWR! I actually don’t hate the guys. They’re taking the place of Savagers so they’re slightly weaker (1 less strength after the first turn) for cheaper. It’s amazing how much of a difference 1 magic can make.

Mugglug has the far stronger ability to spread his swamp. Any unit next to his walls which dies grows a vine wall. Glurblub only gets vine walls natively from his ranged attacks. Overall, I predict smaller swamps with Glur but faster invasion of the enemy’s board with those swamps. Which is good because the real strength of the walls is giving advanced summoning positions to overwhelm defences. Glur even takes this further by having a 2 strength, 1 health for 1 magic swordsman which is a statline I love for its pressure and aggression. The boarboons, his cheaper ravagers, have 3 strength on the turn they’re summoned. Though they essentially lose any extra abilities beyond the first turn, this is not actually a big negative given the proliferation of “nullify” abilities or cards that are starting to return units to their owner’s hands. Glur also finally comes with a 0 cost common though he can’t attack them for free walls. But the slippery swamp rats are open to his Spore Carrier events which lets him destroy his units to grow walls where necessary. Glub won’t choke his opponent out of the board but he will plant a garden in their front yard and immediately attack the house with it. And while Mik was designed for Mugglug’s deck (finally a useful champion below 6 magic), Glurb has a 3 attack 3 health 4 cost champion that can negate one attack so long as he is beside a vine wall.

It’s a good thing that Glurb flings his walls too since his deck is entirely composed of melee units.

4. Tundra Guild

They’re good and bad. I don’t know what else to say. Hogar was just recently revealed and my gut instinct is that he isn’t that great. I’m looking at scribes as the old, Master Box design of “always include one auto build as magic unit.” Scribes are probably one of the worst units released in the entire box. They have 1 attack, 1 health and 0 cost which I don’t super hate but their special ability lets them look at one card from the top of the deck per scribe and allow Hogan to put those cards back in any order whenever a Rune Event is used.

So, to get the most out of their ability, you need at least two scribes sitting on the field. You also only get 6 chances to trigger their power since that is the total number of Rune Events in Hogar’s deck. You can’t fling scribes at the enemy and immediately kill them to deny their magic since you need them to stick around the board. With them being melee, you aren’t likely to attack with them at all. So they’re just going to sit on your side of the field being useless hoping that you get a good Rune Event draw which will let you manipulate your pile for your rather lackluster champions to be a little less awful.

They’re bad. At least the swamp rats can be killed for vine walls.

The marauder doesn’t fare any better. It’s a 2 attack, 2 health for 2 magic. When he is enchanted with a rune, he can attack at range. However, you’re never going to waste one of your very limited Rune Events on these guys. So he’s a 2/2/2 which doesn’t really live longer than a 2 strength, 1 health unit but at twice the cost.

The only really great card in Hogar’s deck is the Ice Golems and they are really good. Rune Events are, essentially, Event Abilities that can stack on a single unit. However, unlike Event Abilities, any player can spend 2 magic during their event phase to discard all Rune Events on one target. So, yes, you can pump Hogar up with a ludicrous number of enchantments to turn him into a murder machine. And yes, the opponent can clear all of them for the low price of 2 magic on their turn to leave Hogar naked and sad.

Single handedly putting Hogar in the top four of the upcoming releases. Ice Golems rock. Or… chill?

On the up side, the cost to erase the runes is the same as Magic Drain so it’s a pretty hefty price. More than that, the previously mentioned Ice Golems get counted as Ice Walls when they are enchanted. This means they operate as mobile summoning platforms much like the Swamp Orc’s vine walls if they were on legs and could punch idiots in the face. Plus, Hogar’s boring ability (walls are only damaged on rolls of 4 or higher) stacks when the Ice Golems are enchanted making them extremely hardy.

Unfortunately, Hogar’s champions are all really expensive despite their abilities being pretty lackluster. He has two 6 cost champions and one 7 cost but only one of them actually has 3 strength. But it becomes 4 strength if you happen to have a Rune Event on the top of your deck when he attacks! At least he’s better than Dagger I suppose. Except Dagger can be built into Marek’s deck so he can gain Greater Sneak on top of his Backstab…

The “random chance” of the Tundra Orcs is represented in these champion abilities but, unlike most of the tundra dwellers, the champions aren’t really that great if they aren’t getting lucky.

Kevin and the Pursuit of Entertainment

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Accessed from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7d/Hector_and_the_Search_for_Happiness_poster.jpg

Hector and the Search for Happiness belongs to Koch films, Egoli Tossel Films and its associated peoples.

“You hold all the cards, Hector” grins the Tibetan monk. It’s a shame that he’s not playing poker.

It’s Thanksgiving up in somewherepostcultureland and that means that we are dragged back to the quaint little hamlet of our births in order to massacre turkeys in the name of some hungry god of year-end feasts and despondent familial gatherings.

It also means that Derek has no excuse to not spend time with me since he’s in the area. To celebrate this coming together of such intellectual forces, we felt it prudent to strive out and experience something that had not been done in quite some time. We wanted to see a movie.

Unfortunately, Derek already saw Gone Girl which left us with woefully nothing else to watch. When your options are Dracula Untold and Hector and the Search for Happiness, you have to wonder if you’re really left with a choice at all. Neither Derek nor I knew anything about Hector and his happiness but we certainly knew enough about Dracula and his untelling to choose the former. Course, that Hector was featuring only once a day at the late hour and in the small theatre should have been hint enough but we both enjoyed ‘That Guy from Hot Fuzz” enough to give the movie a shot. We arrived just as it was starting to a theatre that must have literally held six other people. Well, at the very least it would give me something to talk about on the blog.

I think Hector’s greatest failing is in it being so… safe. It’s generic. It’s a movie. I don’t really know how else to describe the experience. It was fine, both Derek and I intoned as we left the theatre. The biggest problem was that it wasn’t made for us. It’s a rom-com, likely the one genre least likely to spur our interest. Had we taken dates and not been each other’s date, I’m sure we would have gotten something by the end to warrant the ten dollar admission. Overall, the movie is light on the comedy, light on the romance and heavy on the sentimentality.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Those that want to skip having to look up the wikipedia article to learn the movie’s narrative can read on! Those that are already bored with this movie, well, congratulations I just saved you two hours.

Hector opens with probably its best scene. Simon Pegg (see, I do know his name after all) is flying a little yellow biplane with a great French flag on its ass, dressed in clothing reminiscent of a nineteen-twenties silent pilot film. In his passenger seat is a black and white pug with goggles and scarf with both passengers grinning from ear to ear as they soar amongst the clouds. Hector, getting wrapped up in the whole adventure, decides to do a barrel roll. My first thought as the plane starts to tilt is “There is no way that dog could be strapped in” and, sure enough, as the plane flips upside down, the little black and white pug falls out like a stone to plummet through the bottom of the screen. Well, now I’m grinning ear to ear as Hector slowly realizes the horror of his actions.

Then some cartoon villain pops out from the seat and tries to strangle Hector.

Needless to say the protagonist wakes up. We’re then greeted to Hector’s day to day life, narrated in a children’s storybook style with a grandfatherly narrator that details how Simon Pegg lives a structured, orderly life with toast properly squared each morning and his dutiful girlfriend happily settled into a mothering role of caring to Hector’s near OCD needs. We discover that Hector is a therapist who has a seemingly complex door arrangement in order to keep his patients from ever seeing one another. Of course, the film is quick to point out that, much like his morning routine, Hector is disconnected from the routine of his job and simply returns stock replies to his patients all the while doodling pointless pictures on his notepad and arranging a follow up session the next week. Hector’s girlfriend, Miss Frost from Die Another Day, is some marketing member of a large pharmaceutical company and during a celebration for their latest successful ad campaign she is teased for still being unmarried while Hector sits silently at the table.

And by now it is absolutely clear the entire plotline of the story. Hector is going to realize that his job is a sham and is going to go on some grand journey vaguely reminiscent of the Grand Tour in order to discover that true happiness is in his heart and putting a ring on his girlfriend’s finger.

And that’s exactly what happens.

It’s a story filled with cliches and empty moralities in order to give the audience “the feels” of thinking they’re watching something touching, sweet or profound. It’s none of those. Hector is safe, standard and espouses traditional ideals. Presumably that’s what its audience is there to see.

Personally, I find it boring. For what it was, I can’t say whether it was any better or worse than any other movie with the same aspirations. As I’ve said, I have no interest in the genre or the story-telling. Ostensibly, the biggest conflict in the movie is that Hector is longing for some old girlfriend Agnes and his whole trip to “research what makes people happy to help his patients” is simply an excuse to check up on Agnes to see if she wants to hook up again.

What I personally found, however, was beneath all the generic sentimentality was a rather hilariously morally bereft story. The very first day Hector is on this journey of “self-discovery” he invites a prostitute back to his room in Shanghai and tries to bed her while listing some rubbish about “Happiness is the ability to love two women simultaneously.” Of course, Hector has no idea that the young Chinese girl is a prostitute and when he discovers this, he is absolutely devastated. The movie then moves on as if something of value was learned.

Except, not once is Hector’s lack of fidelity truly addressed. Presumably his disconnect with Miss Frost for these last five years stems from his emotional affair he’s having with the photograph of him, Michael and Agnes on a beach during college. And the first thing he does on his trip is physically fool around behind his girlfriend’s back (which he never discloses to her). Hector supports this unpleasant prostitution by indulging and endorsing his banker friend’s lifestyle. When in Africa, he assists a well known drug lord which, presumably, we’re suppose to believe is led to reform his wicked ways because Hector showed him a spot of kindness.

Of course he doesn’t. Not to mention his continual habit of stealing people’s property and never returning it. Though, I suppose we’re meant to take his pen thefts as a charming quirk. Clearly whoever wrote this story was not on the receiving end of a perpetual pen thief. It becomes less charming when it’s your only pen they nab.

And what movie would it be if there weren’t some awful, convoluted and ultimately empty science thrown in as a cheap mechanic to try and justify the sappy tale. When Hector does meet up with Agnes he discovers that she’s happily married with children and not pining after Hector and his gallant return in the august years of her life. When learning of his “Happiness Search” she instructs him to visit with some crackpot scientist who is researching happiness. The audience is then introduced to the narrator and, thankfully, the initial impression is that this man is off his rocker than an honest to god scientist doing serious science. I mean, he walks around spouting nonsense like “It is not the pursuit of happiness which is important but the happiness of pursuit” while wearing some ratty toque and looking slightly deranged and possibly high. His “experiment” is to shove someone into an isolated box which looks suspiciously like a soundproof booth and have his participants think of three random memories which invoke either sadness, happiness or fear. He then guesses the order of the conjured memories based on neuronal activation monitored on his end.

Oddly enough, his booth doesn’t block cell phone signals which makes you wonder why he’s shoving them into an isolation booth in the first place if it doesn’t isolate anything. This is the moment when Hector gets a call from his girlfriend and after his sad thought (her marrying someone else) and his fear thought (being killed by African warlords) he confesses his trip and… does something? Possibly says he loves her, it’s kind of vague and the scientist exclaims with triumph as if he’s witnessing something profound “It’s all three!”

This, of course, is transposed over images of the Tibetan monastery with its stupid little coloured flags whipping in the wind with the scientist’s stupid coloured brain flashing the same colours. The music swells as actors hemorrhage emotion from their eyes and we all feel better about ourselves even though nothing is being said or learned. Hector’s problem was ultimately solved by having a telephone conversation with his girlfriend which could have easily been held back at London and didn’t necessitate him promoting destructive behaviours like the excess of Shanghai investment banking and Africa drug trading. He then returns to London to continue conning his patients out of their money with his weekly sessions but this time everyone is doing it with a big grin so presumably that makes it all better.

No, ultimately what I wanted to see would be an investigation of happiness. What makes people happy and is happiness ultimately something worthwhile to pursue? This movie seeps with Western standard armchair philosophy that happiness is the be all and end all of our life goals. And yet, we get some glimpses of things otherwise. The investment banker is incredibly rich and has traded traditional happiness with the accumulation of money and the fake reality which he is able to buy with it. He builds his happiness in the illusion that hookers are young college students who fall enormously in love with these old, out of shape white men who come and are just the hippest thing at their little dance clubs.

Then there’s the African drug lord who sells a very different kind of happiness. People who partake of his drugs are getting euphoria just as fake as the bankers and, presumably, just as destructive. There’s a parallel between the drug lord and banker which goes completely ignored. Not to mention there’s the unspoken association of wealth and happiness. Hector and his girlfriend joke a couple of times about Hector’s experience in Shanghai being “so that’s how the rich live” and yet both of them have lucrative work and live extraordinarily well in London (their flat has its own, private elevator!). Even married Agnes is living quite well with her mathematician husband in a grand house with its own pool.

Ultimately, Hector’s search for happiness is the well-to-do, white upper class westerner’s search for happiness. It’s peering through the tiny Skype box at a world of lavish bathrooms trying to find that one item or object that will bring meaning and joy to their life. I can’t be the only one that finds it incredibly shallow that the best Hector can scrape from his experiences is that happiness is some girl and getting married. It’s about as meaningful as his little book filled with those delightful phrases, “Happiness is not know the full story.”

No Free Will For You!

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Apparently, I’m a compatibilist. I wasn’t aware of this fact myself but Sam Harris has informed me as such so it must be true. I, certainly, didn’t consider myself as such but that is irrelevant because I am not the author of my own words. Or, truly, the author of anything at all. Thus, I should preface all my work with, “I would like to thank the universe for writing all my stories for me. I would further like to blame the universe for not unloading a helluva lot more success upon me for this work that it did on my behalf.”

For those who aren’t in on the minutia of my life, I’ve been spending the last week in a heated debate about Free Will. Mostly, this has revolved around my inexplicable compulsion to engage in Derek’s annual year moving when he likes to box all his worldly possessions and shuffle them a few feet or hundreds of kilometers depending on whether the sun is trying to murder me or not. Why have I felt compelled to consistently assist him with this duty when he has never returned the favour? I could tell you a lengthy tale about how he’s my friend, how I like to help those I’m close with and the dated ideals of social reciprocity and bonding suggest that this is advantageous to my survival as it enables me to enlist his help at a future date should I so desire.

Sadly, I have discovered all of this is a lie. Thanks a lot Sam Harris.

Accessed from http://americanhumanist.org/system/storage/2/b8/d/2962/fw.jpg

Free Will obviously belongs to Sam Harris and whatever publishing house has claimed its rights. You can find the book here: http://www.samharris.org/free-will

I just finished Free Will but the aforementioned good doctor. It’s, ostensibly, a rejection of free will based on neuroscience and psychology. The book was, considering it’s subject matter, a surprising 65 pages. Needless to say, it wasn’t the most verbose argument I’ve ever read but at least it made for a quick read. For all that I can (and will!) say about Sam Harris, the man does take an approach similar to Derek’s–focus on comprehensibility over a stuffy and impenetrable air of academia.

By Mr. Harris’ admission, it is “difficult to think about law, politics, religion, public policy, intimate relationships, morality…without first imagining that every person is the true source of his or her thoughts and actions.” Of course, Harris wouldn’t have a book if he didn’t propose that all of this is an illusion. The jacket of the book goes on to explain that Harris will enlighten us all on the truth of the human mind while not undermining society’s morals or the importance of political freedom all the while changing our understanding of life’s most importance questions.

At least, that’s what the cover claims. In sixty-five pages, I too would have been impressed if he’d accomplished this. If you hadn’t picked up my tone yet, I am unconvinced. Not that some lowly blogger in some remote part of the Internet must try be impressed by Harris’ work for legitimacy, especially when our only traffic are copyright lawyers hunting down malicious use of intellectual infringement, but here we are anyway. Thankfully, it’s not my fault (the infringement, to be clear, though I’m not to be blamed for the forth coming ramble on psychology and philosophy).

Let’s jump into the meat of things, shall we? Free will has been a hot debate in the course of philosophy for… I don’t know… longer than I was an undergraduate that’s for certain! You would thusly imagine that someone who so definitely claims to put the subject to rest would have some lengthy treatise on his position. Alas, only the first fourteen pages of the book are devoted to actual research–which made the work even quicker for me to finish.

If you haven’t heard of Libet’s experiment then you are not alone. The poor man is already dead and only now does his work seem to be gaining any traction with the wider public. Isn’t that always the case? To be fair to Mr. Libet, we really didn’t have a choice in the matter.

Benjamin Libet’s experiment, however, is somewhat interesting in the discussion of consciousness and decision making. I won’t bog the blog down in details that no one is truly interested in, but he demonstrated through the use of a digital clock that when people “consciously” choose to make a decision via button press on when to pause the clock, neuronal reading of their brains demonstrated that there was a build-up of activation which predicted said behaviour upwards of ten seconds before conscious awareness.

This, Harris hinges upon, is the definitive evidence that free will is an illusion (e.d. – ok, there’s a bit more research but this is essentially the launching point so forgive me the simplification). He puts forth the “controversial” position that our wills are simply the byproduct of background causes of which we are unaware and lie beyond our control. I place controversial in quotations because, ultimately, if you have engaged in a discussion about free will, then you know ho incoherent the concept is.

As Harris puts forward, our thoughts are not spontaneously generated within our conscious thought. This shouldn’t really be that surprising. You don’t determine that you are hungry after long consideration. Likewise, you don’t will yourself into sleepiness but realizing you’re tired or hungry are both realizations of your own body’s feedback. Likewise, Harris purports, we are not the creators of our conscious thoughts and that these very words which I’m typing upon this page sort of congealed from some unspecified void and was enacted by my fingers longer before my consciousness truly became aware of them.

It is this assertion which we can begin to see the problem in Harris’ position. Reading through his book, he seems to be intrinsically motivated to disprove the concept of conservative or religious thought–that we are truly independent beings being held back by either our own laziness (conservatism) or disobedience (theology). Ironically, Harris seems primarily motivated to reject the dualism philosophy of consciousness: we are biological beings being manipulated by a disconnected soul or mind. And yet, Harris argues just as vehemently that there is a dualism nevertheless. He never specifies what the “self” is and thus, when he argues our thoughts are never self-generated, he fails to say where the hell they come from. By Harris’ description, there’s some mystery “thought void” which simply shunts thoughts into our minds which we misconstrue as originating from ourselves like a petulant redditor who has stumbled across a humorous cartoon and wishes to post it under their own name to reap that delicious, delicious reddit karma.

To Harris, the unconscious mind is some masterful machine ultimately directing our bodies. It’s this mysterious black box formed by our genes and shaped by our environment into a highly predictable machine that makes us dance to its invisible puppet strings. His book is nearly sixty pages of repeating this statement again and again, “You do not generate your thoughts. You do not generate your thoughts. You do not generate your thoughts.”

Of course, he can’t say how our thoughts are generated. They’re simply intrusive worms into our mind garden which we are forced to tolerate as they eat through our mulch. He poses this problem without giving an inch on the obvious answer: a person is the combination of their unconscious and conscious processes. This seems, to me, immediately obvious. I would have thought that the global penetration of Freudian theory into the public consciousness had made this concept a clear alternative. It is the interaction between conscious and unconscious thought, motivation and action which gives rise to the entity of individuality. It’s a unique combination influenced and formed by the genes we inherit and the environment we inhabit that structures our heuristics, biases and perspective.

But for Harris, this is not enough. Even Libet didn’t argue that free will was absent but proposed a sort of conscious “veto” which our higher cognitive processes were able to dictate to our unconscious urges. We can “feel” hungry but stop ourselves from eating in a garbage can until we get home for a proper meal. Harris concedes (and must as there’s an incredible body of research to demonstrate) that our abilities are formed based on our personal reflection and motivation which often leads to overcoming short-term desires to follow better long-term goals. But this isn’t good enough for Harris because the initial drives are produced in the unconscious. The heuristics you utilize are, according him, nothing more than previous reasoning and influence on behaviour which are nothing more than reasoning and prior influences before that. Down and down we go with turtles upon turtles with no end in sight. Somewhere down the line, someone spilled a glass of milk and that’s made you the angry, aggressive driver you are today.

I had, initially, written a lot of words to discuss the theories Harris proposes, but the format which he writes makes a lot of them redundant. Essentially, the crux of his argument is this confusing and contradicting statement:

“Choices, efforts, intentions, and reasoning influence our behaviour–but they are themselves part of a chain of causes that precede conscious awareness and over which we exert no ultimate control. My choices matter–and there are paths toward making wiser ones–but I can not choose what I choose. And if it ever appears that I do–for instance, after going back and forth between two options–I do not choose to choose what I choose. There is a regress here that always ends in darkness. I must take a first step, or a last one, for reasons that are bound to remain inscrutable.”

Harris has, essentially, framed the discourse in such a way that he can never be wrong. Free will, he proposes, can only be demonstrated if you can be the sole and uninfluenced source of your own thoughts. But this is a ludicrous position. We have, by nearly all consensus, evolved from organisms which had no such capabilities. Our consciousness is not the sole attribute of our personhood. We are the culmination of both our conscious directive and unconscious motivations. Think about that for a second. How would you describe yourself? And how many of those attributes did you consciously generate?

Not a lot, I presume. I never choose to be a male. I didn’t ever make the conscious decision to be gay. My self identity is based upon my own introspection, interaction with others and capabilities I have demonstrated. There is no value in thinking I’m a terrific basketball player if I have never picked up a ball in my entire life. I did not separate and exist as my own entity the moment I achieved some sense of consciousness. The two spiders on my wall are not one entity because they have no demonstrable higher cognitive functioning.

Harris puts forth a hard vision of determinism. All things are, essentially, preordained by his estimation. The only component he’s lacking for a truly religious view is a sentient, all-powerful creator to kickstart the process. He tries to argue that there’s a difference between determinism and fatalism but he provides no evidence for this. If we truly are just passengers in this twisted machine of genes and history, then we have no capability for altering its course. All thoughts originate in that unfathom unconscious and we are powerless to stop whichever ones bubble out and we blindly follow. And yet, Free Will is chalk full of the importance of our choices, motivations and intentions. He dislikes fatalism because it’s an unpleasant consequence of his theory but he never disproves it from his position.

This is, ultimately, my dislike of Free Will. It’s philosophy masquerading as psychology. The only evidence he draws upon is incredibly divisive in its interpretation. Many people debate what’s truly being measured and what it ultimately means on our conscious will. There seems intuitively, a difference between pressing a button and choosing your spouse. We have lots of research on unconscious and conscious decisions as well as a good idea of what consciousness can achieve. We, however, have very little information on how unconscious and conscious processes interact or even how decisions are made. We know so little about the brain that it is an understatement to even suggest Harris’ conclusions are grossly premature. His extrapolations are, invariably, well beyond the scope of the conversation we can have based on the research we have.

I do not begrudge him, at the end. From my reading, I ultimately agree with much of his motivations. But his conclusion seems shortsighted and underdeveloped. He provides no good explanation for why a compatibilist (the argument of our self being both unconscious and conscious elements) is wrong or how his vision truly does not change much in our perspectives of the world. In fact, there’s a very brief chapter on research which suggests that abandoning the concept of free will can lead people to acting more aggressive and dishonest. These studies he simply blithely dismisses because he, personally, has not acted that way.

And, finally, his concluding stream of consciousness ramble is incredibly incoherent. James Joyce did it far better.

The Whore of Babylon

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While on my travels, I happened to take the entirety of Firefly with me to while away those long hours on planes, trains and automobiles. Ostensibly, Kait and I would watch together and have something to discuss during our eight our explorations of Canada’s back roads but Kait thought it would be more entertaining to get sick and spend her time unconscious or vomiting.

However, I can’t really write a blog post on digestive discomfort… or can I?

Accessed from http://cdn2.nerdapproved.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Firefly.jpg?874fb4

Firefly and all its component parts are belong to Fox and Mutant Enemy Productions in their respective capacities.

I digress. Coming off my month of positivity, I knew I was going to immediately fall into my hyper-critical, cranky and condemning nature. I can not help it–learning from failure is so much easier than from successes. There’s also far more to discuss with things that don’t work than those that do. However, during my month of positivity I mentioned a number of things that I enjoyed. One of those was the aforementioned cancelled television show Firefly from the eponymous Josh Whedon of Avengers fame. And though I like Firefly, that does not make it immune to flaws and critique. Reliving those handful of episodes reminded me of all the wonder and frustration of the series. It was entertaining but it also had its share of issues.

And I’m going to take about one of the biggest ones.

Firefly is interesting as it serves as a retro-futuristic setting much in the enjoyable vein as Fallout. It creates a universe set well beyond our time and far beyond our galaxy but instead of the fantastical dressings of similar setups like Star Wars, Firefly goes to great pains to be both familiar and immediately understandable. It is more a fusion of genres, smashing elements of science fiction and space operas with a traditional cowboy western. It’s a fascinating mix of old and new. Individuals stomp around in combat boots, duster coats and bowler hats while firing bullet-less firearms or playing holographic pool. Taking this unfamiliar smattering of familiar elements to a greater extreme, Firefly also blends western and eastern influences into a peculiar hodge-podge where kanji and Cantonese decorates the sets just as much as horses and saddles.

It’s fun, interesting and somewhat weird. Anytime the audience begins to settle into its separate genre conventions, the show will rapidly upend expectations with its almost incongruent components. Cattle wrangling will be followed by high adrenaline space battles. Hi-tech robbery will shift into frontier firefights upon horseback. It follows its own madness that is so easy to settle in and lose oneself amongst. There is a lot of world building going on in both the show’s fore and background and as a universe it would serve as an excellent example of many elements we discuss on this blog.

Unfortunately, not all of it is seamless. Some elements seem too jarring and break the excellent mix of psychic experimentation and civil fighting. Two of the largest are its subjects of preachers, sin and sex. There is no denying the influence or importance of preachers on the wild frontier but the use of Firefly’s analog leaves much to be desired. The main character to represent this aspect of life-Shepard Book-is rather contradictory and underused in the thirteen episodes. Most of his personal plot even eschews his religious aspect and hints at the dark past which haunts him for the short series. It’s a convenient way to avoid the implications of his role in the galactic society but it leaves lingering questions of what faith appears like in this distant stretch of the cosmos. Ostensibly he is little more than a standard Christian missionary but given its far futuristic setting it is not unreasonable to assume that the face of the pious has changed during times even more bizarre than our own modern technological advances. Consequently, Book’s spiritual discussions rarely say anything of worth nor reveal much on spirituality in the Firefly universe. And outside of the pilot episode, there is no real indication that anyone else is particularly pious as nearly all religious iconography has vanished in this envisioning of what is to come.

Sorry, that’s a lie. Nearly all Christian iconography has vanished. There is tons of religious symbology in Firefly but it is almost solely devoted to Buddhist representations. While Shepard Book is called the “Soul of Serenity” in the crew commentary there is another member of the crew who is just as devout even if she follows a different set of teachings.

And she is perhaps the worst character in the show.

Inara Serra is a Companion and the one character of the show who has no right being on the spaceship Serenity. Which is unfortunate because Morena Baccarin is absolutely lovely and I would totally watch a show that was just about her. The big problem of Inara, however, was that the writers clearly had no god damn idea what to do with her.

Morena Baccarin as Inara Serra.

She was a whore. And she did whoring.

But Inara Serra serves as the best example of the advice “show – don’t tell.” From her introduction, we are graced with a woman of elegance and refinement. And the moment immediately following her stepping down the ragged steps of Serenity’s cargo hold the captain-Malcolm Reynolds-introduces her as a joke and a space prostitute. The audience is never shown her as anything else.

Which is concerning given the amount of dialogue devoted to the contrary. As I mentioned, Inara is a Companion which, supposedly, is a position in society that carries much power and sway. Her justification for being on the ship is that she “opens doors otherwise close to the crew.” Given that Mal and his band of misfits are either fringe members of society, fugitives or outlaws, the implication is that Inara represents the upper crust of refinement and social gravitas in the Firefly universe. But why or how she opens these doors is never explained. She is consistently and repeatedly shown as just a space prostitute. No more infuriating is this than in the episodes which are actually devoted to her: Shindig and Heart of Gold. The first is easily the worst episode in the entire series (in my humble opinion) and the second is also quite bad. Shindig was written to obvious explain this inherent separation between Inara and the crew of Serenity and explain exactly what she does. The episode goes to great lengths to talk about “two different worlds” and for the characters of Inara and Mal to struggle with entering each others.

And in Shindig, Inara is called out as a whore at least twice in her polite society to which she reacts with shock and surprise. Which is hilariously confusing because whenever anyone talks about her profession, that’s exactly how they treat her. Heart of Gold, on the other hand, is an episode specifically about a brothel unaffiliated with Companions… except it’s run by an ex-Companion and the crew is brought in on the request of the only Companion the series shows. Once again, Inara is intimately connected with prostitution through association and connection with the Madame. The series consistently shows Inara as a whore while constantly trying to argue she is not.

Which is a shame since the concept of Companions, ostensibly, is meant to represent a completely alien concept to the viewers. To say she is just a whore is to undermine the clear efforts the producers and designers of the show went to in order to suggest otherwise. Companions belong to a guild which requires years of service and devotion in order to obtain their credentials. Their lives are steeped in mysticism and spirituality. When Inara spends her time with a client, nearly every director goes to great pains to frame her service as an emotional and psychological session than just some cheap, throw-away sex. And there is the ever persistent insistence that Companions are not that which Mal continues to jape with perhaps The Train Job being the sole moment where we see Inara spring Mal and his first mate Zoe from constable custody with nothing but a ragtag story and a flash of her credentials. Inara is called the “Heart of Serenity” and her few scenes with Shepard Book suggests quite heavily that Book plays at being a priest but Inara actually serves in that spiritual propensity. He condemns and quotes scripture while she tends to the mending of personal crises and questions of faith. Book is represented as an officer than anything else–patrolling for breaches of scriptural law and morality while Inara serves more as a teacher and healer for the existential needs of her companions.

Fuck you copyright, now no one wins! This picture is mine so nobody can use it because we live in a stupid world.

Geisha are entertainers and hostesses. Their connection to sex is a western construct misconstrued from the American occupation of World War II. Photo credit: me.

Inara is best described as a space geisha with a heavy emphasis on her spiritual training. Unfortunately, Firefly falls into the western trap of misrepresenting the idea of geisha as being nothing more than upscale prostitutes which is far from the truth of the seemingly source of inspiration for the Companions. Consequently, this lack of understanding spirals grossly out of control to that Inara and her sex services are the sole point of representation and discussion with all other functions dismissed and ignored.

I find this infuriating because I enjoy science fiction and fantasy for its fantastical parts. It allows us to conceive, portray and explore ideas and peoples unhinged by the connotations and restrictions of modern times. It’s the speculation of speculative fiction which I believe draws the audience and thus Inara and the Companions should have been a major source of interest and intrigue. What would a highly influential guild of women courtesans mean for a society and its integration into the wider world? Why do these whores supposedly wield such power and how can this influence the way we see modern sex workers and sex itself?

According to Firefly, nothing and thus it is the series greatest misstep. But it need not be that way. As always, criticism without constructive feedback is useless. I have thought about Inara and the Companions and feel that, ultimately, the issue with the character rests on that early episode. Shindig was an unmitigated disaster which, had it been written better, probably could have taken Inara and elevated her to be the most complex and intriguing character on the ship instead of solely existing for cheap sexual tension and the butt of sex jokes.

And how you would do that is completely rewrite the character of Atherton Wing. Atherton is the man who hires Inara for the titled party. He first appears when Inara is browsing through a list of clients–as a Companion always chooses her clients instead of the other way around–and in the middle of her listening to an incredibly awkward proposition from some wide-eyed youth, Atherton bursts on Inara’s screen with a smile and grace. The two laugh and banter, making mention of how long its been since their last exchange and how he would be delighted if Inara would accompany him to the biggest party on the planet. Inara accepts with nary a hesitation.

The next time we see Atherton, he’s grossly belittling her to little more than a sex toy and angrily announcing that he paid for Inara’s service and she is little more than a servant and nothing else. This keeps in line with Inara the Whore but it is wholly inappropriate for Inara the Companion as well as the friendliness which Atherton first expressed when he propositioned her.

No, instead, Atherton should have been nothing but accommodating and gracious. He should have played the perfect “host.” When proposing that Inara give up her galactic trotting days and become his personal Companion, he should have made the focus specifically on what he could offer her and how he could meet her standards. His wealth, connections and prestige should have been presented as though they were an offering that made him worthy of her and not the other way around.

Oddly enough, “Half of the men wish you were on their arm but all of them wish you were in their bed” isn’t really the best way to woe a woman. Who knew?

For, I feel, the Companions should have served an integral part of the Firefly universe. They should have been “ambassadors” as Mal blithely teases in the pilot episode. They should have been the arbitrators of social standings. They should have been the neutral parties trained for years in reclusion in the many ways and protocols of the wide collection of planets in the core and rim. They more than the Alliance represent a unifying force amongst the disparate peoples. The smile of a Companion should bring fortune upon a person. Her dismissal would mean near social ruin. They should be dignitaries of class. For, they are trained to read and judge people, searching for those of pure spirit and to tend to their needs. Sex is but a minute portion of their work-a distinction that should be lost on all the plebeians who lack the refinement of higher society. The moment Inara stepped into the Shindig, she shouldn’t have been the one going around greeting the guests, it should have been the guests tripping over themselves in order to greet Inara.

The Companions, after all, choose their clients and those clients should be scrambling to make a good impression in order for the opportunity be on her arm at the next shindig.

This complete inversion of the power dynamic between woman and man, especially in the case of modern times in relation to client and service worker, would say far more about gender, sex and sexuality in the Firefly universe than any persistence demonstrated in the thirteen episodes which aired. This confounding relationship would also make an easy conflict to show how Malcolm Reynolds truly does not belong in that “world.” When he blithely asks Inara for a dance, his presumptuousness should have been met with gasps of shock from the attendants. When the issue of a duel between Mal and Atherton was raised, it should not have been Mal defending the honour of Inara but Atherton Wing. The series argues, numerous times, how inappropriate it is to refer to a Companion as merely a common “whore” and this episode should have demonstrated just that. Mal should have used this tactless jab at her profession and it should have been the very social casus belli Atherton needed in order to wrangle the captain into a sword duel he was wholly incapable of performing.

Gina Torres has nothing to do with this rant. She’s just awesome and I wanted to put her in.

Instead, the show was cheap. It was cheap in its portrayal of sex workers who are reduced to being nothing but cheap thrills despite their union and insistence to the contrary. It was cheap in its portrayal of its villains, going for blatant misogyny in order to instill antipathy towards Atherton instead of relying on his cunning and ability to manipulate Mal’s brashness and ignorance in order to create a favourable circumstance for him to remove a potential rival for Inara’s affections. But more than anything else, it was cheap towards Inara herself reducing a character focused on spiritual needs and guidance to just being a good lay for 100 credits.

Divinely Inspired

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Confession time: I didn’t get my work done.

Specifically, I am currently in the middle of Canadian nothingness (read: Sasketchawan) writing a post that was meant to be completed before I began this lengthy trip to the Yukon. I failed which means I am working within a tight timeframe as I pound out these thoughts in the few hours between my late evenings and early rises. However, it appears that Derek has started posting which is nice since he continues to ignore my desperate pleas for attention whenever I get a few seconds of precious Internet on this voyage.

At any rate, this is the final post I have for my wonderful “Month of Joy” or whatever we want to call this. I decided, since this is my last, I would do something different. Here at somewherepostculture, we are often a little behind the times. We review things that are often already ingrained into the cultural consciousness. Neither my colleagues nor I have the ability to experience new “art” as its produced and often when we find the time to look at it, the object in question has already come and gone through the public’s mind and we’re left overlooking some old relic seemingly unearthed from antiquity than anything new.

Well, this time will be slightly different.

While on the road I was bemoaning to my sister how I didn’t have anything in mind for my final week. I knew I wanted to cover yet another medium and I already settled that it would be video games. From prior posts, this should not have appeared too arduous a task as I quite enjoy that entertainment and have written many words at length about my thoughts on opinions of various products. However, when it came to discuss something I actually liked, things got difficult.

I was left with that nagging problem I mentioned in passing on previous posts. I didn’t want to cover well known or universally acclaimed games. Not that I don’t enjoy some of them but that there seemed little value in espousing their well known qualities. What is there to say about games like Dota 2, Team Fortress 2 or Portal that hasn’t been covered previously? Actually, given our focus here, I knew that I would be looking at role-playing games. They’re really my favourite genre that deals with narratives, characters and world building in any great capacity. And if anyone were to ask what my favourite rpg was, my immediate and fervent answer would be Baldur’s Gate II.

But that game is such a cornerstone in the genre. It is a game so good that it, essentially, ruined the company which created it. It’s shadow is long and dark with many titles being measured against it and, ultimately, coming up short. It is fantastic and it was a game I adamantly wanted to avoid reviewing.

My sister suggested I take a different approach. Instead of focusing on the tale, how about I focus on the gameplay? Video games are an interesting medium because of the interaction between creator and consumer. The most effective usage of the medium involves some “game” with the audience and perhaps I should discuss one where I really enjoyed that play. We tossed a few ideas back and forth and, ultimately, one title stood out above the others.

And it is a game I have not completed.

I do not like reviewing things that I have not finished–the reasons should be self apparent. Only in extraordinary circumstances will I break this preference (for example, if I read a book so awful that I am physically incapable of completing it… and it truly is that bad). For this game in particular, I know I’m going to do a full review when I finish it. However, I am having so much fun now that it seems remiss not to highlight its positives and demonstrate that there are still quality titles being released that make me feel that wonder and excitement many assume I am simply unable to feel.

I speak, of course, of Divinity: Original Sin.

Accessed at http://www.feedyournerd.com/uploads/2/4/0/4/24044140/161820_orig.jpg

Divinity Original Sin belongs to Larian Studios and is totally amazing and you should check it out.

Divinity is a curious game. It is not the first of its title by its creator studio though it’s certainly the first that I have played. It was one of the latest of the kickstarter darlings but fell well after I had chosen to participate in the experiment. As I refuse to kickstart any more games until my original “investments” bear fruit, I politely ignored Divinity. This was for the best as I had little expectations when I finally came to its release. It, however, received quite a bit of positive word of mouth and that it was co-op excited my friends to no end. Thus, Derek and I grabbed two copies when it went on a Steam release sale and sat down to enjoy as much as we could before my excursion to our country’s cold, white and isolated north.

To put bluntly, the game is fun. I don’t use that word lightly. I find it is incredibly undescriptive. Fun. It bears not quantitative measure. It is an ephemeral descriptor which gives a listener no bearing on quality or measure of its matter. It makes it ambiguous on a scale as one can not, simply, compare the “fun” of one thing with another. Whereas other emotions are easier to draw strengths: I may have been startled by Amnesia but my sister was positively terrified. Despite my displeasure of the word it is a fantastic tool for Divinity.

At its heart, the game is enjoyable. It isn’t the greatest work of art. One will not likely hold Divinity as a moving narrative which brought them to tears or instilled some revelation or philosophical quandry. It will hardly inspire. Its visuals hardly transport you to fantastical settings or leave you dizzily lost in flights of imagination. Its score doesn’t plumb the depths of emotional experience. At best its writing will crack a smile but its mystery hardly leaves one pondering long after they’ve turned off the game.

In short: its characters are shallow, it’s narrative is cliched, it’s style is non-existent. And it is the best game I’ve played all year.

The truth of the matter is that Divinity is, first and foremost, a game. It is there to amuse. Its narrative serves the basest level of setting and cohesion. It is like the short blurb printed on the introductory rules of a boardgame. Its characters are there to direct players from one point to another. If they can get a smirk then they have gone beyond their duty. Ultimately, the game wants you to play with its systems and with a friend.

Divinity’s draw is near entirely its combat system. On hard, I am challenged. Each fight is a tactical puzzle to be solved. The vast majority of role-playing games, nay, the vast majority of games treat combat as just another diversion thrown in to keep the player awake between narrative beats or provide the most rudimentary challenges. Combat, as a whole, I often find is a task one does because it is expected of you. I’m hard pressed to think of a game that has me as excited for its fighting system as Divinity. If I had my choice, I would play Dungeons and Dragons or its ilk without a single dice cast for a brawl.

But not Divinity. Instead, it makes me excited to level my character. Every turn has me pondering my next move, often speaking to Derek in order to co-ordinate my next action. I’m playing a wizard, so I don’t get many turns, but the interaction between agents, environment and abilities is staggering. The moment when you set your first stun arrow on a pool of water to stun half your enemies through snaking series of blood and puddles only to follow up with a great fireball to create a smoke screen from the steam of the exact same stunning water is a thing of wonder. You almost feel like you are a painter during confrontation. The terrain is your canvas. Your spells are your brush. You position your actors, trigger your abilities and watch a calvalcade of actions in motion which cripple, stun, blind, burn and knock down your enemies to keep them controlled and pinned.

Or, at least that’s the idea. More often than not I feel like a child with my finger paint, madly trying to outdo an intermediate artist before he finishes his gradework with my blood. For your enemies are always unique combination of classes with different abilities and tricks of their own. They are gunning to turn the exact same combination of spells and effects against you. In fact, we have learned more ability combinations from what the enemies use against us than we’ve discovered on our own experimentation. So far we have faced a fascinating blend of abilities and combinations too that no single fight has felt the same or tired.

For the first time in an rpg, it is not the next clue or character that motivates me to keep playing. I don’t care where the game goes next. Instead, I’m ruminating over my level-ups and which abilities and skills I want to increase. I’m plotting formations and ability interactions. I’m counting action costs and measuring out distances. I’m getting into arguments with my partner and I’m stunning him with waylaid shots or poorly placed fireballs.

And I’m loving every minute of it.

Wish for a Night

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Long time, no post–amirite?

My apologies. Two weeks ago I went to visit Derek for the celebration of our nation’s birthday and he cruelly kept me from my posting duties. Then, as I was departing back to responsibility and proper work ethic, I was gifted a delightful cold as a departing present. So I spent much of last week unconscious upon the couch bemoaning the suffering of existence and life. I also produced lots of mucus. I have no idea what people did with that stuff before the invention of disposable tissues.

However, that won’t dissuade me any further. I have returned from the land of the half dead and weary to insure that I put some scribbling upon the site. Last I concluded was with a short endorsement for the very aged Thieves’ World anthologies. I realized that there may, perhaps, be a persistent negative edge to this blog. It is not my desire to fill the Interwebs with my criticism and pessimism. Thusly, I have decided I’m going to do nothing but a month’s worth of posts covering things that I actually like.

Today, I want to discuss one such topic that I am wholly ill-equipped to cover: music.

Accessed from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightwish#mediaviewer/File:Imaginaerum_teaser.jpg

Imaginaerum poster art for power metal band Nightwish. Taken from wikipedia and possibly belonging to Solar Films.

I must confess, my knowledge and understanding of music is about as shallow as it can possibly get. I don’t know much musical theory. I know the basic components of songs and the handful of information bestowed upon me during my two years of musical classes in middle school which predominantly were composed of wailing futile on instruments that were very much not saxophones or drums. Of all the entertainment mediums, I always feel the least equipped to speak on music. I suppose, in a sense, that gives me the closest experience to those that interact solely on popular media: they are driven near entirely on their personal tastes with nary a consideration for the history or theory which directs and shapes the art.

My ability to discuss music is further hampered by the fact that I was born on the wrong continent. I have turned on a radio and what blares from the speakers holds very little interest to me. I can’t stand pop music which sounds so empty and soulless to my ears. Things like Brittany Spears, Lady Gaga and the girl with the whipped cream bra that shoots long streams of the desert in her music video all blur together both in sound and presentation. I loathe rap–it’s like someone took poetry and forced it to only concern an equally manufactured sense of toughened authenticity by elevating the worst of urban crime and discrimination. It also sounds the same and horrendous to my unrefined ears.

I won’t even touch country.

Alas, those three genres are the kings of North America and woe be to the counter-culture individual who finds their ears incapable of processing their noise into pleasurable sensations. However, I have discovered that the rest of the world does not languish beneath this vice-grip of the record moguls interested solely in regurgitating the same message and experience at infinitum. Other countries rebel against the oppression of the established elites. Other countries revel in the untamed anarchy of a style which refuses to be tamed and pacified.

Other countries still enjoy metal.

Accessed from http://www.motnueq.com/medias/images/nightwish1.jpg

Tarja and company from the band Nightwish. Not my image.

Europe and, to a lesser extent, Japan have their metal scenes which bear the torch of the 1970s subgenre which broke from the ruling Rock in the United Kingdom and United States. Here were the familiar sounds for a kid raised on Metallica and System of a Down (though, I think that’s technically Rock – I didn’t care as a kid). Actually, if I were to be honest and drop all this pretension of a downtrodden music genre, I can see some issues with the culture of metal on par with those of the prevailing genres today. There’s no denying the large emphasis on masculinity, aggression and machoism. I simply don’t have an issue with their general portrayal and, simply put, it’s fun to rock out to some head pounding beats.

Which brings me to my current tastes. Needless to say, while I still hold a fond part of my heart for the entertainment of my childhood and adolescence, my preference in music has become refined. In particular, the development of power metal is near the perfect amalgamation of sounds which I adore. They’re emotionally powerful, typically focusing on choruses which you can understand and covering theatrical fantasy subject matter. Sonata Arctica has songs about werewolves. Coheed and Cambria (though they’re more a mish-mash of various influences still have heavy metal components) releases concept albums covering a science fiction storyline set across planets connected by energy beams known as the Keywork (I think, I have no idea what’s going on with it). Dragonforce sings a lot about dragons. And Powerwolf… well… they also sing about werewolves.

Out of all of them, however, there is one band which I like the most. The range and variety of their soundscape is matched by none. And no other band really hits the symphonic components of the genre like they do.

I am, of course, talking about Nightwish.

Of course, any mention of Nightwish inevitably draws the question, “Tarja or Anette?” To this, I can merely shrug my shoulders and ask in the immortal words of the Old El Paso spokesgirl, “Why not both?” Course, now that Anette has left, I guess we’re going to have to start drawing lines amongst the fanbase into thirds. However, there is no denying that both have their place and each singer represents an almost completely different sound for the band. Tarja was the first and her almost operatic voice was equally commanding whether she was striking out the typical metal sounds of Wishmaster, a cover of Phantom of the Opera (even though that’s technically a musical) or even the eerie Finnish folklore songs of the Lappi ballad.

And though Anette doesn’t have nearly the power of Tarja, there’s something entrancing by her softer vocals. Contrast Lappi with The Islander and there’s just something that clicks with her rendition of the more folkish acoustics. Her wispy and childlike range fit Imaginaerum perfectly. I wasn’t a fan of the album at first but it would not have had the proper whimsy had Tarja been heading it. And she can hold her own with the standard metal fare like Bye, Bye Beautiful and Amaranth with the latter one of my favourites from the band.

The songs themselves cover a huge swathe of topics, too. The earliest albums cover the genre’s typical fantasy fare as demonstrated by Elvenpath and Wanderlust. But as the years have progressed, so have the subjects. Over the Hills and Far Away is about civil war. The Poet and the Pendulum seems to cover composing and being an artist. Bye Bye Beautiful is unapologetically about the split between Nightwish and Tarja.

Accessed from http://www.loadedradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/nightwish.jpg

Anette and company from Nightwish. Once again, not my image.

And the best part of all this is the music is still metal. However, it sheds the standard preconceptions that metal has to be all about screaming and noise. I find the symphonic elements heighten the emotional punch of the scores but it also softens the overall effect so that even my sister will unfailing start bobbing her head and whistling to the beats.

So, yeah, if you haven’t heard Nightwish this is my endorsement. It’s impossible to say where someone should begin given their wide breadth of sound. So I’ll just end off with a short list of what I think are the band’s most popular and leave it to you, discerning reader, to try them at your own wish… or peril.

Storytime (Imaginaerum) – their single from their latest album

Nemo (Once) – Kait recommended this one so it must have widespread appeal

The Islander (Dark Passion Play) – And now for something completely different

Wish I Had An Angel (Once) – The song that got me first hooked on the band

The Phantom of the Opera (Century Child) – Everyone loves cover songs

Ghost Love Score (Once) – I can’t make a list without including one of their ten minute songs

A World of Thieves

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It is nearing the end of a quarter and I have work due for competitions while I pound away on my second novel. I inform you of this so that you can understand how I may lose track of time every now and again and I totally didn’t mean to not post yesterday – I just merely forgot it was Monday. Regardless, I have been rather busy with my work and preparing another adventure up north that I have little to share. Combined with some recent posts focused on complaining, I thought it was perhaps high time that I wrote a glowing and wonderful review that extols the enjoyment of this medium and art form. So, of course, here’s a long overdue praising of the anthology Thieves’ World.

“What inspired you to write?” no one asked me ever. But if they did, I am certain I would list Robert Asprin and Lynn Abbey’s 1980s anthology collection as one of my biggest influences. On the rare occasions I actually discuss fantasy with anyone, I always mention it as one of my favourite series. This usually prompts a “who?” from my companion which gives me the impression of a well learned hipster. Let others have their Tolkiens, Rothfuss’, Salvatores and Bradleys for I am more than happy with the rough and seedy world of Sanctuary.

Thieves’ World Book 1 cover. Obviously, I do not own the rights to any of these.

Sadly, I am not a hipster. I didn’t choose Thieves World as my favourite series because no one has ever read them. In fact, I was rooting through questionable second hand book stores for elusive copies to finish my twelve volume collection well before I cared about social presentation and fitting in with my peers. In fact, it was an act of serendipity that I stumbled across the works in the first place. I was visiting my Aunt and she took me to this large warehouse where rows and rows of books stretched out like a literary farmer’s market. Placards dangling from thin chains were the only guideposts for navigating the maze of tables in search fare which would be palatable to my tastes. I was a child raised on Lewis and Tolkien and long gravitated towards the fantasy genre even though this particular place had only the smallest section devoted to my budding imagination.

I peered over the narrow collection squeezed between horror and murder mystery – for I was well in the fiction portion of the warehouse and in the late eighties the crime and suspense genres were in full swing. On reflection, I should not have been surprised by a lack of frolicking and light-hearted tales. If ever there was an adoration for gritty realism it would be the time when even James Bond fell into the edgy era of Timothy Dalton’s Living Daylights and Licence to Kill. Here was a small collection of dark covers with a fascination for blood and weaponry sandwiched between the walnut cracking biceps of Conan the Barbarian.

I don’t know what attracted me specifically to this collection. Had I to guess, it would have been its oddly pear-white border shared with its brethren amongst those dark tomes. Of course, as a child, my decisions were based hardly on fact or reason. This cover had a large, red clad gladiatorial figure looming over some ratty individual in bright blue as a classical Romanesque figure stood motioning in the background. There was a sense of life on its front but it bore the wear and fade of time. I picked it up, thumbing through the aged yellow pages curious over the held tale. I know I debated long and hard whether I wanted this book. I had only the one to pick and that it had so many in its series was both a blessing and curse. Reading over the back, I discovered that it wasn’t just the beginning of a lengthy saga as fantasy is so apt to follow now but merely a collection of disparate tales bound together like some medieval manuscript plucked from some forgotten vault.

I took the plunge, thinking if I did enjoy it I would have many more to look forward to reading and if it was awful then there was no great loss since it was self contained anyway. I wouldn’t be left with some dangling thread or cliffhanger urging me to purchase the next installment.

I took the book proudly to my aunt and it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

I’ve read the series over and over through the years and can say, with certainty, that my love for the books is not due solely to being a child and having no taste. There was something fresh and exciting about the stale, despicable land of Sanctuary. This was not a world of glorious heroes, distressed damsels and wicked beasts. I did not know it at the time but the Thieves’ World anthologies represented everything I’ve argued for fantasy. It was unapologetically chaotic, despicable, salacious and objectionable. It was a series that placed the magnifying lens over the worst that humanity had to offer and it was unapologetic in the representations it gave.

It was also, predominantly, written by authors who didn’t write fantasy.

Here’s the original cover for the series and a great example of how varied the world and its characters are envisioned by different artists.

I don’t think this is a coincidence. I never appreciated the people behind the works until I started reading the collection of rants and essays provided the rare volume whenever the editor didn’t have enough submissions to fill out the pages. I found the real world struggle in producing the tales almost as fascinating as the stories themselves. They gave such insight into the creative process and the politics behind writing itself that carry every bit as much drama as the trials faced by the heroes on the pages.

But I am getting well ahead of myself.

Thieves’ World is, in essence, a literary game of Dungeons and Dragons. It spawned from the mind of Robert Asprin at a fantasy and science fiction convention where he conceived of creating a series composed of different authors writing in a shared space and with similar characters. He basically envisioned a written MMO. Authors would be given an idea of the world and setting, an outline of all other participating authors and their characters and given the freedom to do what they liked with the sole caveat that no author’s character was to be killed or disposed without their permission. Basically, the premise would be that Harry Potter, while spending his time fighting evil Lord Voldemort, would have moments when he’d stumble across private eye and magician Dresden on his way to solve another ridiculous crime and in that brief exchange the two could pass on important information or artifacts to help one another or maybe Dresden would divert a bunch of pursuing vampires to go bother Potter while he sneaked off to do whatever it is that character does.

Needless to say, there was copious amounts of alcohol involved in the creation of this series and probably quite a bit required for recruiting as well.

However, I find that this approach created a rather unique world. The setting was, essentially, a hastily drawn map handed out to a very diverse group of authors. In my envisioning, the city exists like a sort of dry, dusty northern African commune with mudbrick adobes and curious bazaars filled with relics from around the world. Other authors, however, had different visions and sections of the city would produce squeezing York narrows or grand palaces on raised hills. Instead of detracting from the overall experience, this hectic creativity lends a frenetic energy to the works. They breathe more fully than any other world. This clash of cultures added a strange diversity you can not find in any other work. Just when you think you have an idea of what the city of Sanctuary and its people are like, another author comes along and introduces whole swathes of locations and people that continue to delight and surprise.

I do not liken it to D&D for no reason. It is the only example of a collective creation that I can recall and the original premise – to have heroes weaving in and out of tales – creates a very personal and intricate web of deception and politics. While no great harm could be done to an author’s character, this did not exclude terribly inconveniencing them, dismembering them or murdering those closest to them.

And there is much inconveniencing, dismembering and murdering.

There is, of course, a danger to this format. Due to the wildly different nature of the authors, the writing style varied greatly. Also, authors and their characters came and went without any explanation of what happened to them. Some of my favourite authors contributed only one or two stories and their characters would feature as important players in a number of tales before quietly disappearing into the shadows. There were a few authors who I simply did not like and chief amongst them was the overly prolific Janet Morris who railroaded a few of the volumes with her obnoxiously do-goody Tempus and Stepsons who follow far closer in vein to the fantasy wish-fulfillment of Patrick Rothfuss then the den of thieves and anti-heroes of the other contributors.

More than anything, however, is the undermining of traditional fantasy tropes and expectations. As I mentioned, many of the authors weren’t fantasy writers. A number of them were more famous for their science fiction contributions and I feel there is a very distinct difference how authors, in general, approach the different streams. Blood Brothers by Joe Haldeman is perhaps the best example, following a despicable crime lord that runs the seedy popular tavern in town and whose story mostly focuses around a missing brick of illicit drug. The story is one of the more grounded and disturbing of the original bunch, owing in large part to Haldeman’s own admission that it was based on an experience of his during the Vietnam War.

Simply put, I love the Thieves’ World anthologies. I was really excited for the brief return of the anthology beneath Lynn Abbey’s care but, unfortunately, it lacked a lot of the heart of the original series. Partly, Lynn is a far more traditional fantasy author and I feel the two volumes produced beneath her were trending into a lot of the cliches of the genre the originals avoided. Mostly, however, it lacked all the characters that I had grown to love over twelve stories. Shadowspawn, Enas Yorl, Cappen Vara and even Prince Rakein were all absent and the new cast didn’t catch as well as the old. Possibly because there was only two books but it’s hard to say.

But I’m just going to use the reprinted covers since I spent well over five years getting a full collection of them.

Anyway, I full-heartily recommend the series to anyone who listens to me. My sister gave it a go but abandoned it because it was too “heavy” for her tastes. But, after having friends continuously push their favourites upon me without any consideration for my preferences, I think it’s only fair I do the same from time to time.

So if you can ever find them, pick them up! Though doing so may involve the harrowing adventure through musty and aged used book stores as I had done so many years ago.

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.

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.

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.

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/?

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.