tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2290828421410624791.post7661624729730868006..comments2024-03-14T10:32:29.233-05:00Comments on Blood of Prokopius: Why I Don't Like Most Modern Sci-Fi/FantasyFrDavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00459281821319914530noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2290828421410624791.post-20787403818904787872017-01-08T17:10:25.352-06:002017-01-08T17:10:25.352-06:00Thanks for the kind words.Thanks for the kind words.FrDavehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00459281821319914530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2290828421410624791.post-25033175396783308332017-01-08T17:09:12.338-06:002017-01-08T17:09:12.338-06:00The heroin's journey, as depicted in the link,...The heroin's journey, as depicted in the link, is useless in terms of telling the kind of timeless, transformative stories I'm most interested in. One of the biggest flaws in this "arc" is the lack of humanity, by which I mean the accessibility to people of all walks of life across all cultures. By design, half the world's population is shut out of having any kind of meaningful relationship with the story. If you feel like you need to do that (whether as pro-male, pro-female, anti-male or anti-female) you are doing it wrong. In contrast, there are plenty of stories with female heroes that go on the hero journey that everyone can identify with. Cinderella is an example of this.<br /><br />Speaking of Kylo Ren, I think he is a spectacularly bad villain. I have no idea why he is who he is or why he made the choices he does. He is a villain because the movie needed a villain. I only saw the pathetic aspects of his character as a way of covering for the fact that he needed to lose to a girl.FrDavehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00459281821319914530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2290828421410624791.post-71547881899145140332017-01-08T16:44:16.152-06:002017-01-08T16:44:16.152-06:00Rey's a tough character because I get what the...Rey's a tough character because I get what they were going for, and I can see that the effect was powerful and inspirational for a lot of people I know, but I can't help but feel it would have been better with some humanizing element (read: minor character flaws - "doesn't trust character X yet" doesn't really count, since it's a way of drawing out tension and runtime rather than a personality trait) or even an explanation for some of her skills - like she doesn't need to be magically good at flying spaceships with no experience. She lives in a crashed spaceship, we could easily have had a brief moment of her using a cobbled-together flight simulator during her home montage, which is meant to establish what the pattern of her life is like. But then JJ Abrams does seem to have a real pattern of characters discovering their excellence/expertise without needing to put in<br />any real work, which I can't help but think reflects his own personal journey to directorhood, which basically involved his dad handing him an opportunity and saying "not sure what to do with yourself after college? Here, give this a shot," and then becoming a runaway success in a relatively short period of time (see also: it is exactly as easy to get from anywhere in Abram's Star Wars galaxy as it is to get anywhere else. There's little sense of time or scale, because everything is easy and it's all moving at the pace of the plot, rather than plot flowing from character).<br /><br />And I think most of the mystery box elements get in the way of the story. When the audience understands character motivation tension/suspense is enhanced, not lessened. Leaving out key information helps sell sequels but doesn't do much for the actual story.<br /><br />I do love the idea of Kylo Ren as a manifestation of the entitled Star Wars fan though. And I like them showing that evil is often pathetic and dangerous in equal measure, often with the insecurity fueling the danger. I do wish that Rey's fight with him at the end didn't look so dang easy though. I get that it's a triumphant moment for many in the audience, but it feels off to me.Tom Kilianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17086235205146158319noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2290828421410624791.post-83643074906748461162017-01-08T16:25:27.178-06:002017-01-08T16:25:27.178-06:00That makes a lot of sense to me even if it's n...That makes a lot of sense to me even if it's not the frame I'd use myself. It's certainly a quicker way of describing it.<br /><br />I read the book version first, so the film was kind of a letdown, mostly because it only adapts the first half of the story, and there's a LOT of heavy lifting in the second half where we're asked to grapple with the implications of escapist power fantasies and basically the idea that no amount of power and prestige will actually fix what's broken inside us, while true love (here present in the form of familial love and the love between friends/brothers, because Bastian is I think 12 - although the metaphor in play by the end heavily invites a Christian reading as to the ultimate source of all those things) can.<br /><br />Interesting. I haven't seen Whisper of the Heart, but I've heard some people react uncomfortably to children in Miyazaki films too, and I've never really gotten why. I think it's because his romances are so... sexless isn't quite it, although that's part of it. "Drawn with a light touch," I'd say. I read the love stories in Spirited Away, Kiki's Delivery Service or Ponyo as a director taking children's emotions seriously, rather than any kind of voyeuristic fetishism. Even his pseudo-romances between older characters (Marco & Gina in Porco Rosso, or Ashitaka & San in Princess Mononoke) feel like they're primarily about the quiet power of human connection rather than traditional romance. Usually by the end of his films I'm not left with the idea that the two characters are necessarily going to stay in romantic love forever, just that they've come to mean a lot to each other and that that knowledge and acceptance of each other contributed to a pivotal moment of growth/challenge/healing. <br /><br />Nausicaa (in comic form) is my favorite because it establishes her early on as a hero in the traditional mold, including her bona fides as a powerful warrior, which makes her commitment to pacifism a choice rather than her only resort. I also like that the story doesn't flinch from engaging with the challenges of pacifism. Doing the wrong thing is usually easier than doing the right thing, and I think a lot of adventure stories don't really acknowledge that (like how you pointed out that the way is continually being made clear for Harry Potter, and he keeps being told that he doesn't actually need to change).Tom Kilianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17086235205146158319noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2290828421410624791.post-15286431833917835322017-01-08T16:13:33.286-06:002017-01-08T16:13:33.286-06:00Thanks for this post, it looks at stories in a way...Thanks for this post, it looks at stories in a way that I have not been exposed to before, so thank you.Stacktracehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05778633676064958982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2290828421410624791.post-14706881364969640132017-01-08T13:10:31.860-06:002017-01-08T13:10:31.860-06:00Rey was not written for men and boys to relate to;...Rey was not written for men and boys to relate to; she was written for women and girls to relate to. Separated from her family and with nothing but her wits and hard work, she survives on a hostile plant among a hostile population and she carves out a small place of comfort and refuses to let her dream of finding her family die. She is forced out of this comfort zone by a well-meaning interloper and must use those survival skills to survive in a new hostile environment, and her skills are then recognized and complimented by an older male, and only then is her value to the rebellion recognized, so much so that when she is kidnapped by the First Order, the rebellion is willing to risk their entire efforts on a rescue mission--and only because the legendary Han Solo says the girl is worth it. As it turns out, the girl does not need the rescue, as she is perfectly capable of rescuing herself. She had the power inside her all along and was overlooked and undervalued by those around her; Solo, Finn, and Chewie are just a convenient way off the First Order weapon, as she was well on her way to getting off the planet on her own. Finally, she faces a spoiled man child who thinks he can mansplain the Force to her, but, hey, look, she already has this Force thing figured out thanks to another woman (Maz) who told her to trust her damn instincts, despite not trusting Maz or herself at first -- she had to overcome her own self-doubts to Become One With The Force.<br /><br />So, yeah. Not for men. For women. Any girl or woman can recognize themselves in Rey because they have lived the life of being overlooked or being treated like second-class citizens or merely as objects of male desire.<br /><br />Rey is not on the hero's journey. She is on the heroine's journey, which is similar but different to the heroe's journey (see here:http://www.thewritersjourney.com/hero's_journey.htm#Heroine). <br /><br />Rey's journey is transformative as she already had the divine inside of her, but was treated as if she didn't and came to believe the social and cultural messages about her status and role in her world. It was not until she was exposed to a twisted version of the divine via Kylo Ren's Jedi Mind Reading that the Force inside Rey was truly and fully awakened (as divine recognizes divine and wants to become wholly united) and she acknowledged that she was part of the divine (the Force) that she was transformed into what we recognize as the True Hero. But notice again, that her transformation trigger happened with the actions of male (Ren) and not of its own accord. In essence, then, the message of SW:TFA is that a Woman cannot become who she is truly and divinely meant to be without the guidance of a Man. Hardly progressive or even truly feminist, but then it was directed by J.J. Abrams.<br /><br />But I totally agree with what you say about the Kung Fu Panda trilogy.Matthew Schmeerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11348372645986806502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2290828421410624791.post-40089985471817659392017-01-08T06:37:57.541-06:002017-01-08T06:37:57.541-06:00I wouldn't roll my eyes, but I would point out...I wouldn't roll my eyes, but I would point out that humans are made according to the image and likeness of God, so your use of "humanity" in this case is still referring to the divine.<br /><br />I have never actually <i>read</i> Neverending Story, now I will have to...<br /><br />Miyazaki is hit or miss with me. I certainly will more readily watch something from him than most animation studios here in the U.S., but with full knowledge that I might not enjoy the experience. I own three of his movies: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, My Neighbor Totoro, and Porco Rosso; however, my favorite Ghibli film is not directed or written by him, The Cat Returns. It's prequel, Whisper of the Heart exemplifies why so many of Miyazaki's film miss with me. The story is a perfectly lovely romance but it is an uncomfortable and creepy watch because the main characters are children. There is always something just <i>off</i> that plummets the whole experience into uncomfortable and creepy when I don't like his films.FrDavehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00459281821319914530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2290828421410624791.post-9407853805852609172017-01-07T23:25:38.480-06:002017-01-07T23:25:38.480-06:00I don't even mean that I like hero's journ...I don't even mean that I like hero's journey stories over Mystery Box ones (although that's usually true - most plot-centric, mystery-for-sequel's-sake stories are unmemorable and empty-feeling), but specifically the experience of the divine that some stories get to is what I'm after in a story (I'd probably use a word like "humanity" instead of divine, and you'd probably mentally roll your eyes, but we're ultimately talking about at least similar things). Have you ever read "The Neverending Story"? I think it's the best fictional version of what a Christ-like love looks like. I'm also curious if you've seen any of Hayao Miyazaki's films and if so what you thought of them.Tom Kilianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17086235205146158319noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2290828421410624791.post-44513568184094625012017-01-07T22:53:10.183-06:002017-01-07T22:53:10.183-06:00Curiously, the stories you describe, for pretty mu...Curiously, the stories you describe, for pretty much the reasons you describe, are the ones that appeal the most to me as well, but I'm not a religious person.Tom Kilianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17086235205146158319noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2290828421410624791.post-80455437693128359962017-01-07T09:20:55.844-06:002017-01-07T09:20:55.844-06:00Great post! Our culture is so enamored with and di...Great post! Our culture is so enamored with and distracted by perfection. Coleston the Cavelierhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00192975069558205268noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2290828421410624791.post-43808512911298110922017-01-06T17:37:38.565-06:002017-01-06T17:37:38.565-06:00Yes, the post-modern denies the divine, replacing ...Yes, the post-modern denies the divine, replacing it with irrational evolution and cosmotology that defies entrophy. <br /><br />The human brain/soul* is extremely expensive calorically, does not significantly assist in reproduction, has non-Darwinian properties and the brain does not even completely develop until more than half people have already died.<br /><br />In the high middle ages, mortality from disease was high; 25% in infancy, then again, another 25% by twelve years of age. War, conflict, accidents and criminal violence were relatively common, further reducing expected life expectancy of males to the mid-thirties.<br /><br />*blogged about this today<br />Clovis Cithoghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18208194219083373456noreply@blogger.com