#AGREE on certain character archetypes if you will (this is previous to the game and the game is its own thing too tbh) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

wisteria-lodge · 3 years

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lion primary (bird model) + slightly burnt lion secondary

Hi there! I’m a fan of your sorting posts, and of your kind and insightful way of supporting people in finding out more about themselves. So naturally I’d be very interested in your take about my own sorting, if you’re game! :)

I won’t talk much about my Secondary, because now that I’m starting to unburn my Lion seems very clear to me, even when my explosion-prone Badger model still tries to get in the way of that clarity sometimes. The more interesting riddle is my Primary. So far I’m operating under the working theory that I am a Lion with a very strong Bird model - or is it the other way ‘round?

The supposed dichotomy between “thinking” and “feeling” in many of the more binary personality models has always bugged me, so it’s no wonder this is the area where whenever I feel like I’ve decided on who I am (for now) a new question mark pops up (so much fun!).

If ‘thinking’ and ‘feeling’ doesn’t work for you as terminology, it might help to think of Lion as leading with subconscious reasoning, and Bird as leading with conscious reasoning.

Instead of trying to formulate a cohesive text, which would have gotten even longer, I’m putting together an associative list of thoughts and stories that kept turning up while I was trying to figure out my Primary.

A very Lion primary way to solve a problem, not gonna lie ;)

- I think I got my Bird model from my father, who made quite an effort to teach me to look at things from all angles. As a child, whenever I got in a fight with this friend I had, he would sit me down and ask me to put myself in my friend’s shoes. It was hard, because a lot of the time my friend was being unfair to me and I actually could have used some support, someone to tell me that it was not okay to treat me this way. But I’m still immeasurably grateful for my father’s lessons, through which I’ve learned to understand peoples’ motivations and gained an understanding for the complexities of every conflict. He also taught me to doubt, to look closer, to not just believe the first thing I see, or want to see. To this day I still consider my ability to pin down the relevant factors of a situation before I make judgments one of my strengths.

That definitely sounds like a very strong, beloved Bird model.

- Whenever I had to write an essay at school or uni, I first had to come up with some aspect about the subject that I really cared about, even could be passionate about. (I am passionate about many things, so it was usually possible to find some connection to that.) Then I would use the essay to discuss this aspect in great detail, ending with a polemic flourish. I had the time of my life doing that; meanwhile the text would structure itself magically in relation to the issue I had chosen to focus on. Whenever I tried to write without such a focus, I’d get bored, stressed and the text would be of a much lower quality.

- Something similar happened in oral exams at uni: Only when I got the opportunity to bring a discussion paper (a few pointed statements regarding the exam topic) which I could then debate, I was able to recollect all the important details I needed for that. If I just had to report on the topic or answer questions, I often got confused, to the point of drawing a complete blank.

Linking things to emotion and passion - thinking with emotion and passion, basically - is a Lion primary thing. Especially if doing that makes you feel safe & comfortable & effective & happy.

- Even as a teenager I was very interested in philosophy, ethics and moral decision making.

I love teaching philosophy to teenagers. It’s the perfect time for it, they are so into it, and if it were up to me I would absolutely make it a required class.

I picked up certain philosophical ideas and concepts that I liked and integrated them in my belief system (yes, I know how very Bird that sounds).

I had my mind blown by Genealogy of Morals in high school, and I still won’t shut about Eichmann in Jerusalem. But what was so staggering to me in high school was… here are these ways of thinking that are possible and allowed. The fact that here they are in words in front of me made me a great deal more expansive.

Now that I think about it — I don’t remember adjusting my beliefs as in any way traumatic back then. The shift from a belief in the Christian God to Mother Goddess to my very own brand of agnostic paganism was smooth, natural.

Now that I think about it… I would describe myself as a mythic relativist (which is a term I just made up.) Systems of belief are metaphors, and they’re metaphors trying to describe and say something large and beautiful about what it means to be human, and what it means to live a good life. And since we are all human, they are all attempting to describe the same central, indescribable thing in different ways.

I feel this very deeply, but it took me a long while to be able to articulate it.

I constantly reevaluate, and I adapt.

You stop reevaluating and adapting, might as well be dead.

Still, there are some basics I’ve kept with me that just make too much sense to me to give up, and some that perhaps I keep because I just really like them and I’m kind of attached to them.

… somebody’s thinking with Pathos :)

- I’m a constructivist at heart, so that makes it much easier to tweak the content of my beliefs while staying true to the principle that we (socially) construct our reality, and (my take on this): that I choose what kind of world I want to live in, and according to that I make choices which are the most likely to create that world.

- At uni I attended a seminar about the development of moral judgment and action. What I remember most clearly about it is how much it bugged me that the other students didn’t seem to understand that morality always depends on the perspective. Even though I had definite moral convictions that I was ready to fight for, at the same time it seemed obvious to me that theoretically there could be a justification for every kind of moral guideline; it depended on your principles and the world you wanted to live in.

A human after my own heart.

I wanted to understand these different perspectives, not talk about empty categories like “right and wrong” or “good and evil” that meant nothing to me. I still feel that way.

Absolutely. I don’t use alignments when I DM Dungeons & Dragons. I mean, I can list evil *things* but that’s not the same thing as defining *being evil.* I want to know WHY these people did these evil things.

It just seems so impractical and complicated to base a conversation on those broad categories that don’t have any definition people can agree on instead of referring either to defined principles (in order to explain what good/ bad is *for you*) or consequences of certain actions, and whether you want them/ accept them/ don’t want them.

Oh that’s a fun discussion. Asking a highschooler to define “evil.”

(and then they have to figure out what moral systems Jigsaw, Pinhead, the Joker, and Bane all subscribe to.)

- Between “the Revolutionary” and “the Grail Knight”, I would love to be the former, but I’m clearly the latter. I’m someone who questions, not someone who knows.

Take my archetypes with a grain of salt, they are supposed to describe characters. (Who are different from people - but still useful, because they are attempts to describe us.) I actually want to write more about the differences I see between the way fictional secondaries are written and the way real-life secondaries work.

And just “knowing”... is dangerous. That’s how Exploded Lions happen.

There are a lot of causes I find worthy to fight for, but I haven’t committed to any one, which so far I’ve attributed to my Burned Secondary (How do I do things?).

Sounds about right.

If I’m honest, though, it feels a bit strange to really, really fight for anything. I’d rather contribute to the cause by keeping an eye on whether we stay aligned to our values on every level of the fight, not by storming sightlessly in front of some army. (I got polemic again, didn’t I? ;))

So after all this Bird talk, why do I think that I’m a Lion?

… that was the Bird segment?

- I trust my intuition. It has never steered me wrong, with one exception: My Primary burned for a time when I first understood the concept of privilege and internalized bias, which was coincidentally at a time when I also went through a lot of changes in my personal life. Like many people unaware of their own privilege, I had thought of myself as “one of the good ones”. I learned that even with the best intentions I could cause great harm without even noticing it. This then also happened to me in a relationship, when I was already confused, hurt and more than a bit burned. It seemed like I couldn’t trust my intuition anymore, but I also couldn’t figure out intellectually what to believe, because I felt mentally overwhelmed by all those new concepts, all of which put my previous convictions into question. Which Primary burned then?

Been there, done that, it’s brutal. It sounds to me like a Lion dramatically changing direction - that’s what I mean when I say that it *hurts* when a Lion changes their mind. Birds see their past selves that thought wrong as almost different people. “I wasn’t aware of my privilege then, now I am, and can take steps doing forward.” But if you’re a lion it’s like… I *should* have been aware, and the fact that I wasn’t says something terrible about my moral/emotional calibration, and THAT has to be put right.

- I felt like everything I had learned about the world and myself didn’t count anymore. My concepts and my strategies didn’t serve me anymore. So I started to rebuild everything from scratch, this time with less pride and more practicality.

Yeah. That’s some Lion recalibration. With a Bird Model, to help.

- Anyway, I trust my intuition. It contains my experiences, instinct and all my accumulated unconscious observations of the situation, and it’s very reliable. Usually I use it as an important source of information which I try to back up with data/ understanding, but when push came to shove and the apparent facts would contradict what my intuition told me, I would be unable to set my gut feeling aside. I wouldn’t follow it blindly, of course. But I would never just go against it either. If the voices of my unconscious and conscious mind don’t align, I keep poking at the issue until they do. If I absolutely cannot come to a satisfying conclusion, I go with my gut. Since I know it usually knows what it’s doing, I’ll find out the reasons for my feelings later. (Weird, says my inner bird who is busy compiling these examples.)

I’LL FIND THE REASON FOR MY FEELINGS LATER. What a perfect way of articulating what is perhaps the central experience of being a Lion primary.

- Probably I’m just both, you know. Some interesting lion/bird-chimaera. I like it.

I read you as a pretty clear Lion Primary, Bird primary model. But as always, the decision is very personal.

- I have a weird way of processing information: I read/ hear it, work to understand it, work to connect it to existing knowledge in my mind, then my beliefs, my existing knowledge and my feelings about it all wind around each other, grow into each other, some dissolve together, becoming a swamp which then nourishes the plants of new ideas and connections that grow from it.

You grok it. And that’s not weird.

I often can’t remember where certain knowledge came from. I can’t take it out of a memory shelf and tell you about it. I usually remember that I’ve read a certain book and whether I liked it / it influenced me, but I won’t exactly remember what was in it, even if it was important to me. Because all that information is already processed/ digested/ transformed into something new. It’s much easier to access my memory swamp intuitively than consciously.

and you seriously had like… any doubt that you were a Lion.

In intellectual discussions I tend to get stuck because I just can’t remember enough of the details (for my satisfaction), just my conclusions about the topic and how I feel about it.

I’m inclined to think that not accessing the details is either a secondary thing, or an entirely unrelated processing thing.

What do you make of all this? I’m very curious!

[On an unrelated note, I’d like to specify the compliment I made at the beginning of this post. I’m really impressed with your ability to pick up on what people need, not just what they say they want. As a counselor this is a skill I try to hone, so I know how difficult it is to not get too distracted by the story people tell and miss the more subtle cues. You have a powerful combination of perceptiveness, insight and so much kindness, which you use to effectively support people who have questions, are in distress or confused. You don’t generalize. You don’t judge. You see the people who talk to you. I love that you’re a teacher, because I can see you’re using the influence that gives you in a way that contributes to making the world a better place. Fellow Idealist, I’d like to give you a High Five for that, if I may. :)))]

I’m not sure I’ve ever been given a better compliment. Thank you.

#submission #sortinghatchats #lion primary #lionpri #bird primary vs lion primary #philosophy stuff

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twentiethcenturymoviesandtv · 4 years

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12 Angry Men: The Characters

While 12 Angry Men has a remarkably small cast for a motion picture, the problem is that twelve of the cast members happen to be main characters.

Twelve is a large number of main characters to balance out, especially when you only see them over the course of one day, in only one setting. The writers had the challenging job of making each character unique enough that the audience doesn’t mix them up, and while some of them are more distinct than others, each character is different enough so that the viewers can tell them apart.

As a result, 12 Angry Men is left with a surprisingly large main cast, full of characters that are neither infallible heroes, nor despicable villains. Much like Casablanca, it would seem like this film has an issue deciding a protagonist, as the character who would seem to fulfill this role, Henry Fonda’s Juror #8, doesn’t have a ‘problem pertaining to the plot’ that’s unique from any of the other characters. They all have the same problem: they need to come up with a verdict. And indeed, this film would seem to be without a true protagonist if not for another element: the protagonist’s reaction towards the problem.

You see, while every other character begins the story either certain of the boy’s guilt, or just wanting to say they are so that the jury ordeal can be over with, it is only Juror #8 who believes that the case deserves a closer examination.

As you may have guessed, today, we’re going to be examining the characters of 12 Angry Men, starting with our protagonist: Juror #8. Let’s take a look. (Spoilers below!)

Juror #8 is a rather interesting protagonist in that, as I mentioned in previous articles, he could be any one of us. He’s the ‘hero’ of the story, not because of any great feat, but because he was logical and thoughtful enough to take his job as a juror seriously enough to put real thought into the case at hand. This is not a story about a man who is certain of his correctness, this is a story about a man who is uncertain about someone’s guilt, and there is a huge difference. From the moment of his Establishing Character Moment of quiet reflection at the window, he’s in action to make sure that he, and the rest of the jury, comes to a fair, if not right, conclusion.

Juror #8 never claims he is right, merely that he has reasonable doubt that leads him to believe that he might be right. He wants to talk about the verdict, he wants to be careful, because a life is on the line. He takes his responsibility seriously, and that, at first, is what sets him up as our protagonist. It is his vote of ‘not guilty’ that gets the plot going proper, for without him, the film would have come to a whopping, depressing, ten minutes tops.

So, we know Juror #8 is responsible, and tries to be moral. What else do we know about him?

For one thing, he’s sharp.

Juror #8 knows that he can’t convince anyone to change their vote without some good evidence, which he brings and addresses. Bit by bit, he chips away the certainty around the testimonies, alibis, and evidence, bringing up arguments and doubts about the elements of the case that the other jurors are absolutely certain about. He’s quick to figure out people’s angles and point out flaws in logic, and he’s not afraid to call out someone’s bias. His exchange with Juror #3 proves this, as Juror #8 accuses him (rightfully so) of wanting to kill the defendant due to personal reasons.

Juror #8 is a Guile Hero, using his wits and brains to pick apart the evidence, the original Rogue Juror archetype, wanting to take his time to get through the facts. He cares about getting to the bottom of the facts, and he wants to get the other jurors on the side of justice as well.

Wait a minute, you say. I’ll buy that he’s the ‘hero’, but protagonists are supposed to change by the end of the story. There’s no sign of that at all!

Honestly, you’re right.

Juror #8, while clearly being the ‘hero’ of the film never seems to ‘change’ by the end of the film. In fact, he is the only character not to change, in vote as well as action. So what are we to make of that?

If the rest of the cast were as immovable as Juror #8, I would agree that his ‘protagonist’ status would certainly be called into question, and we may indeed be left with a protagonist-less film, however, there is one element that prevents that from happening: the fact that the other jurors do change their minds.

He’s the grounding element for the audience, courageous and standing for human decency. The point of his character is that he’s unyielding, unchanging in the face of peer pressure. It is in his influence, his changing of the other characters, that his test as a protagonist comes.

Of course, he succeeds, but the road is difficult. The first ally rallied to his cause, after a few minutes of deliberation, is Juror #9.

Juror #9 (Joseph Sweeney) is an observant Cool Old Guy, the Lancer to Juror #8. His abilities in Awesomeness by Analysis play a huge part in convincing the remaining jurors to change their votes, by standing with Juror #8 against the pressure and displaying a great deal of insight and sympathy. He’s also possessing of some pretty progressive ideas, not being bigoted like some of the younger jurors around him. While needing some thought before changing his vote, Juror #9 is not afraid to speak his mind and morality, making him a valuable ally in changing the course of the vote.

Leading us to the next vote change: Juror #5.

Juror #5 (Jack Klugman) has a bit in common with the defendant, coming from a similar background. He also grew up in the slums, and takes it quite personally that some of the jurors think that that’s suitable explanation for murder. He’s an invaluable addition, as it is his experience witnessing knife-fights that leads to the debunking of the grip necessary for the boy to have murdered his father. He’s a Nice Guy from a rough neighborhood, and ends up producing some key points in favor of the Not Guilty verdict.

Next to switch his vote is Juror #11 (George Voskovec), a man with Immigrant Patriotism, faith in the American dream of democracy and justice. The ‘Token Minority’ of the twelve, Juror #11 begins thinking of, and asking his own questions that can’t be satisfyingly answered with the evidence given. He’s a polite man, with a great concern with being fair and upright. In fact, it is one of his lines that best sums up the point of the film:

“We have a responsibility. This is a remarkable thing about democracy. That we are … what is the word? … Ah, notified! That we are notified by mail to come down to this place and decide on the guilt or innocence of a man we have not known before. We have nothing to gain or lose by our verdict. This is one of the reasons why we are strong. We should not make it a personal thing.”

He is here to remind us of the seriousness of jury duty, the importance of justice and fairness. His character warns us not to take our privileges for granted, something that we need to be reminded of. He is strong-minded, of strong character, and strong-willed

Leading us to the next switch in votes: Juror #2.

Juror #2 (John Fielder) is a timid man who doesn’t seem to have much of a backbone at first. He’s an Extreme Doormat, unable to really explain his opinions, tending to go along with the tide at first. As the film progresses, he does grow more of a spine, later evidenced by bringing up the question of the stab wound, which had been bothering him. Had he been more timid, there’s a possibility that the vote might have swapped once more, and Juror #8’s cause would be lost.

Then there’s Juror #6 (Edward Binns).

Juror #6 doesn’t have a whole lot of personality, admittedly. He doesn’t have a lot of dialogue, but he is fair minded, willing to change his mind if proven wrong. His chief moment of character is standing up to Juror #3’s interrupting of Juror #9, telling him that he ought to have more respect for his elders. In the end, Juror #6’s character is the switching point, announcing the stalemate, 6 to 6 for a vote.

The balance is changed again by Juror #7 (Jack Warden).

Juror #7 is a self-absorbed person, whose chief concern in the film is the baseball tickets ‘burning a hole’ in his pocket. There’s a game he wants to get to, and his chief concern is voting whichever way that will get him out the fastest. He pretends to be offended when his motives are questioned, but it’s clear that he’s just concerned with leaving. Unfortunately, his is the attitude we can most easily see happening in ourselves with the same task, distracted with Skewed Priorities and too busy being a Deadpan Snarker to put forth the effort our legal system deserves.

The next vote for Not Guilty goes to Juror #12 (Robert Webber), a Charmer and a Ditherer, almost as easily swayed as Juror #2. He works in an advertising agency, and spends most of the proceedings doodling or playing tic-tac-toe with the other jurors, too busy to pay attention. He approaches jury much like a board meeting, and as a result, his opinions aren’t all that substantial. All the same, he does become the eighth to side with Juror #8, further cementing the majority.

Following him is Juror #1, (Martin Balsam) the Foreman, a reasonable man who just wants this organized. He’s a football coach, a soft-spoken Reasonable Authority Figure who is willing to take charge and keep everyone in order. He’s always trying to reign things in and keep them under control, a vital element to the powder-keg that is the remainder of the jury.

Especially the next vote change: Juror #10 (Ed Begley).

One of the closest things this film has to an antagonist, the constantly coughing, Politically Incorrect Villain Juror #10 doesn’t need any evidence. To him, the boy’s background is enough. He’s a bitter, bigoted, racist Hate Sink, convinced begrudgingly to change his vote after his Villianous Breakdown rant, defeated by the lack of support from his peers.

One of the final holdouts, though not a villain, is Juror #4 (E.G. Marshall), another Reasonable Authority Figure and an Implacable Man. He is very logical and reasonable, holding out on changing his vote not out of malice, but of genuine concern for the facts. Wearing a set of Stoic Spectacles (Smart People Wear Glasses, after all), Juror #4 serves as a Hero Antagonist version of The Spock, countering with good arguments and valid questions. In the end, after his own reasons are shaken, Juror #4 graciously admits this and changes his vote, leaving us with the other closest thing this film has to an antagonist: Juror #3.

Juror #3 (Lee J. Cobb) is a bitter Big Bad with a Hair Trigger Temper, the Evil Counterpart to Juror #8. In a case of Believing Your Own Lies, Juror #3 is convinced he is impartial, the chief advocate for the death penalty of the group without realizing he is projecting his bad relationship with his son onto the case. He, too, switches his vote after a Villainous Breakdown, and Paper Destruction of Anger, but it is important to note that this is a Villainy-Free Villain, a Tragic Villain.

Juror #3 believes his opinion is firmly rooted in the facts, but it becomes very clear as the film progresses that he doesn’t really have as good a leg to stand on as he seems to think. His anger at the defendant is anger at his son, anger at all sons who ‘disrespect’ their fathers. He is unable to get his way in his family, and in the jury, and the result causes his bluster, and his inevitable downfall. In the end, after a Heel Realization, he changes his vote, the final Not Guilty.

As with all the characters, we don’t know if he changed his mind or his ways. For all we know, these men lived the rest of their lives untouched by the events in the jury room on the hottest day of the year, and honestly, that’s not a huge surprise.

These men, while not sharing the same backgrounds as many of us, are meant to be us. We are given a responsibility, a privilege to affect the decisions in our system of justice. We are meant to use it, to take advantage of it, and as a result, we are visible in these men. Whether we’re crusaders for justice, impatient and dismissive, bitter and resentful, or simply taking it for granted, these twelve angry men are us, the audience. It is up to us who we try to emulate, what values we hold dear, and how clearly we view them.

It is the ambiguity and the sheer brutal honesty in which these characters are depicted that this film’s legacy is made. Twelve men without names (aside from two in the epilogue) all too real to be comfortable for American audiences. This is, if not a realistic film, a real film, a mirror held to ourselves and our views on the systems we live with. It’s up to us to decide what we do once we catch a glimpse of the reflection.

Thank you guys so much for reading! Don’t forget that the ask box is always open for questions, suggestions, discussions, or just saying hi. I hope to see you all in the next article.

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paigesturning · 4 years

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Race in 5e: Who Is at Your Table?

I had to write an argumentative essay for one of my classes this semester. I was really into the idea I had, and gave it a shot! I think this might be one of the best pieces I’ve ever written.

Word count: 2995 TW: Discussions of race science, orientalism, and references to white supremacist rhetoric

Writing is difficult, and it’s even more difficult to write collaboratively. This applies to TTRPG as much as it applies to novels. Sure, the DM could simply railroad the players into sessions of combat, lock them into a certain path, or make their other options so terrible that they simply must go the way the story is leading, but it’s bad practice. After all, though it’s not a traditional story, written down in book form for distribution, TTRPG relies on the interplay between the DM’s idea for what should happen in the story, and the players’ ideas. Unlike writing a book, however, TTRPGs rely on another influence, rather than just the set of people who have agreed to tell a story. There’s always at least one other person in the situation, who might be completely unknown to the DM and players. I refer, of course, to the game designer. TTRPGs have far more freedom than video games, but the decisions made by the game designer have the same amount of weight in both mediums. In Skyrim, for example, this looks like a prioritization of combat mechanics over puzzle solving mechanics or relationship mechanics. Though both are implemented in the game, there’s not nearly as many options in playstyle for relationships, or variation in puzzle types, for it to be considered a romance game, or a puzzle game. In TTRPG, the influence of the designer is often far less apparent. In 5e, your character can do basically whatever they want so long as the other people at the table agree that it’s something they want to interact with. However, with some exception, you will not be able to run a game set, for example, in real-world Chicago or on a transport vessel in space. Players tend to be locked into a fantasy setting. Like Skyrim, 5e is a system that prioritizes combat in a magical, pseudo-European medieval setting. It’s a mix of mechanics, and built-in worldbuilding that can allow us to come to this conclusion - each spell, if it doesn’t explicitly add or remove hit points from a target, changes the rules for when and how combat can happen, and each class is described in their flavor text in high fantasy terms, often opening with the examples of ways each one can be useful in combat. True as all this may be, it is, at its core a neutral thing, and I find myself blessed to occasionally be at the tables of others as a game designer and homebrewer. All games must make assumptions about the kind of game players want, and must do their best to fulfil those expectations, the same way a speaker might attempt to predict the thoughts, previous knowledge, and counter-arguments of their audience. However, in 5e, there lies a certain set of assumptions that I personally find troubling, and in fact in need of some serious reworking. The way that race functions in 5e represents an old-fashioned way of viewing the world. In the most direct terms, yeah, it’s kinda racist. Therefore, the assumptions 5e makes in their race system, represented in mechanics that both promote archaic ways of thinking and force the narrative in directions the players and DM may be uncomfortable with, means that it is time to either dramatically change the way race works, or pass over the system entirely.

When a DM is preparing to start a new game of 5e, one very good place to start is the Dungeon Master’s Guide, or DMG. In it, theoretically, are the tools for DMs and players alike to better understand exactly what the game they are playing looks like. In many ways, it’s a behind the scenes look at what goes into planning a session. For example, each “encounter”, or a portion of the game in which the players fight enemies or find ways around them, there’s a bit of calculation which can tell you what enemies will be appropriate for your party size and level. However, in a new game, before even doing that, you should go to the beginning of chapter 1, on page 9. It lists the assumptions the rules make about your setting, which is a helpful tool for anyone attempting to rectify the base rules with a far-out, high-concept world. They are as follows: “Gods Oversee the World”, “Much of the World is Untamed”, “The World is Ancient”, “Conflict Shapes the World’s History”, and “The World is Magical”. On paper, that’s all you need to know (though it might be worth noting that on page 43 the book contradicts this and gets more specific about what sort of multiverse is required to support the rules). These are five basic rules anyone can follow, rules that most people working to create a fantasy setting would have followed anyway, especially in such a combat-focused system. However, in the Player’s Handbook, (abbreviated as PHB) there are additional assumptions about the setting you’ll be playing in, most notably in the section on the different races that appear in 5e. For starters, each race has a small box that explains how the other races in the game are likely to view them. Taken from page 37, when the book is discussing how Gnomes (a small race of humanoids with large heads and thin limbs) think about their place among other races, “It's rare for a gnome to be hostile or malicious unless he or she has suffered a grievous injury. Gnomes know that most races don't share their sense of humor, but they enjoy anyone's company just as they enjoy everything else they set out to do.” They give no explanation for why gnomes tend to be “Good”, in terms of 5e’s morality system. Perhaps this isn’t an oversight, and instead they are allowing you to fill in the blanks yourself? Do the gnomes perhaps have free healthcare, while some others do not?

I am of course being facetious. I am certain the creators didn’t think quite so far ahead, and instead just wanted to paint a picture of the world they envisioned. It’s not some great sin of design, of course, to do this, and I will admit I am guilty of it in my own design. However, this is just one of the smaller examples of 5e making decisions for the DM and the players. Unlike some other portions of the rules, that brief note can be ignored with little to no need for creating a replacement. You could just as easily scribble the note out of the book, and leave a black sharpie stain where it once sat. Unfortunately, there are other decisions made about race that are much harder to ignore without a level of homebrewed (or player-created) mechanics. For example, a little later, on page 43, the book tells you about the specific mechanical benefits that half-orcs get. Two in particular stand out to me as disturbing. The first, Menacing, means that “You gain proficiency in the Intimidation skill”. The other is Savage Attacks, which reads “When you score a critical hit with a melee weapon attack, you can roll one of the weapon's damage dice one additional time and add it to the extra damage of the critical hit”. There is no way in which these cannot be seen as narrative decisions on the part of the creators. Exactly what is it about an orc’s presence that would mean it is more intimidating than any other person? One could surmise that, perhaps they are much larger than most people, or that their rarity means that people are not used to their size and tusks. Perhaps I only speak for myself, but I do not often find myself intimidated by people who look different from what I am used to. The explanation the rules provide is that full-blooded-orcs are barbaric raiders, who wantonly destroy and kill, and are considered evil. Why is it, however, that there’s an entire group of people, people with thoughts, feelings, social structures, who can produce viable offspring with members of other groups of people, that the book deems evil? I submit that, in the minds of the creators, there is some sort of orientalist mystique behind the savage barbarian, one that is physically superior, and yet is still no more than fodder to be torn through by the heroes of the story. This isn’t even the worst example of racism built into the game, but to explain this next portion, I will need to explain a concept.

At its base level, phrenology is, as per the Encyclopedia Britannica, “the study of the conformation of the skull as indicative of mental faculties and traits of character, especially according to the hypotheses of Franz Joseph Gall”. Gall, born in 1758, measured the heads of his colleagues, convicts, and people in asylums, in order to determine traits such as intellect and potentiality for criminal behavior. As with many things invented in late 18th century Europe, this practice was used to fuel European imperialism. The article Of ‘Native Skulls’ and ‘Noble Caucasions’: Phrenology in Colonial South Africa, by Andrew Bank, explains very quickly that “The leading proponents of the new discipline almost uniformly adapted their science of the brain to issues of racial differentiation”. I assume that from here it isn’t difficult to see the direction I am heading with this. Elves, Tieflings, Humans, and Gnomes are given bonuses to Intelligence. Dwarves, Humans, and Elves are given bonuses to Wisdom. Elves, Half-Elves, Humans, Tieflings, Dragonborn, and Halflings are given bonuses to Charisma. Of the races present in the PHB, Half-Orcs are the only ones that don’t get any bonuses to the so-called “Mental Stats”. Physical stats, on the other hand, include Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution, and Half-Orcs get bonuses to Strength and Constitution. In mechanical terms, this leads to a fairly good balance. The other classes serve as either well-rounded jacks-of-all-trades, or are specialized for certain casters, or help fit an archetype of dexterous fighter/caster combinations, while the Half-Orcs are specialized for non-caster tanks, such as the Barbarian or the Fighter. This makes narrative sense as well; if Half-Orcs are raised by the orcish side of their family, they are far more likely to be brutal in martial combat, trained to fight and kill anyone who might have supplies or treasure for them.

However much this might “make sense”, I have to ask why this was an addition to the game. I see three possible answers, and by my approximation, they are likely to all be true. The first is that the creators wanted more narrative control than they let on. The second is that they needed those stats to be stand-in numbers to represent various types of spellcaster and are simply ignorant to their implications. The third is that the creators simply find race science unobjectionable. Earlier, I suggested that the game designer joins the players and the DM at the table, through their work. At my table, ignorance and suggestions that some races are simply more intellectually powerful than others is not tolerated, and I should only hope you feel the same way.

At this point, you’re thinking so loud that I can practically hear it, even in the past. “Ignorance isn’t tolerated? What if the ignorant person in question is willing to change, and well-meaning?”, but if this is what you were thinking, I say with the deepest respect that you’re being just a touch too literal. Of course, if I’ve sat down and agreed to play with someone I know, I am willing to go over why what they said made me uncomfortable. TTRPG is a dialogue, one where the players and the DM must negotiate, not battle, for the story they want to tell, and where everyone must speak up when something happens that makes them upset. The difference between a literal player’s presence and the game designer’s figurative presence is that there is no arguing with a book. In some ways, it’s easier to change a book’s mind. Simply write your own rules, and move on, there’s no need to debate an actual person. You may also be thinking that 5e simply utilizes the mechanics of previous editions. While that is technically true, what is the point of creating a new edition if you can’t change things moving forward? And what’s more, each of my criticisms can be moved onto 1e. The biggest criticism I expect against my argument however, isn’t any of this. Obviously, only one of the races in 5e is human. Nothing in 5e indicates that one race of human is significantly better or worse than any other race of human, and so surely it can’t be racism. Again, you may be thinking a little too literally. In the world supposed by 5e, each race is seen as a person, and (depending on the setting and narrative your group constructs) has the same rights to freedom and life, and yet some are just more mentally skilled than others as soon as they are born. How often in reality do the dregs of society say something along the lines of “it isn’t that I think [members of a certain race] aren’t people or should be enslaved, it’s just that I think that white people are inherently smarter” to make an effort of sounding more reasonable? It isn’t that I think the races in 5e are 1:1 parallels to real-world racist stereotypes. Instead, it’s a matter of philosophy, race-based pseudoscience, and ideology that makes 5e (and previous editions) racist, without major rules upheavals.

However, in some cases, it would require such an overhaul of a system that it isn’t worth it. Most people would look at the rules for 5e’s races and pale at the thought of changing it completely. Do you get rid of stats completely? Do you select whatever stats you want by yourself? Perhaps you instead get certain bonuses when you select your class, rather than your race? These are all possibilities, and I have played games that utilized some of these options. Aside from the strength of reducing the amount of racism in 5e, it also increases the amount of choice a player has when creating their character. It isn’t unheard of to have a dwarf that uses Dexterity and Charisma as it’s primary abilities, but it is poorly optimized in comparison to the options of Half-Elf or Tiefling, and though it takes a bit more work than just handing a player the PHB, I believe it is worth it in the end. There’s no shame in admitting defeat, though. It’s not every day that I feel like fixing another person’s game, and I design games. And I do it for fun. It is the talent I am blessed with, and my lifelong burden. I understand not wanting to put in the effort. However, my suggestion isn’t that you walk away from TTRPG forever, scorned by the problems in 5e, never to roll a die again. Instead, it might be worth your time looking into other systems of play. Whenever I recommend a system to someone who has only played 5e and is looking for a similar aesthetic, I always turn them toward my personal favorite, Dungeon World (abbreviated as DW). DW is, in many ways, the game that I thought I was playing when I first started playing 5e. Looking through the PHB, it seems very comprehensive to incoming players. But to go back to the example of Skyrim, there’s a suggestion when you start it for the first time that you are about to enter a world of endless possibility, only to be shoehorned into a game that directly prioritizes combat. Dungeon World, while it has far less comprehensive rules for combat, one of its biggest strengths is that it has far fewer rules in general. That isn’t to say that it’s harder to follow. Instead of having intense, complicated rules for combat, every moment in the game is subject to “moves” in which, when you say that your character is doing something, the GM - Game Master, in contrast to the Dungeon Master of 5e - can tell you that the outcome is uncertain, and that it might be difficult. When this happens, you roll two six-sided dice, and the game provides very comprehensive rules to help you resolve it. When you choose a race, you get one extra move and nothing else - an option easily alterable, if one finds it uncomfortable. Blades in the Dark, a similar fantasy system, resolves roles in a similar manner, once again, with a much lesser emphasis on violence, and a much stronger emphasis on magic heists. It’s races have no mechanical benefit, and can be completely ignored if so desired.

Creating a system is difficult, I know. Playtesting aside, it’s a combination of finding something special that you want to create, deciding what the players will be looking for, and editing draft after draft. It’s also difficult, both logistically and emotionally, to kick someone out of a campaign. It’s my belief though that a line should be drawn when someone in the game insists on adding not only social, but biological inferiority to characters of certain races. It’s a privilege to have your work at someone else’s table, and it’s a privilege that can be revoked. Once again, playing 5e isn’t some ethical failing, or mortal offence. However, it is worth evaluating what changes can be made to 5e’s race system, and if it’s worth it to you to not switch to another system. If you have found any of this compelling, consider your other options. In addition to what I’ve already mentioned, there are designers out there who can bring you into space, cities filled with dark magic and/or under control by cosmic monsters, or honey conventions where there are a few bears trying to steal stuff. Next time you get the urge to roleplay, just consider what I’ve said here, and think about who you’re inviting to your table.

Bibliography

LaTorra, Sage, and Adam Koebel. Dungeon World. 1st ed., The Burning Wheel, 2012.

Harper, John. Blades in the Dark. Evil Hat Productions LLC., 2017.

Works Cited

Mearls, Mike, and Jeremy Crawford. Player's Handbook. 5th ed., Wizards of the Coast LLC, 2014.

Mearls, Mike, and Jeremy Crawford. Dungeon Master's Guide. 5th ed., Wizards of the Coast LLC, 2014.

“Phrenology.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., www.britannica.com/topic/phrenology.

Bank, Andrew. “Of 'Native Skulls' and 'Noble Caucasians': Phrenology in Colonial South Africa.” Journal of Southern African Studies, vol. 22, no. 3, 1996, pp. 387–403. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2637310. Accessed 26 Mar. 2020.

#D&D #5e #D&D 5e #racism #Phrenology

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bluekaddis · 5 years

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You almost mentioned Cullen as the best written character, but tbh he is written quite bad, his abuse and hate is never confronted in Inquisition and he is made victim by narrative, while he was the very problem why Chantry sucks. Even his fans admit that. He is mostly liked because of romance.

Ugh.

I was waiting for that moment when admitting I like Cullen’s character and story arc will bite me in the ass.

TL; DR (for those who don’t want to get through my long rant)

Let everyone enjoy any characters/romances/game choices they want. I have my reasons for having Cullen as a fav DA character and liking his story arc and I don’t think there are more problems with writing of his character than the majority of other companions in DA games.

Full answer below

First of all – I don’t want to argue that everyone should like or dislike the same elements of fiction as I do – it would be stupid. We all have different tastes, like different character archetypes and have varying opinions on what makes a good story. I’m trying to keep my blog character positive and unless someone asks me directly to share my opinion on a certain character or plot element I prefer keeping my critique to myself. I also don’t feel entitled to confront fans who, in their own posts, state they find Cullen boring, unredeemable or overrated, even if I personally disagree with all these statements.

If your ask, anon, stated the words “i think” or “in my opinion” I wouldn’t probably bother with such a lengthy answer, HOWEVER, you write your personal opinion like it was an objective statement, like you were in position to tell me how I should view the certain character. What did you expect, that I would suddenly realize “oh crap, NOW I see that a character and plot I had liked for my 200 hours of gameplay is actually bad, I was just too stupid to notice it!”.

Haha, no.

So, let’s go through your comment.

“tbh he is written quite bad”

In. Your. Opinion. There are people who don’t like Cullen’s character development. Some like the general idea but would make some changes if they could. Others (like me) don’t have problem with his story arc and just like to add some headcanons to fill the gaps.

It is understandable that when years pass between games, fans have time to develop their opinions and wishes of what they’d like to see. And because none of them actually writes the story it is very easy to feel disappointed and say “well, I would do it better (= my way)”. But the truth is - your way is not necessary a better way. It may be the case that “your version” would be even more hated by the fandom. Some opinions are just more popular than others and therefore may seem like they are objective but it’s an illusion. A well designed pool, with large sample size and good statistics may be objective. Opinions, on the other hand, are like farts – you always think yours are less stinky than the others’ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But I digress.

Yes, I think Cullen is a well written character and yes, I like his story arc. Cullen’s redemption works for me because I see it not as much about atonement for his actions as for his lack of action.

Let me explain.

Anti-Cullen fans tend to assume that he personally did a lot of atrocities, but when you look not at fandom assumptions but at his actual actions we see in games or WoT, you can see that he caused most evil by not doing shit.

He should have protected the mages.

He didn’t.

He should have questioned Meredith’s actions.

He didn’t.

He should have noticed she’s going mad.

He didn’t .

He should have stopped her before she evoked the Rite.

He didn’t.

He was very passive and basically let either Meredith or Hawke make all the choices for him. If he let Meredith decide – people died. If he listened to Hawke (based on player’s choices) he voted for whatever Hawke had proposed.

Why was he behaving like that? Probably because he had lost faith in his own judgment so he put all the responsibility on authority figures (Templar Order and Chantry teachings). Cullen’s core motivation throughout all games was to protect people and it never changes. What changes is his belief of what methods are moral or necessary to achieve that goal and whether he, as an individual, should be in a position to decide it.

In Inquisition Cullen does the opposite. He is a workaholic. He makes his own decisions (leaves Kirkwall, stops taking lyrium) and takes full responsibility for them. He doesn’t follow his leader blindly but openly states his own opinions and advice (whether they are correct or wrong is another topic). He gets really furious when someone in position of power lie to or sacrifice people under their command (like in case of Samson or Rainier). Finally, he dedicates his life, health, skills, basically everything, for a cause - to stop the war that can be blamed mostly on his former organisation, without complaint or asking for forgiveness.

And I love that aspect of his character.

In Inquisition Cullen is still a work in progress. He tries his best but his templar past comes back sometimes - and it’s good. If he was completely free of his biases, it would be damn unnatural.

I would never say that Cullen is a flawless ray of sunshine. He can be stubborn, biased, narrow-minded, hypocritical, bitter, aggressive and vengeful. But guess what – so can all the other characters. That’s why they are interesting.

“his abuse and hate is never confronted in Inquisition”

It is, at least for the standards of this particular game. DA:I doesn’t have full developed friendship-rivalry mechanics like DA:2 and you can’t even get approval points from advisors. The Inquisitor basically has far less options to condemn the Inner Circle’s actions or change their worldviews than Hawke (you don’t really argue with Dorian about slavery or with Iron Bull about Saarebas or Reeducators either).

But even if the Inquisitor has limited dialogue options to confront Cullen’s actions directly, Cullen himself brings the topic to the player. Cullen’s dialogue and actions in DA:I show that

he is ashamed of the person he became after Uldred’s uprising

he knows he needs to atone for his actions and he wants to work for it

but doesn’t really believe he can fully atone for what he did

supports the reform of the Chantry, Templar Order and Circles rather than agreeing to their traditional methods

That man already hates himself, give him some rest.

And if you still think he needs an extra punishment for his crimes - Cullen is actually one of only 3 companions/advisors in DA:I whose life you can literally ruin through your choices (the other two being Blackwall and Iron Bull). If your Inky thinks that Cullen’s actions are unredeemable and he deserves nothing better than to forever be chained to the templar life he has chosen as a kid - they can order him to take lyrium again. For me it’s a heartless and morally wrong choice, but anyone can play their game however they want.

„he is made victim by narrative”

Ok, that part really bothers me. Are you saying that it is a bad thing that a narrative treats a person who has been physically, mentally and sexually abused for weeks as a victim of that abuse? Or encourages empathy towards a character fed drugs, manipulation and propaganda? Acknowledging Cullen’s PTSD doesn’t automatically result in ignoring or diminishing traumas and abuse that happened to Anders, Carl or any other character. Empathy doesn’t have to be reserved to people you personally agree with, just saying.

„he was the very problem why Chantry sucks.”

I’d say he was an example showing why Chantry sucks. A symptome, not a cause. Chantry benefits only high ranking members of that intitution + some nobles and rich dudes. Mages are abused and denied most of the rights because of the Chantry. Templars are drugged and brainwashed because of the Chantry. Common folk can’t freely benefit from things like healing magic because of the Chantry. Non-humans are treated like heretics and barbarians - because of the Chantry. The Chantry, as we see at the beginning of DA:I is a corrupt, powerful institution that has forsaken almost all ideals it had been built upon and desperately needs a reform. Everyone can see that. I have NEVER met any fan who said „yeah, Circles, Templar Order, the Chantry – they were perfectly alright, no need to change lol”. Same goes to characters labelled by fandom as pro-Chantry (like Cassandra, Cullen or Vivienne). They all see that major changes must be done, they just believe the reformation is better than abolition.

„Even his fans admit that.”

Some, yes. Others don’t have a problem with his arc. Personally I don’t think there are many Cullen fans that would agree with every single point you made.

„He is mostly liked because of romance.”

Um, no. The reason why the game developers even bothered with making Cullen a romance option in DA:I is that he was already quite liked and popular among fans, despite being just a secondary character. I’d agree that the romance plot made Cullen even more popular, especially among players who didn’t play previous games, but it is wrong to assume that the only reason people enjoy his character is because he’s a pretty boy. I played the games in order and Cullen was one of my fav characters in DA2 - I just like paragon anti-villains with redemption potential. Fight me.

To conclude this overly long rant - I’m generally under impression that some DA fans tend to point certain aspects of Cullen’s character and story as “stupid excuses made by Bioware and fans to redeem a son of the bitch” and then use almost exactly the same arguments to defend their own favs. It’s the topic for maybe another discussion, but I think it’s a good thing to confront your own biases sometimes.

P.S. I also recommend watching this video about writing redemption arcs. Just for fun.

I rest my case.

(thanks, Ania, for the high quality picture to sum up my feelings)

#ask #cullen rutherford #cullen positive #fandom critical #my writing #rainhowls rambles #don't be afraid #i am generally open to discussion #just please state your opinions as actual opinions #not facts

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thebookbandwagon · 4 years

Text

Unpopular Opinions Book Tag

I’ve seen this list of tag prompts floating around and find them really fun to read and watch so here’s my take on it. This is just for fun and I’ve put the image of all the stuff I talk about below so you can skip over this post if you don’t like the idea of seeing potential criticisms of them. My Youtube version of this is here.

1.) A popular book or book series that you didn’t like

Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. I read the first two in the trilogy and I just don’t connect on a personal level to any of the characters. I’ve enjoyed other books by this author but Mistborn just… doesn’t do it for me. I don’t have the level of emotional investment in the characters that I want and they don’t feel like vivid people to me.

2.) A popular book or book series that everyone else seems to hate but you love

Captive Prince by C.S. Pacat. I know not everyone hates this series, but there’s a fairly high proportion of the people who read it who end up hating it. Based on the negative reviews I’ve seen, many people’s reasons for hating it seems to be rooted in labelling it as problematic. While I agree there are a couple of elements of the series that aren’t handled with as much care as they should be, I still don’t think it’s quite as bad as some people make it out to be. It’s also a pet peeve that some people make it out as if an author having certain things happening in their stories means they endorse those things happening in real life and that’s just... not logical.

3.) An otp that you don’t like

99% of the time I just don’t care about pairings and there aren’t that many pairings I can think of that I actively dislike instead of just not caring. Buffy/Angel? I’m counting it as qualifying for this tag because it has comics. I never found a Buffy pairing I either liked or was neutral about. I found Buffy/Angel to be way too over the top and corny and too instant. I honestly have no idea what they talk about when they’re not dealing with various apocalypses and watching it made me realise where part of the inspiration for Twilight probably originated from.

4.) A popular book genre that you hardly reach for

Young Adult Fantasy that’s geared towards the older end of the spectrum. If I’m reading YA it’s either because I trust the author to write something I like in that genre or because I want to give myself a brain break and read something I can get through really quickly. I’ve found with the older end of the YA spectrum that there doesn’t seem to be much difference in the reading difficulty between YA and Adult within the fantasy genre so the genre usually just ends up not giving me what I want from it.

5.) A popular/beloved character that you do not like

Kvothe from The Name of The Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. I like there to be things characters are bad at and Kvothe was just way too good at every single thing he did for my taste. Never before have I been so invested in the main character of a book failing and I was left completely unsatisfied because at no point in The Name of the Wind does Kvothe fail when it isn’t because of being sabotaged by someone else. I know there are theories about how he’s an unreliable narrator but unless I see actual evidence on the page then I just don’t have the faith that he is. Saying that, I really did love the writing style so if Rothfuss writes anything not involving someone who I despise as much as Kvothe then I’d give it a go.

6.) A popular author that you can’t seem to get into

Leigh Bardugo? I’ve read Six of Crows, Crooked Kingdom, as well as Shadow and Bone and they were all fairly meh reads for me. I feel like my reasons for not being able to get into her books come down to my repeating previous points I’ve made because they’re a combination of the genre she writes in as well as me knowing I love the tropes and character archetypes she’s using but just not having the level of investment in her characters that I want.

Robin Hobb is another popular author I can’t get into. She has characters that feel much more vivid and writes within Adult Fantasy but her pacing is so so slow and I’m not patient enough as a reader to be able to get through her lengthy books.

7.) A popular book trope that you’re tired of seeing

Redemption = Death. I love a good villain eventually turning sides or an anti-hero/anti-villain having a good redemption arc but it seems like all these arcs inevitably end in their death and it just… doesn’t have to be that way. I’d find the story far more interesting if the redemption arc doesn’t end so abruptly and the person undergoing it has to figure out their new place in the world, how to live with themselves, and other people’s changing perceptions of them.

8.) A popular series that you have no interest in reading

Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien. As a fantasy fan, peer pressure makes me feel obligated to like this series. I don’t like this series. I’ve attempted to read it three times and only managed on one of those times to get almost halfway through The Fellowship of the Ring. All the characters just don’t do anything for me (except you, Gollum) and I have no interest in what happens to them or the themes within the story.

Me not liking Lord of the Rings doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate what it’s done for the fantasy genre though and I’m well aware most of the series that I love probably wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for the book that’s basically responsible for the catalyst of the genre of fantasy books that feature worldbuilding.

9.) What movie or TV show adaptation do you prefer more than the book?

Hmm. If I was only going off seasons 1-4 of Game of Thrones I’d go with that but considering what happened after I’m… ugh.

So instead I’m going with Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. Originally by Douglas Adams, it’s a very witty and quirky comedy book series with sci-fi and fantasy elements set in modern-day (which back then would’ve been around the 80s). It follows a detective who employs bizarre techniques like Zen Navigation:

“Rather than using conventional avenues of wayfinding like consulting a map, the Zen navigation method consists of finding someone who looks like they know where they’re going and following them. This is supposed to deliver the navigator to their destination, although its results are variable and often unexpected and unintended. It very rarely gets you where you wanted to go but always where you needed to be.”

The only issue I have with Douglas Adams is that his characters tend to be a bit on the caricature-ish side but this is something the TV show put a huge amount of effort into and it paid off so so well. I had my reservations about the show since, other than Dirk, it looked very Americanised but they actually did an incredible job. It’s funny, complex, wacky, unpredictable yet (sort of) makes sense. There are lots of warm fuzzy feelings between the main characters and it’s great. Also there’s a portal to a fantasy world where the knights fight each other with giant pairs of scissors. It’s an incredibly underrated Netflix Original series that always deserved more attention than it got.

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teganberry · 5 years

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The Disney Princess Dilemma

Kingdom Hearts 3 has been a game filled with massive highs and devastating emotional lows. And while the game is both a critical and financial success for Square Enix, the opinions of dedicated fans have been rather divided. Overall the game is an amazing piece of entertainment, but there is one aspect of the narrative that most fans seem to agree is the game’s biggest flaw, the rather weak portrayal of it’s female characters, in particular Kairi.

Now before I dive in any deeper I want to make a few things clear. Kairi is one of my favourite characters in the Kingdom Hearts series, and has been since I first got into the series well over 15 years ago. As such this post is intended as a character study and discussion, not an excuses to bash on Kairi’s character or Nomura’s ability as a writer. I adore Kairi and I’ve got far too much respect for Nomura as a creative to so thoughtlessly throw hate around. Secondly, while I will be referring to certain character’s as being “Princes” and “Princesses”, shipping has got nothing to do with this, they are simply Disney character archetypes I want to explore. There is no hidden agenda here, just an honest discussion. Alrighty, this is going to be a long one, let’s jump in!

As it stands we have no idea what the future plot of the Kingdom Hearts series holds, the only person who does know is Nomura. Perhaps everything we’ve seen so far is all part of a bigger master plan that will one day blow all our collective minds away. But until then when it comes to the problem surrounding Kairi’s portrayal in Kingdom Hearts 3, the best way we can find the answers for where things potentially went wrong is to look back.

Since I completed the game and begun to see many of the complaints surrounding Nomura’s writing of Kairi, I begun to wonder how had it all come to this. A lot of people have concluded the main issue is that Nomura just doesn’t like Kairi anymore and he no longer knows what to do with her. Personally I don’t think that’s the case. If Nomura really was tired of her and she wasn’t working into his long term plans then he would have written her out of the plot a long time ago. But he didn’t. Kairi has continued to make significant appearances in a majority of the titles in the series. She has been front and centre in the promotional material for Kingdom Hearts 3, a great deal of the the game’s opening was focused on her, (even more so than Aqua which really surprised me), and the ending of the game seemingly sets Kairi right at the heart of whatever is about to come next in Sora’s journey. So then what went wrong? If Nomura doesn’t hate Kairi and isn’t bored with her then why was she relegated once again to the role of the damsel in distress? Well I believe it all comes back to her original role in the Kingdom Hearts series, Kairi is Square Enix’s Disney Princess.

One thing we have to keep in mind whenever you consider the development of a Kingdom Hearts game is that Disney is always at the heart of development process. Not just in the creation of the Disney worlds, but in how the original characters are designed, how they act, and how the overall story progresses. Kingdom Hearts is this weirdly impossible mix of JRPG and Disney storytelling that somehow works to create an utterly amazing greater whole. As such each character by design, especially in the case of the original Kingdom Hearts, can be seen as fitting into a number of well known Disney archetypes.

Most classic Disney films have three main character types the plot centres around, the Prince/Hero, the Villain, and the Princess. As the first game in the series, the developers wanted to make sure every aspect of the game was filled with that beloved Disney Magic. We see that Sora, Riku and Kairi were all purposefully written to embody these three classic archetypes. Sora is the daring Prince, he’s our hero and the one we know will save the day no matter what. Likewise Riku comes to embody the role of the Villain, as we constantly see him attempt to get in Sora’s way and undermine his journey. Now before any RIku fans jump down my throat, Riku obviously isn’t the true villain of the game as he also embodies that age old JRPG role of the rival to Sora’s hero. So we always knew Riku would be redeemed by the game’s end, but that doesn’t change the fact that for a time Riku was one of the bad guys. That of course means Kairi is the Princess, but not just any princess, she is purposefully written to embody the traits of a classic Disney Princess.

In Kingdom Hearts lore the original seven Princess of Hearts were comprised of Snow White, Aurora, Cinderella, Jasmine, Belle, Alice and Kairi. The Disney Princess are all very recognisable, and considering they are now the 7th highest grossing media franchise of all time (I’m not kidding! They make more money then the entire Harry Potter/Wizarding World franchise), it makes sense to see them grouped together in Kingdom Hearts. In comparison, at the time Kairi was a brand new character that the player knew very little about, and had never been associated with the Princesses before. So in order for her inclusion as a Princess of Heart in the narrative to work, Nomura needed to develop her character in such a way that the player would see and accept her as essentially a new Disney Princess. The best way to accomplish this then, with perhaps the exception of Alice in Wonderland, was to have Kairi’s role in the game unfold in a similar manner to what we often see occur in the other Princesses’ films, the often helpless Princess being captured or tormented by the villain, then eventually saved by the Prince. That’s why every time we see Kairi’s lifeless body throughout the entire game we can’t help thinking of Sleepy Beauty, because that’s exactly what Nomura want’s us to see. The game directly draws on the plot of Sleeping Beauty, Kairi embodies the sleeping Aurora, Sora is Prince Phillip charging forth with enchanted sword in hand, while Riku is being manipulated by the central villain of Sleepy Beauty herself, Malificent. Nomura’s narrative cements the subliminal suggestions in our minds and archives his goal, Kairi becomes a new kind of Disney Princess.

The narrative of having Kairi saved by Sora worked quite well in the original Kingdom Hearts, because the overall intention of that game was to create an experience reminiscent of the classic Disney films everyone grew up on. And while she was relegated to the role of damsel in destress for a large portion of the story, Kairi does get her moment to shine and show us that there’s more to being a princess than simply waiting to be rescued. Kairi represents the inner strength that balances out Sora and Riku’s outward power. Its a theme that has come to be associated with her character throughout all the main entries in the series.

So what was next for Kairi? Well as it turns out more of the same it seems. Kairi unfortunately finds herself being kidnapped by the villains once again in Kingdom Hearts 2, likely due to Nomura again wanting to make it clear that Kairi is the Princess of this story. But first lets take a look at the development of Kairi’s design over the course of the series. While initially being presented as a rather normal teenage girl in the first game, during the development of Kingdom Hearts 2 there was a conscious push to make Kairi even more Princess like than she had been in previous games. Her hair is longer, she wears a pretty pink dress now rather than shorts and tank tops, and her overall appearance is much more elegant and mature. In a cast interview with Kairi’s then english voice actress, Hayden Panettiere, it’s mentioned that she was often asked to raise her voice a few octaves to make Kairi sound more like a Princess. Kairi’s physical Princess evolution is pushed even further in Kingdom Hearts 3 when she is given a new battle dress and a hair cut that is somewhat reminiscent of Snow White. While this new outfit does appear hardier then her previous design, unlike her fellow Guardians Kairi does not wear any form of gloves or gauntlets to protect her hands, instead only wearing a few bracelets. Comparing her Kingdom Hearts 3 outfit to that of Sora and Riku’s does bring into question it’s overall practicality, but she is a Princess and the design makes that very clear visually.

For the sake of character development and future plot progression it makes sense to bring Kairi’s role as a Princess of Heart to the forefront, as it would soon come to play an even greater part in Kingdom Hearts lore. Having been born with a heart of pure light makes Kairi very unlike any other character in the series. But it seems in order to press upon the player that yes indeed Kairi is a Princess, In Kingdom Hearts 2 Nomura fell back on the old Princess needing to be saved by the Prince plot device in order to drive that home. Thankfully though things are changed up a bit this time around. Kairi is sick of waiting around, and whenever she gets the chance to strike out on her own to find her friends, both before and after being kidnapped, she does so without hesitation. She’s even given a Keyblade and is finally able to fight for herself this time! Hurray! Overall it isn’t great that Nomura chose to make Kairi the old school Disney damsel in distress again, but despite this we do see determination and growth in her character. Perhaps not as much as we see in Sora and Riku, but there is development none the less and by the end most fans were excited to see how she would continue to grow as a character in future instalments.

For a good while it did seem that Nomura was hinting at Kairi taking on a much bigger role in the highly anticipated Kingdom Hearts 3. It was revealed in Dream Drop Distance that Yen Sid intended for her to be trained as a Keyblade Wielder, ensuring she would become one of the Guardians of Light and take part in the second Keyblade War. And as I mentioned previously, Kairi was quite often front and centre in most of Kingdom Hearts 3’s marketing material. Her line “This time, I’ll protect you” was constantly used throughout said marketing for the game. It all looked promising for Kairi! But then we all know what happened.

Now before we jump into Kingdom Hearts 3 itself let’s take a step back to the years following the release of Kingdom Hearts 2, and consider what was happening over at Disney Animation at the time. After nearly a decade of creating films that were mostly considered not up to scratch, Disney decided to go back to their most tried and true formula for creating successful animated films, adapting fairytales, specifically Princess movies. While this was the most sensible choice to make, Disney were also keenly aware that their older brand of Disney Princess film would likely no longer appeal to a modern audience. Today young girls want to look up to brave, strong and charismatic heroines who aren’t afraid to carve out their own path in life. Watching a movie about a Princess waiting to be saved just wasn’t going to cut it anymore. So Disney adapted and ever since then we’ve been introduced to an all new kind of Disney Princess, Tiana, Rapunzel, Elsa, Anna and Moana, Princesses who are the hero of their own stories.

This is what audiences have come to expect of the Princesses, to stand proudly on their own two feet, no longer being relegated to position the damsel in distress. So when it was announced that Tangled and Frozen would be brand new worlds in Kingdom Hearts 3 it set an exception in the minds of fans. Here we had two beloved Disney films that feature strong and brave Princesses as the central characters. It only makes sense then that we should expect the same strength to flow through to the wonderful ladies of Kingdom Hearts. But that didn’t happen. Instead nothing really changed for any of them, and instead of pushing Kairi to grow into the modern Princess we all want her to be, Nomura held her back.

Now the question we need to ask here is why? Why did Nomura choose to not follow the new Disney trend when he has stuck so closely to their lead in the past? I suppose the only person who can truly answer that question is the man himself. But lets try and think about this logically, as I can see two likely reasons why this occurred. The first is the fact that overall Square Enix and many other gaming companies still don’t do a great job when it comes to writing realistic and truly relatable female characters. Not to say there are none, but it is still a prevalent problem none the less. Case and point Lunafreya from Final Fantasy XV. The fact that in order to get a true understanding of Lunafreya as a character and her true feelings, we’re going to have to read a novel that acts as an alternate happy ending to the original game says a lot. But I’m getting off topic here! The track record for the development of female characters in games isn’t great, that’s not an excuse and game companies really need to start doing better, but it is a possible explanation for why the plot of Kingdom Hearts 3 unfolded the way it did.

The second and more likely reason to have Kairi play the Princess in distress to Sora’s hero once again was probably due to time constraints. AAA video game production is a massive undertaking with very strict deadlines. As a result developers are often forced to sacrifice interesting story elements and mechanics in order to make sure that a game is able to reach said deadlines in a solid and workable condition. Final Fantasy XV is again an excellent example of this and what can go wrong. In the time since the game’s release it has more or less been confirmed that due to the incredibly strained production of the game a vast majority of story content was cut out, and the game was left in a rather obvious unfinished state narrative wise. We know that the engine swap during the development of Kingdom Hearts 3 from the Luminous to the Unreal engine had a big impact on the game’s development time, and pushed it’s final release date back significantly. So it goes without saying that things would have been cut in order to make up for lost time. The fact Nomura has confirmed that we will be receiving DLC fleshing out Xion’s role in Kingdom Hearts 3 more or less confirms this. At the end of the day Square Enix is a business and sometimes sacrifices need to be made in order to ensure a product can be developed properly and efficiently.

There is every possibility that Nomura had planned a number of different ways for Kairi to develop and grow as a protagonist in Kingdom Hearts 3 before her tragic death occurred, perhaps even fighting back as much as she could before being captured. But the problem lies in just how many loose ends needed to be tied up in the game with the limited development time they had. So much attention need to be paid to as many characters as possible to wrap everything up that you run the risk of the game becoming bloated, or things feeling rushed and unfinished. I’m not saying it was the right choice to cut out Kairi’s potential character growth, but we can see why it was easier for Nomura to fall back on having her be easily kidnapped again to move that part of the plot forward as quickly as possible so the momentum didn’t slow down. She is a Princess after all, right? Well no, that reasoning isn’t an excuse anymore, audiences expect far more from the Princesses and its time for Square Enix to follow Disney’s lead.

So what can be done? If the reason Kairi is being held back is due to her role as a Princess then can it be fixed? The simple answer is yes, it can. Disney have already clearly laid out what they now expect of female heroines and Princesses in their films. With the less than positive critical response to the development of the female protagonists in Kingdom Hearts 3, Square would be crazy not to jump at the chance to give fans what we want to see. Nomura clearly understood what it meant for a character to be a Disney Princess during the development of Kingdom Hearts 1, and I’m sure he’s very aware that audience expectations have changed. What needs to be done now is for Square to take that step forward alongside Disney and allow Kairi move on from her role as a Classic Princess and finally grow into a Modern Disney Princess, not simply fall back on old writing habits out of convenience. By voicing our opinions in an honest and constructive manner on social media platforms such as Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram ect. Square Enix and Nomura will hear us. We need only tell them that not only do we want to see more from Kairi, but that we want her to stand proudly as one of the new Princesses of Heart alongside Elsa, Anna and Rapunzel, a positive embodiment of the new bread of Disney Hero.

#Kingdom Hearts #kairi #kingdom hearts 3 #Sora #riku #disney princess #we just want to see her grow!#That's all we ask!#Please Nomura!

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eggoreviews · 5 years

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Persona 5 Palaces RANKED

After recently finishing up Persona 5, I'm sort of aching a bit for more content but not quite enough to splash on Dancing in Starlight. So, to sate my cravings for more of the phantom bois, here's my personal ranking of the main palaces you traverse through in the game. This list is based on how fun and consistently interesting each palace is in terms of gameplay, puzzles, soundtrack, character, aesthetic and overall relevance to the story. Hope u enjoy/agree! Kinda goes without saying, but MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD for the whole ass game

8. Okumura’s Spaceport of Greed

Who saw this coming? Probably everyone! Because Okumura's palace is pretty much consistently ranked at the bottom of every ranking I've seen. But before I go all negative, let's start with what I actually liked. First off, I ADORED the spaceport motif and the whole theme/aesthetic of this palace was amazing. Alongside that, the music, while probably not the strongest in the game, was still mega catchy and fit the palace perfectly (it's still a banger, even if it isn't Whims of Fate level banger). So yeah, this palace's rock bottom ranking is nothing to do with its look or its soundtrack, because they're both pretty tasty. It was everything else I had a slight problem with. Now this isn't to say I disliked this palace, I just felt that it was the weakest part of an absolutely stellar game. While the majority of the puzzles weren't terrible, the infamous airlock puzzle definitely got in my bad books, as I'm pretty firmly in the 'this puzzle is weird luck-based bollocks' camp on this one, with it being the only puzzle in the game I had to look up the solution for. The constant back-and-forthing to different points of the palace to pick up keycards from the stupid robots became unfortunately very repetitive, especially with Morgana constantly screaming at me that the treasure was real close but (spoiler alert) it totally wasn't. And to top all that off, I felt this palace brought with it the weakest characters arcs in the whole game. I really struggled to become attached to Haru, the last true member of the thieves. While she was an okay character and I sympathised with her plight of being sold off to that one arsehole, I felt she wasn't written to be particularly interesting and her introduction to the thieves felt really shoehorned in compared to the natural-feeling transitions of all the other characters. She didn't quite feel as if she belonged there as much as the others (big sorry to all the Haru stans). And echoing this, the character of Okumura himself also felt incredibly bland and he was without a doubt the least interesting villain of the bunch. Oh, and his boss fight? Objectively the worst in the game. You fight the same robots you've been fighting the whole palace, with a timer, and then you kill him in one hit. Yeah, so the tea is, palace looks and sounds great, but that's really it.

7. Mementos Depths / Prison of Sloth

From this point on, I had very few problems with any of the palaces. As the final dungeon of the game, I felt that this one had definitely had adequate build-up but, as many others seem to say, didn't quite live up to the other palaces. For one, the design and soundtrack was much less interesting (though I guess this can be forgiven, as it's Mementos) and it was over pretty quickly in the end. But I really did enjoy those pressure plate puzzles for some reason and it was pretty cool to go around the velvet room and save all your pals before the final fight, so I just kind of liked this one. Not much to say here other than that it was really good, but the others were better.

6. Kaneshiro’s Bank of Gluttony

While it was fairly difficult to rank Kaneshiro's palace this low, considering it has the awakening of my favourite character, thinking about the palace as a whole compared to the others is what did it. The bank motif? Really cool! Seems inevitable for what is fundamentally a heist game and pulls it off really well. And that soundtrack is easily one of the best tracks in the game. The palace itself is split vaguely into two main sections, the main bank and the vault. The bank section is mostly pretty fun and well-paced, but the palace starts to get just a little bit iffy when the vault section kicks off. The idea is cool, but most of the second half of the palace feels a bit like padding, which becomes a little repetitive overtime. These really are minor gripes though, I gotta stress that, because I genuinely enjoyed this palace for the most part. Something else I enjoyed was Kaneshiro himself and his role in the story. Out of all the palace owners in the game, Kaneshiro felt the most like a true archetypal Bond villain and it does feel awesome to take him on as the phantom thieves are finally starting to get their feet off the ground. On top of that, you've got Makoto joining the team, which makes this one a real treat character-wise. In conclusion, I want Makoto to step on me.

5. Madarame’s Museum of Vanity

This one really did have a tough act to follow. Being the second palace you take on (as well as the awakening of my ,,,, second favourite character), I remember how impressed I was the first time around with how cool the visuals are in this palace. The soundtrack to the palace is generally fairly unremarkable, but very calming and surreal which definitely fit the setting. This palace definitely feels the most trippy out of the bunch, placing you in odd gold-plated mazes and endless corridors plastered with distorted paintings and tripwires to constantly make sure you're paying attention. This palace really does feel like you’ve been placed inside the mind of a deluded artist, even if the game’s attempts to make Madarame seem despicable only really serve to highlight how awful the previous palace owner, Kamoshida, is in comparison. This isn’t to say Madarame isn’t a trashbag, it just becomes obvious that the game is trying hard to make you hate him. That aside, Madarame’s palace provides a welcome challenge and effectively build upon what you learned in the first palace without overwhelming the player, all the while not compromising on the creative, stunning visuals. The ending pay-off with Madarame’s showdown, while a satisfying conclusion to Yusuke’s main character arc, provides a boss fight that is over a little too quickly, though that’s kind of just nitpicking at that point. All in all, a solid dungeon from start to finish.

4. Futaba’s Tomb of Wrath

Without a doubt the most emotionally charged palace in the game, this dungeon is a unique experience unlike anything else you’ll find in the game. Instead of taking down a despicable villain or giving a certain prosecutor a push in the right direction, you’re instead helping to heal the heart of a traumatised girl, who requested herself for her heart to be stolen. You’re reaching the halfway point during this palace, so it’s a brilliant change of pace from the dickholes you’ve been stealing the hearts of up to this point. The game truly makes you feel genuine sympathy for Futaba and seeing her recovery slowly but steadily take place over the game really tugs on the heartstrings. As for the palace itself, the game takes its love of ambiguous metaphors and cranks up the dial, giving the player an interesting but oddly melancholy setting in the form of an Egyptian pyramid. The background music for this palace is perfect to help accentuate this, as the soundtrack works with the visuals to make you just feel a bit sad. The puzzles are well thought out and never overstay their welcome, the layout of the palace is consistently unique and fun to traverse and the ending boss is one of the most creative, high-stakes battles in Persona 5. And while Futaba’s awakening wasn’t my favourite, it’s great to see her finally face her demons and accept that her mother’s death wasn’t her fault. But most of all, this palace reminds you that you should never get too comfortable when playing Persona 5, as the tables could turn at any minute and suddenly make you care about the person you’re changing the heart of.

3. Kamoshida’s Castle of Lust

Kamoshida is arguably the biggest scumbag you take on in Persona 5, so it makes a lot of sense that his palace is one of the most satisfying to undertake. The castle acts as the perfect starting dungeon, teaching you the ropes without too much hand-holding and providing you with simple but visually interesting palace to boot. Before the game drags you into its grandiose main plot, you start with a much smaller scale, but equally despicable villain that you immediately know you have to deal with. And on top of that, each character introduction is seamless and fits perfectly in with the narrative. The puzzles here are simple enough to be basically harmless and each area of the castle you navigate changes things up to keep it unique while teaching you the inner workings of the palaces you’ll be taking down for the rest of the game. As for the first boss, the build-up feels perfect as the tension amps up and reaches boiling point as you send your first calling card. Oh, and Kamoshida’s boss design himself as this horrifying, weird lust demon definitely sets you up for what’s ahead. Great as a beginning act, but also a heckin solid dungeon in its own right. Plus, I’m a sucker for castles, so I might be a little biased here.

2. Niijima’s Casino of Jealousy

I’ll be honest with you, I think a casino is one of the most awesome ideas for a dungeon I’ve ever heard of in a JRPG. And everything about this one is near enough perfect. The reveal that you’ll be targeting the person who’s been interrogating you for the whole game, the link back to the very starting cutscene, the tension mounting as you desperately try to work out who the traitor is, Makoto’s emotional turmoil as she wrestles with the ethics of targeting her own sister. Story-wise, this is totally perfect. And the dungeon itself? Definitely the most consistently unique in the whole game. Each floor you traverse in the casino offers something new and interesting for you to work around, from the rigged dice games to the dark labyrinth and the battle arena trial (not to mention the whole ‘collect enough coins to proceed’ thing reminded me way too much of Sonic Adventure and for some reason, I’m putting that down as a good thing). Whims of Fate is a perfect soundtrack, because it totally fits the atmosphere and also it’s a bop and I love it to pieces. And the palace wraps itself up neatly in a little bow with a boss fight that totally kicks arse. Sae Niijima starts the battle by, of course, rigging the game against you. But once her cheating facade falls away, the true battle begins and she morphs into a weird, distorted mech thing that takes heavy inspiration from Makoto’s persona too. Basically, it’s cool. And I love it.

1. Shido’s Cruiser of Pride

This is likely to be a controversial choice for the best palace in the game, as it’s generally agreed among most fans that Shido’s palace was a bit slightly rubbish. But really, I couldn’t disagree more. Yes, Sae’s palace was the definition of awesome, but something about Shido’s just one-upped it somehow. Of course, your character’s personal connection with this mission that was absent from the other previous palaces gives this one a much more dramatic feel, as you finally get to take on the guy orchestrating everyone’s suffering (if you don’t count good ol’ Optimus Prime from the final palace) and it’s as satisfying as it needs to be. The soundtrack is suitably epic and lends itself well as a precursor to the finale and exploring the cruiser is both intriguing and enjoyable throughout, as you navigate each section of this bloated paradise filled with rich arseholes. But at the same time, the whole Noah’s Ark thing with Shido only saving those willing to submit to him makes this palace as chilling as it is visually stunning. For me, this was a brilliant dungeon beginning to end, as collecting ‘letters of recommendation’ from each of Shido’s cognitive allies allows for a deeper insight into Shido as a character, but also builds you up nicely to the palace’s climax. Plenty of nice character moments and the boss fight, while not the best in the game, was still a strong point. Oh and yeah, I actually really liked the rat puzzles. The puzzles everyone seems to hate? Thought they provided a nice amount of challenge and never really felt like they were dragging on for hugely long. But what really peaked this palace on top of all the others was the encounter with Mr. Pancakes towards the end. Akechi was a brilliantly crafted character throughout his stint in the game and his arc had a fitting conclusion before you finally take on Shido. I was mega happy with this palace and honestly, it was the one cemented this game as one of my big faves.

Got a palace ranking of your own? Or even just one that stood out as your personal favourite? Let me know down below!

#persona 5 #p5 #persona #shin megami tensei #ps4 #ren amamiya #gaming #games #akira kusuru #ryuji sakamoto #ann takamaki #persona 5 yusuke #makoto niijima #morgana #futaba #haru okumura

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biscuitreviews · 5 years

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Biscuit Reviews The Witcher III Wild Hunt (2-year Anniversary Review)

The Witcher III: Wild Hunt is perhaps my favorite game to come out of the PS4/Xbox One/Wii U-Switch console era. It’s won tons of awards and was game of the year for many people in 2015. I didn’t get into the Witcher series until Witcher II: Assassin of Kings was a free download for Xbox Live members in 2016.

After I finished Witcher II, I immediately went to Witcher III and my god, talk about an amazing sequel. It was bigger, it was better, and for being the end of Geralt’s story, it did a great job for making newcomers such as myself, not feel lost at all.

I’m going to be spoiling the game so if you haven’t played Witcher III, definitely play it before going into this review.

The story of Witcher III, revolves around Geralt of Rivia, a witcher looking for his adoptive daughter Ciri alongside his on and off again lover Yennefer of Vengerburg.

Geralt will travel through large open world zones during his quest. Velen took inspiration from the Polish and Northern German countryside, Novigrad is reminiscent of the Polish city of Gdańsk during the medieval era, and finally you have the Skellige Isles, taking inspiration from Ireland. Each of these areas are massive and beautiful to look at. It’s easy to forget that you’re in a world currently being ravaged by war or filled with monsters until you stumble across areas that give you a stark reminder that there is a war happening.

One thing that I love about the game is how it handled decisions. There’s no clear good or bad decision, everything has a shade of grey. Sure there are choices that sound better in the short term, but it could have long term ramifications that could come back to haunt Geralt. One example is Triss’s quest line in Novigrad. Sure, you’re helping mages escape the city to where they no longer have to fear for themselves, but by doing so, you give the witch hunters a new target to pursue, which are non-human races such as elves and dwarves. However, if you don’t help mages escape, than later in the story Geralt’s dwarven friend, Zoltan, can help him with a jailbreak. If you do help the mages, Zoltan won’t be able to assist Geralt due to not wanting to face the wrath of the witch hunters.

Even the types of decisions you make are fantastic as well. All of these choices are actions that Geralt himself would make and do in that situation, it’s just a matter what you believe would be the overall choice he would go with. With many choice based games, dialogue options cover many aspects of a character archetype, because normally, you are making a character and are taking that character on the journey. In this case, Geralt is a character, he has his own beliefs, likes and dislikes, and dialogue choices reflect his specific personality rather than a personality a player would create.

It’s also why some aspects in gameplay are limited such as crafting. Geralt is able to craft oils and potions on his own as long as he has the formula and the ingredients. Applying the proper oil and drinking the necessary potions are necessary for fighting monsters in this game, which I’ll discuss more about later. When it comes to making armor and swords, Geralt has to seek out a Blacksmith to make these items as Geralt himself doesn’t have the kind of skill set, therefore he has to seek out a person able to build these items.

I also love how story quests and side quests interact with one another. Main story quests could go differently if you’ve done some side quests that relate to that specific quest and vice versa. Also the fact that side quests have just as much weight as the main quests make them feel more important and worth doing for that extra bit of lore or for that impact it could have on the main story.

As well polished and built the Witcher III is, it does have some minor glitches being an open world game. Sometimes you’ll find objects just randomly floating in air. Occasionally the input to talk to NPCs won’t work and you’ll have to either step back and walk forward to have the prompt reappear or just reposition Geralt himself for the NPC to talk to you. The fact that Geralt can either die or get heavily damaged from ridiculously low heights is also highly annoying and instills a fear of any small dropping points.

Another issue I would like to point out is that it’s not exactly the most socially inclusive. A lot of the main women are highly sexualized and sometimes feel that they’re nude for the sake of it. There are moments where you can choose anti-LGBT dialogue options when you encounter those characters, which I found exteremly baffeling that it was an option considering Ciri is bi and Geralt seems supportive in the dialogue they exchange. I get it, it’s a choice, you don’t have select those options, but the fact that they’re there to begin with just leaves a bit of a bad taste. Let’s not forget the entire ocean of white people in this game. I’m sorry, but including two people of color in a DLC just doesn’t cut it. Does it break the game for me? No, but I think not acknowledging that this exists within the game is even worse.

As mentioned previously, monsters have certain weakness and you are expected to exploit those weakness when fighting monsters. Using the proper tools to easily take down a monster feels great and makes you feel more invested in the world as you have to research these creatures in your bestiary to know their weaknesses.

Going above and beyond to take on an extra tough enemy or a monster clearly above your level although feels great at first, it’s quickly brought down when the experience gained is very little and the loot isn’t something that equates the struggle you went through. It’s just a bit disappointing that you’re encouraged to research monsters and exploit weaknesses and when you do just that, the rewards just don’t reflect that.

There’s also one quirk with dialogue as well that’s honestly more funny than terrible, but the way it happened just made it more memorable to me.

This instance is going to a wake party with Yennefer in Skellige. She’ll comment on how she likes that Geralt is growing out a beard. Now if Geralt does have a beard in this instance, it makes sense, however if Geralt is clean shaven, Yennefer will still make the comment which I always found that to be a funny little programming quirk. It’s obvious that this response was to happen when Geralt has a beard and the programming within the game was supposed to read that. There are a couple of instances that NPCs will react to Geralt’s appearance and the reaction is appropriate in those moments. But the beard moment, always brings out a chuckle.

Granted for a game as massive as Witcher III to only have a few minor issues, it’s actually rather impressive. However, I will admit that it has been four years since it’s initial release and there might have been more bugs then, but now it’s a mostly smooth experience.

As mentioned in a previous post, I do refer back to this game a lot for professional research as well. CD Projekt Red used a branching writing program known as Articy Draft, a program I use in my day job. I’ll do different decisions, I’ll change the order of when I do quests and just imagine how the branching dialogue looked within Articy and the type of variables used to determine how certain events play out.

One also can’t talk about Witcher III without mentioning Gwent, what is perhaps one of the best mini-games within a game since Final Fantasy VIII’s Triple Triad. Gwent is an easy to learn, but tough to master card game at the start. It’s tough at first as Geralt doesn’t have many cards at his disposal, but once you finally get a win, the dam starts to break little by little. Geralt will begin winning more powerful cards that can be added to his deck. Eventually it does get to a point where everyone becomes a bit easy to defeat as you gain more powerful cards and build your deck for effective strategies. Regardless it’s a game within a game that you can easily get lost in.

Witcher III also set what many gamers regard as the “Golden Standard” for how DLC should be treated. Witcher III includes 16 free DLC additions ranging from additional quests, items, additional costumes, and Gwent cards. Then there’s the two paid DLC expansions, Heart of Stone and Blood and Wine, which involves two new stories.

Both of these expansions also add additional gameplay mechanics to make Geralt stronger, which you will need to take advantage of for Blood and Wine as monsters and enemies in that particular expansion are a bit tougher than in the main game and Heart of Stone.

Blood and Wine also contains my favorite quest in the entire game. The quest is called “Paperchase” and it’s hilarious. Something about a legendary monster slayer still having to adhere to the bureaucracy of a bank to get a reward for saving a guy years ago is just amazing. It shows that not all great quests have to involve you having an encounter that puts you on the edge of your seat.

The Witcher III is a game that deserves the praise and reception it has received. It has made a mark on the RPG genre that many developers are taking note and implementing in their games. The most famous case being Ubisoft with the Assassin’s Creed series by following a similar dialogue decision based structure and having side quests impact the main story and vice versa. This is a game that has earned its status as a modern classic, which I’m sure will keep that status for a very long time.

As I’m sure it’s no surprise to anyone on Tumblr or any denizen of the internet, The Witcher III: Wild Hunt receives a 5 out 5

So far it’s been quite an interesting two years on this site. Frankly, I expected to just be a reviewer that would continuously scream into the void. To my surprise, I’ve had quite a few of you that like and share my posts adding more to the conversation whether you agree or disagree. I’ve also recently passed the 50 reviews milestone as well so the 50 and the two year mark happened rather quickly!

Here’s to the march on getting to 100 reviews...at some point!

#Witcher III #Witcher #Witcher III: Wild Hunt #geralt of rivia #video games #gaming #video game review #game review #gaming review #review #biscuit reviews

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themasterofcider · 6 years

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A Defense of North

First let me say everyone is entitled to their opinion, and I'm not bashing anyone for feeling a certain way. I just want to have a dialogue/analysis about a character in a game that I've quickly fallen in love with. Feel free to call me out on any misinformation or any contradictions that I may make. This is all for the sake of fun character exploration and writing praise/critique, so don't take things too seriously. I also want to acknowledge my bias, since I adore this particular character and the archetype that she embodies. Especially in war stories.

Now, I've noticed North has gotten some pretty strong (typically negative) reactions in a lot of the fandom. I get why she wouldn't be everyone's favorite, since she is one side of an extreme and does react on emotion more than rational thought. That being said the outright hatred she gets is shocking to me. I've seen people calling her trash and wanting her to die, and I'm interested in getting to the bottom of why she gets these intense reactions from so many people. It makes me wonder if I'm the one who missed something, haha. Please offer me rebuttals or explanations, because I'm legitimately curious. Especially given what we know of her background.

North is revealed to be an android who "worked" at the Eden Club. What we know that to mean is a sex slave who gets their memories erased. And who is she made to serve? Humans. We also learn from her that she'd been at Jericho for about a month. I haven't looked back at her case file in the police station, so I don't remember the exact dates, but going on her words (and the fact the cops are still actively pursuing her case) we know she hasn't had her freedom for very long. It should come as no surprise then that she's hurt, angry, and ready to fight any chance she gets. What I saw was a character who was in pain, and I immediately felt for her. The severity and how recent her previous situation was doesn't seem to be acknowledged by many of the people who don't like her, which is definitely something I wonder if they don't take into account. I also have to wonder how better she'd be received if she was crying and timid as opposed to bold and reactive. Or even male, but the latter is a discussion about demographics and how people respond to sex, gender roles, and gender identity (meaning not a topic for today.) I can't speak for everyone, but what I've gathered in my life people are prefer those who vent their pain either through tears or silence rather than anger and words. Even if the reasons for reacting that way are completely valid, and I think North is valid in her emotions. We can't ignore someone's pain just because they don't express it in a way that we prefer. If I was in her situation I'd be beyond pissed and likely react in the same way.

Continuing on, I want to look at her positive qualities, which many seem to ignore. The woman is selfless and passionate. She not only supports the cause, she lives it, breathes it, and will stop at nothing to achieve her goal of freedom as well as justice for androids. She loves her people and her ideals more than anyone even herself, and isn't afraid to make sacrifices. She is willing to die (at Jericho during the raid, during the fight at the camp, and gently questions Markus on why he as the leader and beacon of hope for those androids would risk his life to save hers) and if you go the pacifist route and get results she sticks around to help - not sure if there's an option for her not to - proving she actually does care for for android rights than her grudge against humanity.) She's courageous, never afraid to be the first into the fray, put herself at risk, or (as mentioned above) die. She's also unabashedly supportive. Once Markus arrives at Jericho she's almost always in the same scene with him. Either praising, giving council, encouraging him, and asking him to lead. She's pretty much attached to his hip, and that's good, because we can see she believes in him, and isn't afraid to help. She's also responsible. In the event Markus fails to benefit Jericho, she as one of the four (Simon, Josh, and Lucy are the others) who actively supported and trusted him assumes command of the revolution. She helped bring that guy in, and now she wants to fix the problems he created herself in order to protect the other androids. She's not a "bad" person at all in my opinion. Bad people don't have those qualities.

I did admit my bias earlier, so this is where I concede that North does have bad traits. Even though I know where it comes from, and I think she's justified to a point, her dislike of humans is bigoted and isn't any different from the humans who hate androids for existing. She's able to share memories with Markus and see how nice Carl was, but never really changes or discusses that with him. We see her relationship meter go up, but that's it. Not any real development there, but I'm not sure if it's a North problem or a writing issue. Then we have her being very reactive. I said she was an extreme earlier, and I meant it. A leader needs to be quick on their feet and decisive but also balanced and analytical. I worry that she, while driven, selfless, and passionate she would be too quick to jump into a fight rather than understanding diplomacy is sometimes just as good a route. Nothing's wrong with fighting when you have to, but not every issue needs to turn the world into a battlefield. I don't think she'd make as good a leader as Markus, but I think she's the next best thing Jericho has. There are some who think North will be very insistent if you don't agree with her, but so will Josh, Simon, Hank, and any other character in any other choice-based game. Their job is to sway the player by making them question their decisions. She's no more annoying than anyone else. She just suffers from "Secondary Character in a Story Driven Game Syndrome" in that regard.

That about covers it I suppose. I love this character to bits, and as I've typed this I've come to three main reasons why I think people may not like her. The first, is that she just doesn't resonate with some, and that's fine. We all have those characters we just don't click with. The second is, that people don't like how she expresses herself even if they don't necessarily disagree with her, and the third is that she's really our only romantic option for Markus, and that people are frustrated and taking that out on her. Anyway I'm always open to discussions and am super interested in whether you agree or disagree with me. I just love the game, so even if you don't wanna talk about this particular topic or don't feel comfortable responding where the world can see, send me a PM and let's chat. :)

#detroit become human #dbh #dbh north #dbh markus

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lanx-reads · 6 years

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The Blood Diamond Review

Final Rating: ***/***** or 5/10

You’re a Vampire Hunter. Killing Vamps is what you do. No exceptions. Ever... right?

Antoinette Drake never chose her role in life to be that of a Vampire Hunter, yet now her main mission is to quell the misdemeanors of the NYC vampiric underworld. But when a new nightclub is opened by the handsome and notorious vampire Henri Sinclair, she finds herself taking on more than she bargained for.

The last thing Antoinette wants to do is get wrapped up in Henri’s cryptic games, but if she wants to unveil his plans and save her sister’s life at the same time, she might just have to get closer to a vampire than she ever has before...

Even tho @authorrjcity is my friend and fellow mutual and writer, I did indeed promise her a 100% brutally honest review of her book. As it stands, I am of course reviewing this as a critique and judging her as an author and nothing else. I also wanna note I am reading somewhat outside my preferred genres to a degree! So that also affects my rating.

Since I am still wading my way through how to write these reviews, I’m gonna try a new tactic that kinda combines my previous review styles. I will be breaking my review into numerous sections: Characters, Plot, World Building, Writing, What I Liked, and lastly, What I Disliked.

There will be minor spoilers in this review, so just a heads up if you want to read The Blood Diamond spoiler-free!

Writing:

I want to note that I am not the biggest fan of first person. I find it kinda stiff to both write and read and incredibly limiting. Likewise, I personally think that this book could’ve benefited from a pure third person style rather than sticking with first person. Furthermore, The Blood Diamond did have transitional scenes written in third person due to the fact that information had to be given to the reader and Toni couldn’t be around to narrate it. Personally, I didn’t really much agree with this artistic choice, as it would’ve been much smoother if the entire book stayed in first person, but merely bounced around different heads as needed.

Minus the issues I had with the POV the writing was decent. I do feel like Toni had too many stock sentences in her narration at times, like “Well, yeah” and “Hmm...” and such that were distracting and could’ve been cut out without changing the story at all. Sometimes Toni had thoughts as if she were talking to the reader, which was also a little distracting at times.

Another artistic/style choice I didn’t like was the fact that Toni’s direct thoughts weren’t italicized. Instead of being written like [This is a thought, Toni thought.] it was written instead like [This is a thought, Toni thought.] which sometimes made reading her direct thoughts a bit confusing as they ran into the narration.

The author also uses a lot of epithets and describes eyes as “orbs” a couple of times, which are pet peeves of mine. Nothing inherently wrong with either, but they did ruffle me a little. Another pet peeve of mine that popped up was dropping a Twilight reference. Considering how long ago Twilight was published, I feel it was a bit awkward. I think this sentence could’ve easily just been cut out and replaced with the general “Have you been reading vampire romance novels or something?” as then the sentence would be funny in the sense that its pure irony (though I also have a huge weakness for irony as a plot device so...).

Lastly, though the book was pretty clean from typos and mistakes in the beginning and the middle, but near the end I counted a lot of mistakes popping up. I only caught one actual misspelled word, but mistakes such as writing an instead of a and using a dash rather than a hyphen did find its way into this book. A couple of other mistakes were some capitalization errors (The Order vs the Order vs the order in describing a political group).

Now, everything I have stated so far is mainly just. Little pet peeves of mine and things that can be overlooked more or less. However, the one negative aspect of the writing that stuck out like a sore thumb to me was the fact that setting descriptions were rarely, if ever, used. The most description the author used was saying what type of room someone is in, or a club, or a mansion or apartment, or whatever. However, these places weren’t actually ever really described, which sometimes made it hard to visualize certain scenes. The lack of setting descriptions also made certain scenes in the book pass by too quickly. In some places this worked, however in others, I feel the lack of a slowed down pacing did a real disservice to building up tension in some places.

Characters

There are quite a few characters in this book! I will be talking about the side characters as a whole group to keep it simple, but talk about the main characters individually.

Toni:

Toni is easily a main character you will either really enjoy or dislike. She tends to be sarcastic, though not always witty. There are at times inconsistencies with her character, such as the fact that she has destroyed some pretty powerful vampires, but doesn’t seem to be very good at planning ahead and rushes into things at times, which although is a interesting and good flaw for this sort of book, doesn’t match with what we’re told of her being an infamous hunter among vampires. That being said, Toni is overall a really fun character. She has a couple of pretty popular tropes included with her character (such as parents dying via a vampire and such...) but those things didn’t really bother me as I like those tropes well enough.

Henri:

Henri is a character I can honestly say without a doubt that will become a fan favorite. Broody, though not above mockery, secretive, and dangerous, he employs numerous popular vampire tropes, yet there are scenes in which he inverts them to a degree. He isn’t a good person at all. He’s killed people and is a clear vampire, which is always fun and refreshing to see. Though he is a powerful vampire, he’s also not the most powerful vampire to ever exist or anything. Another part of him I liked is that though he acted like he knew everything and was in control of things, he really wasn’t, and that arrogance in many ways lead to many downfalls for him. He’s a fun character I would love to see more development of.

Gavin:

Gavin is Henri’s twin brother and in many ways is the polar opposite. He’s narcissistic, psychopathic, outgoing, and overtly sexual. He’s a genuine asshole and though there are points where he feels a bit like an archetype, overall Gavin, like Henri, will most likely become a fan favorite as well. He has a certain villainous charm to him where every time he pops up, you know some exciting shit is gonna go down, and you’re sitting on the edge of your seat.

Robert:

Warning: Major Spoilers

Robert seems to be the Big Bad of this series, but as a big bad, I have to say he is a little underwhelming. His backstory was monologued to us in the climax, which was a little uninteresting. If instead Toni had to slowly uncover the identity of who he was over the course of the book, I feel the plot twist relating to him would’ve been a lot more powerful. He’s described as a pretty stereotypical vampire and besides being evil we really don’t know much about him. He seems to be younger than Gavin or Henri, which makes me wonder as to why he’s a master vampire and their master in the first place.

Not much of his personality was given, and his motivations seem a little flimsy. Hopefully, the sequel will shed more light on him and flesh him out as a villain more because as of right now, he’s a little bit forgettable.

Liz:

Liz is Toni’s younger sister and though she is told to us to be a major part of Toni’s life and her only family left, we really don’t get to see much of her. We get to see her a little bit near the end of the book, and she starts forming a more interesting personality then, but overall we’re left with too little too late due to the plot twist. I do wish she was given more of a chance to breathe and grow, as I feel that fleshing out her character would’ve made the plot twist at the end a lot more weighty and emotional.

Ethan:

Ethan is Toni’s best friend and fills the roll pretty well for the most part. Though he pops up quite often, he has a pretty general personality and isn’t the most memorable of characters.

Micah:

Micah is a side character, but is one of the more interesting ones. Though I do wish to learn more about him as some secrets of his are both exposed and kept under wraps, his personality is a little hard to place. The sort of character roll he fills doesn’t quite match the personality he is given. Though I do wanna learn more about him, as a character he is a little bland besides the roll he is given in the plot.

The rest of the side characters:

The rest of the side characters such as Giselle, Melissa, Stephan Church, Hannah, Clary, and the like are a bit of a mixed bag. They have a lot more clear personalities than some of the main or more important cast of side characters and have clear quirks in the way they talk and such. That being said, we really don’t learn much about them, and a couple of these characters do fall into archetypes I am not a huge fan of (such as two of the female characters just kinda being jealous bitches to Toni...) Some of the other side hunter characters, such as Hannah and Clary, are used very sparingly. Hannah, who is a faerie, only really pops up in the beginning and end of the book while Clary is mentioned briefly in the beginning, then finally gets a little screen time at the end.

Considering how big this cast of characters is, I do hope that all these side characters are given more development in the sequels to come.

Overall, the characters weren’t too bad! A little bit of a mixed bag- some were quite interesting while others less so. The only real issue I had was some of the names of the characters being a little out of place. Such as an age-old vampire being named Andrew, for instance, and I personally wouldn’t have called the Big Bad Robert of all things (unless that’s purposely done to be a bit comical, tho Toni never finds his name a little funny...) Despite the little inconsistencies in character naming, and in some characters in general, they overall worked well for this sort of book and plot and were fun to read about overall!

Plot

The plot is a little difficult to describe, if I am being honest, as the plot drifts quite a bit in this book. Sometimes, it’s really focused and other times, not so much. I would say its a mystery, but there is little foreshadowing and the mysteries themselves aren’t touched upon and after a while, become quite vague, leaving you a bit confused.

Overall, the story is about Toni trying to bust The Blood Diamond and the vampires within it for illegally turning humans while also trying to figure out who the master vampire is, who is the one pulling all the strings and causing the violence in the first place. Unfortunately, this plot is dropped pretty quickly and instead, the subplot of Toni and Henri’s relationship and him Marking her takes over for a good chunk of the book.

I think one of the biggest weaknesses of the plot is its reliance on the readers to understand the world building and how this system of vampire hunters work. However, this system isn’t given a lot of screen time and at times, the plot (and world building itself) gets muddied. There are many places where I feel like if the world building had been fleshed out a bit more, it would’ve helped the plot a lot. Such as why doesn’t Toni, and by extension everyone else, know who the master vampire is? Why are certain vampires not archived in the system? Though the latter is brought up at one point, it’s not really touched upon, and I personally felt that it could’ve been part of the overarching story and a puzzle piece of the mystery this book was trying to build.

At times, the overarching plot of the book felt a little everywhere, and thus when the climax at the end happened, it wasn’t quite as powerful as it could’ve been.

Furthermore, the pacing was a little odd. The book was a fast read for sure, but in places it needed to slow down, it didn’t, which led to it not being as emotional as it could’ve been.

There are also a couple of scenes I feel could’ve been cut out.

I also want to note that this book does not end with a clear stop. Not everything is wrapped up whatsoever, and thus, this book by itself is an incomplete story. This isn’t a negative point or a bad thing at all! It’s just how this book is written and set up. A lot is built up for the sequel.

Though this book never felt “plot-less” by any means, the plot never felt like the focus of the book either, and instead felt muddied and a bit vague. However, I think this is less the plot’s fault, and more of the fact that the book could’ve been a bit longer to accommodate some changes and that the world building could’ve been fleshed out more to give definition to the plot elements present.

World building

Out of everything in The Blood Diamond, I think the world building is its weakest aspect. Though these is no infodumping, which is always a good thing, the author also doesn’t really give us a chance to learn about the world. Since Toni already knows about the world more or less, she doesn’t explain much, so you’re basically thrown in and hope you can hang onto the information that’s thrown at you.

Furthermore, there are points in The Blood Diamond where I think not everything was thought through. How does the Agency keep vampires and other supernatural creatures hidden? Vampires themselves aren’t discreet and there are numerous times where there are “supernaturals only” places around. It’s never explained if they are hidden or if normal humans are compelled to not enter via magic. Furthermore, if the Agency has to tell family of the victims of vampires of the supernatural world, how has the truth not gotten out yet? And also especially with all this taken place in the modern world and a densely packed city, how have vampires, or other supernaturals, avoided being caught on tape or anything?

The Agency seems a bit small for the setting as well and at times, a bit unprofessional. The entire system of this government isn’t explained the best either. The Agency is what I suppose are like cops while The Order is closer to something akin to the FBI I am guessing, but it isn’t exactly clear. The Agency also seems to work as the judge, jury, and the police, which gets even more confusing and doesn’t fit in with how America is run as a country either.

Vampires and their powers are also not that well explained. Other supernatural creatures, such as werewolves and witches, are mentioned but not touched upon at all or fleshed out, making them feel more like an afterthought.

There is also a scene midway into The Blood Diamond with some mermaids in the NYC rivers. Though there were a lot of cool ideas in this scene, the scene itself felt completely and utterly pointless to the rest of the book and felt more like something in there for a sequel or to try and world build a bit more. However, the world building should’ve been tied into the plot. If less of the plot had been on Henri Marking Toni and more focused on fleshing out the plot, the world building could’ve gone along with that, and overall both world building and the plot could’ve been a lot stronger.

What I Liked

I know that it sounded like I didn’t like this book with how much negativity is in this review! But trust me, there is plenty I enjoyed about this book as well, and I will list out everything I did enjoy in this section below!

I enjoyed Toni’s narration and her character.

Henri and Toni’s romance was interesting.

I really enjoyed the powers we did see from the vampires. Some of them were very unique.

Hannah. Just. Hannah was adorable I enjoyed her a lot!

A lot of the names in this book I liked too. Such as The Blood Diamond and La Luna and such!

A fast-paced and quick read overall, which is pretty good!

Toni staking vampires was always a fun treat to read about.

Giselle. She was great. Like I said, there are a lot of side characters to enjoy here.

Woman friendship between Toni and Clary at the end was fun. Though it stuck out a little, I did like that the author confirmed that Toni was bi/pan and that Clary is at least, not straight either.

The plot twist, though it had its problems, was good in theory.

I enjoyed the idea behind Marking as well as compulsion.

Actual forensic science was used in a scene near the end, which was a pleasant surprise in a book such as this.

Though I did mention a couple of pointless scenes, the pointless scenes themselves were at least interesting to read even though they went nowhere. There weren’t any slow paced, snore-fest parts, which is good.

The print itself in the book was pretty big, which was easy on the eyes for me.

I think this book, if just read as a piece of light entertainment with vampires and mystery, is great.

Honestly, I really did enjoy reading another vampire book again. I haven’t in a while, so it was fun to go back to reading vampire fiction.

Near the end had some showing of Toni working with some other hunters on what seemed to be pretty standard run-of-the-mill cases, and that was really fun to read about.

What I Disliked

The stuff listed here are further nitpicks that personally made me cock my head to the side. Nothing major enough to discuss in the above sections, however.

Too many teenagers in things like clubs. Unless you’re counting 18 year olds as teenagers, then I guess it fits, but I found it a little distracting.

It seemed like only women were the victims of vampire attacks all through this book. It kinda rubbed me the wrong way.

At times, Henri and Toni’s romance squicked me out, especially there is a point where he feeds on her without her consent and the fact he does assault her. That being said, he does apologize for the feeding from her and admits he it was wrong and though its a little vague, it’s explained he was being controlled by the Mark, just like Toni was. The assault, though it does rub me the wrong way, makes sense as he was defending himself against her.

Some of the descriptors at times felt a little cliche, such as “raven-black hair.”

Toni’s supposed infamy for being a badass vampire hunter usually didn’t match up to her as she actually acted in the field.

Near the end of the book, Toni was knocked unconscious about three times, including once during an action scene. I was a little annoyed at this.

There was no explanation how any sort of “clean up” was done after vampire attacks. There didn’t seem to be a protocol, which mixed me up.

A lot of the timing of events felt off to me.

Dream/nightmare sequences were used to tell us Toni’s backstory. I feel like this could’ve been woven into the actual story and narration, as the way the nightmares were written didn’t feel natural or convincing.

I wish there was more of a focus on the supernatural creatures and how they work cases.

The slang for vampires at times seemed a bit childish and random. In one sentence, Toni will think of them as purely “vampires” and the next, they’d be call “vamps” or “blood suckers.”

Final verdict

The Blood Diamond is pretty middle of the road for me and sits at a 3/5 stars, which basically means “good” to me. The rating of 5/10 also matches this. The Blood Diamond has its problems, but if you can look past those, and are looking for a fun and light piece of entertainment, it may fit what you’re looking for.

What really knocked off those two stars were the world building issues, the muddy plot (that romance took over), and some of the writing issues I had stated above.

That being said, a lot is promised in the sequel, and I do hope the sequel gives us readers world building, a better crafted mystery, a more focused plot, and details our established characters a bit more. I would definitely rec this book to people who enjoy vampire books and miss reading them and those a fan of YA and tired of the dystopian genre currently being passed around.

***/***** or 5/10

#book review #The Blood Diamond #my book reviews #RJ City #bookblr #Vampires #inkitt book #wattpad book

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elstine-harboson · 7 years

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Misconceptions: Dual-Classing

Hello, hello and thank you for reading our newest Misconceptions post. This time we will be going over a widely-discussed topic that can be narrowed down to the simple and common phrase: dual-classing. What does it mean? Why can it be a good thing, why can it be a bad thing? How can you dual-class? Why should you duel-class, and how can you get started?

This and much more will all be up for discussion!

1. What even does dual-classing mean?

Well, I am glad you asked! I think it is important for us to first mention that this is of course opinionated – what my definition is, may not be another person's definition. That being said, to us a dual class is simply defined as: a character that uses abilities, traits, equipment, and general skill-sets from two or more Classes; such as a warrior using magic.

By our definition, unless you are 100% full, sword and board, plate-wearing Soldier dominating the battlefield only with your physical prowess and unbridled strength – you just might be dual-classing. Even if it is a skill-set kept primarily hidden… Such as perhaps you are a warrior that uses his sword most of the time, but when in trouble you have enough comprehension and training to use magic ability; we would still call that a dual-class.

Arguably, by our definition, most people are dual-classing.

2. Alright, so why is this important?

Well, for a few reasons in our opinion. For one, I think it provides a breath of fresh air for many who felt pressured to conform to an archetype because they played as a certain class in-game. Let me assure you, there is no need to roleplay as a pure, by the book Mage because you’re a mage. Your character can use a sword, can wear armor, hell - even use a bow. It doesn’t matter, as long as it makes sense to you and the character’s own story.

That being said, it is important to realize two things.

Don’t try to dual-class just to be more ‘powerful’ if not simply because it's arguably in poor taste, then because most will find it rather irritating. Very few want to be playing with a God, and to be overshadowed consistently - but there are cliques. If that's your thing, to it with full consent on both sides. Much like the Archetype, never dual-class just to dual-class... it's by no means a requirement for your character to learn more than one skill-set, and there are also benefits to mastering one path just as there are benefits to learning several paths.

Otherwise, I think it's just a matter of saying: it is okay, and makes sense for a character to have various skill-sets. It is not cheating, it is not edgy, it is not OPed, it is simply roleplay and the progression of the character itself. (Hopefully.) It shouldn't be looked at as a RP taboo.

3. Okay, so why does dual-classing make sense?

Entering the Military does a soldier learn strictly how to shoot? No, they learn a variety of skill-sets, and some specialize into various talents - but they always retain things from their previous experiences. A combat-engineer for example doesn't just have C4 and Grenades on them, they will likely have a gun and know how to shoot sufficiently with said gun on top of their skill-set with explosives (and other things.)

So, why would a soldier of the alliance Military be any different? A sword and shield is only efficient in close ranges, what about prior to engaging? Well, though not exclusively stated in canon lore... Most Guards and soldier units have rifles, crossbows, or bows on their person. Even if they typically wield a melee weapon. It would make sense; engage from afar with a volley and switch to your melee before the enemy is upon you.

Now then as a more specialized, experience soldier... I think most special operations units IRL, from my studies, would agree that they have been successful in their careers and have come out of a lot of bad situations not because they can shoot better than the average soldier - but because they have a varied skill-set, and have had more experience; or character development. A Special Operations unit or even just an experienced soldier i would argue, in Azeroth and elsewhere would thus be efficient not because they're the best marksman, but because they're the most flexible and adaptable.

That being said, sure there will be a few cases where someone is just super specialized and that is more than fine! Sometimes you need a specialist, a master lock-picker for your heist, or a long-range specialist, or a master toxicology! All those things are great tropes for great stories, and have their place in character progression as well. There is nothing wrong with either method of progression, that is the point.

4. What does this have to do with RP?

Well, part of our goal - and my goal specifically is to build more onto the community of roleplayers. From inspiring more shops, merchants, and business-oriented folks, to a realistic version of Knights and Warriors; this is no different. It is a job for all of us to expand the community, to inspire more roleplay, and to grow the bonds between us. That being said, I will provide a handful of roleplay scenarios that you all can use as a basis to get started down the road of a new story line!

Examples:

Your Mother and Father had both served the Alliance either in the Military or through the City Guards. (Praise be to the Percy.) All your life you have lived under a strict set of laws similar to your parents occupational rules, and with these rules also came training in various combat methods. Learning to fight hand-to-hand, and defend yourself - all skills your parents thought as necessary as you’d surely join the Military. But, you had other dreams - one day on your way home you happened upon an elderly Wizard, and after some time talking, you decided this was your path; learning the mythical ways of Arcana. (Easy set to a Spellblade, Battlemage, War-Mage scenario!)

You spent most of your life in the deep woods with your family. Surviving off the land, learning to hunt, and how to avoid danger. You learned what plants you can, and cannot eat, and you learned how to work a rifle (or bow) to take down prey and to defend yourself. Now an adult, you have decided to give your life structure and discipline; signing up with the Alliance Military. There you're trained vigorously in the routine of hand-to-hand combat, outfitted with mail armor, and taught how to fight effectively as a unit. (An ideal plot for a Special Ops unit, mercenary, or experienced soldier.)

You were orphaned as a young child, taken up by a local tower of Magi who have taught you the basic uses of the Arcane. Knowledgeable, wise, and quick-witted through your harsh, and long nights of near consistent study. Finally an adult, you have decided to leave the tower and move to the forest, secluded and alone except for your collection of books. Using your wit, you’ll have to learn how to build shelters, hunt for animals using various methods as your casting is simply too slow and obvious. But over time, you’ll master the use of both your magics and the art of survival. (Quick and easy route to a Magic bow-user.)

Now, the great thing about all this is it includes more than one person. A great thing about dual-classing is typically you need an instructor to teach you such skills. You'll have to go out and find that seasoned mage to teach you, or find that master swordsman; vice versa if you’re a wise old mage - you can open your horizons to not just fellow Mages, but any class.

So, there you have it folks. Three quick and easy opening scenarios you can take as inspiration and build off of. I hope this inspires at least one of you to try something different or at the very least gives a few of you a different perspective on the sometimes infamous dual-classing.

Thank you so much for reading, reblogging, commenting, and liking!

If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or suggestions - please contact Elstine in game, leave a message here, or message me. I try to read all the feedback, and keep the discussions going, as well as answer any questions and edit the work as much as possible!

@the-news-nerd @percy-dewdancer @theodorebennas @scassira @addressroleplays

#Roleplay #RP #Misconceptions #Harboson #Elstine #WrA #Wyrmrest Accord #Dual-Class #DnD #Oblivion #Skills #Information #Classes #Alliance

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bangbangboomcomic · 7 years

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On collaboration

We got an ask from a reader (who wished to remain anon) asking about how collaboration on the comic works for us, so I figured I’d put out some background on how BBB came about.

Del and I have been friends for a few years now. We met through fandom (The Evil Within), where I became a fan of her art, and she my fanfics. We have very similar tastes, and right around a year ago started talking about doing a doujin together. I’d never scripted a comic before, but Del had a lot of experience and helped me adjust from prose to script form.

While working on that, we saw an ad for the LGBTQA-themed @passionfruitanthology, and talked about shelving the doujin idea for a while to work on an 18 page oneshot for the anthology. We set out to do something plotty, with romance (since that was the point of the book!) but with some action, to play to both our strengths. Del is a big fan of vintage and noir, and I had Baccano! on the brain, so we settled on gangsters. MAGIC gangsters. Magic STEAMPUNK gangsters. And once we started brainstorming and writing and drawing, we both got so swept up that we decided to step back from the anthology and make a webcomic series instead.

As for the collaboration aspect itself, the truth is we’ve found working together very easy! We were both huge fans of each other’s work even before becoming friends, and we’ve been very open with each other from the start about our expectations for the story and the comic itself. Neither of us are particularly concerned about profit and fame at this point, we just want to share these characters that we created together, and see where it leads. So far it’s been a thrilling experience, and even if there have been challenges, they weren’t a product of having to work together.

Since this is my first time collaborating like this I don’t have a huge amount of insight as to what makes for a successful partnership vs an unproductive one, but here are some things that apply to us that may be helpful to anyone looking to start their own comic collab:

1. Start low pressure. Del and I went from maybe a doujin to a one shot to a free-to-read series. Even with tipping on we’re only making tiny cash and have agreed many times that neither of us is expecting to make it big. Money and pressure complicate relationships so easily, I suggest that unless you’re both industry professionals that are used to no-strings collab work, start with a small project to test how you work together first. Once you’ve developed some trust and rapport, maybe then go for more.

2. Be honest and flexible. True of any relationship, really. You have to feel like you trust your partner enough to bring up your concerns, knowing they won’t take it personally. And always be open to receiving critique yourself. Del and I have been pretty lucky that we have so much in common, we haven’t had any major creative disagreements. But I know that if I have an issue with a panel structure or an expression or what have you, I can feel comfortable bringing it up. And she’s certainly kept me honest on continuity!

3. Start fresh if possible. This is our first time working together, but we’ve both been writing/drawing for a long time, and have a wealth of ideas and characters. But with BBB, we started completely fresh, without any bringing any specific characters from our previous work (though naturally some of our favorite archetypes have snuck in). Jakub and Cheshire didn’t exist until we created them together. If I had tried to write a comic featuring my existing OCs, I’m sure it would have been much more difficult allowing Del’s art and influence to shape the story. But it was important to me from the start that whatever project we did together, it was ours, and not a transaction.

4. Stay ahead of the game. This approach may not work for every collab, but I have written way more chapters than we’ve gotten to in the art phase yet. They’re still in flux and could change, but Del says she’s glad we have so much prepared, because it’s allowed us to drop foreshadowy type hints and have specific things to look forward to. When I write for myself I don’t start until I have an ending in mind, so I wanted to have a whole lot of BBB lined up before we got underway. I’m sure some artists would find this stifling and maybe feel like I’m resistant to change (really I’m not, I change things as I go all the time), so you need to find the right balance in your own partnership.

Unfortunately I don’t have much advice specifically on how to resolve creative disputes, because our road has been very smooth. But patience and compromise is definitely key. Don’t be too attached to certain beats, but don’t allow your voice to be smothered, either. If the idea you’re working on isn’t going smoothly, it could be that it’s simply the wrong idea. Take stock of the things you *do* agree on and see if you can explore a different theme or setting that’s a better match to what you have in common. There’s nothing wrong with starting over on stronger footing.

Comics are tough, group projects are tough, together they’re very tough. Sometimes it’s not meant to happen. But every story is a puzzle, and if you’re forcing the pieces together, it could be it’s just that you’re trying to complete the wrong picture.

Clumsy metaphors is what got me this writing gig ayyy??

In any case, I don’t know if this is interesting or useful to anyone...! But between the two of us we stretch from total newb to experienced, so we’re always willing to answer questions or just gab about comics :D

Thank you for following~

#bang bang boom #comics #webcomics #original comics

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differentkindapiratemovies-blog · 5 years

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Narrative Theory Essay

Discussing the perceived oversaturation of narrative archetypes in modern media with reference to Joseph Campbell’s monomyth theory.

“As the old saying goes, there’s nothing new under the sun. For fans of movies and TV, that means that every story that can be told already has been. But sometimes, the movies that seem to be retelling a well-known story TOO closely are singled out, accused of being a ripoff, copycat, or unoriginal. There's no more famous (or successful) example than James Cameron’s Avatar: a story of a human being welcomed into a native tribe, who betrays their trust, but eventually saves the day by fighting on the good side in the end. As soon as the movie hit theaters, people dismissed the billion-dollar blockbuster as a ripoff of Fern Gully, or even Pocahontas before it. The truth is... it’s telling the same story told by dozens, even hundreds of famous films. But that’s not a reason to attack it, or any other re-skinned movie myth.”

It’s common to have the notion after coming out of a movie theatre that the experience was strikingly similar to the previous time you went. There is a common thread line throughout all of movie and storytelling history. Since the dawn of man, the human race has used narratives and stories to communicate ideas and emotions with each other - usually either trying to capture a part of history or with the purpose of fictional entertainment value. However, primarily I believe narratives are there for communication, being carefully crafted by storytellers of all different generations. Cave men used to draw on the walls of their caves and their fire would illuminate the images, causing them to flicker back and forth to create the earliest animation and stories recorded. Some of the most prominent fictional stories ever created, including religious texts such as the Bible, are stories we haven’t stopped recreating in two thousand years. I refuse to believe that it is the only formula that works despite being undoubtedly effective. Some might think of it as a stale structure.

Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey, first theorised in Hero Of A Thousand Faces, and Tzvetan Todorov’s structure of narrative are commonly combined to create a story that seems to resonate with the majority of an audience and seemingly never ceases to fail. Movies such as The Matrix and Star Wars use both these theories in order to make up a successful story. (Although debatably the whole original trilogy acts as the entire journey seeing as Luke Skywalker, the main character, is at his lowest in the finale of the second movie resulting in a pitfall ending). George Lucas, the creator and director of the first Star Wars film, considered Joseph Campbell to be his friend and mentor.

“My last mentor was Joe... who asked a lot of the interesting questions and exposed me to a lot of things that made me very interested, a lot more in the cosmic questions and the mystery… and I've been interested in those all my life but I hadn’t focused it the way I have until I had got to be good friends with Joe.”

George goes on to say he took the mythological and religious ideas behind narratives and simplified them for a modern audience. Perhaps it would be beneficial to drop religion altogether when writing stories for the modern and less religious generation.

The Dragon Quest video game series also follows these rules with the main character literally referred to as “The Hero”. The journey of a character rising up, facing hardships, being at their lowest then being born again for their worlds to be restored to equilibrium is something I think people either feel like they can relate to or, probably closer to the truth, is fantasised about and idealised. Everyone would like to be hero in the story, overcoming their problems and saving the world. Joseph Campbell says this in his book Hero With A Thousand Faces.

“The agony of breaking through personal limitations is the agony of spiritual growth. Art, literature, myth and cult, philosophy, and ascetic disciplines are instruments to help the individual past his limiting horizons into spheres of ever-expanding realisation. As he crosses threshold after threshold, conquering dragon after dragon, the stature of the divinity that he summons to his highest wish increases, until it subsumes the cosmos. Finally, the mind breaks the bounding sphere of the cosmos to a realisation transcending all experiences of form - all symbolisations, all divinities: a realisation of the ineluctable void.”

There’s something gripping about watching this structure play out, and it is engaging for an audience - but they’ve seen it thousands and thousands of times before. As much as I appreciate movies that put a creative spin on the traditional structure of narrative, I really respect and love movies that go against the curve. Obviously this happens quite frequently but probably not at your local Odeon cinema - mainstream media is often streamlined for the purpose of easy consumption. For example, I enjoy films from the Marvel universe, but all too often they all play out in the same format. You could argue that companies have monopolised certain narrative structures and have a tendency to recycle them.

However, films like Richard Linklater’s 1991 day-in-the-life-of debut Slacker go against traditional “hero journeys” and plot point one/plot point two narratives, instead working like a series of loosely connected vignettes; in each scene we spend time with a different character and closely follow events occurring in their lives in real time. There’s no arcs, no beginning, middle or end. No rebirth, just a movie about strange characters hanging out in Austin, Texas, on a sunny day. It’s not an art film or particularly experimental. It’s just that, well, nothing happens. It’s an accurate depiction of reality. It's what real life actually is. I don’t wake up every day and go through a hero’s journey. We may develop as people and these situations can occur, but nine out of ten times life just isn’t like that. We wake up and things stay the same and in life, at moments when the credits are supposed to roll after we’ve achieved something, after we’ve overcome something, it just kind of keeps going. Life moves on and our “arcs” and problems to overcome reset, or new ones appear like a constantly stream of wildly uneventful sequels. New problems come up and sometimes they’re never solved and sometimes people don’t change. In my short film “Campussies!” I was really interested in trying to capture a kind of nothing day and interactions with strange people - not really making anything particularly interesting or high tension. The short was also influenced by Linklaters’ other seminal film Dazed and Confused, however that follows a slightly more traditional take on story telling, depicting a character develop throughout the movie. Jim Jarmusch is another director who often uses abrupt endings and whole scenes that literally stop moving forward. A lot of people say there’s almost an amateurish fine line however I believe this to be completely intentional.

In my narrative-based website I recreated the story of Homer’s Odyssey, a very classic tale that has been recreated and re-skinned many times over many years. Through the website, I make you, the person, interact with the story and go on the hero’s journey by yourself. There is only one correct path however the “reincarnation” implies you are constantly reborn until you get it right. Little is told about the situation in my narrative purposely, so that you can project what you would like onto it. It’s about a person, you, traveling from somewhere dangerous, perhaps enemy territory of some kind, and getting back home safely, set in a nonspecific period of time. However the roads are dangerous - filled with sword wielding enemies and no consistent place to be safe from the elements.

There’s other forms of narratives we’re told in between the lines in media such as what we’re told about certain people; these are pervasive narratives. On television we are exposed to poverty porn, depicting that all low income people are a certain way - intended to give the viewer a sense of superiority. In eighties movies we’re told that punks are ruffians and troublemakers. There’s an endless list of mainstream movies from that period showcasing punks as “bad guys”, such as The Terminator (a movie chock full of visual cues) and The Road Warrior (Mad Max 2). Of course there were movies made with more of a punk rock sensibility, such as Return Of The Living Dead, and exploitation movies of the time in which punks were portrayed as the “good guys”. This was most likely due to the media’s take on punks during the movement in the late seventies. The papers themselves named these angry kids “punks” and they wore it as a badge of honour in response to the criticism - that they were a bunch of violent thugs who held switchblades, beat you up and stole your lunch money. Their anti-establishment ways often had them the basis for dystopian movies. In actuality, it wasn’t really like that at all and personally I would feel safer if I saw a gang of whatever the modern day equivalent of punks are. Although I would agree with the anti-establishment sensibilities, most aren’t true anarchists. They’re not gonna mug you.

Again, another example of pervasive narrative we are consistently exposed to is the connotation between women and make up. Media tells us that it is the norm and it’s heavily tied to what is considered the standard of beauty for women. However, anyone of any gender can choose whether or not to wear make up. In my photography piece “Three Studies of a Woman in the Sun” I photographed my subject both wearing make up and without, one subverting the expectations of a photographed woman in modern media and one showing how she often feels comfortable. I often wonder why women choose to wear make up and why it improves their confidence. Do they truly believe that it makes them feel more in touch with their identity, or perhaps we live in a misinformed society in which it is more acceptable for one gender to present themselves a certain way, when in reality it doesn’t really matter and there’s not much of a difference. John Berger had this to say about the representation of women and their identity in the media.

“A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself. Whilst she is walking across a room or whilst she is weeping at the death of her father, she can scarcely avoid envisaging herself walking or weeping. From earliest childhood she has been taught and persuaded to survey herself continually. And so she comes to consider the surveyor and the surveyed within her as the two constituent yet always distinct elements of her identity as a woman. She has to survey everything she is and everything she does because how she appears to men, is of crucial importance for what is normally thought of as the success of her life. Her own sense of being in herself is supplanted by a sense of being appreciated as herself by another....

One might simplify this by saying: men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object -- and most particularly an object of vision: a sight.”

My three portraits as part of my DCMP Photography brief are of my friend and artist Katie. Shot on a Canon, I wanted to capture her identity through three images. The middle image you see in the three panels on my blog is her in a natural environment and utterly neutral. That one is relatively light in tone due to the summers day behind her, however she's looking off and something implies it’s more melancholy than the photo lets on. Perhaps the uplifting summer isn’t enough to hold her inner more negative emotions, or that maybe the summer is no longer a good thing in light of the summer getting hotter and hotter each year. Maybe this isn’t a summer of celebration, but one of the end of the world. The bottom one is a real captured moment of her closing her eyes perhaps to imply her shyness in an industrial area, somewhere I often find comfort due to high containers and is generally aesthetically pleasing to me almost because of how not pleasing it is. The top one is how Katie would usually be and dress in her own environment, the lighting highlighting how she expresses herself through her own image. I like how the darkness is almost bleeding in around the edges of the photograph. I experimented with lighting a lot with this one and took several different photos that were the contender for the third portrait. Here, now she is herself, she seems to project more confidence looking directly into the camera like this time the camera is invading HER space as opposed to the other ones where she’s almost a part of the scenery. Now she’s out of the sun, she is the one who is shining. Notice how she also seems to fill up the frame the more comfortable she gets.

Unseen stories hide in advertising and movie posters. In these places you will find signs that speak to us sub-consciously. The movie posters for most horror movies will always use the colour red. Why? Our brain tells us when we see red that there’s danger and that the film will most likely contain plenty of blood. We understand what genre the movie is without even being told so due to semiotics. This can be seen on the movie poster for Shaun of the Dead where the doors our main character is standing behind are red, with white text to pop and in other iterations red text. You see he is surrounded by zombies, hoarded by them, most likely foreshadowing to what the movie is going entail. This is the same in food advertisements. If you watch a television ad about food the colours and aesthetics used often will tell you about the product. Most of the time, fruits and vegetables will be wet, to make them seem fresh and often whoever is starring in the ad or the dialect of the voiceover is who that product is for. If there is a voiceover speaking in a cockney accent then it’s marketed toward the working class, but it’s all just an illusion using stereotypes to manipulate the sub-conscious and the masses into relating to it. It does this all without ever actually telling us.

I wrote a short science fiction script called “The Great Hydration War” and shot a scene from it. In this scene, I did my best to make every shot tell us something. I played around a lot with power dynamic and it’s constantly changing using nothing but visual clues. When our main character thinks they are in control, the camera angle is low, making them seem large and powerful, but when the villain gets the upper hand you’ll see that they have the power. When they are both pointing guns at each other you’ll see that they’re both at the same level and share the power of the scene because it could go either way. Jazoor, the main character from the script who is from outer space, sees a figure after returning to Earth for the first time in years. Unsure of who it is, we see them in a wide shot, impersonal and unidentified. But when they stand up and Jazoor realises that it’s her twin from back when she grew up on the now ancient Earth. “It’s you!” Jazoor exclaims. With what she knows she gains the power to deal with the situation. She’s got this. However she’s flooded with doubt; “You sure?” Says the Dryborg, an evil futurist cyborg whose one weakness is water. The camera swoops up, leaving the character feeling vulnerable with no idea what kind of situation this is now. Then she brings up her gun, bringing the power back to her. I did this throughout the entire scene and tried my best to make sure I was expressing the characters feelings and positions in the scene through the camera angles even though obviously it’s quite a non-sensical script and a mildly ridiculous scene. I thought about the lighting, as the scene was based on an alternate reality Earth in the past where the sun is blue so I made sure all of the scenery were glowing in this blue light which I managed to do in post-production. The costumes were designed by myself and my friend who played the characters. I wanted something science fiction-esque, but obviously I had no budget and not a lot of time, so I decided to try to take the comedic route and rely on it having more charm than actually trying to make the audience believe what was going on. The scene is a pivotal part of the larger structure and story that I had written, however the storyboards for the scene were in fact drawn before I wrote it.

Even when I wrote the script I realised I sub-consciously loosely followed the hero’s journey, most likely because I take so much inspiration from movies. Even when writing, I instinctually had thoughts like “yes, now this kind of scene has to happen”. It was very condensed but it’s still there. We begin the story introducing our hero Jazoor, she continues to go on a journey across the universe before falling and being at her lowest in the third act before facing off her demon she’s been fearing the whole film. She overcomes the Dryborg but not in the way she probably thought. However, I did forget to film the character limping throughout the scene.

Everything is a journey, our lives are one. They’re not always structured how we want them to be but they’re a journey. Every day when we wake up we begin a new micro journey, a new chapter in a much bigger story that is how we view our lives. Stories are almost telling us how to live and that what we’re doing is okay. In my opinion modern mainstream cinema is stale, and I find it hard to believe that in just over a hundred years of film (and a few thousand for storytelling as a visual medium), storytelling has already dried up of all its originality and that we just keep repeating ourselves. Perhaps it's time we took a look at how we structure and create our characters and stories and try to make something more relevant and authentic. Stories reinforce our sub conscious beliefs behind our morals, between good and bad. People don’t want to be seen and thought of as the bad guy within society, hence why most stories are in fact about what we perceive as the “good guy”, the hero. I always find something to latch on to when enjoying a film, something to reassure me that I have my humanity or reassure me when I feel like I don’t have it - and that it’s okay if I don’t.

I don’t like to talk about the internet or politics in context of any work because I feel like those are things that have tainted some elements of different art forms. The only issue with making movies people can relate to is that also means you don’t want to offend anyone, which almost seems like an impossibility in recent years. Too much is focused on these subjects but perhaps that’s why people like movies. Social and political commentary have made many movies hits throughout all of time, but I believe a lot of the time story and characters are being sacrificed out of fear of offending or not being politically correct. It doesn’t seem to matter which stance you take within media, there will always be people that disagree. The internet has given everyone a loud voice and usually it's used for criticism. In terms of relating to a movie, I don’t think it should be a case of representation of sexual orientation or race, it should be about values and character - although I suppose it is human nature to want to relate to something or something who appears like us. Whatever the case, we need to relate to character as a person, and become engaged in the narrative. I think that is is why Campbells and Tzvetan’s theories and myths are continued to be used to this day, because they work.

I would personally love to see more change and experimentation in mainstream and modern cinema, and not to have to constantly and actively seek it out. Even recent movie posters are directly copying each other with the use of colour and framing, which directly relates to the signs we use to communicate information with an image. It would be refreshing to really open up the limitations and possibly of narratives - or in some cases close them off completely.

Bibliography

The Matrix. (1999). [video] Directed by L. Wachowski and L. Wachowski. United States: Warner Bros.

Star Wars. (1977). [video] Directed by G. Lucas. United States: 20th Century Fox.

Shaun of the Dead. (2004). [DVD] Directed by E. Wright. United Kingdom: Universal Pictures.

Slacker. (1991). [DVD] Directed by R. Linklater. United States: Orion Classics.

Dazed and Confused. (1993). [DVD] Directed by R. Linklater. United States: Gramercy Pictures.

The Terminator. (1984). [DVD] Directed by J. Cameron. United States: Orion Pictures.

Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior. (2019). [DVD] Directed by G. Miller. Australia: Warner Bros.

The Return of the Living Dead. (1985). [DVD] Directed by D. O'Bannon. United States: Orion Pictures.

Campbell, J., 1949. The Hero With A Thousand Faces. 1st ed. United States: Pantheon Books.

Square Enix. 1986. Dragon Quest. Video Game. Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft.

Berger, J., 1972. Ways Of Seeing. 1st ed. United Kingdom. Penguin.

George Lucas. (1999). “George Lucas in Conversation With Bill Moyers”. Bill Moyers. George Lucas Tells Bill Moyers About the Mentors in His Career.

Dyce, A.D. 2016. How Every Blockbuster Movie Tells The Same Story. [Online]. [8 July 2019]. Available from: https://screenrant.com/how-all-movies-same-secret-truth/

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