Fahrenheit 451's dismissal of the importance of other artforms
something is pissing me off about farenheit 451 and i'm sure it's been said before because this is quite a book but ill say it anyway. im only on page 54 so i have yet to judge if this is a good book or not, but i like it so far. it's a beautiful love story to books and writing and the written word, and it's about how important it is to share stories. i am a storyteller, i tell stories in many ways, but i am first and foremost an illustrator, with a love of cartoons and animation. i consider every method of storytelling an artform; and intellectual, important ones at that: oral histories, pop songs, stand up comedy shows, cartoons, a kid's oc, books. and i believe that at the end of the world, humans need art, and not just one form of it. every art form is as important as the next. so what pisses me off is that it seems like Ray Bradbury does not consider anything but books to be an effectively important artform. He makes a bold claim, describing cartoons and pictures as a lazy method of storytelling.
More cartoons in books. More pictures. The mind drinks less and less. Impatience. (p. 54)
As someone going into the animation industry, i took great offense to this. What i believe is truly meant here is that the people who consume cartoons are lazy, and that i can agree with (after all, it is much easier to watch the Loony Tunes than read Shakespeare), but in the same vein he is calling the people who made the cartoons lazy as well; that the people who make cartoons and the people who enjoy them are dumber and lazier than those who create and enjoy books. i understand the importance of the written word, and i certainly believe people don't read enough, but he clearly values books higher than visual art forms. he makes this defense against classical artists, so we know that he does not deem visual art unimportant:
And at the museums, have you ever been? All abstract. That's all there is now. My uncle says it was different once. A long time back sometimes pictures said things or even showed people. (p.28)
but then this itself shows a bias toward classical art, and he does not view abstract, or modern, art as real art. i think this, in part, is because he is a product of his time. tv and cartoons are new and strange, the funny pages in a newspaper are just for kids, and comic books are for delinquents. i understand his feelings on modern abstract art, but it is art and it is just as important as Michelangelo; and these are both as important as Faulkner.
he shows a hatred for other mediums, like music, and television, and film. and i know, i know, it's about how things are made more simple so that people can consume quickly and without thought, but to imply that music and cartoons and film requires no thought is an insult to those complex and beautiful art forms. think about the love and care that is needed to create them. is it not comparable to your own when you write a novel? but now i must come down off my high horse, and tell you that i think all artists share this bias for their own art form, and i can't blame Bradbury. you can only have one favorite, and his is books. i just think that all artists should be able to recognize each other as equals.
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Some off the cuff 1k of Skirk & Tartaglia (skirtaru???) hcs before 4.2 proves me wildly wrong, they are very much a dynamic in process to be changed as we see more of them and as I think and consider them more, but I wanna see them interact so BAD.
Anyway. Tartaglia is an idiot who develops a crush, or at least something like a crush, on anyone who can give him a good fight. Obviously there are plenty of people who can just kick his ass- he's ranked at the bottom of the Harbingers. But they all suck, and there's no passion when they fight! They don't appreciate it the way Tartaglia does! So it's not a good fight and those assholes don't count!
So I think little Tartaglia was doomed the second he saw a very very pretty lady with a very very sharp sword and she immediately beat the shit out of him. Like she awakened something in him right then and there, unfortunately for the rest of the world haha
And then! Not only could she beat him one handed! But she took the time to teach him! And this! This was exactly what Tartaglia had wanted when he ran away from home with nothing but some food and his sword! He'd wanted an adventure! He'd wanted something new and different and wild!
And he can have that now, with Skirk and the Abyss! So his crush could have instantly dissolved right there, but it didn't, because Skirk was weird and interesting and Tartaglia adored that.
((Wheezing imagining Tartaglia trying to show off because he wants to impress his shifu, and she genuinely is impressed because Tartaglia progressed so fast, but then she pops his teenage boy ego with a pin and he deflates sjzjnskdkz))
He develops such an endless amount of respect and admiration for her. He's so happy and so proud of himself when he masters the Foul Legacy, because this was a goal laid by his shifu and hell yeah, he blew it out of the water!! And I'd like to think this was when Skirk said those words in his profile-
"You shall ever be the eye of the storm,"
"And the clashing of steel shall ever accompany you."
"The pitch-black memory of stepping into uttermost darkness,"
"Shall, at last, become the strength by which you will overturn this world."
-with Tartaglia knelt before her and her sword at his cheek, as though she were knighting him. And Tartaglia realizes then that oh. He likes it here. He likes being in the Abyss. He likes being with Skirk. He likes hunting and killing and surviving here in the Abyss with Skirk. Morepesok is and will always be home, but it was stagnant there. Too much of the same. No room for growth.
But the Abyss is boundless possibility to explore in every direction, and Skirk has never flinched away from him even once. Tartaglia can be as violent and bloodthirsty as he wants; Skirk is worse. She gives zero shits. She loves to fight and hunt and kill and make things bleed. Tartaglia is free to explore and revel in all of his worst inclinations and instincts and that is what the Abyss and Skirk become to him. Freedom.
And then he falls out of the Abyss just as suddenly as he had fallen into it. He didn't even get to say goodbye.
And it's not all bad or anything. Tartaglia isn't miserable. He's plenty capable of making his own happiness. He brings his own joy everywhere he goes (derogatory, unfortunate for everyone else ndkdjdjkd) and he genuinely likes being around other people. He would have missed a lot of things if he'd been permanently trapped.
But now there is an itch that he can't scratch. And it's driving him nuts. And he misses Skirk. She was fun to be around. He liked her.
He finds himself seeing things in everyday life and wishing he could show her. He pulls out ingredients in the kitchen for dinner and wants her to eat his special dish and show off how good he can cook. He reads through reports about the Abyss and he never finds what he's looking for (a swordswoman, an entrance, anything-), but he wants to ask her her opinions about them. He sees a really nice sword and wonders if she would like it. Little things.
Tartaglia decides he's going to find her. Even if it's just for a chance to thank her. Even if it takes years, decades. He just wants to see her again.
And then, it finally happens! They really do get to reunite! I have no idea what will happen in the archon quest of course, but like. I really like the idea that after things settle down, Skirk decides to stay for a while. She doesn't really want to live here or anything, but she's curious. She wants to see what Teyvat is like. She especially wants to see Snezhnaya, like Tartaglia used to talk about. And Tartaglia decides to go with her, he's an experienced traveler, a man of the world after all! He'll take her wherever she'd like to go.
And I'd love for them to say goodbye to The Traveler and Paimon and depart from Fontaine on a classic will-they-won't-they sort of vibe, where it's obvious that Tartaglia has Some Feelings about Skirk, but it's not clear how Skirk really feels about him yet. But it's the kind of thing where it's hopeful, and you want to root for the guy to get his love interest haha.
(The Traveler and Paimon bump into them a few months later and Paimon chides Tartaglia because Childe have you seriously not confessed yet the hell have you been doing all this time, which he responds to with hey, Skirk is a classy lady, give me time to do it right! and meanwhile The Traveler can see around Tartaglia to where Skirk is sitting at their campfire, manspreading on a fallen log, eating raw meat with blood on her face and dripping down her arms BNSKXJSMKDMD)
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