#it's a great contrast to finn's narrative role

[legashe]

the theme of rey’s narrative in tfa is so starkly and clearly that of destiny that she is pulled into the story and the adventure and battle almost by force, and not ever by choice. in fact, she tries her best to be pulled away from it, repels it at every opportunity, and, still, destiny beckons & she goes. she is a character in a story, she gets up and says her lines and plays her part. and so the tale moves on and on again. 

[sometimesrosy]

hi rosie! I know it's been months since the 100 ended and I've seen lots of people talk about how they failed bellamy and clarke but I was wondering what you thought of raven and her storyline in s7. do you think it was good for her character and her story arc?

Ahh. Raven’s arc.

Yeah, so the problem with Raven’s arc is JR hasn’t known what to do with her since season 5. Season 4 was the last season with a good character arc for her, and even that one had a major character glitch as he tried to take her from the pragmatist who would blow up a bridge or dam or tell Clarke to kill Lxa while surrounded by her armies, to a person who said “it’s not your blood that matters, it’s your heart.”  Which was one of the worst lines in this whole show. It’s not even funny like “we’re back bitches!” It’s just corny and soppy and dumb. Her character shift on science island always felt false to me. It should have been Bellamy who held Clarke in check with morality, since that had been HIS character arc. I thought it was a misstep then, and now knowing the entire narrative arc, I think it was where they started to go wrong with Raven. Until then she was my third favorite character after Clarke and Bellamy.

I ALWAYS had a problem with this, but I was giving them the benefit of the doubt that they could pull it out. Season 5 was the least bad for her, with her sacrifice for spacekru on the ship, but honestly I didn’t think they went far enough with that. I feel like they should have explored her feelings of guilt more at not being able to get her friends home, or leaving Clarke behind alone.  And there was great potential in the scene where she and Clarke took McCreary down using her own body as the weapon (especially for a character whose body was always in pain and whose body had failed her... idk that’s quite some symbolism there,) but instead they chose to retreat and turn her back into the judgmental shrew that told Bellamy he shouldn’t have saved the slaves, and told Clarke she was the one who said whether everyone lived or died.

So like. She never addressed with Clarke what happened with Finn at his death. The blame she put on Clarke, when SHE wanted to instigate a war that would have had them all exterminated, including Finn. For some reason, the genius couldn’t connect those dots that her plan would have caused all of her people to massacred? I mean, it’s normal for her to have that failure in such a time of high emotion, but six years later, she still thinks Clarke was wrong to do what she did? No. Plot hole. Forgetting all the times that she enabled Clarke’s plans, or eagerly set about torturing and killing (remember SHE’S the one who electrified Lincoln without a BIT of the remorse that Clarke and Bellamy had,) is a failure of character.

Also, she never addressed the FACT that she wanted to trade Murphy to the grounders for Finn’s life and have him tortured to death in place of her boyfriend who was a literal mass murderer, AND she blamed Murphy for Finn’s actions when Murphy was the one trying to stop him the whole time. And THIS is a plot hole for a character arc and narrative line that was about Raven having learning about forgiveness and morality and leadership and sacrifice and hard decisions, and making judgments on Murphy, who frankly has been one of the most moral characters of the show since season 2. His morality might not be the SAME as everyone else’s, but it was the most firm.  So, this narrative arc again did not go FAR enough. 

In season 5, I figured that they would make up for the s5 scanty Raven storyline with a stronger s6 one.. That didn’t happen. I thought maybe it was because her love interest left, so she took on his judgmental role, but it didn’t work well. I also thought that part of the problem was that it would make her into too big of a character and they needed to keep the focus on the main characters, Clarke and Bellamy. But from s5-7 MURPHY got a large role, too, that brought a thorough narrative arc and finished out his character journey. So he got the focus that they never managed for Raven. I hear tell that Richard helped Murphy’s story in season 7, so that might be why. But idk. It shows that they were capable of finishing a character story with attention and detail, but they just failed with Raven. 

So season 7 had Raven confronting her own leadership and putting her in Clarke’s place to face the judgment she put on Clarke. And...oh she was sad and felt guilt and had to face the repercussions of that. But... it didn’t go far enough. She was reunited with Clarke and was no longer angry at her, and they were a team again. But this wasn’t HER story arc. Her story arc just kind of went *sad trombone.*

I know she was the one who went into the anomaly and met with the sparkle aliens, but that just seemed so forced and fake. Yes, they built up the morality narrative, but... like. It should have been Clarke. Instead they turned her into the crazy vengeance lady, like Daenerys, even though her entire narrative was about her dealing with her pain and she kind of never killed anyone in vengeance? I mean she spent 6 years ALONE and she only wanted to kill herself? IDK. It doesn’t make sense that THIS was the end. She sent madi into battle too save Bellamy and that did make her crazy lady. She had her after death reckoning and we saw no crazy lady. 

Sorry, that went off into failure of Clarke’s story.

How did that affect Raven? I think that from about season 3, Raven was used as a substitute to fill in gaps where they lost characters, or moved characters around. Where they changed their narrative ideas, and they needed a narrative tool to do something, they would stick Raven in... because she was a strong character who was involved with all the other main characters (except maybe Octavia.) She became like a swiss army knife who would take the place of characters that were needed but didn’t fit. And that meant that HER character was not really consistent in the later half of the series.  And it feels WRONG. Someone’s judgy? Make it Raven. Someone’s empathetic? Make it Raven. Someone’s mean? Make it Raven. Someone’s righteous? Make it Raven. Someone’s a sister? Make it Raven. Someone’s a daughter? Make it Raven. Some main character needs a supporting character to prop them up? Make it Raven. They just moved her around to fit the other character’s stories. Even her big morality arc was to support Abby, Clarke, or Murphy. :/ THAT’S why it didn’t work when they made her the Clarke proxy in the transcendence narrative. Because she hadn’t actually worked through HER story, but through Abby’s Clarke’s and Murphy’s. Bleh.

And she also basically disappeared in a lot of season 7, too. Same as Octavia. Who had her story with Sky Ring and skyringkru, but then disappeared until she gave the inspiring peace speech with the goddamn petty, dumbass stupid grounders, whose main flaw FROM SEASON 1, is that they are too stupid to have survived this long. All they want to do is fight. And blame everyone else for what they did. And the eligius prisoners, and the brainless cult sheep. Honestly. 

And what do we have? The most unnuanced, flat character in the show. Sheidheda. Like there isn’t even any symbolism or archetypal energy in there. He’s just there to make them fight for NO FUCKING REASON. 

These are the characters who had decent story arcs that were resolved.

Murphy and Emori Diyoza Gabriel And Indra a bit. Better than most. 

Fucking DEV had a better character ending than Clarke, Bellamy, Raven, and Octavia. 

Actually, Mackson was satisfying, although skimpy. But then the characters didn’t have a really deep narrative line, so their ending was in keeping with their story. But it fit with their long term stated goals, what they wanted out of life. Just to be together in peace with maybe some chickens, by the shore, right? That was THEIR goal. The ending was theirs.

That was never what any of the other characters wanted. Or not ONLY. Do the right thing. Live a good life. Create a better society. Save humanity. Be good people. Live morally. 

nope. But it worked for Murphy’s ending too. He didn’t want to die alone. He died, with Emori. Then he came back and got to life his half life with his friends. 

I just can’t get over how they tossed the main story of being the good guys and saving humanity. I suppose there was always the question of whether they’d get a happy ending emotionally, but I never thought they’d destroy humanity, erase Bellamy and say Clarke was never the hero. 

I guess I needed to address the endings of the other characters to see how they all fit in with Raven’s. Because none of the characters stood on their own, so we have to see how they were woven together and compare and contrast.

Raven was my biggest disappointment as a character in this show from season 5 on. I kept waiting for her character arc to come together or get the attention Murphy got. She had the weight to be major character, but her story just wasn’t told. She became a supporting character and really lacked meaningful development. 

[unexpectedreylo]

Mary Sue Or Not?

Having climbed aboard the Reylo ship 10-11 months ago, I’ve written quite a bit about them as a couple and about Kylo/Ben, since he is endlessly fascinating on many levels and he is the last Skywalker heir.

But it’s time to shine some light on our girl Rey, the heroine of this fairy tale/gothic romance novel collision in space.  And the first thing I want to address is whether or not it’s fair to call her a Mary Sue.

One problem we have is no one really can define what a Mary Sue is anymore; it’s become what former U.S. Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart once said about obscenity...you can’t define it but you know it when you see it.  A lot of the time in modern parlance, it’s a lazy shorthand for “a female character I don’t like.”

But “Mary Sue” did mean something once and it was very specific.  It was meant to describe an original character in fan fiction who was basically an idealized version of the author, there to suck all of the gravity of a particular universe in her direction.  Someone I knew in Star Wars prequel fandom once described a Mary Sue as a fundamental writing error.  I would add it’s the kind of error (usually) young, inexperienced writers who aren’t familiar enough with the source material tend to make.  

The OG Mary Sue from the zine Menagerie #3.

The term “Mary Sue” came from a satirical Star Trek fan fiction (“A Trekkie’s Tale”) written in the ‘70s meant to spoof these kinds of stories.  The heroine, Mary Sue, is the youngest Starfleet officer at 15.5 years old and is half-Vulcan.  Everyone falls in love with Lt. Mary Sue; of course Capt. Kirk hits on her but being a woman of virtue, she rebuffs him.  She dies a tragic death trying to save the Enterprise and is mourned by all (in the early days, Mary Sues often died tragically and heroically).   Since then Mary Sues have become more sophisticated and varied, but are often marked by their extraordinary skills, unusual but beautiful appearance, and ridiculously convoluted names (”Mary Sue” is pretty vanilla these days for a Mary Sue).  They also stubbornly refuse to die.  But the principles remain the same:  the Sue is the always the center of attention, the Sue is always a usurper, and the rules of the canonical universe/characterizations always bend or break to justify a character who really doesn’t fit into that universe at all.  For example in “A Trekkie’s Tale,” the normally stoical Mr. Spock blubbers like a baby at Mary Sue’s funeral.  In the infamous “My Immortal,” the denizens of Hogswarts are transformed into suicidal bisexual “goffs” to accommodate its Draco-humping vampire anti-heroine “Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way.”   (”My Immortal” just might be the 21st century internet troll’s version of “A Trekkie’s Tale.”)

I started reading Star Wars fan fiction 26 years ago and every now and then, I’d run into a Mary Sue.  More often than not, she was Force-sensitive and was usually paired with Luke.  In older zines, particularly ones pre-TESB, I’d see the kind often paired with Han Solo that I’d called “Spacer Sues.”  About 20 years ago I wrote a fic spoofing Star Wars-style Mary Sues called “Hello Jedi Sue.”  In the story the main character Sue was sucked up into a tornado and sent into the GFFA.  She had a higher midichlorian count than even Anakin and immediately upon meeting Luke, he realizes she is destined for him.  Over the course of the story, she leads Rogue Squadron to victory against a stray Sith Lord who turns up out of nowhere (she’d never flown an X-wing before), she pilots the Falcon through an asteroid field after Han suffers a heart attack, and of course she trains to be a Jedi.  Leia is kind of chilly to her at first but comes around and gives her a ring that once belonged to Queen Amidala, the only memento she has left of her birth mother.  Some apprentice gets jealous of her and pushes her off the top of the temple to her death.  Leia declares it a worse tragedy than Alderaan.  Everyone’s crying and stuff but Sue uses her Force superpowers to resurrect herself.  She and Luke marry and she immediately gets pregnant.  Obi-Wan’s ghost appears to tell the happy couple she is his granddaughter and Qui-Gon’s great-granddaughter (don’t ask).  

So you might say TFA raised my eyebrows because some of it reminded me of “Hello Jedi Sue.”  Before everyone hits the unfollow button, I DO NOT think that Rey is a Mary Sue.

I’ll break it down like this.  In order for a character to be a Mary Sue, the character must do most if not all of the following:

Be an idealized version of the author.

Be the center of attention, even in situations where it wouldn’t be practical or appropriate.

Bend or break the rules of the canon universe just to fit in.

Possesses highly unusual but beautiful looks and exhibit a large amount of extraordinary skills.

Be irresistible, especially sexually irresistible, to everyone.

Usurp the roles played by canon characters and their importance.

So, let’s go over that list with Rey in mind.

1.  Is she an idealized version of J.J. Abrams, Rian Johnson, Lawrence Kasdan, or George Lucas (who created Rey’s progenitor “Kira”)?

Uhh, I doubt it.  It’s not just that Rey is obviously not of the same sex, but she doesn’t seem to exhibit anything that reminds me of these men in real life.  Sure she’s packed with girl power but so what?  So are Lara Croft, Ellen Ripley, Sarah Connor, Padme Amidala, Xena, Leia Organa, Black Widow, Wonder Woman, that dragon chick from Game Of Thrones, Ahsoka, etc..  

2.  Is she the center of attention, even where it wouldn’t be practical or appropriate?

She’s the main hero(ine) of this trilogy and the avatar for the audience but she serves the same function that Luke Skywalker did in the OT or Anakin Skywalker did in the PT.  So of course the story is going to focus on her.  But if she was genuinely a Mary Sue, she would be doing everything of importance in the film to the point of making everyone else useless.  They could be sitting by the sidelines having a beer while she’s basically running the movie.  

3.  Does she bend or break the rules of the canon universe just to fit in?

This is one point where I think a lot of the contention lies.  She gets accused a lot of being “overpowered.”  Well, what does that mean?  The way I see the narrative shaping up after two films, she is obviously very powerful in the Force but TLJ makes it clear her power level is the same as Kylo’s.  I think the movies are hinting she and Kylo/Ben are something new and unique, a creation of the Cosmic Force in its post Anakin-balanced state.  I hope we get more of an explanation of this because I think it would go a long way to reassure people.  

On that note, another common complaint is that Rey takes on skills rapidly with minimal training.  I admit, I felt this was a problem the first time I saw TFA.  I couldn’t understand why for instance she was able to use the Jedi mind trick so quickly without any training.  By contrast, Luke wasn’t able to use the mind trick until ROTJ.  I couldn’t understand why she was able to defeat someone trained in the Force in a lightsaber duel, regardless of his mental state or injury.  It took until I saw TLJ and saw some comments from one of the story groupers that I understood she’d basically downloaded Kylo’s skills when he entered her mind and she’d entered his.  Now I get it.  But this is one criticism I still have of TFA; it didn’t make that clear enough to the audience.  There’s a reason why George Lucas spent time letting you know Luke was a good bush pilot on Tatooine who could shoot womp rats in his T-16 or Anakin could win a pod race...it’s so that when they fly out to blow up something at the end of the movie, you’re able to understand why they can do that.  Sometimes you do have to make movies so that the common idiot can figure it out!

Now a critic might argue that Rey Matrixing her way to Jedi skills is lazy.  Maybe the filmmakers wanted to make sure they had a protagonist able to get into the mix early on because there weren’t enough Force-sensitive characters around who could’ve taken on Kylo.  But then again, did we really see the OT or PT spend a lot of time on training?  Luke fought Darth Vader after about 25 minutes of training in TESB and we never saw Anakin train at all; 10 years had passed between TPM and AOTC and by the latter film, he was able to do all kinds of cool stuff.  And TLJ makes it clear that while Rey had the skills, she still needed direction and instruction.  She thought the Force just controlled people and made things float!

And sometimes the audience misses things, especially if they only see a movie once.  For instance, the first time I saw TFA I was baffled why Rey was able to pilot the Falcon.  It seemed like Little Miss Desert Scavenger just hopped into the cockpit and away she went, whereas if I just got on a spaceship for the first time ever, I’d crash that mo-fo pretty quickly.  Then when I saw the film again some time later, the dialogue makes it clear she IS able to pilot.  She never left Jakku not because she couldn’t leave but because she was still waiting for her loser parents to come back.

4.  Is she irresistible to everyone?

Mary Sues always get a reaction out of every canon character and that reaction is a strong one.  It’s always fierce devotion, instant BFFs forever, undying passionate and true love, boiling-over lust, or pure loathing and hatred (that of course turns into the opposite or the hater is toast).  There’s never indifference, or relationships that take time to build, or first impressions that turn out to be wrong, etc..  And it’s always instantaneous.  

Most of the good guys like Rey but is any of it different from how characters took to Luke in the OT or Anakin in the PT?  Not really.  The only thing that stands out is Leia running over to hug the girl she’s known for part of a movie over Chewbacca but even Abrams admitted he’d goofed.  And one instance does not a Mary Sue make.

The only characters who have more intense feelings for Rey are Kylo and Finn and in both cases, those feelings are complicated.  

5.  Does she have a highly unusual but beautiful appearance and exhibit a large amount of extraordinary skills?

Note the lack of rainbow hair and silver eyes.

Daisy Ridley is a beautiful young woman but as Rey, it seems like if anything they’re shooting for more of a natural, earthy beauty that befits her character.  There’s nothing unusual about how she looks or how she dresses.  She looks like she would almost fade into the crowd if you didn’t know who or what she was.  Mary Sues on the other hand ALWAYS have to be noticed for their looks.

As for Rey’s skills, this is another thing people criticize.  But in the Star Wars universe, being a Force-user isn’t alone an indication of Mary Sue-dom.  Now if Rey was more powerful than anyone else ever, even Anakin Skywalker, that would be a Mary Sue issue.  But the films make it clear that she isn’t more powerful than everyone; her power level is the same as Kylo’s.  Her only advantage comes from being the more morally correct character in the story.

Her other skills are explained in the films and are nothing unusual in the Star Wars universe.  She’s a good pilot but not such an ace everyone’s saying she’s better than Wedge Antilles, Poe Dameron, and Luke Skywalker combined.  She’s a grease monkey but that comes from years of scavenging.  Her talents aren’t just dropping out of the ether.  

A Mary Sue would be the most powerful Force user ever, the greatest pilot of all time, someone who could teach space aeronautics at MIT at the age of 20, have an IQ higher than Einstein’s, be the greatest and most ingenious hacker, a better leader than Leia, a better shot than Annie Oakley even while drunk, cook like Julia Child, have sex like a porn star, have a singing voice like an angel, and is all-around the best at everything that needs to be done at any given time, ALL OF THE TIME. That’s not quite what we’re getting with Rey.

6..  Does she usurp roles played by canon characters and their importance?

This is another area of heated contention and it depends on what you believe are the filmmakers’ intentions.  Are they setting Rey up to be the “real” Chosen One, essentially changing Lucas’s story?  Are they setting up the Skywalkers as unworthy so Rey has to basically take their place as the “gods” end their cursed line?

Believe it or not, I was really worried this was exactly what Disney was going to do.  Now, I don’t think this is the case.  If anything, Rey is there in part to save the Skywalker line and legacy, not to end it or steal it for herself.  But I suspect there are a lot of fans who still think this is where they are going in IX, so of course they’re going to resent Rey.

I came to the conclusion after seeing TLJ that while Rey is important and the lead character, she’s not the center of gravity in the story.  Kylo Ren is.  Pay attention; nearly everything that’s happening in the films is in some way because of him or related to him.  It’s harder to believe she’s some random OC who broke into the Star Wars saga to suck the attention away from the Skywalkers once you realize this.

All of these said, there’s one more reason why Rey is not a Mary Sue.

Canon characters by definition cannot be Mary Sues!

It drives me nuts that people call canon characters Mary Sues.  The whole point of a Mary Sue is someone who doesn’t really fit in with a universe so the universe is fit around her.  Bella Swan may be a lot of things but she’s not a Mary Sue.  (Now if you wrote a Twilight OC who pushes out Bella, gets Edward to fall in love with her, and gets Edward to give up his vampire ways and become a Christian, THAT’s a Mary Sue.)  Now, some fans won’t accept anything Disney produced as canon but this is what we’ve got and it’s all we’re getting.    

I don’t know who did this--I found it on Know Your Meme--but it’s a decent guide.

[riancraigjohnson-blog]

would you be willing to share some of the issues that you had with tlj as a woman of color? I was telling some friends about issues people were having with the film's treatment of PoC and I figured it would be better to share an actual PoC's perspective.

thank you so much for asking!!!! now, full disclosure i’m a super white-passing latina. or hispanic. ( i’ve referred to myself as both, so ) i’m puerto rican on my mom’s side. so i haven’t personally experienced the racism that my mom has, or my grandfather ( popi ) has, or my aunts or my mom’s cousins or, well, that entire side of my family.

as such, i can’t speak from a woman of color’s perspective because i’m white-passing, just because that hasn’t happened to me. i can be outraged about it, certainly, because i see my family in someone like oscar, or benecio who is actually puerto rican, and yeah, their treatment pisses me off.

now, that being said, let’s continue: ( note: i’m going to focus more on poe in regards to personal experience, as he’s the one i most closely relate to in terms of racial-themed questions )

what is the narrative that is being fed to us today, politically? one of harsh anti-immigration, one of an us vs them mentality-- you don’t have to be a poc to realize that, but it’s the reality that’s facing us. ( we’re particularly seeing a strong anti-latinx/hispanic, anti-black, and anti-muslim sentiment, but that’ll come in later. )

in tfa, we have our main trio-- a white girl, a young black man, and a latino man-- our heroes. in contrast, we have our villain trio-- a white woman and two white men. to me, that sets the tone-- we’re offered a movie that allows two main non-white characters the chance to shine and break free from racial stereotypes, and they do so spectacularly. i look at poe, and that’s my family, that’s a positive representation for other latinxs/hispanics, something we sorely do not get enough of in big-budget films. ( usually we’re portrayed as either hot-tempered, hyper-sexualized exotics, or stupid comic relief. ) imagine how awesome it was to see poe be none of these things?

he’s sharp-witted, funny, intelligent, quick on his feet, resourceful, and above all, kind. he’s sweet and clearly loves both what he does and the people he works with, and even without the background the books and other media provide, poe is obviously shown as someone who both respects leia and she respects in turn, someone who is well-deserving of his high-rank in the resistance, especially when you consider just how quickly this man came back after being both physically and mentally tortured by the first order/kyle. poe is, at the core of it, a gentle soul compared to the many brash and/or stupid ‘latinx/hispanic’ representations we’ve been fed in the past, so this was such a nice change of pace. he doesn’t yell or get violent, even at his most frustrated-- he’s level-headed and demonstrates all the needed qualities for a leader.

now.

the poe we get in tlj is painted as if he’s none of those things-- in the beginning, he’s shown as being in it just for the glory, the thrill of taking down a dreadnought instead of the guilt that might have plagued him over the excessive deaths in that scene-- that seems more in line with his character in tfa. he’s disobedient, petulant, impulsive-- and then he gets slapped by leia. ( here’s a hint, rian: white people slapping poc is never cool, even if you think it’s ‘empowering’ just because it’s a woman slapping. )  he then gets demoted from commander to captain, placed under the charge of holdo with the rest of the crew, and then denied even the slightest of answers when he, quite reasonably, asked for what the hell the plan was. however, the whole movie stands to paint poe’s mutiny as childish. his mission that he sent rose and finn on as a failure. that he’s going to learn the lesson of ‘sacrificing oneself for the greater good’ from a white woman, when poe has CLEARLY demonstrated in the past that he’s more likely to put himself in danger than let others do it for him.

we supposedly get this great character arc showing poe grow as a character from an impatient, hot-headed man-child who throws a literal tantrum ( hmmmmmmmmmmm sound like a certain white 30-year old we know? ) into this seasoned, war-tested officer who now knows the value of hope because he should have just blindly trusted this woman who gave him no reason to.

that’s regression, and that’s harmful, and that’s why we’re getting people talking about not liking poe, or downright hating him, or in buzzfeed’s instance, calling him worse than jar jar binks.

when i came out of tfa, when other people i know came out of tfa, poe was a role model for non-whites and whites alike. he was likeable across the board, and now, there’s not even that.

the same goes for finn, but like i said before, i can’t speak as personally about the regression in finn’s character other than we were given this selfless, brave character with so much heart and emotion in the first film, someone who saw the evil of the first order and before he could even fire a shot at a helpless villager, he said no. in tfa, there’s this whole theme of him ‘running away’-- running away from the order, from jakku, from takodana-- but we see his progression through the movie, and by the end, no one would dare call finn a coward. he risked his life for rey, helped the resistance destroy starkiller; he’s a hero, which is what ties into rose’s hero-worship of him at the very beginning.

however, in tlj, we see the exact same story-- finn is branded as selfish and cowardly by rose, who never even bothered to listen to his story-- we’re given the notion that he was leaving the ship to go get as far away from the order as possible so that when she does return from ahch-to, she’s not walking into a first order trap. before finn can even explain to rose why he’s doing this, she tasers him without a second thought, and that’s the groundwork for their relationship. ( note: rey also hit finn when they first met, doing so because bb-8 said finn stole poe’s jacket-- this doesn’t make it okay, but the fact that rey trusts finn after that, never calling him a coward or traitor or selfish, even after he told her the truth of his past and still tried to leave takodana-- she never once called him any of those things. ) the rest of the movie has its tone set from that first interaction-- finn is played as the butt of all the jokes in their scenes, continuously called selfish or cowardly by rose, or treated as if he’s somehow stupid-- we, again like with poe, see no actual character development within him. we already saw all this in the first movie, only guess what? it worked that time because one: it was the first time seeing this character and two: rey never belittled finn or tore him down.

finally, let’s touch on rose. ( and by extension, paige. ) listen...... we got fucking robbed. before i read spoilers for the movie, ( and i did so because i didn’t trust rian johnson further than i could punt him, and i still don’t, ) i was so excited to see ntv as paige, i was so excited to see the tico sisters onscreen together and interact and like? we had great interaction with hong kong donnie yen and chinese jiang wen-- and that was men. to have two vietnamese women on screen? in a star wars film? color me fucking stoked! but.... we didn’t. paige doesn’t even get to say her own sister’s name, she gets one line saying the guy who was supposed to drop the payload’s name, and she dies. instead of manpain, we get to see the aftermath of ‘sisterpain’-- as if paige’s death is supposed to positively affect rose, who we can see is OBVIOUSLY affected by the loss of her from when we first see rose on screen? that first moment seeing rose, devastated by the loss of her sister, i was honestly willing to forgive the killing of paige-- here we had another chance to break boundaries, by showing a soft, warm, loving person in rose from the get-go....... and instead they have her tase finn and treat him like shit the whole movie. have her talk down to him as if he’s an idiot and all he’s ever done is run away his whole life, when that is clearly not what finn is about at all. as a result, i feel like her own story for personal growth is grossly surrounding insulting finn, up until the very end in one of those ‘twists’ johnson seems to be fond of-- overall, what should be a positive experience by having a lead non-white female added to the mix feels more like it was written by a white feminist where it’s the idea of ‘female > any male’ as opposed to, y’know, intersectional feminism, where things like race are taken into consideration.

overall, the treatment of the three leading non-white characters is overall poor, cruel, generally racist ( particularly in terms of the ‘white women putting the latino hothead man in his place’ ) narrative that johnson seems so desperate for us to chug down, and also misleading-- it seemed pointless to include paige in the movie when her whole purpose was to die. ( because killing off poc, particularly woc, is considered ‘good writing’ in johnson’s book. )

[dellaliz19]

(Spoilers) Star Wars: The Last Jedi thoughts

Ugh, I am so divided on this one. This one was a real pros and cons evening out for me kind of movie, which left me just so...(insert Dark Side/Light Side metaphor here).

So, Going with that metaphor: The Light Side

1) Rey, Finn and Poe are all great again. They feel true to character, and each has their own arc that is really good. Finn learning he has to do more than hate the First Order, Poe learning to set aside his hot head and be a strategist, and Rey finding her way in regards to her place with the Force are all well done and no arc feels tacked on.

2) The landscapes are gorgeous. The fight on the red salt planet, the quiet beauty of space, the Monaco planet and so much more are just lovely and poetic.

3) Leia finally getting to use the Force. It really hits home how much we lost with Carrie Fischer’s passing, because it seems pretty clear that Leia and her Force powers could have played an amazing part of the next story.

4) Luke and Kylo’s final stand off. That was classic quipping Luke Skywalker and I loved it. Flicking of imaginary dirt, I’m not here to forgive you, “see you around kid.” Bad fucking ass.

5) Yoda. God Yoda was fantastic. Lightning from the sky, jokes and the fab line “Masters. The true tragedy is we are what they outgrow.” Right in the feels.

6) Rose was a great new character, and a good foil for Finn. She felt raised in the Rebellion, and her viewpoint was a great contrast to Finn’s.

7) Snoke got what he deserved. Fuck that gold robes wearing ahole.

8) Admiral Pink Hair. Love her. Bad ass lady, and her last stand was just...cinematic. Hot damn.

9) Rey’s parents. I love the idea that they were nobodies and that Rey is just some girl, with the Force, choosing her own way. The great part of the Original Trilogy is that anyone could be a hero, not just a chosen one. The prequels clouded that, and I’m so hoping that the last movie doesn’t go ��just kidding! Rey’s a secret Kenobi or something.” Just no, please no.

10) The humour. This was a funny movie, but it never got to be too much. The frog nuns, Luke, some physical humour; it all felt smart and clever and fit well with the tone. Like Poe fuckig with Hux at the start: A+ fucking with a space nazi.

11) You lift those rocks and hug that boy girl. You go girl.

Now, The Dark Side:

1) Kylo Fucking Ren. Look this one is not going to be true for everyone, but I am %100 not interested in THE REDEMPTION ARC OF KYLO REN. I do not want it. I like Kylo a lot as a villain, and I think Adam Driver plays him excellently. But Kylo Ren is beyond redemption for me. He’s not the scared child in Luke’s training camp anymore, still teetering on the edge of his choice between Light and Dark. He killed children, burned the Temple, committed mass atrocities with the First Order, killed his Father and is now leading the Space Nazis.

He chose. And not MURDERING HIS MOTHER and killing Snoke don’t make up for that. There’s a reason Vader didn’t live out a long an peaceful robo-life after killing the Emperor. Give Kylo a noble death, but he doesn’t deserve a nobel life.

2) Too many space battles. I get that the second movie in a trilogy is the heroes at their lowest point. But holy crap these kind of odds really strain credulity. Yeah these 15 people are going to take down the First Order. And yes they’ll get more allies likely off screen before the first movie but damn that was a little bit to much. You didn’t need quite as many “man we got out of that” set pieces. It was just so much. They were really good battles though, I’ll say that.

3) That we never really got “Master Luke, Jedi teacher.” I do appreciate Luke’s arc, and it made narrative sense, but I just felt so robbed by never getting to have Luke properly train Rey. Like it’s funny that the epic “Rey passes Luke the lightsaber scene” actually results in him chucking it away like hot garbage but damn it, I WANTED what they were selling with the first one. I wanted Master Luke.

4) Porgs. Look the Porgs were cute but they got to Ewok levels really fast. I’m down for the Porgs, but less Porgs please.

5) Benicio de Plot Waste. His character served a narrative purpose but that was about it. Can’t say I’m dying to see that character again. No Han Solo, is all I’m saying.

6) I’d love some more back story on Snoke. Like, how did this guy get trained for his Sith powers? I want that story. It made more sense when he was using Kylo because he didn’t have powers of his own; giving him his own powers really made him the Emperor V.2 and I found him a lot more compelling before.

7) The Carrie Fischer question. I really liked her role in this movie, but I can’t help but wonder if it would have been better if they’d had her die. I know they are saying hey won’t use CGI for the 3rd, and fine whatever they chose, but it does really leave a void in that the Original Three are gone now. Mostly I’d like to have her die in some way that isn’t murder: something mundane. A heart attack, a disease, something that no one caused or could have prevented and then have the rest of the characters have to accept that.

8) Why was Maz in this? She added very little, and her union joke was funny but she was pretty clearly crammed in. Give her something to do or don’t add her.

9) Same with Phasma. I hope they didn’t pay Gwendoline Christie by the word because she’s critically underused again. The last shot where you see a real person is under there was gold; that’s what Phasma could have been, but she just served as a set piece for Finn to get some closure which is fine, but really, could have been so much more.

Overall The Last Jedi is a good movie that I did really enjoy. It wasn’t quite what I was expecting but it didn’t suffer too much in that view. It’s a visually stunning movie and the characters are well acted and real. Still, it left me...wanting, somehow that I can’t quite explain. I’m interested to see the next one, but I’ll admit I’m not as interested as after The Force Awakens. Good movie, certainly, but it wouldn’t crack my top 3 Star Wars movie list.

[wendynerdwrites]

Meta Repost Project: Fandom Studies and the Personal Favorite White Boy

(note, this is an article I originally posted on therainbowhub and fandomfollowing two years ago but has been lost to caches and bad decisions on my art. Here it is again, non-caches and in full. This article has some errors and is out of date, but I wanted to preserve the original even if it is flawed. It works well as a reference and I may add/alter it again, but I wanted to post is and have it here, untouched, first)

This one’s gonna hurt…

Personal Favorite White Boy (n.): A (usually white) male character who can commit acts ranging from “pretty damn douchey” to “outright atrocities”, but is constantly defended by or stanned for by a furious fan base who will go to any lengths to excuse their actions and vilify critics. A male fave who is portrayed as a precious cinnamon roll who are only ever victims and heroes, and anyone who says differently is evil or illiterate. Who will have their fangirls who “understand” them furiously warp their characters, outright ignore their flaws, and attack anyone who points out anything remotely negative about their faves. Any woman who rejects them is an evil bitch, as is anyone who dares to hold them accountable for their actions. Everything they do is justifiable due to past abuse, “true love”, or a protective instinct. The figure from which Draco in Leather Pants, along with other modern fandom tropes, has spawned.

Fifty Shades of Grey fans will dox you online for saying Christian Grey is an abusive stalker despite the fact that he tracks a woman through her cellphone and uses faux-BDSM to hurt his wife for the crime of going out for drinks with a friend.

Twilight fans will lose their shit if you point out how not-okay it is that Edward Cullen took a piece of Bella Swan’s car engine out to keep her from going to see Jacob. Or if you make the point that Jacob forcing a kiss on Bella is, in fact, sexual assault.

You’re a total simpleton if you think that Thomas Raith from the Dresden Files is rapist. Sure, he uses magic to compel humans into having sex with him, but he acknowledges he’s a monster and also consent doesn’t matter to vampires! He’s a hero because he feels bad about it. Can’t you just understand context?!

If you dare to mention that you’re not supposed to stand with Ward (or you get shot in the head because he’s a traitorous neo-Nazi rapist), some Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. fans will want your blood.

Finn Collins from The 100 has great hair and calls the lead female character Clarke “Princess”, but he also killed nearly twenty unarmed men, women, and children. That makes him a war criminal and the Grounders wanting him dead as an offering to insure their peace treaty (the one that will likely insure the safety and health of hundred, if not thousands of innocents) is pretty reasonable. As is how the lead character, Clarke, stabbed Finn to spare him a torturous death. But some fans of The 100 insist that Clarke is “a bitch” for doing this and not killing Grounder leader Lexa— even though that would surely result in the deaths of everyone she’s ever loved.

…I know, right? It’s maddening. How much media utterly idolizes men even if they’re shits? Or at the very least problematic?

These men— the Grant Wards, the Spikes, the Finn Collinses, the Tyrion Lannisters, the Edward Cullens—- are the Personal Favorite White Boys, and they get psychotic fandom defenses more passionate than anything. These PFWBs will be absolved of anything— be it rape, abuse, massacres, mistakes that lead to the violent deaths and starvation of thousands— by certain fans with defenses going from “He was abused as a child” to “He cried once.”

Which brings us to the first prong of my theory regarding the rabid Personal Favorite White Boy Defense phenomenon: male characters in media, agency, and our changing views of what we view as acceptable and unacceptable.

First, there are the roles of female characters in stories, and how the primary actors or aggressors in most stories are men.

Men were almost always the active players. Even in stories that feature main female protagonists, such as Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, those main female characters are so passive to the point of unconsciousness— and need to be saved by men in the form of what is considered modern day sexual assault.

But men were the primary agents, the true heroes, and so they had actions that could be judged for good or ill– choices they actually made. Whereas even the females’ characters choices were usually framed as a thing they did because “they couldn’t help it.” Still utterly passive, with no agency. So there is no instinct to defend female romantic leads in text much because there was never a real need. Even when they were objectively messed up people, they were always framed as a prize and their flaws had more to do with them being weak and dependent than letting us see their own choices and real motivations— think Daisy Buchanan (who was awful, but very much built up simply as an object rather than a person). So there simply has never been much encouragement for men to feel like they need to justify their fictional crushes. Once a woman did something bad, it was done. She was just bad. But she was always, always passive and always an object. There are some exceptions, of course, but often even those stories are altered or ignored. Compare and contrast how the stories of Joseph and his coat of many colors or David defeating Goliath are well known and publicized. Meanwhile few people could tell you much of Judith, who saved the Hebrew people by slaying the Assyrian general Holofernes.

In modern media, we’ve improved by increasing the actions of female protagonists, but in a world where the ratio of male to female characters in mainstream film is 2:1 and The Bechdel Test actually has to be a thing, we’re still used to having women as non-entities.

And that’s the narrative tradition we have. So while we can up female agency, men are pretty much NEVER without agency, even in woman-centric media unless it’s aimed at little girls. Men are still very often the heroes, the aggressors, the people who take active part in everything and have real choices to examine. And since we’re encouraging more progressive views, it means that arguing of the morality regarding men becomes far more complicated and nuanced.

Look at the changing views of characters like John Harker or Heathcliff, or any Byronic hero. Once they were an ideal, but now that our lens has changed, particularly when it comes to romantic/sexual matters, heroes get challenged in a new way, and are challenged to their potential romantic audience— primarily women. So the pressure is on the women to justify their fictional romances.

As said before, we’re used to, and comfortable with, judging women both fictional and factual. Women are encouraged to defend men, and expected to do it now with the rapidly changing social views that we have. And unfortunately, while the complex issues of things like personal autonomy, consent, and justice have been progressing, there are many people who are still woefully uneducated about certain issues. For instance, when I wrote in a blog post how in the A Song of Ice and Firebooks, the character of Tyrion Lannister molests his crying, terrified, twelve-year-old POW of a bride, I had a very sweet teenage reader go, “Wait, Tyrion rapes Sansa WTF???” When I replied that no, I said he molests her, the young woman asked, “Wait, are molestation and rape not the same thing?” She seemed pretty happy to learn this, even though she, like all other young people out there, deserve to have learned this at a much younger age.

We still have a ton of women these days who don’t know that sexual assault encompasses more than rape, that consent can be revoked, and are still heavily influenced by rape culture and sexist ideals. People who still think it’s not abuse unless the boyfriend gives his girlfriend a black eye. Who don’t understand that S&M is meant to be built upon clear, informed consent and communication.

So as a result, when you point out to someone that taking apart Bella Swan’s car engine totally qualifies as abuse, you have many fangirls who are shocked and furious. To them, domestic abusers are drunken stepfathers in wife beaters breaking bones, not well-dressed, sophisticated, “protective” Edward Cullen.

When you say that Christian Grey is an abuser since he manipulates ridiculously-innocent and ignorant Anastasia Steele into a “BDSM” relationship and continues it even after it’s confirmed that she doesn’t understand concepts like butt plugs and orgasm denials, then shames her for using the  safe word (which is, like, a totally normal thing to use), they become enraged.

When you mention Damon Salvatore raped someone, the response is often, “But she expressed interest in sleeping with him! They flirted!”

Now, everyone is happy to judge women, but rarely to ever examine their choices. Those judgments have always been simple: Virgin/Whore.

There’s never been any sort of need for men to try and justify their romantic choices, partly because heroines were so bland so often, portrayed as objects not people, and you can’t really examine the morality of an object that doesn’t make real decisions. Whereas male characters have historically always had agency.

But men aren’t objects. They are the people who, historically, have controlled the world in really messed up ways and we’re coming to realize that. So women will have put emotional stock in a character, and now are pressured to examine a male character’s choices in a way that men haven’t really had to, especially not through a lens of characters they find attractive.

For instance, guys will talk your ear off about how much Bella Swan from Twilight sucks, but were they ever in a position to get emotionally attached or attracted to her? No. Female characters are either identifiable with women or just titillation or prizes for men. Bella Swan was never meant to be lusted after or won by a male audience. Whereas women throughout history have been actively encouraged to think of Heathcliff or whomever as a romantic interest, and now that sort of thing is being challenged. Women are encouraged to be on the defensive about their romantic/sexual feelings, and that is their default setting.

Let’s face it: throughout history, those things that have been viewed as appealing to women, especially young women, are often denigrated and seen as “lesser” pieces of art than those marketed or made by men.

Sure, the word “fan” originally comes from the word “fanatic”, but that seems to only get recognized when women are involved. Male fans are just that— fans. Female fans are half-fan, half “lun-ATIC.” And no amount of football riots, soccer riots,hockey riots, or actual history will do much to dissuade people of this idea.

When Elvis Presley and The Beatles took over the popular consciousness, much was made of their legions of screaming fans— most of them young women. These “Beatlemaniacs” were a joke, a joke which ended up extending to the band itself.

Today, The Beatles are seen as one of the most important, artistically capable, and revolutionary musical acts of all time. Whereas before, during the height of Beatlemania, critics were quick to make snide remarks about their lack of artistic merit. “Is this the King’s English?”, one snide reporter wrote. They were seen as nothing but mop-topped sex symbols…

…Right.

Indeed, fangirls have had to defend their media preferences for a very, very long time– just as much for modern media as classic works. Plenty of people these days will sneer at a “feminine” love for classic knightly tales of chivalric romance— “All that stupid fairy tale romantic BS. That’s not how it was in the real Middle Ages!”

Granted, it is true that the knight in shining armor trope isn’t exactly historically accurate. But what many people seem to forget was the context under which many of these fairy tales and stories of courtly love were written. These stories were not just written to make naive women soak their petticoats. In fact, many of the codes of romantic chivalry were established by and for men in order to instill a more sustainable and less chaotic way of life for men at arms— a way of giving knights a code in order to keep any guy with a sword from randomly slaughtering and raping everyone he encountered. Indeed, many fairytales and fantasies— from Snow White to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight— were written with the intent of positively influencing and representing the cultures that spawned them; they were not only entertaining and educating their contemporary audiences, but serving as significant historical and social texts for people to study today. “Fairy tales” and myths of knights and ladies have huge academic and intellectual significance to the modern day. And yet, many call it “Fairy tale bullshit.”

As a result of this cultural bias, women just naturally feel the need to automatically be on the defensive about things they like, regardless of the artistic merit of said media. This includes the need to justify almost any sexual/emotional/romantic feeling they have for a male character. Men? Not so much.

We’re just not used to questioning the agency of men. We’re supposed to accept men as heroes and accept what they do “for love.” We have to always make excuses because they’re men being men. Women should be prizes for these men. And we should stand by our men.

Unfortunately, there are changing standards for acceptable behavior. What does and doesn’t count as sexual assault. What does and doesn’t count as stalking. What does and doesn’t count for abuse. What can and can’t be excused on the basis of age or history of abuse. Edward Cullen was “protecting” Bella. Grant Ward was abused as a child. Finn Collins was traumatized and was desperate to find Clarke, who he was in love with. Christian Grey is just into S&M.

Any excuse must and should be found. Or certain actions should just be brushed aside as no big deal, especially if they did it “for love” (often the excuse with Finn Collins defenders).

Now, it’s true that certain Personal Favorite White Boys are in fact characters with complexity. But the strange thing is is how often those very complexities that are praised by fans are in fact erased via white-washing, all while female characters are vilified for infractions as horrible as “crying too much”, “not falling in love with the guy who wanted her”. Tyrion Lannister from A Song of Ice and Fire is a great example (known more popularly by his show counterpart, who has most if not all of the character’s flaws erased… Yeah, the Personal Favorite White Boy can be extended to dudebros like David Benioff and D.B. Weiss making “adaptation” decisions as well). He’s a severely messed up person who has moments of great compassion and courage, but also sometimes does horrible things. This is not because he’s pure evil, but because the man is completely warped. But that does not make excuses, validate, or erase the horrible things he does. They do not make him a good person. Tyrion is still a character with agency, and oftentimes he uses that agency to do awful, awful things.

And if you bring that up, you’re an ableist douchebag who thinks people who have been abused should just “get over” things.How dare you call the man who willingly married a twelve year old POW selfish and sexist! His Dad was the one who offered him that marriage (along with another match as an alternative, with no threats of violence), and his dad has abused him, so therefore Tyrion did no wrong!

Just like Thomas Wraith can’t help hypnotizing people into sex, because he’s a vampire and vampires in the Dresden Files don’t care about consent.

It’s okay as long as he acknowledges that he’s a monster.

Even when a guy is a rapist, neo-nazi terrorist, the fact that his father beat him means #IStandWithWard.

That is not to say that all fans are like this. Nor is it to say that there is something necessarily wrong with having a problematic fave— as long as you acknowledge and don’t try to white-wash these things. There are tons of fanboys and fangirls who are perfectly ready and happy to admit the faults of their characters,  gleefully call them “shitheads”, and examine the issues at play in the media they consume. But unfortunately, the Personal Favorite White Boy phenom is great enough that it sort of sets the stereotype for empty-headed female fandom (which, by the way, is bullshit).

This mentality comes from a strong social background. One in which we are expected to find reasons and explanations for the heinous acts committed by white men. Where the Aurora shooter was described as bullied and mentally ill, and will be nonviolently taken into custody for a life sentence after killing a dozen innocent people; where Jeffrey Dahmer is given due process and only restrained during arrest after killing and eating several people, but Walter Scott is shot point blank for running and 15-year-old Dejerria Becton is forced to the ground because of a noisy pool party.  One where women are not expected to have agency. One where rape culture and bigoted social mores are institutionalized. Where women expected (and are expected) to be judged for everything. Where women in media are sex objects, so there is no urge for the heterosexual males who want her to feel the need to defend her actions or choices. Meanwhile, women are actively encouraged to feel persecuted or defend “their men” no matter what. Where they’re automatically defensive because female audiences are so automatically looked down upon, and where media is being constantly re-examined through a rapidly evolving social lens. Where the issues of sexual assault and consent are so poorly explored and communicated that there are tons of people who still don’t get that hypnotizing people into having sex with you is still rape.

As a result, we’ve produced the culture of #IStandWithWard.

And then there’s just how female fans in general are treated– but that’s a different article.

(This is the first in a series of articles exploring fandom and its idiosyncrasies. Tune in next time, when Wendy deconstructs all the reasons fangirls are so automatically defensive of everything in the first place!)

[popcultureliterary]

Framed Stories: Fiction Inside Fiction with Adventure Time and Ponys

If every author followed the exact same formula for crafting stories, their readers would languish in boredom! Creators constantly combine different storytelling techniques and literary devices in order to make their works shine amid a sea of other brilliant works. One available narrative device is the framed story.

Perhaps one of the most popular stories told using this device dates back to the 9th century: One Thousand and One Nights, also known as, Arabian Nights. The tale’s protagonist, Scheherazade, tells her husband awe-inspiring stories with intense cliffhangers in order to avoid execution and to rescue other women from the same fate. The majority of the action occurs in the stories that she tells in between the pockets of narration detailing her life.

Framed stories can be found in today’s popular media as well. TV shows often use this device to create playful episodes in which characters take turns telling stories. Examples include Futurama’s “What If Machine” episodes, Gravity Falls’s “Bottomless Pit!” and episodes of Family Guysuch as “We Three Kings.” Popular examples of movies include Forest Gump, Tangled, and Big Fish.

What Exactly is a Framed Story?

Imagine a painting hanging on the wall, decked out in an ornate golden frame. You stand and appreciate it for a while, taking in the average-looking home and admiring the way that the artist used blue around the old woman sitting in the middle of the room. You get a lonely feeling looking at her, and can’t quite make sense of the soft smile on her face. Then, you notice a painting hanging on the wall in the background. It contains a young woman laughing with children. You realize that it is a portrait of the woman and her family. They seem quite happy. It gives you insight into why the lonely old woman smiles.

Framed stories are just the same: a story (or a set of stories) within a larger story that gives you a deeper understanding.

These works typically begin with a framing narration that introduces a character, or multiple characters, who will tell a tale. They set the scene, and launch into the telling. At the conclusion of the tale, the framing narration returns in order to show the impact it had on the listeners.

Creators can use this narrative technique in several ways. Let’s take a look at some of the more popular ones.

Fiction Within Fiction in Adventure Time

Sometimes the framed story comes entirely from a character’s imagination. Cartoon Network’s Adventure Time gives us great examples in its Fiona and Cake episodes.

These rare but well-loved gender-bending episodes follow the adventures of Fionna and her magical cat companion, Cake. The first of these episodes, “Adventure Time with Fionna and Cake,” opens right into the adventure. Fans don’t find out what is really going on until the end, when the scene switches to Ice King reading pages from his book of fanfiction.

Unlike other framed stories, the episode does not open with a framing scene introducing the story, but that doesn’t disqualify it from being a framed story. Authors occasionally use creative license in order to end their work with the framing narration instead of starting with one in order to leave the audience in the dark until the close. What’s important is the purpose that the story serves. Ice King’s imaginative “Fionna and Cake” episodes give the audience (and maybe even other characters) some important insight into Ice King’s personality.

It’s no coincidence that his two protagonists resemble Fin and Jake. At first, it seems like just a fun nod to the fans (which it might be!), but further examination tells a much sadder story.

The ancient wizard constantly tries to befriend the heroic duo, only to have his efforts fail time after time. Ice King just wants to feel included in the adventures and lives of the people of Ooo. He doesn’t have the social skills to do so, and creates his fanfiction to make up for it. We can see this in the episode “Bad Little Boy.”

It starts with a poorly crafted Fionna and Cake adventure told by Ice King, who inserts himself into the story’s climax and rescues his heroes. They tell him that he’s a super cool guy, and Ice King cries for joy at having the opportunity to meet them. Fionna tries to cheer him up, and invites him on the sort of adventures he wishes he could take with Finn and Jake. In the end, Ice King visits a room in the depths of his ice castle devoted to the fanfic’s heroes. He kneels before two massive ice sculptures of his protagonists and discloses his hopes that he will meet them one day in the real world.

We see him wishing to meet Fionna and Cake in another episode as well. In “Mystery Dungeon,” Ice King tricks various denizens of Ooo into helping him through a dungeon in order to bring his stories to life. After the adventure fails his expectations, Ice King tells Fionna in his Imagination Zone that he believes she’s real. Watching from a distance, Finn comments that nobody in the world is as sad as the Ice King (except for Shelby watching the situation play out, perhaps).

We can infer that Ice King, isolated in his land of snow with only a surly group of fleetingly loyal penguins for company, lacks companionship. Knowing this casts his princess-nabbing antics into a new light. He isn't kidnapping the royal ladies out of malice, but out of a desire to fill the void with the companionship that he can’t seem to earn on his own. Failing time and time again, he writes fanfiction in order to know what having friends feels like.

A few novels that utilize the framed narrative in a similar way include The Canterburry Tales, Frankenstein, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

BONUS: The Ice King’s imaginative tales aren’t the only framed stories featured in Adventure Time. What time is it? Scavenger hunt time!

It Came from the Past

Framed stories aren’t limited to fictional stories told inside of fiction. Many creators utilize the technique to delve into the past of the framing narrative. These stories start with a character introducing a riveting tale about their past, and launching into it for the majority of the work. Just like the fictional frames, these past-delving narratives can happen in different ways depending on the creator’s wishes. It might continue uninterrupted to the end, with the framing narrative coming back to wrap things up, or it might revisit the framing narrative throughout the work in order to introduce new elements of the story.

Let’s take a look at My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. The first season’s twenty-third episode, “The Cutie Mark Chronicles,” uses this narrative style to explore the history of the Mane Six.

The episode opens with the Cutie Mark Crusaders conducting their usual shenanigans to find their cutie marks. After another epic failure, the determined trio set out to ask their role models for cutie mark origin stories. Along the way, they run into each member of the Mane Six and get their cutie mark history. Each of their histories occurs inside of the framing narration of the Crusaders running around Ponyville on their quest.

The framing of the episode serves several purposes. First, it gives Lauren Faust and team an engaging way to tell their intended story. It also discloses the protagonists’ cutie mark history in an engaging way and sets the stage for future episodes.

So why didn’t they just tell the whole story in the past? That’s where a third purpose comes in. Using the framed story technique allowed the writing team to give more information about the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Here, we see the trio trying a new technique to solving their problem: asking the older ponies how they did it. Telling the story this way gives the creative team a chance to demonstrate the Crusaders’ resourcefulness while also exploring the relationship between the Crusaders and the Mane Six.

Finally, their choice to tell it this way allowed the episode to end with the Main Six sharing their stories in the bakery. They reach the essential conclusion that they all got their marks from the same event, which serves to cement their friendship even deeper.

Flashbacks aren’t Framed Stories

An important thing to keep in mind is that framed stories are different than flashbacks (a narrative device where the author gives us a glimpse of events that occurred in the past). You can determine the difference by asking yourself one question: does most of the action take place in the past, or the present?

If you answered that it takes place in the past with occasional narration from the present, you have a framed story. If instead, you determined that the majority takes place in the present, you have a flashback. The events of a flashback usually serve the main story in some way, such as explaining an important event, revealing information about a character, or creating contrast between past and present.

Both My Little Pony and Adventure Time make use of flashbacks in multiple episodes in order to give the audience a glimpse of what happened. Let’s take a look at “Memories of Boom Boom Mountain” from Adventure Time’s first season. Flashbacks throughout the narration show the audience scenes from Finn’s past that guide his actions in the present. These glimpses take up only a short portion of the overall story. The majority of the action takes place in the present as Finn works hard to keep everyone happy.

Video Games Put a New Spin on Things

Video games also utilize this narrative device. Games like Assassin’s Creed and Fable 3 use a framing story to launch players into the heart of the game.

Video games as a genre have also created a unique spin on the framed narrative. Many RPGs, especially open-world RPGs, feature books and letters hidden throughout the world that players can discover and read. The items, while not always important to the player as a tool, often contain the history and lore of the world. Sometimes, they just tell the story of characters who the player will never meet, or ones they interacted with on various quests.

These items give the player a deeper understanding of the world as they run around exploring it. Occasionally, they provide insight into certain characters’ actions, or hints on the location of an obscure quest. Framing these tales within the game’s overall narrative gives players a more in-depth understanding, and allows them to create their own experiences of the journey throughout the game. Players can generally complete the game without reading any of these, but taking a moment to pause and peruse gives them a more wholesome experience.

Tag, You’re It!

Do you have any favorite shows, games, comics, or movies with a framed story? Don’t forget to leave a note! Tell us your take on what purpose the framed story serves in the work.

You can also connect with me on Twitter at @Popliterature, or send me a message.

And as always, if you have a literary device you want to know more about, or a game, comic, show, or movie that you want to see make an appearance on the blog, leave a shout-out!

[scottsumrners]

now that I finished with Iron Fist - 13 hours that felt like 100 - I'm really actually pissed off because like...all the things to make a great show are right there. RIGHT THERE. but everything is so completely misguided and generally awful that it's...hard to actually spin anything good from it. but it COULD have been good, if only

1. they had cast the right lead. like, fine, you wanna continue on your racist strike (it's like, what, the 5th time in the last two years since Marvel has done that? musta be a record), be my guest. But at least cast a guy that can act! cast one that KNOWS EVEN THE BASICS OF MARTIAL ARTS! I'm sure there are white guys with fighting training out there. The names of Charlie Hunnam and Sean Faris come to mind - they both have fighting experience and could play on the duality of Danny; a naïve/innocent guy that is also a living weapon - that homeboy Finn Jones never could (mostly because they both have more than 3 facial expressions). Sure Sean would look awful with blonde hair and blue eyes, but then again, Charlie Cox isn't red-haired, so what do we know?

2. Cast a producing team that focus on actual iron fist, not Danny Bland: Corporate Tycoon. I mean, it's a super-hero show! Why would you spend so much time talking business? Sure being a lawyer or a PI were part of Matt's and Jessica's, but holy hell. For every one fight scene we had to suffer through entire hours worth of corporate drama. Tying the Hand so heavily into corporate business strangles its potential. Not to mention it's boring as hell.

3. Actually flesh-out Danny as a character. After 13 episodes, we get very little insight on who Danny is, what he is thinking or what he is feeling. That is 100% due to the fact that Danny doesn't have a personality; he is what the situation requires him to be, or worse, what the other characters tell us he is. What is supposed to be 'naïvety' of his part comes off as either rudeness or downright stupidity, and even if he fucks up, the narrative always paints him as right, because what he does is usually to push the plot forward, otherwise we would get stuck on episode 3.

4. Embrace the campiness. This is a show about a billionaire dudebro who goes to Asia and learns to be the very best, like no one ever was. He punched a dragon in the heart and got a sick ass tattoo. He does martial arts and fights ninjas. They had every opportunity to make this show into somewhat light-hearted, and maybe make Danny the main comic relief of it - that right there already opens up two different plotlines to be explored. First, 'why would this foreigner, who clearly doesn't take anything we do seriously, be chosen as our most important fighter, when others more skilled than him (re: Davos) weren't?', which would lead to Danny's struggle to master the Iron Fist and prove he lives up to his role, and him masquerading his own insecurities through jokes and such, instead of the 'I pursued the Iron Fist because I felt unfilfilled, and I still do' mess that they served us in the series. Secondly, it would bring forth the dichotomy between 'danny the funny guy' and 'iron fist the living weapon', and how he could incorporate that into his fighting style (think Deadpool, and how he is so unpredictable that even Taskmaster can't copy him).

Making Danny a comedy relief character would also serve as a contrast, both in his own show - against the more humourless Meachums - and in the Defenders show. I mean, let's be realistic, a show to be good has to have its moments of levity, even among the main characters; instead, we'll have four characters who are sour and sardonic and depressed and full of self-loathing, and it's gonna be as humourless and dour as the Iron Fist we got.

5. Villains who are both threatening and a threat. Ultimately Iron Fist's greatest failure came from the fact that at no point was there the feeling that we should be worried about the villains - in part because we knew all the main characters were confirmed for future installments, and because...none of them were legimitately threatening. Sure Harold was deranged, and Gao was imposing, but they were nothing like Wilson Fisk or Cottonmouth or Purple Man. Bakuto was...honestly, Bakuto wasn't much to write home about anyway.

6. Exploring the duality of the Hand, what you learn vs. what is true. Danny spent his whole life being taught that the Hand was evil; there are different factions of the Hand at work, and they have conflicting interests; Colleen was taken in by one of them and had her life turned around. It could have been an opportunity to look past your own pre-conceptions, that not everything you learn is true, and that there is more to the Hand than a bunch of faceless dudes wearing costumes throwing ninja stars around New York City. Instead, what we got was 'The Hand is evil because the monks said so!', 'the Hand can be good because they've helped me!' for one or two episodes, then Danny is (again) proven to be right and any kind of discussion is thrown out of the window in favor of having more badly choreographed fight scenes where Danny beats a bunch of brown people.

7. FLASHBACKS. FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. FLASHBACKS. Half of this goddamn show should have been flashbacks! We should have seen how Danny adapted to his life in K'un Lun, his struggle about being an outsider, how he was forced to let go of the memory of his parents, his training, his friendship with Davos, how he became the Iron Fist, how he left...not showing K'un Lun was a disservice both to the character and to the fans. Not showing the heavenly city is like making an Inhuman tv show and not having Attilan in it, or an X-Men tv show without the big X anywhere to be seen. You can't tell me it was because Marvel didn't have enough money, because if they can spend it on Agents of SHIELD and the 300 other tv shows they have in production, they could do it here too.

[kane-and-griffin]

Hey so I known you don't particularly ship bellarke, but what do you think of the bellarke/kabby parallels? I'm only asking because I'm curious to see what the other side of the fandom thinks?

I actually do ship Bellarke!  Kabby is my #1 but I’ve always been invested in Clarke and Bellamy’s relationship.  I have very strong opinions about Kabby/Bellarke parallels and have talked about this at LENGTH on Meta Station, where @reblogginhood, my co-host and best friend, is a ride-or-die Bellarke shipper, so most of the time I feel like I have dual citizenship through Erin (and vice versa, since the Kabby fandom loves her too).  We both love both those ships, and we both love all four of those characters, just in rearranged order, and we like to yell about this a LOT.

I’ve meta’d on this before a number of different times, but I’m too lazy to go back and dig up old posts, so here goes.

First of all, if you are a Bellarke shipper (are you a Bellarke shipper? Am I reading this ask correctly?  HELLO FROM THE OTHER SIIIIIIIIIIDE), the most important thing I want to say in aid of positive fandom-to-fandom relations is that the phrase “Kabby/Bellarke parallels” has begun to elicit a knee-jerk primal scream reaction among Kabby shippers over the past few months, since we regularly find the Kabby tag full of posts that either describe Kabby as the “old” version of Bellarke, or that it only exists to pave the way for Bellarke, or that the parallels that exist (and they do exist, and we’ll get to that in a second) essentially make Kane and Abby metaphors instead of people who only exist in the narrative to shed light on Bellarke instead of being their own characters with value and storylines of their own.  Articles or blog posts highlighting the things that make Kabby special to Kabby shippers will get reblogged with someone saying “if you change the names, it’s about Bellarke!” or with lengthy meta about how Bellarke had that thing first or that the Kabby version of some particular moment or symbol or metaphor or visual cue or phrase only exists because it will become MORE important later, when it’s attached to Bellarke. 

So I’m frustrated because I love this ask, I love getting this question, I love talking about the relationship among these four characters, but also it’s hard - as you can imagine - to feel like we’re told over and over again that the things we feel make our ship, and these two characters, really special to us, don’t really matter on their own merits.  

Anyway, I’m saying that both A) so the Kabby fandom, where we are perpetually having this conversation, knows MOM’S ON IT, and B) so that you as a Bellarke shipper who seems delightful and asked a great question has some context for why sometimes other asks or posts about this - which aren’t phrased as nicely as yours was - receive a negative response or make Kabby shippers upset.  I think the context is important here, because this has been a BIG thing in our world of late and we’re all a little thin-skinned about it right now.

Okay but that being said LET’S MOVE ON TO THE FUN PART AND TALK ABOUT CHARACTER PARALLELS BECAUSE I LOVE CHARACTER PARALLELS AND I THINK ABOUT THESE ONES ALL THE TIME AND I’M FULL OF OPINIONS AND YOU ASKED FOR THEM SO YOU’RE GONNA GET ‘EM

oh wait I found another post where I already did this STILL GONNA YELL ABOUT IT THOUGH, MY HOUSE MY RULES

Okay so FIRST OF ALL let me just real quick BLOW YOUR MIND with my Kabby/Bellarke parallels theory, which is that the REAL parallel is Abby/Bellamy vs. Clarke/Kane and everyone else has it backwards. 

I think the easy, default place most people go to when we talk about this is to contrast Kane and Bellamy - the self-doubting, tortured, wannabe martyrs who carry the weight of every sin on their shoulders well past the point of reason - with Abby and Clarke - the resourceful mother and daughter who never give up and will drag all of humanity kicking and screaming to their salvation if it’s the LAST THING THEY FUCKING DO.  And I think there’s a lot of interesting character stuff to be mined there, for sure; I think Kane and Bellamy’s parallel redemption arcs are some of the best stuff they’ve done in the whole series (until 3A Bellamy regressed back to an asshole but let’s skip past that for the moment), illustrating the way that for both of them, the Culling was really a turning point where they realized that they will forever carry the burden of having been complicit in that massive loss of innocent life (Bellamy for throwing away Raven’s radio and Kane for not waiting like Abby asked him to) which could have been prevented if they had listened to the Griffins.  It’s beautifully executed, even in S1 when these two characters have never interacted onscreen, and it ramps up even more in S2 where we see them meet and immediately butt heads with each other before in S3 developing a real partnership.  (Which then got torn to shreds.  I’m still bitter over 3A Kellamy  I’M GONNA NEED A HUG IN S4 JASON DO U HEAR ME) (I mean I need Kane to hug Bellamy, not like I’m requesting a hug from Jason, TO BE CLEAR).  And I think the mother/daughter parallels are drawn beautifully as well, especially in S1 where we see Abby on the Ark and Clarke on the ground filling similar roles and working towards the same goal, barreling through the opposition however they must.

BUT.  If we’re talking about which characters are MOST SIMILAR, then I think you CANNOT get away from the reality that the parallels are actually gender-flipped.

Clarke has a lot of her mom in her, clearly, as well as a lot of her dad.  But she’s not actually the kind of leader her mom is.  She’s the kind of leader Kane is.  Abby and Bellamy are the ones with the crowd charisma and the stubborn recklessness; Clarke and Kane are the cool-headed, deliberate strategic thinkers.  Bellamy and Abby have quick minds and no fear and will do absolutely anything, no matter how insane, to protect the people they love.  You can map, beat-for-beat, so many of the things Bellamy does for Octavia onto the things Abby does for Clarke, and vice versa.  Abby sneaking the kids out the back door with guns in the middle of the night to go find Clarke? Bellamy would do that in a second.  Bellamy sneaking onto the dropship to make sure Octavia doesn’t go to earth unprotected?  ABBY AF.  They both begin the show as people who are fiercely focused on keeping the person they love most safe, and it makes them blind to ancillary consequences.  Bellamy will fight anyone.  Abby will tell any lie.  There is no such thing as too far, when the person you love is at stake.  WE know Abby’s hope that the kids are alive is borne out by fact, but NO ONE ELSE ON THE ARK KNOWS THAT.  From Kane’s point of view, she’s being as unreasonable and reckless as Clarke thinks Bellamy is when she yells at him about the radio.  Or think about Abby sneaking Bellamy and Finn out the back door with guns to go hunt for Clarke, even knowing she would get in trouble for it.  You know who else would do THAT EXACT SAME THING in those circumstances?  BELLAMY BLAKE.  I bet they cooked up that scheme together off-camera.  So what I think is interesting for both of them is how their circle expands over the course of three seasons to change the way they are as leaders, and the ways in which their recklessness is tempered by their leadership partners. 

I’m fascinated by the relationship between Clarke and Kane, and I hope we get more of it in S4.  I heard rumblings that they go together to find Kenza, the Nightblood scout, and I’m hoping we get a lil’ dad/daughter road trip bonding, because I think they have a really strong connection and they share a similar leadership brain.  Where Abby and Bellamy are quick and passionate and make snap decisions, Clarke and Kane are more calculating.  They’re thinking in the big picture and the longer term.  Floating 300 people to save the whole Ark, and irradiating the residents of Mt. Weather to save all the Sky People, are identical decision-making processes; not everyone can live, someone is going to have to die, so how to we map out the most effective path where the fewest of my people die as possible for maximum survival?  Whereas there’s nothing Bellamy wouldn’t burn to the ground to save Octavia.  Leadership isn’t PERSONAL for Clarke and Kane, not right off the bat.  It’s about the numbers.  It’s about as many people as possible surviving.  And so sometimes you have to let the bomb fall on Tondc, because letting those people die is the only way to give your own people the chance to live, even though Abby “there has to be another way” Griffin finds that notion so appalling she can hardly even recognize her daughter in that moment.  But you know who understood it immediately, and didn’t judge her?  Kane.  Kane and Abby’s scene underground in 2x13 is such a beautiful, crucial moment in their relationship, but it’s also the moment the show really begins to lean in on this idea that Kane can see Clarke more clearly than Abby can, because she’s Abby’s baby girl and Abby is still trying to protect her from harm - including from the harm of having to make, and then face the consequences of, terrible decisions.  But Kane is the one who tells Abby not to diminish either Clarke or Lexa’s leadership skills just because they’re young.  Kane is the one who calmly talks Clarke down when they’re trying to figure out who poisoned Lexa’s drink, using the same kind of coolheaded, rational language we can easily imagine Clarke using to one of the delinquents if the shoe was on the other foot.  And so it makes perfect sense that it would be Clarke and Kane who make the strategic decision, together, that Skaikru joining the Grounder Alliance is the smartest long-term tactical decision - a notion we see that Abby and Bellamy don’t like, because they, emotional thinkers that they are, still haven’t forgiven Lexa or decided they can trust her again.

I’m really interested in where the lines end up getting drawn in S4, but it definitely seems to me, from the bits and pieces we’ve seen and heard, that Clarke has some kind of crazy-ass save-the-world plan that other people think is too reckless or too dangerous or will have too high a casualty rate, and that the group sort of divides itself into factions based on who is willing to get on board and who is resisting (or just giving up and waiting to die).  And it does seem, from the trailer, that Kane and Abby are using the same language Clarke is using.  We’ve also heard that Bellamy and Clarke are back as a power duo again, so my guess is he’ll be on the squad too.  So what I’m really excited about, because we’ve never really had this before, is the four of them working together as a co-leadership team.  I want to see Chancellor Kane and Ambassador Clarke negotiating with Roan and Luna.  I want Abby and Bellamy working together in Arkadia to convince their people to go along with Clarke’s plan.  I want Clarke and Abby to talk about Lexa and Jake, about how you go on with a hole in your heart and how to grieve and heal.  I want Kane and Bellamy to talk through all the things that happened in S3, how Bellamy almost got Kane executed because he stopped trusting him, how ALIE made Kane almost murder Bellamy in cold blood, and where they go from here.  I want us to see the parallel relationship dynamics - the big-hearted, loving Griffins who are used to giving and receiving affection reaching out to the isolated protector men who are still getting used to the idea that they have a place they belong and people who care about them. 

TO CONCLUDE: Abby is Bellamy and Clarke is Kane and they’re a big beautiful leadership power squad family and I love them all with my whole heart THANK U AND GOODNIGHT

[bouncingtigger10]

New Post has been published on The Bouncing Tigger Reads

New Post has been published on http://www.tiggerreviews.com/when-you-want-to-know-which-type-of-story-you-may-be-reading/

When you want to know which type of story you may be reading...

So one thing I like to think about when reading a story is what type of story it is. When I was writing (academic folks!) I found out there were 7 archetypes types of stories that could be used, but in fact there are many other ways of identifying which story you are reading – and sometimes it is fun to guess. So I took look at what authors think about story tropes or archetypes and found the following. this is far from comprehensive, but it is a bit of fun research. If you want to find out more then take a look at: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Tropes and https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MysteryTropes

There are sub-divisions of mystery and crime tropes eg:

Military and Warfare Tropes

Genre Tropes

News Broadcast

Murder Tropes

Crime and Punishment Tropes

The Oldest Profession

Monster Sob Story

Murder Tropes

Mystery Fiction

Mystery Literature

Mystery Story Creator Index

Toxic Tropes

Basic Mystery Classes

Criminals

Crime and Punishment Series

Crime and Punishment Tropes

Cops and Detectives

Detective Drama

Forensic Phlebotinum

Historical Detective Fiction

But I particularly like this list:

Absence of Evidence

The Alibi

Anachronistic Clue

Anonymous Killer Narrator

Anti-Climactic Unmasking

Beneath Suspicion

Blood-Stained Letter

Bluffing the Murderer

The Butler Did It

Cast as a Mask

Chronic Evidence Retention Syndrome

Clock Discrepancy

Closed Circle

Clueless Mystery

Condensation Clue

Confess in Confidence

Consulting a Convicted Killer

Conviction by Contradiction

Cozy Mystery

Curtain Camouflage

Cut Himself Shaving

Death in the Clouds

Did Not Die That Way

Disability Alibi

The Dog Was the Mastermind

Dramatic Curtain Toss

Driving Question

Eagle-Eye Detection

Eureka Moment

Everyone Is a Suspect

Everybody Did It

Evidence Dungeon

Evidence Scavenger Hunt

Evil Plan

Exposition Victim

Fair-Play Whodunnit

Finger-Licking Poison

Fingertip Drug Analysis

The Game Never Stopped

Hide the Evidence

Hidden in Plain Sight

Hidden Villain

I Never Said It Was Poison

Important Character, Important Evidence

Intrepid Reporter

Let Off by the Detective

Lights Off, Somebody Dies

Locked Room Mystery

Lotsa People Try to Dun It

The Meddling Kids Are Useless

Mistaken for Evidence

Mockspiracy

Mockstery Tale

Motive Equals Conclusive Evidence

Mysterious Stranger

Mystery Arc

Mystery Magnet

Mystery of the Week

Needle in a Stack of Needles

Never One Murder

Never Suicide

Never the Obvious Suspect

Notable Non Sequitur

Not-So-Fake Prop Weapon

Old, Dark House

Only One Plausible Suspect

Ontological Mystery

Orgy of Evidence

Perfect Poison

Placebo Eureka Moment

Precrime Arrest

Proof Dare

Public Secret Message

Puzzle Thriller

Red Herring

Reverse Whodunnit

Rewind, Replay, Repeat

A Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery Inside an Enigma

Ripped from the Headlines

Saying Too Much

Secret Identity Apathy

Serial Killings, Specific Target

Shell Game

Sherlock Can Read

Sherlock Scan

The Seven Mysteries

Signature Item Clue

The Stakeout

The End… Or Is It?

Stranger Behind the Mask

The Summation

Summation Gathering

Suspect Is Hatless

That Mysterious Thing

Ten Little Murder Victims

Thriller on the Express

Twist Ending

Two Dun It

The Unsolved Mystery

Weather Report Opening

Wheel Program

Who Murdered the Asshole?

World of Mysteries

Writing Indentation Clue

You Meddling Kids

You Wake Up in a Room

You Wake Up On A Beach

The Kurt Vonnegut Jr 8 forms/tropes of stories.

Kurt Vonnegurt is very well respected for his story analysis. He made a map of his analysis against time.

He made a visual mapping of the length of the story against the time inhabited by the story and the different ups and downs each classic/trope will take. Helps explains how when you feel unsatisfied by a storyline it is often because you are still waiting for the next point to occur.

On the other hand Ken Miyamoto, Produced screenwriter, former Sony Pictures script reader/story analyst, former Sony Studios liaison claims that these are the story tropes.

Coming of Age – Seemingly innocent (although not always so) youth experience the evils, trials, and tribulations of the real world. Stand by Me, To Kill a Mockingbird, Almost Famous, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, The Graduate, American Graffiti, etc.

Revenge – Our most primal instinct.  We see and read stories of revenge in nearly every genre.  In film we have Mad Max, Carrie, Death Wish, Once Upon a Time in the West, Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan, Gladiator, Election, Munich, The Counte of Monte Cristo, Hang ‘Em High, Memento, etc.

The Great Battle – An individual or group of people in conflict with others.  This ranges from epic battles (War movies, Lord of the Rings) to comedy (War of the Roses) to science fiction (Star Wars, Terminator franchise, etc.).

Love and Friendship – Love stories (Romeo and Juliet, Romantic comedies), buddy movies (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Lethal Weapon), dramas about friendship (The Big Chill), etc.

The Big Mystery – There’s a mystery to be solved, and the protagonist has to solve it.  You’re looking at classic characters in the likes of Sherlock Holmes, Tin Tin, Nancy Drew, etc.  Comedies like The Pink Panther series.  Agatha Christy novels.  Tom Clancy and John Grisham novels and movie adaptations.

The Great Journey – This theme follows characters dealing with trials and tribulation during travels… many of which are epic.  Huckleberry Finn, Apocalypse Now (Heart of Darkness in literature form), The Odyssey, Star Wars, and probably the best example in both film and literature, Lord of the Rings.

The Noble Sacrifice – The protagonist sacrifices himself for others.  Glory, Armageddon, war movies where a character dies for his fellow soldiers, etc.

The Fall From Grace – Showing humans going where only God should go, doing what only God should do, or attempting to do what humans shouldn’t do.  You look at films and novels like Jurassic Park, Splice, Frankenstein, etc.  And then look into science films like A.I. and even Terminator, where we as humans have gone too far in trying to create life… and it backfires on us.  Then into the horror genre with the aforementioned Frankenstein and even Stephen King’s Pet Semetary.

And Reedsy gives you 14 Fantasy tropes:

September 3, 2018

Fantasy tropes, like any other type of literary trope, are recurring images, themes, or devices that are used to the point of being common conventions amongst its genre.

When writing a genre such as fantasy (with such well-known conceits),  authors often feel the need to straddle a fine line: include too many tropes and readers will get déjà vu; don’t include a single cliché and you risk losing readers who have come to expect certain themes and touchstones from a fantasy novel.

The thing is, conventions commonly crop up in stories because most of them contain some element of universal relatability — and people enjoy the familiar.

So embrace the balancing act by acquainting yourself with some of the most popular fantasy tropes out there, and by learning how to prevent your characters, plots, and worlds from becoming a complete cliche

Character tropes

At their heart, all stories are about characters who represent some aspect of human nature — and fantasy is no exception. Many novels in this genre feature archetypes, which is not necessarily a bad thing — so long as your characters’ development aligns with the narrative arc and doesn’t rely on cliché pitstops.

1) The Chosen One

A character who is alone capable of fulfilling an important purpose, and whose responsibility is to resolve the plot’s main conflict — which will often be to save the world.

2) The Secret Heir

An orphan ends up being the long-lost scion to a royal throne. Often, this character is raised on a farm or another humble situation that contrast their true lineage. Maybe they lost their parents at a young age and sent away for their own protection. Perhaps they were switched at birth in some sort of hilarious misunderstanding. Maybe their mother had a summer fling with an undercover prince in her gap year.

3) The Evil Overlord

Fire and brimstone, darkness and inhospitable lands, the Evil Overlord usually lives in a realm that reflects their wicked intentions, surrounded  by their minions and followers. The Evil Overlord is also often bent on world domination.

4) The Reluctant Hero

The protagonist is thrust down the path of a story they don’t wish to be a part of. They long to return to normal life and only continue on their quest out of obligation or necessity. Think of it as the difference between Frodo (who wishes to return to the Shire but knows a task must be completed) and Conan the Barbarian, who relishes the role of rough-hewn hero. Often, the Reluctant Hero is also the Chosen One.

5) The Lucky Novice

This sometimes manifests when a character who has had never attempted a specific activity before is suddenly extremely talented at that specific skill.  Other times it’s presented in the form of a protagonist — who’s had a moderate amount of training — defeating the villain who has been honing their powers for years or decades (or even centuries).

6) The Mentor

Usually an elderly character who prepares the protagonist for whatever conflict they are facing. The Mentor often leaves before the big climax — whether they are killed, retire, or have to leave to carry out a job elsewhere — forcing the protagonist to stand on their own two feet.

Worldbuilding tropes

While the many subgenres of fantasy will all have their own tropes, here are a few worldbuilding conventions that you’re bound to see more often than not.

7) The World That Never Progresses

When a novel of series covers a society through the ages — but that world seems never change or progress. It could be a century later, but no social, technological, political, or cultural developments seem to have occurred. This one is fairly typical of high fantasy, which usually take place on grand, epic scales. ( and the one that really irritates me about Game of Thrones. Surely by now they have learnt how to fix holes in wooden doors!

8) The Pseudo-European Medieval Setting

A feudal system governing a society where taverns are frequented and duel-by-swords are a daily occurrence. The stories don’t usually take place in actual Europe, but a world that very much resembles the continent’s medieval era. This setting is a mainstay of fantasy — significantly solidified in the genre by The Lord of the Rings, but harking back to European folklore and tales of King Arthur.

9) The Powerful Artifact

This convention is used across all types of genres: an object of great power must be saved from falling into the wrong hands. The object is typically inanimate and derives its power from the manipulation of those who use it. The object might not be inherently evil, but its powers can have the effect of tempting and corrupting even the noblest characters.

10) The Homogenous Species

All elves are beautiful and love trees, and all dwarves are obsessed with gold and living underground, right? Categorizing entire races into a few commonalities is typical of fantasy novels, and if one character from that race differs, you can bet they’re an outlier — and often the protagonist of the novel (or a trusty sidekick). Another common feature of this trope is when one species is inherently “good”, and another is inherently “bad.”

Plot tropes

The Plot is the chain of events that comprise your narrative arc. Many fantasy novels will share a link or two (or seven) in common with other novels, including these:

11) The Waiting Evil

Long, long ago, an evil force is defeated in battle and locked away, never to wreak havoc again. That is, of course, until now. Having bided its time, the evil entity breaks free with an eye for vengeance. This Waiting Evil might break free of their own volition, might be released by an avid supporter (that is usually then disposed of — hello, Peter Pettigrew), or it might be released accidentally by an unknowing passerby or by natural causes.

12) The “Here Comes the Cavalry” Twist

All is lost. The villain and their minions are too strong and despite a noble fight, the jig is up. The heroes simply can’t hold off the opposition any longer. Time to lay down and die. But wait! Do you hear that? It’s faint, but growing louder. It’s… it’s… it’s the heroes’ friends, showing up in the nick of time to save the day! Hooray! Not all is lost!

13) The Black and White Morality Theme

The battle between “good” and “evil” is such a prevalent theme in fantasy — and it’s no wonder. When it strays to a cliché is when the line between good and evil is perceived as black and white, with no grey area. The good guys are purely good, and the bad guys are pure evil — end of story. Often, the good guys manage to defeat the bad guys without killing a soul or even wrecking a single building.

14) The Quest

The hero — and usually a handful of secondary characters — sets out on a quest with a specific goal. Typically the goal ranges from saving a princess, defeating a villain, destroying a corrupt artifact, or finding someone. The goal of the quest doesn’t matter as much as the fact that there is a solid one. While The Quest very closely resembles The Hero’s Journey, there are key differences between the two story structures: while the former is all about the character’s journey to achieve a goal, the latter is more about the character’s inner journey than the actual objective. [ https://blog.reedsy.com/fantasy-tropes/ ]

On the other hand Jill Williamson claims there are 145 (!!!) Romance Tropes.

abduction to love

accidental pregnancy

afraid to commit

all grown up

amnesia

antihero romance

arranged marriage

athlete

bait and switch

beauty and the beast

best friend’s lover

best friend’s sibling

best friends/ friends first

billionaire

blackmail

blind date

bodyguard crush

boss/employee

boy hates girl

boy meets ghoul

boy meets girl

break his heart to save him

brother’s best friend

bully turned puppy lover

can’t live with them, can’t live without them

celebrity loves commoner

celibate hero

childhood enemies fall in love

childhood friends

childhood marriage promise

Cinderella story/wrong side of the tracks

classes clash

clueless love

consanguinity

crazy love

Cyrano/matchmaker

damaged lead finds happily ever after

dark secret keeps them apart

different worlds

disguise

enemies to lovers

everyone can see it

fairytale

fake engagement

fatal attraction

first love

fish out of water

fling

forbidden love/Romeo and Juliet

friends with benefits

girl wants bad boy

guardian/ward

guy wants cheerleader

huge guy, tiny girl/ tiny guy, huge girl

if I can’t have you, no one will!

imaginary love triangle

impotent love

innocent cohabitation

instant/false sweethearts

it happened in Vegas

jilted bride/groom

law enforcement

long distance relationship

long-term lovers

love at first sight

love interest has a profession protagonist abhors

love interest reminds of estranged family member

love potion

love reforms villain

love triangle

love/hate

lovers in denial/ they’re the last to know

mad love

maid/janitor

mail-order bride

marriage of convenience

men in uniform

mistaken declaration of love leads to love

mistaken identity

noble rescuer steps in, She’s dating Mr. Wrong

nobody thinks it will work

not good enough for him/her

oblivious to love

older man, younger woman/ older woman, younger man

on the rocks

one night stand

one wants true love/other wants a fling

oops! fall in love with the wrong person (which could ruin everything!)

opposites attract

orphan

overly shy love

parent/childcare worker

partners in crime

passionate lovers

Plain Jane get the hottie

playboy

politics

pretending to be married or engaged

protector

redemption

rejected as unworthy/ turns life around

reluctant sex worker

removing the rival

rescue romance

return to hometown

reunion romance

revenge

rich man, poor woman/ rich woman, poor man

rivals/ protagonist vs. antagonist

road trip romance

rock star hero

royalty

runaway bride/groom

scars from the past

second chance at love

second time around

secret admirer

secret baby- He doesn’t know she’s PG

secret that can end everything

sibling triangle

sibling’s ex-spouse

similarities attract

sleeps with everyone but you

sorry, I’m taken

stranded together

student/teacher

sudden parent

the one that got away

time travel

tortured hero(ine)

tragic love affair

tragic past

two-person love triangle (involves some mistaken identity) ex. superman

ugly duckling

unobtainable love interest/ one-sided

unrequited love

unrequited-love-switcheroo love triangle

unwanted harem

virginal/innocent

wallflower noticed by the rake

was it all a lie? (undercover love)

widow(er)

(wo)man in peril

working with the ex

workplace romance

So you reads your story and takes your pick.. Have fun…

[tendingthegardenthatihavemade]

So, You Can Probably Guess What I Saw Yesterday

Some Thoughts:

I quite liked it, but I was predisposed to. I also felt that some of the now common criticisms didn’t apply

-I enjoyed the opening, it reminded me of Revenge of the Sith, which, as I understand it, is regarded as the best of the prequels. The substance of the similarity is that both films opened with a full scale space battle, even as far as how it was shot. There were a few other aspects that reminded me of Revenge as well.

-A common criticism of the movie is that it didn’t “feel like Star Wars.” I feel as though this is partially attributable to Disney learning from the positive reception of Rogue One. Generally, The Last Jedi carries on Rogue One’s grittier war film aesthetic. The evacuation sequence in fact strongly suggested Scarif. Thus, The Last Jedi did feel like Star Wars, but it might not have felt like a Saga film

-The view that the film was too free with one liners is not helped by the fact that most of them come from Poe and fit in terms of his character as the cocky pilot. The “I’ll hold” shtick even served to indicate that he was getting too big for his britches

-The scenes in Snoke’s throne room were noteworthy on multiple levels. Firstly, they helped to humanize him, for lack of a better term (firstly by diminishing his apparent size), and thereby show the audience what the young Ben Solo might have seen in him. I would even characterize some of Andy Serkis’ delivery as downright avuncular. The relatively positive reading of Snoke is supported by his philosophy with regard to the Force, divorced as it is from Sith teaching. Snoke’s throne room is interesting design wise in itself as well, with the minimalist blood red backdrop and platform, suggestive of, but distinct from the Emperor’s on the Death Star II. Snoke calls the Supremacy a “place of power” and the visual reminisces of Sidious aide that impression.

-I appreciated how matter of fact Leia’s demotion of Poe was, how nonnegotiable it seemed. I definitely see the legitimacy of the reading of that scene as a condemnation of toxic masculinity. Similarly, I appreciated the nonchalance with which Luke tossed away his lightsaber

-By the same token, a negative, Poe’s dialogue with BB-8 on the subject of Finn, who had escaped from his bacta tank, while funny, could certainly be read as queerbaiting. This rings especially true considering how the film pushes the Finn-Rey and eventually Finn-Rose pairings. Speaking of, it seemed apparent that the original conception of the Canto Bight subplot was centered on Finn and Poe, considering how many of the preparatory scenes feature Poe in addition to Finn and Rose. I felt somewhat cheated.

-Also on the subject of romantic elements, the Reylo shipping didn’t feel as strong to me as it apparently did to others. I feel this is mostly due to the way their “ForceTime” scenes were cut, with them only being visible to each other, and in the same shot from the perspective of the audience relatively late in the film. Even Kylo’s vaunted shirtless scene genuinely felt like happenstance, he didn’t seem eroticized at all, it wasn’t lit in a way that accentuated his contours. Their dialogue in those sequences, in the rare moments when it was benignly intimate, felt more like brother-sister dynamics.

-The Force was developed in interesting ways in this film as well, with a variety of minute indications that powerful force users (i.e. Luke, Kylo, Rey) can physically influence the world far outside the range of their material sight. Additionally, the precise logistics of Force projection will be more than adequate cause for debate.

-I also appreciated how Rey’s definition of the Force seemed to be almost exactly what a Dark Sider thinks of it as, perhaps connected to her gaining her prodigious skill, at least in part, through telepathic contact with Kylo.

-Another common criticism of the film is that Luke did too little, a view that seems more to concern Jedi techniques than his narrative role. My reading of Luke was one of quiet badassery. Even his daily routine, which Rey derides, displays his prowess, swinging fearlessly from one end of the Ach-To cliff face to the other.

-The widely mocked “Super Leia” scene is nowhere near as bad as it had been made out to be, with most if not all of the awkwardness arising from the choice of angle, rather than the content. It in fact suggested to me Catholic images of the Virgin Mary

-I liked the design of the creatures on Ach-To Luke milks as part of that daily routine, they reminded me of Cthulhoid manatees.

-A possible Easter Egg I haven’t seen documented elsewhere is that, in his cloister on Ach-To, (which I initially took to be either a privy or some kind of priest hole equivalent), in addition to his necklace, Luke has what seem to be several urns on a shelf. These immediately suggested to me the urns in Palpatine’s office in the prequels, which, according to one companion book or another, contain the ashes of Sith masters

-Canto Bight was a wondrous source of new aliens, one of whom, unfortunately, was an even clearer racist caricature of an Asian person than Nien Nunb or the Neimoidians.

-Rian Johnson seems to have a great love of abnormally small creatures, there were even beings who were at eye level with BB-8.

-I also noticed that the music played during the early portion of the Canto Bight sequence was distinctly reminiscent of Lin Manuel Miranda’s new Cantina song from The Force Awakens

-Speaking of The Force Awakens, there were a couple of moments that seemed to be calculated answers to criticisms of that film, such as the minor point of Leia hugging Chewy in contrast to her ignoring him after Han’s death. More significant, Snoke berates Kylo for having lost to a “girl who had never held a lightsaber.” Johnson acknowledges the criticism by having Snoke voice it.

-This may be an unpopular opinion, but the Rashomon-esque flashbacks, while undeniably interesting, are somewhat poorly composited, which broke my immersion as a viewer. I particularly appreciated how Ben Solo’s apparent age seems to shift depending upon whose perspective the flashback is from

[abroxus-blog]

Star Wars: The Last Jedi Spoiler Discussion

         This isn’t so much a review as it is a discussion of some of the film’s core themes. Overall, I thought the film was excellent. It’s one of my favorite installments in the franchise. Go see it. And once you have, feel free to read this, since I’m going to get into some spoilers.

10/10

           SPOILERS FOR THE LAST JEDI

           The thing that really struck me about the Last Jedi was how thematically rich it was in comparison to previous Star Wars films. While the series has always had a specific formula, with a binary morality system, The Last Jedi blows that up. This is a film that is fundamentally about deconstructing these symbols and asking what they mean today. I think a lot of the divisiveness about the film amongst fans (although not all of it, there are plenty of valid arguments you can make against it), comes down to either frustration that they are being expected to do that, or a disinterest in the exercise as a whole. 

           I have trouble seeing eye to eye with that perspective. I’ve seen arguments stating that the characters are fundamentally in the same place at the end of the film, or that various strands don’t go anywhere, but I think that ignores a lot of what the film is doing. If Star Wars movies have always been about underdogs achieving success against great odds, Last Jedi is fundamentally about failure. This is not just me intellectualizing by the way, the film clearly states that intention, repeatedly, in every one of its storylines. So let’s go through this film narrative strand by narrative strand, and examine what it’s doing here.

           I’m going to start with the film’s most criticized thread, Finn’s journey to Canto Bight in search of the code breaker. When we first meet Finn this time around, he’s acting very much like he did in the first film. He wants to flee from the rebellion ship, not out of disloyalty, but rather fatalism. To Finn, the Rebellion is doomed, and has always been doomed. Even his heroism last film was less about saving the Rebels base, and more about rescuing Rey. Finn sees the merits of individuals, but not of an organization or concept. The film proceeds to pair him with Rose not out of a desire to just include a new love interest, but to place him next to a true believer, someone he would connect with on an empathic level (her own wounds after the death of her sister, portrayed in one of the film’s greatest action beats, make her as much of a wounded soul as Finn himself). Their journey takes them to the Las Vegas of the stars, a tantalizing world of glossy imagery and beautiful looking prosthetic aliens (the most prosthetic creatures in any single set in the history of the franchise).

           Finn is instantly enraptured by the place. Rose, in contrast sees what it really is, a source of oppression and suffering. The horse races hide the torture of sentient animals. Children and slaves are forced to work under the lash to keep up the façade. All of this while the rich gamble away more money in a day than most families will see in a lifetime. Most movies would turn around and look at this and merely state “this is evil”, but this film, wisely, refuses to do even that. When Finn decides to place his revelation into a new binary equation, one which merely condemns the wealthy as villains, Benicio Del Toro’s codebreaker character refuses to play into that illusion. Sure, the gamblers may make money selling arms to The New Order, Rose is right that’s an evil thing to do, but they also supply and in some cases fund the Rebellion. Canto Bight is not the dark side, it is merely opportunism personified. The codebreaker demonstrates that same opportunism when he gives up Finn. Finn meanwhile demonstrated it himself when he attempted to steal an escape pod at the outset. 

           To all the people who say Finn’s arc leads nowhere, that it’s simply a side-adventure intended for little but to provide the character something to do; I point you at the moments when they infiltrate the New Order’s fleet. When the Code Breaker gives them away and Finn yells that he’s wrong that none of this matters, that’s a change! In fact, it’s a complete reversal of who he was at the start. And yet, the film isn’t even done with his arc! We don’t simply go from “opportunistic Han Solo type” to Rebel; the film then asks us what kind of rebel Finn is going to be. When he finally kills Phasma, in a moment of firm rejection of his own past, he returns to the front and instantly uses Poe as a model for his own behavior. His kamikaze attack on the Walker is a clear echo of the bomber run at the start, and Rose’s rescue of him is a completion of her own arc. For them both, it’s realization that one’s role in the rebellion needs to be tempered through interpersonal relationships. Both motivations have to co-exist. The rebellion isn’t simply about destroying the New Order, nor is it about enforcing good. It’s about empathy towards the people around us, whether it’s the horses on Canto Bight, or the enslaved children in need of a symbol of hope, or the rebels fighting to survive against overwhelming odds. It’s not about heroism for the sake of heroism, it’s about protection. In this way, the entire symbol of the Rebellion, what that insignia means exactly, is deconstructed, and reconstructed, so in the end, when the child holds up the ring, it means something new, something bigger and deeper.

           If Finn’s narrative forces that character’s growth through an examination of what the Resistance actually means, than Poe’s is a firm rebuke of the type of heroism Star Wars has always reveled in through a simple, but surprisingly elegant, little character arc. To Poe, heroism is about individualistic action. In the film’s opening segment, Poe is told by his commanding officer to abandon an attack on a battleship, but refuses to do so. Instead, he orders a bombing run on a battle cruiser, an attack that results in the destruction of five crafts but also destroys their target. To Poe, this is a sacrifice, but also a successful moment of heroism. It’s telling that the movie refuses to make the sacrificed soldiers faceless, instead keeping us locked in one of the doomed crafts. It’s a sad but in the end, rousing moment, which is undercut by Leia’s brutal disappointment in Poe’s action. To Leia, five less bombers for future actions, and while the Imperial ship was destroyed, the enemy likely has many more like it. More of those doubtlessly exist than Rebellion bombers.

           When Leia is nearly killed and Holdo takes command, we’re left to expect a very traditional film narrative. In more blockbusters than I can name, our hotshot young lead will break the incompetent chain of command to make the final strike which will turn the tides of war. With the fleet under near constant duress in a lengthy space chase which brilliantly creates a ticking clock around the fact that the Rebellion is underfunded, Poe chooses to send Finn off in an attempt to infiltrate the Star Destroyer and save the day. This places him head to head with Holdo, who, as a viewer primed by dozens of action films, we immediately write off as an overly dismissive empty shirt without a plan. When Poe calls her a traitor, and perpetrates a coup, it’s a rousing moment with our ragtag leads desperately fighting to save the day.

           Instead, the plan fails. Finn is caught and Poe’s coup is taken out, by Leia of all people, one of our original ragtag rebels. It’s easy to go “what was the point of all that”, and well the point is failure. In one of the film’s greatest moments, we just have Leia and Holdo talk about what it means to be a woman and a leader, and we realize that our stuffed shirt had a plan all along, one she kept close to the vest in case the issue was not an electronic tracker, but rather a traitor. Oh, and Poe’s failure not only led to the capture of Rose and Finn, but in turn, leads to the discovery of Holdo’s plan, and the death of nearly half the remaining rebels. And Holdo, who we are primed to believe doesn’t believe in individual heroism, sacrifices herself in one of the film’s most striking shots, not to achieve victory, but to give her people the time they need to escape. It’s a cruel calculus, but as Holdo tells Leia, the need for sacrifice should not be an easy or quick decision, but is sometimes necessary. That’s a lesson they’ve had to learn.  

           Think about what the film is doing for a second. Everything a Star Wars movie has primed us for in the past, a tidy narrative thread, an easy plot progression and a warm embrace of individualistic heroism as a means to win not just a battle, but a WAR, have been rejected. The film has dismissed tidy plotting in favor of thematic questioning and deeper character arcs. The narrative forces Poe to confront his own failure, and in turn, he learns from it. It’s a lesson Leia clearly learned between that initial trilogy and this one, that leadership sometimes involves heroic self-sacrifice, but it can also mean sending off someone to die in order to crawl away, or realizing that the deck is stacked against you. Poe, in turn echoes Leia at the end, ordering Finn not to do what he himself had done at the start before calling a retreat, an escape to reorganize and fight another day. The passing of the baton is codified in his final scene with Leia, when he gives the order to leave, the men look at her, and she says to follow his orders.

           If Finn’s arc led to a re-evaluation of the rebellion, and a personal transformation into a real “rebel”, than Poe’s arc asks us to question our view of heroism, and how these films portray them. The conclusion appears to be that individual heroism is in some contexts important, Holdo’s sacrifice, and later Luke’s MATTER, but that it can’t be at the expense of grander strategy, or of the collective. Losing a dozen lives and five ships in a bombing run to merely take out a target that can be replaced is a waste, as much as we might enjoy the space battle, or the epic action. Losing one to give them the time to escape, that’s real heroism, a willingness to sacrifice oneself not for victory, but for the future. That’s what hope is.

           This takes us to Rey, and the final major story strand of the film, and by far the most complex and interesting. Rey begins this film as a lost and dejected student, but also as someone we as the audience are meant to believe has a grand and dynastic destiny. Many of us believed at the end of the Force Awakens that she was clearly a Skywalker, and that this trilogy will clearly end with her redeeming Kylo Ren and killing Snoke in an echo of the finale of the Return of the Jedi. But first, we thought, she must seek the help of Luke, who will clearly teach her the ways of the force like Yoda did.

           Instead the film pivots to the side in an incredible rebuke of the franchise as a whole, one that doubtlessly infuriated some fans, when Luke takes this symbol of the franchise, his lightsaber from everyone’s two favorite installments, and tosses it over his shoulder and walks away. We later learn that Rey, who we assume must be connected to the characters we know and love, came from nothing. She’s just… Rey. Rian Johnson proceeds to fundamentally dismantle the notion that the Force can be understood as a fight between Good and Evil, with the Jedi on one side and the Sith on the other. In one of the film’s greatest moments, he has Luke deconstruct the entire notion of the Jedi. If there is a force that connects all things, one that requires a balance of the light and the dark, and you were lucky enough to be able to feel it inside of you, understand it deep in your soul, and put out your mind and touch it, what hubris is required for you to think that you should control it and bend it to your will in order to do anything, whether good or evil. It’s so much bigger than any Jedi or any Sith, and the temptation to abuse it is to strong.

          In fact, Rey, upon seeing the dark force hole beneath the ground, is instantly tempted towards it, not out of evil, but curiosity. This terrifies Luke, who urges her not to explore it, ignoring that his own evolution required him to confront the dark within his own soul. Rey, in turn, is changed by confronting the Dark side, but also by doing so, is able to see it for what it is.

          The film de-exoticizes the dark side. In the Prequels the Dark Side is a fountain of youth, and that power is corrupting. In this, more interestingly, it is a false salve for broken souls. The Last Jedi asks if being a Jedi should be more than abstinence from the Dark and in turn, contrition, but rather should involve confronting it, exploring it, and through that process recognizing that it’s empty. That the Dark Side is portrayed as a mirror which reflects only what Rey puts into it is a striking metaphor. The endless reflection seems to promise that at the end there is meaning, but when she wills herself to see the front of the line, it is just another mirror. There is no deeper meaning there, only an endless and selfish self-examination. In the end, its emptiness will only leave you disappointed and broken, like it has left Kylo Ren. For me, that seems a particularly strong symbol for the uselessness of rage and petty vindictiveness. Frankly, it also works really well as a metaphor for substance abuse. 

          The Dark Side as a salve ties into the scenes where Kylo and Rey are connected. Those bits are charged with anger and rage, but also a sexual energy that hasn’t really been visible in the series before. That their plot culminates in a moment with the two of them, sweaty, back to back, swinging phallic blades in a vaginal red room in a desperate effort to free themselves of darkness is so on the nose that Freud would probably orgasm watching it.

          For Rey, the dark side is tempting, but she chooses to reject it because of her need to protect others and live outside of herself. Kylo, in turn, is provided the same choice as Vader had at the end of Return of the Jedi, and chooses the opposite path, embracing the Dark Side. I think a lot of why that is comes down to motivation. For Vader, the Dark side was a path towards a power that he believed could help others, but it provided no such ability, only further self-deterioration. His transformation was a gradual path into sin, one that provided him with no rewards but empty power. Kylo Ren, in contrast, is a product of abuse, his embrace of the Dark Side comes from an internal rage and emptiness that are inherently part of his being, one that has likely always existed, but was perpetuated when he believed that his own trusted father figure had both rejected and considered killing him. The Dark Side, to Kylo Ren, provides a sense of meaning, an ability to violently erase the past and create a new future. He sees himself as the forest fire that will burn down the trees and leave the soil ripe to grow something new. In truth, as much as he claims he wants to “kill the past”, he is completely stuck in it.

           This is a very different view of the Dark and Light side than we’ve seen before. It’s much less attuned to some religious binary of good and evil, and more in line frankly with what leads to real heroism and abuse. That the dark side and systemic abuse is linked in this film with violence against animals is in line with that. The light-side requires co-existence, as we see with Luke as he lives alongside the caregivers and drinks milk from the cow creatures who willing share it. He fishes yes, but only to eat what he requires. The Porg meanwhile co-exist in every crevice as urban animals, ones who can create their home on the Millennium Falcon, nestled in little nests in the nooks and crannies. To Rian Johnson, they are not pests to be eliminated, but the same life the Force represents.

           Let’s talk about Luke, possibly the most divisive aspect of this film. It would be easy to say that Luke has become the “dejected martial arts master” trope, and there is some truth to that, but his reason for being that way are more interesting than the traditional model. It’s true that trope is built on the idea that your first apprentice turned evil and that in turn you are unwilling to train a new one, BUT, and this is a big but, in the traditional narrative the Master is, in the end, innocent of any transgression except ignoring the warning signs. One can look at Obi-Wan’s failure to notice Anakin’s fall in the prequels as a traditional example of that narrative. Luke initially pitches that version of Kylo’s origins to Rey, but we later learn that Luke had a “do you kill baby Hitler” moment where he considered murdering his newphew, a lapse in judgment which led to Ben’s rejection of his master and embrace of the dark side. The rise of the First Order and Han’s death are, by extension, partially his fault. It is that failure, more than any other lesson, which teaches Rey what she needs to know.

          Yoda and Luke’s conversation about failure and the need to step aside for the next generation is a distillation of what this arc is about. The next generation has the capacity to outgrow you and learn from your mistakes. Rey can be a great Jedi Master because, in the end, Luke was both a great and a flawed one. She learns that even the Jedi are imperfect individuals who contain both light and dark. In the end though, the light side contains hope, and the dark side cynicism and nihilism. Kylo Ren has no hope that people can change or become something more than their origins, Rey, who came from nothing, but has become someone powerful, knows that’s untrue. To Rey, there is always hope. That hope is, as Poe says, the spark that lights the rebellion.

           A lot of people don’t like how this arc plays out since they feel it cancels out Luke’s heroism from the original trilogy, or believe that Rian Johnson is rejecting what the Jedi are supposed to mean. I think, in contrast, the director just sees good and evil as more complicated concepts. To him, a cackling villain like Snoke is a dull one, and his off-handed killing of what we assumed was the big-bad is a rejection of that mustache-twirling concept. In turn, he refuses to portray his heroes as paragons.

         Luke, as flawed as he is, is still a hero. Rian Johnson knows that the audience wants to see him use the force to destroy all of those walkers, or beat down Kylo Ren. Instead he portrays the opposite. Luke merely gives the rebellion a chance to escape by talking to Kylo and trying to teach his student a final lesson. He tells his nephew the truth, that his actions will only ever cause him pain while the hope that lives on in the Rebellion and is visible in Rey is more powerful than his rage. You can’t squelch that hope. The spark will always light. The Jedi will always continue. The film does this in a moment that codifies Luke Skywalker as a legend. He finds victory by admitting his failure, by apologizing and by embracing the future at the expense of himself. And that acceptance, allows him to pull off the most incredible piece of Force-use in the franchise, a “galaxy-spanning feat of astral projection that exemplifies his power”. It’s a soaring moment of character vindication, an impossible act that uses up so much of his spirit that it erases him from existence, although you can see a final moment of hope in his face and a sad recognition of where he came from as he sees the twin moons of tatooine set in his mind’s eye. I found his goodbye, and what it says about the franchise and where it’s going from here, surprisingly moving.

           The Last Jedi is a near-perfect film thematically and from a character perspective. It has flaws otherwise. Like most of the films in the series it relies on a heavy use of coincidence. Some of the jokes don’t hit. It can be clumsy from a plotting perspective. There are moments of cheese in here that are either going to work for you or won’t. Leia’s reflexive use of the force to fly to safety struck me as especially problematic. It’s also a long film, and jumps between its three narratives so frequently that at times it can appear narratively disjointed, even if the various threads are on-track. This is partially because the order in which we watch events are clearly not the order in which they happen. Finn’s entire story takes place in about 20 hours in a single day, while Rey’s, in comparison, takes place over nearly a week. The cross-cutting is a narrative device, not a temporal one. I also think the film’s refusal to accede to narrative convention, and desire to really examine what the Jedi, heroism and Rebellion mean today, can also be deeply jarring to people who expected a more traditional follow-up to the crowd pleasing Force Awakens.

           I see some issues in the film, and can nitpick various aspects to death, but the first time through, all I felt was joyous. I was so happy that Rian Johnson took these myths seriously. I felt ecstatic that he felt the desire to make sure that all four of our principal characters were given their due, while still fleshing out the universe in new and surprising ways. I like that the movie expanded the worlds, made them feel larger, and added stuff at the periphery that can be explored in the future by other writers and directors. Most importantly, I found the film to be a whole lot of fun. 

           It left me, for the first time since I was a child, deeply invested in this universe and where it goes. While I’m interested to know whether Solo will be any good, and feel excited to see what JJ does with Episode 9, I’m far more enthusiastic to see what Rian Johnson will do with his new blank-slate trilogy going forwards. That all three are coming up soon in the next few years, and are exciting in such different ways, is a terrific place to be as a fan.