#you never realize how common of a theme grief is in media until you experience it

[drawthiere]

the more time that passes the more i really like the amazing digital circus so let me know if theres any character you guys want me to draw

[warsofasoiaf]

Not sure if there's enough information on this New Vegas character for an analysis, but you did ask for Honest Hearts stuff that touches on redemption, family, and growing up! Any chance you can do a character analysis of Randall Clark?-TBH

So this is actually going to be an analysis of Honest Hearts in general, touching on the themes of childhood and growing up, and Randall Clark is a great element of that, so here we go.

The primary theme of Honest Hearts is innocence, and the loss of it upon growing up, and the feeling of loss in general. All of the main characters of Honest Hearts exist in a state of innocence and must confront painful realities about themselves and the world in order to grow up. Each must contend with the illusions that they’ve placed before themselves and the painful feeling that comes with stripping them away. Zion itself is an idyllic place full of wide-eyed, innocent tribals, but it is untouched by the corruption of the wider struggle until those who intrude upon it. The Courier travels along with an innocent caravan expedition (it’s even called Happy Trails for Pete’s sake!) for a wholesome adventure and a decent paycheck, not an intense tribal struggle and a battle for Joshua Graham’s own soul.

The Sorrows and the Dead Horses are perhaps the most explicit use of this theme. Neither understood much about the ways of warfare until Joshua Graham came along to teach them, even the savage raiding White Legs weren’t much of a threat until Ulysses taught them how to use their “storm drums” which is clearly a Thompson M1A1. This is an altogether common trope of the “Noble Savage,” a frequently inaccurate and often patronizing device used in media depicting tribal peoples. That these tribes do not engage in the practices of warfare suggests an innocence, an ideal quality untouched and untainted. Similarly, their speech patterns and language are used to suggest a child-like quality, the incomplete words like “grenah” for grenades or calling the tribals who throw firebombs (Molotov cocktails) “light bringers.” Since the Sorrows were originally descended from orphaned children refugees, this sets them up for their very own coming of age novel. Despite their innocence, they are threatened by the outside world via the form of the White Legs. The White Legs themselves are children, albeit in a somewhat more negative fashion; these are people who lack even the most basic skills needed to care for themselves. Resolving the Sorrow’s quest means that they have to grow up in one fashion or another. Running away means coming to terms with the painful loss of Zion, a literal interpretation of that old saying: “you can’t go home again.” Staying and fighting means learning the ways of war that Daniel had been avoiding, becoming adults and losing the innocence of their previous existence. The Sorrows still can’t go home again; because the Sorrows themselves have changed. Like children, they learn from the adults in their lives, and so depending on the resolution, the Courier can shape the Sorrows the way a parent shapes a child. Showing cruelty leads to the children learning cruelty, the cycle of violence continuing onward. Not all parenting is positive, and including that lesson was critical for selling the theme of childhood growing into adulthood in the interactive format of video games.

The two tribal followers you have in the game both have quests that revolve around maturity and growing up. Follows-Chalk is the most basic of these, played completely straight. He begins the game as a junior scout, not trusted to scout on his own but to follow his seniors as he grows into his tribal role. His youthful curiosity leads him to want to see more of the world, just like any teenager hoping to explore the world and find adventure. Through the Courier, who provides guidance in the way of adults teaching children, Follows-Chalk will either embrace the wanderlust and see the world, or stay at home, get married, and settle into domestic life as a scout, husband, and father. Notably, Follows-Chalk is simply “never seen again” if he leaves, but that’s it as far as what you learn. Did he die five seconds after he left? Five days? Five years? Five decades? Did he see the casinos that he wanted to see? Did he find out about what deathclaws were? You don’t know, and that too is part of life. Children grow up and leave, and best friends forever might lose touch and never know what happened to their long childhood chum after the parting. That’s life though, sometimes you lose touch and never find out what happened to someone, even those you care about a great deal.

Waking Cloud is also a child, which should at first glance not work because far from being a child, she is a wife and mother of three. Yet even though she is an established adult, Waking Cloud deals with one of the biggest experiences that children must go through to become adults; the experience of losing someone you care about and confronting difficult, sad situations as they are. Difficult subjects are often masked over with comforting lies for the sake of children who either cannot comprehend a situation or if the parents wish to spare severe emotional wrangling. Waking Cloud’s husband dies before the game starts, and Daniel keeps the knowledge from Cloud because he believes it would be too painful, that the work evacuating Zion was too important. Like any father, Daniel takes it upon himself to control what his ‘child’ knows, parenting out of the belief that he knows what’s best. These lies do impair the development of the ‘child’ Waking Cloud to an adult, as if she learns that Daniel lied to her, she learns distrust and sows it against Daniel as retribution. Yet if the Courier treats Waking Cloud as an adult, Waking Cloud acts like one in return; she is angry with Daniel for what he did but ultimately forgives the transgression. She handles the situation with maturity and moves past it healthily. 

Daniel is less about childhood than he is about being a parent. He’s unsure of what exactly to do with the Sorrows, he expresses metaphorically a lot of the uncertainty that new parents feel. He wants to do what is best for the Sorrows but doesn’t know what that is, yet he has to make a choice because they’re counting on him. The Sorrows go along with the plan because they trust Daniel and look to him as their father, but Daniel ultimately is making his plans out of his best interests, not that of the Sorrows. He wants to preserve the innocence that the Sorrows possess; in that sense he is the father that wishes his kids could stay young forever. He wants them to play in Zion as Neverland and when that can’t happen, he retreats to the Grand Staircase because the hardship is worth the innocence, in his mind. Notably, Daniel always loses something in the endings. If the Sorrows fight, he feels grief as he loses his ‘children’ to adulthood, and if they flee, Daniel loses Zion itself. Either way, something magical and special, something innocent is gone forever, and Daniel suffers for it.

Joshua Graham is not a child, but he has a child’s delusions, that he has made amends from his fiery descent into the Colorado and emerged as a new man whose sins were burned away with his skin. The forgiveness of the New Caananites taught him both right and wrong lessons about redemption. The human capacity for forgiveness can be truly transformational, this is undoubtedly true, but part of the transformation has to come from within. Joshua falls back into his old habits, the White Legs are the new Blackfoots (theme naming again, sometimes things aren’t subtle) and he embraces the savagery he indulged in as the Malpais Legate. The Courier is the real adult in the room when he forces Joshua to admit that Graham was always looking for excuses to justify his behavior to hide from the fact that it was always him that did those things and he is still that man. Joshua deluded himself into thinking that he was making progress when in truth, he was simply treading water until he had the strength to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. This too is a critical part of learning to be an adult, in taking responsibility for your own actions and realizing that if there is something that you don’t like about yourself, it’s you that has to change it and that it takes both recognition of the fault and serious effort to fix it. There’s a reason that 12-step programs frequently have admission as the first step, it’s an honest and painful thing to experience but it’s one that has to be done if there’s any hope of self-improvement. 

Randall Dean Clark is a great journey that explores these themes, essentially, the Survivalist is Honest Hearts if everything was past tense. The Survivalist also acts as a synthesis of Joshua and Daniel, the two ‘adults’ of Honest Hearts before the Courier came around. Clark had a sort of innocence about him at start, always running out to Zion. A father himself, Clark lost his wife and children in the nuclear firestorm that killed so many, and was left without a purpose in life. He found it in shepherding others, looking out for them out of paternal instinct. First was the group of Mexican survivors, who he aided covertly in a traditional sense out of paternal regard and human decency. The Vault 22 survivors brought that dream to an end, however, when they killed and ate the Mexican survivors. Like the conflict the Courier finds, the idyllic splendor and peaceful living of Zion was shattered by an outside group manipulated by a corrupt, cruel entity, in this case Vault-Tec itself whose twisted social experiments form some of the most nightmarish things in the Fallout universe. Clark kills the Vault 22 survivors until they finally flee, echoing the journey of Joshua. His revulsion at his work, grim resignation that “they deserved every damn bit of it” is what Joshua believes his crusade against the White Legs is. Yet there are telling differences, Clark does not desecrate the corpses as a warning nor does he lead others into battle. He still remembers his humanity when he encounters Sylvie, despite her also coming from Vault 22. Sure enough, he bonds with her, and then tragedy strikes again, when Sylvie and her baby Michael die. He becomes depressed and suicidal, but can’t bring himself to kill himself. Yet later, he discovers more children with who would eventually become the Sorrows, and begins again like he did with the Mexican survivors so many years ago. Again like Joshua, he goes back to old habits, yet these are habits of compassion rather than cruelty. Like Daniel, Clark attempts to preserve the innocence of these children, guiding them but also ensuring that they never see him. Thus, Clark achieves a sort of divine apotheosis as “The Father in the Caves” again mirroring the Mexican survivors who attributed Clark’s helpful actions in secret to divine intervention. But like Daniel, Clark also refused to let the Sorrows grow up, and this stunted them. Their fear of caves and traps left them unprepared to defend themselves against the White Legs, even to use as defensive works against the encroaching enemy. 

These are powerful themes, one that most if not all people end up having to deal with at some point in their life, which is why using these themes right can be quite powerful. Honest Hearts stumbles at times, but the concepts were sound.

Thanks for the question, TBH.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[unrealized-hope]

New Beginnings

Here I am back to this blog writing my personal experiences. I actually had forgotten the password and did not know how to get back in to write posts. But I am so happy to be back. I just want to restart my blog writing, to talk about the common themes in my life below:

A lot has changed since my last post in 2016. It has been 3 years and the man that I mentioned that I fell in love with in the previous post. In the span of 3 years we got engaged and now have been married for 4 months now and we are going to start trying to have kids. After meeting my now-husband, I did not realize how happy he would make me. He loved me for “me.” And the younger Harleen would have thought this would be an unrealistic and unattainable sentiment from a man. How funny was I to think that no one would love me as is. But I understand now why I thought that for 2 reasons. The first was that my perception of love taught to me in my culture was that love was physical attraction was first and everything came after, which is true, but I learned that everyone is not attracted to the same thing and love and people are more complex than that. In my culture, being South Asian woman, you must be skinny, but not “too skinny,” light skinned, and have facial features that did not offend. There is no story for the curvy dark-skinned Asian women in the media, so being young and impressionable I would believe what my elders told me. I am so happy to be a part of a generation or a time in history that we are challenging not only beauty standards, but the notions of gender, sexuality, nationalism, and just becoming more politically engaged as a generation. 

The pain of losing my mother is still there but now it has become a little nagging pain of grief in the back of my mind in any thing I do. My sisters and I always reminisce of how funny she was and what a great human she was. Through my wedding I realized that  I missed her regardless of this milestone, that my mom’ s family are not there to help me because they love me, but more for sympathy and obligatory reasons. Which made me realize that these same toxic people that have really messed up the love that I could have had for my body and my achievements and these are the same people that I need to start distancing myself from. It took a long internal battle, because at the end of the day my mother loved them and felt somewhat felt connected to her through them. But, a lot but things change when that person is not in the picture anymore.

I know one of my goals was to get closer to God or my religion. But what I have learned is that religion is more than about praying and going to the temple and expecting that if I pray, that God will listen and give me what I want in that moment of need. I learned that in life we are not entitled to anything and what we get is based on the cards that we are dealt with. Some work harder to achieve certain things and others achieve them easier. These barriers or bias’  are something that this world needs to work on and I am not sure if the pay gap for POC and women will ever be achieved in my lifetime. And situations like my mother, her passing away with cancer, is what was in the cards for her. That was her path and journey of life, as much of a hard pill that is to swallow. Who knows if that I am personally destined for that myself. I will never know until I am going through that hurdle. So instead of anticipating the future, my goal is to live in the present as much as you can and soak in every moment. Going back to the point of my relationship with God - my faith has become spiritual to respect the environment, the species that live within it, and be kinder to myself. Always to remember that there is a higher force that must have created this beautiful and messy life. I use my religion as a moral compass and I try not to be hard on myself because everyone has a spiritual journey of their own.

Until my next jumbled rant -

Love, 

Harleen

[arianayells-blog]

Wild World

Hello internet! Welcome to another  post for this blog. The album we are going to be analyzing today is Wild World by Bastille.

Background: Wild World was an album released on September 9, 2016. This was Bastille’s second album. For the most part so far, the album was well received and reviewed. Wild World was mainly recorded during September in 2014, however many songs were just demos and they were working experimenting and creating mixtapes during this time. In addition to recording, Bastille toured and occasionally played some of the demos that eventually became songs on the album. It wasn’t until June 9,2016 that Bastille announced the album name. On June 30,2016, they announced the album’s release date. The band toured in July and set up pop up shops to promote the album. On September 16, it was confirmed that Wild World had reached #1 on both U.K. and Scottish album charts. Dan Smith, the band’s lead and vocalist, has stated that the main inspiration for the album or focus was on the human condition. Some songs focused on how we learn about the horrors of the world through the internet and tv, while some songs focus on our innate need for relationships and human connection. The album named after one of the lyrics in the song Warmth which was a song that started tying the concept of the album together.

The songs we are going to discuss in this post include : Good Grief and Warmth

 Good Grief

The General Ideas: In an interview with NME Dan states, “I wanted to write about how bizarre grief and loss are – the layers of depression, shock and euphoria, how mad that process can be. I hope it will make people feel good.” The theme of loss and going through grief is the general theme throughout the song and Dan’s intention of writing this song is even clearly written with the title of the song. The ups and downs of grief and everything inbetween.

Lyrics : http://genius.com/Bastille-good-grief-lyrics  http://www.metrolyrics.com/good-grief-lyrics-bastille.html

"So, what would you little maniacs like to do first?"

This is a reference to the movie Weird Science but is also said to be used as an introduction to all of the people who were waiting for their next album.

Watching through my fingers, watching through my fingers

This is a statement of those times when you don’t want to see something happen but your curiosity wins a little.

Shut my eyes and count to ten

This could be a reference to hide and seek and the disbelief that they’re actually gone they’re just hiding. It could also just mean taking a minute to relax.

It goes in one ear out the other, one ear out the other

Those times when you don’t want to listen it goes in one ear out the other the other.    

Burning bright right till the end

This could honestly mean the memories of them or their life in general was alive until they died.

Now you'll be missing from the photographs, missing from the photographs

Those times when you would take a picture with them but they’re no longer there.

Watching through my fingers, watching through my fingers

I already stated what this could mean.

In my thoughts you're far away

The thoughts of the said person are slowly fading away.

And you are whistling the melody, whistling the melody

Crystallizing clear as day

Oh, I can picture you so easily, picture you so easily

The memories of them and what they sound like are still so clear yet they’re gone.

What's gonna be left of the world if you're not in it?

What's gonna be left of the world, oh

This is almost a statement of what else is there to live for if you’re not in  this world with me too.  

Every minute and every hour

I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more

The longer you think about something the grief only gets worse and worse.

Every stumble and each misfire

I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more

Every time the writer makes a mistake they are reminded of the person they lost.

Watching through my fingers, watching through my fingers

This has been explained.

Caught off guard by your favourite song

Music is just another mental attachment to a person

I'll be dancing at a funeral, dancing at a funeral

Sometimes death is a good thing. They’re in a better place most likely. This could also mean that the person hated the one that died.

Sleeping in the clothes you love

Couples often share clothes.

It's such a shame we had to see them burn, shame we had to see them burn

Sometimes to let go of the past, people burn pictures of them in it. In this case they’re burning the clothes of their lost love.

[repeated lyrics]

"If you want to be a party animal, you have to learn to live in the jungle

Now stop worrying and go get dressed"

Another line from Weird Science but also can be a statement of if you want to live a wild life and move on you have to stop worrying and grieving.

You might have to excuse me

I've lost control of all my senses

Being emotional can cause a person to have clouded thoughts.

And you might have to excuse me

I've lost control of all my words

Sometimes grief gets to you and you don’t know what to say or what you’re saying anymore

So get drunk, call me a fool

Put me in my place, put me in my place

Pick me up, up off the floor

Put me in my place, put me in my place

The writer needs help getting back on track and believes they need to be told that they are wrong or being irrational.

[lyrics repeat].

Overall, Good Grief is literally a song about the confliction and different phases and emotions that one has experienced or has felt during grief and losing someone you care about whether physically or relationship wise.

 Warmth

The General Idea: Warmth was the song that started the whole album’s theme when it was being created and put together. The song has the main idea of seeing the news on tv and all the horrors of it and how confusing it is but also reacting by going to a partner as a distraction.

Lyrics : http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/bastille/warmth.html

https://genius.com/Bastille-warmth-lyrics

"When the event happens, there is little time to think of those things that people would like to have remain private"

"Getting caught up in the circus-like atmosphere, feeling less responsible to conventional ethical practices"

The intro is from a video called, “The News Media’s Coverage of Crime and Victimization Video”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sZGN4-tmzU&feature=youtu.be&t=6m58s

 Never good, just the bad and the ugly

Laid in front of you

Nothing quite like seeing the world through the TV's window

These lines are stating what the news looks like almost all the time, tragedy never good. The news is never sugar coated; it’s laid out the way it is straight from the world to the TV.

Feeling helpless I look for distraction

I go searching for you,

Wandering through our city to find some solace at your door

This helpless feeling that the author gets when seeing the negativity and reality on the news they look for a person who's like a distraction and comforter from the rest of the world

I can't stop thinking about it

I can't stop thinking about it

Tell me did you see the news tonight

Even with this person’s comfort the author cannot forget what they saw on the news.

Hold me in this wild, wild world

Cause in your warmth I forget how cold it can be

And in your heat I feel how cold it can get

Hold me in this wild, wild world

Cause in your warmth I forget how cold it can be

And in your heat I feel how cold it can get

Now draw me close

These lines are describing this comfort that the author wants from this person while the world seems so chaotic around them. When they’re with them they forget how cold the world can be, but in their comfort they are also reminded of how cold the world can get.

So come on let's forget the emotion

Tie the blinkers on

Hold both hands right over my eyes

Deafen me with music

The author just wants to forget the terrible events that are happening in the news and to honestly not see it or hear it.

'Till we're lost in the heat of the moment

And I'm moving in you

Help me keep these hours alive

Help me chase those seconds

The author wants to get lost in the moment with their partner and to have them help them learn how to keep life alive and live on with the world going on.

I just keep talking about it

But I'll do nothing about it

Tell me did you see the news last night

These lines restate the helplessness the author feels and how they talk about what happened on the news but can never do anything to fix it.

Hold me in this wild, wild world

Cause in your warmth I forget how cold it can be

And in your heat I feel how cold you can get

This specific line has a word change in the lyric which honestly adds to the author’s emphasis on being with someone during times of tragedy, but also the realization that they also feel the same way as the author, cold and helpless.

Hold me in this wild, wild world

Cause in your warmth I forget how cold it can be

And in your heat I feel how cold it can get

Now draw me close

Hold me in this wild, wild world

Hold me in this wild, wild world

Cause in your warmth I forget how cold it can be

And in your heat I feel how cold it can get

Hold me in this wild, wild world

Cause in your warmth I forget how cold it can be

And in your heat I feel how cold it can get

So draw me close, draw me close

[ Refer back to the original explanation of these lines]

Overall, Warmth clearly shows what Dan was trying to convey about how the news is scary sometimes and that all we ever hear is the bad and the ugly. The character in this song conveys the common feeling that we feel when a major tragedy happens on the news such as a shooting and how helpless we are in both not being able to prevent it but also how powerless we are to these things happening. We often try to escape this negativity through humor, avoidance, or as the character in this song who escapes to his partner who understands what's happening and wants to forget too. Warmth conveys the main themes of Wild World, our need for human connection and relationships but also the horrors of the media and news.

In general, Wild World is an album that expresses things that Dan has seen in the world and various themes and examples of the reality of media, the human condition, and the need for relationships with people. This album is honestly all tied together as various songs have shown how the themes connect with each other or how one affects the other which is shown as the album transitions song to song especially in the first few songs. I hope you do decide to check out their album and listen to it fully. Even without knowledge of the author’s intentions, a listening session with full attention to the lyrics of the songs in the album can help convey to you the themes of the album and the emotion of each song. I hope you enjoyed this post and look forward to the next one.

Sources:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastille_(band)#VS._and_Wild_World_.282014.E2.80.93present.29

http://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/bastilles-dan-smith-on-new-music-weve-really-pushed-our-sound-6130

http://diymag.com/2016/06/03/bastille-wild-world-cover-feature-world-exclusive

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_World_(album)

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/bastille-explore-wild-world-on-new-lp-20160701

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/bastille-interview-band-talk-new-album-wild-world-being-inspired-by-kanye-west-and-sneaking-into-a7111631.html

http://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/bastille-wild-world-new-album-release-date-5045

http://xpressmag.com.au/bastille/

https://www.facebook.com/bastilleuk/videos/983608061674220/

http://www.officialcharts.com/artist/7574/bastille/

https://twitter.com/bastilledan/status/748448789053186048?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

http://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/bastille-dan-pop-up-shop-3307