Science Fiction and the Supernatural

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The Path of Temptation

The Path of Temptation is a series by Auryn Hadley that brings up religion, gods, and the way they interact with their followers. Now the conversation that I want to talk about doesn’t have an short quotes so I’ll just summarize it. It is a conversation at the end of book five in which the God of Temptation is asking why the main characters still believe in and follow him after he just killed one of their family members. The response is basically along the lines of ‘we don’t follow you because you’re kind, we follow you because you’re a fair god’. 

I felt like this sort of god/person interaction is so different compared to what is seen between Victor and the Creature because Victor can’t even be a fair god. It is so interesting to see people follow gods for various reasons and yet Victor has his own creation turn on him because Victor is fallible enough where he could never be a god, or embody one well enough for one to follow him. 

I just though this was a different sort of god/person relationship and not one that is talked about because it’s always how Victor isn’t kind or loving toward his creation. I like this viewpoint because it shows how unfair and unequal Victor is in his treatment of the Creature and perhaps how that, not the lack of love, was the thing that did in their relationship.

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The Dark Brotherhood

The Brotherhood of the Seven Kings almost reminds me of the Dark Brotherhood, an assassins guild, from Skyrim. They’re both female lead organizations that face death by fire. There is just something about how female leaders playing with followers like puppets that makes me relate the two. While the leaders are nothing alike, the similarities in criminality and ending made me feel like there is some similarity here between the two. Maybe it’s just that they share the name Brotherhood? Or maybe its because its two organizations led by women who face death by fire? I just know there’s something that made me feel like they were related. 

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Firestarter

One of the songs that recently came up in my recommended was a song called Firestarter by Victoria Carbol and when I got to certain lines all I could think about was Madame Koluchy’s death scene. This is technically a song for the Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas, but these lyrics work for Koluchy as well. 

“Baby, I'm a firestarter / Push me, I'll push back harder / Never was afraid of getting burned / Heir of Ash, the Queen of Flames”

These lyrics to me just brought the image of Koluchy to my mind with the way she acts. How when Norma Head gets close she pushes back and tries to kill anyone stopping her. How she decides to destroy herself almost literally making her an heir of ash, or rather what was left of her. These lines just brought that scene to the front of my mind with how proud Koluchy stood there knowing she was going to die, like a queen facing down death and daring it on. I just loved the image of “ Heir of Ash, the Queen of Flames “ relating to her death scene like she is owning what she decided to do and proud of it. 

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Madame Koluchy

As much as I enjoyed The Brotherhood of the Seven Kings, I think I would prefer it from Koluchy’s perspective. I’m a sucker for reading from a villain's perspective and I think it would be so interesting to see how she played people and planned around the heroes. I just love the idea of a female villain as a lead and with the way she crafts her crimes, it sounds so interesting to read about. I just think that while reading as a detective is fun, reading as the person outsmarting the detective is more fun. I also just think that Madame Koluchy is an amazing character and want to see what goes on inside her head.

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Bury

There is a song that I’ve listened to for so long called Bury by Victoria Carbol. I thought that this song was a good song to represent Jekyll in particular. The song in total is about being buried so that your secrets can’t escape which I think really fits Jekyll, but there are also some lyrics in particular.

“I’ve things to hide / and secrets to keep / take that shovel / and bury me well / oh dead girls have no tales to tell”

I felt this really fit Jekyll especially towards the end of the novel near his death with the way that he is preventing anyone from duplicating what he did by destroying how he did it. I really think it fits with his death as he is making sure that Hyde, originally his secret, is being destroyed by his actions and that the secret to creating the concoction is gone as well. I think that this song embodies what Jekyll is going through at the end of Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

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William’s Death

I don’t actually think that the Creature intended William’s death as up until that point we had never seen the Creature be violent. The Creature is much stronger than a human and has never had to learn his own strength as he has never had a need to. I very much think that William’s death was an accident. I think the Creature wanted him to be quiet and accidently killed William. The Creature has basically never had an actual interaction with a human so how was he to know what was too much or what was dangerous? I really don’t think it was intentional as the Creature didn’t know he could do that until after William was dead. I think it was a horrible mistake and a bad situation, but I don’t think either is at fault and the Creature certainly isn’t a monster for it. 

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Modern Frankenstein

We always talk about the modern Frankenstein being about creating artificial life like androids and I think the game Detroit: Become Human is exactly that scenario. It is a game where you play as multiple androids and these androids begin to break out of their programming and become ‘human’ to the point where if played a certain way, they will start a rebellion. This is very much what I imagine a modern Frankenstein to be like as its artificial life learning how to be human, have emotions, and make choices. I think it is a game that shows what artificial life becoming sentient and individual possibly could be or at least a good version. Its a game I really enjoyed and it tells a story while not similar to Frankenstein, one that definitely has similarities between them. I think it is a great example of what a modern Frankenstein would be and one that tells that story with a happier ending for the ‘Creatures’.

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Religion

I find the topic of religion in Frankenstein very interesting because there are parts that really fit a creation story and comparisons to the Christian creation story and yet parts that feel completely separate. It brings along a lot of questions about religion and the relationship between creator and creation which is part of the relationship between Victor and the Creature. I feel like there is a religious nature or at least narrative in Frankenstein because the Creature is a creation. I also think with the Companion being introduced that there are definitely parallels and comparisons with her as well. I feel like the god versus creation is looked at, but not broken down and that it tells part of the story that we perhaps don’t catch on the first read. I really enjoyed looking into the religious comparisons with Frankenstein and it really made the experience of reading Frankenstein more interesting and stay with me. 

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You Are in Love

I thought that this song fit the way that things are described in science fiction especially things like experiments. For example, the entire song is lyrics like:

“Small talk, he drives / Coffee at midnight / The light reflects / The chain on your neck / He says, "Look up" / And your shoulders brush / No proof, one touch / But you felt enough”

“You can hear it in the silence, silence, you / You can feel it on the way home, way home, you / You can see it with the lights out, lights out”

It is a song that tells a story through small details never truly giving a whole image or idea. It tells what it is to be in love through small moments like coffee at midnight. I think this sort of storytelling is a lot of what we see in science fiction surrounding experiments or the actual science. The author gives enough hints and little clues and the reader figures out how it works. Like in Mary Shelly, the Creature get the spark of life, but the reader decides what that means and looks like. I think its an amazing way of storytelling and why we don’t mind not getting the exact science in science fiction because the details and clues give us enough for the readers to be able to determine the full picture. 

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Ruin

There a song I’ve been listening to lately called Ruin by Victoria Carbol and I think that it really fits Dr. Chance from The Blue Laboratory. In general, the message of the song and the story I think fit with Dr. Chance at least partially, but there are a couple of lines I think really fit Dr. Chane:

“I’m a monster clothed in skin / I’ve traded kindness for control”

I think these lines really fit Dr. Chance as those are the actions he took and he is even described as a monster in the story. Dr. Chance traded kindness to his assistant and Madeline for control over them to force them to participate in his experiment. He gave up his kindness because force got him better results. And I think this song fits him in general; someone who was tempted and fell for it and in doing so sold their soul for their dream whether it was fame or simply his science.

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Gothic Concepts

We looked over in class five main concepts related to the Gothic; Anxiety, Restraint, Transgression, Questioning ‘Normal’, and Doppelgangers. I think that these concepts are present in every novel and story that we read. Anxiety and doppelgangers are definitely applicable to Frankenstein as concepts if not to the actual characters. I just find it really interesting that these are the concepts related to the Gothic as they are typically common in darker literature, personally I know in darker fantasy that they are present, but I don’t think I would have connected them to Gothic Literature. I can see these in our novels now, but I didn’t even realize that some of these concepts spanned multiple stories until they were laid out in front of me. I will say that anxiety totally makes sense for Gothic Literature as I’m pretty sure every story we’ve read has had at least a modicum of anxiety present in at least one character if not as part of the overall feeling of the story.

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Bodysnatching

Body snatchers, or “resurrection men”, were men who would steal recently buried corpses and sell them to colleges for anatomy classes. There was pushback on using criminals for dissections so body snatching became more prominent as they were cheaper to pay for bodies which were necessary for anatomy classes at the colleges. This lead to more and more people doing it with even gangs forming and special tools being favored by some. This also lead to killers like Burke and Hare who decided that killing people would be easier than trying to loot graves. Eventually this was stopped with the Anatomy Act. 

I wonder if this time period is where the inspiration for body snatching in like Frankenstein, the film, comes from or if people just decided the Creature had to be made some way.

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H.G. Wells

Wells wrote so many novels and stories that some of his initial works are still unidentified which is crazy. I don’t know how that happens for authors when names are usually attached to articles or stories. Wells also seemed to write a large spread of style and genres. He wrote short articles, science fiction novels, short stories, comic novels, social or political novels, and even educational books. That so many types of writing and styles of writing that it really makes me wonder what drove Wells to write, besides money as that is why he started but I wonder what drove him to continue even when he had money to write. He really seems like a prolific writer and although his novel wasn’t my favorite, I can definitely see his talent and his style in it. H.G. Wells is an author that I think I might read more of as I think I might enjoy at least some of his science fiction novels.

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Robert Louis Stevenson

Travel

I find it interesting that Stevenson both started and ended his career traveling and writing at least partly about them. I wonder how much that travel influenced his writing style and his affinity for maze like cities. I do think his travel influenced his writing, if not in his settings then in the people he wrote about as places you go to and cultures you visit influence you. It just seems to funny to me that someone who was supposed to be an engineer, ended up a lawyer, actually ended up traveling and becoming an author. It’s just a very interesting path in life for someone. Although it worked out for Stevenson if his novels are anything to go by. 

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Edith Nesbit

Edith Nesbit wrote books to feed her five children. She began with children’s books but also wrote Gothic fiction and ghost stories. It is such an interesting thing to me that her career she chose to support her family was writing as I always thought of it as a career that took time to break into or get well-known enough to support someone fully. But she obviously made it work as she wrote over 60 children’s books, not including poetry collections or novels for adults. She also wrote stories for magazines such as the ones we read in this class. I can only imagine how difficult that would be to create constantly to support your family. Edith Nesbit did it and did it while making some good stories as well. 

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Frankenstein: The Film

The Creation Scene

The creation scene in the movie stands out to me because it is so different from what the novel scene is. The big lightning strike and giant machinery don’t fit the novels scene where I read it as a more intimate awakening of the Creature because Victor is close enough to see his eyes open. The big, over the top, creation I think removes a bit of the connection between creation and creator as it almost becomes a show rather than a moment between two people. It loses the intimacy between the two and in doing so loses the connection that the book holds front and center between the two. 

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Frankenstein: The Film

Intelligence

One major change in the film compared to the book is the intelligence of the Creature. I think that is one of the most critical parts of the novel that the Creature is not just intelligent and speaking, but that he understands and has this critical thinking ability. It, to me, is what really makes Frankenstein a creation story. The Creature losing his ability to speak makes him much more of a tool or prop in the movie than he is in the novel as he can’t articulate what is happening so in a way the Creature is dehumanized in the movie by removing his voice and not giving him any way to communicate. The movie kind of makes the Creature the monster by not letting the audience see what he was meant to be, an articulate super human. Instead of letting the audience decide, it seems like the movie makes the Creature the monster or the villain because it reads like they are telling Victor’s tale, not the Creatures.