#dukestoryworlds

[m-feng-blog1]

Lame Duck Post: The End

Just like a presidency, any storyworld about the White House has to eventually come to an end. 

Coming into this project, I really wanted to explore the worlds that have been built and maintained that surround American politics. It is something that has been long-pervasive in my everyday life, and I have recently come onto so many political dramas that it was only natural that I really sat down and thought about the intersection between these universes. I think that by and large I am pleased with how my storyworld developed because it revolved around a key interest of mine and integrated the material that we learned in class to really create a synthesis of information that enriched my own understanding of a world that I have longed to live in.

One particular thing that this class helped me realize about the storyworld I analyzed was how to disaggregate and then re-aggregate components of the story. That is, while it is obvious on face to think about plot and setting, it is sometimes difficult to really think about how the characters interact specifically with the setting or why the setting is truly important for the development of the characters. In the second post, I think our discussions in class helped me find the idea about intimacy and how the setting of the story accentuates the interpersonal dynamics that exist. 

Something else that I think this class in particular helped me realize was the role of the teller in the story. Often times I have been accustomed to just taking in news on face and just digesting information. But I do not think as much about the incentives that inform those perspectives, whether it be why the news media is reporting it a certain way, or why the government chooses to spin something in one way or another, or why certain governments are so keen in these instances to jump out. This was also something that I think only became evident to me after doing it a few times in this class.

In exploring this world, I think that there were some things that I wish I would’ve done had I had more time to dive into literature. While I make mentions to and am familiar with the general domain of post-White House memoirs, I think that reading some of them and comparing those war stories to what we hear in the moment and also what is portrayed in fictional depictions of the White House would have made my understanding of some of these perspectives much richer. For example, I am able to, on a surface-level, understand how it might be that memoirs inform a hindsight perspective of their time in the White House (which is a mention I make in the sixth post), but actually knowing specifically what we can find out after the fact that we were unable to know at the time because of restrictions of access (an issue I explore in the third post) would make that post much more detailed.

Overall, I am not unhappy with the state of my coverage of these kinds of political dramas and their relative veracity with respect to the real world. I think that this is something I might want to continue in the future, whether it be officially on this forum or whether it just be in the ways that I view shows in the future and internalize those plots. I definitely will not be consuming these stories in the same way.

[msninjacrab-blog]

Closing Thoughts

Well, here are my closing thoughts on the Discworld story...world.  Hmm.

The main thing that I’ve taken away from this is that Discworld is a story about stories.  Elements are taken from the mythological and literary storyworlds of many different cultures, from early Hindu beliefs about the geography of the Earth itself to retelling storylines of famous novels/musicals like Les Miserables. Characters are written as archetypes that often consciously act against their archetypal representations.  This in turn allows for some really interesting analysis on the vanilla archetypes themselves, because we’re better able to see the differences between the two.  For example, Death is the stereotypical representation of the grim reaper in traditional folklore.  He dresses in black robes, uses a scythe, etc., etc.  But, he is so much more than that as a character because he wants to understand humanity, and he is so much more than that as a literary device because of the differences between the character and the traditional representation of the character.

If that got confusing, I apologize.

This is an archetype.

This is an archetypical character, with a personality and motivations.

This is an archetype.

These are archetypical characters, who play the archetypal role in the story while still playing around with how they are different from the archetype in terms of execution.  Hopefully that explains it better.

I think a lot of the staying power of the series also comes from the fact that it’s a) funny and b) a work of satire.  Humor has a real effect on people, and it’s easier to remember a funny bit from a book or a movie than a dry academic paper.  I think my favorite example of this is the Boot theory from Men at Arms:

“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.

It’s framed as a joke, with a setup and a punchline at the end, and it completely cuts away from the action of the scene (if I remember correctly, I think Vimes is about to give chase to a criminal) so that the main character can give a long-winded speech about footwear.  But it’s rooted in actual economic principles and the widening of the gap between rich and poor.  Entire papers have been written about this subject, and here it is succinctly put in three paragraphs in a conversation about boots, of all things.  This bit actually does play a role in the story, since Vimes is later blindfolded and taken to another part of the city, but is able to work out where he is by how the cobblestones are shaped.

In other words, a comedic bit rooted in real-world socioeconomic inequality actually plays a plot-related role in a story, which comments on our own real-world society in the process.  All in three paragraphs.

Another reason why these books are fundamentally stories about stories is the constant commentary about narrative form and purpose, and, as I’ve mentioned before, the constant critique and subversion of classic fantasy literature tropes.  A physical substance called “Narrativium” works as the laws of physics do on Earth--essentially, things work a certain way because they’re supposed to work that way.  An explanation from the L-space wiki, since it explains it better than I can:

The most common element on the disc, although not included in the list of the standard five: earth, fire, air, water and surprise. It ensures that everything runs properly as a story. For example, if a boy has two older brothers, chances are they will go on a quest. The first will be strong, and fail because of his stupidity, the second will be smart, and fail because of his frailty and the youngest brother will then have no choice but to go out, succeed and bring fame and fortune to his poor family. This phenomenon is also known as Narrative Causality. Dragons breathe fire not because they have asbestos lungs, but because that is what dragons do. Heroes only win when outnumbered, and things which have a one-in-a-million chance of succeeding often do so. The application of this phenomenon appears to be governed by some loosely formulated laws.

So, the presence of Narrativium as a physical element of the storyworld both handwaves and explains the presence of cliches and tropes that are common to most, if not all, fantasy literature, while simultaneously commenting on the use of these tropes in both the Discworld’s storyworld AND other fantasy literature.

This carries over to every series arc within the Discworld series.  The City Watch series is a fantasy police crime drama, the Tiffany Aching series is a young adult commentary on fairy tales, etc.  Because of this the tones vary significantly from series to series, usually about how serious or “gritty” the story gets, which is actually explained by a natural phenomenon within the storyworld itself.  Because of that, we can compare the deconstruction of the story type with actual story types we recognize in real life.

There’s a ton more to talk about--specifics of individual books and series in terms of specific trope deconstructions and references to mythology and pop culture, and I do regret not being able to get into the humor/pun aspect as much as I initially wanted to do, but I think as an overview of the Discworld as a whole (aka a collection of stories and narratives), I think it does what I set out to do.  Thanks for reading!

[aostormborn-blog]

Westworld Episode Names

Westworld Episode Names The names of each of the episodes of Westworld have many meanings in relation to the episode and the overarching theme of the show.

The Original This episode focuses mostly on Dolores. It is stated in the show that she is the oldest host still in the park. Many of the events in the show are a snowball effect from some of her actions. Dolores was the first host Arnold paid serious attention to, so as a result, she can be seen as the original host to achieve his goals.

Chestnut The phrase 'that old chestnut' is often used to refer to something that has occured many times in the past. This episode introduces us to William and Logan; two important characters in the first season. The first episode had certain scenes which occured multiple times and this episode again features that scene.

The Stray Another episode title likely focusing on Dolores. There are two parts here involving Dolores. Her talks in a basement and her actions with William. Dolores is a little bit different from the rest of the hosts, so in a way she is straying from the others. There is also a rogue host who is straying from his path and sending information outside of the park.

Dissonance Theory Cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort held by someone who holds two or more contradictory beliefs or moral sets. A few of the hosts at this point are dealing with their ideals of two worlds. Both Dolores and Maeve are attempting to figure out what the outside world is like and trying to adapt it to their current world.

Contrapasso Contrapasso is the torturing of souls in Dante's Inferno by a process resembling or contrasting the sin.

The Adversary An adversary is typically an enemy or an antagonist of one. This episode solidly sets up humans as the adversaries for the hosts.

Trompe L'Oeil This is a French phrase that refers to an illusion of the eye. It is typically employed to make 2D objects appear 3D. This episode is full of many reveals and is often considered one of (if not the) best episode of the season. One important character has a huge character reveal, revealing to the viewer that our eyes have been deceived this whole time. My quotes section referrences one important part of this episode.

Trace Decay The hosts often have their memories wiped. There is a reveries update issued by Dr. Ford in the first episode which allows hosts to access bits of their previous memory. Trace decay is a psychological theory that memories leave traces in the brain which deteriorate as we age. A certain character after having his memory wiped is now recollecting bits and pieces of his wiped memories, accessing those traces of memory.

The Well Tempered Clavier A clavier is a fancy name for a keyboard instrument, pianos probably being the most common. There is a character revealed to be an instrument for Dr. Ford and this character is kept well-tempered by many memory wipes and an embedded loyalty to his creator.

The Bicameral Mind Bicameralism is a psychological theory that states that cognition is divided into two parts: one focused on speaking and the other on listening and obeying. Arnold's theory on the hosts revolved around this system and he created them with an initial commanding voice (Arnold's voice) which tells them how to behave and what to do and listens to their programming and eventually they develop their own voice and can speak. This is an important theme in the show for the consciousness of the hosts.

[furiouscollectionmusicstuff-blog]

Women in Mad Max

In this post, I’m going to write about Women’s roles in Mad Max. Before I begin, however, because I did not write about them in my characters post, I’m going to give a bit of background on the Vuvalini.

The Vuvalini are a tribe of women who once inhabited the green place. When the Green Place became degraded and was no longer able to sustain agriculture, the Vuvalini began searching for a new home in the Wasteland. By the time we meet them in Mad Max, there are only a few left. Furiosa was one of the Vuvalini before she was kidnapped and brought to the Citadel as a young girl.

Aside from the Vuvulani and Furiosa, women depicted in Mad Max are wives, breeders, or in the wretched population. They are either captives in the service of men or women who live in the absence of them. Women in Mad Max handle firearms and drive war rigs. They carry seeds for the next generation to plant. When separates one fate from another is little more than good or bad fortune. Any of the women depicted could have easily been something else. Furiosa was a Vuvalini, was a breeder until she proved barren, and then became a warrior. When the wives escape, we see that they are capable fighters.

When the wives break out of the citadel, the leave behind written on the wall “we are not things”. A reminder that their roles are not what men make of them.

[m-feng-blog1]

Putting Presidential Pen to Paper: Authorship Across Stories

There has been a discussion about how in all stories there is a controlling of the narrative from within the White House as there is a constant “struggle” between the internal narrative and the external one that the media can control. Additionally, we have talked about how different presidents have grown into their roles differently, but to this point, we have not understood how exactly it is that each president controls and writes their own story.

Real world presidents, up until President Trump, largely let their staffs wrangle the narrative and get out their message. That is, there is a significant amount of teamwork involved in controlling stories, as the Press Secretary must work with departments and agencies, and in specific moments (e.g. during national crises such as Sandy Hook and during national triumphs such as the killing of Osama bin Laden), then there may be an appearance by the president. 

The difference for the Trump Administration is that there has not been a visible a presence from characters such as the Press Secretary. This is not to say that they are not more (in)famous but rather that they literally do not brief as frequently. The mechanism, therefore, that this Administration has tried to spin their own story has been rather unconventional but very well-known, which is through President Trump’s tweets rather than through proper or official means as we have previously seen. For the most part, this has led to absurdity, but it is still worth noting that this is the state of ‘storytelling’ from within the White House.

The West Wing is quite similar to that of previous administrations, meaning that there is a lot of delegation of responsibilities and a large degree of autonomy. The ensemble nature of the cast also means that just structurally the story has to involve the characters in meaningful ways, so it often is the case that controversies involve many characters working together to put out a fire. While it nominally appears to be that way in House of Cards at times as well, much of the activity of the Press Secretary is dictated by the Underwoods as well. A meaningful and pronounced difference is that the administration in The West Wing has more autonomy in making decisions and are trusted more to do their jobs, something that is evidently untrue in House of Cards. 

[yogurtdrink-blog]

The Legacy of Apocalypse Now (Post 7)

The lines and scenes from the movie that stay for decades. Rather than separate characters or the symbol of a single war, “Apocalypse Now” has framed an approach to war as dehumanizing and horrifying. The two works that I discussed below, one a fantasy TV series, and one an Action/ Science fiction/ Fantasy/ Monster movie, only used the suggestion of war - the classic helicopter scene from “Apocalypse Now”, as the setting for their narratives.

I love the smell of napalm in the morning

What is the similarity between helicopters dropping napalm on a village in “Apocalypse Now” and dragons swooping down to attack soldiers in “Game of Thrones”? The answer is their approach to horror - death from above, terror on the ground. More than the filming technique, the running theme of Apocalypse Now, the horror of soldiers watching men die around them and realizing that war was much more than what they had imagined. 

The helicopter attack scene from “Apocalypse Now”

The dragon and Dothraki battle, Game of Thrones, Season 7, Episode 4: “The Spoils of War”

The critique of war

The most recent work that was inspired by Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” is “Kong: Skull Island”, from its setting and color scheme to plot line.

The powerful helicopters that caused so much damage in “Apocalypse Now” were defenseless in an unknown land. (Picture Credit: Warner Bros)

When looking at the two movies:

Setting: Vietnam War, early 1970s

Overarching plot line: The struggle of people who have seen unimaginable things in conflict - moral and immoral, life and death, disillusion and illusion. “Kong: Skull Island”, however, was not a movie about war. It used a metaphor of war critique as the backdrop for an action movie. In fact, the movie spanned from World War II to the Vietnam War, implying that the wars and the human beings in them were fighting for the same causes. Our class discussion about genre and targeted audience came back to mind. A majority of the viewers of “Kong” might not have been to the war. They are paying to see a monster in an exotic place, not for a real war.

[yogurtdrink-blog]

The Horror, The Horror! (Post 5)

Comparing the settings and themes of Apocalypse Now and its inspiration, Heart of Darkness, a novel by Joseph Conrad

“The horror! The horror!” Colonel Kurtz’s last words in Apocalypse Now echoed Kurtz’s dying words in The Heart of Darkness. While the movie is loosely based on the book, there are several plot differences in the time, setting, and characters. This post juxtaposes the two works’ settings and themes.

Setting: Heart of Darkness (1899) narrates the story up the river of Marlow, a riverboat captain working for a trading ivory in the heart of Africa. On the other hand, Apocalypse Now (1976) follows captain Willard in the 1970s up the Nung River to testify the violence of the Vietnam War. While the plot moved from the 19th century to the 1970s, the destination for both stories is Kurtz – the character who had gone beyond the authority’s limits to acquire power for himself. In both cases, the men were to be eliminated because they had seen through the motives and brutality of their respective organizations. 

Theme: The setting helps portray two major themes in both the movie and the book: dehumanization and imperialism. In Apocalypse Now, the scene of the French rubber station hinted at past colonialism, and the U.S. army marked imperialism. In Heart of Darkness, the trading ivory is the embodiment of both imperialism and colonialism. Interestingly, in both cases, the company employees and the soldiers dehumanized the enemies – the native and the Vietnamese, to justify their causes. Oftentimes, the civilizers turned to technology/ military power instead of conversing with the “savages”. Throughout the process, blinded by their own desires and the pervasive violence, the characters started dehumanizing everyone around them, and eventually themselves.

In his critique of my posts, Teddy pointed out how the timing of the book and the movie impacts their messages. While Heart of Darkness was written in the midst of the Age of New Imperialism, Apocalypse Now was made after the war had ended. Willard’s and Marlow’s viewpoints throughout their journey reflected this discrepancy. While Marlow was exploring dehumanization and imperialism along the journey, Willard had already witnessed the war’s inhumanity. Their reaction to Kurtz also differed. 

In Apocalypse Now, Colonel Kurtz was killed by Willard instead of dying from illness on his way back to the authority. The death of Kurtz in the movie bears significant meaning. Willard, weary by the war, increasingly resonated with Kurtz and his philosophy. After he killed Kurtz, he confronted hundreds of natives who were bowing to him and ready to comply with his wishes. Although he had come close to joining the world of darkness, he resisted. It is this resistance against madness and immorality that made the most striking difference to me. In Heart of Darkness, Kurtz was an aberration that eventually died. In Apocalypse Now, Kurtz could be anyone who has seen through insanity and meaningless violence.

[yogurtdrink-blog]

Mapping (Post 2)

Although the movie was filmed in the Philippines, it details the journey up the river from Vietnam into Cambodia. 

What Exists in the Real World

In the beginning scene, the protagonist woke up in Sai Gon (now known as Ho Chi Minh City), the headquarter of South Vietnam. He was then transferred on a helicopter to Nha Trang, a city along the coastline. Both Sai Gon and Nha Trang still exist today.

What Exists in Apocalypse Now World 

The Nung river, the main backdrop of the movie, is nonexistent. If we speculate that the Nung river is indeed the Mekong, which runs through southern Vietnam into Cambodia (the red line on the map), the area to the south of Sai Gon (Ho Chi Minh City) is where the story took place. The post where the protagonist entered the scene is likely near Chau Doc, near the border with Cambodia. 

What is inconsistent with reality about this hypothesis is that the beach, jungle, scorching heat, and humidity that appeared throughout the movie are not characteristic of this area, but more of central Vietnam. In addition, in one scene of the movie, the troop came across an isolated rubber plantation, a remnant of the French era. Historical accuracy notwithstanding, this type of plant is also unlikely to grow in the lowland delta of South Vietnam. However, the plantation scene can be seen as a deliberate effort to put the image of past Vietnam and the characters’ experiences side by side.

The storyworld of Apocalypse Now, therefore, is in part real and in part fictional. While most of the landscape is likely based in central Vietnam, from the coastline across the highlands to Cambodia, the fictional Nung river narrates the transformation of the characters as they witnessed the ruthlessness of war along each stop of the journey.