Week 6: A Little Girl's Heroic Journey

A Song of Ice and Fire is a Celtic knot of heroic and not-so-heroic journies. The badass of all is Arya Stark.

In the first novel, Arya starts off as an innocent child. She's quickly thrown into heartbreak and confusion when her brother is thrown from one of the tower windows. I'd declare her call to adventure as the moment she watches her father die. She makes a decision to take revenge on those who want to hurt her family.

Crossing the first threshold and jumping into the belly of the beast happens almost at the same time. When Arya is captured by the Lannisters and escapes, she realizes she has no choice but to cut her hair off, act like a boy, and survive in Flea Bottom of King's Landing. Her survival in this moment is her christening into the rest of her heroic journey.

In the second book, Arya finally escapes King's Landing and the real-world elements brings her down a literal road of trials. She comes across a burning town, and meets her companions who will lead her on this series of trials to maturity. Then, she's captured by one of the Lannister's monsters, Ser Gregor Clegane. On this hard journey to uncertain safety, she creates a mantra of all those she plans to kill. It's obvious she's becoming more than just a child very fast. Finally, she gets to Harrenhal, but her hero's journey has yet to reach its climax. She faces her crucifixion when she has a spiritual awakening in Braavos (in the third novel, A Feast for Crows). As yet, she has not reached the end of her heroic journey, but hopefully, George RR Martin will share her journey through the end before he dies.

Week Five: Lessons on Good and Evil with Witches

The witches in Red as Blood are completely stereotypical, but for good reason; the writer is teaching the reader multiple lessons about good and evil, using fairytale-like stereotypes.

Bianca was quickly established as an evil witch from the way she spread her plague: "The wasting sickness suddenly began again, and there was no cure." She was dangerous to everyone around her. Descriptions of Bianca were stereotypical throughout; skin white as snow, mouth red as blood, and skin smoking as fire does.

In contrast, the Witch Queen's innocent offerings were seen as hurtful to young Bianca. The Witch Queen stereotypically offered a "crucifix of golden filigree", yet Bianca would not even touch it. During these interactions, the stereotype that good is in touch with God and evil is in touch with Lucifer shines through. The Witch Queen would often refer to her holy bible, "bound in rosy silk".

This writer depicts women as strong and cunning. It's even emphasized by contrasting with the male intelligence (or lack of) depicted. For example, while the Witch Queen was offering young Bianca holy and christened items, the father was clueless in why Bianca would never touch holy items. It was right in front of his face, and he never realized how in-touch with evil she was. Bianca even lied multiple times to manipulate her father into thinking her reasoning was for something other than her connection with darkness, "I do not like to think of Our Lord dying in agony on His cross. She means to frighten me. Tell her to take it away."

Week Three J-horror

The three recurring themes in the Japanese and Asian horror genre are vengeful spirits, protagonist's personal or environmental existential crisis, and a sense of emptiness of contemporary life. In Of a Mirror and a Bell, the most stunning theme incorporated into this genre was the vengeful spirit.

The language this text was simple and similar to the translated texts I read as a practicing Buddhist. The story is folktale-like, where the writer makes connections to Japanese myth and ancient stories. A spirit in J-horror can tangibly affect its environment, and vice versa as well.

This text demonstrates vengeful and tangible spirits in a multitude of ways. The inciting incident was when the to-be spirit who gave her heirloom mirror to build the temple's bell, began to regret her offering so much so that she "longed for some chance to steal the mirror, and hide it." This paragraph foreshadows the anger and regret that drives her spirit to trap itself inside the mirror. The writer emphasizes that because of this, her "selfish soul [remained] attached to the mirror, [keeping] it hard and cold in the midst of the bell's furnace. The most obvious injection of this theme is when the woman leaves her suicide note promising wealth to someone who breaks her spirit's connection with the heirloom. This 'spell' affected those who participated in breaking the bell as well as similar objects that people broke for wealth. An example of how spirits interact with their environment is when a woman beat on a representation of the bell until it broke. When it shattered, a man came up to them and asked what the racket was. When he found out why he gave them 300 ryo in gold.

Week Ten's Sci-Fi Cuisine from 1962

Last weekend, an expedition was in order. My journey, left unplanned, brought me to Brant’s Bookstore. There, I came across stacks of old, brown magazines. They were issues of Galaxy Magazine, an anthropology that developed the science-fiction genre and several sub-genres, into what they are today. Amongst the stack, I picked up Galaxy Magazine 1962, and in it, I found Gourmet by Allen Kim Lang.

This short story is set in a space cruiser traveling to Mars which would take 6 months to get to. Before we meet our protagonist, Allen Kim Lang introduces us to nouns that sound similar to today’s linguistic’s, but are different enough to let the viewer know that this timeline's language has some kind of alien linguistics injected into it. With words like 'fo’c’s’le', ‘Lobscousers', and 'Saccharomycodes’ it’s obvious we’ve learned to coexist with alien life. Then, the writer goes on to describe the concept of an impending space-war, but Kim Lang doesn’t specify who or what we’re going to war with. Apparently, this war is why they’re headed to Mars, and it’s why the Captain of this cruiser is a militaristic hard-ass. After establishing concepts pertinent to the setting, we meet chef Robert Bailey, who’s challenged by the Captain to create masterful dishes using Chlorella algae, which they picked from ‘cis-Martian space’. The idea of algae on humanoid-alien worlds reflects the sci-fi idea that aliens are more similar to us humans than we might believe. Additionally, the algae aren't just used for food; it’s chemically manipulated into oxygen and water as well. It’s clear the writer believes we can use plant matter to survive usually inhabitable areas.

Sci-fi in the 20th century has clearly played a role in the development of our world today. Although he most likely wasn’t the first to write about it, Allen Kim Lang’s idea about using plants to survive parallels with today's belief that we don’t have to use plants as just food. We use plants to develop renewable energy, various utilitarian tools, and stem cell research. However, with our willingness to manipulate plant life, we’ve created businesses like Monsanto. In an effort to make our food as genetically perfect as possible, these types of businesses have poisoned the human race with harsh pesticides and antibiotics that make us sick. 

New Weird Goes to the Freaks and Demons

Cirque du Freak was my favorite novel series as an adolescent because I fit right in. The first novel starts with an ordinary boy named Darren and his ordinary friend Steve getting free tickets to the Cirque du Freak. This novel quickly turns freaky when a gothic vampire and a spider force them to change their lives forever.
As the series develops, Cirque du Freak reveals more of its performers. There's a snake boy, wolfmen, 'little people', Vampires and Vampaneze, of course a bearded lady, and a mysterious (probably not human) man named Mr. Tall. In this series of circus performers, my transgender identity made me feel like I would fit right in.
The first strange occurrence in this New Weird novel series is when Mr. Crepsley, the vampire with the spider counterpart controlled her every will with a flute. Some more weird occurrences were when the mysterious Mr. Tall destroyed a character's body and transferred their memories to a new, vacant body. Perhaps weirdest of all, Mr. Crepsley, a powerful vampire, died of dramatic natural causes made worse by hypothermia. These unusual happenings bend the reader's perception of the world they're experiencing. These weird events are the only elements that keep the audience from thinking everything's happening on this timeline.

Week 1: Gothic Elements As Told by George RR Martin

George RR Martin's short story The Sandkings is one of the creepiest science fiction-gothic-thriller pieces I've read in a while. Martin tells a story about a rich man named Simon Kress, who's obsession with exotic pets and ruthless violence leads him to his own demise.

Kress lives in a high-tech house in the middle of nowhere. It's his own castle of sorts. The tension builds when an exotic pet store owner sells Kress extremely dangerous and hilariously tiny Sandkings. The store owner warned Kress that their ability to go to war with each other when inhabiting the same space could be dangerous, but Kress never heed the omen.

Through Kress's abusive and neglectful treatment of the Sandkings, they started to hate him. Kress was angry the Sandkings didn't want to battle for territory in their sand-filled aquarium, but these pets were pushed to a point of no return. As they got larger, starved and were forced to kill each other, their hate for their owner grew, until they literally took over his house. RR Martin bumped up the creep factor when the insects' sentient queen absorbed herself into the basement walls and became the house, dead-set on killing Simon Kress. 

Another nuance of gothic writing includes the treatment of women. Kress, being the tyrannical main character he is, threatened the female pet store owner of killing her business if the Sandkings didn't entertain his party guests adequately. Lastly, the main character goes through acutely intense emotions throughout the course of this story. His affinity for anger foten jumps to impatient distraughtness, but then climaxes when he rekindles anger for his ex girlfriend. Driven by romantic vengeance, he ends up screwing his good karma for the rest of his short life (no spoilers).

Vampires Through the World of Richelle Mead

When we think of vampires, we think of Richelle Mead's villainous type, the Strigoi, however in her world, not all vampires are evil. This is a truth that rings throughout the entire series. However, this kind of evil vampire often chooses to be turned. Like being an asshole in real life, Moroi (Mead's humanistic type of vampire) make the decision to become Strigoi because of the payoff. For power and immortality, Moroi willingly lose their ability to feel sadness, fear, guilt, love; they sacrifice their humanity.
Many power-hungry people hide their emotions for just this reason. When just trying to maintain their place of power, a less humanistic person will often find an opportunity to step over others to get what they want. However, Mead emphasizes that not all vampires lack humanistic values. The long and weathered relationship between the Moroi (good vampires) and Strigoi communicates that not all folks in places of power are without morals or greedy.