Well, Christmas is here. In a day. It sure came quickly this year, didn't it?
There are lots of things I could talk about with Christmas. I could talk about the over-commercialization and glorification, and the fact that most of the traditional Christmas story isn't actually true and was moved to winter to counter pagan ceremonies. There are a lot of things I could talk about.
But the thing about it is, all that is very cynical. True? Sure. But also very cynical. And I don't consider myself a cynical person. I am, however, honest.
And quite honestly, I really don't care that Christmas is all about commercializing everything. I love buying my friends and family presents that I'd overheard them saying was on their list. Now I know I've gotten them something they actually wanted, and I can feel good in knowing that I gave them something. And yes, there is also a good feeling in recieving too. I wouldn't attribute that all to pure greed, though. Isn't it nice just to know that someone thought about you, about what you would like, thought about making you feel good? Isn't that in itself just a wonderful warm feeling?
Not to mention that without the commercialization of Christmas, we wouldn't have a lot of wonderful things. Things like the movie Love Actually, or It's a Wonderful Life, or A Christmas Story, or even How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Stories about love, about the goodness of people, about the payoff of helping others above yourself, about family, about the spirit of unity and kindness. It's not all complete bullcrap. Yes, some parts of it are completely manufactured to get you to spend money, and maybe in other circumstances I would be griping about it, but we're not spending for ourselves, are we? We spend for others. Because we actually care, that's why. And that's the heart of the reason that I don't even pretend to be annoyed by the commercialization of Christmas. Because if there was anything for society to be pressuring us to do, as far as things go, buying gifts for the people you care about is not actually an awful thing.
Just drown yourself in the spirit of love and caring and joy and all that jazz! Also, drown yourself in egg nog. That stuff is the nectar of the gods.
So, with that, merry Christmas to everyone. Happy Hannukkah, if that's your thing. Have a fantastic Kwanzaa. What did the pagans celebrate? The solstice? Have a wonderful that. And hey, if you choose not to celebrate anything, that's fine too. Just enjoy the goodness of others. This may be the one time of year where it's fashionable to be kind to others, and you shouldn't take that for granted just because it stems from a celebration you choose not to partake in.
Just something to think about.
So, I hope that by the end of the holiday season, your heart has been reasonably warmed against the cold of December. That is, if it's cold where you are. Of course, I'm here in Vancouver, so just maliki liki maka, I guess! xD
I can't think of a good way to finish this post, so here's some Love Actually for you. If you can watch this without smiling even a little bit, then I'm pretty sure you don't have a soul. Also, if you haven't watched Love Actually, you really have to do that. Now enjoy the spirit of love and Christmas.
That is a series of books that I loved when I was in grade five.
And I still love to this day.
I always feel a little embarrassed, because when people ask about my favourite books, I say Misery, Duma Key, Hitchhiker's Guide, and oh yeah, Artemis Fowl. It was written for ten year olds, which is why everyone looks at me funny after I say it, but oh my god, the series is brilliant. I have accidentally (but inevitably) fallen back into the series for what is umpteenth time of an uncountable number of times in my life, but I always find myself burning the midnight oil to finish the book I've already read a hundred times previously. So, this is the obligatory rant associated with it.
General plot summary:
Artemis Fowl the Second, son of Artemis Fowl Senior, an irish crime lord with a large fortune gained by means that were mostly illegal. Except Artemis Fowl Senior got attacked by the russian mafia and is now missing, presumed dead, somewhere in the arctic, and Angeline Fowl, the wife, has basically gone insane with grief, to the point where she sometimes does not even recognize her own son. This leaves Artemis Fowl the Second, who is twelve years old, in charge of running the family business. However, the Fowl estate and fortune is not in incapable hands; it just so happens that this particular twelve year old is a genius and a criminal mastermind (I think one of the examples, besides the action packed adventures, is that he beat the world chess champion in six moves). It also happens that he's at just the in-between age where he's young enough to believe in fairies and magic, but old enough to want to exploit it (which is what his father taught him anyways; Aurum est potestas is the Fowl family motto, which means Gold is power). Fairies are real, of course. They live under the earth's crust, away from the rampant plague of humans destroying the world with violence and pollution and all manner of things. And in Haven City, the main capital of the fairy world, there is a woman police officer named Holly Short, a captain in the LEP (Lower Elements Police). Because she's a recon officer, this makes her a LEPrecon. Get it? LEPrecon? Like leprechaun? I friggin' love this series so much.
Anyways, long story short, Artemis kidnaps Holly and holds her ransom for fairy gold. After a lot of fighting, sieges, threats and underhanded schemes from both sides, Artemis manages to outsmart the fairies - which is not easy, considering they're at the very least fifty years beyond our technology, and also have magic, and..... various other specials skills. I don't want to spoil too much, but you know me. I'm going to go ahead and spoil it anyways.
The main players in the series are, of course, Artemis, his bodyguard/servant/one man army who is aptly called Butler (that's like, legit his name though), Holly Short, the LEP technical consultant Foaly (who is a centaur so he's called Foaly hardy har har), who is even a match for Artemis intellectually, LEP Commander Julius Root, and the kleptomaniac dwarf Mulch Diggums. Also appearing is Butler's sister, Juliet, and the recurring villain of the hour, the evil pixie Opal Koboi, who also happens to be a genius. Literally, by the end of the series there are five geniuses running around saving/destroying the world (Artemis, Foaly, Opal, the nemesis-turned-ally Minerva, and Artemis's little brother Myles).
First thing I loved about the series: it was clever. I mean, LEPrecon? HOW did they come up with that? Freakin' brilliant. Not to mention all of Artemis's outlandish, but genius and impressively believable plans. Amazing.
Second thing: if you know me, you know I love to laugh. Humour is something I love to constantly surround myself with, and something that has huge value to me. And the sense of humour in these books is flipping fantastic. Every single character has a smart aleck mouth on them that'll make you laugh out loud, from Artemis's withering brand of sarcasm to Holly's dryness, to Foaly delighting in his own annoyingness to Root's overly-macho routine, to Mulch's delight in having people hate him. Even Butler gets a quip in here and there. Just hilarious.
There was an exchange I read in one of the short stories that the author wrote along with the eight books, and it made me literally laugh out loud. It's Holly's initiation into the LEPrecon unit, and she's the first female in, so Root is skeptical. And he says,
"You have twenty minutes to cry, or pray, or whatever it is you females do. Then I'm comin' a-callin'."
to which Holly replies:
"Yessir. I'm going to start crying presently. Soon as you're over the horizon."
Methinks that was probably funnier in the story.
Oh, that story also included Root's brilliant line:
"Would you shut your trap? I'm trying to swallow my pride here!" Another line that made me literally laugh out loud.
Or how about when Artemis is trying to teach his little brothers how to order food in french, and little three-year-old Myles calls him a simpleton? These geniuses are just the best.
OH OH or how about when Artemis and Minerva first talk, and they go into this whole "UGH no one understands my intellectual jokes, it's so hard being a genius" conversation. Butler'd already been making jokes that Minerva was Artemis's girlfriend (to which the response was generally, "Wow, real mature Butler"), and as Artemis gets off the phone, Butler says, "So, how'd your first real conversation with a female go?" and Artemis replies with sarcasm to drown in, "Fabulous. We're planning a June wedding." Just cracks me up everytime.
Now, the series is obviously about growing up and stuff, which Artemis does - he goes from kidnapping fairies (and nearly killing a few of them) in book one to sacrificing his own life to save the human race in book eight. Pretty dramatic change. And I heartily appreciate that side of the series.
But what interests me more about the series is that it's about love. Family love, parental love, sibling love, friend love, everything except romantic love - and frankly, that's okay with me. We don't need romance in a book series about a teenage boy who considers wearing jeans and a T-shirt the most horrible of indignities and doesn't yet know how to talk to anyone without sounding pretentious and superior. I mean, this is partly why I love Artemis, I'm just sayin' that I do not begrudge the author at all for not introducing romance. In fact, I'm thankful. There are enough books about that stuff, and I've never cared about it.
ANYWAYS, my point is that this series is, more than anything, I would argue, about love. Yes, Artemis is nasty (not evil - don't be so quick to use the word evil), and the author has literally said that he named him Artemis Fowl because Artemis was the goddess of the hunt and Fowl sounds like Foul, so actually Artemis's name basically means foul hunter. BUT everything he ever does in the series is out of love. He only hunts the fairies not necessarily for greed (which he does undeniably have an abundance of - he was brought up to think like that) but to be able to have enough money to rescue his father who has been missing, presumed dead, in the arctic for over a year already. That is how much he loves his father. Also, let's not forget that at this point, his mother has been suffering from a crippling form of depression ever since Artemis Senior disappeared, and oftentimes his mother does not even recognize him. In the first interaction we encounter between Artemis and his mother, she says "Stop calling me Mother. I don't know who you are but you're certainly not my Arty." To which Artemis is forced to reply, "Of course, Mrs. Fowl. This is the last you'll see of me." Like, excuse me, my heart just broke. How does this happen within two chapters of a book?
TANGENTTANGENTTANGENT
I think my point was that, in spite of the fact that Artemis is not necessarily a NICE character (or even a happy character - now there's a thought), he is undeniably a LOVING character. This has motivated him to: heal his mother's depression (by bribing a fairy but still), rescue his father from the russian mafia, bring Butler back from technically being dead for twelve hours, bring a dead Holly back to life using complicated time-stream weirdness, go back in time in order to save his mother from a mysterious disease, and eventually sacrifice his own life. No, Artemis is not a nice character. Not in the least. He's conniving, untrustworthy, superior, greedy and generally just less than charming - and no, these qualities aren't very much altered even by the end of the last book. But you know what else he is? Loyal. Loving. Competent (which is very much an under-statement). His determination meter is equal to the circumference of the earth. And if you're in that exclusive circle of people (or People) that Artemis cares about, then he will quite literally go to any length to protect you. All in all, he's not quite the friendly conversationalist, but if he's watching your back then you're safe. Period.
I've talked a lot about Artemis's family (not nearly enough about the Butlers or the twins, but I may or may not get back to them), but now let's talk about Artemis, Holly, and the People. In book one, Artemis kidnaps her and holds her for ransom. Which, you know, is a less than endearing introduction, especially considering that Holly's a goddam LEPrecon badass that could have knocked the infuriating Mud Boy (the People's name for humans) to kingdom come if they'd not been on Fowl turf. As it was, Holly left Fowl Manor having to be satisfied with a punch to the Mud Boy's nose and half the ransom back in fairy hands. EXCEPT GUESS WHAT? There's another plot in Haven City that involves humans. And their number one suspect is Artemis Fowl.
Surprisingly enough, Artemis actually is innocent of something. Has no idea of this plot. But they manage to strike an uneasy deal where Artemis helps them with the plot (which turns out to be the first phase of the goblin rebellion) if they help him save his father from the russian mafia. The second book ends with Artemis and Holly not necessarily liking each other, but definitely having a mutual respect, something that Artemis had never anticipated - his intellectual superiority over most other people meant that most people he met were not considered worthy of his respect.
By the end of the series, Artemis and Holly had saved the world five times together, and there were definitely things that Artemis did along the way that seemed unforgivable, the secretive manipulative Mud Boy, but the important thing is that the two seem to at least understand each other and their motives. By the end of the series, they're good friends.
Here's a thought. Artemis and Holly are character foil (a term I learned in english class and have been eager to find examples of in my analysis practises). They exist as opposites in order to complement the other and highlight the qualities in each other that are important to the books. For instance, Holly's recklessness and split-second reactions to stressful situations highlight the fact that Artemis is able to foresee almost everything in a way that is very chess-player-like, and vice versa. Artemis has an irritating way of seeing everything in a very academic and detached way, leading his life with his brain. Holly is an extremely emotional character who often disobeys direct orders from her commander(s) in order to save lives, decidedly leading her life with her heart. This is at the core of what makes the two of them such a great team. Huh. Analyzing books is fun, isn't it? (This is what I am doing on my Friday night god I'm such a nerd).
Any other notable aspects of the book? Holly and Artemis, love, growing up, humour, family, hmmmm...... Okay. Let's talk about the villains of Artemis Fowl.
In the first book, it took me a while to figure out who the real villain was, because the conflict is undeniably character vs. character, and it pains me to say it because I love the kid, but Artemis is the villain of that book. And you know what? He was one of the most rounded and relatable villain characters I'd ever read about before. (How is it possible that a character so unlike any other can be simultaneously so relatable?) I've spent far too much time contemplating the balance between antagonist Artemis and protagonist Artemis (which is funny because in The Time Paradox, it literally becomes an Artemis vs. Artemis epic showdown) and after much debate amongst myself, I've come to the conclusion that Artemis is the villain of the first book, against the fairies. And an incredible and fascinating villain he was, too.
But it all kind of went downhill from there.
Don't get me wrong, I love the villains of Artemis Fowl. The ultra-narcissist megalomaniac Opal Koboi is to die for, Abbot the demon is wonderfully evil, Spiro proves that all businessmen are probably the devil, Turnball Root (recognize the name? He's Commander Root's older brother) is a positively delectable villain. It's all very entertaining.
My problem is that the well-rounded villain that I'd gotten a taste of in Artemis Fowl was not what followed.
Opal Koboi, the recurring villainess of the hour, a super-genius megalomaniac and probably more self-absorbed than Narcissus himself, is delightfully entertaining. Her plans are unpredictable, shocking, intricate, and positively operatic in the melodrama that ensues. Her narcissism has her thinking she can read people's minds, and only a character such as this, with such an overwhelming personality, can pull off the cliche "I want to watch them suffer, right after I tell them my entire evil plan". Which she does. On a regular basis.
As fun as she is to read about, she has no motive for her acts. Nothing to make her a rounded character. Just some world domination with a side of gruesome revenge, if you please. She's actually quite cliche. Which is, at least in part, what makes her so extremely entertaining, but from a character perspective it's a little bit of a let-down.
Spiro. Spiro was fun. One of those businessmen just booming with confidence, thought he was all that, and was able to pay a lot of people to make sure he was, in fact, all that. I mean, he didn't know what he was dealing with when he set out to kidnap Artemis. But he was a worthy foe, not by intellect of course, but because he had a lot of power on his side, and constantly had the upper hand. It's just the same problem though, isn't it? It's all about greed. And I know in my post about villains I said that my favourites were the ones who were just inexplicably evil for no real reason, which continues to be true (it's no coincidence that the book Spiro appears in is one of my favourites), but I do like characters with a few dimensions.
Abbot. Talking of inexplicable evil. The demon who took over the body of a warlock, killing him for no reason besides straight-up idiocy. Has got more brawns than brains - his mind is not where the threat lies. The threat lies in the fact that he's been ruling all the demons with a Hitler-like regime against humans and warlocks and every fairy that didn't continue fighting humans in the war. This is the only villain who seems to do the things he does for no conceivable reason at all. He's still fun to read about, don't get me wrong, because inexplicable evil is my favourite, but a lot of it seems oddly pointless.
Turnball Root. This one's my favourite, besides Artemis himself. This is for a few reasons. Firstly, backstory. He's the brother of Commander Julius Root, and was arrested and thrown in jail by him (and in one of the author's short stories, you see a whole bit between the two of them in which Turnball rants to Julius about jealousy and renders Julius helpless as a kitten, which is simply delicious). Secondly, he's not as smart or self-absorbed as Opal Koboi, which would make him almost comical, as Opal is. He is, however, quite smart enough to kill a lot of people from a jail cell thank you very much, and quite self-absorbed enough to be convinced of his own victory. If you've ever seen Speed, he's quite a bit like the terrorist in that movie. Not a genius, but quite smart. Not straight-coat, solitary confinement insane, but quite crazy enough to disregard a lot of lives to reach his own goals. One of my favourite interactions happen between Julius Root and Turnball Root in the short story:
(Turnball's about to feed a LEPrecon a spider that will literally tear it's way through his insides and kill him) Julius (weak as a newborn kitten, can't even stand up without throwing up kinda thing): Turnball, no. Turnball: I must. Think of it as already done. Julius: Turnball. It's murder. Turnball: Murder is a word. Just another word.
Thirdly: The guy's got class. You know those classy villains, that know just when to stop talking and just how to get the upper hand and has a billion cards up his sleeve, and never really loses his cool? He's like that. Which is awesome. Fourthly: Motive. It's not greed. It's not power. None of that stuff. It's simply about freedom. He wants to be free of the fairies that have been hunting him down for centuries (fairies live a really long time), and sure, maybe some revenge as a side-project, but his main goal is just being free. Strangely relatable, dontcha think? Fifthly: There was a quote from James Marsters, and I can't remember exactly how it goes, but it was to the effect of "In order to play a good villain, you need to find the love." Something I whole-heartedly agree with. Well, the author found the love with Turnball Root. His forbidden human wife, who he saved from a plane crash. They die together on her last flight ever. THESE are the dimensions I've been looking for. Not enough for us to totally sympathize with the villain, but enough to see that evil plans aren't the only things running around their minds, y'know?
Anyways. Villains. They're cool. Yeah.
Alright, let's talk Atlantis Complex.
In book seven of the series, Artemis starts showing actual, legitimate remorse for the crimes he committed in the past. Which is quite a bit of growth on his part. The problem with this is that, because he stole magic from the time-stream, this remorse shows up as the mental illness the Atlantis Complex, commonly in those with a guilty conscience, and generally exclusive to fairies, but because of his meddling with magic that didn't belong to him...
The Atlantis Complex seems to have symptoms of just about everything. OCD and psychosis mainly, and in extreme cases, multiple personality. It just so happens that Artemis has an extreme case. Which means that when he hits his head (after freaking out that all his friends were trying to kill him), he switches from our calculating, ruthless Artemis to whimsical and romantic Orion. (I'm just going to stop this right here - Orion. That's brilliant, isn't it? Because Artemis and Orion were enemies in greek mythology... the amount of mythological references in these books, man...) Orion has nowhere near the intellect that Artemis does - in fact, he's kind of a half-wit. Not that Artemis would be a whole lot of help either, considering he was in the middle of a total breakdown, but Orion is particularly unhelpful considering that Turnball Root is trying to kill everybody.
Now, mental illness of any kind is a touchy subject. There's a lot of things that are generally misunderstood about it - I am, of course, thinking of the whole "Have you tried NOT being depressed?" and "Doesn't it bother you that you have to take meds to feel normal?" mentality. And I was very happy to note that the author did not make these kinds of mistakes. Foaly and Holly don't blame Artemis for his illness, they just try to help him get through it. Not even willpower of Artemis's caliber brings him back to reality, because it isn't something he can help, can it? True enough. And then, in the end, he was seeing a psychiatrist, which is another move the author made that I approve of.
The only thing I would argue about is Artemis's "full recovery". Is it possible to fully recover from a mental illness? Well, I'm not an expert, but I'm fairly sure mental illness is something that can be... let's say, subdued, but never vanquished, y'know? Still, though, it never precisely said he didn't struggle, it just said that he'd recovered. So I suppose even there my argument doesn't have a whole lot of purpose. It didn't talk about it a whole lot after the seventh book, though.
Because after that is the eighth book, the grand finale of the series and holy wow stuff goes down. Full spoilers ahead, guys. Opal Koboi makes herself an ultra-powerful being, for one, and the second thing is that Artemis sacrifices his life to save humankind and HE DIES HOW COULD THEY DO THIS TO ME.
I guess it's not as bad as all that. I mean, he came back at the end. He'd been dead for six months, and what happened was that Foaly made a clone, as Artemis had instructed him to, and Artemis's spirit was able to possess it, as Artemis had essentially been existing as a ghost for six months, held on this plane by pure willpower. My problem with this is that, though the spirit is the same and the clone is almost exactly the same, IT ISN'T THE SAME. For one thing, the clone has six toes on one foot. We can thank Foaly for that one. But that's not as big a deal to me. The big deal to me is that the clone has TWO BLUE EYES. Ever since Holly and Artemis went through the time-stream together, they'd switched eyes, meaning they each had one hazel (from Holly) and one blue (from Artemis). And Artemis having two blue eyes, it just, it just seems to completely erase the history the two had shared in the long and eventful journey of their eventually becoming friends. Not to mention the fact that Artemis had completely forgotten who everyone was. That's bad also.
Argh. It was a satisfying end to the series, no doubt, with Artemis pulling the greatest trick out of his hat he'd ever pulled and cheating death, PLUS the incredible amount of growth implied by his sacrifice. These are all good things. But it also left me very upset, and that may or may not stem from the fact that there are no more books in the series.
I need cheering up now. Let's talk about Myles and Beckett. That should do it.
Artemis unexpectedly finds himself with twin three-year-old brothers, and has absolutely no clue how to handle it. This is very amusing. And also so cute. It's obvious that Artemis absolutely and completely adores his brothers, but especially in the case of Beckett, he just doesn't get them. Beckett is an average three year old boy, who delights in mischief. However, his twin Myles is an Artemis in miniature. Absolutely hilarious. Calls people "simpleton" and complains that his favourite loafers are ruined, and knows the periodic table of elements by heart and speaks with the same vocabulary that Artemis himself does. It's just so cute. I love the twins. I wish there'd been more of them in the series.
So, I think I've milked the series for everything I wanted to discuss. That should do it. I'd just like to add that the title of this..... casual essay, applies to both this post and the series itself. Mind=blown.
Also, if they do end up doing a movie of this series, as they've been planning to for a good decade or something (and I think I read somewhere that the author is currently working on the screenplay?) THEY HAD BETTER NOT BLOODY BOTCH IT. I AM DEADLY SERIOUS ABOUT THIS. IF THIS TURNS INTO ANOTHER INKHEART THEN I AM GOING TO HURT SOMEONE.
Thought I'd throw that out there.
[Edit: I just found out. The movie's moved out of "development hell" into pre-production. They're melding the first two books into one movie. I've spent a good hour today rocking back and forth in a corner worrying that they're going to completely butcher the entire thing. I know they will, I just KNOW that they will...]
Now, I'm currently in love with this music video created for the Artemis Fowl tour that the author went on. There were two songs that I've found: Call Me Artemis Fowl, and Complex: Atlantis. I find myself really not liking the Call Me Artemis Fowl one, but Complex: Atlantis has grown on me quite a bit, and the video that they created along with the song is very compelling and, well, just awesome. So here ya go. So you can appreciate it as well.
Hint: the empty white room? Is Artemis's mind. Boom. Also, there's a moment where it flickers between a serious Artemis and ruffled-hair smiling one, and that's the switch between Artemis and Orion. I just really enjoy this video in general.
Obligatory awesome quote from the book:
"If I win, I'm a prodigy. If I lose, then I'm crazy. That's the way history is written."
P.S I thought I was done but I discovered more Artemis Fowl awesomeness today.
Turns out that while the author was on his Artemis Rocks! tour to promote The Atlantis Complex, he was, first of all, making vlogs of his touristing, and second of all, touristing with someone who cosplayed as Artemis the whole time. This is hilarious because A) they stick out like a sore thumb - a grey-haired Irish guy wandering around with a teenager dressed in a suit and mirrored sunglasses - B) because the author is actually a really funny guy (he'd have to be, he thought up the characters Mulch and Foaly, didn't he?) and C) the guy who cosplays Artemis is really really good at staying in character. And all in all it's just awesome and is currently my favourite thing.
Okay, I'm seriously done now. I promise. Well, I can't promise anything. But I'm fairly certain I'm finished.
[NOTE: I am not talking about the movie. Don't get me wrong, the movie is pretty great as well, in it's own right, BUT I am talking about the book, which, while it holds the same concept, differs quite a bit. Just something to keep in mind. Even though Kathy Bates is quite an impressive actress.]
I just finished my first re-reading of the book "Misery" by Stephen King.
I loved it the first time and I think I love it even more now.
I am aware that certain people would prefer to argue that books and movies such as this are little more than gruesome horror, that it's just pointless and stupid and sadistic and gross. But what you must understand, what I must make you understand, is that this book in particular is so much MORE than that.
Look; if you are in the midst of reading the book or would like to, stop reading here. I don't want to spoil what is an incredible experience for newcomers. But if you don't want to read the book or already have, then please, join me, spoilers and all.
Now here's the thing; there ARE gruesome bits in it. Yes, I will grant you that. Fine. But this book is not, for instance, The Shining. After reading The Shining I could not walk into my bathroom without checking the bathtub for stray dead people for a couple months. This book is not that. At least, not in the same way.
If this book keeps you up at night, it is not because you're imagining things crawling out from under your bed. It's because this book makes you ask questions. Simple questions, like "How?" as in "How did he survive?" and "Why?" as in "Why was she like that, why did she do that?" In short, this book is fantastic because it is utterly and extraordinarily fascinating.
If you do not know the premise of the book, let me clear that up:
A popular writer (Paul Sheldon), mostly known for his melodramatic, house-wife-pleasing romance novels, a series about a character called Misery Chastain, heads off to Vegas with a new, action-packed manuscript about a car thief. He gets in a car crash, shatters most of his lower body. I mean, his pelvis was broken, both of his legs are just shattered, the whole thing. He is found by a woman called Annie Wilkes who recognizes him as her favourite writer, and rescues him from his car. But instead of taking him to the hospital like a normal person, she takes him home and has him heal in her guest bedroom. ("I'm your number one fan!") Because she's an ex-nurse, she has a lot of medical supplies apparently just kind of lying around her house, such as a painkillers, anesthesia, and needles. It doesn't take long for Paul to realize that he isn't a guest here; he's a prisoner. She's never going to let him leave.
So why is this book so incredible?
Well, there's a few things.
First of all, just consider this; there are two characters in the entire book. I mean, okay, three cops show up near the end, but they're not really characters, just plot devices with about a line of dialogue each. So think of that - most of the book only contains two characters interacting with each other.
Now consider this: only about maybe sixty percent of the book has them interacting. The meat of the book takes place in Paul Sheldon's head. Which makes it sound boring, but oh my god is it ever not. I've never gotten so immersed in a book as I have in Misery. I've never stayed up half the night trying to finish the final quarter of a book like I have with Misery (which is ironic because now I'm sad it's over). Misery is one of those books I read non-stop for hours before I finally realized I may want to actually do some homework.
Misery is the definition of a psychological thriller.
Just imagine it like this: he's trapped in a house with a woman who is clearly insane, someone who has done horrible, awful things to him, the worst of which being cutting off his foot with an axe. He loathes her, despises her, had in fact planned to stick a knife in her throat right before she found it and performed the footectomy.
BUT
He also relies so heavily on her. He relies on her for food, water, for his painkillers, for everything. In the book he often refers to her as the goddess, because she controls whether he lives or dies, whether he suffers or not, everything. He hates her, but there are so many instances in the book that has him crying and pleading with her.
The thing is, Misery is not gruesome horror. There are gruesome parts to it, but that isn't the book. The book is a slow and captivating study of the breaking of Paul Sheldon's mind.
For instance, the book starts with him often attempting to reason with her. He knows she's crazy, but he tries nonetheless. And then she goes and does something so awful and horrible that no matter how many times I read the scene I just can't stand it.
After she discovers he killed off the character Misery Chastain, she makes him burn his book.
Not a paperback copy. No. She forces him to choose between possibly slipping into a coma or burning his one and only manuscript of his unpublished book about the car thief. He burned it. I don't think anyone but writers can understand the sheer, undying agony that is for the soul.
There was the punching him in his shattered knee for complaining about typewriter paper. Then, because he made her angry at some point - I don't recall the exact reason - after making him suffer without giving him his painkillers, she made him drink from a floor bucket full of disgusting water and soap and everything (which sounds not that bad, but it's one of the things that continuously returns in the book - because not only did she cause him intense emotional and physical pain, this is the first instance in the book that really humiliates and dehumanizes him. If Paul Sheldon's mind was made of glass, this would be the first crack). And then, of course, cutting off his foot after she discovered he could leave his room on his own. Cutting off his thumb after he wouldn't tell her how his book ended. These last two were the most important cracks of Paul's mind, which brings me to one of the most fascinating parts of the whole book.
The book isn't in first person, it's in third person, but it's in limited ominscience. Which means we know what Paul's thinking, but no one else. Not Annie, no one. For ninety nine percent of the book we're reading Paul's thoughts and Paul's thoughts only, and by the end of the book they're horribly confused and scared and hopeless and scared and desperate and scared and angry and scared, but they're COHERENT - we are able to understand what he says, what he means, and why he does what he does. But for the one percent that we're not reading Paul's thoughts, for the one scene in which we see it from an outsider's perspective, the cops arrive and find him broken and trembling on the floor of Annie's parlour, and he's turned into an incomprehensible, babbling lunatic. If that scene doesn't get your stomach twisted in knots then I don't know what will. He is so tortured. He is tottering on the edge of insanity and he is clearly losing his balance. That both horrifies me and fills me with an incredible fascination.
There's another scene - right after Annie kills a cop - that really stuck in my head. What she does is she gets Paul and carries him down into her dark, rat-infested cellar. She starts talking about how ungrateful he is. You know, 'All I ever did was rescue you, splint your poor broken legs, feed you, give you medicine, talk you out of a bad book you wrote and convince you to write the best one you EVER wrote.' Paul replies, (in a moment of recklessness - he would usually never talk back to Annie at this point) "You also cut off my f*cking foot!" And she smacks him across the face and starts berating him for using the F word. And it's tiny in comparison, and it's never brought up again, so I was wondering why this scene in particular stuck out to me - after mutilating him and torturing him, why is slapping him something that sticks so strongly to me? - and I think I know why.
The thing about being smacked in the face is that it's just small enough to be petty to bitch about, but just big enough to completely and utterly humiliate you. In a weird roundabout way, being slapped is more dehumanizing than having your foot cut off. Going to all the trouble to amputate his foot the way she did shows that he's worth that. He's worth all that trouble. Obviously it's exercising a wrong sort of control over him - she's playing God, or goddess as he would put it, by, and I quote, "exercising editorial authority over his body" - and it's one of the main things that puts Paul over the edge, has him living in utter fear for the foreseeable future - BUT, and this is a weird and possibly cold-hearted point if you manage to misunderstand me, BUT: This act doesn't send the message that he's not worth anything. It sends the message that she feels the need to diminish how much he IS worth, because she needs to have complete control of her pet writer.
Slapping someone, on the other hand, tells someone that they're just not worth anything. They never had worth, that they're nothing, and they're not even worth any form of effort. And to slap him after him talking about the footectomy shows that she really just doesn't care about him or his pain whatsoever. And then, of course, leaving him helpless in the dark, rat-infested cellar overnight while she hid the body of the cop, was probably the final crack that broke the glass of Paul Sheldon's mind. Again, the pain has him living in tremendous fear, but it's the smaller but more dehumanizing things that really break his mind. I don't think I can tell you how many times the phrase "Now I must rinse" is in the book (a reference to the drinking out of the floor-bucket scene).
Call me sadistic, but that is extremely fascinating.
One other thing I loved about this book, that's possibly less relatable; it describes what it's like to be a writer with incredible accuracy. That makes perfect sense, because obviously the book was written by one, but it's still something where you don't really think about the process until you see it written down somewhere and you go "OH MY GOD THIS IS MY BRAIN". It's clearly a writer's book. It talks about the difference between "getting an idea" and "trying to get an idea", something that I think every writer can relate to. It talks about that sudden stroke of inspiration - he refers to it as the "sweatshop" (the back part of your mind that works really hard to come up with ideas) sending up flares. He talks about that trance that happens when you're writing, where you're somewhere else completely - Paul often uses it to escape Annie's house - he calls it falling through the hole in the paper, and that's accurate too. It's also accurate when the hole sometimes shrinks to the size of a pinhole and you can't tell what's going on within the pages at all - writer's block, basically. And then he talks about how being a writer means remembering every scar you've ever gotten - because, of course, that's where the stories come from - and I thought about it and went "Wow...... it's true." Everything is so true. Not to mention Paul thinking about how, in becoming a writer, he doomed himself to a life of dissection when it comes to books.
Speaking of dissection, there is one thing I love about Stephen King books - he knows how to capture the stream of consciousness. When Paul is panicking in his head, Mr. King writes it with such honesty, and it's just a huge run-on sentence but that makes perfect sense because it's his thoughts, and he's panicking, so it's not polished, or, at some points, even really coherent without some decoding involved. Which is so honest, because who actually has a comprehensible train of thought, especially when thrown into a state of panic?
I would love to talk about symbolism now, but the fact is, I haven't figured it all out yet, and besides it's pretty redundant to what I've already said. If you're willing to have a book club talk with me about Misery, then please do. I would love that.
And if you haven't read it then please, please, do yourself a favour and read Misery. But before you do, try to be open-minded about it. Understand that it's not the freaking Saw movies, it's not meant to be particularly gory or just, y'know... torture-porn. It's not. It's nightmarish for completely different reasons. It is primarily about the terror of being totally at the mercy of someone who exercises none, and it is the story of how an ultra-controlling and psychotic woman drove a once-happy-and-healthy writer to the brink of insanity. There's only one word for it: fascinating. Not to mention that it's brilliantly written. It is so worth the read. I cannot express my adoration. Just arrarararargh. I have no words. Just read it. Absolutely brilliant.
P.S I'd just like to mention, in spite of the note at the beginning of the post, that the book is so so so much better than the movie. Not that the movie wasn't great, because it was, but it didn't capture a lot of what the book was fundamentally about. First of all, Paul Sheldon never loses his nerve in the movie, he never stops trying. He flips Annie off after she "hobbled" him. I suppose it's admirable to have a character with guts, but it misses a lot of the whole point. After Annie "hobbles" Paul, he's scared to even look at her wrong, let alone signal a nice clear "Eff you."
Secondly, the parallels between Paul and the book he's writing, along with all the rest of the psychological defenses that Paul put up, went completely out the window in the movie. It was the stuff like that that made the book so captivating to begin with, and it's kinda disappointing that the movie missed what was such a huge part of the book.
Despite the fact that the screenplay adaptation was less than perfect, and James Caan as Paul Sheldon seemed (to me) less than fabulous, I will happily give them this; Kathy Bates is downright amazing as Annie Wilkes. Fantastic performance on her part. Definitely deserved the Oscar she got for it. And for that reason I would recommend this movie, AFTER having read the book. Seriously though. Read it. You won't regret it.
I posted something a while back advertising MyMusic as my "favourite thing of the week". The thing is that it's grown beyond that and is now one of my obsessions I'm currently juggling, between Whose Line, the Buffyverse and this.
The thing is that I'm not quite sure why I love it as much as I do. I mean, it's a sitcom, and it has its funny moments, but I don't think that that's what got me into it the same way that Whose Line and Community was like that. So what exactly did get me into it?
The relationships between the characters. That's what did it.
I think that I see a reflection of my friend group in the cast of MyMusic. A bunch of very different people with very different tastes, but who generally accept each other for who they are and work together as a team nevertheless (except for the latest episodes in which they drive a professional team-builder to the brink of insanity, but that's not the point).
Let me give you a solid introduction to what this is about:
There are (originally) eight main characters to the show, each named after the genre of music they're into (because "Broad stereotypes are so much easier to remember than names"). They are as follows:
Indie:
Culkin.
Resident hipster. Founder of the MyMusic production company. He can't like anything that's liked by anyone else. His favourite things to say include "You've probably never heard of it", "That's so played out", "It's ironic", and "That's so mainstream". He also made up his own synonym for the word cool called "Culkin", which every MyMusician knows to be the highest compliment Indie can give. He's kind of a jerk, really. Only one person on the show has ever brought out anything resembling a soft side in him, and that would be:
Scene:
I'm Scene, you see!
One of the two interns working at the production company. Often mistaken for being emo, but she's not emo, silly, she's Scene, you see! :D The most naive, innocent one in the show. I'm pretty sure she never actually works, but instead scrolls through Tumblr all day and watches Youtube videos like nyan cat, or Youtubers like Danisnotonfire (which is something I can kinda get behind). Loves anime, wears too much eyeliner. No one in the production company gets her. She's around teenagerish age, and she screams incoherent noises on a regular basis when she's happy, which is most of the time. She also cries everyday at two PM, don't ask her why, she doesn't know, she just knows it has something to do with Tumblr. She may be naive and innocent (which she totally is), but she's the only one in the cast who really inspires any kind of sympathy from other characters. She also has a huge crush on Indie, don't ask me why, I don't get it. Being an intern, and Indie being a jerk, she has to share a desk with the other intern who she's made friends with, aptly named:
Intern 2:
F-f-f-flowcharts are the best
Doesn't like any specific style of music, hence the name. In fact, he was specifically designed to be the most bland character in existence. He's probably the only one there who gets any work done. Possibly gets off on doing work, especially with flowcharts. Don't ask me why. Extremely loyal to his company, considering the abuse he gets put through. He doesn't have particular taste in music, which "doesn't really fly" at MyMusic, and as a result most characters have an arbitrary hatred for him, so he gets regularly abused. As far as I can remember, he's been strangled, beat up, had drinks thrown in his face, used as an ottoman on a regular basis, had his computer smashed, I'm pretty sure Indie once told someone "You can eat him if you want", nearly been fired, head dunked in the toilet, and oh yeah, he's been shot twice. The show's catchphrase is "Shut up Intern 2". Poor guy's got it rough man. There are only two characters who consider themselves friends with Intern 2, and that would be Scene, and:
Nerdcore:
Keep calm and DFTBA
Previously known as Hip Hop. Head of marketing at MyMusic. During all of season 1, he was known as Hip Hop, and he would listen to all the hardcore rap and stuff and be all gangster, until eventually Intern 2 found out that he was actually a poser and was in fact secretly a nerd. It is a grave offense at MyMusic to be found out as a poser (you usually get dragged to the rats) so he and Intern 2 kept that secret until, in an attempt to save the rest of the staff from being fired, he came out as a nerd. It took Indie a little bit to get over his nerdophobia, but eventually he did and Hip Hop got renamed Nerdcore. It is worth mentioning that Nerdcore and Intern 2 have a very notable bromance going on here. In season 1, Intern 2 saved Hip Hop from being found out as a poser and took the fall for having Daughtry on his iPod (everyone at MyMusic has an arbitrary hatred for Daughtry as well. I dunno) since everyone hated him anyways, and then an episode or two later Hip Hop saved Intern 2 from being fired. They're just adorable. Though he and Indie had a strong bond when he was Hip Hop, the bond seems to be stronger with the rest of the staff now that's Nerdcore, because he can genuinely talk to Scene about anime, or talk to a fellow fan of Game of Thrones:
Metal:
What would Jamie King of Slayer do?
The newest addition to MyMusic. Head of production. Has major anger management issues. This isn't new metal, what with Korn or Linkin Park or whatever, this is old-school metal, Slayer and Iron Maiden and stuff. He has problems with authority ("Duh, I'm metal!"), and as a result he's once held the office hostage while Indie was out of commission, locked them in a room and renamed the place Metal Town. Yep. So in some respects he's irresponsible, what with the head-banging and the temper and whatnot, but on the other hand, he has a family. Yep. When he was twelve he got his girlfriend pregnant at a Coal Chamber concert ("We kissed, and then I don't even know what happened"), they had a shotgun wedding, and now his wife has abandoned her metal ways and become a typical fifties house-wife while his fifteen year old daughter, Rayna (who notably had a crush on Intern 2, which forced Metal, in a fit of rage, to... let's say torment him. Yeah, I'll not spoil that tidbit) is just an average teenage girl of today, obsessing over Justin Bieber and One Direction and Metal's there wondering where he went wrong. He's developed a respect for Indie as head of the office, but because of his problems with authority he has butted heads with:
Idol:
She totes invented the duck face. Hashtag natural flawlessness.
The exact opposite of Indie. Head of social media. Everything she likes is the most mainstream stuff out there. All pop all the time. Her name actually derives from the fact that she is a fan of anyone who ever won American Idol. She's shallow, but thoughtfully so, who knows what she wants and what she wants to accomplish, even if the things she wants to accomplish are rather airheadish. Her outer image is very important to her, her social media is very important to her, and her job is very important to her. Fact, she defines herself by being a working woman. A coupla layers there. For a while there, she became a raver rather than her reality TV show watching self, because of:
Techno and Dubstep:
They are plurfect. Boom zubawub brznx.
Who you would think I would define separately, but in fact they're never apart, and nor shall they be here. They're a perfect duo. They handle talent bookings and stuff like that, but really they're just a coupla ravers dancing all day. They're practically a couple by how much time they spend together. Also, Dubstep can only speak dubstep language, and only Techno can understand him/translate for others, so they're basically perfect for each other. Dubstep seems to be the one who takes himself less seriously, while Techno seems quite easily insulted and is quick to retaliate. They're rather disconnected from the rest of the office - there aren't a whole lot of storylines that connect them to the rest of the office for whatever reason, probably because they never actually leave their office/dance party long enough to actually talk to anyone. I love them. They're adorable. :)
Much like my other obsessions, it's an ensemble thing, and so the relationships between the characters play a huge role in the appeal of the show, like Intern 2 and Nerdcore's bromance (they recently hosted an episode of Tumblr Tuesday where they briefly suggested their ship name be Intercore. I died of laughter xD) or Idol and Metal's constant competition for authority, or the dynamic between Indie and Hip Hop/Nerdcore. Not to mention the fact that the show is filled with amazing moments that should be remembered in history of great moments in Internetainment, from the kissing scene in "They Finally Kiss!" to Hip Hop and Intern 2's scene in "State of Shock" to the entire episode of "Party Time!" to the Flowchart Song in "Return of the Hipster" to the group from 4chan in "One Will Die" to the entire episode of "Ghosts" .... the list can go on and on. These are all moments I've watched multiple times just because I love them so much.
Another thing about this show? I sell it as this stupid, ridiculous gimmicky thing, which in some ways it is, but it also has a pretty important theme, which is that no one is just one thing. The characters all begin as one-note stereotypes in an effort to show you how ridiculous it is to stereotype people or think you know everything about a person based on what clothes they wear or what music they listen to. Who would have guessed that Hip Hop was a nerd, or that Metal had a family (actually, to be fair, they were kinda foreshadowing that Hip Hop was not what he seemed, BUT THE POINT STILL STANDS).
On a more behind-the-scenes level, MyMusic is sorta the first of its kind. First of all, the blend of Youtube stars and television stars is awesome - the makers stand by the idea that entertainment is entertainment, so why not have traditional entertainers and Youtube entertainers unite and work together for a common goal? (It's because of this idea that my favourite Youtuber ever on earth in the world is now good friends with an actor from Buffy MY WORLDS ARE COLLIDING I CANNOT HANDLE THIS!) As a result of this, the show stars traditional actors like Adam Busch and Lainey Lipson and Jarrett Sleeper along with Youtube stars like Grace Helbig and Jack Douglass. I just find this awesome because, when you think about it, working on Youtube and working on TV are fundamentally different, so when you put the two together you end up with this refreshing, unified piece of content that manages to balance the good aspects from television with the good aspects of the Internet.
Not only that, but the show NEVER BREAKS THE FOURTH WALL. As in, ever. They work pretty hard to make the MyMusic universe as non-fictional as possible. They accomplish this by creating AND MAINTAINING Facebook/Twitter/Tumblr/Google+/Spotify/everything accounts for not only the main characters, but also minor recurring characters, like the Shaman, the Viking - even Scarfman has a Twitter account. AND HE'S MADE OF SCARVES.
Fact, here's a list of all the social media accounts they've created (a few of them are inactive because the character may have died or something, but most of them are still active). IT'S BOTH INCREDIBLE AND COMPLETELY INSANE.
They also accomplish this by acknowledging the fact that MyMusic is a production company that creates content to do with music and also other things, so every week four shows come out of the MyMusic production company NOT including the so-called "documentary" which is really the main sitcom. Not to mention the fact that they also maintain a MyMusic blog in which every character writes posts about what's new in music or pop culture or whatever.
So if you don't yet understand why that makes it awesome, let me sum it up for you:
A) The characters are all very different, making the relationships between them very interesting.
2) It's filled with moments that will make you want to rewatch them over and over again.
C) For such a ridiculous show, the theme is actually something pretty thought-provoking.
4) It mixes traditional television style entertainment with modern internet style entertainment in a way that just WORKS.
E) THERE'S ALWAYS SOMETHING GOING ON IN THE MYMUSIC UNIVERSE. It may be shown on the social medias, it may be shown in the other shows or just the plain old sitcom, but much like real life, the MyMusic world NEVER STOPS. Which is pretty damn admirable on the part of the writers.
And now, obligatory awesome pictures.
"You're the Amy Pond to my Matt Smith! Companions to the end!" THE BROMANCE IS REAL. LOOK HOW ADORABLE THEY ARE.
Oh, Intern 2 and his flowcharts. Look how happy he looks. One true pairing right here.
"Quickly! Everyone overdramatically do something so they don't think we were looking at them!"
People who know me may have heard me talk about my larger-than-life french teacher, Monsieur Larrivee. He liked and definitely cared about all his students, though regularly got irritated with me not for talking too much but for not talking enough. He had the shyest kid in class stand on their desk and shout. He had nicknames for so many of his students; Alexis was High-maintenance, Josh was Diva, Emerald was Vert (which means green in french), Liv was Blondie. The two Iranian kids were his Atomic Bombs, which often brought him complaints about being racist, but in fact he was just being hilarious, and he always made clear that if he did offend anyone we were free to call him out on it. During the first class he told us that it was okay to swear in class, just so long as we swore in french, and after every class he would bid us play in traffic. Sometimes I thought he was a little cruel, sometimes I thought he was downright hilarious, but I realized after that semester that I'd never learned more at school than in that class.
It's worth mentioning, probably, that Larrivee had the largest collection of frogs ever. Over eight hundred. He doesn't even like frogs. The classroom was absolutely stuffed with stuffies and knickknacks and posters and pictures of frogs everywhere. This started because when he first began teaching, way back in the seventies, he told his first class he had, "Yes, I'm a frog," the racial slur for frenchman. At the end of the semester, as a joke, the class presented him with a frog as a gift. And that continued up until last year, when Larrivee retired and gave all his frogs and various other items to students of his.
We were among his last classes he ever taught, and not only that, we were his favourite that year. He often told us that. Everyone who'd ever had Larrivee for a teacher loved him, even if he could be a little harsh at times. He told us at the beginning of the semester that by the end he'd have an adjective for all of us, and he told us at the end. Mine was "intellectual". I'd never associated that word with myself before, and now I realize that it's both flattering and fitting.
He retired last year at the end of the first semester.
A couple days ago, while vacationing in Japan, he had a heart attack and died.
Of all the things that could have killed him. He was old, but he was healthy. He'd walked to school from his place every day, and I'm sure he stayed just as healthy after he retired. After battling cancer on multiple occasions, taking chemotherapy three or four times, after all that, he died of a heart attack in Japan.
Larrivee may have seemed like little more than a bitter old frenchman, but he wasn't. He had a fair amount of wisdom with all that, and if not wisdom, he had so many stories to be telling. He really was so proud of his skill for storytelling, and he valued auditory intelligence above all other intelligences. There were a lot of stories he never finished telling us.
He was going to accompany a bunch of frenchies to France this year on their field trip.
Larrivee touched the life of every student he ever taught. He will be deeply missed by so many people.
Rest in peace, Monsier Larrivee. Reposez en paix. Vous allez nous manquer.
P.S Larrivee was possibly the only man in the world who would go in front of a school on Terry Fox day, talk about having cancer, and say we need to laugh at it more. In a similar strain, he also once told us, his Conversations class, that it was healthy to laugh at death. It may seem in bad taste, but I have to fully agree. Me and my friend Erin shared our fair share of tears today, and then spent the rest of the day laughing at memories of his class. Remember when he called Jacey Jesus? Remember in improv, Courtney's mime? Remember, how he used to look at Caleb and just go, "Espece de...." (Sometimes he'd finish the sentence with "espece de merde" - this was what he said when someone in the class was irritating him - it was usually Caleb. He was also fond of calling us "les vaches espagnols" if we were speaking particularly bad french, or just looking at us and saying "Vachement" if we'd said something particularly stupid). Remember that time when.... remember that time when...... the list went on and on. So I'm going to enjoy the memories I have of Larrivee, as an appreciation for the wonderful individual he was, and I'm sure he himself would approve of this coping method.
P.S.S If you never had the privilege of meeting Monsieur Larrivee, I found this ten minute audio bit online from one of his former students, and I personally can't listen to it again because I'm going to start bawling like a baby again, but I think it will help other people understand what he was actually like beyond his reputation.
1. He was a writer who wrote poems, books and plays, mostly dark comedy. He used the rules of the Victorian era as a joke in most of his works, hence "satire". The Victorian era was obsessed with rules and courtesy, and the works of Oscar Wilde are obsessed with criticising them.
2. His works are actually really funny. You can look at them as social criticism, but it's not hard to simply appreciate the humour as well, though the subject matter may in fact be rather dark (like blackmail, for instance).
3. He was a style pioneer. He invented the style "dandy" in the Victorian era. You work those giant bow ties, Oscar Wilde.
4. He was gay. Now I'm not saying he was awesome just because he was gay, because it actually really irritates me when people do that - you're not equalizing gays when you do that, you're actually belittling straight people when you claim that you're automatically cooler just for being gay - but the thing is that he was arrested for it at the time, because this was, you know, the Victorian era. After he was set free he moved to France, because they were, let's say, more open-minded. But I kind of admire him for this because even being arrested for his sexuality didn't stop him from expressing it, he just went somewhere where it wouldn't be an issue.
5. I guess you could kind of say from all of this that his life was kind of devoted to defying the social conventions of Victorian Britain. And not in an anarchal way, he wasn't trying to overthrow the goverment, which would inspire less respect from me. But just by writing about it, and in doing so spreading his message to a wider audience and letting them recognize the absurdity of some of the things the Victorian era did, which is much more admirable just because it's smarter. This is a man who was intent on expressing himself.
6. This is somewhat less deep, but it's kind of my favourite thing. Supposedly, when he was moving to America, while at customs they asked if he had anything to "declare". You know, items and stuff like that. To which Oscar Wilde responded, "I have nothing to declare, except my genius."
Which is totally his style, and that just makes me grin every time.
And that's why Oscar Wilde has become one of my heroes.
P.S That's actually one of my favourite quotes of all time, right up there with Bram Stoker's "I sometimes think we must all be mad, and that we shall wake to sanity in strait-waistcoats" and Spike's "love's bitch" speech on Buffy.
You know, a movie that we found on Netflix that I'd never heard of. Romantic comedy. The description involved strangers getting engaged "on a whim". Needless to say, I didn't have a whole lot of hope for it.
It wasn't bad though. It was enjoyable enough. I mean, it followed the typical romantic comedy formula: each half of the couple have wacky friends or family (in this case it involves circus freaks, a father who's been in jail for who-knows-how-long, the all-too-perfect and weirdly fixated on charades ex-boyfriend, and the awkward, way too openly sexual parents), one half of the couple (generally the girl, though not always) is eccentric and living in a fantasy the entire time while the other one is going the entire movie in a perpetual what-the-hell-is-going-on, one or both of them humiliate themselves in some way, they end up getting into a fight that breaks up their budding relationship until they finally realize that wait, what a mistake that was, get back together, kiss passionately and live happily ever after. There's probably some awkward sexual implications thrown in there in places as well.
This movie was all of that. I'm talking, you can pinpoint the exact moments/characters that this guy talks about in this movie (except the chase scene, which this movie didn't really have).
But the thing is that, even though, okay, fair enough, I wouldn't see this movie a second time because oh my god half of it was just insane and what the heck is going on. The guy's mom threatening to cut the girl with a broken plate? What? All getting arrested and shooting at cops (which, sidebar, I'm almost like 98% sure one of them was played by the same guy who played Principal Snyder on Buffy OKAY I'M SORRY) and the guy seeing visions of his dead fiance.... look. A lot of the movie was just crazy, okay? It was all over the place.
But as I watched the movie, I kind of got the feeling that that was on purpose.
Usually, when I'm watching a movie, especially comedies, especially romantic comedies, I'm not thinking too hard about symbolism or theme or any of that stuff. But a lot of what they kept talking about was that love is terrifying and insane, but with that comes beauty. You can't have one part without the other.
The girl's mother was scared of the passion that came with seeing her first husband, so she abandoned him and got married to someone else, who supported her and her back, but there was no passion in that relationship, and then she was horrifically bored with him. Meanwhile, the guy's parents were absolutely insane and made no sense at all, but clearly had a very well-functioning, romantic, loving and exciting relationship. Examples like that show up a billion times in the movie, just about.
And I think that the movie itself is supposed to sort of replicate the insanity that comes with love. There is so much stuff in that movie that just has you going "Why on earth would they keep that in there? What the heck is going on?" Half the time no one in the movie even knows what's going on. But it's thematic, and representative, and I think once you realize that it makes a lot more sense.
I think that if I were to pick a theme for this movie, it would be something like: True love is only possible once you've embraced the fear that comes with it.
I'm not saying I think that's true - how the heck would I know about something like that? - I'm just about 98% percent certain that's what the film is trying to convey.
So when you look at it from that perspective, and realize that the story's actually probably supposed to be that erratic, it actually becomes a better movie. So I appreciate it for taking its message to such an extreme and making an amusing movie in the process.
Oh, yeah. And also there were actual funny parts. I mean, I don't laugh out loud at movies that often, but I did at this one. So that's a plus as well.
I just discovered recently that MyMusic has its own Wiki site, where one can learn about everything MyMusic (or edit it if something's wrong or extremely badly worded, as I've been doing). And it just fills me with glee because there's a random button that takes you to any random page on the site where it talks about some aspect of MyMusic or the fandom, and it just makes me laugh because it just sounds so ridiculous to anyone who's not in on it. I mean, on what other wiki page are you going to find this entry?
Honestly. If you're a fan of MyMusic check it out, because you will discover things about it that you did not know (people ship Metal and Idol?!) and if you're not a fan of MyMusic you should check it out too, if only to entertain me with your reaction to the ridiculousness of it all. Just press the random button and see what happens.
The thing is that Spike just has so many layers to him that it's hard to cover it all in one post. The first one was mostly focused around the fact that Spike is the only character on the show who is so perceptive and intuitive and desperately helpless when it comes to love. Which is something interesting to contemplate, since he doesn't even have a soul (I explored this in more detail in a speculative document on my laptop, and if I ever start posting those I will post that one - 'cause, y'know, we need more Spike posts on this blog). And then the second one was focused on the fact that in spite of this, it is foolish to forget that he is still evil in nature, and particularly twisted, even for vampires. So now I'm going to talk about this little interesting tidbit, which is the fact that Spike is a huge loser and that's at least partly why we're sympathetic to him.
Think about it.
Joss Whedon made Buffy the Vampire Slayer originally to tell stories about the horror that is high school (couldn't agree more, Joss). Everyone who really connects with the show is someone who... wasn't top dog at high school. Hence the main characters are Xander, the quirky loser who just isn't cool enough to ever make it higher in the heirarchy no matter what he does, Willow, the girl who cares more about learning and school than she ever will about clothes or dating, who is shy and uncertain, and Buffy, who is attractive and trendy and all-around pleasant, but is always around when something unpleasant or weird happens, spouting about more unpleasant or weird stuff, and has practically no social life outside of high school (these descriptions are all based on the high school years of the show, mostly season 1 - obviously the characters developed majorly since then).
My point is that the show is told from the perspective of people who are constantly outcasted from...... I'm just going to go ahead and say it, "normal" people. You know what I mean. That's why Buffy's a geek show. Ya think a Cordelia is going to connect to a story told from this perspective?
So when Spike gets introduced into the mixture, he starts off as something that the Scoobies are meant to overcome. See, Spike was supposed to be a disposable villain - you know, give Buffy hell for a string of episodes and then get killed off. So, because the plan was for him to be gotten rid of, they started with him being built up as the coolest cool that ever cooled. Symbolically, I think he was basically supposed to be that bullying kid who leads the rest of the people who are too afraid of him to refuse. You know, that guy? But then he'd get killed off - the struggle would symbolically be overcome - and all would be fine. So he begins his first episode by getting out of a car with kick-ass guitar grinding in the background, smoking a cigarette, and then goes on to kill The Anointed One, thus making him the new leader. At the time, there was no problem with making him this powerful, or this awesome.
But then the writers discovered that they liked the character. Wanted to keep him on.
Which meant that they had to pull Spike in a radically different direction. Because the only way to justify keeping a character on this show is to take him down a peg or six. Otherwise it kind of defeats the point. Even if no one was supposed to like Spike, you can't just have him sauntering around the show like he owns the place like he was in the first few episodes, because then you can't justify not killing him.
So then, blow by blow, they started to beat Spike down.
First he got injured and had to have the wheelchair. Then Drusilla and Angelus started getting all touchy-feely pretty much right in front of his eyes. So he escapes the slaughter by teaming up with the Slayer, who he loathes, knocking out his girlfriend and escaping to South America. Humiliating.
And then the next time we see him, it is literally a parody of his entrance in the first episode. His first entrance: car smashes into the "Welcome to Sunnydale" sign, you've got guitar grinding in the background, he steps out of the car, and the camera pans up from his dark boots to his leather jacket to his vamp face. "Home sweet home," he says sardonically.
Lover's Walk, a car smashes into the "Welcome to Sunnydale" sign, guitar kinda drones in the background, car door opens, bottles smash to the ground, soon followed by Spike falling bodily out of his own car. No vamp face this time. And Spike lies on the ground, looks up. "Home sweet home," he slurs drunkenly, sorta laughing like drunks do, and then collapses back onto the ground.
It was written deliberately so that it would be a parody of his first entrance. And that whole episode was just awesome and hilarious, and is definitely one of my favourites ever, but it was also part of the process of beating Spike down - what kind of badass vampire mopes around because his girlfriend broke up with him?
And then, when he returns to Sunnydale, he's with Harmony. That in itself is still bringing Spike down a peg. And then the chip gets put in his head, and he's so pathetic that he ends up asking Harmony for help and gets refused, so pathetic he goes to the Slayer for help.
And from then on out, this is when it really began to happen. This is when Spike officially became the biggest loser there. Because, the thing is, Buffy was written for the losers. Xander and Willow and Buffy represent the outcasts and the losers. But then they started writing it so that Spike couldn't be accepted ANYWHERE. He was cast out by the outcasts. He's below them on the hierarchy, which is not something that we were totally aware existed before now.
Then this whole "We're above Spike" thing became a sort of trend. It started in flashbacks. In the utterly brilliant episode "Fool for Love", it showed in a flashback that when he became a vampire he was constantly ragged on by Angelus for being too careless, and really was only tolerated at all because Angelus and Darla found Drusilla useful, and Spike was Drusilla's...... what? Mate? Kinda like that.
In the parallel episode of Angel (what's awesome about Buffy and Angel is that all their episodes run parallel, so there are a few storylines that are really only complete once you've seen both series), there were flashbacks of Angelus and Darla talking. In one of them, Darla goes "While Spike - SPIKE! - was out KILLING A SLAYER, you were saving people?!" The utter contempt in Darla's voice when she says Spike's name along with the incredulity to the fact that Spike killed a Slayer kinda makes that sentence delicious. But apparently, he's always been contemptible to everyone around him, even in his glory days with Darla, Angelus and Drusilla.
And they just kept writing it that way. In season five it got worse for him, if anything. I mean, the fact that he's below them in the hierarchy was more or less stated outright in "Fool for Love". "You're beneath me," says Buffy to Spike, who has just been pushed to the ground by her, and then tosses his money at him with disgust. Cause it's one thing if you're not accepted into the Scooby Gang and you don't want to be. He hated them in season four, so while he was still obviously below them in the hierarchy, he really didn't seem to care. But then in season five he fell in love with Buffy, and he started trying to be recognized as a not-so-bad-guy, which got him precisely nowhere. If anything, he was cast out even more, what with the un-inviting left and right, and the amount of disgust towards him increased dramatically among the Scoobies.
So, though I don't think it was quite their intention, they started writing Spike as the character who gets cast out by the outcasts. He's too much of a loser for what is more or less Sunnydale High's loser club.
That's sad.
But it's also partly what makes us so sympathetic to him. Because A) We can see the effort he puts in to being accepted, B) he has feelings for the leader of this group, and C) it is pretty darn clear that he's horribly underappreciated by everyone. I'm not saying we shouldn't be cautious around Spike, because one should be, but I am saying that when he genuinely does good, mostly he gets complained at and rejected, never mind whether or not he may have just saved their lives.
And it's at least partly because of this little dynamic that makes people love Spike. It's in our blood to root for the underdog, and Spike is the underdog. The Scoobies are supposed to be, and they still are, but at the moment Spike is kind of a level below them, making him a bigger underdog than the Scoobies. So, added to the fact that he's the funniest character on the show, followed closely by Xander (seriously, if you search up "Fun Buffyverse Moments", about seventy percent of them are Spike) OF COURSE we're going to root for the guy.
And, maybe this is just my personal preference, but if you are stuck with the idea that Spike is a cold-blooded murderer and nothing more, you're kinda missing the point. No, you're really missing the point. Spike is a fantastic character because of the amount of layers he has. Yes, he's a killer, but he's also a lover, and a warrior, and an outcast, and sometimes, even a friend. He can be quite insightful about other people and why they do the things they do. Not everything he says or does is completely evil. That doesn't erase the fact that he's definitely a killer, but it'd be stupid to say that that's all he is.
Spike is an incredibly well done character, for this reason. You don't want to like him. But you end up liking him in spite of yourself. He's a bad guy, which is made plain, but you like him anyway. That's a well done character for you.
Have I mentioned that Spike is by far the most interesting character on the show?
P.S This doesn't have that much to do with this part of Spike's character study (except it kinda does..... bear with me here), but does anyone remember in my first character study of Spike, when I mentioned that when Spike first came to Sunnydale, he was with Drusilla, and it was pretty clear that he was kinda taking advantage of her?
I was wrong about that. He wasn't taking advantage of her.
She was taking advantage of him.
Yes, our Drusilla, the crazy one, the one who talks about naming all the stars (while staring at the ceiling in the middle of daytime) and talks to her toy dolls and says cryptic things like "Little toy soldiers played with your head" or whatever. That one. She was taking advantage of him.
Which is both really sad and really really funny once you realize it.
Usually I wouldn't be able to stand stuff like this for more than two minutes, but the thing is that the Vitamin String Quartet's sort of mission statement is about "applying rock n' roll attitude to classical technique".
Which means that they are a string quartet who do covers of rock and pop songs. Like Radioactive by Imagine Dragons. And Sweet Child O' Mine by Guns N' Roses (THAT one is awesome). And Bad Romance by Lady Gaga. The one that got me into them was their cover of Thrift Shop by Macklemore. Can't stand the actual song, got addicted to the Vitamin String Quartet version.
My current favourite at the moment is their cover of Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Greenday. I didn't have a lot of confidence that they could pull that off without an electric guitar, but it's actually quite pretty.
Also their version of I Write Sins Not Tragedies by Panic! At the Disco is pretty amazing as well.
My thing is that I've been searching for good homework music for forever. The problem is that if I listen to boring music (like regular classical music) it's practically the same as not listening to music at all for me, but if I listen to my regular music I end up singing along and not focusing.
And Vitamin String Quartet solves that problem for me because it's close enough to classical music that I can focus and close enough to music that I actually enjoy for me to... well, enjoy it. So I spent one evening just finding every cover Vitamin String Quartet has ever done that interested me and now I have an hour's worth of it on my iTunes. I'm so prepared for homework now. Boo yah. Problem solved AND awesomeness discovered.
I don't know, maybe I'm just a music geek? I get the feeling other people don't find VSQ as awesome as I do.
