Muse is that.
So before this week, I'd heard like maybe four songs by Muse through the span of my life. Uprising was on the radio quite a bit (and my dad really liked it), Starlight was also on the radio a bit (one of my ultimate favourites - it has a cool piano part and the lyrics are poetry), Madness (took me a bit to like it, but the climax is pretty good) and recently, Dead Inside (which is really awesome and dark and creepy and the climax of this song is honestly spine-tingling).
So I'd heard a very small portion of Muse's music. I'd liked all that I'd heard, but I hadn't really sought out anything more.
Then, as I was on one of my Internet strolls, I started, out of curiosity, to look up Project MK Ultra. This is related to the topic, I promise.
So Project MKUltra is a typically messed-up piece of history related to the Cold War, in which throughout the sixties and seventies, the CIA did a lot of top-secret experiments on unwitting participants to see if they could actually control people's minds. This is one of the creepiest things ever, and if you're not getting that yet, allow me to make this clear to you: THIS IS ONE OF THE CREEPIEST THINGS EVER. One infamous experiment involved the death of a bright scientist (they drugged him without his knowledge, and he jumped or possibly fell out a window. This is historical fact). There were a lot of other experiments like that, and they often ended similarly, which didn't stop the CIA from carrying on the Project for a pretty long time. Which is pretty messed up.
Anyways, as I was taking in all this strange-and-creepy-yet-true stuff, I stumbled across a comment that said, more or less, "Well, at least Muse made a cool song out of it."
Excuse me? Someone made a song out of this?
So, because I generally like Muse, and because I desperately needed to hear what kind of song could come out of something that's so wrong on a fundamental level that it would be hard to discuss normally, I looked up the song.
The song is freaking AWESOME.
The guitar part is addictive to listen to, and the lyrics are oddly poetic ("A universe is trapped inside a tear" always gets me. Always), and it has these violins playing for suspense as "They are breaking through...... now we're falling/we are losing control" happens and it's just such a cool song.
So later this week, I was having a problem. The problem was that I was sick and tired of all my playlists, didn't feel like making a new one, and needed something to play while I was doing my homework without me having to choose a song every three minutes, but also wasn't the same thing on repeat. My solution was to try something different and find an album on YouTube by a band I maybe liked (but not an album I knew by heart, like Bastille. I was looking for something different).
So I looked up a Muse album on Youtube, since I now liked five of their songs, and hey, that's pretty serious stuff. The first album that came up was an album of theirs called Resistance, which I clicked on and began to do my homework.
First of all: every song on that album is profoundly different in sound. This is a wonderful thing. It makes it very exciting to listen to.
Second of all: every song on that album is extremely similar in theme. This album had songs with titles such as Uprising, Resistance, Unnatural Selection (not to mention MK Ultra), and it became increasingly clear that most (if not all) of the songs had something to do with fighting against an oppressive society. Which is cool.
Thirdly: as I listened to the lyrics, I heard the words "You'll wake the Thought Police" in the song Resistance. Then as I listened to a song called "The United States of Eurasia", it suddenly became glaringly obvious that the whole album, in fact, was based on the novel 1984 by George Orwell.
And that's freaking awesome.
As you may know, I have a bit of weakness for artists who write songs about, well, anything besides romance. Romance, while probably meaningful to those who write about it, is horridly overdone for someone like me, who has no romantic life whatsoever and isn't particularly interested in seeking one out. I was happy enough to hear Muse writing about things non-romantic, like fighting an oppressive regime. I was both overjoyed and intrigued when I finally (and it took me way too long) understood that the oppressive regime they were talking about was, in fact, Big Brother and the Party. As you may have realized, I have an even bigger weakness for artists who write songs that are stimulating not only musically, but intellectually as well (remember when I realized that Bastille wrote songs about Icarus? And Pompeii? And Laura Palmer? And WRITING?).
And it's not only that they write songs about cool things; the songs are actually good. United States of Eurasia has a really cool interlude that sounds almost oriental before it returns back to the rest of the song, which sounds more than a little like Queen. So that's an odd mixture, and odder still, it works.
Unnatural Selection has an awesome, intense guitar part, as well as some of my favourite lyrics ever, including, "I'm hungry for some unrest/I wanna push it beyond a peaceful protest/I wanna speak in a language they will understand" and, "Counterbalance this commotion/We're not droplets in the ocean". God, it's so awesome.
Resistance has one of the most powerful choruses, and it's cool because the singer actually interrupts the background singers to go into the chorus, like he really is resisting something, and he goes into the chorus with so much more power than in any other part of the song - you just imagine him, like, breaking down a door at that part, and it's with such powerful lyrics as well: "Love is our resistance!"
And of course Uprising is just really good, but I'm not mentioning that as much because I've known that song by heart for a solid three years if not longer.
I love discovering awesome new music. It's like finding a bunch of diamonds in a pile full of worthless rocks.
All in all it's super cool and I'm so happy to uncover a band that's actually worth buying the whole album.
Also they've inspired me to actually read 1984. Yes, listening to a rock band made me want to read. And a rather intellectual novel, at that.
Take that, rock-music-is-for-mindless-punks people.
Monday, June 15, 2015
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
Book-to-Movie Adaptations I'd Like to Make: The Vindico
So lately I've become extremely interested in adapting books into movies.
Not in a Books Rights Activist way, of course, but rather in a genuinely interested and curious way. Because it occurs to me that adapting books into movies takes a certain understanding of the story. A movie cannot, by definition, be exactly like the book, but one doing such an adaptation should have a decent enough understanding of the story the book told so as not to bastardize the entire thing.
For instance, the problem with the Percy Jackson movies is that the screenwriters didn't know where to stop with their changes. They completely lost the point the author was trying to get across and the movie turned a fairly witty and smart book completely mindless.
Now, on the other hand, the 1960s version of the Lord of the Flies must have been written by literally copying dialogue out of the book. I mean, word for word. But that didn't do any better, because books don't make movies, and the movie was horridly boring and slow (some would argue that the book was as well, but those people would be wrong).
And so the trick must lie in striking a balance of telling the story the book told, but feeling free enough to tell it in your own way.
Fascinating.
So I've been trying stretch these muscles by thinking of books that could, potentially, be good movies, and thinking of how I would do it, and what, if anything, I would change.
I'm going to start with The Vindico.
And I'm starting with The Vindico because there are so many ways that story could be told better. As in, better than the book did.
So The Vindico is a book I picked up in Chapters. It's set in a world that very closely resembles this one, except that the world is guarded by a league of heroes, aptly named... the League of Heroes. These are all people who have been born with superpowers and decided that that made then the chosen ones to protect the world.
Of course, there's also a league of supervillains, not-as-obviously named The Vindico. Only the name of their organization and their very intimidating villain names are not so much common knowledge - the general public would only really be able to say, "Wait, wasn't that that guy from that other incident?" instead of "Oh my god it's The Torturer!" (Seriously. One of the villains is called The Torturer. Why he's called that when the public doesn't know who he is is a question that has haunted me for a while now).
Anyways, there's been this ongoing war between the Vindico and the League, but eventually the Vindico decide that they're getting kinda old for this but they can't just give up, so they recruit (read: kidnap) a few kids with the idea of mentoring them into becoming supervillains and being the next generation.
These five kids are the main characters of the book. James, who is given superstrength by The Torturer; Lana, who is given super strength/agility by a villainess called Avaria; Hayden, who is helped by a villain called Leni to reach his full telekinetic potential (apparently telekinesis and telepathy can't be artificially given, so you have to already have an aptitude for it); Emily, who is mentored by a villain called Rono to be the techie - you know, he invents evil machines and whatnot, but otherwise, she doesn't really get any superpowers; and Sam, who is helped by a (canadian) villain called Sliver to help reach his full telepathic potential.
This book had so much potential.
But it was over-edited.
We have five main characters, but only focus on the three that happened to be involved in a half-assed love triangle. What about Emily and Sam, who were doubtlessly the quirkiest characters of the five (between Emily's blunt and matter-of-fact approach to the fact she's getting kidnapped, and Sam's young and adorable naivete about being an everyday hero), they definitely needed to be explored more. Instead we get a half-assed tragic backstory from Emily in which her parents don't hate her but don't really love her either, and Sam's biggest piece of growth is apparently that he... develops a crush on a girl who reciprocates. Like. There were so many other, more interesting directions you could go with that (especially considering he fancies himself an everyday chivalrous hero and then is kidnapped to be trained into villainy? AND THAT'S NEVER PLAYED WITH?!)
The problem is that in an attempt to trim the fat and be a more, sort of, "efficient" form of storytelling, the author gets into this habit of telling instead of showing. Sam tells us that he saw video of his mother not caring that he'd been taken, we're told that Emily's parents didn't love her, and perhaps one of the most irritating ones considering it's a major plot point, we're told how Lana and Hayden's relationship progresses, but we don't get to actually witness any of this.
Not to mention that there are a hundred plot lines that the author left completely untouched. Sliver hints that he's going to betray the Vindico, Leni hints that he plans to take over the world single-handedly (and kill Hayden in the bargain, apparently), the book begins to notice a change of loyalties occurring in James and Emily, the book hints multiple times at hidden similarities between Hayden, the carefree jokester of the group, and Leni, doubtlessly the cruelest and most evil member of the Vindico, and finally, Leni puts a bomb on the roof of Lana's parents' house.
These are all plotlines that the author began and never, ever followed up on.
And I just don't see why you wouldn't take advantage of all that. Those are all really interesting plot lines that the author put out and then decided to ignore. It's like offering someone an ice cream sundae, and then when they say yes, you go "Great!" and take away the ice cream and chocolate sauce until you only have a banana. Like, you said you were going to give me the sundae. Where'd the sundae go?
It would have made the climax a hundred times more exciting than it was.
And all those flaws is the reason I would really like to make a movie of this book.
Now the thing about this is that the movie would not be for what I affectionately call Books Rights Activists or purists or whatever. The movie would be my vision of the books potential.
So what I would do is, first of all, rather than tell the story mostly from James's perspective, which is what the author does, I'd focus more on Lana as the audience surrogate.
I choose Lana for a few reasons. First of all, I wanted to rule out Emily and James immediately, because in the movie I would focus a lot more on their conflict of loyalty (in which their mentors are some of the first to really take them seriously as people, which strengthens their loyalty to them, and by extension, their desire to actually become villains in spite of their mostly good natures). The conflict of loyalty needs to be seen and interpreted from an outside force in order for the audience to see it more than James himself does, because it's a gradual thing that James doesn't realize is happening (Emily is more astute about it, and realizes it more consciously, but that's not the point). That leaves Hayden and Sam and Lana.
Then I had to rule out Hayden, because Hayden has a hidden-depths storyline that also needs to be viewed from an outside force in order to fully appreciate. Hayden already knows that he has hidden depths, but it needs to be a relative surprise for the audience, and no one was more surprised than Lana.
Which is one reason why I prefer Lana over Sam, but the main one is that Lana simply has more to do with the story's end-game than Sam does. Lana's the one that first escapes the Vindico and triggered the mutiny against the villains, the first one to kill one of the League, etcetera. So, as much as I love Sam, Lana's the logical choice for an audience surrogate.
Secondly, we would get a lot more time with the kids and their mentors, so we really get a feel for the relationships there (as well as a way to gouge their progress as super-people, rather than the literary version of a training montage that the book gave us). For instance, Rono and the Torturer seem relatively supportive of their proteges, whereas Avaria and Leni apparently train their proteges by yelling at them and beating them. (The book is less clear about Sliver. Pretty much in general the book is unclear about Sliver and what the hell game he's playing. Apparently Sam is so unimportant that not even his mentor matters). This is so that we can set up the conflict of loyalties within Emily and James, while keeping the others more or less wholeheartedly loyal to the League.
All backstories - of which there are many - would be told either at the beginning of the movie as we're introduced to every character, or, if the backstory is particularly important, through flashbacks. The tell-don't-show approach to backstories got really tiresome in the book, and would doubtlessly be even worse in movie form.
The climax would be morphed entirely in order to accomodate the plot lines that the book so short-sightedly discarded. It would address Sliver's questionable loyalty (he seems to be a work-for-myself character, rather than an homour-among-thieves character. This is interpretation from very little text), Leni's play for ultimate control, the question of Hayden's morality and James and Emily's loyalty. So, perhaps instead of rapidly switching teams as the teens do near the end (first they're anti-Vindico, then they're pro-Vindico anti-League, then they're anti-everybody, then they're pro-League anti-Vindico), it would be more along the lines of the teens temporarily choosing different teams from each other. Really, that's what I was looking for to begin with.
Sam's arc would have much more importance. Just, in general. Especially considering even in the book he saves their asses at the end.
Also, the love triangle would be down-played. When it comes to stuff like that, less is more.
We'd also need more world-building in order to fully understand the importance of the League and the Vindico, respectively.
Also, I feel like the movie would have to play up the Vindico's cruelty, in general, and their villainy. I say this (and this is partly related to the issue of world-building) because the Vindico is a group of six, where the League appears to have at least twenty if not even more. So why is the Vindico, like, a threat, instead of an annoying fly in the the League's face? Well, the answer would be that we'd have to see them doing something genuinely evil instead of something resembling a petty crime, which is what we get for most of the first half of the book. We need to play up the menace. That way, when the light-hearted moments hit, (which is an integral part of the tone of the book and not something I would change in spite of everything), mood whiplash can kick in and jar the viewer enough to stay.
I think Leni and Avaria's evil would be played up more. By the end of the book, they're the ones that the author clearly wants us to fear, so in the movie we'd have to give the audience reasons to fear them. The Torturer and Rono are interesting because they're fairly affable toward the kids in general, but positively gleeful at the aspect of tearing down the League, so I think we could treat that as a flash of darkness (a way to make James and Emily backtrack on their loyalties, perhaps?). The Baron appears to be more or less a blank slate in that he never really is outwardly violent toward the League, but he is an extremely active member of the Vindico and seems to be the mastermind. Yeah, I think I'd play him as a Chess Master who appears affable only because he treats his offense on the League like a game. So, while not frighteningly evil, someone to give the kids pause, for sure. As for Sliver, I think I'd play him more morally ambiguous than evil. He hints at betraying the Vindico, but for his own reasons rather than for the greater good.
Also, playing up the menace would have an added bonus of raising the stakes when the climax finally kicks in. What always bugged me in the book was that when the climax kicks in and the teens conduct their mutiny, they keep acting as if the Vindico would kill them if they had the chance, when there's really not a lot of evidence (except for a few tell-don't-show traits the author haphazardly plants) to say that they actually would. So if we treat the Vindico as if they're actually menacing, that'll raise the stakes when the teens ultimately betray them (although, as I said, that betrayal will go down a bit differently in my adaptation of this story).
And the thing is, the seeds are there. The author goes down a road for a bit where the Vindico are very strategically isolating the kids from their families and friends, and then subjecting them to such sleep deprivation that they can barely bring themselves to function, but are forced to because of the Vindico's orders (which they follow presumably because they're a menacing presence, though it's hard to tell). Those are ideas that I like, but the problem is that he plays it so low-key that it doesn't seem to factor in at all when the teens start actively making decisions. And that has to change. Even if the characters don't break, that's fine, but we need to understand that someone is, in fact, trying to break them. That way, when the characters do break - like Lana - it'll actually mean something.
See, I don't want to change things, per se, I just want to play a few things up and play a few things down.
Imagine it like this. I'm sitting at a mixing console in a recording studio. You know, that thing with all the slidey things that you slide up and down when you're adjusting the sound output? The book is giving me stuff, and I don't want to change what it is fundamentally, only slide a few aspects a few notches up and slide a few aspects a few notches down.
I think more or less I'd follow the same storyline, it's just that you'd get a lot more focus and elaboration on stuff that the book doesn't. I'd tell the story in a way that makes it seem, to me, as the one adapting, that the story's being fully told.
Make sense?
Okay then.
This is fun, I think I'll do this some more. It's interesting speculation. Maybe I'll even give it a shot with a book I really liked (rather than one I lament for wasted potential).
God, I'm a nerd.
Not in a Books Rights Activist way, of course, but rather in a genuinely interested and curious way. Because it occurs to me that adapting books into movies takes a certain understanding of the story. A movie cannot, by definition, be exactly like the book, but one doing such an adaptation should have a decent enough understanding of the story the book told so as not to bastardize the entire thing.
For instance, the problem with the Percy Jackson movies is that the screenwriters didn't know where to stop with their changes. They completely lost the point the author was trying to get across and the movie turned a fairly witty and smart book completely mindless.
Now, on the other hand, the 1960s version of the Lord of the Flies must have been written by literally copying dialogue out of the book. I mean, word for word. But that didn't do any better, because books don't make movies, and the movie was horridly boring and slow (some would argue that the book was as well, but those people would be wrong).
And so the trick must lie in striking a balance of telling the story the book told, but feeling free enough to tell it in your own way.
Fascinating.
So I've been trying stretch these muscles by thinking of books that could, potentially, be good movies, and thinking of how I would do it, and what, if anything, I would change.
I'm going to start with The Vindico.
And I'm starting with The Vindico because there are so many ways that story could be told better. As in, better than the book did.
So The Vindico is a book I picked up in Chapters. It's set in a world that very closely resembles this one, except that the world is guarded by a league of heroes, aptly named... the League of Heroes. These are all people who have been born with superpowers and decided that that made then the chosen ones to protect the world.
Of course, there's also a league of supervillains, not-as-obviously named The Vindico. Only the name of their organization and their very intimidating villain names are not so much common knowledge - the general public would only really be able to say, "Wait, wasn't that that guy from that other incident?" instead of "Oh my god it's The Torturer!" (Seriously. One of the villains is called The Torturer. Why he's called that when the public doesn't know who he is is a question that has haunted me for a while now).
Anyways, there's been this ongoing war between the Vindico and the League, but eventually the Vindico decide that they're getting kinda old for this but they can't just give up, so they recruit (read: kidnap) a few kids with the idea of mentoring them into becoming supervillains and being the next generation.
These five kids are the main characters of the book. James, who is given superstrength by The Torturer; Lana, who is given super strength/agility by a villainess called Avaria; Hayden, who is helped by a villain called Leni to reach his full telekinetic potential (apparently telekinesis and telepathy can't be artificially given, so you have to already have an aptitude for it); Emily, who is mentored by a villain called Rono to be the techie - you know, he invents evil machines and whatnot, but otherwise, she doesn't really get any superpowers; and Sam, who is helped by a (canadian) villain called Sliver to help reach his full telepathic potential.
This book had so much potential.
But it was over-edited.
We have five main characters, but only focus on the three that happened to be involved in a half-assed love triangle. What about Emily and Sam, who were doubtlessly the quirkiest characters of the five (between Emily's blunt and matter-of-fact approach to the fact she's getting kidnapped, and Sam's young and adorable naivete about being an everyday hero), they definitely needed to be explored more. Instead we get a half-assed tragic backstory from Emily in which her parents don't hate her but don't really love her either, and Sam's biggest piece of growth is apparently that he... develops a crush on a girl who reciprocates. Like. There were so many other, more interesting directions you could go with that (especially considering he fancies himself an everyday chivalrous hero and then is kidnapped to be trained into villainy? AND THAT'S NEVER PLAYED WITH?!)
The problem is that in an attempt to trim the fat and be a more, sort of, "efficient" form of storytelling, the author gets into this habit of telling instead of showing. Sam tells us that he saw video of his mother not caring that he'd been taken, we're told that Emily's parents didn't love her, and perhaps one of the most irritating ones considering it's a major plot point, we're told how Lana and Hayden's relationship progresses, but we don't get to actually witness any of this.
Not to mention that there are a hundred plot lines that the author left completely untouched. Sliver hints that he's going to betray the Vindico, Leni hints that he plans to take over the world single-handedly (and kill Hayden in the bargain, apparently), the book begins to notice a change of loyalties occurring in James and Emily, the book hints multiple times at hidden similarities between Hayden, the carefree jokester of the group, and Leni, doubtlessly the cruelest and most evil member of the Vindico, and finally, Leni puts a bomb on the roof of Lana's parents' house.
These are all plotlines that the author began and never, ever followed up on.
And I just don't see why you wouldn't take advantage of all that. Those are all really interesting plot lines that the author put out and then decided to ignore. It's like offering someone an ice cream sundae, and then when they say yes, you go "Great!" and take away the ice cream and chocolate sauce until you only have a banana. Like, you said you were going to give me the sundae. Where'd the sundae go?
It would have made the climax a hundred times more exciting than it was.
And all those flaws is the reason I would really like to make a movie of this book.
Now the thing about this is that the movie would not be for what I affectionately call Books Rights Activists or purists or whatever. The movie would be my vision of the books potential.
So what I would do is, first of all, rather than tell the story mostly from James's perspective, which is what the author does, I'd focus more on Lana as the audience surrogate.
I choose Lana for a few reasons. First of all, I wanted to rule out Emily and James immediately, because in the movie I would focus a lot more on their conflict of loyalty (in which their mentors are some of the first to really take them seriously as people, which strengthens their loyalty to them, and by extension, their desire to actually become villains in spite of their mostly good natures). The conflict of loyalty needs to be seen and interpreted from an outside force in order for the audience to see it more than James himself does, because it's a gradual thing that James doesn't realize is happening (Emily is more astute about it, and realizes it more consciously, but that's not the point). That leaves Hayden and Sam and Lana.
Then I had to rule out Hayden, because Hayden has a hidden-depths storyline that also needs to be viewed from an outside force in order to fully appreciate. Hayden already knows that he has hidden depths, but it needs to be a relative surprise for the audience, and no one was more surprised than Lana.
Which is one reason why I prefer Lana over Sam, but the main one is that Lana simply has more to do with the story's end-game than Sam does. Lana's the one that first escapes the Vindico and triggered the mutiny against the villains, the first one to kill one of the League, etcetera. So, as much as I love Sam, Lana's the logical choice for an audience surrogate.
Secondly, we would get a lot more time with the kids and their mentors, so we really get a feel for the relationships there (as well as a way to gouge their progress as super-people, rather than the literary version of a training montage that the book gave us). For instance, Rono and the Torturer seem relatively supportive of their proteges, whereas Avaria and Leni apparently train their proteges by yelling at them and beating them. (The book is less clear about Sliver. Pretty much in general the book is unclear about Sliver and what the hell game he's playing. Apparently Sam is so unimportant that not even his mentor matters). This is so that we can set up the conflict of loyalties within Emily and James, while keeping the others more or less wholeheartedly loyal to the League.
All backstories - of which there are many - would be told either at the beginning of the movie as we're introduced to every character, or, if the backstory is particularly important, through flashbacks. The tell-don't-show approach to backstories got really tiresome in the book, and would doubtlessly be even worse in movie form.
The climax would be morphed entirely in order to accomodate the plot lines that the book so short-sightedly discarded. It would address Sliver's questionable loyalty (he seems to be a work-for-myself character, rather than an homour-among-thieves character. This is interpretation from very little text), Leni's play for ultimate control, the question of Hayden's morality and James and Emily's loyalty. So, perhaps instead of rapidly switching teams as the teens do near the end (first they're anti-Vindico, then they're pro-Vindico anti-League, then they're anti-everybody, then they're pro-League anti-Vindico), it would be more along the lines of the teens temporarily choosing different teams from each other. Really, that's what I was looking for to begin with.
Sam's arc would have much more importance. Just, in general. Especially considering even in the book he saves their asses at the end.
Also, the love triangle would be down-played. When it comes to stuff like that, less is more.
We'd also need more world-building in order to fully understand the importance of the League and the Vindico, respectively.
Also, I feel like the movie would have to play up the Vindico's cruelty, in general, and their villainy. I say this (and this is partly related to the issue of world-building) because the Vindico is a group of six, where the League appears to have at least twenty if not even more. So why is the Vindico, like, a threat, instead of an annoying fly in the the League's face? Well, the answer would be that we'd have to see them doing something genuinely evil instead of something resembling a petty crime, which is what we get for most of the first half of the book. We need to play up the menace. That way, when the light-hearted moments hit, (which is an integral part of the tone of the book and not something I would change in spite of everything), mood whiplash can kick in and jar the viewer enough to stay.
I think Leni and Avaria's evil would be played up more. By the end of the book, they're the ones that the author clearly wants us to fear, so in the movie we'd have to give the audience reasons to fear them. The Torturer and Rono are interesting because they're fairly affable toward the kids in general, but positively gleeful at the aspect of tearing down the League, so I think we could treat that as a flash of darkness (a way to make James and Emily backtrack on their loyalties, perhaps?). The Baron appears to be more or less a blank slate in that he never really is outwardly violent toward the League, but he is an extremely active member of the Vindico and seems to be the mastermind. Yeah, I think I'd play him as a Chess Master who appears affable only because he treats his offense on the League like a game. So, while not frighteningly evil, someone to give the kids pause, for sure. As for Sliver, I think I'd play him more morally ambiguous than evil. He hints at betraying the Vindico, but for his own reasons rather than for the greater good.
Also, playing up the menace would have an added bonus of raising the stakes when the climax finally kicks in. What always bugged me in the book was that when the climax kicks in and the teens conduct their mutiny, they keep acting as if the Vindico would kill them if they had the chance, when there's really not a lot of evidence (except for a few tell-don't-show traits the author haphazardly plants) to say that they actually would. So if we treat the Vindico as if they're actually menacing, that'll raise the stakes when the teens ultimately betray them (although, as I said, that betrayal will go down a bit differently in my adaptation of this story).
And the thing is, the seeds are there. The author goes down a road for a bit where the Vindico are very strategically isolating the kids from their families and friends, and then subjecting them to such sleep deprivation that they can barely bring themselves to function, but are forced to because of the Vindico's orders (which they follow presumably because they're a menacing presence, though it's hard to tell). Those are ideas that I like, but the problem is that he plays it so low-key that it doesn't seem to factor in at all when the teens start actively making decisions. And that has to change. Even if the characters don't break, that's fine, but we need to understand that someone is, in fact, trying to break them. That way, when the characters do break - like Lana - it'll actually mean something.
See, I don't want to change things, per se, I just want to play a few things up and play a few things down.
Imagine it like this. I'm sitting at a mixing console in a recording studio. You know, that thing with all the slidey things that you slide up and down when you're adjusting the sound output? The book is giving me stuff, and I don't want to change what it is fundamentally, only slide a few aspects a few notches up and slide a few aspects a few notches down.
I think more or less I'd follow the same storyline, it's just that you'd get a lot more focus and elaboration on stuff that the book doesn't. I'd tell the story in a way that makes it seem, to me, as the one adapting, that the story's being fully told.
Make sense?
Okay then.
This is fun, I think I'll do this some more. It's interesting speculation. Maybe I'll even give it a shot with a book I really liked (rather than one I lament for wasted potential).
God, I'm a nerd.
Saturday, April 18, 2015
On Heroes and Badly Made Made Collages
Title pretty much says it all.
I am obsessed with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Now, I finished it, and I don't watch it 24/7 anymore, but I will always, to an extent, be obsessed with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That's just a fact.
But back when I was in the "I literally can not think of anything else for more than ten seconds" phase of obsession, I created these desktop backgrounds that celebrated each major character. You see, what interests me about Buffy is that it discusses a lot of different kinds of heroism. Obviously you have Buffy, who is your general all-around kick-ass superhero, but you also had characters like Xander. And Anya. And, Lord help me, even Spike qualifies as a hero by the end of it all. So I took the opportunity to explore the definition of the word "hero"... by creating desktop backgrounds for myself. So, doubly productive! Uselessly productive, but productive!
So let's take a look.
Don't judge, okay, I worked for hours on these things.
(Keep in mind: I did only exclusive-to-Buffy characters. So, Angel and Cordelia aren't part of the batch because I haven't gotten around to Angel characters yet - though believe me, it will happen. And I will have a lot to say on the subject of Wesley freaking Wyndam-Pryce.)
This was the first one I made because it was the easiest. Buffy is the most conventional form of hero (or, as the case provides, heroine).
So what do we see here? Obviously, we've got the quote from Bring on the Night that always inspires me, not going to lie. Actually, this quote was said when she was bloody and bruised and utterly defeated - third screenshot from the left on the bottom - which only served to make it more powerful. Buffy's heroism isn't only in that she fights. It's in that she fights endlessly, and never, ever gives up no matter how hopeless it gets.
The main screenshot, which serves as the backdrop for the thing, is the moment where Buffy sacrifices herself so that her sister may live. It is absolutely no coincidence that her arms are spread as if she were on the cross. Her story has always been one of sacrifice, from the very beginning, and this was the moment it culminated to.
Screenshots in the bottom includes a couple from Chosen (she's fighting the First Evil, and wins not by herself, but by empowering a hundred other people to fight it as well, and I think that's important) the moment when she found her mother dead on the couch from The Body (absolutely beautiful episode. It's quite literally a work of art. I included that moment because it humanized her, and heroes are always much more heroic when they're fallible, mortal people) that one from Innocence where she defeats the invincible Judge with a bazooka because c'mon, that's flipping badass. Moments of sacrifice include the first one from the right, Prophecy Girl, where she literally sacrifices her life, and Becoming, where she killed her first love to stop him from destroying the world. So, yes, sacrifice and perseverance and badassery are pretty much Buffy's heroism in a nutshell.
This was the next one I did because Spike is important to my happiness.
Funnily enough, this was the hardest one to put together. There is no doubt in my mind that Spike is a hero, but it's hard to define it, exactly, because he spends the first six seasons acting like a complete douche. The thing is, his is a story of redemption, and redemption does not happen immediately or without hardship (as Angel has always, endlessly pointed out).
I included the quote from Chosen not because it's the most heroic or inspiring thing he's ever said, but because it basically summed up his arc. He spends so much of his time convincing himself and others that he's a soulless demon, I'm so hard and cruel - he creates such an elaborate persona for himself that even after he gets the soul you can see that he doesn't really believe it (in spite of the madness and agony that it put him through). So that moment - the moment where he's burning up and about to die - is the moment where he finally acknowledged that, yes, he does have a soul now, and yes, he has the capacity to do good, and no, that path is not easy.
The moment that is the backdrop is what happens almost directly after he says that. He sacrifices himself to save the world. He lights up, burns up, and then dies. (Until Angel season 5 that is, heeheeheeheeheeeheee....)
Moments included in the screenshots below include fighting for and earning his soul (first to the left and to the right, respectively), the aftermath of receiving his soul (he burns up on the cross - he was quite ill in many ways after he got his soul, as he suffered so much guilt thereafter. Should we sympathize with him for feeling bad about murders and atrocities he himself committed? Well, you have to remember that ensouled Spike and soulless Spike are two different people - they're similar, certainly, in many, many ways, but they are not the same. It would be like waking up and discovering that you've murdered your whole neighbourhood in your sleep). Also, the moments building up to his redemption - so, he comforts Buffy upon hearing about her mother's illness rather than murdering his arch-nemesis in her moment of weakness, he is kidnapped by a hell goddess and tortured for information about Buffy's sister and he gives nothing away even though there's nothing in it for him, and that terrible, heart-wrenching moment when he watched Buffy die. Literally, I think I'm through the scene without crying, and then I see Spike's reaction and I bawl along with him. I included that for the same reason I included the moment where Buffy saw her dead mother - it humanized him, and as I say, humanization is important to keep heroism heroic.
And here's Willow.
The quote I included is a little obscure and a little bit, um, inaccessible, but here's the gist of things: Willow turned evil for a while. She went all Dark-Willow and tried to kill a lot of people and nearly succeeded in destroying the world. This was due mostly in part to her dangerous addiction to magic and the power associated with it (she's the most powerful witch in the world). So when she says this, it's after Giles has rehabilitated her, and she's talking about the revelations she had while re-learning how to use magic for good again. I like to think she's also talking about herself here. Because for the longest time, Willow was the cute, nice, quirky kid who everyone always relied on. But there's always been darkness in her, and this moment was her voicing her realization of that fact and that she has to control it. Similar to Spike's (though not quite as worn with hardship), hers is also a story of redemption.
The moment that is the backdrop is from Chosen, when she goes again into deep, dangerous magic, and the others worry about her relapsing and going dark once more. Instead, the opposite happens. She goes light. She went a layer deeper in her magic and discovered that even underneath the darkness and evil there is good. This was such an important moment.
Screenshots from the bottom include shy nerdy Willow being badass, Willow kicking the ever-loving sugar out of Glory after she stole Tara's sanity, Willow's rehabilitation after her stint in the dark side, and Willow mourning Tara's death. Because, you know. Humanization. Willow's story is about growing into herself, which takes courage, and then choosing to be good even after witnessing the power that came with being bad. That's heroism.
Xander! Xander is my boy! Xander is my boy and I will not hear a word against him. Ever.
So the quote on this one is from Potential, when he's talking to Dawn about how she could have been a Slayer but then she wasn't and he's comforting her about being one of the... y'know, the muggles. He always struggles with being the one without powers, and a constant insecurity of his is that he isn't valuable because he has no supernatural powers, or because he has no knowledge of the supernatural besides what he learns as he goes along. Basically, he thinks he's useless for a good portion of the time. And that's just not true. As it also says, he's the one who sees. All of the other Scoobies always have an agenda, and let's not pretend Xander never does because there've been a few infamous moments, BUT, generally, Xander is the reality check. And that's an important role. (He's also the cohesion that keeps the group from hating each other, which is equally important, but not really relevant at this time).
The backdrop is from Buffy vs. Dracula. This was the moment where he set the tone for his own character development. For the past four seasons, but the one before this more so than usual, Xander was the buttmonkey (he coined this term in Buffy vs. Dracula, actually). Everything bad that could happen to anyone happened to him. He struggled with finding success in any aspect of his life and it took basically nothing for Spike to convince him that the others found him to be nothing but a dumb, useless weight. So when Buffy vs. Dracula happens, and he gets mind-controlled by Dracula (if you've ever read the original novel by Bram Stoker, he basically becomes Renfield) he finally stands up for himself. He says no. He will not be that guy anymore. He's going to get it together. For the longest time he's been the lightning rod of hate and this is him refusing that role. That's always really inspiring to me.
Moments in the bottom include: When Xander was forced to stake his childhood best friend - can you say, formative moment? The time Xander brought Buffy back to life using CPR, the time Xander rammed Glory with a freaking wrecking ball, practically destroying her - yeah, tell me again how Xander is useless. Xander talking Willow out of destroying the world using the power of friendship - I bawled my eyes out. Xander taking on a bunch of demons alone because all the other Scoobies were busy (reminder: Xander has absolutely no powers whatsoever, which makes that showdown a hundred times more awesome). Xander getting his eye gouged out. Xander facing his abusive father. Xander when Anya died. I put a lot of Xander's most human moments in there. Do I need to say it again?
But, if you'll notice, all the times Xander was a hero, it was in the most human way. He didn't bring Buffy back to life through magic. He used CPR. He didn't fight Willow to stop her from destroying the world. He talked her out of it with the most human, vulnerable thing: love. Xander is, not to sound redundant, but he's meant to be the personification of a human. He's infinitely flawed, but he tries, and fundamentally, he's good. That's his story. Trying to find a way to fight for good in spite of the fact that being a regular old human with a hundred flaws can make it very hard. Fighting even when you're overpowered a thousand to one. I think that's inspirational, and I think that in itself is a form of heroism.
Hey look, it's Anya! Look at all the colours of hair she had! It's a rainbow of blonde!
I love this quote from End of Days. Sadly I had to shorten it because it was a long, fabulous monologue that I suggest you look up because it's incredible, but I really really love this quote. What I adore about Buffy in general is that it acknowledges the crappiness of humanity while still adhering to the (perhaps naive) belief that fundamentally it is good with some mistakes, rather than believing we are fundamentally evil and sometimes we're accidentally nice. When Anya says this, she speaks as an outsider making observations. What you have to understand is that, for a thousand years, she wasn't human. She was a demon. And she did evil things. So when she became human, and started having to pay attention to them so she could act like them, she was initially really confused by them. And leading up to this scene, she's been really morally ambiguous. A lot of crappy things have happened to her as a result of, well, human error (and Xander has no small part to play in some of that error - naturally, being the most human) and this is her deciding that, despite the crappy things, humans are good. They fight when it's needed. And because of that, they deserve to not be wiped out by evil. And she's going to help.
The moment that is the backdrop...... is nothing particularly important to her character, to be honest, it was just the one that I found to be the most visually interesting. If you must know, she's singing about the evil of bunnies. Buffy running gags are the best running gags.
Moments in the bottom include The Gift, when she basically came up with every single way to kill Glory on the fly and everyone was doubting her, Selfless, when she sacrificed her life to bring back a bunch of frat boys (who she killed, being a demon, but she took it back in the most selfless act, and that's important), Two to Go, when she was helping with a spell to save a couple of nerds no one liked even though, at this point, she's a demon who shouldn't care, from The Body when she had that heartwrenching monologue about death (humanization!) and from Chosen, when she fights the First Evil with the rest of them (and died don'ttouchmeI'mcrying). I also included a lot of moments from her relationship with Xander - being proposed to, the ecstasy of being in love with him, and then being left at the altar (I said he made a few mistakes, okay?) partly because those very human emotions were needed to remind us that this bizarre character actually is human, but also because it shows her growth, I think. For a long time Anya defined herself by the men in her life - when she was a demon she took revenge on men for scorned women, and then she was with Xander almost immediately after that, and it's only near the end of the series that she starts to be able to define herself by who she actually is. And even when she understands herself, she fights alongside them, by her own choice and not just because Xander's in on it as well. That's the moment when it really means something. You get me?
Anya's a hero because, when all is said and done, she actively fights for good, even though she doesn't have to and it ultimately has nothing to do with her. And because she has the courage to define herself despite centuries of belonging to everyone else. She (along with Xander) is definitely one of the bravest characters. Don't even fight me on this.
Giles is actually the best.
(Weird that no one calls him Rupert, though..... except for Spike, which is extra weird.......)
The quote is from The Freshman, after temporarily abandoning a struggling Buffy, Giles comes back strong with this statement.
Here's the thing about Giles. He is, easily, the least dynamic character in the whole series. That doesn't mean he's entirely static - he's really really not - but his development/evolution is a lot more subtle, and arguably, less important. But that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
So, back on the subject of the quote, this is where Giles does something similar to Xander - he sets the tone for his own character development. Giles is always faced with a choice - to be to Buffy the fatherly figure, or the headmaster. He can't be both. He's repeatedly gotten in trouble with fellow Watchers for being too fatherly with her. Fact, he got fired for it. So in The Freshman, Giles begins by making the choice to essentially leave Buffy to her own devices in an attempt to force her to develop independence. Good intentions, of course, but everyone knows that Buffy is the longest surviving Slayer, and that the only reason for that is because of the help of her friends, and that help is contributed in no small part by Giles. But eventually Giles realizes that this is a mistake (although he goes on to make the same one later on - see Once More With Feeling) and sets things right. This quote is him saying that it doesn't matter to him what's "right" (read: appropriate) and will focus instead on doing what's good - the Watcher's Council does a very good job of distinguishing that.
The moment that is the backdrop is, like Anya's, not actually terribly important to his character, but the one I found to be the most visually interesting. If you must know, it's from one of his dreams - he's singing to the gang about the Monster of the Week. ("♫And Xander, don't bleed on my couch, I just had it steam-cleaned...♫") Which is actually rather important, as part of Giles's arc is deciding whether to be the father (letting love rule his life), the educator (letting responsibility rule his life) or the rock star (letting fun/passion rule his life), and if he could possibly be some combination of them at once.
Moments in the bottom include a lot of Giles being fatherly/protective, as it's a really important part of his character. There's a lot of badassery in there too - for being initially read as so stuffy and proper, he's really an extremely passionate and emotionally driven character, as well as being extremely powerful. See: the time he nearly died in an attempt to beat Angelus to death with a flaming bat. I also included the time he intimidated the principal into un-expelling Buffy (damn that Ripper smile though), the time he was being tortured half to death by Angelus and was still snarky as hell, the time he literally impaled the Mayor with a sword for saying he was going to eat Buffy (long story). But there's also grittier stuff in there. The time he killed Ben/Glory because he knew Buffy wouldn't. Yes, I call this heroism.
I call it heroism because A) it was a task that had to be done, regardless - if there was a chance for Glory the hell god to come back, it would inevitably happen, so Giles had to ensure that there wasn't a chance. B) Buffy was, at this point, too... not innocent, not pure, let's go with too compassionate, to finish the job. She was trying to get through this without any death, especially considering that Ben didn't actually ask to become possessed by a hell god. C) Giles does it to protect her and her inherent compassion which makes her the purest hero. If you don't think this murder weighs on his conscience for the rest of his life then you're wrong. Death affects Giles like no one else (see: flaming bat). But he recognized that it had to be done. So he did it. And this isn't Ripper, who intimidated the principal, and this isn't mad-with-rage Giles either, because he completely empathizes with Ben. This is just what he takes upon himself as his inevitable duty.
What I'm saying is that Giles is a hero because, first of all, he lets love drive him to the good thing rather than fearing about the right thing, and also because he has a certain awareness about his duty when necessary. Because he finds a way to be passionate, and responsible, and loving, and have all three of those serve a purpose for the greater good.
Tara.
Tara has a very isolated sort of heroism which is largely related to her being much more courageous than people give her credit for.
An odd quote when talking about heroes, right? Except it isn't. Tara has spent a good deal of her life being abused by her family and being rejected by people who claimed to be her friends, until she met Willow and the Scoobies. And for a long time she was loved and it was great, but eventually Willow started abusing her. Until her major character development in season five, she would have passively taken that. So in this quote (in fact, it was a song in the musical episode, but that's not important), she deliberately makes the decision to leave Willow and no longer allow herself to be abused. And if you don't think that's hugely courageous then you're wrong. She's essentially being her own hero, and that's just as important as anything else.
The moment that is the backdrop is her having the sanity drained out of her by Glory when she refused to give away what Glory wanted to know. A huge, significant, and somehow forgotten sacrifice that Tara made for the Scoobies when she still didn't even know them very well. (Spoiler alert: she got better).
Moments in the bottom include: being a rock for Buffy, being a rock for Willow, being a rock for Dawn, standing up for Willow despite the fact that Willow had abused her previously - no, it's not quite as grandiose as the other character's acts of heroism, but I find it to be important. Tara is the team mom, okay? Xander may keep the group together, but Tara keeps the group sane, and often, safe. She doesn't have to do that. She has just as much to complain about as any of them. She's just a really loving, caring person, and that's important.
She also began as this extremely shy character who was scared to speak too loudly, and ends as this empowered character who stands up for Willow to Anya, who has arguably one of the biggest and unapologetic (which can be intimidating to someone like Tara) personalities out of all of them.
Tara's story is about growing into one's self, and being consistently kind but without neglecting herself. Heroic? Maybe not by the usual definition, but is she a role model? You better believe it.
This one was a little harder, but I stuck by the concept that every major character in this series was a hero in their own right. I had to look harder with Dawn, but I think it was there.
Okay, so the quote is from Real Me. This episode was our major introduction to Dawn. It's back when she was just an annoying, whiny teen. So why would I use a quote so early in her character development? Because, like Xander, like Giles, she decides for herself what she's going to be. Maybe you're gathering this from how much I'm using this, but I really appreciate that in characters. Making the decision to shape one's own life is scary, and hard, and I think really brave. It's easy to passively let life carry you, you know? It's harder to fight the current and decide your own role. And that's why I appreciate it.
The backdrop is when the magic led the Scoobies to believe that Dawn was a Potential (sort of a Slayer-to-be). I chose this because A) it was visually interesting, but also because B) this episode was important in determining exactly how heroic Dawn can be when she's given the chance to prove herself. Maybe not this moment exactly, but Potential shows Dawn helping one of her friends fight demons. Alone. Because she needed it. It also shows her humility and honesty and probably other virtues I can't quite name due to sleep deprivation, because when she found out she wasn't the Potential, she gave up the title without a second of hesitation. Even though this was her moment in the spotlight. This was going to be her moment of heroism. She gives it up. In the blink of an eye. And that, in itself, is also heroism.
Moments in the bottom include: insisting to Buffy that she, Dawn, has to sacrifice herself to save the world (Buffy ended up doing it to let Dawn live, but that's not the point - Dawn wanted to make the sacrifice. An important detail a lot of people forget). That time Dawn threatened Spike if he ever hurt Buffy, and it scared the living bejeezus out of him (refresher: Spike is one of the strongest/most dangerous vampires in the world). That time Dawn single-handedly removed an evil spirit from her house. She really did have some awesome moments.
If I had to define Dawn's arc... I don't know. It's self-discovery, I think. Discovering her own strength to use in the fight. She gets less and less damsel-y as the series goes on, so yeah, I think that's it. Finding out who she is. Finding her strength. It's important.
And that's all the collages/backgrounds I made. I know I'm missing Faith, and Angel, and Cordelia (I'm debating whether or not I should include Harmony..... probably not, eh, she ended up betraying Team Angel in the end....) but their arcs have continuations in the Angel-verse, so I'm going to start doing that while including characters from that show as well. So. Yeah.
Heroism, in all its diversity and under-appreciated nuance.
I am obsessed with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Now, I finished it, and I don't watch it 24/7 anymore, but I will always, to an extent, be obsessed with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That's just a fact.
But back when I was in the "I literally can not think of anything else for more than ten seconds" phase of obsession, I created these desktop backgrounds that celebrated each major character. You see, what interests me about Buffy is that it discusses a lot of different kinds of heroism. Obviously you have Buffy, who is your general all-around kick-ass superhero, but you also had characters like Xander. And Anya. And, Lord help me, even Spike qualifies as a hero by the end of it all. So I took the opportunity to explore the definition of the word "hero"... by creating desktop backgrounds for myself. So, doubly productive! Uselessly productive, but productive!
So let's take a look.
Don't judge, okay, I worked for hours on these things.
(Keep in mind: I did only exclusive-to-Buffy characters. So, Angel and Cordelia aren't part of the batch because I haven't gotten around to Angel characters yet - though believe me, it will happen. And I will have a lot to say on the subject of Wesley freaking Wyndam-Pryce.)
This was the first one I made because it was the easiest. Buffy is the most conventional form of hero (or, as the case provides, heroine).
So what do we see here? Obviously, we've got the quote from Bring on the Night that always inspires me, not going to lie. Actually, this quote was said when she was bloody and bruised and utterly defeated - third screenshot from the left on the bottom - which only served to make it more powerful. Buffy's heroism isn't only in that she fights. It's in that she fights endlessly, and never, ever gives up no matter how hopeless it gets.
The main screenshot, which serves as the backdrop for the thing, is the moment where Buffy sacrifices herself so that her sister may live. It is absolutely no coincidence that her arms are spread as if she were on the cross. Her story has always been one of sacrifice, from the very beginning, and this was the moment it culminated to.
Screenshots in the bottom includes a couple from Chosen (she's fighting the First Evil, and wins not by herself, but by empowering a hundred other people to fight it as well, and I think that's important) the moment when she found her mother dead on the couch from The Body (absolutely beautiful episode. It's quite literally a work of art. I included that moment because it humanized her, and heroes are always much more heroic when they're fallible, mortal people) that one from Innocence where she defeats the invincible Judge with a bazooka because c'mon, that's flipping badass. Moments of sacrifice include the first one from the right, Prophecy Girl, where she literally sacrifices her life, and Becoming, where she killed her first love to stop him from destroying the world. So, yes, sacrifice and perseverance and badassery are pretty much Buffy's heroism in a nutshell.
This was the next one I did because Spike is important to my happiness.
Funnily enough, this was the hardest one to put together. There is no doubt in my mind that Spike is a hero, but it's hard to define it, exactly, because he spends the first six seasons acting like a complete douche. The thing is, his is a story of redemption, and redemption does not happen immediately or without hardship (as Angel has always, endlessly pointed out).
I included the quote from Chosen not because it's the most heroic or inspiring thing he's ever said, but because it basically summed up his arc. He spends so much of his time convincing himself and others that he's a soulless demon, I'm so hard and cruel - he creates such an elaborate persona for himself that even after he gets the soul you can see that he doesn't really believe it (in spite of the madness and agony that it put him through). So that moment - the moment where he's burning up and about to die - is the moment where he finally acknowledged that, yes, he does have a soul now, and yes, he has the capacity to do good, and no, that path is not easy.
The moment that is the backdrop is what happens almost directly after he says that. He sacrifices himself to save the world. He lights up, burns up, and then dies. (Until Angel season 5 that is, heeheeheeheeheeeheee....)
Moments included in the screenshots below include fighting for and earning his soul (first to the left and to the right, respectively), the aftermath of receiving his soul (he burns up on the cross - he was quite ill in many ways after he got his soul, as he suffered so much guilt thereafter. Should we sympathize with him for feeling bad about murders and atrocities he himself committed? Well, you have to remember that ensouled Spike and soulless Spike are two different people - they're similar, certainly, in many, many ways, but they are not the same. It would be like waking up and discovering that you've murdered your whole neighbourhood in your sleep). Also, the moments building up to his redemption - so, he comforts Buffy upon hearing about her mother's illness rather than murdering his arch-nemesis in her moment of weakness, he is kidnapped by a hell goddess and tortured for information about Buffy's sister and he gives nothing away even though there's nothing in it for him, and that terrible, heart-wrenching moment when he watched Buffy die. Literally, I think I'm through the scene without crying, and then I see Spike's reaction and I bawl along with him. I included that for the same reason I included the moment where Buffy saw her dead mother - it humanized him, and as I say, humanization is important to keep heroism heroic.
And here's Willow.
The quote I included is a little obscure and a little bit, um, inaccessible, but here's the gist of things: Willow turned evil for a while. She went all Dark-Willow and tried to kill a lot of people and nearly succeeded in destroying the world. This was due mostly in part to her dangerous addiction to magic and the power associated with it (she's the most powerful witch in the world). So when she says this, it's after Giles has rehabilitated her, and she's talking about the revelations she had while re-learning how to use magic for good again. I like to think she's also talking about herself here. Because for the longest time, Willow was the cute, nice, quirky kid who everyone always relied on. But there's always been darkness in her, and this moment was her voicing her realization of that fact and that she has to control it. Similar to Spike's (though not quite as worn with hardship), hers is also a story of redemption.
The moment that is the backdrop is from Chosen, when she goes again into deep, dangerous magic, and the others worry about her relapsing and going dark once more. Instead, the opposite happens. She goes light. She went a layer deeper in her magic and discovered that even underneath the darkness and evil there is good. This was such an important moment.
Screenshots from the bottom include shy nerdy Willow being badass, Willow kicking the ever-loving sugar out of Glory after she stole Tara's sanity, Willow's rehabilitation after her stint in the dark side, and Willow mourning Tara's death. Because, you know. Humanization. Willow's story is about growing into herself, which takes courage, and then choosing to be good even after witnessing the power that came with being bad. That's heroism.
Xander! Xander is my boy! Xander is my boy and I will not hear a word against him. Ever.
So the quote on this one is from Potential, when he's talking to Dawn about how she could have been a Slayer but then she wasn't and he's comforting her about being one of the... y'know, the muggles. He always struggles with being the one without powers, and a constant insecurity of his is that he isn't valuable because he has no supernatural powers, or because he has no knowledge of the supernatural besides what he learns as he goes along. Basically, he thinks he's useless for a good portion of the time. And that's just not true. As it also says, he's the one who sees. All of the other Scoobies always have an agenda, and let's not pretend Xander never does because there've been a few infamous moments, BUT, generally, Xander is the reality check. And that's an important role. (He's also the cohesion that keeps the group from hating each other, which is equally important, but not really relevant at this time).
The backdrop is from Buffy vs. Dracula. This was the moment where he set the tone for his own character development. For the past four seasons, but the one before this more so than usual, Xander was the buttmonkey (he coined this term in Buffy vs. Dracula, actually). Everything bad that could happen to anyone happened to him. He struggled with finding success in any aspect of his life and it took basically nothing for Spike to convince him that the others found him to be nothing but a dumb, useless weight. So when Buffy vs. Dracula happens, and he gets mind-controlled by Dracula (if you've ever read the original novel by Bram Stoker, he basically becomes Renfield) he finally stands up for himself. He says no. He will not be that guy anymore. He's going to get it together. For the longest time he's been the lightning rod of hate and this is him refusing that role. That's always really inspiring to me.
Moments in the bottom include: When Xander was forced to stake his childhood best friend - can you say, formative moment? The time Xander brought Buffy back to life using CPR, the time Xander rammed Glory with a freaking wrecking ball, practically destroying her - yeah, tell me again how Xander is useless. Xander talking Willow out of destroying the world using the power of friendship - I bawled my eyes out. Xander taking on a bunch of demons alone because all the other Scoobies were busy (reminder: Xander has absolutely no powers whatsoever, which makes that showdown a hundred times more awesome). Xander getting his eye gouged out. Xander facing his abusive father. Xander when Anya died. I put a lot of Xander's most human moments in there. Do I need to say it again?
But, if you'll notice, all the times Xander was a hero, it was in the most human way. He didn't bring Buffy back to life through magic. He used CPR. He didn't fight Willow to stop her from destroying the world. He talked her out of it with the most human, vulnerable thing: love. Xander is, not to sound redundant, but he's meant to be the personification of a human. He's infinitely flawed, but he tries, and fundamentally, he's good. That's his story. Trying to find a way to fight for good in spite of the fact that being a regular old human with a hundred flaws can make it very hard. Fighting even when you're overpowered a thousand to one. I think that's inspirational, and I think that in itself is a form of heroism.
Hey look, it's Anya! Look at all the colours of hair she had! It's a rainbow of blonde!
I love this quote from End of Days. Sadly I had to shorten it because it was a long, fabulous monologue that I suggest you look up because it's incredible, but I really really love this quote. What I adore about Buffy in general is that it acknowledges the crappiness of humanity while still adhering to the (perhaps naive) belief that fundamentally it is good with some mistakes, rather than believing we are fundamentally evil and sometimes we're accidentally nice. When Anya says this, she speaks as an outsider making observations. What you have to understand is that, for a thousand years, she wasn't human. She was a demon. And she did evil things. So when she became human, and started having to pay attention to them so she could act like them, she was initially really confused by them. And leading up to this scene, she's been really morally ambiguous. A lot of crappy things have happened to her as a result of, well, human error (and Xander has no small part to play in some of that error - naturally, being the most human) and this is her deciding that, despite the crappy things, humans are good. They fight when it's needed. And because of that, they deserve to not be wiped out by evil. And she's going to help.
The moment that is the backdrop...... is nothing particularly important to her character, to be honest, it was just the one that I found to be the most visually interesting. If you must know, she's singing about the evil of bunnies. Buffy running gags are the best running gags.
Moments in the bottom include The Gift, when she basically came up with every single way to kill Glory on the fly and everyone was doubting her, Selfless, when she sacrificed her life to bring back a bunch of frat boys (who she killed, being a demon, but she took it back in the most selfless act, and that's important), Two to Go, when she was helping with a spell to save a couple of nerds no one liked even though, at this point, she's a demon who shouldn't care, from The Body when she had that heartwrenching monologue about death (humanization!) and from Chosen, when she fights the First Evil with the rest of them (and died don'ttouchmeI'mcrying). I also included a lot of moments from her relationship with Xander - being proposed to, the ecstasy of being in love with him, and then being left at the altar (I said he made a few mistakes, okay?) partly because those very human emotions were needed to remind us that this bizarre character actually is human, but also because it shows her growth, I think. For a long time Anya defined herself by the men in her life - when she was a demon she took revenge on men for scorned women, and then she was with Xander almost immediately after that, and it's only near the end of the series that she starts to be able to define herself by who she actually is. And even when she understands herself, she fights alongside them, by her own choice and not just because Xander's in on it as well. That's the moment when it really means something. You get me?
Anya's a hero because, when all is said and done, she actively fights for good, even though she doesn't have to and it ultimately has nothing to do with her. And because she has the courage to define herself despite centuries of belonging to everyone else. She (along with Xander) is definitely one of the bravest characters. Don't even fight me on this.
Giles is actually the best.
(Weird that no one calls him Rupert, though..... except for Spike, which is extra weird.......)
The quote is from The Freshman, after temporarily abandoning a struggling Buffy, Giles comes back strong with this statement.
Here's the thing about Giles. He is, easily, the least dynamic character in the whole series. That doesn't mean he's entirely static - he's really really not - but his development/evolution is a lot more subtle, and arguably, less important. But that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
So, back on the subject of the quote, this is where Giles does something similar to Xander - he sets the tone for his own character development. Giles is always faced with a choice - to be to Buffy the fatherly figure, or the headmaster. He can't be both. He's repeatedly gotten in trouble with fellow Watchers for being too fatherly with her. Fact, he got fired for it. So in The Freshman, Giles begins by making the choice to essentially leave Buffy to her own devices in an attempt to force her to develop independence. Good intentions, of course, but everyone knows that Buffy is the longest surviving Slayer, and that the only reason for that is because of the help of her friends, and that help is contributed in no small part by Giles. But eventually Giles realizes that this is a mistake (although he goes on to make the same one later on - see Once More With Feeling) and sets things right. This quote is him saying that it doesn't matter to him what's "right" (read: appropriate) and will focus instead on doing what's good - the Watcher's Council does a very good job of distinguishing that.
The moment that is the backdrop is, like Anya's, not actually terribly important to his character, but the one I found to be the most visually interesting. If you must know, it's from one of his dreams - he's singing to the gang about the Monster of the Week. ("♫And Xander, don't bleed on my couch, I just had it steam-cleaned...♫") Which is actually rather important, as part of Giles's arc is deciding whether to be the father (letting love rule his life), the educator (letting responsibility rule his life) or the rock star (letting fun/passion rule his life), and if he could possibly be some combination of them at once.
Moments in the bottom include a lot of Giles being fatherly/protective, as it's a really important part of his character. There's a lot of badassery in there too - for being initially read as so stuffy and proper, he's really an extremely passionate and emotionally driven character, as well as being extremely powerful. See: the time he nearly died in an attempt to beat Angelus to death with a flaming bat. I also included the time he intimidated the principal into un-expelling Buffy (damn that Ripper smile though), the time he was being tortured half to death by Angelus and was still snarky as hell, the time he literally impaled the Mayor with a sword for saying he was going to eat Buffy (long story). But there's also grittier stuff in there. The time he killed Ben/Glory because he knew Buffy wouldn't. Yes, I call this heroism.
I call it heroism because A) it was a task that had to be done, regardless - if there was a chance for Glory the hell god to come back, it would inevitably happen, so Giles had to ensure that there wasn't a chance. B) Buffy was, at this point, too... not innocent, not pure, let's go with too compassionate, to finish the job. She was trying to get through this without any death, especially considering that Ben didn't actually ask to become possessed by a hell god. C) Giles does it to protect her and her inherent compassion which makes her the purest hero. If you don't think this murder weighs on his conscience for the rest of his life then you're wrong. Death affects Giles like no one else (see: flaming bat). But he recognized that it had to be done. So he did it. And this isn't Ripper, who intimidated the principal, and this isn't mad-with-rage Giles either, because he completely empathizes with Ben. This is just what he takes upon himself as his inevitable duty.
What I'm saying is that Giles is a hero because, first of all, he lets love drive him to the good thing rather than fearing about the right thing, and also because he has a certain awareness about his duty when necessary. Because he finds a way to be passionate, and responsible, and loving, and have all three of those serve a purpose for the greater good.
Tara.
Tara has a very isolated sort of heroism which is largely related to her being much more courageous than people give her credit for.
An odd quote when talking about heroes, right? Except it isn't. Tara has spent a good deal of her life being abused by her family and being rejected by people who claimed to be her friends, until she met Willow and the Scoobies. And for a long time she was loved and it was great, but eventually Willow started abusing her. Until her major character development in season five, she would have passively taken that. So in this quote (in fact, it was a song in the musical episode, but that's not important), she deliberately makes the decision to leave Willow and no longer allow herself to be abused. And if you don't think that's hugely courageous then you're wrong. She's essentially being her own hero, and that's just as important as anything else.
The moment that is the backdrop is her having the sanity drained out of her by Glory when she refused to give away what Glory wanted to know. A huge, significant, and somehow forgotten sacrifice that Tara made for the Scoobies when she still didn't even know them very well. (Spoiler alert: she got better).
Moments in the bottom include: being a rock for Buffy, being a rock for Willow, being a rock for Dawn, standing up for Willow despite the fact that Willow had abused her previously - no, it's not quite as grandiose as the other character's acts of heroism, but I find it to be important. Tara is the team mom, okay? Xander may keep the group together, but Tara keeps the group sane, and often, safe. She doesn't have to do that. She has just as much to complain about as any of them. She's just a really loving, caring person, and that's important.
She also began as this extremely shy character who was scared to speak too loudly, and ends as this empowered character who stands up for Willow to Anya, who has arguably one of the biggest and unapologetic (which can be intimidating to someone like Tara) personalities out of all of them.
Tara's story is about growing into one's self, and being consistently kind but without neglecting herself. Heroic? Maybe not by the usual definition, but is she a role model? You better believe it.
This one was a little harder, but I stuck by the concept that every major character in this series was a hero in their own right. I had to look harder with Dawn, but I think it was there.
Okay, so the quote is from Real Me. This episode was our major introduction to Dawn. It's back when she was just an annoying, whiny teen. So why would I use a quote so early in her character development? Because, like Xander, like Giles, she decides for herself what she's going to be. Maybe you're gathering this from how much I'm using this, but I really appreciate that in characters. Making the decision to shape one's own life is scary, and hard, and I think really brave. It's easy to passively let life carry you, you know? It's harder to fight the current and decide your own role. And that's why I appreciate it.
The backdrop is when the magic led the Scoobies to believe that Dawn was a Potential (sort of a Slayer-to-be). I chose this because A) it was visually interesting, but also because B) this episode was important in determining exactly how heroic Dawn can be when she's given the chance to prove herself. Maybe not this moment exactly, but Potential shows Dawn helping one of her friends fight demons. Alone. Because she needed it. It also shows her humility and honesty and probably other virtues I can't quite name due to sleep deprivation, because when she found out she wasn't the Potential, she gave up the title without a second of hesitation. Even though this was her moment in the spotlight. This was going to be her moment of heroism. She gives it up. In the blink of an eye. And that, in itself, is also heroism.
Moments in the bottom include: insisting to Buffy that she, Dawn, has to sacrifice herself to save the world (Buffy ended up doing it to let Dawn live, but that's not the point - Dawn wanted to make the sacrifice. An important detail a lot of people forget). That time Dawn threatened Spike if he ever hurt Buffy, and it scared the living bejeezus out of him (refresher: Spike is one of the strongest/most dangerous vampires in the world). That time Dawn single-handedly removed an evil spirit from her house. She really did have some awesome moments.
If I had to define Dawn's arc... I don't know. It's self-discovery, I think. Discovering her own strength to use in the fight. She gets less and less damsel-y as the series goes on, so yeah, I think that's it. Finding out who she is. Finding her strength. It's important.
And that's all the collages/backgrounds I made. I know I'm missing Faith, and Angel, and Cordelia (I'm debating whether or not I should include Harmony..... probably not, eh, she ended up betraying Team Angel in the end....) but their arcs have continuations in the Angel-verse, so I'm going to start doing that while including characters from that show as well. So. Yeah.
Heroism, in all its diversity and under-appreciated nuance.
Sunday, March 29, 2015
It's Here... Inside My Mind
The PHAAANTOM OOOOOOF THE OOOOOOOOOOOOPERAAAAAAAAAA!
So I recently went to New York with a group from school, and we did a hell of a lot of things there, but one of the most exciting things was we saw a couple Broadway plays.
On the last night we saw Wicked (.... you know, how the Wicked Witch of the West was actually pretty okay, originally starring Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth, who are pretty much Broadway legends). The version we saw didn't have Idina or Kristin, as they're now on to other things, but it did star Robin DeJesus - who, by the way, played Sonny in the original Broadway run of In the Heights. I have an autograph and a selfie with him, which pretty much made my whole life.
Anyway, I'd seen Wicked before, and it's very good. Like it's really really good and I always enjoy it. And you gotta respect how game-changing it is for musical theatre as a genre. But for me, it just did not hold a candle to Phantom of the Opera.
For those who don't know what Phantom of the Opera is, it's a musical based on a novel from about late 1800s I think, and it follows the story of an opera house which is haunted by a mysterious ghost, or "phantom". This "phantom" seems to be almost omnipresent, and nearly always a threatening presence to boot - a powerful ghost indeed, who demands a salary from the owners of the theatre every week and also demands that Box 5 be left perpetually reserved, presumably so that he can take it. He's also most likely the culprit of a lot of poltergeist-y things that happen around the opera - things that happen quite a lot, judging from Carlotta's prima donna fit about it. In her prima donna fit, she refuses to sing for the show, and a chorus girl by name of Christine steps up out of nowhere and blows them all away with a soprano voice that could match Carlotta - who knew? Well, the thing is, she's been having lessons from someone...someone she can't even name, except to call him the "angel of music".
And yeah, that all goes over really well.
So this was the first time I'd seen Phantom of the Opera, that week on Broadway. It was the first time, and the seats we had were very close to the stage, so it's possible that that played a role in why I loved it so much.
But there's more to it than that. There's a lot to Phantom that really came together for me. I love the story for one thing. Now, I read (what I'm pretty sure was a summarized, simplified, made-for-children version of) the book years and years ago, and I remember really enjoying it at the time. So the story's just always been something that's intrigued me. It just kind of revels in this sort of classical, yet Gothic thing, this in-between steampunk thing going on, and I love it. I mean, the title song is a good definition of steampunk on its own, I think - there's a lot of classical playing and singing going on, but at the same time, it was definitely not written in the Victorian era. The constant beat that keeps it going is such a modern tack, but it's so effective.
Like I'm in love with how Gothic it is.
But the music is also beautiful. I mean, even when it's dissonant and harsh, it's like that so carefully, and honestly, I've been listening to this soundtrack non-stop for the past few days (it's good homework music, go figure) and it's just, entirely, gorgeous.
If I have one complaint about the music, it's that they reprise a lot. Like, all the time - Angel of Music comes back like six times. Again, I do feel like it's sort of carefully done - they use the tune of Notes as the theatre owner's theme, and I do feel like they're using the music as its own language to convey things without having to listen to the lyrics they're actually singing (although it undoubtedly helps). So I do see what they're trying to accomplish, and they change it enough or put it in a different enough context so that it doesn't get annoying, it's just if you listen to the soundtrack over and over for three days straight. Like I have been.
I actually legitimately enjoy every character. Like, even Raoul, who exists almost entirely as a love interest for Christine. I actually cared about him. That almost never happens, and I think it's because he was actually genuinely supportive and comforting to Christine and not just "Hey you're pretty, why do you talk so much, the Phantom doesn't exist??????" And I liked Christine, I totally understood what she was about.
And of course, I adore the character of the Phantom.
I was having a discussion with my friend about the character of the Phantom, and I was talking about how he was indisputably my favourite character, which probably had quite a bit to do with the fact that villains are always way more interesting than the protagonists, and she responded with, "Well, I don't really consider him a villain."
And I sort of get that, but at the same time, let's not get carried away. The Phantom is a villain. I mean, he kills people. Multiple people. Like, with complete intention. He is a villain, but that doesn't make him one-sided by definition. He's totally a sympathetic villain by the end of it, and that's what makes him so interesting. I mean, he's not a good guy, but he is also a genius. He created this whole labyrinth under the opera house, and writes operas in his spare time and invents things. He's very passionate about music, and I think that's indicative of, y'know, a soul. And of course, he's been tormented his entire life - the mask is hiding a monstrous face which he was born with, and because of this (it was mentioned in the musical I think, but it was definitely in the book I read) he was treated as a freak for his whole life. Like, he was a circus attraction, and as such, he was abused. It's weird because I spend so much time reveling in how creepy and twisted the Phantom is, and yet when this exchange happens:
Raoul: Show some compassion!
Phantom: The world showed no compassion to me!
or when he gets his own little reprise of Masquerade:
Phantom: Masquerade... Paper faces on parade... masquerade... hide your face so the world will never find you...
Or, here's the one that really gets me, his brief reprise of Music of the Night the second time he abducts Christine before the grand finale:
Phantom: This face which earned a mother's fear and loathing/A mask, my first unfeeling scrap of clothing/ Pity comes too late! Turn around and face your fate!
I get a surprising amount of feelings.
My current favourite song from the show is Music of the Night, A.K.A the I-just-abducted-Christine-and-now-I'm-trying-to-get-her-to-embrace-my-darkness song. I mean, it's the creepiest thing ever, but musically, it's absolutely gorgeous. (Also in the original soundtrack, which starred Michael Crawford as the Phantom... Michael Crawford just has an extremely unique and wonderful voice, and it really makes it).
And that's kinda what I love about the show. It's so creepy and Gothic, but undeniably.... beautiful. I mean mostly the music, naturally, because it truly is, but I mean, the Phantom's resolution is beautiful as well, not to mention the elaborate-ass set that they have to pull off when they perform it - trapdoors and tilting bridges and crashing chandeliers and, like, beams of flame. It's incredible to see live, and none of it misses a beat.
I'm also really in love with the title song because of the suspense in the music. I don't wanna get too technical here, (but I kinda do because I'm an analytical bastard with a particular passion for music) but at the beginning of the fourth verse the suspense really gets going, and it's because the violins pick up and start this really cool pattern of ongoing eighth notes, and it doesn't stop, and it goes on incessantly without rest, and it becomes... this ticking clock in the background, but so much prettier. And it sounds repetitive, but it changes just enough to keep you off-balance. Gives me chills. And it's because of this one pattern in the music (although the rest of the song is just as fascinating, and Christine's super-human soprano powers at the end are worth listening to) that suddenly gives the suspense some renewed vigor, because suddenly you have this ticking clock, and you know one of them is running out of time, but you just don't know who.
Too long, didn't read: it's really beautiful, well-written music, and you should listen to the title song (preferably with Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman, because their voices are unique and wonderful) if only to listen to how all the parts fit together to create this marvelous suspenseful whole.
Let the dream begin, let your darker side give in, to the power of the music that I write...
Yeah, I've had Music of the Night stuck in my head for a solid week, but it's just so pretty.
So yeah, if you ever have the chance to see this live, do it. Do not even hesitate. It is such a beautiful show, and it is such a spectacle to watch sometimes, and I mean, even when you can't make out the words they're saying (operatic pieces are like that sometimes) you're so wrapped up in the music you don't even care and the Phantom is just such a fascinating character and I just really adore this show a lot and I think everyone should experience it.
Off now to watch the movie and read the original novel as soon as humanly possible.
10/10, would watch infinitely.
So I recently went to New York with a group from school, and we did a hell of a lot of things there, but one of the most exciting things was we saw a couple Broadway plays.
On the last night we saw Wicked (.... you know, how the Wicked Witch of the West was actually pretty okay, originally starring Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth, who are pretty much Broadway legends). The version we saw didn't have Idina or Kristin, as they're now on to other things, but it did star Robin DeJesus - who, by the way, played Sonny in the original Broadway run of In the Heights. I have an autograph and a selfie with him, which pretty much made my whole life.
Anyway, I'd seen Wicked before, and it's very good. Like it's really really good and I always enjoy it. And you gotta respect how game-changing it is for musical theatre as a genre. But for me, it just did not hold a candle to Phantom of the Opera.
For those who don't know what Phantom of the Opera is, it's a musical based on a novel from about late 1800s I think, and it follows the story of an opera house which is haunted by a mysterious ghost, or "phantom". This "phantom" seems to be almost omnipresent, and nearly always a threatening presence to boot - a powerful ghost indeed, who demands a salary from the owners of the theatre every week and also demands that Box 5 be left perpetually reserved, presumably so that he can take it. He's also most likely the culprit of a lot of poltergeist-y things that happen around the opera - things that happen quite a lot, judging from Carlotta's prima donna fit about it. In her prima donna fit, she refuses to sing for the show, and a chorus girl by name of Christine steps up out of nowhere and blows them all away with a soprano voice that could match Carlotta - who knew? Well, the thing is, she's been having lessons from someone...someone she can't even name, except to call him the "angel of music".
And yeah, that all goes over really well.
So this was the first time I'd seen Phantom of the Opera, that week on Broadway. It was the first time, and the seats we had were very close to the stage, so it's possible that that played a role in why I loved it so much.
But there's more to it than that. There's a lot to Phantom that really came together for me. I love the story for one thing. Now, I read (what I'm pretty sure was a summarized, simplified, made-for-children version of) the book years and years ago, and I remember really enjoying it at the time. So the story's just always been something that's intrigued me. It just kind of revels in this sort of classical, yet Gothic thing, this in-between steampunk thing going on, and I love it. I mean, the title song is a good definition of steampunk on its own, I think - there's a lot of classical playing and singing going on, but at the same time, it was definitely not written in the Victorian era. The constant beat that keeps it going is such a modern tack, but it's so effective.
Like I'm in love with how Gothic it is.
But the music is also beautiful. I mean, even when it's dissonant and harsh, it's like that so carefully, and honestly, I've been listening to this soundtrack non-stop for the past few days (it's good homework music, go figure) and it's just, entirely, gorgeous.
If I have one complaint about the music, it's that they reprise a lot. Like, all the time - Angel of Music comes back like six times. Again, I do feel like it's sort of carefully done - they use the tune of Notes as the theatre owner's theme, and I do feel like they're using the music as its own language to convey things without having to listen to the lyrics they're actually singing (although it undoubtedly helps). So I do see what they're trying to accomplish, and they change it enough or put it in a different enough context so that it doesn't get annoying, it's just if you listen to the soundtrack over and over for three days straight. Like I have been.
I actually legitimately enjoy every character. Like, even Raoul, who exists almost entirely as a love interest for Christine. I actually cared about him. That almost never happens, and I think it's because he was actually genuinely supportive and comforting to Christine and not just "Hey you're pretty, why do you talk so much, the Phantom doesn't exist??????" And I liked Christine, I totally understood what she was about.
And of course, I adore the character of the Phantom.
I was having a discussion with my friend about the character of the Phantom, and I was talking about how he was indisputably my favourite character, which probably had quite a bit to do with the fact that villains are always way more interesting than the protagonists, and she responded with, "Well, I don't really consider him a villain."
And I sort of get that, but at the same time, let's not get carried away. The Phantom is a villain. I mean, he kills people. Multiple people. Like, with complete intention. He is a villain, but that doesn't make him one-sided by definition. He's totally a sympathetic villain by the end of it, and that's what makes him so interesting. I mean, he's not a good guy, but he is also a genius. He created this whole labyrinth under the opera house, and writes operas in his spare time and invents things. He's very passionate about music, and I think that's indicative of, y'know, a soul. And of course, he's been tormented his entire life - the mask is hiding a monstrous face which he was born with, and because of this (it was mentioned in the musical I think, but it was definitely in the book I read) he was treated as a freak for his whole life. Like, he was a circus attraction, and as such, he was abused. It's weird because I spend so much time reveling in how creepy and twisted the Phantom is, and yet when this exchange happens:
Raoul: Show some compassion!
Phantom: The world showed no compassion to me!
or when he gets his own little reprise of Masquerade:
Phantom: Masquerade... Paper faces on parade... masquerade... hide your face so the world will never find you...
Or, here's the one that really gets me, his brief reprise of Music of the Night the second time he abducts Christine before the grand finale:
Phantom: This face which earned a mother's fear and loathing/A mask, my first unfeeling scrap of clothing/ Pity comes too late! Turn around and face your fate!
I get a surprising amount of feelings.
My current favourite song from the show is Music of the Night, A.K.A the I-just-abducted-Christine-and-now-I'm-trying-to-get-her-to-embrace-my-darkness song. I mean, it's the creepiest thing ever, but musically, it's absolutely gorgeous. (Also in the original soundtrack, which starred Michael Crawford as the Phantom... Michael Crawford just has an extremely unique and wonderful voice, and it really makes it).
And that's kinda what I love about the show. It's so creepy and Gothic, but undeniably.... beautiful. I mean mostly the music, naturally, because it truly is, but I mean, the Phantom's resolution is beautiful as well, not to mention the elaborate-ass set that they have to pull off when they perform it - trapdoors and tilting bridges and crashing chandeliers and, like, beams of flame. It's incredible to see live, and none of it misses a beat.
I'm also really in love with the title song because of the suspense in the music. I don't wanna get too technical here, (but I kinda do because I'm an analytical bastard with a particular passion for music) but at the beginning of the fourth verse the suspense really gets going, and it's because the violins pick up and start this really cool pattern of ongoing eighth notes, and it doesn't stop, and it goes on incessantly without rest, and it becomes... this ticking clock in the background, but so much prettier. And it sounds repetitive, but it changes just enough to keep you off-balance. Gives me chills. And it's because of this one pattern in the music (although the rest of the song is just as fascinating, and Christine's super-human soprano powers at the end are worth listening to) that suddenly gives the suspense some renewed vigor, because suddenly you have this ticking clock, and you know one of them is running out of time, but you just don't know who.
Too long, didn't read: it's really beautiful, well-written music, and you should listen to the title song (preferably with Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman, because their voices are unique and wonderful) if only to listen to how all the parts fit together to create this marvelous suspenseful whole.
Let the dream begin, let your darker side give in, to the power of the music that I write...
Yeah, I've had Music of the Night stuck in my head for a solid week, but it's just so pretty.
So yeah, if you ever have the chance to see this live, do it. Do not even hesitate. It is such a beautiful show, and it is such a spectacle to watch sometimes, and I mean, even when you can't make out the words they're saying (operatic pieces are like that sometimes) you're so wrapped up in the music you don't even care and the Phantom is just such a fascinating character and I just really adore this show a lot and I think everyone should experience it.
Off now to watch the movie and read the original novel as soon as humanly possible.
10/10, would watch infinitely.
Monday, December 29, 2014
So How Was Your Christmas?
Because mine was pretty good, which you should be able to judge by the fact that I'm typing this post on my BRAND NEW LAPTOP!!!
(My parents paid for most of it and yet I'm still broke from it thanks a lot technology).
I'm mostly planning to use it for writing and video editing, because those are things where its important that I have space to do it on my own. Doesn't mean I'm not going to be enjoying its handy "Internet" feature, but what I mean is that I am going to be working on this/using it a lot and that's a good thing.
Yep. How are your holidays going?
(My parents paid for most of it and yet I'm still broke from it thanks a lot technology).
I'm mostly planning to use it for writing and video editing, because those are things where its important that I have space to do it on my own. Doesn't mean I'm not going to be enjoying its handy "Internet" feature, but what I mean is that I am going to be working on this/using it a lot and that's a good thing.
Yep. How are your holidays going?
Monday, December 22, 2014
Boredom Part 2
THE EXTENT OF MY BOREDOM KNOWS NO BOUNDSSSSSSSSS
Remember, in Boredom part 1, how I'd been off school for half a day? And had already gotten so bored that I recorded every part of 96 000 (from In the Heights) just because I had nothing better to do?
Do you remember how in that post I had a brief rant about how Blackout was my newest favourite from In the Heights because it had so many overlapping parts and cool harmonies and everything?
I did the same thing. Only with Blackout.
It is two minutes shorter. And took me two hours longer.
Who needs productivity anyway?
And this was just me doing this in spite of the fact that I couldn't find the backing track for it so there's no background music (which makes some of it sound a little odd). But it doesn't even matter because, if I do say so myself, the harmonies are so much more solid in this experiment of mine than in 96 000.
Here you are.
In some places volume is still a bit of an issue because, like I said before, Garageband isn't perfect.
But this was a lot more challenging than 96 000. And, ironically, I think it came out better. I mean, considering there's no backing track.
I don't even know why I do this.
Saturday, December 20, 2014
Bastille is a Thing and IT MADE MY WHOLE LIFE
[I wrote this like weeks ago - closer to when it actually happened - but could only finish it now for reasons, so yeah]
LITERALLY
I COULD DIE RIGHT NOW
AND BE PERFECTLY HAPPY
PROBABLY BE SINGING ONE OF THEIR SONGS AS IT HAPPENS:
"I'll come baaaaaaaaaack to haunt you.... memorieeeeeees will tauuuuunt you..."
"I don't want to rest in peace/I'd rather be the ghost that annoys you.... It's Day of the Dead, I'm Indiana Jones here/These coins sit upon our eyes/Pool our funds, we'll pay the boat together..."
For those who have no idea what the friggity is going on right now, me and my friend Anna saw Bastille LIVE IN CONCERT
AND THEY ARE LITERALLY PERFECT
JUST
EVERYTHING
I DIED
AND I ALSO CRIED
AND HUGGED ANNA A LOT
IT WAS A ROLLERCOASTER Y'ALL
They opened with Things We Lost in the Fire and just, if you can imagine like a dark stage and then Dan Smith's angelic voice just breaking the anticipating silence and everything was totally wonderful in that moment.
And just - the bass pulsing in the seats we had and Dan Smith grooving out as he sings and hopping around, like first of all, wow, that's some good endurance to be singing and doing that at the same time, and everyone in the band was just so passionate and it was amazing.
Then they played The Weight of Living Pt. 2 (they never played Pt. 1 which makes me sad but it was still INCREDIBLE) and the light show was amazing and everything was amazing. Just everything. And they even tagged Pt. 2 with the beginning of Pt. 1 and I was like "YASSSSSSS"
And then Laughter Lines.
I don't remember the order after that. But it was amazing.
And they even played a few songs that I hadn't heard before (the funny thing is that all the ones I hadn't heard Anna had so between us we're basically an encyclopedia of Bastille) like The Driver, and something that comes out on their next album which, as Dan put it (in his beautiful voice that makes me glow), "will come out hopefully at some point in the future." And also their cover of No Scrubs with like mixed in sound bites from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho and, surprise surprise, it's much darker and god I love dark god I love Bastille they're LITERALLY PERFECT.
Sidebar: I really love Bastille's covers. Not necessarily because they're, like, perfect covers of the songs, but because they make the songs really fascinating. They have a gift for completely turning the original intention of a song on its head. My current favourite is their cover of No Scrubs, which is called No Angels because it's mixed in with Angels. What I love about it is that - the song is about class, right? The verses are all talking about "Ugh, look at that deadbeat who lives with his mother and doesn't own his own car," calling these guys "scrubs", and then the chorus is all "I don't want no scrubs, a scrub is a guy that can't get no love from me...." etcetera. And in the original song, these lyrics were completely sincere. But in Bastille's version, while keeping the lyrics completely identical, they've mixed it in with clips of Norman Bates talking about living in traps and tagged it with "Being as in love with you as I am," and suddenly the lyrics are entirely ironic. It's like, they're pointing out how flawed that way of thinking is - to immediately assume that someone who lacks money or opportunity is a bad person because of it - by subscribing to it. I believe my english teacher would call that verbal irony. And I think it's so cool that they found a way to reverse the intention so completely without even changing the words.
They did a similar thing when they covered Miley Cyrus's We Can't Stop. That was my favourite thing for a while, because at first it seems like, oh yeah, this is Bastille's cover of a party song, and then in the middle of it they throw in some Billy Ray: "Don't break his heart, his achy breaky heart, I just don't think you understand....." and suddenly it's about how out of control Miley is and how disappointed her father must be. Once again, unexpectedly flipping the intention of the song, and it's amazing.
But anyways, wow, that was a rant. But I do find it very fascinating. What can I say? Bastille's songs make me want to think about things.
But back to the concert.
It was fabulous. They are amazing live. And Dan's like jumping up and down as he sings and getting so into it. Even when they played Overjoyed (with super cool percussion!), while he was playing the piano, he was like bopping up and down and it was my favourite thing ever.
And at one point he played Oblivion and he was like, "If you've ever listened to, like, two songs on any of our albums, you've probably noticed that we have a few depressing ones. This is one of them. But it'll be better if you all do that cliche thing where you bring out your torches or phones - did anyone actually bring a torch?" (He calls 'em torches 'cause he's British, God they slay me. They slay me like Buffy slayed Sunday. I'm dead.) And anyway we all brought out our phones and waved 'em back and forth for Oblivion and I almost cried. But not yet.
No, the moment I cried was when they played The Silence. And I'm not kidding. I actually cried.
What you have to understand is that The Silence is an important song to me. Even before I'd fully figured out exactly what the words were saying, it had always reminded me of an old teacher of mine, M. Larrivee (qu'il repose en paix). I don't want to get all cheesy here, but let's leave it at the fact that Larrivee was an extremely influential man who made me reconsider the definition of intelligence and of storytelling, both of which are important to me, and I like to think of the song celebrating him, even if that wasn't the original intention.
And then, when I listened to the actual words, I realized that it was, in fact, about writer's block. That it practically pleads me to break through writer's block. So, guess which song I turn on when I'm feeling lost and uninspired about some of my stuff? Guess whose voice urges me to continue and not let the blank page consume me? You guessed it.
What I'm saying is that the song is extremely meaningful to me on multiple levels, and that when the vocals started ringing through that PNE Forum it was a little overwhelming. But, like, in a good way. Sort of in a "I can't believe this is really happening," way. And I got a little emotional. But it was amazing.
Also they played The Draw. I mention it because it's another song that's really meaningful to me (I associate it with depression and things of that nature, and I think it helps me understand a little bit those of my friends that suffer from things like that - they've described similar things to me). And also because, according to Dan, they "tried to be grunge for four days. We failed. But this is what came out of it."
Thank you, Bastille, for failing at grunge. Thank you so. Freaking. Much.
Then, for the end of their first set, they played Flaws, and Dan just goes, "Let's see how far I can get!" And he jumps down from the stage and starts wading through the crowd. This was about the time that me and Anna both simultaneously went "HOLYSHITHOLYSHITHOLYSHITHOLYSHIT", practically stampeded the people in our way and ran down to the floor in front of the stage. We didn't even get close to him, BUT, it got us out of our seats and on the floor, leaving us free to dance like crazy people during the encore.
And what an encore.
They came out, started with Get Home, which me and Anna passionately waved our hands back and forth to. Then, before beginning the next song, Dan goes, "As you may have noticed, I'm not that great a dancer. But for this next song - I know audience participating is lame, but like, if you all want to dance with me and make me feel better. I'll just say, 'Get down!' and you can all get down with me, if you want." Pauses, thinks about it for a moment. "But not, like, in a sexy way."
DAN SMITH YOU PERFECT CREATURE
So then they played Of the Night, and he yelled "Get down!" during the pre-chorus, but instead of dancing, everyone in the crowd just knelt down, because we're building up to the suspense here, and then they hit the chorus and the lights are flashing and everyone's jumping and dancing and it was amazing.
And then, finally, Pompeii. (I totally called it, I totally knew that they'd play Pompeii for their last one!) And it was amazingly fun and everyone was dancing and singing along and it was a freaking blast. The whole night was perfect.
Also, it was Anna's first concert. And, as far as first concerts go, it was pretty freaking incredible.
Bastille are literally perfection personified.
And so, yeah. That was more or less the rhythm of that night.
Sorry for the pun, I just needed a way to fill the silence.
I know, there's another one. It just makes me overjoyed when you listen to my words.
Okay, that's enough, I know. I hope you'll not not show your face here anymore.
I know, they're getting increasingly more desperate. But it almost feels like nothing changed at all.
Okay, I'm done now. Promise.
(When Dan Smith freestyles on the notes and just ohmygodmyovariesexplodedheisaperfectcreatureiwanteighthundredofhim)
Also I got a shirt.
I needed a shirt because we waited in line in the pouring rain and I did not have a rain jacket and so when we got inside I had to strip off my jacket because water was leaking through but when I looked I realized that the water had only leaked into certain parts of my shirt, and basically my shirt was like "LOOK! BOOBS!"
But I was also going to get a shirt regardless. I just, you know. Funny stories.
Bastille is awesome and it was an amazing night, that's basically what I'm getting at here.
LITERALLY
I COULD DIE RIGHT NOW
AND BE PERFECTLY HAPPY
PROBABLY BE SINGING ONE OF THEIR SONGS AS IT HAPPENS:
"I'll come baaaaaaaaaack to haunt you.... memorieeeeeees will tauuuuunt you..."
"I don't want to rest in peace/I'd rather be the ghost that annoys you.... It's Day of the Dead, I'm Indiana Jones here/These coins sit upon our eyes/Pool our funds, we'll pay the boat together..."
For those who have no idea what the friggity is going on right now, me and my friend Anna saw Bastille LIVE IN CONCERT
AND THEY ARE LITERALLY PERFECT
JUST
EVERYTHING
I DIED
AND I ALSO CRIED
AND HUGGED ANNA A LOT
IT WAS A ROLLERCOASTER Y'ALL
They opened with Things We Lost in the Fire and just, if you can imagine like a dark stage and then Dan Smith's angelic voice just breaking the anticipating silence and everything was totally wonderful in that moment.
And just - the bass pulsing in the seats we had and Dan Smith grooving out as he sings and hopping around, like first of all, wow, that's some good endurance to be singing and doing that at the same time, and everyone in the band was just so passionate and it was amazing.
Then they played The Weight of Living Pt. 2 (they never played Pt. 1 which makes me sad but it was still INCREDIBLE) and the light show was amazing and everything was amazing. Just everything. And they even tagged Pt. 2 with the beginning of Pt. 1 and I was like "YASSSSSSS"
And then Laughter Lines.
I don't remember the order after that. But it was amazing.
And they even played a few songs that I hadn't heard before (the funny thing is that all the ones I hadn't heard Anna had so between us we're basically an encyclopedia of Bastille) like The Driver, and something that comes out on their next album which, as Dan put it (in his beautiful voice that makes me glow), "will come out hopefully at some point in the future." And also their cover of No Scrubs with like mixed in sound bites from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho and, surprise surprise, it's much darker and god I love dark god I love Bastille they're LITERALLY PERFECT.
Sidebar: I really love Bastille's covers. Not necessarily because they're, like, perfect covers of the songs, but because they make the songs really fascinating. They have a gift for completely turning the original intention of a song on its head. My current favourite is their cover of No Scrubs, which is called No Angels because it's mixed in with Angels. What I love about it is that - the song is about class, right? The verses are all talking about "Ugh, look at that deadbeat who lives with his mother and doesn't own his own car," calling these guys "scrubs", and then the chorus is all "I don't want no scrubs, a scrub is a guy that can't get no love from me...." etcetera. And in the original song, these lyrics were completely sincere. But in Bastille's version, while keeping the lyrics completely identical, they've mixed it in with clips of Norman Bates talking about living in traps and tagged it with "Being as in love with you as I am," and suddenly the lyrics are entirely ironic. It's like, they're pointing out how flawed that way of thinking is - to immediately assume that someone who lacks money or opportunity is a bad person because of it - by subscribing to it. I believe my english teacher would call that verbal irony. And I think it's so cool that they found a way to reverse the intention so completely without even changing the words.
They did a similar thing when they covered Miley Cyrus's We Can't Stop. That was my favourite thing for a while, because at first it seems like, oh yeah, this is Bastille's cover of a party song, and then in the middle of it they throw in some Billy Ray: "Don't break his heart, his achy breaky heart, I just don't think you understand....." and suddenly it's about how out of control Miley is and how disappointed her father must be. Once again, unexpectedly flipping the intention of the song, and it's amazing.
But anyways, wow, that was a rant. But I do find it very fascinating. What can I say? Bastille's songs make me want to think about things.
But back to the concert.
It was fabulous. They are amazing live. And Dan's like jumping up and down as he sings and getting so into it. Even when they played Overjoyed (with super cool percussion!), while he was playing the piano, he was like bopping up and down and it was my favourite thing ever.
And at one point he played Oblivion and he was like, "If you've ever listened to, like, two songs on any of our albums, you've probably noticed that we have a few depressing ones. This is one of them. But it'll be better if you all do that cliche thing where you bring out your torches or phones - did anyone actually bring a torch?" (He calls 'em torches 'cause he's British, God they slay me. They slay me like Buffy slayed Sunday. I'm dead.) And anyway we all brought out our phones and waved 'em back and forth for Oblivion and I almost cried. But not yet.
No, the moment I cried was when they played The Silence. And I'm not kidding. I actually cried.
What you have to understand is that The Silence is an important song to me. Even before I'd fully figured out exactly what the words were saying, it had always reminded me of an old teacher of mine, M. Larrivee (qu'il repose en paix). I don't want to get all cheesy here, but let's leave it at the fact that Larrivee was an extremely influential man who made me reconsider the definition of intelligence and of storytelling, both of which are important to me, and I like to think of the song celebrating him, even if that wasn't the original intention.
And then, when I listened to the actual words, I realized that it was, in fact, about writer's block. That it practically pleads me to break through writer's block. So, guess which song I turn on when I'm feeling lost and uninspired about some of my stuff? Guess whose voice urges me to continue and not let the blank page consume me? You guessed it.
What I'm saying is that the song is extremely meaningful to me on multiple levels, and that when the vocals started ringing through that PNE Forum it was a little overwhelming. But, like, in a good way. Sort of in a "I can't believe this is really happening," way. And I got a little emotional. But it was amazing.
Also they played The Draw. I mention it because it's another song that's really meaningful to me (I associate it with depression and things of that nature, and I think it helps me understand a little bit those of my friends that suffer from things like that - they've described similar things to me). And also because, according to Dan, they "tried to be grunge for four days. We failed. But this is what came out of it."
Thank you, Bastille, for failing at grunge. Thank you so. Freaking. Much.
Then, for the end of their first set, they played Flaws, and Dan just goes, "Let's see how far I can get!" And he jumps down from the stage and starts wading through the crowd. This was about the time that me and Anna both simultaneously went "HOLYSHITHOLYSHITHOLYSHITHOLYSHIT", practically stampeded the people in our way and ran down to the floor in front of the stage. We didn't even get close to him, BUT, it got us out of our seats and on the floor, leaving us free to dance like crazy people during the encore.
And what an encore.
They came out, started with Get Home, which me and Anna passionately waved our hands back and forth to. Then, before beginning the next song, Dan goes, "As you may have noticed, I'm not that great a dancer. But for this next song - I know audience participating is lame, but like, if you all want to dance with me and make me feel better. I'll just say, 'Get down!' and you can all get down with me, if you want." Pauses, thinks about it for a moment. "But not, like, in a sexy way."
DAN SMITH YOU PERFECT CREATURE
So then they played Of the Night, and he yelled "Get down!" during the pre-chorus, but instead of dancing, everyone in the crowd just knelt down, because we're building up to the suspense here, and then they hit the chorus and the lights are flashing and everyone's jumping and dancing and it was amazing.
And then, finally, Pompeii. (I totally called it, I totally knew that they'd play Pompeii for their last one!) And it was amazingly fun and everyone was dancing and singing along and it was a freaking blast. The whole night was perfect.
Also, it was Anna's first concert. And, as far as first concerts go, it was pretty freaking incredible.
Bastille are literally perfection personified.
And so, yeah. That was more or less the rhythm of that night.
Sorry for the pun, I just needed a way to fill the silence.
I know, there's another one. It just makes me overjoyed when you listen to my words.
Okay, that's enough, I know. I hope you'll not not show your face here anymore.
I know, they're getting increasingly more desperate. But it almost feels like nothing changed at all.
Okay, I'm done now. Promise.
(When Dan Smith freestyles on the notes and just ohmygodmyovariesexplodedheisaperfectcreatureiwanteighthundredofhim)
Also I got a shirt.
 |
| *awkwardly tries to take a picture of the back of the shirt* Basically what's important is that it's a real concert shirt with all the tour dates and ish on the back. |
But I was also going to get a shirt regardless. I just, you know. Funny stories.
Bastille is awesome and it was an amazing night, that's basically what I'm getting at here.
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