Where chaos stops and more chaos ensues. Where Filia plays the electric keyboard.
Where anything goes.
-//o_O\\7 *Home of the Awful, Mediocre and Pathetic* -//u_u\\7
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Where chaos stops and more chaos ensues. Where Filia plays the electric keyboard. Where anything goes. -//o_O\\7 *Home of the Awful, Mediocre and Pathetic* -//u_u\\7 |
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Saturday, September 25, 2004 Let's start with another lame joke. Because everyone knows that when I'm telling a lame joke without caring that everyone else knows it's lame and won't think much of me because of it, I'm very, very disgruntled indeed. Adapted from the popular series of jokes circulating on the internet : 5 Similarities between Charlotte and her computer 5. She won't do anything until she's been allocated enough power. 4. She needs to be updated often and told what to do, or else she bcomes obsolete. 3. Contact with anything charged in the slightest leaves her warped for the next few days. 2. You can tell that she's working by the way she whines. and, 1. She's always temperamental and cranky, and breaks down once a month, and oftentimes more than that. You might have been expecting a more original or innovative excuse than that, but this is what I have to offer. My computer went bust, again ... or at least for the past two days, and when I managed to get back in today I decide that I am not going to cross my fingers and make any promises or hopes about how things might turn out. Because I honestly haven't a clue. posted by Charlotte | 4:58 pm (0) comments Thursday, September 23, 2004 Split post. Because I'm horribly lazy and I'm just trying to come up with more posts to interest people. And because everyone hates a long poster (like yours truly) who so gushes with infinte wisdom that she can never seem to end whatever she's babbling on about. And so basically this continues from the previous commentary, as I shall now elaborate. Picking up the present issue of Rogue Magazine, I chanced upon an article about the Japanese studio which is responsible for the creation of popular animated works for children (and, like Harry Potter, seemingly for adults as well) such as Spirited Away and its sequel. And at then it occured to me, not just that I have not watched Spirited Away, nor even made an effort to watch it, but I actually loathed the concept of this kind of freewheeling phastasmic fantasy. Harry Potter, while much more mature and being in a totally written form, tends to infringe on it once in a while. And the most famous example of such writing would be seen in Carl Lutwidge Dodgson's ageless story ... who, you say? Lewis Caroll's Alice in Wonderland, which is an interesting read largely for the nonsensical poetry and wild creativity, but when one attempts to rationalise, no, even accept it, one realises it is largely inconceivable. As an example, I present thus humbly Charlotte's infamous vignette Charlotte in Wonderland. Charlotte : "Huh?" Weird things happen. I wonder what it would be like. Anyway, the point is that within the genre of fantasy itself, which, of course, refers to anything unusual, fantastic, out-of-the-ordinary and otherwise unreal, there also exists different styles of writing, scripting, characterising etc. And while I've dwelt on style of writing quite a bit in my previous rants I'm focussing in this case on the style of plot. Everyone knows that I prefer the expository narrative as a form of writing, whether in fiction or non-fiction, so I'll dwell exclusively on that. You see, Spirited Away, Alice in Wonderland, and, in places, Harry Potter and the Wotzisface of Whatever read like any narrative, but with the 'bounds' of fantasy thrown off. While I acknowledge the author's right to write (heh) in such a fashion, I'm going to deprecate it here because I don't like it. That, sometimes, things just happen, without rhyme or reason, and there's nothing the protagonist or the antagonist can do about it. Because it happens with such regularity in the former two pieces of nonsensical works, one doesn't take the entire piece seriously, but when one tries to read something which presents itself as genuine and straightforward, like Harry Potter, I cannot help but feel utterly cheated when some twist of fate thrown in at the odd whim of the author alters things with devastating effect, and often in favour of the namesake of the text. Twist of fate, act of God, turn of chance, whatever you call it. I hate it. I subscribe to the view that there are bounds in fantasy writing, as fantastical as it may be, because beyond a certain point the reader will feel like they are being kited along, thronged with all manner of strange plot alterations simply to suit the author's whim. Case in point, I never introduce 'weird' things without fully explaining how they happen to come about. All major plot twists should be pre-empted to provide warning signs, rather than simply seeming to appear out of nowhere. Everything is detailed, elaborated, substantiated, providing a serious, concrete piece of writing. That's a little like Tolkein's style ... heck, he drew an entire anthology to support the entire world he created in his series of novels, though the epic nature of his writing tends to leave the less informed and discerning lost in the wilderness. At the least, every fiction writer who wants to be taken seriously and not be labelled as 'simply for kids' or indulged in by adults looking for a pool of childishness to immerse themselves into, would take care to substantiate as much of their writing as possible. Or they will have to do their very best to back it up with an incredibly intriguing and immersing plot beyond comparison, or come up with the most whacked and absurd ideas to grip the attention of even the most jaded reader. And they could throw in some weird poetry just to get the rumour-mongers and conspiracy theorists speculating. Because otherwise, it just isn't fair to the reader. And now, let's strike up a debate. The writers who believe that 'free' fantasy ought to be taken seriously argue along many lines. The most important one of which is, that the weird and warped ideas, thrown in with seeming randomness, are in fact an appeal to the most crucial part of every human which is that inner child, which is especially so suppressed with the stresses of the modern day working world. A liberation of the bounds of civilisation which keep one's spirit in check are the key to a freedom of mind and thought, and can bring that childish contentedness to the hearts of even the most distanced people. Well, all that is fine and good ... provided you accept one very important thing. That you're deriving pleasure out of pure and utter nonsense. Well, since all fantasy is fiction, reading any fantasy would mean that you are in that sense reading nonsense (and, as Mr. Gradgrind would argue, reading ANY fiction is nonsense). But the lure of such childish randomness is merely a play on the insecurities of the adult world, blinding them by deluging them with utter nonsense. I liken it to giving yourself a shot of heroin or downing a few tablets of whatever hallucinogen while lying in a back alley when you just want to lose yourself. But structured fantasy, on the other hand, is more like smoking whatever drug you like in the comfort of your own home, allowing you to gently puff and to appreciate every molecule of toxin clouding your senses. No, I'm not endorsing drugs, you moron, what I'm meaning is that with structure, one is given the time, opportunity, and breathing space to consider and to rationalise, and to develop a more well-rounded appreciation of whatever it is that one is reading, and if one is able to rationalise in one's imagination the microcosm on the scale of Tolkein's fantasy world, then that is an achievement to truly be proud of. Only the lazy and the stupid dive straight into a wad of literature ... the educated, the intelligent, and the true, honest, sincere reader will stop to rationalise, consider and appreciate every small step ... and it is this kind of reader which every writer should endeavour to appeal to. Skip to the allegorical arguments. That freedom in fantasy allows one to lose oneself, free from the boundaries that hem us into our daily lives? Then you are an utter escapist who fails to comprehend the necessary boundaries of anything in everything, that nothing can be infinite (beyond Charlotte's overflowing wisdom ... yeah, right). It's this kind of escapism which drives all those idiot artists and writers to commit suicide. Better for the gene pool, I say. Hell, I want to commit suicide too, but at least I'm proud to stand up and say that it's because I have contemplated the boundaries of existence and found them unable to satisfy unlimited human wants, than to attempt to hide my feelings in drivel which engulfs all your reservations in a cloud of obscurity. When you write, you must have boundaries, or else you risk losing the trust of the reader in your ability to deliver, and when you read, you must keep within boundaries, or else you will eventually find all the greater dissatisfaction in your ability to dissolve your miseries through your reading. And, as any self-respecting writer ought to know, the characters in your story are another part of you, and by playing with all this randomness you render yourself insincere and undedicated to your characters ... which holds for your work, which translates to yourself. You might think you are having fun reading or writing such a style, but you should sit down and think for a while how much further such wishful thinking has got you away from the cold hard truth of reality. At least, with structured fantasy, you attempt to bend reality within limits (as holds for most fiction, despite what their authors might claim), not do away with it altogether. Heh. And, a la Mary-Anne "infinitely superior" Evans, someone like Mr. Purvis might argue that the randomness of events occuring without rhyme or reason are merely a reflection of reality where definite causes and cause-effect relations can never always be accurately pinpointed. That might have some relevance (very little, I argue) for pieces of fiction set in reality, but as to where fantasy is concerned the sheer mass of such irreverent aberrations render such an argument utterly unsupportable. Not like anyone other than me has had the idiocy to propose such an argument, of course. It's just my tuppence worth of thoughts and advice to all my fellow writers, readers, and basically people who are remotely interested. That one must consider their target audience. If they're interested in appealing mainly to kids and intellectually-challenged, gullible and feckless adults, they can go ahead and write as oddly and warped as they wish. If they want to be taken seriously, considered and rationalised, they will write carefully, stay accountable for every word they put to page, and produce a work sincere, substantiated and, I hope, successful. posted by Charlotte | 4:44 pm (0) comments Disclaimer : The Slayers and Filia Ul Copt and all images thereof are the property of Hajime Kanzaka and Rui Araizumi. I don't own any of them, although if I had a choice I would want Filia ... ~//n_n\\7 |
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