#loftthoughts

I love movies; and I love going to theaters to see them, it's not an experience I had very much growing up. However, I have resolved from here on out to neither watch in theaters nor at home any movie from a franchise of more than three. For brevity, we shall call these movies Universe Movies or U-Movies, after the Marvel Universe whose unprecedented success set the tone of such franchises from 2012 onwards. There may be some exceptions - watching with a large group of friends, for instance - but on the whole my mind is set: no more Avengers, no more Star Wars, Star Trek, or Harry Potter. I would mention the DC Universe, but I was already not watching that. "But wait!" my inner critic cries. "You need to be aware of the culture! You can't just put a blanket ban on movies that haven't been announced yet! Think of how many good movies you'll miss!" And it's right. I will miss a lot of good movies. I've already missed Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, as well as Star Wars: Rogue One, and I only saw the new Star Trek movie (Beyond?) because I was on a plane with nothing else to do. So why am I doing this? Well, to save money in part; but also because I'm fed up with un-innovative, uninspiring sequels; action/adventure movies that are all action and no adventure; boring, routine storytelling and cliched camera shots. Here, for your perusal, shall I list the 5 Universal Sins of Universe Movies:

1. Theme park effect I read a great article, and I'm upset that I can't find it again, about Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the screenplay that's acting as a "Book 8" in the Harry Potter series. It pointed out that in Cursed Child, story took a back seat to spectacle: a lot of things were put in for fan recognition - "Oh, I remember this!" The author of that article called it something like a theme park story. What happens doesn't matter as much as the fact that you're in the same place you were before. And I get it, I get the longing to be back in Harry's England or Gotham City or what have you. But the reason we love those places in the first place is the characters we learn about there, the stories that move us to better ourselves; and in U-Movies those things are often gone, poorly replaced by brand recognition.

2. Character undeath One of the worst features Marvel and DC took from comic books is that heroes often seem to be immune to enemy attack. Or, if they do fall, they are resurrected somehow, or it was a faked death, or...you've heard it all before, I'm sure. It's a cheap bait-and-switch for storytelling: all the drama and loss of death without having to end the story arc! This tactic has been used so many times that it's all but certain now that main character deaths are not real. Part of why Game of Thrones is so refreshing is that most people in it stay dead. I remember watching Star Wars: The Force Awakens when it came out (spoilers, btw). Poe and Finn's ship crashed in the beginning, and Poe was apparently dead, but I had a sinking feeling he would be popping back up later; and when the expected reveal did happen, I was disappointed. J.J. Abrams had a chance to do so much character building based on Poe's death, but chose the cheap thrills instead. This topic also leads into

3. Escalating or dangling plot lines *Old man voice* Back in my day, movies used to have a beginning, a middle and an end. Now, they're all middle! </Old man voice> For real, though, when you know a character /needs/ to be alive for the sequel, or there's a whole lot of backstory that props up the character interactions in a movie, it feels like you're watching a TV Show with breaks of epic proportions in between episodes. 2 to 3 hours should be enough to start and resolve a plot; but in a U-Movie there needs to be a teaser of what's coming next, some unresolved issue to use as a cliffhanger. There's only so long movies can say they're going to resolve everything and then don't before I start getting suspicious.

4. Unclear directive vision Universes in and of themselves are not bad. There are, presumably, stories it would take many movies to tell well (see: The Lord of the Rings). But many Universes these days exist only to make money, because other people are doing it, or it was successful in the past (see: The Hobbit movies [why is that a plural what were you thinking Pete]). The thing about long franchises is that at some point, the director you've hired will die or stop making movies and you'll have to find another one. Same for characters in your franchise. Hence Spiderman is more like schizo-man because he's been remade so many times.

The internet (a.k.a. an enormous semi-coordinated collection of human beings) can do great things, both beneficial and terrible, in the real world. It can also do big things that have little to no impact on the real world, except for propagating silly or clever ideas through the minds of those who come across them - in other words, memes. The Old Reddit Switcharoo is one of the latter.

A little knowledge of the way Reddit works is required to understand this beast. Suffice it to say that a "post" is a topic for discussion, pulled from somewhere else on the internet or out of the mind of the Original Poster (OP). "Replies" are threaded below the post, forming a sort of tree: many replies to the post, many replies to each of those replies, and so on. Multiple conversations can happen under (and usually relating to) a single post. For a more thorough introduction, CGP Grey's video may come in handy.

The Old Reddit Switcharoo is based on a particular kind of joke that someone (/u/jun2san to be precise) noticed popping up frequently on Reddit. It consists of two parts: the Catalyst makes a post with two subjects ("Scots have 421 words for snow - more than Inuits"), and then the Clown pretends to misunderstand the statement, switching the subjects ("Why, how many words do they have for 'Inuits'?").

The Switcharoo is meant to bring attention to the tired, repetitive nature of this joke. It accomplishes this by linking the joke to a previous manifestation of it by somebody somewhere else on Reddit, and linking that joke to an older one, etc. The ideal Switcharoo is long chain of the exact same joke in different contexts, which someone could follow for hours or days before reaching an end.

This chain has grown over time, and has given rise to a third party on the joke: the Cynic. After the one who set up the joke and the one who made the joke comes the one who points out the formulaic nature of the joke by linking a previous switcharoo ("Ahhh, the ol' reddit Eskimoroo"). Full disclosure: I took the idea of this three-part nature and its example verbatim from this wonderful graphic depicting the Roo Tree as it was in 2015.

What interests me most are the "sub-memes" that have grown around the Switcharoo. For instance, the Cynic almost always couches his link in the form "Ah, the old Reddit [noun]aroo," to which some other Redditor often replies, "Hold my [noun], I'm going in!" (As in real life, once one starts going down the tree it is surprisingly difficult to stop). "Hello, future people!" is another common reply, since as this particular node gets older and older, people from further and further in the future will be visiting on their way down. There are even people who spend time moderating the Switcharoo, making sure the chain is as long and unbroken as possible (remember, even Reddit is only semi-organized).

If you're looking for a lesson of some sort here, I'm sorry to disappoint. But the internet, like life, doesn't always have a lesson to offer. Sometimes all it has is a curiosity, a complex machine doing almost nothing, a wave to ride.

If you know me personally, as many if not all of you do, you will not be surprised to hear that I spend a lot of time reading novels, particularly science fiction and fantasy. But no matter how hard I try, there are and will always be endless stacks of books I haven't read - and one of the avid reader's main problems is how to pick what to read next. Lists are made, friends are queried as to their reading experiences, authors of well-liked previous books are revisited, catalogues and prologue chapters are perused, sometimes for longer than the story actually takes to read.

Knowing this, any author who wants their book to do well needs to immediately draw readers in. Give away the drug for free first, then start charging when the addicts come back for more. Narratively, this often means starting with a vignette light on character and setting and heavy on action or emotion; the metaphorical "charge" comes later when more complicated stories are told that require knowledge of characters and settings already defined. For instance, J.R.R. Tolkein's widely famed "Lord of the Rings" requires a huge amount of buy-in for (I would say) an equally huge reward of story and scope - so it starts by inflaming the reader's curiosity and empathy by describing and idealizing hobbits. We don't need to know any specific characters to feel from the outset that the Shire must be preserved and protected, and that is where the real story starts. This kind of introduction is known, as in music, as the "hook."

Today, I would like to examine the first paragraph (really, the first two) of Jim Butcher's "Furies of Calderon", first in the Codex Alera series. I have previously read the first six of another series of Butcher's, the Dresden Files, and found them quite enjoyable. The Codex Alera was brought to my attention by a friend of mine on Facebook, and I thought it would be a fun exercise to see what I could glean from just the title and the hook, without any other knowledge of the series.

Amara rode atop the swaying back of the towering old gargant bull, going over the plan in her head. The morning sun shone down on her, taking the chill out of the misty air and warming the dark wool of her skirts. Behind her, the axles of the cart squeaked and groaned beneath their loads. The slave collar she wore had begun to chafe her skin, and she made an irritated mental note to wear one for a few days in order to grow used to it, before the next mission. Assuming she survived this one, of course.

- Jim Butcher, "Furies of Calderon" (Codex Alera Book 1) 

So, title. The title contains two words that do not currently have meaning in English: Calderon and Alera. This suggests fantasy or science fiction immediately. "Calderon" also conjures images of boiling pots, heat, conflict. This pairs well with "Furies," which serves a double linguistic purpose of "rage" and "mythic creatures hunting for vengeance." "Codex" is not technically English, but it carries the meaning of a collection of words, as a dictionary or storybook. Therefore, "Alera" could be a place, a culture, or an event about which this series tells.

As with many, many hooks, we are dropped "in medias res," in the middle of the action. This is indicated by the use of the definite article "the" to refer to "bull," "plan," "cart," and "slave collar," as well as a few other nouns. This usage is promisory: go along, assuming these things already in place without explanation, and the author will explain them later...especially when it comes to "plan" and "slave collar."

The word "gargant," unknown to me, shows up in the first sentence. There are two likely interpretations: "gargant" is used as an interesting stand-in for "big" (backed up by "towering" and my previous knowledge of the word "gargantuan"), or "gargant" is an adjective unique to this made up world, in which case I will learn more about it later - again, promisory.

Even though character and setting are not central to the hook, the author is helping us learn as much about them as possible in order to keep us engaged when, inevitably, those things become more important. Right away we learn of a female character named Amara (probably a [or the] protagonist), who has "the plan;" and indeed, is used to executing plans frequently, as shown by the phrase "before the next mission." At first it looks like she might be a slave, but then we learn the slave collar is part of the plan, a disguise which she is unused to wearing. "Morning sun" and "misty air" paint a picture of a setting not unlike our world; "dark wool of her skirts" and "axles of the cart" hint at medieval technology.

The one sentence paragraph also makes an appearance here. Butcher is fond of this device, at least in the works of his I've already read. The fact that the statement floats as a separate paragraph gives visual impact to the words, brackets them off in the reader's brain as important. I think it can be overused, leaving the reader distrustful of dramatic statements, but its use here serves an important function. It raises the tension - in this context, it introduces a feeling of doubt and a possibility of death.

One might say all of this is overanalysis. I might agree - but I think practiced readers get used to picking this information up subconsciously. The thousands of data points that accumulate throughout a story are what come back as tone or feeling, what makes one made-up world different than the next. And all stories, whether based on history or not, are in some way made up.

Spoilers for Moana, Star Wars, and Inside Out. Enter at your own risk.

Yes, Moana is a good movie. The music is nice and rhythmic, just the way I like it, and it has Lin-Manuel Miranda’s fingerprints all over it, to the point where I think a fan of Hamilton could figure out without having known beforehand who was behind “You’re Welcome.” The animation quality, as usual, is top notch.

It is the story that I take issue with - not even the entire story, but its central conceit. I call it the “Disney Princess Problem-Solving Method,” and it goes something like: “I long for a life outside of my current existence. I begin my journey and fail. Perhaps there is a montage where I learn some new skills. At the climax I realize that the ability was inside me all along / I just needed to believe in myself / I am special!”

This narrative is in a LOT of Disney movies. Off the top of my head: Finding Nemo, Finding Dory, Tangled, Wreck-It Ralph, Toy Story, Treasure Planet, Zootopia (by no means is this an exhaustive list). To be clear, none of these movies are bad! They just all contain some elements of this “willpower wins” mentality.

Now, there’s a reason this mentality is part of so many of these stories - it fits well in the Hero’s Journey arc and it taps a sort of generic goodwill. Everyone watching is rooting for the hero, we know they’re special because all our attention is on them, and so when they discover that they are indeed special it feels like something True...and something that could happen to us. Anybody’s dreams can magically come true; the power is inside!

The problem as I see it is that in real life no power comes from within. Wish on that star all you want, nothing is going to change UNLESS you’re doing work to change it.

For instance, Moana has no sailing experience. She meets Maui with the ocean’s help and some luck. Maui teaches her how to sail in a montage (ah Rocky, you have a lot to answer for). And then when Maui “Han Solos” with his loot, as he was bound to do, Moana’s Old Sage (dead grandma) helps her discover that her identity as a wanderer was inside her all along! I guess her ability to be a sailor came from that, not from the days and days of learning from Maui under a pitiless sun with little to eat and less to drink! (sarcasm, in case you were wondering)

The actual personal growth is there, but this magic trick keeps happening where the actual work vanishes in a puff of sparkly "born this way” and feel-good self-empowerment narrative. That’s not to say the stories should focus on the work, because that would be a boring, tedious mess of a movie. But the work should get its due credit as the source of the change, the difference between defeat and victory. Moana thanks Maui for swooping back in (the Solo is strong with this one) but not for the training without which Lava Dude would have ended her long before said swoop.

As a counterpoint, let me hold up Inside Out, my favorite Pixar film to date. The main character, Joy, goes on a hero’s journey, but her character does not change very much from the start to the end. She does not learn that she just needs to try harder to be joyful and that will fix all of Riley’s problems. Instead, through her journey, through the beats of the story itself she comes to understand why her counterpart Sadness exists and what Sadness’ role in the Emotion Team is. It is this hard-earned knowledge that lets Joy be victorious in the end, by surrendering control to Sadness, in essence giving up her idea of herself as the hero that will fix everything. That’s the kind of subtle lesson that is so worthwhile in the real world.

A friendly reminder that the Bible never says that money is the root of all evil - and it would in fact be very suspicious if it did say that, given how much it talks about good use of money a.k.a. stewardship. What it actually says, in 1 Timothy 6 (NIV), is “Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” (Emphasis mine).

Hank Green is currently hosting a series called Crash Course Philosophy, and the last few videos have been about the existence and nature of God. The various arguments put forward by Christian and non-Christian philosophers are, I believe, laid out rather well in this series.

Anyhow, there was a point in this particular video that surprised me greatly; and I quote:

“Yet another possible contradiction presents itself in the belief that the omni-God [the Judeo-Christian concept of God] is also a personal God. Many people find it difficult to suppose that God could be omnitemporal [existing at every moment in time] and omniscient, yet still have a personal relationship with his creatures. It's hard to understand how God could relate to us - or feel the way we feel - if he doesn't experience time as we do: if he already knows what's going to happen, how could he ever be surprised, or change his mind? And if God is omnitemporal, is it even possible that he could be moved to respond to our prayers?”

The reason it surprised me was that I agreed whole-heartedly. Yes, it is difficult to ascribe personhood to a being we can’t hear, see, or touch. Yes, the mind of God should be completely alien to ours since we experience time in different ways, us from the inside, him (or it *shudder*) from the outside. Yes, it is very possible that a God outside of time would not be able, to say nothing of willing, to respond to our prayers.

It is at this point, for a Christian, that the personhood of Jesus becomes a great comfort. Even ignoring our salvation through his death (which is a pretty huge thing to ignore), the fact that God was a human at all saves us from the nightmare of a blind, uncaring God, driving his creation to destruction while it beats piteously on the divider, begging for mercy. God is personal, he hears our prayers, because he knows us inside and out. Not only did he create us, he was us.

And because God is outside of time, this miraculous personhood, though it existed at a particular collection of moments, is also outside of time. It was there before spacetime began, and it will be there after it ends. When Genesis says that humans were created in God’s image, the mark of Jesus’ human life is there too.