This was posted as a comment on Rodrigo Lopez's article here: http://www.majorspoilers.com/gamer%E2%80%99s-corner-puzzles
My theory on why puzzles don’t work in role-playing games is that the two are just related and unrelated enough to be weird together.
Let’s try and think of some analogies. Here’s one: CG faces. There’s a certain sweet spot, or hump, between totally unrealistic and totally realistic, where CG faces become really weird. Unrealistic faces, like on toy cowboys and anthropomorphic cars, work fine. But people react badly when they think you’re trying to fool them into thinking a face is, or could be, real.
Here’s another analogy. Puzzles in RPGs are like taco sandwiches. You don’t butter a taco and put two slices of bread around your taco.
And a third analogy. Many of us get really pissed off at writers who pull the “it was all a dream” trope in a comic, novel, video game, television series, or movie. It’s kind of like the inverse of breaking the fourth wall. Instead of having four walls, there are now eight walls, as well as the possibility of an infinite regression of inner narratives.
Basically my point is that a D&D game is already a kind of puzzle. You can think of any RPG encounter as an elaborate versions of Chess puzzles, where the PCs themselves are the pieces. A good Chess puzzle makes creative use of the space of the board, and the conceptual space of what is allowed by the various theories of piece movement.
In Chess puzzles, it is virtually inconceivable that you would have the pieces stand in the centre of the board and hand the players a substitution cipher, and state that the Chess puzzle will be won when they complete the cipher. In that situation you might as well just get rid of the Chess board and play a different kind of puzzle.
I haven’t actually implemented this, but I have a theory about a sort of Denny’s placemat-and-crayons type of D&D adventure. In which combat and role-playing are just two of the half-dozen or so activities that make up the entire evening. Basically instead of personifying your characters, you are asked to look at them from six or seven different angles, sometimes from far above, sometimes close up, sometimes over longer periods of time, and sometimes over shorter periods. Your characters might not even resemble themselves when you change the lens you’re looking at them through.
What this also means though is that a character sheet might be insufficient to really represent all the facets of a single character. On the other hand, we already know that character sheets are notoriously complex and contingency-based, so it should be possible to use some of those numbers in interesting ways that aren’t always necessarily moving the players around on a 1-inch grid.
I don’t mean to denigrate the 1-inch grid though. I think the game can be perfectly rewarding if it is cast as a series of puzzles that all play out on a 1-inch grid. I still think there’s infinite possibility there.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Friday, June 18, 2010
The Simpsons Outdated?
This is a response to Chris Doggett's post on the Simpsons. http://thatbeerguy.blogspot.com/2010/06/one-more-reason-why-simpsons-changed.html
Some very good points about the changing of society, and I hadn't really thought about it. I suppose like anything else, the Simpsons is due to get outdated eventually. I'd have liked to see supporting statistics, which I could probably google, and will, if it wasn't already past my bedtime. It was only a rant though, so I don't entirely expect a lot of work to go into it. Just like I don't plan to put a lot of work into this post either.
Conan was apparently one of six children in his home growing up, so his own experiences couldn't have synced completely with the Simpsons. And my experience, along with a number of my friends growing up, was somewhat similar to the Simpsons model, with minor variations like my mom having the occasional teaching job.
I mean, we all have our own little versions of what's real and relatable, but I think that the standard sitcom 2.5 kids format is treated as a kind of vanilla flavor for television (with unfortunate consequences for questions of ethnicity and television). If anything, the Simpsons was riffing on the TV trope more than it was basing its foundation on real life.
The other reason they need to have all these things in the show is because they want to relate to as many people as possible. How many dads, single, married, divorced, or remarried, get compared to Homer Simpson on a regular basis? If Marge was single, and there was no stupid dad character, well that whole cultural phenomenon of "D'oh!" wouldn't exist. There's a similar reason for the show having a cat, a dog, a baby, a boy, and a girl. Because the cat people will ask why the Simpsons don't have a cat. Or the dog people will ask why the Simpsons don't have a dog. Or worse, they'll simply never have that laugh-out-loud moment when the dog eats something gross, or scoots his butt across the carpet, and they'll never get hooked into the Simpsons.
And it's not just the audience, but the writers will want characters and material to work with too. What if a writer has a great story about a baby? Can they somehow adapt it to use Bart instead? Not really.
But maybe we shouldn't even be asking about viewers' actual life experiences, but instead look at what else they're used to seeing on television (and to a lesser extent other media). How many examples of *fictional* families conform to the 2.5-kid-picket-fence standard? And has this decreased significantly over the years?
But I take your point about it feeling alien, at least to some people, to imagine that all these useful characters somehow managed to end up in the same house for a significant length of time (how many years has Bart been in 4th grade and living at home? How come we're not talking about that?). My argument that it's necessary doesn't make it any less weird, at least to people who have not had that specific experience.
How would a new generation create the Simpsons today? Would they find a way to fit all these interesting characters in one household, or would they create another setting? One of the things about animation is that it ought to be cheaper to create new sets and environments, so there's really no need to confine the franchise to one household, which is what they did with live-action family sitcoms.
Southpark accomplishes some of this by having the focus on the friendship of four (five with Butters?) elementary school kids, rather than exclusively their families. But like the Simpsons, when a sister story or a cat story ("NO KITTY! That's MY pot pie!") is needed, they have those characters somehow built into the town.
Some very good points about the changing of society, and I hadn't really thought about it. I suppose like anything else, the Simpsons is due to get outdated eventually. I'd have liked to see supporting statistics, which I could probably google, and will, if it wasn't already past my bedtime. It was only a rant though, so I don't entirely expect a lot of work to go into it. Just like I don't plan to put a lot of work into this post either.
Conan was apparently one of six children in his home growing up, so his own experiences couldn't have synced completely with the Simpsons. And my experience, along with a number of my friends growing up, was somewhat similar to the Simpsons model, with minor variations like my mom having the occasional teaching job.
I mean, we all have our own little versions of what's real and relatable, but I think that the standard sitcom 2.5 kids format is treated as a kind of vanilla flavor for television (with unfortunate consequences for questions of ethnicity and television). If anything, the Simpsons was riffing on the TV trope more than it was basing its foundation on real life.
The other reason they need to have all these things in the show is because they want to relate to as many people as possible. How many dads, single, married, divorced, or remarried, get compared to Homer Simpson on a regular basis? If Marge was single, and there was no stupid dad character, well that whole cultural phenomenon of "D'oh!" wouldn't exist. There's a similar reason for the show having a cat, a dog, a baby, a boy, and a girl. Because the cat people will ask why the Simpsons don't have a cat. Or the dog people will ask why the Simpsons don't have a dog. Or worse, they'll simply never have that laugh-out-loud moment when the dog eats something gross, or scoots his butt across the carpet, and they'll never get hooked into the Simpsons.
And it's not just the audience, but the writers will want characters and material to work with too. What if a writer has a great story about a baby? Can they somehow adapt it to use Bart instead? Not really.
But maybe we shouldn't even be asking about viewers' actual life experiences, but instead look at what else they're used to seeing on television (and to a lesser extent other media). How many examples of *fictional* families conform to the 2.5-kid-picket-fence standard? And has this decreased significantly over the years?
But I take your point about it feeling alien, at least to some people, to imagine that all these useful characters somehow managed to end up in the same house for a significant length of time (how many years has Bart been in 4th grade and living at home? How come we're not talking about that?). My argument that it's necessary doesn't make it any less weird, at least to people who have not had that specific experience.
How would a new generation create the Simpsons today? Would they find a way to fit all these interesting characters in one household, or would they create another setting? One of the things about animation is that it ought to be cheaper to create new sets and environments, so there's really no need to confine the franchise to one household, which is what they did with live-action family sitcoms.
Southpark accomplishes some of this by having the focus on the friendship of four (five with Butters?) elementary school kids, rather than exclusively their families. But like the Simpsons, when a sister story or a cat story ("NO KITTY! That's MY pot pie!") is needed, they have those characters somehow built into the town.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Ancient Roman D20
This 20-sided object appeared on the internet somewhere around 2003, or so my evening of Googling tells me. Apparently it was up for auction by Christie's at http://www.christies.com/Lotfinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=4205385 and ultimately sold for something like $18 000 US.
(A 20-sided object is called an icosahedron, and it is one of the five Platonic Solids; one other example is the cube. 20-sided dice are used in role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons, and are sometimes called "D20s", pronounced "Dee-twenties" or "Die-twenties")
I was on the internet at that time in 2003, I believe, but like most people, I didn't really pay it much attention. I did wonder to myself what the symbols were, but nothing I could Google at the time would even tell me.
So today I really determined to find out what those symbols were. The first thing I found was that they are apparently Greek, not Roman (or Latin, I should say).
The symbols visible and immediately identifiable (to me) were:
Omicron Ο
Xi Ξ
Rho Ρ
Eta Η
Theta Θ
that left three symbols which I'm still not sure about, but I think they're:
Alpha Α or Lambda Λ
Tau Τ
Zeta ζ
I basically had to go digging around with Google image search, and ultimately end up at the http://www.dicecollector.com/ to Mr. Kevin Cook's old dice page http://www.dicecollector.com/THE_DICE_THEME_OLD.html
and I had to examine the totally different Greek die that he happened to have in his collection. I basically had to turn the image around in my head, because even four angles wasn't enough for me to be absolutely sure what was on that die.
However, I did compare that die with what I found on Wikipedia's page on the Greek Alphabet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_alphabet , and I managed to deduce that the first twenty letters of the Greek alphabet, or what was called the "Attic script" were arranged, in order (luckily) around Mr. Cook's Greek die.
The symbol that gave me the hardest time was the one that ultimately turned out to be Zeta, because on every webpage I could find, Zeta is represented as a pretty straight-forward "Z". The only time I've ever seen Zeta represented with those little curly loops has been on the two examples of ancient Roman/Greek d20s. However, it was pretty clear on Mr. Cook's die that the squiggly symbol appeared in the exact spot that the letter Zeta should have appeared, leaving me with little room for doubt.
The other two difficult symbols were Alpha/Lambda and Tau. Alpha because it had a pointy middle, which our modern "A" doesn't have (except in rare stylized and decidedly modernist examples), and which I have also never seen in any ancient version of "A" or Alpha that I have ever seen. But Mr. Cook's Alpha was a lower-case Alpha, and isn't it possible that that middle bit is just a bit of scarring? So perhaps it was Lambda ("Λ").
Add to that the fact that for some reason Mr. Cook's version seems to have a lower-case Alpha ("α") that looks like a Rho ("P") since it's not clear that the orientation of the characters on the die is correct, and part of the letter seems to have worn away.
Tau ("T") confused me because there seemed to be a bunch of extra flourishes present on that particular face of the die. But my speculation there is that they are markings due to wear and tear, and not actually part of the intended letter.
The reason I've gone through all this trouble though, is because the original question I had about that "Ancient Roman d20" (and take note that the Romans often used Greek as a language of literacy, so it's entirely correct that the die is Roman even though the language is Greek) is whether I could get myself a replica.
Now that I'm pretty sure about which characters are supposed to go on all the faces (ie. the Attic letters of the Greek alphabet), I can go about looking for dice makers on the internet who can make it for me. In the meantime, I do have blank dice that I can put stickers on, and I'll have to be satisfied with that for now.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Quick Plato Epiphany
Okay, I haven't actually read Plato's Republic, not all of it. But I have heard that he posits a perfect society, and in that perfect society, there are no poets. And by poets, I've been told, he basically means artists of any kind. In other words, in Plato's perfect world, there are no artists. Therefore, in an ideal world, there is no art.
Keep in mind that I'm speaking from ignorance here, not actually having studied or even read Plato. This is the idea I came up with while thinking about why on earth Plato would come down so harshly on artists. After actually reading and researching, I'll probably have a different opinion, and I worry that the genesis of this particular epiphany will have been lost.
I've always been bothered a little by hearing this, though never quite enough to actually look up the reference. No art in a perfect society? That's odd. Weren't the ancient Greeks great lovers of artwork? Isn't our own society one that elevates artists and prizes artwork? Isn't art a good thing?
My point is simply this: that Plato's ideal or perfect society has no artists because it needs no artists. The function of art is to operate within and upon an imperfect world. We have art because the world is an imperfect place. Artists are always thinking of ways in which the world could be different. If society were perfect, there would be no need for art of any kind, because there would be no need to imagine the world as any different than it already is.
But I'm probably wrong.
Keep in mind that I'm speaking from ignorance here, not actually having studied or even read Plato. This is the idea I came up with while thinking about why on earth Plato would come down so harshly on artists. After actually reading and researching, I'll probably have a different opinion, and I worry that the genesis of this particular epiphany will have been lost.
I've always been bothered a little by hearing this, though never quite enough to actually look up the reference. No art in a perfect society? That's odd. Weren't the ancient Greeks great lovers of artwork? Isn't our own society one that elevates artists and prizes artwork? Isn't art a good thing?
My point is simply this: that Plato's ideal or perfect society has no artists because it needs no artists. The function of art is to operate within and upon an imperfect world. We have art because the world is an imperfect place. Artists are always thinking of ways in which the world could be different. If society were perfect, there would be no need for art of any kind, because there would be no need to imagine the world as any different than it already is.
But I'm probably wrong.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Engineering To-Do List
So I kind of like the idea of the colonization of space, and eventually seeing human beings live permanently off-planet. Sort of as our species insurance policy, but also to make the solar system a more interesting and accessible place. But, space colonization is hard, and mainstream scientists say that we'll never establish a living presence in space. Sure we'll go to Mars, but we probably won't ever colonize it.
This might be disappointing at first, until you take a look at what's left to do to really conquer our own planet. Let's get these things done first, and when we've run out of big projects like these, then we'll tackle colonizing, maybe even terraforming, the other planets in the solar system.
Living inside or on top of mountains.
Giant airships, like cities in the air.
Cruise ships that people can permanently live and work on.
Platforms in the sea
Bubbles or structures at the bottom of the sea
Tunnels connecting cities on the land with cities under the sea
Tunnels stretching across ocean floor
Tunnels beneath the ocean floor
Tunnels floating beneath the surface
Bridges between all the continents. Including over the Bering Strait, the Strait of Gibraltar, and maybe even a North Atlantic bridge/tunnel.
Colonizing Northern Canada.
Colonizing Greenland: on the ice, in the ice, under the ice and in the rock.
Colonizing Antarctica: see Greenland
Superskyscrapers, including skyscraper scaffolds and lattices, like the Tokyo Pyramid City.
Land Reclaimed from the sea by dikes and levies, a la Netherlands.
Rail networks connecting up South America with North America.
Rail networks criss-crossing Africa.
Greening the deserts of the world.
Damming all major rivers to manage flooding and to generate power. (make sure to leave space for wildlife)
Solving the problem of nuclear power and urban development. Ie. The NIMBY problem.
Figuring out how to use or dispose of nuclear waste.
Cheap access to orbit, especially for the continued development of communications. Ie. space planes or private shuttle.
Space Elevator.
Tidal power management.
Tsunami and earthquake protection for vulnerable areas, ie. Ring of Fire.
This might be disappointing at first, until you take a look at what's left to do to really conquer our own planet. Let's get these things done first, and when we've run out of big projects like these, then we'll tackle colonizing, maybe even terraforming, the other planets in the solar system.
Living inside or on top of mountains.
Giant airships, like cities in the air.
Cruise ships that people can permanently live and work on.
Platforms in the sea
Bubbles or structures at the bottom of the sea
Tunnels connecting cities on the land with cities under the sea
Tunnels stretching across ocean floor
Tunnels beneath the ocean floor
Tunnels floating beneath the surface
Bridges between all the continents. Including over the Bering Strait, the Strait of Gibraltar, and maybe even a North Atlantic bridge/tunnel.
Colonizing Northern Canada.
Colonizing Greenland: on the ice, in the ice, under the ice and in the rock.
Colonizing Antarctica: see Greenland
Superskyscrapers, including skyscraper scaffolds and lattices, like the Tokyo Pyramid City.
Land Reclaimed from the sea by dikes and levies, a la Netherlands.
Rail networks connecting up South America with North America.
Rail networks criss-crossing Africa.
Greening the deserts of the world.
Damming all major rivers to manage flooding and to generate power. (make sure to leave space for wildlife)
Solving the problem of nuclear power and urban development. Ie. The NIMBY problem.
Figuring out how to use or dispose of nuclear waste.
Cheap access to orbit, especially for the continued development of communications. Ie. space planes or private shuttle.
Space Elevator.
Tidal power management.
Tsunami and earthquake protection for vulnerable areas, ie. Ring of Fire.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Six Facial Expressions and Seven Dwarfs
I was doing some thinking and combining the other day, and I realized that the six basic facial expressions seem to superficially correlate to the Seven Dwarfs of Disney's 1937 animated film.
Here are the Six Basic Facial Expressions
Happy
Sad
Angry
Afraid
Disgusted
Surprised
I've always been puzzled that "neutrality" doesn't seem to count as one of the Six.
Anyways, then there are the Seven Dwarfs. A quick Google Search on the seven dwarfs reveals a myriad of explanations for what the different dwarves represent. One popular one is the Seven Stages of Addiction, or the Seven Stages of Cocaine Addiction, and was parodied in the Simpsons as the Seven Duffs, or Seven different kinds of attitudes when one is drunk. One of my favorite Google results was a clinical diagnosis of a different mental illness for each of the dwarves, along with a prescription of medication to solve each dwarf's problems.
The consensus of thinking people seems to be that there is no real system to the dwarves, but that they were chosen pretty much at random by the Disney team. However, the criteria of an animator and creator of a cartoon is driven by some desires. Cartoons are by their nature, iconic. In order to be memorable and interesting, and funny, characters, the dwarves need to stand out. They also need to be distinct from each other. Disney had the right idea in portraying the fairy tale this way, and I'm frankly surprised that the dwarves didn't have names before Disney.
As animators, Disney probably were aware of at least a variation on the Six Facial Expressions. I'm not sure when the idea first came out, but if you begin to do some tweaking, you get some interesting results.
1. Happy and Joy pretty much work on a 1-to-1 correlation. Happy and joy are also covered in the Four Humors as "sanguine".
2. Grumpy seems like he should be a combination of Anger and Sadness. Perhaps Disney didn't want to get too depressing, and so they combined these expressions into a single dwarf, so that the rest of the dwarves could be relatively positive, seeing as they are "good guys" in the story. Personally, I would have split this dwarf into two: Sulky and Feisty. Of the Four Humors, these cover "choleric" and "melancholy".
3. Sleepy, described in the Four Humors as "phlegmatic", has no correlation in the Six Facial Expressions, which gets me to thinking that perhaps there should be a seventh. However, since I'm not an artist, I'm not sure I could say whether sleepiness is a real effect on the facial expression or not. When you imagine a sleepy face, you see bags under the eyes, perhaps from a swelling of the blood vessels there. You may also see droopy, or half-closed eyelids, and a slight slackening of the jaw, followed by drooling at the extreme. Sleepiness might also tend to affect the rest of the expressions, as a sleepy person is less capable of being taken to extreme stages of anger, disgust, happiness, etc. When Sleepy experiences other emotions, his eyes tend to close quite readily. A happy sleepy closes his eyes in contentment, and an angry or disgusted sleepy shuts his eyes in an attempt to shut out the source of his emotion.
4. Also brought to mind by the English association of the word "phlegmatic" is, of course, Sneezy. But I'm not sure sneezing is specifically associated with that particular one of the Four Humors. Either way, I was at first puzzled as to what Expression to assign Sneezy, but it became obvious when I looked at what was left. Sneezy is an example of Disgust, of course. Sneezy is somewhat unique in that his expression is less voluntary than the rest of the dwarves, (except perhaps Sleepy) he can't help the "disgusted" look on his face, when his body is preparing to expel a real or imagined intrusion of particles.
5. Bashful and Afraid correlate quite well. We seem to have exhausted the Four Humors at this point. Perhaps Bashful is just a variation on Sneezy, or Bashful and Sneezy come from a common parent named Aversion. In which case, we're talking "phlegm" again.
6. Dopey also seems to lack an analogue in the Six Expressions, until we look at what's left if we've eliminated the previous ones. Surprise is the only expression not yet covered. It is tempting to call Dopey just another Sleepy, but that would get us nowhere. Instead, I prefer to think of Dopey as young, ignorant, and curious. At the very least, Surprise fits if he's delighted by everyday things, like flowers and birds. Probably the weakest correlation so far, but I'll take it.
7. Last, and possibly the odd dwarf out, is Doc. What does Doc feel? He's not Happy, although like the rest of the dwarves (even Grumpy), he contains an element of jolliness. Well, apparently he's some kind of Doctor, or at least enough like a doctor to earn his nickname from the rest of the dwarves. He wears glasses, also indicating that he's a dwarf of learning. I really want to call Doc the Neutral dwarf, since all the expressions, plus Sleepy, are used up. But Doc also has a bit of that element of Surprise that comes with learning. He might just be an older version of Dopey in that respect. But what if we had a dwarf called Pensive? Wouldn't he fill the same role as Doc? And couldn't we say that his expression would be "neutral"?
So my version of the Seven Dwarfs becomes eight dwarfs, since I've split Grumpy into Sulky and Feisty. And my version of the Six Expressions becomes eight expressions, since I've added Neutrality (pensiveness, Doc) and Sleepy.
Here are the Six Basic Facial Expressions
Happy
Sad
Angry
Afraid
Disgusted
Surprised
I've always been puzzled that "neutrality" doesn't seem to count as one of the Six.
Anyways, then there are the Seven Dwarfs. A quick Google Search on the seven dwarfs reveals a myriad of explanations for what the different dwarves represent. One popular one is the Seven Stages of Addiction, or the Seven Stages of Cocaine Addiction, and was parodied in the Simpsons as the Seven Duffs, or Seven different kinds of attitudes when one is drunk. One of my favorite Google results was a clinical diagnosis of a different mental illness for each of the dwarves, along with a prescription of medication to solve each dwarf's problems.
The consensus of thinking people seems to be that there is no real system to the dwarves, but that they were chosen pretty much at random by the Disney team. However, the criteria of an animator and creator of a cartoon is driven by some desires. Cartoons are by their nature, iconic. In order to be memorable and interesting, and funny, characters, the dwarves need to stand out. They also need to be distinct from each other. Disney had the right idea in portraying the fairy tale this way, and I'm frankly surprised that the dwarves didn't have names before Disney.
As animators, Disney probably were aware of at least a variation on the Six Facial Expressions. I'm not sure when the idea first came out, but if you begin to do some tweaking, you get some interesting results.
1. Happy and Joy pretty much work on a 1-to-1 correlation. Happy and joy are also covered in the Four Humors as "sanguine".
2. Grumpy seems like he should be a combination of Anger and Sadness. Perhaps Disney didn't want to get too depressing, and so they combined these expressions into a single dwarf, so that the rest of the dwarves could be relatively positive, seeing as they are "good guys" in the story. Personally, I would have split this dwarf into two: Sulky and Feisty. Of the Four Humors, these cover "choleric" and "melancholy".
3. Sleepy, described in the Four Humors as "phlegmatic", has no correlation in the Six Facial Expressions, which gets me to thinking that perhaps there should be a seventh. However, since I'm not an artist, I'm not sure I could say whether sleepiness is a real effect on the facial expression or not. When you imagine a sleepy face, you see bags under the eyes, perhaps from a swelling of the blood vessels there. You may also see droopy, or half-closed eyelids, and a slight slackening of the jaw, followed by drooling at the extreme. Sleepiness might also tend to affect the rest of the expressions, as a sleepy person is less capable of being taken to extreme stages of anger, disgust, happiness, etc. When Sleepy experiences other emotions, his eyes tend to close quite readily. A happy sleepy closes his eyes in contentment, and an angry or disgusted sleepy shuts his eyes in an attempt to shut out the source of his emotion.
4. Also brought to mind by the English association of the word "phlegmatic" is, of course, Sneezy. But I'm not sure sneezing is specifically associated with that particular one of the Four Humors. Either way, I was at first puzzled as to what Expression to assign Sneezy, but it became obvious when I looked at what was left. Sneezy is an example of Disgust, of course. Sneezy is somewhat unique in that his expression is less voluntary than the rest of the dwarves, (except perhaps Sleepy) he can't help the "disgusted" look on his face, when his body is preparing to expel a real or imagined intrusion of particles.
5. Bashful and Afraid correlate quite well. We seem to have exhausted the Four Humors at this point. Perhaps Bashful is just a variation on Sneezy, or Bashful and Sneezy come from a common parent named Aversion. In which case, we're talking "phlegm" again.
6. Dopey also seems to lack an analogue in the Six Expressions, until we look at what's left if we've eliminated the previous ones. Surprise is the only expression not yet covered. It is tempting to call Dopey just another Sleepy, but that would get us nowhere. Instead, I prefer to think of Dopey as young, ignorant, and curious. At the very least, Surprise fits if he's delighted by everyday things, like flowers and birds. Probably the weakest correlation so far, but I'll take it.
7. Last, and possibly the odd dwarf out, is Doc. What does Doc feel? He's not Happy, although like the rest of the dwarves (even Grumpy), he contains an element of jolliness. Well, apparently he's some kind of Doctor, or at least enough like a doctor to earn his nickname from the rest of the dwarves. He wears glasses, also indicating that he's a dwarf of learning. I really want to call Doc the Neutral dwarf, since all the expressions, plus Sleepy, are used up. But Doc also has a bit of that element of Surprise that comes with learning. He might just be an older version of Dopey in that respect. But what if we had a dwarf called Pensive? Wouldn't he fill the same role as Doc? And couldn't we say that his expression would be "neutral"?
So my version of the Seven Dwarfs becomes eight dwarfs, since I've split Grumpy into Sulky and Feisty. And my version of the Six Expressions becomes eight expressions, since I've added Neutrality (pensiveness, Doc) and Sleepy.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
"V" and the Reptilians
[SPOILER ALERT: This post contains details from the pilot episode of the science fiction television series "V". I'm commenting as I watch, so you may learn plot details shortly after I do.]
So I'm still on the pilot, and now it's just been revealed that the aliens are real actual aliens with human people skin grafted on top of them. Of course this is highly implausible, and their explanation makes no sense. They mumbled something about "grafting human DNA", but what it looks like is they're human only on the top inch or so of skin, and then they're a reptilian alien underneath. Really it looks more like a suit than anything to do with DNA. Also, it doesn't explain how the aliens are able to walk and talk exactly like normal humans.
I think it's pretty clear though, the metaphor that they're trying to go for. The "aliens" are metaphors for humans who act without the empathic nature of a human being. They're essentially reptilians. Animals, stripped of individual will and emotion. They're human, but it's only skin deep. Beautiful on the outside, ugly reptilian on the inside.
Frankly, I'm not impressed by this metaphor much either. What is it about a reptilian-looking alien that makes them so sinister and evil? Why do they think that disguising themselves among humans is going to accomplish their goals any better than just appearing in their natural forms and actually attempting to do what they say they're trying to do (which is to share knowledge)?
One interesting mind-fuck is the black guy who appears human at first, then it is revealed that he's actually an alien beneath his skin, but it's all good because he's actually one of the good aliens who want to help the humans and prevent the aliens from committing genocide. I'll give the writers credit for making this one just plain confusing, and I won't say if I think it's a commentary on race, or actual human skin colour, because I couldn't figure it out.
Also, if the aliens appear confused and messy, that's becoming acceptable as a plot device to me now too, as it explains some of the confusing stuff I mentioned in my earlier posts. They claim to be united in one nation on their home planet. Apparently they have no room for dissenting voices. Now, maybe that was enough to get them off their planet and headed to earth. After all, it worked for the Soviets with their space program. But then dealing with a situation like actually running a country with diverse opinions in it, seems to require a degree of flexibility that didn't exist in the Soviet Union, and doesn't exist in the Visitor Aliens. What ends up happening is colossal screw-up after colossal screw-up, one after another, because the Alien bureaucracy isn't equipped to deal with a planet like earth. Instead, they operate in crisis-management mode all the time. Put simply, the aliens are stupid.
Speaking of political systems, another thing they outright say on the show is that the aliens are here to bring us "Universal Health Care." Interesting that this should appear in a television program right at the same time that it's a national debate. To be fair, universal health care has been a national debate in the USA for several decades now. And other countries are at varying stages in the process of making health care available to all their citizens, Europe doing notably well in this department.
So what, the aliens have a united nation and universal health care, and they're "media savvy"? I think we have our metaphor here again. They're clearly meant to represent the "Liberal Media Elite". Is US President Barack Obama a reptilian? Maybe he is. Or maybe he's one of the good ones, like that other black dude.
So I can see that the show is taking a somewhat libertarian turn, which to be honest, is kind of okay with me. Technically, I think my own politics would be described as Libertarian also. I don't think we should implicitly trust the government, or corporations, or the churches. But at the same time, we can't be totally paranoid. In the end, governments, corporations, and churches are made up of people too, and we just have to remember to keep some of them at arm's reach.
I actually like the idea of things like universal health care, education, and welfare. I think these are reasonable things for the government to "redistribute wealth" to. I retain an ideal vision of a world with private hospitals, schools, and employment insurance that covers everybody through the magic of capitalism, but I know that our world just isn't designed that way, politically. Given a chance though, I think the free market can and will ultimately out-perform government programs of education and health care.
As for "V" as a metaphor for today's United States government's Democrat-dominated politics, I'm not sure how far the metaphor can carry. The aliens are pretty obviously inept, big-government types. So I guess they stand as an exaggerated, satirical caricature of the so-called "left wing" of American politics.
So I'm still on the pilot, and now it's just been revealed that the aliens are real actual aliens with human people skin grafted on top of them. Of course this is highly implausible, and their explanation makes no sense. They mumbled something about "grafting human DNA", but what it looks like is they're human only on the top inch or so of skin, and then they're a reptilian alien underneath. Really it looks more like a suit than anything to do with DNA. Also, it doesn't explain how the aliens are able to walk and talk exactly like normal humans.
I think it's pretty clear though, the metaphor that they're trying to go for. The "aliens" are metaphors for humans who act without the empathic nature of a human being. They're essentially reptilians. Animals, stripped of individual will and emotion. They're human, but it's only skin deep. Beautiful on the outside, ugly reptilian on the inside.
Frankly, I'm not impressed by this metaphor much either. What is it about a reptilian-looking alien that makes them so sinister and evil? Why do they think that disguising themselves among humans is going to accomplish their goals any better than just appearing in their natural forms and actually attempting to do what they say they're trying to do (which is to share knowledge)?
One interesting mind-fuck is the black guy who appears human at first, then it is revealed that he's actually an alien beneath his skin, but it's all good because he's actually one of the good aliens who want to help the humans and prevent the aliens from committing genocide. I'll give the writers credit for making this one just plain confusing, and I won't say if I think it's a commentary on race, or actual human skin colour, because I couldn't figure it out.
Also, if the aliens appear confused and messy, that's becoming acceptable as a plot device to me now too, as it explains some of the confusing stuff I mentioned in my earlier posts. They claim to be united in one nation on their home planet. Apparently they have no room for dissenting voices. Now, maybe that was enough to get them off their planet and headed to earth. After all, it worked for the Soviets with their space program. But then dealing with a situation like actually running a country with diverse opinions in it, seems to require a degree of flexibility that didn't exist in the Soviet Union, and doesn't exist in the Visitor Aliens. What ends up happening is colossal screw-up after colossal screw-up, one after another, because the Alien bureaucracy isn't equipped to deal with a planet like earth. Instead, they operate in crisis-management mode all the time. Put simply, the aliens are stupid.
Speaking of political systems, another thing they outright say on the show is that the aliens are here to bring us "Universal Health Care." Interesting that this should appear in a television program right at the same time that it's a national debate. To be fair, universal health care has been a national debate in the USA for several decades now. And other countries are at varying stages in the process of making health care available to all their citizens, Europe doing notably well in this department.
So what, the aliens have a united nation and universal health care, and they're "media savvy"? I think we have our metaphor here again. They're clearly meant to represent the "Liberal Media Elite". Is US President Barack Obama a reptilian? Maybe he is. Or maybe he's one of the good ones, like that other black dude.
So I can see that the show is taking a somewhat libertarian turn, which to be honest, is kind of okay with me. Technically, I think my own politics would be described as Libertarian also. I don't think we should implicitly trust the government, or corporations, or the churches. But at the same time, we can't be totally paranoid. In the end, governments, corporations, and churches are made up of people too, and we just have to remember to keep some of them at arm's reach.
I actually like the idea of things like universal health care, education, and welfare. I think these are reasonable things for the government to "redistribute wealth" to. I retain an ideal vision of a world with private hospitals, schools, and employment insurance that covers everybody through the magic of capitalism, but I know that our world just isn't designed that way, politically. Given a chance though, I think the free market can and will ultimately out-perform government programs of education and health care.
As for "V" as a metaphor for today's United States government's Democrat-dominated politics, I'm not sure how far the metaphor can carry. The aliens are pretty obviously inept, big-government types. So I guess they stand as an exaggerated, satirical caricature of the so-called "left wing" of American politics.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
