tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3924447082323957502024-03-12T23:45:23.847-04:00EvilElitestBasically, i hope to have a reliable blog where you can read quality reviews on movies/books/video games and what not. Or at least a place where you can pretend the reviews are qualityEvilElitesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10736914083653504431noreply@blogger.comBlogger153125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392444708232395750.post-10896468422503416392012-07-30T00:50:00.001-04:002012-07-30T00:52:19.332-04:00OK, so where the hell have I been?Right so the question on everybody's mind is<br />
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"Is Obama going to win the election?"<br />
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but the second most important question on everybody's mind is<br />
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"Where the hell is EvilElitest, he hasn't updated his blog in like, ever and that is the single most important thing in my life" <br />
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Well the answer is three fold<br />
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1) I have gone to college, and that is a major drain on somebody's free time and personal life, so I haven't had the time I wanted to blog. However, this has recently changed as I have made a group of friends who want to collectively make an internet review series, so it looks like I'm back on to being productive. We start working in earnest this coming September<br />
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2) I have had a slew of personal problems, I was diagnosed with Aspergers, which should come to no surprise to absolutely anybody ever, and thus have officially become an internet cliche. I also am recovering from an extremely serious bout of depression, the result of PTSD and anxiety, mostly related to the aforementioned Aspergers, so I have not been in a good condition to blog.<br />
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3) Finally, I am a cheating bastard, because I have in fact been working online, just not in this blog. The blog is mostly for written reviews, and I have recently started to make youtube reviews and D&D mechancial changes. Basically, I have two new sites I have been working on, the first being<br />
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<a href="http://evilelitest.org/index.php">http://evilelitest.org/index.php</a><br />
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<br />
and the second being<br />
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<a href="http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/imperial-dreams">http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/imperial-dreams</a>
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If you are interested in my D&D revisions, check the Wiki for Imperial Dreams, though it is horribly organized and still badly in need of work. Its mostly just general fixes to D&D, part of my 5th edition project (Though it might wind up being 6th at this point) and my massive flavor revision for my own game. I'm intended to eventually move everything from this blog and my Imperial Dreams site to my new website, which is not the home base for the EvilElitest Channel, but this will be a slow and steady process, due to a mix of organizational difficulties, lazyness, and my own techno phobic ineptitude with web design. For those interested, when the website is out of its beta state, it will include<br />
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A) 101 Best, where me and a friend try to come up with a list of the 101 best movies ever made. We also plan to do the same for TV shows<br />
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B) An old Wound: Nostalgia trip: This is where my blog reviews will be placed, unless I come up with a written review section<br />
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C) Dragons and Dungeons: These are where I put the Changes to D&D and try to eventually create a new game<br />
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D) Explaining the Game: Me and my friend (called the Yarnsnob) will review Video games, me being an avid gamer and her being a nogice<br />
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E) Yarnsnob: She will review...knitting...of all things.......yeah<br />
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F) What do you do?: I and some friends review various RPG materials<br />
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G) Frustrated White people: I talk politics<br />
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H) Explaining the Joke: I discuss humor and how it works, something I find really fascinated<br />
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I) Lowering your Standards: I discuss mediums of art and how they work. My extremely critical judging criteria would be explained here<br />
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Hopefully I will end this hiatus by actually accomplishing stuff...or I will fade into internet obscurity and have to get a real job. We will see<br />
<br />
From,<br />
EE<br />
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<br />EvilElitesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10736914083653504431noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392444708232395750.post-56396621689870400862012-07-30T00:12:00.004-04:002012-07-30T00:12:14.251-04:00Testing: Does this still workDoes this still work?EvilElitesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10736914083653504431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392444708232395750.post-41524174894284856222011-11-25T17:10:00.003-05:002011-11-25T18:29:18.151-05:00Alignment of Song of Ice and Fire Part 1Basically I have been re-reading the Series and I felt like doing the Alignments for the most Evil Characters in the Novels for fun. Lets have a go. Of course, Spoilers Ahead<div><br /></div><div>1) Ramsay Bolton, CE. this is kidna self evident, he is a serial rapist who has no sense of duty, honor, or even any concept of planning. Evil Obvious, but I think he is also Chaotic because of his total disorginizations</div><div>2) Roose Bolton, NE. In contrast with his son, while Roose is clearly evil, he certainly seems to have a better understanding of what he is trying to work towards as well as his own lack of morality. </div><div><br /></div><div>3) Tywin Lannister, LE. He has some standards for himself, and most importantly has a constant plan/goal he is working towards. He is cold and Machiavellian, but doesn't do horrible things unless it suits him. However, he also is more than willing to hurt ALOT of people if he needs too</div><div><br /></div><div>4) Jamie Lannister I think starts out Chaotic Evil, only caring about his own urges and feelings, moves unto Neutral Evil as he starts to become more calm and collected. Finally as of the Fourth Book, I think he is finally Lawful evil, as he starts to hold himself to some standards and taking oaths and laws seriously, though he never actually becomes good</div><div><br /></div><div>5) Cercei Lannister, CE. totally inconsistent and cruel, she doesn't give a damn about anything but her family and her power</div><div><br /></div><div>6) Joffery, CE. God i hate the little bastadr</div><div><br /></div><div>7) Vargo Hoot, NE, he is just looking out for himself. Most of his men though, like Shagewell, Rogue, Biter ect are CE</div><div><br /></div><div>8) King Robert, CE. He is evil because he A) supports a cruel and unjust government B) Doens't stand up to those who do horrible things in his kingdom. C) Is more than willing to kill innocents if it helps his goal, or simply to get revenge</div><div><br /></div><div>9) The faceless man, LE. he holds himself to a very stringent code, and refuses to break his word, even when it would benefit his position </div><div><br /></div><div>10) Tyrion Lannister, NE. Ok, he actually isn't a very bad person, in fact he is one of the better characters in the story, and yet he is still Evil, he murders people who get in his way, he supports his family even though he knows they are mosnters and he is absurdly corrupt. He is neutral evil i think because he looks out for himself and those he loves before anything else</div><div><br /></div><div>11) Littlefinger, NE. A throughly selfish human being</div><div><br /></div><div>12) Varys, LE, a terrible person but with an ultimate goal, which he sticks too pretty stringently</div><div><br /></div><div>13) Khal Drogo, LE, while he does kill, rape and torture people, he seems to be extremely traditionalist to his own society</div><div><br /></div><div>14) Ser Amory Loch, CE, while he is a knight and has a job to do, he is far too unfocused </div><div><br /></div><div>from</div><div>EEE</div><div><br /></div>EvilElitesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10736914083653504431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392444708232395750.post-88634972344664520122011-11-05T19:13:00.002-04:002011-11-05T19:17:49.649-04:0031 new house rulesSo the main question is "Where the hell have I been". Well actually....I've been at college, so yeah. But in terms of writing, I've actually been doing alot. Just instead of writing here, I've been working on my Obsidian Portal account (Imperial Dreams) playing around with alternate rules and systems. The reason why I haven't posted any of that stuff here is because I haven't finished playtesting or working out the glitches, so all of the stuff up their are prototypes, (though feel free to look around if you wish). So I don't want to post anything until I understand the system myself. However, these are some houserules my D&D group came up with in order to improve combat, so I wanted to know what you guys think. I am currently using all of them (and they are all stolen thank you very much) but I am still open to changes<div><br /></div><div> <div class="page-header" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 14px; font-family: georgia, times, 'times new roman', serif; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: 21px; text-align: -webkit-auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><h3 class="page-title" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-weight: normal; font-style: inherit; font-size: 1.5em; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); line-height: 1; ">List of possible Combat Fixes</h3></div><div class="textile_longtext page-body" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 14px; font-family: georgia, times, 'times new roman', serif; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: 21px; text-align: -webkit-auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; ">I am trying to make combat in D&D more intensive. By intensive I mean<br />A) Takes other factions into account, like bleeding, fatigue, wounds, exhaustion, armor, weapon styles, shields ect<br />B) Making Combat far more scary, so that casual combat more interesting and everybody has to be careful<br />C) Greater variety</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; ">So just a collection of rules before I move on</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; ">1) Hit points still exist, I don’t want to get ride of that. However the way they work I might tinker with<br />2) Combat challenges from Iron Heroes, Ie additional benefits you can apply to an attack in return for a decrease in your defensive abilities. For example, an attack that will knock a weapon out of their hand, or force them into a certain area are both examples of this style, however in return you take a penalty on defense. The range of the benefits and the penalties depend upon what class you are, martial usually have far better benefits.<br />3) Stunts are ways of incorporating skill bonuses into combat, normally as a way to make up for being mechanically outmatched. I haven’t figured it out yet, but something like pushing over a barrel in order to jump off of it to make an attack. They add bonuses to your actions depending on you skill points<br />4) Defense class is how well you can deflect or parry blows, which is determined by your class, your level, your Strength bonus, as well as your weapon and shield. Armor does not give you a defense bonus. If somebody attacks you but you succeed your defense check, then you simply can avoid any damage, but your actions next turn will be limited, depending on the weapon used and what you blocked with. For example, if the fighter armed with a short sword is attacked by an orc great axe, he is able to block the axe, but in the process is knocked backwards and losses his sword. however if he had a shield, he would keep his weapon, stand his ground and take no damage, but he would still have his movement next turn limited. Defense bonus isn’t applied if you are taken by suprise or without your equipment<br />5) Dodge bonus is a way of avoiding attacks all together, and is depended upon your dexterity. This does not scale with level, with the exception of a few classes, and if you succeed a dodge check, the attack simply doesn’t hit you. However it is very hard for characters get very high dodge bonuses, with the exception of classes like Rogue or Ninja who are hard to hit. You loose this bonus. Again, this is taken away if you are under attack.<br />6) Wounds- Certain weapons, certain class abilities, or certain attacks that inflict over a certain hit point limit can inflict injuries upon a foe. These are minor negative status effects that linger after combat, much like the injuries in Dragon Age/Dragon Age II. The wound is randomly chosen, so they can vary from midly annoying (a <del style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); ">2 to spell caster for a fighter is worthless), to inconvenient (a -1/4 speed for a caster) to frustrating (a -2 to all attack bonuses for a Ranger). Special healing spells can deal with these after battle. You can get multiple injuries during combat, but rarely on a single attack (unless you are up against a Warrior), and certain martial classes can either increase their chances of scoring the attack, or decrease their chances of being effected by an injury. A dodge is decreased by how heavy your armor is, or if you are using a shield ect.<br />7) Pain</del> Certain weapons or attacks can inflict pain damage, which is a seperate stat. Each class has a certain “pain tolerance” which is determined by their race, class, constitution, and level. A martial class can choose to reduce the damage of their attack (IE how many hit points are taken away) in return for inflicting more pain. Pain inhibits all physical stats, as well as all stats involving concentration, making casting hard. However pain doesn’t normally get inflicted easily without special class abilities/luck/feats/weapons. If a character suffers too much pain, they can go down fairly easily.<br />8) Armor class- An attack has to be successful in order to even do damage. Otherwise it bounces off as useless. A shield will also help with this<br />9) Armor as damage reduction. To make this clear, depending upon the armor, armor can provide Defense class, Armor Class, <span class="caps" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; ">AND</span> damage reduction. A leather jacked will only provide some basic damage reduction, while a set of full plate will provide not only a high armor class, a moderate defense bonus, and moderate damage reduction, it will also provide resistance to injuries, pain deduction, and might even break the enemies blade. Of course, armor is heavy, provides a penalty to stealth/dexterity, and drains far more fatigue.<br />10) Armor effects- Certain armors will have special effects (discounting magic obviously), for example, helmets will reduce the chance of a critical hit, while full plate might catch a weapon inside the armor, leaving it stuck.<br />11) Wound points- Getting wounded fucking hurts, and it often does some really nasty as fuck things to your body. Thus in addition to everything else, characters have what are called “Wound points”. this doesn’t measure weather you are alive or not, but instead how long you can last before your body starts falling apart on you. You have as many wound points as your Consitution x 2 +Level. Every attack that inflicts actual hit point damage will also reduce a single wound point. As long as you have wound points, you are able to keep on fighting without taking any penalties to combat (unless it is a status effect, like bleeding or injuries). After your wounds run out however, you start bleeding and taking a minus on your defense, attack, and dodge bonuses. These penalties keep building until you have your wound points restored, or you can get some healing, or you die.<br />12) Vigor points- Vigor represents how health you are, and how well you can avoid being effected by various effects. Vigor (normally) is not determined by equipment, but instead by your class, your Constitution, and your level. If you are hit by an effect, you can give up a certain amount of vigor points to negate that effect. For example, you can give up 5 vigor points instead of losing 5 hit points, or you can give up 5 vigor points to avoid an injury, or you can give up a 10 Vigor points to avoid losing a wound point. Certain weapons however rely upon inflicting vigor points in addition to hit points, such as serrated or barbed weapons. vigor also determines how well you heal naturally. Spells can restore vigor points of course<br />13) Called shots, you can take a penalties to an attack in order to try to inflict an attack on a specific region, which inflicts wounds on a target, these are very specific attacks that undermine your ability to use that particular body part, for example a wound on your arm might make that arm unusable, or extremely weak, or even cut it off<br />14) After you are reduced to 0 hit points, you are conscious but have to roll a constitution save if you take any physically strenuous action. After that you go into negative hit points, of which you have -10 + constitution (total), + Level. Essentially you are dying. For the first 10 hit points, you get a chance to roll a very difficult Constitution check in order to stabilize, where you simply stop losing hit points. -10, you only have a 1 in 20 chance of stabilizing, and will bleed out until you pass over your negative hit point limit, where you will die. If you are healed from negative to positive hit points, you are considered crippled, until you can get a powerful healing spell, which is a permanent wound randomly decided, (for example a broken arm). all of these wounds will go way over time, or with the right magic. Certain truly vile weapons or attacks can make it so that you gain extra wounds when you go into negatives, others are even rumored to make it so you only get -10 hit points at best.<br />15) All raise dead spells have been split into many different spells. The weakest spells will restore the body if the person died within the last ten mins, even then he will be at 1 hit point and extremely fatigued. More powerful spells will work within 1 hour, 1 day, 3 days, a week, or a ten day, or a year. All of these spells have sub specifications, like for example weather he will lose a level, weather he will lose Consitution, weather he needs to be healed first, if the bodies needs to be in good condition, or if he will be restored at 1 hit point. The most powerful spells can bring a guy back from life almost right away, while they are in the middle of combat. True Resurrection is the only spell which will restore them to life after any point in time (provided they didn’t die of old age and the soul can be found), with no level loss, at full hit points, without requiring the body and without any chance of a Resurrection failure. A Resurrection failure is chance that the soul has somehow come back wrong. Regardless, all raise dead effects will change the character’s soulname, for better or for worst.<br />16) A fatigue system, which is drained when you take certain actions, i have no idea how to implement this, except i want the armor you wear to determine how much you lose<br />17) Save or die spells for the most part are changed into variable effects, depending on the level of the caster, the target and the spell. True save or die effects are extremely risking and high level, and often allow multiple saves.<br />18) Certain high level spells, instead of costing XP, instead add an XP debt, which is a certain amount of extra Xp the caster must gain to level up.<br />19) All healing spells are broken up into a wide variety of healing spells, some of which deal with hit points, vigor points, Wound points, Fatigue, injuries, wounds, or served limbs. Only the most powerful heal all of these effects at once. All healing spells also have chances of failing, or only partially healing the target.<br />20) A crippling wound happens if a single attack is higher than twice a character’s total con score, which normally results in a servered limb, a missing eye, a cut off ear ect.<br />21) Magical healing will leave scars if the wound isn’t treated within a day, though specific spells can remove these<br />22) Certain martial classes can inflict aggravated damage, which are wound over time in a very specific manner. However these are high level abilities, and only open to martial classes. Certain healing spells can get ride of these effects (a wounding effect from the magical item is much easier to fix than these effects)<br />23) Magic items require a mix between a crafter and a spell caster, both of home have to take time and money to make the item.<br />24) Armor counts as a proficency skill, which means certain characters can put combat points itno armor to increase its benefits, IE a novice wearing full plate might have lower defense than an expert wearing chainmail.<br />25) Certain weapons have penetration bonuses which allow them to ignore armor/defense/damage reduction effects. these only apply (normally) against certain kinds of armor, for example a mace vs. a breastplate wouldn’t work as well against chainmail.<br />26) certain masters have what is called a carapace, which is like DR, except that once the damage needed to over come the Carapace is inflicted, it not longer provides protection, as the defense is essentially broken<br />27) Weapons speeds are more important and weapon damages is increased, for example a dagger does a 1D6. In addition weapon maneuverability is a far bigger factor<br />28) Spell casting (mostly) has high casting times, and more chances to screw up<br />29) Critical strikes are separate from critical hits, in that the former are class specific and inflict injuries, while the latter just inflict massive damage<br />30) Weapons now have a wide variety of qualities, which have different performances. Masterwork are just the most powerful of the lot<br />31) Magic items are divided into three types, Trinkets which are other wise normal item with a few magical effects, so a trinket bow which shoots fire is just as likely to break as a normal bow, mage touched items which are like “improved” normal weapons, so they do more damage and have special effects but they break easily and cannot gain special effects. Full fledged enchanted items are unique and powerful, and are almost always extremely difficult to destroy.</p></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>From,</div><div>EE</div></div>EvilElitesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10736914083653504431noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392444708232395750.post-53355416174809054512011-06-12T00:33:00.004-04:002011-06-12T02:02:57.091-04:00Class Balance 2nd EditionI've been getting more and more interesting in Game Design and my pet project of designing D&d 5th edition, and i've been trying to figure out what class balance actually is. I get 3rd edition balance issues, and I've been looking into 3rd party systems alot to see how they work. I got into D&D in 3rd edition and while I hate 4th edition, I understand how it works, but more and more I find myself looking back at AD&D and marveling on how much I really like it, in particular the writing, which is far better than most 3rd edition has to offer. So, does anybody know how they can explain class balance to me in 2nd edition and how it worked, or link me to some article that does? I have played D&d since I was 7 however I am not a mathematical or mechanical person, so understanding the details of the Balance has been very hard for me, as I'd much rather focus on the fluff. So, what I am asking is<br />1) Class Tiers for 2nd Edition, what are they?<br />2) Did Marshal Classes have any advantages over non marshal classes due to some of the rules? For example, i know that concentration checks and movements were different in 2nd edition which is a big deal and Wizards had to learn each spell individually. And simultaneous actions were around did that make marshal classes much better?<br />3) Anything from 2nd edition that might help improve class balance or at least make things more interesting? <br />Thanks alot<br />from<br />EEEvilElitesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10736914083653504431noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392444708232395750.post-52337474052002629532011-06-08T22:49:00.003-04:002011-06-08T23:56:06.829-04:00Game of ThronesNow, for those who don't know, I'm a HUGE fan of Television as a Medium, and while I have some misgivings about HBO, generally speaking I'm a big fan, because they certainly view TV show as an art from (the overuse of Tits aside). I'm also a Huge Fan of the Song of Ice and Fire series, because as a history major, I am very interested in any series which focuses on a more "realistic" approach to fantasy. Now, when I say realistic, I don't mean dark, because Song of Ice and Fire isn't actually that dark. A dark setting is where the world as setup is hopeless, Berserk is dark in that the actual world is literally built upon human suffering and exists to perpetuate the cycle. Diablo is Dark in that the world is nothing more than a no man's land between heaven and hell where both sides are on the verge of destruction. Forgotten Realms is Dark in that their are literal manifestations of Evil out to make humanity suffer. In those settings (and some Cohen Brothers movies), the world is actually designed for evil to win, in Warhammer, life actually does suck for the average person, and always will. Song of Ice and Fire reminds me more of well.....reading history, everybody is bad in someway, though only a few are actual sociopaths, everybody has at least some good qualities, and even when the Good guys loose, the Bad guys often don't fair much better. Honestly, reading this series I'm reminded of....well the actual War of the Roses, which it is clearly based upon. Or the Roman Civil Wars, or the Huns conquest of Germania, its brutal but its not absurdly so, also their isn't a sense that the world is designed this way and always will remain this way, its just a time period. <br /> Anyways, getting off topic, my point is that I really like the Song of Ice and Fire view of fantasy, and honestly the whole time I read it I imagined it as a TV show, in fact it is written very much like an HBO TV Show. So I actually kinda dreaded the show because I was afraid the same thing would happen that happened with the LOTRS series, their were alot of little changes that bothered me mostly because i think I could have done a better job, but it was overall good. And had Sean Bean (Who always pictured as Theon Greyjoy). However, the show is really good. It has most of the good things from HBO's Rome, with some of the good things from the Sopranios thrown in. Well filmed, great props, good sets, very good camera work, and captures alot of the themes of the books without going overboard, I (as of episode 9) strongly recommend this. However, I wanted to talk about accuracy, their are alot of little changes in the show from the books, and friends of mine will be like "Wait, you don't mind the changes in Game of Thrones, but you get all upset about Lord of the Rings? Double Standard". So I want to use this as a way to go into a discussion of Good vs. Bad Changes. And by discussion, I mean like three paragraphs of me writing and everybody saying how great I am.....I love the internet. <br /> Here is the thing, I really don't mind an adaptation changing the original work, in fact I expect it, different art mediums should tell a story differently. My problem with the Watchmovie is that it was too "accurate" and never really grew as a film. The Godfather book is crap, but the movie is wonderful. Hell, even movies like the Big Sleep are very different from the book, and while both the book and the movie are great, they are great in very different ways. My problem comes from unjustified change, or changes that add nothing to the story. In Fellowship of the Rings, I didn't mind Tom Bombidel not showing up, because while I liked him in the book, he would distract things. Nor did I mind the addition of the head Uruk-hai Lurtz, who I thought was very good. However, things like making Gimli a Comic relief, making the Elves show up at Helm's Deep, and all of Arwin's scenes, they were generally pointless beyond a marketing standpoint (We need more comedy, elves are cool/sexy, and we need a love drama). They didn't add anything the books didn't do better, the new themes they added were badly handled and many of them were handled better in the books. When an adaptation adds something, or puts a new perspective on the story, I'm all for it (I love the Full Metal Alchemist Anime after all). For example, in Game of Thrones the book, the main protagonist Ned Stark is attack by one of the Villians Jamie Lannister while Ned and his bodyguard are leaving a brothel (makes sense in context). Ned's horse is hurt and it falls down on him, crushing his leg. Jaime kills all of his bodyguards, and leaves him there, not wanting to kill a major lord. The point of this scene establishes four things 1) The Gritty realism of the scene, that instead of getting his leg hurt in a dramatic or heroic deed like fighting a bunch of people, his horse falls on him, which happened alot in real life and I know a few friends who get in horse accidents all the time 2) That they didnt' kill him because he was a major lord and were hoping to kill his men to humiliate him 3) He has a limp so when shit goes down later, he can't fight as well as he normally would. 4) the humilation of Ned feeling totally helpless and unable to aid his men as they are cut down around him. Now in the TV series, when he is attacked he actually gets to fight, wounding one of Jaime's men before fighting him in single combat. Part way through the fight, one of Jaime's random men hamstrings him in the leg from behind, causing the semi honorable Jaime to leave Ned alive in disgust. Now from a marketing standpoint, this scene achieves 1) We finally get to see Ned and Jaime fight, their abilities have been hinted at, but only now do we see them fight 2) Its dramatic 3) We don't need to train a fucking horse to do this, because that shit is expensive (plus the stunt double). The reasons from an artistic standpoint at first glance seem very superficial 1) It establishes a sense of randomness, by having a nameless guard take out the main character 2) It makes Jaime's attack on Ned seem even more out of control and stupid than it was in the books, only sparing Ned's life because of his own sense of honor 3) establishes Jaime's own sense of honor, as twisted as it is, he won't defeat a crippled man. Now this is essentially giving up themes of gritty realism and Ned's lack of control, which normally would be a cop out, except in a later scene when Jaime meets his father, his father berets him for being stupid attack in the first place, and to let Ned go. The incident sets up the clash between Jaime's sense of brash honor, and his father's ruthless practicality. Thus the scene had a point, they used in order to build up the drama for later characters. It justifies its existence. In fact, their are alot of little scenes in the show where the more two dimentional book characters (Cerci, Joffery, Robert, Twrin, Danny's elder Brother , ect) get scenes where they better explain their motivations while simultaneously filling the audience in to the background of the show. Which I think is very clever, honestly the show got me to care at least a little about Joffery, which the books never did (he is still a vile little prick of course, but hey). So......watch the show.....<br />Next up (Eventually), I'm reading Drowtales.....WTF is going on?<br />from<br />EEEvilElitesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10736914083653504431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392444708232395750.post-80387600154456552032011-05-31T02:09:00.004-04:002011-05-31T02:16:50.973-04:00I'm still back, and i feel like writing : Kingdoms of Kalamar elvesOk, I'm still back, and I'm trying to train myself to write everyday. So, to go into detail, Kingdoms of Kalamar. Ironically, I haven't gotten the Campaign setting book, I've looked through it in stores, however I never have actually bought it, I got a source book in a din for 5 bucks, Friends and Foes, the Guide to Elves and Bugbears. Now I have not read the Bugbear half, but I'm really annoyed by the elf half, because it has what i don't like about elves. Now, I like alot of "elf" sterotypes, for example<br /><ul><li>I have alot of subraces in my game</li><li>Elves are immortal, isolationist, magical and arrogant</li><li>Elves have a very slow moving and particular culture</li><li>They tend to be good</li></ul>However, the Elves in this book, in particular the High Elves, are just too damn perfect. They are wise and powerful, but they aren't expansionist, they have kings, but their kings are more like advisers, they are very free and open about their society but they aren't sexually deviant. Its just the best of all worlds. Honestly, my favorite Elves in the Book were the Grey Elves, because they were trying to get me to not like them....which made me like them, because they were more human cause they had Flaws<br />you know why we love Drow so much? because they have flaws, they are not good people while still being cool. Perfect societies are not only unrealistic, they are boring. This is why Dwarves are better than elves, because while Dwarves are badass, they are also greedy, proud, stubborn, close minded, brutal and rude. <br />That being said, i like all of the legends and i think I'm going to check out the setting proper to give it a real chance<br />from<br />EEEvilElitesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10736914083653504431noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392444708232395750.post-28253146421089088362011-05-31T02:02:00.001-04:002011-05-31T02:08:42.848-04:00I'm kinda backCollege is over, and now i have time to work again........doesn't mean you can expect anything unless i get really angry, but hey<br /><br />In other News, i'm reading Monte' Cooks Arcana Evolved, and I think its rather good, I like how interested he is in trying new ideas, however it lacks the self confidence that my favorite third party source books. Scarred lands is one of my favorite 3rd party Games, and that is mostly because they don't spend alot of their time going "AND this is why we are better than WOTC". That being said, I like alot Monte Cooks Arcana Evolved (Seriously, he prints that every single time he mentions the product in the book, he can't just call it Arcana Evolved), though I think the way he handled getting ride of alignment was really silly, because he basically references alignment every time he mentions roleplaying, he is like "well, in my game because we don't have alignment, your characters can have different views on the political make up of the realm. And none of our races are good or evil.....except those guys, they are evil, and they are lawful, and they are good, but not Evil, Lawful, or Good...."<br />Other than that, and the fact that the game seems utopian, i honestly think its a good product, if you can afford the 50 bucks (I got mine at a sale thank god) i'd recommend it. Don't get arcana unearthed, just go for Arcana Evolved, it apparently has everything the first game has<br />from<br />EEEvilElitesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10736914083653504431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392444708232395750.post-76731950361371376432011-05-31T01:58:00.004-04:002011-07-06T15:50:26.893-04:00City of Life and Death, made into a City of Rebirth<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_YYMeAu4i7gA/TPc1w0Y434I/AAAAAAAAJrI/9_3cBQxT3pY/s1600/rape-of-nanking-nanjing-ww2-brutal-japanese-002.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 749px; height: 829px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_YYMeAu4i7gA/TPc1w0Y434I/AAAAAAAAJrI/9_3cBQxT3pY/s1600/rape-of-nanking-nanjing-ww2-brutal-japanese-002.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Actually....this isn't in the film<br /><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> 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mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style> <![endif]--> <p style="line-height: 200%;"><br /></p><p><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="line-height: 200%; white-space: pre; "> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 200%;">Let me make one thing clear, City of Life and Death is a very well done movie, and I recommend it to everybody interested in Historical Films . That being said, it is propaganda, or at least a very nationalistic </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 32px;">portrayal</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 200%;">. It is very well done nationalism, with much more tact and respect than you'd expect from a story about the Rape of Nanking, but it is Chinese Nationalism. Now, I've always had a morbid fascination with genocide, and this, coupled with my avid interest (not a fetish) for Chinese history has caused me to study the Rape of Nanking extensively. The Rape of Nanking was in 1937, when the Japanese Army killed 300,000 Chinese civilians in the old Capital of Nanking (or Nanjing). What made Nanking stand out compared to all of the other destruction of cities committed by the Japanese in China was the sheer extent of the Japanese brutality, including such fun activities as putting babies on spikes, having two </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 32px;">sergeants</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 200%;"> compete to see who could kill the most Chinese with a sword, and of course, mass rape. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 32px;">Japan, as per their normal "Fuck you" policy towards China, pretends it never happened of course. The movie follows three primary characters, whose names I cannot remember because I am a racist. We have Doopy Japanese Sergeant, Awkward Westernized Chinese guy (John Rabe's security) and hot homely Chinese mother figure. All three characters are brought together and torn apart during the brutal Japanese invasion. Side characters include Sad Chinese Prostitute who is rapped to death, Sociopath Japanese Sergeant who is responsible for said rape, Badass Chinese insurgent, Chinese Child Soldier, and Useless Western Characters (they are all useless.)</span></p> <p><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="line-height: 200%; white-space: pre; "> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 200%;">Now first things first, for Western Audiences this might seem strange but.....if you had to make a movie about Nanking and were required to show the Japanese in a positive light, this is the best way you could have done it. While they are extremely brutal and kill/rape lots of civilians in a wide variety of horrible ways, a massive amount of time is taken to show the nicer side of the Japanese, Japanese soldiers learning to dance, drinking beer together, playing piano, and they often times are extremely nice to the Chinese right up until they shoot them in the face. While this is a good thing, and in many ways is something the "Ideal" Nanking movie would have, (Showing the human qualities of the </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 32px;">oppression</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 200%;"> in order to make the horror of the incident even more powerful) it started to get a little suspicious. There is a scene where a Japanese company is ambushed by Chinese insurgents and suffers massive causalities before finally emerging victorious after a long and brutal battle. While that did happen in Nanking, the Chinese army was so badly orginized and ill </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 32px;">equipped</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 200%;"> that very little actual resistance happened once the Japanese got into the City, and most of the Chinese insurgents were simply defeated by the better trained Japanese forces. The Japanese would claim their was resistance (and there were some isolated incidents) in order to justify their slaughter, however the fact that the movie devoted 30 mins showing the Japanese characters getting their asses kicked by the Chinese before the reinforcements finally arrive to defeat the Chinese, is a telling example of the movies real intentions. The scene achieves two things (I have a point here I swear), it establishes the Chinese as brave and competent fighters, and makes us sympathize with the Japanese as they are getting their asses kicked. Why the movie choose to do the former makes perfect sense, consider how much of a failure the entire Nanking campaign was for the Chinese, focusing on the small isolated incidents of victory makes sense, the Chinese want to not feel like they got their ass kicked. But why show the Japanese getting slaughtered, all it does is make us sympathize with them and explain some of their brutality (the Japanese feel like they are getting vengeance for their lost comrades, later in the film). The film omits Chiang Kai-Shek's defense of the city entirely, or his totally inept defense/retreat from the city, where he positioned the troops to fight, then ordered a disorganized and badly handled retreat where the rich were allowed to leave first taking most of the boats, without telling some of his units that they were leaving. If anything, the Battle of Nanking is an example of both Japanese brutality, but also Chinese military ineptitude, as the Chinese army was infamously corrupt and badly run (Except for Mao, who while not great at least could keep his army together). In fact, the Chinese seemed more interested in fighting each other rather than fight an </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 32px;">organized</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 200%;"> fight. To get back to the point, while the Japanese are shown slaughtering chinese, the Chinese are never shown to be disorganized, inept, or out of control, as the real Chinese army was (I'm not saying Chinese people are somehow inherently inept as a people, just that the Chinese government in charge of Nanking was totally out of control and their was absolute chaos in the city). And while the Japanese are shown as brutal...honestly and this is going to sound heartless, the film depiction wasn't that bad. In the film, the Japanese shoot civilians, murdered all of the surrendered Chinese Soldiers (who died screaming for China's victory of course), rape women, burn people alive, and mutilate bodies. Oh and they gang rape women to death. And I imagine your thinking "Wow, that makes them sound horrible, what the fuck do you mean that isn't that bad?' Well, if we look at the Japanese army's war record, that is how they treated every city, hell even most cities throughout the world were treated like that in times of war. It was brutal yes, but it wasn't the Rape of Nanking, it was just the Chinese occupation of Hong Kong, or the Philipies or New Guinea. In the real sack, they did such lovely acts as</span></p> <p style="line-height:200%">Putting babies on spikes (Seriously, its not just anti German propaganda)</p> <p style="line-height:200%">used civilians as live bayonet practice</p> <p style="line-height:200%">Systematic Gang rape (literally in lines)</p> <p style="line-height:200%">Rape of small children (boys and girls)</p> <p style="line-height:200%">Rape of the elderly</p> <p style="line-height:200%">Rape of men (I"m not saying that this is somehow more or less upsetting than the rape of women, however its unexpected and isn't shown in the film)</p> <p style="line-height:200%">Forcing family members to rape each other</p> <p style="line-height:200%">Forcing Buddhist Monks who had take vows of celibacy to rape young women at gun point</p> <p style="line-height:200%">Raping women with bayonets, broken bottles, and bamboo sticks and leaving them to die</p> <p style="line-height:200%">Impaling pregnant women with bayonets (In fact the Japanese seemed to have targeted them in particular for brutal death)</p> <p style="line-height:200%">Corpses crowding up the streets (while we see bodies in the streets in the film, they are occasional, now literally crowding up the place. Some of the pictures of Nanking shown the streets literally covered with corpses)</p> <p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 200%;">Massive amount of bayonet murder (while many people are shot in the film, not a single person is stabbed, when the massacre is infamous for Chinese women being torn apart by Japanese bayonets, and POWs being </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 32px;">executed</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 200%;"> by Bayonet </span></p> <p style="line-height:200%">Herding civilians unto land mines</p> <p style="line-height:200%">Lining up POWS, covering them with petrol and lighting them on fire (this is shown in the film briefly, but the victims are in a house and its less methodical/horrific)</p><p style="line-height:200%">Rape of the Elderly </p><p style="line-height:200%">Cutting off POW's head with swords as they were forced to dig their own graves. </p> <p style="line-height:200%">Mass Arson</p> <p style="line-height:200%">Mass Rape, the film shows rape, but according to John Rape, their were up to 100 cases a night, not the occasional cases as shown in the film.</p> <p style="line-height:200%">Lets look at some of Rabe's Quote (according to Wikipedia)</p> <p style="line-height:200%">The slaughter of civilians is appalling. I could go on for pages telling of cases of rape and brutality almost beyond belief. Two bayoneted corpses are the only survivors of seven street cleaners who were sitting in their headquarters when Japanese soldiers came in without warning or reason and killed five of their number and wounded the two that found their way to the hospital.</p> <p style="line-height:200%"> </p> <p style="line-height:200%">Let me recount some instances occurring in the last two days. Last night the house of one of the Chinese staff members of the university was broken into and two of the women, his relatives, were raped. Two girls, about 16, were raped to death in one of the refugee camps. In the University Middle School where there are 8,000 people the Japs came in ten times last night, over the wall, stole food, clothing, and raped until they were satisfied. They bayoneted one little boy of eight who have [sic] five bayonet wounds including one that penetrated his stomach, a portion of omentum was outside the abdomen. I think he will live.[45]</p><p style="line-height:200%">From Reverend John Magee who was at the City</p><p style="line-height:200%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px; font-family: sans-serif; "></span></p><blockquote><p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">During the Japanese reign of terror in Nanking – which, by the way, continues to this day to a considerable degree – the Reverend John Magee, a member of the American Episcopal Church Mission who has been here for almost a quarter of a century, took motion pictures that eloquently bear witness to the atrocities committed by the Japanese .... One will have to wait and see whether the highest officers in the Japanese army succeed, as they have indicated, in stopping the activities of their troops, which continue even today.<sup id="cite_ref-48" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; "><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_massacre#cite_note-48" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; white-space: nowrap; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><span>[</span>49<span>]</span></a></sup></p></blockquote><blockquote><p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">On December 13, about 30 soldiers came to a Chinese house at #5 Hsing Lu Koo in the southeastern part of Nanking, and demanded entrance. The door was open by the landlord, a Mohammedan named Ha. They killed him immediately with a revolver and also Mrs. Ha, who knelt before them after Ha's death, begging them not to kill anyone else. Mrs. Ha asked them why they killed her husband and they shot her. Mrs. Hsia was dragged out from under a table in the guest hall where she had tried to hide with her 1 year old baby. After being stripped and raped by one or more men, she was bayoneted in the chest, and then had a bottle thrust into her vagina. The baby was killed with a bayonet. Some soldiers then went to the next room, where Mrs. Hsia's parents, aged 76 and 74, and her two daughters aged 16 and 14. They were about to rape the girls when the grandmother tried to protect them. The soldiers killed her with a revolver. The grandfather grasped the body of his wife and was killed. The two girls were then stripped, the elder being raped by 2–3 men, and the younger by 3. The older girl was stabbed afterwards and a cane was rammed in her vagina. The younger girl was bayoneted also but was spared the horrible treatment that had been meted out to her sister and mother. The soldiers then bayoneted another sister of between 7–8, who was also in the room. The last murders in the house were of Ha's two children, aged 4 and 2 respectively. The older was bayoneted and the younger split down through the head with a sword</p></blockquote><p></p><p style="line-height:200%">From Tang Junshan</p><p style="line-height:200%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px; font-family: sans-serif; ">The seventh and last person in the first row was a pregnant woman. The soldier thought he might as well rape her before killing her, so he pulled her out of the group to a spot about ten meters away. As he was trying to rape her, the woman resisted fiercely ... The soldier abruptly stabbed her in the belly with a bayonet. She gave a final scream as her intestines spilled out. Then the soldier stabbed the fetus, with its umbilical cord clearly visible, and tossed it aside.</span></p> <p><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="line-height: 200%; white-space: pre; "> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 200%;">You get the idea. So while the film is certainly brutal, its nothing compared to what actually happened, its like a movie where a child is shot compared to a movie where a child is eaten alive by a dog. While both are horrific, the latter is simply more powerful and terrible to see. Remember, between 300,000 to 350,000 Civilians died within the span of a few months, most through torture, and that isn't counting the POWs. Now I'm not saying any of the massacres shown in the film aren't true, because they did happen, the POWs were machined gunned down, the "comfort women" were rapped to death, and the bodies were mutilated. And i'm not saying the Japanese shouldn't be shown sympathetically, on the contrary i think that it is a very good thing to show them as people, because no matter how horrible they were, they were (and are) still human beings. However, I think the film's reasons are dishonest. The film isn't nationalistic in the sense that this is a call to arms for the Chinese to go kill the monstrous Japanese, it is instead a call to arms for Chinese empowerment. The only characters who aren't shown sympathetically are the Westerners, who are depicted as weak, inept, cowardly and stupid. John Rab is shown as an old bureaucrat, who cowardly leaves the city abandoning the safety zone to the Japanese. While Rab had his faults (he was a Nazi after all) and did eventually leave in 1938, he was an absurdly brave man, who saved up to 250,000 men, often by running infront of Japanese solders demanding that they leave the Chinese alone. Yes he did leave, but by the time he left in late 1938, the worst of the </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 32px;">massacres</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 200%;"> were over. The City falls in October 1937, and the killing end in late January-Early </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 32px;">February</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 200%;"> 1938 . John Rabe left in February 28th, 1938, so by then the city, while not a 'nice' place, was certainly not hell on earth. In the film, he sort awkardly asks them to leave his compound alone, which they promptly ignore, and cries alot. The other western characters aren't much better, most of them don't have many lines, and those they do have involve them being pushed out of the way as they try vainly to protect civilians. The "good" japanese character is shown as very timid and horrified by what is going on around him, and not really able to grasp the reality of the situation. Most of the Chiense characters are really strong actually, the only one who is a pansy is John Rab's assistant, who is super westernized and kind of a suck up, however after his daughter is killed by the japanese he stands up to them and dies a hero's death (in a scene that is a homage to the priests death in Rome Open City). And the "traditional" Chinese character, the really hot Chinese mother figure is a hero all throughout, keeping the people together, standing up to the Chinese, and gets caught trying to rescue Chinese POWs. As she is being taken away, she shames the Japanese character into killing her to avoid gang rape, and he later kills himself after letting a pair of prisoners go.</span></p> <p style="line-height:200%">So what is this trying to accomplish here? Its about Chinese empowerment, about making the Chinese the moral victors of Nanking. the Reason why its so traumatizing to the Chinese is not just because the Japanese were brutal as fuck, but also because the Chinese couldn't do anything about it. 300,000-350,000 Civilians were killed, along with 50,000 soldiers and 80,000 women raped in the Chinese Capital, against only 240,000 Japanese, only 6,000 of whom where killed. And unlike the Russians, they never got a sacking of Berlin to gain vengeance, the Japanese were in Japan until they surrendered to us. the British, Russians and Americans had to save China, who the Japanese were slaughtering (If not defeating) for almost two decades (1931-1945). One of the Reasons why the Chinese hate the Japanese is that they were helpless to them, the Japanese are the boogiemen of China, this tiny little country that crippled the nation (to be fair china had a 40 year civil war going on but still). If the nastier brutalities of the nanking massacre were shown, such a s the infamous "killing contest", then the Chinese woudl be humiliated. Being shot in the back is one thing, being forced to rape your mother at gun point is quite another. the Chinese are massacred, but they are never reduced in the way the Japanese tried to do during the real events. By making the Japanese very human, they are less threatening and dominating to the Chinese, in fact they are shamed and humiliated by the Chinese resistance. The Chinese in the movie show a great deal of bravery, and they don't need the westerners to help them up. Why is China doing this? Because in this day and age, China doesn't need to hate Japan, at least not politically, but as a growing superpower, they do need to break free from Western bonds. this movie is taking an event which is the humiliation of China and making it into the monument to Chinese bravery. The Movie ends with the two Chinese POWS who survived the massacre, one of which is a young boy, being realized by the guilty Japanese. As they walk away, the Japanese says "It takes more courage to live than to die" and then kills himself. The two chinese walk off, and look at the flowers around them and start laughing with joy. they aren't traumatized or scarred forever, they are moving on, while the Japanese lies dead in a ditch. In another scene, John Rab is forced to tell the Chinese women that 100 of them would be taken away by the Japanese as "Comfort Women". John Rab, crying and feebly saying "I"m sorry" asks for volunteers, while his Chinese assistant (The traditional female one, not the Westernized male one) adds that if they do this, food will be provided for their children. one by one, 100 Chinese women raise their hands and volunteer for the grim task, where they will be raped to death. However, they do so with stoic faces and determination.</p> <p style="line-height:200%">The Film is really astonishingly beautiful and I really think people should go see it, however this is *Not* the rape of Nanking, this is a Chinese attempt to exorcise the Demons of the Nanking trauma. Now i'm not saying their were not brave and noble Chinese, in fact they were thousands of them during the massacre, however that being said, it was the dozen or so Westerners who saved 250,000 people by creating this save zone in the first place, nobody asked them or expected them to, and if it wasn't for the Westerners literally running in front of guns waiving their papers, its likely thousands more of the Chinese would have died. In fact, most of the documentation of the Rape of Nanking was done by the West, after the Way, Mao's government was acknowledged by Japan in return for not bringing up the Japanese war crimes, and ever since the Chinese government has been in an awkward place. Talking about the Nanking massacre is awkward because China, the Middle Kingdom, the pinnacle of Civilization, the greatest kingdom in the world, proved unable to defeat Japan, because they were too busy in a pointless, bloody and ruinous Civil war. Thus in the film, no mention is made of the Civil War, or the Communist Party (after all, many people don't like Mao in China and this movie is made for the Chinese). Like Schindler's List, this is a great Film, however it is sensationalistic and is trying to draw you into a trap of perception that you need to actively try to resist in order to see the film for what it is, a manipulation of historical facts for narrow national interest</p>EvilElitesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10736914083653504431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392444708232395750.post-6821666397415961352010-11-01T20:44:00.002-04:002010-11-01T20:45:56.874-04:00Fable 3Ok, i've been away, because I'm at college and college life is really hectic and hard to manage. When i finally do get settled down i will start writing for the paper and then you can expect stuff, but until then...sorry. <br />But other people will write stuff, this is Soulbanish's review<br /><br />This is my first time attempting a blog post so please don't eat my soul and devour my remains.<br /><br /><br /><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Sometimes, less is more. This is not the case for Fable 3. There will be spoilers in this review so if you care, turn back now. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">In the fable series each game has its own options. However, the further along in the series you go, the less options you get. In fable 1 you had the choice between 12 different weapons, Now, we go to Fable 2 where they took out a couple of weapons and put in a few with a net loss of 1 weapon. Not horrible but they should have been more concerned about putting things in than taking them out. Now, lets cut ahead to fable 3. Now you have 4 options. Pistol, rifle, sword, and Hammer. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Now, even if we ignore that, there's still the matter of Will spells. In Fable 1, you had 18 with a fair amount of versatility in terms of character concept. In fable 2, you had 8. Not a lot but there were at least a few that worked for different concepts. Now you have six, all of which are blasting spells and until you get a specific upgrade you can only cast one at a time.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Now, this is forgivable. I can forgive plenty of mistakes if the game itself is good but Fable 3 has plenty of other problems. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">One of my least favorite changes was to the inventory. Instead of an inventory, you get what is essentially a dressing room. You get to look through several different mannequins each wearing various items. To me, this seemed like an unnecessary change and they could have focused on something else. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Next, lets talk about the Health bar. It no longer exists. I have no way to tell if my character is dying short of an onscreen D-pad flashing red. Now, not all games need a health bar. For example, one of my favorite games, Super Mario brothers doesn't have one. However, this is because in that game all enemies deal the same damage and you either die in two hits or one. In fable 3 though, damage is variable. In a game where damage is variable such as the Megaman series, a way to measure health really helps. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">A really odd thing is that they apparently expect you to play a guy in the game, because in order to get into a Mercenary camp you have to look like a Mercenary that's currently knocked out. The mercenary has a freaking beard. Yeah, you're a girl and you have to get a beard. What. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">A new change is that your weapon evolves as you upgrade it. This just changes the look of your weapon. This is a gimmick and does not improve the game for me one Iota. I would prefer that they had focused on other elements than something that's only there for aesthetic appeal. Know what else appeals to some people's aesthetics? More than two types of weapons for each category. Now, I don't deny that looks are important in a game. However, I think they would have been better served by making different options for the various components than a gimmick that I have no clue how to control. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Now some weapons upgrade by you doing specific things. This wasn't a bad idea and there are items for both good and bad characters. However, there are at least two weapons that, if you want to upgrade them, you have to have a lot of sex. I just have to ask why they did this. Who is this supposed to appeal to? Honestly, I don't mind sex being in the game but when I get the swinging sword and see what I have to do to upgrade it? I have to ask what five year old thought that was funny. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Now, let's get onto the plot. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The plot has been done many times before and it wasn't done very well here. Your character is the brother of the evil overlord, finds out he's the “Chosen one” and is helped to reach his full potential by a mentor and a wisecracking sidekick to overthrow his brother and then save his homeland from an unknown force. Now, being cliche isn't bad but this just felt like the writers were being lazy. I didn't particularly care about any of the characters and I didn't particularly hate any of them, with the exception of Reaver. One other complaint I have is that you don't get any indication of when the eldritch abomination is going to attack. On my playthrough I planned on selling the properties I'd bought to finance the resistance. However, due to the fact that I didn't get any indication of when the attack was going to happen (Goes from 112 days to 1) around 650,000 people died. Not as bad as it could have been but if I'd had any indication, there would have been no civilian casualties. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Slight rant about Reaver here. Feel free to ignore it. Reaver to me seems like a complete monster. He has literally no redeeming features and yet, for some reason, you aren't allowed to kill him. I think my problem with Reaver is that there's absolutely no justification for what he does other than that it entertains him. The evil Overlord is attempting to protect his country from an eldritch abomination (Although that seemed to come out of nowhere.) and the Eldritch abomination is an Eldritch abomination. Reaver will kill you if you annoy him. So, you're allowed to kill the evil overlord and the eldritch abomination, but not Reaver? Why not? He's arguably <i>worse</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> than the evil overlord in</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Okay, back to the game itself. There are some things I like about the game and I'm going to talk about them here. The Co-op mode in this game? It's actual Co-op. While the second character is somewhat ignored by the plot you get to actually customize that person, and you can take that person back to your own game and play through the plot on your own while keeping what you earned from your adventures with your friends. This alone gets points with me. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Another thing I like is the humor. Maybe it's just that some of the humor appeals to me personally, but I feel like they actually got people to write the jokes for this game.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Another thing they did that I felt was a good idea was getting rid of the experience system from previous games. Those were fairly easy to break and now you have to make some progress in the game to get better upgrades. The game is still pretty easy but it's definitely better. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Final verdict? A 5 out of 10 or average. Some of the stuff they changed didn't need changing, they took stuff out instead of putting it in, and due to the fact that almost nothing in the plot varies, the game feels like it was rushed out. In fact, considering there isn't even a two year difference between the release dates of fable 2 and 3 it probably was. It's still a fun game to play with your friends and the flaws aren't big enough to make the game unplayable. There are probably better Co-op swords and sorcery games out there but this one certainly doesn't seem bad. I just feel they could have done so much more if they decided to delay the release date.<br /><br />If a decent amount of people like this review I'll review a few other video games I've got lying around. </div>EvilElitesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10736914083653504431noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392444708232395750.post-66168213215851841722010-08-15T14:20:00.003-04:002010-08-15T14:21:39.609-04:00Inception<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgagX3vAoAPOaT4em2aqUV2JhUePdBxAivwljT9bPMUxSK4KF1ZHijtdZ8maFgm1CZbDDFqGstRkfGUtDvAksDqt5QcspLxWxlJYwGZzNB3pDovRvFHEllB92-VG3K4zVjeJGwgRxzm1rZb/s1600/Silent_Hill_2-431.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 431px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgagX3vAoAPOaT4em2aqUV2JhUePdBxAivwljT9bPMUxSK4KF1ZHijtdZ8maFgm1CZbDDFqGstRkfGUtDvAksDqt5QcspLxWxlJYwGZzNB3pDovRvFHEllB92-VG3K4zVjeJGwgRxzm1rZb/s1600/Silent_Hill_2-431.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a> Its called Symbolism, look it up
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<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="line-height: 200%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >Now, if your at all into movies, you must be aware that this summer, pretty much nothing out, and most of what has come out is utter trash, a seemingly endless list of generic cooperate made films.<span style=""> </span>Yet, one film stood out above them all, this supposed masterpiece “Inception”, made by the director of “Dark Knight” and compared again and again to the Matrix, this film basically was hailed as a cinematic masterpiece, standing out among an endless line of drivel.<span style=""> </span>So of course, I was very hesitant to go watch it, because as a rule when a 3-hour film is touted as the “a brilliantly clever mindscrew” its really nothing more than an overhyped mediocrity.<span style=""> </span>So I was finally convinced to see it and the film instead proved to be a very good looking overhyped mediocrity.<span style=""> </span>Inception is about some time in the future were people can enter other people’s dreams, their they can extract information, or in the case of the film, insert information.<span style=""> </span>A Japanese company is hiring Dicapio to insert an idea into the mind of a cooperate heir, an idea that will ruin his company.<span style=""> </span>The story then tracks the characters adventures into the realm of dreams.<span style=""> </span>OF course there are all of these elaborate rules for dreams that are twisted and exploited by the characters over the course of the film and lots of special effects, but while the film isn’t bad, its just boring.<span style=""> </span>While I didn’t hate it, while watching I just didn’t really feel anything, it just didn’t make a difference to me, I didn’t care, nothing in the film made me invest myself.<span style=""> </span>Spoilers from this point out, because honestly, nothing here has enough emotional impact to really made one way of difference.<span style=""> </span>Throughout Inception, there is always stuff happening, almost every single shot has people moving, people talking, people running, people fighting ect, and yet I’m never able to really make any emotional connections to any of the events, so its really just watching stuff happen.<span style=""> </span>For example, this one college student is needed to be the “dream architect” who can alter the dream world they are in, and is used throughout the film to avoid obstacles they encounter in the dreams.<span style=""> </span>However, for all intents and purposes, this college girl isn’t a character so much as a prop, she exists for the other characters to explain things to her and to help them get out of tricky situations, lacking anything beyond the skeleton of a personality.<span style=""> </span>At no point does she seem really bothered by leaving her school life to go do this beyond some “oh dear” expressions ever so often, she doesn’t really explain how her school experience plays into her ability to shape dreams and we have no real understanding of her likes and dislikes.<span style=""> </span>She basically does what the plot needs her to do, people explain to her how the dreams work and surprise, we know how the dreams work.<span style=""> </span>She gets really into Leonardo DiCaprio’s personal demons, but it doesn’t really explain why, she claims its because she cares about the mission, but if that’s the case why hasn’t anybody else gotten fascinated with his mental problems, people who know him better or know the dangers of dream traveling better.<span style=""> </span>A well written story might have her and DiCaprio have some sort of personal connection, maybe both of them are thrill seekers who can’t really functional properly socially in the “Normal world” and so strive to be in dreams out of some sort of ego trip, maybe they just have really good chemistry through a similar sense of humor, maybe she has a crush on him.<span style=""> </span>Instead through, she just seems interested because the plot needs to her to be, she isn’t so much a character as much as a character prototype, something that might be made in a script room to be fleshed out later.<span style=""> </span>For example, the ethnically mixed assistant’s personal dream token is a loaded dice.<span style=""> </span>Why, what does that symbolize?<span style=""> </span>Is he afraid of letting things get out of his personal control, is he an untrustworthy person, or is he just a gambler?<span style=""> </span>Why a dice?<span style=""> </span>The College girl made her own, a golden chess bishop…why a bishop?<span style=""> </span>I mean, a pawn I could understand somewhat, or even a queen, but why a bishop?<span style=""> </span>Why even a chess piece in the first place, what importance does that hold?<span style=""> </span>DiCaprio’s token was his wedding ring, which is important because the character’s marriage is the most meaningful thing to him, ergo why the wedding ring only appears when he is in a dream.<span style=""> </span>His new token, his wife’s top is important because of his emotional connection to his wife, and his inability to move on.<span style=""> </span>And yet, none of the other characters have these sorts of characterizations.<span style=""> </span>What is the deal with the Middle Eastern drug maker btw, he has a few comical lines, he does some important plot points, and spends the entire rest of the movie driving around in a slow motion scene.<span style=""> </span>The shapeshifter…I don’t even remember his character, who was he?<span style=""> </span>Also there is a scene when dice man and the college girl briefly kiss when guards are looking for them, the girl ask “Was that to suppose to hide us” and the other guy responses “no, I just thought it was worth a shot.”<span style=""> </span>Looking aside the creepiness in age differences, that actually would be a pretty funny romance scene, but instead both characters look totally disinterested, and almost bored, so it doesn’t mean anything to me.<span style=""> </span>Hell, most of the movie is in the dream of Fisher Jr, the rich businessman who’s mind they are screwing with, and yet we know very little about him apart from generic daddy issues.<span style=""> </span>Its his bloody subconscious, it should reveal more about him, instead he is just another plot point to be dragged from location to location.<span style=""> </span>The only character who is really interesting is Saito, the Japanese businessman who is hiring DiCapio andthats because he is morally ambiguous, he is a very good reason to be treacherous, we know he is a ruthless businessman and always seems to be one step ahead of the main characters.<span style=""> </span>Will he keep his end of the deal or will he betray the characters, does he have an hidden motive for going into the dreams, what is his eventual plan?<span style=""> </span>Oh wait, doesn’t matter cause he gets shot the moment we enter the dreams and he just hangs around dying for the rest of the scene.<span style=""> </span>Even DiCapio, the only developed character, doesn’t really mean anything to me, because the character is defined by his relationship with his wife, and that doesn’t mean anything to me, its just another plot point to motivate the characters rather than a true relationship, we don’t really see them interact except when it is needed to move the plot along, the only time it was interesting was when his subconscious manifestation of his love interest was trying to kill him in Saito’s dream. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="line-height: 200%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><span style=""> </span>Now lets give Inception credit here, there is a lot of things it does right, things that I wish almost every other movie would do as well.<span style=""> </span>The editing is great, pay attention to the details of the characters clothes, DiCaprio’s clothes are always the same when he is in a dream but different when he isn’t in one, his kid’s clothes are always the same in a flashback but suddenly different in the last scene, their isn’t a single transition scene in the entire film, IE we never actually see how characters get to new locations until the very end, thus presenting the possibility that the entire realty is a dream.<span style=""> </span>It even plays with some of the Hollywood clichés, like how inept the dream guards are, because of the nature of the dream and various action movie clichés are shown to be possible only because they are in a dream.<span style=""> </span>And yet, again I don’t care.<span style=""> </span>I really just don’t care, because they have no emotional connection.<span style=""> </span>A friend of mine commented of my habit of making sexual comparisons in my reviews, so here is my obligatory metaphor, its like making out with a really good looking girl who you get along with, but don’t know very well, it’s a nice sensation but lacks any feeling beyond that, its just that a sensation.<span style=""> </span>Or to be more professional, this movie is more about the idea rather than any real emotional resonance.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"><span style="line-height: 200%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >Now I’ve been playing a lot of Silent Hill 2 lately, and I was noting the similarities between the two, both are about characters trapped in a world that is a physical manifestation of their own subconscious, both have dead wives with a deep dark terrible secret behind their death (I refuse to spoiler Silent Hill), both protagonists are emotionally scarred men who seem fairly normal at first glance, but seem to have an unconscious death wish, and both “dream worlds” contain a violent manifestation of self loathing who breaks into otherwise normal situations and terrifies the main characters.<span style=""> </span>And yet Silent hill is far less about the spectacle and really more about the emotional turmoil of the characters, the town alters itself to reflect the protagonists torment, the monsters are very feminine and almost erotically dance as they try to kill him, large holes are always appearing in the ground that he jumps into, he is always in small dark claustrophobic environments where the only way out seems to involve hurting himself in some manner.<span style=""> </span>In contrast, Inception’s world, despite its elaborate set up, seems strangely scientific, not drawing from Freud but instead Jungian, but its weirdly detached from emotions, the characters coldly explain how dreams work and so dreams aren’t subconscious so much as just a series of action locations.<span style=""> </span>I mean, considering these are dreams, wouldn’t they be more you know…icky, more awkward, less clean.<span style=""> </span>In Silent Hill, the main locations include a darkly haunted hospital, a hotel and a historical society, all of which have emotional significance to the protagonist, while in inception we have a hotel, and a winter fortress, what do those symbolize?<span style=""> </span>What deeper meaning do those have, they are just locations for an action scene, their isn’t any emotional connection there.<span style=""> </span>Inception is just too clean, not gritty enough, the dreams are strangely logical and orderly, like the character it doesn’t have any spirit, just acts as a set up for the plot, while Silent Hill is instead is focused more upon the feeling of being totally alone, in an world that seems both out to get you and yet strangely neglecting you.<span style=""> </span>Even for people who haven’t suffered lost their wife, it strikes home because its really about something we all understand, isolation, being misunderstood, and trapped, without any comfort to turn to.<span style=""> </span>Now maybe this is because I have a crippling fear of isolation and abandonment, but honestly Inception didn’t touch anything about me, it was just me sitting watching a film.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"><span style="line-height: 200%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >Even comparing this scene to the Matrix, the matrix actually has more emotional resonance, despite being a somewhat overrated film.<span style=""> </span>Firstly, we see the real world before the film starts, we get to see Nero’s life as an office drone and therefore sympathize with him before the film really sets in.<span style=""> </span>Secondly, we have something to attach ourselves too.<span style=""> </span>While Reeves is somewhat dull, Lawrence Fishburne is a great actor, and so we care about him when he gets kidnapped.<span style=""> </span>Hugo Weaving is a great actor, but he isn’t just a robot like the other agents, his has some personality, some personal hostility towards the characters.<span style=""> </span>This makes his confrontation with Nero more important, it has more feeling too it. Even with the fight scenes, the fight scenes in the Matrix are about the characters, Nero running away from the agents from building to building is all about the hostile environment and a thoroughly fruitless attempt to escape from the world itself, the fight in the lobby shows Nero’s acceptance of his own powers.<span style=""> </span>The fight scenes in Inceptions are just…guys with guns shooting at other guys with guns, there is a time tension, but because I don’t care if these characters live or die, its somewhat undermined.<span style=""> </span>For that matter, why are dream security inept special agents?<span style=""> </span>Wouldn’t it be much better to have something more supernatural, you know, the actual environment shifting to try to harm the characters opposed to something so mundane as secret agents?<span style=""> </span>Really, can’t do anything better there?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="line-height: 200%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><span style=""> </span>Inception isn’t bad, it has a lot of thought into it, and if your use to watching nothing but mainstream films this must seem like the a Warner Herzog film in terms of quality, but that’s its only real strong point is that it stands out from mainstream films.<span style=""> </span>If you are comparing this to “The Dark Knight” and “Avatar”, then yeah Inception looks really good, unlike Avatar it doesn’t feel like it was made by a soulless team of businessmen hoping to make as much money as possible, but it also feels very amateurish, lacking in real depth or complexity.<span style=""> </span>I mean, as a RPG player, I noticed that PLanescape and White Wolf, even D&D handled dreaming with far more subtly and consistency than this, to the point where I feel like Inception might have ripped it off.<span style=""> </span>Its really just a nifty idea without anything behind it, and while it </span><span style="line-height: 200%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >deserves praise for trying something new, it lacks resonance or really anything to justify being three bloody hours long.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="line-height: 200%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >From<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="line-height: 200%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >EE</span><span style="line-height: 200%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><o:p></o:p></span></p> EvilElitesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10736914083653504431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392444708232395750.post-70381349502790119892010-08-03T00:24:00.004-04:002010-08-09T18:44:15.392-04:00Racism in last Airbender and Prince of Persia<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.chasingthefrog.com/reelfaces/schindlerslist/benkingsley.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 227px; height: 291px;" src="http://www.chasingthefrog.com/reelfaces/schindlerslist/benkingsley.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>He is played by Ben Kingsley btw...who is of Indian Decent.
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Both films hired white actors to play the parts of non white characters (for the record, I don’t care enough about these films to look up the actor’s names). In Prince of Persia, the Prince is played by white actor Jake Gylenhaal, while in Last Airbender all the characters but the villains are played by white actors. This has cause a great deal of uproar, especially in the Asian and Asian American communities, an uproar slightly diminished because the films were so bad that nobody really cares about their messages, but honestly, is it racist to have a white actor play a nonwhite role? Now this is a long standing issue, the film industry’s long history of racism and racial profiling so the minorities in America have a very justified chip on their shoulder. I might be bias toward the Asian community, because I’m sympathetic towards their fully justified grievances, and the articles written by Asian Americans tend to be well written, and their argument boils down to A) Many ethnicities are horribly underrepresented in Hollywood, giving the impression that these ethnicities aren’t important, don’t exist or aren’t relatable. B) Hollywood has a long history of type casting and marginalizing ethnicities, and while this is changing for African Americans, its still a big issue for ethnicities with a small population like most Asian Americans C) Blackface and by extension Brown Face or Yellow Face, is racist and insulting to minority groups, and having white actors play non white roles is a form of that.D) We need to have more recognition for minority actors in mainstream media E) Thus, white people should not play non white roles Now since I’m lazy, I’m just going to break my response into bullets as well.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"><span style="line-height: 200%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >1)Ok, now Hollywood’s assumption is that white people are unable to to sympathize with non whites, for the record, with the exception of some Cherokee blood, I am almost the quintessential WASP, just to put my “ethnic bias” out in the open. Personally, I’ve never had any problem with watching movies with ethnic main characters, I sympathized with the pretty much all the characters in Seven Samurai, in Kun Fu Hustle I can feel for the main character even if I don’t identify with him. Maybe that’s because all of the characters are Asians so I identify with the protagonist because the entire cast is equally “different’, but that in a movie where white people are hanging out alongside Asians will I naturally sympathize with the whites? Well, in the film Se7en costarring Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt, I am far more sympathetic to Morgan Freeman’s character than I am to Brad Pitt. Maybe its because Freeman is a better actor? Possible, but I think its something deeper than that, its personality, I sympathize with Morgan Freeman’s character because I can relate to him, his intelligence, his appreciation of classical books/music/poetry, and his intense cynicism, while Bad Pitt’s emotionally charged life style doesn’t appeal to me. Or in Men in Black, while I enjoy Tommy Lee Jone’s character, I sympathize with Will Smith’s character because he, like me, is a smart guy caught in a world he doesn’t understand. In the end, it isn’t race, or heritage necessarily, so much as just similarity, and while race plays a part in that, its more personality, and its the duty of an actor to make the character relatable and sympathetic <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"><span style="line-height: 200%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >2) Last Airbender opens in an Inuit style village full of Inuit actors then we’re confronted with two absurdly white protagonists, its just so obvious the director is choosing whites over non whites. When I watched Prince of Persia, I didn’t mind, because Jake is a pretty good actor, but I didn’t fail to notice that the only actors with dark skin are extras. And the main actress’ skin was darkened to make her look Indian and she was horrible. Ok, Iranian actors are hard to come by, but there is a huge industry with absurdly hot Indian actresses, and almost all know English. Choosing such a bad actress and actually changing her skin is just insulting. I think the issue isn’t so much the color of the character’s skin, so much as it is the fact that the films are so obvious about their racially driven casting choices, is just insulting.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"><span style="line-height: 200%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><span style=""> </span>3) But compared to the source material is it really that racist? For example, in the game Prince of Persia the main character is basically British, he is white, and has a British accent, and the Princess is somewhat dark but she doesn’t really seem Indian beyond a skin color and dress. Would the game have been better if the story tapped more into Persian Culture and Society rather than just the aesthetic. If the it was equally well written, I think I’d enjoy it even more, because its about clashing societies and two ancient cultures that are almost totally unrepresented in video games today. So yes, it if was handled equally well, I think it would have been much more interesting, in fact I could have used less platforming if their was more story and cultural stuff, but I don’t think the game was obligated to be true to the roots of an obvious fantastical Persian world. Similarly, the Avatar TV Show has to deal with race issues, two of the main characters have dark skin, but in a world that draws heavily from Asian folklore and with an Asian atheistic, most of the characters look white. Aang is supposedly from a Tibetan styled culture (people keep calling him Chinese, don’t know why), and yet he looks like a bald white guy wearing vaguely Tibetan clothes. Now I’ve met like half a dozen Tibetans in my life, so clearly I’m not an expert on a society that I’m sure is very ethnically diverse, but every Tibetan I’ve met, even those born in the states, are very dark skinned, brown eyed and with much more “Asian” faces. Similarly, I’ve seen many movies about the Inuit, they all seem very Asian looking, while Katara and Sokka look like well, white people with a really dark tan, or maybe Latinos, but certainly not Inuit. Troph basically is white, and the Fire Nation despite seemingly drawing upon Fascist Japan/Communist China design, are almost entirely made up of white people with “Asian Styled” haircuts, and are certainly not Indians. Ok yes, not all Asian people share a universal look, but they certainly don’t all look like slightly different white people, the characters of the cartoon could pass for Americans in most cartoons. Also the jungle tribes they stumble across look and act like Louisiana hicks, which as a partial southern I’d find offensive if my family wasn’t from North Carolina (hypocrisy ahoy), while you’d think that a Vietnamese, Thai or Cambodian culture would be more appropriate if they were fleshed out in the process. So can we really blame the Movie too much if the show itself is not ethnically diverse in the least? I mean, why not have the Fire Nation look Japanese. Now maybe I’m a little bias because I personally find the “Asian traits” that were omitted very attractive, but I’d still rather have Troph look Chinese. However, lets bear in mind, the animators are drawing from Asian philosophy and culture, but it’s a fantasy world, with a very western world view emerging from the series, so it isn’t like “Fantasy Asia” exactly. I mean, if a bunch people with dark skin settled in the South Pole, I’d expect them to live like the Inuit just because of how useful that method is for survival. I could see a group of White people with a vaguely Japanese styled culture. Its fishy that out of all of the cultures drawn upon, Inuit, Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan, and Pacific Islander, none of these people are white and yet white people seem to be everywhere in the world of Avatar. Now I enjoy the show, but I think this is subtler racism. Honestly, quality is an issue, Avatar is a good show so nobody wants to bring up the race issue, because it colors (no pun intended) our view on an otherwise good show, while the Avatar Movie (Both of them actually but I mean the Airbender one) are trash, so people mock its racism <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"><span style="line-height: 200%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >4) So is a film better if it casts people of proper ethnicity? I feel a little nervous making that claim, I mean, because I’m a WASP does that mean that somebody of Irish descent is automatically better at playing an Irish character? I mean, is a random black guy automatically going to be better at playing Martin Luther King Jr. than say, Robert Duvall, who is one of the best American actors at all time? I mean, Robert Duvall who isn’t Irish played Tom Hagen in Godfather very well. However speaking of Godfather, most of the cast for that movie were Italians, and that added a certain something to the film. The way they spoke, their mannerism, the interactions, the film (directed by Italian American director Copula) and so has a certain charm, a feeling of familiarity that is brought out by people who really understand their own culture, enhanced because the characters look Italian. Or watching movies made in their own culture, there is a certain charm that is hard to bring across, like say, Rules of the Game or Yojimbo, those movies are so clearly the product of their respective cultures. Can you imitate that without native actors? I’d say yes, but its much harder. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"><span style="line-height: 200%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >5) However, even after agreeing with most of the racism, I can’t bring myself to agree with the idea of racial casting, because its not always bad. For example, I love Lawrence of Arabia, I think its an amazing film, and yet despite being filmed in Saudi Arabia, being a movie about Arab culture/history/society, and being about the issue of race, most of the main Arab actors are not played by Arabs, I think only one of them is an Arab. Some are South American, some are Middle Eastern but not Arab, and Sheriff Ali is played by an Egyptian. And yet it’s an amazing film, and the movie’s theme about Arabic culture still ring true, despite the fact almost all of the Arab actors are extras. Lawrence of Arabia is rather ironic, because one of the major themes of the story is that Lawrence doesn’t really identify with his own ethnicity, and seems to project himself as an Arab, which is very interesting take upon the whole idea of race in theaters. You’d think Lawrence (and the average audience member) would sympathize more with the British, but instead he is drawn to the Arabs, possibly because he like them is an outsider (in the film this is attributed to his alleged Homosexuality). Or take Last King of Scotland where African American Forest Whitaker plays Ugandan Idi Amin. Yeah that’s not a typical example, but it still applies, just because they are both black doesn’t change the fact that they are from totally different ethnicity, and even if you traced back Whitaker’s family history, I’d guess that they would come from West Africa because that is where most of the slaves were kidnapped from, not Uganda, in fact I think they darkened his skin for the film so he would look more African. However, he does an amazing job, that is one of my favorite movies of all time, and he does a great job portraying the character. Should they have found some Ugandan actor to play the part instead? Considering how well it turned out, I’m inclined to say know, unless this hypothetical Ugandan actor was somehow better than Whitaker, which I feel is kinda impossible. But again, like with Lawrence of Arabia, the actor shows a great deal of respect (if that’s the right word) for his role. He is speaking in an actual Ugandan Accent, he looks like Idi Amin, he walks and talks like Idi Amin, and honestly it looks like the Dictator was hired for the part. Like in Lawrence of Arabia, race is a plot point in the film, and the fact that Whitaker isn’t African doesn’t dilute the message. In both films, there is a sense that the directors and actors respect the fact that they are playing outside their culture and try to do justice to their portrayals. Ok, so ultimately (I love that word), what do we draw from this, what’s the conclusion? Is Hollywood racist, and is non ethnic casting possible? To the former, I think Hollywood is an absurdly racist institution, but in this particular instance, I feel this stems not from malice so much from the standard Hollywood way of doing business. This doesn’t feel so much like Blackface, instead it feels similar to how Hollywood casts are almost entirely made up of the most good looking people on the planet. You never have women in Hollywood who don’t look almost perfect, you never have men who have a little gut unless it’s a plot point, everybody has to appeal to this very strict standard of beauty, which is non whites sadly don’t fit into with a few exceptions, so to be an Indian American who wants to get good parts you face the same challenge as an American who is slightly overweight, or a women who doesn’t fit that absurd standard of beauty. Its still racist, but its less obvert. Secondly, ethnic casting, I feel like what makes the difference between Last Airbender and Lawrence of Arabia is the amount of respect paid to the source material, in Last Airbender it feels like the white actors were cast off hand and clearly no effort was made for them to blend into their environment, thus making this just insulting obvious, while in Lawrence of Arabia the actors are integrated into Arab culture. So it boils down to respect, I feel like a lot of Asian minorities already have a massive chip on their shoulder due to being underappreciated by the Hollywood elites, are doubly offended by the fact that their cultures are simply dismissed as nothing more than a backdrop which makes people feel unappreciated, while Lawrence of Arabia is very aware of the cultures involved. So I think it ultimately boils down to respect, and a sense of appreciation for the culture involved. However, I think that directors should at least start casting Asian Americans, and by extension, any ethnic minority when the opportunity arises because they aren’t given enough recognition, and often it adds a great deal to the movie, rather than just constantly recasting the same pool. Even if looking past the racism, the insensitivity of leaving out societies from the mainstream media, its just wasting of perfectly good acting talent causing stagnation.<span style=""> </span>You can’t just draw from the same limited pool of actors, that just causes rot, and also has this weird effect of thinking that white people are the norm, the standard in the world, and everybody else are commodities.<span style=""> </span>I feel like they have a sort of obligation to try to move beyond this very localized viewpoint, because as fascinating as our own culture is, there is so much more out there. Focusing upon other cultures/societies should be a welcome opportunity for Hollywood, because these are world full of different ideas and different struggles, in a multi ethnic country,we should welcome more input from the massive amount of people within our borders (for that matter, notice a lack of movies about Latinos?) Even a single big name Chinese Actor for example would bring a great deal more attention to the Chinese American community, whose kids would try to become actors knowing they don’t have to just play stereotypes. With more actors will bring more recognition to these ethnic groups, which leads to a more culturally aware population, cause I feel like most Americans are in this sort of cultural bubble. Unlike Europe, we aren’t directly confronted with these other societies beyond Hispanics and African Americans, and thus don’t really acknowledge them, I mean I don’t know any Vietnamese Americans, so um, why should I care? So while yes, the racism debate is somewhat over zealous, and directors shouldn’t be forced to limit themselves to race when choosing their actors, it is a very viable option, and I feel the more we embrace other cultures the better we will be for it. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="line-height: 200%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >From <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="line-height: 200%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >EE<o:p></o:p></span></p> EvilElitesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10736914083653504431noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392444708232395750.post-55279556526708951972010-07-30T00:50:00.002-04:002010-07-30T00:52:12.277-04:00InceptionI just watched it, i haven't gotten my thoughts together very much, except I didn't find it that complex, but somewhat enjoyable, however did anybody else feel like it was borrowing from D&D? that scene with the changing perspectives in the city felt like Sigil in Planescape, the dreams felt like a combination of Ebberon/Heros of Horror and dreaming in Ch angling from White Wolf, the paradox/crazy architecture felt like something out of various source books and the whole concept of worlds based on belief and godom felt like the planes. Am i going insane?<br />from<br />EEEvilElitesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10736914083653504431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392444708232395750.post-62470191654245556842010-07-06T12:36:00.004-04:002010-07-23T16:46:40.833-04:00Racism in Casting:Prince of Persia/Last Airbender, rough draftRight so I’m setting up like a custom at my Grandparents house, every time I come I watch a really crappy movie that has a race controversy, first Prince of Persia, now Last Airbender. Both films hired white actors to play the parts of non white characters (for the record, I don’t care enough about these films to look up the actor’s names). In Prince of Persia, the Prince is played by white actor Jake Gylenhaal, while in Last Airbender all the characters but the villains are played by white actors. This has cause a great deal of uproar, especially in the Asian and Asian American communities, an uproar slightly diminished because the films were so bad that nobody really cares about their messages, but honestly, is it racist to have a white actor play a nonwhite role? Now this is a long standing issue, the film industry’s long history of racism and racial profiling so the minorities in America have a very justified chip on their shoulder. I might be bias toward the Asian community, because I’m sympathetic towards their fully justified grievances, and the articles written by Asian Americans tend to be well written, and their argument boils down to A) Many ethnicities are horribly underrepresented in Hollywood, giving the impression that these ethnicities aren’t important, don’t exist or aren’t relatable. B) Hollywood has a long history of type casting and marginalizing ethnicities, and while this is changing for African Americans, its still a big issue for ethnicities with a small population like most Asian Americans C) Blackface and by extension Brown Face or Yellow Face, is racist and insulting to minority groups, and having white actors play non white roles is a form of that.D) We need to have more recognition for minority actors in mainstream media E) Thus, white people should not play non white roles Now since I’m lazy, I’m just going to break my response into bullets as well.1)Ok, now Hollywood’s assumption is that white people are unable to to sympathize with non whites, for the record, with the exception of some Cherokee blood, I am almost the quintessential WASP, just to put my “ethnic bias” out in the open. Personally, I’ve never had any problem with watching movies with ethnic main characters, I sympathized with the pretty much all the characters in Seven Samurai, in Kun Fu Hustle I can feel for the main character even if I don’t identify with him. Maybe that’s because all of the characters are Asians so I identify with the protagonist because the entire cast is equally “different’, but that in a movie where white people are hanging out alongside Asians will I naturally sympathize with the whites? Well, in the film Se7en costarring Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt, I am far more sympathetic to Morgan Freeman’s character than I am to Brad Pitt. Maybe its because Freeman is a better actor? Possible, but I think its something deeper than that, its personality, I sympathize with Morgan Freeman’s character because I can relate to him, his intelligence, his appreciation of classical books/music/poetry, and his intense cynicism, while Bad Pitt’s emotionally charged life style doesn’t appeal to me. Or in Men in Black, while I enjoy Tommy Lee Jone’s character, I sympathize with Will Smith’s character because he, like me, is a smart guy caught in a world he doesn’t understand. In the end, it isn’t race, or heritage necessarily, so much as just similarity, and while race plays a part in that, its more personality, and its the duty of an actor to make the character relatable and sympathetic 2) Last Airbender opens in an Inuit style village full of Inuit actors then we’re confronted with two absurdly white protagonists, its just so obvious the director is choosing whites over non whites. When I watched Prince of Persia, I didn’t mind, because Jake is a pretty good actor, but I didn’t fail to notice that the only actors with dark skin are extras. And the main actress’ skin was darkened to make her look Indian and she was horrible. Ok, Iranian actors are hard to come by, but there is a huge industry with absurdly hot Indian actresses, and almost all know English. Choosing such a bad actress and actually changing her skin is just insulting. I think the issue isn’t so much the color of the character’s skin, so much as it is the fact that the films are so obvious about their racially driven casting choices, is just insulting. 3) But compared to the source material is it really that racist? For example, in the game Prince of Persia the main character is basically British, he is white, and has a British accent, and the Princess is somewhat dark but she doesn’t really seem Indian beyond a skin color and dress. Would the game have been better if the story tapped more into Persian Culture and Society rather than just the aesthetic. If the it was equally well written, I think I’d enjoy it even more, because its about clashing societies and two ancient cultures that are almost totally unrepresented in video games today. So yes, it if was handled equally well, I think it would have been much more interesting, in fact I could have used less platforming if their was more story and cultural stuff, but I don’t think the game was obligated to be true to the roots of an obvious fantastical Persian world. Similarly, the Avatar TV Show has to deal with race issues, two of the main characters have dark skin, but in a world that draws heavily from Asian folklore and with an Asian atheistic, most of the characters look white. Aang is supposedly from a Tibetan styled culture (people keep calling him Chinese, don’t know why), and yet he looks like a bald white guy wearing vaguely Tibetan clothes. Now I’ve met like half a dozen Tibetans in my life, so clearly I’m not an expert on a society that I’m sure is very ethnically diverse, but every Tibetan I’ve met, even those born in the states, are very dark skinned, brown eyed and with much more “Asian” faces. Similarly, I’ve seen many movies about the Inuit, they all seem very Asian looking, while Katara and Sokka look like well, white people with a really dark tan, or maybe Latinos, but certainly not Inuit. Troph basically is white, and the Fire Nation despite seemingly drawing upon Fascist Japan/Communist China design, are almost entirely made up of white people with “Asian Styled” haircuts, and are certainly not Indians. Ok yes, not all Asian people share a universal look, but they certainly don’t all look like slightly different white people, the characters of the cartoon could pass for Americans in most cartoons. Also the jungle tribes they stumble across look and act like Louisiana hicks, which as a partial southern I’d find offensive if my family wasn’t from North Carolina (hypocrisy ahoy), while you’d think that a Vietnamese, Thai or Cambodian culture would be more appropriate if they were fleshed out in the process. So can we really blame the Movie too much if the show itself is not ethnically diverse in the least? I mean, why not have the Fire Nation look Japanese. Now maybe I’m a little bias because I personally find the “Asian traits” that were omitted very attractive, but I’d still rather have Troph look Chinese. However, lets bear in mind, the animators are drawing from Asian philosophy and culture, but it’s a fantasy world, with a very western world view emerging from the series, so it isn’t like “Fantasy Asia” exactly. I mean, if a bunch people with dark skin settled in the South Pole, I’d expect them to live like the Inuit just because of how useful that method is for survival. I could see a group of White people with a vaguely Japanese styled culture. Its fishy that out of all of the cultures drawn upon, Inuit, Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan, and Pacific Islander, none of these people are white and yet white people seem to be everywhere in the world of Avatar. Now I enjoy the show, but I think this is subtler racism. Honestly, quality is an issue, Avatar is a good show so nobody wants to bring up the race issue, because it colors (no pun intended) our view on an otherwise good show, while the Avatar Movie (Both of them actually but I mean the Airbender one) are trash, so people mock its racism 4) So is a film better if it casts people of proper ethnicity? I feel a little nervous making that claim, I mean, because I’m a WASP does that mean that somebody of Irish descent is automatically better at playing an Irish character? I mean, is a random black guy automatically going to be better at playing Martin Luther King Jr. than say, Robert Duvall, who is one of the best American actors at all time? I mean, Robert Duvall who isn’t Irish played Tom Hagen in Godfather very well. However speaking of Godfather, most of the cast for that movie were Italians, and that added a certain something to the film. The way they spoke, their mannerism, the interactions, the film (directed by Italian American director Copula) and so has a certain charm, a feeling of familiarity that is brought out by people who really understand their own culture, enhanced because the characters look Italian. Or watching movies made in their own culture, there is a certain charm that is hard to bring across, like say, Rules of the Game or Yojimbo, those movies are so clearly the product of their respective cultures. Can you imitate that without native actors? I’d say yes, but its much harder. 5) However, even after agreeing with most of the racism, I can’t bring myself to agree with the idea of racial casting, because its not always bad. For example, I love Lawrence of Arabia, I think its an amazing film, and yet despite being filmed in Saudi Arabia, being a movie about Arab culture/history/society, and being about the issue of race, most of the main Arab actors are not played by Arabs, I think only one of them is an Arab. Some are South American, some are Middle Eastern but not Arab, and Sheriff Ali is played by an Egyptian. And yet it’s an amazing film, and the movie’s theme about Arabic culture still ring true, despite the fact almost all of the Arab actors are extras. Lawrence of Arabia is rather ironic, because one of the major themes of the story is that Lawrence doesn’t really identify with his own ethnicity, and seems to project himself as an Arab, which is very interesting take upon the whole idea of race in theaters. You’d think Lawrence (and the average audience member) would sympathize more with the British, but instead he is drawn to the Arabs, possibly because he like them is an outsider (in the film this is attributed to his alleged Homosexuality). Or take Last King of Scotland where African American Forest Whitaker plays Ugandan Idi Amin. Yeah that’s not a typical example, but it still applies, just because they are both black doesn’t change the fact that they are from totally different ethnicity, and even if you traced back Whitaker’s family history, I’d guess that they would come from West Africa because that is where most of the slaves were kidnapped from, not Uganda, in fact I think they darkened his skin for the film so he would look more African. However, he does an amazing job, that is one of my favorite movies of all time, and he does a great job portraying the character. Should they have found some Ugandan actor to play the part instead? Considering how well it turned out, I’m inclined to say know, unless this hypothetical Ugandan actor was somehow better than Whitaker, which I feel is kinda impossible. But again, like with Lawrence of Arabia, the actor shows a great deal of respect (if that’s the right word) for his role. He is speaking in an actual Ugandan Accent, he looks like Idi Amin, he walks and talks like Idi Amin, and honestly it looks like the Dictator was hired for the part. Like in Lawrence of Arabia, race is a plot point in the film, and the fact that Whitaker isn’t African doesn’t dilute the message. In both films, there is a sense that the directors and actors respect the fact that they are playing outside their culture and try to do justice to their portrayals. Ok, so ultimately (I love that word), what do we draw from this, what’s the conclusion? Is Hollywood racist, and is non ethnic casting possible? To the former, I think Hollywood is an absurdly racist institution, but in this particular instance, I feel this stems not from malice so much from the standard Hollywood way of doing business. This doesn’t feel so much like Blackface, instead it feels similar to how Hollywood casts are almost entirely made up of the most good looking people on the planet. You never have women in Hollywood who don’t look almost perfect, you never have men who have a little gut unless it’s a plot point, everybody has to appeal to this very strict standard of beauty, which is non whites sadly don’t fit into with a few exceptions, so to be an Indian American who wants to get good parts you face the same challenge as an American who is slightly overweight, or a women who doesn’t fit that absurd standard of beauty. Its still racist, but its less obvert. Secondly, ethnic casting, I feel like what makes the difference between Last Airbender and Lawrence of Arabia is the amount of respect paid to the source material, in Last Airbender it feels like the white actors were cast off hand and clearly no effort was made for them to blend into their environment, thus making this just insulting obvious, while in Lawrence of Arabia the actors are integrated into Arab culture. So it boils down to respect, I feel like a lot of Asian minorities already have a massive chip on their shoulder due to being underappreciated by the Hollywood elites, are doubly offended by the fact that their cultures are simply dismissed as nothing more than a backdrop which makes people feel unappreciated, while Lawrence of Arabia is very aware of the cultures involved. So I think it ultimately boils down to respect, and a sense of appreciation for the culture involved. Now finally, as an add on point, I would say however that directors should at least start considering using Asian Americans, and by extension, any ethnic minority when the opportunity arises because they aren’t given enough recognition, and often it adds a great deal to the movie, rather than just constantly recasting the same pool. Even if you wish to look beyond the racism associated with this, even if you want to look beyond the insensitivity of leaving out whole cultures from the mainstream media, and even if you want to look past the wasting of perfectly good acting talent, that brings stagnation. Yes, white people are the majority in this country, but always making movies about the same culture and the same society, even one as complicated and diverse as the US white population is inevitably going to breed rot as we just retread the same ground (and judging from the last few years main stream films, already has). It also has this weird effect of thinking that white people are the norm, the standard in the world, and everything else is nothing more than just a commodity, while in reality Han Chinese are the norm due to population and everything else is a deviation. Actually screw the conclusion, I’m unto something here. While we are making movies about our own culture and society, and I’m aware that white people make up about 50% of the population (even more if you count white Latinos), considering Hollywood is the single largest film industry on the planet, I feel like they have a sort of obligation to try to move beyond this very localized ideal of making films, because as fascinating as our own culture is, there is so much more out there. Focusing upon other cultures/societies should be a welcome opportunity for Hollywood, because these are world full of different ideas and different struggles than what is considered “normal”, and ultimately that adds a new perspective and brings new people into the light. We are a multi ethnic country, and we should welcome more input from the massive amount of people within our borders (for that matter, notice a lack of movies about Latinos?) Even a single big name Chinese Actor for example would bring a great deal more attention to the Chinese American community, meaning that people would try to become actor thinking they have a chance at a role that isn’t a random stereotype. These actors will bring in new ideas, new portrayals, could form new movies, I mean what if the next Mifune was in our Japanese American population? And with more actors will bring more recognition to these ethnic groups, which leads to a more culturally aware population, cause I feel like most Americans are in this sort of cultural bubble. Unlike Europe, we aren’t directly confronted with these other societies beyond Hispanics and African Americans, and thus don’t really acknowledge them, I mean I don’t know any Vietnamese Americans, so um, why should I care? So while yes, the racism debate I mentioned (and actually concludes) earlier, is somewhat over zealous, and directors shouldn’t be forced to limit themselves to race when choosing their actors, it is a very viable option, and I feel the more we embrace other cultures the better we will be for it. From EEEvilElitesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10736914083653504431noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392444708232395750.post-5685213634958543202010-06-27T22:36:00.006-04:002010-07-01T12:58:22.218-04:00Spirited Away, artistic escapism?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://images.fanpop.com/images/image_uploads/Spirited-Away-wallpaper-spirited-away-400845_1024_768.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 401px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 472px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://images.fanpop.com/images/image_uploads/Spirited-Away-wallpaper-spirited-away-400845_1024_768.jpg" border="0" /></a>
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<br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%;font-family:';font-size:12;" ><?xml:namespace prefix = o /><o:p>I have a strange habit when it comes to Japanese directors who have made a lot of great movies (incase you haven’t figured it out, I am a Miyazaki fan) in that while I watch almost all of their movies, I never get around to buying the ones I like. Instead I have their “still good but not the best” titles lying around my house opposed to the films that they made that I think are brilliant. With Akira Kurosawa I own some of his great movies, Throne of Blood, Seven Samurai ect, but I don’t own my favorite film by him Yojimbo. With Miyazaki, I own Kiki’s Delivery Service and Spirited Away, which I find enjoyable (former) and beautiful (later), but aren’t nearly as brilliant as Castle in the Sky, Princess Mononoke, Whisper of my Heart, and Totoro, which I feel are some of the greatest animated movie ever made. So since I actually own the film, I’ve seen it four times now times, and every time I see it I walk away with a different perspective of the film. The first time I watched it, I left thinking, “It was pretty good, some parts were great, but I hated the ending”. Second time I watched it I thought, “This is good looking but with a few exceptions its just shallow trash, the character don’t make sense and the plots a mess”. Then after a few months of feeling this view point, I watched it again with my sisters and was like “Wow, this is really astoundingly animated and directed, it has all of these themes within the film)”, which I feel had happened because my expectations had been lowered. So finally watching it with a friend of mine, I came back to my original option, of being very mixed on this film. On one hand almost everybody I know who is remotely interested in the following Japanese Culture Animation Anime/Manga Shintoism Japanese Film Spiritualism The Magical/special power of nature (This includes environmentalist) Fantasy/large flying dragons going around The evils of modern society slowly corrupting traditionalist values Miyazaki (by this I mean they like his films but don’t care about the rest of the list) Absolutely loves this movie and declare it to be a masterpiece, and since I like everything on that list to at least a limited extent, so I understand their perspective, and naturally I feel instinctively driven to disagree, because I’m genetically programmed to disagree with the majority. However friends of mine who have never seen Miyazaki films and don’t care about the rest of that stuff instead say “It looks great, but just doesn’t make sense”. For example, I watched a movie review on the interest by Confused Mathew which said basically that, and when listening to the review my first instinct was to write a counter argument saying that they are ignoring the subtle themes and messages of the story and are being totally closed minded and pretentious western elitists (har har). However, on the flip side, when ever I read commentary or reviews of the film that are negative, I always find myself agreeing with the negative aspects that they point out, just not with their final conclusion. However when I hear people who like the film rave on about how great it is, I feel pretty much exactly the same way, which enforces the idea that I’m the quintessential contrarians. To narrow in on the good aspects of the film, let me just say that this film is absolutely visually stunning. For the first time, I finally watched it on a wide screen TV and other than the fact that everything blue was shown as green, it took a film that I already knew was gorgeous and just made it mind blowing. The level of detail in the animation is almost unbelievable, every object in the film, from the railings on the bathhouse, the way the hair/clothes move, the small details about the creatures movements and actions, the way the water flows, the colors of the costumes and the realistic and yet surreal nature of the magic (I love watching Yubaba repair her ruined office). Even through a great deal about the film annoyed, the astounding graphics allowed me to simply sink into the experience and get to the end feeling like I’ve enjoyed myself, the art almost justifying the movie’s holes. And yet, there is (at first glance) a double standard their, as those of you who know my views on Avatar can attest will instantly call foul, because their I said that its fancy graphics didn’t excuse its horribly cliché and offensively cooperate plot, but critically I don’t believe that Avatar is art. Yes, I know that art is hard to define and making such a distinction is horribly unprofessional of me, but watching Spirited Away, what impressed me was more than just the quality of the animation technology but instead the care and detail of the drawings, every frame felt like a painting. When I had to pause the film for bathroom breaks, I was struck by how every frame was full of these little details such as the subtle wrinkles on some of the toad people’s faces to indicate age, or the way that each of the geishas had subtly unique faces, and you could recognize them throughout the film. These details are essentially meaningless, and yet it breathes life into the film, because Miyazaki is at his heart an artist, and that the animation is given its own respect. I know that a similar time and energy went into every frame of Avatar, but it feels different, its covered in the cooperate stench of cynical manipulation. When looking at Spirited Away, I feel like it was constantly drawn and redrawn by an artist who is trying to set the mood of the story, Chihiro’s removal of her shoes is hardly important plot wise, but it adds to the mystic of the bathhouse, tapping into the traditional Japanese customs. Similarly the designs of Yubaba’s office really don’t have purpose, and yet not only is the office beautifully animated, each detail reveals more about the character and adds to the atmosphere. Her small skull/telephone shows a mixing of traditional spiritualism with modern society; the fact that it is a skull hints at the sinister nature of the witch. Similarly, her many gems obvious symbolize her greed/avarice, however each gem/ring is so detailed that one can realize that for all of her greed, she has good taste in her jewelry, which is offset by how she wears too many jewels reveals her gaudy and cheap taste. Like wise, the elaborate but overdone nature of the room reveals her insecurities, that despite being basically a bathhouse owner, she has this tacky display of wealth to comfort herself. The giant baby’s room shows aspects of his character, the padded walls shows how he is protected and enclosed, his hiding under the pillows shows his overly protective and cowardly nature, the dolls lying around the room seem discarded rather than loved, revealing the materialistic nature of his mother’s doting. All of these details could easily be omitted but they were included more to enhance the scene rather than to evoke any specific emotion, like an artist who wants his work to be perfect, and Avatar lacks this. Avatar feels artificial and goal oriented, every image is made not to enhance the scene, but instead to try to manipulate the audiences emotions. The Spirit’s bodies are obviously models off either old legends, or various nature ideas reflecting their character (the radish spirit looking like a radish, the human like frogs being cowardly and greedy, the dragon’s water like scales). In contrast the Navi feel like they were created specifically to try to gain the audiences sympathy. They are all physically perfect and sexy, the women wear very little clothing even when it wouldn’t be practical, their eyes are very wide and large, which implies vulnerability and innocence, to quote Red Letter Media, “Disney Eyes”, they have unneeded animalistic traits which make them both cute and feral. All of these elements come together to reveal a carefully crafted race whose exist to both to gain sympathy and sex appeal. I read that Mr. Cameron would show pictures of Navi women prototype to random people and ask “would you tap that”, reworking them until the majority said yes. They are like models on magazine covers, they aren’t real, they just are shallow images who’s only real purpose is to try to arouse both our emotions and sexual desires. This emotional manipulation conveys to every aspect of Avatar, the forests of Pandora are visually stunning but feel like they were created specifically to be pretty, not. The various flora in the forests are somewhat surprising and remarkable, but they feel like they were included in the scene just so the audience can be like “ohhh, awww” rather than add to the atmosphere, even the Navi’s sex tree feels like it exists just to be a backdrop for the sex scene, just like the floating rocks don’t seem to serve a purpose other than making the flying scenes more shocking. The forest doesn’t feel real, when watching more realistic (see better), movies set in jungle environments, your struck by how dirty they are, that even through they are wonderful you have mud, insects, rain, and sweat involved rather than the pristine cinematic displays. (say it with me), In contrast, Spirited Away’s animation shows both the wonder, like the multicolored and fascinating spirits, but also the icky aspects, like the frog chef smoking a cigarette, the mechanized underbelly of the bathhouse, and well, the stink spirit. Also, Avatar just feels like its borrowing ideas, it has at best a mediocre storyline that is trying to compensate for it with its graphics, while Spirit Away’s animation is about enhancing a its unique story about a spirit bathhouse, not selling itself on graphics. Now the film does in practice sell itself on its visuals, but that’s from the storyline being badly handled, not being unoriginal or cliché, so you get the impression that was not the intention, while Avatar without its graphics would be a bust. Finally Avatar’s imagery is ultimately a show of escapism and a disconnect from reality, while what is good about Spirited Away is its focus on people and everyday life, something with more meaning and personal connection than the ultimately hollow message of Avatar, because even through Spirited Away is again, flawed, its about human beings. My three favorite scenes visually are when the parents eat the food of spirits, the job interview, and the stink spirit’s bath, because in all three the animation is done in such a manner that I can almost feel present their. That food looks delicious, but more importantly it looks real and the parents eating (enhanced by the audio/dialogue) really made me want to just gorge myself on exotic Japanese food. Yubaba’s spells are focused on very minor visual magic’s, which feel slightly sinister because they are more human, her literal zipping shut Chihiro’s mouth is chillingly disturbing because we all know the term “zip it”, and this is making our own expressions literal. When Yubaba destroys then repairs her office, its more effective because we all have seen tables fall over, lights break and papers being scattered, it’s a very human feeling. And finally, the stink sprit ordeal taps into everything in the world that’s icky and disgusting, watching it makes me feel absurdly squeamish, because whenever I’ve had to do the trash or wash the dishes or I’ve fallen in mud, I feel that sense of icky helplessness that is so masterfully conveyed in the character of Chihiro’s. While in Avatar…I have nothing, it’s just a bunch of perfect creatures existing in an idealized environment, its jus wish fulfillment. Ok, so enough sucking up to Studio Ghibli’s art, its time to focus in on the more important things, namely characters, story, and writing. Now as I mentioned before, I love the concept of this story. Confused Mathew in his review complained that this review that the fantastical world was “random and arbitrary” but and maybe this is my love of mythology speaking, I liked the weirdness of the Spirit world, these creatures are spirits, I shouldn’t be able to understand them, they should always be an enigma to a mere mortal like myself. What surprised me was the human traits added to the characters, which actually made them both more intriguing and disturbing, as seeing these weird creatures doing very human things like opening a window to smoke a cigarette and indulging in wage slavery and yet it is very disquieting because even when they do human things, they come off as subtly wrong. For example, when the boiler man, the eight limbed Kamajii is first introduced, he acts oddly alien, his multiple arms mixing spices and his movements are both spider and snake like and stokes the fire with soot people, and yet he human in that he is just a worker in an industrial structure, and yet before he gets too human, he has all of this arbitrary spirit rules, like that Chihiro’s is obligated to throw the coal she picked up into the fire. Or when Yubaba is talking about business, she comes off as just a weird looking cooperate boss, when she suddenly steals Chihiro’s name off the paper, as well as moving in close to her so that her disproportioned body is more obvious when compared to the normal Chihiro. It’s this strange dichotomy of human like actions and methods mixed with totally alien spirit goals and pleasures (like the importance of Roasted Newt) that makes the whole story simply surreal. However, this is ruined in the end as the spirits start to act more human and less spirit like due to overexposure, which undermines the whole bizarre nature of the bathhouse, making it just a bunch of funny looking customers rather than some sort of pseudo Shinto ritualized ceremony turned into a business. Yubaba goes from enigmatically sinister, but with a charming undercurrent to a somewhat spiteful but otherwise harmless granny, while her sister goes from an equally ruthless witch in her first appearance to nothing more than a kind granny who loves to sew. The most glaring flaw of the film however is the character of Chihiro, and here I agree with Confused Mathew entirely. The premise of this film is supposedly that the a spoiled girl is taken to a magical world and is able to escapes after growing up a bit, but the problem is that Chihiro isn’t spoiled. She is a bit obnoxious and a massive wimp, but she isn’t spoiled, only upset that she is moving, which I can sympathize with greatly, and in fact she seems very level headed when one looks beyond her being a wimp, she doesn’t eat the spirit food even when her parents pressure her too and from the start advices leaving the spirit world alone and not getting involved, which is proven true. And even her being a wimp doesn’t really strike me as much of a flaw, because she is like what, ten? I don’t really fault a kid being scared at that age, doubly so when some of the stuff she sees is legitimately terrifying, I know I would have handled that horribly made staircase about as well as she did cause I hate heights. Critically however, her being mature from the start means she doesn’t have a character arch, when No Face offers her gold and she refuses this isn’t any different from her behavior prior in the film, she has been refusing things that creepy spirits have offered her throughout the film, that supposedly critical moment is spoiled because her refusal has no emotional impact, accepting the gold would go against her character as established throughout the film. Also, the girl’s maturity is somewhat undermined because we don’t ever understand why, why does she refuse the food, refuse the gold, offer help to No Face, see the good side in Haiku ect, it seems arbitrary, her various acts of selflessness are meaningless without context, why does she refuse these seemingly generous gifts, as she never gives a reason. My theory is that Chihiro isn’t really a character, at least not in the traditional sense, she is a stand in, she exist to give the audience something to follow and a plot to move along so the audience can be show all of the fantastical sights that the studio has in store for us, the story isn’t about her, its about the world. Which would be fine except that the plot focus seems to style itself to a story of personal growth for Chihiro, while apart from becoming less weak willed never really happens. I mean, she becomes less of a wimp, but I never felt critical of her for being a crybaby when she is like ten, maybe this is a Japanese thing with that culture of stoicism and blaming the weak, but to me blaming the girl just seems insensitive. The greatest problem of the film through is its storytelling, which just feels schizophrenic, because there are like three separate themes running throughout the film, but they only appear in bits and pieces throughout the movie. For example, the movie starts out with a theme of how materialism/consumerism/capitalism degrades our sense of understanding/appreciation of the natural world, embodied with the super American looking parents (complete with credit cards, and a big car) who show nothing but patronizing curiosity for the spirit world, mistaking it for a tacky carnival and treating the whole thing as sort of a tourist trap rather than a sacred place, which results in them turning into pigs (oddly they don’t seem to change by the end of the film…why?) And yet that theme of cultural dilution seems almost like a hobby for the film, it occasionally makes reference to it and shows us its views on the matter, but the primary focus is as I said the artwork and the setting more than any individual theme or moral point, which would be fine for a more avante guard film, but this movie is ostensibly an adventure fantasy with great artwork, the art being an addition not the main attraction, so this inconsistent theme seems out of place and feels like sloppy writing Honestly, while a lot of stuff visually happens, but apart from the art, it doesn’t seem to have a point. For example, No Face, while he gives the movie an excuse to show a great deal of visual marvels, as well as creating a conflict for Chihiro to overcome, but what purpose does it serve? Maybe I’m just stupid, but I can’t really figure out what it represents. My guess is that No Face is a metaphor for loneliness and being misunderstood, desperately seeking human connection and friendship. Not able to get friends conventionally, lacking a voice beyond the muffled gasp he makes, he tries to find an emotional connection through bribery through things people desire, like bath token or later gold. I suppose his eating people who accept his charity symbolizes how those who see relationships through such shallow lenses eventually destroy those around them instead of getting true friends I guess, and his assuming their traits after eating them would be…becoming a social poser who borrows from others to become a fake human being? His becoming bloated and disgusting could almost be a metaphor for capitalism as he becomes a gluttonous wasteful producer of cash who only encourages people’s greed and shallow materialism however longs after purity of friendship with the modest Chihiro. Or No Face could represent impressionable youth, who reacts to the world around it, alternatively innocence’s who are corrupted by the corrupt environment of the bathhouse. Or it if the bathhouse represents Japan’s pre industrial past, then No Face might represent those who look back to past for inspiration and turn into horribly parodies of the old world orders who are ultimately fake. You see what I mean; there isn’t any indication of what it stands for. Going with the “No Face Represents Loneliness” aspect, that works in his own storyline, but doesn’t really fit into the larger theme, beyond the general greed of the bathhouse, the rest of the story has little to do with social isolation in that sense of the word, Chihiro’s social problems stem from her own weakness and prejudice, not inability to express herself, which she does quite well. If he stands for capitalism, the film has an anti capitalist message, but it doesn’t pervade into the rest of the film, it just pops up whenever the parents or No Face are around. Or the traditionalism vs. modern society theme, I like that both sides are show positively and negatively, but the movie seems to be more about showing me the world than sending a message, which would be find, except again its set up to be a story about personal growth for Chihiro. At the hear through, Spirited Away is trying to tell the story of entering the world of adults and leaving behind the comforts of childhood and personal pleasures. Chihiro is a young child who is basically entering a child labor facility through a spiritual one, which draws to mind the many child labor facilities run in East Asian (not so much Japan as far as I know, more China but still). What occurred to me is how different this would be if it was written from a Western Perspective. In this version, Chihiro is shown to be bratty and spoiled, but and I’m totally stealing this from spark notes, her main enduring trait is her understanding of rules. Rules play a huge role in the story, as her entering the Spirit World means she is confronted with a series of seemingly arbitrary and all encompassing rules which restrict her and challenges her ability to cope with her surroundings, which is a bit like a metaphor for the unwritten rules of adulthood and the work place that people have to learn to understand in order to function. The essential difference however, is that in real life these rules are explained, if not justified eventually, and there is a system which upholds the rules, while in the movie the rules are left permanently unexplained and thus arbitrary. To an extent this is a good thing as it adds to the mystic and alien nature of the Spirit World, but as the spirits become more and more human and less alien in nature, the rules to be defined so I can relate to the characters and their situation, otherwise its just confusing. For example, in Yubaba’s opening scene she mentions all of these rules about people’s terms of service and that she has to accept a job for anybody who asks, and in that context these mysterious rules are good, they come off as sinister and inhuman even when they help the protagonist. However when we get into all of these later rules such as the curse slug, No-Face, the golden token, and Yubaba’s final test, it feels like rules made to run the plot rather than things that I can relate to, for example why can’t No-Face come into the bath, and what is the deal with that damn train? However even ignoring the plot holes, rules play another somewhat bizarre role in the story, because even through the rules of the bathhouse are strange and arbitrary, the characters to the end are compelled to follow them no matter how nonsensical they are. For example, when the spirit workers demand that Yubaba cancel her final test because Chihiro has done more than enough to earn her freedom, Chihiro turns down their protest and chooses to instead follow the rule even through its completely pointless. Or early in the film, we are suppose to be somewhat condemning of the parents as they explore the spirit world and eat the food, but honestly , I didn’t really feeling condemning of them, I felt pretty sympathetic. They where just exploring and eat some food which they fully intended to pay for, they had no knowledge that they were offending spirits, since it was established they were ignorant of traditionalism. While they are saved in the end, they are shown very negatively and somewhat deserving of their fate, just like Chihiro is suppose to partly deserve being forced to work and here is where we have some moral dissidence, because I can’t find it in myself to condemn a somewhat foolish family for exploring what looks like a tourist trap and not knowing much about the spirits, and while I think Chihiro is a wimp, I don’t see hard labor as a positive character building experience. I feel like in a Western film, the ethic of the story would be instead rising up against the rules and the establishment and rejecting the rules in favor of their own. I mean, compare to Pan’s Labyrinth, another fairy tale movie, in this story what makes the little girl an admirable character is the refusal to follow the arbitrary fairy laws and to do what is morally right rather than encourage unjust laws through compliance, I mean even the whole ethic if Chihiro’s growing a spine is undermined because she is still tied to the rules of the bathhouse. I was reading online about how the movie shows good and evil as more morally grey in contrast to most cartoons, and I agree this is a good thing, but the film ends more with the main character leaving behind evil rather than changing it, the Bathhouse is still a terrible place to work ruled by cruel and greedy regime (if lovable) and despite all of their talk of freedom, there are still plenty of pigs who are most likely transformed innocents, the status quo is unchanged and just ignored. I understand it, but I feel like a Western work would try to overthrow the establishment. Finally there are all these inconsistencies, since this is getting long as it is, some notes 1)Ok, so Haiku knows Chihiro from before, and rescued her from a river, and yet this only seems to be a plot point when they are around. It has no real purpose other than to have an excuse to have Haiku to know her, and the whole issue is resolved through “I love you” “Oh shit I remember you now” dialogue. The o thing that came from that relationship was the scene of her riding Haiku through water, which I thought was a metaphor for birth but…apparently I’m wrong (and Freud was right) ·2) The nature of spirits. I mean, they all hate human but many of them look human with exaggerated characteristics, and many more look totally human, I mean I had to look it up online to find out that Rin (Lin) is suppose to be some sort of weasel spirit. While I don’t mind spirits being impossible to understand, once the spirits start to become more human, we need these details to understand the world. 3)What is with Zenbaba’s character shift? Why does she start out as a ruthless bitch, saying, “interfere and I’ll tear your mouth out” to a grandmotherly figure? Also on that, why do the other spirits characters change from scorn of Chihiro to exalting in her freedom and risking their jobs to challenge Yubaba on her behalf, it comes out of nowhere other than just ending the film on a happy note. I mean, is it because of the sink spirit ordeal? No because they were all angry and rude to her when No-Face ruined the bathhouse, so why do they suddenly all love her? 4) Again, what is Haiku’s character, he just seems like an emotionless love interest who’s heart becomes pure in the end. The only time he was interesting beyond “OMGDRAGON” is when he is acting like a ruthless mob enforcer, but other than being slightly rude in like two scenes, it never has any actual impression, and sees contradictory. I mean, if he is nice to Chihiro when they are alone, why be a jerk in the elevator except to explicitly show to the audience that he can be mean. If their were two of them I feel like that would be a more interesting story. 5) Why does the boiler man have a ticket, why does he feel compelled to use it on this girl, why didn’t he use it earlier, why does he still work her? 6) Speaking of which what is the point of the train? Spirits mention wanting to leave on the train, but how does that work? What is the spirit world beyond this bathhouse? Somehow it seems less impressive when spirits have their own industries and businesses rather than a pseudo Shinto bathhouse. 7) What is the point of the giant baby beyond the effect? He doesn’t contribute to the story except to mention an out of place lesson on the dangers of overprotection. His accompanying Chihiro doesn’t really contribute to the overall plot beyond some very minor comic relief, what was the whole point of him and the little bird/bug? 8) Also why even have the whole Swamp Bottom Experience, beyond again the artwork and the closure of having a character go onto the train, and I don’t see the whole point of the trip beyond exposition and some heavy-handed love values. · So she has to eat human food to stay human…did that stop at some point? And what is the difference between human and non-human food, how does she get by later? · The Paper spirit things, apparently they can be killed by smashing into glass and they can cut flesh, and yet they don’t cut Chihiro, and many of them just fall down after other ones smash into the glass and yet one lives, why? You see what I mean, the film is enjoyable, the art and concept are enough to carry you through and come out feeling good, and some scenes are just brilliant, but as a whole the story feels inconsistent, rushed and mangled, and the character feel like stock characters, or at best particularly interesting stock characters. So totally worth watching and deserve a lot of praise because it is a work of art, but honestly, its not his best work nor is it some sort of super animated film masterpiece. </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%;font-family:';font-size:12;" ><o:p>from</o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%;font-family:';font-size:12;" ><o:p>EE</o:p></span></p>
<br />EvilElitesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10736914083653504431noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392444708232395750.post-21620431711294582212010-05-31T16:38:00.001-04:002010-05-31T16:49:14.406-04:00(There isn't a picture because you should be able to figure this out<br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Monaco; color: black;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: black;"><b>Part 7 out of .7America and why are we such, wait who are we?</b></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: black;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Monaco; color: black;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: black;">Right now this is awkward, because I’m talking about us, and unlike all of these other ancient civilizations, we actually care about us, and so actual names might have to be used opposed to an offensively dismissive one page summery (See Ottoman Empire). So instead we actually make a halfway effort to explain our complex and short culture, while neglecting older civilizations because this is IB, so we don’t care. Anyways, unto America. Now the image of America today is either brave heroic patriots of awesomeness who are constantly protecting the world from the evil forces, (I hate Michael Bay) or oppressive racist jerks who are oppressing the free world out of our addiction to oil and general bullet happiness (I hate James Cameron), but America of 1914 is a totally different animal. If any of you have ever seen the ABC show Mad Men, and I know none of you have, its about America during the early 60, shows how normal is a totally different, their aren’t any black people in any prominent positions, the two political parities aren’t as well established, women are oppressed and child beating is A-ok. This is even more apparent in 1914, where we see a lot of elements of modern day American culture, but its still strangely alien. For example, women don’t have any rights, and while slavery has ended, the Civil war is not as long ago as we think (the war ends in 1865) there are still veterans of that conflict, and many ex slaves and children of slaves still around, so segregation is still in full swing. Since this isn’t American history, I’ll try to keep this bulleted, but because America is the single most powerful nation in the entire world from 1945. First off, America in 1914 is still a major power, but not ‘the’ major power. Even people who hate America today cannot deny that we are the single most powerful nation in the entire world and that we can change the fate of whole continents with a single press statement, but in 1914, we were just another power the world wasn’t dictated by America’ whim. England was the most powerful nation in the world, and France, Russia and Germany had more international prestige than we did, we were more like a sideline power who tired to not get involved. We weren’t pushovers, nobody messed with us directly, our power was largely localized within our borders and so we weren’t really factored into the great power conflicts of Europe, they respected us enough to not mess with us but largely left us alone.<span style=""> </span>When we rebelled, we didn’t rebel to become yet another European power, and didn’t want to get involved in all of the mainland’s constant backbiting and power struggles, we had a nation to rule, lands to settle and natives to systematically exterminate, in fact, George Washington’s final address was urging Americans to not get involved in European politics, we had a huge country to manage and we are blessed with enough resources that we don’t need any reliance upon another nation in order to thrive. Their were two exceptions to our isolationist policy, first, we were involved in overseas trading in Europe and Asia, through not in the same way as Europe was, but we were trading in our way, due to the massive profits to be made. We were sort of an international trader, working with every single side, but too far away and powerful to directly confront. Our second foray into international politics that is relevant to this discussion is the fairly recent Spanish American war in 1898, where we basically drove the Spanish out of the last colonies in America and the Pacific. The war was a massive experiment for America, because it was basically the first time we had expanded overseas against another major power on established colonies, we had taken British, French and Spanish land before, but that was all on the mainland, which we felt we had a legitimate claim to (manifest destiny). But with the Spanish American war, we basically were like “Um, yeah, we want all of those lands for ourselves” so nicked Cuba, Guam, Puerto Rico, and very importantly, the Philippines, which I will cover later. So we had overseas colonies, as well as some spheres of influence in China, and we had obtained Hawaii. So we were part of the international stage, but we didn’t really want to be, WWI really didn’t mean anything to us.<span style=""> </span>Basically, we will go into America in more sickening detail later, but for now what is important is the basic social structure of our society. Its worth noting that we are the only true Republic that isn’t actually a constitutional monarchy (Britain) or corrupt/inept (France). We aren’t perfect, we are racist, sexist, and close minded, but we are at least a democracy and we, as we do today, really believe in our democracy, which alienates us from the monarchies across Europe, specifically Russia, while simultaneously making us afraid of making commitments that lasted more than 8 years, due to our constantly changing leadership. And even if the President favored an idea, his congress could shut him down if they weren’t onboard with the idea. Finally, making money is a huge importance to America. We have the two party system at this point, with our old friends, the Democrats and the Republicans, but I’ll go into them later, because America enters the war late (as usual), but basically along with Democracy, Capitalism, was our big founding ideal, and it was at its most powerful in the 1914s. Big Business was in full power, and we weren’t keen on letting the government manage things too directly, through Theodore Roosevelt had set the stage for change earlier. Ok, I’m done, because America is complex and I’ll cover us in more detail when we actually you know...join the war. </span></p> <!--EndFragment--> <span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; color: black;"></span><!--EndFragment-->EvilElitesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10736914083653504431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392444708232395750.post-47861290381979480912010-05-31T16:14:00.002-04:002010-05-31T16:30:39.095-04:00History Part 6 Austria-Hungry<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://tonalsoft.com/enc/v/viennafiles/europe1914.gif"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 353px; height: 355px;" src="http://tonalsoft.com/enc/v/viennafiles/europe1914.gif" alt="" border="0" /></a>
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<br /><meta name="Title" content=""> <meta name="Keywords" content=""> <meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> <meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"> <meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"> <meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"> <link rel="File-List" href="file://localhost/Users/celiabland/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip1/01/clip_filelist.xml"> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:documentproperties> <o:template>Normal</o:Template> <o:revision>0</o:Revision> <o:totaltime>0</o:TotalTime> <o:pages>1</o:Pages> <o:words>597</o:Words> <o:characters>3408</o:Characters> <o:lines>28</o:Lines> <o:paragraphs>6</o:Paragraphs> <o:characterswithspaces>4185</o:CharactersWithSpaces> <o:version>11.1287</o:Version> </o:DocumentProperties> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:donotshowrevisions/> <w:donotprintrevisions/> <w:displayhorizontaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:displayverticaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:usemarginsfordrawinggridorigin/> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--> <style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Times New Roman"; panose-1:0 2 2 6 3 5 4 5 2 3; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:50331648 0 0 0 1 0;} @font-face {font-family:Monaco; panose-1:0 2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:50331648 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-parent:""; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> <!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=";font-size:10pt;color:black;" ><b>
<br /></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=";font-size:10pt;color:black;" ><b>Part 6 out of 666, who are the Austrians, and who are the Hungarians and who are the Serbians and, WHO THE HELL ARE YOU PEOPLE!?</b></span><span style=";font-size:10pt;color:black;" > </span><span style=";font-family:Monaco;font-size:10pt;color:black;" >
<br /></span><span style=";font-size:10pt;color:black;" >For those of you who studied the French Revolution (anyone?) you might remember Austria as the inept, conservative blowhards who lost against the French like eight times, and that’s true. Unlike the Ottomans, who were a massive Empire, the Austrians have always been a somewhat regional empire of multiethnic states, through like the Ottomans they are at the end of their glory when WWI comes about. Once upon a time, what is now Germany and all of Austria Hungry (see map below) were in one “country” called the Holy Roman Empire, which was neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire. It was in reality a confederation of Germanic states, who were united in a league with some basic loyalty to the Emperor, but not really united. Eventually it fell apart because..yeah, it couldn’t get anything done, and the largest of these states, modern day Austria, went “Screw these guys, I’m going independent” and took over what is now Austria, Hungry, Czechoslovakia, half of Poland, and parts of the Balkans, some of southern Germany, Romania, and northern Italy. Once largest empire in all of Europe, because their leaders, the Hapsburgs married themselves off to all of the other leaders, the problem is, in doing that, the Hapsburgs became MAJORLY inbreed. I mean, eww inbreeding, to the point where you had whole generations of kids who were as dumb as a rock. I mean look at this, this is what they looked like. </span><span style=";font-family:Monaco;font-size:10pt;color:black;" >
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<br /></span><span style=";font-size:10pt;color:black;" ><span style=""> </span>This is how big it was in 1914 </span><span style=";font-family:Monaco;font-size:10pt;color:black;" >
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<br /></span><span style=";font-size:10pt;color:black;" >Now the problem is that area is literally full of a massive number of different ethnic groups, each with a difference language, culture, customs, society, religion, and ethnic background all crammed together in a small area. And they all hate each other. </span><span style=";font-family:Monaco;font-size:10pt;color:black;" >
<br /></span><span style=";font-size:10pt;color:black;" ><span style=""> </span>The Austrians are basically German, they speak German they are the same ethnic background, and they ruled over all of these ethnic groups, even through they were a minority they just kept all of the other groups divided. However after some really bad wars with Napoleon and a bunch of other screw ups, the second largest ethnic group, the Hungarians were able to gain some level of sovereignty. Thus the “Duel Empire” was born, a combination of Austria and Hungry ruling over all of these other groups, who they both hated, but the Hungarians and the Austrians hated each other and all of the people beneath them, thus the empire was simply too diverse and complex to run effectively, and despite the partnership, Austria still was the more powerful of the two. Now this isn’t like in America were our diversity is one of our greatest advantages, because we hope to integrate all of our minorities into one singular nation, we aren’t totally great at it, but the idea is that we are all Americans together. In Austria Hungry, they tried to keep the various ethnic divisions separate, IE, the Serbs were in their own community and considered themselves their own people, subjugated under the Austrians, and hated all of the other ethnic groups in the area. While this divided the various groups to keep them from uniting against Austria, it also meant that Austrian subject people had no real loyalty to their rulers. I know I’m not giving Austria credit, as it was a cultural powerhouse at a few times, but I really don’t care enough to go into detail about their advanced and ancient sophisticated culture. In short through, Austria is one of the old boys of Europe, like Spain, France and Britain, its an old nation. They hate the Russians and the Ottomans, as they are always fighting over each other’s borders. The Recent decline of the Ottomans is welcomed by the Austrians, however they hope to check the Russians. Despite a fairly recent war, the Austrians are very close to the Germans, as they are the same ethnicity and have the same view points. Austria basically would have joined Germany if they were so busy managing their empire. Its also worth noting that a young man named Adolf Hitler is living on the streets at the time of 1914 trying to get by as a painter with little success. </span><span style=";font-family:Monaco;font-size:10pt;color:black;" >
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<br /><!--[endif]--></span></p> <!--EndFragment--> EvilElitesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10736914083653504431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392444708232395750.post-20427764775702568652010-05-31T16:08:00.003-04:002010-05-31T16:31:16.751-04:00Part 5, the Ottoman Empire<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.pbs.org/lawrenceofarabia/_graphics/nonflash/ottoman.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 355px; height: 198px;" src="http://www.pbs.org/lawrenceofarabia/_graphics/nonflash/ottoman.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>
<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.turkishculture.org/images/page/lifestyles/ottoman_women_and_the_visual_arts/Ottomanmap2.gif"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 350px; height: 264px;" src="http://www.turkishculture.org/images/page/lifestyles/ottoman_women_and_the_visual_arts/Ottomanmap2.gif" alt="" border="0" /></a>
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<br /><meta name="Title" content=""> <meta name="Keywords" content=""> <meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> <meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"> <meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"> <meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"> <link rel="File-List" href="file://localhost/Users/celiabland/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip1/01/clip_filelist.xml"> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:documentproperties> <o:template>Normal</o:Template> <o:revision>0</o:Revision> <o:totaltime>0</o:TotalTime> <o:pages>1</o:Pages> <o:words>1162</o:Words> <o:characters>6624</o:Characters> <o:lines>55</o:Lines> <o:paragraphs>13</o:Paragraphs> <o:characterswithspaces>8134</o:CharactersWithSpaces> <o:version>11.1287</o:Version> </o:DocumentProperties> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:donotshowrevisions/> <w:donotprintrevisions/> <w:displayhorizontaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:displayverticaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:usemarginsfordrawinggridorigin/> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--> <style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Times New Roman"; panose-1:0 2 2 6 3 5 4 5 2 3; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:50331648 0 0 0 1 0;} @font-face {font-family:Monaco; panose-1:0 2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:50331648 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-parent:""; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> <!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="color:black;"><b>art 5 out of 5.5 Why are the Ottomans all Assho..wait who are the hell are the Ottomans?</b></span><span style="color:black;"> </span><span style=";font-family:Monaco;color:black;" >
<br /></span><span style="color:black;">Sigh…here is the problem about "IB World Topics" is that is a lie. Like most of the IB program it isn't teaching you stuff, its just teaching you how to repeat things. So despite being in "world history", in reality this means, "history according to white people" because lets be honest, we (America ) have are not interested in these little things like non white cultures (we barely even talk about China until the age of imperialism.) One of the examples of this is the Ottoman Empire, we only learn about them in context to WWI, where they come off as an inept empire on its last legs. The Ottomans through was one of the most powerful and culturally advanced civilizations in western history lasting about 700 years. Of course we don't learn about the early parts of the Ottoman Empire, because that was Pre industrial European history, and nobody but Eastern Europeans care about that. So lets sum up one of the oldest and most advanced cultures of Europe shall we? To understand the Ottomans we have to go back to the 1200s when they were founded by Oshman I, and to do that we have to understand the Romans. Basically the Roman Empire, the greatest Empire in Western History, and possibly the world, was divided into two eventually, with Rome being the Western Half of Europe (France, England, Spain, Italy, North Africa and parts of Germany) and eastern Rome centered in Constantinople (now Istanbul) which was Greece, the Middle East, The Balkans, Turkey, Macedonia, and later North Africa. When Western Rome fell, the Eastern Rome was called the Byzantine Empire and ruled the east for thousand years. While the Romans started out pagan, they eventually became Christian, and spread Christianity around the world, so by the time Byzantium came to power, it was fully Christian, through Orthodox not catholic (we will cover Christianity types later). Thus while Western Europe was in a state of chaos and confusion (Dark Ages) Byzantium, centered in Greece and Turkey, was the cultural center of the world, rivaling China. Its main rival was the Persian empire in modern Iran, which they finally defeated. However, something new emerged. The Muhammad the Prophet was supposedly visited by an angel in 610, and started to spread his faith across the world. Now in the Middle East, there are three traditional centers of power. Iran/Iraq's main city of Baghdad, Egyptian city of Alexandria (later Cairo), and finally Syria/Jerusalem. With Mohammad’s rise, the new power center of Mecca in Arabia emerged (we will cover the Arabs later). Anyways, the Byzantine Empire spend most of its energy holding off the three separate Islamic Empires, centered in Arabia, Baghdad, and Alexandra respectfully (they didn't exist as the same time), and here we have the crusades and all that jazz. Then Genghis Khan, the worlds greatest Badass, came in form Mongolian and took over all of Russia. Because he was really scary, lot of tribes who use to live in central Russia fled into other areas, such as the Bulgurs (Bulgaria), Hungarians (Hungry), Cossacks (Western Russia) and finally the Turks (Turkey). At the time that was owned by the Byzantine Empire, and the Turkish tribes, who were not united were held off. However Oshman I united the Turks together and created the Ottomant Turks who under Mehmed II destroyed the Byzantine Empire once and for all and turned its greatest city, Constantinople into his new capital, Istanbul. The ottoman Turks converted to Islam, however they are not what we would call "normal Muslims" they aren't Arabic, Persian, African or even Europeons, they were originally Asians, so the rest of the Islamic world never really liked them. However the Ottomans went "Screw you" and took them over. This is the </span><span style=";font-family:Monaco;color:black;" >
<br /></span><span style="color:black;">Ottoman Empire at its height </span><span style=";font-family:Monaco;color:black;" >
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<br /></span><span style="color:black;"> (Actually it was a little bigger, they owned Spain indirectly), The Ottoman Empire united the Arabic world (except notably the sect in Iran, but we will cover that much later) and almost destroyed Christianity once and for all. However they were stopped by the Christians in Hungry and Malta and after that the whole empire just kinda fell apart. If they weren't conquering something, they just couldn't keep all of these people under control and so the Empire started to decay. Its notable that when Europe was in the middle ages, and your ability to get ahead in life was based on birth, the Ottomans who allowed commoners to gain power but when Europe started to invent Democracies, the Ottoman Empire started to look bad in comparison. Its various subject people's started to rebel and break off or get taken over by England, Russia or France. Ironically, the Empire, the first nation to use cannons to destroy a city, defeated by the guns and cannons of the west. So, by the time WWI comes about, the Ottoman Empire on their last legs, they lasted 700 years, and it was a good run, so we shouldn't mock them they way we mock say, the Russians. The biggest problem was the biggest problem for India and China. They cultures were advanced, civilized and powerful, but they just couldn't defeat the technologically advanced Western Europe. But they didn't want to give up on their ancient traditions, because they were proud of their way of life. So they couldn't advance but couldn't compete. They tried again and again to reform, but the conservatives in the nations always objected, and the subjected peoples kept breaking off. They couldn't get an industry working because they didn't have a capitalistic culture, they couldn't get modern technology cause they were too divided and not wealthy enough, they couldn't become Europeans because they were Islamic and Asian besides, but they refused to become a colony. Things were made worst by the Europeans supporting the rebellion of its colonies, like Greece, and later the Balkans, as well as the middle east. Now this is the Ottoman Empire right before the War </span><span style=";font-family:Monaco;color:black;" >
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<br /></span><span style="color:black;"> Now everybody knew that the Ottoman Empire was going to collapse, it was called the sick man of Europe due to its internal strife, political corruption, inept rulers (inbreeding), and the fact that they were broke or in dept to Europe. In fact, for awhile the only thing that kept the Empire standing was it was a sort of buffer state, as England, France, Austria, and Russia all wanted to take over as much of it as possible, but they also didn't want any other nation to take it. So they would try to keep the ottoman in power just so they could keep Russian from nabbing the whole empire, while the rest of Europe nicked bits and pieces. several wars were fought between European powers not against the Ottoman empire but instead over who gets to take its land. Its like somebody who got stabbed in a stomach, and all of his friends are fighting to call dibs on his stuff before he even died. Now in 1908 through, everything..kinda changed. The young Turks, a reformist government took over, and made a really honest to god attempt to reform the dying empire, and weirdly enough, were actually doing kinda well, the empire was getting back on its feet, still shaky, but doing kinda good. This didn't last long through, because they entered WWI which was a horrible idea. Anyways, last things to note </span><span style=";font-family:Monaco;color:black;" >
<br /></span><span style="color:black;">1) the Turks still own the Holy City of Jerusalem, which is sacred to every single Jewish, Christian and Islamic sect, as well as a few ethnic groups. </span><span style=";font-family:Monaco;color:black;" >
<br /></span><span style="color:black;">2) They are not what we call "normal" Islam, they follow a different faith and view the church as sort of a separate institution than the state to a lesser extent. Thus the Arabic, Persian, and other non Turkish Muslims hate them. </span><span style=";font-family:Monaco;color:black;" >
<br /></span><span style="color:black;">3) There is a group of people in Eastern Turkey called the Armenians. They are Christians, through they follow their own version of Christianity and they have a very long lasting hatred with the Turks. Its a...long story, but they kill 1.5 million of them later.</span><span style=";font-family:Monaco;color:black;" >
<br /></span><span style="color:black;">4) They HATE the Greeks. The feeling is mutual. They still hate each other. They have fought</span></p> <!--EndFragment--> <meta name="Keywords" content=""> <meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> <meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"> <meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"> <meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"> <link rel="File-List" href="file://localhost/Users/celiabland/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip1/01/clip_filelist.xml"> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:documentproperties> <o:template>Normal</o:Template> <o:revision>0</o:Revision> <o:totaltime>0</o:TotalTime> <o:pages>1</o:Pages> <o:words>1162</o:Words> <o:characters>6625</o:Characters> <o:lines>55</o:Lines> <o:paragraphs>13</o:Paragraphs> <o:characterswithspaces>8135</o:CharactersWithSpaces> <o:version>11.1287</o:Version> </o:DocumentProperties> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:donotshowrevisions/> <w:donotprintrevisions/> <w:displayhorizontaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:displayverticaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:usemarginsfordrawinggridorigin/> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--> <style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Times New Roman"; panose-1:0 2 2 6 3 5 4 5 2 3; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:50331648 0 0 0 1 0;} @font-face {font-family:Monaco; panose-1:0 2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:50331648 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-parent:""; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> <!--StartFragment--><span style=";font-family:";font-size:10pt;color:black;" ></span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:10pt;color:black;" ></span><!--EndFragment--> EvilElitesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10736914083653504431noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392444708232395750.post-86887748044554169352010-05-31T15:52:00.005-04:002010-06-01T19:37:55.132-04:00History part 4 the Russia<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh11md1qNt0ilkoPj4KeVI8rpFwbWAU-MFgOf-OZf4ezRTopG9ddQxCIEoeZn44QAu54PmIzfa70Oe8ybI-Hzg-MbLsK2dFGKNrcHfO5vFXy0wKMKyuGmOOQPlGg-CR0cOHpJ-WCNhP7Ty2/s320/LocationRussianEmpire1914.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 141px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh11md1qNt0ilkoPj4KeVI8rpFwbWAU-MFgOf-OZf4ezRTopG9ddQxCIEoeZn44QAu54PmIzfa70Oe8ybI-Hzg-MbLsK2dFGKNrcHfO5vFXy0wKMKyuGmOOQPlGg-CR0cOHpJ-WCNhP7Ty2/s320/LocationRussianEmpire1914.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><meta name="Title" content=""> <meta name="Keywords" content=""> <meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> <meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"> <meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"> <meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"> <link rel="File-List" href="file://localhost/Users/celiabland/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip1/01/clip_filelist.xml"> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:documentproperties> <o:template>Normal</o:Template> <o:revision>0</o:Revision> <o:totaltime>0</o:TotalTime> <o:pages>1</o:Pages> <o:words>849</o:Words> <o:characters>4844</o:Characters> <o:lines>40</o:Lines> <o:paragraphs>9</o:Paragraphs> <o:characterswithspaces>5948</o:CharactersWithSpaces> <o:version>11.1287</o:Version> </o:DocumentProperties> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:donotshowrevisions/> <w:donotprintrevisions/> <w:displayhorizontaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:displayverticaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:usemarginsfordrawinggridorigin/> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--> <style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Times New Roman"; panose-1:0 2 2 6 3 5 4 5 2 3; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:50331648 0 0 0 1 0;} @font-face {font-family:Monaco; panose-1:0 2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:50331648 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-parent:""; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> <!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="color: black;"><b>History, part 4 out of 3 The Russians, why are they such massive..oh wait I said that already but seriously, why are they such massive assholes? </b></span><span style="color: black;"> </span><span style="font-family: Monaco; color: black;">
<br /></span><span style="color: black;">So Russia is seen as a massive European/Asian power with a population of crude, Jew hating Alcoholics, run by a ruthless dictatorship that enjoys secret police and purges, as well as being absurdly stubborn/totally incompetent The Russia of 1914 is pretty much exactly the same, only slightly bigger. Russia is the second largest empire in the world at the time (And third largest Empire in history, second only to Mongolian and British). </span><span style="font-family: Monaco; color: black;">
<br /></span><span style="color: black;">That’s just massive. 300 million people making it the most populated nation in the world at the time (Ahead of even China and India then), seriously, this is huge, it includes the modern day nation of Russia (single largest nation today), as well as the modern day Kazakhstan (eight largest nation today) Turkistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Belarus, the Ukraine, Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Manchuria, Mongolia, and Georgia. Seriously its surreal how big this nation is, I mean…FUCK. Due to the size of Russia, its also famous for being hopelessly inept nation of all of Europe (which is some pretty stiff competition), and such a terrible place that you can only laugh.<span style=""> </span>Despite abundant natural resources, its technologically primitive, not quite able to compete with the industrial powers of Western Europe. many areas don't have electricity, guns are in short supply, capitalism hasn't quite caught on yet, railroads suck, and serfdom is still around. Almost every time Russia has invaded a smaller nation in modern times they have lost or won at a humiliating cost. Russia was a ruthless autocratic dictatorship, lead by an Emperor known as the Czar/Tsar (Russian for Caesar), who ruled the nation with a an iron fist, if a really rusty badly made iron fist. Most of the nation was in intense poverty, with any political dissidence punished either by death or being sent to Siberia, (northeast Russia), which is the coldest part of Russia. Only the nobility had any real power, which was a problem because most of them were, inept corrupt, and so conservative that they refused any new ideas. Now Russia still had the serf system from the middle ages. Yes, that does mean that Russia has been trapped in the middle ages.<span style=""> </span>Serfdom (slavery) means that the majority of the population was tied to their land, not allowed to leave, vote, or hold any office outside.<span style=""> </span>The problem is Serfdom doesn't benefit a nation, as 200 million farmers<20></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">from</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">EE
<br /><span style="color: black;"></span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment--> EvilElitesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10736914083653504431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392444708232395750.post-6639866601983871162010-05-12T18:57:00.003-04:002010-05-12T19:03:10.413-04:00Who are the Britians?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.teachers.ash.org.au/mrlaneis/z_z_maps_british_empire_1914.gif"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 490px; height: 275px;" src="http://www.teachers.ash.org.au/mrlaneis/z_z_maps_british_empire_1914.gif" alt="" border="0" /></a>
<br /><meta name="Title" content=""><meta name="Title" content=""> <meta name="Keywords" content=""> <meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> <meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"> <meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"> <meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"> <link rel="File-List" href="file://localhost/Users/celiabland/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip1/01/clip_filelist.xml"> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:documentproperties> <o:template>Normal</o:Template> <o:revision>0</o:Revision> <o:totaltime>0</o:TotalTime> <o:pages>1</o:Pages> <o:words>697</o:Words> <o:characters>3976</o:Characters> <o:lines>33</o:Lines> <o:paragraphs>7</o:Paragraphs> <o:characterswithspaces>4882</o:CharactersWithSpaces> <o:version>11.1282</o:Version> </o:DocumentProperties> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:donotshowrevisions/> <w:donotprintrevisions/> <w:displayhorizontaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:displayverticaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:usemarginsfordrawinggridorigin/> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--> <style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Times New Roman"; panose-1:0 2 2 6 3 5 4 5 2 3; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:50331648 0 0 0 1 0;} @font-face {font-family:Monaco; panose-1:0 2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:50331648 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-parent:""; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> <!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=";font-size:10pt;color:black;" >Part Who are the British and why are they so..British.</span><span style=";font-family:Monaco;font-size:10pt;color:black;" >
<br /></span><span style=";font-size:10pt;color:black;" >Today we are use to the image of the British being the second best, to America, they matter, but they are ultimately inferior to the US, but in the early 1900s, Britain was the single most powerful nation in the entire world. The nation had only a small population of only around 30 million (compared to the 40 million of Germany, or the 300 million of Russia), but that’s just the Island, cause they owned the single largest Empire in HUMAN HISTORY, single largest nation ever made, bar none, not counting the British themselves, 458 million people were under their control, and again that isn’t counting China, and<span style=""> </span>owned, apart from England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, colonies all over the world. The owned more colonies in Africa than any other European nation, which is almost one third of all Africa, India, most of South East Asia, and had footholds in the middle east as well, and the single largest "sphere of influence" (read colony) in China, larger than all the other nation's spheres combined, with an actual colony in Hong Kong. They had the entire continent of Australia, the massive nation of Canada, all of Tibet, about half of the Caribbean, as well as New Zealand and New Guinea. here is a map of the British Empire in 1914, this map does not count the British puppet states in china, which are under British control, so in realty the Empire is even bigger</span><span style=";font-family:Monaco;font-size:10pt;color:black;" >.<span style=""> </span></span><span style=";font-size:10pt;color:black;" >The British conquest of the world is something of an enigma, in that the actual English is tiny, the Germans could never understand how only 500,000 English troops were able to occupy India, with over 200 million. Even with guns and cannons, England should have been overwhelmed, but the British were clever (Cruel), and in all of the colonies, the various ethnic, religious and cultural groups were pitted against each other to prevent the nation from unifying, thus allowing the British to run the nation through puppet, and the British were the only European nation who actually benefited from their colonies economically. The British also instilled a sense of loyalty in their dominated people, as they actually made some effort to improve the lives of some of their people. Thus, while the British were still cruel and racist, they were better than other Europeans (Belgium, France, Belgium, Germany, Belgium ect). Britain could call upon a massive amount of manpower, resources and money from their many colonies, and everybody else felt that England owned too much and shared too little. English culture is worth pointing out, the English place a strong emphasis on being right, their is little tolerance for those who are frivolous or silly, British humor for example, people being embarrassed in public is seen as hilarious, because its something that everybody tries to avoid. Displaying emotions in public, bragging, and in particular, complaining are frowned upon. Stubbornness is a very important virtue, as the British, much like Rome, would always "solider one", and it is this mindset more than anything else that allowed England to dominate, the British simply didn't give up. They have a reputation for being cold and cynical, mostly that’s just a culture that doesn’t want to express emotions publicly, through if you look at British humor, its mean. The British military was famous for both its ruthlessness (beating was common) but also for its relative leniency, a commoner joining the army could get farther than he could in the French forces for example (this is before the war). The officers of the British army were all nobility, but they were nobility who were trained from birth to assume positions of leaderships, unlike the French or Russian nobility. This was weakening by the time of 1914, as England had a Parliament, and was a constitutional monarchy, allowing commoners to gain more power. It was the British navy however that they were most famous for, as this Island could take over nations worlds away, larger than all of the other European navies combined by the time of WWI, through it was a little outdated, the British had the most sea experience. You could defeat them on land (with some difficulty) but they were almost unbeatable at sea. Finally, Colin Murtha read this and said I was sucking up to the British and my anglophile nature was showing through, so I feel obligated to mock them, so bear in mind, as cool as the British are, you have to remember, as the largest empire, they almost solely responsible for almost every problem of the modern world.<span style=""> </span>We blame America a lot, but we have only been really annoying in the last fifty years, the British are responsible for the Israel/Palestine conflict, the Pakistan/Indian conflict, almost everything in Africa (Rwanda/South Africa), the problems in Ireland and the fall of China.</span></p> <!--EndFragment--> EvilElitesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10736914083653504431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392444708232395750.post-20766727513514499862010-05-09T21:52:00.002-04:002010-05-12T19:06:27.585-04:00FRANCEEEEEE<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/images/frnc-emp.gif"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 600px; height: 285px;" src="http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/images/frnc-emp.gif" alt="" border="0" /></a>
<br /><meta name="Title" content=""> <meta name="Keywords" content=""> <meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> <meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"> <meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"> <meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"> <link rel="File-List" href="file://localhost/Users/celiabland/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip1/01/clip_filelist.xml"> <link rel="Edit-Time-Data" href="file://localhost/Users/celiabland/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip1/01/clip_editdata.mso"> <!--[if !mso]> <style> v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:documentproperties> <o:template>Normal</o:Template> <o:revision>0</o:Revision> <o:totaltime>0</o:TotalTime> <o:pages>1</o:Pages> <o:words>573</o:Words> <o:characters>3269</o:Characters> <o:lines>27</o:Lines> <o:paragraphs>6</o:Paragraphs> <o:characterswithspaces>4014</o:CharactersWithSpaces> <o:version>11.1282</o:Version> </o:DocumentProperties> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:donotshowrevisions/> <w:donotprintrevisions/> <w:displayhorizontaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:displayverticaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:usemarginsfordrawinggridorigin/> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--> <style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Times New Roman"; 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panose-1:0 2 2 6 3 5 4 5 2 3; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:50331648 0 0 0 1 0;} @font-face {font-family:Monaco; panose-1:0 2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:50331648 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-parent:""; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> <!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: black;"><b>Part two-Who were the French and why were they such pansies? </b></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Monaco; color: black;">
<br /></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: black;"><span style=""> </span>The French are stereotypically a bunch of arrogant effeminate pansies who can't win any war due to their tendency to surrender. Before the world wars, the French were regarded as the second greatest world power, France is an old country, they have been around since the shortly after the fall of the Roman Empire (that’s at least 1500 years by the way). For most history, they have been a great military and cultural power, and at several points in history dominated large parts of Europe, and many times were either the richest or most cultural dominate part of that part of the world. And something happened a little less than a hundred years before WWI, and only fifty years before the infamous Franco Prussian war. That something was called Napoleon Bonaparte, who is in the top five list of “Greatest Badass in history”. Basically France overthrew their king and declared a Democracy after seeing America do it (whoops, our bad). Problem was that their first democracy was fanatical and went on a massive killing spree, and the second government that replaced it was corrupt and inept. Into this steps Napoleon Bonaparte, a 5’2 pudgy Italian man who pretty much single handedly he took on every single nation in Europe at the same time for 13 years (1799-1812) He pretty much won against all of the nations of Europe at the same time, and made Austria in particular his whiny little Bitch. Then in 1811 he invaded Russia and lost his largest army, and was defeated in 1815, came back a few months later almost won again, lost again at Waterloo. While France had been defeated, everybody still was in awe of Napoleon’s awesomeness, and so France was regarded as a super badass military power, then the Germans completely pwned in 1870. Despite this humiliation, French culture spread across Europe by Napoleon’s conquests, which included ideas like Democracy, unified militaries, and Jews been treated as people.<span style=""> </span>Their culture was emulated by almost every nation except England and to a lesser extent Germany, as they had the finest food, finest fashion, finest art, some of the finest buildings, finest music, and fine women. This won them a reputation as a cultural powerhouse, but they were considered somewhat effeminate by the more militaristic Germany and England. Its worth noting that British and English don’t have a reputation for either fine fashion or food, while French food is amazing and they are the capital of the fashion world. The French upper class, unlike the English or German, learned other languages, understand fine food, getting into art work, dress nicely, flirt all the time (the French had a well deserved reputation for cheating on each other...all the time), fashion, poetry, and classics, and had an empire</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Monaco; color: black;">.<span style=""> </span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: black;">France owned what is now Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia, as well as the second largest amount of "spheres of influence" (read puppet states) in China, next to England, and the second largest amount of African colonies, read rivalry.<span style=""> </span>So when Germany came about, England was pretty into the idea, because Germany was a threat to France, their rival, cause, France and Germany HATTTTTTED each other. Finally, France was also a democracy, making them unique in Europe, and the closest ally of the USA, who distrusted England. Did I miss anything? Oh right, racism. France was not as racist as Germany eventually proved to be, Jews were officially accepted, but were persecuted and treated as inferior, IE the Dreyfus Affair, where the French chose to blame the loss of 1870 on the highest ranking Jewish Officer Dreyfus, and had him arrested. Turned out he didn’t do it, but the affair torn France political life apart between those who thought him innocent and those who thought him guilty. Also the French committed multiple genocides in Africa, so there is still blood on their hands, but we don’t care because again, those people aren’t white. </span></p> <!--EndFragment--> <!--EndFragment--> <span style=";font-family:Monaco;font-size:10pt;color:black;" ><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shapetype id="_x0000_t75" coordsize="21600,21600" spt="75" preferrelative="t" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" filled="f" stroked="f"> <v:stroke joinstyle="miter"> <v:formulas> <v:f eqn="if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0"> <v:f eqn="sum @0 1 0"> <v:f eqn="sum 0 0 @1"> <v:f eqn="prod @2 1 2"> <v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelWidth"> <v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelHeight"> <v:f eqn="sum @0 0 1"> <v:f eqn="prod @6 1 2"> <v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelWidth"> <v:f eqn="sum @8 21600 0"> <v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelHeight"> <v:f eqn="sum @10 21600 0"> </v:formulas> <v:path extrusionok="f" gradientshapeok="t" connecttype="rect"> <o:lock ext="edit" aspectratio="t"> </v:shapetype><v:shape id="_x0000_i1025" type="#_x0000_t75" style="'width:136pt;"> <v:imagedata src="file://localhost/Users/celiabland/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip1/01/clip_image001.png" title=""> </v:shape><![endif]--></span><!--EndFragment--> <p></p><span style=";font-family:";font-size:10pt;color:black;" ></span><!--EndFragment--> EvilElitesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10736914083653504431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392444708232395750.post-21896229102783603782010-05-06T22:46:00.006-04:002010-05-06T22:52:15.338-04:00Mah WWI study guide part 1 What i've been doing all this time<meta name="Title" content=""> <meta name="Keywords" content=""> <meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> <meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"> <meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"> <meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"> <link rel="File-List" href="file://localhost/Users/celiabland/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip1/01/clip_filelist.xml"> <link rel="Edit-Time-Data" href="file://localhost/Users/celiabland/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip1/01/clip_editdata.mso"> <!--[if !mso]> <style> v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:documentproperties> <o:template>Normal</o:Template> <o:revision>0</o:Revision> <o:totaltime>0</o:TotalTime> <o:pages>1</o:Pages> <o:words>6090</o:Words> <o:characters>29843</o:Characters> <o:lines>359</o:Lines> <o:paragraphs>2</o:Paragraphs> <o:characterswithspaces>42632</o:CharactersWithSpaces> <o:version>11.1282</o:Version> </o:DocumentProperties> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:donotshowrevisions/> <w:donotprintrevisions/> <w:displayhorizontaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:displayverticaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:usemarginsfordrawinggridorigin/> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--> <style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Times New Roman"; 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panose-1:0 2 2 6 3 5 4 5 2 3; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:50331648 0 0 0 1 0;} @font-face {font-family:Monaco; panose-1:0 2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:50331648 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-parent:""; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> <!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style=";font-size:10pt;color:black;" >Part one, who were the Germans and why were they such massive assholes? </span><span style=";font-family:Monaco;font-size:10pt;color:black;" >
<br /></span><span style=";font-size:10pt;color:black;" >The Germans-We know the Germans are the bad guys in every movie ever, but who are these guys? Why did they fight so well? What is the deal with the pointy hats and fancy boots? Why were they such massive assholes? Basically, Germany was for most if its history made up of a thirty to 500 small nation states. These countries were all of Germany ethnically, IE the people were German, but they didn't have much in common. Then about 40 years before WWI, they were united in a single nation, show below.</span><span style=";font-family:Monaco;font-size:10pt;color:black;" >
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<br /></span><span style=";font-size:10pt;color:black;" ><span style=""> </span>The region of Prussia, in northern Germany, being the largest and most technologically of the various German states was able to bring Germany together. The Prussians have a reputation for being very harsh, very militaristic, and very badass. They were ruled by an Emperor, and had a nobility called the Junkers (don't laugh). Germany nobility, in contrast to the more bohemian French, were encouraged to be out going. The ideal young noble would like classical music, dress in a military outfit, go riding and hunting in his spare time, served in the army and be physically fit. German people were from a military culture, bravery, patriotic spirit, and stoic badassness were expected of their people, combined with being generally conservative, anti Semitic and super harsh. Now its a stereotype to call them a bunch of barbarians, as German Opera is second only to Italy, and German composers include Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven, so they aren't brutes, but were regarded as crass brutes by the British and French, and culturally are much more “Gruff” to put it nicely. Ironically, the Germans greatly admired the British...less so the French. The newly formed nation of Germany was ruled by the Kaiser (German for Caesar, meaning Emperor), Kaiser William I (pronounced Will-ham its annoying) united Germany, but it was his second in command, Otto Von Bismarck who was the diplomatic genius who made Germany. Basically, he provoked Austria, Russia, and France into attacking Germany, forcing the small German states to unite into one country for defense. The Franco Prussian war, fought 40 years before WWI is important, as the Germans owned France, and Kaiser William I forced France’s Napoleon III to kiss his boots in public and declare him “The new sun king” (the sun king was the title awarded France’s greatest king Louis XIV). France was the greatest nation on mainland Europe until their defeat in 1870, and resented the German induced humiliation. Following the defeat of France, the various states united into the German Empire in 1871. While unified with a centralized government, Germany was still very much divided, apart from Prussians, you had Bavarians, Saxons, Hessians, and ethnic Germans living in other countries. While technically a constitutional monarchy, the German parliament could only dictate the control of war funds, the real power lay in the hands of the Kaiser, actually it lay in the hands of Otto Von Bismarck, who controlled the old and basically senile Kaiser Wilhelm I. Politically, the Germans admired the British, as they were very much alike. They were both into physical activity, they both wanted their nobility to actually run stuff rather then sit around being spoiled twats (france), and they were both militaristic racist humorless gits. The English Royal Family was German since George I, and ironically the last German/English king would die a little before WWI the new king George the V was purely English.<span style=""> </span>Finally, Germany is the "emotionally abused child of Europe, who grows up to be 6’6 and really pissed off", as while Germany had been trying to unite for centuries, the rest of Europe didn’t want such a powerful country coming about, and kept dividing them for roughly 1500 years. So Germany is pissed at the rest of the world and eager to assert themselves, Germany wanted colonies, but they were only able to get some crappy colonies in Africa and China because everything else had been taken. As for the pointy hats...yeah I don't know. The ruler of Germany at the time of WWII was the mentally disable Kaiser Wilhelm II. Oh right racism. Now lest get something clear, all of the Europeans were racist pricks who hated Jews, the Germans at the time were just a little more direct about it, through in one of heir African colonies 1904-1907, the Germans wiped out two separate African tribes, the Herore and Namaque. I mean, we don’t care because you know, their Africans, but basically the Germans used camps and mass murder to eliminate 70% of the Herore (65 thousand) and 50% of the Namas (ten thousand) in what is modern day Namibia (West of South Africa). I’m not saying that Germans are addicted to wiping other people off of the planet, just interesting in hindsight. </span>
<br /></p>EvilElitesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10736914083653504431noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392444708232395750.post-73458029877237624192010-04-28T00:11:00.002-04:002010-04-28T00:13:25.626-04:00This seems to be a patternBasically i am kinda getting stuck in this "two random articles per month" rather than a set theme, so i apologize for the sporadic and utterly randomized articles thus far, i just have alot of work to do and i'm not really able to contribute to a more focused work. this month and next month is college classes/IB/AP finals then things get more normal, then summer then college. Horray :)<br />from<br />EEEvilElitesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10736914083653504431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392444708232395750.post-40717227495023110792010-04-18T23:58:00.002-04:002010-04-19T00:01:01.009-04:00Why Wall-E is better than Avatar<h3 class="UIIntentionalStory_Message" ft="{"type":"msg"}"><meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5CDemiGods%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><link rel="themeData" href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5CDemiGods%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx"><link rel="colorSchemeMapping" href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5CDemiGods%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> 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{page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-weight: normal;">1) Wall-E took risks. The thing about avatar is that its safe, it feels like a movie made by executives and business men, coldly planning out every aspect of t...he film so they can make money, apart from technology nothing is revolutionary, and technology isn't a risk. Wall-E takes a lot of risks, it could have easily been a flop, but it is about conveying art. From the rising towers of trash, to the dance in space, its all about trying to convey a real sense of meaning, not just showing images for its own sake. I mean, its like an American silent film more than anything else. Also avatar's moral isn't shocking, its just rehashing old cliche ethics, while Wall-E's point is kinda of shocking, its the story of Adam (wall-E) and EVE turning to labor as the path to salvation, turning away from the "false god" of Buy N large, the empty soulless void of capitalism and merchandise, but finding love in meaning. IT also attacks ... See More capitalism, the real thing, not the fact awkward business man of avatar, but instead the brand loyalty, the ease of cruise ships, the hollow existence of hedonism</span>
<br /><span style="font-weight: normal;"> 2) It doesn't contradict its own message. Avatar glorifies a stone age society, which doesn't make any sense, because that movie required 310 million dollars to make, and the most advanced technology of a decedent, hedonistic, escapist society to be successful, marking itself with which is just hypocritical. Wall-E doesn't claim that technology is bad, just that it needs to be inferior to humanity, taht it serves to assistece not to dominate, its is still vauble. And they explain why the humans are on this endless capitalistic cruise ship, its easy, and useful. The message of technology is far greater when they clearly thought it out. Also the film is subtle, their isn't some revolution where they declare implausibility that society will never use technology again, its just shows the waste, but also how nice the humans are. 3) Its about people and hte real. Avatar is an escapist fantasy, the jungle doesn't feel like a jungle just the product of an animator to dazzle us, thats its purpose. In contrast, Wall-e Contrasts the clean, wonderful and perfect ship world to the dirty, grimy, destroyed real world, but it is the world of the real, as broken and grey as it is, ... where human kind can grow and create beuty, rather than simple living like parasites. The humans in this look so weird because by embracing technology they have given up their humanity, the robots are more human then they are because the follow the ethic of work and experiencing life, even if it is a hard life, rather than simple having an endless wave of pleasure. The story is about us, about who we are and what makes us who we are. Its encouraging us to leave the comfort of the ship and come to the ruin, and make a paradise, not escape into this virtual sex world. And that is beautiful</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">From</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">EE
<br /><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <span class="text_exposed_show"></span></h3>EvilElitesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10736914083653504431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392444708232395750.post-47475040228551767352010-04-01T21:32:00.004-04:002010-04-19T13:37:23.878-04:00Radiata Stories is more innovative than Dragon Age Orgins<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://static1.animepaper.net/upload/thumbs/wallpapers/Radiata-Stories/%5Blarge%5D%5BAnimePaper%5Dwallpapers_Radiata-Stories_cloudAC_30554.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 576px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 432px; CURSOR: pointer" border="0" alt="" src="http://static1.animepaper.net/upload/thumbs/wallpapers/Radiata-Stories/%5Blarge%5D%5BAnimePaper%5Dwallpapers_Radiata-Stories_cloudAC_30554.jpg" /></a>Why are the two most boring characters given the most screen time?
<br /><meta name="Title" content=""><meta name="Keywords" content=""><meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" equiv="Content-Type"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><link rel="File-List" href="file://localhost/Users/celiabland/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip1/01/clip_filelist.xml"><style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Times New Roman"; panose-1:0 2 2 6 3 5 4 5 2 3; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:50331648 0 0 0 1 0;} @font-face {font-family:"Courier New"; panose-1:0 2 7 3 9 2 2 5 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:50331648 0 0 0 1 0;} @font-face {font-family:Wingdings; panose-1:0 5 2 1 2 1 8 4 8 7; mso-font-charset:2; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:0 0 256 0 -2147483648 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-parent:""; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} /* List Definitions */ @list l0 {mso-list-id:1268779306; mso-list-type:hybrid; mso-list-template-ids:1563076478 67698689 67698691 67698693 67698689 67698691 67698693 67698689 67698691 67698693;} @list l0:level1 {mso-level-number-format:bullet; mso-level-text:; mso-level-tab-stop:.5in; mso-level-number-position:left; text-indent:-.25in; font-family:Symbol;} ol {margin-bottom:0in;} ul {margin-bottom:0in;} --> </style><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:+0;"></span><span style="font-size:+0;"></span><span style="font-size:+0;"></span><span style="font-size:+0;">
<br /></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:+0;"></span>Radiata Stories (NO I don’t know what Radiata stories means)</p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:+0;"></span>Normally I don’t explain why I’m reviewing a game, it’s just an arbitrary decision based upon my whims, and so I’m not going to start now.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Nah, just kidding, through that would be funny, instead I have I a whimsical story which serves as a forced metaphor for my views on the game rather than just saying them directly (spoilers, its mediocre).<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>I also love self aware narration.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Anyways, I got this game right after I bought a PS2 at my Grandparents, basically as a test game to play something cheap before I went home and borrowed (steal) better (slightly less crappy) games from my friends (people whose addresses I know), and I jus saw my younger sister (younger sister) playing it today when I basically remembered its existence, and figured that since I’m playing assassin and I’m hiding inside my house (there everywhere), I might as well write a review on it, because despite the fact I think the name is silly and I really don’t like the art direction other than character creation, I think it had enough potential to be wroth an article.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Basically, I don’t really want to write about what the game is, which is as you’ve noted, a mediocre time killer, but more what it had the potential to be.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Because unlike almost every other bad game out there, Radiata Stories faults are born not from lack of creativity or ideas, but simply through general incompetence.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>And I know that this is going to shock people, but Radiata Stories was possibly one of the bravest attempts in gaming in the last decade.</p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:+0;"></span>Now as I have made abundantly clear at this point, I don’t really like JRPG (grr, Final Fantasy) so I’m naturally bias against the game, but it did make some attempts to move away from what normally bothers me, it just didn’t do enough.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>They ditched turn based combat, but I’m still going into another world to fight and its still limited and tedious, just less so.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>The outfits aren’t as stupid as Final Fantasy’s absurdities, but they still make everybody look gaudy and out of place, and while the system isn’t as obsessive when it comes to all this minute details, its still boring to the point where I don’t really want to actually modify my character in the least.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Beyond that the characterization is simplistic, the dialogue lacks any trace of subtly, and everybody has stupid hair.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>However it is where Radiata Stories tries to do something original that it all goes horribly wrong.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Basically the game has the set pieces to be great.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>The story is about a young noble boy named Jack Russell (I hope that is more subtle in Japanese) who wants to join the nights of his realm.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Unable to get past the entrance exam due to his general ineptitude, he is accepted into the knights through blatant nepotism instead.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>This got the whole game off to a very good start, because it subverts the normal JRPG, instead of my excitable not so smart character overcoming the odds based on the power of his will, he has to deal with the guilt from his lack of actual merit.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>This built up the expectation that the game would be about my character trying to come to understand how the world really works and being forced to confront his own privileged background, rather than the main character being the underdog.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>But like almost everything else in this game, all of these small subversions only serve to disappoint me after raising my expectations because the game doesn’t go anywhere with this idea.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Jack has a few seconds of “OMG I don’t deserve this” before going off like the typical JRPG hero non the wiser.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Sure he will feel guilty once or twice, but it will come completely out of nowhere and feel like an obvious effort to insert angst. Later once the actual game play starts, this happens again, the castle you start out in is HUGE.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Its this massive complex full of different people and stuff happening, it could be a whole game in itself.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>But you can’t actually do anything with the fact that they have this huge castle because all of the rooms are practically the same and the characters are so dull it just feels like your wasting your time.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>So, contrary to my nature of saving the main quest until absolute last, I ran to do the main quest before I became more hopelessly lost.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Yeah, I know that I missed a massive backlog of important information and potential characters/items, but it was just so generic and uninteresting that what could have been a great beginning.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Anyways, so I am then introduced to my party, the snotty rich girl, the overly noble knight and…….my least favorite character the southern hillbilly priest.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>WTF.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Why does every character with a southern accent have to be a dumbass hick?<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>I mean I know this is the fault of the dubbers not the game itself, but<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>I’m half southern, my moms from North Carolina, is the game so bad at characterization they have to use an offensive stereotype.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>I mean imagined if his character was exactly the same but I made his accent Hispanic.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Anyways, I planned to resume the plot summery but honestly, I really don’t care at this point, I just want to talk about the game’s main selling point, the immersion.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Basically, the main city (and by extension the surrounded towns when you get to visit them) are all populated by 150 NPCs who you can get into your party.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>All of these characters have their own schedule and personality and you can collect all of them (Between two play through obviously blah) like lawyer collecting clients through a variety of tasks.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>These vary from simply talking to them, talking to them at a certain level, fighting them, saving them, having a friend of theirs, to having a special item.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>The game is run in kinda sorta real time, so you have to pretty much stalk these people before getting them into your party.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>As you can expect, it suffered from all of the problems you would expect from such a system, namely all of the characters being underdeveloped, existing more as an accomplishment than a party member (you don’t even get to talk to them once you get them in your party), many of them being totally unmemorable, and their listed personally traits never actually effecting the game.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>For example, I don’t remember his name, but one Frankenstein guy was described as being as sociopathic mad scientist, but once I got him to join me, that never came up, he never betrayed me for his own personal gain or tried to actually experiment on somebody it was just an idea that never came to anything.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>However the idea is pretty much what I want from an ideal RPG game, if we had a game with better funding and writing backing it, this could be the most innovative game since Baldur’s Gate.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Instead we get this idea coming from a mediocre JRPG, where it fails horribly, but at least they tried.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>And I’m rapidly losing interest, here is some basic information (filler) before I come to the stunning conclusion</p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%" class="MsoNormal">The Good and the Bad (wait what else would their be?)</p><ul style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in" type="disc"><li style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%" class="MsoNormal">I like that there is a lot going on.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>People are going into houses, out of houses, regular schedules, and doing their own thing.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>It makes the society feel alive and people actually having a point.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Disturbingly enough, it handled it even better than Oblivion/Morrowind did, by having the characters actually change their reactions when they are in different locations.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>True is a shallow portrayal that is based entirely upon adding these characters to your friends list, but that’s more than most games can say. </li><li style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%" class="MsoNormal">The races.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Despite having their art design ripped off from World of Warcraft, Radiata stories actually are pretty fleshed out.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Ok, no they are just shallow stereotypes, but they are new shallow stereotypes.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>The Light Elves are winged fairy elves who are isolationist and snotty.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Ok that’s typical, but they are more fairy elves rather than LOTRS Elves.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>The Black Elves are the tree loving nature elves who are into physical exertion and are kinda a sporty martial artist race who are kinda all athletes.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>The Goblins are either Green, who are basically an entire race of trashy hobos, or Black who are all stoners, and the dwarves are all Russian industrialists.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Apparently there are two types of orcs too, but I never bothered to recruit them.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>The downside of course is that they are again, only shallow stereotypes, jut with kind of a nifty idea.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span></li><li style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%" class="MsoNormal">The weapons are very much hit and miss, but about half of them are pretty cool.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>The rest are just stupid</li><li style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%" class="MsoNormal">While the NPCs are almost universally shallow representatives of actual characters, they at least have a nifty concept they revolve around.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>While they lack anything resembling depth, when you first met them they seem pretty interesting.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Again, if they actually developed these character you could have bioware styled interesting characters.</li><li style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%" class="MsoNormal">A cool plot.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>This they almost pulled off perfectly, a almost totally morally grey battle between humans and nonhumans.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>The latter are slightly more morally justified, but that’s like saying the allies were slightly more justified in WWI, its true but the resulting conflict was way out of proportion, as the humans are more likeable honestly.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>The fact that for the first two thirds of the game you have been making friends on both sides makes the resulting confrontation between the two sides hammers home the feeling of “Wow, this is a civil war, not a war between good and evil”.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Of course then you realize how shallow the characters and cease to care, as well as your allies tendency to respawn, which makes the whole point of a civil war kinda pointless.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Also the fact that humans get so much more characterization makes all of your non human allies seem weird (Also why are the purple people considered human?<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Eh?). The problem is that by the end of the game, the purpose or even conclusion of the war are kinda obscured, due to a mix of shoddy story telling and stupidly long periods doing pointless quests.</li><li style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%" class="MsoNormal">The quests that involve talking to people and fighting unique foes and interaction between characters was cool, all of the rest were a pointless waste of time</li><li style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%" class="MsoNormal">The actual set pieces of the plot were cool, you have these long painful periods of filler intermittently mixed with really good cutscenes that actually make me eager to keep playing (unlike final fantasy games, where I’m just killing time for the whole game).<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>I liked most of the major characters other than jack (see below), the voice acting was good, and while the game didn’t actually make any use of their personalities, they were presented really well in the limited screen time they had.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>The fact that random NPCs suddenly showed up and made a different was really great, if again, they actually did something with that beyond a few disconnected scenes</li><li style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%" class="MsoNormal">The only thing I really didn’t like was the main Character.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Jack is simply put, unappealing.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Like his namesake, he is excitable, really stupid, moronically brave (I had to use moronically because I had used stupid already), socially awkward and shallow.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Basically, the typical JRPG main character, why does Japan love the stupid brave guy with a good heart motif?<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>His lack of intelligence just makes him unappealing, because the random NPCs are honestly more interesting as characters, because he feels like he should be a random NPC who joins your party, because he has about as much depth.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>This is a massive personal issue I have with JRPGs, but stupid main characters cripple games that rely upon complex stories, because the character himself is unable to actually understand the complexity, thus forcing the game to dumb itself down to the point where it is patronizing.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>A stupid main character also forces the minor characters to be more polarized so he (and presumably the audience) can understand the conflict better, the main human villain Lord Cross has to be such a massive ass so Jack can know who to fight to.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Also its boring, he doesn’t have anything to say, he just follows around from plot point to plot point.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>A good protagonist is central to a video game of this design, a distinctive personality is vital for this understanding.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span></li></ul><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; MARGIN-LEFT: 0.25in" class="MsoNormal">So in conclusion, Radiata stories was a brave, but ultimately futile attempt to make something good out of the JRPG format, and to try out some really inventive new ideas.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>However its departure from the norm made it unappealing to JRPG fans, while its sticking to old traditions made it useless to WRPG fans.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>So in conclusion, Radiata Stories is more innovative than Dragon Age Origins.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>While it isn’t as good as a game by a long run, it does something that Bioware didn’t attempt to do, namely try to depart from a formula that has long since proven stagnant.</p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; MARGIN-LEFT: 0.25in" class="MsoNormal">From</p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; MARGIN-LEFT: 0.25in" class="MsoNormal">EE</p>
<br />EvilElitesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10736914083653504431noreply@blogger.com1