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Submitted by Abalieno on March 17, 2010 - 12:09.
I meant to write this after the Kate's episode, and especially after reading this long but interesting commentary. So this works like an unplanned follow-up to my previous conclusion about Lost.
It's here, but also in other similar stories, that two parallel tracks start to get revealed. One is strictly plot. What people do, how the story develops and ends. Another is thematic and about abstraction. As to squeeze "meaning" or "purpose" out of a story. Some kind of message that is supposed to reach you. The first track, about the plot, in this show is about the medium that carries the message.
In my previous post I explained my theory about Lost: it's empty of meaning because it may represent the triumph of form over meaning (metalinguistic study). They show you the power of storytelling but it's nothing more than that. Power without purpose or moral. The plot is convoluted around the medium and hides a secret core that in the end will be revealed for what it is. A fraud.
I explained the reasons for this theory in that previous post. What happens here instead is that Lost writers may have a far greater ambition. One that, if revealed as true, is staggering and awesome. Maybe Lost has a point, and it's something quite powerful and that I admire. This new perspective & interpretation is revealed in that article I linked, and the problematic part is that the idea, if proven false since at this point it is as reliable as fanfiction, risks to be way cooler than what Lost actual writers have planned for the show.
That theory was written after the second episode of this last season. Now we are at episode eight. The theory still holds, maybe also because not much is happening even if time's running off. But it's still a theory that is consistent and coherent with everything else, little subtle aspects that make sense.
What's this theory about? It is about the relationship between the two timelines. We all expect that they are going to connect plot-wise soon. That one will collide with the other in some way, but the relationship, see above my reference to the two parallel tracks, may be entirely thematic. Consider this: I've said this show is a display of competency in the use of medium, and that the show may be a study done only to refine it. One of the most obvious methods used in the show, as a medium, is the flashback, flashforwards, flash-sideways. These are methods of screenplay. How you tell a story. Pacing and so on. If you analyze how flashbacks are used in the show, you notice that they are very carefully placed to maximize tension and curiosity. Obviously they aren't random, but till this season they worked simply as well placed insights into some character. What if this season changed the rules and the relationship between the two timelines lies right in the way they are connected? The thematic purpose linked to their use as a medium. The two timelines are related thematically in how and when they appear.
The Sideways world story line very clearly mirrored the Island world story line. Kate chases after Sawyer; Kate chases after Claire. Is there a physical, cosmic connection between the two realities?
is Lost doing this just to be all fancy-pants literary, or could it be that Lost is trying to tell us something? Could it be that the creative design of Lost's sixth season, embedded and suffused with past episode resonance, is a clue to resolving the mystery of its seemingly split reality?
I am wondering — and perhaps you are, too — if these corresponding events across parallel realities are meaningful synchronicities. It's almost as if no matter the world, these people are destined to intersect and to play out variations of the same essential drama.
That's the suspicion. Here's the theory:
Now here's the crazy thought I had — an alternative to past-life/reincarnation theory. I submit that when Kate saw Jack at the airport, she established a psycho-spiritual circuit with her doppelganger self on he Island, and specifically the moment between Jack and Kate in Temple. This circuit facilitated a transference of psychic energy that flowed from Island Kate to Sideways Kate — or rather, from Redeemed Kate to one of her Fallen Kate selves in another world. That energy? Strength. Selflessness. A sense of sacrifice. A sense of ''You All Everybody'' idealism. All qualities that Kate embodied in her Island story — and all qualities that Kate gained during her Sideways story.
In fact actors trigger these flashes with more active acting than usual. Flashes don't just happen between a scene and another, placed carefully, but they are "acted" as afterthoughts. As if the character is influencing or being influenced by the transition. They are fluid. What happens in a timeline kind of flows into the other, and not by mere thematic association, but concretely with meaning.
What I say (or mostly who wrote that article) is that we use to think to these flashes structured by a third party narrator. We got someone who's putting the story down for us in a way that is compelling. So scenes are placed following a "screenplay" that was made by this hidden narrator. But the story in the flashes is, like, real world. As if you go dig in a attic, find an old toy, and start remembering some past scene that involved that toy. In the real world your past DOES influence what you do in the present. So something that you remember can influence what you decide to do. Maybe it's not a case, to underline something special is going on, that these flashes's influence goes backwards. The 2004 timeline seems influenced by the 2007's one. There's something new that goes on there. The link is made plain and can't be ignored or considered normal as previous flashes. These characters seem to communicate to their alternate version. Arguably, we could also consider the 2004 timeline like some kind of improvement. Implying an idea of "progress". Let's say human betterment.
So here's the thematic meaning:
To put it more simply: Island Kate inspired Sideways Kate. Bottom line: The Sideways-Island relationship is a metaphor for our relationship to fiction. It's about how fantasy redeems reality.
What's the use of stories that aren't even true? Lost answers, They teach us how to make the real world a better place.
And that's how everything may come together. I theorize that Lost is all form and execution. A wicked study on how you can manipulate an audience. An cynical experiment not unlike Dharma's own. But here, if this other theory is true, we get to see the other side of the moon: what is fiction ultimately about. A soul. Something that tries to reach out and actually tell us something that is TRUE. Especially in a show (see 8th episode) where everything is a trick and deceit. The possibility is that once all layers of this onion made of lies are stripped off, we get something that is truthful.
Fiction, like every form of culture, makes us better and strive for progress. The only concrete aspects that makes us different from all other animals and living things of this world is that we have language (whose most peculiar function is, interestingly, metalinguistic, so about the medium itself), and so culture. In this war against nature, culture's the only weapon men have. And it's use, a choice (another theme of this show), is what makes the difference. It's about us.
Let's hope the smoke monster saves us (but this will be explained at another time).
Submitted by Abalieno on March 17, 2010 - 09:59.
There's veeery subtle subtext here. Can you spot it? ;)
Straight from tonight's Lost episode (also: the episode starts with a nice and well executed subversion):
Submitted by Abalieno on March 3, 2010 - 16:58.
So I'm attached to this website even if it isn't used much these days, and was torn inside to see it die.
It happens early today (I was going to bed and instead six hours later I'm still up) that I check the website and it gives me a 500 internal server error. So I go to the Dreamhost page to report the problem but I soon notice that I can access the databases and FTP. So it's not down, it's broken. I go to the support page and I see a warning stating that they are moving the site on a different server and if I had a custom PHP (I have, because they already broke my site once and I had to resort to that) then it was going to be broken after the move.
The problem is that I don't remember anything about how I actually made the custom PHP. Not even a vague idea. The perspective was starting to feel rather gloomy. But then looking at the root of the site I notice that I left all the stuff still there and it's actually working, including the old script I used and modified (because it also didn't work right away back then). Only that even my script doesn't work now (I'll explain the tech details later).
And there starts the odyssey, looking through all kinds of websites, copy/pasting errors and whatnot. I rarely made a so hectic journey through the internet. The old engine just didn't seem compatible with the new server and wouldn't compile. In six hours, without knowing any damn think about all this, I think I tried a hundred of different solutions, editing scripts and makefiles for the compiler even if I never really saw one before.
Well, I'm happy. Now it works again. Dunno if it doesn't break suddenly at some point because there are still some tricky things, but at least I got to see my site once again. It was truly so close to being gone and I was hopeless because Dreamhost simply told to deal with it and that they would not offer any support of any kind.
Later I'll have to go and documenting this a bit, I'll do my part and also update the broken wiki page at Dreamhost.
UPDATE:
I'm not really sure I want to go down in detail to explain what I did because I don't want to make the site even less secure and broken. Here's the essence of what happened:
The website runs on custom compiled PHP. The website gets moved to a 64bit machine and so all the old code is now broken. I need to recompile.
I still have everything from when I did compile PHP last time, so I try to rerun the same script. But it breaks:
configure: error: Cannot find OpenSSL's <evp.h>
Apparently Dreamhost doesn't have anymore support for OpenSSL and PHP requires it. Where things really start to get gloomy is when you look for the error online and find other Dreamhost users who faced the same problem and asked in forums and blog posts... years ago and unanswered. The internet reveals the desperation of passing time and unanswered calls for help! That's the kind of ending that I was looking at. Doomed.
So I try to look for the source code and compile it locally, which isn't simple, because adding it to the other script didn't work. The "configure" command didn't work, I read that it used "config" instead, but it still wouldn't run properly. Follow an endless number of attempt and I think I was able to finally run it through "sh", the shell.
Then I had to make PHP know where to find OpenSSL locally, which required a lot of juggling of directories (while also many attempts to see if I could compile PHP without SSL support, maybe) which is hard because you don't know if it doesn't work because pointed in the wrong location or because it isn't compatible or misses some part. At the end OpenSSL works but the script breaks again two checks after:
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lc-client
skipping incompatible /usr/lib/libc-client.a when searching for -lc-client
Fun! I later figure out that the lc-client is compiled in the IMAP module and copied over. I tried compiling a more recent version (but the problem was elsewhere) but that lead to a whole host of new problems since I was getting incompatibilities with IPV6 and the program attempting to overwrite (and failing) some main files on the server. Then it turned out that IMAP also required OpenSSL, but it wasn't smart enough to look at the local copy I installed (nor had a configurable "config"), and so continued to fail. So I tried to get my hands down deep in the makefile itself, trying to link manually my OpenSSL, but I only got more and more errors and screen showing fancy characters. No good at all. I tried with different version of IMAP hoping maybe one would be compatible.
This goes on a while, with my root directory filled with sss aaa abba azazphp aaaphp and so on because every run of the script pretended I erased the directories and doing it through FTP would take an insane amount of time and I didn't remember the Unix command that would delete a directory with everything inside (rm -r), and I was too busy with a million of other thoughts to look that up.
In the end I got through, managed to compile IMAP and have it digested by PHP. And the site ran again.
I also suspect that lots of troubles also came from the possibility of having code half compiled and uncleaned since I compiled PHP last time.
(this omitting many steps in the middle, like installing other libraries that may be connected and swapping source versions with newer ones)
Submitted by Abalieno on February 7, 2010 - 06:41.
This is quite fitting since I'm reading Infinite Jest and in the book there's an experimental movie called, incidentally, "The Joke" that represents a metalinguistic experiment with an audience (where the audience isn't simply spectating, but actually the object of spectation).
Now you expect I draw a parallel between what I'm reading and the TV show I'm watching, but the truth is that I only see even more evidently, and am convinced of having been right and to the point, what I write down after the very 1st episode I watched, back in 2006 when Lost began airing here. Comments particularly interesting because warning about "premature" judgment, and "giving it some time" in order to "be surprised" since "it's not what you think it's going to be".
Four years and six seasons later I can now declare that I'm now even more convinced that: it's exactly what I thought it was.
Actually during the show I started to think that maybe it was going to be something more than I thought, but now that the end approaches I'm more and more convinced that my first interpretation was the very best and more precise.
This is how I rephrased it even before going back to read the old blog post:
--
Was its worth 100% dependent on payoff?
Season 1 was a big metalinguistic joke about TV series. It was the american Battle Royale, filled with gratuitous spooks and illogical plot twists to show that you could make a good show out of nothing just through good execution of technique.
Then they saw it worked, grew attached to it, and decided to add a plot that would somehow give a sense to what was actually built for the purpose of being senseless.
Lost is basically an exercise to show how much writers can be in control and use their own audience as a joke that the show is ultimately about.
--
Quoting the 2006 post:
It has the exact same scheme and feel, the exact same use of narrative structure and expedients, like the mix of different characters that don't know each other and then the use of neatly placed flashback to reveal part of their stories just before the character is involved into something in the main plot. Making the audience connect & sympathize a moment before something horrendous and life-threatening happens to them.
Basically there's nothing original if not a nearly infinite list of stereotypes and references (across all forms of media). Borrowing hands down from sci-fi and horror expedients to "conceal" and keep up the tension. Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" is another one, the expedient to never let you "see completely" to build up the tension (also "Alien") and the shaky camera + "close up" of a terrified face taken right from "Blair Witch Project" (the trick of not-showing, or seeing an horrified face but not seeing the object of horror).
--
So what's the deal with the polar bear?
Not something brought there to be the object of some sort of scientific experiment, but just a dissonant note used to amplify the effect of a spook. "A polar bear in a tropical island", that's the correct way to see it. It's something unsettling and mysterious that is shown not for a logic reason or external purpose, but solely for its properties of being unsettling and mysterious through the univocal act of being shown, so made to be, existing. Everything on screen in Season 1 (and the exact reason why each following season failed to recapture both the mood and the ratings) appears solely for its effect and never for its meaning. It's use of (visual, cinematographic) language not for its meaning, but for what it is. It's the use of language applied to language. So metalinguistic, or the property of the language to describe itself.
Put in another way: it's a joke that the authors played on the audience. A game whose object is the audience itself and its reactions. Where the audience's theories are part of the puzzle. A recursive game and sort of annular relationship between audience and showmakers. One feeding the other in recursive fashion of obsession.
It also says: we have the power of doing everything. We have control even when there's NO control, because it is language that represents the perimeter of what can be experienced and it is through language that we can manipulate what is perceived/true, and change it, overturn it, every time we want. They tried to push this to the point that the relationship writers-audience was so bent that it was on the point of snapping: in Season 3 they introduced two new characters (the loved Nikki & Paulo) that have always been there but never seen, put in place through an elaborate ret-conning exploiting plainly the "perimeter of what can be experienced" represented by the limited and finished space that comprises a filmed shot. You can't see what's behind or what's at the far margin. With the purpose of showing the audience that they could be shown everything and they would still fall for it. "Open wide and wait for the spoon". Only that the relationship was so bent that this didn't actually work out and the writers had to stagger back and reappraise the power of their egos.
This means that "Lost" is a study on language, its power and its effect on the broadest audience possible. A use of medium not to convey a message, but a medium that feeds on itself and is self-aware. A study on the production of meaning or its absence in favor of form.
Ultimately, whatever "plot" or "ultimate meaning", that the show may or may not have, is entirely secondary and tacked on. That's why up here I wrote: "Was its worth 100% dependent on payoff?" It's not. The payoff is supplementary in order to not delude the audience and entirely break the relationship of love. It's akin a spectacular action scene that serves no real purpose beside amusing & contenting (also called fanservice). But the truth is that the true experiment is involving the audience in the same way one Dharma experiment involved observers being observed. Which is exactly the type of mockery they love the most: they show you exactly what they are doing, in a slightly refracted context, and yet you fail to put the pieces together.
I think it worked perfectly.
Submitted by Abalieno on February 3, 2010 - 23:50.
We got the first two episodes that pave the road for the beginning of the end, and I tried to parse the elements while ret-conning them to the considerations I wrote at the end of season 5 (part 1 - part 2).
To begin with, Lindelof own words:
We will say this: season 6 is not about time travel. It’s about the implications, the aftermath, and the causality of trying to change the past. But the idea of continuing to do paradoxical storytelling is not what we’re interested in this year.
I'm rather glad about the first part of the show because the plot at the moment is extremely simple, and, especially, it is coherent with what I had written a year ago when the series closed.
After the finale a year ago I wrote:
If I have to guess the anti-Jacob is also the smoke monster, who is also evil-Locke. Jacob enjoys messing with people, while anti-Jacob is the one who prefers being left alone and would like as well to get rid of Jacob and enjoy a quiet life.
I think this is going to be a theme important to keep in mind. It's Jacob who messes with people, who calls the boat the first time and who gets the losties on the airplane the second time.
The anti-Jacob instead is the one who now wants to "go home". Whatever it means.
We also know that anti-Jacob killing Jacob means that the island (2007 version) isn't anymore in the balance of power. But. It's also possible that Sayid is now possessed by Jacob the same way Locke is now anti-Jacob (what is sure is that Jacob wants to keep Sayid alive and has sent a message to his "Others" faction through the message hidden in the guitar case that Jacob himself gave to Hurley).
It's also interesting because the way things went had the result of solving the time paradox they created last season. Me again a year ago:
But before they (the losties) can save themselves, they all have to die. Those in the past in order to complete the plan and let their copies live. Those in the future because they are orphans of a timeline (the island blew up, so Locke and Ben can't be on it, timeline-wise those scenes happen BEFORE what we're seeing in the past).
There's a problem, though. Sun has a picture of them in the Dharma initiative, and there's also a sixth season to fill. So this hints that, if the future is their future as that picture hints, they won't succeed in blowing up the island.
Lindelof again:
We knew that the ending of the time travel season was going to be an attempt to reboot. And as a result, we [knew] the audience was going to come out of the “do-over moment” thinking we were either going start over or just say it didn’t work and continue on. [We thought] wouldn’t it be great if we did both? That was the origin of the story.
My theory at that time (before the end of season 5) was that the entire timeline would be erased, because that future (Lock revived returning to the island with Sun & Ben) was strictly dependent on the past going the way it did.
So, either that timeline was "true" (hence losties not succeeding exploding the bomb) or it was going to be erased, so that, in order to trigger the "better world" (what we now see as flash-sideways) all of them had to be erased from existence. Meaning that in order to have themselves in the future have a better life, they had to sacrifice all they lived till that point. Also meaning that the whole TV series would be basically erased because they were successful in preventing the whole thing and triggering the reboot.
We now know things didn't go that way. The bomb did explode and the (arguably) better future was triggered, but the "copies" of the losties weren't "erased" and now persist in another timeline that goes to overlap exactly with the old 2007 version from season 5. Where anti-Jacob kills Jacob and now probably wants to take over the island in order to take off and return to Mars.
The big question in this series is about how the alternate timeline (2004) is going to fit in the context. Either it is there simply thematically to prove a point (that the new life isn't that better) or it will have to collide again in some way (Widmore maybe?).
Theories?
Thematically the theme has been already highlighted. Locke revived in this episode talks with Ben about the former Locke and says:
"He (Locke) was the only one who realized how pitiful the life he left behind really was."
And this kind of commentary is mirrored by something similar that happened last season, but that referred to the exact opposite situation (the life they lead after the crash):
"It was not all misery."
"Enough of it was."
We have now these two realities: the 2004 reboot and the 2007 as we know it.
A few important things to keep in mind:
- The main point is that it is JACOB who has caused the bomb exploding and the new 2004 timeline to exist (this inferred by the fact that it's Jacob himself who persuades most of the losties to return to the isle. And if he's not manipulating them directly for his own will, at the very least he is the one who gave them the "choice").
This may lead somewhere if things are considered that way. We do not even know that anti-Jacob is aware that his timeline (the 2007) is now somewhat secondary. Jacob at this point is apparently successful. Anti-Jacob may be the one tricked and now trapped not in the island, but in the surrogate timeline.
It's also possible that the two timelines will be personalized: Jacobs has the "white" 2004 no-crash timeline, while anti-Jacobs has the "black" standard timeline where he's now free.
Also, let's work with two archetypes. Jacobs represents white and progress made of men, and the will of men to alter destiny and have a role, and decide their own life and try in spite of all misery and failure and whatever. It's a kind of positive, merciful drive that often fails but always tries.
Anti-Jacobs represents wild nature. Unmerciful, cruel. That doesn't tolerate men messing up. That wants the island untouched, and wants it back, away from men. That also represents destiny as a self correcting fixed thing that has its own survival as first priority.
We know Lost is built through dichotomies, and the dialogue at the end of Season 5 crystallizes the contrast between Jacob and anti-Jacob:
anti-Jacob: "Still trying to prove me wrong, aren't you?"
Jacob: "You are wrong."
anti-Jacob: "Am I? They come. they fight. They destroy. They corrupt. It always ends the same."
Jacob: "It only ends once. Anything that happens before is just progress."
Which is also one of those broad themes about the human condition, and here's a link to what Steven Erikson writes:
The Chain of Dogs had fallen at the foot of Aren. Pormqual's ten thousand danced on trees. Leoman's rebel army was destroyed at Y'Ghatan. It was clear -- it could not be clearer -- that for all there was to learn, no one ever bothered. Each new fool and tyrant to rise up from the mob simply set about repeating the whole fiasco, convinced that they were different, better, smarter. Until the earth drinks deep again.
This is where things stand now and the whole thing was fairly simplified as I expected. As for the last season we lack a lot: "motivations". So the big mistery is how the two timelines are related, how they'll resolve, and in particular what's Jacob and anti-Jacob's plan.
Submitted by Abalieno on February 1, 2010 - 07:33.
TV-Nihon has released the "All Riders Versus Dai Shocker" movie, probably bad as a movie but filled with this kind of fanservice.
Both great and ridiculous at the same degree and at the same time. So, awesome.
From left to right (mistakes are possible): Shin, ZX, Super-1, Skyrider, Stronger, Amazon, X, Riderman, Agito, Ryuki, Faiz, Blade, Hibiki, Kabuto, Den-O, Kiva, Black, Black RX, ZO.
On bike: V3, No. 1, No. 3.
Submitted by Abalieno on November 20, 2009 - 05:50.
On Twitter I said that the RPS review of Modern Warfare 2 is one of the best reviews I've ever read. Precise, insightful and to the point. Instead I disagree with the sort of rant that Kieron Gillen wrote today about the particular level. So here is what I think about it:
Modern Warfare 2 never intended nor was expected to be a realistic simulator. It's not Arma 2 or Operation Flashpoint. It's instead a bombastic, gratuitous and exploitative Hollywood experience. It wants to be cool without being smart. So, as with everything, the point is to criticize it for what it wants to be. What this game wants is to sell copies and be hugely profitable, shatter records. And it seems that it is doing just that. What it is interesting is to understand why it happens and why this game sells so much and is so much successful.
It's successful because it arrogantly boasts how rich it is. In your face. That level is no exception compared to the others. It's lush. The shock value is secondary to the visual, and even in that level the gameplay is gold. Many people this week go to see that awful movie that is 2012. In a very vaguely similar way Stephen King wrote a book where he traps a small town within a dome. To observe people get pushed to the limit and see how they react. That level in the game doesn't need to be realistic. The RPS article says: "As others have noted, the most disturbing part of No Russian is its context. A few seconds previously you’re involved in a high-speed James Bond chase involving snowmobiles. A few seconds later, you’re mowing down civilians. That tonal shift isn’t brutal. It’s laughable." There's no brutal transition instead. The whole game is like that. In the same way the snowmobiles chase was so utterly unrealistic and bombastic, so is what follows. The game wants to resemble reality, pretend to be recognizable and familiar enough to be fun. So what they do in that level is putting a lot of work in the animations and scripting to the extremes and polish and detail. Make an airport and make it good to watch and play in. Make it lavish. Tons of stuff goes on and everything is very nicely done and resembling reality enough to feel somewhat unsettling. What works here is not the moral dilemma, it's just that kind of open massacre that, justified or plausible or not, stays in the mind of the people. In the same way you could have set it in a school or some other densely populated place (a church, a mall, whatever). It works.
They could do it, so why not? It's cool in a stupid way. The plot doesn't make sense but it never wanted to. It's a joke, an excuse to be spectacular. I suspect that even the purple prose about war is just there as a parody and the fake pretense to make it "serious". Bombastic drama. But not serious in the sense that it has (or wants to have) an actual depth, it only needs to give an excuse to explore the possibilities that are "cool" to see and play, and that are vaguely connected with a common idea of "modern" warfare. A massacre in an airport is cool to see and play. The russian invasion is cool to see and play, so is the snowmobile chase. These are all silly excuses to "enable" and pack together the most disparate experiences I've seen in a shooter. If you strip that level of its story elements you get a very fun shooting sequence. You can replay it various times and always find something new you didn't notice. The first part starts in black, hearing just sounds, then a terse dialogue that builds the tension, then the opening that is rather spectacular and sudden. From that point onward the experience is mostly visual and well crafted. The music is right, the extremely slow speed mimics in a way how you are trapped in a role, forced into a role. This slowness also makes everything kind of detached, yet deliberate and unavoidable. It doesn't want to really make sense, it just sets a mood. Then there's the sequence where you fight the cops. Again wonderfully executed. You can blow up the airplane engines, you can shoot at the helicopters and make them explode, lots of stuff going on and a rather fun shooting sequence with lush graphic everywhere. No other shooter out there is so well realized and filled with details. Beautiful to watch, fun to play.
This controversial level in the end won't produce any important debate, or make people think. It doesn't want. It wants to be cool and spectacular. In the end that level sells copies, and it probably sells more copies than if it wasn't there. People talk about the game, it draws the attention even from those that wouldn't look at it otherwise. In the end people don't buy it because the plot gave them deep thoughts, but because the game is lush, rich, fun to play, varied, spectacular.
The story stays stupid enough to not get in the way of the shooting. This sells copies. There is no over exposition or dense stuff that would turn people off. It's what Entertainment wants to be. Accessible and straightforward and without any other pretense than selling copies without scruples. It's the simple and cynical and deliberate and lucid commercial success, done the way it has to be done. The writers that worked on Modern Warfare knew what their role was and didn't pretend to act as protagonists. They knew very well the story is very secondary, only "enabling" the shooting to happen and weakly link together the most disparate and edgy shooting scenes.
Submitted by Abalieno on October 26, 2009 - 06:34.
Arthmail:
Now, i didn't see your posts, but from the reaction here on the board, it sounds to me like you made personal attacks.
If you read my reconstructed post and didn't see any "personal attacks" it's because there were none.
I imagine that Werthead considered a personal attack when I said he was making false claims and then the part at the end where I was calling people hypocritical. It was all done in context and with argumentation. There were no gratuitous personal attacks.
Again, your being pretty subjective with your response. What some have argued (perhaps Werthead has, i can't remember), is that the series will not be done with 10 books because HALF OF THE SHIT THAT HAPPENS IN THE SERIES HAS YET TO BE EXPLAINED.
I had understood his point. Nor I have claimed the contrary.
That's why I was calling it a linguistic problem. That's why I said it's subjective whether or not the series receives a proper, satisfying closure. You can't set objectively what a reader may find satisfying or not. Nor you can say objectively if enough plots threads are resolved to match your own personal idea of "complete".
What I pointed out and that is objective is that the Malazan series has 10 books. And while the world in there is not "over", the series is. It has a start and an end, and it followed the pattern that was set and delivered. You people are arguing even on this.
If I make a project to build an house, set a timeframe and budget. Then I go on to build the house and in the end it takes twice the time, twice the budget, and there's no roof. Am I allowed to call the project a "failure"?
I didn't say ASoIaF was a failure because it sucks or because it wasn't successful enough. I called it a failure, as a project, because Martin himself wasn't able to match his own promises and doesn't seem to be able to stay ahead of the thing and give it a proper closure (objectively as in: maintaining his own declared plan of writing and finishing the series in 7 books).
By "your own" definition of "complete", ASoIaF may not be complete even if those 7 books are finished. So comparing Malazan to ASoIaF on this argument is wrong. You are using two different standards.
I don't remember him justifying it that way. As for quality, its BEEN proven. ASOIAF is superior to Malazan in any number of ways
It's your opinion that it is superior. And I would restrain to use popularity as a proof since even "Twilight" may end up as more popular than ASoIaF and so of a better quality. Let's just not go there.
When I said quality has yet to be proven I intended for books past 3 (it's with book 4 that difficulties started to rise and that many readers considered not up to the quality standard Martin set). Now that the delays are getting more important and that Martin is struggling more and more, quality has to be proven. We can't say if in the end he will actually match the readers expectations. For now he justifies the delays in the name of quality, but quality has yet to be proven (considering that Martin may find harder to write the series now compared to 12 years ago, which is part of my argument).
Everyone here wishes that Erikson as well started to delay his books indefinitely in the name of quality. I'd be wary to suggest that. First because it's utterly ludicrous since writers aren't computers and you can't simply order a writer to work under set rules, assuming that what works for Martin would work for Erikson and vice versa. Secondly because it's not an absolute rule that a delay equals better quality.
As China Meiveille said, Martin is not your bitch. As a fan of the series, it is troubling how long its taking Martin to finish even the next book, let alone others. As for not being successful, well, some people with money are pumping considerable amounts of said money into a tv project based on the novels. But if speaking strictly about the novels, how in gods green garden do you know what his original intent was? And how, exactly, did he betray it?
Yes, I see you have a problem not recognizing the context in which I used the word "successful".
As far as critical response, popularity and whatnot, ASoIaF is successful. Without a doubt more successful than Malazan will ever hope to be. Not only I know that but I even see very well the motivations.
I said it betrayed its original intent as in taking way longer than Martin originally planned and plausibly not being completed as Martin originally planned (as in: seven books). Erikson is planning new projects now that his first is near completion, projects set in the same fictional world, but different projects. Martin has to finish this one before he can plan another, even if a new one could be as well set in the same fictional world. Can't you see that their situation is not the same?
Heres a concept he could have used. Cut the books in half with a decent editor, loose a shit ton of reduandant stories, and move on. And when i mean cut in half, i mean don't have the friggin things 1000 pages nearly every book. He could have fulfilled his contract obligations by simply having 500 page books and increasing the quality of each one.
Only that "increasing the quality" is what you say.
In the same way people are saying each book should be 300 pages considering that all they enjoy are the fireworks. The problem is that not everyone wants that. Because what sets apart Malazan is not the fireworks, but everything else.
Different readers enjoy different things, even within the same book. You should also realize at this point that Erikson is "not your bitch". Not writing what you enjoy the most. In the same way Martin doesn't write stuff that I enjoy the most. But even if I don't like especially what Martin writes you don't see me pretending to give him writing lessons, while people here do it all the time in regards to Erikson (like you did up here).
In particular, Erikson himself made this point clear:
Some of my readers would rather I cut to the chase quicker than I do; to which I can only respond that my reasons for doing what I do continue to satisfy me, and trust me, if I am not satisfied absolutely no-one else will be. I am very deliberate in my approach, and I would humbly remind those impatient readers that their pace is not my pace; that reading is an engagement distinct from that of writing, and that at no time do I pad for the hell of it – again, I have my reasons!
By the way, while looking up that quote I found another that demonstrates pretty well how some claims Werthead made were utterly wrong. This is what Werthead says:
The Malazan Book of the Fallen was a project deliberately solicited to be a money-making series for Bantam UK. It was, literally, picked up to do the business for them that Wheel of Time did for Tor and Orbit. That's why they asked for 10 books when Erikson wasn't thinking about anywhere near that many and that's why they offered him such a colossal sum of money for it.
So he says that it was Bantam idea to propose him a series of 10 books and that they convinced him through a colossal sum of money.
That's not what Erikson himself says though:
I admit to some coyness at first. When the deal was being made for the first novel, it was a one-off contract, with first rights of refusal for the next one. It was only after 'Gardens' came out that I made mention of my grander scheme: ten books. And since by that point I was finishing up the second novel, Deadhouse Gates, I suspect it was seen as encouraging, in that I was able to deliver manuscripts at a decent pace, and I didn't balk at the notion of doing one a year. It's hard to consider the notions of everyone else involved -- I was, I suspect, both confident and naive, as only unseasoned writers can be. The series never felt too big, never felt impossible, or frightening. All I knew was an immense, burning impatience. I had the arc laid out in my mind: I knew where it was going and where and how it would end and I just wanted to get there.
Also, about the series not being complete as you argued thorough this thread:
With the tenth novel, The Crippled God, the ‘Malazan Book of the Fallen’ ends. While Cam (Ian Esslemont) has a few more to write in that sequence, I do not. The two new trilogies I am signed to write share the world and its cosmos, but they do not resume the arc of the Fallen. This may seem an odd distinction, maybe even an unconvincing one, but it is sharp in my mind. The whole point of the Malazan Book of the Fallen was to deliver a self-contained series, a slice of history, and to give the readers a sense of completion when they read the last line on the last page.
Submitted by Abalieno on October 25, 2009 - 18:46.
Once again I was participating to an interesting debate on Westeros forum when a moderator realized my arguments were not easy to counter in a normal discussion and so deleted all my posts. *groan*
I was quite pissed because I had written a lot and I'm one of those who can't write the same thing twice. So now I had to rebuild everything and is only a pale imitation of a discussion that I considered engaging (not just with him) and that I was enjoying.
This is more or less what it was, it appends at the end of this thread:
--
Me: ASoIaF (A Song of Ice and Fire, aka Martin's own fantasy series) risks to not be realistically realized and completed.
Werthead:
And so does Malazan. There's a hell of a long way to go yet.
You still don't think the series finishes with The Crippled God though, do you? Not even the authors are suggesting that. The only thing that finishes in the next book is the Crippled God story arc. Many, many other storylines stretching back to Book 1 will be going on for many years and many more books to come.
There is no more sign that ASoIaF cannot be brought to a conclusion than Malazan can be.
The Malazan series is ten books. It is going to be complete with that last book.
What Werthead considers "complete" is subjective. It's a matter of quality. It's a matter of whether or not the last book will offer readers what they consider a satisfying conclusion and proper closure. The last book isn't out so we can't say if it delivers from a subjective point of view or not. If it's good or not. But it's plain naive to argue that since more books are planned beyond the main series, and since we don't know what happened to every character, then the Malazan series is to be considered as unfinished and as a failure in the same way of ASoIaF. Or even that their situation is comparable. That's a quite ludicrous thing to say.
The difference is that Erikson is going to finish the series and it will be out there for readers to say if it's good or if it's shit. He went to the point and fulfilled his promises to the publisher and his readers.
Martin instead is holding back, and justifying these delays in the name of quality. But quality that has still to be proven and not to be taken so easily for granted.
Here people are being persuaded that a book taking forever is always synonymous of quality. It's not. It is more like a hope of his faithful readers that is yet to be fulfilled. It's suspended. A possibility but not a truth. It is ludicrous to say that Martin's way of doing his series is something that Erikson should learn for himself and that is to be preferred (obviously assuming that it is even possible to translate a writing process from a writer to another like a program in a computer, but we're just pretending in support of a discussion). Subjectively you can make your choice and have your preference, but no one can say if these delays are really justifying the quality of the book. Even more it's arguable that is to be preferred a series that appears to stick to an high quality standard but that takes 20 years to get to the point, and actually not getting to the point at all, to one that stays on track both from the schedule perspective and writing intent of its writer, even if it suffers form some mistakes along the way and that sacrificed the strive for perfection to not lose anything of its deliberateness, drive and ultimate goal.
What Werthead does here is playing on semantics because he's more interested to win an internet argument than actually understanding what I'm saying and having a normal discussion. So this has now become a linguistic problem.
How many trees you need to make a wood? 100? If 100 trees make a wood then what are 99 trees? Some trees together?
Words are just words. We use them to make ourselves understood but the words don't mirror reality and can be used to deceive (a theme that should be well known to Malazan readers). "Complete" is solely what you consider so. It's something subjective. You decide for yourself what you consider complete. But it is a fact that the Malazan series is 10 books. It was ten books when it was planned and it was delivered that way. So, as a project, it is complete. There are may be more books that Erikson decides to write that are set in the same world, but they would be their own projects. Projects within other projects. ASoIaF is planned to have 7 books. At this point it is not so plausible that Martin is going to deliver them and complete the series.
I will consider ASoIaF complete even if:
- Not all plot threads will be completely resolved in the last book.
- The conclusion sucks.
- Martin decides to write a sequel or prequel.
In the EXACT same way Erikson decided to write more books, Martin may decide as well (as long he achieves immortality) to write more books set in the same world. Does this mean that the series isn't complete?
Are you saying that since now Stephen King has linked all his books through the Dark Tower now all those books are to be considered incomplete because there may be an odd character that may appear in another book sometime in the future?
What I said is that, as a project, the Malazan series is plausibly going to be completed. As a project it was "successful", in the sense that it went as planned and Erikson delivered the goods. He wrote it in the exact way he wanted to write it. It is an accomplished thing. Fully realized. This doesn't mean that it's automatically great and everyone is going to love it. That's for the readers to say. But as a project it worked. ASoIaF, as a project, was a failure. Because Martin planned seven books and is not plausible that we'll see the end of it. It took him too long to write the thing, much longer than he thought. You can love it as much you want, but this doesn't make it a "successful" project. Because as a project it betrayed its original intent and proved to be harder and above what Martin seems able to handle when facing human limits.
To re-rail back the discussion on the only point that was meaningful in what I was saying: I believe that Erikson wrote this series in the only way it was possible to write it. Taking more time for each book would mean stretching it over a too long period of time and it is very likely that done that way Erikson would have lost momentum, focus and deliberateness. Here we assume again that more time equals better quality. Not always, not univocally. It's probable that the series would have gained in consistence and error-free continuity but Erikson himself decided that those mistakes weren't a priority in what he wanted to achieve. It's up to the readers then to say what they care the most about and if they enjoyed what he made in the way he made it.
That's why I was saying that from my point of view it would make sense to make a revision AFTER the series is complete. Because I believe that there are significant margins of improvement and you can take care of the minor details and inconsistencies that slipped through. But the series itself, with its scope and intent, was executed in the only way that was humanly possible with a project with this scope and ambition. There aren't better ways to do it. Stretching it over a period of 20 years would mean risking of getting swallowed and never again see the way out (not unlike Martin). Erikson proved that he could stay ahead of the thing, and demonstrated to be in control of it. Much more than any other example in fantasy.
That's why I say it is a success. Even if it doesn't mean that everyone is going to love it just because the writer fully realized what he intended to realize.
Then there's the part where Werthead makes false claims in support of his theories. I knows he is well informed but he presents what are wild guesses as proven facts and people on those forums are starting to believe him because those guesses are plausible. But something plausible doesn't make it true. Easier to believe, sure, but not true. It may be true, but we can't simply take something plausible for granted as if it was proven.
"It took until 2006 for the advance to be paid back"
"it took significantly longer than expected for the series to make any money."
"it's not doing anything even remotely like it was commissioned to do."
These are rather precise claims he made. I asked him to prove these claims and he deleted my posts instead. This is why I say that he makes wild, rough guesses and then pretends that we believe them. A lie that is made of parts that are true is a lie that is plausible, but still a lie. Werthead's behavior leads to believe people here that "he knows stuff", when instead he makes wild guesses that originate from true things he knows. Then he repeats those guesses across multiple forums over and over and over and over till he himself is persuaded that they are true. He brainwashed us and himself. And again I repeat that HE IS well informed, if he only stuck to things he know and didn't make up the rest.
That's the point where I said that the Malazan series should have taught him to not believe of truths that are made-up. He's like Karsa before the journey, with the difference that he makes up his own lies.
--
I also commented that I saw plenty of times on those forums people comparing Erikson's books to "anime" or "comic books" as a way to diminish their value and ridicule them in a way they believe is so subtle and smart, when instead it is really not.
That's why I said that it's a proof of how it seems the great majority of people are deeply hardwired hypocrite.
They read "fantasy" so they are ready to spring up and proudly defend the genre when one of those "fantasy versus serious literature" arguments comes up. They defend their own garden. Ready to go against those who call fantasy as a lesser form of literature and mock books that have magic, wizards and trolls.
But then they themselves have no concerns calling the Malazan series "anime in book form" or "literary comic book" as a cheap way to diminish its value and reduce the books to just a bunch of spectacular scenes. It's the same as usual: people mocking what they do not understand in order to celebrate their own stuff and elevate it above the rest.
Next time your daddy mocks your fantasy book collection just remember that you are no different.
Submitted by Abalieno on October 16, 2009 - 16:27.
As you can see from the sidebar I got stuck on the review of "A Game of Thrones", that was never written. One reason is that I've read various reviews of it that I considered quite on the point. On the other side I have a critical position to it that I don't know how to put without being misunderstood or without sounding overly negative. And falling in The Trap. Then I'm also lazy.
The Trap.
When I was back reading fantasy, two years ago now, I craved for opinions to direct my interest to The Goods. Swallowed entire forums and blogs. Got the handle of where the whole genre sat, and started reading. All that feedback was precious, and reflected in what I read. I saw a point. Now I see it all too well. Too much.
Two years pass and instead of seeing the freedom of knowledge I see the cage. The super-structure. The same blogs that I had read with interest and (proven) trust now hold no novelty. I know what they are going to say about a particular book well before the review appears. I see hidden agendas. I see prejudices everywhere, pre-established opinions. I see, in general, a lack of truthfulness. A lack of clinging to The Point (that is, giving an immaculate, sincere subjective-POV & analysis on a book). Basically: an honest emancipation from this or that trend, from this or that hidden intent, from this or that cultural/tribal sub-stream.
Forums, all forums are modern tribes. They have their habits, their pre-constituted roles, their rituals. And they also have their functional rivalries with this and that, and their hidden or manifest purposes and intents. The thing has boundaries, and what's within takes the shape of The Cage. And they fall in The Trap.
That is: being ready to see prejudices in this and that, but, somehow, completely incapable of seeing the exact same prejudice that exists in slightly different form. So it gets predictable. You see people that take the shape of their Cage. When you can see that Cage what it says stops being interesting. You know what it's saying. You know how the brain is rigged, and that it has boundaries.
There things stop being interesting that they start being functional.
What's being written stops having a point for what's the implied manifest intent (the immaculate & sincere subjective thing of analysis & opinion) and falls in the mind trap of justifying a certain pre-existing stance. It strengthens the tribe. Make it legitimate. Make it rise above. Upheaval and rebellion against heretics and/or rival tribe. In spectacular specularity.
That's the point where you have to pick sides or get annihilated (or put aside, or branded as Troll). The Cage doesn't admit ambiguity or neutrality. Or truthfulness, that is. The act of sincerity and objectivity. Or at least self-observation on 2nd or 3rd level to detect the blind spot.
So I was stuck there, finding a way to give an opinion without simultaneously building a Cage & secret intent around me. Doubting about my writing and myself. Got stuck.
Submitted by Abalieno on September 16, 2009 - 18:24.
Awesome.
I found a huge batch (22Gb, for 48 episodes) of Kamen Rider Kiva. It's in HD, the only KR in HD along the latest Decade and W/Double. Kiva is maybe the most badass among all KR series.
This batch is RAW, meaning that there are no subs (yet). If you want subs you'll have to stick to the lower resolution TN release. I hope they either release softsubs or make an HD release. It's worth it.
I also discovered (if I'm not mistaken) that the guy who wrote 90% of the episodes of every Kamen Rider series is the father of Takehiko Inoue, creator of Slam Dunk and Vagabond. One impressive lineage. Kiva is all his making.
HD RAW batch - TN subbed releases
How could the kid in you not thoroughly adore this? I sure do.
Submitted by Abalieno on September 10, 2009 - 12:22.
I started watching doramas (japanese TV dramas) I stumbled into this masterpiece: Nobuta wo Produce (torrent)
P.S.: There's a slightly (mostly unseeded) better version H264 with translations that are maybe better. torrent
P.P.S.: Yes, definitely better translation.
One thing I noticed is that episodes of japanese dramas that last 1/1.5 hours are divided into two or three parts, and every part has its own narrative thread and conclusion. So if someone starts watching halfway through he still can follow what goes on (this works on TV). Then all the threads in the whole episode are interconnected together to reward those who followed for beginning to end. It's a rather clever design :)
I watched the first episode of this drama, then watched it again a month later. It's awesome. Just a typical school drama like every other anime you may have seen (here live), with one new girl in the school getting bullied, and the smart, beautiful and charismatic guy coming to rescue her. But in spite of a trite plot and humor that just won't work for a western audience (pathetic), this is absolutely fantastic. It has a great direction, great soundtrack and it's actually filled with good, natural acting. There's still a lot of the typical acting excess style of japanese shows, but at the end the characters grow on you and feel authentic. The story is a pleasure to follow and they are able to tell with it something that isn't so shallow as the concept would suggest. The typical idol protagonist just works here, especially when he's together with his crazy friend.
I'm actually quite impressed by this show. It shows emotion in a good, uncompromised way and it's amazingly produced. Great cast all around too.
The first episode is slightly more than an hour long and self contained enough to be enjoyed on its own. Whole series is 10 episodes.
Submitted by Abalieno on September 3, 2009 - 16:58.
Once again I don't know where the blog will go or if it will survive. In any case I'm MrSkimpole on Twitter. I'll keep that much more up to date and will comment more than books (but no, nothing about my private life).
Now I understand why something so stupid is so popular: it rewards lack of commitment .
The blog was passively building again pressure on me and I felt constrained.
Submitted by Abalieno on June 6, 2009 - 11:28.
If you can.
He's only in north-east Italy circumscription and I can't vote him directly. I wanted to vote Debora Serracchiani of PD, but she's also in another zone and I don't know anyone who's listed in mine.
My vote goes for Sinistra e Liberta' even if it's a vote lost (won't likely reach 4%), at least for once I won't feel betrayed.
With xenophobia and right-wing already winning in exit-polls and polls in other zones of Europe this time a vote of protest is a meaningful one.
Things are going to get much worse before they can get better.
Submitted by Abalieno on May 20, 2009 - 06:16.
A few years ago ATI couldn't compete with nVidia. They made some good cards, but you always had too many small issues on this or that game and the drivers weren't always good.
Last year ATI releases the 8400 series and it was suddenly the ONLY choice. The videocards were surprisingly cheap and the performance very solid. In the past the "best choice" would change every few months, today the best choice is still similar to the one of one year ago.
This is just the result of the Farcry 2 benchmark on my PC, with a standard 4850:
October 2008
Average Framerate: 47.47
Max. Framerate: 62.76
Min. Framerate: 38.11
February 2009
Average Framerate: 49.51
Max. Framerate: 66.72
Min. Framerate: 39.68
May 2009
Average Framerate: 52.49
Max. Framerate: 67.24
Min. Framerate: 40.78
A few years ago when I ran a benchmark I was always getting slightly worse results every few months. This is not a huge improvement, but at least with every driver they make a small step forward and none backwards.
Between the first and second release they fixed some sharp choke points (the performance curve is now much smoother), between the second and third there was an overall increase. Not too bad considering this was already a very good card with solid performance when it launched.
Submitted by Abalieno on May 16, 2009 - 01:07.
I did enjoy watching the season finale, but if I think about it it was one of the worse episodes since the very beginning.
My enjoyment mostly depended from good pacing and screenplay. Once again Lost had an execution that was superior to the actual merits. I only expected (and pretended) one thing from this finale: that it told us if the incident was meant to reproduce "things as we know them" or if the losties were successful to change the timeline.
Well, the finale is everything BUT that. There are three different meaningful segments. The first that introduces Jacob and anti-Jacob, the second with the losties and their attempt to explode the bomb in the past, and a third in the future (of whatever timeline) with Lock now duplicating himself.
There isn't much to say about the first and last segment. All the elements introduced are new, showing us a whole new story to retcon with all we've seen up to this point. So we got a new factional split (Jacob, anti-Jacob) that we need to include in the already chaotic scenario. This part could be the interesting part, but you can see now the discussion in the forums, all the arguing on the new elements sounds ridicule at best. I swear, if Lost didn't work to bring up to this point, NO ONE would watch the show on the premises we have now. Egyptian gods who fish in the ocean and have extremely improbable dialogues. Resurrections. Evil clones. Apparitions.
If there's one thing where Lost succeeded is in making us bite onto all this without too many concerns. Take it seriously. This is the MOST RIDICULE plot ever. Yet we are able to chat, between us, like it's something "serious".
The second chunk with the losties is fun to watch, but, really, think about it. It's the worst writing ever. A bunch of unbelievable motivations only to create improbable attrition between the cast. None of what was shown was important if not to delay some more what everyone knew was going to happen anyway. It was all drama around the characters. Juliet changing idea, the silly testosterone brawl between Sawyer and Jack, more blood. How much blood Jack lost in the last two episodes? A change of scenes and blood becomes make-up to make these faces more 'seasoned'. The love tension between Jack and Kate when they chat amiably while Sayid is dying in the van. The intense looks. And finally the drama scene between Sawyer and Juliet while he tries to desperately save her. How all fucking gratuitous.
Soap-opera grandmas are pointing their fingers and laughing at all of us. Soap-operas nowadays have more dignity than that. We got a collection of everything awful in this show, glazed anew with typical scenes and dialogues that are cut & pasted from the most trite tradition without any effort.
And then we got more mumbo-jumbo about Locke and evil-Locke, Jacob and anti-Jacob (conveniently dressed too). Simply put: more nonsense. Here they lost me, because I'm really not interested about what they are doing here. The whole thing about the Dharma, the experiment, the weird apparitions and so on were engaging and interesting. Now it's all collapsing into a big joke. A messy pile where they put everything nerdy they could find. The pretense of believability, that was the quality at the base of this show, has blown up into nonsense.
If I have to guess the anti-Jacob is also the smoke monster, who is also evil-Locke. Jacob enjoys messing with people, while anti-Jacob is the one who prefers being left alone and would like as well to get rid of Jacob and enjoy a quiet life.
In short, we got all the hints that the last season will be a disaster.
(of course there's only one foot left of the statue, it's all unbalanced on the front. It's a miracle that it stays up like that)
Submitted by Abalieno on May 8, 2009 - 05:13.
I read that some people didn't like the latest two episodes, while I think they were great and finally moving toward a conclusion instead of introducing redundant elements.
My current speculation: they are all going to die.
Why?
Well, things are now so complicate that it's impossible to deal with them on their own level. So I'll simplify a lot. The current time travel theory, proven by the fact that Locke sees himself and Daniel exists at the same time as adult himself and in the belly of his mother, is that copies are made of those who travel. Ben turning the wheel caused the island to "skip" (with Sawyer and friends). When Jack and friends go back to the island they join the same "jump" of Sawyer and go back in the past. This means that there are two Sawyers and two Jacks.
Their goal is now to blow up the island, so that everything there changes and the event that leads to the plane crashing won't happen. This also means that the plane, with their "copies" aboard, won't crash and they'll go on with a "normal" life.
This logic explains the time paradox that happens to Locke (the compass). In the same way copies are made when you jump in the past, copies are made even if you jump in the future. So Locke can basically give himself the compass.
But what happens if one Sawyer leaves with the submarine with Juliet and the other Sawyer does not crash with the plane? That we have two Sawyer around. I don't think this is going to work, so there's a possibility that if the plan works, then their copies need to die, so that their copies in the future can go on. There's some toll that probably needs to be paid as things are never easy.
If this is what happens then Sawyer will never meet Juliet as they've never met in the standard timeline (Sawyer never crashed, Juliet never needed to go to the island as the island blew up). This brings the whole theme led by Kate who actually doesn't want this reset, while Jack and Sayid consider what happen miserable enough to be worth of cancellation:
"It was not all misery."
"Enough of it was."
Along this, there's the theme of destiny. Here destiny is moved by the island. It's the island who moved them exactly at that time before the "incident" that are trying to prevent. It's also the island that hand picked Locke, Ben and others without sending them in the past. What's the purpose? My guess is self-destruction but motivations are obscure and impossible to figure out at this point.
But if you look at the bigger picture, you can definitely see a common theme. Locke "knows" now. He's the only reliable one. Locke also says that Sun is going to be again with Jin. Why? Because it all still belong to the main timeline: the plane doesn't crash and Sun and Jin were together on that plane.
So this is starting to look a lot like Donnie Darko:
In fact, the time travel stuff is more of a smokescreen. At heart, this is the story of a young man who is doomed -- and a merciful God who gives him twenty-eight days of a life that never existed, in which to become a hero and a rebel, and to find love.
With the difference that in this case they aren't doomed, and will be able to go on with their previous life. It wasn't just a dream, but close.
But before they save themselves, they all have to die. Those in the past in order to complete the plan and let their copies live. Those in the future because they are orphans of a timeline (the island blew up, so Locke and Ben can't be on it, timeline-wise those scenes happen BEFORE what we're seeing in the past).
There's a problem, though. Sun has a picture of them in the Dharma initiative, and there's also a sixth season to fill. So this hints that, if the future is their future as that picture hints, they won't succeed in blowing up the island.
Or maybe the picture itself is a fake the island produced.
Submitted by Abalieno on May 4, 2009 - 23:26.
Almost three years after the original attempt, I spent the Sunday revising my EPIC install of Baldur's Gate. That means the first and second game integrated seamlessly and with more than 170 patches and fixes applied.
I spent some time researching the possible conflicts and incompatibilities, so I hope the final result is solid. Then I even made one 4Gb zip file and I'll burn it on a DVD, to keep it for the future :)
I wonder if I'll make out of Candlekeep this time.
An old discussion of whereabouts can be found here.
(And, yep, I even added the Saerileth NPC. It has quite a reputation online.)
Submitted by Abalieno on April 28, 2009 - 23:41.
 20th Century Boys is a 22+2 volumes long manga series by Naoki Urasawa that is rather popular in Japan.
In a way it can be considered the japanese version of Stephen King's IT (as the recent "Kappa No Coo" animated movie is the japanese version of E.T.). The narrative proceeds in parallel following a group of friends as kids and then when they grow up, all done through flashbacks and glimpses and then a whole lot of retro-connections and new revelations that make you go back and reread to try to figure out something new. There aren't all that many works of fiction with an elaborate mythology with payback on the long run, all the while trying to unveil mysteries and tie together the multiple plot threads. Lost, Battlestar Galactica, X-files, Erikson's Malazan series, Akira, Evangelion, Donnie Darko, these are examples of mythologies that have a certain ambition and development in common, and all of them are flawed in a way or another.
The manga was great because it creates so many speculations. The more volumes you read, the more crazy theories come up and Urasawa keeps you constantly on the brink of some huge revelation that never comes but also never completely disappoint. It's the kind of manga that you read frenetically to reach the last page, then are left wanting more. This movie is one of the most faithful transpositions of fiction I've seen, but it kinda fails to be good as its own thing, and it's also not so good even when linked to the manga. It tells nothing more.
However, it's full of awesome and makes you go quickly through the manga. Where it fails is in feeling authentic. Even the manga has some naive parts but they seem to work better as one of Urasawa's skills is about playing these common, naive themes and make them look serious and dramatic. The movie, in being a movie and not for some flaws of transposition, appears more "stiff" and fake-ish. The acting is nowhere realistic and instead of drama you have the effect of a comedy, so when there are dramatic scenes that would require some involvement you are left watching with a big disconnection with what is going on.
The movie doesn't seem to miss any step, though. The plot is all there, nothing is out of place and the cast, especially the kids, seems coming alive out of the drawn page. But again it doesn't work to its full potential because all the time is used to follow the plot and not enough to develop characters and have the spectator care for them. I have no idea what is going to think of this movie one who didn't read the manga. Even after twenty-two 200-pages long volumes I still mistake a character for another, or completely forget someone. The risk is that this movie would be extremely hard to follow, or maybe the opposite, it would be more easy to like because you can focus on a simplified exposition and so recollect only what's really relevant.
Despite the flaws with realism, stiff acting and lack of serious character development, it's an interesting movie that tries to keep an impossible balance between looking "serious" and making a caricature of everything. In the end it's what makes it awesome. It plays with wonder and many of the typical japanese unrealistic situations common in the mangas. The manga version does all of this much better, this movie is the most faithful transposition possible, especially the iconography. Some scenes seem done as movie first, and then drawn in the manga.
Even if almost two hours and half long, this isn't all. Just the first of a trilogy :)
P.S.
You may notice that the end song in the movie is the same I posted about three years ago.
Submitted by Abalieno on April 18, 2009 - 03:59.
I've already summarized my position on internet piracy. It hasn't changed now.
The Piratebay trial is a joke. The industry wants a show, something to make example of. Politics and law should NEVER mix. Politics defines the law, but then the law must have a practical use, not a political one. It should be objective and impartial. Prosecuting someone because law was violated is one thing, another is prosecuting one because of his political ideas, or to make an example, or to publicize an action.
The Piratebay trial has ENTIRELY different purposes than those exposed during the trial. Already for this reason it should be halted. Closing the tracker is secondary to the feedback across the media, secondary to the real intent behind the trial: it's a political and cultural war.
The hypocrisy of this fight starts from semantics. Pirates are "thiefs", and copying is "stealing". The moment you hear, in every context, an argument that is dramatized beyond its real scope is the moment you should understand that the argument is being manipulated. When you are on the right side you don't need to spin words and present things under an untrue light. Whenever hypocrisy shows, it reveals a personal interest. And that interest surpasses ANY desire for truth. You take whatever is convenient to you. Lies, truths. What matters isn't truth, but convenience.
On these sole premises it's enough for me to judge this trial as dishonest and unfounded. There are no facts, no truths. Just twisted semantics, speculations and convenient arguments. If lies are the foundation of your claims, then those claims don't deserve to be heard. Even less in trial.
The facts: I read that the main cause of the sentence was that the guys were operating the site for a profit. During the trial the prosecutors tossed around fancy figures about how much those guys earned. I do not care. It's a trial, either you have proofs, or you don't. Numbers have to be exact, proven numbers. Opinions don't matter. If you want a sentence based on those arguments then tell the police to figure it out. Even if it's money from donations it should be money that must leave a track.
Main point: since this whole argument is already a "shade of gray" kinda thing. Then whether they make money or not is, imo, a good starting point where to draw a line.
IF (case 1) it's the money the center of the argument then. 1) you track that money, then give it all back to RIAA. 2) if you can't track the money anymore, then you sentence the piratebay guys to operate the site "publicly", meaning that donations will be monitored by the police, so that they can control that nothing is being earned. Problem solved. Real criminal organization don't operate for free. They operate for an interest. Money is the best point where to draw a line between what's legal and what isn't. As with drugs, it's (practically) better to monitor than to forbid.
Sounds fancy? Yes, because it's another sign that the motivations are elsewhere and that this whole thing is a farce.
IF (case 2) instead the center of the argument is about the service itself. Then you stop the service. You have probably noticed how the RIAA, ESA and other organizations are so cheerful about the event. Yet the Piratebay is operating as always. Why they are happy if the service is sill there and pirates are still sharing illegally as they always did? Because, again, the real intent is secondary to closing the service. The real intent is to win a political battle. The real intent is to sue people for their ideas. Because they challenged the establishment, and so needs to be punished. Made an example of. If the service is the problem, you stop the service first and foremost. You don't need to put in jail anyone as the guys brought to the trial aren't guilty of ANYTHING. The existence of the system is. The system is what they should deal with. The act of creating the system is not a violation of the law, the use of the system is. And the existence of the system favors the breaking the law. So you stop the system, but there is NO ONE who is responsible of violating the law.
If not, it's because it's a political trial and want to prosecute people because of what they think and represent. It's not the existence of the system, but it's political message. During the trial was asked why they don't sue Google, as Google also indexes illegal material. The answer was that Google "cooperates". Hence the Piratebay is to sue because they don't have the right attitude, because they challenge openly the industry. For their ideas.
IF (case 3) the argument is the copy of material, that is forbidden by the law. Then the Piratebay guys ARE INNOCENT. Clean. No proofs were brought at the trial that those individuals shared themselves illegal material. They provided a service. They aren't directly responsible of anything and cannot be processed for these motivations.
There aren't ANY other arguments that are coherent. The problem is either money, the service itself, or the material being distributed. Yet the industry sole concern is to hit the individuals. Fine them for fancy amounts of money and put them in jail. Why? Because it's a political and cultural problem, whose real impact is entirely symbolic. The problem is, politics shouldn't enter a trial. This can't be allowed and it's THIS to set a worrying precedent. That you can be sued for what you think or for what you represent. For your political ideas. Or for your intentions. For behaving outside the norm they've set. Because you threat the establishment and they can't allow it.
Absolutely nothing of what happens here is new. With every counterculture that grows to a menacing point the result is that individuals are hit for their political ideas. If no proofs exist, they are invented. You hit innocents if you have to. What matters is the result.
But while history demonstrates that countercultures never survive for long, it also demonstrates that there's no victory. This industry is dead. What we have now is a "shock wave" that started with the internet. Sharing. The circulation of ideas. If I could go in a shop, take an apple and copy it, and then go back home with my copy, it wouldn't be called "stealing", it would be called a miracle. The truth is that the cultural importance of the internet is way bigger than its negative impact on the industry and innocents involved (people losing jobs): growing pains.
"Intellectual property" is a fraud invented to protect the status quo. This industry doesn't anticipate trends or evolution, it stops them. The premise and original intent is: things have to stay the same. They threat that we'll have a world with no musicians, no writers, no artists. It's childishly naive. They want us to believe that this world and our future needs them. That this industry, the way it exists now, is indispensable. They want us to believe that we can't live without them. It's not. It's dead weight. It proved that it cannot adapt, that it cannot favor the development of culture, that the singular economical interests come first and foremost.
Well, we don't need any of that. This is a cultural battle that is way more important than its specific aspects. If the industry can't adapt or transform, then it has to go. It's garbage. And I can assure that we won't lose anything of what's important in there. We'll have musicians, writers and artists. Better musicians, better writers and better artists because the culture circulates a lot more and is able to reach a lot more people. This is progress: knowledge as a human right, and not as a privilege.
If this industry has still money to waste to found RIAA, ESA and others, then it means there is no crisis. A crisis leads to cut what is superfluous. This is no crisis. They are one step from saying that the economical crisis is caused by pirates. But we know that the pyramid is reversed. Crisis fall from the top. Those guys up there are those responsible. They are the cause, we pay - as always.
This is a cultural battle: they are trying to convince us we're guilty. They give us their own sins. They make mistakes, they blame us.
My practical response to all this is small and simple: I stop giving them money. I stop buying games, music, DVDs, going to see big movies productions. It doesn't mean "more piracy", it means "I can do without you". I'll buy more book and supports what I think is worth of my money. I'll pay for what is a good service and not for what is a desperate defense of an obsolete system.
Boycott the rest. The sooner they go, the better for everyone. With or without Piratebay, show them they have no future.
Stop pirating, and stop giving them money.
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