Author: Alex Russell

Life After the Star Wars Expanded Universe: N.K. Jemisin’s The Broken Kingdoms

Andrew Findlay

In Life After the Star Wars Expanded Universe, we take a look at science fiction and fantasy, why they’re great, and what they say about where our species has been and where it’s going.

The Broken Kingdoms is book two of The Inheritance Trilogy. The main premise of this book series is that the inhabitants of this world coexist with and even enslave their gods. There are three main “big G” Gods: Nahadoth, god of the night, Itempas, god of the day, and Yeine, goddess of twilight and the dawn. Any offspring from these three Gods are called godlings, and while not as powerful as their forebears, they have some impressive abilities. Without getting into specifics, I can tell you these Gods have disagreements and war sometimes. During the first book, Nahadoth is actually enslaved by humanity because Itempas chained him as punishment. The humans who had control of him, the Arameri, quickly became the undisputed rulers of the world, because any society that stood against them quickly fell to the overwhelming power of their pet God. The Arameri live in the palace pictured on the book cover – Sky, a castle in a tree. Shadow is the city that has grown under the tree, so called because the massive branches shade most of the city.

The author, N.K. Jemisin, is a relatively new author – book one of this series is her first novel that really exploded. I appreciate how prolific she is: The first book in the trilogy was published in 2010 and the third was published in 2011. That is a whole world, a full story, complete and entire, in less than a couple of years. That is refreshing as hell in the world of The Wheel of Time and A Song of Ice and Fire, the former of which took twenty-three years to complete, and the latter of which has been going for eighteen years and is nowhere near finished.

Praise this woman – she actually publishes fantasy regularly. It’s impressive.

The story she creates in The Broken Kingdoms focuses on the upheaval and changes in a city newly filled with godlings. For 2,000 years, godlings were not allowed in the human realm, but events in the first book ease that restriction, and now they participate in human society. The action of the book starts with the murder of one of their number, and suspense begins high and fast – who killed an immortal, and how did they do it?

The main character through whose perceptions the reader experiences the search for the murderer is Oree Shoth, a member of a marginalized race, the Maroneh. In the distant past, the rich and powerful island that was her people’s ancestral home was sunk beneath the waves by the fury of Nahadoth, the Arameri’s enslaved God. They were given space to settle in Arameri lands but have never really recovered. What’s special about Oree? Well, for one thing she’s blind, but not really.

The not really part is that she is magic – for some reason, she can “see” anything magical. In the enchantment-doused city of Shadow, this means she can get around easily by the glow of magic everywhere, and godlings she can see perfectly clearly, as they are beings of pure magic. Her magical ability also allows her to use paint and artistic representations to open doors to other places. Equipped with normal and godling friends and her abilities, she finds herself embroiled in the conflict bubbling at the center of this murder conspiracy.

Without discussing key events of the book, I want to talk about what is good and bad about this book. The best thing about this book is the mythos – Jemisin spends a significant amount of time explaining the origin of the world. First, there was Maelstrom, massive, incomprehensible, chaotic, feared by god and man alike. Maelstrom produced Nahadoth, god of the night, then Itempas, god of the day. They were brothers and more than brothers, and loved each other deeply. A few millennia later, Enefa, goddess of twilight, dawn, and life appears. Through her, procreation and the genesis of human life become possible. Later, there is a massive conflict among the Three that creates many of the problems explored in this book. The magic system is also interesting. All magic in this world originates in the gods, but in a world where Gods and godlings regularly had relationships with humans, many humans have a little godsblood in them and can channel a bit of magic. There is a competing form of magic wherein ungifted humans, through extreme study and materials manipulation, can use sigils, inscriptions, and artifacts to tap magical potential. Finally, the book has high readability. It’s a fast read because Jemisin follows a nicely balanced intrigue/payoff rhythm wherein suspense and lack of knowledge is set up, satisfied, and replaced by even more extensive intrigue in rapid oscillations, holding final satisfaction off until the last page of the book.

On the bad side, the characters seem a little light. Almost no one other than Oree is fleshed out at all, and even Oree herself is not an extremely complex character. The same lack of complexity affects the plot. It’s just event, event, event, TWIST, keep reading! It’s well put-together, but it’s built like a carpenter building a chair, not an architect building a cathedral. Also, the world surrounding the story is not very well explored. This could be because the books are comparatively short. I wasn’t sure whether to include this feature as a good thing or a bad thing, because Jemisin sketches out a massive world brimming with history by using a minimum of key explanations and events. This strategy can leave the world feeling a little bit hollow and flimsy, but it’s a blessed change from Robert Jordan’s strategy of describing every fold in every garment and the delicate silverwork on the side of every teapot.

You should read this. Some of the story elements are a bit weak, but it is strong on everything I look for in a fantasy: interesting premise for a new world, satisfying exploration of the mythology of that world, and a respectably put-together and exciting plot. Also, you should reward this author for actually finishing her book series instead of stringing people along for decades.

Andrew Findlay has strong opinions about things (mostly literature) and will share them with you loudly and confidently.

Pay Day and Pineapples

 

Brent Hopkins

There is nothing quite like the feeling of getting paid monthly or biweekly, depending on your job. That is the main incentive people have of going in and grinding 40 hour weeks for the majority of their lives. I am like most people where the synapses in my brain fire when I check my bank balance and see the money is a few grand higher than before. I always felt this was unrelated to other outside influences and that the feeling of getting paid would always have that endorphin buzz attached.

This month, I started a new job and I am the only person who gets paid on the 25th of the month. I was pretty excited for this because I had taken a bit of a break from work and had not been paid in awhile. I was pretty surprised to find that I was almost completely unenthused when I checked my bank account and it took me awhile to figure out why.

A large portion of the glee from getting paid is tied to all the people around you getting excited about the day, without that it is like clapping at the end of a movie with no other spectators… it just feels a bit empty. I wonder if I got paid more would this sentiment be different, but I don’t think it would. Pay day is one of those few things that are a regular celebration that goes across language barriers and cultures; it really needs to be shared to get the full benefit.

This is how I expect my next 11 pay days will look.

I love fresh pineapple and I have gotten quite good at carving them up as opposed to buying them pre-sliced. Pineapples aren’t the cheapest of fruit but I managed to grab some for three dollars each. I felt like I had just stolen them from the pineapple plant (not tree) they were so cheap, so I took my bounty home to make some smoothies.

Ghana_pineapple_field

Incredibly disappointing compared to the tree most people have in mind for pineapples.

These pineapples were small so when I got to carving I got rid of the outer layer of armor and about 20% of the fruit was gone. Then I cored the thing, because biting into that is akin to chewing sweet bark. After all was said and done I was covered in juice and had about a cup of pineapple. This is the most disappointing ratio of work to delicious in the fruit world, hands down. Maybe it’s because I live alone and I have to converse with myself but I looked down at this thing and seriously considered ways to use the remains of the pineapple. It took all of me not to blend that core into a gummy mess and consume it. I honestly believe there are few things worse than feeling like something you invested in was wasted – small pineapples will do it to you every time.

Off to my sad corner

Images: Funky Space Monkey, Corbis

Symbols and Sociopaths: Hannibal Season 2, Episode 5

hannibal episode 5

Jonathan May

(As always, massive spoiler alert)

We start with the second in a series of split montages, this one featuring breakfast. As Hannibal lovingly prepares his meal in the comfort of his own home, Will stares down the tray lumped with what barely passes for breakfast. The first time we see this split montage is when Hannibal and Will are dressing for trial; this time is different in that it highlights the relative high and low of their respective situations. The high and low is important in this episode, as its juxtaposition implies a classical dramatic structure, that of the protagonist falling from a high place to a low place. It’s unfortunate that the dramatic casualty of this thematic exactness is Dr. Beverly Katz. From the high point of living and finally discovering Hannibal for what he is, Dr. Katz is brought down to lowness, being killed and sliced in a “performance piece” better than any by Damien Hirst (The Cell with Jennifer Lopez also comes to mind). And what exquisite sadness I felt upon seeing Dr. Katz laid out as if prepared for examination under a microscope. RIP, Dr. Katz.

Eddie Izzard is brought back in as the serial killer Abel Gideon in order to act as a sounding board for Hannibal, Will, and the others. But I could just as easily have done without him in this episode. His character brought nothing but lowness, spitting out pithy dialogue like the old man from Pet Cemetery. (An example, speaking of Hannibal: “He is the devil, Mr. Graham. He is smoke. You’ll never catch the ripper. He won’t be caught. If you want him, you will have to kill him.”) The obviousness of this is mortifying; I never, in a million years, imagined that this story would end neatly with Hannibal being meted out justice through the courts. Blood will always be repaid with blood in proper tragedies.

But speaking of courtly justice, what of Will’s trial? And where the hell is Cynthia Nixon to add some perspective to this mess? Instead of Cynthia, we’re given the orderly of the psychiatric ward, a gorgeous pale fellow who readily accedes to Will’s demand that he kill Hannibal. Will, of course, fears becoming Hannibal (hence the horror he feels as the antlers grow through his back), but he’s still willing to “transcend” justice in order to be justified. Will has shifted here from justice to revenge, a tragic flaw; it’s unfortunate that he had to resort to such extremes in an attempt to attain rightness.

The scene between Hannibal and the orderly is properly “high” in its beauty; the camerawork here captures the chiaroscuro of Hannibal’s bleeding body as he hangs Christ-like with his feet on a bucket. It’s almost like a Caravaggio. And that beautiful line which gives us all of Hannibal—“Only if you eat me.” Such a high moment, capable, on the brink of annihilation. And then we’re brought crashing down as the orderly is shot, dashing Will’s plan and possible hopes for ever leaving the psychiatric ward.

Jonathan May watches too much television, but he’s just playing catch-up from a childhood spent in Zimbabwe. You can read his poetry at owenmay.com, follow him on Twitter at @jonowenmay, or email him at owen.may@gmail.com.

Hannibal airs Friday nights on NBC. You can read our piece about the previous episode here.

The Last Five Minutes of How I Met Your Mother, False Symmetry, and the Teleology of Popular Fiction

himym

Austin Duck

Whether or not you watched the end of How I Met Your Mother, chances are, at this point, you know how it ended. You know that, after nine seasons of Ted’s search for the woman of his dreams, they’re together for less than an entire episode, that the writers decided it best to kill her off and to position Ted and Robin together as a kind of OTP (one-true-pairing for those who aren’t fan-fiction aficionados) fated across dozens of years to end up together. Predictably, the Internet has had two reactions: those who have shipped (another ff term for you all) Ted and Robin all along are delighted, surprised maybe, but ultimately very pleased by the seeming symmetry of HIMYM (with Ted and Robin coming together in the first episode and then, against all odds, again at the last).

And then, there are the others, the ones who are outraged by the narrative violations that have occurred to bring Ted and Robin together, and the major characters who, developed over nine years, are reduced and cut out, subordinated to one-bit characters with forced “revelations.”  These fine folks have taken to the Internet, decrying WORST EPISODE EVER and HOW COULD THEY DO THAT TO BARNEY and HOW ARE TED’S KIDS OVER THE DEATH OF THEIR MOTHER IN SIX YEARS, OKAY ENOUGH TO SAY ‘GO AHEAD DAD, FUCK AUNT ROBIN, WE DON’T CARE’ and, while I don’t normally feel one way or another about tv shows (I mean, I watch them obsessively, but I tend not to care enough to take to the keyboard), I want to weigh in here, not so much about my feelings but about the structural incongruities that seem to have everyone convinced that this finale didn’t quite do what it needed to.

Before getting to the meat of the problem—the problem of teleology—I want to consider the bizarre symmetry attempted in the final episode, in the few remaining minutes after 25 years have been traversed in a few telling vignettes. The last scene, Ted standing outside Robin’s apartment, blue-French-horn-in-hand, while she perches on her window ledge, surrounded by dogs, is taken shot-for-shot (and, for the most part, line by line) from the first episode during Ted’s first “Big Robin Gesture.” (BRG) Between this and the fact that, season after season, the show is actually populated by a series of BRG’s—stealing the horn, inviting Robin to his wedding with Stella despite her wishes, refusing to marry Victoria at the expense of his friendship with Robin, the locket, etc.—one could almost make the argument for coherence, for a consistent, over-arching theme that, while obscured by the minutiae of week-to-week, season-to-season, was always there, hiding in plain sight, brought forward by the symmetrical ending as the point of the show, the issue at hand, the inevitable, meaningful, always already there. Almost.

Unfortunately, this narrative violates the promise that initiates the very reason for the show, the story to the kids… the explanation of how Ted meets the mother of his children. While I understand that, narratively, things happen, characters change, have more chemistry than the writers expected, etc. (I’ll address this in a minute), the show’s framework—the search for Ted’s baby-mama (as the show would have it)—puts pressure on narrative, directs and controls it, in the same way that a sentence front-loaded with subordinate clauses, continuously delaying its main point will create, nay demand, a kind of resolution. Let me demonstrate:

Despite Ted’s feelings for Robin always coming back, and despite the fact that Ted and Robin seemed both to fundamentally want the same things, and that Barney and Robin, as cute as they were, didn’t seem, exactly, to mesh (likely because of the way Barney was rendered as pathological, sick by the end), and even with Marshall and Lilly’s blessing and the support of Ted’s children, the apparatus of the show, promising a resolution of “How I Met Your Mother,” was subordinated, cast aside as not-that-important compared to something that, by all accounts, didn’t really need to happen.

Imagine someone telling you a story for nine years, only to reveal in the last few seconds that it wasn’t important, that there was another story that should have been told, that the hook you’ve been on (and on and on and on) has been sleight of hand.

It could happen, I guess, it could work (God knows Anne Carson could make it work), but what starts as a narrative gag had better lead to something larger, more satisfying, more inevitable. And does this? Do the symmetry and the BRGs create an inevitability large enough to make the audience forget they’ve had a big one pulled over on them, that all the wishing for Ted’s happiness, the giddiness at each glimpse of the yellow umbrella, every vision of a lady playing a bass guitar, has existed exclusively so that the writers can give you something you already had and that, ultimately, you were already okay with losing?

Because that’s, really, the problem with the “inevitability” ending: We were all okay with Ted and Robin going their separate ways. We’d been promised someone even better than Robin, and, in a show that crosses nine years in real-time (and 25 years total), we been promised change, growth, that Ted at 27 (the one who fell for Robin) didn’t know what he wanted, that the course of their friendship and their mutual considerations for one another altered them, that they were able to be happy for each other, to consider one another, without being together. We were promised (episode to episode) that Ted and Robin’s friendship would become adult, that Ted would realize his wants couldn’t change hers, the she didn’t want what he was selling, and, until the last five minutes of the finale, that’s what we got. We saw nine years of growth, promise, real tenderness, thrown away—Barney and Robin, so suited for each other in their ways, are torn apart because Robin won’t stop traveling for work (though she was willing to give up her work for a relationship with Don), Barney, the complicated, deeply sick, good-natured friend and lover, reduced to horn-dog caricature so the audience can stomach the split with Robin, the woman of Ted’s dreams, the woman we’ve all searched for for nine years, killed within 30 minutes.

And, as if anticipating our resistance, we, the audience, are characterized as two kids who’ve been listening to this story for years’ we’re denied the ability to grieve or refuse Ted’s moving forward, are told (through our own voices) that mom’s been dead for six years, and Aunt Robin’s great, that the ending, the fulfillment of change, is this that we recognize as a regression, a circle. Sure, if we had six years to “know the mother”—in any capacity other than flash-forward montages—, had known Ted’s grief at her passing, known Ted and Robin’s interactions as an adult, perhaps this could have worked. But as it stands, it just doesn’t.

Instead, the final minutes become just another iteration of popular fiction’s tendency toward teleology, toward forcing an ending because “the writer wants it” rather than “because the narrative demands it.” To cite the most popular instance of teleological fiction, just think about Twilight: It’s clear, even to those only have a passing familiarity with the books, that Bella, the protagonist, has much more chemistry with Jacob (the werewolf) than she does with Edward (the glitter-vamp). The text, and the characters within it, were asserting their own relationships, their own order (as, really, the fundamentals of writing are learning how to listen as a text, a series of character, write themselves), and the author, Stephanie Meyer, ignored it. She wanted an ending that the text didn’t want, and she got it, awkwardness and all. The same thing has happening in HIMYM.

I can’t speak to the writers’ values, why they wanted what they did, or why they’ve made the choices they have. However, for whatever reason, they’ve written (produced, and aired) something not nearly so conscious of the narrative itself as of the hopes and dreams of whoever was writing it which, realistically, no one cares about.

Austin Duck lives and blogs in DC. He can be reached at jaustinduck@gmail.com.

Image source: Today

Breaking Bad or The Wire: Why Pick When You Can Argue Forever?

Andrew Findlay

I.

It is a universally accepted truism that we are living in the golden age of television. Sure, people are still giving Chuck Lorre money and that’s terrible, but in the past couple of decades there have been The Sopranos, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Wire, Six Feet Under, Dexter, and absolutely stunning newcomer True Detective. In addition to these heavy-hitters, there’s lot of great stuff like Firefly, Scandal, The Vampire Diaries (it’s great and I’m not 14 I promise), along with quality comedies like 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation, Community, and Girls. Truly an embarrassment of riches. However, it’s a weird quirk of American culture that we can’t just enjoy everything, we have to make a list and decide which is the best. If we can’t judge the quality of these shows and categorize them better than the dumb schmucks around us, what’s the point of even watching? With that being said, this article is about a throwdown between two of the best: Breaking Bad and The Wire. Which one should you smugly assert is better?

Just a quick overview before diving in: The Wire is noteworthy because of its extreme focus on reality. It unflinchingly explores the real world, with the repeated and insistent declaration that hey, it is what it is. The dialogue in this show is truly a joy – especially anything the young asshole cop McNulty says to, well, anyone. Its plotting and pacing are nearly flawless, and it takes time to explore the ravages of the drug war on the communities and cultures of Baltimore. Breaking Bad can deliver excitement like no other show. It moves absurdly fast and is packed with a ridiculous amount of action. In the pilot, the main character gets cancer, decides to make meth, makes the best meth ever, kills a couple of drug dealers, and is ready to get in a shootout with the cops at the end of the first episode. No other show pulls that off in the pilot. It also focuses almost exclusively on Walter White, doing an in-depth character study on the darker motivations and emotions in the human psyche. Finally, it is satisfying in that it has one well-plotted unifying arc that is resolved more perfectly than any other show I’ve ever seen.

II.

The “good guys.” Sort of.

The Wire is a show about drug dealers and cops in Baltimore. It explores the inner workings and power struggles of both the law enforcement apparatus and the organizations actively working to undermine that apparatus. The main character of the show is definitely Baltimore – everyone else is tangential to the trials and travails of the city itself. It is about the rise and decline, and decline, and decline of the American city. What this show does extremely well is focus unerringly on reality. There are consequences for every single action – no one gets away with anything, ever. People do what they do based on extremely complex and murky motivations, but every action is perfect and clear to understand – no character exists in a vacuum. In another nod to reality, there is no good or bad, there are just people. One of the most helpful members of the special crimes unit is an idiot who beat a kid so badly he went blind in one eye. McNulty, arguably the main(ish) character, is a brilliant detective, but he’s an absolute self-inflated asshole, he cannot for the life of him respect his superiors, and he drives drunk pretty consistently. He is unhealthily obsessed with his job. He is divorced, and he has his two boys for the weekend. The fun father-son bonding game he plays with them is called “Tail the Drug Lord and Tell Daddy Where He Goes.” That’s right – he’s great at solving crime, he desperately wants Baltimore to be a safer place, but he involves his children in active criminal investigations. Not a paragon of fatherhood.

The “bad guys.” Sort of.

On the other end, one of the drug dealers, D, kills people, sells heroin, and does pretty much everything you’d expect a drug dealer to do, but also feels genuine remorse about a lot of what he does and is extremely conflicted about the persona he has chosen for himself. In this show, there are no easy or ready-made conclusions – it is what it is. The Wire is weighed down a little bit by its huge cast. I mean, it’s a strength because it allows us to see the plight of Baltimore from multiple eyes and perspectives, but one problem that Breaking Bad does not have is that, with so many characters, the viewer ends up not knowing them as well, resulting in less emotional investment. I had to watch most of the first season until I was clear on everyone’s names. Another thing that hurts The Wire in comparison to Breaking Bad is that each season focuses on a different aspect of Baltimore crime, often with very different casts of characters and settings. This is a strength in that it gives a lot of variety, explores many different aspects of Baltimore, and communicates powerfully that the game is the game no matter where you go, but it also feels in some ways like the same shit over and over again.

III.

Pictured: the face of evil

Breaking Bad is a show about a poor, prideful chemistry teacher who has been screwed out of a lucrative job in an Albuquerque-based biotech company. He gets cancer, which is his breaking point. Faced with the near certainty of death, he decides to set things in order for his family by making as much money as he can in the time he has left, both to fund his treatments and to leave something behind for his children. With this goal in mind, he asks to go on a ride-along to a drug bust with his DEA brother-in-law. At this drug bust, he sees one of his old students escaping the police. He hooks up with this student later, asks him to help him break into the meth business, and a criminal mastermind is born. Well, not quite. He has to develop over the course of the show. From beginning to end, Walter White, the main character, is amazing at cooking meth. In an industry where most people are throwing ingredients together, boiling them, and hoping for the best, Walt applies the principles of chemistry to his “cook.” The result is that he makes the best meth that anyone has ever seen. The problem is that he has no idea how to break into the market. He depends on his old student at first, but slowly learns how to become a drug lord in his own right. The show explores the consequences of selling your soul to your own sense of pride. As Walt becomes better and better at what he does, he also becomes more and more ruthless. It is a slow and subtle transformation that takes place over the course of five seasons, but at the end of it, Walt has transformed from a nebbishy chemistry teacher to a truly terrifying figure in the underworld. Breaking Bad does an amazing job with building tension and with quickly developing the plot. More happens in episode one of this show than what most shows achieve in an entire season. With only a handful of characters that are really developed, the show focuses deeply on their emotional development, with the result that the audience feels all the feelings for these people. Also, this show has Bryan Cranston, who is arguably one of the greatest actors ever. Compared with The Wire, on which there is no truly standout acting talent and on which Method Man plays a recurring character, Breaking Bad comes out far ahead in the acting department. The best thing Breaking Bad does is the character of Walter White himself. Showrunner Vince Gilligan hands Cranston a lot of great material, and Cranston does wonders with it.

No wait, it was this one. This one was the face of evil.

The guy slowly turns into an amoral sociopath, but the audience roots for him every step of the way. Why would normal, rational people want to see such an asshole succeed? Vince Gilligan himself put forth a theory that I agree with completely: The Darth Vader theory. Why do people love Darth Vader so much? It’s not because he’s great guy, it’s because he is so terrifyingly good at his job. People like to see competency and skill, and Walt is so fucking smart it’s unbelievable. As one character says to people trying to catch him, “He’s smarter than you, he’s luckier than you.” I’ll say it again: He is so fucking smart that it is just fun to watch him get away with shit because of the ingenuity involved in it. McNulty from The Wire thinks he’s smart? He is an idiot child compared to this psychopath. Walt is an asshole, but he is conflicted. He’s a ruthless drug dealer, but also a family man. He’s arrogant and prideful, but also weak in a lot of ways. These conflicts meld and overlap to create an extremely compelling and watchable character. The only thing that possibly holds Breaking Bad back is that it pushes believability. If Walter White existed in the ultra-realistic world of The Wire, he would be arrested in the first episode. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, just an area where the show compares unfavorably to The Wire.

IV.

Asking the question “Breaking Bad or The Wire?” is a lot like asking the question “Shakespeare or Tolstoy?” The feel of Breaking Bad has a lot in common with Shakespeare’s plays, and the aesthetic of The Wire calls to mind Tolstoy.

Walter White is almost as amazing as my neck ruff.

First off, what drives Breaking Bad, like what drives Shakespeare’s plays, is an extreme and profound focus on human nature, on characters and the traits that are the key to their rise and downfall. In Richard III, the titular king is extremely clever and ambitious, which serves him well until he ends up going too far and dying on the battlefield. In Hamlet, the main character’s reticence serves him well and keeps him from becoming a pawn of craftier people (cf. Laertes, whose anger at his father’s death allows Claudius to control him utterly). That is, it serves him well until it results in the deaths of basically his entire family. In Breaking Bad, Walt’s intelligence, ambition, and pride serve him extremely well. That is, until they don’t. There are similarities between the two on the believability front as well. Breaking Bad is not hyper-focused on realism, but neither is Shakespeare. Let’s look at Hamlet again: an extremely frank and subtle exploration of human nature and motivation, but in a realistic world, when Claudius sends him to be executed by the King of England, he should have died, end of story. What actually happens is that, on the way to England, Hamlet is rescued by fucking pirates. Out of nowhere, pirates accost the ship and take him away. In The Winter’s Tale, a main plot point of the story is that one character, Perdita, is actually of noble blood but was raised by a shepherd. She was raised by a shepherd because Antigonus, the man tasked with getting rid of her as a baby, is about to keep her because who leaves a little girl in the wild alone, but then, in one of the best stage directions in the history of theater, is chased off and “exit[s], pursued by bear.” In Romeo and Juliet, we are led to believe that no one, not one person can intercept Romeo and tell him “Oh no, just kidding, we’re playing a trick, she’s not actually dead.” Finally, the focus on action and entertainment unite the two. Breaking Bad is full of twists, explosions, and fast pacing. Shakespeare is full of action, intrigue, and swordfights.

Tolstoy liked to keep things realistic.

The Wire is more like Anna Karenina. There is an extreme focus on realism. For a lot of the book, Anna Karenina is just Russian dudes walking around doing shit in Russia. Like The Wire, it engages the sociopolitical issues of the day deeply and unflinchingly. It also has the same character pattern as The Wire. There are a ton of characters, nearly all of them are well-put-together and well-explained, no one is a cardboard cutout, but still, with so many it’s hard to focus very closely on just one (with the exception of Anna herself). The focus of Anna Karenina, like The Wire, is on psychological realism and the consequences of people’s actions.

V.

So that brings us back to the question posed at the beginning of this article: Which one is better? I think more than anything that is just a poorly formed question. Both shows are so different that they are hard to compare. Both are absolutely amazing, and at this level of television, it’s hard to objectively declare one thing better than another. I personally prefer Breaking Bad to The Wire, but telling someone who prefers The Wire that they’re wrong is a really hard case to make. Some people prefer Shakespeare to Tolstoy and vice versa. Both are amazing, both are flawless artists. Much like those two authors, neither of these shows really does anything wrong, so it’s really hard to call, but ultimately, it’s not necessary to call. Just watch and enjoy your damned television.

Andrew Findlay has strong opinions about things (mostly literature) and will share them with you loudly and confidently.

Image sources: AMC and HBO

What the Story of Two Women and a Cheating Bastard Says About Video Games as Literature

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Alex Russell

You are a real bastard.

Well, you are when you’re Vincent Brooks in Catherine, a 2011 multi-platform release that shocked the video game world. It’s a unique part-puzzle part-simulation game based on the morality of choice and what people do when no one is watching.

You play Vincent, a 30-something guy drifting through both life and an aimless relationship with a woman named Katherine. Katherine wants to get married and start a life, Vincent wants to avoid making any big decisions. Katherine wants to have long lunch dates about the future, Vincent wants to get drunk with his friends at the corner tap.

Depending on how stereotypical your life is, this may be hitting pretty close to home.

The story unfolds through cinematics where you watch Vincent and Katherine try to reach an understanding on various issues. It feels very real, even if the relationship itself feels flimsy. People really are scared to commit. In most narratives this would be where there would need to be a discussion of gender roles, but dear Vince has to be the nervous manchild here, because of what happens when he goes to sleep.

When Vincent sleeps he is forced to climb towers. These play out as incredibly hard puzzle elements which start unforgiving and somehow get even more brutal as the game goes on. Vincent must climb to escape something he fears — always something Katherine mentioned during the day — and reach the top of the tower to run away rather than facing adulthood, children, marriage, or whatever it may be that night. A good example: one is a horrific, monstrous baby that knows Vincent is the father.

It’s a strange game. Every night ends in the same bar, where Vincent recaps his day with Katherine to his buddies who are also in various states of arrested development. It gets extra complicated when Vincent wakes up with a (younger, blonder) woman also named Catherine, spelled with a C. Everything goes full cliche with the entrance of a younger temptress, but the world of Catherine the game needs these cliches to make choice seem as stark as possible.

It’s important to note that both Catherine and Katherine are full characters, and Vincent’s actions constantly reveal him to be a dipshit. “Competent woman/incompetent man” is a stock relationship in a lot of forms of narrative, but Catherine is interested in more complex interactions. If Vincent’s choices make him act like an asshole to either woman, that woman will respond in a full way. Neither of their lives revolve around Vincent, and even though the story plays out through his eyes, it isn’t a story of two damsels hoping that their prince will pick them.

Every decision made in the game influences a meter that tilts between good and evil. If you’re connected online, the game also tells you what percentage of people around the world made the same choice. This allows for a certain molding of Vincent – he can either accept Katherine and all of the joys that come with adulthood, or he can hide in youth with Catherine and escape for a little longer. The meter is clear which is the “good” choice, and to borrow a line one of the monsters you escape from screams at you: take responsibility.

These choices influence the ending. There are nine options, which mostly follow the traditional Dungeons and Dragons school of morality: neutral good, lawful good, chaotic evil, etc. Can a game with multiple endings still be literature? It’s a fair criticism that there isn’t “one” story since you can end up in a multitude of different situations with Katherine and Catherine. Without giving it away, though the game has nine endings it has but one lesson. There are variations, but the game constantly reminds you that escaping your future is only temporary. Not taking the phone call from Katherine because you think she has bad news only delays it. You have to deal with the people in your life – including yourself. Even if a sadistic otherworldly being won’t throw you in a tower with a bunch of sheep to enact metaphors every night as you fight for your life, the bell will still find a way to toll for thee.

It’s a solid narrative that is shaped by the world it exists in. It feels very Japanese at times, but it generally just feels like a world we’ve all definitely been in before. It also “reads” well because all of the gameplay is separate from the narrative structure in the bar. It’s a nice companion piece to the type of literature that people read when they first realize they aren’t a teenager. Catherine is the story of someone’s 20s. It’s about realizing that interactions with other people matter — to others and to ourselves — and it tells the tale of what happens when that falls by the wayside as well as anything could.

Alex Russell lives in Chicago and is set in his ways. Disagree with him about anything at readingatrecess@gmail.com or on Twitter at @alexbad.

 Image source: Destructoid

Broad City: Season Review

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Jonathan May

I’m just going to come out and say it—Broad City is one of the funniest damn shows I’ve ever seen. It’s everything Girls fails to be and so, so much more. The jokes are uninhibited, surprising, and recurring. Cultural references abound. But the wacky, lovable, goofy best friendship Ilana and Abbi share makes up the core of this comedy set in Brooklyn. I’m comforted by a show that’s not afraid to portray every relationship as not being wrought with peril.

The comedy duo, Ilana and Abbi, have been doing this show on YouTube from 2009-2011. Amy Poehler saw them, and the rest is history. Luckily they’ve maintained most of the writing credits, as they are best able to draw out the nuances from their relationship and its quotidian nature. I discovered later that my favorite episode (“Working Girls”) wasn’t written by them, but in that episode, the two spend most of their time apart. Curious.

This isn’t a show that’s trying to be smart, and thank God. The show tries to be, and amply succeeds in being, hilarious—a much higher virtue for television. There are many references to this being the Golden Age of television, as if we were all being written about by Hesiod. The seriousness with which people approach this idea extends into most shows themselves, making them bland and self-important, as if we are supposed to find reflections from life or higher meanings; it’s also the result of presentist thought reigning in the current cultural dialectic, a presumptuous and vain attitude. Broad City is a great reminder that television can simply be for entertainment, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

If you don’t like jokes about weed or vaginas or bodily functions, this is, in fact, probably not the show for you. But if you have a sense of humor, you should definitely binge-watch the first season (10 episodes). The secondary characters are brilliantly rendered; the cameos are few, but incredibly well-chosen (Rachel Dratch and Janeane Garofalo to name a few). And to those happy fans, rejoice!—a second season is in the works. I know I’ll be watching.

Jonathan May watches too much television, but he’s just playing catch-up from a childhood spent in Zimbabwe. You can read his poetry at owenmay.com, follow him on Twitter at @jonowenmay, or email him at owen.may@gmail.com.

Image source: Comedy Central

Tough Questions: What’s the Best Drink You’ve Ever Made Yourself?

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Every Monday we ask everyone who hangs out around here to answer a tough question. This week:

What’s the Best Drink You’ve Ever Made Yourself?

Rules are simple: Everyone has a story about some damn mixologist putting egg whites and little bits of tractor tire together to form the absolute best thing you have to try, but can you do it yourself? When you’re left to your own devices at home, what can you do with just bottles and glassware? What does the mad scientist within come up with you let ’em out?

Alex Russell

The best drink is three fingers of bourbon, two ice cubes, and a light pour of water. That’s the best drink, but there are times when bourbon and water will not achieve your goals. There are times that call for something sweet. One wintry night in Illinois we had nothing except root beer and Southern Comfort. There are a lot of ways to use Southern Comfort, but root beer is not traditionally one of them. We made the best of what we had and someone said “hey, I can’t believe there’s SoCo in this.” That’s the origin story of…

I Can’t Believe It’s Not SoCo (But It Is)

  • 1 part Southern Comfort (100 proof or standard are both fine)
  • 2 parts root beer (any brand)
  • Scoop of vanilla ice cream
  • Shot of caramel syrup (optional)

Mix the liquids without ice. Add the ice cream and drizzle the syrup over everything. It’s sweet — definitely too sweet — so make sure that’s the goal for whatever weird night you’re having.

Brent Hopkins

The best drink I ever made happened about a year ago in a bar in Korea. One of my acquaintances was having a birthday party and in Korea, you tend to buy the cake while you’re out as opposed to getting it well in advance like most folks do in the States. This was pretty late in the evening and for some reason the bakery owner gave us some non-alcoholic sparkling wine/champagne to help along the celebration.

The drink we concocted felt like a terrible idea at the time but turned into probably the best mixed drink I have had that will never be on any menu. The simple recipe:

  • 2 shots of Agavero tequila liqueur
  • About half a glass of sweet alcoholic or non-alcoholic sparkling wine
  • A slice of lemon or lime
  • Ice

Agavero is the best liqueur I have ever had and it goes down smoother than Bailey’s. Rosé would be a great choice for the wine, though if you don’t like sweet a drier sparkling wine would curb the sweetness of the Agavero nicely. We used lemon because limes are hard to come by in Korea. One more thing: This is not a  shot. There is no reason to drink it warm, though you could as it is extremely easy on the palette.

That’s it and it was one of the only times people I know who HATE tequila were completely okay sitting and having a glass.

Jonathan May

It’s a well-established truth that Southerners enjoy their sweet tea, and I have not come before you today, blessed children, to dispel such a central tenet of the Southern way of life. So, here and now is the quintessential sweet iced tea recipe. First, put about half a gallon of water on the stove to boil. As the water heats, take a gallon pitcher and add two cups of sugar (white, brown [I use brown]), then four large iced tea bags. Drizzle about two tablespoons of sorghum molasses over the sugar. After the water reaches boiling, pour it in slowly over the tea bags and sugar and stir with a wooden spoon. Then just cover and let the whole thing sit for about 20-30 minutes. Afterward just remove the tea bags after squeezing them out with a spoon on the inside of the pitcher and stir in cold water from the tap to just below the gallon line. Now, don’t get me twisted–this is seriously sweet tea. Like pancake-syrup sweet. But if you want something to mix with a little whiskey on a hot summer night, there’s nothing better.

Andrew Findlay

I would call myself a mixologist if that weren’t just the ugliest word with the most ridiculous associations. Point is, I put different liquors together a lot. After making myself what has to be at least a few hundred Manhattans, Martinis, Old Fashioneds and Sidecars, I, like a chef that no longer follows recipes, struck out on my own bibulous odyssey. The key is simplicity: You have your base liquor, your modifying liquor, your pinch, and your garnish. You can do a little bit more, but too much will ruin the drink. Take the Manhattan (absolute king of mixed drinks; in bars, order this drink to find out how good the bar is). In a Manhattan, the base liquor is rye whiskey, the modifying liquor is sweet vermouth, the pinch is one or two dashes of bitters, and the garnish is a cherry. I’ve been playing with this general philosophy of simplicity, and it has yielded some interesting stuff (the Get Off My Plane: Green Hat Gin, lemon lavender syrup, habanero bitters, lemon peel) and some horrifying stuff (the St. Petersburg: white wine, vodka, St. Germain, and olives). The drink I’m proudest of is the New Fashioned.

The New Fashioned
 
  • 4 oz Jim Beam
  • 1 oz simple sugar (put equal parts by volume sugar and water in a glass, microwave it for a minute, stir it around)
  • All the juice from half a lemon
  • 4 dashes Fee Brothers Aromatic Bitters

Pour all of these ingredients over ice in a shaker, then use a long mixing spoon to mix them until all contents are cold. Finally, serve it in an Old Fashioned glass with the ice still in it or straight up in a martini glass, your choice. This recipe makes enough for two, so if you have someone to share it with, congratulations, and if not, at least you’re about to be drunk.

Sugar cuts the bite of the Beam, lemon is never bad with whiskey, and the cinnamon in the Fee Brothers bitters carries some transmutative properties, because its alchemy transforms Jim Beam into a fancy drink. I love this recipe so much because the base liquor costs under twenty dollars. The worst part of making cocktails for yourself is that after you make three or four, half your expensive bottle of booze is gone. This recipe keeps the assault on your wallet to a minimum.

Alex Marino

One year a shitty retail job kept me away from home for Thanksgiving. I spent it with some friends of friends and holy shit, did they like to drink. One of our meal courses was a tray of shots. When I first arrived at the dinner I was told I had to make myself a “creamsicle.”

Creamsicle

  • Pinnacle Whipped Cream vodka
  • Orange soda

That’s it.  And it’s fucking delicious and tastes exactly like a creamsicle.  I didn’t come up with that myself because I retired from trying to invent drinks when I was 18 and decided to see what a “vodka gogurt” tasted like.

Counterpoint: What if Girls is Actually Great?

Andrew Findlay

Our resident sci-fi nerd Andrew Findlay apparently took issue with Jonathan May’s coverage of hate-watching the Girls season finale enough that he wanted to gush about it here. Here’s the opposite of hate-watching, which might just be watching? Here’s the first in our 46,750 part series “Counterpoint.”

Girls is an amazing television show. It is a perfect comedy of the awkward: the discomfort and hilarity rolling off of each episode in waves is a great accomplishment. Within this comedy, the writers also attempt to explore authentic reactions and emotions that actual people, not sitcom approximations, have.

A lot of people are annoyed by how ridiculous and terrible the main characters are, but honestly, have you seen people lately? Most of them are ridiculous and terrible. Think of your own friends: some might be paragons of virtue, but how many have some terrible habits and make dumbass decisions? How many don’t, God love ‘em, annoy the shit out of you sometimes? I posit that if your best friend’s actions have never filled you with rage, you might not be best friends. The show deals in hyperreality. It takes actual personality patterns, exaggerates them until they become semi-caricatures, and then explores the emotional ramifications of human behavior. Yes, all of these people are terrible. Yes, they are too much. The thing is though, that’s the point. Taking Girls to task for being filled with terrible people is like taking the Ernest movies to task because the main character is implausibly stupid.

Come now, a man of his intellectual ability could not save anything, much less Christmas

Even within this implausible framework, the show inserts interactions and situations that are startlingly real. The foundation of the fights between Adam and Hannah might be absurd, but the language they use in fighting and the way they deal with emotional conflict matches reality very closely. I have no firsthand knowledge of this, but my wife informs me that not all, but many of the conversations among the girls reflect how women really do talk to each other, which is “fucking refreshing” when compared to the SATC ladies discussing dick size over mimosas. Also, Girls has a realistic portrayal of post-coital conversation and body language. After sex, Hannah walks around talking naked, because why would you hide your body from the person you just fucked? Think about it – if you had sex with someone in real life, and they immediately tore all your bedsheets off your bed and wrapped them around themselves to hide their nudity, wouldn’t you be a little freaked out? This brings me to a point that isn’t really part of my main argument, but I feel it needs to be mentioned: Hannah is not conventionally attractive and walks around naked, ew! Well, sorry that modern culture has led you to expect only flat-bellied, buxom goddesses to be inflicted upon your vision. Seriously – Hannah’s body type is how a lot of women look, and there is nothing wrong with it. Check your privileged expectations.

Speaking of expectations, Girls is a comedy from HBO, the only show on television that passes the Bechdel test, and because of that, people heap a mountain of expectations upon it, expectations the showrunners never outright claimed or even hinted at. The people saying Hannah represents the voice of a generation, and the other people getting enraged at how bad a picture she paints of the current generation? Dunham never said anything about any generation. Yes, the main character of the show muses whether she may be the voice of her generation, but the main character of the show is remarkably narcissistic and was also high on opium at the time. Oh, all the show’s main characters are privileged and there isn’t enough diversity? Ha! I’m not laughing because that’s not true, I’m laughing because it’s true of nearly every television show. Again, for some reason, Girls is held to higher expectations than other shows, expectations no one set up aside from the people complaining about them. Where is the diversity on Friends or How I Met Your Mother? Where is the exploration of underprivileged characters on Sex and the City, where the four main characters go on endless brunches and shopping sprees, where one is a Harvard-educated lawyer, another grows up rich and marries extremely rich, another is a successful PR executive, and the last is a successful columnist with an on-off relationship with a man of fantastic means? Fuck’s sake, at least some of the characters on Girls actually struggle with unemployment. I’m not saying these criticisms of Girls hold no weight, I’m simply confused as to why Friends, SATC, and How I Met Your Mother get a pass for the exact same problems, whereas the response to Girls is virulent hatred.

This show is really great. My wife and I laugh during every episode, feel feelings for most of them, and are just generally amused and glad this show exists. If you hate-watch it, of course you’re going to focus on all these terrible people doing terrible things, but your perspective will suffer from confirmation bias, where you only see the bad and draw conclusions to support your preexisting idea that the show is terrible. Check it out. It’s great, and unlike anything else I watch on television.

 

They Made a Video Game Out of The Office: Five Terrible Games Based on TV Shows

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Mike Hannemann

South Park: The Stick of Truth was released recently for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. The long-awaited game had finally managed to overcome development hell and several delays. The final product is exactly what you would and wouldn’t expect for a game based on South Park. All the crude elements one associates with the show are there: racist, sexist, fart jokes… all of it. Here’s the part no one really expected: It’s… actually… good. The development team worked closely with the creators of the show and delivered a definitive South Park experience. The writing is genuinely funny and when you play it actually feels like you’re controlling an episode of the show. But you’ll find that on any review site. Instead, let’s consider how unlikely this was.

Video games based on franchises are usually doomed from the start. Occasionally, movies will be spared from this but then something like the Rambo game will come out (in 2014, and if I could type a year in all caps I would to drive the point home) and set the bar back to square one. This has always been the nature of video games and pop culture. Something is introduced, blows up in popularity, and a video game is released to capitalize on that. Hell, South Park did that several times before this entry. It’s easy to make a quick buck because (insert flavor of the week here) can have a quick tie-in. This was especially true of the 1990s. It didn’t take much to make an NES or even an SNES or Sega Genesis game, so we saw hundreds of terrible franchise nonsense. The Super Star Wars games, while remembered fondly by some, barely even followed the plots of the movies. Hell, even commercials were franchised. I wake up with nightmares of playing games based on Domino’s Pizza’s The Noid or Chester Cheetah.

Let’s give the 1990s a pass here. Let’s turn and look at the past 12 years. Next generation consoles. These games cost money to make. Even when creators were involved, they still missed the mark. I submit the following five entries into the catalog of video games based on TV shows that left a sour taste in the mouth of any fan.

5. Lost

The Lost video game was basically just a middle finger to the fanbase. Lost was a show that was built on mysteries, fans were rabid to find clues hidden in each scene that may or may not mean anything. The creators encouraged it, it let to fan mania. Then, during the middle of season four, a game was released for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. The game had the player assume the role of a new survivor, waking up among the wreckage of Oceanic flight 815. The game took place during the events of the show, taking place on various days during the shows run. Plotted by the creative forces behind the show, the game promised “revelations” on the main plot. Not only was the gameplay terrible, you couldn’t help but feel overwhelmingly this was shoehorned in as a cash grab. If any of this mattered, why did characters on the show never mention it? Fans of the show don’t even talk about it. For a show where fans obsessed over what number was on a calendar in a background shot of a dream, I think that’s the most damning thing I could say.

4. Futurama

This one is hard to talk about. Admittedly, I wanted this game to work. Based on one of the better animated sitcoms, the sci-fi nature of the show lends itself perfectly to a video game. Honestly, the story was pretty great. It was funny, deftly acted by the original voice cast, and made fun of a ton of video game tropes (in-game parody was still uncommon at this point). Hell, the show was canceled that year (2003) and again fans were willing to do anything for more content. Unfortunately, no script would be tight enough to make up for poor gameplay mechanics. Transferring a 2-D cartoon into a 3-D world just doesn’t work. The character models were blocky, the platforming was sub-par, and the camera was essentially non-functional. The Futurama game is something fans admit exist, but would never consider bringing up at a party. You know, all those Futurama parties people go to.

3. 24

In a list of sad examples, this one is particularly tragic. 24 is another show that a video game just makes sense to make. It’s a turn-your-brain-off action show. Basically just take a Modern Warfare game and replace the main character with Kiefer Sutherland’s Jack Bauer and there you go. As is the common trend here, the creators and actors were all involved. Released in 2006 and taking place between seasons two and three, this game for the Playstation 2 and Xbox pledged to tell a canonical story explaining the time that took place between the two. For once, this actually MADE SENSE for a game based on a serialized TV show. 24 jumps ahead years at a time between seasons. Logically, something could have happened in that time. The problem isn’t the story. The problem isn’t the acting. Hell, the problem isn’t even the gameplay. The problem is that the game wanders around, not knowing what it wants to be. There are heavy action levels, sniping levels, car-only levels, and puzzle missions. You play as Jack Bauer’s daughter, Kim, in one where you just crawl around in air vents. The game never commits to what kind of game it wants to be, and by making it a “controllable season of the show” it suffers. I remember playing this and thinking it was sad how close to a genuinely good game this was.

2. The Office

Didn’t know there was a game based on the US version of The Office? I apologize for being the one to break the news. Seriously. Next time we see each other, you can punch me in the face, I won’t block. Following the smash success of the early season(s) of The Office, a licensed game was greenlit. It was released only for PC. It was a collection of mini games. Which I guess is the harshest thing I could say about the definition of the word “games.” There was no complexity to it. There was also, coincidentally, no point to it. The saving grace is that it didn’t claim to be anything more than it was. It wasn’t The Office experience. It was a $4.99 mini game pack. I probably shouldn’t complain too much about a game I didn’t actually buy. What needs to be remembered, though, is there is never ever an excuse to release a video game based on a sitcom. Unless it’s a trivia game. And it’s free online. And I guess you’re really, really bored.

1. The Walking Dead: Survival Instincts

I saved the most recent for last because while all of the aforementioned games are insulting in some aspect (even The Office) this one misfired on all cylinders. Think about how hard this is to screw up. The Walking Dead is, and remains, the most popular show on cable television. Ok, it’s also set in the zombie apocalypse which is a video game setting — that is a no-brainer. The more popular characters are back to do voices and provide some background on their past. Makes sense right? The end result of this Xbox 360/Playstation 3 title was a mixed bag of terrible plot points and gameplay mechanics that wouldn’t work with another two years of work. It deliver, though, one true element of The Walking Dead, the show: It left you wondering what more talented people could have done with the property.

(Disclaimer: The Walking Dead is also a game released by Telltale Games that is a huge success, but this is more based on the comic than the show. The game makes no attempt to tie the two together, so I have excluded it.)

So there it is. The worst games based on some of the best shows. These will always be the reasons I worry when I hear about “TV Show! The Game!” being developed, but at least South Park: The Stick of Truth proves the law of averages.

Image source: The Daily Beast