Week Four: Old and New Weird

For this week, I read a few of the short stories from China Medville's Three moments of the explosion. I'm familiar with the new weird, as I have been exposed to this genre for quite some time now. The short story The Buzzard's Egg stuck out to me as both weird and very intriguing. Its told through the eyes of a prison guard for prisoner of war gods. The tone is dark and melancholy as the prison guard describes the various gods that he watches over and had previously encountered. He is a peculiar man whom talks with a slight sense of insanity. It is the oddness that pulls us in further. I watched both the Troll Hunter and Cabin in the Woods and the appeal becomes evident pretty quickly. Its the unusual turns that make the weird intriguing, not wanting to see how truly odd something is but continuing to watch it anyway.  Psychologically we like to fit in or follow what is considered the normal way of things, whether its staying up to date with fashions, or technology, or reading and watching programs that are accepted by society as a whole. With the Buzzard’s egg it is the weirdness of insanity and implausible events that make it an interesting read. In a movie such as Sinister or Insidious, its that weirdness of events beyond our understanding that brings us in. Both feature Supernatural beings that try to come in to our world and take souls back to them. Events like this do not occur in regular life to our knowledge and it appears very odd. With the troll hunter, what makes it weird is that Trolls exist, and that there is an individual who hunts them down with UV Cameras and lights to kill them. It is the break from what is expected that pulls us so deeply in to this new weird, as well as the old weird.

Week Three: Japanese Horror

I found A Wild Sheep Chase to be quite fascinating and very peculiar. I am new to the Japanese horror genre and it took some time to transition into this new story. The amount of symbolic meaning and life meaning in this story sets it apart from the gothic, which appeared more of personal iterations of the authors that wrote them. I had assumed the Japanese horror would be written in that same sense where the characters are foils to people from their life, or character personalities are based off of those of the author. It is not either of these, but the embodiment of a metaphorical meaning. The story is based around the hunt for a supernatural sheep, but also in the supernatural itself. It has the feeling of a traditional Japanese tale, the lesson behind the story is more important than the story itself. It is not a western horror, but it does have some western feel in it with the plot development of this story feeling similar to an American movie plot of the same time frame. The lack of names for the characters was also odd, but it works well for the story. This is another difference between the gothic as well, as the characters are typically named and stand out to the reader. But in this case, it works to the advantage of the story. As is the same with the gaming industry, an unnamed protagonist often pulls the reader/gamer deeper into the story because they can include themselves in the story. By doing this, the meaning of the story is more connected with the reader. It is less of a matter of connecting with a character, but more of a matter of becoming the character. It puts oneself into the story and makes them experience it first hand, the fear of becoming ruined, the frustration of searching for a sheep from a single photo taken. However, it is interesting to look at the karmic balance of the story. There isn’t a definitive good and evil, but a mix of forces that are natural, neutral. The story doesn’t favor good versus evil like its counterpart of the gothic, but favors neutral forces based on the actions of the character. There is small character development, but more so to say that your actions can have dire consequences, not that you are a Hero or Villain for the ones you chose to make.

Week Two: Vampires

For this week I read Interview with a vampire. It raises some unthought-of questions about immortals:  When you live forever, do you still crave the love of another? Especially when you crave blood as your primary source of food. This book features several relationships on varying levels, with those of friends, and of lovers. It seems as if mortality and the the repeated heartbreak that occurs over hundreds of years cause the heart to become cold (no pun intended), and unfeeling. This is an interesting aspect that might also explain why vampires are cold and unfeeling in general. The passions and feelings that we have through the mortal sense have to do with the impulses we have to continue on. We feel the need to establish relationships and continue ourselves through our children. We do this through the common means but if one reaches immortality, the meaning behind these actions disappears. The pressures of finding a mate diminish but it leads to another aspect of immortality: loneliness. The perfect example of this is Louis and Armand. They both are vampire males and seek to establish a relationship with only emotion as the kicker. They do have a relationship that lasts until Louis visits Lestat and sees what he becomes. He appears to care less for his emotions and thus his feelings of love and anger. Armand brings up the fact that he had killed Claudia in an attempt to stir feelings of love and or anger, but it effects him in no way whatsoever. When the feelings of passion disappear, what would be left for an immortal? He becomes more secluded and hates his nature. However, he is one example in the text. Lester provides another example, what happens when an immortal falls in love but cannot move past the feelings. He pursues Louis repeatedly and also kills for him, while Louis repeatedly tries to kill him. He is the lover scorned. With immortality, one unable to get past feelings can experience several lifetimes of thinking, and drive themselves into madness over getting that lover back. Immortality changes the game in the way that living forever can allow for extreme love, and extreme hatred. This leads to some truths about relationships, the first being passion. A relationship without passion is as eventful as a limp vegetable. Passion is what keeps a relationship lively and healthy, and once it disappears a relationship becomes distant and slowly fades.

Week One: The gothic

For the introduction to this class I read Marry Shelly's classic Frankenstein. I found the psychological aspects of the story to be quite intriguing. It is a story of with strong character development. Dr. Frankenstein's Abomination is the greatest example of this character development. It is a creature created from an experiment to reanimate dead tissue. Once it is given life it begins as any new creature, in its infancy. The creature may be fully formed and large in stature, but its mind is in the young stages of a newborn child. It does not understand what it is and like any child, it does not see itself different from any other person. Once it finds societal members that teach it to speak, read, and write, it believes itself to be a member of society. This creature doesn't understand why people run away from it, and it becomes dejected from society. It becomes frustrated and hurt by this, and begins to act as if it is in its adolescent years. It seeks revenge on its parent, and curses its existence due to this man. He finds ways to get at Frankenstein, in this case by killing off his family. It only reaches adolescence though, once the creature finds its creator after the long trek through the arctic, it begins to realize what it had done. It had not thought of the future until he had finally achieved what he had aimed to do. This psychologically is similar to one in their teens, where they act on emotion and impulse without the forethought of the consequences of their actions. Like any teen, it has an emotional response to this. It begs the question of what he creature was maturing to. The quick development of it could have seen a truly bright and prosperous individual. This ties into the theme of society, it is incredibly vain. We want people whom are pretty or seem to fit in over truly brilliant and less attractive individuals. We seem to value the youthfulness of a face over the intellectual person.