Sunday, February 24, 2019

The Hobbit - Heroic Journey

In The Hobbit is a very good starting example of 'classic journeys' and how this genre of adventure has grown over the years. Starting elements of a classic journey, that is shown throughout The Hobbit, is that it always starts with a quest, an unlikely hero, along with someone who helps guide the hero. The different world they live in is also a good element for adventures. It's something that's completely different from our own that holds mythical beings and fictional creatures, like elves, dwarves, dragons, goblins, and beings like Gandalf who have magical abilities. 

Classic journeys like 'The Hobbit' and other stories that follow its features are a great way for the readers to escape and imagine their each individual adventure through these worlds. Being able to imagine your own adventure is a great accomplishment for these stories to gain. 

Sunday, February 17, 2019

Witches 

The characters in Akata Witches seem fit more into their own personality types, not so much fit into one of the 12 archetypes. After reading more into it, many of the archetypes seem to be something big, wired a strict way. These characters might fall into those archetypes, but multiple, not just one of them. 

One of the 16 personality types might be better suited for these characters. For example, Sunny's personality, who is said to be optomistic and intelligent, would be ESFJ: The Caregiver. The caregiver is someone who is warm-hearted and puts someone else before themselves. 

I believe Chichi's personality falls under the ESTP: The Doer. This personality is described as friendly and action oriented who like immediate results. This makes me think of Chichi and how she is very energetic and is quick to prank her friends. 

Orlu is a more quiet, intelligent character. His personality strikes me as the INTJ: The Scientist, described as quiet, analytical and has a high value of knowledge. Even though Orlu has a dyslexia, he still is very smart and quick on his feet to help out his friends. 

Finally, I think Sasha's personality would fall under ENTJ: The Executive who are described as assertive.  Since Sasha is hot headed and tries to control his anger, this personality fits him well.

Sunny and Chichi seem to represent the simplicity of independence with their powers.

Monday, February 11, 2019

Weird Horror

What makes weird so compelling and eye-catching is how different it is from our normal everyday lives. In films, weirdness can go from comedic, innocent to a more trickery of the mind. There's no killer or supernatural being declared, just something that can mess with our heads and affect our actions. 

An example from the movie we watched in class, Under the Skin, shows how a human can be very disconnected from humans and society, barely any emotions which can make the audience uncomfortable. The scene where the two men are under her reflection in her "home," one of them pop to what it seems like only their skin. It makes you think "what is causing them to disappear?", "what is her purpose?", "Does she do this to survive?". 

An example from Borne is how a lot of the weird elements are produced by us, humans. What we want to discover or create, no matter how weird, can cause some kind of consequence. After an apocalypse in the story, whether men caused that or not, more weird things begin to occur, like the creatures 'The Company' created that cause destruction on the city the main character lives in. 





Monday, February 4, 2019

Asian Supernatural

While watching the movie, Kwaidan, in class, you can see a difference between western and eastern horror just by the way supernatural beings act. Yuki, the woman of the snow, will kill a human but she kills for a good meal, which is not very often. Compared to western horror, demons or evil spirits usually posses, or do something to harm many people at once. 

Eastern culture has a good balance of good and evil spirits, just as western culture does. Western cultures believe in angels and demons, expressing how demons can harm humans and only do evil, while angels protect. In comparison to eastern cultures, they believe in beings that take different shapes like demons, ogres, or trolls, whether good or bad, and welcome the good spirits with shrines and open arms. 

While reading a bit of the book, A Wild Sheep Chase, I only felt very anxious and unsettled by the story. It doesn't start out positive. The narrator is divorced with no kids, and his girlfriend at the time is a prostitute and ear model. No one had names, except for Rat who began to write him from weird locations. It seemed like the Sheep-man was just stalking him almost over a couple of days. 

This story and the movie shows that an eastern spirit can be harmful to a human, making them want to harm themselves just to get rid of it, or follow them for an intended purpose, but their not always pure evil.