The Fiction of Ideas

While reading 'The Left Hand of Darkness,' the story starts out with space travel to an alien planet. Two astronauts try to bring two civilizations on that plant together for some kind of peace. 

The idea of space travel and alien plants/civilizations aren't fiction, the worlds the author creates for this story are. The creation adds to the alien planets we haven't discovered yet. The author also creates the planets religion and spirituality, which could be fiction but with so many possibilities in the universe, it's always possible that something similar exists. 

Space Opera and the New Frontier

While reading The Martian, the obvious elements in that story that we've covered before is  isolation and fear. Mark Watney was alone for two years, his only friend for a short time was a mars rover. Just like any horror story/film that we covered, being somewhere so unknown and literally out of your normal element and far from your home can send anyone into an endless state of fear. Mark does have something to kinda help him though which is his humor. He might not have anyone to share it with but it does keep him happy for the most part. In comparison to the other horror stories that have a strong isolation element to them, this is whole new level of loneliness for someone to face.

Spiritual Education

Since the beginning of the "The Night's Circus", the two children, Celia and Marco, are raised from a young age to keep their minds on the competition and build their strength and magic abilities to win. As they grew older and met for the first time, the two had a strong connection with each other. The complex moral issue shown in this story is how two people who are supposed to be against each other and fall in love against their teachers wishes. The two are feel heartbroken when they realize the competition can't be stopped and someone needs to be killed in order for someone to win. In their response, as Marco is about to commit suicide, Celia jumps into that same pillar of flame to be with him. This sends the two into what seems like a limbo world deeper into the circus, where they are neither dead or alive. But they're together. 

Sometimes going against your parents wishes can turn out to be a positive or negative thing. This issue seemed to be a neutral. The two stay together and love each other, while Marco's father-figure, Mr. A-H, helped officially end the competition between the two.

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. 

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.

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. 

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.