Art, novels, poems, movies, games. Whatever. You got a weird scholarly need to ramble about the form of some piece of media there is a place for it. This is the place.
I am so glad the ADHD medication is working, because I am reading again. Which means in three books from now, I go back to House of Leaves. I didn't get far enough to really see the formatting fuckups last time (I packed the book away because we were planning to move and ended up not doing so, causing that box of books to end up in storage for like four years), but I did get to when the sentences were spacing out subtly more and more until I realized there were all of four sentences per page. In a passage about how the male homeowner started looking in his daughter's closet, only to realize there was a labyrinth that should not be there. An empty, white, dark labyrinth. Much like the pages losing text. Also, I like how there's so many sources that do not exist. Make it seem real, but lie to me.
I still haven't read House of Leaves yet. I need to. Because it sounds like my jam. Which I almost typed as jame. MORVEN. -shakes fist--
I'm just gonna reserve a spot here so that I can scream about the dresden files later because i love those books but DAMN DO I HAVE SOME PROBLEMS WITH THEM
Also feel free to link to and share analyses others did that you like. Like this here analysis of Bloodborne's plot by dmcredgrave. The Pale Blood Hunt is a 90 page long analysis of the entire game's plot, along with how the plot functions on a meta level (which is to say that there is no plot, and it is Miyazaki's truest presentation of filling in the blanks when you only know a tenth of the words writing style).
the first time I read The Princess Bride I was young enough that I went and pestered my mom to find me the unabridged version and she had to explain that the author made that whole thing up.
ALSO, LISEY'S STORY Which has a lot less meta-weirdness, but I ended up thinking that it was a universe that replaced the word "fuck" with "schmuck" at some point at history, considering how often Lisey would say it. But that being said, great way of getting into the mind of this mourning and still traumatized woman who really doesn't think highly of herself compared to her late husband or her eldest sister, but also is actually really creative and probably could be as great of a novelist (or at least an equivalent essayist) as her husband with her way with words and dancing around the issue of her husband's magical bullshit, his own childhood trauma, the time they nearly got divorced in German, and when he got shot at a college campus. But at the same time, until the very end, I didn't know how much was real on that, because we only have her memories and also her acknowledging "well, the shooting wasn't in a newspaper, but that makes sense as the school covered it up." Lisey is a really suspicious and dubious person, and it's hard to tell if she's dealing with the same psychotic episodes her second-eldest sister has, or if she's just making everything up because she can't deal with her husband's death and harassment from a stalker so therefore there needs to be a grand magical mystery involving a lost spring and demonic possessions and prophetic visions. Spoiler: spoilers for the book I will admit, the reveal that the spring was real and she could now access it was kind of a bummer. I was really hoping King was going to leave that up to question, on if magic is real or if Lisey is having hallucinations and delusions hard core, or if it's some combination of both things or neither, and either way it goes she's going to have to deal with Stabbs McKenzie the stalker who's name I forgot. The most disappointing thing though is so much analysis about the book just gets stuck on her dialect, so it's almost all complaints about 'babyluv' and 'schmucking', which to be fair are really overused in the book, but there's reasons for it, and it doesn't change the fact that it's building up this heartbroken and ill person trying to save herself from a horrific situation!
I love House of Leaves. Haunted(?) house + meta-weirdness on several levels + multiple unreliable narrators = very happy Val. Also, I have a sneaking suspicion the legends of Summerwind Mansion might have been some sort of inspiration for the house in the book. Here's a more exciting account (read: completely uncritical repetition of the legends) of Summerwind.
If people like House of Leaves they should try The Familiar vols 1, 2 and 3 (and other/s when it/they come out)! Same author, similar in terms of breaking traditional formats of books/stortelling. Quite different in terms of the subject/plot, but there are similar uncanny themes. Also I love the main character, she is great. I feel like @Aondeug would like it a lot.
Hi yes guess who can talk for ages about video game... well, okay, mostly JRPG... storytelling, it me. Available topics include: Why Final Fantasy VII's Nibelheim flashback is one of the most brilliant bits of storytelling I have ever seen The symbolic interchangeability of the Wild Card ability in Persona 3 and Persona 4 with the protagonists' nature as a blank-slate player cipher The symbolic interchangeability of the Score in Tales of the Abyss with the game's script The narrative function of bad ends in Radiant Historia vs. pretty much every other game with bad ends ever 12 hours of ranting about Chrono Cross What we can tell about the development of various deeply flawed Ace Attorney games from what those flaws are Final Fantasy IV DS is an offense against god
[twelve hours of ranting about Tales of the Abyss] also the Order of the Stick is one of the best put together fantasy stories of all time and Rich's commentary in the compilations is where baby Nai learned a huge chunk of storytelling. fucking fight me.
Re: Lisey's Story, that's really interesting, @missoyashirou! I approached it very differently, and never doubted that stuff was real. Not sure if it was just because I expect weird shit from King or if it's because I don't always pick up on things (like unreliable narrators, etc). The language never bothered me, but then again I enjoy reading Connie Willis, who loves repetition, so.......
Okay so there are a LOT of problems with Final Fantasy IV DS's storytelling, on a lot of levels, from character design to cutscene cinematography to voice actor choices (at least in English; I can't speak to the Japanese) to mechanical characterization issues that arise from being able to give otherwise character-specific abilities to anyone in the party via the Augment system (give Kain Cry, watch the hilarity). Probably the most egregious is their complete neutering of Dark Knight Cecil with the two-part combo of a) casting Yuri Lowenthal doing an angsty woobie voice as his voice actor (I can't speak to how he sounded in Japanese) and b) constantly having the faceplate on his helmet up. But for detailed analysis, I think probably the best example I could go into is a side-by-side comparison of Tellah's death scene. Spoiler: How to ruin a cutscene: a case study Spoiler: Summary for the uninitiated Dramatis personae Golbez- The (apparent) Big Bad. Obviously inspired by Darth Vader. Has done assorted diabolical things and is collecting plot coupons for his own mysterious goals. Cecil's brother, although Cecil doesn't know this, and in the original game it wasn't clear if Golbez did. Cecil- The main character. At this point in the story, Golbez has threatened him into fetching a plot coupon in exchange for his girlfriend's life. Rosa- Said girlfriend. Currently tied up in the next room. Tellah- An elderly sage whose daughter was killed in an attack by Golbez and wants revenge. Gameplay-wise, his age shows- he knows every spell in the game, but his defensive stat growth sucks and his MP is fixed at 90. In normal gameplay, he literally cannot cast the most powerful spell in his repertoire, Meteo/Meteor, because its MP cost is 99. He repeatedly states his intent to use it to kill Golbez before this. Kain- A dragoon who's a close friend of Cecil's. Working with Golbez; turns out to have been mind-controlled. Basic summary of events: Cecil and company get to the top of the tower Golbez made them go through to meet him. Golbez and Kain show, right on schedule. Cecil hands the crystal over, but when he demands they return Rosa, Golbez goes "Whatever are you talking about~? I don't know any Rosa~. :D" Everyone is appropriately pissed off, and Tellah decides he's sick of waiting, shoves Cecil out of the way and throws down. He casts most of the most powerful attack spells in the game in quick succession- Bio, Firaga, Blizzaga, Thundaga- while Golbez just kinda stands there. Then he busts out Meteor. The other party members tell him not to do it, but he ignores them. And that makes a dent in Golbez. Unfortunately, while it hits him pretty good, Golbez survives, and Tellah's now pushed himself way past his limits and collapses. Golbez discovers that the Meteor broke his control over Kain, who's over to one side, dazed. Cecil tries to stop Golbez from leaving, but Golbez blasts him across the room. He stands over Cecil until Cecil asks why he doesn't finish him off, has a brief crisis in response because he doesn't know (foreshadowing of the "brothers" reveal), and leaves, saying they'll ~MEET AGAIN~. Tellah laments his bad choices and dies dramatically surrounded by the rest of the party, Kain rejoins the team, and you head into the next room to rescue Rosa. Now, videos. Here's the scene in the SNES release: And the scene in the DS release: The first thing you'll notice is that this doesn't even look like the same dungeon. I don't have a problem with this in theory- I suspect it happened because the DS version had a much better budget and far fewer memory restrictions, so they didn't have to reuse environment assets- but right off the bat switching metal and machinery with a lot of black space for well-lit light brown stone gives the entire setting a completely different feel. The original map also has a gap or ledge down the middle of the room separating Cecil's party from Golbez and forcing the party members to approach one at a time, which affects how they move in the scene- e.g. there's no way for anyone to come to Cecil's rescue after Golbez blasts him across the room because Golbez is standing in the way. The general character movements are unaltered in the DS release despite the fact that they're now standing in an empty, featureless room. In the DS version, the cutscene doesn't trigger until you're actually closer to Golbez and Kain than the party is in the cutscene; this is a minor error, but easily-fixed and rather telling when combined with the rest of this. Cecil stepping forward to hand over the crystal is a far less dangerous move in the DS version, due to the lack of the ledge- now he's standing on equal footing with Golbez, with his friends right behind him and able to come forward easily. In the original SNES version, Tellah very clearly smacks Cecil hard out of the way. There's a sound effect and a screen flash and Cecil backs up all the way to the wall when Tellah hits him. In the DS version, Cecil calmly steps out of the way for Tellah without even being prompted. The change deemphasizes how angry Tellah is, the destructiveness of that anger (he's even lashing out at people on his side), and the fatal flaw of his impulsiveness here. It's also inconsistent with Cecil's behavior shortly afterward- telling Tellah not to throw his life away has a lot more force to it if Cecil didn't quietly step back to let him do it a minute before. How much bigger Golbez is in battle than the PCs in the SNES version, while ridiculous, is consistent with most other sprited enemies in the game. Since all field sprites are pretty much the same height and even ordinary soldiers show up in the battle interface as several times Cecil's height, it's within the game's established aesthetic that Golbez can look giant. The DS version scaled the battle model in the image of the giant SNES version... except that the DS version doesn't have that convention, and the field models do come in different sizes. So instead it looks like Golbez just randomly got bigger. Tellah's MP is visible in the interface in the DS version... which means you can see it not going down. Another minor point, but it doesn't help. The DS version has very different game balance from the original, which is mostly a good thing, because it makes the combat way less annoying and grindy, but the difference in damage output really hurts this scene. In the SNES version, Tellah's strongest spells at the level he's probably at are doing a few hundred damage, which makes Meteo(r) hitting the damage cap really shocking; it's well over an order of magnitude stronger than probably anything else you've seen at this point. This makes Golbez laughing him off until he uses it make a ton of sense. In the DS version, Tellah is hitting for about a quarter of Meteor's damage with every spell. This makes it a lot less impressive by comparison. While Meteor's animation is graphically a lot prettier in the DS version, the animation itself still doesn't have as much impact as the SNES one. SNES!Meteo covers the entire screen with dozens of meteors that bombard everything and flash the whole screen red several times; DS!Meteor is a shorter animation hitting a smaller area. SNES!Meteo looks like a whole different beast from all your other magic- DS!Meteor doesn't look all that much more impressive than the -agas. In the DS version, nobody moves at the end of the battle sequence. The SNES version had limited character animations, so the only visible reaction from Golbez is moving forward, but both Kain and Tellah collapse before the dialogue continues. The DS version, however, despite having more options, delayed even those reactions, making both Tellah and Kain just sorta stand there for a line or three before passing out. This further waters down the impact of Meteor, since the limited art of the SNES version let you imagine whatever damage or reaction you wanted, but in the DS version, there's just... nothing. There could have been, and isn't. Meteor apparently only existed within the context of the battle interface, and no one is showing any particular injury from it. DS!Kain is particularly unintentionally hilarious. He doesn't look so much like he collapsed after the control was broken as like he's been standing too long with his knees locked and he blacked out. In the SNES version, Cecil starts to chase Golbez as he tries to walk out of the room; in the DS version, he just stands there and says Golbez won't escape. This makes both his line and Golbez's reaction make less sense, and makes Cecil seem more passive and unconcerned about this than he should be. I assume the DS version had Golbez smack Cecil instead of blast him with lightning for ease of animation, but I don't hold that against them all that much. What I do hold against them is that they cut straight to Golbez standing over him. The walk toward him in the SNES version is several seconds of rising tension- the DS version decided that that moment of "OH SHIT WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN" was for losers, and instead had Golbez smack Cecil, teleport on top of him, apparently be very surprised by the cutscene camera in his face, and then have Cecil immediately ask why Golbez hasn't killed him yet. When it's been, like, a fraction of a second. The same problem as the lack of damage from Meteor applies to Cecil getting thrown across the room. In the SNES version, it uses his dead/down sprite. In the DS animated cutscene he looks and sounds... perfectly fine, just on the floor. As mentioned above, changing the room's layout makes Cecil less isolated and cornered when Golbez comes after him. In the SNES version, he couldn't get to the others no matter what he did, but in the DS version, he's in the middle of a big open floor, and all he has to do to get past Golbez is go to the side. It then has the other two party members come running to Cecil after Golbez has already turned and left, which makes very little sense if they were actually worried about him. And then, having run away from Tellah's body, they turn around and run back to his body in a couple of random freeze frames which at first made me think my computer was glitching. On the plus side, in the DS version Tellah dies cradled in Cid's arms and then Cid cries into his chest, so I at least got some Old Man Wizard Yaois out of this horribly-directed mess.
For the record, my Chrono Cross ranting is not exclusive to its relationship to Chrono Trigger. I actually think it's a fantastic game outside of that sequel status, but. Well. The 12 hours of ranting covers a variety of topics. (Which reminds me, I should probably add "several more hours of ranting about Final Fantasy X" to the list. With special aside on sacrifice narratives, because that's kind of a looming issue when my favorite game in the whole wide world has heavy parallels to FFX.)
Yaaaay someone who doesn't exclusively fucking hate Cross. There's definitely a lot to rant about with it though, fond as I am of it. I should also talk about my feelings on FFX as a heavily religious person at some point. It is up there with the various Elder Scrolls games in the category of "games that I like how religion was handled to at least some extent."
My feelings are that mechanically and aesthetically Chrono Cross is brilliant. Its biggest problems are that it has a lot of trouble juggling its large cast effectively and its status as a sequel. It's pretty apparent that it wasn't a Chrono Trigger sequel for a lot of its development, and while it tries to be a deconstructive sequel, it doesn't actually offer much in the way of substantial criticism of Trigger (even though there was plenty they could have done) beyond yelling "AND THEN THEY DIED POINTLESSLY" a lot. I think Cross would function much better either further divorced from Chrono Trigger or much more closely tied to it; as is it's in a bit of a weird limbo where most of the game has absolutely no connection to the game it's supposedly a sequel to and doesn't even feel like it's set in the same world, and then the ending desperately scrambles to say everything was all about and because of the previous game all along.
kmb109 Ugh... I love the Pale Blood Hunt and Bloodborne. As much as I adore the stories in games like Mass Effect, there's something so beautiful about Bloodborne and how much of the story is unique to the player and how they decide to interpret everything
