I'm going to Backlash against the Madoka Backlash

Lately there's been a backlash against Madoka, one that reminds me of the Backlash against Nolan's Batman films from a few years ago.

Madoka is not an anime I'm certain I consider one of my top favorites, it probably was when I first watched it mainly because there was so much I hadn't seen yet way back then. There are two Anime pretty easy to write off as copying Madoka that I'd now say I possibly like more, Yuki Yuna is a Hero and Wixoss.  And there is an older Magical Girl show with some of the same people behind it I would now say I like more, Lyrical Nanoha seasons 1 and 2.

It's partly Rebellion's fault, for playing into a wrong perspective of the show.  People constantly saying it was Dark for the sake of being Dark, or "Tragedy Porn"

I now somewhat more strongly agree with those who say it's not a Deconstruction.  My post on the subject from late 2015 was kind of a bait and switch to begin with, ending by calling it a Reconstruction.

What's really interesting to remember is how SFDebris.com in his reviews of the original series said he didn't even find the show that dark.

I still haven't seen Raising Project yet, from what I've heard it's more like what people keep writing off Madoka as.

I of course cited Madoka as an example in my The Night is Darkest Just Before The Dawn post.  And Mentioned Madoka in my Yuki Kajiura post.

The Show hasn't been at the top of my radar as much as I've discovered more Anime to watch.  But every time I look back on it I remember it fondly.  The characters were pretty well developed, not as one note as Digibro tries to write them off as.  And it's 12 episodes were perfectly structured to tell their story.

Much of the Backlash comes from my fellow Feminists.  The show isn't seeking to send a Feminist Message in the same way Sailor Moon is.  But the perception that it is rejecting the empowering Magical Girl message is tied to the wrong perception that it's a Deconstruction.  I have trouble being critical of Magical Girl shows on Feminist grounds since the least of them I still feel does better then Western Superhero Comics, even female lead ones.  Maybe it's just because Japan's gender issues are different so they quite unintentionally give Western Feminists what we're looking for, but I'll still take it.

Could the Gerudo have been based on The Gorgons?

One of the many things that excites me about Breath of The Wild is seeing the Gerudo finally being given some attention.  I have been fascinated by them for many reasons, like my general interest in Amazons as a concept.  I suggested a theory on a Zelda forum once that they might reproduce by Gynogenesis.

Here, offspring are produced by the same mechanism as in parthenogenesis, but with the requirement that the egg merely be stimulated by the presence of sperm in order to develop. However, the sperm cell does not contribute any genetic material to the offspring. Since gynogenetic species are all female, activation of their eggs requires mating with males of a closely related species for the needed stimulus.

Since we were told in OoT (in the most kid friendly way possible) that they do have sex with males to reproduce.  Yet they seek these males from totally different tribes, and their distinct ethnic features remain un-distorted, most of the time.  Rarely in a Gynogenesis species a sperm will actually contribute, that could explain characters speculated to be part Gerudo (like Telma in Twilight Princess), as well as a male being born every 100 years.

But let's get to the topic I want to discus today.

You might be thinking "aren't Gorgons ugly monsters with hair made out of snakes?".  Traditionally yes.  But Diodorus Siculus claims in his account of Myrina and the Libyan Amazons, that the Gorgons or Gorgos were another Matriarchal Tribe who Myrina encountered before reaching Egypt.  Which would seemingly place them somewhere in the Sahara Desert (Though the Geography of this account doesn't exactly hold up under scrutiny).  As a Creationist interested in this subject, I've speculated they could fit into Genesis 10 via being of the Girgashite tribe of Canaan.

Scholars who think there might be some truth to this claim, have speculated this tribe maybe worshiped a Snake Goddess and that is why they became Snake monsters.  Inside the Desert Colossus/Spirit Temple of OoT, the inner statue of the Desert Goddess has a Cobra wrapped around her.

It may be this is just a coincidence, influenced by my own personal interests, like my tendency to see Solomon's Temple in the Temple of Time.  But it's an interesting comparison to make.

The common tendency to see the Gerudo as being like Arabs could make my Feminism of Pre-Islamic Arabia post interesting to look at.  [And I have since considered reasons to relocate the geography of Myrina's story from North Africa to Arabia.]

I can't play Breath of The Wild anytime soon as I'm so far behind I still own neither Console it's playable on.  But I've been watching others play it on YouTube, and I just love the detail put into creating it's world, it's mind blowing.

I'd love to see this new kind of engine applied to a revisiting of the concept of Majora's Mask.  Bring back all 4 of the original transformation masks, plus add three more.  A Gerudo Mask, a Sheikah Mask and a Rito Mask.  And maybe this Majora's Mask sequel could star Linkle rather then Link?

Making it up as you go along isn't always bad

Isaac Asimov's three laws of Robotics are probably the single most highly revered set of rules for a fictional universe ever conceived.  Before he started trying to connect the Robot universe to his other fiction they always were depicted consistently.  They're so highly revered that other writers have used them (not always correctly) as if they are just a given, from The Forbidden Planet to the Megaman games (in Japan).

This blog post isn't about that however.  It's about the fact that Isaac Asimov did not pre-plan them, they were not in some secret Universe Bible he constructed before he wrote his first piece of Robot themed fiction.  He started just writing stories about Robots how he naturally felt inspired to write them.  And then someone else, his Editor I think, told him "ya know your Robots seem to function on three basic laws" and then Isaac ran with it.  This observation being made opened the door to stories he would never have written otherwise.

There is a common perception out there that serialized fiction always works best when the writer has everything carefully planned out in advance.  Even though in the case of anything that has lasted more then one season or trilogy, that's never actually been the case, however much they may want their fans to think otherwise.  These fans may admit it's unrealistic to pre-plan every scene of all 154 episodes of a 7 season show.  But they think it's important to know where the show is headed, and to have a "Show Bible" that lays out all the key rules and lore, even ones you're going to wait years to mention onscreen.

Some fans of the Wheel of Time series are obsessed with a belief that the books are still playing out according to some master plan the original author laid out decades ago.  I have no idea whether or not that's true, I haven't read any of it yet.  But I find it amusing.

If Joss Whedon had refused to leave his original plan for Buffy Season 2, Spike would have died in episode 10.  But Buffy wound up feeling like it could have been pre-planned, buy in it's closing seasons cleverly drawing on what came before.  So basically I'm saying I do not think Joss planned for The First to be the final season's Big Bad when he wrote that Season 3 Christmas special, but it sure seemed to fit once that was how it all played out.

The average person does not know that Alexandre Dumas novels were written in a serialized format.  Among us who do know a perception exists that Dumas stories were more pre-planned then others.  And maybe he tried to be that way, but given what I know about how that industry worked, there is no way he wasn't subject to editorial whims based on reader feedback.  But Dumas and his rivals in that field like Paul Feval laid the foundations of modern genre fiction.

Telling a story that is carefully constructed from start to finish is of course often great.  But that doesn't work for something ongoing.  Madoka Magica was 12 perfectly executed episodes.  Then they decided to milk it some more.  If you want something to last years, it's best to allow it to be flexible.

Some shows seem to have poor endings because the creators wanted to stick to an ending they envisioned at the same time they wrote the Pilot, even though the show had evolved.  Star Trek Voyager was a victim of this.

You may think "Mithrandir, isn't this odd coming from someone who seems to believe George Lucas about how pre-planned Star Wars was???".  All I believe is that Vader was Luke's father by the time A New Hope was filming, I don't care how many early drafts don't fit the final product we got.  In SFdebris series about the development of Star Wars he delights in trying to refute the idea that Vader meaning father means something by going over these early versions. Yet Father-Son dynamics (with the father still alive) are all over these abandoned concepts he talks about.  Darth Vader is several of those concepts merged together, thankfully Lucas noticed that Vader means father at some point.  To me the big proof of this lies in how Anakin is never mentioned in Vader and Obi-Wan's conversation, yet their backstory as presented to Luke revolved around Anakin.

Plenty of other things clearly did change.  The Emperor was originally envisioned as just a puppet/figurehead according to the Novelization.  Yet the Novelization also proves something like the Taxation Disputes with the Trade Federation was always part of the Republic's fall.  I think Luke and Leia were already siblings when Empire was filmed, because it's ending makes no sense if they aren't, but I don't know about ANH.

So, my point is.  It's about the journey not the destination.

Most critics of fiction seem to believe strongly in Nuture over Nature.

[Update March 2024: This is another old Post I regret making.  It conflicts with how much emphasis my current Philosophy puts on Materialism.]

Gundam The Origin

As an advocate of Prequels in general, I wanted to try watching a Prequel to something I don't know the original story for.  I heard of this recently and that it was pretty good.  As you may know the only Gundam series I was previously familiar with is Gundam 00 which is not part of the Universal Century continuity.

Four Episodes are available, only the third has an after credits scene.  All four are Dubbed already, which is good, in Japan some characters are still voiced by the same actors who voiced them 40 years ago even though they are younger here.  I don't want to deal with that.

After watching them I learned that this isn't really a Prequel to the existing continuity but more of a Reboot that starts at an earlier point.  Still a similar concept.

Overall I like it, the first episode is difficult to get into at first.  What it needed was some narration set up at the beginning, like the 2nd, 3rd and 4th episodes had.

From the vague knowledge I had of Gundam going in I was easily able to guess who was supposed to be Char.  Gundam gets called the Star Wars of Japan, and Char the Darth Vader of Japan.  In some ways I think how this handles Char is how many Prequel haterss would have wanted Anakin to be written, someone introverted who doesn't much express his emotional angst.  But Lucas had a specific point to make about Anakin not being cut out for the Stoic nature of what the Jedi Order had become.  And in the OT Darth Vader was not exactly someone who restrained himself.

I think this could be a good introduction to the franchise for new fans.  I don't think I could ever watch the original Gundam, I simply don't like how most 70s Anime looked.  Here, it is hilarious how some characters look obviously like their original character designs were made in the 70s, but others not so much.

Yuki Kajiura is the John Williams of Anime

There are a lot of potential candidates for the title of all time best director or best actor in Hollywood. But I think few would dispute that the all time greatest composer of Film Scores is John Williams.

Between Jaws, Star Wars, Superman, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park and Harry Potter, he's made most of the most Iconic film scores of all time.  Harry Potter is the only of those franchises I haven't seen, but I still recognize the Music when I hear it.

Who are the top composers of other mediums?  Back when G4 still existed and still had more then just one show about Video Games.  I watched a half hour biography they did of the main Composer of the Final Fantasy series.  He seems like a good candidate, but to me the most personally Iconic video game music is definitely the music from Nintendo first party titles.

But I think easily the John Williams of Anime is Yuki Kajiura.

She did Noir, my favorite Anime, largely the reason I got into anime.  It's soundtrack is still the only Anime soundtrack I've ever bought on CD.  And to this day it holds up, I can put that Music on my not quite an IPod and go weeks listening to no Music other then it.

After that she's done it's sister series, Madlax and El Cazador de la Bruja.  Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Fate/Zero and Sword Art Online.  And many others I still haven't watched yet, some I intend to try soon.  There are some where her Music is the only nice thing some people have to say about it, not unlike how SW Prequel haters feel about their Music.

Can any other Anime composer compete?  Lots of Anime have memorable opening and closing themes, but nothing epic in terms of score.  Death Note's score is memorable mostly for how obviously it's going for an Omen vibe, and that's fine, it works great for what Death Note was doing.  And you've got lots of Anime where the characters are making Music in the show.  Evangelion is an anime who's most disappointing quality was it's music, I love that Bohemian Rhapsody AMV because I feel it tells the story musically far better.  The music of Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works does as well as it does largely because it's following Fate/Zero's lead, knowing Yuki will be back for the Heaven's Feel movie has me even more excited for it, it's too bad the Dub probably won't get a theatrical release.

The only Anime who's score can compete with Yuki Kajiura scores is Revolutionary Girl Utena.  And it had two composers, the Duel Themes were done by a different composer then the rest.  And neither had done anything else I'm currently familiar with, partly because not much else that is considered a must watch.

So for the time being I feel there is little competition for Yuki Kajiura as the best Anime Composer.

The Lion King is more like Horus then Hamlet

First I recommend you watch this video on YouTube from KyleKallgrenBHH.

I have long felt that The Lion King's connection to Hamlet is overstated, and on that subject this is a great video.

He also laments how we commonly fail to look for African inspiration for the story.  The African legend he talks about, Sundiata, is pretty interesting and I think may well be relevant.  But there is another Nation in Africa who's mythology has long been what the story of The Lion King first makes me think of.

Egypt, which called itself Kemet.

Simba = Horus
Mufasa = Osiris
Scar = Set
BTW, Scar is depicted as arguably vaguely Homosexual and Set's stories also have some homoerotic undertones to them.

Now we should remember that Set wasn't so firmly vilified originally.  But because the Hyksos foreign occupiers favored him so heavily, Set's reputation took a nose dive during (most of) the New Kingdom.  And in The Lion King the Hyena's could perhaps be viewed as representing those foreign oppressors.

Of course Egypt being one of the most Ancient nations on Earth, and which had long periods of influence and contact with other regions, means that this pattern was mimicked elsewhere quite frequently.  And perhaps even Egypt didn't do it first, but from what we can verify their version was probably the first written down.

In Greek mythology there was Perseus who it seems may have originally been fathered by Proteus, the brother of Acrisius, not Zeus.  Which in turn influenced Herodotus's version of the biography of Cyrus.

Kyle talks in the video about how every work has many ancestors.  I feel like noting how a writer may not always be consciously aware of what's influencing them.  I know because of who I've spent my time with I've spent a lot of time seeing and hearing movies and TVshows I would never have chosen to watch on my own.  And I have vague memories of things I do not remember the name of, or maybe never knew.

Kyle chose Moses as a potential Biblical example.  I would have picked David as a future King who spent time in Exile, though there is also Hadad of Edom in 1 Kings 11.  And then Athaliah as a blatant Usurper. I also have a tendency to suspect Jehosheba and Athaliah are echoed in the tale of Snow White.

But also as a Christian I could compare this pattern to The Bible's overall depiction of Satan as the current Archon of the Kosmos and god of this Aion, having stolen the Dominion from Adam.  And Jesus as The Son of Adam who will restore everything.

While Shakespeare's Hamlet fails to be like The Lion King or the story of Horus due to how Hamlet never takes the Throne or cares to.  In the original Danish legend of Amleth he actually does become King.

Other plays of Shakespeare also echo this pattern.  You can see it somewhat in the Henriad as Kyle points out.  Macbeth, Richard III and King John are all plays where the title character is kind of the Set figure.

Paul Feval novels where this pattern is reflected include Revenants, and the DeClare story in The Blackcoats: Heart of Steele.

In Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, the original backstory we are given made Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader kind of surrogate brothers, students of the same master.  In which case Anakin becomes Osiris, Vader is Set and Luke is Horus.  Later when we learn the truth this analogy doesn't really change, Osiris and Set simply become two sides of the same person.  Even the Dismemberment theme may go back to Horus castrating Set.  So yes you can say that the voice of Mufasa had previously voiced Scar.

In Super Mario RPG The Legend of The Seven Stars, Mallow is a rightful prince in unknowing exile while Valentina is the usurper.

Recent takes on Snow White try to play up how she can be viewed as a female version of Horus, and the Evil Queen as a female Set.  I think there is a lot more potential to be had from taking that approach.  There is also Ashe in Final Fantasy XII.

So, those are my elaborations on Kyle's thoughts.