A Class of Angels

 I have started a YouTube channel where I'll be discussing many of the same topics I discuss on this blog. 

As part of the YouTube channel I have started a series called A Class of Angels where we'll be looking at advanced writing techniques by analyzing the show.

The first episode is live here.

Take Note: Why Star Wars has the Best Battles in Cinema

Take Note is series where we examine a single idea for others to consider.

Spoiler Warning: The following article contains minor spoilers for Star Wars: The Last Jedi. The article below only talks about the space battles in the film. Characters and locations will be discussed loosely, and without names. If you're sensitive to that sort of thing, check back later. Everyone else, let's do this.

One of the opening scenes in the latest Star Wars film, The Last Jedi, is a big space battle. I know, you're shocked. A big space battle in a film called Star Wars. I'll give you all a minute to catch your breath and finish clutching your pearls. Good? Good. It was during this scene that it occurred to me why Star Wars battles are so memorable, and why they work so well, even when they are largely inconsequential to the overall plot. These  long movies, with several story lines to deal with, philosophies to expound on and secrets to reveal. Do they really have time to waste on all the pew pew and bang bang? More importantly, how do they get away with wasting time on them? In a film about space wizards fighting with laser swords, which is already pretty awesome, it's saying something that many of memorable moments come from rust buckets trying to gun each other down.

Stop me if you've heard this one: In a Star Wars movie there's an enemy fleet of baddies about to kill kittens or something. And there's another fleet of good guys trying to stop the bad guys or run away or save the universe. Both sides have launched their fighters and the big battle is about to really get going. And then this happens:

Do you remember this guy? Looks familiar right? Do you know his name? I sure don't. But this, right here, is why Star Wars battles actually work. This guy isn't one of the heroes. He's not even an important second tier guy like Hawkeye or a recurring jokes like the Cabbage Vendor. Nope, this lovable fellow exists only so that a handful of minutes from now a lucky tie fighter pilot can turn him into charcoal.

The obvious move here would be to say that Star Wars takes the time to show you the pilots, to humanize them. To remind us that behind the cockpit of those crafty X-Wings and speedy A-Wings are real people with real emotions. That in conflict, fighting for your ideals has a price. But in truth, you'd have gone to far. It's not that Star Wars takes the time to show you a human face, it's that Star Wars takes the time.

The space battles in Star Wars have stakes. They have moves and counter moves. They have tactics and gambits that either pay off or fail and they have a resolution. In essence, they are a story unto themselves, a stage play of battleships and aircraft dog fighting on the endless sea of space. The films take the time to show us this, to let us know who and where all the pieces are on the board before things really get under way.

The opening space battle in The Last Jedi is about a Rebel fleet trying to escape from an Imperial fleet. The Imperial fleet has a big battleship that can punch through the shields of the Rebel fleet's capital ship. That's it. That's all you need to know and it's set up in like thirty seconds in the film around story dialogue and other bits. The Rebels release all their ships to take out the big Imperial ship and then we get our quick cuts to each pilot's cockpit. More important than the score, we know the rules of the sport we're playing. The Rebels have a ship they want to protect, the Imperials have a ship they want to protect. The time limit is determined by when the Rebels can escape. Everyone releases their fighters onto the field and it's time to play ball.

So much of modern cinema forgets to do this, or dices it up so finely that it is unrecognizable. So many fantasy movies with battles full of orcs and mystical beasts and big explosions and it's all meaningless, not because we don't know what the stakes are, but because we don't know how the game is being played. All we see is two mobs smash into one another interspersed with clips of our heroes cutting through mobs of faceless enemies while exchanging witty one liners. It's all fluff. I'd be hard pressed to tell you the details of any big, army sized fight scene in a Marvel movie for instance, or Lord of the Rings, but I can recall just about every space battle in every Star Wars film to date. I can tell why they were fighting, what they were fighting over, who was in the battle and where they were.

I can tell you those things because the Star Wars films, all of them, the good and the bad, have taken the time to set their stage. In the Marvel movies, which are all great, often times our heroes are reduced to punching baddies until the plot timer goes off. Four or five of our team is left to thinning out the herd until one of them can reach the thing they're fighting over. And that's not to knock the Marvel movies. They've done a lot great work that puts the ten-thousand-cuts school of film editing in modern action movies to shame. But the reason why Star Wars is so enduring, why it is so memorable on top of the lightsabers and the Force, is because each of their battles are communicated to the audience effectively. Who, what, when, where, why? These are questions we're all familiar with, questions we all apply to our stories, but how many of us stop to ask them of our battles?

Doom 2016 In Translation: Tension, Horror and the Evolution of the Doom Guy

Earlier this year, the long awaited sequel/reboot/revival of the classic Doom series arrived to a cautious and skeptical crowd. The original Doom released in 1993 during the grunge heavy days of Nirvana and Pearl Jam and cemented one of the biggest genres in video games, the First Person Shooter. You could forgive fans of their trepidation. Like most long lived franchises, the sequels and follow up projects to Doom had failed to capture the imagination in the same way. Doom 4 had languished in development, only to eventually be morphed, reborn into Doom 2016. In a pleasant turn of fate the fans ended up being wrong. Dead wrong. Doom 2016 was not only awesome, not only a stellar celebration of everything Doom had been and could be, it was also a damn fine video game.

It appears the making of the game, like most projects, was not without its own battles. Thanks to the great work of Danny O'Dwyer and his excellent noclip series, viewers are given an eye into the internal struggles the team went through in trying to decide the game's atmosphere, tone and gameplay style. One of things brought up frequently in the interview with Hugo Martin, the game's creative director (you can watch his extended interview here), is the inspiration that came from action movies and comic books. Ideas of tone and pacing that helped guide them in their vision of a new doom, something that was fast paced and bad ass in all the ways the original had been.

The shadows bathe the corridors. Lights, struggling to maintain power flicker and spark. A woman, dressed in a lab coat and business attire runs though the darkness. She reaches an intersection of once pristine metal corridors. To her left, light, salvation, to her right, only darkness. Two beady red eyes appear, attached to a hulking black shape in the shadows. The shape lets out an angry snort. The woman runs down the corridor, toward the light. Toward safety.

The thing that makes Doom 2016 so brilliant, so satisfying is not the action, not the push forward combat as defined by the creative team, but the tension. The tension that is formed by all of these things and feeds back into them. The art style, the animations, and especially the amazing soundtrack pump the player up, it gets their blood boiling until they need that release, until they are dying to punch something. We've all likely had that feeling before, when your blood pressure it up, when you're angrily pacing back and forth and you just want to hit something. Its a violent urge, an urge that must be controlled in a productive and safe society, but when you give in, when you let out that pent up rage it feels good, damn good. And that's exactly what the new Doom taps into.

There's a great scene in Breaking Bad where Walter White, as played by Bryan Cranston goes to the doctor. He's fighting cancer, his life is a mess. All the tension, all the rage that has been building up inside of him is finally threatening to boil over.  He goes to the bathroom, chest heaving, face contorted, fists clenching. Finally, in an explosive release of anger he goes absolutely ape shit, beating the hell out of a paper towel dispenser. It doesn't sound like much, but it's an excellent scene, one of the most memorable in the series. That's in large part to that tension, that anger slowly building up in the character that we the viewers also feel. The act of losing control, of pummeling this inanimate metal object not only acts as release for the character and the audience, it shows how close the character is to losing control, and how dangerous he will be when he finally does.

She can hear it behind her. The massive, fleshy footsteps of the beast. The heavy, snotty breath. The doors are just ahead. The lights gleaming around the edges show it is still alive, still has power. The doors can still save her, if only she can reach them before the beast does. The doors open automatically, welcoming her, offering her their salvation. She gets inside, she slams her hand on the control panel. The doors shut, they lock. She's safe. The woman leans against the wall, her own chest heaving, breath labored. All is quiet. Then SLAM, the beast crashes into the double doors like a fright train. They hold. She lets out a breath. Outside the door she can hear it, hear the beast's snarls. It snorts and walks away, the massive steps echoing in the silent corridor. 

I have to admit, in this internet confessional, I have never much cared for action movies. When I was a kid action movies were big explosive things. The eighties era was winding down to a close, flooding old action movies into syndication. The nineties were still living in the shadow of the previous decade, struggling to find a voice of their own. Action movies were loud, vulgar things. Big guns, big explosions. The good guys were gruff, unshaven, beat down by the world. The bad guys were rich and sophisticated, trying to make a buck off of people's misery.

I never cared. Big dumb action guy fights hordes of less interesting storm troopers. They were invincible, walking tanks of pure destruction in human form. There was no tension, no fear. Not on the side of the hero and certainly not on the side of the bad guys. Everyone was so sure of their purpose. The good guys march forward into the face of certain death to rescue the girl and save the world. The bad guys who would inevitably exclaim "it's just one guy!" only to run out into the open and be gunned down. Set piece after set piece, explosion after explosion, it was all just meaningless noise to me.

Modern action movies aren't much better. Sure they put more effort into the story, sure they take the time to beat the crap out of the hero, but for every step forward they take two steps back. The stories in modern action movies are barely comprehensible, filled with more plot holes than you can keep up with and arranged by a spine twisting number of conveniences and coincidences. The music is instantly forgettable, blending in with a half dozen water downed soundtracks. And the dialogue, worst off all, has drifted from the era of iconic one liners to snarky, comedic quips that often don't gel with either character or situation.

And the action itself. Oh boy. Old action movies would take a zoomed out approach, set the camera somewhere far off and watch the hero run and gun, dive and dash as explosions reigned supreme. In the modern era, people wanted something up close, more real, more intense. What we got was shaky cams, blurry footage and a mess of sound effects and stunt doubles until you can barely manage to figure out what in the hell is going on. much less be invested in it. Somewhere along the way action movies forgot what they were about, the action, and have been diluted into some all purpose big budget thing that fails to capture anyone.

Breath caught, she pushes away from the wall. She's standing in some sort of locker room. Wooden benches without backs sit in the middle in neat rows. Tall, metallic lockers line the walls. All are shut but none are locked, waiting to be opened. She looks down, she's bleeding. Stomach wound. Lots of blood, won't last long. She pushes on. Devoid of the adrenaline of the chase, her steps are slow, breathing ragged. At the far end of the room is another set of doors. There are no lights on this door. No salvation. Cold and unwelcome, she presses on. 

Originally the protagonist of Doom was known simply as "the Doom Guy", a phrase that arose as a way to refer to the wincing face at the bottom of the screen. Over time "Doom Guy" and "The Marine" were fused into "Doom Marine" a phrase used interchangeably with Doom Guy. Now, in Doom 2016, we have the Doom Slayer, a mythic, legendary version to carry the legacy forward.

I think the evolution of the names is important, as it hints at a larger evolution in tone of the series itself. The original marine didn't need to be special. He was just some guy. The Doom Guy. Like the action heroes of the late eighties, of buddy cops and Die Hards, we didn't need him to be special. Then we have the rise of the Doom Marine. Even though he was always a marine, it is now addressed in name. He's not just a guy, not just some random person, but a soldier. A marine. A warrior meant to protect and destroy.

But here, in the modern day, is that really enough? After 9-11, after two wars in the middle east, does that term still carry the mythic weight it once did? Chances are, if you aren't a veteran, you know one. Likely more than one. While everyone acknowledges their bravery, their sacrifice and dedication, can something that common still be legendary?

The scientist punches in the code. The access panel blinks red. Wrong one. She looks back across the locker room, at the dented double doors. She can hear them out there, scurrying, screaming, looking for a way in. With one hand holding her wound, she uses her other to press in another code. Still red. She tries a third time, finger jabbing the buttons, hand shaking. Green. The doors open.

Enter the Doom Slayer. No longer a guy. No longer a marine. The Doom Slayer is now something out of the mists of legend, out of the fables and stories passed down through the ages. Something more than our everyday selves. The Doom Slayer exists not to protect, not to live but to kill demons. That is his role and that is what he does. The Doom Slayer is a symbol of human triumph, of fighting back against the shadows and driving them into the darkness.

It is in this that I am reminded not of the Doom Guy of yore, but of Master Chief, from Halo. In the original Halo, the character of the Master Chief was himself a space marine of mythic proportions. A literal super soldier meant to turn the tide against the aliens, against the monsters that people feared and to win the war for humanity. The irony, and one of the brilliant things Bungie did, was the aliens thought Master Chief was the demon, not the other way around.

The tall, tough Elites of the alien forces would run down regular space marines, would slaughter them in mass. But against Master Chief they would dance, side step, push and retreat. They knew he was a worthy advisory, something to be be feared and respected. The diminutive grunts had a strong reaction, out right running away in fear at the first site of the Master Chief. They would wave their little arms in the air and run in circles, crying and screaming for help until the faceless demon cut them down.

It's here that Doom 2016 does so well, executes so smartly. The demons aren't the enemy here, the Doom Slayer is. He's the thing to be feared, to run from. He's the unstoppable, uncontrollable, wrecking ball of a weapon that consumes all in its path. The Doom Slayer has no fear for the demons, he is the fear. He alone is the death bringer, not them.

The room is cold. Cold enough for the scientist to see her own breath as the door shuts behind her. Ahead lies some sort of stasis pod, standing against the wall. Large pipes and wires run into it, keeping it cold. On the right is a control panel awaiting a hand print. The scientist walks forward, stumbles, drops to her knees. She can't go on. The wound is too bad, too deep. She struggles, she crawls forward. Almost there. She reaches out. Not close enough. She curses, grunts, claws her way forward. At last she reaches up, her bloody hand finding the control panel. She places her hand on its surface and waits. The panel chirps and blinks green. The scientist lets out a long sigh, her hand slipping from the panel leaving only a trail of her blood behind.

There's a dual tension to Doom. A horror in two parts. The first is the one we are used too. Giant, hulking demons, snorting with flared nostrils and pointed teeth. We fear them, because they are familiar, yet different. Twisted animal forms beyond the normal pale that mean us harm. While we fear them, they fear the Doom Slayer and by making us the Doom Slayer, the circle is complete. The tension and horror flow freely until they are indistinguishable.


We run through levels, down corridors and across hellscapes. The music ebbs and flows, haunting and metallic, cautious yet loud. Driving us forward, driving us onward. The demons are huge, imposing, hulking. They hurt us, they out number us and they are without end. The horror, the anger, it all melds. It runs together as we pick up ammo, as we fire our gun. The tension builds and builds until at last we get close enough, we close ranks and we punch them. We punch them as hard as we can and they explode. Into health, into ammo, into the things we need to push ahead, to continue the fight. The tension is released. We enter the next room, the next corridor, rise over the next vista and there they are. Dozens of them, hundreds. The tension rises again.

This is what makes Doom 2016 so amazing, so refreshing. And it's exactly the sort of thing modern action movies are missing. Not special effects, not big explosions or cheesy one liners. Not impressive action sequences or witty quips. Tension. Pacing. Release. These are the things that action movies need to return to if they hope to catch audiences in the same way Doom 2016 was able rekindle that love its audience held for it. Maybe the action movies of tomorrow can learn from the Doom of today, just as it learned from the movies before it.

And a kick ass soundtrack. That definitely helps.

The chamber opens. Inside lies not a hero, but a man. Dressed in an undershirt and boxers, he looks small, weak. He steps out of the chamber and looks down at the scientist on the floor. Bleeding. Dead. He knows why. He knows why they have awoken him, what his purpose is. In the locker room he finds what he's looking for. His armor. Cleaned, polished. Ready. Piece by piece, he puts it on. No need to rush, they'll be waiting. Armor on, he stands not as a man, but as a Marine. A soldier ready for battle. He steps toward the dented doors, shotgun in hand. He knows they are out there. He can hear them. With one hand he punches the doors control panel, with the other he pumps the shotgun. The doors open. In the shadows beyond, red eyes gleam back at him. Dozens of them. He's ready. He steps out into the hall, shotgun leveled. No longer a man, no longer a marine. He is the Doom Slayer.

The Lineage of Influence, From Catch 22 to Scrubs

I'm currently on a bit of a classics kick lately in my reading, having read The Man in the High Tower, then All Quiet On the Western Front and now Catch-22. I've enjoyed all three quite a bit so far even though I am only about a third of the way through Catch. One of the things that struck me about it how similar it is to the TV version of M.A.S.H.

MASH itself has a bit of a confusing legacy. It's best know as the TV show that ran from 1972 to 1983 about surgeons serving in the Korean War, a TV show that was an adaptation of a largely forgotten movie that was itself and adaptation of an even more forgotten book, overshadowed by the TV show that bares their name. And for good reason, MASH is unquestionably one of the greatest TV shows of all time, a personal favorite and one I re-watched in its entirety early this year. So what does all this have to do with a novel written in 1960 that no one really remember outside the phrase that it gave its name to?

Turns out quite a lot. You see, Catch 22 is about a pilot in World War Two who's only goal in life is not to die. Drafted and thrown into a war zone he spends as much of time trying to get out of fighting as he does getting thrown in to it. Surrounding him are a group of wacky, crazy characters who get into their own antics and adventures. The whole book is basically one long, incredibly manic episode of MASH, even though it came out over a decade before MASH the TV show and a whole seven years before the book that inspired the movie that inspired the show. Confused yet?

Don't be, cause they're all rather similar from a bird's eye view. You see MASH the TV show is about a surgeon drafted into the Korean War who's only goal in life is not to die. He spends a great deal of time roaming the camp and getting into trouble with his hair brained, psychotic cast of background characters until the shells start flying and the casualties start coming in. Then he's up to his elbows in blood and guts trying to save the lives of kids who should be making out at drive in theaters instead of dying in a war zone.

Both of these stories are about people trying to stay sane in living hells, in the worst places on earth and craziest of all, both stories are meant to be funny. They are comedies through and through. They exists to make you laugh. Cause what's funnier than war?

I cannot say for certain what inspired the collective writers of MASH over the years because I have never met them, but I think the influence of the novel on the show is fairly clear to anyone who has witnessed both works. And there's nothing wrong with that, taking influences from what came before is how we grow as writers, it's how we push the medium forward.

I think too, that a novel like Catch 22, itself coming out to mix reception at release and then going on to becoming one of the classics of American literature helped pave the way for shows like MASH, itself a risky and boundary pushing show of the time. MASH, the show, had an enormous challenge ahead of it. This was a show about Korea, the last great American War coming out in a time of America's current greatest war, Vietnam. The show was meant to serve not just as comedy, but as a political statement. That was hard enough to do at the time, hell it's hard enough to do now. But to go the extra step and say we want this to be a comedy, to go even further and say we want this to be a comedy with a message, with dramatic intent, with a political will, well that's damn near impossible. Even if you can pull it off on paper, even if you get a studio to green light it, getting an audience to ride the emotional waves as you crest and crash from comedy to casualties, from laughter to tragedy is a challenge for any writer in any medium.

But they pull it off. Both Catch 22 and MASH are able to pull off this effortless drift along the spectrum in a way that somehow feels natural, maybe because that's how real wars are, laughing one minute and running for your life the next. Catch 22 tends to be more blunt, punctuating sentence after sentence of jokes with an off hand, casual mention of a characters death. MASH tends to play its focus tighter, sometimes pushing its downer moments to the climax of an episode or separating the antics in the Swamp from those in Surgery.  In the end they manage to strike a balance that allows the reader and viewer to experience the whole range of emotions intended, to be pulled to and fro without ever getting ripped from the story completely.

Which brings me to Scrubs.

Scrubs is also, in my opinion, one of the greatest half hour sitcoms to ever grace a television set. "My Screw Up" and "My Lunch" are two of the greatest episodes of television period and ones I think back to often. The show as a whole, while largely a goofy comedy was able to, seemingly effortlessly, slide into more dramatic and sometimes tragic moments. It walked a path laid down before it by shows like MASH, by books like Catch 22.

There were many, many medical shows before Scrubs and even medical comedies. MASH even had its own ill fated spin off set in a normal  hospital back in the states, so it was by no means the first. But the works that came before helped inspire it, they helped lay the ground work for future shows to follow in their footsteps, for future creators to point back and show a precedent for when it was successful.

Through works as these we can see the lineages of our own works, of those that came before. I think we often spend a lot of time looking at and thinking about our direct influences, on our creative idols and the altars upon which we worship them. Perhaps we should take more time to consider those who paved the roads we now use, rather than those who walked them.

Missed Opportunities - Final Fantasy 7 and the Death of Aerith

Missed Opportunities is a series dedicated to looking at narrative and mechanical choices in games.  It is not an indictment of a game's quality, nor is it it a look at mediocre games that could have been better. It is a discussion of differing paths, of choice in design.

Final Fantasy VII is a great game. While it is not my Final Fantasy of choice (that honor would go to VI) it is unquestionably one of the most influential JRPG's in video game history. It was, for many, their first major  JRPG and one of the first to tackle major themes and ideas. I came late to the FF VII party, not owning a playstation until well into its life cycle. By the time I got around to cracking open the multi disc case of Final Fantasy VII, it was already one of the most well regarded games around. It was raved about, not just in magazines, not just in playgrounds but among the entire spectrum of video game enthusiast. It was a phenomenon within the industry and made a wide impact on gamers.

FF VII was not my first JRPG. It was not even close to my first JRPG, and VI, the previous entry in the series, had left a high water mark to overcome. The 2D, sprite based predecessor of this newer game, with its expansive cast of characters, memorable story sequences and amazing soundtrack had left an impression on me that would be hard to beat. I have to admit, going into VII, I was skeptical.

This newer game, this latest in a long series was a departure. It was the first Final Fantasy to be 3D, using primitive polygons and textures over the handcrafted look of sprites exhibited by the game's predecessors. It was the first on a disk based platform, complete with loading times and impressive, pre-rendered cut scenes. But those were only surface differences. A deeper, more meaningful change was waiting.

This of course, was the materia system.  The previous Final Fantasy games were class based with the familiar mixes of Fighters, Thieves and Mages. Black Mages cast powerful destruction magic while the ever useful White Mages healed the party and kept your characters in the fight. There were Red Mages and Monks, Bards and Knights. Each character had their role to fill in the party. While they may level up, earn new abilities or change to advanced classes, their roles were largely the same. The brave knight hitting hard and soaking up damage, the wizardly black mage hanging back and casting fireballs or calling down lighting bolts and the battlefield medic of a white mage, curing poisons and patching up wounds.

In Final Fantasy VII, this all changes. Now, instead of classes or jobs, characters had materia. These little, spherical items of magic were slotted into the characters equipment and gave them special abilities. You no long had to be a Black Mage to cast a fireball, or a White Mage to heal, now all you had to do was equip the fireball materia to whichever character you wanted to be able to use the ability and it was theirs, enabling them to sling balls of fire with the best of the them.

And this is where I think they missed an opportunity, not from a game play perspective, but from a narrative one.

The story of Final Fantasy VII is not what one would call simple. There are the familiar tropes of the series for sure, oppressive governments out to put down the little guys and evil masterminds seizing powerful magics to destroy the world and become a god. A rag tag band of heroes who have to come together to stop it. This is not just well worn territory for the series, but the fantasy genre as a whole. Final Fantasy VII mixes their magic with technological elements, a terrorist with a cybernetic gun for an arm, energy reactors controlled by evil corporations, and cloned cells from an alien specimen known as Jenova.

The story weaves itself through these tropes, beginning with the main character, Cloud Strife, acting as a mercenary for hire to a group of eco terrorist trying to save the world by destroying a city's energy reactors. The job goes sideways, the reactor explodes and Cloud falls down into the city's slums, separated from the rest of his party. It is here that he is found by Aerith, a lowly flower girl with a pretty face and a pure heart.

Aerith is who the player would presume to be the love interest. A sweet, idyllic young lady living in the slums, making a living selling flowers to passers by. She is also who one would presume to be the White Mage of the party. The healer, the nurturing hand to bring the party back to life. She even gets Cloud back on his feet after he crashes on to her flower bed from above. In true fantasy fashion, bad guys show up for the girl and Cloud agrees to be her bodyguard. All the pieces are in place for a grand adventure, for the hero to save the world and woo the girl and live happily ever after.

But this is Final Fantasy VII, and in Final Fantasy VII, Aerith dies.

Her death, more than any other in video games up to that point had a profound effect on those playing the game. Even knowing her fate before I ever started the game, her death was an impactful and meaningful scene. This wasn't a one off character, this wasn't some living piece of the background with a generic name and a few lines of dialogue. This was a major character, one the player's party had spent significant time with. Aerith was the sage of the story, the Zelda to Could's Link. She, with the help and protection of the hero was supposed to save the world, not get stabbed in the back and be left dying his arms.

This was a video game, and characters aren't supposed to die in games. Well, at least not permanently. Mario might fall down a pit, Link might need a fairy to get him back on his feet, but in Final Fantasy the death of a single character was never game over. A trip to an Inn or a Phoenix Down would bring them back to life as if they only needed a little rest, a little time to get their strength back. It was only when the entire party went down would you be faced with a game over, forced to restart from your last save point and continue as if the defeat had never happened, as if it was part of some aborted timeline that no longer held impact on the rest of the world.

There would be no Phoenix Down for Aerith, no bandage for her wounds. Our hero carries her to a pool beneath the city and lays her to rest beneath the water. You could restart from a previous save, but it wouldn't matter. There was no avoiding this fate. This is how the story goes. Aerith dies and there's nothing you can do but swear vengeance and chase after the villain who killed her.

Vengeance was not what I was thinking about when Aerith died. It wasn't anger at the game's villain who killed her, or how I was going to stop his plot to end the world. I wasn't shocked, or horrified. I wasn't stunned by the lost of the pretty flower girl or a potential love interest. I was worried about my materia.

You see, Aerith was my White Mage. She held all my healing magic, all my spells that I used to keep my fighters fighting. And when she died, those spells were lodged in her inventory. An inventory that was now floating at the bottom of a pool around Aerith's lifeless corpse. How was I going to continue without a White Mage, without a healer? Would I be able to get enough potions? Would I find new materia that would allow me to heal? How was I going to stop the bad guy, to fight through his army of minions and save the world without the ability to heal my party?

Here was an idea that I had never encountered before in a JRPG. Killing a character is one thing, killing the love interest even more shocking, but to kill the white mage, to kill the healer. This was unheard of. Remove a character from a story and you're left with one less character. Remove a class from a]the party and you're left with an entirely different game.

Video games, the best of them anyway, are not just stories, they aren't just game play, they are the marriage of the two, each supporting and enhancing the other. This is where, to me, Final Fantasy VII fails, where it misses its opportunity. Because the healing materia, the spell I needed most, was safely moved to Cloud's inventory after Aerith's death.

All gameplay consequences were removed from her demise. Now another member of the party could be the healer, could be the defacto White Mage as we traveled across the world in search of an evil man and his evil plans. Aerith, while fondly remembered, would no longer be missed. Instead she would fade into the background as the party pushed on, meeting new characters and finding new spells.

How often would one have thought of her, had FF VII kept their class structure, had removed their White Mage from the game half way through? How often would you have missed her when neck deep in a dungeon, when in the final stretch of a tough boss battle?

Final Fantasy VII could have shown just how important a single character can be to a party, just how important of a role one person can play among a larger narrative, among a war. Instead they chose to build a system around materia, around spells that can be transferred from character to character with little consequence.

And in the process, missed and excellent opportunity. 

Fallout 4 and Missed Opportunity

Disclaimer #1: The following contains minor spoilers for the beginning of Fallout 4.

Disclaimer #2: I have not finished Fallout 4 and am only a few hours into the campaign, thus if there are any late game revelations about the following, I have not yet seen them.

Fallout 4 has a fantastic intro. It's an intro that I believe lives up to the studio's pedigree despite what I'm going to talk about. Waking up on a storm battered ship in Morrowind, escaping from prison along side a king, being saved from execution by the timely arrival of a dragon, seeing the early years of your life as you grow up deep underground. The studio has always had a knack for openings that draw the player into the world while setting up the grand adventures to come.

Fallout 4's intro is no different. The game opens with you, the player, standing in front of the mirror, getting ready for another pleasant morning in the idyllic Sanctuary Hills. Your beautiful wife stands behind you, lovingly commenting as you alter your character's appearance. When you're finished, she takes her turn getting ready and the player is free to roam their simple house awash in Fallout's altered version of 1950's America. 

Your infant son, Shawn, lies in a crib with a rocket ship mobile, his wooden blocks scattered around the room. A forgotten board game sits in a closet. Your household robot is waiting for you in the kitchen with a steaming cup of coffee. You spend the morning watching TV with your wife, calming your crying son and dealing with a pushy door to door salesman. It's the American dream bottled down into a short, ten minute experience and it works wonderfully.

Then the world ends and you're running. Where to or why you're not so sure. You just know that it's safety, safety for your wife and child in a world suddenly changed, in a world forever lost. You make it, one of the last to reach the Vault as the bombs fall. You watch as the mushroom cloud grows in the distance, as the elevator starts to descend into the earth. Technicians waiting for you at the bottom assure you that everything's going to be alright, that you, your wife and your child are going to be safe and sound and provided for. You relax, trying to figure out what this new life will entail. You finally let your guard down and let yourself breathe, right before the people you trust stick you in a tank that cryogenically freezes you.

And here's where I think Fallout misses a great opportunity, while you're there in the tank. I love the idea of freezing the player, of taking the fish out water approach with the vault dweller. Like the player, the character didn't grow up in this wasteland. They're use to fast food, the nightly news and all American apple pie, not super mutants, rad roaches and Synths. It's a great way to marry what the character is going through to what the player experiences. My problem is what happens while you're in the tank.

They shoot your wife in the head. 

They shoot her right in the damn head and they take your baby and then you go back on ice like the world's worst Captain America impression.

You wake up, cold and alone and venture out into the world. Into your neighborhood shattered by the bomb. Into the ashes of your once perfect house. You wander off into the wasteland in search of a son you may not even recognize, unsure of how long you've been asleep.

And I know why they do it. They want to motivate the player. What better motivation than kidnapping your only child and shooting your pretty, lovely, complimenting you while you fix your hair in the mirror, wife. They do it because they don't want to deal with the baggage, they don't want to anchor the player with this nagging wife whining about her missing son. They want to motivate the player while simultaneously giving him the freedom to conquer the wasteland however they want.

They know what they're doing. They put her in that classic 1950's dress, give her that pleasant, homely voice and the slender figure and then they shoot her in the head. You can't do anything to stop it. You can't fix it. All you can do is take her wedding ring off her cold dead finger and swear revenge like some 80's action hero.

I hate it because it's easy, because it's cheap and easy. And I hate it because it caused them to miss something with so much more depth, with so much more reason.

Imagine what would have happened if they hadn't shot your wife in her adorable little temple. Instead, they kidnap your kid and push her back in the ice box and the two of you thaw slowly out together. She panicking, crying. You wrap your arms around her and tell her everything's going to be all right. The two of you emerge into the wasteland together. You pick through the ruins of your shattered house, comfort your house robot that's been slowly going insane from two hundred years without anyone to talk to. Try to put the pieces of your lives back together.

Narratively, it's a far stronger option. But that's not the only reason I thought they should have gone that way. You see, Fallout 4 has a problem. It has the same problem every Bethesda open world game has. The player has to find their son, it's the only thing that matters to them, the only thing on their mind, a singular goal to motivate them through the trials ahead. Except it isn't. There's the minutemen to rebuild. There settlements to grow. The Brotherhood of Steel to join or fight. The question of the Synths and what should happen to them. The wasteland of the commonwealth is a complex and ever evolving place that the player is asked to weigh in on. Hours into the game I haven't even begun to look for my son. But my settlement has defensive turrets and some pretty sick lights, so clearly my priorities are in order.

This isn't a new problem for open world games, even outside of Bethesda's. So often the player is tasked to save the world, to close the Oblivion gates, to find Ciri and prevent the endless winter. Yet all around them are distractions. Races and card games, companions and damsels in distress. What bothers me so much about Fallout 4's opening is that the player's spouse gives the perfect solution for this problem.

Why does my character, who wants only to rescue their son, give a damn about the minuteman or their settlements, why does he care whether or not they are safe? I think the player would care a lot if their wife was still alive, if she was back at Sanctuary Hills, trying to pick up their life while the player was out trying to rescue their son. Why does my character team up with these random companions, often after only a simple conversation when they could walk through the wasteland side by side with the person they swore to spend the rest of their life with? Shooting side by side against super mutants and the like? Why does my character care about the food supply of settlements, of rebuilding society when there's no one to rebuild it for?

Even the two areas of growth for the character, their moral alignment and their relationship with companions would be made deeper by the presence of the player's spouse. In the beginning of the game, while your player is looking at their eyes in the mirror, your wife remarks that was on the reason she fell in love you, because of those eyes. Wouldn't it be better to have her comment on those same eyes hours into the game, how they've hardened thanks to the horrors of the wasteland, or how, even after everything they've been through they still have that same kindness she fell in love with?

The same applies to companions. Maybe she's supportive of the synths, or doesn't trust you bringing one around the house. There's a throwaway line in the beginning about her taking time to trust the handyman with your son, how does she react to a walking, talking Synth in the house? What about your female companions? Is she jealous? Does the player feel more drawn to a tough woman of the wasteland than to his sheltered wife back home?

There's so much room to explore, so many avenues to go down with these characters that would enhance the experience while simultaneously helping to ground the player in the accomplishments around him, that give the player reason for their actions. Instead they took the easy way out.They took the simple route. Why worry about any of this, why give this person character, give them hopes and dreams when they could shoot her in the head and be done?

The last thing I'll say is this, one of the first things you get after waking up is a recording your wife made for you, safeguarded all this time by your trusty house robot. It's a tear jerking tape of your wife and laughing son telling you what a great father you are, of how much your wife is looking forward to the two of you spending more time together as your try and raise your son in a rapidly changing world.

It's a great tape, one of the rare instances in games when audio logs actually have a meaningful impact. It's shame, cause I would have like to see far more of that interaction between wife and husband.

Instead I'm left with only a corpse sitting in a Cryo tank. With a wedding band in my inventory to symbolize all the conversations that were lost. All I'm left with is a wife that was shot in the head.

Character Study: Wesley Wyndam-Price

Over the past couple of months I've been watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer all the way through, and re-watching its spinoff, Angel. This re-introduced me to one of my favorite characters, Wesley Wyndam-Price. Wesley has a wonderful arc across his time on both shows, not only developing and evolving but somehow also managing to stay true to himself.

Significant spoilers for both shows are coming. You've been warned.

We first meet Wesley, played by Alexis Denisof, in season three of Buffy. After Rupert Giles is deposed as Watcher (read: mentor) to slayers Buffy and Faith, Wesley is sent by the Watcher's Council as replacement. In those early days he serves a foil for Giles. Where Giles is often stuffy and forced into the roll of restraint and experience, Wesley is new, but very arrogant. As head boy he exhibits every preppy, academic nancy boy trait to the maximum. Giles is often reserved and shy, Wesley thrusts himself in to the forefront, only to gloriously fail out of clumsiness or inexperience. In Wesley we are introduced to a smart, but insecure fellow who is constantly trying to prove himself.

Over the course of his arc, Wesley will make many mistakes, but almost always from trying to do the right thing. First we see him struggling to assert his position of superiority over Buffy and Faith, neither whom have any notion of falling in line with anyone, let alone a nerdy pretty boy from across the pond. Wesley comes into the situation seeing that Giles has given Buffy to much leeway, and he's not wrong in that assessment, but over compensates. Buffy ignores him in favor of her old teacher, and Faith goes inevitably rouge. Faced with losing control of a super powered teenager, Wesley conspires with the Watcher's Council to abduct and reform Faith. This goes less than smoothly.

We next find Wesley in the Buffy spin-off Angel. After his numerous failures in Sunnydale, Wesley was fired from the Watcher's Council and drifted to L.A. to become a 'rouge demon hunter.' He wears a leather coat, carries weapons and tries again and again to be a bad ass, only to fail miserably. After yet more miss steps he joins Angel in his detective agency, serving as resident occult expert and the brains of the early group.

This is where most shows would have left him. In the office with his books and manuscripts, serving as a nice vehicle for exposition when the plot demanded it. But the writers of Angel decided to push the character farther, putting him in situation after situation just to see how he'd act. We soon see his loyalties pitted against each other when the Watcher's Council offers Wesley full reinstatement if he will only betray Angel and allow them to recover the wayward slayer, Faith. Wesley refuses, turning his back on his past and stepping out into a new future, one about helping people rather the accolades of the Council or his father.

Soon after we see Wesley sliding into a position of leadership at Angel investigations. His old clumsy ways recede as his natural leadership abilities and overall competence takes center stage. His countless scrapes with demons and Watcher's training mold him into a capable fighter. Friends with their own issues help him break out of his shell and become more confident. We see the character truly growing.

Again, this is where many shows would have left him. A valid arc of growth, from the bumbling British rich boy, arrogant and inexperienced, to a true instrument in the fight against evil. Then comes one of Wesley's most defining moments. When a prophecy declares that Angel will kill his son, Wesley does everything he can to disprove and discredit it, but sees time and again that it must be true. With no other options he enlists that aid of Angel's enemy, Holtz, not to betray or hurt Angel, but to protect his son. Once more Wesley's best intentions end in tragedy. Holtz (not surprisingly) betrays Wesley, has his lackey slit Wesley's throat and runs off with the kid.

Wesley is expelled from the group of heroes. After recovering from his injuries, Wesley strikes out on his own. He becomes a true Demon Hunter instead of merely fancying himself one. He even puts a loose crew together, often taking care of jobs that Angel's group missed, and working with them, albeit reluctantly, several times. It serves as a particularly interesting conflict because both Wesley and his former friends at Angel Investigations have equal reason to feel betrayed and wronged by the other party.

During this period we also see Wesley's relationship develop with the evil lawyer, Lilah. What starts out as an affair of self loathing and comfort develops into genuine affection as Wesley's pure heart can't help but grow attached. It is in this moment that we realize how far Wesley's come. From insecure comedic relief, to a tortured and troubled soul. One that has been darkened by multiple conflicts and twisted by his constant attempts at doing the right thing turning to ash in his hands. This isn't helped when Lilah is fed upon by Angel, now once again Angelus (long story,) and Wesley is forced to chop of her head to prevent her from potentially becoming a vampire.

Eventually Wesley rejoins Angel and his group, albeit as a completely different person. The boyish naivete is long gone, replaced by a collapsible sword wielding badass with little light to hold onto after chopping off his girlfriend's head and his true love, Fred, still dating Gunn.

Time goes on and in the final season of Angel we see the team taking over the evil law firm, Wolfram & Hart. Wesley fights against the places corruption along with the rest of the team, but almost seems more comfortable there, maybe because of his flirtations with the dark side, or his relationship with Lilah. The idea of boyhood, insecure Wesley is permanently put to rest when Wesley's Father comes to visit. Wesley is reverted to his clumsy, weak self and unable to adequately preform in front of his Father, even accidentally activating a bomb (or so he thinks.) His father betrays him, leading to one of my favorite scenes in the entirety of the show.

Wesley and his Father have a stand off on the roof. They argue and vent built up rage at one another. Wesley's Father demands his son to hand over a powerful artifact that could be used to mind control Angel, and Wesley refuses. In a desperate move, his Father attempts to take Fred, Wesley's long love, hostage. He never gets the chance. The second he moves toward her Wesley opens fire, gunning down his Father without a second thought. It turns out to actually be a robot, but Wesley had no idea of that when he shot him. (Again, long story.) This cements Wesley's rise as a truly remarkable individual and forever severs his ties with his past.

At the end of the show, Wesley and Fred finally admit their love for one another, only for Fred to get a serious infection and quite literally be destroyed from the inside out. She dies a very painful death in Wesley's arms, only for a powerful demon to walk around in her body. (And you thought the robot thing was weird.) Wesley is forced to not only see a constant reminder of his one true love, but also to deal with her killer. How does he react, what does he do? This man who had been through so much, who had his throat slit and several of his dear friends die? The man who started out as a pompous book worm, turned want-to-be demon hunter, turned actual demon hunter?

He helps her. He helps the demon after she has lost everything, after her kingdom has been turned to dust. He helps her find her way in a world that confuses and frightens her. Does he do this out of some desire to see Fred again? No. He is told point blank that her soul is gone. And when the demon adopts Fred's appearance, Wesley challenges her for the first time, warning her to never do it again.

So why? Why does he help the twisted evil thing that burned the love of his life from the inside out?

Because it's the right thing to do.

This a quote from the episode "Lineage."

Wesley: "The perception is that I'm weak. That's why they went for me."

Angel: "They're wrong. You do what you have to do to protect the people around you. To do what is right, no matter the cost. You know, I never really understood that. You're the guy who makes all the hard decisions, even if you have to make 'em alone."

Doing what's right, no matter the cost. Alone.

That is Wesley Wyndam-Price. From Head Boy, to Watcher, to Rouge Demon Hunter.

He was a character who fought the good fight, when he had nothing to show for it, when it cost him everything. Various jobs, his friends, even the love of his life. For no other reason, than because it was right.



I hope you enjoyed this article.

You can follow me on Twitter here.

Characters, Dialogue and a House of Cards

Today we're going to talk about a new show on Netflix called House of Cards. The political drama starring Kevin Spacey, Robin Wright and Kate Mara was originally a book and then a British miniseries. Now its America's turn, and if you haven't already watched it, do so. But don't worry, this won't contain any spoilers (I haven't finished the show myself) Instead I wanted to break the show down and look at what makes it so good in the first place.

For those not in the know I'll quickly sum up the show by saying it's a political drama about a man who gets betrayed and decides to get his revenge. I resonantly described it a friend as Game of Thrones without the fantasy if Lex Luthor was the main character. That doesn't quite do it justice, but it conveys the notion that this is a show about bad people, clawing and biting at each other to get ahead. One of the things I love most about the show is that they''re all so damn good at it.

The show's writing is outstanding, the directing and cinematography superb and the acting top notch throughout. But the thing that really ties this show together isn't the wonderful performances or the whip smart dialogue, with every line polished to near perfection, it's the characters. Every character in House of Cards is a multifaceted bag of strengths and weaknesses constantly churning against each other, struggling within each of the characters for dominance. This not only adds tension in their own lives but serves as constant reminder of how fragile their high stakes game truly is.

Take the main character for instance, Francis Underwood. Francis helped the President get elected on a promise that he would be the next Secretary of State, and as the show demonstrates again and again, promises in the world of Washington politics is everything. People are only as good as their word. How else could you sort through all the flattery and lies? However when the day comes, the White House goes with someone else, completely breaking its promise. To further tear open the wound they even steal Underwood's chosen slogan without giving him an ounce of credit.

In hindsight, not a very smart thing to do to a man like Francis Underwood. A man who seems to live only for power and the games that bring it. Francis spends his time building connections, forging tools and setting up favors to be called upon in an hour of need. His whole life is geared toward achieving ever more power for no reason other than he likes it, even going so far as to use his wife as simply another extension of himself, another tool to be used.

This is Francis' greatest strength and in many ways, his most crippling weakness. Though he's accustomed to pulling off miracles, all his mistakes can be attributed in one way or another to his own hubris. Over extending, pushing allies to far until they inevitably become enemies. Even his beloved wife, so accustomed to the game, chafes under his constant needs and the blow back from his adversaries.

Speaking of his wife, what a fascinating character she is. Claire Underwood, played by the stunning Robin Wright is a mess of tangled contradictions. She runs a growing charity to help people, yet has no problem with discarding her workers, crushing their lives when they serve no more use to her. In the early episodes she takes a trusted friend, one she's worked with for years and makes her fire half the staff. After a day of dealing with crying, angry and betrayed people, what is this loyal worker's reward? She too is fired. Claire, like her husband constantly manipulates those around her to get more, seeming to consider them only as resources to be mined until the vein is tapped. However, unlike Francis, who seems to come more alive with every battle, who thrives on the smell of blood in the air, Claire seems to be slowly dragged down by it, to question the choices she's made.

The relationship between her and her husband is also far from simple. They genuinely seem to love and care for each other. What at first appears to be a marriage of mutual benefit, a cold calculation of strengths gained gives way to show a marriage of two people who not only care for one another, but know every facet of the other person. They understand one another's strengths and weaknesses completely, a total knowing of the other person that serves to only cement their bond. Early in the show one gets the impression that either maybe cheating on the other, and this turns out to be true. But instead of exposing a twisted web of lies and deceit, we see that this too is known. After spending the night with another woman, Francis returns home and tells his wife exactly who it was with. Claire's only concern is how much they, as a couple, gain from the arrangement. Just another tool, another connection in a web of lies and intrigue.

The list goes on. Kate Mara's character, Zoe Barns, fights to be a prominent, respected journalist but gets her big scoops by her affair with Francis. But like so many other things in this show, it goes beyond that. Francis and Zoe seem to love their cat and mouse game more than the work benefits they gain from one another, and Zoe herself is less the naive younger woman being taken advantage of, and more a serious player in her own right. One that could pose a serious threat to Francis.

There's Doug Stamper, played by Michael Kelly. He acts as Francis' right hand man setting up meetings and taking care of the dirty jobs that Francis can't be tied to. In the beginning I got the impression that he was there for many of the same reasons as Francis, for his own success. But later on we see several other sides to him, sides that show this is not a cartoon henchmen blindly serving the interest of his master, but someone with his own twisted world view of right and wrong.

Peter Russo, played by Corey Stoll. A weak man plagued by self doubt, weakness and addiction. A fly that the gets caught up in Francis' wicked web. First smacked around, used and discarded, then forced to break a promise to his home town. The promise not only crushes his supporters back home, it destroys Peter himself. Then when it seems Peter will spiral out of control, Francis swoops back in to build him up. Not because he cares, but because Peter could prove useful down the road.

House of Cards is delicious mix of evil, competence, and boardroom drama that tickles all the right parts of the brain. The characters, so well built and fleshed out serve to remind us that life is more than simple good and evil, and that one's hands are never clean. All this work into the characters is constantly reinforced by the brilliant lines of dialogue and beautiful directing, many parts of a complicated whole that brings the entire enterprise to live.

Much like the characters themselves.



You can watch House of Cards on Netflix.

And you can follow me on Twitter.

Thoughts On Battlestar Galactica

A brief confession. I never watched Battlestar when it was on. Never cared about it when it was on. I was one of the many who wrote BSG off as another over hyped, cliched ridden sci-fi show with a low budget and cheesy acting. A judgement I came to without ever having scene an episode. I ignored it along with all the other over hyped cult classics and went about my merry way.

With all the recent talk about how wonderful Blood and Chrome is and hearing the names of BSG's actors whispered in reference on too many times I decided to finally sit down and give this serious a fair shot.

I was wrong. I'll be the first to admit it. I was damn wrong. I'm not sure what exactly I had been expecting. A cheesy, Star Trek style space opera with weak writing, weak acting and overall coating of cheese perhaps. Maybe another Stargate Universe, a decent show that limped along. A show that had it's highs and lows and survived off its interesting concepts. Maybe a Doctor Who. A show that inspires a deep love as whole but fails utterly when broken down into it's various parts.

Whatever I was expecting, I got a show that starts off with interesting concepts and world building and escalates into a wonderful and fascinating study in human relationships and just how far a person can be pushed before they break. This is hands down on of the better shows I've seen in a long time, and one I've enjoyed immensely. Is it perfect? Not in the slightest. Is it great? Defiantly. Does it deserve it's spot in the revered pantheon of Nerdom? Yes, I think it does. While not a Zeus or a Hera, it certainly earns the spot of an Apollo, or Athena. (See what I did there?)

To better illustrate what makes this show work so well in spite of it's faults, I'm going to break it down and hopefully in the process you will gain some greater insights into your own writing. I'm going to go easy on specific examples as I wish for this to remain as spoiler free as possible.

The Bad

Melodrama - This show has drama. More drama than you can shake a stick at. The plot puts the entire human species at risk while adding in love triangles, espionage, betrayal, politics and religion. Most of the time it creates a tense atmosphere the reflects the trials and tribulations of everyday life. Most of the time it takes characters we care about and pushes them to the limit. It breaks their souls and allow us to watch as they struggle to pick up the pieces.

Drama is a tricky thing. Too little and we're bored. Too much and it rips us out of the moment. They go from heartbroken to whiny. We go from sympathetic to annoyed. The line is thin and subjective to the viewer. What may be heart wrenching to one, causes another eyes to roll.

The show is usually good about braving that type rope but falls enough to be noticed.

Plot - This show excels in plot for reasons I'll get into later. Here I wanted to address some of it's weaker points. This ties in to some of the point's about drama. A show this complex, with many different strands that intersect and intertwine can create a web that grabs a hold of the viewers attention and refuses to let go.

Go too far however, and the viewer's suspension of disbelieve vanishes amongst betrayals, reveals and plot twist. The viewer loses his trust in the writer's plans and wonders how many choices are being made for a cheap boost in the viewer's attention (or ratings.) This show has some excellent twist and turns, but towards the end I found myself wondering how much had been planned out from the beginning and how much the writer's were making up as they went along. You can normally get away with this, BSG however built it's entire premise around the plan of it's players. When you do that you have to be sure of where you're going, or the viewers will lose faith that you can find your way.

The show also has a strong reliance on flashbacks. Sometimes going so far to have an episode that is entirely a flashback, with further flashbacks within it. Most of the episodes use the to show background of a character and fill in their past. Others seem to use it fill in plot holes or other problems that might arise. I think I'm one of the few people who doesn't really mind flashbacks. They allow us to skip the boring parts while retaining the interesting. Others may not be so kind to the shows liberal use of them.

The Good

World Building - I'm a huge sucker for world-building when it's done right. Done wrong, world-buildings is a mess of granular details we have no reason to care about and exposition dumping that slows down the narrative. When done right it lures us into the world crumb by crumb until we're hopelessly lost in it's magical forest.

Battlestar Galactica uses it's world-building to a wonderful degree. It starts out with the twelve colonies, setting up that this is not our world or history. It tells us of servants that rose up in defiance and the war that resulted. It expands into not one, but two distinct and fleshed out religions with their own flaws, failures and successes.

More importantly while the religion gives us the central plot device in the search for Earth, they make sure to use it beyond that. The religious beliefs and lack thereof gives us an added layer of depth into the characters. It pops up in politics, episode plots and random stories. It permeates through every aspect of the world which gives it the weight needed with the viewer while helping to round out the world it exist within.

The Cylons begin as a faceless, emotionless enemy. By the end we see they have their own culture, believes, personalities. They evolve from a boogie man harassing the survivors, from a one dimensional wolf harassing sheep to a proper faction in their own right. More than villains, they are shown to be agents of their own fate, with their own hopes, dreams and fears.

Contrast this with Stargate Universe. A show I have no problem with going on the record of having liked, and was very sad with it's cancellation. The shows have a very similar core concept. That of survivors on their own, a long way from home. Or in BSG's case, without a home. While SGU has some world-building in terms of the Ancients and other artifacts, it never comes close to the comprehensive nature that BSG takes with the Cylons.

Stargate Universe was set in what is basically our own world, with some minor differences. The characters all came from Earth. Had our history, our religions. This limited in their options to use these for conflict. Far easier to poke fun at the false gods of fiction than religions who will boycott your show. In the end I think it gave SGU a shallowness of the world that BSG was able to lack. Battlestar was able to achieve not only depth but a truly impressive scale due to the effort and execution of its building.

And of course, who could forget frak. Frak is used as the de facto expletive in the show in place of another four lettered word that starts with F. Though it could also be interpreted as other expletives in certain context. It's a brilliant work around for television censorship. Anyone who's been in the military can tell you there is a lot of cussing involved, no matter what branch you're in. To have a show with people under stress driving them to betrayal and suicide holding in every cuss word would seem unrealistic, and bleeps distracting.

While the use of the word isn't perfect, things like mother fracker can seems forced, it's a wonderful dash of world-building that adds even more to the story. I also find it rather catchy.

Balance - The re-launch of Battlestar Galactica ran from 2004 to 2009. This was a time in America dominated by the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. A time of deep, bi-partisan political entrenchment and bias across seemingly every form of media. No matter what side your political beliefs fall on, it's undeniable that Bush Era saw a bias in both fiction and news media that boarder lined on Propaganda from both political ideologies.

In the middle of this we have a show about war. A show about government and religion in a time when the country in which is was made was deeply divided over the issues. At the heart of the shows first and second season were the questions of power in government. A careful balance between the military and the people, between civil liberties and national security.

It would have been easy, far to easy, for the show to take a stand for one or the other. For the show to stand up on it's soapbox week after week and denounce a tyrannical military establishment shoving aside the concerns of the people, or lament the weakness of soft-hearted liberals unable to stomach the realities of war.

While the show certainly has it's moment of over reaching military power, and a civilian government unable to make the tough calls, I think it walked a remarkable thin line when so many others in this country were unable to. Whenever one side or the other over stepped it's bounds in the show, they always had reason to do so, and their actions felt within their character.

Character Development - While on the subject of politics, this show has phenomenal character development. Two of the show's central characters, Commander Adama and President Roslin (played by Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell) show wonderful character growth throughout the series, along with others. Adama starts out as the old vet. Military man through and through who has no time for politicians. Roslin is a school teacher who finds herself in the role of President to a dying people. Not only to they evolve as individuals, learning and adapting to the situations they encounter, they evolve together as well. The Commander is softened through the lose of those under his command, as The President is hardened by an unforgiving world. They start out as rivals, gain each others respect and eventual friendship. Adama and Roslin are lesson in how you write a love story. There's no courting, no flirting. Their relationship evolves naturally over time, rising and falling with the circumstances that surround them. And no matter their feelings, they stay true to themselves and act accordingly. Their intertwining path is truly masterful.

As is the development of other characters. This show has a massive cast that grows and shrinks over the course of the show. Instead of relying on a few, small number of characters with which to grow and cultivate, the show continuously challenges itself to fully develop as many characters as possible. Branching out from Adama, Roslin, Lee and Starbuck we meet Chief Tyrol, Lt. Sharon Valerii, Dee, Karl 'Helo' Agathon, and on and on. The sheer amount of characters that not only are fully fleshed out in their own right but continue to evolve and change over the course of the show is staggering on the level of mind blowing. For those who have watched the show think of who Lt. Gaeta was at the start of the show and who he was at the end. Or Starbuck, who begins the show as butch, cigar chomping cliche evolves into well rounded character with real depth and conflict.

One great example of this, without spoilers, is the three pilots. Early on in the show there's an episode where some new pilots need to be trained. Three lucky recruits are sent to Starbuck to be trained as pilots. We see three young adults ready and eager. The minute I saw them I thought, hears a couple of red shirts. Expendable characters that will be dead within a few episodes. Of those three characters one has a long, multi-stage arc and another is always around, developing their own character. What in any other show could have been cannon fodder to be introduced and tossed away becomes an opportunity for growth and development and a chance to get the viewer invested.

Not only is the show not afraid to bring in side characters and give them full arcs of their own, the show isn't afraid to kill characters off. This is something that I miss dearly in a lot of shows, especially those that deal with war. The show is built on the premise that it's a dangerous life and people die and sometimes for shitty reasons. The show goes behind having this spouted by characters to show it in action. Characters die. Characters we've come to care about over dozens of episodes. Characters that had hope and dreams and plans for the future. Instead of pissing us off it makes us love the show even more. It makes us care about the characters that have survived, makes us carry some of the weight that they carry themselves.

Instead of fearing that the viewer would become lost and confused in a sea of characters, Battlestar Galactica gave us a reason to care about each and everyone. They used their cast to give a sense of realism to the world that many shows are missing.

Plot - TV is a tricky medium. In a movie, or a novel you generally have a strict linear progression. You have segments or chapters sure. And a novel is prone to being made up of several stories, tied into a larger whole. You might have the various kingdoms a party is traveling through, or several cases a detective must solve tying into a larger mystery, but the book is working toward a single tale, a single ending.

While TV shares similarities, it has a challenge all its own. Each week it must tell a self contained story strong enough to satisfy the viewer. It must also show the development of plots and characters toward a whole that not only makes the actual story, but compels the viewer to return week after week.

BSG has some wonderful episode plots that focus a specific section of the world, be it politics or religions, while juggling its many characters and plots. More impressively, the show is able to loosely defined goal of a destination and stretch it out without the viewer losing hope. They interweave so many plots, both global in terms of Cylon vs Human or Military vs Civilian bound together by dozens of relationships, rivalries and loyalties.

No matter the size of the conflict, from a worker's strike on a ship, to searching for food, to a love triangle the show boost it's plots through so many layers of worldbuilding, groups, relationships and character that you can't help but enjoy the ride.

One of things I found most impressive with show comes at the end of Season 2 and beginning of Season 3. I won't spoil anything, or at least I'll try not to. Season's one and two have their central focus on the fleet and it's drive to Earth. Far from stale at the end of Season Two, the writer's took the show in a radical direction. They changed up the dynamic completely. There's a decision within the show that is made, followed by a time jump. I found myself thinking it would be a few weeks, maybe a couple months in time. Nope. It's a year. A year. Let that sink in a minute. Something happens in the show, then we cut to a year later. A whole damn year. How many shows do that?

The world we find ourselves in a year later is quite different. The times have changed and relationships with it. People who an episode before where going on their first dates are now married or have kids. The whole time I was watching I kept expecting a retcon. Someone to hit the reset button and go back to the last save. It was a dream sequence or a vision or someone who find a wormhole and warn the others. Nope. They stick with it. They follow through and keep the changes and all of it's consequences. Whether you agree with the choices or not you have to admire the balls of the writers. I don't know of single other show that's done something like that and stuck with it.

Which brings me to another point. Flashbacks. The show has so many, and yet for the most part, they work. Flashbacks are one of those things you see on all these writer's list floating around the internet as an evil thing you should never do. BSG seems to have one every four episodes or some. Some episodes are nothing but flashbacks. Razor, a Battlestar Galactica TV movie is itself one long flashback that has other flashbacks within it. But it works.

Why? Because it allows us to see the good bits without getting bogged down in the boring. During the Season 2/Season 3 jump it skips over a lot of stuff. Most of it probably would have been boring or slow. So they skip it. A few episodes later we get an episode showing us only the most interesting bits that had happened. It allows us the best of both worlds. Along with everything else in the show, it's a fine line that BSG navigates well.

Conclusion
 
I've enjoyed Battlestar Galactica more than I have other shows in a very long time. It took a while for me to like it as much as I do. Like Stargate Universe it was a good seven episodes before I found myself really caring about what was going on. Maybe that's a problem with me, maybe it's one with the show. I am certaintly glad I stuck with it.

Battlestar manages to wade through countless minefields to come out with fists full of storytelling gold. It not only earns its spot in the Pantheon of Nerdom but is strong enough to defend that spot for decades to come. If you are at all interested in writing, TV, or sci-fi you owe it to yourself to seek this out (it's on Netflix) and give it a watch.

This article is by far the longest I've written for the site. I hope you enjoyed it. If you'd like to see me ramble on other shows, let me know in the comments below.

The Art of the Slow Story

In becoming one of the many subscribers to Netflix, I finally got around to watching Freeks and Geeks. For those who don't know Freeks and Geeks was an NBC show back in 1999 about high school kids in 1980. It was produced by Judd Apatow and stars many, many people before they were house hold names including James Franco, Jason Segel and Seth Rogen.

The show is a beloved cult classic amongst the United Kingdoms of Nerdom and has been recommended to me by more people they I can remember. I had watched Undeclared, a kind of pseudo sequel in spirit (also by Apatow) and really enjoyed it, but for whatever reason took my time in finally checking out Freeks and Geeks.

I'm glad I did. The show is well written, had great characters, outstanding acting, and amazing music and above all retains a nostalgic sweetness about it that it makes it comforting to watch. Another peciluar thing about the show, and the impetus for this article is one of its stylistic choices. While the show is essentially a sitcom, it's an hour long as opposed to the half hour standard. Some may argue the show is actually trying to be a teen drama, but the style and writing of the show is much closer to the feel and tropes associated with the sit-com genre.

Some may think that a longer show would make it slow and boreing. After all if you watch a modern sit-com there's a punch line every twenty seconds out of fear that the audiance will get bored and turn their attention elsewhere. That's the conventional wisdom these days, grab your viewer and never let go. If you let them turn away for even a second they'll abandon you forever. I've talked before about how ridiculas I think this is, and I think Freeks and Geeks shows a good example as to why.

Unlike other sit-coms of today the show doesn't pressure it self to be constantly funny. Some of the most hilarious moments are throw away lines at the end of a scene or seemingly random choices by the actors. The dialog remains snappy and quick without taking on the rush, caffeinated tempo that every actor seems to have these days.

It goes beyond merely comedy and dialog though. The longer episode length gives the time to see through an actual episode arc. In most sitcoms things happen so quickly and are resolved so rapidly they rarely feel to have any weight. We see a problem introduced in the first five minutes of a normal sit-com, watch it get resolved in the next ten and then have a five minute resolution. We see so little of the problem's impact that it's hard for it to matter to us as the viewer.

Lastly, it's a matter of character. By having a full hour for the comedy the writers and directors are able to have shots of the characters standing in the hall or sitting around a table. It gives a realism and weight to their lives while giving the actors a chance to show the more subtle workings of their character dynamics. Franco's character showing affection for his girlfriend, or Rogen's awkward aloofness as the one on the outside of the group's circle.

We see full arcs not only of Lindsey (played by the beautiful Linda Cardellini) and her friends but also of her younger brother Sam and his friends in addition to their parents, teachers and others in their lives. All of these peaces come together to create the feeling of a world that is far more real and alive than the simulated realities of today's sitcoms. I think it's one of the reasons this show has remained so loved by so many. By spending an hour with these characters each episode we really got a chance to know them and their struggles, even if the show only did go for one season.

My point is that you don't have to always be in such a rush. You can show your characters standing around to build character and show their dynamics. You can linger in a shot to show the characters awkwardly standing around. Yes, your audience may flee for the entertainment hills off their phones or computers. But they also might stick around and fall in love with your characters because you took the time to show them who they are and why they should care.

Climbing The Mountain

On last week's episode of the AtT Podcast Tyler asked me about my writing. I gave a muddled answer, due in large part to the drunks yelling in the background. Since then I've thought about it a little bit more. I'm not going to talk about my process so much as my evolution as a writer. Though I am still young in this passion of mine, maybe my perspective can help others out there.

I started writing a few years back. Around the end of 2007. I took a stab at it. Played around with it for month or so and then didn't write much of anything over the next year. After that I got a little more serious about it. I started learning about it and tried to practice it more often. There were still periods where I didn't write anything for months at a time. Seasons alternating between being knee deep in it and forgetting about entirely.

Over those years I tired to get myself to write more and more frequently. I eventually got it to where I was writing one a week at least. I had studied it in depth, read countless articles and listened to countless interviews. I had thought about the craft from every angle I could think of. I finally started to feel like I got it. Like I was a writer.

I was of course wrong. My writing was still terrible. I cringe to even think of going back and reading some of that stuff. Around the winter of 2010/2011 something strange happened. Out of nowhere I took a break from writing that lasted almost two months. It wasn't intentional. I had gotten promoted to a supervisory position at my crappy retail job. I flew back home for the birth of my niece. Life seemed to have gotten in the way, and my writing fell by the wayside.

However, something else came out of that time. Something that would forever change me as a writer. That was the period when I came up with Icarus. That sci-fi project of my started as an exercise. I'm interested in all mediums and genres and try to experiment with them whenever I can. Especially if I'm in a period where I don't have an idea I'm super excited to work on. That was more of a problem then, not as much these days.

I sat down one day with the thought of "If I were to do a sci-fi story, what would it be?" That was it. A simple lowly thought, on par with a writing prompt. Nothing special about it. But it was in chasing that question down it's impossibly long rabbit hole that I came up with Icarus. Before Icarus, I never worried about Worldbuilding. Most of what I wrote was either modern or so close to it as to not warrent much thought. I never thought about characters, most of them were normal people with normal backgrounds.

Icarus changed all of that. The political and economic landscape of the world required that I knew where my characters stood on the important issues, and therefore, was backgrounds informed those beliefs. Icarus forced me to think of worlds and peoples and technologies, of details that I would have never bothered to think of. It elevated me to a new level of writing.

Over the last year, I challenged myself to write every single day. I don't always meet the challenge. I seem to still miss a handful of days a month. Most often when I've just finished a draft and we have a podcast to record and edit.

The Mountain

I find and interesting pattern in other writers, and in myself. It seems that when we fist start out we know how bad our writing is. We stumble in the dark, attempting to learn the trade and hope that someday will get better. We might sit with a grin on our face as we pound the keys or as the pen scrawls across the page, but in the cold hard light of editing we realize how bad it is.

Then we reach a level of comfort. We know writing. We've settled in for its challenges, for its ebbs and flows. We eagerly look forward to the day when we will be battle hardened vets of it's corpse strewn fields.

I've found though, that at certain points I reach an entirely new stratosphere, a new league where it seem like I'm back on the bottom. Like I am once more the rookie learning the ropes. Sure I have all my lessons and experience from before, but up here, in these new realms it doesn't seem as important, as powerful as it did before.

I'm talking about when you see other writers who are better. No matter how good you get there's always a writer you look at and curse your own inability, wishing you could be better. I had that recently with Rian Johnson and Looper. Or Nolan and Inception, or Whedon and the Firefly pilot. Things that are so masterful, you wonder if you will ever get as good as them.

No, I mean with yourself, with your own assesment of your skill. You reach a point where you realize of far you've come and how far you have yet to go.

I was thinking about it in terms of hiking up a mountain. In the beginning you're lost in the woods, the sun blocked by the leaves overhead. Distracted by the chirping of birds and rustling of rabbits. You walk for what feels like forever. Eventually you become one with the woods. You know the animals and the sounds they make. You deftly step over fallen branches and gnarled roots. Nothing on the forest floors can trip you up.

Then there comes this moment, when you exit the woods. You find yourself on a plateau of rock. Stretched out in the valley beneath you is and endless forest. You can see a wide river snaking it's way between the trees.

The entire time you had been walking you failed to notice the subtle incline, failed to notice how high up you were getting. Yet here you stand. Seeing the miles and miles in which you traveled. You feel a huge since of achievement, seeing the distance you covered, knowing you've done on your own power. The advice of those who had made the journey before you echoing within your mind.

You turn away from the valley, eying the summit of the mountain stretching up into the clouds. You think of the masters that await you there, and the long journey still ahead.

This is the life that awaits us as writers. This is joy that we get to feel as we create worlds and twist lives. We stride alone in the valley of the gods, comforted by the whispers of those that had traveled there before us.

I took my first steps on that journey a few years ago. I didn't intend to take my last for a very, very long time.

Refilling the Well

I haven't talked about writing for a couple of post, so let's get back to the important stuff.

The well. That thing within us from which draw inspiration. For some it's an aqueduct that once built effortlessly delivers fresh water at a constant pace. For others it take the from of a strip mine. A hole they bore into the earth with metal tools and explosives. A place where they rip out anything and everything that looks valuable to refine and shape later into useful material.

Sometimes that source of inspiration begins to run dry. We glance around the soot covered walls off are mine and see few glints of the precious metals that once lived there. If your a writer who works on their craft every day, it can be discouraging to look down at the paper with no ideas. I think new writers have this problem a lot, mainly because they haven't learned to document and cultivate their ideas. They haven't learned to listen to themselves. But to writers who have been at it a while, writers who have been through periods where they have so many ideas they don't have the time to write them all down. Writers who will fling themselves across a room and empty drawers onto the floor like a wild tornado to get down that great idea on paper. Writers who thought they would be bathing in the heavy downpour of ideas forever.

And then you find yourself staring down at  a blank page, pen tapping against your desk with nothing. Cue cliche tumble weed across desolate wasteland. Empty cupboards. River beds of dried, cracked mud. You struggle to come up with the simplest ideas and fail.

Solutions

 

I think every writer has found themselves in this place at some point. And I think many of them find themselves here more often than they'd like to admit. Fear not writers of the world, there are easy ways to fix this.

1. Time Heals All Wounds

Wait. Yep that's it. Bask in the glory of my infinite wisdom. Do Nothing.

Some of the time our wells running dry is from simple exhaustion. I ran into this early this month with my sci-fi/tv project. I had been writing episode after episode and pulling long hours at work,. When it came time to think of another one I had nothing. I slammed my head against that wall for a couple of hours and nothing came out of it. I dug further into the mountain desperate to find another vein of gold only to find worthless rock.

Eventually I gave up, and took two days off from writing. On day three the ideas started flowing again. First a trickle, then a flood. The problem wasn't that the mine had run out of gold, it was that I was too tired to see it. My eyes had become weary and caked in dirt. What little flecks I did see I dismissed as not worth the effort. All I needed was little break to recharge.

2. Binge Consumption

This is one of my favorite methods for finding new ideas. Mostly because it involves avoiding work,.

I find I don't consume media in a regular fashion. I don't have my regular TV shows that I watch, and intersperse it with movies and books throughout the week. Instead I have lists of things I want to eventually watch or read. A whole list of movies recommended to me by other people, another list for books, yet another for comic books, video games and so on.

Then when i find myself in the mood for a particular something, let's say anime, I'll shotgun entire series in a row. I'll spend two weeks watching nothing but anime for my entertainment and get through entire series in a couple of days. I did this when I caught up with Doctor Who and finally saw Firefly a few years back.

I find it works well in the case of movies, because you get the entire story, concepts, arcs and all in a couple hours. In one weekend you can get through twenty different stories, all exhibiting different genres, characters and plot elements.

The best thing about binge consuming is you get really, really fat with ideas. All those times where you saw the writer take the concept in direction A, but you can take it direction B, stack up and mix in your brain. You rush back to your laptop eager to type because you have so many new ideas to get out there.

3. Friends

 

Yes, they are actually useful for something. I know, I know, I was surprised to. Turns out they aren't useless sacks of meat flesh that live only to get in your way.

Friends can be a fantastic source of ideas, not only in the conversations you have with them and the perspectives they bring to the table, but in simply helping you articulate your own writings and ideas. Friends who are also writers are great for this, as they know what questions to ask when you get stuck. Earlier this month I was talking to Chris of The Archatype about how I was running low on episode ideas. He knew to ask if I had fleshed out my plot lines enough, if there were side characters or sub plots that needed more screen time or fleshing out. While the conversation itself didn't spark any ideas, when the ideas came back and I was ready to write again it spawned ideas on what to focus on.

Yeah, I Thought The List Was Going To Be Longer

Those are some of the tricks I have when you find yourself running low on ideas. Also try jumping genres and types of stories. If you're a sci-fi guy try fantasy. Of if you like dark, brooding romances try comedies.

What are some of your tricks for getting ideas? Let me know in the comments below. I'm always looking out for new tips and tricks.

And be sure to check out our Around the Trunk podcast this week when talk Static and Dynamic Characters.