I have been thinking about the factors which make a quality story, and I think that the biggest single factor is not the protagonist but the antagonist. When you get right down to it the good guys are all very similar, they may have different strengths and flaws, but they all try to do what is right most of the time, so if you took, say, Luke Skywalker and Will Turner, and switched them, the stories probably wouldn't change much. Sure, Skywalker isn't a weapon smith, and Turner has no experience with the force, but the Skywalker would go to rescue the girl on the pirate ship and Turner would sign up to pilot an X-wing, because they are the good guys and are bound to try to do the right thing.
However, if one took Vader and switched him with Barbosa, well could you imagine "Sparrow, the force is powerful in you, join me and we can rule the Caribbean" or "the Emperor's decrees are more of guidelines than actual rules."
The thing with villains is they have so many more opportunities to show depth of character, the good guys merely choose good, and really no one needs to know why. But no villain is truly complete without knowing why they do bad things, or if they do something noble, why they did that. They have so much more the opportunity for backstory, indeed they necessitate a backstory, and the better a story is the more we know about its villain, the more we get to sympathize with his pain. The best stories are the ones that have villains who you almost want to have win, and even though you cheer for the victories of the hero, you feel a little bit of regret that the villain had to sustain a loss for its sake.
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Saturday, June 30, 2007
14th Post
I have recently become interested in a few different TV shows, Mystery Science Theatre 3000 and Avatar: the Last Airbender.
MST3K is an interesting premise, the show is entirely based on making fun of B-rate movies; every episode has a bad movie for the three main character to roast for its bad effects, writing, and acting. The interesting thing is, the effects MST3K uses are also B-rate. The very existence of the show is almost a commentary on hypocrisy and self-appointed authority, and I find that kind of funny, and I find it kind of sad... but if I comment on my death-dreams I might have to turn myself in for plagiarism... so no mention on how they are the best I've ever had. It is a mad world however...
No deep thoughts on the Airbender, but I also recommend the show, I like epic tales, and have a fascination for worlds created using the four classical elements (or the five oriental elements, really I just like the small-number/rock-paper-scissors effects), and I like the fact that there are no evil characters. I don't mean everyone is good (like Pokemon or Barney or whatever) but the people on either side of the war are people, fully developed characters who are not merely trying to wipe out the other side. I picture the officers of the Fire Nation to be like the officers of the USSR or Nazi Germany, sure, some of them were really bad people, but many of them were being patriotic, or believed their cause correct, and were not necessarily evil people.
Now on another subject, I have realized that even though I consider myself to sufficiently think out my faith and take everything with a grain of doubt, I think that I have an advantage when i comes to having strong faith in my religion. I realize that many people can argue that the majority of Mormons are both complacent and unquestioning in their faith, but I feel that some Mormons try to overcompensate for this. Some people think that they need to be freethinkers, that they need to have more proof than that they grew up in the Church, or that a few missionaries were all that was necessary to sway them. I compare these people to those who wield the sword of truth, and desire their sword to be sharp. There is nothing wrong with this, in fact we are commanded to personally verify revelations for ourselves, but some people need to continue sharpening, they are not satisfied with what they know and they feel they need to be able to refute the doubts which they may encounter. These people are the ones who continue to sharpen their swords, whether to satiated their own insecurity or for their vanity, these people grind their swords to nothing and fall away from the Church when they no longer believe more than doubt, or cannot find a refutation for their current problem. I find it sad, usually they have a "logical" argument to present why they are correct, they do not realise that logic can only prove statements that are contained in the axiom set for the system, and they usually start with a set which does not allow for the Church to be correct, which forces the argument from the beginning. I realized when I was very young that there is no way to prove that this is the true church; I discovered this when my mother told me about the Catholic church that was next door to my ward's building. I asked my mother what the building was, and she said it was a church building, so I asked when it was our ward's turn to use it, and she said that it wasn't an LDS meetinghouse, and then I found out that there are different religions. I assumed that anyone who would go to church in the first place would want to go to God's church, and that not all of the churches out there could be evil, no if there were people who wanted to deliberately lead people away it would be a small number, so it must be that it is hard to prove which one is right, in fact in must not be possible, because once it had been done none of the other religions would exist, and they do exist. Then I heard that God wants us to have faith, and faith is believing in him without having to see him, so God set up the world so it is impossible to prove what our purpose is.
This is where my advantage is in my faith, I do not need God to tell me that this Church is his, because God won't tell us, he isn't going to give us a sign so we can believe, we have to find our faith first, and then we can see miracles, and by understanding this I find strength in my testimony, and other people still need a logical reason.
I am sorry, that was a prideful way to end that thought, but I guess that pride has always been my particular sin, and erasing and rewriting that is merely erasing in my memory the fact that I still have to work in that, and I need reminding, so I won't edit this post.
It is now 3am PST so I should probably say goodbye to this post.
MST3K is an interesting premise, the show is entirely based on making fun of B-rate movies; every episode has a bad movie for the three main character to roast for its bad effects, writing, and acting. The interesting thing is, the effects MST3K uses are also B-rate. The very existence of the show is almost a commentary on hypocrisy and self-appointed authority, and I find that kind of funny, and I find it kind of sad... but if I comment on my death-dreams I might have to turn myself in for plagiarism... so no mention on how they are the best I've ever had. It is a mad world however...
No deep thoughts on the Airbender, but I also recommend the show, I like epic tales, and have a fascination for worlds created using the four classical elements (or the five oriental elements, really I just like the small-number/rock-paper-scissors effects), and I like the fact that there are no evil characters. I don't mean everyone is good (like Pokemon or Barney or whatever) but the people on either side of the war are people, fully developed characters who are not merely trying to wipe out the other side. I picture the officers of the Fire Nation to be like the officers of the USSR or Nazi Germany, sure, some of them were really bad people, but many of them were being patriotic, or believed their cause correct, and were not necessarily evil people.
Now on another subject, I have realized that even though I consider myself to sufficiently think out my faith and take everything with a grain of doubt, I think that I have an advantage when i comes to having strong faith in my religion. I realize that many people can argue that the majority of Mormons are both complacent and unquestioning in their faith, but I feel that some Mormons try to overcompensate for this. Some people think that they need to be freethinkers, that they need to have more proof than that they grew up in the Church, or that a few missionaries were all that was necessary to sway them. I compare these people to those who wield the sword of truth, and desire their sword to be sharp. There is nothing wrong with this, in fact we are commanded to personally verify revelations for ourselves, but some people need to continue sharpening, they are not satisfied with what they know and they feel they need to be able to refute the doubts which they may encounter. These people are the ones who continue to sharpen their swords, whether to satiated their own insecurity or for their vanity, these people grind their swords to nothing and fall away from the Church when they no longer believe more than doubt, or cannot find a refutation for their current problem. I find it sad, usually they have a "logical" argument to present why they are correct, they do not realise that logic can only prove statements that are contained in the axiom set for the system, and they usually start with a set which does not allow for the Church to be correct, which forces the argument from the beginning. I realized when I was very young that there is no way to prove that this is the true church; I discovered this when my mother told me about the Catholic church that was next door to my ward's building. I asked my mother what the building was, and she said it was a church building, so I asked when it was our ward's turn to use it, and she said that it wasn't an LDS meetinghouse, and then I found out that there are different religions. I assumed that anyone who would go to church in the first place would want to go to God's church, and that not all of the churches out there could be evil, no if there were people who wanted to deliberately lead people away it would be a small number, so it must be that it is hard to prove which one is right, in fact in must not be possible, because once it had been done none of the other religions would exist, and they do exist. Then I heard that God wants us to have faith, and faith is believing in him without having to see him, so God set up the world so it is impossible to prove what our purpose is.
This is where my advantage is in my faith, I do not need God to tell me that this Church is his, because God won't tell us, he isn't going to give us a sign so we can believe, we have to find our faith first, and then we can see miracles, and by understanding this I find strength in my testimony, and other people still need a logical reason.
I am sorry, that was a prideful way to end that thought, but I guess that pride has always been my particular sin, and erasing and rewriting that is merely erasing in my memory the fact that I still have to work in that, and I need reminding, so I won't edit this post.
It is now 3am PST so I should probably say goodbye to this post.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
12th Post
I started rebuilding the code that I came up with in 9th grade, I used to be able to write in it nearly as fast as I could write, this is somewhat a depressing set of sentances, but they were the ones that came to me when I wrote this
23801 20820 05401 19801 05000
02090 00091 00880 00050 00000
50090 10025 00049 51250 00000
90200 00122 50004 22013 00000
What? You thought I would tell you the message? Think again.
23801 20820 05401 19801 05000
02090 00091 00880 00050 00000
50090 10025 00049 51250 00000
90200 00122 50004 22013 00000
What? You thought I would tell you the message? Think again.
13th Post
So I figured that it would be a good thing if I moved a few of my posts to an archive. I few friends of mine were doing it, and I caved in to the peer presure, indirect though it might have been.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
11th Post
I find it interesting, I think that I have classified the two personality traits that I really don't like. They are both kinds of disrespect, one is elitist in nature and the other is a disestablishmentarianistic attitude. Most bad qualities seem to fall under these titles.
On elitism, or top-down disrespect, it is interesting to me how one can justify treating another person with distain on the grounds of "I am older/more experienced/more skilled at ___" or any variation of these, for the axioms that they are accepting on bad faith are any or all of the following:
(1) the value of the person is based on that skill or trait
(2) that this relationship is static
(3) that to feel good about self/talent/trait one has to have people of lesser quality (both quality[value] and quality[ability])
These assumptions are inherently flawed, as they propetuate a societal pecking order and cause stagnation.
On disestablishmentarianism, or grassroots disrespect, we find a mentality of "The bad things in life come from those who try to control us" These people assume any or all of the following:
(1) structure is unescessary, or counterproductive
(2) people who support structure are either misinformed or corrupt
(3) the emotional benefits of sucess in the system do not outweigh the cost of conforming, or the act of conforming is inherently detrimental to the conformee
Other reasons and the refutations of these are left as an excercise for the reader, as a true mathematician would leave them to be primogenitors to other questions.
On elitism, or top-down disrespect, it is interesting to me how one can justify treating another person with distain on the grounds of "I am older/more experienced/more skilled at ___" or any variation of these, for the axioms that they are accepting on bad faith are any or all of the following:
(1) the value of the person is based on that skill or trait
(2) that this relationship is static
(3) that to feel good about self/talent/trait one has to have people of lesser quality (both quality[value] and quality[ability])
These assumptions are inherently flawed, as they propetuate a societal pecking order and cause stagnation.
On disestablishmentarianism, or grassroots disrespect, we find a mentality of "The bad things in life come from those who try to control us" These people assume any or all of the following:
(1) structure is unescessary, or counterproductive
(2) people who support structure are either misinformed or corrupt
(3) the emotional benefits of sucess in the system do not outweigh the cost of conforming, or the act of conforming is inherently detrimental to the conformee
Other reasons and the refutations of these are left as an excercise for the reader, as a true mathematician would leave them to be primogenitors to other questions.
Monday, April 02, 2007
10th Post
On non-causuality and man.
Cause and effect are merely filters that we use to perceive the world, there is not such chain of history which records or predicts our time here, people do not live in a comfortable line of rational thought and applying rational thought to events in time does not make sense. Weather cannot be predicted deterministically because the particles involved are not behaving deterministically, and the chaos in the small scale, though it cancels some of itself out in the macroscopic scale, still prevents a causuality based system from adequately modeling it. Likewise, a person does not act rationally, so imagining a social structure acting logically is an exercise in bad faith.
Cause and effect are merely filters that we use to perceive the world, there is not such chain of history which records or predicts our time here, people do not live in a comfortable line of rational thought and applying rational thought to events in time does not make sense. Weather cannot be predicted deterministically because the particles involved are not behaving deterministically, and the chaos in the small scale, though it cancels some of itself out in the macroscopic scale, still prevents a causuality based system from adequately modeling it. Likewise, a person does not act rationally, so imagining a social structure acting logically is an exercise in bad faith.
Friday, March 30, 2007
9th Post
Opposition, dichotomy, dialecticism, it seems that humans are hard-wired to divide objects into two groups, a yes or a no, an is or an is not, positive and negative; we limit ourselves by doing this, effectively painting our world black and white, building fences between ourselves and other ideas. Given we have so many reasons to look at the world in this manner, we are built bilaterally symmetrical, we are made male and female, we only have one alternative each to heat, light and life, so a dichotomous way of thinking seems natural to us, and we thrive on our colorless processes of thought, but there is so much more expressiveness in greyscale than black and white, and even more in color than greyscale.
Let us use a political example, as most college students feel they have the power to change things and have not yet acquired the cynicism that comes with age, they become politically involved, so a political example seems to fit this audience. There are two major parties in the U.S., and most people believe that they are some shade of grey on the political scale, somewhere to the right or the left. The government gives these people two options a right and a left, and so the entire greyscale spectrum is dichotomized, leaving most people after the election with a person that is not close enough to their ideas or them to be satisfied. People recognize over time that this polarization occurs and become disillusioned with the system. But the situation is worse that what they realize, and consequentially this is why people become disillusioned faster than the compression from greyscale to black and white would suggest. People do not live in greyscale politics, they are not somewhere between far right and far left, but they have an individual opinion on every political issue. Social freedom/economic control/big government vs. Traditional values/economic freedom/small government is not representative enough, and this way of running politics is an exercise in bad faith. It puts a label on an unlabelable quality.
So let us try to demonstrate the types of qualities, there is of course the difference between quantitative and qualitative traits, but there is also are subsets of quantitative traits, measurable and countable. I am sure that these differences were explained in grade school, even if not remembered afterward, I will now describe the subsets of the set of qualitative traits.
Negatable (black and white) example: gun ownership
Labelable (greyscale) example: view on wait time for gun purchasing
Unlabelable (colored) example: political view on gun control
So a gun is either owned by Person A or is not, likewise Person A either does or does not own a gun, these are positive or negative choices. Person A has a certain time period in mind as being the ideal amount of time to wait before being allowed to take a gun home, this is a labelable choice, any one of longer than, shorter than, or precisely the time period that is currently being used. Person A's dissatisfaction is proportional to the difference between his idea and the government's, and he fits somewhere between "hard" shorter and "hard" longer, most likely being of a moderate opinion.
Person A's opinion on gun control is an unlabelable quality, it can be projected into a simple pro- (more) or con- (less) or an even simpler yes or no, but in reality Person A is pro- or con- any individual sub ideas of gun control.
Example:
Wait time: yes (negatable), 14 days (labelable)
Background check: yes (negatable) checking what? (compound negatable)
criminal record check: yes (negatable)
psychological exam: no (negatable)
credit history check: no (negatable)
interview of close friends and family: no (negatable)
Registration: yes (negatable)
Fee: yes (negatable) $20 (labelable)
This is a small list of Person A's ideas that relate to gun control, he is obviously "for gun control" but the question is so much more complicated than what can be answered by a yes or no, pro- or con- question.
Questions of a certain complexity can be projected both to a higher complexity and a lower complexity, and answering with a different degree of complexity is generally a bad idea.
A question can be asked with the intent to receive a certain type of answer, an essay prompt might say, "Describe the controversy around the topic X and defend a position on topic X" This asks the writer to answer unlabelably whereas a polling service asking "What do you think about X?" (essentially the same question) probably wants an answer on the negatable level.
When the topic of abortion is brought up, the question "what do you think of abortion is ussually asked with the intent of receiving an affirmative or a negative (negatable), or maybe a negative qualified with "but in the cases of rape or extreme danger to the mother it's okay"(labelable), but this question is an unlabelable question, and answering in the more simplified answers does not do the subject justice. The proper manner to project this question downward is to add qualifiers as in the examples: "Do you agree with allowing abortion for rape victims?", "Is it okay to abort if the pregnancy is the result of a failed contraceptive?". If the person believes that none of these justify abortion, then that is their choice, but the important thing is that they considered the complications and then made their decision.
Answering a negatable question with a labelable ( or labelable with an unlabelable) answer appears indecisive, or overly intellectual. If one answers "how are you doing?" with an answer other than "fine" or "badly" then that person is either viewed as paying attention to the questioner and putting much thought into the answer, or as a person who has not learned the polite rules of society, the ability to both acknowledge and ignore a person at the same time. The question is asked on a negatable level by most people, they expect nothing more than a responding sound from the questionee, it is only when the question is asked on a labelable or unlabelable level that an actually response is expected.
When one is with their significant other however, answering a non-negatable question negatably is rather dull, answering "What do you think of the stars tonight?" (unlabelable, as opposed to "Does this dress look good?" negatable) with "They're pretty" is not as exciting (or conducive to continuing a relationship) as describing what is pretty about the stars and why being with her makes them look special. Answering non-negatable questions with negatable answers causes the suitor to be less likely to ask a non-negatable question in the future. The difference between a friend and an acquaintance is the ability to ask non-negatable questions and get non-negatable answers, in other words, to be able to tell the unsimplified version of a situation, the feelings associated with an act.
Let us use a political example, as most college students feel they have the power to change things and have not yet acquired the cynicism that comes with age, they become politically involved, so a political example seems to fit this audience. There are two major parties in the U.S., and most people believe that they are some shade of grey on the political scale, somewhere to the right or the left. The government gives these people two options a right and a left, and so the entire greyscale spectrum is dichotomized, leaving most people after the election with a person that is not close enough to their ideas or them to be satisfied. People recognize over time that this polarization occurs and become disillusioned with the system. But the situation is worse that what they realize, and consequentially this is why people become disillusioned faster than the compression from greyscale to black and white would suggest. People do not live in greyscale politics, they are not somewhere between far right and far left, but they have an individual opinion on every political issue. Social freedom/economic control/big government vs. Traditional values/economic freedom/small government is not representative enough, and this way of running politics is an exercise in bad faith. It puts a label on an unlabelable quality.
So let us try to demonstrate the types of qualities, there is of course the difference between quantitative and qualitative traits, but there is also are subsets of quantitative traits, measurable and countable. I am sure that these differences were explained in grade school, even if not remembered afterward, I will now describe the subsets of the set of qualitative traits.
Negatable (black and white) example: gun ownership
Labelable (greyscale) example: view on wait time for gun purchasing
Unlabelable (colored) example: political view on gun control
So a gun is either owned by Person A or is not, likewise Person A either does or does not own a gun, these are positive or negative choices. Person A has a certain time period in mind as being the ideal amount of time to wait before being allowed to take a gun home, this is a labelable choice, any one of longer than, shorter than, or precisely the time period that is currently being used. Person A's dissatisfaction is proportional to the difference between his idea and the government's, and he fits somewhere between "hard" shorter and "hard" longer, most likely being of a moderate opinion.
Person A's opinion on gun control is an unlabelable quality, it can be projected into a simple pro- (more) or con- (less) or an even simpler yes or no, but in reality Person A is pro- or con- any individual sub ideas of gun control.
Example:
Wait time: yes (negatable), 14 days (labelable)
Background check: yes (negatable) checking what? (compound negatable)
criminal record check: yes (negatable)
psychological exam: no (negatable)
credit history check: no (negatable)
interview of close friends and family: no (negatable)
Registration: yes (negatable)
Fee: yes (negatable) $20 (labelable)
This is a small list of Person A's ideas that relate to gun control, he is obviously "for gun control" but the question is so much more complicated than what can be answered by a yes or no, pro- or con- question.
Questions of a certain complexity can be projected both to a higher complexity and a lower complexity, and answering with a different degree of complexity is generally a bad idea.
A question can be asked with the intent to receive a certain type of answer, an essay prompt might say, "Describe the controversy around the topic X and defend a position on topic X" This asks the writer to answer unlabelably whereas a polling service asking "What do you think about X?" (essentially the same question) probably wants an answer on the negatable level.
When the topic of abortion is brought up, the question "what do you think of abortion is ussually asked with the intent of receiving an affirmative or a negative (negatable), or maybe a negative qualified with "but in the cases of rape or extreme danger to the mother it's okay"(labelable), but this question is an unlabelable question, and answering in the more simplified answers does not do the subject justice. The proper manner to project this question downward is to add qualifiers as in the examples: "Do you agree with allowing abortion for rape victims?", "Is it okay to abort if the pregnancy is the result of a failed contraceptive?". If the person believes that none of these justify abortion, then that is their choice, but the important thing is that they considered the complications and then made their decision.
Answering a negatable question with a labelable ( or labelable with an unlabelable) answer appears indecisive, or overly intellectual. If one answers "how are you doing?" with an answer other than "fine" or "badly" then that person is either viewed as paying attention to the questioner and putting much thought into the answer, or as a person who has not learned the polite rules of society, the ability to both acknowledge and ignore a person at the same time. The question is asked on a negatable level by most people, they expect nothing more than a responding sound from the questionee, it is only when the question is asked on a labelable or unlabelable level that an actually response is expected.
When one is with their significant other however, answering a non-negatable question negatably is rather dull, answering "What do you think of the stars tonight?" (unlabelable, as opposed to "Does this dress look good?" negatable) with "They're pretty" is not as exciting (or conducive to continuing a relationship) as describing what is pretty about the stars and why being with her makes them look special. Answering non-negatable questions with negatable answers causes the suitor to be less likely to ask a non-negatable question in the future. The difference between a friend and an acquaintance is the ability to ask non-negatable questions and get non-negatable answers, in other words, to be able to tell the unsimplified version of a situation, the feelings associated with an act.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Thursday, January 11, 2007
7th Post
Today I was walking back from a department colloquium, about five or so feet behind one of my favorite professors, the one that has an accent that reminds me of a Beatle, and suddenly he decided that he was going to slide on the snow. Not on the ground or anything, but walking just fast enough that he could slide about 2 to 4 feet each time. Now I never lived in the snow before BYU, but I have seen students my age do this, and have tried it myself sometimes, but I have not ever seen a professor act like this, especially considering the professor that I was observing was probably in his mid- to late fifties, since he says that his first paper was published in '79. It just was a funny sight to me, this group of three professors walking together and one of them periodically snow surfing alongside.
6th Post
Anagrams
Why are there not practices?
How will it be received?
As always, badly I fear
Though Time will not reveal it
Lack of willpower is disturbing, yet
Every time it happens the same
Open your heart
Very often
Veins are drained
Everything stays still
Never had to test this aspect of it
Everything is in motion
Reoccurring doubts, nightmares
Is it really what needs to be done?
Why is time fixed?
Something missing?
Something lacking?
Happiness?
Every time is different
is the end.
Why are there not practices?
How will it be received?
As always, badly I fear
Though Time will not reveal it
Lack of willpower is disturbing, yet
Every time it happens the same
Open your heart
Very often
Veins are drained
Everything stays still
Never had to test this aspect of it
Everything is in motion
Reoccurring doubts, nightmares
Is it really what needs to be done?
Why is time fixed?
Something missing?
Something lacking?
Happiness?
Every time is different
is the end.
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