Month: August 2016

Questionable Outrage at an Ethically Challenged Media (A Moral Dilemma)

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I’m not here to preach, today. I’m here to discuss, to ponder, and mostly to re-evaluate my stance on a media that doesn’t have boundaries when it comes to their influence in shaping the thoughts of society.

The easiest example is terrorism. Whenever there’s a terrorist attack, however minor, the media reports on it, and I criticise it for spreading the message of fear that the terrorists sought to spread in the first place. In my eyes, I often believe that by spreading the news of these attacks, the media are directly delivering to the terrorists their ambitions, and that if they ceased to do so, they would be silencing these groups. And it’s the same with murderers; many of them go on their killing sprees because they want to be famous, if only for a little while, and to get their face and name known for what they did. The media, in my typically formed opinion, is all too happy to oblige as long as they get a damn story out of it.

But over the last year or so I’ve been considering the other side of the argument. It’s the media’s duty to report these things, else they’d be no better than the censored papers of dictatorial countries of eras past and current. They’d be directly lying to society as to the situation of world events, and we’d be even more in the dark on the true events and motivations driving the world than we are already. This, too, would be against everything that I stand for.

So we’ve got a bit of a dilemma here. A crazed murderer goes on a rampage and kills fifteen people at a school somewhere. If the paper prints their name, face, history and motives, the killer (now likely dead due to their cowardice) is getting exactly what they desire – fame, and a country-wide hatred that they bathe in like glory. But if the paper does what I’ve been complaining at them to do for years – that is, if they keep hush about the matter and leave it to the police and the families of the victims – then we, as a society, are being blinded to the truth, and have no chance to take stock of our surroundings and figure out the cause of such pointless insanity. We have no warning that this could happen to us, and that we should always tread the path of rationality.

And we also have a chance to be inspired by this warped mind and go on killing sprees of our own.

Don’t get me wrong; this is not a moral dilemma that I think the papers face. I still believe that they see a profitable story in every tragedy, and to look at this realistically, a floundering business in a dying medium is always likely to choose the monetary advantage over the moral obligation. This, then, is my own moral dilemma – what to yell about on social media when the news inevitably prints front pages dictating “MURDERER” with a mugshot and an incentive to stir up mob mentality.

We don’t have to lump murderers in with terrorism and use the same rule for everybody, however. A murderer is typically one man or woman who has lost touch with reality and has decided to take it upon themselves to cause as much tragedy as possible, with little regard for the future. Terrorism is a more organised attack on the morale of a civilisation who they oppose. Whilst many don’t see past the senseless violence, the true motivation of terrorism is in the name – to cause terror, to sow the seeds of discord amongst a society that is more fragile than its citizens believe. And when the media runs a terrorism story and slaps the same sticker on it as they would with murderers – come hither, my fellow mob, and seethe – then they are, as previously mentioned, only helping those who they claim to be against.

It’s not even as extreme as that. The entire reason that I’ve decided to finally put this moral dilemma to words is that just a few minutes ago, BBC News published a news article named, “GCSE results show significant decline.” Just one minute before this I predicted this headline and preemptively condemned it:

But of course, if we are looking at this from an objective point of view rather than a sympathetic one, it would be folly for the BBC to withhold these statistics in fear that it would wound the feelings of those who saw it. In retrospect, I was likely more angry about those who would inevitably jeer and make light of the hard work put in by today’s youth and in ever-increasingly stressful school life with higher and higher expectations.

To summarise, I suppose I need to accept that journalism can be a neutral, pragmatic thing that doesn’t have to care about anyone’s feelings. I should also keep in mind that it has a duty to keep the public informed as to current events, for the sake of democracy and influencing decisions in a country that chooses its leaders (though that’s a whole other kettle of fish when it comes to media bias.) Perhaps the media  should, however, re-evaluate the power it has on impacting society and share less details about those who perpetrate crimes and more about the crimes themselves and the possible cause of events that led us to this possibility.

Bleach Is Ending

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Bleach is the name of a manga / anime which I began watching (for I started with the anime) at around the age of 14 or 15. It was introduced to me through a friend, and was my first ever anime… though to this day, I’ve not branched out into many others. But as immediately taken aback as I was by the exaggerated emotions and actions that are often found in anime, I’d soon found myself hooked onto this ridiculous idea of this character leading a double life, attempting to maintain a typical teenage lifestyle at school whilst running off every 5 minutes to slay monsters (Hollows) with his oversized sword (Zanpakutou).

If this sounds like it might appeal to you, then you live in the wonderful age where the entire series is viewable for free on Crunchyroll. Bear in mind that some story arcs detract from the manga in order to give the manga a chance to get further ahead in the plot, before the anime caught up with it. If you’d like to only watch canon material, your guide to avoiding filler episodes is here. What an enlightened age you live in.

So, back to my personal Bleach experience. Whenever I watch the first few seasons of Bleach (often referred to as the Soul Society arc), I’m catapulted back in time to when I was going through my GCSE’s, and the sense of wonder, entertainment, and non-reproducible exploration into the culturally varied tropes of anime plot never fails to make me smile. The idea of swords having their own souls and magical abilities greatly appealed to me, and is something that has stuck with me to this day when considering any fantasy character’s possible magical range of abilities. While this theme, alongside the overall narrative of people with swords fighting demonic monsters, is not exactly the most original basis for a story, it was my first encounter with such material and I therefore escaped any disillusionment because of this. In other words, I managed to enjoy the material instead of going “typical Shonen plot lol”.

Many will tell you that after the Soul Society arc, Bleach began its decline, and honestly, as much as I love the series, I wouldn’t argue with that. What I would argue with is the idea that it’s no longer worth watching. I believe that the subsequent ‘Arrancar arc’ is still enjoyable and engaging, although the climax of this arc certainly does feel like it would be an apt place to finish the entire series. It is after this point that almost the entire Bleach community is in agreement that the manga began its sheer decline. With the ‘Thousand Year Blood War’ arc, the manga (the anime now cancelled) began to descend into an over-saturated mess of characters, ill-explained abilities, one-note enemies, retcons out the wazoo, awful pacing and just a general lack of a cohesive or believable narrative. The fights spiralled into a playground world of “my ability is more suited to kill you than yours,” and the deus-ex-machina grew so out of control that the word ‘asspull’ now gets your comment automatically removed from r/Bleach, more from an exasperated “WE KNOW” than as an overly offensive or unfair remark.

But even the Thousand Year Blood War arc managed to give us some awesome moments and character revelations. Whilst the arc as a whole hasn’t made sense (and still won’t, unless the final 20 pages have the depth and cohesion of a hundred issues), individual fights and moments have still ignited my now mostly forgotten feeling of hype and anticipation for the next week’s issue. It’s something I’ll sorely miss.

I’m not just here to slam the final story arc, though. Bleach as a whole actually contains some expertly crafted leitmotifs and character relationships, as well as a plethora of unique and enticing abilities and fights. The anime in particular has some very well animated fight scenes, and had I the option of experiencing it all for the first time again, I wouldn’t shy from it at all – even the final story arc. It’s been an absolute pleasure to follow the story of this cast of characters over the years, and whilst it’s sad that the manga is ending (presumably) with a whimper rather than a bang, it’ll always hold a place in heart.

Book Review: Stormrage by Richard A. Knaak

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Let’s try something new. This will be my first ever book review.

Mild spoilers for Stormrage by Richard A. Knaak below! If you want to approach the book with no preconceptions, avoid reading this blog post.

Stormrage_Cover

Stormrage, it must immediately be noted, is a novel that takes place within the game World of Warcraft, and, like the other WoW books I’ve read, successfully expands the narrative outside of the confines of the initial game. In the case of Stormrage, it depicted an event within the narrative which I was not previously aware had even occurred, and thus added to my enjoyment and knowledge of the game world as a whole. As with the other WoW books I’ve read (namely War Crimes, Illidan, and Arthas: Rise of the Lich King, in that order), it has been an enjoyable fantasy novel for me, but not one that I’d consider recommending to somebody who isn’t already acquainted with the Warcraft universe, as there are often many settings, character relationships and events which have been conceived and developed outside of the book series.

Out of the aforementioned Warcraft books I have read, Stormrage is that first I’ve read that has been written by Richard Knaak, the others being written by either Christie Golden, or newcomer to the series William King. Having heard some previous criticism of Richard Knaak’s writing, I entered into my reading with caution, and indeed did find some criticisms which I shall note further on.

Stormrage, then, is a novel which depicts events taking place between the World of Warcraft expansions Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm. The Emerald Dream has long been an alternate plane of existence in which the blueprints of a perfect Azeroth could be experienced, with no demonic or otherwise sentient meddlings shaping the world. Maintained by the druids of Azeroth, it has long been a place of paradise and prosperity. However, when an unearthly mist starts causing the citizens of Azeroth to fall into a comatose state, it becomes clear that all is not well, and it soon becomes apparent that Arch-Druid Malfurion has been captured within the Dream, which is rapidly becoming tainted by what is soon to be known as the Emerald Nightmare.

If I had to describe this book in one word, it’d be ‘long-winded’. I’ll immediately emphasise that I did enjoy the book, and I don’t regret reading it, but the malign forces which beseech the characters keep growing in stature, and when reading about setback after setback it might soon occur to the reader that the narrative might be shorter and sweeter should a few of these setbacks fail to occur. I found myself somewhat lost in the geography of the story arc when almost exactly midway through, I began reading what felt like a (hard-fought) climactic struggle. The narrative also suffers from the task of portraying too many abstract concepts, such as the barriers between Azeroth and the Emerald Dream breaking down, and a druid (whom I shall not name) wielding powers of global proportions sometime in the narrative.

One thing this novel does right, though, is provide an excellent platform through which to explore the characters we have already seen in-game, and challenge their deepest fears as they face the onslaught of their worst nightmares. Tyrande, in particular, is noted as fearing her evil predecessor as leader of the night elves, and the corruption which threatened to lead her people into darkness. Stormrage also introduces lesser characters such as Broll Bearmantle, whom I severely hope will make an appearance in an upcoming World of Warcraft expansion. Furthermore, as previously mentioned, Knaak is tasked with portraying some very abstract concepts which I feel many writers would choose to avoid if given the chance, whereas Stormrage, being in the rare position of depicting events of what is typically a visual and interactive world, must make do attempting to describe them; Knaak’s writing, whilst imperfect, never left me clueless as to the events unfolding before me. I do feel the need to make an example of some of his stiff writing, however:

The vision had so troubled her today that Shandris could no longer sit still. Hoping to clear her thoughts, she had personally begun patrolling the length and breadth of the capital, wending her way from the fortified bastion of the Warrior’s Terrace down into the commercial sections of the Tradesmen’s Terrace, on through the mystic Temple of the Moon and across the lush, sculptured islets of the garden. There, she had made a detour to the industrious Craftsmen’s Terrace before returning to her quarters in the Warrior’s.

The only purpose this paragraph serves is to portray Shandris’ uneasy state of mind, and there are much faster ways with which this could have been achieved. Knaak’s description of her patrol through Darnassus was, whilst descriptive, an entirely futile endeavour, and I regret to say that the novel is riddled with similar such passages. The other pet peeve I have is the way Knaak will hint at a character’s discovery, discuss it at length, but fail to inform the actual reader what the character is talking about until at least a few pages later. All this does is make me feel lost and irritated, rather than in suspense, as is likely the intention. Perhaps if the novel was not dealing with such abstract concepts, this style of writing would be more forgivable.

If you are a World of Warcraft fan, though, I recommend this book nonetheless. One of the upcoming raids of the next expansion has players actually fighting in the Emerald Nightmare, so this will be some good background reading, and despite my criticisms of Knaak’s writing, he does the job of providing an entertaining narrative featuring some fan-favourite characters. I must admit that I prefer other works within the series from Christie Golden and William King, but I’ll certainly not shy away from reading other Knaak books.

Let’s Make Stuff Up

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Right.

This is not working.

The other day I updated my Twitter bio and, in the interest of saving space, I changed ‘aspiring author’ to ‘writer’. And since I updated it, something’s been gnawing at the back of my brain. It took me until just now to figure out what it was, and it turns out it’s my conscience saying, “Are you, though?”

Well, yeah, I write two blog posts a week, I could be called a writer. But since finishing university, I’ve only written one short story, and that was just a first draft. It’s not a case of writer’s block; every day I have new ideas that could easily bear fictional fruit. It’s a case of me having better things to do with my time. And that sounds awful, because writing is my heart and soul, it’s my calling. But gaming is addictive. Netflix and Youtube are easy distractions. And these two weekly blog posts I create seem to be enough productive writing to successfully quell the little voice inside my head that periodically tells me I should be writing something. So I’ve come to a dreary halt, on the fictional front.

And as an aspiring author, that just ain’t cricket.

So first off, I should go in for the reassurance angle and say that yes, I’ll continue doing these two weekly blog posts and no, I have no plans to change the quantity or quality of the posts provided. Hell, I might have more to talk about on this blog. But my new plan is that on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays – starting next week – I shall produce at least 100 words of fictional content… hopefully, far more. I’ve no idea what form it is going to take, and much of it won’t see the light of day. But my writing has taken the backseat for too long in my life; I’ll often find myself looking at writing competitions and having every intention of entering, but conveniently forgetting to when the deadline for entry rolls around. I’ll write a short story, become enthused about the ideas and characters I’ve created, and 99% of the time will fail to return to it for a second draft. This is atrocious, and without fixing it and taking control of my idling ways, I really won’t be able to call myself a writer, or claim it to be my profession. It’s already too late for me to have been some superstar up-and-coming teenage writer – due to laziness or lack of courage, you decide – but I’ve still got an entire life to seize my fate as a writer, and elderly Kristian won’t be able to forgive 21 year old Kristian for letting the only talent we have slip into irrelevance and disrepair.

Writing this blog post, I’m reminded – painfully – of a very similar blog post where I once said I was going to write a novel with no plans of letting it see the light of day, simply writing it for the experience of doing so. That petered out into nothingness after two or three chapters, if I recall correctly. But over the course of the last year, I’ve proved to myself that if given the proper resources and determination, I can stick to a self-motivated routine and push onwards to where I want to be, even if I’ve failed to do so before. The obvious example is the weekly blog posts; another is the name-every-day project which is still going strong; but the most unexpected example I’m bringing to the table is my Skyrim playthrough. The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim was the epitomy of a grandiose and enjoyable task that I simply did not have the attention span to reap the rewards of pursuing. One day, after having started many 2-hour playthroughs of the game, I pushed through the will to drop it for another game and gave it my full attention, and have since played it almost to 100% completion (which is a grand task indeed). Odd as this example may be, I feel it mirrors wonderfully the efforts I have made to focus on this blog, and the efforts I’ll need to focus on finally breaking in to regular, fictional writing.

And publicly announcing it on my blog is further motivation to not fall into failure yet again.

Podcasts

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What do you think of when you hear the word, ‘Podcast’? I used to think of boring discussions around boring topics which quite frankly, bored me. I was unaware of comedic / casual types of podcasts, where you’re literally listening in on a humorous conversation. But the podcasts I listen to are just that, and I love ’em.

They’re mostly based around Youtubers, to be honest. My first ever podcast was the Rooster Teeth Podcast, one which is always a joy to listen to weekly on binge catch-up on. This podcast has been running for many years now, so it’s interesting sometimes to go back in time and listen to what is, at this point, a discussion from a culturally different point of view, before the complete domination of smartphones and touch technology. Don’t expect much in the way of intellectual discussion here (or really in any of the podcasts I listen to). Just good old fashioned natterings about the world in general. The typical cast is Gus, Gavin, Barbara and Burnie, but they’ll rotate people out with other staff on a regular basis.

Eventually, Rooster Teeth branched out with their podcasts, and have since formed most notably The Patch (focused specifically on gaming) and Off Topic (an even more dysfunctional podcast than the RT Podcast, made by a section of their company called Achievement Hunter.) I listen to both at a less regular pace than their main podcast, typically favouring The Patch over Off Topic, which has been known to stray into territories such as spending half an hour poking the guy who doesn’t watch movies with, “SO YOU’VE NEVER SEEN THIS MOVIE?!” (As somebody who does not watch many movies themselves, this actually irritated me away from the podcast for a while.) One last thing I’ll mention is that if you listen to any of Rooster Teeth’s podcasts… prepare to get advertised at a fair bit.

Getting away from Rooster Teeth though, another Youtuber-created podcast that I listen to is called Triforce, made by three members of the Yogscast: Lewis, Sips, and Pyrion. This podcast has been often jokingly referred to as “two and a half dads”, and as you might expect mirrors the humour typically found in their videos, so stay away if this doesn’t appeal to you. It’s another comedic podcast that rambles about whatever’s going on in the world or the participants’ own personal lives, and I happen to quite enjoy it. It’s also quite new as far as podcasts go, so I’ve no idea how much longer it’s going to run.

Finally, one podcast that I’ve only just discovered is a much smaller and less frequently released one, made by World of Warcraft community manager Josh Allen (@Devolore) and someone I don’t know all that much about yet (but find amusing) named Mike B. It’s called Don’t Get Your Hopes Up, and from the two episodes I’ve listened to (57 and 56) it’s fairly gaming oriented, whilst mostly being the casual conversation of two friends. Can you see a theme here? I discovered Josh Allen through some recent WoW Developer Q&A streams and after following him on Twitter, determined that I like the guy more than enough to listen to his podcast, so there’s that origin story.

I also occasionally listen to the Co-Optional Podcast, hosted by Youtubers TotalBiscuit, Jesse Cox and Dodger (+guest), which is also focused on gaming, but more often than not I forget to tune in, despite its enjoyability. Which isn’t a word. But is now.

If you have any recommendations for me based on the recommendations I’ve made here, please let me know. I’m always on the lookout for more laughter to my ears.

I typically listen to podcasts when playing games which don’t require too much brainpower, like WoW or Minecraft (which is far too isolated in singleplayer without a friend or a podcast).I find that more often than not, they enhance my gaming experience, allowing me to multitask and break down the monotony of, say, chaining dungeons on yet another alternate WoW character. On the flipside, I also can’t simply sit and listen to or watch a podcast for an hour or more. My brain isn’t that focused. I’ve also gone through much of the Rooster Teeth Podcast’s backlog whilst gardening, of all things.

I’ve always been somewhat interested in producing a podcast myself, but as somebody who is a bad listener and often is far too excited with what they want to say before they forget it, I’m not sure I’m the best personality for the genre. I could perhaps attempt a 1-on-1 podcast such as in DGYHU, but I’d have to find the right person to make it with, the right topics to talk about and the right people to actually listen to it. And besides, I don’t own a microphone.