So I'm going to talk about something less nerdy and kid-friendly today, but still slightly nerdy as you'll see soon. More often than not, I've heard many people, both young and old, talk about the decline of popular music. This isn't a recent development either. This has been a constant gripe for centuries, even way back when the critics first named Baroque music (translating loosely to "rough" or "imperfect"). I'm sure you've all heard it before, when you listen to music on the radio and people say things like "this is garbage. Remember ______? That was the best." You've done it, your parents have done it, and so on and so forth.
The truth is, yes, there's some horrible music out there in the mainstream right now. But is this really a new phenomenon? Actually, no. Here's the thing. Modern pop and rock stations are required to play stuff that's new, usually no more than a year old at most, and even that's stretching it. They don't categorize songs based on them being good or bad, but rather being old or new. Classic rock stations, on the other hand, categorize things based on how much people like them due to having a much more vast collection to work with, and so they filter out the bad stuff. A lot of number one singles from the 60s and 70s are most likely not even played anymore. Bands like Queen, Zeppelin, etc. barely made the charts at all for a long while. Critics hated bands like that, and even normal everyday fans saw them as being fringe interests, not quite mainstream but not quite obscure either. Those weren't the bands that outsold everyone. They were the bands that endured after all the catchy pop imitators and simplistic stuff got forgotten.
It gets more extreme as we go further back in time. Try and name all the Baroque composers you can think of. You probably thought of Bach, Vivaldi, and maybe a few others. These weren't the only composers of the era. They were everywhere. We just only remember the good ones. The forgettable ones probably don't even have copies of their music in any form anywhere at all.
Now let's look a little more recently. How many diehard Spice Girls, Hanson, or 98 Degrees fans do you know? Now compare that to when they first came out. This is a huge drop in popularity. Now how many fans of even older bands are still out there, like Metallica, the Beatles, or Led Zeppelin? Probably way more, even though they started making hits way earlier. That's what I'm talking about.
So the next time you listen to the radio, remember, for every Nicki Minaj, One Direction, and Miley Cyrus song that makes you cringe, just know that there's a Coheed and Cambria, Nightwish, and Abney Park song out there that isn't being played. This isn't the musical apocalypse. You just need to know where to look.
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Killing Santa Claus
When I was a little kid, like most kids who celebrate Christmas in America, I believed in Santa Claus. Every year on Christmas Eve I'd lay in bed unable to sleep as I imagined him coming down the chimney with the things I wanted most. It wasn't the presents, however, that enticed me to keep believing. I got presents from my family, and it was enough. What piqued my interest was the magical aspect of it. I enjoyed the idea that in this humdrum, boring, magicless world, there were amazing things beyond our capability to understand, like a man who lives in one of the most inhospitable places on Earth dedicated to spreading happiness and joy, or a magical anthropomorphic rabbit who gave out candy to those who knew the truth. As a kid, I believed in it all. I believed that houses could be haunted, that magicians like Penn and Teller or David Copperfield were truly harnessing the power of the supernatural, and yes, even that the joy of every holiday was spread further by magical beings.
Most people, mostly adults, believed that the world was without magic, that everything was boring and full of things like tax forms, laws, and the 9 to 5. It was only the special, the open-minded, that were able to carry the sense of wonder into adulthood. I idolized the illusionists, the paranormal investigators, and the literary characters who, in their older ages, still clung to those beliefs. I put down the kids who refused to believe, saying there was proof everywhere, and they had forced those things out of their mind so much that they now believed them to be false when they were obviously real.
That's why it was such a bludgeon to my psyche when I was told by my parents that Santa Claus wasn't real. I remember the night clearly. At first I was angry, then I simply thought they were lying to me. Over a short amount of time, however, the reality started to sink in. I no longer believed in Santa Claus, or any of the things I held dear. It was like they all started to fade away from my mind. This is when I got scared. I couldn't accept a world without magic. I didn't care about extra presents by this time. That isn't what I wanted for Christmas. I wanted a world where magic was everywhere. I started to force myself to believe. In my heart, I knew it wasn't true, but I had to believe. I attempted this experiment even into my early teen years, trying my best to rationalize the supernatural using explanations such as "we just don't understand the science of it," and the like. In the end it was futile. Nothing I used to try to convince myself worked at all. Sadly, I accepted the notion that magic simply didn't exist, and that our world was bound by laws that made such things impossible.
Now, I have accepted new things as wondrous, like quantum mechanics, engineering, and biology, but still, deep down in my mind, I continue to long for the days when pots of gold lied at the end of every rainbow, when eery, old castles were full of the lost souls of the long dead, and even when a bearded man in a red suit streaked across the sky in a magical sled once every year.
Most people, mostly adults, believed that the world was without magic, that everything was boring and full of things like tax forms, laws, and the 9 to 5. It was only the special, the open-minded, that were able to carry the sense of wonder into adulthood. I idolized the illusionists, the paranormal investigators, and the literary characters who, in their older ages, still clung to those beliefs. I put down the kids who refused to believe, saying there was proof everywhere, and they had forced those things out of their mind so much that they now believed them to be false when they were obviously real.
That's why it was such a bludgeon to my psyche when I was told by my parents that Santa Claus wasn't real. I remember the night clearly. At first I was angry, then I simply thought they were lying to me. Over a short amount of time, however, the reality started to sink in. I no longer believed in Santa Claus, or any of the things I held dear. It was like they all started to fade away from my mind. This is when I got scared. I couldn't accept a world without magic. I didn't care about extra presents by this time. That isn't what I wanted for Christmas. I wanted a world where magic was everywhere. I started to force myself to believe. In my heart, I knew it wasn't true, but I had to believe. I attempted this experiment even into my early teen years, trying my best to rationalize the supernatural using explanations such as "we just don't understand the science of it," and the like. In the end it was futile. Nothing I used to try to convince myself worked at all. Sadly, I accepted the notion that magic simply didn't exist, and that our world was bound by laws that made such things impossible.
Now, I have accepted new things as wondrous, like quantum mechanics, engineering, and biology, but still, deep down in my mind, I continue to long for the days when pots of gold lied at the end of every rainbow, when eery, old castles were full of the lost souls of the long dead, and even when a bearded man in a red suit streaked across the sky in a magical sled once every year.
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
I Don't Miss Being a Kid
This is a lighthearted post, I promise! I know the title sounds even more dreary than the last post, but bear with me on this one.
Growing up, I heard many people from family to teachers to random adults telling me to enjoy every minute of my childhood and teen years because, once I become an adult and go into the "real world," I would wish I was young again. I don't know what kind of horrible lives those people were living, but I would not trade my adulthood for a second childhood for one minute. To me, it seems horrible that those people believe the best part of their lives to be over and done with. I enjoy my present existence, and I will present five reasons why.
Firstly, there's my free time. A lot of adults will tell you that your free time goes away upon getting a job. The truth is, I have tons of free time and I enjoy it immensely. I guess it's because I don't have kids, but if you enjoy free time so much that you pine away for it, maybe you shouldn't have had kids. I mean, what did you expect? I know I plan on waiting a few more years. Anyway, back when I was in school (especially high school), I had very little free time. I would go to school for 7 hours a day, then I had marching band practice for about 2 hours every day after school. That's a 9 hour day right there. On Fridays I had football games that lasted for about 3 hours, and if you include the prep time before that and the debriefing afterwards, there's a 12+ hour day right there. Then on weekends I would either have to go to a marching competition or go work at my part-time job, which was about 9 hours, give or take. Adding all that up, I worked approximately 57 hours a week, and I wasn't able to take a day of personal time for any of it. Even when the marching season was over, I only replaced my band practice with my job, so my hours didn't change. Right now, I work a shift schedule and my work week alternates from 36 hours to 48 hours, and I accrue a heck ton of days off. I'm working a lot less and so I have much more time to goof off.
Secondly, there's the fact that I'm getting paid for said work. Except for my part-time job, of which the pay was awful and I wasn't offered benefits due to being part-time, I wasn't seeing a dime of the effort I put in. With the amount of work I do now, I can afford my own house and still have extra money to spend as I see fit. As a student, I made about eighty bucks a week, despite working longer and more frequently than I do now. Yes, I have bills and stuff, but unless you're seriously in debt (I'm not, thank goodness), even a lower middle class gent like me can afford to enjoy a few of the finer things.
Third, I'm totally free now. This is in no way an attack on my parents. They did right by me and raised me well, but I have my own rhythm for living, and my own style on how I do things. Living under someone else's roof prevents you from being your own person, and now that I'm on my own, I have more freedom to enjoy life in the manner and at the speed that I want. If I want to watch cartoons while eating ice cream at midnight, I can do that. If I want to go to the store and take care of errands, I can do it without checking in to make sure it's okay, and I can do it at 3am if I want to. If I want to cook something weird, I just go ahead and do it. Yes, most of you will probably point out that I'm married, but for my wife and I, it's very easy for us to be our own person around each other. I don't feel that my being married has in any way impeded my freedom, and I'm sure she could say the same for herself as well.
Fourth, adults take me seriously. As a kid, people may think you're smart or capable, but with all your accomplishments, you're still just a kid to them. There are kids who have gotten bachelor's degrees, kids who have patented new inventions, and even kids who have discovered new things that have baffled adults for years, but in the end, there's still that lingering idea that they're young'uns who need to wait their turn and mature a bit before they're let out into the world. At the ripe age of 26, I've pretty much proven to the world that I can handle myself on my own, and adults treat me like one of them instead of with that patronizing manner that kind of annoyed me growing up.
Last but not least, I can still be a kid if I want to. Being an adult is great. If you can handle the responsibilities, it's rewarding and fun. But every now and then I just want to kick back and watch a cartoon or play some E-rated video games. I also like to go to the beach and dig up clams or look for fish, or go to the zoo and feed the parakeets. There's no shame in it for me that I'm still connected with my younger self. It's a part of who I am, and I have always felt that if you feel like you need to grow up and let go of your childlike sense of wonder and imagination, you're seriously doing yourself a disservice. It's bad to be childish as an adult, but it's not wrong at all to be childlike.
Growing up, I heard many people from family to teachers to random adults telling me to enjoy every minute of my childhood and teen years because, once I become an adult and go into the "real world," I would wish I was young again. I don't know what kind of horrible lives those people were living, but I would not trade my adulthood for a second childhood for one minute. To me, it seems horrible that those people believe the best part of their lives to be over and done with. I enjoy my present existence, and I will present five reasons why.
Firstly, there's my free time. A lot of adults will tell you that your free time goes away upon getting a job. The truth is, I have tons of free time and I enjoy it immensely. I guess it's because I don't have kids, but if you enjoy free time so much that you pine away for it, maybe you shouldn't have had kids. I mean, what did you expect? I know I plan on waiting a few more years. Anyway, back when I was in school (especially high school), I had very little free time. I would go to school for 7 hours a day, then I had marching band practice for about 2 hours every day after school. That's a 9 hour day right there. On Fridays I had football games that lasted for about 3 hours, and if you include the prep time before that and the debriefing afterwards, there's a 12+ hour day right there. Then on weekends I would either have to go to a marching competition or go work at my part-time job, which was about 9 hours, give or take. Adding all that up, I worked approximately 57 hours a week, and I wasn't able to take a day of personal time for any of it. Even when the marching season was over, I only replaced my band practice with my job, so my hours didn't change. Right now, I work a shift schedule and my work week alternates from 36 hours to 48 hours, and I accrue a heck ton of days off. I'm working a lot less and so I have much more time to goof off.
Secondly, there's the fact that I'm getting paid for said work. Except for my part-time job, of which the pay was awful and I wasn't offered benefits due to being part-time, I wasn't seeing a dime of the effort I put in. With the amount of work I do now, I can afford my own house and still have extra money to spend as I see fit. As a student, I made about eighty bucks a week, despite working longer and more frequently than I do now. Yes, I have bills and stuff, but unless you're seriously in debt (I'm not, thank goodness), even a lower middle class gent like me can afford to enjoy a few of the finer things.
Third, I'm totally free now. This is in no way an attack on my parents. They did right by me and raised me well, but I have my own rhythm for living, and my own style on how I do things. Living under someone else's roof prevents you from being your own person, and now that I'm on my own, I have more freedom to enjoy life in the manner and at the speed that I want. If I want to watch cartoons while eating ice cream at midnight, I can do that. If I want to go to the store and take care of errands, I can do it without checking in to make sure it's okay, and I can do it at 3am if I want to. If I want to cook something weird, I just go ahead and do it. Yes, most of you will probably point out that I'm married, but for my wife and I, it's very easy for us to be our own person around each other. I don't feel that my being married has in any way impeded my freedom, and I'm sure she could say the same for herself as well.
Fourth, adults take me seriously. As a kid, people may think you're smart or capable, but with all your accomplishments, you're still just a kid to them. There are kids who have gotten bachelor's degrees, kids who have patented new inventions, and even kids who have discovered new things that have baffled adults for years, but in the end, there's still that lingering idea that they're young'uns who need to wait their turn and mature a bit before they're let out into the world. At the ripe age of 26, I've pretty much proven to the world that I can handle myself on my own, and adults treat me like one of them instead of with that patronizing manner that kind of annoyed me growing up.
Last but not least, I can still be a kid if I want to. Being an adult is great. If you can handle the responsibilities, it's rewarding and fun. But every now and then I just want to kick back and watch a cartoon or play some E-rated video games. I also like to go to the beach and dig up clams or look for fish, or go to the zoo and feed the parakeets. There's no shame in it for me that I'm still connected with my younger self. It's a part of who I am, and I have always felt that if you feel like you need to grow up and let go of your childlike sense of wonder and imagination, you're seriously doing yourself a disservice. It's bad to be childish as an adult, but it's not wrong at all to be childlike.
Monday, August 12, 2013
Nerd Stuff - It's Important
A few years back, I attended a parade put on by the local university. Tons of people were out representing their groups, including athletes, cheerleaders, and even the academic types. One of the groups, however, was a bit unorthodox compared to the others. The group in question was the local chapter of the Star Trek club. Each one of them was decked out in Starfleet uniforms, and there was even a float that looked like a shuttlecraft. They looked very pleased with themselves and happy to be there. The crowd, unfortunately, wasn't so enthusiastic. Most of them facepalmed, and a few made fun of them under their breath. Yes, it was pretty nerdy, but to this day I don't understand why people like that are met with ridicule, especially as so-called "nerd" culture is now at the forefront, with people openly reading fantasy novels, and as sci-fi shows and nerd-based sitcoms are rampant on television.
Firstly, an obsession with something traditionally considered nerdy, to me, doesn't seem any different than an obsession with things like sports, cars, or celebrity gossip, for example. It's very common for people to enjoy reading up on sports statistics, the recent accomplishments of athletes, and keeping up to date with their favorite teams. Alternatively, when someone talks about the lore of a fantasy world, quotes a popular science fiction author, or wonders what the heck Patrick Stewart has been doing recently, people see it as different, or socially unacceptable. I just don't get it. Some people (myself included) may not be interested in sports, and may get bored entirely at the mention of the topic. When someone talks about Star Wars, however, my ears perk up and I could find myself talking to someone about it for hours. Does this mean I think it's better than sports? To me, yes, but objectively, no. Everyone has their own interests, and we shouldn't deride any of them as being lesser than the other.
Now I want to get more serious. Being a nerd, I knew a lot of nerds in college and growing up in general, many of them being way more nerdy than I could ever be. A lot of them fit many stereotypes of a nerd as well - pudgy, early hair loss, social awkwardness, maybe a goth or something, etc. After a while, I asked myself why a lot of nerds fit this stereotype, and then I made an epiphany. I wasn't any different than these people. To be a true nerd, you have to be obsessed with something traditionally considered nerdy, and to get that obsession, you have to have the personality or the background of someone who would become obsessed with stuff like this. A lot of the people who "look" nerdy may have become nerds because they were made fun of their entire lives for how they looked. They may not have felt at home with the jocks or the preps because they were cast out by those groups. So who do they hang out with? Other people like them, many of them disgusted with the groups that rule society, and so they developed their own interests apart from what everyone else liked. Yet others - the ones that were cast out because of how they were mentally rather than physically - probably had problems like anxiety, Asperger's, or maybe they felt uncomfortable with their gender identity and were afraid to live in a traditional society. Rather than mingle with the common people, they looked to the outcasts to survive and joined the physical nerds. Over time, the two groups would become one.
The latter is a reflection of my own experiences. As a child, I was never interested in sports. My dad once told me he regretted not playing catch with me, but the truth is, I never wanted to. The thought of playing with a football or a baseball baffled me as to why anyone would find it engaging. I wanted to swordfight and imagine I was in a mysterious other world battling to save everything and everyone in it. I lost myself in my own imagination and in science books, always looking for something to spark my mental interests. For days on end, I would play a character or imagine I was somewhere far away. In elementary school, I might have been a little weird, but it was middle school when everyone around me finally started doing something about it.
It was a nightmare. Being a scrawny, shy, possibly mildly Aspergian child with fringe interests and a terrible ability at sports, I was an instant target for the jocks and the social butterflies. It was like I couldn't even meet a new person or group of people without becoming an instant target. I had a few friends, but none of us had the same classes, so I was pretty much alone. Then I met this one duo that was kind of like me. They were bad at sports, they enjoyed imaginative stuff, and they were outcasts as well. They were obsessed with this video game and TV series called Pokemon, and for a while I scratched my head at it wondering why the heck it was even appealing, but then I checked it out for myself and realized how amazing it was. Here was this franchise about a kid who never went to school or had to deal with my problems. He just traveled the world, going from town to town with his two best friends and having adventures. If anyone tried to mess with him, he had a collection of powerful transforming monsters that were completely loyal to him and could help him in a pinch. The series was also full of facts and rules to memorize, so it engaged me mentally. Also, being a big fan of science - biology in particular - I enjoyed how it was essentially an alternate world with its own flora and fauna that were a cross between scientific and magical, that I could study easily as if I were a naturalist like The Crocodile Hunter or David Attenborough. I was instantly hooked, and for about two years, Pokemon was my entire life. It was my first narrow nerd obsession that I can remember. Since then, obsessions have come and gone, but I still look fondly on those days and how it saved me when I was in my early teen years.
So before you go on ridiculing a nerd for their strange looks, behaviors, and obsessions, just remember - they probably had no choice getting there, but now that they're there, they may enjoy something in a way that you never could.
Firstly, an obsession with something traditionally considered nerdy, to me, doesn't seem any different than an obsession with things like sports, cars, or celebrity gossip, for example. It's very common for people to enjoy reading up on sports statistics, the recent accomplishments of athletes, and keeping up to date with their favorite teams. Alternatively, when someone talks about the lore of a fantasy world, quotes a popular science fiction author, or wonders what the heck Patrick Stewart has been doing recently, people see it as different, or socially unacceptable. I just don't get it. Some people (myself included) may not be interested in sports, and may get bored entirely at the mention of the topic. When someone talks about Star Wars, however, my ears perk up and I could find myself talking to someone about it for hours. Does this mean I think it's better than sports? To me, yes, but objectively, no. Everyone has their own interests, and we shouldn't deride any of them as being lesser than the other.
Now I want to get more serious. Being a nerd, I knew a lot of nerds in college and growing up in general, many of them being way more nerdy than I could ever be. A lot of them fit many stereotypes of a nerd as well - pudgy, early hair loss, social awkwardness, maybe a goth or something, etc. After a while, I asked myself why a lot of nerds fit this stereotype, and then I made an epiphany. I wasn't any different than these people. To be a true nerd, you have to be obsessed with something traditionally considered nerdy, and to get that obsession, you have to have the personality or the background of someone who would become obsessed with stuff like this. A lot of the people who "look" nerdy may have become nerds because they were made fun of their entire lives for how they looked. They may not have felt at home with the jocks or the preps because they were cast out by those groups. So who do they hang out with? Other people like them, many of them disgusted with the groups that rule society, and so they developed their own interests apart from what everyone else liked. Yet others - the ones that were cast out because of how they were mentally rather than physically - probably had problems like anxiety, Asperger's, or maybe they felt uncomfortable with their gender identity and were afraid to live in a traditional society. Rather than mingle with the common people, they looked to the outcasts to survive and joined the physical nerds. Over time, the two groups would become one.
The latter is a reflection of my own experiences. As a child, I was never interested in sports. My dad once told me he regretted not playing catch with me, but the truth is, I never wanted to. The thought of playing with a football or a baseball baffled me as to why anyone would find it engaging. I wanted to swordfight and imagine I was in a mysterious other world battling to save everything and everyone in it. I lost myself in my own imagination and in science books, always looking for something to spark my mental interests. For days on end, I would play a character or imagine I was somewhere far away. In elementary school, I might have been a little weird, but it was middle school when everyone around me finally started doing something about it.
It was a nightmare. Being a scrawny, shy, possibly mildly Aspergian child with fringe interests and a terrible ability at sports, I was an instant target for the jocks and the social butterflies. It was like I couldn't even meet a new person or group of people without becoming an instant target. I had a few friends, but none of us had the same classes, so I was pretty much alone. Then I met this one duo that was kind of like me. They were bad at sports, they enjoyed imaginative stuff, and they were outcasts as well. They were obsessed with this video game and TV series called Pokemon, and for a while I scratched my head at it wondering why the heck it was even appealing, but then I checked it out for myself and realized how amazing it was. Here was this franchise about a kid who never went to school or had to deal with my problems. He just traveled the world, going from town to town with his two best friends and having adventures. If anyone tried to mess with him, he had a collection of powerful transforming monsters that were completely loyal to him and could help him in a pinch. The series was also full of facts and rules to memorize, so it engaged me mentally. Also, being a big fan of science - biology in particular - I enjoyed how it was essentially an alternate world with its own flora and fauna that were a cross between scientific and magical, that I could study easily as if I were a naturalist like The Crocodile Hunter or David Attenborough. I was instantly hooked, and for about two years, Pokemon was my entire life. It was my first narrow nerd obsession that I can remember. Since then, obsessions have come and gone, but I still look fondly on those days and how it saved me when I was in my early teen years.
So before you go on ridiculing a nerd for their strange looks, behaviors, and obsessions, just remember - they probably had no choice getting there, but now that they're there, they may enjoy something in a way that you never could.
Friday, August 9, 2013
Ash Ketchum - Worst Protagonist Ever
So it's no secret that as a child, I was pretty much obsessed with Pokemon. I had the video game, I watched the show, and I even knew the rules to the trading card game. Even today, it remains a prime example of a solid turn-based RPG, with limitless character combinations and a huge focus on strategy. But Ash Ketchum, the main character in the TV show, is a horrible character, probably even the worst character I've seen on a TV show. There are many reasons for this, and it's best to start with a comparison.
If you've played the original games (red and blue), you'll know that the main character, Red, is actually really cool and manages to accomplish a lot in his time as a Pokemon trainer. He collects potentially dozens of Pokemon, fights countless powerful trainers, works his way up to the top to become the most famous trainer of all time, and even dismantles an evil crime syndicate. Ash accomplishes nothing. Throughout his time in the region of Kanto (the region in the original game generation), he collects a total of 6 pokemon, most of which aren't actually captured, but who choose to come with him, he never achieves any fame at all, actually losing the final fight on Indigo Plateau, and most of the badges he "earns" are actually just given to him by people because they feel sorry for him. Take Brock for example. Ash cheats in the fight, then decides to forfeit. Seeing his honesty and desire to be good, Brock gives him the badge. Now how about Sabrina, the psychic master? She gives him a badge because he makes her laugh. That's it. No matter the fact that her powers could crush him like an insect, she decides to give him a free pass because he allowed her to reconnect with her sense of humor (which isn't that good anyway seeing as how all you have to do to make her laugh is make funny faces). Did I also mention that Team Rocket, the crime syndicate thoroughly destroyed by Red in the games, is not only left intact throughout the show, but is actually thriving? Nice one, Ash.
As if all that wasn't enough, Ash has a horrible back story, especially when compared to the back stories of his traveling companions. Brock? He was abandoned by his father and forced to take care of his siblings, despite wanting to go out in the world and make his fortune. After his father returned, he had a valid reason for breaking free of that life. Misty was overshadowed by her sisters and so had to make a name for herself independently of them. She also had a valid reason to want to get out there. Ash, on the other hand, wants to be a famous Pokemon trainer simply because he likes watching it on TV and thinks it's cool. Maybe the reason he's never really accomplished anything is because he has no real motivation.
But I'm probably being too hard on Ash. To tell the truth, he probably has an extremely low IQ. It always seems like it takes an extremely long time for him to grasp any concept beyond what's right in front of him, and even that can be difficult for him. For example, his nemeses, Team Rocket, usually appear in disguise when they first meet him in an episode, and those disguises are usually so bad that any other person is able to see right through them. Ash, however, remains oblivious and usually falls right into their trap. It's also really difficult for him to grasp simple concepts, such as not realizing the true identity of Sabrina's father despite the fact that he knew everything about her and her family, and claimed to have known her all her life. Ash insisted that he was simply the family's photographer. Finally, Ash has no knowledge of Pokemon in general, including those that he trains. It was a surprise to him that his favorite Pokemon, Pikachu, is able to use speed to gain an advantage in battle. You'd think someone who wants to be a Pokemon master would at least read up on their abilities, but I guess he's too cool to sit down and read a book.
The latter two traits about Ash help hammer in this final nail in the coffin that is his character - his total blandness. I don't know what the creators were thinking when they wrote Ash. The show isn't devoid of fleshed-out characters. Like I said before, Brock and Misty, his two best friends, seemed to have been written by different people because they actually have back stories, emotions, and drives that made it seem like someone gave a care when they wrote them. Ash, however, is the biggest Mary Sue I've ever seen in a show, as if he were simply an attempt by the writers to try to appeal to the lowest common denominator, therefore lacking any depth or character. He's essentially the Bud Light of cartoon characters. According to the show's creators, Ash is supposed to be a child version of Satoshi Tajiri, the creator of the Pokemon franchise. If that's how he was as a kid, I'm glad I didn't know him.
So there you have it. This has been a character analysis of Ash Ketchum, the protagonist of the Pokemon TV show. Definitely one of the worst protagonists of all time, and someone who the writers should probably have taken more time to craft.
If you've played the original games (red and blue), you'll know that the main character, Red, is actually really cool and manages to accomplish a lot in his time as a Pokemon trainer. He collects potentially dozens of Pokemon, fights countless powerful trainers, works his way up to the top to become the most famous trainer of all time, and even dismantles an evil crime syndicate. Ash accomplishes nothing. Throughout his time in the region of Kanto (the region in the original game generation), he collects a total of 6 pokemon, most of which aren't actually captured, but who choose to come with him, he never achieves any fame at all, actually losing the final fight on Indigo Plateau, and most of the badges he "earns" are actually just given to him by people because they feel sorry for him. Take Brock for example. Ash cheats in the fight, then decides to forfeit. Seeing his honesty and desire to be good, Brock gives him the badge. Now how about Sabrina, the psychic master? She gives him a badge because he makes her laugh. That's it. No matter the fact that her powers could crush him like an insect, she decides to give him a free pass because he allowed her to reconnect with her sense of humor (which isn't that good anyway seeing as how all you have to do to make her laugh is make funny faces). Did I also mention that Team Rocket, the crime syndicate thoroughly destroyed by Red in the games, is not only left intact throughout the show, but is actually thriving? Nice one, Ash.
As if all that wasn't enough, Ash has a horrible back story, especially when compared to the back stories of his traveling companions. Brock? He was abandoned by his father and forced to take care of his siblings, despite wanting to go out in the world and make his fortune. After his father returned, he had a valid reason for breaking free of that life. Misty was overshadowed by her sisters and so had to make a name for herself independently of them. She also had a valid reason to want to get out there. Ash, on the other hand, wants to be a famous Pokemon trainer simply because he likes watching it on TV and thinks it's cool. Maybe the reason he's never really accomplished anything is because he has no real motivation.
But I'm probably being too hard on Ash. To tell the truth, he probably has an extremely low IQ. It always seems like it takes an extremely long time for him to grasp any concept beyond what's right in front of him, and even that can be difficult for him. For example, his nemeses, Team Rocket, usually appear in disguise when they first meet him in an episode, and those disguises are usually so bad that any other person is able to see right through them. Ash, however, remains oblivious and usually falls right into their trap. It's also really difficult for him to grasp simple concepts, such as not realizing the true identity of Sabrina's father despite the fact that he knew everything about her and her family, and claimed to have known her all her life. Ash insisted that he was simply the family's photographer. Finally, Ash has no knowledge of Pokemon in general, including those that he trains. It was a surprise to him that his favorite Pokemon, Pikachu, is able to use speed to gain an advantage in battle. You'd think someone who wants to be a Pokemon master would at least read up on their abilities, but I guess he's too cool to sit down and read a book.
The latter two traits about Ash help hammer in this final nail in the coffin that is his character - his total blandness. I don't know what the creators were thinking when they wrote Ash. The show isn't devoid of fleshed-out characters. Like I said before, Brock and Misty, his two best friends, seemed to have been written by different people because they actually have back stories, emotions, and drives that made it seem like someone gave a care when they wrote them. Ash, however, is the biggest Mary Sue I've ever seen in a show, as if he were simply an attempt by the writers to try to appeal to the lowest common denominator, therefore lacking any depth or character. He's essentially the Bud Light of cartoon characters. According to the show's creators, Ash is supposed to be a child version of Satoshi Tajiri, the creator of the Pokemon franchise. If that's how he was as a kid, I'm glad I didn't know him.
So there you have it. This has been a character analysis of Ash Ketchum, the protagonist of the Pokemon TV show. Definitely one of the worst protagonists of all time, and someone who the writers should probably have taken more time to craft.
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Kids' Media - Better Now Than Ever
I'll admit it. I'm a huge fan of "Game of Thrones." It's easily one of my favorite shows on TV right now. It has an incredibly complex story, equally complex characters, a great setting, lots of twists and turns, and it's just plain fun to watch. I'm also sad that we have to wait a year after each season finale for the premier of the next season to air.
I'll also admit that there's another show currently in between seasons that I'm dying to see when the new episodes premier later this year. A show that I believe has an equally engaging story, equally complex characters and setting, and is full of equally shocking twists. Is it another show on HBO? Is it on Showtime? No, actually. It's an animated show on Nickelodeon entitled "The Legend of Korra." Warning: spoilers ahead.
For those who haven't seen the show, it's a sequel to another series just as breathtaking called Avatar - the Last Airbender, which, in my opinion, is one of the best shows to ever be on television. The series is set roughly 80 years after the original series, in a progressive nation called the Republic, which is made up of descendants of members of the other four nations of the world, each corresponding to one of the four elements. Each nation has "benders," who are born with the ability to manipulate the elements to do things like fight, heal wounds, and generally make life easier. Bending is part of their culture and society, making each nation incredibly detailed and distinct from one another. The main character, Korra, is an "Avatar" - a continuous reincarnation of the only person in the world who can "bend" all four elements. The story involves her and her friends as they uncover the actions of an underground crime network of people who believe bending is evil and are attempting to cleanse the world of it through force, coercion, propaganda, and political conspiracy. Along the way, hearts are broken, people lose everything they hold dear, and people die on both sides. Doesn't exactly sound like Rocky and Bullwinkle or Looney Tunes, does it?
This show is just one of many that are supposedly geared towards children and young teens, but which contain more mature, complex themes. If you look at cartoons from the 90s and back, despite what the nostalgics say, they're not very engaging at all, and surely not "better" if you look at them from a literary standpoint. As a child of the late 80s and early 90s, looking back on the shows I used to love, a lot of them are things I would never watch again. They were highly serialized with no continuity, and the characters usually only had one trait that made them memorable, such as having a big appetite, a word they repeated over and over, or maybe the weapons they used in a G-rated fight. Still using Avatar as an example, one can see how much it's changed. Every episode either contributes directly to the story, or creates details that are used in later episodes. Each character has more than just one distinguishing feature that makes them interesting. Toph Bei Fong, a prominent character from the original series, is a prime example of this.
When she is first seen on the show, she seems just like a rebellious kid with a bad attitude, but as the show goes on, you realize there's more to her than that. Growing up, she was sheltered immensely by her rich parents because they saw her as frail and helpless due to her total blindness. When she realized that she had an extraordinary ability - the ability to "see" through vibrations, she kept it secret from them because they wouldn't understand. In order to survive the madness of being stuck at home for her entire life, she began to sneak out and earn fame as a mysterious martial artist simply known as "the Blind Bandit." When she finally revealed to her parents who she was, they lost their minds and told her she was never allowed out of the house again, and to be guarded for the rest of her life to make sure of that. After running away from home, she was often seen by the main characters as being impatient and rebellious.
My point is, were this released in the 80s or 90s, that back story probably would not have been there, and we'd have little to no reason to like this character. Increasingly more are we seeing characters in so-called "kids' shows" with complexity like this. It isn't just Avatar either. Other examples abound. Who can forget Adventure Time's Ice King, who lost his fiance, his friends, and even his memories, as he was cursed by the magical object that kept him alive? Or Reboot's Matrix, who went from being an innocent, wide-eyed child to a gloomy, rage-filled renegade after seeing his home destroyed and his friends locked in an endless war?
It's not just television either. Even books that are considered to be for kids are increasing in complexity, maturity, and even length. Before it was published, the first book in the Harry Potter series was continuously rejected for being too long. Now, it's commonplace for kids as young as 9 or 10 to read books in excess of 300 pages. The themes in the books are also getting darker. Fights are bloodier, main characters die, and characters aren't simply representations of morality anymore, as they were in books like the Chronicles of Narnia. They have flaws, and sometimes the line between good and evil is blurred to the point where one finds themselves criticizing the actions of the heroes and praising the actions of the villains from time to time. There are even some authors for children and young adults that I find to be much better than adult authors that write in the same genre. Horror, for example, isn't really something I feel is that scary anymore. If one reads Stephen King or Dean Koontz, for example, they feature very good characters, good settings, and an incredibly creepy rising action. The climax, however, is where they fall flat. All too often do these authors tone down their creepiness by introducing a climax that tends to be very tame that, in my opinion, talks down to the reader and leaves me not feeling scared, but feeling cheated because I wasn't scared. One of my favorite new authors is Neal Shusterman, an author for young adults whose horror stories disturb me to no end. One such masterpiece is his novel entitled "Dread Locks," which I will explain (and spoil) below:
It's essentially a modern day take on the Medusa myth, where a high school aged boy befriends a girl who turns out to be Medusa, still alive after thousands of years due to being not only immortal, but indestructible. Instead of snakes for hair, she has these strange dreadlocks that seem to move and sway on their own if you look closely enough. She constantly wears sunglasses, but if she takes them off to look at you, she doesn't just immediately turn you to stone. It's much more disturbing than that. After she looks at you, she changes something inside you to give you an impulse to constantly eat and drink things that are high in mineral content, like mud, sand, or even milk. Over time, the minerals slowly make you sluggish and grey in color, until about a month later, when you freeze up as a statue. The book details this transformation quite vividly. In the end, the main character is befriended by Medusa and turned into a gorgon. Wanting to stop her, and not wanting to live with the constant desire to turn people to stone, they get into a stare-down and both turn to stone. In the epilogue, the main character talks about how he's still aware of himself, and he mentions that they'll stay as statues, staring at each other until erosion finally kills them.
Hot dang, this is for kids?! This is the kind of thing that would have been banned 20 years ago. Heck, when I was a kid I read Goosebumps, which weren't really that scary. I read my fair share of Shusterman's novels when I was 22 and had trouble sleeping every now and then.
Before I close, here's a message for the adults, both of the young and old varieties, who think that reading a kids' book or watching a kids' movie or TV show is beneath them - maybe a few years ago, you'd be right, but in this day and age, kids' media is comparable in quality and entertainment value to adult media. Yes, there are still the horrible, one-dimensional books and cartoons, but if you know which ones to check out, you'll find yourself pleasantly surprised. Below, I will include a list of films, shows, and books that I consider to be more than worth getting invested in. Thanks for reading my first blog, and I hope my train of thought style didn't turn anyone off.
Books:
JK Rowling's Harry Potter Series
Neal Shusterman's Dark Fusion Trilogy
Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan Trilogy
Suzanne Collins' Gregor the Overlander series and Hunger Games Trilogy
John Flanagan's Ranger's Apprentice Series
Shows:
Avatar - the Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra
Adventure Time with Finn and Jake
Star Wars, the Clone Wars (not the one directed by Genndy Tartakovsky)
Regular Show
Batman, the Animated Series and Batman Beyond
Reboot (from the second season onward)
Tron Uprising
Movies:
Up
Spirited Away
Rise of the Guardians
Legend of the Guardians
Wreck-it Ralph
I'll also admit that there's another show currently in between seasons that I'm dying to see when the new episodes premier later this year. A show that I believe has an equally engaging story, equally complex characters and setting, and is full of equally shocking twists. Is it another show on HBO? Is it on Showtime? No, actually. It's an animated show on Nickelodeon entitled "The Legend of Korra." Warning: spoilers ahead.
For those who haven't seen the show, it's a sequel to another series just as breathtaking called Avatar - the Last Airbender, which, in my opinion, is one of the best shows to ever be on television. The series is set roughly 80 years after the original series, in a progressive nation called the Republic, which is made up of descendants of members of the other four nations of the world, each corresponding to one of the four elements. Each nation has "benders," who are born with the ability to manipulate the elements to do things like fight, heal wounds, and generally make life easier. Bending is part of their culture and society, making each nation incredibly detailed and distinct from one another. The main character, Korra, is an "Avatar" - a continuous reincarnation of the only person in the world who can "bend" all four elements. The story involves her and her friends as they uncover the actions of an underground crime network of people who believe bending is evil and are attempting to cleanse the world of it through force, coercion, propaganda, and political conspiracy. Along the way, hearts are broken, people lose everything they hold dear, and people die on both sides. Doesn't exactly sound like Rocky and Bullwinkle or Looney Tunes, does it?
This show is just one of many that are supposedly geared towards children and young teens, but which contain more mature, complex themes. If you look at cartoons from the 90s and back, despite what the nostalgics say, they're not very engaging at all, and surely not "better" if you look at them from a literary standpoint. As a child of the late 80s and early 90s, looking back on the shows I used to love, a lot of them are things I would never watch again. They were highly serialized with no continuity, and the characters usually only had one trait that made them memorable, such as having a big appetite, a word they repeated over and over, or maybe the weapons they used in a G-rated fight. Still using Avatar as an example, one can see how much it's changed. Every episode either contributes directly to the story, or creates details that are used in later episodes. Each character has more than just one distinguishing feature that makes them interesting. Toph Bei Fong, a prominent character from the original series, is a prime example of this.
When she is first seen on the show, she seems just like a rebellious kid with a bad attitude, but as the show goes on, you realize there's more to her than that. Growing up, she was sheltered immensely by her rich parents because they saw her as frail and helpless due to her total blindness. When she realized that she had an extraordinary ability - the ability to "see" through vibrations, she kept it secret from them because they wouldn't understand. In order to survive the madness of being stuck at home for her entire life, she began to sneak out and earn fame as a mysterious martial artist simply known as "the Blind Bandit." When she finally revealed to her parents who she was, they lost their minds and told her she was never allowed out of the house again, and to be guarded for the rest of her life to make sure of that. After running away from home, she was often seen by the main characters as being impatient and rebellious.
My point is, were this released in the 80s or 90s, that back story probably would not have been there, and we'd have little to no reason to like this character. Increasingly more are we seeing characters in so-called "kids' shows" with complexity like this. It isn't just Avatar either. Other examples abound. Who can forget Adventure Time's Ice King, who lost his fiance, his friends, and even his memories, as he was cursed by the magical object that kept him alive? Or Reboot's Matrix, who went from being an innocent, wide-eyed child to a gloomy, rage-filled renegade after seeing his home destroyed and his friends locked in an endless war?
It's not just television either. Even books that are considered to be for kids are increasing in complexity, maturity, and even length. Before it was published, the first book in the Harry Potter series was continuously rejected for being too long. Now, it's commonplace for kids as young as 9 or 10 to read books in excess of 300 pages. The themes in the books are also getting darker. Fights are bloodier, main characters die, and characters aren't simply representations of morality anymore, as they were in books like the Chronicles of Narnia. They have flaws, and sometimes the line between good and evil is blurred to the point where one finds themselves criticizing the actions of the heroes and praising the actions of the villains from time to time. There are even some authors for children and young adults that I find to be much better than adult authors that write in the same genre. Horror, for example, isn't really something I feel is that scary anymore. If one reads Stephen King or Dean Koontz, for example, they feature very good characters, good settings, and an incredibly creepy rising action. The climax, however, is where they fall flat. All too often do these authors tone down their creepiness by introducing a climax that tends to be very tame that, in my opinion, talks down to the reader and leaves me not feeling scared, but feeling cheated because I wasn't scared. One of my favorite new authors is Neal Shusterman, an author for young adults whose horror stories disturb me to no end. One such masterpiece is his novel entitled "Dread Locks," which I will explain (and spoil) below:
It's essentially a modern day take on the Medusa myth, where a high school aged boy befriends a girl who turns out to be Medusa, still alive after thousands of years due to being not only immortal, but indestructible. Instead of snakes for hair, she has these strange dreadlocks that seem to move and sway on their own if you look closely enough. She constantly wears sunglasses, but if she takes them off to look at you, she doesn't just immediately turn you to stone. It's much more disturbing than that. After she looks at you, she changes something inside you to give you an impulse to constantly eat and drink things that are high in mineral content, like mud, sand, or even milk. Over time, the minerals slowly make you sluggish and grey in color, until about a month later, when you freeze up as a statue. The book details this transformation quite vividly. In the end, the main character is befriended by Medusa and turned into a gorgon. Wanting to stop her, and not wanting to live with the constant desire to turn people to stone, they get into a stare-down and both turn to stone. In the epilogue, the main character talks about how he's still aware of himself, and he mentions that they'll stay as statues, staring at each other until erosion finally kills them.
Hot dang, this is for kids?! This is the kind of thing that would have been banned 20 years ago. Heck, when I was a kid I read Goosebumps, which weren't really that scary. I read my fair share of Shusterman's novels when I was 22 and had trouble sleeping every now and then.
Before I close, here's a message for the adults, both of the young and old varieties, who think that reading a kids' book or watching a kids' movie or TV show is beneath them - maybe a few years ago, you'd be right, but in this day and age, kids' media is comparable in quality and entertainment value to adult media. Yes, there are still the horrible, one-dimensional books and cartoons, but if you know which ones to check out, you'll find yourself pleasantly surprised. Below, I will include a list of films, shows, and books that I consider to be more than worth getting invested in. Thanks for reading my first blog, and I hope my train of thought style didn't turn anyone off.
Books:
JK Rowling's Harry Potter Series
Neal Shusterman's Dark Fusion Trilogy
Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan Trilogy
Suzanne Collins' Gregor the Overlander series and Hunger Games Trilogy
John Flanagan's Ranger's Apprentice Series
Shows:
Avatar - the Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra
Adventure Time with Finn and Jake
Star Wars, the Clone Wars (not the one directed by Genndy Tartakovsky)
Regular Show
Batman, the Animated Series and Batman Beyond
Reboot (from the second season onward)
Tron Uprising
Movies:
Up
Spirited Away
Rise of the Guardians
Legend of the Guardians
Wreck-it Ralph
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)