Sci-fi, Horror and Fantasy

                                                Tolkien is the Closest thing I Have to a God.                           So you definitely have a good idea about my slight obsession with Tolkien, I have seen all the movies, and mostly directors cuts of course, read all of his books... well i am still finishing Fall of Gondolin but i am close. The Hobbit is my favorite book of all time, it for me truly captures what a fantasy story should feel like how it should immerse you. I frankly do not really know where to start or what to discuss specifically with this one, there are just to many things. I think one of my favorite things is how he created all these concepts that are used so regularly in modern fantasy but run so much deeper due to his influences and motivations for the writing. For example the wizards in middle earth, to any one unfamiliar they seem rather typical for fantasy they are old men with staffs, and long bears, and pointy hats, and grumpy attitudes, with a fair sh

                                                       Alright Lets Talk About Witches                                              So ill admit here and now that witches are definitely a horror topic that I'm not nearly as well versed in or as comfortable as others but ill still lay down some thoughts. Something i really like and hadn't thought about before was what you said at the beginning of the class, you were essentially pointing out that witches were how women with power were represented quite a bit.  It is interesting to think that the idea of witches as creatures of evil its self was popularized by men who feared women with power or feared the idea of women achieving power, vilifying them as devil worshipers, or crones who eat children and turn men into pigs. Even thinking back to the Wizard of Oz and how Glinda is a good witch because she only uses her powers to help others versus the wicked witch of the west who is evil because she is using her power to serve he

                                                                    Love Craft and Cosmic Horror                                    Lovecracft wrote horror with the themes of making the reader feel small and insignificant, like every thing in their lives was so short and worthless that it lacked all meaning. He wanted the reader to feel this way in the face of something lurking in the shadows of space and the darkness of the ocean, an unseen un knowable horror that thoughts, motivations and existence are beyond comprehension. I love his writing even if the dude was a bigoted prick, he really popularized the fear of the unknown in horror and created the genre of cosmic horror. Though I feel like some of his writings definitely serve these themes stronger then others. For example i find Call of Cthulu, even though its one of his most famous stories, to be one the weakest because of how much information is given in the final part of the story about Cthulu, his home, his motivation,

                                                                                                Spirits in Eastern and Western culture.                      Im gonna repeat a bit of what we talked about after this class, but i found it really interesting so want to go over in-depth. So in there are some pretty large differences in how people in eastern and Western culture view spirits and in ways the undead. I eastern cultures specifically Japanese views on spirits are lighter and more positive, they are supposed to be here watching us and helping. Their presence on Earth is a common fact of everyday life, versus in western cultures that are dominantly Christian and so when you die your spirit or soul is really only supposed to be in either heaven or hell, so if it is not in either place thats and issue. Spirits interacting with people on earth in western culture is almost never a good thing, its either a tormented soul left behind because of unfinished business like in quite a few

                                                                                                   Vampires and immortality          It seems to me that recurring theme in vampire stories is the theme of immortality and its worth to those vampires that have it. It seems that often the vampires that are the villains are portraid as shallow and only seem to derive meaning from more carnal things, money, sex, power, and impunity in their actions. The protagonist vampires seam to be the ones that suffer realizing that their eternal life leads to loss and suffering and prevents them from creating any meaningful non vampire connection in fearful promise of it ending the same. It seems that quite a few of the characters in interview with a vampire deal with this issue, an empty existence in an un ending one. Claudia being an excellent example and who will comparable with another vampire story i enjoy. Claudia being a seventy year old woman trapped in a five year old body and hating her e

                                                           Frankenstein Thoughts                              I think it is most likely the point of the story, but i find the creature in Frankenstein to be far more empathetic and understandable then the good doctor himself. I think most of us can connect with aspects of the creature, his general sense of empathy and sympathy, his instincts for compassion and to help others and do good. He might be the character in the book that shows those traits more then anyone else. Where as I find Frankenstein to be more of the monstrous and repulsive character in the story. The monster may look to be an enormous grotesque creature, but he was simply created that way–created through the barbarism of desecrating, mutilating stitching together parts of corpses. It was Frankenstein who consciously and eagerly birthed a creature from savagery, and it existed savagely. I find it incredibly hypocritical that Frankenstein abandoned his creation i