What if...

Spoiler Alert!! The Fellowship of the Ring.

I know you must be thinking, "Boaz, seriously? The Fellowship of the Ring? Are you not yet far enough off the topic of this thread? Are you totally deranged?" I hear you, but the muse leads and I must follow...

There are two mutually supporting, and yet often times, contradictory cornerstones of storytelling. Stories (whether oral, written, staged, filmed) convey values that affirm our socio-cultural-religious beliefs and yet at the same time bring in new ideas. Sometimes these old values and new ideas are in harmony and sometimes in disharmony.

To stay on LOST.. From the beginning the show dealt with universal truths (love, fidelity, honesty, family, honor). I'm unaware of any culture or religion that denies these characteristics as foundational... except Satanism, and even those idiots would expect a certain honor and fidelity among thieves and murderers. I come from a Judeo-Christian background, but Confucianist teachings, the Upanishads, and the Quran also espouse this basic truth... "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Anyway... as long as LOST dealt with this basic principle, I was entertained... actually, I was enthralled with the first two seasons.

Yet the surprise elevation of a single religion (that happens to be antithetical to me) at the end, was difficult to take.

If you start a story, you may not like where it goes. That is the nature of the beast. Thus, we tend to lean towards stories that celebrate our own cultural values. And sometimes we indulge in tales of new concepts when our own religious values seem invalid.

I do have one more comment about LOST, but it has nothing to do with the ending. "Hey, Boaz! You knucklehead! Now you're really off topic and I thought you had some comments regarding Tolkien!" I'd get to it if you guys would stop interrupting me... anyway, the name Jack Shephard bothered me. First, Jack is the equivalent of Pate in Westeros. He is the hero of most of the legends, morality tales, and proverbs of English speaking countries. And his last name speaks for itself. Thus he was ready to be the leader...

But he lost all sympathy from me after he returned to L.A. I know he was supposed to be the selfless shepherd of the lost flock, but from the beginning of his alcoholism he seemed to be the most selfish character on the show. The writers never built him back up in my eyes. His actions to get back to the island and his actions on the island did not appear to be for the good of others, but merely to protect his own sanity and assuage his own guilt.

He was hung up on the past like every other character on the show... just like me. But he was striving to forge ahead during the first two seasons... In the last two or three seasons, he quit trying to improve... he just tried to maintain his mental balance.

Now, on with the rest of the post!

So we'll see where GRRM goes... I've enjoyed the ride so far. If I was grading the series...

AGOT - 99% - A
ACOK - 93% - A
ASOS - 96% - A
AFFC - 89% - B
ADWD - 85% - C

I think the scores get lower because of the size of the tale... it's unwieldy. How can GRRM keep the characters we love and yet introduce new characters to finish the story? He's got to do it to please himself, because he'll never please all of us!

Imagine if the master, Jonathan Ronald Reuel Tolkein, had to deal with internet fanboys... Imagine if there were four year delays between the publishing dates of his trilogy? How much hate mail would he have gotten for killing off Gandalf? And then how much grief would he have gotten for bringing Gandalf back to life?

What if GRRM doe not finish....? Then it was a heckuva thrillride.
 
Boaz said:
Spoiler Alert!! The Fellowship of the Ring.

I know you must be thinking, "Boaz, seriously? The Fellowship of the Ring? Are you not yet far enough off the topic of this thread? Are you totally deranged?" I hear you, but the muse leads and I must follow...

There are two mutually supporting, and yet often times, contradictory cornerstones of storytelling. Stories (whether oral, written, staged, filmed) convey values that affirm our socio-cultural-religious beliefs and yet at the same time bring in new ideas. Sometimes these old values and new ideas are in harmony and sometimes in disharmony.

To stay on LOST.. From the beginning the show dealt with universal truths (love, fidelity, honesty, family, honor). I'm unaware of any culture or religion that denies these characteristics as foundational... except Satanism, and even those idiots would expect a certain honor and fidelity among thieves and murderers. I come from a Judeo-Christian background, but Confucianist teachings, the Upanishads, and the Quran also espouse this basic truth... "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Anyway... as long as LOST dealt with this basic principle, I was entertained... actually, I was enthralled with the first two seasons.

Yet the surprise elevation of a single religion (that happens to be antithetical to me) at the end, was difficult to take.

If you start a story, you may not like where it goes. That is the nature of the beast. Thus, we tend to lean towards stories that celebrate our own cultural values. And sometimes we indulge in tales of new concepts when our own religious values seem invalid.

I do have one more comment about LOST, but it has nothing to do with the ending. "Hey, Boaz! You knucklehead! Now you're really off topic and I thought you had some comments regarding Tolkien!" I'd get to it if you guys would stop interrupting me... anyway, the name Jack Shephard bothered me. First, Jack is the equivalent of Pate in Westeros. He is the hero of most of the legends, morality tales, and proverbs of English speaking countries. And his last name speaks for itself. Thus he was ready to be the leader...

But he lost all sympathy from me after he returned to L.A. I know he was supposed to be the selfless shepherd of the lost flock, but from the beginning of his alcoholism he seemed to be the most selfish character on the show. The writers never built him back up in my eyes. His actions to get back to the island and his actions on the island did not appear to be for the good of others, but merely to protect his own sanity and assuage his own guilt.

He was hung up on the past like every other character on the show... just like me. But he was striving to forge ahead during the first two seasons... In the last two or three seasons, he quit trying to improve... he just tried to maintain his mental balance.

Now, on with the rest of the post!

So we'll see where GRRM goes... I've enjoyed the ride so far. If I was grading the series...

AGOT - 99% - A
ACOK - 93% - A
ASOS - 96% - A
AFFC - 89% - B
ADWD - 85% - C

I think the scores get lower because of the size of the tale... it's unwieldy. How can GRRM keep the characters we love and yet introduce new characters to finish the story? He's got to do it to please himself, because he'll never please all of us!

Imagine if the master, Jonathan Ronald Reuel Tolkein, had to deal with internet fanboys... Imagine if there were four year delays between the publishing dates of his trilogy? How much hate mail would he have gotten for killing off Gandalf? And then how much grief would he have gotten for bringing Gandalf back to life?

What if GRRM doe not finish....? Then it was a heckuva thrillride.
Click to expand...

Interesting observations about Jack. I think Jack's story was also about falling from grace and then finding redemption. Does that person ever regain what they once had? I don't think that's a reasonable expectation. The last thing that jack sees before he closes his eye(s) right at the end of the show was the plane leaving the island. A very satified smile is on his faces, really a smile of joy actually, and he's able to leave. That smile was gold for me, as was Hugo being Jacob, and Ben becoming his "number 2". All of the characters on the show underment a drastic transformation. I think all of them were better people when the show ended than they were when the show began, but maybe Jack mor so than anyone else, except maybe for Ben.

your rating of the books. i am in agreement with the number grades but not the letter grades. i always think of a C as being in 73 to 78ish territory. I'd give aDWD a letter grade grade of B, and actually I'd reverse the numbers for aFFC and aDWD, but that's really nitpicking

Someone would have dressed up as a ring wraith and stalked Tolkien until he completed the series (if he was writing today) king would probably be symbolically lynched for taking so long with The Dark Tower series.
 
Imp, my high school graded on a different scale. Eighty-five was the highest C... Also, did you ever read DM of the Rings? It is an online comic from a Dungeon Master who... well, here's his introduction...

Lord of the Rings is more or less the foundation of modern D&D. The latter rose from the former, although the two are now so estranged that to reunite them would be an act of savage madness. Imagine a gaggle of modern hack-n-slash roleplayers who had somehow never been exposed to the original Tolkien mythos, and then imagine taking those players and trying to introduce them to Tolkien via a D&D campaign.
Click to expand...
 
Boaz said:
Imp, my high school graded on a different scale. Eighty-five was the highest C... Also, did you ever read DM of the Rings? It is an online comic from a Dungeon Master who... well, here's his introduction...
Click to expand...

I will check that out ASAP.

Ahhh, interesting. Back East, 85 is a pretty solid B.
 
As you might have previously suspected, I went to a special school.

You can make tests and scales harder or easier just to show certain numbers. It's a bit of a game on the part of the administration. For example, I recently saw Conan the Barbarian starring Jason Momoa. I'd give it a 70... the lowest passing grade possible. I've also gone on record as grading The Two Towers as a 35 or so... failing miserably. And yet I'll confess that The Two Towers was a better movie than Conan the Barbarian. I rate TTT lower because I'm grading it on a more difficult scale than CTB. I grade TTT much harsher because it is more of a doctoral thesis level work and CTB is more of a fifth grade "What I did this summer" introductory essay.

But I digress... it's what I do best!

I watched the pilot and the first five episodes of Firefly this weekend. Here's another story that was unfinished. Granted, it was a series of hour long mini-stories... but the continuing stories were left completely unanswered.

What was River Tam? Was she human? What were the extent of her powers? Did the Alliance really augment her abilities or did they supress them?

Who was Shepherd Book before he joind the monastery? Was he a government secret agent? Was he a bounty hunter?

Was Inara terminally ill? Why was she on the outer fringes of civilization?

Was there a future for Kaylee and Simon? Would Kaylee's optimism and Simon's need for sharing his burden turn to a real relationship in spite of their socio-economic differences and Simon's perception of River's need of stability?

Would there ever be a moment of clarity and real redemption for Jayne? The circumstances of Canton affected him, but he still tried to sell Simon and River afterwards. His self destructive nature made it inevitable that Mal would kill him one day...

And Mal's serenity? Will his voyage on Serenity ever lead him to serenity? Father, provider, captain, king, judge. He fulfilled those roles to his crew. But that' not all a man is made to be. Husband, friend, mentor, lover... He worked hard to build a community, but he keeps all the people in that community at a safe distance... they all experience social intimacy, but he does not.

The movie Serenity provided some answers the series did not. Wash and Zoe's relationship. Book's selfless example. The Reavers. The lengths to which the Alliance would go and the depths they'd to which they'd stoop to cover up their genetic experiments. And the possiblity of now building true serenity.

But the movie never finished the stories of Mal, Inara, Mal and Inara, River, Simon, River and Simon, Simon and Kaylee, Book's past, and Jayne's self-indulgence.

I didn't need it to say "And they all lived happily ever after." But the story remains un-ended. And I say that was a better ending than a slow and meandering demise like Battlestar Galactica or a dissatisfying end like LOST. (I won't presume that anyone else feels the way I do.)

I actually like the concept that the characters of Firefly are still on Serenity. In my mind, I can have my own ending...
 
I wanted more Firefly! Great cast, interesting stories. Characters going against type, especially gender roles. Good point, Boaz, about how it ended with questions. Not such a bad thing, I guess.

Have you seen Deadwood?
 
Eulalia said:
I wanted more Firefly! Great cast, interesting stories. Characters going against type, especially gender roles. Good point, Boaz, about how it ended with questions. Not such a bad thing, I guess.

Have you seen Deadwood?
Click to expand...

Deadwood was WONDERFUL. Al Swearangen in particular is one of my favorite characters of any show ever.I thought the show ended well, and it felt pretty completel even though it only ran for 3 seasons.
 
Yes! Thanks to you, Imp for recommending it!

It has Shakespearean elements to it, although it highlights the coarseness (seems fair for a frontier town). True, it did seem more complete than Firefly, but I still was sad to see it end. Since it was evocative of history, it did seem fitting that it ended without "an ending". Same deal with GRRM, if it does not get tied up with a bow.

It would be intriguing if the Ice and Fire series was "ended" by the TV series. Some of the people involved in the TV project may know some of the basics for the end game, in order not to screw up the story. Or, maybe it will be left like Firefly...
 
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