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jaimetheexplorer · 5 years

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PROBABILITY DISTORTION - Or why Jaime Lannister is less likely to die than you think (part 3)

Once the narrative arcs and foreshadowing analysis pokes enough holes in the “inevitable death” prediction, the arguments to support it usually tend to turn to non-text-based points such as writing style and tropes. Most of these arguments generally revolve around the idea that GRRM is evil and kills characters off to traumatize his readers, and that Jaime’s story is a redemption arc and therefore will end in a redemptive death like all redemption arcs do. These arguments, however, do not really hold much water once you take into account that GRRM actually isn’t the sadist people like to think he is (including sometimes George himself, because it makes for good PR), and that one thing this series prides itself on is trope and expectations subversion.

GRRM is a realist, not a sadist

“If you think this has a happy ending, you haven’t been paying attention.”

Of all the quotes that have come out of the show, this, right here, is the one I have come to hate the most. Not only because it is often irritatingly used as an empty argument against anything that suggests a non-tragic ending for a character (especially one like Jaime), but it’s thrown around as if it’s the most representative of ASOIAF/GoT ever. In part, I get why. It’s catchy, and the series has broken a lot of boundaries by actually killing people off, putting them through terrible ordeals, maiming and traumatising some for life. It gained its notoriety for killing off the perceived main character of the story at very beginning, and for the shocking bloodbath of “good guys” that was the Red Wedding. But I feel there’s a tendency, amongst fans and journalists alike, to exaggerate how gloomy and sadistic the story/GRRM really is, relative to the context it is set in (medieval war time).

GRRM often explained the reason why he kills characters off as fundamentally being down to two reasons: wanting to depict war realistically and annoyance at stories where the heroes are untouchable and survive, unscathed, any situation (which ties into the topic of trope subversion, too - more on this later).

“You can’t write about war and violence without having death. If you want to be honest it should affect your main characters. We’ve all read this story a million times when a bunch of heroes set out on adventure and [...] the only ones who die are extras. That’s such a cheat. It doesn’t happen that way.” (GRRM)

GRRM is a realist, not a sadist. And I would argue he’s not as bloodthirsty as people perceive him to be, when it comes to main characters. If you think about it, only *two* POV characters have been killed off so far: Ned and Cat. Jon, the other main POV to be killed off in the books, we know will be resurrected thanks to the show. And just as GRRM inserts POVs for a reason (when he needs that new perspective, or when a character’s story needs to be told), there’s a similar reason in his killing too. It usually comes when the characters have fulfilled their purpose in the story, or if their death is a plot point for someone else’s. In Ned and Cat’s case, they die after falling into Littlefinger’s scheme that pits Lannisters against the Starks, kicking off the War of the Five Kings. Ned’s purpose was to discover the true paternity of Robert’s children and Cat dies after tasking Brienne to bring Jaime to King’s Landing in return for her daughters (which sets off a massive domino effect of plotlines). They also both needed to die in order to break down centralized parenthood in the Stark family so that the Stark children could go their separate ways and have their own stories and development.

While POV and non-POV deaths alike can be shocking and/or heartbreaking, they aren’t thrown in there just to fill some death or shock quota for no other rhyme nor reason. This is not The Walking Dead. And “realism” also means a ton of other options that have nothing to do with death. It’s not just an issue of “death vs. survival”, to post another excerpt from the quote above:

“They go into battle and their best friend dies or they get horribly wounded. They lose their leg or death comes at them unexpectedly.”

Having a loved one die, or horrible injuries are also part of realism for GRRM, not just death. Does that “lose their leg” sound familiar? Thought so. So saying that Jaime (or any character) will most likely get killed anyway because GRRM is a sadist is not only a weak argument, but a big misrepresentation of GRRM’s writing style. Jaime, who has already added his contribution to the “realism” jar by losing his hand, might die if and when he has fulfilled his purpose in the story, but not because “GRRM is a jerk”.

Subversions

Perhaps a stronger case for Jaime’s survival odds is the fact that, if there is one thing this series loves to do, it’s subverting tropes and expectations, and, alongside Ned’s death and the Red Wedding, Jaime is perhaps one of the most famous examples of how this story does character trope subversion so well.

Right out of the gate, it wants us to hate him, because he’s arrogant, ruthless and incestuous, he betrayed and murdered the King he was sworn to protect and he pushed a child out of a window. From book/season 3 onwards, that initial perception is slowly challenged and eventually subverted, especially throughout his journey with Brienne and with the revelation of why he killed the Mad King, but also in how he takes risks to protect Tyrion and Sansa from his own family. In the show this is particularly fun, because once you go back to earlier seasons, you notice several subtle moments of writing and acting where the seeds of these revelations were already being planted. While I understand he is not everyone’s cup of tea and some hate him just as much as day one, I think that we can all agree at least that this is what the story is aiming to do, even if not all readers/viewers embrace it. And that’s the most important thing when making a point about authorial intent.

I already mentioned when discussing narrative arcs, that the difference between the classic redemptive character trope and Jaime is that, in Jaime’s case, the story is exploring the process of redemption, rather than seeing redemption as the last minute goal, and how that makes a classic redemptive death less likely. But there is another difference with the traditional trope that makes Jaime not only subvert expectations but, partly, also subvert the redemption trope itself. And that is that many (not all, but many) of the things we are initially supposed to hate Jaime for, actually turn to be misconceptions or prejudices from other characters’ perspective (a huge point of having a POV structure). While Jaime undoubtedly goes through a transformation through the story, for many things it is our initial perception of Jaime is meant to change, not Jaime, the character (again, POV structure!). Looking at Jaime as the trope of the “bad man who is turned good by the good woman” (i.e. Brienne) is a complete misread of the character. Brienne exists to reawaken what Jaime used to be like in his past/can potentially still be, not to transform him into something else (it is Beauty and the Beast they are based on, after all - the beast used to be a prince, and gets turned back into that prince). Therefore applying the outcome of the traditional tropes to Jaime (i.e. a redemptive death) makes little sense when Jaime is meant to be a subversion of that trope to begin with, if not even a different type of character altogether.

Another trope worth considering is the “all the bad guys will die” trope.

Not only this view fails to acknowledge that most characters and families in this series (and its extended universe - see the Targaryen as portrayed in Dunk & Egg) aren’t 100% “good” or 100% “bad”, they sit on a spectrum, but even if you wanted to see a specific character or family as “evil”, that doesn’t necessarily mean they will die or go extinct. We can go back to his quotes about why he kills off characters to see how “bad guys will die” is also a trope he might be interested in subverting.

“It’s really irritating when you open a book, and 10 pages into it you know that the hero you met on page one or two is gonna come through unscathed, because he’s the hero. This is completely unreal, and I don’t like it.” (GRRM)

This quote above can be looked at in reverse too: just as it is annoying to open a book and know 10 pages in that the hero will survive (and GRRM subverted that trope with Ned), it is annoying to know 10 pages in that the villain will die (and Ned’s villain counterpart in book one is Jaime), or that the family that is perceived as the “evil family” (i.e. the Lannisters) will go extinct in the end (let alone if it’s with the exception of the “good” Lannister, Tyrion, playing right into the trope of both “good vs bad” guys and “good vs bad families”, since the only Lannister allowed to survive is the “good” one).

So even if one doesn’t want to buy into Jaime’s redemption and trope subversion, and wants to hold onto the book/season one interpretation that he’s an awful human being, if the author(s) intend for Jaime to be a subversion of the redemption death trope, or to subvert the “all bad guys must die” trope (or both), then his odds of death or survival are not really influenced by whether the audience agrees with that or not.

GRRM is both a gardener AND an architect

As I wrap up my 3-parter, one final aspect of GRRM’s style is important to note, because it ties it all together.

GRRM says he is a “gardener”, who likes to plant seeds and see how they grow. So one might argue that there is no guarantee that just because he set off in book one to make Jaime the subversion of the villain who must die (through redemption), he will never decide at some point that, actually, a death will be a fitting and satisfying conclusion.

However, it is important to remember that when he talks about being a gardener he means it in the sense that he finds knowing the *details* of how a story will develop to be a turn off for his inspiration and motivation, not that he does not plan anything ahead and has no idea where the story is going.

“For me, writing a book is like a long journey, and like any trip, I know the point where I start the journey and the point I wanna get to. I also know a little bit of the route, such as the main cities in which I wanna stop by, and even a few monuments I would like to visit. What I do not know is where I will eat the first night or which songs will be on the radio. I discover all that details while I am writing the book and that’s the reason why I go so slowly: because sometimes I have to go back to change certain things.” (GRRM)

While he creates the story as he goes along, he does work with the broad strokes of the endgame and the final fates of the main characters in mind:

"I know the broad strokes, and I've known the broad strokes since 1991. I know who's going to be on the Iron Throne. I know who's gonna win some of the battles, I know the major characters, who's gonna die and how they're gonna die, and who's gonna get married and all that. The major characters. Of course along the way I made up a lot of minor characters, you know, I, uhm...Did I know in 1991 how Bronn, what was gonna happen to Bronn? No, I didn't even know there'd be a guy named Bronn. [...] So a lot of the minor characters I'm still discovering along the way. But the mains-"

[question if he knows Arya's and Jon's fates]

"Tyrion, Arya, Jon, Sansa, you know, all of the Stark kids, and the major Lannisters, yeah." (GRRM)

Furthermore, he absolutely loves to drop cues, hints and foreshadowing to future events and plot twists, something that would be completely impossible for him to do if he were writing with no clear ending and direction in sight. So he sets out to make sure his story adds up and makes sense, even if it means having to give up the surprise factor, either because someone already figured it out (e.g. R+L=J):

“The fans use to come up with theories; lots of them are just speculative but some of them are in the right way. [...] They say: “Oh God, the butler did it!”, to use an example of a mystery novel. Then, you think: “I have to change the ending! The maiden would be the criminal!” To my mind that way is a disaster because [...] the books are full of clues that point to the butler doing it and help you to figure up the butler did it, but if you change the ending to point the maiden, the clues make no sense anymore; they are wrong or are lies, and I am not a liar.” (GRRM)

or because the show surpassed the books:

Though he used to worry about it getting to the end before him, he's not even about that life anymore.

“I said, to hell with that. Worrying about it isn’t going to change it one way or another. I still sit down at the typewriter, and I have to write the next scene and the next sentence … I’m just going to tell my story, and they’re telling their story and adapting my books, and we shall see.” (GRRM)

Jaime’s fate, as a “main Lannister”, is therefore already clear in GRRM’s mind and he has been seeding and foreshadowing and working towards it, even if *how* he will get there is anybody’s guess (and the show and books have already substantially diverged in that sense). It will likely not change on a whim, invalidating everything that has been written all along.

So, as we reach the end of part 3 and take all the stuff I’ve discussed in this 3-parter in consideration, I think it’s safe to conclude that: given Jaime’s arc and related foreshadowing, knowing that GRRM develops his stories sloooowly, carefully and purposefully, always with a goal in sight, going back to change things if they don’t fit or contradict, relying heavily on the concept of butterfly effect across arcs and characters, and with a penchant for trope subversion sprinkled on top, you can see why I feel that the odds of Jaime’s death in the fandom and general audience are HIGHLY overinflated, and mostly due to selectively attending to one or two pieces of evidence, without considering how they fit in the overall picture. While this is still no guarantee he’ll definitely survive, I’d argue that a likelihood of survival follows from the material (and general writing style) more than death.

Now, if you’ve made it this far without falling asleep, congratulations! I’ve addressed pretty much everything I wanted to address to estimate Jaime’s survival odds from a relatively non-speculative angle, using the current material and quotes available, rather than theorizing too much about what I think are likely future developments for his story. I tend to dislike when people use events that have not yet happened and may never happen (looking at you, valonqarists), to make a case for their arguments, so I refrained from doing it as I don’t really think it’s helpful or even necessary to make my case. BUT, if you’re interested in taking a wild leap into theory-land and how that may further affect his survival odds, I’ll be posting a more speculative part 4 hopefully soon (which will be heavily Jaime/Brienne friendly - you’ve been warned).

#jaime lannister #jaime lannister meta #game of thrones meta #asoiaf meta #asoiaf #game of thrones #my meta #essay

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divagonzo · 5 years

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Review of Captain Marvel:

Under the cut for spoilers and more, 'cept this:

100% Ace safe.

EDIT: Since one of my followers did ask, I will say this now: If you have epilepsy, this movie is not safe, not from the first 10 minutes. About 1/3 of the scenes can trigger an episode and I want y’alll to be safe.

TL;DR - worth watching.

First of all, the rating on Rotten Tomatoes by the self-centered bois who have a case of butthurt because Captain Marvel doesn't have a white male protagnist can go sit on soe cactus. They can protest all they want but they will miss out on a fun movie with an amazing theme, one that is important for anyone, guy, girl, NB, and more.

The movie was enjoyable, trope filled but also subverts some tropes in it. The plot had a couple of holes in it and somet things were a little cliche overall I enoyed it and will go watch it again in the theatre sooner than later.

The plot.... I'll be able to make a better review on the plot once I watch it a second time. There are some plot holes and some of the elements are a bit off chronologically (as someone who lived through the era at that age, too.) but they won't distract from viewing it ('cept us picky as fuck writers but I digress.)

I know I was in stitches in one scene where there is an Anachronistic search engine used for the film and my niece (who is 15) was in stitches by the time to wait factors happening. (What a flashback on how much time was wasted waiting on information or data recovery!)

The storytelling was enjoyable at the start, making it a bit of a mystery but anyone who hasn't watched anyting of Marvel movies can pick up on the story fast enough to understand. As the story unfolds and the pieces of the story start getting filled in, the story turns predictable but nothing that distracts from the overall enjoyment of the movie.

Djimon Hansou was good but I'd have enjoyed seeing him on screen more in a larger role (but that's just me.) and the CGI work on SLJ was good - you couldn't tell unless you'd have done a side-by-side of him now. ('Cause he looked like he did pre-Pulp Fiction but without the Jheri curl.) Clark Gregg had a small part for the movie but it’s an influential part. They CGI’d him some and it’s subtle but not painfully obvious. Jude Law is Jude Law and while he's not on my 5 list anymore he still is pretty to look at. The big surprise is Ben Mendelsohn. I didn't recognize him 'til I saw the name at the end and appreciated the banter and subtlety he brought to his role. But y’all keep your eyes open for Akira Akbar. Lt. Trouble is adorable as all get out - and brings a sass that only she can pull off.

Where I want to brag is the addition of Annette Benning.

She’s over 60 now and the fact that an older woman is featured, with her showing some age and also having her in a pretty important role and second important role is a good if not excellent showing of how older women are making a name and more in films now and not just the pretty faces of younger women. It's an excellent balance in that she's not there because she's someone's wife or Mom or anything so trite. The same goes for Brie Larsen. Shes not there strictly as a focus for some romantic subplot. She gets some of the typical manspaining and gets told to smile more which has a funny reaction from her along with everyone who has heard that from a man and doing what we'd all like to do in response to being told to smile more.

Thing is, she does smile. She laughs. She's cheeky and sassy and sharp as a tack and smart as a whip. Her backstory is told well along with how she earned her place and the glass ceiling she faced in the mid 90s. The explanation for how she became who she is is demonstrated and works well, even if it's been used countless times, especially in the Marvel Universe.

She has her moments of weakness, of questioning things, and wondering what to do. She's not cold, frigid, robotic or any of the other complaints that men make regarding women actresses. She's not a Mary Sue but she is a male power fantasy but with a woman in the role, it's subversive simply because it's a woman in the role. Had the MRA’s bothered to watch it and not blindly disabuse it because it wasn't a white man as the main character, they'd see the elements of the male power fantasy: smart, earned their place, willing to do anything to protect, stands up for what is right, incorruptible, do the right thing even if it's not easy, etc.

Had it been a white man in the role, the reviews would be off the chart, even if the plot had been weaker. Had it been a white man in the role, no one would complain that she has resting bitch face because men are never told to smile more or demonstrate overt emotional labor for anyone who is a man.

The intersectional feminism is wonderful stseeing two women interacting in a heart-felt way was so rewarding. There are some friendly competition moments and banter but it's far removed from any catty antagonism you'd expect. The rewarding part for me was how the Hero gets called out for what happened and why they were gone like they were. You get to see a competent, incredibly emotionally strong black woman in a role that only a few treads (like Dr. Mae Jemison.) The Hero trusts her friend completely and has no worries that she's capable. That demonstration of platonic love and trust warms my heart.

In short, it does pass the Bechtel test. It passes the Sexy Leg Lamp test. It passes the Mako Maori test. I can’t say for certain it passes the Sphynx test. The protagonist has an incomplete backstory but you get snippets and anecdotes explaining enough about her and her attitude towards life and more.

The CGI was excellent and pay attention to Goose and the 4 ginger kitties that play Goose.

And no, the cat doesn't die.

Back to the CGI thought. It's excellent and it's obvious in some places and spots but some of the CGI is very subtle which is nice, too. The movie has a sci-fi feel to it, where the ideas for future technology would be excellent leaps forward.

Colourful language? Only 1 or 2 that I remember, and one is a sexist reference.

The misogyny is present and it comes from many aspects, from institutional to familial to competitive. Part of it is expected in the 90s when institutional sexism was accepted in the early days of the opening of MOS billets in the military and the intentional glass ceiling limited opportunities for women then.

There is one incidence that could be considered questionable for the Ace test but it’s played up as humourous and cheeky rather than a tension charged moment and plays on some caricature stereotypes.

Violence is present in the movie in some abundance and there are some fatalities but mostly casualties and more where the outcome is left to viewer discretion. The two main antagonists don't perish and it fits in the storyline brilliantly but there are some that happen.

There are noticeable trope elements borrowed from some other movies, like Matrix and Men in Black (you'll know them when you see them) as well as Independence Day, Wonder Woman and even Star Wars. The blend is nice but not too overwhelming to be called derivative.

I’d say it’s worth buying a ticket in the theatre.lem

#Dragon's Thoughts #review #Captain Marvel #I'll give it a B #because I need to watch it one more time for tropes and plot reasons #to look for thematic elements #and just to watch the last 20 minutes #Queue Up for the Dragon #Epilepsy Warning

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inevitably-johnlocked · 7 years

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Just random queastions. 1.) Do you think, that they maybe changed their mind after the reaction to the withanaccent-interview and felt so insulted, that they decided, to not make Johnlock canon after all? 2.) The tarmac-scene has some big similaritis to a scene in DW (don´t know what to say; question about the future; last chance to say "it") and is just built up like a love confession-scene. Do you think that maybe TPTB didn´t notice this? Or really thought it was funny? I´m so confused... tbc

3.)Benedict seems to be such a nice person (I love Martin even more, but he is not so outwardly caring.) etc. and i just can´t imagine him agreeing to queerbaiting? (I find most of "TJLC-Evidence" not very convincing, because I would also die etc. for a friend, but the tarmac-scene is imo queerbaiting/almost love confession. They HAVE TO notice what the scene implies!?). 4.)They always say it is their show etc. and that they don´t care about critics, do they really think of themself as SO GOOD?

5.) They said, that ACD did a mistake with Mary. Why do they do the same? I completly hate that dog-comperison/Mary-is-better-scene (TST is my least favoruite episode). It had to be a active descision to give Mary the narration over John ( THE ACTUAL NARRATOR!). They can´t just ignore all the terrible things they say about Mary and make her some angel asassian who saves John/Sherlock and is better than everyone?! And she is there the WHOLE TIME! She killed Sherlock! Why? Why? Why? For Amanda???

6.) There is that Amanda Abbington-Interview where she talks about coming back. Do you really thing that we´ll maybe have to see Mary-flashbacks/callbacks in every new episode? 7.) Prior to season 4, they said that they have 3 new cases etc., but in the end it wasn´t really like in season 1-2 (season 3 actually was my favorite season, but it clearly was different). TST and TFP ended in family drama. Do you trust them to go back to "normal" cases, without the need to over complicate everything?

8.)Do you think, that they maybe change their mind "pro-johnlock"(if it really was just a joke to them), after critics like Indiewire etc. called them out for the queerbaiting/John and Sherlocks feelings for eachother? That maybe they´ll realize that it´s not just "teenager girls" "hallucinating"? 9.)Do you believe in a season 5 (especially with BC as DS now)? 10.)Will we ever know, what John wanted to say in TRF? 11.)With TFP i wonder,do they truly believe we watch the show for the plot twists?

Oh Wow, Lots of stuff to get to here! Let’s have a look-see!

Well, that interview would have had nothing to do with any of their decisions; if a journalist had that kind of power in the history of Sherlock ever, then it would have been canon in S2, or ahdblock been canon in S3, or sher/0//ie canon in episode one. Like... no, and that interview was garbage anyway. Anything that Mofftiss have done, is COMPLETELY on them and MAYBE the BBC. They were already filming TFP, I believe, around that time frame, so no, it had no bearing whatsoever on the outcome of the series.

Ah, yup, Doomsday’s Bad Wolf Bay and the tarmac scene are pretty much identical (and just as painful), yet no one argues what The Doctor was going to say. But years later, we STILL have to prove to people that Sherlock indeed was going to and did tell John that he loved him. It drives me crazy. Mofftiss knew EXACTLY what they were doing, especially since the scene has parallels to the tarmac scene’s unspoken love in Casablanca. They did it on purpose; it’s even framed similarily to that tarmac, and the wording similar to Bad Wolf Bay. Just... They can’t seriously expect us to not believe it wasn’t meant romantically.

Well, to be fair, I don’t think EITHER OF THEM wanted to be part of a giant queerbaiting fest. They both seemed immensely proud of their portrayals of their characters, Ben AND Martin played both of their characters gay and bi respectively, and BOTH men support LGBT causes and Ben is vocal against homophobia (I’m pretty sure Martin is as well, I just know Ben’s interviews better). I really honestly believe that they thought they were creating something different and were led to believe a different outcome of their character arcs than what we got. I don’t fault them at all – they are just puppets for the puppetmasters.

Oh, they’re lying so hard about their lack of caring... If they didn’t care, Gattiss wouldn’t have written back, in prose, to a critic and Moffat wouldn’t be like “I don’t understand why no one likes this season” (paraphrasing, of course, but his blasé attitude is SO annoying and pretentious). Neither of them have really, otherwise, done anything but remain in hiding after the fallout of S4. It’s both suspicious and really REALLY annoyingly petty.

Yeah, I STILL am reeling over their complete 180˚ of Mary’s character. It makes no fucking sense; they clearly were combining her character with that of the role of Sebastian Moran in ACD canon, and the arc was going to be brilliant. I have a lot of personal very biased opinions on why they did it, but yeah, it doesn’t make any fucking sense. THEY KNEW WHAT THEY WERE DOING with her character. That and Moffat is terrible at writing women characters at the end of their arcs. If anything, her character was just unnecessarily shoehorned into a bigger role because they decided last minute to NOT make her Moran after all even though they STILL tied her character to Moriarty in S4. ACD did WAY better with Mary as a background character. And YES, it was SO WRONG of her to be the narrator, just... NO she’s NOT the one telling the stories. Ugh.

Ugh, is there? Okay, look, IF – IFFFFF – it’s shown in S5 that all of S4 was a ruse orchestrated by mostly her hand, reverting her character back to where it should be, THEN maybe I can accept her back in the fifth season and make her the badass villain she was SUPPOSED to be. I don’t believe she is dead because her gunshot was fake af, although I do ALSO believe that she may have been killed John in the false narrative scenario. If she comes back, it will be to explain her true actions in S4. Otherwise, she’s dead, we don’t need to see her anymore. Flashbacks maybe, but that’s it.

S3 was my favourite season too, but I think that’s a personal bias because I love Sherlock’s character so much and I loved seeing how far their relationship arc progressed. T6T and TLD barely even HAD cases... and TFP, I don’t know her... so I don’t know where this idea came from. The whole season seemed intent on keeping John and Sherlock as distant from each other as possible, making Sherlock the sidekick TO MARY in his own show, and putting “no one asked for this” focus on Mary. Look, I know it sounds like I hate her, but I REALLY DON’T. I hate what they DID TO HER CHARACTER, and trying to call S4 a case-centred series when CLEARLY the case was a moot point in the first episode to Mary-backstory, it’s ridiculous. There wasn’t really a case in TLD – Sherlock was high off his rocker through most of the episode and Culverton did his weird creepy rapey thing. And I don’t even know what the fuck case was happening in TFP. I WANT to trust them to go back to Just The Two of Them Against the Rest of the World (what was that line even, then?!?!), but I fear that they won’t and will find a way to shoehorn another character-we-don’t-care-about *coughs* Eurus*coughs* into the story.

Oh, I don’t think anyone could change Mofftiss’ minds. Look, if Johnlock DOES become canon, it will be because it was the plan all along, but because of how far S4 strayed off the narrative arc, it will look like they did it because of public outcry, NOT because it was their brilliant plan. They should have just stuck to the narrative rather than try for a publicity stunt that will probably work against them in the end.

Tough to say about S5. There are reports about it being already commissioned, but I fear the negative reception may keep Martin and Ben far away from it if it turns out it really is a face-value series. I don’t know. BBC seems proud of what they got, so probably will get one. It’s one of the BBC’s top-rated shows (I think pre-S4 it was higher than Dr. Who), so who knows.

Hahaha nope, I don’t think so. I USED to think we would, that Mofftiss were better writers together and would at least round out all the plot holes, but... S4 leaves me skeptical on a lot of things.

I REALLY do think that they think we like the plot twists rather than the stories. Like... no. People were watching for the relationship, whether they knew it or not, platonic or not. The story of two men with the greatest friendship / relationship of all time. Not for ... whatever the hell TFP was.

Whew!

#steph replies #the mary problem #mofftiss #s4 shitposting #tfp shitposting #my thoughts #long post #s5 and beyond #johnlock #intertextuality #sherlock vs doctor who #sherlock vs casablanca #tarmac scene #Anonymous

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datslifepodcast · 4 years

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On my 29th Birthday I set myself a goal of completing 30 challenges before I turned 30 in January 2019.

Ok.

Having set myself a “Bucket List” of things I wanted to have accomplished by the age of 30, I set off with every intention of completing them. Or at the very least having a decent go.

Right.

I’m stalling now.

You may have noticed that, disappointingly, my 30 BY 30 blogs stopped after crossing out only four of my list. I say disappointingly, not because I didn’t tick any more off (because I did) but that the blogs stopped prematurely.

But even more annoyingly, to myself, I didn’t tie up the series of blogs in any shape of form. They kind of just, got away from me.

I was actually writing my fifth blog and got about midway through, but I then had a blank and hit a wall with it. And never came back to it.

I kept saying, I need to do a catch up blog, or some kind of post to explain what’s going on. That never happened.

Now I’m 31. Yes, it’s been over a year since I should have finished 30 lovely blogs of all the cool stuff I had done and how I was a better person for it.

If you were enjoying my blogs, I can only apologise. I still have the lost fifth blog that never got published (or the start of it anyway), so I am going to add it to this blog.

And here it is…

#7 Go Scuba Diving

A few days before my 29th Birthday I conversed with my mum, brother and his girlfriend over dinner about the items I had on my list, one of which was scuba diving. When I saw them on my actual Birthday I was given my present, in the form of a Birthday card, and inside it was… a voucher for a Scuba Diving Lesson!

The Voucher was from the Bouley Bay Dive Centre, and allowed me to buy a ‘Try Scuba Diving’ lesson, designed for complete beginners to ‘give you a taste of the exciting and weightless aquatic environment and for you to learn the basic techniques for using scuba equipment’ – taken from their website.

I didn’t book this until the summer, and in the end I arranged it for 2nd September. I tend to feel the cold, especially in the sea. Ask anyone who has been to the beach with me, I am usually the first one out! So that was why I waited until later in the year, and as it turned out it was a glorious summers day!

I arrived at 10-30 am, expecting to be with a few others, only to find out I was having a one to one session with a man called Waz – I didn’t ask if that was his actual name or not!

I was fitted for a wet suit, goggles and the various equipment that we would be using. But before we did anything else, Waz talked me through the science of scuba diving, which I found to be very interesting.

He explained the effect of going deep under water with balloons.

[AND THIS WAS WHERE I GOT STUCK!]

I wanted to make sure I got the science information correct, so I looked it up online and found a video that didn’t exactly agree to what I had been told. Maybe they were explained differently… but it confused me. By the way, it’s not that confusing, I blame the YouTuber!

Essentially, as you go up and down (beneath the surface) the pressure changes, and you must adjust to equalise the pressure. So going down the pressure increases and, using the balloon analogy, the volume of the balloon decreases. This is why you have to release some air so that the increased pressure doesn’t burst your balloon. Now imagine that’s your lungs. Then, when you come to the surface you must release air as the volume is increasing again and will burst you balloon… I think that is the jist, but even as I write this I am unsure that is totally correct. Maybe someone can inform me in the comments?

The instructor was great in the way he explained it, I just haven’t found anything else as easy to follow. Maybe it’s just me.

Anyway, from what I remember (18 months later) is that after being taught what to do we put on all the gear (yes ALL the gear) and walked down to the end of the pier. For anyone who hasn’t been Scuba Diving, it is very heavy. So getting to the sea is a relief because once you get in it suddenly feels nice and light!

The first thing I remember was how cold it was! After the session, my tutor told me that he gives students lots of things to do at this point to take there mind off the cold. It worked.

Soon enough we were ready to go under. However, every time we went down my ears started hurting. He had taught me all the hand signals for when we were under water, so if I was uncomfortable or in pain I could just signal to go back up.

This happened several times, but was maybe slightly less uncomfortable each time. It felt like it was taking forever though, and after a while decided ‘screw this, let’s just go!’ – not the best advice but I didn’t want my first experience of scuba diving to be going up and down about 10 feet.

And then we began.

There is nothing quite like it. It is just so peaceful. We weren’t that deep (relatively speaking) and to be honest it did not feel that deep, but I believe we were about 40 feet down, which when you think about it is quite a distance below the surface. Looking back I think, what if something had gone wrong, but when you are down there it is the last thing on your mind.

The thing I took from it, more than anything, was how clear my thought process was. I was so relaxed, and so peaceful, yet my thoughts were racing around – but in a good way. I wonder if this is how super intelligent people feel, but all the time.

I can’t remember how long I was under for, but we swam for maybe 5 minutes before we made our way back. There was plenty of fish about, and lots of underwater plant life to see. Just a really unique exprience.

One slightly awkward moment occurred at the end when we got back above the water. My head had popped back up, and I felt pretty confident now it was essentially over, and removed the mouth piece (i’m sure there is a name for this) to take a breath of air.

Almost instantly I found myself pulled back under the water and took on a mouthful of sea water instead. My reaction was, don’t worry, I’m still holding the mouth piece, I can just put it back in my mouth… didn’t work! I tried to breath in but got just more water!

Now, for a very brief moment I was essentially drowning (maybe that’s an over reaction, but I was certainly unable to breath). I reached out for my instructor, trying not to panic, and thankfully he pulled me up a little and enough for me to cough out the water and get a mouthful of air!

Phew.

Apart from that, the experience was wonderful, and if it wasn’t for this 30 BY 30 list I would never have done it.

Which takes me nicely on to the rest of my list. What else did I cross off?

Let’s go through the list:

1 Go Indoor Sky Diving First one ticked off, check out the blog

2 Gain a qualification This one, I did not do. At all. That I am aware off.

3 Volunteer See previous answer.

4 Go on the Starfish Course One of the most beneficial I did, please see the blog.

5 Complete the Jersey Round the Island Walk One of the most challenging, but most satisfying. Once again you can check out the blog.

6 Learn to play the Spoons Now, this one I attempted. I watched a video online about how to play them (more to it than you might think) and had a go myself. However, to say I can now play the spoons would be wrong!

7 Go Scuba See main part of this blog.

8 Finish writing my novel Ok, this one needs a bit more explanation.

I’ve always enjoyed writing, but purely for pleasure. So I decided, when a break in work commitments allowed, that I would write a book. I can tell you now that this was the reason the blogs stopped. And largely why I didn’t complete my list. If there is was one thing on the list I wanted to do more than anything it was this one.

So where is the book I hear you ask?

Not finished, is the answer. I completed my second draft, some 80,000 words, but believe me when I say it is SO TIME CONSUMING! Especially when for some reason I took on an 80,000 word story!

Unfortunately for my book, there are still some minor plot holes and things I want to change or improve. It’s a never ending cycle. Alongside that, work commitments picked up again, so it’s currently on hold. Hopefully one day I will be writing a blog to say it’s finished. Watch this space.

9 Join a sports club/league Nope. But I did start playing squash a bit more frequently.

10 Go to a Music Festival An issue with living in Jersey is that Musical Festivals are few and far between. There were two I was interesting in, both didn’t happen that year, and our main festival ‘Jersey Live/Weekender’ was the weekend I was away in Belgium (No. 18 on my list).

11 Learn to make (and then make) Jam YES! I did this and you can ask my family what they thought of it.

12 Watch a Trilogy of films in one go – back to back Surely this is an easy one? Didn’t happen. Maybe now we are social distancing, thanks to the Coronavirus, that might happen.

13 Learn to play a famous song on piano Not properly. I dabbled here and there.

14 Finish reading the Harry Potter Series (Books 6 and 7) This I did! Actually, pretty good books.

15 Challenge my fear of heights at the Valley Adventure Centre No. Think I asked a few people who weren’t that keen, and it never materialised.

16 Make a YouTube video that gets at least 1,000 views This is an interesting one. Every now and again I find myself saying ‘oh, that was on my list’ or ‘another one ticked off!’ – even if I am now over 30. This is one of them, because the other day I was randomly looking through my uploaded videos on YouTube and noticed a 1 minute clip from the Belgian Grand Prix (No 18 on the list) which had 1.5K views!!

Here’s the link (as proof) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwGu1DeR7U4

17 Learn how to wire a plug No, spoke to my Dad about it, never did it.

18 Attend a major sporting event Top weekend, read the blog and check out the video (No 16 on the list).

19 Build a model of Old Trafford This is the most frustrating one. My brother got this for me as a gift. Not for Christmas, or my Birthday, just one day appeared with it. And that was about 3 years ago! Why have I not built it yet. It’s nothing too technical. It even has a photo of a child on the front!

Part of the reason I haven’t done it was we moved flat last year and I kept saying, maybe I should wait as I don’t want it to get broken during the move…

Again, with social distancing happening now, this is a must to get done!

20 Learn to sew on a button Nope! I may have been shown this when I was younger, and I reckon I could work it out if I really had to. But can’t tick that off.

21 Learn about the history of Jersey I would have liked to have said I could tick this off. Maybe another social distancing one.

22 Do a live podcast Blame my co-host for this one. Only joking, we have talked about this several time, and again in current social distancing times it has come up again.

Whilst we are on the podcast, shameless plug? Check out our Series of 10 minute podcasts here: https://play.acast.com/s/datslife/64ffe2c7-5835-4360-8d0e-fb039d6555d1

23 Research my family tree Again, another great one that I did not do!

24 Grow vegetables (that are edible) Ah! I did this, and I took pictures. It was quite a journey. I went to the Garden Centre, bought all the gear, planted my veg and watched it grow. Then we had heavy rain and flooded it all. But I managed to save it and it continued growing and just as it was becoming ready to pick a rat ate everything!!

Well, I assume it was a rat, we saw a rat outside the old flat a few times. All I can say is I hope it didn’t choke….

25 Try yoga / pilates No, but definite potential for indoor Yoga/Pilates from the comfort of my own home. Can’t say I’m that keen to do this one though…

26 Swim a mile in one go Oh wow. Not even close.

27 Create (and make) my own signature dish In some ways, every time I cook it could be classed as a new creation… Another social distancing one. I’m thinking I could make a sub-list of social distancing challenges, but I fear I would probably not finish one that either!

28 Design my own boardgame In my head, I did this. In fact I’ve done this several times and even made some plans. When I wrote this one the aim was to actually have a board game I could play, which I do not. Social distancing list?

29 WILDCARD Still undecided.

30 Throw a 30th Birthday Party And last but not least, YES! It was great, I had close friends and family for a nice meal (no dancing required!) and celebrated turning 30 accordingly. Little did I know at this point that the following weekend I was being flown away to Orlando, Florida as my surprise Birthday present!

And there we are. How many is that? I make it 10 ticked off and a further handful that I started / had the idea in place for, leaving plenty unstarted.

As I eluded to earlier, I still have moments of realisation that I ticked another one off the list, so in some ways the list will continue on forever (or until I finish them all) so probably forever.

What have I learned from this? Easy, that if I don’t really fancy doing something then I won’t do it. No list will force me to something that, at heart, I don’t want to do – even if I think I should or it would do me good.

Maybe that’s a flaw?

I am a glass half full kind of person, and the way I see my list is that I would not have done several of the things I did without the list. Take the Scuba Diving for example, that was a present from my list and once I had a voucher there was no turning back.

If I was a half glass empty kind of person… I would say that was PATHETIC. Not even half? What was the point in even doing a list?

As I said, I’m a glass half full kind of person.

I’m going to leave the WILDCARD as it is. I haven’t got an idea so will wait it out. Part of me is tempted to pick something I have already done, or will do soon, and play it off as a great new idea. But I won’t.

This was a long blog, and if you have read all the way to the end, thank you! I am going to leave my 30 BY 30 list open and keep ticking items off as I go. Hey, maybe I’ll even do some more blogs about some of them…

30 BY 30 – Ok, let’s do this! On my 29th Birthday I set myself a goal of completing 30 challenges before I turned 30 in January 2019.

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kanjasaha · 5 years

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Preparing for a Data Science/Machine Learning Bootcamp

If you are reading this article, there is a good chance you are considering taking a Machine Learning(ML) or Data Science(DS) program soon and do not know where to start. Though it has a steep learning curve, I would highly recommend and encourage you to take this step. Machine Learning is fascinating and offers tremendous predictive power. If ML researcher continue with the innovations that are happening today, ML is going to be an integral part of every business domain in the near future.

Many a time, I hear, "Where do I begin?". Watching videos or reading articles is not enough to acquire hands-on experience and people become quickly overwhelmed with many mathematical/statistical concepts and python libraries. When I started my first Machine Learning program, I was in the same boat. I used to Google for every unknown term and add "for dummies" at the end :-). Over time, I realized that my learning process would have been significantly smoother had I spent 2 to 3 months on the prerequisites (7 to 10 hours a week) for these boot camps. My goal in this post is to share my experience and the resources I have consulted to complete these programs.

One question you may have is whether you will be ready to work in the ML domain after program completion. In my opinion, it depends on the number of years of experience that you have. If you are in school, just graduated or have a couple of years of experience, you will likely find an internship or entry-level position in the ML domain. For others with more experience, the best approach will be to implement the projects from your boot camp at your current workplace on your own and then take on new projects in a couple of years. I also highly recommend participating in Kaggle competitions and related discussions. It goes without saying that one needs to stay updated with recent advancements in ML, as the area is continuously evolving. For example, automated feature engineering is growing traction and will significantly simplify a Data Scientist's work in this area.

This list of boot camp prerequisite resources is thorough and hence, long :-). My intention is NOT to overwhelm or discourage you but to prepare you for an ML boot camp. You may already be familiar with some of the areas and can skip those sections. On the other hand, if you are in high school, I would recommend completing high school algebra and calculus before moving forward with these resources.

As you may already know, Machine Learning (or Data Science) is a multidisciplinary study. The study involves an introductory college-level understanding of Statistics, Calculus, Linear Algebra, Object-Oriented Programming(OOP) basics, SQL and Python, and viable domain knowledge. Domain knowledge comes with working in a specific industry and can be improved consciously over time. For the rest, here are the books and online resources I have found useful along with the estimated time it took me to cover each of these areas.

Before I begin with the list, a single piece of advice that most find useful for these boot camps is avoid going down the rabbit hole. First, learn how without fully knowing why. This may be counter-intuitive but it will help you learn all the bits and pieces that work together in Machine Learning. Try to stay within the estimated hours(maybe 25% more) I have suggested. Once you have a good handle on the how, you will be in a better position to deep five into each of the areas that make ML possible.

Machine Learning:

Machine Learning Basics - Principles of Data Science: Sinan Ozdemir does a great job of introducing us to the world of machine learning. It is easy to understand without prior programming or mathematical knowledge. (Estimated time: 5 hours)

Applications of Machine Learning - A-Z by Udemy: This course cost less than $20 and gives an overview of what business problems/challenges are solved with machine learning and how. This keeps you excited and motivated if and when you are wondering why on earth you are suddenly learning second-order partial derivatives or eigenvalues and eigenvectors. Just watching the videos and reading through the solutions will suffice at this point. Your priority code and domain familiarity. (Estimated time: 2-3 hours/week until completion. If you do not understand fully, that is ok at this time).

Reference Book - ORielly: Read this book after you are comfortable with Python and other ML concepts that are mentioned here but not necessary to start a program.

SQL:

SQL Basics - HackerRank: You will not need to write SQL as most ML programs provide you with CSV files to work with. However, knowing SQL will help you to get up to speed with pandas, Python's data manipulation library. Not to mention it is a necessary skill for Data Scientists. HackerRank expects some basic understanding of joins, aggregation function etc. If you are just starting out with SQL, my previous posts on databases may help before you start with HackerRank. (Estimated time: Couple of hours/week until you are comfortable with advanced analytic queries. SQL is very simple, all you need is practice!)

OOP:

OOP Basics - OOP in Python : Though OOP is widespread in machine learning engineering and data engineering domain, Data Scientists need not have deep knowledge of OOP. However, we benefit from knowing the basics of OOP. Besides, ML libraries in Python make heavy use of OOP and being able to understand OOP code and the errors it throws will make you self sufficient and expedite your learning. (Estimated time: 10 hours)

Python:

Python Basics - learnpython: If you are new to programming, start with the basics: data types, data structures, string operations, functions, and classes. (Estimated time: 10 hours)

Intermediate Python - datacamp: If you are already a beginner python programmer, devote a couple of weeks to this. Python is one of the simplest languages and you can continue to pick up more Python as you undergo your ML program. (Estimated hours: 3-5 hours/week until you are comfortable creating a class for your code and instantiating it whenever you need it. For example, creating a data exploration class and call it for every data set for analysis.

Data Manipulation - 10 minutes to Pandas: 10 minutes perhaps is not enough but 10 hours with Pandas will be super helpful in working with data frames: joining, slicing, aggregating, filtering etc. (Estimated time: 2-3 hours/week for a month)

Data Visualization - matplotlob: All of the hard work that goes into preparing data and building models will be of no use unless we share the model output in a way that is visually appealing and interpretable to your audience. Spend a few hours understanding line plots, bar charts, box plots, scatter plots and time-series that is generally used to present the output. Seaborne is another powerful visualization library but you can look into that later. (Estimated time: 5 hours)

Community help - stackoverflow: Python's popularity in the engineering and data science communities makes it easy for anyone to get started. If you have a question on how to do something in Python, you will most probably find an answer on StackOverflow.

Probability & Statistics:

Summary Statistics - statisticshowto: A couple of hours will be sufficient to understand the basic theories: mean, median, range, quartile, interquartile range.

Probability Distributions - analyticsvidya: Understanding data distribution is the most important step before choosing a machine learning algorithm. As you get familiar with the algorithms, you will learn that each one of them makes certain assumptions on the data, and feeding data to a model that does not satisfy the model's assumptions will deliver the wrong results. (Estimated time: 10 hours)

Conditional Probability - Khanacademy : Conditional Probability is the basis of Bayes Theorem, and one must understand Bayes theorem because it provides a rule for moving from a prior probability to a posterior probability. It is even used in parameter optimization techniques. A few hands-on exercises will help develop a concrete understanding. (Estimated Time: 5 hours)

Hypothesis Testing - PennState: Hypothesis Testing is the basis of Confusion Matrix and Confusion Matrix is the basis for most model diagnostics. It is an important concept you will come across very frequently. (Estimated Time: 10 hours)

Simple Linear Regression - Yale & Columbia Business School: The first concept most ML programs will teach you is linear regression and prediction on a data set with a linear relationship. Over time, you will be introduced to models that work with non-linear data but the basic concept of prediction stays the same. (Estimated time: 10 hours)

Reference book - Introductory Statistics: If and when you want a break from the computer screen, this book by Robert Gould and Colleen Ryan explains topics ranging from "What are Data" to "Linear Regression Model".

Calculus:

Basic Derivative Rules - KhanAcademy: In machine learning, we use optimization algorithms to minimize loss functions (different between actual and predicted output). These optimization algorithms (such as gradient descent) uses derivatives to minimize the loss function. At this point, do not try to understand loss function or how the algorithm works. When the time comes, knowing the basic derivative rules will make understanding loss function comparatively easy. Now, if you are 4 years past college, chances are you have a blurred the memory of calculus (unless, of course, math is your superpower). Read the basics to refresh your calculus knowledge and attempt the unit test at the end. (Estimated Time: 10 hours)

Partial derivative - Columbia: In the real world, there is rarely a scenario where there is a function of only one variable. (For example, a seedling grows depending on how sun, water, minerals it gets. Most data sets are multidimensional. Hence the need to know partial derivatives. These two articles are excellent and provide the math behind the Gradient Descent. Rules of calculus - multivariate and Economic Interpretation of multivariate Calculus. (Estimated Time: 10 hours)

Linear Algebra:

Brief refresher - Udacity: Datasets used for Machine learning models are often high dimensional data and represented as a matrix. Many ML concepts are tied to Linear Algebra and it is important to have the basics covered. This may be a refresher course, but at their cores, it is equally useful for those who are just getting to know Linear Algebra. (Estimated Time: 5 hours)

Matrices, eigenvalues, and eigenvectors - Stata: This post has intuitively explained matrices and will help you to visualize them. Continue to the next post on eigenvalues and vectors as well. Many a time, we are dealing with a data set with a large number of variables and many of them are strongly correlated. To reduce dimensionality, we use Principal Component Analysis (PCA), at the core of which is Eigenvalues and Eigenvectors. (Estimated Time: 5 hours)

PCA, eigenvalues, and eigenvectors - StackExchange: This comment/answer does a wonderful job in intuitively explaining PCA and how it relates to eigenvalues and eigenvectors. Read the answer with the highest number of votes (the one with Grandmother, Mother, Spouse, Daughter sequence). Read it multiple times if it does not make sense in the first take. (Estimated Time: 2-3 hours)

Reference Book - Linear Algebra Done Right: For further reading, Sheldon Axler's book is a great reference but completely optional for the ML coursework.

These are the math and programming basics that are needed to get started with Machine Learning. You may not understand everything at this point ( and that is ok) but some degree of familiarity and having an additional resource handy will make the learning process enjoyable. This is an exciting path and I hope sharing my experience with you helps in your next step. If you have further questions, feel free to email me or comment here!

#machine learning bootcamp #pre-requisites

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swipestream · 5 years

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SUPERVERSIVE: Of course objective quality exists, and everyone knows it

“Quick, think of an anime literally everybody agrees is awesome”

There is a curious phenomenon that you see many times in critical circles, a dogma if you will. This dogma is maintained with near fanatical certainty by some, and among more leftist critics especially (re: most critics) it is VERY popular.

The dogma: There is no such thing as objective quality. Every opinion is subjective. It is impossible to judge whether something is good or bad objectively, only your personal opinion of it. If somebody disagrees it merely means they aren’t as good at justifying their opinion as you and can’t justify a show’s good qualities.

Naturally, this is total nonsense. And everyone knows it.

It is impossible – literally impossible – to be a critic and not believe in objective quality. Every time, without fail, no matter what, every single critic HAS to speak as if they have discovered objective qualities that make a piece of media better or worse than another. If they didn’t it would be impossible for them to talk about anything.

What is objective quality though? Well, I’m no Aristotle, and I didn’t write Poetics. I can only submit a few basic guidelines:

If the work is designed to appeal to a specific audience, does that audience appreciate the work?

I they are trying to execute certain things – for example, construct a plot with no plot holes – do they actually do it? Or do they fail in their stated purpose?

Look at works that have stood the test of time. What qualities keep appearing in those works? Does your work hit upon any of those timeless qualities?

The purpose of media likes shows, movies, and books, on the most basic level, is to entertain. Did you create the work with that intention?

Are you attempting to communicate truth or lies?

Maybe these guidelines aren’t exactly right. Maybe I’m way off. But even so, let’s apply it to two works – the original Star Wars film, now “A New Hope”, and “The Last Jedi”.

Did “The Last Jedi” entertain? It was a big hit, but as time has gone on it seems a growing group has come to the conclusion the answer is “No.” Certainly it entertained far, far less than “A New Hope”.

Was it attempting to execute a certain thing, but failed to do it? I’d imagine it was trying to avoid glaring plot holes, but it had them. So, without even going through the rest of the film, the answer is an immediate “no”. “A New Hope”, on the other hand, has plot holes, but due to following the structure of the fairy tale its plot holes are far less important than its structure, which it executed almost flawlessly – and those plot holes, if they even exist, are very minor.

Does it attempt to capture the sorts of qualities that have made works last the test of time? The answer with “The Last Jedi” is “Absolutely not”. In fact it is specifically attempting to do the opposite – to deliberately avoid those sorts of qualities in favor of complete deconstruction. “A New Hope”, on the other hand, is a fairy tale, a Hero’s Journey, and it intentionally invokes those timeless qualities in constructing its story.

Does the audience “The Last Jedi” was aimed for appreciate it? No. Even the die hard Star Wars fans were at best lukewarm, in aggregate. Meanwhile, the public loved “A New Hope”.

Does “The Last Jedi” attempt to communicate truth or lies? The answer is “lies”. The character assassination of our childhood heroes and the attempted lifting up of morons and losers to replace them is a lie. Meanwhile “A New Hope” shows the true power of heroism and true heroes and the triumph of good over evil. “A New Hope” tells the truth.

So what does this mean?

It means “The Last Jedi” is bad.

Obviously I am vastly oversimplifying. Again, I’m not Aristotle. I’m not trying to come up with a full theory of beauty here. And sometimes a work is only trying for certain specific things and deliberately neglect other aspects in order to make a good work. “Gurren Lagann’s” plot makes absolutely no sense, but that’s because it’s focusing on going as big and as over the top as possible knowing that this wouldn’t gel with a perfectly intelligible plot, and so chose to make that sacrifice. And sometimes the stuff a work does well it does so well that you’re more willing to overlook it’s flaws. “A New Hope” is about as cheesy a film can get, but who cares, it’s awesome!

And everybody knows this. The subjective factor is when, for some reason, somebody likes a work that is objectively bad, or for personal reasons dislikes a work that’s objectively good. “Cowboy Bebop” is a masterpiece but I know people who don’t like watching it because of how dark it gets. Alternatively I know factually that the early seasons at least of Pokémon are objectively terrible, but I like them anyway due to nostalgia. Nostalgia, however, should never be used as an excuse to avoid admitting a word is bad.

“But wait. You think Tolkien is a greatest fantasist ever but I don’t. What does that mean?”

It can mean a few things. First, it can mean that we disagree and one of us is actually wrong, though we haven’t come to a consensus on which one of us it is. Or it can mean that one author does things exceptionally well but other stuff not so well and vice versa, and each of us values something different about the work. This is where you get into real subjectivity, and the debate gets tricky – but this does not mean objective qualities of good and bad don’t exist.

And everybody HAS to speak that way, because if they don’t they can’t communicate their views properly. What does that say about the world? Is the concept of “good” or “bad” media truly so difficult to qualify that it is actually almost impossible to speak with language that doesn’t give a value judgment? Is that truly the most plausible explanation for what’s going on here?

The best argument I have seen contrary to this point of view comes from Digibro. I will warn you that even the title of the video contains strong language, so I’ll give you some space to scroll past it if necessary if you’re watching this at work or on break at school or something like that.

…

Digibro’s argument is, to my eye, quite bizarre. He tries to argue that because we don’t know all of the rules of reality and can conceivably be living in the Matrix to mean it is impossible to know anything about objective truth. In way of comparison he brings up the (true) fact that we don’t perceive every spectrum of light.

This is quite true in itself, but the overall point is absolutely wrong. The very rules of logic and reality mean that there are certain things that MUST be true, and using those rules we can deduce other things about reality. For example, something cannot be both true and false at the same time (we’re not talking about a trick of language here, we’re talking “I am typing in this universe at this very moment” cannot be both true and false). Aquinas reasons to the existence of God not from observations about reality but rather unbreakable rules of logic. These things will always exist, because without them, nothing would exist.

Digibro, funnily enough, denies that he can even know his hand is in front of him, because he “cannot reason for absolute truth”. This may be true, but he CAN know that it is impossible for his hand to be both in front of him and not in front of him.

So why do we assume that “Good” or “Bad” in media is not something that can be deduced from logical principles?

Is it POSSIBLE we are wrong about what we are talking about? Technically, sure. But so what? That’s what discussion is for. That’s what debate is for. The whole point of criticism is to make the argument that something you like is good or bad. If that isn’t the point of criticism then criticism has no point.

To explain what I mean, Digibro himself explains at the end of his “Asterisk War” series (link to the first video later) that the point was to help people try to understand the difference between a “1 and a 3, or a 3 or a 5” (I’m paraphrasing) on a 10 point scale. But why should he care? If the majority of people think “The Asterisk War is Great” then to them the show is a 10 and Digibro’s point is irrelevant. His whole series is reduced to navel-gazing meant for people who agreed with him in the first place.

Digibro goes on to say that it is impossible to say whether him HAVING a hand is good – that there is no metric that can be used to decide good or bad. It is remarkable that Digibro has managed 3 minutes and 10 seconds into his video to completely ignore the tradition of Natural Law morality that would argue, in fact, from logical first principles, that having a hand is, in fact, good. And if that is the basis of his video, it all falls apart; there is littler left to discuss. To see more of THAT argument, read the works of Dr. Edward Feser. His blog posts are short and easily digestible, and will help you get a primer on this sort of thinking if it is new to you.

There is little else to say about Digi’s video. He goes on to state that the metric for figuring out a definition of “Good and Bad” can only be understood if you “Know what God thinks of the world”, which is at best highly debateable and at any rate irrelevant if you believe that God actually does exist and can be proven by first principles. He has no understanding of the vast philosophical history about this very topic and as a result undermines his entire career. I suppose it helps lolicons feel better, though.

And all of this would be excusable if it was something in the realm of complex philosophy we could never expect regular people to truly grasp. Except that my position is not new. It was – really, is – the historical norm of western civilization for millennia. It was understood something like objective beauty existed, and this has been the basic assumption underpinning the creation of media throughout the entirety history of western thought. To throw it aside because you don’t understand it is a variation of the Chesterton’s Fence paradox – if you’re going to throw something as fundamental as objectivity away you better be sure you knew why people believed it in the first place.

This is all very unfair to Digibro, who is himself just one very small symptom of one very, very large problem. He has a lot of good stuff. Check out his Asterisk War series if you haven’t. Plus I’m essentially punishing him here for having the clearest video on this topic from his perspective that I’ve seen, which is in some ways a compliment. Still, this is no small matter. An issue this important, especially to a critic, cannot just go unaddressed.

Whew. This video has gone off into the weeds a bit. Now we’re in highly esoteric territory. Let’s steer into our conclusion:

Good and bad do exist, they can at least debatably be proven from first principles, and even if you don’t think that the very structure of society assumes that it does, and this includes media criticism.

Have an (objectively) great day, folks!

SUPERVERSIVE: Of course objective quality exists, and everyone knows it published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames

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elvctrickiss · 6 years

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I can't speak for everyone, but speaking as someone with a general verse muse, I try to play her as accurately as possible. Being considered an 'older' muse, combined with the fact that I've had her on and off for years now, she's worked through a lot of the 'kinks' you mentioned. She still has issues she works through, but she works through them privately or with those she's close with. Because that's the type of person she is, I won't create flaws where there are none, (cont)

nor will I have her broadcast her problems to the public when that simply isn't in her character, and I'm sorry if that's boring to you. On the flip side, I've noticed when a female (or male) fc is widely considered 'sexy', people often have preconceived notions of who/what they should be, and treat them as shallow characters. I've noticed this with starters and replies you've written for people, too. Myself included. It's a two way street, if you want to dig deeper into interactions between muses, you have to put the effort forth to communicate with others or be open minded enough to give people starters or replies that don't pigeon hole their muse. I would love to flesh out certain aspects of my muse further, but I rarely have the opportunity to because people don't look past her looks and only give me threads which emphasize that, and it's hard to plot when you feel disinterest from your partner. Just thought another perspective might be helpful.

hello! thank you very much for your insightful message. first of all, i completely understand where this is coming from; i concede that my post was written while i was in a place of frustration and that i didn’t, perhaps, express what i wanted to properly. i’ll try to tackle your points as comprehensively as possible, but i apologize if i don’t fully explain myself, as this is an issue that does appear to be sensitive. i’ll also put this under a read more just so that i don’t clog people’s dashes (as i expect this will be a lengthy response); apologies in advance!

first, i appreciate you telling me that your muse is one that has worked through her kinks and issues and, for the ones she has now, she is doing so privately. i respect that you have had the opportunity to do so over a long period of time, and i of course understand that you have no intention to broadcast every single gory detail of her personal life. i can see how my post may have come across as me just shunning nice, normal muses form the get-go. please understand that this was not at all my intention, and i apologize for suggesting that i demand every muse i interact with to be openly problematic.

i go through the muse pages of people religiously, and i don’t turn away from them just because they have nice muses. i have never done so nor will i ever. my post was referring to specific instances in which people and i would already be communicating or talking/plotting and i would want to know more about muses that i know nothing about. this is because their muses don’t have clear descriptions or perhaps have sparse bios that present me with minimal insight -- this is actually fine as long as the person is willing to tell me later on what to expect. when i ask about them, i get the same answer. “they’re nice and friendly.” when i ask them for more (and not necessarily more conflict), rarely do i get any information that suggests that they were built as muses with dimension. perhaps, conversely, if a person just told me “they’re horrible,” but couldn’t really give me anything else, it might be the same issue, but i’ve yet to encounter a muse that’s just simply horrible.

last night, i read through a few muses’ bios that were quite nice; they weren’t problematic, nor did they have any horrible childhood to suggest their niceness was a front for something, or anything like that. but i noticed that their creators put in thought into them; they know what pisses them off, what they’re afraid of, what they obsess over, what they dream of/to be, etc. this information isn’t even necessary in a plot, but it gives me a better understanding of the muse as a character and not just a cut-out. i don’t have a problem with them at all, and i look forward to interacting with them because i can see that their muns like their characters enough to think a little more about them.

now, the above statement might be misconstrued as me saying “oh! i see some bios that are meh and their muses are one-dimensional so nope! not interacting.” that’s not what i mean at all! again, this is already in regard to some people who i’ve talked to and tried to gain a better understanding of in terms of their muses but have gotten back very little.

again, this post is not in relation to people i haven’t ever interacted with; i don’t not follow people and diss them after reading about their nice muse. i, myself, have some nice muses -- miyoung and minseok, for instance, are pretty unproblematic as attitudes go! i think it’s a little too much of a leap to suggest i don’t put in the effort to interact with people and just avoid them; i made that post in referral to interactions i already had in the last month. this is more deeply rooted in the problem i’ve been having with shipping, which is when people approach me for ship plots but don’t give me enough to help me understand what the basis of any kind of ship is. i suppose (and this is just me, maybe!) it bothers me when i try to ask them how they’d fit together, and sometimes i get responses like, “she’s cute and friendly, so he could fall in love with her,” but it doesn’t match the context of what we were talking about. if the person gave me more to work with after i asked, it would be fine, but with little else, i’m not sure if i could feel comfortable continuously interacting with a muse like that for the thread we’re talking about. additionally, if we talk about multiple threads, would it not be frustrating if i were interacting with three different muses from the same person that were virtually identical to one another? this has already happened to me during the plotting stages on this blog and on another rp blog for another fandom.

as for starters and replies that i’ve written, i don’t want to sound defensive when i ask for this! but may i know which starters and replies you’re referring to? many of the starters i’ve posted are ones i’ve talked about with other people at some length, and i tried as much as possible to carry out the plot that we agreed upon together. some of them are for smut or for a romantic relationship, so maybe that might be what you’re referring to, but these were always plotted out to a pretty good extent with a partner. the ones that were at random (i looked at the recent ones only, so please let me know if you’re referring to something older!) that i generated at a more quickfire pace were not for anyone in mind; they had ?’s, so i didn’t choose any muses in particular, and i’m really uncertain about which muses im treating as specifically shallow just because they’re sexy. if you let me know which starters you’re referring to, i’ll gladly address any pigeonholing if i can see that i just stereotyped a “hot muse,” but i will also try to determine first if this was a starter written for a plot that was discussed before.

i am the first to admit that i am sometimes a victim to disinterest, but i will also be the first to say that i don’t usually feel disinterest without ever trying to be engaged or immersed first. i was non-selective for a very long time and was happy to rp with anyone, but over some time i’ve noticed that some people (i won’t say a majority, because that’s obviously not true) i already had threads with just want something and also don’t give me any indication that they’re willing to let both our muses grow or develop. maybe it’s not right for me to expect that, and perhaps you can also tell me if that’s too snooty; maybe it is? but when i approach people (and 9/10 times i do make the first step), i always ask these questions: is there any muse of yours you want to develop? any specific plot you think would be good for your muse or might help you develop you writing?

i don’t ever see myself as an initially or inherently snobby rp partner, but over time, i’ve become guarded and maybe a bit sensitive; maybe that’s the wrong reaction on my part, and i’ll think about that more for sure. i’d just like to, again, emphasize that the post you seem to be responding to is in any way attacking nice muses, although, again, i can definitely see that it might come across this way. sometimes, when i rant, i don’t provide the right context (or, in this case, any at all, which was an error on my part), and perhaps that might be the reason why i worded things so terribly. i’ve been reading it over for the past 30 minutes (as i reply to this), and i do apologize for sounding so problem-hungry and snobbish. you’re absolutely right when you say that it’s okay that a muse is nice and has no huge kinks, and i have never thought that it wasn’t okay for them to be so. perhaps what i should have said is that when i’m plotting with someone, i really do want to see the dimension in a character that suggests the mun has really put some good thought into them. if i ask for “anything else,” apart from the “friendly and nice,” i just wish the answer weren’t “nah, that’s it!” you can tell me about their interests, what they do in their spare time, what their pet peeves are, and these are things that will help me feel like oh, so i can talk about this with this muse! and it can be like a point in which their friendship/romance/mentorship/hateship blossoms.

that’s really all i want. again, i have no excuse for wording things the way i did, and i’ll definitely think about explaining things better. i think the better promise i’d make is to not post about what i’m feeling when i haven’t fully processed my emotions and thoughts. thank you for your perspective, and i will also take into account any further replies you have. however, i actually really hope that you can come off anon and we can talk. i’m not an inherently angry person (i know my post must have made it seem that way, but i’m really not), and i’m open to learning the error of my ways, but, perhaps, if there’s a response to this very lengthy post, we could talk about it more concisely.

#Anonymous

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