Good TV
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Like, episode 5 dark?
I must be the only person in the world who didn't find Ep. 5 terribly dark.
Which might say a lot about who I am, I suppose.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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I thought it suffered from darkness-induced audience apathy to such an extent that it was ludicrous. It came off like a 15-year-old goth's fanfiction about reality. I didn't think it was dark; I thought it was laughable. I just can't believe human beings are so dishonest and brutal at their core, even if I'm asked to suspend my paradigm for only as long as a bottle episode of an overdramatic mythology-slanted show. It was like being asked an existential question by a wannabe philosopher whose knowledge of existentialism consists solely of meme quotes on sad tumblr. I guess it's edgy to think people are terrible monsters saved only by ultimately-dishonest aspirations? But I just thought it was cheap.
Here's my ugly truth about this post... that episode annoyed me to the extent that I jumped at this chance to rip it apart as hard as I could. Why? .... because to me, truth is what connects us. A real human connection, where you confide your truth to someone, is something beautiful and bonding, even if the truth shared is not a beautiful one. And I hated the implication that dreams are lies we tell ourselves.
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I thought it suffered from darkness-induced audience apathy to such an extent that it was ludicrous
Note that episode came from Sandman #6, which was published in 1989. So, with that in mind I don't feel that "audience apathy" was at play.
Back in the late 80s, Gaiman, Moorcock, and Moore were the tip of the spear in terms of writing hard-hitting content that challenged readers. I also think that Sandman #6 "24 hours" was definitely an idea that later lead to American God's.
The point behind episode 5 (and the 24 hours story) was to display just how much chaos a godlike power could unleash on a small scale. The terror of it doesn't need to be unveiled on some global, cataclysmic scale. Simply opening up people to let go of their inhibitions and no longer ignore the little impulses led to unfettered truth.
Example. It wasn't that those characters were so dishonest with themselves that by simply being honest all this edgy stuff happened. There are reasons why people don't answer their every urge, or tell a white lie, or choose against their desires. That one character ended up fucking another and then violence happens wasn't the point. The POINT was that giving into your impulses 100% means you fuck the cook, and then when you get angry you react to that, and then you react to every impulses, be it dread, relief, and it ends up becoming an inescapable quicksand. Such chaos can start out to create something beautiful and then unravel out of control, and thus the whims of a shortsighted man with godlike power spells doom for everyone he comes into contact with.
The concept of 24 hours was written at a time where Alan Moore was challenging the concept of civil rights in V for Vendetta and the deep questions of the Watchmen. Gaiman is a different breed of writer and at the time 24 hours was published it was shockingly unapologetic and unafraid to touch these themes.
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Yeah, I can see its value as like... a provocative themed piece of art, more than a story that makes realistic sense to me. I guess you can't really cover the nuance of impulse control within a made-for TV episode that is showing rather than sanctimoniously telling.
I just don't like the implied connections between truth and lack of impulse control, and that's what revolts me about this episode -- which, if I look at it as a provocative themed piece of art, its purpose would be to inspire this kind of conversation.
In my mind, impulse control is derived from truth, and the question 'what is it you truly want?' .... rather than human beings acting like slaves to basic instincts.
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@hobos But the issue is that the people in the diner did have self control over their own actions; until Dee/Destiny removed the self-control from them. How much of what happened in that episode was really Dee projecting his own issues & perceptions onto the others?
Also, what are your thoughts on The Collectors, where Dream pretty much calls out the same edgelord mindset you pointed out, with the addition of making them always be aware of how meaningless their existence and dark fantasies really are.
CORRECTION: The issue was 'The Collectors', the episode with Morpheus doing the direct confrontation was 'Lost Hearts'.
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In my mind, impulse control is derived from truth, and the question 'what is it you truly want?' .... rather than human beings acting like slaves to basic instincts.
The fact we are having this conversation right now suggests to me that this episode did exactly what it was calculated to do.
I am not sure if you have appreciated the nuance of the question in relation to how John was able to compel what occurred.
Wanting people to be truthful all the time is not a bad thing. Wanting people to be truthful to one another is a noble ambition. But compelling them to do so against their will is tyranny, the product of which is hardly ever a good thing.
That said, I enjoyed it. Then again, I grew up around the time when Gaiman's work was just getting noticed, and I undoubtedly have a cynical, if not jaded, view of the hypocrisy and lies that pervade all of our interpersonal relationships.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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@hobos (only sorta, your post did prompt this, but I am not sure if it's really as reply)
Added: It seemed to me the point was that things of ephemeral nature lead to actual action and creation, and that Dee, atop being a completely solipsistic that nothing and no one has any intrinsic value, is wounded and obsessed that because lies exist, anything that isn't concrete is a lie. Someone should have told him that his sense of vision is especially a lie, but whatever. He is the living aspect of the damaged ruby's potential.
It's basically "I think you are kind. That won't stop me from killing you in the least."
And to be fair to you and the comic, it was written when comics got all dark and broody and full of pockets.
This is the opening text from the RPG Stealing Stories for the Devil (where in you have mage like reality altering powers where you fight in partitioned zones of unreality like in X 1999 where some entity has altered the rules like the Unbidden, in order to gather true nuggets of story structures like the Gentry) and it seemed relevant:
"Actors? Liars.
Writers? Liars.
Roleplayers? Liars.
We all think lying is wrong. We teach our children not to lie. Lying
can get you fired from your job. We label it a sin and even a crime.
But then, at the same time, our lives are willfully and intentionally
full of lies. We pay money to sit and watch a movie that is nothing
but two hours of lies. We eagerly buy the latest book of lies from
our favorite novelist. We love lies because we love stories.
And we’re right to feel that way. Stories are vital to us as humans.
In many ways, stories are the way we relate to each other.
Sure, we tell each other about some exciting event that happened
yesterday, but that’s not what I’m talking about, because
(presumably) that kind of story is true. I’m specifically talking about
action. We teach lessons about who we were in the past through
action: myths about gods creating the Earth or folktales about
George Washington chopping down a cherry tree (that somehow
informs us of what it means to be an American). Fables and fairy
tales tell us as much about history as, well, actual history. Not
because they offer facts and dates, but because they display the
essence and emotions of the people. We understand the people of
medieval Europe because we read tales like Beowulf, the Kalevala,
or the Arthurian saga.
We also reveal who we are today, and maybe even who we might
be in the future, by presenting these ideas as stories. These are
fictional stories, yes, but we use them to convey truth." -
The fact we are having this conversation right now suggests to me that this episode did exactly what it was calculated to do.
I looooooove shit like this: The little lies in society that are accepted; themselves that are considered normal. The strange behaviors in humankind and what a little push or shift in logic would wrought. It's the kind of stuff someone should think about before dealing with a Djinn.
It's such a fucking shame that super deep writing like this has fallen by the wayside in an era of repetitive blockbuster action movies and pandering fanbase entitlement content. Art SHOULD be dangerous and SHOULD make people question things.
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- I personally despise Marilyn Manson as a person but he comes up with some banger quotes and lyrics.
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As a provocative piece of art, the episode totally makes more sense, and revulsion and discomfort is a great emotional experience given that perspective. As a coherent story it still doesn't make sense to me. But now that I've given it some more thought and been enlightened as to the context of the original writing... I can see more of how it was intended, which makes me feel far less hateful towards it, for sure.
This conversation makes me think about the Platonic perspective on art: as an imitation that distracts from truth. I remember when I learned about that, I was first in this state of cognitive denial over Plato's logic... and it was not an emotionally comfortable place to be, when I reflect on it. And then I came to accept that Plato's view did make sense, given my pre-existing belief in objective truth... but there's a nuance to it, better elaborated on by Arthur Danto, that art is a mirror that illuminates the truth about ourselves. (Roleplaying, though completely fictional, has made me learn a lot about myself and expand myself a lot, in a way that seems inarguably useful for more than just entertainment.)
So, if I look at the events depicted in the episode less as a representation of truth and more as a mirror that contains multiple clashing paradigms in an almost ironic way, it's a lot more interesting (and forgivable for its dramatic edginess).
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@hobos One thing I AM very disappointed about in recent pop culture is a word you used: edginess. Allow me a short soapbox here.
Edgy is a term I'd seen thrown around a lot while MUing a few years back, and I've seen it used over the years in greater increments. While there's nothing wrong with something that is "edgy", it's usually thrown around in a connotation of "this person is trying to be edgy for edgy's sake". This approach usually comes with a biased opinion of the writer, the content, or the intent behind the content that is wrapped in the bias of the person using the term "edgy". In most cases, the person using the term "edgy" doesn't delve into WHY the content is the way it is before judging the person an edgelord or the intent behind their writing.
Example: A long while back I was apping for a character on "Fifth World". I noticed that 9/10 characters on this "lords and ladies" game were basically "Prince/Princess Perfect" with variations really based on what weapon they used. "Princess Perfect the Knight" and "Prince Perfect the Archer". So I decided that when I made a character I would make "Prince...who had a lot of privilege and thus became a drug addicted sorcerer who would rather club crawl than face his lordly duties." I simply wanted to make something flawed that wasn't perfect and my creative mind went to the concept that the idle rich in the setting are no different than any other setting: privilege and lack of equal amounts of risk for illicit activities. I wanted to challenge myself by writing a character that was deeply flawed, somewhat unreliable, but a talented sorcerer and thus useful.
So...I made the character. I had scenes. Then, a few years later an allegedly (airquotes) good person on the Hog Pit started joking and guffawing about my character and how I was an edgelord, trying to be so edgy, and it was so embarrassing to them that they quit the game. Which, I'd always found hypocritical given that this person was always afraid of being judged, themselves.
I guess the moral of this story is that I feel that art needs to have an edge, and the popular use of the term "edgy" is less of a critique of the greater content but more an attack on the content itself with a means to belittle it. In some ways I think our society as a whole needs more "edge" and needs to face those hard details, but the PROBLEM is that you take an edgy concept like "The Purge" (which was intended to be a dystopian critique of where our society is heading) and then people only seem to fixate on "Oh I'd love the Purge!" and lose the entire point of the original content to begin with.
GOOD art will usually have some sort of "slap effect" that at first may come across as "edginess" (as in: trying to be) but only upon taking the time to review it with an unbiased lens you may find that the original purpose wasn't to be edgy at all.
One last example:
Nikki Sixx's photography might be laughed off as "oh look how edgy they are..."
When in fact the entire art photography book he put out had a theme of taking people with deformities, missing limbs, and developmental issues and showing how beautiful and intriguing they could be. So you could take a first look at that picture above and think "LOL Wannabe NIN EDGY LOL" but then when you take a moment to consider that Nikki Sixx (who often talks about how ugly he feels inside and wants to show his own beauty) focused on people who society deemed "disfigured and ugly" and put out a book of creative photography highlighting their beauty...it becomes something entirely different.
...I guess this wasn't a short soapbox. Alas.
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So, if I look at the events depicted in the episode less as a representation of truth and more as a mirror that contains multiple clashing paradigms in an almost ironic way, it's a lot more interesting (and forgivable for its dramatic edginess).
I want to interject only to put my own comments in on the "edginess" of that episode.
For 1989, the story isn't "edgy": it's Orwellian-provocative. All of what I believe most people deride as "unnecessarily edgy" was at some point novel and, with this story, we are viewing one of the very first of such darkness in a modern fantasy setting. I have often derided works as being "edgy for the sake of edginess" when what I mean to say is "this has been done before and therefore has lost its edge in my experience."
Tritely, when my partner watched the series with me, her first comment was "looks like they really wanted to borrow from Twilight" and it was all I could do not to choke her.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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Tritely, when my partner watched the series with me, her first comment was "looks like they really wanted to borrow from Twilight" and it was all I could do not to choke her.
You know I used to feel the same way about "Vampire Diaries" stealing from World of Darkness, but then I found out that Vampire Diaries came out before Vampire the Masquerade. When I found that out it really fucked with my head because my beloved "World of Darkness" now may be actually derived partially from "Mystic Falls High School Vampires".
#TeamCarolineForbes
#TeamRebekkah
#TeamDamonDelete the Hog Pit. It'll be fun.
I really don't understand He-Man -
Damon is my snarky spirit guide.
Racism isn't Tinkerbell. It doesn't need you to believe in it for it to exist.
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@Derp I will fight to the death over how awesome Caroline Forbes is.
I fucking LOVE the trope of "privileged, perfect princess girl who becomes messy vampire". It's such a great transition. A girl who had everything, life of the party, center of her own little world. Becomes undead. Goes from prom queen candidate to...
...and I am forever grateful that the transition's tone didn't become some snarky Buffy trope and instead made the character grow up.
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For 1989 it was edgy, but for today, that kind of perspective feels super overdone. I was actually born in 1989 so maybe it's difficult for me to appreciate what was legitimately edgy back then.
Also yeah, I don't appreciate how free people can be with the 'edgelord' label. But it does actually apply in some cases. (Maybe not this one, I admit, but without all the context and history, it could definitely come off that way to an uneducated observer such as myself).
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For 1989 it was edgy, but for today, that kind of perspective feels super overdone. I was actually born in 1989 so maybe it's difficult for me to appreciate what was legitimately edgy back then.
Also yeah, I don't appreciate how free people can be with the 'edgelord' label. But it does actually apply in some cases. (Maybe not this one, I admit, but without all the context and history, it could definitely come off that way to an uneducated observer such as myself).
It's the same problem that the 'John Carter' film faced: the original stories were foundational for almost every aspect of science-fiction, but seem trite and cliche to newer audiences that are unaware of the significance.
Sandman, Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns were all groundbreaking at the time and set foundations for modern (post-90's) comics storytelling. And part of this is also being imitated by writers/artist without the same level of storytelling ability. 'Edginess' became an all-encompassing, character-defining attribute, rather than a thematic element.
For me, the big difference between, 'being edgey' and 'edgelord' is a certain amount of intellectual development in the former that is absent from the later. For example, the character of Gilbert in Sandman is based on English author G.K. Chesterton; not exactly an obvious or well-known reference. Chesterton's works mainly concerned Christian apologetics; defending the ideals of Christianity via debate instead of 'it's in the Bible, so it must be true'. That's a level of awareness that you don't find in edgelords, who are mostly concerned with 'shock for the sake of shock', without any debate or reasoning or reflection upon their actions.
Yeah. Morpheus is a depressing, over-serious, self-important prick. And the overall narrative of Sandman is showing how this immortal being that believes himself unchangeable and above 'petty mortals' does, in fact, change; becoming more human in the process. The whole series is Morpheus making those human connections, within and without, and shedding his bad habits of the past several eons.
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@Runescryer 100% Agree.
To make matters worse, shallow directors like Eli Roth (ugh: Knock Knock, Cabin Fever, Hostel), Rob Zombie, and Tom Six (Human Centipede and the even worse HC2) are becoming more common. Each of them at least attempted something somewhat artistic at first but have become increasingly more pandering to the infantile side of their directing. One COULD make the argument that Human Centipede 1 was a "body horror movie about a man attempting to rob others of their humanity", but Human Centipede 2 doesn't deserve a single shred of respect and was downright a film that was so fucked up that I can't see anything deep in it beyond an attempt to literally torture the audience. Eli Roth has had SOME creative work (Hemlock Grove), but keeps wobbling back to "true", which is childish gorefests and "boobies!" to the point that I can't see an artistic point behind Cabin Fever or Knock Knock. Rob Zombie seemed to start as an homage to Tobe Hooper's "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" but has since devolved into BARELY B-movie quality "spooky ookie bad guys and my hot wife" (Lords of Salem, 31, 3 From Hell).
((Note: Please don't take this previous paragraph as hypocritical. I've tried to see value in these three directors. It's not a kneejerk assumption of "edginess". Their stuff is just...hard to defend.))
Add in "Purge" initially being a dystopian reflection of where society could be heading that got turned into "Purge fashion and glorifying what YOU would do for the Purge?" It's like Denis Leary said. "The French treat us like shit because they gave us the croissant and we turned it into the croissandwich".
So perhaps what I'm saying is that I feel there's an actual cultural monetary value in people making "edgy" shit for "edginess'" sake that when you get an actual artist trying to make something of value (or, in Sandman's case, putting out content that's 30 years old and because it was released NOW) it gets lopped in as "trying to be edgy" when there's some really great thought behind it.
I also feel that there's a lot of "immediately negative assumption of intent" that's crept into the fanbase entitlement (or "fanbase extortion", if you will) that muddies the waters, too. There's a lot of risk to the authors to be accused of biases they may not actually have for the content in their stories. So the entertainment world is just a fucking minefield right now.
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@Runescryer One could argue that given the events of the end of the Sandman run, it's an exercise in how much one point of view can change and still remain the same person. (That's as non-spoilery as I can get.)
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@reimesu Exactly.
