Posted by Anthony in HAWPcast, Podcast on June 2nd, 2010
Sorry it took so long. We were busy filmin’.
This week’s episode, surprisingly enough, is full of talk about videogames. No, seriously — around 75% of the discussion is about videogames, and about 20% is about how mystery-driven shows like LOST and Battlestar Galactica are manipulative bullshit at times.
Anthony and Ashly Burch are writers and game critics who make surreal videos in their spare time. The videos aren't that bad.
Rev Rants: Every week, sort of, Anthony discusses games and gamer culture in this Destructoid video series (now defunct).
Anthony Burch on Destructoid: In addition to creating video content, Anthony used to write some awesome stuff for Destructoid.com.
Video Game Flicks: Over at AMC's blog, Anthony writes about videogames, movies, and videogame movies. Updates every other Tuesday.
Occasionally, Ashly acts in other stuff, like the movie Donna.
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© 2010 Hey Ash LLC.
All Rights Reserved.
Handmade by Hugs For Monsters.
Pecked by an Odd Looking Bird.
You guys share my exact thoughts on series 5 Doctor Who. Amy Pond is just so boring.
Good HAWPcast.
I’m thinking of going through all the HAWPcasts and compiling a song from Anthony’s ‘stalling for time’ ditties, but (un?)fortunately I have not a single musical bone in my body to draw from.
I found myself agreeing with a lot from this episode, especially re. BSG’s spirituality cop-out of an ending, especially tying it in to some hackneyed-4th-wall-breaking-sooth-telling prediction… and Amy Pond being little else than an eye-friendly plot device. They’re both too convenient.
Thanks for entertaining me for another hour =D
I hate you guys. I disagree with you so much about almost everything but I keep listening to you because we share a sense of humor and we seem to have similar ideas about videogames. You’re like my republican friends. I keep coming back even though every time you talk about anything I care about that isn’t videogames (Doctor Who, Buffy, LOST, Cowboy Bebop) I am filled with so much rage that I want to strangle you guys. And yet I will continue to listen. I guess I’m a masochist.
Given the above statement, I still feel I must make this point (remember, masochist).
Here is the thing about genre fiction. Genre fiction involves mysteries. All genre fiction has mysteries in it and fantastical elements that could never really be explained. I think its only recently that the internet has given us nerds a meeting place where we can gather and talk about it. And because we have gathered we now have this power where as collective voice we call something “bullshit” it actually influences everything. So now everyone has to play to us nerds rather than to everyone which means every piece of information HAS to be important or else the nerds will revolt.
Have you seen this article about what it would be like if Jaws were made today?
http://www.chud.com/articles/articles/23893/1/WHAT-IF-JAWS-WAS-MADE-TODAY/Page1.html
The part about the shark’s complicated backstory. That is the worst part, in my opinion, about this hypothetical movie and it’s a complete reaction to the constant need for nerds on the internet to have everything explained to them. Because if Jaws was made today by Joss Whedon everyone would be expecting some explanation as to why the shark was so angry and seemed to have it out for this small town. The Star Wars prequels are another example. On a comedy podcast the other day, Adam Scott, the actor, made the point that the entirety Star Wars prequels are an explanation for five lines of dialogue in the original trilogy. And everything would have been better if those things had been left unexplained.
So you’re right. We can’t have mysteries in genre fiction anymore. We can’t leave things to the imaginations of the audience cause people will freak out. Nerds and the internet have ruined fiction for you. Me, I’m OK. When Portal 2 comes out this year and some questions are answered and more questions are raised. I am going to have the time of my life. Cause I’m enjoying the ride.
What were the five lines?
Counterexample: everything about the Joker in The Dark Knight.
I’d draw a distinction between stuff that doesn’t need to be fully explained, and isn’t (“the force is blooby blabby around us in us”) versus something that draws such narrative attention to itself and confuses the characters enough that it NEEDS to be explained in order for the characters’ motivations to be fully understood and deepened, and for the overall story to make sense both thematically and on a moment-to-moment basis (“why is there a polar bear on this island why do I have to type in these numbers what are these numbers”).
It’s nothing to do with nerds and the internet and everything to do with writers getting more cynical, and possibly attention spans getting shorter.
But your counterexample doesn’t back up your point about character motivations. The Joker was an extremely interesting character but he was left a mystery. And while everyone gets the feeling that his motivation is only to create chaos, we only get the idea, it’s never fully explained to us. His origin is never revealed and his motivations are kept secret throughout most of the movie. Only towards the end of the movie does he start revealing his need to create chaos, but the why is never explained. And even if it was, he has been so unreliable that we could never really know for sure.
There’s never a question of “oh god who is the Joker and why is the Joker doing this, there must be some Big Answer that I must learn” — there’s just a lack of explanation, which makes him more mysterious, and thus more terrifying. There’s a difference. We can vaguely infer the Joker’s motivation, which keeps him scary, while we fully understand Batman’s motivations in response to this vague evil.
When I’m talking about how mystery can fuck up character motivation, I’m talking about something like BSG. The question of Head-Six’s identity is also a question of who Gaius is on an emotional level(is he crazy from guilt, or is this a sexual fantasy, or what). Until we know The Big Answer of who Head-Six is, we’re flying blind with Baltar — and not in a cool, inference-heavy way. There’s nothing to infer about Head-Six — her identity is answerable and draws a shitload of attention to itself, but is withheld from us because fuck you audience.
I disagree that there was nothing we could have inferred about Gaius Baltar because of Head-Six. In fact, you just made two inferences. For the first couple of seasons, he could have been crazy from guilt or it could have been a sexual fantasy or it could have been a little from column A and a little from column B. But it also could have been neither. Baltar was a much more interesting character when we had no idea what was going on in his head. He was unpredictable. One minute he was willing to expose Cylons and the next minute he was hiding Boomer’s identity. It was in the actual revelation of who Head Six is (and everything leading up to it) that the show is ruined and stops making sense.
In closing I guess my advice to you is this. As a storyteller, do not be afraid to leave questions unanswered to your audience. Even seemingly big questions. Even if your fans are begging for the answers. Great stories leave blanks for the audience to fill in. This leads to your audience participating in your story by coming up with their own answers. And I know how corny this sounds but its this type of participation that allows your story to belong to your audience as well.
Inference sounds like a more effective, less cynical, and less fury-inducing way of doing everything you just said Big Fat Mysteries do. You can’t infer anything successful/interesting/meaningful into a question with a definite and promised, eventual answer.
The bears were on the island because the DHARMA folk brought them there to do weird ’70s experiments on them. These experiments have been hinted at as having to do with bear intelligence (for God knows what reason) and also acclimating species to environments ill-suited to them.
The numbers were just a code, chosen seemingly at an arbitrary whim, even though they were eventually revealed to be part of a universal pattern that echoed constantly in different places and times.
Lost’s foundation is understanding that most of the mysteries weren’t a product of Glowy-Whoa-y, Islandy-Whylandy stuff, but of what people were willing to *do* in order to manipulate or study that stuff. Every weird thing in the show not *directly* related to the underground font of energy was a direct result of people being bastardly, heroic, greedy, wonderful people.
I hate to admit it, but I do enjoy manipulative bullshit. Lost, Battlestar Galatica, Valve games. Good stuff.
Being strung along through mystery isn’t an inherently bad thing. Millions of people love to sit and watch shows and speculate and wonder about the things that are going on. They love to discuss theories and talk about the characters and why they might be acting the way they are. The fact that Lost managed to immerse SO many people into the story to that extent is the one thing I praise them for. They got people to love (or hate) the characters, and they got people to REALLY wonder about the mysteries and that was a wonderful thing to watch. When you do this without knowing ahead of time how the mystery will payoff, THAT is when it can be a little disrespectful. But even then I can’t stand using that word, because it just implies that they’re intentionally screwing their audience over when there could be a myriad of reasons why they CAN’T plan the entire show ahead of time (production process, not knowing how many the seasons they’ll be obligated to produce, etc.). I think labeling an entire method of storytelling as wrong or disrespectful is a little extreme. Like everything, it can be done if handled properly.
I obviously don’t share your skepticism with Valve’s decision to embrace this way of doing things. I think that there’s nothing wrong with your feeding your audience a bit of mystery, answering the questions, and then providing new mystery. So long as you’re giving everyone the closure they need before moving on to new mysteries, what’s the problem?
I think the fanaticism behind Lost and BSG prove that people love to wonder, and there’s a ton of value in a good mystery. The approach just needs to be worked out.
shit, please excuse the typos. I typed that response in an impassioned frenzy and forgot to re-read it before posting.
This is only semi related to something mentioned during the Fable 2 discussion, but it seems someone has made a game where you play a woman walking home attracting unwanted attention from somewhat annoying men.
It showed up on RPS as directed there by Leigh, who later blogged about it herself. The game itself is short and shit, the men crowd around you and can block you from moving, you use a gun to kill them and they leave behind gravestones that say “R.I.P. “Insert catcall they used here”.
Point is, I was interested in the call “is this what it is like to be a girl” that was mentioned in the cast, mainly that Anthony seemed to take the behaviour to heart only when it was happening to Ash, not when it happened to him. Has anyone experiencing it wanted to react negatively to catcalling in the way that is taken to extremes in this game, or when Ash took the drunkard out back and shouted at him in Fable?
In accordance with all other comment threads about it, I have to put this anecdote in: Being male and as attractive as an unattractive man who was kicked out of the unattractive olympics for being too darn unattractive, I can’t really speak from experience of catcalls, save that one drunk girl fondled my bum as I walked past. I thought it was funny, but then it has only happened once.
Makes me wanna play Fable II.
Random Dr. Who-related link just because I don’t know where else to send this to you guys, and I’m too lazy to think about it:
Have you guys seen this epicness yet?
http://gizmodo.com/5549295/playing-the-dr-who-theme-with-millions-of-volts-of-electricity
About what you said about season 5 of Doctor who, do you feel that if say the Dreamlord episode was based in Leadworth her home town rather than Upper- leadworth? I say this more in relation to previous characters such as Jeff (the good looking one) and his Gran being there. I also would have thought it would have been better if Jeff’s Gran was Mrs Pogitt instead, these things I thought would have given much better character development than a fresh set of characters you don’t really care about and how the Doctor, Amy and Rory react to them.
And also one of the things I’ve noticed in this series is that it doesn’t go back to the companion’s time as much as the previous series did. Really in this series after the first episode they go back to it a total of about 5 minutes over 2 episodes and that’s it. Yes they’re trying to avoid the date of the ‘big bang’ but Amy’s choice being set 5 years into the future could have very easily had been set this way. One thing I hope Steven realises is that what Russel did in the way to aid in character development was to show the companions what they where missing travelling the universe.
What do you think?
Yeah, LOST is complete bullshit, I stuck it out for 6 seasons hoping for some rational or logical explanation and ended up with magic fucking water and golden glowy pixie dust.
Something else that recently occurred to me and really bothered me was that the rational characters in many TV shows like Jack, House or even Monk and those guys from the big bang theory are always portrayed as being damaged or mentally/physically unhealthy or in need of sometimes “overcoming” their rationality in favor of faith or mysticism.
I love listening to you guys talk about doctor who because you two are the few that seem feel similar to me. I definitely feel in the minority, not liking the new season so far, but every single episode after eleventh hour left me feeling “meh…”. Everyone seems to love Amy Pond just because she’s a nice pair of t&a, and completely disregards how poorly structured her character is. The 11th Doctor seems more flawed that most doctors, in the sense that he can’t be successful on his own. Also, I don’t have a good idea of what is supposed to set him apart from past doctors yet, aside from some very poorly placed temper tantrums. The only reason I feel like I keep tuning in at this point is for the big reveal about the cracks, but I’m expecting a let down there too. I agree that it’s really disheartening to see a show we enjoyed change this much…
Anthony and I are guessing that the crack in the wall is just going to be a huuuuuge retcon of everything that RTD did in his season. It’s kind of nice that Moffat is drawing that much attention to it if that really is his intention, but it’s also pretty boring.
This reaction just confuses the hell out of me. Davies himself admitted that he really didn’t really write the role too differently for Tennant when he took over, so I don’t understand how everyone is saying that this new doctor doesn’t feel different enough, as if it’s a writing problem. In my opinion Matt Smith is acting extremely differently. Tennant’s doctor was more laid back and casual, hands in his pockets and big swaying movements. Matt Smith’s doctor is a bit stiffer, with lots of smaller fidgety movements. He’s also little mannerisms, like the way he bounces back and forth on the balls of his feet and the manner in which he twirls the sonic screwdriver (things Matt Smith deliberately worked in.) He’s also an angrier doctor with less patience than before which is not inherently a good thing or a bad thing, it’s just a different thing. I’m not sure how drastically different people want the doctor to be. Quirky, compassionate, kinda funny, intelligent, human-loving, these will always be qualities the doctor will possess. The only thing that changes are the superficial bits and the manner in which he expresses himself. His core remains the same.
Moffat’s concerns are less about deep character development and more about the sense of adventure and excitement. He has said repeatedly that he wants the kids who watch this show to feel like it’s THEIR Doctor Who. He’s not big on nostalgia either. I’m a little more upset about that because the character exploration and nostalgic bits are part of why I loved Davies so much, but I’m enjoying this new interpretation for what it is.
Steven Moffat Roundtable: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnR1CZbvhEM
Russel T. Davies, David Tennant, and other peoples at comic con: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0nQmwwKmLE
@Ash
I figured as much, but I don’t agree about all the attention being a good thing. Those first few episodes I was annoyed as hell at the the zoom ins and the eerie music. Thought RTD’s little mysteries were more tastefully peppered in and not so much in your face. Even if the explanation for bad wolf was lame, the fact that we didn’t see it coming was fantastic.
@ Danny
Most of what made David distinctive was on his part, not the way the character was written. And I didn’t mean for it to sound like I was comparing Smith’s Doctor to just 10 and 9, I meant the whole run of Doctors. I really don’t get a feeling of “Okay, this is so Eleven, this one aspect is unique to him and him alone” from Smith. I dunno, maybe it’s what Anthony suggested, that Amy’s blandness is in turn making the Doctor seem bland, but I really find them both pretty flat characters, and some how the 3rd companion always seems more developed and believable compared to the two (River, Rory, and most recently, Vincent).
Can’t say that I’m happy about Moffat’s focus on the “adventure” rather than characters. I guess I don’t have to worry about the Doctor becoming a magical Tinkerbell Jesus because of all the kiddies at home thinking happy thoughts again, but still I think the stories have always been second string to the characters. But whatever, at the end of the day it’s just a tv show, and there are hundreds of episodes I can still enjoy.
Honestly I’m disappointed too about the things Moffat chose to prioritize, but I’m still enjoying Matt Smith’s interpretation. I’m sure I’ll get shot for saying this, but I don’t think the difference between Smith and Tennant is any less than the difference between Tennant and Eccleston.
I just started listening to the podcast, but I just wanted to let you know that I played a male in Fable 2 and I had everyone in love with me like Ash did. It’s very easy to do, just work on having a very high Charisma rating through your different clothes and hairstyles.
You may have enjoyed Ico more if you were playing the new game+ on the PAL version with someone else. Yorda can be controlled by a second player and her cut-scene dialogue gets translated. Could have reduced that feeling that you’re just dragging around a key instead of a person you should be caring about.
As for a Half-Life episode, I feel compelled to write a script.
Except that that would be borderline fan fiction and it would be ye olde super-awkward tymes.
(I’m still probably going to do it at some point. :I)
I tried to make my Fable 2 character look like Snake, as soon as I did the mission where you get forcibly aged (Or age the poor young girl), I chose the good option, and my character looked like Old Snake. I just thought to myself “Finally… The circle is complete…”