“I Am the Doorway” Write Up by Mouse (Mylah) Gonzalez

Summary:

In Stephen King’s short piece of Fiction, I Am the Doorway, the story is told in our main character’s point of view, Arthur, a crippled ex-astronaut. We start Arthur’s friend, Richard, asking if Richard truly killed a young boy. Arthur claims that he was being used by these aliens that could see through his hand, hence the bandages surrounding it. He would have continuous flashbacks about how it had started with his partner, Corey on a mission to Venus to find anything interesting to bring back since a lot of past missions were either unsuccessful or had casualties. One of those days, Corey had to fix DESA, and it’s suspected that he might’ve bring in a mutant monster that took control over Arthur. Arthur talks about how there’s really nothing out in space, and how Corey came out dead and Arthur became a cripple. Richard asked to see Arthur’s hand and he shuns himself away. They set out to find the buried boy on Richard’s dune buggy. Since his hand was so itchy, he wanted to see a doctor as soon as possible and did so. Then realized that he felt there were eyes staring and he screamed. Arthur claimed the boy to be by the ocean, but Richard found nothing. Arthur said they had controlled him to move him somewhere else. Arthur then shows Richard his hand, leading him to run away. Somehow, Arthur lived in peace with the eyes on him for seven years, and 12 in the middle of his chest.

Acute and Chronic Tension:

The Chronic tension is Arthur having the eyes on his body, or being the doorway between the aliens/mutants, and having them can control his movement. It plays throughout the story from the constant itching in his hand that he soon identifies as it being an eye of the mutant within him. The Acute tension is his friend, Richard, running away and never coming back, or the having not found the dead body of the boy. At the very end, Richard ran away after seeing Arthur’s hand and being told to run. Arthur also found out the name of the boy and found out he was indeed from the village.

Craft Element:

The use of structure in this story was very alluring. It flipped from the past moments to the present one with Richard and somehow, it fast forwarded all the way to seven years later. This also can relate to the novel, Slaughterhouse Five, by Kurt Vonnegut. In the said to be “Ant-war” book, the narrator has these strange memories of being with aliens and being a sort of attraction for them to see. That correlates to this book from the constant changing of events in the story. For example, when Arthur is thinking about where he buried the boy and it suddenly transitions to a memory with Corey,

“The grave,” I said. It had a hollow, horrible ring, darker than anything, darker even than all that terrible ocean Cory and I had sailed through five years ago. Dark, dark, dark. Beneath the bandages, my new eyes stared blindly into the darkness the bandages forced on them. They itched.

The itching had correlated with what had happened with Corey and him in space. Which is why it switches the events from him talking to Richard about the boy he was said to have killed to the remembrance of the Venus mission.

At the very end, another transition happens as well with Arthur. He was trying to burn his hands and the eyes that cover it, but he survived. The transition suddenly goes,

That was all seven years ago. I’m still here, still watching the rockets take off. There have been more of them lately. This is a space-minded administration. There has even been talk of another series of manned Venus probes.

Signifying he’s somehow lived with the mutant within him, and it has evolved inside of him. The whole story with Richard and the boy is completely tossed aside, focusing on Arthur having eyes on his chest, as a new mutant living a somehow normal life.

Elements in my Own Writing:

The way the author was able to convey a metaphor in an alien is something I’d like to do in my own personal writing. In the story, the mutant has supposedly taken over Author, but it’s never seen by anyone else. Yes, at the end Richard is shown the unbandaged hand, but it only tells what Arthur thinks he saw, instead of what Richard really saw. I’d like to believe that Arthur was never really controlled by anything, he was just traumatized with what happened Corey or something that had happened in space as an astronaut. It was all Arthur, and the alien was an excuse for his murderous crimes against Richard, the boy, and even Corey.

Writing Exercise:

Write a story where nothing is really in chronological order but has a fictional metaphor that appeals to the audience. Try and make it as sci-fi as possible or create a metaphor that applies to people everyday but only you would know the definition of.

Discussion Questions:

1. What is the story’s metaphor?
2. Did Richard run away in the end because there was actually an alien on Arthur’s hand or because he was afraid of Arthur?
3. Did Corey bring a mutant or something back with him while fixing the DESA?

History of Mickey Mouse by Mylah (Mouse) Gonzalez

As a child, I believed in magic, dreams, wishing upon a star, and imagination because of my childhood involving so much Disney. I could go on about the different parks around the world, the interesting characters evolving around each place, or even the not very much mentioned co-founder, and brother of Walt himself, Roy Disney.

Now when you think of Disney’s mascot, I would assume you think of everyone’s beloved mouse, Mickey. But do many people know of his history, the two characters that came before him, or his evolution throughout the years?

Two characters came before Mickey himself, Julius the Cat, and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Julius the Cat was created by Walt for the sole purpose of filling a said “void” of the distributor of Felix the Cat. Being the distributor and creator of Felix had their fair share of arguments. Julius the Cat was put into a show called Alice Comedies before money and tech became expensive so most of it was shut down. Oswald was the next character Walt had created, but the character was again, created because of other people. In this case, Universal wanted to pursue the cartooning business and made a deal with Disney causing the creation of Oswald the Rabbit. And instead of the large numbers of popular cats in that era of black and white cartoon features, they made Oswald a rabbit (they gained rights to him back in 2006 because of the trade of a sportscaster).

Now the story of how Mickey came to life isn’t truly well known, but the story, as Walt describes it himself, is on a train from Manhattan to Hollywood (after the disadvantage of Oswald being gone) Walt decided a new character should come to the light. He pulled out a sketch book and went to work. His little creation, at first, was named Mortimer Mouse, but after a few minor changes, our Mickey Mouse was fully created.

The first cartoon featuring the mouse was the short film, Plane Crazy, but it was unsuccessful as the second cartoon was Gallopin Gaucho. Neither of the two were publicly produced until the third short cartoon came to view. As the saying goes, “Third times a charm” that’s what happened with the black and white film Steamboat Willie. The film, creators, and characters gained huge recognition.

Throughout the years, Mickey’s animated character changed appearance too. His gloves did not become a permanent part of him until the cartoon When the Cat’s Away (1929). His eyes also changed, his “Pie-eyed” eyes also appearing during the early 1930s. Another thing was Mickey’s Body which was referred to as “Rubber Hosed” flowy and stretched like rubber, but ended in 1939. The first standard colored animated cartoon featuring Mickey was The Band Concert (1935). This short film also allowed Mickey’s signature color to be red. In the cartoon On Ice (1935), Mickey was pushed into the characteristics of the romantic and humble side of being a character. Brave Little Tailor (1938) was said to have sparked the major career of Mickey from his softer features and much more mature persona. In (1940) The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, he’s much more curious and wholesome. Now, in much more modern times, Mickey is seen as a charming, loveable, and optimistic character. With the yellow shoes, red with white button shorts, and white gloves.

Discussion Questions:

1. Since Oswald is now back with Disney, and Mickey has stuff happening with his feature film Steamboat Willie, will Oswald or maybe Julius become the new logo for Disney?
2. What was your favorite era of Mickey Mouse and why?
3. With Mickey Mouse having multiple friends of his (Goofy, Donald, Minnie, etc.) could any of them replace Mickey in terms of popularity? (Kind of like the first discussion question.

“The Alpine Slide” Write Up by Emery Goldstein

Summary:

Released as part of Rebecca Curtis’s 2007 collection Twenty Grand, “The Alpine Slide” tells the story of an unnamed fifteen-year-old girl and her summer spent working at an alpine slide. The area has led an unremarkable existence being reimagined by various prospectors in the form of a ski area, the present alpine slide, and a theme park, although none to very notable success. Thus enters Jacques Michaud, an ambitious Canadian man who is renting the park. Jacques repairs parts of the park and, after a disturbingly nonchalant interview, hires the protagonist as the youngest of his teenage employees. Otherwise very sheltered, she views her coworkers, romance, and Jacques with a sort of disconnected, wondrous rapture. As the summer progresses the park continues to perform at a sub-par level, with little visible distress from Jacques. The protagonist is enthralled by her coworker, Amy Goldman, who presents a startling contrast with her glamorous, popular, and uninhibited nature. Shortly after the protagonist denies needing a raise, a woman suffers a disfiguring injury after her sled catches on a rock on the alpine slide. Although initially appearing as a fairly benign incident, the threat of a lawsuit becomes imminent, and the protagonist sneaks out at night to try and warn Jacque. She catches Jacque and Amy Goldman having sex. Jacque seemingly skips town, his identity revealed to be that of a wanted Mike Vaust, and the protagonist mopes around aimlessly for a couple days until returning to the alpine slide. It is there she has a final encounter with Jacque, where he admits to have ruined his own marriage, and leaves the protagonist with the message to go out and find the world for herself before it’s too late.

Acute and Chronic Tension:

The chronic tension is the possibility of whether Jacque will fail in cultivating the park like everyone else before him, and the acute tension is when the woman suffers a horrific injury on the slide.

Craft Element:

Vivid imagery is present throughout the entirety of Curtis’s collection, but perhaps most prominently in ‘The Alpine Slide’. Although not outright appealing like the language of more traditional literature, there is something about the vaguely unnerving way Curtis describes each circumstance that catches the attention. Take, for instance, the way beautiful and glamorous Amy Goldman.

It seemed fitting and tragic that Amy Goldman should be his. She was a blond goddess—five feet eight with strong legs, a waist like a man’s neck, and breasts as big as they could possibly be without being too big. Her posture was as straight as if she were walking at sea. Her skin was bruised apricot, her nose hooked, and her eyes green. Her smile could make any of us agree to perform the dingiest tasks—spraying down the concrete floors of the bathrooms, for example, or cleaning up a shit someone had taken on the men’s-room floor.

The words contradict and compliment themselves all in the same sentence. Although referring to an objectively attractive woman, Amy’s features are described in a way far from the typical flowery affair. She doesn’t have a small waist; she has a waist like a man’s neck. Her nose is not gently sloped, it is hooked. The eyes are not compared to any rare gemstone or flower. They are strict and certainly green. It is this style of description that adds inadvertent depth to Curtis’s characters. We know Amy is beautiful, because it is told to us. But she is beautiful in a way that feels all the more human.

Another instance, the alpine slide injury. Upon an initial read, the scene feels just as inconsequential as the protagonist describes it.

She had short curly brown hair thinning at the crown, and was stout. She was maybe thirty-five or forty. I asked her what had happened. She said that halfway down the mountain she’d been thrown from her sled. She thought she’d hit something. I nodded, though I couldn’t think what she might have hit. Her face was oozing the tiniest pricks of blood, as if from a cheese grater, and it made me nervous, so I took her hand. “Don’t worry,” I said. “It usually disappears.” But when we reached the E.M.T. shack the E.M.T. took one look and called an ambulance.

The victim is perhaps the most normal character presented in the story thus far, and yet her primary description is one gruesomely marred. The character’s reaction is so dramatically understated that it gives the reader whiplash. A woman has her face dotted in blood from countless little wounds, and yet the protagonist is simply ‘nervous’. Again, this contradiction works as emphasis more than if there had been in-depth detail about both the woman’s injury and the character’s response. Everything feels intentional, even in its peculiarity.

Elements To Use In My Own Writing:

I am incredibly jealous of this author’s ability to manipulate language. Not only is her way of twisting phrases unique, but it also services her characters in a way I’d love to mimic. Everyone in this story is eccentric. The park owner walks a fine line between creepy and endearing, the popular teenager suffered previously from some obscure disease, the employees are sometimes referred to by the protagonist as a sort of hive-mind with her use of ‘we’. It is hard to tell who, exactly, is the main character here. I tend to struggle in my own stories with a protagonist who serves only to experience the events going on around them, rather than act as a catalyst or develop in any way. One could argue the same phenomenon occurs here, yet with intentionality. The main character is never even named. Her personality is fairly bland and twinged with unsettling sexual desire. Yet the author knows what she’s doing. Upon my first read of this story I approached the end with a growing sense of disappointment as I figured it would conclude with some generally ambiguous ending, regardless of the protagonist’s lack of character growth. But Jacque directly calls the main character out on this, stating that she can’t wait for the world to come to her. Although not entirely defined, it is a satisfying conclusion for a generally unsatisfying character.

Writing Exercise:

Write a short story in which everything happens to the protagonist, without them acting as their own catalyst. Make a list of words and try to combine them to form the most unconventional descriptions. For an extra challenge, end the story with another character directly calling the protagonist out for their flaw.

Discussion Questions:

1. Out of the narrator, Amy Goldman, and Jacques Michaud, who do you think is the ‘true’ main character?
2. Do you think the victim of the alpine slide incident was suffering from as bad an injury as she implied on television. If so, why do you think all the characters in the story sided with Jacques regardless?
3. The protagonist appears to have formed a very strong attachment with Jacques by the end of the story. Why do you think this is, and does it feel justified?
4. Is there any point in the story where you feel as though the protagonist has done anything other than ‘wait for the world to come to her’?

Disneyworld’s Shift in Focus to Media by Christopher Gee

Disney theme parks’ selling point has always been escapism, creating a safe space for kids to experience their imaginations and for adults to leave their stressful jobs and lives to relax and enjoy themselves in a magical place. But over time, the way Disneyworld has created this world of escapism has changed.

Disneyworld was opened in 1971, and partially designed by Walt Disney, although he passed before its opening. Originally, Disneyworld’s main focus was emulating the success of Disneyland, just on a greater scale, and in a more accessible place to America’s populace, Florida. Disneyland’s objective was to sell tickets, and to do this, Disneyland created a world of adventure and excitement through different themes. Disneyworld followed Disneyland, with its main park, Magic Kingdom, being separated into multiple different sections, Adventureland, Frontierland, Tomorrowland, and Main Street. All of these sections served to create different worlds for park goers to immerse themselves in, ranging from a bustling Victorian town (Main Street) to a futuristic land to come (Tomorrowland). 

Over time, though, as Disneyworld continued to expand and gained more and more yearly visits, Disney as a company was growing as well. Around the late 80s, Disney entered into what is widely known as the “Disney Renaissance Era”, an era in which Disney produced numerous hit films and animated classics that proved to be widely popular with American audiences. This, in turn, boosted visits to Disney parks, and in order to capitalize on the success of these films, Disney created rides themed around Disney movies. Initially, on Disneyworld’s opening day, only six out of their nineteen attractions were related to Disney cartoons or films. By the 2000s, however, any new Disneyworld attraction had to almost always be related to a Disney film or Disney owned media franchise.

This change in Disneyworld’s parks and theming can be most easily exemplified by the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. The Pirates ride, initially, was themed around the historical concept of pirates and glorified their lifestyle in order to excite families and let them experience the supposed “adventure” pirates had. Later on, Disney would create movies stemming from the ride, the Pirates of the Caribbean movie series. The movies were an immediate hit, and as a consequence, became as widely known, if not more widely known, than the actual rides themselves. In 2006, Disney changed the ride to fit the theming of the movies, and added animatronics modeled after characters from the movies and their actors. Jack Sparrow, played by Johnny Depp, now littered multiple scenes on the ride, hiding, and Barbossa, played by Geoffrey Rush, replaced an animatronic on an opening part of the ride. Disney, wanting to capitalize on the success of their media, decided to trade the originality of the ride for an easily recognizable and popular movie series they had created.

I have gone to Disneyworld several times over the years, and have never known a Disney that was not about escaping into various different media franchises, but it’s very interesting to look on the past and see what Disney once was, and to analyze its older themes.

Discussion Questions:

1. Do you enjoy that Disney theme parks are focusing on Disney owned movies and media franchises, or do you wish they’d be more detached from media?
2. What do you think will be the long term impact of Disney refocusing the company around their media franchises on the theme parks and attendance rates?

Project idea:

Design and plan a Disney attraction about one of your favorite movies or shows, whether or not it’s a Disney movie. Think about what might go into this attraction to help it succeed and emulate the film.

Disney Princess Protagonists: An Evolution by Emery Goldstein

Almost every little girl can point to one point or another where she has wished to be a princess. Disney founded, cultivated, and has since dominated the princess category in terms of all forms of media, most notably with its movies. Snow White made history in 1937 as the first Disney feature length film ever released, and at one point held the title as the highest-grossing film with sound. The film, though, was clearly a sign of the times. Although fundamentally charming, the character of Snow White herself leaves a lot to be desired in terms of personality. Namely, her lack thereof. The Grimm source material can hardly be called a beacon for feminist literature, but the succeeding movie certainly does little to expand upon it. One can excuse the film as being the product of more vividly sexist circumstances, but like any other growing corporation Disney has had to mold rapidly with the times, especially as its reputation has grown. 

On a surface level view, they’ve managed to do just that. The most recent of Disney princesses, Raya, is a shining example of this. Fiercely independent, her character arc stems from her journey towards learning how to trust and befriend again. This directly contracts Snow White herself, who’s naivety is both her downfall, salvation, and selling point. 

From a more objective standpoint, though, Disney’s protagonists are startlingly stagnant. Take for instance, the variety of Myers-Briggs personality types. Of the thirteen princesses most fall into the category of either INFP (Mediator), ENFP (Campaigner), ESFJ (Consul), or ISTP (Virtuoso). The personality types INTJ (Architect), INTP (Logician), ENTJ (Commander), ENTP (Debater), INFJ (Advocate), ISTJ (Logistician), ESTP (Entrepreneur) aren’t used at all. Although Disney has included more passionate princesses who, as prominently plastered on the official website, lack nothing in terms of ‘courage’, these character traits appear to be their main selling points, rather than one of many attributes. In short, if a princess is strong, her entire personality must be the fact that she’s strong.

Another unnerving note, the age of the princesses compared to their suitors. Of the thirteen princesses, the three most recent don’t include a love interest at all, but excluding those seven of the remaining ten are underage compared to their princes. Even though some of these numbers could be considered simply speculation, the last princess before Disney’s streak of loveless protagonists, Rapunzel, has her and Flynn’s ages directly confirmed by the director. Rapunzel is seventeen when the two meet, while Flynn is twenty-six. Keep in mind that this is one of Disney’s most recent films, released in 2010.

Although Disney has become more upfront in their female empowerment, an actual digestion of their characters shows that they still tend to hover towards the same character traits with various coats of varnish. For a while new princesses were being produced, but since Raya and the Last Dragon, which many consider a flop due to its overambitious nature, Disney has fallen into a comfortable rut of rehashing old protagonists into newer, live-action models. Ironically, the sudden push of chronically independent, don’t-need-no-man characters has almost rebutted Disney’s fervently feminist attempts. After all, feminism serves to secure the future a woman chooses, whether it be marrying a prince or renouncing them altogether. One is no better than the other.

Project Idea:

Create a Disney princess using one of the unused personality types and of either an older or younger age range, perhaps under the age of ten or elderly.

Discussion Questions:

1. Has anyone heard of the new Snow White movie coming out, and the backlash surrounding a particular clip from an interview? How do you think that feeds into the data shown here?
2. The Barbie franchise has also undergone significant feminist remarketing in the last decade or so. Do you feel Disney or Barbie has done a better job of this?
3. What patterns do you notice in Disney’s princess protagonists?
4. Many female characters are excluded from Disney’s official lineup of princesses, including Anna, Elsa, Jane, Megera, etc. Why do you think this is, and do you feel some of these characters would better represent Disney’s brand?

“Haircut” Write Up by Sharan Thind

Summary of the Story

“Haircut” is a short story written by Ring Lardner, an American short story writer and sports columnist. The story takes the form of a monologue from a barber as he cuts the hair of a newcomer to town.

The story is all about the town and its most interesting residents – Jim Kendall (recently deceased) and Hod Meyers, the town’s oft-cruel pranksters; Doc Stair, a young doctor who’s also comparatively new to the town; Paul Dickson, who fell on his head at ten years old and was never the same; and Julie Gregg, a young woman in town who instantly fell in love with Doc Stair upon meeting him.

The piece details the exploits of Jim (and sometimes Hod as well), weaving together stories of Jim’s pranks leading up to his death while also giving backstory to the town. It barely focuses on the speaker at all; we learn his name in one inconsequential paragraph near the beginning.

It starts by describing Jim and Hod’s banter when they would come in for haircuts on Sunday. They’d banter back and forth with the barber and each other, and often include Milt Sheppard by making fun of his large Adam’s apple. It goes on to describe the game Jim used to play when travelling, where he would mail anonymous cards to people whose businesses he saw with false “tips” about their wives or girlfriends. Then, the tension between Jim Kendall and his wife is revealed. Doc Stair is quickly introduced, along with the rumors that he came here because he’d been screwed over by his girlfriend – what other reason would a young, handsome doctor have for going to such a small town? (According to Doc Stair, it was because there were no good general practitioners there.) The piece transitions to talking about Paul and the pranks Jim would play on him – and from there, transitions into talking about Julie Gregg, a pretty young lady who fell in love with Doc Stair immediately upon meeting him. It is revealed that Jim was interested in Julie, but Julie was not interested in Jim – which lead to animosity between the two, as Julie continually rejected Jim’s advantages. Jim played a prank on Julie, calling her when Doc Stair was out and pretending to be him, saying he “couldn’t wait no longer” to talk to her. When Julie reached the house, the men started making fun of her for going to see the Doc at night and waiting for him. Paul, who felt indebted to Julie and the Doc, was upset when he heard about the whole ordeal (as was Doc, but there was nothing he could do without revealing to Julie that he knew, which would only make things worse), and offered to take Jim duck shooting. Doc comes to the barbershop asking after Paul, and the barber explains where Paul is. Doc admits he’d said that Jim “ought not to be let live.” At noon, a call comes in saying that Paul accidentally fumbled with his gun due to his inexperience with duck shooting and had shot Jim. The piece ends with a description of Jim being declared accidentally shot and the barber asking whether he should comb the newcomer’s hair wet or dry.

Acute & Chronic Tension

The chronic tension is based in Jim Kendall’s relationships with the other townsfolk – the animosity he held towards Doc Stair and Julie Gregg, and the cruelty he was capable of towards people such as Paul Dickson. The acute tension is significantly harder to identify, since the story is based entirely on the stories the barber tells.

What Makes This Story Compelling

The voice of the barber, Whitey (a nickname – his real name is Dick), is very distinct – he uses certain words, phrases, and colloquialisms that make the monologue feel significantly realer. It really does feel like you have a small-town barber talking you through your haircut, telling you all kinds of stories of the town and people around you. The way the barber speaks characterizes not only him as a narrator, but the town around him as well.

One of the first things the barber says is “You can see for yourself that this ain’t no New York: City and besides that, the most of the boys works all day and don’t have no leisure to drop in here and get themselves prettied up.” The language is casual and not the most grammatically correct, but it immediately sets the mood for the piece.

I think the most surprising thing about this piece is the lack of focus on the narrator; instead all the focus is put on background characters of the town who the character being spoken to has never met. Despite the piece being in first person, it is not about the narrator – nor is there any description of the present action. The entire story is based on anecdotes that the barber mentions.

What I Can Use

I definitely think I could work on making my character’s voices more compelling – adding colloquialisms and language habits in the way that Ring Lardner has done in “Haircut” immediately helps to characterize the speaker and setting, and often adds a certain level of charm and realism – most of my characters speak exactly the way I do.

I also think there is something to be said for the approach Lardner took to writing “Haircut”, in which the entire piece is essentially a monologue focusing attention off the speaker and onto background characters. It’s interesting how little we learn about the speaker throughout the short story – his name is Dick but everyone calls him Whitey, he’s a barber with a helper who comes on Saturdays, and everything else we learn about him is just his opinions on the people around him.

Writing Exercise

Create a character with a very distinctive voice but a very mild personality. How do you create interest around this character without having a strong personality or backstory for them? What makes their voice so distinctive?

Discussion Questions

1. Why does Whitey the barber have such a positive impression of Jim Kendall, despite many of his actions being very cruel? What does this tell you about the environment of the town they live in?
2. Why does Ring Lardner introduce the idea that Jim’s death was intentional so late in the story? How does this serve as a conclusion, rather than the point of most intrigue?
3. How does the story change, being told by a barber during a haircut? What makes the mood of the piece different from if it was just told as a collection of third person stories about a small town?

Kingdom Hearts vs. Final Fantasy 7 – How did Disney Affect the Story of Kingdom Hearts? by Lucas Tirado

Kingdom Hearts is a video game franchise produced by Square Enix in collaboration with Disney. It’s an action RPG, where you play through storylines which are interspersed with Disney characters and must help them to fully progress the story. Directed by Tetsuya Nomura, Kingdom Hearts is a mainstay franchise of Square Enix, containing around 13 games. But more interesting for now, is how infamous its confusing storyline is.

Firstly, before comparisons can be made, I must be clear on why I chose to compare Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts (FF and KH). Final Fantasy is also a game series made by Square Enix, and on surface level don’t share many similarities, but digging a little deeper, it becomes apparent as to why I chose to compare them. Firstly, this is Square Enix’s main RPG series that they release. Secondly, and arguable more importantly, the director of KH, Tetsuya Nomura, was also a major player in the development of the characters and story of FF, FFVII specifically, though he got his first role as character designer in FFV. Additionally, FFVII is also the most popular and well known of all the FF games, and thus it makes a perfect comparison point, as it more popular than any other FF game and was also heavily influenced by Tetsuya Nomura.

Before story comparisons can begin, it must be known what the story of both games are. Starting with our baseline, FFVII, there are a few things about the world that simply must be accepted before moving on. Firstly, the world has a lifeforce in it called the Lifestream, and it is an actual tangible object. Secondly, another major energy source is called Mako, which is just another form of the Lifestream, that is “opposing” the lifestream (sidenote: mako doesn’t naturally exist). Lastly, Mako can be materially condensed into solid objects called Materia, which just give the user some sort of power that can also be called upon by the lifestream. Again, the lifestream and mako are essentially different forms of the same thing.

If you really care about all the heavy details on the story, a great video can be found here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D36jDxsEcKQ), however for a quick and dirty explanation. 

• A previous civ called the ancients which used the lifestream for magic
• A meteor crashes onto the planet with a “being” inside, Jenova, who is sealed away by the ancients.
• Humans, descendants of the ancients, convert lifestream, Shinra, into mako and eventually find Jenova, thinking they were an ancient (who Shinra is looking for), they steal them and conduct experiments.
• They use the cells from Jenova and a lot of mako to turn some people (some) into super soldiers called SOLDIER, which was like the top military (and the second were called the Turks, but they were more bodyguards)
• Two scientists have a child and the father injects the baby with Jenova’s cells and turns him into the most powerful SOLDIER (father of the year), his name is Sephiroth
• One scientist objects, leaves, finds the actual direct descended of the ancients has a child called Aerith and dies. Aerith is given the strongest Materia, but is a child and doesn’t know what it is or what it does.
• Cloud wants to be a SOLDIER fails, and is just made a normal military man, who goes on a journey with Sephiroth and Zack to a place where they find Jenova, sephiroth realizes that Jenova is just some alien who wants to destroy the planet freaks out and tries to kill zack and cloud, ultimately getting thrown into the lifestream where he starts to build power

• Cloud and Zack are abducted and turned into SOLDIERS via Jenova’s cells
• Cloud joins the rebel group AVALANCHE
• Sephiroth is so powerful and can control everyone who has Jenova’s cells, and is looking for the Meteor Materia in an attempt to finish what Jenova started and kill the solar system
• They search for the Meteor first with Shinra and Sephiroth getting in their way
• They find it, get it, and sephiroth controls cloud to give it to him
• Sephiroth kills Aerith and they find the holy materia
• Kill Sephiroth twice and save the world

Kingdom Hearts

The basics of the world, a heart is more like a soul. Light and dark are tangible forces in the world, and light is good, and dark is bad. If you lose your heart it turns into a heartless, and the body becomes a nobody. If both are killed by a key blade, the person will be restored, and these are called somebodies. However, due to the sheer complexity of the stories, I will not write them down. However there are a number of amazing resources on the story of Kingdom Hearts, most popular is “A Good Enough Summary of Kingdom Hearts” by Barry Kramer, and my personal favorite “Understanding Kingdom Hearts (and every other story)” by Brian David Gilbert as apart of his Unraveled series by Polygon (both are found on YouTube)

Now that you understand the story of Kingdom Hearts, did it make sense? Probably not. Why is that? I believe it is a result of a deadly combination of Disneyfication and Disneyization, mainly the latter. The stories told, except for KH1, don’t make a whole lot of sense, viewed independently, and only make sense if you look at the whole picture. This is compounded when you factor that the games didn’t come out in timeline order, with critical information that makes one game make sense, coming out years after. I believe this is a result of Disneyization, for a commercial product, the games started out making sense, but after a while, I believe the games were created solely to make some money, and that is made clear with all the retcons and weird story details/multiple games for a single story. Combine this, with trying to have a Disney like story and characters (heartless, Kairi, sora) and you get a very confusing story, comparatively to any of the FF games.

Similarities b/w Kingdom Hearts and FFVII

Firstly, complicated backstories. Many of the characters in both FF (sephiroth & cloud) and KH (sora Xehanort) all have extremely confusing backstories and are revealed slowly throughout the entire game/series. Secondly, super high stakes. If Sephiroth wins, he destroys the entire solar system, if Xehanort wins, he controls the universe. All have these larger-than-life plots and higher stakes than normal video games or other media, especially Disney media.

Final Project?

Seeing how Disney Disneyfied and Disneyized Final Fantasy, I might try and Disneyfy another popular game and see how it would go.

Discussion questions

Do you think there is a better comparison instead of Final Fantasy?

Why do you think Kingdom Hearts has such a confusing story?

“The Case of the Four and Twenty Blackbirds” Write Up by Chase Johnson

Summary

“The Case of the Four and Twenty Blackbirds” is a fiction story written by English author Neil Gaiman, about the mysterious murder of Humpty Dumpty, and the private detective Jack Horner who is determined to crack the case.

The story starts off with Jack Horner sitting in his office on a dark and gloomy night. He is annoyed at the fact that it’s raining outside, and more importantly he was scheduled to me with the only client he’s had all week and they didn’t show up. Then he gets a knock at the door, and in walks a very attractive women blonde hair and a curvaceous body that he immediately takes notice to. She asks him to do a job for her: to find out who killed Humpty Dumpty. When he says that his death was classified as accidental by the King’s Men, and that they deduced that he slipped and fell off the wall when they arrived at the crime scene where they tried to put him back together again, she fiercely snapped back and said she knew he was killed. Jack asks who she is and she says she is “Jill Dumpty”, Humpty’s sister. She says not only does she want the killer to be brought to justice, but she needs Jack to retrieve some medical pictures that Humpty kept for her, since she was training to be a nurse and needed the photos for her final exams. He pauses to think about and while doing so he notices how oddly shiny the sides of her nose are. But he ultimately accepts the job, on the condition that he gets paid $75 a day, as well as an additional $200 dollars when the killer gets turned in. Jill agrees and says she’ll even pay him an extra $200 dollars on top of the other $200 if he is able to get the pictures for her, because she “wants to be a nurse real bad”. As she goes to leave his office, he tries to flirt with her, and she says they can “have fun” one he’s finished the job, closing the door behind her.

The next day, he meets a police officer he calls “Cock Robin” at Luigi’s. Jack asks him if he knew anything about the Humpty Dumpty case, and if he thought it was a murder. Cock asks for some money in exchange for his information, and when Jack gives it to him Cock says the theory of Humpty being killed made sense to him. When Jack questions further, Cocks explains by saying that Humpty, referring to him as “The Fat Man”, “had in fingers in a lot of pies”, and that one of the pies had “four and twenty blackbirds in it”. Jack asks him to clarify what he means by that, but before he can, he suddenly shot in the back by an arrow from a long distance away and killed instantly.

After he was arrested at the scene, he is questioned by Sargent O’Grady, the police chief. He thinks Jack did it, but lets him go due to lack of evidence.

 was murdered just like Humpty and Cock Robin. Then he gets a call from the Sargent which ended in O’Grady saying he knows he killed Cock Robin.

He goes to a bar and is told that Humpty doesn’t have a sister, and Jill Dumpty is a fake identity.

He goes to royal castle and caught The Queen who was Jill when he goes to arrest her, and he pulls out a gun on him. But the Sargent shows up saying he was tailing Jack. But Jack reveals the Sargent stole the medical photos that he was going blackmail the Queen. O’Grady pulls out a gun and Jack tricks the Sargent and the Queen into killing each other,

What is compelling about the story?

The voice of the piece is so strong, Jack really seems like an old timey detective and they really nailed the film noir tone, I genuinely didn’t where the story was going and who did it, and the twist was goofy in the best way possible.

What can you imitate? Using diction can really express personality through the speaker and can also be a marker of time.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

“Dr. H. A. Moynihan” Write Up by Daphne Parkey

Summary

“Dr. H. A. Moynihan” is an autobiographical fiction piece by Lucia Berlin detailing a summer spent by a child living with her mother and grandparents in El Paso, TX. The short story’s narrator is the child grown up, and begins with explaining that during one summer as a young girl, she was forced to work with her grandfather, Dr. H. A. Moynihan, in his dentist’s office as punishment for being expelled from Catholic School.  However, the narrator theorizes that this punishment was also put in place to distract the young narrator from her grandmother’s dying, and to keep her from playing with the neighborhood children, who her mother disapproved of because they were Mexican or Syrian.

At her grandfather’s office, the girl performs duties such as sterilizing equipment and preparing patients to be examined. Her grandfather does not talk to her much as they work together, and disappears to either his workshop where he makes false teeth for dentures or to his office to scrapbook. The girl and her grandmother are the only family members that will tolerate the grandfather, as the rest of the family dislikes his cruel demeanor. Despite this, the girl’s grandfather is one of the best dentists in Texas, mostly because of the high quality of his hand-made false teeth. He does not allow people into his workshop where he makes the teeth, but the girl sneaks in and notices how dirty it is.

The waiting room at the dentist’s office is odd because it is not separated from where the girl’s grandfather sees his patients. It is also cluttered with strange knick-knacks and lacks magazines because they irritate her grandfather. On the door there is a sign that says that the grandfather will not treat Black people, which the girl is embarrassed of.

As the summer goes on, the girl has less to do because her grandfather has stopped seeing patients. To combat her boredom, she goes onto the roof of the office and looks out into the city of El Paso to people-watch.

At night, the girl is kept up by her grandmother’s friends and her grandfather coming home drunk. To entertain herself, she watches the neighborhood children play jacks, and wishes she could play too.

Early one Sunday morning, the girl is woken up by her grandfather who takes her in a cab to his office. He shows her to his workshop, where he takes out a set of teeth, expecting her to notice something about them. The girl realizes that the dentures are an exact replica of her grandfather’s teeth, and he explains that he made them using a new technique. The grandfather then tells the girl that they will pull out his teeth right then and there, so the girl plugs in the sterilizer, despite her grandfather saying they don’t need it. She then prepares her grandfather for the extraction, and when all the equipment is ready, she holds up a mirror so her grandfather can see what he’s doing as he pulls his teeth. One of the roots in a tooth does not come out when pulled, so the grandfather frantically demands a different tool. While the girl searches for it, he pulls out the rest of his bottom teeth. Then the grandfather starts laughing hysterically and falls over, so the girl has to sit him up in his chair and pull her grandfather’s teeth for him. When her grandfather faints, the girl has to prop open his mouth with a paper towel to get to all his teeth.

Now finished, the girl accidentally spins her grandfather around in his chair, and goes to find some tea bags for her grandfather to bite on in order to stop his bleeding. After she finds them, the girl returns to her grandfather to put the tea bags in his mouth and is frightened by her grandfather’s toothless face. The girl’s mother calls and the girl asks for help with her grandfather. After the girl’s grandfather vomits, the girl uses smelling salts to wake him up. He yells at the girl to bring him his new teeth, but the girl has to put them in for him because he is too weak to do so.

The girl and her grandfather are very proud of their work, but when the girl’s mother comes she doesn’t even notice the grandfather’s dentures. The girl helps her grandfather wash up, and then washes up as well. They take a cab home, and the grandfather is put to bed. When her mother says that her father did a good job with his teeth, the girl asks her if she still hates him, to which she responds “Oh, yes”

Tension

I would say that the chronic tension in this piece is the girl’s home life, considering her grandfather’s character, he and the girl’s mother’s respective drinking problems, and her grandmother’s failing health. I would label the acute tension in this story as the moment when the girl’s grandfather demands she finish pulling his teeth for him.

Analysis of a Craft Element

Dr. H. A. Moynihan showcases Berlin’s skill in characterization, especially through the subtle. While there are some moments in the story where Berlin will bluntly state a character’s demeanor and establish them in that way, the bulk of the characterization in this piece is done through Berlin’s dialogue, which is written in a way that is simultaneously entertaining and realistic. An example of how Berlin uses dialogue as a means for characterization can be found in the excerpt:

“Boy, I’ll bet a lot of your patients would like to be in my shoes.”

“That thing boiling yet?”

“No.” I filled some paper cups with Stom Aseptine and got out a jar of smelling salts.

“What if you pass out?” I asked.

“Good. Then you can pull them. Grab them as close as you can, twist and pull at the same time. Gimme a drink.” I handed him a cup of Stom Aseptine. “Wise guy.” I poured him whiskey.

This exchange between the girl and her grandfather reveals parts of their characters, and exhibits the nature of their relationship without ever saying anything in plain text. The girl is shown to be mature for her age by asking questions to her grandfather about what to do in worst-case scenarios. Her maturity is also displayed through her actions, such as her preparing for the event of her grandfather’s fainting by pulling out smelling salts. Her knowledge about what to do to get ready for tooth extraction, which is evident when she gets mouthwash ready for her grandfather, also shows that she is mature.

We can also tell from the dialogue that the young girl is not shy, and is unafraid to make quips at her grandfather. This could also be used to argue that the girl is brave, as earlier in the text the grandfather is said to be a raucous, cruel person-i.e. someone who it could be expected would frighten a young girl. However, the girl is anything but scared of her grandfather, as she is ready to put him in his place when needed, and pokes fun at him often.

Alongside the girl’s maturity is her intelligence. From her witticisms, the reader can assume that she is very clever, and again, mature for her age. This idea is highlighted by the way the girl can banter with her grandfather, which also could be interpreted as the girl’s self-assuredness.

The girl’s willingness to be friendly with her grandfather by making jokes with him also gives us insight into her relationship with him. Her demeanor around him shows that the girl trusts her grandfather to not lash out at her when she makes jokes. This is a little surprising considering that the grandfather is described to be disliked by the majority of his family due to his cruel tendencies.

It is seen here that the grandfather shares this trust with the girl when he tells the girl that she will have to finish pulling out his teeth if he faints. This is a lot of responsibility to put on a child, and the grandfather doing so makes it reasonable to assume that both parties have faith in one another.

From this interaction, we can also conclude that the girl not only trusts her grandfather, but cares about his well-being. For example, prior to this scene she insisted on using the sterilizer despite her grandfather’s protests, because it is important to her to follow the right procedures for a tooth extraction for the sake of her grandfather’s health. This idea is continued when she asks her grandfather what to do if he passes out, because she wants to be prepared in case something goes wrong. Her care for her grandfather is additionally shown when her grandfather asks for a drink. Though the girl is originally apprehensive, she obliges because she believes that it will make her grandfather feel more comfortable.

While less can be pulled from this scene that characterizes the grandfather, his blunt attitude can be witnessed in his response to the girl’s questions. 

Another vessel for Berlin’s characterization is her defining the character’s habits and tendencies. By providing information about how a character tends to normally act, rather than solely describing what a character would do in a specific moment, Berlin helps the reader to infer how a character might behave, and gain insight into how a character might think. An example of Berlin using this means of characterization can be found in this excerpt:

I’m sure they also wanted to spare me Mamie’s dying, her moaning, her friends’ praying, the stench and the flies. At night, with the help of morphine, she would doze off and my mother and Grandpa would each drink alone in their separate rooms. I could hear the separate gurgles of bourbon from the porch where I slept.

In this short paragraph, Berlin manages to characterize each of the main characters in this short story, all through saying what a typical night looks like for each of them.

The first sentence highlights the character Mamie, the girl’s grandmother. While she has no lines of dialogue in the entire story, and there is not even a description of what an interaction would look like between her and the young girl, readers are still able to infer what Mamie is like as a character from lines like this. From this line in particular, we can gather that Mamie is very ill, and nearing death. The mention of her moaning indicates that she is suffering horribly, as well as the mention of “the stench and the flies.” The mention of her friends staying near to her and praying for her lets the reader know that she is a person that is well-loved. Something that is interesting to note about this story is that Mamie is the only character that is described to have friends, and later in the story it is revealed that they are very loyal to Mamie, and stay with her even as she is asleep.

The next line also helps to hone in on how sick Mamie truly is, through its mention of her needing morphine to sleep. However, this line’s true purpose is to outline how Mamie’s husband and daughter are handling her dying. It is clear that they are not doing so well, as they are both characterized more times than one in this story as using alcohol as a crutch during moments of high stress. It is also important to note that mother and grandfather are drinking alone, separate from one another. This could be interpreted by the reader as the characters both having the tendency to go to others for support during trying times. It could also help readers gain insight into the nature of the relationship between the girl’s mother and grandfather, which is said to be pretty rocky later in the story.

The last line in the excerpt characterizes the young girl. When Berlin writes that she listens to the sounds of both her mother and grandfather drinking as she falls asleep, it could be interpreted that she is worried by this, as well as her grandmother’s illness, which she is shielded from knowing too much about by her mother. Since she chooses to sleep away from her family on the porch, it could also be interpreted as too much stress for the young girl to deal with, leading her to make the decision to remove herself as much as she can from the situation. 

Another craft element that Berlin uses in tandem with characterization to further the development of the grandfather in particular is imagery. For example, the excerpt:

He wouldn’t let anyone in his workshop—just the firemen, that once. It hadn’t been cleaned in forty years. I went in when he went to the bathroom. The windows were caked black with dirt and plaster and wax. The only light came from two flickering blue Bunsen burners. Huge sacks of plaster stacked against the walls, sifted over onto a floor lumpy with chunks of broken tooth molds, and jars of various single teeth. Thick pink and white globs of wax hung on the walls, trailing cobwebs. Shelves were crammed with rusty tools and rows of dentures, grinning, or upside down, frowning, like theater masks. He chanted while he worked, his half-smoked cigarettes often igniting gobs of wax or candy bar wrappers. He threw coffee on the fires, staining the plaster-soft floor a deep cave brown.

This shows both Berlin’s expertise in writing imagery, but also shows who the grandfather is as a person. The first line is not very imagery-heavy, but mostly focuses on the grandfather being very proud and stubborn, an idea that is continued throughout the rest of the excerpt. Just the next line about the workshop not being clean reaffirms the message that the grandfather is stuck in his ways. However, if Berlin were to have simply written “his office was very dirty, it had not been cleaned in forty years” the reader would not have been left with the same impression of the grandfather as they would have after reading this excerpt. In this, the grandfather is shown to be stubborn, yes, but also pretty careless. An obvious example of this is his lack of effort in cleaning his workplace, but another detail Berlin includes that reinforces the idea that the girl’s grandfather is careless is the mention of his chanting while working. Other details that come back to this idea are his hap-hazard accidental fire starting by wayward cigarettes and trash, and his eccentric method of extinguishing the fires.

What can you imitate in your own writing?

I think that part of the reason that Berlin’s characters seem so well-rounded is her skill of interweaving characterization into the body of her stories. While at first, the intense focus on characterization may lead the reader to believe that her stories are more exposition-heavy, and therefore slow, but I believe that her exposition is crucial to the development of her characters, which are never flat. I think what I mean to say is that her exposition is never empty-it helps to establish conflict, define character’s relationships to one another, and provides insight as to what might motivate and character to do something.

Like Berlin, I like to write character-driven short fiction. What I would like to imitate from her in my own writing is her variety of methods of characterization. Too often, I rely on either only dialogue, or more often, only description to develop my characters. I think that this can make the characters I write seem a little lopsided or unbalanced. My writing would benefit from me taking the approach it appears Berlin does in the process of characterization, which seems to be doing everything you can to develop your characters. While Dr. H. A. Moynihan is not a particularly long story, Berlin still manages to develop the grandfather’s character through describing his family history, career accolades, political beliefs, pet peeves, personal hygiene, relationships, hobbies, bad habits, and not to mention characterizing him through dialogue. Sometimes while writing I find myself in the rut of describing the same aspect of a character in different ways, and Berlin’s characterization techniques seem to be the exact opposite of that.

Writing Exercise

Write a short story from a  first person point of view where the narrator is not the main character. Try to focus on the relationship these two characters might have, and make sure to fully develop at least the main character. Potential themes you might want to explore could include a child having more responsibility as they grow up, changing family dynamics, If you really want to follow Lucia Berlin’s style, try writing a work of auto-fiction, where autobiography writing is blended with fiction, as is the style of most of Berlin’s writing.

Discussion Questions

1. The story ends with an exchange between the young girl and her mother, where the young girl asks her mother if she still hates the girl’s grandfather, to which the mother responds that she does. How did you interpret this conversation, and what do you think inspired it? What does it reveal about the character of the girl and her mother? What does it reveal about the separate relationships the two characters have with the girl’s grandfather?
2. Who do you think is the main character of this story? Even though he is not the narrator, it is arguable that the girl’s grandfather is the main character of the story. Do you think the amount of text spent characterizing him is justified? Or, do you think it is unbalanced and takes away focus from the young girl? Do you think the other characters were neglected developmentally, or do you think the text is intended to focus on him?
3. Do you think teeth are in any way symbolic in this piece? What about the meticulous process the grandfather has to create his false teeth. Does the removal of teeth and the replacement of them with dentures mean anything?

The Rise and Fall of the Pirates of the Caribbean Franchise by Zella Price

Pirates of the Caribbean is arguably one of Disney’s most popular non-Disney-like franchises, and, in my opinion, one of the most interesting to inspect. From its origin to its decline, it’s had its fair share of drama.

Unbeknownst to many, Pirates of the Caribbean actually began as a ride at the Anaheim Disneyland way back in 1967. It was based off of pirate folklore and stories, and is considered a “dark ride”, and interestingly enough, was the last ride that Walt Disney himself participated in the production of before his death.

It wasn’t until decades later, in 2003, that the Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise that we know and love today was created. The production and development of the first movie, “The Curse of the Black Pearl” was actually more tumultuous than let on. But first, let’s detail the plot.

“The Curse of the Black Pearl” is a movie surrounding, obviously, pirates. It gained popularity due to its cast of quirky characters, but mainly, the character of Captain Jack Sparrow, played by Johnny Depp. Originally, Sparrow was supposed to be a minor character, and not even necessarily a comedic or interesting one. However, after the directors saw Depp’s characterization of Sparrow, they fell in love and decided to incorporate more of him. Sparrow is accompanied in the main cast by the characters of Will and Elizabeth, who serve to thicken the plot and add an element of romance in the process. It follows Will, Elizabeth, and Sparrow as they grapple with Aztec Gold curses, kidnappings, and evil undead pirates.

The movie did much better than expected in the box office, becoming the third highest grossing film in 2003 and essentially quintupling their profits, with a budget of 140 million, and a worldwide box office gross of $654,264,015. It didn’t take long for the movie to gain a sequel, whose profits broke 1 billion. The POTC series quickly spiraled into 5 movies, multiple written adaptations and multiple video games.

However, as the series continued to grow, the quality seemed to fall. After the third film, the plot became convoluted and difficult to follow as more and more characters and storylines got introduced. Not only that, but many beloved characters, such as Will and Elizabeth, did not make a return for the later movies. 

Personally, the first three movies have and always will hold a special place in my heart, and I choose not to sully their legacy by thinking about the fourth and fifth. Additionally, controversy has surrounded the series in recent years due to Depp’s involvement in it. 

As a creative project, one could create a timeline following the development of a piece of Disney media. One could also write a short essay researching the filming and development process of a piece of Disney media, comparing the vision of the film/show to the final product.

Questions: Do you feel like the quality declined? Why or why not??

Do you know of any other Disney series that seemed to follow this pattern?