Sunday, March 27, 2016

Nerds, Geeks, and Dorks: What's the Difference?

These three terms -- nerd, geek, and dork -- get thrown around a lot, usually interchangeably. You can use any of the three you want and people will usually understand you. But in my mind (and potentially only in my mind), I think they are all very different. Yes, they do kind of go hand-in-hand, but they each have their own distinct meaning.

Nerd: school smarts. good at math, science, english, etc. excessively smart. does well on tests. gets good grades.

Geek: fandom smarts. knows anything and everything about their interests. usually focused on major franchises (superheroes, video games, t.v. shows, comics, etc.)

Dork: general personality trait. most people have at least some level of dorkiness that shows itself at one time or another. related to the person themselves, their conduct and demeanor, not the knowledge in their head. characterized as silly, goofy, awkward, weird, different but in an out-of-the-box thinking way rather than an ostracizing way.

So, I personally will use them in these respective ways, but if you want to keep using them interchangeably, I totally understand and I will be able to follow you.

P.S.: I count myself as all three.

The (Kind-of) Invisibility Cloak: Did J.K. Rowling Make a Mistake?

As a superfan of Harry Potter, I'm good at finding and picking at the plotholes. I do this with all books, but HP especially, since it is one of my greatest loves and I know it inside and out. Some plotholes choose to ignore and pretend that they don't exist; some you accept and learn to live with; and others you create far-fetched explanations that somehow work to make them fit (and if it's good, the rest of the fandom will follow suit). Some examples of plotholes in HP are: if Harry saw his mom die, why didn't he see the thestrals until Cedric died, and why didn't he see them at the end of that year taking the carriages back to the train instead of the following year? how did Fred and George never notice that Peter Petigrew was wandering around the Marauder's Map, usually with their own brother? if the invisibility cloak is supposed to be powerful enough to hide you from death, how did a bunch of teenagers create a map powerful enough to detect it? It's this last one that I want to focus on. Maybe this is me, being a crazy fangirl and making up some explanation to fill in the hole, but I think that this isn't really a plothole at all. I believe that there is a perfectly plausible explanation for the cloak showing up on the map while still being one of the Deathly Hallows and powerful enough to hide one from death.

(In my own words) As the story goes, three brothers (the Peverells) came to a river that couldn't be crossed. They happened to be wizards, though, skilled in the use of magic. So they pulled out their wands and created a bridge. Now, Death felt cheated. Those who try to cross the river are supposed to die, but these three found a way around that. So Death made a plan. As the brothers were crossing the bridge, Death approached them. He congratulated them on their cleverness and success and told them that he wanted to reward them. He would grant them each one wish. The oldest brother asked for a wand that could defeat any foe, so Death took a branch from an elder tree and presented it to the first brother. The brother went away and challenged an old enemy to a duel, won, and bragged of his success and the power of his undefeatable wand. Others overheard this, so when the brother was sleeping, someone snuck into his room, stole the wand, and killed him for good measure. So Death took the first brother as his own. The middle brother asked for a stone that could recall the dead, so Death picked a pebble from the river and told the second brother that if he turned it thrice, it would bring back a loved one who had died. So the second brother went to his home, turned the stone, and recalled the spirit of his beloved. For a time, they were happy together, but eventually the brother saw that his beloved was fading and miserable; she didn't belong in this world anymore. So he set her free and killed himself that he might be with her again. And so Death claimed the second brother for his own. Now, the youngest brother was clever. He asked Death for something that would be able to hide the brother from Death himself. Death was dismayed by this request, but a promise was a promise, and so he removed a piece from his own cloak of invisibility and gave it to the brother and he went on his way. Years passed, and Death searched high and low for the third brother, but he could not find him. It wasn't until many years later, when the third brother had grown old, that he passed the cloak on to his own son, that Death was able to find him, and the brother greeted him as an old friend.

It is this cloak that Harry now possesses, a cloak that can literally hide you from death.

The Marauder's Map was created by Hogwarts students, four boys between 15-17 years of age, one of whom was Harry's father and the previous owner of the cloak.

So how did four teenage boys create a map that can do what death itself can't? Yes, James Potter owned the cloak, so they knew about it and would want to be able to see it on the map, but that doesn't explain how they could be more powerful than a cloak created by death. I happen to think that there is a flaw in this logic and that they wouldn't have to be more powerful than death to create a map that can see the cloak.

I think the answer lies in the story, or in the metaphor behind it. Three brothers asked for three things from death, and when brought together under the power of one person, that person becomes master of death. First, a wand that is undefeatable. With this, one has the power to send anyone they wish to the grave, thus, the power to take life. Second, a stone that can resurrect the dead. With this, one can recall those who have been lost to the grave, thus, the power to reverse death. Third, a cloak of invisibility. With this, one can hide from death, thus, the power to avoid death. And that is the key. The point of the cloak isn't to hide from death, but to be able to avoid it at all costs. It happens to be an invisibility cloak because that is what Death uses, but it really could have been anything and Death still wouldn't have been able to take the third brother. I think that it should rightly be named a cloak of immortality.

Think about this: Death is walking along and he bumps into something, but nothing seems to be there. Well, he's Death and he's pretty smart, so he knows that there must be something or someone invisible there, so he goes to kill it. Well, it looks like the invisibility cloak wasn't really enough to avoid Death after all.

Now imagine that it's really a cloak of immortality. Death happens across this interesting map that shows the names of everyone in Hogwarts. Oh, look, there's the person who owns the third Deathly Hallow, the cloak. Now, Death knows exactly where he is, but there is nothing he can do to the person. Death can't touch him. Thus, it really isn't important that the cloak not be visible because it just doesn't matter. The map didn't need to be more powerful than death to show the wearer of the cloak because death still wouldn't be able to claim them.

If you noticed in the story, Death couldn't get the third brother until he took the cloak off of his own free will. He didn't wait until he died of old age; instead, he chose when it was time to take it off. If it's a cloak of immortality, then the third brother wouldn't have been able to die of old age while wearing it, which is why he had to eventually take it off to move on. Now, Harry was never attacked by anything deadly while wearing the cloak; if he had been, it would have given things away too early and it would have seemed really far-fetched, him not dying just because he's wearing an invisibility cloak. That doesn't mean it can't be true, it just means it would have made for a lousy plotline. You may argue that he got hit by spells and such plenty of times while wearing the cloak, but none of it was deadly. I truly believe that if Harry was hit by Avada Kedavra while wearing the cloak, he still wouldn't have died (though he obviously didn't need it, anyway).

Voldemort, in his search for immortality, was going after the wrong Hallow. The wand could only bring death to your opponent, it couldn't do anything for your own life. The one item that could have given him what he wanted was in Harry's possession all along.

So, not sure how well I explained that, but what do you think? Is it really a cloak of immortality, or am I reaching?

Monday, March 21, 2016

Stephen Moffat and Doctor Who

Stephen Moffat has one last season of Doctor Who before he steps down and lets someone else take over. To me, this is both good, and slightly worrying. Let me explain.

Stephen Moffat is a great producer. His work, combined with that of Mark Gatiss, on Sherlock has made for a phenomenal show that truly has something for everyone. I don't know a single person who has watched Sherlock and not wanted to watch another episode. He knows how to make a show interesting. The problem comes when you leave him with no limits. Sherlock has to fit within the realm of logic and possibility. That's not really necessarily true when it comes to Doctor Who, and Stephen Moffat knows this.

Stephen Moffat is probably one of the biggest fans of Doctor Who out there. He understands the show inside and out and he absolutely loves it. He has a profound quote about who the Doctor is and what he means to us, and I love him for that. He just gets the show better than probably most of its fanbase, in all honesty.

What happens, though, is that he wants to understand it more. He wants to test the limits and see how far he can take it. Doctor Who is the perfect show for someone to test limits on because its nature is just inherently forgiving of such antics as might happen. The plot is set to allow for those quirky episodes, the strange creatures, the improbable solutions, and the general illogicality of the scenarios. That's what this entire show is! So I totally get testing some limits to see what you can do and how far the Doctor can go.

What I don't agree with is what I think is happening with Stephen Moffat's attempts. I feel like he is trying to find the utmost outer limits of the show. He is constantly stretching Doctor Who more and more, trying to find its breaking point. I'm worried that, in trying to find those outer limits, he's going to break them and I don't know if the show would be able to recover from that. As I said, this show is pretty lenient, but if you go far enough to cross the threshold, I think you'll have gone too far, to a place that you can't come back from.

Stephen Moffat does some great work. The most iconic villains of New Who have been his (vashda nerada, the silence, the empty child, and the weeping angels). He makes sure that the show doesn't stagnate. He's always looking for a new angle, something different, a way to change it up, something completely unexpected. He's great at that and it makes for some pretty interesting episodes. I think that, sometimes, though, he is moving a little too far too fast. He has to remember that, while New Who isn't Classic Who, and we don't really want it to be, there are still some parts of it that have become so ingrained to viewers that changing them starts to alienate the fanbase. Daleks and Cybermen are so old, it's hard to do much with them anymore, but they are expected so we can't get rid of them. You have to be careful, though, that, when trying to come up with a new plotline for Daleks that hasn't been done before, you don't inadvertently change who the Daleks are because that would be changing 50 years of history. Same with the Doctor and his accoutrements, such as the TARDIS and the sonic screwdriver. Sonic sunglasses were funny for an episode or two, but when you keep them around, we start to worry that the screwdriver will be lost forever, and we don't want that. I've heard the reasoning for the sunglasses, to make being the Doctor available to anyone. Well, news flash, the Doctor Who fandom is inherently open-minded. We don't need our own sonic screwdrivers to become the Doctor. Any old stick, flashlight, or pen will do. If we want it, we can manage. Don't lower the Doctor below the standards of its fans.

Am I making any sense to you? I just think that Stephen Moffat, in exploring the limits of the Doctor, is going to take it one step too far, change the show just a little too much, and he won't be able to fix it and we'll end up losing this great show, just because one person wanted to see how far he could take it before it broke and ended up accidentally breaking it.

Back to this being his last season. Yes, I will be happy to see Stephen Moffat step down from Doctor Who. If he wanted to come back to write the occasional episode, I'd be totally down with that. He really does do some great work. But I am totally ready for someone else to take the lead. What I'm worried about, though, is that, this being his last season, Moffat is going to up his game even more. He only has one season left in which to test the limits, break and rewrite the rules, introduce new concepts, and to take the show as far as he can. With such limited time, I am truly scared that he is going to go overboard. I would much prefer if he didn't know that he had one last season. It's kind of like the last season of Psych. They knew it was ending, so they just had fun with it, which is all well and good, but I feel like it was slightly detrimental to the show itself. They just went all goofy and did what they wanted, had fun and made some interesting episodes, but I think they stopped putting any actual effort into them. They didn't matter any longer, so why bother? The knowledge of the end, knowing when it will happen, having it in sight, can really mess things up. I think it would have been better for the decision to happen after he had the season lined up and figured out already. I get that it's better for writing if you know when to end, so you don't end up leaving gaping holes for the next guy to try and fill without knowing the original ideas behind it, but this is a scenario that I can see the foreknowledge of the end bringing the show crashing down while Moffat tries to fit all his ideas into it and potentially stretching it far past its breaking point.

So my hope for this season is, Moffat, keep it classy. You get to bring in a new companion, write one last story arc, have a few last adventures. Donna, Amy, and Clara were a little too Doctor for my taste. Capaldi's Doctor really needs someone who is just so human, like Rose and Rory were. He needs that balance. The TARDIS is only big enough for one Doctor. Write an overarching story with a good ending. Something hopeful. Connect all the stories so that when we rewatch it, we can see just how carefully constructed the season was so that it all leads up to the final conclusion. Tennant's last season is a good example of this. 1) The episodes were leading up to that final conclusion of the planet being stolen by the Daleks, like the bees disappearing and the stars, and the little teasers of Rose. 2)The whole season, plus the specials, were leading up to Tennant's departure. The whole season was kind of saying goodbye, giving him one last adventure with everyone, companion and fan alike. Write a season like that, so that when we watch it again someday, we can see the effort that was put into it, all those little things that we missed the first time around because we didn't know where it was going, but now that we do, we understand it all so much better. And take us to some new places. Let us explore new worlds, meet new races. Earth is a pretty great planet, and the Doctor loves defending it, but he is, in the core of his being, a traveler. He likes wandering. It's just who he is. He is nowhere near ready to settle down, and I feel like he's been a little too stuck on Earth recently. Give him planets and galaxies, new races and old. And when he does stay on Earth, he has a time machine. Find an unexplored period, teach us some history. The future is fun, too, but we can only reimagine it so many times. The past is there for the taking. What events did the Doctor have a hand in? The Doctor in the present is interesting, but we can see that those events aren't actually happening in the world around us right now and thus become a little less real, but when you delve into the past, we can wonder about if the Doctor actually did have a hand in it. What was Charles Dickens' real inspiration for A Christmas Carol? Does the royal lineage of England have a centuries old secret? What was behind the missing days of Agatha Christie? Put a new twist on an old story. And most of all, have fun and remember who the Doctor is, deep down, and what he means to those who watch it.

"It's hard to talk about the importance of an imaginary hero. But heroes are important. Heroes tell us something about ourselves. History books tell us who we used to be, documentaries tell us who we are now, but heroes tell us who we want to be. And a lot of our heroes depress me. But you know, when they made this particular hero, they didn't give him a gun, they gave him a screwdriver to fix things." [*cough,cough*sunglasses?*cough,cough*] "They didn't give him a tank or warship or an X-Wing fighter, they gave him a call box from which you can call for help. And they didn't give him a superpower or pointy ears or a heat ray. They gave him an extra heart. They gave him two hearts. And that's an extraordinary thing. There will never come a time when we don't need a hero like the Doctor." ~Stephen Moffat.