M is for MACGUFFIN

It's my impression that the term MacGuffin is going through a period of increasingly inaccurate usage to mean: the object of the quest or really important object that drives the plot.  Originally, I take it, the term was invented to apply to such an object where the nature or identity of the object itself did not matter.  You could exchange the Maltese Falcon with the Siamese Cat and change the figure from black to pearl and the source from Templars to a Wuxia order and it wouldn't matter in the least. 

If the artifact itself matters a lot, then it seems inaccurate to call it a MacGuffin.  Reportedly, there is some disagreement on this score.  Hitchcock famously said the audience doesn't care what the thing is, but Lucas and Spielberg seem to think the audience should care.  I take the Sampo and the Golden Fleece to be MacGuffins.  But things like Sauron's One Ring and Holy Grail matter a great deal to the audience and the elements of the story itself beside simply the action of the plot, which would not make it more accurate to call them something else.  They are Plot Devices, but they are also important to setting and characterization in critical ways.  The term Meta-plot Device appeals to me, but it may resonate too strongly with the usage of metaplot to be useful.  What would you call such artifacts?

For quality time with Wikipedia and TVTropes, check these links:
MacGuffin: Wiki; TVT
Plot Device: Wiki, TVT

Grimm's "Tarantella"

Sexy Spinnetod

Played by Amy Aker

You've seen my posts on the spider-woman, so you know I was happy to see that the latest episode of NBC's Grimm (S1E11) includes a new monstrous shape-shifter, called the spinnetod, in a way that fits the folk source material.  I worry that the show feels like it might be stalling a bit, but thrilled to see this addition to Grimm's stable of Wesen.

Valentine's Exaltation of the Flame Princess

James Edward Raggi IV has been appearing in another round of podcasts lately, hawking his Lamentations of the Flame Princess WFRPG: Grindhouse Edition.  This was a sign to us of what was to come.  It is clear to me that, instead of blowing all his profits from Lamentations on his rock-and-roll lifestyle as I'm sure we all assumed he had, he was actually playing the long game, bribing his way onto the Adventure Time special Valentine's Day episode. If you haven't seen the episode yet, I won't spoil too much: in "Incendium," the Flame Princess (spoilers at link) threatens to displace Princess Bubblegum as Finn's love interest.

Very devious way to insinuate your game into the American market and get around all the not-for-the-kiddies issues, JERIV.  Happy Valentine's Day, you filthy animal.

Also, check out Randomistics' fan art.

The Demonblood Sword

Paris thinks the above looks like a Nabassu.

Our friends at Adventure Time inspired me once again, and so I issued an Obscure challenge to guest blogger and FoMR Paris Crenshaw.  (Another great episode, by the way, Adventure Time crew.)  Those navy men don't fool around with this sort of thing: he quickly responded on his blog.  He's even tweaked it in response to some comments I gave him.  So for a fully written-up Pathfinder version of Finn's family sword (easily converted, if necessary), the demonblood sword that his adopted father apparently made with blood he stole from a demon, head over to Paris blog (linked above).  Also, I don't think you can comment on Paris' page, so feel free to leave comments for him here.  I like the flavor you have achieved, Paris, but with a drawback as big as a 5% chance that the demon will appear to demand its blood back every time the sword is drawn, I wonder if the power or benefits of the sword ought to be greater.

I will be curious to see if the demonblood sword, AKA the family sword, continues to appear in future episodes.  If so, we may learn more of its powers and Paris can look forward to further pesterings.  :-)

Will this be the main sword for Finn the rest of the season?

Dad's Dungeon

Adventure Time sent Finn and Jake into their second dungeon in tonight's new episode.  It's as I said when this cartoon first came out: It's the most D&D cartoon.  EV-AR.

Far over the Misty Mountains cold...

Many of you have probably been listening to The Hobbit Trailer version of "Far over the Misty Mountains cold."  I like it, but it really drove me back to the Rankin/Bass The Hobbit soundtrack.  Am I the only person who thinks that is the best track from that soundtrack?  Or who actually prefers it to this new version?  I'd like to have the complete Tolkien lyric sung to the tune of the original soundtrack.  Heck, I'd like to get together with a group of guys and sing the whole song!

What is Victoria's Secret?

My most popular post of all time has been, for some time, Z is for Zoomorphic Angels.  I suspect that there is more than one reason for this, but around the time of the Victoria's Secret TV special a few weeks back and forward, some of the most popular searches that find my blog are various searches for Victoria's Secret angels.  So, here I go being all opportunistic, by posting late on this Mythopoeic Monday on the Secret.*  Now, the appeal of heavenly bodies, such as Lily Donaldson's pictured above is no secret at all, is it?  Isn't everything rather on display?  Where's the secret?

I do not think that the intuition or instinct reflected in the name of what surely must be the most successful lingerie company in the world is off, at all. The opposite sex has always represented some irreducible mystery, whichever gender one is.  Mona Lisa's smile has become a symbol of the mystery that women represent to men.  Jung theorized that men and women both have a transgendered aspect in their psyches (the anima in men and the animus in women) that correspond to the opposite sex -- an aspect buried in their individual unconscious. 

Few things garner interest like a secret.  Children who were lucky enough to read E.L. Konigburg's From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil Frankweiler were treated to an extended exploration of the value of a secret.  It is something that we are driven to uncover, and yet, may also be driven to hide from others.  The feeling that we share a secret binds us to another and heightens our own sense of interiority.  In the second chapter of the Apocalypse (Revelation), Christ promises to give those who are faithful from Pergamum a white stone with their secret name written on it.  Value is based on rarity, and what is rarer than a secret?  If knowledge is power, then knowledge of a secret is power of a greater degree.

Mystery novels and shows do not seem to have lost their popularity over the years.  In recent times, conspiracy theories have exploded in popularity.  The element of secrecy is sure to increase interest and dramatic tension in any story or game.  But I think that there is an element of depth, of mystery, that must be present in the best secrets.  The idea I am trying to get across here goes back to my use of the Victoria's Secret angel.  We looked at her and I dared to say, isn't it all on display?  No.  The mode of revelation covers even as it uncovers.  Disclosures are always partial.  We are shown enough to know something, to feel the pull of something, to identify a presence, but the presence is also an absence.  There is a hint of something more.  If a secret is so shallow that it may be revealed in a single proposition or a single glance, then the secret is consumed in its entirety.  Not so the deeper things, which is what our plots should strive for.  Knowing how to include human mystery -- or even mystery that is somehow deeper than humanity -- in a plot's secret is the way to hold interest with a richness that draws but is never fully exhausted or realized.  Perhaps that is part of Victoria's Secret.  By giving the models the wings of celestial beings, their transcendence is symbolized, so that suggesting that they are not women emphasizes their womenhood: that there is an attracting secret of the feminine that can never be fully known or possessed, even in the knowing and possessing.  The display tantalizes with its revelation, and by revealing, reminds us of what is covered, and of the fact that howsoever much one may discover, there will always be something more.


* I'm behind because the last week of the semester was as one would expect.

I won Dungeons and Dragons... and it was Advanced!

In case you don't know...

Leave it to Chevy Chase to show chumps like Charlie Sheen what WINNING! looks like.  What does winning an RPG look like to you?  Or does the question even make sense?  I've decided to try my hand at my first poll.  Check it out in the top right hand corner (the sidebar).

EDIT: My apologies to the one person who voted previously (the person who voted for GM & Players), but I had to switch to another poll gadget.  The first one was causing people way too much trouble.

One Week Until Halloween

by Southernfried

There's only a week left until Halloween.  If you're going to celebrate the holiday right, it's time to get things together.  If you've been putting preparation off, it's time to get busy!

Announcements
I've got a couple of special features coming up on the blog to celebrate the season, so be sure and check back through the next week for their arrival.

More Getting Ready
In a perfect world, I would carve some jack-o-lanterns, get a new costume, go to at least one adult Halloween party, and a Halloween game session.  All of these look unlikely this year...again.  Oh the joys of underemployment (adjunct faculty = legal slavery).  I will probably end up just accompanying a couple of nephews on their trick-or-treat round, which is nice, but leaves me a feeling a little bit like someone who has prepared a month for an anti-climactic ending. Enough moaning.

I'm still working my way through my published reading list, and will be adding some updates about it, but in the midst of complaining about American Horror Story, my colleagues have insisted that I watch The Walking Dead.  Zombies (hungry zombies?  lesser ghouls?)  are not my favorite monster, but I watched the first episode since the full-time faculty told me not to show up at lunch today if I failed to do so.  Man, it is grim and gross.  Especially gross.  And while it's not my favorite of the genre, they definitely have some of the methods of good horror story-telling down: not revealing too much at the beginning, withholding information, building tension, and so forth.  While they do end up showing lots of zombies, that is a rule that it would seem especially hard to adhere to in the zombie movie, which depends in its most essential nature on fear of the crowd.  Based on the first episode (and the confidence of its fans), this looks like it has a better chance than AHS.

A Day of Good News

Well, Netflix's Qwikster idiocy is over, and as a subscriber since 2002 who was dreading coming up with some way that would punish the company more than me, I'm glad.

Another spot of good news is that Chirine ba Kal (the subject of this earlier blog) has decided to leave his now defunct blog up for folks to probe its now lifeless carcass for years to come.  (Sorry, it's October, you know, I've got to be this way.)  Even better news: he's looking for a permanent home for his Tekumel miniatures and sets pictures to take up their post-blog life.  I continue to wish him the best, and I really appreciate that he is leaving his work up for people to continue to reference when it might be more personally satisfying to blow the whole thing up.  If you read this blog and live in the Twin Cities, it'd be cool to find an opportunity to play with a guy who played with Prof. Barker back in the day and runs the world the way he learned from its creator.

Here in Texas, things are finally cool and starting to feel like fall.  I hope you all had a great Mythopoeic Monday.  Keep an eye out for tomorrow: I have another double day planned for Tomeful Tuesday!



WHAT I AM LISTENING TO TODAY

(in the car) Dracula read by Richard E. Grant

(in the house) Blue Oyster Cult.  Does that seem in the Halloween spirit to anyone else?

Everything American Horror Story: Pilot Review

I finally got to see American Horror Story this weekend, thanks to the DVR.  This is just about the only new show that I was looking forward to this season.  First, it speaks to my whole October is the Halloween Season spiel that I've been promoting.  Second, there is so little genre TV and so much crap I have no interest in on, this was a bright (okay, dark) speck of potential in the TV wasteland.  But now that I've seen it, I'm still not sure what I saw.  American Horror Hodgepodge?  Postmodern Horror Story?  The main impression that I came away with was that it has a little bit of everything.

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MINOR SPOILERS
In fact, almost everything that you can think of from the genre: weird science, murder, mutilation, madness, mental and physical retardation, creepy twins, sexual deviancy, stalking, ghosts, the old house, strange neighbors, preternatural abilities, alternate mental states, sleep-walking, and...let's see, what was missing?  Oh yes, a monster.  All that in an hour (and sometimes, more than one example of each element I named).  Having a little bit of everything worries me that it is going to be too unfocused and, above all, cliched.  Even if you were going to put all that into a series, putting it all in the first episode seems an act of desperation.  If good story telling has to be sacrificed to bring in the masses on the first episode for a show to survive these days, then, UGH.  "Look, no matter what freaky scare is your favorite, we've got you covered!"

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SPOILERS OVER
Happily, they are pulling out the stops in making the show: good writing, great actors, weird camera and editing tricks, and striking visuals.  But even if the show manages to transcends cliches, the first episode is too dense and overloaded -- too much, too soon.  Fear needs to be built, starting slow and letting it grow.  Dread becomes shock if there is no time for anticipation.  I'm afraid that too much was revealed in the first episode for the series to work as psychological horror. 

There is one other mistake that I anticipate will undermine the show's success, even more deadly: meta-cognition.  That is, there are moments that explicitly reflect on fear.  In one particularly memorable scene, the mom and daughter have a conversation about fear.  The mom marvels that her daughter isn't afraid of anything.  When her daughter responds by asking what it is that scares her, mom responds, "Everything."  Besides summing up my own fears for a show I had hopes for, this may be the greatest danger facing the show.  Meta-cognition about fear is what the makers of the show are supposed to be doing.  If the characters are doing it in the show, then the viewer is doing it to as they watch.  And the deadliest thing to fear is higher-level thinking about it.  Terror is an animal response.  Make us dread it before it hits, but don't make us think about it on a higher-level: we will think it out of existence.  If you want us to think about it, do it really cleverly and suggestively so we have these conversations around the water-cooler, not around the screen.

What's the outcome of the pilot in the Obscure household?  Well, I give up hard if you are trying to appeal to one of my out-of-the-mainstream appetites.  The show still has promise, and it peaked my curiosity as far as things I think I have figured out and things I'm not sure about, so I will be back to give the second episode a chance.  My wife, however, is not a genre fan.  It has to be unquestionably and overwhelmingly good for her to like it and be willing to come back for more -- and often for her to even stick with a single story.  (Examples to locate her on your calibrator: Mrs. Obscure came back for every Peter Jackson LotR film, every Harry Potter book and movie, and she loved the original Dracula novel.  And she does not have a particularly weak stomach: she loves all those true murder/rape/violent crime shows.)  So she's announced that she's out.  Looks like I can watch that digital video recording by myself next time.  I'll be curious to hear what you, esteemed Ramblers, have to say about American Horror Story.  And who knows, maybe if this doesn't work out, I can hold out some hope for Grimm, later in the month.

Adventure Time with H.P. Lovecraft?

You may be aware of my ongoing claim that Adventure Time with Finn and Jake is the most D&D cartoon of all time.  (Sorry, Daffy.  One wizard episode does not a claimant make.  And the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon series?  Not even close.)  But let's go beyond some of the obvious reasons why (alignments, character class names, nine magical spell levels, references to D&D monsters, killing monsters & looting their treasures, ad infinitum) to consider two good and weird pieces of evidence.


One is the fact that the world of ATwF&J is a post-global-holocaust world (references to the Great Mushroom War, countless background scenes containing ruined objects from our world).  The other is that an important Lovecraftian motif pops up in the episode, "Susan Strong."  Going down into what would appear to be a massive bomb shelter, Finn and Jake discover a lost tribe of humans who wear hoodie-hats that look like different animal heads.

SPOILER ALERT!

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The lost tribe members are not humans, but hyoomans.  When they remove their animal-head hoods, they reveal themselves to be mutants.  Deep Ones, to be precise: complete with scales, fins, and gills.

At the end, Finn wonders what is underneath Susan's hat.
Finn: What about you, Susan?  What are you?  Was she a human like me or an animal?
Jake: We're all animals, brother.