Wish you all the best, and happy trails!

I promise that the next post will actually be about role-playing. Honest. But a little literary theory never hurt anybody, and it’s important to understanding what I want to talk about next time.

For someone who majored in English literature, I have a generally antagonistic relationship with literary theory. For example, I tend to frame my analysis of work based off of my knowledge of the time period the work was written. It makes me cranky when people insist that a Freudian analysis of an 1847 work is clearly what the author intended. Other things that make me cranky: anything written by Michel Foucault, deconstruction, New Criticism.

Panel 4 is pretty much how I got through college.

But the point of this article is not to rail against literary criticism, as much as I enjoy doing so. No, the point of this article is to discuss one of the backbones of Gothic literary theory: the sublime and the beautiful. Believe me when I say it’s taking all my willpower to resist speaking at length on the rise and development of the Gothic novel; how socio-political pressures in England influenced the typical Gothic setting; or the subversion/reinforcement of traditional gender roles in these novels. It’s really, really hard.

Courtesy of http://www.geekosystem.com/history-of-sci-fi-map/

In modern times, the word sublime has taken on a connotation of something exquisite or transcendental. That’s not the definition Edmund Burke was going for when he wrote A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. Burke drew on the original definition of sublime: a force of great magnitude that the mind has difficulty encapsulating. Infinity is an example of one such force. Darkness is another. Because our perception of these forces is limited, an emotional tension is created. On one side is our natural curiosity—we want to find out more about these mysterious forces. On the other side is our natural fear of the unknown, driven largely by our fear of death. Thus, the sublime is a force that compels us, but can also destroy us.

The beautiful, as Burke defines it, something that is well-made and aesthetically pleasing. A painting or sculpture can be beautiful. If I recall right, milk is also beautiful according to Burke.

On the other hand, maybe he was on to something.....

He goes on to say that the purpose of beautiful objects is to create pleasure, and also to calm the nerves, such as after encountering something sublime.

Burke also has a lot to say about pleasure and pain.

Fun fact: literary criticism is a lot more entertaining if you picture Pinhead reading it out loud to his fellow Cenobites. Just saying.

In fact, he spends more time talking about pleasure and pain than he does the sublime and the beautiful. Which is kind of odd, when you consider the title of his book. Both the sublime and the beautiful create pleasure, although through different means. The beautiful, as I mentioned earlier, drawing from the ‘passion of love’ (and not lust or desire, as Burke takes many pains to state), calms and soothes the soul of the viewer and creator. The sublime creates pleasure through a vicarious thrill—we are scared by it, but also relieved that it’s just a story or it couldn’t happen to me.

I’ve gone on for too long on a relatively minor work of literary criticism. And this is a very surface level description of Burke’s work. But it’s a good starting point for what I want to talk about next time. I might need to elaborate some more as I go on, but I’m hoping I’ve covered the most important parts of the work.

In summary:

1) Things we don’t understand are scary
2) Milk is tasty
3) Literary Criticism is a load of dingo droppings
4) Things we find pretty calm us down

EDIT: A quote from my dearest darling husband: “Lies, a BA in English is never justified, only rationalized.” How true, how true….

Me, head-over-heels for a game with no story. No character development. No stunning character designs. None of the things that normally attract me to a game. And yet, somehow, it’s managed to woo me, leaving me swanning about like a sixteen-year old girl.  I don’t understand. How could this happen? To me, of all people, the avowed cynic, the skeptic, the first with a crushing comment or cruel word?

There’s nothing else for it, but to write poetry. Love poetry. Horrible, horrible purple prose declaring my love of Minecraft. Okay, I’m not very good at poetry. But when one is in love, one must write poetry. To do otherwise would be to deny one’s love, and that’s like not being in love at all.

Ode to Sunrise

It’s not morning until something is on fire
–ancient Minecraft Proverb

Sunrise with thy glorious gradients,
promise us of the sunblock’s radiance.
reds merging from the dark purple of night,
I watch it rise, and prepare to take flight.

I was exploring far when night did fall,
no weapons had I at my beck and call.
A torch, a compass, cuttings from a tree,
these were the tools available to me.

Digdig, digdig, there was no other choice,
Unless by my own petard I wanted to be hoist.
I had sanctum on the side of the hill,
but for one block I forgot to refill.

Sounds of destruction came from all around!
The spider’s slurp, the creeper’s fsss abound
A hideous groan, and then! Twang! Twang! Twang!
My sanctum was breached, and I would be claimed.

When o’er the horizon, a golden line
peeped, and covered the land with its soft shine.
My enemy stopped his deadly assault
I watched until the flaming corpse did halt.

I ran away fast, I ran away strong,
Never did the trip to my base seem so long!
But in the end, with the sun hanging high,
I reach it safely, and let out a sigh.

Sunset with thy glorious gradients,
remind why we need daytime’s radiance.
Reds merging into the dark purple of night,
I watch it set, and prepare to fight.

But first, an examination for how I did with my resolutions last year:

I, the guilt party, do henceforth solemnly swear to make a concerted effort to write on a steady basis.
I was doing all right until, you know, I stopped in October-ish. So this past year more has been written for just me than I think I’ve ever really done before. Not too bad. All in all, I’d give myself a B- on this one.

I will stop giving head-space to other people’s storylands and expand on my own.
Actually did a decent job this year on this one. My D&D campaign actually has back story! And my own stories are better for it, as well.

I will push my boundaries, and sometimes I will fail, but I will learn something from having gone further than I’ve ever gone before.
This year I picked up some new hobbies, including some things I swore I would NEVER EVER do. Good job, me!

I will actually get off my butt and exercise .
Sword club counts as exercise, right? I go for lots of walks (especially when working on my other resolution on developing my own stories), and even run sometimes. Exercise! Healthy living!

I will change the world, in small mysterious ways.
Uhm, maybe? I don’t even know what I meant by this one, so… probably did not succeed.

My resolutions for the new year?
1) Start and see a new project through to completion. I don’t know what it will be yet, but I’ve been itching to work on something different for a while.
2) Get better at fighting hand-to-hand/grappling
3) Figure out new and better ways to DM my ever-growing hoard.
4) Make one really awesome costume this year, instead of just talking about it like I always do.
5) Get caught up to the current timeline with the campaign summaries on this blog (this one will probably not happen).
6) Failing number five, I will at least try to post more often here. Given my current track record, this could be as often as TWO times a month.

Any of my faithful readers have any resolutions you’d care to share?

Anyway, some music I’ve been listening to that may or may not be plot-important or thematically-important.

(new excuse for never updating! Whee!)

Answer: A lot of nothing much, with some crazy mixed in. What do I mean by that? Read on!

Exploring the Keep
The keep is eerily deserted, no signs of life can be discerned. On entering the kitchen, the party is assaulted with the smell of rotting food, implying that things have been empty for some time. There are also signs that people left in a hurry, stalls and tables knocked over, everything of value taken away. Everything seems straightforward, until the party comes upon what a woman’s bedroom, dominated by a large vanity desk with mirror. Looking in the mirror, Sarin sees the reflection of Elika! He calls out in his surprise, but the other party members just see his reflection. Several other people look in the mirror, but for the most part, they only see themselves. Notable exceptions: Bimbi sees the reflection of a middle-aged blonde woman, and Israfel sees a reflection of a dark-haired woman wearing blue robes. Finding the mirror trick strange, but not odd enough to dally over, the party presses on upstairs into the keep.

The Throne Room
On entering the top of the stairs, the party sees a large room that was, at one time, quite grand. Vivid tapestries hang in tatters along the walls, the edges smeared with blood. The smell of blood and offal fills the room, the source being the dead harpies, throats and stomachs torn out, at least a half-dozen throughout the room. The end of the room is dominated by two large thrones made of dark polished wood, where a thin and pale man with dark hair sits, deep in concentration. He is cutting his arms and sticking harpy feathers into the wounds.

“What are you doing? Stop that,” says Rila, getting her weapons at the ready.
“I need wings so I can fly, so I can can finally meet the woman in the sky. She’s waiting for me, you know.” the man says, hardly looking up.
“The woman in the sky? Who is that? Who are you?” asks Sarin.
“I am the lord Pankiron. This is my keep. And the woman in the sky is the most wonderful of all. I do love her, you know,” The apparent Lord Pankiron says. He pauses, as if listening to something the party cannot hear. “Oh, you’re my enemy. You wish to stop me from meeting with my lady. Well, we won’t have any of that now, will we? Harpies! Arise and attack them!”
The (previously) dead Harpies in the corner slowly rise up, and shamble towards the party. They are very clearly undead, as seen by the one harpy that is happily chewing on its own entrails as it gets ready to attack. Seeing no other course of action, the party readies their weapons.

TO BE CONTINUED…

So, I’m not going to abandon this blog, especially so close to my one year anniversary. I am, however, going to adopt a more laid-back writing schedule of 1-2 posts a week. I’m not trying to set the blogosphere on fire (well, Cory Doctorow would kill me if I did literally set the blogosphere on fire, so maybe that’s for the best), and I would rather produce one or two longer, high quality posts than the shorter daily posts that I have been churning out.

One of my slogans in college was "be less like Hamlet, more like Fortinbras." Don't get it and what it has to do with this blog post? Well, read the play and find out.

So what does this mean for this bit of virtual landscape? To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure. I don’t really want to give up Something Shiny altogether, but on the other hand, I’m not sure how much time I can devote to producing quality posts that I’m actually proud to have my name attached. One thing I do know for sure, I need some time off to regroup my thoughts, and figure out where I am right now. For the next two weeks, I’ll be on hiatus. After that… I really don’t know. As it stands now, my options are: stop updating for an indefinite period of time, or provide longer posts less frequently. I don’t know. I need to do some thinking.