Now, I had never actually read Joseph Campbell’s Hero With A Thousand Faces before writing it up, but it has hung over almost my entire life. I’ve always been interested in narrative theory, and so obviously I came to it pretty early in my journey, what with it being the biggest and most influential story structure of the past century. It’s definitely something I associate with Hollywood films from the 1980’s onwards, something you can largely attribute to George Lucas claiming it as an influence on Star Wars, meaning it’s influenced blockbusters – especially those aimed specifically at children. Disney films, especially those from its Renaissance era – that is to say, The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Beauty & The Beast – directly learned from the book as well.
Its most famous innovation is that of the monomyth, more frequently referred to as the Hero’s Journey. I think many of us could actually recite it from memory: Hero receives the Call to Adventure, Hero overcomes a Threshold Guardian and crosses into a land of adventure, Hero has adventures, Hero goes into the belly of a whale, Hero is seduced by an evil woman, Hero defeats the problem (usually a villain), Hero returns home. There are also a few variations in there, like Refusal of the Call, a temporary case of the Hero not going along with the adventure before being pushed into it (see Star Wars, where Luke is initially reluctant to follow Obi-Wan until his family are murdered).
It’s interesting to me how Campbell’s work has fallen out of favour the past few decades. I think this is largely because of how its influence has turned stagnant; Campbell’s ideas were never actually meant to become a formula for storytelling, nor did he expect people to try and fit every single story to this monomyth. He was simply describing patterns he had seen and trying to find a common ground between all these different myths; emotional connections not just between Christianity, Islam, and Hindu faiths, but between his modern day of secularism and psychology with the ancient world. Much of the book is a reaction to modernity; not in a negative way, but in recognizing spiritual problems people had and trying to find solutions for them.
I had it explained to me many years ago that there’s an essential moral element to the Hero’s Journey: the hero has to go home at the end. The world of the adventure is scary, but it’s fun-scary – paradoxically, it’s a place to safely sort out inner anxieties. You have to go back to the real world and use what you’ve learned – both skills and emotional regulation – to improve that world. Joseph Campbell doesn’t outright say this, but it’s a very clear part of his morality; the end goal, he presumes, is to become a functional member of society as opposed to an egocentric child. This is present at the end of Lord Of The Rings, where Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin all become the main leaders of the Shire for a generation; it’s present at the end of Labyrinth, where Sarah has learned to be a better, less materialistic big sister; of course, it’s extremely present in The Lion King, where Simba goes from selfish child to noble king.
The problem with the Hero’s Journey in practice is how often people simply recreated the details of the journey without capturing this moral arc. This is hardly the fault of the book – like blaming cars for bad drivers – and in fact, you can see the same thing applied to postmodernist story structures and themes, as people throw in self-aware remarks with no grasp of the tone or reality of the story they’re telling. This kind of thing is less down to the tool and more down to people being, as a rule, literal-minded.
It’s interesting because I feel like a resurgence of the Hero’s Journey would be a good thing for people, especially oppressed groups. Apparently, when people pointed out to Campbell that he didn’t really have that many female examples, he agreed and observed he wasn’t the guy to point those out, hoping a woman would come along and expand on his work. I could see that going in a different way, as people create their own myths and expand upon the kinds of heroes we have – something that has largely been happening, if without the guidance of Campbell.
Because that’s what Campbell really created here – not a filter to put old stories through, nor a specific beat-for-beat structure, but a myth to grab onto. Fascinatingly, the Hero’s Journey is one of the better frameworks to filter reality through; it’s something that creates grit in people, as they face adversity knowing it’s one part of their journey to success. It’s a myth that says we go out, we face adversity, we learn, and we come back to improve our community with it, like a moral spin on the scientific method.
About the writer
Tristan J. Nankervis
Tristan J Nankervis (aka Drunk Napoleon) has been a writer, pop culture critic, dishwasher, standup comedian, waiter, potato cake factory worker, gamer, TV worker, and various other things. You can find him in Hobart, Tasmania.
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Department of
Conversation
I always think of The Lion King, which is so clearly Campbell influenced, but they did a bad job. There is no point where Simba grows and earns the mantle of kingship. It’s just that the movie is long enough now and it’s time for him to go back.
Obviously our young prince needed to kill off the Falstaffian Timon and Pumba to show his maturity.
Or maybe they just moved to the jungles of Windsor.
Kind of funny that the sequel works a lot better in this perspective, with him learning to be a less controlling parent.
What did we watch?
Witch
This was a play put on by Big Trouble Productions – like many contemporary comedy plays, it’s basically The Breakfast Club combined with genre work, in this case, Elizabethan tragedy. The characters talk like modern day Australians but wear the costumes and act the plot points of Shakespeare characters, and it opens with The Devil making three deals; one with a young man ready to inherit his father’s estate but jealous of the ward he’s taken in and clearly likes more (not least because said ward is straight), swapping his soul for the life of the ward; one with the ward, who desperately wants the name and title of his benefactor to escape poverty; one, a so-called witch who lives crushing poverty and decides to reject The Devil. The plot then most splits in two – the son, the ward, the father, and the secret wife of the ward, which plays out in tragedy, and a series of conversations between The Devil and the witch.
The comedy is extremely goofy, but it worked (and there was some more low-key stuff – after a big confrontation at the climax, the father looks to the group and says “This was a good talk,” before leaving, which got a big laugh), and the actors were very good at switching to sincerity. There’s an extent to which these Breakfast Club plays are a writer engaging in therapy to find themselves, but a) that’s incredibly hypocritical of me to say, b) I admit, I was hit harder by the father/son stuff than I expected, and c) the actors always come at it from a sense of craft and treat them as characters to play, which makes it work for me.
Happy Endings, Season One, Episode One
The original plan was to watch this all in one go, but two minutes in I was so locked onto its wavelength that I realised I would rather savour it. I can concede that there are kinks that the Cap’n brought up in his article and I can already see how they’ll iron them out, but honestly I’m already sold. This is already a Futurama-like machine of jokes, and I deeply admire the clean efficiency of it all – nothing quite sells me like an attitude of getting in, doing your job, and getting out as fast as possible, and even the editing is already locked in on that. There is something of a dead-eyed look to the actors, but a) that’s pretty normal for a pilot because people both haven’t quite got down their characters and aren’t even sure they’ll still have a job in three days and b) it only really affects the serious elements. During the comedy – which is 95% of the runtime – it’s more like playful pretending.
I found myself wondering how much this show was influenced by Community – not only in its snappy one-liners, but in a desire to at least attempt to be everything. That’s partially where I think they were going with the dramatic elements – to make you care about these characters as more than joke machines. But it also leads to really great smaller elements, like that you can see the table behind Jane reacting as she rants at the climax; it seems very Community in how it uses the entire space of the frame for gags.
What it lacks that Community has is a sincere sense of awe; even in its pilot, Community had a fully worked out philosophy it was trying to convey that underlined the sincere emotion. But that’s not going to be a bad thing; this show is gonna be more casual and laidback in its attitude. There’s another very Community gag in how, when arguing with Alex, Dave is making a drink and gestures in a way that spills a bunch of it on the ground and he simply keeps going as if nothing happened. It’ll just be a nonstop train of funny shit like that.
What I particularly like is that it has the sense to give each of its characters a different comedic arc that fits into the larger whole; Dave and Alex dealing with the fallout from their broken wedding, obviously (and even then, she’s trying to get around it and he’s sleeping with a revoltingly young woman), but my favourite was Brad trying to push his way through a health cleanse for the sake of Jane, not knowing she wasn’t actually doing it.
“I left the hand. To hold.”
“Okay, you’re not really in a position to comment on people leaving places with people they’re not supposed to leave with.”
“It’ll be like college again, except now you’re chubby.”
“This cleanse is brutal. I lost eleven pounds. Today.”
“That dude is gayer than Dave’s jacket.”
“Wow! Those are things.”
“Yeah, right! Twenty-six year old Jew!”
“Night of a thousand comebacks!”
“None of us has made a new friend in eleven years.”
“I wouldn’t even know how to do that!”
I find Adam Pally offputting in every way. All his comedic instincts are the opposite of the way I would do them, and he’s never listened to a note to dial it back a little, which I assume he gets every goddamn day. Everything else about the show I like and I watched most of it. But man, that guy gets on my nerves.
Not to tell you what to think, but it’s usually apparent when Ziwe despises someone she’s interviewing and in his case you could tell she truly loves the guy. So at least he’s a nice person!
God, I love that show. It’s a fucking joke machine. The fat jokes get old (whyyyyy) but it just hits. I wish it hadn’t been taken out by New Girl, which I also love; if they’d been on the same network it would have been unstoppable (and they could have made more silly Coach jokes).
Elementary, “Flight Risk” – A small plane crashes on Far Rockaway Beach – I don’t know if I have ever seen any filmed there besides this – and Holmes soon realizes that one of the people killed in the crash was murdered. At some level the mystery is absurd – it’s just way too complicated a way to achieve the killer’s goal – but the pieces are strung together quite well and the resolution is satisfying until you really think about it. Meanwhile, Joan thinks she is going to meet Holmes’s father for dinner but Holmes is so sure dear old dad will cancel that he has an actor friend play the part. Only Joan uses the opportunity to learn more about her client that she could ever learn from him. Including a name: Irene. Roger Rees plays the actor friend; Reiko Aylesworth is the lead NTSB investigator; and Brian Kerwin is the killer.
Frasier, “Daphne Does Dinner” – After witnessing one too many disastrous dinner parties, Daphne convinces Niles to work with his instead of with Frasier. Naturally, things don’t get better. To a degree, this is overly familiar and somewhat hard to watch, but Daphne’s reactions to chaos and embarrassment are a lot more human than Frasier’s flouncing and Niles’s withdrawal into himself. And the ending really does top all the other disasters to date. Harve Presnell, without his mustache and with a toupee, guest stars as the artist the party is held in honor of (only he would rather watch a boxing match with Daphne’s mom). Blink and you might miss a cameo by Nana Visitor.
Live music — local psych rock heroes Major Stars were the second opener at the venue down the street so I took a flier on the show and the good news is they were great, their songs spiral off into shredding (three guitarists!) but they have a great Grace Slick-esque vocalist and a tight rhythm section to anchor things, they can jam as long as they want and I’ll follow along. They were opening for TAKAAT, who were billed as the rhythm section for Mdou Moctar, but for whatever reason the drummer wasn’t there and it was guitar/bass/drum machine. Now, this can be a great setup but the drum machine’s beats are largely rigid and in this case the bass was tied to that structure, both acted more as accompaniment to the guitar’s wailing than as partners and I could not find a way into the music for the most part. As noise-rock it wasn’t bad, just directionless and without groove and I was expecting groove. Oh well.
But the next night we checked out a free show put on by the local jazz fest, the Alberto Netto Quartet (drums/bass/keys/sax) brought the rhythm I was missing. All Berklee vets who know what they’re doing and what they were doing here was Brazillian-based jazz so tons of grooves and Netto doing great shit behind the kit. They would occasionally find a rhythm away from my expectations but here it was clear people were making choices together rather than playing off a program. Excellent stuff in the back room of a bar I generally don’t like, but if they use this space more often they could really have something here.
Sunshine — the consensus is that this is a good movie that turns to shit in the last act, the consensus is right. An Alex Garland script being much stupider than it thinks, what do you know. The movie looks fantastic, a shame about the whole turning to shit part.
Super Mario Galaxy — Illumination’s faces are pretty bad and their women are atrocious, plastic doll ass expressions, but the action setpieces here are pretty damn good! Lots of detail and interesting angles in the animation, it’s probably best to treat the movie as a structure for such sequences the way one would a musical or action flick. Because the writing is also abysmal, just on a line-to-line basis let alone as a narrative. There’s keeping things simple for a young audience and then there’s actively refusing to put any effort into work because it’s for kids, the writing here is on the latter end. On the plus side, Pratt and Day are emphasizing more Italian aspects in their voice work, about fucking time.
The Ambulance — if you want a real movie, you have to go to a pro like Larry Cohen. This is a very odd film, a late 80s flick outside of Cohen’s heyday, where Marvel Comics artist Eric Roberts (Stan Lee is his boss!) hits on Janine Turner only for her to go into diabetic shock and be aggressively whisked away by see title; when Roberts tries to visit her in the hospital she is nowhere to be found. This is down to a complicated organ/body theft scheme that Roberts slowly uncovers with the help of cop James Earl Jones and NY Post journalist Red Buttons, and Roberts is in Michael Moriarty mode throughout, shooting weird energy all over the place while sporting a mullet the size of a lion’s mane. Shot in NYC of course (there’s a nice chase through the waterworks) and full of great New York faces, Cohen had a knack for creating prickly characters that all feel like they’re passing through this movie but exist just fine on their own. What he does here is find a tone and atmosphere that is odd, paranoid and funny and maintains it throughout, it is a fun movie to hang out with for 90 minutes. Certain screenwriters could learn from this.
“The rhythm section from Kraftwerk”
Ha! That’s the thing, I would totally go see Kraftwerk for the drum machines because I know that’s their thing. Part of this is on me for not doing more vetting of the tour but I feel like advertising a band as “the rhythm section” of another group implies a dang rhythm section will be present
I do wonder if the millions of neglectful, taste-deprived parents taking their kids to Mario movies are aware that there are, in fact, Mario media experiences consisting of damn good action setpieces only. They even have them at home these days.
This is well beyond my cultural capacity (I don’t even know the specific game being referenced in this movie) in most ways but I’ve seen both of these in the theater and there is a difference between Mario the video game guy you control and Mario the “character,” a person who does shit you watch. Kids love that second guy! Different modes offering different things (although the crossover — watching playthroughs of video games, so Mario is essentially a character there too — is weird to me).
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
I like this more every time I see it, but I will never be a fan of the Smiley-Ann reunion at the end. Everything else is incredible, though, and this is exquisitely cast: as low-key and focused as the film generally is, with few of the deliberate eccentricities and asides that many stories use to create color, everyone here is crafting a genuine character. There are few better arguments for assembling a massive cast of Hey, It’s That Guys.
Smiley here is a creature of absences–things not said, things not revealed, reactions not given–and he’s especially fascinating when the film juxtaposes him with someone who’s very much not like that, even in small scenes like the one where he interviews the forcibly retired researcher who’s full of desire and resentment and nostalgia, and he simply absorbs what she’s giving him without really reflecting much back at her, either in agreement or in contrast. (Except once, which makes that moment so much more revealing.) He would give Netflix’s second screen experts headaches.
Bernie
For Movie Club. A charming, lively movie. This is probably lightweight enough that it’s weird to call it my favorite Linklater of the ones I’ve seen, but it is. Fun narrative structure (I love a Greek chorus of townspeople); charisma to burn. There are moral complexities and narrative ambiguities here the film largely doesn’t get into, but they’re at least there to think about.
Spy Game
Are most good spy stories at least partly about spies versus their spymasters? Corruption and uncaring bureaucracy on one’s own side is almost always a major element; I suspect some part of this is genuine realism and some part of it, especially in more recent stories, is a kind of authorial pragmatism, a way to try to avoid valorizing one side of an international conflict over another, especially when the side being closely portrayed is often part of an active empire (i.e., it’s easier to root for CIA agents vs. the CIA than whatever the fuck Redford and Pitt would’ve gotten up to in South America if they’d taken that assignment near the end).
Send Help
Sunday was a bit rough in terms of real life, so I self-medicated by paying $25 to rent this, and I have zero regrets, because this is an exuberant, gooey work of unabashed pulp that involves Raimi going full Raimi (Linda repeatedly vomiting chunky mango salsa in Bradley’s face!). The die is cast for the ending as early as Linda’s initial “abandon him to teach him a lesson” on the beach, because it would be almost impossible to recover from that choice if they both came back, and one of the pleasures of the film is watching the paired set of lessons their sink in for her: first, fine, they won’t go back, and then, fine, they won’t go back. Gloriously unhinged Rachel McAdams performance as an exploited and demeaned Linda runs out of fucks to give and starts relishing her power. Ownage aplenty here, especially when Linda’s power partly comes from being willing to go further (“Fuck you, Bradley!”) and not only from having more knowledge and skills.
This is, however, the second horror movie I’ve seen that sets up a potential castration and then doesn’t go through with it. I have to feel like this is a studio note, because surely Raimi would be willing to do it. I’d ask why this is the genre’s bright line that shall not be crossed, but I suspect i know already. Still, let those balls fly, you cowards.
Scrubs, “My Odds”
John C. McGinley returns for an episode that starts off as an homage to “My Old Lady” and takes an affecting swerve into a homage to another set of S1 episodes instead. One of the best parts of this revival season is how invested it is in the sheer amount of time that’s accrued in all these relationships, and that pays off beautifully here, as Dr. Cox’s emotional openness with JD (and his willingness to be frank, at least eventually, about how much JD means to him) feels exactly as earned as it is. JD quickly wiping away a tear as he commits to a medical plan got to me, as did McGinley hitting a real exhausted sincerity in those final scenes. The beat between Cox and Elliot–“That would’ve been my biggest failure and my greatest regret”–is also superb, and while it’s a smaller touch, I love Turk trying the storage room basketball game as a good luck charm for Dr. Cox.
Taskmaster, “Cube is good”
New series with new contestants: Amy Gledhill, Armando Iannucci, Joanna Page, Joel Dommett, and Kumail Nanjiani!
Amy’s Mrs. Clatterbottom–a mannequin to deter people from entering your home (“Like Home Alone-style-y)–has such a deeply cursed face. Wonderful visual. Joanna’s hot tub mannequin is also cursed, though slightly less deeply.
“I mean, if someone’s going to steal from me, I might as well make some money from it.”
“I’ve never had so much information in my life.”
“Is this a real Department of Homeland Security sign?”
“No, it’s not a real one, Greg. I’m trying to stay away from where the real signs are.”
Joel’s plaintively crushed expression when he finds out he’s been set up on an unwinnable solo task that’s involved carrying an egg around for six months. All the comic points to him for continuing to produce it on demand anyway, just for the bit. Kumail’s reaction when an air horn goes off and Joel starts frantically unzipping his pants was also great.
“The whole time that we were backstage, I was like, ‘Oh, where is everyone else’s egg?'”
“Why aren’t you inside?”
“Sometimes I go outside.”
“Mm. Doesn’t look like it.”
“Would you like me to stop the clock?”
“I think so. I mean, in my head it stopped a long time ago.”
“Who’s Greg?”
“–Well, have you seen the show?”
“He’s so famous!”
(Kumail winding up with his head in his hands at this continuing to come up delighted me. He’s so famous!)
“No, I’ve never used a T-shirt launcher before, Alex. What do you think my life is?”
“Is this your first day of putting on T-shirts?”
“Yeah, the T-shirt dribbled out of there a couple times. Once you stop trusting yourself, there’s nowhere to go.”
“Debbie, where are the fucking oranges?”
Slow Horses, “Boardroom Politics”
The comedic genius of watching a hog-tied River retrieve and operate his phone using mostly his mouth and nose cannot be overstated. Spider’s weird eagle miming is another highlight in that vein. Good drama, on the other hand, from the Katinsky reveal and from Alex’s family’s grim attempt to reach her over the radio, finally pleading to a dead connection as she switches them off. Ownage: Standish’s chess game. Judd wants to achieve major ownage, but the best he can manage so far is the petty interpersonal kind (“Sorry to make you wait, but I was busy making you wait”).
Fuck yeah Send Help and that “fuck youuuuu” shot, I dunno if McAdams has ever been hotter than this movie yet is simultaneously free of any vanity. Raimi is BACK.
The atmosphere of TTSS is incredible — somehow it is both stifling (that party!) yet inviting, it is so pleasurable to spend time in this grim brown world. And yeah, the Guy-ness is essential for sketching the many characters here.
TTSS is a very good movie that I find bears only slight resemblance to the book. Same overall plot, same characters, but the two really don’t align very much. I suspect the Guinness version is closer.
It is. (I like them both, though.)
“Except once, which makes that moment so much more revealing.”
Is that when he raises his voice for “Then what are you!?” in his final conversation with Bill?
That’s a good one, but I was thinking specifically of his scene with the retired researcher–there’s a good bit where he absorbs her nostalgia for their golden-tinged salad days and then can’t stop himself (one of the few times he can’t stop himself) from quietly pointing out that the time she’s remembering so fondly was the war.
My Cousin Vinny – Always fun to show to people while I try not to thirst over Marisa Tomei’s accent, outfits, and ultimate competence. (Major highlight here is when Linda and Vinny argue about the tap and it is clear this is their foreplay.) A truly fine movie about doing your job even if the dutch angles stick out like a sore thumb. Seriously, what is with those?
Michael Clayton – Speaking of…god, what a magnificent film and it’s more esoteric, outright mystical moments are more powerful than ever, Arthur an insane yet lucid representative of the spiritual life and Michael material death, resurrected by Arthur’s message (“Believe it’s not just madness”). What saves Michael here isn’t just timing but connection to his son, recognition of something deeper than debt and the life of the bagman, something present in the serenity of the horses. (Clooney’s face, visibly moved, is amazing.)
If there’s a way to watch My Cousin Vinny without obviously thirsting over Marisa Tomei’s everything in it, I’ve never found it.
Including her backless onesie!
I too am a sucker for a bridge and tunnel accent.
“HOW-EVAH” *swoon*
A Very Long Emgagement (Un long dimanche de fiançailles) – I enjoyed this, didn’t love it. Melancholy and dread are, no joke, some of my favorite moods to explore in art , so I thought the shifting tones here between the depredations of the Front mixed with the golden-hour adventures of Audrey Tatou, plucky girl detective worked really well. The guy playing Manech didn’t do much for me. But Tatou’s big saucer eyes held the frame whenever they needed her to, both in moments of happiness and drama. (She’s unbearably adorable in the matches scene.) And if everything seemed maybe a little too easy for her, well, that’s ok for the kind of movie this wants to be. I was ready for it to be over 15 or 20 minutes before it was, but it was a good time.
Three/four years isn’t *that* long, though. I know a couple whose engagement is coming up on 25 years.
Live Music – LA pop-punks Tiny Stills supported by UK indie-punks Cheerbleederz on Saturday night, jangly dream-pop from Lande Hekt in an old courtroom on Sunday night. I’ve only seen one gig in the old courtroom prior to this and it wasn’t that well-suited, but there was a focus on dreamy percussion-light acts this time that suited the high ceilings, justice was restored.
Woooooooo live music! I presume the bands playing in the courtroom had to wear those goofy wigs.
They really should have done! No authenticity in indie rock these days. One of the support acts did do a justice-related cover version though, real crowd-pleaser.
Woo live music! Too bad you can’t try bands for bad shows in the courtroom. “I find you guilty of a poor set.”
Luckily that was unnecessary here, since everyone was great… but I guess since the courtroom is no longer in active use (it’s part of a JUSTICE MUSEUM) we’d have to do things the old way and simply tear them limb from limb.
A grim final show for William and the Wallaces, but you can’t deny that encore performance of “FREEDOM!”
What did we play?
Still more Slay the Spire 2. Beat Ascension 1 playing the Silent (my poison builds failed, so I went back to my beloved shivs: the moral here is that shivs rule. That card that lets you play all the shivs in your exhaust pile is possibly overpowered, and I hope they never fix it because I fucking love being overpowered), so now I’m feeling out the Regent, one of the sequel’s new characters. He has an incredible sense of personality–he’s buoyed about in a throne carried by scuttling creatures and idly flexes his hands during all the battles, like he’s just so bored with everything–and some cool and unique attributes. The first game’s characters all had their specialties and distinctive characteristics, but the Regent is–with thanks to Tristan’s Community reference above–streets ahead of all of that with the most divergent gameplay yet. I can summon a giant glowing sword to slowly revolve around me. I have a whole separate set of energy in addition to my regular energy (that dictates how many cards I can play per turn, and what value of those cards can be). There’s an obvious learning curve here, but I’m having a lot of fun with it.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate on Nintendo Switch
Played a few more matches against our niece to start the week. We went nearly 50-50. She’s gotten legitimately better when using Pyra/Mythra. I was also off my game, and I also can’t seem to win consistently when using Ken. Then again, she lost pretty bad when she switched to Palutena for the last match. Maybe with time she’ll get there too.
Pac-Man – Nintendo Entertainment System – Nintendo Classics on Nintendo Switch Online
They added this during the week, so I played a few rounds because what was I gonna do? Be given another way to play Pac-Man and then just not play Pac-Man? Fuck outta here.
Arcade Archives PAC-MAN on Nintendo Switch
Played a few rounds too, just to remind myself how much difference there is between the NES port and the arcade original. There is minimal difference in game feel, but the sound is a huge difference. The arcade is much louder, and the sound effects are sharper and wackier, and more memorable. I legitimately don’t think the game becomes such a big hit if the sound design hadn’t been so fantastic.
Sonic Spinball – Sega Genesis Classics on Nintendo Switch
Working on the third level. The left side of the board is strange and somewhat unintuitive. I’ll keep trying.
Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights
Tried this ages ago, got my ass kicked so badly by the first boss I put it down for years. Doing better now. A much more combat-focused Metroidvania than I usually play. I guess was enjoying it, and I want to get back, but I didn’t super duper miss it on my vacation, either.
I gave a presentation on this in high school once in a public speaking class where we had to give a talk on how to do something. Since I didn’t know how to do anything (and still don’t), I hijacked Campbell as “this is how you can construct a story.” That has always left me with quite a fondness for him, and this is a great explanation for how his exploration of the monomyth actually functions and what people can do with it. I never have a problem with storytellers breaking parts of it when it suits them, but there’s a tendency to get whiny about Campbell’s implied morality rather than simply champion their own, which is odd but, I suppose, speaks to how much of a landmark this work is.
One of favorite Hero’s Returns may actually be in The Phantom Tollbooth.
Ha! I was thinking about The Phantom Tollbooth while reading this! It is indeed a great return because it inverts the beginning, both are blank spaces but now there is the possibility of filling the space with actions and ideas.
There was the interesting observation (don’t remember who coined it) that the Heroine’s Journey involves typically getting something back that was taken, in contrast to the Hero getting rid of it or restoring.
Men be throwing away rings but women be getting rings, amirite folks!