What Wreck-it-Ralph taught me about TC
Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2013 11:06 pm
A couple weekends ago we went to see Wreck-it Ralph, the latest Disney/Pixar movie. It was pretty good. And, since my reading-life is knee-deep in Thomas Covenant -- I'm into the first few chapters of Fatal Revenant, reading the Last Chronicles for the first time -- I couldn't help but see some similar themes. Especially comparing the First Chronicles to Ralph. Both stories, generally, could be described thusly:
"In pursuing his own self-centered motives, a social outcast makes things much worse; but once he begins forming his own moral center, and acting on that morality in his own flawed manner, he makes things much better in a way that no one else could have."
Cool, huh?
The only problem is that I kept thinking about Ralph, and the conclusions I formed kind of spoilered Fatal Revenant for me (I think -- I'm only about 100 pages in).
I'll try not to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen the movie, but there's a big plot twist towards the end that I didn't see coming. It totally hit me by surprise. And I was really disappointed in myself for not catching onto the clues, especially considering that the movie was otherwise a pretty straight-forward Disney cartoon. So, in case I'm ever confronted by such a twist again, I formed a "story-telling rule" to keep myself on guard, to watch for clues:
"Whenever a 'new' character enters the plot, whose motives are ambiguously-defined and against the motives of the main character, ask yourself: are all the 'bad guys' accounted for?"
I was pretty proud of myself. The only problem now is that last night I read the scene in FR where Linden finally has a pow-wow with Covenant and Jeremiah in Revelstone and my little "rule" worked 100% accurately and I'm pretty sure I spoilered the rest of the book for myself.
No one needs to confirm or deny this for me, but considering the Mahdoubt's words about love "casting a glamour on the heart," I'm pretty sure that Jeremiah wasn't the only "son" in the room, if you know what I mean.
So, those of you who've already read FR: I hope you got a good laugh out of this. I'll continue reading, and let you know what you already know when I get there, namely whether my suspicions are true or not.
"In pursuing his own self-centered motives, a social outcast makes things much worse; but once he begins forming his own moral center, and acting on that morality in his own flawed manner, he makes things much better in a way that no one else could have."
Cool, huh?
The only problem is that I kept thinking about Ralph, and the conclusions I formed kind of spoilered Fatal Revenant for me (I think -- I'm only about 100 pages in).
I'll try not to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen the movie, but there's a big plot twist towards the end that I didn't see coming. It totally hit me by surprise. And I was really disappointed in myself for not catching onto the clues, especially considering that the movie was otherwise a pretty straight-forward Disney cartoon. So, in case I'm ever confronted by such a twist again, I formed a "story-telling rule" to keep myself on guard, to watch for clues:
"Whenever a 'new' character enters the plot, whose motives are ambiguously-defined and against the motives of the main character, ask yourself: are all the 'bad guys' accounted for?"
I was pretty proud of myself. The only problem now is that last night I read the scene in FR where Linden finally has a pow-wow with Covenant and Jeremiah in Revelstone and my little "rule" worked 100% accurately and I'm pretty sure I spoilered the rest of the book for myself.
No one needs to confirm or deny this for me, but considering the Mahdoubt's words about love "casting a glamour on the heart," I'm pretty sure that Jeremiah wasn't the only "son" in the room, if you know what I mean.
So, those of you who've already read FR: I hope you got a good laugh out of this. I'll continue reading, and let you know what you already know when I get there, namely whether my suspicions are true or not.