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analysis-by-vaylon · 6 years

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Animation reviews, criteria for analysis, and the scope of this blog.

Hello, there. I’ve recently been browsing Netflix for animated features and series to watch, and I thought I would share some brief thoughts about these with you; however, it’s not my intention to turn this blog into a review blog -- I’d rather stick to lengthy analysis. I’m simply using these reviews as a starting point to discuss some things that have been on my mind lately.

I want to accomplish multiple things with this post: I’ll talk about some of the animation I’ve seen recently, discuss why I’m not going to post longer analyses for these, and then go into some detail about what sort of things you can (and can’t) expect me to talk about when I discuss animation.

Reviews for Recently-Watched Animation

Only one of these is recent; I basically just browse Netflix, look for something with an interesting premise, and watch it. It’s not a very complex process.

April and the Extraordinary World. 2015. Origin: France. I found its premise silly. The dialogue is uninspired at best and its characters unsympathetic. Many critics praised its animation, but because I don’t like steampunk, I found the scenery and designs to be dull. Not recommended.

The Little Prince. 2015. Origin: France. I’ve never read the book, but I sense that this film does it justice, as it effortlessly weaves imaginative fantasy-adventure together with a story about the pressures of adulthood. There’s a great deal of mystery and symbolism in it that was, for me, a breath of fresh air. Recommended.

My Life as a Zucchini. 2016. Origin: France. This is a stop-motion animation whose characters have a wonderful amount of life and vibrancy in their designs and dialogue. Despite being on the shorter side (at a mere 65 minutes!), this film still manages to pack a whole lot into its charmingly-told love story. Recommended.

A.I.C.O. -Incarnation-. 2018. Origin: Japan. 12 episodes. I wanted to like this -- I really did -- but despite its intriguing premise and the promise of pure science fiction themes, I ultimately found this anime to be lackluster in its storytelling, concepts, and designs. It seems to focus more on action than on execution. The dialogue is especially bad -- rife with what I call “anime-isms”. Not recommended.

In This Corner of the World. 2016. Origin: Japan. This film takes us back to World War II-era Japan with faithfully-reconstructed depictions of both Hiroshima and Kure. The scenery is gorgeous, and the characters’ victories and struggles are as palpable as the looming horror which ultimately waits for Hiroshima. Despite the cheerful face the characters bravely put on, the film reminds us that no one escapes unscathed from war. Recommended.

Remember: just because I enjoy something and you don’t -- or vice-versa -- does not mean that one of us is wrong and one of us is right. There is such a thing as personal taste; April and the Extraordinary World, for instance, was widely acclaimed by critics, but I personally dislike it.

Criteria for Analysis

When it comes to writing analysis, I am mostly interested in longer works that have complex overarching themes, intriguing concepts, or an engaging use of language. I don’t intend to write about anything that I wouldn’t recommend to others for their own enjoyment. Films are nice -- and some of them do indeed offer enough complexity to warrant bringing them under the critical eye -- but I have found that the series format is most suited for allotting time for the development of themes, symbols, and so on. I believe in the power of structured meaning; by this, I don’t mean that the work needs to follows a formulaic structure, but rather the work creates, through association and recurrence, an idiomatic framework of meaning.

An example of what I mean can be found in The Lord of the Rings in the symbolism of the One Ring. Historically, in fiction and everyday metaphor, rings were used as symbols of love, commitment, power, wealth, and greed. In The Lord of the Rings, however, the One Ring -- though it certainly carries this ancient symbolism with it -- takes on additional symbolism through its association with actions or feelings: compulsion, for instance, in being compelled to wear and desire it; hardship, in that the Ring is a heavy psychological burden for all who bear it; treachery, in that the Ring seeks to return to its true master and always threatens to escape or betray those who wear it; and malice, in that the Ring represents Sauron’s power-hungry desire for dominion over all beings and for the ability to cruelly inflict suffering upon them. It’s thanks to the widespread appreciation of The Lord of the Rings that these meanings have entered into the wider consciousness of symbolism associated with rings -- though, of course, love and commitment remain today the central ones.

Obviously, the longer a series is, the more it can add to its personal grammar of meaning: take, for instance, Star vs. the Forces of Evil and the Blood Moon, a recurring symbol -- throughout all three seasons -- of love and destiny. Each additional appearance of the symbol offers a chance to further enrich its meaning.

By borrowing cultural symbols and constructing personal ones, writers can elevate their work, tapping into powerful ideas much greater than themselves; presenting those ideas in an intelligible way can hopefully lead the reader to some sort of epiphany or greater awareness. This is as true of animation as it is of literary fiction, which brings me to my next point.

The Scope of This Blog

I started this blog in order to bring the same critical approaches used for writing about literature to animation. You won’t hear me often discussing frame rate, color grading, or other technical elements of visual design -- despite animation being primarily a visual medium. To people who work in the animation industry, that may seem odd, but I’m simply not trained in film, animation, or art theory, and anything that I know about those subjects (which is not much) is from reading about them in my own personal time. I just don’t consider myself qualified to comment on the finer technical points of visual media.

My academic training is in English literature and critical theory, and I’m more interested in ideas and their conveyance than in visual impact, as you may have gathered from the previous sections. Elaborate animation can be impressive, yes, but my personal opinion is that visual achievement is a hollow victory if it lacks complex meaningfulness. The example that always comes to mind for me is the Nichijou anime: yes, some of the animation in the series is, without a doubt, exemplary in terms of technical effort and stylistic experimentation, but without any intellectual complexity to support the series, it simply feels pointless -- even downright mean-spirited. Perhaps an animator would find the series interesting, but it’s not what I’m looking for.

Part of that, too, is due to my own limitations. I am visually impaired, so I tend to de-emphasize visuals and give primacy to written and spoken language. I simply can’t see well enough to make critical judgments on the visual aspects of animation. Hence, you will often hear me speak instead of narrative, dialogue, characterization, and so on -- elements of literary fiction as applied to animated storytelling.

I’ve often thought about whether or not I should even be running a blog like this; it is entirely possible I don’t belong in discussions about animation. I think animators who believe in the supremacy of board-driven animation (like John Kricfalusi, for instance) would agree with that: animation, they might say, is the realm of artists and not writers -- and especially not writers who have no background in art whatsoever. They would have a point. Animation is, as I said earlier, primarily a visual medium, whether that involves ink, paint, clay, cardboard cutouts, or computer-generated drawings. What right do I have to intrude into the world of color and movement? And my answer is none. I have no right. I am a trespasser.

And I am comfortable being one. I expect no one to listen to me; I would still be saying the things I have said even if no one were. Perhaps it is foolish to think so, but I believe that animation can have the same things in it that literature does: that it can be both intellectually complex and fun, that it say something about the human condition, that it can challenge its audience. I don’t want people to lose sight of what is important about storytelling -- no matter what format it comes in.

#analysis #critical theory #animation

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bewarethewolfarmy · 7 years

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(While I totes don’t do anything else, enjoy the paper I wrote for my history class about fanfiction XD

A Poet In Whom Live All The Poets of the Past

In Virginia Woolf's “Letter to a Young Poet” she advises a young poet on being a poet; she says how all poets before and after exist within in, and that they help to move his pen, to write. In this he is ancient, and in this all creativity is a spring from which poets, all writers, drive from. So then what would her opinion of fan fiction be, the writing of stories, and poems, based on others' works? Why then does the common consensus seem to be that the drawing off of others works seem to come off as a bad thing? Fan fiction is not a bad thing innately, yet it is believed to be. Whether it is arguments about its legality, it's usefulness, or it's actual content, fan fiction has the misfortune of being given a reputation for being “bad.” Yet it has always existed; whether Pride and Prejudice and Zombies or a theater company's production of Shakespeare, the world builds it's tales on the backs of old. The continuation of it by writers today should not be an issue worth arguing but it is and so it shall be. Fan fiction does little harm and indeed instead it helps writers. It fosters ability and language skills and despite fears of copyright infringement and the content of their stories, it does not harm those whom they are based on nor readers and writers of the stories thus it should be applauded and treated with the respect it deserves as a writing style

First though there is an important question to answer: what is the subject known as fanfiction? From the perspective of a writer of fanfiction the definition would be “a piece of written prose or poetry which borrows from and is influenced by a previous work or individual”; fanfiction is something that is born from not both media such as movies and tv shows but also from real life people, thus the existence of the controversial but still fanfiction genre known as RPF or Real Person Fiction. In a more professional side, on page 20 of the online edition of the Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction “fan fiction” is defined as “amateur science fiction and fantasy fiction; fiction that uses characters or a fictional universe originally created by a professional author or for a television show, movie, etc. Also a work of such fiction” emphasizing an existence in primarily science fiction and fantasy; “fan fiction” in this form has been in use since at least 1939 where it appeared in Le Zombie, though it's shorthand name “fanfic” according to Oxford did not appear in published form until 1976 almost forty years later, undermining the popular belief that fanfiction itself is a new form. Before the age of internet, fans would publish their works in anthologies and fan-made publications known commonly as fanzines; dating back to the 1930s with the creation of The Comet in May of 1930, the existence of fanzines, primarily for fans to share among each other, allowed for the propagation of mostly non fiction letters and discussions. But the existence of fanzines such as Spockanalia, the first documented Star Trek fanzine, allowed for the spreading of fan written stories, making for some of the earliest examples of what we call fanfiction today. As the World Wide Web took hold, the sharing of fanfiction became easier, with the advent of specialized sites used for housing fanfics of specific media, ranging from Lumos for the Harry Potter community to Anne's Story Page for Titanic. Nowadays the primary sources of fanfiction in the general community are down to a handful of major sites: Archive of Our Archive, abbreviated as AO3, and Fanfiction.net, FF.net, are of the current main sites but many writers of fanfiction also use sites such as Mediaminer.org and the social platforming sites Tumblr and Facebook to post their works as well. On those dedicated sites such as AO3 and FF.net, the stories are always separated out the same as any published work, by genres such as romance or humor, as well as by their specific fandom, such as Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings.

As a form born in the shadows then, to people who were simply writing what interested them using stories they knew, what is benefit in making it respected and more mainstream? Well, one is the creative aspect. The creation of new stories is not a spontaneous thing; before a human may learn how to form their own sentences, they have to mimic the words spoken around them by others. It is only by taking those pieces that they can begin to form something else; similarly a writer using old media to create something else is a stepping stone to creating their own works. Authors such as Meg Cabot, RJ Anderson, Cassandra Clare, and E. L. James have all admitted to having written fanfiction in the past; Neil Gaiman, author of American Gods and The Graveyard Book, notes on his official Tumblr that “...it’s a good place to write while you’ve still got training wheels on - someone else’s character or worlds...” and in an article on The Bustle, Emma Lord says of fanfiction that “Fan fiction, for many people, is just a gateway drug to all other fiction writing.” This also counts as an educational use, helping students of creative writing and English in general to feel more comfortable in writing outside of a strictly academic environment, as explored in both “Going Public” an article by Jayne Lammers and Valerie Marsh, and “Literacy Engagement Through Online and Offline Communities Outside School: English Language Learners’ Development as Readers and Writers” by Guofang Li. Marsh and Lammers' subject “Laurie” says how “ 'the problem with [school] writing… is it wasn't storytelling at all. It was just regurgitation of facts or it was analysis of stories that were already there' “ and Li writes of a subject “Yina” that “ when I ﬁrst interviewed Yina at the beginning of ﬁfth grade, she expressed frustration and lack of conﬁdence in English” (p. 314, Li) but how after two years, in which Yina has involved herself in fanfiction and fandom in general that “Yina’s volumes of sophisticated writing of different genres suggest that she had become an accomplished writer in English” (p. 314, Li). Lammers and Marsh's paper also goes into the societal use of fanfiction, noting how “Reviews both compliment Laura's writing and also provide confirmation that Laura reached a fellow audience member—an experience Laura describes as 'meaningful.'...she derives a level of satisfaction from knowing her work was read by a social other—someone who shares her passion for Wicked”. In Angela Thomas' paper “Fan fiction online: Engagement, critical response and affective play through writing”, she states “The range of practices...is quite astonishing: collaborative writing of fan ﬁction, the teaching of...the intricate details and specialised knowledge of the ﬁeld....and dealing with management issues related to a 200 member community. For a group of predominantly 13–17 year olds, the level of writing, discussion and negotiation involved in these practices is remarkably sophisticated.” (p. 229, Thomas).

What then are the arguments against fanfiction? The major one is that of copyright; many authors, including Anne Rice, Orson Scott Card and Diana Gabaldon, have famously spoken out against fanfiction, feeling it is “illegal” and “infringes upon their copyright.” The problem with that is difficulty of arguing for copyright; to copyright something an expectation must be met that “the material is original, fixed in a tangible medium of expression, and owes its origin to an author.” (p. 201, Chatelain), which is difficult to prove with writing being inspired by other works often. In the case of The Wind Done Gone, a published work by Alice Randall based on and parodying Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell , though lower courts allowed for the blocking of the publishing of the book, the federal appeals court ultimately overturned the ruling and the estate of Mitchell ended up dropping the case and settling outside of court. In addition the existence of the Fair Use Doctrine, Section 107 of the Copyright Law, allows for the use of copyrighted work under certain circumstances, notably nonprofit. But fanfiction writers are not often looking for money when they write; as mentioned in previous paragraphs fanfiction is more a stepping stone, hobby or educational tool than anything else. As Emma Lord mentioned in another article “6 Things Everyone Who Enjoys Fan Fiction Has Heard Before, And Is Totally Over”, “people who write fan fiction don't do it for the money. We do it for the community, and for the chance to connect with writers and readers...”.

Another argument is the content of fanfiction. It is often denounced as lazy writing, often by authors such as George R R Martin who dislikes the useage of the word to what is done now with fanfiction. The discussion of fanfiction in public is something that the writers then dread; “And even though I was only 11, I still had the common sense to keep my mouth shut about it” says Emma Lord in “6 Things”. “ The idea of children using existing characters in their ﬁction writing was deﬁnitely considered bad practice” (p. 229, Thomas) is one point on it, “Anonymity affords Laura the opportunity to take risks with her writing in the fanfiction context without fear of failure or personal judgment” (Lammers and Marsh) is another. In addition is the stigma of it all being about smut, stories in which the main focus is on sex; the issue with this is the statistics. As of May 12th 2017 there are 143,086 fanfictions under the Harry Potter tag on AO3; of them 41,636 are rated “Teen and Up”, 39,765 are “General” in other words safe for children to read, 27,683 are “Explicit”, 25,272 are “Mature” and 8,762 are “Not Rated”; the majority of fics, 55.5%, are notably not Mature or Explicit which would include sex or other graphic materials. Over 84% of the fanfictions for Power Rangers is Teen or General and it is almost 59% for Angel: the Series fanfictions. While this can fluctuate between sites and between fandoms, Twilight for instance only has 40%, it is arguable that fanfiction is much more than public opinion might state.

So again, would Virgina Woolf mind fanfiction? One might say no, that by drawing upon the works of our writing ancestors, we are simply fulfilling the state of being the poet within whom lives all others. In addition there is an argument that can be made that perhaps putting effort into protecting fanfiction is unnecessary; with the protection of the Fair Use Doctrine, and many authors either condoning or simply turning their eyes from fanfiction of their work, fanfiction can appear be not be in danger. But it is not so simple as to say that fanfiction should be protected. It needs also to be embraced, in recognition as the tool for writing and for writers themselves that it is; whether because it helps a person learning a new language, or assists in socializing, or even just allows a would-be writer to grow without judgement, fan fiction writing should be given at least the respect of other writing conventions.

Bibliography:

Chatelain, Michelle. "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Copyright Law: Fan Fiction, Derivative Works, and the Fair Use Doctrine." Tulane Journal of Technology & Intellectual Property, vol. 15, Fall2012, pp. 199-217. EBSCOhost, offcampus.lib.washington.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=84608741&site=ehost-live.

This paper explores the legal standing of fanfiction. The author starts off with an explanation of fanfiction but then goes on to explain how fanfiction is protected under the Fair Use Doctrine. The part that interested me the most was near the beginning where she discusses copyright and talks about phonebooks which allowed for a reasonable introduction into how fanfiction fits into copyright laws. It also makes mention of the fact that fanfiction and parody are what is called “transformative works” as well as the existence of the Organization for Transformative Works which runs Archive of Our Own and acts to protect fanfiction writers from legal battles.

Christian, Kaelyn. "Fan Fiction and the Fair Use Doctrine." Serials Librarian, vol. 65, no. 3-4, Nov. 2013, pp. 277-285. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/0361526X.2013.838726.

Similar to the previous one, this article also explores the connection between the Fair Use doctrine and fanfiction. This one though is the one that goes into the The Wind Done Gone case and what happened, giving us one of the few examples of actual published fanfiction going up against it's source material and why fanfiction is still legal. The fact that the Wind Done Gone was allowed to be published despite it's nature as a fanfiction of Gone with the Wind is important to writing.

Gaiman, Neil. "Neil Gaiman's opinion on fanfiction." Neil Gaiman. Tumblr, 24 Apr. 2012. Web. 13 May 2017.

This is the Tumblr blog for Neil Gaiman, author of the Graveyard Book and the Sandman series. As a well-known and well-liked author, his work have been subjected to interpretation and fanfiction as well as fanart. Thus his opinion on fanfiction is important; the fact he acknowledges it as something that should be best used to grow and not simply an end result of writing works to show why fanfiction is not harmful and is indeed beneficial. I like the humorous way he talks about it as well and the fact that while writing is his livelihood and he has every right to react like some others, being more defensive over his work, he treats his fans with the respect and trust enough to let them write and respect his livelihood at the same time.

Lammers J.C. & Marsh V.L. (2015). Going Public: An Adolescent's Networked Writing on Fanfiction.net. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 59(3), 277–285. doi: 10.1002/jaal.416

I originally choose this article with my outline for the paper so it was the first article I found connected to fanfiction. It goes into the social and educational uses of fanfiction, specifically on how it helped the paper's subject “Laura” with writing. I like that it goes into how important anonymity can be to a fanfiction writer and how vital it is to have the community aspect of fanfiction writing for growth of self confidence. It pairs well with the Guofang Li paper to create an image of fanfiction that goes beyond its hobby status and to a practice that is worth encouraging in young writers so they can better stretch their creative wings.

Li, Guofang. "Literacy Engagement through Online and Offline Communities outside School: English Language Learners' Development as Readers and Writers." Theory into Practice, vol. 51, no. 4, Oct. 2012, pp. 312-318. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/00405841.2012.726061.

I choose this article because of its engagement with English as a Second Language students. My thoughts were that ESL students might find fanfiction useful for the development of language skills and the social connection; the article verified my beliefs I think. Like the Marsh paper, this one also focused on subjects, specifically “Yina”, and their development over time which helped to show how writing over time had assisted her instead of simply conjecture. Paired with the Marsh and Lammers writing, it explores how teachers can better help students to be able to feel comfortable writing as well as better develop their skills both in writing and social aspects.

Lord, Emma. "6 Things Everyone Who Enjoys Fan Fiction Has Heard Before, And Is Totally Over." Bustle. Bustle, 17 Nov. 2014. Web. 13 May 2017.

This is an article off of Bustle that I found while looking up information on how fanfiction is generally viewed. Written by a fanfic writer herself, it explores some of the common misconceptions and ideas of fanfiction that the public has. It is not entirely scientific but for a subject that is largely based on societal opinions and uses, and since it is written by someone who is indeed a part of the thing I'm discussing, it helps to clarify opinions on the matter. Most notably the idea that we as writers are not in it for money and we are not simply writing smut, nor are devoid of original ideas just because we choose to write based on others works.

Lord, Emma. "13 Things Fan Fiction Writers Are Very Tired Of Explaining." Bustle. Bustle, 08 Apr. 2016. Web. 13 May 2017.

An article by the same person who did “6 Things”, this one elaborates on the ideas of the first one, going more into what fanfiction writers themselves are like, not simply what our work is like. One notable thing is that she points out that people make fun of fanfiction with the belief that we're not the same as other people or other writers and won't be hurt by the insults. This being a misconception I've experienced myself with my friends I feel it is important to remember considering it's attachment to the idea that if you write fanfiction, you don't talk about it to others unless you know they are trustworthy. Another thing that did not get into the paper proper but that I see is the idea that fanfiction is based on our own feelings when it isn't always true; smut can be written by asexuals and abuse can be written by people who are entirely against abuse. Emma Lord notes that all writers involve some part of their desires in their stories but it is not the main reasoning behind writing.

Martin, George R R. "Someone Is Angry On the Internet." Not A Blog. N.p., 7 May 2010. Web. 13 May 2017.

I needed an argument against fanfiction and I knew that some authors dislike it: looking up who I found this, the writer of A Song of Ice and Fire's official blog. It's an interesting piece where he talks about how bad fanfiction is and why it shouldn't be done, based on how he thinks fanfiction has become something terrible based on what he used to write and how it apparently hurt others. The biggest issue I have with it is that it does make erroneous claims, such as that H. P. Lovecraft died poor because he allowed fanfiction and that the fanfiction GRRM himself admits to writing which didn't use the same characters from media but did use ideas and assumingly settings was better than fanfiction that uses characters from media. Still he does a good job of at least attempting a civil tone about the whole situation I think.

Ohnotheydidnt, and Goofusgallant. "Book Post: How authors feel about fan-fiction." Book Post: How authors feel about fan-fiction - Oh No They Didn't! N.p., 19 Apr. 2012. Web. 13 May 2017.

This is primarily a list and short summary of a group of authors thoughts on fanfiction. It includes JD Salinger who never dealt with fanfiction proper but did get angry over a proposed sequel of his book The Catcher in the Rye, as well as those more in favor like JK Rowling. One thing I found important that they included was the fact about some writers seeing it only about the money; while Anne Rice and GRRM mention how they are protective of their works because of wanting to be the only ones to use them, Orson Scott Card according to the post flatly says that it's about the money for him which is a valid reason. It's also funny Charlie Stross' opinion who supposedly compared himself to a dragon when it comes to fanfiction.

Prucher, Jeff. Brave New Words : The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction. Oxford ; New York: Oxford UP, 2007. Online.

This was included for the definition of fanfiction and because it's an official dictionary. I was actually surprised to find an Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction, and one that included “fan fic” and “fan fiction” as actual definitions. It makes sense the definition is based on sci-fi and fantasy stories considering its placement but the definition is better I feel than some other places that emphasize the internet as a portion of how fanfiction exists, as well as actually gives examples of when fanfiction was used as a term in previous publications.

Rice, Anne. "IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM ANNE ON "FAN FICTION"." Anne Rice the Official Site. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 May 2017.

As with the GRRM post, this was included primarily as a comparison against fanfiction. The important portion of the post, on Anne Rice's official page, is small, not much more than a few lines, but it is infamous within the fanfiction community for cementing the idea that she is against what we do. She's civil about it but there is little in the post on what exactly drives her to be upset over fan writings outside of her work being copyrighted.

Thomas, Angela. "Fan Fiction Online: Engagement, Critical Response and Affective Play through Writing." Australian Journal of Language & Literacy, vol. 29, no. 3, Oct. 2006, pp. 226-239. EBSCOhost, offcampus.lib.washington.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=22317451&site=ehost-live.

This one I liked for going not only into how fanfiction helps writing and how writers learn from reviews and connect through them, but also how fanfiction communities grow. The example of Middle Earth Insanity is just one of many where a group of writers and fans worked together to make a coherent community where they could all talk and enjoy themselves without worry of being judged or having to look through multiple other works to see what they most wanted. It also includes the existence of fanfictions close relative, “roleplaying” where multiple writers work together to create one story, and multiple fascets of how to write. Like other articles on fanfiction it focuses on one subject, Tina this time, and what her thoughts and experiences are but the act of having a literacy study helps in a subject that is about writing.

Woolf, Virginia. Letter to a Young Poet. N.p.: Private, 1932. Fadedpages.com. Web. 12 May 2017. <http://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20120709>.

This is the online version of the letter which I took the title of this paper from. I had heard about it during a lecture in my literature class and that line specifically made me think of fanfiction and how it is the work of those building off of others. I thought it fascinating to think of fanfiction writers as simply having within them the souls of those who wrote before and will write after so I wanted to include it; in addition as I put in my own definition of fanfiction, while the most common form is prose, there is still many fanfictions that are written in the form of poetry and I myself use the hybrid form of prose poetry, or poetic prose, to write. I think thinking of not only authors but poets in terms of how fan made works exist and evolve is important to the narrative.

#complete with annotated bibliography #fanfiction #fanfic #fan fiction #fan fic

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foxhenki-blog · 6 years

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The Cthulhu Trinity: Gamaliel

This hasn’t been a week for practice, but that hasn’t stopped a cascade of results to flood into my reality.

I saw the fox again. Yeah, maybe it is normative now for an urban fox to display themselves in broad daylight next to a softball game with tons of people and cars, maybe. I don’t really buy it. I grew up in the country, like, after a sign that says ‘pavement ends’ kind of country. Growing up, I literally can count the amount of times I spotted a fox on one hand. We live on an urban river corridor, so its presence isn’t the weird part, its the fact that I see it when there are a lot of other people around and that not one other person seems to see it.

Maybe its a Mom and she has a den of kits in the thicket next to the river and the softball field. That would be rational, I can buy into that. What I find significant is the sheer amount of times I’ve seen her and the syncs those sightings have had with improbable events.

Last week, I talked a lot about shadow people. I received some tweets from people that I respect stating that they haven’t seen them more than a handful of times themselves, and that the amount that I see them seems unusual. Maybe, maybe it is, it would make sense, I’ve sigiled for increased spirit contact in the past. Almost exactly a year ago, to be exact.

So yeah, I saw the fox again and that night I had two contact events. The first was accompanied by sleep paralysis, which I haven’t experienced in quite awhile. It was, I’m almost certain, a shadow person making contact. It started out as a dream, and in that dream there was a person that I know, from work, odd that I dreamt about him but not that odd. He had this different character to him, however. A quality that I am familiar with.

It goes like this, I see another person in my dream, known to me or not, and when I approach them there is something in their eyes. Something not human and malevolent… they don’t overtly act out malice, most times they are quite friendly, reaching out a hand, coming in close for a whisper, and at the last moment, that is when I notice this alien-ness about them. It invokes in me absolute terror, but that frustrating dream terror where the screams are funneled off and are not cathartic in anyway.

The night of the day I saw the fox again I had that dream and then awoke from it frozen on the couch where I had fallen asleep sitting up. My breath was tight and I knew there was something in the room, something else… I heard my wife walking on the creaking floorboards of our house upstairs and tried to call for her. I was able to move a bit from the couch but then blinked and I was right back there, breathing was harder, and the presence was stronger. This happened four times before I was able to finally shake off the sleep paralysis and head upstairs to bed.

There are, as far as I can tell, two regular spirit forms in our home. A woman, who was identified by a Santera we had bless the home when we moved in, and a child, an infant. My wife and I have both seen the woman while in a state of sleep deprivation (holding babies all night), and she has seen another pervy shirtless man that I have yet to encounter. We have both also heard the baby. We only hear it crying, and we only hear it in our bedroom. Well this night, the night of the sleep paralysis, I awoke from a dead sleep hearing the crying of a child. We have two kids so crying wakes me up immediately. I sat up, listened, heard the crying again coming from the area of the baby monitor, verifying that some little one was in emotional distress. I got up, went to the kids room, and both were sawing logs, sound asleep. Thanks a lot, ghost baby.

I picked up and absolutely tore through Phil Hine’s Psuedonomicon last week. This little sixty page book is phenomenal on so many levels. It is the first book I’ve read (there haven’t been many, which is intentional) that connects with my own thoughts about Lovecraftian Magic almost exactly. It is also an excellent primer for chaos magic and the magica vitae.

When Hine references Lovecraftian Spirits, he doesn’t treat them as fictional entities or try to map them to Greek Gods. He, and I, push back against that practice:

“I... persistently disagree with attempts to mesh [Lovecraftian Spirit Forms] into existing magical systems, their power lies in the fact that they are ‘undimensioned and unseen.’ Likewise, the dark terrors of the psyche retain their power because they can never be fully bound.”

This quote hits me right in the mouth, especially the bit about ‘The dark terrors of the psyche retain their power…’, to me, that indicates that the Shadow (and by extension, Shadow People) are always attracted and fed during Lovecraftian Magical Operations, if they are done correctly, for the fear never leaves, it only increases, as the operations and maturity into the anti-system of Lovecrafitan Magican progresses.

Hine makes an excellent distinction between Western magic and Lovecraftian Magic when he states that:

“western [magic] has a very ‘indoors’ feel to it... Just as scientists have retreated from the chaotic complexity of nature, in favor of laboratory testing and the search for microscopic particles, so magical theory tends to create an internal Tower of Babel, where symbolism shields the user from direct perception of reality. [Lovecraftian] magic stands outside the edifice of symbol systems and carefully constructed hierarchies of spirit.”

I’ve spoken before about the use of encryption in Lovecraftian Magic, when I first read this quote, my mind conflated encryption and symbolism. A bit of thinking separates the two. Symbolism encodes a lot of information inside of an efficient package. Encryption obfuscates information, creating more complexity in the interpretation of it. Complexity but not complication (a dichotomy I reference a lot in my life as a real boy trying to bring my coworkers back from the precipice of inefficiency) is the point I’m trying to get at here. Complexity still has an inherent pattern, a natural element to it, even though it feels chaotic. Complications introduce entropy, the loss of power through fragmentation, through the breaking down of energy. Counterintuitively, I think what Hine is saying here, is that the use of symbolism, by packing information behind archetypes, we are actually contributing to a type of personal magical entropy. Through the act of encryption, however, we are engaging with and building on the complexity required to move the needle of probability in our direction. The Psuedonomicon continues, pulling Lovecraftian Magic away from the larger category of Western Magic:

“A great deal of magical technique is designed to focus awareness along a single directional vector. The use of sigils, meditational symbols, mantras, etc. help to achieve a state where consciousness of object is lost, and the focus of attention... is projected forth... [Lovecraftian] Magic [develops] a reverse talent, the widening of awareness without particular focus, until one perceives all aspects of the immediate environment as a medium for possible communion.”

Reading this has me thinking that Lovecraftian Sigils, then, should increase the complexity of the message, not simplify it. The widening of focus is an excellent, and parallel, method of removing the focus of the sigil from the consciousness of the magician. These differences, as called out by Hine, has me thinking… Lovecraftian Magic is like the Delta Blues of systems of enchantment, right? It is, like Blues, Jazz, and Rap, a distinctly North American type of magic, when we pull away all of the ‘esoteric cruft’ placed on top of it by all of the popular critics and imitators of what I am increasingly starting to think of as ‘Pop Lovecraft.’ You know, the focus on monsters, on Providence, on the major tales and the largely expanded mythos… This ‘Pop Lovecraftian Aesthetic’ is a bit like a Led Zeppelin album. Its appeal is incredibly wide and everyone recognizes the estoricism in it but looks past the ‘weird’ that would normally turn them off because the songs are so catchy and powerful. They look past the fact that Led Zeppelin simply wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for Mr. Johnson on that lonely crossroads, asking the Devil to teach him something new, something original, something that would change the planet and filter into everything we do and say and sing on the North American continent today. Like Old Scratch at that crossroads in Mississippi, Lovecraftian Magic and Lovecraftian spirit-forms (of which I am for certain including the Shadow People) can give the mage what they ask for, but in such a way that it also fulfills their larger agenda. Quoting Hine again:

“the very fact that [Lovecraftian spirit-forms are] not interested whatsoever in human aims, desires, and most of the things which we think are important is in itself useful. If you work from this perspective, and of course you were going to see humanity as ants, but it is also likely that you will get a new insight into your own complex of desires, attitudes, and motivations.”

Lovecraftian Magic is a method of deconstructing the ego through associating ones practice with vast, titanic, angelic-minded cosmic entities whose motivations are wholly alien to typical human aims like money, sex, and political power. It is a method of communing with the non-human, of understanding the world outside of our anthropomorphic blinders. As the Psuedonomicon states:

“a core feature of [Lovecraftian Magic] is transfiguration, evolution into a new mode of being, such as a deep one or cool. This transfiguration brain is not only a new perspective, but also the ability to live in other worlds, and the kind of self-sufficiency that does not depend on other people’s views and judgments.”

Transfiguration into a semi-human, a hybrid spirit human entity with a foot in both worlds… This, in keeping with the aesthetic, is a method of transforming yourself into a Gate which other might pass through.

IMBRICATIONS

This is the first of three posts where I will wrestle with that most famous of Lovecraft’s tales. Thinking back, the Deep One has been part of my thoughts ever since I was first a teenager. This was, I’m ashamed to say, maybe fifteen years before I actually read Lovecraft. I have the living saint of metal, James Hetfield, to thank for placing the seed in my head. Here he is with the rest of his crew, playing the official theme song for the Lovecraftian Chaos Mage:

I’ve said this before, there is no shortage of metal bands that draw inspiration from Lovecraft. Metal was born out of both rock and classical music, and we know that rock wouldn’t exist with Mr. Johnson’s scratchy demon-infused riffs, so in a way metal is a multi-layered embodiment of the Lovecraftian Aesthetic. For our next imbrication I’d like to introduce a band that is new to me, Alkaloid, with their invocation of the trinity’s primary focus:

And finally, I can’t escape this section without bringing you some Cradle of Filth, these cat’s are extreme, it is fun to squint at them and think, ‘OK, where is the influence of Muddy Waters or Mozart on this track?’ It’s there, keep looking.

DIGGING TUNNELS IN CLAY

If you haven’t intuited by now, for the next three weeks we will be wrestling with Lovecraft’s ‘The Call of Cthulhu.’ I’d like to interject here that Chaosium Inc. and their ‘copyright’ on the phrase ‘The Call of Cthulhu’ can kiss my, as the phrase goes, ‘lily-white arse.’ Cthulhu as a spirit form is as real as the Virgin Mary, and no one has slapped a trademark claim on the Queen of Heaven.

I’m going to be giving you a lot of the Psuedonomicon in this three part series. It was hugely influential for me, one of those qualifying moments when you realize that paths your thoughts have taken you on, while weedy, have been trod before, and you are thankful to have the memory of those footsteps leading the way. Let’s begin our exploration into the Mystery of Cthulhu by engaging with its primary method of transmission, dreams. From the Psuedonomicon:

“revelations through dreaming is a strongly recurrent theme throughout the Cthulhu mythos, and it is well known that Lovecraft gained much of his inspiration from his dreams. Cthulhu is generally understood as being the Lord of dreams, and is entombed in the city of R’Lyeh in the deep ocean, he is analog us to the chaotic perceptions and desires chip and sealed it will become elite within the subconscious mind… R’Lehy... partakes of a strange geometry, which, when… explored, constantly shift and work so the tunnels and pathways collapse in overlap each other. This description will surely be familiar to anyone who is worked the Tunnels of Set.”

This passage immediately reminds me of the House of Leaves and as such, pulls in a vector for the Minotaur, creating a Minotaur / Cthulhu syncretism. Further extending this correlation, the Cult of Cthulhu can be mapped on top of the Cult of Mithras.

Lovecraft begins the first section of The Call, entitled, The Horror in the Clay, by invoking those under appreciated spirit-friends, the Theosophists:

“Theosophists have guessed at the awesome grandeur of the cosmic cycle wherein our world and human race form transient incidents. They have hinted at strange survivals in terms which would freeze the blood if not masked by a bland optimism… all dread glimpses of truth, flashed out from an accidental piecing together of separated things... old newspaper (items)... notes of a dead professor...”

The Cthuhlu Trinity is revealed through the manipulation of probability, the improbable juxtaposition of seemingly random elements of text that reveal patterns in chaos. This brings to my mind another High Priest of the Weird, William S. Burroughs, and his Cut-Up Technique.

The time for the first part of our tale is the inter-winter period between 1926 and 1927. Lovecraft has referenced this time before and it was significant to the original pagans as well as the Tuetons and Norse, the ‘deep’ part of winter stretching from December through January, filled with holidays and spiritual significance the world over. Our archetype, the first manifestation of our trinity, is one Professor George Gamell Angell. The first manifestation of the Cthulhu Trinity is the angel, Gamaliel, known well to the gnostics and called by name in many a classical and modern grimoire. Gamaliel is a transmitter of knowledge, but not of the divine, the infernal. Our nameless narrator (presumably Lovecraft) is playing the part of Melchizedek. This is better illustrated by the writer of the blog, Gnostic Sophistries:

“Who is the mysterious figure of Melchizedek? In the Old Testament he is the priest-king of the ancient pre-Israelite city of Salem. He is described in Genesis 14:18 as the “king of Salem” and “priest of the Most High God.” There are some theological paradoxes involving this figure which will be addressed in this article. These issues may be summarized in the following question: Does Melchizedek really fit into the “orthodox” scheme of Bible theology; or is he really a prime example of the Bible’s inherent contradictions or paradoxes?

Before we move along to the issues in question, we must briefly touch on the historic place of Melchizedek in early Gnostic tradition. The fact that early Gnostics assigned importance to this figure may be seen in the treatise named after Melchizedek which is part of the Nag Hammadi Library. Unfortunately this text has succumbed to the ravages of time and is in very poor condition. Large sections of the text have been reduced to fragments; and many sentences in the restored text are little more than theoretical reconstructions. For this reason it is difficult to determine exactly what is said in the text aside from a few key themes, which will be summarized in brief below:

In this treatise Melchizedek is placed within the Gnostic scheme of salvation history; and spiritual secrets are unveiled regarding him. The main theme is where a certain angel named “Gamaliel” appears to Melchizedek and reveals the mysteries of the Godhead. This angel also reveals future events regarding the Savior Jesus and the crucifixion. Evidence of an actual link to Gnostic tradition may be seen in the mention of certain familiar “aions” such as Barbelo, and the four luminaries Harmozel, Oroiael, Daveithe and Eleleth, as mentioned in the Apocryphon of John [1]. It seems that this text is meant to portray the initiation of Melchizedek into the mysteries of the Most High. If my reading is correct then Melchizedek is the archetypal Gnostic priest. In Bible history he is the first of the Gnostics—not in the literal sense, but in the sense that Melchizedek is a symbol of the Truth in the Old Testament which transcends the Law of Moses and the Rule of Jehovah and his Angels.”

Gamaliel is one of the aforementioned Tunnels of Set, the first tunnel that leads into the shifting maze of the Qliphoth. The modern Grimoire of Tiamat makes this connection as well as revealing another manifestation of Gamaliel, the Mušḫuššu:

“In historical sources, Mušḫuššu is called the ‘Furious Snake’ and depicted sometimes as a composite creature made up from the parts of a serpent, a lion, and a bird… Its early depiction show the creature a dragon with a lion’s head… Within the rites of magic, Mušḫuššu appears to the practitioner as a vampiric entity… connected with necromancy and death principle, feeding on blood and sexual energy… as a black bat-like dragon… She endows the practitioner… with the ability to transform the astral body of shadow and to fly through the astral plan as a wraith, a winged vampiric entity who can suck the life-force of a sleeping person. These characteristics resemble the nature of a succubus or an incubus, vampiric demons residing on the dark side of the moon, the qlipothic sphere of Gamaliel… In dreams and visions, she sometimes appears accompanied by creatures of the Sabbat… Mušḫuššu comes with wraiths and black shadows… She presides over the works of necrophilia and indices eroto-necromantic dreams.”

The Gnostics have an extensive treatment of Gamaliel, which we can derive from the Nag Hammadi library:

“And the Father nodded approval; the whole pleroma of the lights was well pleased. The [ministers] came forth: the first one, the great Gamaliel (of) the first great light Harmozel, and the great Gabriel (of) the second great light Oroiael, and the great Samlo of the great light Davithe, and the great Abrasax of the great light Eleleth. And the consorts of these came forth by the will of the good pleasure of the Father: the Memory of the great one, the first, Gamaliel; the Love of the great one, the second, Gabriel; the Peace of the third one, the great Samblo; the eternal Life of the great one, the fourth, Abrasax. Thus were the five ogdoads completed, a total of forty, as an uninterpretable power.”

Gamaliel represents the love of the Deep One, The Love of Cthulhu. This, we will see, is represented by obsession over his manifestation in the dreams of others by Professor Angell. Continuing with the Nag Hammadi text:

“After five thousand years, the great light Eleleth spoke: "Let someone reign over the chaos and Hades." And there appeared a cloud whose name is hylic Sophia [...] She looked out on the parts of the chaos, her face being like [...] in her form [...] blood. And the great angel Gamaliel spoke to the great Gabriel, the minister of the great light Oroiael; he said, 'Let an angel come forth, in order that he may reign over the chaos and Hades.'"

We now see that Gamaliel is also the beginning, it is it that calls for the angel that ‘reigns over Chaos and Hades. It is our professor that first calls for, that first plants in the collective imagination, the Deep One, stirring. Gamaliel is the evil manifestation of the sephiroth Yesod, the path where all knowledge of archetypes of the unconscious are located and unlocked, expect Gamaliel’s reign is over the archetypes of hell and madness. And further, since Lovecraft denotes the narrator’s grand uncle is also the Professor Emeritus of Semitic Languages, another parallel vector in our archetype of Professor Angell is the Rabbi Gamaliel. This edge becomes less opaque when we review these words spoken by the Rabbi, in which he compares his students to different classes of fish:

“A ritually impure fish: one who has memorised everything by study, but has no understanding, and is the son of poor parents

A ritually pure fish: one who has learnt and understood everything, and is the son of rich parents

A fish from the Jordan River: one who has learnt everything, but doesn't know how to respond

A fish from the Mediterranean: one who has learnt everything, and knows how to respond”

Rabbi Gamaliel’s teachings on how students are different classes of fish is incredibly Lovecraftian and sending us back to his first primal oceanic spirit form, Dagon, and the white obelisk covered in hieroglyphs, revealing its cult of merpeople.

Lovecraft leaves us a number of locations of potential Gates where we, as twenty-first century Lovecraftian witches and mages, can tap into the vastness of this first mystery in the Cthulhu Trinity:

“The writing... was... in Professor Angell’s... hand... the main document was headed ‘CTHULHU CULT’... the manuscript was divided into two sections... the first of which was headed... 1925... Dream and Dream Work of H. A. Wilcox, 7 Thoms St. Providence, RI, and the second, ‘Narrative of Inspector John R. Legrasse, 121 Bienville St. New Orleans, LA... The other manuscript papers were all brief notes... accounts of the queer dreams of different persons... citations from theosophical books and magazines (notably W. Scott-Elliot’s Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria)... references to passages in... Frazer’s Golden Bough and... Murray’s ‘Witch-Cult in Western Europe.”

The first location, still extant, is the Fleur-de-lys Studios in Providence.

and the second, at one time a series of waterfront buildings, is now a tranquil park on the water in New Orleans, Woldenberg Park. Below is a historic photo from the turn of the last century. One can use this to journey back to a place suitable to open the Louisiana Gate to the first mystery of the Cthulhu trinity.

As can be seen in the above quote, our kind and learned guide also offers us a few reference texts found among the affects of Professor Angell. We can consider these all required reading directly from the gnostic librarian, Gamaliel:

W. Scott-Elliot’s Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria

The often cited Golden Bough from Frazer

and another favorite, found often in the vicinity of Lovecraftian Spirit Forms and magical events, Murray’s Witch Cult in Western Europe.

Professor Angell’s primary vehicle for transferring his Cthulhu Gnosis to our nameless Melchizedek is an account of the dreams of one H.A. Wilcox. These dreams lead up to a period where Wilcox, after suffering a type of fever attack, lies in a semi-coma between March 23rd and April 2nd. March 22nd coincides with the Festival of Attis. From Frazer’s Golden Bough:

“On the twenty-second day of March, a pine-tree was cut in the woods and brought into the sanctuary of Cybele, where it was treated as a great divinity. The duty of carrying the sacred tree was entrusted to a guild of Tree-bearers. The trunk was swathed like a corpse with woollen bands and decked with wreaths of violets, for violets were said to have sprung from the blood of Attis, as roses and anemones from the blood of Adonis; and the effigy of a young man, doubtless Attis himself, was tied to the middle of the stem. On the second day of the festival, the twenty-third of March, the chief ceremony seems to have been a blowing of trumpets. The third day, the twenty-fourth of March, was known as the Day of Blood: the Archigallus or highpriest drew blood from his arms and presented it as an offering. Nor was he alone in making this bloody sacrifice. Stirred by the wild barbaric music of clashing cymbals, rumbling drums, droning horns, and screaming flutes, the inferior clergy whirled about in the dance with waggling heads and streaming hair, until, rapt into a frenzy of excitement and insensible to pain, they gashed their bodies with potsherds or slashed them with knives in order to bespatter the altar and the sacred tree with their flowing blood. The ghastly rite probably formed part of the mourning for Attis and may have been intended to strengthen him for the resurrection.”

April 2nd is a bit more difficult to nail down, but is often cited as coinciding with the Festival of Eostre, the Teutonic Goddes whose traditions have infected the modern day Easter Celebrations. The worship of Eostre has little actual evidence and could be considered a mystery cult, if it is still in existence. Pathos has a few excellent insights into Eostre:

“Another candidate for the “historical Eostre” is a a localized goddess worshipped by the Anglo-Saxons in present day county Kent in Southeastern England. It’s in Kent where we see the oldest references to names similar to that of Eostre (Eastrgena appears in 788 CE). It’s recently been argued that perhaps she was a Germanic Matron Goddess . Linguist Philip Shaw (see his book Pagan Goddesses in the Early Germanic World) links a localized Eostre to the German Austriahenea, a matron goddess connected to the East. Shaw downplays the connection to “dawn” and focuses on linguistic evidence linking the two deities to the East (though the dawn connection might still exist even there since the sun rises in the East). If Eostre is indeed linked to goddesses like Austriahenea she might not even be a single goddess. Matron goddesses were often worshipped in triplicate.”

The speculation about Eostre being a matron goddess and the fact that Lovecraft bookends her festival with that of her consort, Attis, establishes a possible vector to Cybele, the Phrygian Mother Goddess and consort of Attis.

The Professor is cited as having engaged a ‘Cutting Bureau’ to pull together different news articles from around the world that meet different parameters. Two of these are of particular interest to us as we populate our reality with the Lovecraftian Magical Aesthetic. First is described as:

“A dispatch from California describes a theosophist colony as donning white robes en masse for some ‘glorious fulfillment’ which never arrives…”

This is very likely the Beachwood Canyon Compound , many of the buildings are still extant, making easy access for any Los Angeles Lovecraftian Magicians wishing to pull the veil between the Festivals of Attis and Eostre.

The second, in the author’s words, was:

“One case, which the note describes with emphasis, was very sad. The subject, a widely known architect with leanings toward theosophy and occultism, went violently insane on the date of young Wilcox’s seizure and expired several months later after incessant screamings to be saved from some escaped denizen of hell.”

Which can only be referring to the inimitable Rudolf Steiner , making any of his lectures or writings, especially those written towards the end of his life, significant for exploring our first mystery. The tarot card that maps to the first archetype, Professor Angell, in the Cthulhu Trinity, is the Knight of Coins. Our Etteilla deck offers us the keywords of Utility and Inaction.

Utility breaks down into its primary component, ‘us,’ which in Etteilla’s native French means a custom or practice. Inaction, on the other hand, is the opposite (in-) of action. Similarly, in Old French, we have accion, which connects to the Latin actionem, a putting in motion, inaction can then be construed as ‘making still,’ or a removing from motion. It is a card of ritual and a card of rest, a ritual that speaks to that which forever lies.

Our Sola-Busca deck maps the Knight of Coins, with text in the upper right that reads SARRAFINO.

Peter Mark Adams corresponds this to the poet Serafino dell’Aquila, but I think we are better served by looking at the source of the word, seraph, or the burning one, cohort of the cherubim of which are plentiful in the deck. Focusing on the deconstruction of the word allows us to pull back and see the encoding beyond the theory that these cards are focused on historical figures. PMA’s correspondence to Serafino dell’Aquila is a bit problematic anyway, for the poet and his published works are nearly contemporary of the Sola-Busca deck’s printing and usage.

For our purposes, the Knight of Coins is representative of the angel Gamaliel, the first Tunnel of Set, the first mystery in the Cthulhu Trinity who imparts the knowledge of the Deep One as he sleeps in the form of patterns hidden deep in the chaos of dreams.

#gnosti #Set #Qliphoth

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