Episode 573 - Join the cult?
Mar 7, 2022
Cults are weird. Unlike normal religions (from which many cults stem), cults are usually based more around charismatic individuals rather than simple doctrine. Which means the followers of cults can often get a little crazy because they're following the whims of an individual rather than boring old text from a book. And this is why religious groups with charismatic leaders (i.e evangelical Televangelists and hardline Imams), become crazy and cultish too.
Topics and Show Notes
Our lovely Andreas Helixfinger inspired this cast with an idea about how horrible cults can be in fiction. He made a newspost about that on the last Sunday of February. One of the interesting things I find about depictions of cults in fiction are the difference between how the right and left show cults. The rightwing version of what a cults is usually involves satanism, pentagrams, goats, human sacrifice, blood, knives etc. While the more leftwing version is of a creepily nice, ultra conservative, uptight group of people who live in perfect houses, dress very neatly, have their hair just right and are usually very rich, but under the surface they're all creepy murderers or sex fiends or demon worshipers or something.
Some of the fictional cults we mention in the cast are various cults in Warhammer 40k; the Chaos cultists, the Imperial cult, The machine cult, the genesteeler cults… It's funny how the Chaos Cultists mirror our real world cultish people: Slaneesh cultists are sex maniacs B&D, S&M people; Khorn followers are death metalheads; Tzeentch followers would be Q-Anon conspiracy theorists; And followers of Nurgle wold be antivaxers.
Some good fictional cults were shown in The Wickerman, Midsommer, Hot Fuzz, Randal and Hopkirk Deceased (the reboot series) has about 3 different cult episodes, Welcome to NHK has a brilliant depiction of a multi level marketing cult (Anime is FULL of cults), and Tantz mentioned a great Korean movie with a cult: Keuraim Peojeul.
This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Remedial Magic - Puddles and ripples of light and dappled shadow spreading outward ever wider and wider. Beads of light glow within, sparkles glitter and burn. This is a pleasantly thrumming piece of electronica that gently steps from note to note.
Topics and shownotes
Links
Evil Cult Newspost - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/feb/26/horrific-evil-cults/
Keuraim Peojeul - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15305982/
Featured comic:
ORIGIN by David Abiola Olukoga - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/mar/01/featured-comic-origin-by-david-abiola-olukoga/
Featured music:
Remedial Magic - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Remedial_Magic/ - by Sameth, rated T.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
PitFace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/PIT_FACE/
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Episode 460 - Enough trope to hang yourself with
Jan 5, 2020
Happy 2020 all you lovely people who listen to us! What we're talking about today are tropes in fiction that bother us because they don't exist in reality: they ONLY exist in fiction pretty much. In the cover pic we have an image from The Witcher: he has two big longswords on his back. In fantasy people always carry longswords on their backs. This is a trope that only exists in fiction because you can't draw a sword longer than about 60cm from your back. So people just didn't carry swords like this. Even if it was only to transport them (although ta transport only option makes a sort of sense). This was only even rarely done with Asian swords. We'd LOVE to hear about more of these that other people have noticed!
Episode 305 - Chekhov's phaser
Jan 9, 2017
Chekhov's gun is the principal (as I understand it), that if you have some item, fact or piece of information introduced into your story that you draw specific attention to, then you'd better use it some how later on in your story. The simplest example is a gun: if it appears as a prop lying around in your story AND you draw attention to it, then by the end of the tale it should have gone off. This is because you've set up the parameters for your story in the mind of your audience and they develop certain expectations, if you confound those then they'll be disappointed and think that your story was poor. Having a “gun” on stage isn't so important here, it's the fact that you drew attention to it somehow. It doesn't have to “go off” either, as long as it plays a role in the story somehow. You can trick the audience very easily with these sorts of devices, making them think one item or piece of information will be vitally important, only to make it important in a way they wouldn't expect or to use it to hide the fact that some other thing was important instead. So that's our topic of conversation today! All based off of Tantz's newspost on Saturday. Gunwallace's musical theme was for Grow Up. It's repetitive, relaxing, punk reggae instrumental, with fuzz guitar. A lazy evening on a warm summer beach.
Episode 304 - eeeeeevil!
Jan 2, 2017
What defines evil in fiction? I say the simplest one is bad guys are selfish, good guys are selfless. That is massively over simplistic but it's a good easy template for basic hero's and villains. Basic ones I was just doing a quick thought experiment to work out an easy way to define “good” and “evil” characters in fiction. The more selfless someone is the more “good” they are: the more they think of others, want to help people, put the needs of the masses first, the more willing they are to reach across to their enemies etc. The more selfish a person is the more “evil” they are: if they don't consider the needs or feelings of others, help out their own small group and let others suffer, help themselves first. Of course there are many other more advanced aspects, especially if you consider the relative nature of these things: the idea that everyone thinks they're the good guy from their own perspective, being cruel to be kind, being too authoritarian and heavy handed in the use of power, NOT using power when you should, helping in a way that only SEEMS destructive and selfish, trying to help but causing destruction and chaos in the process, which brings us to the dreaded “unintended consequences”. BUT, the selfless/selfish equation is a nice simple starting point to build from. In the Quackcast we discuss these aspects as well as more advanced notions about what makes a good evil character, what makes a bad one, humanising evil, and weakening you evil character by humanising them too much. Gunwallace's musical theme was for The Cull: Dark, haunting, and compelling- Eastern European Jewish, country and rock, reminds me of Tracy Bonham’s later work.
