Like every other woman who went through school with frizzy hair and the label of “the smart girl,” I identify strongly with the character of Hermione Granger. I have no illusions about how clichéd this is. I know it’s about as original as every non-Republican professional woman with glasses believing herself to be the one real-life Liz Lemon (I had this moment about 10,000 times while reading Bossypants).

Cliché or not, Hermione is still often my touchstone in the Harry Potter books and films. Another aspect of this connection is that, at every point when I’ve read the books or watched the movies, I have always been older than Hermione. I think a lot of older Potter fans have a feeling of pride when we see how well the three actors have grown up. I feel the same way about Hermione’s character. Even though I see parts of myself in her, I also have a sense of big-sister pride at the fact that she is stronger and more courageous than I have ever been.

And man-oh-man, does Deathly Hallows Part 2 give me plenty to be proud of.

First of all, I believe that DH2 is fantastically successful as an adaptation and, more importantly, a film. I can’t say yet whether it’s the best of the series, but I think it may be. I also think it has a chance at being the only one of the movies whose success as a film exceeds the book’s success as a novel. It’s much, much too early to say, though.

But I want to talk about the two Hermione moments in the film that made me love my girl even more.

1. Hermione jumps on a dragon.

Pretty self-explanatory. The Gringotts scene may be the best action sequence in the whole series. It combines whimsical effects (the magical reproduction of Bellatrix’s treasure), plot-driven suspense (they have to get that horcrux), our three leads in danger, and a daring escape via dragon flight. I also loved the quick nod to Hermione’s compassion for enslaved magical creatures (mostly left out of the films) with the pained look she gives upon seeing the tortured dragon.

When escape seems impossible, Harry and Ron look to Hermione for a plan. She says she has one, but that it’s “crazy.”

She then proceeds to leap onto the back of a crazed, fire-breathing dragon.

There’s a concept that comes up over and over in many feminist analyses of pop culture: the idea of agency. In looking at agency in this context, scholars examine whether female characters actively participate in the world—that is, whether they initiate behaviors and actions that have tangible results. A lot of times, the underlying passivity of female characters is masked by their sassy personality, but when you examine their behavior, they actually only act in response to the actions of male characters. They don’t initiate.

But my Hermione says “I have an idea” and jumps onto a dragon to save herself, her friends, and—ultimately—the world. Beej will tell you that a huge, proud grin broke out on my face as I said (quietly, of course) “Good girl!”

2. “I’ll go with you.”

The internet is flooded with lists of tear-worthy moments in DH2, so I won’t list mine, but I will say that this line was the most poignant teary moment for me. Harry tells his two best friends that he is going into the woods to let Voldemort kill him, and Hermione’s immediate response is to offer a teary—but determined—“I’ll go with you.”

Now, this is different from all the other times that Hermione has insisted on coming along because, usually, Harry needs her smarts and her spells to help navigate the situation. But this time, there isn’t anything for Hermione to help with. There’s no hope for a daring last-minute escape, no chance of somehow defeating Voldemort. She knows that Harry’s death is necessary and that she’s not going to talk him out of it. So when she says, “I’ll go with you,” she’s just a young woman who is willing to die to keep her best friend from dying alone. Not to stop him from dying, mind you, but just to stand by his side as she always has.

I’m sure there are other moments in pop culture that portray such remarkable friendship, but they are certainly rare. It’s also remarkable that the same character who breaks traditional feminine roles by leaping onto a dragon also embodies the very best of that traditional role with her nurturing selflessness.

Of course, Hermione’s devotion to Harry brings up one question for some fans: Why does she end up with Ron instead? I always kind of went with the flow on the central romance, and I’m a little ambivalent about the message Rowling sends about love and relationships. On the one hand, it does annoy me a bit that she reinforces the “type of person you’d be best friends with” vs. “type of person you should fall in love with” dichotomy. Too often in pop culture, these are presented as opposing personality types when, I would think, they should at least be very closely related. Beej and I were friends for two years before we started dating.

On the other hand, I love that Rowling portrays a long-term, loving friendship between a young man and young woman. My oldest, most loyal friend is male, and we’ve each stood by the other during plenty of hard times (not so difficult as Harry and Hermione’s, but difficult nonetheless). Plus, Hermione and Ron are very dear friends, after all. It’s not as though she suddenly ends up with Draco, which would happen in plenty of romantic comedies with the “if you love that jerk enough, he’ll stop being a jerk” plot. (By the way, this romantic-pairings tangent was inspired by this lovely post that I ran across tonight).

Like everyone else who has followed the series for years, I feel a little sad that the main avenues for the stories are finished. What a tremendous gift it’s been, though, to see it through with these characters who have simultaneously been friends, reflections of ourselves, and heroes we can aspire to emulate. Hermione is far from the only unforgettable character of Harry Potter, but I sure am glad that she’s been around for me and that she’ll be waiting for the next generation of book-smart girls and boys who dream of saving the world.

Which moments in the Harry Potter series (novels or films) have stuck with you?

Thank you for reading Dragons Flights and Sacrifice: A Tribute to Hermione Granger, a post from Professor Beej.

Some writers can write anything. They’ll decide one day to sit down and bang out a Western — because they’ve never written a Western before — and POW! They’ve done it.

Okay, I don’t know too many people like that — any, really — but I know lots of writers who think of themselves that way.

But it’s not so easy to just pick a genre and immediately start writing. Even if the genre you choose is one you read regularly, it might not be the best fit for you as a writer. For instance, I know a writer who just eats up mystery thrillers and romance novels, but what she writes are stories of magic and lore.

I’d never heard of “urban fantasy” when I started writing, so I had no idea how to classify my work. My stories were weird and funny, with a decidedly paranormal bent. But when people asked me what kind of tales I wrote, I had to give the synopsis of each manuscript in question rather than just being able to point to a known genre.

I’m not sure exactly when I heard the words “urban fantasy” for the first time, but it was a revelation. Instantly, I knew where I fit. Witches, wizards, ghosts, vampires, old Norse gods, all doing their thing in a modern, real-world setting. Yep. That works.

I started shopping around my urban fantasy manuscript, Valhalla, and was thrilled to have some early interest from agents. But I was stunned by the feedback I was getting. It went something like this: “This is really good! But it’s reading as Young Adult. Can you make some changes so this fits more firmly in this genre?”

Young Adult? But there was no way my manuscript was YA.

I admit now that my immediate — and negative — reaction was rooted largely in the fact that I didn’t really understand what “Young Adult” meant. I’d assumed the agent was talking about children’s books, or at best mid-grade fiction. I didn’t know how the age groups broke down into different categories — nor what they were called — and so I had unintentionally been lumping them all together.

I went to an author friend (and neighbor) of mine, David Ward. He took a look over the first few chapters and said, “Yes, this is definitely Young Adult.” He must have read the look of confusion and dismay on my face, because he then elaborated for me: “Teenagers. High school kids, and into college. That’s who this is written for.”

Relief washed over me. I’d been afraid I was being asked to write for eight-year-olds — something I have no clue how to do. Teenagers I could write for. Those years were some of the hardest and most brilliant of my life, and I often find my thoughts straying to that period.

I thought about some of the movies I enjoyed most — “Night at the Museum” comes immediately to mind, as well as action-adventure comedies — and I knew I had a firmer handle on the genre than I’d realized. I don’t like writing about deep psychological trauma, complicated political maneuverings, or horrific violence. My fiction is quirky and punchy, tinged appropriately with darkness and angst, and generally quite “clean.”

So I went to work on rewriting Valhalla as a YA title. The biggest change I made was in the character of Sally. If you can believe it, she was originally written as a middle-aged church secretary, but once I re-imagined her as a sixteen-year-old solitary witch, everything else fell into place around her. There’s definitely a strong cross-over between YA and mainstream, so I have about as many adults as teenagers reading Valhalla right now, and I have no complaints about that.

My genre most definitely chose me. I’d previously tried action-adventure, historical drama, horror, and romantic drama, but YA urban fantasy was what reached out to claim me. While I did have to spend some time learning about — and making peace with — what YA means, I’ve found that if I write to entertain myself and strive to keep both the story and the writing process appealing and interesting to me, this is what comes out.

If you’re trying to figure out where your own writing fits, my advice is to let your material choose your genre, rather than the other way around. It is helpful to write with a particular audience or “ideal reader” in mind, but instead of using of formula for what you hope will be a guaranteed best-seller in this or that trendy genre, take a hard look instead at what you’re producing when you’re writing in your strongest and most authentic voice.

About the Author:

Jennifer Willis is an author, essayist, and journalist in Portland, Oregon. In her non-fiction work, she specializes in topics related to sustainability, spirituality/religion, history, and health. Her articles have appeared in The Oregonian, The Christian Science Monitor, Salon.com, The Portland Tribune, The Writer, Ancestry Magazine, Aish.com, Skirt!, InterfaithFamily.com, Vegetarian Times, Spirituality & Health, and other print and online publications at home and across the globe.

In fiction, she focuses on urban fantasy and playful mayhem. Her new ebook, Valhalla, is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Goodreads.

Thank you for reading [Guest Post]: Choosing your genre–or Letting Your Genre Choose You, a post from Professor Beej.

This guest post is brought to you by Matt Herron of

With only a single episode left to savor in the second and final season of the SyFy original series Stargate Universe, now is the perfect time to examine the factors that led to the show’s cancellation.

The Sad Tradition

By now sci-fi fans expect it. They groan inwardly when SyFy cancels another awesome show, and yet they are not surprised. They saw Firefly beheaded; Dollhouse was murdered in its youth; Caprica went the same way; and the funeral procession for SGU has already been prepared.

The cancellations are expected. But are they understood?

Multiple theories have been posited to explain away the choice to cancel two of SyFy’s original series’, SGU and Caprica. Most agree (even Scalzi), however, that poor network scheduling is the main culprit, particularly the choice to move these shows from Fridays to Tuesdays. They were shucked aside in favor of the guaranteed revenue brought by WWE SmackDown on Friday Nights, which SyFy acquired rights to in 2010.

TV is a business, so it’s no surprise that the network values SmackDown over SGU. New shows still have to prove their worth, while SmackDown came with a Friday night audience. It’s simply bad business to put your best bet on the back burner.

But SyFy didn’t do that. They cut their losses, and SGU had to go. The fans are heartbroken, but the network will survive.

Could SGU have been saved? We can only speculate. Fans of the Stargate universe are quick to rise to SGU’s defense, and for good reason. It is a marked improvement over it’s predecessors. There are no cheesy alien costumes. The characters are likeable and they actually develop as the show progresses. For example, the scientist Nicholas Rush becomes less insubordinate and less secretive after he is left to die on a strange world.
The show also has a noticeable story arc, as opposed to the pre-boxed cracker-jack episodes that are common in other series’ like SG-1 and BSG. This may make it harder to gain a large audience, since someone joining the show mid-season could get lost without knowledge of the back story. But for someone who is a fan of the show from the beginning, the story is engaging and the progress the characters make in figuring out their situation is captivating (finally gaining access to the main system controls of Destiny; pressure from the homeworld that causes tension among different members of the half-civilian, half-military crew; mistakes they make along the way that cause the death of crew members and friends.)

If the audience for a good original sci-fi show is out there (and it is: SG-1, BSG, Lost, Heroes, Fringe all make further proof unnecessary), then why did SGU get the axe? What did SyFy do wrong?

The Shift to Online Viewing

What I’m going to call the online shift theory is touted around the sci-fi fan geekdom as the main reason for many a show’s cancellation, SGU and Caprica included. It goes like this:

“Sci-fi fans tend to be younger and technologically savvy, and so among the earliest adopters of new technology. We got DVRs first and stopped watching our favorite shows live. We were the first users of Hulu and iTunes, and sci-fi fans were torrenting new episodes illegally before most people even knew such a thing existed.”

And the reason, the theory continues, is that since the ratings systems doesn’t count online and not-live DVR views (when you skip commercials) properly, the ratings are poor for sci-fi shows and eventually the network drops the show.

Craig Engler, GM and senior vice president of Syfy Digital, wrote an article on Nielsen ratings and online viewing for Blastr, an “imagined by SyFy” blog. He writes, “There’s some truth to what’s being said, but there are also lots of misconceptions and things people overlook when the topic comes up.”

He goes on to explain how Nielsen ratings work, why DVRs that allow you to skip ads are a “bigger issue” than online viewing, how online viewing is counted, how sampling works, etc. You can read the article in it’s entirety at Blastr, but this is what it comes down to:

“Overall I don’t think there’s any evidence to support that Nielsens are wildly inaccurate or especially harsh on sci-fi shows. And sci-fi shows are actually canceled no more frequently than other genres. The reality of TV is that most shows fail, in any genre. That’s endemic to all entertainment businesses. Most movies aren’t successful, most books don’t become best-sellers, etc.”

In other words, the Nielsen ratings system isn’t great, but for now it’s good enough for the TV industry because they need some level ground to negotiate with advertisers on.
So the shift to online viewing doesn’t have that much of an impact. But if you factor in the tech savvy audience, the move to Tuesday nights, and the non-cracker-jackness [Note from Beej: Best Phrase Ever, Matt.] of the writing, it is really no surprise that SGU was cancelled after all.

A TV Industry In Flux

Engler does provide a few caveats, or back doors through which to escape from the unpredictability of the TV industry. First, he writes that Nielsen plans to unveil a new ratings system that includes online viewing:

“Later this year Nielsen is going to roll out a new rating that combines TV and online views for shows that run online with the same ads as on air, and that may entice more advertisers to buy their online and on-air ads in sync. Until they do, there is a real business need to track them separately.”

This seems like a good thing from the perspective of the online viewer. But it will only work if SyFy’s online viewing option evolves. Because the current online viewing option that SyFy offers on Hulu is not up to par.

In the case of Stargate Universe, for example, episodes can be streamed on Hulu. But as of now, the week before the final episode is to air, only the twelfth episode is available on Hulu. That leaves multiple episodes that the frequent viewer may wish to see that are unavailable on the only online service that brings SyFy revenue.

The missing episodes can be streamed on alternate streaming services, but they don’t do SyFy any good since they are not paying SyFy for their use.

It seems sensible for SyFy to create their own streaming portal, instead of going through a third party. If what the fans believe is true, then SyFy has a large, tech savvy audience just waiting for a decent online viewing alternative. If SyFy also manages to sell the deal to their advertisers, then they could capture the shift to online viewing before it overtakes on-air TV viewing.

The pattern is laid out, the audience is looking for it… and until SyFy takes advantage of the situation, sci-fi fans will continue to see good shows die young and full of potential.
The second and most important caveat Engler mentions is that online viewing is gaining worth as we speak.

“The TV and online industries are both in massive flux right now, and that will continue for a long while. Five years ago, online revenue for TV shows was counted in pennies, and now it’s counted in nickels. Hopefully it will get to quarters in the next few years, and then online viewing might really start making an impact on the ability of TV networks to renew shows.”

In other words, online viewing has increased in worth to advertisers 500% in the past five years. There is no reason to suggest that this will change.

Indeed, SyFy would be daft not to take advantage of the online viewing market while it’s still affordable.

Perhaps Stargate Universe could have been saved, if the industry were in a different, more tech savvy shape than it currently is. Things are changing, though, and if online viewing (including DVR’s, on-demand, etc.) becomes the norm, it’s a whole different ball game.

Thank you for reading [Guest Post]: On the Death of Stargate Universe: a TV Industry in Flux, a post from Professor Beej.

1. Does what you’re looking at have a Superlaser?

While big enough to house their own civilizations, space stations the size of moons are really only there to be a platforms for world destroying super lasers. So if the thing in front of you has one, you’re looking at a space station. What you are looking for is a massive lens, known as the eye, with 8-12 tributary lasers, built around a synthetic focusing crystal. Anything shy of that and you aren’t looking at a full blown Death Star.

2. What’s in the trenches?

Yes, moons often have long deep trenches and so do death stars. The primary difference is that the Death Star’s trenches will form straight concentric circles parallel with the equator. Moon trenches will be more sporadic like Earth’s Grand Canyon and are usually naturally formed from erosion or plate tectonics. You can also look inside the trenches. A moon will just have rocky or icy formations, whereas a space station will have landing bays, drive thrusters, sensor arrays, tractor beam systems and of course, mind-blowingly undefended exhaust ports.

3. Has that “moon” always been there?

If you are in a familiar area of space when you encounter the astral body in question, and you could have sworn there wasn’t a moon there before, then you are probably looking at a space station. Moons orbit planets in regular patterns defined by their relative mass and inertial trajectory. Space stations like the Death Star have ion engines that convert reactor power into thrust and they can go as they please.

4. Is there life on that mystery object?

There is a big debate about how many people live on a Death Star. We assume it takes at least 1 million workers, clones, and aliens just to keep it operational, and this is the number reported by the rebel alliance after the battle of Yavin. The Empire says that there were closer to 800 million at the time, and that the rebels’ conservative estimate was just a way to minimize the atrocity of what they had done. There’s some debate as to whether or not moons like Jupiter’s Europa can harbor simple single-celled life, but either way, most moons are definitely not inhabitable by people. So if you see people, chances are they’re actually living on a space station.

5. Are there thermal exhaust ports you could shoot a proton torpedo down?

This is actually a trick question. If the answer is yes, then you are looking at a first generation Death Star, and you know exactly how to blow it out of orbit. If you don’t see thermal exhaust ports, you’re not out of the woods yet, though, as this fatal design flaw was fixed in the second Death Star. Moons may also vent thermal heat into space through holes in the crust–but those holes are called volcanoes.

6. Did you come out of hyperspace at a planet only to find an asteroid field that’s not supposed to be there?

If so, then I am sorry to say your home planet was blown up by a Death Star type space station and its giant Superlaser. You should probably get the hell out of there as fast as possible because the perpetrators could still be waiting in ambush.

7. What’s on the surface?

The surface of a moon has a lot of irregular geological formations, including: craters, Maria (sloidified lave formations), highlands (typically igneous rock), etc. The surface of a space station will usually resemble a bustling metropolis, with lots of buildings. Scattered among these buildings are literally thousands of laser and ion cannons, as well as anywhere between 600 and 1,000 tractor beam projectors.

8. Gravity or Tractor Beam?

If your space craft experiences a slight attraction caused simply by gravity then it is a moon. If you are inescapably drawn in by a shaft of blue light, then you are stuck in a tractor beam and about to see in person the harsh realities of space station life.

9. Are you in possession of stolen plans?

Space stations are incredibly complex, difficult to build and a monument to modern technology, knowhow and ingenuity. The Original Death Star took nearly 17 years to build, once the plans were in place. Moons are the result of immense astrological events; they take no planning and thus have no plans. If you or someone in your spaceship is in possession of stolen plans for the thing you are looking at, it is most definitely a space station.

10. What does the force tell you?

The easiest way to tell if “that’s a space station or a moon” is to always travel with a Jedi Knight. The first time the Death Star was discovered, Obi Wan saw right through the Imperial tricks proclaiming, “That’s no moon: It’s a space station.” Don’t have a resident Jedi Knight on board? Then you’d better revert back to steps 1 through 9 on the list and pray that you are looking at a moon, because going up against the Death Star without Jedi support is suicide!

Happy Birthday Star Wars!  May the Fourth be with you!

About the Author: When he’s not out skiing the Utah powder, Greg Buckskin is a writer and blogger for Comcast.USDirect.com – home to Comcast Cable Deals.

Thank you for reading [Guest Post]: "That’s no moon: It’s a space station!" 10 Ways to Tell the Difference, a post from Professor Beej.

It’s probably a personal quirk, but the Coen brothers’ No Country for Old Men is one of my favorite movies. I’m sure there are plenty of people who would share that opinion with me, but for the most part, it’s not the typical moviegoer’s cup of tea (or Coke, as it were). However, beyond the frighteningly precise violence that turns off the faint of heart, there’s a compelling story with vivid characters and an immaculate standard for subtlety and talent.

When I saw True Grit last weekend, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Having read the book and seen the original movie, I knew it couldn’t be a nonstop stream of austere brutality and elaborate violence. I hoped for the high production standards I’ve come to admire in the Coen brothers’ work, but True Grit is the epitome of the classic Western. I didn’t know what they could possibly do to it that would top John Wayne’s performance, provide a new perspective, improve the story, or make it better in any other way. And that’s why I’m not the Coen brothers.

An Overview of the Plot & Main Characters

If you’re unfamiliar with True Grit, the story is about a young girl named Mattie Ross whose father is shot by a backstabbing criminal called Tom Chaney. Her mother doesn’t have the initiative to try to catch the killer, so fourteen-year-old Mattie sets off to find someone who can help her apprehend Chaney and either kill him or bring him to justice. She chooses Marshall “Rooster” Cogburn, but they are joined by LaBoeuf, a ranger who wants Chaney caught and brought back to Texas for crimes committed there. The three of them are divided by different motivators, but they set out to find Chaney together. While trying to achieve their goal, they encounter more than they bargained for and must rely on each other to survive.

Remaking a Classic: The Big Decisions

It takes a lot of moxie to give a classic movie a makeover, but the Coen brothers took on the challenge with great success and aplomb. Based on my observations and a little comparison between the original movie and the Coen brothers remake, I identified a few major changes that give this modern version its own identity.

Starting with the movie trailers, they’re obviously different films – and yet they’re eerily similar, with characters dressing the same way and delivering the same lines. The original trailer is lighthearted and informs viewers that the movie is a “high adventure” Western and that it’s a great comedy, highlighting amusing scenes and type-casting the actors. Watching it, I got strong stereotypical vibes from each character, yet the trailer succeeded in drawing an audience. The Coen brothers’ trailer is a different animal, but it includes one of the scenes from the original trailer, which makes for an interesting comparison. The modern True Grit is – well, grittier – and it shows short clips from nearly every violent scene in the film. This trailer doesn’t advertise a heartwarming film, but it does promise to deliver on more action and violence, darker undertones, and impeccable casting.

At first glance, none of the characters seem all that different from the original cast. However, as the movie progresses, it becomes obvious that the Coen brothers had a specific agenda and a carefully hand-picked cast to help them bring it to life. Every actor is deliberately delivering the essence of the characters described by Charles Portis in his original rendering of True Grit as a short book.

For example, although Mattie still exhibits a healthy amount of naiveté in the modern version, she loses much of the childishness that makes the original True Grit movie more overtly comical. Mattie is humorous in the remake, but it’s easier to take her more seriously and to absorb the deeper messages conveyed through the story. She’s not as cute or immediately likeable as the original Mattie, but that only adds to her charm and effectiveness.

LaBoeuf is played by Matt Damon in the modern True Grit, which seems like an odd choice until the movie has progressed enough to show that he’s the perfect choice for the character. It’s not a role I would have typecast him for, but he breaks out of his stereotypical characters to play LaBoeuf masterfully. He even manages to retain vestiges of the typical Matt Damon role as he plays LaBoeuf, enhancing the slight “buffoon who takes himself too seriously” vibe that comes across in the book.

Once the plot progresses to the point where Chaney enters the action, it’s obvious that the character’s function is to help Mattie realize that a criminal can’t be counted on to be the unstoppable force described by others or built in one’s own mind. Chaney is a big disappointment, an unintelligent and sniveling creature who severely underestimates Mattie, Cogburn, and even LaBoeuf. The way Chaney is cast in the Coen brothers’ version highlights an important angle of the story that was more difficult to pick up in the original movie.

Peeling Off the Varnish

If you’ve read or seen True Grit, you know how ridiculous it is for me to say that the role of Cogburn is unvarnished in the Coen brothers’ version. “Rooster” is already a roughly hewn character, and that’s putting it mildly. Cogburn does as he pleases, would rather ask forgiveness than permission, and sees himself as a radically independent man, so it’s hard to strip any varnish off of that kind of character.

There’s also the issue of casting Jeff Bridges as Cogburn. When I first heard that he would be playing the character, all I could think of was “The Dude” from The Big Lebowski. I just couldn’t imagine Bridges playing this role, even though The Big Lebowski was a Coen brothers film. I foresaw “The Dude” rocking a cowboy hat and inviting everyone to go bowling after the next hanging in the town square – a total disaster. However, the brothers Coen managed to show me that their version of Cogburn was masterfully conceived and executed.

In the original movie, Cogburn is comically gruff, yet demonstrates obvious protective affection for the young girl who’s asking him for help. He openly discredits her and her request because of her young age, but he tells her that he’ll give her dinner. In the remake, there’s no such kindness being demonstrated by Cogburn – he’s merely a tough character who doesn’t yield to her first request. There’s a similar instance in the original film where Cogburn says of Mattie, “She reminds me of me.” This comes across much more subtly in the Coen brothers version, eliminating that line entirely and showing this important development to the audience rather than telling it aloud. Somehow, this has the effect of making the relationship between Cogburn and Mattie appear deeper and more meaningful in the modern version.

In general, the entire story loses its veneer and presents itself to the audience in a “take me as I am” attitude. This is deliberate, of course, but the movie makes no apologies for appearing to be a rougher version of the shiny original. By showing the human condition at its best and worst, without making excuses or altering reality, the Coen brothers bring the essence of True Grit to the surface. The characters disappoint, double-cross, and physically hurt each other with raw emotions and real violence, but this brings the spectacular old story to life in a more vibrant and convincing way. This is definitely a remake that’s worth seeing at least once.

Maria Rainier is a freelance writer and blog junkie. She is currently a resident blogger at First in Education where she’s been researching both the highest paying jobs and the lowest paying jobs on the market. In her spare time, she enjoys square-foot gardening, swimming, and avoiding her laptop.

Thank you for reading Guest Post – The Modern True Grit: Another Coen Brothers Masterpiece, a post from Professor Beej.

While you’re there, don’t forget to check out the rest of Bio Break’s guest blogs so far:

• What is Immersion? by Scott McMillin
• It came from the late late late show: 5 reasons why B movies make the best games by Spinks

And while we’re at it, I hope you enjoy these other nuggets of awesome from around the blogosphere.

• Stephen King’s Top 6 Summer Reads
• JA Konrath talks about the difference in having sales and having fans.
• Nathan Bransford discusses why he, as a literary agent, write vague rejection letters.
• Linda Formichelli wonders if writers would rather get paid or read.
• Gordon thinks that size matters.  In MMOs, that is.
• Christopher Jackson elaborates on writers’ practical tools.

Enjoy!

Thank you for reading A New Guest Blog and Other Awesome Posts, a post from Professor Beej.

Today’s post is brought to you by Scarybooster.  He’s not really much for playful banter and witty author biographics, so on with the post!

Since the start of Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games (MMORPGs), guilds have been there. Guilds are what players call home when they log on. Guilds are our friends and our social network of like-minded gamers. In most MMOs today, guilds are the people we can trust to fight by our side in dungeons and Player vs Player (PvP). During our time in a guild, we make friends with people and talk with them extensively over voice chat systems like Ventrilo.

These are the people we bond with everyday, but what do we do when it is time to call it quits? How do we let our friends down easily? What is the best way to say goodbye?

Quittin’ Time!

Telling fellow guild members goodbye, can be the hardest part of quitting an MMO. Sometimes, people spend years playing with the same people. The game or guild name might change, but the core members stay the same. This is when it becomes hard to quit a game. The stronger the social ties, the harder it is to quit. A person might spend months fighting with themselves over quitting. They feel obligated to log on to talk to members of their guild, but their character doesn’t move from the town. I have fought with this same problem several times.

When I start getting sick of a game, I find myself logging on to say hi to the members of my guild and banging out a few quests. As time goes on and I grow bored of the game, I find myself just logging on to say, hi and logging right off. After weeks of logging in and out in the matter of seconds, I decide to quit the game for awhile. I can’t bring myself to tell my fellow guild members I want to quit. Should I write a long goodbye on the guild forums? Should I go to the public forums for mass attention or should I “ninja quit”?

What do you do?

After spending over 7 years in MMOs and getting to know some new friends, I made a list of the most popular ways to say goodbye to your guild.

1. The long love letter on the guild forums: This is the best way to say goodbye if you have made some life long friends. In the letter you can explain your current dislike for the game and why you are quitting. This method also, gives you a way to have your friends say goodbye and exchange info if you want to talk to them outside of a game.
2. Public forums: This is a great way to say goodbye to everybody you might have ever played with. I only suggest this if the game has a tightly knit community or you are Brad Pitt.
3. Ninja Quitter: If you really don’t care about the people you play with, this is probably best way to go. Most likely, they don’t care much for you if you feel this way about them. One day you are logged in and the next day, you are gone. To me, it is a sad way to go.
4. Rage quit: This happens when you are fed up with the people you play with. It never ends well when someone rage quits. Sometimes, they ninja loot the guild bank and swear a lot over guild chat. I’ve seen people take it to the next level and post a rage quit post on the public forums. If you do this or have ever done it, you might want to take a long break from games.
5. Phone a friend quit: This is when you are very close to a guild member and you just want to say goodbye to them. You explain why you are not playing anymore and let the responsibility of telling the rest of the guild, fall on your friend’s shoulders. It is ok to go out like this if there is mixed feeling about other members of the guild. Maybe, you had a falling out with some of the other guild members and you can’t bring yourself to log back in to say goodbye. You might feel embarrassed or angry, but you don’t want to vent your anger or sadness in guild chat. If you feel any mixed emotions about quitting a game and have some great friends in the guild, this might be the best way.

No matter how you choose to quit a game, it is always hard to do. It might take you several times of quitting to finally quit for good. When you have a great network of friends in a game, you might be just playing to be with them. As an ex-smoker, I think it is harder to quit a game with great friends, then it was to stop smoking.

Have you ever had a hard time quitting a game because of the company you keep? Have you ever played a game when it was no longer fun to you, because you wanted to socialize with your friends?

Thank you for reading Saying Goodbye to Your MMO Guild [Guest Post], a post from Professor Beej.

Today’s post is brought to you by Gordon of

Described as a crime novel, Out is not the sort of book I typically read. It’s written by a foreigner (euch!) and focuses on four middle age women with no central male protagonist whatsoever (heresy!). Yes, I know, I know, I would be quite as home sitting on a porch in 19th century South Africa pruning my 10″ moustache and stroking my blunderbuss as if it were a pet cat.

Set in Japan, the plot revolves around four Japanese women of varying age, personality and background, all brought together by the fact that they work night shifts in a Tokyo factory making lunch boxes. Oh and they hate their lives. Did I mention that? Yes, this is certainly not a happy-clappy book that’s going to fill you with chuckles and smiles although, to be fair, it’s not exactly depressing or perturbing either. Rather the whole thing just is as it is and a look at life for normal women surviving in not very particularly nice circumstances, a refreshing change from the usual unrealistic positively of the fantastic books I normally read.

Although none of the women have good relationships with their husbands, one of them is particularly downtrodden by her degenerate gambling spouse. Eventually, after putting up with his abuse for years, she snaps, strangles the fellow to death with his own belt and then enlists the help of her three other co-workers to help dispose of the body. And when I say dispose, I mean literally chop the bugger up and bury each little piece of him around Tokyo. Suffice to say the body gets discovered and a whole story of death, deceit, insecurity and human emotion unfolds dragging in everyone from the police to loan-sharks to the Yakuza (Japanese mafia).

I don’t know if it’s due to the fact that Out is a Japanese novel or that it’s a genre I’ve never read before but it’s a very unusual tale with no typical sense of rhythm that you usually find in mainstream novels. Events simply unfold throughout the book and then the whole thing ends with only a certain amount of resolution. But that’s exactly the point. Natsuo Kirino, the author, clearly just wanted to show a snapshot of a few normal people’s lives, the consequences of what can happen from one action and it how it alters people afterwards. The four women characters aren’t good but then they’re not evil either, rather they come across as real, three-dimensional living and breathing people who are struggling trying to earn a buck in a big city. They’re the types of folks you could imagine bumping into anywhere and that’s exactly what makes the book so thrilling to read – you are simply fascinated to find out what happens to them next.

I could imagine the foreign nature of Out might put some readers off as it’s set in an unfamiliar city and culture. To me, however, the Japanese setting was part of the appeal as I share strong affinity with the country having visited it many times. It’s worth noting that the translation of the book has been criticised because the translator took a certain amount of liberty when converting the subject material from Japanese to English. Given the complexity of the language I can appreciate that a direct, word-for-word (or rather symbol-for-word) translation wouldn’t make for very readable material but it does raise the whole issue of whether or not non-Japanese readers can actually truly experience the original work and intention of the author.

Out is a very… interesting book. It’s not going to fill you fist-pumping cheers of happiness but then it’s not going to bore you either. It’s definitely entertaining and you’ll find yourself getting quickly and surprisingly absorbed in its dark world. All of the characters in the novel are incredibly well-crafted with realistic emotions and believable reactions and you can’t help but find yourself engrossed in their lives and situations. Well worth checking out if you’re in the mood for something a little different.

-Gordon

About the author: Gordon was born on the mean-streets of suburban Holland and learned to fist fight without remorse in steel cage matches at an early age. He now lives in Edinburgh with his wife and their imaginary Nigerian bodyguard, Mr Itunu.

Thank you for reading Book Review: “Out” by Natsuo Kirino [Guest Post], a post from Professor Beej.

Today’s post is brought to you by Clint Alley, a digital archivist, history teacher, genealogist, catfish enthusiast, and author of the maternally-acclaimed blog Clint Thoughts.

When I was seven, my Aunt Pam gave a copy of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves to my brother and me for Christmas.  From that moment on, I have been hooked on the legend of Robin Hood.  The story of Robin Hood embodies every boy’s dream life: living wild in the woods, hiding out in tree houses, drinking from creeks, fighting bad guys, and always proving to be the best shot around.

Despite what the critics say (and how disturbingly midwestern Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood sounded), Prince of Thieves has always been and remains one of my favorite movies.  That movie did a lot to pique my interest in history at a young age, and I daresay it may have even fostered my preoccupation with guerrilla warfare.  Two decades and two history degrees later, I found myself drawn to see Hollywood’s newest version of the ancient tale.  Here’s what I thought.

Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe’s latest collaboration, Robin Hood, is a tale told in true Scott fashion.  The scenery and costumes are breathtaking, displaying the meticulous attention to detail that has come to define Scott’s historical films.  The weapons and armor, homes and churches, even the methods of farming used in the film appear to be true-to-form for early-thirteenth-century England.  But, like Gladiator andKingdom of Heaven, Scott still does not seem interested in accurately portraying what the of the ancient people in his films really would have thought.

What Made Me Merry

I liked that the backdrop for the film was, from beginning to end, very rugged.  Even in scenes showing how the nobility of the time lived, things are still grimy and dirty; people are grimy and dirty are always surrounded by animals, floors are covered with reeds, baths are taken only on special occasions, and everything revolves around the planting and harvesting of crops.  Before I saw the film, I read that the writer’s strike had allowed the set of the movie to spend about a year growing into the natural surroundings, giving it that overgrown appearance that lends itself very nicely to portrayals of people living off the land.  Those months were worth the wait as far as scenery goes.

Likewise, the presence of music–very catchy, earthy, foot-stomping music–permeated the film.  As a fitting homage to the medieval minstrels who spread the first tales of Robin Hood, song and dance are never more than a few scenes away throughout the movie.  And far from the sophisticated, operatic, high-brow poetry that usually passes as the songs of minstrels in other medieval films, the music of the minstrels inRobin Hood is rowdy, robust, and folksy.  It is more akin to modern country or bluegrass music than the stuffy classical music of other Hollywood minstrels, as well it should; it only makes sense that the music of the common people would have lent itself more easily to dancing and partying than to quiet reflection and thoughts of gallantry, as is so often seen in Robin Hood movies.

Another thing I liked about Robin Hood was its realistic portrayal of historical figures.  In most retellings of the legend of Robin Hood, King Richard is shown as a fair and jolly monarch, a man whose every move was dictated by chivalry and piety; a good-looking, tall man with a kingly bearing and an irresistible good humor.  While most historians agree that Richard was, indeed, a tall, muscular man who exuded power, he was by no means the very picture of chivalry or fair-play.  The character of Richard in Robin Hood (played by Danny Huston, also known as Colonel William Stryker of X Men Origins: Wolverine fame), is a rough bear of a man who loves to fight and who evokes as much fear from his army as he does respect.  And he is by no means a champion of righteousness.  In addition to the audience learning of Richard’s historical massacre of women and children in the Holy Land, at one point Richard claims to admire Robin’s honesty, but still punishes him for saying defamatory things about the Third Crusade.

Following the conventional Robin Hood storyline, King John (played by Oscar Isaac, who is also remembered for his role as Joseph in 2006′sNativity Story) is portrayed as childish, dishonest, foolish, and generally unequipped to lead.  History will show that John was, indeed, dishonest and that he made some very costly poor decisions.  But one part of history that many Robin Hood aficionados will often overlook in their zeal to make John the quintessential villain is the state of the kingdom he inherited, a point addressed very subtly in the film.  Much ado is always made about John’s excessive taxation and cruel enforcement of the law.  But it was  Richard who had taxed his English possessions to the brink to fund ten years of constant war, leaving his realm in a state of financial distress many years before John took the throne.  When Richard willed his kingdom to John at his death in 1199, he was leaving behind a region already in turmoil.  One of John’s biggest mistakes was to continue taxing his overburdened subjects to pay for his less-popular and ill-fated adventures both at home and abroad.  This crucial link to Richard’s burdens on his kingdom is mentioned at least once in the film when a nobleman refuses to pay John’s taxes based on the fact that he has already given everything he could to Richard.

I also liked that Robin Hood and his men are hardened combat veterans, and very skilled in the ways of guerrilla warfare, as they no doubt would have been in real life at the time.  They carry out forest ambushes with ease and conduct themselves just as naturally on the battlefield as they do in the tavern, as a generation of men who share the common bond of a decade at war would have done.  And, fitting this theme of a violent, unstable world, I appreciate that Robin Hood explained what it really meant to be declared an outlaw.  Being declared an outlaw in Robin Hood’s day was one of the harshest sentences a criminal could receive.  Outlawed persons legally lost his or her status as a human being, and could be killed on sight by anyone.  It was a punishment meant to dehumanize criminals, stripping them of every legal protection and making them akin to wolves or other predators.  Surprisingly, this form of punishment continued to live on in many British possessions until well into the 20th century.  (Ned Kelly, the famous Australian bandit, was declared an outlaw after this fashion).  Small details like this gave the film an air of realism.

And the aerial view of London from the east was further proof that the aesthetics of the movie were very well-researched.  The Tower is painted white, with operational river gates, and St. Paul’s Cathedral can be seen in all of its Gothic glory in the background.

What Vexed Me

However, not every aspect of the film makes quite as much sense as its scenery and music.  Many complex historical issues are boiled down to very basic, sometimes anachronistic, elements.  Real events are taken out of sequence.  Twenty-first century ideas escape from thirteenth-century lips.  Nationalism sits side-by-side with loyalty to the king in a time when nations were the king, and men identified themselves by whom they served rather than by where they were born.

As we saw in the previously-mentioned Scott films, Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven, the main characters of Robin Hood claim to fight for the equality of all men, a belief system that Robin Hood’s deceased father has encoded into an unnamed charter which many viewers will assume is the Magna Carta, although further research led me to the conclusion that the charter is actually an earlier, more obscure document known as the Forest Charter.

Robin espouses ideas of personal liberty and constitutional freedom that are very familiar to a twenty-first century audience, but which, by all rights, did not exist in England in the early 1200s.  Indeed, one of the most difficult parts of the entire film to swallow is the fact that Scott’s Robin Hood becomes an outlaw more for his political philosophy than for robbing from the rich to give to the poor.

Similarly, while Cate Blanchett delivers a fine performance as a very headstrong, independent Maid Marian, (and would we expect any less from a Cate Blanchett character?) I was disappointed that Scott fell for the temptation to turn Marian into the medieval housewife-turned-warrior figure that I  suspected she would be from the previews.  I found nothing wrong with Marian being portrayed as headstrong or independent.  Her character was refreshingly self-reliant, as a woman in her situation (with a husband away at war for a decade, a blind father-in-law to care for, and a manor-farm to operate) would have had to be.  She is constantly working, she  stands up to corrupt church officials and she maims would-be rapists in fine fashion.  The audience rightly cheers her on as she does what needs to be done to keep things running in her dangerous, uncertain world. But I felt that the tough-woman persona was taken too far when Marian came riding to the battlefield in one scene wearing full armor, ready to do combat with the enemies of the king.  Here’s why:

Anyone–man or woman– who had never experienced the years of training required for fighting from horseback in full armor as Marian is shown doing, could expect to be very ineffective on a thirteenth-century battlefield–just as effective as an average American would be behind the controls of a Stealth Bomber today.  Since most of the weapons of war at that time relied on great physical force to bash, crush, gouge, and impale, incredible strength–the result of years of intense training–was required of knights and their fighting men.  Most historians agree that the warriors of that time were probably built like professional athletes.  Although she was, indeed, a no-nonsense, no-holds-barred medieval woman, without the necessary training and preparation for war, Marian would not have had what it took to simply gallop onto the battlefield and expect to survive among hundreds of trained enemy fighting men.

The most blatantly wrong of all the film’s inaccuracies, however, was the scene showing the public cremation of a nobleman on a funeral pyre.  In the early thirteenth century it would have been unthinkable to set fire to a Christian body in a public ceremony.  The church at that time taught that to destroy the body of a person on earth was to make it impossible for that person to rise again at Christ’s return.  This is why the worst criminals were often dismembered at execution (à la Braveheart).  Except in cases of extreme epidemic (as would happen decades later during the Black Death), to the people of Robin Hood’s time, the act of destroying a corpse was reserved as a means of condemning a person in the next life as well as in this one, and for an individual to request that his body be burned after death would have been a great blasphemy; the same as denying belief in the Resurrection.   Indeed, it was 1963 before the Catholic church allowed cremation, and many conservative Catholics still look down on the procedure today as unholy or unnatural.

Aside from these errors (many of which I have come to expect when Hollywood does history), my biggest disappointment in the film was the absence of Robin as an outlaw.  I didn’t know until the end of the film that Robin Hood was made as a prequel to the legend.  There are a few brief moments at the end when Robin is shown as we expect to find him; living in the forest, making merry with his men while hiding from the law.  But other than those few moments, Robin lives very much in the open, sometimes posing as a nobleman, sometimes as an archer returning from King Richard’s wars, sometimes as a Magna Carta-wielding champion of individual liberty.

Toeing the Timeline

Regardless of these major flaws in the film’s historicity, I recognize that Scott’s aim was to entertain a modern audience, not make a documentary about the history of nationalism and constitutional law for nit-picky historians.

Overall, I was impressed with the film’s pace.  Robin Hood managed to fit a lot of activity into a small amount of time.  At no point did the story quagmire or become burdensome.  However Robin Hood sacrificed a great deal of historical accuracy to attain that swiftness of story.  In the course of a few weeks during the film, Richard the Lionheart dies, his brother John becomes king, a subversive courtier stirs the barons into rebellion against John, John placates the barons with promises to seal a Magna Carta-like document, the barons unite to confront a French invasion, and John reneges on his pledge to seal the charter based on his belief that God has put him in power.

In reality, these events unfolded over the course of about two decades.  And while the timing of Robin Hood was off in both sequence and closeness of events, I was pleased that Scott took the time to include accurate details such as John’s belief in his divine right to rule, the Barons rebelling, and John’s durressed promise to seal the Magna Carta.  I was also pleased that the film stayed consistent in its seasonal backdrop; King Richard died in the springtime, and all throughout the film’s beginning, it is springtime, from the plowing and planting to the budding trees.

Although I would not recommend it as a source of good history, when the time comes, I will probably own Robin Hood.  It is a very entertaining film, and it shows a different side of the legendary outlaw.  But, without Robin living the outlaw life, the story is just not finished.

Sequel, please?

About the author: Clint Alley watches Jeopardy! with a Rainman-like compulsiveness. One night, while huddled beneath a Gopherwood tree on a cliffside during a hail storm, the ghost of Theodore Roosevelt came to him and told him that he must educate the children of Tennessee, an encounter which led him to earn a bachelor’s degree in history with a minor in journalism and a master’s degree in secondary education in the field of history from the University of North Alabama.  He works with Beej’s wife Jennifer, who owes him a chicken biscuit.

Thank you for reading Movie Review: Robin Hood – A Bull’s Eye or a Near Miss? [Guest Post], a post from Professor Beej.

My wife, Jennifer, recently presented a paper on LOST regarding online fan communities and their impact on the series. She is also the one who initially convinced me to watch LOST.  So it wouldn’t be fitting if she didn’t have her say about what secrets were both withheld and revealed in the series finale.

My first response when that screen went black Sunday night was “Huh.” I drew a blank. My mom, with whom I have watched the show from the beginning, and I couldn’t even talk about what we had just seen. It was so different from anything we had anticipated, that we didn’t even have anything on which to base a conversation.

What the finale did leave me with was a very distinct emotion, one that I’m not sure I had felt before and that had certainly never been evoked by a television show. Something akin to melancholy, bittersweetness, optimism, and uneasiness all rolled into one. It took a good night’s sleep before I was able to start dissecting what that last scene meant and why it left such a unique impression. I’m also able to begin (emphasis on the fact that this is definitely just the beginning) to work toward what my final analysis will be on whether the finale—and the show as a whole—was a success.

I’ll start with the main topic that was on everyone’s mind on Sunday 9/8 C.

Answers?

Back in junior high and high school, The X-Files was my show. The more convoluted the government conspiracy got, the more excited I became, because it meant the payoff would be that much better when the answers were finally revealed. So imagine my disappointment when the mythology completely fell apart and I realized there would be no grand explanation that tied everything together.

I tossed around in my head the idea that maybe the act of not providing answers was the underlying statement of the show. Maybe the whole point was that Mulder and Scully had struggled and struggled, but just like in real life, that was no guarantee that they would finally find the Truth. I liked the idea, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it all came down to the fact that Chris Carter & Co. had been making it up as they went.

Enter Lost.

This is a show that has been much more successful at having a convoluted story with a definite shape and (to a degree) plan. After all, we heard the first Smoke Monster sounds in the Pilot, and what is the main narrative of the finale? Killing the Smoke Monster. Multiple other plotlines have also been explicated or resolved as the series progressed. But still, the fans aren’t wrong to complain that many major questions were either unanswered or answered so vaguely that the fans still had questions.

The biggest one, of course, is “What is the Island?” We found out in “Across the Sea” that it’s special because of the Light at its center, but I was definitely among the people who wanted a precise explanation of what the Light was, what it did, and how it tied in to the struggles of the characters.

But as I’ve reflected on that last scene, which emphasized the role of pure spirituality in the series, it started to bother me less. If the answer is that the Light is some sort of life force, the ultimate source of good and evil, or a manifestation of God, then how could the writers explain how it works? Is there any way that it wouldn’t have come across as both tasteless and presumptuous? No matter how wacky the Island shenanigans became, Lost has always remained true to the basic struggles of living, loving, and dying. So if the answers come down to these most fundamental questions of why and how we are here, then the writers couldn’t give specific answers without abandoning the central theme that ambiguity and uncertainty are just part of being human. If any show gets the “That’s the point” pass, I think it’s Lost.

The bitter in the bittersweet

As Desmond told Jack that he had seen where they were going, and it didn’t matter who died, it seemed like the final confirmation that the Sideways world was an alternate reality, created by the H-bomb, where the castaways got the chance to have the lives they could have had if the plane had never crashed, except with the added benefit of carrying the lessons they had learned on the Island. My mom’s reaction was, “Well, they’re throwing ‘Whatever happened, happened’ and ‘Dead is dead’ right out the window.” I was confused, too; how could I even be invested now in what happened in the rest of the episode if none of it mattered?

But then, we learn the nature of the Sideways world. It’s not an alternate reality at all; instead, it is the first step of our beloved characters’ afterlife, which they have created in order to move into the next world together. It’s a comforting idea, the thought that we get to choose who to be with after we die. But as the full ramifications of the last scene settled, another message came to the surface.

When loved ones die, you really do have to live the rest of your life without them. This idea is epitomized in the moment when Kate, reunited with Jack in the Sideways world, says, “I missed you so much.” When she said the line, my reaction was, “What does she mean? She only remembered her Island life 3 minutes ago . . . how has she had time to miss him?”

But when I saw the castaways taking off in Lapidus’ airplane as Jack closes his eyes in the bamboo forest, I understood: Kate—and Claire, Sawyer, Miles, Richard, and Lapidus—went on to live their lives, however long they would be, carrying the full weight of what had happened to them on the Island and what they had lost. There is no hydrogen bomb or magic time-travel flash to make things easier. Kate never got to see Jack again. Sawyer didn’t have coffee with Juliet. And Ji Yeon grew up as an orphan. All of the theories I had come up with over the season, the ones that were going to give all the characters their happy endings, were nothing but wishful thinking. Dead is dead.

“We Have to Try”

The revelation that the Sideways world was an afterlife prevented the nullification of everything we had watched and agonized over during the last six years, but it also appeared at first glance to prove that many of the characters’ actions—actions that spanned entire seasons and caused major deaths—were in vain. After all, how much time was spent trying to set off that hydrogen bomb, only for us to learn in the finale that it didn’t do anything beyond sending them back into present time? How many people died in efforts to get the rest of the castaways back home, only to have just three of the original group of survivors actually make it back in the end?

This issue was a major source of the unease I felt after the finale. And then I remember one line:

“We have to try.”

This is what Hurley says to Sawyer when they are trying to lift the huge log off of Ben. Sawyer insists that it’s too heavy and that their efforts are pointless, but Hurley insists that “We have to try.”

We have found out over the last few episodes that even Jacob, the seemingly all-powerful deity controlling the Island, was just a guy doing his best. There is no huge overarching plan, no omniscient narrator making sure that everything ends up ok, with a nice tidy bow. There’s only people living their lives and dealing with the consequences of their decisions.

It’s a point hinted at in “What They Died For” when Sawyer realizes that his decision to try to deactivate the bomb had led to Jin, Sun, and Sayid’s deaths. The scene is one of my favorites of the season. The moment I saw Sawyer’s face, I knew what he was thinking and feeling. And I love the subtle understanding between Sawyer and Jack. When Jack tells him that the deaths weren’t his fault, I think it finally hits Sawyer that Juliet’s death wasn’t Jack’s fault, either. In the high-stakes existence they’ve been living on the Island, people have to make choices, and sometimes those choices have tragic results.

If the finale was all about revealing the importance of the journey, then this line of Hurley’s may be the series’ thesis statement. Regardless of whether their actions were successful, they had to try if they were going to learn their Island lessons and earn their redemptions. Jack had to keep trying to fix things until he learned to let go, Kate had to keep following when Sawyer and Jack told her to stay put, and they had to keep getting on that stinking submarine no matter how many times that plan failed. Shoot, Boone had to go find those two dozen pens. So what if Jack didn’t need them. “We have to try.”

Initial Conclusions and a “To Be Continued”

I hope that none of this comes across as me trying to rationalize why the show didn’t give us what we wanted.

Lost is a flawed work, absolutely. I think that’s the nature of making art out of television, though. A television series doesn’t have a single creator or even a set group of collaborators, and there are dozens of outside factors affecting it (studio interference, actor availability, etc.). Plus, television is created as it is consumed. If the writers change their minds about something (and let’s be honest: that is what happened with the “Claire has to raise Aaron or something terrible will happen” storyline), it’s too late. It’s already out there. It must be impossible to maintain a single cohesive vision throughout.

I don’t think you can use the same criteria as you would use to judge a novel or a film when judging a series as a piece of art, because if a TV show is going to really take risks, it’s going to fail sometimes. But every time a show like Lost comes along to make you rethink what the medium is capable of, it’s going to promote in the public consciousness that the television series is a form of art that is ripe for tweaking and improving and expanding.

But if anything proves to me that Lost is indeed a piece of art, my initial emotional reaction to the finale closes the case. If you look at a great painting or read a masterful poem, it’s the feeling that you get from them that makes them art. You don’t look at Starry Night and think, “Those are some innovative brush strokes.” Instead, you sense that it shows the grandness and beauty of the night sky, even though no night sky you’ve ever seen resembles it.

That’s what Lost is to me. Because I watched it, I feel like I have a little bit of a better understanding of what it means to live and why we have to try. After six years of coming up with theories and pondering the philosophical underpinnings, when the last scene finished, the only thing I could do was feel. The time for analyzing followed, of course, but none of it will reveal as much as the simple fact that in the end, this show so steeped in mysteries and questions made me feel something new.

Note from Jennifer: I left out a rather large portion of this post. It was all going to lead up to the reason that the ending has become more powerful as I let it settle: it sheds a completely new light on the characters’ experiences in the Sideways world. But I promised Beej that I would have this ready for Tuesday, and this, of course, took longer than I expected. So coming soon: a character-by-character examination of why the castaways needed the situations in the Sideways world to move on, as well as thoughts on what happened to each one on the Island in the finale.

Thank you for reading “What just happened?”: An Exploration of my Initial Reaction to “The End”, a post from Professor Beej.