The time has come, [the Walrus said]...

It's been a few days since I saw HP 7.2, and I now feel solid enough in my opinion of it to review it.  Not in-depth, as I don't think anyone who reads this blog really cares about the play-by-play of a movie they could easily watch themselves, but at least enough to discuss the parts that struck me the most.

WARNING: Spoiler City up in hurr.

I walked into the theater last November for the midnight showing of HP 7.1 with very low expectations.  I've been to every midnight showing of a Harry Potter movie since Prisoner of Azkaban as a tradition, but have never actually liked the movies.  But after HP 7.1 was over, I was incredibly and pleasantly surprised by its quality.  The filmmakers had definitely made choices that I didn't understand, like not including the invisibility cloak, rushing through an introduction of Bill Weasley, and skipping over so much of Harry's Dumbledore-related angst.  But the movie did a much better job than its predecessors of staying true to the depth, vision, and feeling of the book.  Things were dark, scary, and hopeless, and the comic relief came in short bursts of smiles before nail-biting drama struck again.

So Thursday night, my expectations were high for a Harry Potter film for the first time in seven years.  And when the credits rolled, I was less disappointed than I could have been. I think the movie did as good a job adapting the book as it could have, given the circumstances.  Ending a series beloved by so many people and trying to include all of the bits that audience would expect--"The Prince's Tale," Molly-Bellatrix dueling scene, Neville's defeat of Nagini, many of the priceless bits of dialogue sprinkled throughout, etc.--while still creating an enjoyable movie that wasn't absolute Hell to sit through is a task that I do not envy.

Because the job was such a hard one, I'm quite happy with the way the movie turned out.  It does, however, solidify in my mind that the books outstrip the films in every way that counts.

The movie didn't really include anything about the Hallows at all.  It registered their existence and sort of nodded to the fact that Harry possessed all three by the end of the war for Hogwarts, but it didn't show the struggle that Dumbledore had faced, like so many others within and -out of fiction have faced, throughout his life of trying to use them to overcome death.  Dumbledore's ascension to the position of Hogwarts' Headmaster and decline of the position of Minister of Magic was hardly mentioned, if at all.  Harry's choice not to try to beat Voldemort to Dumbledore's tomb and take the Elder wand didn't happen.  Voldemort's fear of death was downplayed in favor of his fear of defeat.  These choices changed the entire point of the Harry Potter story.  The saga went from a relatable tale of young people overcoming internal and external obstacles by learning to think for themselves while still relying on others, a tale of friendship and bravery, of unity and mutual respect, of trusts lost and regained, to a coming-of-age story that no one can ever identify with, since it's set in a fictional world whose struggles are nothing like ours.

In the first book and movie, Quirrell/Voldemort says, "There is no Good and Evil; there is only power and those too weak to seek it."  This is the theme of the Deathly Hallows; the internal battle between action and inaction, the conscious decisions Harry, Dumbledore, and Voldemort each make in their separate quests to "win," and each person's individual definition of what "winning" means.

All three of them have different relationships and responses to power.  Voldemort obviously desires to increase his own power.  As a child and a student he uses his innately strong magical power to bully and coerce those around him, to make them see how strong he was, to make others see how week they were.  He also hones his social power to ensnare people who have more actual authority than he does in order to use their power to his advantage.  But the only reason he wants any of this power is his fear of death.  He fears the unknown that comes after death, and he spends most of his life ensuring that he will never have to face it.  It is his search for ways to overcome death that brought so much of his power, and once he believes he has achieved immortality, he knows that he is better, stronger, smarter than everyone else in the world, including Dumbledore.  Because, if anyone else were as talented and as driven as he was, they would have created horcruxes as well, they would have done the things he had done, because death was something everyone feared.  How could they not?  He could not see any other way of approaching the power he had discovered.  He could not see why anyone would not want to live forever.  What was the point of a whole and pure soul if it could be destroyed?

Meanwhile, Dumbledore also desires power his whole life.  Similar to Voldemort, he sharpens his magic and knowledge from a young age.  Perhaps it is Dumbledore's habit of (born out of his opportunities for) relying on other people that allow him to have friends at school who then keep him from becoming the lone-ranger that Voldemort is.  Maybe Dumbledore's quest is more for knowledge and study than it is for power.  But for whatever reason, Albus gets through school without attempting to take over the world.  However, once school is over and his mother's death forces him to settle back in at home to take care of his younger brother and sister, he feels trapped in an inferior life.  His belief that he could do more with his talents, should be allowed to move forward, fuels his friendship with Grindelwald, someone who agrees with Albus that he was made for better things.  Maybe Gelert has a more straightforward desire for power for the sake of power than Dumbledore does, but Dumbledore, blinded by love and a feeling of partnership he probably didn't feel with anyone else and isn't getting from anyone in his broken family, dares to dream with Grindelwald.

Dumbledore's crippling fear that made him seek power wasn't death, but stagnation, discomfort, and intellectual restraints.  Where Voldemort wanted the horcruxes primarily to ensure his eternal existence and only secondarily used the power he had gained from making them to subjugate those he thought were weaker than him, Dumbledore and Grindelwald wanted the Hallows primarily to place their superior intelligence and talent rightly on top where it belong, and only secondarily to allow themselves to live forever.

Albus is shocked out of his desire for power by the loss of his brother, sister, and best friend/boyfriend in one fell blow, and for a while, his fear overshadows  his guilt.  His grief over his lost loved ones and his knowledge that he is at least partly responsible keeps him from grabbing power where he can. But that fear of discomfort is something he struggles with his entire life, between desiring power over other, lesser people, as he exhibits when he borrows the cloak from James Potter, and wanting power over his grief, as he demonstrates by attempting to bring Ariana and his parents back from the dead with the resurrection stone. But he is always disgusted by his relationship to power, which is why the Elder wand is safe with him. He doesn't trust himself, and he doesn't trust the wand, so he remains headmaster of Hogwarts and keeps his own power and the wand's in check.

Unlike Dumbledore and Voldemort, Harry does not want power. All his life he is powerless, alone, and mistreated, much like Voldemort, but at school, he gains friends and fame, like Dumbledore. His fame does not treat him well; it makes him as many enemies as friends, and it gives him as many problems as solutions. Some of his fame is based on his own talent, and some of his success comes from skill, but he knows that an equal, if not greater amount comes from luck, chance, and the providence of others, and between this knowledge and the pains his fame gives him, he doesn't get as big a head as he could. Instead of focusing on overpowering others, he genuinely tries his best to do what he thinks is right. What he thinks is right is not always the most intelligent course of action, but he is only a teenager, and he is often dealing with the complex power schemes and magic of adults much stronger and smarter than he is. He knows that he isn't good enough to do everything by himself, but he also knows that doing something was too important to leave entirely to someone else. He is the perfect combination of Voldemort and Dumbledore, of relying on himself and relying on others, of choosing to act and choosing to wait, of having a will to live without putting it above everything else. If he has a crippling fear, it is that he was not worth dying for: that his parents and his friends loved him too much and for no reason. Instead of driving him to take power wherever he can find it, his fear dives him to be the best person possible, fighting for the best causes he finds.  His fear makes him constantly reevaluate his actions and his goals, to know himself...something Dumbledore learned too late, and Voldemort never learned at all. Because of this, he gets all three Hallows and learns what it really means to be Master of Death. Not to live forever, but to embrace the inevitable end, to know that it's coming, and to not fight it once it arrives.

So many themes regarding life and what it means to be human float in and out of Harry Potter: persistence in the face of overwhelming adversity, unlikely forgiveness, the importance of friendship, the need for humility, and so on and so forth.  A lot of them feel cliché when said aloud, which is probably why people call Harry Potter fans "nerds."  The story is a coming-of-age adventure; how could it not be with a group of adolescents as the protagonists? But its fan base is proof that its characters and plots speak to more than just adolescents and that the series is more than a mere didactic fairy tale about the ideal human being.

The major overarching theme of the whole series is not cliché or nerdy, but a real question that people ask themselves constantly, whether they take note of it or not.  The theme is expressed in that striking quote of Quirrell's: "There is no Good and Evil; there is only power and those too week to seek it." The question Harry Potter asks is whether Good seeks power, and whether not seeking power is a weakness. Harry, Dumbledore, and Voldemort represent three case studies in dealing with power that can show us our own feelings about the subject.

But the movies do not focus on that aspect of the books. It makes sense that they wouldn't: in order to do so, all of the movies would have had to have been much longer and probably would have included more scenes of exposition and talking than of action and excitement, and that's not exactly what a movie is best at. As it is, the movies portray a good story about children becoming adults and overcoming the obstacles their parents and mentors could not.

So, while I certainly can't say I love the movies as much as I love the books, I'm not surprised or upset by their inability to match up with each other. When I drink whiskey, I drink whiskey, and when I drink water, I drink water.

And I'm sad that Harry Potter is officially over, but I can't afford to care too much for too long.  Everyone has different experiences with literature, and I have confidence in mine and shouldn't worry for anyone else's, since I can't control it anyway.

Here's to you, Harry. And here's to many happy years of your own immortality, one you gained without Hallows, without Horcruxes.

Now...if only Hogwarts were real...

<3 spadeALlcross

Today is Slytherin Day!

I must confess, I have a huge soft spot for Slytherin, and I can't really explain why.  Severus Snape is one of the most complex and exciting characters I've encountered, especially in young-adult-style literature, and I really like what J.K. Rowling did with him throughout the series.  Perhaps this explains my love for Slytherin.  Because I am certainly no Death-Eater.

So today I was Snape.  Obviously.

Status:

"You applied first for the Defense Against the Dark Arts post, I believe?" Professor Umbridge asked Snape.
"Yes," said Snape quietly.
"But you were unsuccessful?"
Snape's lip curled.
"Obviously."

Caption:

"After all this time?"
"Always."

And now, my outfit.

I choose to portray Slytherins, the ambitious little buggers, as business-extremely-casual.  I have a forest green men's button-down from Salvation Army as well as a green tie, and I'm wearing a grey ribbed tank under it.  I would wear slacks or something, but it's way too hot outside.  I used to have a silver snake ring that I would wear, but I think I gave it to a friend.

Tonight's the big night.  I'm not wearing this outfit for that (I'm representing all four houses instead) and I guess I might update you on what I do wear, but probably not because it's nothing special.

Wish me luck!

<3 spadeALLcross

Interjections (Well!) show excitement (Oh!) or emotion (Hey!)...

I said I'd post every Friday, but I hope I didn't say I'd only post on Friday.  If did, I'm sorry; I lied.

This morning in Church, we digested Matthew 6:24-34 --

24“No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.
Do Not Worry
25“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life^b?
28“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

--and the speaker (I don't yet know what all the different positions are in the Anglican church) made a point of reminding us that God considers each of us as his treasure, his most cherished piece of creation, and that we could never fathom how much love he has for us.  If we did know, we would never get the impulse to worry, because we would know that we were completely safe in his love. She pointed to several individuals in the audience, saying, "You are his treasured creation, more loved and important to him than you could know. And you.  And you."

I think it's a struggle for many, if not most people to remember this day to day.  We know we're not perfect, we know the worst parts of ourselves, and we see ourselves in a constantly revolving state of failure.  Sometimes it's hard enough for us to believe that the people in our lives who say they love us really do; we wonder if our parents would rather they hadn't had children, if our spouses, boyfriends, girlfriends are quietly growing more and more distant because they're not really in it anymore and just don't know how to say it, if our friends, roommates, siblings, cousins, would, at any given moment, rather be with someone else than with us.  And these people aren't in touch with a whole world made up of billions of people who are easily more interesting, hard working, beautiful, smart, and just better than us.  God is.  How could he love us this much?

But the point is he does.

However, he doesn't just love us.  He loves everyone.  He loves each person in the world (and throughout the universe, I feel safe in presuming) as much as he loves us.  He loves Mahatma Ghandi as much as he loves me, and he loves Mother Theresa as much as he loves me, but he also loves Paris Hilton as much as he loves me, he loves haters on YouTube as much as he loves me.  He even loves Hitler as much as he loves me.

That's something that I have troubles with, far more than with the "he loves me" bit.  Because even though I can't get to the 100% knowledge of his love, there are moments when I feel it, and aspects of my life that affirm it's truth.  But the knowledge of his love for everyone is less reflexive and self-evident, and more of a muscles that must be continuously flexed.

I'm putting this post here so that, some day, when the need arises, I can return to it and remember.

<3 spadeALLcross

Sometimes it's hard to be a woman...

Sad truth no. 1: I have no friends here. I thought I did, but upon further inspection, I realize that I have not connected to anyone beyond my boyfriend and possibly his roommate. That's really my own fault, because once I obtained said boyfriend, I forwent all possibilities of seriousness with my other relationships.

Sad truth no. 2: Operating under the delusion that I did indeed have friends here, I pretended I could afford to neglect somewhat my real friends from home. This includes my family. I have forgotten the power they have, the undeniable fact that they are the only ones who can pull me through anything.

Sad truth no. 3: Sad truths nos. 1 & 2 are really biting me in the butt right now. And I deserve it.

<3 spadeALLcross

But if I never ever hear them right, if nothing else, I'll think the bells inside have finally found you someone else...

    A year ago yesterday, one of my friends from high school past away due to a freak brain aneurism.  A year ago Saturday, she was 19, home from college from the summer, and driving to her first day of work when she got into a car accident, caused by her sudden lack of function, and was pronounced dead on the scene, but was revived.  But then the next day, she was no longer 19.  She was no longer a fantastic artist or older sister.  She was no longer the beautiful fiancé of the man she loved, she was no longer a new sophomore in college with the words "70 days: Don't Go Back the Same" written in dry erase marker on her mirror.

    She was eternal, with her Father in Heaven, smiling down on everyone in that way only she could.  

    But in that last day, when she was just hanging on because we asked her to, when there was so little of her left, she was still Kate, being the amazing girl she had always been.  I don't remember how many people she saved in her death, the number of organs she gave out to people who would have died without them, but that number is insignificant when compared to the number of lives she saved in her life.  With her love, with her patience and excitement about everything, with her smile.  

    Kate and I were not close; she was in the grade above me, and we only spoke on a few occasions.  But we volunteered together at our church, and we were in the same house group in High school.  I remember looking at her and her small group and wishing I could be one ounce like her and like them.  Not because they were cool, though they were, and not because they were pretty, though every one of them could have been a model and no picture of them was bad, but because they were the closest friends I've ever seen.  They still are, two years later, and a year after this kind of tragedy.  

    I'll probably always remember one of the few conversations I had with Kate.  We served together in the junior-high ministry at our church where we were small-group leaders for girls for three years.  One day, near the end of the ministry's season, Kate leaned over to me during break-outs and asked, "Do you know, are we going to be with the girls for that summer camp in August?"  I said, "Oh no, thank heavens.  The camp is staffed by counsellors who will be with them."  And Kate wrinkled her forehead a little bit, "Oh, dang.  I wish I could go.  I'm sure they're going to grow a lot spiritually in that week, and I wish I could be there to watch."

    Because that was Kate.

    Eleven-ish months ago, I got a tattoo on my ankle.  It says "All In" in honor of Kate.  At her funeral (attended by well over 300 people) her boyfriend described her as "All in, all the time."  I wanted to be like that, and to never forget that week of my life.

    Without fail, every time I wear shorts, someone new notices my tattoo and asks what it's about.  And, without fail, I almost always jokingly say "I play a lot of cards."  If they press the matter, I might say something like, "I got it after one of my friends from High School died," and then they usually drop it.  

    I say these things, these half-truths, because when I got that tattoo, I knew that every time I saw it, I would see Kate's beautiful face, and be given another boost to try to be the person God wants me to be, just like Kate always was.  And I knew that sometimes, I would just want to live alone with that memory.

    As I look back on this year of my life after her death, I see successes, I see failures, I see a lot of struggles, a lot of pain, but a lot of victories.  I started this post with the intention of berating myself towards the end, spilling out to you all the times I've looked down at my ankle and cried out in sudden agony, realizing how far away I'd drifted, how much I'd already forgotten.  But I see now, I can't forget, no matter how many times I feel I've failed.  

    A lot of people I know have died in the past, and they've all affected me differently, but Kate sticks out to me in death just as she did in life.  And I know I can't be just like her, and I know God doesn't want me to be, but I'm not worried that I'm ignoring that tug on my soul that I feel sometimes, that I've since named Katherine René, because slowly, that tug doesn't even get the chance to pull anymore.  Slowly, the things I want for myself in any given moment are becoming the things I think she would have wanted for me, things God would have wanted for me, so much so that I no longer even notice.

    So anyway.  That was just a really long method of saying that I'm sorry if I ever told you I just like cards.  But you have to understand, sometimes I don't even feel right having that tattoo visible to the world.  It's a little contract between me and God, with Kate as the signing witness.  And today, I'm rereading it, I guess.  Renewing it, definitely.  Reliving it, thankfully.  It hurts, but it's something I need and want to do.

<3 spadeALLcross

There's nothing so much like God on Earth...

...as a father to his daughter.

Happy birthday, daddy!

<3 spadeALLcross

Vive la démocratie

Ray Bradbury Project

Day 7, 6.07.08

    I’m going to vote in the next presidential election, did you know that. Yeah, I’m seventeen now, but I’ll be eighteen in time to register. Me. I’m going to register to vote for the next president of our country. Not only that, but there’s a chance that there will be another woman, like me, running for that office. How many women had to fight to give me…us that right? Hundreds of women on the frontlines of society suffered and died for my right to voice my political opinion. I was worried before, figuring I would go ahead and just not vote this time around, figuring that I hadn’t been paying attention to the issues or the candidates as in depth or as long as I should have, so I wouldn’t really be making a very educated decision. But now…
    I don’t care. Millions of American citizens don’t register to vote. How many of those people are women? And I bet you anything that Susan B. Anthony, Alice Paul, and Lucy Burns would have given two arms and a leg for those neglected votes. In fact, some woman did give their lives. I’m not about to have my matriarchs’ blood on my hands, so I don’t care. I don’t care if I don’t know the candidates’ names. I’ll vote for Mickey Mouse if it means I get to lend my voice to the world, if it means I get to do what those women couldn’t and wanted to.

    I thought about that today.  

    I also thought sadly about the fact that my vote will probably not be counted, as it was absentee.  But still.  I voted.  That's all that matters.

Happy Election Day!

<3 spadeALLcross

Just because you won doesn't mean you didn't gamble.

    Beeteedubs, I stopped feeling sorry for myself approximately three hours after posting that last entry.  I hope you're proud/not disappointed by my ability to move on.

    So what to discuss today, eh?  Sugar-free oreos and their respective deliciousness?  The funny face Perdro Farias makes when he laughs at me for trying to speak what little Spanish I know?  How sad it makes me to look at my most recent bank statement?  Any one of these things are freshly baked morsels of my life, so should you want to learn more, please contact me and I'll get down to it.

    However, today, I've decided to dive into more pressing matters: I Am Legend.  

    Yes.  A movie that came out last year.

    Don't bug me.  It feels current and pertinent to me, as I haven't yet gotten the opportunity to fully express myself on the issue.  

    Because I Am Legend is just that, an issue.  An issue that must be resolved, right here, right now.  

    

    I am Legend is, for all intents and purposes, an action-packed horror flick. The main premise, that a vaccine that cured cancer killed off most of the human race and left almost all of those remaining as undead creatures, has so much promise, and yet was somehow butchered so thoroughly, it can almost be considered a feat of filmmaking.
    

    Dr. Robert Neville (Will Smith) is living alone in zombie-ridden New York City, struggling alongside his trusty sidekick Samantha the German shepherd to find the cure for this mutant disease. For the first hour of the movie, nothing remotely interesting happens, except for some flashbacks to just before all of New York tried to evacuate and a couple disturbing conversations with some manikins in a video rental store.

    The excitement really begins to build when Sam and Neville almost get eaten by mutant humans. Then it falls again as Neville whittles away at his work in his high-tech lab testing out possible cure strains.

    This is a hard movie to categorize. When I think “zombie,” I think Dawn of the Dead and horror films of that ilk, but Legend doesn’t really fit there, considering the danger of becoming lunch for a sub-human doesn’t even come into play until well into the movie. The next label I could give it would most likely be “thriller” or “action,” but again, until the very end, there’s very little that’s thrilling about it.

    Evidently, the writers and directors, who undoubtedly had a hard time remaking a remake of a book-based movie, were trying to be as enigmatic as possible, leaving the audience guessing as long as they could before presenting all the facts. I usually advocate such a tactic, but there is a line one can cross: when you’re more than halfway through the movie and you still don’t know what happened to the main character’s wife and kid, or when you’re watching the last scene play out and you’re wondering how a doctor learned to weld metal sheets together to pull over his windows, or when the end credits are rolling and you’re scowling, thinking, “Wait…but there was definitely enough room for him in the chimney!”

    The special effects that paint the picture of a lonely and desolate New York are well done, even if the rest aren’t anything special. The only redeeming quality of this movie was Will Smith and his superb acting. Playing a man who’s lived completely alone in a now dormant and barren city for three years has got to be challenging, and he pulled it off well, even if the sketchy circumstances surrounding that role were mediocre at best.

    However, with Global Warming threatening our gradual demise and an economy that’s going to send us all to burger-flipping posts at the nearest McDonald’s, it’s nice to know that we could all to turn into blood-thirsty versions of ourselves and never have to worry about dependence on foreign oil. And if that happens, I just pray that someone as hard working and as good looking as Will Smith will be there to cure us all.

<3 SpadeALLcross

P.S. Spare yourselves and just watch Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, circa 1972.  I haven't seen it, but it sounds much more promising than I Am Legend was able to deliver.

New Year's Resolutions are harder in July, in case you were curious.

    I recently returned from a weekend retreat--"church camp"--with Willow Creek Community Church's high school youth ministry and discovered that I had undergone a lot of change in four days.  Through my small group, I grew closer to people and more open in general (which should make my transition to school in the fall a bit easier, or at least that's my hope), through the speakers, I grew closer to God and gained something of a new enlightenment in that area, and through my small group leader, I grew closer to eating healthy.  Kind of odd...but it's true.

    Rachel's husband, Ted, has ulcerative colitis, and so to combat it, he has taken up a gluten-, dairy-, and sugar-free diet and Rachel has adopted it too, for solidarity.  At meal times during camp, she would talk to us, gesturing rather wildly with a fork-speared cucumber, telling us about how much better the diet made her feel.  She had more energy, fewer random cravings, and had even lost some weight.  

    This got me thinking, I don't eat unhealthily really, but I certainly don't really pay attention to what I eat.  Whatever is put in front of me, I eat gladly, and whenever I'm hungry, I'll go searching for something suitable on which to munch.  What kind of difference could it make in my life if I stopped that and made a choice, like Rachel's, perhaps to pay more respect to my body.  I only get one, after all.

    The ulcerative colitis diet was my first thought, but realizing that that would mean giving up pizza and town house crackers and ham and cheese sandwiches, and struggling to find anything to eat but salad at restaurants and the dining hall at school, I decided to bring it back and just cut out added sugars.  

   I got home from camp on the 14th, and have done my best to go easy on the Pepsi, so to speak.  It was relatively simple at first: just say no to candy and soda and the like and I was in the clear.  But over the past eight days, some meals have caught me off guard with their sugar's ninja stealth skills.

   Ketchup, teriyaki, barbeque, some fruit juices, some chips, energy bars, some popcorn seasonings...all things that I have had to duck and cover at the very last second (sometimes at too late an hour) to avoid.  Things you'd never realize, things that make you question what sugar is really for....

   Anyway, my life has suddenly become much more interesting.  Every meal is an adventure, every snack an epic battle.  I went to Dominick's today and bought some lovely organic fruit leather, and tomorrow I'm going to experiment with pureeing my own tomatoes so I can have Bratwurst with the family.  

    Pray for me please.  This is very tiring work, and I have nothing to eat to give me a quick boost.

<3 spadeALLcross

Convinced by Thunderstorms

Last weekend, I was on a God High. This weekend, I've been kind of posted in front of the television...but I'm really okay with it because I kind of think I'm learning a lot this way...

Let me 'splain. No...there is too much. Let me sum up.

The season(/series maybe, I'm not sure) finale of "Avatar:The Last Airbender" aired on Nickelodeon last night. I had friends over so I couldn't watch it until midnight when they left, but it was totally worth the wait.

You see the show is about a young (and yet exceptionally old) boy named Aang whose destiny it is to restore balance to a broken world plagued by war under the rule of a tyrant Firelord, Ozai. I can't possibly summarize the entire show in one blog, so why don't you go to www.watchavatar.com and I'll meet you back here in a week or so.

Throughout the whole two-hour episode special, Aang is having an inward struggle because he doesn't think he can kill The Firelord after having lived and learned as an Air Nomad (who are a lot like Hindus in their beleif in the sacredness of any form of life). It's quite an advanced idea for an American kid's TV show.

I don't think I have the apathy to tell you what he decides or how the thing ends, so seriously go watch it and then leabe us a comment and we'll chat. But let me tell you that it is the best possible ending to any show ever. I used to be a little embarrassed that I watched a kids' cartoon, but as you can see by my PDA of it this morning, I am no longer. I love that show and I wish it didn't have to end.

Because it's about everything a show should be about--inner battles, deep-seated family problems, adventures that seem more like suicide missions, the real meaning of bravery, rescourcefulness,...you name it. And all that without some stupid side plot of whose best freind is sleeping with whose husband or who is pregnant with whose son's baby or who is selling drugs to whom. We watch television to escape from the world's problems, even if it's only for a little while, or at least, that's why I watch it. So why, then, would we run to watch shows like One Tree Hill or Law and Order where the character's problems are our problems, or could be our problems should we find ourselves in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Don't get me wrong: Gilmore Girls and The West Wing were two of my favorite shows when they were on the air, and they were riddled with some of the worst of the world's problems. But now, having watched Avatar, where even sexual tension is a rarity, and feeling the buzz off of what I know is pure, unadulterated happiness for the way the story turned out and the way the characters' lives ended up (unlike with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows =\ Sorry, J.K....you just really dropped the ball) I don't understand why anyone would watch shows with worldly problems.

Unless, of course, there's a hero involved. And I'm not talking about a gray-fox DA with a less-than-worthy attorney sidekick who brings disgrace to the name of actress or an attention-starved group of kids straight out of The Outsiders. If it's not a true story, I want a larger-than-life, greater-than-true hero to save these characters from their problems. It's the one thing that separates us from them. Otherwise they're just like us, relying on other flawed and dying humans without much to their names.

I watched Batman Begins tonight. Bruce Wayne is the kind of Hero (yes indeed) that I'm talking about. Robin Hood, David Webb, Elessar...the list goes on: they're clever, strong, brave, sometimes reckless, always driven individuals. Individuals. I think it's key that these guys (usually they're guys...I can't think of a female hero who's ever really seemed all that powerful on her own. It came close once, but even Hermione had Harry and Ron) work alone. Sure, Aragorn had that whole Fellowship deal, but when the time came for the big boss battle, he was leading what was left of Gondor into battle...alone...and he became King...alone. And Robin Hood's merry men were kind of at a loss without him, whereas he could take the Sheriff single-handedly if the opportunity arose. And Aang was destined to fight the Firelord mono e mono. Full circle.

I feel like I may be losing you at this point, so I'll try to bring this to a point:

I think there's a reason human nature seeks for supernatural heros, sacrificing their social lives, their true loves, their passions, and their futures for the sake of the cause: I think it's because we already have one.



Romans 8:18



Now seriously. Go watch Avatar. Unless you eat gratuitous sex and violence for its nutritious value, I'm sure you won't regret it.


<3 spadeALLcross