This Althanian Life - Episode 02

[Sulla]

Crossing the Rubicon - The Line Between Villainy and Violence (http://www.swinsea.com/cory/ep02.mp3)

On this week's episode, we discuss the different aspects of villains, violence, where to draw the line, and what we want to see more of on Althanas revolving around the bad guy. I'm joined by Andy (BlackandBlueEyes), Twitch (Aurelianus Drak'shal), Manda (Every. Single. Alt), and a special guest appearance by Lorelai.

Opening Song: Slaughter Your World (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcbazH6aE2g) - Blind Ferret Entertainment.
Closing Song: March From a Clockwork Orange (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MCnnfXPSHw) - Mark Ayes/ Wendy Carlos/ Beethoven.

Sorry this has taken so long to come out, but the editing was something of a nightmare of work I simply prefered to avoid. I left out an opening monologue this week because I trimmed well over an hour from the finish product, and with songs it was already well longer than I liked.

I may keep a biweekly update for This Althanian Life, or I may move it back to once a week. Not entirely sure yet.

In the meantime, give it a listen, enjoy, and please give me any comments or questions you have!


This Althanian Life - The After Hours. (http://www.swinsea.com/cory/ep02b.mp3) (Rated Aure)

[Zook Murnig]

Lovely podcast! I may have tuned out some of the discussion, however, trying to figure out what my daughter was doing in the background.

[Skie and Avery]

Rifling through my jewelry box and trying to EAT the giant point of quartz I have in there, as well as ignoring the delicious cookies and movies that I laid out in the living room to keep her entertained.

[Philomel]

Great cast for this topic, Sulla :)

[Otto]

A couple of things. First: I'm really touched how much you folks think of Otto as a hero. That you think of him as a real foil/punching bag for your villains is high praise indeed.

Second: Lorelai was the perfect ear-bleach for all the terrible, terrible movie scenes you talked about (when she was saying 'not nice', oh my god, too cute).

[Philomel]

Here is another one of Salvidor Dali's works ... called "destino"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GFkN4deuZU

its awesome. No eyelids being cut, so don't worry.

[Luned]

I enjoyed how enthusiastically you all embraced the hate but it still ended with a resounding "aww" when Lorelai said goodbye.

[Sulla]

This Althanian Life - The After Hours! (http://www.swinsea.com/cory/ep02b.mp3)

Listen to 30 minutes of off topic rambling, toddlers talking like sailors, and Twitch in all his twisted glory!

Rated Aure, of course.

Also, seriously, great Hannibal Lecter impression by Twitch, haha.

[Aurelianus Drak'shal]

I am so very glad you brought this part out too!

[Hysteria]

Good ep, but I think you're right about the length. More than an hour and the mind starts wandering and interruptions happen.

First gripe, you mention David Bowie, but not his role as the Goblin King?

http://media.giphy.com/media/2ls3g7ORnlumc/giphy.gif

You guys all also mentioned the villain that knows not what he does and sets off a chain of events that are far outside his ability to understand. This for me is a good literary device as you can escalate the threat quite quickly. A good example is Brother Sum from Kungfu Husstle (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3cC9GN3QFg). In this clip you see what sort of person he is, but he awakes sleeping dragons (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S71zfCAagZg) and not all of them good.

In mentioning of the movie Antichrist, there are three movies directed by Lars von Trier called The Depression Trilogy; Antichrist, Melancholia and Nymphomaniac. I watched part of Antichrist and Nymphomaniac. The latter is horribly depressing and comes in two parts. The same female actor in Antichrist is in Nymphomaniac, which also has Shia Labeouf.

Everyone needs to see Drive. Here is some music (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DSVDcw6iW8) from it. It’s almost like watching two movies, the first cars and 70s music, the second violence and 70s music.

I also want to defend PALE for a moment. In Once Piece the navy, something similar to a world police has leaders that believe in Absolute Justice. By that they mean that it is better to kill 100 innocents than to let one criminal escape. The result is that there are many pirates who appear far more just and heroic than the navy. As an external viewer reading the ‘story’ of althanas the hypocritical nature is evidence, but in the world it’s a lot less black and white. (Although I had lots of issues with how the story progressed,) Avatar Korra’s story had some fantastic villains.

Amon (http://avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Amon) wanted equality between Benders and Non-benders.
Unalaq (http://avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Unalaq) wanted to bring the spirit world and the material worlds back together.
Zaheer (http://avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Zaheer) wanted to bring balance to the world.
Kuvira (http://avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Kuvira) wanted to unify and protect the Earth Kingdom.

At one point Toph actually says that they all had noble intentions but they lacked the balance within them and that caused them to go astray. I don't see PALE as heroes at all, from a narrative point of view they are Villians.

EDIT: 80s rather than 70s.

[Warpath]

Really loving this. I kept yelling at you guys but you can't hear me, so I'll write my thoughts here:

Handsome Jack example is good when pointing out villainy through dialogue, but I'd point at GLaDOS as an even stronger example. Handsome Jack is great because he thinks he's the hero and you're the villain (and he's not entirely wrong when you think about the protagonists one at a time). GLaDOS is your foil, and recognizes her own love/hate relationship with you, and literally cannot act upon you directly - her villainy is 100% revealed through her own dialogue. If GLaDOS were mute, she would just be an obstacle, not a villain. It's more notable when you take into account that Chell doesn't or can't talk, herself. IMHO, Handsome Jack follows in GLaDOS's footsteps.

GRRM makes nothing but perfect villains. Even his apparently straightforward brutish dullard antagonists like Gregor Clegane has agency and a background that explains his evil. You might not love or forgive them, but you can understand what led to their villainy in every single case. Even if it's just the most basic, horrible, banal thugs someone might run into in the world, there's a certain level of sympathy there because those people have been driven to be what they are by the ugly state of the world around them. GRRM is probably one of the greatest storytellers alive.

Otto is the best hero, because obviously.

More compelling argument: thinking about the unrealistic depictions of violence and lack of consequences in your threads on Althanas will make your storytelling better. Leaping immediately to offensive tropes to try and create a visceral reaction to your villain is the "easy" way, and will fail to elicit the response you're looking for. There's nothing wrong with pushing limits, but you should probably wait until you're mature enough to understand those lines and what they mean for both villain and victim. Plus when you do it poorly, it makes your reader wonder about you as the writer, not about the character, which means you've shaken them out of the story, which means you've completely failed as a storyteller. Twitch just said "less is more," and I started nodding furiously.

Now you guys are talking about Masterminds but aren't saying it: Joker. You're talking about Joker.

There you go, Andy, thank you. There's a good theory that the Joker wins at the end of The Killing Joke: there's the suggestion that Batman finally kills him - that it isn't Gordon that was the target, at all.

Re: people who write darker characters having that color peoples' perception of the writer. Sometimes that's a result of failure, as I mentioned before, but it can be when you're doing a good job. See the way people talk about Aure, and see the way people haaaaate GRRM. It's a thin line.

A Boy Called It was touted as a true story. It wasn't. It was all made up, there was a huge backlash against the guy. Here's a good example of "what's actually wrong with the person who wrote this."

Aure, you are a poet.

We're talking about torture porn more than villainy right now, though. It eventually becomes more about the act than the actor.

USE YOUR MOUTH WORDS.

More plz