I have been watching this amazing show called Freaks and Geeks. I have moved it to number three on my favorite TV shows. This puts it below Breaking Bad, which is below Doctor Who. Now, some of you may be saying, “Yes, that’s all right that you’re a big Whovian, but you don’t have to abandon reason and say that Doctor Who is thematically better than Breaking Bad.” I’m not saying that Doctor Who is thematically better than Breaking Bad. But I like it better than Breaking Bad. That’s why it’s my favorite show. So, let me explain why I like it better.

If you’re not familiar with my holy hedonist theory, let me briefly explain: I have not found a valid reason for doing anything that doesn’t help me in some way. Therefore, when necessary or when beneficial, I will sacrifice present joys for greater future joys. I determined that I want to be happy. There are certain things that make me happy and I determine to figure out how to have, keep, and maintain them.

Happiness is relative from person to person. I personally love the clever jokes and wit in Doctor Who. I love how they keep it incredibly light-hearted and fun while at the same time hitting deeply through characters that attach very easily, more easily than many from very good full-length movies. Breaking Bad makes me connect with characters. However, it’s very dark. It has none of the light which is in Doctor Who.

I love happy stuff. Unfortunately, right now the film industry is producing well-done near perfection with dark television. Examples: Breaking Bad, Arrested Development, House of Cards, Game of Thrones (although I also don’t watch that because it has redefined gratuitous sex), the Office (which is not technically dark, but it certainly isn’t light and happy. It makes you depressed to be human almost), and others. I appreciate the thematic brilliance of these shows. I do not appreciate the darkness. Not that the genre of dark films is inherently bad. I just don’t personally find it very appealing. Shoot me. 

So dark films get a sort of automatic lessening in my personal criticisms. That’s also how Freaks and Geeks got above Sherlock (which I placed below Breaking Bad because it was about the same thematically and character developmentally, but… scratch that, I was going to say that Breaking Bad simply had more episodes than Sherlock and that was why it was better, but Breaking Bad also had better character development, so never mind) because it (Freaks and Geeks if you lost track of the antecedent) was much less dark than Sherlock.

Anyway, there’s my explanation for my rankings of television shows. Maybe I’ll do another one for how I rank stories or books or stuff. 

I just watched Thor: the Dark World. It was disappointing. The ending was awesome, but if you haven’t seen it, I won’t spoil it. Anyway, the beginning reminded me a lot of the beginning of LOTR. There was a voiced-over battle which explained the main history and background for the rest of the story. Then it went on to take you to places in the Marvel Universe as they dealt with this villain, Malekith. (I think that’s how you spell the name of the guy played by 9)

Anyway, you get to see more of the dark elves (those are the bad guys. Dark elves are almost always bad. Even so, Eol was super cool. But now I’m just talking to extreme nerds who’ve read the Silmarillion) in books and battles. You see other worlds for a few seconds in between the Asgardians talking.

My nerdiness in me was like, “Cool, other worlds and stuff.” But something was missing. I was thinking, “This is like LOTR.” But I didn’t get that feeling LOTR gave me. Was I being biased?

No, what am I talking about, I’m not biased. I figured out why Thor didn’t inspire me. Despite all of Thor’s special effects, the Silmarillion (a picture-less book harder to read than the dictionary, containing more information than an encyclopedia and less dialogue than E. T.) kept me more intrigued by the world it presented. Why? Well, I thought about other works which left me entranced with the universes they presented. And I came to the following conclusion of how to properly unravel a universe.

In Narnia, LOTR, Game of Thrones, Wheel of Time, Harry Potter, Doctor Who (usually, sometimes you’ll get a bad writer), The Silmarillion, Star Wars (the trilogy; interestingly the saga did not do this), and other fantasy works, whenever a new place is introduced, there is great care taken that you actually like the new place for the sake of the new place. I’m not sure how to describe it better than that, so let me give examples.

Narnia: We get to the Professor’s house and love it because it’s big and has a ton of rooms and anything can happen in it. We love the woods because it’s so alive and then we love Mr. Tumnus’s house, not just for Mr. Tumnus’s sake, but because his house is so freaking cool. But even that goes away when we’re inside a Beaver Dam. And then Cair Paravel tops it all.

LOTR: As I read LOTR the last time, I noticed that Tolkien almost takes a pattern of taking a whole chapter to introduce a place before doing important stuff there. That way we understand the setting that the important stuff is happening in. This happened with the Shire, The Haunted Forest, Moria, Lothlorien, Rohan, Gondor, Helm’s Deep, and practically every other place in Middle-Earth.

Game of Thrones: Even though this isn’t a traditional fantasy which follows the main character around as he explores new places, it still does the job of giving credit to the actual location instead of just using the location as a nice backdrop to whatever the characters are doing. Like what happened in Thor.

Harry Potter: Do I even need to begin to describe the sheer awesomeness of Hogwarts? I'd read about that place even if all the characters were different.

All right, I could keep going but I’ll stop. Because I’m mad at Thor now. The only place I really care about is Asgard, and they didn’t even do much with it. All we get to see is a vague picture of the whole thing, the prison, and the throne room. To give it credit, there was also some soldier training, but that just makes me think this whole thing is some scheme to whip up action scenes. Which are cool, but don’t make me think about the place, the part of the universe which I’m supposed to care about.

The one place where Thor did make me care a bit about its universe was this one world at the beginning of the movie. Thor and the gang were fighting (big surprise) to help these Indian-like people out (Native American, whatever). At first, I think this is just another schemed up backdrop for an action scene, but then one of the Asgardians decides to stay there. And then I see the friendly people (before they only showed the barbarians attacking, not the actual people the Asgardians were defending) and some jars with dirt stuff in it, and I think, “Hey, this place isn’t so bad.” And then we leave there and don’t see it again except for some random moment when a plane jumps in there and shoots some stuff.

But the rest of the movie (except for when it was on Asgard dealing with the prison, throne room, or entrance place) could have happened anywhere. And it would have made no difference at all. At all. I really just didn’t care. And why should I? Stories think they have to focus on character development. Sure, character development is good. But so is location development. That sounds corny (especially if the location is a cornfield), but it’s true. Why should I care about people fighting to defend some place if I don’t care about the place they’re defending? Thor gave me no reason to. I mean, it was the whole world, and I guess I care about Earth because I live on it. But the movie didn’t give me good reason to care about Earth. Maybe I cared a bit about Asgard, but that was just some place for fighting. A tiny part of me cared about that one random world, but that was very tiny. If you’re going to threaten all of existence, make sure your audience cares about all of existence. Don’t just assume they do. Anyway, I’m done with that rant.

So I watched Ender's Game yesterday, and unsurprisingly, it wasn't as good as the book. But for a movie of that complicated novel, I'd say they did a decent job. They didn't screw it up like Peter Jackson did to the Hobbit. WARNING: DIGRESSION: I mean, if there was some type of conversation between Peter Jackson and whoever directed Ender's Game, I think it'd go something like this. Ender's Game Director: So it was pretty hard to stay true to the book. I mean, I tried, and it didn't make it as good a movie as it could have been, but at least it was still a decent movie that stuck to the core of the original book. How do you think your Hobbit movies relate to the book? Peter Jackson: Wait, there was a book about what I'm directing?

Anyway, spoilers coming up. Throughout the beginning and middle of the movie, all the character development felt incredibly rushed. And I'm thinking, on Google it said this was under 2 hours. Why are they rushing this? Then I get to near the end and figure out why.If you've read the book, you know that at the end there's the big twist that Ender actually was battling the buggers (or Formics. I'll talk about that next) when he thought he was just doing simulations. First of all, it wasn't very well hidden that he wasn't battling the aliens. Whatever. But if they had already taken their time with previous character development, by the time we get to the "simulations," people who are experiencing this story for the first time will be like, "He's not even fighting anyone yet and it's already really late into the movie. When will this end?" So I see why they had to rush character development, but I still don't like it. 

Now. They also changed the name of the aliens from buggers to aliens. Most likely because no one would take Harrison Ford seriously if he said the word bugger as many times as he'd have to. But I find it fascinating the OSC (Orson Scott Card, author of Ender's Game), showed what would happen if we came across aliens. Would we give them some fancy, uplifting name? No, we'd demean them. Maybe the intelligentsia would refrain from using language such as "bugger," but normal people wouldn't. And even if the intelligentsia didn't use the word bugger, they'd still think of the aliens as buggers. 

The main problem with the movie was rushed character development, but because of the twist at the end, it was hard to get around that. In any event, I certainly wouldn't have minded a three hour movie with decent characters in them. Even if people watching it without reading the book would lose interest when it's two and a half hours and he hasn't even fought aliens yet. But whatever. Not my call I suppose. 

Unrelated ending: Finished Freaks and Geeks. It got moved to third favorite TV show. Probably will post another article about how and why I rank my favorite TV shows.

Quick little thing

Everybody needs to watch Freaks and Geeks

Like literally. It's amazing. There are a few false premises and unexplored logical trains of thought in it, but overall, it is an insightful, well-written, and fun show. Like a ton of fun.

Anyway, I'll probably write more about it later, but I just started watching it and had to get out of bed to watch another episode because I couldn't stop thinking about how awesome it was. So there you go. By the time I finish it (it's only one season, :() (That sad face looks sort of stupid like that but I guess it had to be that way), I'm expecting it to be number four on my favorite TV shows list. (Number 3 is Sherlock, 2 is Breaking Bad, and 1 is Doctor Who. Yeah, I know Doctor Who isn't as well-made as Sherlock and Breaking Bad, but it inspires emotion better than any other... thing I've ever experienced. So yeah, it's number one)

So watch Freaks and Geeks. 

Two books: The Scarlet Pimpernel and A Tale of Two Cities. Both deal with Revolutionary France, the awful stuff going on there, life in England, and escape from awful Revolutionary France. One is considered an essential piece of literature by a renowned author, and the other is heard of by some people. I'm going to compare these two.

The major difference between the Scarlet Pimpernel (SP) and A Tale of Two Cities (TTC) is the language. In TTC, Charles Dickens never ceases to confuse most modern readers with his writing style, although if you get the hang of reading his style, it does open up more than the more contemporary style. In SP, the language is very readable and at times seems to be written for children. 

Both have pretty profound characters. Although it is debatable that the TTC characters have more depth, the characters in SP (especially Lady Blakeney) face complex moral dilemmas because of the relationships they have with other characters. 

Then there's just the fun attitude of SP whereas TTC is almost completely dark the whole way through except for some bits of romance and victory. In fact, I'd almost say that SP presents a better theme because it's more colorful with fun, darkness, mystery, romance, and adventure that is much more clearly presented than in TTC.

And then there's how each book presented the time period. I'm not going to argue that TTC did a worse job of presenting the bloodshed and abysmal state of Revolutionary France, but I will argue that SP got the feeling across all that it needed to. In the first chapter, we witness through quick character connections, how awful Revolutionary France is, and how awesome this guy who sneaks out all the aristocrats is. 

Then there's their representation of England. A Tale of Two Cities did almost nothing with the second city - London. TTC focused on the awfulness of France, sure, that's fine. But I'd say that SP did a step up from TTC by showing the nobility in England compared to the common people. In France, the divide was enough to start a bloody revolution, but in England, the people peaceably grumble and bear it. I missed that in TTC and was glad to see it in SP.

I really don't know why TTC is so much more popular than SP. Maybe it was because of how popular it was at the time. But that's unfair. SP presented, in my opinion, a better comparison of France and England at the end of the eighteenth century and had more fun with their characters. Also, it had three twists that stood out to me. Two I never suspected, and the third I saw coming from a long way off, but I give it slack because the other two were amazing. Anyway, I'm just sort of mad that some books become heralded by the intellectual community so that other, more fun books with colorful and relatable characters dealing with the same issues as the "intellectual books" get left int he dust. It's not fair. But I learned that in Princess Bride. Another awesome book left in the dust by intellectuality. I want to start a revolution and chop off all those intellectual heads. Bleah.

I'm in the middle of the Great Hunt, and the adventure is pretty cool, the characters are all so lovable, and the world is quite unraveling for me.

But I guess, I don't know, there's something missing here.

Not much intrigue I suppose.

I mean, in a way that's really good. Light is light and dark is dark (except in the case of the Children of the Light, I might talk about them, but I don't want to until I know more about them) and everything's so simple even if the story is a lot of fun.

It feels like I'd do a better job of doing a review of this instead of an essay on it, because there's not much that I see that I can pick apart and examine. No deep philosophical messages in here, just simply: there's good and bad and the good is good so do good because it's good. Which is good.

But at least do something more. Tolkien had that same exact message and he did more. If you don't believe me, read the first few essays I did on this blog. He put in cool messages and stuff.

In fairness, there wasn't much rich philosophy in LOTR either. Just intensely creative adventure and fun that can't make me stop smiling. And WoT just doesn't seem creative to me because I've already explored every letter in Middle-Earth. So that's why I haven't been writing much more about this series. I'll keep reading and hope that Robert Jordan matures 

Sorry it’s been so long.

Anyways, as I said before, in the Wheel of Time, Jordan just sneaks under plagiarism of Tolkien. But he did do something original. The Aes Sedai.

I’m going to try to do this so that people who haven’t read the book will appreciate it. All right, here goes. (But you’ll have to have read or at least watched LOTR)

Instead of Gandalf, an almost elf-like woman leads around Jordan’s fellowship.  In LOTR, an old wise man with a big beard and a long staff did the leading, but here it’s a woman. Not being sexist, but it is a change. This Aes Sedai isn’t trusted, isn’t loved, and is actually quite brutally logical, which gets on everybody’s nerves.

There’s a little description. Being who I am, I want to go into the philosophical implications of this difference. Here it is (not so very much of a spoiler, I like Tolkien better):

First, let’s review the similarities. Gandalf and Moiraine (the name of the Aes Sedai) rely more on magic and wisdom than strength of arms for their power and leadership. They are also both morally good.

HOWEVER, Gandalf will try to be as helpful and explanatory as he can. In fairness, Moiraine thinks she’s got to keep everything all hidden, but she really doesn’t. If she’d just be more open and friendly like Gandalf, then Rand wouldn’t mind getting not so great news from her. (In fairness again, he already had a bad feeling about her because all the Aes Sedai had a bad name, but again, Aes Sedai shouldn't act so they come across as being creepy and unhelpful)

On the other hand, Gandalf had visited the Shire before, (I just cut my index finger and now it's bleeding but I’m too lazy to get a band-aid, so I wrapped a paper towel around it and am now having quite the experience typing FYI) he smoked pipes with the hobbits, he made fireworks for them, and he was generally well-known and slightly tolerated at the worst.

Basically, I think that leaders should be more up close and personal like Gandalf instead of distant, supreme, and all that nonsense like Moiraine. Anyway, just what I think. It worked better in the story too for Frodo with Gandalf being nice as opposed to Rand being all frustrated and worried about what Moiraine was up to.

Reading the Wheel of Time has been like reading someone explain LOTR with more magic, more strong women, and more pages. Light, are there more pages. (Some of you may get that)

Anyway, I will make fun of it sometimes for how much it is blatantly ripping off of LOTR, but mostly I will say good things about its philosophical background.

This is my first article about Wheel of Time, so why don’t we inspect the first part of the first paragraph of the series?

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend.  Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again.  In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist.  

This sounds exactly like a mix of Galadriel’s beginning of the LOTR movies as well as actual Tolkien stuff in there. Third Age? Mountains of Mist? Really? Are you going to make the guy with the One Ring on his neck read this? Come on!

Anyway, aside from that monstrosity, there’s also the regular beginning to deal with. How does it start? Wait for it. It starts out with a party. That doesn’t sound familiar at all.

Now, I won’t give Robert Jordan too much of a hard time for this. I actually like it that he starts it out with a party. It makes me realize just how smart it was of Tolkien to start out LOTR with a party.

See, when both Wheel of Time (WoT from now on) and LOTR start out, life’s happy. There’s a party going on, people are dancing, fireworks are going off (or should at least), children are being mischievous, and a whole assortment of good stuff.

But both parties get crashed with no type of closure. In LOTR, Bilbo puts on the Ring and leaves, and nobody likes his party anymore. In WoT, it’s a bit more dramatic, Trollocs (basically orcs) and a Fade (basically a Nazgul – a black rider with no face for crying out loud!) attack but are stopped by the Warder Lan (basically Aragorn) and an Aes Sedai.

I’ve got two things to talk about, but I’ll only talk about one. I’ll bring up Aes Sedai in the next article.

So both parties crash and the story begins. See what happened there? We started out with how life should be, and now the heroes are going to fix the problems that stopped or corrupted the party (the Ring and the Dark One) so that life can continue in its party like it should. Because parties are awesome. Except political parties. Bleah.

And you should apply that logic to your life. Have a blast – make a party of life. But just make sure nothing corrupts it so your party crashes, and if something does spring up, stop it.

Not since Princess Bride have I read such an adventure-filled book as To Have and To Hold. It’s about a man who, quite by accident, marries an English noblewoman escaping a lord who wishes to marry her against her will. Now, this man will escape a king’s edict, captain a pirate ship, and be captured by Indians for this woman, who he grows to love.

It’s pretty basic, but the characters make you forget how basic it is. And the best part about this whole thing is that the book was written in 1900. Yeah, ikr?

Anyway, after reading this book, you sort of wan to go and randomly kiss a girl or something. (One of the characters actually did that. He was going to be executed, so he randomly kissed a girl) It’s amazing how words can describe characters who fill you with such drive to do something grand.

The one thing about it is that, well, two actually. The two things about it are: The main character is sort of racist and the very end part is SO overly predictable not even the characters can clout that one predictability. But aside from that, it was a very solid work.

I’m finding that it’s difficult to say anything bad about adventure stories. Because, these adventure stories aren’t trying to make you think in a certain philosophical way. No, they’re just wanting you to enjoy life for what it is. Why isn’t everything about enjoyment of life?

Anyway, if you want pure adventure (and if you don’t mind a bit of hard reading (the wording actually adds a lot if you can get over how dumbed down we’ve mad the English language)) and don’t mind a little racism or predictability, read To Haven and To Hold. I’m not sure why it’s not more of a classic, because this shows people living life to the full, for what matters. 

Hazel just doesn’t seem to understand what maturity is all about. Just saying.

Even though her parents are trying to do all they can for her, she’s pretty ungrateful. I understand that she wants them to live their own lives, but she crossed a line by the amount of ingratitude she showed towards them.

Also, there were two times Gus vomited when only Hazel was there to see. The first time, he was in the basement, and she called for his parents to clean it up. The logic was that she didn’t want him to know that she had seen him vomit and all that. If he was really that egotistic, then I don’t know why she even thought it was a good idea to date him in the first place.

Second time Gus vomited, it was just those two at a gas station. She called 9-1-1. There was never any mention of her cleaning up his mess. WHAT? So you’re going to date a guy and not help him? I mean, John should have at least mentioned something about it. That just aggravates me.

And the way she just says stuff and whatever. Just like that. Like whatever she’s talking about doesn’t really matter or whatever. You know, it’s all good or whatever. Grow up already or whatever, Hazel. You sound so mature when you talk like that, so certain.

But that’s just it. With a  book like TFiOS, you can’t be certain. That’d be bad to be certain of anything. I mean, if all we’re facing is Oblivion, then all manner of craziness could occur. The farthest stretch of the imagination was Gus’s Something that he looked forward to.

I guess this is all excusable. It’s all right if Hazel, other teenagers, or heck, even the President himself is an immature brat. Hazel wasn’t a brat, I just want to make a point here. Anyone can act however they like because, the fault isn’t in us, is it? No, we can blame our unlucky stars. That’s it, the fault is in our stars, so stop blaming us for our immaturity and stupidity and inaction. Why on earth should we be blamed if it’s not our fault?

So, this story aggravated me. It had good character development and a unique writing style, but it was nevertheless just depressing and futile, encouraging self-pity and defeatism. But let’s not call it defeatism, shall we? Let’s call it realism. Because that makes sense. Oh well, I’m reading this one really awesome book called To Have and To Hold, so I’ll get back to showing the awesomeness in stories soon.