Rmaxwel1_LMST_345_Blog

Majoritarian culture is mainly common sense in a democratic society. With restrictions, it can beneficial to those within the society as long as a sudden change in the population of indigenous peoples is accounted for. It can enable society to flow more efficiently. For example, let's say people prefer to use bikes as a mode of transportation throughout a city and have done so for a century or so. As technology progresses forward and new means of transportation are created, it makes more sense to have roads and infrastructure laid to enable better means of transportation. Legacy technology, as well as practices, tend to be the polar opposite of innovation. In Lilith’s brood, the Oankali intervene on earth in an attempt to control the bloodshed resulting from world war. This intervention is meant to seize control of the planet as well as cleanse the ferocious nature of the human resistors. By creating a cross-species with humans the Oankali likely postulate that the next genera...

American Gods by Neil Gaiman reads like a schizophrenic’s dream. I really tried to like the concepts explored within the book but found its pedantic nature overwhelming and brutally nauseating. I went in with high hopes for this book and left feeling confused and underwhelmed. The banality of the story just digs into your patience and you wonder if you should even keep going. The story feels like a long drive and you are waiting and waiting for things to get interesting as the journey continues but the high points are few and far between a sea of monotony. While Gaiman’s writing has a certain humor to it that can carry a lot of the weight, American God’s feels akin to stale bread when compared to sweet and fantastical Coraline. By forcing the mythos into the modern world Gaiman works hard to remove what made the fantastical fantastic. Odin (“Wednesday”) performs parlor magic in a bar, robs a bank by conning people into handing him their money. The most potent magic, or “godly” power is...

I found Akata witch to be the least enjoyable required reading this semester. The witches and magic seem fine at first glance, complementing the surface-level character building performed throughout the story. I found myself underwhelmed with the main character Sunny the most. The author writes Sunny parallel to the guidelines of the mary sue archetype allowing her to quickly advance through the magical world with relative ease. The main divergence from the archetype seems to be her albino complexion and “otherworldly” origin. “You’ve got at least a hundred Chittim in there, I’d say. Maybe more,” Orlu said. “What’s Chittim?” she asked. “Currency,” Orlu said. “You earn it when you learn something. The bigger the knowledge, the more Chittim. I didn’t receive half as many Chittim when I went through Ekpiri!” “Ekpiri is level one,” Chichi explained. She turned to Orlu. “That’s because you always knew what you were. Sunny’s a free agent. She didn’t know anything.” “Wow,” she breathed...

Assessment: What is your reaction to the text you just read? The text is rather disturbing due to the provocative nature of the subject matter. It handles interspecies relationships and provides a large amount of detail surrounding the reproductive acts the alien creatures “force” upon their human “Families”. I use quotations because these are grey areas, there can be arguments either way as to whether or not the humans are forced into this, and we are able to see how the dynamics between the main character and the alien develop after Lomas “gives birth” to the grubs. The gruesome nature of the ordeal, as well as the visceral imagery, are very effective at setting a mood and conveying some of the emotions. There is a sharp contrast between the mood at the beginning of the story and the mood towards the end, a journey has been made. What connections did you make with the story? I didn’t really make any connections with the story. I did not see any parallels between this sto...

Dune is a story where a single man changes the face of a planet using mystical powers he obtains to create a religious following. The story essentially forms the outline to a modern cult except for the exalted leader actually has some form of power that makes him special. Paul’s ability of precognition allows him a vast advantage over his adversaries as well as his people which forces him to explore the philosophical questions concerning his actions. This dichotomy is intriguing because we are able to learn much more about his character and are able to glean insight into what we might do if placed in such a situation. Is it just to use your powers to exact your will even if it means deceiving your people and slaughtering those in your way? It is most likely you deceiving yourself and allowing yourself to be blinded by greed and lust for power.

Altered Carbon is one of my favorite book to television adaptations in quite a while. Netflix was able to visually represent the contents of the book with toned down grit but still made the world feel tasteful and interesting. Realities within this stories framework are more or less depending on how much money you have. Being able to choose what body you want and do whatever you want with it brings out some of humanity’s darkest natures. By removing the deterrent of death from human society grows bored, eventually becoming deviant and apathetic towards societal issues and those around them. The more free people feel, the less they seem to care about anyone else. To most people within this society, it is likely that they feel omnipotent and free from any adversity much like someone high on stimulants. The atmosphere of the story when you sit down and examine it feels like a feverish nightmare that ensnares the reader to follow the plot and become invested in the magical SCI-FI world tha...

Spiritual Education Within harry potter and other works that align to the spiritual education archetype the students are faced with supernatural challenges as well as ordinary challenges. The supernatural challenges often seem to reflect those that we go through on a daily basis yet are portrayed in the light of the supernatural. The work I examined for class was The Magicians. The television adaptation does a better job of relating to the spiritual education archetype and is quite refreshing for using a college setting instead of an elementary or primary school setting, Quentin is interrupted from his normal non-magical life when his Princeton interview is swapped for one with Brakebills. Like most spiritual education texts the person introduced into the magical world has little or no understanding of it yet needs to escape from the world they are currently inhabiting. They feel out of place and use escapism as a means of fighting real world issues like depressio...