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moths posted:There also seems to have been a huge swath of book left out, specifically regarding the parallel of the Other acting as a benefactor of the Losers. Mike calls attention to their wealth and prosperity at the Chinese restaraunt scene, which is echoed in the final It confrontation, and the book consistently hints at Turtle being a thing akin to It - but then it's like the last act was written by a totally different person.
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Feb 1, 2018 01:36
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mind the walrus posted:Bullshit I suppose lovecraft is scary when you are a 1920s era racist
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Feb 1, 2018 01:36
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As I've said before, Stephen King would be better if he were told he could never write more than 200 pages. There's a reason the adaptations of his work end up being better than the source, especially something like It or The Shining
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Feb 1, 2018 01:39
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chernobyl kinsman posted:backstory is boring. answers are boring. worldbuilding is insanely boring. horror's effectiveness is inversely proportional to how much is known and understood about the thing feared Wow, I've got a great story for you then:
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Feb 1, 2018 01:57
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I suppose lovecraft is scary when you are a 1920s era racist
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Feb 1, 2018 02:04
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robert aickman is one of the most effective and disturbing horror writers of all time because he gives you nothing. you get the sense that there's an explanatory framework for the tale he's telling, but at no point does he step in and say "yeah the thing in the lake is a monster which was isolated from the larger ocean 5 million years ago and followed a divergent evolutionary path, it's attracted to the castle because of the dark rituals that the main character's father performed in honor of Dagon, the sea god" or whatever, because that's boring and not scary. all of that stuff is shadows, hinted at but never explained. to understand something is to have a kind of power over it, and is thus incompatible with powerlessness, which is scary.
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Feb 1, 2018 02:08
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Nothing is ever scarier the more you know about it
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Feb 1, 2018 02:24
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Nothing is ever scarier the more you know about it this is what i was trying to say but i got sidetracked talking about how much i love aickman
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Feb 1, 2018 02:28
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chernobyl kinsman posted:this is what i was trying to say but i got sidetracked talking about how much i love aickman Yeah, like It is the perfect example of that Immortal ghost clown who eats children and is inherent to the existence of the town is inherently scarier than being told everything about the creature, it's origins, it's weaknesses, etc.
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Feb 1, 2018 02:30
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I see the pedants have made it to the King thread.
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Feb 1, 2018 02:49
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chernobyl kinsman posted:robert aickman is one of the most effective and disturbing horror writers of all time because he gives you nothing. you get the sense that there's an explanatory framework for the tale he's telling, but at no point does he step in and say "yeah the thing in the lake is a monster which was isolated from the larger ocean 5 million years ago and followed a divergent evolutionary path, it's attracted to the castle because of the dark rituals that the main character's father performed in honor of Dagon, the sea god" or whatever, because that's boring and not scary. all of that stuff is shadows, hinted at but never explained. Stephen King's The Moving Finger Mel Mudkiper posted:Yeah, like It is the perfect example of that You're never told everything about It in It. fishmech fucked around with this message at 03:08 on Feb 1, 2018 |
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Feb 1, 2018 03:03
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fishmech posted:Stephen King's The Moving Finger is good, yes. It is also good, but it's good in spite of the cosmic spider vs. turtle stuff, not because of it Ornamented Death posted:I see the pedants have made it to the King thread. would you prefer if talking about books was just speculating over what kind of monster Dandelo is or gushing over how spooky the burial ground in pet semetary is or what chernobyl kinsman fucked around with this message at 03:20 on Feb 1, 2018 |
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Feb 1, 2018 03:17
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chernobyl kinsman posted:would you prefer if talking about books was just speculating over what kind of monster Dandelo is or gushing over how spooky the burial ground in pet semetary is or what Discussion is fine, and your post about Aickman was a good example of that. What is tiresome is when a bunch of faux-intellectuals roam around to all the speculative fiction threads and shitpost. Telling people that something they found scary isn't actually scary is not discussion, it's just you being a dick. The unknown scares you . That's cool, it scares me, too. So do spiders, and no amount of learning more about the creepy bastards is going to prevent a story about someone getting swarmed by them from scaring the poo poo out of me.
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Feb 1, 2018 03:45
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I am sorry you found "popular horror author often undermines his own work by being too verbose" to be a faux-intellectual argument Next up, Post-Colonialism in Dreamcatcher
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Feb 1, 2018 04:20
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perhaps a feminist analysis of how Bev is a loving trash character with zero personal agency who exists as a trophy vagina for the male characters to seek fulfillment from
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Feb 1, 2018 04:25
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a derridean analysis of the hermeneutics of the sewer gangbang scene: towards a post-deconstructionist theory of ghost clown poetics
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Feb 1, 2018 04:29
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no but seriously though Bev is garbage and arguably hurts the book more than even the kiddy gently caress fest
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Feb 1, 2018 04:33
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she's really bad yeah. its not exaggeration to say that her entire character arc centers on her vagina
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Feb 1, 2018 04:36
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Here's the best way to summarize how trash she is: Describe bev without referring to her relationships with any other characters
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Feb 1, 2018 04:40
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fishmech posted:Wow, I've got a great story for you then: Aaaaaahhhh!!!!!!!!!
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Feb 1, 2018 04:46
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Here's the best way to summarize how trash she is: stupid bitch
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Feb 1, 2018 04:46
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BiggerBoat posted:Some people think the Exorcist is silly. Some think it's the greatest horror movie of all time. I'll try to find the blog post, but someone wrote a truly excellent essay with the basic premise that we have exactly no reason to believe Regan was truly possessed or even by what or whom (in the movie it's widely believed to be Pazuzu, but even that is in doubt due to certain scenes, such as a possessed Regan supplicating herself to a statue a Pazuzu, which is odd because you sorta have a deity supplicating itself to... itself). The book establishes Jesuit beliefs e.g. normal humans can indeed possess amazing strength (enough for a little girl to turn a man's head completely around), and Father Karrass even allows that telekinesis and ESP are accepted, demonstrated phenomena so he can never quite make the case, 100%, that Regan is possessed by a demon and not just incredibly hosed up (or that an exorcism is either required nor desirable). Subtle clues are everywhere. A book on demonic possession, given to Mrs. Chris McNiel, that disappears and is later found under Regan's bed, before Regan starts to exhibit certain signs from that book. Could she have learned demonic signs from there? The desecration of the church and the perfect Latin written therein... is it possible she channeled this in the same way some other small african child once began perfectly reciting some ancient dead language? The "demon" inhabiting Regan seems to know so much but cannot be pressed on many details it should clearly know (like why won't it state Father Karrass' mother's name?) It also never says who it is, though it can mimic certain people very well. There are many such examples and to its credit the book is actually quite chilling but it never explicitly gives the reader the answers. It dances around them and always provides an alternate explanation (insofar as you accept the Jesuit priest/psychiatrist's assertion that telekensis, ESP, and speaking unknown languages are scientifically explainable facts which the movie doesn't really explore but the book states are documented and accepted. Also, the prose isn't just beautiful, Blatty's prose is drat near Cormac MacCarthy beautiful. From the first page I was surprised by how evocative and sophisticated it was, because the last time I read it I was about 15 or so and it all went over my head. To hopefully end my derail now, here is the Essay in question: Rennyo01's Blog: Exorcist Misconceptions Addressed. I hope you enjoy it, especially if you're a fan of the novel. I'm sorry my description couldn't really do it justice.
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Feb 1, 2018 05:33
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Here's the best way to summarize how trash she is: Her hair is made of January embers?
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Feb 1, 2018 05:33
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Here's the best way to summarize how trash she is: shes girl
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Feb 1, 2018 05:34
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mind the walrus posted:Yeah what was the deal with this again? Taking a step back, the format of the book is that the adults are recovering their lost memories. You get a few breadcrumbs, teasing what's to come, and then a flashback detailing it. It's a great format that stays interesting with a cycle of mystery and discovery. The problem is that there's a whole set of crumbs teasing that the kids dealt with a second, parallel entity (the Other in the guise of a turtle) who gave them the tools to fight It. And then was mostly forgotten about by the characters. And the author. It noticed this (what's up with these magical kids? Is there another me helping them?! ), the kids have supernatural powers (Bill just knows stuff, Eddie has a mind compass, Bev has a magic cooter), they are rewarded with the wealth and fame It offers (Mike comments on this, and the turtle's advice is cited as why one kid became successful). There's also a ton of suspicious coincidence and good fortune, like finding the Chud ritual and Silver, and the kids all finding each other. King also left at least one sinister mention - Georgie fixated on the Turtle Wax logo, implying that he'd also met (and forgotten about) the turtle. So was Georgie set up to die just to motivate Bill? Who knows! When we actually meet turtle he's a space hippy and literally a turtle, completely divorced from everything attributed to him earlier in the book. It's like if the Sixth Sense ended without the reveal, Willis shrugs off all the strangeness, roll credits. E: There's also the interesting parallel between Pete and It, where both consider themselves alone in their "realness," feed by destroying lesser beings, and then are ultimately destroyed by a greater being they never knew existed. moths fucked around with this message at 15:12 on Feb 1, 2018 |
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Feb 1, 2018 14:31
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fishmech posted:Wow, I've got a great story for you then: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YrDQ18P9x4
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Feb 1, 2018 19:28
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Here's the best way to summarize how trash she is: Super rich hot fashion designer
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Feb 1, 2018 19:30
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oldpainless posted:Super rich hot fashion designer thats the other thing Bev is the only character whose future career is not defined by her childhood experiences. She does nothing even closesly related to fashion ever in the story. She just does fashion because King couldn't think of anything else for a woman to do and because who she is doesn't matter nearly as much as what she means to men.
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Feb 1, 2018 19:35
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Stephen King is bad at writing women, especially as protagonists. He's pretty good at writing them as religious zealots and psycho incest moms though.
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Feb 1, 2018 23:20
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stephen king writing religious zealots only seems good if you want them to be one-dimensional objects worthy of all possible liberal scorn
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Feb 1, 2018 23:30
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Dr. Faustus posted:Exorcist This is a really nice write up. I never read the novel but love the movie and think it's scary as hell. I was just trying to rebut the idea that the one guy posted who seemed to come off as the final word on what can be scary and what cant and who seemed to be lecturing the thread as the final authority on horror. I don't think background, world building or reveals in and of themselves disqualify a piece from freaking anyone out, generating suspense or detracting from the fear element and felt like his entire post was just "didn't scare me...next. Sucks...next. Not scary...next". I get what he was saying and, yeah, often what you don't see or know adds a lot for sure, but it's not the final word and I tried to post examples that wound up being cherry picked in his rebuttal. Horror is so very subjective. Blair With Project and, say, something like Saw are good examples. BWP hardly showed poo poo and a lot of people were left very unmoved. Saw showed everything in graphic detail and, similarly, left some folks thinking it as trash. I'd offer that works like Night of the Living Dead, Psycho or JAWS - as contained as they are - have world building, background and show a lot, even if part of their mastery is in part due to what they don't show. Also, shame on me I guess for comparing film to writing but I think the argument holds up in the context by which we're debating the subject.
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Feb 1, 2018 23:44
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chernobyl kinsman posted:stephen king writing religious zealots only seems good if you want them to be one-dimensional objects worthy of all possible liberal scorn so he writes them well, then
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Feb 2, 2018 03:28
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X is scary, X is not scary is the most asinine conversation anyone can have. It's like trying to explain comedy. People find something scary because it scares them, there's no magical formula to it. It's just depending on the way you like it. I think CARRIE is more tragic than it is scary, but do I think anyone is wrong because they're scared by it? Not really. Karmine posted:Stephen King is bad at writing women, especially as protagonists. He's pretty good at writing them as religious zealots and psycho incest moms though. I don't know, I liked DOLORES CLAIBORNE, and Wendy in THE SHINING is a much stronger character in the book than she is in the movie.
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Feb 3, 2018 22:18
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DrVenkman posted:It's like trying to explain comedy. no one's ever done that, certainly DrVenkman posted:People find something scary because it scares them, there's no magical formula to it. understanding how, why, and how well works of art elicit specific responses from human beings is the focus of several thousands years' worth of philosophy and criticism, my man
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Feb 3, 2018 23:16
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Yes and if everyone had the same reaction to any given piece of art they wouldn't have spent thousands of years on analyzing it that way. "Art is subjective" is like, day one of art school. e: that's not to say that there isn't value in discussing why something is or isn't scary, its just asinine to think that there's a one size fits all definition of it. Karmine fucked around with this message at 23:26 on Feb 3, 2018 |
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Feb 3, 2018 23:21
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Karmine posted:Yes and if everyone had the same reaction to any given piece of art they wouldn't have spent thousands of years on analyzing it that way. "Art is subjective" is like, day one of art school. lol (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Feb 4, 2018 00:12
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Ok cool. From now on we'll all wait for you to tell us what's scary and what's not then post accordingly.
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Feb 4, 2018 00:37
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Did being a  stereotype come naturally or did you have to work at it?
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Feb 4, 2018 00:43
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Karmine posted:Yes and if everyone had the same reaction to any given piece of art they wouldn't have spent thousands of years on analyzing it that way. "Art is subjective" is like, day one of art school. *pops back into thread* Subjective doesn't mean what you seem to think it means *pops back out of thread*
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Feb 4, 2018 01:02
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A quick google says "based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or understandings" which seems to fit? If you want to actually explain what you mean instead of being an arrogant dick about it feel free.
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Feb 4, 2018 01:06
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