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Saturday, March 17, 2012

Episode 29 - Of Devils and Darkness

This episode, we muck around in the filth of humanity, in the deep mires of wickedness, in vile dens of...well, you get the idea. Why do we hang around in these places? We examine evil in fiction--is it psychological, a mistake, a cultural reaction, or something else? All the above?

We also present a scene of Satan on trial in "A Bit of Story" and then venture into brighter territory in a whirlwind of other mini-segments. Tune in for philosophical pondering and nerdy silliness in the 29th episode of your premiere storytelling podcast, Derailed Trains of Thought!

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4 comments:

  1. I've caught up to all the podcasts, so I'll reply to the ones that I can.

    After I finished watching The Dark Knight in theaters, I didn't know how I felt. On one hand, TDK was an excellent movie, but I was overwhelmed with how dark the tone was. The Joker was much darker than I had anticipated, and Two-Face seemed like an afterthought. I think it's a good movie, but it's not my favorite Nolan movie.

    I'm just not a fan of oppressively dark stories, nor do I enjoy the darkening of well known heroes in the name of "character development". Some people love it, but I think it takes away what I admire about heroes. I appreciate Linkara's takedown of DC's Identity Crisis, and he goes after these very issues.

    As a Redwall fan, the issue about evil races is a sticky one. Brian Jacques wrote the series with the idea of making the races either always good or always evil with very few exceptions. His reasoning was so he wouldn't confuse children on the idea of black and white issues. Unfortunately, it sends a negative vibe when these issues are dependent on if you're a mouse or a fox. I wish he would've just made characters evil, rather than having it defined by race.

    Finally, if I could assemble a "Wacky Races" team, I'd go with:
    The Brave and the Bold's Aquaman (Water)
    Outlaw Star's Jean Starwind (Space)
    StarFox's Fox McCloud (Air)
    Adventure Time's Jake the Dog (Ground)

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  2. Interestingly enough, I kinda liked Identity Crisis when I first read it; the idea of the Justice League's secret identities in jeopardy is an enthralling one. But I thought Linkara brought out some very good points against it, such as the ridiculously long time it took a team of super-sleuths to figure out whodunit. Plus, involving rape in a mainstream DC story is... unsettling and icky, to say the least.

    Also, nice "Wacky Races" team! Gene Starwind is an inspired choice. ^^

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  3. There are things I like about Identity Crisis, too. For one thing, I ended up loving Elongated Man and Sue Dibny, characters I never really knew until that point. I thought their marriage was sweet, and the DC universe coming to help Ralph shows how loved they were. But as a rule in comics, characters can never be happy forever. I just wish crossovers didn't attempt to kill off at least one character each time.

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  4. And thanks for the Gene Starwind love! Outlaw Star is one of my favorite anime series. Solid cast with some intriguing villains.

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