This is the third in a series on what makes the television show 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' great in my eyes. The first focused on how creator Joss Whedon turned the genre on its head... in the opening scene; while the second was about Buffy's extensive use of metaphor. This third blog is on the place of God in Buffy.
A lot of Christians do not like 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' because they see it as dark and about the occult and misuse of teenage sexuality and that it displays religion in a bad light. (Most of these claims have been made by the Parent's TV Council). In general though they have either not given the show a chance or they are just looking for something to complain about.
When it comes to Buffy I would argue that it is a show teeming with God and Christian values, and I am not the only one.
Dr. Jana Reiss says, "Over time I also came to see that Buffy offered strong spiritual values that came, ironically enough, in a vampire-ridden package that people of faith often dismiss out of hand... During its seven-season run from March 1997- May 2003, it was easily one of the more moralistic programs on TV, depicting a world in which evil never goes unpunished and doing good is its own reward." (xi)
Dr. Reiss is a Christian author who has a Masters of Divinity degree from Princeton (the basic degree for being a pastor) and a doctorate in American religion from Colombia; she also ran a Twible for a number of years where she did one tweet for every chapter of the Bible.
Similarly Relevant magazine said that Buffy and Angel, "are perhaps the two most occultic shows on the air… vampires, demons,paganism- these shows are the gristle watchdogs love to chew, and rightly so. They're dark, broody, fascinated with life's shadows. Their characters couldn't care less about God. Yet, thematically, these are two of the most religious programs on network TV, secular universes saturated with grace."
I decided I will do three main God things in Buffy, two specific, one more general.
The general one first: Buffy wears a cross around her neck which repels vampires. The symbol of the cross burns vampires and keeps them away. As well as that Holy Water hurts them and they are scared of churches.
More specific examples. In the season four episode 'Who Are You' (4.16) vampires, inspired by Adam (this Frankenstein like monster made by the US Government) take over a Church. They admit they stay away from Church because they are scared of God but say there is nothing to fear because… "where is the thing I was so afraid of… you know, The Lord?" No sooner has he spoken the words but Faith (as Buffy, in this episode Faith has switched bodies with Buffy) comes into the church 'to pray' and proceeds to slay him. God answered the taunt, He sent His servant, in Buffyverse terms, into the Church 'to pray'. Implication being that Buffy and Faith serve God by slaying monsters, it is their prayer.
Third one: When Buffy quits as the Slayer in the finale of season one 'Prophecy Girl' (1.12) because she is scared she will die she removes her cross and says that she quits. To Buffy the symbol of her being a Slayer is the cross. To me this implies that a Slayer is a servant of God and is symbolised by the cross she wears around her neck.
To close this blog I want to quote Jana Reiss: "Just as God is nowhere mentioned in the book of Esther, God is merely implicit in the Buffyverse, present every time the characters put their own lives on the line to save others." (xiv)
Saturday 23 February 2013
Sunday 17 February 2013
TotD: God has Moved on!
Recently I and some friends have been talking about movements of God, and revivals. We were specifically talking about the ones that did a great work of the Lord at one point and still exist, in some form, today trying to keep going on their own way, the way God revealed to them 200-400 years ago.
What follows is the story of the Puritan movement in England and then the 'New World' you may choose to read it or you may skip further down to the section entitled 'the point'
Take, for example, the Puritan movement:
This movement emerges around the time of King Henry VIII and his daughter Elizabeth I. It is in this period that the Church of England (today more commonly known as the Anglican Communion) was founded. In England at the time there were people the likes of Oliver Cromwell (not the murderous one, one that served under Henry VIII, the other Cromwell came after the Tudor period), Catherine Parr, William Tyndall, Thomas Cramner, Anne Boleyn, (the executed Queen, yes she was probably an Evangelical Christian) and others, who wanted a break away from the Catholic Church. Many ploys were used to get King Henry to make this break a reality. Henry, however, was a Catholic at heart, a self-centered one, but a Catholic nonetheless. So he created a new church, one in which he was the head (Elizabeth later changed the role of the English monarch to governor) but was, in almost all its beliefs, Catholic.
Many people did not believe this went far enough, Elizabeth (the daughter of Henry and Anne Boleyn) tried to bring both the radical Protestants and the Catholics under one English Church. This caused some Protestants to break away completely. They are the Puritans. These people basically wanted the control of the King removed from the Church, the priesthood of all believers recognised and thought that the lives of people professing Christianity should match up to that stated in the Bible ("Be pure as He is pure" idea).
These, you can no doubt agree, are good, biblically based desires and things that the Christian Church should profess to. So the Puritan movement was a movement of God.
England banned people who held Puritan ideas from being involved in Church and public life in England which resulted in the migration of many of the Puritans to the New World. In America they thrived for a while; establishing a true Christian community where women were valued and God was held high.
Over time the story changes though and the Puritan leaders begin to violently persecute and execute non-Puritan Christian leaders. This, as well as the Salem Witch Trials, led to their influential demise in America as new colonists left Puritan colonies for their own.
Nowadays there are a few groups/denominations that hold up the Puritan model as the correct model to live by. They look back to the past in order to learn how God would have them live. They look to a group that started well, but finished far out of God's plan. They don't look back far enough (to Jesus).
The point:
The above story illustrates a point I want to make and that is this,
"Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert." (Isaiah 43:19 ESV)
I read once that God was once put in a box, the Ark of the Covenant, and once He got out He decided that He was never going back in a box again.
As Christians we have the tendency to look at a movement of God in the past and try and emulate it. We look on these revivals with rose-tinted glasses and we fail to see that God is now doing a new thing. He has moved on and we are standing there with our rallies and our evangelistic methods and our pure lifestyles and our religious trappings, basically, waiting for Him to show up because He did once, in this way, 200 years ago (or 400 in the Puritans case).
Why do we limit God? Why do we think we can control God? Why are we so stupid that we think God doesn't use new methods and exciting ways at winning people for His Kingdom every time? Why do we sit there, looking like idiots and dishonouring our God to the shame of His name in front of the world when He has a plan and a purpose and has moved on from our silly models and methods.
He is God. We are to 'take up (our) crosses and follow (Him)" not the other way around. If we keep following our 200AD, 1600AD, 1800AD, even 1900AD models nothing will happen except the world will laugh at us, and worse, mock God.
We need to listen for 'a new thing' and work with God. He promises that His Word will not return onto Him void, but how much more could we do if we went looking for the Holy Spirit instead of inviting Him to come into manmade models and stupidity.
God is doing a new thing, He always is, let's commit to looking for it, letting go of the past and our methods and models and find the new thing, get on board with God and watch Him 'BOOM' in our situations, nations and the lives of all those around us.
What follows is the story of the Puritan movement in England and then the 'New World' you may choose to read it or you may skip further down to the section entitled 'the point'
Take, for example, the Puritan movement:
This movement emerges around the time of King Henry VIII and his daughter Elizabeth I. It is in this period that the Church of England (today more commonly known as the Anglican Communion) was founded. In England at the time there were people the likes of Oliver Cromwell (not the murderous one, one that served under Henry VIII, the other Cromwell came after the Tudor period), Catherine Parr, William Tyndall, Thomas Cramner, Anne Boleyn, (the executed Queen, yes she was probably an Evangelical Christian) and others, who wanted a break away from the Catholic Church. Many ploys were used to get King Henry to make this break a reality. Henry, however, was a Catholic at heart, a self-centered one, but a Catholic nonetheless. So he created a new church, one in which he was the head (Elizabeth later changed the role of the English monarch to governor) but was, in almost all its beliefs, Catholic.
Many people did not believe this went far enough, Elizabeth (the daughter of Henry and Anne Boleyn) tried to bring both the radical Protestants and the Catholics under one English Church. This caused some Protestants to break away completely. They are the Puritans. These people basically wanted the control of the King removed from the Church, the priesthood of all believers recognised and thought that the lives of people professing Christianity should match up to that stated in the Bible ("Be pure as He is pure" idea).
These, you can no doubt agree, are good, biblically based desires and things that the Christian Church should profess to. So the Puritan movement was a movement of God.
England banned people who held Puritan ideas from being involved in Church and public life in England which resulted in the migration of many of the Puritans to the New World. In America they thrived for a while; establishing a true Christian community where women were valued and God was held high.
Over time the story changes though and the Puritan leaders begin to violently persecute and execute non-Puritan Christian leaders. This, as well as the Salem Witch Trials, led to their influential demise in America as new colonists left Puritan colonies for their own.
Nowadays there are a few groups/denominations that hold up the Puritan model as the correct model to live by. They look back to the past in order to learn how God would have them live. They look to a group that started well, but finished far out of God's plan. They don't look back far enough (to Jesus).
The point:
The above story illustrates a point I want to make and that is this,
"Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert." (Isaiah 43:19 ESV)
I read once that God was once put in a box, the Ark of the Covenant, and once He got out He decided that He was never going back in a box again.
As Christians we have the tendency to look at a movement of God in the past and try and emulate it. We look on these revivals with rose-tinted glasses and we fail to see that God is now doing a new thing. He has moved on and we are standing there with our rallies and our evangelistic methods and our pure lifestyles and our religious trappings, basically, waiting for Him to show up because He did once, in this way, 200 years ago (or 400 in the Puritans case).
Why do we limit God? Why do we think we can control God? Why are we so stupid that we think God doesn't use new methods and exciting ways at winning people for His Kingdom every time? Why do we sit there, looking like idiots and dishonouring our God to the shame of His name in front of the world when He has a plan and a purpose and has moved on from our silly models and methods.
He is God. We are to 'take up (our) crosses and follow (Him)" not the other way around. If we keep following our 200AD, 1600AD, 1800AD, even 1900AD models nothing will happen except the world will laugh at us, and worse, mock God.
We need to listen for 'a new thing' and work with God. He promises that His Word will not return onto Him void, but how much more could we do if we went looking for the Holy Spirit instead of inviting Him to come into manmade models and stupidity.
God is doing a new thing, He always is, let's commit to looking for it, letting go of the past and our methods and models and find the new thing, get on board with God and watch Him 'BOOM' in our situations, nations and the lives of all those around us.
Saturday 16 February 2013
Movie Review 1: Wreck it Ralph
Okay, I don't normally do movie reviews and I probably won't and this won't even begin to capture the awesomeness of the movie but still. This will contain spoilers. Do not ruin the film for yourself, go and see it first.
This blog is no way intended to steal thunder from the blog of my good friend Shane Vaughan, he writes really epic movie reviews each week, to see his blog go to http://critique-of-the-week.blogspot.ie/
I guess I should begin with a synopsis of the film. The concept is surrounding old video games. In one particular game, 'Fix it Felix Jr.' there is a character, the bad guy, called Wreck it Ralph, the titular character in the movie. He is the 'bad guy' of his video game but the people in the game see him not just as the bad guy in the game but also in real life. He spends his life wrecking their skyscraper and sleeping on the bricks that he breaks in the local dump. Fix it Felix gets a medal every time he throws Ralph off the roof of the skyscraper.
It comes to the thirtieth anniversary of the game being in this particular arcade and Ralph is sick of being treated like dirt. So he goes to Bad-Anon, like AA but for video game bad guys. Here the motto is: "I am a bad guy but that is good, I will never be a good guy and that isn't bad." Ralph tells the other assembled bad guys, including Pacman ghosts, Bowser and Dr. Robotnik (from Sonic) that he doesn't want to be the baddie anymore. This causes some hilarious reactions including the Pacman ghost turning blue (like when Pacman eats the big yellow dot).
Ralph next goes in search of his own medal (like Felix) because if he gets one he will be given the penthouse in the skyscraper.
This quest takes Ralph to Tappers (the game where you are the barman and have to slide beer along counters to the customers before they reach the end) to talk to the barman where he finds someone from Heroes Duty ("you'd really have to watch where you step in a game called heroes doody") where he gets his medal but crashes into Sugar Rush, a cute game about racing around sweets.
Here he meets Penelope (Vanellope) who is a glitch in the game (she turns into code for a few seconds every now and then). What ensues is the most adorable friendship with the most adorable Disney character. Vanellope sleeps in a glitch and is not allowed to race because she is a glitch, she can't leave her game either. In short she is the Wreck-It Ralph of her game.
Ralph helps her, sometimes unwillingly, other times willingly to enter into the Sugar Rush races, the point of the game. They 'bake' a go-cart and she has them sign it (seriously adorable character).
The King of Sugar Rush comes to Ralph and explains what will happen if Vanellope comes somewhere on the leader board. She becomes a playable character. This is, of course, Vanellope's dream but for the game as a whole could be a nightmare. If she is on the leader board and a kid chooses her and she glitches then they might declare the game broken and unplug it. (When a game is unplugged the world ceases to exist and the characters have to get out of it on time, returning to Grand Central Station [an extension lead]) If the game is unplugged Vanellope is trapped and so Ralph stops her from competing, for her own good.
She sends him home where he learns Felix went after him and decides to go back to find Felix. On returning it turns out that Sugar Crush has a virus and needs to be abandoned. Ralph and Vanellope race to save the day leading Ralph to sacrifice himself on a mountain of Mentos and Diet Coke.
The film has some ingenius product placement, Sonic and Pacman being obvious ones, but there is also the Mentos and Diet Cola mountain, Nesquick Sand and others. All the games are real arcade games (shown at the end during the credits) and we saw it in 3D. The 3D was epic. Added to the movie as opposed to taking away.
The dialogue is hilarious. Things like "she's programmed with the worst back story of all time" and "it's in my code" make the film a delight for adults as well as children. Unlike some Disney films, which I feel are ruined by their bad guys, the bad guy in Wreck-it Ralph is great. They do not steal the show and you are convinced there isn't one most of the way through. There is also an hilarious shout out to the fact that the Disney company now own Star Wars, watch out for that one.
Wreck-It Ralph is Disney's 52nd Animated Classic (on that list with Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, the Hunchback, Lion King, Aladdin, Hercules, Pinnochio and Mulan to name just a hand full.)
Like we, as children, watched Snow White and other earlier Disney movies and the children of today watch the likes of Lilo and Stitch, the Lion King and others from the 90s to early 00s; our children will be watching Wreck-It Ralph.
It is one of the greatest Disney films of all time. One of the greatest films of all time if you ask Andy.
I think the last time I felt as strongly about an animated film was Up. This means that, for me, 'Wreck-It Ralph' takes a place with films like Aladdin, the Lion King, Lilo and Stitch, Tangled, Shrek (1 and 2, I liked both of those ones), Up and Toy Story. An epic must see and cannot wait for the DVD.
This blog is no way intended to steal thunder from the blog of my good friend Shane Vaughan, he writes really epic movie reviews each week, to see his blog go to http://critique-of-the-week.blogspot.ie/
I guess I should begin with a synopsis of the film. The concept is surrounding old video games. In one particular game, 'Fix it Felix Jr.' there is a character, the bad guy, called Wreck it Ralph, the titular character in the movie. He is the 'bad guy' of his video game but the people in the game see him not just as the bad guy in the game but also in real life. He spends his life wrecking their skyscraper and sleeping on the bricks that he breaks in the local dump. Fix it Felix gets a medal every time he throws Ralph off the roof of the skyscraper.
It comes to the thirtieth anniversary of the game being in this particular arcade and Ralph is sick of being treated like dirt. So he goes to Bad-Anon, like AA but for video game bad guys. Here the motto is: "I am a bad guy but that is good, I will never be a good guy and that isn't bad." Ralph tells the other assembled bad guys, including Pacman ghosts, Bowser and Dr. Robotnik (from Sonic) that he doesn't want to be the baddie anymore. This causes some hilarious reactions including the Pacman ghost turning blue (like when Pacman eats the big yellow dot).
Ralph next goes in search of his own medal (like Felix) because if he gets one he will be given the penthouse in the skyscraper.
This quest takes Ralph to Tappers (the game where you are the barman and have to slide beer along counters to the customers before they reach the end) to talk to the barman where he finds someone from Heroes Duty ("you'd really have to watch where you step in a game called heroes doody") where he gets his medal but crashes into Sugar Rush, a cute game about racing around sweets.
Here he meets Penelope (Vanellope) who is a glitch in the game (she turns into code for a few seconds every now and then). What ensues is the most adorable friendship with the most adorable Disney character. Vanellope sleeps in a glitch and is not allowed to race because she is a glitch, she can't leave her game either. In short she is the Wreck-It Ralph of her game.
Ralph helps her, sometimes unwillingly, other times willingly to enter into the Sugar Rush races, the point of the game. They 'bake' a go-cart and she has them sign it (seriously adorable character).
The King of Sugar Rush comes to Ralph and explains what will happen if Vanellope comes somewhere on the leader board. She becomes a playable character. This is, of course, Vanellope's dream but for the game as a whole could be a nightmare. If she is on the leader board and a kid chooses her and she glitches then they might declare the game broken and unplug it. (When a game is unplugged the world ceases to exist and the characters have to get out of it on time, returning to Grand Central Station [an extension lead]) If the game is unplugged Vanellope is trapped and so Ralph stops her from competing, for her own good.
She sends him home where he learns Felix went after him and decides to go back to find Felix. On returning it turns out that Sugar Crush has a virus and needs to be abandoned. Ralph and Vanellope race to save the day leading Ralph to sacrifice himself on a mountain of Mentos and Diet Coke.
The film has some ingenius product placement, Sonic and Pacman being obvious ones, but there is also the Mentos and Diet Cola mountain, Nesquick Sand and others. All the games are real arcade games (shown at the end during the credits) and we saw it in 3D. The 3D was epic. Added to the movie as opposed to taking away.
The dialogue is hilarious. Things like "she's programmed with the worst back story of all time" and "it's in my code" make the film a delight for adults as well as children. Unlike some Disney films, which I feel are ruined by their bad guys, the bad guy in Wreck-it Ralph is great. They do not steal the show and you are convinced there isn't one most of the way through. There is also an hilarious shout out to the fact that the Disney company now own Star Wars, watch out for that one.
Wreck-It Ralph is Disney's 52nd Animated Classic (on that list with Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, the Hunchback, Lion King, Aladdin, Hercules, Pinnochio and Mulan to name just a hand full.)
Like we, as children, watched Snow White and other earlier Disney movies and the children of today watch the likes of Lilo and Stitch, the Lion King and others from the 90s to early 00s; our children will be watching Wreck-It Ralph.
It is one of the greatest Disney films of all time. One of the greatest films of all time if you ask Andy.
I think the last time I felt as strongly about an animated film was Up. This means that, for me, 'Wreck-It Ralph' takes a place with films like Aladdin, the Lion King, Lilo and Stitch, Tangled, Shrek (1 and 2, I liked both of those ones), Up and Toy Story. An epic must see and cannot wait for the DVD.
Reasons Buffy is Shpiffing 2: Metaphors
I decided to drop the Reasons Buffy is Shpiffing acronym. This is the second in my blog series on why the TV show 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' is so cool. The previous one is about how the opening scene turned the stereotypical horror genre scene on its head by having the cute blonde not be the victim but the killer. In 1997 that was pretty ground breaking.
This blog focuses a little on Buffy's use of metaphors. (There may be more than one blog on this topic).
The writers and creators of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' wanted their stories to be relatable to the audience. A show about monsters and vampires with a superhero that can kill them is not a concept Joss Whedon and some others on his creative team felt people would warm to. After the flop that was 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the Movie)' (1992) Joss believed Buffy would never see the light of day again. In the Buffy movie (written by a young Joss Whedon but taken over by the Kuzui's, who removed Joss from the production) the idea was to turn the horror genre on it's head by having the blonde girl not be the victim (repeated in episode one of Buffy) but the hero and so she seems helpless but actually has all this training, strength and weaponry to fight vampires. The TV series became a lot more about metaphors of monsters reflecting real life.
The basic premise of seasons 1-3 is that Highschool is Hell. In Buffy this becomes literal. The mouth to Hell is sitting under the school's library. This 'Hellmouth' causes supernatural things to occur in the school making Highschool literally Hell.
Within this premise a lot of other metaphors can be seen within individual episodes. Two academics who studied Buffy had this to say (yes there are college courses on Buffy, you can get a degree in 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' from some colleges) "In the world of Buffy the problems that teenagers face become literal monsters." (Wilcox, Rhonda V. (April 2002). "Introduction" Fighting the Forces: What's at Stake in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Rowman & Littlefield, pg. xix)
Here are a few examples:
In the episode 'Out of Mind, Out of Sight' there is a girl called Marcie Ross has been ignored in school for her whole career. She has no friends and no one notices her. She wants to run for 'May Queen' but no one votes for her, or perhaps even allows her try. The episode sees her invisible. (pun intended)
She felt invisible in school and so she becomes, literally, invisible. Then acts out to get attention and kidnaps the May Queen winner and head cheerleader, Cordelia.
In the episode 'Witch' another girl, Amy Madison, begins acting strangely and when Buffy and co investigate they find that Amy is actually not Amy, but her mother.
Amy's mother was head cheerleader in her day and was popular and in later life has become a recluse, divorced loser. She thinks Amy is throwing her life away by not striving to be popular and so takes over her daughter's body and lives a second life. The metaphor of course being that sometimes parents try to live their lives through their kids.
Another fantastic metaphor Buffy uses is in the episodes 'Surprise' and 'Innocence'. In this episode Buffy turns 17 and for the first time Angel and she have sex. She wakes up to find him gone and next time she sees him he is horrible to her and it turns it he has literally lost his soul, turned evil and wants her dead. Not content with that Angel decides to end the world. The story being that sometimes guys promise the world to their girlfriend's but then, after they get the sex they want, they just walk off and leave. Becoming nearly a completely different person.
There are so many more I can mention but because all of the above are from seasons 1 and 2 I thought it would be good, for the last one, to jump to season 6 (the second last season of Buffy, just to show that the metaphor thing stayed all the time).
In the big story of season 6 Willow (Buffy's best friend) becomes addicted to magic. She starts off in season 3 floating pencils and other small things but as time goes on and she is dumped, loses her college place, Buffy is depressed and doesn't help her, etc. She moves deeper and deeper into magic. Eventually it leads her to become 'Dark Willow'. Her normally red hair goes black and she gets veins all along her face. She kills the guy who killed her ex. Then, feeling the pain of the world, she decides to end all the pain by ending the world. The thing that stops her is Xander (her other best friend) telling her that he loves her. He tells her again and again as she shoots him with energy blasts. He uses stories from her past and present until her hair goes red again and the veins disappear.
The magic is drugs, I guess that's obvious but maybe not. It shows the addictiveness of drugs and the movement towards getting deeper into it: breakups, rebounds and death causing a downward spiral.
Anyway, that's enough of metaphors for awhile (there are at least 144 though). If you watch Buffy post a metaphor you know or like somewhere :)
This blog focuses a little on Buffy's use of metaphors. (There may be more than one blog on this topic).
The writers and creators of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' wanted their stories to be relatable to the audience. A show about monsters and vampires with a superhero that can kill them is not a concept Joss Whedon and some others on his creative team felt people would warm to. After the flop that was 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the Movie)' (1992) Joss believed Buffy would never see the light of day again. In the Buffy movie (written by a young Joss Whedon but taken over by the Kuzui's, who removed Joss from the production) the idea was to turn the horror genre on it's head by having the blonde girl not be the victim (repeated in episode one of Buffy) but the hero and so she seems helpless but actually has all this training, strength and weaponry to fight vampires. The TV series became a lot more about metaphors of monsters reflecting real life.
The basic premise of seasons 1-3 is that Highschool is Hell. In Buffy this becomes literal. The mouth to Hell is sitting under the school's library. This 'Hellmouth' causes supernatural things to occur in the school making Highschool literally Hell.
Within this premise a lot of other metaphors can be seen within individual episodes. Two academics who studied Buffy had this to say (yes there are college courses on Buffy, you can get a degree in 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' from some colleges) "In the world of Buffy the problems that teenagers face become literal monsters." (Wilcox, Rhonda V. (April 2002). "Introduction" Fighting the Forces: What's at Stake in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Rowman & Littlefield, pg. xix)
Here are a few examples:
In the episode 'Out of Mind, Out of Sight' there is a girl called Marcie Ross has been ignored in school for her whole career. She has no friends and no one notices her. She wants to run for 'May Queen' but no one votes for her, or perhaps even allows her try. The episode sees her invisible. (pun intended)
She felt invisible in school and so she becomes, literally, invisible. Then acts out to get attention and kidnaps the May Queen winner and head cheerleader, Cordelia.
In the episode 'Witch' another girl, Amy Madison, begins acting strangely and when Buffy and co investigate they find that Amy is actually not Amy, but her mother.
Amy's mother was head cheerleader in her day and was popular and in later life has become a recluse, divorced loser. She thinks Amy is throwing her life away by not striving to be popular and so takes over her daughter's body and lives a second life. The metaphor of course being that sometimes parents try to live their lives through their kids.
Another fantastic metaphor Buffy uses is in the episodes 'Surprise' and 'Innocence'. In this episode Buffy turns 17 and for the first time Angel and she have sex. She wakes up to find him gone and next time she sees him he is horrible to her and it turns it he has literally lost his soul, turned evil and wants her dead. Not content with that Angel decides to end the world. The story being that sometimes guys promise the world to their girlfriend's but then, after they get the sex they want, they just walk off and leave. Becoming nearly a completely different person.
There are so many more I can mention but because all of the above are from seasons 1 and 2 I thought it would be good, for the last one, to jump to season 6 (the second last season of Buffy, just to show that the metaphor thing stayed all the time).
In the big story of season 6 Willow (Buffy's best friend) becomes addicted to magic. She starts off in season 3 floating pencils and other small things but as time goes on and she is dumped, loses her college place, Buffy is depressed and doesn't help her, etc. She moves deeper and deeper into magic. Eventually it leads her to become 'Dark Willow'. Her normally red hair goes black and she gets veins all along her face. She kills the guy who killed her ex. Then, feeling the pain of the world, she decides to end all the pain by ending the world. The thing that stops her is Xander (her other best friend) telling her that he loves her. He tells her again and again as she shoots him with energy blasts. He uses stories from her past and present until her hair goes red again and the veins disappear.
The magic is drugs, I guess that's obvious but maybe not. It shows the addictiveness of drugs and the movement towards getting deeper into it: breakups, rebounds and death causing a downward spiral.
Anyway, that's enough of metaphors for awhile (there are at least 144 though). If you watch Buffy post a metaphor you know or like somewhere :)
Monday 11 February 2013
The Tale of Two Sons
This talk is based on the book 'The Prodigal God' by Timothy Keller and on two sermons one by Scott Scruggs and, dare I say it, the other by Mark Driscoll. This was a talk given for a dinner in Mallow Street Christian Fellowship on Saturday.
Luke 15:11-32
You may have heard this story hundreds of times and you may have thought tht the son that ran away was a terrible son. This was only a quarter of the point of Jesus' story, which was told to the religious leaders of his day after they gave out about him spending time with sinners.
There are two brothers, they are both lost. One is lost because he lives a frivolous lifestyle and has no respect for his father or brother. The other is lost because he doesn't love his father either. He just wants to earn his inheritance and thinks that to do that he needs to work and be obedient but his lack of obedience and love and the fact he doesn't believe his father loves him, is seen when he won't party for the return of his brother.
This story shows two of the main responses to God. The first is to run away from Him and do your own thing and live your life your own way. The other is to approach Him with religion and try doing things in order to get things from God. This attitude is about controlling God and making Him give you what you want from Him. It's not about love it's about control.
In this story there is a picture of an older brother who isn't a good one, but we can draw a parallel between that older brother and another one, Jesus. You see in Jesus' day inheritance was divided between two sons with the older son getting two thirds and the younger son getting one third. The bible tells is that the father divided all he had, so the return of the younger son was at the expense of the older son.
That's similar to us when we come back to God, whether we are coming from a controlling religious attitude or a rebellious one. Jesus is not like the older brother in the story though, because Jesus, at His own expense, left Heaven and came to earth. He paid it all, and the reason He paid it all and gave up all He had was because of His love for you! Jesus loves you whether you are lost religiously or whether you are lost rebelliously and He stands open armed to welcome you back and present you holy and blameless to His Father, your Father, God!
He waits open armed today to welcome you back, even if you have already come to Him for the first time before today but have slipped into a thought pattern like the older son and think your works will get you what you want from God or if you have slipped into a lifestyle like the younger son where you are rejecting God's ways and doing your own thing. Jesus, your older brother, is waiting open armed to receive you back and right behind Him is God Himself, waiting as well.
Monday 4 February 2013
ODDs: What's in a Word?
Over the past few days the second ODDs book (ODDs 2: Chaos and Discord) has been moving towards its 100,000th word. This got me to thinking that I would write a blog surrounding that word. It would be entitled 'what's in a word'. This is that blog (haha)
The ODDs for those of you who don't know is my book series, it stands for Organisation of Demon Destroyers and is about these heroes with varied powers who have to stop monsters from taking over the world/killing people. It finds its beginnings in inspiration from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, though has moved away from that towards biblical and real life situations and metaphors with a mix of world mythologies on monsters, largely Irish, and some things that pop out of the depths of my (and my creative team)'s heads. The ODDs is planned to be (at least) 12 books with the possibility of (at least) 3 book spin offs (Chicago, Hell and Dragons) as well as a 13th book to explain some of the stuff in 5-9 and a diary by one of my favourite characters telling his story (which won't be told in the main story). Finally there is also the possibility of three spin off/comic series (Earth's Army, Grand Masters and James). Wowzers.
Okay enough of me rambling, on to word 100,000 (actually just a little further ado, on Facebook, in my notes you can find the prologue and 100th page of number 1, while number one is available on Amazon.com [search my name or 'the ODDs Beginnings'])
So the 100,000th word of the second ODDs is 'and'...
Well, that was anti-climatic.
So much so that when I realised that the 100,000th word of my second book was and that I rewrote the sentence, just so it would be anything but and.
The sentence went:
"Okay," Romeo said and moved towards the door...
I first changed it to:
"Okay, I'll go and...
and again...
so taking out the and,
"Okay, I'll go let..."
Let isn't good enough to write a blog around either.
Another re-write was in order (if you didn't realise already, I have got OCD)
Now the sentence reads:
"Coolio," Romeo said winking..."
Now that is a 100,000th word. Winking.
The change suits Romeo's newfound confidence and cheeky chappy nature better than him just saying okay. The wink is epic too because he is flirting, something Romeo would never have done even a chapter ago but that suits his personality so much better now, a chapter later. I guess that my writing brain is slower to update my character profiles than my writing is. So this blog on the 100,000th word made me think more about my characters and how they think would say something, especially when the person they like is upset and he is going to take them for ice-cream, he would be a little flirty; would he not?
In conclusion: what's in a word? A whole lot it would appear. The importance of one word has inspired this whole blog and me to think deeper about how characters I created think.
Wavey ~
Saturday 2 February 2013
TotD: Meeting my Younger Self
This is something that has been coming up a lot lately, imagine what it would be like to meet yourself 10 years from now. I think I would like to meet myself from 7 years ago.
To write this blog I need to admit to a guilty pleasure. I enjoy watching Glee, mostly for the music, though the stories are beginning to grab me now that they have calmed down (season 1 and 2 I didn't watch as it was way over the top).
In the most recent episode of Glee Rachel Berry, the lead character from the previous three seasons who is now studying in NYADA in NYC is asked to do a topless scene. She is 'torn' and an older version of herself, in more geeky clothes and with straighter hair appears in front of her. The younger Rachel tells the now Rachel that she is not a porn star, even if her hair and make-up make her look like one. Rachel of the now gets offended and Rachel of the before explains. Then then two of them sing the song 'torn' together.
(Here's a YouTube link in case you want to see it yourself, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcX8YkrfYUI )
This got me thinking again about meeting a younger me. I picked 7 years ago because I would have been 16. 16 was an interesting year. I wonder what a 16 year old me would think of a 23 year old me.
At 16 I was furthest from God, so much so that I had, in my head though not publicly, given up on God and accepted a sin in my life as my own identity. I had given up on trying to be 'good enough for God' and was living life my way.
I imagine a 16 year old me, meeting me now, would try and convince me I was wrong about God and that He doesn't care. He would tell me that I lie to myself and others about being good enough for God, because that is what he thought was important. He would probably not like me very much because we are very stubborn. He would scoff at Wavey; insisting he is David J. Cowpar the first, as I did at 16. Wavey, to him, to him would sound like a stupid baby name that he would detest. He would insult almost everything that I am, though perhaps secretly admire the fact that I stuck with the God thing (and possibly deep down have a bit of hope that he will).
There are things I would love to say to him as well. Though I would not want to change history. I would tell him about relationships that turn sour soon and how to be careful in those situations, so, at the very least, he comes out of them the good guy and not the bad guy. I would encourage him to be vocal with the right people, before someone else was and he ended up in a worse place. I would encourage him to walk away from the thing he loved so much and that was used to hurt him more than anything else. It wouldn't make a difference if he was involved in it or not. Most of all I would tell him that it would be tough for another while but to take comfort in the fact that it gets better and God does care so so much about us.
Sorry that was odd, but I just wanted to share it, as random as it was.
To write this blog I need to admit to a guilty pleasure. I enjoy watching Glee, mostly for the music, though the stories are beginning to grab me now that they have calmed down (season 1 and 2 I didn't watch as it was way over the top).
In the most recent episode of Glee Rachel Berry, the lead character from the previous three seasons who is now studying in NYADA in NYC is asked to do a topless scene. She is 'torn' and an older version of herself, in more geeky clothes and with straighter hair appears in front of her. The younger Rachel tells the now Rachel that she is not a porn star, even if her hair and make-up make her look like one. Rachel of the now gets offended and Rachel of the before explains. Then then two of them sing the song 'torn' together.
(Here's a YouTube link in case you want to see it yourself, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcX8YkrfYUI )
This got me thinking again about meeting a younger me. I picked 7 years ago because I would have been 16. 16 was an interesting year. I wonder what a 16 year old me would think of a 23 year old me.
At 16 I was furthest from God, so much so that I had, in my head though not publicly, given up on God and accepted a sin in my life as my own identity. I had given up on trying to be 'good enough for God' and was living life my way.
I imagine a 16 year old me, meeting me now, would try and convince me I was wrong about God and that He doesn't care. He would tell me that I lie to myself and others about being good enough for God, because that is what he thought was important. He would probably not like me very much because we are very stubborn. He would scoff at Wavey; insisting he is David J. Cowpar the first, as I did at 16. Wavey, to him, to him would sound like a stupid baby name that he would detest. He would insult almost everything that I am, though perhaps secretly admire the fact that I stuck with the God thing (and possibly deep down have a bit of hope that he will).
There are things I would love to say to him as well. Though I would not want to change history. I would tell him about relationships that turn sour soon and how to be careful in those situations, so, at the very least, he comes out of them the good guy and not the bad guy. I would encourage him to be vocal with the right people, before someone else was and he ended up in a worse place. I would encourage him to walk away from the thing he loved so much and that was used to hurt him more than anything else. It wouldn't make a difference if he was involved in it or not. Most of all I would tell him that it would be tough for another while but to take comfort in the fact that it gets better and God does care so so much about us.
Sorry that was odd, but I just wanted to share it, as random as it was.
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