I’m fairly certain the people with decked out monstrosities for desktops would run this game fine, but my 1 and a half year old laptop handled Assassin’s Creed 2 fairly decently, and I assumed it wouldn’t be a problem for Dragon Age. Orzammar was a non-interactive environment that at any given loading point was probably 1/40th of the size of Venice in AC2 – it wasn’t that hard to make that logical jump that a decent laptop could probably run something that only came out months after the biggest sandbox game ever.

I met with freezing cutscenes, quests that wouldn’t complete (the NPC disappeared; even reloading the game had no effect), quests that completed but still had the quest tracker over the NPC’s heads and lagging spells that would only activate 5 seconds after it was cast.

Other smaller glitches included my party members speaking to me with their helmets on (which resulted in a fairly amusing encounter with my main character attempting to kiss through Alistair’s helmet. It looked like his head was going to snap from THE INTENSITY OF THE ROMANCE), dialogue that claimed one thing when I made sure that I did not get that outcome and receiving no attribute points after leveling.

The most frustrating point was when I was forced to skip through most of the dialogue during the Landsmeet (the dialogue climax of the game) because it kept freezing midway. The forums suggested a variety of fixes, which only amplified the multitude of coding problems that were present in the game.

A few solutions were to run the game on one core (a memory leak issue), disable the sound (a sound coding issue), or to reload the game (game processing issue). I’d probably need Kali’s 10 arms to count the number of times I did all three, and in the end I had to skip the dialogue as quickly as possible, hoping that I might squeeze through and make it to the end of the autosave once the cutscene ended.

Which is an enormous shame, because the world of Dragon Age immerses you. While it is still essentially an “Alliance versus Horde and dragons figure in the mix somewhere”, they manage to bring a classic with a few twists to the head. The dwarves are American, not Scottish, the city elves are slaves to the humans and the Dalish elves are Italian, and the humans are… well, still medieval armor wearing, territorial seeking assholes. The story behind the dwarves and Branka’s determination, I must admit, scared me in a morbid and fascinating way. It’s the type of horrific disaster that you can’t wait to hear the next part, and it’s quite empowering to actually have a say in Branka’s decision in the end. It all boils down to one point: immersion.

(At which point immersion is completely thrown out the window when one encounters the multitude of processing problems that plague this game.)

I played an elf mage first and a human rogue on my second playthrough, and I have to say: class balance probably didn’t figure much in creating these classes. Warriors and Rogues have about 8 abilites each, but they just threw everything in when it came to the mage. The number of spells are staggering; to the point where every spell can’t possibly fit on your bar, especially if you wind up specializing in 2 trees. Warriors and rogues are essentially DPSers, and warriors turn into tanks through passive abilities + shield, but mages are crowd controllers, healers, debilitators and AoE and single target DPSers all at once.

You wonder why there are only 2 mages and 7 melee damage dealers in the entire party that you could potentially accrue.

The allocation for attributes were also rather skewed. Essentially, as a mage, you could just dump all your points in two main attributes – willpower and magic – but distributing it for tanking warriors was a slow and agonizing process, because they require 4 of the 6 attributes to be a proper tank (strength to wear massive armor, dexterity to miss attacks, constitution for physical resistance, and willpower to have enough stamina to use your abilities). It wasn’t all the surprising to see the threat generation poorly done, where my overpowered mage would slice an enemy’s health bar in half because the melee did tick damage, and the enemy would zoom straight for her.

It was also fairly annoying to realize that the ending that I wanted on my elf mage (Alistair as king and my character as queen) wasn’t going to be possible with the double whammy of not being a human nor a warrior/rogue. Which led me to create another character, and to be honest, being a rogue is ridiculously boring. I stopped playing after the first major quest was done on the second playthrough; I don’t know if I’ll pick it back up.

The romance options were cute in the beginning, and turned into disappointment when I couldn’t lesbo Morrigan. The only same-sex relationship was with an overzealous religious woman whose character I honestly couldn’t like at all. The other male-female relationship was with an elf who tried to kill you and whose loyalties were doubtful the moment you recruited him. Yeah, no. So romancing the future king it is then!

I would have enjoyed Dragon Age a lot more had I not run into so many bugs in the game, as much as I was disappointed in not being able to get the outcome I wanted on my main character. In short, great story with a few unique twists, but playing the story itself just bogs it all down.

The story starts off with a death and possible infanticide.
Quasimodo may or may not be suffering from hallucinations.
We are led to believe Esmeralda may fall for the main character of the film, but she doesn’t.
Frollo can’t keep his erection to himself and screams into a fireplace.
Quasimodo can’t keep his erection to himself and… rings a bell.
People die in this film.
We have a song that contains the lyrics “but the dead don’t talk/so you won’t be around to reveal what you’ve found”.
Esmeralda, Phoebus and Quasimodo nearly die.
Frollo dies screaming in a blaze of glory.

I found it harder to listen to “Heaven’s Light/Hellfire” this time around, because there were two polar opposites talking about the same stimulus – Esmeralda – and the idea that a woman can prove to be both demon and angel to two different men is very disconcerting. I don’t want to don my feminist hat, since the book made Esmeralda much more passive and Disney’s version, in comparison, makes Esmeralda look like a radical revolutionary (“JUSTICE!”). It’s poignant how Esmeralda can entreat the Virgin Mary for saving her people, and Frollo prays to the same Mary in killing off Esmeralda (and the city of Paris). Hunchback works on extremes – life and death, demon and angel, heaven and hell – and these extremes make all the themes more significant, especially since they work around very mortal (yet conversely) spiritual issues.

Latin lyrics all around singing about the day of reckoning, lust, asking for mercy from the Lamb of God… the music is dark, and I believe even Stephen Schwartz also said that Hunchback contained some of the darkest words he’d ever written. Confutatis.org was founded from the Hunchback soundtrack (“Sanctuary!”) and I suppose it finally deserves a mention here, 4 years after this website was conceived.

I suppose the happy ending had to be there. Pocahontas did a good job of having a very bittersweet ending – the movie ends with “I can’t leave you,” but Pocahontas and John Smith still don’t end up together, but Hunchback had such dark themes it was necessary to have something good come out of it. The hot guy ends up with the hot chick, the bad guy dies, and the ugliest man in Paris is still single but THAT WILL BE RATIFIED IN THE SEQUEL.

I remember the reasons why I loved Hunchback of Notre Dame – it was different from the usual princess stories. It contained religious elements, even addressing religious hypocrisy, sexual desire, social injustice, racism, and I don’t think any other Disney animated film details the fear of death as much as this one (the Beast died peacefully, and Frollo goes down terrified). Watching this as a child, I never picked these themes up, so I would personally say that no, Hunchback did not make me an atheist. What I did remember was the music, the happy ending with the message that ugliness wasn’t a bad thing, and Clopin didn’t look so bad (I could throw tomatoes at him in the CD game). In that sense, I think Disney has done its job successfully, and even more so when I can actually look back on this film and gain a whole new intellectual perspective.

Anyone who’s followed this blog should know I am an enormous fan of the Russian film Vozvrashcheniye, also known as “The Return”. So when I heard that the director made his second film – Izgnanie (The Banishment) – and it was now being shown in Singapore, I snapped up the chance to go watch it.

I’m not sure what to think of it. The plot was based on a Pulitzer Prize winning book, but it really could be summed up in 4 words: Depressed Wife Commits Suicide. The book’s title was ironically named “The Laughing Matter”.

I suppose I still love Zvyagintsev for his masterful application of direction, but strangely enough, it’s the plot that throws the whole thing down. It’s beautiful scenery after scenery, with symbolism hidden in every nook and cranny – down to the choice of costume – and the scene setups are just absolutely breathtaking. The problem lies, I think, with attempting to be artistic while trying to tell a coherent story.

I’ve (briefly) mentioned this observation with another director, and I think it still falls quite true here. While Zvyagintsev’s techniques aren’t as invasive as Joe Wright’s, there always seems to be a clash between exposition and artistry. The ending in Izgnanie was an additional hour of flashback exposition stuck at the tail end of what-could-have-been-the-ending, which really didn’t make the movie “whole”, in a sense. It felt a bit like Lego – someone sticking a brick on an already completed piece and everything now looks lopsided.

Plot grievances aside, I did go in with high expectations and I was very, very satisfied. Despite the fact this was only the director’s second movie, you start to notice certain things that he enjoys sticking into his movies – the theme of water and life, for example, was very prominent in Vozvrashcheniye and is certainly prominent here, as well as the religious images and pieces of art he scatters through the movie. I absolutely love the techniques he uses to switch scenes (and time); it’s subtle, gradual and almost effortless. It doesn’t blast in your face like those spy thriller cop movies where the glaring subtitles go “2 WEEKS AGO, 11.30 AM, WHITE HOUSE LAWLZ”.

I know a lot of indie-type/art movies employ this, but what I absolutely love is the realistic acting. Emotions don’t get plastered in people’s faces like how Ilsa looked when she listened to “As Time Goes By”. I mean, in the real world, we don’t look dramatically wistful gazing off into the distance as we fantasize about how we could’ve lived in Paris with a dashing Christian Bale uh, guy, and movies that overdramatize emotions just look absolutely fake, in my opinion (see also: Dreamgirls. How the hell did that film get nominated?)

Alex, in Izgnanie, never has emotion on his face, even with he’s completely broken, and yet you still wholly throw your heart out to the poor guy. It’s not his face, but the actions he does that’s just heartbreaking – he stops driving in the middle of the street to pause for reflection; he sits outside his wife’s bedroom and stares at the door for eternity; he stumbles through the grass after he realizes his wife has had an affair. The only time his exterior breaks is when he discovers his wife is dead, and it’s so much more poignant (and so much more human).

I just ate dinner and I’ve lost track of what I wanted to say, but overall, I was impressed by the film, but just not as impressed as I was for Vozvrashcheniye. The plot in the latter, at least, could be analyzed (which I totally did for my Psychology of Personality class – the id, ego and superego anyone?) but this one was just ridiculously simple and dragged on for a bit too long.

I haven’t seen a pattern emerging yet, but what seems to be the general types that sets off my annoyance meter is 1. attempting to sound superior when you’re just wanking off on purple prose, and 2. the inability to understand your own phrases when you write and the general tone it conveys (usually a sense of smugness and ignorance).

Strangely enough, I’ve long since been numb to the “haizzzz…….. ~*i luv him worxxxx*~” epidemic that pervades almost any Singaporean teenage blog, and if actually given the choice, I would prefer to read that rather than someone who is incapable of understanding the choices she makes with her words and the negative impression associated with it (okay, that was a fairly long sentence). From my perspective, that style of writing, at least, lends itself to a stream of consciousness, and at least I can get a fairly decent understanding of what she is trying to convey. For the latter, stringing together a bunch of fancy words or unable to understand that the phrases you just used is indicative of your ignorance, it doesn’t make me understand you at all; you don’t understand those words, you don’t understand the tone those phrases convey, and I just get an incredibly bad impression.

I’ve had to comment block people on LJ of the simple fact that their way of writing (even just a meager sentence) made me irrationally angry. I choose not to read blogs like these because it’s not of what they write, but how they write it (yes, Azrul and Azrul-clone-stash-God-hides-in-his-cupboard).

Self-awareness: It’s a good thing, guys.

I’m reacting a bit more aggressively than I should be doing, which is something much to my surprise… I guess this whole participation thing is something that I do take grave issue with, and the assumptions that people have about it. I don’t like the Singaporean way of thinking that speaking up in class = good thing for ‘personal growth’, whatever that means, because we’re still falling behind this idea that we’re obliged to do something not because of interest, but because we’ve gotten this assumption that class participation means… what do they call it? A better interview spot?

We’re paralleling this whole Science/Arts debate all over again. The general idea is that taking Science leaves one open for more opportunities while Arts closes them. So we take Science, not because we are genuinely interested in Biology or Chemistry, but because there’s always this threat that in the event you really, really want to be a rocket scientist, you don’t have to look back and say, ‘WELL, SHIT’. (I’m of the opinion that if you’re not interested in physics at 15, you sure as hell aren’t going to be interested in physics at 30, but there are always the obvious exceptions, etc etc).

I get it, I really do. My issue is that they’ve generalized ’speaking up’ so broadly it hurts to look at it. Has SMU actually read any data that shows a correlation between speaking up in class and doing well in interviews? Have they done any research that shows that speaking in class is a skill that, when successfully taught, that can be generalized to any situation? Have they done any research to show how reliable their assumptions are in determining why people don’t speak up in class? Do they really fare any worse or better, in a personal sense? Have they done any research that shows that SMU cranks out ‘different and/or better people’ (whatever that still means) than NUS or NTU? Have these people done any research whatsoever that the sole skill in speaking up actually influences their graduates’ hiring rate? (I also like the irony that, according to the SMU Wikipedia page, that all the statistics showing SMU to be the better school stems from SMU itself, and not a independent organization. Also, one of the links are dead.)

And the laughable surveys with the funny looking balloons are just… so incredulous to take seriously. What was the question asked? What was the sample size? Who were the people surveyed? Did you check for any bias, or did you just run around the school yelling for opinions and compiling them in Microsoft Excel? There were so many things they left out (partially because, yet again, it’s only 15 minutes. I don’t know if they were doing this on their own watch or maybe it was some class assignment thing, but whatever) that you just cannot take the data seriously.

I especially liked the bits where they interviewed professors and students alike, and everyone just pulled these assumptions out of their ass (I guess that’s why they call it assumptions) and threw their own theories as to why kids don’t like to speak up (DATA, PEOPLE, DATA. You have a damn Psychology department; get your information there!). I especially like the complete contradiction at the end where ‘being yourself’ means ‘if you’re introverted, you still gotta bypass that shit and SPEAK UP’, as if talking is some sort of inherent personality trait in everyone THAT NEEDS TO BLOOM LIKE A PRETTY FLOWER. I got so furious with Mr. American Professor Who Was Talking with Kirpal Singh because he spouted so much nonsense I wanted to punch my screen in (of course, this is only a matter of personal opinion and experience, and absolutely nothing to do with his pretentiousness).

… And yet again, we still hold America as the epitome of progress and whatnot. I don’t get the Singaporean system, quite honestly. We adopt a British education system for the first 12 years and then you except the students to automatically adjust to a system that is so radically and structurally different (read “Sponsored and Contest Mobility and the School System” by Ralph H. Turner if you’re interested in the differences between the American and British systems of education. In short, education is not an independent faction and is generated by the cultural values in any given society) in university. You cannot expect us to be raised in a culture founded on elite values (nitpick with me about this and I swear I will cut you) and then suddenly say ‘okay, we’re all equal and we always need to stay on our toes and be competitive!’ and expect us to change our ideas like that. I feel SMU seems to have meshed these two ideas together, except now you’ve generated a student population that competes with the world while believing themselves to be superior to their own people. Not exactly a good thing to discriminate against your own, sweets.

Yes, the professors can blast away on their high horses that Singaporean culture prohibits kids from speaking up, but I ask again: where is the data? Is there a correlation between being obedient and not speaking up in class? This in itself even seems to operate on the assumption that speaking up in a classroom environment automatically constitutes challenge. What about comments? Questions? The latter was addressed (albeit briefly) in the documentary, and this already shows that it’s not about ‘traditional culture values’. It’s ‘we’re afraid to look stupid’ – a societal value. Is SMU going to change a societal value by implementing an system exclusive to themselves?

I want to share my own experiences in studying in an American institution. If any of you know me, I was born an American, and predominantly raised in Singapore for most of my life. I do consider myself more Singaporean than American. As usual, there is always the obligatory disclaimer that these are my opinions and my experiences, and it cannot be generalized to anyone else. My TL;DR thoughts are my own.

Class participation, to me, is a load of bullshit. That’s the short answer. There is the extremely long, long, LONG answer behind the cut, so be warned.

I talked a lot during my time in JC, especially during GP. I don’t know if that influenced my A1, or if it did influence it at all, but what I do know is that my personality has changed a lot since then – when I was a loudmouthed bitch – and now, where I don’t talk at all in class. As with any assertive personality, I had lots of opinions and I wasn’t afraid to share them. I didn’t bat down arguments, and chose to engage in them. I took up leadership positions, and maybe it was because of that I self-monitored myself and developed this personality that was not my own.

Looking back on my character as the leader – needing to placate others that this is the right decision, being bossy, direct, and gaining the favour of those in a high position than myself – are not qualities that I desire any longer in my character. If one were to take these leadership qualities out of the context of work and applied them in real life, the resulting personality is simply undesirable. It shows a lack of sensitivity and empathy to others. I know of acquaintances that excelled in group work and yet had the emotional depth of a spoon (I try to stay away from them). I don’t want to be these people. I don’t want to be a loudmouthed, opinionated person who thinks their answer is the right one, or to think just because I’m speaking up, it makes me a better person. It didn’t, quite frankly, and speaking up made me a worse person in hindsight.

I’ve pretty much withdrawn back (or regressed, if you consider extroversion to be a ’superior’ trait to introversion) into a more calm and stable character. I like to function as the observer instead of being the mouthpiece. As I entered university, I started to get insanely nervous when talking in class – something that I never had before when I was in JC – and I couldn’t think on my feet. I’m not spontaneous – I never have been – and this is something that I struggle with all the time when I’m posed questions in class (or in any public environment): I clam up. I stutter; I beat around the bush; I embarrass myself. This isn’t something that can be changed in a fortnight or in any class environment. I’m a firm believer that there are inherent personality traits that can influence your behaviour and is consistent over time. Spontaneity isn’t something (I feel) that can be developed.

I think it’s really ridiculous that the one of the professors in the documentary said ‘there are no stupid questions’. I’m just astounded at how he thought that the students’ self-esteem revolves around the teacher’s approval. The teacher may not think your questions are stupid (or at least he tries to hide it), but that doesn’t mean your classmates share the same idea.

Case in point: Brian. Whenever he asked a question or commented on something the TA said, the class will collectively sigh in exasperation. I have heard comments about getting Brian to ’shut up’, or ‘is an asshole’, or ‘how the hell does our TA stand that guy’? I’m sure Singaporeans are never this rude.

I also don’t agree with the idea that people learn more when participating. It’s also a common idea in OSU (at least with the teachers I’ve interacted with so far), but whenever people start talking you notice the people around you stop taking notes, as if the question or comment is unimportant. The sad thing is that it is unimportant, really. You’re not going to be tested on this; why do you want to go the extra mile to take dictation?

Case in point: I had a class that was predominantly centered around ‘thinking how language death affects the world’ and not heavily content based. In place of an examination we had a class debate instead, and we were to give presentations as class assignments. The fact that because it wasn’t content based and more about developing your own opinions, half the class never showed up. It didn’t even require a lot of thought in the first place – language death causes a loss of culture, ideas, etc – and that was what I came away with. If the professor isn’t talking, you’re not learning.

Which brings me to the entire point that Mr. America spouted. I have to quote this guy verbatim because I’m just that exasperated.

Number one:

… We, in America, do talk more. We don’t accept what everyone says to us. If I am a student sitting in a class I don’t simply accept what my professor says because he’s the professor-

(Oh editors. Please let him finish his crazy and not cut so abruptly to Kirpal! Although I think Kirpal has his own brand of crazy too, but I’ve indirectly mentioned him already.)

Number two:

… But I think that in a perfect world if we are truly doing an excellent job of teaching, we generate a level of enthusiasm, we generate a level of participation in class that’s irrepressible, and marking becomes irrelevant. Students who are going to jump in and say, ‘hey, wait a minute, prof, I think that’s absolute rubbish, and here’s why.’ Because they get excited about what we’re talking about-

And more editing. Oh well. Anyway. He seems to be operating on this logic:

1. All class discussions must contain a challenge to what the professor is teaching,
2. Class discussion is representative of your level of enthusiasm,
3. Therefore, challenging what the professor is saying is representative of your enthusiasm.

I think we can see the unsoundness of what this line of thinking implies. I’ll leave you up to that, because I’ll get my spleen ruptured if I dare even try to touch this. To be fair, he may have been quoted out of context because of the editing, so I’ll give him that.

(I must say the whole ‘marking becomes irrelevant’ thing opens up a new can of wank altogether. I say it’s just lazy.)

What my experience has taught me is that the professor knows more than you do. That’s the entire purpose of teaching: to impart knowledge. You cannot come into a Psychology class and proclaim, ‘I think video games influences aggression’; you don’t have the data and research knowledge the professor has.

The best professors, I believe, impart to you the knowledge required to make your own decisions. That was the sole reason why I fell in love with my History 331 class. Schools of thought are not new in any medium, and you have to find where you stand in the arena. A professor isn’t supposed to push onto you what he believes, because if he is intelligent enough, he should concede that there are other schools of thought that can explain this better. This is really the entire principal of what psychology is founded upon. There are multiple schools of thought (cognitive, behavioural, biological, psychoanalytical, etc), and all who teach Psych agree that it is a combination of all that possibly influence our behaviour.

If all you’re doing in class is challenging what the professor says, then I think it says something about the professor.

And this idea that enthusiasm must be reflected in how much you open your mouth in class is a very disconcerting notion, in my opinion. I don’t have to talk about it on end – in the classroom or outside the classroom – to proclaim my love for it. Psychology is my major, and I love it to bits, but I don’t go around saying ‘DID YOU KNOW THIS STUDY SHOWED THAT…’. People will kick me. On occasion, yes I do, particularly when a study is striking or when I’ve turned temporarily fanatical, but I don’t need to spout my knowledge to my friends who have a complete disinterest in this. I have other things to talk about.

This was insanely, insanely longer than I expected it to be. I guess I do have a lot to say on this subject, and I do scoff at the idea that class participation is the end-all to education. So… there you have it. My thoughts on yaoi SMU and the system on which it was founded upon.

Female-oriented (or any least, populated) communities seem to be the worst offenders of this. Any photo of a male celebrity would always be followed up with someone saying ‘I’d hit that’ and another swarm of other females agreeing, openly discussing their sexual fantasies with each other (also, Yahtzee). No one calls them on it, and yet these very females get on cases where males start saying the exact same things when presented with a female celebrity.

Of course, the usual arguments can be thrown around – females have every right to boggle at men’s bodies, females have had a history of oppression so we’re entitled to have revenge, the guys can do it so WHAI CANT I – but this isn’t about gender equality. This is about sexual objectification, in and of itself, employed by both genders. I personally find sexual objectification abhorrent, in all forms, male or female. I don’t support one or the other, and yes, I do condone my gender for it.

Just because women has had a history of oppression doesn’t mean we can subscribe to the same things men did. Frankly, I don’t think that this is even a valid psychological reason for the sudden surge of male objectification – it’s just another kneejerk “politically correct” answer as to why female objectification is condoned and yet male objectification is accepted. I frankly don’t think feministic revenge goes through the minds of 15 year olds when typing out ‘I WANT TO DO BAD THINGS TO THIS MAN’ on the Internet.

Perhaps the female sex drive was greater than I assumed. Perhaps I did subscribe to some form of projection bias; I don’t see the sexual attraction in men, I don’t gush on end, and therefore the rest of the female population have the same beliefs as I do. I’m wrong, obviously, but that doesn’t make sexual objectification any more right.

Should men be honoured by their sexual objectification status in the female community? With the evidence that men think about sex more often than females, it feels like men wouldn’t be as insulted as women are. But I’m not a man, so I don’t know. Maybe Johnny Depp does take comfort knowing that he’s in the sexual fantasies of prepubescent girls everywhere.

The anecdotes are heartbreaking, touching and celebratory all at once. You cheer when you read a German standing up to a Nazi soldier during the 1933 Jewish boycott, or Germans insisting on continuing their friendships with Jewish friends. And then there are stories of Jewish women having to perform sexual favours in order to get their immigration papers, or how Jews were slowly excluded from the most basic of clubs. It’s incredibly interesting to read, and the glimpse into Jewish life is fascinating and truly different from a normal ‘historic’ book.

The problem is Kaplan won’t stop hammering it in on how ‘brutal’ or ‘cruel’ or ‘painful’ it was for the Jewish people. Kaplan uses the word ‘brutal’ 4 times in 3 paragraphs, and by the end of the Introduction(!) I was already screaming ‘Yes, I know Jewish life was painful; everyone knows that, so stop using all these loaded words!’ Kaplan doesn’t need to tell us that it was horrible to live in Germany in the 1930s; the anecdotes she collected speak volumes already.

The way she writes is weak, and the anecdotes are the only things that hold this book together. Firstly, for all her attempts to show that the Jewish experiences were diverse, she does a fantastic job in colouring the German side the same shade of evil. All Germans – be it a civilian or a member of the SS – behave the same. There are the occasional hopeful stories, but it seems like the Germans are never human. They are simply grouped into a single word – ‘Germans’. Coupled with the loaded words Kaplan loves to scatter in what moments she can spare between anecdotes, the whole thing just smacks of bias.

Granted, Kaplan writes the book wholly from the viewpoint of the victims in Nazi Germany, and after some thought, I could let the German homogeneity and loaded words slide. What I cannot forgive, however, is speculation, and getting horrendously biased sources.

At times Kaplan attempts to give us a brief summary of the events that happened in a certain year, and the aftermath of said event. No historian in their right mind can ever say “Well, I have no sources on this, but I can say that…” You can’t do that. You are not a historian if you speculate on events that you have no proof for. Kaplan, unfortunately, speculates so eagerly and explicitly, and she actually used the phrase “There are no sources, but…” She seems to want to capitalize on the Jewish suffering so badly she winds up adding on more theories of how Jews suffered when she even lacks the evidence for it. I can assure you that the lack of proof is not going to add on my sympathy for what happened in the 1930s. It makes me pissed that I’m reading a completely biased source and now I have to take all the anecdotes I read with a grain of salt.

Also, getting data from German sources about almost anything Jewish in the 1930s would be biased. Percentages will be skewed, attempting to show progress, or just for propaganda. The same thing can be said for Jewish sources. Isn’t there a possibility that the percentages might have overinflated? I can’t remember which year the data was published, but either way, there is a possibility that it might be biased, simply because you’re taking Jewish data for Jewish suffering in WWII. There isn’t any comparison to German sources or even independent sources for balance. I cannot just take Jewish sources as fact and leave it there. Once again, Kaplan seems to want to bludgeon us on the head with the phrase ‘THE JEWS SUFFERED IN WWII!’

I KNOW. IT HURTS BAD, AND YOU’RE NOT EXACTLY HELPING MY SYMPATHY ANY.

I don’t think Kaplan wanted this to be a historical or accurate source. She has provided us with anecdotes, and we all know how tricky the memory can be. I can accept that, but when Kaplan switches to a summary of events that everyone knows (translation: turns historian), takes percentages from biased sources and conjures theories out of thin air, I have reason to disbelieve anything she says.

Okay, time to wail about where this post (and its responses) went wrong. I tried to let the thing slide into ‘I forgot’ territory, since my attention span is the equivalent of a retarded bunny, but I forgot to disable emailing comments. So I got this comment in my inbox today, and I’m going to complain.

(Summary: Some chick decides Japanese and Chinese are pronounced the same, and assumes different pronunciations = two different names. Other people agree, also throwing in the fact that one’s name stays the same between languages. German, Spanish and English are a few of the languages that are used for comparison. In short, nobody believes that, in Chinese, Sakura’s name is ‘xiao ying’. Everyone thinks it should be just Sakura, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a moron).

1. My language is not your language.

It was rather shocking to see the amount of arrogance and assumptions everyone had in thinking Chinese and Japanese were pronounced the same and calling other people morons for thinking otherwise, or that Chinese was part of some odd universal language law that said people’s names stay the same when crossing between the language barrier.

Yes, throw in German/English, Spanish/English, Language learned in high school/English as your basis for comparison. Hey, if GERMAN/SPANISH/LLIHS does that, then it means EVERY LANGUAGE does it too!

No, it does not. Coming from a community that has already shown itself to accept that every single rule is subjective (even with topics of incest, bestiality and rape), it just made me wonder how on earth they managed to lump languages under one single umbrella with a Universal Rule to rule them all. Even English in itself doesn’t follow its own rules; why should every language need to have something in common?

The problem lies with the Japanese kanji and Chinese characters. Chinese does romanize (or Chinesefy?) English names, but the Japanese kanji creates a new rule altogether. Kanji is, essentially, traditional Chinese. Some phrasing has changed over the… decades? Millennium? (like how the kanji for ‘teacher’ are the Chinese characters for ’sir’), but regardless, kanji names are still pronounced the Chinese way when speaking in Chinese, simply because they are Chinese characters.

They are not different names. Simply because the kanji characters are pronounced differently doesn’t mean they’re two unique names with no relation to each other. Think Latin and English. In Latin, the endings of names change depending on their case, but in English it stays the same. They’re still the same person, even though they have like, 4 different versions of their names. (For the record, I took Latin too, so I have the relevant knowledge to make this parallel).

2. No one is a moron. Only you.

Go ahead and backpedal by saying the Japanese/English speakers don’t pick up on the different intonations, so for some reason, the rant is still valid(???), but that makes you look more of the moron. You don’t know for sure if the Japanese can pick them up – you’re not a native Japanese speaker. I learned both Japanese and Chinese (and Latin, hee), I can tell the difference, and that is the limit of my experience. Don’t overstep your boundaries by proclaiming that no one can tell the difference just because you – the native English speaker – can’t.

And yet again, I see projection all over. I find it incredibly infuriating when people assume things they don’t know about applies to everyone else at large, and think themselves knowledgeable when they draw parallels between languages that don’t actually exist. Look, if you don’t know the language and how it works, don’t draw parallels, because you don’t know what the other line actually looks like.

I think it will be extremely heartening to see people rein this this psychological mindset when talking to a public. I too, like to submit to projection when making snarky remarks, but not in terms of making logical arguments that will be judged by the public, in which this rant obviously did. Said person ignored my comments and continued her tirade of ribbing the fanfic author whom she was complaining about.

The lack of knowledge in people isn’t what bothers me. It’s the assumption of knowledge that creates this horrid atmosphere of ignorance and arrogance.

In short: Don’t rant about languages you know nothing about.

Anyway, there was an argument raised against moral relativism that I read about quite recently. Abolishment of slavery can be considered moral progress, but according to relativist theory, Lincoln was a bad man, because he acted against the cultural norms of his era.

I’m not quite sure what to think of this. Lincoln was unpopular in the South at the time, and he was certainly seen as a bad man for freeing slaves. Right now we see abolishment of slavery as moral progress, but that itself lends to the argument that morals are relative in differing cultures (or eras).

Consider the reasons why slavery is a bad thing. It subjugates an entire race; it inflicts pain and suffering; it results in social classes; it causes discrimination. Yet, all these can be argued. Stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination are automatic processes in our brains, and it is the social norms that prevent us from actively discriminating. The obligatory question is then ‘why is discrimination a bad thing’? Why do we consider equality as important? If equality is so important, why aren’t we all turning Communist? Why did countries that adopted Communism fail, then? This then lends itself to the even bigger question of the social structures in any given country and the psychology of people… which is mind-boggling, frankly.

What is more concrete, however, is pain and suffering. Pain is the body’s way of telling to GET THE FUCK OUT OF WHATEVER YOU’RE DOING (BDSM not included). It’s then quite natural that removing human-inflicted suffering from an entire race of people is considered ‘good’.

If so, then isn’t there some things that are inherently good? Removing pain is good, inflicting pain is bad? The body that reacts negatively to something (universally) is considered bad? However, pain doesn’t quite answer the morals of more abstract things, like copyright infringement… and other things that doesn’t cause physical damage.

I get the feeling that copyright infringement or theft of property hearkens back to the ages when food was scarce, and people had to barter for goods. Any sort of theft meant a lower chance of survival. I’m sure this is pretty much the evolutionary theory of something, and any type of evolutionary theory, in my experience, is a load of hogwash.

Are constructs of the human mind then supposed to be considered morally good or bad? Are there things that everyone in the entire world universally share? Expression of feelings, like smiling and anger, seem to be shared by many different cultures and are considered universal… does the same go for moral values?

Anyway, I should read up more on moral relativism. I shouldn’t be so clueless about this when I’m in support of it.

The first scene that I managed to get through was, quite predictably, ‘Fathoms Below’. You have an enormous, cheesy looking ship with blue chiffon at the bottom which are supposed to be waves. It felt like watching a bunch of high school kids doing a musical with a larger than average budget. I think they tried to make Eric look handsome by giving him a baggy shirt that shows off his chest every once in a while, but not with that hair (they gave Eric long hair, and in an attempt to keep some resemblance to the animated version, they decided to curl his fringe. He just looked hilarious).

Anyway, after the song, there’s dialogue. Eric talks of wanting to meet the girl of his dreams, the princely life is not for him, etc etc. His friends dissuade him, etc etc. Ariel’s disjointed voice then echoes from the speakers.

Then Eric goes, and I quote: “Follow that voice; to the ends of the earth if you have to!”

I burst out laughing when I heard that. Yeah, face treacherous waters, get shipwrecked, and have all your men drown because of a funny sounding voice you heard 5 seconds ago? Not happening.

I remember reading an article somewhere about TLM wanting to be more Italian(?) Opera-ish in terms of design and costuming. I’m not sure when that got kicked in the head, because the costumes look awful. Everything’s a shiny mess of sequins and satin, Ariel’s tail sticks out of her butt and looks like it was constructed for the Ghost Lantern Festival, Ursula’s tentacles are wires for an oversized wedding dress, and I’m not sure what they did with poor Sebastian. I think my eyes may have tricked me, but I think they gave Sebastian a Persian hat with eyeballs sticking out of it.

As usual, the singers do a brilliant job, which isn’t surprising, seeing as this is a Broadway musical and Disney’s loaded with cash to hire said brilliant singers. What I was disappointed though, was the orchestrations for ‘Her Voice’ (the only song which I played through, next to ‘Fathoms Below’). Maybe I’ve been too used to the Concept Cast Recording, but the full orchestra took the mystic and romance away somewhat. It became just another loud, bombastic, kitschy song about love. There’s nothing ethereal about it anymore, and that aspect was something which I greatly loved about that song. I thought if they’d just keep it to that simple piano melody and throw in a couple of violins it’ll do just fine. It’s a minimalistic song, not a ‘Kiss the Girl’ remake!

Of course, take this at face value, given that I am a huge Beauty and the Beast fan, and TLM might have bittered my view somewhat. Also, I probably watched this about a month ago, so my memory will definitely play tricks on me. But whatever. I thought I should get this out.

ETA: Apparently the NY Times didn’t like it either.