Anyway, as is the case with Greek tragedies, Clytemnestra ends up killing Agamemnon and Cassandra. Her lover Aegisthus becomes the new king, and the both of them seemingly walk off into the sunset, happy as clams. Of course, the Chorus warns them of Orestes, Clytemnestra’s son, who will return and get revenge. But what does she care, right? Meh! Bah! Whatever, dudes.

Cassandra is probably my favorite part of this first play in the trilogy. She’s such an underrated character. Most prophet-type characters in Greek mythology — Tiresias, Calchas, etc — are already in Mystery Mode by the time the play starts. They’re weird, they’re scary, and they’re always right. But Cassandra is different. She is a prophetess not because she wanted to be one, but because she was forced to become one by Apollo. Apollo thought she was beautiful and wanted to sleep with her, but she said no (way to go, by the way). In his anger, Apollo granted her the vision of prophecy, but also cursed her so that no one would believe her prophecies. There is a part in Agamemnon where Clytemnestra beckons Agamemnon into his home, to walk on the “red” carpet as a conqueror. I’ll admit, I didn’t really understand this while I read it, but doing this apparently indicates hubris on Agamemnon’s part, so he is reluctant to do as she says. Eventually he decides to leave with his wife, and Cassandra is left alone, which is when she receives a prophecy from Apollo, where she comes to understand that she will be killed if she goes into Agamemnon’s home. She already knows Agamemnon is going to be killed. Of course, the Chorus does not understand her. Cassandra is such a brilliantly tragic character, so much more than Agamemnon or Clytemnestra. She is the proto-Medea of this play, though unlike Medea, who seems to have complete control over her fate, Cassandra has been cursed to have no control over it. One might wonder why she doesn’t just leave, run away, start her life anew, but her sadness seems more entrenched in despair and frustration at her circumstances: no matter where she goes, or what she does, she will always be tormented by the truth that she cannot share. Thus, I think she willingly decides to enter Clytemnestra’s home to be killed, because her life would be nothing but torment if she did not. It’s such a tragic twist, such a sad story, and it’s only a small part of the trilogy. Too bad, really. Clytemnestra’s story is really not that tragic. Yes, Iphigenia was sacrificed, but then ten years happened. Agamemnon’s gone, Clytemnestra hooks up with Aegisthus, then he comes back and suddenly she has to construct all this anger again. To me, Agamemnon’s death has less to do with revenge than it does with making Aegisthus the king. Aeschylus brings Cassandra into the fold to further anger Agamemnon, but again, is that enough to raise the ire of Clytemnestra? It is in this play, apparently, but it seems suspect to me.

Anyway. The second play is called The Libation Bearers. It deals with Orestes and Electra, another child of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, plotting to kill Clytemnestra and Aegisthus out of vengeance. Orestes finds Electra at Agamemnon’s gravesite, where she notices a lock of hair he has cut and placed on the grave. She almost immediately recognizes it to be Orestes’ hair, and the two meet each other after years of being apart. Orestes then plans to kill Clytemnestra and Aegisthus by pretending to be a citizen of Phocis, where Orestes’ friend Pylades is from and where Orestes lived when he was away.

Interesting tangent: the term “libation bearers” refers to the libations that Electra’s slave women chorus group pours onto Agamemnon’s grave: first honey, then milk, then wine, then water. The reason they do this is because Clytemnestra had a dream where she gave birth to a serpent, and the serpent feeds from her breast and draws blood at the same time (my translation referred to “bloodclots,” which was kind of gross). She has these women pour libations as a way to reduce harm to Clytemnestra. So the next time you see a “homey” pour out some of his 40oz for a dead friend, you can trace that action all the way back to ancient Greece.

I almost forgot to mention the part of this play where Orestes, Electra, and the Chorus attempt some kind of communion with Agamemnon. It’s a really amazing piece of work, very dense and lyrically complex. What’s equally great is that they sort of succeed but sort of don’t. Agamemnon doesn’t show up, all ghostly and scary and shit, as he might in some lesser form of drama, but Orestes does receive the information about Clytemnestra’s dream with the serpent, which he believes to be himself, and is enough to make him decide to kill her and Aegisthus. The whole scene is charged with mystery and reads (at least) like a freak out creepy Ouija board kind of scene you’d find in a movie.

It also makes me think of motivations for other characters. Like, why didn’t Antigone and Ismene try this with Polynices? It’s weird how characters react to things, you know?

Anyway, the recurring theme in these plays is one of “blood for blood,” and endless cycle of revenge killings. Iphigenia is killed by Agamemnon. Clytemnestra then kills Agamemnon and Cassandra for what he did. Orestes eventually kills Clytemnestra and Aegisthus in revenge. This cycle seems endless, but as we find out in the third play, it is not so.

So Orestes and Pylades come to Clytemnestra’s house and Orestes ends up killing Aegisthus fairly easily. But when it comes time to kill his own mother, he has reservations. He asks Pylades for advice, and Pylades reminds him of Apollo, who is basically running the show from behind the scenes. Orestes ends up killing Clytemnestra, which results in the second best scene in the play: the Erinyes (or the Furies, if you want the Roman name) chasing after him. You know whenever the Nazgul are chasing the Hobbits? It’s like that. Only Orestes can see them, but they are chasing after him like a bat out of hell. It’s a great ending to the second play, because it shows that there are consequences to our actions. Orestes felt he was in the right, but the Erinyes feel differently.

Which leads us to the last play, which is called The Eumenides, and deals with the trial of Orestes by Athena. The Erinyes are like the Richard Belzer and Jerry Orbach of family killings — they’re out to stop them. Orestes believes killing Clytemnestra was right, the Erinyes believe it to be wrong, and Athena steps in and decides to find the verdict through a trial. It’s a pretty interesting scene, watching the Erinyes trying to get at Orestes, furious with Athena for having a trial instead. Apollo shows up again, to act as a witness (or attorney, really) for Orestes. Apollo’s a weird character in this trilogy. First he screws up Cassandra’s life just because she won’t sleep with him, which, in my mind, is a tremendous act of hubris (and, in Agamemnon, Cassandra’s description of the moment Apollo tried to get it on sounds a lot more like rape than love, so I don’t blame her for saying no). Then, he guides Orestes into killing his mother, and then he sits at his trial and defends him. What a guy, eh?

There’s another great scene at the beginning of this play, where the Ghost of Clytemnestra tries to rouse the Erinyes from some kind of slumber cast upon them by Apollo. Orestes is being trafficked, so to speak, to Athens by Hermes, and Apollo’s buying him some time. Apollo’s like the ancient Greek’s version of Saul Goodman. But what’s great about the scene is that it gives us a chance to see Clytemnestra again, this time dead and presumably in the land of the dead. Why she chooses to appear here is uncertain, but she leaves just as soon as the Erinyes begin to wake up, so I guess she’s a dream? Who knows.

Anyway, long story short, Orestes is acquitted because the jury is split evenly, but Athena votes for Orestes. Apollo’s defense for Orestes’ alleged crime is, I shit you not, just, maybe you should sit down for this: that men are better than women, in marriage, at least. I shit you not! His reason behind this is that Athena was born from Zeus without a mother.

… I shit you not, guys. Read the damn play yourself! I feel like this kind of misogyny can’t even be called misogyny. It’s like some kind of proto-sogyny, where the men just don’t even know what the hell they’re doing, they’re just saying, “Dude men are better than women!” like a five year old would, just because he heard it from his parents. It’s disconcerting, really. You honestly can’t put modern bias on ancient times, but on the other  hand, there is no disagreement that ancient Greece was A) wholly patriarchal, and B) did not care for women that much. At least in the writings we have. Sucks. Really sucks.

I gotta hand it to the Greeks, though: they make their gods really fucked up.

So Athena buys this and votes for Orestes’ acquittal. The other votes are split, so Orestes wins. This could’ve been the end of the play, but instead, the Erinyes go apeshit, arguing with Athena and threatening to ruin the Athenian crops. Athena gets them to calm down and ends up promoting them, in a way; they now will take care of the city’s prosperity. Nice! This scene is also great because Athena calls the Erinyes the “old gods” and fully acknowledges that she is a “young god,” and that they have more wisdom than she. How is that possible? She’s a god! How do some gods have less wisdom than others?

Oh Greeks, you are magnificient.

One of the greater themes this trilogy brings is that of justice, not in vengeance, but in a court of law. Of course, the “laws” presented in this court seemingly have no bearing on anything worthwhile, aaaand Apollo’s defense plan is 100% utter bullshit, but it’s a start, at least. If anything, it says to me that you shouldn’t have gods judge what mortals do. Especially Greek gods.

So that’s everything you probably wanted to know about The Oresteia and then some. Tune in next week, when I ramble on about plays you don’t know and don’t care about! Huzzah!

A slight gain from last week, but overall it could’ve been a lot worse. I’ve been weighing myself every day since the 8th, and the past couple of days have been a pound higher. I don’t plan on weighing myself every day of the year, only this month, just to get a sense of how my body weight works. It’s just interesting to me. Anyway…

I cheated the other day. Totally ruined my No Sugar January. I ate some Trader Joe’s cookies¹ that my girlfriend had won in a white elephant gift exchange. I told her I would wait until February to eat them, but I didn’t. Couldn’t help myself. They were sitting on the top of the fridge, just staring at me in their hexagonal box, goading me on. There were four kinds, and I had one of each. That’s it. Four cookies. Pretty tame, actually, compared to my usual cycle of buying a sleeve of Oreos from the corner store and chowing down on them with a tall glass of milk. But still. Four cookies. Ruined my month.

Okay, not really. Always look on the bright side, right? It was only four cookies. The bad news is that I’m starting to slide back into some bad habits, mostly because of school and the necessity of good food taking a backseat to education. But I’m also working out more than I did before, so hopefully it balances itself out enough that I still lose weight. I can’t help being super hungry after working out, but I can help myself by eating right.

Theatre Thursday can also be TV Thursday. Also Fiction Friday can be Film Friday. There. So say I, so shall it be done!

WARNING: This post has massive spoilers. If you haven’t seen Breaking Bad yet, get over your hangup about watching people cook meth and watch it. It’s one of the best shows on TV, period.

Have you watched it? Okay, good. I mean, you don’t have to watch the whole thing. I’m only halfway through season two, okay? So don’t freak out.

————-

Finishing the episode “4 Days Out,” and I was stuck by something as the episode ended: first, I’ve read a bit about Vince Gilligan, the guy who created the show, and his concept of making a show about a protagonist who becomes an antagonist. I love it. It’s a ballsy move, to put all of your chips onto this “hero” who becomes evil. George Lucas tried it with the prequel movies, and he failed — he terribly, mercilessly failed. But Breaking Bad is different. It’s well plotted, it has excellent stakes and suspense, and it has characters that you give a damn about.

And that’s what struck me: how much I care about Walter White. I’m still at a point in the series where his arguments with Jesse are weighted with truth. Jesse pours their only drinking water onto the flaming generator. Walter snaps at him, as he does a lot in this episode, but his arguments carry weight. And later, when he’s attempting to hook up the impromptu battery, the outcome of all of these heated arguments with Jesse finally shows its head, although briefly — Jesse begins to show signs of understanding chemistry. But then when Walter asks him what the best conduit is for the battery and Jesse says, “Oh! Wire,” we see that Walt has a long way to go. Fortunately, Jesse has his own moments of truth, as well, making him much more than just a whiny sidekick. His knowledge of the drug business are surprisingly savvy, if maybe a bit timid. Having Walter there to push him makes for good television.

All that aside, the last moment. The penultimate scene, where Walt learns his cancer is in 80% remission. Where his family, who he has estranged time and again with his antics, erupts in joy. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck raise up, I felt the pressure on my heart. I felt like crying. Not because I was being force-fed emotions by great actors. Not because I watched some formulaic romantic comedy. But because I was watching a character develop. He was changing. Some of it purposeful, some accidental. And now, he’s given a second chance. And the best part? He hates it.

I’ve been hesitant to start watching Breaking Bad in much the same way I’ve been hesitant to watch The Wire: both are critically acclaimed shows, very high up on the “You Must Watch This” scale, and I know that by watching it, I will be investing a lot of my time. But I started watching BB about a week ago and, of course, I’m hooked. There’s something about good stories that, for me, for reasons I don’t really understand, make me want to walk around in silence. I don’t really understand it. After watching a couple episode of this gripping television show, I’ll take a break, pad quietly downstairs in my barefoot, walk to the kitchen, my ears tuned to the soft patter of my skin on the faux wood floor. Open the fridge, listen to the unique magnetic sucking sound the fridge door makes as it opens. Slide the bottom crisper drawer open, rummage through a noisy produce bag, the noise almost a shimmer of sound. Pick out an apple. Slide the drawer back. Close the fridge. Buff the apple against my shift. Take a bite, listening to the chop sound, the ripping of the apple’s flesh and meat. The grinding sound of chewing. I listen to all of it. I take it in. Why? I don’t know. But there’s something about a TV show this good that almost makes it sacred. Takes it beyond regular TV and into that illustrious realm of “art.” Breaking Bad is art. It’s about cooking methamphetamine, but it’s art. And that’s what I love about art.

——

My friend Steve was interested in my thoughts on the show, having worked at a medical marijuana clinic for three years. Honestly, I hadn’t even thought about that. I don’t grow, I don’t associate with growers, and there’s not huge mounds of pot flowing through the clinic. The number one thing I thought about regarding pot and this show is that Walter could’ve used a few hits of some strong weed to keep his nausea from chemo down, and maintain his appetite. That was about it.

Anyway, great show. Surprised I’m even taking time off to write this blog, instead of watching another episode.

And one of these days, I’ll watch the Wire. I just feel the need to settle in to that one.

I made the mistake last Saturday of buying a new bathroom scale.

As you can see above, it has all the bells and whistles of “bioelectrical impedance,” which is probably 90% bunk but tells me my body fat percentage, my water percentage, bone percentage, and overall BMI. It also, apparently, told me that I was ten pounds heavier than my old, shitty, Goodwill scale told me.

At my last weigh in, I was 252 lbs. But when I weighed myself on Saturday afternoon, shortly after buying the scale, I weighed 13 lbs more — 265. I then proceeded to take my girlfriend out to dinner and a movie (thanks to my parents, who sent me gift cards for Christmas). What I ordered at Applebee’s wasn’t especially lot calorie (it also didn’t look very good, but that’s a different story), and yet, surprisingly, when I weighed myself on Sunday morning, I was 260.8. So this whole time, my old scale was lying to me. Lying to me! When I weighed 260 on that thing, I probably weighed closer to 270 or even 275! It’s really kind of frustrating, to be honest. I mean, this whole thing is frustrating: trying to count calories, trying to stay in shape. Doing it with a positive attitude. It’s difficult. So to buy this new scale and have it be ten pounds heavier is kind of a big deal.

And then on Sunday night my girlfriend made these delicious Bolivian cheese dough thingies called cunapes. And I ate a million of them. The next morning I weighed myself and I was three pounds less than before I ate them. I’m not suggesting cunapes made me lose weight, but I wish they did, because I would continue to eat millions of them.

Anyway, today I weigh 258 pounds. I’ve been weighing myself every morning, not to obsess over shedding weight, but to analyze how weight loss occurs throughout the month. I’ve also started Couch to 5K again, which I’m actually going to continue just after this blog post. Working out is hard. I feel like I’m not very good at it. But I give it my best, what more can you do?

Either way, it’s been twelve days without any kind of artificial sugar or sweet thing. Apples are awesome now. But the temptation to just go get a candy bar is strong. It’s weird when routines and cravings mix.

Alright, off to take a jog and do a few pushups.

Here’s a photo from last week, of the finished setup:

Running clockwise, from the upper left, we see two red fans pushing air out of the computer. Pretty simple stuff. The case, by the way, is an Antec DF-85, a huge case with plenty of room to add all kinds of fun stuff like a thousand hard drives. There are two fans in the back, two on the top, and three in the front. The fans in the front can be opened to allow for easier access to the hard drives, which is completely awesome. Anyway, next to those back fans is the Hyper 212+, which I have written extensively about already. Behind it is my Intel i5 2500k processor, as well as my MSI P67A-GD65 (B3) motherboard. Next to the cooler are my two 4GB sticks of G.Skill DDR3 1333 RAM. For some reason they color code the RAM slots for dual channels, which means the RAM works together better. But they do it spaced like you see above. Why? I don’t know.

Next to the RAM are some cables, and then towards the top are  my DVD drive and, above that, a sweet 5.25″ storage bay thing that I bought, specifically for the purpose of storing screws. I’m so glad I did it, it’s a great storage space. Above that, and technically outside the case, is my Crucial 64GB SSD, sitting in the hot swap bay, waiting for some new cables so I can install it at the bottom of the case instead.

Then, below those two things is my 500GB Western Digital hard drive, and then a looooot of empty space (which will eventually be filled with more hard drives, but as of right now, the floods in Thailand have destroyed a lot of hard drives and thus driven the price up waaay too much. You’ll see that black thing sticking out of the bottom of the hard drive cage; that’s a special hard drive hot swap attachment. Well, it’s not so much a “hot” swap (meaning you’re not supposed to just tear your hard drives out of there willy-nilly), but it makes it much easier to swap hard drives without going in an exchanging cables. Pretty cool, but the whole swap thing will be mostly unnecessary for me.

At the very bottom, in the middle, you’ll see four white nubbin thingies — that’s where my SSD is supposed to go. I’m getting cables shipped to me as I type this, so hopefully next week I can talk more about that. Not that it’s a huge thing, but, eh, you know, maybe you want to learn about really mundane things like moving an SSD from a hot swap spot to a more permanent location. Maybe you’re just that type of person. And who am I to deny you the ability to learn about that? Some kind of mundane information denier? Denier? Is that a word? Chrome is not putting a red squiggly line underneath it, so I’m rolling with it.

Next to my future SSD home is the Antec 750w Green PSU. It’s big. And heavy. This whole computer is stupid heavy. I swear it weighs as much as a small child. And not just because there is actually a small child inside, pushing buttons for me. JOHNNY, I NEED YOU TO HIT THE “GO FASTER” BUTTON. GOOD BOY.

Last but not least, above my PSU is the GPU, an MSI Twin Frozr III 1GB Radeon 6950. It’s pretty sweet.

So that’s my setup. Here’s a breakdown if you’re interested, thanks to a great site called pcpartpicker.com:

Part list permalink: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3A61

Part price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3A61/by_merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($179.99 @ Microcenter)

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus 76.8 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  ($22.99 @ NCIX US)

Motherboard: MSI P67A-GD65 (B3) ATX  LGA1155 Motherboard  ($139.99 @ Newegg)

Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory  ($39.99 @ Newegg)

Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB 3.5″ 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($80.99 @ Amazon)

Hard Drive: Crucial M4 64GB 2.5″ Solid State Disk  ($104.99 @ Newegg)

Video Card: MSI Radeon HD 6950 1GB Video Card  ($257.86 @ Newegg)

Case: Antec DF-85 ATX Full Tower Case  ($134.99 @ Newegg)

Power Supply: Antec 750W ATX12V Power Supply  ($79.99 @ Newegg)

Monitor: Asus VE248Q 24.0″ Monitor  ($206.00 @ B&H)

Keyboard: Logitech Wireless Combo MK260 Wireless Standard Keyboard w/Optical Mouse  ($25.84 @ eCost)

Total: $1273.62

(Prices include shipping and discounts when available.)

(Generated 2012-01-08 17:16 EST-0500)

The total price is too high; minus the $84 hard drive and it’s more accurate.

Next week: My new ASUS monitor! or, How I Learned about Phase and Clock. Stay tuned.

This is no longer true! But you can still listen to my Spotify playlist, because it’s pretty cool.

here it is! thanks to glitterberri for the translation. click the image for a larger version.

For the 25th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda, Shigeru Miyamoto and his team did something I never thought they would ever, ever do: they announced an official timeline for the game series. Zelda fanatics like me spent copious amounts of time during our socially awkward youth trying to figure out how the games all fit together, chronologically. Turns out, the split timeline theorists were right all along, but only partially so: they thought there were two timelines split from Ocarina of Time, but in reality, there are three timelines. It’s a pretty ballsy move, if you ask me. When I was younger and fascinated by trying to figure out the chronology of the games (I even attempted to create a website trying to make a chronology based on what items Link retrieved on his various journies — I figured if Link had an item in one game, and it existed in a subsequent game, then that item proved that that game followed the previous one. Needless to say, it didn’t work out so well), I was a staunch “single timeline” advocate. All Zelda games took place on one timeline, I thought, using descendants of Link and Zelda (Ganon, of course, was resurrected) to tell the tale. It worked, for a while, but each new game brought with it new troubles. At first, Ocarina of Time was considered the “first” game in the timeline. Then, Minish Cap came out, and it was considered the first. And now, the newest game, Skyward Sword, is the official first game in the mythical timeline. All these new games were presenting new problems, but it was also becoming obvious that Nintendo knew that their fans were clamoring for origin stories and creation myths, and they delivered.

Now that I’m older, and have spent time philosophically pondering the merits and defects of quantum physics¹, having a split timeline like this makes a lot of sense. But let’s break it down first, shall we?

THE THREE TIMELINES

[Many many thanks to ZeldaWiki.org for their awesome website, which helped me write this. I heartily recommend keeping a tab of their site open, to help guide you along. Lord knows that's what I did.]

First off, because of this split timeline, Ocarina of Time (heretofore known as OoT) now presupposes two outcomes: failure and success. This is an obvious dichotomy of outcomes for any video game in existence, but it is important to OoT because the repercussions of Link failing now exist, as their own timeline. Timeline A, therefore, is a branch created from Link failing to defeat Ganon. Now, I have serious issues with this (mainly that Link doesn’t fail — if he failed, what’s the point in creating these games?), but I will go with it because the outcome of Link failing creates potentially the best line of games from it: Link to the Past, Oracle of Seasons/Ages, Link’s Awakening, and the original two titles, Legend of Zelda and Adventure of Link.

Timeline B and C, then, are created when Link succeeds in defeating Ganon in OoT. The success is branched into B and C because Link is sent back in time to relive his childhood at the end of OoT, thereby creating a timeline (B) where Child Link apparently contacts Zelda and warns her about Ganondorf before he can do anything evil (implied by the very end scene in OoT), and a timeline (C) where Adult Link defeats Ganon and disappears (because he was sent back in time, remember?) and thus there is a long period of time where there is no Hero.

So let’s dive in and discuss these different timelines.

TIMELINE A: LINK IS DEFEATED

the adventure of link's game over screen

I had a lot of trouble accepting this timeline, and the concept of Link “failing,” until I started reading some threads on Reddit and also this this excellent YouTube video, where I realized that Link doesn’t actually fail, he just has to go back in time to recover the Lens of Truth and the Silver Gauntlets in order to continue his journey as Adult Link. So, in going back to get those things, he creates another timeline, one where Adult Link attempts to defeat Ganon, but cannot, because he doesn’t have the tools he needs. So he “fails,” so to speak, and disappears, and the Seven Sages and the Knights of Hyrule rush in to keep Ganon from taking over the world. Please refer to the film Back to the Future part 2 for further information on creating alternate timelines.

Anyway, on the image above, there is mention of “The Sealing War,” which, if you know your Link to the Past history, is most likely the Imprisoning War mentioned in several Zelda texts. So the breakdown is like this: a bunch of thieves, headed by Ganondorf, found a way to enter the Sacred Realm. The Sacred Realm is where the Triforce exists, by the way. So  Ganondorf gets all up in there, grabs the Triforce, and turns the Sacred Realm into the Dark World. In doing so, he becomes the giant pig monster Ganon.

According to Zelda and Rauru in OoT, the Master Sword is the “key” that locks the Sacred Realm from anyone. By pulling the sword out as a child, Link effectively unlocks the Sacred Realm. Of course, Ganondorf takes advantage of this opportunity, and this is supposedly where the Sacred Realm becomes the Dark World. Thus, the time between Child Link and Adult Link, coupled with Link’s “failure” to defeat Ganon, become the Imprisoning War. Link fails, and so the Seven Sages have to come in and seal Ganon in the Dark World. I really, really, really wish this was an actual “bad” ending to OoT. If Nintendo had added this to the Game Over screen, for example — a short video showing the sages sealing off the Dark World — that would make all the difference for me. Then I could say, “Oh! So that’s how Link to the Past fits in!” I know, I know, it’s all retconned, but still, it would be awesome.

So this begins the “decline,” which, in my opinion, is an excellent take on the eventual Legend of Zelda and Adventure of Link. Those games just seem so desolate compared to the newer games. Graphically, they kind of had to be desolate, but I just really appreciate the thought that Nintendo brought in to why LoZ looks so empty. It’s just a nice addition to the mythology.

So LttP happens. Ganon is locked in the Dark World, and must use Agahnim to get shit done. He kidnaps the Sages’ descendants and is using them to break the seal on the Dark World. Link grabs the three Pendants of Virtue (which are the same color as the Spiritual Stones in OoT, signifying, to me at least, that they’re the same stones) and retrieves the Master Sword, kills Agahnim, travels to the Dark World and eventually kills Ganon.

Then comes Oracle of Seasons/Ages, where Link travels to two totally different places and prevents (sorta) Trinrova from resurrecting Ganon.

After that, Link goes off, his boat capsizes, and Link’s Awakening happens. LA is interesting because the final boss, Nightmare, encompasses several different bosses, including one that looks just like Vaati, from Minish Cap and Four Swords Adventures. What’s interesting about this is that the Link from LttP never saw Vaati, as he doesn’t exist properly in this timeline. The creature in LA is known as DethI (Death Eye, that last character is not an L), but it resembles one of Vaati’s forms in Minish Cap. So how would a Link who had never seen Vaati before have the figure constructed in his elaborate dream sequence? (To be fair, most of the characters in Link’s Awakening don’t appear in any other game either.)

After LA on this chart comes a time labeled the “Triforce-using Monarchy.” This is probably in reference to the beginning of Legend of Zelda, where Zelda splits the Triforce of Wisdom into eight pieces and spreads them across Hyrule for Link to gather up. It suggests that following the end of LttP, when Link grabs the Triforce himself, he must’ve made it available for the Royal Family to keep. It’s quite a thing to do, really, considering the immense power the Triforce has. On the other hand, by the time Ganon returns in LoZ, he steals the Triforce of Power, and Zelda apparently only has the Triforce of Wisdom, and though in later games (release date-wise) Link has the Triforce of Courage, he doesn’t in LoZ; he actually gains it in Adventure of Link. In that game, one of the previous Kings of Hyrule hid the Triforce of Courage in the Great Palace, fearing “misuse” of the Triforce’s power.

So, obviously, giving the Triforce to the Royal Family wasn’t such a good idea. But, of course, Link gathers up the Wisdom shards and kills Ganon, who, by the way — who resurrected Ganon for LoZ? It’s suggested through previous games that Ganon can’t resurrect himself, and in LttP he was apparently stuck in the Dark World even though Agahnim was his “alter ego” (I always assumed he was an avatar for Ganon, since Ganon couldn’t enter Hyrule. Kind of like how Voldemort is on the back of that guy’s head in Philosopher’s Stone). By the time Link is sucked into the Dark World in LttP, it’s assumed that the seal the Sages had in place has broken. So is it still broken by LoZ time? Ganon is dead in the end of LttP, because Twinrova attempts to resurrect him, not just find him or unbanish him. He must be dead. So, again … who resurrects Ganon for LoZ?

Speaking of Legend of Zelda, it happens. There is no Hyrule castle, no Master Sword, no Lost Woods. Just desolation. It’s kind of an amazing game, when you think about it. Here’s this guy, Link, who in previous incarnations was given extensive instructions on how to defeat Ganon and save Princess Zelda, and yet now … all you get is an old man who gives you a wooden sword, saying, “It’s dangerous to go alone. Take this!” He lives in a cave, for chrissakes. And then you’re off, going blindly into dungeons without any idea what’s in there, or what you’ll need to continue. Link actually had no one to help him in these troubled times. Old Men in Caves give him vague clues, but no Navi, no Midna, no one to guide him along. Pretty ballsy, if you ask me.

Eventually, Link gathers all the pieces of the Triforce of Wisdom and confronts Ganon, kills him (again), and saves Princess Zelda (again).

i love when you can upgrade the wooden cat to the white cat.

Finally, for this timeline, we have Adventure of Link, which centers on Link attempting to secure the Triforce of Courage so he can wake the sleeping Princess Zelda, who was put into a coma by a wizard. Meanwhile, monsters are trying to capture Link so they can kill him and use his blood to resurrect Ganon. Thus, Ganon only appears if Link is defeated — he looms over you in the Game Over screen. Funny how they show the repercussions of Link dying in AoL but not in OoT. It is suggested in AoL that Hyrule’s decline is starting to fade, and that Link is attempting to help bring the formerly prosperous land back to its former glory. Not much else goes on, really. He gets the Triforce of Courage and wakes Zelda up. I guess if that’s the end of Timeline A, it’s not so bad, is it? Kind of an anticlimactic ending, really, but it is also the beginning of a better Hyrule.

TIMELINE B: CHILD LINK REGAINS HIS YOUTH

turns out this scene meant a lot more than we thought.

In this timeline, the events of Ocarina of Time never happen. After Adult Link defeats Ganon, he is sent back to his childhood by (adult) Princess Zelda. As a child, he meets up with Zelda to, presumably, tell her about Ganondorf’s betrayal, and prevent him from even getting started with his grant scheme. In this world, then, the Sacred Realm is never touched, never transformed into the Dark World. It is “protected,” as the timeline above states. The Imprisoning War doesn’t happen. No need for Sage Seals, the Knights of Hyrule aren’t slaughtered, etc. Since everything is hunky-dory, Link decides to go off on a journey in search of Navi, and ends up finding the Skull Kid, who is wearing Majora’s Mask in the forest. The Skull Kid steals Link’s Ocarina of Time, and the story then begins. Obviously, Majora’s Mask is a side story in much the same was Link’s Awakening is — the stories are interesting, but somewhat unimportant to the main story of Link and Zelda. At the end of Majora’s Mask, Link is spit back out into the forest, and he doesn’t even find Navi. In fact, he never finds Navi, as far as we know. How sad is that?

So after that comes Twilight Princess. Obviously, even on the timeline, there is a gap between Child Link in MM and the Adult Link of TW. Plenty of time to introduce more Zelda games, I suppose. I don’t think the Link of TW is the same as the one from MM. But Twilight Princess is pretty straightforward as well. It is interesting that there is a Twilight Realm in this game. And also interesting that Ganondorf plays a role in the game at all. Apparently they tried to execute him following OoT, but the Triforce of Power stopped it from happening. Instead, the Sages threw him into the Twilight Realm. Is the Twilight Realm the Sacred Realm? Nope. The Sacred Realm is still its own thing, as people, known as the Dark Interlopers, attempted to break into the Sacred Realm to get the Triforce, and the Light Spirits intervened and threw the Interlopers into the Twilight Realm, where they eventually became the Twili race.

This raises the question — where were the Light Spirits when Ganondorf tried to break into the Sacred Realm? If they exist in this timeline, why don’t they exist in the other timelines? If these spirits had the ability to intervene to keep people away from the Triforce, why didn’t they do it all the time?

And now, according to this official timeline, the last game is Four Swords Adventures. Which is … interesting. The first Four Swords, chronologically, takes place waaaay earlier than the sequel, which people pretty much thought immediately followed Four Swords. I haven’t actually played either of the Four Swords games (the first one because I have no friends, and the second one because I had no Gamecube anymore), but from what I read, the Link in FSA is the same Link from FS … apparently. That doesn’t make sense anymore, however. The Link in FS is just not the same one from OoT. How could he be? It’s impossible to tell the ages of Link in games like Four Swords, but there’s no way he was a child who turned into the Child Link from OoT. That’s just too many adventures for a kid to have. So … why does FSA take place so far down the timeline? One of the Maidens in the game (these Maidens, by the way, seem very similar to the Sage descendants in LttP) talks about a Dark Mirror in which a tribe was sealed away. Very similar to the Mirror of Twilight, except that if FSA follows Twilight Princess, then the Mirror of Twilight is destroyed by the time FSA begins. So the Dark Mirror must be another type of mirror into the Twilight Realm.

TIMELINE C: NO HERO OF TIME RETURNS

In this timeline, Adult Link in OoT succeeds in defeating Ganon. Zelda rewards him by sending him back to be a child again. However, this timeline doesn’t end there, and the prologue to Wind Waker is explained. Ganon is revived and ravages the land, and the Hero of Time has disappeared. So the King of Hyrule calls upon the gods to flood the land of Hyrule and seal Ganondorf below the waves. Hundreds of years pass, and then somehow the seal on Ganondorf fades, he comes back to power, Link has to fight him, yadda yadda yadda, you get the drift. After that, Link and Zelda go off to find a new Hyrule, and the games Phantom Hourglass (which I’ve played but barely remember) and Spirit Tracks (which I’ve never played) follow. Ganon is never mentioned following Wind Waker because Link and Zelda are no longer in the old Hyrule — instead, they’re traveling to find a new continent to settle. This timeline is the most complete, and makes the most sense, which is why I will stop writing about it.

Obviously there are issues with this split timeline, mostly stuff that’s been retconned or partially retconned, as well as events like the Imprisoning War, which has never really been explained, but seems like it definitely takes place somewhere. And while some might just say, “Who cares? It’s just a game, play it,” I find that the Legend of Zelda is a unique game in that it does have this style of continuity which allows players like me to enjoy it on another level, one that incorporates the details from the games to form a cohesive whole. There aren’t very many game franchises which do this, and do it almost by accident. The Elder Scrolls series is a type of game like this, but the overarching continuity is on purpose, whereas in Zelda it just seems like the developers decided at some point that they were going to take these seemingly unrelated stories and construct a chronology out of them. And so they did, and that’s why I’m writing about it.

Hopefully future Zelda games will only strengthen this timeline, and perhaps, at some point in the future, there will be a game which somehow merges the three timelines into one. I wouldn’t put it past the Japanese.

It’s not a game, per se, but a writing prompt box. The general idea is that there are two cards: gold cards and copper cards. The gold cards have character types on them, such as “amateur boxer,” or “person with a devastating secret,” while the copper cards have plot points on them, such as “locked door,” or “sudden return of forgotten memory.”

The general idea is that you pull two copper cards, which create your character, and two gold cards, which create your story. Then you write a story. I think it’s really genius, and hope to implement it many times during Fiction Fridays. The only two rules for Storymatic is that 1. Your main character must change from the beginning to the end of the story, and 2. Your main character cannot die.

One of the alternate ways of playing is called XYZ: you draw two gold cards, make that character X, then draw another gold card and make it character Y, then draw one copper card, and make it the conflict between the two characters (Z). On the instruction booklet, it says that this is a great way to start an actor improv, but for me, it’s an excellent start to a short scene. For the purposes of scene writing, I’ll augment the second rule above to “Your main character cannot leave the scene.” So I thought this week I would write a scene using these cards. Here’s what I drew:

And here’s the scene:

storymatic week one [it's a PDF file]

It’s kind of a dumb little scene. Hopefully I’ll get better at this as the weeks go on. I also plan to write short stories and stuff like that as well as scenes. Aaand that’s about it!

I thought I’d talk a bit about my theatre textbooks, because honestly I have little else to talk about on this, the inaugural Theatre Thursday. You’d think I’d have more, but no, you would be mistaken.

First off, let me just say this: I had to buy the MLA Handbook. I am really disappointed that I had to do this. Somewhere out there are a handful of people who think citing things is the Pinnacle of Their Lives. Those people become writers of the MLA Handbook. Those people debate about the importance of the oxford comma. Those people drink wine alone at home with their cats instead of going to a bar. There is nothing wrong with that, by the way. But their output is the MLA Handbook, which, as far as I’m concerned, should be the only book burned.

Here are some photos and accompanying early reviews of my other textbooks.

hardcover? hot damn!

I’ve taken theatre classes for a long time now, and this is the first time I’ve actually had a theatre textbook. Usually we use anthologies, books full of different plays that are printed chronologically. You examine the history of theatre through the plays themselves. But this is a textbook! Good lord! Luckily, it’s not very thick. But it has pictures and infographs and bold chapter fonts and all the fixings. It kind of freaks me out, to be honest. I mean, theatre history is just a specific type of history, so it makes sense to have it come in a history book. Still. It creeps me out. I haven’t read a proper textbook in ages. Who knows, it might be easier to read than a shitty play. I guess we’ll find out.

Since Development of Dramatic Art I deals with the early, early stuff, I have a couple of Greek and Roman play books. Here they are:

Greek comedy and tragedy, at least the stuff you read in college, is pretty good. I think they had the play festivals for a reason, and the plays that survived did so because they were better than most other things. I haven’t read any Roman plays because I was taught from the get go that they were worse than Greek plays, when they weren’t just stolen outright from Greek playwrights¹. The plays in this anthology include: two Aristophenes plays, Lysistrata (of course) and The Birds; Menander’s play The Grouch; two Plautus plays, The Menaechmi and Mostellaria; and Terence’s play The Self-Tormenter. I’ve only read Lysistrata, and that was a long time ago, so I guess this is a good book for me to own!

Aaaand here’s the other half. Tragedy. A bunch of sad people being sad. Boo hoo and the like. So what’s interesting about this book is what’s inside: We got Aeschylus’ The Orestia and Prometheus Bound; then Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex (called Oedipus the King here; stuuupid) and Antigone; then Euripides’ Medea and the Bacchae (called The Bakkai here; sttuuuuuupid). THEN we have Seneca, who just rewrote Oedipus Rex and Medea, apparently. Very interesting! It seems like comedy was something one could branch out with, but tragedy was kept to specific subjects. Also, I hope we don’t have to read Prometheus Bound, because it is so, so awful.

"genius" is a bit much, book.

The Genius of the Early English Theater! Here’s a book absolutely no one except a theatre major would own. Seriously, no one needs to read Abraham and Isaac or The Second Shepherd’s Play, unless you were studying the history of pageant plays. And Everyman, too. Ugh. Fortunately they plopped Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus and Macbeth in there for good measure. I actually haven’t read Marlowe or Ben Jonson, or Milton for that matter, so that’ll be nice. Unfortunately I have to plod through the pageant plays and read some theatre historian’s old, moldy opinion on how great they are. Faaantastic. It’s like going to your grandmother’s house and listening to her talk about how wonderful phosphoric acid is. Yeah yeah, grandma, maybe back in the 1920s, but come on now.

And last but not least, we have the one book for my Intro to Theater Research class (besides the evil MLA Handbook):

Oh man! Essays on the Historiography of Performance?! SIGN ME UP!

This class is going to kill me, I can sense it. All I have to do is get through it. Ten weeks, just ten weeks …

In reality, I enjoy having deadlines for reading plays, mostly because I won’t read them on my own, because, you know, Skyrim. Even though Greek plays can be pretty long and boring, the comedies are genuinely funny, and the tragedies have a lot going for them, though they do tend to ramble on a bit too long. I think maybe our perceptions of tragedy have changed in 2,500 years, which is interesting, because comedy has pretty much stayed the same. That’s why you see Lysistrata being performed all the time, because it’s funny, and because it highlights gender inequality in a funny way.

Lysistrata’s a pretty fascinating piece on its own, really. People in modern times like to use it as some sort of proto-feminist play, where women “get back” at the men, but really, most Greek plays written by men were about the contemplation of women, whom they, for the most part, considered very powerful and were even a little frightened of. A lot of Greek plays involve strong, powerful women (Medea) and relatively stupid or naive men (Oedipus, Jason). I think women had a place in the home back then that we just don’t recognize today. We see it as male suppression. But a lot of it was just safety; places back then were a lot more dangerous than they are today.

Either way, I don’t want to suggest that the world wasn’t patriarchal back then, but more that it was a different form of patriarchy than we see today. Just like tragedy was different back then, or religion, or the concept of tyrannical rule. Doesn’t excuse everything, but it’s important to see things from all sides, rather than just putting our modern bias on the past.

Well, that was quite the digression. Fortunately, I have lots of time to read plays, write essays, and hopefully write more blog posts, perhaps on the subject of women in ancient times, which I know relatively little about because all of the history written back then was written by men. I guess that says more about the world back then than anything I say now.

So here’s the thing: I lose weight pretty quickly when I start these kinds of things. Even before I started, during this entire Christmas vacation, I was eating candy and cookies and shit, but when I weighed myself on New Years Eve (before I went out and partied, of course), I weighted 255. My highest so far has been 260. So I seemingly lost five pounds, just because I wasn’t working, wasn’t using my time to snack constantly. Even though I was eating stuff that wasn’t so good for me, at least I wasn’t eating it constantly.

So now, day four of No Sugar January, and with the exception of New Years Day, where I ate Chinese buffet to stave off a hangover, I’ve kept my calorie intake well below the 2,200 suggested to me by myfitnesspal.com. And apparently I’ve lost three more pounds. I’m not cheering yet, because I know that some weight sloughs off fairly quickly when you start to take care of yourself like this, but that it will quickly plateau if you don’t keep taking care of yourself.

It’s kind of weird that we live in a country where attempting to lose weight is such a high priority. People make a living now keeping other people from getting too fat. Obesity, as we hear time and time again on the news, is an epidemic in America, because we’re the land of the free and the home of twenty Twinkies in my mouth. We don’t have to go out of our way to get food, and the food we do get is more than just satisfying — it’s delicious. And even the food that isn’t delicious is stuffed with chemicals and sugar to trick your brain into thinking that it’s necessary for your survival.

Couple this with jobs where we all sit at desks and stare at computers all day, and you’ve got a recipe for fat people.

This year I am going to be working extra hard to lose about fifty pounds. Not very much if you think about it, but the lifestyle changes needed to lose this weight are significant. No more sugar, first and foremost. This month is No Sugar January. The only sugars that will be consumed are those found naturally in fruits. In two weeks I plan on starting Couch to 5k and my exercise routine again (hopefully it won’t start raining). The only reason I picked two weeks instead of right now is because it takes time to let new routines become old routines, and jumping right in to doing everything at once will not work. It’s hard to develop that kind of mindset. To say, “I will focus on one thing now, and then add to it later.” People mistake it for being lazy. “Oh, he’s not working out because he’s lazy.” Well, yeah, I am lazy, but part of the reason I’m lazy is because I take on too much at once, and it becomes too much of a burden, so I drop it all. By focusing on my diet first and foremost, I can change my lifestyle, which will allow me to bring in exercise and eventually make me into something more in shape than “pudgy.”

That’s really all I got this week. Keeping the calories down, keeping my spirits up. Walking everywhere. That’s a decent start.