Spiritual Education

In these days of fandoms and fanatical obsession, every teenager has been waiting for their chance to live their fictional dreams. Harry Potter fans have been waiting patiently for their letters to Hogwarts for years; Doctor Who fans look to the sky in anticipation of the TARDIS crashing down in front of their house; Every comic book fan secretly hopes their mutant powers are lying dormant, waiting to fantastically emerge. We all spend our childhoods hoping and wishing for these things to happen, but eventually we must all grow up and leave these notions behind. Quentin Coldwater is a wish fulfillment character for anyone who has ever had to grow up and leave those ideals behind.

Quentin is the avatar for every teenager who has ever wished to go to a fantastical land of enchantment. He unhappily lives his stressful life of overachievement, holding on to the one story from his childhood to keep him sane. Unlike every other teenage dreamer, however, forced to move on from their dream world and into a cold, harsh reality, Quentin doesn’t have to let go of his fantasies; He learns that his dream world is real, he does indeed have magical powers, and he has a chance to be the hero of a story. Suddenly, all those years of reading and rereading his favorite stories, wishing and fantasizing about better things, were not such a waste of time. Quentin is a genre-savvy hero; He knows that the opportunity to live his dream is a once in a lifetime event and that a single bad decisions or even the slightest hesitation can destroy everything he has waited for his entire life, forcing him back into the pitiful, unhappy existence he faces before. Quentin may have been lucky enough to live his fantasies, but the story itself also serves as a shot of reality to the fantasy-loving reader. Things are never as perfect as they seem in these fantasy lands, and one must be careful what you wish for.

The Heroic Journey

Leaving home for the first time is the most difficult challenge in anyone’s life; Leaving behind one’s comfort zone and facing the real world away from family and friends is a daunting task that everyone must face at some point in their life. Taking the first step on the path to self-reliance is a difficult one, a step that Bilbo Baggins himself must work to overcome. A Hobbit’s life is one that any modern human should envy: Quite and comfortable, filled with the enjoyment of nature and food. Why leave such a sweet, simple existence and risk life and limb on a dangerous journey for the slight chance at riches?

Self-improvement is the backbone of any journey, heroic or not. When one leaves behind friends and family, it is to further one’s education or learn self-reliance. Bilbo initially denies the initial journey, opting to stay within his comfort zone. But rarely can an individual deny the call of adventure and Bilbo takes the first step towards heroics by joining the goblins and Gandalf on their quest. From the first trials of the journey and onward, Bilbo beings to come into his own, displaying his hidden inner strength and heroics that he himself wasn’t aware of. This aspect of his journey is extremely akin to a young adult leaving home and living on their own for the first time, learning and relearning the skills their need to survive and finding the courage to deal with everyday problems on their own. Much like Bilbo first interacting with the imposition of the goblins in his home at the beginning of the story, to be self reliant one must learn to interact with awful, bothersome people who may ask too much of you. Having someone trustworthy and world wise, like Gandalf to Bilbo, helps lighten the load of an individual’s path, however. As important a journey of self-reliance is, the relationships we build and bonds we make are a immeasurable source of learning and experience that will last a lifetime.

Vampires

Vampires can be the most human of beasts in the fantasy genre. They can turn hunting into a social game, blending into a crowd, earning the trust of an unsuspecting victim, and taking their prey without anyone realizing what happened. A popular pastiche of the Vampire subgenre is the “vegetarian” vampire: a vampire that still identifies with human kind so closely that they refuse to kill them, draining animals of their blood as an alternative. On the other hand, a more beastly form of vampire is represented; Vampires who have completely abandoned human kind and drain whatever prey they can find while exploring the dark, hidden side of a city.

Self control is often a major theme of vampire novels, drawing the lines between the monstrous vampire and the humanoid vampire. A vampire like Louis, of Interview with the Vampire, knows hunting humans would turn him into a monster with no connection to humanity. The fear of loosing that connection and becoming a complete monster is often what keeps a young vampire in check, along with the burden of guilt from instantly becoming a killer upon transformation. They have the power to control humans, to blend in with them, to kill and take and go completely wild, but a good man such as Louis can control these urges and live a vaguely normal life. The power may be appealing to the humans of the story and the readers as well, but

Zombies

With deadly diseases such a bird flu frightening the masses of our modern world, the idea of a zombie apocalypse is not such a farfetched horror movie plot anymore. When germs and illnesses spread, those who manage to avoid getting sick are considered smart, careful, and lucky. So when a zombie apocalypse hits, taking the everyday illness to the extreme, ones must determine if they are indeed smart, careful, and lucky enough to survive for more than a week or two. It is a question that has been popular ever since the zombie sub-genre first gained popularity: How long would you survive in the big zombie apocalypse? Are you smart enough to understand the way the zombie plague spreads, are you careful enough to avoid catching the disease at all costs, and are you lucky enough not to get infected from the get-go?

  The second a zombie infection hits the world, its an every-man-for-himself arms race to survive. The well prepared live; the weak get turned. When a group of young adults are trapped in an old house surrounded by zombies, the stupid stick their hands too far out of the house and get bitten. The sloppy move a little too close to a dead body and get jumped. The unlucky trip in the woods, get shot, or burn alive, dying by the hands of happy accidents rather than zombie bites. To add insult to injury, their undead enemies often consume them immediately after their death. In that right, zombie stories, and especially the movies, are incredibly easy to pick apart. If one takes note of all the characters and their flaws, the survivors of the zombie apocalypse will be quite apparent from the get-go. Depending on which character the viewer can identify with, the chances one would have in a zombie apocalypse can be easily assessed

Franenstein

Since it was first conceived by Mary Shelly, the Frankenstein monster has been a mainstay in popular culture. Unfortunately, most people only know the monster movie version: A massive, lumbering, incoherent killer of men who is chased by the villagers of his town with torches and pitchforks, created by a mad scientist in a reanimation experiment gone completely wrong. The science of these experimentations is usually vague, even in the book. With the science of reanimation  remaining theoretical, even in our advanced times, the “Frankenstein Method” of reanimation, made famous by the movie, is an easy, and often comedic, way of cheating any inanimate creature to life.

An inanimate body lies across a table, sometimes tilted up for easy viewing; The figure or object is usually scrapped together from many parts, giving it a broken, monstrous look; bolts are often attached to the head of the subject, just as they were to the movie version of Frankenstein’s monster; Lighting strikes, a mad scientist laughs dramatically; volts of harnessed electricity course through the still figure; Suddenly, the figure awakens, lurches up, and the scientist revels in his success. An inanimate object or figure has just been given life with no explanation as to how pumping electricity through something is enough to make it move and think with its own free will. Commonly used in cartoons for often silly reasons, the Frankenstein pastiche is used as a placeholder for any actual science of reanimation. Through this method, anything can be given life: Toys (especially stuffed animals), dead pets, people, robots, and even food can move and think with electricity fueling it’s brain! Such a method provides an audience with a cheap explanation for life without involving the complex sciences behind reanimation. With all that in mind, the mad scientist’s cry of “Its ALIVE!!” should not fool any reasonable audience member.