Week 9 Story Planning: An Eye for an Eye, but Cuter

It is somewhat important to note that this story planning will spoil a major part of the film Lobster (Yorgos Lanthimos 2016).

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So next week I will be retelling the story of "The Blind Bride". The story goes as follows: Dedrash, Pandu's brother, has been born blind due to the situation of his birth. When he marries, his wife decides to support him by covering her eyes, never to see again.

When I read this story, it reminded me of an indie film that was released a year or so ago to much critical acclaim. It's story is far more complicated, but basically, love has been institutionalized to the point were if you do not get married, you will be turned into an animal of your choice. The cathc is that in order to marry someone, you must share a significant personal feature, such as both being excellent swimmers. The idea is that you two will "match" better.

Anyway cutting to the end of the film, the main character couple wants to marry each other. Previously they had shared a love for reading, but The female had been forcibly blinded by the villain of the story in order to prevent her from marrying the guy. In order to fix things, the guys blinds himself with a sharp knife so that they can marry.

There is a clear similarity here, and I want to mesh the two stories into one.

My plan is to use the strange world of Lobster and the stand alone narrative of the chapter of the Mahabharata to create a new unique tale.

Reading notes: Epified Mahabharata part B

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The Epified Mahabharata:
Time for the second set of episodes!

I can not emphasize enough how useful these "Catch up" intros are.

So Gunti can call god's down to ...make her with child... Seems a bit overpowered, wow.

I completely missed the origin of the Pandavas in the original reading. It is a lot easier to understand the complicated story in video form.

She DROPPED HER BABY! Hold up, that is insane. I know he turned out fine since he is the sin of a god, but seriously...

Where in the world did this story of 100 vat born children get thought up, it is bizarre to think about how someone thought of this.

So they had 100 ugly children. The way they treat this in the story is kind of hilarious.

The attempted betrayal of the Pandavas is even more grizzly seeing visually that they are all just young kids.

Some of these stories, like the snake story, seemed to have changed a bit in the animated version. i wonder if this has anything to do with different tellings, or if the creators of the animated version just wanted something more visually interesting.

I really like this version of the story where the reeds form a rope!

A fairly average young adult novel could be written about the Pandavas training days I think.

The peasant archer story is still sad, even as a cartoon.

Week 9 Story: The Eight Porcelain Turtles

In front of Shane sat 8 porcelain turtles. Their perfectly hand sculpted shape, repeated precisely on each shell.

These turtles were a legend. He had hardly believed his partner River when she told him that they were more than myth. One could only imagine his reaction when she told him that they could be stolen.

Each turtle was priceless on it's own, but the whole set could fetch enough to make Shane and River two of the richest people this side of the Mississippi. Shane's hands shook with excitement, the previous two hours of laborious lock picking and deft cutting of wires was behind him and now they were safely away from the crime scene.

"They're beautiful, aren't they?"

The twinge of bitterness in her voice surprised Shane. Shouldn't this be their moment of triumph? What is wrong?

River continued, "Remember, I told you that if you wanted to be a part of this heist then you would have to trust me unconditionally?"

"Yeah, what about it?"

Shane's voice betrayed doubt. This isn't like her.

"You need to trust me now, Shane. Do you trust me?"

Shane turned to River. He didn't like to make promises without eye contact. They felt less sincere.

"Of course I trust you, now what is it?"

"We need to crack open these turtles."

There was a ring to the end of the word. the room echoed her like it understood the weight her words implied. Shane would have none of this.

"Are you insane? These are worth a fortune. It'd be like burning a billion dollars!"

"Shane..."

"Why in the world would we destroy them?"

"I can't tell you Shane."

Shane stepped back in shock. River must have lost her mind.

She continued, "If you won't then I have to myself and you can walk out that door."

"Who's to say I'd leave without my share?"

River pulls up her hand. Shane can see a gun that was previously concealed. Keeping a sharp eye on Shane, River reaches over and grabs the first turtle.

"You should have just trusted me."

River slams it on the table's corner. It cracks. The pieces fall to the ground, echoing a finality.

River's eyes never leave Shane as he says, "River, let's talk this out."

Crack.

River's eyes squint as she breaks a third turtle.

And a fourth.

And a fifth.

And a sixth.

Shane is powerless, there is nothing he can do as he watches his dreams of wealth crash before his eyes.

And a seventh.

River pauses with the last turtle in hand. She looks to Shane and says, "I do not take kindly to those who can't obey orders."

The last turtle cracks. Instead of shards of porcelain falling to the ground however, a shimmering streak can be seen beneath the surface of the porcelain.

"Is that..." Shane can't finish the sentence. he is awestruck at the gem that has been revealed.

"Yes it is. In my hand I hold the most valuable diamond in the world. It is worth more than most of the countries on this planet. It's a shame, you could have had a piece of this but you doubted me and now you get a different kind of reward."

The trigger on her gun cocks.

Bang.



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Author's notes: I based this story loosely on the story of King Shantanu and his wife Ganga. More info can be found in my story plan from a couple weeks back, but the parallels are rather obvious. I decided to change the relationship between the characters and the premise because I wanted to take the concept of trust inherent in the original and put into a new story.

Reading notes: Epified Mahabharata part A

The Epified Mahabharata:
I can already tell it's going to be easier to keep track of characters because of the images.


I also really like the narrator's voice. Both the girl and guy have a very clear reading voice. I also like how there is explanation beyond just the story telling.

The way they told the story of Shantanu and Ganga plays out much better not knowing why Ganga is killing the children first.

The entire story literaly kicks off because King Shantanu couldn't get over a girl he met. A lot of people die because of this... Rewatching the story i have a much clearer view of this.

The whole choosing his moment of death thing doesn't really come full circle very well.

He who was formerly known as Deravrat still seems a bit overly obsessed with his father in this version too, but that may just be a cultural thing.

The story so far section is going to be a life saver for me.

Amba really does deserve the revenger she will eventually exact, I kinds forgot about that.

Some of these stories such as Satyavati's son growing up instantly don't get any less ridiculous in this form.

Vyasa couldn't have... I don't know, taken a shower?

There are far fewer stories in these video playlists, so it's harder to take alot of notes. I do really like these compared to the reading, it is still hard to keep all the characters in mind, but between the images and the "last time on"s it makes it a lot easier.

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Reading Notes: Mahabharata part D

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The Mahabharata part D:

The character of Amba brings this up specifically, but i love how often these epics will bring back a character we saw earlier on and then just sorta forgot about. It makes the world of the story feel so much more real and lived in to me. This works really well for storytelling in print form also because of the ease at which someone can look back to recall who that character is.

"Shit hits the fan" would be a good way to describe the events that are now unfolding. i know they have been building up for many chapters now, but it is still shocking to see characters dying so rapidly.

The story really is hammering in how the enemy should be rooted against. Their trickery is clearly seen as a bad thing.

I will however admit that the "the elephant" technicality on the man who can not lie is kinda hilarious.

I am actually having a bit of trouble remembering which character is on which side to be honest. I should have made a little check sheet or something, definitely will during my next version of this reading.

This set of chapters is sad...

I get that Brishma gets to choose his own death date, but I didn't consider that he could be... incapacitated in other ways so that he couldn't battle. I kinda assumed he'd be fighting right up until he decided to die.

As shown by the horse rituals I appreciate how some parts of these stories are meant to teach the young children their cultural rituals and what not in a way that is more engaging to them.

Week 8 progress

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Well... Let's just be honest here, i have fallen behind a bit in this class work wise. I have skipped a fair amount of assignments and even this one I am doing on the grace period Friday morning. Given it isn't like I'm skipping these assignments to mess around, in fact I'm just skipping these assignments to work on others. That isn't really how it should work though. I feel like this is definitely a common problem for online classes in that it is hard for me to consider it into my schedule with the rest of my work.

I have also been working on fixing this, I've been doing a bit of extra credit the last few weekends and in a few more I should be all caught up. The problem here is that my semester itself is just becoming more and more busy as it continues. it will just take a concerted effort to do the work in this class to make it possible.

Week 8 Comments and Feedback

I chose this image because I loved the cat pictured in it. Source

Overall the feedback I've gotten in this class is exactly what I'd expect it to be from fellow students. I get a solid mix of good criticism
/ praises for what I'm doing, and then other posts that just blindly compliment aspects of my original post.

Now I can not say I am not innocent of this exact problem. Especially for the 60 word comments it is so much easier to just pick one little thing from the person's writing and spend the words talking about how amazing it is.

I do think it is important to do this though, even if most of the feedback people give can be meaningless mumbling. I think it is important to get people used to reading a variety of styles and be able to find something unique that they liked from it. By doing this I've found it a bit easier to pinpoint stylistic differences in stories that are otherwise the same.

Week 8 reading and Writing

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I like this class so far. the reading are all very interesting and it's hard to say that they don't have a lot going on in them. My only real complaint with the reading is that I often feel like I lack the proper cultural context to properly appreciate them beyond just a strange story. It is hard for me to place these with a culture in mind when I've hardly encountered or studied that culture at all. I'm not really saying that is something that could be fixed in this class, if anything it should be on me to do the research separately if I really wanted to know. But as is, it isn't something I could possible fit into my schedule.

Besides for that I have definitely run into the problem of forgetting i have work due in this class. That is just poor time- management on my part and no amount of articles on the subject will help.

I like the writing assignments, they really allow me to go in depth and really understand a story that I had previously just read over to get to the next one. It is a good way of making a student slow down and pay attention.

Reading Notes: Mahabharata part C

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PDE Version of the story

I wonder if these similarities to Rama are on purpose or just a cultural trope used in story telling, or if it is a cultural trope in story telling because of Rama.

"It is not easy to confine the waters once the damn hath burst" So true... so true...

I'm noticing a very heavy story telling importance on weapons of the heroes. This isn't really unusual, but other religious texts don't normally do that as much as comic books do.

I wonder if they were always called the Himalayas or if the author of these PDE versions of the stories decided to change it to the modern day name.

A cross over from Hanuman, how could this story get any better!?!

Why does he discourse on the duties of the different casts though? It almost feels like the writer just wanted to add a sentence, "And he was a very classist person" But thought better of it at the last moment.

Duryodhana honestly has plenty of reasons to dislike the Pandavas considering how often he is humiliated in front of them. Although in this case, being saved by the Pandavas is a tiny bit better than being a prisoner for forever.

It is interesting how easily Duryodhana was willing to deny his vow, even if it was one of suicide. Rama sure as hell would have found some technicality around it rather than just disobeying it, truly Duryodhana is the villain.

This invincible dart is not at all worth Karna's armor. Especially since it can only be used in a time of true peril.

Rest in piece poor impatient Nakula. 

Well I had no chance to solve most of those riddles, they were a bit culturally specific...

I like how most all of the Pandavas just straight up die here, but they are resurrected by the end of the chapter.

Poor Draupadi. She really has a rough time of it.

Krishna is trying his best to make peace, too bad that would be  far less interesting epic.