Week 5 Story: The mighty and the flea

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Backstory is just as important, if not more so, as fore-story. It is important to understand where one is before one might understand where they must go. Moving blind through life is a recipe for disaster and strife, but onto our story at hand.

There once was a man, so strong and so powerful that none dared face his might. He could slay monsters and demons with a single arrow from his epic bow. His wife was considered the most beautiful in the land. Her beauty could make a saint repent or a monk speak tongues.

Well this man, despite his infinite charm and in-spite of his power bred many a jealous enemy. But there was one rival that could light a candle to the strength of the man. He envied the strength of the man, he envied his beautiful wife, he envied the respect that he was awarded world wide.

And so, one day this rival hatched a plan, and indeed he executed his evil will. The rival stole the wife away. He took her to the most safe guarded of castles, a fortress impenetrable to even the man himself.The fortress was built of bricks so tightly that no arrow could possibly penetrate their exterior. And so, the man was without his Wife.

The man was in sorrow, for he knew not if his wife was alive or dead. Soon, news of his tragedy spread far and wide. Creatures great and small heard the tears shed by the mightiest of men.

Many came to the aid of the man. But alas, one by one they all tried and failed to penetrate the walls of the fortress.

Finally after many months the man gave up hope. But in this moment of utter defeat a hero emerged. It was not a lion, with a roar to shatter bones. It was not a bear, with arms to do much the same. It was a flea, a simple, small flea.

This flea though was able to do what no one else could. He was tiny enough to slip through the brick and mortar and make his way into the fortress, there he saw that indeed the wife was still alive, and fighting fiercely to stay away from the rival.

The man's vigor was renewed.

Now that is the end of this story. But stories never really end, just as they never truly begin.

Author's notes: I based this story off of the tale where Hanuman is able to sneak into the castle to see if Sita is alive. I changed the story to focus on the mighty Rama having one weakness, one that he could not get past without the help of his friend Hanuman.

Reading notes: Animated Ramayana movie part 1

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Sita Sings the Blues

I am perplexed by the animation style that the creators chose to use, but its definitely unique at the very least. Either way it is a bit grating how it is constantly switching up. It's actually quite interesting that here I find it quite useful that Rama has Blue skin. No matter the art style, Rama is very easy to find among the other characters. I wonder somewhat if this is why he was given blue skin in the original legends, to make him easily stand out in a variety of paintings done by various artists. it is an interesting bit of character design that I at least hadn't thought about until just now.

The story telling style is also a bit interesting. i feel somewhat that the interludes by "narrators" are just there to hold audience attention while the story dulls down a bit, but to me they distracted from the overall story too much. I also didn't fully understand the framing device the story was using. i couldn't tell what was narrative and what was meta-narrative.

I find it really interesting that the animated story decided to cut right to the chase and have Rama almost immediately expelled from the city and then further cut right to Sita's kidnapping, it makes for a more cohesive narrative I think. Cutting out the brother entirely though I feel may have been a decision that ends up hurting the impact of the narrative in the long run though. The music is also cool. It allows for a romance that was missing in the writings to appear.

Still though it is a charming portrayal of the Ramayana and I can;t wait to see the second half this weekend.

Reading notes: Ramayana D

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PDE Ramayana:
I'm a little late on this one, but it has been a busy week.

I like how Rama found a very... obvious loophole to the "unfordable " river. It feels like someone else might have thought of this.

Ravana did not do a very good job of tricking Sita. He kinda gave up really early.

I'm not going to lie, I kinda forgot Rama was leading an army of monkeys. Rally makes this super serious battle have a bit of a humorous tone in my mind.

Kumbhakarna is kinda humorous, especially since he required food before he could fight.

I don't know why, but I really like Hanuman, maybe its just his name. That might be a stupid reason but it makes me think about the importance of character names.

This battle with Ravana is definitely the most epic battle of the entire epic so far and I'm definitely curious to see how it ends.

Even the demons believe it is evil to kill women. That is actually shocking.

Lakshmana I think should have died here as far as storytelling goes, it shows that Rama had to lose something in order to regain Sita, but as is, it doesn't look like that will be the case.

The gods high key cheat by sending Rama help. They can't just force their prophecies to come true, can they?

I like how Agastya comes back, if only for a little bit. It's nice to have some repeating characters.

So Rama completed his destiny. I wonder what is left for him.

Rama not taking back Sita is not a good ending to this story, maybe culturaly, yes. But I'm salty.

Nevermind, he takes her back.. sorta, all is well.