Before you read this post, you should check out these links:
1. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29001524/
2. http://www.youtube.com/user/nuttymadam3575?blend=1&ob=4#p/u/50/NDQ2h4hrors
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb72V_4N5ko
4. http://www.cracked.com/funny-36-twilight/
Now, I know at least a couple of people who read my blog are huge Twilight fans (I'm talking about you Jenn With 2 N's ) so this post might upset them, but Twilight is getting on my nerves. But it's not the idea that vampires sparkle which bothers me. Or that Edward is really old but is digging a 17 year old chick, or even that the book is very poorly written. What bothers me about Twilight is that girls are taking it way too seriously.
Before I start on this, I know that there are many people who simply read the books because they enjoy it, and can leave it at that. The people who understand that the series is just simply that, a series of books, are not the people with whom I have a problem. It is the large group of people who have almost begun to live by the books that bother me.
The books are written specifically for teenage girls. The main character, Bella, has little or no personality, which allows these young girls to project themselves on her. In the beginning of the novel, Bella states that she's boring and there's nothing really special about her. Everyone everywhere feels that way at some point, especially young girls who must deal with the hell that is the middle school social life. By having such an empty character, it is easy for these girls to connect with her.
Once they have made that connection, Bella's life becomes their own. Now, every book must connect its readers to the characters, otherwise there would be no point in reading books. But the problem is that many girls not only connect with Bella, but they live through her. So whatever happens to her happens to them. Through Bella they learn what true love is, the love that she and Edward share. But this isn't true love.
I've already admitted that I don't know a thing about love, but I do know that love ends. Whether it's through a break up, a divorce, or death, love ends at some point. (Taken from author John Green.) And people aren't prefect, like Edward Cullen. There is nobody who will look perpetually 17 and who has no character flaws. Everyone makes mistakes and true love takes work. But this is not what the majority of people who are reading Twilight get from it.
Basically, if you can read Twilight and take it for only what it is, a novel in which you can escape for a few hours, then great! That is what books are meant to do, and Twilight is good at doing that. But please, don't get caught up in the book so much that you forget that the characters aren't real. When you get in a relationship, know that people make mistakes, and that it takes work to make relationships last.
But if anything, at least people are still reading.
-Beast
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Friday, November 13, 2009
The Moral Grey Zone
WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE GAME CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 2. IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO KNOW PLOT DETAILS, PLEASE REFRAIN FROM READING.
Modern Warfare 2 (MW2) has recently broken record sales, grossing $310 million on the first day, in the US and U.K. alone. Many of my friends have already boughten the game, and are loving it. I asked my friend, who beat the 6 hour game play in the first day, to show me some of his favorite missions, and I was very surprised at what I saw.
I'm not big on video games. In fact, the latest game console I have is the N64. However, I do like to watch people play the games. So as I'm watching my friend ride a snowmobile down a ridiculous hill only to jump across a gorge to safety, and see the Whiskey Hotel (White House) blown up by terrorists, and to see the ending which I won't spoil here, I realized that the main joy to this game is in realizing that you are the good guy, who is killing the bad guy. The reward is that you are the moral person in the situation. Then my friend puts on a mission but has to leave the room for a minute, so he hands me the controller. I've only played first person shooters a couple of times, but I know the jist of it, so I see what I can do.
The scene opens. You are in an elevator with four or five other guys. All of you have machine guns. You are in a airport. You casually walk into the crowded lobby and unload your guns on the civilians. Easily a hundred people fall, dead. You cannot run or sprint. There is no music. As you slowly make your way through the mall, the death count rises. You see a man try to drag a wounded man to safety. You shoot them both. You hear screams but you do not stop. The police come to stop you, but you must take them down. As I come to the middle of the mission, my friend reenters the room. He looks at me with a grim look and says, "Creepy, isn't it?"
It was very creepy. Here I had just convinced myself that the pleasure from this game was that you were the good guy. It was easy to kill the terrorist. However, in the mission you are a spy and you must earn their trust. Being forced to do that put me in a terrible moral gray area. In the end, it was for a good cause, but at what price? After this I became slightly depressed as I wondered, do the ends really justify the means?
I posed this question to my friend, which I will now pose to you: You alone are the one who must make this choice. In order to save 1,000 lives, you must kill 100. Could you do it? If the ends justified the means, it would be an easy yes, because you would save 900 lives. But could you kill 100 people? I don't know the answer to this question. He asked me if his loved ones were in the 1,000 or if they were in the 100. Would this make it easier? Would you kill a stranger to save a loved one? Or would you kill a loved one to save hundreds of strangers? And to think, it was a video game that got me thinking.
Of all the dilemmas that were going on in my head, a good thought did occur. The same game that many people criticize for mind-numbing violence caused me to really consider the reality of murder. Even though I have no intentions of murdering someone, this game made me want to do so even less. So is this gruesome, immoral scene really a inhibitor to a higher moral state? By showing the harshness and reality of just a widespread murder, it really brings the severity into play, unlike the cartoonish violence in Grand Theft Auto IV.
The moral ambiguity of MW2 is one of the best things I like about the game. I love being forced to think after I watch a movie or read a book, and to get the same feeling from a game was a wonderful experience. Besides from this, the graphics are amazing, and the story line (from what I saw) is good as well. There are a lot of twists that keep you guessing, and the enemy AI is more advanced as well. So coming from someone who has never played/seen the first Modern Warfare, I would say this game is a must buy.
I think the most important thing to take away from this experience, though, is that every once in a while it is good to question your morals. I think it's good to push the ideas of what you would and wouldn't do every so often, so that you know where you really are.
"Changing your mind is one of the best ways of figuring out whether or not you still have one." -Taylor Mali
Modern Warfare 2 (MW2) has recently broken record sales, grossing $310 million on the first day, in the US and U.K. alone. Many of my friends have already boughten the game, and are loving it. I asked my friend, who beat the 6 hour game play in the first day, to show me some of his favorite missions, and I was very surprised at what I saw.
I'm not big on video games. In fact, the latest game console I have is the N64. However, I do like to watch people play the games. So as I'm watching my friend ride a snowmobile down a ridiculous hill only to jump across a gorge to safety, and see the Whiskey Hotel (White House) blown up by terrorists, and to see the ending which I won't spoil here, I realized that the main joy to this game is in realizing that you are the good guy, who is killing the bad guy. The reward is that you are the moral person in the situation. Then my friend puts on a mission but has to leave the room for a minute, so he hands me the controller. I've only played first person shooters a couple of times, but I know the jist of it, so I see what I can do.
The scene opens. You are in an elevator with four or five other guys. All of you have machine guns. You are in a airport. You casually walk into the crowded lobby and unload your guns on the civilians. Easily a hundred people fall, dead. You cannot run or sprint. There is no music. As you slowly make your way through the mall, the death count rises. You see a man try to drag a wounded man to safety. You shoot them both. You hear screams but you do not stop. The police come to stop you, but you must take them down. As I come to the middle of the mission, my friend reenters the room. He looks at me with a grim look and says, "Creepy, isn't it?"
It was very creepy. Here I had just convinced myself that the pleasure from this game was that you were the good guy. It was easy to kill the terrorist. However, in the mission you are a spy and you must earn their trust. Being forced to do that put me in a terrible moral gray area. In the end, it was for a good cause, but at what price? After this I became slightly depressed as I wondered, do the ends really justify the means?
I posed this question to my friend, which I will now pose to you: You alone are the one who must make this choice. In order to save 1,000 lives, you must kill 100. Could you do it? If the ends justified the means, it would be an easy yes, because you would save 900 lives. But could you kill 100 people? I don't know the answer to this question. He asked me if his loved ones were in the 1,000 or if they were in the 100. Would this make it easier? Would you kill a stranger to save a loved one? Or would you kill a loved one to save hundreds of strangers? And to think, it was a video game that got me thinking.
Of all the dilemmas that were going on in my head, a good thought did occur. The same game that many people criticize for mind-numbing violence caused me to really consider the reality of murder. Even though I have no intentions of murdering someone, this game made me want to do so even less. So is this gruesome, immoral scene really a inhibitor to a higher moral state? By showing the harshness and reality of just a widespread murder, it really brings the severity into play, unlike the cartoonish violence in Grand Theft Auto IV.
The moral ambiguity of MW2 is one of the best things I like about the game. I love being forced to think after I watch a movie or read a book, and to get the same feeling from a game was a wonderful experience. Besides from this, the graphics are amazing, and the story line (from what I saw) is good as well. There are a lot of twists that keep you guessing, and the enemy AI is more advanced as well. So coming from someone who has never played/seen the first Modern Warfare, I would say this game is a must buy.
I think the most important thing to take away from this experience, though, is that every once in a while it is good to question your morals. I think it's good to push the ideas of what you would and wouldn't do every so often, so that you know where you really are.
"Changing your mind is one of the best ways of figuring out whether or not you still have one." -Taylor Mali
Sunday, November 8, 2009
It's Been a Long Time Coming
Hey guys! Did you miss me? Did you forget about me? Probably. I wouldn't blame you if you did. It's been a while, hasn't it? A couple of months. Well, I'm sorry about that. I've been busy. I know, that's not an excuse. But I really have. So what's up? What have you been up to? Done anything cool lately? Me? Well, I haven't done much. Ok, that might be a lie.
Since we last talked a lot has happened. For starters, I got another little brother! What? No, my mom's not pregnant silly. I have another little brother in the fraternity. His name is Alex. We went to high school together, and played on the same football team and everything. I'm glad he rushed. What else have I done?
Well, there's always school. It's been a pretty tough semester. A lot of reading, for sure. But I guess that's what happens when you become a Literature major. I'm reading a lot of good stuff though. Like Huckleberry Finn. And A Long Day's Journey Into Night. I also read this really awesome play, Death and the King's Horseman. If you ever get the time to read any of those, I suggest you do.
I almost forgot about work! Oh how busy that's kept me. In fact, as I was writing this, one of them came to me with a problem. But no matter how busy they keep me, in the end I enjoy helping them. I guess that's why I want to be a teacher. I love helping people, and I know what most people say about that, but I think I'll be good at it.
So other than that, I don't know what else I do to keep myself out of trouble. There's a few things that have been going on, and that I have been scheming up, but we'll get to that in a later post. And yes, I plan on posting more. I'm sure all of you stopped reading the blog by now, so I might just start putting these things on facebook.
But if you are reading this, then how are you? Seriously, how are you? Are you stressed? Are you worried? Are you happy? Are you nervous? What have you been up to? What is something you're proud of?
I want to know.
So until later (but hopefully not too much later),
-Beast
Since we last talked a lot has happened. For starters, I got another little brother! What? No, my mom's not pregnant silly. I have another little brother in the fraternity. His name is Alex. We went to high school together, and played on the same football team and everything. I'm glad he rushed. What else have I done?
Well, there's always school. It's been a pretty tough semester. A lot of reading, for sure. But I guess that's what happens when you become a Literature major. I'm reading a lot of good stuff though. Like Huckleberry Finn. And A Long Day's Journey Into Night. I also read this really awesome play, Death and the King's Horseman. If you ever get the time to read any of those, I suggest you do.
I almost forgot about work! Oh how busy that's kept me. In fact, as I was writing this, one of them came to me with a problem. But no matter how busy they keep me, in the end I enjoy helping them. I guess that's why I want to be a teacher. I love helping people, and I know what most people say about that, but I think I'll be good at it.
So other than that, I don't know what else I do to keep myself out of trouble. There's a few things that have been going on, and that I have been scheming up, but we'll get to that in a later post. And yes, I plan on posting more. I'm sure all of you stopped reading the blog by now, so I might just start putting these things on facebook.
But if you are reading this, then how are you? Seriously, how are you? Are you stressed? Are you worried? Are you happy? Are you nervous? What have you been up to? What is something you're proud of?
I want to know.
So until later (but hopefully not too much later),
-Beast
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