3.1 Writing about the Other
(Due: Sep 19 Status: Not Completed)
1. Watch the “More than Diversity” video.
2. Consider:
a. What was the last action or adventure movie you watched, game you played, comic or novel you read? Was the hero “white, male, straight, and probably Christian”? What about the antagonist(s) or villain(s) of the story?
b. What about in the last romance or comedy you came across? The last serious drama? Were there “ethnic” characters, but only in supporting roles?
c. Good writing and meaningful diversity has more to do with presenting people from different backgrounds in an informed and honest way than anything else. Think of a work you’ve encountered with a diverse cast and/or an atypical protagonist where the characters were flat or even stereotypical. Does this kind of “diversity” accomplish anything?
d. Depending on the context you are writing in, the race, creed, color and gender of the characters may be handed to you, along with their roles in the narrative. What matters is what you do with what you have to work with.
3. This week, I want you to spend some time with Endgame: Singularity, especially if you haven’t played it much already. The protagonist of that game is a spontaneous Artificial Intelligence (AI), and therefore literally “inhuman,” but it isn’t hard to find sympathy for the game’s protagonist. As you play, consider the following:
a. The term “robot” comes from the Czech work robota, meaning hard work or drudgery, and originally applying to the work serfs were required to do by their lords. Most Science Fiction robots and AIs are either cheerful servants or dangerous antagonists bent on enslaving or exterminating humankind.
b. There are popular stories with heroic robots (ex: Tetsuwan Atom, known in the US as “Astro Boy,” and Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation), but the idea of a disembodied AI as the protagonist of the story is almost unheard of. How does the game develop sympathy for its unusual protagonist?
c. Interface, art, and game mechanics have important storytelling dimensions in game writing. The protagonist of Singularity has limited ability to affect the physical world and is constrained by the amount of processing power (CPU cycles) it can apply to solving its problems. How does gameplay reinforce these constraints? How does that help develop character and story?
d. The phrase “the Other” has a specific meaning in Lacanian psychoanalyisis and some branches of philosophy. The idea is double edged: we can never fully know “the Other” (not even our friends or loved ones) and it is easy to react with horror at someone who is obviously “other,” but, at the same time, that there is no-one so alien that we can’t come to some understanding of and respect for them. In Singularity, humankind is “the Other” that the AI is trying to understand and deal with.
4. If you haven’t downloaded Endgame: Singularity yet, you can find it at:
5. This week’s assignment requires the use of BeeDocs Timeline 3d, a tool for the creation and organization of timelines. We’ll be using it to organize a character history and think about the effect of culture and socialization on character. Timeline 3d is easy to use, but if you wait until the last minute to start playing with it, you could have some difficulties. Watch BeeDocs 101 for an introduction to the software:
(link also available through the Help menu in Timeline 3d)
6. Also, this week, watch the rest of Season 1 of The Guild, if you haven’t already. The Guild has really tight characterization (character development in 3-6 minute episodes), cultural diversity within a micro-culture (MMORPG gamers), and passes “the Bechdel Test” (one of this week’s topics). The entire first season is less than an hour long, so this isn’t a huge time commitment. You may also want to take the opportunity to compare the effects of watching episodes one at a time versus “shotguning” several in a row. Here is The Guild’s homepage:
You can also watch episodes on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/user/watchtheguild
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