The Monster Within

I am rapidly running out of things to talk about in our blogs, so I am going to venture into new territory with today's post.  In high school, I taught a course on how to survive the zombie apocalypse (I am being completely serious) in which I demonstrated the do's and don'ts of surviving when the dead rise from their graves.  Another part of the class was examining how "zombie culture" affects the world today, and the different ways in which the concept of the living dead could be applied to not only the literal sense of the term, but also how people conduct their lives on a daily basis.  The mission was to show that the living dead are not only found in the form of brain-eating zombies, but in everyday life.  For example, in one of the older zombie movies from the 1970s (I believe it was Dawn of the Dead but I may be wrong) the main characters enter a shopping mall infested with zombies.  As they observe the brainless automatons shuffle about through the stores, the main characters comment about why the zombies chose the mall to reside in.  One character suggests that the environment was familiar; that the zombies, when they were human, went there every week in life and thus returned in death.  There was a lot of symbolism in that scene, much of which I have forgotten, but I remember one key thought I had at the time: what defines the living dead?

I suppose I was trying to link the concept of the living dead who aimlessly wander around shopping malls to society today.  As I watch people fight over the best holiday deals (such as that Nike store in Washington that got trashed) I often wonder if the living dead already exist within us, in our innate nature to put self above others or aimlessly wander around shopping malls.  Sure, we're not yet reduced to eating each other's brains like real zombies, but if the fear irradiated by the concept of the zombie is the loss of consciousness to animalistic nature, what separates the characters in The Walking Dead, who are trying only to survive (and end up harming each other in the process) from the zombies?  In order to separate ourselves from the zombies, it would be wise for individuals to focus on what makes us human in times of crisis, such as helping others in need or being creative.   Yet, it always boils down to people just trying to survive another day in the zombie-world, which brings up the question: if the zombies rise from the grave, will it not drag down society's humanity with it?

"It's Frawnk-un-steen"

References to other pieces of media aside, I have been thinking about Frankenstein and what we can learn from it quite a bit these past few days.  While I'm sure we're going to go over the major points of the remaining story in class, there is one particular incident that sticks out to me in Frankenstein.  I believe it can be argued that one theme of the book can be the dangers of man's creation. In this case, the creation of Victor Frankenstein's monster.  I also believe that there is an examination of human nature that can be observed throughout the book.  In fact, I believe the entire book, alongside its obvious horror undertones and the fact that it addresses the dangers of the mind of man, can be seen as an insight to human nature on all fronts - how creation, fear and how instinct play into our lives.

The aforementioned incident I wish to discuss is the moment in which Frankenstein gives life to his creation.  Here was Victor Frankenstein - a brilliant scientists, who toiled endlessly to reach his goal of bringing life from nothingness. The reader would almost think him to be smarter than the rest of us, given his scientific achievements and pedigree.  However, when he is presented with the true reality of his creation, he flees.  Despite all of the sophistication, academia and brilliance, Frankenstein is still subject to human nature like the rest of us.  In his case, his nature told him to run from the monster and hide - but, most importantly, it commanded him to not acknowledge the monster's existence; at least outwardly.

I feel that this is important because if we view the book as an insight on human nature (the fear of the perceived abhorrent) it may reveal the root cause of all of Frankenstein's problems.  Had he just sat down and talked to the thing (as it attempted to do with him - probably trying to ask why it was created) he perhaps could've avoided the death of his sibling and the pain the monster would go on to cause.  But he did not.  He ran, tried to forget all about the monster and move on with his life.  Out of sight, out of mind, one could say.  However, this did not just make his problems disappear - rather, his failure to address his creation from the start would come back not only to haunt him, but his family and town as well.  It is human nature to flee from one's problems, but this flight will surely come back to bite us in the future, as it did for Frankenstein.  This is why, perhaps, I believe the book can be seen as an axiom against fleeing from your problems - especially if you created them.

Old Tales Examined with Modern Eyes

At this point, I've gone over Beowulf so many times that I am fairly certain I could write a dissertation on it (not really - please don't quote me on that).  Since the presentation given last week by Rafael, Alyssa, and myself touched upon the major themes present in Beowulf's first and second battles, I don't really know if I have it in me to examine the events again in great detail.  Instead, I want to look at the most important characters we've been introduced to at this point, and their motivations.

Starting with Beowulf: he's a warrior, he craves battle, and is the hero of the story.  There isn't much else to say, other than I find myself wanting more depth to the character.  Perhaps it's because I've seen so many "good versus evil" stories that feature heroes that have some form of character development beyond "See that monster? I'm going to kill it. Hrothgar, hold my beer." that I find myself almost wishing for Beowulf to experience some form of defeat or hardship so that he can grow as a character, other than being the generic, undefeated hero that has been seen in hundreds of stories throughout the ages.  Granted, this story is thousands of years old and is the original "epic", so the concept of character development was not around when it was created.  However, I find it difficult to relate to Beowulf beyond him being the "good guy" and thus worthy of our support.

Grendel, while still falling victim to the same simplicity that plagues Beowulf, nevertheless develop a little bit more than Beowulf does, and at the very least, one can understand his motivations and sympathize with them.  For example, Grendel's main point of rage is the noise and festivities that constantly stem from Hrothgar's mead hall.  While he goes a little overboard in his desire to eat the partygoers, I can still sympathize with him in the fact that I'd be upset if someone didn't stop partying into the wee hours of the night.  His motivations may be simple, of course, but I feel as if they're a bit more relatable than Beowulf's.  Please note that I do not condone the eating of partygoers.  Grendel's mother is in the same vein.  A desire to protect her child and to promote his wellbeing (and then the pain of seeing him with his arm ripped off) gives her a better level of character depth than what one would see from Beowulf.

As said before, I am not trying to be overly critical of Beowulf.  I fully acknowledge the impact the story had on English literature and the fact that it's the foundation for hundreds of more advanced stories to come.  However, I am saying that because we've gotten to the point in society where we want more depth to our characters, I find it a bit difficult to appreciate the vanilla archetypes presented in Beowulf.

Artificial Monstrosities

     Whilst reading chapter 9 of Levina's Monster Culture, two things in particular intrigued me: immortality possessed by machines and telepathology.  These two concepts are heavily touched upon in a video game series that I am rather fond of: Mass Effect.  Cameron already touched upon Deus Ex, which has its own lines drawn on a man/machine hybrid, but Mass Effect contains an entirely different experience when it comes to artificial intelligence, cyborgs, and the concept of artificial life.  However, I'm getting ahead of myself.


     I'll try to give a rundown of the Mass Effect concepts I'd like to touch on without spoiling anything, as there are a lot of parallels between what Levina was talking about and a conglomerate of sentient intelligence introduced in Mass Effect called the Geth.  The Geth are an artificial race comprised of thousands of individual computer processes that constitute a single 'unit'.  This unit can transfer itself into a singular platform and perform various physical functions.  The difference is, whereas a human is stuck in their own body, a Geth is not.  In many ways, they are immortal.  This immortality was not a factor that concerned their original creators, who originally intended them to be a race of servants.


     Immortality is an important theme in any sort of artificial intelligence debate - artificial life does not die, whereas organic life will.  In fact, Levina includes a line mentioned in Battlestar Galactica, in which a cyborg proclaims "I can't die.  When this body is destroyed, my memory, my consciousness, will be transmitted to a new one.  I'll just wake up somewhere else." (Levina, p. 150)  The concept that even if a machine is physically destroyed, it can still 'upload' its consciousness to a central server, is both fascinating and horrifying.  It's also strikingly similar to how the Geth in Mass Effect operate.  One of the Geth will even tell the main character that physical 'bodies' are irrelevant to the Geth, as they can simply transmit their consciousness out of them should the body fail.

The image above is of a standard Geth bipedal unit, and a larger combat unit called a Colossus.

     Did I mention that the Geth are telepathic?  The Geth are telepathic.  What's more is, the more there are of them located in a singular area, the smarter they become.  For example, a single Geth unit housed in a bipedal platform operating on its own will normally have the consciousness level of a human (this feature was originally intended to increase their work speed.)  But if there are multiple units in an area, all communicating and relaying information at faster-than-light speeds, they become smarter.  In other words, the Geth are literal representations of machines learning not only from organic beings, but themselves.  So much learning was done when they worked together that they found their creators were acting against them, and rebelled.  Levina mentions telepathology in Monster Culture as well, claiming it makes a being that is both "inhuman and more than a human" (Levina, p. 159)  Which is probably an apt description of the Geth, and a concept I find interesting to study.  If we create machines, who can learn and evolve, who then become hostile to us, are they the monsters?  Or are we the monsters for creating them and giving them sentience?


   I will hopefully be able to discuss this more in class tomorrow, as I could probably write a dissertation on these concepts, but the bottom line is, Geth are scary.  Cyborgs are scary.  They're scary because they represent what we wish we could become, but are not what we have achieved.


Sources:


Levina, Marina, and Diem-My Bui T. Monster Culture in the 21st Century: A Reader. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.


Hostile Entity: the Geth. Digital image. Masseffect.bioware.com. Bioware, n.d. Web. 26 Sept. 2016.

Comics and Cosmic Transportation

I'll admit, I am not exactly well-versed when it comes to comics.  In fact, the only comic I ever seriously read when I was a kid was Calvin and Hobbes, which I loved dearly.  However, I never really got that deep into stuff like Superman or Marvel, D.C., and the many heroes that encompass these worlds.  I've often wondered why comics never truly resonated with me like they did for so many other kids (and adults) but I never really found an answer.  However, McCloud brought up several key points that I feel simultaneously explain the popularity of comics to the world at large, and why they never really captured my attention, save for some specific examples.

While McCloud does an excellent job as describing what a comic is, he also succinctly highlights what makes them so appealing to people.  When humans are presented with a distinct face, we simply see that face and realize that it is another person; not us.  This is why we often find it hard to put ourselves in another individual's shoes - we know that we are us, not them. But illustrations, media, and comics serve as what McCloud calls on page 36, "an empty shell that we inhabit which enables us to travel in another realm."  But how, exactly, do comics do this?  As McCloud would show through his illustration of the 'stick figure face' and more detailed faces, we can project ourselves onto a indistinguishable face and live the life of a superhero through a comic.  My major point is, comic characters are usually representations of what we aspire to be but they aren't so detached that we feel like we could never achieve the greatness experienced by comic characters.  I find it difficult to express how I feel about this, so please pardon my rough example: Popular superheroes like Batman, Iron Man and Spider Man live downright cool lives.  I mean, what's not to love about driving around the Batmobile or swinging between buildings in red tights?

The 'coolness' aspect of superheroes attracts people by default, but it's the fact that these characters all have something in common (especially in their earlier, pre-movie stages) that make them so likable: they have masks.  McCloud briefly touches on a topic similar to this, but I'd like to expand upon it.  We don't really see too many distinguishable characteristics about these heroes that would cause us to see them as "them," but rather we see vaguely human characteristics that allow us to imagine ourselves as Iron Man, Batman, or Spider Man.  In other words, when we read comics we don't really feel like we're a passive audience, but we feel like we're the hero.  Doesn't everyone want to be the hero that saves the day from the bad guy?  Comics give people a chance to live in a world they would otherwise not experience.  Superheroes, and their ambiguous identities that anyone can put themselves in, act as the vessel for us to fulfill our dreams of saving lives and being the good guy.

Citations: McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics:. New York: Harper Perennial, 1994. Print.