(The Sol Bulletin is an initial effort by me to create a "head canon" about the ending of Mass Effect 3. It is in fact a singularly dry and geeky form of fan fic. The ending has been discussed ad nauseum by more patient and eloquent people than me; I'm less interested in discussing what was wrong with it than in beginning to craft something that's going to work for me as a payoff to this great story. The only things I can absolutely promise right now is that a) the Reapers were defeated, b) organics and synthetics weren't synthesized, and c) the Normandy didn't crash land on an alien world after going through a Mass Relay. The Indoctrination Theory is on the table. Everything is provisional.
WARNING. Spoilers abound.)
The following is excerpted from issue #2 of the Sol Bulletin, an ad hoc news sheet distributed electronically among survivors of the Battle of Earth in the chaotic period following the firing of the Crucible. Issue #2 was released four days after the Crucible fired.
Charon Relay Reactivated
After days of around-the-clock effort, scientists formerly attached to the Crucible Project succeeded in reactivating the Charon Relay. In a statement, Admiral Hackett said that the process used by the Crucible scientists was fundamentally similar to the known procedure for activating a dormant relay, but required a massively higher amount of power. The main innovation of the scientists was a procedure for combining the power output from many ships - apparently a significant percentage of the craft surviving the Battle of Earth - and feeding it directly into the relay.
Following the Relay's activation, a special detail of ships, jumped through to Arcturus. Since it it believed that the Crucible may have drawn power from many or even all Relays, their mission will be to scout the system and, if necessary, activate the Arcturus Relay in order to make the return journey. The small fleet, dubbed the Arcturus Flotilla, included craft manned by every species with an organized presence in Sol. It will operate under the command of Major Kaidan Alenko of the Systems Alliance Navy.
Hackett said he is optimistic about the success of the Arcturus Flotilla, and that a plan is being prepared to begin a larger-scale activation of the Relay network. Thanks to the complexity of the procedure and the amount of power required, it may take years to fully reactivate the network. Hackett said the Fleet's first objective will be to make contact with the partially intact colonies in the Exodus Cluster, to confirm that the Reaper threat has ended there, and to stabilize a food supply for survivors on Earth and the huge force of levo-amino sentients present in the fleet that liberated Sol.
No ships have yet returned, but scientists predicted that it may take up to two days to complete the Relay activation process.
Friday, March 23, 2012
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Emily Wong
Article pulled from the Future Content Corporation Citadel Extranet Site, March 6, 2181, no byline, with a note of thanks for additional reporting from Mass Effect Wiki.
Emily Wong, noted journalist and newly-minted hero of the Systems Alliance, is presumed dead today after apparently giving her life to aid the Alliance forces resisting the as-yet mysterious invaders attacking Earth.
Wong’s story was followed breathlessly by humans and other sentients in the Citadel and across the galaxy after downed com buoys in the Sol system left her – through the use of a quantum entanglement communicator – the sole source of information about the attack. Aided by other survivors and Alliance military personnel, Wong kept broadcasting throughout the day, even while taking an active part in the fight to defend Earth by attempting search-and-rescue operations, scouting the invaders’ strongholds, and taking up arms alongside Alliance soldiers.
Wong’s broadcast, dubbed the Sol Communications and abbreviated #solcomms on the extranet, not only provided critical information about events unfolding on Earth, but also shone a light onto the character of an extraordinary human. Wong first rose to prominence on the Citadel after publishing evidence of an extensive crime ring operating out of the notorious Chora’s Den bar, a high-profile story that eventually resulted in her becoming the anchor of a regular news show for the Future Content Corporation. Wong later left the Citadel to take a position as a senior investigative reporter at the Alliance News Network.
The decision to pursue a difficult, dangerous investigative role over a prestigious anchor job was typical of Wong. Beloved by audiences for her friendly demeanor and undeniable charisma, it was Wong’s remarkable blend of courage, compassion and integrity that won the respect of her peers. Never afraid to pursue big, dangerous stories, Wong also never hesitated to bring less dramatic issues to light. Although her Chora’s Den story achieved higher ratings, Wong’s painstaking report on working conditions for Citadel traffic controllers had a more lasting impact, resulting in new regulations and measurably fewer accidents for ships docking at the Citadel. Wong’s focus was always on the work and on the world around her rather than on showmanship or her own career.
No amount of praise can memorialize Wong as well as the Sol Communications themselves. This reporter would argue that no other working journalist could have produced the broadcast. Wong was someone willing to ram an enemy warship at need, but also someone willing to help a companion find his family, all without ever compromising her duty as a journalist. She had the compassion to want to change the world, the courage and ability to do so, and the charisma to spread a message of hope even in the face of almost certain death.
Future Content Corporation offers its fondest remembrances and deepest sympathies to Wong’s loved ones, including her parents mentioned in the Sol Communications. In a time of great confusion and tragedy after the attack on Earth, Wong’s heroism is an example to every human being and to every sentient in the galaxy.
You can view the Sol Communications in their entirety on the Alliance News Network Extranet feed here or learn more about the attack on Earth here.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
The Hobbit Movies
Let me begin by saying up front that I am hugely beholden in all of the below analysis of the novel The Hobbit to Corey Olsen, aka The Tolkien Professor, and his excellent series of lectures (available online) on The Hobbit. Credit where it's due.
Now, let's talk about the upcoming films based on The Hobbit. As you may have heard, the film adaptation of Tolkien's novel The Hobbit is going to be split into two installments. The first, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, will apparently cover from the beginning to the novel until Bilbo helps his companions escape from the halls of the Elf-King, leaving the second, The Hobbit: There And Back Again, to cover Bilbo's arrival in Lake-town through the end of the Battle of Five Armies and Bilbo's return home.
Before I go on, let's talk for a second about three-act structure, for those who aren't familiar. You may have heard of this in the context of film trilogies, but at heart it's an idea about individual movies. The basic concept is that a film has three acts: in the first act, the viewer meets the characters, and the stakes of the film are set: i.e., what are the characters hoping to accomplish? The stakes could be anything from "steal the money" to "get the cute boy to notice me" to "make it to White Castle." In the second act, the characters situation gets darker and darker, because they aren't yet capable of doing what they need to to settle the stakes. In the third act, the characters change in a way that lets them finally accomplish their goals and settle the stakes.
Take the original Star Wars movies, and the character of Luke Skywalker in particular, as an example of this unfolding over a trilogy. In A New Hope, we meet Luke Skywalker, a restless farmboy, and after he meets Ben Kenobi and the Empire kills his foster parents, he sets out to accompish two things: stop the Empire, and avenge his father by killing Darth Vader. in The Empire Strikes Back, the Rebellion suffers major setbacks despite Luke's best efforts, while Darth Vader both defeats him in a duel and drops a major bombshell: (thirty-year old spoiler alert) HE is Luke's father! NOOOOOO! In Return of the Jedi, we see a very different Luke from the boy we met in the first movie, a patient, powerful young man, start solving his problems proactively, helping his friends prepare to attack the Empire and then confronting Vader a second time, this time with the intent of of redeeming him. In the end, the rebels destroy the Death Star and Luke saves Vader. Stakes settled, films over.
The Hobbit isn't going to be a trilogy, so I don't want to think about each movie as its own act per se. Instead, I just want to think of it as two three-act structures, one following the other.
So, in the first film, it seems to me we can expect these three acts:
In the second film, the act structure might look more like this:
This structure - which I must emphasize is purely speculative and doesn't include the White Council material hinted at in the novel The Hobbit and fleshed out in Tolkien's other writings, which we know Jackson et al. are going to be including in the films - suggests some cool things about the films - mostly about what the stakes will be for each movie. Because of course it's not enough for the whole series to have stakes; for each movie to work, it has to have stakes of its own, that are completely resolved by the time the credits role.
We can see this in the Star Wars example: in New Hope, in addition to the larger stakes, the first act sets smaller stakes for Luke as well. They're something like, "Can Luke find a place in the world outside the family farm?" and "Can Luke follow in his father's (and Ben's) footsteps as a Jedi?" The award ceremony at the end of the film resolves both questions: Luke now has a place as a celebrated member of the Rebellion, and his victory came because he was able to call upon the Force to make the shot at the end of the Death Star trench run. The larger questions of the Galactic Rebellion and Luke's father's legacy are unresolved, but the movie has provided answers to enough questions to give us a sense of satisfaction at its conclusion.
(By the way, I haven't thought about it much, but as I think about this I have an intuition that a clumsy intersection of the series-long and movie-by-movie stakes is one of the weaknesses of the prequel series. Thoughts?)
So, vis a vis the Hobbit, we have to have stakes that are introduced before Bilbo leaves Rivendell that are completely resolved before he reaches Laketown, as well as stakes that are introduced before the party begins to search for the secret door that can be completely resolved in just one movie. Looking at The Hobbit gives us, I think, a pretty clear idea of what those stakes must be - and I think shows that Jackson et al. made a pretty and savvy and informed choice of where to end the first movie, because the journey from Mirkwood to Lake-town marks a pretty major thematic shift in the book.
At the beginning of The Hobbit, Bilbo has been advertised to the dwarves by Gandalf as a burglar, a experienced adventurer of a kind, when actually he's a middle-aged man of leisure who enjoys the occasional long walk. They're noticeably dismayed when they meet him, and in his unpublished writings Tolkien provided additional material about just how close Thorin was to refusing to take Bilbo along. Bilbo himself has no reason to want anything to do with this dangerous quest; he's quite happy in his peaceful life, and he has no real skills, knowledge or experience to contribute to the party. Tolkien drops a few hints right from the begging that there's a little more to Bilbo than even he realizes, but still, the idea of this quite ordinary and domestic fellow going on a dangerous adventure seems absurd on the face of it. What upsets the scales and drives Bilbo out on to the road is, initially, a realization of how silly and disappointing he is to the dwarves, and a sudden need - a very Tookish need, one might say - to be taken seriously by them, to be thought brave and fiercesome. He impulsively agrees to go in a moment of embarrassment as, essentially, a pose to save face. It's not just a fleeting moment, either: it drives many of his decisions, like trying to steal from the trolls and using the Ring to make a flashy entrance when he reunites with the dwarves after the Misty Mountains.
This will be the central stake of the first movie: can Bilbo win the respect of Thorin & Company? You can tell not just because it makes sense, but because, in the novel, that question is decisively answered - wait for it - with the escape from the Elves. That rescue is the culmination of a series of unlikely heroic acts from Bilbo in Mirkwood that save the dwarves from very nasty ends to their quest, and after that point, while the dwarves don't always agree with Bilbo, nobody will ever question whether he's to be taken seriously. He completely proves himself as competent adventurer.
Likewise, just after that point in the novel is when the company arrives in the neighborhood of the Lonely Mountain, which introduces a major theme we don't see very much in the first half of the book: the idea of the lost glory and prosperity of the Kingdom Under the Mountain. Yes, the story is told to Bilbo at the beginning, and the dwarves sing their famous song about the treasures of the Kingdom, but only when the party arrives in Lake-town does the Kingdom take on a reality beyond the idea of being a place where there's lots of treasure. Lake-town is inhabited by people who used to live in Dale, a city near the Mountain that thrived on a symbiotic relationship with the dwarves. Dale was destroyed along with the Lonely Mountain, and now the people of Lake-town live in diminished circumstances, to the point where they still sing songs about the old prosperity that flowed out from the Mountain, and tell hopeful stories about how wonderful it will be once the King Under the Mountain returns. In Lake-town, we start to see the larger implications of this quest for treasure: it will enrich not just Bilbo and this company of dwarves, but a whole region and all of its peoples. This issue - the prosperity of the whole region - comes to dominate the end of the book; if you notice, Smaug dies right at the beginning of act 3 in my little scheme above; with the dragon out of the picture, the conclusion of this story deals almost exclusively with how the the dwarves, elves and humans will resolve their differences. Those are the real stakes of the second half of The Hobbit, and by having Bilbo and company arrive at Lake-town at the beginning of the second movie, Jackson et al. have positioned themselves perfectly to introduce that stake in their second act 1.
One final note: as mentioned, Smaug doesn't die at the end of the story. While the question of defeating Smaug is obviously an important one throughout the story, it's not the central stake of The Hobbit, nor is the question of whether Bilbo will escape with treasure: he gives up all claim to it well before the end, and while he does bring back gold and silver, it's only a fraction of what he's promised in the beginning, and to him it's a bit of an afterthought. The real central stake of the whole story is more a challenge Tolkien presents to his readers: "...well, you will see whether he gained anything in the end." To my mind, the trailer released in December promises that that question will be prominent in the story, right at the end:
BILBO: You will promise that I will come back?
GANDALF: No. And if you do, you will not be the same.
Sounds about right to me.
Now, let's talk about the upcoming films based on The Hobbit. As you may have heard, the film adaptation of Tolkien's novel The Hobbit is going to be split into two installments. The first, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, will apparently cover from the beginning to the novel until Bilbo helps his companions escape from the halls of the Elf-King, leaving the second, The Hobbit: There And Back Again, to cover Bilbo's arrival in Lake-town through the end of the Battle of Five Armies and Bilbo's return home.
 |
| Promotional image for An Unexpected Journey property of Warner Bros |
Before I go on, let's talk for a second about three-act structure, for those who aren't familiar. You may have heard of this in the context of film trilogies, but at heart it's an idea about individual movies. The basic concept is that a film has three acts: in the first act, the viewer meets the characters, and the stakes of the film are set: i.e., what are the characters hoping to accomplish? The stakes could be anything from "steal the money" to "get the cute boy to notice me" to "make it to White Castle." In the second act, the characters situation gets darker and darker, because they aren't yet capable of doing what they need to to settle the stakes. In the third act, the characters change in a way that lets them finally accomplish their goals and settle the stakes.
Take the original Star Wars movies, and the character of Luke Skywalker in particular, as an example of this unfolding over a trilogy. In A New Hope, we meet Luke Skywalker, a restless farmboy, and after he meets Ben Kenobi and the Empire kills his foster parents, he sets out to accompish two things: stop the Empire, and avenge his father by killing Darth Vader. in The Empire Strikes Back, the Rebellion suffers major setbacks despite Luke's best efforts, while Darth Vader both defeats him in a duel and drops a major bombshell: (thirty-year old spoiler alert) HE is Luke's father! NOOOOOO! In Return of the Jedi, we see a very different Luke from the boy we met in the first movie, a patient, powerful young man, start solving his problems proactively, helping his friends prepare to attack the Empire and then confronting Vader a second time, this time with the intent of of redeeming him. In the end, the rebels destroy the Death Star and Luke saves Vader. Stakes settled, films over.
The Hobbit isn't going to be a trilogy, so I don't want to think about each movie as its own act per se. Instead, I just want to think of it as two three-act structures, one following the other.
So, in the first film, it seems to me we can expect these three acts:
- Act 1: Begins with Gandalf initially approaching Bilbo. Ends with the arrival of the party in Elrond's house.
- Act 2: Begins with the party entering the Misty Mountains. Ends with Gandalf leaving them on the threshold of Mirkwood.
- Act 3: Begins with the party entering Mirkwood, ends with Bilbo rescuing Thorin & Company.
In the second film, the act structure might look more like this:
- Act 1: Begins with the party arriving in Lake-town. Ends with the party approaching the Lonely Mountain.
- Act 2: Begins with searching for the secret door into the Lonely Mountain. Ends with the destruction of Laketown.
- Act 3: Begins with the death of the Dragon. Ends with Bilbo departing for home.
This structure - which I must emphasize is purely speculative and doesn't include the White Council material hinted at in the novel The Hobbit and fleshed out in Tolkien's other writings, which we know Jackson et al. are going to be including in the films - suggests some cool things about the films - mostly about what the stakes will be for each movie. Because of course it's not enough for the whole series to have stakes; for each movie to work, it has to have stakes of its own, that are completely resolved by the time the credits role.
We can see this in the Star Wars example: in New Hope, in addition to the larger stakes, the first act sets smaller stakes for Luke as well. They're something like, "Can Luke find a place in the world outside the family farm?" and "Can Luke follow in his father's (and Ben's) footsteps as a Jedi?" The award ceremony at the end of the film resolves both questions: Luke now has a place as a celebrated member of the Rebellion, and his victory came because he was able to call upon the Force to make the shot at the end of the Death Star trench run. The larger questions of the Galactic Rebellion and Luke's father's legacy are unresolved, but the movie has provided answers to enough questions to give us a sense of satisfaction at its conclusion.
(By the way, I haven't thought about it much, but as I think about this I have an intuition that a clumsy intersection of the series-long and movie-by-movie stakes is one of the weaknesses of the prequel series. Thoughts?)
So, vis a vis the Hobbit, we have to have stakes that are introduced before Bilbo leaves Rivendell that are completely resolved before he reaches Laketown, as well as stakes that are introduced before the party begins to search for the secret door that can be completely resolved in just one movie. Looking at The Hobbit gives us, I think, a pretty clear idea of what those stakes must be - and I think shows that Jackson et al. made a pretty and savvy and informed choice of where to end the first movie, because the journey from Mirkwood to Lake-town marks a pretty major thematic shift in the book.
At the beginning of The Hobbit, Bilbo has been advertised to the dwarves by Gandalf as a burglar, a experienced adventurer of a kind, when actually he's a middle-aged man of leisure who enjoys the occasional long walk. They're noticeably dismayed when they meet him, and in his unpublished writings Tolkien provided additional material about just how close Thorin was to refusing to take Bilbo along. Bilbo himself has no reason to want anything to do with this dangerous quest; he's quite happy in his peaceful life, and he has no real skills, knowledge or experience to contribute to the party. Tolkien drops a few hints right from the begging that there's a little more to Bilbo than even he realizes, but still, the idea of this quite ordinary and domestic fellow going on a dangerous adventure seems absurd on the face of it. What upsets the scales and drives Bilbo out on to the road is, initially, a realization of how silly and disappointing he is to the dwarves, and a sudden need - a very Tookish need, one might say - to be taken seriously by them, to be thought brave and fiercesome. He impulsively agrees to go in a moment of embarrassment as, essentially, a pose to save face. It's not just a fleeting moment, either: it drives many of his decisions, like trying to steal from the trolls and using the Ring to make a flashy entrance when he reunites with the dwarves after the Misty Mountains.
This will be the central stake of the first movie: can Bilbo win the respect of Thorin & Company? You can tell not just because it makes sense, but because, in the novel, that question is decisively answered - wait for it - with the escape from the Elves. That rescue is the culmination of a series of unlikely heroic acts from Bilbo in Mirkwood that save the dwarves from very nasty ends to their quest, and after that point, while the dwarves don't always agree with Bilbo, nobody will ever question whether he's to be taken seriously. He completely proves himself as competent adventurer.
Likewise, just after that point in the novel is when the company arrives in the neighborhood of the Lonely Mountain, which introduces a major theme we don't see very much in the first half of the book: the idea of the lost glory and prosperity of the Kingdom Under the Mountain. Yes, the story is told to Bilbo at the beginning, and the dwarves sing their famous song about the treasures of the Kingdom, but only when the party arrives in Lake-town does the Kingdom take on a reality beyond the idea of being a place where there's lots of treasure. Lake-town is inhabited by people who used to live in Dale, a city near the Mountain that thrived on a symbiotic relationship with the dwarves. Dale was destroyed along with the Lonely Mountain, and now the people of Lake-town live in diminished circumstances, to the point where they still sing songs about the old prosperity that flowed out from the Mountain, and tell hopeful stories about how wonderful it will be once the King Under the Mountain returns. In Lake-town, we start to see the larger implications of this quest for treasure: it will enrich not just Bilbo and this company of dwarves, but a whole region and all of its peoples. This issue - the prosperity of the whole region - comes to dominate the end of the book; if you notice, Smaug dies right at the beginning of act 3 in my little scheme above; with the dragon out of the picture, the conclusion of this story deals almost exclusively with how the the dwarves, elves and humans will resolve their differences. Those are the real stakes of the second half of The Hobbit, and by having Bilbo and company arrive at Lake-town at the beginning of the second movie, Jackson et al. have positioned themselves perfectly to introduce that stake in their second act 1.
 |
| Of course for a really good film adaptation google Hobbit 1977 |
BILBO: You will promise that I will come back?
GANDALF: No. And if you do, you will not be the same.
Sounds about right to me.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Gleeful Exegesis
I don't watch Community: please understand that. I'm not a member of the elite cadre of virtuous souls that has kept this show alive as long as it has lived. I've seen a smattering of episodes. the first I ever watched was the Dungeons and Dragons episode, since I heard it was pretty good and I like role-playing games - and I'm here to tell you, that episode is probably the best portrayal of role-playing games I've ever seen in any sort of video format (among the most positive as well, but that's not what I mean, I mean the most accurate and engaging). I could go on, but I'm going to hold back, because the point is that I want to let you know that all of the below is not informed by a great deal of familiarity with the show.
I watched episode 3.10 of Community because my friends couldn't stop talking about this song that the character Annie sings:
I watched that video a few times and thought it was pretty funny, but more than that I was just enormously confused (and intrigued!) about the context. What the hell is going? Why is she seducing him with a parodical book number? What are regionals anyway?
So I watched the whole episode on Hulu, enjoyed it immensely, watched all the songs on youtube over and over again... and then I had this thought about how the songs themselves reinforced the theme of the episode, and my English degree let out a mighty roar... and I began to compose an exegesis.
So. Every song in this episode is, in itself, fundamentally false and deceptive. The plan that Abed and Troy hatch to undermine Christmas is explicitly hypocritical, since Troy plans to go on celebrating Christmas forever ("I might have to dedicate my life to Christmas / And act just like I love it til the day I die"). Baby Boomer Santa, as Annie points out, relies on revisionist nostalgia to flatter Pierce's "generation's well-documented historical vanity." Annie's song to Jeff is, as Jeff perceives, a "bit." The song that infects Shirley is a cynically saccharine concoction designed to push her buttons, lampshaded in the line about baking but also present in the political lyrics, which sound so out-of-place coming from children. The original song about glee is a lie Mr. Rad tells Abed, which Abed then repeats himself, and this lie is the central one examined and exploded throughout the episode: the idea that "everything's cooler when cameras are spinning," or said more plainly, that things are better when you disguise the truth, when you "try to make things brighter."
None of these songs are "heart-songs" that come from deeply felt emotions. Sometimes they're a lie the singer tells the listener, such as Annie telling Jeff she's sexually available, or Troy and Abed telling Pierce his generation created everything worthwhile. Sometimes they're a lie the singer tells him- or herself, such as Troy convincing himself celebrating Christmas is consistent with his religion, or Abed telling himself that glee will bring his friends "to a healthier place." The fundamental act of lying is present in each song.
Abed is aware that they're all being deceptive throughout the episode. Lines like "Glee / Is what I'll spread to my friends, like a virus..." and "I might have a loophole" suggest that, unlike the others, he remains aware that what they're doing is fundamentally dishonest. But he's willing to be dishonest in order for everyone to be together and (at least apparently) happy at Christmas. At the glee club performance at the end of the episode, however, Mr. Rad makes him realize that once you start lying it can be hard to stop. Rad's obsession with regionals mirrors Abed's obsession with Christmas: they're both milestones that have become personally important, but are actually intrinsicallyFortunately, Abed has the perfect tool to unravel all of the accumulated falseness: ugly truth. As I mentioned, I don't know much about the characters in terms of their arcs and underlying identities, but I do gather that Brita is an iconoclast, and I wonder if Rad's abhorrence for Brita has something to do with that, with a fundamental fear that she'll destroy the icons that make up his world. In any event, Abed tells Brita to sing her from her heart, and she uncynically does. Obviously the words of Brita's song don't express any deeper truth, but her singing, sans glamor and accompaniment, exposes the emptiness of the whole gleeful enterprise. Even more, it brings forth a much uglier truth from Rad himself, revealing that living so disingenuously is not only empty, but actually dangerous. If your life becomes devoted to lies, you're forced to become more and more callous towards real people in order to maintain them.
Incidentally, I found the coda scene of this episode, with the cast singing "The First Noel" for Abed, a little disappointing on first viewing. It just didn't pack the emotional wallop I was looking for. But I think that's the point. The episode can't end with swelling music and a group hug, because that's not where the group is. But it can end with a sweet gesture and a choice to be together, however reluctantly made. The choice of the carol is a very nice touch: "The First Noel," being about the first appearance of the angels to the shepards, emphasizes the arrival of salvation in a time of great darkness. Using this song makes the point that music can be honest without being hopeless, that our communication with each other can be both truthful and kind. This isn't one of my favorite carols, but the more I think about it the more I like its use here. Some other good choices might have been "We Three Kings," the first verse of which is about a journey to get to Christ, or the wonderfully ambiguous beginning of "O Little Town Of Bethlehem":
O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the restless stars go by
But in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight
Friday, December 23, 2011
I have not seen the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
Today, I'm going to continue a theme from my last post, Complaining About Media I Have Not Actually Experienced. Last time it was Mass Effect 3, a game I have not played, and this time it's The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (the Fincher version), a movie I have not seen.
In my defense, I'm really going to complain about the Swedish film based on The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (which Fincher's movie reportedly resembles). I liked certain things about that movie, and was disappointed with it in other ways. Part of the reason I'm not thrilled for the new version is that I find it unlikely the Fincher film fixes the particular thing that bothered me most about its predecessor.
That thing, to come to the point, is the treatment of Mikael Blomkvist. Obviously the book was titled "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" (in English, anyway), and Lisbeth Salander is the most iconic character. She's fascinating in her own right, and the Swedish film does, I thought, a pretty fair job with her. But to me, Blomkvist is vitally important in making the story - and the character of Salander - really sing. The original Swedish title, of the book and movie, translates as "Men who hate women." Mikael Blomkvist is our principal masculine beacon in the book's dark world, the one man in the story who just loves women. I mean that both snidely and seriously: yes, Blomkvist is a lover and a Casanova, but he also seems to just really like women as people. He has a soulmate in Erika Berger, a great friendship that transcends sex and even romance (and boy does that important and unusual connection get short shrift in the movie, but I get it, they can't do everything). He sees past Salander's brutal exterior and can't resist what he finds there - and he's willing to put forth the incredible gentleness and patience necessary to get even a little close to her. While he's comfortable dealing with men, none of his male relationships has anything like the same level of intimacy or intensity. The guy just really likes women.
At the same time, there's a lot of ambiguity to him, because he can also be very selfish. He gets into an affair with Cecilia knowing full well that it will end with her getting hurt. He's upfront with her about what he can and can't be to her from the start, but it's still a serious failure of compassion. His sexuality morality is complex and imperfect, especially compared with his flawless professional ethics and journalistic devotion to justice and fairness.
Blomkvist in the novel is also important as Salander's ideal working partner. Their skills and temperments complement beautifully as they work the case together. They are equals, but they aren't the same, and they both need each other. Salander is a brilliant analyst, Blomkvist is a brilliant communicator. Salander is a woman of decisive action, Blomkvist is a man of patience and subtlety. Salander, with her varied skillset and ruthless outlook, makes things happen in the shadows; Blomkvist, with his raw charisma and straightforward reputation, shines in the spotlight. They work incredibly well together, and the respect that grows out of this working relationship is very important in building the difficult intimate relationship that's really the point of the whole exercise.
I found that the Swedish film seemed to abandon this beautiful balance. Blomkvist became a much more typical macho hero like you've seen in countless thrillers, emotionally distant, blandly moral, and somewhat plodding. Against this lesser foil, Salander becomes less a traumatized person working through terrible pain, and more a sort of magical girlfriend, capable of (and in fact, usually necessary to) solving all of Blomkvist's problems but not always available due to seemingly irrational hangups - almost a nastier, more violent "I Dream of Jeannie."
No scene captures the difference as much as Blomkvist and Salander's first meeting. This is an incredible sequence in the novel. Blomkvist has tracked down Salander, the hacker who secretly investigated him early in the story, and in doing so he realizes that she's very good and he could use her on his side. He shows up at her door early in the morning; she gets out of bed to answer his knock, and she's sullen and irritated. But Blomkvist barges in and merrily starts cleaning the kitchen, talking a mile a minute about how much he admires her work and could use her help. He offers her a bagel for breakfast. As it happens, this is exactly the right way to approach Salander; she's use to cruelty, selfishness and abuse, and she knows how to handle those things. She's caught utterly off guard - for the first time, in the reader's experience - by this bubbly ray of sunshine. She listens to him instead of kicking him out on his ass, and their awkward, halting, intense relationship is off with that first slightly lowered boundary.
In the Swedish film, Blomkvist shows up at Salander's door threatening her because her investigation was illegal. He uses this as leverage to get her to listen to him as he asks for her help on the case, and suggests that she owes him something. She decides to help him. Frankly, it's a terribly out-of-character scene for Salander. The movie has very effectively demonstrated her big hang-up at this point: if you hurt Salander or threaten to hurt her, she has to hurt you worse. It's a kneejerk response, she really has very little choice, no matter how stupid hitting back is in the given circumstance. Blomkvist implying he could get her in legal trouble should have resulted in her inviting him inside so she could get a metal bat and strike him repeatedly in the head with it. Instead she's cowed by it, because, I guess, the plot has to keep moving. Later they have some sex.
I'm sure that Fincher's movie is a great thriller - the Swedish film certainly is. But by sacrificing Blomkvist on the altar of the Generic Male Hero Guy, the Swedish film lost a great foil for its famous protagonist and a lot of the book's most compelling thematic elements. I'm guessing that Fincher's movie still won't let me see that part of the story realized on screen, and that moves it out of "must see now" territory for me.
In my defense, I'm really going to complain about the Swedish film based on The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (which Fincher's movie reportedly resembles). I liked certain things about that movie, and was disappointed with it in other ways. Part of the reason I'm not thrilled for the new version is that I find it unlikely the Fincher film fixes the particular thing that bothered me most about its predecessor.
That thing, to come to the point, is the treatment of Mikael Blomkvist. Obviously the book was titled "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" (in English, anyway), and Lisbeth Salander is the most iconic character. She's fascinating in her own right, and the Swedish film does, I thought, a pretty fair job with her. But to me, Blomkvist is vitally important in making the story - and the character of Salander - really sing. The original Swedish title, of the book and movie, translates as "Men who hate women." Mikael Blomkvist is our principal masculine beacon in the book's dark world, the one man in the story who just loves women. I mean that both snidely and seriously: yes, Blomkvist is a lover and a Casanova, but he also seems to just really like women as people. He has a soulmate in Erika Berger, a great friendship that transcends sex and even romance (and boy does that important and unusual connection get short shrift in the movie, but I get it, they can't do everything). He sees past Salander's brutal exterior and can't resist what he finds there - and he's willing to put forth the incredible gentleness and patience necessary to get even a little close to her. While he's comfortable dealing with men, none of his male relationships has anything like the same level of intimacy or intensity. The guy just really likes women.
 |
| Michael Nyqvist as Mikael Blomkvist - I know, right? |
Blomkvist in the novel is also important as Salander's ideal working partner. Their skills and temperments complement beautifully as they work the case together. They are equals, but they aren't the same, and they both need each other. Salander is a brilliant analyst, Blomkvist is a brilliant communicator. Salander is a woman of decisive action, Blomkvist is a man of patience and subtlety. Salander, with her varied skillset and ruthless outlook, makes things happen in the shadows; Blomkvist, with his raw charisma and straightforward reputation, shines in the spotlight. They work incredibly well together, and the respect that grows out of this working relationship is very important in building the difficult intimate relationship that's really the point of the whole exercise.
I found that the Swedish film seemed to abandon this beautiful balance. Blomkvist became a much more typical macho hero like you've seen in countless thrillers, emotionally distant, blandly moral, and somewhat plodding. Against this lesser foil, Salander becomes less a traumatized person working through terrible pain, and more a sort of magical girlfriend, capable of (and in fact, usually necessary to) solving all of Blomkvist's problems but not always available due to seemingly irrational hangups - almost a nastier, more violent "I Dream of Jeannie."
In the Swedish film, Blomkvist shows up at Salander's door threatening her because her investigation was illegal. He uses this as leverage to get her to listen to him as he asks for her help on the case, and suggests that she owes him something. She decides to help him. Frankly, it's a terribly out-of-character scene for Salander. The movie has very effectively demonstrated her big hang-up at this point: if you hurt Salander or threaten to hurt her, she has to hurt you worse. It's a kneejerk response, she really has very little choice, no matter how stupid hitting back is in the given circumstance. Blomkvist implying he could get her in legal trouble should have resulted in her inviting him inside so she could get a metal bat and strike him repeatedly in the head with it. Instead she's cowed by it, because, I guess, the plot has to keep moving. Later they have some sex.
I'm sure that Fincher's movie is a great thriller - the Swedish film certainly is. But by sacrificing Blomkvist on the altar of the Generic Male Hero Guy, the Swedish film lost a great foil for its famous protagonist and a lot of the book's most compelling thematic elements. I'm guessing that Fincher's movie still won't let me see that part of the story realized on screen, and that moves it out of "must see now" territory for me.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Ashley Williams
Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 both have a spot on my list of the top ten games of all time. In all honesty, they might both have a spot on my list of the top five games of all time. I love Mass Effect for the depth of its characterization and the consistency of its world-building; Mass Effect 2 falters a little on those axes, but makes up for it with incredible gameplay and epic cinematic payoff. One edge that the first game has over its sequel is much more screen time for one of my all time favorite video game characters: Ashley Williams.
I could yammer on for a while about how great Ashley is and how she keeps surprising you throughout the whole first game by quoting Tennyson or revealing a spiritual side or telling you an awesome story about her sister beat up her pushy boyfriend. I could tell you how emotional I found her appearance - however brief - in ME 2, and how awesome it was to find this today. That's probably not especially interesting, though, so let's talk about what people on the internet like to hear: something that makes me angry.
So in the first game, Ash is (I think) a pretty hot lady. Here she is talking to her favorite commander.
That's Ash in the Alliance Navy uniform she wears around the ship (she wears non-uniform high-tech armor on missions). I know you can't see the front especially well, but please note that a high-neckline, appropriate (as I believe) to a military uniform, is visible.
This is Ash's new look from ME3:
So a few things different here. She's got sexy new hair. You know what? Great. Seriously. Hair cuts are a great way to express that a character has changed. In ME1, Ash is a grunt, a low-ranked front-line soldier with (so she thinks) a career full of bad assignments ahead of her. She wears her hair in a severe (presumably regulation) bun. In ME3, we've been told a little about Ash and we can guess a bit more. She's an officer now, a lieutenant. Beyond that, she's a Spectre, meaning that she has the full backing of the Council, the most powerful political body in the galaxy, as their trusted agent. We know from ME2 that Ash is now a special forces veteran, and we can guess that she's a renowned hero for her role in ME1. A striking hairstyle is a great way to communicate the character's new role, how much prestige she's gained and how it might make her feel.
But why is she wearing her uniform like that? Is it a useful visual shorthand to communicate something about Ashley to the player, like the hair? Based on the little we know about the plot of ME3... No. It doesn't communicate confidence and prestige in the same way. In visual media, skin and breasts doesn't communicate "powerful professional woman" in the same way that great hair does. Sex and power can be connected, obviously, but as a professional soldier with political connections, that's a little outside of Ash's storytelling archetype.
Let's look at how one very powerful political woman in the real world chooses to present herself:
Hmm. Not so low-neckline. Actually she seems to be making an effort not to appear sexual - almost as if being sexualized might make it harder to take her seriously as a leader. Well, it's only one example.
Well, none of those women are in the military. Maybe female soldiers dress differently.
Wow, they actually look a lot like Ash in the first game.
Point is, Ash's uniform doesn't communicate prestige and authority, and it doesn't communicate professionalism or a military background either It doesn't seem to communicate anything useful about the character, really. The Ash we get to know in ME1 is a consummate professional who is entirely devoted to her career in the Alliance military. Her uniform is an important and empowering symbol to her, and frankly, I don't think she would choose to wear her uniform in a non-regulation way. Especially not a sexy non-regulation way, as her military service is intimately bound up with her late beloved father in her mind. Basically, in this setting, on this woman, that outfit doesn't make any sense.
So, why is she wearing her uniform that way? I put the question the Casey Hudson, lead designer of Mass Effect 3, on twitter today. I have a lot of respect for Casey. He's incredible at making games - literally world class - and from everything I've heard him say he seems like a very cool, intelligent guy. That may help to explain why I went out of my way to avoid being antagonistic in the below tweets:
I just wish I wouldn't have to think about all the sexist baggage attached to this particular costume while I'm doing it..
I could yammer on for a while about how great Ashley is and how she keeps surprising you throughout the whole first game by quoting Tennyson or revealing a spiritual side or telling you an awesome story about her sister beat up her pushy boyfriend. I could tell you how emotional I found her appearance - however brief - in ME 2, and how awesome it was to find this today. That's probably not especially interesting, though, so let's talk about what people on the internet like to hear: something that makes me angry.
So in the first game, Ash is (I think) a pretty hot lady. Here she is talking to her favorite commander.
This is Ash's new look from ME3:
So a few things different here. She's got sexy new hair. You know what? Great. Seriously. Hair cuts are a great way to express that a character has changed. In ME1, Ash is a grunt, a low-ranked front-line soldier with (so she thinks) a career full of bad assignments ahead of her. She wears her hair in a severe (presumably regulation) bun. In ME3, we've been told a little about Ash and we can guess a bit more. She's an officer now, a lieutenant. Beyond that, she's a Spectre, meaning that she has the full backing of the Council, the most powerful political body in the galaxy, as their trusted agent. We know from ME2 that Ash is now a special forces veteran, and we can guess that she's a renowned hero for her role in ME1. A striking hairstyle is a great way to communicate the character's new role, how much prestige she's gained and how it might make her feel.
But why is she wearing her uniform like that? Is it a useful visual shorthand to communicate something about Ashley to the player, like the hair? Based on the little we know about the plot of ME3... No. It doesn't communicate confidence and prestige in the same way. In visual media, skin and breasts doesn't communicate "powerful professional woman" in the same way that great hair does. Sex and power can be connected, obviously, but as a professional soldier with political connections, that's a little outside of Ash's storytelling archetype.
Let's look at how one very powerful political woman in the real world chooses to present herself:
Hmm. Not so low-neckline. Actually she seems to be making an effort not to appear sexual - almost as if being sexualized might make it harder to take her seriously as a leader. Well, it's only one example.
Well, none of those women are in the military. Maybe female soldiers dress differently.
Point is, Ash's uniform doesn't communicate prestige and authority, and it doesn't communicate professionalism or a military background either It doesn't seem to communicate anything useful about the character, really. The Ash we get to know in ME1 is a consummate professional who is entirely devoted to her career in the Alliance military. Her uniform is an important and empowering symbol to her, and frankly, I don't think she would choose to wear her uniform in a non-regulation way. Especially not a sexy non-regulation way, as her military service is intimately bound up with her late beloved father in her mind. Basically, in this setting, on this woman, that outfit doesn't make any sense.
So, why is she wearing her uniform that way? I put the question the Casey Hudson, lead designer of Mass Effect 3, on twitter today. I have a lot of respect for Casey. He's incredible at making games - literally world class - and from everything I've heard him say he seems like a very cool, intelligent guy. That may help to explain why I went out of my way to avoid being antagonistic in the below tweets:
I don't expect Casey to respond, for a few reasons. One is that he is very visible and I am not, and why would he draw attention to a critical question that nobody else will ever see? I don't mean that cynically; his job is to make ME3 successful, and he's very good at his job, and that probably precludes publicly answering me.
The other reason is that it's a rhetorical question, and he knows that as well as I do. Because on some level we know the answer, don't we? Somebody somewhere who had some kind of say in the art direction of ME3 thought one of two things:
- Ash would totally be hotter if I could almost see her tits.
- This game will sell more copies if men on the internet see a character with prominent breasts and a sexy costume in the screenshots.
I really can't think of anything else that makes sense. Certainly not one that could be fully explained in 140 characters over twitter. So ultimately, why ask the question?
Because I believe that thoughtful people know how lame any answer that avoids those two bullet points will sound, and that even if they can't or won't admit it, they get a little uncomfortable pondering the issue. And maybe that will, over time, lead people to avoid having to ponder the issue, by not sexualizing fictional women when sexualizing them is not in the interest of the story or the character. And maybe some day I can not have to feel a little embarrassed on behalf of my favorite games and characters, knowing that everybody knows how crass the decision-making on some of the small details about them really was.
Let me close by noting that I know I'm being very nitpicky and going after small details. I'm doing that because I like to lay my argument out there and try to unpack all of the baggage in it as much as possible. Furthermore, let me add that Bioware is a great developer, and while they are not without their sins in continuing the tradition of sexism in video game culture, they also have put forward a huge number of excellent female characters and woman-friendly games. It's honestly because I count them among the good guys that I'm thinking about this so much - because I think they can do even better, which is not something I believe about every company that makes games. I love Mass Effect, I'm totally excited for Mass Effect 3, and I look forward to kicking a whole lot of reaper butt with Ash backing me up.
I just wish I wouldn't have to think about all the sexist baggage attached to this particular costume while I'm doing it..
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
I used to wonder what friendship could be!
Alright, let's deal with it out in the open. I sure enjoy me some My Little Ponies: Friendship Is Magic. It's no Avatar: The Last Airbender, sure, but it's a bright, sweet, hopeful show with a varied cast of likeable female protagonists. I like the characters, the dumb jokes, the cute songs, and even the pleasant ritual of writing a letter to Celestia - i.e. delivering a moral - at the end of every episode.
The morals are the thing I want to talk about just at the moment. So morals at the end of the episode are the worst thing in Western animation, amirite? You know how every story is going to end a few minutes after it starts because the lesson is always obvious from the premise. Worse, moral lessons can be the death of humor and of human truth. Worst of all is what TV Tropes calls a "broken aesop," a moral that doesn't actually follow from the story you've just told - all too common, in my experience.
What MLP:FIM does very well is build the lesson into the story, and support it through out. Actually, sometimes the lesson is there, but the end-of-episode letter to Celestia misses it, or at least doesn't capture everything that happened in the episode. That's part of the genius, though: sometimes the real lesson is built into the very premise of the episode. In "Winter Wrap Up," for instance, the stated lesson is "Everypony has hidden talents." To me, though, that's hardly the main thing the episode teaches. The big lesson is right there in the musical number at the very start of the episode, before the characters have started learning anything.
It's all there. "Winter Wrap Up" is one of the most heartfelt odes to work I personally have ever seen. Every pony has a job, something they do, that they excel at; every job is valuable, and every pony is proud of, even excited about, their job. Rainbow Dash loves to see the sun's "warmth and beauty... glow" after she chases all the clouds out of the sky. Fluttershy takes great satisfaction in waking up the animals "so quietly and nice." Applejack's pride in feeding the whole town is palpable. Twilight Sparkle desperately wants in on this work. "What does everypony do?" she asks pleadingly, earnestly pledging to "help with all of my heart" and to "do my best today." And yes, then there's a plot about her finding her unique skill that lets her make a really great contribution, but to me, the central lesson has already been taught: work is good. Work helps people, and doing good work feels good, and doing the right work for you makes you the person you want to be. That's the real lesson of the episode, and I think it's one we could all stand to take to heart, honestly.
I don't mean to give the impression that the show is a never-ending font of enduring wisdom. Some of the episodes and lessons are silly, or simple, typical children's tv fare. The episode where they realize they all saw the same rainbow (actually a rainboom, don't ask) as children is cute and all, but "Friends share a special connection, sometimes even before they meet" is more sentimental BS than a real lesson to carry close to your heart. My favorite episodes, though, are the ones where I think the show is going to veer off into that most horrible of sins, a broken aesop, and then surprises me by really committing to their lesson. Take a recent episode, "The Mysterious Mare Do Well."
In this episode, hot-blooded pegasus Rainbow Dash, widely regarded as the most awesome of the Mane Cast, makes a habit of using her incredible flying skills to help other ponies in Ponyville. After a few dramatic feats, she notices that she's getting cheers and a big fan club, and it goes to her head. She starts milking it, showing off and leading her own cheers. Her friends start to get frustrated with her showboating.
Enter Mare Do Well, a mysterious masked superhero who seems to come out of nowhere and manages to outdo Rainbow Dash in a few successive crises. Mare Do Well seems to be stronger, faster; she can fly just as well, and do unicorn magic on top of all of it. The town's adulation shifts to Mare Do Well, and Rainbow Dash makes it worse with her grandstanding for attention, which the other ponies find more and more annoying.
Mare Do Well's identity is, of course, a complete non-mystery, especially as she starts revealing more and more different skills: all of Rainbow Dash's friends are wearing the mask at different times, solving problems perfectly suited to their own particular skills. I started to doubt the episode at this point, for two reasons. First, Rainbow Dash is a really cool, strong character, and I hate to see her take it on the chin over and over. Second, I was dreading the inevitable reveal, where her friends take off their masks and totally humiliate Rainbow Dash in the name of "helping her learn," i.e. cutting her down to size.
I should have had more faith. There is a scene where the ponies gently hint to Rainbow that maybe there's something she can learn from Mare Do Well's anonymous heroism, but it's not carried too far. In the end, Rainbow learns their identities because she chases down Pinkie Pie and tears off her mask, not because the other ponies reveal themselves to teach her a lesson. Once she realizes that they are her rival, her friends do share a lesson with her, eventually summed up as "It's great to be good at something, but it's important to act with grace and humility." The difference is in motivation.
See, the ponies didn't plan for Rainbow Dash to learn who they were so that she'd learn she wasn't better than them; their only plan was to set a good example for her to follow, and to do some anonymous good deeds in the process. They get excited about their own personal contributions to the plan, but without asking for praise. As they explain their motivations to her, they affirm three separate times that she should be proud of her abilities ("Of course we want you to be a hero!" "It's natural to celebrate your accomplishments," and "It's great to be really good at something,"). They just wanted her to realize, from Mare Do Well's example, that she had gone a little bit overboard with her own hype. It's not a complicated lesson, but the sincerity with which it's delivered, with no meanness of judgement on any of the characters' part, really sells it in a way that I think is pretty unique to this iteration of My Little Ponies.
For the record: the pony I admire the most is Applejack, and the pony I find the most entertaining is Rarity, but my favorite pony is definitely Fluttershy.
The morals are the thing I want to talk about just at the moment. So morals at the end of the episode are the worst thing in Western animation, amirite? You know how every story is going to end a few minutes after it starts because the lesson is always obvious from the premise. Worse, moral lessons can be the death of humor and of human truth. Worst of all is what TV Tropes calls a "broken aesop," a moral that doesn't actually follow from the story you've just told - all too common, in my experience.
What MLP:FIM does very well is build the lesson into the story, and support it through out. Actually, sometimes the lesson is there, but the end-of-episode letter to Celestia misses it, or at least doesn't capture everything that happened in the episode. That's part of the genius, though: sometimes the real lesson is built into the very premise of the episode. In "Winter Wrap Up," for instance, the stated lesson is "Everypony has hidden talents." To me, though, that's hardly the main thing the episode teaches. The big lesson is right there in the musical number at the very start of the episode, before the characters have started learning anything.
It's all there. "Winter Wrap Up" is one of the most heartfelt odes to work I personally have ever seen. Every pony has a job, something they do, that they excel at; every job is valuable, and every pony is proud of, even excited about, their job. Rainbow Dash loves to see the sun's "warmth and beauty... glow" after she chases all the clouds out of the sky. Fluttershy takes great satisfaction in waking up the animals "so quietly and nice." Applejack's pride in feeding the whole town is palpable. Twilight Sparkle desperately wants in on this work. "What does everypony do?" she asks pleadingly, earnestly pledging to "help with all of my heart" and to "do my best today." And yes, then there's a plot about her finding her unique skill that lets her make a really great contribution, but to me, the central lesson has already been taught: work is good. Work helps people, and doing good work feels good, and doing the right work for you makes you the person you want to be. That's the real lesson of the episode, and I think it's one we could all stand to take to heart, honestly.
I don't mean to give the impression that the show is a never-ending font of enduring wisdom. Some of the episodes and lessons are silly, or simple, typical children's tv fare. The episode where they realize they all saw the same rainbow (actually a rainboom, don't ask) as children is cute and all, but "Friends share a special connection, sometimes even before they meet" is more sentimental BS than a real lesson to carry close to your heart. My favorite episodes, though, are the ones where I think the show is going to veer off into that most horrible of sins, a broken aesop, and then surprises me by really committing to their lesson. Take a recent episode, "The Mysterious Mare Do Well."
In this episode, hot-blooded pegasus Rainbow Dash, widely regarded as the most awesome of the Mane Cast, makes a habit of using her incredible flying skills to help other ponies in Ponyville. After a few dramatic feats, she notices that she's getting cheers and a big fan club, and it goes to her head. She starts milking it, showing off and leading her own cheers. Her friends start to get frustrated with her showboating.
Enter Mare Do Well, a mysterious masked superhero who seems to come out of nowhere and manages to outdo Rainbow Dash in a few successive crises. Mare Do Well seems to be stronger, faster; she can fly just as well, and do unicorn magic on top of all of it. The town's adulation shifts to Mare Do Well, and Rainbow Dash makes it worse with her grandstanding for attention, which the other ponies find more and more annoying.
Mare Do Well's identity is, of course, a complete non-mystery, especially as she starts revealing more and more different skills: all of Rainbow Dash's friends are wearing the mask at different times, solving problems perfectly suited to their own particular skills. I started to doubt the episode at this point, for two reasons. First, Rainbow Dash is a really cool, strong character, and I hate to see her take it on the chin over and over. Second, I was dreading the inevitable reveal, where her friends take off their masks and totally humiliate Rainbow Dash in the name of "helping her learn," i.e. cutting her down to size.
I should have had more faith. There is a scene where the ponies gently hint to Rainbow that maybe there's something she can learn from Mare Do Well's anonymous heroism, but it's not carried too far. In the end, Rainbow learns their identities because she chases down Pinkie Pie and tears off her mask, not because the other ponies reveal themselves to teach her a lesson. Once she realizes that they are her rival, her friends do share a lesson with her, eventually summed up as "It's great to be good at something, but it's important to act with grace and humility." The difference is in motivation.
See, the ponies didn't plan for Rainbow Dash to learn who they were so that she'd learn she wasn't better than them; their only plan was to set a good example for her to follow, and to do some anonymous good deeds in the process. They get excited about their own personal contributions to the plan, but without asking for praise. As they explain their motivations to her, they affirm three separate times that she should be proud of her abilities ("Of course we want you to be a hero!" "It's natural to celebrate your accomplishments," and "It's great to be really good at something,"). They just wanted her to realize, from Mare Do Well's example, that she had gone a little bit overboard with her own hype. It's not a complicated lesson, but the sincerity with which it's delivered, with no meanness of judgement on any of the characters' part, really sells it in a way that I think is pretty unique to this iteration of My Little Ponies.
For the record: the pony I admire the most is Applejack, and the pony I find the most entertaining is Rarity, but my favorite pony is definitely Fluttershy.
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