Sol Bulletin #5

The following is excerpted from issue #5 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 #5 was released seven days after the Crucible fired.

Tensions Mount in Inter-species Summit
The ongoing summit between leaders from the various alien fleets and intact Sol settlements nearly collapsed today. A discussion of plans for making contact with Asari colonies flared into conflict when Urdnot Wrex, leader of the Krogan forces attached to the Turian fleet, criticized a casual use of the phrase "Council races" by Matriarch Lidanya, captain of the Destiny Ascension and acting commander of Asari forces in Sol.

"There are no Council races anymore," the Krogan reportedly told the summit. "There's no damn Council, and no Citadel for it to meet on anyway. And if you want a new Council, you can get use to having a Krogan at the table.”

Urdnot’s proclamation led to chaos in the summit chamber. Order was only restored after Admiral Hackett arrived and personally addressed the summit, calling for unity and a focus on the summit’s agenda.

After the summit recessed for the day, Admiral Quwil, commander of Salarian forces in Sol, issued a statement, criticizing Urdnot Wrex for using the summit as a “platform for personal aggrandizement.” Matriarch Lidanya was more conciliatory in her own statement, echoing Admiral Hackett in asking for a focus of more immediate issues. Urdnot Wrex’s own statement was brief but dismissive: “The so-called ‘Council Races’ know things are going to change. If they don't want to admit it yet, that's their problem.”

As of press time, Primarch Victus had issued no statement on Wrex's remark. The summit is scheduled to resume tomorrow morning.

Sol Bulletin #4

The following is excerpted from issue #4 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 #4 was released six days after the Crucible fired.

Citadel Search-and-Rescue Operations May Cease
Search-and-rescue operations on the Citadel continue today. Officials and rescue workers have been tight-lipped about conditions on the station, which was under Reaper control for more than a day and which suffered heavy damage when the Crucible was fired. The Bulletin secured an interview with Garrus Vakarian of the Turian Hierarchy, who has been put in charge of the search-and-rescue effort.

SOL BULLETIN: Thank you for speaking with me, Mr. Vakarian. I'll get right to it.

GARRUS VAKARIAN: That would be appreciated.

SB: Can you describe the damage to the Citadel?

GV: No. Not really.

SB: I see. Can you give us any detail at all?

GV: The wards are where we're finding most of the survivors. There's a lot of structural damage, but some people managed to hide in secure places with enough air and food to last till now. Not many. The Presidium... You wouldn't recognize the Presidium.

SB: Any survivors there?

GV: [pause] No.

SB: How long will search-and-rescue operations continue?

GV: I wish I could say as long as it takes, but the fact is we're spending a lot of resources to save very few lives. I've got people on my team who could be doing a lot of good work on Earth or in the fleet. We're also burning fueling ferrying people back and forth.

SB: Does this mean that search-and-rescue operations are going to stop soon?

GV: I didn't say that. We haven't given up yet. But we're looking at what this is costing and what we have, and the arithmetic isn't pretty.

SB: Don't we have a responsibility not to abandon any survivors on the Citadel?

GV: We've got a lot of responsibilities. I've got 20 military engineers working for me. They could probably restore running water to a major metropolitan area on Earth in a few days. Or they could roll the dice on maybe finding one or two more survivors in the same amount of time.

SB: Are the numbers really that bad?

GV: No, not quite. But my team doesn't mess around. We've found all the easy ones and all the big ones. And we're doing our best to find the rest, I promise.

SB: Mr. Vakarian, I understand that you were on the ground for Operation Hammer when the Crucible fired. Can you tell me a little about your experience?

GV: I killed a lot of husks.

SB: And?

GV: Cannibals too. I even took down a Banshee myself. That's what we called the indoctrinated Asari - banshees.

SB: I see. Mr. Vakarian, you were stationed aboard the SSV Normandy for most of the War, and also during the Saren affair.

GV: I went on the assault against the Collector base, too. It's surprising how often humans forget that one, considering Shepard did it for you.

SB: Yes, thank you. As I'm sure you're aware, there have been a great many rumors circulating about the fate of Commander Shepard, who's currently listed as missing in action. Is it true that you were with the Commander on...

GV: [overlapping] Do you have any more questions about search-and-rescue operations?

SB: Mr. Vakarian, Commander Shepard is a beloved figure and people want to know...

GV: [overlapping] Please reassure your readers we're making every effort. Excuse me.

SB: Thank you for your time, Mr. Vakarian.

Sol Bulletin #3

The following is excerpted from issue #3 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 #3 was released five days after the Crucible fired.

Inter-species Summit Convenes on SSV Elbrus
With the fate of the Arcturus Flotilla still unclear, today the dreadnought SSV Elbrus hosted a summit with representatives from every fleet and every major Earth government. The summit's agenda was simple: with Earth devastated and the fleet unprepared for long-term operation without resupply, how will the sentients currently trapped in the Sol system survive?

While stressing that contacting settlements outside the Sol system remains an urgent necessity, several leaders expressed optimism after the first day of the summit. "We came to Sol in the spirit of unity," said Primarch Victus of the Turian Hierarchy. "I'm glad to say that spirit is still alive and well, and with care, we have all the resources we need until contact is restored with the rest of the galaxy."

Some measures have already been agreed upon. Enough Quarian lifeships survived the Battle of Earth to allow foodsharing with the Turian Hierarchy's ships. With rationing, this should provide dextro-amino sentients enough food to last for at least a year - although Admiral Zorah of the Quarians emphasized that securing another food source must still be a priority. "We lost too many lifeships to feed everyone forever. Our agricultural facilities will need to operate beyond a sustainable level to feed the Quarian and Turian fleets. Without another food source, we will be locked into a downward spiral as the lifeship ecologies fail."

The Quarians are making other contributions as well. Quarian engineers with a lifetime of experience keeping ships running without proper supply or drydock facilities (all of which were destroyed by the Reapers) will be dispatched through out the fleet to make sure even ships damaged in the Battle of Earth will still be able to contribute to the fleet's efforts. The Geth have also volunteered for widespread deployment; the strength and resilience of Geth platforms, combined with their technical acumen, makes them ideally suited for a number of jobs that would be dangerous or impossible for other sentients.

Other measures have been agreed to in principle but are not yet ready for implementation. A great deal of focus will be placed on speeding the recovery of Earth. "Earth stands ready to assist the fleets that came to our defense," said President Lisa Ford of the United North American States. "The fleet has technical expertise and supplies that we need, and there's a lot they can do to bootstrap our recovery, which will then allow us to return the favor." Ford admitted that a full recovery of Earth-based agriculture may take too long to provide for the entire fleet's short-term food needs, but emphasized that every effort must nonetheless be made, especially given the uncertain status of other food sources, such as colonies outside the Sol system.

All the summit attendees demurred to comment on setting up a provisional government for the Sol system for the duration of the emergency, an issue which has been extremely contentious to date. Earth-based (and some Alliance) officials claim that Sol remains sovereign human territory, while leaders of the alien fleets insist that, under the circumstances, power must be shared between all the sentients in Sol.

Sol Bulletin #2

(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.

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.

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.

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.

Maybe the film ends with a nice ominous shot of Lonely Mountain in the distance and Bilbo not liking the look of it at all.

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.

The movie may continue after that point, but the rest is epilogue.

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

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.

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 intrinsically meaningless. (Actually, the sign-off at the end of the episode - "we'll see you all after regionals" - might be understood as making that equivalence explicit, since it could mean "after the holidays.") Rad won't be satisfied with regionals; there will always be another milestone that has to be reached at any cost. In the same way, having everyone happy at Christmas won't ultimately satisfy Abed, because in itself it doesn't fundamentally change the group dynamic; if Abed wants the Christmas lies to have a lasting effect, he has to keep telling them. "This is what we do now," says Rad as Jeff and the gang jabber like idiots onstage, an idea that horrifies Abed.

Fortunately, 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