Lit of Horror Fantasy and ScFI

This week's topic has to be my favorite one so far. We are focusing on the idea of spiritual education. I absolutely love this topic. I grew up with the Harry Potter series. It was one of my favorite series of books and movies. As the series unfolded we were amazed as the story unfolded. The Harry Potter series has to be considered in the discussion for the best series ever created, and to think that the series is based on such a simple idea. The whole idea of the Harry Potter  series is based upon the idea of good and evil. There is a stereotypical hero who lives in the normal world and suddenly is thrust into a world of trouble as Voldemort and his friends attack. The story follows the basic heroic journey and continues to do that until the end when they return back to their normal world. This week I failed to complete any reading assignment. However, I had the opportunity to sit down and rewatch the first four films within the Harry Potter  series. The third one is still my

This week we discussed the Heroic Journey as laid out by Joseph Campbell. There is no better author to talk about the heroic journey than J.R.R. Tolkein. His stories are long and detailed. Most famous for his work on The Lord of the Rings series. These three books are absolutely phenomenal and could very easily be detailed on this blog. However, I will not do that because I have only read the first book and do not have any current plans to continue reading the series. I have nothing against the book, in fact I really enjoyed the book, I just do not have the time to read them. Instead I will talk about The Hobbit . Tolkein's story takes place in the same universe as the aforementioned Lord of the Rings , but tells a new tale of the fantasy world. I would give a summary of the novel but I assume most people have had the opportunity to read the book. I will give my opinions of the novel. The novel is unbelievably crafted. It follows the same sort of pattern that Tolkein's other

This week's topic is witches. Witches are unique creatures because they can not be classified as horror or fantasy. So the question then becomes what do we classify witches. There is no simple situation because witches have been portrayed a lot of different ways. At times we have seen them as these ugly old ladies that are truly evil. Other times they are these young and beautiful ladies who have good intentions. Finally we see them as these young girls who have pure minds. The classification as a witch into a certain genre is truly one of the more difficult tasks as for an expert of literature. I am by no means an expert but it is my opinion that this debate may never be over. They are arguments on both sides of the case. For this week's reading I chose to look at the comic book series Redlands.  The series was written by Ringling alumni Jordan Bellaire and speaks about witches in the city of Miami. The whole topic opens up a whole new set of questions. The most prominent qu

H.P. Lovecraft has always been an interesting author. His stories are always different and lyrical. I always like to sit there as I read and see what he is talking about. Lovecraft is unique in the way that he creates a vision that can go many different ways. I really enjoy his style of writing. This week I read What The Moon Brings,  which is one of his short stories. Throughout the entire short story I struggled with what was reality and what was fantasy. His unique style presented a challenge that I was not ready for. It is safe to say that it was a pleasant surprise. I enjoyed how his writing made me feel like I could have been there. That is what makes stories great. The fact that I can put myself there makes me love a story. Lovecraft is one of those special authors that I just can not avoid reading. 

J-Horror is a completely different genre than anything I am used to. I have no previous experience with J-Horror. My whole life I have been living in the Western Hemisphere so I have only seen the western world's variation of horror. With that being said, J-Horror is really cool and a lot of fun. I enjoyed the Japanese ghost stories that I was watching throughout the week. Something that I found interesting about J-Horror is that it revolves around the spiritual world as opposed to western horror which revolves around the physical world. The stories that I read were interesting and at times very weird. I think that this style of writing could be viable and succesful in film here in the United States.