Aunt Maria

First I had to do some research on stereotypes vs archetypes. My research lead to the answer that the difference is that the archetype uses the basic knowledge of the character type as a starting place, while stereotypes add nothing extra, using it as the end point. I would argue that the witches in Aunt Maria are archetypes. They are not stereotypes, they are not oversimplified. They don’t run around on brooms simply causing chaos.  They are more archetypes. In Aunt Maria the witches are never even called witches, they are just assumed to be so. They don’t seem to have any particular spells, but the only thing Aunt Maria is really seen getting up to is turning people into their “pure” animal form. In a sense that isn’t creating something from nothing. Is there a limit to her abilities? I didn’t get to the ending but in what I did get to read they didn’t go around creating potions in cauldrons or flying on brooms. When I think of witches my mind always goes to the Disney movie Hocus Pocus. I believe the witches in that movie could be the most common and influential portrayal of witches I can remember from my childhood. They fly around on brooms, are purely evil, and try to eat children so they can regain their youth. I realized that she also wrote The Tough Guide to Fantasyland which was an option for a few weeks ago which I took a peek at. There she really delves into the many stereotypes of fantasy. So I believe Diana Wynn Jones has a very strong understanding of character, and the good and bad that can come from stereotypes.

As for the way our culture models women with power, if you look directly at Aunt Maria who has most of the power, she put in the position of a witch. She is an evil woman who manipulates the men into submission and the women around her into a following. The classic witch coven so to speak. She doesn’t earn her power fairly, but manipulates the system to get it.

The New Weird - Perdido Street Station

Perdido Street Station. My first impressions of the book were strange. I found myself often having to re-read pages of the already long novel to really understand what was being explained, and then more time was spent trying to make up the world in my head. The book is more one of world building rather than storytelling. Normally a word assists a story’s progression, but in Perdido Street Station I felt it was the other way around. The story was but a way to navigate the streets of New Crobuzon. I also found myself having to often refer to a dictionary tab on my computer. Perdido Street Station was quite exhausting to actually read, but the world it offered was rich. It was simply too much to comprehend for long reading sessions and instead I had to read it in short bursts. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it. It was unlike anything I have ever read before which brings me to the topic of the New Weird and the direction of horror in books.
Horror in the past was scary, then books and movies manipulated it, turning the once scary creatures into comedy and romance. Then they were no longer scary. When most people are left to imagine a world, they often rely on what they know. This leads to stories that if too much is left to the imagination, start to blend together becoming less unique. I think the future of horror and the New Weird is new creatures. We’ve put every twist on the scary creatures of old. We know so much about them that they’re just not scary anymore. People need new creatures to fear after. This is part of the reason I believe the movie The Babadook was praised so highly. A book I read a couple years back called Bird Box is another great example of where horror is headed in literature. The creature in question? A being so immense, that the human brain can’t comprehend or understand it. It basically fries a person’s brain if they see it. It brings out an innate fear, because how can you not be scared when there’s something beyond the human comprehension of reality?

Vampires (Interview with a Vampire)

What do you do when you are immortal? Well it seems the same things humans do, love, hate, and lust, albeit in a different form. Interview With a Vampire to me was like one of those young adult novels set in a high school, just with more mature themes. Louis is in an identity crisis as most young adults, except in this case he’s doomed to it forever. There’s Lestat the bully, Claudia the best friend, The Theatre des Vampires who are the popular kids, and Armand the new love interest. Not actual love interest, but the person who is threatening to ruin your current best friendship, which is in this case with Claudia. The only twist is that they suck blood, and then there’s the issue of what do you do with immortality? Then of course there’s the boy doing the interviewing which in this case I cast as the middle school student who can’t wait to get into high school.

But I can’t hold that against the book because from some research I’ve realized that it was one of the first brooding monster books. As values go, in Interview with a Vampire, I am inclined to believe that the vampires actually represent a lack of moral values. Louis is so different because he still values the pursuit of knowledge, he values his human identity and struggles to keep it. But as much as he tries, it’s simultaneously being destroyed by Lestat and Claudia in vastly different ways. He stays with them out of fear of being alone. It’s a tale of good versus evil, but the struggle is internal. He fights against the nature of a vampire and in the end loses. It’s a story about how with time, values fade. Like how at first Louis was determined to stick to animals, but eventually succumbed to humans. Which brings me to the real life example of politics. Many of the very loud, strongly opinioned far-sided political supporters are young. As they get older, they grow more moderate. Interview with a vampire is a cautionary tale of not letting what you believe in and stand for fade as you get older. You don’t have to be a vampire to get complacent with your place in life.