Anonymous_Evafan wrote:Cause it's not as fictional as you'd like it to be.
Uhhhhh, it is in FICTION. Existential relativity of "there are no absolute truths and morals" doesn't have to be applied religiously to fiction that might have other things in mind. Anti-heroes more or less evolved out of attempts to present people how they really were and that meant warts and all. Again, traditional heroes were those that stood for what society and culture deemed "good" traits. And as views on ourselves as a species and people became more complex, so did our portrayal of fictional characters and the result were "anti-heroes" that didn't display the typical heroic traits.
"Anti-hero" doesn't equate to "bad person". It just equates to a person that's in the hero role but doesn't always display the typical hero traits.
Anonymous_Evafan wrote:Ah but it is. Modern media has made it so by tossing around the word "hero" for raitings.
The media is also different than fiction. The hero probably goes back as far as fiction, story, and narration does. Undoubtedly even before Homer's famous template.
Anonymous_Evafan wrote:He's not a hero, an anti-hero, or a villian.
He's cast in the classic "hero" role.
Anonymous_Evafan wrote: think the molds are flawed as a whole.
As Reichu said, that topic is really for another thread. This thread IS about analyzing NGE in a traditional form, not about the flawed nature of the form itself.
Sachi_13 wrote:I had a thread that was like this, comparing Eva to the Odyssey. Didn't get as much attention as this one. Yojimbo truly is the Eva Yojimbo of the forums.
Post a link to the other thread! I said before I chose that moniker for a reason. You should see me in action over at IMDb and Amazon!
Zuggy wrote:Haven't read much of the essay but it comes across as the same stuff you went on about in your posts on ANF, Yojimbo.
The majority of the ANF stuff was about the relation/significance of the Biblical symbolism, not a literary form. This is, more or less, just for fun.
Zuggy wrote:Any story can be broken down until it fits one of the imaginary story-archetypes, but what do you gain from doing that?
Fairly difficult to break 2001 or Finnegans Wake down to fit archetypes. "What does one gain" is a more complex question than you think considering it varies based on the work, the tradition of the form, how the two relate, and what any individual gets out of it. NGE is much like 2001 in that much of its substance is inextricable to its form, and the more I've uncovered that form's nuances the greater understanding I've gained of why NGE works.
Zuggy wrote:Realising that all stories have a beginning, middle and end and certain events, under one guise or another, must transpire for the story to progress? - how is this a revelation?
Godard: "A film should have a beginning, a middle, and an end, but not necessarily in that order."
The revelation conceivably comes in one noticing how a work follows and diverges from traditional forms. One thing about NGE I've always found particularly fascinating is how its end is more like a beginning and its beginning is more like a middle. Not in the context of the story itself (they both still serve as beginnings and endings) but more in the metaphoric sense that it begins when events have happened to make things how they are, and the middle explores the beginning, and the end returns to the/a beginning. It's both progressive and regressive.
Zuggy wrote:when they are examined along those lines we miss the important differences and the separate points each story makes, instead they are all blurred into one mushy collection of ideas and we aren't left much the wiser as to each afterwards.
Again, revelation conceivably from recognizing the similarities AND the differences and understanding why they conform and why they diverge.
