CG is a tv series, I still recommend it.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
I did see Sucker Punch, I thought it was trashy garbage. A lot of rediculous fight scenes, a paper thin story and lots of sex explored through abuse and slow-mo pantie shots.
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CG is a tv series, I still recommend it.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
I did see Sucker Punch, I thought it was trashy garbage. A lot of rediculous fight scenes, a paper thin story and lots of sex explored through abuse and slow-mo pantie shots.
Nah I'd say that was just a pantie add no less.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grit
Talking of sex scenes in films in general I am surprised they do not have any condoms in full view. It is one to sell them and wanting people to use them and it is another to shoot sex scenes without the condom concept. I am surprised at the lack of consistency between reality and the works of fiction. There is one opportunity missed to teach viewers protected sex. I am not sure I get it.:yesnod:
It's because people don't want to see condoms.Quote:
Originally Posted by cacian
They don't teach safe sex in movies because that'd be didactic and it wouldn't be "cool", thus it wouldn't sell.Quote:
Originally Posted by cacian
Hollywood cares only about it's profits, not art or the quality of film nor the well being of society.
Well I did not mean for the condoms to be used explicitly but just somewhere where one can see them. Anyway why would not people want to see them? :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Volya
Not cool? Ok that is new to me. It is not cool to not use protection in my world and so I guess television is definitely a different world from mine.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grit
I couldn't find CG in the library, perhaps it is on the internet. I liked Sucker Punch. It is my example now of heroic sacrifice where one person risks losing their life for another. There are many of these. I don't consider this suicide. There's a good chance these will be profitable.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grit
Here are two more categories of literature (including movies) that discuss suicide.
1) Metaphysical despair movies such as Melancholia. In this movie the earth is swallowed up by the rogue planet Melancholia. It was well done and probably made money, but the message was that we should all just kill ourselves and since we won't the universe is doing it for us. (Edit: I checked IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1527186/ It budged $7 million and grossed $3 million)
2) Then there are psychic stories of communicating with a deceased person who has committed suicide. Usually these have a more positive metaphysics associated with them. I suspect they also sell well enough.
I found Code Geass on youtube. Here's the ending: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2WTEnevdPs
Man even watching that clip starts making me emotional. Thanks for posting.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
This has been a thought provoking thread for me. In regards to number two on your list, it reminds me of an idea I was very committed to recently. It was to be a story about the life of an extremely intelligent psychopath told through the eyes of his mothers ghost. I gave up on it because, get this, I thought it was too dark to sell. A bit off topic but related to the after life communication story you allude to.
I thought sucker punch had a great concept that was poorly executed although I can see why you would like it and you're certainly not alone.
FWIW, CG has a 8.9/10 rating on imdb which is pretty impressive imo, but probably a bit inflated by biased anime fanatics.
I watched the entire Avatar series at the request of my niece some years ago. I told her I liked Cameron's movie Avatar and she was setting me straight. It was interesting enough to watch the whole thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grit
The idea of the mother's ghost telling her son's story might have merit. You can always revisit it later. Dark need not be bad. The problem with suicide in fiction is that it bores and may even annoy because it does not uplift the reader.
I like to emphasize how well something sells to bring literature discussions back down to earth, but I would be mainly interested in whether a story entertained enough readers.
There might be a third category of metaphysical suicide themes that would work in literature that these anime series bring to mind. It would include the Jesus story that was discussed earlier. This would be a hero who allow himself or herself to die to bring about a greater good. The sacrifice would have to have huge consequences, not just saving someone else from a burning building and losing one's own life in the process.
As far as appealing to the reader, I suppose suicide through self sacrifice could work...But I feel that a reader that would be bored or turned off by suicide could still raise the question: why does self sacrifice have to necessarily be suicide? I understand the idea behind Jesus´s sacrifice, but what other huge effect could a suicide have toward the greater good?
I just have on other problem with this...in this thread, there's been a debate back and forth that suicide in literature is either distasteful or effective if well-written. If suicide is posed as a valiant, self-sacrificial act for the good of others, won't this have a worse effect on the nature of it? It's like saying there's a positive and negative form of suicide.
Reconsidering it, I don't think associating suicide with self-sacrifice would work. The victim would have to be killed by unavoidable circumstances or someone else. So it wouldn't really be a suicide.
I think it's important to consider context when determining the viability of suicide as a good turn in a story.
If a character really, really, wanted to live and they had been established as a selfish, greedy person than suicide could, under the right circumstances, provide both a "for the better" character arc and a conclusion to the plot.
Obviously it'd need to be the last option, almost inconsiderable, but the only choice to overcome the conflict. It could actually be very uplifting, seeing a character give what they want more than anything away for the greater good.
Just my opinion, but I think suicide, like any topic, could be uplifting and entertaining if handled right. It is a more sensitive topic than most but that doesn't mean it couldn't work very well if handled properly.
Consider this;
Would you kill yourself if it would abolish world hunger for the rest of time?
Purely hypothetical, and not realistic, but a tough question all the same. I'd think someone choosing to make that sacrifice would be very inspiring. Not someone who wanted to kill themselves but someone who didn't, someone who always chose themselves first in the past.
I'd say yes. And call me naive but I think many, many others would as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grit
I remember working with a woman many years ago who announced to the rest of the team that she would kill herself if it would do humanity good. She was expressing a noble intent and she seemed sincere. Of course she never did (to my knowledge) because the if part of the statement could never be verified. I don't know if anyone around her took this seriously. I certainly didn't.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grit
Characters such as hers could work in a story, but I think they would appear delusional to the reader if they actually committed suicide. Prior to any suicide these characters could be comic relief in the story.
A lot of the suicides that one sees are people who believe the if statement has been verified. To take the most obvious example, the Buddhist monk who immolates himself or herself thinks this will do good. What it does is puts in question Buddhism itself. Even the young man who killed himself recently after shooting up a class of 5-year-olds probably thought he was justified. He needed a lot of death for his own suicide to be visible.
So, I don't think a story would work from the perspective of such a person alone. The author would have to portray that character as deluded to not alienate the reader.
The flip side of the suicide hypothetical about world hunger is, "Would you murder an innocent person if it would abolish world hunger for all time?" It seems to me that if you wouldn't answer, "Yes" to this question, you shouldn't commit suicide to abolish world hunger, either. Of course to a Christian, the answer is clear. Thou shalt not kill. To the non-religious, the answer appears as if it should be clear as well -- the principle of greatest good for the greatest number would seem to support either the suicide or the murder. But does it? Is death the "evil" that should be prevented at all cost? The Christian (or Muslim) would say that death is a gift from God -- while murder (or suicide) is a sin because it involves willful disobedience. But none of us, religious or atheist, can escape death. If we don't die from hunger, it just means we will die from cancer, or heart disease. And although we cannot escape death, we can, perhaps, avoid murdering others, not because their death by murder is so much worse than their death from any other cause, but because of the moral harm we do to ourselves by murdering someone.
But those are two completely different situations. It's up to you if you feel you are willing to voluntarily give your own life, whereas killing somebody to do it is taking away the 'voluntarily' bit and forcing somebody to do it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecurb
Obviously the situations are different, but they are also similar. In both, the question is would you kill someone in order to save thousands of people? Or, more generally, is it a good, moral act to kill one person to save thousands? If it is a good, moral act, why not murder someone (if it would hypothetically save thousands)? If it is not a good, moral act why commit suicide?
In the case of suicide, the person dying is willingly dying.
In the case of murder, the person dying is NOT willingly dying.
That's true, of course. But why is that the only relevant factor? The principle of "greatest good for the greatest number" would suggest that both the murder and the suicide were moral acts. And, of course, in both cases the moral agent (the hypothetical me) is killing in order to support this principle. (I assume the thousands starving to death aren't "willingly dying" either.)
no I would not kill for anything because ultimately one advocating killing no matter what the cause is and that is the bottom line.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecurb
It is not about morality it is about the message one is sending to others. If one does it then another will.
I go along with Cacian (we knew where you stood on the issue, Cacian). On the other hand, I think all three choices are reasonable: Neither murder nor commit suicide; commit suicide but refrain from murder; or kill both oneself and another person. It's interesting to suss out where the distinctions lie, though. Suppose it wasn't your choice. Suppose your child (OK, the non parents can think of, perhaps, a lover) had the option of committing suicide to prevent starvation? Would you want him to do it? (The starvation option is a little strange, because most of us could prevent starvation by simply living less expensively and giving away our money, but it's a reasonable hypothetical if we ignore that troublesome truth.)
In World War 2, statistics show that Kamikaze attacks were an effective tactic. In other words, the Japanese sank more ships per pilot killed using Kamikaze attacks than they did with traditional bombing. If your country were at war, and it became clear that the same statistics continue to hold, would you advocate Kamikaze attacks? On what principle would you NOT recommend them?
Sorry, but no, it is a silly hypothetical no matter how you cut it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecurb
That doesn't make it an effective tactic unless one has an unlimited supply of planes and an unlimited supply of pilots too stupid to realize their leaders are out of rational tactics. They didn't and they didn't.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecurb
On the principle that it is a desperate, dead-end tactic. Both the missile (plane) and the guidance system (pilot) are too expensive to make this sustainable—ever.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecurb
Quote:
Originally Posted by WyattGwyon
That's not true. If bombing is an effective tactic (which admits of some doubt, but it's a reasonable hyopthetical), then it is certainly possible (indeed, it appears to have been the case in WW2) that Kamikaze attacks inflict MORE TONNAGE of Ships sunk (the goal of this type of bombing) per plane and pilot lost than conventional bombing. Why would a more efficient tactic in terms of inflicting damage on the enemy, which reduces the losses needed to inflict that damage be "too expensive to be sustainable --ever." This makes no sense.
(I'm not an expert on Kamikaze attacks, but I read an analysis by someone who claimed to be an expert and made this exact case for the WW2 kamikaze attacks. Of course the war was pretty much lost by the time Japan started using this tactic, but if continuing to bomb conventionally cost more casualties in terms of planes and pilots lost per tonnage sunk, why would it be a superior tactic to Kamikaze attacks? You would certainly not need an "unlimited supply of planes..and pilots" using the more efficient tactic any more than you would using the less efficient one. )
eta: Suppose you were a Japanese pilot. The goal of your squadron was to sink X tons of U.S. shipping off Okinowa. There are two options: conventional bombing, or kamikaze attacks. You know that in order to sink X tons using conventional bombing, 30% of your squadron's planes will be shot down and the pilots will be killed. You also know that you can sink the required tonnage using kamikaze attacks, and will stage a lottery to deterimine who will fly the planes. In addition, since Kamikaze attacks are more efficient, the lottery will choose 15 of 100 men for the Kamikaze attacks. So in one case 30 men die, in the other 15 die. Which squadron would you prefer to be a member of?
Could that 30 percent really be pin-pointed? I ask with this thought about your scenario. The 15 pilots assigned the kamikaze attack will be dead with certainty. However, it can't really be determined if 30 actual pilots would die under the alternative, because it's all chance. Where one route is a sure means to death, the others unknown.
However, I don't doubt that the U.S. had a much stronger military. Casualties on the Japanese were bound to be high, so kamikaze attacks probably a last resort tactic. I don't think superior is the right word, because it's really an act out of desperation, not superior intelligence.
It's a general philosophy that's covered in different clothes today. Jihadists wouldn't dream of engaging in a full on ground war, they don't have the man power and resources in a large enough quantity. No, instead they'll send one of their own into "enemy" territory and push the red button. Smart? Maybe, or just desperate and pathetic, especially how little you value the lives of your side. Or maybe my own personal morality is swinging me biased here, but any party willing to go to such lengths for victory must install fear into their own party, and it seems the whole thing would crumble from there.
It's like, "so who's the bad guy: the enemy I'm supposed to kill, or my friends and allies that keep telling me I have to die for their lives and success?".
Like I said, I don't really know if the article I read was correct or not -- but it definitely posited that Kamikazes sank more tonnage of shipping per pilot and plane lost than conventional bombing. Of course you are also correct, Shaman, that the past never predicts the future with 100% accuracy, so when PLANNING tactics, there is some uncertainty. However, after sending hundreds of air squadrons on bombing missions, it's reasonable to trust the statistics.
Nonetheless, I don't think Western airmen would go for Kamikaze attacks. It goes against our ethos, even if it is a more effecient and effective tactic that would save pilots' lives in the long run.
This is where it becomes hard. I used to believe that suicide was totally fine and was mystified as to why it was so taboo. Then I thought of the family, loved ones and friends of the person who would kill themselves and I began to understand. Suicide is a very selfish act, it scars and traumatizes the loved ones. It's hard for many not to blame themselves when a loved one kills themselves. I can absolutely see that side of the argument.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecurb
It also makes the likelihood of that hypothetical much lower in my opinion. Many people would sacrifice themselves for a greater cause if that's where the pain ends but if they started considering family, especially a parent with children, I think it starts to become impossible. As much as you'd be doing good for the whole, you'd be leaving your child without a parent.
All this said, I still think it could be a very strong aspect of a story if done well. The subject would have to be of a character totally opposed to suicide and the gain would have to be massive for it to work, though.
Also, this thread reminds me of the watchmen. It explores this theme of weighing one life against many. Rorsach is murdered for the good of the whole, to prevent global war and for all the right reasons. He isn't a particularly good person and yet it feels very wrong.
All the more satisfying when the news outlet finds his journal at the end.
Rorschach... not a good person...? What is this blasphemy...Quote:
Originally Posted by Grit
I guess saying he isn't a good person is too simple. Would you want to hang out with him? I sure as hell wouldn't. He's got good intentions, but he's extreme, very violent.Quote:
Originally Posted by Volya
I wouldn't call him a good person.
Rorschach I wonder what this name mean. also what about his journal?Quote:
Originally Posted by Grit
The name comes from the Rorschach ink-blot tests. I don't think you'd like the Watchmen cacian, much too dark for somebody who doesn't want suicide in novels :p
I would call him a good person, he is quite violent, but he uses violence for justice. (Getting slightly off-topic here...)
LOL thanks Volya I think I know what you mean although about the ink-blot tests what a weird thing to do to test people perceptions through random ink formations.:)Quote:
Originally Posted by Volya
Because both their conventional bombing methods and kamikaze attacks were hopelessly inefficient. Neither was sustainable. They needed a better way to attack shipping.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecurb
That's certainly likely, since Japan used both tactics and lost the war anyway. However, we can't infer from this that using planes to attack shipping could never be successful. And if it were successful, kamikaze might be the most effective and efficient way to go (if you could persuade your pilots to do it.) I also don't think you can automatically assume that both Japanese tactics were "hopelessly inefficient" just because they didn't work in the long run. The tactics weren't sustainable because Japan lacked the resources of the U.S., not because their tactics were inefficient (although, of course, all tactics, given human fallibility, are less than perfectly efficient). Still, the best possible tactics don't always lead to victory against a superior force.Quote:
Originally Posted by WyattGwyon
Take a look at the F35.
But, how do these deaths affect the lives of the other characters in the story? Tragedy and death gives way to further tragic consequences...Quote:
Originally Posted by cacian
It should lead to some resolution, but when it doesn't the art is bad.Quote:
Originally Posted by synodbio
I just saw the film Small Apartments based on Chris Millis' novel. One of the characters at the end commits suicide for no reason. When I saw that, I thought of this thread and thought that was a pretty lame thing to have a character do. The other characters in the story were doing stupid things as well mixed with "deep" sentimentality related to
"The Answer" at the end. The words "artsy-fartsy" and "juvenile" came to mind to describe the plot.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1272886/
Why should suicide lead to some resolution in literature? It doesn't always lead to a resolution in life. Besides the fact the suicide is dead, and that's a pretty grand resolution. People frequently commit suicide with little or no warning signs. Occasionally even generally happy people off themselves in drunken depressions. It doesn't make sense, there is seemingly no reason behind it, but life is absurd, so why should literature be any less so.