Dragons, Gameplaying and Altruism

I recently went to a movie about dragons...

In fact the title was 'How To Train Your Dragon' and it was a Pixar release which meant pretty great graphics... 

The story was really good as well, as it was the typical heroes journey, where the main protagonist starts out as a small character that finds himself through his adventures as the story advances.

Going to the movie made me think more about Dragons in particular and how this related back to my previous post on Dungeons and Dragons...  Which was interesting in itself as I am still thinking over how fantasies, sword and sorcery, and role-playing fit within the culture of gaming.  In real life, we live a drab existence, no dragons, no clear cut lines between good and evil, and no real heroes journey...  It's much harder to maintain a value system without the hands on practice that is evident in games.

I believe that games generally do society a favour, by instilling the principles of teamwork using quests with clear cut lines between good and evil for the people that play them.  It's a training ground, essentially, and I am convinced that the explosion of the popularity of gaming is directly related to the fact that they give us a chance to exercise our nobler instincts.  As well as giving us a community of gamers that we can relate to on a more personal level.

Even the sports and racing games can have the same effect, in my opinion, as the same principles apply.  Teamwork, shared hardship, challenging the player's reflexes to train the hand to eye coordination which is hardship and and way to learn.

If you look at the statistics on the popularity of specific games, you can see that the most popular games are where the player is the 'good' guy with a clearcut enemy to deal with throughout the gameplay.

Games that flop actually don't make this type of distinction, which supports my argument that people generally want to be 'good'.  Games allow people to exercise their altruistic instincts.  And I believe that the more that these instincts are used, the more they expand and strengthen.  So, games help society as they give us a learning experience to exercise our better instincts!  I realize that this runs counter to some of the horror stories about how games are destroying society, but I don't agree with those theories.  Based on my own experiences and what I've seen around me, I think they do the opposite.

In my opinion, we all get a chance to be the white knight and have the gratification of doing good and being appreciated for it by using games as a entertainment method.  Movies don't instill positive values and are soon over, a game can be replayed many times, strengthening the underlying message it gives. Which makes it a much more powerful medium when you think about it...

Images:

1.  Dragon Abstract by Teresa Young - Mar. 2010,  2.  Gaia Unmasked by Teresa Young - Jun. 2007,  3.  The Dragon by Teresa Young as Toulouse LeTrek - Mar. 2010,  4.  Speckled by Teresa Young - Dec. 2009.

There's A Sniper On The Bridge

 

On Sunday, as I was driving up the length of Nova Scotia, Canada back to where I live and I had an experience that shocked me.

It highlighted something for me that I knew in theory, but didn't realize emotionally...

There's a major difference between reality and what we see when we are being entertained.

I was driving with a friend, and was in the passenger seat and it was about 7 PM in the evening.  It was still bright daylight, and we were singing along with a CD.
 

I am one of those odd people that looks up.  Did you ever notice in the movies that noone looks up?

Anyway, I saw a man on the overpass sighting down a rifle right at me!   

I looked up as I saw his movement of the rifle from my passenger over to me...

Since I served five years in the military I am very conversant with the body language of someone sighting through a rifle.  Although I must admit, I don't remember looking down the barrel before!

He was bundled up in a beige winter jacket that was obviously being used to obscure him and what he was doing.  I was initially trying to resolve it into a camera, but I couldn't, faced with my personal experien

ce and artist's eye, it was definitely a rifle.  With a scope.

We went so fast, it was a highway, and by the time we got to the next exit, he would have been gone.  Because two of us saw him, you can't take out two witnesses at once, so that probably saved my life...

What a feeling.  And I play video games, where I am in battles and danger constantly. 

I tend to watch crime shows, and I've always been an action movie fan...

It just wasn't the same.  Yow~ I can't describe the depth of feeling that is there which is in major contrast to the imaginary events...

 The feeling is like a bottom dropping out of what you know is true and everything is up in the air.  You know what is real, and it's not what you thought it was...

Very heady stuff.  I wouldn't want to experience it again, that is for sure.  Although, I had that feeling once before, in backwoods New Brunswick. 

Twenty years ago, my ex husband and I were checking out logging roads trying to find good beaver dams to fish trout from.  He had gotten permission from the landowners who lived out of the area to check out the roads, of course, so it was all in good  fun.  And great fishing, of course!

We had one of those old Ford Broncos, with the locking hubs and four wheel drive capability.  So when we saw the road we wanted, and I jumped out an locked the hubs.  I wasn't hard on the eyes then and whoever lived in the trailer across the road must have seen me...

We drove back into the forest for forty minutes, didn't find the fishing spot and came back out...  When we came to within a mile of the main road, there were three trees freshly cut down across the road!  And it was dusk and I had the weird feeling we were being watched very, very closely. 

My ex was a very smart man.  And very savy in the ways of the world, he got me to scoot over into the drivers seat, leave the engine running as he jumped out to move the trees off the road.  He grabbed his rifle from the backseat as well.. Smart man...

As he walked past the truck, he lifted the rifle in the air as if in salute and waved at me...  After that, the watched feeling disappeared, he moved the trees and we carried on our merry way.

I think I've had enough drama in my life now...  Maybe I'll watch more cheerful TV shows now.

It would be interesting to hear if anyone else had a weird experience like that, please comment if you have a story to tell! 

Images:
Wikipedia - 1,3, 4, and 5.  2. Toulouse and Nina Munteanu at Barrington Bay, NS,  6.  The Trickster by Teresa Young - Feb. 2009.

Ruminations About Skies

 

Have you ever thought about skies and how they represent so many things to the human psyche?

Even an alien landscape with a sky unlike anything in nature will activate hidden emotional associations for most people...

An artist will be aware of this on a conscious or unconscious level and use this to their advantage when creating an image.  It is a very effective mechanism for reaching people non-verbally and it is the inherent symbolism that allows it to work.

A wintry sky will feel cold and unwelcoming to the viewer, even if the other elements in the image are beautiful and stimulating. 

It can evoke a loneliness, a feeling expressed very effectively with minimal subjects within an image.

This is because that over the years, the sky has developed a symbolism in art and literature that it is pretty well impossible to separate it from. 

This is something that an artist has to think about in a conscious way.  If they are trying to project a certain emotional impression in a piece, they can totally destroy the desired mood by putting the sky into the wrong cast and activating subtle emotional associations.

A wide open sky will elicit many emotional reactions and associations to the audience, that it is one of the most powerful symbols that is guaranteed to have a sure-fire impact.

 

Think about it, a windy sky will give a feeling of lonely, endless vistas that leaves the viewer with a wistfulness. 

A photo taken of the from above will actually make the audience think they are looking at water...

Years ago, trying to capture this effect, I took a photograph from the top of a mountain in the interior of British Columbia, a place called Mount Lolo.  The photograph was showing something I had seen previously when I was in the air force and serving at a radar station on Mount Lolo. 

You literally felt that you could sail away over the clouds in the sky, they looked so much like water... 

It had a freedom to it that stuck in my mind for years, a strong symbolism that I felt compelled to travel back to capture after the fact.  This watery sky was so strong in my mind, that it lasted, and I think it might qualify as a type of universal symbol that can bridge language boundries.

Images:
1.  Photo by Teresa Young - near Mill Village, NS,  2. Alien Rotations by Teresa Young, April 2001,  3.  From the top of Mt. Lolo - Teresa Young, 1997,  4. Mahone Bay, Teresa Young, 2009,  5. Edmonton Sky by Rick LeBlanc,  4. From the top of Mt. Lolo - Teresa Young, 1997.