Messy is fun: challenging Occam’s razor

design thinking, psychology, taxonomy

The scientific method is the most popular form of scientific inquiry, because it provides measurable testing of a given hypothesis. This means that once an experiment is performed, whether the results were negative or positive, the foundation on which you are building your understanding is a little more solid, and your perspective a little broader. The only failed experiment is a poorly designed one.

So, how to design a good experiment? The nuts and bolts of a given test will vary according to the need at hand, but before you even go about determining what variable to study, take a step back and look at the context. The context in which you are placing your experiment will determine what you’re looking for and what variables you choose. The more limited the system you’re operating in, the easier your test choices will be, but the more likely you are to miss something useful. Think big. Think complicated. Then narrow things down.

But, some say, simple is good! What about Occam’s razor and the law of parsimony (entities should not be unnecessarily multiplied)?

Occam’s razor is a much-loved approach that helps make judgment calls when no other options are available. It’s an excellent rule of thumb for interpreting uncertain results. Applying Occam’s razor, you can act “as if” and move on to the next question, and go back if it doesn’t work out.

Still, too many people tend to use it to set up the context of the question, unconsciously limiting the kind of question they can ask and limiting the data they can study. It’s okay to do this consciously, by focusing on a simple portion of a larger whole, but not in a knee-jerk fashion because “simple is better.” Precisely because of this, several scientists and mathematicians have suggested anti-razors. These do not necessarily undermine Occam’s razor. Instead, they phrase things in a manner that helps keep you focused on the big picture.

Some responses to Occam’s concept include these:

Einstein: Everything should be as simple as possible, but no simpler.

Leibniz: The variety of beings should not rashly be diminished.

Menger: Entities must not be reduced to the point of inadequacy.

My point is not that Occam’s razor is not a good choice in making many decisions, but that one must be aware that there are alternative views. Like choosing the correct taxonomy in systematics, choosing different, equally valid analytic approaches to understand any given question can radically change the dialogue. In fact, one can think of anti-razors as alternative taxonomies for thought: ones that let you freely think about the messy things, the variables you can’t measure, the different perspectives that change the very language of your studies. You’ll understand your question better, because you’ll think about it more than one way. And while you’ll need to pick simple situations to test your ideas, the variety and kind of situations you can look at will be greatly expanded.

Plus, messy is fun.

Originally posted on former personal blog UXtraordinary.com.

Zombie ideas

psychology

In 1974 Robert Kirk wrote about the “zombie idea,” describing the concept that the universe, the circle of life, humanity, and our moment-to-moment existence could all have developed, identically with “particle-for-particle counterparts,” and yet lack feeling and consciousness. The idea is that evolutionally speaking, it is not essential that creatures evolved consciousness or raw feels in order to evolve rules promoting survival and adaptation. Such a world would be a zombie world, acting and reasoning but just not getting it (whatever “it” is).

I am not writing about Kirk’s idea. (At least, not yet.)

Rather, I’m describing the term in the way it was used in 1998, by four University of Texas Health Science Center doctors, in a paper titled, “Lies, Damned Lies, and Health Care Zombies: Discredited Ideas That Will not Die”
(pdf). Here the relevant aspect of the term “zombie” is refusal to die, despite being killed in a reasonable manner. Zombie ideas are discredited concepts that nonetheless continue to be propagated in the culture.

While they (and just today, Paul Krugman) use the term, they don’t explicate it in great detail. I thought it might be fun to explore the extent to which a persistent false concept is similar to a zombie.

  • A zombie idea is dead.
    For the vast majority of the world, the “world is flat” is a dead idea. For a few, though, the “world is flat” virus has caught hold, and this idea persists even in technologically advanced cultures.
  • A zombie idea is contagious.
    Some economists are fond of the concept of “binary herd behavior.” The idea is that when most people don’t know about a subject, they tend to accept the view of the person who tells them about it; and they tend to do that in an all-or-nothing manner. Then they pass that ignorant acceptance on to the next person, who accepts it just as strongly. (More about the tyranny of the dichotomy later.) So, when we’re children and our parents belong to Political Party X, we may be for Political Party X all the way, even though we may barely know what a political party actually is.
  • A zombie idea is hard to kill.
    Some zombie viruses are very persistent. For example, most people still believe that height and weight is a good calculator to determine your appropriate calorie intake. Studies, however, repeatedly show that height and weight being equal, other factors can change the body’s response.Poor gut flora, certain bacteria, and even having been slightly overweight in the past can mean that of two people of the same height and weight, one will eat the daily recommended calories and keep their weight steady, and one will need to consume 15% less in order to maintain the status quo. Yet doctors and nutritionists continue to counsel people to use the national guidelines to determine how much to eat.
  • A zombie idea eats your brain.
    Zombie ideas, being contagious and false, are probably spreading through binary thinking. A part of the brain takes in the data, marks it as correct, and because it works in that all-or-nothing manner, contradictory or different data has a harder time getting the brain’s attention. It eats up a part of brain’s memory, and by requiring more processing power to correct it, eats up your mental processing time as well.It also steals all the useful information you missed because your brain just routed the data right past your awareness, thinking it knew the answer.
  • Zombies are sometimes controlled by a sorcerer, or voodoo bokor.
    Being prey to zombie ideas leaves you vulnerable. If you have the wrong information, you are more easily manipulated by the more knowledgeable. Knowledge, says Mr. Bacon, is power.
  • Zombies have no higher purpose than to make other zombies.
    Closely related to the previous point. Even if you are not being manipulated, your decision-making suffers greatly when you are wrongly informed. You are also passing on your wrong information to everyone you talk to about it. Not being able to fulfill your own purposes, you are simply spreading poor data.

So we see that the tendency to irony is not just useful in and of itself, but useful in helping prevent zombie brain infections. As lunchtime is nearly over, and I can’t think of more similarities, I’m stopping here to get something to eat.

[Exit Alex stage right, slouching, mumbling, “Must…eat…brains.”]

Originally posted on former personal blog UXtraordinary.com.

Hills on octopuses

fun

I’m convinced that octopuses are the next rulers of the world. They are freaky smart, they can change colors instantly, and they can squeeze their bodies through a teeny pipe. Even YOU only have one of those three going for you. Hail, our octopus overlords!

— Kurt Hills

Originally commented on LiveJournal.

Smart because I’m stupid, stupid because I’m smart

psychology

Smart because I’m stupid

Some people are smart because understanding comes easily to them. I, on the other hand, might argue that what smarts I have come from what I don’t understand.

Take, for example, mirrors. There is a basic rule about mirrors that many take for granted, and that is when we focus on a mirror image, we focus not on the mirror but on the things it’s reflecting. Optometrists use this all the time to avoid having twenty-foot-long rooms. Using mirrors, light bounces from the eye chart letters twenty feet before hitting the patient’s eyes; hence the 20 in 20/20. (20/20 means that at twenty feet, you see at the same clarity as a normal human. Some few see more clearly; 20/10 means you see an object at twenty feet as clearly as it would appear at ten to most people.)

But this presented problems to me because I could not understand how it worked. Here were my questions:

How does my eye know how far to focus in order to see the other object clearly? If I’m looking at a mirror that’s reflecting something out of my line of sight—a plain cube, say—how would I know, without a context, where to focus to see it at the appropriate clarity for my vision? How know if it was five inches a side, or five feet? All my brain knows is that the cube is some distance farther from me than the mirror. Yet somehow my eye focuses. (Briefly I wondered why, if my brain can “decide” how distant a thing is, it can’t “pretend” it’s closer so my myopic eyes see it clearly? I’m a highly near-sighted person who sees clearly about six inches from my eyes, after which the world begins to blur. Don’t worry, I figured it out.)

Why can’t I take a picture of the mirror itself, or glass, for that matter? Saying it’s because they’re transparent only raises the issue of what, exactly, makes transparency possible in the first place. A thing that both allows an unimpeded passage of light through, but can also reflect that light almost perfectly?

It was all too weird for me.

But I understood the basics of refraction, and eventually (I’m ashamed to admit how long this took) I came up with a mental picture to understand this at least partly.

First, I had to acknowledge that transparency was not a focusing issue (more about transparency later). Then I imagined a camera, an object, and a mirror at the points of an equilateral triangle. The mirror is angled so that it reflects the object to the camera, and the camera to the object.

The camera’s view includes both the object and the mirror. But the representation of the object the camera sees via the mirror has traveled twice as far, and so is less clear. As was my understanding, until I thought of this.

Then another question occurred to me. If the camera is absorbing both its direct view of the object, and the reflected view, perhaps a piece of film with both those bits of information was more accurate somehow than simply seeing the object clearly. Then I imagined multiple mirrors, each angling a different aspect of the object onto the same point. The results would have much more complete information about the object than a simple photograph. We might not interpret it well on a flat surface. Then I thought of holograms, and suddenly my understanding of the interference pattern that creates a hologram, and the apparent chaos of a piece of holographic film, improved sharply.

Most of the things in my life that I understand well originate like this, with something obvious to others but not to me. And that’s why I say that I’m smart because I’m stupid.

Stupid because I’m smart

Still, I’m also stupid because I’m smart. There are a bunch of cuttlefish in a lab in Pennsylvania that are demonstrably better able to learn than I am, Here’s why:

Jean Boal, an associate professor at Millersville University, studies cuttlefish intelligence, as well as that of other cephalopods. She has devised a fairly complex test, demanding not only learned association, but unlearning it and learning a new one, then going back and forth in a process called serial reversal learning. They’re pretty good at it.

The cuttlefish goes through a door, into a tank within a tank. It’s small, with opaque walls. To both sides of the cuttlefish are two openings into the larger tank, and in front of it is an object such as a plastic plant.

The two openings are marked differently, one framed with broad, vivid stripes, one a solid color. Both appear to be open to the cuttlefish, but one is closed using a transparent piece of plastic. If the object in front of the cuttlefish is a plastic plant, then the solid-framed doorway is open. If the object is a rock, then the striped doorway is open.

Cuttlefish are smart enough to figure this out, and act accordingly to obtain access to the rest of the tank.

Here’s why I’m not as swift as a cuttlefish. There are two good routes to my workplace, one on the highway, one on a street paralleling the highway. If I stepped out the door to see a mockingbird sat on my mailbox, and this was followed by a wreck on the highway necessitating my taking the street route, I would not correlate these things. Even if every time the mockingbird was on the mailbox there was a wreck on the highway, I sincerely doubt I would notice the correlation. For one thing, I’m smart enough to have a lot of things on my mind, which might make noticing and retaining and associating the data more difficult. For another, I’m informed enough to understand the basics of physics, and this tells me that birds on mailboxes are not catalysts for car wrecks. So the very simple association the cuttlefish makes would be beyond me.

Dr. Boal say that “the ultimate question is, am I smart enough to find out how smart they are?” Well, Dr. Boal, I can tell you one thing—they are most definitely smarter than I.

A last note

Transparency and reflection are still interesting to me. Think about it. Here’s a piece of glass, and it allows light to pass through in a straight line, unimpeded so far as we can tell (I’m assuming no impurities are present to tint or otherwise distort the glass). We look through the piece of glass, and we see what’s on the other side. But that same piece of glass can, if I view it from the right perspective, reflect all that light instead of letting it pass through. And my brain lets me see it clearly, despite the focusing distance being farther than the glass itself. Water and other things are similarly challenging.

It’s as though the property of the transparent object—allowing light through, or reflecting it—is dependent on the perspective and behavior of the observer. I know this is very obvious. But it seems to me that this is a good analogy for some of the more mysterious behaviors in the universe. It’s not that something magical is happening. It’s that we’re seeing different facets of the same thing, and we just can’t see the thing itself yet. Because it’s transparent.

Originally posted on LiveJournal

Context, the writer’s con

design

Context is a sci fi/fantasy conference in Columbus, Ohio. I had the pleasure of doing a couple of program covers. This is one I most enjoyed: a dragon, captivated by a book to the exclusion of the alien invasion and vampire drama raging around her.  

Cover, Context XIX program. Ink + digital color; my concept and art.

The actual program printed in black and white, but I typically enhance my stippling with watercolor or digital color.

Einstein on radio

fun

You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.

— Albert Einstein

The Return of the King: a Tolkien fan’s review

writing

A [as a story by Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens]
C+ [as a story by J.R.R. Tolkien]

The Two Viewers

This time, I didn’t go to the midnight opening (I did for The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers). I went to a matinée yesterday with two friends, one an enthusiastic fan who had seen a preview show and knew she would thoroughly enjoy a second viewing, and one a disappointed first-time viewer. They’re both right.

As a longtime Tolkien fan, it’s hard not to wonder what non-Tolkien viewers experience. If I didn’t know the books, I would probably think the movie excellent, if mildly self-indulgent. I would attribute some excessively long moments to Peter Jackson’s relative youth as a director. Artists grow by learning discretion.

In Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Trois Couleurs: Bleu, there is a moment when Juliette Binoche sits in a café and dunks a sugar cube. Kieslowski wanted the cube to melt. He knew that if it took too long a time, the viewer would lose contact with the film; if it took too little, the peace of the moment would not be expressed. Five seconds was enough to make his point and keep his audience. His crew tested multiple brands, seeking a five-second sugar cube, and the moment is perfect. Bleu was Kieslowski’s forty-seventh film. Depending on how you count (measuring The Lord of the Rings as three films or one), The Return of the King was Jackson’s seventh or ninth full-length directed piece.

Continuing as an imaginary viewer, free of Tolkien’s writing through time or ignorance, I would be entranced by battles, impressed by details, and weep through moments such as the lighting of the bonfires. I might be dismayed by the length, and think several moments a little too sentimentally long-drawn. Probably I would leave very happy, thinking Jackson has successfully captured a beloved story in which I was not as invested as a Tolkien fan.

But then, I am a Tolkien fan. And the more I think, the more I mourn. Peter Jackson’s love has accomplished a great deal, it has even brought Middle-earth to the silver screen—but it has left Tolkien’s story behind.

Be warned: the following is written for those who have seen the movie, or know the books fairly well, or both. Spoilers abound for everyone else.

Will the real Denethor please stand up? And the real Aragorn, Gandalf, Faramir, Gollum…. I sound angry. I am.

I understand the necessities of transforming a book into a film. I even admire some of the ways Jackson creatively accomplishes this. In The Two Towers, he inserted a family separated by war in Rohan, then reunited later. The characters were non-existent in the books, including appendices, but their brief appearances gave the audience something to track in a complicated series of raids, battles, and travel. It was useful, clever, and in keeping with the storyline and theme.

What I don’t understand are changes which don’t just alter but diametrically oppose Tolkien’s books. Taking them one at a time:

Gollum, Frodo, and Sam

I’ll tackle this first, since it upset me most. In the movie, Gollum is trapped by his desire for the ring. He’s incapable of resisting this impulse, and actively works to pit Frodo against Sam. Now, Sam also tries to get Frodo to distrust Gollum. Helping to explain this is a moment when Sam overhears Gollum talking to himself, plotting against the hobbits. Gollum succeeds in separating the two, tricking Frodo into believing Sam finished the companions’ elven food supply behind Frodo’s back, and causing Frodo to tell Sam to “Go home.” And Sam goes! On the back doorstep of Mordor, having survived Nazgul, storms, orcs, trolls, and a Balrog, Sam turns around to leave and give it all up.

Jackson shows Gollum’s history, the centuries of corruption by the ring, and his loss of self over time. The viewer is invited to feel compassion, but also to remain untrusting. Gollum will not change, and is in no danger of doing so. He serves Frodo because Frodo has the ring. The only better situation would be to possess the ring himself. In The Two Towers, we see Gollum try to be good. By The Return of the King, this chance is gone.

In the books, there is no pinning-the-crime-on-Sam moment. Sam is not certain of Gollum’s perfidy because he overhears him, but because he has a deep emotional distrust. There is no rift between Frodo and Sam, and Gollum is not so foolish as to try to create one. And right up to entering the caverns leading to Mordor, Gollum’s heart is uncertain. Sam’s unreasoning prejudice and cruelty drive Gollum over the edge. Later, Sam carries the ring briefly, and comes to understand what Frodo, all too familiar with the burden, understood all along about Gollum. These are not black and white characters in a clear-cut world of Good and Evil, Light and Dark. Gollum and Sam are complex people in a complex struggle, both wanting to do the right thing, both failing, both succeeding.

For those who have seen the movie but not read the books, or not recently read them, I offer Tolkien’s final scene on the stairs, before entering Shelob’s (the giant spider) lair. Read the below, then consider Jackson’s breadcrumbs, and ask yourself if the movie added or detracted from the story.

Having climbed the stairs of Cirith Ungol, Frodo and Sam rest while Gollum scouts ahead in the caverns. They are exhausted from the climb. Sam tells Frodo to sleep while he keeps watch.

And so Gollum found them hours later, when he returned, crawling and creeping down the path out of the gloom ahead. Sam sat propped against the stone, his head dropping sideways and his breathing heavy. In his lap lay Frodo’s head, drowned deep in sleep; upon his white forehead lay one of Sam’s brown hands, and the other lay softly upon his master’s breast. Peace was in both their faces.

Gollum looked at them. A strange expression passed over his lean hungry face. The gleam faded from his eyes, and they went dim and grey, old and tired. A spasm of pain seemed to twist him, and he turned away, peering back up towards the pass, shaking his head, as if engaged in some interior debate. Then he came back, and slowly putting out a trembling hand, very cautiously he touched Frodo’s knee — but almost the touch was a caress. For a fleeting moment, could one of the sleepers have seen him, they would have thought that they beheld an old weary hobbit, shrunken by the years that had carried him far beyond his time, beyond friends and kin, and the fields and streams of youth, an old starved pitiable thing.

But at that touch Frodo stirred and cried out softly in his sleep, and immediately Sam was wide awake. The first thing he saw was Gollum—”pawing at master,” as he thought.

“Hey, you!” he said roughly. “What are you up to?”

“Nothing, nothing,” said Gollum softly. “Nice Master!”

“I daresay,” said Sam. “But where have you been to — sneaking off and sneaking back, you old villain?”

Gollum withdrew himself, and a green glint flickered under his heavy lids. Almost spider-like he looked now, crouched back on his bent limbs, with his protruding eyes. The fleeting moment had passed, beyond recall.

Denethor

I’m glad I’m not the only one to feel anger over Denethor. LiveJournal’s minirth discusses the “great sucking wrongness” of the film’s treatment of yet another complex Tolkien character, reduced to a simplistic Jackson villain. I don’t want to recreate the argument, but here are my personal complaints.

Gandalf’s treatment of Denethor and Pippin.

Gandalf would never hit anyone with his staff except in battle (and then he usually employs his sword). Not only is this level of discourtesy impossibly out of character, but Gandalf is a steward himself, of Middle-earth! Although not discussed in the movie, his character is not human, but a lesser angel (as are Sauron and Saruman), whose purpose is to combat Sauron and ready Middle-earth’s inhabitants for their own “stewardship” of their world. (This, by the way, also explains Gandalf’s preternatural strength and agility, otherwise incomprehensible in an old man, as Roger Ebert pointed out on Ebert and Roeper.)

Also wrong is Gandalf peremptorily bumping Pippin with his staff when Pippin offers service to Denethor in repayment of Boromir’s death, and Gandalf’s dismissive treatment of Denethor. Here are Tolkien’s words on the subject:

Pippin and Gandalf have left after Pippin’s first encounter with Denethor, Steward of Gondor. Pippin has not only offered but sworn allegiance to Denethor. Gandalf is speaking.

“He [Denethor] is not as other men of this time, Pippin, and whatever be his descent from father to son, by some chance the blood of Westernesse runs nearly true in him; as it does in his other son, Faramir, and yet did not in Boromir whom he loved best. He has long sight. He can perceive, if he bends his will thither, much of what is passing in the minds of men, even of those who dwell far off. It is difficult to deceive him, and dangerous to try.

“Remember that! For you are now sworn to his service. I do not know what put it into your head, or your heart, to do that. But it was well done. I did not hinder it, for generous heart should not be checked by cold counsel.”

Denethor’s death

Denethor was a great man, of the same kind as Aragorn, strong, intelligent, deep-seeing, and disciplined. He was not a glutton, hunched over as if in imitation of Shakespeare’s Richard III. He certainly did not flinch from his decisions. In the books, his cynicism springs from his use of a palantír (like the orb Pippin picks up early in the film), which Sauron twists and uses to show misleading information. The resulting despair drives him to attempt suicide for himself and his wounded son.

From the book. Faramir has already been removed from the pyre:

Swiftly he [Denethor] snatched a torch from the hand of one [a servant] and sprang back into the house. Before Gandalf could hinder him he thrust the brand amid the fuel, and at once it crackled and roared into flame.

Then Denethor leaped upon the table, and standing there wreathed in fire and smoke he took up the staff of his stewardship that lay at his feet and broke it on his knee. Casting the pieces into the blaze he bowed and laid himself upon the table, clasping the palantír with both hands upon his breast. And it was said that ever after, if any man looked in that Stone, unless he had great strength of will to turn it to other purpose, he saw only two aged hands withering in flame.

Much more intense, and adding no more time to the story, had Jackson spent less time studying the Jacksonian Denethor’s eating habits.

Denethor was another complex character, a good man twisted by deceit and his own pride. He was brilliant and misguided. Gandalf would not treat him with disrespect; for Jackson to treat the character as he did is an insult to the audience and the story.

Aragorn, Arwen, and Éowyn

I still don’t understand the need to undermine Aragorn and Arwen’s faith in each other by having Arwen leave for the Grey Havens. It adds to the length of the story, reduces the romance, and gives less reason for Éowyn’s despair and longing for battle.

There are two pages in the books which completely express Aragorn and Éowyn’s thoughts. Read them here, and then consider Jackson’s revision. There are some fantastic lines, such as Éowyn’s complaint of the role of women; and Éowyn gets the last word.

The sons of Elrond have arrived with a company of Rangers from the North, to help Aragorn. Elrond sends word to “Bid Aragorn remember the words of the seer, and the Paths of the Dead.” At dinner Aragorn announces his intention to take these paths. Afterward, Éowyn confronts him alone.

[Aragorn] turned and saw her as a glimmer in the night, for she was clad in white; but her eyes were on fire.

“Aragorn,” she said, “why will you go on this deadly road?”

“Because I must,” he said. “Only so can I see any hope of doing my part in the war against Sauron. I do not choose paths of peril, Éowyn. Were I to go where my heart dwells, far in the North I would now be wandering, in the fair valley of Rivendell.”

For a while she was silent, as if pondering what this might mean. Then suddenly she laid her hand on his arm. “You are a stern lord and resolute,” she said; “and thus do men win renown.” She paused. “Lord,” she said, “if you must go, then let me ride in your following. For I am weary of skulking in the hills, and wish to face peril and battle.”

“Your duty is with your people,” he answered.

“Too often have I heard of duty,” she cried. “But am I not of the House of Eorl, a shieldmaiden and not a dry-nurse? I have waited on faltering feet long enough. Since they falter no longer, it seems, may I not now spend my life as I will?”

“Few may do that with honour,” he answered. “But as for you, lady: did you not accept the charge to govern the people until their lord’s return? If you had not been chosen, then some marshal or captain would have been set in the same place, and he could not ride away from his charge, were he weary of it or no.”

“Shall I always be chosen?” she said bitterly. “Shall I always be left behind when the Riders depart, to mind the house while they win renown, and find food and beds when they return?”

“A time may come soon,” said he, “when none will return. Then there will be need of valour without renown, for none shall remember the deeds that are done in the last defence of your homes. Yet the deeds will not be less valiant because they are unpraised.”

And she answered: “All your words are but to say: you are a woman, and your part is in the house. But when the men have died in battle and honour, you have leave to be burned in the house, for the men will need it no more. But I am of the House of Eorl and not a serving-woman. I can ride and wield blade, and I do not fear pain or death.”

“What do you fear, lady?” he asked.

“A cage,” she said. “To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.”

“And yet you counselled me not to adventure on the road I had chosen, because it is perilous?”

“So may one counsel another,” she said. “Yet I do not bid you flee from peril, but to ride to battle where your sword may win renown and victory. I would not see a thing that is high and excellent cast away needlessly.”

“Nor would I,” he said. “Therefore I say to you, lady: Stay! For you have no errand to the South.”

“Neither have those others who go with thee. They go only because they would not be parted from thee — because they love thee.” Then she turned and vanished into the night.

The Paths of the Dead

Another incomprehensible change. The book is much more eerie and frightening. I think Jackson’s horror film background (The Frighteners, Dead Alive) overcame his good sense at this point.

In the book, the entire company of Rangers, Elrond’s sons, Legolas, and Gimli accompany Aragorn on the Paths of the Dead. Aragorn does not need a sword to pass; the same magic that holds the Oathbreakers to their ghostly existence lets them know that this is Isildur’s Heir, come to free them. Aragorn’s leadership shows itself as all follow him, including horses, and do not give in to fear or madness. Along the way they find a corpse outside a closed door, and Aragorn says: “…Through all the long years he has lain at the door that he could not unlock. Whither does it lead? Why would he pass? None shall every know! For that is not my errand!” he cried, turning back and speaking to the whispering darkness behind. “Keep your hoards and your secrets hidden from the Accursed Years! Speed only we ask. Let us pass, and then come! I summon you to the Stone of Erech!”

The company rides through the ravine and out into a valley, where they ride past villages and and farms on their way to the Stone. It’s too good not to offer here:

Lights went out in house and hamlet at they came, and doors were shut, and folk that were afield cried in terror and ran wild like hunted deer. Ever there rose the same cry in the gathering night: “The King of the Dead! The King of the Dead is come upon us!”

Bells were ringing far below, and all men fled before the face of Aragorn; but the Grey Company in their haste rode like hunters, until their horses were stumbling with weariness. And thus, just ere midnight, and in a darkness as black as the caverns in the mountains, they came at last to the Hill of Erech.

Long had the terror of the Dead lain upon that hill and upon the empty fields about it. For upon the top stood a black stone, round as a great globe, the height of a man, though its half was buried in the ground. Unearthly it looked, as though it had fallen from the sky, as some believed; but those who remembered still the lore of Westernesse told that it had been brought out of the ruin of Númenor and there set by Isildur at his landing. None of the people of the valley dared to approach it, nor would they dwell near; for they said it was a trysting-place of the Shadow-men and there they would gather in times of fear, thronging round the Stone and whispering.

To that Stone the Company came and halted in the dead of night. Then Elrohir gave to Aragorn a silver horn, and he blew upon it; and it seemed to those who stood near that they heard a sound of answering horns, as if it was an echo in deep caves far away. No other sound they heard, and yet they were aware of a great host gathered all about the hill on which they stood; and a chill wind like the breath of ghosts came down from the mountains. But Aragorn dismounted, and standing by the Stone he cried in a great voice:

“Oathbreakers, why have ye come?”

And a voice was heard out of the night that answered him, as if from far away:

“To fulfill our oath and have peace.”

Then Aragorn said: “The hour is come at last…when all this land is clean of the servants of Sauron, I will hold the oath fulfilled, and ye shall have peace and depart forever.”

But didn’t Jackson have a lot to fit into a short amount of time? Aren’t these changes justified by the necessities of film?

No, no, and no! First, let’s look at how many scenes/plot lines were added which never happened in the books:

  • Arwen’s trip to the Grey Havens, in which she “sees” her future child by Aragorn, and turns around to go back.
  • Arwen’s “dying” because of the war of the Ring.
  • Elrond’s meeting Aragorn in Rohan to tell him this, in which he and Aragorn bizarrely quote Aragorn’s mother (“I gave hope to the Dunedain, I have kept no hope for myself”).
  • Gollum setting up the classic Breadcrumbs-on-the-Cloak Gambit.
  • Pippin’s sneaking to set the beacon ablaze. Tolkien’s Denethor had the beacons lit before Gandalf and Pippin arrived at Minas Tirith.
  • Pippin and Merry singing about the Green Dragon pub.
  • Pippin singing to Denethor. Though this was a nice way of covering an explanatory montage with Faramir and Denethor, Tolkien’s Denethor was ill-served by it. I do have to say Billy Boyd did a wonderful job.

Next, let’s examine some changes which did not have to affect time at all, but did affect characterization and theme.

  • Denethor’s gluttony, ineffectual behavior, and cowardice at the pyre.
  • Aragorn and Arwen’s temporary loss of faith in their relationship.
  • Elrond’s deceiving Arwen (!)
  • Frodo and Sam’s temporary loss of faith in each other, to the point that Sam starts to go home.
  • Gandalf’s inexcusable rudeness to Pippin and Denethor with his staff.
  • Language. In Tolkien’s books, characters speak as they think. Andrew Rilstone points out in his review of the The Two Towers that Tolkien greatly disliked the casualization of speech in some translations. Characters have a tendency to get more formal as they express deeper emotions, using the language to show the importance of the thought (see the appearance of “thee” in this exchange between Aragorn and Éowyn, also linked above).

In Jackson’s world, people are more casual and less careful of each other. The only reason I can see for this is a distrust of the audience’s ability to parse Tolkien’s words, which seems somewhat arrogant, since those are the words that made the books as beloved as they are.

On some profound level, Jackson’s psychology needs a simpler world. He is uncomfortable with formality and so must his characters be. He is uncomfortable with nuance, and so a “whispering darkness” must become glowing green ghosts. He is uncomfortable with shades of grey and so his characters must be black and white. He is uncomfortable with trusting friendship or love, and so Aragorn and Arwen lose faith, and so do Frodo and Sam. This, when one of Tolkien’s major moral themes is support and trust despite imperfections and disagreements.

Perhaps the best choice for Tolkien fans is to simply love Middle-earth. As my fiancé pointed out, Tolkien wanted to create an English mythology more than he wanted to write a work of fiction. If we look at Middle-Earth as a world unto itself, then we can choose between Tolkien’s interpretation and Jackson’s, and delight in their differences. It’s a deeper way of being true to Tolkien, and celebrating Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings as the work of love it is.

December 20-21, 2003

Originally posted on alexfiles.com, my online home from 1999–2018.

Review: Gothika

Uncategorized

A-

Gothika is one of those films that can be interpreted in a variety of contexts, and that’s precisely what I love about it. It’s not just another horror story with a lovely heroine, but a movie that dances between mystery and the occult, while adding a thematic depth not often seen in the genre.

Note: While I will try to avoid spoilers, I will be referring to scenes and issues raised in the film, which could—well, would, of course—affect a first viewer’s experience. Be warned!

The mystery: how does a brilliant, accomplished psychologist end up accused of murder and incarcerated in her workplace? Is a persistent apparition of a young girl a murder victim, a suicide, or an externalized clue to a past trauma? Did a loving wife suddenly kill her husband, and if so, why? Who is “Not Alone”? And of course, whom can you trust? On this level the movie succeeded for me, providing clues without giving away the solution too soon, and making psychological suspense not only interesting but relevant.

As an occult horror film Gothika uses the familiar—ghosts, possession, a tragic past, questioning reality—with effective ease. From the opening session between Dr. Miranda Grey (Halle Berry) and patient/fellow inmate Chloe (Penelope Cruz), questions of possession and repressed memory are raised, to follow the viewer throughout the film. When Miranda switches from staff member to patient, does she share more in common with Chloe than their residence? I don’t want to say more about this, because I don’t want to give away too much.

I do want to speak about the themes which permeated the movie, while also fitting neatly into the plot itself. These things didn’t seem contrived, but more a natural extension of the story into its surroundings. The primary theme seems to be spiritual and psychological rebirth and growth. I’m uncertain if this is the work of the writer, Sebastian Gutierrez, or Mathieu Kassovitz, the director. Perhaps it was a collaborative effort.

Without giving a away plot details, I can only list the moments which left this impression. Here goes:

Water imagery. Miranda is immersed in water three times, one of which provides a salvation of sorts. Her pivotal first encounter with the mysterious young girl occurs in the driving rain, immediately after crossing a river. And water is an essential part of a metaphor occurring early in the story, showing how our only access to reality is through our perception.
Numbers. Miranda swims a personal best of 55 laps early in the film, something I think represents an internal, spiritual “personal best” which she reaches for in the story. She is incarcerated in room 33, a number loved by occultists and conspiracy theorists, and the age at which Jesus is said to have died and been resurrected. The number 22, which appears when a major part of the mystery is solved, is also a favorite of occultists, and associated in numerology with the ultimate self-actualized personality type. That 55=33+22 solidified my belief that Gothika’s symbolism is not accidental.
Colors. Miranda Grey is frequently clothed in gray, and almost nothing is just “black and white” in this movie. Obvious, but nice. I’m uncertain if other colors, in particular red, are deliberate or not.
The anima sola. This is an archetypal image of a female (hence anima, not animus), imprisoned and surrounded by flames. It represents a soul in the Catholic purgatory, being purified (tormented) until it can go on to heaven. Who this is changes according to the context of the story. The anima sola is nicely counterpointed by the “Not Alone” phrase, repeated throughout the story, and also changing according to context. The same character(s) are both isolated and burning, and not alone.
Clues from the script. Adding to visual imagery are lines like, “Let me circumcise that for you,” “Let’s go wash away your sins,” and “I see everything, so I’m God,” which helps reinforce the spiritual undertone of the theme. A comment about opening doors near the end further reinforces the idea of spiritual development.
I don’t really have much more to say, except that I thoroughly enjoyed Gothika.

Oh, one last postscript: watching this, I couldn’t help thinking of the astonishing Jacob’s Ladder (1990), which also blurs the edges between reality, psyche, and nightmare. Viewers who liked Gothika might enjoy this film. They might also enjoy The Crimson Rivers, also directed by Kassovitz, which is an excellent psychological suspense thriller.

Postscript. I forgot to mention that the opening with Miranda and Chloe’s session takes place on a Friday night. There’s no point I can think of in the plot that makes this worth specifying, so it is probably another key to Gothika’s symbolism. Good Friday is the traditional date of Christ’s death, and Miranda awakens three days later; Friday also has superstitiously ominous connotations on the 13th, though I didn’t catch a date in the film.

Originally posted on alexfiles.com, my online home from 1999–2018.

Cannot vs. can not

life, writing

The world is dying.

There is a grammatical misunderstanding common to many U.S. Americans, largely because we learned about grammar in the either/or terms of right vs. wrong. Here’s the misunderstanding: can not or cannot? My public school teachers said can not was the correct form, and that cannot was a corruption. A friend of mine from a previous generation was taught the opposite. Her son, much better at using the language than either of us, said both were right, but usage depended on context.

Here’s the explanation: If I can not do something, then I can also do it. I can not write these words if I choose (and you may think I shouldn’t), but I also can, and am, writing them. What I cannot do is know who will read them, or what they will think. I can imagine such things, but I’m limited by my experience and perceptions. So this is the rule: if you either could or could not do something, then you use two words, because you can leave out the second word if you so choose. If you could not do something no matter how much you desired or tried, then you use one word, cannot. There is no other option.

Sometimes both are true. Witness:

I cannot change the world.

I can not change the world.

It’s true, I cannot change the world. What I mean, and what many mean when they say or think this to themselves, is that the world’s problems are too big for any one person, or group of people, to take on. Poverty, sickness, hatred, love, weather, earthquakes, political and religious differences—these are inevitable conditions. Even Jesus said, “the poor you will have with you always,” and, “Let the dead bury the dead.”

It’s also true that I can change the world. I, and every other person on the planet, can make a difference. We can give to the poor, and try to cure ourselves of the sickness of wealth (more on that later). We can be courteous, we can provide emotional (listening) or physical (assisting) or financial (donating) help to others, we can feed and help and forgive each other. (More about forgiveness later, too.) We can take in an abandoned dog or cat and give it love. We can plant a garden. We can put in a day’s work and know we earned our pay, and someone, hopefully, was the better for it. We can not cut off someone in traffic. We can dedicate our lives to healing. We can dedicate our lives to loving our family and community. We can respect the differences of others. In other words, what we can do, we can do.

Grammar is the tool we use to communicate and should be taught as such. Our bodies, our minds, and our voices are the tools we have to interact with our universe. We must use them while we live; we cannot evade using them except through death or dire injury. In this sense we cannot not change the world. And now, while the world suffers on every level, from the sky to the deeps of the sea, from humans to tiny coral polyps, we can make what time we have count.

Originally posted on LiveJournal, then shortly thereafter transferred to alexfiles.com (my online home from 1999–2018). For a brief heyday it was the top Google result for the “cannot vs. can not” search.

Things never imagined when growing up #1

fun

I’m playing checkers late last night—first time in almost 30 years, I think$mdash;and I’m playing on my Treo, and lose. And my beloved says: “When you were growing up, I bet you never thought someday a phone would beat you at checkers.”

Originally posted on LiveJournal