Film and Literature Studies

How House of the Dragon Mirrors The Anarchy in England

December 8th, 2022

Now that the hugely successful first season of HBO’s House of the Dragon has aired, it is safe for us to do an analysis of how much and how closely the events and characters mirrored those of actual history. It is no secret that George R.R. Martin drew inspiration for some of his storylines for the smash hit Game of Thrones from historic events, but what about the spin off, House of the Dragon ? Well, at a Comic-Con panel in 2022, Martin explained how G.O.T. had been loosely based around t...

Balkan Superstition

September 23rd, 2022

Vlad Drăculea of Wallachia, 1500 by Justin E.H. Smith "Shall I not then be stifled in the vault, To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in?" —Juliet 1. Western Europeans and Americans visiting Romania for the first time will often be told that any association of the place with vampires is really an unfair imposition, having mostly to do with Bram Stoker’s more or less ex-nihilo invention of a Transylvanian setting for his 1897 novel, Dracula. After all, just over a ...

Summary of some interesting entries from the online dictionary of Symbols from University of Michigan

September 13th, 2022

Sulfur as hellSourceURL: http://websites.umich.edu/~umfandsf/symbolismproject/symbolism.html/S/sulfur.html Sulfur According to Christian legend, sulfur is associated with HELL and the Devil (Cooper, 1978), and is often referred to as brimstone. Up one level Back to document index ShadowSourceURL: http://websites.umich.edu/~umfandsf/symbolismproject/symbolism.html/S/shadow.html ShadowWith light, the shadow is the Chinese yin and yang; shadows are often identified with a person...

Symbolism in Visual Images

September 13th, 2022

Symbolism in Visual Images When one chooses to cross the boundary between visual symbolism (pictures), and textual symbolism, there are a few factors that should be noted. As the old adage goes "a picture is worth a thousand words." Visual symbolism can be complex, because often times there much more going on in the image than in, say, a given paragraph. Issues of size, perspective, location, and shading all play roles in the message a viewer derives from an image. Color is a major part of ...

Something alchemical

November 27th, 2020

Though I have already twice suffered chains and imprisonment in Bohemia, an indignity which has been offered to me in no other part of the world, yet my mind, remaining unbound, has all this time exercised itself in the study of that philosophy which is despised only by the wicked and foolish, but is praised and admired by the wise. Nay, the saying that none but fools and lawyers hate and despise Alchemy has passed into a proverb. Furthermore, as during the preceding three years I have used g...

Advanced Everything2 the Role Playing Game (idea) by Footprints - Everything2.com

August 27th, 2020

Advanced Everything2 the Role Playing Game (idea) by Footprints Discaimer - take what you want seriously - at your own risk Let's face it - Everything2 is a role-playing game. I mean, what do role-playing games (RPG's) have? Let's see: But as you all remember, Dungeons and Dragons sucked ass because it was too drab and dull (shut up, you D&D lovers - you are losers, yes, losers! AD&D rocks! AD&D! AD&D! AD&D!). And so they invented Advanced Dungeons and Dragons which was much better because ...