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Q: What’s the deal with Steven Spielberg’s time-travel, dinosaur series Terra Nova? I thought it was coming in January. — Dan, Vancouver, WA

The Oracle Speaks:

Because this is such a high-profile project – Steven Spielberg doing a big-budget time-travel TV series about dinosaurs – interest has obviously been sky-high. Not surprisingly, every little move has been chronicled by the media (including a controversy last fall, which the show’s producers now deny even happened, attributing it all to mere scheduling problems).

But I’m not sure the show is as far behind schedule as some people think, or as any other show of this magnitude might be; I think it’s simply a question of higher visibility coupled with viewer impatience. Regardless, it will definitely debut in May with a two-hour premiere movie, setting it up for a regular run in the fall.

Truthfully? While I’m interested in the show, I’m also mostly pessimistic about it.

First, I was at the network’s preview presentation of the show at last week’s Television Critics Association conference in Pasadena: they showed brief clips, and the cast and crew all talked about the project (Spielberg wasn’t there).

I was unimpressed. They emphasized that this is big, broad entertainment, nothing like Lost, which, for all my issues with it, was smart and complicated. I interpreted this talk to mean they’re dumbing the show down. I’m all for popcorn entertainment, but the central dramatic premise — about a family trying to reconnect with each other by going back through time — screamed “cliche”.

Next, the showrunner is Brannon Braga of Star Trek fame. For some, that’s a good sign, but while Braga did some interesting work on ST: The Next Generation and Voyager, he’s stayed decidedly old-school and proven mostly unable to reinvent himself in this era of changes in the TV sci-fi genre: Battlestar Galactica was the Star Trek project that Enterprise should’ve been, and Threshold and Flash Forward, which Braga was intimately involved with, ended up being major disappointments to me.

And perhaps apropos of nothing, I just finished watching Steven Spielberg’s other high profile TV “event” of the year, the alien invasion series Fallen Skies, coming this summer on TNT.

It. Is. Terrible. I mean, shockingly bad: horribly written, cheaply produced, and a complete cliche is almost every way.

It’s debatable how involved Spielberg has been with either of these shows (and given the fair amount of crap Spielberg has produced in his career, an argument can also be made that he may not be the brilliant visionary he’s sometimes made out to be; his TV record is even more mixed than his movie one: Seaquest 2032 anyone? ).

Like I said, all this makes me a little pessimistic.

Q: It depressed me to see the new movie The Rite, which seems like yet another rip-off of The Exorcist. Just out of curiosity, how many “demon possession” movies have their been now anyway? – MM, Calgary, Canada

The Oracle Speaks:

It’s a little depressing, isn’t it? The Rite opens January 28th in the US and certainly proves the long-standing fascination with the Catholic ritual, doesn’t it?

But it’s an interesting question: how many Exorcist rip-offs er, films about exorcism have their been?

In addition to four Exorcist sequels or prequels, movies where exorcism plays at least a semi-major plot element include The Exorcism of Emily Rose; Exorcism: The Possession of Gail Bowers (2006); End of Days (1999); The Order (2003); Exorcismus (2010); Stigmata(1999): Possessed (2000); The Unborn (2009); Requiem (2006); and two parody films, The Last Exorcism (2010) and Repossessed (1990).

Q: A new year, a new slate of genre movies. Which are you most looking forward to? — Andrew, Miami, FL

The Oracle Speaks:

In the months ahead, fantasy or sci-fi movies I’m looking forward to include The Adjustment Bureau, starring Matt Damon (March 4), about a man who decides to defy his “destiny,” and The Source Code (April 1), about Jake Gyllenhaal forced to relive the last eight minutes of his life (it’s by the director of Moon, which was flawed but interesting).

Incidentally, expect to see many many such Inception-like movies in the years ahead!

Based solely on the premise of a man suing the devil for $8 trillion, I’m intrigue by Suing the Devil (March 11).

The word on the fantasy spoof Your Highness (April 8) is pretty good, and the cast (James Franco, Natalie Portman, Zooey Deschanel) is to die for, but the trailer was unfunny to me.

Movies I don’t want to see?

The worst actor in movies today, Nic Cage, has another movie I will naturally try to avoid, Drive Angry (February 25), and I’m already tired of the trend of “reclaiming” children’s fairy tales, so that rules out Beastly (March 3) and Red Riding Hood (March 11).

I’m think I’m mostly done with superhero movies for a few years, even Thor (May 6), but I may be talked into going to X-Men: First Class (June 3).

They’re pushing Limitless (March 18), about a man who takes a pill to tap into his potential, way too hard, and you obviously couldn’t pay me to see Pirates of the Caribbean 4: On Stranger Tides (May 20).

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Terra Nova, Steven Spielberg’s dinosaur/time-travel TV series coming from Fox in May, was officially unveiled today at the Television Critics Association conference in Pasadena.

It was difficult to tell from the short clip that was shown and the comments of the producers, but the show seems fairly conventional with an intentional ”popcorn” feel, specifically designed to appeal to a large audience.

“Earth is essentially dying, animals are extinct,” says Executive Producer Brannon Braga. People are sent back via a time-travel portal to pre-historic times to re-colonize the Earth. “That’s their hope: a second chance at humanity.”

But Braga is quick to point out, “We’ve gotten a lot of questions about the dinosaurs and the ecosytems. But it’s really a very emotional show, about a family starting over in this primieval place.”

“This show is made for a  mass audience,” says director Alex Graves flatly – unlike Lost with its geek-friendly, labyrinthine storylines. “Unlike anything I’ve ever done, it’s made for everyone.”

“You’ve got characters in a prehistoric setting using modern technology,” Braga says. “Every aspect of the show appealed to me.”

What about last fall’s controversy over a supposed firing of the show’s writers?

“I don’t know where that was reported, but the [writing turn-over] wasn’t higher than usual,” Braga says. “We had one writer change.”

Some writers did leave due to production delays. “Creating a show is like giving birth,” Brago says. “There are labor pains.”

How’d they go about world-building?

“We’ve taken a long time to create this world, both the past and future worlds,” Braga says. “It’s primarily an episodic show, but we have over-arching mysteries as well. We’ll go to the future as it impacts the past.”

“It was a lush period, the beginning of flowers,” says Graves. “It goes into the types of dinosaurs, and the gray areas of evolution, when they were starting to turn into birds. So you’re going to see dinosaurs you’ve never seen before. We’re filling in some blanks.”

But he also adds, “No sleestaks.”

An environmental message is “an important part of the story, that [humans] wouldn’t go back and make the same mistakes,” Braga says. “The community [in the past] is a sustainable one. It was very important to Mr. Spielberg” to have a pro-environmental message.

“It is about a second chance for Earth, but Earth can only be restored if they restore themselves,” Braga says. “That’s the philosophical crux of the show: can utopia be built? Is it even possible?”

In the story of the show, a portal has been accidentally discovered that allows people to travel back in time. After initial volunteers determine that it was possible to survive in the past, groups of hundreds of pioneers are also sent into the past. The show follows one such family — a story that brings them in contract with not just dinosaurs and other dangers, but also earlier pioneers who have different ideas about community-building.

As for executive producer Steven Spielberg, “he’s very involved,” Braga says. “Every idea that this guy comes up with is genius. Every aspect, we waited for his input.”

“Part of the terror of directing this is he’s watching everything you do,” says director Alex Graves. ”It could’ve been nerve-wracking, but it was very positive.”

The show will premiere in May as a two-part movie, then join Fox’s fall schedule.

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According to Morena Baccarin, the actress who plays Anna, the evilly manipulative leader of a group of lizard-like aliens on the ABC show V, expect some almost Shakespearean-like drama in the weeks ahead — thanks, in part, to the introduction of the character of Anna’s mother Diana, played by Jane Badler, the actress who famously played a different character named Diana in the original 1980s incarnation of the show.

“She was so sweet,” Morena says of Badler, in an exclusive interview with TheTorchOnline.com. “I was opening my mouth to compliment her, and she said, ‘I love your show!’ These characters butt heads a lot, and I thought it was so great that even as a V, you get your butt kicked by your mother. No species escapes that! I thought that was awesome.”

Badler’s Diana, it seems, plays a pivotal role in upcoming episodes.

Morena Baccarin and Jane Badler

“She becomes very instrumental in the rebellion with Lisa,” Baccarin says. “I’ve imprisoned her for twenty years, which is why she’s still on the ship. Everyone thinks she’s dead, and she’s trying to get her queenship, her throne, back.”

Baccarin smiles. “Between her, Lisa, and myself, you’ve got three women fighting for the throne!”

Thirty-one-year-old Baccarin, born in Brazil, first became known to TV viewers as Inara Serra on Joss Whedon’s 2002 cult classic Firefly, famously canceled after only fourteen episodes (only eleven actually aired, though the characters did return in the feature film Serenity).

V’s ruthless Anna couldn’t be more of a polar opposite from the kind, serene character of Inara, but the fact that Baccarin seems to have been born to play both roles is a testament to her talent.

Does the viciousness of the character ever impact her behavior in real life — or affect the way people react to her? 

She laughs. “Do I order people around at Starbucks?” she says. “I definitely — I think! — keep a healthy separation between work and life. It’s not difficult for me, because when I put on that make-up and the clothes, I see that character right away. And the words — the way Anna speaks is very different from myself.”

Apart from the appearance of Badler, the most interesting thing about the most recent episodes of the show may be the indication that even Anna, the supreme leader of a lizard race that keeps its emotions tightly controlled, is starting to lose control of those emotions.

“The wonderful thing about playing this part is the challenge of maintaining that regal personality and laying in that new emotion,” Baccarin says. “And I think it’s great, because it humanizes her in such a way that I think people will be able to relate to her, to sympathize with her, which I think is really scary, to be able to relate to such a nasty person.”

Which brings up an interesting question: just how much emotion does Anna feel? Does she feel any of the kind and gentle emotions she’s projecting to Earth, or is it entirely an act she’s putting on?

“I think it’s an act,” Baccarin says. “I think she knows exactly what to do or say, to manipulate, to be adored by her people. I mean, she has a love for her species, and as leader, it is her job to ensure its survival, and she has a deep love for her people, but when it comes to humans, she’ll go to great lengths to get what she wants.”

With the appearance of Badler on the show, Baccarin pondered the differences between the old and new versions of V.

“The perils are different,” she says. Our show “is more about terrorism-fear, that fear and paranoia of not knowing who your neighbor is, and I anchored [my performance] on that. I feel like [the show's take] is a little more subtle and a scarier way in, because it’s not on the surface. You don’t know if you’re safe, ever.”

In fact, she says, Badler’s reappearance is a pretty good example of the show’s theme. “In the original show, it was a little more apparent [who was bad],” she says. “But here, you don’t know who’s on whose side, and people switch a lot.”

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This article was originally published in May 2009.

When I was a kid, the country went through a full-fledged Dungeons & Dragons hysteria, where the fantasy role-playing game was accused of everything from turning kids onto Satanism to encouraging them to kill themselves.

Decades later, we’ve now reached a point where D&D is seen as sort of a harmless, if incredibly geeky pastime.

But isn’t there a third option? Dungeons & Dragons isn’t a dangerous, evil force in the world, nor is it just harmless fun; it’s actually one of the most worthwhile activities ever created, and there is literally nothing better for turning a kid into a thoughtful, creative, passionate, open-minded adult.

Almost everything I know today I learned from Dungeons & Dragons. And almost everything I’m passionate about, I first discovered while playing the game.

I started playing Dungeons & Dragons at age twelve, when my friend Tim asked for, and received, a “starter” box set of the game for Christmas.

I immediately loved it. It gave a focus to all those lazy afternoons with my friends. It was something for us all to be passionate about, an endless countryside for us to discover and explore — endless because we made it up ourselves.

But it didn’t just focus those afternoons with my friends; it focused the rest of my life too.

Before the game, I’d had little interest in reading for pleasure. For me, books were something that were assigned in school — staid, musty tales that said nothing about the things I was interested in and had absolutely no relevance to my life.

But because I was so enamored with the world of D&D, I started reading fantasy books. For the first time in my life, I realized, “Hey, books aren’t necessarily boring! Sometimes they can even be really, really interesting!” It was a revelation. In months, I was devouring every fantasy book I could get my hands on — even long, complicated sagas that I wouldn’t have looked twice at before (Stephen R. Donaldson was, and still is, my favorite author).

In school, I’d always hated history. It had always been presented to me as nothing more than a long list of dates to be memorized.

But in the world of D&D, in the adventures we were concocting for each other, history came alive. And why wouldn’t it? We were literally living it! And like almost every virgin D&D player, I immediately embarked on my own extracurricular study of weaponry, of myths and fables, of medieval life — even castle-building.

Philosophy and ethics? At my Catholic grade school, that meant just another list to memorize, this time of picky little rules to follow.

It was while playing D&D that I discovered the notion of “alignment” — the idea that everyone has a point-of-view in life, and that few people think of themselves as “evil.” Instead, ethics necessarily follow from one’s perspective. This acknowledgment of the obviously relative nature of all things made my head feel like a balloon; I could almost feel it expanding on my shoulders.

Even better, by implicitly granting me the right to make my own ethical choices, and by having me role-play different choices and then forcing me to accept the consequences of my actions, I think the game made me a much more ethical person. It definitely made me a far more broad-minded one.

In school, I had absolutely no interest in debate or public presentations. My sixth grade presentation was on Bolivia, and I literally could not have cared less.

But because D&D involves such an elaborate set of rules, many of which are, uh, ambiguous, an essential part of Dungeons & Dragons means arguing a case, both to your fellow players and to the dungeon master.Year later, in college, professors would always say, “You did debate in high school, didn’t you?” I never knew what they were talking about — until it finally occurred to me that I had, in fact, spent every weekend of my high school years engaged in passionate debate with some of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met.

Before D&D, I’d never thought of myself as a storyteller, or a performer in any way. But when you’re the dungeon master, you’re required to be a performer, acting out the role of the narrator and dozens of other characters — and you’d better be an incredibly quick-thinking performer at that, since most of what you do is improvisation in response to something your players did that you didn’t expect.

If you write your dungeons yourself, as we usually did, you’re also forced to confront the notions of character motivation, the importance of a good antagonist, of theme, of rising tension and resolution.

In short, if he’s going to keep the attention of his players, a dungeon master must quickly intuit all the elements of dramatic structure.

Best of all, you tell your stories in direct engagement with your audience. If that doesn’t tell you exactly what does, and doesn’t, work when it comes to storytelling, nothing will.

Finally, there’s math. I didn’t like that either as a kid — more memorization, natch. Truthfully, I still hate it, but when you spend countless hours adding up dice-rolls in your head, you’re suddenly a whiz  — and when your character’s life is at stake, you pick up statistics pretty quickly too!

Dungeons & Dragons would have been worth playing even if it built no “character” whatsoever — if it did nothing but entertain. And maybe this essay will do nothing but make today’s generation of kids less likely to play it; that’s probably how I would have reacted.

But the truth is, the game does so much more than entertain, and it’s about time it got credit for it.

As an adult, I’ve done a number of things for a living: teach at the high school and college level, and write novels, plays, and screenplays. Now I edit this website.

If it weren’t for Dungeons & Dragons, I couldn’t have done any of these things well.

If I hadn’t found D&D, would I have discovered some other passion as a kid? Video games? Sports? Horticulture? It’s possible. But it’s almost impossible to imagine that any of these activities would have given me such a long and varied list of skills and interests.

As an adult, I occasionally run into parents who mention that their children have discovered Dungeons & Dragons. They usually roll their eyes and shrug, as if to say, “At least they’re not out robbing liquor stores.”

I always tell them they’re wrong to dismiss the game so casually; I try to tell them all the things I’ve written here.

They never listen to me. They always say something stupid like, “What kind of game is it if you can’t ever win?” The stereotypes run too deep. To them, D&D means being silly, dressing up like an elf and rooting around in sewers. They can’t dismiss it fast enough.

In a way, I’m sad — sad that they don’t appreciate and support the passionate, creative, intelligent, interesting kid they’re probably raising (no thanks to them).

But mostly I’m sad that they themselves have to go through life with such a narrow, limited perspective. That wouldn’t be the case if one of their friends had ever introduced them to D&D — but now, of course, it’s probably too late.

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This article was originally published in December 2009.

Where would fantasy heroes be without their trusted animal companions? Just like the rest of us with our pets, they’d be lost. So let’s take a look at some of the most memorable, shall we?

(Incidentally, there are plenty of fantasy stories that involve relationships between humans and magical creatures such as unicorns and dragons, but for the purposes of this article, we’re restricting ourselves only to creatures that have a real-life counterpart here on Earth!)

Scabbers (from Harry Potter)

Hapless Ron’s unpredictable pet rat Scabbers is, of course, not a real rat at all, but it’s not until the third book in the series that he’s revealed as the polymorphed Peter Pettigrew, a coward whose treachery led to the death of Harry’s parents. Pettigrew’s animal disguise plays an instrumental role in Prisoner of Azkaban, inspiring Sirius Black’s escape from prison after he recognizes the rat in a photograph, and Scabbers figures prominently into the book’s conclusion as well.

Coolness Factor: 2 (out of 5)
Loyalty: 1 (out of 5)
Importance to the Plot: 4 (out of 5)

Overall Rating:

Two Torches (Out of Five)

Argo (from Xena: Warrior Princess)

Xena is no ordinary warrior — so why should she have an ordinary horse? Sure enough, hers is extraordinarily intelligent, sensing danger, responding to a number of different commands, being able to command other horses, and even once enduring having been turned into a miniature version of herself. Speaking of which, is Argo male or female? While referred to as “boy” in earlier seasons, she is eventually identified as female (and was usually portrayed by a mare). The horse died during Xena and Gabrielle’s Ares-induced 25-year sleep in the ice-cave, but gave birth to a daughter, Argo II, who, remarkably, had all of Argo’s abilities.

Incidentally, did you ever wonder why Gabrielle had no horse? According to the producers speaking at a fan convention, it took three horses to make it look like Xena had one horse. For Gabrielle to have had a horse, that would have meant having six horses on hand — something that was financially impossible.

Coolness factor: 3 (out of 5)
Loyalty Factor: 5 (out of 5)
Importance to the Story: 2 (out of 5)

Overall Rating:

Three Torches (Out of Five)

Hedwig (Harry Potter)

There’s one question that every reader of the Harry Potter series has asked him or herself at least once: why don’t wizards have email? Then again, would you use email if you have something as cool as Hedwig, Harry’s pet snowy owl, to deliver messages to your friends? Hedwig is, of course, a gift from Hagrid, purchased in Diagon Alley in the first book in the series, and was definitely an owl with ‘tude, never willing to put up with Harry’s thoughtlessness. Sadly, Hedwig is killed in Deathly Hallows by none other than a stray curse.

Coolness Factor: 5 (out of 5)
Loyalty Factor: 4 (out of 5)
Importance to the Story: 2 (out of 5)

Overall Rating:

Three and a Half Torches (Out of Five)

The Animals of Aladdin

All the main characters in the animated Disney movie Aladdin share a bond with an animal that reflects his or her underlying personality: Aladdin has his impetuous monkey Abu, Jasmine has her regal tiger Rajah, and Jafar has his mean parrot Iogo. But the animal companions don’t just mimic their owners, they also reflect the underlying theme of the movie, which is more sophisticated than it seems at first glance: when you try to possess and enslave someone else, you ultimately end up enslaving yourself. True freedom, just like true love, only comes from freeing others and giving them the choice to set you free as well.

And for the record, it applies to life, but it also applies to our relationship with our real-world pets!

Coolness Factor: 3 (out of 5)
Loyalty Factor: 5 (out of 5)
Importance to the Story: 4 (out of 5)

Overall Rating:

Four Torches (Out of Five)

Daemons (from His Dark Materials)

In perhaps the most interesting aspect of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series of books, every human in that alternate-”Earth” is accompanied in life by a “daemon” — that person’s soul made manifest in the form of an animal. In children, the daemon changes forms, finally settling into a single animal upon adulthood — a creature that reflects that person’s underlying personality. Humans share a bond with this personification of their soul that is so intimate that touching another’s daemon is unthinkable. And while separating a human from his or her daemon is possible — and factors closely into the plot of the books — doing so turns both into virtual zombies.

Coolness Factor: 4 (out of 5)
Loyalty Factor: 5 (out of 5)
Importance to the Story: 5 (out of 5)

Overall Rating:

Four Torches (Out of Five)

The Talking Animals (from The Chronicles of Narnia)

With a few exceptions, it’s hard to find better companions than the talking animals of Narnia. Most of these animals rarely stretch beyond their stereotypes — donkeys are stupid, owls are wise, cats can be unreliable, and dogs are loyal. But every now and then, author C.S. Lewis surprises us, as with one of the most memorable of Narnia’s talking animals, Reepicheep: the bravest, most noble creature in all of Narnia (excepting Aslan) is none other than … a mouse. And then there is Aslan. Is there another story that turns an animal into a metaphor for God?

Coolness Factor: 5 (out of 5)
Loyalty Factor: 5 (out of 5)
Importance to the Story: 5 (out of 5)

Overall Rating:

Five Torches (Out of Five)

This article was originally published in October 2009.

For those of you living under a rock, Zombieland opened last weekend and went quickly to number one (and we, of course, reviewed it here.) One of the clever moves of the film is that it takes your traditional Hero — muscular, confident, aggressive — and your standard Sidekick — smart but cowardly, neurotic — and flips them, so that we see the film through the eyes of the sidekick, played with hilarious gusto by Jesse Eisenberg.

Although the characters in the film aren’t aware of this switch, and continue on in their respective paths, we in the audience are clued in to the fact that this won’t be your traditional action/horror film. In fact, Eisenberg’s character, Columbus, in a moment of meta-consciousness, even refers to himself as “sort of a Sancho Panza-type.”

Sancho Panza was, of course, the prototypical sidekick, who traveled around at the side of Don Quixote in Miguel de Cervantes’ historic novel of the same name. Unlike the slender, intelligent Columbus, however, Sancho was overweight and dim, riding atop a donkey, yet lovable for his unshakable loyalty to his master, Quixote.

It is this loyalty that allows for Quixote to continue on in his quests, whether he’s aware of it or not, and like a truly great sidekick, Sancho never asks for affirmation. He simply is there for the hero, even though in this case, the hero is a delusional old man (which, perhaps, proves Sancho’s worth all the more.)

But while the sidekick has his or her place in a story, longer tales often develop the sidekick to the point where they’re on the same level as the hero, which is always satisfying for a reader or viewer. After all, haven’t we all, at some points in out lives, felt a lot more like Robin than Batman? So it’s small wonder we take comfort in the fact that Robin, the epitome of a sidekick, grew up and became Nightwing, a hero in his own right, on par with Batman.

In fantasy literature, perhaps one of the greatest examples of a sidekick rising up to the level of hero is Samwise Gamgee from The Lord of the Rings. Like Sancho, Sam is neither slim nor very smart, and for most of the story, Sam exists to cook food for Frodo and keep up his spirits, all the while contentedly walking behind his master on their epic quest.

But when Frodo is attacked and Sam believes he is dead, a change occurs in him, something visceral, something which can never be undone. He realizes that the fate of the Ring and indeed, the world, now rests solely on his humble shoulders, and so he stands up, picks up his master’s sword, and carries on.

Frodo didn’t die, of course, and the two hobbits are reunited, but things will never go back to the way they were before. By the end of their journey, Frodo has come to respect Sam as an equal, and when death again seems imminent, utters to Sam the famous words, “I’m glad to be with you, Samwise Gamgee, here at the end of all things.”

In the wake of Sam, it seems that the sidekick-turned-hero angle is all the rage. The most obvious example that springs to mind from contemporary is, of course, Gabrielle, the Battling Bard, whose popularity threatens to outshine that of the hero, Xena. Throughout the six seasons of Xena: Warrior Princess, we see as Gabrielle grows and changes from a feisty but physically weak farm girl into an accomplished warrior, inheriting Xena’s place after her death.

On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Willow Rosenburg, who was naught but a vastly intelligent nerd, became aware of the existence of the supernatural when Buffy Summers came to town, and that indirectly resulted in her learning witchcraft to the point where she became the “most powerful witch in the western hemisphere.”

But as for my favorite sidekick? That would have to go to Ron Weasley, the bumbling poor kid who was just another Weasley sibling until he met up with Harry Potter in their first year at Hogwarts.

Come on, just look at that picture! If you didn’t say “Awww…” you’re made of stone.

Ron comes into Hogwarts the way many of us do any other school, frightened and overwhelmed, feeling very small and very alone. But by befriending Harry Potter, he assured his name would go down in the history books. Had it not been for Harry and all of the danger that followed him like a dark storm cloud, Ron might never have been tested as thoroughly as he was, thus never knowing his true potential.

While real life is never as cut-and-dry as fiction, sidekicks and heroes do exist, just as villains and henchmen do. But as fiction is  realizing, those roles are never binding, and we can easily go from being a lowly servant one moment to the savior of the world the next.

Back again for another highly opinionated — some might even say downright cranky — look at some element of the fantasy genre. You’ve been warned!

WHEN DID FANTASY STOP BEING ABOUT SWORDS AND SORCERY?

Whenever I tell people I edit a website devoted to fantasy-themed entertainment, they usually say the same thing: “Oh, wizards and sorcery and quests and stuff like that?”

Usually, I just nod and say, “Yup!”

But if I’m in the mood to give a more complicated answer (and if I think the listener actually wants to hear it!), I say, “Well, swords and sorcery are a part of it. But increasingly, traditional or ‘high’ fantasy is a smaller and smaller part of the genre. These days, it’s much more about contemporary or urban fantasy — anything that involves magic or the paranormal or supernatural in general. These days, most of the creative energy is around shows like Supernatural or vampire-themed projects like True Blood. If anything, swords and sorcery is becoming sort of the bastard stepchild to the genre.”

Let me pause here to say that I love swords and sorcery. It’s what drew me to the genre, and it’s still probably the fantasy sub-genre I love the most (indeed, this site and this column are named after it!).

But the fact is, when was the last time a “traditional” sword-and-sorcery fantasy project took the world, or even the geek world, by storm? Legend of the Seeker? We all know how that story ended up.

Sure, there’s George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice (soon to be an HBO series called A Game of Thrones). But that series’ claim to fame is its post-modern “realistic” bent — and its almost complete lack of magic. Spartacus: Blood and Sand, meanwhile, subverts the traditional genre with its explicit gore and (especially) its sex.

Harry Potter kept the sorcery — but put it in a traditional setting.

True, the Lord of the Rings and Chronicles of Narnia movie franchises are still going strong, but let’s face it: these projects are fueled, in large part, by nostalgia — by the desire of geeks like me to see their childhood passions finally fully realized on-screen, in a way they couldn’t be pre-CGI.

You can certainly still find high fantasy in fiction and in many video games — Dragon Age: Origins was deservedly a sensation. But you can also find plenty of urban and supernatural contemporary fantasy in both mediums as well.

Still, the swords-and-sorcery backlash became clear to me yet again last week when I was reviewing a new (pretty good) webseries called JourneyQuest. Basically, it’s a satire of all the traditional fantasy conventions, with the wizard, the warrior, and a villain all given modern, ironic sensibilities.

But when I was writing my review, it occurred to me that I’d been seeing this mock-the–traditional-fantasy-conventions premise a lot lately: last year’s Comedy Central series Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire, and a long list of other recent webseries: The Legend of Neil, Doraleous and Associates, A Good Knight’s Quest, The Gamers, and The Guild.

Mocking fantasy conventions really isn’t anything new. I think a big part of the reason why Xena: Warrior Princess became  the sensation it did (especially compared to its originator Hercules: The Legendary Journeys) was because of its take-no-prisoners sense of humor (and its female protagonists for a change). There were no sacred fantasy cows on Xena, that’s for sure.

Meanwhile, the next swords-and-sorcery fantasy movie, Your Highness (coming in April 2011), is, of course, a fantasy-comedy, making fun of the genre.

What is it about traditional fantasy that is making people so eager to make fun of it?

Ironically, I kinda blame it on The Lord of the Rings — or at least the authors and fantasy enthusiasts who followed directly in Tolkien’s wake. Sure, the “fantasy” genre existed long before Tolkien, but it was Rings that basically ended up creating the modern fantasy genre: elves, dwarves, an all-powerful magic item, an evil force to be destroyed.

Lord of the Rings cast a long, dark shadow all through the 60s, 70s, and 80s — a shadow that was reinforced by the explosion of the D&D gaming culture where people basically acted out those Tolkien conventions over and over again. Before long, the template Tolkien had popularized almost became something sort of … sacred.

And let’s face it: in the hands of most 70s and 80s fantasy writers, these ossified conventions also became very predictable and very boring. Been there, done that, that’s for sure. Around 1989, I decided if I read about one more humble medieval farm-hand who was destined to save the world from yet another Big Bad, I was going to scream.

In short, the genre was ripe for implosion. Indeed, the genre wasn’t just ripe for implosion, it was actually sort of begging for it.

So cue the rise of fantasy reinventions like A Song of Fire and Ice and Xena: Warrior Princess, and the parodies like JourneyQuest and Krod Mandoon.

None of this is a bad thing. Fantasy is richer and more sophisticated than its ever been (IMHO). But sometimes I do think: wouldn’t it be nice to see another great work of traditional fantasy, without the irony, the parody, or the reinvention?

That’s when I remember: all those favorite fantasy works of my childhood still exist: all I have to do is cue them up on my DVD player or Kindle.

That fact that I don’t do it all that often — that I’d rather watch the latest episode of Supernatural or read the newest Jacqueline Carey book — makes me think: well, maybe I’ve moved on some too.

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Q: It’s a fantasy trope that you can’t ever vanquish Great Evil completely: Sauron, Voldemort, the White Witch — somehow they always come back. I get that it’s a metaphor for how evil is eternal. But how does their ability to resurrect themselves work exactly? – MegaMouth, Manchester, NH

The Oracle Speaks:

This is a classic example of various authors basically starting from a philosophical “point” they want to make and working backwards from there: as you say, the point they’re making is that evil is a fundamental part of us all, and since we can’t ever deny our own natures, we can’t ever vanquish evil completely (although we can certainly reduce its influence and impact!).

But even apart from the fascinating philosophical question, the specifics are pretty interesting too: how do these powerfully evil beings always seem to survive death?

First, they find a magical means to ensure their immortality.

Voldemort, for example, created the multiple horcruxes — magical, hidden totems that stored bits of his soul, binding him to the material plane (Voldemort thought he had created six horcruxes — the only wizard ever to create more than one — but of course he had accidentally created seven, one being Harry Potter himself). But with each additional horcrux, he became less and less human.

Voldemort directed a Killing Curse at the infant Harry to prevent the prophecy that the boy was destined to kill him from coming true — but the spell rebounded, destroying Voldemort’s physical body (but not his soul, which was, of course, kept alive by the horcruxes).

Meanwhile, Sauron, who started out as an immortal anyway, created the One Ring to gain additional power and influence, forging it in secret to give him control over the other Rings of Power, but also requiring that he imbue it with much of his power and some degree of his essence. When Isildur cut the ring off Sauron’s finger in the War Against the Last Alliance, it destroyed his weakened physical body, but his soul lived on in hiding, desperate to regain the ring and the power it wielded over the other rings.

Finally, the White Witch (then known as Jadis) gained immortality by eating The Fruit of Everlasting Life shortly after Narnia’s creation. Subsequently, she somehow learned Deep Magic From the Dawn of Time, which bolstered her knowledge and power (but, alas, not Deeper Magic From Before the Dawn of Time, which ended up biting her in the ass).

But while these beings’ essences or souls were preserved from total destruction even in defeat, they eventually did need to draw at least some of the power necessary for regeneration from the evil in the hearts of their followers — reinforcing the authors’ philosophic point that evil lives on in the world because ultimately we allow it to.

Voldemort relies at first on weak-willed people like Quirrill and Peter Pettigrew — and later, he openly enlists other evil allies like Lucius Malfoy. But ultimately it’s the fear, prejudice, and lack of conviction on the part of the entire wizarding community that allows Voldemort to rise again.

Meanwhile, Sauron’s return to power, initially in the forests of Dol Guldur (part of Mirkwood Forest), is directly aided by the Nazgul, especially the Witch-King of Angmar — nine weak-willed former humans who were seduced and destroyed by the Rings of Power. Subsequently, infighting on the part of  the White Council and Saruman (who hoped to gain the One Ring for himself) allowed Sauron’s hatred and evil to grow unchecked.

As for the White Witch, in Prince Caspian, she is about to be brought back to life even after Aslan killed her in a previous book through black magic on the part of her evil followers, a hag and a werewolf, and also the weak-willed dwarf Nikabrik.

Incidentally, did the destruction of the One Ring in The Return of the King finally ultimately destroy Sauron, and did Harry’s defeat of Voldemort in Deathly Hallows kill the wizard?

In both cases, the answer is probably not.

In The Return of the King, Gandalf says:

If [the Ring] is destroyed, then he will fall, and his fall will be so low that none can foresee his arising ever again. For he will lose the best part of the strength that was native to him in his beginning, and all that was made or begun with that power will crumble, and he will be maimed for ever, becoming a mere spirit of malice that gnaws itself in the shadows, but cannot again grow or take shape. And so a great evil of this world will be removed.

As for Voldemort, J.K. Rowling reportedly said in a podcast that, post-Deathly Hallows, he would be similarly diminished, living on in a form like the vision Harry has of the piece of Voldemort’s soul inside himself: a flayed naked child, whimpering and abandoned under a bench. (Truthfully, this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, but I thought a lot of Deathly Hallows was a stretch.)

As for the White Witch, some say she reappears in The Silver Chair, reincarnated as The Lady of the Green Kettle (Glimfeather the Owl says she’s “of the same crew”), but after that, she’s never heard from again.

But is she gone forever? You know the answer to that: absolutely not.

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Four Torches (Out of Five)

The long-awaited third game in the Fable series has been released today for the Xbox 360, and except for one major design flaw, it’s a winner.

Fable 3 picks up a generation after the events of Fable 2. You are the Fable 2 hero’s son or daughter, trying to stop your tyrannical brother King Logan from working and taxing the citizens of Albion to death. To take on the King, you must gather followers across the land, and to do that, you must undertake missions that range from fighting Hobbes and Hollow Men, to searching for rare books, to helping a woman divorce her husband.

Overthrowing your brother, however, is only half of the main quest — the other and arguably more interesting half takes place after you become Albion’s new King or Queen and set out to undo the damage your brother has caused.

The Fable games are known for their open-world setting and the intermingling of combat missions with treasure-seeking and social ones, and this game only improves on this.

Lionhead has clearly invested time and money into building out all three, but especially the combat and social elements of the game. Not only do the weapons change based on how you use them, but your attack style morphs over time, as well, culminating in some truly entertaining slow-mo flourishes. Additional customization options include re-naming your weapons and your dog, dying your clothes and hair, and redecorating your home. Here’s a screencap of my character wearing a customized outfit and harlequin makeup:

As I wrote about previously, the characters are much better looking in Fable 3, and the user interface and gameplay has been improved — simplified in many ways, but expanded in others. The humor has been toned down, but it’s still there (the banter in the side-quest The Game is particularly entertaining).

The multiplayer feature of the game — which allows you to visit the kingdoms of friends (or strangers) and complete quests together, enter into business partnerships, trade weapons, and even get married and have children  —  has been signficantly improved from Fable 2. Perhaps the biggest change is that you’re no longer tethered together on the screen — when you play together over Xbox Live, each player moves and sees the world independently. This makes for a much better experience.

They’ve also enhanced relationship options with other characters — NPC villagers, or real people via multiplayer. Now your character can actually touch other characters (although all the hand-holding gets old after awhile, because it forces you to walk so slow), go on dates, and get married to other players via co-op. And the introduction of an orphanage (although not until late in the game) means same-sex couples or players who prefer to stay single can now have children.

In a nutshell, Fable 3 includes all that you loved about Fable 2, excludes many of the things you didn’t, and offers a better gameplay experience. The end result is a really fun way to spend many, many hours.

So why am I only giving it four torches (out of five)? There are several minor but annoying bugs that crop up occasionally (golden bread crumbs disappear, characters get stuck, etc.) but primarily because of one major design flaw. It’s difficult to explain without being too spoilery, so I’ll try to keep it high-level.

(spoiler warning)

Your experience of the game very much depends on how much money you earn early on, but you’re not made aware of this until late in the quest — by which time,  it’s too late to do much about it.

The game designers appear to have done this on purpose, in order to force players to make the difficult trade-offs often required of rulers. But the choice isn’t between being hated and rich, or loved and poor; it’s between being hated and continuing to play the game, or loved and not being able to continue playing the game (OK, technically, you can, but many side-quests are no longer available, and it’s not much fun, anyway, because your kingdom is a ghost town). Which means you have no real choice at all if you want to continue playing after completing the main quest, unless you happened to have amassed a huge amount of money early on — which many players are unlikely to have done.

To be fair, your character is warned in the last half of the quest that there would be dire consequences if more money wasn’t earned, but again, the warning comes (mostly) too late.

This might not seem like such a big deal, but if you zip through the main quest (as the narrators constantly urge you to do), stopping for only a few sidequests along the way because you assume you can do more later, you’re in for a big disappointment. And there’s no way to undo your mistake without starting the entire game over.

Which is why I’m now on playthrough number two. I’m still having a lot of fun, I just wish I’d known to play it this way the first time.

Should this discourage you from playing Fable 3? Absolutely not. In almost every other respect, it’s a terrific game.

But if you want to play the game and actually have a real choice at the end, here’s my advice:

1. Make a lot of money early in the game, and invest it in real estate (homes and shops) as soon as possible
2. Do a lot of sidequests, and collect as many silver keys as you can
early in the game (some of the chests contain a lot of money)
3. See #1

Happy hunting!

You’re a bard. It’s your job to inspire an army. Basically, you sing the songs the warriors will slay orcs to.

As a result, you need to know all the possible songs to describe the events that may take place on a battlefield. While we all want our side to win, a proper bard must have a list of songs at their disposal ready to properly describe any scene and suit every warrior.

Some fighters enjoy some heavy riffs to go along with their sword slaying activities, while others are more cerebral.

While it’s your job to motivate our troops and keep their spirits high, you must also honor those who have made the ultimate sacrifice and moved on to the next world. Thanks to our wonderfully gifted wizards, we have the means to produce some amazing sounds to properly provide the mood that fits the situation.

Without further ado, trainee, here is your list of required songs to know for battle:

“Riders On The Storm” — The Doors: Sets up the mood before battle, the arrival of the orc-stomping army.

“Know Your Enemy” — Rage Against The Machine: Always good to be able to anticipate how your opponent will try to attack you…

“Peter Gunn” — The Art of Noise: Play this as the army advances into battle.

Any of the following songs will suffice during combat:

“The First Cut is the Deepest” — Sheryl Crow

“Organ Grinder” — Marilyn Manson

“99 Ways to Die” — Megadeth

“Serenity in Murder” — Slayer
“Let me take you down (without a sound)
Dead before you hit the ground”

“Head Like A Hole” — Nine Inch Nails

“Bad Company” — The version by Five Finger Death Punch

“You Can’t Bring Me Down” — Suicidal Tendencies

“Let Me Hear You Scream” — Ozzy Osbourne

“Taste The Pain” — Red Hot Chili Peppers

“Harvester of Sorrow” — Metallica

“God’s Gonna Cut You Down” — Johnny Cash

Some fighters are truly insane, for them you need to remind them who the enemy is:

“Labeled Uncurable” — D.R.I.

Don’t forget about the healers, they need their spirits lifted as well:

“Bring Me To Life” — Evanescence

“Remedy” — The Black Crowes

And the clerics also appreciate a shout out:

“Undead” — Hollywood Undead

“Amen” — Kid Rock

“Faith” — Limp Bizkit version

Whoops! That fighter didn’t see that Orc that snuck up on him from behind…

“Surprise! You’re Dead!” — Faith No More

“We Die Young” — Alice in Chains

“Young Men Dead” — The Black Angels

“Welcome To The Black Parade” — My Chemical Romance

The tide of battle might need to be changed and you can help influence that with these goodies:

“Can’t Stop Now” — Keane

“With A Little Help From My Friends” — The Beatles

Sometimes despite our hero’s best efforts, there comes a time to retreat:

“Runnin Out” — Chickenfoot

“Fast As I Can” — Stone Temple Pilots

“I Can’t Stay” — The Killers

You can play this as a tribute for the fallen:

“One Perfect Sunrise” — Orbital

“Release” — Pearl Jam

“Closer To Heaven” — Pigface

“Superunknown” — Soundgarden

“Don’t Get Lost in Heaven” — Gorillaz

“Don’t get lost in heaven -
They got locks on the gate -
Don’t go over the edge -
you’ll make a big mistake”

Making the last push to victory:

No Curtain Call — Maroon 5

And of course, when victory is in hand:

“We Are The Champions” — Queen

I hope this starter guide of Songs to Slay Orcs to has activated your inner bard. What other great songs should be on this list?

Paul Bliss runs FactPile.com. Join the Pile!

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This article was originally published in December, 2009.

Last week I pointed out the rather disgusting sexual appetites of certain fantasy heroines, namely Buffy Summers, Sookie Stackhouse, and Bella Swan.

But when you take a second look at these vampire/human couples, there’s another disturbing trend: an age gap.

Specifically, an age gap that in some cases spans several centuries.

And these are couples that in some cases involve a teenage girl. So why are we okay with this?

(Bill Compton of True Blood, you get a pass this week. Sure, you’re scandalously older than you’re girlfriend Sookie — you were in the Civil War, after all — but at least Sookie’s an adult.)

Let’s start with you, Edward Cullen, with your big dreamy eyes and your dirty, dirty hair. Sure, you may have that young, boy-next-door, Cedric Diggory-kind of appeal, but lurking behind that underdeveloped chest is the cold, dead heart of an old geezer. Does anyone else think it’s insanely creepy that an old man just keeps going back to high school?

It reminds me of that moment in Dazed and Confused when Matthew McConaughey says, “That’s what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age.” That was unsettling to hear from him, and he was a hot dude in his 20s!

And then you not only go after this girl, you fill her head with nonsense about how all you want to do is kill her, but you’re such a gentleman that you’ll behave and let her live. And somehow you get her to love you for it!

Do they not have Megan’s Law in Forks, Washington?

But of course, that’s merely Twilight, which came well after the couple that started it all: Buffy and Angel. Before they got all freaky with each other, it was relatively unheard of for humans to sleep with vampires. What did you unleash, Joss Whedon?

He was 247. She was 16. He kept telling her how much he loved her, and waited, patiently, until finally having sex with her on the night of her 17th birthday. You got that? He slept with her the moment she became legal. That’s just as creepy as all of those websites counting down to the day the Olsen twins turned 17.

And sure, she was technically legal when she started having crazy house-shattering sex with the punky Spike, but he was still over the hundred year mark, while she was a mere 21. And furthermore, he had been in her life since she was 16 — albeit as a mortal enemy — so he had known her in the context of being a child. What’s the deal, William the Bloody?

Aside from the fact that these are beautiful girls, one has to wonder just what someone who’s been alive that long would really have to talk about with a 16-year-old girl. Here’s a sample conversation:

Vampire: Hey, you.

Girl: Hey, you. You know what I was just thinking about? The ’90s. Man, the ’90s were kick-ass.

Vampire: The ’90s? Oh, please. They had nothing on the Roaring ’20s. Man, those days were the tops.

Girl: The top of what?

Vampire: No, the tops. The cat’s meow.

Girl: You have a cat? Aw, I love cats!

Vampire: Why don’t you listen to your i-Plod?

Girl: iPod.

Vampire: I miss speakeasies.

Yeah, not a lot in common. And yet in story after emo story, we see girls getting suckered in by these debonair vamps (and interestingly, almost never do we see these stories with the genders reversed).

So let this be a cautionary tale to concerned parents out there: if you see your daughter hanging around a boy with pale skin, an anguished expression, and an unusually vast knowledge of antiquated colloquialisms, get those crucifixes and garlic ready pronto. You’ll thank me when you don’t have any unexpected grandchildren with fangs.

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Death: the undiscovered country. Why is it undiscovered? Because once you cross over into the Great Beyond, there’s no going back. As a result, those who are left behind in the world of the living have no way of knowing what’s coming next.

That’s the way it is in real life anyway. Things aren’t quite so straightforward in fantasy fiction, which frequently features characters dying and returning to life.

Sadly, fantasy authors are no more privy to knowledge of life after death than the rest of us, so these forays into the afterlife usually end up just telling us something about the character — a mere emotional truth, not a literal one about the nature of death.

Damn!

Still, let’s see what some of the more interesting and famous of these fantasy resurrections have to tell us, shall we?

Xena Warrior Princess (in “Fallen Angel”)

At the end of the fourth season of Xena: Warrior Princess, Xena and Gabrielle both died — victims of Caesar and the culmination of a prophecy given to Xena by the evil shaman Alti at the very start of the season.

Unlike most fantasy “deaths,” the “Fallen Angel” episode shows us exactly what happens to Xena and Gabrielle after they die: the episode is actually set in the world of heaven and hell. But Xena being Xena, she just can’t help getting involved in the eternal struggle between good and evil. I could write for pages about this wonderful episode, but suffice to say: it was a thrilling, knock-our-socks-off moment when we learn that Xena sacrifices herself, choosing to spend all of eternity in hell, not for Gabrielle (as we might expect), but for her uber-nemesis Callisto. Since Xena “created” Callisto, it makes perfect sense in retrospect.

Of course, Xena died other times over the course of the series — six times total, according to some estimates. And the last time she, um, didn’t come back to life. But it’s best not to think about that, right?

Aslan (in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe)

In one of the most famous “Christ” metaphors in all of literature, the god-lion Aslan allows himself to be sacrificed by the White Witch in exchange for the life of the traitor Edmund, which belongs to the witch as a result of “deep magic from the dawn of time.”

But surprise! As a result of “deeper magic from before the dawn of time,” which says that death is reversed when someone willingly sacrifices himself for another, Aslan comes back the next morning — which is really good, because otherwise the witch was going to kill them all anyway!

I know this story has profound meaning for Christians, which I respect, but as a non-Christian, I gotta say: this storyline has always struck me as a bit of clunky metaphor and a colossal plot-cheat. Wouldn’t it have been better if the Pevensie kids had been more active players in their own story?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (in “The Gift”)

In the sixth season musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy famously sings, “Hey, I’ve died twice.” But her most significant “death” may have been in the 5th season episode “The Gift,” when Buffy sacrifices her life to save her “new” sister Dawn by diving into (and closing) an inter-dimensional portal created by a god.

Later, Willow and the others perform a spell to “save” her … or do they? In the aforementioned musical episode, we finally learn why Buffy had been so depressed all season long: she was in heaven, finally at peace, and her friends ripped her back out again! Needless to say, the decision by Buffy’s friends to bring her back to life ends up having major ramifications, which — duh! — is exactly the way it should be.

Ged (in The Farthest Shore)

The Wizard Ged has it rough in Ursula le Guin’s The Earthsea Cycle series of books: first, he unleashes a shadow-being into the world that is impossible to “destroy.” And in The Farthest Shore, the third book in the series, he must cross the “wall” between life and death in order to stop an evil wizard who has opened a breach in the wall so that he may live forever.

Ged closes the breach, but it comes at a great cost: he loses his ability to do magic. Ged survives his fantastic (and very effectively written!) foray into the land of the dead, returning to the world of the living, and le Guin gives the character two endings: in one (later developed in subsequent books) he returns home, but in another, he sails off into the ocean, never to be seen again. The latter is a less optimistic, but bolder ending, implying — truthfully — that in any confrontation with Death, human beings ultimately always lose.

Thomas Covenant (in Fatal Revenant)

At the beginning of the Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen R. Donaldson, Thomas Covenant, still in the “real” world, is stabbed in the chest by one of Lord Foul’s minions — but he and Linden Avery are transported into the magical “Land” before he can actually die. When, at the end of the three-book series, the main characters returns to the “real” world, Covenant is, in fact, dead.

Or is he? Linden hears his voice in the first book of the next series, The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, and eventually encounters a being who looks very much like him — although looks can sometimes be deceiving. Has Thomas Covenant really come back to life? Not yet, but he does later in the second book, once again by command of the all-powerful Earthblood.

In fantasy literature, humans never seem to learn some lessons, namely, that we should leave the damn dead alone! Oh, and drinking the all-powerful Earthblood is generally a bad idea too.

Frodo (in The Two Towers and The Return of the King)

Okay, so Frodo isn’t really killed by Shelob’s poison in his trek into Mordor over the Ephel Dúath mountains — he’s merely paralyzed by her venom so she can keep him “fresh.” But Sam, of course, thinks Frodo is dead and carries The One Ring on without him, and I’m including the encounter here because it serves as a example of the function that resurrection often serves in fantasy fiction: that of metaphorical rebirth. When Frodo and Sam both emerge from this encounter, they are different people, having learned important truths about themselves and even more determined to continue forward.

Interesting fact: The Two Towers includes material from Shelob’s POV, and these passages make it very clear that the giant spider is trying to “kill” Frodo with her bite, not just “paralyze” him. It’s later we learn (when Sam overhears the guards) that the venom is not fatal. A cheat on Tolkien’s part?

Harry Potter (in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)

Does Harry “die” at the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, or is he merely killed, but before he “dies” is given the opportunity, by magic, to decide whether to live or die? Then again, it’s been established that Harry can’t kill Voldemort without dying himself, so it’s pretty clear that Harry has to be truly “dead” in at least some respect.

Speaking of plot cheats … I’m not trying to get into any arguments here, and I’ll grant that J.K. Rowling did, if you squint, just barely make her whole epic saga hang together in the end.

But Voldemorte accidentally made Harry a horcrux when he was a child and now can’t kill him, because he somehow also incorporated Lily’s protective charm into him? And brilliant mind and fantastic magic-user that he is, he didn’t figure any of this out (but Dumbledore did)?

Okay, that’s not strained at all. I do, however, buy the bit at the very end of Deathly Hallows, with the Elder Wand — that Harry might figure out who the wand’s true owner is and that Voldermort, in his supreme arrogance and over-confidence, would refuse to believe it, effectively condemning himself to death.

Which brings up another fantasy “resurrection”: that of Voldemort himself. He too had died previously and come back to life. In fact, plenty of fantasy villains — Voldemort, Lord Foul, Sauron — have “died” (or been vanquished) and somehow eventually reformed themselves and returned to “life.” Evil is never really “dead,” right?

But, alas, those resurrections will have to be the subject of another article!

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