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Q: Oh Oracle! [genuflects]. Many posts here at TheTorchOnline.com have reflected on what constitutes “fantasy.” And you have, thankfully, taken the broadest view. I like that you’ve challenged us to consider, for example, that Star Wars is actually fantasy in disguise as sci-fi (and I agree).  But I wonder if the reverse can be true, and some other stories are only disguised as fantasy, but actually are not. Case in point:  A Game of Thrones, the first of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice series, which has been getting a lot of press lately because of the series in production. But the few fantasy elements in this book are so embryonic and unexplored in comparison to the rest of the tale, that they seemed to play no real role. I ended up hypothesizing that Martin had used the fantasy elements to entice an audience he might not otherwise get to read what is actually a work of medieval fiction: actually not fantasy at all. The book was mostly about kings, lords, courts, alliances, betrayals, city-states, battles, and so on. I have not yet read book 2, A Clash of Kings, but I gather it’s more of the same: just a few incidental turns of fantasy amidst great and lengthy medieval machinations. Does the series ever step into the fantasy realm whole-heartedly? Do you think individual books or the series as a whole really qualify as fantasy? – Bob, Durham, NC

The Oracle Speaks:

It’s a fair question.

First, yes, all the books (so far) are like that: mostly medieval character studies and political maneuverings, with the occasional reference to magic and legendary creatures.

That said, there are dragons, kracken, manticores, zombie-like wights, ape-like giants, mammoths, and dire wolves.

And there’s plenty of magic too: in the Guild of Faceless Men (who can change their appearances), the witch Melisandre, and The Others north of The Wall, who clearly command much power.

I’d say this is all more than enough to classify the books as “fantasy.”

Here’s what I think is confusing you (and, it should be noted, many other readers who make the same complaint): it’s not the books’ lack of fantasy elements that make them different from most other works of fantasy — it’s their shocking realism.

Unlike most fantasy, these stories of “yore” are not romanticizing the past in any way — they’re stories told as if magic and monsters, not to mention all the shocking brutality of medieval kingdoms, are absolutely real.

(Indeed, mammoths and dire wolves really did exist on Earth and are, of course, extinct now.)

And what if magic was real? It would surely inspire enormous panic and superstition (as in the books). But at the same, it might require great effort, and would be used only sparingly.

It would basically be very, very mysterious.

The threat of monsters, meanwhile, would be omnipresent and overwhelming. But at the same time, for humans to exist, those monsters would have to have been dealt with in some respect, shunted off to one side, at least in most parts of the world.

That’s the whole point of The Wall, I think: “We gotta block that magic and those monsters out completely!”

This all strikes me as perfectly plausible, given Martin’s realistic take on things.

Martin is also practicing subtly, understanding that sometimes “less is more.” When used sparingly, these fantastical elements have more of an impact when they do appear.

The one very compelling argument in your favor that these are not true works of fantasy is that, in addition to being so realistic, Martin chooses not to have any of his main or POV characters be magic-users (which is another bold break from fantasy convention). This makes magic seem even less “significant” in this world than it already is.

I can’t speak for Martin, but I suspect he’s doing two thing here: (1) deliberately breaking from fantasy conventions (which, let’s face it, need breaking!), and (2) subtly trying to create that “realistic” sense of magic and monsters that his characters feel, by deliberately using these elements sparingly and keeping them at arm’s length.

Q: How is Andy Whitfield doing anyway? — Megan, San Diego, CA

The Oracle Speaks:

In March, Spartacus star Andy Whitfield was, of course, diagnosed with with Non-Hodgkin lymphoma, which can rapidly become fatal if untreated.

But Whitfield was treated, and reportedly responded well and has been
given “a clean bill of health.”

“Andy looks better than I have ever seen in my entire life,” says Spartacus executive producer Steven DeKnight. ” He looks fantastic. He’s in great spirits. He’s recovered, he’s training. He’s actually talking about bulking up bigger this year. So yeah, he’s doing great.”

Q:With all the attention being paid to the new Comedy Central show MAD, I can’t help but wonder why anyone cares about MAD Magazine. Does anyone even read it anymore? — Ed, Trenton, NJ

The Oracle Speaks:

You didn’t give your age, but I’m assuming you’re under the age of, say, 35.

For better or for worse, I believe the major influences on comedy over the last thirty years were (1) Saturday Night Live, (2) David Letterman, (3) Jerry Seinfeld, (4) The Simpsons, and (5) Judd Apatow. They’ve shaped the crude but ironic and cynical modern comedy sensibility we now all recognize.

But preceding (and influencing) all of the above was MAD Magazine, founded in 1952 and directly influencing most of today’s top humorists, especially at the peak of their influence in the early 70s, when circulation topped 2 million. Basically, they were ironic, openly cynical, seemingly dumb, but often deceptively smart back in the days of Sid Ceasar and Carol Burnett (who were funny, but irony-free).

Their sensibility became modern humor.

Of course, the magazine and its influence has long since been eclipsed by the work of all the writers and comedians who were inspired by it, which makes the new Comedy Central TV show an homage, at best.

And why is this a fantasy-themed question? Eh, it’s not, except that plenty of fantasy geeks were also devoted readers of MAD and saw both as major antidote to simple-minded provincialism. Me, for example.

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Q: Given all the sex and violence in Spartacus: Blood and Sand, will there be anything new in the “uncut” DVD version? — Wayne, Lakewood, CO

The Oracle Speaks:

“There actually isn’t a ton of stuff on the cutting room floor,” Spartacus executive producer Steven DeKnight recently told a gathering of critics in L.A. “Especially in television, you don’t over-shoot like you will on a film. There are some things, mostly of a sexual nature, on the DVD. One involving — I believe we put this shot back — an extra shot of, if you remember the gladiator Segovax that came to a very painful, unfortunate end when they castrated him at the end of that episode. There is an extra shot of him in there that you might not want to see.”

As for sex, he said, “There’s also in episode, I believe it’s [episode] six, in the gladiator orgy scene, there is some additional material. But  practically everything we shoot ends up on the screen.”

Q: I don’t mean this the way it sounds (or maybe I do!), but why did God create the Tree of Knowledge? He had to have created it — he created everything, right? But he already had that knowledge, so why create it at all? It seems like the whole point was to tempt Adam and Eve — I mean, who doesn’t want knowledge? And why is wanting that a bad thing? Would you invite your friends over, make this incredible-looking chocolate cake, and then say to them, “But you can’t have any!” I’m trying to be fair to God here, but it seems like He was being a major jerk. – Justin, Friday Harbor, WA

The Oracle Speaks:

The sad truth is that God comes off like an off-the-charts jerk in much of the Old Testament – which is precisely why it can’t, and shouldn’t, be taken literally.

The Bible isn’t an historical record: it’s a collection of myths and legends designed to explain a certain philosophical and spiritual point-of-view. (In the pre-scientific, non-rational ancient world, it was also used to explain natural world truths, but using it the same way today, in a post-scientific world, is, well, stupid.)

What philosophical point is the story of the Garden of Eden and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (its full name) trying to explain?

That the world is far from a perfect place and that, seemingly unlike most other creatures on this planet, we are “cursed” to have an awareness of our plight and of our own mortality.

The Tree of Knowledge also represents free will, a fundamental component in most Western religious thinking. In God’s defense in the story, free will is pointless, symbolically and literally, without other choices. Since God gave Adam and Eve free will, he had to give them the option to “opt out” of paradise.

(Although the story doesn’t quite hang together here, does it? Isn’t free will meaningless without knowledge?)

Furthermore, the Garden of Eden story establishes perhaps the most fundamental component of the Judeo-Christian world-view: that human beings are fundamentally flawed and incomplete, and can only be made whole through a relationship with God (and religion).

Incidentally, I personally disagree with most of the points of the Garden of Eden story and its extremely negative view of the human condition: I don’t agree that human beings are fundamentally flawed in needing of salvation, or that human knowledge is a curse, or that the desire for it is a bad thing.

In this Oracle’s opinion, the limited world-view of the Garden of Eden story would infect Western religious thinking for generations to come, with the forces of religion being on the wrong side of almost every intellectual leap forward, before and since the Enlightenment.

And now The Oracle must go lie down. His head hurts. Next week, we go back to talking about Lucy Lawless’s breasts.

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Q: Supernatural was famously only supposed to last five seasons, but now it’s coming back for a sixth. Good or bad idea? — Laura, Oakland, CA

The Oracle Speaks:

What’s the network’s take on the show’s the sixth season?

Sera Gamble

“We looked at Supernatural last year, and creatively, I think it had its strongest season ever,” says Dawn Ostroff, the President of Entertainment at the CW. “We also saw that the ratings went up, and Eric Kripke, who has been a fantastic creator/executive producer of the show, felt that the show really should go on, that he still had more stories to tell. And Sera Gamble, who has been a number two on the show for a while, was eager to kind of step up and take on the role of executive producer. While Eric is still involved on a day-to-day basis, Sera is really running the show.”

Some of what Ostroff says is, of course, is nonsense. While some of the individual episodes last season were terrific, the season-long arc was very disappointing, and the finale was outright-bad.

And since it resulted in a pretty whimper-like conclusion to creator Eric Kripke’s much-heralded “five-year plan” for the series, it makes me question how just seamless or well-thought-out that plan ever really was.

But I still love the show, and given that its ratings (and its prime timeslot right after The Vampire Diaries) landed it a sixth season, I think it’s probably a good idea that Kripke isn’t at the helm. That gives us as good a shot as any that it’ll be an effective reboot, which the show kinda needs.

And let’s face it: Kripke has been complaining in interviews for years now how overwhelming the job of the day-to-day running of a show was. It’s clear the man has serious burn-out.

So what will the sixth season hold?

Ostoff says, “When they came in and pitched us ideas for the season, we were really excited about the direction that they wanted to go in, a bit of a throwback going back to the first season, a bit of a switch in the characters where Sam is a little bit more like Dean and Dean is going to be a little bit more like Sam. But they had some innovative ways to approach the season. We all thought it probably will be maybe even stronger than last year.”

I’m not sure what any of that means, but I’m mildly intrigued.

Q: This new Teen Wolf MTV series. Is it really based on the old Michael J. Fox movie? How closely? — Michael, Gig Harbor, WA

The Oracle Speaks:

As chance would have it, we wrote an article about this exact topic earlier this week.

The Oracle has seen the pilot (which is pretty good) and heard from the producers. How much is it based on the 1985 movie? Very, very loosely — like, it’s using the same title. It’s not a silly comedy, but is instead much more serious, focusing more on the werewolves and the action and the romance.

Almost like … oh, what’s that obscure little teen vampire project that you never ever hear anything about? Oh, right: Twilight.

Can’t you just imagine the Teen Wolf pitch meeting? Someone came to them and said, “We think you should do a TV remake of the old movie Teen Wolf, and we–”

And MTV said, “Done! Greenlit! How fast can we get it made?”

Posey (left), Haynes

After the success of Twilight, and the fact that The Vampire Diaries is now the CW’s most successful show, I guess MTV would be crazy not to give Teen Wolf a whirl (as much as that pains me to say, passionate hater of sequels and “reboots” that I am).

I’ll also give the show credit for one thing: Tyler Posey, who plays the werewolf in question, is actually a teenager (he’s 18). What a concept!

No word on what his abs look like.

And in an example of a weird coincidence or extremely unimaginative casting, Colton Haynes, who currently plays a werewolf on The Gates, also stars in Teen Wolf. Haynes is playing the school bully (although he’s not a werewolf, at least not in the pilot).

Q: What can we expect for the final season of Smallville? –Timothy, Newark, NJ

The Oracle Speaks:

The big villain of the year is Darkseid, and returning characters include Brainiac, Supergirl, and Hawkman.

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Q: Does the Loch Ness Monster exist? How about Bigfoot? What about aliens at Area 51? I must know! – Blue, Albuquerque, NM

A: I sooooo want them too. But sadly, I don’t think any of them do. I think they’re all a combination of hoaxes, faulty memory, confusion, and wishful thinking.

Wait! Stop! I know this is a fantasy buzz-kill, but just here me out.

The Patterson-Gimlin film

It’s impossible to prove a negative, of course. But those who assert that such creatures exist have to do more than just throw everything and the kitchen sink at people, including stories and facts that blatantly contradict each other, and then sit back and say, “See?! Something here must be true!”

No, they have to build a coherent case. Now with topics as juicy as these, it’s obviously going to be difficult, because you might have authorities trying to censor or discredit you (in the case of aliens), and you’re also going to draw every wacko and huckster in existence, offering their fantasies and hoaxes aplenty.

But the fact is, we know most of these sightings are false. So it doesn’t seem like a big leap to me to say, “Well, maybe they all are.”

For example, take the famous Patterson-Gimlin film — long considered among the most compelling evidence for the existence of Bigfoot. Now we know it was a hoax.

But since this film has long been heralded as compelling evidence — almost every documentary ever made on Bigfoot has expert after expert saying it was very unlikely to be a fraud — it doesn’t just invalidate the film itself; it embarrasses the whole field of Bigfoot research.

Basically, if all those experts were wrong about the Patterson-Gimlin film, why can’t they also be wrong about all those droppings and hair samples and footprints they claim that can’t be identified?

Regarding the Loch Ness Monster, the iconic 1934 Sturgeon’s Photograph was revealed to be a hoax in 1994. The famous 1960 Dinsdale’ film was revealed to be a boat. And that attention-getting “flipper photo” from the 1970s had been seriously “enhanced” — and when it was finally revealed, the researchers weren’t clear on how exactly that happened.

The "enhanced" photo, left, unenhanced, right

Remember that 1995 “alien autopsy” film that aired on Fox purporting to be footage of the Roswell/Area 51 aliens? In 2006, the filmmaker, Ray Santelli, admitted that most of it was a “reproduction” — but that some of it was still real!

Uh huh. This is typical of almost all the hard “evidence” of these phenomena: when someone exposes a huge flaw, the creator of the evidence changes his or her story, suddenly “remembering” new facts to account for the flaw.

What of all the eyewitnesses? How can they all be wrong? And what about the fact that there are ancient legends that refer to the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot?

First, there are ancient legends to “explain” almost anything. We disregard the myriad legends that don’t have  a modern-day counterpart and just focus on the ones we like.

As for eyewitnesses, a hundred years of psychological research prove without any doubt that vision is easily fooled and that memory is extremely malleable — and that it evolves over time. The subject may be absolutely certain of what he or she is saying — he or she may have a certain memory. But it’s the creation of the mind, not based on what actually happened.

Example: two childhood friends of mine used to tell a story about how they had had a very close encounter with a UFO. As adults, one of them finally admitted that the two of them had made it all up because they were bored one night. But the other disagreed: it had all been real, he insisted. He had been telling the story for so long that he had created an actual memory in his mind.

"Alien Autopsy"

Anyway, there are eyewitnesses to “monsters” in virtually every large body of the world. Most are absolutely convinced (and convincing) about what they saw. So are they all right? If not, that means some of them are wrong — probably even most of them, given the number of “monsters” sighted.

So again, if most of them are wrong, why couldn’t all of them be?

For the record, regarding Area 51? It seems absolutely clear to me that something fishy is going on there — the government has some serious secret they’re covering up. But who says it has to be aliens?

I confess, I’m intrigued by the testimony of Walter Haut: Haut was the man who wrote the 1947 press release about the “flying disc” that had crashed at a Roswell ranch. At first, he claimed there had been no aliens, but before his death in 2005, he signed an affidavit claiming that he had seen aliens and a spacecraft, and he had evidence of a government cover-up.

Then again, his daughter is now the Director of the International UFO Museum in Roswell, so maybe he lied for her sake, or her own enthusiasm (and all the attention) altered his memories, especially since there is evidence of dementia in his final years.

So many of the other claims and stories regarding the Roswell crash have been exposed as almost certainly false, or blatantly contradict each other.

As for Loch Ness, let it be said I’m also intrigued by those monster-like sonar readings back in the 1970s that still haven’t been properly accounted for.

Is it possible that these monsters and aliens exist? Well, there are a few examples of “mythical” animals that cryptozoologists point to in their study of hidden or legendary animals that turned out to actually have existed. But Mountain Gorillas (”discovered” in 1902) or the Okapi (a giraffe-like animals “discovered” in 1901) or even the Coelacanth (a prehistoric fish “discovered” in 1938) all inhabited remote areas — not well-populated, well-touristed parts of Scotland and America. And, well, they were discovered decades ago. (Animals “discovered” since then are more on the order of small birds or lizards, and again, always in very remote areas.)

In terms of likelihood, I think aliens at Area 51 are most likely to exist, with something in Loch Ness being the next likely (a giant sturgeon or eel, perhaps, but almost certainly not anything like a plesiosaur), and Bigfoot being the least likely of all.

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Q: I recently got into a discussion with some people about Wonder Woman’s new costume. I said that while it had some stylistic elements I didn’t love, I thought it was a great thing that she got pants. My friend disagreed, saying the old costume was iconic. But it evolved into a debate about Wonder Woman’s feminist icon status. I argued that as she was written by men for men, and had no clothes but very large…assets, she wasn’t a very great icon, while he argued the fact that she didn’t need pants showed she was strong, making her an icon. I love Wonder Woman, but she’s no Xena or Buffy (yes, I know they were also written by men). Where does the truth lie? — Matt, Rockville, MD

A: All things need to be put in context. Created in 1941, Wonder Woman was quite radical for her time: yes, there were the first stirrings of American feminism back then, but there were very few female role models or media characters who were as active and unapologetically powerful as Wonder Woman.

And the most radical thing about Wonder Woman? I’ve always thought it was the existence of a major male character alongside her, Steve Trevor, who wasn’t powerful. From the beginning, just like all male superhero love interests, he frequently needed to be rescued, and even pined after Wonder Woman.

The idea of a man needing to be rescued by a woman? Now that’s a big deal! (And frankly, still relatively rare: even today, most fictional female heroes fight alongside male heroes — they almost never rescue them. That would be emasculating.)

So Wonder Woman does have to be considered something of a feminist icon (indeed, she was featured on the cover of the first stand-alone issue of Ms., Gloria Steinam’s influential feminist magazine).

But you’re right that she was also very much of a sex symbol, created by men for men (even more so in her 1970s TV incarnation). Until recently, male superheroes simply didn’t have to fulfill this role (at least consciously), which makes all the talk of Wonder Woman’s “empowerment” sort of ironic.

Then there’s the fact that Wonder Woman is basically “perfect” in every way. This is “feminist” on one hand, but it also taps into the classic and condescending idea that women are “special” and must be worshipped, as if on a pedestal, for their alien, exotic natures.

By contrast, as you say, Buffy and Xena are both wonderfully complicated and much more realistic, fully realized human characters. Then again, Superman was “perfect” too, so maybe Wonder Woman’s lack of flaws has more to do with her era and less to do with sexism on the part of her creators.

In the end, I’d say that Wonder Woman is very much a feminist icon — but of a very different era. For her to be in any way relevant to today, she needs some serious updating, and pants alone don’t cut it.

Q: I remember reading that there was going to be a sequel to Independence Day — the ending even sort of called for one. What happened? — MAGPIE, Toronto, Canada

A: Director Roland Emmerich and producer Dean Devlin (who together wrote the script) were once very eager to do the sequel, but Emmerich was soon called by his muse to tell other stories — namely, 10,000 B.C. and 2012.

Um, yeah. I hope Emmerich gave his muse a few good slaps upside the head.

But lately, the pair are back to talking about the project, which will now reportedly be two more movies, for release in 2013 and 2014, and Will Smith is reportedly back on board.

“The story will stay firmly on the planet,” Emmerich said in November 2009. “It’s always about earth and that earth gets invaded.”

But don’t hold your breath. Emmerich was also very excited about his 2012 TV spin-off, 2013, and for all his enthusiasm, that famously didn’t happen.

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Q: In Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, I remember everyone making a big deal about the fact that you could see the reflection of the cobra in the glass you weren’t supposed to see that was protecting Harrison Ford, in the Well of Souls Egypt scene. But I just watched the movie, and there’s no reflection. What gives? — Mike, London, Canada

A: Good eye! That famous reflection was (sadly) digitally removed for the 2003 DVD release.

Incidentally, that Well of Souls scene required 7000 snakes, though only the cobras were poisonous. One crew member was actually bitten. The sound of the snakes slithering, meanwhile, was created by a sound designer squishing his fingers through a cheese casserole.

Q: Since we’re on the subject of Indiana Jones, as crappy as Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was, the one thing I liked was how much it “looked” like the earlier films. How’d they do that? — Mike, London, Canada

A: Again, a very good eye. It was very intentional, with Steven Spielberg and his cinematographer, Janusz Kamiński, closely studying the “look” of the three earlier films (much of which had been done unintentionally, using the state-of-the-art technology of the time). They duplicated the lighting of the original films, and Spielberg choose to shoot the movie on film, not with digital technology. Finally, Spielberg duplicated the early, slower-paced editing style (which, ironically, was very fast-paced for the time).

The result is an “Indiana Jones” movie that looks and feels very much like its predecessors … except, of course, the screenplay and story suck.

Incidentally, Spielberg’s choices here are in sharp contrast to the one his Indiana Jones collaborator, George Lucas, made with his three “prequel” Star Wars films. Lucas gave them an entirely different look and feel than their predecessors and, frankly, made it virtually impossible to actually think that their events really do precede the events in the original trilogy.

Q: Finally, what’s up with the movie based on the story of those teenager who re-shot Raiders of the Lost Ark scene by scene? – Mike, London, Canada

A: Starting in 1982 and finishing seven years later, three Mississippi boys, Chris Strompolos, Eric Zala and Jayson Lamb, re-shot the movie’s 649 scenes on a VHS camcorder, spending as much as $8000 in the process.

In 2000, the movie was discovered by director Eli Roth, written about in Vanity Fair, and praised by Steven Spielberg. In 2004, producer Scott Rudin purchased the rights to the men’s story (for a mid-six figures), to make a movie about how they made the movie.

The project is still untitled, but a screenplay is reportedly in the works from Ghost World comic and screenplay writer Daniel Clowes.

The first part of Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation

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Q: I know boots of Springing and Striding aren’t real — that they’re a D&D magic item. But it occurs to me that there might be some (non-magical) real-world counterpart. Is there? — Waylon, Portland OR

A: Yes: a brand of exercise equipment called Kangoo Boots (as opposed to “kangaroo boots,” I suppose, which are made from kangaroo fur and leather).

I was both fascinated by how these books work, but also vaguely disappointed that they don’t allow you to jump ten feet in the air:

While looking for a video of Kangoo boots, I also found this, which doesn’t quite correspond to any D&D spell that I can think of, but looks really, really fun nonetheless:

Q: Why remake The Sorcerer’s Apprentice? Seriously. — Urp, Vancouver, Canada

A: The Oracle agrees with you, but if it’s any consolation, the original Sorcerer’s Apprentice (which is, of course, a short film within the animated Disney classic Fantasia) is itself adapted from a 1797 poem, which had previously been turned into an 1897 symphony (this is the music used in Fantasia).

Where did the idea for the movie (which includes a riff on the Fantasia broom-and-flood sequence, which is also part of the poem) come from?

“The idea came to me and my friend Todd Garner,” says the film’s star, Nicolas Cage. “I was making another movie at the time, and I wanted to explore a more magical and fantastic realm where I could play a character who had mystical abilities. I shared these thoughts with Todd, and the next day, we hit on the perfect project: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.”

So we’re now greenlighting movies based on the egotistical whims of inexplicably “bankable” movie stars like Nic Cage? That explains a lot, doesn’t it?

Considerably richer than God.

Q: Whose worth more: J.K. Rowling or Stephenie Meyer? — ApeGirl, Milwaukee, WI

A: While Stephenie Meyer has been far, far, far more successful than I ever would’ve imagined, and while she made an estimated $50 million dollars last year (for a total estimated wealth of well over $100 million), J.K. Rowling (who, it must be said, has been publishing books for almost a decade longer) is estimated by Forbes to have a fortune of a billion dollars.

Q: They can dress it up all the want, but when Galadriel, Elrond, and the rest of the elves “sailed over the Great Sea” to “Valinor,” that’s a euphemism, and they were really committing suicide, right? — M&M, Fort Wayne, IN

A: That’s, um, an unusual interpretation of things, but if that’s how you read the books, hey, what the hey?

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Q: Last week, you agreed that fantasy sub-genres sometimes say something about the eras in which they’re popular, and you attributed the explosion of vampire stories to the success of the feminist movement. What about superheroes? What do all the superhero movies say about this moment in time? — Whitney, Buffalo, NY

Superheroes from DC (left) and Marvel

A: That we have seen the (welcome) triumph of geek culture.

If vampires are an indication that women (who tend to be the ones who write, read, and watch vampire stories) finally have a major say in the direction of the culture at large, the explosion of superhero movies says that geeks now have a say too — maybe even a disproportionate one.

As hard as it is to believe, there was a time not too long ago when superheroes were considered the silliest of the silly — something for kids only. The idea that a movie about a man in tights could attract a mainstream audience was mostly dismissed out-of-hand; successes like Superman (1978) were attributed to nostalgia more than the superhero genre itself.

But comic book-loving geeks knew that, since the 1960s, the genre had become much more sophisticated, that it wasn’t silly at all.

As these geeks grew up, they took their love of superheroes with them (along with their love of Dungeons & Dragons and fantasy in general). Soon many of these folks were in positions of cultural influence, in Hollywood and elsewhere. By the time the modern superhero movie renaissance began in the 1990s, they’d convinced much of the public: superheroes weren’t quite so silly after all.

Now, of course, geek culture is mainstream culture. And before anyone asks, this also explains why Halloween has became such an “adult” holiday.

Why are geeks drawn to superheroes? I’m punting on that particular question (just like last week when I punted on the question of why many women seem to be drawn to vampires).

In a way, I find all this very encouraging: if enough people are passionate about something, they can literally change the world — in much less than a single lifetime, I might add.

Now if we could just get enough people passionately interested in, say, climate change or world peace….

Q: In your review of this week’s SyFy movie Dinocroc Vs. Supergator, you mentioned that the “Jaws” monster-movie formula is getting tired — presumably, the uncaring authorities and the idea that arrogant humans are the “real” monsters. But can Jaws really be credited with “creating” that formula? – Nathan, San Diego, CA

Quint gets their attention at the Amity town hall meeting

A: Jaws gets credit for a lot of things — creating the “wide release” and the “summer blockbuster,” giving the horror genre major new artistic credibility (in the wake of The Exorcist). But no, you’re right, that specific formula didn’t originate with Jaws.

Human arrogance has factored into monster movies from the very beginning, in movies like Frankenstein (1931) and The Invisible Man (1933). Indeed, the silent 1915 film The Golem, considered to be one of the very first monster movies ever made, is about a man who brings a Jewish golem to life thinking he can use it as a servant (but, of course, things don’t go as he expects).

And Jaws also isn’t the first movie to show how corruptly or inefficiently those in authority respond to unanticipated events. King Kong (1933) shows authority at its most inept (and arrogant), thinking nature can be controlled and exploited; later movies like The Omega Man (1971) and Westworld (1973) make exactly the same point about technology. And pre-Jaws movies like Planet of the Apes (1968), and Soylent Green (1973) are certainly bleak about the prospects for humanity in general.

But I’d argue that Jaws brought something of a new level of bald cynicism regarding government authorities: that they’re flawed and in the thrall of the major economic interests, that they don’t have the public’s true interests at heart, even in the face of obvious dangers. No doubt this cynicism grew out of the culture of the time, with disgust at the government running at high levels after the scandals of Watergate and Vietnam.

To some degree, these are all classic, timeless themes, and monster movies will always resort to them. But when I’m watching a monster movie and I’m immediately reminded of an almost identical scene from Jaws, that tells me screenwriters have moved from “tapping classic themes” into “hackneyed formula” territory, and even “outright cliche.” It’s time to shake things up.

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Q: Now that Andy Whitfield is cancer-free, is there any chance that Starz will cancel the “prequel” Spartacus series and go back to an ordinary second season? — Brett, Brooklyn, NY

A: Probably not. As of June 11th, showrunner Steven DeKnight and his creative staff were well into work on the six-episode “prequel” series.

Keep in mind, however, that Andy Whitfield is scheduled to appear in at least two of those six episodes. (Also keep in mind that the guy just finished treatment for a serious bout with cancer: he needs to train to get back in shape.)

Q: Fantasy sub-genres often seem to have something to do with the times in which they’re popular — e.g. the popularity of “lost world” fiction when Africa was being “explored” in the late 1800s and early 1900s. If this is true, what does the vampire craze really say about today? — Whitney, Buffalo, NY

A: Not what you might think: I think it represents the triumph of feminism.

Hold on! Bear with me a sec. What do I mean?

For eons, men have controlled the arts: they wrote (most of) the books and, more importantly, they literally decided what got published. Even female fantasy characters like Wonder Woman were created by men and told from a mostly male perspective (which is why they so often ended up being male sex fantasies).

With the birth of the feminist movement, which finally broke through to mainstream U.S. culture in the 1960s and 1970s, woman finally had a real voice in the direction of society.

But it’s only been the last few decades that women have had the power and influence to truly change the fantasy genre (even more recent pioneering female fantasy characters like Buffy and Xena were created and written mostly by men).

So what kind of fantasy stories are many female authors writing, and many female readers buying? Yup: vampire fiction, movies, and television. It’s also worth acknowledging the nature of vampires has changed recently as a result of the contributions of these women: vampires are now much more emotional, and much more romantic (and also have better abs).

Why do many women tend to be drawn to vampires? Even much smarter minds than the All-Knowing, Fantasy-Question-Answering Oracle have been impaled by this question, so I won’t even hazard a guess.

But I think the fact that many women are drawn to vampires — and that their interest has created a massive, thriving, influential fantasy genre — is yet more evidence that the feminist movement was, and is, a big, fat success.

Q: What really happens when you put a bag of holding inside a bag of holding? — Marty, Flagstaff, AZ

A: The kind of moment that Dungeon Masters live for!

A bag of holding is, of course, a popular Dungeons & Dragons magic item that is a bag that leads to an inter-dimensional space; you can store up to forty times the weight of the bag inside the bag, and it never gets any heavier.

Truthfully, the current edition of the game allows you to put bags of holding inside each other without effect, so you can store an ever-greater amount of stuff. But in older editions of the game, putting one bag of holding inside the other created a gate to astral dimension, destroying the bags and sucking anything within ten feet through the gate.

Current rules or not, if I were the DM and my players placed bags within each other, something out-of-the-ordinary would definitely occur. I can’t say exactly what, but suffice to say that it would involve giant tentacles!

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Q: Will the White Witch appear in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader movie? I know she’s not in the book, but she wasn’t in Prince Caspian either, and she made an appearance in that movie! — MAGPIE, Toronto, Canada

A: Perry Moore, an executive producer on the Narnia movies (and the person most responsible for casting Tilda Swinton in the role of the White Witch in the first place), tells the Oracle that, yes, the witch (and Tilda) definitely make a brief appearance in the upcoming film.

“She — and her evil — weave seamlessly into The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,” he says. “She appears right where you think she would when you read the book — in a surprising way you could never guess that is at the same time true to the core of the book.”

Who are these filmmakers to add something like this to the story?

“C.S. Lewis himself, flip-flopped on the origin of the White Witch,” Moore says. “In the first book written [The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe], Jadis is said to be the descendant of Lilith (Adam’s first wife) and an ice giant (like a jotun, from Norse Mythology). Then in the prequel to that book, The Magician’s Nephew, which Tilda is dying for us to do next, C.S. Lewis shows that she came from another planet, Charn, in another dimension that you can only reach by going through the ‘world between world’ and the many pools there. Her appearance was originally totally different. Seven feet tall, long red hair, and she waged a war with her sister until she destroyed that world and froze it — neutron bomb, anyone? — by uttering the ‘Deplorable Word.’

“We took some creative liberties,” Moore admits, “but they’re hardly transgressions when you consider that Lewis just completely rewrote her origin six books later,” he says.

Moore also points out that Aslan himself says that evil like hers never truly dies.

So will Swinton’s White Witch make an appearance in all seven of the movie adaptations (should they get made), even in those based on books where she doesn’t appear (or in books like The Silver Chair, where The Lady of the Green Kirtle isn’t necessarily the same character as the White Witch)?

It’s under consideration.

Q: Was Xena’s chakram a “magic item,” or was she just really, really, really good a physics? — Mark, St. Louis, MO

A: Really, really, really good at physics (probably).

The chakram is, in fact, an historical weapon, used primarily by the Sikhs of Punjab (though not until many centuries after Xena existed).

That said, Xena’s particular chakram does have a supernatural origin: Xena doesn’t possess the weapon when she’s with Borias in Chin, but when she turns up in Norway and confronts the god Odin, she has it; later, in the “Chakram” episode, we learn it was given to her by Ares, who stole it from the gods.

But there’s still no evidence that it’s a “magic weapon” per se. It only seems to work when wielded by people of exceptional skill — Xena, of course, and Callisto, Eve, and (finally, in the finale) Gabrielle.

In “Chakram,” Xena mixes her original “dark” chakram with a chakram of “light,” creating a new weapon with two parts that can be split apart (much like Xena’s own two sides), with a design that seems based on the yin/yang philosophy of her mentor Lo Mao.

This new weapon restores Xena’s lost memory, implying it does have some magical powers (or maybe not: maybe just the familiar act of using it restored her memory). Either way, it seems to work as a weapon solely as a result of Xena’s skill.

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Myrtle and Shirley (right)

Q: I heard that the actress who plays Moaning Myrtle is far from a teenager — true? — Mom, Jacksonville, FL

A: Very! Shirley Henderson, who plays the teenage ghost in the Harry Potter movies, was 36 when she first played Myrtle in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. She’s 44 now.

But her age actually makes a lot of sense from this franchise’s point-of-view. As a ghost, Myrtle does not age — unlike all the other teen characters in the movie. By casting an older actress, when she reprised the role three years later in The Goblet of Fire, she looked more or less the same. And since the character only ever appears as a ghostly shade, it didn’t matter that even an actress as youthful as Shirley might have difficulty pulling off an actual teenager on-screen.

Q: Has J.K. Rowling ever done a cameo in any of the Harry Potter movies? Why not? — Fiona, Bedford, U.K.

A: J.K. Rowling has said in several interviews that she doesn’t like to see herself on film and isn’t interested in doing a cameo. If she wanted to do it, she absolutely could — unlike most authors who see their books adapted to film, she has had extraordinary influence over the movies.

That said, there are those who swear they see her, in The Sorcerer’s Stone (in the scene in the Leaky Cauldron), in The Chamber of Secrets (either in the train station or as a witch in Knockturn Alley), and in The Goblet of Fire (with Hagrid in the stands at the first dragon task).

The Oracle is unconvinced. In any event, there’s no way she did all these cameos, so at least some people are seeing something that isn’t there.

Q: In Rowling’s world-view, is one “destined” to be evil? It sure seems that way, since every single person that the Sorting Hat puts in Slytherine turns out to be evil. WTF? — Irvin, St. Louis, MO

A: It does seem that the Sorting Hat has a whole “Minority Report” thing going on, doesn’t it? It’s one of the major flaws with the story, at least in this All-Seeing, Fantasy-Questioning-Answering Oracle’s opinion.

It’s true that Harry is allowed to opt out of Slytherin — according to Rowling, the only reason the Sorting Hat wanted to put him there was because of the earlier accidental merging of his soul with Voldemort, so he wasn’t really “destined” to be there anyway.

But every other Slytherin Hogwarts admittee? They don’t get any say: the Sorting Hat looks into their souls and declares them to be fundamentally rotten. From then on, everything about the house — the “snake” mascot, the snotty ‘tude, the encouragement of anti-Muggle bigotry, even the eerie greening lighting in their common house — just seems to reinforce their fundamentally bad natures.

Which begs the question: just what essential element did Salazar Slytherin bring to Hogwarts in the first place? Is the existence of the house simply a way to segregate all the evil kids? If so, why not just not admit them to Hogwarts in the first place? (We know kids can be expelled, so it’s not like everyone with magical potential has to go to Hogwarts.)

In all seriousness, the Oracle can’t remember being more disappointed in an author than when not a single Slytherin joined Dumbledore’s Army.

Not a single one? Seriously? The Sorting Hat is never wrong, Rowling seems to be saying: once a Slytherine, you’re doomed to be an evil coward.

This whole Sorting Hat business seems creepy to me, and downright authoritarian, declaring people to be irredeemably “evil” before they prove it by their own actual, individual behavior.

In Rowling’s defense, at least Severus Snape turns out to be “good,” although he’s still a complete a**hole about it all along the way.

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Q: This may be way too geeky and/or wonky for you, but I was recently re-watching The Planet of the Apes (the original, natch), and something struck me as odd: when Taylor and the others are first coming out of the Forbidden Zone, they see these otherworldly scarecrows. I get that they’re a “warning” to stay away. But if the point was to keep people away from the Forbidden Zone, why would they be facing in toward it? Why would you warn people leaving the Forbidden Zone? What gives? — Armon, Taos, NM

A: Too wonky and/or geeky? Have you met the All-Knowing, Fantasy-Question-Answering Oracle?!

First, keep in mind that, plot-wise, the scarecrows are there for effect: they’re a warning to Taylor and the others that they’re someplace new and scary — and definitely inhabited.

That said, I don’t think the movie really plays unfair here. If you’ll recall, later in the movie, Taylor and Zira and Cornelius and Dr. Zaius go back into the Forbidden Zone — and when they do, they walk past the scarecrows.

What does that tell us? That there’s a canyon that is the primary route into the Forbidden Zone from Ape City, and that the scarecrows were placed on one rim of the canyon. Earlier in the movie, Taylor and the others climb out of the canyon, not because it’s the right way to Ape City, but because they’re distracted by the scarecrows. That leads them to watering hole, where the humans steal their clothes, etc.

In other words, if the point was to warn people back to Ape City, the scarecrows might be a little awkwardly placed, but they’d still do the job. Then again, we also know that Dr. Zaius was concerned about more advanced humans emerging from the Forbidden Zone, so maybe the point was to warn anyone who might wander in from that direction.

Anyway, either way, the scarecrows make sense to me.

Too wonky and/or geeky? Seriously?

On another Planet of the Apes-related note, I admit I find the first movie brilliant and even a little under-rated (despite its great reputation). That said, I find everything else about the Apes franchise — all the movies, remakes, the TV series — to be anywhere from “sub-par” to “outright horrible.”

In short, you’ve got the first movie that was so great and so original that it has fueled an entire, thirty-year franchise of mostly crap. Now that’s impressive.

Q: If you had one wish, what would you wish for? No, seriously. — MAGPIE, Toronto, Canada

A: First, let me say up front that no matter what I wished for, I’d be fully expecting that I’d end up with my wish coming “true,” but only in an ironic-Twilight Zone episode/Monkey’s Paw kind of way.

That said, I’d wish for the option to invoke my wish at some future time — like when I or someone I love is diagnosed with cancer. I definitely wouldn’t wish for immortality or even ten years more life because, well, I’ve read and seen enough fantasy to know how that always turns out.

If that kind of wish wasn’t allowed, I’d wish for a 24-hour notice of my own death, with as much information about the nature of my death as the wishing entity would allow.

Would I then try to prevent my own death? Damn straight I would — even if I’ve also seen enough fantasy to know that my efforts to prevent my own death would, no doubt, end up causing it in the end.

Gee, I’m a little gun-shy about magical wishes, aren’t I? But can you blame me?

Anyway, if neither of the above wishes are allowed, I’d wish for winning a $100 million lottery. What the hey.

Q: What do the letters “WWGD” mean? — Amy, Redondo Beach, CA

A: “What Would Gandalf Do?”

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