Tag Archives: fantasy

Thought of the Week: Rowling’s Labryinth

My son and I just recently finished reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I have to admit that, considering the book is several hundred pages longer than its three predecessors, I wasn’t quite sure what was filling up all those pages. It got good – very good – at the end, but I can’t help feeling that it was, compared to Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, it felt somewhat bland. Other than a whole lot of prepubescent love interest, nothing really happened.

We may not read the rest of the books for a while. Goblet of Fire noticeably takes a turn into darkness, and I’m not sure if we’re ready for that (ironic, considering the nature of the story I’m writing for him). Nonetheless, we enjoyed it, finished it, and moved on. We’re revisiting The BFG at the moment (which is pretty darn dark in its own way!).

Another ritual he and I have is Friday movie nights. Netflix has become an invaluable instrument in our weekly film fix, and we’ve watched anything from the awful Jackie Chan movie Spy Next Door to the slightly better The Accidental Spy, among others. This week we watched The Dark Crystal for the first time. I had not seen it before, and I must say, I was swept away by the story, the beauty and the sheer dedication of the animatics in the movie. It was made in 1982, and puts Team America: World Police to shame. In more ways than one.

Before that, we watched another Jim Henson masterpiece; one that I remember well from my own childhood: Labyrinth. Does anyone remember a terribly young Jennifer Connelly and a terribly camp David Bowie? Must have been heaven for her, I’m sure! It was a real treat to visit this surreal, acid-trip vision of my youth, and I couldn’t help pausing the movie from time to time to point out particular things to my son. Imagine having to explain David Bowie. Whew.

In the proceedings, I noticed a few other things as well. Things that rang a bell from elsewhere.

Hoggle…or Hogwarts?

As you may have noticed at the head of the post, I have placed side by side (top by bottom?) a still from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Labyrinth. Does anyone see a resemblance? Now, surely mazes aren’t particularly uncommon – there’ve been plenty of movies and stories that have featured them, The Shining and Alice in Wonderland amongst others. Both of these predate Labyrinth and Harry Potter. In truth, at first I didn’t even see any connection.

But then, a couple of other things happened. Remember Hoggle? A grumpy, self-depricating and ultimately heroic little dwarf who guides Sarah through the maze. When we are first introduced to him, Sarah in her distraction mistakenly calls him Hogwart. Hogwart – really? This was the first coincidence I picked up on, and pointed it out in laughter – imagine they both came up with the same name!

A little later, my suspicions were raised. Remember the big, hairy, somewhat dimwitted monster that befriends Sarah and has some bizarre power to control rocks? Name’s Ludo. Yes, Ludo. Just like Ludo Bagman, the Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports.

Ludo Bagman…maybe.

They say you need at least three points to plot a graph. I wouldn’t want to go so far as to say Ms. Rowling took inspiration from Labyrinth; however, it feels these are a few coincidences too far. Two characters that share names with Rowling’s universe, and a giant maze that serves as the testing ground, and ultimately the transformation from child to adult, in both stories? I just don’t know…

Anyway, it turns out I’m not the first one to think of this, as a quick Google search will tell you. Some people see the coincidences; some dismiss them. I don’t necessarily want to make a claim either way, but just bring it to your attention: what do you think?

Where I Am with the Redemption of Erâth

So.

I feel I’ve reached a small milestone with The Redemption of Erâth, and thought I’d share a few stats to let you know where things stand. The tale itself, of course, is planned at the moment to span over seven books, and so by that measure I really haven’t even begun yet. But, by my drafts and outlines, I have just touched the halfway mark for Book One, and I’m sort of kind of proud of that, not least because I’ve never committed to anything and seen it through this far before.

Ever.

So, what did it take to get here? Let’s start by ignoring the 50,000-word history of the world of Erâth that I raced through during NaNoWriMo last year. That provided a huge impetus into getting this story out of my head and onto (digital) paper, and allowed me to flesh out the world in which my characters live, and how this world got to where it is now, in the time of my tale. I learned so much about the world of Erâth throughout this process, I feel I have lived there. I was astonished to discover the world was flat, and that ephemeral beings called the Duithèn were responsible for the downfall of the world and its casting into Darkness. I learned of the fall of Goroth, and the role Dragons played in his defeat. I even learned that the king Daevàr of Erârün deceived the king of Kiriün into joining him in battle against the forces of Darkness.

Still, all of that is a prelude to the tale I have to tell of Brandyé Dui-Erâth and his exile from the lands of Consolation. This is the story I have committed to, and this is what my commitment has taken me to so far:

• Chapters: 12/25

• Words: 52,416/100,000

• Pages: 166/300 (I’m not sure why this matters in an eBook)

• Weeks: 10/25 (at one chapter each week)

• Cups of coffee: 150/400

• Brain farts: 23/4

• View on WordPress: 450/1,000,000 (!)

• Korn songs listened to: 1/1

• Sonata Arctica songs listened to: 43/43

• Number of times I’ve annoyed my wife: 103/0

So that’s where I am! I’m feeling pretty good with myself. I hammered out three chapters this week and last, because I will be away for the next ten days and wanted to still share the ongoing tale without pause. These will auto-post each Saturday evening (this seems a popular time – let me know when you read your blogs!).

Hopefully you’ve enjoyed the tale so far, and I can’t wait to find out what happens next. All I can say is, it only gets better from here!

 

Satis

The Future of Erâth

I was talking to a friend the other day, and we started talking about blogging, and what sort of things we each blogged about. As I told him about Satis, he asked why I didn’t have my story, The Redemption of Erâth, on its own blog, to define it as a separate and specific topic, leaving this one – Satis – for other fiction and fantasy related posts.

I have to say, he got me thinking. I’m going to test this out, and see what happens: all ‘long reads’ regarding the development of this story (i.e. chapters) will be posted at redemptionoferath.wordpress.com, and I will continue to use Satis as a way of sharing my other thoughts, as I have been doing for some time.

For the moment, I will post a synopsis of each chapter here, at the same time as it is published over there. I’d be interested to see what you think of this, particularly since the progress on The Redemption of Erâth has kickstarted me into thinking about my long-forgotten storychild, A Gothic Symphony, and I will soon be creating a WordPress site for this as well.

So for all of you who are currently following me here, I invite you to check out redemptionoferath.wordpress.com, and if you’re interested in specifically keeping up to date with my story, please follow me there as well!

Yours,

Chris (Satis)