Week 3 Story

Long ago in the town of Chile, there lived a prince named Ryan.  Ryan was known throughout the land as the son of King Hugh. He was often known as the troublemaker of the family and the comedian.  He was often sent away on what he thought were “important missions,” but in fact were just errands that his family had wanted him to run. One day his father required him to go away to the town of Cyprus.  So, as Ryan headed off he thought to himself, “I must be the luckiest man alive, my dad always sends me on important missions for the kingdom.”  This time though, unbeknownst to Ryan, his father had sent him away so that he could deal with the evil witch Blake, who was trying to take over the kingdom.

After being on the road for a few weeks Ryan eventually came back to Chile.  What he saw shocked him, there were houses on fire, some that had been burned to the ground, crops were decimated, and the castle looked like it had been at war. Ryan dropped everything that he was carrying and rushed toward his home to see what was happening.  When he arrived all, he saw was carnage.  There were dead bodies everywhere. Some of the soldiers that he had known all his life were laying on the ground covered with cuts and dripping blood. As Ryan entered the hall, he saw his father slumped on his throne lifeless with a pool of blood around his feet.  Ryan eventually reached his father and stood in despair, he cried out, “What has happened here!”  His mother appeared from a concealed comparing in the wall behind the throne and told him that the evil witch Blake and her minions had stormed the castle while was away and destroyed mostly everything.  She went on and said how his father tried to fight them off, but he was eventually overpowered and then stabbed.  As Ryan was listening to this he burned with an intense rage and hatred for this witch and vowed to end her life.

Ryan hastily left the castle and went on search to find the witch.  As he was wandering around the town, he heard people scream out, “Have mercy on us ol’ witch. Please spare our lives.” Ryan went to investigate the noise and what he saw made him shudder.  Standing before him was the most grotesque witch he had ever seen in his life.  Words couldn’t even begin to describe what she looked like.  Eventually the witch turned back to her victims and started inflicting torture. As Ryan was creeping up behind her he realized that he did not have a weapon to slay her. He noticed out of the ornery of his eye that there was a little knife by the edge of the burnt down house he was creeping behind.  He grabbed it and then made his way toward Blake.  As soon as he was in position he lunged at her and stabbed the knife right through her throat. Blood was gushing out and the witch turned around and looked at him in shock and then fell down dead.  Ryan was praised as a hero and eventually took possession of the crown and became king of Chile.  Every month on the day that he was father and the towns people were murder the kingdom holds a celebration of life to remember those who had passed.

Bharata fainting at his fathers Cremations. (January 28, 2018)

Reitberg Museum. Source: Wikicommons

Authors Note: I felt for this story I kind of wanted to give some more backstory about what had happened while Ryan was away form the city. In the original story all that we know is that Bharata returns and his father has been killed.  With this new story I wanted to portray how he was killed, and I wanted the main character to get exact his vengeance on the one that destroyed his family. I also excluded the brother from the story because I feel that he added no real value. I also wanted to give the story a happier ending than the mysterious one that was given.

Bibliography: Gibbs, Laura. Bharata Returns. Bharata Returns

Reading Notes Part A: King Dasharatha

King Dasharatha was another interesting read for me.  To be honest, I have no idea how to pronounce any of these people’s names and I am very unfamiliar with Indian culture.  That being said, I thought this story was very well told.  I really enjoyed how it got straight to the point and told me who King Dasharatha was.  When I took the Mythology and Folklore class last year it seemed that if we w2ere going to be introduced to a new character the story really dragged out telling us about who the new person we were reading about was.  I like this story better because it is way more simplistic in the fact that it gives us the character right away and we get to learn about him with no bs. Also, how the author described the kingdom that Dasharatha rules over uses very elegant words.  I did have to re-read the story just so I could better pronounce the names and try to understand what was being said. I have not really ever read a story that gives such beautiful description as the story does.  I felt like I could visualize everything in my head and was in awe of the splendor and beauty.  It always seems that stories and myths never focus on the small details but rather the larger picture.  This story does the opposite and it really drew me into the narrative.

The one thing that I did not like was that all the names sounded kind of like a rhyme scheme, which really threw me off.  I found myself rhyming the names together and when I was doing that I had no idea where I was in the story.  I think that if they were to tone down all the names and different people it would be an easier story to follow. Overall, I really enjoyed the story and cannot wait to read more.

King Dasharatha. (1930)

Bazaar art. Source: Wikicommons

Bibliography: Gibbs, Laura. King Dasharatha. King Dasharatha.

Topic Research

The topic that that I am wanting to write about is Indian horror  I feel that there are not a lot of stories about Indian Horror out there.  I am a big horror fanatic so this one would be right up my alley. Indian horror has never really been brought as far as cinema or in stories so I think it would be wise to create really creepy stories about the Rakshasa, Pischacha, and the Bhoot Chaaturdashi.  This would  be intriguing because all would be connected by showing up in the last story to join forces to try and destroy mankind.

I would focus on the the Hindu telling of the Rakshasa.  The reason I would choose this one is because the description that Wikipedia gives about them is similar to zombies/werewolfs.  I think being able to vibe off that. A second story that I would talk about are the Pishacha.  These characters seem much different than anything in horror that I have heard about so exploring them further while having them play a huge villain role will be fun to write about.  The third story would focus on the Bhoot Chaturdashi.  With this story I would bring the Rakshasa and Pischacha together and have them join up.

Rakshasa. (May 9, 2018

Bildflut. Source: Wikicommons

Reading Notes Part B: Bharata Returns

I really enjoyed the Story of Bharata Returns.  I feel like this story is a great representation for people all over the world.  It shows that it doesn’t matter what culture or race you are, that the loss of loved ones has a profound effect on everyone.  After I read this story, I instantly began to see how it could be worded to fit other cultures or religions.  This story reminds me of a story that I had to read for mythology and folklore.  It was cool to see a connection between two different stories that are in different parts of the world.  It would seem like to me that every culture has a small part in shaping the myths and legends that all the cultures use around the world.  Since people always interacted with each other it stands to reason that whatever they might have learned from another person of a different race and culture, they then take back to their people and use it to help grow a story.

One point that I thought was interesting is that when Bharata found who was responsible for the death of his father and his brothers exile he did not want revenge.  He ordered the hunchback to be set free because he realized if he were to harm her than vengeance would befall him.  In other stories like this one, in other cultures, the person who finds the one responsible for the deaths in their lives usually extract vengeance.  This was interesting to me that a guy who just lost almost everything that he had would spare the life of the one who caused him and his mother such grief.  It definitely shows to me that the people involved in the Indian epics are much more evolved than say, Greek heroes. 

Bharata. (1916)

Balasaheb Pandit Pant Pratinidhi. Souce: Wikicommons

Bibliography: Gibbs, Laura. Bharata Returns. Bharata Returns

Feedback Strategies

The first article that I read was Try to feedforward instead of Feedback. I really enjoyed this article a lot.  I thought that it was a good idea, that instead of crating, we give useful advice on how someone can propel their story or whatever. Giving suggestions about what might be “cool” or “interesting” would certainly give the author more leverage of what he might be able to add to draw people in.  The second article I read was What Kinds of Messsages Help Kids Grow. This article was helpful as well because it shows that positive reinforcement is always better than being mean and negative toward someone.  People and kids are more likely to respond and change something if they see it as constructive criticism not just someone pointing out the negatives of what they are doing.

I feel confident giving everyone feedback even if it is not that great.  Since I am a film major most of my work has been giving feedback or working on revisions to stories or scripts so I am used to it. 

Feedback. (May 26, 2014)

Alan Levine. Source: Flickr