Space Opera

In Firefly By Joss Whedon, a sci-fi story is created with all the elements of the American western movies of the last century. The cast is a group of renegades and misfits who end up calling there spaceship their home. They are sort of like guns for hire from back in the 19th century wild west days.  Just like the old space operas, these stories are good vs. evil. But the good guys all have demons from there past. It reminds you of the old gunfire who becomes a sheriff after a life of crime. My favorite element of this story is the humor and that was missing from the stories of the old west. In many of the episodes, the characters in trouble and have to shoot there way out. During all of this chaos, they become like a family.

Contemporary Urban Fantasy

Neal Gaiman wrote Anansi Boys in 2005 and it considers a modern myth about the children of West African and Carribean gods. The story is a combination of realism and fantasy with some romance, comedy and supernatural stuff is thrown in to make it interesting. When the story begins, the narrator tells us that songs were what caused the creation of the world and one of the gods sang a song to create every part. Songs are magic and play an important part in the life of the main character Charlie.

Like most myths, things don't always work out the way they're supposed to. When Charlie was a boy and living in a magical world, he broke a magic ball in a neighbor's yard. To punish him, the neighbor split him into two boys. Spider got all the bad qualities and Charlie got all the good and kind ones. But Charlie doesn't remember any of this and has no idea he comes from a magical family. In order to return to the world, Spider can step through a picture but Charlie has to be sent back from a god.  Spider lives up to his bad reputation and Charlie wishes he could send him but, but I think Charlie really knew he had a connection with Spider.

The story is full of symbols and metaphors just like myths of ancient times. The animals are the avatars of the ancient gods just like Zeus used to take human form. They all face problems. For example, the birds won't leave Spider alone because he owes something to the bird woman. The most interesting symbol is when Charlie begins to sing and he sings the story of this novel. I think myths that combined reality today with magical elements make the story better for readers today because we can connect with them.

The Novel of Spritual Education

The Harry Potter prequel is only 800 words so its hard to get many complex issues out of it. However, since I know the Harry Potter stories, I can put together some ideas. Harry's father James and Sirius Black are teenagers and friends. They are in an alley and have been stopped by the cops. There very sassy to the cops. This same attitude can be seen by Harry and his friends in the novels. I don't think they mean to be offensive, but the magic kids do seem to feel superior to non-magic people. However, when danger approaches, there schooling kicked in because the struggle of good over evil is at the heart of there education and maybe the bases of there spiritual ideas.

The Hero's Journey.

The Hobbit, Bilbo goes on a hero's journey. He begins in the innocent of the hobbit shire. He loves his life there and doesn't want anything to disturb it, but the wizard Gandolf visits him and calls him to go on an adventure. Bilbo tries very hard to get out of this, but the dwarves need his help so he finally goes to help. Along the journey, they meet many scary trials. For example, some of the dwarves are captured by the trolls and Bilbo figures out how to set them free. The biggest test is when he faces the dragon, but Bilbo lets his fear get the best of him. He steals a cup from the dragon and the dragon gets really mad. All heroes on the journey make a mistake along the way. Luckily the dragon is killed but not before he burns down the town. In the end, he goes back home and writes about his adventure. He is not really a hero like we think today.

Witches and Woman in Genre

Akata Witch seems like a Nigerian version of Harry Potter. The people are called leopard people, and Sunny is the main character in the novel. She finds out that she is a magical leopard person and finally finds her place to belong in the world.

The witches in this story are archetypes because some are good and others are bad. For example, Black Hat Otokoto is a bad leopard person and a murderer of children and the good leopard people know they must stop him. Another bad character is Ekwensu and she is so powerful that she is compared to Satan. However, there are other multiple good witches who are similar roles to the teachers in Harry Potter. For example, Anatov is similar to Dumbledore because he teaches and mentors the young leopards.

However, none of these witches seem to fit the archetype of the old historical witches from stories like The Wizard of Oz. The witch from old stories are 2 dimensional so they are not very interesting. I'm glad that the archetype has grown into more interesting witches today.