—Mi señor Norfolk tiene instrucciones del rey. —Su propósito es aplastar las objeciones y lo consigue—. La decisión queda a voluntad del rey y además, nadie puede decirme lo que se puede hacer y lo que no, nunca hemos juzgado antes a una reina. —Vamos decidiendo sobre la marcha —dice amistosamente el Lord Canciller.
Una reina en el estrado. Hilary Mantel
The moment Hannibal lecter is giving Clarice Starling the crumbles to solve Jessica Bimmels murder —the very first Buffalo Bills murder; he says: We covet. And what do we start coveting but what we see every day?1
ADAPTATION, THE VIRTUES OF ONE INTO THE VIRTUES OF THE OTHER
Speaking about adaptation difficulties and the reasons why the book will never be the movie and viceversa in case it is well done and in case it isnt; but what I mean is that Robert McKee (Story) was speaking of something else when he mentions, as any of those ham smears in a ham sandwich sold in a poor street, something more interesting. At least for me, since you and I know better why them both HAVE to be different.
McKee brings out (paragraph length) the cinematographic style of Flaubert at the same time Eisenstein, movie chap director, learnt to edit movies reading Charles Dickens. Shakespeare’s fluency dreaming about the apparition of the camera.
ENVY
So, this kind of battle, born from envy (I think); to try and get something narrated in the same way a different media can do it, in what McKee calls a challenge. The action and social interaction of the film in the novel. Something achieved by Camilleri. The relishing abyssal abysms of sub consciousness of novel into the screen. And here you might like to help me naming some movie that can do so.
Maybe that’s why I have been watching movies (not really, just a lazy one who cant sit down in front of a computer for hours and hours). Good ones and terribly good ones to deactivate my brain in order to keep watching. Reading manhwa and webtoon where the clichés are the plot and characters go against their own nature to satisfy the wish of having the big dick guy into their pants. The kind of marvelous jewels.
THUS WE COVET
We covet what we see, what we listen too. We covet it in our craft and we go neck biting (in a literal sense) to kill characters and commit the most atrocious of crimes well told plot pro. Whats the last crime you committed?
Spend the best of times coveting. Pasto kalo.
Naked and oblivious,
They go above my worries.
Impressive and thunderous,
They go beyond my loneliness.
Bathed in light,
Surmounted by divine.
Not the one of order,
The one of a moment.
It's a matter of regard,
Time and sight towards the sky.
Igualmente, para explicar de un modo satisfactorio a sus ojos lo que mantiene las entidades cósmicas y los fenómenos de la historia de la civilización, una vez creados, en marcha continua y armoniosa, sin conflicto ni confusión, los «metafísicos» sumerios expusieron otra idea. Esta idea se expresa por la palabra sumeria me, cuyo sentido exacto es todavía incierto. De una manera general, esta palabra parece designar un conjunto de reglas y directrices que forman parte de las cosas de un modo, como si dijéramos, intrínseco a ellas, y que habrían sido asignadas a cada una de ellas por los «dioses creadores» con el objeto de mantenerlas en existencia y en actividad, eternamente, según los planes divinos.
La historia empieza en Sumer. La primera cosmogonía. Noah Kramer.
Though nobody knows where, there’s a stone fountain in Taeguksa temple. It jumps and bird sings from the carved mouth of a marble lion turtle. Some say it will taste wine or beer in a solstice day. Some others would state it cures anything. Star eyed professor Bae Woo Jin discovered a sewn bound claiming it would turn immortal anyone who drank it. I, foolishly in love, I have decided to grab my suitcase and follow the gentleman.
MCGUFFINS AND PISTOLS
Right. The McGuffins and pistols on scene, ain’t slippers. They’re more like pumps. Once you believed you had them under your toes, you go get yourself in a rocky pavement and get your façade smashed against ground.
From the opening little tale, I can’t, anymore, discern which is the McGuffin. The professor? The fountain? And… I’m running to fast since I have to start with the most trascendental of the questions:
WHAT IS A MCGUFFIN?
McGuffins are unimportant objects (or beings)…. Or so said Hitchcock. They are the object ( fountain of the immortality)/ being (professor Bae) which motivates the main character into the chase. We won’t really care about the fountain if professor Bae is to end up death and little damsel in distress has to free herself from these sectarian guys who hold said fountain in their keep. Neither we will care about professor Bae if he turns tails on the first bonny face once in Taeguksa…
Indeed, George Lucas1 is of the opposite opinion. For him, we have to care for Yoda when Luke goes to bring him to the resistance. Yoda does matter. The McGuffin is important.
So… What is a McGuffin? Really.
THE OBJECT IS THE WISH
A MCGUFFIN IS THE STARTING GUN SHOOT. Important or not important,they come about at some point in the beginning of the plot and represent the desire. They can completely disappear to reappear in the climax. They can cause a city to be put inside out. Or they can become a totem hero object.
A magic sword, phoenix tear, death’s hollow, Maltese falcon. This objects are the justified desire of the character. Either a main or a secondary character. Remember, no character is secondary to their selves. They will always believe themselves the most important the same way we do.
For Maltese gilded falcons will have the detective chasing the falcon through all San Francisco city until the damn gizmo isn’t to be a useless damn, for the detective has fallen in love with the girl.
WHAT ABOUT MAGIC?
Magic can be a McGuffin. It can be an important one or an unimportant one.
In case of importance… Magical systems are developed. And in such cases I’ll need a tutorial to learn about mana, HP and point deduction… Yes, I have no idea about that kind of stuff.
Enjoy your McGuffins. Pasto Kalo.
El sol ilumina una mancha.
Un trozo de corteza,
Una raíz.
Las sombras de las hojas se mecen.
Atentas.
Una cabeza,
La mancha tiene patas.
Salta.
Entre los huecos,
Y la cola es el último pedacito visible.
El sol iluminaba una mancha.
—¡Excelente! Doy por supuesto que las relaciones entre Dosflores y tú son ya muy buenas. Un buen comienzo. Cuando vuelva sano y salvo a su tierra, comprobarás que no soy desagradecido. Quizá incluso olvide los cargos presentados contra ti. Gracias, Rincewind. Puedes marcharte.
Vetinari, Patricio de Ankh-Morpork. La luz fantástica. Terry Prattchet.
Eh…and before you go on reading this, let’s make it clear I won’t talk inspiring selling know hows. I won’t either tell you the secret on how to sell your book to any publishers1.
MAGIC AND DEMOCRACY
Whilst democracy is what we call our way to make everybody the same, we still believe in magic. Or, at least, spend a very joyous escape pretending magic does exist…
And magical is a category in which not everybody belongs. Who is able to manipulate the elements (proved non existent and I mean water, fire, air and earth not the 100 ~ in the periodic table and of which water is just a combination of oxygen and hydrogen) and who is able to foretell the future? Only those who are special. The worthy, the evil or the different. Not just anyone.
MAGIC IS A BEHAVIOUR
Who hasn’t tinkered with a pendulum, the Tarot, i-ching, the pair of pencils against each other? Who hasn’t worn a lucky T in worrisome situations? Even if your lucky T is an AC/DC T or your lucky knits are polka dotted, and you secretly use them since you have already ridiculed publicly those who do; magic is something we try doing in secret.
Magic is not a religion. Despite what we have been made to believe, it was just recently introduced as one2, in spite of being a behaviour.
A behaviour that’s become popular in most narratives; such as in: Macbeth, Faust, LOTR, Harry Potter, Charmed, Bewitched, Zelda, Dungeons and dragons, Final fantasy, A song of ice and fire… The idea of magic being an exchange.
To perform magic you need to exchange blood, life or words to get an unknown but powerful energy in return. This energy being limited by serious restrictions.
It is still the same from Sumer times. It requires summoning, spelling, demons, potions and accessories ( wands or staffs). Even those modern adaptations like in The fever king by Victoria Lee3, the magic systems depict a certain exchange of energy. Tough this one, is introducing magic to science the same way Underworld changed vampirism from divine curse to viral infection.
In the original entry I exposed the theory, magic as an exchange of mysterious interactions between energy and matter and the restrictions on it; was slowly disappearing. After reading the series of The black witch, Crystal throne (I’m stuck in the last book) and The all souls trilogy ( reading the last quarter of the second book); I reluctantly admit magic is still here. It has us reading about the unproven properties of plants Why are we still depicting plants as powerful medicines when very few plants have effective medicinal properties? and divination using tea leaves or the sixth sense, third eye… chords. Which means we are not as sensible and rational as I thought we were becoming. I mean, we might not want to pay for our fortunes to be told but we still associate magic to good luck.
Therefore…
Thanks for reading, subscribing or whatever it is you do with this blog’s entries. Pasto kalo.