WSC 2020 LITERATURE

Reboots, Sequels, and Reconsiderations

I. TIME & TURNING
 NEW YEAR | BEI DAO

• Bei Dao is one of the the ‘Misty Poets’, a progressive literary movement in China in the 1970s and 1980s. The language in
the poems is more thought than thing and the meaning is often uncertain. He is one of China’s most extraordinary young
talents and as a driving force behind the 1976-79 Democracy Movement.
• He helped pioneer a new style of verse called, by its critics, “a poetry of shadows” because it intentionally employed dark
and dreamlike imagery, a retreat from traditional forms. It was Bei Dao’s way of fulfilling two contradictory needs: to
comment on the totalitarian abuses that plagued his society, yet to do so in a manner that was somewhat shielded by the
obscurity of his symbolism; and to explore a personal dreamscape where feeling and imagination could be given free reign. 
• Bei Dao writes, “ a child carrying flowers walks toward the new year/a conductor tattooing darkness/listens to the
shortest pause/hurry a lion into the cage of music/hurry stone to masquerade as a recluse/moving in parallel nights/who’s
the visitor? when the days all/tip from nests and fly down roads/the book of failure grows boundless and deep/each and
every moment’s a shortcut/I follow it through the meaning of the East/returning home, closing death’s door.”
• His work is ambiguous and multi-interpretational. His imagery is astounding.  The image of the ‘conductor tattooing
darkness' visualises the baton puncturing the night in short, precise movements. Both — conducting an orchestra and
tattooing — require complete absorption. It is life-transforming, ‘closing death’s door’ – having survived another year.
 PRAISE SONG FOR THE DAY | ELIZABETH
ALEXANDER

• Elizabeth Alexander was asked by Barack Obama to write this poem - 2009 Presidential Inauguration.
• Alexander’s poem is a marvel because it works against the commemoration of a single event, focusing instead on
ordinary, daily activities: “Each day we go about our business.” she sketches a modern existence where “all about us is
noise.” Regular people are doing the work of “repairing the things in need of repair,” indicating perhaps a need for
change or improvement while also looking for transcendence and beauty, “trying to make music somewhere.” Instead
of presidents and politicians, Alexander gives us a “woman and her son,” a “farmer,” and a “teacher.” In addition to
these living embodiments of our country’s important if unsung workers, Alexander reminds us that we carry as well
“our ancestors on our tongues”, inviting them in to remind us that we don’t walk in this alone.
• After celebrating the dailiness that surrounds this special occasion, the poem considers the larger significance of the
inauguration and what it might mean going forward as a nation. “I know there’s something better down the road,” the
speaker declares with hope, though she is quick to acknowledge the uncertainty: “We walk into that which we cannot
yet see.” She urges us to be hopeful while looking toward an uncertain future. She calls for us to acknowledge the
simple labors, “enslaved workers”, while celebrating days of national importance.
• Alexander, too, seems to want to encourage and praise acceptance without judgment as she urges us to “love with no
need to pre-empt grievance.” Ultimately, “Praise Song for the Day” manages to celebrate the momentousness of the
inaugural occasion while also foregrounding and praising the struggles behind it.
 BURNING THE OLD YEAR | NAOMI SHIHAB
NYE

• Naomi Shihab Nye is a Palestinian-American poet and novelist and her poem, “Burning the Old Year” offers an accurate
perception of how many people, on an individualistic level, and within themselves, would review the last year of their lives
once January 1st has come.
• “Letters swallow themselves in seconds. / Notes tied to the doorknob… sizzle like moth wings / marry the air”, found in the
first stanza of the poem, are lines which convey destruction or the end of something. The relation between the imagery in the
first stanza (letters and notes being destroyed, being burnt as they “sizzle like moth wings” and turn into smoke) and the
passing of one year into another is obvious since relationships are constantly refined and redefined each year, whether with
them being altered (people grow apart from each other) or completely severed (people ending relationships with each
other). She conveys the fragility of the notes and the letters and, by extension, the relationships themselves.
• “So much of any year is flammable”: So much of any year is easily destroyed – both easily forgotten as a slip of the mind and
forgotten as a deliberate, violent act upon the mind. When Nye writes that “So little is a stone” she is also pointing out that
while there is much that we do each year that might be worthless, easily forgotten, or too fragile to make it into the new
year.
• The sense of loss that comes with the New Year continues throughout the poem and is continuously manifested: “Where
there was something and suddenly isn’t, / an absence shouts…”: that of everything that has been lost and left behind, and yet,
MUST be left behind, MUST be destroyed if the new year, and all the new things that come with it, are to be embraced.
• The great lesson in the poem seems to be that everything that is trivial and incomplete must be destroyed through the act or
forgetting. Only the stones, the solid things that actually have worth will remain. By releasing ourselves from the trivialities of
the past year, only then can we ensure that we get what we truly want and aim for in the New Year.
 URBAN RENEWAL | YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA

• Theme is clear: building, destruction, racism

• Building materials: I-beam, brick dust, sledgehammers, screws, etc.
• Destroying traditionally ethnic minority neighborhoods to make room for wealthier, more socially acceptable buildings: parking lots,
stores, houses for wealthier people – values start to go up and the people who have been living there for a long time no longer can
afford.
• Allusion to bigger political connotation:
• White color: white soundsystem, white ordor of absence (2 times): integration, white families will simply live there and are the target of urban
renewal projects.
• Bloodlines: red color which refers to redlining (poor areas with redlines on the map – higher price or denial of services, a new mechanism to keep
the areas racially segregated when segregation is illegal)
• The poem is describing destruction: The sun slides down behind brick dust, … Everything melts, … sledgehammers fall…Wrecking
crews… breaking wings into splinters. The ‘ordor of absence’ is a literal description of seeing things being destroyed. Absence is the
present smell rather than a lack of something. Absence is an unstated goal, trying to create an absence so that it can be filled by white
people, white businesses.
• The last part shows a move from what is being destroyed to what is being built. It is an acknowledgement of what was there and
what was lost. We see what the destruction means and it’s the parking lots on where the black have lived for so long. Blueprint is also
racist city planning, building highway to break up the black neighborhoods.
II. THE PARADOX OF SEQUELS
2.1POEMS, PLAYS
 TERMS

• Sequel: A literary, cinematic or televised work continuing the course of a story that began in the preceding one. Example: Toy
Story 2, Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.
• Prequel: a story or movie containing events that precede those of an existing work. Examples: Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom
Menace.
• Midquel: a work that is a prequel to one work and a sequel to another. For example, if the third film in the series was set in
between the events of the first film and the events of the second film (Rogue One).
• Sidequel: A type of sequel which portrays events that occur at the same time as the original work, but with different characters
in a different setting.
• Reboot: a series of films/TV programmes that stopped being produced but were then restarted or revived. Often, the canon of
the previous series is ignored.
• Trilogy: A group of three related plays, novels, films or other forms of media. E.g. Lord of the Rings or Back to the Future.
• Paraquel: A story that takes place simultaneously with another story, such as Aeneid and the Odyssey.
• Franchise: A series of (most commonly) films that are about the same characters and are set within the same universe. For
example, the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
• Retcon: A piece of new information that results in a different interpretation on previous events, generally used to allow for a
dramatic plot shift or to fill in a previous inconsistency.
 THE ODYSSEY & ILIAD, HOMER – AENEID,VIGIL

• Aeneid: by Vigil, 12 books

• Odyssey: It follows the Greek hero Odysseus, king of Ithaca, and his journey home after the Trojan War. 
• Illiad: Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy (Ilium) by a coalition of Mycenean Greek states (Achaeans), it tells of the
battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles.
• The first half of the Aeneid mimics the journey of Odysseus. Though the Odyssey takes course over the span of 24 books while
the Aeneid replicates the happenings in the Odyssey in 6 books, there are several comparisons to make: the characters (Odysseus and Aeneas are
both royalty, Odysseus being the king of Ithaca and Aeneas a Trojan prince). Both heroes sail over the same sea, sometimes visiting the same
locations and experiencing the same difficulties.
• The second half of the Aeneid, Books VI through XII, follow similarly to what happens throughout the Iliad and its warfare theme: From the
beginning of the Iliad, readers knew that the Greeks were fated to triumph over the Trojans, as was declared by the king of the gods,
Zeus. Achilles' fate was also foretold; if he went to war he would die a hero. Similarly, Aeneas was told by the ghost of Hector in Book II that he
was to leave burning Troy to found a new city. Throughout the rest of the epic, the gods include reminders that Aeneas is destined to find Italy
and found Rome for future generations.
• the Odyssey is a sequel to Homer's Iliad: The Iliad is the earlier work (it was written first). Also the events in the Odyssey are a direct
consequence of what happens in the Iliad and the reader of the Odyssey is assumed to know the summary of the plot in the Iliad and who the
main characters are.
• Aeneid is a paraquel to the Odyssey
 HENRIAD,
SHAKESPEARE
• In Shakespearean scholarship, Henriad refers to a group of William Shakespeare's history plays. It is sometimes used to refer to a
group of four plays (a tetralogy), but some sources and scholars use the term to refer to eight plays.
• In one sense, Henriad refers to: Richard II, Henry IV, Part 1, Henry IV, Part 2, and Henry V — with the implication that these four plays are
Shakespeare's epic, and that Prince Harry, who later becomes Henry V, is the epic hero.
• In a more inclusive meaning, Henriad refers to eight plays; the tetralogy mentioned above, plus four plays that were written earlier and are based
on later historic events – the civil wars known as The War of the Roses: Henry VI, Part 1, Henry VI, Part 2, Henry VI, Part 3, and Richard III.
• The action of the Henriad follows the dynastic, cultural and psychological journey that England traveled as it left the medieval world
with Richard II and moved on to Henry V and the Renaissance.
• The character Falstaff is introduced in Henry IV, pt. 1, he returns in Henry IV, pt. 2, and he dies early in Henry V. Falstaff represents
the tavern world, a world which Prince Hal will leave behind.
• The Life and Death of King Richard the Second: based on the life of King Richard II of England (ruled 1377–1399)
• Henry IV, Part 1: the successive reigns of Richard II, Henry IV (a wild, undisciplined young prince Henry). It depicts a span of
history that begins with Hotspur's battle at Homildon in Northumberland against Douglas late in 1402 and ends with the defeat of
the rebels at Shrewsbury in the middle of 1403.
• Henry IV, Part 2: an extension of aspects of Henry IV, Part 1, rather than a straightforward continuation of the historical narrative,
placing more emphasis on the highly popular character of Falstaff.
• Henry V: the story of King Henry V of England. The young prince has matured. He embarks on an expedition to France and, his
army badly outnumbered, defeats the French at Agincourt.
 MRS MIDAS, CAROL ANNE DUFFY

• “Mrs Midas” is a poem written by the contemporary Scottish poet Carol Ann Duffy, the former Poet Laureate of the
United Kingdom. The poem alludes to the Greek myth of King Midas, who was granted a wish to have everything he
touched turn to gold. The poem, however, tells this well-known story from the perspective of Midas’s wife, using humor
and wit to explore the foolish nature of greed, the historical erasure of women’s experiences, and the consequences of
selfishness within a relationship.
• Duffy's poem revamps the famous myth of King Midas, with a major shift: the focus of the story is not the king himself, but
rather his wife. The poem thus elevates a perspective that was left out of the original story, revealing how a greedy man's
wish sent the life of the woman closest to him into turmoil. The poem implies the steep cost of such erasure, as the
speaker's life is also irrevocably changed when her husband makes a wish that fails to consider her altogether.
• The poem's title thus immediately calls the reader’s attention to what was left out of the original story: the perspective of
the king’s wife, who would of course have been very much affected by the fact that everything her husband touched
turned to gold!
• Within the poem, Mrs. Midas herself insists that her husband’s wish is based on an act of erasure. “What gets me now,” the
speaker says, “is not the idiocy or greed / but lack of thought for me.” In other words, the speaker understands that in the
moment of his wish, her husband wasn’t even thinking of her at all.
• By centering Mrs. Midas’s perspective and experience, the poem counters this erasure of women’s experiences and implies
that understanding these experiences is necessary and vital. And since the myth of King Midas is so well-known, the poem
implicitly suggests that those very stories foundational to Western culture often leave out the perspectives and
experiences of women.
 THE ODYSSEY: A MODERN SEQUEL, NIKOS
KAZANTZAKIS

• an epic poem by Greek poet and philosopher Nikos Kazantzakis, based on Homer's Odyssey. It is divided into

twenty-four rhapsodies as is the original Odyssey.
• Odysseus (Ulysses) returns to Ithaca and decides to undertake new adventures after he quickly becomes dissatisfied with
his quiet family life and they too with his brutality. 
• The Odyssey represents Kazantzakis' ideology and metaphysical concerns. A central theme is the importance of struggle
for its own sake, as opposed to reaching a final goal. First he travels to Sparta to save Helen, the wife of the king of
Sparta Menelaus, whose abduction by Paris had led to the Trojan War. He goes to Crete where a conspiracy dethrones the
king. He is abandoned by Helen who runs off with a black slave and continues to Egypt, where again a workers' uprising
takes place. He leaves again on a journey up the Nile eventually stopping at the lake-source. Upon arrival his companions
set up camp and he climbs the mountain in order to concentrate on his god. Upon his return to the lake he sets up his city
based on the commandments of his religion. The city is soon destroyed by an earthquake. Odysseus laments his failure to
understand the true meaning of god with the sacrifice of his companions. His life transforms into that of an ascetic.
Odysseus meets Motherth (an incarnation of the Buddha), Kapetán Énas (English: Captain Sole, literally "Captain One", a
Greek folk expression for people who are insubordinate and single-minded to a fault), alias Don Quixote, and an African
village fisherman, alias Jesus. He travels further south in Africa while constantly spreading his religion and fighting the
advances of death. Eventually he travels to Antarctica and lives with villagers for a year until an iceberg kills him. His death
is glorious as it marks his rebirth and unification with the world.
 KIM LASKY - THE BED THAT IS A TREE

• It takes the form of an imaginary nocturnal monologue, spoken by Odysseus's wife Penelope. Like Penelope is
throughout most of the Odyssey, Lasky's Penelope is convinced her husband is dead.
• Her speech fittingly draws on the threnos, the keen sung as part of ancient Greek funeral rites. The quoted "scraps of
lament" are from the beginning of an actual threnos: "My love I loved you well, I kept you well. I kept you as musk in the
box, as wire in the reed. I kept you as a silver lamp which lit up this house."
• It was when Odysseus described the construction of the marriage-bed that Penelope recognised the ragged stranger as
her husband. The bed, rooted because Odysseus had made the post from a living olive tree, symbolised immovable
fidelity.
• At the start of The Bed That Is a Tree, when Penelope imagines herself a corpse, the bed is also a deathbed. We imagine a
woman wasting away and faithful to the end. 
• The Bed That Is a Tree works perfectly as a resonant contemporary love poem. The speaker could be any woman moved
by grief to emblematic utterance, and the governing metaphor, the bed as tree, finds all kinds of shapes in a reader's
imagination, combining growth and death, cradle and coffin, security and evanescence.
 LORD TENNYSON - ULYSSES

• Ulysses (Odysseus) declares that there is little point in his staying home “by this still hearth” with his old wife,
doling out rewards and punishments for the unnamed masses who live in his kingdom.
• He proclaims that he “cannot rest from travel” but feels compelled to live to the fullest and swallow every last
drop of life. He has enjoyed all his experiences as a sailor who travels the seas, and he considers himself a symbol
for everyone who wanders and roams the earth. His travels have exposed him to many different types of people
and ways of living. They have also exposed him to the “delight of battle” while fighting the Trojan War with his men.
Ulysses declares that his travels and encounters have shaped who he is: “I am a part of all that I have met,” he
asserts. And it is only when he is traveling that the “margin” of the globe that he has not yet traversed shrink and
fade, and cease to goad him.
• Ulysses declares that it is boring to stay in one place, and that to remain stationary is to rust rather than to shine;
to stay in one place is to pretend that all there is to life is the simple act of breathing, whereas he knows that in
fact life contains much novelty, and he longs to encounter this. His spirit yearns constantly for new experiences
that will broaden his horizons; he wishes “to follow knowledge like a sinking star” and forever grow in wisdom and
in learning.
• His son Telemachus will act as his successor while the great hero resumes his travels: he says, “This is my son, mine
own Telemachus, to whom I leave the scepter and the isle.” Telemachus will do his work of governing the island
while Ulysses will do his work of traveling the seas: “He works his work, I mine.”
 INSTAGRAM POET RUPI KAUR

• Also called ‘middle book syndrome’ or ‘second book slump’, second book syndrome generally refers to an author’s second book not
quite living up to their first, particularly if it’s part of a series. It’s seen in sequels that are lacking the same ‘magic’ of the first book –
stories that seem to exist purely as a bridge between Book I and later books, or that lag a little in terms of pacing, plot or character
development. The author might have succumbed to the pressure following the success of their first book, or they might not have
planned their series carefully enough to avoid a sagging second instalment.
• Kaur’s first poem collection, Milk and Honey, was a publishing sensation—a global bestseller but she struggled with writing her
second book, The Sun and Her Flowers.  "After I signed a deal with Simon & Schuster for book two and book three, I thought how
am I possibly going to create something that is going to do everything that milk and honey did? milk and honey sold 2 million copies.
It was on the New York Times Best Sellers list for over 73 weeks. That debilitated me for so long because I had nothing to begin
with”.
• Milk and honey: survival, the experience of violence, abuse, love, loss and femininity. milk and honey takes readers through a journey
of the most bitter moments in life and finds sweetness in them because there is sweetness everywhere if you are just willing to
look. When she self-published it, it was such a hit that publishers took notice. The collection went on to sell 2 million copies and was
translated into over 30 languages. 
• Following up book: the sun and her flowers: healing, growth and love – the structure of the book follows the life cycle of a flower:
after sorrow there is always joy. It’s a vibrant and transcendent journey about growth and healing, ancestry and honouring one's
roots, expatriation and rising up to find a home within yourself.
• Brief poems: space of a smartphone screen to write a poem: “Pace Yourself”: only a few lines and “The Year is Done”
2.2.VIDEO GAMES
 PAC-MAN

• Pac-Man: a maze arcade game developed and released by Namco in 1980. The player controls Pac-Man, who
must eat all the dots inside an enclosed maze while avoiding four colored ghosts. Eating large flashing dots called
"Power Pellets" causes the ghosts to turn blue, allowing Pac-Man to eat them for bonus points. The
development of the game began in early 1979, directed by Toru Iwatani with a nine-man team. Iwatani wanted to
create a game that could appeal to women as well as men, because most video games of the time had themes of
war or sports. The game is considered to be important and influential, and is commonly listed as one of
the greatest video games of all time. The success of the game led to several sequels, merchandise, and two
television series, as well as a hit single by Buckner and Garcia. 
• Ms. Pac-Man (2/1982): Developed by General Computer Corporation and published by Midway Games. Namco
provided creative input on character design and collected royalties. Became the most successful arcade game in
North America.
• Pac-Man Plus (3/1982); Super Pac-Man (8/1982); Baby Pac-Man (12/1982); Professor Pac-Man (1983); Pac and Pal
(1983); Jr. Pac-Man (1983); Pac-Land (1984); Pac-Mania (1987), Pac-Man Arrangement (1996); Pac-Man VR (1996);
Pac-Man Battle Royale (2011); Pac-Man Chomp Mania (2013); World's Largest Pac-Man (2015)
 PAC-MAN SATURDAY MORNING TV SERIES

• a 30-minute Saturday morning American animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions based on

the Namco video game franchise of the same title. It premiered on ABC and ran for 44 episodes over two seasons
from 1982 to 1983. It is the first cartoon based on a video game.
• The show follows the adventures of the title character, Pac-Man, his wife Pepper Pac-Man (Ms. Pac-Man), their
child Pac-Baby, their dog Chomp-Chomp and their cat Sour Puss. The family lives in Pac-Land, a place in which the
geography and architecture seem to revolve primarily around sphere-like shapes. Most episodes of the series
center around the ongoing battle between the Pac family and their only known enemies, the Ghost Monsters:
Blinky, Inky, Pinky, Clyde, and Sue. They work for Mezmaron, whose sole mission is to locate and control the source
of "Power Pellets", which serve as the primary food and power source for the city, and also is the  deus ex
machina in virtually every episode. The second (and final) season later introduces Super-Pac and Pac-Man's teenage
cousin P.J.
• Some of the next Namco games were based on or influenced from the cartoon.  Pac-Land and Pac-Man 2: The New
Adventures are major examples. 
 THE FOURTH INSTALLMENT OF THE ULTIMA SAGA

• Ultima is a series of open world fantasy role-playing video games from Origin Systems, Inc. Ultima was created

by Richard Garriott.  The games take place for the most part in a world called Britannia; the constantly recurring hero is
the Avatar, first named so in Ultima IV. The main Ultima series consists of nine installments (the seventh title is further
divided into two parts) grouped into three trilogies, or "Ages": The Age of Darkness (Ultima I-III), The Age of Enlightenment
(Ultima IV-VI), and The Age of Armageddon (Ultima VII-IX). 
• The character in the first three Ultimas was known as the Stranger, for visiting this fantasy world in order to save it. Saving
the world entailed defeating the villain, no matter how that was done – stealing, murder, what-have-you. Ultima IV  marked
a turning point in the series from the traditional "hero vs. villain" plots. It had no villain, and the world of Britannia was in a
moral crisis, and only savable by embodying the world's new eight virtues and becoming the Avatar.
• Game morality started with Ultima IV. Garriott believes the morality systems he engineered might represent his finest
work. "If I am to think of things I'm proud of from my game-design past, Ultima IV is still a pinnacle design moment for me.
Part of that was the concept of the avatar, but another part was how to answer the question: How do you make sure
people don't disconnect, and instead play with sincere, emotional ties to their characters?“
• Garriott realized he was responsible for the unscrupulous actions of his players. In video games, those who threw morals
out the window got ahead much faster than those who played by the rules—just like in real life. They weren't playing
a character. They are themselves. Instead of letting players choose their class and race, and assign points to attributes, a
gypsy greets them and asks them a series of ethical questions. There are no right or wrong answers. Choices boil down to
how individual players feel about eight virtues: honesty, valor, compassion, justice, spirituality, humility, sacrifice, and honor.
Their answers determine the type of character they play.
 CENTIPEDE | MARIO BROS | DONKEY KONG

• Centipede: a 1980 fixed shooter arcade game developed and published by Atari, Inc. The player fights off centipedes,
spiders, scorpions and fleas, completing a round after eliminating the centipede that winds down the playing field. Its
sequel, Millipede, has more gameplay variety and a wider array of insects than the original. The objective is to score as
many points as possible by destroying all segments of the millipede as it moves toward the bottom of the screen, as
well as eliminating or avoiding other enemies.
• Mario Bros: a platform game developed and published for arcades by Nintendo in 1983.  Italian-American
plumber Mario and his brother Luigi exterminate creatures emerging from the sewers by flipping them on their
backs and kicking them away. Its successor, Super Mario Bros, was released in Japan in 1985. Players control Mario, or
his brother Luigi in the multiplayer mode, as they travel the Mushroom Kingdom to rescue Princess
Toadstool from Bowser (King Koopa). Super Mario Bros 2 (1988)
• Donkey Kong:  an arcade game released by Nintendo in Japan on July 9, 1981.  The gameplay focuses on maneuvering
the main character across a series of platforms to ascend a construction site, all while avoiding or jumping over
obstacles. The originally unnamed character, who was later called Jumpman, then Mario, must rescue a damsel in
distress, Pauline, from the titular giant ape, Donkey Kong.  Donkey Kong spawned the sequel Donkey Kong Jr. (1982)
with the player controlling Donkey Kong's son in an attempt to save his father from the now-evil Mario. The 1983
spinoff Mario Bros. introduced Mario's brother Luigi in a single-screen cooperative game set in a sewer, and launched
the Mario franchise.  Also in 1983, Donkey Kong 3 appeared in the form of a fixed shooter, with an exterminator
named Stanley ridding the ape—and insects—from a greenhouse.
 SIMCITY

• an open-ended city-building video game series originally designed by Will Wright. The first game in the series, SimCity, was published
by Maxis in 1989. The success of SimCity sparked the creation of several sequels and many other spin-off "Sim" titles, including
2000's The Sims. In the SimCity games, the player develops a city from a patch of undeveloped land. The player controls where to
place development zones, infrastructure like roads and power plants, landmarks, and public services such as schools, parks, hospitals
and fire stations. The player also determines the tax rate, the budget, and social policy.  The city is populated by "Sims", simulated
persons, who live in the city created by the player. The three development zone types are the major areas in which Sims
inhabit: residential zones for houses and apartment buildings; commercial zones for shops and offices; industrial zone for factories,
warehouses, laboratories and farms.
• SimCity 2000 (SC2K) (1993): The view was now isometric instead of overhead, the landscape was not flat, and underground layers
were introduced for water pipes and subways.
• The successor to SimCity 2000, SimCity 3000 (SC3K) was released in 1999. It introduced many changes both to the city management
and to the appearance.
• SimCity 4 was released on January 14, 2003. As with previous SimCity titles, SimCity 4 (Sim4) places the player in the role of
a mayor (or several mayors), tasked with populating and developing tracts of lands into cities, while fulfilling the needs of
fellow Sims who live there.
• Released in 2007, the gameplay of SimCity Societies is significantly different from previous SimCity titles, with a greater focus on "social
engineering".
• SimCity 2013 was a dramatic departure from previous SimCity games, featuring full 3D graphics, online multiplayer gameplay, the
new Glassbox engine, as well as many other feature and gameplay changes.
 TETRIS

• A tile-matching video game created by Russian software engineer Alexey Pajitnov in 1984. 

• In Tetris, players complete lines by moving differently shaped pieces (tetrominoes), which descend onto the playing
field. The completed lines disappear and grant the player points, and the player can proceed to fill the vacated spaces.
The game ends when the playing field is filled. The longer the player can delay this inevitable outcome, the higher
their score will be. In multiplayer games, the players must last longer than their opponents, and in certain versions,
players can inflict penalties on opponents by completing a significant number of lines. Some adaptations have
provided variations to the game's theme, such as three-dimensional displays or a system for reserving pieces.
• Threshold Entertainment has teamed up with The Tetris Company to develop a film adaptation of  Tetris. No 2017 or
later sources confirm the film ever actually went into production.
• Tetris appeared in the 2010 short animated film Pixels, and in the 2015 movie Pixels inspired by the former.
• A movie titled Tetris will star Taron Egerton as Henk Rogers, and will be about the legal battle surrounding the
game in the late 1980s.
2.3. LONG-FORM NARRATIVES
 SERIAL

• Serial is an investigative journalism podcast hosted by Sarah Koenig, narrating a nonfiction story over multiple episodes.
Serial is "about the basics: love and death and justice and truth. was wildly popular. It smashed all previous podcasting records
upon its release in 2014. Expectations were incredibly high for the show’s second season, so it’s no surprise that it failed to
meet them. This season had no cliffhangers. It was very long form reporting of a complicated case. 
• Season one investigated the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee, an 18-year-old student at Woodlawn High School in Baltimore.
She was last seen at about 3 p.m. on January 13, 1999. Her corpse was discovered on February 9 in Leakin Park and identified
two days later. The case was immediately treated as a homicide. On February 12, an anonymous source contacted authorities
and suggested that Adnan Masud Syed, Lee's ex-boyfriend, might be a suspect. Syed was arrested on February 28 at 6 a.m.
and charged with first-degree murder, which led to "some closure and some peace" for Lee's family. A memorial service for
Lee was held on March 11 at Woodlawn High School. Syed's first trial ended in a mistrial, but after a six-week second trial,
Syed was found guilty of Lee's murder on February 25, 2000, and was given a life sentence.
• Season two focused on Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, an American Army soldier who was held for five years by the Taliban, and
then charged with desertion. On November 3, 2017, military judge Col. Jeffery R. Nance rendered a verdict
dishonorably discharging Bergdahl from the Army, reducing his rank to private and requiring forfeit of some of his pay for ten
months and no prison time. was an invaluable document of what it was like to serve in the modern, often purposeless wars
the US been fighting since 9/11.
• Season Three is meant to be an analysis of the normal operation of the American criminal justice system, as opposed to the
previous two seasons, which followed "extraordinary" cases. Episodes follow different cases and are taped in Greater
Cleveland, with particular focus on cases before the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas at the Justice Center
Complex in Downtown Cleveland.
 STAR WARS RADIO DRAMA

• Star Wars creator George Lucas donated the story rights to NPR an affiliate.
• Writer Brian Daley adapted the film's highly visual script to the special demands and unique possibilities of radio,
creating a more richly textured tale with greater emphasis on character development.
• Director John Madden guided a splendid cast--including Mark Hamill and Anthony Daniels, reprising their film
roles as Luke Skywalker and the persnickety robot See Threepio--through an intense ten day dialogue recording
session. Then came months of painstaking work for virtuoso sound engineer Tom Voegeli, whose brilliant blending
of the actors' voices, the music, and hundreds of sound effects takes this intergalactic adventure into a realm of
imagination that is beyond the reach of cinema.
• When this series was first broadcast on National Public Radio in 1981, it generated the largest response in the
network's history: 50,000 letters and phone calls in a single week, an audience of 750,000 per episode, and a
subsequent 40-percent jump in NPR listenership.
 CHARLES DICKENS’S A TALE OF TWO CITIES –
SERIAL FORM OF NOVELS

• In the 19th century, people read novels the way we watch TV. Cliffhangers were all the rage, and to find out what happened
next, you had to tune in the following week (or month) for the next installment. Novels by the most important Victorian
writers were serialized in magazines or sometimes in newspapers, or they were published in stand-alone installments called
"part issues.”
• Charles Dickens started the 19th-century serial fiction craze when he published "Pickwick Papers" in 20 parts in 19
monthly installments in 1836-37. Dickens continued to serialize his novels until his death in 1870, when he left "The
Mystery of Edwin Drood" unfinished.  Some Dickens novels were serialized in part issues, others in magazines. By the
1870s, magazine serialization had become the preferred format.
• A Tale of Two Cities is a historical novel, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. The novel tells
the story of the French Doctor Manette, his 18-year-long imprisonment in the Bastille in Paris and his release to live in
London with his daughter Lucie, whom he had never met. The story is set against the conditions that led up to the French
Revolution and the Reign of Terror.
• The 45-chapter novel was published in 31 weekly instalments in Dickens' new literary periodical titled All the Year Round.
From April 1859 to November 1859, Dickens also republished the chapters as eight monthly sections in green covers. All
but three of Dickens' previous novels had appeared as monthly instalments prior to publication as books. The first weekly
instalment of A Tale of Two Cities ran in the first issue of All the Year Round on 30 April 1859. The last ran 30 weeks later,
on 26 November.
 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD – CHARLES
DICKENS

• The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870) was only about half completed at Dickens’s death, its many mysteries still unresolved. 
• Though the novel is named after the character Edwin Drood, it focuses more on Drood's uncle, John Jasper,
a precentor, choirmaster and opium addict, who is in love with his pupil, Rosa Bud. Miss Bud, Edwin Drood's fiancée, has
also caught the eye of the high-spirited and hot-tempered Neville Landless. Landless and Edwin Drood take an instant
dislike to each other. Later Drood disappears under mysterious circumstances.
• Upon the death of Dickens on 9 June 1870, the novel was left unfinished, only six of a planned twelve instalments having
been published. He left no detailed plan for the remaining instalments or solution to the novel's mystery, and many later
adaptations and continuations by other writers have attempted to complete the story.
• The first, by Robert Henry Newell, published under the pen name Orpheus C. Kerr in 1870, was as much a parody as a
continuation, transplanting the story to the United States.
• The second ending was written by Henry Morford, a New York journalist. He travelled to Rochester with his wife and
published the ending serially during his stay in England from 1871–1872. In this ending, Edwin Drood survives Jasper's
murder attempt. Entitled John Jasper's Secret: Sequel to Charles Dickens' Mystery of Edwin Drood, it was rumoured to
have been authored by Charles Dickens, Jr. and Wilkie Collins, despite Collins' disavowal.
• The third attempt was perhaps the most unusual. In 1873, a Brattleboro,Vermont printer, Thomas Power James, published a
version which he claimed had been literally 'ghost-written' by him channeling Dickens' spirit. Arthur Conan praised this
version, calling it similar in style to Dickens' work; and for several decades the James version of Edwin Drood was common
in America. 
 GUY GAVRIEL KAY - THE SILMARILLION

• The Silmarillion is a collection of mythopoeic stories by the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien, edited and published posthumously
by his son Christopher Tolkien in 1977 with assistance from Guy Gavriel Kay. The Silmarillion, along with many of J. R. R.
Tolkien's other works, forms an extensive though incomplete narrative of Eä, a fictional universe that includes the Blessed
Realm of Valinor, the once-great region of Beleriand, the sunken island of Númenor, and the continent of Middle-earth, where
Tolkien's most popular works—The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings—take place.
• After the success of The Hobbit, Tolkien's publisher Stanley Unwin requested a sequel, and Tolkien offered a draft of the
stories that would later become The Silmarillion. Unwin rejected this proposal, calling the draft obscure and "too Celtic," so
Tolkien began working on a completely new story, which would eventually become The Lord of the Rings.
• The Silmarillion has five parts. The first, Ainulindalë, tells of the creation of Eä, the "world that is." The second
part, Valaquenta, gives a description of the Valar and Maiar, supernatural powers of Eä. The next section, Quenta Silmarillion,
which forms the bulk of the collection, chronicles the history of the events before and during the First Age, including the wars
over the Silmarils that gave the book its title. The fourth part, Akallabêth, relates the history of the Downfall of Númenor and
its people, which takes place in the Second Age. The final part, Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age, is a brief account of
the circumstances which led to and were presented in The Lord of the Rings.
• Because J. R. R. Tolkien died before he finished revising the various legends, Christopher gathered material from his father's
older writings to fill out the book. In a few cases, this meant that he had to devise completely new material, though within the
tenor of his father's thought, in order to resolve gaps and inconsistencies in the narrative.
 BRANDON SANDERSON - THE WHEEL OF
TIME

• The Wheel of Time is a series of high fantasy novels written by American author James Oliver Rigney Jr., under his pen
name of Robert Jordan. Originally planned as a six-book series, The Wheel of Time spanned fourteen volumes, in addition to a
prequel novel and two companion books. 
• Jordan died in 2007 while working on what was planned to be the twelfth and final volume in the series. He prepared
extensive notes so another author could complete the book according to his wishes. Fellow fantasy author and
long-time Wheel of Time fan Brandon Sanderson was brought in to complete the final book, but during the writing process, it
was decided that the book would be far too large to be published in one volume and would instead be published as three
volumes: The Gathering Storm (2009), Towers of Midnight (2010), and A Memory of Light (2013).
• The prequel novel New Spring takes place during the Aiel War and depicts the discovery by certain Aes Sedai that the Dragon
has been Reborn.
• The series proper commences almost twenty years later in the Two Rivers, a near-forgotten district of the country of Andor.
An Aes Sedai, Moiraine, and her Warder Lan, arrive in the village of Emond's Field, secretly aware that servants of the Dark
One are searching for a young man living in the area. Moiraine is unable to determine which of three youths (Rand
al'Thor, Matrim Cauthon, or Perrin Aybara) is the Dragon Reborn, and leads all three of them from the Two Rivers. he first
novel depicts their flight from various agents of the Shadow and their attempts to reach the Aes Sedai city of Tar Valon. They
are frequently split into different groups and pursue different missions toward the cause of the Dragon Reborn. As they
struggle to unite the various kingdoms against the Dark One's forces, their task is complicated by rulers of the nations. The
Aes Sedai also become divided on how to deal with the Dragon Reborn.
 REPLACING ACTORS
THE DOCTOR - DAX

• The Doctor:  the time-travelling alien

• Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC since 1963. The programme depicts the
adventures of a Time Lord called "the Doctor", an extraterrestrial being who appears to be human. The Doctor explores the
universe in a time-travelling space ship called the TARDIS. Its exterior appears as a blue British police box, which was a
common sight in Britain in 1963 when the series first aired. With various companions, the Doctor combats foes, works to save
civilisations and helps people in need.
• Beginning with William Hartnell, was in deteriorating health and would have to leave the role, thirteen actors have headlined
the series as the Doctor, and in 2017 Jodie Whittaker became the first woman to play the role. The transition from one actor
to another is written into the plot of the show with the concept of regeneration into a new incarnation, a plot device in which
a Time Lord "transforms" into a new body when the current one is too badly harmed to heal normally. Each actor's portrayal
is unique, but all represent stages in the life of the same character, and together, they form a single lifetime with a single
narrative. The time-travelling feature of the plot means that different incarnations of the Doctor occasionally meet.
• Dax:
• Fans of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine will be familiar with the Dax symbiont, a wormlike entity that joins with a race known at
the Trill. After each host dies, the symbiont passes to a new host, who retains the memories of the prior hosts. The Dax
symbiont has been alive for over 300 years and had been bonded with four male hosts and five female hosts (as of the final
season.)
 REANIMATING THE DEAD
JAMES DEAN – FINDING JACK

• James Dean is making his return to the big screen more than 60 years after dying in a car crash, thanks to two
VFX companies.
• Finding Jack is a movie set within the Vietnam-era that is “based on the existence and abandonment of more than
10,000 military dogs at the end of the Vietnam War,” according to  The Hollywood Reporter. Dean isn’t the
leading role, but his performance as “Rogan” is “considered a secondary lead role,” according to
the Reporter. Finding Jack marks the first movie that Dean will star in since Giant in 1956, just one year after his
iconic role as Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause.
• Magic City Films, the company producing the movie, obtained the rights to Dean’s image from his family. The goal
is to re-create “a realistic version of James Dean,” the film’s directors told the  Reporter. To do so, they’re working
with Canadian VFX studio Imagine Engine and South African VFX company MOI Worldwide. Dean’s body will be
fully re-created using CGI technology, and another actor will voice his lines.
 HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD- 
STORY CONTINUED IN ANOTHER MEDIUM

• Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a 2016 British two-part play written by Jack Thorne based on an
original story by J. K. Rowling, John Tiffany, and Thorne.
• The story begins nineteen years after the events of the 2007 novel Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and
follows Harry Potter, now Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement at the Ministry of Magic, and his
younger son, Albus Severus Potter, who is about to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The play
is marketed as the eighth story in the Harry Potter series.
• enthusiastic critical reception
• At the 2017 Laurence Olivier Awards, the London production received a record-breaking eleven nominations and
won another record-breaking nine awards, including Best New Play. At the 2018 Tony Awards, the Broadway
production won six awards, including Best Play.
• J.K. Rowling explained that “when audiences see the play, they will agree that it is the only proper medium for the
story”.
III. WORDS RENEWED
 POETRY | MARIANNE MOORE

• Poetry is one of Marianne Moore’s most celebrated literary achievements. It’s a poem that she was never happy
with and continued to revise over the decades of her life.
• The poem was first printed in 1919 in Others and the poem continued to be printed until at least four different
versions were circulated in print. Eventually, Moore cut the poem down to three lines and added the longer, five
stanza version as an endnote, complicating the poem further. 
• ‘Poetry’ is a three-line poem in which the speaker, who is likely Moore herself, discusses her feelings about
poetry. In the first line, she states quite bluntly that she “too” dislikes poetry. Readers must make the leap,
connecting “it” in this line to the title, ‘Poetry’. She goes on, revises her statement, and adding that she does get
something out of reading it. She states that it is a place for “genuine” to reside - means of genuine expression.
• “Omissions are not accidents—M.M.” However, critics thought slashing “Poetry” from 31 lines to three a
mistake.
• Unusual use of line breaks. The lines vary greatly in length with the first only containing five syllables, the second,
nineteen, and the last line eleven. The poem reads like one long sentence. 
 FLEDGLING | KEVIN PHAN

• The poem was inspired by Kevin’s experience as a construction worker at the Odiyan Meditation Center in
northern Cali. 
• “On my first day of work, the practitioners / construction workers greeted me unannounced at the entrance to
the main temple & stood around me in a circle… They began alerting me to the dangers of the job—it was a
totally for-realsy construction site, hard hats & all—& what I quickly came to learn is that there was plenty for me
to look out for.”
• There are many mysteries at the site: the lama who ran the show would occasional make curiously clear-seeing
statements; the sign above the door leading out of the kitchen read “Please do not slam the door. It disturbs beings
on other realms.” Kevin tried to mirror this structure in the movement of the poem. 
• The short lines in the poems are meant to communicate the panicky nature of being inundated with info at a new
job without the necessary processing time to sort the info. 
 IN THE LIBRARY | CHARLES SIMIC

• The very existence of the book in hand tells us that a whole range of real people worked carefully to prepare the
text, set the type, produce the item, distribute and promote it.
• “A Dictionary of Angels” would stay where it was parked because angelology is a genuine if under-attended subject
of theology. Books on angels have a permanent shelf life in this Library. To have records of named angels is essential
in getting to know the minds of other generations, whatever our own definition of an angel.
• In the second verse of the poem, Simic wishes to relegate angels to the past. The poet seems to imply that angels
only exist today in books.
• The poem’s purpose is to get us to listen to the ‘whispering’ in the books, and even if we cannot hear anything, to
pay attention to those who can hear the ‘whispering’. The materiality of the book itself may fall apart yet there are
presences everywhere. Their own existence in time is telling us of other existences and other experiences than our
own. We must cull with a discerning eye, but also with extra senses of the kind possessed by Miss Jones. 
 ECHEVERRÍA | ENRIQUE PEREZ LOPEZ

• The story describes an unnamed individual: a farmhand in the village becoming a construction worker to earn
money for his family
• One day when he wears new clothes which are different from what he usually wear in his village - his co-workers
laugh at him and call him Echeverria, the current President of Mexico, most well known for making promises that
he’d never keep.
• The man buys more clothes, jackets and ties, shoes, eyeglasses, acting in westernized ways, and declaring himself to
be the President
• Other inhabitants of the village then call him Echeverria
• He returns to the city, becoming a drunkard, making promises and never keeping them
• The poem shows the power of names, and how a change in name can change yourself as well
IV. WORLDS RENEWED
 THE POEMS OF OUR CLIMATE | WALLACE
STEVENS

• "The Poems of Our Climate" first offers its own perfect image, and then becoming frustrated with that
perfection, that completion. 
• The opening image is breathtaking. Stevens draws out the perfection of the image. There is a perfect bowl of
perfectly radiant carnations ("clear," "snowy," and "pink and white”), but we want more. There is "nothing more"
than the flowers and bowl. We can’t be happy with such simplicity.
• The second section adds more stock to the argument that humans can't be satisfied with simplicity. “This
complete simplicity" took away suffering and cleansed the self, "Still one would want more, one would need
more, / More than a world of white and snowy scents.“ Being cleansed sounds nice but not permanent. No
matter how clear the snowy air was, the purity would inevitably fade or stagnate.
• Sitting in this unbearably perfect room with its flawless bowl of flowers, no matter how incredible this immediate
reality, the mind wanders, wants to escape, go into the past, the future, other, more, beyond, back.
• Perfection slows movement, while the imperfect moves us with convections of "flawed words and stubborn
sounds."
 I DREAMED ALL DAY | RAUF PARDI

• With a specific focus on the Uzbekistani city of Bukhara, this poem attempts to convey the feeling of
daydreaming that you experience when you travel to a historic location for the first time.
• Throughout the poem, the narrator dreams about "dizzy minarets" (a tower used to call Muslims to
prayer to a neighbouring mosque), rosegardens, History itself and a sky-blue flame.
• The repetition of many of these phrases and the melding of them together create an accurate
representation of a daydreaming train of thought, as the narrator imagines how Bukhara must have
been in the past when it was a large and influential city along the Silk Road.
 A MAP TO THE NEXT WORLD | JOY HARJO

• “A Map to the Next World” is an abstract poem with a prophetic message, warning people what will become of the world
if humans continue to ignore nature. Throughout the poem, the sacred hoop is referenced as a way to persuade the reader
that this inevitable doom is actually avoidable if we listen to certain Native American beliefs and respect nature.
• It is attempting to persuade all of Western society to change its views towards nature. Through saying ‘In the last days of
the fourth world’, the speaker is saying that the fourth world, or nomadic, hunter and gatherer societies, are vanishing.
Through calling it the “fourth world”, the speaker is showing how Western societies perceive nomadic societies, like the
Native Americans, to be inferior.
• The map may symbolize that Western society has taken the wrong path: the path towards the end of nature. In order to
return back to the right path, people need to be shown the way. The speaker believes that in order to make a map that
Western society could understand, she needs to use the things that they desire to have and what they already know.
• When the speaker says ‘as they emerged / from the killing fields, from the bedrooms and kitchens’, she is referencing the
death and destruction Western culture has caused to countless humans, including the Native Americans. She is urging
western society to see that everyone is connected and equal, and to stop all of the killing. The speaker realizes that the
only hope for Western society to avoid their doom is if they make their own map to the path of a relationship with nature.
 THE SLICED-CROSSWISE ONLY-ON-TUESDAY
WORLD | PHILIP JOSE FARMER

• Due to extreme overpopulation of Earth, citizens in the year 2055 are constrained to "stoners" - cylinders
that suspend all atomic and subatomic activity in the body - for every day of the week, except for the one to which they
are allocated. 
• Tom Pym only experiences Tuesdays, but yearns to contact a beautiful woman, Jennie Marlowe, who awakes only on
Wednesdays. He leaves Jennie an audio message, but she responds with the suggestion that he forget about her.
• To be with Jennie, Tom attempts to have his allocated day changed to Wednesday, but significant government bureaucracy
is involved.
• An influential psychiatrist, Doctor Traurig (German for "sad"), after viewing Jennie's cylinder, agrees that Tom's life would
be better on Wednesday, and pushes through his application. However, Tom awakes on Wednesday to find that Jennie's
cylinder is missing; she has, in exchange, been relocated to Tuesday.
• Farmer does not have a "solution" to the population problem. He does, however, describe just how different a world
inundated by humanity might be." Michael Smith described the story as depicting "perhaps the most extreme example
of constrained freedom in an overcrowded future."
 SANCTUARY | ALLEN STEELE

• Sanctuary is the story of a colonization attempt, and its beginning hints at the mission of a sleeper ship headed
toward an Earth-like planet near Tau Ceti.
• When the twin ships Lindbergh and Santos-Dumont reach the target planet, the revived flight crew starts to
collect data on what should become their new home. There are a few surprises stemming from direct
observation, details that the automated probe sent scouting ahead did not record, like the thinner atmosphere
and the higher gravity, but the officers keeping the logs seem to gloss over these difficulties, certain that
physical training and medical supplements will help the colonists adapt, while the new generation born
on-planet will certainly encounter less difficulties.
• As the crews of the Santas-Dumont and Lindenburgh prepare to reawaken people from suspended animation,
they realise that there is actually intelligent life in a tribal stage of development. After they land on the surface
to survey the area and then return to the ship, system failures begin occurring, and they realise that plastic
objects are beginning to degrade. The crew then realise that the Earth of Tau Ceti-e, which they landed on and
brought back up to the ship, is actually a bacteria that consumes petrol-based products, including plastic.
Because of this, the alien inhabitants of Tau Ceti-e are actually much more advanced than expected, but they
are unable to build with plastic or similar materials. The colonisers then land on the planet, and all of their
supplies begin to degrade, and they realise they are going to truly have to cooperate with this alien civilisation.
VI. REBOOTS & REVISIONS
 THE WITCHER III: WILD HUNT

• Shows, books, etc. taking advantage of other works’ popularity (The Witcher III game)
• The Witcher III game: the best-selling series of video games is adapted from the Witcher saga. The third entry in the
series, 2015's The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, won dozens of awards and is widely considered to be one of the best video
games ever made. As a Witcher, he has many talents, which make him the perfect, pliable protagonist. Geralt is a fine
swordsman, able to control both crowds of jabbing bandits and the hulking beasts that he pursues across the
countryside for rich bounties. He is an accomplished rider, able to drive a stallion through forests and across shallow
rivers - even, sometimes, in formal races on the manicured track - at speed. It's a necessary skill here in Temeria, which
stretches farther than most video game lands, from the fields of Velen, with their stoic windmills and muddles of
sunflowers, to the craggy, froth-lapped rocks of the Skellige islands and beyond.
• The Witcher book: a fantasy series of novels and short stories by Andrzej Sapkowski; "witchers“: beast hunters who
develop supernatural abilities to battle wild beasts and monsters.
• The Witcher series by Netflix: Based on the fantasy novel series by Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski, The Witcher
follows Geralt of Rivia (Cavill), a monster hunter who traverses an unnamed continent looking dashing and cutting down
all manner of creatures with his large sword. Sapkowski's Geralt saga spanned five books published between 2008 and
2017, though the author has also written a number of other short stories that take place in the same fantasy realm.
 BACK TO THE FUTURE

• a 1985 American science fiction film vs. Back to the Future Novelization

• Set in 1985, the story follows Marty McFly (Fox), a teenager accidentally sent back to 1955 in a time-traveling
DeLorean automobile built by his eccentric scientist friend Doctor Emmett "Doc" Brown (Lloyd). Trapped in the past,
Marty inadvertently prevents his future parents' meeting—threatening his very existence—and is forced to reconcile
the pair and somehow return to the future.
• Two sequels, Back to the Future Part II (1989) and Back to the Future Part III (1990) followed Back to the Future.
Part II was released in 1989. In its story, Marty and Doc travel to 2015, inadvertently enabling the now-elderly Biff
Tannen to steal the DeLorean and return to 1955, rewriting history in his favor. The final film in the trilogy, Part III,
was released in 1990. Its plot follows Marty as he travels to 1885 to rescue a time-stranded Doc.
• With its effect on popular culture and a dedicated fan following, the success of Back to the Future launched
a multimedia franchise. This includes an animated television series, video games, comic books, board games, clothing,
music, books, food, toys, collectibles, and theme park rides. Back to the Future has been adapted into a 2020 stage
musical. 
• Back to the Future was the novelization tie-in to the movie Back to the Future. It was adapted into Back to the
Future: The Story. There were several differences from the movie, with new scenes shown and others in the movie not
shown. No one remembers the book version.
 HERMIONE CHARACTER – HARRY POTTER
AND THE CURSED CHLD 

• Was Hermione black? The choice of a black actress  Noma Dumezweni to play Hermione in Harry Potter the
Cursed Child sparked controversy among those who believed she surely had to be
white—and arguments about whether she could have been black in the books all along.
• White bias: The assumption that all characters in a book are white unless stated otherwise.
• The evidence suggests Rowling imagined a white girl with “bushy brown hair”. When Hermione is scared she
is often described as turning white and she is also described as visibly blushing.
• Rowling explicitly states that Angelina Johnson, Dean Thomas, Lee Jordan, Kingsley, and the Zabini family are all
black. We can also assume, based on name choices, that the Patil twins are from the Indian subcontinent, Cho
Chang is Chinese, and Anthony Goldstein is Jewish. The fact that Rowling either explicitly identifies the racial
identity of each of these characters or gives them country/culture specific names but didn’t with Hermione
suggests that she imagined Hermione as white. 
• When it comes to casting another evolution of the Harry Potter story, there are no aesthetic rules. There is
nothing in the storylines of almost any of the characters that dictates their visual appearance. These
characters are not rooted in history, they do not tell a particular ethnic narrative.
 RETCONS

• retroactive continuity
• A literary device in which the form or content of a
previously established narrative is changed.
• In serial formats such as comic books or television
series, they serve as a means of allowing the
work’s creators to create a parallel universe,
reintroduce a character, or explore plot lines that
would otherwise be in conflict with the work.
• It enables the return of dead characters, the
revision of unpopular elements of a work, and a
general disregard for reality.
•  In 1994 the Next Karate kid was a girl; in 2010 he
was African-American. 
• Between 1984 and 2016
the Ghostbusters transitioned from all men to all
women
• in 2018 the latest sequel to Ocean’s Eleven has 8
women instead of 11 men.
• the new Star Wars trilogy featured
a consciously diverse cast of heroes.
 THE NEW GULLIVER

• A reboot to promote a more specific moral or political vision of the world.

• The story is a Communist re-telling of the 1726 novel Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. A group leader
reads Gulliver's Travels to some Soviet youths. While hearing the story of "Gulliver's Travels", a young
Russian boy dreams that he is the title character on the island of Lilliput where the workers are oppressed,
people are suffering under capitalist inequality and exploitation and takes their side in a rebellion against the
monarchy.
• Considered to be the first full-length animated film made anywhere in the world, The New Gulliver tells the
story of Petya (Vladimir Konstantinov), a young Soviet pioneer who falls asleep reading Swift's Gulliver's
Travels and awakens in a surreal Lilliput, updated to include jazz bands, mechanized tractors, and (in the best
revolutionary spirit) a miniaturized workers' proletariat who rise up with the help of the giant Petya!
 BEL-AIR

• Fresh Prince of Bel Air is an American sitcom television series. A street-smart teenager from West

Philadelphia who is sent to move in with his wealthy uncle and aunt in their Bel Air mansion after getting into a
fight in his hometown.  His working-class lifestyle often clashes with the lifestyle of his relatives in Bel Air. 
• Bel-Air: Bel-Air is a short fan film written and directed by Morgan Cooper, based on the 1990s sitcom  The
Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.  The film serves as a mock trailer for a darker, more dramatic re-imagining of and an
imaginary reboot of the 1990s comedy “Fresh Prince of Bel Air”. After being involved in a gang fight during
a street basketball game, Will Smith is sent by his mother out of the rough streets of Philadelphia to live with
his uncle and aunt in the affluent neighborhood of Bel Air, Los Angeles, in the hopes of straightening out his life.
• In August 2020, it was announced that Will Smith and Morgan Cooper would be developing a reboot of the
series based on Cooper's Bel-Air.
  HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL: THE MUSICAL: THE
SERIES

• a sequel to the original film, a reboot?

• an American musical romantic drama web television series, inspired by the  High School Musical film series
• At a fictionalized version of East High School in Salt Lake City, Utah, where the  High School Musical movies
were filmed, a former background cast member, Miss Jenn, begins work as the new drama teacher. The teacher
decides to stage a performance of High School Musical: The Musical for her first winter theater production to
celebrate the school's affiliation with the original film. The students cast in the musical learn to navigate their
interpersonal relationships and form bonds with each other, to overcome the challenges they face in their lives
at school and home.
• In the second season, the theater students of East High stage a production of  Beauty and the Beast for the
spring musical
 STEVE JOBS

• Bowdlerization is a form of censorship which involves purging anything deemed noxious or offensive from
an artistic work, or other type of writing of media. The term derives from Thomas Bowdler's 1818 edition
of William Shakespeare's plays, which he reworked in order to make them more suitable for women and
children.
• Steve Jobs is a 2015 biographical drama film directed by Danny Boyle and written by Aaron Sorkin.  It was
adapted from the 2011 biography by Walter Isaacson and interviews conducted by Sorkin, and covers 14 years
(1984–1998) in the life of Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs. 
• Parents need to know that Steve Jobs paints a fairly harsh picture of him as a father to a daughter he initially
denied. Expect several loud arguments, swear words, some social drinking. Many schools would have objected
to its use of adult language.
 BOWDLERIZING CHILDREN’S BOOKS

• When people revisit books from the past, they may discover not just language but also assumptions about society that are
no longer acceptable. Sometimes, publishers release new editions that address these concerns
• The 1988 edition of Doctor Dolittle removes all references to skin color: “black man” becomes “man,” and “white man”
becomes “man” or “foreign man.”  Instead of tricking Prince Bumpo by preying on his desire to be white (in the original),
Polynesia tricks Prince Bumpo by hypnotizing him (in the current version).  The 1988 edition diminishes the overt racism
of the original edition.
• In the 1973 edition of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the Oompa-Loompas are no longer African Pygmies — they’re
from Loompaland.  Illustrator Joseph Schindelman changes their colors from black to white, and current
illustrator Quentin Blake keeps them white in his 1998 edition. The whitened Oompa-Loompas remove the original
book’s implication that a person of European descent had enslaved people of African descent
• Hardy Boys: adventures of the teenage sleuths Frank and Joe Hardy, more famously known as the Hardy Boys. The young
detectives, who are often joined by their friends, solve mysteries in the fictional town of Bayport. Various racial
stereotypes permeate the series’ earlier volumes. Substantial changes were made by the books’ packager starting in 1959,
to address the racist elements and some of the more offensive language and story lines. 
• Note: Innocence cannot be sustained indefinitely - face prejudice-bearing literature - learn to cope with a world that can
be neither just nor fair. 
 STAR WARS: HAN SHOT FIRST

• Star Wars film, A New Hope has an entirely different edit than the ones fans have seen before.
• The new edit features an entirely new insert of the Rodian bounty hunter Greedo saying something while
talking to Han Solo in the Mos Eisley cantina on Tatooine. The famous scene, which depicted the two
characters having a tense conversation about the money Solo owned, was originally filmed and edited to
feature Solo shooting Greedo first. The Special Edition release of A New Hope in 1997 was edited to feature
Greedo shooting first. The edit became one of the most controversial moments in  Star Wars history.
• Over the years, multiple edits have been made to A New Hope alongside the original trilogy. Some of these
are focused on audio settings; others were made to clean up the visuals. Most fans acknowledge that seeing an
original version of George Lucas’ 1977 Star Wars film is unlikely, but they can probably all agree on one thing:
stop messing around with one of Han Solo’s most iconic scenes.
 'SONIC THE HEDGEHOG' - DESIGN CHANGES

• The first trailer for the live-action Sonic the Hedgehog movie arrived in 2019 and was immediately met with
criticism over Sonic’s appearance. The widespread backlash to the CGI character actually forced the movie to
be delayed so the team could fix Sonic. Paramount Pictures has now released a new trailer for  Sonic the
Hedgehog, and Sonic looks a lot better.
• The biggest visual change is Sonic’s eyes are a lot bigger, and the CGI body is far less elongated. Even Sonic’s
teeth, that briefly make an appearance, don’t look like a full creepy set of human teeth anymore. Sonic just
looks smaller and cuter, just like you’d expect from a CGI version of the Japanese video game star.
• Sonic the Hedgehog hit theaters on February 14th, 2020.
 RED DAWN

• 1984: Red Dawn is a 1984 American action film depicts the United States invaded by the Soviet Union and
its Cuban and Nicaraguan allies. However, the onset of World War III is in the background and not fully elaborated.
The story follows a group of American high school students who resist the occupation with guerrilla warfare,
naming themselves the "Wolverines", after their high school mascot.
• The operation to capture former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was named Operation  Red Dawn and its targets
were dubbed "Wolverine 1" and "Wolverine 2". Army Captain Geoffrey McMurray, who named the mission, said the
naming "was so fitting because it was a patriotic, pro-American movie." Milius approved of the naming, saying "I was
deeply flattered and honored. It's nice to have a lasting legacy.“
• A remake of Red Dawn directed by Dan Bradley was released in 2012. The film centers on a group of young
people who defend their hometown from a North Korean invasion. Originally scheduled to be released on
November 24, 2010, the film was shelved because of MGM's financial troubles. While in post-production, the
invading army and antagonists were changed from Chinese to North Korean in order to maintain access to the
Chinese box office, though the film was still not released in China.
 REMAKES

• 10 Remakes of Colombia’s ‘Yo Soy Betty, la Fea’

• a Cinderella comedy about the rise of poor, ugly Betty Pinzón and the fall of rich, handsome Armando Mendoza
• adapted in close to 20 different countries
• India: Jassi Jaissi Koi Nahin  (2003)
• Germany:Verliebt in Berlin (2005)
• Mexico: La fea más bella (2006)
• USA: Ugly Betty (2006)
• Korean ‘Designated Survivor’:
• Designated Survivor: 60 Days
• remake of the multi-season U.S. political thriller Designated Survivor
• an explosion takes place killing many of the high-ranking officials incl. President during a meeting. Park Mu-jin, the highest ranking government
officer left alive, becomes the acting president for sixty days who then grow as a national leader.
• Hollywood ‘Your Name’:
• Remake of 2016 Japanese anime film
• two strangers who mysteriously swap bodies
VII. MISTAKES AND FORGIVENESS
 MY APOLOGY | ABE APE

• This slam poetry, written by Abe Ape, a Sudanese refugee who sought refuge in Australia, is an apology to the
native Aboriginal people for everything that has occurred to them and how they are still ignored.
• He brings up relevant points such as how at the start of keynote speakers within Australia, they often begin
with "acknowledging the traditional owners of this land" but hardly ever do acknowledge the impacts that they
have had, whilst also not going out and searching for the stories and the history of the tribes.
• Ape also says that he himself is at fault for not doing these things and that he is similar to Captain Cook and
everyone who colonised Australia, in that he came here without the permission of the Aboriginal owners of the
land.
• Finally, he addresses how this Aboriginal culture is celebrated, but only on the national holiday of Australia Day,
whilst Aboriginal people are still disadvantaged and suffer. The apology feels genuine and as if it comes from a
place where Ape truly wishes to gain forgiveness whilst also raising the importance of these issues.
 FOR EONS | ISOBEL O’HARA

• Part of all this can be yours collection of erasures made from celebrity sexual assault apology statements
during the #MeToo moment of 2017.
• It is only five words long, being "I ignored reality for eons." What makes this poem so special is that it's a
blackout poem, where you take a page of text and blackout words using a vivid, resulting in only a few
remaining.
• This particular page of text that was blacked out was a statement from Richard Dreyfuss, an American
actor, regarding claims of sexual assault at the height of the #MeToo movement.
• The poem, therefore, tries to convey that this apology ignores the reality of the situation, and therefore
isn't a true apology.
• A blackout poem: take a page of text and blackout words using a vivid, resulting in only a few remaining
 FINALE | PABLO NERUDA

• Found on the poet’s desk after his death, “Finale” is Pablo Neruda’s final poem, and a love letter to his wife,
Matilde. “It was beautiful to live/when you lived!” he writes. In the hours before his death, he approached his
“sea of renewal” through re-living the comfort of his love between two souls, and basking in gratitude for
her. 
• With whom do you spend your life? When your hours come to a close, what do you wish them to know
about your love and gratitude for them? Is it different from the ways you express love and gratitude now?
Why wait? Through the power of poetry like Nerdua’s, he helps us to convey the deep thankfulness to those
with whom we share our life.
• Even though death is an eventual finality, we look back on our lives and all of the wonderful things that
occurred
 ONE ART | ELIZABETH BISHOP

• The poem shares the title of a collection of Bishop's letters from 1928 to 1979, published as her autobiography in 1994. 
• "One Art" is considered autobiographical by some. The poem was written in a period of separation from her partner,
Alice Methfessel, and it was one of her final works; she died three years after it was published in 1979. It recounts all the
significant losses that Bishop had faced in her life, dating back to the death of her father when she was eight months old
and the subsequent loss of her grieving mother, who was confined permanently a mental asylum when Bishop was five
years old. 
• "One Art" is narrated by a speaker who details losing small items, which gradually become more significant, moving from
the misplacement of "door keys" to the loss of "two cities" where the speaker presumably lived, for example.
• Bishop writes to explore the theme of loss as she reflects on her losses. Bishop emphasizes the inevitability of loss. Loss
is an art and the art of losing is learned through loss, engrained in every day life and present in the most important
moments of our lives. 
• The purpose of writing the poem is personal healing and growth.
 WHEREAS (EXCERPT) | LAYLI LONG SOLDIER

• Layli Long Soldier’s collection is a direct response to the official “Apology to Native Peoples” on behalf of the
U.S. government buried quietly in the 2010 defense appropriations bill. At the time, the apology attracted little
notice; President Obama signed it without fanfare or ceremony.
• The apology resolution that is the inciting occasion for WHEREAS never stood on its own or was publically
declared. Instead, it was offered in near public silence as a minor inclusion in Section 8113 in the 2010 Defense
Appropriations Act
• She contrasts the deliberate, restrained, and arguably duplicitous language of the official 2010 apology with the
way her father apologized to her—tearfully, humanely—for not being there during her childhood over a
breakfast she cooked him as an adult. 
• In this poem, the national Apology is cited: “Whereas in the infancy of the United States, the founders of the
Republic expressed their desire for a just relationship with the Indian tribes, as evidenced by the Northwest
Ordinance enacted by Congress in 1787, which begins with the phrase, ‘The utmost good faith shall always be
observed toward the Indians.”
 WE LIVED HAPPILY DURING THE WAR | ILYA
KAMINSKY

• Ilya Kaminsky was born in the former Soviet Union city of Odesa in 1977. His family moved to America in
1993 and he’s been writing poems since.
• Ilya Kaminsky wrote this poem to criticize America’s position as a world power.   The poem suggests that
many Americans live comfortably while war and destruction is occurring around the world, often due to its
foreign policy. 
• He asks for forgiveness to be given to America
• It depicts the lives of many within the United States:
• they protested against these wars that were going on, but it didn’t affect them
• they still remained in “the country of money” and lived happily during the war