If I’m going to ramble on about Batman, I should talk about Batman’s Batman. Without Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce Wayne would be lost and aimless. This holds true in all incarnations of the character.
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Author: Charlie Brooks
Award-winning author of "Fantasy as you Like It" and "Eight-Bit Heaven," Season 9 finalist in RPG Superstar, author of the young adult fantasy novel Greystone Valley, and super-opinionated nerd dad.
The Dark Knight Trilogy: Elemental Forces
The Dark Knight Trilogy is a big, epic set of movies with big, epic themes. For all the talk about them being darker and more realistic than your average superhero film, they actually have the same scope as a lot of epic fantasy tales, with battles between pure good and fell evil and the fate of an entire city in the balance. With such big action and high stakes, the films have some large themes and symbols behind them. In Batman Begins, Bruce Wayne crafts Batman as a symbol that is, “Something elemental, something terrifying.” Today we’re looking at some of that elemental imagery and how it runs throughout the films.
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The Dark Knight Trilogy: The Importance of a Symbol
In a genre that has become all about setting building, The Dark Knight Trilogy stands out as a rare example of an arc-driven franchise film. It doesn’t introduce us to an expanded cinematic universe (although I think it should have, but that’s a discussion for another time). Instead, it tells the story of Bruce Wayne, his transformation into Batman, and his eventual retirement after a job well done.
So let’s take some time to analyze the three Christopher Nolan/Christian Bale Batman movies: Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises. We will begin with the theme of symbolism, which gets to the heart of what Batman sought to accomplish throughout the triology.
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Superhero Evolutions: Roy Harper
We all fight for different things. But we all still fight….Everything we need – it’s all within us.
Who is Roy Harper? Well, he’s been lots of different things. He began as Speedy, the Green Arrow’s sidekick. He’s also been the Red Arrow and Arsenal. He’s been a drug addict, a single father, and an amputee. He’s one of the first comic book characters to really be involved in some heavy topical issues, but bad creative decisions have turned him into a parody of those very same issues. Looking at Roy Harper’s history is like watching a train wreck, then watching the sole survivor emerge from the blazing inferno, take six steps forward, then get hit by a speeding car.
My knowledge of Roy Harper extends from his early days up until about 2010 or so. When DC rebooted its universe, he joined up with his buddies Jason Todd and Starfire in Red Hood and the Outlaws, but I’ve read very little of that series or anything else involving Roy since. What I have to offer here is a history of “Roy Classic.” So let’s dive in, shall we?
Gaming Stories: Curse Your Sudden but Inevitable Betrayal!
Night Below: An Underdark Campaign is a classic AD&D adventure that I purchased when it came out in the 1990s but which I never got to run all the way through until the 2010s. Beginning with D&D 3rd edition and eventually converting to Pathfinder, my final version of the campaign saw some changes, including revising the Rockseer elves and adding a secret villain behind the aboleth conspiracy: the Red Mage.
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Phantom Histories: The 2004 Film
The 2004 Phantom of the Opera film has a fairly large fanbase, and I think that mostly reflects the fact that Gerard Butler is a sexy man. My opinion is…less enthusiastic.
This film is a result of director Joel Schumacher teaming up with Andrew Lloyd Webber. Schumacher’s career was still recovering from the debacle that was Batman and Robin, and Webber had lost whatever magic he once had. The result is a lot of pretty sets but a story that has very little substance.
Notably, this film is an adaptation of the Broadway musical, not the original novel. Even so, I deem it to be markedly inferior, dropping the ball as a love story and making just enough changes to render the plot of the musical nonsensical.
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Henry Ford’s Racist Square Dancing Conspiracy
The term “system racism” refers to the way that racism and bigotry are embedded into the laws and societal norms that form our everyday life. And if you ever doubt the existence of systemic racism, consider that 28 states have square dancing listed as their official state dance, spurred on largely because of Henry Ford’s hatred of Jews.
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Pathfinder Fantasy Adventures Revisited
One year after my original Pathfinder Fantasy Adventures course, I took a class on how learners use their brains. This allowed me to overhaul my lesson plan to give a better and more educational experience should I ever get to teach the course again. While I have not yet had an opportunity to run this course, here’s what would have been, along with an outline for an adventure roughly based on Paizo’s Crypt of the Everflame module.
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Pathfinder Fantasy Adventures: Day Five
Our fifth day wrapped up the Pathfinder course. The PCs escaped from Zanzer Tem’s dungeon and made their way home in different ways.
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Pathfinder Fantasy Adventures: Day Four
On Thursday, I learned that the Friday session would be shortened, so I needed to wrap things up quickly and with a bang.
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Babbling Brooks 