Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Nitpicking Movies: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

On By Charlie BrooksIn Film, Nitpicking MoviesLeave a comment

After the smashing success of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the franchise needed a strong follow-up. Failure to keep the momentum could have caused the film series to stumble, as happened with Disney’s ill-fated attempt to adapt all seven Chronicles of Narnia. Fortunately, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets did the job well.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets provided a strong second chapter that continued the trend of staying mostly true to the novels that served as source material. It showed that Warner Brothers had struck gold with the casting of Daniel Radcliffe and demonstrated the progressively darker tone that sequels would take.

It also has several things that make me scrunch up my face and go, “Huh?” So, as with its predecessor, I’m going to launch into a series of nitpicks about this film.

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Argument

The Anatomy of Nerdrage

On By Charlie BrooksIn Miscellaneous RamblingsLeave a comment

2018 marked the year I burned out on fan forums on the Internet. I always knew those places bred negativity, but I also like to communicate with nerds about nerdy things. Unfortunately, the deadly seriousness with which some people treat their hobbies eventually made me something of an Internet recluse.

It didn’t help that I familiarized myself with the controversy surrounding The Last Jedi, that Pathfinder announced a new edition, that the Hulk got punked by Thanos in Infinity War, or that Doctor Who introduced a female Doctor. Change hit all my areas of interest, and that always brings a wave of negativity with it.

But the big question is: Why? Why do people take entertainment so seriously? Why does it seem so much easier to focus on the negative rather than celebrate the positive? And what can fans do to create better discourse in the future?

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Council of Thieves Carriage

Gaming Stories: The Ignominious Death of Machiavelli

On By Charlie BrooksIn Gaming Stories, Role-Playing GamesLeave a comment

This is a story about chaos and mismanaged expectations. It involves the death of a PC whose player had only started gaming two sessions ago. Somehow, my botched GMing didn’t drive him away from the tabletop for good and in fact became a tale that many who were there recall fondly.

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Super Mario Pathfinder

Super Mario Pathfinder

On By Charlie BrooksIn Role-Playing Games, Video GamesLeave a comment

I have a son who is getting interested in role-playing games. He is also extremely interested in the Mario franchise, to the point where he refers to himself as Mario. His sister gets to be Princess Peach, his mother gets to be Princess Daisy, and I’m stuck as Luigi.

Recently, I decided to fuse these two interests together, resulting in a Super Mario Brothers edition of Pathfinder.

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The War on Christmas was Invented by Bigots

On By Charlie BrooksIn HistoryLeave a comment

As Christmastime takes the United States by storm, the controversy surrounding appropriate season’s greetings rears its ugly head once again. Wish somebody “Happy holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas,” and you risk stumbling into an unexpected controversy. After all, “Happy holidays” is a neutered statement enforced by the gutless politically correct culture we live in, right?

Not by a long shot, actually.

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Dryad

Gaming Stories: The Evil Tree Spirit

On By Charlie BrooksIn Gaming Stories, Role-Playing GamesLeave a comment

Originally published in Knights of the Dinner Table #146

The quest was a simple low-level affair: men in a small lumber town were disappearing into the forest. All the PCs had to do was find out what was going on and put a stop to it.

The culprit was a lonely dryad that had been luring men into the forest and charming them to keep her company. I had planned the session out as a diplomatic session, since I figured the PCs weren’t going to outright slaughter an apparently innocent dryad. This was going to be the session that taught the adventurers that not every problem needs to be solved with swordplay. A nice thought on my part, but not a plan that would endure the night.

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New 52

Successes from DC’s New 52

On By Charlie BrooksIn ComicsLeave a comment

In 2011, DC Comics kicked off the “New 52,” canceling all of their previous titles and rebooting their superhero universe with 52 titles in a brand new continuity. Despite an initial uptick in sales, it’s safe to call the experiment a failure, as the whole continuity got rebooted again in 2016 with “Rebirth.”

There were a lot of reasons why the New 52 failed, but it primarily boils down to a lack of consistently good writing. DC editorial tried to pick and choose from the old continuity, deciding that some things happened and some things didn’t, but never developed a consistent timeline that its creative teams could follow. Editors also heavily meddled in the direction of the books, often hamstringing talented writers. (Prime example: the excellent Gail Simone getting what should have been her dream project on Batgirl, only for the story to turn joyless and perfunctory as the character got sucked into Batman’s “Death of the Family” crossover.)

Despite its failings, the New 52 did have a few gems. Here are a few titles I found really enjoyable.

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Red Riding Hood

The Strange Tale of Little Red Riding Hood

On By Charlie BrooksIn LiteratureLeave a comment

Most people realize that a lot of the classic fairy tales we read today have been altered and sterilized. Many of them come from the Grimm brothers, whose first volume of fairy tales was criticized way back in 1812 for being unsuitable for children thanks to abusive parents, rape, incest, and other nasty stuff.

I recently read the story of Little Red Riding Hood as a bedtime tale for my daughter. Although this fable originated hundreds of years before the Grimm brothers were born, theirs is the version I chose to go with. The selection bothers me not because of the violence involved, but because the people in this story have such needlessly circuitous plans that they make 1960s supervillains seem downright efficient.

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