[UA] Parables, Archetypes and the yellow brick road

[Chad Underkoffler]

> From: "Eric Brennan" <thebrennans at starpower.net>
> Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2001 08:07:43 -0500
> 
> From: "Chad Underkoffler" <chadu at yahoo.com>
> [Baum Oz/Populist]
> > No, no, no, no.
> >
> > http://www.eskimo.com/~tiktok/faq02.html#q2.15
> > http://www.halcyon.com/piglet/Populism.htm
> >
> > And the article that started it all:
> >
> > http://www.amphigory.com/oz.htm
> 
> On this note, I find it interesting how many innocuous things 
> can be bent into religious/political significance by a mere 
> lack of sleep or leap of imagination.  

Man is a pattern-matching animal.

> For that matter, I wonder if it would be effective to take 
> something that everyone has _good_ memories of and then turn
> it into the mythology for a serial killer/rogue sorcerer or
> the like.  I once used "Alice in Wonderland" and Lewis Carroll

> to that effect in a Shadowrun game through effective use of 
> Carroll's twisted background as a mathematician and amateur
> pornographer...  

[snip]

> The trick is to make the new mythology twisted enough that 
> the players get a "Wow!" moment when they finally twig to 
> the fact that it's based on this happy childhood memory.

See, I believe, Jonathan Carroll's LAND OF LAUGHS and William
Spencer Browing's ZOD WALLOP, as well as GURPS FANTASY II: THE
MADLANDS.

A little of this goes a long way, in my opinion. My current
feeling is that it's very easy to "twist things out of true" but
very difficult to make something staight and level in the first
place. Like bending a pipe cleaner or hanging a picture. 

Which, in my opinion, makes the the straight and true things all
the more precious.

> Perhaps UA-esque enough for this is a cabal of young mages 
> channeling ghosts as malign Loa based on, hell, "Little House 
> on the Prairie" or something.  

I didn't watch LHotP as a kid. Better bets for afternoon/evening
would have been:

Sesame Street
Mr. Roger's Neighborhood
WKRP in Cincinati
Andy Griffith
The Dick Van Dyke Show
the Brady Bunch
Gilligan's Island
M*A*S*H
A-Team
Knight Rider
Dukes of Hazzard
Super-Friends
Warner Brothers Cartoons
Battlestar Galactica
Krofft Superstars
Thundercats
Herculoids




=====
Chad Underkoffler [chadu at yahoo.com]
http://www.geocities.com/chadu/index.html
"Hold your breath. Make a wish. Count to three."
  -- Willy Wonka

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