iRain and Snow; Tiger and Lunatic

                Symbols are so manipulative and it seems like weather can have its meaning manipulated the most. I don’t remember if this was stated in the chapter, but in a way it shows the emotion of the scene. In Life of Pi towards the beginning of the story when the family is on the boat with all their zoo animals there is a terrible rain storm. With that rain storm a young boy, Piscine Patel, is stripped away of everyone he loves and is then left to face the hardest time of his life with a Bengal tiger…in the middle of the ocean. Once his family is taken away, Piscine must learn to live with the one animal he was told to stay away from. After I’ve thought about every story I’ve read, watched or been told that has a bad thunder storm while people are traveling by boat or plane, the people, or person, always has everything or almost everything taken from them. It’s a cleansing in a way, but it’s a harsh one to deal with. I doubt I could live happily for more than a week without my parents or any parent figure at that. I guess it does make them stronger as a person or, yah know, it could just make an interesting story to tell. But I think the latter is what pulls most people into reading or, most likely, watching the story.

                Then there’s Stephen King’s novel The Shining that uses snow as the weather since the book is about a family watching and taking care of a hotel during the winter months. At first the snow doesn’t affect the family, but once it gets worse and they’re basically forced to stay inside the hotel, they start to get a little restless and the spirits of past guests start to appear. This doesn’t have the biggest impact on the mother and son, but it does cause the father to go absolutely crazy and try to kill his wife and son. So this shows how snow can have a negative effect on the characters by basically giving the family cabin fever.  The snow acts like a straight jacket since it keeps the family locked in with nowhere to go.

                Finally there’s the iPhone 5 commercial about the facetime feature. In the commercial it shows multiple clips of people video chatting to someone else. The first time I watched it my inner typical teenage girl immediately noticed the girl crying while her friend on the other line asked “Did he at least apologize?” and the girl shakes her head. I figured that clip was about a girl getting her heart broken and her friend being there to comfort her. So one day when the commercial came back on I thought I’d guess which clip will be the one it comes after and so I picked the one where it is raining. Sure enough that was the clip it was after. Then that got me thinking about how the creator’s chose that raining video clip to be the one the girl goes after. And I figured it’s because it’s raining, she’s crying; the girl is heartbroken and the rain shows how she no longer has the person she cares for.

So a Hobbit, some Dwarves and a Wizard walk into a...hole?

                 What I gathered from this chapter is that almost every meal mentioned in a story is usually one of importance. Which makes sense because I don’t think I’ve ever read or watched a meal that didn’t have a deeper meaning or symbolize something else. Like in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets when Harry has breakfast with the Weasley’s after escaping the hell-hole that is his aunt and uncle’s house. From what I can remember this is the first meal Harry shares with an all wizard family and they soon become the closest thing he has to one. This first meal symbolizes the start and entry of Harry becoming a part of their family. Harry also learns to travel by floo powder which later becomes a quick way to escape from any type of threat. So this one meal with Harry and the Weasley’s seems so be very important for Harry to become comfortable with the Weasley’s as well as becoming comfortable with other aspects of the magical world.

                Another great meal is the one in the beginning of The Hobbit at Bilbo Baggins’ home with a group of dwarves and a wizard, Gandalf the Grey. Originally, Bilbo did not expect these dwarves to come over but he couldn’t do much to try to make them leave. And as they all made their way to his home at different times they each would ask for something to eat, but the eating didn’t end until almost the night was coming to an end. Once they finished, the dwarves happily cleaned up their mess as well as leaving Bilbo’s pantry empty and, there again, Bilbo couldn’t do much about his home being with out food. So once that all ended, Gandalf announced why they were all there, except for Bilbo, he knew why he was there. The dwarves needed to take back their kingdom from the dragon, Smaug, but in order to sneak up on the dragon they needed a hobbit since they can pass by anyone or anything undetected. But since hobbits don’t like to stray too far from their home, this sounded like a terrible idea to Bilbo and of course he denied the request at first. Then once they all left onto their journey early the next morning Bilbo woke up and realized he made a mistake and quickly packed up his essentials and left. The leader and king of the dwarves, Thorin, has his doubts in Bilbo but has no other choice than to accept him. In that one meal Bilbo learns the terrible times these dwarves have gone through and he also overcomes his fear of the outside world by taking this huge step in his life. If Gandalf had not chosen Bilbo and marked his door, then he would still be living a boring life in a hole.

A Quest with Sarah and a Hobbit

After (and while) reading this chapter I realized how many movies, stories and books I’m familiar with are centered around a quest. Now I know that it should be obvious, but I’ve never paid much attention or thought about a story that in depth. And since I am so obsessed with this movie it was what first popped into my mind while reading: The Labyrinth (with David Bowie, of course). The whole movie is about a teenage girl going on a journey to take back her baby step-brother that the Goblin King has kidnapped.

To give a little more information about the movie, the teenage girl, Sarah, goes to take back her step-brother from the Goblin King, Jareth, before he turns him into a goblin. Despite the fact that Sarah did not like her step-mother or brother in the beginning, she still goes to get her step-brother because, well, you don’t know what yah got till it’s gone. So once Jareth takes the baby Sarah must travel through this labyrinth to find and take back her brother. Except Jareth makes the Labyrinth harder and harder as she gets closer to his kingdom. Finally, in the end she gets her baby step-brother back and she is sent home as if it all were a dream.

So that basically puts all the parts of a quest into one summary. The quester obviously being Sarah and her stated reason to go is take back her stolen step-brother who is held in the Goblin King’s castle (the place to go). Her challenges and trials are the ones that are put in place by Jareth to stall Sarah. Then at the end she in a way realizes her real reason to go on this journey; to see how important her family really is, especially her step-mother and brother.

Another quest that is quite famous is the one in The Hobbit. In this story Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit, is asked to go on this quest to help take back a dwarves’ kingdom from a dragon that has settled down and rested within the castle. At first Bilbo is definitely not comfortable with this idea. They came to Bilbo since he is a hobbit and hobbits have a knack for sneaking into places without being noticed and that is exactly what the dwarves were looking for. So at first Bilbo denies, but once he has rested and thought about it he agrees and tags along. Right there is the questers (Bilbo and the dwarves, but mainly Bilbo) as well as the stated reason, take back the kingdom, and the place, the kingdom. The challenges they face are battling Orcs and trolls and also actually facing the dragon. With all that happening Bilbo finds his true reason he’s on this journey; to overcome his fears. Bilbo never strayed too far from his home so going on this long journey with dwarves and a wizard he barely knows is a huge leap for him in gaining courage. Plus, he made an impact on quite a few people who had little faith in him.