At their heart most of my stories, including role-playing game stories, are about being a teacher. In the Star Wars role-playing game, that manifested itself in the Master/Padawan relationship. According to the rules, a Jedi character becomes a Master at experience level ten. For Number One Son’s Jedi character, Juba Jubajai, that happened in the middle of a deep space adventure.
At the time the adventuring group was traveling in space in an interstellar tug boat, in trouble with both the enemies of the Republic, and the Republic itself for their actions on the planet Naboo. While traveling incognito in deep space, they came across a battle-damaged ship that was mostly wreckage and had no life signs. But as they investigated the ship, they found two children frozen in carbonite and still alive, even though the ship had been destroyed thirty years before.
The children were Trad and Verina Paddox, heirs of a noble house in Tapani Sector that had been reported assassinated years ago as aggressive House Mecetti had forced their noble family to give up most of their planetary holdings and killed their parents. Tracking down folks that it would be safe to return these children to was next to impossible. They ran into folks from House Mecetti with a shadowy agenda that probably included erasing the two children from history and existence.
Wraith was a scarred and ferocious agent for House Mecetti that seemed intent on finding out everything he could about the children. He had several run-ins with the adventurers and shots were fired. At one point he was seriously wounded by the Wookie. But he didn’t give up, and was apparently impossible to kill.
During the struggles with Wraith, Verina began exhibiting force sensitivity and immense power that needed Jedi training. So they located a friendly Jedi who seemed to overlook the adventurers’ wanted-criminal status. This dippy and jovial Jedi was named Jean D’Ark, who continually joked around, but would ask clearly inappropriate questions followed by a quick, “Never mind!”
He naturally became Nevermind, or the Nevermind Jedi. They began treating him like a jolly old uncle. It was assumed that he would train Verina as a Padawan and take charge of the children.
Fortunately, more than one character turned out to be the opposite of what he seemed to be. Wraith returned from the dead to reveal that Nevermind was a dark Jedi with Sith ambitions. He was working for Darth Sidious and the evil parts of House Mecetti, and intended to kill the children. Wraith not only revealed the plot, but helped Jubajai to drive the dark Jedi off. So Master Jubajai began teaching Padawan Verina Paddox. The player characters adopted the children and began to fight to reclaim the children’s birthright, leadership of House Paddox and possession of the planet Pelagia.
It is satisfying to tell stories where the teachers are the heroes. But, of course, role-playing games are on-going stories, and there is always more to tell.
Stranger Things Too
I admit it. I binge-watched Stranger Things 2 this weekend, just like everyone else who fell in love with the original.
The monster is bigger and scarier this time. It uses new versions of last year’s monster for minions. The characters are growing and changing and falling in love. If anything, I love the characters as people even more than last time.
The whole thing is very seriously set in 1984. You know, the year of Ghostbusters as a summer blockbuster. References to D & D, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and visual homages to Speilberg movies, gritty urban dramas like The Warriors, and the video game Dragon’s Lair don’t merely set the scene, they are cultural references artfully used to weave the story together and move the plot, providing short-hand explications of science-fiction-y ideas and Steven King tropes. There is story-telling mastery to be marveled at here.
And my favorite thing of all here is the satisfying collection of resolutions to ongoing issues. Eleven re-connects with her past and separates herself from it again. She finds a place for herself and someone to love her, in more ways than one. Jonathan and Nancy and Steve work on their love triangle. And Joyce and Hopper move closer together in spite of the tragedy that tears Joyce’s world apart. (I can’t talk about Bob. I identify with Bob. He is just like me in so many ways. And what happens to Bob? Ack! There have to be horrors in horror movies. And the best ones rattle the foundations that you live on.)
I am the Uncritical Critic. I only tell you about the things I love when it comes to movies, TV, books, and music. And I definitely love this.
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Filed under art criticism, commentary, humor, movie review, review of television
Tagged as Duffer Brothers, story-telling, Stranger Things, Stranger Things 2