The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (2013)

The movie poster

Working at the public library in my hometown, I had often glanced the cover of this book, written by Cassandra Clare, with interest. We had multiple copies, but there never seemed to be enough, and I would be checking in and re-shelving The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones more times than I could count. As with most intriguing books I handled in the library, I had always planned to read it, but never got around to it. Now I work at the library on campus, and instead of seeing the book passed from one patron to another, I now see the movie, with no less intrigue on my part. And so a movie review assignment was a pretty legitimate reason to finally check it out. And I wasn't disappointed.

The book cover

Synopsis:

Teenager Clarey Fray is just a typical New York teenager, with an over-protective mom, until she sees a man murdered in a nightclub by a band of overtly attractive, oddly dressed teens. When she runs into one of them the next day, she learns he really isn't a teen at all, or even a human. Jace Wayland is a Shadowhunter; part of a supernatural race that hunt and fight demons. He tells Clarey that he suspects she's part Shadowhunter as well, for mundanes (their word for ordinary humans) can't see beings like him. Thus begins a treacherous adventure, beginning with the disappearance of Clarey's mom. Clarey's best friend, Simon, is caught up in all of this as well, and together they learn that Clarey does indeed have Shadowhunter powers (that her mom, a Shadowhunter herself, was trying to keep her from by the use of Warlock enchantments). They visit the gathering and training place for Shadowhunters, called the Institute, and it is revealed that Jocelyn, Clarey's mom, was taken by the henchmen of the evil ex-Shadowhunter, Valentine, who is her mom's former lover, and was thought to be dead. He took her in hopes of regaining the Mortal Cup, one of three Mortal Instruments that are sacred to the Shadowhunter world. Drinking from the Mortal Cup will make any human half-angel. Jocelyn took the Cup from Valentine when he began to misuse it, and he desperately wants it back. The story unfolds from there.

Review:

This film is replete with fantasy elements, as Clarey learns that some of her closest friends and neighbors, people she's known all her life, are actually demons and werewolves. She also comes across vampires and warlocks, along with the various charms and curses they use and are used to summon them. In addition, the weapons the band of Shadowhunters used are varied and fantastic in nature. Some examples are shown in the pictures below, but the most intriguing ones are the vampire gun, which, when set off, will plunge a design of small, sharp steaks through the vampires heart, and the runes. The runes are the main power of the Shadowhunters, and come in the form of tattoos placed all over their bodies that give them specific powers, depending on which character it is. 

Blade used to slay demons.

Customary belt as part of the Shadowhunter wardrobe.

Snake whip used to injure and wrangle demons.

One of the runes. 

The main rune; when Clarey recognizes this, it becomes apparent that she has Shadowhunter blood. 

Vampire gun mentioned above.

The movie was entertaining, mysterious, exciting, and at times funny. My only qualm is that the world, history, and legend of the Shadowhunters is much too massive and complicated to be adequately covered in a 2-hour movie.  In that regard, the movie seemed a bit rushed, trying to pack so many interesting details into fast-paced scenes. There were details and plot points I had to go over and look up after I had finished, and things I wanted to know more about and had questions on.

The one thing I know for sure, however, is that this movie definitely made my curiosity to read the book much greater.

Star Wars: A New Hope -- Film Review

Star Wars: A New Hope – Film Review

            My original intent was to review a movie that was not popular so that I might make a persuasive argument for or against the movie’s fantasy genre. However, after recently re-watching the Star Wars saga, I quickly saw that there was no better fantasy movie to review for this project. Even so, the hardest task in reviewing a film so incredibly rich as this is to choose what not to analyze.

            Star Wars, originally released in 1977, was released during the Cold War to a generation desperate for hope. The Vietnam War had recently ended in a terrible defeat – Communism was spreading day by day. The Watergate Scandal had greatly demoralized the American people. And with trembling, the world seemed realize that it was on the brink of yet another world war. Against a backdrop of fear and despondency, however, something good did happen. Within the last decade, humankind had traveled through space and landed on the moon, returned home, and gone back again.  

            With a historical perspective in mind, it does not seem too surprising that Star Wars met with such instant and outstanding success. The audience was finally given a hero they could put their hope in – a farm boy who broke free from the ordinary and traveled into the vast expanse of the extraordinary. This is a movie I have now seen too many times to count, for I have been watching it along with the other installments of the saga since I was nine-years-old. It is, as it was the first time I watched it, a film that feels strikingly familiar, yet at the same time undeniably unique.

            Star Wars quickly draws us to a difficult place, however, for it can seemingly be classified as either science fiction or fantasy. However, I argue that although the story does bear several traits of science fiction, it is undoubtedly fantasy. The story employs fantastic elements (aliens and androids of all kinds) in a realistic manner, shows a moving from the primary world and into the secondary (from Tatooine to deep space) possesses some references to medieval ideas (Jedi knighthood and “civilized weapons”), utilizes magic (the all-powerful Force), and deals with a struggle between good and evil (the light side and the dark side).

Most importantly, however, this story is set in another time and in another place. Instead of being set in the future (like science fiction is), it is set in the distant past. In fact, the film seems to draw special attention to the story’s setting, for the first words in the movie are as follows: “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…” The story is removed in time indefinitely, and removed in place explicitly. Indeed, there seems to be no place further to go than galaxies away – especially galaxies that are “far, far” away.

In his essay “On Fairy-Stories”, J. R. R. Tolkien argues that true works of fantasy deal with the satisfaction of desires. “One of these desires,” he says, “is to survey the depths of space and time” (326). Indeed, the story of Star Wars seems to be making a deliberate reference to its setting, which reveals something vital to the telling of the story. It is the function of escapism—and escapism at the highest possible form.

Later in the same essay, Tolkien deliberated on the topic of escapism. He claimed that it was indeed one of the main functions of fairy-stories (375). We, as viewers are not just pulled out of our own country, but out of our own world, solar system, and even galaxy. The “once upon a time” is perfectly intact, but the physical setting is unique to this story because it cannot possibly be reached by the viewer, yet at the same time seems much more likely than a place that has no reference at all to our world. Interestingly enough, this reference to our world is extremely important to escapism in this film.

More than this, however, we are able to witness multiple worlds of wonder – not just one. Here we indeed find the “depths of space” that Tolkien spoke of (326), and the desire it creates is well satisfied in Star Wars.

Not only does the story immediately draw us out of the primary world and into the life of Luke Skywalker in a time and place that is not our own, but it also shows Luke making the transition from the secondary world and into a tertiary world – which might be thought of as Luke’s secondary world.

We are first introduced to this protagonist on the world called Tatooine – Luke is a farmboy who longs for adventure and a life outside of his own. Here is an interesting case of the escapist desiring escapism. Skywalker is finally granted his wish when he encounters the old and wizened Obi-Wan Kenobi. Together, they leave the secondary world and begin an adventure in a tertiary world.

This drawing out of worlds is a highly effective means of escapism. The usual means of it seem to be greatly increased by this extra removal from the primary world. Although we are intended to start off longing to escape our world, we seem to end up longing for Luke to escape his as well. We find satisfaction through living vicariously through this character.  

For these reasons, I argue that Star Wars is not only a proper fantasy that utilizes the highest form of escapism, but also one of the most enchanting and influential stories that has yet been told.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001)

When I originally watched the film in theaters, I remember being in love with every single aspect of it. It was like the director, Chris Columbus, knew how I had imagined everything. I had watched all of his other blockbusters, like ''Gremlins,'' ''Home Alone'' movies, and ''Mrs. Doubtfire.” I feel like each time I watched these classics, I would see something I had not noticed before or a line would hit me a different way. I watched “Mrs. Doubtfire” at least 200 times, and when I visited San Francisco, I could not pass up visiting the house.  So, for him to adapt this film from my favorite book, I could not be any more excited. I also feel that a lot could have gone wrong in the movie, but due to the faithfulness to the novel and the amazing special effects, this became an enchanting classic. Chris Columbus could have made the story cute and cuddly, but instead he achieved an "Indiana Jones" for my generation. There was a clear element of danger that pervaded the film, but it was not too scary and certainly not scarier than the real world. 

The casting was terrific. It seemed like they had hired every single British actor they could find. Daniel Radcliffe, who plays Harry Potter, with the round glasses taped in the middle, was just how imagined him as I read the series. Harry’s best friends Hermione Granger (Emma Watson), whose sweet countenance and messy curls encourage Harry to loosen up and Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint), who is the guy’s gut with luck and untamed talents. Harry’s menacing platinum blonde arch nemesis is Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton), who will do anything to elevate his egotism to the greatest height by the year’s end. There has never been a kid who got so much joy out of saying his oddball name. How they managed to get Hagrid to look so gigantic is still beyond me, but he was certainly a great pick. Then there was the who’s who of British actors including Professor McGonagall (Maggie Smith), Albus Dumbledore (Richard Harris), and Severus Snape (Alan Rickman just embodies the sneering type with his long drawn out words) were all spot on.

From the opening scene of the suburban Privet Drive to just before Harry’s arrival on the steps of Hogwarts, the entire experience was very realistic with tangible textures of the busy zoo, shack on the rock, and the bustling train station. This mundane setting helps the audience ease into the fantastic. It was not until the first glimpse of Hogwarts that the movie began to use special effects. It was just enough realistic to make the fantastic believable. As the castle rises from the ominous Gothic battlements from a moonlit lake, it emits an eerie realness that caters to the atmospheric book illustration. Computers were used to make the gravity-defying action scenes, like the intense game of Quidditch look plausible. Readers of the book will wonder how the movie visualizes the crucial game of Quidditch. Then there is the chess game with CGI life-sized deadly pieces, a room filled with flying keys, a three headed dog, and the mysterious dark forest with the ever lurking loathsome creature that threatens Harry but is scared away by a centaur. The moving pictures, hidden passages, and the invisibility cloak were just true works of marksmanship. The beauty was certainly in the details of the set.

However, there was one aspect that I did not care for in this film adaption. It is quite troublesome that at a time when London is abundant with all shades of melanin, there seems to only be white actors. Although it does not explicitly say in the books which faces are colored, most imagination automatically correct for that. Somehow, Harry's gorgeous owl, Hedwig, who is snow white with dark sunken eyes and feather tails dappled with black, gets more screen time than the minorities do. Chris Columbus does attempt to give a couple of lines to a little boy with a head full of dreadlocks. I found this sidelined minority status particularly offensive, because this was a film whose target audience is kids.

All in all, I could not be in more love with the film "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone." I knew I was watching a classic, one that will be around for a long time and is played during every ABC Family’s 25 days of Christmas, and will continue to make many more generations of fans. Thankfully this first film set the bar high and did not take the lazy and cheap way out. Also since the casting was so wisely chosen, character development occurs as the movie goes on giving a depth and reality to the goofy names. This film reaches the classic category alongside “The Wizard of Oz," "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," "Star Wars" and "Lord of the Rings," because it is not just a movie, but a fantastic world with its own magical rules.

 

Middle earth: A narrator’s escape from reality

            Throughout The Hobbit the narrator uses “of course” and awful lot. Implying that we know something we do not know. Here I think that the narrator using “of course” to make our minds wonder if we have in fact every heard of that. Kind of like trying to bring back a suppressed memory we have. Like we haven’t learned something new at all, that it is just something we have forgotten over the years. It gives us a sense of middle earth being a reality. I think it is one of his tactics to get our imaginations, hearts, and critical minds deeper involved.  

                Tolkien talked as though middle earth was indeed a real place with dwarfs and elves and hobbits. Throughout the book we wonder if the narrator is Gandalf, a separate person, or Bilbo’s subconscious recalling the parts of the stories that only the back of his mind remembers. I like to think (as I can when I read The Hobbit) that the narrator is an outside person, he is Tolkien. Tolkien being the teller of this story, and believe so deeply in his middle earth, I think it is a story that he is retelling. Suggesting that it is something from his memories and telling us. This is why the narrator would use “of course” while he is educating us. He is reminding himself of the stuff that he once forgot.  

Bilbo’s quest to please

Bilbo is very much a people pleasing hobbit. You see this throughout the entire book. We begin in the shire where he is described as just another Hobbit with a hole in the ground. He planned the parties and knew all the social drama. He was in fact, the hobbit everyone told him to be. The other hobbits expected him to be the average hobbit and live the normal easy going life style, which he did very well and even liked to live.

                Then when Gandalf comes to Bilbo and constantly tells him the he is in fact the thief the dwarfs are looking for he begins to try and fulfill this expectation; first subconsciously and then consciously. When he hears the Thorin’s song his sense of adventure comes upon him and takes over for a minute and then he snaps back to his reality. I think that Bilbo’s argument with himself about going on the journey wasn’t that he didn’t like adventure but was breaking the expectations of the hobbits around him. He was one of the popular hobbits in the Shire and he didn’t want to ruin the reputation that he held. But, the Took side of him says “go and experience what is beyond the Shire.” And eventually, the next morning, he listens to the Took inside of him.

                This changes the expectation Bilbo has to meet. Now it’s not living as a perfect hobbit, it becoming/being the thief that Gandalf and thirteen other dwarfs believe he is. I think that the “courage” that Bilbo shows throughout the book has everything to do with his people pleasing tendencies and not so much becoming courageous. In the end of the book he has changed into a more courageous man, when adventure is within his grasp. If adventure isn’t poking him in the stomach then he doesn’t go looking for it. His Took side shuts off and his Baggins side takes over. He is once again an average hobbit with only stories to tell and no one but little hobbits to listen to him. So, he accepts that adventure happened in his life and lives once again as a perfect hobbit.  

Who is Gandalf Really?

Gandalf remains the mystery in The Hobbit, and embodies the complexity of Middle-Earth, which is more immense and cryptic than Bilbo imagined. Gandalf prefers to keep his powers on the down-low and tries not to reveal his true motives. He never divulges why he chooses to help Thorin in his quest (although he doesn’t need the money).  Gandalf is inspiring and daring, with unshakable mission to vanquish evil.

If you did a poll and asked people what they imagined God to look like, then you will get an overwhelming reply of people him imagining him to look like Gandalf. Some would say that Tolkein used the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings trilogy as an allegory for God. God has three characteristics: omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent. Gandalf resembles these characteristics as well since he is powerful and knowledgeable and good. Gandalf is “the superlative wizard--white-bearded, clever, speaker of profound adages, the Dumbledore-meets-Morgan-Freeman of Middle-earth.”

However, if Gandalf is supposed to be God, then why does he need the dwarves and Bilbo? They resemble us in a way, because they are small, weak, and not very smart. When Galadriel asks Gandalf, why the Halfling (referring to Bilbo), he gives an odd reply. Gandalf says, “Why Bilbo Baggins? Perhaps it is because I'm afraid, and he gives me courage.”

What does that even mean? How can Gandalf be afraid? If Gandalf was designed to resemble God, wouldn’t he know the future? Why does he choose to assist the dwarves? Aren’t they just going to return to their greedy corrupt ways, so why help them return to temptation? God would not enable our temptations.

However, Gandalf does not set out to encourage more bad habits. On the contrary he often corrects character flaws on the way. He also doesn’t cast a spell and restore everything with a flick of his staff; instead he aids when needed and works on the character of the characters. In the beginning, Bilbo asks Gandalf if the adventure will change him, and Gandalf replies that it will. Gandalf allows Bilbo to choose whether to go or not. Gandalf doesn’t force change, but he allows for them to make choices, hoping that they will make smart ones and knowing that they will grow from these decisions.

Although we may crave the easy immediate fix, God does not work that way. When we ask for wisdom, God will put us through challenges so that we will gain wisdom. When we ask for more patience, God gives us something we need to be patient about. It is a difficult truth that Tolkien was communicating that God will let us make mistakes, so that we can grow from them. Consider the verse below:

 “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” James 1:2-4 ESV

Filling in Gaps in "The Hobbit"

            According to reader-response theory, a text holds no inherent meaning. It is only when the reader meets the text that meaning is constructed. The reader interacts with the text in many ways, one such way being filling in gaps. No text is absolutely complete; there’s always something missing—a physical description, a telling of certain events, etc.—that we fill in for ourselves. As I continued to read the week, I looked for such gaps. One glaring gap we have already discussed in class is the way the narrator glosses over “un-narratable” events. Some of us might have followed the narrator forward, but some of us might have imagined what, for example, those two weeks were like at the Last Homely House (see chapter 3). And those individuals would all have a different answer. There are also gaps in the secondary world itself, but only as measured against our primary world, from which, try as we might, we cannot separate ourselves. (Even when reading fantasy, we cannot fully escape our horizon of expectations, as Jauss put it, our prejudices and personal histories.) Here are some such gaps: sex, religion, law, women, the narrator’s character and authority, science, etc. Not all of these are complete gaps. For example, we have a few female characters. But they are open enough to call us to make sense of them. There are countless more; gaps are as numerous and varied as the readers who fill them. They are what keep the text from dictating its meaning to us, which is one of the reasons we invest so deeply in certain texts. Here’s my question to you: what gaps do you fill, and what does that process do for your reading of The Hobbit? 

Riddles in Fantasy

One of the most iconic chapters in The Hobbit is "Riddles in the Dark," in which Bilbo and Gollum engage in a battle of wits with Bilbo's life on the line. This has been noted as a very intriguing and memorable scene from the novel, and has rivaled even the action-saturated scenes of warfare and violent suspense to become one of the most famous moments in the book.
   
Why is this particular scene so exciting to read time and time again? Is it the cleverly written riddles? The novelty of the character Gollum? The suspense in not knowing whether or not Bilbo will make it out?

Is there something especially intriguing about riddles that piques curiosity? Personally, I don't think this scene would be as memorable if Bilbo and Gollum had engaged in a fist fight, or arm wrestled, or raced. This game of intellectual strength and quickness is much more of an interesting read. Not all exciting battles in literature are fought by physical means. Some of the most famous examples of riddles in the literary world are from fantasy novels. Here are a few examples:

Q: "First think of the person who lives in disguise,
Who deals in secrets and tells naught but lies,
Next tell me what's always the last thing to mend,
The middle of middle and end of the end?
And finally give me the sound often heard,
During the search for a hard-to-find word.
Now string them together, and answer me this,
Which creature would you be unwilling to kiss?"

A: A spider.

- from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Q: "Why is a Raven like a writing desk?"

This riddle, told by the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland, is never supplied with an answer. My favorite suggestion, however, is Sam Lloyd's answer "Poe wrote on both."

Riddles pop up in literature anywhere from The Bible to Shakespeare, to Austen, but no matter what text they come from, they are always memorable. Though some would not call the use of riddles as lively as an action sequence, they usually move the plot along just as well, and I find it more thrilling to know that a character can stand up to a Sphinx as well as a dragon.

Is Divergence A problem?

Here I am having finished the Hobbit and all that is on my mind is the crazy amount of differences between it and its silver screen counterparts. The question that flows out of my ponderings is this: is it really as much of a deal as we (or I) make it out to be?

This divergence between literature and film is something that I find quite beautiful. Having seen all of the LOTR films as well as the two Hobbit films that are currently available I think I can say that it is quite difficult to completely capture the imagination of the author. That being said this is true for any book being brought to the silver screen. Now this isn't to say that I haven't myself become irritated at a director's attempt to bring a beloved book to film before (Eragon anyone?), but I do think that when it's a task of this proportion it can be very hard to perfectly capture and execute the imagination of what the author intended, unless of course the author is himself directing the adaptation (are there any such cases?)

 What I'm getting at is this: is there a certain amount of similarity that a film must reach before we find it acceptable when adapting the beloved books of our current generation? When it comes to the two movies based on the Hobbit that are out right now with the third coming soon all I can say is that I think they are great films. Yes I think that they obviously strayed from the books, but the world that the director brings us into is no less reminiscent of the world that Tolkien called me into at a young age. It's still the same Middle-Earth with the same characters that I know and love. Perhaps we should all stop dwelling on the fact that the director failed to create a perfect adaptation and instead enjoy the beautiful imaginings that have paired themselves with Tolkien's mind to create a wonderful visual world.

Coraline

    

     

     As I set forth to write my fantasy film review, I was confronted with my first obstacle: which movie to choose. While looking for a film to view I realized that many of the ones that I was interested in watching qualified for Scifi not fantasy and even more looked like less than quality movies. However, after much deliberation and just a pinch of mental anguish I finally found a movie that seemed to be of quality and have multiple points that I could discuss in the context of our class. I had decided on the movie Coraline based on the novel by Neil Gaiman. Coraline is an intriguing stop motion 3D film about an eleven year old girl, Coraline Jones, who discovers a world that is strikingly similar to her own only better. However, Coraline quickly discovers that the secondary world is not quite what it seems, but I’m getting a head of myself.

            The movie opens with the making of a doll that is identical to our main character. From there the scene changes to one of a family moving into a decrepit mansion turned apartment building named the Pink Palace. As the family begins to move in it quickly becomes clear that Coraline feels ignored by her parents and isolated from old her friends. Later, after an encounter with her neighbor named Wybie, who finds and gives the previously mentioned doll to her, she discovers a strange door that appears to be bricked up. That night Coraline follows a mysterious jumping mouse that disappears behind the door. 

 

     To her astonishment, the door opens into a colorful tunnel that leads to a brighter, and over all better world than she is living in now. Everything, down to the paintings on the walls and her parents, is a happier and more pleasing to Coraline. The only odd thing is all the humans in this "other world" have buttons for eyes.Throughout the course of the movie Coraline moves between the secondary world and the primary world freely. With each new trip she discovers more and more delightful amusements that parallel her world. Eventually, however, Coraline discovers that the world is actually a trap set by her “other mother” in order to coax her into sewing buttons on her eyes so she will stay with her “other mother” forever. Coraline, of course, refuses and attempts to escape back into the primary world. Unfortunately, she discovers that that the “other mother” now a witch has kidnapped her real parents. With the aid of a seeing stone she acquired from just one of her odd neighbors and a black cat that can talk and seems to know quite a lot about the other world, Coraline decides to return to the secondary world to rescue her parents (along with three ghosts of past children the witch had previously captured). 

 

     

    On her way back to the other world the black cat advises to challenge the “other mother” to a game. Coraline accepts his advice and the witch agrees that if she can locate the three ghost children’s eyes and find her parents before a certain time she will allow her to leave peaceably. Coraline manages to find the children’s eyes in time and proceeds to trick the “other mother” turned witch into letting her leave with her parents.The movie ends happily ever after with Coraline realizing that her parents truly loved her after all and that although her life may not be perfect or even all she wants it to be it is better than a fake world of dangers and false love.

     I feel that Coraline is a perfect example of a fantasy movie. The main character passes into a secondary world, encounters the fantastic, is transformed, and then returns to the primary world. However, I feel that Coraline’s transformation deserves some special attention. Throughout the movie the visual representation of the fairyland and the primary world is fascinating. Within the first few shots of the movie it is established that the primary world is colorless and dull including the people, at least to Coraline, and the fairy world is full of vibrant colors and interesting creatures. However, as Coraline begins to realize that the fairy world is not what it seems, the people in the secondary world begin to dull and lose their soft edges as the witch’s world unravels. (This is especially notable while Coraline is searching for the ghost children’s eyes.) At the same time the people in the primary world start to gain color and begin to interest Coraline and by the end of the movie the primary world is full of color and Coraline realizes that life is what you make of it.  

     

     

Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword - Game Review

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

(I have inserted some pictures and links to look at if you would like to look more into the gameplay and background of the series) (Warning: I do not know how to simplify/summarize things very well. Forgive me if this is long)

            When I first learned that we could write a review on a video game, I knew that I could not pass up a perfect opportunity to write about one of my all-time favorite games. The story throughout Skyward Sword’s gameplay has “fantasy” written all over it.  In fact, so does every Legend of Zelda game. It was difficult deciding which one to pick. However, regarding fantasy, Skyward Sword easily displays the contributing factors we have discussed in class.

             
             “Link must answer the call of destiny and set out on an adventure that will take him from the vast skies to the mysterious land below,” these are the enticing words printed on the back cover of this accomplished Wii game. The start of the game finds the main character, Link, waking up from a dream about a great goddess. This goddess fought against a great evil that threatened to destroy the entire world. To protect the race of humans from such destruction, she sent them to live in the sky. The goddess then gathered the remaining species and battled the great evil, successfully managing to seal it away. This is what Link sees in his dream. Already we see the “calling of destiny” on his young life.

            
              The home in which Link is familiar with and wakes up in is known as “Skyloft.” He is a part of the Knight Academy, where the goal of a student is to become a Knight of Skyloft – airborne protectors of the people residing in the sky. Every citizen of Skyloft has their own Loftwing, which is basically a giant bird, and this is what they use for transportation, seeing as Skyloft is made up of many islands.

            When the player finally takes control of the character, the traditional Wing-Ceremony is about to commence. The winner of this ceremony earns senior status (by racing through the sky on a Loftwing) and is given a gift by Zelda, a childhood friend of Link’s and daughter of the academy’s headmaster. Though Link is challenged with a typical bully known as Groose, Link (assuming the player correctly uses the controls) still comes out on top. 

            The excited hero meets Zelda on top of the Statue of the Goddess, where she gives him her hand-made sailcloth. From here, they go for a (frankly romantic) ride on their Loftwings. This is where the adventure begins. As Link and Zelda soar through the sky, an unexpected storm rolls through and pulls Zelda down beneath the clouds below, leaving a discombobulated Link unconscious. When he wakes, Link tells Zelda's father about the what happened. After Zelda's father leaves him, Link sees the mysterious blue figure that had appeared in his dream the night before. He decides to follow it and it leads him to the Statue of the Goddess. Here it unveils a secret chamber. This is where the players sees that the hero is mentally pulled away from his reality, and chases a different one. The figure introduces itself as Fi, a spirit residing within the Goddess Sword preserved there. Fi informs Link that he is essentially the "chosen one" and is destined to complete the "goddess's task." Once again, we see that only Link can complete the quest he is about to go on. This relates to our discussions of whether or not the heroes in fantasy works have a choice in the matter. Link then withdraws the Goddess Sword from its pedestal and accepts his destiny, if only to search for and find Zelda on his quest. He uses this sword to open a path through the Cloud Barrier leading to the region below known as "The Surface."

             With sword in hand, Link descends to the world below - a world which in previous years was only a myth to his people. This is Link's physical entrance into a different and "fantastical" world. The Cloud Barrier representing the separation from his world to reality. Link is guided by the spirit within the sword he now possesses - Fi. Fi becomes to Link what Gandalf was to Bilbo. This is where the gameplay gets incredibly detailed, but I will try to be brief in summarizing the quests Links must face. He first arrives in an area called "Sealed Grounds" where he finds an ancient seal. Nearby, there resides an old woman who safeguards this seal. She informs Link that Zelda had passed by not to long ago, so Link continues.

             From this point, Link travels through different three different areas and battles through three different temples that each lead to a boss battle. Each time he completes a major battle, he is mere minutes behind Zelda, but never quite catches up with her. Throughout his battles, he is confronted with a sinister and creepy villain who calls himself Ghirahim, "lord" of the monsters residing on The Surface. Whenever Link is close to victory, Ghirahim disappears. 

            When Link finally fights through the third temple, he arrives at the famous Temple of Time, where at last he finds Zelda and her guide, Impa. This victory is short lived, however. Ghirahim appears before the two friends can reunite and attempts to attack them. Zelda and Impa manage to escape through a Gate of Time before it is destroyed, preventing Ghirahim from reaching them. Before then, Zelda manages to throw a gift to Link, a harp.

           Now Link must find a way to Zelda, even though she has entered the Gate of Time. The old woman back at Sealed Grounds reveals another Gate in which Link can enter, except that it does not yet hold enough power to operate. After Link obtains the power to run the Gate (going back through the same three worlds), he finally opens it and reunites with Zelda. Impa then reveals the real story behind how Zelda and Link got involved in this story, and who Zelda really is.

          There is a lot more to this story, and even more after Link reunites with Zelda. However, I am ending the summary here so as not to give spoilers or tell you who the real villain is.

           Overall, I feel that this game completely fits into the formula of fantasy. There is the "primary" world of Skyloft, and the "secondary" world of The Surface. There is the "chosen one" aspect, where no one else can complete this task except for Link. He is specifically chosen. There is the idea of "destiny" and being tied to fate. There is also an obvious threshold that Link must cross in the form of the Cloud Barrier separating the two worlds. Even the other-worldly soundtrack adds to this effect, placing the player within the very fantasy of the story. Link leaves on his journey, is changed into a man - fearless, and accepting - yet does not return to his home. Zelda and Link decide to stay in The Surface and live their lives there. The story compares to Wood Beyond the World in that sense, unless you could argue that mankind's home was the Surface all along, and that they were just returning to their rightful place. 

          I hope this review inspires some of you to play Skyward Sword, as it is a beautiful adaptation of fantasy into the video game industry.