Sometimes it may feel that the justice system protects the perpetrator a lot more than it does the victim:
There are many things an accused can use to mitigate their position, there are many reasons to shorted a sentence, they can get out on good behavior, they can generally serve ...
Justice vs Revenge and What it Says About the World
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, Nov. 16, 2024Becoming the Beast
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, May 25, 2024
Humans can be scary, fascinating, mysterious creatures. Humanity is capable of the most amazing feats of compassion and the most debased acts of cruelty. And not necessarily at opposing ends of the spectrum. The same person can be compassionate in one context and appallingly cruel in another. They may not ...
The Slippery Slope (Or How to Make a Great Villain Origin Arc)
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, May 6, 2023
Villains are tremendously important for a story. They set the framework and standard for a lot of things in an unsaid but definite manner: how far your villain is willing to go sets up audience expectations for how big and how dire the stakes will be in the story.
If ...
Bond villains vs. Batman villains
Andreas_Helixfinger at 12:00AM, Sept. 4, 2022
This is just a curious little topic that have recently come to my mind. From time to time I’ve seen people in popular media make comparisons between James Bond and Batman. First time I encountered this comparison was in an episode of Friends long ago. And I see people ...
The Unicorn
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, April 30, 2022
No, this article isn't about the mythological beings. I wouldn't want to steal any single one from Andreas Helixfinger's awesome Sunday article series.
What I want to talk about is the metaphorical unicorn: a character that is too good to be true, too unlikely to be found ...
Scientific Magic
Andreas_Helixfinger at 12:00AM, March 20, 2022
I talked last Sunday about science engaging with the supernatural in fiction and the worldbuilding stuff that can be generated from that. In this article I’m going to talk about the opposite end of that spectrum. The supernatural engaging with science. This is where I bring up Alchemy. Now ...
The World of the Dead
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, Feb. 12, 2022
Not every story involves the underworld, or however the world of the dead is called in the setting. However, it still exists.
Every time the characters consider their own mortality in the story, the world of the dead looms in the backdrop. The way the characters think about death, life ...
The Ethics of Historical Fiction
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, Nov. 6, 2021
I'm happy to say that lately there has been an effort to revive Greek cinema. More new scripts are getting attention and thematology diversifies into thrillers, historical fiction, suspense and even horror as opposed to the age-old sitcom moat that was Greek TV.
One such movie that I had ...
Rooting for the bad guy
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, Sept. 11, 2021
Normally in stories there is the hero vs the villain or the protagonist vs the antagonist. As the audience, we generally expect to root for the hero or the protagonist and hope for the villain's or antagonist's comeuppance.
But there come those times when we find ourselves rooting ...
The Privilege of Art
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, Sept. 4, 2021
Yesterday Greece's most iconic and proliferate composer, Mikis Theodorakis, passed away at the age of 96. He was a symbol for social activism and human rights. He was in the Greek resistance in 1943 as a teen, then in the anti-junta fight, he was tortured, exiled, prosecuted, and still ...