Analysis of a Villain

The article by Edgar analyzes a villain from a diversified perspective of the villain’s personality and the environment around them. Through the article, the audience can draw a deeper understanding of the villain and why the villain chose to become a problem in the society. Through a similar, approach, and this blog will review the villain character of Jordan Belfort in the film The Wolf of Wall Street. The article by Edgar gives a deep analysis of how the villain of Darth Vader the dark lord fits into the context of the film. The article further examines the role and importance of the villain in shaping the hero of the film.

In The Wolf of Wall Street, Belfort is cast as handsome, tricky and wealthy financier amid the expectation of the people. The context of the film is related to the historical resemblance of the 2008 American recession. In the film, Belfort is illustrated as womanizer, bully, killer, opportunist, corrupt, consummate liar, and thief: a typical evil man that would bring down the economy. To develop the villain character of Belfort, the film relies on bringing around a context of suffering. The economic background of Belfort is portrayed to be suffering from an economic imbalance between the rich and the poor. More so, the villain enjoys the protection of the law enforcers and the mighty in the society. Under such context, the villain would require a strong hero willing to sacrifice their life due to threats of the mighty in the society.

 

 

Works Cited

Edgar. "Darth Vader: Academic Writing Assignment, Villain Analysis." Our Place in the Universe. N.p., 27 Sept. 2014. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

The Wolf Of Wall Street. Dir. Martin. Perf. Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie. 2013. Paramount Pictures, 2013. Film.

The Evolution of Villains

Mk1982 observes that great heroes are born out of the existence of a dangerous villain. For a villain to become great, Mk1982 considers that the villain holds characteristics of based on wicked motivation, curse and need for sympathy. A great villain is considered by Mk1982 as a person or entity that can force the society to hope and wish that someone can rescue them from the villain entity. More so, the villain must pose as a phenomenal danger that the society could not solve. As such, the villain must not be just an ordinary personality or entity that the society can solve easily. Unfortunately, in the revolution of villains, Mk1982 finds that the villain has been able to draw more sympathy and love as opposed to the hero. The villain is illustrated as someone or situation reacting to solve a curse or a fix. Mk1982 argues that the reason for the above is that in the modern age, some people have come to find themselves in an economic, political, or social fix.  As such, Mk1982 argues that in the modern age, villains do not have to be ugly monster-like as opposed to the traditional observation of villain.

I agree with Mk1982 that the characteristics of a great villain have highly changed over times. In this case, I would consider a comparison of the Medusa villain character in the article with a modern cast of DiCaprio as the villain of Wolf of Wall Street. DiCaprio is cast as a handsome looking investor and financier who bring the American economy to its downfall. The character falls into the Mk1982 article description of the changing face of villains.

 

Works Cited

Mk1982. "The Evolution of Villains.” IGN. N.p. . 19 Apr. 2014. Web. 14 Mar. 2016.

The Wolf of Wall Street. Dir. Martin. Perf. Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie. 2013. Paramount Pictures, 2013. Film.

 

What Makes a Hero

             Brett articles revolve around the importance and the roles of hero in the society. To illustrate the importance and roles of heroes in the society, Brett focuses on the quality of heroes being based on someone who the society can respect or owe their success to. Brett cautions that the role and importance of heroes in the society should not extend to worship of heroes. However, Brett traces the importance and roles of heroes to the ancient times and the impact the heroes played in changing their society. More so, Brett argues that heroes have an important role in families and communities of helping people “to take a stand on issues, help out a neighbor, and be kind, loving and generous to other people” (Brett, web). Brett does not encourage hero worship as he does not find it important, but rather find heroic acts as a source of strength, get direction for people’s lives and inspiration to the people. The qualities of a hero are thus summarized by Brett as being courageous, face challenges head on, generosity, and kind, compassionate, generous, risk-taking, and ready to sacrifice their resources for the larger good of the society.

    Based on the heroes qualities defined by Brett and the disqualification of hero worship, I support his concepts. I agree that the society needs someone to set standards and act as an example of respectful life in the society. I support Brett ideas because heroes have helped change bad history to good history without necessarily asking for recognition or payment. More so, in my life, I have been inspired to make several achievements based on the reflection of some past heroes.

Works Cited

Brett. "Podcast: What Makes a Hero?" The Art of Manliness. N.p., 14 Feb. 2014. Web. 11 Mar. 2016.

The 9/11 Report

             In ‘The 9/11 Report’ one of the most important features is the description of the plane crash in New York. Basically, the author used quite colourful images which could deliver the information towards cruel moments of this crash (Jacobson & Colon 8). Although a considerable amount of research has been dedicated to this problem but few attention has been paid to the usage of color.

            First of all, the fierce moments of the airplane crash have been depicted by colors. For instance, when the airplane crashed a skyscraper, he used a red color in order to portray blood (Jacobson & Colon 8).

            Secondly, another section of visual information has been devoted to the terroristic attack. For instance, in the World Trade Center the man, who evacuated people, said that ‘Everyone’s running up to first class, I have got to go’ (Jacobson & Colon pp. 12).

            Thirdly, the aspect of dangerous situation has been portrayed by the author with such colors as red, black and grey (Jacobson & Colon 13). Hence, it appears that colors play an important role in the process of depicting leading information.

            To conclude, it seems that in order to portray dangerous moment the author of ‘The 9/11 Report’ managed to deliver main information about cruel and fierce moments of the terroristic attack towards the World Trade Center in New York. The author was successful in this effort because of the fact that the balance between visual and text information is kept in the comic book. The importance of such balance is well pointed out by McCloud who compares text and pictures in comics to “partners in a dance, and each one takes turns leading” (156).

 

 

Works cited

Jacobson, Sid, and  Colón, Ernie. "The 9/11 Report: A graphic Adaptation". Hill and Wang in New York. 2006. Pdf.

McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics. New York: HarperCollons Publishers Inc, 1994. Print.

 

 

 

 

 

Fullmetal Alchemist

            In the comic ‘Fullmetal Alchemist’ the most important topics are the aspect of time and how it could influence on events. The issue of time and sequence of events is indeed the easy one to be raised in a comic book because due to their use of both text and images “comics have become firmly identified with the art of storytelling” (McCloud 152). It goes without saying that the process of storytelling is all about depicting the causative relations between events as they unfold through the flow of time.  Even though a lot of investigations has been made in order to depict this feature, it appears that few attention has been paid to describe time and line in the comics.             

            To start with, in ‘Fullmetal’ the main theme was to deliver information about time-line which plays a crucial role on people’s destiny. As one of Arakawa’s heroes says ‘It’s already past the time to ring the bell’ (Arakawa 16). Hence, the issue of passing time is important in the process of defining destiny.

            In addition to that, the comic clearly shows that time and its measurement could be crucial and essential in the process of delivering information. Specifically, in the comic the author tries to invoke some emotions and attitudes in the readers towards specific events. Hence, this aspect is worthy of notice in the further investigations.

            To sum it up, the aspects of time is mainly used in the comics with the genres of fantasy. In addition to that, the issue of line could be also mentioned in the comics because of this reason. That is why, the features of time and time-line are essential in the process of delivering key messages in the comic.

Works cited                                            

Arakawa, Hiromou. Fullmetal Alchemist. Volume 1. VIZ Media in San Francisco. 2005. Pdf.

McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics. New York: HarperCollons Publishers Inc, 1994. Print.

Fornication

           One of the most important features in the comic work is to deliver information through images. One of the greatest issues about the world of comics underlined by McCloud is that the combination of images and words with an aim of conveying information is “somehow base and simplistic” (141). It goes without saying that this “self-fulfilling prophecy” (McCloud 141) does not reflect the reality in a right way. In fact, such serious point about religious attitude towards abortion has been made in a comic way in the ‘Fornication’. Although a considerable amount of research has been devoted to this aspect, it would be thus of interest to investigate it in depth.

            First of all, in the ‘Fornication’ such issue as drug prescription could be led to unpredictable consequences. ‘I am going to refute to fill your prescription’, as a pharmacist said in the ‘Fornication’ by Peter Bagge’s creation (Bagge, pp. 190).

            Secondly, it is worthy of notice that the features of religion and mode of living are closely correlated with each other and the same it could be written about the correlation between imagined and real worlds. For instance, another pharmacist mentioned that religion does not accept abortions as far as it has been written in the Bible (Bagge 191).   

Thirdly, in the ‘Fornication’ the author writes in a comic way about contraceptives. In fact, he uses images which demonstrate how cruel and fierce these techniques could be (Bagge 192). In brief, the issue of prohibiting abortions has a lot of concerns in the American society because of religious prejudices.

            In conclusion, in the ‘Fornication’ the authors wanted to deliver acute society problems through . For this reason, comic images play a crucial role in delivering information about some dispute aspects of life and how authors could create heroes in the process of creating literature masterpieces.

Works Cited

 

Bagge, Peter.The War on Fornication Peter Bagge. In The Best American Comics pp 190-193.        Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in New York. 2010.            
 
 
McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics. New York: HarperCollons Publishers Inc, 1994. Print.
 

COLOR

McCloud is of the opinion that color use in comics helps keep track of characters because some comics use the same colors for characters continuously. Regarding costumes, the author says, “…costume colors remained exactly the same, panel after panel, they came to symbolize characters in the mind of the reader” (McClouds 188). Some comic artists have preference colors and they use these colors throughout their art. These colors carry certain themes that the comic artist aims to pass across every time he or she releases a piece of comic art.

This comic by Jim Davis illustrates the use of color to keep track of characters. As seen, the light blue color is attributed to the mother; the purple-green color is attributed to the daughter while the yellow color is attributed to the doggie. This helps the reader know who is speaking without having to recognize their faces. It also relieves the artist of the stress of having to include the entire body of the character. As seen in the three instances, only the lower body of the mother appears to match up with the heights of the daughter and the doggie. If the artist were to include the entire height of the mother, the image proportion would be unrealistic considering that the available space is also limited. Ideally, the mother would assume the same height as the daughter and the doggie or the heights of the daughter and the doggie would be suppressed highly to the extent of being invisible. In commercial papers, for instance, comics are allowed limited space, which prompts artists to maximize the use of space to pass on their message in the correct way. Color has turned out to be of great help in this regard.

Works Cited

McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: the Invisible Art. New York City: HarperCollins Publishers Inc, 1994. Print.

TvTorpes. "Depending on the Artist." 2 March 2016. Web.