The Good News Thread: I'm So Excited! And I Just Can't Hide It!

[Oversleep Bondsmith]

♬ Sometimes the only pay-off for having any faith ♬
♬ Is when it's tested again and again every day ♬

It's fifth day I'm listening to this song. Good thing Spotify doesn't show how many times I listened to it...

[A Budgie Forger]

Hm...seeing a kid's movie on the psychological effects of magical powers would certainly be interesting, but I can't see a movie studio (even one as good as Disney) doing it as good as it could be. Because a lot of kids movies with magic is 'magic is good if you use it for good, and if you use it for bad you are an evil witch!' it would be interesting to see a child's movie's protagonist that has magic they can use for good, but it has side effects...but that might be a bit dark for a young age group.

[StrikerEZ Mistborn]

I've been kind of inactive lately, but that's because there's been the incoming freshmen (8th graders) band camp this past week. I'm trying out for section leader, and all the leader candidates go to the camp to help teach the incoming freshmen, motivate them, and introduce them to the section and what it's like to be in band. I've had long nights the past few days, and today was the longest because the leader candidates had a marching evaluation today as part of the audition. It went pretty well for me, but there's 9 of us clarinets trying out, and only 4/5 spots (we had 5 this past year, but I've heard they might go back to 4). I'm absolutely excited and terrified. Tomorrow, during all the band classes, we're gonna be using a google form to choose we what to be section leaders (by rating them from "I want them the most" to "I want them the least" and talking about what we like, don't like, etc.). I'm really nervous.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles God Beyond]

4 hours ago, Djarskublar said:

Another major issue I have with Frozen is that Anna thawed out. She should have stayed as a block of ice, or if she was reconstituted, she should have been dead. That was kind of the central plot element for a good portion of the movie, and it was supposed to dangerous, yet even after the curse reached its conclusion she was able to be saved anyway.

I'm going to have to strongly disagree with you here. First off, I feel the need to establish something: Within the bounds of the movie, it is never stated that a frozen heart equals death. It is stated that only an act of true love can thaw a frozen heart. That's it. That's all that is established about it; and as we're in a world not only filled with comical trolls and ice powers that can build castles, but that is run by Disney, the assumption that an act of true love can save someone with a frozen heart—no matter how far this freezing had progressed—is not unfounded in the least.

Now. Throughout the movie, a key theme is that of an "act of true love" being able to thaw a frozen heart. It's assumed, by Anna, Kristoff, most of the trolls, and the audience that this means Anna must be the recipient of true love to recover. But Frozen takes this in a different direction. When Anna seeks out Hans for true love's kiss, he blatantly refuses her, revealing himself as the villain, and a particularly dangerous one at that. But more importantly, he sets the film up for a subversion and rebuttal of the usual fairy tale logic and roles: Rather than needing to receive true love, Anna gives true love in trying to protect her sister, and in so doing she saves not only Elsa, but herself. 

This is also a lovely bit of symbolism, or at least I saw it that way. In so many stories, we're given the "ice queen," the girl who's had rotten luck with men and so has hardened her heart against the world; she usually exists so the male protagonist can thaw (and eventually melt) her frozen heart. Until he does, she is helpless. She cannot love others or herself. This, unfortunately, sends the message that unless you can find someone else who loves you, you will never be able to recover from past wounds. 

Yet with Anna, we see someone who thaws her own heart by showing selfless love. She's more than the empowered female protagonist who saves herself and the day; she is a young woman who has been pushed away by her sister for most of her life. She lost her parents, and her sister was cold and distant. Now Elsa has hurt her deeply. Anna has every reason to see the worst in her sister, to withdraw and lick her wounds and blame Elsa for her frozen heart and rapidly declining health. Anna knows all of this—and chooses to love her sister anyway. This choice, this act of selfless love, is what saves her and allows her to love again. That is such a powerful and profound depiction of forgiveness and sisterly love that its inclusion makes it impossible for me to see Frozen as anything less than excellent. 

Edited April 28, 2017 by TwiLyghtSansSparkles

[Nashan’Elin Svrakiss]

I'm not even going to jump in on the Frozen and Tangled debates. Lemme just say that I am continually astounded by people on the Shard. 

But aside from that, tonight was opening night for the musical I'm doing! (It's Cinderella.) It went really well! Everything ran smoothly! No one forgot their lines, or missed cues, and ahhhhhh I'm so happy it was so much fun!

[Darkness Ascendant Steel Inquisitor]

@TwiLyghtSansSparkles Rotten luck with men? Nah, more like convinced that she's something to be locked away and hidden. That she's a danger to the world and brings nothing but a possibility of harm, that the world is better off without her etc

Not stereotypical. I would delve more, but not bothered.

Edited April 28, 2017 by Darkness Ascendant

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles God Beyond]

4 hours ago, Darkness Ascendant said:

@TwiLyghtSansSparkles Rotten luck with men? Nah, more like convinced that she's something to be locked away and hidden. That she's a danger to the world and brings nothing but a possibility of harm, that the world is better off without her etc

Not stereotypical. I would delve more, but not bothered.

I was speaking more of Anna than of Elsa there; while it's true she had really only had bad luck with one man, it was her heart that was frozen. And, when it comes to the ice queen trope in general, it's usually that the woman has had her heart broken one too many times, which is also more what I was referring to. 

[Darkness Ascendant Steel Inquisitor]

9 minutes ago, TwiLyghtSansSparkles said:

I was speaking more of Anna than of Elsa there; while it's true she had really only had bad luck with one man, it was her heart that was frozen. And, when it comes to the ice queen trope in general, it's usually that the woman has had her heart broken one too many times, which is also more what I was referring to. 

um alright then *shrugs

(The sentencing threw me off)

[ShadowLord_Lith Lord Prelan]

13 hours ago, Djarskublar said:

Another major issue I have with Frozen is that Anna thawed out. She should have stayed as a block of ice, or if she was reconstituted, she should have been dead. That was kind of the central plot element for a good portion of the movie, and it was supposed to dangerous, yet even after the curse reached its conclusion she was able to be saved anyway. Also, the sword broke on her frozen body without so much as scratching her... I'm not gonna buy that one either. Especially considering that it was her arm he hit, if I remember correctly. Now, you could say it was magic ice, and impervious to the sword, but... other ice Elsa created got chopped up just fine, take the behemoth for an example. 

Maybe I can explain this a little? I recently helped someone explain how rapid and extreme changes in temperature can cause severe damage to an objects structural integrity, we see something similar here.

 

If you notice, the blade began to frost over as it neared Anna's arm; given the cold environment around it didn't cause frost, likely due to its being sheathed, this implies extreme amounts of sudden cold. Such a shift in the temperature of the blade wasn't evenly spread either. It spread from one end to the other, one side experiencing much more drastic cold than the other. I doubt that the cold would've had much time to spread into the blade either. Because cold causes objects to shrink, usually unnoticeable when it comes to metal and other solids, we have a situation where several parts of the blade, mostly if not exclusively the outermost parts, shrinking at different rates. 

 

This alone would cuase cracks in the blade and allow it to shatter on things that it, ordinarily, would've cut through with ease. 

 

Now for why anna didn't shatter. 

 

We know that love affects magic in strange ways within the Disney universe. It can restore life as seen in Snow White (though that has a scientific explanation), it can bring one back from the brink of death as seen in tangled, it can physically transform you from one thing into another as seen in the little mermaid and the princess and the frog, in Maleficent and Beauty and the Beast we see that it can remove or destroy curses, and in Atlantis and Hercules it can even remove godhood (or cause one to reject godhood. Still confused on which they were implying there, though I know what they wanted us to believe.). 

 

With this in mind, add in the fact that Anna is the first example of a human freezing due to a magically frozen heart we've ever seen. In this case, I would assume that such a being would have ice that is much more difficult to break than normal ice. Add in the act of true love she had just committed, the fact that it's a Disney film, the damage the blade would have take from the sudden cold, and the strange effects that true love has on magic, and its starting to look like there's a case that explains why she was undamaged. 

What do you think?

Edited April 28, 2017 by ShadowLord_Lith

[Steeldancer Prime]

I feel like it's a Disney movie. And therefore everyone was ok in the end. 

[Claincy Rambleman]

On a warmer note:

D&D went very well tonight. I had all 7 of my current players present. They were going into a big battle to save a massive sentient tree called the Grandfather Tree. They had managed to get a powerful ally to come help and the tree that would also be helping them a little. All that adds together to make for a very challenging encounter to balance and can easily drag horribly with that many participants. But it ended up being one of the best battles we've had in the campaign  There were particularly cool moments for multiple of the characters which really helped.

I also had some new miniatures that I knew would arrive soon, including a treant figure. I was really hoping they would arrive in time for tonight because one of the things that was likely to happen was an opportunity for the party druid to be temporarily turned into a treant by the Grandfather Tree and having the mini would make the moment so much cooler. The mini arrived just in time. So when I was describing it I was able to describe the transformation and plonk this huge mini on the table as they turned into it. The player loved it.  

(Not the best image but it'll do.)

Anyway, seeing players get invested in a session and hearing how much they enjoyed it is really rewarding as a GM.

Edited April 28, 2017 by Claincy

[Darkness Ascendant Steel Inquisitor]

That sounds pretty storming awesome @Claincy Wish people played DnD 'round my parts.

[Silverblade5 Savant]

On April 19, 2017 at 8:46 PM, Silverblade5 said:

And Columbine continues to be best in state when it comes to giving blood!

Turns out, we also set a new state record 

[Tristan Prelan]

I AM NOW A LIGHTEYES

[The Honor Spren Dawnshard]

5 hours ago, Claincy said:

On a warmer note:

Was that a pun. 

[Claincy Rambleman]

@The Honor Spren More just a rubbish segue, I was pretty tired

@Darkness Ascendant You could try seeing if there are any game stores in your area that run Adventurer's League, or just campaigns that are running at the stores. I've heard repeatedly that that can be a good way to find groups though I admit I haven't tried myself. I reckon it's a safe bet that there are plenty of people in your area who would enjoy DnD, the trick is finding them and getting a game going. Particularly as many who would enjoy it might not have thought about it.

[Tristan Prelan]

I drew something tonight for the first time in about ten years! I posted it in the police sketch game... as a self portrait. Guess I can't go committing crimes now. Lol

[Djarskublar Envisager]

Ahhh, but @TwiLyghtSansSparkles, all of those other Disney example you gave didn't have people that were already dead. Snow white was just in a coma, and all the others were either gravely injured, or not injured at all. That's a big difference from being frozen solid. Petrifaction I can see being cured. That is well established, but being frozen is, well, less so. And as for @ShadowLord_Lith, the sword should still have exerted a pretty good impulse on her arm... If I whack you with a cracked sword and it breaks on your spine, you still won't be feeling good. I maintain that while that scene had solid emotional impact, it totally threw me out of suspension of disbelief. I can't see it as anything other than a plot contrivance. It was lazy writing to get the kind of ending they wanted. I mean... Anna's arm wasn't even bruised afterwards. Come on! You've got to be kidding me! It's not a matter of whether the sword should have broken, it's that her arm should have had something happen to it too. I was fine with the sword break, and your explanation for it is sound. The sword more exploded than shattered, honestly, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. On the other hand, jumping in front of a bullet/sword/arrow is an established trope, and if you don't actually injure the character, then what was the point? She could have jumped in front of him, only to have him pull up short in surprise and I would have been fine with it.

Think about it in Cosmere terms, all the other instances you mention didn't have characters already dead. The closest they came was comatose or unconscious due to blood loss. That is still totally healable. Being Transformed into ice is death (or smoke, or quartz, or fire >.> looking at you, muggers). Plain and simple. Their connection to life was cut right then and there. Anna's soul should have popped out of her body and been like, 'well that sucks... I was about to thaw myself.' She didn't have a brain any more, just a bunch of ice that may have been in an interesting structure. She couldn't think about how much she loved her sister any more. She was dead, for Pete's sake!

I also don't think that citing it being a Disney movie is a good excuse. Disney has already killed a lot of stormtroopers, after all. They don't get to revive because they love themselves/their sister. I wish Disney would grow a pair and actually kill characters that clearly should be dead. Children's stories used to do that all the time, but we decided kids are a bunch of pansies for some reason, so now seeing real world problems like death might 'damage' them... ugh whatever. That argument is a bit too meta to be solid evidence, or well, parts of it. Honestly, Disney has made good movies. As a movie, Frozen was decent. As a story, it was decent, but nothing to write home about, other than the twist ending (only by Disney standards). As for characters, they were generally very solid characters (see what I did there :P). They just didn't mix well. Anna running around with Mr. Adoptive Troll was, well cringey. I was literally clenching my gut and making stupid faces almost every time they talked to each other. They were just so... on the nose, cheesy, and/or predictable every single time. Also, what on earth was Elsa going to eat in that ice castle?... "I'm gonna live here now!" "Okay, what'll you eat?" "Umm... I'll be home for dinner." "Suuuurrreee." Yeah... the cold never bothered her, but her stomach definitely will. Unless she finds the abominable snowman to give her snowcones (what? They're lemon!). Spinning around in circles shooting ice magic everywhere takes calories, you know. Even if she used her magic to create a living snowsuit that moved her body at her will, her brain would still need energy. She buried all the arable land in ice, which is why everyone was looking for her. Food was not going to be easy to come by on top of a mountain.

Also, my take on Elsa's mental state was somewhat different. I saw it as her having something about herself she wanted to hide, and once it was found out, she decided that letting it all out was fine now. She may have depression/anxiety due to having to conceal her true nature, but that wasn't the main issue to me. I've been in that boat, and once your secret is out, you just say, 'well, screw it, may as well have fun with this.'

And, as a semi-serious joke, did anyone else expect Anna to say, "you look different," when she saw Elsa in the ice palace, only to have her respond, "I feel different." That would have been an incredible reference.

@Claincy what edition? I've only ever played AD&D. Which I completely and utterly broke, by the way. (I built a character that natively had -9 AC and could consistently do ~195 damage/round assuming he hits every attack, and could do ~650/round if he used lvls/day powers. This in first edition, where everyone is swinging swords for 3d6+12 at best and the highest hp things in the game have at best 350 hp. Just at the cost of being unable to use lots of magic. I was at the point where I could fight minor gods toe to toe and laughed at pairs of ancient dragons. Kensai/monk is op, basically.) In other news, what other tabletop RPGs do you like? I like Star Wars: Edge of the Empire. It's less rule driven and much faster paced, so it keeps your attention better. I really need to get a new gaming group going, or actually bother driving out to the one at my uni...

[Claincy Rambleman]

@Djarskublar Probably the last comment I'll make on the Frozen discussion for now but I really don't see turned to stone as a less deadly/more curable condition than turned to ice. Turned to stone and turned to ice would both realistically be completely fatal. They seem fairly equivalent to me actually. *shrugs*

Anyway, I'm currently playing 5th edition and I heartily recommend the system. It isn't perfect of course but it is very good. Aside from that I mostly play the Mistborn Adventure Game but I also play or have played: Fragged Empire, Mutant Year 0, Shadowrun, D&D 4e or 3e (not actually sure which it was), World of Darkness, Prime Directive, teensy bit of Gurps, a couple of smaller rpgs and a system or 2 I designed myself  I haven't tried Edge of the Empire (yet) sadly.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles God Beyond]

@Djarskublar Okay, I'm going to ask this and then let this line of conversation drop: 

Why do you feel it would have enhanced a family movie to have a nervous, frightened young woman with no desire to hurt anyone have to live with the horror of having murdered her own sister? Why do you think Disney should have put that in a movie marketed to children? 

[Erandeni Vanisher]

My new suit and new laptop just arrived, I am too excited, I don't know what open first.

[Tristan Prelan]

Good news: I got to go to Comic Con today. Bad news: I missed an opportunity to cosplay as Vin, with my short dark hair. Ah well, next year... 

[Darkness Ascendant Steel Inquisitor]

6 hours ago, Tristan said:

Good news: I got to go to Comic Con today. Bad news: I missed an opportunity to cosplay as Vin, with my short dark hair. Ah well, next year... 

oooh lucky but unlucky at the same time.

I so storming wish I could go to conventions >>

[A Budgie Forger]

7 hours ago, Tristan said:

Good news: I got to go to Comic Con today. Bad news: I missed an opportunity to cosplay as Vin, with my short dark hair. Ah well, next year... 

I've never been to a convention before, so that's still pretty cool.

[Delightful Dragon]

 

On 28 April 2017 at 4:22 AM, Claincy said:

@Djarskublar While I don't agree with some of what you said I do agree that a sequel is highly unnecessary. Rationally it would almost certainly take years for Elsa to recover and I highly doubt she'd ever fully recover. You don't have one sudden realisation and all the psychological issues go away, it's not how it works. I'd be up for a movie that actually took that theme and kept it as a major part of the movie but I'm not sure how likely Disney is to do that. The success of Frozen might give the writer a little more leeway to do that but I'm concerned at best. With that said, I'm happy to withhold further speculation on that until it comes out. The last time I felt that an animated movie I cared about was getting a sequel it really didn't need the sequel ended up being really really good and surpassing the original in my opinion. (How to Train Your Dragon 2)

Huh. I didn't particularly like HTTYD 2. 

On 28 April 2017 at 4:39 AM, Oversleep said:

♬ Sometimes the only pay-off for having any faith ♬
♬ Is when it's tested again and again every day ♬

It's fifth day I'm listening to this song. Good thing Spotify doesn't show how many times I listened to it...

I thought it was "for having anything". Faith makes so much more sense.