Popcorn – The Epicurean Cure

Gender-Inverted Trope: Philosopher Queens

2020-06-06T11:32:29Z

In art, as in life, the trope of The Philosopher – found across media and genres – usually manifests as a male character, sage-like, with a tendency to impart useful information (although not always in the most efficient or transparent manner).

Chidi (The Good Place), Maechen (Final Fantasy X), Meowth (Pokemon), Zahua (Pillars of Eternity), Lord Vetinari (The Colour of Magic)

Those who ascend to rulership become Philosopher Kings^[1]:

It is a more enlightened age. Perhaps a future, or a past long forgotten, when rulers are noble and just, and rule for their people, not just for themselves. Perhaps it is an Age of Reason, in which older, barbaric measures of manhood such as war and business have been phased out, and replaced solely with pure, unclouded Thought. Only those who have the capacity to Think have the right to Rule. In this realm, the Philosopher King is found.^[2]

Albus Dumbledore, The Jedi Council, a trio of Time Lords and the Ruler of the Universe.^[3]

In this short but sweet piece of pop(culture)corn, we highlight some gender-inverted instances of the Philosopher and Philosopher King. Let us know your favourite, or other characters deserving the mantle of Philosopher Queen, in the comments or on Twitter/Tumblr/Facebook.

"Eternal life for those who can afford it means eternal control over those who can’t."

Quellcrist Falconer

Quell is an academic and political revolutionary in Richard Morgan’s Altered Carbon. The Netflix adaptation presents her as a fighting philosopher rebel queen, whose actions against the ruling elite are underpinned by her eponymous political philosophy:

Quellism is the political theory created by Quellcrist Falconer for the establishment of a hi-tech social democracy, having elements of socialism and anarchism. Quellism was an expression of Quell’s exasperation with both the inherent self-serving, elitist, corruption of right-wing politics and the back-biting, self-absorption of the left.^[4]

Technological developments have allowed the rich to prolong their lives indefinitely, ‘resleeving’ their consciousness in new bodies – in the Altered Carbon universe, Quell notes, “Your body is not who you are.”^[5] The political ramifications of this motivate Quell’s revolution:

The ebb and flow of life is what makes us all equal in the end […] We aren’t meant to live forever. It corrupts even the best of us…Eternal life for those who can afford it means eternal control over those who can’t.

Quell (S01E07)

Tallis

Tallis is an elven, Qunari assassin, from Dragon Age II’s “Mark of the Assassin” DLC. A convert to the Qun, Tallis engages in both epistemology and moral philosophy, contemplating her faith and her moral obligations.

In classic trope-philosopher fashion, she delivers pithy one-liners as she accompanies the party:

He who wishes to walk on water must first learn to swim.

She who swallows wisdom in tiny chunks avoids choking.

It’s not always meant to end in violence. There are other paths. They do not all need to lead to the same destination.

Doubt is the path one walks to reach faith. To leave the path is to embrace blindness, and abandon hope.

Princess Bubblegum

A literal philosopher queen – or at least, philosopher princess – Bubblegum rules the Candy Kingdom in Adventure Time, a prosperous land of sweet creatures with a tendency to explode when frightened. A metaphysician and philosopher of science, Bubblegum champions invention and empirical endeavours while denying the existence of magic:

Listen, all magic is scientific principles presented like “mystical hoodoo” which is fun, but it’s sort of irresponsible.

Princess Bubblegum, Wizards Only, Fool

In the course of the show, Bubblegum attends and organises conferences, fashions a potion to revive the dead, and creates a variety of creatures (including her own subjects) out of candy biomass:

As princess of candy kingdom, I’m in charge of a lot of candy people. They rely on me, I can’t imagine what might happen to them if I was gone… I am not going to live forever Finn, I would if I could, but modern science just isn’t there yet, so I engineered a replacement that could live forever.

Princess Bubblegum, Goliad

And, in true tropey fashion, Princess Bubblegum acts as a guide to the show’s adventuring heroes, Finn and Jake, sharing her wisdom and providing exposition:

Finn, sometimes you want someone and you want to kiss them and be with them, but you can’t because responsibility demands sacrifice.

Princess Bubblegum, Burning Low

"Doubt is the path one walks to reach faith. To leave the path is to embrace blindness, and abandon hope."

Mary Malone

Mary Malone is a physicist and the inventor of the eponymous device in Philip Pullman’s Amber Spyglass. Like Bubblegum, she is foremost a scientist, but Mary plays the role of the philosopher in guiding (and tempting) Lyra and Will. Drawing on her background as a former nun, she espouses her philosophy of religion as part of this process:

I stopped believing there was a power of good and a power of evil that were outside us. And I came to believe that good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are.

Mary Malone, The Amber Spyglass

Sha'ira, the Asari Consort

Sha’ira appears in the Mass Effect series, offering “personal services as well as entertainment and conversation”^[6], but she is particularly sought after for her advice. After providing assistance to the consort in the first Mass Effect instalment, Sha’ira offers the player character Shepard a ‘gift of words’: “an affirmation of who you are, and who you will become”. Shepard observes that, from description, the consort sounds like an oracle; in this and her advice she is much like the classic trope instances. Another character rejoins that Sha’ira is merely a woman, “with remarkable compassion and a generous spirit”.^[7]

Sha’ira has been likened to a Greek hetaira – in both cases, depending on who you ask, they are described as sex workers, escorts, and/or elite, educated women.

Want to philosophise about other examples? Do so in the comments, or on twitter/tumblr/facebook.

Footnotes

[1] The original argument for why it’s a good idea for philosophers to be kings (or kings to be philosophers) see Plato’s Republic, Books VI-VII.

[2] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThePhilosopherKing

[3] The Ruler of the Universe from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, as envisioned by the BBC (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/RPVK2VZqX2qv6tQPTsLchK/man-in-the-shack

[4] https://altered-carbon.fandom.com/wiki/Quellism

[5] Altered Carbon, S01E01. If you’re interested in what makes you what you are, you can find out more here.

[6] https://masseffect.fandom.com/wiki/Sha%27ira

[7] Nelyna, Mass Effect

Trope Alert: The Prison Level

2020-01-10T13:57:40Z

Upon starting many video games – particularly RPGs – there are certain levels one expects to find as the story progresses: the ice level,

the lava or desert level,

the one that has you exploring a ship (often once you’ve exhausted the continent you started on and have been instructed to Get On the Boat,

the sewer level,

the fight-to-the-death Gladiator Level…

You get the idea. This scrumptious piece of pop(culture)corn centres on another (surprisingly?) common level: the one where you, your party, or both, find themselves locked up in a prison.

Unlike the aforementioned levels, which all have their own TV Tropes entry, the prison level is relegated to a subsection of the Prison Episode page, which describes the pattern thus:

A prison centred instalment in a larger work that is otherwise not about prison. It might be an episode in a serial, a sequence in a video game, or a few chapters in a book…

When this trope shows up in video games, you can expect the inventory of the player character(s) to be taken away. This results in the player having to use stealth and cunning to avoid the guards, until the hero(es) get their inventory back

TV Tropes

While it’s true that the prison level is often the setting for a stealth-based mission and provides plausible justification for stripping a player of their powerful weapons and shiny equipment, that doesn’t exhaust the potential of the prison level.

It can also be the starting zone for a game, allowing us to come to grips with the player character before we meet their comrades or providing a way to explain the player character being in a new part of the world they aren’t familiar with (if they’ve been transported from where they were arrested).

Later in the game it can provide opportunity for meaningful dialogue and relationship building with new acquaintances or old friends, as the party pulls together in a time of hardship.

It can also be used narratively to allow for a time leap where the rest of the world (and plot) moves on, but the player character (or party) stays the same.

Finally, the prison level can serve as a way of splitting up a party of adventurers, to showcase underutilised characters, play with a particular game mechanic, advance the story, or just for the lulz.^[1]

Most prison levels can’t be revisited once escaped. They are generally part of the main story, rather than optional content.

An illustrative (but nowhere near exhaustive!) list follows. Let us know your favourites, including those we haven’t mentioned, on twitter/facebook/tumblr.

Final Fantasy X

Final Fantasy X contains one of my favourite prison levels (but I’m biased, because I really love that game). Arguably it’s two levels: the party is split, and each group finds a separate way out of the Via Purifico. Tidus, Rikku and Wakka (conveniently the three characters that can swim) navigate underwater, while Yuna is - unusually - left alone (in the narrative, the other characters serve as her guardians or protectors) in a monster-infested sewer, where she rounds up the remaining allies and heads for the exit.

This is neither a stealth or a no-gear level, instead demonstrating the wider potential of the prison level – contrasting underwater and conventional combat, using different combinations of characters, showcasing Yuna on her own, and finally reuniting the party after a significant time apart.^[2]

There are prison levels in most Final Fantasy games, but I’ll just mention one more:

Final Fantasy XII

The main characters of FFXII are arrested at least three times, but the prison level I found most memorable was the Nalbina Dungeons, full of long-imprisoned NPCs waiting to die of thirst (grim, right?).

This doubles as a No Gear and Gladiator Level as the main characters get into a fight with a prison bruiser – Daguza – and his lackeys and fight bare-handed (or with the fire spell, if you’ve learned it – it’s harder to take away magic than a sword).

Lost Odyssey

In a combination Ship/Prison level, the Lost Odyssey party are locked in the brig of the White Boa and make their escape. In a nice piece of narrative/gameplay synergy, if the players are recaptured, it doesn’t trigger a game over.^[3] Instead the guard – who you convinced to let you out in the first place, having wiped his memory – will apologise and release you again.

Elder Scrolls

Other than Daggerfall, all of the main instalments in The Elder Scrolls series begins with the player character as a prisoner. The prison levels thus frequently double as tutorial levels.^[4] Opening like this provides an in-game explanation for why the player character is unfamiliar with the basic politics and happenings in the region (which they learn at the same time as the player), as well as their lack of cool adventuring equipment.

Some redditors summed it up nicely: Why always start as a prisoner?^[5]

Because it’s easy. It opens the way for the game to unfold and gives a reasonable explanation why you start without any equipment while not impeding our headcanon to what our character did prior to being captured.

Cloud_Striker

It also means that when you are freed at the start, you can do what you want. Becoming free again is a good reason for a fresh start. You don't have any old responsibilities anymore.

Captain_Jack_Falcon

It also gives a good reason why people are asking you a ton of questions. Who are you? what do you do? What did the stars look like when you where born?????

329bubby

Dragon Age: Origins

There is an optional prison level in DAO if you fail to vanquish a particularly difficult boss in the latter stages of the game.

One imprisoned, you have the option of trying to escape, or waiting for two of your party members to stage a rescue attempt. The former is a fairly typical ‘No Gear Level’, temporarily stripping you of your equipment, but the latter has some of the funniest dialogue in the game. Depending on the pairing, the ruses the characters use to reach you differ, and the player gets to not only control characters they may not have directly controlled previously, but also to play with unusual pairings.

Dragon Age 2

DA2 has two prison levels of note, both in DLC. In The Masked Assassin, the player character (Hawke) is imprisoned alongside new companion Tallis. In a parody of the Origins example, Hawke can insist that they wait for their companions, but the other party members have gotten lost, so Tallis facilitates their escape. The level is notable for the dialogue between Hawke and Tallis, which reveals both interesting features of her character and also the Qunari belief system.

The Legacy DLC is a more atypical example: rather than being taken prisoner in the usual sense, the party finds themselves trapped in a magical prison designed to hold something (ostensibly) bigger and badder than them.

Dragon Quest VIII

In Dragon Quest VIII, the party are falsely accused of committing a crime and sentenced for life on Purgatory Island.

It takes the characters a month to contemplate escaping, despite having all their gear, but the sequence allows for some villain redemption and party bonding.

And best of all, the prison is inexplicably populated with Aussie guards.

Want to wax lyrical about other examples? Do so in the comments, or on facebook/twitter/tumblr.

Footnotes

[1] One of many examples where video games aren’t like real life.

[2] Remember Bikanel? Talk about a desert level.

[3] Or an unexplained repeat of the same events, over and over – I’m looking at you, Ocarina of Time. You’d think they might confiscate Link’s gear at some point.

[4] This doesn’t exhaust the prison levels in the Elder Scrolls games – some have additional instances – it’s just a nice feature to talk about!

[5] There are apparently also some in-game lore reasons for why the protagonists all begin their journeys this way – see https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrim/comments/3v9kai/why_we_always_starting_as_a_prisoner/ for more information.

Trope Alert: The Supernatural Detective

2017-08-11T20:45:20Z

You’ve got super powers. You’ve been bitten by a vampire, turned into a werewolf, woken up a zombie. But hey, you’ve still got to make a living. What are you going to do?

Become a detective. Because obviously.

There’s an uncanny number of private eyes with a dark background. And it’s frequently justified – these are characters who are up all hours, have connections to the underworld, and the ability to sneak or spy better than the average mortal. But rather than undertaking corporate espionage, writing crime novels, or planning weddings, they don a trilby, defeat the flim-flammer, and save a dame.

Unsurprisingly, there are already a host of identified detective-related tropes. Today, though, we introduce a new one: The Supernatural Detective. The Supernatural Detective is different from the Occult Detective, who investigates the paranormal but may not be supernatural themselves…

…but there is, as one might expect, some overlap (the more-than-human often encounter others like them).^[1] It includes, but is not limited to, the Vampire Detective Series. The Supernatural Detective is perhaps best understood as a subset of the Exotic Detective, where their unusual trait is specifically some supernatural characteristic. The crimes they solve may be mundane or mystical.

An illustrative sample follows. Let us know your favourites, including those we haven’t mentioned, in the comments or on twitter/facebook/tumblr.

The Vampire Detective

As noted above, vampire detectives have a trope of their own:

[T]his might be because vampires fit so easily into the Film Noir Private Detective with their tendency to be out at night, tendency to wear long coats, messy backstories, inevitable love difficulties, not-so-clean morality, and in some sense of the word, a drinking problem.^[2]

Angel is the television exemplar – broody, dark, giving up the love of his undead existence, and in aesthetically film noir fashion (at least in season 1), using his powers to solve crime.

The Werewolf Detective

Need flexible working hours because you turn into a ravening monster at the full moon? No worries: become a detective. Larry Talbot – aka The Wolf Man – does just that in Neil Gaiman’s short stories Only the End of the World Again and Bay Wolf (an adaptation of Beowulf, as the name suggests).

The Superhero Detective

Although frequently male, the Supernatural Detective is not bound to a single gender. In both the comics and recent Netflix series, Jessica Jones – former superhero, with superhuman strength (and, in the comics at least, ability to fly) – works as a private investigator.

And she’s not the only one. Marvel’s Jamie Madrox works as a PI in New York along with Wolfsbane and Strong Guy.

But perhaps best of all, DC’s Detective Chimp solves crimes while wearing a Sherlock Holmes-style deerstalker hat, frequently assisted by the Bureau of Amplified Animals, including Rex the Wonder Dog. This stuff writes itself.

The Lord of Hell Detective

You’d think we were making it up, but no, even Lucifer gets a turn as a gumshoe. Based on Lucifer Morningstar from Sandman, and appearing in Vertigo’s Lucifer, the eponymous TV show follows the fallen angel as he “decides to help the LAPD Detective Chloe Decker solve homicides for his own amusement.”^[3]

Lucifer isn’t the only divine being to get caught up in the PI business – in the manga (and anime adaptation) The Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok, the Norse trickster opens the Enjyaku Detective Agency to investigate the paranormal (and y’know, collect evil auras that take over human hearts in order to return to Asgard. It’s important to have hobbies).

The Zombie Detective

In iZombie, the central character finds work at a morgue for a steady source of brains. ‘But that doesn’t sound like detective work!’, you exclaim.

Suspend your disbelief, dear reader:

Whenever Liv eats a dead person's brain, she temporarily inherits some of their personality traits and experiences flashbacks of their life. Those visions are generally triggered by sights (events or objects) or sounds (repeated sentences). In the case of murder victims, the flashbacks offer clues about their killers. Liv uses this new ability to help Police Detective Clive Babineaux solve the crimes, passing herself off as a psychic…^[4]

A pseudo-psychic zombie two-for-one! Take that Simon Baker!

(Also, here’s a fun fact: The Walking Dead was almost a zombie detective show – but with zombie crimes, rather than zombie detectives. The Master notes that, having recently reached Series 4, he “would not have made it that far through a Zombie detective series.”)

The Extra Lucky Detective

I was originally going to call this section ‘The Magical Detective’. After all, it would be strange to have even one example to put under such a specific heading, but to my surprise, here are two:

John Constantine of DC Comics fame (played by Keanu in the movie) has a range of magical powers including “synchronicity wave travelling… an instinctual supernatural ability for Constantine to make his own luck.”^[5] Like Angel and Loki, he overlaps with the Occult Detective.

More recently, Stan Lee’s The Lucky Man has appeared on television, starring a homicide detective that can ‘control luck’ thanks to an ancient magical bracelet….

I guess the FFX-2 Lady Luck suits weren’t available. Shame – he would’ve looked dashing.

So that’s it for our first serving of pop(culture)corn – I hope it proved a tasty morsel. Know of any other examples, or alternative employment opportunities for the charmed/cursed/divine? Tell us in the comments, or on facebook/twitter/tumblr.

Footnotes

[1] For more examples of occult detectives, see this list. Sometimes the two are conflated, e.g. http://www.tor.com/2016/10/12/supernatural-detectives-we-love-to-drag-into-trouble/

[2] http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VampireDetectiveSeries

[3] http://lucifer.wikia.com/wiki/Lucifer_(TV_series). NB. Eating people’s brains (or other body parts) to inherit their powers or memories is itself a trope: the Cannibalism Superpower.

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IZombie_(TV_series)

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Constantine#Powers_and_abilities