Podcast Questions

Haha, just realized I missed the switch to Resonant Archive and you covered several of the questions here already. Maybe consider this a carry over for next time. ;) Cheers!

[This question is rooted in the fact that I believe your channel is a true rarity in terms of its intelligent appreciation and articulation of the arts. Hopefully, it isn't too introspective. ;)] Have you ever, and if so do you still, feel like an outsider relative to your peers because of your deep appreciation for the art of games, movies, music, storytelling, etc.? Have you ever noticed yourself finding something dramatically more artistically profound than your peers have? For example, I watch Takashi Miike's 'Box' from the short film collection 'Three Extremes,' and I see "expert cinematography and minimalist sound design driving one of the most subtle and emotionally compelling narratives I've ever seen," and my friends just see...well...let's be real...they don't watch foreign films at all. ;) It's self-evident that your deep dives of games and other topics go well beyond the average Joe's perception of them (and that's one of the reasons why you guys are wonderful). Has the community here made you feel those deep artistic perspectives are the norm or do you ever find yourself thinking, "wow, I really take this way more seriously than most people!"

[ I’ll *try* to keep this brief :) ] When it comes to storytelling tropes, I’ve noticed that some of them tend to bother me more than others. I’m sure this is probably true for everyone. For example, tropes like “The Mentor character dies” or “the hero is transported to another world” rarely bother me. I’m usually OK with these tropes as long as they serve their purpose in the story. However, other writing tropes like “the designated comedy relief character”, “the impending danger was avoided just in the nick of time”, or “the true villain only revealed near the very end”, I often find very annoying and lazy. Given that our preferences for storytelling tropes vary from person to person, (and also from culture to culture) how can we accurately judge if certain tropes are actually good or bad for a story? Is it even possible to make a judgement like that or can we only criticize the execution or overuse of tropes specific to each story or genre?

Any Christmas traditions for games/films/books?

Byron

Non-linear story telling is a big challenge mostly unique to video games. what do you guys think about the kind of non linear storytelling where there are multiple endings, multiple viewpoints, and also has nonlinear story progression(Blazblue Continuum Shift, Nier Automata,) What challenges do you think are unique to this kind of almost freeform structure that still needs to tell a complete story somehow?

Outside of the witcher, what stories do you guys find best explore morality?

What's on your current reading list? What are some of the best books you've read over the past year that you would recommend to listeners?