The thin line between Wow and WTF

[MrKnobs]

I'm a Game of Thrones fan.  For a while, I thought George R. R. Martin, the writer, was a god.  Now, after watching  Sunday's HBO episode, and reading a few interviews with Martin, I think I understand him a little better and what I understand disappoints me a bit.   But... his interview got me thinking about the larger picture, about doing the unexpected in any form of art.

This thread is not really about Game of Thrones.  I will post no spoilers, and I hope no one else will either.  This thread is (hopefully) about the fine line in any creative art between "Wow!" and "What the f*ck??"  

As any Martin reader can tell you, no character is safe in his novels.  As soon as you attach to a character, you can be pretty sure Martin is about to kill him (or her) off.   In the interview I read, Martin said that he doesn't write cliches.   In Martin's own words (names removed):

"I killed ... because everybody thinks he

[Mark L]

I've managed to get away with C, F and G7 all these years

[Hoppy Shimko]

Edge ? Let's see....follows formula, doesn't want to follow formula, does something to not follow formula...

 

 

Isn't that just a different formula ?

[veracohr]

I watched a video of Kevin Smith doing a tour in support of is then-new film Red State. He would get up in fron of the audience for a while before the movie, talk, and do some Q&A.

 

What Martin said about is writing is similar to what Kevin Smith said about his writing of that movie. He wanted to keep people on their toes (and himself as a writer), so every time he got to a place where he just knew the next logical step in the story, he would take a turn and move it someplace else. The result is a decently good movie that keeps making you say "wait....what?"

[UstadKhanAli]

Currently, I have nothing to contribute.  I just wanted to say that I love the title of this thread.

[Ernest Buckley]

I never saw Game of Thrones so I have no idea who you`re talking about but I can definitely relate to the idea of falling into a rut with song production. 

I think creative people have to be aware of this at all times and in the words of Spinal Tap... "its a fine line..." I`ve been starting my last few tunes around drum loops where in the past I used to write my own parts. Same with sounds... I have a few select sounds that I pretty much use for everything like piano and bass but I`ve been pushing myself to explore new sounds I normally would never use. Now after a good year of doing this I have developed into my "new sound" which I`ll use to finish the current record I`m working on and let that sound bleed over to my next record after that. 

Artists need to be self aware. They need to know where they were, where they are, and where they`re going. I think that only comes from self evaluation, not from someone else telling them because art is in the end an extension of oneself so the change must come from within. 

[nat whilk II]

Re: the Ice and Fire series (I read them, not watched them.)   My take on the unexpected snuffing of favorite characters is that it fits in with one of Martin's major themes of the whole series - namely the harsh, ruthless, merciless, dangerous nature of life in the world he's created, which is an exagerrated version of human society in it's more barbaric, dark-ages sort of mode.  the old Hobbesian "nasty, brutish, and short" mode of life.   It's a wartime fable that does what good fantasy does, which is highlight certain realities in human experience and expand them imaginatively in order to bring the underlying reality home to the reader.  Bad fantasy just feeds people pseudo-satisfying daydreams like romance novels.  So yeah, the bumping off of sympathetic characters is a bummer for the reader, but I think more than justified by the working out of this huge theme.  

 

Which brings me to point number two:  if an artist has a really strong idea, it's worth bucking the public's general expectations if that's what has to be done to bring the idea forward.  This is not the same as just mixing things up and using unpredictability just to keep people awake.  It's also not the same thing as putting an obnoxious or purposely weird front on just to intimidate or confuse people and strike the rebel's pose.  What it is, is having enough confidence in a truly strong idea to forge ahead of the crowd and do your thing.  Maybe the crowd will catch up with you, maybe not.

 

Why are so many great artists also egomaniacs?  Natural selection.  It's not the ego that makes their art, it's their ego that hardens them towards public opinion.  

 

I bet most of us have known one artist or another who you can tell could perhaps bloom into a genius of one sort or another only if they had enough ego to stick with their art and put it out there, other people's opinions be damned. 

 

Of course there's the risk that you'll have this huge belief in yourself and your art, and your art still sucks.  We've all seen that on Idol - that's the stock clown of each new Idol season.  Well, there's nothing for it but to take the risk, what can I say?

 

nat whilk ii

 

 

 

 

[RockViolin]

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Ernest Buckley wrote:

 

Artists need to be self aware. They need to know where they were, where they are, and where they`re going. I think that only comes from self evaluation, not from someone else telling them because art is in the end an extension of oneself so the change must come from within. 

---

 Agree!

 

As we say(said) in the biz, "If it isn't right, it's wrong." 

But that is subjective, in the end. Sometimes there's no doubt, sometimes there is.

Was it "Beat It" or "Billie Jean" --- Ninety-four mixes were sent to Sony, iirc?

 WTF moments happen most via stunts, (events with little or no contextual support)- trying to please everyone, going too many times to the well, lame execution. I think sometimes the line isn't all that thin, and it's just plain WTF, too!  Which gets to a whole 'nuther level, as in, "what were they thinking?" I suppose.