(Harry Potter Castle: Free Stock Photos)
Once I started reading the introduction paragraph, I could not help to think that this story reminded me of a combination of two of my favorite things - Harry Potter and My Hero Academia. Most people know what Harry Potter is, but My Hero Academia is actually an anime, or Japanese cartoon, that is about students applying to different hero academies trying to be the world's best heroes. It has the fantasy and wizardry themes that I really enjoy from Harry Potter and embodies the heroic aspect of my Hero Academia. Besides the surface level reminder that I got, there was a line that caught my attention - "It isn't fair to judge a whole race of creature by the wicked deeds of a few." I am not sure if the writer meant it to have any realistic social connections, but that is what I thought of when I read that sentence, so if that was the writer's intentions, then I highly applaud them for it because I think that it's a valuable lesson that everyone needs to learn, not just students in a hero academy. Overall, I actually enjoyed most of the story because this genre is right up my alley, but personally, I prefer books in first person, especially ones that have a lot of action, that way the thoughts are a bit easier to follow, but that is just me being a little particular.
The Story of Old Lady Hudson
(Creepy Light Black and White Window Ghost Hand: Max Pixel)
Epic Women Tell All
(Literary Talk Show With Authors: Flickr)
The talk show idea was really impressive! It was different than the other stories I had read. Because of the format and the relaxed dialogue, it was really easy to follow. Another aspect I enjoyed was how different each story was from the original. In some other stories I read, the differences between the original and the inspired story were not that different, but I could really tell that the writer took time to come up with different plots and resolutions for each story and really made them their own.
This is great, Elena! You picked a really wide variety of styles here, and that's the idea with looking at Storybooks from the Myth class too: you can use those same styles and approaches for the Indian Epics class also!
ReplyDeleteThere's also a lot of topic crossover too. Heroes, obviously, are what the epics are all about. But also ghosts and the supernatural too! In fact, the stories of ghosts and supernatural beings is a huge thing in the Indian tradition. There are rakshasas (hard to translate: demons? goblins? monsters?) in the epics that you will be reading, and also lots of other legends about Indian ghosts, called bhuts. The English name "ghost pepper" is actually from a pepper grown in India that is called "bhut jolokia" -- ghost pepper: bhut jolokia. So if you are interested in working on Indian ghosts, monsters, vampires, etc. as a project for the class, I can connect you with lots of resources for that online. :-)