The Implied Setting of Mortal Kombat 2 Fighting Arena Backgrounds

Hear and attend and listen, O best beloved. Once there was a man who had two daughters. Each Saturday, the elder of the two daughters attended a dance school, O best beloved, around the corner from which was an emporium which sold coffee, and this was what befell and was befallen: the man would visit the emporium each Saturday to drink said coffee in the morning sun and entertain his daughters before, lo, the eldest's dance classes would begin. 

And in the corner of this emporium, about which I have told you, best beloved, it so became and was become that there was a row of arcade machines, which included among their number Pac-Man, Street Fighter II, and Mortal Kombat 2. And since these arcade machines were free to use, O best beloved, the man would play Mortal Kombat 2 with his daughters and they would woop and yell with glee at the sight of the great gouts of blood that sprayed forth across the screen in the games they played. And so it was that the man learned of the mysteries of babalities, friendships and special moves, though he was mostly reduced to operating the joystick while his youngest daughter pressed whatever buttons she so chose.

*

Yes, I have been playing a lot of Mortal Kombat 2 recently. And last week, while performing my allotted role of joystick-operator and trying to anticipate the quixotic button-pressing antics of a four-year-old, I began to study the backgrounds in the various arenas in which fights take place, noticing that they were absolutely redolent of a type of extreme sword-and-sorcery that I have written about before - an approach to fantasy art where

magic is everywhere and poorly understood, where monsters are mythic and better understood by Freud than Darwin, where there are no farmers or cities because everyone is either Conan or The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. Something illustrated by Frazetta, Brom, John Blanche, Dali and Brueghel the Elder, penned by Leiber and Vance, and printed in 1968.

I do not claim this is what the plot of Mortal Kombat is all about (I actually have no idea, and no great interest in finding out), and I have not watched any of its various dramatised iterations - it was only in doing some 'research' for this post that I discovered there is actually a Mortal Kombat II film that has recently been released. All I know is the characters and the arenas in which they duke it out. I am talking not about its actual or canonical setting, but about its implied one. I therefore base my comments on the images alone:

What we see here is a forest of living, demonic trees: not so much an entire forest of Old Man Willows, but an entire forest of Old Man Willow's psychotic nephews. These are not mysterious, brooding treants filled with resentment of the 'quick', as we find in Tolkien's ouevre. No: they are just gleeful, sadistic tormenters of those with legs. They like murder. Tolkien's Old Forest has a soundtrack written by Bruckner. The Mortal Kombat 2 forest has a soundtrack written by Wolves in the Throne Room.

Brutal weapons. Molten metal (or lava chanelled from a nearby volcano?). The people of this world are warriors, not soldiers - an important element of the sword-and-sorcery genre. Soldiers are citizens who defend their territory in organised armies. Warriors rely on their martial prowess and concern themselves with glory, not defence. Soldiers equip themselves like hoplites. Warriors equip themselves with big, scary weapons which accentuate their power and individual strength.

What more needs to be said about this other than, floating wizards, interdimensional portal, red planet? Here, magic is great and powerful. It is to be feared and misunderstood. It can change the metaphysical presuppositions on the basis of which we orient our lives. It can transcend the barriers between worlds. There is nothing ordinary about a reality in which this is possible. This world does not contain humdrum civilisations - it is not one in which there is a comfortable Hobbiton which can serve as the base for adventure. Everything is adventure because everything is Weird.

This is a world with conflicting motifs. Yin and yang: all is harmony. Yet all is also DEATH. And WINGED (I should probably say WINGÉD) BEASTS. There is not a philosophical or epistemological consistency to this world. Rather, there is a consistent mood. It is a mashup defined by aesthetic 'fit' rather than by any notion of thing having to make sense.

There may be peace in this world, but it is a peace that is contingent. One imagines a sultry night of lovemaking between a warrior and his woman under the stars and a clear moon, with incense in the air and the distant sound of croaking frogs and insects. And yet! In the background a duel commences between a man and fire demon. Because this is just the sort of thing that happens. 

It is a world where life is plentiful and cheap, for the masses, but not for the Heroic and Villainous, who are literally larger than life itself. I am reminded here of the sense one gets reading Lord of Light that there are untold numbers of ordinary people going about their business but whose concerns are completely meaningless when set against those of the Great. What defines individual importance is not the santity of life and the moral worth of the human person but what one Achieves. We are in the world of Nietzsche, not Jesus - Eddison, rather than Lewis. 

This is world in other words that has been washed in a purple glaze; a world in which whenever it is not the night time it is only ever dusk; a world in which the magical and martial are of equal but oppositional status; a world in which might makes right, and a world in which whatever peace and tranquility are found are momentary, fleeting, bittersweet - because death may strike at any moment. It is a world in which glory triumphs over good, and a world in which power stands astride virtue. It is a world of sword and sorcery's value writ large.

I rather like it.

The Great Nobility of Harry Potter

 

I am of the view that there is no pursuit that is more noble and no task that is more worth doing than writing novels. Call me romantic; call me deluded; call me a fuddy-duddy; call me a pseud. I will stand by this statement and only nuance it by adding that the most noble type of novel-writing is fantasy fiction. The real world will look after itself. Factories will be built, medicines will be administered, trucks will be driven. But the ability to complete a story in 400 pages which provides an avenue to escapism and wonder is something which we need great talents to provide for us. 

JK Rowling is not a great writer in the strict sense. But she is what I would call a brilliant one. She has not defined an era or created a distinctive style or influenced the way in which novels are written - she is not William Golding or JRR Tolkien or Marcel Proust. Yet she has done something equally as important and impressive: she has given people space to imagine and dream. 

One resorts to The Shawshank Redemption with great trepidation. But I will do it: the scene in that film in which Andy says to Red that people need to know that 'There are places in the world that aren't made out of stone' is I think, here, apt. People, in other words, need hope. And really good fiction provides that. It says: people can do great things, and don't have to be bound to the humdrum, the mundane, the quotidian. They can live beyond and above. 

It does this on two separate levels: in substance and in the proof of its own existence. A really good fantasy novel tells the reader two things. That great things are possible in the world of imagination (a hobbit really can bring down the Dark Lord; a boy from suburban England really can bring down the..er, Dark Lord). But also that great things are possible in the here and now (a woman writing in a cafe can produce something as good as this just by trying). There are two layers of inspiration nested together, and the result is powerfully explosive.

I am a latecomer to Harry Potter. The first books came out when I was about 15 of 16 and I was too old for them. I was also snooty about anything popular (a trait I still have). I have only read them all because my daughter was interested and it was something for me to read to her at bedtime. They are all flawed; the plots don't quite make sense; the writing can here and there be clunky. But it doesn't matter - the heart of the project is good. It is the right kind of story to be telling, and it is told well enough (and with wonderful charaterisation and dialogue) that it fits the bill for what brilliant fantasy fiction requires.

Earlier this week I was at the Warner Bros Studio Tour in Tokyo, which is dedicated to the Harry Potter film. And I was gratified on JK Rowling's behalf to see so many people from all around Asia (mostly Japanese, of course, but many from Thailand, the Phillippines, China, etc.) who were embracing her world and her creation. I found it very moving; what a thing it must be to write a story which transcends borders in that way and can unite people from across a vast continent in sheer pleasure. Good for her. 

I don't suspect that the great Crocodile Memory Palace novel will ever have its own Warner Bros Studio Tour in Tokyo - or Timbuktu. But one can nonetheless dream. Good luck to you, Ms Rowling. And thanks for the inspiration. 

But Where Is the Owner? Or, A Wizard's Garden; Or, Ged of the Golden Stars

The other day I took a walk with the kids to a plot of land, near my in-laws’ place in rural Japan, which is devoted to community use. There are some allotments, a little river walk area, a slide, and so forth. And, it being close to Children’s Day, there was a big display of koi nobori - the fish streamers that are hung up everywhere in Japan as part of the celebrations of spring. 

On a weekday in term-time it was deserted. The only sounds were the croaks of frogs from nearby rice fields, the occasional far-off call of a pheasant, and the sound of the breeze as it swept through the streamers, making them dance and flutter high above us. It was like a scene from a Ghibli film, accentuated by the inclusion of a free-standing pink door, situated as though at the gateway to play. This sensation was strengthened by the addition of a tiny shrine amongst some trees nearby.

It looked for all the world like a wizard or witch’s garden, the owner of which having gone off on an errand of some kind. To be there felt like trespassing. One half expected that at any moment the owner would suddenly walk out from behind a bush or rise up out of the ground or step through the pink doorway and demand, ‘What are you doing here? How dare you play on my slide?’

This is a trope of fantasy film and fiction, of course, and a great basis for an adventure site: the wizard's laboratory, garden, mansion house, etc., which the PCs can explore, but with a trigger or time limit that will activate guardians or the wizard's return itself (or both).

This garden I imagined to be owned by a wizard, who we'll call Ged in Golden Stars. He is a 12th level magic-user who is known by the glittering robe he wears, made from dark blue silk but covered in fist-sized stars made from golden thread. It is a Robe of Stars. Using it, Ged wanders the Astral Plane, which he accesses through the pink door in his garden; in an emergency, he can remove the stars and use them as throwing stars +5, which do 2d4 damage. There are 12 stars in total, and they replenish at midnight each night after use, unless all are used, in which case the robe is neutered and useless thereafter.

He also wears a ring of protection +5, a ring of shocking grasp, and carries a stave of thunder and withering, resembling a 7' long earthworm carved from teak. 

Ged in Golden Stars: HP 36, AC 4, #ATT1, DMG 1d4 (dagger), Move 120, ML 12, TT None

Spells Memorised: Magic Missile, Hold Portal, Hypnotism, Sleep, Detect Invisibility, Improved Phantasmal Force, Melf's Acid Arrow, Web, Clairaudience, Clairvoyance, Fireball, Suggestion, Dimension Door, Fire Trap, Polymorph Self, Rainbow Pattern, Chaos, Contact Other Plane, Distance Distortion, Teleport, Antimagic Shell, Demishadow Magic, Ensnarement, Permanent illusion, Prismatic Spray

Ged is normally in the Astral Plane. But he is alerted to the presence of intruders in his garden by four flower-shaped windmills place at its NW, NE, SW and SE corners. These begin to spin if a sentient being goes within 12'; Ged is then alerted and will appear in the doorway within 1d20 rounds. 

The garden has SEVEN GIANT BUMBLE BEES as guardians. These patrol the vicinity and will come to attack intruders within 1d12 rounds. 

Giant Bumble Bee: HD 6+4, AC 5, #ATT 1, DMG 1d6*, Move 60 (Fly 240), ML 9, TT None

*Sting causes additional 1d6 DMG on a failed save versus poison.

A line is strung up, 12' high, across the garden from roughly the centre of the N to S sides, from which hang 43 koi nobori. Within the lining of each of these banners is written a spell; these collectively function as Ged's spellbook. The spells are as follows

1st level: Audible Glamer, Cantrip, Magic Missile, Hold Portal, Taunt, Wall of Fog, Hypnotism, Sleep

2nd level: Alter Self, Blind, Detect Invisibility, Improved Phantasmal Force, Melf's Acid Arrow, Tasha's Uncontrollable Hideous Laughter, Web

3rd level: Clairaudience, Clairvoyance, Fireball, Gust of Wind, Lightning Bolt, Suggestion

4th level: Charm Monster, Dimension Door, Fire Trap, Polymorph Self, Rainbow Pattern, Rary's Mnemonic Enhancer

5th level: Chaos, Contact Other Plane, Distance Distortion, Major Creation, Teleport, Wall of Iron

6th level: Antimagic Shell, Demishadow Magic, Disintegrate, Ensnarement, Guards and Wards, Permanent Illusion, True Seeing

7th level: Limited Wish, Prismatic Spray, Vanish

The koi nobori catch the wind and hold it within their bodies. If one is removed from its position by any other than Ged, it immediately emits a blast of cursed magical wind akin to a death fog in a 10' cube. This will do 4hp damage to anybody in the area and also destroy the two koi nobori immediately to the left and right within 3 rounds. The koi nobori are lined up from S to N in ascending order of level/alphabet. 

To the rear of the garden is Ged's potting shed. This contains a 24' long potting table on which sit three rows of 10 plant plots each. His treasure is randomly distributed underneath these plant pots (one item beneath one plant pot): A black opal (1,000 gp), an emerald (5,000 gp), a topaz (500 gp), a fire opal (1,000 gp), an amethyst (500 gp), a peridot (500 gp), a gold snuff box decorated with flowers (500 gp), a pair of platinum chopsticks (750 gp), a porcelain blue rose (250 gp), a pair of 1" tall porcelain ducks (50 gp), a bracelet made of chunks of glass (10 gp), the feather of the down of a peacockatrice (50 gp), a catoblepas tooth carved to resemble a mountain peak (500 gp),  a potion of ESP, a philter of stammering and stuttering, a potion of undead control, a potion of vitality, an elixir of health, and an oil of timelessness.

It is watched over by a BLACK PUDDING which inhabits a 5' tall and 5' diameter clay pot decorated with a mosaic of tiny blue and orange square tiles. It emerges within 1d3 rounds of anybody entering the potting shed. 

Black Pudding: HD 10, AC 6, #ATT 1, DMG 3d8*, Move 60, ML 12, TT None

*Each successful hit dissolves armour - chain mail takes one hit to dissolve; plate mail takes two; any magical '+' takes an extra round