"The choice must be yours . . ."

"Alice, you cannot live your life to please others. The choice must be yours, because when you step out to face that creature, you will step out alone." - The White Queen

- Alice in Wonderland

When I first saw this film, this scene stood out to me above all others. For years I put pressure on myself, believing that the pressure was from the people around me, but it wasn't. People don't make choices for you. You make the choice yourself. And if you believe that people control you, then you allow them to do so. I have put pressure on myself for too long, and I have not listened to my own heart. I have avoided those important questions : "Who are you?" and "What do you want?".

But it's time to stop avoiding this. It's time to face my own Jabberwocky and make my decision. I will take one step forward, and I will start making my own decisions. 

I need to breakaway from the nest. I need to start paying attention to my own heart, and I need to start going after my dream, instead of just talking about it. 

No one can help me make these decisions, because these decisions don't affect them. Only I can do this, because when I face my own Jabberwocky, I will face it alone. It's time to be brave, and make the decison instead of run from it. 

Amazing Kdrama dialogue

I've seen a lot of Kdrama and witnessed some amazing dialogue, but the most recent Kdrama Cheongdam-dong Alice just triumphed over every single scene I have been amazed by.

In context, Cheongdam-dong Alice is the story of Se Kyung, who is the Alice of the story. She is poor and loves fashion. One day, she decides to enter the Wonderland of Cheongdam and become a famous designer. In order to do this, she takes advice from a former enemy in High School who has achieved the finer life and has invented a formula to make it happen. She is the Queen of Hearts in the story She tells Se Kyung that she must find a "white rabbit" to escort her into the finer life.
Enter Seung Jo, the mad hatter character who poses as Secretary Kim to avoid being treated differently by Se Kyung. Once he falls for her, he eventually has to reveal this secret. He has gone from the bottom of the ladder to the top as president of Artemis, a well known and famous fashion brand.
Because Se Kyung doesn't know he is the president Jean Thierry Cha, she seeks another White Rabbit and succeeds in becoming well known to a famous designer who becomes the White Rabbit. Misunderstanding Se Kyung's intentions, the White Rabbit believes that she is a gold digger out for an opportunity for money. This continues once he discovers that Secretary Kim is Jean Thierry Cha, and he believes that Se Kyung has known this all along.
At the same time, Se Kyung's friend tells her who Secretary Kim is, before he does, and begins to feel guilty after he finally admits to the lie, and confesses his feelings for her. So she does what anyone racked with guilt would do, she avoids him and runs away. She also tells him that he is too above her in status.
Meanwhile, the White Rabbit won't let her relationship with Jean Thierry Cha go without consequences, and he bribes her to leave and go to a fashion school if she will stay away from him. After the contract is laid out in front of her, Se Kyung proceeds to tell the White Rabbit that her feelings and Seung Jo's feelings are genuine, but the White Rabbit doesn't listen and tells her that she is dirty because she is a poor person in love with a rich person.
Se Kyung is left to choose, leave for France, or be with someone she loves, but she is still racked with guilt, and every attempt Seung Jo makes to get close to her, she runs away. Seung Jo doesn't give up and prepares a major dinner to confess directly, but Se Kyung doesn't show up. After a pep talk from both his friends and Se Kyung's friends, he decides to find her.
After they track her down, Seung Jo finds her at the bottom of a stair well. He runs down the stairs (symbolically showing that he has left the pedestal of his status) and stands in front of a surprised Se Kyung, ready to confess. When he does, this is what he says:
"Don't go!  Today I was going to confess to you. I was going to play a really cool movie ,and following the script ,I was going to do a  really cool confession! I used too think that love was something you felt only at first sight. I didn't know that you could drown in it slowly . If love had a time limit, I want my love to last ten thousand years. Until the day I die, will you love me? I don't want ththat. Until the day I die, I will love you! And, well ,I was going to confess using this cool script, But none of this is right. That kind of stuff isn't me. I am a coward, because the person I love might throw me away. They might leave me. I am afraid. I get scared! When I was little, my mother let go of my hand and left me. Once, the person I loved suddenly packed her bags and left. These things haunt my dreams.  Sometimes I'm so afraid that I turn the lights on. Now you know. I am not a cool CEO. I am not a prince who can save you. I'm just someone who loves Se Kyung.  An ordinary man. Se Kyung, I love you to the point of being annoying. So if you are able to accept a person like me, decide, Ms Se Kyung. Please, instead of abandoning me, instead of running away. Se Kyung, rescue me."

After hearing this, Se Kyung begins to cry and asks him if he can wait for an hour. She runs back to the White Rabbit and tells him:
"You said love is like a name. Like the thousands of thousands names in the world, doesn’t matter what you call it, it is the mind of the person saying it. You’re right. My feelings for Cha Seung-Jo are ugly. But ugly love is still love. So, from now on these feelings of mine for Cha Seung-Jo, I will call it ugly love. You said I could call it whatever I like so I will. It may be ugly, but it’s my love for Cha Seung-Jo. So YOU give up. I will never give up my ugly love." 

These monologues are absolutely amazing!

As a side note: These actors do a great job, and they are so cute together. 

 

Adversity

"Adversity is the state in which man most easily becomes acquainted with himself." - Battleship 2012


         I find this quote very true, especially in stories. A character will only learn who they are when they reach that moment where everything is lost or everything goes wrong. What they do in that moment defines who they are and what they are capable of. I just finished reading The Kane Chronicles by Rick Riordan and I discovered that Sadie and Carter are strong reliable characters when they face adversity. Even with other problems or angst around them, the task at hand becomes their main focus and they always do the best they can. These actions define internal strength of character. Many stories focus on the result of adversity. Mulan faces adversity to learn what she can do. Alice must face the Jabberwocky in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland to discover herself. Aang constantly faces adversity and in doing so, he discovers who he is, and how he can restore peace and balance to himself and the world. Harry Potter is forced to face adversity with every encounter with Voldemort.  Emma finds strength and courage in the face of adversity in ABC's Once Upon A Time. And, of course in the movie Battleship, Alex Hopper discovers what he is capable of when adversity strikes unexpectedly and leaves him to become the leader of a ship he never believed he could command. 
       Maybe there is a truth to thinking that way in real life. Sure it's not easy, buy maybe a crisis or conflict can be viewed as a test of will and character. This is why authors say that you cannot be too kind to your characters. If you pamper them, they will never learn or grow, no matter how hard you try to force them to. It makes a lot of sense. A character must be relatable to the audience and if the author wrote about someone on cloud nine all the time, it would get boring and repetitive. The character wouldn't change, learn or develop at all. There must be a challenge, a conflict or an intrusion into the character's world. If not, there is no story. 
      Once a character is faced with a hopeless situation, it is their reaction to adversity that makes them interesting. Any character does this, a hero, a villain, a sidekick and a mentor are all effected by adversity in some way. Their personalities are formed around their experiences with adversity. Villains tend to dwell on the past and hold grudges while heroes rise above their inner chaos and find the strength and courage to believe in them selves. Mentors teach heroes to face adversity through their own experience. 
     Adversity is a powerful factor in a story, and in a person's life. People learn through experience, and those that overcome adversity are a little more confident in handling tough situations. Real story characters must accept or reject adversity in some way in order to be considered a sympathetic character. Adversity allows a person to discover who they are and what they are capable of. It can be anything, but once the person accepts adversity, they grow a little stronger.

Who you are and What you are

         The latest episode for My Little Pony Friendship is Magic focused on Spike and walked through his journey to discover who he is and what he is capable of. He found other dragons, and tried to learn the things they do and fit in with the crowd. He discovered that just because he was a dragon, he didn't have to or want to act like one. Spike decided who he was by doing what he enjoyed instead of what was expected of him due to his label.
          Labels can be a positive or negative thing. By giving someone a general title, specific expectations are related to that name. A worker is expected to work, a student is expected to study and an artist is expected to create art. Other labels like jock, nerd and prep have nothing to do with who a person is, unless they choose to make the label become who they are. Once you put a label on a person, they become a one dimensional persona in your mind. Whether the persona is good or bad depends on your acknowledgement of people. People give themselves labels to define who they are, especially if they are judgmental of  others and want to create a specific clique to belong to.
          Even if you enjoy activities associated with the label of prep, nerd or jock, the label itself will  never be who you truly are. Spike learned this when he met other dragons, and tried to pass every test they gave him, due to the pressure he felt in not knowing his identity.
          Alice from Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland goes on a similar journey. Everyone tells her that she is the wrong Alice but only when she tells Absolem who she is, does she gain the power to face the Jabberwocky. Alice learns who she is by discovering what she can do. She makes decisions to change her fate, and prove everyone wrong that she's the wrong Alice.
         The message of these stories is simple: Only you have the power to decide who you are and what you can do. Spike learned this by meeting other dragons, and Alice learned this by acting on what she wanted to do. Both characters had let other people determine who they were by doing what was expected of them, but they finally discovered what they really wanted to do and who they wanted to be. Going on a journey of self discovery is an important rite of passage in everyone's life. Age, time and situation is irrelevant. Once something threatens you to lose your identity or condemns you to a label, it is only natural to question if this is really who you are and who you want to be.
         As Spike says in the episode, "Who I am is not the same as what I am."
Who you are is your decision while what you are is the person people think you are. The self is a complex thing that can never be defined through one label. 

How to be Alice Kingsley

Wear a beautiful baby blue dress
No corset (They are like codfish after all)
Stockings are optional (unless you're against them)
Claim to see a white rabbit in a waistcoat
Curl your hair (But it wont stay up in pins for long)
Appear very "distracted" by using your imagination
Wonder about things
Don't be like Aunt Imogene
Have nightmares about a dodo bird and blue caterpillar
Visit a place called Wonderland (or Underland)
Obtain your "muchness"
Go by the name of Um
Make sure you're the right Alice
Follow your destined path or make your own
Believe as much as six impossible things before breakfast
Befriend a Mad Hatter
Speak with Absolem
Become a champion
Obtain the Vorpal Sword
Face the Bandersnatch
Talk with a cat that can smile
Slay the Jabberwocky
Eat Upelkuchen and drink Pishalver
Explain events as "Curiouser and Curiouser"
Shrink and grow until you find the right size
Discover who you are
Claim to love rabbits "especially white ones"
Dance the Futterwacken
Board a ship called "Wonder"
Transform to "Alice"

Psychology in Alice in Wonderland

So, I'm working on my essay for my Mythology class and I have purchased the Tim Burton version of Alice in Wonderland and I am currently reading the novel on the movie. I found it fascinating that Burton decided to do an emotional journey for Alice from the beginning. Anne Hathaway explains that the original version of Alice is a story where all the characters she meets are people she doesn't want to be. She's on a quest to find who she isn't. In this version of Alice in Wonderland, Alice must find who she is. As I've observed before, she does this through the myth quest. It appears that because the story revolved around Alice's internal world which mirrors the external, everything in Wonderland is a different approach at her situations in the real world. The sizes she goes through represent her confidence and her "muchness" increases through out the film. Another interesting observation is that the Bandersnatch wound she gets reflects her disbelief of all that is happening around her. This is an emotional battle with grief and self doubt. The prophesied battle with the Jabberwocky is really the internal struggle of Alice with her negative emotions. This can also be viewed through the battle between the passive White Queen and the aggressive Red Queen. Alice must find herself somewhere in the middle. I think this essay may go well.

Slaying the darkness within

I had to write a proposal for an essay on Mythology and a movie or book of my choice. So I popped in Alice in Wonderland by Tim Burton while doing the dishes and lo and behold I saw the myth quest! The myth quest starts with society needing an object of some kind to become whole again. This object is the vorpal sword, a symbol of courage. They then search for the hero to go on a journey to retrieve the object and thus heal society. Alice is the hero in her own myth quest. She travels through Wonderland, which could also be her subconscious, because she is lost and doesn't know who she is. Along the way she meets the archetypes of the fool (Chesire Cat), mentor (Hatter), seer(Absolum), and caregiver(The White Queen) to aid her journey. Of course the ultimate climax is the end battle with the Jabberwocky and the queens, Red and White. Alice must now face the darkness within, as the passive side of herself must battle the aggressive side. The white queen and red queen are shadows of Alice at an extreme. One represents light while the other represents darkness. Thus the entire story of Alice journeying through Wonderland is the myth quest where Alice journeys through her subconscious to discover who she is. At the end of the film she has conquered the shadow (Jabberwocky) and banished the darkness (Red Queen). While Alice travels through Wonderland, she learns about herself and ultimately transforms into who she wants to be. It's no wonder I enjoyed this movie! It has a great plot and a timeless storyline.