The Eye of the Cyclone

One can be in the eye of a storm and all seems calm, but it doesn't change the reality that they're in a storm.

Imagine living in this sort of climate.

This reminds me of the scene in The Wizard of Oz (the 1939 film not the book) where Dorothy is in the house that has been picked up by the cyclone.

Waking up from her "nap" Dorothy looks out and sees some odd things the window of her room. She encounters some chickens, an older woman sewing in a chair who starts waving not really noticing that she's in a storm, a cow and some people on a rowboat who wave hello.

It's upon looking down that Dorothy figures out "We must be up inside the cyclone!"

Miss Gulch / The Wicked Witch appears and everything in the house turns violent before the house falls down. Situations like these make one wish it were all a dream. Just as Dorothy didn't seem to notice right away that she was actually in the cyclone, neither did the other people she encountered. This is because they were all in the eye of the storm. What became of the other people in the cyclone is never known (not thinking about the "plot twist" at the end of the movie, but not the book.)

Sometimes we live in a storm, but because we're able to stay (possibly because of our own privileges or desires) in the eye of it, we don't see what is happening to us until the damage of the storm has already come to pass. On the other hand, those on the outside of the storm and those living in the most violent parts see it all too well.

Retcon (Retro Continuity)

Retcon is something that occurs sometimes in series and franchises which take place in the same continuity. This happens in a book series or TV series when something is mentioned (or not mentioned) in Book 3, for example, (or Season 3, etc.) that seems to contradict the continuity of an earlier book/episode. For example, in Book 1, a character has two brothers, and they mention only having two brothers, but then in Book 4, a never-before-mentioned third brother appears, and everyone seems to know him.

Sometimes we see the opposite where a sibling (or other character) disappears without an explanation, and it's as if they never existed. This is called the Chuck Cunningham Syndrome named after the forgotten Happy Days brother. Other examples of this include Tiger in The Brady Bunch, Judy in Family Matters and a lot of characters in Doctor Who....

Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome could also be considered a retcon, which is common in television series and sometimes movies, but probably rare in books, since the reason is to replace the child actors with older actors. (Cartoons like The Simpsons and Rugrats could be considered the reverse.)

Another type of retcon can occur not from exact contradictions in continuity, but from introducing an object or character in the franchise that was never mentioned before, where the opportunity could have allowed a mention, but it didn't because the writers probably didn't know about it yet.

A television example of this would be in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers Season 2. In the season premiere we're introduced to Lord Zedd, the superior to Rita Repulsa. (He was introduced as a new villain because they were out of Japanese footage and were replacing it with original footage, which explains why Rita was later replaced by a different actress, although her voice was the same.) The reason this feels like a retcon (even to children who saw it like myself) is that not once in all 60 episodes of Season 1 was there ever any mention of Rita having a superior leader (and later we'd introduce more villains that were part of an even larger villain group in the galaxy led by Dark Specter)... Also the fact that Rita was trapped in a dumpster for 10,000 years also adds to the retcons, especially when her brother and father are added in Season 3. (The movie with Ivan Ooze is not considered a retcon, since it took place in a different continuity despite having most of the same cast from the series.)

Once Upon a Time has been pretty good at keeping up with continuity for the most part where little has ever contradicted... despite a number of characters who have shown up having never been mentioned before. Still there have been a number of Chekhov's Gun examples (which is one way to avoid the accusation of retcons...) Many retcon issues have been explained by memory magic, for example, Emma's relation with the Snow Queen or Regina and Zelena's childhood experience. One of the biggest times I felt retcon was in the Season 4 episode where Robin Hood has a history in Oz with Zelena. The reason this feels a little like a retcon is that a year earlier Robin and Regina were having dialogue about what to do with Zelena, and I don't remember him ever saying that he had met the Wicked Witch. Technically I don't think he ever said that he didn't know her, but the fact that he didn't mention it, when there would have been an opportunity is what seems to mess with the continuity.

I'm not even going to go into examples of retcon from Doctor Who, which has existed for so long that it's bound to happen...

(Not necessarily retcon... but Captain Kirk seemed to violate the Prime Directive in the original Star Trek series.)

Now when it comes to books... I haven't experienced this as much with books which take place in the same continuity, although the Oz books come into mind (I know, first Once Upon a Time, and now this, I have a habit of bringing up Oz, and this probably won't be the last.) The Wicked Witch was rarely mentioned in later books... fair enough since she only appeared in one chapter and was only mentioned a few times beyond that... but the Good Witch of the North basically disappeared from the continuity. Without giving away specific spoilers, there were also retcons made involving the Wizard and Ozma.

In my own writing, I have tried to deal with this. If I know that a character has an unseen sibling or a cousin, I don't want to wait too long to mention this. (Although that doesn't mean it has to be a gratuitous mention, but at some point I do need to think about the reasons for why related characters are absent.) This is why it can be a great advantage to think ahead while revising the draft of a novel. The Face of the Pumpkin is written as a standalone book in which all the major plot points are resolved in twelve chapters. However, that doesn't mean that I didn't include information that was both relative to the characters and that story that may have also been a Chekhov's Gun/Boomerang for later stories. (I also may or may not have written most of the first draft of a sequel...)

OUAT: 5 Seasons

In the past I've written posts about one of my most loved TV series, so I thought I would write another article, especially in response to the loose ends and other things mentioned in those articles.

First of all... here was my (totally '90s) thought to the plot reveal
of the Season 5 finale of Once Upon a Time.

If you've never seen The Pagemaster, this is probably not much of a spoiler. Be warned if you don't want spoilers for things that have happened during the first five seasons of Once Upon a Time.

Here is the latest OUAT article I wrote last year.
http://bennyrotondi-smith.blogspot.com/2015/07/once-upon-time-beyond.html

Since then one minor loose end was formed which was a question that has existed since Episode 1x17 (Hat Trick), which was how Regina's father ended up a prisoner in Wonderland. Despite people's head-canons that it could have taken place during Cora's flashbacks in the Season 4 episode "Mother"... it turned out that Cora returned from Wonderland a different time as seen in the flashback for 5x12 "Souls of the Departed" where Regina has drama with both of her parents. We also saw a flashback that (although felt a little like retcon) showed Cora's relation to Zelena, and I'm glad that we saw some of Regina's childhood (although it did not answer the loose end of what happened to King Xavier's kingdom.)

I also enjoyed seeing Camelot in the first half of the season, since there had been hints of it in the past few seasons, for example we saw a sort of prequel to 4x12 "Heroes and Villains" with the gauntlet, and we also saw the return of Lancelot... although I admit I was a bit disappointed how he was written out as well as his situation with Guinevere. I was glad that we got to see Mulan and Ruby again and more of Oz, and I hope we haven't seen the last of them! I also hope we haven't seen the last of Maleficent and Lily, because I feel there were still loose ends on that end as well.

Although it's not likely, I would like to find out (even if it's resolved in a book or something) some explanation to the anomaly of Will Scarlet's appearances as a starring character in Season 4. He was introduced as if we'd find some big reveal with him, but he didn't do much... I think the Sorcerer's Hat had more screen time (and more plot significance) than he did in Season 4. For people who didn't watch the spinoff "Once Upon a Time in Wonderland"... the character must have been a mystery.... for those of us who did watch the spinoff, it's a mystery what happened to Anastasia and why he left Wonderland. Now that the Merry Men have left, we may never know. Also what happened to Rapunzel? lol (A character self-contained in Episode 3x14 "The Tower")

http://bennyrotondi-smith.blogspot.com/2014/06/questions-on-once-upon-time.html

Above is a list of questions I made after Season 3.... Question 3 did get answered in a major way of course, concerning Zelena and Cora.

Also...

Question 11 - We did find out what happened to Mulan (who had a storyline in DunBroch) 

Question 13 - Answered in 5x12

Question 14 - Not answered lol 

Question 16 - We did get to see what happened to Dorothy and the Silver Slippers! 5x16/5x18

Of course since then a whole lot of other questions have come up...

Also I'm glad we got to see the Dragon again! I wonder what the Evil Queen will do with his heart and what other new characters and dangerous situations involving magic we will see next season!

Once Upon a Time: Beyond

Here is the cover for the Once Upon a Time comic book Out of the Past, which ABC/Marvel released this spring. Unlike the previous comic book, this one divides itself into four separate stories focusing on Killian Jones (Hook), Rumple/Belle, Regina and Jefferson (The Mad Hatter). I enjoyed Jefferson's Wonderland story the most. Plus we also see a little bit of Camelot in Jefferson's story, which will be a major setting next season.

Last year I wrote an article talking about loose ends and things I wanted to see for Season 4. As we stand in the middle of summer with about 70 days left until the Season 5 premiere, now would be a good time to see what came true. Spoiler Warning if you have not caught up to the end of Season 4!

Here is the article:http://bennyrotondi-smith.blogspot.com/2014/06/questions-on-once-upon-time.html

Note that many of these loose ends involve withheld information that the show may never reveal, which probably the case for 1-6 and several others. For number 7 it is mentioned/implied how Hook and Baelfire left Neverland, but we never actually saw such flashbacks. For this article, I will comment on the questions that did have at least a partial answer.

13. How did Regina’s father, Henry, end up a prisoner in Wonderland? (Is he “The King of Hearts”?) 
In episode 4x20 "Mother" many have suspected that the flashback scenes with Cora occur around the same time that Cora took Henry,Sr. to Wonderland although we did not see it onscreen. I also loved hearing a mention to the White Rabbit which confirmed the theory that Cora did indeed know him. 
18. What is the full back story to Maleficent and her relationship with Aurora and Phillip?
We did not see the full back story, but we did see a lot of Maleficent. I wrote this question before hearing the news that Maleficent would return for a major story arc. Most of Maleficent's flashbacks focused on her history with Snow White and David as well as Regina and Rumple (and Cruella and Ursula and what Snow and David did to her). It has not been announced if Maleficent will return next year but we may find out more about her next season. 

19. How was Ariel’s relationship with her family under the sea?
We did see Ariel one more time in Season 4, but not her family. Instead, we saw Ursula's relationship with her father Poseidon, which had strong parallels to Ariel and King Triton. 

20. How will Elsa/ The Snow Queen fit into OUAT?!!!
It's funny that when I wrote this article, I did not know that Elsa and the Snow Queen would be two separate characters, I was just referring to the original fairy tale. We found out a lot during Season 4A, including Emma's involvement in the sister story. 

One question that I did not write in this article, but something I and many other Oncers thought was the identity of the author of the storybook, which turned out to be a major issue in Season 4!

I also wrote this article:
http://bennyrotondi-smith.blogspot.com/2014/09/once-upon-time-returns-in-less-than-week.html

I wrote about the characters I wanted to see return. Not only did we see Zelena again, but she returned in a big way. We saw a little bit of Oz again and found out that Will Scarlet once lived in Oz and that's where he met Robin Hood. Zelena will also return in Season 5 as a series regular. Robin Hood will also be an official regular, however Will will no longer be a starring cast member, however I still don't know if he will return as a guest star, considering the big plot holes with his character.

As mentioned before, we did see Maleficent return as I had hoped and a little bit of Aurora, but only a little and no Phillip. We definitely saw some of Emma's foster families and in the comic book Out of the Past, mentioned above, we met Priscilla, Grace's mother. Also in Season 4 we saw Ashley (Cinderella) appear in an episode, as well as Cora. Next Season we will see Lancelot again and Merlin too!

Character Backstories

http://writershelpingwriters.net/2015/06/3-quick-tips-to-help-readers-connect-to-your-hero/

Here is an article I found about ways to allow readers to connect to the hero(es).

There is a section called "Understand What Came Before" which is a bit funny since it states, "The character’s life did not begin on page one, so we need to spend some time thinking about their past." 

 The irony is that in the case of my book, The Face of the Pumpkin, the main POV (point of view) character's life really does begin on page one, due to the character being "born" as the result of a magic spell. A similar condition exists with literary characters such as Pinocchio, as well as a handful of characters from L.Frank Baum's Oz stories. There have been also a number of stories with robot/android protagonists who are born at the beginning of the story.

In this sense the Pumpkin is like a child in many ways but with instant intelligence "programmed" into the character and with the capability of instant learning. (One major skill is that the protagonist can understand any human language). The protagonist's condition is based on the current condition of wanting to learn about the world of humans and reflecting those differences as opposed to being a walking, talking Pumpkin who has a great deal to prove in order to save the Society of Sorcery.  Our hero feels abandoned, rejected from the witch named Annie, who was so focused on her Necromancy Spell, that she neglected her sentient creation.

This brings me to some of the other characters, Annie Airgid, who is one of the most important characters in the book, has had a huge history and much of the story deals with her previous backstory as well as how it intersects with other characters. The story is told from the neonate Pumpkin, and through this character, we learn about the setting in Salem and many of the main players such as Annie, the ghost named Gordy and the Bat named Eeltog. All of these characters have  histories that are relevant in the present and will be significant in the future.

Once Upon a Time Returns in Less than a Week!

[SPOILER ALERT]
As you know, earlier I made a post back in June
about some unanswered questions that are still held
over since Season 3 ended. Let's see how many of the 20 questions are answered next season!

Last season dealt with an Oz theme (although Oz only actually appeared in 2 episodes) and focused on the Wicked Witch of the West and the mystery of the gap year. Rumple apparently destroyed her but will she return (at least in flashbacks)??

Zelena, The Wicked Witch of the West

One thing I did not include was what happened to Jefferson and who is Grace's mother and how was she lost? This of course is because unfortunately Sebastian Stan, who plays Jefferson, like Jamie Dornan, has been busy with many film projects. We all know what happened to Sheriff Graham/The Huntsman, but what Jefferson is doing is quite a mystery.

Jefferson, The Mad Hatter

The Huntsman (Sheriff Graham) 

Of the 20 questions I placed, we all that number 20 will definitely be a main issue when the season begins!

We will also see a return of Sidney Glass/ The Magic Mirror, who as we know, was also a Genie of Agrabah. But was he Aladdin's genie? (Making the presumption that Aladdin exists in the OUAT universe). In the Wonderland spin-off there were several different genies, so I wonder if any of them are connected with Aladdin or if Jafar had any connection to an Aladdin character or perhaps connected to any other OUAT character (such as Cora, Regina, Rumple, etc.) It would be amazing to see him return!

Sidney Glass/The Magic Mirror/Genie of Agrabah 

Jafar 

Speaking of the Wonderland spin-off, Will Scarlet/ The Knave of Hearts (the first one) will be appearing as a character this season on the regular Once Upon a Time. We know he had a history with Robin Hood and the merry men. I wonder who else!

Robin Hood with Will Scarlet, The Knave of Hearts

I also wonder what happened to some of the other Oz characters.

Glinda, The Witch of the South

Walsh, The Wizard of Oz

Dorothy Gale

And then there are other characters we haven't seen much lately, whom I'd love to see return (at least in flashbacks)

Mulan

Aurora

Prince Philip 

Maleficent 

Rapunzel

Cinderella (Ashley) 

Tinker Bell

Lancelot

Cora, the Queen of Hearts

Another interesting point is when we have cases where characters have been specifically mentioned (not necessarily by name but mentioning them beyond simple implication) but haven't yet appeared (as far as we know)

* The Black Fairy
* King George's Late Wife
* The mother of Grace/Paige (Jefferson's daughter)
* Merlin
* Emma's foster family (families)
* And Probably more to come and others I've forgotten!

Film and Television

I've already written about my interests in books. I'm also really into fantasy films, which shouldn't be too big of a surprise. I love Disney films as well as other film versions of the same genre as the books I love.

TV series that I watch include Once Upon a Time, Doctor Who, Star Trek and Game of Thrones.

Escapism and Fantasy in Oz

I often read fiction novels that take me into different worlds and have been called by friends an escapist. I love the fantasy genre of books such as The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Chronicles of Prydain and anything written by Roald Dahl. As a child I was always intrigued with fairy tales and anything fantasy and I don't think that ever escaped me. 

Probably the most influential book however was reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L.Frank Baum, as well as its many sequels and spin-offs. Before reading the book I had previously seen the delightful 1939 film, which inspired me to read the book, which took me on an imaginative journey unlike anything I could experience from just watching a movie. This then encouraged me to read more and later I would read all of Baum's thirteen sequels such as The Marvelous Land of Oz, Ozma of Oz, The Patchwork Girl of Oz, Tik-Tok of Oz and The Scarecrow of Oz as well as many of Baum's non-Oz books like The Sea Fairies, Sky Island and John Dough and the Cherub. The world of Oz is probably more known in film and stage than the original books, for example the 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz, Return to Oz, the musicals The Wiz and Wicked, the mini-series Tinman and the film Oz: The Great and Powerful.

I really admired the comraderie seen during the different journeys as well as the diversity of characters such as The Scarecrow, The Tin Woodman, The Cowardly Lion, The Good Witch Glinda, Jack Pumpkinhead and Tik-Tok the Clockwork Man (considered the first "robot" of literature, before the term was coined). There was always a great sense of fantastic escapism where magical adventures occur within such an idealistic utopian society, where all the animals can talk (as well as many "objects") and such a diverse group of people can live in harmonious friendship.

 It were these books that strongly inspired me to be a writer of fantasy fiction. I have already placed ideas of stories of my own, such as The Flying Giraffe, Jack and the Gryphon and Oliver and the Emperor of Wolves. I'm also very strongly inspired to one day be involved with film (especially animation) but that costs more money, so I will probably start with writing. If I do manage to make films, I am definitely interested in the fantasy genre and definitely interested in adapting my own stories, but also from the works previously mentioned by L. Frank Baum, most of which have been forgotten in the last 100 years. From what I have heard many of these books in the Oz series were very popular at the beginning of the 20th century, having a similar intrigue to the Harry Potter books of today. This puts these books in the category of books that one reads for fun, however its idealist fantasyland, as described earlier, does hold implications and thoughts of how one views their own world and the people within.

*Note, that this was taken from a writing paper I did in a Media and Society class in 2012. Since then the titles Jack and the Gryphon and Oliver and the Emperor of Wolves, are no longer current writing goals at this time, however I do still have strong intentions for The Flying Giraffe project. I just decided to put this up for its obvious relevance to this blog.