Blog 13

Darren Shan's real name is Darren O'Shaughnessy. Although he is Irish, he was born on July 2nd, 1972. He started school at early age of three. Although Shan always wanted to be a writer, it was only in his teenage years that he began writing in his spare time for fun. Shan was 17 when he finished his first novel.

The book contains many characters, like wolves, humans and of course, vampires. The vampires in the Saga are different from the standard vampires found in popular culture. They are truly alive, can be killed by several means, like piercing of the heart and are not entirely evil. Vampires don't drink from the neck, but cut a vein of a victim, and drink blood from there. Then, they use their saliva to close the wound, so the person doesn't realize that they were bitten. Also, they don't have fangs like other vampires, but fight with swords and knifes. They don't fly in this book, but only flint or run in fast speed. There are two different kinds of vampires: vampires and vampaneze. The vampires and vampeneze were at first, all vampires. Then, along came Desmond Tiny and places Vampire Princes to lead all other Vampires. A few vampires didn't like this and this, on top of the fact that they wanted to kill those they drunk from, led them to leave the vampires forever.

Many years after the split, there was peace between the vampires and vampeneze. This was stirred when Mr. Tiny came along again and gave the vampeneze the coffin of fire. This, when the correct person stepped in would show the true leader of the vampeneze. If they weren't leader, they perished. Although the vampeneze didn't like leadership, they wanted to win the upcoming war as stated by Mr. Tiny. Word spread around to the vampires telling them that the coffin had chosen a leader. This led to Mr. Tiny telling the vampires to hunt the lord down. He also told the vampeneze to protect the lord and made the prime protector Gannen Harst. He had to travel everywhere with the lord. Toward the climax of the war, Steve, the Vampeneze lord, ends up getting killed by Darren Shan and much later, the war was coming to a end as both side discussed a treaty in order to stop the bloodshed.

In this book, it starts out as Darren as the main character who lives in a world of humans. He lives the live that his parents planned out for him, but for him, it's boring and dull. He tries to find another way for new life. His friend, Steve, encourages Darren to go to a freak show after finding an advertisement on the road. Later, after the show, Steve goes to Mr. Crespley, and asks Mr. Crespley to turn him into a vampire. After tasting Steve's blood, Mr. Crespley disagrees and sends Steve away. Darren hears the entire conversation on the balcony and quickly leaves to the performance stage. Mr. Crespley finds him there wondering and gives him an offer: to become a vampire. Darren accepts the offer and begins his life as a half-vampire.

When Steve gets injured, Mr.Crespley tells Darren that in order for Steve to survive, he has to become his assistant. Steve lives but Darren is turned into a half-vampire and is pulled into the dark world of the vampires. He begins to live it, but goes through many hardships with his family, friends in order to save his darken secret. After been blooded by Mr. Crespley, he begins to urge for blood in order to keep himself alive. But what he doesn't feel like doing is biting his own family, including his little sister. He avoids it but he urges more and more for the liquid that keeps him physically capable. In order to avoid sudden urges, he decides to join Mr.Crespley after nearly attacking his sister. To free Darren of all previous bonds, including family, Mr. Crespley helps his apprentice fake his own death by first drinking the potion and then perfectly simulating an accidental, but fatal fall.

Following Darren's human body's funeral, Mr. Crepsley digs Darren up. By using the monomyth by Joseph Campbell, that would be like the belly of the whale or death and rebirth. Darren begins his new life as a vampire, ending his days as a human by encountering Steves who vows on his blood to track him and his mentor, Mr. Crespley, down to the ends of Earth as the world's best vampire Hunter there was. Later in time, Steve does go into the coffin of fire and becomes a lord of vampaneze. Even though he was Darren's best friend, Darren has to hunt him down and kill him because he's a vampaneze lord.

Although he is far stronger than any human, he is still finding it hard to adjust to his new life. His unchallenged strength causes him to be alone, as he can not make any human friends without breaking their arms. He got twice the strengh of a human, and he can run fast not as normally as humans do. Although he has these gifts, he doesn't want to be discovered in human world. He lives with his mentor, Mr. Crespley in the freak town where all people with abilities live.

Work cited

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirque_du_Freak
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth
http://circuedufreak.wikia.com/wiki/vampaneze
http://www.darrenshan.com/facts/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Saga_of_Darren_Shan

Blog 12: prewriting

In this blog, I will be using the book "The Vampire Assistant". It starts out with a boy, named Darren Shan, who goes to school, has a normal life, but doesn't really likes it since it is boring and planned out. In the story, Darren looks for a new life which he can enjoy( call for the quest). He and his friend Steve go to a freak show, where Steve get spooked and Darren goes completely numb and watched it without hesitation. There was a performance of Mr. Crespley, who was really a vampire, but no one knew about it, except Steve. Mr. Cresley had a dangerous spider, which he controls with his telepatic powers and with the flute. After the show, Steve goes to Mr. Crespley and asks him to turn him into a vampire. Mr. Cresley refuses after tasting Steve's blood and tells him that it's bad. It also has a connection of hero's quest, since Darren is the one that should have the quest, and not Steve. After the show, Darren bumps with Mr. Crespley and he gives Darren a choice, to become a vampire. Darren agrees and tries to live a life of a vampire.

At first, he lives as he can, but not for a long time, since he almost bitten his sister in order to get some blood. Before this happened, Mr. Crespley tells Darren that he has to disappear from the human world in order to be a full vampire. Darren refuses that since he can't just leave or disappear immediately, because his parents would start looking for him. That would be the second part of the hero's quest. When Steve gets injured by the spider, Darren is given a choice: first one is that Steve dies and Darren loses a friend and another one is Steve lives and Darren leaves the world of humans. Steve's only hope for survival is if Darren makes a deal with Mr. Crespley to become his assistant. Steve lives, but Darren is turned into a half-vampire and is pulled into the dark world of the vampires.

The Belly of the Whale would be when Darren has to fake his own death by using a potion, given by Mr. Crespley. It's like death and rebirth into a new life. In order to free Darren of all previous bonds, including family, Mr. Crespley helps his apprentice fake his own death by perfectly simulating an accidental but fatal fall. Following Darren's human body's funeral, Mr. Crespley digs Darren up, which would be like death and rebirth. Darren begins his new life as a vampire, ending his days as a human by encountering Steve who vows on his blood to track him and his mentor, Mr.Crespley, down to the end of the Earth as the world's best vampire Hunter when he grows up. When Steve is like that, there is some connection between good and evil. Since Steve will become a vampire hunter and then a vampeneze, he and Darren will strike unto each other, like the collision of evil and good. In this story, there are two kind of vampires. Vampeneze would be a violent kind of vampire, who needs blood in order to survive, but this kind kills his victims. Vampires, in this story, do not. They cut a small incesion on their victims legs, or where the vein is in the leg and drink from there. Then, they close that up with their saliva, so the person would never realize they were bitten by a vampire when they wake up.

Although Darren is stronger than any human, he is still finding it hard to adjust to his new life. His unchallenging strength causes him to be alone as he can not make any human friends without breaking their arms. There are many challenges that are in his way.Those are the struggles that he had to overcome. In order to be a full vampire, Darren had to go through different tasks. First, is his super strengh, which gives him trouble. Second, he refuses to drink human blood even though his mentor, Mr. Crespley tells him to. Eventually, Darren learns the lesson after he grows weak. Then, Darren tries to live amongst humans, but eventually decides to join Mr. Crespley after nearly attacking his sister.
Third, he was given a task of destroying or killing Steve in order to prevent blood shed between vampires and vampeneze.

Work Cited

Wikipedia article, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirque_du_Freak
Wikipedia article, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth

Blog #11: My chosen story

Picture taken from http://www.freebestmovies.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Cirque-Du-Freak-The-Vampires-Assistant-movie-poster.jpg

I'm choosing the book called "The vampire's assistant" since I want to write about vampires. It's a story about a boy named Darren who really wants to be someone else in his life. Everything bores him to death in his life, he needs something new and exciting. So, he and his friend Steve went to a freak show, where they saw Mr. Crepsley, who is real vampire. After the show, Steve goes to him and asks him to turn him into a vampire. Mr. Crepsley tells Steve that his blood is evil and he cannot become a vampire. Steve leaves, feeling angry. Darren, who was hearing the entire conversation in a closet, gets out of it and steals Mr. Crepsley's spider and keeps her with him. Later on, Darren bumps into Mr. Crepsley and he gives Darren an offer to become a vampire. Darren eventually agrees and becomes a half-vampire. Next day, Darren goes to school with the spider and Steve gets accidently bitten by it and gets himself into a hospital. Darren asks Mr. Crepsley to save Steve. Mr C makes a bargain with Darren in order to save Steve, he has to become a leave this world and follow Mr. C as his assistant and half-vampire.
Darren agrees, since Steve is his best friend and he doesn't want to lose him. When Darren gets home from the hospital, he goes past his sister's room and suddenly feels the urge to drink someone's blood. He hardly stops in his tracks since it was hard for him to do that, and races to his room. Mr C is already there, waiting for him. He tells Darren that he has to forget that he has a family and he has to die in order to disappear. Darren takes it seriously and says goodbye to his family one more time. He doesn't tell them anything, goes back to his room and out the window to get some fresh air. Mr. C then gives Darren a potion that would symbolize death and then waits for the potion to work. It is just like the potion used in the William Shakespears' Romeo and Juliet, when she drinks the potion to be symbolically dead. When it did, Mr.C snaps Darren's neck in process. That wasn't harmful; instead, it made believe, and would look like real death. After the funeral and the burial, Mr.C digs Darren's grave and gets him out from there. Now everyone thinks that he's dead and no one would look for him. After Darren is out, Mr. C is attacked by a vampaneze and Darren gets almost kidnapped, but Mr. C rescues him in time. He then takes Darren in light speed to the camp where the people with special abilities stay.
Then, Mr. C tells Darren that since everyone knows that he's dead, and staying in this camp would be a safe place for him to stay and adapt. Also, in his new life, he can't live without drinking blood from another human but tries to avoid it and live without it. But that hurts him physically. Vampires, as told by Mr. C, need that liquid in order to live on; without it, a vampire will grow weak and wouldn't be able to defend himself when needed to. Later on, Darren finds out that Steve is the vampeneze, a violent type of a vampire.

Blog 10: Reflections

I think that we saw those movies for a purpose. One of them is to see more around us, to make a bigger circle. of our understanding of different literary terms. Every movie has it's own moral, symbols, and a lesson to be learned. What I learned from it is that in everyone's life, there is a quest to be done, no matter how the person see it. There is all of subconscious surrounding us, and we have to make choices in our lifes, correct ones or not. Joseph Campbell once said "learn to defeat the dragon in you". That quote really sticked to me since we all have those dragons, or egos inside of us. It's very hard to defeat that and learn to control it within you or anyone. I kind of liked to hear different kinds of myths. I don't have to believe in them; I just have to look inside of them and feel the logic and what is it trying to tell us, people of the modern world.

Blog 9: Hero's quest and film

picture got from http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3252194560/tt0363771
Chronicles of Narnia starts with 4 children, Lucy, Edmund, Susan and Peter which lived during the London Bombardment in WW2. They were send to their uncle's mansion by their mother, in which they stayed. While they were playing hide and seek, Lucy finds an old wardrobe, which was the gateway to the secret and supernatural world, which was called Narnia, the world of different magical and mystical creatures. When she goes in into that world, she meets Mr. Tumnes, who was a faun. He takes her to his home and then, tries to give her in to the evil queen who ruled Narnia with her snow and coldness for a long time. He tries to do that since Lucy was human and was part of a prophecy. There are many symbols throughout this film. First, Aslan the lion, is a symbol of power of good and the Queen Jadis, the witch, who represents the forces of evil. www.jonathanselby.com/Narnia.html.
Due to Campbell's "The power of the myth" the 4 children go to this magical world of Narnia and there they meet different supernatural beings, including the beevers, the faun, the lion and of course the witch. There is a clash of evil and good between the children. They have to choose sides, on which side they have to be on. For example, in the movie, Edmund wants to get revenge on his older brother Peter , since Peter is being a little bossy. He goes to the witch, who is really the person who wants to kill all of the children so her reign of power never ends. Since Edmund doesn't know that, he is accidently trapped within her grasp. The others, knowing that Edmund is in danger, go across the frozen river and went into Aslan's camp, where Aslan lived with the rest of his people, or other mythical creatures to get help. It's almost like the threshold, or the belly of the whale.
Since Peter and his sisters were humans, they were the protectors of Narnia from the witch Jadis and were supposed to be ones to save Narnia from her reign. But the witch wants them dead, and would do anything to get that. During the war, Edmund get's injured by the witch, by getting out of her command. She stabbes him, going after Peter. She would've killed him, but Aslan, who rose from the dead(being killed innocent)kills her. There is a connection of Christ, when he dies on the cross for all of our sins, defeats the devil and rise from the dead. After she is killed, Peter rushes to Edmund, who is dying quickly. Lucy uses her potion to restore him to life, which happens. When the war is over, Peter and his siblings grow up, becoming kings and queens of Narnia, and as time changes in Narnia, so do they. One time, they were riding through a forest, and Lucy saw a lamp post, which she saw long time ago. She rushed to the place where is the entry to the human world, and went back to the human world with her brothers and sister. When they did that, they returned to the same time when they left the human world for Narnia, nothing changed, not even the time. Based on the Heroes Quest by Campbell, Lucy and her siblings first depart for the mystical world. Then, they are given a test, from saving Edmund from the witch and saving the entire Narnia from her grip.

Work cited

"Narnia symbolism and meaning" by Johathan W. Selby (www.jonathanselby.com/Narnia.html)

Film "Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe"