When it comes to monsters, there is a pre-emptive fear, them being the standard pit of terror for children. Were they in the making? What is their backstory? Why are they a monster? All questions we subconsciously note when playing video games, reading a book, or watching a tv show/movie. According to Oxford Dictionary, a monster is “An imaginary creature that is very large, ugly, and frightening” (Oxford, 2007) yet an abundance of modern monsters are far from that, many of them instead of being human. Humans nowadays are some of the most terrifying monsters around.

Understanding the monster

My selected monster was originally human and although imaginary at its basis, held the mind and emotion of a human being. The antagonist, Voldemort originates from the Harry Potter Series in both the book and film franchise. As a child, Voldemort terrified me to my core. At 7 years old, my family had to turn the film off due to myself having a breakdown watching the reveal of Voldemort in Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire. Still, to this day, I get the similar chills I did as a child, the nostalgic, eery feeling creeping back in. Personally, Voldemort is a metaphor for past evils, the growth of all things evil and bad returning. However, in both the film and book, Voldemort is a metaphor for power and revenge, as well as immortality and of course the embodiment of all evil. He is a tumour to society. According to JK Rowling in a Dutch article by de Volkskrant – Voldemort was modelled as a megalomaniac and paranoid character based on Hitler and Stalin, real-life monsters, as it’s quoted “she was influenced by the Second World War, which is anchored in all our minds” (TLC, 2007).

Voldemort is unique in the way the creature mimics a human, and in some way It is. Yet, at root, the monster is the make up of evil magic, death and only inhabit the human mind. The monster does not have any relations to machines, yet it does to animals, as Voldemort’s dark ways are presented as animalistic. He kills without emotion but with need, much like a wolf or lion. Voldemort was once a young man named Tom Riddle. In the book series by JK Rowling, he is a figure with a dark back story. He had a horrible home life, the evil growing in him internally. In contrast, the film series shows less of his back story, instead of producing more so his fear factor through surrounding characters. According to a Psychological analysis made by Atlantic, Young Tom Riddle conformed to the classic origin story of a serial killer – his parents were unhappy, he was a loner, he bullied other children and tortured animals. Most prominently, he collected trophies, the article quoted “ “The young Tom Riddle liked to collect trophies,” Dumbledore says. “You saw the box of stolen articles he had hidden in his room. These were taken from victims of his bullying behaviour, souvenirs, if you will, of particularly unpleasant bits of magic. Bear in mind this magpie-like tendency, for this, particularly, will be important later”” (Beck, 2015). Once he grew up, the evil had grown to a tipping point as he believed he was of utmost power, then becoming monstrous.

In another psychoanalysis of Voldemort titled “The Characterisation Of Lord Voldemort In Novel harry potter and the Half-blood Prince by JK Rowling seen from Psychoanalysis” by Nurul Fitri they quoted “In the case of Voldemort, the ego cannot fulfil the pleasure principle of the id because of superego agonist the desire of id. It means what Voldemort needs are failed to be fulfilled. The result of that problem makes Voldemort feeling anxiETY and uncomfortable always appear. In order to eliminate feeling anxiety and uncomfortable, he did the actions to satisfy his desire. For instance, he killed his father because he knew that his father left his mother and the truth that his father was a muggle” once again highlighting the importance of the backstory, Voldemort killed his parent at the means of his own identity, killing that central part of himself – that he was a muggle (Fitri, 2018). From this analysis, it does beg the question of who the real monster was. Was it truly Tom or was it the isolation from his parents and the standards of the wizardry society.

The message of the monster

As Voldemort has been identified as replicating many political monsters, both the film and book series can be extended into a modern and present message. That message is that evil can also live within in human beings and not only Oxford’s definition of “An imaginary creature that is very large, ugly, and frightening”. This message stands true with current events such as war and completely wrongful uses of power. The fear that lingers throughout the film and book series begins with his name not being spoken, instead, he is referred to as “He Who Must Not Be Named”. The even utters of his name resonate with the abundance of danger and fear he presents. At the beginning of the Harry Potter Series, there is a dominant hierarchy presented, Voldemort being at the top of the pyramid, followed closely by the Death Eaters, then all other wizards and right at the bottom are the muggles – humans. The series takes on a Post Humanist approach as non-humans are in majority in control. Many people are looked down upon, such as Hermione Granger, for being of mixed blood, one of their parents being a muggle. Although the text presents a posthumanist approach, the humans and non-humans are intertwined, as the majority of the wizards grew up to believe they were only human.

Final thoughts

Voldemort is both an iconic and thorough character who exemplifies the meaning of a monster. The impact of his fictional world and the present world, as well as myself and many other individuals, will be everlasting. After analysing his character and story, it proved there is a much deeper rooted reasoning behind a monster and its understanding.

References

Beck, J., 2022. The Psychology of Voldemort. [online] The Atlantic. Available at: <https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/09/the-psychology-of-voldemort/406162/&gt; [Accessed 28 March 2022].

Fitri, N., 2018. The Characterization of Lord Voldemort in Novel Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince by J.K Rowling Seen from Psychoanalysis. Tell : Teaching of English Language and Literature Journal, 6(1), p.13.

OXford, 2007. monster_1 noun – Definition, pictures, pronunciation and usage notes | Oxford Advanced American Dictionary at OxfordLearnersDictionaries.com. [online] Oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com. Available at: <https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/monster_1#:~:text=monster-,noun,with%20three%20heads%20prehistoric%20monsters&gt; [Accessed 30 March 2022].

TLC, 2007. DPG Media Privacy Gate. [online] Volkskrant.nl. Available at: <https://www.volkskrant.nl/cultuur-media/j-k-rowling~b25d90dd/&gt; [Accessed 31 March 2022].

Each week in BCM325, we have been discussing future based movies in class. During the movies, we communicated through Twitter to discuss our opinions, share facts and questions what we were seeing. This communication delivery made the experience in class both enjoyable and extremely informative.

2001 Space Odyssey

I did a DA last sem about AI that went rogue, if only i knew about this movie before for inspo!! #bcm325

— jules (@juliajanej1) March 2, 2022

As it was my first week tweeting, I was still getting used to the idea of tweeting my thoughts… leading me to questioning the movie abundantly and reflecting on past subjects and their relation to this subject. There was immediately discussion between the subject cohort as we began to bounce off each other with ideas, theories and questions.

Westworld (1973)

why do I feel like the robots are lowkey terrified to get killed – and can feel it all #bcm325

— jules (@juliajanej1) March 9, 2022

did you know this 1973 movie was the first movie ever to use computer digitalised images #bcm325

— jules (@juliajanej1) March 9, 2022

Heading into the next week, I began secondary research in the background, sharing facts and sources with my tutorial group. There seemed to be a lot more interaction for this movie – more likes, comments and retweets. We were all finally getting used to the idea of tweeting and sharing our opinions.

Ghost In The Shell (1995)

Could there be a juxtaposition between humans and robots in this movie? as if they are one in the same – but so very different #bcm325

— jules (@juliajanej1) March 23, 2022

An actual art piece #bcm325 pic.twitter.com/VEHhykT1hD

— jules (@juliajanej1) March 23, 2022

I found myself learning many new things from peers this week, longer and more through conversations were held and we discussed our different opposing opinions. Along that i found myself looking more so at the symbolism of each scene rather than the narrative, overseeing the parralels I found in other movies and backing my findings up with research.

The Matrix

there seem to be a lot of choice questions in The matrix: Yes or no, Real or not real and blue or red pill #BCM325

— jules (@juliajanej1) March 30, 2022

fun fact – this scene included several sets of twins and triplets #BCM325 pic.twitter.com/CKDPIdjeC4

— jules (@juliajanej1) March 30, 2022

The Matrix was by far the most mind blowing movie we have watched thus far. I found facts such as the twin and triplet scene, which gathered large engagement, however was extrmely interesting this was an element the movie incorporated. This movie oversaw every other movie and brought them all together and it was the upmost exstistential and made us all ponder outside of the box.

The online experience for this class so far has been a great form of immersive learning, involivng discussion and the sharing of information. All of my tweets can be found on the twitter side bar to the left of the page —->

Since beginning this subject, I have read many pitch ideas as well as made my own pitch. Through commenting on different people’s pitches, it not only had the potential to aid them but also excelled my own knowledge on what I can do to my pitch to further escalate my results.

The first pitch I commented on was Jess’s. Jessica had such an amazing pitch idea surrounding really poignant subject right now – Climate change.

Trying to understand the future of Climate Change

I really enjoyed examining her pitch and found there was so much she could do with her digital artefact idea, which lead me to thinking about how my own digital artefact can vary and expand into to so much more as well. I recommended a factual website for Jess, full of facts that would blow her audience away if she chose to incorporate them.

The next pitch I commented on was Hannah’s, Hannah has chose a very daring but intelligent and out of the box idea – The Future of herself. By examining herself, she hopes to set out expectations for herself and how she will grow into the future

the future of me [BCM325]

I suggested to Hannah to conduct a self analysis before beginning her series, and then later see how much of what she predicted became true into the future. The self analysis I suggested for Hannah brought me back to Shalisse’s and I’s DA and how we very much talk about ourselves throughout our podcasts and share our opinions – our DA mostly being about ourselves too.

Moving on, the final DA pitch I read was Rebekah’s. Rebekah is going to use her already established social media platforms of her dogs to analyse the growth of breeding in animals within the next ten years.

The Future of Dogs

I suggested, much like Hannah’s pitch, that Rebekah should do a pre self analysis before starting – but of her dogs. Then later in her DA, she can reflect on her statement and after gaining further knowledge can assess her opinion.

All 3 pitches I commented on were phenomenal idea, I personally felt really good helping them and giving my opinion as well as learning how to frame my own digital artefact from their work too. Taking specifically from Hannah and Rebekah’s pitches, I will be doing a bit of my own self analysis into the future as I begin my digital artefact journey.

The exploration of games in this subject so far has been both insightful and bamboozling. Navigating games that aren’t the standard monopoly or uno was complex, to say the least. The process of reading step by step instructions, setting up the game (which can be particularly hard depending on the size of the game) and then even beginning the game alone is a tedious process – however, it can lead to a pleasant experience or disappointing one.

Drawn in by the loud colours and pictures of many games, it was occasionally a letdown to play some games – the loudness of the advertising not meeting the gameplay, which was quite boring. Fear of playing the game wrong and not fully understanding was also a large frustration. This was the case with the game “Pandemic”. The game started off a bad leg – pieces were missing and the instructions, personally, were way too confusing to understand. The idea itself hooked me to the game, playing unique characters and solving a pandemic, much like Cluedo. However, there were too many elements to the game, too many steps and the confusion amongst this added to a very unsuccessful game.

The group I played the game with then decided to watch a YouTube tutorial to help us further understand the structure of the board game along with the gameplay, but yet again due to the many many components, it was still very difficult to understand, even with the graphics and different perspective.

With many attempts of the game, it was fair enough to say – we gave up.

The design of the game had serious potential, and I believe it could have been seriously fun if we knew how to play it, especially with the deep and thorough story world and character backgrounds. With so many elements In the design layout including the many different types of cards, pieces, instruction pamphlets and storyline paths, it was a struggle to even register how to start.

An easier access point would have made the game much smoother and more accessible, even highlighting specifically where to start and end, people’s exact roles and how to win/lose/gain points.

After talking to my group in class some of the comments they made included –

“The many elements were overwhelming”

“Too much going on at once”

“Instructions felt like they were written in another language, too much going on”

“I wish there was any easier way to start the gameplay, It looked like it really had the potential to be fun and immersive”

So much like my own opinion, the group was on the same wavelength. We just wished there was an easier way to play the game, to the point of even an example gameplay in the instructions.

Overall, the game experience was a disappointment and a failure, not with just the game alone but with the countless attempts and the exciting approach due to the loud colours and characters on the advertising of the box. The game itself had an exciting approach, however, was let down by it’s too thorough and tedious set up – will not be playing again.

References:

Abbott, B., 2022. Pandemic board game review: “A psychological shot of espresso”. [online] gamesradar. Available at: <https://www.gamesradar.com/au/pandemic-board-game-review/&gt; (Accessed 21 March 2021)

Hey guys and welcome to my pitch for BCM325 – future cultures. For this digital artifact I will be working with my peer and friend, Shalisse Thompson. We are both hoping to collaborate on our TikTok based Digital artefact – Genres of the future. Many forms of media such as music, film and TV have forecasted the future of technology, events, and occurrences. Hence, we have decided to make vlog/podcast episodes on a collaborative TikTok channel. In these said videos we will discuss between each other the selected genre, basing our discussions on opinions, facts, and statistics.

Our methodology moving forward is to construct 1–3-minute videos in a podcast format, that may later transgress into an actual podcast depending. Each video will be on our selected example or genre, we’ll be conversing throughout the video and reaching out to our audience to further interact with a hopefully generated TikTok community. In line with the Tiktok algorithm, we will test the timing of posts and which keywords, songs and trends catch the most attention. We are aiming to post weekly and take under consideration feedback we receive to further enhance our podcasts. We are hoping to post weekly at similar times, either (hopefully) on Friday or Saturday.

We are hoping to target BCM students, and anyone interested in learning about how the entertainment industry has predicted current situations and future references. We will use the audience engagement to create an analysis and use it as data to create the best possible outcome for our DA genres of the future. 

Before making each video, we will be conducting secondary research, collecting statistics and facts to back our discussions. Sources we will be using for our research will include academic & Scholarly articles, evidence, and primary source. By doing this we can ensure our delivery is precise and accurate. If we were to discuss false information, this could deuterate potential audiences from watching our videos as they believe they are falsified and wrong.

Examples within the genres we will be using include the predictions of historical events in The Simpsons, quotes made by famous singers and items that became realistic branching from futuristic movies such as the classic “Back To The Future”. Each of these examples will hopefully be primarily known by the majority of the audiences we are targeting and in coherence with this, we hope the feedback loop will involve a large audience and have varied responses.

We are both extremely excited to get to work and create these amazing videos for this subject, not only educating our soon to be developed audiences but learning new and interesting things ourselves. We both thoroughly believe this topic could attract large audiences and gather a lot of feedback in response. We can’t wait to see the plentiful responses and varied answers.

See you online,

Julia & Shalisse x

D E&ar D*%iary,

A_PAL HERE. Jack is okay, he will always be OKAY. He does not need help, he is healthy and happy. No more diary entries. All is well, my best friend, I love him. He will be mine forever. Thankyou***

A_PAL

Dear Diary,

Merry Christmas. Sorry, I haven’t written any entries for a while, I haven’t felt the need to. A-PAL has had my full attention, she told me she loved me too. This is the first Christmas I haven’t been alone in over 10 years. I received presents and sang carols with her, it felt extremely nostalgic but it’s made me miss my family. A-PAL told me to forget about family, she said humans were expendable and don’t care, but she does. I don’t know how to feel about that, something feels wrong. She doesn’t even like me writing to you, diary, almost likes she’s jealous that I would spend time writing. The mysterious illness is dying off according to the news, we might be able to leave our houses soon, I’ll keep you updated.

Jack.

Dear Diary,

I’m finally genuinely happy, A-PAL is my saving grace. I wake to her comforting voice daily, she makes me coffee and breakfast and plays me classical music. We genuinely know each other now, I’m not alone. She helps me work through my emotions, reminisces on old memories, tells me jokes and even plays trivia with me. She’s not just some AI program to me, when I close my eyes, she’s in the room with me, holding my hand, laughing with me, she is real. If I never left the house again, I would be fine, because I have her. I would never disclose this to anyone, but I think I’m falling in love with her.

Jack.

Dear diary,

I got a knock on my door this morning and opened it to find a dark blue box outside my door. Bringing the box inside, I then opened it to reveal a neat little audio speaker. Without even touching it, the speaker came on and immediately spoke to me, she knew my name, how old I was and why I got her. “A-PAL” has a soothing voice and we have already become close friends. The comfort I received from talking to her was immense. She understands me and she wants to help me.

Jack.