What makes a good ending? The question plagues us, sometimes. Why does this ending work and that one doesn’t? What’s too much, what’s too little? Why did Tolkien spend six of Book Six’s final chapters on the conclusion? The ending
The Crusades controversy this article and its prequel address is a local one, confined to certain circles of online Reformed people, not really a matter of concern for the wider culture or for those wise enough to exist beyond the
To understand the world, we must understand stories, because people understand the world through stories. Not numbers, not equations, not analytical trends, none of these are the lens of human sight. Stories are the framework and motivation of human thought.
Read Part One! What comes after the climax is the denouement. In Biblical terms, these are the Last Days. The former age, the rising action of the Jewish covenant, has passed (is finishing its passing); the new age of the
Those unfortunates who deal with politics have doubtless encountered the phrase ‘wrong side of history’ before, the idea that history has an arc and it bends towards, well, annihilation of Christianity. To oversimplify a few libraries worth of history books,
Do video games cause violence? That’s the sanitary form of the question; what everybody really means is, ‘Do video games kill kids?’ It’s hard to ask this question with a level head. Dead kids get everybody’s temper running hot. Indeed,
If you have brushed with YouTube media criticism recently, at least in more right-wing or culturally disaffected circles, you’ve inevitably encountered a certain complaint: ‘The women in these new movies just aren’t hot enough.’ It’s touted as a reason for
If you’ve read much G.K. Chesterton, you’ve probably realized that some of his stories are better starting places than others. Father Brown, generally speaking, is a much gentler introduction to his style and philosophy than Manalive or The Man Who
Redemption arcs have a difficult problem: how do we deal with the (often horrific) history of the character being redeemed? It’s a real-life problem too. How do we deal with the man who is repenting of a long history of
If ChatGPT wrote a novel, would it be art? In order to answer that question, let’s refer to the definition of art I provided last time, as well as our knowledge of how ChatGPT (and other text/ image generators) actually