Category Archives: Motifs at work

Chaos and Order in Harry Potter

Posted on February 7, 2023 by Sarah

In the Harry Potter films, every time we get to see Harry’s Muggle home in Little Whinging, we see the very tight order of the community. We know that Harry is not happy here, but the nature of his treatment … Continue reading →

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The Mission as Main Character

Posted on September 1, 2021 by Sarah

In 1977, MGM released the film A Bridge Too Far, about the World War II Operation Market Garden. Following the D-Day landing, the Allies were having a hard time pushing forward on continental Europe. Field Marshal Montgomery devised the Market … Continue reading →

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All at Sea in a Winter Storm

Posted on September 9, 2017 by Sarah

In 2016, Walt Disney Pictures released the film The Finest Hours, about the 1952 Coast Guard rescue of sailors trapped on a broken and sinking ship. The rescue took place in the middle of a winter storm, at night. The … Continue reading →

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Disengaged Hero, Disengaged Audience

Posted on August 16, 2014 by Sarah

I’ll start by saying I’m not familiar with the source material, or the earlier drafts of the film scripts. You could say I’m disengaged from earlier versions. I’m just working from what was achieved in the theatrical film. World War … Continue reading →

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Evil versus Not-Evil

Posted on November 29, 2013 by Sarah

A couple of years ago, for Mythcon, I wrote a paper that discussed tendencies in apocalyptic fantasy fiction (that is, fantasies that deal with ultimate conflicts of cosmic powers). The theme of the conference was “War in Heaven.” In the … Continue reading →

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