Quarantine Control #140: The Future, the Chakra, and the Wardrobe
It has not been a good year, in a trend that’s been all too noticeable. But there’s comfort in the United States midterm elections going better than expected. As hinted in the lead up to the runoff election: Senator Raphael Warnock defeated Freak Night Werewolf Herschel Walker, solidifying a 51-49 advantage for Democrats in the Senate. It’s a historic win in a year that was pretty widely and, as it turns out, wrongly expected to be a bloodbath for Democrats. There’s plenty of other bad and potentially perilous news about US politics and other matters out there, but let’s just bask in this for now, shall we?
Geoffrey Barnes
The Peripheral: Season 1 (2022)
Source: Amazon Prime Video
Episodes: 8
I have not seen a minute of the now-cancelled Westworld, so I had no idea how a few members of the production staff would realize William Gibson’s The Peripheral novels into a live-action series. The latter has been referred to as a spiritual successor to the former despite that being far from the intention in novel form, but those details immediately had me nervous. An adaptation of a novel series about a capitalist hellscape? For Amazon? Really now, that’s a ludicrous scenario. Not to mention the reports I’ve seen of the inconsistent quality in Westworld’s seasons. The Peripheral, at least as of this first season, is a worthwhile attempt.
The Peripheral’s real-world scenario takes place in rural North Carolina, about a decade into the future. Here, Flynne Fisher (Chloë Grace Moretz) and her brother Burton Fisher (Jack Reynor) take care of their mother Ella Fisher (Melinda Page Hamilton), with the former two scrounging for cash to purchase medicine for the latter. It’s during this time that the siblings discover a mysterious virtual reality headset capable of taking them to mysterious worlds, the key one in this series being a dark futuristic version of London. It seems like a game too real for comfort at first, until Flynne gets a warning that her life is in danger following an occurrence in the virtual world.
That scenario is only scratching the surface of how complicated parts of the story eventually become. It’s mostly easy to keep track of what all the characters are doing in near-future North Carolina, and why the Fishers keep going back to the virtual future London. But the viewer will have to be seriously paying attention to the story developments and character methods to keep track of the character motivations of those who perpetually reside within the distant futuristic city. And even then, it can be difficult to parse the true methods of characters like Wilf Netherton (Gary Carr) and Cherise Nuland (T’Nia Miller), and the full significance of Aleita West (Charlotte Reilly). It is, to be fair, enjoyably complicated.
It also looks damn good while telling its story. Rural North Carolina looks nice enough, and the VR sets make for an interesting juxtaposition with the rustic territory in the towns and single houses. But it’s futuristic London that really shimmers, with characters donning slick black outfits befitting of a stylish sci-fi work, with the humanoid characters themselves distinguished between the frighteningly human-like androids, and environments suffused with futuristic technology through tablets and panels accompanying the gigantic statues seen in outside areas. The show certainly has the look of a dystopian sci-fi show down.
The Peripheral’s first season doesn’t adapt all the novels, but it’s apparent that the show won’t get around to emphasizing how the dark and futuristic London is at least partly a symptom of capitalism run amok. I knew not to expect this with an adaptation done for the video service of a company leading us into the living hellhole, but it still stings. This is ignored in favor of a more character-driven story, which, while still enjoyable, would have made the show more unique. As someone who’s watched several sci-fi works, the final acts of the season were complicated even for me. This won’t be a flaw if the plot points teased are followed up well.
I mean, assuming they will be followed up. The big risk with starting an enjoyable show is waiting on figurative pins and needles to find out if the service funding it believes in the work enough to fund a second season. There’s no way to tell how well The Peripheral performed, and I’d like to think there’s no way Amazon expected anything nearly on par with The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’s viewership, the show this one followed. These would be utterly mean cliffhangers to end the show on if they don’t renew it, but that’s never stopped a service from cutting a story off before.
Angela Moseley
Chakra: Rise of Darkness Beta (2022)
Source: GameJolt
Episodes: 1 video game beta
I’m mixed on RPG Maker titles. Excellent games such as To The Moon have been made using this consumer game engine. Unfortunately, my GPU absolutely does not like them for whatever reason. OBS likes them even less when trying to livestream, so I’ve usually tended to avoid RPG Maker games. That said, a friend and fellow fan of the webcomic, Chakra: Battle of the Titans approached me about covering a fan game he was creating based on the comic. I was intrigued, so I took up Fenris’s offer. Before I can fully get into his game, Chakra: The Rise of Darkness, I must briefly talk about Chakra: Battle of the Titans.
Chakra: BoT is a long-running webcomic that I stumbled upon in 2016 on DeviantArt. The action on page 282 intrigued me enough to check out both the comic and the artist, Maura Pompili, aka Arven92. I started reading and immediately noticed the beginning of the story was heavily inspired by Silver Fang -The Shooting Star Gin- in terms of action. However, the plot of the comic was inspired by Okami. Chakra: BoT ran from 2008 to 2021, and features wolves who were gifted with the power of chakra spirits. They use their abilities to defend others while calling themselves the Chakra Heroes. One day they’re tasked with finding the Destiny Sword, a sword that has the ability to steal souls. They quickly learn that a group of demonic wolves called the Zodiac Demons with powers that rival their own also want the sword.
The game, Chakra: RoD takes place during the chapters before the introduction of the Zodiac Demons. More specifically, the beta covers the Chakra Heroes as they complete the formation of their group. Fenris has stated the game will not cover the chapters of Chakra: BoT that focus on the Zodiac Demons and the Destiny Sword. Instead, he aims to flesh out the Chakra Heroes as characters which means the game won’t be covering the main part of the webcomic’s plot.
Rise of Darkness begins with a quick overview of how two powerful entities of light and darkness battled each other. The creature born from darkness is a kitsune and a fellow of the eight-headed serpent god, Orochi. While not stated, the wolf creature born from light was a fellow of the sun god, Amaterasu. Both beings fought until a bitter stalemate was reached. The kitsune was defeated when the wolf sacrificed itself to seal the dark entity away. At the same time, Shiranui (the avatar of Amaterasu) defeated Orochi. Five years pass and darkness has started to seep into the land while people eagerly await the return of Shiranui.
At this time a wolf mother hides her pup in a log as she attempts to escape from a hostile pack. Night turns to day and the mother never returns. Instead, a wolf named Marques finds the pup and adopts them into his pack. This pup turns out to be the player’s character. At this point the player can either choose to be a male named Harley or a female named Hertha. (The name can be changed since this is an RPG.) Years pass and life is uneventful until the protagonist sees a strange being enveloped in flames. No one else in the pack sees this entity. Later that night Marques and the protagonist are attacked by strange shadow wolves. The protagonist discovers they have powers via a chakra spirit which physically manifests as a sword and armor. They defeat the shadow wolves and protect the pack.
All is still not well, and they make a chilling discovery. Their pack leader, Sasha was forcefully turned into one of the attacking monsters. The pack is devastated, but vow to carry on. In the meantime, Marques encourages the protagonist to leave the pack and help others using their superpowers. While out on their own, the protagonist runs into a traveling pack of wolves fighting more shadow monsters. Without a second though they throw themselves into the fray. The traveling wolves turn out to be Lednacek (Led), C.Y., Orca, and Motyl. The group asks the lone wolf to join them, and they set off as the Chakra Heroes. The beta covers their journey as they meet Hielo and his sister Flama, and Kuma.
The battle system is a traditional turn-based RPG. I’ve played through the beta twice and have noticed that the difficulty fluctuates. Some battles are fairly easy while other battles are brutal. There were battles where most of my party died. Standard attacks don’t seem to do much damage, while TP (Technique Points) decimate most enemies at least when playing as the protagonist. Magic abilities seem to be where the real power lies when playing with the rest of the Chakra Heroes. Using a good spell can mean the difference between taking down enemies with ease or being completely overwhelmed. I admit, I did see the game over screen at least once while trying to conserve my magic. It is difficult to judge how much I’ll have to worry about MP conservation in the final game.
Stylistically, Chakra: Rise of Darkness has more in common with modern Persona than Okami, despite the webcomic itself being inspired by the Capcom game. The protagonist gaining their chakra power and subsequent chakras are very much an homage to the Persona series. Instead of entities being summoned to battle, the chakra spirits appear in the form of swords and armor to be worn. Chakras bestow the player with physical techniques and magic. At this point in the beta, only the protagonists had armor and swords. It is not clear if the rest of the Chakra Heroes will receive their own equipment. (Going by the comic, at least a few of the characters had the ability to create armor using their elemental abilities.)
While the gameplay was enjoyable, if a little unbalanced at times, the game’s writing is very much in the early stages. There are typos and grammatical errors that need to be fixed for the final version. The story is heavily reliant on exposition that slows down the pace of the plot. The audience receives a brief recap of events taking place in Chakra: BoT via a conversation between Led and the protagonist. Other events play out similarly to the comic, except with the inclusion of Harley/Hertha. To best understand the game, you need to already know what happened in the comic. This being a fan game, it is hard to say if newcomers would be welcome or if Rise of Darkness is only meant for Chakra fans.
Still, I can’t help, but feel the story would flow better if the main character started out with the Chakra Heroes, perhaps right after Led and C.Y. meet. Maybe after seeing C.Y. take down Steel. After that event they then go on to meet Orca, Motyl, Serval, Hielo, Flama, Kuma, and Cheetah. I do like how traumatic events for the Chakra Heroes have been nicely incorporated as shadow monsters in this game. It makes their fates seem better intertwined as they are united in stopping a dark force pulling the strings behind the scenes. I do hope that force also ties into the greater enemy of the Chakra comic.
The Chakra: Rise of Darkness beta is a nice way to spend 40 minutes of your time, especially if you’re a fan of Chakra: Battle of the Titans. If you’re not familiar with the series, but you simply enjoy RPGs this game could still be fun. It’s a game featuring superpowered wolves and is heavily inspired by Persona. Just remember that this is a beta of a fan game made by one person.
Joseph Daniels
Over the years in Quarantine Control, I’ve mentioned stories that take place in alternate worlds and I’ll often use my own term, “Being Narnia’d”, when referring to crossing over into those other worlds. The term “isekai” is much more common, especially when talking about anime, a medium with a rather large number of alternate world stories. That said, the isekai concept definitely predates most anime about them. I feel like people prefer the Japanese term because of how exotic and foreign and “cool” it is, just like how people prefer to use the term “sudoku” instead of the original name “Number Place” that the American company Dell came up with, back when they invented the puzzle.
Even C. S. Lewis didn’t invent being Narnia’d, as there are alternate world stories that exist prior to his work. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is one such story, and before that came Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Peter Pan is considered an isekai, although Never Land is presented as a hidden island you can easily fly to, so it operates more like the hidden islands of stories like Dinotopia, the ABC series Lost and the carnivorous island Pi and Richard Parker land on in Life of Pi than it does Wonderland or Oz. This is especially true since both Alice and Dorothy wake up back in the real world, suggesting that there wasn’t an easy way to get back home, so they had to use the “it was all a dream” trope. Alice would later return to Wonderland through a magic mirror, making it a true isekai story.
If Peter Pan is considered an isekai because the characters visit an island that doesn’t exist in the real world, you might as well consider Gulliver’s Travels an isekai, which in turn makes stories like The Odyssey an isekai, since you can’t really visit Circe’s island of Aeaea. Not that you would want to, since you and your crew would likely not leave her island except in the shape of swine.
But that’s too broad a definition for me. I think you have to very clearly make your way through a portal into another world and not just travel to places that don’t really exist in real life. Aeaea, Dinotopia, The Island, Lilliput and Never Land are all fictional places, but you don’t need a portal to get to any of them, all you need is a map.
So why am I bringing up Narnia this week? Well, we’ve gone about 140 weeks into this series of articles without actually talking about the Chronicles of Narnia, one of the most famous alternate world stories of all time.
The Chronicles of Narnia is a series that you might think has been fully adapted for television or cinema by now and it surprisingly hasn’t. The first book in the series, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, has probably been adapted the most out of all of the books in the series, likely due to the whimsy present in the story of four siblings finding themselves in a magical land, thrust into a battle between good and evil. It was the first book in the series, and Narnia was therefore not as defined at that point. You could imagine anything you want. You could imagine a tiger saving a deer from a leg trap in the White Witch’s forest. He guides her out of the forest and to Aslan’s camp where her leg is healed. She feels grateful to this tiger who doesn’t seem to want to eat her, so she stays with him for a while, mostly because she doesn’t know anyone else there and even overheard someone saying to someone else, “So, did they say when we’re eating the deer?” Eventually, the kindness that the tiger has been showing her causes her to fall in love with him.
Selling the rest of the series to audiences is a lot tougher. The next book in the series is the biggest stumbling block for most adaptations. Prince Caspian– actually, you know what? If I’m going to talk about these, I might as well talk about the Walden Media adaptations, which are currently the most modern versions of the stories, and which are readily available to stream right now.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)
Source: Disney+
Tigers?: Background extras only
Every time the series is adapted to film or television, this is the first book to be produced, probably because this was also the first book that was published. As such, this is the most familiar of all the Narnia books, even among people who have never read them. The series begins during the London Blitz, and the Walden Media adaptation plays this up with a sequence at the beginning where Edmund rushes back to the Pevensie house in order to grab a photo while London is being bombed all around him. Peter tells him off for this and calls him stupid and selfish and it’s not hard to see why Edmund might not want to stick with his siblings when they eventually find themselves in Narnia.
Due to the Blitz and the ongoing situation with the war, the Pevensie children are sent into the country, where they accidentally stumble through a portal to Narnia and find themselves in a land where it is “always Winter and never Christmas”. With the presence of Santa Claus in the story, and tigers present in the battle scenes at the end of the film, this makes the first Narnia film one of the only pieces of Christmas related media that is on topic for my ongoing Year of the Tiger series of Quarantine Control contributions.
There is a sense of whimsy in how Lucy’s first trip to Narnia is presented in the movie. Once she enters the wardrobe, she backs away from the door, expecting that she’ll eventually bump her back against something solid, but when she instead finds the needles of an evergreen tree, she turns around and is greeted by a world made of snow. The way home doesn’t disappear, fortunately, so she starts to explore this wondrous land where despite that it’s summer in the real world, everything’s covered in a blanket of white. Additional snow falls all around her, and it’s like she’s stepped into a snow globe.
Mr. Tumnus’s reaction to meeting Lucy makes it sound like humans are actually pretty rare in Narnia, at least at the time the story is set, and this gives Narnia even more of a foreign and fantasy feel to it. Tumnus is a faun, and the first Narnian we meet, so we get the sense that this is a fantasy land full of fantasy creatures. In fact, on Tumnus’s bookshelf are books like “Is Man A Myth?”
Tumnus eventually admits that he was trying to kidnap Lucy so that he can turn her over to the White Witch. She’s the one who has stopped the passage of the seasons, and some of the trees themselves are on her side in a war that has been going on for a hundred years. Lucy’s first trip to Narnia seems to set up some interesting aspects of the setting.
Adding to the magical mystery of the wardrobe, when Lucy returns home, the hours she spent in Narnia have only corresponded to a few minutes in the real world, and she accidentally disrupts the hide and seek game that caused her to enter the wardrobe in the first place. Then, when she tries to show her siblings the wardrobe, it’s returned to being a simple wardrobe, no longer the portal to Narnia that it had earlier been.
Edmund follows behind on Lucy’s second visit to Narnia, although it’s completely by accident, and he ends up meeting with the White Witch. She shows him kindness and bribes him with sweets to bring the rest of his family in, but he doesn’t want to share Narnia with them, so he’s pretty reluctant. However, an accident forces his hand and they all hide in the wardrobe to escape some consequences, leading to his second trip to the magical land, Lucy’s third, and the first for Susan and Peter.
This is when all four Pevensie siblings remain in Narnia for the rest of the film. Once inside, they end up not going back for years, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
The next citizens of Narnia we meet are a family of beavers, but fortunately Guy speak beaver. No, sorry, that’s from something else. Fortunately Beaver speak human, and Beaver speak of a prophecy surrounding four humans who are destined to end the war. “Aslan is on the move.”
This third trip to Narnia introduces many more species that are a lot closer to those that exist in the real world. Beavers, wolves, birds, foxes… Aslan himself is a lion. There are still fantasy races like centaurs and gryphons to be introduced in the story, but once the author needed a lot more characters than just Tumnus, he borrowed as much from the real world as he did from mythology.
The Pevensies do recognize the danger they’re in, but their attempt to convince each other to all leave is thwarted by Edmund running away to go see the White Witch since he really, really wanted more sweets, and it’s because of him that the rest of the movie happens. Lucy’s initial presence in Narnia caused Aslan to stir and her return to Narnia, bringing with her the rest of her siblings, causes hope to spread among those resisting the White Witch’s rule, and so finally, for the first time in a hundred years, Christmas is allowed to come to Narnia, and this includes a visit from Santa. After Christmas comes the spring thaw, upon which we finally see Aslan’s camp. It’s likely a lot easier to show Aslan’s camp in Spring so that they don’t have to put winter clothing on everyone.
Although one of my favourite sights is a forest with newly fallen snow everywhere – it’s the closest I feel like I’ll ever come to a true fantasy landscape in this world without crossing over into another one – seeing that forest newly thawed and already lush and green doesn’t diminish from the atmosphere of the film. Winter seems to bring with it gentle wonder, but once the story needs to take a bit more of a serious turn, the whiteness of winter is removed, for there are battles to be fought.
This is probably the most disappointing aspect of the film for me: the White Witch’s army contains a bunch of tigers. White tigers, which are on brand for her, but tigers nonetheless. That said, white tigers in our world are so inbred that they’re basically the southern rednecks of the big cat world, so that takes a little bit of the sting out of it. Cletus and Jim Bob Joe Bob Tiger are simply too stupid to think for themselves, which is why they’re in the White Witch’s army.
Incidentally, I think “Cletus and Jim Bob Joe Bob Tiger” are Joe Exotic’s fursonas.
One of the things I wish about this movie is that Susan could’ve used her arrows a little more. She was given a weapon to use by Father Christmas, but it barely has an impact on the story, so you’d think that it would come up in a future story, but if I recall, Susan doesn’t use them much in the second book, either. C. S. Lewis did not treat Susan too well in the books, unfortunately.
The story contains a lot of Christian allegory, including the sacrifice of Aslan mirroring the sacrifice of Jesus, but the story does not depend on having a working knowledge of the Christian Bible to understand. In fact, it can be viewed as a pure fantasy movie and nothing will be lost in translation.
What’s interesting to me is that, once Narnia is saved, the Pevensies are crowned kings and queens of Narnia and then something curious happens. They decide to stay. I don’t know if they thought much of the home they had left behind, but once they ascended to the thrones of Narnia, they remained in Narnia for a number of years. Once grown into young men and women, they seemed to have forgotten about their old homes until they found a familiar lamp post and gradually began to remember the land of “Spare Oom”. As they made their way back home, they were astonished to find that the way back contained many coats hanging in the forest somehow. I guess after saving Narnia, they weren’t in much of a hurry to get back to the accident they caused back home, so they stayed a little while, and the little while became a year and then it became more than a year and then they gradually started to forget.
Until they all fell out of the wardrobe, once again as young as they were when they first arrived in Narnia.
There is a sense of wonder throughout the film, wonder because we’re exploring Narnia at the same time the Pevensies are, and this is helped by a great soundtrack and also by a couple really beautiful songs at the end. Imogen Heap is somehow a brilliant choice for the soundtrack, and her song “Can’t Take It In” sounds like it’s part of Harry Gregson-Williams’ score. Gregson-Williams’ score, Heap’s song and Alanis Morissette’s “Wunderkind”, I feel, really defined how Narnia is supposed to sound musically.
There’s a scene that plays during the credits which establishes that the wardrobe won’t let the Pevensies into Narnia any more, but that there will be other opportunities to cross over, something which I think I like, since it prevents the Pevensies from just running off to Narnia, living a full life, then returning home to reset themselves and start again, living many, many lifetimes in Narnia. It allows for a significant time to pass between the first and second books, and likewise the first and second movies.
As I said above, it’s Prince Caspian that seems to be a major stumbling block for most adaptations of the Narnia series. One of the biggest problems it has is that audiences might be expecting another film full of the same wonder and whimsy of the first one, but unfortunately it fails to fully deliver on that. This is, however, a tale for another time.
Though it was left out of the opening paragraph of this 140th entry, our good friends COVID-19 and the flu will be around with us forever and ever. It would perhaps be a good idea to get vaccinated before meeting up with the folks over the holiday season, a time when virus cases will inevitably quadruple. Be safe out there.
About The Author
dcstaff
The collective will of the Damage Control staff combined into a single article.
