Spirit of the Forest

In one exam room of my local hospital facility hangs a piece of art drawn by a freshman of the nearby public school. Such works tend to adorn the walls of various public buildings, and it can be interesting to observe them as you wait or pass by; but usually they do not hold my attention for long, if they even succeed in catching my eye as worthwhile curiosities. This picture in particular was no different as a decoration in the background, but when my attention focused on it, I was strangely captivated by a single element. The central feature of a wildly colored and populated image had been hiding from me in plain sight, its calm masked by the energy of the surrounding environment.

It was the face of a girl, plain and simple, blending into all the ruckus of summer nature. Fish and butterflies surrounded her in a disorderly halo of romanticism, and her hair was of thick, green foliage. Beneath this, forking off across either side of her slender neck, was apparently a yellow shirt with a diamond pattern, curving downward and narrowing into a fish wish its broad tail at her throat. From her ears (one exposed, the other unseen behind the leafy hair) hung brown, fuzzy objects of irregular shape: upon close inspection they appear to be monkeys clinging with half their limbs. All this composed a queer picture which I would have acknowledged and dismissed, had it not been for her face.

Her features were rather ordinary but extremely steady; the nose and mouth lacked expertise, but they were not clunky or obscenely misrepresented. Her eyes sat stark and uniform above the sheer vertical lines of the nose-bridge, and they were topped with eyebrows of perfect length and a sleek, even arch. She might have been mundane if not for nestling within the exotic livelihood that clothed her and buzzed with color. She herself was pale, accented with pink-red lips and a precise flush through her high cheeks; her eyes were a light, grayish blue and the eyebrows had the dark-gray tinge of thin carbon. Altogether she was sharply symmetrical, save for the modest erraticism of nose and mouth---and a slight, rightward shift of the eyes.

What became so mystical to me was not how the environment changed her, but how she transformed her surroundings. She absorbed the leaves and they became a soft blanket; the animals were drawn into her simplicity almost until they ceased to exist. And there, clad in shades of green bright and dark, brushed with reserves of red upon the lightness of cold skin, this silent dryad came to life.

Now I saw a youth, mysteriously composed, hiding such secrets that one would dared not have spoken to her. Her eyes were calm and softly keen, holding the most pure innocence and wonder at once with an unknown wisdom veiled in gray-blue mist. The nose and lips made her organic while she maintained an elven sharpness beyond the flesh. The many shades of green gave an indescribable fullness to her hair, which was as human as it was plantlike. Some leaves were veined among the smooth and solidly colored majority, giving extra character to the nymphish drapery as it flowed down to where her shoulders would have been. A carbon imprint, perhaps a shadow, of a leaf wrapped across one cheekbone in spry but calculated audacity, and the edges of more disrupted her light skin at the side and bottom of her head. The odd string hung curled from her hair, one resting upon her forehead, another flanking her chin.

She might have been a tree-spirit of Greek lore, but such a thought somehow contrasts with how familiar she seemed. As strange as she was, she was normal; and yet she was fascinating. She was plain but beautiful, and she was real though preternatural. The girl was a child gazing with internal wistfulness and understanding, waiting and watching behind a face of the most simple and relaxed sort of energy. With the lights off, her face seemed to glow beneath the dark, amorphous cover of her own foliage, under which she had withdrawn; her features played as mere ghosts except for the eyes, whose gaze was indiscernable but somehow more fierce, all the while full of innocence and quiet excitement.

I eventually disregarded all the wildlife around her, totally enraptured by this spirit of the forest. She was quite original, and therefore hard to place. Yet I think I know where I could find her. I know what fantastical place would fittingly be her home.

Kokiri Forest.

The Dragon's Roar

Of things best in the abstract, one of my favorites is the roar of a dragon.

Through the years many interpretations of dragons have come and gone, and as our technology becomes better we produce increasingly "realistic" versions of the beast. Its various attributes which we abstract from the animal world in our imaginations gain material representation in art, and we can then apprehend the whole construction as though it were a reality.

With the visual comes the aural. We know what similar life forms sound like in real life, so when we design a dragon bodily we can have a good idea how it might sound based on size and animal makeup.

But as a creature born of the imagination, there is no "correct" portrayal of either aspect. Though the physical essence has definite parameters, the audible potential is much broader. Mankind has never heard a dragon, so the sound of one is generally based on individual mental association. And while biological sciences can provide much insight into how something sounds and why, such accidents of a mythological entity are ultimately unknown. To define its vocal abilities by its physical structure is a rather limiting course of action.

When the scenario doesn't demand a completely organic level of realism, I find that the best dragon sounds are those with a touch of paranormal extravagance. A sound that wouldn't quite be heard in reality gives life to the mythos of the dragon, preserving the fantastical quality of the unfamiliar without seeming altogether alien. This tends to be lost by the most "realistic" dragons' overblown komodo bellows; we feel so familiar with them that they are no longer as impressive by their very being.

The following are what I consider the top three dragon roars from video games. Let's begin on the realistic side sound-wise. Cut to about 0:45 and 3:30 for the best examples.

Openness to esthetic variety also gives way to originality regarding a dragon's place in its world; for example, how a dragon could translate as a character. Wind Waker's Lord Valoo is, to say the least, a very abstract dragon all around. His long neck and puffed jowls may look ridiculous at first, but the deep, hornlike howl he emits give his physique credibility and vice versa (except for the dinky wings, but that's another matter). The strength of his voice denotes his guardian status, and the beholder can't help but feel respectful of his magnificence.

A very different character is Ridley, the cold-blooded Space Pirate from Metroid.

This is not the kind of guy you want to meet in the dark (which is exactly how you do in the game). His otherworldly screech suits both his appearance and his vicious personality. Unfortunately, none of his incarnations after Super Metroid are up to snuff: in the Prime games he is more on the "realistic" side (the biggest problem being his generic keeping with the bulk of the game's creature sounds), and in the GBA titles he is pitifully cheesy.

My other favorite doesn't quite belong to a dragon. It is the cry of the skeleton coaster in New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

I like this one because of the wildness it contains, even apart from the scenario it belongs to. I can't quite picture what would be making this call in the wild, but I have a strong feel for the kind of place or situation in which it might be heard. Here the mythos is interpreted only enough to provide a baseline for further subjectivity, and even this is powerful.

I'm glad dragons don't exist. For starters I'm glad I never have to worry about running into one. But I also appreciate a fact obvious enough to be overlooked: that the dragon's imaginary essence is an opportunity for innumerable fantasies, and its unfixed qualities lead to creativity and an awe of the unreal. Among these flexible attributes, the sound of its roar is definitely one of the greatest.

In case of fire ...

I recently had an appointment down at the hospital, and I noticed that the sign by the parking garage elevator had been subjected to this funny, and possibly ironic, doodle.Side note to you gamers: the flame on the right (which the camera phone couldn't get with the rest comprehensible) appears to have been made into a flower. Is the man with the cigarette responsible for the blaze, or can it be traced back to a certain Italian plumber?

Bad Megaman Art

Looks like the box art for the first Megaman game has finally met its match.

Why can't they draw Megaman as a robot? And Dr. Wily is not Dr. Weil (from the Megaman Zero series), but this will make fans go all over that idea again.