Monomyths [Tuesday, January 5, Period 3]

[steel-not-glass.livejournal.com]

The good thing about being a spy for over two hundred years was that you learned to fake things really well. Benefits to on-the-job seductions aside, it meant that right now, Cindy appeared to be a confident and relaxed veteran teacher of hundreds of classes.

Although those classes were clearly taught at roughly the same time as Cindy looked far too young to teach a hundred anything back-to-back.

She smiled at her class as they filed in and then rose to lean against the front of her desk to begin the lecture. “I’m Cindy Perrault--” ha ha, Bigby was so funny “--and welcome to Monomyths,” she said, giving the class a smile. “We’ll be discussing the masculine and feminine heroic journeys. Now, some of you may have heard of Joseph Campbell and his Hero’s Journey. This class is not about him and his ideas, unless I suddenly have a lot more time than I expect to. So those of you who have heard of Campbell, forget him and those of you who haven’t—-be grateful.”



“Now, the two types of heroic journeys we’ll be looking at come from the ancient epics meta for The Epic of Gilgamesh and meta for The Descent of Inanna. Don’t worry, we’ll be going over those epics as we discuss the journeys, so don’t stress if you’re not familiar with either. At your age, I’d be amazed if any of you were.” Still, Cindy paused to glance around the room to search for any signs of recognition from the students. This high school was different enough from anywhere else she’d heard of (which was a feat in and among itself) that she didn’t feel she could just assume.

“In the future, we’ll be reading books and watching movie clips to help illustrate the concepts covered in class. If, as the semester goes on and you feel you have a better grasp on the materia, feel free to suggest different clips to show to the class. Be prepared to back it up with a better reason than just ‘it’s my favorite movie.’ Specific scenes you want to show make it that much more likely I’ll say yes.”

“We’re not getting into much today. I’ve been told that this week is usually for introductions. In fact, I may be in breach of contract if I don’t participate and some of you end up introducing yourself less than four times this week.” And with that pajama-wearing Vice Principal around, that might even be true, for all they knew. “So: name, class, and a bit about your favorite character from a work of fiction. Books, comics, movies, TV shows; they all count.”

Cindy leaned over her desk to grab the syllabi and began to hand them out. “Also, I’ll be looking for one or two TAs for this class, so if you’re interested, please stay after class a moment and talk to me.”

[TAs have already been chosen, FYI. OCD on its way up!]

Comments

Sign in #1

[steel-not-glass.livejournal.com]

Like your teacher just asked you if you've read Campbell or the Epic of Gilgamesh!

Re: Sign in #1

[bitchprince]

Arthur Pendragon

During the 'Lecture'

[steel-not-glass.livejournal.com]

Whisper, take notes, write notes, pass notes...

Just be careful. Cindy's kinda looking forward to her first detention!

Re: During the 'Lecture'

[thatsamilkshake]

Yay class full of half the people Francine knew. About...myths. Oh yeah, this should be either interesting or make her want to hide under her desk.

Re: During the 'Lecture'

[cataclysmicluck.livejournal.com]

As Zayne listened to the lecture, two thoughts crossed his mind. First, that this class was going to be pretty interesting. Second, that he was very thankful for Rose exposing him to a bunch of movies, otherwise he would have had nothing for the discussion question.

Now if only there had been more good movies in the bunch....

Re: During the 'Lecture'

[life_inshadow]

Tara frowned a little as she took noted. It seemed like this class was going to be hard. But possibly interesting!

... but hard.

Re: During the 'Lecture'

[ancientbschamp.livejournal.com]

If Cindy was looking around for signs of interest, she'd find them; Gabrielle perked up immediately upon hearing the names of the myths they'd be covering.

"Sumerian!" she muttered half to herself, practically bouncing in her chair. Part of the bouncing was due to excitement that these were actually old stories even to her, but since even Argo's +10 saddlebags of holding weren't possessed of limitless capacity, she didn't get to carry around copies with her. Cuneiform tablets were heavy.

Re: During the 'Lecture'

[robinthefrog.livejournal.com]

Robin had at least heard of the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Re: During the 'Lecture'

[officetightass]

Angela was really looking forward to what she could learn in this class. And when she looked around at who all she was taking the class with, she only got more smug. Yeah. She had this.

Re: During the 'Lecture'

[wantstocheer.livejournal.com]

This sounded like it was going to be a lot more work than Claire would have guessed from the course description.

Maybe Sam would help her...

Re: During the 'Lecture'

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

Liir was taking notes dutifully. Stories, tales, legends. He was coming to understand how important they were and, in a sense, how important they would be, and so he was focused on paying attention.

Re: During the 'Lecture'

[harper-journeys.livejournal.com]

There was still a wee gold firelizard hiding in Menolly's hair for this class. She was a bit more comfortable about it though after Master Ghamina's reassurances.

And she was dutifully memorising everything coming out of Master Cindy's mouth. That's what you were supposed to do, right?

Re: During the 'Lecture'

[nodaintyflower.livejournal.com]

Mulan had a feeling she would like this class. She was always fascinated by myths back home.

Class Discussion: Favorite Characters

[steel-not-glass.livejournal.com]

Or, how meta can we get?

[Name, Class, and take your pick from any and all of the following questions. Also, feel free to ping into anyone else's thread and respond. It's more fun that way]

"Who is your favorite character? Why? Does that character exhibit any kind of growth or development throughout the course of the narrative? What were some influencing factors in the change? Were they believable? Is there a character you despise? Why?"

Re: Class Discussion: Favorite Characters

[kestrelswolf.livejournal.com]

"Am Blysse," she introduced herself. "He is Blind Seer," she nodded to the wolf at her side. "Sophomore. And... I do not think I know enough stories to have a favorite character," she shrugged. Wolves weren't really into fiction, so her only exposure had been through human cultures, and that had been sort of, well... limited.

Re: Class Discussion: Favorite Characters

[notmyownage]

Claudia wasn't a huge fan of forced introductions, which probably showed in her slightly weary smirk as she spoke. "I'm Claudia. Sophomore. I haven't really been much for fiction lately, but, uh." She paused for a few moments as she thought over the stories Joshua read to her after their parents died, trying to pick a good one. "When I was little I always loved Frankenstein's monster. Dr. Frank totally screwed that guy over, but he still came out smarter and more compassionate and way more in tune with the reality of the world than his whacked out creator."

Yeah, Claudia's older brother had totally read Frankenstein to her as a bed time story. Which probably explained a lot.

Re: Class Discussion: Favorite Characters

[thatsamilkshake]

"Um, hi. I'm Francine Peters, and I'm a senior. I don't know if I have a favorite character but I like Buttercup from The Princess Bride a lot because my player will never stop being amused by the lack of need for meta. She's kind of, um. Bitchy at the start, but once she realizes she cares about people, she's incredibly loyal."

Re: Class Discussion: Favorite Characters

[cataclysmicluck.livejournal.com]

"I'm Zayne and I'm a senior. My favorite character is probably the police chief from Jaws Teeth. He confronted one of the worst monsters he could have and managed to win against all odds," Zayne said. "Also, it's one of the few movies I've seen."

Re: Class Discussion: Favorite Characters

[life_inshadow]

"Tara Maclay," Tara said, quite softly. (She'd learned that if she spoke softly in front of a group, she didn't stutter so badly.) "I guess my favorite character is Wendy, from Wendy the Werewolf Stalker? She starts off as just this spoiled girl but she, um, she has to be a hero."

Tara brushes her hair out of her face tentatively, as if hoping for confirmation she'd given the right answer.

Re: Class Discussion: Favorite Characters

[ancientbschamp.livejournal.com]

"Gabrielle, and a sophomore," she began, all grins and eagerness because this class sounded like it was going to be fun. "I'd have to say my favorite character is the king's niece from King of the Bracelets who goes off to fight even though women weren't supposed to. As an Amazon princess, I can't help but feel a certain bond with her for that."

Also, everything in the King of the Bracelets movies looked just like home, and Gabrielle liked that. Even if the king's nephew looked like a long-haired version of a power-hungry manipulative guy who'd drugged his father and tried to convince him their god wanted him to sacrifice his younger son to prove his loyalty.

Re: Class Discussion: Favorite Characters

[robinthefrog.livejournal.com]

"I'm Robin, and I'm a junior. I guess if I had to pick a favorite character it'd be Robin Hood. And no, not because we have the same name. I just really like adventure stories."

I didn't meta his name because there's those that think he may actually have existed.

Re: Class Discussion: Favorite Characters

[weldedtomyspine]

Jaime was tapping his chin thoughtfully and not really paying attention to everyone else's introductions while he thought about what he'd say when it was his turn. Which meant he was distracted and almost missed his turn.

"Oh," he sat up suddenly. "Um, I'm Jaime Reyes. I'm a Junior. As for favorite character... I guess I sort of always liked Odysseus because he solved all his problems by thinking around them. Even if he was sort of a jerk. I guess I'd like to be more like that."

"Except for the jerk part."

Re: Class Discussion: Favorite Characters

[officetightass]

"My name is Angela Martin, and I'm a junior," she said. "And while he's not a character, my favorite person from a book is Jesus. He always tried to do the right thing, and I think there's something to be said that they keep trying to base characters off of him." Which was vaguely sacrilegeous. Unless it was meant as some sort of hero worship. Then it was probably okay.

Talk to "Professor Perrault"

[steel-not-glass.livejournal.com]

She's here. And will likely try to interrogate talk to all of you sometime soon.

OOC

[steel-not-glass.livejournal.com]

NO ENDING THE WORLD ON MY FIRST DAY OF TEACHING.

IT IS A RULE!

Re: OOC

[ancientbschamp.livejournal.com]

Trufax, I look forward to the day when Gabrielle gets her first opportunity to bitch up a storm about why Xena got taken out of all the ancient stories. :D