Podcast Questions For Lorerunner

What are some of your favourite stories of all time and why? We`re talking books, movies, TV shows, games etc.

Jonas Kristiansen

Ah, I misread that. Yeah, this will be interesting to hear.

How do you understand concepts like canon and continuity? What are they? Are the terms synonymous or different, and how do they relate to each other? This question is related to discussions on what is canon and continuity in video games, television, and movies. People have debated the Zelda timeline and what is and what is not canon to it both before and after Hyrule Historia. Tolkien often went back and forth in his broader legendarium about what was and was not canon in his own work. Some people criticise Star Trek Discovery by saying it is not in "canon" with Star Trek because it has a visual style different from the TOS era of Star Trek, despite the showrunners saying it is in the prime canon. And with Star Wars there is the questions about pre and post Disney canon with some fans upset with the removal of the old EU from canon, but many others who have been quite thrilled with the direction of the series. For my own two cents: canon and continuity are two different things. A canon is a body of work with its component texts which are considered authoritative to that corpus or world, whereas continuity is about the structure of individual texts and how consistent it is from one part to another. Two things can exist in a canon without them being in continuity with one another: both FFIV and FFVII are in the canon of Final Fantasy even though they are not visually, aesthetically, or even narratively linked. But what determines canon is based on the relationship between author and audience. Canon requires the author, authors, or some other authoritative body to declare something to be canon, but it then also requires a community to accept the text as canon. And this relationship can work both ways. Thoughts?

I just meant that both Dark pixel and Lorerunner do a lot of work on their channels, how do they balance channel work and other things in their lives.

ChocolateRob

On the second question, are you referring to his Twitch streams & his main Youtube channel (as opposed to his streaming archives channel)? I'm asking to confirm whether he's undertaking other projects besides those.

PS 6) With FFXV pocket edition coming out on PS4 do you think it may be enjoyable for someone who abandoned the original shortly after the opening car pushing scene and groans at all the DLC added later? Could I take this as the canon experience instead or would it be just as disappointing?

ChocolateRob

Ah, I see. Interesting that he considers both character development and characterization as 2 separate points. I consider those to be 2 sides of the same coin (Character). Interesting take. I consider them both important, but I would categorize them both under character.

Take your pick - 1)Have you ever been plagiarized or your work being used without permission, or even been accused of copying someone else's work/ideas? 2)You both do a lot of work on you respective channels. How do you balance your time between Youtube work and 'real life'? How do you balance between what your followers want you to do and what you want to do yourselves? 3) What Fantasy game would you like to see set a story set in a different age of that world? An earlier mythical age or a future tech age? I've often pondered on a pixel art FFVI style game set in the world of FFVII when Jenova first arrived = Final Fantasy VII: Calamity. 4) Have you played any games where choosing a different gender during character creation has actually felt different to play beyond romance choices? 5) Lore, you've spoken of Characters you hate vs characters you want off the screen. Where do characters you want to see get what’s coming to them fit in that? I may hate a person and want them gone but also want to see them lose. Or a character may have a physical quirk that makes me wish they weren’t on screen (runny nose with accompanying noises) that I just don’t want to see. In your rumination of DS9 episode Paradise you talked about how you really hated the episode and it seemed to be that you hated the villain. I hated the no-tech cult leader villain as a person but I liked the episode for them standing up to and defeating her. Was it the fact that her ideal was not defeated hard enough with her? If such a person is not appropriately defeated does that make their episode a bad one? Or is it that the writers maybe imply that such a person is not completely wrong?

ChocolateRob

It should be noted that most likely your community & Lore's community crossover, which why I wanted to note this.

Okay, question time: Do you think video games (and fictional works in general) can serve as a gateway toward learning high-level political & philosophical concepts that would otherwise not be as palatable due to lack of engagement, excessive jargon that most individuals would gloss over, and/or political correctness that would exist in non-fictional works depending what geopolitical environment the work was created in? I know we would associate this with allegories; I just want to hear this from his perspective. That said, do you think works of fiction (including video games, hopefully...) can also serve as an effective tool of learning particular points of geopolitical history in a manner that is more engaging? Furthermore, could you make the argument that fiction & reality play on each other in the sense that one cannot exist without the other? One way put, without fiction, interactions in reality would stagnate, and fiction without 'believability' would have nothing to connect with in reality and/or possibly generate a disconnect with the material.

I don't know if you've read his Loreiums page regarding "The Six Points of Story." This may help flesh out some of his views regarding core concepts of story. <a href="http://lorerunner.com/loreiums" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://lorerunner.com/loreiums</a>#collapseStory

What kinds of things make a tearjerking moment "work" or "not work" in a video game for you? Why do some moments land as moving/emotional while others come across as cheesy or kind of distant? (Why, for example, can Vivi make me cry but not Primrose?) What makes the difference?

Nevermind, I just watched the video on his patreon. We'll mention it!

Resonant Arc

I'm not sure I understand what you mean.

Resonant Arc

OK, I have a few questions regarding storytelling… feel free to answer some or none of these questions. Maybe just use them to start some interesting conversation. From what I understand, there are 4 core elements or concepts of a good story: Characters, Plot, Setting, and Theme(s). (First of all, let me know if there is something I missed. Maybe there are 5 or more core elements of fiction? I know there are different techniques for conveying these like writing, acting, pacing, point of view/narration, etc. But I think these are the basic 4 things that are usually trying to be conveyed by the creator(s) to the audience.) Q1: How do you personally prioritize these elements from most to least important when it comes to experiencing a good story? Or which of the 4 elements do you prefer the story to focus on the most? Q2: Does your answer to Q1 change based on the story’s genre? If so, why do you think that is? (For example, perhaps Setting is very important to you in Science Fiction or Fantasy, but in a comedy it would be much less important.) Q3: Which of these 4 elements, if done exceptionally well can make an otherwise average story feel memorable or special to you? Q4: Which of these 4 elements will ruin or drag down the whole experience the most for you if done poorly? (Which is the most important to not screw up?) Q5: Do you think the answers to the above can be used as a good way to determine if someone would generally prefer Western RPG’s vs Japanese RPG’s? (As it seems that WRPG’s usually put a larger emphasis on developing the Setting while JRPG’s typically have a larger emphasis on characters/relationships.)

Just as more of a FYI, his so-called floodgates are open to current Patrons of his Patreon account. Perhaps it would be a good idea to briefly mention this on the podcast if he does not.