Stories should not be PRIMARILY created to entertain. They should be created to teach, or encourage, or inspire, USING entertaining qualities. The Romans used entertainment to distract the populace from corruption. J. R. R. Tolkien, on the other hand, described “escapism” as “a prisoner of war escaping from enemy camp to go back home.” You’re not running from reality to fantasy when a story does it’s job. You’re running from the dark, twisted side of the world to something that reminds you of the good, the true, the beautiful, the correct. You’ve been imprisoned by bad ideas and confusion and dark perspectives, and the story shows you how to escape and get back to true and beautiful reality. It’s got a point, it’s not just for diversion.
Stories should be made to serve others and leave the world better than they found it. Storytellers should not only tell a story to exorcize their personal demons or point to how clever and artistic they are. That can be a nice bonus. But the point should be to serve the audience. Think about it. When it’s made, it’s timeless; it will be read or watched or listened to by the next generation, or the next. What are the storytellers letting fall into the hands of the people who come after they’re not around to explain or gain a profit?
The storyteller should be passionate about the story while they make it. This could look like a sense of duty, or fun, or just excitement. But those outward emotions usually signal an inward understanding of how important the story is, and therefore, a level of compassion and care for the eventual audience.
You can like a story or dislike a story. You can interpret a story or misinterpret a story. Those things are subjective. But whether or not a story is good is objective: it can be measured. Does the story say what it is trying to say in the clearest, most compelling way possible? If yes, it’s a good story. If no, it might be great entertainment. It might be funny. It might be cool. It might be quotable or franchise-able or profitable or even memorable. But it’s not a good story if it does not say something in the clearest, most compelling way possible.
A story’s main point, or theme, is the most important thing about it. The characters, the set design, the pacing, the soundtrack, the language, the use of color or lighting or blocking etc.; all of those pieces work best when they are unified in the goal of communicating that main point or theme.
Death of the author = death of the story. It’s point is to say something. If you claim the speaker’s intent is meaningless, so are the words spoken. If you claim it can mean anything, your words are meaningless too. We all might as well tell no stories and blabber gibberish instead. It’s one thing to say you understand what the author intended, and you like to think of it in/wish it were another way. But it’s quite another to say that what the author intended is unknowable or doesn’t matter. You’re either calling the author a bad storyteller or, again, recommending we all speak gibberish.
Both form (the quality of the story and it’s elements) and content (the main point or lessons) matter. Without one you have a lecture, not a story. Without the other you have entertainment, but no valuable, timeless, beautiful truth to make it a “story.”
He goes “to me, the song makes the most sense when viewed through the lens of addiction.” And everybody responded to that like “omg TYLER what’s he addicted to??”
Like they’ve never heard that from him before.
There’s literally a whole song about going through cycles of addiction and what’s he addicted to, ladies and gentleman—
Doubt.
He’s addicted to doubting God. That whole bridge of the song is the literal point of the Bible verse James 1:6 “But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.”
It’s…it’s all over his songs. It’s all over that one interview with Apple Music where he explains he doesn’t know how to talk about his faith yet, so does he really believe it if he can’t talk about it, etc.
In Vignette he describes what he’s been doing over and over, the dark addictive thing, like this:
“Fresh off a binger in the woods
flesh, covered in bites
testing what is real, what is good,
Man, it’s been a long night.”
Break it down. Tyler chose to describe a location. Didn’t have to. But because he did, you can get something from that. He’s in the woods. Woods? Trees. “Why won’t you speak / Where I happen to be? / Silent in the trees / Standing cowardly.” Standing in the woods, out there alone, looking for something out of the ordinary and dramatic to happen, to alleviate his feelings, to give him proof that God exists.
That is the place he goes to wrestle with that.
Next line. His state is having flesh that is covered in bites. Mmkay, he’s used zombie imagery before. Heavydirtysoul: “Mindless zombies walking around with a limp and a hunch/ Saying stuff like, ‘you only live once’ /“ Zombies are people who don’t think about where life came from or where it’s going; they just shuffle around, not moving well through life, based on a ‘hunch (a feeling or guess based on no known facts.) They’re dead, pretending to be alive, mindless. That kind of crowd, or even that kind of mindset, has been chewing away at the songwriter. Getting covered by something so dark sounds a lot like the phrase “swallowed by the vignette.”
What’s covered in bites? Flesh. Only one other place where he’s used that word. Holding Onto You: “I’m taking over my body, back in control, no more shoddy / I’ve fought it a lot and it seems a lot like flesh is all I’ve got / not anymore, flesh out the door, swat /
I could say a lot about that song and the different meanings behind the word choice of “flesh,” but suffice it to say, it sounds just like Romans 7, (I don’t care, read all that scripture, it’s life-giving.)
“For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?"
The flesh is biblically at war with the Spirit, in a Christian. It’s the sinful urges and lifestyle, which have been defeated in Christ, but are still weighing us down and tempting us until He comes back. I’m not saying “doubt” is always a fleshly thing. I’m saying: addiction is always a fleshly thing—it’s laboring under the authority and control of something that is not Christ. Usually we are talking about addiction to a substance. But it can also be addiction to a mindset.
Doubt or ‘losing your faith’ or whatever can sound real romantic. But actually you know what, when you’re doubting, you get to stall. You get to say ‘well I’m not sure’ so you quit moving. You quit trusting, so you quit obeying. That aspect of it can be less daunting than the alternative—so it can be appealing. I don’t have to obey and do hard things if I’m not sure of the one giving orders. I can sit in uncertainty; that can be the slightly less scary hard-thing that I choose.
So. The flesh—the evil part of him that is already dead in Christ, but he keeps putting it on like a snake trying to fit in old shed skin—is what the zombies—the mindless, pretending to be alive mindset—are feeding on. And they’re doing all this while he’s out in the woods—where he normally goes to puzzle out whether or not God is who He says He is.
He’s putting back on that nasty old skin that doesn’t belong on him anymore. He’s going out where his only company is the undead, mindless-pretending-to-be-alive. And he’s doing what?
“Testing what is real, what is good.” Oh. Romans 2:12.
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
He’s using this phrase, but not like the Bible does. And that’s intentional. He uses the phrase incorrectly, to show how using it incorrectly is the problem.
He’s cutting out the fact that the testing is supposed to be for “discerning what is the will of God.” That’s the context, that’s the motive that is safe to base testing on. But he’s not operating in that correct, safe space. And he adds “what is real” to “what is good.”
When you take out “figuring out God’s will” but then you add in “what’s even real?” you’re saying, “I’m not sure God is even real, so nevermind about His will—let ME figure out what is good.” You’re not going to find “what is good” on those terms. Without Him, when He is in your category for ‘might not be real,’ when you remove Him from the equation, who’s to say what’s good? Anybody. Nobody. So “good” doesn’t exist. That’s zombie-thinking, right there. The absence of sense. Mindlessness.
Now factor in what I said above. That interview with Apple Music. “If I don’t know how to talk about it, do I really believe it?” Add in a dash of “Clear.” “Cleverly masking your words /“ Put in the whole entire character of Blurryface, who cares what everyone thinks and can’t be “clear.”
Vignette is just another chapter in the same old story. Tyler Joseph isn’t always 100% sure God is who He says He is. And at his worst, in his flesh, he cares more about what you think than he does the truth…so he can’t be clear about what he believes.
“Man, it’s been a long night.” Yeah. I bet it has.
There’s no hope in “gaining the strength to fight” if there’s no hope of victory. Not even the idea of it.
Because don’t you understand, that’s not hope. Hope is not blind. It isn’t “I just really wish things were different.” It’s “I know they will be.” Or even, “I know they could be, WHEN such-and-such happens.”
The bleakest moments in all my favorite stories are when the good guy lashes out and hits the bad guy across the face, because even though he can’t win, it feels good to fight back for a second—but then that lash-out becomes pathetic and sadder than ever when it’s over. Because when the momentary thrill is gone, you’re left with the hopelessness. The fact that that’s all he’ll ever have; the idea of winning. When in actuality “victory” is just some comfortable lie or mirage-like dream he indulges in every once in a while, but it’ll never be real.
I mean what the heck. It would be like if, in The Shawshank Redemption, nobody ever gets out. Nobody is ever freed.
It would specifically be like if Andy just keeps building his library and occasionally listening to music, hanging onto some “idea” of a life that is no longer real, but ultimately he dies in prison, a slave, forgotten, unjustly accused, unknown. Defeated. Yeah he kept living. Till he died. And what was the point?
But no, Andy escapes. Andy gets out. Even if it took most of his life to do it, he still did it. Because it was possible. Because he was never supposed to be there. Because it’s not true that “the darkness will always be with you and you’ll never truly defeat it, but it’s enough to keep going.”
No, it’s not! That sounds pretty, but it’s nonsensical. Thats the kind of thinking that made Brooks hang himself. He could make life livable with a comfortable lie; until he couldn’t.
If hope is the comfortable lie—if hope of defeating the darkness once and FOR ALL is a lie—then why bother? Why bother at all?
You only fight because there’s something worth fighting for. You only travel to reach the destination. That “it’s the journey, not the destination” does not apply.
I refuse to believe it. I will not buy into it. I know that the darkness ends. Ends, are you reading this? Ends permanently. I’m going to be free of my anxiety and depression and sickness, and dark thoughts, and self-focus, permanently, and when it happens, it won’t be because I’m dead, it’ll be because I’m alive forever.
I know it beyond the shadow of a doubt. My God said so. He trumps all your comfortable-lie-is-beautiful nonsense.
It’s really good! Like all of their songs. But it’s one of the ones I can’t get into his head and relate to. I mean, I understand overthinking and self-obsessing down that overthinking lane, to the point where you miss taking action and actually communicating clearly with someone.
But, I don’t understand a lot of the song. I don’t understand what it is he’s promising to give more of; because he spends so much more energy on describing how she’s the one giving and helping him. If he’s promising to give love, or affection, or clarity about himself, the song is ironic, because Tyler’s always writing about himself and how he sees things.
He’ll examine abstract concepts, but in the songs about his wife, they’re not about his wife. They’re about what his wife does for him, or what his wife makes him feel. He says in interviews that she’s an incredible cook, etc. and talks about her attributes. That’s “about” Jenna. That’s in praise of Jenna. That’s, on some level, examining and adoring who SHE is, the spotlight is on her.
But the songs aren’t like that. They aren’t glorifying to Jenna—beyond the things she does for him.
Now, in one sense, he is singing about love. He’s singing about her love for him; because love is a verb. And he’s singing about how that makes him feel, and what he would do to communicate that feeling. Like Tear My Heart, Formidable, Smithereens, The Craving.
But there are no songs that are strictly about what makes Jenna wonderful. No songs that describe her—again, just songs that describe what she does for Tyler or how she makes Tyler feel/what he wants to do. I don’t know why that is. Bur I think it is interesting to note.
Personally, I skip The Craving more than any other song besides Leave the City, personally. And it’s because I find that song frustrating. Because I don’t get it. What’s he craving? Sometimes I think it’s just “craving Jenna” or “craving a deeper connection” (because he has a hard time communicating) or craving is just a substitute for the word “love…” but he knows full well that out of the range of terms to use to describe “love,” “craving” has some of the least favorable connotations…so I don’t think that’s it. Anyway, I don’t get the song. Probably just a skill issue.
And in Jenna’s Version, I find the intro too uncomfortably intimate for me, an unmarried person, to get into the head of. (I also skip “Let’s Stay Home Tonight” by Needtobreathe and several songs that I know are about the artist’s spouse, for the same reason, so it’s not just twenty one pilots.) Maybe that’s just me.
“As this world becomes increasingly ugly, callous and materialistic, it needs to be reminded that the old fairy stories are rooted in truth, that imagination is of value, that happy endings do, in fact, occur, and that the blue spring mist that makes an ugly street look beautiful is just as real a thing as the street itself.”
I don’t know if I understand the way you’re using the word. But if something can be measured as objectively good, then that means, unless it’s perfect, it can improve by that same measure.
(reminder that if anybody wants me to stop sending these asks at any time, just tell me and I will stop!)
what is the thing that you are the most passionate about in life and why? what sparked your interest in it? is their a goal with it you want to reach, and are you actively working on your passion, or is it just something you know a lot about?
It should be Jesus but I don’t think it is, not perfectly, not all the time. What I tell myself and others it is, most of the time, is “storytelling.” But what I think it actually is (most of the time, but not when I’m in the Spirit) is self-glorification and wanting to be famous.
So there’s the triple-nature. What I should be passionate about, what I want to be passionate about, what I am passionate about underneath it all. But only one of those things is going to actually endure, and it’s “what I should be passionate about.”
Anyway.
What sparked my interest in storytelling was a combo of factors, but I remember the exact moment it came together clearly. I was getting ready for church and I’d been up all night (because at this point in my life I was like 19 and having trouble sleeping was a thing.) And I was trying to decide what to do with my life. I had interest in animated movies and in counseling but I didn’t know what to go to college for, so I was taking a gap year.
And as I was getting ready for church my draft table had the “Lilo & Stitch: Collected Stories From the Film’s Creators” book open on it, and I was listening to a worship playlist in my room and thinking about movies, and thinking about telling some of the kids I worked with in student ministries what made Lilo & Stitch kind of a Gospel story and how I could tell that to them convincingly.
(This is not my picture, but the book looks like this.)
It was open to the producer’s foreword. And this song came on my playlist:
Which is about how God is the inventor and producer behind everything. It’s Tyler Joseph and Travis Whittaker. But I wasn’t familiar with this song yet, so I thought the lyrics were saying “You’re the author, the producer, the inventor of the scene.” It’s not, it’s “inventor of the seed,” but whatever, same principle.
Then like I was having some kind of dramatic realization, the vague idea that all of life was a movie God made, and the main point was Himself, and all man-made stories that were good had nuggets of that in them, clicked together. I had never thought of reality that way before.
And ll through that morning’s service and yammering to my mother at lunch afterward, I was just thinking thinking thinking about it. About how, in movies, the setting tells the story as much as the characters and events tell the story. (Stitch starts out in vast outer space where all the ships look vaguely like fish—then the scene transitions to a small, folksy town with a local feel, but still plenty of fish imagery.) And how, in God’s “movie,” the plants and the way they work tell the story of the Gospel. Seeds, growth, death, rebirth. How the seasons do the same thing. How the animals do the same thing—the freakin caterpillar is a crawling worm, then goes into a kind of death for a period of time, then comes out a new creation.
The art of storytelling, settings, characters, narrative, and all, is just a hobbled-together copy of how God has been communicating from the dawn of time.
And my brain was racing, and I remember thinking about the idea that Christians are supposed to be “little Christs.” Well, if He was THE storyteller who told His story to show us Himself, then what better could I do than be a little storyteller who showed people Him, too? Not just with my career and my writing and art, but with the way I obeyed Him with my life, obviously.
But that’s how I decided what to go to school for. And that’s what got me into the industry I’m in now.
All that to say, if there’s anything that is actually accurate about reality and God in my little “realization” or philosophy, it’s only because God showed it to me, not because I came up with it myself. And if it’s not accurate, He didn’t show it to me, I made it up and heaven help me. But so far I think He did show it to me, so I keep trying to tell stories without letting that become an idol.
I think you’ve done a great job verbalizing your journey and I hope it is a great encouragement to all who read. And I want to respond to your comment “It should be Jesus but I don’t think it is, not perfectly, not all the time.”
I think, as Christians, we often get caught in the idea of “God should be bigger than anything else in our life” and get a weird sort of guilt when our immediate answer to a question of “what’s the most important/passion/whatever to you” isn’t the Sunday school default “Jesus!”
God has given us skills and passions to use for His glory. He can and should be *in* everything in our life, from the skill you’re passionate about to cleaning the bathroom. This doesn’t mean doing only “Christian” things with those skills; cleaning church toilets has no more glory in it than cleaning your own bathroom. But it does mean recognizing Him as your source and provider, and not letting your passion/skill become larger in your mind than He who provided it (which you have a great grasp on already).
Additionally (not saying you’re doing this, this advice just goes hand in hand for anyone else reading), don’t desire a different skill or task because you view it as a “higher calling.” People put ministry vocations, particularly “preacher” or “missionary,” on pedestals, looking to those calling as “well, God gave me this [skill/passion] but I need to be in organized ministry if I really want to serve him.” No! If God gave you the skill and passion for cleaning toilets, do not desire a different skill or passion He hasn’t given you. Serve Him with what you have, where He puts you, wherever that is until He leads you elsewhere and/or gives you another passion.
I think I agree with what you’re saying but can you help me see how it’s true from Scripture?
There would be a real Lisan Al-Gaib, who is not Paul Atreides. And he existed before the Bene Gesserit’s Missionaria Protectiva ever did. He existed before the Fremen ever heard of him.
The Bene Gesserit would be manipulating situations so that Paul Atreides appears to fulfill the prophecy—because they think they made it up, or have control over it. And then the events progress as usual, until the real Lisan Al-Gaib shows up. And the way he shows up is first by encountering Chani, and her jaded, “Paul Atreides dumped me and has become The System I Hate, and there never was a real Messiah.”
And he convinces her that it was all real, and he is real, and Paul is an imposter. And together they lead faithful Fremen against Paul and the Bene Gesserit, and defeat them, and return Paul to sanity.
That’s it. That’s all I feel like thinking up right now.