Thought and Memory (The Lost Vikings)
They are, in truth, not lost, although they have gone far more astray than even Vinland. Were one to locate it on a map of genre, it would rest near Lemmings in the genre of action-puzzle. Like Lemmings, it is a game about navigating some characters through a series of traps to a goal. Also like Lemmings the characters are each given unique abilities. There are major differences – Lemmings’ central mechanic is based on the idea that the Lemmings are going to behave the same regardless of what you do, and on assigning special abilities to specific Lemmings at the right time, whereas The Lost Vikings gives you a trio of norsemen, each with their own special abilities, and has you alternate among controlling them. But the basic mechanic is the same.
First is Eric, swiftest of the Vikings, and the only one who can jump. Nominally, this means that he is the one with whom one explores the level to figure out what you’re supposed to do. And in this, he represents a crucial drive. Indeed, exploration is one of the basic types of gameplay in some models of how players interact with games, and it’s certainly one of the basic psychochronographic drives.
This is, perhaps, inherited from psychogeography, which is, after all, first and foremost a means of exploration. Although in both cases (as with Eric) it is not pure exploration, which is to say, it is not driven simply by a desire to find something that is new. Instead it is exploration in pursuit of a goal – a promised land, of sorts. The literalness of this shifts in context – Eric, for instance, very literally seeks a new land with every level, that being what an exit is. Similarly, the psychogeographer’s quest is necessarily defined by the physicality of land, even as they seek to conceptually reconfigure it, as opposed to abandoning it in favor of a new place. The psychochronographer, meanwhile, does not explore land in the conventional sense at all, instead looking for new modes of being and ideas.
In every case the pursuit is at its heart a tragedy. To find the promised land is always to despoil it. The psychochonorapher finds a new idea only to have it snap into place with relation to all other ideas, to become a spot on the psychic map like any other. The psychogeographer reconfigures space to his whims only to see it endlessly recuperated as the oppressive ordering of things takes hold. And even Eric will find that every exit is, in reality, simply an entrance to another map. Discovery is and always will be the death of exploration.
Although that one’s a bit dodgier with relation to The Lost Vikings. This is not so much because discovery is not the death of exploration as because there’s just so many other ways to die. The traps, generally speaking, aren’t a huge problem for Eric – more often than not, with his ability to jump, he’s actually the one who’s supposed to navigate those.…
The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu
It’s tempting to call it ruthlessly traditional 
Welcome to Shabtober everybody. _001-001.jpg)
– indeed, Morrison had been hyping it since 2009, describing it as rooted in “that sort of crystalline, self-reflecting storytelling method” and an attempt to capture what would happen “if Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons had pitched the Watchmen now, rooted in a contemporary political landscape, but with the actual Charlton characters instead of analogues.” In this regard, what is perhaps most significant about it is that it is not an imitation of Watchmen as such. Where many comics overtly following from Watchmen adopt its nine panel grid, Pax Americana is based around an eight panel grid, albeit significantly more loosely than Watchmen is around its grid. This is in turn reflected within the comic, which uses the figure eight as a recurring visual motif. But Morrison slyly plays on the image, using it not just to represent the number 8, but as an infinity symbol, a figure that tacitly invokes Doctor Manhattan’s line shortly before the end of Watchmen, “nothing ever ends.”_001-002.jpg)
First and foremost, I look at the various mirror-shots within an episode as a skeleton key for unlocking my interpretations. So, for The Magician’s Apprentice we start with shots of Missy reflected in her compact, and Clara reflected in the Doctor’s sunglasses; in The Witch’s Familiar we have both the Doctor and Davros reflected in an eye-shaped window in the Infirmary on Skaro.
Anyways, the word “apprentice” is rather interesting, given the new monster that appears at the beginning of The Alchemist’s Pupils (my title for the two-parter as a whole). Here we see Hands with Eyes in their palms, which is actually a rather ancient symbolic motif: the Hamsa, primarily from Middle Eastern culture, is considered a talisman that wards off or protects against the Evil Eye. It’s particularly notable for being a matricentric symbol to ensure a healthy and successful childbirth. But in this episode of Doctor Who the monster is demonstrably portrayed as malevolent, sucking a soldier down into the ground.
As always, from worst to best of what I bought.