The DSIR August Issue

August Issue, 2019

Kabir Subbiah As the last film in the MCU’s ‘Phase 3’, Spiderman: Far From Home had high expectations. Following Endgame and Homecoming, many wanted it to be the perfect blend of action, romance and comedy.

According to the box office collections, the latest Spiderman movie has lived up to all the hype and more. My expectations, however, were different. I didn’t want it to be ‘just the next one’ in a neverending franchise. I wanted a break from the typical superhero movie format of a disheartened hero somehow defeating his overpowered nemesis, and somehow, Far From Home has delivered.

One of my favourite elements of the Spiderman franchise has always been its humanity because that is 1 | August Issue

what differentiates Spiderman from every other superhero out there. He is obviously human. Far From Home inspects the inner turmoil of a confused student, torn between his desire to live a normal life like spending time with his girlfriend and his duty to protect people as a superhero, stepping into Tony Stark’s massive shoes. In fact, it is Mysterio, brilliantly played by the talented Jake Gyllenhaal, who sympathises with Peter by saying ‘You’re not a jerk for wanting a normal life, kid.’ Although none of us is a superhero, this conflict was eerily relatable.

This humanity was also visible in the villain, a disgruntled engineer whose life’s work is casually dismissed, a genius made to remain behind the scenes. Indeed, this

frustration is reflected in his means of giving the people something to believe in. He states this concisely when he says ‘You’ll see, Peter.

People... need to believe.

And nowadays, they’ll believe anything.’

As the film directly following Endgame, there were visible differences caused by Far From Home, from ‘The Blip’ to Skrulls, I wouldn’t be joking if I said the world will never

Picture Credit: Digital Spy

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Picture Credit: Washington’s Top News be the same. In fact, ‘The Blip’ (The five-year period in between Infinity War and Endgame when half of the world’s population is gone) is cleverly used for comic effect, adding on to a familiar element of Spiderman movies.

Arguably, though, the most significant change since Endgame is the absence of Tony Stark, evident in street signs and videos in memory of Iron Man. His obsession with technology comes up again, with the whole movie revolving around ‘Even Dead, I’m The Hero (EDITH)’, his final technological masterpiece.

Overall, watching Far From Home was a thoroughly enjoyable experience which I found surprisingly relatable.

A movie that exceeded all expectations, we couldn’t have wished for a better ending to Phase 3.

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POLL Who is your favourite Spiderman?

The Original Spiderman

The Amazing Spiderman

9%

16%

75% The MCU Spiderman

286 members of the school community were polled

BLACK LEOPARD RED WOLF Shreyan Mittal reviews the critically acclaimed novel, ‘Black Leopard Red Wolf’ written by Marlon James.

Black Leopard Red Wolf is not your run-of-the-mill mythology book. The most notable aspect of it is that this book is not driven by story. Instead, it is a crazy maze of stories driven by the reader’s emotions. Dubbed the ‘African Game of Thrones’ by the author, Man Booker prize winner Marlon James himself, this book is one that has not only lived

up to its hype and expectations but has exceeded it.

Set in a mythical precolonial Africa, the book is narrated through the perspective of Tracker, a ruthless hunter with a phenomenal sense of smell that allows him to detect poisoned drinks and enemies lurking far away. Tracker is sent on

a mission by an anonymous woman to find and bring home a boy who has been kidnapped. With no details given, Tracker embarks on the journey with only the boy’s scent and his own wits about him.

“Yet, somehow, through various twists and turns scattered throughout the book in a seemingly deliberate pattern, the reader simply cannot put the book down” He hunts for this mysterious boy alongside other hunters, a motley crew consisting of a moody giant, an admirer of Tracker who just happens to be a shape-shifting leopard, a learned buffalo and a mythological water goddess Tracker is also the titular Red Wolf of the story, a name with a very moving backstory to it. The most interesting thing about the book is the way it is written. Despite tracking down the boy, which one would expect to be the main storyline, Tracker often says that he does not care about the boy. The very first line of the book itself is “The child is dead.

There is nothing left to know.”

This pretty much foreshadows that the quest to find the child seems impossible due to the

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Picture Credit: Time Magazine

lack of enthusiasm shown by the protagonist. Yet, somehow, through various twists and turns scattered throughout the book in a seemingly deliberate pattern, the reader simply cannot put the book down. This is one of the most gripping aspects of the whole book too, because, it is as if Marlon James is telling the reader to focus on the characters and their story more than the actual plot. He writes Black Leopard Red Wolf with a weak plotline, but full of stories packed with emotions about different characters. Not only that, certain aspects of the book are justly grisly and gruesome, which include various sexual and blood curling scenes. If one thing is clear, it is that this book is not in the slightest for the faint of heart.

“If one thing is clear, it is that this book is not in the slightest for the faint of heart”

In total honesty, reading Black Leopard Red Wolf is a completely different experience from one that you might expect when reading another book on African mythology.

Abrupt endings, stories without a resolution and sentences written in such a way that don’t reveal who is doing what can make you want to pull your hair out. In an interview with Marlon James, he explains that this is done because it reflects the personality of Tracker.

All the suspense and abruptness match the mystery surrounding the protagonist, which frustrates and intrigues the reader even more.

However, it all seems worthwhile when one catches glimpses of Tracker’s past and is led to the reasoning behind his heartlessness and utter impassivity. Thankfully, it is not all is dreary and the readers are finally presented with a much hoped for redemption for

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Picture Credit: Barnes and Noble the protagonist. We finally get to see Tracker involved in a family of children just like him making it even more heartwarming. Things go downhill again when those children are killed by monsters looking for Tracker. The end of the novel moved me most as a reader.

All the loose ends are tied and the different plotlines converge and culminate into one chain of events.

“The most notable aspect of it is that this book is not driven by story”

A complete 180 degree turn from Marlon James’ magnum opus ‘A Brief History of Seven Killings’, and nearly as good, this novel is a must-read for everyone. With the film rights of the book already bought by Micheal B. Jordan, the story of the Red Wolf is set to capture hearts once again. Not only is the novel the first in a trilogy, but with the remaining novels being told from different perspectives, it really gives the reader some food for thought. So until then, all we can do is sit back, wait and ponder.

Aviral Kumar reviews the recently concluded famous television series, “Game of Thrones”.

Direwolves, Dragons and Death; nine years ago, these words would most likely have generated a confused reaction from the average individual. Their best guess would ascribe these words to the pages of some niche fantasy novel. Fortunately, in 2011, HBO was about to debut a show that would redefine the entertainment industry on a scale they couldn’t have imagined. The idea wasn’t a foolproof plan to success; their fledgling project was based on, you guessed it, a niche fantasy novel, that too one that was released in 1992. Of course, George R.R. Martin’s ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ can be viewed as a critically acclaimed piece of art in itself, but in 2011, not many were aware of the series.

‘Game of Thrones’ changed all that, and as the pilot episode aired on the 17th of April, 2011, a cultural phenomenon was born.

“Game of Thrones eventually did become a victim of its own success, the previous seasons having set a bar that was one step too high to surpass” Not much needs to be said about the series as a whole, its influence is inescapable, permeating through the entire fabric of our pop culture.

The show has set several records, including the most Primetime Emmys and Emmy nominations

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for a drama series at 47 and 161 respectively. Its actors were, during the final three seasons, the highestpaid actors on television, while the penultimate season attracted an audience numbered at a whopping 32.8 million per episode.

It is for this reason that when the final, eighth season aired in the spring of this year, expectations were unbelievably high. Nearly a decade of character-building, plot development and fan theories were nearing their culmination. It was this adoration that, having initially forged the franchise into the behemoth it is today, also overwhelmed this conclusive season, the only one to receive mixed reviews from critics, and criticism that far outweighed praise from the fans.

Season 8 picked up where the penultimate one had left off; The Night King’s undead army was about to clash with Jon Snow (or Aegon Targaryen if you will) and Daenerys Targaryen’s human forces for an existential battle to determine the fate of the continent, while Cersei Lannister lay in wait in the South to march in after the dust settled. On paper, the buildup is tantalizingly attractive, but if the final episodes of Season 7 had provided any indication, this was a series that had begun to crack under the weight of its own success, eschewing logical and measured story development in favour of wrapping up the series and generating the massive revenue it knew would arrive.

The first two episodes provided small doses of hope for viewers, filling the calm before the storm with fruitful character interactions

years in the making. Arguably the best episodes in the Season from a story-telling perspective; the image of Tyrion and Jaime Lannister, Brienne of Tarth, and the rest of the crew sitting around a fire sharing mead and laughter one last time before meeting what they felt was their inevitable demise as ‘Jenny of Oldstones’ somberly played in the background was a cinematic masterstroke. In these moments, the characters became a representation of their viewers – even though they were conscious of the impending end, they kept going, reminiscing about memories both fond and sorrowful along the way. Unfortunately, the ‘Battle of Winterfell’ that came after, promised to fans as the most intricately crafted episode ever produced by the show, was where the rot began to display itself.

What followed was the series’ famous subversion of expectation in the most poorly executed way possible. It is one thing to take a finely crafted plot and manipulate its content in a shocking way whilst remaining aware of the overarching mythos and character arcs, it is another to subvert expectation purely for the sake of it, to add an obligatory shock factor. Game of Thrones’ decision to do the latter led to the last four episodes descending into an ever-increasing crescendo of poor story execution.

Storylines such as the Night King’s, developed over multiple seasons and hinting at a climactic battle with Jon Snow, were abruptly cut short by the writers, who chose to use Arya Stark and a vague plot device to finish the job. Meanwhile, Daenerys’ sudden descent into

madness, or the near-comedic death of her dragon Viserion, were also heavily panned.

Ramin Djawadi once again formed the perfect backdrop to the show’s close.

Ultimately, the quality of these choices is always subjective, but the larger consensus clearly showed that most fans were disappointed, even outraged, by the writing choices the show took.

However, it’s important to note that it wasn’t the plot itself that was lacking, but more so its execution of it; fans were well aware that they should expect a bittersweet ending that wasn’t the perfect scenario, and Daenerys’ rampage and subsequent death or even the Night King debacle would fit into this conclusion perfectly. This changes when you substantiate the latter due to Arya being told she would “shut blue eyes” nearly four seasons ago or the former to the bells of King’s Landing suddenly initiating a mental breakdown within the same Daenerys who had done her best to be a stoic, just and morally conscious ruler throughout the series. The build-up to these events, and the entire season in fact, felt rushed and lackadaisical in its attempts; a Starbucks coffee cup the editors forgot to take out of a shot during an episode is one of the many humorous examples of this.

Viewed as an individual production, Season 8 has plenty going for it.

Unfortunately, it isn’t an individual production, and when viewed in the wider context of the series, its major flaws become far more apparent. Doubly problematic for it is the fact that these weaknesses revolve around the same points that were considered the shows greatest strengths – a well-thought, coherent plot and character arcs that made sense due to a unique understanding of the human condition. Many thought it hard to believe, a few even called it impossible, but Game of Thrones eventually did become a victim of its own success, the previous seasons having set a bar that was a notch too high to surpass.

Subsequently, what legacy has the show left in its wake? To my mind, Game of Thrones is both a case

study in creating a brilliant drama that proves that the epic fantasy genre has a wider audience, one that can redefine the status quo time and time again, while also being one in how an inconsistency in quality and impossibly high expectations can best even the most storied franchises.

Regardless, this takes nothing away from the place the show has carved in television history, or the hearts of millions across the globe. For all of us, the show is a treasure trove of memories we will always cherish; from the intricate fan theories to the debates over the best house, the jaw-dropping Red Wedding to the chilling massacre at Hardhome, the show has provided something for everyone, and it will continue to do so, further boosted by the slew of spin-off series audiences have been promised. Like any acclaimed work of art, Game of Thrones is special because it remains in the memory long after we walk away from it, and that is why it will remain as enduring as the winter it brings…

It almost felt as if the season gave us more memes than memories, but was it an irredeemable failure?

Despite my heavy criticisms up till now, no, it was certainly not. While the journey itself was executed miserably in its final stages, the ending was still able to keep fans relatively satisfied whilst staying in line with the harsh and bleak themes of realism the show has always set. Meanwhile, the cinematography was impeccable as always, with the Battle of Winterfell in particular deserving praise for providing a visually stunning and excellently choreographed fight sequence, plot issues notwithstanding. Finally, perhaps one of the shows unsung strengths, the brilliant score composed by

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Picture Credit: Inquisitr

Helium Vir Bhatia critiques Rudy Francisco’s poem and the significance of spoken word poetry.

In a time where issues such as masculinity and social injustice are being reimagined, Rudy Francisco’s ‘Helium’ serves a warm mix of honesty and sentiment. Francisco’s poems all share the same blend of vulnerability, pain, injustice, and the will to live in a better world than ours. Problems faced by people on a daily basis such as racism, sexual abuse, and religious discrimination are tackled in myriad ways in this collection. Rudy’s social and romantic life with all its bitterness and strife is also able to shine forth.

the need to add other components to their work. It is not a piece of music that requires rhyme, rhythm and a catchy tune, nor a movie that conveys its message through characters who are representative of larger themes. Instead, spokenword is nothing but the poet and their power to say exactly what they want in any manner that pleases them because there is no “conventional” structure for a spoken word poem. This makes it raw and comprehensible in a way few other things are.

His pieces vary in length and style yet link so perfectly with one another that the book becomes impossible to put down. The 2017 release features Rudy’s best works till date, including titles like ‘Adrenaline Rush’, ‘Chameleon’, and ‘Complainers’. When asked about why he named the book Helium, Rudy said that poetry sometimes makes him feel as though he can defy gravity and that it offers him an escape from what’s happening around him.

“Francisco’s poems all share the same blend of vulnerability, pain, injustice, and the will to live in a better world than ours” This idea of poetry being able to offer solace is highly underrated and is something that can’t usually be emulated quite as well by other art-forms. What sets spoken-word poetry apart for me is the ability it gives the writer to convey their message completely uninhibited by

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Picture Credits: Amazon, LA Taco The book and Rudy himself have inspired thousands of budding writers in that the messages they reflect are so easy to relate to.

Rudy was not a remarkable poetic prodigy from the age of 10 but started writing after a high school English assignment compelled him to do so. He dropped out of college in order to continue performing and competing with his poetry. His work is neither a reproduction of Shakespearan ideals nor does it even pretend to do so. It is, instead, what was written by a normal person who faces hardships that

millions of other people experience as well. What sets Rudy apart from others is his ability to transform familiar ideas into beautiful and crystal-clear words that speak to the human soul as few others can.

The reason he decided to convert his performance poetry into a written down text is that it allows the reader to revisit and reinterpret his words in a way that his performances don’t. Francisco has said that his aim was to show readers that he is on a journey that is far from over and that reaching a point of completion in life is a concept of fiction. On the back of the book is inscribed a review by Adrian Matejka, another renowned spoken word artist, who described the book as “poems that should be read and reread as an antidote for now” and no matter how long and seemingly insightful any review might be, there is no description more accurate for Helium than “an antidote for now”.

The Kingkiller Chronicles The Name of the Wind Abhay Jain reviews the high-fantasy book, ‘The Name of the Wind’, the first book in a trilogy.

‘The Name of the Wind’ is a beautifully written, high-fantasy, debut novel by Patrick Rothfuss.

Published in 2007, the book won praise from reputed authors in the genre such as George R.R Martin, Terry Brooks and Brandon Sanderson. It is the first book in the Kingkiller Chronicles trilogy and it comes like a fresh breeze of air to the overcrowded world of highfantasy.

“The Name of the Wind is essentially an endless well of wisdom, prose and music” The Name of the Wind has a relatively simple plotline, “Kote” narrates anecdotes from his life to The Chronicler, who writes down his story for the world to know.

In a way, the novel is just a day long, but it also spans many years.

Interestingly, the story is not just set around one big, looming threat.

Instead, it describes Kvothe’s life and the decisions he takes to fulfil his ambitions. If you are wondering what makes this simple book one of the most famous of all time, my answer would probably be the intricate world-building, language, and characterization.

With his desperate need for money and intense curiosity, Kvothe is incredibly relatable. Although he may seem like a well written Mary Sue at times, it is evident that he isn’t invincible, unlike many

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other protagonists in the genre.

Wherever he has reached in life, he has achieved it with his wit and intelligence.

World-building, or crafting the context that the book’s characters inhabit, is one of the hardest parts about writing a book.

A ‘magic system’ is at the core of any fantasy world. While Harry Potter uses wands to cast spells, Rothfuss has invented his own unique system of magic called ‘sympathy’. A recurring trope over the years in the genre of high fantasy is ‘overpowered magic’. An excellent example of magic gone wrong is the Harry Potter series, where there is no limit to the extent to which magical power is used.

This causes readers to be put off due to the lack of limits and logical flow within the central theme.

Rothfuss finds a perfect solution to this issue by meticulously crafting a type of magic based on the strength of the mind and conviction, termed as alar or the crop riding belief in the book.

In a nutshell, ‘The Name of the Wind’ is not your typical fantasy book. It does not involve the swashbuckling tales of a hero saving the heroine and slaying dragons with his compatriots.

Instead, it is a story based on the more realistic concepts of money and poverty. Apart from a lack of women in Kvothe’s life, the book is solidly written and has an ardent fanbase. With many years passing since the release of the second book, Rothfussians are eagerly awaiting the release of the third book.

Picture credits: Amazon, Barnes and Noble

“I’M GOING TO MAKE HIM AN OFFER HE CAN’T REFUSE” - THE GODFATHER

Editorial Board Editor-in-Chief Karan Sampath

Chief-of-Production “THE FIRST RULE OF FIGHT CLUB IS: YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT FIGHT CLUB.” - FIGHT CLUB

Divyansh Nautiyal

Heads of Design Ameya Shawak Yashasvi Jain

Editors

“GENIUS, BILLIONAIRE, PLAYBOY, PHILANTHROPIST” - THE AVENGERS

“MY TEACHER TELLS ME THE REAL BEAUTY IS ON THE INSIDE.” “THAT’S JUST SOMETHING UGLY PEOPLE SAY” - LIAR LIAR

Ansh Raj Aarsh Ashdhir Karthik Subbiah

Associate Editors Armaan Batta Nirvair Singh Vir Bhatia

Graphic Editors Arav Dixit Armaan Rathi Krishnav Singhal

Correspondents

“COURAGE IS NOT LIVING WITHOUT FEAR. COURAGE IS BEING SCARED TO DEATH BUT DOING THE RIGHT THING ANYWAY.” - ARGO Picture Credits: The Hollywood, The Sun, Digital Spy, Tenor, Ever Plans

Agam Bhatia Ivor Ismail Kabir Subbiah

Junior Correspondents Gurmehar Bedi Shreyan Mittal

Faculty Advisor Malvika Kala