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The Hobbit Book Study Chapters 10-11

Spyro the Dragon - Myths Awaken

-Plot Synopsis-

Act 1 - The Unraveling

ON AN UNKNOWN ISLAND, GILBERT speaks with the shark deity at length about a strange cloud he saw that seems to have biological properties.  He notes that it APPEARS to be breaking down or dissolving things. THe Shark deity nods in agreement, but solemnly.  The next day, in dragonland, there is great sadness.  Not only have the stories of the world begun to change, but storytellers have fallen ill. Two of which die.  Gilbert, having been fed up with what's going on, states that "No more of these men will die, if I can help it."  He buries them both, and sends their body across the great sea.

In the time machine, Gilbert returns to the earth from 5,000 years ago.  Admiring the setting sun, he notes that time is running out and he walks towards the university. Upon acquiring entry into the archaeology department, he meets with the heads.  They inquire how he got in, he responds in kind.  After stating his business, and putting the people under light duress, he instructs him to let the man known as "The explorer" perform research on the centre of the earth.  He wins them out.  He meets the explorer hanging around the quad. They talk for a beat, and the plan is laid out.  The depart in the time machine and land back on the island. 

They are met on the island by ASHE, ZAPP and SPARK.  ZAPP and SPARK bicker a bit and it dies down.  Ashe formally introduces herself to the explorer. Spike emerges from a bush and chirps.  he uses his talking crystal to introduce himself, using a less formal speech pattern.  After this, all of them head for conformist hunter headquarters.  Lauren had already ran a detailed scan and analysis on the mysterious cloud.  She outright states that it's function is to deconstruct.  However, deconstruct

WHAT they are unsure of, as its patterns are near completely random. 
Night falls shortly there after. The explorer falls asleep quicker than usual.  He has a dream where he sees a withering Char, fallen next to her loom.  Weakly, Char fills him in on what's going on.  The cloud exists for ONE reason and ONE reason only; To break things down. It's breaking the weaves of culture, story, way of life so that the enemy can invade, taking over the who solar system once and for all.  When the vision concludes, eh writes this down, doing a detailed drawing of an ailing Char.  All fades to black.  The next morning, he reports this to Spyro.  Spyro sounds the alarm, and the adventure begins. 

Act 2 - 8 Touchstones, 7 dragons, and one earthling

ALL OF THEM GATHER on the bridge of a small scale space ship.  There is a large screen in front of them with a map of several planes of existence.  Spyro lays out the details of the mission.  "Split up into two companies, and retrieve the missing 8 touchstones that were stolen the officers of the PTA."  Half of the people (and dragons) in the room go with Spyro, the other half go with the explorer and Gilbert.  They head to "the place where stories begin" -- AKA "The plane of faery".  Spyro's company lands in the plane of fire; Gilbert's company lands in the plane of water. 
In each location, the denizens send them on quests to defeat the constructs that the Anunaki have built to guard the touchstones.  in the city of Glass, Brooke speaks with one of the waterfey about dealings in her homeland of Acquaria towers. likewise, in the city of Brass, Gilbert, the explorer and Blaze speak with a local Afrit regarding the top of Magma Cone, where Blaze is from.  After defeating the constructs in battle on their respective ends, they regroup in the plane of wind, at a point called "Sky Citadel". 

To his slight dismay, Gilbert hears familiar voices  and it is revealed that the skylaanders have been on their trail.  Trigger happy takes a nice swig of mayonnaise and likewise, Stealth Elf takes one of soysauce.  The whole gang stops and listens to them as they fearfully  and franticly  explain that the PTA has, infact, now broken into dragonland.  They also note that since regainng the touchstones that they have, Char is recovering from her illness.  Next, its off to the Earthrealm.  Night falls, the two companies, and the skylanders set up camp.  When everyone falls asleep, the explorer inches ever so closer to Gilbert's sword.  Armed with a notebook, he begins to sketch another drawing of it.  When
he does, he's transported back in time to when He, and a fawn named Elora were courting.

 Elora stands there in her black and grey Gebler uniform with rank patches and all. She and a young Gilbert embrace as the words "In joyous bliss, Palamon wedded Emily" are heard.  the scene flashes foward to a defeated and forlorn Gilbert, carrying the dead body of Elora to a spot in the forest, then it flashes ever forward to the outside of a temple.  A Strnage looking , Sea Green sword glows a slight blue and floats over to him and he takes it.  pulling away, startle and saddened, the explorer finally realizes what all this is about.  In an attempt to both comfort and lift his spirits, Brooke and Blaze both sing to him.

The clouds open up, however, and a flying disc appears with a nearly healed Char riding on it.  Presenting the Explorer with a silvery blue sword that glows purple, she tells him that it's time for him to learn how to fight, as his ancestors did before they landed on earth and "Softened" as she puts it. One of the cheetah people volunteers to train him.  Weeks pass, starting with a wooden training blade and working up.  The explorer regains his genetic and familial confidence once more.  He casts away his parka for a suit of chainmail. 

All of them head to bytopia to track down Garl Glittergold.  The explorer also meets up with none other than Aizen Magus.  He and his daughter Ma'i discuss the intricacies of piloting giant maechs called "Autotechs".  The following evening, they all meet arounda camp fire.  They discuss how they're going to get ahole of the last two stones.  After they formulate a plan, everyone turn sin for the night. 

Act 3 - The sounding of the war drums

All over Dragonland, the drums of war sound.  Even though a gathering of elders has done their best to hold them back.  An army of Zombies invades and the battle  is on. Just when all hope is lost, Singing can be heard in the distance. From seemingly out of nowhere, Aizen and Ma'i show up in t the autotechs 17 and 18, making short work of the army.  The shark God returns, firing a beam skyword.  Gilbert returns, riding a sea dragon and takes on more of the zombies that keep popping up.

Red Syndicate shows themselves and attempts to smash the touchstones, but to no avail.  An enraged Gilbert disables the safeties on his suit of armour.  He goes into full rage mode.  The rest  of the dragons follow suit.  Puppet Master challenges the explorer to a battle.  Summoning all  his genetic and familial courage, he spars with puppet master until enough is enough. in order to defeat the cloud, Spyro launches himself into space, summoning the help of a large blackhole.  the cloud slowly shrinks as it's sucked into the blackhole.  having expended all his energy, spyro plummets to the earth below.  The explorer, in sync with spyro, Runs the puppet master through.  Time seems to stop.  Everyone has respective dreams about the importance of story and narrative.  Spyro rests. 
Exactly 2 weeks later, a parade of Avalari, Mechanus, Bytopian, and Shadow land creatures march towards the university.  The Dean of students' Jaw drops as as the explorer presents his department with the touchstones, the suit of armour and his sword.  Everyone including the skylanders meet back at conformist hunter base.  This, it appears, is the end of red syndicate.  We pan across  a resting spyro, and then fade to black.

Advent Begins

Saturday Night Rewatch 11/30 - "ADDAMS FAMILY VALUES" (1993)

Saturday Night Rewatch 11/30 - "ADDAMS FAMILY VALUES" (1993)

Spyro the dragon: Ecce Homo

Synopsis

1 Wie man wird, was man ist

In the cold north, a lone explorer slowly but surely makes his way to what appears to be a cave entrance. All around him, the winds of a maelstrom swirl and moan, snow falls, and the clouds burst with thunder and lightening. He comes to rest at the mouth of the cave. Though the storm obscures his sight a great deal, the explorer’s eyes rest upon 3 items A very obscure looking green sword with a traditional hilt, a helmet with dragon-like accents and plain red scarf. The ground, however, shakes and swells, a large dragon-like being burst out of the upheaval soon thereafter. The large beast is known as the Tarrasque. The explorer is stunned, not knowing what to make of the large creature he can barely make out.

Behind the explorer, a brigade of penguin warriors appears. First, they slide on their bellies, then they leap into the air, straight up, one by one. They shout into wrist coms in communication with SGT Byrd. The Penguin warriors manage to non violently subdue the tarrasque and get what appears to be a reading on it. During all this, a rock falls from the foothill and knocks out the explorer. The leader of the penguin warriors radios for a Carrier ship to pick up the subdued Tarrasque. Within a couple of hours, a ship shows up and takes the beast in. The rest of them board said ship and go back to base.

A week goes by and the explorer begins to heal. Over a time, the group of dragons opens up to him about what has been going on. HE learns about he formation of the conformist hunters, Spyro (their leader) and the man who’s helmet he found in the arctic circle. The explorer opens up about where he comes from and what he was doing. Originally, he was searching for the opening to the city of Telos in Hollow earth. The reason? There is a rare eclipse that is happening and he’s also a bit of historian that wanted to track the number of years between happenings. However, he is still dumbfounded that he’s standing around real dragons. They also explain the that the appearance of the Tarrasque. Therefore, the countdown begins.

SGT Byrd walks in, the dragons salute. He looks the explorer over, noting that he’s lucky that all he got was a knock on the forehead. He then relates to the explorer to the story of the coming of the Tarrasque and the setting of the current age. The Explorer relays the ancient Sumerian and medieval british Isles tales of Eclipses being Tiamat or a dragon flying over the moon. After a few hours of this, however, the dragons all wonder “Where on earth is SPYRO?” The helmet that he picked up on his expidition begins glowing…

***

In what appears to be any other art deco style park in a city centre, a purple and red blur flies around on a skateboard. The blur dashes from grinding on rails to pulling off airs on a half-pipe. This purple blur reveals himself as Spyro. His adventurous fun is cut short by a beep from his dragonfly, sparx. He takes the call and reacts accordingly. He flies off into the sunset, promising he will return shortly.

Spyro arrives at base soon thereafter. The explorer, Sgt. Byrd, and Sheila the Kangaroo are standing around in a room. The explorer regales stories of his exploits to everyone; even a somewhat non attentive Zapp and spark, who keep taking pot shots at each-other. The explorer pulls out a photograph of a mural that shows the moon and the sun intersecting. Later that night, Blaze asks the Ra computer to explain the tarrasque is. The spirit inside of the Ra computer does so.

***

The distant sound of drums echoes near the mouth of yet anther cave; a tall, orange backed bandicoot emerges. He states that the moon and sun have warned him that they are converging soon. He hasnt’ much time for that, however. A large craft lands near him and tall lady walks out. She opens her arms, raises a megaphone to her lips and proclaims that “The sun and moon are about to convene, I am summoning a purple ally to fight along side you. Tarrasque the destroyer’s day is nigh! He falls before her in suprise and veneration. In the following days, hearing the distant enchoes of drums, he leaves the island in the back of a spaceship.

Crash bandicoot and Spyro introduce themselves on the bridge of the ship. The explorer does so as well. Blaze returns from talking the holographic ear off of the RA computer and also introduces himself. He does so in bombastic, firey Blaze fashion that amazes all parties involved. He then gives way to the others. When all this concludes, the captain informs them to be seated in position and secure their gravity belts. They’re headed back to hollow earth to hash this out with the others. The ship flies around planet earth once and then takes a nosedive through the south pole.

Act 2 – The Teachers are coming, the teachers are coming!

The sounds of a stopping ship give way to the movement of a tramway and the views of an expansive, art deco style city with a large done over it. Ashe requests that the tramway bring them to “Conformist Hunter HQ”. It does so. Spyro, on the other hand, fusses. He wanted to go back to skateboarding, however as company leader, he is rendered unable. They land at their destination and everyone disembarks orderly. Everyone, that is, even the explorer and crash. The continue to marvel at the views inside of the lobby. 

They continue to marvel at the expanse of the city and the insides of the rotunda. This may seem like “Just another day at the office” for spyro & Co, however, for them, it is far from ordinary. Lauren, the operator greats them and brings them to a briefing room. She explains that the parent teacher association are going to use the immense power generated by the eclipse’s reaching totality to power the weapon known as “Ramayana” and bore a hole into the earth where the Tarrasque sleeps. Everyone in the room collectively gasps; Blaze looks up in fear, the motions of his tail become more intense.

A tall, tan skinned girl with wavey dark hair walks over to him and sits down. She speaks in a foreign language, in a soft voice. Blaze’s tail settles. They are all instructed to engage in intense training, as The Tarrasque is one of the largest monsters they’ve ever faced. Nina leads the explorer, crash and spyro to what appears to be a giant, empy room. She switches on a holographic user interface which takes up the whole room. She uses this as a way to educate the explorer on what’s going on and what has been going on. He takes hurried notes in his notebook with a look of astonishment crossing his face. She then hands them both training bos to elarn how to fight with.

A few days later, the team regroups after hours upon hours of training. Spyro, Crash and the Explorer walk into a separate room where the sword, Helmet, and scarf are kept. After making another drawing of the three items in his notebook, the explorer walks over to them. He curiously but cautiously dons the helm. The hlmet intensly glows, the whole of the explorer’s field of visoin lights up and a male voice narrates to him. He is shown the events of the invasion, interstellar war, the battle of Irving, and the rise of the dragon ‘Red”. After this massive 3D info-dump, he falls faint on the floor, shaking a bit. Ashe carries him to the infirmary.

On the other side of the ship, in a secluded cabin, Brooke and Blaze converse with each other whist drinking dragonberry wine. Though being excited that he made a couple of new friends, he’s feeling really bad for agent 9. Agent 9 has been having more flashbacks to when the Anunaki stole his parents and cloned them. Brooke reassures him that they would help him fight that battle. They exchange friendship stones just as crash and his sister coco walk in. Coco is carrying her lyre and Crash Bandicoot is completely dressed in an ANZAC uniform with an obscene number of medals and honours. Blaze Makes an off-hand comment that Crash and Willie should meet. Everyone laughs.

Agent 9, SGT Byrd, Bentley, and Sheila gather with Spyro, crash and the professor. They hear orders being given out on the com about 4 areas being invaded by teachers. The dragons et al break into teams. Agent 9, Sgt Byrd, Bentley , and Sheila lead said teams as they make their way to each of their entry points. The battle hordes of Rynocs and collect fallen star pieces as par instructions. Lauren takes the explorer to Professor Mole’s house between Avalar. While there, the Professor explains everything that he saw. Events like the counterlink experiment, the discovery of the wingmaker’s pyramid and the appearance of dragonland become clear. The explorer takes notes yet again.

Agent 9 and Crash land on “insanity” island to directly take on the Ramayana itself. Thought here are mere days before the eclipse reaches totality, Crash notes that he has show agent 9. in the cave that crash was standing in when char appeared, Agent 9 discovers a Steal tomb with a larger, female lemur. Crash Bandicoot leaves the two alone; Agent 9 silently grieves. Outside the mouth of the cave, Coco plays her lyre and sings an old Lullaby. From their youth. The sun and moon can be seen drawing ever so closer.

Act 3 – Eclipsing Totality -

The explorer masters with all his ability the use of a standard sword. All falling star pieces have been collected. The Parent Teacher Association ships gate out of hyperspace and land on Insanity island. The Ramayana charges up and prepares to fire at the remains of an ancient palace in the style of Polynesian architecture. The gun, however refuses to fire. It fizzles out after multiple startup tests. A disgruntled Grendor Steps out, both of his heads firing insults and epithets at the ape underlings. The corvette carrying Crash, Spyro and the other conformist hunters lands behind enemy lines.

A company of Rhynocs charges into battle with the conformist hunters! The fight is on. However a brigade of hall monitors knocks out the explorer and tazers spyro, stealing the falling stars from their inventories. In a sheer fit of courage, the Explorer drinks the dragon’s glory from his wine-skin and charges the hall monitor brigade, screaming. The screaming of the adrenalyn filled explorer segues to the haka-like chant of Crash bandicoot.

Crash uses his will to hurl piles of boulders at the army of rhynocs, bringing down one of the palace’s statues. The sound of a jumbo jet along with the grinding of skateboard wheels can be heard as Spyro charges the oncoming hall monitors with determination in his eyes. The moon and sun draw ever closer. However, like a scale, Spyro’s determination grows in sync. Blaze curls up into a ball and Ashe lifts him up, and hurls him like a Blaze-bowling ball at more Rhynocs. After the seemingly endless hordes are defeated, Grendor leaves. Both crash and spyro team up to use their energies to destroy the Ramayana. They nearly succeed when the conjunction happens! Totality has been reached. They all stand around each other inside of the palace. It feels as though all they had fought for is now for naught.

The ground shakes, a sink-hole forms, and the monster that the explorer had seen in the arctic bursts out of the ground. In another upheavel, the ground swells and shakes. The Tarrasque roars in unquenchable rage. A battle worn coco emerges from a pile of brush and plays her lyre. She begins to sing the lullaby. The rest of the cast join in. Spyro, Crash, and the explorer are drawn into the spirit plane by her singing. Agent 9 is also embraced by the spirit of his dead mother. Without saying anything to any of them, their respective loved ones convey the idea that they’ve won, its over. They all continue singing, The Tarrasque is subdued and burrows back into the earth’s core.

****

Steampunk Direwolf, inspecter Lestraude and an explorer walk up to the enterence to Cambridge. In a room off to the side, a large, purpleish black alien suit of armour hangs. The Explorer sets the sword down next to it and puts the helmet on where the head would go. The other two leave the room. A tear wells up in his eye. He bows low. “Gilbert, we won”, he says, his voice breaking. He walks out of the room humming the lullaby.

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