Kristen

Great article! One of my favourite aspects of the film (and a great characteristic of thoughtful science fiction in general) was how it highlighted that oppression is a result of often boring, monotonous, banal routines that we learn to accept despite their absurdity. While watching, I kept thinking of Hannah Arendt’s work on the “banality of evil.”

Matt – very interesting. I actually had no idea about the historical events informing the AHS mythos (that history was kept out of my Canadian history books!). Though, interestingly, your study is related to a common horror trope: the “dangerous” wilderness infringing on and threatening the sanity of white protagonists; a narrative that can be read metaphorically as a fear of the racial other (often read as “wild” or dangerous) endangering “civilized” (i.e. white European) people. This fear of the wilderness was also associated with fears of racial mixing, of whites “going native.” I don’t think these racist narratives are explicitly present in AHS Roanoke, but, expanding on your argument here, it seems like they kind of “haunt” the story and its construction. In short – thank you for this provocative article, which has got me thinking more in-depth about the intersection of race and horror.

Interesting, well-researched and well thought-out article! I appreciate that you spent some time discussing the Mass Effect trilogy’s morality systems. Has anyone started Mass Effect:Andromeda? I have only played a few hours so far, but the choices provided are much less binary than in previous Mass Effect games, and I’ll be interested to see how more complex choices and interactions influences the plot and/or ending. Based on reviews, these choices don’t add up to much, but I want to see and judge for myself.