Carl, Stay Back

As an avid viewer and fan of The Walking Dead, I was bound to get onto the topic of Carl Grimes, and the fact that so many people just want Carl to stay in the house, stay back, get back, keep the door locked, etc.

There is plenty of criticism online from bloggers, article writers, people interviewed for news and entertainment bytes - all about The Walking Dead character, Carl Grimes and his penchant for getting into sticky, dangerous situations because he wanders off or won't stay in the house.

I've read blog posts where the writers call even the writers/creative team, producers and directors of TWD show awful names because the latter should never have written/presented Carl's character that way.

Reasoning:

• Carl's antics and wanderings caused another (crowd/viewer favourite) character's death
• Carl running off/disappearing is always causing stress in other characters
• Carl disappearing has caused other people to abandon current important projects/work in order to go look for Carl
• Worrying about Carl, not trusting him to stay put and follow directions, constantly grates at other characters' attention spans when they need to focus on safety and more important matters

By contrast, I have loved what writers/creators of the show have done with the Carl Grimes character. As I watched and proceeded through all of the episodes, from season one to the last season, I kept thinking, "Yeah, a kid would do that - wander off, explore."  (Let us not forget that Carl showed up a time or two when and where he wasn't supposed to be and saved other characters).


At times, particularly early on in the series, Carl hasn't quite understood his strengths and weaknesses, primarily assuming that he can handle much more than he actually can. How natural is this in a kid? I think all kids go through stages of overestimating their skills, underestimating risk and danger.

I'm glad the people who create and produce TWD have allowed Carl to have so many flaws, make so many mistakes, tick off so many adults and even viewers. This has all made his character changes really stand out. Carl could have been pushed to the sidelines much more in this show, one of the most violent shows on television. Carl could have been another cardboard kid character, just present as a character accessory to Rick Grimes, to prove that Rick was once a family man before the Zombie Apocalypse hit. Instead, Carl has become an integral and really important member of the survivor group he's in, including resorting to violence when that is needed - even from someone who is still technically a KID.

Okay, so Carl isn't a GREAT KID, not a perfect kid - he wasn't in the beginning of the series, either. Not being perfect made him seem so real, quite normal, as far as children go. (Children make MISTAKES all the time in real life). As the series has progressed, Carl has re-formed with a few holes, gaps and breaks in his general make-up, but then, this has happened with everyone/character in the show.

My biggest question (to those upset with TWD for Carl's actions and character) is this:

Did you think this show was going to be Little House on the Walking Dead Prarie?

To sum up, I think we're seeing, in Season 4 and 5, a Carl who has learned some hard lessons, partly from previous mistakes of his own, and he's grown into a kickarse character that more viewers respect. By Seasons 4 and 5, Carl can take care of himself in about as many situations as the adults can.

It's New Years Eve day 2014 and the new TWD shows won't start up again for several weeks, so I'll be off now to watch TWD past episodes and take another look at Carl, who won't stay back, won't stay in the house, keep the door locked, and who now kicks zombie arse!

Leaving you with a vid I found, a parody... there are a few bad words, but I'm sure you can handle 'em:




Enjoy the show once it is back on in a few weeks...

Review of The Grimm Brothers' Home Page

Earlier today I uploaded my own work on the Scribd site - an article on research tools for The Brothers Grimm tales at the University of Pittsburgh's "Grimm Brothers' Home Page."

In reviewing this page, I'd like to say that you shouldn't be turned off the site by its appearance:

It's not a pretty portion of the University of Pittsburgh website, but I think if you're interested in good content and scholarly work, you'll get a lot out of the Grimm Brothers' Home Page.

While there are some dead links among the many awesome resource links found on this page, the articles connected with these dead links might simply be in the process of being updated. I've known of and used this section of the U of Pitt's website for quite a long time (a few years) and in the past, I know I've accessed and read articles from pages/links that didn't work when I visited just today to compose searches and write a review article on this content.

I've decided to post this information to my blog because, although folklore, fairy tale and fable hunters and readers might already have heard that Grimm's material is on the U of Pittsburgh's website, the information isn't that easy to find when you just hit the main University site page! In fact, I was going to include a link navigation pathway tutorial in my article but I clicked around with ZERO success for several minutes, so I thought the tutorial might take longer to write than a review article! (haha).

I'll try to keep this post short. You can read the article via embedded Scribd (the article I just uploaded to the Scribd site):

Researching Folk Tales, Fairy Tales, and Fables Presented by The Brothers Grimm by Mythbuster

And I'll try to just add a few more details NOT COVERED in the Scribd document...

Since this is basically a review of the Grimm Brothers' Home Page - not the "info-article" on resources for researching Grimm tales (which is more what the Scribd article is about), I'll say again in a slightly different way, don't be turned off or turn away from the looks of the Grimm Brothers' Home Page. It's a little index of gold on Grimm topics and information. It just happens to look, well... really junky, sorry to say. In fact, I really hate the appearance of the page, myself, but I return to that section of the U of Pittsburgh's site ALL THE TIME, approximately 10 times per month for the last few years!

A great many Google searches on "Grimm" scholarly topics will lead you to the same section I'm reviewing, which is how I have managed to navigate to find the gems of Grimm info, myself. I bookmarked the page long ago and suggest that you do the same. I'm sure this section of the U of Pitt's site looks this way because not much time has been put into making a flashy page - while most of the time has been dedicated to providing sound information, links, and content on this page. That's the main thing, in my opinion, as when I want to find out what tale type a certain Grimm tale is, I want to be able to find, in rather plain language, the information I'm looking for on the U of Pitt pages.

Use link below - check out Grimm tales and information on folklore, fairy tales, fables, tale types, etc:
 Grimm Brothers' Home Page (U of Pittsburgh)

If you want to make your visit more interesting, I don't know if you can in a visual sense, but you can try whistling the Close Encounters of the Third Kind theme while you browse if that helps.  That's what I do !

:)

As far as attractiveness goes, the page is a low 3 or 4 out of 10, in my opinion, but for content, I'll rate this section of the university website a solid 9 out of 10 (some links don't work).