[Shelob]

Finally, about 4.5 hours after I started (though I did take about half an hour to eat) I have finished this bloody thing. Remind me never to volunteer to explain the references I use again...or just do what Abercrombie and Malkatoj do and tell me to stop existing, it hasn't worked yet but you never know...


Post: The play's the thing

Title The title is taken from Hamlet, Act II scene ii (II.ii), from the line "the play 's the thing Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

Sub-Title Or Few Lower
I took the idea of a sub title from Twelfth Night or what you will. However “few lower” is actually an anagram of “werewolf” (oddly enough this made me feel really bad during NIGHT 4, after littlemanpoet vanished and I’d calmed down enough to realize that the cause of the problem was anagrams…)

scene i Thunder and lighting….there to meet with MacDeath
I took this almost straight from I.i of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, it’s one of my favourite plays and it dawned on me ages ago that the three wolves were like the three witches. I made a few changes mostly to reflect time (“ere the rise of sun”, rather than “ere the set of sun”) and I couldn’t help playing on “Macbeth” and “MacDeath”, I just couldn’t.

scene ii--final stage direction (Exit chased by a bear)
That whole scene was based around that stage direction from Winter’s Tale by Shakespeare. I even assigned Abercrombie an occupation so that I could use the stage direction (“yeti-spotter” being from the Monty Python skit about a camel spotter, he’d been a yeti-spotter before he began spotting camels)

scene iii

Eaumor
The name of “Eaumor” was taken from the Name “Moreau” (Eaumor=Eau|mor=mor|eau=moreau) from The Island of Dr. Moreau. That had been an alternate idea for the game’s theme, that I (as mad scientist/doctor) had somehow created the wolves through unnatural experiments and they weren’t happy (like the beast-people, in The Island of Dr. Moreau), in reality the play idea was much cooler and gave me more to work with, but I liked the name “Eaumor” so I kept it.

a dark (and very expensive, forest)
If anyone is familiar with Spamalot they might have caught this reference, otherwise it would have made no sense. In Spamalot though “King Arthur and his Knights fled for their lives and were instantly scattered and lost in a dark and very expensive forest”.

Shelob hath murdered sleep and therefore Eaumor shall sleep no more, Death shall sleep no more.
For this I nicked a line from Macbeth, Macbeth had just murdered King Duncan and comments to his wife that he heard a voice crying “sleep no more to all the house… Glamis hath murdered sleep and therefore Cawdor shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more”. Glamis and Cawdor are the two titles before king the witches greet him with, “All hail Macbeth! Hail to thee thane of Glamis” and so on. Macbeth had one of the titles (Glamis) was shortly after their greeting given the second (Cawdor) and killed the true King to secure the third (king). Not that you really care about it to that length, but because I do and because I could go on for much longer, but I’ll stop after I point out how “Cawdor” and “Eaumor” almost, kinda rhyme and how “Macbeth” and “Death” do….deep that.

We’ve come with a message for Shelob, but The sight is dismal; And our affairs come too late: The ears are senseless that should give us hearing.
That’s right, that line was almost directly taken from the line in Hamlet, "The sight is dismal; And our affairs from England come too late: The ears are senseless that should give us hearing," V.ii. About the only thing I did was take out “England” and specify which dead person they were coming with a message for. I think the original thought process behind that line was “Merde! I need something for SPM to say…I know ‘foreign dignitary’ almost equals ‘ambassador’ I’ll steal that thing from Hamlet.”

Excellent, well, I am…[…]…a fishmonger
Also from Hamlet, this time from II.ii and a conversation between Hamlet and Polonius, I just changed punctuation and split it up.
Polonius: do you know me, my lord?
Hamlet: excellent well; you are a fishmonger.

Alms? For an ex-leper?
Another place where I stole a line and switched the punctuation to change it’s meaning. This line wasn’t from Shakespeare though, it was from Monty Python’s Life of Brian, as was the role of ex-leper…

When that I was and a little tiny boy […]For the rain it raineth every day.
Glirdan’s little song here was taken from V.i in Twelfth Night when the fool Feste ends the play, about the only thing I changed was the second to last line. It said ‘thieves’, I changed it to ‘wolves’.



Post Rose the Rants and Gil was dead

Title This title was basically a phonetic play on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead, which wasn’t quite Hamlet but was based on it.

Really? […] What about this False Seer?
Also basically from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead this idea is from a game the title characters play in the play and movie (if you’ve seen the movie think of the scene where they’re in the Tennis courts), basically they play to three points and get a point when the other player fails to ask a question, repeats a questions, asks a grunt instead of a question (“huh?”) or asks a non sequitur.

You had it in for me didn't you? Right from the begining
Who am I that so much should converge on my little death
There must have been a moment, at the beginning, where you could have […] but we missed it
Well […] We'll know better next time
All those are lines I modified from the final scene in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. It’s pretty simple really and they’re not anything special, there’s just enough of them to make a little army of references.


Post Beware the Eyes of March

Title The title was taken from what is probably one of the two most famous lines from Julius Ceasar, this particular line was “Beware the ides of March” I.ii and is the Soothsayer’s warning to Caesar. In case you don’t know the “ides of March” refer to the 15th, also there’s a Foxtrot comic where Jason and his friend Marcus make giant Eye-shaped headgear and go up to Jason’s sister Paige to say “Beware the Eyes of March”…just in case you care.

Voice from the well:
I took the idea of a the seer being in a well from Oscar Wilde's Salome, where the prophet Jokaanan was kept in a well. I believe the play actually uses “Voice from the well” but I’m not sure, whether or not it uses that specifically I definitely took the idea from that play.

Sooth…sooth…
Holby was the seer. She was saying ‘sooth’. Therefore Holby was a ‘sooth sayer’ or “soothsayer”…I though it was hysterical, it probably isn’t really…

Look at the moon, how strange the moon seems. She is like a little princess who wears a yellow veil, and has little white doves for feet.
I’m sorry Lhuna, I know you liked these lines, but they were stolen from the beginning of Salome. The play begins with two people (a guard and somebody, I can’t remember) discussing the moon and the princess Salome in turns…I took some of the better moon/princess lines from the very beginning. I think they worked quite well though, especially with the whole well idea from earlier.

Lest she see more, prevent it […] Out, Vile Jelly
These two notes were lines taken from King Lear, when Gloucester has his eyes ripped out. The first note/line was modified slightly, I just had to change the pronoun so Holby wasn’t an ‘it’.

Gloucester-ized
Holby’s death said she’d been “Gloucester-ized”, that’s because my friends and I took the above described scene where Gloucester’s eyes were ripped out and turned it into a verb. Ours is probably the only school where you can hear “I’ll Gloucesterize you!”, and our English room is probably the only one with a sign saying “If you can read this you aren’t Gloucester” in it (and yes, the sign is my fault).


Post Too much of water hast thou, poor Lhunardawen

Title This title is also from Hamlet, and all I did was change the name in the line "too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia" (IV.vii)

The pun conversation
I just have to comment here that this ‘too many puns’ conversation in no way reflected how I felt. In reality I was in glorious awe of the puns, they were glorious. Thank you.

How now, sweet shepherd?
Three guesses, that’s right! It was from Hamlet IV.vii and the line "how now, sweet queen", which is spoken right before the Queen Gertrude tells Laertes that Ophelia has drowned.

One woe doth tread upon another's heel, So fast they follow; dear Lhuna’s drown'd.
Hamlet "One woe doth tread upon another's heel, So fast they follow; your sister's drown'd, Laertes." IV.vii

Everyone Else: Drown'd! O, where?
You guessed it, Hamlet, IV.vii

You see that willow, growing aslant our brook? She must have tried to climb it, you can see where a branch broke…
This line references Queen Gertrude's description of how Ophelia died, esp. the "a willow grows aslant a brook" and "an envious sliver broke" portions of the queen’s spiel…against all odds this is also from Hamlet IV.vii

…there are too many bad puns surrounding this whole, hairy business
Not a reference but I hope you caught the irony of that, it’s another one of those things I find really funny but probably isn’t.

Drown’d a muddy death upon DAY 2
You guessed it, Hamlet IV.vii, " her garments, heavy with their drink, pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay to muddy death."


Post Ang's death

General Statement regarding this Death
Gah, I got a PM from the wolves early in the afternoon, probably around 2...and then promptly fell asleep until 4.30, I then had to leave by 5...we're not going to talk about that death...though I am rather a fan of him having been "killed safely"...


Post To die: to sleep...perchance

Title You don’t want to hear it, but this title was basically from Hamlet,
"To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream:" III.i

To be, or not to be – that is the question; Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to NOT CHEAT
Hamlet, sorry, III.i
“To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,”

Running away, eh? Come back here and take what's coming to you.
From Monty Python and the Holy Grail in the screen play those are the words the Black Knight yells after King Arthur after having both his legs cut off.

It’s like in Clue…
The rules actually say that, and the 'break in the wall' they're referencing really does happen at the window's too...mostly I just like proving that windows are doors, though if you were actually able to play such that you can leave the building and treat the yard as just one other room it’s crazy, there’s only 1 room without a window so you can get from any room other than that to any room other than that in two turns. One turn to leave by the window and one to re-enter the building. It defeats half of the purpose of the game but it’s not against the rules.

Oh dear, I hadn’t thought of that. (and promptly vanishes in a puff of [almost] logic)
I modified this for the play format, and added the “[almost]” because I wasn’t really sure how the argument would stand on a logical basis, but basically it’s from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, in the entry on the bable fish and the proof against god existing.

Fair is foul [...] and foul fair.
From Macbeth, I.i “Fair is foul and foul fair, hover through the fog and filthy air” it’s spoken at the very end of the first scene by the three witches.


Post Here lived and died a Shepherd

Title From As you Like it. I modified the line slightly, the character fully says “for my father's house and all the revenue that was old Sir Rowland's will I
estate upon you, and here live and die a shepherd.” V.ii

Alas poor shepherd, thou art in a perilous state.
Two separate references here, bunched into one reference. Both from As you Like it “Alas, poor shepherd” IV.iii and “Thou art in a parlous state, shepherd.” III.ii. If you don’t know “Parlous” means either “perilous, dangerous” or (obsolete) “Dangerously Cunning”, I just learned this though ‘cause I’d panicked when looking at the original line, in reality I think I’d misread it when look for lines to use and typed out ‘perilous’ instead of ‘parlous’, though ‘parlous’ would have been better.

If these beast be not damned for this, the devil himself…
Taken also from As you Like it the original of this line was “If thou beest not
damned for this, the devil himself will have no shepherds” (III.ii), I decided that “these beasts” would make more sense (and looked close enough) then I just cut it off early since ‘will have no shepherds’ didn’t make much sense whereas leaving it hanging made it seem more plausible.

Thus was the shepherd beaten from their side
From Henry VI, part ii (something new, hurray!), the actual line goes “Thus is the shepherd beaten from thy side, And wolves are gnarling who shall gnaw thee first.” (III.i)


Post For he's inclined as is the ravenous wolf.

Title Taken directly from Henry VI, part ii III.i, nothing much special here.

bickering and arguing about who killed who
Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Prince Herbert’s father (the King of Swamp Castle) when he’s coming down the stairs with Lancelot the guests get mad ‘cause Lancelot had just killed/wounded a lot of people and the King of Swamp Castle says “this is supposed to be a happy day, let’s not bicker and argue about ‘oo killed ‘oo”.

We’ve found a wolf, may we burn him?
Also Monty Python and the Holy Grail, perhaps you’d recognize it better if you replaced ‘wolf’ with ‘witch’ and ‘him’ with ‘her’…

why don’t we crush them under a pile of rocks
This refers to the death of Giles Corey during the Salem Witch Trials in 1692, but you’ll get more on that later.

Or would I? […] (Thunder crashes [sorry, couldn’t help it]
Yes, this is a reference, and No, I didn’t expect you to get it. Last year our teacher gave us a reading on how to write stereotypical horror stories. Basically the only advice this packet gave you was that you should “always end things with “thunder crashed” or “thunder crashes” it makes things more dramatic”. The packet was hysterical though, it’s still widely quoted in our English classes and I really just couldn’t help it.

Do you really think I am a wolf? […]there are liars and swearers enow to beat the honest men and hang up them.
Macbeth, originally the conversation is about traitors and I’m not sure if I’d had a reason for changing half of the ‘traitors’ to wolves or if I just forgot to change half of them. In any event the conversation can be found in Act IV scene ii.

Best five gold coins I ever spent, given the circumstances
Yep, I referenced Littlemanpoet…and his expensive silver daggers…


PostBefore the Magistrate for trial did come…

Title Alright, here I’m going to direct you to a website for actual information about Giles Corey, http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/proj...scoreypage.HTM . If you don’t wish to actually go read about him though I will say that during the Salem Witch trials in Salem Massachusetts a small part of the world basically went crazy. Three girls in the town accused someone in the village of witchcraft and that woman was given the chance to save herself by accusing others. She did. It goes on like this for a while, if you’re accused you can either admit and accuse another, if you do that you’re not lynched, or you can deny the accusations against you and find yourself being hanged. Giles Corey was accused during this witch-scare of being a warlock (male witch) and since he refused to admit to it he was put to death. His death was unusual however in that a board was put on his chest and heavy rocks were added, the theory being that eventually he’d admit the charges were correct. It didn’t work however, he reportedly said only “More Weight” before dying. The actual title is a modification of a line in an anonymous poem entitled The Man of Iron. If you want more information on the trials as a whole go here: http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/proj...alem/salem.htm

Great stones we lay upon his chest until he plead…
I don’t know why I put so much effort into finding my copy of The Crucible since I only ended up using this, and it’s modified from it’s original. Ignoring the uselessness of that though Arthur Miller’s play about the Witch Trials (and it’s more modern parallel of the Communist Hunts, which many argue the play is really about) is a quite good play, I certainly enjoyed reading it.

We have murdered the ranger, therefore the ranger shall protect no more, Eaumor is safe neaumor
As I mentioned in the post is this just another stealing of “Glamis hath murdered sleep…”, to explain that it’s one of my favourite lines in the play. I would like to say however that I’m really, really a fan of “Neaumor”…though the “how is that funny” question is in honour of my friends, who ask me that all the time.

Like Corey, burried under the contents of a Quarry
Using Corey’s name here was my way of giving you some (small) way of searching for Giles Corey by yourselves. You’ll note, however, that I managed to work in a rather fun phonetic joke.


Post: The wood has come against her.

Title This title references Macbeth, specifically one of the warnings the witches give Macbeth in Act V scene i. “Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be until
Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill shall come against him.”, it’s not directly referencing but that was the inspiration.

the only thing unusual […] and ate her.
I’m not sure if this was specifically referencing anything, but Macbeth and The Lord of the Rings both have rather vicious forests, as does The Brother’s Grimm. It’s just a common theme and my other ending was rather anticlimactic, so I changed it last minute. Actually, I changed this before I had the title, so if that’s any help…

Post For myself I will hunt this wolf to death

Title This title was taken from Henry VI, part iii II.iv. This line was really fitting for a hunter I thought, the only way it could have been better was if a wolf had died as well, but even so.

He’s got a dagger in his back
I hope you can see where this is going. If not, keep reading.

You two brutes
“Et tu, Brute!” ringing any bells? It’s from III.i in Julius Caesar and is the second really famous line from Caesar I mentioned earlier. If you want to know what this one got me, it got me a fairly well rounded scolding from Abercrombie…something about being too geeky to exist.


Post The Dreadful Story of Aiwendil and the Matches

Title The title is all I speak about for sure in regards to Abercrombie’s post. However I would like to thank her for doing this, it was quite helpful and kept me from panicking. Anyway, this title is from a book which is usually called “Struwwelpeter”. It is a German book by Dr. Heinrich Hoffmann. In English it’s often called “Shockheaded Peter” and was, about 5 years ago, turned into a junk opera. It’s a collection of little rhyming stories telling about children who behave poorly. The story Abercrombie referenced is “The Dreadful Story of Harriet and the Matches” (in English) and “Die gar traurige Geschichte mit dem Feuerzeug” (in German). If you want more information I’d suggest going here: http://www.shockheadedpeter.com/struww.html from there you can get information about either the stories or the junk opera (which, if you ever get a chance to see, is very entertaining)


Post Honesty’s a fool and loses that it works for.

Title This line was taken from Othello, Iago speaks it to the title character during Act III scene iii. I believe the only reason I chose this was that it fit the death of the False Seer/Fool…

beware the sides of March
This was also a reference to “beware the ides of March” from Caesar. I was rather more a fan of this one because the intention was (though I’m not sure how clear it ended up being) that the wolf used edges (sides) of the March page in the calendar to give him the paper cuts. My original plan was that if the False Seer died the next wolf to die would have a paper cut from changing over his calendar, the Fool warned them and it seemed wrong but wasn’t…This worked just as well though.

Well, it looks like there’s only one thing we can do.
I hadn’t meant for this to be a reference, just a statement that the only thing they can do is look for the last wolf. However Abercrombie gave me another “too geeky to exist” lecture because she realized it’s like the Miracle Max line “When they’re all dead there’s only one thing to do […] go through their pockets and look for loose change”. If you’re wondering, I get a lot of those lectures.

Done to death by numerous papercuts
“Done to death by slanderous tongues” V.iii in Much Ado About Nothing. Probably one of the most entertaining comedies Shakespeare wrote, I would highly recommend the 1993 movie version.


Post It wasn’t easy being green…

Title From the Kermit song, It isn’t easy being green. I’m sure you all can see the reasoning behind that.

So long, […] and thanks for all the fish
If you’ve ever read or seen The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams you had a decent chance of getting this reference. It is indeed the dophin’s last message to mankind before they leave because the world is about to be destroyed. The only reason this is in there is because I happened to be watching the movie when I wrote the death, though looking back on it it’s actually rather fitting (other than Celuien not being a dolphin).

Post The End of the Fishy puns.

Looks like he was stabbed [..] And a note saying “For a ducat I am slain”
Sorry, we’re back to Hamlet here, at least I hadn’t used it in a while. This whole scene references Polonius’ death in Act III. Polonius was hiding behind a curtain to listen in on a conversation between Hamlet and the Queen, when Polonius thinks Hamlet is going to hurt the queen he calls out. Hamlet, thinking it’s his Uncle the king, stabs Polonius through the curtain, saying “How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!”. Polonius responds with “O, I am slain!” before dying.

Post Wherein I'll catch your conscience and reign king

Title Harks back to the first post of the game and finishes the quote. Mostly this just seemed fitting, a nice way to round off the ending of the game (and I had no better ideas).

Glirdan takes the silver dagger, still on the ground from when Formendacil used it to kill the first wolf
Referencing a reference, aren’t I good? Actually those daggers were bloody useful, thanks LMP.

Look not so fierce on me! […] (Exaunt all)
This entire part I’d stolen from the Christopher Marlow play Doctor Faustus. Personally I’d recommend reading it, the play’s quite good, but in terms of the game it was by far the best wolf-win death I could find. I’m really a fan of it.

Epilogue Not really a reference, but I like Prospero’s epilogue in The Tempest and Puck’s in A Midsummer Night’s Dream so I stole the style those are in.