The Arcane vs Aristotle Blowout Finale!
Wrapping Up My Aristotle Deep Dive and More on A.I. Art
Happy New Year, Explorers!!!
I sincerely hope you all had a wonderful time over the break despite the many weather and travel difficulties that came our way in the U.S.!
I am finally back with some content, but it has not been because I have not been working on it. I have been taking every spare moment I could find to make sure I got the final installment of my Aristotle vs Arcane deep dive just right. So here it is to start your new year off right: the Arcane vs Aristotle Blowout Finale! Plus, I am sharing some more videos on the ongoing A.I. Art controversy.
I’m looking forward to all the creative work to come in the new year. There have been some delays in the art on some of my stories that are no fault of the artists, but hopefully we will be back on track to get some stories produced soon. In the meantime, I’ll try to keep things fun and interesting for you on Next Stop Unknown!
Sterling
Aristotle vs Arcane: The Final Chapters
This is it, folks: my final Aristotle vs Arcane Deep Dive! I honestly thought when I started I would get it done in three parts, but here we are at Parts VII & VIII. These sections will cover concepts of Catharsis, Tragic Relationships, and what I am calling the Four Types of Motivation (the concept that was my original impetus for wanting to study Aristotle more deeply.) The last part is longer than I’d like, but I chose to keep it all together rather than breaking the conclusion into a separate post without much context. So dive in, nerds, and enjoy the gold Aristotle has to offer your dramatic writing!
Arcane Bonus Material!
When nerds in so many different mediums can’t stop talking about why they all like the same series, you know it is something special. Arcane has proven to be just that on Youtube inspiring some really interesting and thought provoking analysis videos. I put some of my favorites here, but there are so many more out there to be studied once you get started. Enjoy!
A.I. Art Again!
In the last couple of months since my last real post, the A.I. controversy has blown up in the art community, and there is no shortage of people cashing in on the discussion for content! (Who’s got two thumbs pointing at this guy?) Anyway, here are a couple videos, one long and one short, that summarize a lot of what I have been hearing on the issue.
Final Note on Aristotle
If you are one of the few people who has been reading this deep dive and finding it helpful, I truly appreciate it. I hope it has been at least understandable enough to get your gears turning in some new directions. However, from the beginning, it has mostly been for an audience of one: me.
Part of why I kept adding more parts to this series was because I have been so excited figuring out how these concepts work. In college, I read an article applying Aristotle to screenplays that changed the way I thought about writing. After losing the article, I always wanted to go back and reconstruct what I learned, and what I have made here is my best attempt to comprehend Aristotle’s ideas more completely.
My personal takes on Poetics may not be perfect, and I am sure there are dramaturgists out there who could argue some points and teach me a few things. However, I am pretty proud of what I have been able to break down in this series. I honestly believe if you are a writer of characters, this material will provide some invaluable tools.
My hope is that this series may inspire some others with Aristotle’s ideas the way I was inspired years ago because let’s be honest: after sitting through things like Rings of Power, we need all the good writers we can get.
Sterling Martin is an artist and designer living in Chicago, IL. His background includes drawing, writing, theatre, teaching, improv & sketch comedy, and whatever else he can get his hands on to be creative. You can find him on the internet at:
Instagram: @sterfest.art
Website: sterlingmartin.design
Twitter: Looking more like it might be Hive, now
Tik-tok: That’s the one you make videos, right?
Linkedin: I’m pretty sure I have one of those
Facebook: Ugh, do I have to?