Multiplicity

I dunno, I don't see any reason a sympathetic multiple couldn't be popular. There's some subtle but definite elements of multiplicity in Kingdom Hearts 2, and that's hardly an obscure game that didn't make much money. The multiplicity is fantasized, of course, to fit the setting, but it's a positive, non-stereotypical treatment.

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weirdiguess.livejournal.com

I mean, they don't *pull in the ratings*. You can see multiples in things, generally not pointed out so a lot of it is speculation, but you typically won't find a show *about* a multiple that doesn't have major negative spin, or doesn't make them a big freak show.

That's how TV works. It's why dead little white blonde girls in football shirts get the front page, whereas a middle age average working class murdered man gets a short mention somewhere around page 7.

~us

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Toya Currie (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4155/is_20020210/ai_n12452509) didn't even get that, except in the Afro-American press. She was attacked the same day as JonBenet. The only reason the mainstream press and CNN picked it up was because one of the Afro-American journalists covering her story wrote to the Sun-Times criticizing them for their huge coverage of JBR while paying no attention to a similar story occurring on the same day within the city.

It isn't that writers won't write sympathetic multiple characters. I am certain that they have done so. The problem is that no producer or studio will touch it.

For one thing, NAMI would have to approve the script, and they would leave their sticky fingerprints all over it. Remember what they did to Ron Howard over A Beautiful Mind? He was forced to insert a line into the script saying that John Nash had been "put on a new medication". Far be it from NAMI to permit the truth, which is that Nash taught himself to discern and ignore hallucinations, and taught his son to do the same.

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underlankers.livejournal.com

This episode is about the investigation of the murder of a psych doctor. The witnesses reported a man who called himself Martin Brody (Roy Schneider's character in Jaws). The main character, a fake psychic, is hired by a man to get rid of a "ghost". The main character is taken up into the attic with his friend,where using his stupendous powers of observation, he deduces that the man is a multiple. The two characters decide to "trigger" the other member of the system. They take the man up into the attic, and in a moment of Complete and Utter DreckTM, by talking about feeling "pretty" and putting a dress on the man's shoulders, trigger Regina. Regina comes to the front, and she and the other characters talk about the visits to the doctor. Regina is all "I could never hurt that doctor, he was talking about a private matter" which the fake psychic deduces as gender reassignment surgery. After this, he, again by those marvelous observation powers realizes that there is a third system member, the Martin Brody at the beginning of the episode. He also realizes that Martin is going to murder the doctor they are seeing in ten minutes. Tra-la-laaa! The day is saved, and the multiple ends up in a mental institution.

Pros:
1. Male multiple. That means that they didn't make it a Sybil-type.

2. Cross-gender selves.

Cons:

1. Male multiple commits crimes.

2. Regina came across as a stereotyped female-in-male body.

3. The ending with the multiple in a mental institution.

Overall? Out of 10 I would give the portrayal a 3.

How's that for a review?
Alan Christian^Crew.

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I'm not certain where you see multipicity in Kindgom Hearts 2. Explain.

--A

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It's pretty spoilery. I'd rather put it behind a link. Is it worth a separate entry? Or do you just want me to email you or something?

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Works for me.

Geez, what a bunch of s--t.

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I've played through the whole game, and I'm at a loss to see any multiplicity there. You can be vauge and I'll get it, or do what you want.

--A

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Vague? Um... Roxas, after you leave Twilight Town.

Like I said, it's subtle. It took me a while to make the connection, and I couldn't tell you if the writers knew they were writing about something real. But it was similar enough to Johnny and me to touch a nerve.

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I think you're displacing.
Its a common occurance that when you want to see something hard enought, you'll see it. You want to see Roxas as an example as a healthy multiple? Or perhaps you just wanted to see an example somewhere.
From a literary standpoint, the duality of man has been used over and over again. Pointing out Roxas and his Other as that is far more likely. And one does not need to have more than one person in their head to have more than one side to them.
If you /have/ to see Roxas and his Other as a multiple system, they're far from healthy at the end either. There's that whole integration thing again.

I think any signs of multiplicity in Kingdom Hearts are only from the player using their own experances to color the game.
|Which might be part of the experiance...I guess.|

--A
|And Diz|

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http://www.karitas.net/pavilion/library/articles/m_review_psych0806.html

thank you.
*headdesk*

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Couple of friends of ours (one plural, one not) have observed the same thing about what could be seen as multiplicity in Kingdom Hearts II. But they say that to them, it has to do with the Nobodies. The way these guys see it: The nobodies are looking for somewhere to exist because they've been told over and over again that they're not real, that they have no feelings and that they are only pretend. They are told they are not allowed to exist on their own, but must reintegrate with their origins because both are only 'half a person' otherwise.

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No, Nobodies are told they're not a person at all. And while its possible some might be looking for a place to exist, Nobodies are just looking for a heart. Not a system, not an integration--not that 'reintegration' is possible for most Nobodies anyway, if you look at how they're created.
Its really stretching to see us as a metaphor for multiples.

--A

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One, I didn't say healthy. I said sympathetic. They've got some serious issues - actually, they're almost completely non-communicative, and there's hints of deeper problems. But they're both good guys. And they did not integrate in the sense we use the term, that's clear in the ending.

Two, they're two distinct people in the same body. I don't see how you can argue with that. They have separate friends, and distinct memories, and different skills. They have dialogue at one point. It's more than can be explained away as a metaphor about the duality of man.

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Again, displacement.
There's little argument that the two share a body at the end, for however long it lasts. The game does not stand as an example as multiplicity. If you want to write that correlation, you might as well state that 'The Exorcist' is an example of multiplicity. In that, don't two beings exist within the same body for a length of time?
That said, I could easily write out a long essay on how the Exorcist is an example of how society expects Multiples to become Singlets again. But just because I've done so, doesn't make the source material a metaphor for anything.

--A

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I'm sure I've read a post on this community where the writer said one of her headmates was a demon. Do demons not count?

I'm not talking about metaphors, or social statements, or any sort of literary thing like that. If you write about two or more people who live in the same head, you are by definition writing about multiplicity. "The Exorcist" is divergent enough from the usual multiple experience (and most people's beliefs about real multiplicity) that I doubt anyone would ever connect to it emotionally that way, but two people in one body is two people in one body. And Roxas and his other certainly [i]are[/i] close to reality (at least, my system) to create sympathy. In other words, Roxas& isn't just a multiple, he's a well done multiple.

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Wassa 'sympathetic multiple,' anyway?

--Dizzy

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