Compilations and Greatest Hits

Recently, Queen’s Greatest Hits became the first album to sell six million copies in the UK, meaning that now a third of all UK households contain a copy.  I know that mine does.  It also contains Queen’s Greatest Hits II and III.

Now, keep calm, because what I’m about to say may shock you.  Rein in your natural violent impulses and bear with me for just a few seconds.

I don’t like every song on Queen’s Greatest Hits.

I know, I know.  Happily for me, I don’t live in Pakistan; otherwise I would be sentenced to death for blasphemy.  But I’m afraid it’s true.  I don’t really care for ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ or ‘You’re my Best Friend’.  The rest are pure genius, naturally.

The thing is, that someone at some point, presumably at Queen’s record company, sat down and thought, “You know, there are some really good Queen songs out there.  I should collect them all together in a single volume, so that people can have a single consolidated source of Queen-based musical joy.”

I don’t know who that was (and I’m too lazy to Google it), but they had the job of sifting through the significant body of Queen songs and selecting the ones that they considered to be the best, the most representative of Queen throughout a career that included pop and rock, up to the sad death of Freddie Mercury in 1993, and (in the case of GHIII, beyond).  Overall, I would say that they did a reasonable job, apart from the exceptions noted above, but even then I can see why they made those choices.

My point though, is that unless I want to source every single individual Queen single (which would be difficult and extremely expensive, assuming it’s still possible at all), I have to rely on the subjective opinions of this unknown compiler, and clearly we disagree on certain issues.  I would have included songs that they haven’t, and left out songs that they included.  Ultimately though, I have to rely on the fact that this person (or persons) has a greater and deeper knowledge of the corpus of Queen’s work than I do.  I can accept their decisions as authoritative, even if I reserve the right to disagree with them on certain points.

What this has all been building up to is a comparison with another compilation volume, condensing a massive body of work down into a relatively (!) concise volume: the Bible.

Some very learned people sat down and sifted through vast numbers of books, deciding what would be included in God’s Greatest Hits (and possibly planning on Greatest Hits II and III further down the road).

I am a wishy-washy liberal sort of Christian, and I don’t hold to a literal interpretation of the Bible.  In fact, I outright disagree with some of its assertions.  Counter to many people’s opinion, I think it is practically a duty to pick and choose from the Bible.  That said, I acknowledge the greater wisdom, insight and learning of those ancient compilers, and I accept their reasoning for including and excluding certain books, but that doesn’t mean I have to agree with them on every single point.  There was a degree of subjectivity (and no doubt more than a little politics and diplomacy) involved in what became canonical, and what was left to gather dust amongst the tape cassette and LP singles.

I consider the Bible to be an authoritative source of divine revelation, but that doesn’t mean that I have to think that it is an absolute and final authority, or that works not included in it (often because they didn’t exist at the time) can’t be just as revealing of God’s wishes for us.

I eagerly await the release of Greatest Hits II, but unfortunately I can’t see a wide enough group of people being able to agree on what should be included for it ever to happen.

Meanwhile, Queen still has quite a way to go to beat the sales of God’s compilation album.

Roleplaying Games as Theological Analogy (Part 3)

I wasn’t actually planning on there being a third part of this series, but based on recent events, I’ve decided to add an extra little bit.  I should hasten to say that this makes use of a very similar analogy to one used by CS Lewis, but I think illustrates the point better.

I am running a game for some friends from university, done over the internet and playing by text on a private internet chatroom.  This game has been going now for about five years, with a couple of longish breaks.  Several player characters have been killed along the way, until only 2 of the original 5 who started the campaign were still alive, although other characters had joined to replace those who had fallen (played by the same players).

This week, one of these two survivors finally fell, but not in a particularly satisfactory way.  The player had some stuff going on at home that meant that his attention was only intermittently on the game, and so I was controlling his character, and making his dice rolls when he couldn’t come to the computer.  The characters had got into a fight, and the character in question was badly injured, and quickly bled to death.  The player returned to the computer to find that the character he’s been playing for the last 5 years had died in his absence, something that I felt badly about, and so I offered him the option of me using my GMly omnipotence to undo events, and say that his character had survived after all.

However, the player was happy to go along with whatever I decided, and so I erred on letting events run their course, with the result that the player is now taking over control of a recurring NPC.

Now, I could have reached into my created world, and worked a Lazarene miracle, indeed not only bringing a dead character back to life but making it so that they had never died in the first place.  The only reason I even considered this was due to the unusual circumstances involved.  I’m glad that the player didn’t insist that I bring his character back to life, not that I expected him to, because once you break the laws of a universe once, it becomes easier and easier to do so, and for worse and worse reasons.  Other players start complaining if one person is seen to be immune to the universal laws that they are bound by.

Nonetheless, miracles can and do occur, but only very occasionally, and we do indeed hear people complaining that only certain people seem to get miracles.  “Why doesn’t God heal the amputees?” is a common (albeit often somewhat mocking) question.  I think the game illustrates this very well.  After all, if The Great GM in the Sky reached into this created world and broke the game rules frequently, then not only would they not be miracles, but they would not be rules.   The game would break down completely and that would be no fun at all, either for the players, or for the GM.

Sometimes it’s best not to insist on receiving miracles when things go badly wrong, but simply to accept the decision of the GM and play with what you have.  Although the character within the created world may not see it as such, ultimately the player knows that it is the best thing, both for themselves, for the other players, and for the Game itself.

The Leap

You might not realise it from this blog, but I actually write very little poetry.  Most of my stuff is prose, but poetry tends to be easier to post in a blog, since it's normally quite short.  So here's another poem.

Most of the poetry I do write is comic stuff, since the little serious poetry I've written is pretentious and awful, but there is one exception, which I give to you now.  This was written some time ago, and I can't remember the exact circumstances that gave rise to it, but unlike the other writing I've posted here, this hasn't been seen by anyone else before.  It's a Made-up Things world premier exclusive!

The Leap

I am standing on the edge of a great lake

 in the depths of a starless night.

In front, nothing but darkness, and the sound of wind,

And the ripples of the water.

If I were to just walk forwards a little way,

That dark, deep cold would close over my head,

And swallow me up.

But then, I hear a single note,

A clarion call, a trumpet in the distance,

And raising my head, I see a tiny silver light.

So minute, so faint that if I look straight at it

It disappears.

Only in the corner of my eye can I see it,

And it is beautiful.

And then, that small, still voice that says,

‘I am with you.  Do not be afraid.’

And I feel the infinitesimal pressure

of your hand upon my back.

And I take a step forwards.

I feel the water at the edge, I take another step,

And I do not sink.

I step again, and still I do not sink.

Another, and another.

Each step, a miracle of courageous faith.

And I do not sink.

Now, there is darkness all around me,

And nothing but deep, dark water beneath,

and your voice which whispers softly.

‘I am with you.  Do not be afraid.’

Copyright Thomas Jones 2014