Of Broken Symmetry

My artstyle is being deeply influenced by asymmetry. Not only because of japanese art, but because nature surrounding me reflects that. The trees that please me the most are the ones that show a gritty and irregular structure. In a way, they result in trees that look eerie, sad and deformed. I feel strangely comfortable with them. It's the combination of the Prime Mindscapes of Rustic and Eerie, as far as I can tell.

I guess this sort of illustrates my point.

But asymmetry has intersemiotical value, which is to say it's highly analogous. Music and poems can show the equivalent of aesthetical asymmetry. But, as usual, I see storytelling potential in the whole concept of uneveness.

In entertainment, we usually see groups that follow the so-called Four Temperament Ensemble. Basically, it means every member of the group representing one distinct color, one distinct element, one unique personality. You know it, Fantastic Four, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,  Yu Yu Hakusho, etc. There's a lot of balance in there. But a little spice of real life in there make things extraordinarily more interesting, as creating an asymmetric ensemble enables conflicts, dissidences and other human behaviors much more engaging for the storyline (at least I find factionalization completely amazing).

The fact I've played hundreds of games in my life doesn't mean I've come to get used to all the conventions in that medium that are less exigent than other medias. In fact, being exposed to some flaws more evident in games made me even more aware and polarized against them, like the complete orderly advancement of the narrative. Take Legend of Zelda, one of my favorite franchises, and the storylines involves a linear quest for several so-called Plot Coupons before advancing the storyline.You get a Piece or Jewel of Whatever in each temple with no unpredictability to spice up the experience. This quality of unpredictability and chaos is what make journeys interesting. It's breaking the symmetry of the development of the story.

But, to be honest, it was in the gaming world that I pretty much realized the cure too. In Metroid Fusion, you're in a biological space station with six levels that emulate six different ambients for life experiments. Yeah, good excuse for the standard level, the forest level, the fire, water, ice, night levels. But this is just the technique I previously called Captatio Malevolentiae. The result is a much more engaging development of the story, in which you start exploring level 1, then 2, but then there's no more linear order whatsoever, because holy shit what is happening? Let go of me, SA-X!!

Fuck you, forever.

To develop an asymmetric storyline, one just has to pay attention to the development of a storyline in the real world. That is, an assymetric storyline is a story that follows the logistics of happenings in real life. That is not to say you have to deconstruct every convention in the storyline. To break symmetry of the story you don't necessarily have to ignore all base elements of a story, all the monomyth elements stablished by Joseph Campbell. It could be use as a spice on the top of it, though some unexpected changes in the overall structure is interesting too (it's Braudel's Framework again).

To make for a conclusion here, exploring the development of events in real life makes not only for more verisimilar and engaging plots, but also gives place for creative and inevitably-original stories. I know it sounds deceiving by sounding like the perfect choice, but I definitely can't help it, I'm in too much love with it.