When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth. - George Bernard Shaw

This little post will go through some of the more fundamental areas of how I think when I am creating stories.

I love creating an alternative reality, but that is mainly because I still consider myself a bit of a stranger to the one I am currently in. What creates the appeal for most stories is not the comfort, but the chaos something is in. At the start of nearly any story, one is not able to feel, or positively reflect on a character who enjoy comfort because the level of empathy is not quite there. However, a character who has gone through hardship over and over and for a moment is given a time of peace, or if he has worked hard in order to achieve it will enable the viewer to feel some degree of comfort.

If you can remember some of the older films which did not really have a lot of action, but a lot of dialogue, less conflict and more comfort. You could perhaps feel a sense of calm during the entire show. It however in my opinion would not be as rewarding as the sense of calm someone who has worked exceptionally hard, and gone through risks after risks in order to get a short term of peace, then it the emotion becomes somewhat shared. That is at least how I see it. I remember how calm everyone was at the end of the third movie of the Lord Of The Rings. The peace was deserved, the environment was calm and in a way beautiful. However, that is tied to the action that just appeared before that. The emotion got shared because it was deserved, not because it just was there.

It can also tie into humor, but in order for that to be so then the environment that has been around would be profited from either being very young, or at least having a comical undertone too it. After all, as long as there is chaos which does not affect one personally, then it is a good chance that it will be interpreted as funny. However that is because it links to our reality. We have all endured hardships just to meet disappointment, and in such an act the discomfort gets reversed just because of an age old emotion which we have. A feeling of superiority, but also mixed in with that who is considered the underling is in a lot of trouble. Seeing it from a nature-neutral third person perspective it is a bit sick, but seeing it from a human perspective makes it more than worth it.

Hardships are supposed to be rewarding, but that's not always the case, so what makes it so funny that others, preferably at the worst possible times have to endure them? Well, I guess only we humans can answer that because of our nature. Then again, maybe cats can too. If you have ever noticed that the smarter a cat is, the more evil it is. Basking in the suffering of another is a semi-hobby to those beings.