Shakespeare vs. Chrono

[BearFrog]

I remember reading Shakespeare back when I was really little and actually understanding it really well. I started reading and writing well before pre-school so I tended to comprehend literature at a much faster pace than my peers. I remember during in-class readings I would have finished half of the short story we'd be reading in the time it took for one of my peers to read a paragraph of it out loud. So I was an advanced reader, but I don't think Shakespeare should be too difficult to understand if one has at least graduated high school.

I read a lot of Shakespeare plays when I was young and he is definitely one of my favorite authors. The stories are criticzed by just about everybody on the planet, but at the end of the day I still find them to be great stories with great characters and superb writing. The characters are very real and that's why it's fun to pick apart the romance between Romeo and Juliet as being "stupid teenage love" but there's also a sincerity to "stupid teenage love" that we all admire. I think the man was brilliant with striking emotional chords. And as far as writing for an "upper class" audience, anyone who knows theater history knows that good deal of the audience were lower-class working folks and the upper class (the upper class were in balconies and the lower class in the pit) and it was considered the primary means of entertainment for the mass of society much in the same way that cinema is. Rich people go to see movies just like you and I do. So it isn't a class issue, it just may be an issue of understainding the context of the time where the works came out, the evolution of language over the years and the fact that he wrote each line of dialouge as if it were a God-damned poem.

Are his works better than the Chrono series? Eh...It really is an apples to oranges type of comparison. Old Willy has created some very cool characters (just about everyone in Macbeth is a classic character) and I really enjoy the plots to many of his stories. I like them both and don't want to choose one over the other. Both are great.

[CelestialPhantasm]

I went through a big Shakespeare phase- by big, I mean that I read four plays of his: Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Othello and 12th Night.

Each of these (especially the first three) was a major undertaking and I quickly began to prefer editions with many liner notes so that I could understand more of the connotations of Shakespeare's expressions. I loved his language, much more than the English we speak these days. And while it is true that the plots are often simple or trite when summarized, they provide the context for powerful characterization- I do not see the point in a plot if the script does not bring it and its characters to life. Yes, it is true that Iago's motivations are unclear and seem more like a plot device than anything else. Nonetheless, I suffered for Othello and Desdemona as I saw the former be betrayed in that his heart was poisoned more and more by a trusted compagnon. I suffered myself, really, as I felt helpless to prevent the inevitable tragedy- I suffered, while reading a play in book format- with no background music or images before me. That is powerful characterization.

I love the Chrono series. Cross in particular has a very unique and beautiful atmosphere through the images, music and spontaneity and individuality of the plot and characters. But as much as I am fond of all of that, or of the character of Kid or Glenn or Nikki or Fargo... not one of them is presented as powerfully or as thought-provokingly as Othello or Hamlet.  Not one of them makes a speech as ravishing as that of Marc Antony denouncing Brutus and his followers. Not one of their tragedies cuts so deep and as the death of Desdemona or leaves one with such a sense of futility as that of Hamlet.

However, I would also like to take this opportunity to mention that people who are able to appreciate the plot of the Chrono series have a somewhat rare openness about them. In Shakespeare's time, most if not everyone would have held such a plot for nonsense- and most people today are the same. What, magical kingdoms on floating islands in the dark ages? dimension splits and doppelgängers? It's easy for them to dismiss these things as gimmicky fluff- however, the fans themselves appreciate this inventiveness and the heart behind it.

[Redline57]

Hi, sorry, this is my first post here.

I'll give my 2 cents. Chrono Trigger for me is similar to Shakespeare in that in some instances it is whittled down to the change and analysis of one person. The story of Macbeth and the Story of Chrono. I could go on and on comparing how the two are similar. You also have the "my kingdom for a horse!" classic line, which is analogous to how Zeal was willing to sacrifice everything to save themselves and in the end it cost them everything they had. The dream of one man wanting to change the world for their own desires, such as Janus. So in a way, given how kids have trouble translating the age old language of Shakespeare, I could see Chrono Trigger as a "tales for the l33t" type modern version of telling similar stories. In the same way lots of children's books are basic lessons found in the bible, some are simpler mediums for people. Shakespeare wrote a lot, and yeah maybe some of it was plagarized, but the show Roots was finally found to be plagarized, but fake or not, its shown as a representation of what slavery was like. Shakespeare's stories whether his or someone else's exist to teach, and if the goal is representative of the TIME in which he wrote, then it has a stronger merit for such a class. But if you were teaching these stories, I see Chrono Trigger as a good medium if not a more enjoyable and modern (easier to understand) for our current generation. Maybe in several hundred years, when the copyrights are worn out, we can teach and show Chrono Trigger in schools as classical literature.

EDIT: holy crap this forum is fussy for posting