Focus on the Foes – VoVatia (original) (raw)

Category Archives: Focus on the Foes

The Bad Pipsisewah Shivered and Shook

I wrote a bit before about the Uncle Wiggily board game, which I remember playing a lot as a kid, as well as the first two collections of Howard Roger Garis’ original Uncle Wiggily stories. Recently, I noticed that there … Continue reading →

Posted in Animals, Art, Board Games, Etymology, Focus on the Foes, Games, Language, Monsters, Names, Oz | Tagged alligators, bazumpus, cluck cluck chicken house, crozokus, howard roger garis, lansing campbell, ozcon international, pipsisewah, scuttlemagoon, skeezicks, skillery scallery alligator, the uncle wiggily game, the wonderful game of oz, tim hildebrandt, uncle wiggily longears, uncle wiggily's auto sled, uncle wiggily's automobile, uncle wiggily's funny auto |

Psaro Gets Pstarted

Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince – One reason I was anxious to play Chapter 6 of Dragon Quest IV is that this game kind of follows up on it, with the same writer being involved. Here, you play as Psaro, … Continue reading →

Posted in Dragon Quest, Focus on the Foes, Food, Magic, Monsters, Music, Relationships, Video Games | Tagged aamon, dante alighieri, demons, diabolic hall, divine comedy, dragon quest iv, dragon quest monsters, dragon quest monsters the dark prince, dragons, dwarves, elves, endor, general chayne, heaven, hell, inferno, monty the monster monitor, nadiria, psaro, ragnar mcryan, randolpho the tyrant, reproduction, rosehill, sparkie, synthesis, toilen trubble, zangiel the omniarch, zenith dragon |

Psaving Psaro

Dragon Quest IV was pretty amazing when I played it on the NES, so I made sure to pick up a copy of the DS remake in 2008, after which I played through most of the game and then set … Continue reading →

Posted in African, Animals, Dragon Quest, Egyptian, Focus on the Foes, Humor, Magic, Monsters, Music, Mythology, Names, Religion, Video Games | Tagged aamon, amon, ashtaroth, chow mein, demons, dragon quest iii, dragon quest iv, dragons, elves, foo young, hank hoffman jr, jinn, pioniria, psaro, radimvice, rosehill, secret of evolution, zenith dragon, zenithia |

You’ve Got a Fiend in Me

I wrote a bit about the Four Fiends from Final Fantasy before, but I’ve since thought of more to say. Four of the main bosses in the first games, they’re associated with the four classical elements, and are causing the destruction … Continue reading →

Posted in Babylonian, Buddhism, Comics, Dragon Quest, Fairy Tales, Final Fantasy, Focus on the Foes, Games, Gender, Greek Mythology, Hinduism, Humor, Judaism, Language, Magic, Monsters, Mythology, Names, Religion, Technology, Video Games, Zoroastrianism | Tagged 8-bit theater, ahriman, archfiends, bahamut, baramos, barbariccia, cagnazzo, cecil harvey, cerberus, chaos, classical elements, dante alighieri, demons, dhuran, dinosaurs, divine comedy, dragon quest ii, dragon quest iii, dragon quest vi, dragons, dualhead hydra, dungeons and dragons, dwarves, echidna, elemental fiends, enuma elish, excalibur, final fantasy iii, final fantasy iv, final fantasy iv the after years, final fantasy ix, final fantasy mystic quest, final fantasy stranger of paradise, final fantasy vi, flamerus rex, four fiends, four heavenly kings, game boy advance, gardner fox, garland, gary gygax, general beatrix, golbez, golems, guardians of terra, gutsco, hans christian andersen, hydra, ice golem, inferno, kaimeiji yuu, kain highwind, kali, kary, kingdom of baron, kraken, kuja, land turtle, lich, light warriors, lilith, lufenia, malebranche, mara, marduk, marilith, mermaids, mortamor, mount ordeals, nagas, orthros, pazuzu, phylactery, quena quen, ramayana, robots, rubicante, salamanders, scarmiglione, siddhartha gautama, skullrus rex, stone golem, tataka, the little mermaid, the sword of the sorcerer, tiamat, time loops, titans, twinhead wyvern, two-headed dragon, ultros, vile four, wyverns, yang fang leiden, zidane tribal, zoma, zuh |

Live or Dai, Make Your Choice

Here are two reviews, with several SPOILERS. Saw X – After the last movie in the series didn’t use Tobin Bell as John Kramer at all (except in a photograph), this one is all about him. And instead of using … Continue reading →

Posted in Cartoons, Comics, Dragon Quest, Focus on the Foes, Humor, Magic, Monsters, Television, Video Games, VoVat Goes to the Movies | Tagged anime, brokeena, dai no daibouken, hulu, manga, matoriv, morality, saw x, the adventure of dai, tobin bell, wizards |

Women and Demons

Pandora’s Jar: Women in the Greek Myths, by Natalie Haynes – I believe I first saw this book mentioned in a list of online recommendations, but it was also discussed on the Let’s Talk About Myths, Baby! podcast. It focuses … Continue reading →

Posted in Authors, Book Reviews, Chinese, Christopher Moore, Feminism, Final Fantasy, Focus on the Foes, Gender, Greek Mythology, History, Humor, India, Language, Magic, Monsters, Mythology, Relationships, Religion, Roman, Video Games | Tagged adam and eve, aesop, athena, bible, demons, dragons, epimetheus, erasmus, final fantasy vi, force of fire, gorgons, hesiod, jason, kiranmala and the kingdom beyond, medea, medusa, natalie haynes, noir, pandora, pandora's jar, poseidon, prometheus, rakkhosh, razzmatazz, sayantani dasgupta, titans, zeus |

A Thousand Thousand Slimy Things Lived On

I wrote about Slimes in the Dragon Quest series eleven years ago, and mentioned the fact that they were inspired by Creeping Cruds from Wizardry, but Akira Toriyama drew them as cute. There was also a mention of Slimes in … Continue reading →

Posted in Board Games, Cartoons, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Focus on the Foes, Food, Games, Gender, Japanese, Magic, Monsters, Mythology, Video Games | Tagged akira toriyama, amoebas, at the mountains of madness, bavarois, black pudding, creeping cruds, custard, dungeon!, dungeons and dragons, final fantasy ii, final fantasy iv, flan, flan princesses, gelatinous cubes, green slime, h.p. lovecraft, jelly, moon, mousse, nuppeppo, onward, oozes, pink puffs, pudding, queen slime, she-slimes, shoggoths, slime, slimes, the blob, wizardry, world of final fantasy, yokai |

The Big Big Whoredom

There often seems to be an undercurrent of fear of female sexuality in religion and mythology. It isn’t always that direct, and sometimes male sexuality isn’t viewed that positively either, but it’s pretty blatant sometimes. The idea of the whore … Continue reading →

Posted in Christianity, Focus on the Foes, Gender, Health, History, Judaism, Language, Monsters, Music, Mythology, Persian, Religion, Roman Empire, Sexuality, They Might Be Giants, Video Games, Zoroastrianism | Tagged adultery, ahura mazda, angra mainyu, babylon, bible, demons, gavaevodata, golem, jahi, jeh, jesus, john of patmos, mark of the beast, menstruation, prostitution, revelation, rome, shin megami tensei, snakes, whore of babylon |

Yikes, Spikes!

I thought it might be worth looking at the Mario enemies known as Spikes, since they seem to be rather prominent nowadays. I’ve even seen them as stuffed animals at the Nintendo store in Manhattan, although I don’t have one … Continue reading →

Posted in Animals, Donkey Kong, Fairy Tales, Focus on the Foes, Magic, Mario, Monsters, Mythology, Norse, Russian, Toys, Video Games | Tagged clubbas, don bongo, donkey kong country, flails, gabon, giants, glitz pit, grubba, hammer brothers, klubbas, koschei the deathless, lakilester, lakitu, luigi mario, mace penguins, maces, magikoopas, mario mario, morning stars, new super mario bros., nintendo power, paper mario, paper mario: the thousand-year door, penguins, ptooies, snow spikes, spikes, stone spikes, super mario 3d world, super mario bros., super mario bros. 3, the blubbening, the giant who had no heart in his body, tubba blubba, turtles, weapons, yoshi's island, yoshi's story |

Orc My World

This past weekend, Orcs were trending on Twitter, based on a tweet about how a description of them in Dungeons & Dragons was pretty racist. (Full disclosure: I haven’t played D&D, although I’ve come across it quite a bit in … Continue reading →

Posted in Animals, Authors, Biology, Christianity, Ethnicity, Fairy Tales, Focus on the Foes, Games, History, J.R.R. Tolkien, Language, Magic, Monsters, Mythology, Norse, Prejudice, Religion, Science, Star Trek | Tagged beowulf, dungeons and dragons, dwarves, elves, fantasy, gnolls, goblins, klingons, morality, ogres, orcs, racism, scientific racism, trolls |