I remember in English we learned about types of conflicts/plots like

  • man vs man
  • man vs self
  • man vs god
  • man vs society

Etc. what type of conflict was Freddie v. Jason?

  • anon6789
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    2 months ago

    From Reedsy:

    Character vs. Nature

    How do you fancy your chances in a fight against Mother Earth? In this type of conflict, that is exactly what our protagonists are facing. Whether it’s wildlife (Jaws), natural disasters (The Day After Tomorrow), the weather (The Perfect Storm), or a post-apocalyptic landscape (The Road), the antagonists in this type of conflict cannot be reasoned with.

    Stories that feature a “character vs. nature” conflict will usually center on a character’s survival.

    Freddy and Jason are sources of nature. They have left their human elements behind when they died, and are now physical manifestations of revenge. They’re no longer even killing people that had anything to do with their deaths, they just hunt people that end up at the wrong place. Once you have entered their domains, there is rarely any escape.

    They can’t be the reasoned with, they can’t be killed, and they will never stop seeking revenge. They are now eternal elements of Crystal Lake and Elm Street.

    In Freddy vs Jason, it’s like when 2 weather patterns come together to make a deadly storm. The primary story was still about the kids trying to escape them.

    To us as humans, there appears to be a secondary conflict between Freddy and Jason, but I feel you could argue that isn’t an actual conflict, as neither Freddy or Jason have any agency. They can’t not kill each other. They just don’t function that way. As with the storm, they are just 2 elements that mix violently. It’s no more a conflict than any story that has rain: the rain is not a conflict between the air and the water vapor held within it, it’s just what the laws of the world dictate happens when the air is supersaturated.

    (Ok, done editing now. I got more into this than I anticipated…)

    • Jackie's Fridge
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      72 months ago

      That would also classify Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash as a man against nature clash. Groovy.

      • anon6789
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        62 months ago

        Just checked the plot summary on this one, as I haven’t read it…

        If Pamela was in possession of the Necronomicon, could Jason actually be a Deadite, possessed by the spirit of his mother?

        Jason doesn’t show up until after Pamela is killed, and Jason has many of the same abilities as a Deadite.

        Not as familiar with Evil Dead as I am Friday the 13th, but in a crossover, it sounds like it could be valid.

        • Jackie's Fridge
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          52 months ago

          I haven’t read it in a long time but I remember the lore being pretty faithful to all three franchises & cleverly executed. If Jason is a Deadite & possessed by Pamela, that would still be man (Ash) vs nature (Pamela’s vengeful spirit), though it very much leans into Jason being used as a tool, which implies that the puppet master has agency beyond a mindless force of nature.

          (Just having fun here and am happy for my hypothetical to be shot down.)

          • anon6789
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            32 months ago

            I’m having much fun on this train of thought as well. As a fan of all these movies, there’s many aspects of the lore to dive into, especially once we get into crossovers.

            Do we technically even have a Jason origin story? Boy Jason dies in 1957, but the bulk of the first movie takes place in 1980. If Jason was his own revenging spirit, what the heck took so long?! His mom started bumping people off almost immediately, and Jason himself doesn’t come along until 23 years later, only after his mom is killed. Pam could have used that time to find the Necronomicon, at least in the crossover.

            That Jason can still hear his mother speaking to him lends credence to possession. She is kinda crazy, murdering innocent kids and commiting arson and such for 2 decades and all that. That she’d possess her dead son’s body to keep going isn’t much of a stretch. And Jason has many supernatural powers of a Deadite while Pamela didn’t have any of Jason’s abilities. Something reanimated him and gave him powers at the time his mother was killed. Him being a Deadite explains it more than the movies ever really do that I remember.

            • Jackie's Fridge
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              32 months ago

              I would be interested in the Necronomicon’s chain of custody, since the first Evil Dead movie takes place in 1981!

              The FXIII franchise always played fast & loose with how Jason keeps going, but I agree the Deadite angle really works in that regard. My argument for “what took Jason so long” is exactly the murder of his mother by a camp counsellor. He was R-ing I P at the bottom of Crystal Lake but came back for vengeance when she was killed. He even had her head enshrined in (I think?) the second film. Mama’s Boy.

              That messes with the Pamela possession theory a little though. Interesting if he was agreeable to her setting up shop. Or maybe by the time one possessing soul is “killed” the other is powerful enough to come back. Like a tag team rampage.

              • anon6789
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                32 months ago

                The timeline thing did trip me up trying to be as canonically accurate as possible.

                The comic seems to take place in 2008, and the Necronomicon is in Jason’s shack. Browsing an Evil Dead fan wiki site, there seem to be numerous origins of the Necronomicon in multiple universes, and Lovecraft, the original Necronomicon author, had implied there are numerous copies and translations of the Necronomicon, so there could very well be more than one.

                The Jason/Freddy/Ash comic sounds like the Necronomicon was in their family home, so Pamela had one, prior to 1980 when she was killed, and it stayed there until 2008, so there has to be more than one in that universe of Ash had previously dealt with it in 81.

                Jason could have allowed a Necronomicon owning Pamela to use him as a host as she was in need of a body in one piece, hers now being headless and all. Keeping the head around may have been important to the spiritual connection.

                Reading more in the Evil Dead wiki, there doesn’t seem to be a reliable way to permanently kill a Deadite, dismembering them just seems to slow them down the most, which is pretty typical for how people deal with Jason.

                I don’t know if I’m ready to view this as canon or anything, but I feel it works solid enough for the loose rules of a slasher franchise. It’s at least a. More solid story than Jason X.

    • Reef
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      52 months ago

      This belongs in [email protected].

      I remember in school when we covered these, we were trying to find examples of all the combinations but we couldn’t get some of them.

      Saving this!

      • anon6789
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        32 months ago

        I had a lot of fun too. I’m really the only one of my friends that likes these movies, so it was fun to explore some thoughts with someone else.

      • anon6789
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        22 months ago

        Yup, it’s not like storm fronts go away forever. They just reach equilibrium for a time before their inevitable return, just like how Jason and Freddy got their reboots after this movie.