On titles and storytelling

Names are fascinating. There's a lot of power in what people are called, what they choose to be called, and whether they embrace and reflect or completely dispute the etymology behind them. It's something that I spend waaay too much time on; maybe some writers can simply decide that this person's name is Jonas, but I don't usually find it so easy. I steal cool names from people I've met, or start at the meaning and build characters from there. It's not perfect, but it's my process, and it's always interesting. 

This whole thing applies to titles, too, perhaps even more keenly. There's a lot of power in what we decide to call a piece of media, mostly because it sets an expectation going in, a link that reaches into the text along with us as we dive into it, waiting to find something in there to connect with. This is why we enjoy those moments of satisfaction when someone says the title of a thing out loud; it's the payoff for that, and if it's done well enough it can justify even the kind of slightly odd title that, when you first hear it, makes you think, well, who calls a thing that?! A recent example of that would be Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which, well, I still haven't seen it, but I sure hope the payoff on that one is spectacular because boy does it need to be.

It can be meaningful without being obvious, though. A really great example of this is Pixar's Coco. Because I'm the kind of nerd who thinks about this sort of thing too much, I spent a good chunk of that film wondering, quietly, in the back of my head, why it bore the name that it did, given that the eponymous character, while certainly of note, was barely a part of the overall narrative. Well, in the end, I found out, and, as anyone who's seen the film will know, discovering the reason made it all the more resonant: it gave me a level of 'I get it' that I otherwise might not have attained.

The Wheel of Time has another great example, too. The fourth book is called The Shadow Rising, which is, on the surface, a pretty generic title. Most WoT books are named after an item, an event, a character, or from a phrase of prophecy that's particularly key to that book; they're almost all namedropped at some point. TSR is different. It marks a turning point for the series in that the scope becomes bigger, and the 'true', long-term battle of good vs. evil really kicks off, but the 'shadow' really doesn't do that much rising in it - the book ends with victories all around for the side of the Light. So I never really 'got' this title. It never bothered me, of course - not everything can be perfectly loaded with meaning. But it was always the odd one out, until I read this passage on my most recent re-read:

“Perhaps I cannot sit by while evil fights,” Birgitte said quietly. “Or perhaps I simply hunger for the flesh again. It has been long since we were born last. The Shadow rises again, Gaidal. It rises here. We must fight it. That is the reason we were bound to the Wheel.”

And just like that, I got it. The Shadow Rising isn't an 'item' title, it's a theme title. It's not about the actual growing of the Shadow's strength: it's about the people who are choosing to fight it. The choice that Birgitte makes in that paragraph is one that will cause her a lot of pain, but in the end, it's one of many choices that, if they hadn't been made, would have meant that the Light would lose, in the end. Every major character in this story has to face this decision at some point, and the choice that they make, to fight on anyway, no matter the odds, is instrumental to the conclusion of the entire series:

HERE IS THE TRUTH, SHAITAN, Rand said, taking another step forward, arms out, woven Pattern spreading around them. YOU CANNOT WIN UNLESS WE GIVE UP. THAT’S IT, ISN’T IT? THIS FIGHT ISN’T ABOUT A VICTORY IN BATTLE. TAKING ME . . . IT WAS NEVER ABOUT BEATING ME. IT WAS ABOUT BREAKING ME.

THAT’S WHAT YOU’VE TRIED TO DO WITH ALL OF US. IT’S WHY AT TIMES YOU TRIED TO HAVE US KILLED, WHILE OTHER TIMES YOU DIDN’T SEEM TO CARE. YOU WIN WHEN YOU BREAK US. BUT YOU HAVEN’T. YOU CAN’T.

So yes, in conclusion, The Shadow Rising is, in fact, an excellent title.

None of that is what I started this post intending to talk about, though. What actually set me off thinking about titles was a completely different title entirely, that of what was at the time I first drafted this, and thankfully remains, the most recent Legend of Zelda game: Tears of the Kingdom. That subtitle got me looking at it real askew the first time I heard it, because, while it's not quite Dial of Destiny, it is kinda awkward. I found myself fervently hoping that, as I played through the game, it would reveal a Coco/The Shadow Rising-like level of extra meaning that would justify it.

Oh boy, it did. 

But there were a lot of other things about TOTK that bemused me, and that's what I actually set out wanting to talk about, when I first drafted this in June 2023, and then forgot about it for most of a year. Still, that fits my tradition of getting there in the end: more thoughts on Tears of the Kingdom coming soon. Then maybe I'll reread The Secret Commonwealth, since the last one is supposedly coming this year. I have no idea how that will treat me second time around...