What are the significance of the journals

[cupcakezombie]

So a couple of people were talking about journals and their significance in the episode discussions (Nikvoodoo and zombiederek), so here it is.

So what are your thoughts on the journals?
Do they indicate survival, are they being read later on by others or from beyond the grave, does the fact that we only hear the journals of certain people mean anything?

Go crazy!

[Hellbringer]

All that talk in that previous thread had me thinking about when Samantha wrote in Datu's journal and we heard her voice for a bit. Come to think of it, she told Datu that she wrote some stuff in his journal that might be useful, but we haven't heard what some of that was (another thread for the future, I guess). Anyway, if Samantha was heard reading a journal and she ended up dead, isn't it possible that other characters, especially the main characters, could be dead further down the road and we're hearing their voices as if reading from the past?

[j0be]

I'm currently of the opinion that the journals are indicative of some form of survival.

[HaveCrowBarWillTravel]

Michael stated that he started writing because he was depressed. Journaling is also a technique used by tons of counselors from Church teaching to Cognitive Behavior techniques.

Here, i think that it's a great tool to remember things that happen or happened while under stress. Information is the key. It's a great way to gather information from different perspectives and also a way to double check your own reality.
Memory is faulty, but when you have it written down and you need to recall something or bump it against some new information, you have it at your finger tips. No need to try rely on your faulty gray matter.

The last thing is that it's a damn good way to be remembered in case you end up taking a dirt nap or turned.

[Rock Daddy]

Michael stated that he started writing because he was depressed. Journaling is also a technique used by tons of counselors from Church teaching to Cognitive Behavior techniques.

Here, i think that it's a great tool to remember things that happen or happened while under stress. Information is the key. It's a great way to gather information from different perspectives and also a way to double check your own reality.
Memory is faulty, but when you have it written down and you need to recall something or bump it against some new information, you have it at your finger tips. No need to try rely on your faulty gray matter.

The last thing is that it's a damn good way to be remembered in case you end up taking a dirt nap or turned.

Crowbar's got this one! He's right. They are being professional about surviving, as funny as it sounds. In the W/A world rules are changed, and survival is the game. Communication is limited, so gathering your info = saving your asses. However, they are a fun storytelling tool for Kc to use to drop hints, clues, and pretty much mess with our minds. ;)

[Ctatyk Frost]

My thought was the journals were a great device for allowing us to "hear" the thoughts of the characters. Not being able to know what the characters is thinking is one major reason why books are so much better than the movie. The journals allow us to share part of this and helps with even more character development. I think that this is a brilliant solution to that issue. (At least I hope that this is the reason)

[kafu288]

Its safe to say that whether teh journals mean they survived or not and who is actually reading them won't be answered till the last episode, if at all.

[Kc]

Not being able to know what the characters is thinking is one major reason why books are so much better than the movie.
One reason I'll love Shawshank redemption. Journals also limit your perspective as well, giving us a plethora of ways of telling the story.

[Ctatyk Frost]

Thanks Kc. I'd forgotten about forced perspective too.

[HaveCrowBarWillTravel]

One reason I'll love Shawshank redemption. Journals also limit your perspective as well, giving us a plethora of ways of telling the story.

KC,

How do they "Limit your" perspective? Are we talking the reader's or writer's POV? In any case, how does it narrow one's perspective?

[j0be]

KC,

How do they "Limit your" perspective? Are we talking the reader's or writer's POV? In any case, how does it narrow one's perspective?

It makes it so there is no omniscient narrator. The journals are one persons perspective on the details of an event.

[Zombiehead]

Journals can also help indicate wether a character lived through an intense moment or event, like Lizzy at the Arena. However, they can also be an indicator that a character may not be alive especially if you haven't heard a journal entry from them in a while, like Saul.

[Don Man]

journals in my opinion are quite a big part to the story. They reflect on past events and are an outlet for the characters

[Grognaurd]

Although they are going digital. I am sure Someone is smart enough to print out hard copies. Generally typed pages take up less paper and you only have to take the used portion. Not the whole notebook. But if it was me I would keep the journals as they are. The original data could be critical. Tanya may nit know exactly what Angel wrote and have transcription errors

[nikvoodoo]

Maybe I'm not understanding what I'm hearing, but I don't think there's any transcription happening with Tanya. I'm pretty sure she's just sending the journals through a bed scanner. From what I got from it, Tanya is reading everyone's journals as she's scanning. That's why it took so long to understand Angel's journal. And since it's a digital scan of the source material, the originals are in tact it just so happens to be on a hard drive now.

[cupcakezombie]

I like the fact that the journals are a place for exposition/info dump. Not only in terms of story telling, but also in terms of passing information between tower occupants.

Tanya has been able to get information that she might not have got for a long time about the zombie types and the experiments. The journals have become this pool of knowledge that the tower occupants can come back to in a similar way that they could use reference books previously.

[Grognaurd]

Good catch Nik. Being a ludite I had not thought of scanners

[fraggot]

If I remember correctly the first time we heard Michael read from the journal, he said some of the most memorial lines to me(ironic that I can't remember them right now, 12 hour work days blah). Well he said those same lines down the road in a later chapter almost as if we had met up to where he was first reading.

Maybe it's kind of sometimes in the past and sometimes not.

[cupcakezombie]

If I remember correctly the first time we heard Michael read from the journal, he said some of the most memorial lines to me(ironic that I can't remember them right now, 12 hour work days blah). Well he said those same lines down the road in a later chapter almost as if we had met up to where he was first reading.

Maybe it's kind of sometimes in the past and sometimes not.
When he was first talking he said that maybe if he wrote it all down it might make sense. This made me assume it was his first journal entry from some unknown time in the future. Not sure if it is from when they first start actually writing in the journals, or even at the end, putting it all back together. I flip between the two ideas.

[cPT.cAPSLOCK]

Fraggot, could you give it some thought which lines those were?
You made me curious, but I have no clue what they should be.