The Republic of Thoronia

The world’s first interactive, choose-you-own adventure concept album. Coming 2011.

Little is known about the origins of the stories that are featured in the First Book of the Republic of Thoronia. What is known is that the book was compiled in 1973 by Sir Athanasius Altair, a monk in Eastern Uzkani. From what we have seen and read up until this point it is understood and accepted that the monk believed that these texts were a collection by the Prophet Roland.

Even less is known of Roland’s life, other than the fact that he devoted all of it to the preaching and studying the Republic. He was the driving factor behind the Good King Thor’s popularity in the early 10th century. From this, we the modern reader and believer in the King’s abundant glory and wisdom, can critique and assess the books of Thoronia with a critical eye, not for hatred of the Republic or the King, but rather to further understand the texts and what they mean in a modern context.

For the purpose of this study, we’ll be breaking the book into more manageable sections. Here, we’ll take a look at the “In the Beginning” section. I am well aware that there is text that comes before this, but it is the belief of this particular critic that these were meant mostly as filler, and were actually written by Athanasius as a means to insert himself into the stories. That being said, these beginnings are still a vital part of the history, and should be studied by those who believe in the Good King and his wisdom. We, however, won’t.

One would think that to begin with “In the Beginning” is to begin with the creation of the universe. It is clear that Roland could never have been there, and it is likely that the Good King spoke to him when he was transcribing the universe’s origins. However, none of that happens “In the Beginning” it all happens before. You’ll notice that “In the Beginning” is not actually a beginning at all, it is, for lack of better words, a trivial and useless meandering across subjects that are clearly beyond the grasp of the Prophet Roland. For instance, the line, “He placed these people next to animals that were like them.” The Prophet Roland believes that the Good King Thor set up the lands of Thoronia by a means of comparison, so that the animals on any given continent would be similar to the humans. The two then, would feed and learn from each other. This is clear in some ways, however, the assumption that the animals were actually present on the planet first is contradicting a statement earlier in the book , “Dear sir, I am King Thor, the one who has created you. I have created a galaxy and universe and dinosaurs and dolphins along with you.” The key word here is “along.” This denotes and assumes that we, the human race were created at the same time as the other animals and were in fact, not placed on the continents in a manner that corresponded with the animals whom were already there.

I would like to offer a new reading to the The First Book of the Republic of Thoronia. It is my belief that the monk, Athanasius, actually has inserted himself up until this point, and perhaps beyond. I have read the original scrolls, and is clear that many, if not all are forgeries based upon how Athanasius had chosen to understand the universe. From the Introduction up until Capitols, the text feels deeply rooted in the slang of the ’70s. It attempts to use humor and banter to push its motives. The business with the tote is still highly suspect, as no other mentions of the tote can be found in any of the other history books, with the exception of the traditional song, “March of the Tote.”

However, these revelations do not negatively affect the words and teachings. On the contrary, the monk was likely a good candidate to continue the teachings of the Good King Thor. Yet I worry that perhaps we, the audience of believers, may lose sight of the Republic’s goals if we accept all these things at face value. We must look closely to better understand not only ourselves, but those around us. Next time we’ll be looking at Capitols. Until then, for the Good King Thor, we move.

Dear Residing King Thor & Friends,

Subject: Show this Friday, November 7th

Hello people. We have announcement making potential. This time, four or five six months ago, the Republic of Thoronia Band played a show. Now we make it again. November 7 at the hi-dive. Opening for Sunburned Hand of Man, Franklin’s Mint and Outer Neon. Funny thing is, show start at 9 o’clock. Not a joke. For real. Be there at 9 or miss the RoTB. Thanks.

Sincerely,

Good King Thor

If you asked me what video game’s I’m most excited about right now, I’d probably give you a laundry list of different games (actually just Dead Space, Fallout 3, Far Cry 2, Endwar, Prince of Persia, Resistance 2, and…). Most of those games would be exciting because of technical prowess, immersion, complexity. Yet one of these games is simple mind blowing in its absolute open-endedness. That game is Little Big Planet for the PS3.

The game itself is a fairly straightforward platformer, you control a little sack-person, having them run from left to right while jumping over obstacles and such. But the games design sets a remarkably interesting tone in that it looks like some magical set piece that you’d order from Etsy. It’s beautiful, to say the least:

I had a chance to play with the beta over the last few days, and I’ve concluded that this is one of the most stylized and remarkable games on the horizon. But the real appeal of LBP, the kicker, the whole shabang… is the fact that you can build your own levels, customize your own characters and turn your level into almost anything that you could possible imagine. The developers of LBP have given the user a complete design experience, which the beta of course doesn’t even begin to touch. You can, essentially, build an entire level (or hell, a whole new game), and subsequently share it with everyone on the game’s servers. Yep, build, share, rebuild, customize, borrow, share, repeat. It is going to be amazing.

It’s going to be amazing because it is one of the first console games ever to not only be full of creativity, but to breed it (yeah yeah yeah, we all know about Quake and Half-Life Mods… but those aren’t console’s now are they? And hell, this is 100X easier than making a Quake level (albeit the last time I tried to make a Quake level was for Quake 2, so it may have gotten easier by this point)). It’s going to showcase what games can do, in all of their good, bad and ugly (we’re all going to assume that yes, there will be at least 1000 user-generated penis based levels). On top of that it boasts a collective creativity in that you and your friends can sit down together (literally or figuratively online)  and create levels with each other. Already, with the beta being live for under a month, a few great levels have been produced…

(video’s after the break)

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As we promised early this week, here are non-blurry photos of the exhibits from the Republic of Thoronia Artifacts Exhibit. If you didn’t make it out here is your chance to truly experience the magic! Thanks to April, Elliot and the Skinny Squirrel for hosting the shin-dig as well as taking these photos! Thanks to the contributors, the donators and the attendees as well! We’ll be returning back to normal Thoronia now!

CLICK ON PHOTO FOR DESCRIPTIONS/ARTISTS