I would like to take a moment this week and talk about the play within a play contained in Hamlet. I think that Shakespeare employed a great plot device. It was tremendously clever, and I've seen it used so many other places. It's nice to know where all of these things come from. Especially the "The lady doth protest to much me thinks". That was also great. I would also like to take a moment to trumpet Adventure Time for having so many literature parallels. They employ a wonderful reference in the episode "Ignition Point".
In this episode, Finn and Jake venture off to the Flame Kingdom in order to retrieve Flame Princess' scented candles. While they are there, they get mixed up in in a plot to kill Flame King. They decide to take over the night's play and go on stage pretending to be the king's assassins. They watch the audience to try and discover who the real assassins are. However, before they manage to find them, the King has them captured. Finn and Jake then tell him that they overheard the assassins and their plot. It is then revealed that the guards holding the boys are the actual assassins,
and they are the King's nephews. They swear revenge on the Flame King for killing their father and taking the thrown.
It has been so enjoyable to find all of these older literature ideas represented in contemporary entertainment. It really solidifies the idea that it's hard to come up with new ideas nowadays. This frustrates me, but it also encourages me in that as long as you can spin something a new way creatively enough, that it doesn't really seem to matter that you're using and old idea.
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