“April showers bring May flowers.” It’s an old saying, and one that got me thinking about the nature of storms in storytelling. Storms are perhaps one of, if not the most, versatile of narrative devices.
First of all, there are plenty of storm flavors: thunderstorms, tornadoes, blizzards, hail, hurricanes, etc. And in speculative fiction, they can be brought on by any number of ways: nature, magic, science, divine intervention… Again, the list goes on.
Most importantly, storms can be literal or figurative. In Mass Effect, if Wrex is asked about his desire to join Commander Shepard’s crew, he replies, “There’s a storm coming, and you and Saren are right in the middle of it.” Not to mention, as George R.R. Martin, the Starks, and just about every bit of advertising for Game of Thrones has been reminding us for years: “Winter is coming.” But for the purposes of this post, I’d like to focus on some literal, physical spec fic tempests, and the adventures they begin or the havoc that they wreak.
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Image from Wikipedia.org
The most famous of all storms has to be the tornado at the start of The Wizard of Oz—the tornado that carries Dorothy and Toto away from their humdrum lives on a Kansas farm and transports them “Over the Rainbow,” to a land of witches and flying monkeys, cute shoes and lobotomized scarecrows. Without that tornado, or twister, Dorothy would just be a sad girl trapped in a Dust Bowl town, left dreaming of something bigger or better.
Of course, the end of the movie brings into question the idea of whether or not Dorothy actually traveled anywhere, or if she simply suffered a bit of traumatic brain injury and hallucinated her adventures in Oz.
Thankfully, Return to Oz came along to answer that question once and for all.
Return to Oz (1985)
Image from DenOfGeek.com
If you haven’t seen Return to Oz, then you’re really missing out. It’s one of the darkest, most twisted children’s movies ever created, and once you watch it, you’ll never forget it.
Regardless, Return to Oz makes it very clear that Dorothy’s interactions with the Munchkins and the Tin Man, and all the rest weren’t just a concussion-induced fever dream. Not that Auntie Em and Uncle Henry are on board. Oh, no. This sequel begins with good ol’ Auntie Em taking Dorothy (played by a very young Fairuza Balk, who later starred in The Craft) to an asylum so that she can receive treatment to help her move past all of her emerald-hued delusions. Specifically electroshock therapy. (I told you it was dark!)
Dorothy in in the asylum, strapped to a gurney with the electrodes to her temples when a thunderstorm/flood hits, and in the madness is able to escape. In a moment of vindication she washes up on the shore of Oz—a shabby, rundown version of it—and her new mission, to save Oz and Princess Ozma from the clutches of the mad Nome King.
I don’t want to spoil all of the demented surprises that lay in wait for Dorothy in this new dilapidated Oz, but let’s just say that this “children’s movie” isn’t really for children or the faint of heart. But in the end, there is no question left in the viewers mind that Dorothy has in fact traveled to another land and saved it from ruin, not once but twice.
Of course, there are plenty of stories that begin with storms. Take The Martian by Andy Weir. A huge, unexpected sandstorm on the surface of Mars leaves Mark Watney stranded on the planet alone. Or A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle, which famously begins with the line “It was a dark and stormy night…” Meg wakes in the midst of a storm and descends to her kitchen. There she meets the enigmatic Mrs. Whatsit, who introduces the idea of tesseracts, serving as a catalyst for the rest of the tale.
But storms can serve other purposes too.
Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson (Book Two of the Stormlight Archive)
Image by Michael Whelan from BrandonSanderson.com
As the series name would suggest, there are quite a few storms in the series that Sanderson seems to be writing as his magnum opus. (Each book is at least a thousand pages long, and the scope of the storytelling is off-the-charts huge, even for him.) But despite the plethora of storms in these books, it isn’t until we reach the end of book two that we encounter a storm of truly epic scale, the type of storm that Changes Everything.
I don’t want to spoil things for uninitiated readers, but all of the characters and ideas and storylines that Sanderson has been weaving together for the last fifteen-hundred pages are whipped together in a storm that’s part nature, part magic, part destiny, and all crazy. We’re talking losses aplenty, physical fights within the storm, rifts opening to different dimensions—the whole nine yards. And once the wind dies down and the clouds clear, it’s obvious nothing will ever be the same.
Life Is Strange
Image from HeyPoorPlayer.com
I know I mentioned this video game in my last post, but I don’t think I mentioned that in addition to Max’s awesome, newly discovered ability to rewind time, she’s also experiencing visions of a storm, a huge tornado, that’s threatening Arcadia Bay, Oregon, and as she uses her power more and more, she realizes that it comes with a cost, a cost that could destroy her entire world.
“Them,” The Walking Dead (Season 5, Episode 10)
Image from WetPaint.com
I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with this show. (I’m currently loving that Scott Gimple is leaving as showrunner and that Angela Kang is stepping up to move things in a different direction.) But at its best, The Walking Dead produces some powerful, unforgettable moments, and one of those moments for me, is the storm in “Them.”
I’m going to be a little vague so as to avoid spoilers here, but Rick and his crew of survivors are all feeling pretty beaten down in this episode, and at various times, the characters fall apart or snap at one another in such a way that it seems like might be falling apart. As a way to pass what promises to be a rainy night, Rick and Co. find a dilapidated barn in which to sleep. But they can’t sleep, not with all the turmoil bubbling up between them, and while the storm builds outside, the arguments build inside. Daryl and Maggie are especially upset by recent events, and the storms both outside and inside mask the approach of what’s known on the show as a Horde—basically a huge herd o’ zombies.
(Although, fun fact, on the show they’re never called zombies. More often they’re referred to as “walkers.”)
The walkers start barging their way into the barn, and Daryl, despite his anger and grief, is the first to hurl himself against the opening door. He’s joined by Maggie and Rick, and soon every member of their broken little family is pressed in a pile against the door, all of them working together to keep the storm and the walkers and their despair at bay.
At the end of the day, storms in stories are never just storms. They can be promising or foreboding; they can serve as a story’s impetus or its culmination; they can trap characters or set them free; sometimes they’re tools of destruction and other times they wash the world clean. Storms are powerful devices, and when used correctly, they can change everything.
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