Tamar’s full answer (transcript of her voice note, more or less) (Schnee: hey! random question related to a video i'm making: how would you describe what beauty means in math? what type of idea/scenario in math would you call beautiful? what's beautiful about it?) Tamar: Hey this is a good question! Let me tell you some things that are not quite it, but are qualities of what’s a beautiful idea in math. I think that this is something anyone would agree with and then i’ll tell you something that's a little more like my personal take. I think that for an idea to be beautiful in math it has to be simple and surprising. Maybe this is not a shocking list of qualities, but if something is a very complicated idea,it's not really gonna strike people as beautiful. And if something is just sort of obvious deductive steps, that’s also not beautiful. It’s sort of like some sort of creative route to an idea or a surprising conclusion that comes about from something that’s simple to follow in some way. Like maybe soe sort of unexpected maneuver where someone spells out the steps, you can see it, and see how it works. I don’t think that’s the whole picture, but I think the reason those things are necessary is that it’s something that’s sort of perspective expanding. I guess that gets to what i think is beautiful in math, which are the ideas where you get a new perspective on the same idea. Like you have different paradigms in math, different ways that you can build up different kinds of mathematical objects and ways of thinking mathematically, and when someone can build a bridge where you can see that there’s these two different perspectives or these two different frameworks are actually different lenses on the same idea or or comparable lenses on the same idea, then that can be a really beautiful thing. Let me think of an analogy. Ok, this is not a great example, but imagine you were thinking about food and you were thinking about how certain cultures -- this is made up -- but like certain cultures use mushrooms in a certain way, and certain cultures use soy sauce, and some people use fish sauce, and some people use like, I don’t know, some kind of cheese, and you realize that there’s some sort of unifying idea that showed that these were all different approaches to the same achieving a certain kind of punch in your food. So certain ideas in math are like that where there's sort of some sort of like a unifying idea that brings together different kinds of ideas. And that's,I think, a really classic type of beautiful idea. And that's one of my favorite things. I don't think it's the only thing that people call beautiful in math, so I'll think about it a little bit more. Maybe there's something that could be a little bit more summarizable, but those are the thoughts off the top of my head.

Maybe the real tragedy is the friends we didn't make along the way

I think what made Jinx's rocket so powerful was that it was the most Devastating moment of her life. but simultaneously the most triumphant. the rocket is shot out of anger, regret, and sorrow. but also out empowerment, Pride, and Love. It's a beautiful moment for that reason. All of her emotions, anger, and Trauma all culminate into a missile of mass destruction. it's like the world will finally know and feel what she's experienced all her life. and will know that she's now truly become jinx.

I found beauty in episode 3 of Arcane in that we had always seen Silco as this emotionless and cruel warlord, yet he sat down in the rain and comforted this little girl in front of all his troops. He took a chance to seem weak in front of his men, which in turn showed strength.

Schnee, you have a way of breaking down these extremely complex topics, in very accessible manners - which is not something everyone can do Keep it up!

Beauty in a tragedy, to me, is a feeling: either “It didn’t have to end this way” or “it could only ever have ended this way.” And it was enhanced in arcane by Ella Purnell’s perfect delivery

Strangely enough, I find Chernobyl to have some very beautiful scenes and most come from essentially honor in a corrupt world. For example, when the general says he'll go there himself or when the workers decide to volunteer.

Great analysis as always, but I was missing something that I'd like to contribute: the mention of the positive function of pain. No one will probably see this comment burried under the others, but let's try it anyways. So, what is pain? We like to think that pain is the cornerstone of suffering, it's something bad and something we need to avoid. But pain is actually the blessing of evolution. The feeling of pain signals us that we are about the lose something that is important to our survival in the most basic sense of the word. You cut your foot? If you live as an early hunter gatherer human, you might not be able to keep up with others and will be hunted down by predators or just die of thirst or hunger. Emotional pain is almost the same, even the brain areas involved are overlaping. When you lose something or are about to lose something you NEED, you feel pain. This is evolution's way of trying to nudge you to avoid the loss. But it's not always possible. So you lose someone in a tragic way, what happens? Pain comes to remind you that you are injured, something you NEEDED is lost. And at those dark and sad moments you are deeply and profoundly CONNECTED TO the VALUES you've just lost. When your garden is burnt down, you can't stop and smell the rose anymore, but suddenly you are FORCED to remember the smell, and it's not something you can ever forget. In those infinitely long and still so evanescent moments people are broken or remade. And sometimes it depens on whether or not you can realize THE REASON WHY you NEEDED those VALUES.

In Iron Man, Yinsin telling Tony not to waste his second chance and that he was going to be with his dead family, that was pretty beautifully tragic.

I think most of us will agree that ep 3 of TLOU is beautiful. I also love how it’s a summary of the entire season. It foreshadows everything and preps us for what’s to come.

For me, beauty in storytelling comes from contrast. It’s one of the reasons why bittersweet tends to hit stronger than fluff or angst separately. And even in your answers you kind of hint to it in a sense: - Tenderness in strife - Simplicity from chaos Etc.

I don't think the beauty of anger and fear should be set aside here. The scene you're talking about with Joel is inherently one of anger, no just sadness. I think I would define beauty in storytelling is an emotion being VISCERALLY VALIDATED. For example, the core urge/base of anger is justice. Joel is sad, but he's also angry, seeking to get justice for Ellie's death. Jinx is seeking justice for how the people of Zaun had been wronged, and how she had been wronged. I think fear is a little more complicated... What comes to mind first is that there are somethings that one may fear, but another find beautiful.

For me, one of the most tragically beautiful scenes in all of media is the discussion between Kiritsugu and the holy grail about not being able to save all of humanity in Fate/Zero. The scene, of course, is very tragic and bitter, because we know that our hero essentially failed. But that's not all there is to it. The beauty COMES through the quiet island and contemplation that make up the scene. The palm trees and stars somehow also give us a sense of the unnatural and we stand before it in awe. My personal favorite anime for sure.

That is exactly what I felt towards the "Dark era" part of Bungo stray dogs. It's full of these tender moments of such extreme emotion to me. It's like characters are not speaking with a calm and somber tone in these moments, but screaming their lungs out: "I am in pain! Help me! Save me!" How perfect every little moment of it is, be it simple, like a character playing with children or eating curry or somebody dropping a depressing statement in the middle of a casual conversation, especially in retrospect, when you know how and when and why everything's going to go to shit, it's just... perfect. It doesn't help that one of the characters is an uncommon archetype I happened to relate to since childhood. It pains me just how underrated BSD is.

Part of it might be inevitability, too (if this is already mentioned my bad). But in tragic stories, it feels like there’s always a hope that things could have gone another way, either because of ignorance or circumstance, but from the very beginning of the story, it is clear that the “happy ending” that we may hope for the characters in the end is not, in some way, possible. Realistically, it never was and in some way the audience is subconsciously aware of it, too. On “Death of a Salesman”, Arthur Miller mentions how the only certain thing in his play was Willy’s undoing of himself, despite all else, for instance, which makes the ending dialogue from the characters have this sort of “beauty” effect. The “beauty” then may be a newer manifestation of that hope. It is not necessarily a spectacle of the actions/emotions by themselves that does this (although these are invaluable for resonating). The hope becomes a tainted hope that has adapted to the world around it, but it refuses to die, even if it must loose sight of itself in order to do so. edit; might also be that a character fulfills a part of themselves despite the consequences (Jinx coming into her own person / growing -> giant explosion, Joel showing he has finally connected to Ellie / found love and fulfillment -> murder hospital), maybe? Like a be careful what you wish for situation, almost

6:23 I think both Tamar's and Ben's explonation fits why that scene is beutiful. Not just because of the tenderness, but because of how we see Rue pass away (in peace, tenderness again). But we experience it as her. From her point of view. We hear Katniss sing, we see the trees and the sky, and how they slowly shift out from focus. And presenting her death this way is surprising and novel. Also ties back to the first comment from how we REALLY see something. We saw characters die and pass away, but not like this. What I'm trying to say is, that overall, there can be more than one reason that makes something beautiful.

This essay is beautiful. At the beginning we are haphazardly dealing with a lot of definitions of beauty. We want to find it. We want to define it. Chaos. So schnee answers the call and begins on a quest. With the entire schnee patreon disc to back him up, he gathers opinions and knowledge from many other brilliant minds. With a canvas schnee brushes the first strokes: 4 ideas. Slowly but surely it formulates. Using the expanse of already amazing stories like Arcane, Last of Us, etc. we finally find it. From there we can define the power of tragedy. I don't know about others, but the sense of epiphany and "Yes! that's it!" connects to me on a deep level; since I can more fully define the beauty of the best stories I've seen/read (per animation, Bluey's Sleepytime, Flat Pack, Space, and Baby Race, and Hilda's The Witch, Fifty Year Night, and Deerfox come to mind). Thank you schnee and community, we need people like ya'll

Beauty is too broad for me, but in terms of tragedy I think you clicked into the overall feeling but it's made up of two actually conflicting ideas 1 - This was inevitable (Emphasis on causality) 2 - This could have been avoided (Still emphasis on causality) So ultimately, whether it's me trying to make these two completely paradoxical ideas mesh together or it's a real thing going on here, I think tragedy often has this hyper focus on the causal chain of events leading up to whatever the moment is that causes the tragedy

Beauty is heavily, heavily subjective but it really can just be described as awe and wonder that is so overwhelming you’re at a loss for words while having so many feelings about it. It’s captivating, off guard, and near a perfection we crave because it feels so powerful. Regardless of how imperfect it actually is it leaves the impression of something whole, deep, and nuanced. This nuance doesn’t have to be comfortable in order to leave an impact which is why so many people debate on what beauty is.

Such an amazing video. My thoughts is that tragedy is a way to make the characters feel human and like you said sad and emotional. Psychologically, tragedy draws us to what is itself tragic. Things that are beautiful because they are human or relatable, Thanks for listening to my TED talk.

Rarely can I sit through 25 minutes of unhalted lecture, but schnee makes it too easy. Anyway, rambling time ! It's funny because despite Arcane being one of my favorite stories, I did not find *beauty* in the same places than you. I've never seen this rocket ending as a satisfying accomplishment, but always as a terrifying turning point. Maybe it's the nature of the media, a show that is vowed to have a sequel, or maybe it is because I'm unconsciously stuck with a premade idea of Jinx as a LoL character. But after watching this ending, all I could think about was the consequences of her act, and it scared me way more than it saddened me. I was scared that her sister would not forgive her, that Pilltover/Zaun would never find peace, that the characters I loved would die in the explosion. I was left expecting more to the story and I could not find in episode 9 the beauty that struck me in episode 3 for comparison. The death of these characters really marked this episode as an end to Jinx's "child arc" to me, thus bringing that *absolute simplicity* from an intricate mess (in addition to the *tenderness in a strife-driven world* that I *surprisingly* found in the character of Silco) and that is what drew a beautiful scar in my mind, if that makes sense. I just think it's funny to see that I've come to fully agree with tis video's representations of beauty despite not having the exact same reference examples as you.

To me and as subjective it is, Psychology is wonderful. The absolute wonder how we can feel different emotions when exposed to different kinds of scenarios. All the well known emotions if they are placed to build up to certain actions, can be magnificent to analyse the whole thing like flipping through a book. Real or fantasy tragedies that can make your skin crawl, the ones that can make you breakdown crying at the emptiness, ones that makes you feel lost for days afterwards. I never forget the wonder I felt answering the questions in a math exam with ease even though I dislike math with a passion, I felt invincible. And I won't forget my heart thumping to the loudspeakers standing in the front row of the first concert I ever experienced. Life itself is beauty for you to find behold.

beauty is found in contrast there is beauty in simplicity, also in complexity The Absurd can both take it away or add to it it's where meaninglessness and meaning collide, where opposites can both exist harmoniously tragedy is beautiful because tho it is steeped in negativity, what we take away from it can lead to positivity in our lives, lessons learned a masterpiece, suddenly fiction is real.

My thought that I'd like to add is not how tragedy is beautiful, but a part of why I think we value beauty in tragedy so much... Pain and ending are inevitable parts of life. Beauty comes easily to us in other parts, it's easy to feel happy about a happy ending. But being able to feel beauty about a painful ending, that's difficult, that takes artistry and perspective. And it makes us more connected to our own lives and others, it creates meaning in the pains in our lives that might otherwise feel meaningless. And I think this brings together both concepts you talked about: it integrates positive and negative emotions, and it also makes a coherent whole, not so much out of a particular story here, but out of LIFE. Life can so often feel divided into wonderful things and terrible things, but tragic beauty unifies the experience of life, finds beauty in the pain, connects us to parts of our lives we might like to write off and makes something meaningful out of them. And that's difficult to do, technically and emotionally, but it's something that feels incredibly important to an expansive experience of being human. And it's not confined to art, we can experience beautiful tragedy in real life, but like all difficult emotions and experiences, art is a powerful tool to help us experience those things.

The fact there was not a single mention of the 1997 masterpiece "Life is Beautiful" during this whole discussion on the meaning of beauty is very unfortunate and a missed opportunity. I'm usually not too emotional but the scene where the kid is watching his dad from his hiding place and the dad looks right at him and does the goofiest walk possible, knowing full well what his fate is and providing that moment of joy to his boy, that breaks me. It goes perfectly with the "tenderness in a world of strife" definition but takes it to the extreme.

NEW SCHNEE VIDEO MY DAY IS SAVED

My man really pulled a "let me define beauty" moment. And it worked

When you spoke about the journey from chaos to order I noticed that's the opposite of the theory of entropy (that the universe becomes less ordered over time). A story that I consider to be one of the most beautiful ever told is Outer Wilds. Somewhat contradictively, Outer Wilds is about entropy. I think there's layers. You can have a story about chaos or about order and that's boring, or you can have a story about the transition from chaos to order and that's beautiful, or you can have a story about the relentless failure to transition chaos into order, and the eventual acceptance of disorder. And that's a higher beauty still.

this is so much fun to think about i think maybe beauty (or a part of beauty) is contrast. A positive contrast married over a negative contrast. A sunset is a beautiful light on a broken world. Vi and Jinx being reunited is a contrast to the trauma that Jinx has gone through. Jinx's completion of identity is a contrast to Silco's death, as well as the death that's about to happen. And like your math friend said it can be simple and surprising in its simplicity contrasted to it's perceived complication. Thinking about some more moments with tragic beauty, and I feel like it can happen when certain things work out but others don't. When the goal and the thing that the characters really truly care about comes to fruition, but there is a cost to either them or those around them or other things they care about. Like when Romeo and Juliette are finally together, their goal is fulfilled, but it's in a really devastating way. Or when Jinx and Vi finally meet but it's a such a cost Jinx's mind, and I would consider the moment they hug beautiful., it's just not a long drawn out moment because they are immediately attacked and it goes into action again. I think that's another point that you had too, which is time. Time to be in the moment and feel the drawn out emotion that the whole story has been crafted and built up to. I also think it's interesting how in real life, we don't like experiencing this type of tragedy and probably don't find it beautiful in the moment. In the story, the characters don't appreciate how tragically beautiful it is. But we like to watch it. I wonder what that says about humanity. also lol i never use words like "perceived" and "fruition" normally, but every time i watch one of your videos my brain goes in to "schnee mode" and starts racing at a million miles per hour. it's so much fun

Holy shit. This video is a goldmine! So many great ideas and concepts around writing and story telling that I have been trying to wrap my head around for years. Thank you so much for making this brilliant essay. I am so heavily inspired. You do great work!

Ive asked myself this a lot. Personally i find tragic characters beautiful rather than situations/scenes/moments i still can’t really put words to it but this video certainly helps.

I need an entire 5h video on this PLEASE

Even with your almost monotone voiceover, these scenes are so powerful I'm sitting here trying not to sob at most of them.

I have watched most of your videos and this is my favourite so far, thank you 💙

Aaaa I adore your process in these videos. I get so much insight I never get otherwise. You make defining your terms into a whole journey! The nuance and the self critiques at the end keep me thinking. Idk Your uploads are like brain food lol

Really interesting analysis of how or why we find certain scenes beautiful. I LOVE all the different perspectives you brought in. For me personally, part of what makes tragedy beautiful is the emotions it evokes from me. I sometimes have this issue when watching TV/film and “sad” scenes come up. Part of me wants to cry. Wants to feel the sadness of the scene but for whatever reason something’s missing that makes me feel disconnected from it still. I know what I’m supposed to be feeling and I can try to conjure up that feeling in response to what’s happening in the story but it just doesn’t “hit” like it’s supposed to. Scenes I think are really truly beautiful are the ones that do give me that catharsis. The scenes where I can connect and go “yes I know this feeling. I understand.” And there is NO GREATER EXAMPLE than the tea party in Arcane ep. 9. For me the most beautiful moment is when Silco tells Jinx “don’t cry. You’re perfect.” The SOB that burst out of me when he said those lines. It was IMMEDIATE. It was VISCERAL. There have been very few TV/films that have been able to elicit THAT type of intense emotional response out of me. Normally only books can elicit that level of emotionality and even then it’s still not exactly the same. Watching that Arcane scene for the first time, my reaction was so sudden and involuntary. You would’ve thought that I just heard someone died. I think my reaction also just surprised me which I suppose connects back to what your math friend said about the result being surprising. It was surprising not in the actual content of the scene but in the way it was able to stab deep into my emotional core in the span of a few seconds without me realizing it until it happened.

A video from my favorite KZfaqr on my 2 favorite fandoms wow! Life is treating me well

The drop in happiness is a work of art because it plays with your emotions. When something unexpectedly perfect happens, it can do a high spike upwards in awe, but the opposite is also true, a sudden leap can make your heart jump. The tragedy is beautiful because its not real, a real life tragedy is something to pity but a work of art becomes even more beautiful when it gets an emotion out of you.

Dude, your videos are so inspiring! please keep making videos like this!

I'm endlessly blown away by how you break down complicated af topics and concepts and work them into a beautiful video your subscribers can understand

One of the most beautiful tragedy scenes I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching is from “Queen Charlotte”. Those final 20 mins or so are genuinely breathtakingly beautiful. Specially the scene with Brimsley dancing which was immediately followed by the two main characters lying under the bed. Absolutely destroyed me.

Respect you alot, too still keep the amazing arcane story in the spotlight as we are waiting for season 2. I genuinely love arcane and the story itself

You are my all time favorite video essay writer. Your videos are so good your getting through finals.

This video is absolutely incredible. I’ve saved it so I can rewatch it, and I definitely feel I need to. It puts a finger on the magic underlying some of both my personal favorite moments in storytelling, and some of the best in history. In the book The Anatomy of Genre by John Truby, he says the tragedy in Shakespeare’s plays comes from the age of the characters: Romeo and Juliet are too young for the love they’re experiencing, King Lear suffers the hubris of old age, etc. I think that what you’ve done here is expand on this idea in a way that makes it universally applicable. Another way of saying what John Truby said is, “it could end no other way.” Everything clicks into place because of who the characters are, and when they are in their lives. I hope I’ve added to this idea somehow. I feel like I’ve only just begun thinking about this, and the results will hopefully show in my writing. I hope you make a follow up to this to continue exploring the idea! Thank you for this video, and all your other work. Truly insightful and powerful ideas here.

Your work is fantastic man! I’ve been sharing your work wherever I can. Also would love to see you break down The Last Airbender.

BEAUTIFUL analysis. I took notes. Thanks for the post

I honestly think your channel is beautiful

This is an amazing breakdown, thanks for the effort you put into theorizing and compiling all of this!

Thanks a lot man. I do feel like it is one of the most clear and important videos that could be made on the topic. I havent dwelled too much on the aspect of beuty, yet being presented to its definition this explicidly feels like almost being handed the keys to some crucial aspect of screenwritting (which relates to many other of your videos as well). Thanks a lot man, the content is fantastic

The real beauty that I have found -- it is your videos. For me, they are that moments of serenity in my chaotic live. It is the moments when my own perspective expands because of how surprisingly simple you make this complex topics seem. The way you present information is the other kind of beauty I fully adore. Thank you for all the work you put in this videos and I wish the very best for you in your life journey and journey as a content creator, dear schnee!!

I came by this video of yours by happenstance and it blew me away! Both the subject of the video and the way you discuss it are very nuanced and inspiring. Exceptional work man! Sth in particular that drew my attension is you mentioning the article by Brandon Sanderson. Sanderson happens to be my favourite writer and for a long time its been my opinion that he writes amazing, complex and compeling characters (especially in the stormlight archive series). I don't know if you have read him yourself, but if you have, I would love to listen to one of your analysis on his characters/ themes one day!

Dude i ADORE ur analysis videos, they're all incredibly insightful n always give me a new perspective on how a story is written, it showed me the depth of storytelling when it's done right in a way i wasn't quite aware of bfr Amazing work dude!!!

9:08 my gratitude towards them for giving me the perfect description of myself and my feelings

Just watched *A Man Called Otto* and it was a beautiful blend of bitter sweet. I was sobbing by the end.

Love your analysis of storytelling, makes me appreciate film, anime, manga, video games, so much more. Fascinating how good storytelling can be intuited by a reader/viewer even without conscious awareness of the specific qualities making it a good story

Then scene with Silco and Jinx is beautiful to me the raw emotions end sincerity that's felt behind it and the reflection in Silco's expression and face. How the chaos and sudden violence gave way to calm and silence before rising up again like a tide leading to the climax. But that bit I always keep coming back to and the sad bit I don't think I can ever fully summarize how it makes me feel and why it does so.

chaos -> simplicity. “it has to be simple and surprising.” looking back at my own short stories, i think that perfectly summarizes exactly what i was doing without even realizing it.

this is one of your best videos, I never thought how difficult beauty really is to define. One line that stood out the most to me is how you said "working out PERFECTLY or falling apart Perfectly" I believe this is deriving from the human perspective: it is our pattern seeking brains seeing something coming together. it is the art pulling the emotion to the foreground after a long build up where you cant help but to feel a personal connection to an inanimate aspect. Almost like the climax of a story, it is the moments everything weaves together.

the real tragedy is schnee using light mode on discord

I think that the feeling of understanding, a faint, vague and mostly momentary "I think I get it now", even if not actually true. To me, that is beautiful.

this is for sure one of my favorite videos you've ever made. such an incredibly interesting topic to dive into that i don't think i've ever seen someone try to dissect. out of every definition for beauty you mentioned i think the one that resonated the most with me personally was this idea of paradoxical emotions. i feel like thats always something that pushes me from going "yeah, this story is fun and cool" to "this story is amazing" if its able to make me feel something unique and specific that i've never felt before, some strange combination of conflicting emotions that could only ever have been brought about from that particular story. i'm a little annoyed at myself for never checking my patreon notifications because it seems like the conversations you guys are having over there are awesome!

NO WAY RYUJIN IS MY FAV TOO

Great editing!

I love how much effort you put in these videos. They're not just opinions coming out of nowhere, but you at least try to gather some different perspectives, facts, and points of view, even if they cab be subjective, such as what is beauty

Woah woah! This basically became a lecture on aesthetics, what a treat!!!

Omg you referenced KIWI! Amazing pull. I’ve sometimes had a concept of perfection similar to what you articulated, I phrased it as “the story writes itself.” You feel as though the story could not exist in any other way.

OH MY GOD- WHEN YOU PULLED OUT RYUJIN- I'm a sucker for your analysis videos, all of them, but when you pulled out Ryujin on video that really shocked me, hello fellow MIDZY!

One of the shows I've found beautiful since the first time I saw it was Anohana: the flower we saw that day. It deals with so much raw emotions to a group of childhood bestfriends who lost contact after one of them died in direct cause of something they set up. They all blame themselves heavily but they have to pretend everything is okay. But then they admit everything to each other and it's soul crushing, but so beautiful, especially with the scenes following and the end scene. I've watched the show around 5-7 times and there's hasn't been one time I didn't cry.

I love this so much! I am also dying to hear any extra thoughts you maybe have about the Hunger Games! This video makes me think of the scene of Katniss showing unity between the districts when the victors all hold hands at the interview, it is far more powerful in the books but it still provokes so much emotion in the movie!

I find it very interesting that you called tragedy "ordered", I have never thought about it like that! It really is, but on the emotional level it does not feel that way, it often *feels* chaotic to me, probably because of the conflicting emotions you mentioned - so fascinating!

Dude I watched Arcane a few weeks ago and have basically only watched your videos since 😂 they’re all so well done, so well thought out and so well explained. I would absolutely love to see what you have to say about a video game series like Kingdom Hearts or anything by Tetsuya Nomura haha

Incredible that you managed to condense such a massive and abstract idea down into a 20-something minute video, and not only that, but it all made so much sense, so thank you :) Also, there's a podcast called HBO's: The Last Of Us Podcast where Craig Mazin and Neil Druckman are interviewed by Troy Baker, going through each episode and breaking down the process of decisions made, changes from the game ect, which I'd highly recommend if you enjoy Schnee's videos :)

Since I'm currently fully back into the Fullmetal Alchemist fandom( the 2003 version specifically), I'll have to say there's a surprising amount of beauty to be found in both happy and sad moment of the show. Seeing Edward Elric obtaining his State Alchemist licence through changing the result of other people's dangerous transmutations into a crown of flowers, and realizing a crown of flowers is the last thing his mother asked of him before dying made that moment insanely precious. The scene where Edward talks to a war veteran who tells him he's okay with his lost leg because he finally found peace is honestly masterful as well. the show may not be as appreciated as its more recent counterpart, but it's still worth a lot of the praise it got at the time, imperfect show, but beautiful in all rights I think

It’s interesting you mentioned the Hunger Games because I *would* describe the books and their tragedy as beautiful in a similar way to Arcane’s tragedy. I was thinking about them when you starting mentioning stuff in the category. But yeah definitely not the movies lol.

You sound like an alternate reality Kermit the frog where Kermit is super smart and really good at explaining relatively complex subjects so that a smoothebrain like myself can enjoy. Big thanks ❤

Great use of an unexpected old youtube classic! 18:50 Kiwi!

Omg Schnee I have been watching your videos for a while and they have really helped me re analyze stories and dig deeper. If you ever want another story to dig deeper into, I would be curious to see how you would talk about Spiderman, into the spiderverse. The music, the animation style, the way certain moments are shot, it seems everything is connected in a very beautiful, interesting way. I would love to see your take on it.

I think the challenge here was that there was an attempt to connect tragedy to beauty, and of course there is a connection as said in the video. However first ya gotta find out what beauty is. The topic was covered very good on what beauty is though. I just think that "what is beauty in storytelling" deserves its own...Universe.

I love both of these series sm

You are talking about AWE with the expansion piece! Awe is a vastness that requires mental accommodation. The expansion happens when we have capacity to make that accommodation. I just finished my whole masters thesis on this about how awe and trauma are intertwined though expansion and contraction and what we have capacity for. In a lot of ways art is a modality that gives us more capacity to experience violence and hardship and theat far enough away that we feel, expansive.

“This world is cruel, and also very beautiful.” - Mikasa, Attack on Titan Season 1 I think that sums it up.

i feel that with all the examples beauty is the calm after the storm/struggle or emotional roller-coaster, it is the contrast. I think a great example of this is in the song thunderstruck especially 2 cellos performance. there is intense energy and music and in the middle of it there is a pause that cheches you off guard it is a moment where you can take in and digest what has just happened and think about all that is happening and going on around you while being completely pulled into what is in front of you.

When elements comes together

To me, as a physicist, beauty is the planets aligning. Complete chaos or just independent events, and then bam, simplicity. But a major major component is you have to be able to see it before the moment arrives. If the planets were just teleporting around chaotically, when they aligned, it wouldn’t feel beautiful. But as they move along their orbits, when they come close and you have that anticipation and that hope because you can see where there can be simplicity in the chaos, and when it finally happens, it’s beautiful.

I believe beauty has a lot to do with satifaction. No matter if it is a moment that just feels right, a person that looks exactly the way we feel attracted to or a character's death that seems to fulfill a purpose. Also artwork and music can be "defined" like that. When I talk about beautiful art (in general) then I'm normally talking about something that satisfies my personal taste in a very specific way. That is also what makes beauty so subjective, because satisfaction is always a very personal experience. Why does it feel beautiful when Frank and Bill die together at the end of their story? Because this is the only right outcome that could satisfy us. Why does everyone love Pedro Pascal? Because he and his story are what people like to see and/or hear (obviously exaggerating here, not everyone has to love him haha). And why do some scientific solutions just feel so elegant and beautiful? Because the way they are derived is so satisfying and maybe even surprising and gives us an answer to a question we might have been asking ourselves for a very long time. So yeah, I believe beauty is basically satisfaction which makes it so awesome and subjective. But this is surely an oversimplification of a much larger topic, though I think it is a pretty easy way to get an idea of what's actually behind it. :)

"Beautiful" is a word with so many different meanings, we might need to expand the language just to handle it.

I find beauty in all your videos

My favorite line from the great Netflix series "Queen's Gambit" is when Beth says: "Chess can also be....beautiful."

Hey schnee! A video just popped up in my feed in I really think you will find it interesting (as will anyone that enjoys essay style videos about arcane) its a video by Overly Sarcastic Productions called "Detail Diatribe: Arcane's Unbreakable Bonds of Love (And Why They Suck)" it just came out and I though it would be a good addition to the analysis we are all doing on arcane. (for anyone wondering about the title I was confused as well but it really should be "why they suck for the characters to have them" as in they "hurt to exist)"

Great video as always! Amadeus came to my mind repeatedly througout this video. i think that movie unifies beauty and tragedy really well

I'm going to nerd out for a second, but this video made me think back to a literary theory class I took in college. While it does feel like a slippery undefinable topic, there's a whole discipline (philosophy of aesthetics) devoted to the inquiry of "what is beauty," as it relates to literature, art, math, etc. So it IS its own category in storytelling as you said! I imagine the most well known theory in this field is probably Aristotle's concept of emotional catharsis in tragedy, but there is a wide range of more modern ideas as well to explore, similar to the differing answers proposed in this video. In short, I think it's hard to reduce beauty to just 1 definition. Great video analysis.

I love your dissection of words start with a little bit, of something peculiar, beautiful leading us on with why is he call all these bad decisions these break ups these miscommunications beautiful. then it hit me beauty doesn't last flowers wilt and the moments they are alive is the moment of the story and the story is over now. The story was beautiful. Now its 2 am where I'm at so I'll finish this in the morning I just thought I'll send a viewer perception just to make sure Schnee knows how great at speeches he is. thank you for the unmatched wordplay. I am only 1min 30 into the video and am curious as all hell, how much of the final conclusion is aligned with what he primed me with think and all the introspection for all the examples.

I would argue fear can be beautiful. I remember the first time I saw the huge brain mass filled with eyes in Bloodborne. A quiet black void, nothing but you and this otherworldly power. You can't do anything, you are helpless. You're helpless and very afraid. And yet it's beautiful. I think it's because of that change of perspective. You've heard a lot about the great ones , you've seen some failed attempts, but nothing that comes close to this being. It's terrifying, but beautiful

I feel like there is also more nuance in the difference between sadness and tragedy. In Arcane for example, the ending is tragic not just because Jinx decides to shoot the rocket, but also because it happens at the exact moment went the council decides to vote for peace. It is also tragic because of how given different circumstances, Vi and Jinx could have had a great relationship. In tragedy lies the death of a potential better futur (something you mentioned with Joel) To me, another nuance is like this: Sadness => Something bad happens Tragic => Something terrible happens but that could have been resolved, or that is highly unjust

Hi, Schnee! Idk if you've already made a video along these lines but what do you think of remembering things *wrong* as a minor theme in Arcane? There are only like, four different places where this comes up in the story, but three of them are pivotal moments and its really cool. The first one is episode 3 - it opens with the flashback to Vander drowning Silco, but then later in the episode we see the flashback again and it ends differently, with Silco escaping. It unclear to me watching that second flashback (just with the way its filmed, lit, etc) if Silco escaping actually happened or if that's him re-writing the memory as he finally gets revenge on Vander in present day. The second place this pops up is during Vi's parkour run after leaving Stillwater. She says something about Powder being "able to do that when she was seven" although we know from seeing it ourselves that she was in fact *not*. And then it shows up twice in the tea party scene. When Vi is telling Powder to "picture milo, claggor, vander, me" Powder is picturing them, but she's not picturing them as they were in life - her memories are monstrous. And then we have her at the end saying "I thought maybe you could love me like you used to, even though I'm different. But you changed to." When Vi is actually the only person who DIDNT change. The only change that happened was in Powder's memories. Anyway, sorry for the wall of text. This has been floating around in my head for days. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

@schnee1 Hey Schnee! I had an idea about the relationship between beauty and tragedy that I think might interest you, but I also recognize that it is 4 months out from the video, and I have a hard time thinking someone would still read the comments, but I figure it’s worth a shot! First off though, man, you are doing such a fantastic job with these videos. The thoughts you bring to the table are awesome and so incredibly unique and thoughtful. Thank you for doing them, they really are a joy to watch. So, here is the thought in a nutshell and then I’ll go on to explain it if you’re still interested: tragedy is beauty permanently caged. What I mean by that I’ll first explain with a metaphor and then, second, a technical explanation. Imagine, for a moment, that you go to a zoo. As you’re walking around you recognize that it’s not the most well kept establishment, there’s a bit of garbage on the path here and there, things just seem, more or less, worn out. You eventually make your way to a particular, cramped, enclosure where you get to see the lion, and as you look and observe, a series of thoughts unfolds. It’s clear that this lion has seen much better days. Its mane is matted where it isn’t showing bald spots, its fur, gray and tired, and as it looks out through the smudged glass, it has a sad and forlorn cast to its face. In a flash it suddenly occurs to you what this lion could have been in the wild: a strong powerful creature, a full mane, a sleek coat, a great predator of the savannah both feared and respected. But reality snapps back, and the creature before you is all that’s left of the vision. You realize that it will never leave the cage, and even if it did it would surely die soon thereafter. Its potential is spent and it is doomed to this existence until death. This, I think, is what tragedy is like. Tragedy and beauty are related, but I would (very respectfully) disagree with you that tragedy is beautiful. Instead, I would assert that the relationship between the two is that tragedy is a state where something beautiful has been permanently denied and therefore makes us think about the beauty that could have been, but is not, and can not be. I have had the unfortunate experience of having young people I know die. Those deaths would rightfully be called tragic, but what makes them tragic is that the beauty which could have been their lives will never come to fruition. After their deaths, I’ll never get to see Ellen grow into a beautiful woman, or Shannon become a vet like she talked about, those paths are closed permanently. It makes me cry just to think about it. So, again, I think that the relationship between tragedy and beauty is that tragedy dredges up in us the ideas of beauty because of how starkly “ugly” (for lack of a better term) the circumstances surrounding tragedy are. Tragedy is beauty permanently caged. I think that tragedy (and, again, respectfully here) cannot be intrinsically beautiful, otherwise it would not be tragedy. Thanks again for all the great videos, Schnee (and reading this if you got this far!). The impression you give is that you’re always open to hearing all kinds of viewpoints, even if they don’t align with yours, and I deeply respect that. I’m always open to follow up questions too if that sounds fun. Thanks again! Sincerely -Jarrett

this is great!

Great take. Would love to hear more and from the sounds of it other like-minded. How do I join the discord?

Now I really want an analisys on the beauty of Heike Monogatari.

Is this whole video basically just 'beauty juxtaposed with tragedy creates strong contrast that emphasizes the beauty?' X-D