I am dumb [about ultra-violence]

I only just realized that Ultra Violence was a pun on the term ultraviolet.

(I know it's from Clockwork though)

Hah ha..what a story Mark..

esselfortium said:

Hah ha..what a story Mark..

Yah, real horrorshow!

What.

Wait, is it really?

Whatever, I had no idea. I've never read the book or watched movie.

EarthQuake said:

What.

Wait, is it really?

So what are the other skill levels referencing?

Oh wait.

It's from A Clockwork Orange.

Wow, your dumb post made me dumb.

I knew it was a spinoff of Ultra-Violet, I just didn't know it made a movie reference.

I was always under the impression that it was just a reference to a bit of the old ultra-violence. The ultraviolet thing never really occurred to me.

Damn, I've never realized that.

I thought Ultra-Violence was typical vernacular to describe something that is well.. very violent.

I can't tell where the joke starts and stupidity ends in these posts.

Ok, everyone who didn't think or realize it was a Clockwork Orange reference raise your left hand.


YES, your Left hand.

Well, I'm raising my right hand, but I don't think you can see it without being in the same room as me. Is what the original poster is trying to get at is that the phase "Ultra-violence", which comes from A Clockwork Orange, is a pun of "ultraviolet"?

So... are we thinking the ultraviolet the light or the film? Or was the book trying to make a pun I just didn't grasp before?

I'm starting to regret my decision to draw my irritating image macros over a transparent background, because that means I can't just post 'em up on DW without making everyone highlight the post to see the black outlines of everything. But I'm going to link it anyway.

http://ionline.vectec.net/images/xa-goingon.png

Ok, basically the Doom difficulty name Ultra Violence is taken from A Clockwork Orange, which itself was making a pun on the term ultraviolet. That's that.

Just because you say it do doesn't make it so.

I never caught that pun when reading the book. 'Guess I'm slow.

kristus said:
Just because you say it do doesn't make it so.

Technician said:

...Ok, everyone who didn't think or realize it was a Clockwork Orange reference raise your left hand.


YES, your Left hand.

Left hand raised. I'm with 40oz here in that I just thought it was just a phrase to describe very violent. The link to Clockwork Orange seems a little tenuous to me. :)

lol?Thats just..."funny".

Sigvatr said:

Ok, basically the Doom difficulty name Ultra Violence is taken from A Clockwork Orange, which itself was making a pun on the term ultraviolet.

While the Clockwork Orange connection seems straightforward enough (excessive and gratuitous violence) the ultraviolet pun makes no sense to me.

This is probably thinking way too into it.

There was a guy that posted here regularly with the user name Ultraviolet. I suppose he considered using that because of its similarity with ultra-violence, or at least was amused by that similarity, but you need some semantic or associative relation to make a pun, and I don't really see a reason to link the wave spectrum beyond violet with the term in Burgess' book (and not The Mammoth Book of Chess, but this other one being mentioned).

.

myk said:

There was a guy that posted here regularly with the user name Ultraviolet. I suppose he considered using that because of its similarity with ultra-violence, or at least was amused by that similarity, but you need some semantic or associative relation to make a pun, and I don't really see a reason to link the wave spectrum beyond violet with the term in Burgess' book (and not The Mammoth Book of Chess, but this other one being mentioned).

One could imagine a link from Ultra Violent to Ultraviolet the movie though. But that's the reverse of what the OP is suggesting.

GreyGhost said:

While the Clockwork Orange connection seems straightforward enough (excessive and gratuitous violence) the ultraviolet pun makes no sense to me.

To me it makes sense, considering ultraviolet rays present a greater risk than normal (light) rays. Ultra Violence = greater risk than normal skill, I guess.

But anyway, I think that Romero's humor during his making of Doom 1 wasn't as clever as during Wolf3d's and Quake's. Compare for example the game exit taunts from Doom with the ones from Wolf3d or Quake. I find the latter two better in quitter taunts.

printz said:

To me it makes sense, considering ultraviolet rays present a greater risk than normal (light) rays. Ultra Violence = greater risk than normal skill, I guess.

That's really really really far fetched.

Best way to find out would be to ask Romero on that "Ask Romero" blog thing he opened up. He'll probably say no.

It wouldn't be up to Romero as Sigvatr is presuming, as he clarified in his second post, a relation between the term in the book and ultraviolet... which I'd say no to, anyway. Ultra, for extreme, as used in the book, has been used in English for a long time, such as when calling someone an "ultra-nationalist" or the like. Burgess just gave the fictional slang term a specific use in the book, as a (fitting, really) name for brutal violence.

What Romero has mentioned in the past is that Tom Hall indeed took the skill level name ultra-violence from the book.