I am dumb [about ultra-violence]

[Sigvatr]

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

(I know it's from Clockwork though)

[esselfortium]

Hah ha..what a story Mark..

[Joshy]

esselfortium said:

Hah ha..what a story Mark..

Yah, real horrorshow!

[EarthQuake]

What.

Wait, is it really?

[hobomaster22]

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

[Clonehunter]

EarthQuake said:

What.

Wait, is it really?

[stewboy]

So what are the other skill levels referencing?

[EarthQuake]

Oh wait.

It's from A Clockwork Orange.

Wow, your dumb post made me dumb.

[PRIMEVAL]

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

[Snakes]

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.

[elic]

Damn, I've never realized that.

[40oz]

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

[Technician]

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.

[EarthQuake]

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"?

[Technician]

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?

[Xaser]

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

[Sigvatr]

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.

[kristus]

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

[Technician]

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.

[Per-Scan]

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. :)

[Korblox10]

lol?Thats just..."funny".

[GreyGhost]

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.

[lupinx-Kassman]

This is probably thinking way too into it.

[myk]

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).

[Vaporizer]

.

[kristus]

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.

[printz]

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.

[kristus]

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.

[DeathevokatioN]

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

[myk]

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.