#“twits” like the book by roald dahl

[indecisitivity]

the attendees when they reached the event:

well that was a

A Willy Wonka pop-up event in Glasgow had attendees calling the police after they paid £35 and the event didn’t deliver what was promised.

Event goers were promised a whimsical adventure all themed around something Willy Wonka might create in his factory.

Source

The keen-eyed amongst you might have noticed something a little bit…wrong.

Imagnation Lab. Encherining Entertainment. Catgacating. Live perforrmances. Cartchy tunes. Exarserdray lollipops. And my favourite “A pasadise of sweets teats”

But what did the event actually look like? WELL.

Feel like the marketing team got a bit carried away.

[truthundressing]

love when u hate someone just bc u find them annoying and then u find smthn out about them that actually proves them to be a bad person 😋

[skautism]

i used to mix up they might be giants and the mountain goats a lot because they start with similar letters and my dad introduced me to them both as a very small child

[ravenwoodalum]

on karamelle, why it sucks, and redeeming azteca's reputation.

I just got to Karamelle for the second time, and good lord. I hadn't forgotten how much I hated it, but it hit me like a wall of bricks. And I'm already preparing myself to marathon it and be fucking done questing here for at least a year.

I think it breaks down like this.

Baby's first workers rights movement/sugary-sweet surveillance state Listen. I know this is a game that doesn't allow for player characters to have much individual impact on the in-game narrative. I know we've had to do errands for cops. I know we work for a war criminal. I KNOW there are flaws in the system. But there's something about the way that Karamelle's set up that makes it all feel so. much. worse. And that's the fact that Karamelle has such a stellar reputation within the Spiral before this. The happiest place in the Spiral, the sweetest treats in the Spiral. Everyone seems to fucking love this place. Almost no one outside of those actually working there seem to understand how corrupt it is. And so the YW is talked down to at every turn, like this is their first exposure to a corrupt environment. And sure, maybe it is within, canon. YW gets isekai'd at a very young age and then made into a child soldier, maybe this is actually the first time in canon that they've been introduced to these concepts. But (and this may just be me) it feels really rude to the player -- who might actually have experience with these ideas -- to make them feel like a fucking idiot with the dialogue options. Karamelle's characters just feel rude.

Oh, so the Gobblers were a fatphobic, Roald Dahl type thing from the start. Cool cool cool. Any of you ever read Roald Dahl's book "The Twits"? It's a very unremarkable story all things considered, except for this bit.

Aside from Roald Dahl's unavoidable history of antisemitism, does this remind you of anything? Honestly, this reminds me of the Gobbblers.

We first meet the Gobblers around level 10 in Wizard City -- creatures driven by consumption. And then we get to Empyrea and hear that the Alphoi -- skinny "civilized" creatures -- can become Gobblers if they eat too much or are unhealthy in their eating habits. Which makes one of our oldest running enemies a loop-around fatphobic thing, ESPECIALLY when we get to them in Karamelle, the home world of the Gobblers. Rosina, especially, just oozes fatphobia and diet culture. The literal vilification of being fat isn't even subtext, it's just text.

The Old One, The Cabal, and what to do when your escape from the world ends up shoving what you were escaping from right back in your face. When I was in sophomore year of college, fall of 2019, I had one of the worst mental health periods of my life. Antisemitism was fucking everywhere, I was always a moment away from a panic attack, and it felt like no one understood. While I'm lucky in the fact that I was able to get an official diagnosis for genetically inherited PTSD, alongside the reassurance that I wasn't fucking crazy, there was a period when I just needed to go home for a moment. So when I was going back to my dorm from the dining hall to make sure all my stuff was ready to go, I opened up tumblr and made a post on a long-gone RP sideblog I had for the Swedish Chef (y'know, from The Muppets? long story), and before I'd even gotten halfway across campus, I'd received threatening and violent messages from someone RPing as Borat, which only got worse when they realized they were talking to an actual Jewish person.

That escape from reality didn't even last five fucking minutes before the horrors I was trying to avoid found me.

Now, Wizard101 has always been a source of comfort for me. I made my account fourteen years ago, and I do not know what my life would look like if I hadn't done that. There are flaws with this game, yes, sure, but over the past five years (since I got a wiz compatible laptop) I've developed a bit of a reliance on it to get me through the horrors. No better form of escapism.

But no art form is free of the horrors.

And Wizard101 has the fucking Cabal and Old One.

The Cabal within the fiction of Wizard101 is a secret, nefarious organization pulling the strings on events across the Spiral, controlling history from the shadows. This term literally originates in antisemitic conspiracy theory, with the term 'cabal' originating from the term for Jewish mysticism, 'kabbalah'. And I promise you, you've heard plenty of applications of this conspiracy theory in real life too. It feeds into the idea that Jews (or 'global elite') control the government, the media, the banks.

And then, we get to the man in control of it all. The Old One. Whether or not this was intended, he's a walking, talking antisemitic caricature. The octopus as a symbol for the mythical Elders of Zion is a longstanding dogwhistle (see attached for a guide to this and many other visual dogwhistles). "Oh, he's based on H.P. Lovecraft-" So he's based on the works of a famous racist and antisemite, cool cool cool.

It's just exhausting, walking through a world that is so clearly modeled after Germany and other parts of eastern Europe, and finding antisemitism around every corner. And even more exhausting considering it's almost impossible to tell if they meant to do it. Antisemitism is so fucking ingrained in the world at this point that I don't actually know what they meant to do here, what they did maliciously or out of ignorance, or if any of it was put in with the purpose of turning it on its head. Over the past few years, it has become glaringly obvious that a lot of people don't realize when they're running across antisemitism, or even taking part in it. Including people I really thought would know better.

Side note. For those of you who know I see Dasein as Jewish, you may be wondering how I balance that out with the antisemitic nature of The Old One, since they share a physical form. I think of it like this. Dasein did not choose The Old One. He did not choose to resemble that, but he can attempt to reclaim it. Dasein's Judaism comes not from the resemblance he holds to the hatred that haunts us, but from the love that keeps us going. He questions authority and longstanding tradition, chooses to do what's right instead of what's expected, and is kind in the face of hatred. He literally makes himself, and a world, out of nothingness. Something out of Nothing. He's so Jewish you guys.

The Spiral's "Worst World Award" goes to... I know we all say "fuck Azteca" pretty often on this website, but I don't think it deserves to be deigned the worst world in Wiz. My main gripe with Azteca is how inaccessible it gets after Xibalba strikes -- the flashing lights aren't exactly photosensitive friendly. Which further lends frustration to my completionist nature, meaning I have to finish all quests, badges, and fishing before I finish the world (making it take forever to finish). Aside from that, there really isn't that much wrong with the world (and if you argue that it sucks because you can't save Azteca, I get it, but some tragedies are inescapable by their very nature). It's a problem of gameplay, versus a problem of plot in the case of Karamelle. And maybe its just because I'm a writer, but problems with plot feel much more egregious. I really do think Karamelle deserves more vitriol than it gets.

G-d, I can't wait to get to Lemuria.

[artist-issues]

Something that I notice about the antagonists in the first few Disney Princess movies (Especially the Evil Queen, Lady Tremaine and Maleficent) is that they are not bad looking. One might even say attractive. However, you can tell they are evil in spite of their good looks. It's like with Roald Dahl's The Twits; people who are ugly can still have beauty shine through if they have pleasant thoughts and demeanor, but if one has ugly thoughts, it begins to show until you can barely look at them.

I think there are just different kinds of beauty. There’s a certain kind of awesome appeal to like, lightning, or fire, or a lion chasing down a gazelle. That’s totally different from the opposite beauty, which is the tree that the fire is about to destroy, the gazelle that the lion is about to destroy, etc.

I like when old books call it “terrible beauty.” It’s something that’s striking, and intimidating, and puts you in awe— but it’s not necessarily good.

(The nature allegory kind of begins to break down, because there’s nothing inherently “bad” about a lightning strike, etc.)

But yes, that’s something new in one sense; old fairy tales used to have the good guys be beautiful to reflect their inner beauty, and the bad guys be ugly to reflect their inner ugliness. But in another sense it’s not new at all; the Bible says that the devil appears as an “Angel of light.” And there’s the whole “not all that is gold glitters.”

So you can have both in a fairy tale, and I love that no matter which direction you come at it from on the outside, it says something about the inside beauty or ugliness. The Evil Queen is beautiful but her beauty is just there as a plot device to prove she’s vain and jealous—ugly traits on the inside. Snow White is beautiful but her beauty is there to highlight how innocent and pure she is, which makes her more attractive than the Queen—beautiful traits on the inside.

Outward anything is a signpost pointing to inward character traits.

[lovelymagnoliarose]

💞🤲🥰

From the fanfic ask game

💞 Who's your comfort character?

Oh Penelope for sure, I see a lot of myself in her and I just love her to pieces.

🤲 Would you please share a snippet of a wip?

Of course 😇

I actually have quite a few wips atm, here's one of Colin having beef with Newton after he hogs Penelope lol

Sneak peek

“Wait, so I can’t kiss Pen at all?” Colin frowned, turning to his brother. “Ant, come on-”  “Trust me, Colin, I’ve fought the battles and lost the war.” Anthony said gravely. “Welcome to my life, brother.” “I had to deal with it when Newton suddenly decided he loved Sophie. I’m afraid all you can do is get used to it.” Benedict said, wrapping an arm around his wife’s waist. “Simon?” Colin turned to his brother in law desperately.  He simply shrugged as Daphne giggled. “You can try, but you’ll probably fail.” “Well, if I can’t kiss you, the least I can do is-” He tried to slide his arm around her shoulder but Newton, ever the faithful mini bodyguard, woofed himself into a frenzy. “Seriously?! Not even that?! I want to touch my girlfriend!” “Ewww, gross, Colin.” Eloise commented with a fake gag.  “Oh not like that you tw-”  “Children present.”  “... twit.”  “Colin!” “What?! The Twits is literally the name of a Roald Dahl book! If it’s in a kids’ book I say it’s okay!”

🥰 How do you feel about reader interaction? Are you open to receiving questions about your fics?

I absolutely adore reader interactions!! They always bring a smile to my face and they really do make my day! I would love to answer questions about my fics, so if anyone has any questions please feel free to ask because I'd LOVE to hear them!! 💖

Thank you so much for the ask!!

[literaticat]

There was some Twitter drama involving Puffin Books and a now-deleted tweet earlier today with a lot of pushback. Did you happen to catch it or can you shed any light on the controversy?

I didn't, I'm not on twitter regularly. I checked in after I saw this, and from what I could gather by a quick search, it seems that Puffin (UK children's Penguin imprint) made an ill-considered tweet about a Roald Dahl book, THE TWITS, which, like many Roald Dahl books, is "not politically correct" shall we say. In the book, which again, this is not a new book whatsoever, it's a new edition of a "classic" by a "beloved author", Dahl talks about a person with a prosthetic eye as being scary/ugly/something of that nature, and Puffin either tweeted a joke riffing on that, or maybe shared a page of the book, or SOMETHING.

Anyway, lots of people (fairly!) were like WTF, THAT'S ABLEIST!

(Which, I mean yeah, it is, this is classic Dahl, he was truly An Asshole and there's lots of Not Great stuff in his books! Yup! Correct! If you didn't know, now you do!)

Lots of people (because twitter tends toward a lack of nuance), assumed this was a new book (no) or that Puffin had altered an otherwise perfectly wonderful book to put the bad thing in it (also no) and were outraged. Which, had either of those things been true, WOULD have been outrageous, they just aren't. (What IS true is that Puffin should probably not tweet about Roald Dahl books, but that's a different problem methinks.)

Anyway then OTHER people were like "oh these people are snowflakes, they need to stop whinging, it's wonderful to make fun of people! Good for you, Puffin, for not caring about people's precious FEELINGS!" (which, yikes).

So anyway, Puffin deleted the tweet. Are they gonna stop publishing Roald Dahl books? No. Will anyone outside the small number of people who saw the original tweet ever know or remember any of this? No. Will people stop buying Roald Dahl books? No. Is Roald Dahl canceled? Not hardly.

(Also, if you'll recall, the outrage LAST time Roald Dahl came up was that Puffin was "censoring"/"sanitizing" the stories by altering them to be marginally less offensive -- so basically, people are going to be angry as hell whether these books stay as they are OR get altered for a new audience, apparently!)

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: I appreciate that you are a very thoughtful and clever commentator on culture even when you have strong conservative views. So let me ask you where do you stand on the censorship of Roald Dahl’s books by his publishers?

Although he was never knighted nor awarded any significant distinctions by the government, turning down an OBE in 1986 as insufficiently impressive, Roald Dahl was by far the most popular children’s writer of his generation, and continues to be totemic for both readers and authors. Indeed I read all the Dahl books as a child and had fun doing so. It is debatable how much of a career David Walliams would have if his books didn’t overtly pay homage to Dahl’s, even down to hiring his regular illustrator Quentin Blake for some of them. And yet Dahl’s recent public reputation has been chequered enough throughout his own lifetime for the Royal Mint not to issue a coin commemorating his centenary, as they described him as not being “an author of the highest reputation” – an excellent piece of bureaucratic double-speak.

So I was surprised to see how viral the controversy regarding the rewriting of Roald Dahl’s books, to make them more commercial sensitive, had crescendoed in the media in the UK and abroad. In all honesty I find the whole thing rather tedious.  It’s been discussed to death and my feelings are predictable - you can already guess that I’m against the changes, the people who read me already agree, and the people who disagree would never listen to me anyway. I’m against any censorship of Dahl’s books on the grounds of morality and also quality.

Sometimes they’re editing Dahl-as-such and sometimes his characters. The gluttonous Augustus Gloop in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is no longer described as “fat” but rather as “enormous,” thus leaving readers free to imagine that he’s a powerlifter in a high weight classification. Dahl himself is the insensitive one there. When a character says of another character “I’d knock her flat,” Puffin’s so-called ‘super sensitivity readers’ (hired within the publisher’s staff to weed out things each would find ‘problematic’) replace that fierce language with “I’d give her a right talking to.” But what if the character speaking is the type to use strong language? Or do bad things? Shall we have a version of Crime and Punishment in which Raskolnikov skulks around St. Petersburg fantasising about giving his landlady a right talking to?

Sometimes it’s hard to tell what offence the super-sensitives imagine: It’s not clear that calling someone a “trickster” rather than a “saucy beast” makes an improvement in manners; what is clear is that the meaning is completely different. But: while Dahl referred to Mrs. Twit as “ugly and beastly,” she is now just called “beastly,” though I cannot imagine why calling someone a “beast” is unacceptable but calling them “beastly” is hunky-dory.

One could go on about this silliness all day, and many are doing so, but I actually think there’s an important point to be made in response to these changes: the people doing it have no right to do so. They have the legal right, but what they’re doing is morally wrong.

It’s morally wrong first of all because it’s dishonest. The books will still be sold as Roald Dahl’s - it is his name that will draw readers to these volumes - but they are in fact Dahl’s involuntary collaboration with people who find some of his words and phrases intolerable. That this is so should be announced on the book’s covers – but you may be sure that it will not be. If you own the rights to Dahl’s books but passionately believe that what Dahl wrote is too offensive for today’s readers to face, then your only honourable option is to stop selling the damn books.

This may sound like an odd digression, but bear with me: I’ve been reading a bit of John Ruskin and in his The Seven Lamps of Architecture, Ruskin confronts the widespread practice, in the England of his time, of either dramatically renovating or tearing down old buildings.

First, Ruskin says, when a building is stripped down to its shell and given an entirely new interior, those who do it should call it what it is: destruction. “But, it is said, there may come a necessity for restoration! Granted. Look the necessity full in the face, and understand it on its own terms. It is a necessity for destruction. Accept it as such, pull the building down, throw its stones into neglected corners, make ballast of them, or mortar, if you will; but do it honestly, and do not set up a Lie in their place.”

So also I say: Do not set up a Lie in place of Roald Dahl’s actual books. If they are intolerable, do not tolerate them. Let them go out of print, take the digital editions off the market, and force those of us who are bad enough to desire the books to scour second-hand bookstores for them.

But let’s pursue Ruskin’s argument a bit further. Sometimes a building is torn down altogether, razed to the very ground. What does Ruskin say about that?

“Of more wanton or ignorant ravage it is vain to speak; my words will not reach those who commit them, and yet, be it heard or not, I must not leave the truth unstated, that it is again no question of expediency or feeling whether we shall preserve the buildings of past times or not. We have no right whatever to touch them. They are not ours. They belong partly to those who built them, and partly to all the generations of mankind who are to follow us. The dead have still their right in them: that which they laboured for, the praise of achievement or the expression of religious feeling, or whatsoever else it might be which in those buildings they intended to be permanent, we have no right to obliterate. What we have ourselves built, we are at liberty to throw down; but what other men gave their strength and wealth and life to accomplish, their right over does not pass away with their death; still less is the right to the use of what they have left vested in us only. It belongs to all their successors. It may hereafter be a subject of sorrow, or a cause of injury, to millions, that we have consulted our present convenience by casting down such buildings as we choose to dispense with. That sorrow, that loss, we have no right to inflict.”

As astonishingly eloquent and impassioned declaration, which, in regard to architecture, one might plausibly disagree with. Buildings take up a good deal of space, and the maintenance of them can be expensive; there certainly are circumstances in which demolition is indeed necessary. Ruskin, remember, grants this point, though not without a bit of hedging and tweaking.

But Ruskin’s argument is irrefutable when it comes to the other arts of the past – poetry, story, music, painting, sculpture. There can be no justification for mutilating or destroying them to suit “our present convenience.” We do not know whether later generations will think as we do, will share our preferences and our sensitivities; to preserve the art of the past is to show respect not only for that past but also for our possible futures. And it is to establish a standard for how we wish to be treated by our descendants.

Even the Victorians (and some of their successors) who thought sculptures of naked men too offensive for ladies to see merely covered the pudenda with plaster leaves - the penises themselves remained untouched, for later generations, and less delicate viewers, to see if they wish.

The second domain argument I have against censoring Dahl’s book is the patent drop in linguistic quality. In other words, they patently degrade the quality of the text. Witness how Dahl’s mild comic surrealism gives way to a joyless lecture:

No one would deny that Dahl was a rather scabrous and even sadistic writer. But part of the fun of reading him, as a child, is grappling with the darkness - beginning to comprehend the shadows one has glimpsed around the world. These small-souled artistic vandals are flattening out those interesting quirks in the grip of a paralysing fear that someone, somewhere might read it and then take or give offence.

If Roald Dahl cannot even say that Mrs Trunchbull has a horsey face - because nobody has unsightly features or because we are forbidden from noticing them - what else could be changed? If books like Matilda and films like Gone With the Wind are being sliced and diced, what could happen to less famous and more genuinely provocative books, films, opera, even songs? Indeed, look at how Dahl’s publishers have decided that authors as illustrious as Joseph Conrad and Rudyard Kipling - referenced in Matilda but now replaced with Jane Austen and John Steinbeck - are too dangerous to even mention in front of kids. Do these literary scolds actually think there is no literary value in reading Heart of Darkness or Kim? Jesus wept.

The final clinching argument I’ve heard from critics who want to censor Dahl and his books is because he was an alleged anti-semite. And if he was, so what? If that’s the standard then we should be binning every author, artist, composer, musician for any kind of transgression or character flaw against some absolute moral standard.

As the great pianist and conductor, Daniel Barenboim, once said of Wagner, that it was reductive to say that Wagner was a terrible man with reactionary ideas in general, and therefore his music, no matter how wonderful, is intolerable because it is infected with the same poison as his prose. How would that be demonstrated? How many writers, musicians, poets, painters would be left if their art was judged by their moral behaviour? And who is to decide what level of ugliness and turpitude can be borne in the artistic production of any given artist?

Once one starts to censor, there is no theoretical limit. Rather, I would think that it is incumbent on the mind to be able to analyse a complex phenomenon such as the question of  such creative artists whether they be a Wagner, a Celine, or a Dahl; or indeed, to give another example, Joseph Conrad as analysed in a famous essay written by the brilliant Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe, reading Conrad's Heart of Darkness for an African today. With all these artists the challenge is the same: to show where the evil is and where the art is.

The truth is for a mature mind it should be possible to hold together in one's mind two contradictory facts, that Dahl was a great writer, and second, that Dahl was mean spirited shitty human being. Unfortunately, one cannot have one fact without the other.

Does that mean, therefore, that Dahl should not be read as he wrote his books? Most assuredly not, although it is obvious that if an individual is still troubled then there is no need at all to inflict Dahl on oneself - but you can’t make that choice for others.

An open attitude towards art is always necessary. This is not to say that artists shouldn't be morally judged for their immorality or evil practices; it is to say that an artist's work cannot be judged solely on those grounds and banned or censored accordingly.

Now I’ve heard from Dahl’s supporters that there are excuses that can be made. Dahl’s publisher Tom Maschler, who died in 2020, was a notoriously difficult and egocentric man, as well as being Jewish, and it could be argued, somewhat tendentiously, that many of Dahl’s attacks on Jews could be interpreted as necessarily veiled expressions of his venting his frustration with Maschler. Hmmm, yes, well.

More persuasive is Dahl’s friend Isaiah Berlin’s comment that, “I thought he might say anything. Could have been pro-Arab or pro-Jew. There was no consistent line. He was a man who followed whims, which meant he would blow up in one direction, so to speak”.

Dahl was a peculiar man whose richness of imagination went along with deep personal eccentricity. This was both tolerated and facilitated by those around him. Although JK Rowling raised eyebrows with her first post-Harry Potter novel, The Casual Vacancy, containing swearing and sex scenes, it seems extremely unlikely that she would have interrupted her career as one of Britain’s most successful ever writers to produce an erotic novel aimed at adults, as Dahl did with his (excellent and deeply un-PC) 1979 book My Uncle Oswald.

Likewise, the macabre violence visited upon children in books such as The Witches and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory suggests an ambivalence towards his readership that may have been borne out by one of the more eyebrow-raising anecdotes in Kingsley Amis’s Memoirs. Upon meeting Dahl at a party and being asked if he has any ideas for children’s books (“that’s where the money is today, believe me”), Amis regretfully replied that he did not, saying “I don’t think I enjoyed children’s books much when I was a child myself. I’ve got no feeling for that kind of thing.” To his surprise, Dahl replied “Never mind, the little bastards’d swallow it.”

Yet, just as Berlin suggested that the writer would switch from one persona to another on a whim, Dahl later collared Amis again at the party, and, apparently sincerely, informed him:

“If you do decide to have a crack, let me give you one warning. Unless you put everything you’ve got into it, unless you write it from the heart, the kids’ll have no use for it. They’ll see you’re having them on. And just let me tell you from experience that there’s nothing kids hate more than that. They won’t give you a second chance either. You’ll have had it for good as far as they’re concerned. Just you bear that in mind as a word of friendly advice.”

Amis records Dahl walking off “with a stiff nod and an air of having asserted his integrity by rejecting some particularly outrageous and repulsive suggestion”. What he hints at, but does not explicitly state, is that Dahl was perfectly sincere in both statements, switching with no apparent contradiction in his own mind between the personae of cynical exploiter of the young and heartfelt creator of magical stories.

This ability to snap between attitudes and personae might be described as sociopathic, and indeed much of Dahl’s life and career does hint at an unbalanced and inconsistent mind, both when it comes to attitudes that most people would find repellent and in the richness and immersive nature of the characters and worlds he created.

Like his great hero Lewis Carroll, another visionary eccentric, the wonder of Dahl’s writing is that he believed wholeheartedly in a fantastical universe, and the books represent that universe committed to paper. They are less a creative feat, and more a marvel of reportage, from the most vivid of imaginations.

None of which excuses his anti-Semitism. It is nonetheless the case that we should regard Dahl’s often provocative and thoughtless public statements in context with his imaginative genius. Rather than castigate him as yet another privately educated racist, we should instead treat him, like so many of his characters and peers, as a naïve and unworldly man who never entirely left the realm of make-believe.

We should neither censor Roald Dahl, nor celebrate him unreservedly, but instead treat his life and work with the careful consideration that it deserves, never forgetting the joy that it has given many millions over the decades.

The immediate and most important point: buy your kid a different book. Just buy your kid a different book! There are tens of thousands of children’s books out there that are inoffensive by anyone’s definition. Just buy those books. Exercise your choice. Not everything is made for you. I get that people feel that they are nothing but their consumption, that they have no identity but that which they buy. But not everything is for you. Buy something else. Buy something else!

But the cynic in me thinks this is all playing quite nicely into Puffin’s hands. It’s one great way for Dahl’s publishers (and Netflix) to make a killing because they have in effect sanctioned two versions of Dahl’s books now: the censored line of books and the original unedited books under the ‘classic collection’ label. It’s like New Coke and Coke Classic, clearly differentiated by label.

In this new woke world it wouldn’t surprise me if they did advertise the one and not heavily advertise the other; they could make their preferences clear; they could say “If you are a Good Person you will purchase our sanitised versions rather than the nastiness written by Roald Dahl himself.” And then people could buy the version they want.

I know which version children and adult readers would want. The so-called in’-house ‘Super Sensitivity Readers’ would choose the sanitised version because they believe in the one canonical rule of their world view: the reader is always wrong. Because any genuine reader is, by definition, not a super sensitive.

Thanks for your question.

[saints-who-never-existed]

For the book asks, 6, 8 and 19 ♥️

6. What books have you read in the last month?

This month so far I've started reading, and hugely enjoying Space Crone, a collection of short stories, essays, and other writings from Ursula K. Le Guin.

My favourite so far, funnily enough, is Sur, about a group of South American women and their slightly surreal journey to the South Pole (which they beat Roald Amundsen to by a whole two years!).

-

"We are old women now, with old husbands, and grown children, and grandchildren who might someday like to read about the Expedition. Even if they are rather ashamed of having such a crazy grandmother, they may enjoy sharing in the secret. But they must not let Mr Amundsen know! He would be terribly embarrassed and disappointed. There is no need for him or anyone else outside the family to know. We left no footprints, even."

8. What is the first book you remember reading yourself?

Ooh, not sure I could pinpoint just one!

Jacqueline Wilson was surely at least one of the authors I loved earliest (as is the case for many many British lasses of a certain age!).

Harry Potter came early as well and I always have fond memories of Roald Dahl too - George's Marvellous Medicine, The Twits, and James & the Giant Peach were some of the first I remember reading and loving.

19. Most disliked popular books?

I've already answered this one here, my friend. I hope that'll suffice! :)

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Ewan Somerville

Published: Feb 19, 2023

Sir Salman Rushdie has attacked the rewriting of Roald Dahl books as "absurd censorship" at the hands of “bowdlerising sensitivity police”.

In new editions of Roald Dahl’s beloved stories, Augustus Gloop is no longer fat, Mrs Twit is no longer fearfully ugly, and the Oompa-Loompas have gone gender-neutral.

The publisher, Puffin, has made hundreds of changes to the original text, removing many of Dahl’s classic, timeless and colourful descriptions and making his characters less grotesque.

Sensitivity readers were brought in to review Dahl’s language so the books “can continue to be enjoyed by all today”, Puffin said.

Sir Salman, who as author of The Satanic Verses has been a pioneer of free enquiry and lived under constant threats to his life, became the most high-profile person in the literary world to condemn the decision on Sunday.

He wrote on Twitter: "Roald Dahl was no angel but this is absurd censorship. Puffin Books and the Dahl estate should be ashamed."

He wrote on Twitter:

Roald Dahl was no angel but this is absurd censorship. Puffin Books and the Dahl estate should be ashamed. https://t.co/sdjMfBr7WW— Salman Rushdie (@SalmanRushdie) February 18, 2023

Sir Salman later tweeted in response to a critic: "He was a self confessed antisemite, with pronounced racist leanings, and he joined in the attack on me back in 1989… but thanks for telling me off for defending his work from the bowdlerizing Sensitivity Police."

Sir Salman, was stabbed more than a dozen times on stage last August at a literary festival at the Chautauqua Institution in New York state, leaving him blind in one eye. After writing The Satanic Verses, Iran issued a fatwa death sentence for "blasphemy" and his book was banned in 45 Islamic countries.

Other literary figures also rounded on the changes.

Comedian David Baddiel posted a screenshot of one of the changes to a passage in The Twits that removes the words "double chin", adding: "The problem with the Dahl bowdlerisation is it has no logical consistency.

"Here, double chin has been cut, presumably to avoid fat shaming. But what about wonky nose or crooked teeth shaming? Once you start on this path you can end up with blank pages."

Meanwhile, Suzanne Nossel, the CEO of literature and human rights organisation PEN America, said she was "alarmed" at the changes, which "could represent a dangerous new weapon".

“The problem with taking license to re-edit classic works is that there is no limiting principle," she tweeted.

“You start out wanting to replace a word here and a word there, and end up inserting entirely new ideas (as has been done to Dahl’s work).

"Literature is meant to be surprising and provocative. That's part of its potency. By setting out to remove any reference that might cause offense you dilute the power of storytelling."

Katharine Birbalsingh, a headteacher and Britain's former social mobility commissioner, added of the changes: "How is this even legal?"

The Telegraph revealed last week how hundreds of changes have been made to updated prints of Dahl's stories, bringing them into line with contemporary sensitivities, with words and phrases on weight, mental health, violence, gender and race expunged.

The word “fat” has been removed from every book - Augustus Gloop in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory may still look like a ball of dough, but can now only be described as “enormous”.

In the same story, the Oompa-Loompas are no longer “tiny”, “titchy” or “no higher than my knee” but merely small. And where once they were “small men”, they are now “small people”.

The words “black” and “white” have been removed: characters no longer turn “white with fear” and the Big Friendly Giant in The BFG cannot wear a black cloak.

In previous editions of James and the Giant Peach, the Centipede sings: “Aunt Sponge was terrifically fat/And tremendously flabby at that,” and, “Aunt Spiker was thin as a wire/And dry as a bone, only drier.”

Both verses have been removed, and in their place are the underwhelming rhymes: “Aunt Sponge was a nasty old brute/And deserved to be squashed by the fruit,” and, “Aunt Spiker was much of the same/And deserves half of the blame.”

In a section of The Witches, another reference to a "double chin" has been removed.

Prof Frank Furedi, an expert in the sociology of fear at the University of Kent, told The Telegraph: "What we have here is a knee-jerk cleansing of the literature of the past and they are turning works of literature into recipe books for their own wokeish values.

"This is only the beginning because the role of sensitivity readers is expanding all the time.

"Whereas they were initially hired to read new books submitted to them, now they're going back through the literature of the past almost as grievance archaeologists, trying to unearth words that might offend them."

Dahl died in 1990 and his family subsequently apologised for anti-Semitic remarks during his lifetime, but he is still regarded as one of the world's best storytellers.

==

"Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right."

-- George Orwell, "Nineteen Eighty- Four"

"Grievance archaeology" is an oustanding turn of phrase. They're literally digging back through the past to find something to concoct offense about.

--

By: AP News

Published: Feb 24, 2023

LONDON (AP) — Publisher Penguin Random House announced Friday it will publish “classic” unexpurgated versions of Roald Dahl’s children’s novels after it received criticism for cuts and rewrites that were intended to make the books suitable for modern readers.

Along with the new editions, the company said 17 of Dahl’s books would be published in their original form later this year as “The Roald Dahl Classic Collection” so “readers will be free to choose which version of Dahl’s stories they prefer.”

The move comes after criticism of scores of changes made to “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and other much-loved classics for recent editions published under the company’s Puffin children’s label, in which passages relating to weight, mental health, gender and race were altered.

Augustus Gloop, Charlie’s gluttonous antagonist in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” — originally published in 1964 — became “enormous” rather than “enormously fat.” In “Witches,” an “old hag” became an “old crow,” and a supernatural female posing as an ordinary woman may be a “top scientist or running a business” instead of a “cashier in a supermarket or typing letters for a businessman.”

In “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” the word “black” was removed from a description of the “murderous, brutal-looking” tractors.

The Roald Dahl Story Company, which controls the rights to the books, said it had worked with Puffin to review and revise the texts because it wanted to ensure that “Dahl’s wonderful stories and characters continue to be enjoyed by all children today.”

While tweaking old books for modern sensibilities is not a new phenomenon in publishing, the scale of the edits drew strong criticism from free-speech groups such as writers’ organization PEN America, and from authors including Salman Rushdie.

Rushdie, who lived under threat of death from Iran’s Islamic regime for years because of the alleged blasphemy of his novel “The Satanic Verses,” called the revisions “absurd censorship.”

Rushdie, who was attacked and seriously injured last year at an event in New York state, tweeted news of Penguin’s change of heart on Friday with the words “Penguin Books back down after Roald Dahl backlash!”

PEN America chief executive Suzanne Nossel wrote on Twitter: “I applaud Penguin for hearing out critics, taking the time to rethink this, and coming to the right place.”

Camilla, Britain’s queen consort, appeared to offer her view at a literary reception on Thursday. She urged writers to “remain true to your calling, unimpeded by those who may wish to curb the freedom of your expression or impose limits on your imagination.”

Dahl’s books, with their mischievous children, strange beasts and often beastly adults, have sold more than 300 million copies and continue to be read by children around the world. Their multiple stage and screen adaptations include “Matilda the Musical” and two “Willy Wonka” films based on “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” with a third in the works.

But Dahl, who died in 1990, is also a controversial figure because of antisemitic comments made throughout his life. His family apologized in 2020.

In 2021, Dahl’s estate sold the rights to the books to Netflix, which plans to produce a new generation of films based on the stories.

Francesca Dow, managing director of Penguin Random House Children’s, said the publisher had “listened to the debate over the past week which has reaffirmed the extraordinary power of Roald Dahl’s books and the very real questions around how stories from another era can be kept relevant for each new generation.”

“Roald Dahl’s fantastic books are often the first stories young children will read independently, and taking care for the imaginations and fast-developing minds of young readers is both a privilege and a responsibility,” she said.

“We also recognize the importance of keeping Dahl’s classic texts in print,” Dow said. “By making both Puffin and Penguin versions available, we are offering readers the choice to decide how they experience Roald Dahl’s magical, marvelous stories.”

==

There's a couple of lessons here.

Firstly, if you're a creator, stay true to your vision. While certainly there's such a thing as valid criticism and feedback, it is clear that there are people whose main objective and complaint is that you should be reproducing their vision, and are more than willing to pretend it's a moral failing on your behalf not to do so.

It's also true that humans are more likely to voice their complaint or opposition than to voice their approval or agreement. But the shrill moralizing, tut-tutting puritans while loud, are not the majority. Time and again we find that any significant pushback results in a backdown from the ruling class who have made the mistake of taking the counsel of the puritans.

[franki-lew-yo]

About the 'Roald Dahl edits'

Can someone please just show me an actual, undoctored picture of the changes being made to which books?

That's all I ask! I keep seeing absurd clearly liberal-mocking fake scans that no book company would ever make being presented as "evidence" of the changes. Don't do that. Show me a list of the changes.

Welp, I'm writing about this because, as I've expressed before, I love Roald Dahl as a writer but I don't like him as a person. That's the thing about some people's work- it just comes with the territory that they are at LEAST 'problematic' given the creators worldview; Dahl, Lovecraft, Tezuka, Uncle Walt, even my German-crabapple daddy Ted Geisel. I'm not gonna @ these dead ppl for DARING to not be up to my modern liberal standards no more than I am gonna paint them as REAL LIBERATORS bcuz I want them to be -! When it comes to removing books from circulation or editing out words, I understand.

Regarding the changes though...I really haven't seen anything that's too wild?? Yet.

As a brief aside, I think it'd be better for everyone if The Witches was just removed from publication. It's Dahl's most offensive book when you combine it with his real world politics. And again I say screw the accusations that this book is 'sexist' when the problem with it is that it's antisemetic and so was Dahl.

But honestly? Changing the line to be "some ladies do wear wigs and there's nothing wrong with that" works with Dahl's writing style. Same with calling Augustus Gloop 'enormous'. Same effect in place, just without the sting of just calling a child fat.

Now, if these lines are left in place while Luke's grandma's explaining in the text how "no, don't pick at people's hair even if they're wearing gloves they aren't all witches" are given the boot, I can understand some outrage. But, again, to me I think this is better proof as to why Witches should just be left alone and maybe not published anymore. The og text did provide context, the problem is that the book itself is racist by asserting that all witches are 'evil', and that the only reason to not bother women with wigs and gloves is they "may not be a witch". That's messed up, even if it weren't alluding to any real life antisemetic-isms. Asideaside-- I'd be very curious to see how the The Twits is changed if it's changed at all. Twits has this very poignant description of how, no matter how unconventional you are, you can never be 'ugly' if you are good and sweet- where no matter how "pretty" you are, if you are an ugly person inside people will see you that way. It's a really good breakdown of that phenomena even though it's still technically bodyshaming. Also, they're monkeys, not people (take that as you will) but The Twits is about an abused family of stolen monkeys and birds tricking the Twits, who are their captors, into killing themselves and then returning to the wild where they belong. --- Anyway...removing the part of BFG where the giants says humans of different country's taste different or Mr. Grasshopper's awful quip about Mexicans in James and the Giant Peach isn't any skin off my nose. Especially if they are going to read to young kids today, kids don't need to hear that kind of language. Philly Pullman can disagree with me all he wants but personally I think these books, not their author's squeaky image or politics, deserve to live on.

That being said-

I would be upset if changes were made that started insisting that characters who were fat AREN'T fat, now. Or that the white cis cast Dahl wrote were now being described as bipoc or genderfluid when they weren't. Let's not pull a JK Rowling here. Yes, it is true that for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Roald both a) wanted Charlie and the Buckets to be a black-British family and b) removed racist descriptions of the Oompa Loompas within his lifetime from real life pygmies to a fantasy-race. That's awfully neat of him for someone so much of turdwhich. Those kinds of changes are best for adaptations and reinventions of the stories. But it'd be indecent of the publishers to suddenly push the idea that the Buckets are black and always have been now, and/or that the Oompa Loompas can't still be racist somewhat just because they aren't depicting a real life ethnic group. To alter the original text of the books well after Dahl's death to be more 'friendly' IS the kind of censorship and historical revisionism to be wary of.

It's there that Pullman's comments of 'read another book' ring true: If you can't take that the book has some problematicisms in it, I tell you there are other children's books to read! By making the text of the books 'progressive by modern audiences' standards, that'd be erasing this very discussion and, more importantly, the concerns of BIPOC/Jewish people everywhere.

That'd be like if Disney rereleased Fantasia and had a redesigned, less offensive Sunflower in the background. That'd be disgusting, not because Sunflower shouldn't be reclaimed or redesigned, but because that's a company wanting to hide from the mistakes of the past in order to sell more stuff to you and make you trust them. I'd love me a black Charlie Bucket, but in a new version of Chocolate Factory, not an attempt to hide liberals from the fact that uncle Dahl was racist.

That's what I think should be continued, both as a way to keep his work alive and also to diss Dahl from beyond the grave: adapt his works!!!

Fantastic Mr. Fox, Matilda, James and the Giant Peach, BFG, and Willy Wonka are awesome. Dahl hated changes to his stories being made for film....so change his stories for film! Some things have to change and should change. While the 2020 Netflix The Witches was bad, I could get on board making Luke and the humans in the story people of color. That has the potential to turn the connotations of the original on it's head; instead of witches being a metaphor for 'secret societies' they'd be an illusion to real life organizations that tout themselves as kind and homely and traditional but are actually pure evil. How the witches specifically target children of certain demographics only for the dog to bite back and fight them with their own medicine- also keep the nice witch from the 80s film.

None of these changes would ever fix the fact that the og book is what it is, but they're an example of why adaptation, not revisionism, is so important.

Don't hide from mistakes of the past. That's why I'm as upfront with you all about my inspiration for my works being Dahl and Dr. Seuss. These people are not perfect and they're also not my own essence of creativity- but you can believe I was inspired to write because of them. Dana Terrace absolutely has Harry Potter to thank for The Owl House-it doesn't mean Owl House should pay for Harry Potter's sins. Let Owl House pay for it's own sins, thank you!

When it comes to problematic/ offensive work of the past, we should not be hiding from them. Teach kids and adults to think critically and learn that their white-made nostalgia is biased and bad sometimes. When it comes to problematic/ offensive works by still living authors, please just don't by Hogwarts Legacy.

That's all I got. Feel welcome to @ or message me if there's something my white-Gentile-ness forgot or am leaving out. I want to have an actual conversation about this cuz I think it's important. This post also kept me from falling asleep midday again.

[hellmadex]

Started making myself read books again.

I've forgotten how immersed you can become through reading - it's reignited my love for reading again. Currently on a Roald Dahl binge and in the middle of The Twits; I feel like a child again.

[skautism]

when i was a kid i associated the twits by roald dahl with no children by tmg because my dad read the book to me around the same time he first showed me that song and i could tell the lyrics fit the characters. i was like 4

[leutjaneausten]

The BFG Isn’t a BFD

I’ve read Roald Dahl’s books to little kids for years. Let me tell you how that goes.

Imogen West-KnightsFeb 23, 20233:18 PM

As it happens, I have spent quite a lot of time over the past decade reading Roald Dahl books with small children as part of a side hustle in tutoring English. Matilda, The BFG, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Twits: all of them. All these books have moments in them that are a little sticky for modern readers, and that you can contextualize for children, if you want to. I think, from experience, that even small children are capable of understanding something like “In the past, more people thought it was OK to be rude about people who were different from them, but now we don’t do that because it’s upsetting/unfair/wrong.” Dahl’s books are full of material that needs a little explaining to kids, but perhaps more importantly here, the world’s full of other children’s books. I choose to read these to kids because I feel comfortable helping kids through them. It is not required.

I mention all of this, obviously, because of a new episode in a doomed and stupid enterprise of our times: Yet again, adults are getting angry online about children’s books. It was announced earlier this week that the Roald Dahl Story Company, which controls the rights to the late author’s books, worked in conjunction with Puffin, the books’ publisher, and a collective who campaign to make children’s literature more inclusive, on what they call “small and carefully considered” changes to the texts, to ensure Dahl’s books “continue to be enjoyed by all children today.” These have apparently included changes to language regarding things like weight, mental health, gender, violent behavior, and race, and whole extra sentences added about topics such as why it’s OK for women to wear wigs, in The Witches.

What’s interesting about this unneeded controversy is that I haven’t so far seen anybody, anywhere on the political spectrum, who thinks this is a good idea. Loudmouths on the right think it’s “woke cancel culture” nonsense, and loudmouths on the left think it smacks of literary censorship. So why has this happened?

Listen: Roald Dahl was a shitbag. This is known. In an infamous 1983 interview, he said that “there is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity. Maybe it’s a kind of lack of generosity towards non-Jews. I mean, there’s always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere.” He was, by some accounts, a more general racist, a misogynist, a bully. I understand the publisher’s impulse to look at these works, which bear marks of the views of their author, and want to try to buff them to a higher shine under the gaze of the contemporary world. Generally, though, I don’t think it serves anybody very well if we scrub away everything that is troubling in this way.

Do we now need more detail on how the Oompa-Loompas are being compensated fairly for their work?

It’s uncomfortable that the world has changed, and that many cultural works of a time before now still exist and are enjoyable. Sometimes, it’s an obvious move to make small changes to a literary text to update it for modern audiences. Surely few would dispute, for example, that changing the name of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None from what it used to be removed offensive language while preserving the value of the work.

But what’s happened here is more extensive, and much less obvious in its merit. What Puffin has actually done in this case is a mess. For instance, Augustus Gloop will be “enormous” rather than “fat.” This performs no sensitivity purpose, because the character is fat. Much of his strand of the plot revolves around this fact. And even taking the word “fat” out at all implies that fat is an insult in and of itself, rather than a descriptor of one possible body type. What has been achieved here?

This whole thing also seems like a misunderstanding about what is appealing about the world of Roald Dahl in the first place. Or not, in fact, a misunderstanding, but something closer to a cynical attempt to sanitize the I.P. before Netflix gets their hands on it to pump out a load of new Dahl adaptations, as they will be doing in the coming years after a deal with the Roald Dahl Story Company. Puffin can change lines like “so I shipped them all over here—every man, woman and child in the Oompa-Loompa tribe” to “so, they all agreed to come over—each and every Oompa Loompa.” Fine, but do we now need more detail on how the Oompa-Loompas are being compensated fairly for their work? Does any child in the world give a shit about that? I’m being facetious, but the point is that Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a horrible little story in many ways. Changing specific phrases doesn’t change the shape of these books themselves. They are nasty books. Dahl was a nasty writer for adults as well: His short stories are some of the most memorable and twisted things I’ve read. The Twits is about a husband and a wife torturing each other for fun. In Matilda, a little boy is forced to eat an entire chocolate cake until he is almost sick as a punishment. In George’s Marvelous Medicine, George kills his grandmother by shrinking her out of existence. The nastiness is a feature, not a bug.

You can choose not to read these books to your children, should you wish, and you would have fair reasons. Or you can do a bit of course-correction while reading them. And it’s a course-correction that has to be done with children all the time, anyway. Recently, I was having a drawing contest with a 6-year-old. She picked the theme: princesses, because it’s almost always princesses. She started to draw hers, and when she drew the body, it came out round. “She looks a bit fat,” she said, wrinkling her nose. I said that was OK—the princess can be fat. And she thought about it, shrugged, and we carried on drawing. I don’t say this to go: hark at me, great woke savior and influencer of young minds. I just mean that it’s pretty easy to do, and would be just as easy to do while reading.

My problem with Rolled Oats is that he’s clumsy, ham fisted and oafish. Kids get subtly and wit, and they deserve someone who writes up to them. I think Rolled Oats is a clueless adult’s idea of what kids might like.

[thehollowwriter]

It's actually shocking just how far pretty privilege can get you, especially when media worsens this bias by often making villains or bad/unwanted people "ugly" or giving them undesirable features such as scars or even making them disabled (horrible ableism there) while the heroes or the good people are gorgeous and perfect with maybe a singular carefully placed scar. And it starts telling you this from young.

Look at The Twits by Roald Dahl, it's a children's book and even it proclaimed Mrs Twit started out beautiful, but her mean and selfish inner thoughts gradually changed her appearance to match her thoughts til she was "ugly"

It's just created this idea that being unattractive is the worst you can be, especially since we've created this association between "good and attractive" or "bad and unnatractive" which is usually why when people dislike someone they attack their appearance first, or when there's controversy about two people you'll find many taking the more attractive person's side.

"But people love villains!" People love attractive villains, and you'll notice very few just accept them as "evil", and many will make up a hundred different excuses for them regarding their childhood or their trauma or whatever.

Villains deemed "ugly" like Rollo is? They could have a backstory with nearly the same plot beats as another beloved character (*cough* Idia *cough cough*) but unlike this other character, people proclaim their actions are "inexcusable, even with a sad backstory" or that they're "the worst of the worst" and treated like the worst of the worst.

(Don't get me started on people saying "oh no, she's so beautiful she doesn't deserve that" when something bad happened to a woman)

So yeah, that's my two cents at least

Wait do people genuinely dislike Rollo just becayse they think he's ugly, or is that just a joke

[atomicpoetrymusic-blog]

Ok, I have been really getting into the School for Good and Evil (SGE) recently, and I have to share my thoughts on why I think it is a bad adaptation.

I had never even heard of SGE before a few weeks ago, after seeing the trailer for the film. I thought it looked interesting, and I like several of the actors involved with the project, so I thought I'd give it a watch. I quite enjoyed it, even if I thought it was a bit clunky in places.

I then went on to listen to the audiobooks for the first 3 books. Needless to say I was quite surprised by how many differences there were between the film and the books.

While I don't mind so much about the aesthetic changes - such as Agatha not being so 'ugly' (I'll come back to this point later), Tedros's hair, or Anadil not being albino - I feel like this is indicative of something that I feel modern moviemakers have an issue with handling when it comes to adaptations, especially from books: in books, EVERYTHING is based in description, and description matters.

While Tedros's hair is something I can and will look over (I thoroughly enjoyed the actor's performance, and hair is the least of my concerns right now), Agatha and Anadil's appearances are slightly more concerning to me.

I know it can't be easy to find an actor who is simultaneously good for the role acting-wise, and pale enough to at least pass as albino with hair and makeup (preferably actually albino, but needs must), but in terms of this particular character, I was actually quite confused between the film and book versions. Having seen the film first, Anadil's description in the book is basically the complete opposite to the actor, both looks and character-wise (nothing against the actor, I think she did brilliantly with what she was given), and was quite jarring to me - I can't imagine what it must have been like for long-term book fans who had an image of her built up over years.

However, Agatha is a whole other problem. Anyone who follows me should already know that I love Sofia Wylie, and I think she is a wonderful actor, but I just think she is too conventionally attractive to be Agatha. Don't get me wrong, Agatha is beautiful, as is Sofia, but half the point of Agatha in the books is that she sees herself as ugly, and has incredibly low self esteem, to the point where she tries to get Tedros to fall in love with Sophie MULTIPLE times throughout the 3 books I've read, simply because she is insecure in how she is perceived by others, and because she thinks Sophie is pretty, and that being pretty matters. She learns over the course of the story that being conventionally attractive doesn't matter, so much as who you are as a person. One of my favourite books of all time, Roald Dahl's 'The Twits', sums this idea up beautifully:

"If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until it gets so ugly you can hardly bear to look at it. A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely."

As someone who is not conventionally attractive, and also have low self esteem, I feel kind of hollow watching the film now I've read (listened to) the books. Especially because the film cut the scene where Agatha is granted a wish by Professor Dovey to look beautiful, and was treated differently on her way to find a mirror, only to discover Dovey didn't change her appearance at all, it was all down to how she felt within herself. Losing that element of self-perceived ugliness, only to be proven wrong not by how she looks but how she felt, hurts me in a way I can't describe. And I'm in my twenties, I hate to think what that sort of thing would do to a teenager, with my same issues with self-image.

Another issue I have with film!Agatha is her costuming - in the book, she goes out of her way to dress poorly, despite being forced to wear a pink dress. In the film, Agatha has flowers in her hair, nicely done makeup, fancy jewellery, and all her dresses suit her. It makes her entrance to the Evers ball less impressive (whereas the equivalent scene in the book makes a whole deal out of her choosing to dress nicely - Tedros doesn't even recognise her at first). In fact, I think it would have worked even better in the film if they chose to have Agatha dress poorly, as it would make it more obvious to the audience why such an obviously pretty girl would be treated so badly by her better-dressed classmates. In the book, Agatha is also not conventionally attractive, but Sofia Wylie is. The filmmakers should have acknowledged the difference between the two, and used Sofia's beauty to their advantage.

Another reason I think the film is not a great adaptation is because of Sophie. Sophia Anne Caruso does a fantastic job in the role, but that's not the issue - Sophie is just too sympathetic.

In the books, she is vain, shallow, and selfish, constantly putting down others (Agatha especially), will do anything to get what she wants, and thinks that to be Good, all she has to do is be pretty. In the film, she is genuine friends with Agatha from the start (rather than befriending her as a 'good deed'), has a mean-spirited step-mother (who in the books is actually quite nice, Sophie just hates her), and is pushed into doing evil things by others such as Lesso and Rafal, rather than being and becoming evil by herself. It takes away her agency as a character, to do and say and think for herself.

The worst part about this, for me, however, is that I could feel that Sophie was too sympathetic in the film even before I read the books. Her actions were less character-driven, and more plot-driven, and it showed. Her montage of dressing in flashy, stylish clothing while also acting rude and seductive felt really out of place for the Sophie the film had been writing for up to that point. Then I read the books, and it made so much more sense - not only that, but Sophie was actually still putting up a 'sweeter that sugar' façade at that point in the book, trying to get Tedros to fall in love with her.

It's what made her redemption in 'The Last Ever After' that much better - because it came from within her. She was a flawed, wonderfully written character, who at the end of the day just wanted to be loved, but made all the wrong decisions in order to get to that love. But that's why she could never find it - because she was acting selfishly. Agatha found her True Love in Tedros, not because she wanted to (actually they both hated each other initially), but because they wanted to become better people for each other, and were both selfless in their wants - Tedros wants to be a good king FOR his people, and Agatha wants to be a good queen FOR Tedros, so that he can be a good king FOR his people.

With Sophie losing the nastier, EVILLER character traits she had in the books, it cheapens the win that Good has over Evil.

And that's another issue I had - the film suffers from the Percy Jackson effect. They tried to have their cake and eat it too. Introducing Rafal AS Rafal and not just the School Master, as well as combining Lady Lesso with Evelyn Sader, has made making sequels to the film much harder for them, just like the Percy Jackson films did with Kronos.

Not only that, but like the Percy Jackson films, the SGE film tries to establish the characters as Good and Evil. On a surface level, that must seem obvious - The School for Good and Evil is literally the name of the series. But that's what the filmmakers failed to understand about the books: there was still nuance. In the first Percy Jackson film, Hades was portrayed as if he were the devil just because he was God of the Dead, when in the books he was actually just as in the wrong as Zeus or Poseidon, and although he made some mistakes, he ultimately was a flawed person, who just wanted his stuff back. Rafal has kind of had the same treatment - yes, he was basically Evil Incarnate in the books, but he was still a person, who regretted killing his brother in his bid for power, and truly believed he loved Sophie.

Another issue I had was with how the film treated the Good students, the princesses in particular. In the books, Beatrix, Millicent and their friends, while not very nice to Agatha, were still good people. They wished for Princes in the wish fish scene not because they were selfish and obnoxious (like in the film), but because they didn't want to fail their classes. They had their own wants and needs, and their own strengths and weaknesses. In the film, Beatrix in particular (while phenomenally cast) came off as that typical Regina George type character, with (again) very little nuance. I actually quite liked Beatrix in the book - she was bubbly, helpful when she wanted to be, and was happy for Agatha when she 'became' beautiful. The film strips her of all that, making her snide and arrogant - something I wish the film gave to Sophie.

Just so that I don't end on a mean note, here are some things I really liked about the film that I haven't already mentioned:

Hort and Hester - both were born for the roles they played, and were styled to perfection

the CGI, which was beautiful

Charlize Theron as Lady Lesso, truly stunning

Kit Young as Rhian and Rafal, especially the fight scene

the acting - while I have issues with the characterisation and some appearances, every single actor knocked it out the park, I honestly can't think of a weak link

the chemistry between Tedros and Agatha was on point, and I loved the scene where Agatha tripped and Tedros caught her

Tedros's fight scenes, which were well choreographed

the hair and makeup, especially for Beatrix and Lesso, their hair must have taken HOURS to get that good

Kiko wanting to be a cat so she can sleep under a warm stove, which was painfully in character

the princess dresses were very pretty, I wish I could wear one

In conclusion, I think SGE would work better as a tv series, with more time to flesh out the nuances of the themes and characters.