#((everyone does her such a massive disservice. she is such an interesting and fascinating character. i could talk ab her for hours))

[plasticross]

looks around. drops @gameobjective runs away

[masterthespianduchovny]

What fascinating about people who claim the anti Sam/Rebecca crowd are infantilizing Sam, with the implication of being racism being a driving factor, is that the aging up of Sam could also equally be argued as racist. But many lack the self awareness to see that or to account for this when lobbing out this defense and implied accusation.

More often than not, young boys and young black men are aged up to prove they knew what they are doing and are hardened criminals. They are seen as adults compared to their white counterparts even when they are legally minors and the white people are adults.

This perception of black boys and men are one of the cornerstones behind the “prison to pipeline” theory. When we refuse to see black boys and men as their age, we do them a massive disservice.

Now, this comes into play with Sam because this logic is being used for the pro Rebecca and sam defense. Sam’s consent and willingness is such a low bar to clear because many young men are interested in older women whether or not it’s to date or fuck them. This consent and willingness has nothing to do with ethics, it’s simply about legality. I’d also assert that the comparison to ted is disingenuous because it’s reactionary and not thoughtful. It pretends that these are two like things when they aren’t.

When we bring maturity into the discussion, it’s not a one size fits all type of thing either. Maturity is such a blanket term and does black children and young black adults disservice because it robs them of youth. Since they’re mature, they should know better or not act like other people their age. And it’s because in a sense, they are seen as older than they are as mentioned.

Stressing how mature Sam is and constantly accusing others of infantilizing him not only ages up Sam, but seeks to silence valid criticism about the red flags and inappropriateness surrounding this relationship.

Someone being consenting and willing isn’t enough when assessing the various power dynamics. That’s a start, not the end all be all when you see such a disparity between two people. I’d assert that due to such a large age gap and the added power imbalance, it’s even more crucial even more discerning regarding such a relationship.

There is nothing wrong with looking out and trying to protect a young black man, esp when society either demonizes them or leave them to their own devices. When such a relationship has the likelihood of blowing up in his face and him dealing with major repercussions as a result, regardless of consent.

And, although this isn’t on the same scale, it reminds me of Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton. She was 21 when they had an affair, he was her boss, and it was fully consensual. However, when the news broke, who was dragged through the mud? Who was used as punchline? Who was attacked and stated to have known better?

Monica.

Where as bill’s presidential legacy is largely intact.

As a kid, I thought Monica was so grown. I couldn’t believe she did that.

Even before I turned 21 years ago, I was like, “she was young as fuck.”

She has to deal with harassment, bullying, and death threats. But she consented and was willing, riiiiiight?

Despite admitting it was consensual even to this day, which I’m not disputing, even Monica says the relationship shouldn’t have happened with one of the reasons being her age. And it’s truly fucked up what America put her through to the point she can barely keep a job, resorted to plastic surgery to hide her identity, among other shit. She has to develop a good humor about it because what else are her other options?

When we age up young adults, we don’t prepare them for if shit goes south. We pretend just because they have a certain level of maturity, that they have the knowledge, foresight, and skills to deal with a situation that turned into a shit show.

That is deeply unfair to them. Respecting a young adult’s adulthood doesn’t mean throwing them in the deep end, it means respecting where they are at and understanding the gaps in their knowledge and experience.

Christ, this doesn’t even touch how black kids are believed to be sexually mature at super young ages like 9-10. It’s not because they are, of course; but society projects these beliefs on them and treats them as teens in their later years or younger adults.

With the constant framing of Sam’s maturity and stressing that he consented, one could argue the same is happening here.

Once we get past the low bar of consent and willingness, what’s the worse case scenario of this relationship? The fact that Rebecca doesn’t even have to intentionally seek to harm Sam in order for him to be harmed in this situation should be enough to give everyone pause.

But alas, no matter what the critics say, its alway going to be called infantilization with subtle accusations of racism because these defenses lack nuance or are performative. Undoubtedly, racism exists in fandoms, however, our efforts to combat racism shouldn’t overlook the problematic nature and troubling implications of this relationship being criticized.

Although our first instinct is to protest black characters (and POC), our analyzation of what’s happening shouldn’t end there. We shouldn’t be advocating for something that is most likely detrimental to a black character to spite fans.

And considering the down spiral Rebecca is likely going through, we should want more for Sam than for him to be caught up in that shit.

[irinapaleolog]

The Rise of Skywalker Does a Terrible Disservice to the Women of Star Wars

Besides Reylo, one of the great marketing tools of the Star Wars sequel trilogy was its emphasis on girl power, as well its subversion of class dynamics. The films showed that women -- even poor, destitute women with no connections to powerful men -- could play the same role in the franchise as every cocky flyboy or adopted son of a moisture farmer. Unfortunately, and despite the press tour assurances from the cast and crew that Rey and her gal pals are here to lead a new generation of fans into the new world of gender equality, The Rise of Skywalker makes sure that none of the women of the franchise gets to live happily ever after nor establish any lasting romantic connection.

Instead, Episode IX leans heavily into the tired trope of the "strong female character" that has to resign from silly notions like love and family to live up to her full potential. Adding insult to injury, the film removes all agency from the women, and instead thrusts them onto a straight-and-narrow path of contrived choices foisted upon them by male characters or by the Force -- which, in J.J. Abrams' movie, acts not as the power that propels life in the universe, but like the mean Catherine de Bourgh of Pride and Prejudice.

Let's start with Leia Organa, whose call for help in The Last Jedi was ignored by the entire galaxy. However, Lando Calrissian, who has been hanging around on Pasaana doing who knows what, just has to say the word for an entire legacy fleet to appear out of nowhere. Then there's the handling of her Jedi training, which she gave up because she felt the Force might corrupt her unborn son -- a narrative choice that comes out of left field but that mirrors the real-world dilemma of women giving up promotions for fear that their careers might get in the way of parenting.

But we could argue that Leia's arc in Episode IX is clunky because Abrams had limited footage of the late Carrie Fisher. But what about the characters portrayed by living actresses?

There's Rose Tico, played by Kelly Marie Tran, who had a major role in The Last Jedi with an interesting arc of her own. Unfortunately, a vocal segment of Star Warsfans loathed the character and harassed the actress until she left social media. Things looked brighter when Abrams announced Tran would rejoin the cast in The Rise of Skywalker and that her role would be even better. She was billed as a general, an essential part of the Resistance; Tran went on a press tour and talked about the great feminine energy of the set. The comes The Rise of Skywalker, where Rose appears three times, speaks four lines, and is sidelined to the "really important job" of tech support, with her connection with Finn never addressed. In The Rise of Skywalker, Rose doesn't get romance, connections, friendship, a job, or a story of her own -- something that should please the most toxic fans.

Then there's Jannah, played by Naomi Ackie, another "strong female character." The twist this time is that, like Finn, she's a former Stormtrooper who mutinied and defied an order to kill a bunch of villagers. For a few seconds, her story is hopeful and fascinating, and teases the line from the trailer that "good people will fight if we lead them," that free will and the power of the individual are concepts that exist in Abrams' Star Wars.

How foolish of the audience to hold such hope. Jannah and Finn explain theyweren't the ones who decided to spare the innocent villagers; it was a feeling. The Force takes care of silly dramatic concepts like agency, choice and heroism. Jannah is not a good person because of her actions, but because the Force willedher to be one. The only funny thing about this depressing predeterministic twist is that it also works as an apt metaphor for the actions of the characters in The Rise of Skywalker, who do things not because they make sense, but because the script -- the Force -- says so. To add another nail to the coffin, The Rise of Skywalker Visual Dictionary hints at Lando being Jannah's father, yet another woman of Star Wars whose story doesn't matter unless she's related to a legacy male character.

Moving on, Keri Russell plays Zorii Bliss, a spice runner from Kijimi who essentially wears Leia's slave outfit, only with thermal underwear. Zorii's only purpose in the story is to provide a tragic background for Poe Dameron, as well as a potential love interest. She's also a glorified MacGuffin holder (twice!), and one of the many characters that Abrams fake-kills to ignite an emotional response from the viewer in a desperate effort to make Poe sympathetic. Zorii's role could have easily been filled by Rose, who was an actual tech whiz with a questionable past and a potential massive beef against Poe. After all, he's directly responsible for her sister's death.

Let's move on to Rey (Daisy Ridley), who is retconned from being a resilient orphan scavenger strong in the Force... to receiving her powers from a male bloodline. Now, to be perfectly clear, there's nothing wrong with overly dramatic space operas where everyone is related to a royal family, but this "reveal" goes against the premise of The Force Awakens and the heart of The Last Jedi, which proposes that anyone can be a hero.

There were no hints at all about this "twist" -- not in the movies, in the animated series or in the ancillary material, which makes it feel like a last-minute decision designed to appease those fans who accused Rey of being an overpowered Mary Sue, overlooking one of the most common Mary Sue tropes: their tendency to be secretly related to important canon characters.

Another Mary Sue trope exploited in The Rise of Skywalker, but that wasn't even touched in the previous two movies, is the female character sacrificing herself for the greater good, only to be saved at the last minute by a man, which is exactly what happens here. This double-whammy of "being powerful because of grandad" and "getting to live because of a man" is particularly egregious, and caters to no one, because of what happens right after Ben Solo sacrifices himself. We'll get to that in a moment.

Then there's the Force vision scene. Rey already had a trippy Force vision in The Last Jedi, a deep dive into an array of feminine symbology that she wasn't afraid to confront, from which she emerged heartbroken but stronger. In The Rise of Skywalker, this moment is undercut and shows Rey terrified of the darker, sexier, powerful version of herself, which is a hard pill to swallow. Rey explicitly says that she has nightmare visions where she and Kylo Ren are the evil Empress and Emperor of the Galaxy, linking the fulfillment of her desires to the galaxy's apocalypse. In Episode IX, romantic love is a flaw that the "strong female character" should overcome, but sex is pure evil.

Her visceral rejection of her dark side is also a 180 turn on her chill acceptance of her darkness in The Last Jedi. In the real world, women are taught from a young age to hide their negative feelings, to smile and live to be pleasant to everyone, to not be loud or angry or intense. That mentality only makes things easier for everyone in the world who is not a woman, and runs contrary to the quickly angered but enthusiastic scavenger of the previous two movies. However, by the end of The Rise of Skywalker, Rey has transformed into this Cool Girl version of Ideal Femininity/Strong Woman Character.

Ben Solo's death right after his redemption and first kiss should have been treated like a tragedy at least by Rey, and at least for one minute... but she does not react at all. The camera cuts from Ben's clothes folding as he disappears to Rey's neutral expression as she flies back to the Resistance. His death, and any emotional reaction that it might have caused in the protagonist, is not mentioned at all, which is baffling, to say the least. After a brief reunion with Finn and Poe, Rey immediately regresses on-screen to a lonely child on a desert planet, sliding down a Tatooine sand dune and negating her evolution for the last two movies, just so Abrams could throw in a homage to himself.

For the sake of argument, let's take Rey's reveal of her villainous ancestry at face value, and let's imagine that Disney had prepared this reveal from The Force Awakens: Her ending is still insulting, because it forces her to pay for the actions of her grandfather, despite having suffered as much as anyone from his evil ways. Palpatine's murderous pursuit of his son's family was what caused Rey to grow up heartbroken and abandoned on Jakku.

Rey longed for family and love her entire life; she jumped at the opportunity to establish a real connection with Han Solo, Maz Kanata, Finn, Leia, Luke and Kylo Ren, and in The Rise of Skywalker she looks longingly at the Pasaana children, clearly wanting a family of her own. Rey marveled at the green of Takodana in The Force Awakens and at the water of Ahch-To in The Last Jedi. Just like Anakin, she hated the desert. So why does the plot force her to go back to Tatooine to take on the Skywalker name, a planet where none of the Skywalkers, Organas or Solos were born; that Anakin and Luke longed to escape; where Shmi Skywalker was enslaved twice and then killed; and where Leia became Jabba's sex doll? Wouldn't it make more sense for her to head to verdant, watery Naboo, where both Palpatine and Padmé came from, the place where the latter wanted to raise her Skywalker twins?

But, no, Rey doesn't get to live where she would be logically happier, or where it makes sense; she goes where the fan service is stronger, and the twin suns of Tatooine were unparalleled -- until now. When an old woman asks Rey her family name, she answers "Skywalker," which doesn't hold up to close examination. Luke Skywalker refused to train her, Leia's name was Organa, Ben and Han were Solos, and she's standing on the Lars' buried homestead. And although it makes sense that she would lie about her true ancestry, denying the Palpatine name still reeks of burying her darker side, which worked really well for the Jedi Order.

Compare this ending of a lonely girl on a barren planet lying to strangers about her family name to the ending of The Return of the Jedi, where Luke, Han, and Leia are surrounded by life and celebration, and everyone is radiant with love and living family. Or compare it to the ending of The Last Jedi, where a Force-sensitive boy is looking up at shooting star. Or even the final scene of Revenge of the Sith, which takes place in the same spot after the fall of the Republic, the death of Padmé and the rise of Darth Vader -- but at least in that little spot there's love, family, life and hope.

Directed and co-written by J.J. Abrams, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker stars Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong’o, Domhnall Gleeson, Kelly Marie Tran, Joonas Suotamo, Billie Lourd, Keri Russell, Anthony Daniels, Mark Hamill, Billy Dee Williams, and Carrie Fisher, with Naomi Ackie and Richard E. Grant.

[misscrawfords]

Rose! How do you feel about Emma and its various adaptations?

Sorry for the delay in answering - blame the school trip!

I love Emma. I wrote my dissertation partly on it (also on Northanger Abbey, Rob Roy and St Ronan’s Well) and while I loved it before I loved it even more after studying it. All of Austen’s novels are extremely well plotted, but Emma might just be the best. It’s like a detective novel in that respect (and has been described as such on multiple occasions) because you can pick up on clues to what’s really going on all the way through but on a first read, you don’t see them. Miss Bates unintentionally reveals details that can be explained by Frank and Jane’s secret relationship but they are hidden in her verbal overloading. Emma’s own thoughts betray her unknown interest in Mr. Knightley, and his actions point to his love for Emma. And so on. 

Jane Austen is also being radical in her use of literary conventions and genre in Emma (as she is in basically all her novels). She has the tightest mystery plot ever written at this point hidden directly inside a novel that sticks strictly to the conventions of romantic comedy. She even goes overboard with it - successfully navigating three couples to appropriate happy endings. However, within that solid structure, she plays with expectations and conventions in a subtle way and this is where I get really excited.

First we have Emma herself, a heroine “nobody but myself will like”. Austen clearly loved questioning and pushing conventions of who was allowed to be a heroine. Her previous novel, Mansfield Park, gave us Fanny who most people at the time found disappointing after Elizabeth Bennet and modern readers (unjustly IMO) hate, and she followed Emma with Anne Elliot who was far too old to be a romantic heroine according to contemporary standards. In the middle we have Emma Woodhouse, a meddling snob. She’s got a lot in common with Mr. Darcy actually and her character development in terms of recognising the bad behaviour she is guilty of and the prejudice she feels towards those of a lower social status is pretty similar. But while Darcy and his character development is held up as beautiful and heroic and romantic, Emma is frequently condemned as dislikable. I do wonder why that could be… Personally, I love Emma. She’s clever and shrewd and funny and, honestly, is there anyone who doesn’t think Miss Bates is annoying and doesn’t want to throw a tantrum at the prospect of being upstaged by Mrs. Elton? Are you, dear reader, such a paragon of rational enlightenment and charitable feeling? Would you instantly see through Frank Churchill and resist his flirtations? Would you be best friends with Jane Fairfax and not be just a little bit jealous of her and how much Mr. Knightley everyone seems to admire her? Have you never said something cutting and regretted it? Are you perfect, reader, ARE YOU? Come on. Emma is one of us. She messes up, she judges badly, she says cringeworthy stuff in inappropriate situations, she gives bad advice - she’s human. And she deals with it without losing her positive outlook and she does grow, enough to “deserve” her happy ending (though that’s a loaded concept) but not so much it’s unrealistic. And what makes her likeable through it all are that her intentions are good. Emma is not a bad person who has to become good and “be redeemed”. She is a fundamentally warm and caring person who needs to have some bad habits of thought and action corrected by guidance and experience. Emma’s intentions and understanding are good from the beginning.

Emma’s also interesting because, yes, she does change, but if you put her in the context of the genre she inhabits, she also gets to keep a lot. Basically, in another novel, Emma would have to pay significant penance for her bad behaviour before she would be allowed to marry Mr. Knightley and she would have to prove that she is a changed woman and is absolutely not going to continue meddling and will be a good and submissive wife. Usually this also involves giving up the dangerous reading of novels which have led her astray. Several points. Firstly, Emma is not a novel reader, she is a novel writer. Emma is described by various critics as “an avatar of Austen the author” and if you read the novel through the prism of Emma being an author, things become really fascinating. Beautiful, illegitimate Harriet Smith is the heroine of Emma’s novel and obviously Emma-as-author wants to discover that she is really the long lost daughter of Somebody and give her a socially advantageous marriage. Emma’s matchmaking attempts are the workings of a novelist plotting with characters. Emma is creating her own world. This is radical stuff, in a society where female novelists were looked down upon. Emma has the means and independence and cleverness to write a story of her own - and she is comically bad at it. This is one way in which Austen plays with genre. Secondly, it is not at all clear that Emma does give up her matchmaking at the end of the novel. Austen is coy when she floats this suggestion about Mrs. Weston’s daughter: “[Emma] would not acknowledge that it was with any view of making a match for her, hereafter, with either of Isabella’s sons”. Does this suggest that maybe Emma isn’t as cured as she should be? Thanks to Austen’s levels of irony it’s impossible to tell, which is the point. Thirdly, Emma is the only Austen heroine to have real financial and social clout. Emma really does rule Highbury and at the end of the novel, instead of being subsumed into her husband’s world, he in fact moves in with her (however temporarily). This is practically the Regency equivalent of her keeping her name after marriage. She and Mr. Knightley are social equals and she does not leave her home or her sphere of influence when she marries. The only other heroine this would be true of is, interestingly enough, Fanny Price. But Mansfield Park is notoriously inward looking and Fanny’s ending allows her to truly become a Bertram which is what she wanted all along for better or worse. And Fanny and Edmund’s social status and influence are much less significant that Knightley and Emma’s are.

Something else to bear in mind when thinking about Emma’s character is that, despite her social power and wealth, she also lives an extremely confined and limited life. She is essentially a carer for her stultifying and claustrophobic father. She has never left the environs of Highbury. She is surrounded by people who jump to her every command and shower her in praise, both deserved and undeserved. The only person who criticises her is also in love with her. The only eligible men in her world before the arrival of Frank Churchill are her brother-in-law who is 16 years older than her, and the obsequious vicar. Yes, she can remain a spinster but even a rich spinster cannot maintain the sort of power she currently holds when faced with a married woman like Mrs. Elton (who is a real threat to her), but her alternatives are bleak. A woman of her rank and fortune should be having a London season and meeting other young people of her rank and forming external connections. Because of her father’s passive control over her, Emma has none of these opportunities. Even Fanny Price travels more and meets more people than Emma does. Yes, Emma Woodhouse is handsome, rich and clever and has had very little to vex her, but I suspect that is probably Emma’s own view of her life and it is not necessarily accurate.

Okay, this post is already far too long so I’ll end my discussion of the novel here. There’s also a lot that could be said about Jane and Frank, Emma and Mr. Knightley’s relationship and more, but Emma is clearly the most important and, honestly, the most in need of defence!

Onto the adaptations, and I’ll try to be brief:

1. The Gwyneth Paltrow film. Jeremy Northan is divine though his hair could be better and he’s not my favourite Mr. Knightley, even if I do have a massive crush on JN. Harriet Smith is a not particularly attractive redhead which is… weird. Frank Churchill is Ewan McGregor but he has appalling hair so IDK what was going on there - such a missed opportunity. Gwyneth Paltrow as Emma is a casting disgrace and I honestly can’t bear to watch this film because every time she is on screen I cringe. The producers were more interested in the aesthetic than making a good adaptation. My grandma hated it. Enough said.

2. The Kate Beckinsale film. Honestly, I don’t dislike anything about this except that I wish it were a mini-series and the proposal scene is a bit… eh. But I think it manages to stay true to the book in a feature film and I love Kate Beckinsale’s Emma. She has the right mix of liveliness and arrogance for me. Mark Strong is a stern Mr. Knightley but he’s not too handsome. Frank Churchill is perfect in this adaptation. Controversially, this is my favourite period adaptation.

3. The Romola Garai miniseries. I love lots about this mainly because the length allows everything to be expanded suitably. Johnny Lee Miller is the best Knightley by far. The Eltons are fabulous. Frank and Jane’s relationship gets more time dedicated to it. The Westons and Bateses are great. Harriet Smith is dumbed down too much - she’s naive and not too bright but this adaptation makes her practically an idiot, almost as much a disservice as the 2005 P&P film’s character assassination of Bingley, though physically the actress is perfect and she’s very likeable. And I really do appreciate what they were trying to do with Emma. It was clearly an informed choice to make her bubbly and often silly and a chosen interpretation of the text and I respect that - better that than wilful misinterpretation which some adaptations go in for. I fundamentally disagree with it - whatever her faults, I don’t think Emma is silly and giggly and I struggle to believe this Emma is a 21 year old woman secure in her position as a social leader. Her mannerisms often come across very modern - her little waves, giggles and posture and this is very irritating because Romola Garai has done some fantastic period acting (Daniel Deronda, The Hour etc.) and these mannerisms aren’t consistent across the cast. I love Romola Garai and I think it’s an interesting choice of direction, but not one that rings true to how I see the character though.

4. Clueless. Clearly the best adaptation of Emma ever made. We all know it.

5. Emma Approved. Only seen a bit of it and didn’t warm to it. Should probably give it another go. Why did they change Knightley’s name to Alex? What the hell is wrong with George!?!?

Anyway, here are my thoughts on Emma. Hope they’re at least somewhat interesting. There is nothing I like better than rambling on about Jane Austen! :-) Thank you for giving me the opportunity!

[wanderingstoryteller]

Path of Fire Thoughts - Act II

And the adventure continues! In case you missed it, you can read Part One of my little recap series here. Bear in mind: Spoilers for both Act I AND Act II are below the cut. Proceed at your own risk. 

I do have one non-spoilery thought about all this before we proceed, though. See, the direction the story took has left a lot of people in the community... unusually bitter. I’m not going to judge anyone for deciding they don’t like the where things went. While I personally can’t agree, I know that there’s no objective standard for this sort of thing. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” and all that, right?

But one complaint in particular has really been getting on my nerves. Specifically, this idea I’ve seeing that these lore-bombs are proof Arenanet “Doesn’t respect the story of the first game”. Maybe that criticism would have had a little more merit in 2013, but now? In this expansion? Really? 

In these new maps, my character can’t walk ten feet without tripping over at least three callbacks to the first game. I have been geeking out for four straight days over things 99% percent of our community neither knows nor cares about. Has anyone stopped to consider that maybe -- just maybe -- the devs who created Prophecies and Nightfall in the first place might actually be fond of their previous work?

If you personally don’t like this story, that’s perfectly alright. But please don’t run around saying silly things like this. It just kills the mood for everyone, and it’s clearly not true anyway. 

Anyway, enough heavy stuff. Time for some lighter news: The End of Days.

First thing’s first: Yay, actual Revenant lore! It wasn’t much, nothing more than an off-hand comment by Rytlock, but the implications are huge. Revenant legends are capable of contacting the living and teaching them how to harness these powers. Rytlock was taught by Glint -- because of course Glint wouldn’t let some minor inconvenience like “death” stop her meddling -- but what’s stopping the other legends from doing it? Because screwing with people from beyond the pale of death is Shiro Tagachi’s wheelhouse, too. 

I’d also like to say that this instance did wonders for Rytlock as a character. For just a second, we got a look under all that anger and snark. And what we saw was... guilt. “I failed them. I failed Glint.” I’ve seen a lot of people annoyed at Rytlock’s attitude this expansion, but it’s easy to forget just where that attitude comes from: a sense of deep shame, a feeling that he’s the reason Snaff and Glint died. Like Eir and Zojja, he has a pretty intense case of survivor’s guilt. 

The above definitely made me nerd out, but as it transpired, we were just getting started. Next stop: The Tomb of the Primeval Kings. Elona’s Primeval rulers always fascinated me, especially Nahlah and Dahlah, who were in charge when the Scarab Plague rolled through. I never dreamed in all of Guild Wars 2 that I’d actually be able to talk to them. Which I did. And it was amazing. 

But all of that -- Glint’s Lair, my audience with the Primeval Kings -- was all just the warm-up. Because we then hit the part that really blew me away... and the part that’s got all the controversy. So let’s talk about our audience with Kormir, why I loved it, and where it admittedly could’ve gone a bit better. 

Why I Loved It: 

I feel like so many people didn’t enjoy this scene because they expected Kormir or the other Six to help us somehow. If that’s the root of the problem, it would explain why I was fine with it -- because I knew they wouldn’t. The Six were pretty adamant about keeping out of human affairs since Nightfall, after we proved we could hold our own against a god-tier enemy. So the idea that they’re withdrawing from Tyria completely, abandoning even their Realms? Can’t say I didn’t see it coming. 

Her reasons for not interfering were also pretty sound. Because she’s right -- the last time the Six fought on Tyria, they created the Desolation and scarred it forever. But when we fought Abaddon in Nightfall, we never did any damage that couldn’t eventually be reversed. Basically, Kormir throwing down would be the equivalent of stopping a roach infestation by setting your entire house on fire. Sure, you killed the roaches, but there were better ways, dude. 

Finally... anyone else catch Kormir’s final words to Kasmeer? “You carry with you the blessings of all the gods. Never forget that.” See, when I heard that, it sent my brain on a bit of a journey, and I started putting some pieces together:

1. Kormir admitted that she was still an active (if incredibly subtle) force in the world up to that point. 2. Kasmeer has been a devout follower of the Six her entire life. 3. Kormir clearly had a special interest in Kas, if she “carries the blessings of all the gods”.  4. Kasmeer also has the inexplicable and blatantly supernatural power to detect any spoken lie.  5. One of Kormir’s most well-known titles is “The Goddess of Truth”. 

My conclusion? Kasmeer’s power is a blessing from Kormir, and I’m amazed I never considered that possibility before. Like, holy shit, you guys. This is huge. 

I’d also just like to add: Kormir’s Sanctum is awesome. I explored for almost an hour and I know for a fact I still haven’t found everything. I’m definitely going back when I complete the main story. It’s like Hidden Arcana all over again. 

Where It Could’ve Gone Better:

If you love something, you shouldn’t be afraid to criticize it, and I admit there were some things I found a little lacking. First, Balthazar. While it’s true that Balthazar being a temperamental asshole does have precedent, his motives are pretty disappointing. The writers could’ve made him a tragic figure, an honorable-but-flawed warrior that went off the rails. What we got is serviceable, but I wanted something more than that, ya know? 

Also, if this is really curtains for the Six on Tyria, I really wish Kormir’s Sanctum had done more to close a few loose ends -- especially where Balthazar is concerned. Because so far, we never did find out what happened to Menzies, or what happened to the Eternals, or even why he killed his father all those years ago. And if those questions aren’t answered here, I don’t think they’ll be answered anywhere. 

Am I the only one who really wishes Marjory were here? Because relationship stuff aside, it would have been very interesting to see her reaction to Kormir. Marjory isn’t one of the faithful. She’s the kind of person that would call Kormir out for the inaction of the Six. And seeing that unfold would have been fascinating. 

I know we’ve been talking for a while, but amazingly, we’re still not done. Because even more story stuff happened in the Riverlands. While I’m betting a lot of people found the search for the Lost City annoying, it was honestly one of the funnest parts of the story for me. Wandering around this massive map, following leads, narrowing things down... it made me feel like a real explorer. Plus, I think it was great for the pacing -- gave me time to process everything I’d just learned before I got to Kesho. 

In Kesho itself, I found a lot of cool stuff -- the revelation of Glint’s master plan was just the beginning. See, one of the pedestal recordings had a throwaway line that kind of shocked me: Joso mentioned, off-handedly, that the Elder Dragons weren’t always destructive. They used to be like Glint -- maintaining balance, redistributing magic, etc. Glint’s plan is just a restoration of the regular order. The implications for that are huge, and it opens the door for some very interesting story beats. 

I also love that we’re slowly learning more about the Forged. I think a big weakness for HoT’s storytelling is that I never fully understood what the deal with the Mordrem was. How self-aware were they, exactly? How did the process of corruption take place -- did the sylvari have to willingly submit, or could Mordremoth force the issue if it chose? Questions like that always bugged me, but the Forged don’t leave much room for ambiguity. We’re learning exactly where they come from, how they’re created, and what makes them serve Balthazar. The prototypes in Kesho were another piece of a puzzle that’s been delightful to solve. 

And finally... who betrayed who, Balthazar or Joko? Because I’ve been to the Desolation. Whatever alliance those two had clearly didn’t work out very well, if their respective armies are in a state of open warfare. Good thing it fell through, too, because turning Joko into one of Balthazar’s lieutenants would have been a great disservice to his character. Best to let him do his own thing. 

Final thoughts: The story hasn’t petered out like I thought it might -- at least, not yet. If anything, they raised the bar even higher. Can they stick the landing?

I’m off to Tarir to find out. Yes, time to see Aurene, a decision that will in no way go horribly, horribly wrong. See you after Act III! <3

[timeflies1007-blog]

Doctor Who Reviews by a Female Doctor, Season 3, p. 4

Please note: these reviews contain spoilers about various seasons of the reboot, and sometimes contain references to the classic series.

Season Three Overview: Smith, Jones, and Tyler

Going into its third season, the show had to contend with some fans’ doubts about whether it could retain its appeal without Rose Tyler. This was an important moment for the show, a chance to make clear that while the reboot was deeply indebted to Billie Piper, it wasn’t completely dependent on her. Some absolutely sensational episodes show that it certainly could get by without her, but Rose’s absence hangs almost suffocatingly over the season, suggesting a sense of total bewilderment about how to move on. It makes sense to give a lot of attention to the Doctor’s grief at her loss; Rose was such a hugely influential companion that I can understand the more long-term grief than what was typical in the classic series. The show invests so much into this perspective, though, that it comes across as defeatist, as if it’s admitting that “yes, you’re right, skeptical fans—no one will ever be as good as Rose.” The result is an interesting if frequently annoying look at the Doctor’s emotions, but it crushes a lot of the spirit out of what should have been a wonderful Doctor-Companion pairing, and this turns a potentially great season into just a good one.

Part of the problem is that the Doctor never really gets a chance to fight his own propensity for moping about the past instead of embracing the present. In next season’s “Partners in Crime,” he has clearly thought about the problems that he caused for Martha, and is putting some effort into avoiding a repetition of his mistakes. This introspection seems to have happened during the break between seasons, though, because there is very little evidence of him actually dealing with his problems here. He destroys the spider people in his first agony of post-Rose trauma, he’s not very nice to Martha, he gets a reminder of how cruel he was to Jack, and then he irritatingly gets to defeat the Master by embracing his role as the savior of mankind. A brief scene in “Gridlock” and the excellent conversation between the Doctor and Jack in “Utopia” are the only times that suggest he is confronting any of the massive flaws that we see in him this season, and after Season Two’s repeated glossing over of a lot of these same flaws, it’s getting awfully late in the game for him to remain so oblivious about his impact on other people. Granted, once he fully embraces a sense of his own problems, he becomes sort of an angsty mess, as can be seen in “Journey’s End” through the conclusion to his time on the show. Early Season Four, though, features the most likeable version of the Doctor, who is maintaining a positive, upbeat persona while thinking carefully about his behavior, and I wish that this season had built up to that a bit more instead of giving him a sudden leap in conscience once Donna turns up.  

Martha was a very good idea for a companion—perhaps, on paper, the best concept for a companion of the entire reboot. Not only is she the first person of color in this role, she’s also a doctor-in-training. There’s certainly plenty of value to showing the obstacles facing working-class people of color, but it’s important for television to have a range of characters of color, including highly-educated professionals, so I love the choice to make the first black companion an advanced medical student. She’s also very much not the “sassy black friend” stereotype that we’ve seen a lot on television, and I really appreciate that the show avoids that kind of cliché. There was so much potential here, but the show never really takes advantage of it. I don’t think that Davies has anything whatsoever against smart female characters—Rose, Martha, and Donna are all sharp, insightful, quick-witted people. He does seem a bit hesitant, though, to invest in knowledgeable female leads, and that really hurts this season. In the classic era, there were a lot of companions with vast amounts of scientific knowledge—Zoe could do anything with computers, Liz was a hugely accomplished scientist, Romana was a highly educated Time Lord, and so on. There were some companions whose advanced knowledge tended to get annoying, especially Nyssa and Adric, but I liked that the 26 seasons of the classic series had a good range of approaches to science, with some characters knowing very little and some knowing a huge amount. Martha is the most scientifically-accomplished companion of the new series, but she’s written as if Davies had taken to heart the criticisms one can find on the internet that Liz Shaw was “too smart” to be a companion. She gets to use her scientific knowledge a little bit on occasion, but the general formula seems to be that for every teaspoon of science/medical wisdom that she gets to display, we need a heaping tablespoon of “watch Martha make sad, jealous faces about the Doctor’s preference for her predecessor.”

Davies is very committed to creating relatable female characters, which is generally a good thing, but it can become a problem if it turns into minimizing the things that make a character unique for fear that they will become too distant from the average viewer. Most of the show’s audience is not going to have had the experience of going through most of medical school (or, really, of having that much education in any field), and so there are lots of things that Martha knows and can do that aren’t really part of most of our lives. It’s a lot easier to connect to a character on the basis of an unrequited infatuation, which is something that nearly everyone has experienced. It’s possible to see unrelatable moments, though, as an opportunity to let viewers empathize with experiences beyond their own, and I would have loved to see the show allow Martha’s background to inform her story a bit more. Someone in medical school would have had to study things like chemistry and biology, and the impact that encountering something like the TARDIS would have on someone who has put a lot of effort into studying how the physical world works is fascinating. The Doctor opens up new worlds for all of his companions, but this might be a more shocking experience for someone who had put a lot of time into figuring out the physical workings of life on Earth, and this creates a potentially fascinating character. It might pull her away a bit from being “just like us,” but it would make her different from the other companions and would give us insight into a mindset that many of don’t share. Instead of being centered on what it’s like for an almost-Doctor to travel in the TARDIS, though, Martha’s story is framed around her unrequited love for the Doctor, and this does a huge disservice to her character. With the lovely “Expelliarmus” moment in “The Shakespeare Code” as an exception, even her main contributions to the plot tend to take shape around the unrequited love dynamic. The kiss is a huge moment in “Smith and Jones,” she saves the day in “The Family of Blood” by declaring her love for the Doctor, and she saves the world in “The Last of the Time Lords” by traveling around and telling everyone to believe in how wonderful the Doctor is. She’s allowed small victories that make use of other facets of her character, but the big, climactic ones are all about her romantic feelings.

The lack of interest in Martha as a medical student also means that we get very little about her life on Earth. After “Smith and Jones,” she seems to have mostly forgotten that she’s enrolled in medical school, returning to the idea only in her annoyance with Joan’s racism in “The Family of Blood.” This means that the only sustained connection that we get to Martha’s regular life is her family, and none of them are written with as much depth as Rose’s family was. Francine is a charismatic presence, and her concerns about Martha traveling with the Doctor are portrayed very well, but there’s so little else to the character this season—really, the only other thing we learn is that she doesn’t like Martha’s dad’s ditzy girlfriend—that she doesn’t ground Martha’s story in a detailed reality in the way that happened with Rose. The rest of the family is just completely underwritten, including, sadly, the sister played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who could have been marvelous if the show had given her anything to do. I could picture what clearly what Rose’s life would be like without the Doctor, but it’s a lot harder to do that with Martha.

The biggest problem with Martha as a character, though, is the decision to make her mostly unwanted from the Doctor’s perspective. It makes sense that he is grieving for Rose, but even in “The Runaway Bride,” which is set seconds after his goodbye to her, he seems more willing to treat Donna as a person than he generally is with Martha for the rest of the season. There are moments in which he tries to get over this—the end of “Gridlock” sees him at least trying to talk to Martha on her own terms instead of seeing her as Not Rose—but there are far too many occasions this season in which he is very obvious about the fact that he wishes Rose was there instead of her. This leads to a lot of scenes of jealous moping from Martha, and it makes the Doctor look extremely insensitive. From his lament that “Rose would know what to do” in “The Shakespeare Code” to his almost total lack of acknowledgment of everything Martha did in “The Last of the Time Lords,” the Doctor never really appreciates Martha enough. By the time we get to “Utopia,” Martha is (understandably) pouting every time someone mentions Rose, and watching the main companion be jealous of her predecessor just doesn’t make for an enjoyable season of television. It also means that both of the two main black characters of the Davies era (Martha and Mickey) spend much of their time pining away for white people who reject them for other white people, which is not ideal.

The misguided Doctor-Companion dynamic this season is especially unfortunate because it mars a season that has some tremendously creative storylines and a plot arc that is impeccably set up, even if it does crash and burn in its final minutes. The early mentions of Harold Saxon introduce him as a vaguely threatening presence long before we realize who he really is, and the humanizing potential of the fob watch is integrated so smoothly into the season that I had no idea the concept would turn up again until we saw the watch in “Utopia.” The Master himself is very well portrayed, both by Derek Jacobi and by John Simm. Simm’s Master is going to go off the rails a bit in his return, but having to pretend to be Prime Minister for a while restrains him just enough that he generally works very well this season. He’s also having a terrific time, especially in his musical introduction of the Toclafane. He and Tennant have terrific chemistry, and watching him take over the world is an absolute delight. It’s disappointing that he comes across as intensely stupid in the last episode—the Master always gets crushed eventually, but Roger Delgado and Michelle Gomez managed to continue to look like geniuses even in defeat. Still, his interactions with the Doctor and his show-offy evil behavior are among the bright lights of this season. While there are plenty of frustrations this season, there really are some sublimely good pieces of writing, from the Doctor’s brief spell as a human to the Weeping Angels to the energetic new Master, and my frustration with the season’s problems stems mostly from the sense that if a few things had been written differently, this would have been an absolutely phenomenal season.  

Planets: There is some good work with contemporary Earth in “The Runaway Bride,” “Smith and Jones,” “The Lazarus Experiment,” “Blink,” and “The Sound of Drums,” all of which look much better than many of the modern-day scenes in Season Two. We get some really lovely historical scenes in “Human Nature/The Family of Blood,” some decent ones in “The Shakespeare Code” and the end of the universe looks smashing in “Utopia.” New Earth continues to be almost entirely without interest, New York looks like it was filmed by someone who had never directed anything before, and the moon is a bit of a disappointment in “Smith and Jones,” but on the whole it’s a successful season in terms of settings.  

Monsters, Aliens, Etc.: This is the main way in which this season is an improvement on Season Two. While it does make an absolute mess of the Daleks, probably more so than at any point in the show’s history, it also has some absolutely splendid villains. The Weeping Angels are magnificent, the Family is terrifying, the Judoon are fabulous Rhinoceros Police, the Master is giving a beautifully hammy performance, and the Toclafane are a horrifying depiction of the last remnants of the human race. Not everything works—the sun in “42” is an awfully odd villain, and the witches in “The Shakespeare Code” are awfully unsatisfying, but the monsters and aliens who do work well are more than enough to offset a few failures.

Female characters: I’m not sure whether this season is a step up or down from Two. On the one hand, it doesn’t use female authority figures as incompetent plot devices, and no one gets turned into a concrete slab. On the other hand, Martha’s potential as a character is mostly wasted, and the only real stand-out female guest characters are Donna, Sally Sparrow and Jenny/Mother of Mine. Joan does get some good material toward the end of “The Family of Blood,” but I still think of her as the weakest part of a generally excellent two-parter, and Chantho also gets a couple of good moments that don’t really offset the general lack of interest I have in the character. The actress playing Lucy Saxon has a good vacant stare, but she’s never quite as fun as I think she could have been, the women of “Gridlock” and “42” are massively forgettable, Martha’s relatives are underwritten, Tallulah and the Empress of the Racnoss are absolute messes, and generally female characters with anything resembling depth or memorability are few and far between. It’s a disappointing season for women, although that is about to get better. L

Overall: If Davies had figured out how to make the Martha/Tenth Doctor dynamic work better, this could have been one of the all-time great seasons of this show. There are some really great stories and some fabulous new monsters, but it can be so unpleasant to watch these two characters interact that the season is weaker than it should be. B+/B

Up Next: There are still plenty of problems, but there is also Donna, so everything gets better pretty much immediately. Davies has some absolutely brilliant ideas in his final full season as showrunner, and also some intensely bad ones, but the Tenth Doctor and Donna are one of the very best Doctor-Companion pairings of all time, and their wonderful friendship substantially raises the quality of the season.

 Episodes Ranked So Far:

1. The Satan Pit

2. The Doctor Dances

3. Blink

4. The Family of Blood

5. The Empty Child

6. Dalek

7. The Parting of Ways

8. School Reunion

9. Utopia

10. Human Nature

11. The Impossible Planet

12. The Sound of Drums

13. Doomsday

14. The End of the World

15. Father’s Day

16. Smith and Jones

17. Rose

18. The Unquiet Dead

19. Christmas Invasion

20. The Runaway Bride

21. The Girl in the Fireplace

22. Aliens of London

23. The Shakespeare Code

24. The Lazarus Experiment

25. Tooth and Claw

26. New Earth

27. The Age of Steel

28. Bad Wolf

29. Rise of the Cybermen

30. Boom Town

31. World War III

32. Army of Ghosts

33. 42

34. Gridlock

35. The Last of the Time Lords

36. Idiot’s Lantern

37. The Long Game

38. Love and Monsters

39. Evolution of the Daleks

40. Daleks in Manhattan

41. Fear Her