#Dream Girl 2 cinematic analysis

[techsavvybox]

Dream Girl 2 Movie Analysis: Ayushmann Khurrana's Latest Offering Blends Romance and Comedy, But Does It Hit the Mark?"

Ayushmann Khurrana’s movie is a follow-up to his popular romantic comedy Dream Girl from 2019. He was depicted playing the part of a call girl, thus catfishing individuals into falling in love with his on-the-phone character Pooja. The film’s narrative was original and unexpected, yet it also addressed significant topics such as female everyday problems including loneliness and melancholy. Dream…

[fireinmywoods]

the heart of the matter (is Leonard McCoy)

Followers...friends. I come to you today, hat in hand, to ask for your support in a certain fandom matter, a trifling concern of little real consequence which nevertheless has been driving me absolutely cross-eyed bonkers for some years now.

Simply put: can we please all agree that Bones is the heart of the Enterprise???

In AOS, I mean. I’m not aware of any debate over this when it comes to TOS, where the roles of the triumvirate have always been explicit, though there are a few different ways to identify them:

Spock = logos = superego = head

Bones = pathos = id = heart

Kirk = ethos = ego = soul

So clear! So clean! So universally accepted by Trek fandom at large!

Oh, but things get murkier in AOS, and there are plenty of posts floating around which suggest that it’s Kirk, not McCoy, who serves as the heart in the Kelvin timeline. Even the writers of the first two AOS films have outright stated that their interpretation of the triumvirate had the original roles switched, with Kirk as the highly emotional one and McCoy as the arbiter between Kirk’s passion and Spock’s logic. It’s true that this technically counts as a Word of God pronouncement by the actual creators of 2/3 of the series thus far, which some would argue renders it canon. However, it’s equally true that those same creators also felt that Kirk was a fuckboi and that Benedict Cumberbatch wonderfully embodied their vision for Khan Noonien Singh, so honestly, who gives a hot hollerin’ fuck what those dingdongs think. This seems as justified a time as any to invoke Death of the Author, and in fact, it’s my firm belief that despite the writers’ intentions, Star Trek and Into Darkness both support the original triumvirate breakdown.

Under the cut you’ll find a long-winded and self-indulgent ~*~character analysis~*~ of the Kelvin-timeline incarnations of Jim Kirk and Leonard “Bones” McCoy, reviewing why Leonard is still unmistakably the heart, unpacking what the hell Jim’s deal is, and finally taking a look at some key examples from canon, because ya girl believes in showing her work.

Let’s get down to business.

[A quick warning, as this is starting to spread beyond my own followers: if you don’t like McKirk as a romantic pairing, you ain’t gonna like part IV, so I’d bow out before then or just take your leave now.]

i. Leonard

Independent of Jim’s characterization, it should be blindingly obvious that Leonard is the heart. He’s by far the most nakedly emotional of our seven core crew members, a trait we see writ large and small throughout the films. He’s reactive; he’s passionate; he’s humane. He cares, first and foremost.

Not about Starfleet, of course. Leonard doesn’t give a damn about playing the game or advancing his career, or even really about the Enterprise’s mission - he has no desire to explore strange new worlds, he’ll pass on seeking out new life and new civilizations, and he spends half his time trying to convince everyone else that boldly going where no man has gone before is a great way to die horribly. Fuck exploration, fuck space, and fuck the Federation while we’re at it. Leonard is perhaps the most improbable of the Enterprise’s senior officers for the simple reason that he seems to resent everything about the job.

Well. Almost everything.

See, what Leonard cares about is people. He cares about their lives, about their stories, about their hopes and dreams, about their suffering. That’s why he entered and has stayed in an extremely taxing caring profession, and it’s why he’s still on the Enterprise despite his incessant bitching about everything they do. He wouldn’t trust anyone else to take care of the crew he’s become so attached to, and he finds fulfillment in helping the people they encounter out there in the nightmare of space.

In every timeline, Leonard McCoy defines himself by what he can do for others: the pain he can ameliorate, the wounds he can heal, the diseases he can cure, the small amounts of good he can bring to a galaxy filled with so much absolute horseshit. Unlike most of his colleagues, he’s not motivated by curiosity or an adventurer’s spirit or a burning desire to make sense of the universe. (Fuck the universe, too, as a matter of fact.) Instead, he’s driven by the incredible depths of his compassion and empathy and concern for the people he serves alongside and those they meet along the way.

Sure sounds like the heart to me.

ii. Jim

I actually totally get why some people characterize Kelvin-timeline Jim as the heart. He’s quite literally a different man than the original timeline’s Kirk, and he definitely has more of the pathos qualities to him. Early on, he’s a total spitfire, fierce and hot-blooded, quick to anger and other sharp-edged emotions we’re not used to associating with James T. Kirk. Even as he grows into himself and leaves some of those traits behind, he remains spontaneous, passionate, protective, and self-sacrificing - easy enough to mistake for the heart if you squint.

But let’s not confuse having a heart for being the heart. Sure, Jim is more openly emotional and reactive than his TOS counterpart, but there’s still a marked difference between the way he and Leonard express and act on their emotions.

AOS Jim definitely has a lot of feelings - big ones - but at the end of the day, he’s not driven by his heart. He’s driven by his gut.

Whenever there’s trouble, Jim makes a beeline right for the center of it. He’s impulsive as hell, rarely pausing to think past his first instinct, because he just wants to be doing something, no matter the odds, no matter what it costs him. He explicitly calls himself out on this in ST:ID when arguing with Spock: “I have no idea what I’m supposed to do. I only know what I can do.” He doesn’t have the patience or the constitution to sit and debate all the options, either internally or with his crew. If there’s a path forward from where he is, even a bad one, Jim’s gonna take it.

[Sidebar: One could make the case that the roots of Jim’s instinct to act reach back to his childhood traumas - canonically ignored abuse and neglect on the one hand, and the Tarsus IV famine and massacre on the other - but that’s a whole post on its own and we ain’t got all day here.]

Jim can’t not act, and while that gets him into a lot of trouble, it also saves lives. Sulu probably appreciated that Jim’s gut drove him to leap off Nero’s drilling platform without a moment’s hesitation after a man he’d only just met. He may have been a real shithead about it, but Jim’s impassioned insistence on going after the Narada and not wasting time on the possibility of a better option was key to saving Pike and Earth itself. And I don’t know why Spock was so surprised that Jim intervened to save him on Nibiru, considering that the reason they were there in the first place was because Jim couldn’t sit back and watch the Nibirans die when there was something his crew could do to help them, even if it meant risking a violation of the Prime Directive.

Jim is a good man with a big heart, and he cares about people, absolutely. But he cares most of all about Doing The Right Thing - which in the heat of the moment often translates to Doing Something, Anything, Hold My Beer.

iii. heart vs. gut (i.e., time for some receipts)

I think one of the main reasons Leonard and Jim’s characterizations get confused is because they both tend to act on instinct, only lightly informed by higher reasoning. However, I’d argue that their motivations and the nature of those actions are super distinct, and those distinctions remain relatively consistent throughout all three films. (And y’all know I really mean this shit if I’m out here calling ST:ID consistent.)

Jim is a big picture guy, figuratively and often literally heaving himself full-body into the mix of whatever problem the crew has encountered for lack of any better alternative. That energy propels the plots of all three films: the chaotic path he carves through the events of Star Trek and ST:ID, and the slightly calmer but still undeniably bananas course he charts for himself and his crew in the second half of Beyond.

As the heart, Leonard operates on a more micro level. His concern invariably lies with the individual people caught up in those grand events Captain Chaos is busy dragging them all through. While Jim’s zooming around flipping plot switches, Leonard can always be counted on to bring it back to the personal.

We frequently see this juxtaposed right there on film. Think of that slow pan through medbay in the first movie after the Narada’s ambush and the destruction of Vulcan: while Jim is stewing over what to do about the Big Bad, Leonard has stepped into the CMO role without fuss or fanfare to care for the wounded crew and traumatized survivors.

Or jump ahead to Beyond: during Krall’s attack on the Enterprise, there’s a gorgeous cinematic shot of Jim sprinting down the corridor with two crew members to take on the invaders - and then we cut to Leonard moving slowly through those same ghastly red-lit corridors, searching for casualties in need of help, visibly affected by what his scanner is telling him about the downed crewman he tries to save.

Actually, Beyond as a whole does terrific justice to each of their roles. (Perhaps because it was not written by dingdongs.) The first act finds Jim flailing around for a sense of purpose and forward momentum - an understandable consequence of a gut-driven character having stalled out for too long - and he ultimately gets his mojo back by spending the rest of the film careening through one insane seat-of-his-pants ploy after another. Meanwhile, in the quieter moments between all the mayhem, Leonard serves as the empathetic sounding board for both Jim and Spock as they struggle with deep emotionally charged secrets and Big Life Questions, helping them untangle their feelings and reminding them of the emotional attachments which are ultimately key to their respective decisions to stay on the Enterprise.

More examples, you say? Don’t mind if I do!

Star Trek

GUT: Jim hurtles around the Narada, improvising almost every step of the way and paying the price for his and Spock’s scheme in bodily harm, and ultimately succeeds in rescuing Pike. HEART: Leonard calls out for Jim as he runs into the transporter room, overwhelmed with relief that he’s made it back, and takes Chris Pike’s weight literally and figuratively onto his own shoulders to begin healing him while Jim runs back off to the center of the action.

Star Trek: Into Darkness

GUT: Jim argues with Leonard, Spock, and Scotty in quick succession as he’s preparing to drag them all off to Qo’noS, immune to their attempts to reason with him because, unraveled as he is by grief and pain, he can only focus on his visceral drive to Do Something. HEART: Unlike the others, Leonard is upset not about the larger moral questions of whether it’s right to go after John Harrison or bring torpedoes aboard the ship, but about the fact that Jim himself is hurt and hurting and won’t accept help.

GUT: Jim makes a snap decision to sacrifice himself by hurling his body against the warp core to realign it and save his crew. HEART: Shellshocked by the emotional grenade of his best friend’s death, Leonard suddenly realizes, through the haze of his own numbness and upswelling grief, that he might still be able to do something for this lonely radiation-ravaged body he’s been brought and the life it represents.

Star Trek Beyond

GUT: At the tail end of an improvised plan to out-maneuver Kalara, Jim quite literally shoots first and asks questions later, igniting a fuel tank and setting off an explosive series of events which he and Chekov just barely escape. HEART: The next time we see Leonard, Spock is opening up to him about Ambassador Spock’s death and his own plan to leave Starfleet for New Vulcan - and while he’s empathetic toward Spock (I can’t imagine what that must feel like), Leonard’s thoughts go immediately to the emotional impact of Spock’s plan on the other people he’s closest with. (I can see how that would upset [Nyota]. / I can tell you, [Jim]’s not gonna like that.)

GUT: Jim frantically strains to reach the final switch in the life support hub, believing that he’s going to die either way since the vent has already opened, but spurred on by the knowledge that his ability to move that switch is the only thing standing between Yorktown and annihilation. HEART: Knowing exactly what’s at stake, with the fate of the station and millions of lives hanging in the balance, Leonard’s greatest concern is that Jim won’t make it out in time.

iv. never bet against the heart

Let’s wrap this up with a deep dive on one of the absolute best examples of Leonard as the heart: his decision to sneak Jim onto the Enterprise in the first movie.

As relentlessly as I drag him for the, you know, poisoning and kidnapping aspects of that whole deal, there’s no denying that it is a god-tier heart move. Is it logical? Absolutely not. Is it really the right thing to do for either himself or Jim, as far as he knows at the time? Nope. It’s 100% the wrong choice for his own job security, reputation, and relationships with his fellow crew, and it’s almost guaranteed to get Jim into even worse trouble. Leonard is a smart dude who must understand that this course of action will likely end up coming back on them both in a real bad way. For someone who argues loudly and often in defense of self-preservation, this is a shockingly bad idea.

But none of that matters, because Jim shakes his hand and tells him to be safe with that horrible empty-eyed smile, and it gets him right in the heart, one-two-three.

One: sympathy, worry, and affection for Jim - his best friend, his wild and troublesome stray, his only family.

Two: guilt over adding onto Jim’s pain, and the instinctive urge to fix whatever‘s hurting him.

Three: fear of heading out into the unknown by himself, the agonizing uncertainty of not knowing what’s coming, craving for the security and reassurance Jim’s presence would give him.

“Dammit,” Leonard says, as his heart wins out over his brain. He knows this is a garbage plan, and he doesn’t care. His heart chooses Jim. That’s all that matters.

So he goes back for Jim, and to his own surprise it turns out that this Very Bad Idea was actually a Very Good Idea because Jim’s impulsive instincts end up saving Earth, and Leonard’s not in the habit of fixing what ain’t broke so he figures he may as well keep on chasing Jim’s crazy ass around the galaxy for a while, through jungles and off cliffs and into the goddamn afterlife when need be, until finally one day Jim’s gut drives him right into Leonard’s arms and he suddenly realizes that this is what his heart was choosing all those years ago: Jim’s wide terrified eyes, Jim’s voice breaking over his name, Jim’s hand pressing hard against his chest, reaching out for what’s his.

But that’s another story.

[shyantheswiftfan]

“evermore” song analysis part 3 (tracks 11-15)

Hello! I’ve decided to write some short analyses for the songs of “evermore”. The way I’m choosing to write these is by listing main themes of each song, giving a short paragraph about how I interpret the story and feeling of each song, then listing other Taylor songs that I think have similar themes. I might do a more in-depth lyrical analysis of some songs later on. Let me know what you think. 

- Read Part 1 Here -  - Read Part 2 Here -

So, let’s finish this! This is part 3 of 3. (This one is a little longer because I had a lot to say about some of the songs here.)

Track 11: cowboy like me

Main themes: unexpected love, games, soulmates

My thoughts: This is possibly the most cinematic song from the album; I can envision an entire movie from this one. This story of two people not searching for love who find each other and fall. I don’t interpret the lyrics literally for this song. I think the two lovers (being described as swindling bandits) are players or heartbreakers. People who never end up in serious relationships because they don’t like commitment, but instead they go around “stealing” good hearts because their own hearts are broken. The “rich folks” are people who are still full of love and feeling. The two lovers meet and start to fall; their pasts come up, threatening their love, but that doesn’t matter because they’ve both done things they aren’t proud of. (”the skeletons in both our closets plotted hard to fuck this up” … “that was all before I locked it down”) Our two lovers fall in love and end up together, leaving their old ways behind them.

Sister songs: Style, King of My Heart, Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince 

Track 12: long story short

Main themes: renewal, growth, moving forward

My thoughts: This is such an upbeat and happy song. Showing that Taylor has moved beyond her past and has found happiness right where she landed. The first verse and chorus are talking about where she was back around 2016, fallen from grace, knocked down by all the people trying to take her out. Her bad reputation in the public eye, falling for the wrong guy. Then we move to her reflecting on all the people who left her,(”I always felt I must look better in the rear view”) but moving on from that, dropping her guard, and finding someone to be with without everyone watching for a while. (”we live in peace, but if someone comes at us, this time, I'm ready”) The bridge shows that she’s done with the feuds and trying to win the battles; she just wants to be happy with her lover. In the third verse, she gives a nice sentiment to her past self, telling her not to focus on the ones trying to hurt you because what’s important is right there. 

Sister songs: Call It What You Want, Daylight, the lakes

Track 13: marjorie

Main themes: remembrance, loss, life lessons

My thoughts: As someone who has lost both of my grandmothers, this song means a lot to me. Taylor remembering the lessons her grandmother taught her. Taylor always played the part of the “good girl” early in her career, but learned to take a stand for herself and what she believes in; these lessons probably helped her with that. In the chorus, she’s reflecting on how it can feel like her grandmother is still with her. She’s still there in her dreams, the memory of her never goes away. She’s alive in Taylor’s heart. Then later in the song, Taylor sings about the times they spent together swimming and driving, and how she wishes she had asked more questions or saved more little things.(”I should've asked you how to be, asked you to write it down for me. Should've kept every grocery store receipt”)   When you lose someone, there’s always that regret when you realize everything from them will be gone now. This song is a beautiful tribute, and the subtlety of putting her grandmother’s vocals in the song is so touching. 

Sister songs: Ronan, Soon You’ll Get Better, epiphany

Track 14: closure

Main themes: anger, betrayal, hurt

My thoughts: This song is a direct response to someone who wronged the narrator. Someone from their past (an ex-friend or lover) who clearly hurt them in a major and public way wrote them a letter asking to be friends again and move past what happened, but it seems that it’s only for the ex’s own selfish reasons.(”It wasn't right … Looks like you know that now” and ”I'm just a wrinkle in your new life, staying friends would iron it out so nice”) The narrator is telling this person that they hurt them too badly, and that they aren’t accepting their “closure” because they know it isn’t sincere. (”Don't treat me like some situation that needs to be handled” and “it's fake and it's oh so unnecessary”) I’ve been in this situation before, and sometimes you have to say “no” to someone to protect yourself from being hurt again, because you know they will.

Similar songs: You’re Not Sorry, This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things, my tears ricochet

Track 15: evermore

Main themes: depression, healing, hope

My thoughts: This is a deeply honest song about the feeling of being in such a deep depressive state and it seeming like it will never end, but then coming out of it and finding hope again. It starts with the narrator thinking about how long they’ve been in this place and not knowing what caused it, but they’re trying to figure it all out. (”I replay my footsteps on each stepping stone, trying to find the one where I went wrong”) The first chorus describes the hopeless feeling, just staring out at nothing thinking that this is how you’ll always feel until death. The second verse the narrator is feeling detached and losing hope completely. They are trying to remember when they were happy, yet they can’t remember that feeling anymore. (”I rewind thе tape but all it does is pause on thе very moment all was lost”) The bridge brings us to the reflection stage, thinking of everything the narrator is missing out on and just begging for some hope, and then finding it in “you”, whoever that may be for them. (”the things that will be lost. Oh, can we just get a pause to be certain, we'll be tall again?” and “I dreamed of you. It was real enough to get me through”) Then, in the last moments of the song, they find the hope again to know that they will get through this. “This pain wouldn't be for evermore.”

Sister songs: Tied Together With a Smile, Innocent, Safe & Sound

Thanks for reading! If you haven’t read the first two parts, I would super love if you took the time to check them out as well. They are linked at the beginning of this post. <3

[une-nuit-pour-se-souvenir]

THE SAME STORY (1-1)

S02E10 - VALAR MORGHULIS (DANERYS)

In S02E10 - Valar Morghulis, Danerys Targaryan goes to the House of the Undying and sees a bunch of riddles and visions. In the books, the equivalent chapter is explicit that these are foreshadowing for Danerys’ future, but in the show, this is more nuanced.

It’s been said that both books and show are different stories, but there are some major common stories including the endgame. What I propose here is an analysis of what is common between them, in specific the recurrent thematic in four major events.

A CLASH OF KINGS #47 - Danerys # 4: Danerys visits the House of the Undying and sees some visions that foreshadow her future.

SPINOFF #2: Melisandre’s visions.

S02E10 - Valar Morghulis: Danerys visits the House of the Undying and sees some visions that foreshadow her future.

SPINOFF #1: Arya Stark will kill Danerys with Bran’s help.

S04E02 - The Lion and the Rose and S06E06 - Blood of my Blood: Bran Stark has his first cluster of prophetic visions.

Once these four major events are dismantled and distilled, there are five themes in common between them.

The War on Westeros.

The Red Wedding.

The Red Door (or Home, or Waking the Dragon)

The Burning of King’s Landing.

The Rightful Heir to the Iron Throne.

In this first post, the focus will be S02E10 - Valar Morghulis when Danerys visits the House of the Undying.

THE HOUSE OF UNDYING

Danerys Targaryan and her bodyguards Jorah Mormont and Kovarro arrive at House of the Undying. Kovarro is wary of the place since he’s superstitious and believes this is a house of ghosts while Jorah is wary since he believes Pyat Pree is a dangerous warlock with powerful magic. Danerys is dismissive of their worries, even challenging these supernatural beings head on and presses forward.

Danerys believes herself special for many reasons, she’s a megalomaniac so it’s in her nature to put on airs. One of these reasons is that Danerys believes to have very strong magic because she hatched the dragons and survived Drogo’s funeral pyre. In consequence, Danerys believes herself not easily defeated by other “magicians” and feels somewhat invulnerable to their magic. This is why Danerys goes to the House of the Undying in the first place and why she’s not scared by Kovarro’s superstitions or Jorah’s warnings.

This is best shown on two occasions. [1] In S02E06 - The Old Gods and the New, where Danerys tells the Spice King that she dreamed those events would happen and she fulfilled them, such she’s no ordinary woman because her dreams come true. [2] In S02E08 - The Prince of Winterfell, where Danerys dismisses Jorah’s concerns of Pyat Pree’s magic because of these events as well, she hatched the dragons and survive the fire, when another “magician” Mirri Maz Duur didn’t.

Danerys comes closer to the tower and asks if it’s a riddle, then goes around looking for an entrance. Jorah follows her but soon loses sight of her, only finding Kovarro upon completing a full turn. Danerys has been magically separated from Kovarro and Jorah, she’s already inside the House of Undying.

In the books, the House of the Undying is an ancient grey ruin with no windows or towers and it’s explicit whatever Danerys hears and sees inside is supposed to foreshadow her future. In the show, the House of the Undying is a slender tall tower and it’s not explicit whatever Danerys hears and sees inside is for. While it may seem like there are irreconcilable differences in these designs, their thematic value is exactly the same. [1] In the show, Danerys asks out loud if it’s a riddle outside and walks through “visions” that have not yet happened inside. [2] In the show, the House of Undying is designed and camera-shot to look like the Burned Tower of Winterfell, which is narratively connected with prophecy since this is what allowed Bran Stark to become Three-Eyed Raven. [3] In the books, the Qarth warlocks are narrative parallels to the greenseers and Three-Eyed Raven, such [2] is meant to reference the House of Undying’s prophetic nature without spending much time on that narrative parallel through backstory.

[3] As a side-note, this parallel between the Qarth warlocks and greenseers is mentioned in a conversation between Bran and Luwin, moreover have same concept matrix as well. They both have magic abilities that are characterised as “truth and wisdom”, consisting into seeing the past and the future in allegorical visions, the warlocks with their tripping and greenseers through green dreams. They have big issues with these visions being difficult to interpret and that they become less human the more they indulge in them, the warlocks turn into blue corpses and Brynden Rivers is merging with the Heart Tree. They have types of “food” that enhance the prophetic abilities and taste the “same”, the warlocks have Shade of the Evening made of black-barked trees and greenseers have “weirwood paste” made of weirwood sap and seeds.

Since the House of Undying is connected to prophesy, this suggests that every audiovisual cue in these scenes should be at least considered as a candidate for foreshadowing. Moreover, Danerys is dismissive of Kovarro’s supervision about ghosts and of Jorah’s fears about warlocks, bragging that she’s not afraid of magic tricks and taunting whether her enemies are scared of a little girl, is classic Tempting Fate trope. It highly suggests that Danerys’ future will have these threats but seriously and they will be her downfall. This is especially fitting since Danerys feels arrogant about her own magic being superior to everyone else’s, so what better way then to bring her downfall than in extremes, either a complete mundane death or an extremely magical one? Why not both? All it’s left to figure out is what these represent (Arya Stark and Bran Stark).

Danerys is inside the House of the Undying. She picks up a torch to light the way and she looks around, noticing that she can go either downstairs or upstairs. After she brags about not being afraid of warlock’s magic tricks (Bran Stark) and taunts that they’re scared of little girls (Arya Stark), she hears the dragons screeching and goes upstairs after them.

In the books, Danerys must drink Shade of the Evening before entering and follow certain rules while inside, she must always go right and she must always go up. She also takes Drogon inside, who “interacts” with their surroundings and urges her along, even saving her from traps twice and helping her chose correctly. This is an allegory for Danerys climbing to power by embracing the Targaryan power-hungry ambitions, she always makes the right choice and she always goes up, when in doubt or trapped Drogon chooses for her. In other words, Danerys’ character is all about her “dragon side” and moves due to it.

In the show, Danerys doesn’t do drugs nor has any rules while inside. So much like the House of the Undying design, it may seem like there are irreconcilable differences between the character journeys, but their thematic value is exactly the same. [1] The torch and the dragons’ screeches show Danerys where she must go through light and sound. [2] The torch “interacts” with the surroundings notably at least once and the dragons at the end save Danerys from Pyat Pree. [3] Danerys chooses going up the tower instead of going down after hearing the dragons’ screeches, representative of Danerys climbing to power and her character being moved by her “dragon side”.

THE GIFT OF DEATH

Danerys is still going up the stairs but finally comes upon a door. She lingers for a bit before reaching for the handle and opening it.

Danerys goes in through a door which is visually similar to the double-doors of the House of Black and White. This is unlikely to be a coincidence because this is a shared thematic between books and show. In both cases, Danerys goes up a flight of stairs and comes upon a double-door that resembles the ones from the House of Black and White and after some fun shenanigans, she’s informed (again) of her ultimate fate through allegorical visions (this is an explanation of other visions she saw before) and then gets trapped so the warlocks can suck “her” magic and she has to be saved by the dragons. It does follow the show’s script, as Danerys is informed of her ultimate fate and then gets trapped by a warlock so he can suck “her” magic and she has to be saved by the dragons.

The House of Black and White is the headquarters of the Faceless Men in Braavos. They’re a religious assassin cult that believes in the God of Death and that death itself is a merciful end to suffering, for a price they will grant the “gift” of death to anyone in the world no matter who it is. Furthermore, they disguise themselves and their intentions so they can fulfill their missions. This suggests that whatever Danerys sees inside this chamber foreshadows that Danerys will be tricked by others and that these events will lead to her death, mayhaps the Faceless Men (Arya Stark) will have a major role in it.

Danerys enters a cylindrical stone vault chamber with six doors leading out. She looks around and notices [1] a grill on the floor next to [2] a plinth in the middle of the room.

The camera-work frames Danerys looking down at the grill in a tilted up-shot angle, a cinematic technique that creates a jarring “off-centre” feel, to portray some psychological meltdown and eerie tension. It’s typically used to depict madness or evilness, disorientation or uneasiness, to suggest that something dreadful will happen in the future. This suggests that Danerys’ death and/or the events that will lead up to it should be very disturbing

This framing is repeated in S03E04 - And Now His Watch Has Ended. Joffrey happily rants to Margaery about the gruesome death of several Targaryans’, this shot is used while he talks about Rhaenyra Targaryan and the [A] Dance of Dragons. This was a deadly conflict between two Targaryans over the Iron Throne, such this suggests a second Dance of Dragons where one of the sides is Danerys. The other side is unknown at this point in the story, but at the end of season 6, it’s revealed (Bran Stark) that this is Jon Snow.

The camera-work is deliberate in focusing the plinth. After Danerys sees the grill and looks around some more, it goes from not showing anything to sliding out and showing the empty top. It visually resembles the Heart of Winter, there even are parts of it that are filmed similarly. Moreover, this stone plinth is where Danerys finds the dragons later after she wandered through visions. Therefore, it thematically resembles the Heart of Winter as well, since the elemental representative of fire/ice finds the fire/ice creature sacrifice in the middle.

This duality between ice and fire is telling on its own, because it frames a so-called hero to what’s perceived as an enemy. In other words, if the Night King is a threat to humanity and Danerys is framed visually and thematically as the “same”, what does that make her? Obviously, the answer is Danerys is a threat to humanity as well. Furthermore, this duality is evocative of the franchise’s name, [B] A Song of Ice and Fire, which is based on a poem by Robert Frost that characterises both fire and ice as equally destructive. This gives credence that both fire and ice are equal threats to humanity.

Danerys hesitates before choosing a door, but then once she does she opens it and goes through with it.

Danerys entered through a door with a pattern that roughly resembles a 3×3 grid with noughts on it, while leaves through another door that also resembles a 3×3 grid with crosses on it. This visually resembles the child’s game “noughts and crosses”, where two adversaries attempt to place their own symbol thrice in a row to win it, but whose optimal strategy leads to a draw. It’s true that such a thing would foreshadow a Dance of Dragons where neither party wins, but I very much doubt this is what they meant to represent.

This is the only thing I don’t have an explanation for. I cannot remember an instance where a “shuriken” shape was used anywhere. I admit I never looked for it and I’ve only watched this series thrice (twice casually a long time ago and once properly recently). The House of Black and White door is more subtle yet I immediately remember it and this is a more attention-grabbing pattern.

Of course it could mean nothing, but I doubt it since everything else references something else. Maybe it has not yet appeared and will only show up when Danerys’ death arrives. Maybe it’s only meant as the general symbol for a ✖ to mean the end. Maybe it’s a stylised massive dragonglass bodkin arrow tip seen from the top, this is my favourite for several reasons.

[A] A SNOW THRONE AND A BLASTED RUIN

Danerys enters the Iron Throne room in King’s Landing through a side-door. The first thing is a stained-glass window with a blue flower on it.

Danerys enters the Iron Throne through a side door and not the front door, suggesting from the beginning that Danerys being in the throne room isn’t “correct” in some way. In hindsight, this entrance foreshadows that [1] Danerys isn’t the rightful heir to the Iron Throne, but [2] Danerys will attempt to claim it through ignoble means. [A] This vision represents The Dance of Dragons.

[A1] The Rightful Heir to the Iron Throne

The stained-glass window with a blue flower on it symbolises that Jon Snow is the son of Rhaegar Targaryan and Lyanna Stark, he chooses her as Queen of Love and Beauty at the Tourney of Harrenhal with a crown of winter roses, the flowers that she loved. In the books, Danerys sees this very same imagery in the House of the Undying but with different symbolism: “a blue flower grew from a chink on a wall of ice”. In both cases, there’s the blue flower placed on a narrow slit that allows light (chink and narrow window) on an “icy wall” (a wall of ice and the cold blue light filter that characterises scenes at the Wall).

The camera-work makes Danerys’ torch pass exactly over the flower. Since this torch represents the dragons and lighting stuff on fire, this suggests that she’ll either burn Jon and/or Winterfell (my personal conviction is that it’s going to be both) once she finds out about Jon being the rightful heir to the Iron Throne (how you like them apples for “bride of fire”). Since Danerys can control the dragons, the natural conclusion is that she’ll use them for it. Since the cold blue filter associated with the Wall and Beyond the Wall, as well as with Winterfell under the Long Night, is used for this scene, this suggests that Danerys will learn the secret of Jon’s real parentage and claim to the Iron Throne at either the Wall, beyond the Wall, or Winterfell during the Long Night.

[CONFIRMED] (8x2): Jon tells Danerys that he’s Rhaegar’s son in the Crypts of Winterfell just before the Battle against the Army of the Dead and she responds that he’s the rightful heir to the Iron Throne. (8x3): Drogon attacks Jon & Rhaegal in the middle of the Battle against the Army of the Dead, it’s ambiguous whether it was deliberate or accidental (it already had looked at Jon sketchily before) but it foreshadows their future conflict as well.

Danerys walks into the centre of the room, while snow is falling all over the place, even the Iron Throne is covered in it. This foreshadows that Jon Snow is the rightful heir to the Iron Throne. Jon is Rhaegar’s legitimate son and Ned Stark claimed him as his bastard so his surname is Snow, therefore this room belongs to him by birthright through the Targaryan line of succession. This also means that Danerys’ own claim to the Iron Throne, something she’s convinced it belongs to her, comes only after his claim. If she tries to claim it over him, this makes her a usurper and this goes well with Danerys entering by a side-door.

The camera-work is the “same” as Bran’s first cluster of prophetic visions, meaning Jon’s parentage will be public due to Bran as the Three-Eyed Raven, either directly or indirectly. Since Bran was the one that found out about it, he’ll always be the “primary” source of information no matter who tells her.

[CONFIRMED] (8x1) Bran instructs Sam to tell Jon the truth about his parents. (8x2) Jon tells Danerys that he is Rhaegar’s, moreover mentions Bran is the source of this information since he saw it in his visions and that he’s legitimate because there are paper documents that prove it. Danerys recognises that Jon is the Targaryan heir (therefore rightful heir to the Iron Throne over her).

[A2] The Burning of King’s Landing

Danerys walks into the centre of the room and places the torch on the ground, then looks up to see that the ceiling utterly destroyed by an unknown attack. This foreshadows that in consequence of Danerys finding out about Jon being the rightful heir to the Iron Throne, she’ll destroy King’s Landing through fire and since she can control dragons, the natural conclusion is that she destroys it with dragonfire.

The camera-work script is very specific, Danerys places the torch on the ground, which is suspect by itself because why would anyone even do this when the torch may be needed to light the way, only then she looks up to see the ceiling destruction, which means that she’ll light the city on fire herself and that it won’t be an accident like I’ve some ridiculous stans say. It may also suggest that she loses a dragon in the attempt since she loses the torch.

While Danerys burning King’s Landing by using the dragons is a natural conclusion, the visuals confirm it as well. The destruction looks like the typical image of buildings’ ceilings after air bomb raids and the subsequent fires. Since dragons are the only thing that can possibly do an aerial attack in ASOIAF / GOT, this destruction will be a consequence of the flying lizards.

In specific, the setting that both Danerys and Bran see, the room with the light coming from the ceiling holes, is a very common obsession subject that war-time photographers have. There are many photos of air bomb raided “old” buildings where one or another person will be looking at the wreckage. It’s meant to symbolise the destruction of heritage by the subject photographed since it’s usually a soldier from the faction that bombed it. Below I enclose some examples, it’s a very recognisable theme in war-time photography

Additionally, this is consistent imagery associated with Valyria and Targaryan destruction of fire and blood, as both Valyria which was burned by volcanos erupting due to their greed and Harrenhal which was burned by dragonfire, have the same kind of look. In specific, I remember reading that book purists were dismayed at how Harrenhal looks like in the show, since they expected something else that would fit their grandiose delusions that dragons are fun, but instead it’s something characterised as a “blasted ruin” by Tywin Lannister. I actually have never seen such a visual comparison being made before, but this is why it gives off an eerie feeling, it’s the fictional shadow of real horrific events where real people died.

Danerys approaches the Iron Throne and she comes close to touching it but stops when she hears the dragons screech, so she leaves after them instead. This foreshadows that in consequence of Danerys burning King’s Landing she’ll come close to claiming the Iron Throne, but she won’t succeed and she’ll go elsewhere, perhaps because of the dragons.

The framing here has three important details. [1] The camera-work focuses on the torches still burning on the background both as Danerys approaches the Iron Throne and as she leaves, which means that both will happen _after _she burns King’s Landing (this vision isn’t about her choosing to go North over the Iron Throne at the end of season 7, as I’ve seen some of her stans defending). [2] The music while Danerys approaches the Iron Throne and lingers is very sinister music with clear Targaryan motifs, which frames Danerys’ coming close to claiming the Iron Throne and a Targaryan restoration as a very negative thing. [3] Danerys is shrouded in shadow as she leaves, which frames this whole shtick as negative.

[THE SAME STORY] The War on Westeros (Battle of Fire)

In S03E04 - And Now His Watch Has Ended, the Lannisters and the Tyrells are touring the Sept of Baelor, preparing for the upcoming wedding between their houses. While Cersei and Oleanna have a power struggle squabble, Joffrey happily rants to Margaery about the gruesome death of several Targaryans’. In specific, the camera-work frames Joffrey and Margaery in the exact same way as the aforementioned Danerys’ scene, while he speaks about Rhaenyra Targaryan and how she died in the aftermath of the Dance of Dragons. At the very least, this foreshadows another deadly conflict between two Targaryans which will involve Danerys and we know who the other one is because there’s only two left, Jon Snow. At the very most, this may suggest Danerys’ fate will be similar to Rhanerya and/or any of the Targaryans that Joffrey talks about.

RHAENYRA TARGARYAN - Dance of Dragons

JOFFREY: Rhaenyra Targaryen was murdered by her brother, or rather his dragon. It ate her while her son watched. What’s left of her is buried in the crypts right down there.

In S04E01 - Two Swords, there is foreshadowing that Danerys may be eaten by a dragon in the aftermath of a Targaryan conflict. Danerys is hanging out with the dragons at the cliffside before marching onto Meereen, she sees Rhaegal and Viserion flying through the air squabbling over food while she pets Drogon. When the food drops nearby, Drogon loses interest in Danerys’ petting and joins the squabble with his brothers. Danerys attempts to calm Drogon down as if he was a cute house dog instead of a dangerous wild animal, but he snaps back at her. If Danerys hadn’t moved out of the way, Drogon would’ve snapped her head off just like that. The other two dragons take this chance to seize the food and run away from their bigger brother, but Drogon goes after them. Danerys is shaken over Drogon’s aggression towards her and Jorah tells her that dragons can’t be tamed not even by their mother.

This is an allegory for the Dance of Dragons and the Targaryans in general. The dragons are food-hungry and hostile, even against their own brood (they even move as if dancing and they attack their own mother), and they cannot be tamed. Furthermore, it portrays dragons as solitary animals (most reptiles are like this), characterised by territorial behaviour where they don’t get along with others of their kind (the contrast are pack animals). Likewise, Targaryans are power-hungry and violent, even against their own family (their worst conflict was the Dance of Dragons), and Targaryans can’t change their nature. They don’t share power and don’t get along with others, always in conflict either amongst them or against others. Danerys believes herself to be Targaryan special and she too is framed as a solitary figure, therefore she’s covered by this allegory. In the show, the dragons don’t have much of a personality nor are thematically linked to anything. and they choose to focus on Drogon while the other two are just afterthoughts (I have my suspicions as to why: X, X). In the books, the dragons do have personalities and they’re thematically connected to a few subjects that pander to the names they have.

Drogon is named after Danerys’ dead husband Drogo, a violent dothraki. In consequence, this is the most aggressive and dangerous of the three dragons, representing Danerys as khaleesi (together they are “Rhaego”, the Stallion that Mounts the World). This matches with Danerys embracing the words of her house, fire and blood, which really mean conflict and suffering. Consequently, Drogon is the dragon that Danerys identifies with the most and he becomes her personal mount later on. In the books, Drogon often seeks Danerys touch and protects her, so while they “fought” in the Daznak’s Pit and she was naturally scared of him at that moment, they are well bonded and he eventually “submits” to her (he doesn’t submit at all, he allows her to do whatever). So if Danerys is harmed or even eaten by a dragon, it’s unlikely that Drogon would be the one that does it (unless he’s controlled). Still, this show’s scene establishes well that even Drogon would go against Danerys if she does something he doesn’t like, implying that the other two may do the same or do even worse.

Viserion is named after Danerys’ brother Viserys, who was crazy and spiteful, but otherwise cowardly and ineffective. In consequence, Drogon is the least aggressive and dangerous of the three, the most “friendly” since he’s social towards humans and the “least” confrontational, as he often runs away from threats instead of attacking. Not only is Viserion’s first instinct to shy away from confrontation but he’s often written as simply leaving Danerys. So if Danerys is harmed or even eaten by a dragon, it’s unlikely that Viserion would be the one that does it (unless he’s controlled). In the show, Viserion is killed by the Night King at the end of season 7, but he rises again as a “White Walker” (the Night King touches him like he touches Craster’s baby and his eyes turn rayed blue, instead of the process of animating wights which is just to raise his arms). It’s true that under the Night King’s control Viserion would be more likely to harm or eat Danerys, but that’s thematically weak (unless it would be Viserys revenge).

Rhaegal is named after Danerys’ brother Rhaegar, who along with his children was the last acknowledged heir to the Iron Throne, who stupidly went to war for a woman. In consequence, Rhaegal is aggressive enough but not the worst of them, moreover he comes linked to rightful heir to the Iron Throne as well as a warring conflict involving Targaryans. What’s more important is that Danerys and Rhaegal have a borderline antagonist relationship. On one hand, Rhaegal hurts Danerys with his claws on her shoulder, he doesn’t like how “she” smells, he doesn’t like to be touched by her as he bits her hand and raises his wings in warning, he reacts badly to her presence while a captive roaring and belching fire in her direction. On the other hand, Danerys hits him once when he wishes to eat more, that she considers being greedy since he wants more than what he should be “allowed”. If Danerys is harmed or eaten by a dragon in the aftermath of a Targaryan conflict, then Rhaegal is the most likely to do it.

(AERION + AERYS) TARGARYAN - The Burning of King’s Landing

JOFFREY: Over there in that urn, the ashes of Aerion Targaryen. Aerion Brightflame they called him. He thought drinking wildfire would turn him into a dragon. He was wrong. And, of course, there’s the Mad King, killed by my uncle. Would you like to see where the last Targaryens are buried?

In S02E04 - Garden of Bones, Danerys found out about Qarth after journeying through the Red Waste and then goes there, but she isn’t allowed to enter at first unless the Thirteen see the dragons. She threatens that once the dragons are grown, she will take what was “stolen” from her with fire and blood and she will destroy those that have wronged her, together they will lay waste to armies and burn cities to the ground, so if Qarth doesn’t allow them in then they’ll burn first. These two scenes are followed by Arya arriving at Harrenhal, a castle which was burned to the ground by Aegon Targaryan due to not being allowed in, and witnessing the horrible consequences of war.

In S02E05 - The Ghost of Harrenhal, there is foreshadowing that Danerys will burn King’s Landing with dragonfire and wildfire alike. Tyrion and Bronn talk to a pyromancer about the properties of wildfire. Bronn isn’t convinced about the effectiveness of wildfire in battle because he believes that with just one mistake and the whole city catches on fire. However, Tyrion is tempted and instructs the pyromancer to make wildfire for him from then on instead of for Cersei. This scene is followed by Danerys in Qarth teaching Drogon (this specific dragon) how to breathe fire and burn things on command.

In S03E05 - Kissed by Fire, there is foreshadowing that since Danerys believes that her magic is the strongest due to already having survived Drogo’s funeral pyre, she’d think the same when she decides to burn King’s Landing. Jaime explains to Brienne that Aerys thought that burning King’s Landing was a great idea since he believed he could survive the fire by transforming into a dragon that would turn his enemies to ash. In the books, Jaime mentions that Aerys meant to transform the city into a funeral pyre and that like Aerion Brightflame, he’d simply transform into a dragon. Danerys too is under the delusion that she’s either fireproof or that her magic would allow her to survive unscathed, even though the author has said no to either, so the very least she’d have the same belief as Aerion and Aerys that she wouldn’t die by dragonfire or wildfire.

THE PRICE OF GREATNESS

JOFFREY: My father didn’t want them here. He was going to have their bodies burned and thrown in the Blackwater, but the High Septon convinced him otherwise. MARGAERY: I’m glad he did. I’m sorry, Your Grace. I know they did terrible things at the end, but their ancestors built this. Sometimes severity is the price we pay for greatness.

Margaery mentions that severity is a price for greatness and Danerys may be delusional enough to believe that burning King’s Landing is the price to pay for greatness as well. In ACOK # 26 Danerys #2, this is exactly Danerys’ state of mind. She doesn’t want to reduce King’s Landing to a black ruin and she wants to make a beautiful kingdom, where the people look at her the way they looked at her father (if that’s not foreshadowing I don’t know what is) but first she must conquer it and if that means being destroyed by the dothraki then so be it. In _S05E09 - The Dance of Dragons _(again, if that’s not foreshadowing…) this talk was adapted loosely, Danerys tells Hizdhar that she’d turn a city to ashes if she thought that was necessary, that it won’t matter how many people die since they’d die for what she believes are good reasons.

The camera-work for Margaery’s comment is also the tilted angle shot meant to suggest something bad, they’re in the Sept of Baelor that Cersei later blows up with wildfire. Furthermore, Danerys would both be destroying King’s Landing which her ancestors built, erasing the symbol of the Targaryans’ tyrannical reign. If the Iron Thrones goes with it Danerys would even unwittingly fulfil the dumb promise of breaking the wheel because that’s exactly what that stupid ugly chair represents, the great houses in power playing the game of thrones so they can sit on it. Moreover, the Targaryans’ reign begun with fire and blood and ends with fire and blood, as a result of their own power-hungry ambitions, which also parallels the fall of Old Valyria.

IN CONCLUSION…

On one hand, Joffrey’s words that Rhaenyra was killed by her brother’s dragon, eating her while her son watched can be fulfilled. Danerys would be eaten by Rhaegal literally or metaphorical. In the former case, Danerys would be eaten by Rhaegal, which is her brother’s dragon as she named him after Rhaegar, while her son watches since she considers the dragons her children. While I would love this, what’s likelier is that this is meant metaphorically. The eating is simply defeated in battle, therefore Danerys will be defeated in battle by Jon Snow, since he’s her brother’s dragon (or even killed by Arya), while Rhaegal and/or Drogon watches since she considers the dragons her children.

On the other hand, Joffrey’s words that Aerion and Aerys thought they couldn’t be killed by wildfire but then being wrong can also be fulfilled. If Danerys’ loses the war, she may feel the same as her father did, that she’d rather burn King’s Landing that let it fall to the traitors. Furthermore, since Danerys is under the delusion she’s special and fireproof since she hatched the dragons in Drogo’s funeral pyre, she may believe in something similar to how Aerion and Aerys felt, that they could be reborn into a dragon if they make King’s Landing into the greatest funeral pyre of them all. Danerys may really die by burning in the explosion and her remains shall be “buried” in King’s Landing like Rhaenyra and her ashes strewn across Blackwater Bay like Robert wished to do. Or Danerys may even be right and survive, she’d live as an eldritch abomination and be killed shortly after by Arya Stark with Bran Stark’s help.

[B] DRAGON IS FIRE MADE FLESH AND FIRE IS POWER

Danerys goes through the gate to come beyond the Wall, during heavy snowstorm. She sees something in the distance and walks there.

Danerys walking out of the Wall’s gate is cinematically framed the same way as the rangers leaving for beyond the Wall in the very first scene of the show, in S01E01 - Winter is Coming. This foreshadows that Danerys will go North to fight the Night King and the Others, since that’s what Waymar Royce, Gared and Will encountered in their equivalent scene (this is confirmed at the end of season 7, Danerys goes North “convinced” by Jon Snow). [B] In hindsight, this represents the Song of Ice and Fire.

The camera-work makes Danerys look very “white” and along the fate of the Night’s Watch group foreshadows that she’ll lose badly against the Night King and the White Walkers. She’ll lose about 2/3 of her forces, since both Waymar and Gared died as well, and she’ll run away from the confrontation, just as Will got away (then Arya / Bran will pass the sentence and will swing the sword) If this is true, it’s worth noticing that 2/3 of the Night’s Watch brothers match with the dragons’ fates (Waymar = Viserion, Will = Drogon), that may suggest that Rhaegal’s fate might be to die in this war.

[CONFIRMED] (8x1): Jon bonded with Rhaegal, therefore Danerys lost this dragon (it didn’t die, but changed allegiance). (8x3) Danerys and her forces were reket by the Night King and unlimited company, she lost a good chunk of her Unsullied and the entirety of the Dothraki fighting in the Battle againt the Army of the Dead (actually, well above 2/3).

[B1] The War on Westeros (Battle of Ice)

Danerys comes closer to whatever she saw in the distance, it’s a tent and once she enters it, she finds Drogo and Rhaego inside.

The design of this tent matches with the one she shared with Drogo throughout season 1. In the show, this tent represents Danerys’ “journey” of hatching the dragons, because [1] the entirety of it happens inside of it except for [2] the hatching proper. [1] In S01E02 - The Kingsroad, Danerys is having "harsh sex” with Drogo, so she takes comfort in starting at the eggs. Later, Doreah tells Danerys the story about the sun coming too close to the moon, making it crack from the heat and from it came the dragons (pregnancy and birth allegory). In S01E03 - Lord Snow, Danerys finds out she’s pregnant and later tells Drogo about it. In S01E06 - A Golden Crown, Danerys tries to hatch the eggs over a brazier. In S01E09 - Baelor, Danerys unwittingly sacrifices Rhaego and in S01E10 - Fire and Blood, Danerys mercy kills Drogo and [2] hatches the dragons in the funeral pyre by using three lives in return.

Danerys “magic” is actually bloodmagic, she hatched the dragons and survived the funeral pyre (as well as Vaes Dothrak), because she killed people in return. However, the Night King and the White Walkers magic is also bloodmagic, they create more White Walkers by using human sacrifices. This vision is a direct parallel between Danerys + dragons and the Night King + White Walkers, they both sacrifice human lives to create ice/fire elemental creatures through evil bloodmagic. Danerys + dragons is represented by the dothraki tent and both Drogo and Rhaego, while the Night King + White Walker is represented by it being beyond the Wall during a heavy snowstorm, characteristic of the Night Lands and the Long Night. Therefore, if Danerys + dragons are saviours then so are the Night King + White Walkers… or the contrary, if the Night KIng + White Walkers are a threat to humanity then so are Danerys + dragons.

This parallel between Danerys + dragons and the Night King + White Walkers is reflected in the visual coding of both creation ceremonies as well. [1] Drogo’s funeral pyre where Danerys hatches the dragons with bloodmagic resembles the Heart of Winter where the Night King’s converts Craster’s sons into White Walkers with bloodmagic. The colour-coding and the elemental pairing of a red fire-themed ceremony versus a blue ice-themed ceremony, the steps are even the same since both Danerys and the Night King walk towards the centre where the sacrifices are. [2] It’s repeated in this vision, since the House of Undying’s stone vault chamber where Danerys finds the dragons visually resembles the Heart of Winter where the Night King finds Craster’s son, they both have the same number of “doors” and a plinth with the fire/ice creature in the middle. [3] It’s repeated later in Bran’s prophetic visions, which always couple Danerys hatching the dragons with the Night King hatching creating the White Walkers.

[B2] Wake the Dragon - Mother of Dragons

Danerys has some dumb talk with Drogo which I have no patience for. She’s tempted to stay with them but she hears the dragons screeches, so she leaves them behind. She returns to the stone vault chamber where she finds the dragons upon the plinth.

This foreshadows that in consequence of the war against Night King and the White Walkers, Danerys will be forced to choose between the people (mother of people) and the dragons (mother of dragons), and she’ll choose the dragons. This duality between mother of people and mother of dragons is something intrinsic to her character story arc and it’s narratively forbidden for Danerys to be both since dragons are destructive forces. Since Danerys’ story arc is very repetitive, this is a choice that she does several times, but the major ones are made during _AGOT _/ season 1 and ASOS-ADWD / season 3-4-5, with Danerys always choosing the dragons. It’s best illustrated when Danerys decides to be the mother of people by chaining the dragons because Drogon burned a child named Hazzeah, but later Danerys decides to be the mother of dragons and let them roam free, she forgets the child’s name and embraces the Targaryan legacy of fire and blood. She’s fated to make that choice once more, but this time there won’t be narrative mercy, and she’ll be outed as a threat to humanity as much as the Night King + White Walkers were.

In the show, the House of the Undying frames this conflict as a redux of season 1. Danerys as the mother of the people is represented by Drogon and Rhaego, which she rejects by leaving both behind, much like she sacrificed these two for power in this very same tent so long ago. Danerys as the mother of dragons is represented by the dragons screeches which is the reason why she steps outside the tent to return to the stone vault chamber where she finds them atop the stone plinth, much like she lighted the funeral pyre where she hatched the eggs and found the dragons. Just in this case, because of how allegorical it is, I’ll mention the books’ counterpart as a complement)

In the books, Danerys also sees this "summary” in the final segment of House of Undying visions, as a redux of AGOT endgame (”Shadows whirled and danced inside a tent, boneless and terrible. A little girl ran barefoot toward a big house with a red door. Mirri Maz Duur shrieked in the flames, a dragon bursting from her brow.”). It’s followed by a premonition of TWOW endgame (the wine-seller, the white lion, the crones) and the ADOS endgame (the slaves, the undying, and the dragon). The last one is especially spiffy, the slaves are representative of Danerys as “mhysa” or the mother of people (in the show, Drogo and Rhaego) and the dragon (it’s not even named) rejecting such a thing and setting everything on fire are representative of Danerys as mother of dragons, plus the slaves being UNDEAD BLUE CREATURES foreshadow the Others and Danerys running away from them foreshadows her leaving the fight.

The framing here has three important details. [1] Danerys literally leaves a lover and a family behind, which suggests that stupid fake romance she has with Jon Snow won’t be enough to sway her and/or them being family won’t sway her either. [2] The camera-work is the same as the one when Danerys leaves the destroyed Iron Throne room covered in snow, she’s shrouded in shadow, which frames this decision as very negative.

[HOLD] (8x3), Danerys flees the fight even if she comes back later, foreshadowing she’ll most likely do it again.

[THE SAME STORY] Wake the Dragon - You knew the price.

Danerys may say she loves the dragons all she wants and I even believe that she’s crazy enough to believe that in part, but the reality is that_** the dragons are the power that allows her power-hungry warmonging to be fulfilled**_. In S01E07 - You Win or You Die, Danerys attempts to convince Drogo to invade Westeros, she even betrays her real intentions by saying the Iron Throne is a chair that a QUEEN can sit on. Later, Danerys asks Jorah to help her convince Drogo because her brother was the rightful heir to the Iron Throne (her brother is dead, so she disguises it better here, but she means herself), to which Jorah says that Aegon had no right to anything and he seized the Seven Kingdoms because he could, to which she answers and because he had dragons.

In S02E09 - Baelor, Danerys being power-hungry and obsessed with the Iron Throne is the reason why she was “tricked” by Mirri Maz Duur into sacrificing Rhaego (really, it’s not her fault, she warned not to enter the tent). When Jorah realised that Drogo was going to die, he told Danerys specifically that they should run away because once he croaked for good, the dothraki would fight amongst themselves and whoever won would kill Rhaego. Even though Danerys knows this, she’s very adamant that she won’t leave Drogo, because he’s her ticket to reclaiming the Iron Throne (this is more obvious in the books). Even back then, Danerys already put her power-hungry ambitions (mother of dragons) over the safety of her child (mother of people), this will not change after spending so long obsessing about it and coming so close to obtaining it.

Danerys’ storyline is really very repetitive, this comes up again and again and again. In S02E05 - The Ghost of Harrenhal, Quaithe highlights that dragons are power. Later, Danerys says she wants the Seven Kingdoms and after some bad feinting by mentioning the dothraki (mother of people), she admits wanting the Seven Kingdoms because they belong to her and Xaro classifies her as an ambitious conqueror (mother of dragons). In S02E06 - The Old Gods and the New, Danerys tells the Spice King that she’ll take what is hers with fire and blood. Later, Danerys complains about being snubbed while Xaro advises her that climbing to power isn’t pure and honourable. In S02E07 - A Man Without Honour, Danerys says the dragons are the most valuable thing in the world. Together, this foreshadows the same as season 1, Danerys wants the Seven Kingdoms since they belong to her and she’ll do it in ignoble ways.

[THE SAME STORY] Wake the Dragon - Azor Ahai

THOROS OF MYR: "Man once again faces the war for the dawn, which has been waged since time began. On one side is the Lord of Light, the Heart of Fire, the God of Flame and Shadow. Against him stands the Great Other, whose name may not be spoken. The Lord of Darkness, the Soul of Ice, the God of Night and Terror.”

Histories & Lore - The Lord of Light

This bloodmagic shtick is also explored through Stannis when he’s pandering to Melisandre and the R’hllor cult, where he gave in to dreadful demands more and more. Stannis started “little” by sacrificing Renly’s life when his little brother tried to usurp him, then wanted to sacrifice his bastard nephew’s life but was denied since Davos freed him, then sacrificed some “traitor” bannermen and some of his wife’s relatives. However, the culmination of Stannis’ storyline was being convinced by Melisandre that he needed to sacrifice his dear daughter Shireen to win the war against the Boltons, which was necessary for the war against the Army of the Dead. Stannis is motivated by unrelenting duty while Danerys is motivated by obsessive ambition, but they share fire bloodmagic thematic through the concept of Azor Ahai.

There is a dualistic religion opposing R’hllor, or Lord of Light, which is a deity of fire and light, and the Great Other, which is a deity of cold and darkness. The followers of the former believe that Azor Ahai is a prophetised saviour that shall combat the latter’s champion. It’s a natural conclusion to associate the former with fire magic, represented by Danerys and the dragons, and the latter is ice magic, represented by Night King and Others. Therefore this the eponymous “A song of Ice and Fire” allowed with bloodmagic being portrayed as bad as well as Stannis pandering to Melisandre being framed as horrific and tragic, cinches the deal for sure. Neither R’hllor or the Great Other is either “good” or “evil”, they are destructive against humanity and that’s all.

THOROS OF MYR: According to prophecy, our champion will be reborn to wake dragons from stone and reforge the great sword Lightbringer that defeated the darkness those thousands of years ago. If the old tales are true, a terrible weapon forged with a loving wife’s heart. Part of me thinks man was well rid of it, but great power requires great sacrifice. That much at least the Lord of Light is clear on.

Histories & Lore - The Lord of Light

Melisandre convinces Stannis that he’s Azor Ahai and he “fulfils some of the requirements in a fake way,. However, it’s Danerys who is Azor Ahai as she fulfils all them in a real way. She was reborn in Drogo’s funeral pyre as the mother dragons, she hatched the dragons out of stone eggs and later become Drogon’s personal mount when he was the dragon whose life she paid with her husband’s life sacrifice. She did this when the long summer ended and autumn began, as the dead started raising in the north and winter crept from beyond the Wall. Azor Ahai is no hero, he’s simply the champion chosen by R’hllor and the Night King as the champion chosen by the Great Other. Furthermore, Stannis while pandering to Melisandre portrayed Azor Ahai as a dreadful figure, even Thoros of Myr narrating the story of his religion characterises Lightbringer (the dragons) as a terrible weapon. Therefore Danerys and the dragons are as much saviour as the Night King and the White Walkers, which is to say they’re not saviours but awful things that humanity must fight to survive (ETA: partly confirmed in 8x3, Danerys and the dragons were useless in the Battle against the Army of the Dead).

WELCOME HOME, DANERYS STORMBORN

Danerys returns to the stone vault chamber and sees the dragons over the stone plinth this time around, they call for her and she approaches them. Suddenly Pyat Pree shows up and explains that magic returned to the world because the dragons were reborn, then reveals that his objective is to trap Danerys to keep magic alive.

This is pretty straightforward, though an exaggeration. There was still magic in the world before the dragons hatched, it’s just that it’s so little it’s borderline negligible. However, magic received a massive boost when dragons returned and like Pyat Pree explains, they get stronger by being close to Danerys and this means magic also gets stronger. This brings a pertinent question since the Night King and the White Walkers are also magic, either they have become stronger because of the [1] dragons’ magic or [2] fight the dragons’ magic. Moreover, what would happen to the Night King and the White Walkers if the dragons simply disappeared? This may foreshadow that Danerys may be forced to choose between protecting humanity by destroying the dragons or protecting the dragons by ETA: abandoning the fight in the North abandoning her “saviour” façade.

Pyat Pree shackles Danerys in hopes of trapping her in the House of Undying forever and declares that as her home now. Danerys says that her home is across the Narrow Sea where the people are waiting for her. She then orders the dragons to burn Pyat Pree and she’s freed.

This is supposed to be good dialogue, but it’s actually quite “bad”. Pyat Pree’s welcoming her home and Danerys being in ecstasy while burning him is literally chewing the scenery there. [1] It’s a forced reference because nobody would even say that in such a scenario. [2] The concept of home (in the books, also the house with the red door) is pretty major in Danerys POV, she wishes to go home and talks about the red door a lot. [3] It actually makes no sense as Danerys knows that there are no people waiting for her, she has even said it. [4] Danerys looks really extra, like she’s going through some transcending nonsense. > Regardless and together this foreshadows is that Danerys shall come home (King’s Landing)… and burn it in odd ecstasy.

[THE SAME STORY] Home

In the show, ‘home’ is used in Danerys scenes for dialogue that is always quite consistent in five major themes: [1] the conquering Westeros with dragons and dothraki, [2] a betrayal that she’ll seek vengeance for, [3] embracing Targaryan legacy of violence, [4] attacking King’s Landing with fire, [5] the usurping of the rightful heir to the Iron Throne. These basically fit with the five major themes that Danerys’ visions at the House of the Undying as well as Bran’s prophetic visions allude to.

[1&5] Home is conquering Westeros with dragons and ETA: dothraki the Stallion that Mounts the World (Danerys + Drogo = Rhaego = Danerys + Drogon), as well as usurping the rightful heir to the Iron Throne.

In S01E01 - Winter is Coming, Danerys tells Viserys she doesn’t want to marry Drogo and that she wants to go home, but Viserys tells her that they can only go home with her future husband’s army. In S01E04 - Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things, Danerys says that despite Viserys being the rightful heir, he doesn’t have the capacity to take them home, one of the reasons why she feels justifyed in usurping him. In S01E07 - You Win or You Die, Danerys tries to convince Drogo to invade Westeros and seize the throne for their child, then reveals her true intentions by saying she wants to be the one to sit on it. Later, Danerys asks Jorah to convince Drogo to ride to Westeros, that Viserys was the rightful heir therefore she’s that now, but Jorah counters that Aegon had no right to the Seven Kingdoms and that he seized them because he could, then she says because he had dragons and Jorah says that they help yes. In S0205 - The Ghost of Harrenhal, Danerys says she wants the Seven Kingdoms because she promised her khalasar that she’d find them a safe home, Xaros mocks her and she admits she wants the Seven Kingdoms because they’re hers, to which he classifies her as an ambitious conqueror.

[2] Home is a betrayal of some sort that Danerys will feel justified in avenging with extreme violence.

In S01E07 - You Win or You Die, a wine seller offers special wine to Danerys and assures her that many pray for her return, to which she answers she hopes one day to return the “kindness” (if that’s not foreshadowing, I don’t know what is), but this is actually an assassination attempt. In S06E09 - The Battle of Bastards, Razdhal makes an off-coment about Danerys could have left for home with a fleet of ships, but choose wrongly. These may feel like sketchy, but in the books ’home’ frequently comes along betrayal and ships (and not just to sail to Westeros), so I’m including it. It’s also worth mentioning that Danerys usurping Viserys as the rightful heir to the Iron Throne also fits here, she betrayed him as well (at least, her hallucinations seem to think so).

[3] Home is being the mother of dragons over the mother of people, therefore embracing the Targaryan legacy of fire and blood.

In S05E10 - Mother’s Mercy, Danerys is with Drogon in the Dothraki sea, she attempts to make him fly them back to Meereen her people need her, but he refuses to do it and throws her off. This encompasses Danerys’ character conflict well, there’s the mother of dragons, represented by Drogon who flied away from Mereen, and the mother of people, represented by Danerys as queen who believes the people need her who wishes to fly back to Meereen. Since the “mother of dragons” side (Drogon) doesn’t care about the people, it rejects the “mother of people (Danerys as queen). This is so unsubtle, Danerys climbs the wrong way and sits backwards, so the mother counterparts are literally facing completely opposite directions.

[4] Home is burning King’s Landing.

In S06E09 - The Battle of Bastards, Danerys promises to crucify every master, burn their fleets and kill every soldier, and turn their cities to the dirt. Tyrion "dissuades” her by revealing that her father Aerys would have burned King’s Landing with wildfire if Jaime hadn’t stopped him. In S07E02 - Stormborn, Danerys says that Dragonstone doesn’t feel like home and wishes to leave. They discuss battle plans and Danerys says that if Viserys had dragons he’d already gone to King’s Landing and burn it to the ground (doubtful), but Tyrion dissuades her by reminding her that she doesn’t want to be like her father the Queen of Ashes. In S07E04 - The Spoils of War, Danerys is informed that she has lost every battle and she threatens to take her three dragons to burn King’s Landing. She’s only dissuaded by Jon telling her that arsonist lizards aren’t his type this would make her worse the same as Cersei Lannister.

[THE SAME STORY] Home in the books.

In the books, this is even more obvious, because every time Danerys mentions and/or thinks of home, she thinks along the other subjects as well In the show, special care has been made into establishing [1] [4] [5] but not really [2] [3] which are waaay more pronounced in the books (including that “odd” insistence with ships > which foreshadow a final alliance with Euron Greyjoy). I’ve selected the most straighforward from each book, but I can assure you every single one fits. It’s quite fun finding them all, especially the ones with flowery language.

    “What do you pray for, Ser Jorah?” she asked him.     “Home,” he said. His voice was thick with longing.     “I pray for home too,” she told him, believing it.     Ser Jorah laughed. “Look around you then, Khaleesi.” But it was not the plains Dany saw then. It was King’s Landing and the great Red Keep that Aegon the Conqueror had built. It was Dragonstone where she had been born. In her mind’s eye they burned with a thousand lights, a fire blazing in every window. In her mind’s eye, all the doors were red.

---- AGOT #23 Danerys #3

    The thought of home disquieted her. If her sun-and-stars had lived, he would have led his khalasar across the poison water and swept away her enemies, but his strength had left the world. Her bloodriders remained, sworn to her for life and skilled in slaughter, but only in the ways of the horselords. The Dothraki sacked cities and plundered kingdoms, they did not rule them. Dany had no wish to reduce King’s Landing to a blackened ruin full of unquiet ghosts. She had supped enough on tears. I want to make my kingdom beautiful, to fill it with fat men and pretty maids and laughing children. I want my people to smile when they see me ride by, the way Viserys said they smiled for my father.

---- ACOK #23 Danerys #3

    “My city,” said Dany. “I was looking for a house with a red door, but by night all the doors are black.”     “A red door?” Missandei was puzzled. “What house is this?” “No house. It does not matter.” Dany took the younger girl by the hand. “Never lie to me, Missandei. Never betray me.”

---- ASOS #71 Danerys #6

     It was good counsel. "Yes, make it so.” Westeros. Home. But if she left, what would happen to her city? Meereen was never your city, her brother’s voice seemed to whisper. Your cities are across the sea. Your Seven Kingdoms, where your enemies await you. You were born to serve them blood and fire.

---- ADWD #16 Danerys #3

[makistar2018]

10 Years Later, Taylor Swift’s ‘Fearless’ Still Slaps

When it was released in 2008, Swift’s sophomore album launched a thousand takes. Today, it’s best remembered as a simple time capsule

By LAUREN M. JACKSON November 12, 2018

Taylor Swift during the "Fearless" tour at Madison Square Garden on August 27, 2009 in New York City.

Theo Wargo/WireImage for New York Post

Like Propel water, The Scarlet Letter and mechanical pencils, Taylor Swift’s Fearless pairs well with the sporadic squeak of team-issued sneakers, overpriced hot lunches and the kind of angst that defines comfortably suburb-bound teenage years. Sliding open the album on Spotify with my iPhone 8, I can still feel my limbs stretched in all directions, hear the snap-crackle-pop of a dozen adolescent girls’ joints going through the motions of yet another warm-up to what would become the soundtrack of my high school varsity dance team’s inner and outer lives, as well as leave poptimism forever changed.

I am 27 now, still anxious but inflexible, no longer clinging (as) tightly to singular albums to tell the emotional landscape of my life — but back then, Fearless was god. Swift was barely into legal teenagedom when compiling her sophomore album’s original 13 tracks, but more than the happenstance near-synonymy of our ages (I’m younger by 1 year, 6 months, 27 days), the four-walled, high school claustrophobia induced by the album is a matter of skilled musical mood setting. From the first downbeat of the inaugural title track to the last flippantly rebellious “hallelujah” on “Change,” Swift traps us in the mind of an ungainly teen as she was once trapped, as I was, as so many others wading the ambiguity between comportment and desire that doesn’t quite end when gowns come on and caps fly up.

Like so many notebook pages on the golden screen, Fearless is filled with boys. Stans and haters have their theories, but I like to think of each song as an archetype, less true stories of relationships gone sour than a young woman’s true to life hetero-ethnography. There are the boys who do good — the “Fearless,” “Love Story,” “Hey Stephen,” “The Best Day” boys (the last a tribute to Dad) — the boys who nurture and love intensely. They do all the usual country boy things, all the usual cinematic things: driving slow, kissing in the rain, flouting archaic inter-familial squabbles. They honor their promises and, most of all, leave the narrator better changed for her affection.

These boys who do good are short-lived. By Track 2, “Fifteen,” we’re already checking in to Heartbreak Hotel for the upteenth time with an account of that age generic enough to warrant a fan-made montage of clips from Degrassi: The Next Generation. The song tells an allegedly universal story of freshman year woes, complete with riding in cars with senior boys who also play football (because of course). It’s saccharine, sung in the vernacular of normative coupling that would become Swift’s enemy in the gossip pages. But the limited lexicon is not necessarily untruthful. “Fifteen” has aged about as well as anyone would expect, but some of those refrains make me yearn for arms long enough to slap all the powers that be responsible for belittling the whims of young girls. And according to the greater duration of Fearless — tracks like “White Horse,” “Breathe,” “Tell Me Why,” “You’re Not Sorry,” “The Way I Loved You,” and “Forever & Always” — the greatest threat to the happiness of teen girls are boys.

November 2008 looks rosy from here. America had just elected its first black president, the man who promised too much hope and change to possibly be true, but faith felt good back then. Men had committed just five mass shootings over the past year with one more on the way in December (2018 has 307 mass shootings to its name so far). The nation boasted just under 150 recognized active white supremacist groups (that number would climb to over 1,000 during Obama’s presidency). Global finance was in crisis but cable networks were still winning Emmys. Amy Winehouse was alive. Kanye still made sense and a bright-eyed, hair-tousled new country darling was exclusively concerned with dating, rather than local politics. 

Like any celebrity who is also a woman, but also in a lane quite her own, Swift’s relation to mainstream feminism wanes and waxes with the season. A female artist beloved by the girls for whom her songs are written, Swift and her music are therefore more scrutinized, more rigorously excavated for signs of harmful messaging than her male singer-songwriter peers. Fearless frayed Swift’s reputation in a way that wouldn’t let up for years, if ever, largely because of its critical success. Swift took home four Grammys at the 2010 awards, including Album of the Year, beating the Dave Matthews Band’s Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King, The Black Eyed Peas’ The E.N.D., Beyoncé’s I Am… Sasha Fierceand, most egregiously, Lady Gaga’s debut studio album, The Fame. The perceived slight invited robust inquiry into this supposed album of the year, and the aesthetic discrepancy between the two quickly turned to politics. 

Autostraddle’s Riese called Swift “a feminist’s nightmare,” the enemy of “brave, creative, inventive, envelope-pushing little monsters” everywhere. An accompanying infographic, “a symbolic analysis” of Swift’s works to date, cataloged her most damning motifs, including “virginal” imagery, “the stars,” “crying,” and the 2AM hour. At Jezebel, Dodai Stewart agreed that Gaga was the rightful winner, speculating that in a race between “Gaga the liberal versus Taylor the conservative,” the latter “makes the Academy feel more comfortable.” One joy of pop culture is the revelation of how melodramatically things can change. Last month, Swift announced her endorsement of Tennessee Democrats Phil Bredesen and Jim Cooper for the midterm elections; meanwhile, Lady Gaga hews the path of glamorous respectability on her lengthy A Star Is Born Oscar campaign. 

Feminist readings of Fearless weren’t wrong, exactly. Allies on the album come in strictly male form, while other girls are competition for Swift’s persecuted first person. Even the red-headed bestie Abigail becomes a lesson in chastity, losing her virginity — “everything”! —to the boy who broke her heart (the foil to Swift’s main character, whose dreams of living in a big ole city protect her from such a fate). The charting single “You Belong With Me” is a bouncy jaunt through the valley of me versus those other girls. The video that won Best Female Video at the MTV Video Music Awards over Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” — to seismic effect — stars Swift as both the frizzy blonde, bespectacled weirdo in band and the sleek brunette cheerleader with the man (Lucas Till who now plays MacGyver on CBS). In true romantic comedy fashion, Good Swift, clothed in white, ends up with the guy in the end, defeating Bad Swift, whose only crimes it seems are great taste in footwear and not appreciating her high school boyfriend’s likely moronic sense of humor. Both the song and video became emblematic of a kind of Swiftian all-for-one girl power. Her 2017 video for “Look What You Made Me Do” resurrects and buries all sorts of Swiftisms, including the iconography of the uncool girl who features so heavily in the Fearless-era of her oeuvre. 

Pop music exists not to elevate our souls or our politics, but to safely wade in the muck of our pettiest appetites, whether they come with trap drums or in serenades. Pop music deserves interrogation, but it will never exceed us. Fearless was a diary, sounding like the selfishness that bubbles up regardless of one’s intellectual or political guards against it.  The debate it ignited wouldn’t happen were it released today, amidst all this. It’s a relic of a time when determining exactly what an album meant, culturally and aesthetically, was a crucial discussion to have in public, when nuance had stakes. Compared to the basic moral tenets we now expend so much of our energy defending, such communal acts of criticism feel small and regretfully scarce. Fearless was a moment, now relegated to a time capsule, no longer a prompt.   

Rolling Stone

[supergrossie]

The Beautiful and Damned :: Book One, Chapter 2

Regretfully, I couldn’t read nor transcribe yesterday, having gone tete-a-tete with my dentist lady and then having to resort to painkillers afterwards. But today! And oh, what a chapter this has been.

To expound further on Fitzgerald’s abilities of description, I must talk about Gloria. In the sub-dividing chapters preceding the one titled The Beautiful Lady, much is spoken of Gloria by others around her, for her, and on behalf of her. This undoubtedly builds suspense in the reader anticipating her and Anthony’s first meeting (and of course, knowing as most of us know that they are to marry later, a double curiosity). In revealing her at last in this chapter, Fitzgerald peels back the layers of her ever so gradually, in fragments of dialogue with one or two sentences trailing after them, dropping hints at her likeness and character. This graduality and sparseness is in such contrast, again, to the writers of today, who prefer to introduce to us a character in one big, hefty block of description. 

One could argue that such a big, hefty block can often be dismissed or forgotten, and put in the back of the mind as inconsequential. But sprinkled around the action tactically like this, as she enters Anthony’s apartment, hands over to him her fur, and begins remarking on the decor of the place — Gloria becomes immediately a living thing. Hell, he doesn’t even mention that her hair is blonde until much later. (I for some reason interpreted her as a rich brunette, or deep russet, though this too is minor, inconsequential details when considering Gloria. Details which many contemporary writers hold of the utmost importance. But I digress—)

In describing her, Fitzgerald is indeed sparse, never weighing down the readers with many hefty and on-the-nose specifics authors often rely upon. And yet, I see Gloria as clearly as one would see her in a scene of a movie, for these sparse commentaries, made like brushstrokes on a painting upon her likeness and character, paint the most striking and vivid portrait of Gloria one could ever hope for.

Consider this:

On a photograph she must have been completely classical, almost cold — but the glow of her hair and cheeks, at once flushed and fragile, made her the most living person he had ever seen.

“The most living person” is quite the quote, don’t you think? A beautiful punchline, at any rate. Here’s another most excellent description, relying once again not on the physicals, but speaking on temperament and character:

Carefully, Gloria considered several locations and, rather to Anthony’s annoyance, paraded him circuitously to a table for two at the far side of the room. Reaching it, she again considered. Would she sit on the right or on the left? Her beautiful eyes and lips were very grave as she made her choice, and Anthony thought again how naive was her every gesture; she took all the things of life for hers to choose from and apportion, as though she were continually picking out presents for herself from an inexhaustible counter.

Immediately tells you the kind of person Gloria is, doesn’t it? It’s uncanny.

And thus ends most of my technical analysis, now into the silly. I did mention at the start, how I saw myself in Gloria. Well, here are the forgotten fragments that basically make me Gloria:

“I wish you’d tell me how old you are.” “Twenty-two,” she said, meeting his eyes gravely. “How old did you think?” “About eighteen.”  “I’m going to start being that. I don’t like being twenty-two. I hate it more than anything in the world.” “Being twenty-two?” “No. Getting old and everything. Getting married.” “Don’t you ever want to marry?” “I don’t want to have responsibility and a lot of children to take care of.”

(I’ve had this exchange verbatim with a friend of mine once. Although I was 20 at the time telling her that I would thenceforth consider myself 16 because I could. Minor differences. ) 

Here’s another:

“I just think of people,” she continued, “whether they seem right where they are and fit into the picture. I don’t mind if they don’t do anything. I don’t see why they should; in fact it always astonishes me when anybody does anything.”

“You don’t want to do anything?”

“I want to sleep.”

I relate to that so damn hard, I’m earnestly considering getting ‘I want to sleep’ tattooed on me. No joke.

There’s an observation about authors Fitzgerald makes that is rather poignant on page 36, and a funny one on getting old on page 38, but this is turning less into analysis now and more ‘look at this bit that I found amusing’, so I shall spare you rehashing those parts for the sake of brevity.

There is one part towards the end I want to talk about though, and it imbues that magical quality Fitzgerald takes on every once in a while, his words so cinematic as to bring forth that scene to you like you were simply watching a movie. (honestly, who needs film versions of Fitzgerald novels when there are simply the novels themselves?!) It’s this magic neither-here-nor-there quality, of a world beyond ours, something fantastical bordering on the supernatural — like the green light in Gatsby or the eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg. A passage hypnotising as it lulls you into a trance you don’t even realize. The effect is slightly lost without having read the preceding, but listen to this:

“Do you object to this?” enquired Anthony.

Gloria’s face warmed, and for the first time that evening she smiled.

“I love it,” she said frankly. It was impossible to doubt her. Her grey eyes roved here and there, drowsing, idle or alert, on each group, passing to the next with unconcealed enjoyment, and to Anthony were made plain the different values of her profile, the wonderfully alive expressions of her mouth, and the authentic distinction of face and form and manner that made her like a single flower amidst a collection of cheap bric-a-brac. At her happiness, a gorgeous sentiment welled into his eyes, choked him up, set his nerves a-tingle, and filled his throat with husky and vibrant emotion. There was a hush upon the room. The careless violins and saxophones, the shrill rasping complaint of a child nearby, the voice of the violet-hatted girl at the next table, all moved slowly out, receded, and fell away like shadowy reflections on the shining floor — and they two, it seemed to him, were alone and infinitely remote, quiet. Surely the freshness of her cheeks was a gossamer projection from a land of delicate and undiscovered shades; her hand gleaming on the stained tablecloth was a shell from some far and wildly virginal sea…

Reading it back now sans context, it’s a bit more difficult to grasp at the power of a passage like this, but leading into it after the description of the cacophonous cabaret hall that came before it, the effect is singular. Everything else fades into background but Anthony and Gloria, and a cinematic spotlight falls onto Gloria. It is pure magic, writing transmuted into a shimmering kind of sorcery that leaves all else around it dull, that is so uniquely Fitzgerald and cements his place among the greats (Hemingway fucking wishes). Oh, but to have one moment like this in my own work, is all I dream of!

[savetopnow]

2018-03-27 05 HOME now

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Apt. 34

I’ve Got A Crush

A Major Milestone & Other Friday Finds

Home Tour: Seriously Luxe Style in Sydney

The Perfect Spring Cocktail Recipe

9 Refined Style Ideas for Spring

Coco Kelly

Now Trending :: Terracotta Tile Floors

The Edit :: A Spring Refresh!

A Mini Office Design Tour & Our Future Studio Plans

Design Destination :: La Serena Villas Boutique Hotel in Palm Springs

House Tour :: A Classic Home With Touches of Modern Romance

Coco Lapine Design

Bright home with strong accents

Peek into our bathroom

Artsy interior

Minna Jones for Blau

Elin Silfvast for Midnatt

Design Sponge

London’s Farm Girl Cafe

Where to Follow Design*Sponge Online (New for 2018)

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Before & After: A 1926 Michigan Home Gets A Modern Refresh

Before & After: A Brooklyn Apartment Gets A Vintage-Inspired Overhaul

Emily Henderson

I Design, You Decide – The ‘Wood Inspired’ Tile …

Budget Room: Library + Den + Guest Room

Mountain Fixer Upper: Let’s Talk Vessel sinks and Wall-Mount faucets

Etsy Finds: Volume I

10 Dinnerware Combos For Every Style

EyeSwoon

A Place to Dream | Allswell

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Cherry Bombe: Issue Nº 10

Elle Magazine: September Issue

Vogue: Cook Beautiful Townhouse Dinner

Lark and Linen

5 Easy Steps to Refresh Your Home For Spring

Scenes from my Week

Mini Egg Milkshakes

DIY Bunny Ears Ice Cream Cones

Behind The Scenes with Jane Denton

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Gala & Dalí

Hand Embroidered shirts by Kilometre Paris

Levi Mandel

Dreamy Mountainscapes by Chih-Hung Kuo

A florist’s bohemian home in Cape Town

My Domaine

This Is the Most Affordable City in Europe (Per a 2018 Financial Analysis)

Queer Eye Season 2 Is Coming to Netflix (Sooner Than You Think)

We Want Everything in Zara Home's Linen Line—Shop It Now (Before It Sells Out)

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Do This to Ace an Interview, Says Chief Brand Officer Mandana Dayani

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How can I modernize my kitchen without messing with my cabinets? (Pics)

Any thoughts on faux windows and potentially how to apply them?

Seeking advice on bathroom layout (new construction).

What are your thoughts on my proposed bedroom layout for my first apartment? Shown is full bed, desk, 46” TV, recliner. Main closet is bottom left and linen closet above it.

Most user-friendly 3D home design program?

Savvy Home

This One Small Change Transformed my Morning Routine

Inside My First (280 Sq. Ft.) New York Apartment

Gab Loves: Black and White

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7 Cinematic Styles that Take Us Back to Another Era

The Biggest Risk of All

On the Other Side of Boredom is Contemplation: How Quietness Can Help Center You

10 Transitional Outfit Ideas to Take You into Spring

WTF is Saturn Return? (It’s More than a No Doubt Album)

[weddquotes]

English Quotes about Love · Movies, Songs, Novels ...

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English Quotes about Love · Movies, Songs, Novels ...

English is the language of Hollywood and its romantic films, great authors of the periods romantic and Victorian as Jane Austen, as well as large love songs, from Elvis to Ed Sheeran. She could well be seen as a serious competitor under language of love !

You may be in love right now and looking for a happy love quote to declare your love to your beloved? Or even a quote of eternal love who will forever be the symbol of your story in the form of a tattoo?

Conversely, maybe do you have the Broken Heart and need a small dose of emotion to revive memories that you cherish with lost love quotes.

Whatever the reason that brought you here, these love quotes in English translated into French will give you the opportunity to learn new idiomatic expressions, will show you the use of wordsand I'm sure you'll fall in love with the English language.

Let's start with some brief love quotes from the classical literature, from Shakespeare to Jane Austen, to J.K. Rowling:

Actually that's my secret – I'm not going to talk about you anybody. "In fact, it's my secret: I can not even talk about you to anyone because I do not want more people to know how wonderful you are. " – F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night

If you are not too long, I will be here for you all my life. "If you do not take too much time, I'll wait here for you all my life. " – Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. "If I loved you less, I could talk more about it. " – Jane Austen, Emma

Morning without you is a dwindled dawn. "One morning without you is a diminished dawn. " – Emily Dickinson, Letters of Emily Dickinson

I love her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be. "I loved him despite the reason, despite the promises, despite the tranquility, despite the hope, despite the happiness, despite all the discouragements that could assail me. " – Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

He's more myself than I am. Some of our souls are made of, and the mine is the same. "He is more me than I am. Whatever our souls are, his and mine are the same. " – Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights (The Highlands of Stormwind)

Love looks with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind. "Love does not see with the eyes, but with the soul; and that's why the Cupid winged is painted blind. " – William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream (Dream of a Summer Night)

It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight. "It had been love at first sight, the fatal blow, love ad vitam eternam. " – Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

Dumbledore watched her fly away, and her eyes flicked back to Snape, and her eyes were full of tears. After all this time? Always, "said Snape. Dumbledore watched her go away and when the officer's light faded, he turned back to Snape, his eyes full of tears. After all this time ? Always, says Snape. " – J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)

The cinema and Hollywood in particular have provided us with fantastic stories of all kinds and, with them, scenes of pure happiness.

If the list of romantic quotes in movies may seem infinite, some of them have become even more famous than the film itself, thanks to the immense talent of the actors who have gave life to these replicas.

We can say that the romantic ideal has been pushed ever further by these great immortal characters. Here are some of these cinematic love quotes which will remain in the annals:

Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh in one of the most famous scenes of the Hollywood classic

You should be kissed by someone who knows how. "You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how. " – Rhett Butler, Gone With the Wind (Gone with the wind) (1939)

Robin Williams inspires a group of teenagers in "Dead Poets Society"

Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. "Medicine, commerce, law, industry are noble pursuits, and are necessary to secure life. But poetry, beauty, love, adventure is in fact why we live. " – John Keating, Dead Poets Society (1989)

Gary Oldman and Winona Ryder in "Dracula"

I have crossed oceans of time to find you. "I crossed oceans of eternity to find you. " – Count Dracula, Dracula (1992)

Tom Hanks and his analysis of human existence in "Forrest Gump"

I miss you, Jenny. If there's anything you need, I will not be far away. "I miss you, Jenny. If you need anything, I will never be very far away. " – Forrest Gump, Forrest Gump (1994)

Leonardo DiCaprio says his last words to Kate Winslet in "Titanic"

Winning that ticket, Rose, was the best thing that ever happened to me … it brought me to you. "Winning this trip, Rose, was the best thing that ever happened to me … it took me to you. " – Jack Dawson, Titanic (1997)

Nicolas Cage on his lost love in "City of Angels"

I would rather have had one breath of her hair, one kiss of her mouth, one touch of her hand, than eternity without it. One. "I'd rather have known a single whiff of the scent of her hair, a single kiss on her lips, a single caress in her hand … than an eternity without her, for a moment. " – Seth, City of Angels (1998)

The very candid moment between Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts in Notting Hill

After all … I'm just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her. "You know … I'm also a girl, who is in front of a boy, and asks him to love him. " – Anna Scott, Notting Hill (Love at Notting Hill) (1999)

A beautiful example of family love in "Finding Nemo"

Because when I look at you, I can feel it. And I look at you and I'm home. "It's enough that I look at you so that it comes back, it's enough that I look at you in the eyes, I feel … at home" – Dory, Finding Nemo (The World of Nemo)

The forbidden love of Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger in "Brokeback Mountain"

I wish I knew how to quit you. "I wish I knew how to leave you. " – Jack Twist, Brokeback Mountain (2005)

The blossoming love between Logan Lerman and Emma Watson in "The Perks of Being a Wallflower"

We accept the love we think we deserve. "We accept the love we think we deserve. " – Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)

The infinite love of Shailene Woodley by Ansel Elgort in "The Fault in Our Stars"

You've gotten me forever, I'm eternally grateful. "You gave me an eternity in a limited number of days, and I'm happy. " – Hazel Grace Lancaster, The Fault in Our Stars (2014)

James Garner evaluates the love of his life in "The Notebook"

I am no one special, I have a common life. There are no monuments, but in one respect I have succeeded as gloriously as anyone who ever lived. I have loved another with all my heart and soul, and for me, that has always been enough. "I do not have anything extraordinary. From that, I'm sure. I am an ordinary man, with ordinary thoughts, and I have led an ordinary life. No monument will be erected to my memory, and my name will soon be forgotten. But I loved a being with all my heart, with all my soul. And, for me, that's enough to fill a life. " – Noah, Jr., The Notebook (Never Forget) (2014)

The Forgotten Love of Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind".

I could die right now, Clem. I'm just … happy. I've never felt that before. I'm just exactly where I want to be. I can die now, Clem. I know … happiness. I had never experienced that before. I am exactly where I want to be. " – Joel Barish, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Some artists seem to have the ability to say effortlessly how we feel. There are times when there is no need to add anything to their words; they perfectly reflect our feelings and become the soundtrack of our history. Here are some of these song of love and their translation:

'Cause, honey your soul could never grow old, it's evergreen and, baby, your smile forever in my mind and memory. "Because darling your soul will never grow old, it has eternal youth and, baby, your smile is forever in my mind and memory. " – Ed Sheeran, Thinking Out Loud · lyrics

I feel wonderful because I see the love light in your eyes. And the wonder of it all That you just do not realize how much I love you. "I feel extraordinary because I see the light of love in your eyes. And the wonderful thing about all of this is that you do not realize how much I love you. " – Eric Clapton, Wonderful tonight · lyrics

Yours was the first face that I saw. I think I was blind before I put you. "Your face is the first I've seen. I think I was blind before meeting you. " – Bright eyes, First day of my life · lyrics

And when you smile, you're amazing, just the way you are. "And when you smile, the whole world stops and admires you for a moment, because you are amazing, just as you are. " – Bruno Mars, Just The Way You Are · lyrics

Maybe I do not know that much, but I was so much loved. I was loved by you. "I may not know much, but I'm at least sure of one thing, I was blessed because you loved me. " – Celine Dion, Because You Loved Me · lyrics

I could make you happy, make your dreams come true. Nothing that I would not do. Go to the ends of the earth for you to make you feel my love. "I could make you happy, fulfill your dreams. There is nothing I would not do. Go to the end of the world for you so that you feel my love. " – Bob Dylan, Make You Feel My Love lyrics

Cause all of me loves all of you. Love your curves and all your edges, all your perfect imperfections. "Because my whole being loves everything about you. Love your curves and all your contours, all your perfect imperfections. " – John Legend, All Of Me · lyrics

Something in the way she catches me like no other lover, something in the way she woos me. "Something in her way of moving attracts me like no other lover, something in her way of seducing me. " – The Beatles, Something · lyrics

Remember those walls I built? Well, baby, they're tumbling down and they did not even put up a fight, they did not even make a sound. "Do you remember those walls I built? Well, baby, they're falling apart and they did not even try to resist, they did not even make a single noise. " – Beyonce, Halo · lyrics

I got your eyes on you, you're everything that I see, I want your hot love and emotion, endlessly. I can not get over you, you left your mark on me. "My eyes are on you, I see only you, I want all your love and your emotions, forever. I can not forget you, you left your mark on me. " – Drake, Hold On, We're Going Home · lyrics

Here is a sample of the most beautiful romantic quotes of all time. These stories of impossible loves or lost loves can be a little sad, but ultimately their intensity must be inspiring. As William W. Purkey puts it:

You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching, you're never going to be hurt,

"You have to dance as if no one is looking at you, to love as if you were never going to suffer, to sing as if no one was listening, and to live like heaven on earth. "

If these quotes from movies, songs and novels have aroused your interest in the subject, then take a look at these other sources to go further in your quest for love … or your quest for English 🙂

On our blog to learn english :

On the English or bilingual Web:

Goodreads · In short, it's the social network of readers. You will find not only more immortal love quotes, but you can also use this tool to organize your reading and discover great authors to suit your reading tastes.

IMDB · This tool offers a complete catalog of film titles, quotes, casting and other fun facts about the seventh art.

The ladybug · Here you will find a long list of songs and their translation with some notes when the lyrics are a bit complex.

💡 If you liked the content of this article, Subscribe to our newsletter to be kept informed, because we have tools in preparation to practice English with this type of content.

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Erik Malpica Flores Erik Malpica Flores recommends: What is Coming to Netflix in January 2019

UNBREAKABLE KIMMY SCHMIDT’s final episodes are coming to Netflix in January 2019, as are new seasons of FRIENDS FROM COLLEGE and A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS. On the movie side, here’s your chance to stream SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY, INCREDIBLES 2 and ANT-MAN AND THE WASP, as well as all of the INDIANA JONES films.

Related: What is Coming to Netflix Canada in January 2019?

January 1

A Series of Unfortunate Events: Season 3 (Netflix Original): In the series’ third and final act, the Baudelaires will stop at nothing to solve the mysteries of the VFD and end Count Olaf’s relentless pursuit.

Across the Universe

Babel

Black Hawk Down

City of God

COMEDIANS of the world (Netflix Original): This global, first-of-its-kind, series will showcase 47 comedians from 13 regions in 8 languages in an unprecedented stand-up comedy experience. The groundbreaking series will feature a range of stand-up specials from comedians diverse in style, gender and ethnicity. Get ready to start the new year off with a laugh!

Definitely, Maybe

Godzilla

Happy Feet

Hell or High Water

I Know What You Did Last Summer

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

It Takes Two

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back

Jersey Boys

Mona Lisa Smile

Mr. Bean’s Holiday

Pan’s Labyrinth

Pinky Malinky (Netflix Original): Pinky Malinky sees the bright side of everything, including being born a hot dog. With his BFFs in tow, this little wiener takes a bite out of life.

Pulp Fiction

Swingers

Tears of the Sun

The Addams Family

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

The Dark Knight

The Departed

The Mummy

The Mummy Returns

The Strangers

Tidying Up with Marie Kondo (Netflix Original): In a series of inspiring home makeovers, world-renowned tidying expert Marie Kondo helps clients clear out the clutter — and choose joy.

Watchmen

xXx

XXX: State of the Union

January 2

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

January 4

And Breathe Normally (Netflix Film): An Icelandic single mom struggling with poverty and a Guinea-Bissauan asylum seeker facing deportation find their lives intertwined in unexpected ways.

Call My Agent!: Season 3 (Netflix Original): Rising tensions prompt two agents to hatch a secret plot in a new season of showbiz antics with Isabelle Huppert, Monica Bellucci and Jean Dujardin.

El Potro: Unstoppable (Netflix Film): A singer makes a splash in the Tropical music scene thanks to his good looks and magnetism, but must navigate tragedy and the trappings of fame to survive.

Lionheart (Netflix Film): When her father falls ill, Adaeze steps up to run the family business — alongside her uncle — and prove herself in a male-dominated world.

January 9

GODZILLA The Planet Eater (Netflix Original): With the earth alliance weakened, Haruo weighs siding with the Exif, whose death cult is summoning a monster that can destroy the world.

Solo: A Star Wars Story

January 10

When Heroes Fly (Netflix Original): Years after a bitter falling out, four Israeli military veterans reunite and travel to Colombia in search of a loved one they’d presumed to be dead.

January 11

Friends from College: Season 2 (Netflix Original): Mistakes were made. Feelings were hurt. Life goes on. Now, with a wedding on the horizon, the gang tries to put the past behind them.

ReMastered: Massacre at the Stadium (Netflix Original): For years, the murder of Chilean protest singer Victor Jara was blamed on an official in Pinochet’s army. Now in exile, he tries to exonerate himself.

Sex Education (Netflix Original): Meet Otis Milburn – an inexperienced, socially awkward high school student who lives with his mother, a sex therapist. Surrounded by manuals, videos and tediously open conversations about sex, Otis is a reluctant expert on the subject. When his home life is revealed at school, Otis realizes that he can use his specialist knowledge to gain status. He teams up with Maeve, a whip-smart bad-girl, and together they set up an underground sex therapy clinic to deal with their fellow students’ weird and wonderful problems. Through his analysis of teenage sexuality, Otis realises he may need some therapy of his own.

Solo (Netflix Film): In a remote area of the Canary Islands, young surfer Alvaro Vizcaino accidentally falls from a cliff. Seriously injured, he must fight to survive.

The Last Laugh (Netflix Film): Retired talent manager Al reconnects with former client Buddy, a comedian who gave up performing decades ago, and urges him to go back out on the road.

January 15

Revenger (Netflix Film): A former detective hell-bent on revenge infiltrates a remote island serving as a prison for dangerous death row criminals in search of a brutal fiend.

Sebastian Maniscalco: Stay Hungry (Netflix Original): Sebastian Maniscalco takes on life’s many annoyances with his singularly expressive approach in a live special based on his memoir of the same name.

January 16

January 17

American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace

January 18

Carmen Sandiego (Netflix Original): Carmen Sandiego returns in this series that follows her new international capers as well as past escapades that led to her becoming a super thief.

Close (Netflix Film): To protect an heiress from highly trained kidnappers, a lone security expert must unravel a sinister plot — while striving to stay alive.

FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened (Netflix Original): The Fyre Festival was billed as a luxury music experience full of social media influencers on a posh island, but the reality was far from the promises.

GIRL (Netflix Film): In this award-winning drama inspired by a true story, 15-year-old Lara trains to become a ballerina as she transitions from her assigned gender.

Grace and Frankie: Season 5 (Netflix Original): In the return of this Emmy winning comedy, two friends launch a scheme to get their old lives back.

IO (Netflix Film): One of the last survivors on Earth, a teen races to cure her poisoned planet before the final shuttle to a distant space colony leaves her stranded.

Soni (Netflix Film): While fighting crimes against women in Delhi, a short-fused policewoman and her level-headed female boss grapple with gender issues in their own lives.

The World’s Most Extraordinary Homes: Season 2 Part B (Netflix Original): Award-winning architect Piers Taylor and actress/property enthusiast Caroline Quentin continue to travel the globe touring striking homes.

Trigger Warning with Killer Mike (Netflix Original): In this subversive comedy documentary series, rapper and activist Killer Mike and a team of funny correspondents explore socially relevant topics.

Trolls: The Beat Goes On!: Season 5 (Netflix Original): This season, the trolls get lost in wormholes, journey to the Fountain of Glitter, go for a ride in a submarine, play in the snow and more.

January 21

Justice (Netflix Original): Instead of joining her father’s law firm as her family expects, Farah strikes out on her own as a defense attorney after returning home to Abu Dhabi.

January 24

Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes (Netflix Original): Get a unique look inside the mind of an infamous serial killer with this cinematic self-portrait crafted from statements made by Ted Bundy.

Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation

January 25

Animas (Netflix Film): When her best friend starts acting odd after a strange accident, a young woman descends into a living hell where nightmare and reality are blurred.

Black Earth Rising (Netflix Original): A contemporary thriller that follows the difficult journey of a woman, a Rwandan orphaned by the genocide, raised in London by an adopted mother, trying to discover the truth of her past. The series examines the West’s relationship with Africa, set in a world of prosecution of war crimes.

Club de Cuervos: Season 4 (Netflix Original): Chava and Isabel come to terms with their futures and the future of the Cuervos in an all-new season of surprises.

Kingdom (Netflix Original): In a kingdom defeated by corruption and famine, a mysterious rumour of the king’s death spreads as does a strange plague that renders the infected immune to death and hungry for flesh. The crown prince, fallen victim to a conspiracy, sets out on a journey to unveil the evil behind it all and save his people.

Medici: The Magnificent (Netflix Original): He already sacrificed his dreams of being an artist and marrying his true love. Will building and protecting the Medici legacy cost him his soul too?

Polar (Netflix Film): The world’s top assassin, Duncan Vizla, aka The Black Kaiser, is settling into retirement when his former employer marks him as a liability to the firm. Against his will, he finds himself back in the game going head to head with an army of younger, faster, ruthless killers who will stop at nothing to have him silenced.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Season 4 Part 2 (Netflix Original): As the series comes to a hilarious and moving close, Kimmy has to choose between helping her friends, Titus (Tituss Burgess), Jacqueline (Jane Krakowski) and Lillian (Carol Kane), and helping someone she’s never put first before: herself. This final season includes a double-sized “Sliding Doors” episode exploring how the main characters’ lives might have been different if Kimmy had never been kidnapped.

January 27

January 29

Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias: One Show Fits All (Netflix Original): In a new comedy special for 2019, Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias discusses his teenage son, encounters with Snoop Dogg and an overzealous fan, and more.

Marvel Studios’ Ant-Man and the Wasp

January 30

Disney•Pixar’s The Incredibles 2

Coming Soon

Marvel’s The Punisher: Season 2 (Netflix Original)

Last Call – Titles Rotating Off the Service in January 2019

January 1

Beethoven’s Christmas Adventure

Blade

Blade II

Bram Stoker’s Dracula

Catwoman

Face/Off

Finding Neverland

Friday Night Lights

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days

I Am Ali

Interview with the Vampire

Into the Wild

Journey to the Center of the Earth

Kung Fu Panda

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: The Fifteenth Year

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: The Seventeenth Year

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: The Sixteenth Year

Like Water for Chocolate

Love Actually

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa

Marie Antoinette

Meet the Fockers

Meet the Parents

Million Dollar Baby

Monsters vs. Aliens

Mortal Kombat

Rent

Sharknado

Sharknado 2: The Second One

Sharknado 3

Sharknado 5

Sharknado: The 4th Awakens

The 6th Day

The Godfather

The Godfather: Part II

The Godfather: Part III

The Green Mile

The Iron Giant

The Princess Diaries

The Queen of the Damned

The Reaping

The Shining

January 4

Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World

January 13

January 14

January 18

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

January 19

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

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New Post has been published on https://shovelnews.com/the-31-best-dance-scenes-in-movies/

The 31 best dance scenes in movies

Updated 4 hours ago

What do dance scenes add to a movie? Unspeakable bliss, for starters. Dancing starts when dialogue fails. When lovers need to move beyond conversation, when conflicts boil past negotiation, when joy can’t be expressed in any other way than by leaping into the air on a trumpeter’s high note.

With the rise of movie musicals in the early part of the 20th century, dancing moved easily from stage to screen, becoming bigger, more potent, ever more spectacular — and a lasting love affair with the moviegoing public was born. It’s still going on: Witness the mainstream success of “La La Land,” a film in the golden age mold.

Taking stock of film’s dance treasury to pick the paragons was an irresistible challenge. In making my choices for the best dance scenes, I looked at several factors: mastery of technique, imaginative choreography, quality of the music — this is very important — and design and storytelling. I value authentic expression more than dance doubles and tricky editing. But, in the final analysis, transcendence won out. Does the dancing carry me away, give me chills, distill some truth about the human experience? Whether it’s a masterpiece of steps and skill, or an intentionally funny, hot mess, or a dreamscape that’s intriguingly weird — dancing that moves you is great dancing.

I also had to set some rules for this list: I considered specific dance scenes, not the quality of entire movies. I didn’t include documentaries or foreign films; no “Pina,” no “Mad Hot Ballroom.” With matchless artists in movement, music and choreography, the 1940s and ’50s dominate my choices, but even those aren’t exhaustive. I settled on the era’s best and moved on. I handicapped Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, limiting them to just one dance (it’s my No. 1, the best of the best) from all the jewels in their 10 films together, because if I didn’t, they’d eat the list. Our vast cinematic history is studded with marvelous dancing, but one has to draw the line somewhere.

1. ‘Swing Time’ (1936), ‘Never Gonna Dance’ scene

There are no greater dance musicals than the ones Fred and Ginger made together, because they accomplished so much, so beautifully. Their dances are artistic, emotional and inventive; the music is superb (Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, George Gershwin); the costuming and set design create a stylistic whole. And they aren’t mere interludes. What Astaire and Rogers communicate through dance deepens the story. To pick the pinnacle among their 10 films isn’t easy, but my choice is their final waltz in “Swing Time.” Why? Because we’ll think of Astaire and Rogers forever as a unit, falling in love on the dance floor, and this dance expresses something profound about their bond. It’s about the perils of breaking it. They begin by simply walking together; their mood is blue, but the sexual tension is red hot. Through a precise mirroring of movements, Rogers shows Astaire the kind of intimate soul mate he’ll lose if he doesn’t ‘fess up about his feelings. Astaire senses this and grows desperate. He spins her around dizzily, her dress whipping like a flag at sea. Then the cliffhanger: She whirls out the door, leaving him, and us, bereft – and dying to see how the movie ends.

2. ‘Stormy Weather’ (1943), ‘Jumpin’ Jive’

Fayard and Harold Nicholas, aka the Nicholas Brothers, were a pair of miracles in tap shoes. They hoofed their way from the Cotton Club to Hollywood, where their fans included Astaire, Gene Kelly and other dance greats who marveled at their skill, daring and sheer brilliance. This scene is the consummate joy-fest: They dart through Cab Calloway’s orchestra, skate atop the drums and piano, and end it all by plunging down a flight of stairs, leapfrogging buoyantly over each other to land in the splits, and then springing up to do it all again. They shot it all in one take.

3. ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ (1952), title number

Is there any more beloved dance scene on film than Gene Kelly’s inspired splashfest? This is the dance anthem for that inescapable experience of a thorough cosmic drenching. The answer: Enjoy it! Spin through puddles, gambol in the gutters, play a brass band in your head, and soak up every drop. Kelly was constantly experimenting, and although he whipped up more technically dazzling numbers in other movies, none is more uplifting or enduring than this one.

4. ‘An American in Paris’ (1951), final ballet

Kelly lured Leslie Caron from France especially for this movie and its climactic, 17-minute dreamscape of a ballet. The scene took a month to film. Its lush, Technicolor intensity has never been matched, and the dancing, which sweeps through paintings come to life, Parisian flower markets and moonlit fountains, feels like the very embodiment of postwar optimism. But the chemistry between its stars, accompanied by Gershwin’s sexy jazz: explosif.

5. ‘Ship Ahoy’ (1942), ‘I’ll Take Tallulah’

I once asked Fayard Nicholas (see No. 2) to name his favorite female dancer. His answer: Eleanor Powell. It’s easy to see why. Powell is arguably the greatest tap dancer on film, male or female, and in this number, she has the spotlight all to herself (after Bert Lahr serenades her). Three things distinguish this scene: Powell’s punchy, rascally athleticism, the musical star power of Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra, and the imaginative way Powell taps around the poolside set. She trades drum licks with jazz virtuoso Buddy Rich, hops on tables, swan-dives into an ocean of men, swings on a rope, cartwheels and catches flying rings and, still spinning, seizes airborne drumsticks and rejoins Rich to hammer out a scintillating flourish.

6. ‘Broadway Melody of 1940’ (1940), ‘Begin the Beguine’

Cole Porter, Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell: the holy trinity of tap. I love the full-body, freewheeling spirit of this amazing duet – it’s a marvel of precision, with hints of friendly competition. Astaire and Powell chase, tease and one-up each other, ending in a synchronized storm of turns that sends them spiraling around each other like crazy spinning nickels in a tilted universe. How can two humans move so fast, in perfect time, with such giddy ease?

7. ‘Seven Brides for Seven Brothers’ (1954), ‘Barn Dance’

Michael Kidd’s exceptional choreography is full of earthy vigor and references to reels, logging and barn-raising. High-pitched and unusually athletic, the dancing moves from an outdoor stage to picnic tables to wood beams. There are backflips and diving somersaults, along with polka steps and lifts. The dancers include Tommy Rall, one of cinema’s greats, ballet star Jacques d’Amboise and Russ Tamblyn, the former gymnast about seven years shy of stardom as Riff in the movie of “West Side Story.”

8. ‘Small Town Girl’ (1953), ‘I’ve Gotta Hear That Beat’

Ann Miller was considered the queen of Hollywood tap dancers: She was tall, gorgeous and insanely fast. Her taps were like machine-gun fire. This scene, directed by Busby Berkeley and choreographed by Willie Covan, is her most famous. Miller, sequined and sparkly, whirls through an assortment of disembodied musical instruments; violins and trumpets in the hands of unseen players pop up through the floor. Spinning madly, she somehow avoids ricocheting off the trombones. It’s a tribute to Miller as the consummate musician – her tapping is a symphony unto itself – and the scene’s ingenious design, while visually striking, allows nothing to distract from her brilliance.

9. ‘West Side Story’ (1961), ‘America’

Rita Moreno and George Chakiris are a combustible couple, taunting and teasing each other through Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics and Leonard Bernstein’s music. But once they start dancing, their sexual energy could light up the city. Great dance fills this entire movie, but this scene stands out for the neat layering of Latin motifs – bullfighting, flamenco, mambo – and the exuberant staging of a gender war. There’s also well-earned fury: In lyrics and physical expression, the characters directly engage with the clash of cultures and racism that will undo them all.

10. ‘Saturday Night Fever’ (1977), ‘More Than a Woman’

This is not the trickiest dance from a technical point of view. You and I could pick it up in a snap. (Simple is good.) But John Travolta turns it into erotic gold. This scene rates among the greats for the spell it casts, far surpassing its modest mechanics. Plenty of other movies’ dance scenes are more complicated, more expertly executed, but this one is unusually immersive ­— I’m swept into a fever dream of feeling. Strutting like a show pony in his polyester suit and platform shoes, Travolta communicates the intent behind his smoothly syncopated steps and slow dips with co-star Karen Lynn Gorney; they’re a disco-driven lead-in to lovemaking. The dynamic tension is perfect – he revels in his own charisma, she looks at him in misty disbelief, like he’s her fantasy come to life. (For many of us, he was.) Filming wasn’t easy. So much heat and smoke filled that Brooklyn nightclub that at one point, Travolta was on oxygen. Installing lights in the floor, to flash along with the Bee Gees’ music, cost a fortune. It was worth it.

11. ‘All That Jazz’ (1979), ‘Take Off With Us’

Of course, Bob Fosse’s semi-autobiographical film contains his own snappy, sultry choreography. In this scene, cast members rehearse a flight-attendant-themed number for a Broadway show. What I love about it is not only the dancing — full of Fosse hallmarks, the tight little steps, the hats, the tense sexiness and exquisite control — but also the spot-on depiction of what rehearsals are like. The nearly naked performers sing and shimmy their hearts out, while the creative team watches impassively, smoking, frowning, scribbling criticisms. It’s show business, baby.

12. ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’ (1953), ‘Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend’

That hot-pink dress, that cherry-red backdrop, those long, long gloves. Marilyn Monroe is glamorous perfection in this scene, choreographed by the great Jack Cole. He brilliantly played up her strengths, focusing on those beautiful bare shoulders with a shimmy here, an arm extension there, a lot of shaking and — whoopee! — a well-timed gesture to her back porch. Restrained in vocabulary and uninhibited in style and spirit, this witty dance is an exuberant celebration of the female assets, performed by one of the most vibrant bodies in cinematic history.

13. ‘The Band Wagon’ (1953), ‘Dancing in the Dark’

Cyd Charisse was tall for Fred Astaire, so she’s wearing flats here, the perfect footwear for a waltz of seduction that begins with these two extraordinary movers simply strolling through Central Park. Michael Kidd’s choreography is fascinating; it unspools in an expanding array of spirals, zigzagging lines and sharp changes of direction, sending the couple over benches, up steps and, finally, into a horse-drawn carriage. Astaire and Charisse sail through the complex geometry, each move flowing into the next, as though it were all just a walk in the park.

14. ‘Sweet Charity’ (1969), ‘The Aloof, the Heavyweight, the Big Finish’

“We don’t dance,” snarls one of the partners-for-hire in this film’s sleazy ballroom. “We defend ourselves to music.” You feel that bite in an irresistible, decadent floor-show extravaganza of ’60s go-go, choreographed by Fosse, the master of sinister sexiness. The starring attractions: dancers Suzanne Charney and a young Ben Vereen. Also, loads of eyeliner, minidresses and those Fosse-licious broken-doll struts, isolated joints and hips, hips, hips.

15. ‘The Red Shoes,’ (1948), ballet sequence

Within this masterful film, about the flaming passions of artists, lies a complete ballet that echoes the theme and foreshadows its tragic conclusion. The ballet tells the Hans Christian Andersen tale of enchanted shoes that dance their wearer to death; redhead ballerina Moira Shearer is their beguiling victim. Beautifully lighted and designed, this dark, wordless drama is by turns hallucinatory and Hitchcockian.

16. ‘Dirty Dancing’ (1987), final dance

For many of us of a certain age, this is the defining movie dance scene, as Patrick Swayze struts onto that Borscht Belt stage, and Jennifer Grey melts in his arms. It’s a singularly potent concoction: Swayze’s erotic beauty, Grey’s coming-of-age right before our eyes, the lusty grace of their moves, the crowd’s collective swoon. Because it happens in a middle-class family setting, with actors who weren’t yet icons, we can see ourselves in them, and fly along with them, at least in our minds. It’s a vicarious rush.

17. ‘Damn Yankees’ (1958), ‘Whatever Lola Wants’

Gwen Verdon as a leggy demon sent by Satan to seduce a ballplayer – OK, I’m in. Verdon, a singing, dancing, acting wizard of stage and screen, had a unique, commanding presence; although delicately built, she vibrated exactitude and authority. She’s funny, sexy and gleefully impish in this scene, choreographed by Fosse, who was soon to be her husband. Every step conveys that she’s a nonhuman in a new role and loving it. Verdon stays in this complicated character throughout her awkward-on-purpose striptease and a manic romp touched with flamenco, burlesque and quasi-Indian fillips. “I’m irresistible, you fool,” she taunts. Um, yes.

18. ‘All of Me’ (1984), closing scene

In this sparkling screwball comedy, Lily Tomlin’s soul transmigrates into Steve Martin’s body. Result: a high-pitched tug of war – she controls one side of his body, he’s got the other. (We see Tomlin’s reflection whenever Martin passes a mirror.) This internal mayhem smoothly resolves in the end, when we see the two whirling in a let-it-all-hang-out dance of pure joy, captured in a mirror, that grows goofier and giddier, accompanied by a swinging rendition of the jazz standard of the title. Before, the body had been a prison for Martin and Tomlin; here it’s a vehicle of spectacular release, and the display of rapture between well-tuned spirits is utterly contagious.

19. ‘Stepmom’ (1998), ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’

This makes me cry, because it captures the very essence of living, and love. Susan Sarandon, dying of cancer, carouses in her pajamas with her kids, belting out the Marvin Gaye/Tammi Terrell anthem into a curling iron. They jump on the bed. They prance down the hallway. They give Death a big, fat, life-affirming kick in the caboose.

20. ‘La La Land’ (2016), opening sequence

The dance numbers in this loving nod to Hollywood’s musical history are so physically rapturous and vicariously thrilling that they almost lift you out of your seat. Attitude adjustment starts with the opening sequence, which turns a traffic jam on an L.A. highway into a full-throttle celebration of life, as folks sing, spin and stomp on the roofs of their cars, while a BMX biker and a freewheeling skateboarder surf the concrete barriers.

21. ‘White Nights’ (1985), the duet

Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gregory Hines, two of the greatest male dancers of the late 20th century, united on the dance floor: How can you beat that? This scene offers a side-by-side view of their styles – the tapper’s heavy-hitting power and connection to the floor, the ballet maestro’s elegance, airborne ease and elasticity. Watch how Baryshnikov sinks into his knees, while the lankier Hines stays more upright. In other ways, though, Hines is looser and jazzier, while Baryshnikov is knife-sharp.

22. ‘You Got Served’ (2004), dance battle

Dance contests come and go, but this one boasts muscular grace, jaw-dropping execution and incomparable street style. The most spectacular street moves require immense (that is, male) upper-body strength — the head-spinning and upside-down windmilling — and we get to revel in that here. But the ladies also have their moments to shine. Although the editing tends to get in the way of the best view of the dancing, the displays of raw, rhythmic power matched with impeccable precision and daring don’t get much better than this.

23. ‘Silver Linings Playbook’ (2012), dance rehearsal

Cute couple awkwardly learns to dance with the help of their cool friend. Bradley Cooper is the odd man out in this threesome, while Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Tucker offer up the dancing thrills. OK, so they’re modest — this is not showstopping material — but it’s so adorable. Tucker knows just how to womp up Lawrence’s uncooperative hips: “Girl, you gotta move your junk.”

24. ‘Center Stage’ (2000), ‘The Way You Make Me Feel’

Tutus and motorcycles: a match made in dance heaven. These white-frocked ballerinas are dutifully dull until Ethan Stiefel roars onstage on his bike. At the time, Stiefel was a star at American Ballet Theatre, and this scene offers a terrific look at his virtuosic technique (those pirouettes, those airy leaps – pure gold), as well as his heartthrob appeal. Accompanied by Michael Jackson’s bouncy pop song, this is simply tremendous fun. Classical ballet steps, beautifully performed, get funkified.

25. ‘Bye Bye Birdie’ (1963), ‘Got a Lotta Livin to Do’

Ann-Margret’s “torrid dancing almost replaces the central heating in the theater,” Life magazine declared in its cover story about “Bye Bye Birdie” and its young heroine. This is the movie that made her a star. She’s also a sensational dancer, in a vamped-up display of seduction aided by belly-baring ruffles and the sexiest pink capris you’ve ever seen. With all of her slinky allure, she also twists, hully-gullies and Watusis with the ensemble to the soundtrack’s brisk jazz. This frisky production is a great mood-booster.

26. ‘White Chicks’ (2004), dance-off

The premise: Two African-American FBI agents — Keenan Ivory Wayans and Shawn Wayans —disguise themselves as white women to lure a kidnapper out of hiding. It sounds so wrong, but it’s so funny, especially when miniskirted squads of frenemies shake off their frustrations on the dance floor. The undercover agents jump into the mix, in their low-rise jeans and pastel leathers (the girl clothes are craptastically horrendous). They’ve done such a good job of being female, and now their true, testosterone-fueled selves come out in aggressive, head-spinning moves that are just plain out of reach for most of us ladies. That should blow their cover. No one seems to notice this.

27. ‘House Party’ (1990), dance scene

Teens want to hang out together, have fun and party — this hasn’t changed since forever — but it’s the partying here that’s extraordinary. We see it on their terms, in the close, crowded quarters of a living room, with just enough space for explosive moves, sassy personal expression, all kinds of style and exhilarating, good-natured fun. It’s an instantly immersive experience; you feel like you’re on the dance floor with them, bopping along as hip-hop duo Kid n Play show off their swiveling, sliding, twisting footwork.

28. ‘Pulp Fiction’ (1994), twist contest

“I wanna dance, I wanna win, I want that trophy. So dance good.” A menacing Uma Thurman and a game John Travolta shed their shoes for an intense go-go scene that comes out of nowhere, in the middle of a bloody crime film. Director Quentin Tarantino has said he was inspired by New Wave master Jean-Luc Godard, known to drop an incongruous dance into his work. Note how the actors draw our focus to their fingers and toes. Of course, we’re also thinking back on the younger, disco-dancing Travolta, so the scene is poignant as well as darkly funny. And very, very odd.

29. ‘The Cotton Club’ (1984), ‘Crazy Rhythm’

Brothers Maurice and Gregory Hines were estranged for 10 years in real life, and this scene re-creates the emotional reunion on the dance floor of the siblings who had been childhood tap partners. Francis Ford Coppola’s film brought veteran hoofers such as Charles “Honi” Coles back to the spotlight, and these scenes are priceless. But the Hines duet is infused with palpable warmth and bone-deep sympathy.

30. ‘A Chorus Line’ (1985), ‘Next’

In some ways, the dancing life is like the military, especially here. This film about Broadway opens with auditions, where the dance captain is a drill sergeant and the chorines are uber-disciplined grunts firing off a battery of moves. A lot of movie dancing shows us the slippery ease and glory of moving to music, but here we see the opposite: the punishing work, humiliations and stoicism behind it. And after all that, the four cruelest words a dancer will ever hear: “Thank you very much.”

31. ‘Pennies From Heaven’ (1981), ‘Let’s Face the Music and Dance’

Talk about nerve: In this tribute to Depression-era musicals, Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters take on one of Astaire and Rogers’s greatest numbers. And they do it justice. They’re a well-matched pair —Martin, light-footed and quick; Peters, all soft edges. The black-and-white design, complete with a tuxedoed ensemble, is timeless.

Sarah L. Kaufman is The Washington Post’s dance critic.

Source: https://triblive.com/aande/adminpage/14292371-74/the-31-best-dance-scenes-in-movies

[psu-architecture-film-course]

Week 1: Film Analysis

Wings of Desires

1. OVERALL IMPRESSION

After watching “Wings of Desires,” I understood the difference between living as a human being and being immortal. I was also impressed by the way the movie was played both in imagery and setting. We could look back to history, and understands people’s thoughts, their dreams, and hopes. It was also interesting to see the cultural diversity in Berlin, Germany by the end of the 80’s.

2. Thematic Prompts

A.     The title of the film is relative to everything in the movie. The story describes an immortal angel who is always on top of buildings, and he could understand people’s thoughts, their hopes, dreams, and fears. Thus, wings relate to the angel and dreams relate to everything that was happening on earth and everything that the angel knew about the human living in Berlin.

B.     There were three sequences that I think were most important in the film:

.Damiel and Cassiel, the two angels approach humans, read their thoughts, their dreams, and their hopes

.Damiel meet a woman that he feels in love with, and then he starts thinking about the many reasons why he should give up his immortality

.Damiel abandon his wings, and he became a normal human being, he finds the girl he feels in love with and they became friends

C.     Well, at the end of the movie, Damiel write some words that read, “I know

now, what no angel knows!”

These last words make us raise two important questions:

. Did Damiel make the right choice by abandoning his immortality?

. Did he find what he wanted in life?

D. The main settings of the film are all located in Berlin, Germany, during the

end of the 80’s.

But we can see that there is an emphasize on some settings such as:

.The top of the buildings where the angel was always perched and look through human thoughts, their dreams, and hopes

.The suburbs of Berlin, where the angel walked and talked about why the things are the way they are

.The big Library where the angels were able to look back at history and its consequences

    Cinematic Prompts

A.  The film start with a dark setting, where we can hear the angel telling words that looks like poetry

B.  There are some scenes and techniques that are repeated, and they help understands the sequence of the film. By example, they always show the angel perched on top of the same statue, sitting on the same spot, and talking to himself.

C.   I Couldn’t hear the sounds

D.  The film is all in black and white, but there are 3 sequences during which we can see color, when Damiel meet the woman of his dreams, when he becomes a mortal, and at the end when he spend time with her.

It reinforces the themes of the movie, and every time the scenes appear in color, it is like a transition to a new theme.

E.  There are use of perspectives and zoom in, to approach the characters and give a closer look to their physical aspects, it is also used to show how the angel interacts with the mortals beings.

F.  Scenes are cut from time to time, but in a sequence that give a lot of focus in one scene. By example zoom in and getting close to the characters, trying to look through their mind. It takes a lot of time before a new scene is opened, approximately 5 minutes duration for each scene.

G. The film scenes is principally based on important scenes like the scenes where they show the angels perched on top of buildings, and the scenes where they show the two angels talking to each other, and the scenes where they show the angels trying to interact both emotionally and physically with the mortals beings.

H. There are no loose ends, but it appears that the film give us a sense of suspense, and it make us question if Damiel (the angel that became human) would be able to survive as a human being, or if he would want to get his angel body back.

3. The film conclude on this particular image because it is destined to enhance our curiosity and our way of thinking about the difference between being mortal and being immortal, as well as the benefits and disadvantages or regrets we could have if we were a mortal or an immortal being.

4. Black and white color where used more, and then color is used to transition between important themes

5.

. Being on top of the buildings

. Poetry to enhance the connection between architecture and nature

. Arts on buildings to show difference between city and suburbs