#Germinal

[guiltycorp]

Just finished replaying Dragon Age II (first time i played it i was a teenager) and I have so many thoughts on Anders, as one does...

I think the centrist message of the game is strengthened many times by Anders being the only main character actively working to change the status quo of the story? When every other character opposes drastic change it feels like Anders is ‘betraying’ the core group by making those story-changing decisions on his own, and a random player’s allegiance will likely be to the mc and all of their chosen companions rather than those specific in-game groups like mages or elves. As Hawke, you can’t really directly participate one way or the other, you are simply giving your support to decisions made by the other characters, and so the first side to do something drastic is the one that feels like the more wrong one — narratively it’s of course more satisfying when it comes from the othered side (so, Qunari in Act 2, mages in Act 3).

Also, the nuance that the writers tried to include with numerous mentions of the mental toll of growing up in isolation against your will, the abuse that templars can easily cover up, swift executions — all of that is countered by blood magic and the existence of the Tevinter Imperium, and so again a random player walks away thinking ‘it’s a difficult situation but yes, perhaps there’s just no better solution for the mage problem’. Which is by design, of course, but leads to conclusions like 'ehh Anders only proved the other side right'. There's also of course the disconnect between the Chantry and the templars, the game is careful in painting the Chantry as 'blind to the abuse' rather than as the actual source of it. The Chantry came up with Magi Circles and the Templar Order is its military subdivision, but that can be easily overlooked when the local Grand Cleric was written as completely neutral despite her position of power, and so a major part of the audience reacts strongly to the destruction of a religious building as a parallel to modern real life burning of churches and mosques rather than recognizing the in-game context. Destroying the Chantry meant that Anders sought to change the system itself rather than targeting the symptoms (specific evil templars), and it is a much more powerful symbolical gesture in that way. As somebody who grew up in the faith, in one of those Circles, he is declaring that the Chantry failed him and others like him - he is not an outsider in this situation, no matter his current apostate status... And tbh I've always read Justice/Vengeance as more of an allegory than a straightforward demonic possession, pledging yourself wholly to the cause.

Also I have to mention… So Disco Elysium’s list of inspirations included the novel Germinal which is why I read it, and without spoiling too much I’ve been wondering if DA2 writers were also inspired by it. It’s a story about miners striking against their employers after being driven to it by abject poverty and hunger - everyone in the novel is aware that this strike is, unfortunately, beneficial to the company and so eventually the only available method of further protest is violence… There is an anarchist that reminded me of Anders, a man called Souvarine who has already been through a failed uprising (failed assassination of the russian tsar), who has a soft spot for a pet rabbit and who has a much better understanding of politics & socioeconomics than most other characters. Despite his educated background and delicate physical features, his personal ideology is alarmingly violent in a way that both impresses and scares the main character. He is absolutely not meant to be either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and the author carefully avoids casting judgement on his actions despite their severity - I am pretty sure that his role in the book is representative of political revolutionary movements as a whole.

I absolutely recommend the book, especially if you liked Disco Elysium or Les Mis (or have been an Anders defender for a while lol), it is less hopeful than either one of them but in a very sympathetic way, sadly still very true to our lives. Best thing I've read in years. But yeah idk ANYWAY, DA2 has way too many mining-related environments for me not to at least consider this might not be a coincidence ahaha, in which case it’s a shame the message of the novel was interpreted through a much more ‘fun fantasy video game both sides are always wrong’ lens.

[intotheclash]

Aumentare il salario, che forse si può? Una legge di ferro lo fissa allo stretto necessario; all'indispensabile, perché l'operaio possa mangiare pane e sputo e procreare dei figli. Se il salario scende sotto quel livello, l'operaio crepa; e la richiesta di nuovi operai lo fa risalire. Se supera quel livello, cresce l'offerta di manodopera e lo fa calare. È l'altalena delle pance vuote, la condanna a vita alla galera della fame. Émile Zola - Germinal

[smokefalls]

Perhaps it was wiser after all to endure the suffering one was used to rather than swap it for another kind.

Émile Zola, Germinal (translated by Roger Pearson)

[schumi-nadal]

I was tagged by @acrazybayernfan to share 9 of my favorite books: I'm so sorry, i didn't see the tag till today *sigh* thank you for the tag 🩵 (et je pense relire La Quête du Saint-Graal, petit moment de nostalgie grâce à toi haha).

I wanted to add more like The Goblet of Fire or Peter Pan, it was so difficult to choose only 9 of them 😂

Tagging @ofbooksandstardustbook, @luzmyway, @game-set-canet, and whoever wants to do it ☺ (feel free to do it or not💜 )

[bookfirstlinetourney]

Round 1

This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it.

-The Princess Bride, William Goldman

Over the open plain, beneath a starless sky as dark and thick as ink, a man walked alone along the highway from Marchiennes to Montsou, a straight paved road ten kilometres in length, intersecting the beetroot fields.

-Germinal, Emile Zola

In a hole in the ground lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the rnds of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a sandy, bare hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit hole, and that means comfort.

-The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien

[thewomanwithmissingfingers]

She was as soft and gentle as silk, so tender he could almost eat her.

Germinal, Émile Zola, 1885

[idefilarate]

Reading an overly sentimental poem about Germinal at the stanza poetry festival :-)

@reggiespoon @anotherhumaninthisworld @commiecamille @saltforsalt

[paperandsong]

Germinal, Le Calendrier d'Hérouard pour Chéri Hérouard, 1917

[the-paintrist]

Léon Choubrac - Advertisement for the serialization of "Germinal" by Emile Zola in the magazine "Gil Blas" on 25 November 1884.

Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola (; 2 April 1840 – 29 September 1902) was a French novelist, journalist, playwright, political activist, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism, and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism. He was a major figure in the political liberalization of France and in the exoneration of the falsely accused and convicted army officer Alfred Dreyfus, which is encapsulated in his renowned newspaper opinion headlined J'Accuse…!  Zola was nominated for the first and second Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901 and 1902.

Germinal is the thirteenth novel in Émile Zola's twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart. Often considered Zola's masterpiece and one of the most significant novels in the French tradition, the novel – an uncompromisingly harsh and realistic story of a coalminers' strike in northern France in the 1860s – has been published and translated in over one hundred countries. It has also inspired five film adaptations and two television productions.

Germinal was written between April 1884 and January 1885. It was first serialized between November 1884 and February 1885 in the periodical Gil Blas, then in March 1885 published as a book.

The title refers to the name of a month of the French Republican Calendar, a spring month. Germen is a Latin word which means "seed"; the novel describes the hope for a better future that seeds amongst the miners. As the final lines of the novel read:

Des hommes poussaient, une armée noire, vengeresse, qui germait lentement dans les sillons, grandissant pour les récoltes du siècle futur, et dont la germination allait faire bientôt éclater la terre. Men were springing forth, a black avenging army, germinating slowly in the furrows, growing towards the harvests of the next century, and their germination would soon overturn the earth. — 1885 translation[

Gil Blas (or Le Gil Blas) was a Parisian literary periodical named for Alain-René Lesage's novel Gil Blas. It was founded by the sculptor Augustin-Alexandre Dumont in November 1879.

Gil Blas serialized novels, such as Émile Zola's Germinal (1884) and L'Œuvre (1885), before they appeared in book form. Numerous Guy de Maupassant short stories debuted in Gil Blas. The journal was also known for its opinionated arts and theatre criticism. Contributors included René Blum, Alexandru Bogdan-Pitești, and Abel Hermant. Théophile Steinlen and Albert Guillaume provided illustrations.

Gil Blas was published regularly until 1914, when there was a short hiatus due to the outbreak of World War I. Afterwards, it was published intermittently until 1938.

In addition to Germinal, Gil Blas serialized the Zola novels L'Argent, Au Bonheur des Dames, and La Joie de vivre.

Gil Blas critic Louis Vauxcelles's phrase "Donatello chez les fauves" ("Donatello among the wild beasts") brought notoriety and attention to the works of Henri Matisse and Les Fauves exhibited at the Salon d'Automne of 1905. Vauxcelles' comment was printed on 17 October 1905[4] and passed into popular usage.

[philoursmars]

Marseille, il y a maintenant 3 semaines. Il y avait au MuCEM, une expo "Passions Partagées" sur la collection d'Yvon Lambert, face à certains objets du musée.

vitrine-reliquaire des martyrs Saints Emilien et Félix - Gnadenthal, Argovie, Suisse, 1650

Christian Boltanski : "Reliquaire"

ex-voto - Espagne, Grèce, Italie, Pologne, XXe s.

Christian Boltanski : "Les Images noires"

Douglas Gordon : "Self-Portrait of You + Me"

Nathalie Du Pasquier : "Année révolutionnaire"

voir 3

[gristleorgney]

Everyone tries to cancel Etienne Lantier for “not understanding principles of collective action” and “murder” as if he isn’t LITERALLY neurodivergent and a miner 🙄

[anamon-book]

ジェルミナル （株）ヘラルド・エース LE CINEMA. Bunkamura Shibuya TOKYO 監督：クロード・ベリ／出演：ルノー、ミウ＝ミウ、ジュラール・ドパルデュー ほか

[comediesmusicales]

Revolutionary honey

[smokefalls]

… and they continued to exchange soft kisses, having no thought to any other form of contact and putting into their embrace all the pent-up passion of their forbidden feelings, every moment of affection and painful martyrdom they had ever known.

Émile Zola, Germinal (translated by Roger Pearson)

[yorgunherakles]

varolmak istemiyordum..

bram stoker - dracula

[zielenna]

Where else could he go, what else could he do, when so many people round about were starving and out of work? Was he to end up like a stray dog, a dead carcass lying behind some wall or other? And yet something made him hesitate, a fear of Le Voreux itself, out here in the middle of this open plain that lay buried in thick darkness. With each gust the force of the wind seemed to increase, as if it were blowing in from an ever-widening horizon. No dawn paled the dead sky; there was only the blaze of the tall blast-furnaces and the coke-ovens, turning the darkness blood red but shining no light into the unknown. And Le Voreux, crouching like some evil beast at the bottom of its lair, seemed to hunker down even further, puffing and panting in increasingly slow, deep bursts, as if it were struggling to digest its meal of human flesh.

Émile Zola, Germinal, transl. Roger Pearson