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sunset-synthetica · 2 months

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Can you explain how the immortal science of marxism-leninism relates to Turbo Overkill

I don't believe TO is trying to have a huge deep political message, but some of it was intentional and the rest stems from its inspirations, ie Blade Runner, whose political messaging WAS intentionally a critique of capitalism and/or the more specific effects it has on our lives.

The backdrop is a late capitalist- using Mandel's definition- system where the largest and most powerful company's (Teratek's) capital is generated mostly, if not entirely, by selling increasingly more dangerous and experimental products to a consumer base spanning entire solar systems at the very least.

By looking at Johnny as a member of the exploited working class - albeit a class traitor, as he's a former cop* - a disabled person, unable to earn enough to save his life in any other way than by essentially selling himself to Teratek and gradually losing parts of his own body and surrenderong agency as this job becomes more and more demanding. We see a clear anti-capitalist sentiment built directly into the foundation of the game.

We can go further though.

SYN, in short summarized as a sentient, virus-esque AI, functions as an abstracted, personified representation of Teratek itself and its ultimate goals. SYN was supposed to enhance the process of human body augmentation, and, as Johnny's mother states, having been directly involved in the making of SYN, it should have been a way to help people, had Teratek not been the intended owner.

SYN goes rogue, and, instead of disobeying Teratek's policy, takes it further, either converting augmented people into a mind controlled force, or creating entirely new beings in the pursuit of human evolution. She seeks to force the human race to evolve, or be exterminated, which relates moreso to eugenics but is a vital part of her position in the story.

So, establishing SYN as both a manifestation of Teratek/the wider market as well as its relationship to the workers, and something of a next step in the evolutionary line of their thinking, her relationship with Johnny gets easier to pick apart.

Johnny is offered a choice that, while more obvious in its immediate effect, partially reflects the experience of the worker- debase himself, be stripped of choice, free will, identity, be exploited for the rest of his life to build a future he will not see or enjoy, sell his labor for the cost of staying alive - or die. It's not a choice, not really, it's an illusion.

He chooses to stay alive, of course, and though SYN is defeated at the end, it doesn't break him out of the loop. SYN is not the root of the problem, she is not the cause for Johnny's suffering and exploitation, she's the more extreme, almost caricature-like version of his struggle.

Johnny ends the story the same as he'd began, only the illusion of a choice in the matter is shattered.

The Street Cleaners

The Street Cleaners are a mercenary-like faction, essentially fulfilling the role of the police, though on a much less regulated, official level. We don't have a lot of information about them, but from what I've been able to gather, they are generally disliked by the Regulators- police force- and work outside the law to an unknown extent, without pretending otherwise, all while fulfilling the interests of corporations.

Within the Street Cleaners, everything goes if the money is good enough, which was the incentive for Johnny to join in the first place- do the dirty work, get paid, survive.

I wanna look at Maw specifically. He's all around an interesting character, but it really shines from this angle.

All of the Street Cleaners seem to enjoy their work, including Johnny, but Maw's relationship to it is particular, in that he doesn't see his colleague or fellow people as either competition or allies on the same level, but as inherently beneath him, not worthy of his consideration.

Maw criticizes the corporations, claims them to be untrustworthy and incapable of wielding power without abusing it, and yet his solution is not the collective seizing of the means of production- SYN's platform and all its available resources, including the augmentation process in this context- but rather the accumulation of all for himself.

He plans to change the system from within by establishing himself as in control, as its driving force, instead of seeing the system as inherently flawed and needing to be dismantled. No amount of gradual change could have changed SYN, or the system for the better, and so, Maw only speeds up a process that, under SYN, might have taken longer, but would have been inevitable regardless.

Maw loses control, loses his sense of reality and objectivity, of himself, and crumbles under the weight of this process, this power.

Were SYN the one in control during the time of Maw's rampage, the process may have been more gradual, less chaotic, but the ending would have been the same - a mass extinction event, countless deaths and destruction, regardless of whether the motive was a false hope for the evolution of the human race, or profit for the bourgeoisie/market, as represented mostly by Teratek's Executive.

In short, Maw allows himself to become absorbed by the system, accelerates its negative outcome, and upon being killed, just like SYN's own death, nothing changes. Both deaths slow the progress down somewhat, hide the obvious, but result in no meaningful change.

All of this, while a reach in some parts, is not contradicted by anything in the story of Turbo Overkill, rendering it an insane, but viable analysis.

My conclusion is that Marxism-Leninism couldn't have saved Johnny Turbo, but it could have eased his suffering and made him see his struggle as founded in a material reality outside his own control, and inherent to the very system he exists within.

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*the situation of the Regulator force isn't exactly clear, but Paradise- Johnny's home, and the respective Regulator force of which he was a part of- is stated to have heavy criminal activity, which necessitated the Regulator presence, and may have inspired Johnny to join in the first place.

SYN, ironically enough, directly states that Johnny's presence in the Regulator force meant he "enforced [her] goals," until he was led astray by his injury. Said goals are specifically the elimination of the weak to make place for the strong, a genocide, but it's unclear if by "her", SYN describes herself as the sentient person possessing agency, or the purpose for which Teratek utilized her prior. If we assume the latter is true, it would mean the Regulators are simply a cleaner, more widely accepted version of the Street Cleaners, as I've already stated is my belief.

#asks #gabritalk #i did not think it would be this long #this absolutely isnt as in depth as id like it to be but eh

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leftistfeminista · 1 month

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After some deliberations, the Prussian authorities in the Rhineland revoked Jewish emancipation and imposed on the Jews in the newly annexed territories the status of Jews in Prussia proper. The major principle, following the precepts of what it meant to be a Christian state, implied that Jews could not be in a situation of authority over Christians: they could not serve as lawyers, judges, civil servants, teachers in schools or universities. In other words, the Rhenish Jews were de-emancipated, thrown back to where they—or their parents—had been a generation ago.

Among the tremendous consequences of the post-1815 Restoration, the change in the status of Rhenish Jews was obviously a minor and marginal footnote, and is hardly noted or mentioned by historians, but it gave rise to a totally new situation, affecting a few thousand Jews who within one generation were both granted emancipation and then drastically denied it, something that had never happened until that time to any Jewish group. The fact that most of those affected were, almost by definition, educated professional middle-class people, for whom emancipation had opened the road to being full-fledged citizens in an open society and were now thrown back into almost a medieval status, had far-reaching consequences.

In the years between 1815 and 1848 one can discern a deep feeling of alienation and consequent political radicalization among members of the Jewish intelligentsia in the Rhineland and the emergence among them—much more than among the more quietistic Jewish communities in Prussia proper—of radical politics; some did convert under that pressure, but this did not make them more supportive of the system imposed on them; others, while distancing themselves from orthodox Judaism, did try to maintain their Jewish identity in one way or another.

But it is among them that one finds the pioneers of radical democracy, revolutionary socialism, and a profound critique of bourgeois society and German nationalism. Many of them exiled themselves to Paris—which not only symbolized the legacy of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution in general, but must have also meant to them the homeland that once granted to their families and ancestors equality and citizenship. No region of Germany produced so many revolutionary radicals as the Rhineland.

Among these was the revolutionary thinker and poet Heinrich Heine (born in Düsseldorf in 1799); the communist and later forerunner of Zionism Moses Hess (born in Bonn in 1812); the writer and satirist Ludwig Börne (born in Frankfurt in 1786; his father, the banker Jakob Baruch, had headed the Jewish delegation that pleaded futilely with the Congress of Vienna not to revoke the emancipation of the Rhineland Jews).

And of course, Karl Marx, son of the Trier lawyer Heinrich (Heschel) Marx.

#karl marx #jewish history #antisemitism

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kafkaoftherubble · 7 months

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看到别的《不灭》粉针对“长生不死”的看法，在下小感

// Some thoughts on Immortality vis-à-vis To Your Eternity

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Why is there a (sometimes hidden) assumption that being immortal automatically means the following expectations:

being incredibly intelligent

hella knowledgeable

an expert generalist

"the one with the answer" in the entire group?

It's prevalent in pop culture which, I'm gonna guess, is a product of tons of fiction and myths that "say so."

But I think people take these assumptions for granted way too much and start to impose a universality that I don't think holds up to immortal characters who are human or possess human brains.

The qualifiers "human" and "possessing human brains" (or human cognition) are very important here. If this immortal is non-human, then this critique isn't aimed at them. Read on if you like, though.

The (human) brain is simply not an infinite memory space the way a computer database could theoretically be. Limitations are one of the most important factors that shape the course of a brain's evolution; hell, I once wrote a ramble regarding the difference between an AI's information processing vs. human cognition.

(Yes, it was outfitted with citations. Yes, it was completely unprompted and no one asked for it. At all. You may start to notice a pattern regarding me.)

Children generally get to learn and absorb as much information as they like with minimal cost until they're of a certain age, and then the pruning of neurons starts. The number of neurons we have is reduced because the brain now favors depth instead of breadth of knowledge. You cut off the things you don't actually need in your life to free new neurons for any domain that needs it.

This isn't just about memories. It's about things like your optical sense, your auditory sense, the whole shebang. Every part of your brain is constantly vying for free real estate to bolster its own domain; it's a relentless competition for neurons.

What does that mean?

It means even if you're immortal—so long as you're human or possess a human brain—you'll always be limited in your knowledge and skills. You can try to learn as many things as you want, but you're doing it at a cost, all the time.

Think about it. How well do you remember everything you've ever learned in school?

Do you remember the details of, say, the differing carbon pathways for C3 and C4 plants? Do you remember there are two kinds of mechanisms?

Do you remember how to calculate a region's longitude and latitude using their timezone via employing the Greenwich Meridian Line as a reference point, or a region of a known timezone?

Do you remember how to exchange inch to centimeter, or pound to kilogram, or Celsius to Fahrenheit, without using a converter?

How about recalling the detailed history of all four ancient civilizations and their ways of life: the Mesopotamian, the Egyptian, the Indus, and the Chinese?

So on, so forth. I don't know what everyone studied in their respective education system, but chances are, there is a lot of shit we have all "forgotten" even if we spent an inordinate amount of time committing them to memory back then. If you know the answer to any of these^ questions, then chances are you either just read/learn about them, or you regularly engage in this domain. Knowledge is never permanently stored in an individual's brain... because it can't. That's right; even skills and knowledge are not permanent in one's head. Impermanence, baby!

And that's my problem with the assumption of The All-Knowing Immortal.

While it's true that an immortal human has all the time in the world to study every knowledge humanity has accumulated as a whole, they can never have all knowledge at their fingertips, because at every acquisition of something new, they disregard what is judged to be unimportant and unnecessary by the brain to free up new neurons. There is always something the Immortal doesn't know—not because they have never heard of it, but because they have forgotten about it.

But surely immortality shapes someone such that they are different from a mortal being, right?

Correct! It does, and I think in at least two major ways:

(1) Expertise

Even a mortal being could gradually become an expert in one or—in the case of a polymath—various domains. Again, a mature brain favors depth instead of breadth. The more you practice, the more your neurons refine and develop, and the more skilled you become. That's how experts are created.

Since an Immortal has a lot more time (and with time comes resources and opportunities) to hone their skills in several domains, it stands that they will be incredibly expert in these domains over a long period.

The catch, though, is that they are only an expert in the domains they frequently engage in. It doesn't translate to being an expert in literally every other trade under the sun. It doesn't even mean they will become an instant expert after some light-reading about those trades because expertise ≠ genius. Some domains' knowledge may afford the Immortal an easier path to understanding related domains, but it still doesn't mean the Immortal is gonna be a pro and galaxy-brain at it without effort and cost.

(2) Experience

Experience is gained from how long one experiences life, so naturally, an Immortal is gonna have a lot of that. This is why I do agree that an Immortal should likely be one of the wisest in the group... but I don't think this rule should be universal to all immortal beings either.

What if an Immortal spent 40 years of their life in isolation, as a hermit, whose only occasional companion was a phantom-like observer who called them out anytime he felt like the Immortal was underwhelming?

The human brain's growth and learning depend on sociality. An isolated Immortal loses its most important source of learning, so of course, they would now be even less experienced than a poison-tasting woman who traveled around and recorded her adventures and knowledge in a book.

----

That's right. This post has always been about Fushi... because To Your Eternity was in the title of this ramble. Ha! Read the signpost before you enter next time, you dorks! I gotcha good!

While some criticisms against Fushi's suboptimal intelligence and knowledge are warranted (and even those that aren't warranted are still interesting arguments to think about), I think people's expectation of what an Immortal being should be has gotten in the way of them seeing/appreciating Fushi as a "different kind of Immortal."

Fushi's default form is a 14-year-old boy who, for the longest time, has been living alone. That's a boy who's been deprived of social learning for a long enough time that it might have caused some brain damage (technical). That's not counting the fact that a 14-year-old brain simply isn't mature and is easily overtaken by impulses. I'm of the hypothesis that Fushi's beholden to the form they take; the proof is in how, whenever they change into one, they begin to exhibit their attributes.

Fushi's saddled with quite a lot of trauma—in fact, their trauma starts almost immediately and constantly after they are active beyond being a piece of rock or moss. What's the second word they learn after "Arigatou?" Wasn't it 痛い ("it hurts")? All of that stuff can indirectly hamper their social learning.

Fushi's base Nameless Boy form may also just be... well, not good at social learning. Or, Fushi themself isn't good at it. In other words, Fushi might just be... autistic. Bit of a headcanon there, though.

That's not all. While Fushi might have chosen to read a ton of books and whatnot, what do you think their interest will be? I don't think it's science, or politics, or philosophy, or looksmaxxing—the point is, they choose their own domains to engage in.

And even if they had read things like, I don't know, Trigonometry and Beauty or The Philosophy of Algebra or Sun Tzu's Art of War—my previous point about how knowledge can still be forgotten when those neurons fall into disuse still apply. And that's if Fushi was paying attention to what they were reading in the first place, because if you're not attentive, then good luck encoding things into your long-term memory effectively.

------

So what does all of this amount to?

Well, it means one may think Fushi is a dull-witted Immortal,...

...or think Fushi is a different kind of Immortal.

An Immortal that isn't as common a depiction as most others we knew in pop culture, to boot. Stil, they exhibit the two things Immortals should possess in abundance compared to a mortal being.

Firstly, they display expertise in wielding their powers (they are actually a very competent fighter come the Modern Arc and the Future Arc when they want to be). They are skilled at cooking and are generally the best at remembering the quirks, characteristics, and inclinations of every person they know well enough.

Why? Because these are the domains they engage in all the time.

Secondly, they exhibit an abundance of experience accumulated through their long lives. But here's the twist that I adore To Your Eternity for:

While the experience of an Immortal is usually depicted as a net benefit that shapes that Immortal into becoming wise, Fushi's abundance of experience as an Immortal is sometimes detrimental to them.

I'm talking, of course, about trauma as one of the main components of their experience.

We've discussed previously that Fushi's growth might have been hampered by the sheer trauma they had undergone at the start of the story. But here's the thing: their experience since then didn't exactly improve all the time. The grueling trial that was The Assault on Renril? Their previous attempts at fighting back Nokkers with varying results? Being stuck in a molten iron Prison Gate oh wow it's like Gojo ohmygod cube? Kahaku? You can list them yourself.

Even as normal human beings with limited timespan, we often find our own less-than-savory experience—including trauma—debilitating or even unbearable. Now imagine being an Immortal who keeps collecting experiences like these. Imagine yourself saddled with the suffering you've already gone through and beholden to more trauma and suffering as part of your experience living forever.

These are your experiences.

Have they made you exceptionally wise?

Not really?

Aye, that's the point.

-----

If I have to give a TL;DR for this, I guess it's:

"Guys, I think we should give Fushi a wee bit of break, doncha think, lads?"

I know they are an Immortal. And people expect an Immortal various things in a story. But they are also a lot more than what common depictions of eternal beings are like.

Fushi is, to me, a very interesting exploration of being an immortal, and one I appreciate for

deconstructing the assumptions people make about Immortals in general

and deconstructing the "shouldn't an Immortal be wise because of their experience" understanding most of us might have.

Thank you for reading my ramble. Check your eyesight when you have the chance just in case reading all of this gave you a myopia. Don't say I didn't warn ya!

-----------------------

I'm... gonna pretend this is my "Happy Fumetsu Tuesday/Wednesday" post of the week—which I haven't been doing for a while now. I might as well retroactively pretend this ramble was part of a tradition-that-is-never-really-observed-for-real, too.

#“小感”个屁！完全就是一篇论文！#啰嗦的睿得失 #every time I write a ramble I wonder who the hell will even read this all #maybe when Season 3 start I should just reblog them to the surface for new audience #fumetsu no anata e #to your eternity #tye #fushi #fnae #immortality

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sheydandcherub · 1 year

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Introduction to SheydandCherub ✍︎

* this post will be constantly updated and edited.

— Table of Contents

i. About the Author

ii. Unique Tags

iii. Beliefs of The Blog

iiii. Expectations & Guidelines

v. Ending Notes

— About the Author

Vinido bueno! I am Elle (They/them), a Noahide, future Jew, Traditional Demonolator, angelologist and all around occultist. I am a minor, and have been practicing occultism in a variety of forms for roughly four years at the time of writing this (6/7/23). I was raised in a non-denominational and non-spiritual Christian household, however my dad comes from a line of Curanderos. Hearing tales of their craft and speaking to them inspired me to pursue occultism (thanks Titi!). I am half-hispanic, and incredibly proud of my heritage and the culture of which both my dad and mom come from and the unique forms of spirituality developed within these cultures (Appalachian folk magic on my mom’s side, and Curanderismo on my dad’s). I am also incredibly, incredibly queer, I am both non-binary and gay. Through this blog I hope to bring to light the appropriation present in western occultism, and the ways in which one can deappropriate their practice(s) while still having a complete and workable system of magick and spirituality.

Outside of my spiritual life I pursue a variety of hobbies, including writing (obviously because of this blog, but I also write poetry!), singing, theater, and music enthusiasm. I have sung for nine years, and worked in theater (both behind the scenes and on-stage) for six. Over quarantine I made it my goal to develop a decent music taste, and that I believe I did! My absolute favorite artist is Fiona Apple whom I love and adore; some other artists I enjoy include Leith Ross, Beabadoobee, Ani DiFranco, Lizzy McAlpine, Mxmtoon, Boygenius (and all artists of the band independently), Faye Webster, The Smiths, Radiohead, and SO. MANY. MORE. Additionally, I attend an early college program and am currently taking college classes for a Nurse Aid degree; through the program I am able to take non-nurse college classes as well, so I take classes that assist in my religious studies research (sociology, ethics & morals, philosophy, etc.).

— Unique Tags

#ellesoteric — Western occultism posts!

#shaelleom — Judaism/Noahidism posts!

#elleanswers — Answers to your questions!

#angelleic — Angelic and/or Enochian posts!

#sacrificiallambs — Demonic posts!

— Beliefs of The Blog

My beliefs revolve around Conservative (aka Masorti! Also, conservative used in a Jewish context has nothing to do with political conservatism) Judaism. I believe HaShem has always existed, before human comprehension, and HaShem will exist after human comprehension as well. Other divinities are a result of human comprehension and interpretation of HaShem’s eternal energy. I don’t see anything wrong with people interacting with these divinities. In fact, I interact with divinities other than HaShem; I am a Traditional Demonolator in addition to my Noahidism. The Demonic Divine are incredibly important to my life— I am devoted to Empress Delepitore, the demoness of magick, divination, dreams, and enlightenment. The main way I differentiate myself from non-Noahide Demonolators is that I do not make efforts to worship the demonic divine, I solely work with the demonic. I also research the angelic to a great degree through both enochian and Judaic lenses!

— Expectations & Guidelines

In order for my blog to be a space I feel comfortable, I expect for everyone who interacts to follow these guidelines:

1) No antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, racism, etc.

2) All questions are encouraged (even ones that seem dumb, because I promise they are not)! My dms and ask box are always open, so don’t be afraid to use them! Additionally, you can always dm me on discord; my user ID is @702921106675335208

3) I am not perfect, and am open to critiques and corrections!

4) Do not try to convert anyone to any religious belief. Proselytization is not welcome here.

5) Be kind and respectful always!

I try not to block anyone in hopes of educating as many people as possible, however I will block someone if they do not follow these guidelines.

— Ending Notes

I hope you enjoyed having the opportunity to learn more about me and this blog! Feel free to ask any questions in the comments or the ask box; I would love for some requests so I know what y’all might want to read from me. Thank you so much for stopping by! ♡

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withbriefthanksgiving · 10 months

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May I gently say that in general - but especially during a genocide and amongst those who want to bring it to its end - we need to start embedding disability justice.

How many Palestinians are now deafened, blind, mentally unwell, physically disabled etc? The world we want to build - can these people access it? What about our own disabled siblings and comrades - are we bringing them with us? Do we see them with us in this new world we are trying to make?

I know that there are many places where obviously, it will not be fully accessible. Nobody is saying we need a blind man to be a sharpshooter.

But what we are saying is that we need to wrestle with the ways that settler colonial, imperialist racial capitalism has successfully propagandised to us regarding disability. Things we take for granted. Things we see as common sense - are these things actually the natural state of affairs? Or does this mode of thinking reinforce capitalist and settler colonialist violences in small and big ways?

Let me bring this down from the abstract and macro, to the more concrete and micro. For example: we realise that:

one way the American (+ Israeli + other allies) retains its stranglehold on its hegemony is by a vast propaganda machine. This is audio visual media, like news, TV, books etc.

these countries do not want a politically educated working class. schools and universities do not give people the ways to analyse and critique their society, and come up with ways to change it for the good of everyone.

These countries have legal systems that facilitate (enable, make it easy) capitalist productions. Such as no maternity leave, bad workplace protections etc.

This type of working disables people. It makes people sick and unwell, physically and mentally. It’s hostile to anyone whose body or mind can’t function well in a job.

This is on top of historical processes of disablement and debilitation by genocide, ethnic cleansing, colonialism, war etc.

The capitalist entertainment industry exists to make money, and to make money off a numb, overworked and tired population. there are a lot of tv shows books etc which have no real substance, and provide comfort for peoples difficult lives. And people are not encouraged to engage with this critically. Often they also don’t have the time or the tools to do so.

Therefore, any of us who seriously want to change this, must realise that

We have a lot of propaganda to counteract. I think many people realise this, and share a lot of tweets, book excerpts etc. however-

Sharing is not enough. We need to be sharing information in an accessible way.

This is because the masses are - for the reasons I’ve laid out above - tired and disabled. They may not be well educated or literate. They may not speak the dominant language of your country very fluently. They also have been drenched in capitalist and imperialist propaganda for years.

Therefore: order to reach these masses effectively, the information we are sharing should be shared as accessibly as possible.

A simple way we can do that is by copying and pasting text if we post screenshots of tweets, articles etc. This makes it easier for blind people and people with visual impairments. They can have the text read to them by using screen readers. But not everyone has screen readers, which also read alt-text. Image descriptions allow people to magnify or enlarge the text. People can also translate the text online to a language they understand better.

Please describe your screenshots.

The majority of image descriptions on this website are done by other disabled people. It takes longer for us to describe the images after, because you have to use an online converter. Or type it out ourselves. It’s a lot quicker if you are taking a screenshot to copy paste the text at the same time.

I know it’s not always possible to do. And it’s hard to get into the habit. But I think we need revolutionary discipline to practice and get into this habit, those of us who can.

I am also speaking to myself here. It took me 2 years before I started seriously to describe text. I was shamed into doing so by blind users on this app who were rightfully upset at how those of us with sight completely erase them from online experiences. It kind of awkward to do at first. You kind of feel silly. But you do get better. Even if you are a small account, it’s important to try your hand at this. It can be an introduction into mutual aid for a lot of us - helping each other out because it’s important for us to help each other and to have links with each other, including disabled people.

I think the more of us who try to do this, it will lead us to increase accessibility in other areas, like in-person organising.

If you’re interested in getting into describing text, have a look at my tag: image descriptions. It’s got some tips, tutorials and explanations written by people who rely on images being described to get info and navigate the web.

Thank you for reading.

#Image descriptions #Accessibility #Disability #Socialism #Long post #FYI I’m not blind or visually impaired

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speedlauncher · 3 months

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tripleatranscription · 1 year

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#medical transcription companies australia #medical transcription companies in Australia

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margridarnauds · 2 years

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The Review That The Medievalists Don't Want You To See

Well. I never thought that THAT was a title that I'd be putting on a review, given that, as a medievalist, a lot of my public outreach work involves, specifically, disproving the notion that we're all a bunch of old, straight, rich, white men, but...every once in a while...academia proves me wrong.

Some people on medievalbr might be aware of the works of Dr. Mary Rambaran-Olm, a black medievalist who is well known for calling out racism in the academy, especially for her work leading the discussion on the racist use of the term "Anglo Saxon" to describe the inhabitants and period of time in early medieval English history. She has faced a lot of harassment, both from white supremacists outside the field and racists in the field, who get uncomfortable whenever someone comes along to upset a status quo that benefits them

Dr. Rambaran-Olm was recently asked to write a review for an upcoming book, The Bright Ages, by David M. Perry and Matthew Gabriele, which purports to "refute common misperceptions of the European Middle Ages, showing the beauty and communion that flourished alongside the dark brutality—a brilliant reflection of humanity itself." She did as requested and wrote a lengthy review that criticized aspects of how the book dealt with its subject matter, a review that was then shut down, first for "word count", then for "lack of generosity". (Aka "It was balanced and presented critiques as opposed to being uniformly positive"...which is supposed to be the purpose of a professional academic review, we aren't exactly working according to the kudos system here.)

(The full email correspondence is available on Dr. Rambaran-Olm's twitter, here.)

Dr. Rambaran-Olm has published a review on medium, and, in the final few paragraphs, has this to say, as a measure of exactly what the editors of the publication were concerned about:

The Bright Ages may not exclusively be for white readers, but it certainly is for neoliberal readers who want to believe they are progressive and demand superficial fixes to complex problems and issues. For what it’s worth, I don’t think there’s any illusion that the book aims to convert white supremacists with this material, nor would any book really be able to achieve that. Still, it’s a safe book for a receptive liberal audience. It’s not a radical book, but that must be accepted at this moment, because the field is not ready for anything particularly radical.

Terrifying.

It should be noted that "read this with a critical eye" should be part and parcel of reading any book on the middle ages. If they wanted their book to get a shred of the respect they seem to believe it merits, they would understand this. This is intended to be a textbook for a general audience, but it doesn't include footnotes, citations, or, apparently, any room for critical thinking, especially from the people of color that it claims to support. She deserves better, and so does the public.

Since coming forward about her experiences, she has faced a lot of harassment from inside the field. Everyone involved on the other end of this has been very mature about the entire thing, blocking reviews from anyone pointing out what's happened. There have been allegations that she is not really a medievalist, that she's not even really black. (If she isn't a medievalist, neither are any of us, and...as someone who's seen her speak in person, I can say that she is most definitely black, as her various photos suggest. It shows how low they're willing to go.)

For years, a goal of academics has been to say "this isn't who we are as a field." But the system's rotten, right down to the foundation. I can't say that academia as an institution isn't racist and colonialist, it is. However, in that same vein, acting like all academics are a hivemind ultimately only benefits the worst of the batch. Instead, I would urge people to follow Dr. Rambaran-Olm and scholars like her that are trying to tear down the field from the inside.

#mary rambaran-olm #the bright ages #medievalblr #the middle ages #medieval

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edwad · 2 years

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no offense but i don't think you're justified in dismissing "worldview marxism" as flippantly as you do if you haven't read at least some decent amount of hegel. i'm sure heinrich has and so it's okay if you want to defer to him but you should stop the condescending tone toward people who have done their homework and agree with worldview marxism

i just scrolled through like 4 months of posts trying to figure out when the last time i even mentioned worldview marxism was and couldn't rly find anything so not sure what this is even really a response to (or where i would've been condescending!) but there are a couple of things id say here i guess

first of all, i'm not really all that dismissive of worldview marxism (and frankly, neither is heinrich). sure, the term has some critical intent behind it, but it's mostly just a description of the dominant form that marx-reception took after marxs death. the point of highlighting worldview marxism isn't to locate it as a moment in history where everyone was an idiot until people like me came along and started getting everything right, it's to talk about a real tendency to generalize elements of marxs work into a set of principles or general laws which govern all of human history and even the natural world outside of it. i think this runs up against marxs own explicit statements in the best of his work, although much of that is in manuscripts which went unpublished until after the heyday of worldview marxism (and i don't think this is merely a coincidence either).

as for the hegel angle: sure i haven't read much hegel, but that would only be a meaningful shortcoming if such a worldview were the result of a marxism which was steeped in hegel. i don't really think this is true. it largely comes out of second-hand popularizers who (at best) were regurgitating engels' later work as being the foundations for what marxism was all about. but engels himself was ultimately not steeped in hegel, as people like norman levine (and, to a different extent, terrell carver) have shown. even lukacs, arguably the greatest and most sophisticated worldview marxist, highlights engels' own shortcomings with dialectical thought (in fact, he was the first notable person to do this). this is also not to simply load all of the problems onto engels and dismiss him instead (and similarly, despite what everyone thinks, heinrich is also not dismissive of engels). it is only to highlight his limits and describe the very real history of marx-reception through engels' popular works, many of which we can undoubtedly say -- and without any reference to hegel whatsoever -- reveal issues in engels' interpretation of marx's critique of political economy (which we know from their correspondence he actually knew very little about beyond reading volume 1 when it was published).

if anything, the marxists which could claim some affinity to hegel and who could (and did) make the strongest case for the relationship between hegel and marx were often the people like the early initiators of the german new reading: backhaus, reichelt, and schmidt (who, from what i can tell, coined the term 'worldview marxism' and wrote about marx's various appropriations of hegel). others like jairus banaji and cyril smith have shown the limits of dominant interpretations of marxs capital through bad readings of hegel (especially in the case of lenin) where "the dialectical method" is turned into a contentless architecture which can simply have all of its parts relabeled and converted into a marxian system. this ignores the intimate relationship between essence and appearance in hegel, and in fact completely divorces them.

heinrich's "innovation", if it can even be called that, is that he distances himself from both of these camps because each offers an interpretation of marx via hegel (lenin & lukacs; the early german new reading/systematic dialectics/etc) which only approaches hegel *through* marx as a guide to making sense of his work, rather than each as relatively independent thinkers in their own right (although arguably people like schmidt were a bit more sensitive to this than lukacs and marcuse who treat hegel as a proto-marx).

now you can say that i'm merely deferring to an authority on all of this because i haven't read enough hegel (and to some extent that's definitely true!) but if anything i think that this is basically beside the point since the issues of worldview marxism are largely independent of hegel in their actual context and have a much more straightforward history in the reception and interpretation of marxs texts for other reasons. to the extent that hegel is even involved, i think that the scholarship is pretty overwhelmingly on my side about this. now i guess you could say the scholarship & my own understanding of hegel (from people like heinrich, banaji, smith, etc) is wrong, and maybe you'd even be right, but frankly this only discloses another wrinkle in all of this (which heinrich and postone are both good for), namely that the hegel-marx connection is completely independent of our understanding of hegel. we could completely and totally understand hegel, better than himself even, but that has absolutely nothing to do with marx's reading of him, which might deviate significantly (and, by many accounts, probably does).

marx was necessarily a productive misreader of hegel in many ways -- and how could he not be, since like early 20th century marxists, he didn't have access to many of the manuscripts that help illuminate the thought of the person he's studying, like the jena lectures for example. more importantly, even if marx did read hegel as a worldview marxist would, this doesn't even mean we have to agree with it. this is a big reason why heinrich is very clear that reading and understanding hegel in the 21st century is not some magic key to making sense of marx. there might be some utility in reading hegel, and certainly it will clarify moments of marx's biography, but there are other (more preferable) ways of accounting for the contours of marxs own intellectual development as well as the history of marxisms without simply having to stop and read hegel, which is not the same as doing your homework.

#communism

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serpentstole · 3 years

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Can I ask what's wrong with Michael W Ford's books? I never read them but I've seen often people recommending them, so I'm curious. Thank you and have a nice day.

Thanks for the question! Sorry if this gets a little long, TL;DR is at the bottom but I've broken down some more specific examples in point form.

I'll preface this by saying that if people get something worthwhile from Michael W Ford's books, that's their business and I'm happy for them. However, there's a few things about his writing and him as a person that I don't really love and struggle to get behind. Most of the specific textual examples I give are from the Bible of the Adversary specifically, as it's one of his more famous books and the only one I personally have had the mental fortitude to page through so far.

- I'm immediately leery of anyone who's often described as a "visionary" or "luminary" on websites selling or listing their books, especially when I've gotten the feeling that it's just that his books are accessible and plentiful. Even among fans of authors like E. A. "Become A Living God" Koetting, the general opinion seems to be that his books lack a lot of consistency and are a bit poorly written. Can confirm for the Bible of the Adversary, at least. There's some parts of that thing that could have used a once-over by an editor.

- I try very hard not to use what happened to the Greater Church of Lucifer/GCoL against him. Another member of the community that I do still (loosely, infrequently) interact with was also involved, and while I sincerely wish they'd both more deeply researched the man they were signing up to run a very public and scrutinized church with, I think his turning into a scam artist who publicly converted to Christianity was enough punishment there. Likewise, I'm a bit uncomfortable with his past involvement with the Order of Nine Angels/ONA/O9A given the fact that they're a pack of murder advocating nazis, but apparently he left when he discovered that fact, so I try to give him the benefit of the doubt that he truly did distance himself from them immediately upon learning of their beliefs, as I don't know when these things became more widely known. However, both of these fumbles alongside how he presents himself and his books just don't sit well with me, as the most generous interpretation is that he was twice-misled in some pretty dangerous and harmful ways by those that are damaging to the public perception of Luciferianism, but still likes to be some figurehead of the Luciferian community. People make mistakes, and people can be misled, and people can learn from past experiences, but his track record is a bit upsetting for a supposed authority.

- His work includes pieces and ideas from occultists or practices that I tend to avoid in my own practice and study, such as Thelema and Crowley's writing as a whole, inspiration taken from the Temple of Set/Setian magic, Qlipoth (because it wouldn't be a Luciferian grimoire without pilfered Jewish mysticism), and forms of Gnosticism that embrace the idea of God as an evil demiurge (which i explained my discomfort with in my previous post). I'm also not a huge fan of his "all magic comes from within" approach (and find it hard to reconcile with his frequent use of Luciferian deities/spirits and demons), nor that he'll talk about Cain's role in "Luciferian grimoires" without actually naming any... though given how similar a piece of Lilith themed artwork he's done looks to Andrew Chumbley's illustration, I assume he means the sort of books the Cultus Sabbati was writing. I wish I still had the Ford version saved or could remember which of his books it's from, the side by side comparison is painful but without it I risk looking like I'm making things up.

- Heavy, heavy use of Lilith, which I don't love for reasons I outlined before. She mostly seems to appear whenever spooky lustful sex magick is being discussed, which is great, that's great.

- He also uses the Wiccan wheel of the year sprinkled in among his more Luciferian focused holy days, which is just really funny to me. Why are we celebrating Beltane, Michael? Why are we celebrating Imbolg? (Page 69)

- He likes to use a lot of "black magic" and "vampyre magic" stuff which tends to feel very sensationalized and over the top to me. I've seen discussions of vampiric magic I found very interesting, but so far his hasn't been one of them.

- He sometimes seems to conflate Lucifer with Samael which I really truly dislike, though it's admittedly not the most baffling or out of left field take I've seen.

- Ford at times seems to either willfully misrepresent or misunderstand information he's passing along. For example, in the Bible of the Adversary he says that Cain's name comes from "...root ‘Kanah’ which means to possess. This by itself presents the antinomian nature of his essence, while instead of sacrificing his most bountiful items to the Lord, he kept them for himself." As I understand it, discussion surrounding Cain's name possibly coming from the Hebrew word קנה (kana) lean more into it being the word for to get or to obtain, referencing Eve's declaration after his conception that she'd gotten a man from the Lord. I'm all for alternate interpretations, but it feels like needless edgy-fying to fit the narrative he's trying to present. (Quote from Page 58)

- He'll say some absolutely bonkers shit like "Abel in some Luciferian Lore is considered a lower pre-form of Cain, thus the sacrifice was not literal" with zero citations or references. Like sir what the fuck does that mean, what Lore, please give us the lore please. (Footnote, Page 59)

- His interpretation of the Watchers and the Book of Enoch is so insultingly bad that I won't even relay it here, but if I see one more person claim that an angel, demon, or spirit they want to distance from Christianity or Judaism is actually a Babylonian god I'm going to go feral.

- As I've hinted at above, it feels like he'll just cherry pick and regurgitate for no real purpose. A few spirits from other texts like the Lesser Key and the Grimoire Verum get mentioned for... mostly the set of names, it seems like, he just kind of lists them out of context.

TL;DR, Michael W Ford feels (to me at least) like someone who has picked out the more appealing and edgy occult trivia and magic he could find from a wide range of sources, recontextualized the parts that didn't appeal to him until they fit his aesthetic and purposes, and presented them as a workable entry point to the Luciferian religion and its potential magical systems that is all flash no substance... and then could barely polish the flash. I don't like that he's many people's first exposure to the concept of theistic Luciferianism, and I don't like how authoritatively he presents his jumbled works as what the religion is truly about when it's so broad a label. Again, if there is something that someone finds useful within his books I am very happy for them, but I have struggled to find anything I could point to that make them worth the read... even for me to investigate further keep critiquing.

I honestly do not know why so people recommend them, unless it's just that they're easy to buy, reasonably inexpensive, and specifically have the Luciferian label on them. If that's truly the case, those people are being lazy and uncritical in a way that doesn't speak well to their apparent Luciferian ideals.

#asks #answer #luciferianism #theistic luciferianism #michael w ford #bible of the adversary

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cryptvokeeper · 3 years

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I have once again made a joke in the tags of another person's post only to go "wait actually thats a baller au idea" so fuck it; good church prime boy Tommy and heathen wild child tubbo au that plays out like one of those awful lifetime movies you probably watched if you went to catholic school, only actually good.

small town setting, big suburbia energy.

Tommy who got taken care of by primers and their kindness basically saved his life when he was growing up on the streets.

Eventually got taken in (fostered? adopted? just picked up?) by Dream (who's like, still a bit of a controlling asshole but not full manipulative, abusive monster, just strict). Grows up in a very church-prime-religious household.

so like Tommy's kinda embarassed/ashamed of growing up on the streets and is really attached to the church so he really tries to be well behaved and act "better" than his past.

Meanwhile tubbo was raised by the sleepy bois who consist of Phil, who's basically the equivalent of an agnostic where he kinda believes in prime but doesnt really care abt the church, wilbur, who makes new cults like every other week and questions any authority/system you put in front of him, and techno, who doesnt even go here cuz he follows the channel memberships, and is also an anarchist.

(and also the blood god??? where does that fall on the religion in the universe???)

needless to say his faith's a lot looser and he does not give a shit about rules.

cut to high school setting where Tubbo's some cool kid delinquent who gets in fights with teachers and everyone's intimidated by and Tommy is the straight-laced golden child teacher's pet who goes to church on Sundays and everything.

They start out butting heads, Tubbo makes fun of Tommy for being a nerd and Tommy disapproves of Tubbo's antics and tries to scold him.

Tommy's friend group is other church primers; Ponk, Quackity, sam, etc. while Tubbo's includes his brothers, ranboo, fundy, etc.

Through plot contrivance they are forced to work together or hang out and discover they have a lot in common, actually.

Tubbo's actually really kind and thoughtful under the feral-ness and usually his crazier stuff is him defending his friends or ultimately harmless fun.

Tommy's actually really impulsive and chaotic, and is really passionate about what he thinks is right. He will curse you out and steal your wallet if he thinks youre a wrongun.

They end up balancing each other out, with Tubbo encouraging Tommy to let loose more and Tommy reigning Tubbo in.

Tubbo's brothers make fun of him at first for making friends with the weird religious kid until one day he comes over to their house and Oops Accidental Brother Acquisition

Like they expect him to be a haughty prick but he's actually funny??? And agrees with alot of the critiques of authority that Techno and wilbur have?? And oh god Phil please can we keep him

I have this specific image of him coming across the channel member bell/shrine and the fam tensing up preparing for him to be an asshole abt it but he's just like "oh cool! I have one of those for primes!"

"You're pretty chill about this considering I believe in a totally different god" "Well they can't be that different if you still believe in being a good person."

I like exploring the differences in fictional religions ok we've been over this

Dream does NOT approve of the friendship and thinks Tubbo's a bad influence.

which, he's right, but thats besides the point. he tries to keep them apart and it is not very pogchamp.

and like ultimately neither of them gets "converted" to the other's side. Tommy still keeps his faith and Tubbo still flies in the face of church prime, and they just coexist cuz despite their differences theyre both genuinely good people who try to do whats right.

Theyre best friends your honor.

#dream smp #I cant keep doing this but also I totally can so I will

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gascon-en-exil · 3 years

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A Game of Thrones 10th Anniversary Season Ranking: Part 2

Link to Part 1

Time for the bottom half of the list. The four seasons here will surprise no one, but the order might.

#5 Season 6

You can tell what I most what to talk about here...but there's an order to these things.

S6 actually has a bunch of great ideas, but they drown beneath the most slapdash plotting and character work the show has seen yet in order to set the stage for the narrower conflicts of the last two seasons. It's notorious for bringing back characters who haven't been seen in a season or longer only to kill them off (Balon Greyjoy, Osha, Hodor, the Blackfish, Rickon, Walder Frey) or awkwardly graft them back into the main plot (Sandor Clegane, Bran). There are plot threads that ought to be compelling but are too rushed in execution, like the siege of Riverrun, Littlefinger's hand in the Battle of the Bastards, or Daenerys's time back among the Dothraki and then finally getting the hell out of Meereen. Arya hits on the only interesting part of her two-season sojourn in Braavos - a stage play, of all things - only for it to stumble at the end with a disappointing offscreen death and some incomprehensible philosophy ahead of the start of her murder tour of Westeros. There's also so much cutting off the branches, enough to be conspicuous; the final shot of Daenerys leading an armada of about half the remaining cast she assembled partially offscreen says that better than anything else. Well, not anything....

Highlight: Without exaggeration, the opening of S6E10 is easily my favorite sequence in all of GoT. The staging, the music, the mounting suspense even as it becomes increasingly obvious what's about to happen, the twisted religious references particularly in Cersei's mock confession to Unella, Tommen throwing himself out a window because he can't deal with the reality of how terrible his mother is, how Cersei gives absolutely no fucks whatsoever about murdering hundreds of people at once in a calculated act of vengeance largely prompted by her own poorly thought out actions - I love it all. It's the single most masterfully-executed act of villainy in the whole show - Daenerys torching King's Landing probably has a higher body count, but the presentation there is all muddled - and if I had any doubts about Cersei being my favorite multi-season major character they were silenced in this moment. The explosion of the Sept doesn't sit perfectly with me, because I liked the Tyrells and because of what I said about deaths like theirs and Renly's in the previous post under S2, but I think that unease only cements the strength of this sequence. It's an overused phrase in fandom these days, but GoT at its best is all about moral greyness that gives its audience room for multilayered reactions. Cersei nuking the Sept and making herself the sole power in King's Landing, which in a sense is just a more overt example of the kind of character/plot consolidation elsewhere represented by Daenerys's armada, is one of those events that's impossible to approach from a single angle if you care about any of the characters involved. And hey, it's not in the books (yet, presumably), so unlike Ned's death or the Red Wedding the GoT showrunners can take the credit for realizing this one.

Favorite death: Even leaving aside the Sept and related deaths there's a lot of good ones to choose from in S6. Ramsey is cathartic but too gory for me, Osha's was a clever callback but a little delayed, it's hard to pin down specific deaths when Daenerys incinerates the khals, and Arya only gets half credit for Walder Frey and his sons when she saves the rest of the house for the opening of S7. I'm thinking Hodor, not so much because I enjoy his character or the manner of his death but because it's a clever bit of playing with language (that must have been hell to render in other languages for dubbing) wrapped up in some entertainingly murky consent issues and some closed time loop weirdness. It's all very...extra? Is that the word for it?

Least favorite death: Offscreen deaths continue to be mostly letdowns, in this case Blackfish and the Waif. Way to botch the ending of Arya's already near-pointless Braavos arc, guys. Speaking of Arya, this spot goes to Lady Crane, whom the Waif somehow kills with a stool or something. It's a dumb way to send off an entertaining minor character.

#6 Season 8

I swear that I'm not putting S8 this high solely because of Jonmund kind of sort of happening. I've never been very interested in either of them and the sex would be far too bear-on-otter to suit my pornographic preferences, but even so the choice to close out the series with them is hilarious.

I really don't need to elaborate on why S8 is down here; everyone who's ever watched the show has done as much in the nearly two years since it wrapped up. I do however need to explain why I've ranked not one but two seasons below it. My biggest argument here is that I don't believe it's fair to critique S8 for problems it inherited from earlier seasons. A non-comprehensive list:

Mad Queen Daenerys: unevenly built up beginning from S1 and continuing in some form through every following season

The questionable racial optics of Dany's army: also seeded as early as S1 and solidified by S3 with the Slaver's Bay arc

Cersei only succeeding because she makes stupid decisions and then lucks out until she doesn't: apparent from S1, directly lampshaded by Tywin in S3, fully on display with the Faith Militant arc of S5-6

Jaime not getting a redemption arc or falling in love with Brienne: evident with his repeated returns to Cersei throughout the show as one of the most consistent elements of his character, particularly in S4 and during the siege of Riverrun in S6

Tyrion grabbing the idiot ball/becoming a flat audience surrogate mouthpiece: started in S5 around the time the showrunners ran out of book material for him and wanted to make him more of a PoV character and his arc less of a downward spiral, although I've seen arguments that changes from the books involving his Tysha story and Shae set him on this trajectory even earlier

The hardening of Sansa's character: began in earnest in S4 and never let up from there

The strange ordering of antagonists: set down by S7's equally strange plot structure - the Night King had to come first with that setup

CleganeBowl and the dumber twists: from what I've heard the whole thing of writing around fans on the internet guessing plot twists started pretty much when the book content ended, so S5-6 maybe?

Yes, there's plenty to criticize about S8 on its own merits...but just as much that was merely the writers doing what they could at that point with deeply flawed material.

Highlight: This may sound cheesy, but the better parts of S8 are almost all the cinematic ones, whether that's E2 being a bottle episode with tons of poignant character send-offs before the big battle, a handful of deaths with actual satisfying weight like Jorah's and Theon's, and an epilogue that incorporates both closure for individuals and the broader uncertainty of messy socio-political systems that GoT has always been known for before working its way back to the Starks at the very end for some tidy bookending. Even imperfect moments like the Lannister twins' death and the resolution of Sansa's character felt weighty and appropriate based on what had come before.

Favorite death: Forget about the audio commentary attempting to flatten Cersei's character; Cersei and Jaime Lannister have an excellent end. Cersei especially, as the scenes of her stumbling her way down into the catacombs as the Red Keep crashes down around her really show off how her world is abruptly falling apart and how she retreats into her own self-interest at the end in spite of her demise being at least partially of her own doing. There's some stupid moments associated with these scenes, like Jaime dueling Euron to the death and CleganeBowl, but I can excuse those when the twins end up dying exactly where you'd expect them to: in each other's arms, in a ruined monument to their family's grand ambitions that, like Casterly Rock itself, was taken from another family.

Least favorite death: Quite a few dumb ones in S8 have become forever infamous. Missandei sticks out, and for me Varys too just as much because of how the writing pushes him to do the dumbest thing he could possibly do purely for the sake of killing him off ten minutes into the penultimate episode. But no one belongs here more than Daenerys Targaryen, killed at the height of a rushed and uncertain villain reveal by a man who takes advantage of their romantic history (who is also her family, because Targaryens) to stab her in a moment of vulnerability - pretty much only because another man tells him that Daenerys is the final boss. Narratively speaking that might be the case, but even so this is the end result of multiple seasons of middling-to-bad buildup. Not even Drogon burning the symbolism can salvage that. Also Fire Emblem: Three Houses did this scene and did it better.

#7 Season 5

...Yeah, we're going to have to go there.

Sansa's rape is not a plot point that personally touches me much. It's terribly framed in the moment and the followup in later seasons is inconsistent at best, but it's not a kind of trauma I can relate to. On the other hand, in the very same episode Loras is tried and imprisoned for homosexuality, and Margery faces the same punishment for lying for her brother. That hits much closer to home, not just for the homophobia but also for the culture war undertones of the not!French Tyrells persecuted by a not!Anglo fanatic who later reveals himself to be the in-universe equivalent of a Protestant. The trial is just one part of Cersei's shortsighted scheming, just as Sansa being married off to Ramsey is part of Littlefinger's, and both of them get their comeuppance in the end...but it's unsettling all the same. I especially hate what the Faith Militant arc does to King's Landing in S5, swiftly converting it from my favorite setting in GoT to a tense theocratic nightmare that only remains interesting to me because Cersei is consistently awesome. What's more, pretty much everything about S5 that isn't viscerally uncomfortable is dragged out and dull instead: the Dorne arc, Daenerys's second season in Meereen, Arya in Braavos, Stannis and co. at Castle Black. The most any of these storylines can hope for is some kind of bombastic finale, and while several of them deliver it's not enough to make up for what comes before, or how disappointing everything here builds from S4. S4 has Oberyn, S5 has the Sand Snakes - I think that sums up the contrast well.

Highlight: S5 does get stronger near the end. As much as his character annoys me I did like the High Sparrow revealing his pseudo-Protestant bent to Cersei just before he imprisons her, and there's a cathartic rawness to Cersei's walk of atonement where you can both feel her pain and humiliation and understand that she's getting exactly what she deserves (and this is what leads into the climax of S6, so it deserves points just for that). The swiftness of Stannis's fall renders his death and that of his family a bit hollow, but it's brutal and final and fittingly ignominious for a character with such grand ambitions but so little relevance to the larger story. The fighting pits of Meereen sequence is cinematic if nothing else, and even the resolution to the Dorne arc salvages the whole thing a tiny bit by playing into the retributive cycles of vengeance idea (and Myrcella knows about the twincest and doesn't care, aww - no idea why that stuck with me, but it's cute all the same). Oh, and Hardhome...it's alright. Not great, not crap, but alright.

Favorite death: I don't know why, but Theon tossing Myranda to her death is always funny to me. Maybe because it's so unexpected?

Least favorite death: Arya's execution of Meryn Trant is meant to be another one of the season's big finale moments, but the scene is graphic and goes on forever and I can't help but be grossed out. This is different from, say, Shireen's death, which is supposed to be painful to witness.

#8 Season 7

I can't tell if S7's low ranking is as self-explanatory as S8's or not. At least one recent retrospective on GoT's ruined legacy I've come across outright asserts that S7 is judged less harshly in light of how bad S8 was. If it were not immediately obvious by where I've placed each of them, I don't share that opinion.

Because S7 is just a mess, and the drop-off in quality is so much more painful here than it is anywhere else in the series except maybe from S4 to S5 (and that's more about S4 being as good as it is). The pacing ramps up to uncomfortable levels to match the shortened seasons, the structure pivots awkwardly halfway through from Daenerys vs. Cersei to Jon/Dany caring about ice zombies, said pivot relies largely on characters (mostly Tyrion) making a series of catastrophically stupid tactical decisions, and very few of the smaller set pieces land with any real impact as the show's focus narrows to its endgame conflict. As with S6 there are still some good ideas, but they're botched in execution. The conflict between Sansa and Arya matches their characters, but the leadup to that conflict ending with Littlefinger's execution is missing some key steps. Daenerys's diverse armada pitted against Cersei weaponizing the xenophobia of the people of King's Landing could have been interesting, but there's little room to explore that when Cersei keeps winning only because Tyrion has such a firm grip on the idiot ball and when Euron gets so much screentime he barely warrants. Speaking of Tyrion's idiot ball, does anyone like the heist film-esque ice zombie retrieval plotline? Its stupidity is matched only by its utter futility, because Cersei isn't trustworthy and nobody seems to ever get that.

And how could I forget Sam's shit montage? Sums up S7 perfectly, really. To think that that is part of the only extended length of time the show ever spends in the Reach....

Highlight: A handful of character moments save this season from being irredeemable garbage. As you can guess from my screencap choice, Olenna's final scene is one of them, even if Highgarden itself is given insultingly short shrift. S7 also manages what I thought was previously impossible in that it makes me care somewhat about Ellaria Sand, courtesy of the awful death Cersei plans for her and her remaining daughter. The other Sand Snakes are killed with their own weapons, which shows off Euron's demented creativity if nothing else. I like the entertainingly twisted choice to cut the Jon/Dany sex scene with the reveal that they're related. And, uh...the Jonmund ship tease kind of makes the zombie retrieval team bearable? I'm really grasping at straws here.

Favorite death: It's more about her final dialogue with Jaime than her actual death, but again I'm going to have to highlight Olenna Tyrell here for lack of better options. She drops the bombshell about Joffrey that the audience figured out almost as soon as it happened but still, makes it plain what I've been saying about how Jaime's arc has never really been about redemption, and is just about the only person to ever call Cersei out for that whole mass murder thing. There's a reason "I want her to know it was me" became a meme format.

Least favorite death: There aren't any glaringly bad deaths in S7, just mediocre or unremarkable ones. I still think the decision to have Arya finish off House Frey in the season's opening rather than along with their father at the end of S6 was a strange one that doesn't add much of dramatic value.

#Game of Thrones #GoT

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