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incorrect-pokespe-quotes · 4 years

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Let’s Talk About Norman

I’m going to start off by telling you all something you probably already know: Norman is abusive. I try not to use super strong language on this blog because calling someone abusive / toxic is a pretty big deal, but Norman is an abuser, full stop. Aside from the obvious physical violence though, there’s a lot of emotional trauma he causes Ruby through his actions— this post is mostly going to be talking about Norman’s emotional abuse and how it affects Ruby’s psyche and actions throughout the arc instead of just “oh he punched his son down some stairs” because I think it goes way deeper than that. With that out of the way, the rest of the post is below the cut!

PHYSICAL VIOLENCE

I can’t talk about Ruby and Norman without mentioning this— it’s the most clear cut evidence of his abuse on-panel. He punches his son down the stairs, engages in a high stakes fight with him, and puts him in mortal danger (which Ruby has to save himself from). What I’m concerned with isn’t the actual incidence of violence itself, but rather the emotional baggage that comes with it.

The interesting thing about the Big Fight scene to me is that Norman instigates the conflict. Norman lures Ruby into a “dark and scary building” in the rain and away from others, appears behind him, threatens him, and throws him against a wall. The only thing Ruby had done in that moment is ask his dad how / why he had found him— Norman was the instigator of violence. It is Ruby’s reaction to this immediately violent start that segues into the next Big Thing about their relationship.

ENVIRONMENT OF FEAR

It is obvious from the minute Norman appears on panel that he is intimidating. Multiple characters throughout the arc mention that they are scared of / intimidated by him, but none are more obvious than Ruby. In fact until we reach the scene at the Weather Institute, Norman hasn’t been shown in a positive light at all from Ruby’s perspective. Ruby continuously mentions fear about his father: he imagines his father grabbing him, looking angrily at him, and generally seems to be afraid of him. Ruby expresses worry and concern about the consequences of his father’s anger— and that’s ALL he thinks about. Ruby mentions explicitly that he has seen “Norman’s Dark Side” and tries to hide as soon as he appears. He even shivers at the mere mention of Norman. Ruby’s entire motivation is his fear of his dad, which is bad, obviously.

Every thought about Norman that Ruby has up until the Weather Institute about Norman express fear and stress Norman’s emotional distance. Whether or not Ruby and Norman love each other is not of importance here, what is important is that Ruby has constant worry and anxiety about how Norman will react. His entire motivation at the beginning of the arc is centered around doing things behind Norman’s back and giving him definitive proof of Ruby’s accomplishments— Ruby is so nervous around Norman that he considers communicating to be a risk. This is typical abuse victim behavior and it continues through the arcs. Living under the constant threat of (often violent) punishment has taught Ruby that disagreements and communication in general are dangerous and can spiral into violence very, very quickly— he displays this same fear time and time again.

Quick Aside: As everyone here probably knows, the main conflict in the oras arc is centered around Ruby’s unwillingness to tell Sapphire what is going on for fear of how she will react. Ruby’s hiding of his memory of their confession in the Emerald arc is the same— Ruby refuses to communicate because he is afraid of how Sapphire will react. His main emotional flaw is the fact that he is driven by fear; Norman has shown him there are consequences to communication and Ruby carries this lesson throughout his entire life. He is a victim of abuse and this hampers his ability to communicate and be emotionally vulnerable. He is so caught up in the idea of consequences that he is more than willing to lie or omit the truth to avoid the consequences of talking to people about stressful topics. This is not to say that Ruby’s actions are excusable— he’s still a dick with communication issues, but whether or not Kusaka intended it, Norman’s abuse and its consequences define Ruby’s emotional arc.

ANGER ISSUES

I can’t really talk about the environment of fear that Norman created without talking about his anger issues. He crushes a phone, shoves people out of the way, knocks multiple Pokemon out at once, and otherwise acts aggressively in various situations throughout the arc without any real Reason. As if these hints weren’t enough, we actually get confirmation through Ruby’s mother that Norman “does this often”— and judging by Birch’s reaction, these displays of destructive anger aren’t normal in in-universe. Whether or not there is a violent / strict parenting style within the universe doesn’t matter, because Norman is shown to be uncharacteristically aggressive in comparison to other adults in the series. Judging by Ruby’s reaction at the Weather Institute, he implies that his type of violence towards him isn’t uncommon; he seems almost resigned to it.

To wrap up this section: Norman’s aggressiveness is atypical even in-universe, he is shown to be unable and unwilling to curb his violent anger, and this creates an environment of fear among his family that permanently impacts Ruby’s ability to communicate effectively with others.

PART 2

DISCLAIMER: This is where things get… dicey. Everything I’ve mentioned previously is rooted in the actual drawings and actions of the characters or overarching themes / problems. This next part however focuses on dialogue. It is almost impossible to truly understand the tone of each line without being a fluent Japanese speaker (which I am not) so instead I’m going to use Viz and CY to the best of my ability for this section. I’m not going to extrapolate this to Kusaka’s intentions, since without the original work that’s nearly impossible, but I can at least talk about the way these come off in English.

EMOTIONAL ABUSE

Admittedly, Viz is the worst about this. They constantly hype Norman up and excuse his behavior, outright censoring some of the physical and emotional abuse. Viz absolutely mangling the tone of RS, however, is a post for another time.

Because Norman actually speaks to Ruby at length a grand total of twice times in the RS arc, we can break down his actions into these two instances: the first is at the weather institute and the second is as he’s dying.

Rather than go based on overall theme, this scene is best done line by line (this is using the CY version due to limited censorship compared to Viz).

Scene 1: Volume 17, Chapters 208-210

(Norman is dangling Ruby off the roof of a building by his collar. There are sharp rocks at the bottom)

Ruby: Re… release me…! Norman: Insolent brat!! Is that how you talk to your father?!

To start, Norman uses tone policing and deflection. He focuses on the fact that Ruby is “talking back” to him and making demands of his father, which doesn’t acknowledge Ruby’s request or the fact that Ruby is being dangling over the roof of a building. Also note that this is the first time the words are bolded and that they stay this way throughout the fight— Norman verbally escalates the fight. Norman is abusing his position of power over Ruby in order to excuse his actions and pass the blame back to his son.

Ruby: I don’t care how furious you are with me… I’m ready for it!

(Norman decks Ruby down a flight of stairs)

Norman: Why did you run away from home?!

Note once again that Norman is implied to start raising his voice first even when Ruby isn’t. There’s another deflection here: Norman changes the subject rather than actively respond to anything Ruby says.

Norman: Well? Say something! You’d better voice your complaints right now!!

(Ruby has a conversation with the Swimmer, who advises him to apologize to avoid his father’s rage and “just go home” which… fuck you Swimmer Jack. I’m skipping that part of the dialogue bc it isn’t that important).

(While Ruby is debating what to do, Norman’s Slaking lifts the stairs that Ruby is on and tries to fling him into next Tuesday).

Ruby is physically prevented from escaping by being dangled above Norman. I shouldn’t have to tell why physically preventing someone from leaving an argument is a bad thing.

(Ruby decides to fight Norman)

Note that Norman is physically and emotionally forcing Ruby into two possible options: Fight or be obedient. He is preventing Ruby from running and deflecting Ruby’s attempts to explain himself. He then shifts the blame to Ruby *again*, attacking Ruby and his pokemon with full force and implying it was Ruby who instigated the conflict in the first place.

Norman: … so you wish to fight me? … Iron Tail and Hyper Beam… I was the one who taught you those attacks. There’s nothing about your attacks and strategies I don’t know about. You’re just wasting your time! Give up!

Here, Norman does two things: he stresses Ruby’s dependence on him and his power over Ruby. It’s a typical “your success is dependent on me” and a “there is no option except obedience” rhetoric, and is likewise typical of abusers. Norman is stressing the things Norman has gifted to Ruby (battling knowledge) and using whatever he can to force Ruby to do what he wants— he’s exerting his control.

(Ruby turns the tide of the battle, so Norman likewise switches tactics by attacking Ruby himself and attempting to hit him with a staircase. Ruby falls down the stairs and is dangling over a pit of spikes when Norman stands on the edge, blocking Ruby’s only escape route).

Norman: Now will you come quietly? Stop being so stubborn

Not only is Norman forcing his son to choose between obedience and Literal Death, he also shifts the blame again. He excuses his own actions by claiming it is Ruby’s stubbornness that forced him into this position. He deflects the whole “putting my 11 year old in harm’s way” by claiming Ruby’s own resistance to Norman’s violence is the trigger for the violence itself. It doesn’t make sense, but it’s victim-blaming nonetheless and sadly, it works

(Flashback time: Norman admits he was going to give Ruby permission to participate in contests and gets emo about it. They fall, but Norman catches Ruby. This doesn’t matter though, because they both end up falling and Ruby uses his running shoes to save them both).

Ruby: (thinking) Ru- running shoes… my birthday present from dad… saved both… our lives

Ruby displays pretty typical abuse victim behavior here, focusing not on Norman’s 3 threats to literally kill him but instead on the One Good Thing Norman did. He doesn’t mention that it was Ruby himself who saved them both or that Norman was the one who put them in danger in the first place— he’s in total denial about the severity of everything that happened.

(At this point, Norman looms above Ruby with an angry expression and a raised pokeball. Bystanders panic because it appears that Norman is going to attack Ruby who, by the way, is unconscious on the ground, but Norman gets a surprise call from Winona and turns away after realizing that Winona can see him).

“I only stopped attacking my son when I realized people were watching”… alright fuck off then Norman

Norman: HEY!! Idiot son! You disobeyed your parents, then you ran away from home. I’ve had enough! Just do what you want! In return, you’d better accomplish your goals!! A man should complete what he has set out to do… … before he can return home!!

Hoo boy. Norman never apologizes, deflects all the blame onto Ruby, insults him twice, and then tries to save face with Winona and the people around him by giving Ruby permission to do contests— which he was apparently planning to do all along. He emphasizes the things Ruby did in response to Norman’s actions (Ruby ran away from home because he knew his dad would be unsupportive and gets violent during disagreements, so in essence Norman is to blame for backing him into a corner). Norman twists the narrative in order to make Ruby the instigator in every case, justifying Norman’s responses as reactions to Ruby’s problematic behavior

Swimmer Jack: Isn’t that a wonderful father? Ruby: Thank you… father.

Ok first of all Jack is a dumbass, so jot that down. Second of all, while it’s unintentional, Ruby is being gaslit to hell and back. It is only after Norman’s omission of all the abusive behavior and bystanders’ affirmation of Norman’s love that Ruby starts to think positively towards his father. The threat Ruby used to think was so large has been downplayed and outright denied by the people around him, so Ruby’s prior fear of Norman diminishes. Ruby’s fear of Norman and the violence Norman took against him is denied, downplayed, and ignored, so Ruby begins to doubt his own animosity towards his father. Thanks Swimmer Jack you unintentionally gaslit an 11 year old.

SCENE 2: (this one is much shorter, thank god)

(Norman, while he is dying, explains the whole deal with how he was ordered to search for Rayquaza yada yada. Throughout the exchange, Ruby gets increasingly upset).

Ruby: (thinking) barred from the test and forced to search for Rayquaza… It must be some kind of punishment! What could Dad have done to warrant such… why was he made responsible… ?!

Ruby: … … but… come to think of it, dad is not someone who makes mistakes easily… something’s not right!

Slight aside, Ruby has been so convinced of his father’s power by others that he is unwilling to even CONSIDER that his dad fucked up, which… wow!

Ruby: That day… Dad must have taken the rap for someone else… and… (flashbacks to Salamence Incident) that person… was….

Ruby: (out loud) … me?! That person who set Rayquaza free… was it me…?!

Norman: Yes.

And then he dies!

(Technically he says “oh I did all that out of love” (paraphrased) and then dies but it’s just a continuation of the previous thing).

Norman, before dying, does not say “I’m proud of you” or “I’m sorry for everything” or anything remotely comforting, instead he says “hey Ruby, you’re responsible for my death and all your childhood trauma alongside your friend’s. Peace.” (this is paraphrased).

Even on his actual deathbed, Norman places the blame on Ruby for Norman’s own actions. He makes Ruby feel guilty for Norman leaving, Norman hiding information from him, and Ruby’s tumultuous childhood.

CONCLUSION

None of this is to say that Norman doesn’t love Ruby or that Ruby doesn’t love him back— I’m fairly positive the two of them love each other dearly and want the best for each other. However, Norman is a child abuser who reacts violently, instigates violence, and then turns around and denies said violence. He creates a culture of fear among his family, gives Ruby some serious communication issues, and the narrative takes his side. Norman is a child abuser in canon and has a very VERY profound effect on Ruby which has emotional ramifications throughout Ruby’s entire character arc all the way until oras.

TLDR: Normans sucks man

#trainer ruby #leader norman #pokespe #vex liveblogs #rs arc #admin vex

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armageddon-generation · 4 years

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Articulating Why His Dark Materials is Badly Written

A long essay-thing with lots of specific examples and explanations of why I feel this way. Hopefully I’ve kept fanboy bitching to a minimum.

This isn’t an attack on fans of the show, nor a personal attack on Jack Thorne. I’m not looking to ruin anyone’s enjoyment of the show, I just needed to properly articulate, with examples, why I struggle with it. I read and love the books and that colours my view, but I believe that HDM isn’t just a clumsy, at-best-functional, sometimes incompetent adaptation, it’s a bad TV show separate from its source material. The show is the blandest, least interesting and least engaging version of itself it could be.

His Dark Materials has gorgeous production design and phenomenal visual effects. It's well-acted. The score is great. But my god is it badly written. Jack Thorne writing the entire first season damned the show. There was no-one to balance out his flaws and biases. Thorne is checking off a list of plot-points, so concerned with manoeuvring the audience through the story he forgets to invest us in it. The scripts are mechanical, empty, flat.

Watching HDM feels like an impassioned fan earnestly lecturing you on why the books are so good- (Look! It's got other worlds and religious allegory and this character Lyra is really, really important I swear. Isn't Mrs Coulter crazy? The Gyptians are my favourites.) rather than someone telling the story naturally.

My problems fall into 5 main categories:

Exposition- An unwillingness to meaningfully expand the source material for a visual medium means Thorne tells and doesn't show crucial plot-points. He then repeats the same thing multiple times because he doesn't trust his audience

Pacing- By stretching out the books and not trusting his audience Thorne dedicates entire scenes to one piece of information and repeats himself constantly (see: the Witches' repetition of the prophecy in S2).

Narrative priorities- Thorne prioritises human drama over fantasy. This makes sense budgetarily, but leads to barely-present Daemons, the Gyptians taking up too much screentime, rushed/badly written Witches (superpowers, exposition) and Bears (armourless bear fight), and a Lyra more focused on familial angst than the joy of discovery

Tension and Mystery- because HDM is in such a hurry to set up its endgame it gives you the answers to S1's biggest mysteries immediately- other worlds, Lyra's parents, what happens to the kids etc. This makes the show less engaging and feel like it's playing catch-up to the audience, not the other way around.

Tonal Inconsistency- HDM tries to be a slow-paced, grounded, adult drama, but its blunt, simplistic dialogue and storytelling methods treat the audience like children that need to be lectured.

MYSTERY, SUSPENSE AND INTRIGUE

The show undercuts all the books’ biggest mysteries. Mrs Coulter is set up as a villain before we meet her, other worlds are revealed in 1x2, Lyra's parents by 1x3, what the Magesterium do to kids is spelled out long before Lyra finds Billy (1x2). I understand not wanting to lose new viewers, but neutering every mystery kills momentum and makes the show much less engaging.

This extends to worldbuilding. The text before 1x1 explains both Daemons and Lyra's destiny before we meet her. Instead of encouraging us to engage with the world and ask questions, we're given all the answers up front and told to sit back and let ourselves be spoon-fed. The viewer is never an active participant, never encouraged to theorise or wonder

Intrigue motivated you to engage with Pullman's philosophical themes and concepts. Without it, HDM feels like a lecture, a theme park ride and not a journey.

The only one of S1's mysteries left undiminished is 'what is Dust?', which won't be properly answered until S3, and that answer is super conceptual and therefore hard to make dramatically satisfying

TONAL INCONSISTENCY

HDM billed itself as a HBO-level drama, and was advertised as a GoT inheritor. It takes itself very seriously- the few attempts at humour are stilted and out of place

The production design is deliberately subdued, most notably choosing a mid-twentieth century aesthetic for Lyra’s world over the late-Victorian of the books or steampunk of the movie. The colour grading would be appropriate for a serious adult drama.

Reviewers have said this stops the show feeling as fantastical as it should. It also makes Lyra’s world less distinct from our own.

Most importantly, minimising the wondrous fantasy of S1 neuters its contrast with the escalating thematic darkness of the finale (from 1x5 onwards), and the impact of Roger’s death. Pullman's books are an adult story told through the eyes of a child. Lyra’s innocence and naivety in the first book is the most important journey of the trilogy. Instead, the show starts serious and thematically heavy (we’re told Lyra has world-saving importance before we even meet her) and stays that way.

Contrasting the serious tone, grounded design and poe-faced characters, the dialogue is written to cater to children. It’s horrendously blunt and pulls you out of scenes. Subtext is obliterated at every opportunity. Even in the most recent episode, 2x7, Pan asks Lyra ‘do you think you’re changing because of Will?’

I cannot understate how on the nose this line is, and how much it undercuts the themes of the final book. Instead of even a meaningful shot of Lyra looking at Will, the show treats the audience like complete idiots.

So, HDM looks and advertises itself like an adult drama and is desperate to be taken seriously by wearing its big themes on its sleeve from the start instead of letting them evolve naturally out of subtext like the books, and dedicating lots of scenes to Mrs Coulter's self-abuse

At the same time its dialogue and character writing is comparable to the Star Wars prequels, more childish than media aimed at a similar audience - Harry Potter, Doctor Who, Avatar the Last Airbender etc

DAEMONS

The show gives itself a safety net by explaining Daemons in an opening text-crawl, and so spends less time showing the mechanics of the Daemon-human bond. On the HDM subreddit, I’ve seen multiple people get to 1x5 or 6, and then come to reddit asking basic questions like ‘why do only some people have Daemons?’ or ‘Why are Daemons so important?’.

It’s not that the show didn’t answer these questions; it was in the opening text-crawl. It’s just the show thinks telling you is enough and never shows evidence to back that up. Watching a TV show you remember what you’re shown much easier than what you’re told

The emotional core of Northern Lights is the relationship between Lyra and Pan. The emotional core of HDM S1 is the relationship between Lyra and Mrs Coulter. This wouldn't be bad- it's a fascinating dynamic Ruth plays wonderfully- if it didn't override the Daemons

Daemons are only onscreen when they serve a narrative purpose. Thorne justifies this because the books only describe Daemons when they tell us about their human. On the page your brain fills the Daemons in. This doesn't work on-screen; you cannot suspend your disbelief when their absence is staring you in the face

Thorne clarified the number of Daemons as not just budgetary, but a conscious creative choice to avoid onscreen clutter. This improved in S2 after vocal criticism.

Mrs Coulter/the Golden Monkey and Lee/Hester have well-drawn relationships in S1, but Pan and Lyra hug more in the 2-hour Golden Compass movie than they do in the 8-hour S1 of HDM. There's barely any physical contact with Daemons at all.

They even cut Pan and Lyra's hug after escaping the Cut in Bolvangar. In the book they can't let go of each other. The show skips it completely because Thorne wants to focus on Mrs Coulter and Lyra.

They cut Pan and Lyra testing how far apart they can be. They cut Lyra freeing the Cut Daemons in Bolvangar with the help of Kaisa. We spent extra time with both Roger and Billy Costa, but didn't develop their bonds with their Daemons- the perfect way to make the Cut more impactful

I don't need every single book scene in the show, but notice that all these cut scenes reinforced how important Daemons are. For how plodding the show is. you'd think they could spare time for these moments instead of inventing new conversations that tell us the information they show

Daemons are treated as separate beings and thus come across more like talking pets than part of a character

The show sets the rules of Daemons up poorly. In 1x2, Lyra is terrified by the Monkey being so far from Coulter, but the viewer has nothing to compare it to. We’re retroactively told in that this is unnatural when the show has yet to establish what ‘natural’ is.

The guillotine blueprint in 1x2 (‘Is that a human and his Daemon, Pan? It looks like it.’ / ‘A blade. To cut what?’) is idiotic. It deflates S1’s main mystery and makes the characters look stupid for not figuring out what they aren’t allowed to until they did in the source material, it also interferes with how the audience sees Daemons. In the book, Cutting isn’t revealed until two-thirds of the way in (1x5). By then we’ve spent a lot of time with Daemons, they’ve become a background part of the world, their ‘rules’ have been established, and we’re endeared to them.

By showing the Guillotine and putting Daemons under threat in the second episode, the show never lets us grow attached. This, combined with their selective presence in scenes, draws attention to Daemons as a plot gimmick and not a natural extension of characters. Like Lyra, the show tells us why Daemons are important before we understand them.

Billy Costa's fate falls flat. It's missing the dried fish/ fake Daemon Tony Markos clings to in the book. Thorne said this 'didn't work' on the day, but it worked in the film. Everyone yelling about Billy not having a Daemon is laughable when most of the background extras in the same scene don't have Daemons themselves

WITCHES

The Witches are the most common complaint about the show. Thorne changed Serafina Pekkala in clever, logical ways (her short hair, wrist-knives and cloud pine in the skin)

The problem is how Serafina is written. The Witches are purely exposition machines. We get no impression of their culture, their deep connection to nature, their understanding of the world. We are told it. It is never shown, never incorporated into the dramatic action of the show.

Thorne emphasises Serafina's warrior side, most obviously changing Kaisa from a goose into a gyrfalcon (apparently a goose didn't work on-screen)

Serafina single-handedly slaughtering the Tartars is bad in a few ways. It paints her as bloodthirsty and ruthless. Overpowering the Witches weakens the logic of the world (If they can do that, why do they let the Magesterium bomb them unchallenged in 2x2?). It strips the Witches of their subtlety and ambiguity for the sake of cinematic action.

A side-effect of Serafina not being with her clan at Bolvangar is limiting our exposure to the Witches. Serafina is the only one invested in the main plot, we only hear about them from what she tells us. This poor set-up weakens the Witch subplot in S2

Lyra doesn’t speak to Serafina until 2x6. She laid eyes on her once in S1.

The dialogue in the S2’s Witch subplot is comparable to the Courasant section of The Phantom Menace.

Two named characters, neither with any depth (Serafina and Coram's dead son developed him far more than her). The costumes look ostentatious and hokey- the opposite of what the Witches should be. They do nothing but repeat the same exposition at each other, even in 2x7.

We feel nothing when the Witches are bombed because the show never invests us in what is being destroyed- with the amount of time wasted on long establishing shots, there’s not one when Lee Scoresby is talking to the Council.

BEARS

Like the Witches; Thorne misunderstands and rushes the fantasy elements of the story. The 2007 movie executed both Iofur's character and the Bear Fight much better than the show- bloodless jaw-swipe and all

Iofur's court was not the parody of human court in the books. He didn't have his fake-Daemon (hi, Billy)

An armourless bear fight is like not including Pan in the cutting scene. After equating Iorek's armour to a Daemon (Lee does this- we don’t even learn how important it is from Iorek himself, and the comparison meant less because of how badly the show set up Daemons) the show then cuts the plotpoint that makes the armour plot-relevant. This diminishes all of Bear society. Like Daemons, we're told Iorek's armour is important but it's never shown to be more than a cool accessory

GYPTIANS

Gyptians suffer from Hermoine syndrome. Harry Potter screenwriter Steve Kloves' favourite character was Hermione, and so Film!Hermoine lost most of Book!Hermoine's flaws and gained several of Book!Ron's best moments. The Gyptians are Jack Thorne's favourite group in HDM and so they got the extra screentime and development that the more complicated groups/concepts like Witches, Bears, and Daemons (which, unlike the Gyptians, carry over to other seasons amd are more important to the overall story) needed

At the same time, he changes them from a private people into an Isle of Misfit Toys. TV!Ma Costa promises they'll ‘make a Gyptian woman out of Lyra yet’, but in the book Ma specifically calls Lyra out for pretending to be Gyptian, and reminds her she never can be.

This small moment indicates how, while trying to make the show more grounded and 'adult', Thorne simultaneously made it more saccharine and sentimental. He neuters the tragedy of the Cut kids when Ma Costa says they’ll become Gyptians. Pullman's books feel like an adult story told through the eyes of a child. The TV show feels like a child's story masquerading as a serious drama.

LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA

Let me preface this by saying I genuinely really enjoy the performances in the show. It was shot in the foot by The Golden Compass' perfect casting.

The most contentious/'miscast' actor among readers is LMM. Thorne ditched the books' wise Texan for a budget Han Solo. LMM isn't a great dramatic actor (even in Hamilton he was the weak link performance-wise) but he makes up for it in marketability- lots of people tried the show because of him

Readers dislike that LMM's Lee is a thief and a scoundrel, when book-Lee is so moral he and Hester argue about stealing. Personally, I like the change in concept. Book!Lee's parental love for Lyra just appears. It's sweet, but not tied to a character arc. Done right, Lyra out-hustling Lee at his own game and giving him a noble cause to fight for (thus inspiring the moral compass of the books) is a more compelling arc.

DAFNE KEENE AND LYRA

I thought Dafne would be perfect casting. Her feral energy in Logan seemed a match made in heaven. Then Jack Thorne gave her little to do with it.

Compare how The Golden Compass introduced Lyra, playing Kids and Gobblers with a group of Gyptian kids, including Billy Costa. Lyra and Roger are chased to Jordan by the Gyptians and she makes up a lie about a curse to scare the Gyptians away.

In one scene the movie set up: 1) the Gobblers (the first we hear of them in the show is in retrospect, Roger worrying AFTER Billy is taken) 2) Lyra’s pre-existing relationship with the Gyptians (not in the show), 3) Friendship with Billy Costa (not in the book or show) 4) Lyra’s ability to befriend and lead groups of people, especially kids, and 5) Lyra’s ability to lie impressively

By comparison, it takes until midway through 1x2 for TV!Lyra to tell her first lie, and even then it’s a paper-thin attempt.

The show made Roger Lyra’s only friend. This artificially heightens the impact of Roger's death, but strips Lyra of her leadership qualities and ability to befriend anyone.

Harry Potter fans talk about how Book!Harry is funnier and smarter than Film!Harry. They cut his best lines ('There's no need to call me sir, Professor') and made him blander and more passive. The same happened to Lyra.

Most importantly, Lyra is not allowed to lie for fun. She can't do anything 'naughty' without being scolded. This colours the few times Lyra does lie (e.g. to Mrs Coulter in 1x2) negatively and thus makes Lyra out to be more of a brat than a hero.

This is a problem with telling Northern Lights from an outside, 'adult' perspective- to most adults Lyra is a brat. Because we’re introduced to her from inside her head, we think she's great. It's only when we meet her through Will's eyes in The Subtle Knife and she's filthy, rude and half-starved that we realise Lyra bluffs her way through life and is actually pretty non-functional

Thorne prioritises grounded human drama over fantasy, and so his Lyra has her love of bears and witches swapped for familial angst. (and, in S2. angst over Roger). By exposing Mrs Coulter as her mother early, Thorne distracts TV!Lyra from Book!Lyra’s love of the North. The contrast between wonder and reality made NL's ending a definitive threshold between innocence and knowledge. Thorne showed his hand too early.

Similarly, TV!Lyra doesn’t have anywhere near as strong an admiration for Lord Asriel. She calls him out in 1x8 (‘call yourself a Father’), which Book!Lyra never would because she’s proud to be his child. From her perspective, at this point Asriel is the good parent.

TV!Lyra’s critique of Asriel feels like Thorne using her as a mouthpiece to voice his own, adult perspective on the situation. Because Lyra is already disappointed in Asriel, his betrayal in the finale isn’t as effective. Pullman saves the ‘you’re a terrible Father’ call-out for the 3rd book for a reason; Lyra’s naive hero-worship of Asriel in Northern Lights makes the fall from Innocence into Knowledge that Roger’s death represents more effective.

So, on TV Lyra is tamer, angstier, more introverted, less intelligent, less fun and more serious. We're just constantly told she's important, even before we meet her.

MRS COULTER (AND LORD ASRIEL)

Mrs Coulter is the main character of the show. Not Lyra. Mrs Coulter was cast first, and Lyra was cast based on a chemistry test with Ruth Wilson. Coulter’s character is given lots of extra development, where the show actively strips Lyra of her layers.

To be clear, I have no problem with developing Mrs Coulter. She is a great character Ruth Wilson plays phenomenally. I do have a problem with the show fixating on her at the expense of other characters.

Lyra's feral-ness is given to her parents. Wilson and McAvoy are more passionate than in the books. This is fun to watch, but strips them of subtlety- you never get Book!Coulter's hypnotic allure from Wilson, she's openly nasty, even to random strangers (in 2x3 her dismissal of the woman at the hotel desk felt like a Disney villain).

Compare how The Golden Compass (2007) introduced Mrs Coulter through Lyra’s eyes, with light, twinkling music and a sparkling dress. By contrast, before the show introduces Coulter it tells us she’s associated with the evil Magisterium plotting Asriel’s death- “Not a word to any of our mutual friends. Including her.” Then she’s introduced striding down a corridor to imposing ‘Bad Guy’ strings.

Making Mrs Coulter’s villainy so obvious so early makes Lyra look dumber for falling for it. It also wastes an interesting phase of her character arc. Coulter is rushed into being a ’conflicted evil mother’ in 2 episodes, and stays in that phase for the rest of the show so far. Character progression is minimised because she circles the same place.

It makes her one-note. It's a good note (so much of the positive online chatter is saphiccs worshiping Ruth Wilson) but the show also worships her to the point of hindrance- e.g. take a shot every time Coulter walks slow-motion down a corridor in 2x2

The problem isn’t the performances, but how prematurely they give the game away. Just like the mysteries around Bolvangar and Lyra’s parentage. Neither Coulter or Asriel have much chance to use their 'public' faces.

This is part of a bigger pacing problem- instead of rolling plot points out gradually, Thorne will stick the solution in front of you early and then stall for time until it becomes relevant. Instead of building tension this builds frustration and makes the show feel like it's catching up to the audience. This also makes the characters less engaging. You've already shown Mrs Coulter is evil/Boreal is in our world/Asriel wants Roger. Why are you taking so long getting to the point?

PACING AND EDITING

This show takes forever to make its point badly.

Scenes in HDM tend to operate on one level- either 'Character Building,' 'Exposition,' or 'Plot Progression'.

E.g. Mary's introduction in 2x2. Book!Mary only listens to Lyra because she’s sleep and caffeine-deprived and desperate because her funding is being cut. But the show stripped that subtext out and created an extra scene of a colleague talking to Mary about funding. They removed emotional subtext to focus on exposition, and so the scene felt empty and flat.

In later episodes characters Mary’s sister and colleagues do treat her like a sleep-deprived wreck. But, just like Lyra’s lying, the show doesn’t establish these characteristics in her debut episode. It waits until later to retroactively tell us they were there. Mary’s colleague saying ‘What we’re dealing with here is the fact that you haven’t slept in weeks’ is as flimsy as Pan joking not lying to Mary will be hard for Lyra.

Rarely does a scene work on multiple levels, and if it does it's clunky- see the exposition dump about Daemon Separation in the middle of 2x2's Witch Trial.

He also splits plot progression into tiny doses, which destroys pacing. It's more satisfying to focus on one subplot advancing multiple stages than all of them shuffling forward half a step each episode.

Subplots would be more effective if all the scenes played in sequence. As it is, plotlines can’t build momentum and literal minutes are wasted using the same establishing shots every time we switch location.

The best-structured episodes of S1 are 1x4, 1x6, and 1x8. This is because they have the fewest subplots (incidentally these episodes have least Boreal in them) and so the main plot isn’t diluted by constantly cutting away to Mrs Coulter sniffing Lyra’s coat or Will watching a man in a car through his window, before cutting back again.

The best-written episode so far is 2x5. The Scholar. Tellingly, it’s the only episode Thorne doesn’t have even a co-writing credit on. 2x5 is well-paced, its dialogue is more naturalistic, it’s more focused, it even has time for moments of whimsy (Monkey with a seatbelt, Mrs Coulter with jeans, Lyra and Will whispering) that don’t detract from the story.

Structurally, 2x5 works because A) it benches Lee’s plotline. B) The Witches and Magisterium are relegated to a scene each. And C) the Coulter/Boreal and Lyra/Will subplots move towards the same goal. Not only that, but when we check in on Mary’s subplot it’s through Mrs Coulter’s eyes and directly dovetails into the main action of the episode.

2x5 has a lovely sense of narrative cohesion because it has the confidence to sit with one set of characters for longer than two scenes at a time.

HDM also does this thing where it will have a scene with plot A where characters do or talk about something, cut away to plot B for a scene, then cut back to plot A where the characters talk about what happened in their last scene and painstakingly explain how they feel about it and why

Example: Pan talking to Will in 2x7 while Lyra pretends to be asleep. This scene is from the 3rd book, and is left to breathe for many chapters before Lyra brings it up. In the show after the Will/Pan scene they cut away to another scene, then cut back and Lyra instantly talks about it.

There’s the same problem in 2x5: After escaping Mrs Coulter, Lyra spells out how she feels about acting like her

The show never leaves room for implication, never lets us draw our own conclusions before explaining what it meant and how the characters feel about it immediately afterwards. The audience are made passive in their engagement with the characters as well as the world

LORD BOREAL, JOHN PARRY AND DIMINISHING RETURNS

At first, Boreal’s subplot in S1 felt bold and inspired. The twist of his identity in The Subtle Knife would've been hard to pull off onscreen anyway. As a kid I struggled to get past Will's opening chapter of TSK and I have friends who were the same. Introducing Will in S1 and developing him alongside Lyra was a great idea.

I loved developing Elaine Parry and Boreal into present, active characters. But the subplot was introduced too early and moved too slowly, bogging down the season.

In 1x2 Boreal crosses. In 1x3 we learn who he's looking for. In 1x5 we meet Will. In 1x7 the burglary. 1 episode worth of plot is chopped up and fed to us piecemeal across many. Boreal literally stalls for two episodes before the burglary- there are random 30 second shots of him sitting in a car watching John Parry on YouTube (videos we’d already seen) completely isolated from any other scenes in the episode

By the time we get to S2 we've had 2 seasons of extended material building up Boreal, so when he just dies like in the books it's anticlimactic. The show frontloads his subplot with meaning without expanding on its payoff, so the whole thing fizzles out.

Giving Boreal, the secondary villain in literally every episode, the same death as a background character in about 5 scenes in the novels feels cheap. It doesn’t help that, after 2x5 built the tension between Coulter and Boreal so well, as soon as Thorne is passed the baton in 2x6 he does little to maintain that momentum. Again, because the subplot is crosscut with everything else the characters hang in limbo until Coulter decides to kill him.

I’ve been watching non-book readers react to the show, and several were underwhelmed by Boreal’s quick, unceremonious end.

Similarly, the show builds up John Parry from 1x3 instead of just the second book. Book!John’s death is an anticlimax but feels narratively justified. In the show, we’ve spent so much extra time talking about him and then being with him (without developing his character beyond what’s in the novels- Pullman even outlined John’s backstory in The Subtle Knife’s appendix. How hard would it be to add a flashback or two?) that when John does nothing in the show and then dies (he doesn’t even heal Will’s fingers like in the book- only tell him to find Asriel, which the angels Baruch and Balthamos do anyway) it doesn’t feel like a clever, tragic subversion of our expectations, it feels like a waste that actively cheapens the audience’s investment.

TL;DR giving supporting characters way more screentime than they need only, to give their deaths the same weight the books did after far less build up makes huge chunks of the show feel less important than they were presented to be.

FRUSTRATINGLY LIMITED EXPANSION AND NOVELLISTIC STORYTELLING

Thorne is unwilling to meaningfully develop or expand characters and subplots to fit a visual medium. He introduces a plot-point, invents unnecessary padding around it, circles it for an hour, then moves on.

Pullman’s books are driven by internal monologue and big, complex theological concepts like Daemons and Dust. Instead of finding engaging, dynamic ways to dramatise these concepts through the actions of characters or additions to the plot, Thorne turns Pullman’s internal monologue into dialogue and has the characters explain them to the audience

The novels’ perspective on its characters is narrow, first because Northern Lights is told only from Lyra’s POV, and second because Pullman’s writing is plot-driven, not character-driven. Characters are vessels for the plot and themes he wants to explore.

This is a fine way of writing novels. When adapting the books into a longform drama, Thorne decentralised Lyra’s perspective from the start, and HDM S1 uses the same multi-perspective structure that The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass do, following not only Lyra but the Gyptians, Mrs Coulter, Boreal, Will and Elaine etc

However, these other perspectives are limited. We never get any impression of backstory or motivation beyond the present moment. Many times I’ve seen non-book readers confused or frustrated by vague or non-existent character motivations.

For example, S1 spends a lot of time focused on Ma Costa’s grief over Billy’s disappearance, but we never see why she’s sad, because we never saw her interact with Billy.

Compare this to another show about a frantic mother and older brother looking for a missing boy. Stranger Things uses only two flashbacks to show us Will Byers’ relationships with his family: 1) When Joyce Byers looks in his Fort she remembers visiting Will there. 2) The Clash playing on the radio reminds Jonathan Byers of introducing Will to the song.

In His Dark Materials we never see the Costas as a happy family- 1x1’s Gyptian ceremony focuses on Tony and Daemon-exposition. Billy never speaks to his mum or brother in the show

Instead we have Ma Costa’s empty grief. The audience has to do the work (the bad kind) imagining what she’s lost. Instead of seeing Billy, it’s just repeated again and again that they will get the children back.

If we’re being derivative, HDM had the chance to segway into a Billy flashback when John Faa brings one of his belongings back from a Gobbler safehouse in 1x2. This is a perfect The Clash/Fort Byers-type trigger. It doesn’t have to be long- the Clash flashback lasted 1:27, the Fort Byers one 55 seconds. Just do something.

1x3 beats into us that Mrs Coulter is nuts without explaining why. Lots of build-up for a single plot-point. Then we're told Mrs Coulter's origin, not shown. This is a TV show. Swap Boreal's scenes for flashbacks of Coulter and Asriel's affair. Then, when Ma Costa tells Lyra the truth, show the fight between Edward Coulter and Asriel.

To be clear, Thorne's additions aren’t fundamentally bad. For example, Will boxing sets up his struggle with violence. But it's wasted. The burglary/murder in 1x7 fell flat because of bad editing, but the show never uses its visual medium to show Will's 'violent side'- no change in camera angle, focus, or sound design, nothing. It’s just a thing that’s there, unsupported by the visual language of the show

The Magisterium scenes in 2x2 were interesting. We just didn't need 5 of them; their point could be made far more succinctly.

In 2x6 there is a minute-long scene of Mary reading the I Ching. Later, there is another scene of Angelica watching Mary sitting somewhere different, doing the SAME THING, and she sees an Angel. Why split these up? It’s not like either the I Ching or the Angels are being introduced here. Give the scene multiple layers.

Thorne either takes good character moments from the books (Lyra/Will in 2x1) or uses heavy-handed exposition that reiterates the same point multiple times. This hobbles the Witches (their dialogue in 2x1, 2 and 3 literally rephrases the same sentiment about protecting Lyra without doing anything). Even character development- see Lee monologuing his and Mrs Coulter's childhood trauma in specific detail in 2x3

This is another example of Thorne adding something, but instead of integrating it into the dramatic action and showing us, it’s just talked about. What’s the point of adding big plot points if you don’t dramatise them in your dramatic, visual medium? In 2x8, Lee offhandedly mentions playing Alamo Gulch as a kid.

I’m literally screaming, Jack, why the flying fuck wasn’t there a flashback of young Lee and Hester playing Alamo Gulch and being stopped by his abusive dad? It’s not like you care about pacing with the amount of dead air in these episodes, even when S2’s run 10 minutes shorter than S1’s. Lee was even asleep at the beginning of 2x3, Jack! He could’ve woken from a nightmare about his childhood! It’s a little lazy, but better than nothing.

There’s a similar missed opportunity making Dr Lanselius a Witchling. If this idea had been introduced with the character in 1x4, it would’ve opened up so many storytelling possibilities. Linking to Fader Coram’s own dead witchling son. It could’ve given us that much-needed perspective on Witch culture. Imagine Lanselius’ bittersweet meeting with his ageless mother, who gave him up when he reached manhood. Then, when the Magisterium bombs the Witches in 2x2, Lanselius’ mother dies so it means something.

Instead it’s only used to facilitate an awkward exposition dump in the middle of a trial.

The point of this fanfic-y ramble is to illustrate my frustration with the additions; If Thorne had committed and meaningfully expanded and interwoven them with the source material, they could’ve strengthened its weakest aspect (the characters). But instead he stays committed to novelistic storytelling techniques of monologue and two people standing in a room talking at each other

(Seriously, count the number of scenes that are just two people standing in a room or corridor talking to each other. No interesting staging, the characters aren’t doing anything else while talking. They. Just. Stand.)

SEASON 2 IMPROVEMENTS

S2 improved some things- Lyra's characterisation was more book-accurate, her dynamic with Will was wonderful. Citigazze looked incredible. LMM won lots of book fans over as Lee. Mary was brilliantly cast. Now there are less Daemons, they're better characterised- Pan gets way more to do now and Hester had some lovely moments.

I genuinely believe 2x1, 2x3, 2x4 and 2x5 are the best HDM has been.

But new problems arose. The Subtle Knife lost the central, easy to understand drive of Northern Lights (finding the missing kids) for lots of smaller quests. As a result, everyone spends the first two episodes of S2 waiting for the plot to arrive. The big inciting incident of Lyra’s plotline is the theft of the alethiometer, which doesn’t happen until 2x3. Similarly, Lee doesn’t search for John until 2x3. Mrs Coulter doesn’t go looking for Lyra until 2x3.

On top of missing a unifying dramatic drive, the characters now being split across 3 worlds, instead of the 1+a bit of ours in S1, means the pacing/crosscutting problems (long establishing shots, repetition of information, undercutting momentum) are even worse. The narrative feels scattered and incohesive.

These flaws are inherent to the source material and are not the show’s fault, but neither does it do much to counterbalance or address them, and the flaws of the show combine with the difficulties of TSK as source material and make each other worse.

A lot of this has been entitled fanboy bitching, but you can't deny the show is in a bad place ratings-wise. It’s gone from the most watched new British show in 5 years to the S2 premiere having a smaller audience than the lowest-rated episode of Doctor Who Series 12. For comparison, DW's current cast and showrunner are the most unpopular since the 80s, some are actively boycotting it, it took a year-long break between series 11 and 12, had its second-worst average ratings since 2005, and costs a fifth of what HDM does to make. And it's still being watched by more people.

Critical consensus fluctuates wildly. Most laymen call the show slow and boring. The show is simultaneously too niche and self-absorbed to attract a wide audience and gets just enough wrong to aggravate lots of fans.

I’m honestly unsure if S3 will get the same budget. I want it to, if only because of my investment in the books. Considering S2 started filming immediately after S1 aired, I think they've had a lot more time to process and apply critique for S3. On the plus side, there's so much plot in The Amber Spyglass it would be hard to have the same pacing problems. But also so many new concepts that I dread the exposition dumps.

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xyzcekaden · 3 years

Text

🚍 unsuspecting sunday afternoon 🚍

by me, xyzcekaden! a pokemon fanfic about when the one you hate to love is made for you

How capable is the human heart now?

fandom: pokemon, gen 3, advanced generation characters: ash, may, steven stone in a “supporting” role ship: advanceshipping genre: romance, angst themes: friendship, pre-relationship, slowburn, 6+1 if you squint setting: modern, hoenn, pokemon universe lite word count: 4.6k rating: T

read it below, on ffnet, or on ao3!

A/N (9.7.201): So this has been in my drafts since about April 2020 😅 Sure, I'm happy to finally share something new with the small yet strong advanceshipping fandom; but more than that, I'm relieved this document can no longer taunt me with its incompletion, hahaha. Do let me know what you think! Especially with this opening formatting; I'm trying something new. :)

Nothing sensitive in the fic, but the characters are all adults so it felt fitting to rate it T. Title taken from the song of the same name by the Backstreet Boys, and its lyrics/sentiments are interwoven throughout. The narrative is inspired and framed by monstaxnight's anonymous ask. If you recognise it, it doesn't belong to me. Thanks for reading!

~~~

fall for someone whose body would start fires

On a Saturday, May asked Ash to come over the next day. “I need a second opinion on something,” she had said. “It’ll be super quick.”

Of course, ‘super quick’ means Ash has enough time to set his switch up on May’s gigantic living room tv and play a few rounds of his favourite fighting video game while she gets ready for something or another in her room. He always acts like he has better things to do than help her with her sundry weekly ventures, but they both know he’d rather do ‘nothing’ with her than ‘something’ on his own somewhere else.

“Okay, Ash, are you ready?” May’s voice rings out. “Yeah,” he answers distractedly, strategically button smashing.

“So I kept the jeans from this last outfit, but this top I just got two weekends ago and haven’t had a chance to wear yet,” May narrates as she exits her room. “I had the, frankly, brilliant idea of using the jacket from Outfit 1 and pairing it with those heels you paid for for my birthday, et voila!”

The clacking of heels stops at the entrance of the hallway. “What do you think?’

Ash redirects his attention to May. His avatar dies on screen, just like his voice dies in his throat.

“You, um, you look great.”

In actuality, May looks smoking hot, but that’s not new for either of them. His best friend is supremely attractive, and he knew it and had no problem acknowledging it normally. This time, however, May doesn’t just look physically great, she also looks like she feels like she looks great. He doesn’t know how much sense that makes; but there is decidedly something different, and Ash feels a strange sense of dread in his chest.

May beams, taking the inarticulate response in stride. “Well that’s a winning endorsement if I ever heard one! Now let’s just hope Steven has as great of a reaction.” She turns to one of the many full-length mirrors stationed around her condo and reviews the outfit with a critical eye.

This brings Ash out from his stupor. “‘Steven’?” he repeats as he sits up on the couch. “You’re going on a date?”

“It’s not a date,” May replies in a tone that clearly conveys that she would not be opposed to it turning into a date. “My dad is having dinner with an old business partner, and the guy’s bringing his son along, so me and Max were invited, too. We were kinda friends back when we were young, but it’s not like we’ve kept in touch or anything. I just figured I should make a good second first-impression… You know, for my dad’s sake.”

Ash can tell the last bit was just something she’s telling herself to rationalise why she’s trying so hard, and it doesn’t sit right with him. He slinks back down on the couch dejectedly and halfheartedly starts a new game.

He finds himself wondering how often they hung out and how much whatever-that-number-was-teenth impressions were worth. He hopes it’s a lot.

~~~

fall for someone who always runs from his kiss

“… And I was right! They were roommates!” May boisterously ends her story, almost losing her ice cream to physics as she wildly gesticulates.

They’re just strolling around the park that’s honestly nowhere near either of their apartments; but over the years, it became their park anyway. They didn’t even set plans to hang out today, but it kinda just happened―a recurring theme in their friendship, admittedly.

For his part, Ash hides a smirk with a lick to his own ice cream, not bothering to say or do anything to protect her treat. If she hasn’t learned by now, she never would. “Oh my god, they were roommates,” he deadpans instead.

May sends him an unimpressed smirk and lightly smacks Ash’s shoulder. He yelps. She yanks her hand back as soon as she realises, but the damage is done.

He blinks down at the cold, vanilla, rainbow-sprinkled stain before raising his gaze to meet May’s equally stunned one.

They stare in silence for a moment, then May cracks a conciliatory grin. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry?”

He shrugs it off easily. “I probably deserved it,” he says, making peace with the knowledge that his previous unwillingness to protect her ice cream from any accidents is the undoubted origin for his current poor luck. He nods toward the path. “Shall we?”

“We passed by a restroom a little bit ago. We can clean you up,” May disagrees, tugging on his arm in the opposite direction.

“‘S fine,” he argues as he tries to continue walking forward.

“Ash, it’ll stain!” She tugs harder.

“It’ll be an improvement!” He’s overpowering her, but not as easily as he’d like.

“Why are you being such a butthead about this!?” She’s pulling with all her strength now, this being a matter of pride to her at this point.

“Come on, May!” Ash heaves one last time.

They tumble head over feet onto the ground, but that’s not the reason Ash feels like his world has turned upside down.

May’s body weighs comfortably on his, his hands naturally settle on her waist with hers on his chest, and his brown eyes bore into her blues. Their ice cream has fallen… somewhere, but Ash doesn’t concern himself with that considering this is the closest they’ve been since they first met.

They’ve been toeing this line since then, too.

I’m gonna do it, he thinks to himself.

He closes his eyes.

He leans in.

May scrambles away.

Ash sits up and blinks at the sight of May’s confused, furious eyes. “Ash, what are you doing?” Her voice croaks like her throat is dry. It makes him clear his own before dumbly responding, “I was trying to kiss you.”

“Why??” she asks, her voice strangled. He pushes himself off the ground warily as he watches her hold herself, bite her lip, shake her head in a panic; and somehow in all of that, he understands.

“I thought it wasn’t a date.” Ash tries so hard not to sound accusatory, but her wince in response proves it didn’t work. It also proves his fear correct.

He turns, hiding as if the people walking by could discern his transgression and shame by the sight of his face alone. Besides, his mind can conjure up an image of her running away just fine on its own.

Ash notices the remnants of their impromptu outing splattered on the ground near his feet. He picks up what he can and stomps over to the nearest trash bin, throwing it in as hard as he can to let out some of his frustration.

He hopes he hasn’t gone and screwed everything up.

~~~

fall for someone whose lips belong to someone else

They don’t talk about it, and then it’s too late.

“Ash, this is Steven,” she tells him softly, as if it could make up for how it feels like the sight of her arms wrapped around the guy’s torso and his arm casually thrown over her shoulder assaults him every time he blinks.

“Steven Stone. It’s great to finally meet you. May speaks of you highly,” Steven introduces with a dignified air. Not pompous, no; he is just someone who was raised being told that he was going to do important things and who happened to believe it.

They shake hands, and Ash’s fingers feel cold, a marked contrast to how there’s something in his chest that’s burning.

Inside the restaurant, the waitress asks if a table is okay, and no one asks for a booth instead. In his seat, Ash is neither directly in between nor directly across from the newly-established couple, and he wonders if this is where all his luck went into.

Lunch goes better than expected.

Ash was prepared to hate the guy, but what is there to hate? Steven has a decent sense of humour, loves pokemon but loves rocks even more, and is COO of the biggest enterprise in Hoenn. He is a safe, sensible choice. This guy isn’t going to break May’s heart.

As the meal winds down, Steven offers to pay for everyone; but Ash still has his pride. In the end, he manages to negotiate paying for just his own plate and drink, knowing he has no right to battle for the privilege of paying for May’s.

He wouldn’t even do so on a typical occasion anyway; but as far as Ash is concerned, Steven’s presence throws all of the friends’ typical rules of engagement out the window.

They say goodbye and part ways in front of the restaurant.

A few steps later, Ash snaps his fingers as he recalls something. He turns around to remind May of their movie plans in a few days, and he is met with the sight of the couple sharing a sweet kiss on the corner while waiting for the light to change.

Steven could never break May’s heart, but he sure can break Ash’s.

Ash turns back and continues walking. He hopes May can remember on her own.

~~~

fall for someone whose touch is way too much

May insists that nothing has changed between them, but clearly something has because Ash doesn’t remember ever being so anxious about her proximity before.

He had always been aware of her, though. Always. When your first meeting is saving the other from getting run over by a tour bus, you quickly develop the habit of keeping track of where the person is at all times.

Between his athleticism and her natural proclivity towards tactileness, casual physical exchanges quickly became their norm: hugs and high fives, friendly elbows in the rib after a good joke and sharing a blanket as they watch a movie, (lingering touches on the shoulder and holding hands even after they’ve escaped a crowd… or did he make those up?).

They were controlled yet unmistakably affectionate markers of their relationship.

But now?

When she shifts one centimetre closer to him in line at the mall food court, he accidentally overpays by fifty pokeyen out of distraction. When she grabs his fork out of his hand to try a piece of his takoyaki, he jerks so hard at the contact that he spills his soft drink all over the table. When she pats him dry using flimsy food court napkins with a joke about ice cream in her voice and fondness in her eyes, he needs to claim a rapid-onset fever in order to give himself an excuse to cut their lunch short immediately.

These innocent touches have been an ever-present facet of their friendship since basically the beginning; and even when he realised he was in love, they hadn’t affected him like this.

Things are different now, despite what she says.

Well, maybe not things; maybe just him.

He had allowed himself to revel in their familiar touches when she was single because he could, because there was no one else that she was supposed to be able to make feel like this. Even if the feeling wasn’t meant for him, it wasn’t meant for anyone else either.

But now.

He can’t, in good conscience, allow his heart to rush and his smile to form and his hand to squeeze back. It wouldn’t be fair to May, not when she’s trusting him with her friendship and he’s taking more from her than that.

Even though he’d like nothing else than to keep that closeness, to go back to how it was between them before, this is the way it has to be now. He just hopes she can understand.

~~~

fall for someone he doesn’t want to feel for

On sleepless nights, he wonders when.

He knows the who, what, why, and how; but the when eludes him.

...

They were both breathing heavy, attention focused on the spot of the road where the girl would have flattened like a pancake if it weren’t for his quick reflexes and hero complex.

The clapping of a few passers-by snapped them out of their shock and into the realisation that he still had her protectively cradled to his chest.

They quickly broke apart, and he took the time to wave off the praise from the gathered crowd while she checked her purse to see if everything was inside.

“You got everything?” he asked after people’s attentions finally turned back towards their own lives.

“Yeah, I do,” the girl replied, and her voice was rather cheery considering the ordeal she just survived. (He would later learn that was her default.)

“Great,” he said, genuine yet awkward.

They continued staring at each other. The adrenaline from their brush with danger hadn’t worn off yet; his heart was still beating very fast.

“So, um, have a good day,” he bade after it was clear neither of them had anything more to say. He made to return to his errands, but a hand on his arm stopped him.

“You saved my life, and you’re just gonna walk away?” she asked incredulously.

He blinked at her. “I’ll be honest; I wasn’t aware there was an after-action protocol for this sort of situation.”

She was incredulous for only a second before she giggled at him. “The least I can do is buy you lunch to say ‘thank you.’”

“Well, I’ve never turned down a free meal,” he accepts with a grin.

She giggled again then stuck out her hand. “My name’s May.”

“Ash.”

...

No, it wasn’t then. Nor was it during the meal they shared, nor at the bar where they happened to see each other that weekend, nor while they were escaping from the bar fight that she accidentally instigated that night.

...

“Is this going to become a running gag? Will I have to constantly be saving you from trouble you unintentionally get yourself into?” Ash panted after he directed her to duck into a nearby alley.

“Hey, as far as I’m concerned, this automatically makes me the most interesting friend you’ve got,” May countered.

He took one extra second to check no one was following them then cut a glance at her. “I don’t know about you, but most of my friends have my number.”

She rolled her eyes with a smile. “Smooth.” They switched phones and exchanged numbers.

“Better memorize that by heart,” he jested as he handed her her phone back. “Don’t wanna waste your one phone call at the station just because you mixed up the last two digits by accident.”

“If the next time you hear from me is because I went and got myself arrested, just leave me to rot. I must have earned it,” she smirked.

...

Luckily, the next time one of them reached out to the other wasn’t to bail the former out of jail. May invited him to a pool party for her birthday, where he handily won a water balloon fight and impressed everyone by fixing the grill for their barbeque. Their friendship continued to progress naturally: movie nights that turned into impromptu sleepovers, brunches that turned into walks around town. Several shopping trips and video games and hikes later, they were each other’s best friends. It was basically inevitable.

So when? When would he have had the chance to fall in love with her?

...

“Hello?”

“Ash, you picked up!” she sounded surprised―happy, but surprised―and he winced. He knew he’d been blowing her off a little more often lately, but making her think he’d turn down her phone call?

“Heh, yeah, sorry about that,” he said, betting on the hope that she somehow implicitly understood everything he was apologising for. “Is everything okay?”

For an extended second, she was quiet, then she said, “I need to tell you something.”

His hackles rose, and he started grabbing his keys and putting on his shoes. Maybe she finally ended up in jail. “Where are you? I can be there in ten minutes, maybe twenty with traffic―”

She giggled, and he paused. That was her nervous giggle. “May?” he asked, still wary but not about to race out of his house with only his boxers on.

“No! No, it’s nothing like that. It’s just… Steven told me he loves me.”

His breath left his lungs.

“And I told him I love him back,” she continued.

All the adrenaline that had surged through his body only moments before completely left him at her words, and his limbs locked up instead. He felt cold.

“Hello?”

He didn’t even realise he had sunk to his knees until he meant to take a step back towards the couch. He just slumped onto his butt. “That’s―” He had to clear his throat. “That’s gotta be recent.”

He could slap himself. He sounded as dead as he felt. He tried again: “I mean, that’s great news, May! He’s a lucky guy. Yeah.”

She sighed with relief. Could Steven tell what her sighs meant over the phone? ”I’m the lucky one, I think,” she said happily, and that was his last straw.

“Heh, yeah, well,” he sputtered out, just to have something to say. “Listen, since you’re not in danger or anything, uh, you actually caught me at a bad time, so I gotta go. I’ll catch you later, yeah?”

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

“Wait, Ash! Before you go!”

He held back a sigh. “What’s up, May?”

“It’s just… You’re right; it is recent. You’re actually the first person I told.”

“I’m honoured.” He couldn’t help the sarcasm that spilled out, but he backtracked quickly. “I mean it. Thank you for telling me.”

“Of course, Ash; I tell you everything. At this point, it’s like I have to; nothing would ever feel real otherwise.”

He shut his eyes. He really couldn’t take this anymore. “I know what you mean. Same here.”

She made a cute sound, a quiet little ‘hmm,’ and that was when the first tear spilled out. “Alright, I’ve taken up enough of your time. I’ll text you later!!” she promised.

“Later,” he repeated, both an echo and a goodbye; and finally, blissfully, he ended the call.

...

When, when, when?!

That was supposed to be one of the sweetest moments of her young adult life, and she called on him―trusted him, even―to be happy for her. When did he get to the point where he couldn’t even do that? Instead, he recalls it now as he struggles to fall asleep, playing the memory at half-speed over and over again in his imagination, and all he does is hope.

He desperately hopes it’ll stop hurting so much.

~~~

fall for someone with the sweetest rebel heart

When he finds out he didn’t get the promotion he was vying for at work, there’s no one else’s comfort he sought but May’s.

“I’m sorry that happened, Ash,” May soothes as she rubs rhythmic circles into Ash’s back. They’re in her condo, noticeably nicer maintained than Ash’s flat, side by side on the sofa. It is the first time he’s let her touch him in weeks, and he really needs it. “At least now they know you’re interested? It might be your turn next time.”

Ash snorts but nods anyway. He’s usually the type to look at the bright side, but it would be an understatement to say that he is simply disappointed. After all the L’s he’s been taking in his personal life, he had been hoping at least something would go his way professionally.

May continues, “Just make sure not to let this setback actually set you back. Keep putting your best foot forward, and I know you’ll win those guys over… just like you did with me!” She ends with a wink, trying her hardest to inject some levity into the situation.

Just like that, Ash’s mood sours even more. “You can’t say that to me, May,” he angrily replies as he shuffles out of her hold.

“What are you talking about?” she pouts as she feebly tries to get him to lay back against the couch so that the cold air can’t get under the blanket they are sharing.

“I didn’t ‘win you over,’ clearly.” He shrugs off her touch and scoots away. He has spent so long trying to keep his bitterness inside, but he doesn’t have the emotional wherewithal to regulate himself right now. He’s tired of trying to get over things that make him upset.

May frowns, the furrow between her brow getting deeper as she sits up straight on the sofa. “Ash, why are you talking like that? I meant, like, how we became friends, obviously. I didn’t grow to love you by accident.”

Ash stands then, balling the blanket up and throwing it back on the couch. “I bet Steven wouldn’t be too happy to hear you say that.”

She follows suit, her voice elevating in volume as if to match. “I bet Steven wouldn’t appreciate being judged by someone who’s only met him once―despite my efforts otherwise, might I add.”

“I bet Steven would love to hear his girlfriend say she loves another guy.”

“I bet Steven isn’t dumb enough to think I can’t love you both.”

“You don’t love me, May!” Ash finally explodes.

He has never raised his voice like this, not to her, but he’s tired. He’s tired of loving someone he can’t have, he’s tired of hating himself for it, and he’s tired of the guilt when he takes it out on her despite all his attempts not to.

She looks like she’s torn between yelling right back or kicking him out; and before she could make up her mind, he collects himself enough so he could bring his voice down. He states simply, “Not the way you love Steven.” Not the way I love you.

He doesn’t say it, but he can tell she hears it anyway. He clears his throat and turns around, trying to hide without running away. “Hearts don’t work like that,” he murmurs into the room.

He makes to leave, but May’s hand on his shoulder stops him. She forcibly turns him back to face her, and Ash is shocked at the determined set to her face. Her eyes, bluer than a water stone and twice as powerful, hold him as captive as they always have. “You listen to me, Ash Ketchum.” Her tone brokers no argument. “If you thought for a second that I stopped loving you because I fell in love with Steven, you clearly underestimated what my heart is capable of.”

Her grip on him tightens, as if making sure he is still with her in the moment. “It’s big enough for the both of you; and if that’s not the way hearts are supposed to work, then I’ll just be the exception that proves the rule.”

She pulls him into a hug then, like locking that promise between them, and he dares let himself hope she means that.

~~~

fall for someone whose heart needs sewing up

Ash wasn’t expecting a knock on his door this late at night, and he definitely wasn’t expecting to see a beautifully made up May Maple standing in the hallway, mascara-tinged tears and runny nose notwithstanding.

"Steven is moving to Alola to support Devon Corp’s expansion," is all she said, but even that much is hard to make out through her watery voice.

The news sinks in, and Ash’s heart feels like someone moved it three centimetres to the left: still there, still functional, but not at all where he needs it to be.

"You’ve always talked about going to Alola," is the only way he could respond, thinking of all the times they’ve imagined taking a week off and vacationing in the tropical region. He won’t, can’t let himself think about anything else or else he’d break down.

In his heartbreak, he cannot recognise May's tears, which are too raw and too loud to be that of someone bearing regrettable news. These are the tears of a confused, broken heart.

"Ash, I'm not going," she sniffles, still stiffly standing outside his door. "He asked me not to."

Finally understanding that he misunderstood, Ash is even more disoriented than he was before. "Why would he do that?" he asks, obviously still trying to wrap his mind around what the hell was happening.

"I don’t know!" May yells while clenching her fists and stomping a high-heeled foot. It is the most movement she's made since he opened the door. "I demanded a reason, and he spewed nonsense at me! He said―" and she stops. Her whole body slumps back into stillness but without the stiffness of before. She continues quietly, "He said he didn’t want to see what I’d look like with my heart so far outside of my chest," like a guilty confession. Ash is at once reminded of their almost-fight a month ago, and he still isn’t sure what this all means.

He almost asks, Why wouldn’t he believe your heart was right where you were? or How capable is the human heart now? but he doesn’t.

Instead, he finally welcomes May inside. He sits her on the couch and helps her take off her heels before she wraps herself up in the blanket he keeps there―a blanket he only has, he remembers, because when she first visited his apartment, she insisted his couch needed one. She doesn’t just hold the blanket around her shoulders; she hides her entire frame within its folds. He merely sits on the couch next to the lump and places a solitary hand on top, unsure where it was resting yet hoping it is providing comfort nevertheless.

He wonders if May ever let Steven see her like this, the way she needs to shut out all stimuli as if to physically recreate her darkest moments. He wonders why he loves that she does that, even though it causes him so much selfish pain to be close enough to see her like this but shut out from her healing.

"I don’t think I have a boyfriend anymore," May says at length, voice dampened by the space and fabric between them.

It would have been the happiest news of Ash’s adult life if it weren’t for the extreme melancholy that laced her tone as she said it out loud.

He squeezes his hand into a fist on top of the blanket, his signal that he’d like to hug her if he could.

"I would have missed you if you left." Ash gives a nonsequitur-confession in response. May burrows deeper into the blankets and says nothing.

Instead, she reaches a hand out from a heretofore unseen opening in the fabric and holds on to his other hand tightly.

Ash stares at her slender knuckles, made paler from her firm grasp, and stops hoping.

He gently plies her fingers from his palm and tries not to feel guilty about the shocked, embarrassed way the hand pulls back into the blanket as he leaves her there.

The love of his life needs compassion right now. This is not his opportunity to sweep her off her feet; this is not his second chance.

He returns from the bedroom, settles back into his place on the couch, and forces May out of the blanket.

~~~

May jerks her head up, shocked and angry and still embarrassed from her rejected attempt to seek Ash’s comfort, but she is quickly mollified into confusion. The expected sight of Ash’s lit up form in his lit up living room ends up being no different from the blackness from which she thought she was rudely taken.

It is so dark under the extra, larger blanket that she can’t even see Ash’s nose even though she can sense his head is mere inches from hers.

His hands find hers in the darkness and squeeze. Relief flashes through her as she finally surrenders to the deep, thick slice of heartbreak.

May wants to see his face, but she settles for a hug.

#pokemon #pokemon fanfiction #advshipping #advanceshipping #ash ketchum #may maple #aamaylove #satoharu #unsuspecting #xyzc*

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yupuffin · 4 years

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Decide, Then Do: Empathy as Dimitri’s Tragic Flaw

I knew going into my Blue Lions playthrough that it was going to be tragic in multiple senses of the word, so I tend to interpret this route’s story as a tragedy. The Blue Lions route follows a plot driven primarily by the character development of its main protagonist, Dimitri: the tragic hero. The progression of the plot hinges on Dimitri’s actions, with emphasis on his tragic flaw, an internal error in judgment that ultimately leads to his downfall. Atypically for a tragedy, though, awareness of his tragic flaw eventually puts Dimitri on a road to recovery.

The plot follows Dimitri’s quest for justice. “Justice” as a word is central to the theme of the Blue Lions tragedy, and it appears in significant developments throughout the story, being used by Dimitri himself a number of times. However, justice as a concept is inherently subjective – and it is not as though Dimitri is unaware of this fact. Thus his “quest for justice” is not a straightforward path, but rather a winding struggle.

Some aspects of this struggle are perhaps universally relatable. In general, people inherently want to do the right thing. Yet how can one truly “do the right thing” when the very definition of “right” changes so drastically depending on the individual? The pursuit of “justice” is rooted in the distinction between intent and action. Righteous intent is a prerequisite to righteous action. A person must first decide what they believe is “right” and then make the conscious decision to act according to that definition; they cannot perform a righteous act without the initial awareness that it is righteous. While circular, this logic is nevertheless a fundamental truth that drives a person’s deepest motivations. Because people generally want to be right, they act according to what they personally believe is right.

Hence Dimitri’s tragic flaw, which is also one of his greatest strengths: his empathy.

(of course, spoilers for the Blue Lions/Azure Moon route under the cut.)

It is clear from when he is first introduced as a character that Dimitri is an emotional individual – compassionate, and yet polite and eloquent, never hesitating to verbalize his joy or warmth with impeccable clarity. He echoes other characters’ expressions of happiness with equal or greater enthusiasm, yet he is acutely aware that not everyone can be happy all the time. He encourages others to speak freely, and to acknowledge and experience all of their emotions, whether positive or negative. In short, he is a highly empathetic person. In the aforementioned situations, his empathy functions as a personal strength.*

It is also this empathy and emotional intelligence that allow Dimitri to recognize the fundamental subjectivity of justice. He is distraught after his first time killing innocent civilians for the sake of preventing an even more destructive rebellion; viewing these civilians as human beings with their own individual, complex lives, rather than as mere factors of a body count, he questions whether it is “truly okay to take any life you please, all in service of some implacable ‘just cause.’”

This same empathy prevents him from acting in accordance with his nuanced recognition of justice. Internally, he believes his pursuit of revenge is justified; externally, he recognizes that his justification is weak. He preoccupies himself with his empathy for the dead by seeking to avenge his deceased family members, yet his pursuit of revenge also inflicts suffering on people around him living in the present. He profusely expresses his remorse at calling for a “gruesome end” for those who oppress and brutalize the weak and the dead, and later characterizes himself as a “monster” and a “murderer,” framing his conduct within the larger scope of morality.

This results in a discrepancy between Dimitri’s righteous intent and the logically resulting righteous action. He recognizes that his actions can only be justified to a limited degree. However, he fails to dedicate himself to a more logical, morally just course of action due to his emotional commitment to his personal definition of justice. This contradiction forms the crux of empathy as his tragic flaw and hence the center of the Blue Lions story.

Dimitri’s remorseful awareness of this contradiction and his concurrent inability or unwillingness to act in accordance with this awareness are what make his flaw characteristic of tragedy as a genre. This internal discrepancy situates his downfall through the Blue Lions academy phase and into the beginning of the Azure Moon story. In theory, Dimitri has opportunities to act on his recognition of the flawed justification of his pursuit of revenge – that is, giving up on avenging his dead family and instead prioritizing the happiness and well-being of his living comrades. It sounds like an easy choice to make, but it is not. In actuality, he struggles to commit to this course of action because doing so requires him to perform an alternate, more challenging contradiction: to act against his own emotions and values by disregarding his empathy for his family, and ultimately his reason for living after the Tragedy of Duscur. He confides in Byleth that his choice to pursue revenge after the Tragedy was all that gave him the desire to live again and was his “only reason to keep moving forward.”

As a result, for the first part of the story, Dimitri stands by his internal justification for his actions. The more he dedicates himself to his revenge, the more he must look past his recognition of his flawed justification. That he shamelessly acknowledges himself as a “monster” at the beginning of Azure Moon is one indication that this awareness still exists within him – he merely chooses to overlook it for the sake of prioritizing his vengeance. Because the empathy that facilitates this recognition to begin with is such an essential and immutable part of his character, though, this awareness can never disappear entirely. As in the earlier parts of Blue Lions, Dimitri is constantly engaged in an internal struggle with the discrepancy between his righteous intent and righteous action. Notably, after his victory at the Great Bridge of Myrddin, he hesitates to assert that it is truly “right” to take the lives of others merely because they are enemies, in a call back to his initial questioning of this issue after the aforementioned uprising in chapter 3 of the academy phase.

In a typical tragedy, the protagonist’s realization of their tragic flaw is insufficient to prevent their ultimate defeat. A tragic plot characteristically contains an “anagnorisis” component: a discrete instant in which the tragic hero becomes aware of their flaw or error in judgment, yet is either unwilling or unable to change the course of events, inevitably leading to their eventual downfall. Dimitri’s anagnorisis is what makes him an atypical tragic hero, and in turn, the Blue Lions story an atypical tragedy. While Dimitri experiences a defined moment of anagnorisis in chapter 17, unlike a conventional tragic hero, he has not spent the prior portion of the story entirely unaware of his tragic flaw. Instead, Dimitri’s anagnorisis is the moment he consciously dedicates himself to the internally difficult choice to act in accordance with this awareness. This reverses his tragic downfall and instead allows him to start making decisions with which he is ultimately more at peace. His righteous action finally aligns with his righteous intent. While he acknowledges that while he cannot possibly undo the harm he has inflicted on others in the past due to his poor judgment, he can at least choose to do what he believes is right going forward. Dimitri’s conversations with Byleth, Edelgard, and the other characters in the latter part of Azure Moon reflect his awareness of his internal and external struggles up to this point and how they have shaped his story.

I think the process of “decide to do the right thing, then do the right thing” seems self-evident enough. However, this straightforward description skips over the intermediate step of “recognize what ‘the right thing’ means to you,�� which can be complex and difficult to grasp, and hence is not typically acknowledged, but is nevertheless crucial to the completion of this process and hence to the very foundation of the Blue Lions story. That Dimitri so intimately understands the complexity behind recognizing what “the right thing” really means, when the desire to do this “right thing” is so fundamental to begin with, indicates the significance of his empathy and emotional intelligence as a personal strength. However, this same empathy is also the most significant obstacle to his actually doing what he believes to be right. Both factors are essential to the establishment and progression of the Blue Lions and Azure Moon plotlines. Hence I believe it does a disservice to Dimitri’s character, and discredits the most significant aspects of his character development, to categorize him or any of his actions as wholly good or bad. As Dimitri himself states, a given position can be simultaneously right and wrong. In reality, most situations are probably too complex for such dichotomous definitions; an attempt to categorize a position into one or the other inherently conflates, or disregards, some of its essential factors. Dimitri as a tragic hero with empathy as his tragic flaw is a striking example of how a situation’s “good” and “bad” components can ultimately stem from the same source, making them fundamentally impossible to separate so distinctly.

*For anyone interested in a deeper exploration of empathy as Dimitri’s strength that goes beyond this single paragraph, in the “source” field I have included a link to another one of my posts about just that! “Love is Stored in the Dimitri: A Dimitri Appreciation Post.”

If you found the argument of “decide to do the right thing, then do the right thing” particularly interesting, I highly recommend taking a look at the source of my wording for that logic the anime JUNI TAISEN: ZODIAC WAR -- in particular, the character Ox. This concept forms the basis of Ox’s character, leading to some notable similarities to Dimitri.

#dimitri alexandre blaiddyd #fire emblem three houses #fire emblem #dimitri #anime analysis

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mst3kproject · 6 years

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415: The Beatniks

While I am, it must be admitted, as old as dirt, I am not quite old enough to have any firsthand experience with Beatnikery. I am nevertheless under the impression that it involves black turtlenecks, round sunglasses, unkempt facial hair, and bad poetry. None of these make any sort of appearance in The Beatniks.

Eddie Crane is the leader of a small gang of very stupid criminals. I assume they chose him for the position because he’s the only guy they know who actually started seventh grade. They’re celebrating their latest robbery when forces beyond Eddie’s control, in the form of a talent agent who looks weirdly like Sir Ian McKellan and a TV station manager who looks worryingly like Arch Hall Sr., conspire to propel him to stardom whether he likes it or not! Eddie doesn’t want to be That Guy who let fame go to his head and forgot about his friends, so the gang tags along, looking for places to vandalize and people to murder until Eddie just can’t keep the charade up any longer.

I wonder if names like Bud Eagle and Eddie Crane are meant to suggest that these guys can sing like birds. If so, it would have behooved them to choose birds that are actually known for singing. Then again, I guess Bud Nightingale and Eddie Sparrow wouldn’t have sounded nearly as tough.

The Beatniks is actually a fairly engaging and watchable movie. It moves along at a good pace, never allowing the viewer to get bored, but it’s full of contrived situations and awful dialogue spoken by barely-competent actors, so it’s perfect for MST3K. It’s also got a fair amount going on below the surface for me to analyze, and the songs are… uh…

Well, they’re not good. They’re not very memorable (except the first one, which sticks in the mind not because of the tune but because of the refrain my sideburns don’t need no sympathy. What the fuck?), they sound more like Glenn Miller than anything that would have been popular by 1960, and the lyrics are maudlin and predictable, but they’re nowhere near as awful as anything sung by Arch Hall Jr. Tony Travis has a decent set of pipes and I can see him being the Clay Aiken or Josh Groban of his day, enormously popular with little old ladies and middle-aged gay men.

That’s not what we're shown in the movie, though. If the writers had tried to make Eddie’s meteoric rise to stardom as ridiculous and implausible as possible, they couldn’t have done much better than this (‘meteoric’ is a particularly apt description of Eddie, who shines very bright for ten seconds and then hits the ground real hard). His success is so sudden and so total, from small-time crook to household name in no more than a few days, that it feels like at any moment we’re going to see a bunch of people stand up and shout, “April Fool!”

I don’t know how these things worked in the fifties, of course, but I seriously doubt talent agents just wandered the wastes signing random people they got into car accidents with. Most actors and singers have to put in years of work before anybody notices them – Harrison Ford was George Lucas’ carpenter and Demi Moore was a girl of the week in Master Ninja! With Eddie, everything is just handed to him, and it’s really rather detrimental to his character. We don’t see him as somebody who deserves success, because he wasn’t depicted as having any ambitions or any desire to reach beyond what he is. He’s just some jerk who had a stroke of good luck.

This is topped off by the movie’s I Accuse My Parents-like unwillingness to really depict Eddie was a criminal. The gang’s store robbery at the beginning seems to be something they’ve done so often that the owners are expecting them – the man asks, “don’t you guys ever rob anyone else” and seems more resigned than terrified. Eddie issues some mild threats but the actual stealing is done by his friends, and as soon as stardom knocks on Eddie’s door, he abandons violence entirely. It’s his buddies who trash the hotel room and shoot the barkeep, while Eddie begs them not to, as if putting on a suit and tie has suddenly transformed him into a grownup.

Like many 50s and 60’s Rebellious Teens movies, The Beatniks is intended as a warning. It’s a little more subtle about it than things like Reefer Madness, but not too much. The message here is that someday, even the angriest of teen rebels will grow up, and when they do, they may find that leaving their pasts behind is not as easy as they thought. It turns out to be particularly difficult for Eddie, whose bad decisions are embodied in his reckless and violent friends and follow him in a very literal sense indeed. He wants to leave that past behind for a new career and a more adult relationship, but they catch up with him every time.

I guess this is why Eddie’s rise has to be so sudden – so that he can’t have any opportunity to ditch these people from his past. That sort of makes sense, but it’s still lazy writing and leaves Eddie with almost no character whatsoever. Throughout the film he appears mostly as somebody being manhandled by destiny, both his rise and his fall so entirely out of his own control that he’s still basically a victim even when good things are happening to him.

The single most confusing thing in the movie is Eddie’s romance with Agent Magneto’s blonde secretary, Helen. It’s easy to see why he likes her: Helen may not be what is usually considered beautiful (the Brains compared her to “Donald Sutherland in drag”) but she’s clearly intelligent and sophisticated, well-dressed and good-mannered. What you find yourself wondering is what she sees in him. He’s not witty or charming and the movie suggests he’s quite a bit younger than she is.

Of course, you’re not supposed to ask that because the women in this movie are not characters, they’re symbols. Blonde, glamorous Helen represents the glittering world of stardom that Eddie is being ushered into. Clingy, criminal Iris is Eddie’s past, with its obsession with money and good times. She still lives with her mother, making her also a representation of childhood, while independent Helen with her own apartment is an adult.

Is this misogynistic? Eh, maybe, but the rest of the gang are more symbols than characters, too. The one who stands out most is Mooney, the guy who actually kills the fat barkeep and stabs Agent Gandalf, and then insists he did it for Eddie, since these men would have gone to the cops if he hadn’t. The movie makes it clear that his two victims said no such things, and Eddie is pretty sure that Mooney is lying about it, but the audience may get the impression that Mooney believes it. He’s terrified of being caught and sent to jail and lashes out at anyone who might be a threat. Claiming he’s doing it for Eddie is just a way of telling himself that he’s not really being selfish and impulsive.

Some have seen this as homoerotic – that Mooney is in love with Eddie and tries to protect him for that reason, while he’s actually just lashing out at the things that threaten to take the object of his love away from him. I can definitely see that, but I think what the writers may have been going for is that Mooney represents selfishness. The movie is saying that the things juvenile delinquents do are out of selfishness – the group robs the store for money and booze, drive the other restaurant patrons out as they seek a good time, and kill the barkeep out of fear. The same fear selfishly keeps them from seeking medical help for Red. They spare no thought for their effect on society as a whole, but society is something we are all part of whether we like it or not, and so our selfish acts will eventually come back on us, as they do on Eddie.

The love stories in the movie fit in with this theme, too. Iris’ love for Eddie is about what he can provide her with – money and songs when he’s just a criminal, and furs and fame once he becomes a star. Helen’s love for him, and his for her, is unselfish: each wants the other’s happiness, even if there is a personal cost. Eddie tries to distance himself from Helen when he fears he’ll drag her down with him, she tries to encourage him to do what’s right even if it means she loses him. If we believe that Mooney loves Eddie, then this love is also selfish. He wants Eddie to himself, and destroys the things that threaten to separate them.

This is a really bad movie but like a number of other MST3K features, including Manos and The Magic Sword, it’s got a lot for me to get my analytical teeth into. It makes a great episode not only because the movie is so entertainingly terrible and the riffing so good, but because enough of its seventy-seven minutes made it into the theatre that you can pick out all this stuff and chew on it. It’s not a movie I would have watched without MST3K, but I’m kinda glad I did.

#mst3k #reviews #the beatniks #60s

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cinemareels-blog · 6 years

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We’ll Take Manhattan (2012) Review

Starring: Karen Gillan, Aneurin Barnard, Helen McCrory

Synopsis: We’ll Take Manhattan in a British made-for-television film depicting the true story of the work and love affair of photographer David Bailey and model Jean Shrimpton, as they changed the face of fashion photography during their one-week Vogue campaign in New York in 1962.

Awards:

Best European TV Drama at the 2012 Prix Europa awards

Acting:

Aneurin Barnard is incredible as David Bailey, a cocksure, headstrong photographer who aims to challenge the outdated aesthetics held by the bigwigs at Vogue magazine. Originally from Wales, Barnard imitates Bailey’s conspicuous Cockney accent flawlessly, which plays a great role in Bailey’s cheeky character, and makes Barnard all the more convincing. He has proven himself to be a versatile actor, taking on roles such as the timid French soldier Gibson in Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, and the dark yet misunderstood Richard III in the BBC series The White Queen. The role of Bailey juxtaposes these wildly, and Barnard pulls it off with flair- the audience soon grows to love his loquacious charm. He is at his best during scenes shared with co-star Karen Gillan, as their onscreen chemistry is so genuine it makes one forget that it is just that- onscreen. The emotion both lead actors put into their roles also makes it difficult to forget that Bailey and Shrimpton are real people and that their affair was, in fact, immoral, as Bailey was married at the time.

Karen Gillan is a wonderful actress- she plays the shy, ostracized Jean Shrimpton with such heart that she is mesmerizing to watch, especially in her moments of silence. Director & writer John McKay said that Jean’s role is one of ‘feeling and being, not of chat, chat, chat.’ Gillan takes this in her stride, using Jean’s quietness to utilize body language to convey her thoughts and feelings. She looks around, wide-eyed with somewhat shrugged shoulders when taking in Vogue’s headquarters, demonstrating her shyness far better than she could have done with words. Previous to acting, Gillan worked as a model, and this benefitted her greatly during filming as, of course, she knew how modelling worked and the kind of poses to strike. She takes the audience on a journey alongside Jean- we see her development from a shy country girl to a confident, headstrong woman throughout the course of the film, her diffidence disappearing as time goes on. She too had to adopt an accent, transitioning seamlessly from Scottish to RP English.

Helen McCrory was the perfect choice to play Lady Clare Rendlesham- a higher-up at Vogue who believes in rock-solid tradition and rejects Bailey’s style, which is all about making the photographs ‘alive’. Lady Clare’s point of view was always important to McCrory, says McKay, and I think this is what makes the character and McCrory’s portrayal of her so rich and dimensional. Lady Clare is steadfast in her beliefs- no Cockney with a camera is going to change that. But McCrory brings a beautiful human element to the role, especially towards the end when her marmoreal exterior cracks and we see her cry, and we then realise just how much her work means to her. And, being female in 1962, she probably had to fight for her high position, and Jean and David are jeopardizing that. We begin to see the events of the film through her eyes, and we realise that maybe Lady Clare isn’t the antagonist, but rather tradition and unwillingness to change are.

Music:

The score for We’ll Take Manhattan is phenomenal. Composed and performed by a live quartet, the music for this film is totally unique and adds a beautiful, unusual quality to the film. There is more music in this film than most, which I liked because it helped to accentuate the tone of each scene, and made quiet scenes seem more poignant due to the noticeable absence of the usual jazzy tunes played throughout. Kevin Sargent, the film’s music composer, felt that jazz would be more appropriate for the film, even though it was set in 1962, a time when jazz was fighting for popularity with up-and-coming contenders like rock and pop, as David Bailey detested the latter and believed that the 1960s would and should have been more about jazz. McKay describes him as ‘a visionary of the late 50s’, despite being known for his work in later eras. This decision provides an authentic tone to the film, as it seems more fitting with the protagonist Bailey, and is more pleasant on the ears than some of the 1960s’ other music.

Costuming:

In a film about fashion, costuming is obviously at the forefront of importance. All the costumes in We’ll Take Manhattan are striking in themselves, from Jean Shrimpton’s designer attire to David Bailey’s plain black garb. Both he and Lady Clare are perpetually dressed in black; to me this symbolises how they are on entirely different ends of the spectrum regarding their opinions, but in retrospect are not that different from each other- both put their life into their work and believe what they are doing is best for the vision of Vogue. The costume department for this film did an excellent job in recreating Jean Shrimpton’s original outfits, enlightening the audience to the resplendent clothes she wore, as David Bailey’s 1962 photographs, while nonetheless striking, sadly do not capture the colour of many of the outfits, as they were shot on a 35mm camera, which was unheard of for a magazine of such high stature as Vogue.

Cinematography:

Perhaps my favourite thing about We’ll Take Manhattan is McKay’s use of the colour yellow. It weaves its way into most scenes of the film, whether in the form of bright lights, an item of clothing or a classic New York cab, the colour yellow is never far from the film. To me, this represents the fresh optimism and sheer force of the vision that Bailey has to change fashion photography, to transform it from dull to bright. During quieter scenes, yellow is still present, but softened to a more buttery hue, showing that his revolutionary vision can be set aside at times, but is always present somewhere.

There is one specific scene that impresses me most, and this is the scene in which David is shooting Jean in front of the Peppermint Twist banner and replies to Lady Clare’s complaints with an epiphanic outburst that sums up his aesthetic intentions. “It’s not about the poxy clothes. It’s about the street in actual fact, its about the noise, it's about that drunk guy over there…. It’s about the vibe!” This fast-paced rant is paired with short, flashing shots of the city and increased sound effects of New York’s bustling traffic, which accentuates the holistic undertones of David’s speech, and wakes the audience up to the fact that fashion is about more than just the clothes, and this one scene perfectly captures one of the film’s main themes and messages.

The crew did a fantastic job in recreating David Bailey’s original pictures, using greenscreen and CGI technology in such a way that one would not know the setting wasn’t genuine unless told. They went to all the original locations, or as near as them as they could, and the resemblance between the pictures in the film and the real-life ones are simply astounding. The hairstylist working on the film did a wonderful job in recreating the iconic sixties almost-beehive hairstyle, affectionately referred to by Bailey as ‘that bloody hairdo!’

Conclusion:

We’ll Take Manhattan is something of a mini-masterpiece. Its unique style, brilliant acting and engaging cinematography transcend the withering stereotypes often thrust upon television films, which have a reputation for being stiff and badly produced. I liked the trim yet healthy length of the film (1hr 29m) - it wasn’t unnecessarily dragged out or extended with filler scenes and dialogue, every scene made sense and was there for a reason, which is becoming scarcer in nowadays cinema. This is a film worth watching- its gorgeous setting, compelling storyline and its well-written script can engage every audience, whether they have an interest in fashion or not.

#we'll take manhattan #film #movies #film review #movie review #karen gillan #aneurin barnard

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minichicclothing · 4 years

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Don't Stop Believing Para Christmas Hat T Shirt From AllezyGo

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KIND OF AS IT ALWAYS WASand BRAND IS NOT GOING TO BE INVOLVED HE WENT WAY TO GO DO STUFF HERE’S MY COUNTERPOINT THEY DIDN’T GIVE A SANITIZED VERSION OF THE STORY BECAUSE TERRY NEVER HAD A HAD A PROBLEM THE SMARTEST ONE IN THE ROOM IS TO SHINE THE CASE FOR AN WHAT IS HE SAYING IS SO DON’T NOTICE ME ACTUALLY I JUST KEEP MAKING BAD CHOICES BUT ACTUALLY YOU FOR YOUR MISTAKES BY SERVING THE HEAD OF THE KING FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE THE THING THAT I WANTED THOUGH WAS AN EXCHANGE WHEN TIERNAN JOHN SIEGE OF THE BEFORE JOHN WAS THE NIGHTWATCH IS THIS IDEAS OF LIKE OKAY SO THAT WHAT WAS WITH THE TRANSACTION HERE THAT YOU’RE YOU’RE THE HAND OF THE KING NOWand I’M NEVER TO HAVE A WIFEand I GO BACK TO WHICH HONESTLY IF TORMENT HAD BEEN LIKE M WRIGHT WANT TO START DOING THIS YOU CAN IT WAS LATER TOLD ME IT WAS MY DESTINY TO BECAUSE I WAS THE VERSION OF LIKE MY SITTING ON THE ARTS ROAD WITH THE THING THAT THE NARROWSand ALWAYS PROMISED THIS BENEVOLENT PERSON WHO WAS GONNA TRYand PROTECT PEOPLEand THEY DON’T EVEN DISCUSS IT AS EASILY GOTTEN OFF DUTY I FEELING I GOT MULTIPLE WATCHES TEARYand SYRIANSand IS A LOT MORE COMPLEX I THINK THEN ON FIRST BLANCH PLUMBING DANNY LISA JUST FINE WHEN WE GET OTHERWISE IS A SERIES OF CHARACTER CODERS YOU BREANNE WRITES JAMIE STORYand THE OTHERS I WILL SAY TO YOU HOW HAITI WILL BE REMEMBERED RIGHT LIKE NO I LIKED IT BUT IT’S LIKE THIS IN JUST A BASIC HUMAN LEVEL WHAT WOULD YOUR ASK WHO YOU LEFT RIGHT ABOUT YOU ON ANYTHING LIKE IT’S GREAT THAT SHE WROTE ALL THE NICE STUFF BUT IT’S KIND OF ALSO RINGS A LITTLE FALSE THAT SHE WASN’T LIKEand WAS AN ASS HOLE WHO LEFT ME LIKE BLAH BUT I DON’T AGREE I THINK THAT ULTIMATELY BRAND IS ONE OF THE CHARACTERS IN THE ENTIRE STORY WHO WE CAN LOOK TO AS LIKE SOMEBODY WHO REALLY UNDERSTANDS WHO SHE ISand THAT WE CAN FIND A LOT THERE TO ADMIREand TYPE SO WHEN PEOPLE AFTER EPISODE FOR LIKE OH MY GOD THEY DISLIKE REDUCE BRAND TO AUNT SALLY CRYING IS WHAT IS TO THINK THAT ALL BUT YOU CAN BE A STRONG WOMANand YOU CAN 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VERY I FOUND THE OUTLINE FASCINATING BECAUSE A LOT OF THE TENSION IN BETWEEN JOHNand TEARYand IN SEASON ONE IS JOHN’S NAIVETY IN BELIEVING THAT THE NIGHTWATCH WAS THIS NOBLE PROFESSION STANDING BETWEEN THE REALMS OF MANand WILD WINGSand EVIL ETC

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breakingarrows · 5 years

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I Have No Faith in Far Cry 5

[This was originally published on VerticalSliceMedia.com in 2018 and is republished from the latest draft I have]

Far Cry 5’s reveal was drenched in politics. The cover image recreated Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper but replaced it with rural Americans surrounded by weapons of death. Stars on the flag are replaced with the cult’s icon. Far Cry 5 was presented as a game that would seemingly tackle our obsession with guns as well as the danger of the alt-right.

Instead the enemy faction was presented as a non-partisan doomsday cult. This group gathered followers through the charisma of its leader, and the newest iteration of Far Cry’s love-to-hate antagonists: Joseph Seed. Believing himself to be divinely chosen to lead, Joseph Seed sends his cult, Project Eden’s Gate, to “save” as many souls as possible. Whether or not they are willing doesn’t matter. As Project Eden’s Gate has taken over fictional Hope County, Montana, the federal government responds by sending you, the customizable rookie protagonist, in with some other officers to arrest Seed. Things obviously go wrong and you are left to begin creating a local #Resistance movement to, “bring the fanatical cult to justice.”

Setting the cult in the rural area of Montana, taking advantage of evangelical iconography, and having a cult and other NPC’s armed to the teeth with lethal weapons but ignoring that each of these things have a major place in conservative politics is disingenuous. Montana is a state that has voted Republican in presidential elections since 1952 in all but two elections, with the latest exception being Bill Clinton in 1992. In the latest election Trump won by a margin that hasn’t been enjoyed since Bush in 2004. Likewise, conservatives always have the Evangelical vote, and are supported by the NRA with millions in campaign funds. Far Cry 5 and Ubisoft have not shown a willingness to engage with the fact that its setting and characters are conservative-based and what else that support entails. Instead they have a cult that is surprisingly inclusive, not discriminating membership on race or income but instead welcoming all into the fold.

Having a cult that draws heavily from conservative platforms but ignoring the long history of racism that platform has promoted is wrong. Conservative politics have included gerrymandering districts and passing voter ID laws based on the lie of voter fraud in order to suppress the black vote. Republicans have no interest in curbing police brutality against minorities and instead want to further militarize our police force. Our borders need to be closed off to non-whites and other undesirables under the guise of security. Food stamps that feed the (largely black) poor are a drain on the federal budget but not the billions paid to (largely white) farmers to protect the soil used. These policies reflect the character of those who make up counties like the fictional one in Far Cry 5, and choosing not to reflect that betrays their claim of authenticity.

Ubisoft shouldn’t be able to pick and choose what parts of American culture it wants to emulate and draw from. They want to talk about Cliven Bundy and his standoff against the federal government but don’t want to also bring in his views on how blacks had it better under slavery than with government subsidies. They want to give off the feeling of fanaticism that followed Charles Manson but not the fact that he believed in an upcoming race war between whites and blacks. They want the diversity of the People’s Temple without acknowledging that blacks were attracted to that movement because of its version of socialism. Far Cry 5 picks and chooses what aspects of cult movements it wants to partake in instead of being a genuine representation. Developers haven’t even named specific cults as their source of reference in interviews, showing an unwillingness to discuss that aspect of their research and instead have experts talk about Eden’s Gate in vague terms.

Not that Far Cry is a series renowned for its handling of themes. Far Cry 3 was about a white college kid leading natives in revolt against the oppressors they couldn’t topple on their own. Far Cry 4 talked frequently about the consequences choices can lead to despite having the same outcome for every choice you could have made. Why am I not surprised to see that Far Cry 5 wants to take advantage of the imagery of rural America but not the insidious beliefs that lie beneath it? Each game has been a power fantasy that had shallow representations for its place of location, and Far Cry 5 hasn’t shown anything to differentiate it from that trend.

Despite not wanting to talk specifics in regards to politics, a quest giver in Far Cry 5 uses the specific phrase, “Obama loving libtards” when assigning the playable character a quest, making his views clear. Why would I as the player character, one who is customizable and silent in order for the player to wholly insert themselves, help him? He’s running for Senate and needs you to help his campaign despite the fact that we most likely do not share the same views. This forced cooperation may speak to Ubisoft’s attempt to portray the need for alliances across party lines in service of fighting a greater threat (Project Eden’s Gate), especially given the goal of forming a resistance of many different people groups to combat Seed and his cult. If this is true, it shows hypocrisy in that a forced ally can hold conservative viewpoints but the enemy isn’t for fear of offending Republican players. Continuing the trend of picking and choosing images for their own use, a random NPC featured in Waypoint’s coverage of Far Cry 5 has a shirt that is definitely taken from Obama’s 2008 campaign. However, don’t ask developers about Joseph Seed’s voting record as that part of the character is deemed unimportant.

Even when it comes to the topic of cults overall, I doubt Far Cry 5 will address some elements seen in many,, such as the sexual abuse of not only women within the group but children as well. Founders of cults have often been cast out of previously established organizations, religious or not, for their perversions and criminal behavior. They use their newfound power over cult members to once again commit heinous acts against their followers who can’t fight back out of fear of excommunication from the one place they felt welcomed and safe. Knowing the general unwillingness video games at large have when it comes to confronting sexual acts when compared to other forms of violence I doubt Far Cry 5 will approach this subject, despite its presence in major cults.

Ubisoft wants to pick and choose what represents a location like Hope County, and by doing so betray their attempts to ground the power fantasy of the Far Cry series in something realistic.

#Far Cry 5 #Ubisoft #Far Cry #Video Game Criticism #Criticism #writing

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irobotreviewsca · 6 years

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Blog Entry #2

Within the novel, I, Robot, there are many thematic issues that are examined. At the forefront, we have the question of “What does it truly mean to be human?” In almost every single short story included within the novel, this has been examined. We first see it in the short story Robbie, when the little girl considers Robbie to be a human just like she is, much to the dismay of her mother. Next, we see it in Runaround, as QT-1 constructs a society and controls all the other robots which the humans find terrifying, yet it’s how human society works, as well with a controlling government. We see it in Catch that Rabbit as DV-5 the robot gets overwhelmed by the amount of work that is placed on him and resorts to dancing and freaking out until his problems disappear. We next see it in Little Lost Robot, as NS-2 struggles with his self-worth and tries to do things to prove that he is better than the other thousand robots that look just like him. We see it in Evidence as society discusses the pros and cons of having a robot in political leader, and the same plotline follows in The Evitable Conflict as robots take over society.

Each of the cases in I, Robot can be related to how society functions. Especially since the author chose to include all these short stories within one novel, Isaac Asimov paints an intelligent picture and reflects back to us traits of our own society, but through the portrayal of malfunctioning robots not performing in an ideal way. In Catch the Rabbit, we see DV-5 losing his mind and doing what calms him down, much like humans feel like doing, though we are often to unable just let go like robots can. In Little Lost Robot, we see that NS-2 does whatever he can to make himself stand out in a society where everyone is the same, and this happens in real life as well as we as humans try to make our own statement about how we are and make our own path.

In addition to this, the people who are considered more “in-touch” with the current society are those who consider robots to be more human-like, such as Dr. Susan Calvin. Many characters even nickname the robot. For example, QT-1 is nicknames Cutie by the workers. DV-5 is nicknamed Dave, NS-2 is nicknamed Nestor, and what is perhaps the most obvious connection to humans is when the control hub for the spaceship within the short story Escape is nicknamed “The Brain” despite robots, clearly, having no true brain of their own; all they have is a motherboard and main CPU. But yet, Isaac Asimov goes so far to show that perhaps robots are truly like humans after all.

I believe that Isaac Asimov did an amazing job in conveying this message. There’s, of course, downfalls in repeating something over and over again. For example, if my parents told me to do something many times, I would just get frustrated and almost feel like I wish to do the opposite. But Isaac Asimov repeats his message very subtly throughout the novel, weaving it into dialogue as well

I very much connect to the message that Isaac Asimov is trying to convey. Personally, I have always been fascinated with the concept of robotics and how artificial intelligence can progress to a point where it can become nearly indistinguishable from humans. As I read through the novel, continuously I found myself immersed within the novel because it was a topic that I was so fascinated in. Therefore, when the message of how rapidly technology can advance and take over our lives appeared continuously within the novel, I couldn’t help but find myself agreeing with it more and more.

Since I have always been on the robotics team and in the robotics class and working closely with computers for my time in high school, I found that I haven't learned anything particularly new. While there were certainly interesting concepts popping up within the novel, such as the parallels between robotic programming and the human break - such as how robots stop working when they become “overloaded” and how humans do the same when we’re stressed, as well - but this is something I have already been in contact with with my experience in programming as well as reading other various science fiction novels that include robots.

Personally, this novel has reaffirmed many beliefs that I hold. While the majority of the population is afraid of robots, the main character. Dr Susan Calvin, protects robots, which can be seen when Asimov writes, ““Original impressionment is not everything,” Calvin snarled at him. “Robots have learning capacity, you... you fool--” And Bogert knew that she had really lost her temper. She continued hastily, “Don’t you suppose he could tell from the tone used that the words weren’t complimentary? Don’t you suppose he’s heard the words used before and noted upon what occasions?” ” (pg 79) When someone questions whether a robot can be hurt or insulted, she immediately rises to the occasion to defend the robot and protect them. This is something I agree with, because as robots advance, in the future when robots are able to parallel human consciousness, there’s no doubt in my mind that they would be able to understand what certain words mean and associate them with feelings or emotions. Perhaps it is my own kind nature, but I believe that you should treat everyone with kindness and love; not just humans.

Unlike humans, robots are not bound by the fear of death, something that humans are intensely afraid of, such as the case of Hamlet being afraid of death in his famous “To Be or not to Be” soliloquy. I find that death is a very important theme within both novels as in both, characters struggle with the concept of death. We see this in Hamlet when Hamlet says “To die, to sleep-- To sleep--perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub, For in that sleep of death what dreams may come?” (III.I 65-67 ) We see Hamlet get paralyzed by fear of dying, because he knows both ways that death will follow him; if he kills the King he will have commited treason, and will be sent to death. But, if he lives, life will be unbearable, so he contemplates suicide. He is stuck between these two choices as time continues, and this doesn’t help him; time keeps ticking as his death draws closer.

The same notion can be seen in I, Robot as the humans contemplate retrieving Selenium. An astronaut on the planet can go to grab the Selenium and die, but at the same time he can rescue the rest of the people around him. But yet, none of the astronauts on the base want to risk their lives for the greater good to save others, even if it brings safety to the people they love so much, much like the case of Hamlet hesitating to murder the King even though it will save his father’s soul. Donovan, an astronaut in I, Robot, says, “and all I know is that he thinks we’re playing games. And we’re not. It’s a matter of life and very gruesome death.” (pg 25.) when he sees that the robot, Speedy, is not afraid of dying. Instead of simply sacrificing their life for the greater good, the astronauts go through all the trouble of trying to get a robot to get the Selenium for them. While they procrastinate and things inevitably go wrong with the robot, their demise comes closer and closer as death lurks around the corner. If the robot hadn’t worked at the last moment, the astronauts could have died anyways, meaning that despite their fear of death, their procrastination and unwillingness to take action would have caused everyone to die, which can be also seen in Hamlet as Hamlet is a tragedy.

Additionally, the theme of appearance versus reality is also common in both novels. Within I, Robot, the short story of Little Lost Robot, the robot NS-2 has the idea to act like all the other robots temporarily to avoid being sent back to work. The workers pick up on this, stating, “Nester is decidedly aware of what we’re doing, general. He had no reason to jump for the bait in this experiment, especially after the first time, when he must have seen that there was no real danger to our subject. The others couldn’t help it; but he was deliberately falsifying a reaction.” (pg 82). The whole concept of the humans doing something that is morally ambiguous and then feeling paranoid and guilty about their decision relates to how Claudius murdered Hamlet’s father, and then goes back and begins to feel guilty about his choice. NS-2 falsified a reaction and faked his outwards personality to hide being caught, much like Hamlet plans to be mad. And, much like the workers, Claudius catches onto this too, when he says, “Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little, was not like madness. There's something in his soul o'er which his melancholy sits on brood…” ( III.I 165-166)

In conclusion, I believe I, Robot was an absolutely fantastic novel. Isaac Asimov’s writing style was perfect for me because typically, I have a hard time getting through novels that are very heavy on the explanation. But, within I, Robot, the novel is very much filled with fast-paced dialogue. Often times, large portions are pages are just back-and-forth talking, which is something I found very engaging and dramatic to read. Once I started reading, I simply found that I couldn’t stop reading because it was as if I were truly there, witnessing a conversation. It’s also evident that, with Asimov’s extensive experience within the science fiction genre, he knew what he was talking about and was educated enough to have the characters act intelligently and it allows the characters to speak about scientific topics and science-fiction tropes with a very high degree of accuracy.

The plot, while sometimes repetitive in each story (the common plotline of robots doing something unexpected, the humans panic, then find a way to fix the problem again, restoring balance) still contained new lessons each time so that I didn’t feel as if I was wasting my time while reading the novel.

As far as characters go, I found that they were extremely well-written and likeable; even the robots themselves! All the robots had reasoning behind their actions, and the humans did, as well. The most likeable of all, to me, was Dr. Susin Calvin; she is a strong, intelligent woman working in the tech field and in a lot of ways, by the end of the novel I truly look up to her as an inspiration by standing up for robots and what she believes in despite the rest of the male-driven technology industry going against her. I find it particularly empowering that these short stories were written around the 1940s; a time where women weren’t in a place of any power at all, especially not within the technology industry.

I would, in a heartbeat, recommend this novel to anybody who, like myself, is in love with the idea of robotics and is curious to see what the future holds for the human race.

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