#atotc quotes

[icantrecallaskysoclear]

Challenge Day Fourteen: The shows Ultimate Quote/Message >>> God is good, and it is never too late to be redeemed.

(Happy 12 Days of Christmas!!)

[hore4women]

Obi-Wan: What did you do?

Anakin: …

Obi-Wan: WHAT DID YOU DO?!

Anakin, shamefully puts his head down: Married Padmé on accident…

Padmé: ACCIDENT?! YOU BEGGED ME FIRST.

[sydney-carton-of-sour-milk]

Some trivia related to US politics for this week:

At 60, Kamala Harris the same age as Mr. Lorry at the beginning of A Tale of Two Cities, and, at 78, Donald Trump is the same age as Mr. Lorry at the end of A Tale of Two Cities.

Also yes I realize that this would have been a much more interesting thing to think of and post about before the election actually happened, but I can’t stop thinking about it now, so…oh well.

“If you could say, with truth, to your own solitary heart, to-night, ‘I have secured to myself the love and attachment, the gratitude or respect, of no human creature; I have won myself a tender place in no regard; I have done nothing good or serviceable to be remembered by!’ your seventy-eight years would be seventy-eight heavy curses; would they not?” “You say truly, Mr. Carton; I think they would be.”

[mxcottonsocks]

“Then tell Wind and Fire where to stop,” returned madame; “but don’t tell me.”

- Madame Defarge, Book III Chapter XII, A Tale of Two Cities (1859) by Charles Dickens

[incorrectatotcquotes]

Cruncher: Do dragons fart fire?

Sydney: I don't know.

Cruncher: I thought you went to university.

[keenpoetryblizzard]

The Footsteps Die Out Forever

The Footsteps Die Out Forever

I woke up. Normal. Painless. Secure. Questioningly, strangely, even so, comfortable. There was no piercing pain on the nape of my neck or a throbbing ache on my frontal lobe, not even a blistering discomfort when I extended my neck to reach my straw. The environment that surrounds me is lively and safe, not even close to those uncomfortable hospital beds with searing fluorescent lights hanging overhead that hit your eyes hard enough to serve their intended purpose, to make you feel fear and helplessness. I’m in my mother’s apartment. Family photo frames adorn the run-down, discolored walls, which should have been repainted years ago. That signature smell of Asida wafting from the kitchen filling the living room with warm and loving memories. That special feeling of home that has been missing in my life since I left for New Hampshire to go to law school. For the first time, there is no one else here. Usually there’s my mother in her nursing scrubs on the landline with Aunt Charise conversing and complaining loudly about Gretchen from H.R, or my brother Ali loudly smacking his lips eating a huge turkey leg because apparently " 'You don’t get strong eating like a princess'." There is just silence. I notice that the coffee table that is usually hidden under unopened mail, restaurant coupons, and newspaper clippings is totally empty-- except for a lone VCR tape. That’s weird because our old VCR, which was covered in dust and lint, was thrown out by my mom ages ago. And somehow, there it is, settled near the TV set, the old VCR that showed many of our family home videos and my favorite movies from childhood. I grab the tape and hesitate before finally choosing to put it in.

"He saved me... I don’t even know who he is... and he saved me." A quivering woman cried, looking at the body that was quietly breathing, tucked under the covers of the lumpy hospital bed. I’m here again, but I’m not in my weak, ailing body. I’m right next to her, watching her look at the decaying and deteriorating body.

"I don’t even know why he did it." The woman sobbed, and shortly after, she broke down in tears, her shoulders shaking violently.

" Every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other." Another woman (I'm guessing her mother) says softly before wrapping her arms around the weeping figure.

Suddenly, all the memories hit me like a violent storm.  It was an underwhelming and boring January afternoon, the bright sun contrasting greatly with the cold gray weather. I walked out of the warm coffee shop to head back to the dreary law office where I am interning. Law wasn’t even my first choice for a professional career. My mom always supported my brother and I to fulfill our passions in life. My brother was going to pursue a career in football. I saw the strain it put on my mom. She invested all her time in supporting his dream, worried that he might get hurt or, even worse, might not be good enough. So, I decided that law would be the appropriate job to support them both.

I turn the corner and see a woman, dressed formally, talking on her phone animatedly with authority. The light turned green and the woman walked on to her destination. Suddenly, the loud screeching of tires overshadowed the busy street. A car driving down carelessly, not even trying to stop, sped towards the crosswalk. The woman stood frozen, now undistracted from her phone, seeming not to hear the hurried shouts for her to get out of the way. Instinctively, I run over to push her towards the sidewalk. And suddenly, everything turned dark.

"How am I going to face them?" The whimpering woman asked after a long period of silence. “His mother’s voice on the phone was so… and now his family is coming and…This all could have been avoided if I had just jumped out of the way."

"Molly." The older woman paused before continuing, "That person was driving recklessly. Your life was in danger, and you were scared. At times like these, it is important to remember that you cannot carry such a burden on your shoulders."

I watched the scene in front of me with great sorrow, not for the loss of my spirit that has detached from the incapacitated body that will soon stop breathing, but for the weeping woman to whom I have gifted this awful guilt because of my own actions. The feeling of desolation that I have given to my mother and my brother. The sense of disappointment from my professors and employers, believing that my talent was wasted, I cannot even imagine the confusion and bewilderment that they are all feeling. Only one question comes to mind: why did he do it? That was a question that they might never get an answer to. Maybe he knew the mystery woman? Maybe he wanted to be seen as a hero? Maybe he was just plain stupid? To be perfectly honest, the second that car ran the red light on that colorless January afternoon, I wasn’t really thinking; I only really saw her. The unnamed woman, Molly, who seemed so commanding and ardent when she was talking on her phone. So passionate, so driven, strutting along the sidewalk with such dedication and determination to make it to her destination. She had a faint grin on her face, her eyes rising to show her pleased expression. She seemed happy to wake up every day and be able to succeed in something that gives her joy, a feeling I haven’t felt in a long time. Seeing Molly frozen on the crosswalk with that terrified look in her eye, that believed that all of the happiness she worked for would be gone in an instant, ignited something inside of me, telling me to bolt over to her, disregarding my life in the process. I walked over to the two women and kneeled in front of Molly. I glanced down at the tiled floor, wishing there was some way I could communicate with her. " Please don’t blame yourself for this," I spoke, knowing I wouldn’t be heard, "Don’t end up like me. You will have a lot of happiness in the time to come… You deserve to have a future, you deserve to have a life you love." I hope with all my heart that that message will resonate with her somewhere in the future. I turned around and looked at the cold, dying body nearing its end and felt a wave of calm run through me. Everything will hurt, so much so that sometimes the pain and the guilt will be unbearable, but in the end, it will pass, just a bump on the road to euphoria. I can’t help but think of my mother. So hardworking, loving, she has sacrificed so much to make my brother and I happy. And Ali, so talented, so deserving, I remember those chilly November Thanksgiving afternoons when he would narrate the annual football game, conscious of the fact that I couldn’t care less about it; he’ll blow everyone out of the water with that pointy laced ball in his hands. Molly, who has gotten the chance to continue her life, a second chance at happiness, and who’ll achieve so much more than she thought she was capable of. I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy. I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known. I breathe in and out, now finally aware of all my surroundings. I close my eyes and inhale, when I open them, I am safe and in my mother’s apartment again. I look at the VCR near the TV set and carefully remove the tape. Sometime after, on the land of the living, in that cold hospital room, the limp body’s breathing turned lighter and slower till soon it would cease to make movement.

[secretmellowblog]

You know how Nick/Gatsby and Holmes/Watson and Enjolras/Grantaire are super popular gay classic lit ships? I’m genuinely surprised there’s not a slash-shipping community around Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay from a Tale of Two Cities…like. I get the reason Darnay/Carton isn’t popular is because no one cares about A Tale of Two Cities but their relationship is so bizarrely homoerotic for literally no reason! It’s like Built to be some Dark Academia tumblr ship! I think Carton/Darnay should be in the tumblr gay classic lit canon, repping Dickens and the way Dickens’ misogynistic inability to write convincing heterosexual relationships results in his characters seeming extremely gay.

I could write an entire essay on why A Tale of Two Cities makes more sense if you ignore Dickens’ intent and read Carton as gay (with quotes supporting my point) but like. Carton insists he’s in love with Darnay’s wife Lucie but spends much more of his page-time talking to/flirting with Darnay (to the point where he’s never had an on page conversation with Lucie until he “confesses his love” to her in a scene where he also immediately rejects himself for her, and insists that their relationship would be Impossible for Reasons and that his heart isn’t Capable of feeling things the way it should, as if he’s chosen to convince himself he’s in love with her because she’s unattainable and he will never have to be in a relationship with her.) Darnay and Carton have all these tense charged snarky interactions that feel like fanfic. Darnay’s thing with Lucie is pretty bland but there’s this huge emphasis on the fact that he and Carton are “counterparts.” Whenever Dickens tries to write Carton as being sad that Lucie loves another man it generally comes across as Carton being jealous of Lucie, because he’s almost never had a full conversation with Lucie and spends most of his time instead having these very sad clingy desperate pathetic conversations with the men who love her. Carton has a weird homoerotic thing going on with his jock law partner Stryver, who he sacrifices everything for and spends all his time with and lets invade his personal space/walk all over him for reasons he refuses to explain (all while Stryver repeatedly mocks Carton for being incapable of falling in love with women). Carton ultimately sacrifices his life for Darnay by forcibly taking off Darnay’s clothes and disguising himself as him….like?

One of their first interactions is Carton heroically saving Darnay’s life, then drunkenly calling himself Darnay’s “counterpart” and asking him on a date.

Like.

Hm.

This feels like the banter you’d find in an Enjolras/Grantaire fanfic:

Fellas is it gay to

But yeah! The main thing people remember about A Tale of Two Cities are the cool peasant women revolutionaries, who Dickens is trying to portray as villains but who are actually the best characters in the book. And if I’m going to be mean to my high school self (who was obsessed with ATOTC for some reason) I’d say that the central melodrama between Carton/Darnay/Lucie is a weakness of the novel because Carton’s arc has nothing to do with the political French Revolution stuff, so his sacrifice feels thematically disconnected from all the book’s attempts at political commentary. HOWEVER. I think it works better if it’s gay.Also the Vengeance and Madame Defarge are gay, but people aren’t ready for that conversation!

So yee!! people on tumblr love ships that are like “hot goody-two-shoes classic lit boy in a suit x hot snarky classic lit sadboi in a suit”, but so few ppl remember Carton and Darnay, who were repping that all the way back in the 1790s 😔😔😔😔😔

[poquito-burrito]

“sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no sadder sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight on him, and resigning himself to let it eat him away.”

A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

[eleftherian]

“So does a whole world with all its greatnesses and littlenesses lie in a twinkling star” omg?? I’m soft??

[comingoutofthecauldron]

sydney carton never made a bad track. i wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul? BANGER. you kindled me, heap of ashes that i am, into fire? SLAPS. think now and then that there is a man who would give his life to keep a life you love beside you? emotionally and sonically RICH. don't even get me STARTED on i am like one who died young

[bookishbits]

a list of my favorite quote from a tale of two cities by charles dickens

it was to best of time, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we are all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way

a wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. 

A solemn consideration, when I enter a big city by night, that every one of those darkly-clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundred of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of it’s imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it!

i care for no man on earth, no man on earth cares for me

devastation of the high, is the involuntary homage of the low

he had expected neither to walk on pavements of gold, nor to lie on beds of roses; if he had had any such exalted expectation, he would not have prospered

if ever there were love in the world, i love her

a dream, all a dream, that ends in nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down, but i wish you to know that you inspired it

vengeance and retribution require a long time; it is the rule 

sustain yourself without that. when the time comes, let loose a tiger and a devil; but wait for the time with the tiger and the devil chained - not shown - yet always read

“a great woman,” said he, “a strong woman, a frightfully grand woman!”

i would ask you to believe that he has a heart he very, very seldom reveals, and that there are deep wounds in it. my dear, i have seen it bleeding

troubled as the future was, it was the unknown future, and in its obscurity there was ignorant hope

anyone carried home by the people to-day, may be condemned to-morrow

for as i draw closer and closer to the end, i travel in the circle, nearer and nearer to the beginning

crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. sow the same seed of rapacious licence and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind

it is a far, far better thing that i do, than i have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that i go to, than i have ever known

[icantrecallaskysoclear]

“...I thank you, Darnay. I may use that freedom with your name?" "I think so, Carton, by this time."

. . .

[incorrectatotcquotes]

The blog I'm reblogging this from is about "Maurice". I have never read that book. I have, however, seen the movie, which wasn't awful, but I didn't think it was that good either. And the only reason I watched it was because James Wilby plays the main character, and I have an incurable celebrity crush on him (I think you guys can guess why). So now I follow several blogs about "Maurice", pretty much only for the pictures of him. I know way too much about that fandom for a person who knows the name of like 2,5 characters and half-slept through parts of the movie. So yeah, I feel this, in my soul.

(I have seen some pretty shit movies only because he's in them too, and some really good ones)

there’s nothing like watching a terrible movie just because of one (1) hot actor who’s in it to make you feel like you’ve abandoned all your morals and standards

[sydney-carton-of-sour-milk]

this is from the official trailer for the 1958 AToTC adaptation i'm??? HGHJKLJHGFGHJKK???????????

[VD: Two shots from the aforementioned trailer. First: the storming of the Bastille. Second: a slow-zoom close-up on Sydney Carton looking down pensively. The narrator says quote "This is A Tale of Two Cities – and of Sydney Carton, who is surely the best-loved character ever created" unquote. End VD]

[incorrectatotcquotes]

Charles: Started talking to yourself too, Sydney?

Sydney: Yes, it's the only way I can be sure of an intelligent conversation around here.

[missanthropicprinciple]

A Tale of Elio and My Fixation with Lovable Androids

TL;DR Feel free to scroll past this unless you’re keen to read my ramblings about androids, Neoclassical art, children’s lit, and bad science fiction movies. 

Since the late 1990s one of my favourite books has been A Tale of Time City (1989) by Diana Wynne Jones. It’s a mildly confusing story but engaging, with memorable characters, including the android Elio, pictured above - my own fan art from a few years ago. Studio Ghibli really needs to make this film if no one does a live-action version, seeing as they brought Jones’ novel Howl’s Moving Castle to life. Here’s a scan of my favourite edition with mesmerizing cover art by Richard Bober.

This book inspired me so much I’ve done research on it. I wasn’t in a class in grad school that allowed me to write about it so I took it on as a casual independent project in 2019. Two days after my dad died of cancer I was scheduled to present my paper on Elio from ATOTC. Needless to say I was not able to finish writing the essay. I told the department coordinator I would likely not attend but I would let him know. He was seriously surprised that I showed up. I must have looked like a ghost - wearing a nice top, skirt, tights, and short heels. I was still in total shock but I thought I might as well press on. My paper’s working tile remains as it was: Elio: Android Autonomy and the Personification of the Sun God. I presented a long bullet point list of working ideas and research done up until that point. My work is still on the broad side because it’s an intersection of young adult fiction, Neoclassic art, and android autonomy; I have some narrowing to do. Here are my main arguments thus far: 

Firstly, the android character Elio’s physical characteristics and personality are inspired by Helios, the Hellenistic Greek god and personification of the sun. Apparently, Elio is a Spanish name meaning sun and also an Italian given name referring to the element helium, originally derived from the Greek name of the sun-god Helios. 

Secondly, Elio and Helios share more than an etymological connection and the comparison of Elio to Helios can be articulated in two distinct ways: the aesthetic comparison, and that Elio possesses some of the qualities Helios is known for. Jones’ work repeatedly associates Elio with sunlight and golden hues, aspects which are exemplified in the 1765 Neoclassical painting Helios as the Personification of Midday by Anton Raphael Mengs. (I vaguely remember translating a couple passages from a large art book written in German when I was studying Neoclassical art.) 

This work is considered an unusual depiction of Helios. Mengs uses a motif of the glowing arrow which is interpreted by François-Xavier Fabre as a symbol of the midday heat and the sun's rays which penetrate and give light to the earth. The representation of the sun in this way is considered unusual for the 18th century because it goes against Classical and Baroque iconography which portrays Helios riding a chariot. Ironically, Jones references this. Elio proclaims his fondness for films, particularly the chariot race from Ben Hur. Elio, like Mengs’ depiction of Helios, lacks a chariot but retains his beauty and powers.

As for Elio possessing some of the qualities of Helios, the god is often referred to as “all seeing” or “Zeus’s eye.” Similarly, Elio has the ability to anticipate problems and see what humans do not, but not because he’s a god, but because he’s a servant. However, this is where his self governing comes into play when he uses his observations to take action beyond any directives he has been given. His physical strength, like Helios, exceeds that of humans. Elio himself says, “my utmost is more than twice that of a born-human” (Jones, 211).

Thirdly, Elio’s self awareness allows him to use both his powers of observation and superior physical strength independent from humans. He does not always wait to be told how to use his power; he wields it. Not only does he play a part equal to that of humans in Jones’ plot, he specifically controls the fates of certain human characters. For example, he doesn’t always utilize his speed when he’s at the beck and call of his master, Sempitern. He makes choices not to fully comply with the demands made of him.

My fourth point, which I can’t quite articulate well, is that the most significant dynamic of this comparison is the body of Elio and how his physicality interacts with his autonomy. Elio acts as an individual who contributes to a wider mythology just as Helios does. Yet, while Elio is superior to humans in many ways, his quasi-humanity allows him to act in ways which align with Helios’ qualities.

For example, Elio makes personal choices and exhibits emotions not necessary for him, as an android, to function. He confesses a desire to harm another android out of annoyance where a passionate opinion would not be expected from an android. This human failing is indicative of the same autonomy which allows him to act as Helios does. Elio has been constructed as a superhuman body in terms of his abilities, however, the human qualities which contribute to his Helios-like powers undermine his intended purpose. 

Ultimately, Elio ascends the usefulness of his “owned” body by acting independently from the humans who utilize him. His human qualities make him vulnerable and therefore he loses some of his godlike powers. Elio, while only an assistant to his human owners, utilizes his own physical and mental powers to maintain his autonomy. Conversely, his god-like qualities make Elio more human rather than affirming his android identity.

This is a very complex subject and I don’t really know where I’m going with it and have possibly made some suppositional errors. TL;DR: What I do know is that Elio presents a paradox: being idealized for his abilities allows him to be autonomous while being autonomous disrupts the servitude of his body.

I am in the process of determining what lens I will use to analyze Elio’s experience and functionality of being an android. I’m thinking about using Alan Turning’s 1950 work Computing Machinery and Intelligence. I’m still navigating the literary theory aspect, or indeed philosophical aspect, of this area of study. 

This brings me to something I came across later that relates to Elio and ATOTC. 

SPOILERS AHEAD

The closest depiction of an android that I’ve seen to Elio other than Data is from a terrible and somewhat forgotten science fiction film from 1989. “Byron”, (played by pre-Jurassic Park-fame Bob Peck) the android in the painfully awful film Slipstream comes very close to Elio in terms of tone, attitude, and characterization. Despite the embarrassingly bad script and dialogue, Peck does a bang-up job, seemingly acting in a wonderful film running parallel to the absolute trash his co-stars were apparently “acting” in. Yes, I rewatched this film just to write this analysis. (The secondhand embarrassment is off the charts and I had it playing at a low volume most of the time Byron was not on the screen.)

When you first see Byron he’s acting out autonomy but you’re not aware he’s an android. The audience is told he’s an escaped fugitive, a murderer, and that’s all we know for over half the film. Yet there are several clues. When you first see him he’s running over rugged terrain in a suit which was kind of a big hint but nothing makes sense in this film so I just thought that it was a weird costume choice. Then he’s literally shot with a grappling hook. He doesn’t seem to be in pain even though he’s shocked by it, and then is pulled down by a bounty hunter named Tasker (Mark Hamill) and hits the ground from a great height and doesn’t die. He just quotes what I think is John Gillespie Magee, Jr.’s "High Flight”: “I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth….and touched the face of God.” Next time you see him, he’s in handcuffs, looking super depressed, and apparently not bleeding out from the now absent grapple hook that’s gone through his forearm. 

He eventually quotes Lord Byron to cryptically indicate his name which is lost on Bill Paxton’s character, Matt. “Byron” essentially means cowshed. It’s ironic because Byron the android is in many ways a receptacle of knowledge. Matt even says sarcastically, “Well aren’t you a walking storeroom of information,” and Byron responds cheerfully, “Yes.” 

Byron breaks out of his handcuffs saying they’d “become rather superfluous.” You think he’s just showing off but once you know he’s an android you know he’s just honest all the time. He then heals a blind child and paraphrases Psalm 127:3. Matt says, “I didn’t know you were a healer.” Apparently Byron can perform cataract surgery in less than five minutes. Along their journey together (Bill is set on collecting the bounty on Byron’s head before Tasker can catch up) they camp out. Byron sleeps with his eyes open. (Even if he is an android wouldn’t his eyes need to be “cleaned” in the same way humans need to close our eyes and blink?) Matt wakes up to find Byron seemingly strangling him. “I was feeling your carotid pulse,” he explains. “I was just checking for arrhythmia and episodes of ventricular tachycardia.” At this point you realize he’s not so much a spiritual healer as a doctor who philosophizes a lot. 

Byron’s miraculous behavior and pontificating is called into question by a nomadic spiritual community which has been torn apart by an attack on their village. As he lays dying, Ben Kingsley’s character calls Byron a “false prophet” but his faith in this stranger is somewhat restored when he says, “all that will be left of me is bits of gold in the sand. You have a soul, do not abandon it in death.” 

Another character says, “The stranger is no mortal man.” Therefore it is clear that Byron likely isn’t human. We don’t find out he’s an android until 46 minutes into the film. Once that’s cleared up, other concepts arise in the script. While not well executed, they are really interesting; emotion both positive and negative, free will, perfection, A.I. slavery, and murder are all addressed throughout the second half of the film. Byron says he doesn’t understand “hate” in context of his “master” to whom he was nurse, brother, father, mentor, and friend, but he admits he was more of a slave than anything else. 

The character Ariel takes an interest in him for a variety of reasons, especially romantically. In one very evocative moment we see Byron in a museum exhibit, a false garden of Eden, full of fake vegetation and taxidermies, full body mounts. So we’ve got an android having an Adam experience. Whether or not he experiences “original sin” with Ariel or if he’s “fully functional” is never acknowledged. Although one woman says, “Amanda slept with a robot?!” (who the f**k is Amanda?!) and a man says to another sitting next to him, “I hear they’re rather mechanical in the saddle.” 

Byron is less concerned with consummation and more excited about love, sleep, and dreaming. When he is with Ariel he doesn’t quite know how to act in terms of sexual play and then apologizes: “I’m not accustomed to being loved.” We see him closing his eyes when he’s cuddled up with Ariel; the next day he is certainly very pleased that he fell asleep with his eyes closed and had a dream. 

In terms of his servitude and autonomy they did not spend an adequate portion of the exposition on it. Matt has a change of heart and says instead of collecting the bounty, he’ll set him free as it’s briefly revealed that Byron killed his “master” upon the man’s request. Naturally, this brings up a lot of confusing feelings for Byron. “Is this what it’s like to be human? I don’t think I’m up to it,” he says. “Can I be trusted with human feelings?” And in a way he cannot. Ariel is brutally shot by Tasker.

Byron is angered over Ariel’s death and follows the bounty hunter to his ship. Instead of taking him in to collect a reward, Tasker tries to run him down with the glider plane. Byron manages to get himself caught in the engine and starts to strangle his assailant. Tasker quotes “touched the face of god” which brings Byron to his senses and he stops killing Luke Skywalker Tasker and tries to save the plane. It looks like he’s going to hot-wire it but then uses the wires like reins (chariot imagery???). They crash into the side of a mountain slope. Tasker dies but Byron survives. Apparently he’s basically indestructible and somewhat godlike. “I’m too dangerous to be human,” Byron tells Matt. In the end, he goes off in search of the place he’d been dreaming about. 

Although in terms of physical appearance the two androids are vastly different, they have so much in common. Here are some basic concepts. 

Character: Both are stoic, formal, intelligent, honest

Indestructible: Byron is injured with a grappling hook, takes a major fall of about 20 or 30 feet without a scratch: he is somewhat godlike or slave-like, meant to withstand destruction and pain. Elio is less indestructible but easily repaired.

Healer: Byron has the skills to heal people with basic surgery. Elio doesn’t take his own injuries seriously and experiences pain for the first time (Jones, 218-9).

Both think they deserve to be punished: Elio states this quite clearly (Jones, 276) and Byron says the same thing about himself with resigned passivity.

Complex relationship with “human emotions”: Both come to terms with violence, anger, and love.

Autonomy: At the end of the film Byron goes off on his own to look for a promised land. Elio decides his own fate by deciding to accompany the children of the story, stating that Vivian is a “particular favorite” of his (278). 

Dreaming and stories: Byron is searching for a place, “where I think I belong,” he says, which is a place he often thinks and dreams about. Dreaming is considered to be a human attribute, a non-essential bi-product to consciousness. Elio enjoys stories and old films (Jones, 180), similarly “human” in nature. 

(Peck, seen here waiting for Bill Paxton to learn how to act. Sorry, I’m salty.)

Disclaimer: This is a work in progress! This project is an intersection of niche subjects that interest no one but myself. 

Anyway, my point is (yes, I did have a point...or rather several) was that if anyone should adapt A Tale of Time City, Byron from Slipstream is the best example of how Elio should be portrayed in terms of characterization. I feel that Slipstream should have been centered around Byron. The film was kind of like, just about the “we’re both fighting over the bounty of this fugitive” sorta thing. It would have made more sense to focus on Byron as he is arguably the most interesting character and represents many of the conflicts within the story. I would like to combine my research on ATOTC and Slipstream one day. In any case, this is a good start. 

Works Cited (WIP) 

Jones, Diana W. A Tale of Time City: Knopf, 1987. Print. Perkowitz, Sidney. Digital People: From Bionic Humans to Androids. Washington, D.C: Joseph Henry Press, 2004. Print.

Roettgen, Steffi, and Anton R. Mengs. Anton Raphael Mengs: 1728-1779 Part 2. München: Hirmer, 1999. Print.

Turing, A. M. “Computing Machinery and Intelligence.” Mind, vol. 59, no. 236, 1950, pp. 433–460. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2251299. Wilson, Eric. The Melancholy Android: On the Psychology of Sacred Machines. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006. Print