#by De Guiche's suggestion

[winter-wise]

Narrator: In a calm, clear voice, Cyrano suggested that De Guiche could do several highly improbable, athletically difficult and possibly biologically impossible things involving his own mother, a few household implements, and a dead fish.

[emergefromthenoise]

Cyrano de Bergerac. Playhouse Theatre

Play by Edmond Rostand. Adapted by Martin Crimp. Directed by Jamie Lloyd. Starring James McAvoy.

Man has a big nose. Really big nose. Also, he's an excellent swordsman. His poetry, wit and words'  mastery is exceptional and puts him above his peers. Cyrano de Bergerac is a house name. Ask anyone. But he has a big nose. If it wasn't enough – he's in love too. Ugly and in love. She's the most beautiful. Jaws drop when she comes around. Roxanne. And she just saw this handsome boy. Christian. Thing is 'he doesn't write letters' and generally he's not great with words. He's fit. He's a soldier in Cyrano's regiment. And there's this filthy rich, theatre's sponsor, free speech opponent, censor of too liberal arts and well connected (not everyone is related to Cardinal Richelieu, you see) man – Count Le Guiche. He's got eyes on Roxanne too, his plan simple: sex. Tragic triangle comes to life: Cyrano's words and looks of Christian create a perfect man. She's smitten, she loves a lie. Too deep to stop. When war knocks on the doorstep it's bound to get worse. War and love don't really go together.

Story of love, loneliness, low self esteem. Words take the lead, so much power and beauty. Showing new depths beneath the surface. Looks versus inner sparks. Money versus true feelings. Obsession. Revenge. Never changing question of beauty standards in society. A bit of prose, science ficion as  you please, about big nosed people on the moon, respected for this unique feature.

A lot is going on in this revival of Edmond Rostand's play. Words like knives. Martin Crimp's adaptation is a modern twist – seventeen century's surroundings but rap battles and clothes suggesting sometime between this 20th century 90s and now. Beatbox supporting the flow. Love troubles and loneliness are rather universal. Unfortunately. Now, when shallow beauty is glorified more than ever. Jamie Lloyd stripped down desgin puts all focus on language. Words take centre stage. Classic resonates boldly and loudly throughout theatre walls, speak volumes as it gets new life. It's thought provoking, inspirational. James McAvoy dazzles as quick with words and prone to make enemies in high places Cyrano de Bergerac. Mesmerised audience follows his every move, drinks every word, laughs, gasps in awe as he leads the cast of fantastic individuals to the end. 'I love words, that's all' – sums it all up perfectly.

[photo credit]

[ghoultyrant]

FoZ Notes 6

As I don’t expect to be online tomorrow much, if at all, I’ll be posting another Notes update to keep myself on schedule.

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We finally meet Eleanore. Who is an older clone of Louise, but blonde like their father. She insists Louise should have a female attendant, gives no fucks about what the attendants (Saito and Siesta) are up to. [Reader note: Kissing et al]

Due to war conditions and insufficient officers for the army, Henrietta and company close the Academy down and recruit aristocrat kids to fill slots. Osmond and "one teacher" object, but are ignored. [Reader note: I’m pretty sure the ‘one teacher’ is supposed to be Colbert, based on later events. Though really, one teacher?]

Louis is all too honored to join the army... but the Valliere family objects for some reason? Eleanore is dragging Louise home by carriage for some reason.

Albion holds court on a round table of stone. Because Arthurian legend. [Future note: Never crops up again]

Cromwell wants to banish the whole "guy announcing people as they enter" thing because "none of us stands above the other!" (Says the Emperor...) [Future note: This mildly interesting bit of characterization has no relevancy and what it suggests about Reconquistador philosophy is never built on]

Gallia has declared itself neutral in this way... but Albion is trying to talk them into being willing to backstab Germania and Tristain. No wait, they were always Secret Allies of Albion, the defeat at Tarbes just wrecked the original plan to simultaneously invade Tristain. In fact, Gallia is the party that suggested they backstab when Albion is invaded! [Future note: Surprisingly, I don’t think this is a Surprise Plot Tweest the author just made up, as later events are startlingly consistent with this scenario. Could’ve been better set up/presented, though]

Cromwell can raise the dead... and that's all he can do. At least, out of "long incantations". [Future note: Again, he’s not actually a Void mage. He’s just using the Ring of Andvari. Which, by the way, can do other things, so he’s really lame]

Say hello to Zuko. I mean. "White Menvil". Also known as "the White Flame." He's almost parodically evil and killed his own family after dishonorable behavior got his title stripped because lolevil. Albion is hiring him because lolevil.

Cromwell wants Wardes to transport Menvil and a small squad to the Academy of Magic to take nobles as hostages. Never mind that the school is closed?...

... cut to the Academy, where the students are primarily female because the boys all volunteered to be officers. Er. What? Male teachers are gone, except Colbert. Tabitha didn't volunteer. Kirche did, but was refused because gender, though it's unclear whether they mean Germania or Tristain. Kirche views Colbert as a coward.

Ominous Foreshadowing involving a fire stone. [Future note: Wait what? Fire Stones get played up as this insanely big deal we only are now introducing several volumes down the line!]

The Valliere estate is so large there's a goddamn inn to wait at after half a day's travel! What, do they own a third of the country?

Eleanore is engaged. Doesn't like it. Louise is a moron who can't tell when her own sister is enraged, congratulates her. Oh wait she's furious because the engagement got canceled. 'kay. [Reader note: As far as I can gather, it got canceled because Eleanore is a bitch. Yes, Overlady’s presentation of her is more accurate to canon than you might think!]

Finally meet Cattleya. Also an older clone of Louise, only with identical hair color. Her carriage is filled with animals, including a tiger, a snake, a bear, and the more ordinary dogs and cats. Uh. How do they fit and why aren't they violent? In any event, Louise LOVES Cattleya's animals, while Eleanore is reluctantly tolerant.

Eleanore has a pocket watch. [Future note: You guessed it! Never crops up again. Not just hers, but in general we never hear about pocket watches]

Talking owl!! [Future note: Say it with me: this never crops up again]

Giant drawbridge golems!! [Complaint: what are the mechanics and limitations of golems, seriously, this is ridiculous]

Saito is allowed to be at dinner with Louise, but he stands behind her rather than getting a seat.

Sexism, Louise asserts, is "old-fashioned". Uuuuh. What changed, here in Halkeginia??

Eleanore knows about Louise being called "the Zero". Louise is unwilling to let her family know about her Void powers.

The Vallieres are one of the five biggest families of Tristain. [Future note: I still haven’t seen a reference to the other four]

Somethingsomething water magic doesn't work on Cattleya's illness because if you fix a part the degeneration moves elsewhere. "Various" medicines and magics are used to suppress her symptoms, instead. Cattleya can't go to the Academy or marry, as a result. She's supposedly never left the Valliere grounds. [Complaint: Water magic’s ability to fix or not fix things seems to have no even half-coherent system in mind beyond ‘whatever the author wants at this moment’]

The father is "retired". He is opposed to the war with Albion, on the basis that they should "siege" Albion instead, as they don't have a big enough numbers advantage in his opinion. He thinks the Tarbes victory has made Tristain overconfident. He disapproves of recruiting kids, too, claiming they're "useless" in war.

Then he places Louise under house arrest until the war is over. No leaving the castle. Louise ends up claiming her affinity is Fire, gets believed, told "same as your grandfather",  a "sinful" element drawn to war. [Future note: This elemental stereotyping thing goes away after, like, the next volume] Ordered to pick a husband -which is interesting, actually. [Reader note: By that I mean I figured that the story would go Full Historical Sexist Mode and have Louise’s father pick out a husband for him, or perhaps demand she accept the overtures of an existing set of people attempting to court her we’ve never heard of before. Instead Louise’s father seems to be operating on the idea that, essentially, she can pick any male noble and be reasonably expected to have the proposal excepted even though she’s a woman and the usual thing is for men to be pursuers]

Cattleya magically knowing things because she's "sharp". [Reader note: Seriously, she just has magical insight/awareness for no real reason. How on Earth Halkeginia did she even develop this level of social insight if she doesn’t interact with people?]

In Tristain, at least, nobles were originally just people who swore they would give their lives for the princess. Riches and land were rewards... and the magicalness isn't addressed. Or at least that's how the Vallieres started, implying Louise's loyalty is a tradition in her family stretching back eons. Fits with the playmate thing.

Cattleya supporting Louise's decision in a sneaky way. [Reader note: She converts the drawbridge’s chains into dirt, so the bridge stays down and Louise and Saito can escape. Mind, this just raises all kinds of questions, as either castles shouldn’t be a thing if they’re so easy for a single noble to trivialize major components of the defenses or the Valliere estate ought to be benefiting from that ‘hardening’ thing we heard about back in volume 1. But noooo, consistency is unacceptable]

Louise uses Henrietta as a guidepost for behavior. [Future note: This... could be set alongside future events to point to as signs of Louise experiencing major character development, but I suspect ‘this never crops up again’ syndrome]

Royal Army, National Army, Sky Navy. Respectively: Mercenaries under the Crown's direct command (through nobles...), farmers levied by landed nobles, and the ships, the last of which... uh... work, somehow.

Guiche's father is Marshal of the Royal Army, because he's retired from military service. (??) Guiche has three brothers.

The students get two months of training.

La Rochelle's sky tree is called Yggdrasil. Shock.

The Air Navy promotes by merit, not birth. [Question: How do they choose who to recruit, though? We never find out]

After Tarbes, Tristain recruited some of the Albionese officers for the Sky Navy. This bothers a lot of the Tristainian airpeople. So much so that there are people plotting for "enemy fire" to kill these guys during combat.

Agnes home of Angleterre/Angle Province is, unsurprisingly, Albion immigrants who integrated into Tristain over time, but always tried to be independent and stuff. Twenty years before canon, roughly, they "forced" the Tristain government to recognize their independence and built a temple to, presumably, Protestantism. This pissed off Romalia, who promptly pressured Triustain into butchering them.

Not-at-all-coincidentally, a month before putting Agnes’ home to the torch, a Romalian New Religion noblewoman washed up nearby. Killing this woman was the reason people were there. The torching was claimed to be about preventing the spread of a disease, though the "New Religion Hunt" it was part of didn't last long due to changes in Romalian leadership.

Some De Poiters guy is blocking the Musketeers from participating in the invasion of Albion because he thinks they'd steal his glory.

Agnes trying to find out who the man who headed the torching/carried her out is so she can kill him. Stonewalled by the page naming him being ripped out of a book about a "magical research group". [Future note: We never get an explanation for this page being missing, I don’t think]

Trolls are as tall as five people. (25 feet?) They live in the northlands of Albion, and are apparently willing to be hired by humans to fight humans, though they're prone to ignoring orders and they hate humans for no clearly given reason. They just like killing humans. And fighting. They're basically Warhammer Orks, really. They have their own language and wield spiked hammers. [Future note: In the not terribly distant future the plot is going to go right back to ignoring the existence of what it calls ‘demi-humans’. Ugh]

Menvil thinks burning flesh is the best smell there is. Finally get confirmation on the obvious point that he was involved in torching Angletierre. Also learning the Magical Research Group actually DID do research -in between being called to suppress dissent and the like. And said research was focused on things like "how much damage does an AOE spell actually do?" and "burning flesh what happen?" Menvil got his Zuko-scar when he tried to attack the leader because he looked up to the guy. Even Menvil isn't sure why he attacked the guy.

Wardes has no soul. Fouquet can feel horror. Gender stereotypes. [Reader note: I forget what this was about, but basically Wardes feels nothing when doing horrific things and Fouquet actually does feel bad. You know, other than about stealing]

Mazarini is ALSO insisting that Tristain could starve out Albion. What, is Albion seriously running at a food deficit it resolves via trade? [Reader note: I didn’t note down the original claim that starving out Albion is a realistic possibility, because it’s dumb. No, the floating island is not a castle. It is, to all appearances, a self-sufficient land that grows its own food. Starving them out makes no sense unless they believe trade embargoes are a possibility, and even that is questionable since Albion apparently flies all over Halkeginia and so could simply trade for food from sympathetic countries when over them. And now that I’m thinking about Dumb Albion Things: why do we never hear about Albion blocking out the sun, or dumping literal rivers of water on the lands below it, or anything of the sort? It’s supposed to be flying overhead!]

Henrietta hates herself blah blah blah. [Reader note: For kicking off a war. Never mind that Albion started it when they tried to kidnap her with a goddamn zombie version of her lover. Nooo, she feels guilty because it’s totally her fault]

Louise is of the belief that sex should only occur after marriage, and only after three months at that, for nobles such as herself.

De Poiters gets entrusted with commanding Louise's Void magic in the invasion.

The story seems to be implying Dragon Knights are all people whose familiar is the dragon they ride?...

Osmond feels a war that takes women and girls lives cannot possibly be just. Agnes' response is "what justice does a war that takes only men's lives have", followed by saying that death is equal. He's got no response for either of these. Colbert freely admits to being a coward/afraid of war when called such by Kirche.

Demo airships. Uh. This seems like an incredibly bad plan. [Reader note: As in unmanned airships filled with explosives and then launched in the direction of the enemy to explode on impact. This is an actual naval thing, historically, but naval combat isn’t three-dimensional]

Raven familiars as an early-warning system. Sensible. [Future note: Later we find out there’s a low-level wind spell that can be used to get a birds-eye view of nearby locations. So actually not sensible]

Colbert invents magic-seeking missiles -as in, heat-seeking rockets, but chasing magic. Aaaargh. [Future note: The plot makes infinitely more sense if you assume Colbert is a Worm-style Tinker. Or Girl Genius style Spark. He’s ridiculous]

Illluuuusion magic. [Reader note: I... don’t remember what this was in reference to. Something stupid, that’s all I recall]

Ice spear reflecting off the Liar's Mirror to kill the caster. Really?

So if Agnes recruited the girls, why are they at the Academy?... [Reader note: Not sure why I didn’t note it down, but earlier Agnes came along and interrupted Colbert’s class to conscript all the female nobles of the school as soldiers. The implication is that they all leave to go be soldiers at Albion. Then instead the Academy is attacked by Menvil and everybody is at the Academy with no explanation or justification provided. I don’t think this is a failure of the translation, I’m fairly sure this is just one more way in which the author was incapable of being consistent on any level]

Menvil is actually blind, but somehow uses his Fire affinity to have omnidirectional thermal vision. Because shut up. Oh and Colbert is the ex-captain of the Magical Research Group. Because of course all this him-being-a-coward shit is so it can turn out he's a badass who saves the women. Because sexism.

Naturally, fireballs can be used to block other fireballs. Physics. And Colbert uses a transmutation spell to suck all the air out via explosion, instantly suffocating Menvil. Because that's how physics and biology work, right? (Wrong)

A number of "magic arrows" is too serious an injury for magic healing to fix without ingredients. Because drama trumps consistency. Let's have multiple girls faint from trying to fix Colbert! He's too beloved to die! Ugh. [Reader note: We’re supposed to find Colbert a likable, heroic figure, much like Saito. Also much like Saito, he’s nonsensical and not actually likable. Unlike Saito, he’s not a wannabe-rapist... because he used to be a mass-murderer! Classy]

End volume 6.

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Surprisingly little horrible garbage of pointlessness! But a lot of dubious mechanics and inconsistent/probably inconsistent worldbuilding.

[In retrospect: No, there wasn’t much ‘harem shenanigans’, but this was still a horrible volume and all the Colbert-centric stuff isn’t even plausibly fanservice. It’s the author getting off on having his super-awesome regretful mass-murderer do a badass heroic thing and Prove Those Bitches Wrong for thinking he’s a cowardly wuss and have all of them feel sorry and bad for him now that he’s proven them wrong.

And the worst part?

He doesn’t stay dead]