#eagle of the ninth

[indigomagicc]

I am back after a long while. Also voice reveal I guess. Hopefully it's not too grating.

[dimsilver]

guys guys guys do you ever think about how Eagle of the Ninth brings out a lot of its themes explicitly, but maybe the biggest one is just running under the surface the whole time - Marcus proving to himself that if he had been there, he would not have failed his father?

Guern tells him about being hunted, choosing to drop out and abandon Centurion Aquila and the Eagle to its fate, and Marcus says essentially “who I am I to judge?” because he has never personally experienced how terrible it would be.

Until he and Esca are hunted. For days, maybe weeks. And again and again he is surrounded and the fear is on him, and again and again he refuses to give up, carries the Eagle, and faces death content.

And in so doing he proves to himself that, had he been there beside his father, holding the Eagle amid the desperate dregs of the Ninth, he would have kept the faith. He might have fallen, but he would not have failed.

[coffeestainsandcashmere]

watched the eagle for my latin class and we were all like “DAMN theyre gay” and now i cant stop thinking abt them

Read the book it’s based on and you’ll think “DAMN they’re gay” all over again, and with twice the intensity…! 🤣

[queenklu]

Saw you reblopping the eagle content again (amazing, 10/10, best damn thing), and I was wondering if you ever read the book the movie is based on? I recently read the book myself, and I was very surprised by some of the changes! They werent bad changes by any means, and I liked the book fine, but i def found i preferred the movie (LE GASP) than the book overall!

SAAAAAAME, one of the rare times when the movie is better but it's TRUE. It's been years and years since I've read the book, and though I do LOVE the mental image of smol!Marcus and beefcake!Esca, the movie made all of the right choices. Especially the way they flipped the power imbalance back and forth between the two of them!! GAH, WHAT A FILM!!!

[thesunlikehoney]

Trying to figure out where my obsession with light as a metaphor came from and honestly I think it was from reading the "Light, Esca! Think of light!" scene in The Eagle of the Ninth seventeen times as a child.

[remythologise]

I can’t go on. Yes you can. You just need to rest.

[elvencantation]

The Eagle (2011)

[thecrowinggriffon]

Mobile magic casters weren't as needed in 8th edition compared to The Old World and so I tracked down some old wood elf characters and mounted the male mage on a 3D printed warhawk, to make him fit in with my gamezone ones. I'm quite happy of the result. I also found a spare pegasus to mount the Bretonnian damsel on, but I'll have to resculpt the cape, it's hindering the side sadle sit.

[ibmiller]

Arthurian myth was a closed book to me until I read Gillian Bradshaw's Hawk of May trilogy. And Bradshaw was very obviously indebted to Sutcliffe. As this closing passage to "In Winter's Shadow" clearly shows - the passage which opened my heart, at last, to Arthur:

We failed in Camlann; nothing of what we struggled to build remains, except the longing that drove us in the first place. But it was worth it, to have possessed that joy for a few years, and I cannot regret that we tried. And perhaps though we failed, God has not. Perhaps it is not the end. Last year a new monastery was founded on an island to our north - founded by, of all people, the Irish. There is nothing so remarkable in that. The head of that settlement sent a few monks here, looking for books: that is remarkable. No one travels miles to look for books, in this age; I had begun to fear that the ability to read would die out and the world would truly be confined to the present. But this Irish abbot is wild for books; his reason for coming to Britain is trouble over one he stole. And these monks are setting about converting the Saxons; they have converted a king, and their influence already spreads like fire in the grass. Arthur and I always wanted the Saxons converted, brought into the Empire, but the British Church would neither undertake this task itself nor permit us to subsidize anyone to undertake it. A handful of monks on a little island called Iona: it is not much. And they are not Roman, have no understanding of what Rome was and meant. Yet they are as set to change the world as I was when I rode south to Camlann many years ago. Perhaps I am mad to hope that they can achieve anything, succeed where Arthur and I failed. And yet everywhere in Britain the longing is there, the soul-deep desire, waiting for someone to touch it and shape it anew, it is as Taliesin predicted: Britain has not forgotten the Empire, and longs to hear more songs about it, because it is gone and its absence leaves a hole in the world which even its former enemies can feel...Our failure cannot put out the sun. If someone were willing to offer light to those than sit in darkness and the shadow of death...if, if, if. Those monks were very eager to.

It is our duty to be those monks, those lantern bearers. To bring the good news, the light, to the world, every day.

I sometimes think that we stand at sunset (...) It may be that the night will close over us in the end, but I believe that morning will come again. Morning always grows again out of the darkness, though maybe not for the people who saw the sun go down. We are the Lantern Bearers, my friend; for us to keep something burning, to carry what light we can forward into the darkness and the wind.

Rosemary Sutcliff, The Lantern Bearers

[deedala]

THE EAGLE (2011)

Rome also did that.

[haveyoureadthisfanfic]

Summary: The son of the man who lost the Eagle of the Ninth would never be allowed a first command of his very own fort, would he? Marcus is posted not to Isca Dumnoniorum, but to a wretched and run-down garrison north of the Wall. There he finds that he is the new centurion of a group of scouts and spies, all of them British. He has few supplies and no experience. His men distrust him. His superiors despise him. His second-in-command is an incompetent drunkard. And the local tribes are determined to kill all of them. But the worst thing of all is one of Marcus' soldiers. He is an enigmatic, dangerous, and insubordinate man by the name of Esca, who makes Marcus yearn for terrifying things he has never before wanted and can never, ever let himself have...

Author: @sineala

[incorrect-the-eagle-bis]

deleting my dating apps because i want to meet someone the old fashioned way (i attend saturnalia games, fall in love at first sight with the slave fighting the retiarius, save him from the claws of death, buy him with my scarse life earnings and make him my freedman)

[healerqueen]

I see you, OP. :') They are for me too. #rosemary sutcliff#she was a disabled english writer#from the 1900s#born in 1920 and died 1992#who wrote primarily historical fiction#mostly based around preroman/roman/post roman britain#but has some other things as well#her most well known work is eagle of the ninth#because they made a channing tatum movie out of it#but i cannot stress enough how inadequately that movie tells the stories she told#living with disability#cross cultural friendships#cross cultural UNDERSTANDING#individual vs cultural conflict

I admire her so much for living and writing with and about disability. She's one of the only authors I've ever seen who captures that experience accurately, with humanity and sensitivity. The same goes for writing about cross-cultural bonds and experiences. Rosemary Sutcliff's books are incredible adventures, ancient and glorious and beautiful and riveting. And also quiet and character-focused in many scenes, with a classic writing style many people find boring. But I don't. They're deep and interesting to me, even if I understand why they're not for everyone.

Explaining to people that one of the most formative influences on my style as a writer was Rosemary Sutcliff always feels like an exercise in futility because no one ever knows who she is :')

[tiger-in-the-flightdeck]

niche fandom:

... like the 2011 The Eagle???

YES! (But also the book)

There's stuff from the book that I wish had made it into the movie- Like Cub, or when Esca almost got them both killed because he's such an overly dramatic actor that he nearly fell off his horse, or the Centurion's Hound speech. But the movie is just lush.

And the alternate ending is great. Instead of the 'What now?' 'You decide.' scene in the Senate, they literally walk off into the distance arguing about where to spend their lives together. 'A farm... in Spain... With horses.'

[rainbowcolored7]

Woke up missing them today

[loftec]

Defixio by Nahnahnahnah

The Eagle | Marcus Flavius Aquila/Esca Mac Cunoval | 8 053 words 125 pages | 8 signatures | 5,8 pt Bodoni 72 Book

A trip to the healing waters of Aquae Sulis leads to revelations, confessions, and far more excitement than Marcus or Esca anticipated.

Ask me to come up with a top 5 list of my all time favourite fic and this will be on it, and I'm not even sure I can tell you why. Well I could, but we'd be here all day. Effortlessly well written and characterised, wonderfully set up and tied together – it's a calming trip to the spa, a little mystery to solve, and full of my favourite kind of long-suffering (and ultimately requited) pining.