#he said “i've only had osha for a day but if anything ever happened to her i would kill everyone in the galaxy & then myself”

[septemberlikeastorm]

we've seen qimir/the stranger get disarmed TWICE & be about to get cut down by sol TWICE, & each time he shows NO fear or strong emotion, just "it's been real my dudes. make sure somebody goes back to the cave to turn off my crockpot"

but when osha cries out with the helmet on?? can we talk about his soft, plaintive "Osha???"

how he THROWS HIMSELF to his knees & how his sudden TERROR over losing her wrenches a distraught "No!!!!!!!" from him???

[an-aura-about-you]

I'm done with work and don't know what to do for dinner yet, so let's tackle another chapter of Handbook for Mortals why not?

jumping into Chapter 6 part 1:

when we last left our hero, Scheherazade just got asked to join Mac and the others on the next company camping trip. also there was a scene earlier with Sofia trying to flirt with Mac and I got very upset that this woman who had a nearly fatal accident at work just has no friends at all who give a shit about it and her boyfriend is also an asshole who doesn't care that she nearly died. seriously, what the fuck?

but let us press on anyway with Chapter 6: The Moon

-ngl I kinda wanna go camping. that's not related to anything that happens in this chapter, it's just something I've been thinking about all day. hell, I've even been looking at SUVs for whenever my car craps out because I wanna use it for van camping. (my car is perfectly fine btw, which shows you how wistful I'm being about this.)

-we start out on the camping trip itself. Zade spends all day swimming and has to put her tent up at night because she didn't think to do that first thing when she arrived. like, I've only been camping once on my own (or semi-on my own, camping where I was the one who had to put up my tent) and even I knew that's the first order of business. (it's also why I wanna switch to van camping. big tents are too unwieldy to put up by myself.)

-Zade is having trouble with it but refuses to ask for help because of her pride. Riley offers to help her, but she turns him down. but immediately after that, she's like, "I wish I was dating someone so they could help me put up the tent!" like, THAT'S the out she allows herself. it's not a pride thing if they have an obligation to do it on account of being your SO. but this is a company camping trip. why not share a tent with someone as friends? (oh wait, do you not have any friends? oh, that makes me sad.)

-Zade takes a moment to explain about light pollution in the city, which I wouldn't mind as much except she already talked about light pollution back in the chapter with Sofia's accident when she was sitting outside after all the action happened.

-actually I'm not sure why she goes on that tangent in the middle of setting up her tent. it doesn't turn into this thing of wanting to sleep under the stars, so it's just another one of her pointless rambles.

-she says she's happy that she feels like she belongs a little bit, but I'm not sure she actually does if she's not even sharing a tent with anyone. again, you can platonically share a tent. that's not weird at all. I've done it on pretty much every camping trip I've ever been on.

-she ends up using her magic to put the tent up. she's willing to risk using her magic in front of others to put her tent up but not to rescue Sofia from near death. no I am never going to shut up about this.

-after she gets her tent set up, she goes to the campfire where Jackson and Zeb are sitting. she takes the time to point out that Jackson looks ~angelic~ but Zeb looks a tad evil. why? because he doesn't care for your dumbassery?

-"Why does Zeb not like me?" ok, let's pretend I'm unaware that Zeb knows for real magic and is pissed at Zade carelessly flaunting it in front of everybody. his very first impression of you is your special snowflake audition that either you or Charles apparently thought required the entire theater company of 200 people who all had their own jobs they were supposed to be doing. THEN you nearly punched out Mac because he was rightfully concerned about OSHA compliance, something Zeb said he agrees with, only for the boss to effectively overrule the both of them. you've had no scenes where you try to talk to him and just before you joined the campfire you thought he looked evil. what reason have you given him TO like you? but also, you realize all of your coworkers don't have to like you, right? Zeb is not obligated to like you; no one is. add another tally to wanting friends as objects and not because Zade actually gives a shit about having a good working relationship with Zeb.

-hah! Jackson explains that the talent comes and goes at the theater and guesses that Zeb is being cold because he doesn't expect Zade to last. tbh that's fair, but also I do wonder if Zeb is aware of Zade being Spellman's daughter. like, ok, so it's not stated for like ages, but Spellman has some kind of magic taboo (presumably from Dela) that forbids him from being able to tell people Zade is his daughter? I don't know how it works, if it's going to actually get explained, or how he's able to break it later because I know he DOES break it later. BUT as far as I know that only limits Spellman from saying it. anyone else who knows already could theoretically say, which is what I basically guessed with Sofia earlier. I don't think Zeb is as likely to know because he doesn't seem the Facebook sort, but I also don't know when the taboo was placed on Spellman. we also know Zeb is around Spellman's age, so it's possible that Zeb learned by Spellman telling him before the taboo was put on him depending on how long they've worked together. no matter what, I'm certain I'm putting more thought into this whole matter than Sarem did.

-also I'm pretty sure the taboo only exists to preserve the stupid twist.

-Jackson asks if Zade is an outdoorsy sort and Zade thinks to herself that she is to a certain extent as witches often spend a lot of time outdoors, which is as good an opening as any for me to really vent about Zade and her witchcraft.

disclaimer: while I am indeed a witch, my practice is my own and ultimately I can only speak for myself and what I've learned.

okay. witches. we've got two kinds of witches in the book, but they are effectively the same the way Sarem is writing it: fantasy magic witches and real world witches. often real world witchcraft is tied to a religion, but it doesn't have to be. (for example, while I do have my own spiritual beliefs, I do not follow any particular religion regarding them, which means my witchcraft is technically separate from religion.) and honestly this kind of thing bothers me because it is so seldom done well. the only times I can really point out when I think a fictional work does this sort of thing in a good way are examples like the Lunar games or Rusty Quill Gaming.

it is established later that Zade and Dela's witchcraft is part of their religious practices. I've already said that it's going to be established that Zade is Jewish and I am not Jewish nor do I know enough to properly get into that. but I will look at the other elements given to us.

so, witches and the outdoors. that's... not necessarily untrue? but it is a narrow way to look at it. there are basically as many different ways to practice witchcraft as there are witches. there are witches who keep their grimoires and books of shadow on their smartphones for goodness sake. it is my understanding that the nature aspect, while not exclusive to these beliefs, is more closely tied to Wicca, and that IS something I've been noticing with the book in the little details like how Sarem insists on spelling it "magick" and the repeated use of the triple moon imagery. but. Zade's not Wiccan??

and I'm not gonna lie, I totally swipe things from my old religion to use in my own practice since it's just inescapably part of my family and my history. I'm all for mix and match diy religion and witchcraft. but I feel like with this book specifically it's falling into the trope a lot of media that touches on this does which is Wicca=Witchcraft and Witch=Wiccan. and that is simply not true. it is possible to be a witch without being a Wiccan. it is possible to be Wiccan without practicing witchcraft. and as far as the real world practices go, I don't care for the gatekeepy notion of being born a witch. obviously it's possible to be born to a family that practices witchcraft and grow up learning it, but the one hard rule in my head for a person to be a witch is they practice witchcraft. if you don't practice witchcraft, you are not a witch. simple as that.

I suppose all of this is a moot point because it's not like Zade is going to give us any true worldbuilding about how witchcraft works in her world. we're just hungry dogs fighting for scraps.

whew that was a lot to get off my chest.

-Jackson asks Zade where home is and her immediate answer is Tennessee. why did you leave if that's where home is for you? what is the purpose of your journey? you know you could have just. moved to another part of Tennessee if you didn't want to live with your mom anymore, right? this is the sort of thing that should ideally build to Zade realizing her home is with her friends, but in order for that to work she has to actually build those relationships.

-it has been a good few weeks and Zade has not made any contact with Dela since she left. *Dominic Noble Voice* Girl, it's your mother! Give her a damn update!

-no joke, Sarem spends more than a full fucking page describing the outfit Mac is wearing on the camping trip.

-also Zade doesn't like beards. I mean I guess that's an opinion a person can have but why would they? (I say this like I'm not dealing with my own hair sensory issues but c'mon beards look good.)

-oh. Zade straight up says, "It's nice to hang out with people and pretend as if I have friends." that's. really sad. you've known these people for a few weeks, let's just arbitrarily call it three months or so, and you don't have any friends? I know you haven't been trying, but due to your mary sue-ness, a LOT of people have been trying to be your friend. and that's how it happens sometimes, one person puts more effort in on the outset because maybe someone's shy or hurt or something. but it's months later and you're only pretending you have friends? is. is this just a reflection of Sarem's life?

I'm going to put something here from The Disaster Artist by Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell. this is a book about the making of Tommy Wiseau's film The Room, often said to be one of the worst films ever made. in this section, Tommy is looking over some footage of the movie in which a few characters, including his, are throwing a football around in an alley:

Tommy watched the footage of the scene with his headphones on. He was staring so intently at the monitor that some of us became certain that Tommy saw this scene, at last, as the pointless disaster it undeniably was. Sandy tried to comfort Tommy. "It's okay," he said, tapping him on the shoulder. "Forget this scene. Nothing happens in it anyway. Save your money. Let's move on and film the living room stuff." Tommy looked back at Sandy in shock. "No," he said, smiling. "This is good, fun scene. We have good chemistry. And look at this." He directed Sandy's attention to the monitor. "You see that? I look strong, like little eighteen-years-old kid." That's when I realized why the scene meant so much to him: In that monitor, at least, Tommy was young and had a fun life and many, many friends.

I don't know Lani Sarem. I know what she's done, obviously, and I think her attitude regarding that as well as some other subjects we've touched on is truly despicable. I have seen others who know her talk about how they do not like her and do not care for these antics of hers. I suppose this is what pity is for. Sarem has written a fantasy in which she gets everything she's ever wanted, explicitly wrote it so she could live vicariously through Zade, and even in her ideal life she has to pretend she has friends. I struggle to think of anything sadder than that.

I. I think I'm going to take a break on this chapter and get some dinner.

[gascon-en-exil]

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

Link to Part 1

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

#5 Season 6

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

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

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

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

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

#6 Season 8

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#7 Season 5

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

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

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

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

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

#8 Season 7

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

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

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

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

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

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