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goodqueenaly · 4 months

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I saw that House of the Dragon in their podcast named Alicent's mother as Alerie Florent. Any thoughts on that? The Florents do seem to have bad luck in wars.

I’m still not talking about HotD, but it’s funny you mention this because I meant to make a post about it (and then completely forgot). You can find the interview here and the clip here specifically mentioning the name.

Anyway, the reason I wanted to mention it is not to praise this show but rather to bemoan the fact that a non-canon (to the books) TV show seems more interested in the identity of a female character, no matter how relatively minor, than GRRM himself has with various female characters of ASOIAF. I’m not saying I necessarily expected F&B to identify Alicent Hightower’s mother (although it’s not like I wouldn’t have liked it to), and in the vast annals of awfulness representing F&B’s treatment of female characters, Alicent Hightower’s mother’s lack of presence or even name may seem relatively low on the scale of offensiveness. Yet what bothers me deeply is the startling disregard GRRM has shown more than once in failing to identify female characters, or indeed failing to treat some female characters as more than walking wombs. The reigning yet unnamed Princess of Dorne is an infamous example; “Lady Stark, she died” - that is, Lyarra Stark, the wife of Rickard - is another. (Need I remind anyone that he sarcastically and yet totally inaccurately compared her to Aragorn’s actually named mother?) Quellon Greyjoy gets a detailed biography, but his wives don’t even get first names; Hoster Tully’s wife Minisa and Jon Arryn’s wives Rowena and Jeyne are only identifiable by their dynasties and the manners of their deaths. Nor did F&B go any real way toward solving this problem: Alaric Stark gets plenty of backstory and screentime, but his supposedly beloved Mormont wife doesn’t even have a first name; Rogar Baratheon’s first wife is only mentioned as an anonymous corpse already in the ground; Rodrik Arryn’s nameless first wife dies early enough for creep Rodrik to prey on Daella; Unwin Peake’s nameless adolescent daughter only exists to be raped and die in childbirth.

I don’t mention all this to say GRRM is a terrible writer, or hates female characters. Far from it! It’s precisely because I think GRRM is an extremely good writer, including with respect to female characters, that I find myself so disappointed when he shows such lack of regard in this area. In the 10+ years since GRRM began focusing in-depth on the Dance of the Dragons, there have been two novellas about this civil war, a world book describing in part this civil war, and an entire “related work” history of (the first roughly century and a half of) House Targaryen, with multiple chapters about this civil war expanding upon those novellas - yet it took the showrunner of a TV show adapting the F&B narrative of the Dance to care enough about Alicent’s mother to name her. I don’t know that this show is going so far as to give any personality or character to the dead figure of “Alerie Florent” (and again, I really don’t care about anything this show does), but even the showrunner mentioning that Alicent wants to remember her mother in prayers is more than we readers can say about, for example, Ned Stark’s relationship with his mother, or Catelyn’s with hers. GRRM’s lack of attention to or indeed interest in the identity of yet another female character, over the course of tens of thousands of words he’s written about the Dance era, stands in sharp and frankly unflattering contrast compared to even the passing mention of this figure allowed by the showrunner of a TV series which, by its nature, might have every incentive to be more streamlined about such details.

(Once again, I’m not posting about HotD and I’m not inviting anyone to use this post to talk about HotD, because those conversations are getting blocked by me. This is me using a news story related to HotD to comment on GRRM’s writing.)

#GRRM

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pikahlua · 1 year

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Pika I was reading someone referring to the female characters in MHA as female leads and was upset that their character arcs weren’t fleshed out in comparison to bakugou and izuku, who are the protagonists? Or even dueteragonist and protagonist.

And I’m kind of confused as I feel like this is misleading, no? It doesn’t feel like any of the female characters have what most people would consider a lead role. Like, the closest I can think is Uraraka (and toga), but I feel like maybe she’s at most a dueteragonist or a confidant. But the rest of the female characters feel very tertiary.

Their roles are I think meaningful but don’t necessarily need to be fleshed out because of the focus of the story being bakugou/izuku/tomura/AFO/all might and the effects of hero society and the way they exemplify its failings?

What are your thoughts?

I agree that just because there are female characters doesn't mean one of them automatically has to occupy a lead role, and that analyzing one as such could lead to problems. That's to say nothing about the state of representation of female characters in literature let alone shounen manga. But if we're talking purely about function in a story, no female character in MHA occupies a primary lead role.

That said, obviously Ochako occupies a much more prominent role than many other characters do. She could easily be called the lead role in her subsection of the story. I would argue that the correct point of comparison for Ochako is not Izuku (never should it be Izuku for most any character). You could probably make a decent case for comparing her with Katsuki, but ultimately I'd compare her to someone a bit more separate from the main story, like Iida or Shouto.

I think that leads to a much easier conversation about how disappointing her story is to some people. If you can compare a female character to an equivalent male character in the story and find the end result lacking, that's certainly cause for disappointment. Ochako doesn't get as much character growth as Iida, at least not for a long while. And there certainly isn't the level of focus placed on her, her inner thoughts, her development, or the drama developing around her as there is with Shouto. But Ochako does have her big moments in the story too. Is it just that her story is written sloppily, or it's not a good story, or are we biased against her as readers somehow? It's hard to say. I used to find her compelling in the early story, but now I don't find her nearly as compelling as I did back then. But I could say that of many characters, male and female. Is the desire for Ochako to have a more fleshed out story the result of comparing hers to other male characters' stories, or is it indicative of a hunger for better stories about women in general in a way MHA never presented itself as?

What if I just say I like Ochako's character concept and her early moments but find that her overall story is too spread out over a long period of time for it to have any impact on me? I just don't like her story the way I like some others. Like, it's fine. It's a fine story. In all honesty it's one of the better stories I've seen for a female character in a shounen manga. It's just not engrossing for me. She's not what I'm here for. And I think it's entirely valid to be disappointed in that, regardless of if she was male or female.

#anon ask #ask pika #ochako uraraka #anti ochako uraraka #anti tag just in case #anime only friendly

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girl4music · 7 months

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God I just want more strong female representation. Not necessarily WLW representation but just female in general. Women-led TV art/entertainment. Female empowerment. Female vulnerability and strength.

I want a representation of the human condition where females can have all their internal conflicts and conditions but not be punished for them. Or if they have to be punished in the narrative - fully explore as to why they do. What the necessity for it is. Whether it’s valid and justified. Whether it serves a purpose in the narrative for that female character. Does it help them grow and evolve into a better person? Does it help them combat their internal demons and heal their mind, body and soul? Or is it only there in the service of someone else’s story arc because they don’t matter as much as that other character does? I’ve always said that punishment for punishments sake is just stupid. It serves nothing. It helps nothing. It evolves nothing. And when it comes to female punishment in TV art/entertainment in particular, there is very rarely an exploration of the reasoning why they have to be. And that’s because of poor narrative writing choices more so than it is because of purposeful ignorance or spite.

Poor narrative writing choices because of the anxiety of providing sufficient representation and the anxiety of cancellation. Rushed written and produced content. Female representation in particular has had a real hammering. I mean you still are provided it but the problem is the lack of care and conscientiousness with it. Representing a female on-screen is different to representing a male on-screen. Not necessarily because there’s differences in the genders or sexes. I am the last person to care about gender stereotypes and the “correct” gender roles and bullshit like that. That’s not what I mean. No, it’s more so about trying to depict the subtle nuances of gender identity. Think of it like the treatment of ability VS disability. What’s required to treat that disabled individual person equally to the abled person will obviously be different things. So you’re more so pointing out the differences in how females VS males are treated on-screen than you are of how they’re represented. Females need to and should be treated differently to males and vice versa on-screen but it should never be in an unequal way the same way it should never be between an abled person and a disabled person. You shouldn’t have to point out the weaknesses or debilitations of one more than the other. You shouldn’t have to punish one more than the other. That’s what I’m trying to say about how female representation has had a real hammering taken to it recently in TV art/entertainment. Or at least since the likes of ‘Xena’, ‘Buffy’ and ‘Charmed’ were on air. All notoriously women-led shows. Two created by men at that.

I haven’t really seen anything last or stand the test of time since. I mean I’ve found ‘Wynonna Earp’ but I don’t know if it’s significant enough in female representation to have longevity well after it finished with it being produced by a small network then and an even smaller one for when it comes back next year with a 90 minute scripted special titled ‘Wynonna Earp: Vengeance’. It’s certainly something but it’s not enough. We need more female representation and specifically female empowerment representation because what we’ve got at the moment is pathetic.

#top 10 #female characters #in sci fi/fantasy #female representation #strong women #gender equality #ms mojo

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blueiight · 1 year

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is this a safe space? im gonna bring up the antoinette thing. not necessarily the photos being taken from her ig and her going private bc you talked about that already and i agree but just how i don’t understand the response. they said that were going to revisit things that have happened along with what you said. it seems only natural that she would be a part of that to me. i don’t really understand the reaction i guess. or maybe i just saw a few people and most people are coolin. but i just feel like they are telling a story yall. let them. there’s so many scenarios where it makes sense the actress is there to me.

well what i & abnegative on twt thought was like.. louis has shown a propensity for states of mania & delirium.. the second cour of interview is the longest bender between 1860 -1970 everrr for lack of a better way to phrase it.

in the show u have the state of mania he describes his past self being in

The state I was in, I was what... I was manic.

& louis does not describe this, but s1’s finale ends with louis in a disassociative episode in the present + shows us the meltdown he had over lestat’s ‘death’ before the armand reveal..

people talked about louis having visions of lestat no problem which i imagine would require sam reid to film something, but the possibility of maura grace athari there to film louis’s visions of lestat’s side piece of a few odd decades cant be the end of the world. i mean who knows why athari’s even in prague.. what if shes on a regular vacay and this is all for nothing? lol. i imagine reactions could be the classic fujo impulse to react reflexively at a female character ‘breaking up’ the gay pairing mixed w/ the fact that antoinette as a character is in no small part a juxtaposition to louis as ive said before where antoine was essentially a parallel to louis (& later to nicki) and only was revealed to be around in the final book trilogy after all.. i can imagine some people under the assumption the show would do another fakeout w/ antoinette’s death but i dont think theres enough credence for that so far.. in fact making sure antoinette was dead seemed to be the one thing louis & claudia agreed upon in 1x07 lol but who knows man who knows. theres a lot they can do, but i dont think its fair to fall into camps of definitive much less even a paranoid line of speculation off one picture on a [private?] instagram. its summertime and prague’s a decent sized city that gets tourists🤷🏾

#yn.#yn answers #iwtv #idk if im a safe space but u can always be real w me

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the-one-where-casey-watches-tv · 1 year

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The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel episode 5.09 "Four Minutes"

Rachel Brosnahan in "Four Minutes". Image courtesy of IMDb.

I guess Amy Sherman-Palladino still hasn’t figured out how to end a show. I’ll admit that I’ve watched every episode and felt entertained, but I never fully embraced Maisel. I’m hard on it because it had so much potential and was always right there on the edge of being a landmark in tv- it just didn’t have that last little oomph. But even among the avid fans that I’ve talked to, I haven’t heard from anyone who appreciated the way this story ends.

Before I get to the wild things that happened in season 5, I just have to say- I never liked Midge. That’s really my only problem with the show, but it’s a big one. Maisel did so much telling rather than showing in that regard: they didn’t make her likable, they told me that people liked her. I’m supposed to be charmed by her the way everyone else is, but more often than not, I’m pulled out of the moment wondering how she’s suddenly somehow won people over. Most of all, though, I don’t think she’s that funny.

Rachel Brosnahan in "Four Minutes". Image courtesy of IMDb.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is hilarious. Sherman-Palladino knows how to make a beautiful, colorful, bustling setting full of quaint and funny people who talk back and forth very quickly. With those strengths, I have to wonder what inspired a premise centered around a career of stationary monologues. The show made me laugh out loud countless times, just never at one of Midge’s jokes. So frequently Midge would force her way onstage, royally pissing people off in the process, but suddenly everyone loves her act so much- or worse, just thinks she’s so pretty- that all is forgiven. An act that I didn’t even laugh at.

The show has an obviously feminist premise, but its execution here too leaves me feeling like the only takeaway there is “women can do anything they want!! No matter how good they are at it or how they treat people along the way!! If they make a mess, a man will be possessively in love with her and toxically sacrifice himself to make it all okay. As long as she’s pretty.”

So this is already the headspace I went into season 5 with, and its ultimate conclusion really doubled down that sentiment for me. The setup for this season has Midge working as the only female writer on America’s number one talk show, the Gordon Ford show. Gordon is a new character, but I warmed up to him quickly. He’s chill, surprising, and funny- actually funny. Midge isn’t intimidated by him because has she ever been? She’s demeaned at having to be a writer and not “talent”, but she’s gonna grin and bear it. A job plenty of ladies (me included) would kill for, and that she’s breaking the glass ceiling by having. But she’s slumming it.

Midge’s privilege is another roadblock to her likability. Not necessarily the fact that she has it financially, which I am glad this season touched on, but it’s the attitude she has about it. All the Weissmans have lavish class privilege, and this season used Zelda’s quitting to gently poke fun at their helplessness, but Rose and Abe at least have an awareness and sense of gratitude for the help they receive. Abe’s journey of self-awareness throughout this season was incredibly moving and heartfelt, and the way he beat himself up over the most minute of mistakes at his newspaper job really highlights the lack of those qualities in Midge.

Let’s address the elephant in the room: the chronologically confusing time jumps revealing the demise of Midge and Susie’s friendship and business partnership. God, I feel so bad for Susie. There’s a Friends blooper where David Schwimmer just bursts out laughing and goes, “poor Ross”. I would be amazed if Alex Borstein hasn’t had a similar experience.

Alex Borstein and Rachel Brosnahan in "Four Minutes". Image courtesy of IMDb.

Here’s the quick version of what happened over these 9 episodes: Susie’s been in bed with the mob since before this season- I was honestly thrown for a loop when they became such an important part of this season, they’ve always been surprisingly sweet, funny, and helpful. Nonetheless, they asked Susie for the favor of having Midge star in a musical about the waste department. See? Sweet and funny. It was significant, though, because Susie thought this would make her square with Frank and Nicky. As in, no more getting a cut of her and Midge’s profits. But Midge looked down on the whole trash gig thing and phoned in her performance when the rest of her life wasn’t going the way she wanted. This sparked a conversation between Susie, Frank, and Nicky that Joel observed from afar. Susie tried to promise that Midge would step up her game so they could all part ways, causing Frank and Nicky to explain that there was no “getting even”. Susie always thought she owed them a favor that one day she would repay and wash her hands of the whole thing, but Midge’s poor attitude only revealed that even if they had done everything perfectly, there was no getting out from under them.

Joel didn’t hear the conversation, but somehow he put the whole thing together really quickly, getting in Susie’s face and saying that he won’t stand for Midge being caught up with guys like that, because he’s very familiar with them. I really don’t know when Joel became such a hard-ass or got all of this mob experience. Susie tells him that she’s got it all under control- maybe she does, maybe she doesn’t- we’ll never find out, because Joel takes it upon himself to meet with Frank and Nicky and fall on the sword to protect Midge. He lets the mob in on his club business, mixing their books as he begins to buy more clubs. Midge never has any idea until his eventual arrest, in Temple no less, where he’s put away for the entire mob operation. Midge doesn’t hesitate to cut Susie off and stay by Joel’s side, religiously visiting him in prison during decades worth of time jumps.

I hate all of this for a few reasons. It really just feels like Joel felt he had to find a way to keep himself relevant in this story and in Midge’s life, and it’s so disappointing to me that this works on Midge. Before all this, Midge and Joel had a really mature and endearing post-divorce friendship. It’s hard to say if Mei’s abrupt departure at the end of season 4 was a logistical hurdle for the show or a creative choice to free Joel up to do this, but regardless, this was an unwanted replacement for a fleshed-out relationship between Joel and Mei, whose story still feels unfinished. And his weirdly intense speech to Midge on the fire escape about not letting anyone hurt a hair on her head? I’ve never seen a not creepy use of that phrase, so I don’t know what to make of Midge eating it up. This all really undermines the respectful, minding-their-own-business nature of their progressive relationship. I think if someone had said at the end of season one that this show ends with Joel’s relentless love for Midge disseminating her friendship with Susie, we would have all thought that was very off-message.

Not to mention, as all of this unfolds, we’re also treated to a glimpse of everything Susie did for Midge over the years of their partnership. When Midge got cold feet the night before a destination wedding because he didn’t make her laugh, Susie tried to put her foot down and set some workplace boundaries- this has nothing to do with Midge’s career, Susie has no obligation to untangle the mess Midge has made of her own personal life. But Midge bursts into tears, and of course Susie makes it all okay.

But the biggest catalyst of emotions boiling under the surface comes from Gordon Ford’s wife. I don’t think Susie’s sexuality was a mystery to anyone, but we’d never talked about it before Hedy. Susie was clearly deeply wounded by her, and even though she’s not one to spill her life’s story, that much is clear. Nonetheless, when Midge finds out that Susie knows her personally, she aggressively pushes Susie to talk to her about getting Midge on the Gordon Ford show. Susie is extremely hesitant, leading Midge to say that whatever is holding her back, if Susie doesn’t do this for her, then Midge will know that her manager didn’t do everything she could for her.

With the context of everything Susie has ever done for Midge, this is such a slap in the face. Add in the heavy hinting that Susie is in love with Midge, and the whole thing just makes me sad for her. The lesbian sidekick being in love with the straight main character is so tired to me. But of course, Susie talks to Hedy, and of course she pulls it off. Once Susie’s done what she wanted her to do, Midge softens and convinces her to talk about what happened between her and Hedy. Then, Midge says if she had known she would never have pressured Susie to talk to her. As if there was no way of initiating this conversation sooner.

Alex Borstein in "Four Minutes". Image courtesy of IMDb.

So for Midge to not even hesitate to turn on Susie after Joel’s arrest, something he brought entirely on himself against Susie’s wants and pleas, is so blatantly cruel that I almost wonder if Midge isn’t even supposed to be the hero of this story.

This brings us to the title of this episode and Midge’s tendency to act like- and be treated like- her showing up is God’s gift to whatever room she’s in. Susie talked to Hedy, Hedy talked to Gordon, Gordon begrudgingly broke his longstanding rule to not have staff members on the show. But, if he’s gonna do it, his frail ego is going to do it his way (remember when he started a bar fight with Hank Azaria for wanting Midge to work for him? He was being ‘noble’ because clearly Azaria’s Danny Stevens is just attracted to her. Gordon won’t let her be on the show but also won’t let her work anywhere else, how protective and helpful!).

It’s moments before the show when Midge and Susie learn that Midge will appear on the show, but not as a comic- rather, she will be interviewed by Gordon as a writer on the show, a human-interest piece. Midge is to sit on a stool, rather than the respectable couch the ‘real’ guests get to sit on. Even in this Gordon is seething and throws the show to commercial only seconds into the segment. There’s still “Four Minutes” to fill when they come back, tensions are high, and Gordon is as unhappy as someone can be on national TV.

I’ll give Midge credit for getting Susie’s blessing before she does this. I don’t even blame her for doing it, to be honest. The Gordon Ford show returns from commercial and Midge steps over Gordon’s return to the segment, walking up to the mic and doing four minutes of standup while Mike and Susie do everything they can off camera to keep Gordon in his chair.

I’m the petty bitch that counted, but if you’re literally gonna call the series finale “Four Minutes” I’d like to think it would actually be four minutes. She talked for almost ten. I believe in the universe of the show it really was just four minutes (even Midge Maisel can’t eat into somebody else’s primetime air), but to me this confirms Sherman-Palladino’s disconnectedness to standup itself as an art form. They call it a ‘tight five’ because it’s hard to do, and I was actually really interested to see what Midge could pull off in that amount of time.

I’ll admit that it was one of her better sets, but certainly not something of the caliber that warranted a complete 180 in Gordon Ford. He laughs out loud as she talks, and when she’s done, he invites her onto the couch, reintroducing her as a comic, the marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Why is she even still using Joel’s last name? I digress.

Reid Scott in "Four Minutes". Image courtesy of IMDb.

With some comparable behavior, Midge and Susie do ultimately repair their friendship. Susie, later in life, is an ultra-successful talent manager, repping the biggest names in entertainment and becoming something of a celebrity herself. Her falling out with Midge, though, is the elephant in every room she’s in. There’s a roast for Susie in one of the bigger flash forwards, with everyone she cares about there to good-naturedly poke fun at her. Everyone except Midge, which all the guests speculate about throughout the event. Then, at the end, a screen descends from the ceiling, and a recorded video of Midge plays. It sounds like she’s ready to make amends with Susie and see her again, and Susie, of course, is tripping over herself to find her way to her. After everything Susie did for her, Midge is the bigger person? The hero? Just for showing up? Again, I digress.

The series closes on the two of them watching Jeopardy! together over the phone, chatting and laughing, hard, something that’s always been important to Midge in the people she keeps close. And this time, Midge really is funny. She’s at her best when she’s interacting with people. It’s a really sweet scene and I’m happy to see the show end this way. I just wasn’t able to enjoy it as much as I would’ve liked after everything that happened to get us there.

What did you think? Do you see a different side of Midge than I do? Was Susie more wrong and Joel more right than I think they are? Does Midge’s standup make you laugh? Let me know!

#the marvelous mrs maisel #midge maisel #joel maisel #susie myerson #alex borstein #rachel brosnahan #tony shalhoub #abe weissman #tv #tv review #tv criticism #amy sherman palladino

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tutuandscoot · 2 years

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Things I love about VM: Post Skates

2. Scott always leads Tessa back to centre ice for their bows.

No matter the program, how it went, who’s having a bad day, who’s more excited. He always leads her back, and she always lets him lead her back.

This might be kinda hard to notice when comparing to other teams, I tried to watch a bunch and depending how they finish it may not be obvious. The examples I’ll post here are instances where I feel it’s at least a bit clear it’s the female partner taking the initiative to do this.. which I just don’t personally love- I like it when the men are leading the ladies the whole time on the ice. The first gif is the one that came to mind first when I was looking to compare this, and depending on how you view a lot of this whole thing, maybe depends on the dynamic of personalities between skaters. Like fair if you want to say ‘that’s just their personalities’, which is fine if you like that, but as partners there is a reason and.. occupational structure that I notice some teams missing in various instances/moments of a performance. Here some random examples just as a visual to compare to VM:

(As always this is not a knock to any specific teams, it’s just to show a visual difference to VM).

It is clear with the first and last examples, these teams the lady is the more dominant/bigger personality, the other examples I feel like the dynamic varies/isn’t so obvious, and again while the movement is minimal, in comparing to TS you can see how all these gifs show the female with the initiative/leading that moment of their performance (examining this regardless whether the man was leading in their actual program). What I’m saying is I don’t think it’s necessarily a personality thing in all instances, I don’t even think it’s a conscious thing, but I think it shows a lack of unity and leadership structure and as I said I personally like when the man is leading, so as with everything comparing to TS- are just so much better and more believable because it’s so real and honest- those roles are never confused.

So really it’s not so much in the physical action of it, in fact I almost wouldn’t say it’s the man taking the lady back, but you’ll maybe see more obviously with TS, just through their energy together, she will wait for him to lead her back, just though the presence she has, she maintains her role as the partner being lead even as the program has finished.

I don’t want this to get confused with specific programs (say Carmen where she is most certainly the more dominate character). It’s not program specific. It’s exactly what is said in the commentary here, it is a work of fine art how Tessa follows Scott, and he is always leading her- never looks as though he has a problem. Even when they aren’t dancing. She’s not waiting for him to actually say ‘come on’ and grab her and drag her back to centre, but she just doesn’t initiate anything, she’s allowing him to make all the decisions and she does what she is ‘told’ (wordlessly instructed to do and as they have done a thousand times) because those are their roles in their partnership, and they do them so incredibly well- it is an art, because it’s not overtly obvious and you don’t see it.. you kind of only feel it, it’s that trust she has in him- you feel that she’s always being taken care of. When you watch the very earliest footage of them, the difference is obvious that she is clearly leading, but just a few years later really in juniors that dynamic has completely shifted and it is him leading her. That takes so much trust for Tessa to relinquish that role, and Scott so much responsibility to be the leader for them both. Once they learned that, that dynamic never wavered in any instance of them on the ice- competitive or show performance.

Even in instances where Scott didn’t have his best skate and T in her very quiet and beautiful way is everything he needs her to be to make him feel safe and cared for in a moment where he is so mad at himself, their roles on the ice when it comes to leading and following never changes despite what happened in the program.

When they say they are both team leaders and they have two ‘Cs’ on their jackets (C for captain), Tessa is just as much the captain that Scott is on the ice even though he is ‘leading’ her. They are both in charge of their respective roles and must contribute equally to the team for them to be successful. And what each other does in their roles allows the other to do theirs- them being their very best for each other makes them the best overall.

As with a lot of things I talk about this may seem small and unimportant but when you put it all together with their skating, dancing, athleticism performance, and they carry that authenticity and leadership structure right through till they are off the ice, it completes the full package, makes you believe them and not take your eyes off them because you are so entranced in their partnership. That’s the point I want to try and get across in this series.. it’s everything- not just the skating.

#things I love: series #post skates

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ellynneversweet · 1 year

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Aaaaand I’m done.

Okay. I’ll say that I liked this the best out of all the Bridgerton offerings so far: it made a genuine attempt to engage with the absolute nonsense Romancelandia setting rules already established in this universe and turn them into something cohesive. It almost works.

Everyone had real problems (except for Violet, who was just sort of…there) that weren’t things that could just be resolved if they would just talk out a stupid misunderstanding. Charlotte and George’s romance is genuinely unusual and quite touching, especially in its later stages. Lady Danbury as the fantasy version of an unhappily married woman turned wealthy independent widow is delightful. I like that they didn’t (by romance standards) sugarcoat the level of control a woman’s relatives and husband had over her life, or how precarious life without a good protector was. Some of the ways in which this was spelled out to the female characters (and thus, the audience) was a bit clumsy — this is their native culture, after all. They can and certainly should react to it in a variety of ways, but surprise at the degree of legal confinement they’re subject to comes across as stupidity, often.

Some of the costumes were hideous, some were great. Late baroque suits the brocade and ruffles bullshit of the Bridgerton Style Guide much better than the regency does. No one knows what to do with hats, but I really enjoyed the ladies in tricorns we got. (I love a good tricorn.) And there were some beautiful bergeres, which are another fave of mine.

It offers a cohesive explanation for why Charlotte is dressed in styles from twenty years ago, because she’s emotionally arrested in that era. It doesn’t make me forgive the lack of regency court dress in the Bridgerton-family centric seasons, because I desperately want to see that on screen. I actually think it could work. I know everyone hated it and the fashion plates of the era look a bit silly, but the silhouette is not dissimilar to a hanbok, if you squint? It could be done. And I bet those dresses could even be reworked to be regular going out dresses. If the panniers only added width to the sides, all you’d really have to do is re-sew the side seams into straight lines.

Violet should have been cut from this, frankly. George needed more screen time outside of Charlotte and his never ending leeches and ice baths. He’s an interesting character and the actors who played him were both genuinely good. We needed more sane George, because mad George is necessarily shown at an emotional remove from his thoughts and emotions. I’m not sure if having him be unstable so early was decided as a plan to explain away why Prinny isn’t a character in the main series and why Charlotte is so very prominent as the effective regent.

Also, we could have done with less horrible sex scenes between the Danburys. Once or twice, fine, but the rest could be easily telegraphed through Agatha’s post-rape bath and bitch sessions.

Um. I loved Reynolds, as I’ve said, and I’m sorry we didn’t get mature Reynolds in George’s household. I liked the variety of relationships shown. I don’t love how cold mature Charlotte is towards Brimsley — it seems horrible and disconnected from their early friendship. I don’t appreciate the way the narrative role Brimsley and Reynolds played necessarily cut out the existence and importance of ladies in waiting (and courtiers more generally). That annoys me, in a show that so heavily centres the lives of women. Lady Danbury’s relationship with Coral was good, though.

Edit: oh, and the timeline and travel distances involved made absolutely no sense at all. They all have magical tardis carriages. I nearly lost my mind when Reynolds complained about ‘riding all the way here’ when Brimsley had been using that same route as the walk for a small puppy every day. And, of course, the whole invitations for a royal wedding that starts in three hours thing.

Anyway. Scream away at me if you have thoughts.

#ellyn watches queen charlotte

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findroleplay · 11 months

Text

Space adventures: 3.0

Hello ladies, gents and fellow rpers. After having to take an unexpected but necessary break from the wonderful world of rping I’m ready to dive back into the waters of writing and make some amazing new stories with some new partners. I’ve been in the writing game for over ten years at this point and consider myself to be fairly experienced when it comes to rping. That being said, I do not require you to have decades of writing experience in order to rp with me. In fact all I ask for anyone thinking of reaching out to me is that:

-You write in third person past tense and have decent spelling and grammar. I’m not going to be put off by the occasional bout of typonese, but I’m definitely going to be put off by writing that I cannot read at all or noticeable mistakes that are left uncorrected.

-You are capable of writing at least three well fleshed out paragraphs per response (this might change depending on what is going on in the rp at the time) with at least seven or more lines. I want someone who is capable of matching the effort I put into my replies and isn’t afraid to spend time making something chock full of detail or go over the discord word limit when it comes to writing a response. One liners/very small or short paragraphs that lack detail are a very big no go for me.

-You can respond at least once or more per day. I do not mind what time during the day that response happens as life comes before rp and I do not want you skipping over important things just to get it done.

-You are 18+. I’m in my twenties and not comfortable rping with minors as my role plays contain NSFW themes and other mature content. Your characters are also required to be 18+ as well.

-You are comfortable with rping against (but not necessarily as) alien characters that aren’t technically just humans from other planets. I’m not looking to rp as a human main character regardless of what we end up doing so please keep this in mind.

-You are capable of bringing ideas to the table, love to worldbuild, adore talking about our characters and aren’t afraid to throw in a plot twist every now and then.

-You will let me know if you have any problems with the rp and work through them with me as well as let me know if you need to take a break or might be busy. I will make sure to do the same.

-You are looking for a long term rp. I want this to be something that spans for months, maybe even years. Not just a couple days or weeks.

-You are comfortable with both MxM and FxM romances. I have no preference as to which one we do.

-You have discord.

I also ask for you to please not godmod, control my characters or spam me with hey/are you there/when are you going to reply/etc.

I AM NOT THE RPER FOR YOU IF:

-You are looking for a fast paced/rapid fire/one liner/short term rp. These types of rp’s just do not hold my interest. I’m also not looking for anything that isn’t a 1x1 rp (group rp’s are just not my thing) and I do not double.

-You are not comfortable with rping with non-humanoid looking aliens. That means anything that may have/has fur, scales, fangs, claws, tails, feathers, the ability to walk on walls or climb ceilings, multiple limbs, etc. If you are not comfortable with aliens that may have one or more of the above traits then please do not reach out to me.

-You are not looking for a slow burn romance or you fade to black when it comes to smut. Slow burn romances are a requirement for all of my rp’s and I feel that skipping out on the smut means we miss the chance to write about very important moments occurring between the characters. To put it simply, smut is important to me. Neither romance or smut will take over the main story of course.

-You are looking for someone to play as a female main character. I only play male main characters and cannot be persuaded to do otherwise.

-You cannot reply more than a couple of times a week. I tend to lose interest/motivation if I don’t get a reply at least every other day.

-You don’t have discord. I rp only on discord because I like making servers to keep things organised, other platforms just don’t work for me.

-You are not interested in doing a sci-fi rp. I’m not looking to do anything that isn’t sci-fi so please do not waste my time by messaging me and asking if I’m interested in other genres. I am also not currently interested in doing anything that isn’t one of the ideas I have listed.

With that out of the way, let’s get onto the ideas! Down below are the ideas that I’ve been hoping to write with someone. I’m open to brainstorming or mixing them together to create something new. Nothing is set in stone and I’m hoping to keep whatever plot we decide to do/make mostly fluid or free flowing, meaning that the entire course of the story isn’t entirely planned out at the beginning and we let the actions of our characters determine what happens next whilst occasionally planning what they next major plot point of the story is when we decide it’s time to fill our characters lives with even more drama.

Taking over:

The lifespan of a captain could sometimes end up being tragically short. It was the captain who was supposed to be the first to jump into their starfighter and guide their crew to victory whenever their ship was under threat, It was the captain who was expected to always be able to know what decisions were the right ones to make in regards to the welfare of the crew and it was the captain who took an oath upon receiving the keys to their ship to never put their own life before someone else’s even when faced with the most difficult decision of all. When the much loved captain of the alliance ship Maelstrom loses their life after a mission gone wrong their second in command is the one who is chosen to take their place as the new captain despite the angry protests from some of the crew members. Will the new captain be able to follow in the footsteps of the one before them and lead the Maelstrom to success whilst earning the respect of the crew, or will the burden be too much to bear?

New recruit:

Whenever talks about potentially receiving some new crew members came around it wasn’t uncommon for people to get a little bit crazy. Not everyone hated the idea of seeing a new face or two running around given it meant that there could potentially be less tasks for them to do before they got to clock out for the day, but that didn’t mean they were exactly okay with the idea that their job was potentially at risk of being handed to someone else if the captain decided that they were no longer performing at the required standards. Many of the current crew members took great pleasure in reminding any newcomers about their place on the ship and weren’t afraid to use their rank to get away with a little less than friendly behaviour when it came to doing such things to the point where it was often an unspoken rule amongst the other crew mates to not interfere with the “initiation” process lest the wraith be turned upon them instead. When the “initiation” process itself stopped depended on when the captain finally cared enough to intervene. When a new recruit arrives in the form of a previous high ranked person who was stripped of their title for insubordination, chaos of an entirely different kind takes hold.

The mission:

Seven. Seven alliance ships had disappeared without a trace or been destroyed by unforeseen yet suspicious circumstances. Mining asteroid explosions, ambush attacks, ship failures, all unfortunate yet unpredictable occurrences that were happening far too frequently for anyone to be able to just comfortably sit back and go on with life. With tensions between the alien and human race at an all time high, the alliance itself was desperately trying to find a way to keep the peace without causing a panic. Eventually, a proposal was made. In an all time first since the end of the great alien/human wars, an alien would be chosen and sent to work onboard a human ship. This was considered to be a very large step given many planets were still hostile to one another and the rumours circulating about the missing ships were sparking some strong reactions from both sides but the alliance was desperate….and so was the alien they were planning to send onboard. For them, it was their last and only chance to start a new life and to put a difficult past behind them. Little did anyone know, the appearance of this newcomer was more than just the first step towards changing life as many knew it for the known galaxies.

(Important point of notice: I will be playing the new alien crew member who is sent to work aboard an alliance ship with a human captain and crew. You can play as anything from a regular crew member to the captain.)

One unit, one goal:

When someone was part of a team, it felt like the people who fought beside them were all that really mattered. They cried on each other’s shoulders. They cheered each other on. They were there for each other through thick and thin. Most of the pilots who served under the galactic alliance were pretty tight knit with one another, meaning the pain of loss was worsened whenever such a tragedy struck. When a member of one of the alliance’s top intergalactic defence force teams loses their life during a search and capture mission that had gone wrong a new pilot is sent in as a replacement. As they struggle to find their place amongst people that seem to have no intention of moving on from their loss, a new threat slowly begins to rise with the intention of causing chaos and destruction on a scale that no one has ever seen before.

(Important point of notice: I will be playing the new pilot. you will be playing as a member of the team they’re joining.)

No easy way out: It was very rare for those who believed that their sole purpose in life was to reign terror and destruction upon those who dwelled within the known galaxies to take prisoners, even more so when said prisoner actively tries to fight back against their captors rather than quietly submitting and accepting their fate, and allowing them to live despite the trouble they cause. When a lone spacer is attacked by a captain who leads a crew of fairly notorious criminals that have been seen on more than just a couple of ruined wanted posters they are given one of two options to choose from: serve alongside them as a part of their crew in exchange for being allowed to live, or be left to face the vast depths of space alone in a ship that would soon become their tomb due to the state of disrepair it was in. Will the spacer accept their fate? Or will they take their last stand right there and then?

(Important point of notice: I will be playing the captured spacer. You will be playing the captain of the criminals.)

Stowaway:

Life in the known galaxies was harder for some than it was for most. Whilst many people were able to live freely with little rules and regulations as to what they did, others were bound by law to follow a certain way of life. Most accepted their predetermined paths and did their best to stay out of trouble, whilst for others it was just that little bit harder to accept the way things were supposedly meant to be. Especially when things could go downhill very quickly if one happened to be on the wrong side of those laws. Whilst many people frowned upon ship jumping, the act of sneaking onboard a ship and hiding away from its occupants in order to travel, some people felt like it was the only way to reach their destinations when a fresh start to their life was in order. When a stowaway is caught trying to hijack a ship, will mercy be given? Or will they find themselves facing a new threat?

(Important point of notice: I will be playing the stowaway. You will be playing the ship’s captain.)

Enslaved:

imagine living the life of one of the most successful people on the run that could exist. Galaxies trembled at your name. You and your crew swam in wealth and the going was good. Mutiny, sadly and sometimes not sadly, exists on its own accord. One person in particular reflected on this as they were forced to their feet. A collar attached to a chain and electromagnetic handcuffs prevented their escape as they stood for all those who cared to glance as they walked by in the market to see. No one wants to have their only life’s purpose be to serve another……only sometimes people don’t get that choice.

(Important point of notice: I’ll be playing the slave/servant. You’ll be the master/mistress.)

Across a sea of stars: Although they’d abandoned their less than humble watery origins well before the first spaceship had even been invented, Pirates were believed to be one of the biggest threats that anyone could encounter within the known galaxies. Those who were brave enough to attempt to navigate through the vast starry seas of space without a small fleet rallied behind them would often meet their fate at the hands of the bloodthirsty buccaneers whose lust for wealth and power had completely overtaken their ability to feel remorse for their actions. Any twinges of guilt that did attempt to surface were often easily washed away by consuming vast amounts of alcohol and then drunkenly brawling with other members of the crew during the celebratory dinners that came after a successful day of looting or the claiming of another captain’s ship as their own. When a ship is captured by the most feared pirate of all after accidentally flying into their territory and the crew fearfully plea for their lives, fate decides to take matters into its own hands in a most unexpected way. (Important point of notice: I will be playing the pirate captain. You will be playing as a member of the crew they’ve captured.)

Last chance:

Criminals, ranging from wannabe thieves to true crime lords, have been around long before anyone had even thought of the idea of building a spaceship and go where no one had ever been before. They’re often cunning, tricky to catch and more often than not are clever at disguising themselves whenever those wanted posters come up. It takes true talent to be on the wrong side of the laws that had been made by those long gone and get away with it. When a criminal that has been giving the alliance a run for their money has finally been captured, they are given a second chance to redeem themselves by having to work alongside the crew of the ship that captured them and even aid them to defend the ship if the need arises. Will this be enough to encourage a change of heart, or will it be the downfall of the crew and the alliance itself?

(Important point of notice: I’ll be playing the criminal, you will be playing as one of the crew members or even the captain of the ship.)

Betrothed: Long before other planets had even been discovered, and for far longer than anyone could truly remember, there had always been arranged marriages. Arranged marriages, or betrothals as they were more often called, consisted of pairing two people together and making them get married regardless of how they felt about one another in order to secure ties to another land or another planet for what many hoped would be forever. Political marriages benefited everyone but the married pair it always seemed. After all, no one could possibly be happy being married to a complete and utter stranger, could they? How does one who is betrothed build a life of love and prosperity when the one who bears the rings of their union is not the one who also bears their heart?

To those who have made it this far, thank you for reading! If you are interested in rping with me please do not hesitate to reach out to me via email (I do not rp through email but I’m more than happy for it to be where we first introduce ourselves to one another before moving to discord) or discord. Please note that I am in the eastern australian time zone so it might be a while before I respond/accept any requests you send my way due to possibly being asleep or busy depending on what time zone you are in. When you reach out to me please tell me what idea you liked, why you liked it and any ideas you may have. Please also include a little introduction and tell me what your favourite food is so that I know you’ve read the whole ad. Anyone who simply sends “hey I saw your ad and was interested!” Or some variation of that without an introduction will be ignored, simply sending me your favourite food will not work either as I use introductions to not only get to know the person I’m writing with a little bit and see if we click but to help break the ice a little bit and get the conversation going. My contact information is down below:

My discord: tiberionwars

My Gmail: [email protected]

Can’t wait to rp with anyone interested!

#rp #roleplay #oc rp #original rp #fandomless rp #sci fi rp

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roleplayfinder · 1 year

Text

Space adventures: 3.0

-You are 18+. I’m in my twenties and not comfortable rping with minors as my role plays contain NSFW themes and other mature content. Your characters are also required to be 18+ as well.

-You are capable of bringing ideas to the table, love to worldbuild, adore talking about our characters and aren’t afraid to throw in a plot twist every now and then.

-You will let me know if you have any problems with the rp and work through them with me as well as let me know if you need to take a break or might be busy. I will make sure to do the same.

-You are looking for a long term rp. I want this to be something that spans for months, maybe even years. Not just a couple days or weeks.

-You are comfortable with both MxM and FxM romances. I have no preference as to which one we do.

-You have discord.

I also ask for you to please not godmod, control my characters or spam me with hey/are you there/when are you going to reply/etc.

I AM NOT THE RPER FOR YOU IF:

-You are looking for someone to play as a female main character. I only play male main characters and cannot be persuaded to do otherwise.

-You cannot reply more than a couple of times a week. I tend to lose interest/motivation if I don’t get a reply at least every other day.

-You don’t have discord. I rp only on discord because I like making servers to keep things organised, other platforms just don’t work for me.

Taking over:

New recruit:

The mission:

Stowaway:

(Important point of notice: I will be playing the stowaway. You will be playing the ship’s captain.)

Where no one dares go:

Life in the known galaxies was once a peaceful experience. Aliens and humans alike peacefully lived their lives knowing that they were safe and mostly free from criminal encounters under the protection of the planetary leaders that formed the United worlds galactic alliance. Nowadays, such hope that any of those so-called leaders would look up from the desks that they were busy counting their money on was nonexistent. If you weren’t a criminal or someone who knew how to play their cards, life got pretty tough. Criminals ruled the roost with an iron fist, many species had gone back to the old ways of thinking less than highly of one another and most simply believed that perhaps this was the way things were meant to be. As a new threat slowly creeps over the horizon, it’s up to two unlikely heroes to team up and go further than anyone ever has before.

The price for freedom:

The number one rule for any criminal, whether they were a fearsome pirate, a smuggler with a tendency to shoot first and ask questions later or a wannabe thief who had yet to go beyond attempting to steal someone’s sandwiches without anyone noticing, was to never let themselves be put in a position where their freedom was at risk of being taken from them. Freedom was a gift that was not given on a whim to those who’d found themselves on the wrong side of the law with no intention of changing their ways and it was not something that came without a price on the rare occasions that it was offered to someone who had been on the path to a life where such a thing would never be granted. When one of the galaxies most feared criminals is finally captured and the alliance ship they are imprisoned on crashes after being targeted by a unknown organisation that is intent on taking over the universe itself, they are forced to work together with the only surviving crew member under the promise that they will be exempt from the punishment they once faced for their help. Will the promise be kept, or will it be broken in the worst way possible?

(Important point of notice: I will be playing the criminal. You will be playing the only surviving crew member of the ship that captured them.)

Enslaved:

(Important point of notice: I’ll be playing the slave/servant. You’ll be the master/mistress.)

Last chance:

(Important point of notice: I’ll be playing the criminal, you will be playing as one of the crew members or even the captain of the ship.)

My discord: tiberionwars

My Gmail: [email protected]

Can’t wait to rp with anyone interested!

#submission #eighteen and over #science fiction #science fiction roleplay #science fiction rp #oc #oc roleplay #oc rp

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findyourrp · 11 months

Text

Space adventures: 3.0

💫Hello ladies, gents and fellow rpers. After having to take an unexpected but necessary break from the wonderful world of rping I’m ready to dive back into the waters of writing and make some amazing new stories with some new partners. I’ve been in the writing game for over ten years at this point and consider myself to be fairly experienced when it comes to rping. That being said, I do not require you to have decades of writing experience in order to rp with me. In fact all I ask for anyone thinking of reaching out to me is that:

-You are 18+. I’m in my twenties and not comfortable rping with minors as my role plays contain NSFW themes and other mature content. Your characters are also required to be 18+ as well.

-You are capable of bringing ideas to the table, love to worldbuild, adore talking about our characters and aren’t afraid to throw in a plot twist every now and then.

-You will let me know if you have any problems with the rp and work through them with me as well as let me know if you need to take a break or might be busy. I will make sure to do the same.

-You are looking for a long term rp. I want this to be something that spans for months, maybe even years. Not just a couple days or weeks.

-You are comfortable with both MxM and FxM romances. I have no preference as to which one we do.

-You have discord.

I also ask for you to please not godmod, control my characters or spam me with hey/are you there/when are you going to reply/etc.

I AM NOT THE RPER FOR YOU IF:

-You are looking for someone to play as a female main character. I only play male main characters and cannot be persuaded to do otherwise.

-You cannot reply more than a couple of times a week. I tend to lose interest/motivation if I don’t get a reply at least every other day.

-You don’t have discord. I rp only on discord because I like making servers to keep things organised, other platforms just don’t work for me.

Taking over:

New recruit:

The mission:

One unit, one goal:

(Important point of notice: I will be playing the new pilot. you will be playing as a member of the team they’re joining.)

(Important point of notice: I will be playing the captured spacer. You will be playing the captain of the criminals.)

Stowaway:

(Important point of notice: I will be playing the stowaway. You will be playing the ship’s captain.)

Enslaved:

(Important point of notice: I’ll be playing the slave/servant. You’ll be the master/mistress.)

Last chance:

(Important point of notice: I’ll be playing the criminal, you will be playing as one of the crew members or even the captain of the ship.)

My discord: tiberionwars

My Gmail: [email protected]

Can’t wait to rp with anyone interested!

#submission #rp finder #rp #fandomless rp

0 notes

loveatfirstwriteblog · 3 years

Text

A Complete Analysis of Harry Potter

Like a lot of kids, we probably grew up on Harry potter. We were obsessed and rightly so. The universe created in the world of Harry Potter was, and is, a hugely successful one because of the fact it gave kids a world where magic exists! It seemed to be a great world to live in and it made even better with the fact that it included elements of empowerment, Whether it be showing girls can be just as successful if not more in various pursuits(Hermione), or the fact that even if you have a history of bad events, you can have a good heart(Hagrid), Harry Potter teaches us a lot.

JKR has written a mind-blowing plot in a world of magic, wizards, witches, wands, potions, friendship, love. Our inner-five-year olds--and actually most of our young adult selves too--jumps around excitedly at the beautifully penned words that creates an exit out of this world and into one where magic does exist.

As you get older, though, you begin to think of Harry Potter in a more critical fashion. The thought of “oh my god, it’s magic” no longer completely overrides my mind, but more of “but what are the laws regarding this? Can people just do this whenever they want? Are there no ethics?”

No matter how much we’re going to expose the flaws and plot holes in HP now, we’ll always love the books--we grew up on them! But some things just niggle you as you get older, and that’s what we’re going to be focusing on in this post.

Something I adore about the HP books is that everyone, including the “good guys”, has flaws. Harry has a “save the world alone, do first, think later” complex, a driving force that makes him go save Sirius, Ron is very, very insecure to a point where he ditches Harry twice, probably when Harry needed him the most, Hermione is a judgemental, narrow-minded nag (her thoughts on Luna, divination, Trelawney, basically anything that doesn’t fit her black and white world), Molly Weasley is misogynistic and blatantly favourites her children—probably being one of the main factors behind Ron’s insecurities, Arthur is condescending towards Muggles and makes several comments you cringe at while reading the books as a young adult/adult, Sirius, Snape, and Lupin still haven’t let go of their childhood grudges and hatred, etc etc etc.

These flaws are what make these characters so three-dimensional, so layered, so human. But the problem was, most of these flaws are never intentionally acknowledged. And honestly, that could have been such a good character arc, because the main characters are mostly students. No student is the same through their teenage years—they change, they evolve, they get over their flaws, they try to better themselves. I would have loved to see Ron becoming his own person, Hermione opening her mind up a little, etc.

Neville is not one of my favourites, but I love his growth and development, from someone who was scared of his potions professor to a man who faced down Lord Voldemort. Ginny Weasley could have had character development, from the trauma she went through in second year, but that was never written in. She went through this terrifying ordeal when she was only twelve years old, and jump to a year or two later and she’s absolutely fine, with no transition from her trauma whatsoever.

Some of JKR’s characters are brilliantly written and fleshed out, but some of her others lack the structure and complexity that usually comes with being vital to the plot—Ginny Weasley for one. Her internalised misogyny also plays a huge part in the way her female characters are written. We see this again in the case of how she wrote the character of Ginny.

Ginny Weasley is not a favourite of ours (if you don’t know that by now). She feels a lot like a convenient male daydream—when she waits for Harry to notice her by dating other guys, gets annoyed by Hermione “not knowing quidditch”, etc etc—and fits the “not like other girls” archetype too much, almost like she was made for it (hint hint). She’s portrayed to be strong-willed, spunky, and independent, and I love the idea, but I really don’t see it. To me, she’s a very shallow character, the least fleshed out one.

Just like James Potter wasn’t necessarily redeemed just because JKR said he was, and Ginny isn’t interesting just because JKR writes that she is.

Hermione also fits the archetype, but she’s JKR’s self-insert, so we really can’t say much about that.

To make things worse, Ginny and Hermione are pitted against each other in a very subtle way. Ginny is the sporty, pretty, flirty girl who’s never single from book 4. Hermione is the not-conventionally-attractive, nerdy girl who’s had a few dates here and there but never a relationship. They’re very different characters (the only thing they have in common is the archetype) but they’re against each other in the defence of Harry.

Another place where JKR’s misogyny shows up is the way other girls are written. Lavender Brown is shown as vapid and immature, just because she likes clothes and boys and didn’t know how to handle her first relationship. Cho Chang is perceived as shallow because she’s emotional. Pansy Parkinson is seen to be throwing herself at Draco Malfoy. The Weasleys hated Fleur because she was beautiful and sexy and French, and that was ever really resolved in the end (Molly accepted her, but we never got Ginny’s and Hermione’s opinions again). You see where we’re getting at? The typical “girly girls” are portrayed as insipid, shallow, emotional, and boring, while girls like Hermione and Ginny are seen to be fun and multilayered.

The problems with Harry Potter don’t just stop with non-fleshed out characters. There are plot devices that go unacknowledged, issues like blood purity—which is the basis of Voldemort’s tyranny—are never really resolved, huge Chekhov’s guns that aren’t fired.

A common misconception, which if cleared up could probably expose a load of problems in wizarding society by itself, is that the wizarding world is racist. It’s not racist. Muggles and Muggleborns are not a different race, they’re a different class, at least according to pureblood wizards. Mudblood is a classist insult (a direct reference to nobility blueblood and aristocracy).

Another factor that wasn’t talked about but made the HP world so complex and realistic is the inherent classism in every single pureblooded wizard, including the Weasleys.

The “Light” wizards all operate on the notion “at least I don’t kill or torture Muggles”. The Weasleys refuse to talk about Molly’s squib cousin who’s an accountant, the Longbottoms were so desperate for Neville to not be a squib they nearly killed him trying to force magic out of him, Ron makes fun of Filch for being a squib, thinks house-elves are beneath him, and confounds his driving instructor in his mid-thirties, the ministry workers kept obliviating that muggle at the quidditch World Cup, etc.

This could have been a metaphor for how small prejudices and microaggressions (kind of the wizarding equivalent of white privilege) enable discrimination and murder, if JKR had actually acknowledged it.

The parallel to Nazi Germany is very twisted and definitely shouldn’t be taken too far, but the Nazi ideology grew on the basis of everyday antisemitism, “that’s not that bad” little things. Voldemort’s circle and army grew because the wizard superiority complex festered and blew up in some people, egged on by a deeply classist society.

Ultimately, Harry Potter has very, very shoddy worldbuilding, the kind of worldbuilding that’s obsessed with answering the “what” of the wizarding world, rather than the “how” or the “why”, which is strange, considering that fantasy or dystopian-era novels’ driving plots and conflicts are usually answering the questions the worldbuilding raises--The Hunger Games and The Shadowhunter Chronicles are two of the best examples of brilliantly written YA fantasy and dystopian novels.

In HP, however, the main plot just avoids the questions the worldbuilding brings up like the bubonic plague.

Voldemort’s agenda is built on prejudice towards Muggles and Muggleborns, but the plot just validates the negative perception of them—at the end of the day, being a wizard is what’s special. The Statute of Secrecy is the foundation of the main concept—blood supremacists believe wizards shouldn’t be hidden away—but only vague, barely-there answers are given to why it exists (a Chekhov’s gun that was never fired).

There are love potions that function like date rape drugs (even Harry was given one by a girl who wanted him to ask her out), potions that force people to tell the truth, potions that literally let you disguise yourself as another person, but the ethics are never talked about, and the laws are so lax that three twelve-year-olds broke them and were never caught.

But at the same time, the worldbuilding is so authentic, because it transforms the wizarding world into straight-up fridge horror. The everyday horrors are just accepted and rolled with. A corrupt government, constant obliviation of Muggles, slavery that isn’t even talked about. These things aren’t obvious to us as readers, or to the wizards as characters, because they match up to the real world, which is filled with things that are horrifying if you dig deeper. The multiple, normalised forms of abuse, police brutality, the violence in prisons that nothing is done about, the glaringly obvious cultural problems we have with consent, etc.

The abusive authoritative figures in HP, like Rufus Scrimgeour, Cornelius Fudge, Dumbledore, Umbridge, etc, are so authentic because real-life politicians and people in high places of power behave that way, and their abuse is excused.

The wizarding world is just like the real world. Corrupt, prejudiced, messed up, but if you’re privileged, or at least have certain privileges, you’re probably not going to notice. The ultimate problem is that the plot doesn’t acknowledge a lot of fridge horror things are messed up either, which is why it miserably fails.

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starlene · 2 years

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Some Peter Jöback & Ola Salo Jesus Christ Superstar thoughts!

Negatives first: beforehand, I couldn’t really imagine Peter Jöback as Jesus – and, having seen the show, I’m afraid I still think the role doesn’t really suit him. Vocally, it seemed like he doesn’t quite have the range: he clearly gave it his everything, but it sounded like he was struggling with some of the high parts throughout the show, and near the end, he was having some trouble with the score in general. I’m not saying he was bad, I’m just saying I’ve heard others sing the role a way that sounds way, way more effortless. (A bit of that also goes for both Ola Salo and Janice, I got a vibe they weren’t at their absolute top vocal shape last night either, but unfortunately, Jöback was having the hardest time.)

What’s more, to me, Jöback didn’t really emanate that kind of magnetic charisma/energy that you’d expect from a character that’s repeatedly called a superstar. But I guess that’s a matter of personal taste! He’s of course a star in his own right in real life, so even if I wasn’t really feeling it here, clearly, some people are. Also, to be fair, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone getting the superstar vibe part of the role across 100% – but the other performers I’ve seen in the role have had these, for a lack of a better term, more stereotypical Jesus vibes going on, with the beard and the generally kind countenance and that sorta stuff. Didn’t really get a lot of that from Jöback, either.

Also, Anton Lundqvist as Herod. He was cringey and annoying and really made me wish the song would be over already, even more so than usually. Ugh. Next time, I wish to see some Alice Cooper level nonsense when it comes to that character, instead of just garden variety annoying! [Edited to add: I suppose the over-the-top “we’re making fun of the king” vibe of Herod’s Song must’ve had a different effect on Swedish audiences, likely somewhat redeeming the annoyance (in case you’re not a fan of the monarchy, at least)? It’s just that for me, as a citizen of the republic of Finland, it didn’t really hit anywhere close to home.]

Other than that, though, I liked everybody!

Ola Salo was a good Judas (and gave me the feeling that, had I seen him as Jesus back when he used to play that part, I would’ve felt those superstar vibes) – he was absolutely overacting, but in a big arena setting, I don’t think that’s necessarily a problem. His Superstar was simply delicious. They went all out with it, with the super campy golden jumpsuit and body paint, I was kinda giggling under my breath all the way through. Loved it.

I liked how Janice gave Mary Magdalene this very frustrated edge – acting-wise, she did what she could to give the poorly written part some depth. It was cool to see Simon Zealotes played by Linda Pritchard (all-female touring version of JCS when??) And I was of course all heart eyes for Patrik Martinsson as Pilate! I’ve been a big fan of his Judas since forever, so I’m super glad I finally got the chance to see him live, even if it’s a different role this time. His Pilate had a good mix of authority and inner turmoil.

I’m unsure what to think about the 1973 movie style framing, with the theatre kids arriving in their everyday clothes and picking their roles/costumes. I don’t really know what they wanted to get across with that, it felt more unnecessary than anything to me? But other than that, I think the direction (by Fredrik “Benke” Rydman) was pretty solid. Nothing especially unique or innovative, but nothing too silly or weird either. In short, it was a well-made production that’s a good fit for a big arena (especially when compared to my recent Så som i himmelen experience). Extra credit for Robert Hvenström’s light design, there were some really cool lighting moments!

Too bad that I didn’t really click with Jöback!Jesus, but I’m glad I went nevertheless. I got to meet some friends, and a bunch more people saw the show tonight, so Finnish musical Twitter is having a good time discussing the show right now. It feels so delightfully normal after the all the nonsense of the past two years. I’m thriving.

#theatre tales.#Nordic musical theatre

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thickenmyblood · 3 years

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hey maca :)) I have sth that I’d love to hear your input on! (wall of text incoming so beware- I’m absolutely not mad if you don’t want to answer lmao). Basically it’s about how you portray women in your works and to what extent you see that portrayal mirrored in the canon books. I have noticed that a lot of writers tend to go a traditional route with for example daughters not being heirs like you also mentioned in an answer for a wtsioa ask on here. Considering the cultures Vere and Akielos are based on that’s obviously very logical and a lot of authors (including you) make it work fantastically! Yet personally I never got the vibe of Vere and Akielos being as patriarchal in canon, mostly because the Information we get is kind of confusing. On one hand damen is a walking manosphere (and. all of Akielos in general as well) without any prominent female figures in his life but on the other hand damen only ever speaks appreciatively of for example the female vaskian warriors. Both countries seem to ban women from the army yet Damen also refers to a warrior queen. The regent is a total misogynist but with the wording Laurent uses it almost seems like that is more the exception and not the general rule of veretian court life. Both countries also have ties to Vask, an exclusive matriarchy and Akielos is said to be similar to Patras which Pacat has stated is also partly a strong matriarchy due to vaskian occupations in the past. I could go on for a lot longer but I guess that damens overall positive attitude towards women and especially stereotypically spoken masculine women is what sticks out the most to me. It just seems kind of misplaced in a world that supposedly is as sexist as the original cultures from our world. Which is why I’d say both countries do have gender roles but are overall a lot more egalitarian than their respective real world og cultures. But that’s only my take and I’d love to hear more on what others think about the portrayal of women in canon and how they chose to portray it in fanfiction. Love you and your new work, hope you’re doing well❤️

HELLO!!! Thank you for asking me interesting stuff :, ) you always have the best questions and my sad little inbox is open to you any time, friend. I divided this into parts, so:

My portrayal of women: I need to work on this a lot lmao. I’m not proud of any female character I have ever written for this fandom, and I’m also not proud to say I struggle horribly when it comes to writing female OCs, especially if the story is not about a female character that is a literal projection of me. Or Bella Swan (yes, Twilight literally shaped my sad little brain and the way I write and consume fiction).

Authors writing female characters in a “traditional” way (for fantasy settings): I can’t speak for other authors but I definitely think, in my case, that using the “it’s a patriarchal society, women have no rights, women can’t be heirs, etc.” blueprint is a matter of being lazy. It’s quick, and easy, and it’s been done before so we all know how it works and a) it’s unlikely that you’ll mess it up (in the plot hole kind of way) and b) it’s obvious that most readers know how the usual system works and so you don’t have to spend paragraphs or even chapters explaining it to them. I am very lazy when it comes to world-building for fics. Why? Because when I’m writing fanfiction I don’t give two shits about the world, I just care about the characters doing Things and having Feelings. The moment you start to question these issues (a society where women can join the army, where they can be heirs, where maybe they can have multiple husbands, etc.) a billion issues arise because it’s not the “usual way” and so you’ll have to deal with “unusual problems”. See: plot holes, info-dumping, etc.

Vere and Akielos in canon: I think the books get very, very confusing at times when it comes to gender roles in that specific world. They also get very confusing about how royalty works, in my opinion. So:

Damen never mentions female influences in his life, not even nannies or wetnurses or anything. He mentions past queens and his mother, but even then… It’s always struck me as “what the actual fuck” that we get no information on Egeria. In TSP, he doesn’t even read as curious to me, especially when I think of that line that goes something like “oh, well, he’d never asked how tall she was”.

Then you have Jokaste, who is highborn and also… perhaps trained in politics? It’s unclear to me if she’s ever been directly involved in meetings or been an active member of the Council or even been allowed to study these issues. Clearly, she’s smart and capable and cunning, but like… how? Did she have private tutors? Is she a self-made woman? Like, what’s up with that? Are women allowed to engage in public politics? Are they allowed to be kyroi?

IMO, Damen complimenting the female warriors in Vask has to do with how appreciative he is of war-related stuff. Like, he thinks people with his own qualities are neat. We see this time and time again in the books—having honor, being brave, respecting one’s family, protecting those who need protecting… He compliments these things when he sees them in others, especially in Laurent. Obviously one of the big changes in Damen as a character is that he goes from being daddy’s boy to being like “well, actually… maybe war isn’t always the answer, and maybe war isn’t always honorable”. The Vaskian warriors prove themselves worthy of praise in a “manly” way, if that makes sense. (In the same way, Laurent proves himself in the Okton, not so much to Damen but to other Akielons). So, in essence, War > Any issues he may have about women doing Stuff.

Don’t judge me for this but I can’t remember the Regent talking about women. Do you have any quotes about that? I feel like Book 1 is super rich when it comes to world-building stuff and yet it’s the book I remember the least. I know he obviously has a preference for boys and not girls, but I don’t recall him having interactions with Vannes or ladies at court? I’M SORRY I’M SO STUPID but I don’t own the book so I can’t exactly word search my way out of this one, and so instead of saying stupid stuff, I’m asking anyone reading this (lol, you and my mom probably) to please tell me what canon says on this issue.

Ties to Vask: Er, yeah, I mean… They’re clearly not at war with Vask and have some sort of economic deal (there are Vaskian pets in Arles? Which makes me wonder if they, like, buy them from Vask? Or if the pets are Vaskian and turn into pets in Vere? Slaves are not like pets so I don’t know?), BUT just because they have deals with this kingdom/are on good terms with the ruler does not mean they necessarily approve? Like, maybe they’re like “yeah, it’s weird they give women so much power, but also I need that silk/leather/WHATEVER, so I’ll shut up about that”.

“Akielos is said to be similar to Patras which Pacat has stated is also partly a strong matriarchy due to Vaskian occupations in the past.” Is this in the books or is this something she said in an interview/post-releasing the trilogy? I know in the books there’s a quote that Akielos and Patras are similar because they both have slaves, but other than that I can’t quite remember anything about Patras? Like, I don’t recall Pacat giving us extensive and thorough world-building on either nation, at all. Once again, I am asking you for more explanations on this because I literally don’t remember.

4. My opinion and a Stupidity Disclaimer: As I’ve said above, there’s a lot of stuff I don’t remember and so I’m not trying to preach to anyone reading this or even saying that I hold the truth about… anything. I’m answering questions as I see fit and asking more questions when I run out of answers.

I believe world-building is not one of Captive Prince’s strong points. I will not elaborate on this because this is already long enough but there is simply, in my opinion, not enough material to reach any solid conclusions when it comes to world-building questions such as the role of women in Vere and Akielos, how compulsory homosexuality affects the development of highborn men and women in Vere, exactly what makes Akielos’ view on women different from Vere’s (if there’s any difference at all), the history of gender roles in this world and how it’s evolved up until canon, how Lamen can solve the heir issue without recurring to, once again, “the usual stuff” (concubines, bastards, marriage to women, etc.). It’s clear from what I’ve read that Pacat has come a long way as a writer and that her new trilogy has a lot more in-depth explanations to world-building questions, but this is not the case with CP, and so I’m afraid my answer to most of this is “I don’t know, and I don’t think anyone can know for sure”.

Lastly, I think I struggle a lot with understanding the role of women in this universe because I simply did not see enough women doing stuff, so I don’t know what’s permitted, what’s unacceptable, what’s illegal, what is straight-up execution worthy, etc. This is not me complaining about the lack of female characters in CP, at all, which I know is contradictory to stuff I’ve said in the past (I answered a couple asks a year ago about how I’d wished we’d gotten Vannes’ POV or Jokaste’s POV in the short stories). I’ve changed my mind, and so I think Pacat is entitled to write whatever she wants, just like I’m entitled to talk shit about KR with any living soul who will listen lmao.

To end this on a spicy note, I think sometimes we consume the wrong media and then complain because it doesn’t have what we wanted. If you’re looking for a trilogy with strong, fleshed-out female characters, Captive Prince is not for you. If you’re looking for a trilogy on female struggles and, I don’t know, defying… the male gaze… Captive Prince is not for you. There are plenty of books out there that focus exclusively on female characters, featuring sapphic relationships, and dealing with gender issues. WHICH IS NOT TO SAY WE SHOULDN’T BE HAVING THESE DISCUSSIONS. This is not about this particular question, but more about a lot of posts I’ve seen floating around… complaining about Pacat’s writing and the themes she didn’t explore.

If anyone has made it this far, thank you for reading, and know this is NOT me telling you what to think. This post is an open question that anyone can engage with, although I hope people will engage with this directly and on this platform, instead of… taking it somewhere else where I sadly can’t engage back! Unlike what happened with our awesome fat Laurent discussion, I will be replying to any questions I get on this (Note: I did not reply to most of those questions because a long time had passed and they were sort of repetitive).

#caramellaurent #captive prince #i'm using the main tag because i think... maybe someone has answers?#also lol melli i see what u did here... u're distracting me from writing for the bang #i see how it is #discourse #is this discourse tho?#it's just me asking stuff #discourse (questioned)

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lucemferto · 3 years

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Niki Nihachu & Barbara Kean

Gonna drop something controversial real quick.

Niki Nihachu is the most tragic character on the Dream SMP – and I don’t mean in the sense of her having a tragic story (though she is up there), but in the sense that she is tragically mishandled.

I want to start out by saying that this essay is by no means an attack on the content creator Niki Nihachu or her abilities as a performer. She is frequently one of the strongest actors on the SMP and I have no idea how much of her character writing was within her power. How much of it was improv, how much pre-planned, how much something she genuinely wanted to do and how much stuff she just stumbled into or – in the worst-case scenario – was forced upon her. I don’t know.

The Dream SMP is not very transparent when it comes to their creative process. As such I can only judge it as a discerning viewer and English major dropout, who retained some half-remembered stuff about narratology.

So, a few weeks ago, I tumbled on here that Niki’s character journey reminded me a lot of the character Barbara Kean from the hit TV-show Gotham. Then I got an ask asking me to elaborate. This is the elaboration.

Barbara Kean

So, a quick crash course for people who haven’t seen Gotham (the greatest comic book show on Television, seriously, what are you doing with your life?!): Barbara Kean was a major female character throughout all five seasons of Gotham – and not once during those five seasons did the writers ever figure out what they wanted to do with her.

Every 10-12 episodes or so, Barbara’s role shifted completely. She started out as cop-protagonist Jim Gordon’s girlfriend at home and moral compass, then became part of a bisexual love triangle, then a hard-drinking jealous party girl with a backstory as repressed, lonely rich kid, before being kidnapped by a serial killer and ultimately making her perfect metamorphosis into the psychotic ex-girlfriend trope.

And that was Season 1.

Since then, she became the pseudo-Harley Quinn to the pseudo-Joker, a whip-wielding dominatrix, the obligatory female member in a supervillain squad, some sort of information broker, a mafia kingpin, the leader of a girl-power posse and – my favourite – the reincarnated wife of an ancient immortal who also controls all of Gotham and transferred that control over to her before that plot-point was dropped harder than a half-dead Oswald Cobblepot of the Gotham piers.

Also, she’s Batgirl’s mom.

In short, it’s a mess – but that’s what makes Gotham kinda fun.

Character Cohesion

Now, obviously, Niki’s character journey has not been quite as extreme. But it falls into the same traps, I find. Namely, that there’s just a distinct lack of character cohesion or character continuity.

Now, character cohesion or character continuity doesn’t mean that the arcs these characters undertake can’t be explained in a logical way. Barbara’s character journey is logical in the sense that you can explain it all with in-universe logic – but it’s not logical from a narratological sense now, is it?

Character Cohesion basically means that a character’s journey is reflected in their personal conflict – their Want vs. Need. Their arc is the natural continuation of what was set-up in previous sequences. Everything falls into a whole with Set-up, Confrontation, Resolution – we set up the character’s Want, their Want and Need are conflicting, the Want vs. Need is resolved. Ideally this coincides with the plot beats of the large conflict surrounding the cast.

When you look at Barbara in Season 1 of Gotham, you’re not thinking “This one right here – she’s the reincarnated wife of Ra’s Al Ghul”. Because why would you? There was no set-up; it’s not part of what her character was about in this moment – or any moment before that concept was introduced. It’s not needed for her character conflict (or any thematic conflicts for that matter).

It’s quite transparently just something that is affixed to her so that she has something until the writers come up with the next at which that first thing will dropped, underdeveloped.

Niki in Season 1

Niki follows the same route, unfortunately. She’s set-up as the resistance in L’Manburg, allies herself with Eret and HBomb until – oops – it doesn’t end mattering, because that entire side of the “plot” is completely underdeveloped. Just be a damsel until Wilbur can swoop in and save you, Niki.

Okay, but now she has a big moment with Tommy and Tubbo just after the pit-scene. “We’ll figure something out”, she says. “We need L’Manburg back”. This is all before the backdrop of Wilbur completely giving in to his role as a villain and Techno’s apparent “betrayal”.

So, now, surely, Niki is gonna affect change in Pogtopia and will have some influence on either Tommy or Wilbur, the two people she’s closest to. What’s this? Her biggest contribution is holding a birthday party where Quackity convinces Wilbur to hold off on his TNT-plan? And after that … she’s just gonna be part of the Pogtopia-masses?

Now, I like Wilbur’s writing and Season 1 generally, but when it comes to Niki (and Eret) something went terribly wrong. Both of them provided many a set-up – none of which were taken advantage of, unfortunately.

And, just to be clear, I’m not putting the blame on Niki here (or at least not most of it). Season 1 was pretty firmly in Wilbur’s hand … and Season 2 was a train wreck.

Niki in Season 2

Niki is – for the most part of Season 2 – a nothing character. She has no real conflict, no character beats, no arc. This is because through some unfortunate writing decisions, Season 2 is pretty squarely focused on a specific set of characters – and even fewer of those characters are granted a fully explored, completed character arc.

It all culminates in her Doomsday villain arc – a moment that can be logically explained from both an in-character perspective and a meta-perspective, but unfortunately, it’s not justified from a technical writing point of view.

Niki burning down the L’Mantree is her “Ra’s Al Ghul’s reincarnated wife”-moment. It’s a big statement that put her character on the map for a large part of the audience again. It was a striking visual. It could not be ignored.

Most of that was because it was a stark departure from her characterization in Season 1. Now, such a departure doesn’t necessarily have to be bad. The problem comes in when

a.) The full potential of the character in their previous narrative role had not yet been fully or even partly exhausted

b.) It cuts into an on-going character arc and drastically changes its course

c.) It’s not foreshadowed or developed properly.

And most of those are true for Niki’s character. She was not necessarily underdeveloped but underexplored in Season 1 and had no consistent storyline going on in Season 2. She was a witness to Tommy’s trial, but that was never worked into an on-going storyline for her. No matter how much we retroactively pretend like this turn to villainy, this breakdown, was brewing deep inside of her – there was no foreshadowing.

The reason, why I said it’s understandable from a meta-perspective, is that the content creator Niki Nihachu had a self-admittedly hard time getting her foot in in Season 2 – because Season 2, for as much love as I will heap upon Tommy’s and Dream’s storyline, was a pretty messy.

So, the villain arc was not well foreshadowed and Niki’s turn was developed, but what happened after she was in it?

Niki in Season 3

Well, unfortunately that problem of an inconsistent storyline never really went away for her. In the beginning of Season 3, she hatched her wagons with Jack Manifold, which was a pretty big tonal shift – from darkly tragic to cartoonish villainy.

But as Jack kept developing his character in that lane and following up on big plot development with corresponding character moments, Niki again just … vanished. She then changed gears again, joining the Syndicate – a great idea if only the Syndicate actually streamed together and developed a storyline and group cohesion.

As it stands right now, Niki’s character exists in the negative space of the fandom imaginations. We are given some scraps and good character moments – her sleeping in a jail cell, “I started baking again”, her secret city – but those moments never coalesce into a full-fledged storyline.

Her character’s journey is still as fragmented and underexplored as it ever was. I really hope that – with Wilbur’s revival and the new character conflict that seems to arise from that for her – she manages to finally get the foot in and get the storyline and dynamic arc she deserves.

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jeannereames · 3 years

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Was Alexander’s relationship with his father as bad as it had been portrayed in movies, books, etc?

The nature of Alexander and Philip’s relationship sometimes depends on what scholar you ask.

Ernst Fredricksmeyer famously penned, “Alexander and Philip: Emulation and Resentment” in 1989/90 (Classical Journal 85: 300-315). But Beth Carney has not only pointed out that Philip and Olympias more often worked in concert than at odds, but Philip and Alexander were more often on the same page than at odds too.

Glass half-full, or half-empty?

IMO, the conflict between Alexander and Philip in Philip’s last 2 years, or really, last year-and-a-half has been badly overblown. This came up recently in some advising I was doing, where the other person was going on about their mutual dislike, and I remarked that they’d far more often cooperated. He replied (paraphrased) “But they were fighting at the end, weren’t they?” as if that was the sum total of 20 years. And in fact, their relationship actually seemed to have been on the mend. (Something that’s shown in the last chapter of Dancing with the Lion; they still disagree, but they’re getting along much better.)

So I think much depends on how one prefers to see it. I’ve also noted that male scholars are more likely to make much of, or at least make more of, the conflict than female scholars. I don’t know if that owes to memories of their own teen years, or what. 😉

Perhaps the best way to think about it is to recall Alexander’s AGE. He was a late-teen boy in a society that praised aggressive, agonistic behavior and boasting. As a parent, you just hope they learned something when they were younger and can manage to survive until the neurocircuitry in their frontal lobes finishes maturing. Not that Philip was thinking about Alexander’s immature frontal lobe, but I’m sure he picked his battles, just like any halfway sensible parent does now. And like many high-blooded teen boys, Alexander could be a royal pain in the ass (pun intended).

I will add that Philip didn’t have the best paternal model, as he was, first, a hostage in Illyria for at least part of his childhood, then his father died and he became a hostage again, in Thebes, as a pre-teen/young teen. Makes it tough to figure out what a Good Father looks like. But I do think he tried.

When one reorients to regard Alexander’s early life from his point of view to that of the adults, his behavior takes on a different cast. That’s one reason I made Philip a POV character in the novels (and Aristotle, and Amyntor too). That doesn’t mean genuine conflicts can’t be present, but part of the irony of the final line in Rise (which I won’t repeat to avoid spoilers) is that Alexander will turn around and do many of the same things he criticized his father for doing. He lacks experience of kingship.

The tragedy for them is that Philip died before their recent blow-up quite resolved itself, so it remained an unhealed wound for Alexander, I think.

Drama gets remembered. Peaceful interactions, not so much. Yet supposedly Philip exchanged a number of letters with his son in which he offered advice on all manner of aspects of ruling. Maybe those letters are invented by Plutarch, but not necessarily. I recall being struck by that little detail when I first read it, years ago, and put them in the novel. They’ll get mentioned again later too, when Alexandros finds them again. I think there was as much “education” going on as “resentment” in that relationship. Maybe a lot more education.

The total of any relationship can’t and shouldn’t be measured by its final years.

I’ve written some other entries about Philip and Alexander on a similar theme here:

On Philip’s Ambitions (compared to Alexander)

Alexander and ‘Daddy Issues’ (short)

How did Philip Feel about Alexander (different tact, looking at source problems that interfere with answering)

Philip, Amyntor, and Fathering in Dancing with the Lion (novel-specific, obviously)

#asks #Philip II #Philip II of Macedon #Alexander the Great #Alexander of Macedon #ancient Macedonia #royal fathers and sons #Classics #tagamemnon #ancient Greece

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