#it's a small complaint in the grand scheme of things but i think it's illustrative of her general lack of care

[ihavedonenothingright]

Working on a side-by-side comparison of The Song of Achilles (Madeline Miller) and The Persian Boy (Mary Renault) because I hold that a large volume of the issues in TSOA's characterization of Patroclus come directly from Miller's attempts to make him a similar viewpoint character to Bagoas, and therefore, cast Achilles in a similar light to Renault's Alexander. I will note that Miller has not yet (to my knowledge) named The Alexander Trilogy specifically as an inspiration for The Song of Achilles, but she has named Renault as an inspiration, as well as a few other books of hers, so I think the likelihood is high she was referencing it. It's fairly obvious to me that the first line of The Song of Achilles is in the same vein as the first line of The Persian Boy, and I suspect that is intentional; both as a form of homage to the structure of epic poetry, and as a means of emphasizing the importance familial ties will play in the text.

"My father was a king and the son of kings" vs. "Lest anyone should suppose I am a son of nobody..."

Miller's Patroclus is not beat-for-beat Renault's Bagoas, but I do believe he's inspired by and designed to almost contrast with him. Bagoas identifies deeply with his lineage and his father, who were taken from him early, while Patroclus does not identify with his lineage and was rejected by his father. Bagoas wants to be a man by the terms of his society, but is prevented from doing so, while Patroclus rejects most of his culture's aspects of manhood, and the one time he meets them he is killed. It's important, however, that both of them are noncombatants (by choice or no) because it positions them away from the acts of killing, rape, and destruction their Special Blond Guys are doing, thereby making the blondies more likable. But while Bagoas's position as a noncombatant is rooted in history, Patroclus's is a notable departure from his position in The Iliad.

I'll go more in depth on all of this once I have the time, but if you haven't read any of Renault's works, I highly recommend them. Prepare yourself for a... flawed portrayal of Persia though.

[xb-squaredx]

Sword Characters in Smash: Unraveling the Hate

The Super Smash Bros. franchise has a plethora of fighters, especially in the latest release, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. With the announcement of more DLC fighters at E3 2019, most fans seem quite happy with the announcement of Banjo and Kazooie though many are quite split on the Hero from Dragon Quest joining the roster. Paired with all of the overjoyed and hyped reactions, there are plenty of people that are displeased, and I hear a common refrain from the mouths of those people: “Ugh, not another sword character.” For years now, I hear this repeated again and again, and the complaints only seem to get louder as time goes on. So I’d like to take the time to weigh both side of this argument here. Are sword-based fighters in Smash worth of all this hate, or are people over-reacting? The answer might surprise you.

From what I gather, there are about three common arguments against sword-based fighters. There are too many of them as-it-is, they all play the same, and they’re annoying to fight, dominating the tier lists. That last one is really the only one that I think has much merit, so let’s talk about that one first.

TOP TIER SWORDS

Throughout most of the Smash games, sword-based characters tend to be pretty good in the grand scheme of things. If not the best character, they’re still pretty high up there. Keep in mind, character viability is always going to be a subjective thing. That said, I can see why people would say sword characters are pretty good. They tend to be fast, they have great range, and because of that range, it can be hard for opponents to get in on them. Sword attacks have what you would call a “disjointed hitbox.” That is to say, their attacks have no hurtbox connected to them. So if, say, Donkey Kong throws out a punch and it collides with Lucina’s sword…DK will end up getting hurt while Lucina won’t feel a thing. This means sword attacks have a greater priority when attacks clash, sword characters largely avoid trading blows (on average anyway), and there are indeed a good amount of characters that can struggle when faced with a sword character.

Of course, that goes both ways. Sword characters have range on their side, but get past that range and they’re in trouble. Look at some of the better characters across the games and we see plenty of other characters facing off against sword characters. Fox, Inkling, Snake, Bayonetta, and so on, they all can take on the swordies, so it’s not like they’re an almighty match-up. And again, just because you have a hill to climb against a sword character, that doesn’t mean victory is impossible. I can totally understand not liking fighting against sword characters or not enjoying how they play, and at that point it’s just a preference. But I often don’t see people frame their dislike of sword characters like this, and instead they latch on to the two other narratives I illustrated above.

TOO MANY SWORDS

“We already have like fifty sword characters!” “Oh great, another Fire Emblem rep, cuz we needed twenty of them!” Hyperbole it may be, there seems to be a common argument that we already have “too many” sword characters in Smash and we don’t need any more. The way some people talk, the vast majority of the roster wields a sword. I was curious on the exact ratio, so I did some math.

Starting from the very first Smash game, Smash 64, we have a grand total of ONE sword character, Link, in a roster of 12. You get to Melee, and we gain Young Link, Marth and Roy, for a ratio of 4 to 26. Brawl, assuming we count Zero Suit Samus and Sheik as separate characters, has 37 characters, and only 6 sword-based fighters. We lost Roy and Young Link, though we gained Ike and Toon Link, alongside Pit and Meta Knight. Perhaps coincidentally, Meta Knight’s also considered to be so good as to be broken and low-and-behold, he has a sword. I hear murmurings of sword hate around this point, but it really doesn’t get into high gear until we get to Smash 4.

Alongside the returning six swordies, we gained eight more sword-based characters, with a grand total of 14 sword characters out of the game’s 58 character roster. So that’s Mii Swordfighter, Robin and Shulk in the base game, Roy returning as DLC, as well as Corrin and Cloud as DLC, alongside the “Echo Fighters” Lucina and Dark Pit. Those last two got quite a bit of hate, as they were seen as “wasted slots,” slightly altered versions of Marth and Pit, respectively. That nearly half of the DLC were sword characters wasn’t a fact lost on many. This is where the narrative really got into high gear and complaints started to flood in about there being too many sword-based characters. For all the complaints though, said characters are still just shy of being a fourth of the roster overall. Also keep in mind, Smash 4 introduced us to a LOT of newcomers that were quite unique. Wii Fit Trainer used Yoga, Villager used…anything it could get its hands on, the likes of Mega Man, Pac-Man, Ryu and Bayonetta got in with extremely faithful movesets, and yet people focus on the small handful of characters added in with a bladed weapon. It seems especially weird to hone in on Dark Pit and Lucina, as they were made full-fledged characters late into development, long after the roster was already decided, so it’s not like they were actively taking slots from some other requested character. Concerning the DLC fighters too, Roy was a fan-favorite that many wanted back, while Cloud was a popular fan request that many felt would never happen, and yet many people were hyped when he was revealed. But the hate persisted, and then we get to Smash Ultimate…

Since Ultimate has EVERY character that’s ever been in the series, we see all of the previous swordies back, even in cases where they’re kinda redundant like Young Link. Ganondorf finally gets to use a sword now, so I begrudgingly count him as a sword character, and I’m counting Joker as a swordy as well, even if it is a dagger. While we still don’t know the final two DLC fighters for the Fighters Pass, assuming they’re BOTH sword characters, and counting all the various Echoes as their own fighters, at most we’ll have a ratio of 21 sword characters to a staggering 80 total fighters. At this point I really have to question why people complain about a glut of sword characters, when you have nearly 60 other choices! Most fighting games don’t even have rosters half this large! Looking at all the newcomers for Ultimate too, there’s not a sword in sight until you get to the DLC. Incineroar is our first wrestling-themed fighter, Simon and Richter Belmont give us our first whip-users, while Ridley and King K. Rool are interesting twists on the heavy character archetype, and Inkling can be a kid OR a squid! Super unique overall…with the exception of Isabelle I suppose, but even then, she’s only the second fighter that uses and abuses hammer space, so she’s still contributing to a niche. Now, there IS Chrom as an Echo fighter of Roy, but again…it’s not like adding him in took substantial time and resources away from making sure we got some long-requested fighters that were made more-or-less from scratch.

(An image I’ve seen floating around on this topic gives a pretty good picture of the ratio, circa Smash 4 at least. Can’t seem to find it’s creator though!)

Overall I’d think that with the numbers all laid out, we can see that sword fighters only make up roughly a fourth of the roster on the whole, hardly a majority and plenty of other completely unique fighters available for people tired of clanging swords. So that leaves us with one other issue.

“THEY ALL GOT A COUNTER”

Behind the argument of there being too many swordies, the next most frequent argument I see is that they all “play the same,” and as such, people find them boring. To be fair, there ARE a fair amount of characters that are virtually identical. All the Links, and roughly half the Fire Emblem cast. At least in those cases, it does make sense. Every Link in all of his games uses a sword, and usually has bows and arrows, a boomerang and bombs, so I see no reason to get rid of those moves. Would I like them to be more distinct? Sure, but it makes sense why they play similarly.

When it comes to the Fire Emblem characters, there’s also at least some basis for similarities, from a development standpoint. Roy, and thus Chrom, as well as Lucina, were “bonus” characters added in due to either popularity or to promote a game, and made with Marth as a base to cut costs and make development deadlines. While, again, I’d rather all of them were completely distinct, they’re lucky to be in at all. For what it’s worth too, all of these examples DO have some differences between them, certainly more differences than, say, Peach vs. Daisy or Simon vs. Richter. Young Link’s speed gives him a totally different combo game than the other two Links, for one, whereas with Marth and Roy, they favor hitting from range, or from close-up respectively, with Lucina and Chrom serving as “easier” versions of each. It’s also not as if they can just give them different weapons either, as then their portrayals wouldn’t be faithful. Like it or not, the main characters of Fire Emblem games use swords, so you can’t fault the Smash games when they only have so much to work with. Overall, yes, there are a number of sword characters that are quite similar to each other, but there’s usually a reason behind it, and even then, that’s not to say there aren’t plenty of exceptions.

(via Smash Wiki)

From Brawl onward, it feels as if Sakurai and the developers tried to make any and all sword fighters as distinct as possible, almost like they saw this kind of complaint coming. Ike hits like an absolute truck, Robin and Hero are proficient mages alongside using swords (and have resource management systems to boot), while Corrin has their whole dragon shapeshifting thing going on. The list goes on when it comes to uniqueness to the swordies: Shulk’s Monado Arts, Cloud’s Limit Breaks, and Joker’s Persona...need I say more here? If people are calling all the sword characters clones of each other, then they’re just not paying attention.

Really, it seems more so that people have problems with all of the Fire Emblem reps than anything else. Smash 4 got some flak for giving us four characters from that series, while older franchises like Metroid or Donkey Kong gained no new representation. There’s honestly a weird blind-spot when it comes to people complaining about only certain swordies. Link gets a free pass for the most part (outside of people being annoyed that there’s a Toon Link AND a Young Link in Ultimate), and few complained when Cloud was added but with Shulk or Hero, everyone loses their minds. At times I’ve heard people say “Not another anime sword man,” in which there seems to be emphasis on the anime part of the equation. That tells me that perhaps it’s just a bias against anime, or overly Japanese characters than their weapon of choice. On top of this, the complaints mainly seem to come from Western fans, and with that in mind, the blind hate makes a bit more sense.

(via Reddit)

Up until Awakening, Fire Emblem was fairly niche outside of Japan, while it was rather popular in its native country. Then there’s the inclusion of Dragon Quest’s Hero, a series that is ridiculously popular in Japan, but never really got much play outside of it. It stands to reason that people would be more dismissive of characters from series they don’t have a long history with then, and would help explain why Cloud somehow escapes this unscathed. Final Fantasy VII is essentially THE JRPG that broke into the mainstream in the West, and the Persona series isn’t too far behind in popularity abroad, explaining Joker’s own hype reveal. But let’s go deeper here: the Zelda series is more popular in the West than in Japan, so Link being held in high regard makes sense. Now, am I generalizing a bit here, acting as if all Westerners think alike? Sure. There’s going to definitely be people that don’t subscribe to that notion, and there are certainly people happy to see Hero in Smash or Shulk or Chrom from the West. But this goes a long way towards explaining the somewhat inconsistent hate directed at these characters, and at this point, it feels less like hate and more like indifference or ignorance than anything else.

The Super Smash Bros. games are huge, filled with all kinds of fans, young and old, hardcore or casual. When you get that big, you’re not going to be able to please everyone, and I’m in no way suggesting with this post that people CAN’T dislike a certain character in the game. Everyone has their own tastes and reasons for thinking what they do, but I began writing this post as a way to try to figure out where this somewhat venomous reaction came from. Smash is a series I absolutely adore, and it saddens me to see negativity surrounding it in cases where it doesn’t seem just. It’s really more a case of ignorance than outright malice in most cases I think, and I think the majority of fans are really appreciative, with a small (if vocal) minority giving off the impression that we’re all ungrateful, when it’s simply not true. There will always be some bad apples that try to sour the bunch, but hopefully anyone that reads this comes away with a greater appreciation for what goes into these games, and maybe, just maybe, if the next big Smash reveal involves a sword, there’ll be just a bit less dismissal directed towards it.

-B

[allen-howell]

On Power in the MU Music Dept

As a relative newcomer to the music department at Millersville, I have experienced both positive and negative aspects of power distribution and I’d like to share my perspective for the purpose of making a positive contribution to the future success of the department.

Dr. Houlahan (MU Music Dept. Chair) is a gifted leader. He has been attempting to strike a balance between the survival of the department and fulfilling its mission. On the one hand, he is aware of national trends that reward departments for doing more with less (and the extinction of departments that fail to be efficient) but he also is aware that preparing future music professionals is labor intensive, requiring one­-on­-one time with professors. Additionally, he is aware that students are human beings and that the assembly line approach is not effective in producing excellent human beings who also excel in music.

Dr. Houlahan has explained to me more than once that he has diligently sought to keep the ratio of tenured to adjunct faculty low in order to save money and to make retrenchment less likely. My feeling, however, is that he also has sought to maintain control of the direction of the department by using this approach. Not only are younger teachers less expensive, but because of their lack of political clout, they also are less likely to try to hijack the direction of the department that Drs. Houlahan and Tacka have put in place over the years. An effective strategy to keep costs down also has proven to be effective in keeping control concentrated within the small number of tenured and promoted professors in the music department’s inner circle. To be painfully specific, the best way to ensure the centralization of power has been to ensure that young faculty with little power do not grow up to become older faculty with more power. It is the same sort of tactic used by kings who have too many children.

I have been pondering these ideas regularly since Dr. Hubert Toney left us after only one year. I also have been noticing how the culture of this department affects people­­--current and former faculty members, current and former students, potential students, students who were formerly music majors, and so forth.

Some of the leaders of the music department have attempted to discourage me from the very beginning. Like Dr. Toney, I am a 50­-something tenured professor from another institution. I believe that Dr. Houlahan and Dr. Tacka felt, for political reasons, that it would be better for the music department if Dr. Toney and I were to grow discouraged and quit. As an illustration, on the eve of my interview for Director of Choral Activities, Dr. Houlahan had the faculty stay up until 9:30 p.m. brainstorming any possible reasons why I was not qualified. They worked with and coerced the faculty to come to a collective decision to tell Dr. Anderson that the Music Department did not find me qualified to be Director of Choral Activities. Dr. Houlahan told me that the union had filed a grievance against President Anderson because of his opinion that I was qualified (Dr. Anderson hired me over the department’s recommendation not to hire). I later found out that Dr. Houlahan was wrong about this. No grievance about President Anderson’s decision had ever been filed.

In individual meetings with me (I call them blindside meetings because there either was no clear agenda or other items were brought up that were not on the agenda), Dr. Houlahan has used gaslighting techniques. For example, he told me that it would be bad for me to conduct any of the auditioned choirs at Millersville because local choir directors would think that I was second rate and would not want to send their choral students to Millersville. Both Drs. Houlahan and Tacka speak such things by fiat. They state an opinion as though it is true, and then expect that what they say or write will become truth in other people’s minds­­sort of like a Jedi mind trick. Dr. Houlahan has spoken this false truth to me in a number of meetings (and I’m sure that he and Dr. Tacka have repeated it to others) and have expected me and others simply to believe it. Dr. Tacka has told students that they are “too good to be in Marauder Men’s Glee Club because the Director of that ensemble is sub-par.” Current students also have confided such stories of abuse: for example, one music major recently told me that Dr. Houlahan met with them and told them that they could never cut it as a professional musician. He told them that they would never be good enough to lead anything other than a middle school performing ensemble. A former employee has mentioned that they still suffer deep­ seated doubt and insecurity because of their treatment here.

My blindside meetings are only one example of a recurring pattern of discouragement in the music department. According to current and former employees, as well as current and former students, Dr. Houlan and Dr. Tacka regularly speak to students and solicit negative feedback about other faculty members. They also solicit negative information from area musicians, many who teach in public or private settings. They collect negative information and store it for future use.

Teaching schedules are set up differently for faculty members who are in favor than for faculty members who are not in favor. There is a big discrepancy in the way that loads are distributed, particularly in the number of huge general education classes that are assigned.

Millersville music professors do not all have the same level of autonomy. An example of a lack of autonomy is inherent in an initiative led by Drs. Houlahan and Tacka that mandate that students in multiple sections of MUSI 100 (Music and Culture) be forced to buy department­written lecture notes. As an individual instructor, I never intend to make my general education students purchase a textbook or to purchase class notes. I also intend to give them freedom as to which concerts they attend to meet the requirements of my courses. If I am slated to teach MUSI 100 and our proposed concert series requires the purchase of our lecture notes, then I will choose not to include my students. As to the topics covered in class, I am open to the idea of including some or all of the topics that the Music Department collectively decides to include, but I believe that there should be a more democratic process of discussion and agreement on this type of decision.

Drs. Houlahan and Tacka micromanage other faculty members. They either make decisions for them (if they will allow it), or make heavy­handed suggestions. Former music professors can attest to this. Again, this type of treatment varies according to how near other faculty members are to the center of the power web. Our CBA specifically does not allow professors to professionally dominate their colleagues. Our CBA defines the role of a department chair as representing the interests of the other faculty members. Professors are supposed to be allowed to chart their own individual career paths and department chairs are called to support them as unique professionals. It is fine for a department to work together for a common purpose, but department chairs are not allowed to coerce other professors to act together as a team or to go in any particular direction. It is as though Drs. Houlahan and Tacka feel that individual successes are valid only to the degree that they fit into their own grand scheme of things. Because of this type of megalomania, academic freedom has been trampled right and left in our department.

Why do our Academic Dean and Provost allow this long­standing pattern of abuse to continue? In meetings with both of them, it has become clear that they are intimately aware of the details and of the scope of the problem. In my case, it is possible that word has preceded me regarding my past life at Edinboro University. My forthright public assertions that the management team at Edinboro University should not cut its music degree programs have likely been discussed in managerial conversations around the State System. Dean Umble was present at my first interview where Dr. Tacka relentlessly attacked my credentials and professional abilities while she remained mute. My only thought at the time was that they had heard about the ruckus I had raised while at Edinboro. Later, however, I learned that many complaints had been lodged by current and former music professors about the way that the music department has been run over the years and that both the Dean and the Provost have been aware of these complaints. Even though my mistreatment can be explained in more than one way, what of the many others who have been mistreated?

There seems to be a belief by music department leaders and by the Dean and Provost that what they are attempting to achieve with the Music Department (or for themselves while using the Music Department), will be threatened by the success of some of the other faculty members in the Department, particularly if those faculty members will be able to gain political influence. There is an established pattern of discouraging talented music faculty members, and, as I am discovering, the same pattern has been established with many talented music students. A significant number of students and former students have told me that they are changing majors or have changed majors because of abusive treatment.

Again,this is like a king that murders select members of his own family in order to retain power. Particularly, the tactics of Drs. Houlahan and Tacka to retain power and to take the music department in a particular direction that meets their own political and professional objectives do more to benefit them than to benefit the music department as a collective. Effective leadership would allow the department to come to its own collective conclusions as to what constitutes success.

All of the good that these two have achieved and are achieving is severely hampered by their need to keep others from threatening their power base. Many otherwise good leaders have suffered from this same malady. Therefore, while I intend to continue to work with the department as a whole and to do my best to ensure its future success, I must express my lack of confidence in the current leadership model that seems heavy handed, intended to discourage and manipulate, and is not inclusive of everyone's input. Especially, the pattern of keeping new (often young) faculty from becoming established (and therefore older) must be broken.

Respectfully,

Allen "Kit" Howell Dept. of Music Millersville University