#nancy blackett

[captainsvscaptains]

Prelims

Poll J

[randomowlscreeching]

the fact that Nancy is the only swallows and amazons character to have her own Wikipedia page is honestly so in character

[theyre-gay-because-i-say-so]

Today's LGBT+ Headcanon is;

Nancy Blackett from Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome-Lesbian

Requested by @absolutelynotclassicusernam-blog

Status: Alive

[csinstagram]

[cstiktok]

[piratesandexplorers]

Well, some time last year I said I was going to watch the not-so-new-anymore Swallows and Amazons film on Netflix, but apparently it's taken a dose of Covid to lay me up in bed and actually get me to do it.

I have lots of thoughts, as I promised I would...

(Spoilers ahead I guess, but nothing big that's not fairly obvious from trailers etc., I don't think.)

There were a lot of little nitpicky things that annoyed me, but I could probably have got past those (actually, no I couldn't, but never mind) if the whole thing had been good enough to carry me through. I'm obviously biased, and it did have its good points, probably fun enough as a kids' film, but I genuinely just think it was poor storytelling, which is extra disappointing as it was based on such a good story. Some of the bigger things that I had problems with:

The Spy Plot. I don't really have that much to say on this one because it's obvious that the second they decided to go with this idea, it stopped being Swallows and Amazons. The modern thing is to believe everything needs Super High Stakes and Lots Of Action or kids will be bored. I think they're wrong, but there we go. (Sorry, Andrew Scott, I'd watch you in anything, but you didn't belong here.) But even accepting that for what it is, I just don't think they did what they were trying to do particularly well, so on that note...

Character development and relationships. So much went wrong here, I don't know where to start. Obviously they butchered both John and Susan (presumably because they lazily read them as boring and, rather than read any deeper, just changed them entirely), as well as Mrs Walker and her relationship with the children. Genuinely, what's wrong with writing families who like and trust each other? Captain Flint was already ruined by the spy plot, but his eventual switch to being the nice fun uncle didn't work well even in the context they gave him - it felt like they just went "and actually he turned out to be nice, which you should just accept and not question because it's just a kids' story so it's not that deep". Which does such an injustice to the original writing. Then there are the Blacketts, who need a third point all to themselves:

The Blacketts. I was so disappointed with Nancy and Peggy. I feel bad criticising children, but I didn't think the actors playing them were good at all (compared to the Walkers, who could all act). But the real issue I had with them was their lack of screentime?? They barely appeared, we had no time to get to know them, to care about them, or to see any sign of genuine friendship between them and the Swallows. There was no spark to them at all, no sign of Nancy's charisma, or sense of them as the wild rule-breakers. Mrs Blackett was a non-character too, which is forgivable as she was sort of a non-character in the first book, but given that they did give her extra screentime, they could at least have given her some characterisation?

The Pacing. I feel like this point wraps the previous ones together, because the cause is the spy plot and the result (or one of them) is the bad/non-existent character-dev. There's no time for the characters to unfold, no time for them to sit and talk to each other, no time for extra scenes that show relationships, no time for fireworks on the cabin roof or parleys around the campfire or Vicky/Bridget's birthday or fishing trips or Octopus Lagoons or Nancy bullying policemen on John's behalf. Even the Black Spot gets delivered in a moment at the dining table, with no explanation of what it means. And it's mainly because most of the time is taken up by the Big Plot, but it's not only that - those small but important scenes are also replaced by things like losing the food hamper, and John shouting at Roger, and Roger falling in the lake. Things they obviously decided were more Dramatic and Exciting, but actually do nothing meaningful at all. It all just feels completely rushed, which is the opposite of Ransome's vibes. And not only that, but the piling on of difficulties, and problems, and fights, and things going wrong, just makes the whole island camping expedition seem entirely depressing, rather than a taste of joyful freedom.

The Aesthetic. Related to the last point, but I did think that the one thing we would get from this film, since they filmed on location, would be the feel of the Lakelands and the scenery and rural Northern England in the 20s. I got almost none of that. Again, probably because the only things they cared about were spies with guns and ramping up the sense of danger and difficulty at every turn.

It sounds like I hated the film, and I didn't hate it. It was fun to watch, I thought the kids playing Tatty (whose name change I do get) and Roger were particularly good, and I liked the Billies (although less so the fact that Susan and Roger didn't even meet them, and Tatty screaming the place down over the adder).

I just didn't think it was particularly good as a film, let alone an adaptation of Swallows and Amazons. Which, as a Swallows and Amazons fan, is just really sad.

What's funny to me is that the Netflix synopsis says: "When four siblings camp on an island in the middle of a lake during their vacation, they fall into a whimsical turf war with two boisterous rivals." Which is... far more of a description of the original plot than of the plot of the film.

[denimbex1986]

'...Swallows and Amazons (PG, 2016) BBC2, 2.35pm The 2016 take from the director Philippa Lowthorpe has grafted a Russian spy plot into Arthur Ransome’s classic 1930s children’s book. Kelly Macdonald’s Mrs Walker briefly wonders if it is sensible to launch her children into the deepest water in the Lake District and let them camp alone for days. But piratical holiday fun must be had, and the Walker children sail the Swallow off to an island in the lake. There they meet the feisty local Amazons, Nancy and Peggy Blackett, and jolly japes are had battling over territory and racing boats. The ante is upped when Agent Lazlow (Andrew Scott) turns up. (97min)...'

[gailyinthedark]

I just found out this is a thing and it's making me so happy

[femmehysteria]

Hi ! I'd like to suggest a few names and submissions for those names:

Scarlet variations :

Scarlett Amber Perkins (The Graveyard Book)

Skarlet (Mortal Kombat)

Scarlet Benoit (The Lunar Chronicles)

Juliet :

Juliet Butler (Artemis Fowl)

Juliet Capulet (Romeo and Juliet)

Duncan :

Duncan McGuire (Once and Future)

Duncan Locke (Locke and Key)

Duncan Quagmire (A Series of Unfortunate Events)

Duncan Idaho (Dune)

Nancy :

Nancy Drew (Nancy Drew)

Nancy Whitman (Wayward Children)

Nancy Wheeler (Stranger Things)

Nancy Blackett (Swallows and Amazons)

Hazel :

Hazel (Saga comic)

Hazel Levesque (Heroes of Olympus)

Hazel (The Umbrella Academy)

Hazel (Infinity Train)

Thank you for the suggestions!!

[elennare]

Nancy Blackett or Legolas

[oidheadh-con-culainn]

nancy blackett definitely gives off queer vibes but her reaction to being referred to as "female" in Secret Water is really clinching it. she's so mad about it. this teenage pirate has nonbinary energies

[captainsvscaptains]

Round 1 Part 3 Poll 2

Propaganda

Nancy is the capable and adventurous captain of the dinghy Amazon, which she crews along with her sister and ship's mate Peggy under a pirate flag.

Queen. Kelly accidentally started a religion

[stillsmybeatingheart]

[elennare]

Absolutely ok to reblog, and thanks for the lovely comments on the snippets!

"Nancy Blackett, Dragon Aviatrix" - I love this, I need this to be a thing ASAP, and also I'm gonna order myself the second Temeraire book now (read the first recently, loved it, have been away so hadn't ordered the second - but now I'm back!). And yes, I can absolutely see Dick and Titty in some Star Trek-like setting, Dick has the wide-eyed wonder for the universe and Titty the innate sense of idealism and justice.

I think you're right that some of them are easier than others to transport - but there again, they all connect so closely to each other that even then it's tricky. The most obvious example I think is Peggy and Nancy, even when Ransome tried to give Peggy more of the foreground by giving Nancy mumps, Peggy's just trying to *be* Nancy the whole time. But even looking at Roger, say, who's got a more independent streak - part of that does, I think, come from trying to distinguish himself as the 4th of five (and practically the youngest for most of the books); while Susan's equally bound to her role as eldest girl... Dot, of course, is writing them all into AUs herself half the time ;) (Imagine Dot with access to AO3, she would be all over that!)

I have a question for the “Would you ever write” ask game! I’m always interested by which fandoms have loads of AUs and people rarely write canon-compliant fic, and ones where almost everything is set in or around canon. Swallows and Amazons is definitely one of the latter - I think almost all the stories I’ve read in the fandom are canon-compliant or adjacent. So would you ever write a Swallows and Amazons AU of any kind?

Oooh, that's a good question! Technically, I have written some AU snippets as a meme on dreamwidth some years ago, but none of them developed into full-fledged fics or even ficlets... I wonder if it's because the setting feels so integral to the stories? The ships, the Lake, they're practically characters, which may be making it hard to AU it?

Thanks for asking! I shall be pondering this now...

[theoriginalsimonb]

Arthur Ransome’s Nancy Blackett, seen in Harwich harbour when I took a trip on the Waverley back in 2017

[the-unofficial-force]

[OOC]

Shamelessly inspired by @noliight ‘s post (go reply and give her love);

So if I were to put up a (canon) pirate muse over at my other blog (waywardsonsanddaringdaughters), would anybody like to do anything with her? Or should I not do that as she’s really obscure?