luke fumbling in recruiting percy has to be one of his greatest failures. a beautiful thing the show does regarding luke and percy's relationship is building rapport between them through shared moments like settling into camp, eating meals together, but especially through swordfighting lessons. the swordfighting scene at the beginning of episode 8 not only reveals that percy and luke already share similar beliefs about the fear-based system the gods have cultivated, but it's clear the conversation stays with percy when he fights ares and later calls out zeus on his waning skills as a father and a king. however, luke's plan fell through the moment percy learned that the winged-shoes were meant to drag him to tartarus. not only that, but the shoes nearly killed grover, a friend percy cared for deeply. if nourishing loyalty and trust was the key to ensuring a partnership with percy, then it was luke's faulty planning, arrogance, and impatience that cost him the greatest ally he could ask for.
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i took the succession test
roman tracks but kendall ??? i feel genuinely insulted
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It's kind of funny that Kendall and Shiv are both equally delusional about their ability to charm people for business and somehow think they can do it even though they choke almost every single time, whereas it's like the one thing Roman is consistently good at despite being the "least legitimate" option.
I think part of this comes down to the fact that Shiv and Kendall both have very clear ideas of the versions of themselves they're trying to be and the images they're trying to project, and they're trying so hard to be seen that way that they end up coming off as a little desperate and off-putting. Meanwhile Roman "knows" that there's something wrong with him and he's worthless, so he doesn't get sucked into the trap of trying to force people to see his idea of himself and instead molds himself into whatever he thinks the other person wants from him because that's the only way he can compensate for "being him," which works very well in the short term but also means he's the least capable of maintaining any relationship for very long because he has no sense of self.
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https://www.tumblr.com/joannerowling/758372387687399424/theyre-like-their-favourite-boy-writers-only
I read this post and got really surprised of how many authors were so salty (to not say worse things, GRRM made me disgusted) about JKR’s success. In this context, what do you think about Ursula K Le Guin’s opinions of JKR? Those always sounded to me like a bit of envy.
It's definitely envy, as well as misplaced ego, and i think subconscious misogyny even if she wouldn't have liked hearing that. For context i'll put the quote of hers about Rowling below:
[…] What’s the difference between being influenced by a body of work and admitting it, and being influenced by a body of work and not admitting it? This last is the situation, as I see it, between my A Wizard of Earthsea and J.K.Rowling’s Harry Potter. I didn’t originate the idea of a school for wizards — if anybody did it was T.H.White, though he did it in single throwaway line and didn’t develop it. I was the first to do that. Years later, Rowling took the idea and developed it along other lines. She didn't plagiarize. She didn’t copy anything. Her book, in fact, could hardly be more different from mine, in style, spirit, everything. The only thing that rankles me is her apparent reluctance to admit that she ever learned anything from other writers. When ignorant critics praised her wonderful originality in inventing the idea of a wizards’ school, and some of them even seemed to believe that she had invented fantasy, she let them do so. This, I think, was ungenerous, and in the long run unwise.
Two things here:
First, like others, Le Guin apparently couldn't fathom that someone else might have come up with a similar concept as she did all on their own, without having ever read her books. It's worth noting that AWoE was published in 1971 in the UK, when JKR was already 6. While it was praised by critics on release and moderately successful, you could hardly have called it a classic. I mean, it's not like Brits don't have an entire genre dedicated to stories set in private schools, and a love for wizard and fairy tales older than the US. The idea that a British woman couldn't possibly have imagined "a school for wizards" without reading some newcoming American is hilariously conceited.
(Made even funnier by the fact that many of the criticisms that were thrown at Rowling over the years involved a variation of, 'her plot/character/ideas/world-building is too generic'.)
Secondly, no male writer would ever be blamed for the exaggerations and mistakes of journalists. Nor would any man be expected to be "generous" to fellow writers, by pretending to have been influenced by them when they were not. No man who were as open about his literary influences as JKR has been would be suspected of lying.
The fact is, Pratchett, Le Guin, GRRM and co. simply didn't like that JKR cited classics in those interviews, rather than their favoured brand of genre literature, sci-fi and fantasy. People like Pratchett were and are still convinced that they are an oppressed and unfairly derided caste amongst writers, which the snotty elites wrinkle their noses at but the pure of heart lower classes love.
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