#and god andor has so much story but it guides you through it so well

[goddamnelsa]

i’ve always been a slight defender of useless cameos in star wars media, specifically movie characters showing up in the TV shows, because i always figured like hey, it’s star wars, it’s fun, and it’s a little fun to see those two randos show up in a show or other movie, wheeee, whatever

but Melshi in Andor is how you do a fucking film cameo/callback. Melshi, a once-named ground soldier in the Battle of Scarif. Melshi, who has like two scenes before he dies like everyone else. And they put him on Narkina 5 with Cassian, and it’s brilliant.

Melshi doesn’t need a backstory! He’s a side character! I think the only reason I knew his name is because I read the novelization and have watched Rogue One a gajillion times. And you don’t need to know who he is for his mini-arc to work in Andor, but if you do, it adds some dimension to him and to Cassian!! Like Cassian escaped prison with this dude and then went back and recruited him for the Rebellion??? (maybe, who knows, we’ll hopefully find out in s2) The few scenes they have together in Rogue One indicate that they know each other, they’ve worked together on missions before, which makes sense in the context of the film with what we know of Cassian, that he’s been in the Rebellion for awhile and presumably so has Melshi. But having them be in prison together, and break out together*, their familiarity with each other makes so much sense, and that Melshi is willing to go on this suicide mission to help Cassian and the rest of the Rogues. Of course, Melshi will risk it all because he already did with Cassian once and it paid off.

And Melshi has a reason to be in this story. He is part of the prison break, he’s part of Cassian’s group. They don’t give him special treatment in the story, there’s no slow mo shot to him when they say his name, he’s just there. And if you know, you know, and if you don’t, it’s still a great fucking storyline and it ties us back to Rogue One without being obnoxious about it.**

that’s how you do a fucking film callback

* a break out that is yet another spark in getting people to fight back against the Empire!!! god this fucking SHOW I’M YELLING

**saw’s couple of scenes also did this, but i just assume all rebellion era stuff will have saw in it, and forest whitaker is putting his whole self into that role, you go forest

[themosleyreview]

The Mosley Review: Star Wars: Andor

For the longest time, the quality of the Star Wars franchise has been lackluster. In animation it has had no equal, but in live action there has been a dramatic decline in storytelling and growth. The Mandalorian was that wake up call that breathed new life into the galaxy, The Book of Boba Fett made the air a little foul and most recently Obi-Wan Kenobi made it go stale. The hope for great stories in the franchise that challenged you the viewer and its characters was fleeting. This new series was the last beacon of light that could either reinvigrate the galaxy or just plunge it even deeper into despair. Well I am so happy to say that this series did the former and brought Star Wars into the realm of more adult storytelling that I've wished to see since Rogue One opened the door. The first 4 episodes alone let you know exactly what this show is all about and the exact tone it is promising throughout. The angle of espionage and relevant themes of political games, oppression, fascism and terrorism has always been apart of Star Wars, but now we get the chance to see the players and the people those decisions effect. The level of duality between the birth of the Rebellion vs the overbearing oppressive and order driven Imperials is brilliantly explored as you get to witness both perspectives of each factions. I have been waiting for something like this to happen and my goodness did this show deliver. There are so many emotional moments within this show that creep up and the moments of absolute brutality whether it be pure violence or torture, are expertly crafted to show how each character is effected and/or corrupted.

Diego Luna returns as Cassian Andor as we follow the character about 10 or so years before the events of Rogue One. We get to see the origin of the character with a number of retcons, but they were not necessarily too bad. I liked that he started off as basically a scoundrel that’s constantly down on his luck, but he has a heart of gold. He was way more relatable and unrefined and I loved that he wouldn't hesitate to take a life. He is in a desperate and sometimes dark place, but he is constantly learning how to survive and adapt to every predicament he finds himself. Fiona Shaw was so amazing and motivating as his adoptive mother Maarva Andor. She brought the gravitas to every word of wisdom and caution spoken to Cassian. There is a fight that never dies within her and she let it be known. Her chemistry with Andor was one of the guiding lights of morality throughout. Dave Chapman voices her personal droid B2EMO and he stole my heart by the end of the series and broke it in so many ways with his dry and yet emotional responses to Andor, Maarva and others. Adria Arjona as Bix Caleen was absolutely brilliant. She gets put through the ringer in this show and I can't stress enough how amazing her performance is in the latter half of the season. Her bond with Andor is strong, but not the typical focus. Faye Marsay as Vel Sartha was awesome and I loved that she was loyal to the cause. She was steadfast, but she was ready to ask questions as she acted as the moral compass of the Rebellion. Varada Sethu as Cinta Kaz was awesome and badass as her companion. When there was bloodshed needed, she didn't hesitate and was always ready. Stellan Skarsgård was nothing short of fascinating as Luthen Rael. He is the most elusive, cunning and plotting character of the series and I loved his complexities. Behind every action he makes is a sort of sorrow, but he is emboldened by his successes as he knows he is fighting for a greater good. He carries so much on his shoulders and you see it in an iconic scene that sums up his resolve. I loved his relationship with Andor, Vel and especially his personal agent Kleya Marki played wonderfully by Elizabeth Dulau. The two of them are deticated and she also keeps Luthen on mission. Genevieve O'Reilly reprises her role as Mon Mothma and my god was she outstanding. Through her we get the pleasure of seeing the political ramifications of fighting the Empire from within while trying to stay hidden. Genevieve adds so much depth, emotion and backstory to the beloved character. There are some amazingly tense moments with her navigating the waters of whom she could trust within and some emotionally gut wrenching scenes involving her past and family.

As I said before, this series explores both sides the Star WARS and it was very refreshing. Kyle Soller was unnerving and an interesting character study as Syril Karn. He starts off as the A typical perfectionist and he wants everyone to be their best at all times even when it wasn't that serious. He was basically a glorified small town deputy in a place where the worst crime someone could commit is public intoxication. The transformation this character goes through is something that is born of trauma once he gets a real taste of the beginning of a bigger threat. His obsession with capturing Cassian is almost stalker like with the look in his eyes. Anton Lesser was great as the head of the Imperial Security Bureau Major Partagaz. He was quick witted and no nonsense and I loved that he was open to strong suggestions to ending the growing rebellion. He truly represented the head of what one would call the gestapo of Imperial forces. It was scary how efficient and unrelenting he was. Speaking of unrelenting, Denise Gough was outstanding as Dedra Meero a supervisor in the ISB. Her whole arc in the show went from you routing for her as she fights her way to being a recognized and respected voice in the ISB council to completely hating what she becomes. Her work ethic was exceptional, but as we all know, true power corrupts in the wrong hands. She quickly becomes the very definition of a fascist leader for the modern age. George Lucas fashioned the Empire as oppressive and fascist regime and she embodies his vision as the series progresses.

The score was absolutely insane and I loved every second of it. Nicholas Britell has given new life to the titular characters' existence and he has brought so much dramatic power to the galaxy. His orchestration is truly unique as there is a growing tension in every note and emotional turmoil to every crescendo. I loved that he experiments with different variations of the great Andor theme. It sets the mood of the each episode and rebuilds back to its classic form by the end. Its been a long time since I've loved a television score and this is definitely on the list of one of my favorites. Visually the show is stunning and breathtaking as it is shot on location and it has so many design influences from other famous films like Blade Runner and George Lucas own THX 1138. It looks consistently in line with Rogue One and I can't wait to see it all eventually lead up to the film. I can't truly gush enough about how this show truly surprised and enthralled me from beginning to end. I haven't been so emotional involved in live action Star Wars since season 2 of The Mandalorian. This finally takes Star Wars away from the fun and sometimes overly nostalgic realm and brings it down to the more gritty and real world stakes of the people living in the galaxy. This was everything I've always wanted to see and I can't wait for Season 2! Do stick around for an EPIC plot point payoff at end of the season finale credits. Let me know what you thought of show or my review in the comments below. Thanks for reading!

[wyrdsistersofthedas]

Happy First Day to All

With the new year, we thought it would be fun to mark Thedas’ holidays alongside our own calendar.  To do so, we needed to figure out Thedas’ deceptively simple calendar and track it alongside our own. Both have 365 days, but they meter those days out differently.  Looking through the fandom, there seems to be some confusion as to how closely Thedas’ calendar system mirrors our own.  Is it pretty much the same, with the holidays even being similar to our holidays?  Is it inverted since Thedas is a continent in a southern hemisphere?  Does it follow a similar layout to the really ancient Roman calendar that actually started in March?  All good questions, so we thought we would sit down and sort through the possibilities.

Click here for a larger version of the calendar.

Premise the First: Keep it simple, stupid.

One of the first ideas we came to was, if you are going to create a fictional world with a massively complicated lore that can be extremely difficult even for the creators/developers to keep track of, you don’t want things like the calendar system to be convoluted nightmares to figure out.  The writers and developers need to be able to quickly ‘translate’ Thedas’ months into a frame of reference that tells them about the season, temperatures, weather, holidays, etc that would be happening at that time of the year in Dragon Age.  An easy way to do this would be to base the Thedas’ chronology on your own calendar.

The Gregorian Calendar has been adopted by most countries as their secular calendar system.  The Gregorian Calendar has 365 days divided into twelve months.  So far so good.  The two systems match up...to a point.  If you really look at the Gregorian Calendar system is a bit of a mess.  It is a good place to start, but you may want to tidy it up a bit.

Premise the Second: Don’t reinvent the wheel.

Dragon Age, like all fictional worlds, involves elements from our own histories, mythologies, philosophies, and cultures.  The same is probably true of the calendar system.  Like we said before you probably want it to match up pretty nicely with the calendar system you already use, but the Gregorian Calendar is messy, mostly due to shenanigans of the people who created the system it was based on: the Julian Calendar.  (I had a bunch of awesome stories about where the names of each month, and how many days were in them, came from when I was teaching an introductory course to western languages from my Latin background.)  So if you smooth out the bumps in the Gregorian Calendar, what do you get?  12 months of 30 days with 5 left over.  And what should you do with those extra five days?  The obvious answer: holidays!  Hey!  That sounds exactly like Thedas’ calendar!  In this way you end up with a calendar system that looks mostly like your own, but with enough differences to make it feel just a bit other worldly.

In creating this post I experimented with several ways of representing Thedas’ calendar in a way that I could superimpose our own calendar over it so that it would be easy to figure out which days are which in each calendar system.  My first attempt at this resulted in this calendar wheel, which I thought would work since there are perpetual calendar discs that we use in our own world (one of which happens to be on my key ring), but now is clearly problematic.  (Also, can you tell I have been on holiday with lots of time on my hands to do completely ridiculous meticulous fandom work yet?)

Although this alignment didn’t work like I thought it would, it did make me think of something.  Said I to myself as I looked at the placement of the holidays, “That looks like the Celtic Calendar”.  A quick google image search confirmed my thought...and provided excellent evidence of why the extra five days in the Thedas Calendar are where they are:

The holidays of Yule, Imbolg, Beltane, Lughnasadh, and Samhain match up perfectly with the placement of First Day, Wintersend, Summerday, All Soul’s Day, and Satinalia.   It seems highly likely that the Wheel of the Year served as the inspiration for Thedas’ holiday system.

Premise the Third: Mix things up just a bit.

While most of Thedas’ calendar can clearly be show to match up with the Celtic Calendar, there are some important differences that through off most of the fans, including me.  I want Satinalia to match up with Yule/Christmas and All Soul’s Day to be Samhain/Halloween, but seasonal timings don’t actually align.

Satinalia, according to the calendar placement would take place closer to Halloween than to Christmas.  It’s a harvest festival.  The descriptions of the the holiday make it sound like a combination of Halloween and Christmas.  In the Feastday DLC, Satinalia is said to be “marked by sumptuous feasts, wild celebration, and naming the town fool as ruler for a day. Amid the feasting, it is customary for friends, lovers, and traveling companions to exchange gifts and pranks.”  The description of the holiday on the Bioware website and in World of Thedas, Vol. 1 adds: “Once dedicated to the Old Goddess of Freedom, Zazikel—but now attributed more to the second moon, Satina—this holiday is ...[celebrated with] the wearing of masks.... In Antiva, Satinalia lasts for a week or more, while a week of fasting follows. In more pious areas, large feasts and the giving of gifts mark the holiday. Satinalia is celebrated at the beginning of Umbralis.” (emphasis added) So basically it is the last big bash before settling down for the bleak winter months.  Sensible.

First Day, on the other hand, reads much more like a combination of New Year’s and Thanksgiving: “The traditional start of the year, this holiday involves visits to neighbors and family (in remote areas, this was once an annual check to ensure everyone was alive), as well as a town gathering to commemorate the year past, accompanied by drinking and merriment.”   (emphasis added)

Wintersend is not placed at a holiday that is typically celebrated in the Gregorian Calendar, but coincides with the Celtic holiday Imbolc (St. Brigid’s Day having taken its place in the Christian Calendar).  In Thedas, Wintersend was “Once called “Urthalis” and dedicated to Urthemiel, the Old God of Beauty, this holiday has now become a celebration of the Maker. It stands for the end of winter in many lands and coincides with tourneys and contests at the Proving Grounds in Minrathous. In southern lands, this holiday has become a day of gathering for trade, theater, and, in some areas, the arrangement of marriages. It is celebrated at the beginning of Pluitanis.”  I think it is fascinating that the Dragon Age Calendar incorporates similar themes to those found in our calendar system.  Many Christian holidays took the place of earlier Pagan celebrations, and the same seems to be true in Thedas.  The Chantry co-opted the Tevinter holidays that were dedicated to the Old Gods, which had probably replaced ancient Elven holidays given that Tevinter’s Calendar is said to have been based on the elven system (according to the Prima Guide).

Summerday sounds a lot like a traditional May Day celebration, which is associated with the Celtic festival of Beltane.  World of Thedas, Vol. 1 notes that Summerday was “Once called “Andoralis” and dedicated to Andoral, the Old God of Unity, this holiday is universally celebrated as the beginning of summer, a time for joy and, commonly, marriage. Boys and girls ready to come of age don white tunics and gowns. They then join a grand procession that crosses the settlement to the local Chantry, where they are taught the responsibilities of adulthood. Summerday is a particularly holy occasion in Orlais. It is celebrated at the beginning of Molioris.”

It is harder to match All Soul’s Day with its seasonal partner in our calendar, Lughnasadh, which was a start of the harvest celebration.  According to the wikipedia article, Lughnasadh “involved great gatherings that included religious ceremonies, ritual athletic contests (most notably the Tailteann Games, feasting, matchmaking and trading. There were also visits to holy wells... and religious rites included an offering of the 'first fruits', a feast of the new food and of bilberries, the sacrifice of a bull and a ritual dance-play in which [the Celtic god] Lugh seizes the harvest for mankind and defeats the powers of blight.  Much of the activities would have taken place on top of hills and mountains.” (emphasis added)  This sounds more like the description of Thedas’ Wintersend than All Soul’s Day, other than the harvest trappings.  

So where did the inspiration for All Soul’s Day come from if not from Lughnasadh?  Probably the next Celtic holiday, Samhain, with a bit of influence from Bonfire Night.  In Thedas, All Soul’s Day “was once dedicated to the Old God of Silence, Dumat. However, since Dumat’s rise during the First Blight, Thedosians turn a blind eye to any old ties between the day and the dragon. The holiday is now known across Thedas as All Soul’s Day and spent in somber remembrance of the dead. In some northern lands, the people dress as spirits and walk the streets in parade after midnight. The Chantry uses the holiday to remember the death of Andraste, with public fires that mark her immolation and plays that depict her death. It is celebrated at the beginning of Matrinalis.”  This definitely reads much more like the traditional Celtic celebration of the end of harvest and the coming of Winter (symbolizing death) even though it falls at the beginning of Fall in Thedas’ calendar wheel.

This correlation leads some DA fans to complicate Thedas’s calendar.  I can overthink things with the best of us, but I really doubt that the developers (who live in Canada) are going to over convoluted things much.   Think of the hassle it would be to figure out what the seasons would be or the month if they had inverted Thedas’ seasons because it is a continent in the southern hemisphere of the planet.  Or if they had shifted the start of the new year to March, ala the ancient Romans, then all of the holidays would match our holidays more closely.  That would make the Thedas’ calendar system convoluted and unwieldy to manage on a day to day basis.  Plus these two tweets from Bioware seems to confirm that Summerday near the beginning of May for us (They place it on May 2, while my calculations say it should be the 3rd.  Meh, can’t be perfect, right?).  So, unless we get future information that changes everything, I think we can safely keep Thedas’ Calendar in line with our Calendar for now.

So there it is, dear fellow fans, a Thedas Calendar that we can all use to keep track of how their dates would correspond to ours.  We are also working on an astrology system that would integrate our astrology with Thedas’.  Because, of course, they have astrology in Thedas!  [At least the Wyrd Sisters like to think so...but then we are weird like that. ;-) ]

(I mean, look at how similar Thedas’ Constellation chart is to ours!  But that is a post for another day...)

Happy First Day to all!!  May the coming year be filled with more joy than sorrow (and hopefully an announcement that DA4 is on its way!)!!

-MM