#both of these situations are at once untenable and inescapable

[winepresswrath]

something about how mad Ambrosius gets when his special nemesis time in interrupted! something about how smug and gleeful Ballister looks when he vaporizes the arrows. something about the way Nimona literally can't be put in a box the same way she can't be contained by the narrative and everywhere she goes things change because she changes. sparks joy makes me smile 10/10.

[fymagnificentwomcn]

While one could argue that these changes [concerning succession - Joanna] constituted a radical break with most of the Ottoman past, one could also argue that they did not undermine certain fundamental principles of Ottoman political culture. It is probably for this reason that these seemingly revolutionary developments provoked little comment in contempory histories. Certainly, they upheld the principle that all male members of the dynasty deserved a chance at governing. (...) The practice of seniority in the Ottoman state preserved what was the most enduring feature of Ottoman politics: absolute control by the dynasty (if not by the individual sultan) of the distribution of power. Open succession—succession by combat—fit the ideology of the expansionist military state. This form of succession defined the monarch principally as a conqueror. It aimed at identifying the male dynast who was most skillful at mobilizing support for military victory. While dynastic continuity was assured through recognition of the sovereign right of the Ottoman house, in each generation the imperial patrimony was literally and symbolically reconquered by the victorious prince. Seniority was a more stable form of succession than contest or combat. As a system of succession, it better fit the postexpansionist empire in which the ruler was more a sedentary palace sultan than a mobile ghazi hero. The structured nature of seniority, with its rales for automatic succession, helped to stabilize political loyalty in the postexpansionist period and to establish qualification for rule in the absence of military victory.  The regularization of succession can also be seen as part of a wide ranging movement within Ottoman government, beginning under Süleyman and acquiring momentum in the later decades of the sixteenth century, to organize career paths and accommodate career aspirants by codifying, or attempting to codify, rules for recruitment, training, and promotion. This phenomenon can be traced not only in the military but in the bureaucracy and the religious establishment, structures that would gain greater institutional influence in the state during its postexpansionist period. This “rationalization” of careers in government service (including the dynastic career itself) was a better fit with an administrative state than the more fluid structures based on the personal allegiances of the military state. (...) In these moments that threatened to rend the political fabric, the queen mother was the person best situated to play a mitigating or conciliatory role. Critics of the sultan might appeal to her to influence her son to remedy unpopular policies or habits of rule. If it came to deposition, the queen mother’s acquiescence in the removal of her son preserved the bond between ruler and ruled in a reassuring way that all the niceties of Islamic law could not match. At such times the continuity of the dynasty could be maintained only by means of a living link between generations, and in the postexpansionist empire, it was the sultan’s mother who was that link. (...) As we shall see, the connection between mother and son was a vital political bond throughout Ottoman history, although it became formally recognized and institutionally visible only in the late sixteenth century. Like the earlier bond between sultan and son, however, it was not an untroubled one. Especially when the queen mother became dignified as the senior member of the dynastic family, the potential for antagonism between mother and son increased. (..) Despite the importance of the valide sultan as the sultan’s ally, her expanded power and status in the second half of the sixteenth century were not without their problems. Not all sultans welcomed their mother’s influence once they mounted the throne or reached an age at which they felt competent to take up the reins of government themselves. This was not surprising: as the valide sultan acquired public status and a claim to legitimate authority in government, the tensions that had previously existed between father and son, an inescapable feature of their shared claim to power, were transferred to the relationship between mother and son. (...) Turhan Sultan has been praised by some historians who regard her appointment of Köprülü Mehmed Pasha as a recognition that women had no role in the political realm; for these historians, the appointment marks the restoration to the grand vezir of his “rightful” authority “wrongfully” usurped by palace figures, in particular the women of the harem. Such a judgment is untenable for several reasons. First, it is based on the erroneous assumption that the seclusion of women in Muslim society precluded their playing a significant public role. The institutional authority inherent in what had become by the mid-seventeenth century the “office” of valide sultan negates the notion that this authority was illegitimately and capriciously exercised. Turhan Sultan would certainly have regarded her exercise of power as natural and legitimate—after all, she had sanctioned the murder of her mother-in-law so that she herself might enjoy the authority of the valide sultan’s office. Turhan’s efforts both to instruct herself in the ways of government and to find capable delegates can be interpreted as a manifestation of the role of the valide sultan as protector of the sultanate, since political and fiscal chaos increasingly threatened her son’s security on the throne. (...)  Interregnums were periods of social disruption. Because of the personal nature of the bond between sultan and subjects, oaths of loyalty were considered to have lapsed at the death of a sultan. This led to the practice of looting and general insubordination until the next sultan had been enthroned and could demand the obedience of his subjects. At these times of potential disruption, royal women played a vital role in preserving dynastic continuity: by hiding the death of the old sultan and thus preventing social disruption, by protecting the interests of the new sultan, and by preserving the traditions of the dynasty. (...) It is in this changing political environment that the significance of the valide sultan's role in depositions can best be understood. The mother of the deposed sultan performed the function of providing sanction for the rejection of the individual sultan, thus allowing dynastic legitimacy to be preserved. The mothers of three of the five seventeenth-century sultans who were deposed—Mustafa, İbrahim, and Mustafa II (r. 1695-1703)—were alive at the time of their sons’ depositions. There is evidence to suggest that each of these women was formally petitioned by the highest officers of state—the grand vezir and the müfti—not only to approve but also to assist in the transfer of authority. (...) The valide sultan’s role in these dramatic events was to some degree a formality: she was asked to ratify a decision that had already been made by leading politicians and religious dignitaries. Yet her sanction of the forcible transfer of power from one sultan to another was necessary because it symbolically prevented the rupturing of dynastic continuity. Despite the fact that Islamic legal tradition allowed rebellion against a sovereign who prevented the pursuit of the proper Muslim life (it was precisely this kind of argument that had been put forth to justify İbrahim’s deposition), the devotion of Ottomans to their dynasty was so great that the rebellion of the sultan’s servants against their master appeared to violate their oath of loyalty to their sovereign and to return ingratitude for the bounty he had bestowed on them (it was principally with this argument that Kösem Sultan countered the religio-legal argument). In being called upon to legitimate the subjects’ withdrawal of their loyalty, the valide sultan, as the senior member of the royal family, was endowed with the responsibility of representing the welfare of the dynasty as a whole, even if this meant sacrificing the interest of a particular sultan. (...)  The valide sultan, as head of the imperial harem, was the one individual who could sanction the crossing of its boundary if necessary. In the absence of the sultan, she was the one individual who could exercise authority in both the outer and inner worlds of government.

Some (selected) quotes on changes in the Ottoman system in 16th and 17th century, taken from: Leslie Peirce, The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire.

[madimargolishon394]

Challenge Post 15: Horrific Spaces

If horror films use spaces as characters, then the bunker in 10 Cloverfield Lane is simultaneously the enemy and the hero. After getting into a car crash, Michelle, the main character, wakes up in an underground bunker. Her captor, Howard, claims that some sort of apocalyptic event has rendered the outside atmosphere unlivable and that, for her own safety, he has brought her there and refuses to let her leave. Part of the horror comes from the ambiguity of the bunker. It represents both good and bad, safety and endangerment, freedom and captivity. However, Michelle doesn’t know which it truly is, and, unless she wants to test out the effects of radiation first-hand, it is seemingly impossible for her to find out.

On the one hand, the bunker is surprisingly homey. Howard has planned for comfort in the face of the apocalypse, which, to him, comes in the form of VHS tapes, board games, and an old juke box. The rec room is filled with books, the dining room is stocked with canned food and china dishes, and the entire bunker is equipped with ventilation and filtration. Wallpaper, of course, even covers the walls. However, what is supposed to be comforting about the bunker is at the same time unnerving—and this tension becomes a source of horror.

For all the outward comforts and amenities the bunker offers, it is still a prison. Michelle finds herself a captive, forced to call the bunker home against her will. In this film, the idea of the home becomes horrific. “Home” is a place you have to share with strangers and where you must stay forever. Even the wallpaper, for all its intended charm, is patterned with bars—a constant reminder of the bunker’s inescapability. Because of the bunker’s presentation, the viewer, like Michelle, must constantly weigh which is more horrific: inside or outside—the home that’s not a home or the risk of death by radiation.

By framing the bunker as inescapable and unknowable, the film roots the horror in the setting itself. The bunker acts as a physical manifestation of Michelle’s internal conflict, whether to trust Howard and everything he’s told her or not. With the alternative the risk of death, Michelle is forced to rely on the source of her horror, both Howard and the bunker, a dependence which is horrific in itself. As far as the film is concerned, Howard and the bunker are interchangeable in terms of their threat to her.

Overall, the bunker not only serves as the setting, but sets the stakes and echoes the conflict of the film. This horrific space actively works against Michelle, situating horror within the home. In the end, though, Michelle escapes the bunker and destroys it—only to find something worse waiting for her. In this sense, the horror that used to be contained to the bunker alone now extends to all the surrounding world. The same way Michelle was unable to feel at home in the bunker, she can no longer feel at home anywhere on earth. Once and for all, the setting of the film signals the inescapability of horror and the untenability of the home, communicating all of this through its horrific spaces.