#it's so ironic that so many people misunderstand this movie and her story just like triton sebastian and most of the other characters did

[idiosyncraticrednebula]

One of the best analyses of this movie, and specially Ariel as a character and what she represents, I've listened to so far.

[moviemunchies]

Is this movie, strictly speaking, good? No. Is it, however, fun to watch? Well, that depends on your mood and how much BS you’re willing to put up with in a historical action movie.

Pathfinder (at least the Hollywood film from 2007; it’s a remake of a Norwegian film) is, in theory, about Native Americans versus Vikings. In actuality, it’s this one Norse guy versus a bunch of Vikings, and the Native Americans help when they don’t get in the way.

So let me back up and give you the story of the movie. The Norse tried to settle North America, and it didn’t go so well. One day an indigenous woman is walking and she finds a wrecked Norse ship. Everyone in it is dead (for some reason…) except a young boy. She adopts the boy into her village, where he grows up known as “Ghost” for his pale skin, with the only piece of his past left to him is his father’s sword.

Fast forwarding to fifteen years later, Ghost is an adult, but because he’s haunted by his past the tribe does not let him become a brave. But then Vikings return, intent on killing everyone so that they can build their own settlements in their place. So Ghost has to use his ancestral sword and his willingness to do anything for his adopted homeland, goes and kills as many of them as he can.

It’s fine, I guess, if you want something really dumb.

Okay, I get that they’re evil racist Vikings, but why the fudge did they conclude that the best way to build a settlement was to kill all the neighbors? Look, colonialism is dumb, but it’s not THAT dumb. The Norse really were driven out in large part by the Native Americans fighting them off, but those conflicts weren’t started because the Norse wanted to kill them all, they were (if I remember my history correctly), from misunderstandings. If the Norse started off killing potential neighbors, they knew that was a great way to get overwhelmed by angry locals. The reason the Vikings raided the way they did in Europe was because they could hop in their ships and sail away when they were done. Doing that to your neighbors is bound to get you killed.

Why they even want to settle here isn’t clear at all. It’s not even that they want revenge for past failed expeditions, they just… want to live here, and the only way they think they can do that is by killing everyone who already lives there. It’s very silly motivation.

Truth be told, I like the idea of a movie that’s “Vikings versus Native Americans.” But this isn’t really that. It’s more like, “Here’s one Norse guy raised by Native Americans but still using Norse weapons driving off Viking invaders.” So it’s… a White Savior narrative. We’re given the general impression that if it weren’t for this one white guy, the Vikings would have utterly massacred the natives.

Look, I know that the Vikings have as many fighting men as is dramatically necessary for whatever scene they’re doing, but even with that–they’re vastly outnumbered in North America! Regardless of armor and metalwork, the indigenous people should easily be running circles around these guys by making traps, knowing the landscape, and beating them to death. An iron helmet isn’t foolproof if someone’s repeatedly braining you with a club!

[Also I’ve read that the language the Vikings speak is Icelandic, but that all the pronunciation is absolutely wrong. Which happens in movies all the time, but is still interesting.]

Pathfinder is a remake of a Norwegian film from the 80’s with much the same premise–except instead of fighting Native Americans, the Vikings are fighting Sami 

This movie might be more forgivable if there were likable and interesting characters, but as it is the characters are boring and have very little development. Heck, I couldn’t even tell you the love interest’s name until pretty close to the end of the movie because that’s how long it takes for her name to be spoken.

It’s Starfire. And she’s also not played by an indigenous actor, in case you were curious.

There is supposedly a director’s cut or unrated edition that exists out there, which has more character development, but also more explicit violence and a sex scene. I’m not exactly motivated to track it down.

Look, if you want a loud, dumb movie, and/or something to talk about, it’s fine, I guess? I watched it with my dad, and we had fun, but that’s because we just wanted a noisy action film to watch and talk about afterward. The actual film is kind of a thing that exists, but it’s so nonsensical and lacking in Plot it’s difficult to really get attached to it. It’s got Karl Urban running around swinging a sword, and Clancy Brown growling in broken Icelandic, and some violence. But not much else.

I’d only recommend this if you’re really curious (as I was) or have nothing better to do.

[spaceocean9]

I am back on my Wandavision bullshit! I am rewatching the show and there is so much that us bothering me with the framing of Wanda and her actions. It would be something if this was a phenomenon that was unique to this show, but I dont think it is. It is a small reflection of society and how we treat white women in relation to depression.

I am going to compare Wanda and Tony again. I am comparing Wanda and Tony so heavily because they both have well defined canon depictions of mental illness. Hell, Tony is even featured a psychology textbook as an example of PTSD in media. While Bruce and Thor also have mental illnesses (depression, suicidal ideation)they are not focused on as heavily or as seriously(which is a shame).

The treatment Wanda and Tony get in the narrative of the mcu are pretty different. Tony is constantly reprimanded for his behavior. He faces some sort of consequence in almost every movie, even if he has a mental health issue. And while his progress is shaky at times he always tries to do better. A big part of Tony's character is redemption. Even if you personality think that Tony should be punished more harshly, the point still stands that he is criticized in the narrative. The intention is there.

I would go so far as to say that sometimes the mcu is harsh to Tony when talking about his PTSD. His mental illness being outright ignored by teammates or the people around him for a long time. I totally remember in Iron man 3 when Tony tried to talk with Bruce about his issues and he was sleeping. It was supposed to be funny that he was highly disinterested. A lot of people are annoyed with Tony's PTSD rather than concerned. It doesn't matter if Tony is likable or not, that is not okay. And even though Tony saved the world and is hailed as a hero at the end of his story, it is important to remember that he is dead and his death was kind of framed like it saved him. Pepper says that he can rest now. That is clearly a reference to his mental health struggles. And I dont love that. Not at all, especially with the rates of suicide for people with PTSD. I have PTSD and that is a thought that haunts me constantly. That death is the only way my mind will relax. I am sure that the writers didn't intend for his death to come off that way, but I dont know. It feels squicky to me.

Wanda on the other hand isn't held responsible for her actions. She is downright coddled. She is presented as younger than she actually is in civil war. POC characters that she has tried to actively kill make a thousand of excuses for her, and even say that they would do the same. The POC people that she has killed( Johannesburg and Wakandan citizens)are pushed aside and ignored. She abuses Vision and it is not addressed. When he walks down in his retro outfit and she all fucking gleeful that he is going along with her whims, and then he states that it was the only thing in the closet; absolute chills.  Wanda knew what she was doing to the poor people of Westview. She might have not known at first but she caught on pretty quickly. Wanda is the villian Wandavision, even if the narrative doesn't want her to be and tries to distract you with Agnes. Agnes was just piggybacking off of Wanda's creation. She didn't create this nightmare. Agnes is only the big villian because she is opposing Wanda. Wanda is framed as the absolute victim so much, especially in this show. God, when Monica says to Wanda" they will never know what you did for them" I wanted to chuck my remote. WHAT?! She tortured them. Made them her dolls to play house with. She did nothing for them except give them trauma and uprooted their lives. The people of Westview are even presented as threatening and unreasonable at the end of the show, with them looking at Wanda and she looking small in her hood. Ugh, it so nauseating. I'm sorry, but the accords never looked so good right now.

There could be many reasons for this difference in treatment. I think one of the big ones is because Wanda is a white, skinny, traditionally pretty woman; and they are the face of idealized sympathetic media depression. I would even say that Wandas depression is treated with more care than Thor's and Bruce's. And PTSD is not understood very well. It flip flops back in forth between the" scary" illnesses( bipolar, schizophrenia, personality disorders), which leaves it in this realm of misunderstanding. There are actually a lot of people who don't even know its an anxiety disorder.

[lokigodofaces]

I was thinking about this earlier today, and at first it started out as a criticism of Thor: Ragnarok, but I honestly can't call it that anymore. This is about film in general. Ragnarok does have this issue, but this is so much bigger than it. But I have some issues with how alcohol is portrayed in movies and TV.

I'm not saying there shouldn't be alcohol in media. Alcoholic beverages are common in lots of cultures. But, I don't know, it feels like sometimes that media handles alcohol in poor ways.

The example I had that got me on this line of thought is Valkyrie's alcoholism in Ragnarok. It's treated as a joke. Heck, there's a part where Thor misunderstands her and thinks she's trying to stop and when he voices his support and concern over her drinking habits, it's quickly turned into a joke. Because of course Valkyrie isn't going to stop drinking, her alcoholism is too funny! And I was going to post about that and how concerning this is and that so many people found it funny when I realized that this isn't a Ragnarok issue, this isn't a Taika issue. This is an issue in American media (and possibly in other cultures, though I don't know enough to say anything on that matter) that bleeds into all sorts of stories.

So often I see stuff where a character has unhealthy drinking habits and the narrative never really suggests it's a bad thing. Honestly, Arrow is the only things that come to mind that don't make jokes out of alcoholism constantly (didn't finish it, but at least two characters struggle with alcoholism, one of them multiple times, a minor struggles with drugs and alcohol, and pre-island Oliver was an irresponsible partier that routinely got drunk and rowdy which was looked down upon by the narrative). Iron Man 2 wasn't bad (but I haven't seen it in ages, might be wrong. They at least made it pretty clear that Tony's alcoholism and erratic behavior weren't healthy). Oh, Umbrella Academy! I've seen like 4 episodes but I like how they've handled everything with Klaus and drugs and alcohol so far! Same with Five! I don't know if it was intentional with M*A*S*H, but I always felt like all the crazy stuff Hawkeye and Trapper and then BJ do is a way to cope with all that's happening, so I always interpreted the large amount of alcohol consumption as them trying to cope in a way that isn't that great (taste of home, numbs the pain for a while, but not great consequences). So I don't mind it because with the crap they've seen, it doesn't feel surprising that they'd drink. And as the show goes on alcohol does start to be less important (and those are better seasons for other reasons as well).

So that is three things where I liked how alcoholism was handled. Outside of that, it always feels like alcoholism is turned into a joke or not seen as a problem. Or even as a natural And maybe this is just me, maybe I'm interpreting things wrong, I don't know. But I'm tired of this.

Alcoholism is a problem. A study found an extremely large amount of people died of alcohol-related issues in 2020 in America. More than people died of covid. From 2018 to 2019, this number increased by 2%. From 2019 to 2020, 25%. Desperate coping mechanism because of covid. Doctors are worried that habits formed during the pandemic will continue in people's lives and cause all sorts of problems later. Do you see how big of a problem this is? And it looks like it'll only get worse. What doesn't help? Movies treating alcoholism as cool or funny.

[gffa]

I’M GONNA HAVE TO BREAK THIS UP BECAUSE IT’S KIND OF A LOT.  So, @alabasterswriting and I were having a fantastic conversation about Anakin and how much he intellectually-versus-emotionally knows that he can leave the Jedi Order at any time, that he’s not a slave to them and it was already getting really long, so I’m going to put this in a new post because this is going to be even longer, but IT’S A SUBJECT NEAR AND DEAR TO MY HEART BECAUSE I HAVE MANY FEELINGS ABOUT ANAKIN SKYWALKER. For context, there are some other posts that’ll be referenced so this is only, like, the length of two monster posts instead of five.  ^_~ - The original ask about whether or not Anakin was a slave to the Jedi, which sets up how the Jedi make it extremely clear that it’s fine to leave - A follow-up ask from alabasterswriting + their very thoughtful, love response, which this post is largely a response to! Now that I’ve gotten some sleep, I think I can be more coherent on why I think there’s a lot of really good stuff to explore with Anakin’s emotional misunderstanding (versus intellectually knowing that he can leave) and why I do think it’s an important element, but not necessarily at the core of why Anakin stayed. Why does Anakin stay as a Jedi?  I think the Obi-Wan & Anakin comic covers this really well--he plans to leave, he’s not upset about it, he’s excited and has nothing but respect for the Jedi Order, he even says that he may come back.  Anakin knows that he has options, he believes that he’s capable of taking off into the wider galaxy, he acknowledges that part of the reason he may have joined was, despite Qui-Gon’s warnings, all he saw was a magic man and a way out of slavery, what was he going to do, say no? The overarching plot of the comic is:  Obi-Wan wants him to be absolutely sure of this, so he asks Anakin for one last mission together, but makes it clear that he’ll accept whatever choice Anakin makes in the end.  Obi-Wan’s point is, when they call for reinforcements at the end to deal with Carnelion IV’s civil war, they get those reinforcements, becasue they did this as Jedi.  That the Jedi are part of the Republic and thus they have the backing of the Republic.  (This is, interestingly enough, also a major theme in Master & Apprentice, that the day is saved precisely because Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon were part of the Republic and had the backing of the Republic.)  Anakin realizes that he can accomplish more as a Jedi than he can setting off on his own, so he happily agrees to stay. This fits with how Anakin genuinely seems to like being a Jedi.  The problems he expresses with it, is that he wants more than what they can do, he wants to be able to tell people want to do, to make them do the right thing.  He expresses this to Padme in Attack of the Clones, he follows it up with that conversation with Tarkin during The Citadel arc, where they both feel the Jedi Code does not allow Jedi to go “far enough” to win the war. Further, he teaches on the beliefs of the Jedi.  After the brain invader worms, Anakin teaches Ahsoka about how to balance letting go of their attachments versus caring about other people and wanting to save them, how the two work together.  While she’s on Onderon and having confusing feelings for Lux, he teaches her again about how duty must come before her feelings, he seems to agree with this, because he’s not shy about subverting the Jedi teachings when he wants to.  And very clearly, he teaches the same things to Rex in the Bad Batch arc:

That’s exactly what the Jedi teach (and is ironic because this is just a few months before Revenge of the Sith and I think it’s actually a really perfect illustration of exactly what was at the heart of Anakin, that he genuinely believes in the Jedi teachings, until they apply to him and his fears eat him up and he makes himself the exception) and Anakin also seems to genuinely believe it. In Revenge of the Sith, Anakin doesn’t express any desire to not be a Jedi until after he’s helped kill Mace and the younglings and then, frankly, he’s repeating Palpatine’s words, not his own, he doesn’t really believe what he’s saying, imo.  When he talks to Padme about feeling lost, it isn’t expressed in terms of him feeling trapped, but instead that he feels he isn’t the Jedi he should be, that he wants more. Anakin never seems to feel trapped or obligated--there’s almost nothing in the movies or TV show that actually lean towards the idea that Anakin felt any pressure of being the Chosen One.  He doesn’t seem to believe it himself--he tells the Father that it’s a myth.  And the other Jedi (aside from Qui-Gon) never talk about it in front of him, it’s almost never even mentioned, I think it comes up all of two or three times in the movies?  And each time there are people expressing doubt about it being true and it’s never discussed at Anakin’s face.  Even in TCW, aside from the Mortis arc, it never really seems to come up pretty much at all. Does he feel an obligation to Shmi’s memory to stay as a Jedi?  Possibly!  It would certainly be an easy conclusion to come to!  He never expresses it directly anywhere that I can recall, though. At the end of The Wrong Jedi, when Ahsoka says she’s going to leave, he says,  “I understand. More than you realize, I understand wanting to walk away from the Order.“ which is the most he ever expresses about actually wanting to leave in any canon that I’ve seen.  We’re given no other context for this--is it because he’s angry at the Jedi, is it that he feels they’re not doing enough and he could do more as a free agent, is it that he wants to leave to be with Padme, is it that he doesn’t like being a Jedi, is it that he feels a wanderlust for the stars?  We’re given no further context in that scene, so we have to put it together with the other things we have.  That Anakin, when he was younger, said he felt a calling to the starts, that in ROTS he wants more, that in the conversations with Padme and Tarkin, he feels the Jedi aren’t going far enough and someone should make people do things. Put together with the end of the Obi-Wan & Anakin comic, where he stays because he feels he can do more with the Jedi than without them, I think that’s at the heart of why Anakin stays.  He wants more more more more.  This is further evidenced by what George Lucas says about how the dark side works, which is something I think Anakin is clearly sliding into at this point: “What happens when you go to the dark side is it goes out of balance and you get really selfish and you forget about everybody … because when you get selfish you get stuff, or you want stuff, and when you want stuff and you get stuff then you are afraid somebody is going to take it away from you, whether it’s a person or a thing or a particular pleasure or experience.”  --George Lucas That’s what I see it as, because the story of Anakin Skywalker is one that is sliding towards the dark side, and Anakin’s problem is that he wants more and more and more.  He wants to be a Jedi, he wants to be married to Padme, he wants to be able to murder people to win the war, he wants to be made a Master (despite having just taken a bribe from Palpatine and clearly isn’t ready for it yet in emotional mastery), he wants all these people, things, and experiences.  He wants more. The point @alabasterswriting​ makes here:  “To me, (and it’s totally an opinion, and I’m open to disagreement), it’s always seemed like Anakin was on his way to being able to being able to handle himself emotionally before his perceptions of his sense of self were messed with. And I think (as I’m sure many do) a large part of that was Palpatine feeding his ego/preying on his fears and insecurities. Like we see in the bar with Palpatine that he uses a whole bunch of trigger words meant to make Anakin equate the Jedi to his time as a slave.“ is a really good one, because I absolutely agree that Palpatine completely muddied the waters on this, that Anakin was on his way to a much healthier understanding of himself and ability to understand himself, but then Palpatine started dripping poison into his hear and telling Anakin the things he wanted to hear, rather than the truth that he needed to hear. So, eventually, Vader rationalizes what he’s doing by looping back around to what Palpatine told him, which George Lucas makes clear in his directions to Hayden Christensen (that he’s rationalizing and justifying the things he’s doing, that he doesn’t actually believe them, that is), that that’s at the heart of how Anakin handles things. He does feel powerless to help people--despite that he’s not and there are plenty of moments where he knows otherwise, like in the Age of Republic comic, when he helps the people of Kudo out of the sticky situation they’re in, they have a chance to make their own choice about whether they want to join the Separatists or the Republic, Obi-Wan specifically points out that it was him who helped them:

There are actually a ton of instances in The Clone Wars of this as well, like he helps the rebels on Onderon, he helps save Naboo from the Blue Shadow Virus, he helps free the people of Mon Calamari, he helps free the people of Kiros, etc., but it was easier to grab the above cap as an example (even if I do absolutely agree that Anakin Skywalker is a bucket with a whole in the bottom--it doesn’t matter that he helps people almost every day, it’s never enough, he still wants more, he still feels powerless to help as many people as he wants, and he does feel like he’s often taking things apart, rather than fixing things, as he tells Padme in the Malevolence arc) as well as it’s a good segue into his relationship with Obi-Wan in the next part. Ultimately, I think it comes back to the dark side--it lies, it twists things, it tells Anakin that he wants more and more and more, that nothing else around him is ever enough.  He’s not helping enough people, he’s not doing enough stuff, he’s not getting enough recognition, he’s not getting enough personal loyalty over loyalty to things that are bigger than him. But he can’t face that truth about himself, that the dark side has twisted him, so instead the dark side must be right, Palpatine must be right.  The dark side always wins, Obi-Wan, Vader says in the Star Wars comic, and so everything else must be shuffled around to fit that.  Everything else must be rationalized to fit the way he feels, so he leans into whatever justification he can find, despite that he actually really wanted to be a Jedi and believed in their teachings. (Part 2 in a reblog coming soon because I can only do one monster post at a time.  ^_~)

[imbellarosa]

Hiii! I was wondering if you read fanfic?? And if so, what are your fav tropes/works??

Hi!!!! I read A LOT of fic from A LOT of fandoms! My fav tropes are either flat comedy or enemies to friends to lovers or friends to lovers or something like that! I only read happy endings, but I don’t mind some angst in the middle. Idk what fandom you’re looking for so I’m gonna give you a list of some of my all time favs from EVERY fandom, and I’ll add one that I’ve written!

Walk That Mile by purpledaisy- 150k words 1D enemies to friends to lovers road trip AU across the US for a fun, banter-y time with some real communication issues that really get resolved well. People always say that a rom com should have a good answer for “why can’t they be together NOW?” And this one does it really well! No real angst, and a lot of fun. 

Have Love, Will Travel by @kingsofeverything - 97k words 1D YouTubers on a roadtrip AU! If you liked the first one on this list, you’re gonna love this one too! Sweet and long and full of the memories you would make on a road trip. Lots of laughs with this one, and I wish I could see the “Have Road, Will Travel” video series irl! 

Tell Me Now, Tell Me Now by @vanillabeanniall - 55k words 1D Miraculous Ladybug AU but you don’t need to watch the show to ADORE it - I know that I sure do!! Funny and sweet and SUPER ironic, with superheroes and Paris mixed in and great characters! Who wouldn’t love it?

So Let’s Cross the Lines We’ve Lost by thecoloursneverfade - 165k words 1D friends to enemies to friends to lovers uni AU that was one of the first that I read in the fandom and really made me fall in love! Good friends, some angst, hard convos that lead to real growth, and lots of really great characters. This feels real, for a lack of a better word, and is always compelling. 

Ain’t That A Kick in the Head by keysmashlesbian, wreckingtomlinson (karasunonolibero) - 23k words 1D comedy AU ft. football player!Louis, Disaster gay!Harry, memes, frogs, head dives, Blue Coolattas (whatever those are), and a very sassy Red Robin waitress named Fiona. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve read it, and I always laugh, and I always find something new to fall in love with. 

Leave it To the Breeze by @hattalove - 82k words 1D GBBO AU. This one feels like a warm hug. It’s gentle, fun, has great characters, believable angst, has you rooting for more than one of the characters to win, and is also hilarious, somehow. I’ve read this fic over and over and over, and I especially do it when I have time before a new season of GBBO. Also, have snacks!! It makes me hungry

The Section by bananaheathen - 11k words 1D Uni AU with grad student TAs, sophomore undergrads, art classes, movie analysis, and final essays as methods of seduction. Also, nicknames, nude models, a Halloween party, and absolutely shameless flirting. I loved it, and laughed the whole way through. 

I’ve Heard it Both Ways by @adoredontour - 26k words 1D Psych AU. I love this one. I love the fic, I love psych, I love the author. I’ve read most of her works, but this one has such a special place in my heart. Go read it!! 

Play it All Night Long by janine_tangerine - 43k words SPN radio AU with DJ!Dean and bartender!Cas, with music, annoying coworkers, sassy siblings, and lots of love. WHOAH WHATS THIS A LIVEJOURNAL FIC??? I know but I read this ages ago, and it has music EMBEDDED WITHIN THE FIC! It was my first introduction to Bob Dylan, who remains one of my favorite artists of all time. 

Crossroads State by Mercy - 51k words SPN slice of life AU with Mechanic!Dean, Teacher!Cas, Law Student!Sam, and lovely lovely moments. All sweet, some tension, but no real angst. I read this forever ago, and still come back and back and back to it. 

Peace and Good Luck to All Men by KismetJeska - 31k words SPN College Au. DO YOU MEAN THE BEST CHRISTMAS FIC EVER OF ALL TIME??? I read this on the first day of December every year, and it makes me laugh every time. Cas falls in love with his sister’s boyfriend, Gabe and Luke are in a seduction competition, Michael is tired of everyone, and Dean doesn’t know what hit him. 

For All You Young Hockey Players, Pay Attention by @thursdaysfallenangel - 144k words SPN enemies to lovers hockey AU. Just. Please go read this. Gorgeous and still one of the best fics in the whole fandom, imo. Cas is the new transfer on Dean’s team, and Dean doesn’t like change. 

The Complete Works of Emmanuel Allen by @violue - 54k words SPN small town AU ft. writer!Cas and local business owner!Dean. Dean meets his favorite author, but does not know it’s him. Shenanigans ensue, with a lovely warm feel. Dean builds a mausoleum and owns cats and lives in the woods. Cas needs a change of scene. Sam thinks everyone needs some more company. 

The Mirror by cloudyjenn - 25k words SPN parallel universe AU. This was one of the first fics I ever read, and I still love it. Dean touches an enchanted mirror and travels through universes in search of an answer to a question he hasn’t asked. Full of love, family, and companionship. 

Asunder by rageprufrock - 24k words SPN AU with Social worker!Dean, Doctor!Cas, Sober!Sam, and RUBY!!! Ugh I love this fic for Ruby alone. This one is more bittersweet. Dean hasn’t spoken to Sam in years due to his struggles with addiction. Sam, now sober, is getting married, and has invited him. Dean can’t face his family alone. 

But It’s a Good Refrain by lady_ragnell - 23k words Merlin Radio AU! Merlin has an anonymous gossip radio show, and someone calls in to put Arthur on blast! Morgana is a fan, Arthur is not amused, and a sort of enemies to lovers thing occurs. Just lovely, and it makes me laugh every time. 

And Like the Cycle of the Year, We Begin Again by @katherynefromphilly - 208k words Merlin canon compliant. This is the Season 6 we should have had. If you’re at all into this fandom, go read it - it’s still an all time fav for me. Hundreds of years later, Arthur walks out of the lake. Merlin has been waiting. 

Give The Dragon a Chili by @supercalvin - 47k words Merlin magical AU based on the story in New Zealand of the cat stealing someone’s underwear. Merlin’s dragon is sort of a thief. 

Fundamental Imperfection by Starlingthefool - 12k words Merlin famous author AU. Arthur likes Dickens. Merlin does not. They get into it on a panel, and twitter stan wars ensue. And enemies to friends to lovers where literary arguments are an expression of love, and stories are magical. 

The Student Prince by FayJay - 145k words Merlin Uni AU. What a classic!! It’s a magical realism royal enemies to friends to lovers AU ft. a dragon in the walls, a lovely gay soc, Gwen as a Muggle, and some really great characters and moments. Do yourself a favor and go read this one. 

Call it Love by @dalek-in-heels - 30k words Merlin RPF. UGH THIS ONE!!! Okay 1.) the author is one of my best friends, and she’s amazing! 2.) lovely fic that takes place at the end of Merlin, and still has one of my all-time favorite misunderstandings in fic ever. “Yogurty Heart” is my favorite way to say I love you. 

If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things by @watsonshoneybee - 35k words Sherlock AU canon compliant through season 3. This one is sad, but the title is taken off of one of my favorite books, and the writing is gorgeous - as is the characterization. Happy ending, though! I promise! So the journey is all worth it! 

In All of the Lives We Are by @dalek-in-heels - 20k words The Magicians canon compliant through the first half of season 3. Sarah does it again and writes one of the best fics I’ve ever read. Art as therapy, a sweet love story in more than one universe, and finding the will to keep going through the worst days. The writers of the actual show should have read this fic and put it on the screen. This is my canon. 

A Happy Ending? Sure Enough by me (imbellarosa) - 8k words The Magicians canon compliant up to season 4. This is the only one of mine I’m putting on the list, because I still really like this one! You need some context, but not much? Idk, just if you want to see how *I* write! 

[holdouttrout]

2020 Reflections and Resetting for 2021

This is a bit long, so I’ll cut it, but I’ve been missing doing these annual posts so... if you want to read on, please do!

Fannish The Big Fandom of the year for me was the Locked Tomb, the series by Tamsyn Muir that starts with Gideon the Ninth. I read and re-read the two books (so far) several times, and while right at this moment the fannishness is lying dormant, it is coiled in my soul, ready to strike again at any moment. Otherwise, I ended up doing a lot of reading and watching. I revisited a bunch of Star Trek, which was and remains delightful. I wrote some Han/Leia fic, which is always fun, especially since the people who enjoy Han/Leia are lovely and discerning! Video Games My big game of the year is Crypt of the Necrodancer, which is a fun little dungeon game where you have to move with the beat. I beat the Necrodancer once and now I gotta do it again, except harder and I haven't figured out the trick yet. Books Other than Gideon the Ninth (and Harrow the Ninth), I enjoyed many, many books. According to Goodreads, I read 64 books. That does not include the many re-reads of various books. Many of these books were read because of @that-silver-girl, who is a great reading buddy and excellent at cajoling, begging, and demanding I read good books. If I had to pick five of my favorites (again, besides the obvious), they would be: Or What You Will, by Jo Walton. Jo Walton is one of my favorite authors, someone who manages to combine fantasy with philosophy speculation in a way that makes me think, and although this book took a while to grab me, when I did I was all in. A Memory Called Empire, by Arkady Martine. I adore fish out of water stories, and this one had a lot of strangeness and cultural misunderstandings and Honorable People and political intrigue. This is How you Lose the Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. This book is SO GORGEOUS. It's very descriptive and dramatic and hints at the world(s) involved rather than giving you a concrete setting, and I adored it. Maybe my actual favorite book of this year. A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles. This book was a book club book that I would and could recommend to just about anyone. We ended up reading it just as the social distancing measures really took hold here, which was sort of ironic timing, but it was such a good, hopeful book that it went straight to the top of my list. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, by Olga Tocarczuk. I haven't yet managed to get anyone to read this book--I tried to get my book club to read it, but they passed on it, probably because of the title. I really loved the main character and the setting. It ended up feeling very down-to-earth and practical in a way I find really satisfying. In other book news, I finally started legitimately keeping track of and writing little "reviews" on Goodreads. So… you know, if that's your thing, come find me. I cannot guarantee I say anything about books worth saying, but I'm trying to let go of my need to be perceived as intelligent about my book choices and enjoyment. Fun Well. Fun was certainly fraught in 2020. I didn't have anything too big or adventurous planned in the Before Times, and then the Current Times meant that the most adventuring I did was two quiet weekends to the beach, visiting my aunt. Those trips were very wonderful and healing, and I only regret that I wasn't able to spend more time with her and her partner in the past. I'm very grateful about how my friend group(s) have really tried to move online. One of my gaming groups moved to Zoom and Roll20 right away, and I think maybe we missed like… one week while we figured it all out. Another group has gotten going since then and I'm having fun with that, too. I had an outdoor social group during the spring and summer that is having to move more virtual now that the weather is colder again. My book club has transitioned to virtual meetings pretty well, too, and I have a small intergenerational discussion group through my Friends Meeting that has become a lovely, stable place for me. Writing This is mostly meh, but I have started to write a little bit here and there more recently, especially with the Discord Writing Group I'm participating in now. May that trend continue. Music I have kept up playing piano (probably even more because of social distancing and being home more than I would have otherwise). It is a very centering place for me. I also managed to get a few recordings of myself playing Christmas tunes so I could send them to my mom, and that felt like a real accomplishment. Physical Activity I walked quite a bit in spring and summer, and even fall wasn't too sedentary, but uh… winter started off rough. This last week, my grandma (who broke her LEG a few weeks ago) and I made a deal that we would both take a walk on days it wasn't raining. So far, that's meant EVERY DAY and I have stuck to it (I know she will have!). 2021 Okay, so I don't make resolutions. I don't. But I do think of goals that I want to accomplish and write them down, so it's understandable that some people might think they are resolutions. Books and Other Media I want to start reading more non-fiction, so I've identified 6 non-fiction books to read in 2021. (I'm starting off with a small goal.) I also have 2.5-3 small shelves with books I have not yet read, and I have about 9 books on hold from the library. I'd like to go through the books on hold and the to-read shelves, even if that just means deciding I'm not going to read the book on the shelf that's been sitting there for years after all. I also have a list of movies to watch, so I'm going to try to watch one of them from that list each month. I'm definitely not holding myself to that very strictly, especially since the books thing is already going to be more of a project, but there are plenty of just plain fun movies on that list that I sort of forget are out there when I'm choosing what to watch. I also really, really, really want to do a Farscape Rewatch. It's been ages since I've seen the show, and it's time! Learning, Practicing, and Doing For piano, I really want to re-start practicing how to play from chord notation. This is something that I wish I'd learned how to do a long time ago. I want to re-start my ASL learning as well. I have a plan in place for it, and just hope I can actually do it. I have a couple of sewing projects I'd like to work on, but I won't feel any guilt if I don't get to them. I'm considering how best to make an impact on areas of social justice that resonate with me, and I have the theory that it might be more effective to focus on ONE area and not fracture myself into a million pieces trying to fix EVERYTHING. This is less of a goal than it is a consideration, so it needs some work to turn into a plan.

[captaincoffeegirl515]

Q - A fandom you’ve abandoned and why.

This one is sad, but The Old Guard fandom. Most times, I just get bored of a fandom and lose interest in it. But this was different. I still like the characters and story, but the fanbase killed my enjoyment of it.

For a movie that has such diverse characters from different races, genders, and religions, the fanbase was horribly racist. So many people pushing Nile (black woman) and Quynh (asian woman) out of the picture while concentrating on their poor depressed Booker (white man), and all their "shame on the others for not taking care of Booker and getting angry when he betrayed them". So many people writing and drawing Joe (arab muslim man) as this hypermasculine, hyperaggressive, angry and violent and dominant brute while writing his canon beloved Nicky (white christian man) as a hyperfeminine, thin and waif-y, innocent and meek bottom. So many people acting as if they had been personally attacked when people of color constantly point out how racist those tropes are, and then purposefully misunderstanding what we're trying to say in order for them to have some sort of "gotcha" moment against us.

I was also upset about how Quynh is being implied/set-up to be the next villain in the next movie after everything she had been through. I also found it so strange how so many more people can feel sorry for Booker because he's sad that he outlived his family compared to Quynh who was locked in an iron cage, dropped into the ocean, drowned again and again for 500 years, and was basically abandoned by her only friends/family. Weird :/

After many months of that, I was just done with it. I'm out. I don't read the fanfics, I barely look at fanart, I don't go on the tags, and I only follow people who have also criticised the racial biases that have overrun the fanbase. That's it.

[doopcafe]

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Seasons 1--6), Final Analysis

Well, I made it through. 

Let’s be absolutely clear: The Clone Wars (TCW) is not good television. For the most part, it’s not even watchable television. The show suffers from serious fundamental issues in nearly every aspect of storytelling. Characters are underdeveloped and inconsistent; the dialogue is expository and contradictory; the tone is disjoint and jarring; and most episodes serve no greater purpose than to be a twenty-minute vessel to house lightsaber fights. 

So I want to put this part of the show to rest before I move on to Star Wars: Rebels (and before returning to watch season 7). 

With two exceptions, the show poorly handles twists and reveals. In the earlier seasons, reveals were spoiled mostly due to telegraphing: Captain Sleaze in Cloak of Darkness, Senator Clovis in Senate Spy, and Yolo (?) in Senate Murders come to mind, but there were others. In later seasons, telegraphing was supplanted by “small universe syndrome” as the primary cause of spoiled reveals. In The Academy, a cloaked figure was seen doing shady, back-alley deals, but his identity could only have been the Prime Minister. During the “Ahsoka framed” series, Barriss was obviously the traitor, simply because her character suddenly reappeared after four seasons and there were no other candidates. 

Probably the most successfully executed reveal was that of Krell, as his assholeness was at least initially masked as military rigidity. But even so, it was so over-the-top that when the reveal finally came to light, it felt more like an overdue disclosure than a dramatic twist. It didn’t help that, by that point in the show, the format of “asshole = upcoming reveal” had been firmly entrenched into the show’s DNA. 

I would argue that the most effective plot twist of the entire show was when the dancer/singer girl shot and killed Ziro the Hutt in Hunt for Ziro. Although irrelevant to the greater story, it was an actual twist because it was strongly implied the opposite would happen (i.e., Ziro would betray the girl). If there is to be a second place, that award would go to Ahsoka’s decision to leave the Jedi Order at the conclusion of The Wrong Jedi. But this leads me into my next point...

Who was the main character of The Clone Wars? If we go by the logic that whoever had the most screen time was the main character, then Anakin probably wins over Ahsoka. But if we go by the logic that the most developed character was the “main character,” then this is a show about Ahsoka. Ahsoka---more than any other character---grows in a noticeable way (from impatient, violent child to impatient, slightly less violent teenager). In contrast, Anakin in Rising Malevolence is the same character as Anakin in Voices (only a little more violent and angry for some reason). 

It’s unfortunate that her major character moments were never capitalized on. Intentionally sacrificing herself for the greater good in Weapons Factory apparently led to no lasting repercussions on her character. Her impatience and disobedience led to the deaths of thousands in Storm over Ryloth, but was similarly forgotten immediately afterwards. Even Ahsoka’s major character moment at the end of The Wrong Jedi resulted in her walking away from the show, never to address the implications of that decisions (although I suppose that’s the subject of Season 7). 

On a different note, the show was riddled by a shameful amount of “references” and fan service, for reasons exclusively external to the story. These “nods” ranged from the obvious “Obi-wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope” (or whatever Senator Jimmy Smits says in Cat and Mouse) to the innocuous design of a droid or background device. 

These “references” are objectively problematic for at least a few reasons. (1) They contribute to the sense that the universe is a really, really small place. Is the Mos Eisley cantina really the only place in the Outer Rim where shady deals go down? Is carbon freezing really the only way to store a person in stasis for transport? How long do Rodians live for anyways? Greedo’s gotta be what, like 80 when Han shoots him in A New Hope? It’s ironic that ultimately, this incomprehensibly large, diverse galaxy actually feels much smaller after watching this series because we keep going to the same twelve places...

(2) “Fan service” is tricky to get right because different people have different memories and impressions of the source material. In result, copying material will oftentimes comes across as a blatant misunderstanding of the original content. For example, to me, Vader put Solo into carbon freeze because it’s what Lando had lying around. It’s not a galactically established method of transporting people. Obi-Wan trained Luke with those laser balls aboard the Falcon because Han had them lying around and Obi-Wan needed to improvise a training exercise to kill time. 

(3) "References” and “nods” usually are just a band-aid for a lack of creativity. Some of the better episodes in the initial seasons were just direct rehashes of famous movies. Seven Samurai, Godzilla, Stray Dog, The Most Dangerous Game, King Kong... I mean, it’d be pretty impressive to mess-up stories like these, but it’s concerning that there were just so many episodes made from other people’s stories. 

These “references” even seep into the most innocuous of scenes. When Prequel!Wan lands on Mandalore to attempt a rescue of Satine from Darth Maul, one of the Mandalorians takes aim at him, only to have their blaster pushed down by their companion who’s shaking their head. This is a direct reference o the Tusken Raiders on Tatooine when Luke went after R2 in the desert. Even if this scene served an important plot purpose (it didn’t), there’s undoubtedly a multitude of ways to communicate the same thing. Instead, a small reference to the OT is interjected into the show, deimmersing the audience from the events shown. Unfortunately, this is just one (very small) example of hundreds over the whole show. 

Let me say something positive. The episodes that worked best (especially early in the show's run) were ones that focused on mortal people, usually the clones. Innocents of Ryloth was one of the first watchable episodes, simply because we didn't have to sit through twenty minutes of unlikable, unrelatable “Jedi” and instead followed around a pair of troopers helping a little girl using their limited abilities. Likewise, Pursuit of Peace was way more enjoyable than it probably should have been, simply because the story was understandable, the consequences clear, and the drama real. Plan of Dissent (when the clones actively rebel against Krell) was also noteworthy for similar reasons: clones we liked must subdue a “Jedi” we’ve learned to hate. 

This isn’t to say that episodes focused on the major characters were inherently unenjoyable, it’s just that none of these characters had any room to grow (with the exception of Ahsoka). Dooku, Grievous, Anakin, Prequel!Wan... They were the same characters as portrayed in Episode II and III. As presented, there was nowhere for these characters to go. Dooku was literally identical at the beginning of the series as he was at the end, and the same can be said about the others. 

But these are false constraints the writers imposed upon themselves. Grievous was not in Episode II and was introduced in Episode III. TCW could have started him however they wanted and then illustrated his change into the character he later becomes. Who was he? What was his motivation? Why did he hate Jedi so much? The show was handed a completely clean slate to deliver a character from scratch, but instead we were immediately shown “Episode III General Grievous” with zero introduction because fans were expected to already know who he was. 

This is partly why the backstory episode to Grievous was so compelling, at least in premise: viewing his home was personal to his story and it represented a chance to learn a bit more about the character and where he came from. Of course, it was mostly mishandled by a reliance on meaningless action, but the high ratings of that particular episode suggest there was room for quality television here, it just was never capitalized on.

Instead, we have completely static caricatures, especially for minor characters from the movies. Admiral Tarkin, Admiral Ackbar, Greedo (among others) were written out of cardboard and their roles in the plot could have just as easily been played by anyone else (there was nothing unique about their roles that required them to be these characters). 

This is a shame because a lot could have been done with the established premise to really focus on Anakin, his motivations, and his relationship to his Padawan. I would have been okay with a lot of backtracking if it meant I could begin to grasp his “fall” to the Dark Side. Instead, I’m honestly more confused than ever about his motivation.

One argument is that Anakin joins the Dark Side because he like, “loves” Padme (or whatever). However, what we’re shown in this show---consistently, clearly---is that Padme and Anakin have a toxic, dysfunctional relationship. He is uncomfortably jealous and rarely trusts her. They argue nearly every time they’re together. Their “love” (or whatever) must remain secret, equating their relationship to something “wrong” or even “illegal” that must be kept secret, even on the verge of death. In a later episode, Anakin orders Padme to listen to him because he’s the “man” and, as his wife, she doesn’t have a say in the matter. This is clearly a broken relationship and the best result is the one that actually happens: They stop seeing each other. Anakin wants to save this woman from a vision? Why? 

This brings up a second point, which is that Anakin can’t stand the pain of losing someone. His desire to protect those close to him may be Anakin’s only redeeming trait. He has a single selfless scene (in the entire show) during the opening of Jedi Crash where he sacrifices himself to delay an explosion and save his companions. I want to stress that any other scene where Anakin saves or helps someone isn’t done because he’s a good person, it’s done because he’s a broken person. It’s done because he, personally, would struggle with the emotional toll of knowing he allowed someone close to him to be hurt or die. In other words, he’s doing nice things for selfish reasons. 

As far as I’m concerned, Anakin has always been Darth Vader. He is given choices between being a Jedi and allowing a lot of people to die, and he enjoys choosing the second. In Ghosts of Mortis, we’re shown that the threshold between “Anakin” and “Darth Vader” is disconcertingly low, requiring only a few choice words and less than a minute to convert him. In short, what I’ve learned from TCW regarding Anakin Skywalker is that he was an unlikable dick, and his “turn” to the Dark Side was just a long-overdue reveal. 

While the later seasons worked towards the events in Episode III in a way that at least made a bit of sense, earlier seasons were focused on adult-themed wacky hijinks. In a way, the show almost would have worked better as a kid’s show, but this was clearly meant for adults: politics, war, slavery, and lots and lots of horrific violence. In comparison, the silly adventures of Star Wars: Resistance worked well because the show didn’t take itself too seriously. It was very clearly, from the start, a lighthearted show about kids going on fun adventures. In contrast, TCW suffered because its themes were adult in nature, but was portrayed as a Saturday morning cartoon show. The humor was misplaced, the tone disjointed from actual events, and the violence excessive. 

Let me say a few words on the “Jedi.” Initially I labeled them as overpowered (OP), because in earlier episodes they seemed invincible and dissolved tension in every scene. Later, we see a slew of them get cut down as plot fodder, even against widely different situations. We see Luminara and others push through hoards of droids only to see “Jedi” Master Yoda-like dude get taken down by a dog. We watch as Fisto *heh* powers through entire battalions and the cone-head guy counting coup against an army, only to watch as pink girl gets shot in the face by a single clone who stands in front of her for several seconds before pulling the trigger. 

It’s nearly impossible to feel tension in these scenes because the metrics for judging the true strength of a “Jedi” keep shifting as a function of the plot requirements. Anakin suddenly forgets how to use the Force when the plot needs his help to fake some drama. Prequel!Wan pointlessly fist fights with a slaver cat for an hour until the plot needs him to get back up again and OP everyone in the room. Even their ships are only as strong or weak as the plot needs them to be. Plo Koon’s fleet is devastated in seconds in order to portray the Malevolence as being a threat; Anakin’s fleet powers through a larger force three times its size because Anakin’s like, really mad about something. 

Secondly, the “Jedi,” in general, were unlikable assholes. They were consistently portrayed as violent and ignorant and I struggled to understand them as real people. Frequently, we witnessed them torture victims, default to a lightsaber to solve problems, and enjoy death to the point of counting coup against sentient life forms defending their homes. Anakin threatened civilians with his lightsaber. Ahsoka was annoyed when she’s asked not to murder a defenseless creature in Jedi Crash. Prequel!Wan and Anakin team up to hurtle enormous rocks into a beaten monster in Dooku Captured. A trio of Jedi Masters mentally gang bang a shackled Cad Bane. They supported state terrorism when it suited their needs, but agreed to abandon their friends for political reasons. 

I mean, these are not good people...

This is a shame, because my impression of true Jedi comes from Luke, Yoda, and Obi-Wan in the OT, as well as the expanded universe novels that take place afterwards. It always seemed to me that being a Jedi was about conquering oneself, one’s fears, and learning to use the Force to selflessly help others and let go of all worldly attachments. You know, like the Buddhists they were originally inspired by. I always had the impression that the Force was extremely powerful and that Yoda was only showing Luke a portion of what was possible. That the Emperor was only using Force lighting to toy with Luke. That Vader only Force choked his officers because it was visually intimidating and kept them in line. 

Instead, we’re treated to some garbage about how a “Jedi” is nothing greater than an actuator to swing around a lightsaber. When Luke enters Jabba’s palace in Jedi to rescue his friends, it’s not with lightsaber swinging, cutting shit up, flipping around like an acrobatic monkey. Imagine Anakin and Ahsoka in the same scene. They’d blaze through the palace corridors before Force choking Jabba as the Darth Vader theme plays. Forget the rancor, these are demigods. They have lightsabers. Have you seen them? They go “woosh woosh.” 

In short, there was little to look up to in terms of a “hero” character. I can see how children can look up to Luke as a role model, someone they want to emulate or play with as a toy, but looking up to Anakin? Ahsoka? Hey kids, wanna learn to become a psychopath? First, you use your power to abuse those who are weaker than you. Then you need to get really really angry and uncontrollably choke someone, preferably your sister or one of your cousins. 

And so, for a Saturday morning cartoon show, it is very unclear who we’re supposed to care about. I liked when Ahsoka went against Anakin because I hated his character so much. I liked everything with Hondo, a pirate. I liked Ventress a little, because she was actively seeking to kill the main characters. I liked some of the clones, but I don’t know which ones because they all looked the same. I cared about Darth Maul because I’m honestly a little worried about him, especially after the loss of his brother. I kinda liked General Grievous just because he hates the “Jedi” and was therefore relatable (even though the reasoning was never explained). And... that’s it. 

At no point did I ever “look forward” to the next episode. I painfully died a little on the inside hitting the “watch next” button every single time.

This “review” is already way too long, so let me summarize by applying my five-star rating system (developed for movies) to each episode. In review:

5. Amazing, classic, culturally important. Something everyone should watch.  4. Great; very well done, no significant flaws. 3: Entertaining with only minor gripes/criticisms.  2: “Watchable,” but suffers from flaws and has some poor parts.  1. Uncomfortably bad; suffers from serious flaws. 0. Painfully bad, would actively fight against being forced to watch a second time. 

The 3-star episodes were: 

Hostage Crisis

Lightsaber Lost 

Pursuit of Peace

Carnage of Krell

The Wrong Jedi 

Hostage Crisis was the introduction of Cad Bane, Lightsaber Lost was the remake of Stray Dog (and the only episode to include a real Jedi), Pursuit of Peace was the random Padme/politics episode that was strangely well-executed, Carnage of Krell was the reveal of Krell as a bad guy and his clones working to apprehend him, and The Wrong Jedi was Ahsoka leaving the Jedi Order (and the only episode to include a true character moment). 

Also, I scaled the IMDB ratings of each episode to my ratings and then detected outliers in their overlap. In other words, I wanted to answer the question, “which episodes did I rate the most differently from others?” 

Turns out, I rated every single episode lower except for seven. Those seven were: 

Mercy Mission (+1.853) - R2 and 3PO discover an underground world with ents. This one is universally panned by “fans,” but was a competently handled episode apart from the disappointing resolution. 

Pursuit of Peace (+1.382) - Padme struggles to win support for a Senate bill. Another competently handled episode that focuses on Padme and politics and is ranked low by “fans.”

Lightsaber Lost (+0.6471) 

Weapons Factory (+0.4118) - An average episode with a dramatic scene of sacrifice by Ahsoka and her “friend” Barriss. 

Shadow Warrior (+0.3824) - Grievous is captured during some dramatic moments on Naboo. 

Hostage Crisis (+0.3529)

Front Runners (+0.0882) - One of the rebels episodes, I don’t remember which. 

In conclusion, Star Wars: Rebels is next and I am somehow still alive.

[aspoonofsugar]

From any medium (anime, live-action/animated TV series and films, literature, video games, etc.), what conversations did you find to be the most well-written/intriguing? (I hope this question isn’t too vague)—BSD Chat Anon

Which anime characters do you think had the best introductions/first appearances? (I feel like I’ve been asking you to make a lot of lists lately. I hope this isn’t getting monotonous)—BSD Chat Anon            

Hello BSD chat anon!

No problem! They are actually interesting lists which are gonna end up being totally inexaustive.

As far as conversations aka dialogues go, here is my list in no particular order, as per usual:

1) Psycho Pass:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mmbdg_9hS4M

The scene above is just one of the many interesting dialogues and conversations in the series. The series itself explores very interesting themes (mental health, justice, utilitarianism, free will, use of technology), so it is normal that the dialogues reflect this. Different characters have different opinions and they openly show them through both their actions and their words.

2) Liar Game:

People should be doubted. Many people misunderstand this concept. Doubting people is just a part of getting to know them. What many people call “trust” is really just giving up on trying to understand others, and that very act is far worse than doubting. It is actually “apathy”.

Akiyama Shinichi

Liar Game is a series which talks about mental game, but among all the tricks used by the characters you can also find lines like the one above which introduces a very interesting perspective imo.

3) Death Stranding:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0C_dN6hvoRA&t=48s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQsXQCTUIuM

I don’t think the two examples I gave make the dialogues justice. What I like about this story’s dialogues is how they play with words’ different meaning. Terms like delivery, strand, fragile and so on all have multiple meanings and are connected to characters in different ways. This is something which happens also because of the names given to the characters which all are important thematically. The dialogues are very beautiful in this game even if some are incredibly long and more like monologues.

4) Tales of Arcadia:

Tales of Arcadia is a series whose dialogues are brilliant even if they have a completely different style than the ones described up until now. Because of the nature of the series, the dialogues use a lot of jokes, but what is amazing is that these jokes are often very meaningful when one thinks about them. The Trollhunter is a troll, so he has to hunt himself is a joke which actually conveys the theme of the series. Aja and Toby using each other’s chatchphrase in a scene shows the integration between humans and aliens and their growing bond and so on. It is amazing that the franchise manages to make important thematic lines out of jokes.

5) The Peanuts

I love dialogues which are short, but very deep and The Peanuts are a perfect example of what one can do with dialogues. When it comes to this I also like Altan and author who is able to come up wiht lines like this one:

I like myself, but I am not sure I have good taste.

As you can see, they are pretty ironic and poignant.

I have tried to present series with different styles and others with quotes I particularly liked. All in all, there are tons of series whose dialogues I like either because they are well written or because I love what the characters say. I have also mostly focused on cartoons, anime/manga and games because if I were to start with books and movies I would never end.

Some other random honorable mentions are Madoka, Monster, Once Upon a Time in the West, Requiem for the Phantom and Re:creators, Gaber’s monologues and Zerocalcare.

As far as character introductions go, he is my list in no particular order:

1) Fyodor’s introduction in BSD (where for introduction I mostly mean his introductory chapter) is very well made. It manages to convey the character’s philosophy, his intelligence, his personality and to do so through an interesting subplot.

2) Ritsu’s introductory arc in Assassination Classroom

Her two-chapters arc is a good example of a short arc written in a good way. What is more, Ritsu is a good play of the moe robot since she is Moe and a robot, but she is not an android hence the gag of her classmates seeing a giant black box with the face of a girl. All in all, Ritsu is immediately given a clear flaw and the way she overcame it was sweet to see.

3) Claire Stanfield in Baccano

I am not talking of his official first appearance, but of his proper introduction as Vino aka the Rail Tracer. I like the way it is foreshadowed, but also well hidden and the way the scene is directed, so that Claire keeps his confused expression while he kicks the gun out of his opponent’s hand.

4) Toph’s introduction in ATLA:

The Blind Bandit is one of my favourite episodes in ATLA and I think it offers a very strong introduction to Toph, who she is, what she wants and the nature of her abilities.

5) Clifford Unger’s first appearance in Death Stranding

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eScmaMRg4IU

Technically by that point the player has already seen Cliff in flashbacks, but this is the first time you meet him in the story itself. As you can see, his introduction is very chilling and manages to both convey information on Cliff (his past as a soldier), but also to make a nice contrast with what you’ll discover later of Cliff’s true nature.

6) Heartman’s introduction in Death Stranding

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZWsURWossA

Unluckily I could not find a shorter video with only his introductory scene, but this should give you the idea as well (plus you can watch his whole interaction with Sam if you feel like it and have not played/watched the game).

Anyway, I think Heartman has a great introduction with in literally one minute tells you a lot about the character and makes you willing to know more about him. The scene shows you many details of the environment Heartman is in like the floor, his familyìs picture and the sandglass. As you discover them you go closer to him and you realize he is in a cardiac arrest, but just when you start getting worried Heartman is given a shock and he wakes up. I think that it is overall a very powerful introduction which already makes you like the character even before you can interact with him.

Thank you for the asks!

[dukereviewsxtra]

Duke Reviews Xtra: Geppetto

Hello, I'm Andrew Leduc And Welcome To Duke Reviews Xtra Where We Are Continuing Our Duke Reviews Look At Disney...

Where If You've Been On The Duke Reviews Tumblr, You'll Know That I Just Reviewed Pinocchio And Since I Can't Review Everything Disney On The Duke Reviews Or Duke Reviews TV Tumblr (Though On Duke Reviews I'm Sure Going To Try)...

I May As Well Review The Stuff I Can't Review On Either One Of Those Tumblr's Here So On Today's Show We're Reviewing Geppetto...

When This Tv Film Came Out I Was Excited For It Because Unlike Other People Who Thought "Who Gives A Crap About Geppetto?" And Didn't Watch It I Actually Wondered If There Was More To The Character Than Just Kindly Wood-Carver Who Makes Toys And Wants A Kid...

Did I Get It? Let's Find Out As We Watch Geppetto...

Our Story Starts In The Village Of Villagio...

Which Despite How It Sounds Is Not A Sex Act...

Where The Children In Town Are Very Excited As The Toy Maker, Geppetto (Played By Drew Carey)...

And Let's Talk About This Really Quick So I Can Continue Talking About The Movie, I Don't Mind Drew Carey As Geppetto...

Sure, He's Not Old, Sure, He's Not Elderly, Sure, He Doesn't Pull Off An Italian Accent And Yes, He Is Miscast But He Does Have A Good Singing Voice And Carey Is Trying His Hardest With The Role So I Got To Give Him Credit...

Anyway, As I Was Saying The Children Of The Town Are Very Excited As The Toy Maker Geppetto Has Finished Making His New Toys That He Made After Gathering Wood Over The Summer...

Which Leads To The First Song Of The Movie, Toys...

(Start At 0:42)

And For A Beginning Song It's Good But It Doesn't Really Pull You Into The Story Like A Musical Should But Drew Carey's Verses In It Are Pretty Good So I Guess I Can't Complain...

After The Last Of The Children Go Home, Geppetto Works On A Puppet Named Pinocchio Before Going Into Our Next Song Called An Empty Heart As He Gets Ready For Bed..,

Sorry, There Was No Clip For It...

And Despite People Complaining That Because Drew Carey's Performance Has No Emotion The Song Has No Emotion, I Find That To Be Bullshit, Carey Does Well With The Song And I Honestly Like It...

But All Is Not Quiet In Geppetto's Workshop As The Blue Fairy (Played By Princess Atta) Drops By To Grant Geppetto's Wish Of Making Pinocchio A Real Boy...

However, Having Alot Of Questions, (And Why Wouldn't He) Pinocchio Keeps Geppetto Up All Night...

But A New Day Lead To Our Next Song Called And Son, As Geppetto Looks To The Future With Pinocchio Only For Problems To Happen Along The Way...

(Start At 0:31)

And While The Song Is Cute And There's Nothing Inherently Bad About It, It's Just Not My Favorite Song In The Entire Musical...

So, By The 4th Day, Geppetto Has Lost All Patience And Sees Sending Pinocchio To School As His Last Hope, But Even That Goes Wrong When A Misunderstanding Of Something Geppetto Said Leads Pinocchio To Get Into A Fight With A Young Kelvin Timeline Chekov...

And Yes, I Know I Shouldn't Make Fun Of Anton Yelchin Because Of How He Died But It Was Too Easy To Make A Star Trek Reference...

And Speaking Of Star Trek, After Geppetto And Pinocchio Leave The School, They Run Into Stromboli (Played By Data) Who Takes An Interest In Pinocchio And Wants Him In His Show Despite Geppetto Saying No...

Returning Home, Geppetto Is Mad At Pinocchio For Getting Into The Fight At School Starting A Fight Which Fractures Father And Son And Leads Geppetto To Go Find The Blue Fairy As He Believes Pinocchio's Defective...

Eventually Finding The Blue Fairy She Basically Tells Him "Hey, You Wanted A Kid, It's Your Problem Pal" As She Sings The Next Song Just Because It's Magic"...

(Start At 1:32)

And While I Like The Choreography In The Song, It's Again Not One Of My Favorites...

Returning Home, Geppetto Finds That Pinocchio Has Runaway From Home As Left A Note Saying That He's Joining Stromboli's Puppet Show...

Thinking That Maybe It's For The Best, Geppetto Goes Down To Stromboli's Show Where We Get Pinocchio Singing I've Got No Strings...

But After The Show We Discover That Stromboli's Not A Great Father Figure As He Keeps Pinocchio Locked In A Box....

Hiding Pinocchio As Geppetto Goes Backstage To Give Him Some Of Pinocchio's Things, Stromboli Tells Geppetto That It Was Just A One Night Show Before Pinocchio Left For The Big City To Seek Fame And Fortune...

Upset That Stromboli Did This, Stromboli Points Geppetto In The Direction Pinocchio "Went" Before He Goes Backstage Again To Get Pinocchio Only To Discover That He's Escaped His Cage And Has Boarded A Carriage For Pleasure Island...

Angry Over Losing His Meal Ticket, Stromboli Packs Up To Go After Him Which Leads Into Our Next Song, Bravo, Stromboli...

(Start At 0:43)

And This Is Honestly One Of My Favorite Songs In This Musical...

It's Like Brent Spiner Took All The Pent Up Wackiness He Had Inside After Playing A Robot on Star Trek The Next Generation And The Movies And Let All Out In This One Song And It Works...

Meanwhile, Geppetto Runs Into The Blue Fairy Who After The First Reprise Of Just Because It's Magic Decides "This Idiot Wants Magic, Fine, I'll Give Him Magic To Show Him What I'm Trying To Tell Him"

So, Using Her Magic, The Blue Fairy Introduces Geppetto To The Great Lazardo (Played By Wayne Brady) Who Is A Bad Magician But Is Only A Magician Because It's What His Father Wanted Him To ...

Sound Familiar?

But Seeing That Lazardo Is Great At Making Toys, Geppetto Suggests That He Become A Toy Maker Which Leads To A Reprise Of Toys Before Geppetto Continues His Journey Deciding That "Ok, Pinocchio Doesn't Have To Become A Toy Maker"...

Finding His Way To The Town Of Idyllia, Where We Get A When You Wish Upon A Star Reference...

Yeah, We Kind Of Heard It Earlier Too When Pinocchio Was Brought To Life But I Don't Really Count That

Before Geppetto Meets Professor Buonragazzo (Played By Paul From Boston Legal R.I.P. René Auberjonois) And His Son Who Have Made A Machine That Makes Perfect Children That Obey And Do Everything They're Parents Tell Them To Do...

Again, Sound Familiar?

Which Leads Into Our Next Song, Satisfaction Guaranteed...

And...It's Okay..

While I Do Like The Song And I Like The Choreography In It, It Just Raises Too Many Questions As Val Kilmer Batman Would Put It...

Freaked Out By What He Sees, Geppetto Realizes That He Doesn't Want A Child THAT Perfect...

Running Into The Blue Fairy Again...

Ok, She's Quickly Turning Into The Cheshire Cat Of This Movie...

We Get Another Reprise Of Just Because It's Magic Where She Tells Geppetto That Pinocchio Is Headed For Pleasure Island And That Not Only Did Stromboli Screw Him But He's After Pinocchio Too...

Transitioning Into Pleasure Island We Get The Best Song In This Musical Sung By Usher...

(Start At 0:08)

In A Scene That Some People Say Is Lazy But I Say Is Just Saving Time And Money As It Is A Television Movie, Through Pictures We See Geppetto Go After The Donkey Pinocchio On A Boat Only To Be Attacked By Monstro...

Seeing His Father In Danger, The Donkey Pinocchio Jumps Overboard Only For Him And Geppetto To Get Eaten By The Whale...

Finding Pinocchio Who Has Been Turned Into Himself Again, Citing That The Donkey Magic Must Have Washed Off...

Despite Me, Seeing It As Pinocchio's Sacrifice To Save His Father Allowed Him To Become Himself Again...

Apologizing With A Reprise Of And Son, Father And Son Make Up Which Leads Them To Find A Way Out By Deciding To Tickle Monstro's Uvula With Pinocchio's Nose Which He Lies To Make Grow So Monstro Can Throw Them Up...

And All I Can Say About This Is That Tony Goldmark Has A Dirty Mind...And If You've Seen His Review On This With Emily Clark You'll Know Why...

Returning To Their Home In Villagio, Geppetto And Pinocchio Are Confronted By Stromboli, Who Has Come To Take Pinocchio From Geppetto As He Has A Contact With Him That's Iron Clad...

Which Leads Us Into The Final Song, Since I Gave My Heart Away And It's Very Touching...

(Start At 0:23, End At 6:47)

So, That's Geppetto And...It's A Mixed Bag...

While The Beginning Of The Movie Isn't That Great It Makes Up For It In Both The Middle And The End, And Yes, While Drew Carey Is A Bit Miscast In This, He Still Isn't That Bad Of A Singer But The People That Steal This Movie Is Brent Spiner And Usher As They Both Have 2 Of The Best Songs In This...

However, If There's Anyone That's Really Bad In This Then It's Julia Louis Dreyfuss, With The Way She's Talking I Can Barely Understand What She's Saying At Times Also I Got To Give Credit To Stephen Schwartz Who Wrote The Songs As Some Of Them Are Pretty Good...

All I Can Really Say Is Don't Believe The Haters And See This Movie, Just Skip The Very Beginning...

Till Next Time, This Is Duke, Signing Off...

[trulycertain]

Unpopular opinion: god, Batman v Superman had some really good ideas that it chucked down the U-bend, and there are parts of it I really enjoyed. I don’t regret seeing it (and yes, I watched the Extended Cut. All three hours). I was just discussing this with @masutrout​, and here’s a slightly abridged version of my thoughts.

Look, I know no-one sets out to make a bad film, and with so many moving parts, a film getting released at all is a miracle. I know it’s not down to one person and (I’m quite glad) it’s not up to me, because I have no idea how to make films. But if I had, say, a magic lamp and a wish for an ideal BvS and DCEU in general... Here’s what I liked; here’s what I’d magically tweak in a parallel universe; here’s a rant. A 2.2k rant. An Extended Cut rant.

I know it's all desaturated and so on, but I genuinely really love Snyder's style. Dude can set up a shot, and he knows how to use chiaroscuro. In theory, I totally get why they'd look at him and go, "his shit is like comics brought to life, pick him." I wish he'd just... allow a bit more colour into it and let people colour grade properly, because the Metropolis/Gotham Clark/Bruce contrast could've been played up beautifully with visual language and colour too. I mean, I know he can do overwrought iconography and imagery, look at how they went to the trouble of CGI'ing Clark's cape in every scene because it was such a banner, and the pop of red. 

I'll admit, I wasn't always all-in on Affleck's performance, though it was one of his best in his back catalogue (I am one of the few people I know who has zero problems with him as an actor and tends to find it more the material, but I grew up on Kevin Smith films and his shtick works for me, even if he has a manner. I'm not too discerning). But. A Bruce who's tired and broken-down and greying and has lost even more, and still in the aftermath of that, tries to find hope and "I can't let this happen to anyone else" again, in the wake of one more death? God yes give it to me. A Bruce who's taller than Clark and just plain tall in general, because maybe Kryptonian ideals are different and because it'd give Bruce one more thing to desperately play down? God yes. Just... in general, middle-aged Bruce but without a lot of the Batfam stuff (which I like, I have a love for several of the Bats, but my favourite stories are always solo) with a regimen of painkillers and who's turned Wayne from an "I'll just jump into the water feature" jackass to a schmoozer and flirt and maybe a drunk. Take out the branding. I wanted Bruce as a broken idealist, not a fascist. It's actually way more fascistic than the original Dark Knight Returns, even. But goodness, the whole idea of an established, tired Batman is good. There’s a reason the comics and animations keep coming back to it.

"Superman was just a story. Superman was just the dream of some farmer from Kansas." I forget the exact phrasing, but everything about that idea, and this idea that Superman is as much an ideal for Clark to live up to as everyone else, and he’s daunted by it? Yeah. There’s something in there.

I loved everything about Jeremy Irons' Alfred. Seriously, everything. Tech guru, little less RP, little rougher around the edges, clearly has some scars of his own. Absolutely biting, even more than most incarnations, and gets all the best lines. Yes, keep that, it'll do.

I liked the voice changer... halfway. To me it makes way more sense than putting on a voice, which is a bit daft and way more variable. I just wouldn't have gone that heavy on the processing, so that Bruce sounded less like a hacker from 1999. I also thought it was a good way of representing how Bruce desperately tries to emotionally distance himself when he’s the Bat, and how his anger has made him colder.

Batman as just a rumour or an urban legend is great, and a wonderful contrast to Superman, who’s this bright, transparent... common god. Bruce never did it for credit, he did it to get it done. It’s stretching the bounds of credulity, sure, but in this strange, semi-operatic storytelling with heavy myth feel, it makes a bunch of sense thematically.

Bruce meeting Martha Kent, and their first meeting being him saving her life. Even this broken-down Batman who thinks he’s a mess. Actually, just more Martha in the DCEU in general.  I mean, I get why they didn't lean into it so much because they maybe wanted Bruce and Clark to feel more like equal peers, rather than Bruce being too dadly, but... god, again, more Martha. In JL, in something, if nothing else. Martha who's lost a son (Jason); Martha who later has a son in another city trying to do good and is worried as hell about them (Dick's canonically in Bludhaven PD at this point); Martha who is one of about five people in the world who knows who Batman is and hasn't spilt that information; Martha who saw Bruce at the cemetery and might have some really interesting things to say to him, angry or forgiving; Martha who is one of the few people who's seen the good in the Bat (when Bruce himself couldn't)... Man, I was so, so glad that fic leaned into that. I would read a regular comic book of just Martha and Bruce Being Reluctant Friends and Worrying A Little About Their Kids, But Maybe In An Enemies-To-Friends Way Because Holy Shit You Had A Fucking Spear What the Fuck.

No, really, wait, I’m going to go on about Martha again.  The scenes in BvS where she was basically saying, "God, don't kill yourself for them, come home, if they're gonna hate you they don't deserve you..." On the one hand she could've been a contrasting voice to Jon, but this way also makes sense. "I know you want to help but please don't kill yourself..." It was always both parents in the comics who affected him equally, even if the Donner films had his father's death, iirc. It was Martha who pushed to keep him, Jon who taught him not to break people and show off, Martha who taught him how to cook and be gentle with things and in Superman: Birthright, which MoS is heavily, badly based upon (I love that miniseries, time to read it again) she researches alien sightings in the hope he won't be alone. I get why they went for a more "grounded" Kryptonian uniform thing, but Martha made his costume, in the original canon. In all canons, she was a huge help in creating the "Clark Kent" persona (yeah, sure, maybe a woman would have something to say about making yourself quiet and shrinking in a room and having to look helpful and nonthreatening all the time, but Snyder and Goyer were never gonna be the kind of people to explore that and even Waid, whom I love, barely touches on it). Every other film or comic book is crap, dead, or crap and dead dads. Clark's relationship with his mother and father is hugely important.

Getting to see Bruce doing the society beat, and just a little more philanthropy would've been great. You don't have time to build that character? Sure, OK. Take out the Flash dream sequence and the sleeping-with-random-women, maybe don't have a totally unnecessary but kinda hilarious shower scene, and replace it with some identity weirdness where Bruce and Clark are stuck interacting as civilians a little more. Or something about what the hell happened with Jason and the manor, though I don't mind most of it being unexplained. There, still building character, still serving a purpose, you can fit a brief scene into your three hour movie. Civil War had a ton of "Steve Rogers and Tony Stark brood or sit in rooms talking to each other."

If they were going to throw away all the secret-identity potential, they could at least have done it interestingly. That scene at the gala made it clear how hard they both had to act, and Jesus, the idea of Clark eventually, finally finding someone else who has to lie and cut off what they can do, who has to bumble almost the way he does... That could've been interesting and also maybe worried the shit out of him. Or made him want to talk to this crazy billionaire who goes round combat-booting people in the face and try and get what his deal was, which could've led to more interesting misunderstandings. 

And then there's Diana, who's not a bumbler but a "nothing to see here, rich eccentric" type too (no wonder she and Bruce had weird insane chemistry in that "sizing each other up/I know exactly what you are" way), and why the hell does Clark basically never see her? I actually don't mind the whole "she's only here for her photo and never meant to get involved, so she's only needing to chase Bruce," that makes sense, but after Doomsday?! In Justice League?! She understands what it is for the world to be frightened of you, resistant to you, the urge to go and hide where it's safe with your family, the loneliness. I mean, just imagine MoS!Clark meeting her and the goddamn relief of it. And the way it could've played off the whole Jonathan Kent is a creepy "kill em all" weirdo now thing, if they insisted on keeping it.

Similarly, please god please show Clark being a journalist more. Perry chewing him out more. A mild hint of office politics. That's the perfect place to leaven a rough film with a dose of humour. People wouldn't have been so bothered by "Is she with you?", which is actually not that terrible a line next to some Marvel "zingers", except for it being so tonally inconsistent. A gentle thread, a few moments of it. Maybe have Clark save someone and have to scrabble to keep his identity a secret, like in MoS - maybe a minute, you could go for some physical humour or a mild sight gag. Obviously, this'd be pre-bombing the courthouse. Relatedly... 

Take out Nairomi and the branding. They serve very little purpose, story-wise, basically never come back into the plot, and only serve to make Clark and Bruce look like dicks unnecessarily when if you want to inject flaws, you have a ton of opportunities to do it with how they deal with people and their loved ones, how they deal with perps, and their brooding moments. 

Seriously, Bruce kicking the shit out of people and investigating shipments from the Black Zero and World Engine crashes would be enough to worry and piss off Clark, as would the whole "I am the night"/lack of transparency shtick. I mean, for a start, John Byrne retconned their first meeting that way in the 80s and that issue is actually great (Clark is trying to arrest Bruce when they meet, because he's young and idealistic and maybe a little up himself and he's been Supes for about five and a half minutes). Look: Clark is being revered and hates it. He blames himself for Black Zero, at least a little. He has excellent reason to be desperately projecting brightly-coloured not-a-threat and also hate that someone else is terrorising a city and violence is being revered, especially when Metropolis and Gotham are still so raw. I mean... Snyder and Goyer did the fucking stupid offensive 9/11 comparisons. Look at how that affected people and still does to this day; emotions run bloody high, and the entire point of Clark is that he's still human and terrified and guilty. And with Wallace O’Keefe and all the threatening notes... look, there's already a good plot in there! 

Meanwhile, Luthor clearly knows Bruce has been sniffing around the K shipments and could've just tipped off Clark about that as well, saying, "He clearly is gonna use it for his own power, and with how sinister and opaque and violent he's already been, he's gonna hurt people." Having his heritage used against people is one of Clark's worst nightmares, it was implied pretty clearly in MoS, and you'd still have the righteous anger. No branding needed. Kryptonian artefacts and the entire masked violent vigilantism are already enough "this is someone who thinks he's above people and can decide their lives" to piss Clark off. He could even investigate that as himself rather than Supes. You need it to be an unanon tip-off and Keefe wouldn't have access to that information? Sure, OK, just filter it through Mercy Graves and make her a "worried confidential source." I mean, she's in the movie and completely wasted. Why not actually, you know, do something with her? Clark wants to believe the best in people, and he might dislike Luthor personally, but he doesn't know Luthor's out to get him yet - or wouldn't, if the writing was better. Again, Birthright, the text Goyer repeatedly ripped from, did this brilliantly. The brand... it's overkill. Grimdark overkill.

I actually... look, I had a really fun, if baffled, time with this movie, but goodness I’d like to see what it could’ve been. And now all the film sites are waving goodbye to Batfleck again while running DC retrospectives due to Birds of Prey, and Cavill’s blue tights are in doubt, it seemed like as good a time as any.

[gerses]

“I saw your future” - Misunderstanding and projection in The Last Jedi

I want to write about something I’ve been thinking about for a while now: the way this movie is ultimately about misunderstanding between characters in general, and specifically about the mutual projection between Rey and Kylo Ren.

To give a brief summary:

Star Wars: The Last Jedi repeats the theme of misunderstandings several times. We have Poe and Holdo whose clash is caused by both failing to communicate properly and misjudging each other's character - Poe doesn't trust Holdo's leadership and Holdo sees Poe as nothing more than hot headed pilot. Finn and Rose, too, have a rocky start stemming from Rose's misunderstanding of Finn's actions - only gradually she comes to realize he isn't the coward she took him for. There's also DJ, who the heroes assume to be a decent guy, only for this to backfire when he betrays them. And of course Snoke meets his end when he fails to understand the changes in his apprentice.

That the theme is central is very obvious, but it’s what goes on between Rey and Kylo that is really interesting, because not only is that where the theme gets examined more deeply, I also believe this is where many differences between how viewers have interpreted the story come from. You see, in this aspect TLJ is a tricky movie - it fools the viewer into choosing one flawed perspective and buying into it.

What does an abandoned little girl see in a boy whose master turned against him? What does a man terrified of his own weakness see in a scavenger possessing great power? Only what they want to see.

I’m putting the rest under a cut because this got a bit long. For the record, I'm fairly critical of TLJ as a movie, but I believe this particular aspect of it has been misunderstood and ignored. English is not my first language so I apologize for any mistakes.

After The Force Awakens, Rey sees Kylo Ren as nothing more than a monster. When he shows up, she lashes at him, calling him just that. But when Kylo shows her his perspective - how he was betrayed by his master Luke - Rey's opinion changes. She attacks Luke. And although we see Luke's version of thing's which is different, Rey has begun to believe now that Kylo can be redeemed and she takes a great risk to go meet him.

Why? Because in TLJ, the dynamic between Rey and Kylo Ren is not just about misunderstanding - it's also about mutual projection.

Rey is an orphan, who has waited patiently for years for her family to return, refusing to give up, continuing to hope and trust that they care for her and will come for her. This abandonment that she has not yet faced, defines her. Finding her parent's is her greatest wish, accepting that they left her is her greatest fear. So it's not surprising that when she sees that vision of young Ben Solo, betrayed by the uncle her trusted, that she is very emotionally affected by this. It connects straight to her own trauma of abandonment. She attacks Luke which such fury, it is almost like subconsciously it's not him that she is angry at, but rather, it is the repressed anger towards her parents that comes out. Rey easily believes Kylo's version of the story - that he is the victim, Luke and his parent's let him down - because all those things are true FOR HER. Rey is the victim, left alone in a merciless planet to fend for herself. Her parent's did betray her trust. And so, she starts to project her own experiences onto Kylo, believing that they are not so different deep inside. And if they are not so different, then Kylo, too, must be desperate to find a family, a place to belong to. If Rey just gives it to him - offering friendship, forgiveness, telling him he can still come back, he still has a family - then Kylo will surely accept and return to the Light.

But meanwhile, Kylo too has come to believe there is a special connection between the two of them, and that deep inside he and Rey are not so different. And just like Rey's, his assumptions of who she is and what she desires are a projection. Kylo Ren is obsessed with power. His own weakness, vulnerability, is his greatest fear, and his greatest desire is to eliminate this weakness, to metaphorically murder Ben Solo and the past that keeps him from fully embracing the Dark Side. Kylo does not seek to return to his past, his family, but to move away. What Kylo knows of Rey is essentially that she is seemingly a nobody, a lowly scavenger, abandoned by her family, yet exceptionally gifted in the force. It is inevitable, given his own issues, that Kylo then assumes that naturally Rey must hate her family and must wish to kill her attachment to them that is hurting her and holding her back. Another defining trait of Kylo Ren is his obsession with legacy and status, the way he idolizes Darth Vader and seeks to emulate him, the way his own bloodline and it's specialness has defined him. So it is also inevitable then, that he would assume that the Rey must be equally fixated in these things and therefore, the idea of her parents being "nobodies" would disturb her. If only Kylo gives Rey a way out - encourages her to kill her past, to accept the reality about her parents, if he gives her the opportunity to escape, to become special like him, something more than a daughter to be sold  for drinking money, that Rey would of course accept, turn to the Dark Side and rule the galaxy together side by side with Kylo.

There is a very fascinating little that sums up this dynamic, their mutual fantasies of each other's that are so far from reality. I'm talking about the scene in the elevator just after Kylo catches Rey. Here is their dialogue:

REY: You don't have to do this. I feel the conflict in you. It's tearing you apart. Ben, when we touched hands, I saw your future. Just the shape of it but solid and clear. You will not bow before Snoke. You'll turn. I'll help you. I saw it.

KYLO REN: I saw something too. Because of what I saw I know when the moment comes you'll be the one to turn. You'll stand with me. Right?

This is interesting scene. We know force users are sometimes capable of seeing (or at least sensing) the future. But nothing we've seen has indicated that this would be truly the case here. Rather, it seems that both of them are making assumptions of whatever they sensed - or believe they sensed, for this an important distinction here. But we see in this moment, that both are convinced they are right.

Then, they step in front of Snoke, and although it seems for a moment that Kylo has lied to Rey, lured her into a trap, he turns his lightsaber against his master instead. They then fight the guards side by side. For a moment, it seems like they are on the same side. But this is an illusion. And in the next moment, the illusion comes crashing down.

Rey tells Kylo to order the First Order to stop attacking the Resistance. But instead, Kylo tells him: "It's time to let old things die. Snoke, Skywalker, the Sith, the Jedi, the Rebels, let it all die." And now Rey starts to understand. That Kylo Ren is not the man she believed he was. Kylo wants her to rule the galaxy with him. It was never about family, finding a place to belong - to her yes, but not to him. Kylo Ren did not kill Snoke to destroy the Supreme Leader, but to become the Supreme Leader. In true Sith manner, the apprentice kills the master and takes their place. Kylo no longer needs Snoke, and ironically, it seems that his connection with Rey and the illusions it was build on, helped him  become more confident in his convictions. Look at Kylo's reaction when Rey rejects her.

It is not merely disappointment or hate. It is first confusion, then angry frustration. He offers his hand expecting Rey to take it. "No, no, you're still holding on, let go!" The he tries to use the truth (?) about Rey's parent's to turn her. I think it's important to note here that Rey doesn't speak much - it is Kylo who talks about her parents, and there is no reason to believe he has any real info about them. He merely states Rey's worst fears to manipulate her - or at least, what he believes her worst fears are. He believes that it will hurt Rey to know her parents are "nothing" and she "has no place in this story" - and that then offering her a chance to become something ("But not to me") will make her change her mind. Rey cries, but I don't think there is any reason to believe that she cares about her parents being "filthy junk traders". We're never given any hint that Rey wants to be "special" - that is Kylo's obsession, him projecting his own issues with his legacy onto her. She simply cries because she knows her family is probably dead and may never have cared about her to begin with. And because she has already found a place to belong to and people to care about, she rejects Kylo. The last shot of them together has Rey closing the door of the Falcon - and cutting the connection between them.

Kylo Ren never sought Rey out for his salvation, and Rey never sought him for power and chance to run away from her past. And yet, many people who watched the movie, seem to have been mislead the same way as the characters were. Especially Kylo's character arc is often seen as path towards light, when it seems to me clear that this was merely what Rey and the viewer are first lead to believe. I see no real evidence that TLJ takes Kylo closer to redemption - quite the opposite, he clearly takes an important step towards growth as a villain (not that he couldn’t been redeemed later - it just doesn’t happen here). In the last minutes, when he assumes the title of the Supreme Leader, orders the Millennium Falcon (with Rey inside) to be shot down and confronts Luke, we see Kylo Ren as more confident than ever before. Here, he finally seems like a true Sith, not a boy playing dress up.

Similarly, some viewers seem to take Kylo's interpretation of Rey as truth. I've seen many people arguing that the talk about "nobodies" and  having a place in the story seem to go against Rey's character, but like I explained, this is Kylo speaking.

It is also Kylo speaking when he talks about letting the past die, a line that some have taken to be some kind of core message of the movie. That supposedly, Rian Johnson wanted to send the message that the past - the previous movies, the nostalgia - should die. But again, this is a line by the villain and the movie makes it pretty clear in the end that Kylo is wrong. Because killing the past didn't work. Like Snoke says, murdering Han Solo made Kylo weaker. As Obi-Wan once said to Vader: "Strike me down and I will become more powerful than you can ever imagine." The memory of Han and the guilt will haunt Kylo forever.

This is also important for Luke's characterization, because it is here that we see Luke overcome his own guilt and sense of responsibility towards Kylo. When Kylo kills Snoke and still rejects Rey's offer, he does it all out of his own choice. There is nobody manipulating him now. Until that moment, he has been able to blame Luke, blame his parents, blame Snoke. Now, he is the one in charge of First Order, nobody is ordering him around, Rey has offered to help him, Leia still loves him, he could return at any time - and he doesn't. Luke was a loving uncle and a good master to Ben Solo for the boy's entire life. Yes, he failed Ben, one time, for a split second. But Luke didn't make Ben slaughter his students and run away and join the Dark Side. He - and Han and Leia - are not the one's to blame. Ben Solo made his own choices, and he is the only one who can save himself. This is not Luke Skywalker as some horrible monster or pathetic failure, this is a man who lived a long life dedicated to the good and made one mistake, then ended up punishing himself for it for years. Far from iconoclastic anti-nostalgia lesson, the true message of this movie is one of accepting and confronting the past (Rey and her parent's, Luke and Kylo).

I think these are all my thoughts about the subject - this ended up being longer than I wished... But yes, this is what TLJ, in all of it's flaws and other issues, is ultimately about to me. This is what I personally believe Rian Johnson set out to achieve with his movie.

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

“Are the MCU Spidey films good Spider-Man movies?”

If you mean are they good adaptations, as in good stories respecting the spirit of the character, the kind of stories that you could easily imagine happening in the comics themselves and are in line with the core values and concepts from those comics...then no absolutely not.

 “Spider-Man was established as a secondary character in someone else’s story before we followed him on any adventures of his own”

And that’s fine if not for the fact that he remained subservient to that other character’s story. He was deliberately constructed in Homecoming and Far From Home to revolve around his relationship with Tony both to provide further development for Tony and fuel for his later arc in IW and Endgame but also to provide and epilogue and lasting legacy for him.

 Even if Peter was the lead in his solo films he still existed within the shadow of Tony, he was still effectively to Tony what Robin was to Batman. Batman fundamentally contextualizes Robin to such a degree that everything Robin does, even subtextually, either stems from or comments upon Batman.

 Even his transition into Nightwing, into being his own man and leader of the Titans did this because that was understood as him BREAKING AWAY from Batman’s shadow. But on a metatextual level he never truly can. A similar thing happened with Peter in FFH. Even if Tony was dead his legacy hung over FFH and Peter, his legacy conextualized part of the intended arc for his character in that film (as poorly handled as it was regardless).

 And this...is what is unacceptable about MCU Spider-Man in terms of being an adaptation. It’s not simply that existing in Iron Man’s shadow or being contextualized by him wasn’t a factor for his character (thought that’d be justification enough to call out). It’s that Spider-Man was so particularly DESIGEND by Lee and Ditko to NOT be like that at all to NOT live in the shadow of another hero but be independent and more importantly for the driving force behind everything he does as a hero to be the death of his father which he was indirectly responsible for.

 “The spider bite and death of Uncle Ben is stuff that’s in the past and has happened”

 Has it though?

 There is no evidence of that in the film, not even circumstantial.

 I’m all for not showing it for a third time but neither Peter nor May act like they’ve recently lost a loved one or are grieving at all. We’ve seen Peter more affected by the death of Iron man than of Uncle Ben.

 The only reason anyone can even float the idea that Spider-Man’s origin happened at all is that we all simply know that origin. But you still need to acknowledge in some way it happened which the MCu has absolutely never done. As far as the MCU is concerned the closest thing we have to even acknowledging Uncle Ben existed in the first place is a suitcase with presumably his initials on it.

 But for all we know Peter fished that out of a dumpster. For all we know Uncle Ben might never have existed, May might be his biological aunt and Ben her deadbeat husband who ran off with someone else.

 Simply saying referring to all May has been through recently isn’t enough because it implies she’s been through  something serious recently, but that could be anything not necessarily a bereavement. More poignantly it doesn’t imply PETER has been through anything when that’s way more important because being sad about Ben’s death is the book of Genesis for Spider-Man. You NEED to have that pain, that grief in there somewhere.

 Him saying giving the great responsibility speech isn’t enough because the film never clearly conveys that he learned this lesson from someone close to him dying. It’s just something he takes very seriously (in Civil War but apparently not much in Far From Home!) and for all we know always has.

 Peter’s dialogue in Civil War DOES NOT imply Peter learnt this lesson from something that WAS his fault. It COULD mean that, but in context it COULD just be something he learned third hand.

 More importantly even if we were to say the dialogue DOES spell out his origin that’s not really the point. Because Ben’s presence in the film still needs to be acknowledged. A picture, his name being uttered, a gravestone, a long look at an empty chair at the breakfast table something. But there is absolutely NOTHING besides a suitcase. And more egregiously what he represents has been wholly supplanted by Tony.

 “Peter likes tech. Tony likes tech. Tony would naturally be a huge inspiration going forward”

Not really. Just because you love basketball doesn’t mean Michael Jordan is definitely going to be your inspiration. In the comics Reed Richards wasn’t Spider-Man’s idol or anything. And his desire to impress him in the comics at best didn’t manifest itself the way he wanted to suck up to Tony in the MCU.

 And again, this misses the point. There are LOTS of things that would technically be organic in the MCU but it’s about finding a balance between something organic that is also respectful of the core concept and spirit of the characters. Case in point. Having T’Challa’s origin tied into Civil War is very organic and different from the comics but it doesn’t disrespect the spirit of his character because his Dad still dies and passes on the mantle of King and Black Panther to him and still provides fuel for him to live up to his father’s memory.

 It’d totally organic Black Widow to be a former HYDRA operative based upon the established world building of the MCU, have the Black Widow program be something set up by the Red Skull even. It’d even make sense given the colour coding involved. But it’d be disrespectful to the spirit of Black Widow’s character as a RUSSIAN convert.

 “If he wants to live up to Ben he’d want to be the best superhero he could possibly be”

Sure...but that doesn’t mean becoming an Avenger. Again, comic book Spider-Man never regarded being a big name hero as neccesarry for being a good hero or the best he could be. That’s an elitist way of looking at it.

 In particular it omits the good he does for the little guy which is his driving motivation. He doesn’t do this to save the world he does this to save individual people. His ‘original sin’ as it were stemmed from an incredibly small scale individual crime.

 So accepting Tony’s help when he wants to make him the next Avenger wouldn’t be in line with the SPIRIT of the character.

 We could argue that logically this could happen and therefore it MUST happen but at the end of the day it was just that the writers WANTED Peter to be a fanboy and nothing more than that. They didn’t HAVE to write him that way. They could’ve had him have doubts about Tony, have his idealized visage of Tony crack as he grew to learn about the real man.

 And if we’re going to use the argument that this HAS to happen and we have no choice to write it that way because logic dictates it then...why haven’t the MCu heroes resolved any number of things logically they absolutely could. Tony can’t fix global warming? Wakanda can’t? Or to switch over to DC Superman can’t end how many disasters or problems in the world?

 At the end of the day logic exists within superhero stories but it is always tempered by the genre conventions and spirit of the characters.

 I know this channel loves Doctor Who, who is arguably a kind of superhero anyway, so I will draw upon an example from Dr. Who. I forget who it was, possibly Russel T. Davies, but in a commentary track for an episode of Doctor Who in 2008-2009 someone said something very smart regarding a fundamental of the lore. They said that really the Doctor could fix the chameleon circuit of his TARDIS so it need not always look like a police box...but that it was ‘right’ that he didn’t. In other words logically the Doctor COULD do something and indeed it would be very beneficial but it’d go against the spirit of his character, the show and the internal mechanics of the series for them to do that.

 The same applies here. If you have a Spider-Man who’s got a rich high tech superhero sugar daddy you have broken Spider-Man, he doesn’t work properly creatively speaking.

 “A large part of Peter’s story in Homecomign is being told when to stay out of it”

 Again this goes against the spirit of the character because hello...his whole origin is about that one time he did stay out of it and it broke his family.

 For a Spider-Man story to basically repeatedly enforce the message that Spider-Man NOT acting and Spider-Man being passive is the right thing to do is to do a story which misunderstands the character fundamentally.

 It gets worse when you consider his actions actively make things worse 90% of the time in that film and the message is muddled anyway as Iron Man was only in a position to stop Vulture because Spider-Man wasn’t passive.

 “There are some things Peter isn’t qualified to take on”

Low rent thugs with high tech weapons is something he isn’t qualified for?

 How many versions of early days Spider-Man dealt with that and worse entirely competently?

 “Throughout all of this like a father figure Tony Stark is looking out for Peter”

First of all no he’s really not, he’s absent a lot of the time.

Second of all the mere FACT that Tony Stark is Peter’s father figure at all is part and parcel of WHY these are bad Spider-Man movies.

Tony Stark being Spider-Man’s father figure is as broken as a Dick Grayson origin movie where Batman ISN’T his father figure or indeed wholly absent. You are severely MISSING THE POINT if you do that.

“If Uncle Ben were important then when Tony took away his suit he’d leave it to other people instead of getting involved himself”

That logic doesn’t follow.

To begin with the entire movie repeatedly made it clear Peter was willing to disobey Tony and get involved so him continuing to do so is consistent, it doesn’t have anything to do with Uncle Ben’s importance or lack thereof.

Secondly as stated above this is all built upon the PRESUMPTION Ben existed and Spider-Man’s origin played out in a similar way it always does but there is 0% in-movie evidence for this happening. We simply know Peter lives by a philosophy the same as the philosophy he had in other movies but we don’t know in this universe how he came to believe in that philosophy.

He certainly doesn’t seem like it was through the loss of a loved one because he doesn’t mention, reference or think about Ben in the slightest and doesn’t act as anyone who’s lost someone they loved a lot very recently, certainly not other versions of Spider-Man who went through that.

“The red and blue home made suit represents a spider-Man who does what he does not because Tony Stark got involved”

But again there is no evidence in the movies that he does what he does because of Uncle Ben because Uncle Ben isn’t even implied in-story.

More importantly this isn’t the main critique of the MCU Spider-Man. the main critique is that Tony is incredibly important and defining to this version of Peter even if he was active before Tony showed up. The entire arc of Homecoming rests upon the motivation of Peter wanting to be an Avenger.

That’s not even my interpretation either, Tom Holland SAID that himself. The villain is an evil Tony Stark who became villain because of Tony Stark and who’s goal is Tony’s stuff. Peter’s self-actualization as a character happened when he was spurred on by Tony Stark.

Tony is BAKED IN to the foundations of this version of Spider-Man in a way that’s vitally more important than Uncle Ben because everything revolves around Tony. And again it SHOULDN’T, it shouldn’t anymore than Robin should NOT revolve around his relationship with Batman.

“That isn’t Peter saying he wants to be the next Iron Man”

Not in Homecoming perhaps but that’s clearly the direction the film Pushes Peter in in FFH.

“Just because Uncle Ben existed doesn’t mean Tony will fall on deaf ears”

Again not the point, the point is Tony is more present and impactful than Ben.

Put it like this. Aunt May clearly EXISTS in the MCU...but based upon the character arc and defining features of MCU Peter is she really as if not more important than Tony?

No she’s not, you could tweak the movies to exorcise her and they wouldn’t be that different.

“It’s a representation of this kid fighting for his uncle...it represents even before he met Tony he would’ve battled a villain who is concerned with Tony Stark“

Again...the uncle that the movies do not confirm even existed.

Again...the mere FACT that Tony is so integral to the fabric of so much stuff in this version of Spider-Man like Mysterio is against the concept and spirit of Spider-Man.

And even if we ignore all of that...Spider-man only beats Mysterio when he uses Tony’s tech to build a costume like Tony did set to Tony’s soundtrack so like...is the film actually affirming Tony’s presence is irrelvent to his heroic journey?

“Do you really think the hooded suit was put in for the sake of fanservice?”

I mean...it’s far from impossible we got like 5 different number plates that acted as fanservice. Chris Evans appeared in Thor: the Dark World for fanservice. The fact we got a giant Mysterio hand was nothing but fanservice.

“That hooded Spider-man IS Uncle Ben”

...then why....isn’t...he...mentioned!

It’s for a similar reason Aunt May is nothing more than Iron Man’s friend’s new girlfriend.

“You don’t keep everything associated with someone when they die”

This is a case of writing the movie for Marvel at this point.

Yes hypothetically it’s possible that there are other possessions associated with Uncle Ben which mean more to Peter than his suitcase.

But what are they?

Do they even exist?

We don’t know because again the suitcase is the closest thing we have to proof that Uncle Ben even EXISTED in these movies.

“The Stark suit was in the suitcase that got destroyed”

How does this disprove that Tony was more important than Ben?

Because Peter was at least sad about Tony’s death and there is no confirmation Peter was sad about Ben’s death nor even that Ben existed.

“This doesn’t show a good understanding of grief”

This whole movie didn’t show a good understanding of grief!

Peter is more concerned about hooking up with MJ than grieving Tony. It’s not denial or running away it’s inconsistent writing and characterization.

“Peter wanting a holiday is believable”

Sure...but like was Tony even that close to Peter?

They shared exactly six scenes together in person.

“People expect Spider-Man to act in the movies the way he does in that meme”

Half the critics of FFH aren’t saying that and the other half...are kinda right. In character Spider-Man is wracked with pain over remembering Ben. Not because his Dad simply died or even died when he was young but that he died violently and it was HIS FAULT!

“The subject of grief is present in the MCu version of Spider-Man”

Yes...but not over Uncle Ben, over Tony.

“Both with Tony and Ben”

What scene ever clearly shows us Peter grieving Ben’s death. Because the bedroom scene in Civil War doesn’t do that, we the audience project onto that scene that he is probably talking about Ben and he’s probably sad about it but there is no evidence in the movie even implying that to be the case.

The PS4 game at least had a picture.

“It’s handled in a very, very, very subtle way”

No it’s handled in a way that omits and covers him up in order to build up Tony and avoid repetition from the older movies.

It’s not subtle because the MCU by and large is not subtle and that includes Civil War. Tony and Pepper’s break up isn’t even all that subtle in the movie.

This isn’t written to be subtle it’s written to be plausible deniability.

“Just because Ben started Spider-Man and is the essence of him doesn’t mean other people aren’t going to have some kind of influence on him”

Sure...but it should never have been Tony stark.

Because Peter Parker shouldn’t be fanboying over anyone, it goes against his core concept.

“It’s unfair to project one interpretation of grief on every Spider-Man”

Sure. Peter and Miles and Mayday and Gwen and Cindy and Anya won’t all react to grief in the same way.

But if you are doing a version of PETER PARKER and you are having him react to grief in a way that is not broadly consistent with PETER PARKER then you are not doing your job.

He’s supposed to be in spirit a version of Peter Parker and a version of Peter Parker would not react to grief by never even mentioning or thinking about Uncle Ben.

“This was never an origin story for Spider-Man”

Nor was Spider-Man 2 and yet you know...Uncle Ben and the grief over his death was till present in that.

“You can cite the Raimi movies and bring it over to the new lore”

...that...that isn’t how any of this works. The Raimi films aren’t canon to the MCU unless the MCU acknowledges them as such.

“It may be a different Peter Parker but the story is still the same”

If the story is still the same then where are Harry, Mary Jane and Norman Osborn?

Why is Spider-Man not living in the suburbs?

Why is Peer 15 instead of 18?

Even if you take that statement to mean the GIST of the story is the same it creates problems because why would Peter ever say “I’m nothing without this suit Tony” in HC when he knows he definitely isn’t because he knows he can make a difference with or without the suit because of Ben’s death proving that point.

It’s not canon to the MCU unless there is EVIDENCE proving that to be the case.

As of right now Ben might not even exist in the MCU.

More importantly the FACT THAT HE’S NOT MENTIONED is you doing Spider-Man wrong full stop.

[dweemeister]

The Shop on Main Street (1965, Czechoslovakia)

Putting “New Wave” in a sentence referring to a film movement is asking for trouble. Whether the New Wave is French, Iranian, or Japanese in origin, the term implies a series of films and filmmakers breaking narrative and aesthetic norms in conventional moviemaking, exalting innovation. New Wave directors from those respective countries include Jean-Luc Godard and Agnès Varda; Forough Farrkohzad and Mohsen Makhmalbaf; Nagisa Oshima and Seijun Suzuki. For those I have just listed, I am not denying their talents, their importance to film history. But show any of their films to someone who is less familiar with these New Waves, without the contextual understanding of the environment their works were released, and befuddlement and distaste will likely abound. Rare is the New Wave film that can be shown to unfamiliar eyes and minds without appropriate context.

Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos’ The Shop on Main Street (adapted from Ladislav Grosman’s novel of the same name) is sometimes considered a part of the then-concurrent Czechoslovak New Wave. And if one considers it part of that New Wave, then it is one of the more comprehendible, technically grounded films of that movement. It certainly qualifies as one of those New Wave exceptions – a film that can be digested by a viewer not accustomed to older movies or has any experience with Czech- or Slovak-language cinema. I consider The Shop on Main Street a Czechoslovak New Wave film. When one looks beneath its World War II-era surface, its politics extend beyond its condemnation of Nazi Germany’s treatment of Jews and the local Slovak population. Though rooted in the nation’s past, it was as timely as Věra Chytilová’s Daisies (1966) upon release. The film outdoes many New Wave films by playing fast and loose with genre expectations: a black comedy in the first half, a tragedy in the second. Nazi Germany’s state-executed hatred, if not including the fringe groups inspired by their example, is no longer; Czechoslovakia has long been split in two. The Shop on Main Street and its censure of those who manipulate the oppressed, while pointing their fingers elsewhere.

In March 1939, the Slovak Republic was carved out of Czechoslovakia as a client state of Nazi Germany. The Slovak Republic never received recognition from the Allies (with the brief exception of the USSR until they were invaded by Germany), and they soon set about the process of Aryanization. Aryanization was a process in which Jewish property and businesses were to be put into “Aryan” ownership so as to “de-Jew” the economy. In The Shop on Main Street, Slovak carpenter Anton "Tóno" Brtko (Jozef Kroner) is offered by an official the ownership of a button store owned by the elderly, near-deaf Rozália Lautmannová (Ida Kamińska). Mrs. Lautmannová, a widow, is unaware that there is a war, that Czechoslovakia is being occupied by invaders intent on seizing her business and exterminating her fellow Jews. She welcomes Tóno as a helper and believes – mishears, really – that he is her nephew. Tóno, thrown into this awkward situation, soon learns that Mrs. Lautmannová’s store is not profitable and depends on community donations. The Jewish community implore Tóno to stay as de jure owner of the store, for fears that a more exploitative owner might be selected were he to give it up. Tóno agrees, accepting a small payment, and dedicating himself to the store’s and Mrs. Lautmannová’s welfare. They find time to see the humor in her mishearing and his stubbornness. In the final scenes, Tóno and Mrs. Lautmannová must make a horrific decision.

Czechoslovakia’s communist government, during the Czechoslovak New Wave, frowned upon films that could be construed as anarchic, insurrectionist, troublemaking. The Shop on Main Street – unlike many of its contemporaries – avoided government meddling. The villains here are the Nazis, whom communist forces across the Eastern bloc fought against. On its surface, The Shop on Main Street assigned no criticism towards Czechoslovakia’s communist regime or to communism. Yet the braggadocious Nazis are a minority in this film. A detestable sociopolitical minority becomes empowered when others sympathize with them, rationalize their prejudices and atrocities, and fail to defend the targets of that minority. We see non-Jewish Slovaks shrugging their shoulders about Aryanization. Why not pocket some extra money with this new policy, they reason, in a sluggish economy and a better-armed invading force now patrolling their streets? These are economically desperate times for non-Jewish Slovaks (and, if my hunches are correct, probably even more so for Jewish Slovaks), so they will use whatever programs necessary to survive, rooted entirely in self-interest.

The communist censors probably thought something, while viewing The Shop on Main Street, that is resurgent in modern-day Europe: that Nazi Germany’s anti-Semitic policies (from Aryanization to concentration camps and much more) were Germany’s responsibility and no one else’s. Complicity with the Nazi agenda is being debated among historians, politicians, and within the 125-minute runtime of The Shop on Main Street. For Tóno, the invaders inspire mutterings out of earshot and disdainful moues. His wife, Evelína (Hana Slivková), is concerned only about money – she is thrilled when she learns that the Aryanization program will give them a financial cushion (so she thinks), never contemplating the possibility this it is the beginning of the Jewish community’s ruin. Has she ever known someone from the community? It is not clear. Tóno’s non-Jewish acquaintances, too, are unfazed by these proclamations. Life is already difficult in the Slovak Republic (Czechoslovakia itself was not formed because its patchwork of ethnicities had common political pursuits and aspirations, but due to expedience and tensions with other ethnic groups), and any economic lifeline that will be offered to the non-Jews will be taken. Are those who support and/or participate in Aryanization irredeemable, given their desperation and the Nazi aim to manufacture conflict between Jews and non-Jews? Is Tóno an accessory of the Nazis?

These are questions that may seem small when grasper the enormity of the Holocaust. But that is the intention of directors Kadár and Klos, who often worked together co-directing films. In his directorial statement for the film in the New York Herald Tribune’s January 23, 1966 issue, Kadár (whose parents and sister were murdered at Auschwitz) writes that he was the principal director for this film – Klos agreed to be a sort of secondary director for The Shop on Main Street, deferring to Kadár because of his personal connection to the material. Klos also notes:

[Klos] knows that I am not thinking of the fate of all the six million tortured Jews, but that my work is shaped by the fate of my father, my friends’ fathers, mothers of those near to me and by people whom I have known. I am not interested in the outer trappings—figures, statements, generalizations. I want to make emotive films.

This is not an epic film intended to sweep viewers into the broadest discussions of the Holocaust. The Shop on Main Street is foremost a film about an unlikely connection – one separated by age, language, and faith – that is formed when exploitation would be so much easier. This is where The Shop on Main Street derives its pathos, in places where despair ought to triumph.

When Tóno meets Mrs. Lautmannová for the first time, he is surprised to see how disconnected she is from the world. She knows little of what is happening outside of the storefront door, and she delights in the company of her few – but dedicated – customers and the letters she receives from a relative in America (she hasn’t received their letter in some months). She closes the store on the Sabbath (sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday), retreating to her bedroom to pray and to read. Her friends in the Jewish community realize her frailty and lack of understanding, deciding to protect her from the news of pogroms and war. When lacking any authority to make laws or force political change, all they possess are their words and neighborliness – which they share with Tóno freely. Tóno is struck by their generosity, and his friendship with Mrs. Lautmannová grows. Ida Kamińska (the Polish actress was sixty-six years old when The Shop on Main Street was released, and nicknamed the Mother of the Jewish Stage) and Jozef Kroner (a star of numerous Slovak films, but this is his most recognized work) play off each other. In a series of successive (gentle and dark) misunderstandings, these two commoners are each other’s foils. He is a drinker, impatient, and needs to learn diplomacy. She is kind, religious, and concerningly naïve.Their performances are incredible, helping The Shop on Main Street pull off its tonal transitions that should have seen this film crumble into treacle.

Zdeněk Liška’s score to The Shop on Main Street alternates between foreboding string lines wracked with minor key, string-crossing double stops signaling the precariousness of the story’s developments, the unusual situation the characters find themselves in, and emotional torment. A memorable, carnival-like march that opens the film is used to stunning effect when employed ironically. Liška’s cue placement helps Kadar and Klos achieve the respective comedic and dramatic moods that the screenplay and actors so nimbly establish.

Lengthy is the canon of films depicting and commenting on the Holocaust. The Shop on Main Street, avoiding extensive declarations, is one of the earliest films on that list. Its examinations on complicity and the extent of human callousness reverberate to a present where Holocaust denial and blame-shifting continues to rail against the truth of untold millions and their descendants. It is a tremendous film, one containing unexpected power through its performances and the impossible situations the main characters find themselves in. Bathed in white, the final seconds of The Shop on Main Street show a wonderful dream, one that could only be crafted by a director pouring his decades-long grief for his parents and sister into his work. As the camera dances to the right, away from the shop on main street, we see in the background the shops and homes of the Jewish community now silent.

My rating: 10/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. The Shop on Main Street is the one hundred and fifty-eighth feature-length or short film I have rated a ten on imdb.

[maddie-grove]

The Top Twenty Books I Read in 2019

My main takeaways from the past year’s reading:

Sometimes you think something is happening because of magic, but then it turns out to have a non-magical explanation so weird that you find yourself saying, “You know what? I wish faeries or God were responsible for this. I’d honestly feel less disturbed.”

Stop bathing and changing your clothes and shaving for three years, three months, and three days. You’ll find out who your real friends are. I promise you that.

I want more books about bisexual ladies!!! Give them to me!!!

Anyway...

20. The Prodigal Duke by Theresa Romain (2017)

Childhood sweethearts Poppy Hayworth and Leo Billingsley were separated when his older brother, a duke, sent him away to make his fortune. Years later, the duke is dead, a financially successful Leo has come back to England to take his place, and Poppy has become a rope dancer at Vauxhall Gardens after a life-shattering event. New sparks are flying between them, but is love possible when so much else has changed? Leo and Poppy are believable and charming as old friends, Romain makes great use of obscure historical details from the oft-depicted Regency period, and I loved Leo’s difficult but caring elderly uncle.

19. Simple Jess by Pamela Morsi (1996)

Althea Winsloe, a young widow in 1900s Arkansas, has no interest in remarrying, but almost everyone in her small Ozarks community is pressuring her to remarry, and she still needs someone to help farm her land. Enter Jesse Best, a strong young man with cognitive disabilities who’s happy to take on the work. As he makes improvements to her farm and bonds with her three-year-old son, Althea gets to know him better and starts to see him in a new light. This earthy romance could’ve been a disaster, but instead it illustrates how people with disabilities are often...uh...simplified and de-sexualized in a way that denies them autonomy. Morsi has a similarly nuanced take on Althea and Jesse’s community, which is claustrophobic and supportive all at once.

18. Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli (2018)

Outspoken and insecure, bisexual high school senior Leah Burke is having a tough year. Her friend group is in turmoil, her single mom is seriously dating someone, and she’s caught between a sweet boy she’s not sure about and a pretty, perfect straight girl who couldn’t possibly be into her...right??? The sequel to the very cute Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, Leah on the Offbeat pulls a The Godfather: Part II with its messy protagonist, sweetly surprising romance, and masterful comic set piece involving the Atlanta American Girl Doll restaurant.

17. Copper Sun by Sharon M. Draper (2006)

Kidnapped from her home in eighteenth-century Ghana, fifteen-year-old Amari is sold into slavery and winds up on a South Carolina plantation, where she faces terrible cruelty but finds friends in an enslaved cook, her little son, and eventually a sulky white indentured servant around her age. When their master escalates his already-atrocious behavior, the three young people flee south to the Spanish Fort Mose in search of freedom. Draper’s complicated characters, vivid descriptions, and deft handling of heavy subjects makes for top-notch historical YA fiction.

16. A Prince on Paper by Alyssa Cole (2019)

After her controlling politician father was jailed for poisoning a bunch of people in their small, prosperous African country, Nya Jerami gained unprecedented freedom but also became the subject of vicious gossip. Johan von Braustein, the hard-partying stepson of a European monarch, wants to help her, partly because he sympathizes and partly because he has a crush, but she thinks he’s too frivolous and horny (if wildly attractive). After an embarrassing misunderstanding compels them to enter a fake engagement, though, she begins to wonder if there’s more to him. I’m not a huge fan of contemporary romance, but this novel has the perfect combination of heartfelt emotion, delicious melodrama, and adorable fluff. 

15. One Perfect Rose by Mary Jo Putney (1997)

Stephen, the Duke of Ashburton, has always done the proper and responsible thing, but that all changes when he learns that he’s terminally ill. Wandering the countryside in the guise of an ordinary gentleman, he ends up joining an acting troupe and falling in love with Rosalind, the sensible adopted daughter of the two lead actors. Like another Regency romance on this list, this novel celebrates love in many forms: there’s the love story between Stephen and Rosalind, yes, but there’s also Rosalind’s loving relationship with her adopted family, the new bonds she forms with her long-lost blood relatives, the way her two families embrace the increasingly frightened Stephen, and the healing rifts between Stephen and his well-meaning but distant siblings. Stephen’s reconciliation with his mortality is also moving.

14. My One and Only Duke by Grace Burrowes (2018)

Facing a death sentence in Newgate, footman-turned-prosperous banker Quinton Wentworth decides to do one last good thing: marry Jane McGowan, a poor pregnant widow, so she and the baby will be financially set. Then he receives a pardon and a dukedom at the literal last minute, meaning that he and Jane have a more permanent arrangement than either intended. I fell in love with the kind-but-difficult protagonists almost at once, and with Burrowes’s gorgeous prose even faster. 

13. Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell (2013)

It’s 1986, and comics-loving, post-punk-listening, half-Korean Park and bright, weird, constantly bullied Eleanor are just trying to get through high school in their rough Omaha neighborhood. He’s only grudgingly willing to let her share his bus seat at first, but this barely civil acquaintance slowly thaws into friendship and blossoms into love. Far from being the whimsical eighties-nostalgia-fest I expected, this is a bittersweet love story about two isolated young people who find love, belonging, and a chance for self-expression with each other in an often-hostile environment (a small miracle pre-Internet).

12. Shrill by Lindy West (2016)

In this memoir, Lindy West talks about the difficulties of being a fat woman, the thankless task of being vocally less-than-enthused about rape jokes, the joys of moving past self-doubt, and the very real possibility that Little John from Disney’s Robin Hood was played by “bear actor” Baloo, among other subjects. I was having a hard time during my last semester of law school this past spring, and this book’s giddy humor and inspiring messages really helped me in my hour of need.

11. Seduction: Sex, Lies, and Stardom in Howard Hughes's Hollywood by Karina Longworth (2018)

In 1925, very young businessman Howard Hughes breezed into Hollywood with nothing but tons of family wealth, a soon-to-be-divorced wife, and a simple dream: make movies about fast planes and big bosoms. He got increasingly weird and reactionary over the next thirty years, then retired from public life. More a history of 1920s-1950s Hollywood than a biography, this book has the same sharp writing and in-depth film analysis that makes me love Longworth’s podcast You Must Remember This.

10. The Beguiled by Thomas Cullinan (1966)

In Civil-War-era Virginia, iron-willed Martha Farnsworth and her nervous younger sister try to run their nearly empty girls’ boarding school within earshot of a battlefield. When one girl finds Union soldier John McBurney injured in the woods, she brings him back to the house, where he exploits every conflict and secret among the eight girls and women (five students, two sisters, and one enslaved cook). Charming and manipulative, he nevertheless finds himself in over his head. Cullinan makes great use of the eight POVs and the deliciously claustrophobic setting; it’s fascinating to watch the power dynamics and allegiances shift from scene to scene.

9. A Gentleman Never Keeps Score by Cat Sebastian (2018)

Reserved tavern keeper Sam Fox wants to help out his brother’s sweetheart by finding and destroying a nude portrait she once sat for; disgraced gentleman Hartley Sedgwick isn’t sure what he wants after having his life ruined twice over, but he happened to inherit his house from the man who commissioned the painting...plus he’s not exactly reluctant to assist kind, handsome Sam in his quest. I wrote about this heart-melting romance two times last year; suffice it to say that it’s not only one of the best Regencies I’ve ever read, but also possibly the best romance I’ve ever read about the creation of a found family.

8. Frog Music by Emma Donoghue (2014)

Blanche Beunon, a French-born burlesque dancer in 1876 San Francisco, has a lot going on: her mooching boyfriend has turned on her, her sick baby is missing, and her cross-dressing, frog-hunting friend Jenny Bonnet was just shot dead right next to her. In the middle of a heat wave, a smallpox epidemic, and a little bit of mob violence, she must locate her son and solve Jenny’s murder. This is a glorious work of historical fiction; you can see, hear, smell, and feel the chaotic world of 1870s San Francisco, plus Blanche’s character arc is amazing.

7. The Patrick Melrose novels (Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, Mother’s Milk, and At Last) by Edward St. Aubyn (1992, 1992, 1994, 2005, and 2012, respectively)

Born to an embittered English aristocrat and an idealistic American heiress, Patrick Melrose lives through his father’s sadistic abuse and his mother’s willful blindness (Never Mind),  does a truly staggering amount of drugs in early adulthood (Bad News), and makes a good-faith effort at leading a normal life (Some Hope). Years later, the life he’s built with his wife and two sons is threatened by his alcoholism and reemerging resentment of his mother (Mother’s Milk), but there may be a chance to salvage something (At Last). Despite the suffering and cruelty on display, these novels were the farthest thing from a dismaying experience, thanks to the sharp characterization, grim humor, and great sense of setting. Also, I love little Robert Melrose, an anxious eldest child after my own heart. 

6. The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope (1974)

In 1550s England, no-nonsense Kate Sutton is exiled to the Perilous Gard, a remote castle occupied by suspicious characters, including the lord’s guilt-ridden younger brother Christopher. Troubled by the holes she sees in the story of the tragedy that haunts him, she does some problem-solving and ends up in a world of weird shit. Cleverly plotted, deliciously spooky, and featuring an all-time-great heroine, this book was an absolute treat. The beautiful Richard Cuffari illustrations in my edition didn’t hurt, either.

5. An Unconditional Freedom by Alyssa Cole (2019)

Daniel Cumberland, a free black man from New England traumatized from being sold into slavery, and Janeta Sanchez, a mixed-race Cuban-Floridian lady from a white Confederate family, have been sent on a mission to the Deep South by the Loyal League, a pro-Union spy organization. Initially hostile to everyone (but particularly to somewhat naive Janeta), Daniel warms to his colleague, but will her secrets, his shattered faith in justice, and the various dangers they face prevent them from falling in love? Nah. Alyssa Cole’s historical romances deliver both on the history and the romance, and this is one of her strongest entries.

4. The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics by Olivia Waite (2019)

Heartbroken by the death of her father and the marriage of her ex-girlfriend, Lucy Muchelney decides she needs a change of scenery and takes a live-in position translating a French astronomy text for Catherine St. Day, the recently widowed Countess of Moth. Catherine, used to putting her interests on hold for an uncaring spouse, is intrigued by this awkward, independent lady. I’ve read f/f romances before, but this sparkling Regency was the first to really blow me away with its fun banter, neat historical details, and perfect sexual tension.

3. The Wager by Donna Jo Napoli (2010)

After losing his entire fortune to a tidal wave, Sicilian nineteen-year-old Don Giovanni de la Fortuna sinks into poverty and near-starvation. Then Devil makes him an offer: all the money he wants for as long as he lives if he doesn’t bathe, cut his hair, shave, or change his clothes for three years, three months, and three days. This fairy-tale retelling is an extraordinarily moving fable about someone who learns to acknowledge his own suffering, recognize it in others, and extend compassion to all. 

2. Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell (2013)

In this collection, Russell weaves strange tales of silkworm-women hybrids in Japan, seagulls who collect objects from the past and future, and, yes, vampires in the lemon grove. She also posits the very important question: “What if most (but not all) U.S. presidents were reincarnated as horses in the same stable and had a lot of drama going on?” My favorite stories were “Proving Up” (about a nineteenth-century Nebraska boy who encounters death and horror on the prairie), “The Graveless Doll of Eric Mutis” (about a disadvantaged high school student who discovers an effigy of the even more hapless boy he tormented), and “The Barn at the End of the Term” (the horse-president story). 

1. The Wonder by Emma Donoghue (2016)

Lib Wright, an Englishwoman who has floundered since her days working for Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War, is hired to observe Anna O’Donnell, an eleven-year-old Irish girl famous for not eating for four straight months. With a jaundiced attitude towards the Irish and Catholicism, Lib is confident that she’ll quickly expose Anna as a fraud, but she finds herself liking the girl and getting increasingly drawn into the disturbing mystery of her fast. Like The Perilous Gard, this novel masterfully plays with the possibility of the supernatural, then introduces a technically mundane explanation that’s somehow much more eerie. Donoghue balances the horror and waste that surrounds Anna, though, with the clear, bright prose and the moving relationship that develops between her and Lib, who grows beyond her narrow-mindedness and emotional numbness. I stayed up half the night to finish this novel, which cemented Emma Donoghue’s status as my new favorite author.