#so maybe stuff was missed or a character realized this soon after the massacre

[mixelation]

there are many fics out there with the plot of "character finds written documentation of the Truth behind uchiha massacre," but i've never read one where it.... made sense why records were kept? or documentation was even made at all?? this is something you would never, ever want anyone to find. why have anything to find at all?

like i can see a scenario where detailed documentation on intel of the planned coup and subsequent moves by konoha to mitigate the situation exist. you'd want that to keep track of yourself, and to pass on in the case of change of command or looping in new people, and it might suddenly become relevant again years down the line even if you solve it. so i can see that sitting in a sealed box somewhere, or if it was destroyed, maybe something was missed somewhere

but i don't see why you'd have a piece of paper just like GUESS WHAT ITACHI WAS ACTING ON ORDERS sitting in the archives or in danzo's desk or something??? you don't write down secrets that bad

ways someone could solve the mystery via snooping in paperwork (non-exhaustive, obviously):

danzo DID keep documentation out of some weird arrogance about the matter, or because he personally wanted to make the coup public. i don't spend a lot of time thinking about danzo so i can't decide if this is IC or not, but at least it's a reason

hiruzen keeps documentation, either out of guilt/regret or because he knows he's getting replaced soon and he thinks his successor should know (or, fuck, he thinks future generations should know)

there's no documentation about the massacre itself, but someone gets their hands on that misplaced file about the coup and Makes Connections, or there's a little annotation about someone suggesting extreme force

there's FAKE documentation of itachi's mental health or something along those lines to help conceptualize the massacre with the cover story, and someone recognizes forgeries/why details don't add up

the complete lack of documentation is ITSELF the clue. like please give me a scene of a character finally breaking into the hokage's personal archives and all the files labeled for the uchiha massacre are literally filled with blank paper

[alwaysdaenerys]

The consequences of King Bran

I had this sudden thought about the end of Game of Thrones, in comparison to the theorized end to ASOIAF, in regards to King Bran. I’m not a huge fan of this ending, and yes this is obvious because of my username, I’m aware! But at least in the show, it was lackluster and not foreshadowed in the slightest. Things may be different in the books in any case, though this is not truly what I want to put on the table for others to discuss and analyze. 

I’ve read and talked about with other fans about how making Bran king at the end of the book series may be advantageous, because the realm is healing from the significant massacre of its citizens during the Long Night. And if this is the case, the showrunners and writers missed a huge opportunity to kill more people. I’m not necessarily saying more main characters—though this is another problem I have with the show—but actually more smallfolk, more un-named or lesser lords, etc. The fact that D&D decided that the War for the Dawn was only going to last one fucking night is preposterous for many reasons, but the main one is: the Others and their wights would have never tired because they don’t need food for water or rest, and could have totally swept through the weak and depleted Riverlands, Reach, Stormlands, Crownlands even, with ease.

And because the writers did not extend the Long Night, because they didn’t kill half the humans in Westeros like the Others had the means to do, there are so many contenders left for seats of power. There is a logical argument in saying that Bran may be a good leader because there is literally no one else to take on the mantel; I will concede to that. But there are SO MANY CHARACTERS LEFT AT THE END OF THE SHOW. Bran has no army to defend him from all these people who command thousands of noticeably-alive soldiers. Who, if they were in character in the last season, would have had more to say about this tiny kid who they just met today being king of the fucking world. 

And because he just hands the North its independence without asking anyone else if they’d like to petition the same thing, it will snowball out of control quite quickly.

Yara remains: the Iron Islands have a long history of coveting independence and now that their last liege, Daenerys, is no longer living, it won’t take them long to realize that they have no opposition on the high seas, or the battlefield. Who cares if land is not their strong suit? It will be against, you guessed it, an army of Tyrion and a wheelchair-bound Bran. Yara will raise her men, who, once again, are not walking dead, and they secede from the mainland for good. And Bran cannot do a thing because his faction has neither strength at sea nor land.

Dorne and its unnamed prince: another example of a region in Westeros that was continuously on the outs with the rest of the Seven Kingdoms. They were not truly “conquered” until the Daeron II married a Martell princess. The dragons were never able to hold Dorne on the battlefield so what makes anyone think that Bran Stark and his lack of dragons will? They’ll be the first to go, in my opinion, because at least Yara had a previous somewhat-working relationship with the Crown, whereas the unnamed Prince of Dorne has no obligations to a single person at that Great Council. 

Edmure and the Riverlands: this region, in the show and in the books, is always the most affected my war. If the Others would have made it past Winterfell, the Riverlands would be next. The smallfolk suffered during the War of the Five Kings and Edmure knew it and wanted to help. I always thought it was clever of GRRM that he chose Edmure Tully to be one of the only lords that actually cared about his people, because of his region’s proximity to the conflict. Yes, Ned Stark may have cared for his people as a whole, but we never see him do anything as protective as Edmure is by letting the smallfolk into his keep, for the poor of the North. And in the show, since the Others did not even glimpse Riverrun and its vassals, the Tullys have the army they do at the end of season 6. Edmure won’t like that he was insulted by the Queen in the North, and will take his next move from Yara.

The Stormlands are a toss-up for me: Gendry owes his legitimization to Queen Daenerys, not Bran. So either he will be overthrown and/or killed by the other Stormlords immediately upon entering his keep, or they will persuade him to secede as well. Arya jilted Gendry and if we are to believe she plans to never see him again, there’s a pretty good chance Gendry won’t care about the consequences of his actions because he has nothing to lose. It seemed pretty obvious that he didn’t want to do all this lord stuff without the love of his life, so it’s not much of a leap to assume he wouldn’t care about the trappings of royalty anymore. Storm’s End is nearly impregnable and Bran has no army to besiege the castle like Mace Tyrell did during Robert’s Rebellion. I have no doubt that with or without Gendry, the nobles or the Stormlands will not be appreciative of Bran or Tyrion. Maybe they haven’t flirted with independence quite as much as others have since Aegon the Conqueror, but it will feel monumentally better than watching all the other kingdoms secede and stay silent.

The Eyrie seems to the most realistic example here, as far as what the regions will be like after the defeat of the Others: the Knights of the Vale participated in the War for the Dawn, therefore the fighting force has been depleted. And I would argue that they have a very similar situation to the Stormlands; Rhaenys was only able to bring the Arryns into the fold by flying her dragon to the castle. Once again, without dragons, I don’t see how Bran is going to be as successful. Robin Arryn doesn’t know Bran; he was all in for Sansa. But since Sansa decided to leave him in the lurch to declare independence, I don’t think he and his advisors are going to stay besties with her. Sitting out the War of the Five Kings makes it even easier for me to theorize that they would be just fine on their own.

The state of the Reach is the most embarrassing thing that happened on Game of Thrones: the fact that we have to watch Bronn of the fucking Blackwater sit in the Queen of Thorns’ seat of power is a travesty. I always liked him on the show and in the books, but this, I cannot forgive. He is woefully ill-equipped to be lord of a keep, let alone Highgarden, and putting him on the small council as MASTER OF COIN when he can’t read or understand loans was beyond lazy. As far as the state of the Reach, they are pretty depleted from the sack of Highgarden, but even so, it seems painfully obvious that his lack of support from the other lords in the region will be his downfall. Maybe they weren’t 100% supportive of the Tyrells either, but there’s no way any of them will allow some up-jumped sellsword who’s best friends with Tyrion Lannister to lead them. Since Bronn has no army of his own, he’ll be dead soon enough and someone who was decidedly not killed during the Long Night, will take his place and give a middle finger to the Iron Throne, just like Olenna.

The Westerlands are the weakest of the remaining Six Kingdoms, I think: they don’t have much of an army after the Battle of King’s Landing. I think they’d be the only support of Bran after he is crowned, and that’s because Tyrion is the Hand. After Daenerys took Casterly Rock, most everyone bent the knee or died, so Tyrion doesn’t even have a suitable army to defend him, let alone the castle. I can’t imagine the soldiers remaining after all this would be enough to take on all the rebellions that are destined to occur after the secession of the North.

Lastly, the North: how will Bran react when his home region is starving and begging for aid? They have nothing to feed their people in the cold, white North. Yes, a lot of people died in the war, but there are plenty who didn’t participate and since it didn’t get past Winterfell, only those involved in the Battle—and the Umbers—were affected. Will the new king give it, even though they have no right to ask for it? Will he defy the laws of the realm for his sister? Because as far as I’m concerned, the North cannot sustain itself without the help of the other kingdoms. It’s not warm enough for farming, while the livestock trade was probably diminished when the Boltons were Wardens. Sansa would rather be in the Queen in the North than actually take care of her subjects; because by choosing independence, she has doomed everyone. Nothing changes for the smallfolk; it’s just another feudal overlord.  

In conclusion: if Bran becomes King, there would have to be an apocalypse for it to be successful. There definitely wasn’t on the show, therefore several events will cause his coronation to be all for naught before Tyrion’s ten years are up. As GRRM has stated, the Others are the focus of the story and who sits on the Iron Throne is a secondary plot to distract from the actual horror. I’m not usually someone to ask for more horror, but when it comes to the future of Westeros under King Bran, things are looking terribly bleak without more of it.

[serenegaldr]

ancient language hcs

((I’ve been thinking of doing this ever since it was mentioned in a thread, and I realized I’ve never really thought that much about what the Ancient Language (abbreviated AL) was supposed to be like, spoken. The soundtrack for the Galdr of Rebirth renders it as backwards Japanese, and I will take that into account, but I also have some thoughts of my own! My thoughts are also ridiculously long so have a read more cut:

First, according to the FE Wiki:

The ancient language was first devised by the beorc of Tellius, and for a time saw wide use among all of the land's people. However, its complexity proved to be a significant obstacle for it to be learned by laguz, and so the modern "Tellius language" was created and soon supplanted it as the continent's dominant tongue.

So the Ancient Language is supposedly ‘complex’. However, it is also the language the Galdrar are sung in, which means bird anatomy alone is capable of making the full range of these sounds. Thus, I propose that the AL has these following qualities, when compared to the Modern Tongue:

Phonetics: The production of sound (phones) in AL is, as stated above, extremely simple, allowing for its production by the tongues of multiple different types of animals. ‘Backwards Japanese’ is actually quite simple to pronounce, since like forwards Japanese, a lot of their words end on vowels, but I did wonder if the glides or fricatives wouldn’t be too much for them, so I looked up a bird utterances paper online, to which I found that the sounds available to them in song are probably slightly different from the sounds available to them in speech. There are probably some replacements when they sing, but at the same time they are Magical Birbs (TM) so their range of available sounds could well be much larger than your garden-variety bird. Do keep in mind that other species also use AL, and I did not go and look up a ‘wolf utterances paper’, so my hc does not take into account the other Laguz :’D Also related, I do firmly believe that speaking MT is not feasible to them in their Laguz form; for stuff like battle cutscenes, regardless of what the graphics render, I think they talk first, and then transform to fight.

Phonology: Tonal changes, differing stress and syllable onset all play a large part in differentiating the subtle intent behind words, at least in the spoken language! In song, that’s often replaced by vowel shifts, some of which do not naturally occur in speech, so it’s a music-only feature of the language, which might have something to do with seid magic. If you disregard all the subtle phonology changes, you’ll get the general gist of what they’re saying, but miss a whole load of nuances behind it, similar to, say, the way sarcasm is used in MT.

Morphology: The absolute bulk of AL’s ‘complexity’ stem from morphology! Every single word is tagged with all the information, including but not limited to: tense, aspect, mood, gender, case, number, and even things like ‘relative degree’, ‘relative status between speaker and listener’, or ‘special emphasis’ and the like. Perhaps there used to be more variance, or maybe there still is for other ‘dialects’ of AL (will the Herons and the Wolves really speak the exact same language after being separated for centuries? Unlikely), but at least the Herons’ version of AL is extremely ordered (get it?), and there is basically no irregularity in the application of morphemes. Learn all the intricate rules exactly once, and you’re all set for life, but there are a lot of rules. It’s interesting that the wiki mentioned it was more complex for Laguz - later on I think it’s said that, however, eventually the Laguz’ long lifespans allowed them to master the language better.

Syntax: Think Latin, but even freer than that, since there is no such thing as emphasis through position and everything is indicated in tones and by the morphology. Any word can go anywhere in the sentence and it’ll make perfect sense and mean exactly what you want it to mean, which is great for these birb singers! Very few headaches about how to fit lyrics to make sense :’D This, however, is the main reason Leanne pauses so much when speaking MT! She knows her grammatical options are severely more limited there than in AL, so she needs to think about how the sentence is supposed to be structured before she says it. And while I am biased towards making her replies actually make sense to the other person, she probably does make weird grammatical mistakes every so often.

Vocabulary/Semantics: This is probably the part I’ve mentioned the most in posts already, but AL has a relatively small pool of vocabulary, with differences in nuance indicated mainly by morphology and tone. For instance, ‘walk’ and ‘run’ would be two different words, but ‘jog’, ‘run’ and ‘sprint’ would be the same word with a slightly different indicator for ‘relative speed’. I actually have not consciously taken to doing this (yet), but in practice, Leanne, as an unexperienced speaker who still thinks mostly in terms of AL, would tend to prefer using simple words with additional adjectives/adverbs (e.g. ‘run fast’ or ‘run slow’ instead of ‘sprint’ or ‘jog’) when speaking MT.

Pragmatics: If you have a good grasp of the phonology and morphology and what they entail, you’ll generally understand what the person is trying to say, but if not, then a lot of their conversations will appear to not follow any known rules of conversation at all. As AL is a very old language, I figure a lot of the pragmatics side has strong ties to basic instincts and body language, which animals are often better at reading than humans are, so a lot of that plays into AL conversation as well!

Ok, but then why can Leanne understand everything but not speak well? As I mentioned before in the hcs channel on discord, I hc that Bird Laguz are born in their bird form, before going through Laguz Puberty at a later age, whereby they gain and are then locked into their humanoid forms as their default form. This, for Leanne, probably happened during her time asleep in the forest, so she was a baby bird for her entire time alive before the Serenes Massacre, which happened when she was about 2.5 years old in equivalent Beorc age, since Reyson calls her an ‘infant’ during that time. Now, 2.5-year-olds don’t normally understand everything you tell them! However, and this actually is a gripe I have with a lot of long-lived characters with a long infancy period, this is really not the same as a human situation. I briefly looked this up, and a baby who is considered ‘spoken to a lot’ might hear about 15,000 words a day. For Leanne, who had 6 siblings and 2 parents and a whole forest of other playmates, I might even think she’ll have heard more, but some of that was AL so probably about 15,000 words of MT a day sounds about right. But unlike a 2.5-year-old human baby, she’s been getting that for a whole entire 47 years. That means, before she even has the capability to speak a single word of MT, she’s already heard way more words spoken at her than the average adult Beorc, certainly more than one of her mental age of 18. Thus, while she’s still struggling to learn to produce the language, listening is usually no problem to her, unless the interlocutor in question speaks very quickly, or uses unfamiliar figures of speech / very difficult vocabulary! Like, Leanne probably won’t get anywhere talking with Awakening’s Miriel, but she can probably understand any average speaker just fine.

TL;DR because this is really long: the ‘complexity’ of AL is mainly in its vastly intricate phonology and morphology, which also results in a rich and confusing-to-outsiders system of pragmatics, while phonetics and vocabulary are very simple, and syntax is basically nonexistent. Certainly a very different kind of language from MT, which is why Leanne struggles when speaking, despite being receptively fluent!))

[ceies]

Vinland Saga “Prologue”

A Review!

So, yesterday I watched “End of the Prologue”. It was a fantastic season finale. It really completed the story arc of most of the characters and while there are some lose ends left to tie up in the Manga or a 2nd season and while surely Thorfinn’s and Knut’s story can go much longer, it would have also been a very satisfying end to the show as a whole, I felt.

Within just this Prologue everything seemed to go full circle. And I think, that is why this is a ‘Prologue’. Looking back at it the season seems like a very complete story by itself that can easily set up another possibly even bigger story but is not necessarily part of that story but instead stands alone. Of course, I could be very wrong as I haven’t read the manga but that is how I interpret the revelation that all these 24 episodes had just been the ‘Prologue’.

When I finished watching, I didn’t get around to writing down my thoughts as I did for most of the rest of the season. I didn’t write something about every episode of this season, but the more I progressed the more I had to say about it. And just like that, I had a lot to say about the finale… BUT! I didn’t feel ready to write anything coherent down. The events of the finale really had to sink in. It’s now 24 hours past, and I still might need some time.

But… I think I’m ready to make my first season review where I talk about what I thought about this show, what I liked (a lot) and disliked (not so much) et cetera et cetera…

Now, keep in mind, I have only watched the show once. I also watched the whole show within a week, so many events might be very fresh in my mind, but I didn’t necessarily give it enough time between episodes to process everything that had happened. Also, while this will be very long… I can’t talk about everything!

When I frist writing this review, I wrote down about six pages just on characters... I reallized I had to tone it down. So, this review will be more story and plot focused, and I may try to write something else about the characters (or maybe some few special characters) later on, in a second post some time later on.

Some technical stuff first: I watched the show with German Subs, so some of the names are a bit different to the names in the English Subs. I now know that “Knut” is “Canute” in the English Subs, and “Björn” might be known as “Bjorn” by the English audience. That said, I’m used to the German names and I really can’t be bothered to check every single character for their English spelling. So, for the sake of consistency… I’m just going to use the German spellings.

The Plot:

Thorfinn, son of the former warrior Thors, sneaks onto the ship, when his father is forced to join the war between England and Denmark. However, Thors is betrayed by his old comrade Floki who pays a pirate/viking/mercenary called Askeladd to kill him. After Askeladd through some trickery and underhanded tactics manages to kill Thors – who is the much more powerful fighter – in front of Thorfinn’s eyes, the young six-year-old swears vengeance. In the following years he follows Askeladd and his crew around always looking for a fair duel in which he can finally kill Askeladd to get his revenge.

About ten years later Askeladd gets his hand on the Danish prince Knut and thus they are dragged into the plot for succession on the Danish throne.

Overall, this story to me seems very character-driven. It’s the characters that keep me hooked, not so much the plot. Actually, I think the plot is nothing too special. For the most part it’s rather predictable. To me at least, it seemed, like nobody really tried to surprise me until the very end. Only around episode 21/22 did the plot really go into high gear and then there were a few surprising turns of evens.

Before that for the most part it was even somewhat difficult to actually understand, what this plot was about, if there even was much of a plot, beyond just Thorfinn’s pursuit of revenge. So up until around episode 10 when Prince Knut was introduced most of the story was just focused on establishing Thofinn’s family and the relationship between him and Askeladd. Something that I got the feeling doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. Neither the crew nor the rest of the world and to be honest not even Askeladd himself seemed to care for Thorfinn’s revenge. It’s something that Thorfinn is utterly obsessed about, but the rest of the world doesn’t care. And that is very apparent pretty much from the start.

I at least felt like some bigger plot was missing for the first ten episodes. While Thorfinn grows up the war between England and Denmark rages on, but we don’t see much of it. There is no story here. Even later on, when we finally see some actual battles, it’s not really the war against the English anymore, but just Danes fighting Danes (although some of these Danes allied with the English for a while).

Thus, for most of the story, as a viewer I also felt like we were short an ‘Antagonist’. Of course, there was Askeladd, but the show from his introduction made it pretty clear that while Thorfinn might see him as his enemy, in the grand scheme of an overarching plot, he would not be the antagonist. But that Antagonist was still out there… and remained out there and unknown for a long time.

It’s really only in the later stages of the season that we find out what this story is really about: And it’s about Knut more than Thorfinn. It’s about the succession on the throne of Denmark. Thorfinn growing up in this mess I think mostly serves to set him up and establish his character as the protagonist for the next arc(s). But unlike most other characers in this show, Thorfinn on the question of the throne of Denmark which everybody else is focused on, has no own agenda. He just follows Askeladd round. That’s also why midway through the season Askeladd feels a lot more like the main character than Thorfinn.

So at this point I have written a lot more about the Plot than I had originally intended. Overall I just want to end with this: There’s not a point in this Anime where I felt that I didn’t know where it was going. Still I felt like the story was very character-driven, while the plot was rather weak. That changes around the midway point of the season. Once Thorfinn has finished growing up (for this season) the plot really thickens… and somewhat comes out of nowhere. Still, every step on the way up until the last four episodes seemed very predictable to me. The show makes no effort hiding that, when and how Thors would die, or Ragnar or how Knut would grow up, or even Thorkell joining Knut. There was no surprise here. And that might have been the reason why halfway through this show, I thought somewhat arrogantly: “Oh, I always know what’s going to happen, I could write this show.”

But looking back on it now, I realize that although I saw most of the tiny steps on the way a mile in advance, I still had no idea where it was going, and if somebody had asked me, what this story was about around episode 5 … I would have had no idea. I would have probably said: “Askeladd and Thorfinn finding some weird Mentor-murderer-surrogate father-relationship”, “Thorfinn getting revenge”, “the war between England and Denmark” or maybe even “Thorfinn looking for the fabled Vinland” (which I think will ultimately be what later arcs will be about). None of those assumptions would have been wrong, but none of them would be right either. I would have never in my life guessed that it’s about “Askeladd deciding the succession of the Danish Throne to protect his homeland.” Because all of that is only reavealed in the last few episodes of this show.

Characters:

Now this is where this show really excels. Knut really impressed me, Thorkell is utterly hilarious, Thors is “larger than life”, Thorfinn is a dichotomy growing up in the image of two great men, I really grew to like Björn, Ragnar was bittersweet, King Swen did not disappoint as an Antagonist with the limited screentime he had and Askeladd… probably makes my top ten list of favorite characters of all time… And I don’t even have such a list. And that’s just scratching the surface.

Most of the characters in the show, as soon as they get just a little bit of screentime to shine… boy, do they shine. They are interesting and layered, and nobody is quite like the other. They don’t always defy character-archtypes that we already well know from other stories, but sometimes they do and when they do, it’s glorious.

Even some side-characters who are only introduced for one episode seem to be very well-done that we can understand who they are, why they are who they are, and what they do or what their purpose in the story is. Such as the old lady who saves Thorfinn in episode 5, the girl who witnesses her village being massacred by Askeladd or Master Asser in Wales.

Some characters like Atli and Torgrim or even Björn took a while to grow on me, other’s like Askeladd or Thorkell or Thorfinn’s sister Ylva were love on first sight. But overall I would say in this show there remain few (if any) characters who I can’t understand where they come from or why they do what they do. And WHAT they do is often disgusting, vile and evil stuff. But still, it feels like I’m not watching senseless violence but character-driven actions that make perfect sense in the environment they are and grew up in, even if it’s sometimes difficult to watch.

Overall, I think Floki was the weakest and most disappointing character with the screen time he got. And that’s saying something... However, I do have some hope, that we might get a bit more about him in a later arc. Especially in regard to him ordering the hit on Thors there are still some lose ends here.

This is everything I want to say about characters. As I said, I could fawn over Akeladd or Knut or Thors for hours, but... let’s move on.

Animation, Music etc.

Going to keep this short: It was great. Sometimes the animation goes completely crazy, like when in my otherwise least favorite episode 7 we suddenly get a first perspetive view on the battle. I have to be honest, I don’t like Thorfinn’s angry face, but it absolutely does it’s job. I loved some of the picturesque nature images. For example when kid Thorfinn learned how to hunt in a forest in autumn that was just beautiful. Snowstorms are... oh wow Very well animated.

I liked the Soundtrack though I have to admit, it didn’t stand out to me. One reason is that I have just a bad ear for music.

I loved the second opening more than the first. But the first was good too (although I think it spoiled much of the story for me).

The japanese synchronisation was amazing. Thorfinn’s voice actor in particular was really impressive whenever he got angry.

So much about that, I said this would be very short!

Other thoughts / Themes:

So again... this is one of those parts that could get very long, so I might make a seperate post sometime later on to talk more in depth about some of these ideas.

Ultimately I felt this arc was a lot about boys growing up. This is something that both Knut and Thorfinn have in comon. The story very centers and focuses around them growing up and turning into their respective adult selves. Especially Knut’s developement in the second half of the season was very entertaining to watch. The developement of both of these characters is vey much tied to the conept of “leaving the nest” and “the father’s death”. It’s something they both share with Askeladd himself - who did the deed of killing both their father(figure)s. While I don’t want to go too deep into it, I think this is (although in a more symbolic meaning of the word) is a critical point of growing up and maturing. Finding your own way, taking responsibility, not being held back by the expactations put on you. In this show this concept is used in the most twisted way possible. Askeladd brutally murders Knut’s fatherfigure for Knut’s character developement. And he is successfull in doing that. With Thorfinn however his father’s death leaves him shackled to the man he blames and hates for it - not so much because he is actually shackled to him, but because he is so obsessed with revenge. Both of them then learn and grow up under Askeladd (Thorfinn more so than Knut - although I find the relationship between Askeladd and Knut almost as fascinating if not more so) and ultimately lose Askeladd too which could almost be seen as losing their father a second time (in Knut’s case maybe even third or fourth time; Ragnar, God, Sven, Askeladd). And although Thorfinn always wanted to kill Askeladd it is ultimately Knut who fully steps into his role as king by killing Askeladd.

Another concept that is explored mostly with characers like Thors, the priest Willybald and Knut is the concept of “love”. What the show means with love is not so much a specific love for somebody in particular, but a more broader love for all beings / all humans. It’s something we see with Thors early on in the series when he give eight sheep to free a already dying slave and doesn’t regret it even when the man dies shortly after. Or when he refuses to kill Askeladd even if that could save himself, his son and his men. “You have no enemies, nobody is your enemy” is what he tells his son, and of course Thorfinn for the longest time doesn’t quite understand it - or if he does, he doesn’t follow this mantra. Instead it seems Knut - although never knowing Thors is most like him. They are often compared and they seem to share this Love that is undiscriminatory. Even if Knut is a bit more willing to kill than Thors being a more realistic character in this world.

This also goes hand in hand with how the show explores leadership or kinship. Askeladd is a leader whose men follow him because he is ‘lucky’. But he is also very much a king with no following or crown, even if he does not call himself such. On the other end of the spectrum is Sven whose crown gets too heavy and even controls him. Then there are the two people askeladd chooses to be his leaders: Thors whom he offers leadership of his band and later Knut whom he grooms into being a king and who coincidentally both share the “Love” as possibly the only two characters in the show.

The last thing I wanted to talk about was Religion. The season started with dreams of Vinland - this fabled place in the west (which I guess is America) where there is no slavery or war or cruelty, where the fields are rich with fruit and corn and... really a paradise on earth. It’s somewhat similar to how Askeladd’s mother described the country Artorius resides in in the west across the water. An of course it also is very similar to how christianity imagines “Paradise” to be. Halfway through the season we not only start dreaming about “Paradise” but there’s talks about Ragnarök, Last Judgement... People are waiting for these things to happen. Askeladd is waiting for Artorius’ return. Knut is trying to reach Paradise through prayer... All of these things however never happen and are doomed to fail. I loved this episode when Knut shortly after Askeladd said something similar in the episode before, realized he had to create Paradise himself, it was impossible to reach it just by waiting. Askeladd later says that it’s absurd believing Artorius would leave this fabled country in the west just to get back to this wartorn brittain... Both reached the same epiphany: I’m sick of waiting, I will do it myself. I loved this concept that is in a way criticising all kinds of religions while not really forcing this critical view onto anybody. Many people throughout the show find inspiration and shelter in religion - even Knut and Askeladd for some time. But ultimately you can’t spend our life waiting for things that will never happen.

There’s so much more to talk about like Thorfinn’s and Askeladd’s hatred and rage. The cruelty of war and slavery.... Or the overall morality of the characters and world. But I think I will leave it at that and just write another post once I’m done with it.

Conclusion

Overall I enjoyed this very much. Episode 7 was probably my least favorite episode and overall I think the second half and especially the last five or so episodes where much better than everything before that. The arc got better and better consistently.

I’m very glad how it ended. I still think the finale was fantastic. Now I still need some time to mourn and process everythig. This was overall a great season.

Watching it was sometimes a bit difficult.The show makes no effort to hide how brutal this world is. Characters - even characters I root for - ended up doing vile things on-screen. Murder, Rape and Slavery are everywhere, even if at least the latter two aren’t shown graphicly. So I would’t recomend it to anybody who is a bit squeamish in that regard.

But in general I myself loved this show!

[unexpectedreylo]

Bendemption Song Part 2:  The Villain’s Redemption Arc/The Anti-Hero’s Journey

First, we have to ask:  what kind of redemption arc is Ben getting?  Mythcreants.com lists three kinds:  sacrifice, temptation, and forgiveness.  

A sacrifice arc is one where the redeemed villain does something good and ultimately sacrifices his/her life because of the gravity of the villain’s crimes.  Darth Vader is given as an example:  Vader kills Darth Sidious to save Luke, but in the process is mortally wounded.  I would sort of put Gollum in this category and maybe Severus Snape too.  In Ben’s case, a sacrifice arc is possible.  I know those of us in Reylo-land don’t want to think about it, but I wouldn’t say it’s totally off the table.  But to make you all feel better, I think there are problems with a sacrifice arc in this situation.  Of all of the potential redemption arcs to use, this one is the easiest because it just repeats what was done in ROTJ.  And “easy” usually carries the least amount of payoff.  Two, it’s debatable whether Kylo’s crimes are so great, he cannot be allowed to survive.  Fans who want revenge for Han’s death might have one view, Reylos might have another.  It’s apparent though that Kylo’s rap sheet isn’t as long as his grandfather’s and Kylo is already showing far more remorse, regret, and conflict than Vader ever did.  It’s also clear that Kylo was victimized as a youngster in a way Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker never was.  Palpatine was a manipulator but he used flattery and kindness to snare Anakin while what Snoke did went back to when Ben was a fetus and it’s clear it wasn’t all “nice.”  Three, it would collide with some narrative brick walls I will discuss in the third part of my Bendemption Song series.

The temptation arc and the forgiveness arc could end with the death of the character, but unlike the sacrifice arc, these two arcs also allow for the possibility of the character’s survival.  Kylo’s arc could follow either one.  

The temptation arc is where the character feels pulled to the good side as well as the bad and is in a battle to decide where he falls.  Zuko from “Avatar:  The Last Airbender” and Spike from “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” are given as examples.  Kylo’s line in TFA, “I feel it again, the pull to the light,” signals his own struggle.  He’s always being described as “conflicted.”  I think this arc is a really good fit for him for this reason.  If this is the route they go in IX, ultimately he will choose “the light,” or at least reject the dominance of the dark side over his entire personality.  He will learn to integrate his shadow self, to use a Jungian term, and recognize the light side aspects of his personality are a strength, not a weakness.  

The forgiveness arc is where the character has already forsworn villainy but has blood on his hands.  Furiosa from “Mad Max:  Fury Road” is given as an example.  I would add Bucky Barnes and Loki from the Marvel Cinematic Universe as further examples.  Most of what they are doing is trying to make up for past crimes, earning the trust and forgiveness of others, and reaching the point where they can forgive themselves.  Had Kylo turned in TLJ, this would’ve been his arc for sure in IX.  It’s still possible, but it would depend on how soon he turns.  If it’s early in the movie, then a forgiveness arc might happen.  If it’s in the second or third act in the film, then it’s too late for a forgiveness arc to occur and it will likely be a temptation or sacrifice arc instead.

When the writer has chosen the arc for the villain, there are certain things the writer must do to establish redemption.

The anti-hero is at first presented as purely villainous.

TFA largely shows Kylo Ren The Villain Who Does Bad Stuff.  He kicks off the movie by killing Lor San Tekka, taking Poe prisoner and torturing him, and ordering his troops to burn down a village.  He kidnaps Rey and attempts to enter her mind.  He is shown later on as conflicted but he works up the nerve to kill off Dear Old Dad, then he fights Finn and Rey.

The anti-hero is humanized, often through a tragic backstory or showing they have good intentions.

Basically, everything that happens in TLJ.  Kylo discards his mask and humanizes himself to Rey and by extension to us.  The books reveal Snoke had been messing with Ben since he was in the womb.  We learn of the tragic murder Luke almost commits, which turned Ben Solo into Kylo Ren.  

 Start Dropping Hints

 This has already happened in TFA and TLJ.  Hints include Kylo’s perpetual conflict, his less-than-enthusiastic reaction to committing Han-icide, his refusal to kill his mother, his lack of enthusiasm for blowing up planets, his bouts of gentleness/empathy/compassion for Rey, etc..  If you want an early sign in IX that Bendemption is going to happen, keep an eye out in the first act for the “Supreme Leader” to do something uncharacteristic for an evil despot.  He might refuse to commit an atrocity against innocents, he might save a group of children (to counterpoint Anakin’s Great Youngling Massacre), or he might start to question the whole enterprise of the war.  Perhaps he always makes sure Rey and her friends escape the First Order.  Maybe he’ll be a “Fulcrum!”  You never know.

Introduce A Good Influence

 Obviously, that’s Rey.  She can’t pick him up and drag him from the Dark Side, as she learned the hard way in TLJ, but she shows him just as she doesn’t have to live in anger, hurt, resentment, and fear, neither does he.  She offers him forgiveness and the possibility of life beyond and better than what he has.  If there’s any incentive at all for Kylo to change, it’s her.  

You might have noticed these movies seem to be big on “girl power.”  It’s as though the power of the feminine—all but destroyed by the end of the prequels, corrupted in the “Solo” era, and missing but for a few key figures in the original trilogy—is making a roaring comeback in the sequels.  You might also have noticed that Kylo has a big problem with male authority figures (Han, Snoke, Luke) and male rivals (Hux, to some degree Finn).  Yet who is the one relative to escape his wrath?  His mother.  Who does he finally open himself up to?  Rey.  This tells me Kylo is receptive to the power of the feminine and it’s likely his maternal ties and his deep connection with a woman will play an important part in his redemption.  

I believe the original plan for IX was for Kylo to atone with his mother and this part of the story is so fundamental, there was no way to get around it ergo they are going to use footage of Carrie Fisher shot for TFA and TLJ.  How they’ll use it is still a mystery.  We’ll just have to see.

Less obvious is another good influence, and that’s Han Solo.  Not only is Han genetically encoded in Kylo anyway, Han’s actions at the end of their encounter left an indelible mark on him in both a negative and a positive way.  I think we’ll see the true beginning of his turn was at that moment; in fact it’s obvious from watching TFA Kylo almost left with his father.

Subtle Shift In Loyalty/The anti-hero goes through a phase of internal conflict, or their inner conflict is revealed/amplified.  This is when he is waffling between good and evil./This internal conflict drives him toward Team Good.

While Kylo shows no inclination yet to join the Resistance, his loyalty in TLJ shifts from Snoke to Rey.  It’s as close to Team Good as he has gotten in this trilogy so far.  Of course, the shift wavers and he retreats to lead Team Evil.  But his connection to and feelings for Rey remain, as demonstrated in his last scene in TLJ.  This gives us hope for IX.

The anti-hero isn’t ready to be redeemed and he falls back toward Team Evil.  This is often due to their own desires or temptations of another character.  This usually involves a betrayal.  The betrayal leads to them achieving a goal they had become evil in the first place to obtain.

Kylo doesn’t betray anyone besides Snoke but he decides he’d rather be Supreme Leader than be the Resistance’s new lightsaber-swinging hero, which breaks poor Rey’s heart. 

Villain Becomes Unhappy With Team Evil/The anti-hero realizes he made a mistake.  The goal isn’t what he wanted after all or it backfires on him.

Kylo’s going to find that heavy is the head that wears the crown, isolated and having to watch his back at all times.  I don’t see Kylo as an ideologue as I see him as using the First Order to get back at his family and their value system and latching onto Snoke because he feels like he doesn’t belong anywhere else.  In IX, that family will be mostly gone and Snoke’s dead.  The only things holding Kylo to the First Order would likely be his desire for power and control, despair, guilt, and fear of being on his own.  But even those may not be enough.  Kylo could question further the First Order’s goals and methods.  In addition, I predict Hux will stage a coup against Kylo by turning the First Order’s leaders and money guys, and possibly even the Knights of Ren, against him.

This realization leads him to repent and seek to fight for Team Good.

I think he will likely approach Rey first and once she indicates she is willing to forgive him, he will come to fight alongside her.  

The Villain Must Stop A Great Evil And Make A Great Sacrifice

While a new, hitherto unknown threat could be the great evil in IX, I doubt they will introduce one this late in the game.  Likely the great evil will be the First Order or something connected to it.  

Dave Filoni said during The Clone Wars panel at SDCC 2018 the true conflict in Star Wars was between selfishness and selflessness.  In order to be redeemed, Kylo MUST do something selfless.  It will likely be something very risky to life and limb to correct his error and stop the First Order.  The greater the error, the greater the potential sacrifice will be.  I will stress that a willingness to sacrifice your life isn’t an automatic death sentence in film and literature.

It will show tremendous growth if he is also willing to sacrifice the possibility of a life with Rey.  As Yoda said in ROTS, you must let go of everything you fear to lose. Think back to how possessive Anakin was with Padmé in ROTS (“you will not take her from me”) versus how Han Solo was willing to let Leia choose Luke, not knowing they’re twins, if that’s what would make her happy.  I could see Kylo letting Rey choose another, if anyone, if that’s what she wanted or asking Finn or Poe to take care of her if something were to happen to him. 

A willingness to abdicate power, wealth, and status are great sacrifices as well.  So is a willingness to completely change your value system and goals.  I think Ben will do all of the above.  

The Villain Must Show Remorse

In Ben’s case, this is VERY important.  I think one reason why some fans are very unforgiving of him is because they don’t think he yet shows sufficient remorse. Regardless, the audience has to believe his turn is sincere by witnessing him acknowledge his misdeeds and express mourning, sorrow, and regret for committing them.  The signs are there in TLJ and TFA but we need to see more.  I’m talking about big ugly sobbing here.  At the same time, he cannot wallow for long in despair and guilt or else he’ll be at best worthless and at worst, he can be drawn back to the Dark Side.  He can’t punish himself by refusing forgiveness, kindness, or mercy.  Showing remorse has to be cathartic, it cannot be a perpetual state of existence.   

I predict that a significant part of IX will be about Ben integrating his shadow self, Kylo.  How will he do this?  He needs to release his anger, resentment, and hurt instead of clinging to them like a security blanket.  He has to forgive those who have hurt him:  Luke, his parents, Rey, even Snoke.  Most importantly, he has to forgive himself.  Once he has done these things, he can finally be in control of his emotions, letting himself feel freely but without being overtaken by them.

The villain finds direction, a problem in need of solving; humbles himself

For a character like Ben, this probably means taking on an insane, undoubtedly suicidal mission on behalf of Team Good, providing insider information on Team Evil, and of course putting his Force-skills—likely in conjunction with Rey’s—to work.  He won’t do it expecting thanks; this is to prove his worth, earn trust, and of course, attempt in some way to make up for what he has done.

The villain is forgiven 

Rey will happily forgive Ben if he decides to side with her.  It seems she has already forgiven him for his pre-TLJ crimes and will forgive him again when the time comes.  The question is whether anyone else will.  Leia, if she’s alive by that time, definitely.  I think Chewie will come around and when he reconciles with Ben, there won’t be a dry eye in the theater.  It’ll be a big moment if/when Ben reclaims everything that had once been his or should’ve been his:  a relationship with Chewie, the Falcon, Artoo and Threepio, his mother’s cause, etc..  

Would Finn forgive Ben?  Maybe, especially if it’s for Rey’s sake.  Poe would be a hard sell.  Kylo Ren had brutally tortured him and he’s not likely to just forget all about it.  On top of that, he’s a True Believer.  I can see him being very skeptical of Ben turning and not exactly willing to let bygones be bygones.  But that’s okay.  Not everyone needs to forgive Ben by the time the credits roll.

And then what?

The very end of the arc is the question of whether the redeemed villain lives or dies.  I will answer that question in the next part, “Live Or Let Die.”

Check out Part One if you haven’t already!

[mannatea]

would love to hear your full hot take on Voltron s7 if you’re inclined to share

there HAS been a lack of salt in general on this blog, huh??

all right, FULL hot take on voltron s7. spoilers ahead. salt. hate. don’t click the readmore if you don’t wanna read it. it’s a disorganized mess also. i’m tired still. s7 drained my ability to write well--sucked it right out of me.

god, where do i even start? the season started out all right. the gameshow episode was fun! but as soon as we returned to earth things went straight into snoozemode. i was itching to turn it off and go back to finish s3 of miss fisher’s murder mysteries, because i just wasn’t that invested in watching just a couple more hours of a new season of voltron. and this after i’d just recently marathoned s1-6 with my husband. 

i spent half the time staring at my phone. my husband was on his tablet. we complained about how boring it was aloud. we paused to talk shit about it.

there were a few good things, but it seems to me most of them were at the very beginning of the season. liiiike romelle. my husband was ready to set sail on the s.s. hunk x romelle which was incredible. acxa? also good. KOSMO? the best character in this series now, hands down. notice how little of the good there was in this season? hm.

anyway like i said, as soon as we had to see earth again i was bored. i don’t even know how to organize all my thoughts on this, but i’ll try.

flashback scenes for days. boring.

i’m not saying i could write it better but imo it would have been way more interesting to toss the characters into the situation without the audience having a clue what they were walking into. let them act and be overwhelmed with us? 

i don’t care overmuch about sam holt let alone his wife. at first i was pretty okay with them because i’m all for fleshing out side characters, but in the end it was all pretty meh.

idk he was just right about literally everything and could do no wrong. boring.

admiral sanda is one of the worst-written cringey characters i’ve EVER had the displeasure of watching. 

the only relief i felt in her character was that she wasn’t fulfilling the latino hotshot trope by being a young latino man instead of an older woman. 

but making her an older woman didn’t actually make her interesting.

in fact, none of her motivations or actions made any sense. 

you’re telling me this bitch is super by the books but she believes sam holt enough to spend billions on developing new tech on nothing more than his word? okay

if she’s so by the books she should have remained entirely by the books the entire time.

if she believes sam enough to spend billions in manpower and materials to build this shit she probably believes sam enough to trust in his judgment re: military tactics.

seriously i hated this character beyond hate. her little ‘redemption’ arc was poorly done. her getting a photograph at the memorial was annoying. 

okay, i can take the latter as the military keeping up appearances. don’t want the population knowing you were betrayed by the, or one of the, highest ranking officers in the military. that’d be a very big yikes.

i find it eXTREMELY hard to believe this lady did all this and only realizes she was an idiot at the last second. 

whaT do you meAN you aREn’T keePINg yOur eNd of thE bARgaIN?

I MEAN COME ON SHE’S NOT 23 AND BRIMMING WITH NEW POWER OR LACK OF EXPERIENCE!!!

in other words she can’t possibly be that stupid. nobody over the age of 25 is that stupid, especially someone versed in warfare, in a universe that supposedly had a WWIII.

SERIOUSLY I HATED THIS CHARACTER and for some reason it pissed me off more that she was a woman instead of a crusty old white dude. maybe because, aside from the MFE pilots, there weren’t really any other female officers named and important?

sendak was a disappointing anticlimactic bore.

seriously he was a case of the doldrums.

i don’t know what i expected out of him, but he wasn’t conniving or interesting at all. this is a guy who let his own ships blow up just to get at his foe. i find it incredibly difficult to believe he wouldn’t have just blown that defensive base to dust.

yes, even at the risk of losing a ship.

let’s talk about adam, another useless husk of a character.

kill the gays stereotype in full effect. usually it’s lesbians. i guess good job on it being a guy who dies?

i love how the whole fandom stanned adam and then not only was he dead as fuck but he was pointless as fuck.

voltron writers eagerly watching the audience, tails thumping in a poor attempt at suppressed excitement, bodies practically wriggling like a dog waiting for the command to eat the treat balanced on its nose: TELL US WE DID GOOD!! TELL US WE’re GOOD BOYS!! VALIDATE US!!! WE INCLUDED TEH GAY!!!!

like bitch...y’all gave this away in advance AND FOR WHAT?

you know why. YOU KNOW. i know. WE ALL KNOW. it was just to try and earn representation points with the audience.

i hate rep points more than i hate a lot of things right now. it’s just so cringey. it’s just showrunners trying to get points for being ~progressive~ while never having to actually stick to being progressive on a continual basis lmao.

don’t get me wrong, i don’t give a SINGLE fuck about adam. i’m just mad he was touted at a convention and then ended up meaning abSOLUTELY nothing. no, shiro looking at his memorial plaque doesn’t change anything lmao.

look i’m not saying it makes his relationship with adam ‘less’. but i AM saying that making him an ex and also a dead ex means the creators don’t have to commit to continuing to deal with shiro’s sexuality, whether it’s gay, bi, or pan. they can just avoid addressing it or writing it at all. because this isn’t a romance series. they just shove adam into a figurative and literal casket and want their pats on the back. which, uhhhhh they’re not gonna get from me. adam isn’t progressive. adam’s boring.

all the action in the last four or so episodes? dull. insipid. uninspired. i’m out of insults. i just don’t care about these mfe fighters. earth is almost wiped out. am i supposed to still be caring about it?

that yawn-worthy last stand speech had me wanting to take The Long Sleep like sendak cares if you put up a fight or not. you’re all weaklings. ‘we’ll go down swinging’ is as old as the hills. i don’t know what i needed instead of this, but this wasn’t.

there was a bRIEFLY good moment with hunk but like

how convenient that everyone’s families are alive lol

or at least hunk’s parents and lance’s entire extended family

that annoyed me idk. they’re going for this gritty shit where almost everyone is dead but then pull that?

ya lost me.

on the PLUS side the little scene with keith trying to be of comfort was nice. if anyone Gets It, keith does. and then he tries to help hunk too, which i liked a lot.

but it didn’t detract enough from the Boring of the episodes to really feel good to me. sorry.

hi i’m shiro and i’m sick. i’m so sick. the sickest. but i’m going into space anyway!!!

did i miss something or did shiro’s mysterious sickness just never mean anything?

did the galra cure it? that’d be interesting character stuff.

speaking of shiro, his hover arm is weird and i hate it.

what was with allura giving him her crystal thing? is that ever going to mean anything or was it useless too?

ATLAS is now a giant robot??? what

haha sam holt built this but didn’t know it could do this? don’t fucking??? pull that??? it makes me want to die. it’s so bad. it’s CRINGEY

he’s the enGINEER!! he’d know!! if it was capable of even 50% of that!!!

haha it’s magic

shut the fuuuck up magic needs to still be explained!!!!

where are the citizens and crew on this robot anyway like you do realize they’d be dead from the force of it moving around and probably getting rattled around inside the ship right?

they’ve got a massacre in the hold to clean up when this is over.

the super robot that was like massively strong and shit?

yeah let’s DBZ it up i guess and create antagonists that are exponentially stronger as if that’ll maintain the audience’s attention lmaooooo

it was boring and the reveal at the end with the altean was boring. who cares. i don’t.

i hated the attempt at a wholesome reunion looK IT’S TEAMWORK EVERYONE WORKING TO  G E T HER!!!! 

shay showing up to hug hunk WITH HER BROTHER was the only wholesome thing about it

i dunno it just seemed kind of forced to me. oh look how the paladins were lucky enough to keep their families!! what about the rest of earth. now none of the paladins can even really relate to it. it’s depressing. :/

i dunno. the beginning was promising! and interesting! and maybe even fun. but the earth’s last stand stuff was dull. i think because it was so rushed it lacked the balance of humor that has made the show worth watching. and there were cute fun MOMENTS in the later episodes of the season (re: kosmo, “i gotta get me one of these”), but it wasn’t enough to balance out how dull the rest of it was.

if there’s anything i missed talking about, let me know and i can add it/make another post. but right now this is my current salt. 

i mean mostly my opinion is:

wow that was a waste of my time.

[storytellersinkpot-blog]

Publication Interview with Rebecca Grabill: Halloween Good Night

Author and MFAC alum Rebecca Grabill talks about her novel, Halloween Good Night. Halloween Good Night, published July 25, is a counting book starring your favorite monsters. 

Gliding through the moonlight

come the monsters big and small,

sliding up your stairway

and oozing down your hall.

They aren’t very scary,

in fact they’re rather sweet.

So snuggle into bed and let them whisper,

“Trick or treat!”

Why do you write?

I won’t be the first to say this, but I write because I must. It’s not self-expression or fame (who cares what I have to say?), it’s not some deep idealistic zeal to change the world (I’m far too cynical to do more than hope). It’s compulsion, plain and simple. When I go too long—a couple days—without writing, I feel uneasy, then agitated, then depressed, until I write again, even if all I can manage between newborn feedings and dropping teens at events is a few lines of a lousy poem. I have to write. There’s no other option.

How did HALLOWEEN GOOD NIGHT get published?

This is actually a fun story (see what a great teaser that is? That’s why I get the big bucks. Umm…). Anyway, I wrote the first draft of HGN during my MFA at Hamline, during my semester with the venerable and amazing Phyllis Root (whom I adore). I remember reading it at a student reading and thinking, “Yes, finally I figured this picture book thing out!”

Sadly editors weren’t agreeing. After graduation I did everything to the story from changing it to a direct “copy” of Over in the Meadow (super super simple and made me want to weep with self-loathing), to attempting to rewrite it in a little monster preschool setting. That’s where I realized I didn’t want to write a monster-goes-to-preschool book (well, I might want to, but I didn’t want This book to become That book). So I stopped re-envisioning it and revised to make it as sparkly as I could, and then I waited. I was also expecting a baby (#5) around then, so I was well practiced at waiting.

In fall of 2014 when I was barely able to function because of newborn and life, my agent called to say she had interest. Apparently an editor she knew was looking for a Halloween book, and she said, “Oh, I have just the book!” and passed it on to the editor and the editor happened to LOVE my story.

A few days later, on Halloween day, while I was hiding in the car and nursing the baby while my big kids were in class, the official offer came in. I got off the phone with my agent and floated around the rest of the morning. Until the kiddos were done with class, and then real life returned with, “Mommy, I’m hungry,” and so forth.

When you start writing, do you know what the ending will be?

Generally, yes. The ending is often the first thing I know about a story. Or think I know, since everything is open to change as the story and characters develop. This is especially true with picture books since these stories are so palm-sized and visual. I sometimes have an “image” in mind of the end before I even have a beginning. I certainly did with HGN. I saw a child tucking all the “scary” Halloween monsters into bed, mastering fear, being the adult, and the story grew from there.

On the flip side, I have a fantasy series in the works, and the ending has been a struggle for as long as I’ve been writing it. It’s been dormant for a few years, but now that I contemplate returning, I know that blasted ending will still be there, ugly as it is. I haven’t figured out what to do about it—yet.

What’s your writing process?

Um, cry, eat chocolate, drink coffee (decaf, see the in-utero comment above), cry some more… Just kidding. Sort of. Because of the demands of life, I have to guard my writing time (afternoons while the littles nap, big kids do independent schoolwork/pretend to do schoolwork, i.e. binge watch inappropriate Netflix or YouTube), and I have to accept that a little progress each day is better than no progress at all.

Basically, when 2pm rolls around, I put on my noise cancelling headphones and let the rest of the world shriek. And I write. I don’t do warm up exercises (please, as if I have time for that!), I don’t freewrite and brainstorm and play with my little Garbage Pail Kids figurines (ok, not much), I pick up where I left off the day before, and I keep going. I stop only when nature calls, when I need to tell one of the kids, “Yes, fine, whatever, go eat a bowl of ice cream with marshmallows and popcorn and watch Walking Dead” (not really, really I’ll just grunt and wave them away and discover later what they were asking me), and I keep going until finally I realize if I don’t stop Right Now nobody will be eating dinner.

This of course will all be blown to h@ll in December when the baby comes, but it’s what I’ll work toward even then.

As far as process for individual books, it varies so incredibly for each project it would be useless to describe. Some are written in a bout of inspiration, others are written and re-written dozens and dozens of times over the course of years. And yes, I do mean years. My current project started as an essay around 2003. It’s now almost “done” (whatever that means) and has been rewritten from the ground up at least six times, and heavily revised and restructured twice that many. AND I’m not sick of it, which means something. Hopefully something good about the manuscript and not something disturbing about myself.

What do you do when you’re not writing?

I homeschool four of my five children and feed the youngest sixth child—in utero until December—copious amounts of chocolate and cucumbers, but not together because I may be pregnant but I do have standards. I also love to binge-watch Netflix in the evenings and read books about food and sustainable agriculture.

I spend an inordinate amount of time in the kitchen because of medically necessary food restrictions—some mine, some belonging to various children. And I spend an inordinate amount of time Googling bizarre medical (and other) questions, which I could say are research, but come on, let’s be real. Weirdness and the abnormal, medically and otherwise, fascinate me.

I have kept chickens, though after a recent raccoon massacre I’m taking a break, and I have a large, ill-kept garden of mostly tomato hornworms and herbs. I also do photography (mostly stock) when the whim strikes at a time when I also have time, which doesn’t happen often, sadly. Sort of like an eclipse.

What advice do you have for aspiring writers?

Don’t try to copy another writer’s process. Seriously, I LOVE reading about how Stephen King writes, or Hemingway, or Anne Lamott. I love it because I think somewhere in their process will be this Golden Truth I’m missing in my own process. I think if I adopt their Magic, somehow my writing will go from slow-plodding-work to flying on clouds of bliss. Except then I get pissy because their process won’t work for my life. Like seriously, if Stephen King were a homeschooling mother of soon-to-be six, would he have time to write ten pages every single day? If Robert Olen Butler were a mother of ANYTHING would he be getting up at 5am to write from his dream state? So that’s to say, don’t look for the magic wand, golden ticket, mythical Dream State. It doesn’t exist. The only way writing gets done is by writing. Period.

Also, listen to feedback. Especially editors/agents, but even Uncle Sal knows a good book when he reads it (usually). Your readers know more than you think. Are they wrong sometimes? Sure. But if three of five readers are saying, “This really shouldn’t be in verse,” then try it in prose no matter how attached you may be to it the way it is. The worst that can happen is you spend some time making a change that doesn’t work. The best is that you end up with something amazing. Risk, try, and for heaven’s sake back up to Dropbox or the cloud or something. And consider Scrivener because it’s awesome, and no they don’t pay me to say that (but they should!).

What are you working on now? Any upcoming events or other info you’d like to add?

I’m finishing up a Middle Grade novel about “influence” and happy little topics like race and cruelty and beauty and friendship. Or I think I’m finishing it. I’ve “finished up” this novel before, so I hesitate to say anything for certain. Then I’ll turn my attention to maybe some picture books or an early MG about a hog, or that ending-less fantasy. Or maybe I’ll be so thoroughly pregnancy-brain-addled that I’ll decoupage everything in the house. It’ been known to happen. Or tie-dye all the diapers… Hmm, actually that does sound fun.

That’s writing stuff. Once publication happens, there’s a whole new to-do list. I have an author questionnaire to fill our for one book (with things like the names of all my local librarians, all the famous people I know, Costco’s buyer and home phone number [kidding, sort of]), and another book that will be hitting editorial soon, and I have an October full of book-release events for Halloween Good Night, plus social media/blog/etc. to keep up with.

Anything else?

Be sure to check out my website: www.rebeccagrabill.com! And if you’ve read and loved Halloween Good Night, I would love love love to see some nice reviews pop up on Amazon!

[livinglavidalibro-blog]

Half a Yellow Sun

This book is beautifully written and powerful and just so good. I don’t know how else to describe it other than so good. 9.5/10

DETAILS Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s 2006 novel

SUMMARY Odenigbo is a professor in Nsukka, Nigeria in the 1960s. He hires a houseboy from a village nearby named Ugwu, who is impressed and intimidated by Odenigbo at first, but soon realizes he is a kind man. Odenigbo often has his friends over in the evenings and they sit around discussing life and literature, and above all, politics. Odenigbo falls in love with a beautiful woman named Olanna and after some time, she moves in with him. They become like family for Ugwu, who begins to go to school and comes to love his life in Nsukka. One day, Odenigbo’s mother comes for a visit; she does not like Olanna and does not want her to be dating her son. Olanna is upset by this but Odenigbo assures her that he loves her and they decide to start to try to have a baby. We fast forward three years. The government has been overthrown, and then shortly afterwards the new government is overthrown in another violent coup. Olanna and a child called “Baby” are going to visit Olanna’s family, but tensions between ethnic groups have escalated after the coups, and there in the town Olanna and Baby are visiting, there is a violent massacre of Igbo people; Olanna and Baby escape on a train and return to Nsukka. Richard, the white, British boyfriend of Olanna’s twin sister Kainene, is in an airport when a similar attack occurs and he watches in horror as all of the Igbo people in the building are killed. Shortly thereafter, it is announced that southern Nigeria will be seceding and become the Republic of Biafra, which begins a civil war. At first the Biafrans are confident, but the Nigerians quickly advance and they begin to lose money and food supply. Nsukka is forced to evacuate as the violence nears, and Olanna, Odenigbo, Baby, and Ugwu go to Umuahia. The narrative returns to the years before the war: Olanna goes on a trip, and while she is gone Odenigbo’s mother brings a woman to the house and they sleep together, resulting in a pregnancy. Olanna finds out, moves her stuff out, and angrily sleeps with Richard, but she soon returns and adopts the baby girl as her own, naming her Chiamaka (although she calls her Baby). Kainene and Richard fight and she burns the manuscript he has been writing, but they stay together. Forward again to the days of the war, and the situation for Biafra is dire: famine and poverty are running rampant and many soldiers and civilians are dying. Richard is writing articles about the situation, Kainene runs a refugee camp, and Ugwu is forced into joining the war. He is trained, forced to fight, and participates in the gang rape of a bar girl with his squad, before being injured in a battle. He is assumed dead. Eventually he is found and reunited with Olanna and Odenigbo and they return to Nsukka with Richard and Kainene, who goes missing one day after venturing across into Nigeria in search of food and supplies. The war ends and Nigeria is reunited. Richard writes a book about the war and everyone begins to rebuild their lives. Ugwu returns to his village and learns that his sister was gang raped by soldiers, and Kainene is never found.

ANALYSIS This book focuses heavily on the destruction – emotional and physical – caused by war. Although the Biafrans had justifiable reasons for wanting to secede and for fighting in the war in an attempt to gain independence, in the end, the violence destroyed most of what they had been fighting for. It was a noble cause, but it ended with death and destruction. Ugwu, the kind a and timid houseboy we meet on page one is gone, replaced by a hardened soldier who has not only seen, but done, horrible, unspeakable things. Odenigbo and Olanna, once secure, safe, and wealthy, are left with nothing. Not even the books that were so precious to them. Kainene is gone, possibly forever.

           But the novel also focuses on love and on how important relationships can be. Despite all of the desctruction caused by the war, love has allowed the characters to remain themselves, to hold on to at least some part of their lives. In the end, Olanna, Odenigbo, Baby, and Ugwu are okay, and they are together. Richard has, through his love for Kainene, become a part of their lives and one of their loved ones; although Kainene is gone, her influence on her loved ones lives on, and it was her support and friendship that helped Olanna and Richard deal with the hardships of the war. And that love goes beyond love for family and friends: their love for the cause keeps them motivated, reminds them why there are suffering so much, and allows them to not completely lose hope. Even when it is clear that Biafra will not win and that they will once again be part of Nigeria, it is their love for their initial reasons for seceding – for their desire for a fair government, for no discrimination – that allows them to remain strong and determined to continue to work towards what they believe in. And love for other people is what helped all Biafrans get through the war. The people like Kainene who ran refugee camps, the people who shared their food and their homes and anything they had with others, that is how they survived. But relying on people, by helping people. Even though there were horrible things going on, remembering to help and to focus on love and not turning on each other is how they got through the war.

           Another theme in the novel is that of forgiveness and unity. After Odenigbo cheats on Olanna, she leaves the house and ends up sleeping with Richard. The result is a whole lot of disunity and discord. Ugwu doesn’t know what to do without Olanna in the house, he is miserable without her, and so is Odenigbo. As a result, the household and both of their lives stop running smoothly. They both become upset and sullen and less focused on their work and school. Meanwhile, Kainene finds out and in her anger, destroys the manuscript Richard had been working on, ruining all of his hard work and leaving him with quite literally nothing. She also refuses to speak to Olanna, which disturbs her sister, and, when the war begins, causes more worry for Olanna, who has no idea if her sister is okay or not. But eventually, all parties involved forgive each other, and in doing so, restore happiness and function to their lives: Olanna forgives Odenigbo and not only do they get each other and the happiness of their relationship back, but they soon have a daughter. Ugwu is happy to have Olanna back and the whole household begins to function like a well-oiled machine again. When Kainene finally forgives Olanna and they become close again, it lifts a heavy weight from both of them, as they each know that the other safe and that they will be able to talk and see each other and continue to see that they are both safe despite the violence around them. Forgiveness and togetherness are major factors in the wellbeing and happiness of the character and their lives.

           The final note I have on this novel is the symbolism of the books in Odenigbo’s study in Nsukka. Ugwu notices them immediately and is very impressed by them. They are proof the Odenigbo is a smart, well-educated man; and that he is refined and fairly wealthy. They are important to Odenigbo and he is frequently reading them or discussing them with his friends. They are important to him, and to Olanna, who is also well-educated and loves to read, and they are important to Ugwu as a symbol of how proud he is to work in Odenigbo’s home. They represent the passionate intellectualism that is the reason Olanna and Odenigbo and their friends support the secession of Biafra and the Civil War it created. When they are forced to flee Nsukka, Odenigbo is devastated to leave books behind; this is the first sign that the war will not go well for Biafra. Of course, having to flee Nsukka is a sign that it wasn’t going great at that moment, but they believed it was a brief setback and that soon Biafra would be winning. They left most of their possessions behind, assuming they would soon be back to claim them. But the novel focused in particular on the books because leaving them behind meant leaving behind a symbol of the war, of their determination, of their certainty that they would win. And when they finally do return home, they find that their house has been looted and everything is gone. The loss of the books represents the loss of Biafra: the ideals on which Biafra was born were symbolized by those books, and just like the books were gone, Biafra was gone as well.

THOUGHTS This book is amazing. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is my favorite author, I love her and I think she is so beautifully talented and this book is proof of that. It is so, so well written. It really keeps you captivated, especially because at times it will switch timelines and in doing so creates some brief cliffhangers and plot mysteries. And it not only addresses the distress caused by war and how war can change people, but also how people can change you and how other things can be distressful (on a less traumatic level) in your life, like relationships. This an intense, intense book. A lot of really awful things happen and they are described at times vividly. It’s one of those books that makes you feel so much so intensely that you don’t know what to do with yourself after you finish and you just kind of sit there in awe for a while. This is the second book of Adichie’s that I read, and it solidified her as my favorite author. I read Americanah first, and I loved it, I thought it was amazing, so I wanted to try something else by her. I was worried it wouldn’t be as good, maybe she was a sort of “one-hit wonder”, but it was just as amazing, just as mind-blowing, just as wonderfully-written and fully developed and emotional and beautiful as Americanah. And I knew when I finished this book that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was my favorite author, and the best author I had read. And I have read a lot of new authors since then, a lot of very incredibly talented authors since them, whom I love and adore. But she is still my favorite author and the best author I have ever read. And this book is what solidified that for me.