#textual entry

[elexuscal]

I watchrd the murder bot show. I heard some book fans think it’s nonbinary and some argue it likes it pronouns. Why? Isn’t it dehumanizing? And is the guy who forced it to Murderbot to make eye contact, via orders ableist? I can see why book readers think it is autistic coded. I feel weird calling a nonbinary-coded, autistic-coded lifeform it. Does it really prefer those pronouns? I read on tumblr thay apparently it does. I personally don’t prefer it/it’s pronouns, but not all enbies are the same.

Hiya!

I suppose it's not surprising that an ask like this would show up, if not in my inbox, than somebody's! Murderbot's pronouns are something I've consistently seen lots of questions about over the years, and with an influx of new folks being introduced due to the show, there's going to be more than ever.

First of all: thanks for asking these questions. I think when first being introduced to a new idea, such as a set of pronouns you're unfamiliar with, asking open and honest questions shows great intellectual curiosity and interest in understanding others.

There's a few different questions in this ask, so I'm going to try and break this down into sections, and to tackle them one by one. (And for the record, most of my answers here will be in reference to the books, not the TV show, because a) I haven't seen the show [yet] and b) there's only 2 episodes of it out right now anyway. I have no idea how closely the two texts are going to align, but I certainly hope it doesn't take away the book series' queer themes and representation.)

1. What's Murderbot's gender, and what pronouns does it use?

Murderbot is agender/non-gendered, and uses it/its pronouns.

For the record, I don't think this is just a reading or an interpretation. Rather, this is canonical, and on the same level as saying, "Bruce Wayne is a man who uses he/him pronouns."

Admittedly, there's never a place where the character says "My name is Murderbot, I'm non-binary, and I use it/its pronouns." In my opinion, one of the the strengths of the books is that it has much more subtle worldbuilding than that, both in general and in regards to casual queerness. However, throughout its first-person narration, Murderbot consistently uses "it" to refer to itself, and shows a general alienation and distaste for gender stuff in general. Its friends/allies, even after long acquaintance, continue using it/its.

Textual examples include:

Book 1: Yes, talk to Murderbot about its feelings. The idea was so painful I dropped to 97 percent efficiency. Book 2: To initiate the meeting, I’d had to make an entry on the social feed, too. The system was extremely vulnerable to hacking, so I had backdated my entry to look like I had come in on an earlier passenger transport, listed my job as “security consultant,” and my gender as indeterminate. Book 5: "No, it says it's fine," I heard her relaying to others on the comm. "Well, yes, it's furious." Book 6: I posted a feed ID with the name SecUnit, gender = not applicable, and no other information. Book 7: I was as indifferent to human gender as it was possible to be without being unconscious.

And while I think it's unnecessary, given the textual evidence, we can bring in Word of God too, courtesy of the book's author Martha Wells:

So, okay, Murderbot uses it/its pronouns! Which leads into the next question...

Why does Murderbot use 'It/Its' pronouns? Isn't that dehumanizing?

Yes, and that's just the way Murderbot likes it!

I think the reason this is often a stumbling block for folks is that a main focus of the early series-- especially book 1, or as the case may be, first episodes of the new adaptation-- is establishing that Murderbot Is A Person. From there, it's an easy leap to go: Therefore, Murderbot Is Human. After all, it has a human face.

But the second part of the central theme is: Murderbot is a person, but not a human person.

It is half-bot, half-human, all SecUnit. It has things in common with both of those halves, and emergent properties unique to itself. More than that, Murderbot is deeply alienated from the human experience. It spent the majority of its life being treated like an object, and appliance, and a weapon.

Murderbot chooses to embrace those aspects of its identity by continuing to use it/its pronouns. And yeah, it's clear that this often makes other folks feel uncomfortable. But that's a big part of it too. Murderbot's arc is about learning how to exist, as itself, unapologetically. It doesn't need to sand off those uncomfortable parts of its existence that make the humans around it uncomfortable. They just have to deal.

Okay, but that's Murderbot, a fictional character. What about actual real people?

That's a great point! And indeed, I don't care so much about Murderbot's pronouns for its own sake. It's a fictional character, it can't and doesn't care what real world people call it. But I think respecting its pronouns is an extension of respecting real living folks who DO use it/its pronouns, so let's talk about it!

(And for the record, I am not nonbinary. I'm also not not nonbinary? But I'm a sapphic butch with an often masc gender presentation, so it's like, an Overlap. My point being I'll do my best to speak to this perspective, but really, you're best seeking out the perspectives of actual it/its users and nonbinary folks.)

Various non-binary, agender, and other gender queer folks use it/its pronouns. The reasons vary hugely. Explanations I've seen are:

Generally feeling alienated from the human experience

Feeling a greater connection to non-human identities, like animals or robots

Connection to the many beautiful things exist in the world which (in English) have it/its pronouns applied to them-- think the ocean, or food, or celestial bodies.

A gender neutral pronoun that doesn't introduce the plural ambiguity of 'they/them' and isn't a neopronoun set folks need to learn.

Reclamation of insults they've received

and idk, they just sort of like it? Sometimes things aren't that deep.

And probably a whole bunch more reasons!

And really, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what I think of it. While we can get deep into the theory of pronouns, at the end of the day, using the pronouns people prefer is just common courtesy. You can personally find it weird and uncomfortable, and you can work through it in your own time... But if someone asks, just use the pronouns they want!

Was the guy who forced it to Murderbot to make eye contact via orders ableist?

Okay, again, I haven't seen the show yet, so I don't have full context. But was the guy Gurathin? I bet it was Gurathin. While he didn't do that specifically in the book, he did pull some similar stunts.

In short, yeah, probably. It's a dick move regardless.

In long, I don't think he was being deliberately ableist. The guy is viewing the situation through a very different framework, namely, 'this SecUnit is a threat and a danger, and I am trying to control the situation'. Very likely, if he met a human colleague or acquaintance who asked not to make eye-contact, or just very clearly didn't like it, he probably would be chill and accommodating.

But the thing is, plenty of folks are ableist in day-to-day life without meaning to be ableist! You'll see folks be like "this person is so annoying because they do 'X thing', and it's not like they have an autism diagnosis or anything", as if the formal diagnosis is a magic wand to make certain behaviours okay. In general, things would be better if we just got better at accommodating benign behaviours that exist outside the norm without explanation.

[And frankly, my bigger concern here is less "ableism", and more "using his social power to force somebody who is a slave to follow his orders", but that's neither here nor there.]

Is it ableist to call a non-binary coded, autistic coded lifeform it/its?

Well, I mean, context matters?

A lot of shitty people will use it/its in a cruel way to various neurodivergent and queer people. They are deliberately intending to demean and dehumanize. That's shitty. Whether that's ableist or queerphobic would depend on the context, but it would be deliberately shitty.

And indeed, if you were to take another similar character... say Data from Star Trek, or Peridot from Steven Universe, and call either of them 'it', then again, depending on the context, I might call that shitty too! Their canonical pronouns are he/him and she/her respectively, and refusing to use those pronouns because "they're not really people" or "it's not a man/woman" would be a deliberately provoking move.

But if someone-- be it a fictional character, and even more so, a real person-- asks to be called "it"? That's their choice. The context has changed. It's not ableist, it's not queerphobic. That's just respecting them.

[the-eeveekins]

Excellent write-up and thank you so much for addressing this! It's something I've harped on a lot since the show ended last year. It's absolutely wild how many people have gotten into the mindset that a relationship is only romantic if there's a kiss or an "I love you" (including I suspect, homophobic Bandai execs). The double standards are especially apparent when you had so many people arguing that Suletta & Miorine had no romantic chemistry, but Suletta & El4n had lots of romantic chemistry.

I still see people popping up bemaoning that G-Witch was only subtextual (it wasn't, it was 100% textual) or complaining that it didn't go far enough in it's depiction of Sulemio's relationship, completely ignoring the unique circumstances G-Witch was produced under compared to more niche yuri animations or even western animation.

There's nothing subtle about Sulemio. If one of them was male there wouldn't even be a question that their relationship is romantic. It literally hits all the notes.

How subtle is the romance of G-Witch really: The language of romance and the bias in interpretation

First of all, I want to express my gratitude for all the feedback I've received. You guys are awesome. When I posted my first analysis, I had no idea how it would be perceived. Throughout my life, I've mostly been met with confusion, if not a bit of curiosity, when I've told people about my fascination with the romance genre. Even people who like the genre don't treat it with the respect I do but rather see it as something they can turn their brains off to. I was scared that people who saw my analysis would think that G-Witch, I dunno, had too much else going on to be considered a romance. I can't tell you all how validating it's been to get this much praise for writing about one of my biggest passions. Thank you so much.

This post is less an analysis of G-Witch as it's an exploration of the hypocrisy in how straight and gay romances are interpreted even by the queer community. I've engaged with a lot of female/male romances, especially when I was younger and thought I was straight, so it's quite surreal seeing similar stories being interpreted vastly differently based only on whether the main characters are queer or not.

There's been a lot of discussion about how explicit same-sex relationships in fiction should be. Many agree that the minimum for the characters to be unambiguously into each other is for them to kiss. That would be an ideal metric if the same applied to a man and a woman being into each other. It does not. For the vast majority of history, since people first started portraying characters in romantic relationships, explicit depictions of physical affection between those characters haven't been a thing. Depicting that sort of thing didn't become commonplace until the 20th century. For example, you would be hard-pressed to find any of the somewhat indecent positions Miorine and Suletta get into in a Jean Austin novel. Like, usually in a platonic hug, you lay your head on someone's shoulder or clavicle, and Miorine's burying her face in the upper part of Suletta's cleavage. How scandalous!

Of course, these views are centuries old, and the expectations of what should be included in a story about people getting together have changed drastically since then. Except in a lot of ways, it hasn't. Especially in manga, light novels, and anime, it can take real-life years for two characters to show affection through physician touch. Still, it’s expected that the characters are or will become attracted to one another and that they’ll end up together before the end of the story. Unless they’re the same gender, where not only is that not an expectation, but due to tropes such as Bury Your Gays, people are more likely to think one of them is going to die. That’s messed up. Being a main character in a romance or something adjacent shouldn’t be a death sentence for any character. Then there’s the fact that same-sex couples-to-be in fiction can be as forward as they want in their physical and verbal affections. Still, a straight couple-to-be that does nothing but bigger or just be the most prominent characters in their respective genders will still be perceived as less ambiguous. A man and a woman who get a bit flustered around each other are hopelessly in love. Yet, two girls sharing an intimate hug after a conversation about how neither wants their engagement to just be a transaction; that’s “totally platonic.”

Better yet, Hollywood has fine-tuned this to the point that the male and female leads only need to look at each other for about five seconds, and it’s enough to infer that they’re attracted to each other. This has become so ubiquitous that people have gotten confused when the leads are implied not to have gotten together despite having shown zero romantic intent. Having the character show romantic intent isn’t generally considered a requirement for them to end up together in a Hollywood film. No, seriously. All this is to say that literary and visual shorthand have always been and continue to be a major part of romances. Yet, the bar is much higher when it comes to the confirmation that two characters of the same gender are into each other. An author can use the exact same narrative tools that have become a staple of female/male romances/romantic subplots, and someone will tell you you're being led on for picking up on them.

The main reason for the high standards placed on same-sex couples is the desire for representation. If straight couples are allowed to or even expected to kiss at some point in the story, the same should be the case for same-sex couples. That said, kissing neither is nor should be the be-all and end-all of good representation. Yeah, straight couples get to kiss and have sexual relationships, but by all accounts, a significant amount of straight representation is absolutely abysmal. Lots of straight romances reek of sexism, outdated gender roles, and stereotyping, are toxic, and straight-up have a reputation for romanticizing abuse. If kissing or an “I love you” is the metric to which good representation is judged, two straight people who have zero chemistry or are downright abusive would be better representation than a same-sex couple whose relationship is built on mutual respect and support but who doesn't get to kiss or say “I love you” and that's ridiculous.

It’s also worth noting how people who tell others they’re crazy for seeing a queer story where according to them, there aren’t any, get characterized as needing to see something explicit to pick up that a story is or even just be interpreted as a queer romance. The thing is, most of these people aren’t dense; they’re willfully ignorant. They can pick up on the signs just as easily as they can in male/female romances; they’re choosing not to, even if it’s likely an unconscious decision. There seems to be a need among queer people to have depictions in media that even bigots can’t deny are queer. Why though? Representation is vital in helping to normalize the existence of various types of people, but for so many queer people, it just doesn’t seem to be enough. So what if some people wouldn’t get it unless the characters kiss? Those people will just start complaining about how they’re having queerness forced down their throats, and that’s their problem. There’s so much more to the queer experience than displays of physical affection, and this representation gatekeeping isn’t helping anyone. Normalizing same-sex couple kissing is important, but normalizing people of the same gender kissing is only going to normalize the kissing itself. If, for example, two people of the same gender get to kiss and then one of them gets killed off, that's the opposite of normalizing same-sex relationships.

Pulling from my own experiences, I've never been told that there was anything wrong with two people of the same gender kissing. Still, I saw same-sex relationships as inferior and believed being in one couldn't give me the life I wanted. I tried so hard to convince myself that I was straight and was only attracted to someone with a different gender presentation than me – because I was also an egg who told myself I was wrong for feeling uncomfortable for being referred to as my assigned gender at birth. Honestly, I thought that I would be happier if I didn’t even entertain the idea of getting together with someone with the same gender presentation as me. So, imagine how much it meant to me to see a show about two girls where one of them didn’t even think that getting engaged to another girl was an option, both of them having young men interested in them but asking each other to spend their life with them, and ending the show being married and being all the happier for being with the other. That's the kind of representation I've been looking for.

On a less serious note, I’d like to share an antidote from when I watched episode one for the first time. When Suletta sees someone floating around in space who appears to be in danger I didn’t initially consider that the person in question might be Miorine. The visuals planted the idea in my mind and the thing that confirmed it was the framing of the two inside Aerial’s cockpit. I couldn’t explain what I was picking up on, but to me, it was a dead giveaway.

[cryptotheism]

This is probably a question you get often, but is there like a textual middle point between ‘here are some pagan rituals’ and ‘an ancient fragmented tome that has been encrypted twice?’

Every time I’ve tried to delve into occultism it feels completely unintelligible and nothing sticks to my brain. I just feel very discouraged (which is probably the point)

Is there background knowledge I’m missing? Is there a better entry point? Should I just make myself read the incomprehensible stuff? I’m just lost.

That is an excellent question, and one that I was deeply curious about myself when I first got into the occult.

I have good news and bad news. The good news is that yes! There is a middle ground between entry level resources and things like hardcore analysis of primary texts and historical materials. The bad news is that it's philosophy. Like, normal philosophy. Like you have to read Plato.

You can speedrun this process by finding a community to join. Maybe look for people performing gnostic masses in your area. Make friends with other practicioners! Try not to get recruited into a pyramid scheme though.

[sir-kettle-of-countertop]

Did anyone want some absolutely fucking unhinged Adler yappage? Yes? No? Doesn’t matter I’m blasting y’all with it now.

Disclaimer: this is just my interpretation of the game, I’m not claiming anything as textual canon, just wanted to share some of my thoughts and provide some rationale for them. Because while I’ve already seen some people share similar readings, they’ve not been as… thorough, I guess, and countered by some arguments that I think could be quite easily argued back against.

There is. So much tragedy and depth to his character even when you don’t stop to think about how and why exactly he is connected to Ariane, but when you do, some fascinating dimensions open up. What relation does he have to her? Well, he himself couldn’t have possible met her… however his Gestalt have. I believe that we DO have his Gestalt directly established to us, but more ambiguously than Elster’s. Who that may be? Well, let’s start firstly with:

Adler’s Gestalt is “Sun”

The spy?! How? As could be seen with his diary entries mentioning:

`I had a dream tonight. Another memory of my Gestalt life I believe - I was wearing my uniform. There was a young woman, her hair white as snow, and I was conducting some sort of test. I had a deck of cards with astronomical symbols on them, and asked her to guess the planet on the card I was holding.`

Gestadler undoubtedly knew Ariane. This note also relates to the astrolabe box puzzle, with what very much looks like those cards visibly scattered around it:

Y’kno what these cards look very similar to? Zener cards, which were used to conduct tests for measuring extrasensory ability by having people guess the symbols on shuffled cards.

So, potentially some psychic test with Ariane? What does it sound similar to?

Come Sun’s note:

`I have been found out. I'm sure the white haired girl working at the photo store in Sektor C is bioresonant - be careful. They don't pay me enough to take any more risks - I am on the next ship to Kitezh tomorrow. Meet me at the docks in Sektor N if you want to bail, too. -Sun `

HMM. How could’ve Sun known that Ariane is bioresonant if she was not discovered even by the Nation? Smelled it on her? Or could they have conducted some sort of psychic test with her, one very similar to an old real life extrasensory ability experiment that comes from roughly the same time period (mid 20th century) as what the game’s setting takes great inspiration from.

Along with the great emphasis on a spy discovered during the Rotfront section, in the block that Ariane lived in, leaves me fully convinced that Sun got caught and forcibly made into a neural pattern for Adler units. Because how otherwise would Adler even have memories of Ariane, and why would an imperial spy that first discovered that she’s special be featured so prominently?

AND. Y’kno what could be a particularly cruel, befitting a totalitarian dystopia, and ironic punishment for somebody working against the regime be?

Not be dignified with death, oh no. Way worse than that. Your brain preserved and copied to be put into mass-produced biorobots, made into a figure of administrative authority and control, that yet doesn’t have any sort of autonomy of his own, another tool of oppression, second in command to and fully dependent on the crown symbol and literally the face of the regime you despise – Falke. Adlers being specifically noted to be “fairly easy to control” with the help of bioresonant suggestion, rather them being described as inherently loyal, also gets a HMMMM from me. Also I think it ain’t just a coincidence that the thing that likely foiled Sun’s escape plan – bioresonant individuals – is the same thing that’s underlined in the known issues note JUST SAYIN���.

I SWEAR I’M SO FUCKING NORMAL ABOUT HIM

SIKE NO I’M NOT, AND I’M NOT DONE YET.

Adler’s Gestalt is “Sun” is Nikolai Nguyen

I’m not gonna go in depth with observations that other people have already made very often – them being... the only two men with a face in the whole game, and both having the same facial features down to jawline, eyeshape, noseshape and hair length – even HAIRCUT, Nikolai’s hair just looks like if Adler’s hair was messed up.

Overlap these two and the image just becomes Adler but beaten up and about to cry.

Visual similarity is there, but it’s not the only connective tissue there is.

In Nikolai’s medical document there are three notable details:

1) “Claims to be unable to take part in communal morning exercises.” Which is INSTANTLY suspicious. It is very convenient to have the whole block be away to participate in communal exercise while you’re left alone, isn’t it? Makes it easy to snoop around.

2) “Occupation: Writer”. Being a writer aligns very well with both what Adler is talented at – paperwork, management, bureaucracy – and even some of his interests, with him writing in his diaries more than damn anyone and spending all his saved money on a fountain pen. Besides that, it’s such an interesting profession to have, because it is quite literally the ONLY one that is listed out of every other Gestalts’ to be creative. The Nation does not welcome creativity, with the only other creative person – Ariane – being punished for it. Considering just how miserable Nikolai here looks... perhaps it could be assumed that he knows it well himself.

3) His very name. Nikolai (Kolya ;-;) is a distinctly Russian name, in noticeable difference to other Gestalts. It’s not the only use of Russian in the game though, the other are… Kitezh and Buyan, the Empire-controlled planets. COINCIDENCE? I THINK NOT-

Considering everything together? Yeah. I personally am convinced that the through-line is there, although I’ve also seen some refutations, which I wanna try to address.

Arguments against the connection I've seen

1) The most convincing one: why wouldn’t AEON erase Kolya’s medical database entry? Yeah, it’s just tough to refute it definitively. Could be just something that was missed, like with Gelster’s photo. Or maybe it was actually erased but it’s “there” because Ariane remembers him, esp with how surreal Rotfront section already is.

2) One that confused me, because it was on the wiki of all places (THAT CITES A FUCKING REDDIT COMMENT OF ALL THINGS, BE FR RIGHT NOW): “Nikolai looks kinda snivelly while Adler stays calm and collected, and his occupation is a writer [...] which on both parts… just doesn’t make any sense to me? Elster is stoic and confident too, yet her Gestalt’s photo looks more vulnerable and unsure. Like. Why wouldn’t Gestadler be emotive? And writer as an occupation as I said above sounds quite literally tailor fit for Adler. Gelster’s occupation was also not 1 to 1 with her Replika’s too – she was a soldier, not a cosmonaut/engineer.

3) Now the second part of that citation is more convincing: “I think Nikolai’s hair was also changed by the devs to discourage the assumption that Nikolai is Adler’s Gestalt donor. ” although I tried searching for data for his old portrait – update posts, leaked sprites, old youtube playthroughs – Kolya looks the same everywhere. Admittedly I couldn’t have scoured through every single youtube playthrough – I don’t have time rn, so if anyone can definitively confirm the sprite change it would be appreciated.

I’d say though that even IF that was a change that happened, I still dare say that this is a valid reading of who Adler is/was, especially because it serves to deepen his character. This all together paints such a FASCINATINGLY tragic figure. I kinda just want it to be true ya kno

Anyway I fucking love the silly eagle man and I think he is underappreciated by the fandom

[drinkyourvillainjuice]

How old was the AdVenture group when the incident happened?

So this is another of those things I've intentionally left vague such that players can fill in the blank with their preference/play it a certain way if they really want to. Like I alluded in the previous post, on that night, Dime is in the range of 18-25, and the others kinda shift in relation to them, if that makes sense.

Beth and Shauna are generally the eldest: specifically the lower boundary for them both is about 20. Beth was working on college alongside the barista stuff at the time of the incident, and Shauna was in the same school year as her. Grant and Prii are roughly the same age and both slightly younger, but Prii's old enough to have a full time job (though tbf it's not implausible to get entry level/customer service in a bank right out of high school)

However, the ages aren't totally fixed, in that if, for example, Dime's 18, they're the baby by a year or two, and if they're 25, they're the eldest by a little.

But tbh this is all only fuzzy canon because it won't be in the actual text. The textual answer is that they're all written as young adults.

[the-batacombs]

Ooh okay. I haven't read a ton (work in progress!) so here's just a handful that I thought were fun/good intros/made me want to hand them out to my friends:

Batman: Night of the Monster Men

Batman: The Knight

Batman Universe

Future State: Dark Detective

Actually there’s a challenge: a list of Batman trades people should consider recommending instead of The Usual. Here’s my start (using titles I can find in print):-

Detective Comics: Gotham Nocturne

Batman: Failsafe

Batman Ego

Batman: The Black Mirror

Gotham Knights: Transference

Batman: Gotham by Gaslamp

Batman: A Death in the Family (basically always packaged with ALPOD)

Batman/Superman: World’s Finest

Batman by Francis Manapul & Brian Buccellato

Go!

[ofoutrageousfortune]

ok. i think i've calculated the left hand of darkness characters' ages. a fair bit of this is me headcanoning but WHATEVER

(under the cut is sorve, genly, estraven, arek, ashe, and estraven & ashe's kids' ages)

sorve harth rem ir estraven: so we'll start with the only character we're given something adjacent to a canon age for: sorve. except the canon age is wrong. genly says he looks around 19-20, but this basically can't be the case because of ~textual inferences~ that can be made. we know that siblings are allowed to be kemmering partners until someone gets pregnant, and then they have to stop. we also know that vowing kemmering after said pregnancy is what gets you exiled. we don't know exact dates, but we can guess that estraven was exiled shortly after sorve's birth because of this (or maybe even during the pregnancy if you think arek is the one who carried him), and while we don't know the exact cause of arek's death, we can assume it was shortly after estraven's exile from estre because of how he always talks about the events together. so we can infer that arek died pretty much right after sorve was born, and we know arek died fourteen years before the events of the story. that puts sorve at roughly fourteen years old, and knowing genly, he probably overestimated because sorve was tall or something

genly ai: we know he's under thirty, at least as per estraven's assessment. estraven could be wrong about this, because genly definitely was for sorve, but i also trust estraven's judgement a little more here (and it helps that genly's the one translating the journal entries, so he could've just added a footnote if estraven was wrong but he didn't). now, estraven specifically says "not thirty", which typically means twenty-nine in formal english (think any of the austen novels, where "not two and twenty" means twenty-one). technically, he could be anywhere from like, 18-30, but at the very least, not thirty means he's in his 20s, and i think 29 works perfectly fine.

therem harth rem ir estraven: estraven's age is a tad bit more complicated to calculate, but still doable. we're given the ages of his mom, esvans (who's 70+), and his son, sorve (who, as i've explained, is roughly 14). this is complicated because it's said that gethenians generally stop having kids and start using contraceptives at about twenty-four, and have all their kids young. if you calculate back from esvans's age, that puts estraven at roughly 46, but if you calculate back from sorve's age, that puts estraven at thirty-eight MAX. you could use either of these calculations and you'd have enough textual support to do so, but i'm going to choose to use sorve's age for a few reasons: - it's more plausible to me that genly's data point about gethenians mostly choosing not to reproduce past twenty-four is based on recent data and not esvans's generation (especially because this choice is facilitated by contraceptives, and it would make sense for that to be a more recent scientific development) - estraven has two kids with ashe (more on that later) who are ten at oldest, and if he is 46, he would've had to father them at 36. if gethenians generally stop reproducing after 24, this is a bit too much of a stretch for me. so, like i said, that puts estraven at a maximum of 38 years old, but i actually think he's even younger than that. as mentioned earlier, estraven has two other kids with ashe. he and ashe vowed kemmering ten years before the beginning of the story (they were partners for seven years and have been separated for three), and although it's possible that they had their children before that, i doubt it just because of how estraven talks about it ("we were kemmerings for seven years and had two sons" at least kind of implies that the sons were born during the duration of that seven years). so with all that, if gethenian reproduction doesn't tend to happen past ~24 and estraven's kids with ashe are ten or younger, he'd be around 34, and would've had sorve around 20 (which is very plausible to me). hell, if his kids with ashe aren't the same age, the math probably means estraven is EVEN YOUNGER and sorve was a teen pregnancy baby, which also tracks imo.

arek harth rem ir estraven: this one is easy, arek is canonically a year older than estraven, which puts him at roughly 21 at the time of his death (potentially younger).

ashe foreth rem ir osboth: again, by assuming ashe's kids are ten or younger, ashe is 34 max, likely younger.

estraven & ashe's kids: all we know is that there's two of them, and they both could be anywhere from 3-10 years old (realistically, 5-10 years old, because the youngest kid being 3 or 4 would mean that estraven had sorve at thirteen or fourteen, which is very implausible even for a "sorve was a teen pregnancy" headcanon). we don't know if the kids are the same age or not either

ok there you have it, thank you for coming to my TED talk

[yamayuandadu]

Ninshubur(s), Ilabrat, Papsukkal and the gala: another inquiry into ambiguity and fluidity of gender of Mesopotamian deities

Yesterday I’ve mentioned in passing that despite recommending Dahlia Shehata’s Musiker und ihr vokales Repertoire: Untersuchungen zu Inhalt und Organisation von Musikerberufen und Liedgattungen in altbabylonischer Zeit overall, I have a minor issue with the coverage of Ninshubur in this monograph - specifically with the arguments about the gender of this deity. I figured my problem warrants a more in depth explanation, not just because I’m the self-proclaimed “biggest Ninshubur fan not counting Rim-Sin I of Larsa”. 

Note that while this is functionally a followup to my recent Inanna’s article, it is not the followup I’ve promised previously; that one will be released at a later date.

To begin with, in a cursory  survey of figures who speak in emesal in literary texts, Shehata introduces Ninshubur as a deity equally firmly masculine as Dumuzi (Musiker…, p. 83). This is in itself a problem - when Ninshubur’s gender is specified in sources from the third millennium BCE, the name clearly designates a goddess, not a god (can’t get more feminine than being called ama); and even later on she remains a goddess in a variety of sources - including many emesal texts, which is the context most relevant here (Frans Wiggermann, Nin-šubur, p. 491).

Occasionally arguments are made that a male Ninshubur - explicitly a separate deity from “Inanna’s Ninshubur” as Manfred Krebernik and Jan Lisman recently called her - already existed in the third millennium BCE (The Sumerian Zame Hymns from Tell Abū Ṣalābīḫ, p. 151), though this is ultimately conjectural.

It is true that the Abu Salabikh god list includes at least two Ninshuburs, but in contrast with later, more informative lists it provides no theological glosses, so we can’t be sure that gender is what differentiates them. For all we know it might be a geographic distinction instead - “Inanna’s Ninshubur” from Akkil and the Lagashite Ninshubur associated with Mesmaltaea, perhaps. The one case where we have a text involving two Ninshuburs which we can differentiate has the “great” (gula) Ninshubur from Uruk - “Inanna’s Ninshubur” - and the “small” (banda) Ninshubur from Enegi (Nin-šubur, p. 500; Ur III period) . The fact that there might be a third Ninshubur entry between the two certain ones in the Abu Salabikh list (The Sumerian…, p. 151) doesn’t help, either.

This is not to deny the existence of a male Ninshubur altogether. However, this is actually a fairly straightforward phenomenon, with no real ambiguity involved  - possibly as early as in the Old Akkadian period, Ninshubur came to be associated with a male messenger deity, Ilabrat, and later on with equally, if not more firmly masculine Papsukkal; at first her name was used as a logogram to write Ilabrat’s, and later Papsukkal’s, but eventually it became possible to essentially speak of full replacement (or absorption) of both Ninshubur and Ilabrat by Papsukkal (Nin-šubur, p. 491-493; Julia M. Asher-Greve, Joan Goodnick Westenholz, Goddesses in Context: On Divine Powers, Roles, Relationships and Gender in Mesopotamian Textual and Visual Sources, p. 93). Papsukkal even replaces Ninshubur up in the Neo-Assyrian derivative of Inanna’s Descent, written in Akkadian; but he is addressed as a servant of the divine assembly, not the eponymous protagonist of the myth, and the entire mourning and mediation sequence is cut (Wilfred G. Lambert, Introductory Considerations, p. 13). I feel it’s important to stress that in most cases where Ninshubur’s gender cannot be determined this is not due to intentional ambiguity, but rather due to lack of grammatical forms which would make it possible for us - in antiquity all the context needed was presumably available to the reader. Furthermore, in many such cases the ambiguity isn’t quite “what is Ninshubur’s gender?” but rather “does this theophoric name use Ninshubur as a logogram for Ilabrat or Papsukkal?” Thus, Ninshubur’s gender was not ambiguous innately and did not become ambiguous, but rather she was replaced by an originally distinct male deity - her case is thus more comparable to absorption of both male and female deities of specific professions by Enki in god lists form the first millennium BCE, if anything. Even if a separate male Ninshubur existed alongside feminine Ninshubur (or Ninshuburs) even before the entire Ilabrat/Papsukkal situation, we’d still be dealing with a similar phenomenon.

Back to Shehata’s monograph, later on she acknowledges that Ninshubur possessed “a male and female aspect” (“einen männlichen wie auch weiblichen Aspekt”) and on this basis suggests a parallel between Ninshubur and the gala (p. 85). The process of conflation of messenger deities is not discussed, instead this interpretation relies on Uri Gabbay’s The Akkadian Word for “Third Gender”: The kalû (gala) Once Again, which at the time was the most recent treatment of the matter. I won’t go into the details of that article here, since it’s for the most part not relevant (it focuses on the possible etymology of the term gala). What matters here is Gabbay’s novel proposal that Ninshubur was perceived as having the same gender identity as the gala, largely just based on her portrayal as a mourner in Inanna’s Descent and her ability to appease other deities, which was also the purpose of the performances of the gala (The Akkadian Word…, p. 53). The supporting evidence is that some of Ninshubur’s titles use the term lagar, and a single lexical list explains lagar as gala (The Akkadian Word…, p. 54) This is rather vague, and it needs to be pointed out that it has been since established with certainty that in Ninshubur’s case lagar/SAL.ḪUB2 seems to be a rare, old title with similar meaning to sukkal, and it also could be applied to other deities - ones whose gender never showed any ambiguity -  in a similar way (see full discussion in Antoine Cavigneaux, Frans Wiggermann, "Vizir, concubine, entonnoir... Comment lire et comprendre le signe SAL.ḪUB2? and a brief commentary in The Sumerian…, p. 130). Furthermore, earlier in the article Gabbay recognizes the supposed connection between the terms as an error himself (The Akkadian Word…, p. 49). 

I haven’t really seen any authors other than Shehata agreeing with Gabbay’s arguments about Ninshubur; in fact, while I try to keep up with relevant publications, I’ve only seen his points regarding this deity addressed at all otherwise, and quite critically at that. Joan Goodnick Westenholz disagreed with him and pointed out that in addition to Gabbay contradicting himself regarding the term lagar, a fundamental weakness of his proposal is that Ninshubur is never described as a gala (Goddesses in Context…, p. 93). As a matter of fact no deity is, though you can make a sound case for Lumha, who was a (sparsely attested) divine representation of this profession. 

A further problem with Gabbay’s argument is that while it’s true gala were first and foremost professional lamenters (and I think any paper which acknowledges this deserves some credit), lamenting was hardly an activity exclusive to them. Paul Delnero considers Ninshubur’s actions in Inanna’s Descent to be a standard over the top portrayal of grief common in Mesopotamian literary texts. In other myths, as well as in laments mourning the destruction of cities or death of deities Geshtinanna, Inanna, Ninisina and other goddesses engage in similar behaviors. He assumes the detailed descriptions of deities wailing, tearing out hair, lacerating and so on were meant to inspire a sense of discomfort and grief in the audience (How to Do Things with Tears, p. 210-214). If Delnero is right - and I see no reason to undermine his argument - Ninshubur’s mourning would have more to do with what sort of story Inanna’s Descent is, not with her character. I suppose Ninshubur’s mourning is unique in one regard, though. She acts about Inanna’s death in the way sisters, mothers or spouses do in the case of Damu, Dumuzi, Lulil etc., despite not actually being her relative. I think there are some interesting implications to explore here, but so far I’ve seen no publications pursuing this topic.

Gabbay is right that Ninshubur and the gala are described as capable of appeasing deities, and especially Inanna, though I also think Westenholz was right to argue that a single shared function is not enough to warrant identification  (Goddesses in Context…, p. 93-94). It’s also worth noting that similar abilities could be ascribed to multiple types of servant deities, and that Ninshubur was just the most popular member of this category - a veritable major minor deity, if you will - and as a result is much better represented in literary texts. But the likes of Ishum or Nuska appease their respective superiors too, and it’s hard to make a similar case for their gender.

It should also be noted that while Ninshubur ultimately is the main mourner in Inanna’s Descent, Lulal and Shara mourn too (whether equally intensely as Ninshubur is up for debate, but that’s beside the point); and Dumuzi is expected to, and dies precisely because he doesn’t. And the gender of none of these three is ever ambivalent. Furthermore, Gabbay’s argument about Ninshubur’s gender resembling the gala in part rests on treating a single unique source as perhaps more important than in reality - and it’s not necessarily a source relevant to the gala at all. There is only one source where Ninshubur's gender might be intentionally ambiguous. An Old Babylonian hymn describes Ninshubur as a figure dressed in masculine clothing on the right side and feminine on the left (Nin-šubur, p. 491). This does mirror the description of an unspecified type of cultic performer of unspecified gender mentioned in the famous Iddin-Dagan hymn (“Dressed with men's clothing on the right side (...) Adorned (?) with women's clothing on the left side”); however, there’s no indication that a gala is meant in this context. Gabbay doesn’t bring up this passage, and assumes that since Ninshubur’s clothing includes both masculine and feminine elements, it is automatically a situation analogous to the unclear gender identity of the gala (The Akkadian Word…, p. 54), though. It might be worth noting that the unique text still uses the feminine emesal form of Ninshubur’s name, Gashanshubur, with no masculine Umunshubur anywhere in sight (Åke W. Sjöberg, Miscellaneous Sumerian Texts, III, p. 72); as far as grammar is concerned, Ninshubur, even if dressed partially masculinely, remains feminine. Perhaps the context is just unclear for us, and the unusual outfit was tied to a specific performance as opposed to a specific gender identity, let alone specifically to ambiguity of gender? Perhaps it would make more sense to assume the text describes Ninshubur (partially) crossdressing (and we do have clear evidence for at least one festival which involved crossdressing from the Old Babylonian period), instead of dealing with gender identity? This is of course entirely speculative, though I think further inquiries are warranted.  It’s also important to stress that however we interpret the identity of the gala - gender nonconforming men, men with some specific uncommon physical feature, nonbinary people (all three have valid arguments behind them, and it’s also not impossible the exact meaning varied across time and space) - they pretty clearly did not alternate between a firmly feminine identity and a firmly masculine one. Even if we were to incorrectly treat Ninshubur as a single deity whose gender alternates between male and female, I don’t think there would be a strong reason to draw parallels - unless you want to lump together what might very well been a specific nonbinary identity, and an instance of genderfluidity involving two firmly binary genders. I don’t really think these are phenomena which can be lumped together; and neither necessarily has much to do with presentation. And all we ultimately have in Ninshubur’s case is an isolated case of unusual presentation - nothing more, nothing less.

Once again, this short article is not intended as a warning against using Shehata’s book - it’s very rigorous overall, and a treasure trove of interesting information. It’s also not supposed to discredit Gabbay’s studies of the gala - I don’t necessarily fully agree with his conclusions, but I’ve depended on his articles in the past myself, after all.

The article also isn’t intended as an argument against inquiries into the gender of deities, Ninshubur included, or the gala, or any other religious specialists whose gender is unclear. However, it is vital to approach the evidence rigorously and put it into a broader context.

This is particularly significant since the gender of deities is not necessarily fully identical with the gender of humans, and its changes could be brought by processes which hardly have real life parallels - this requires both additional caution, and a careful case by case approach. It would be difficult for a woman to be conflated into one being with two men in the same profession, which is essentially what happened to Ninshubur, just like it would be hard for someone’s gender to be defined by the fact they were viewed as the personification of a specific astral body, as in the case of Ninsianna and Pinikir, who I discussed previously. And, of course, these two cases have little in common with each other. In the final article in this mini-series, I will look into some yet more esoteric cases of shifts in gender of Mesopotamian deities, to hopefully strengthen my point.

[thelaithlyworm]

Daomu Biji Watcher’s Guide, May 2024

A few new entries have been popping up lately, and I’m always hopeful new fans will stumble into the pits and never leave so I thought I’d paste up a rough map.

(Obviously the best watching order, like the best reading order of Discworld or the Aubrey-Maturin books, is ‘whatever first comes to your hand’ but for the people who don’t like that…)

tl;dr:

Daomu Biji is a series about tomb raiding. Think Indiana Jones or Lara Croft but much, much longer. The protagonist Wu Xie is deeply in love with BFF1 Zhang Qiling, a hundred-year-old cryptid, and BFF2 Wang Pangzi, who was stolen in a raid from another book series. It’s comic, tragic, horrific, zany, prone to musings on life, love, desire, attachment, and has many, many piss jokes. (‘Journey to the West but modern’ is maybe the other comparison I’d make.)

Notes:

– This guide is not talking about “quality”. All of the adaptations have their own strengths and weaknesses and tone can vary a great deal, which is to say, if one of them doesn’t suit you it’s likely something else will.

– Wacky endings, and plot threads that disappear unfinished and get picked up a long time later, are as inherent to the franchise as the piss jokes.

– It’s common for the dramas to introduce characters and subplots a lot earlier than the books do. Sometimes we’ll see a character introduced ‘for the first time’ on multiple occasions and strangely familiar scenes. I’ll try to point out the biggest continuity clashes as I go.

The Soft Entry:

There are a few movies that are entertaining as standalones but will introduce various characters and background. I would recommend:

Escape from the Monstrous Snake + Mystery/Grave of the Abyss – two monster movies featuring Hei Xiazi, a supporting character. He’s a pragmatical mercenary who’s going blind in kind of a weird way, and goofy as hell when he isn’t tiptoeing over a vast abyss of existential dread. So many fun action scenes.

Time Raiders (2015) – so there are some textual clues that late in his career Wu Xie wrote this story as a memory-jogger for an amnesiac friend. The plot is a freewheeling wild ride which doesn’t directly match any book plot but introduces some major characters and how they relate to each other. It’s colourful and fast-moving. Enjoy, enjoy.

Conjuring Curse and Misty Creed are… theoretically set late in the series even if the actors look about twelve. Both work as stand-alone adventures, though Misty Creed is maybe a little deep in the lore. Again, colourful and fast-moving.

The Chronological Order

You could honestly start with most of these – they tend to come with a ‘what has gone before’ at the start or a newbie character that things get explained to. The only one I wouldn’t start with is Heavenly Palace in the Clouds, which is lovely but also the second half of a set and things won’t make sense if you haven’t seen Lost Tomb 2 first.

Lost Tomb 1 – a highly digestible 10-12 episode version of the Seven Star Lu Palace arc, ie. Baby’s First Adventure. Introduces A-Ning, Xie Yuchen, and Huo Xiuxiu early and a couple of og characters for Wu Xie to talk to instead of monologuing to himself. The restaurant scene at the end was raided from a later arc and you’ll see it again in Ultimate Note. A book character, Da Kui, was cut which is a small problem because how he died is a minor plot point discussed in Lost Tomb 2. 

Lost Tomb 2 – covers Raging Sea, Hidden Sands (underwater tomb) and Qinling God-Tree (weird bronze tree in the mountains) plus a whole lotta side stories and original content exploring the world and foreshadowing later plots. Mooostly in continuity with Lost Tomb 1 (see Da Kui above) and made as a set with Heavenly Palace in the Clouds – they share resources and a lot of actors, and some threads begun here are finished in Heavenly Palace.

Heavenly Palace in the Clouds – covers the Mt Changbai arc, a journey up a mountain to find a very old, very grand tomb. This was made so close to Lost Tomb 2 that LT2 borrows shots from Heavenly Palace and not the other way around, which is fascinating because it pointedly contradicts the last five episodes of LT2. It also brings forward some plotlines originally from the Tamutuo and Zhang Family Old Pavilion arcs (San-shu’s past in the underwater tomb, and the Huo Family videotapes) dragging some characters on-screen and forcing them to talk about their feelings, which they would clearly rather die than do. Given those plot-tweaks and the early, deliberate continuity clash, I’m tempted to call this a Canon Parallel Universe. Got some interestingly chewy character dynamics and luverly, luverly set design.

Mystic Nine – This is a prequel about Zhang Qishan – Fo-ye – and his peers, but later dramas expect us to know who Fo-ye was so I’m sticking it here. Kinda… picaresque? Lots of action scenes and Republican-era flavour and various factions jostling for power – kinda feels like an old-school wuxia story, only set in the 1930s with all that glorious Republican-era styling. Has some unfortunate cut scenes – the details of how Fo-ye recovered at his family’s house don’t make a lot of sense in the aired version, and there are a couple of missing fights in the penultimate episode. Shrug. Still a lot of fun. Comes with four side movies about supporting characters.

Ultimate Note – Covers the Tamutuo arc (a trip through the jungle) and two-thirds of the Zhang Family Old Pavilion arc (investigating Zhang Qiling’s past is like kicking a hornet’s nest). Very, very flirty and has some zippy-zip action choreography. Politely ignores Lost Tomb 1–Heavenly Palace continuity (Xie Yuchen is, once more, introduced for the first time, now with a romantically coded friendship arc) and brings in a lot of cameos from Mystic Nine and Sand Sea, which it was filmed after. Kinda tiptoes around parts of the book plot, which I suspect would be hard for anyone to film, re: Fo-ye’s actions in the 1960s. Fair warning, this ends on a cliffhanger. This is also where the Xinyue Restaurant scene appears again – two cakes!

Tibetan Sea Flower – If Tibetan Sea Flower ever airs, it will go here.

Sand Sea – Based on the Sand Sea novel. After Tibetan Sea Flower, Wu Xie goes into a bit of a decline and makes that the world’s problem. We the audience, plus Li Cu and Liang Wan, EDIT: a lovely doctor, are pretty much dropped in media res into a number of ancient conspiracies and complicated plots coming to a head in the manner of a boil. It’s weird; it’s messy; it’s mad fun. Like Mystic Nine, has a lot of factions jostling for power and colourful jianghu characters. We will, once more, see the Xinyue Restaurant scene. Also has some side movies.

Time Raiders – The textual hints that suggest Wu Xie wrote this, suggest he wrote it around Sand Sea-era, when his life was a bit complicated. I’m putting it after Sand Sea because I believe it caps a conversation that, ah, doesn’t quite make it into the drama. But notionally this is where it should go. Ah…. at one point, someone tells a story about an ancient ruler, King Mu of Zhou, who sought immortality from the Queen of the West in Tamutuo. The longer book conversation suggests that a) King Mu of Zhou engineered a “trap” for someone like Wu Xie to fall into in the future, and b) that Iron Mask Scholar, a villain from Lost Tomb 1, was an alias that King Mu of Zhou used in the Warring States Era. Which makes some of Iron Mask Scholar’s appearances in Time Raiders… interesting.

Reunion: Sound of Providence – sometimes known as Reboot. Having peaked in badassery in Sand Sea, Wu Xie has to consider what his life is going to be now, and also, he would like to track down a missing family member. So this was tweaked to make it more accessible to new viewers (so some parts of the back-story are not mentioned or conflated for simplicity) and that mostly works but I did find watching this first and then picking up the earlier dramas a bit of a mindscrew. Zhu Yilong is, however, a powerful draw and the rest of the cast sparkles. Probably best to think of Season 1 as two short seasons jammed together, which is to say, once the Warehouse 11 arc starts there are a number of characters who won’t reappear until Season 2. It’s a fun arc even so. Season 2 ends with a badass action scene and then a big party, which I think is a great way to end a story.

Escape from the Monstrous Snake, Mystery/Grave of the Abyss, Conjuring Curse, Misty Creed – these are all theoretically set around or after Reboot-era, though they can certainly be watched as stand-alones.

[see-arcane]

When Mina and Seward meet, the way he speaks about her shows an obvious attraction on his part. We never hear from Mina's part if she noticed, but I wonder if she did... Because if she realized it, she might have taken advantage of it, due to the way Seward says she'd look while convincing him ("She looked so appealing and so pretty that I could not refuse her," "She looked at me so appealingly, and at the same time manifested such courage and resolution in her bearing, that I gave in at once to her wishes."). Like not voluptuous but... seeing that he likes her and using her charms on him?

I might buy it if only there weren't some textual hints that Mina finds herself, if not unattractive, not as pretty or easily winning compared to other girls. Or at least the only girl we know she knows. We see hints of it when she and Lucy first go and sit with the old men in Whitby.

Lucy was looking sweetly pretty in her white lawn frock; she has got a beautiful colour since she has been here. I noticed that the old men did not lose any time in coming up and sitting near her when we sat down. She is so sweet with old people; I think they all fell in love with her on the spot. Even my old man succumbed and did not contradict her, but gave me double share instead.

There is no jealousy there, but a frank acknowledgment that Lucy is 1) Beautiful and 2) Quickly admired/given softer treatment as a result. Lucy is also the one Swales refers to as the girl who the dead man in the grave would be happy to have in his lap, entirely leaving out Mina.

“Oh, why did you tell us of this? It is my favourite seat, and I cannot leave it; and now I find I must go on sitting over the grave of a suicide.” “That won’t harm ye, my pretty; an’ it may make poor Geordie gladsome to have so trim a lass sittin’ on his lap."

Considering how small Mina's social circle is and how Locked In she and Jonathan are for each other, I think she would be surprised to learn that she was attractive/desirable to anyone in the same way that other Lucy-looking girls are. As an orphan who had to work for everything in her life, I can't imagine she had many steps up the ladder beyond carefully curating herself as a Good Upstanding Young Lady (of the lower class) and perhaps some unpleasant phrenology-based aid in having 'good' bone structure ~for her sort.~ I suspect Jonathan is in much the same spot.

All of that is to say that, no, I don't think Mina was aware of Jack's crush until after she read his journal entries, as her only romantic context amounts to:

1) Interest is absent both ways.

2) Jonathan being a broken fire hydrant blasting love at her full force. How are you supposed to clock anyone flirting with you, let alone getting a crush, when you have Mr. Eros in Tweed radiating romance at you 24/7? It's like comparing a grain of sand to the Sahara, I tell you

Mina looked at Dr. stammering fumbling sweating bullets stranger who keeps turning tomato red when looking directly at her Seward and went :) ???

So when she does ask to see Renfield, she assumes his immediate folding is just a case of him being an obliging friend for helpful friend reasons :) how nice :)

[immediatebreakfast]

The very constant presence of religious symbols in the first part of the entry; before Jonathan arrived at Dracula's castle, not only serves as a way to amplify the dreading questions of what exactly is awaiting Jonathan on his final destination, but also textually points out how truly dire the situation is for the people that live in the surrounding area of the castle itself.

Jonathan may not have the cultural background, nor the religious context to truly understand all of the stuff that he saw, along side the locals mentioning prayers, and their gifts to him, but the picture painted today in between those beautiful mountains was one of pure fear.

The locals live in constant fear of the Count, and with good reason. The text itself doesn't tell us how badly has Dracula traumatized the region, but if we read how people have what it seems to be a point of "true danger starts here" on the path to castle Dracula,

as we swept round the base of a hill and opened up the lofty, snow-covered peak of a mountain, which seemed, as we wound on our serpentine way, to be right before us: —"Look! Isten szek!"—"God's seat!"—and he crossed himself reverently.

Then we can speculate that it's truly a horrible situation where they can't afford a single mistake... unless they find themselves in utter misfortune.

It's not only the remark of how if you want to truly go to castle Dracula you have to pass by God's seat, and leave it behind, is everything that Jonathan writes down the more the coachman tries to speed up the horses as the other people get more and more scared. It's the ever presence of goitre, it's the rows of crosses acting as wards against what the night hides, the way Jonathan's companion keep praying and crossing themselves without stopping, how the coachman refers to the wild wolves around the area as this to to Jonathan:

 "No, no," he said; "you must not walk here; the dogs are too fierce"

Not wolves, but dogs. A softer word that does not convey the danger that everyone is in the deeper they go into the wilderness, the anxious hurry as both coachman and passengers pray that the horses (bless those poor horses) are fast enough to beat the clock, to beat the what we could assume is a gruesome fate for Jonathan once the Borgo Pass marks his point of no return.

The gift giving akin to funeral rites for poor Jonathan, whose only idea of the true context of the situation is the clues that go through the fear, and the small acts of kindness by the other passengers. Moreover, when both the coachman and the locals arrive an hour early with Jonathan,

The passengers drew back with a sigh of gladness, which seemed to mock my own disappointment.  "There is no carriage here. The Herr is not expected after all. He will now come on to Bukovina, and return to-morrow or the next day; better the next day." 

When they finally think that maybe, maybe this time all of the effort that they have put protecting both themselves, and this poor young english paid off. Who else jumps on the scene but a strange ominous, coming from what seems to be nowhere with a carriage and four horses, like a spirit coming to sow true terror into their hearts, like death coming to guide a young soul who will go too soon...

One of my companions whispered to another the line from Burger's "Lenore": —"Denn die Todten reiten schnell"— ("For the dead travel fast.")

Like a soldier coming to take a young bride to an unknown place, away from the caring bossom of her family and into the cold hands of her soon to be husband, uncaring of her mental suffering.

What else can they do than give the poor bride dressed in rosaries and a flowers to the man less they risk their wrath?

[allaboutmyths]

I've seen some discussion on what Odysseus' bow might be, and I would like to offer my opinion: that Odysseus' bow is Scythian

for textual evidence, we'll look at Book 21 of the Odyssey (translations taken from Penguin Classics Edition, translated by Robert Fagles unless otherwise noted) —

it is repeated referred to as "backstrung" (for example lines 12-13 "and there it lay as well...his backstrung bow / with its quiver bristling arrows, shafts of pain"), which in Greek is rendered as palintonos / παλίντονος or "back bent"

this phrase also shows up in Aeschylus’ Libation Bearers and is tied directly to a Scythian bow by the Chorus as they are going through death rites for Agamemnon

Let him come, a man of the spear, a liberator of the House, his Scythian bow bent back, Ares’ death-bolts, ready, he closes in, sword in hand (lines 160-4, translated by Peter Meineck)

in the Iliad, Teucer is also described as having a “bent back bow” Book 8 line 266, via Scaife view) (for comparison’s sake, Fagles describes Teucer as having a “reflex bow” (Book 8 line 306)

here’s the Perseus entry on παλίντονος frequency

it is referred to as being horn (line 188), and Odysseus turns it over in his hands to check for worms just before stringing it, implying wood was used in its construction (439-442), both of which are used in the construction of composite bows, including Scythian

it is relatively short, given how Odysseus can draw and fire it while sitting

Setting shaft on the handgrip, drawing the notch and bowstring back, back...right from his stool, (lines 468-7)

it is referred to as having a burnished case, which seems to be both sheath for the bow itself and a quiver for arrows. this would presumably be a gortys

Wikipedia describes a grotys as “a type of leather bow-case for a short composite bow used by the Scythians in classical antiquity. They are a combination of bow case and quiver in one, and are worn on the archer's left hip with the opening tilted rearward."

the relevant lines are:

63 “still secure in the burnished case that held it”

66 “as she drew her husband’s weapon from its sheath…” 

69-70 “cradling her husband’s backstrung bow in her arms, its quiver bristling arrows, shafts of pain.”

plus we have similarities in how Odysseus’s bow is depicted in ancient vases and the Scythian bow, this oinochoe at the Metropolitan Museum of Art,

here’s a second example:

and for comparison, a fragment of a kylix, depicting a Scythian with a drawn bow:

as described in this article from Scythian-Style Bows Discovered in Xianjiang by Bebe Dwyer for The Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies Scythian bows have several features that characterize them, almost all of which can be applied to Odysseus’ bow:

is very short (Odysseus fires this bow from his stool, and above oinochoe and amphora)

has recurved tips (the amphora)

has a setback center section (oinochoe and amphora)

limbs are thick in proportion to their width (we can’t say for certain, since we don’t have a head on example of Odysseus’ bow depicted from the front)

usually carried in a gorytos (described above)

primarily a cavalry weapon (there is no way to establish this with certainty, beyond visual similarities between Odysseus’ bow and a Scythian bow, though I do find it interesting to note he received the bow from Iphitus, who himself was on a trip to retrieve some stolen mares and mule offspring (25-6) as well directly afterwards describing Iphitus' death because of the mares. alongside the story of the Centaur Eurytion, lines 330-340, this, to my mind, ties the idea of horses to the bow)

the above article also provided a picture, Figure 6, of what the bow would look like strung and drawn, which is visually similar to how Odysseus' bow is depicted on both the oinochoe and amphora

[thewadapan]

Anthology of the Killer review

Honestly, what's even the point of writing a review of a game like this? There is no description of it which can communicate anything about it better than just playing it. There's nothing quite like it.

It makes me stupid. Words turn to sludge in my mouth. At work, I turn my monitor to my colleague and tell him, "This is what I'm playing right now. You play as this girl called BB walking around these fucked-up 3D environments that look like shit." I put on a squawky voice and read from the screenshot,

Walking home, I find myself staring at bits of trash, advertisements on the sides of public transport, graffiti, a spray-painted outline of Snoopy's head with X-ed out eyes. There's now a BB that lives in my mind, and says things like, "After they stopped printing newspapers, Charles Schulz had to have Snoopy put down. I wonder what they did with the rest of him." The version of BB that lives in my head is not as funny as the real thing.

"Voice of the Killer", the first entry in the series, is different to the rest, practically a demo. The other games are blog posts; that first game is a tweet, a cutely menacing little note from an unseen feathered thing somewhere in the trees outside. Nevertheless, all the basic gameplay is present in that first piece: the walking bits, and the chase bits.

I'm really not good with horror at all—like, at all, I will just close something and nope out—but I didn't have any trouble with Anthology of the Killer, really. It raised my heartrate a few times. I think what was useful for me to know is that there's really no penalty for getting caught during the chase scenes; you're supposed to get caught. The running-away is, like, just for fun. It's performative. I ended up replaying the first game, worrying that I'd missed some bit of content (I hadn't), and during the chase scene, I found myself leading the spooky figures in circles for a few minutes, tracing the edges of the big chamber, mechanically, comfortably. When I think of what Anthology of the Killer is doing that means it has to be a video game, instead of a comic or a zine or a novel or whatever, that's what I think of: these chase scenes, which through nothing but the compulsion to press an arrow key manage to communicate this really interesting idea about fear.

Because superficially, Anthology of the Killer really feels like it wants to be a more traditionally textual medium. It contains so many words, often a truly overwhelming amount of words, and they're frankly much-better-written than the majority of books and comics I'm exposed to. I'm sure of the Killer has a huge range of influences across various media, and it's the unique combination of those influences which gives the games their power (contrast against, say, a game made by someone who spends all their time playing games, which exists entirely within the context of that medium and tis trappings). There's a behind-the-scenes post from the developer which veers off a bunch of esoteric points of inspiration without even venturing outside of comics. But actually playing it, it's like, how could this be anything else?

The way the movement/camera works in of the Killer (the two features are inextricably linked) is something I feel like I've never seen before. Like, I've played 3D Mario games, I've played old PS1 platformers, this shouldn't be new to me. But I don't know, it's like the camera itself is its own entity in the world of the story. The idiosyncrasies of its clumsy movement add another, silent layer of comedy to the whole thing—or, during some of the tunnel sequences, horror. The first-person-POV bits are distinctive in their own way. In a lesser game, I think there'd be much more metatextual acknowledgement of the controls, the camera, and the game would be worse for it.

My favourite entry in the series is the third, "Drool of the Killer". To be clear, maybe apart from the first one, they are all very good. Later, the scope and ambition and interconnectedness of the games kind of scales up, which makes them "better" from a certain perspective, I don't know. "Drool of the Killer" is predominantly about one specific thing, and that thing is swimming pools.

This isn't the place for me to elucidate my whole history with swimming pools; in fact, "Drool of the Killer" has reminded me that I did actually once feel very strongly about swimming pools, and that I should probably write something with that feeling. But the cliffnotes are: for much of my childhood, I was effectively forced to go swimming every week, despite having a debilitating irrational phobia that triggered pretty much whenever I was in water. Nobody in my life has ever been able to talk to me in a way that acknowledges this irrational fear as something real, something valid; perhaps it's for the best that they don't. I think of the Killer in general is interested with the question of... how does it feel to be afraid, when everyone else is acting like things are perfectly normal? And that specific entry brought back so many sense memories, smells, textures, things I had thought I'd forgotten. of the Killer is so good at that, the bad kind of nostalgia.

For me, the moment that best characterises the series can be found in the second part, "Hands of the Killer". BB is confronted with this terrifying situation, this sickeningly surreal image, of a pile of dismembered dolls that all look like her, a killer who can't tell that she's not a doll... and her reaction is simply, "Has my fashion sense really been ripping off an obscure and horrible doll line for all these years..?" of the Killer is largely concerned with desensitisation towards violence, and BB often responds to mortal peril not with fear, but with irritation, more at the pathetic nature of her imminent death than the fact she's dying at all. A moment much like this one crops up at the very end of the last game—the bit with the colours, you'll know it when you see it.

The best thing I can say about of the Killer is that it makes me want to make video games again. There was a time when that was all I wanted, and then for whatever reason I put that dream aside and replaced with a different dream, perhaps a lesser one. But the art, writing, and gameplay of of the Killer is so admirably the work of one person, achieves so much with so little... it makes me think, yeah, I should make something. Not because I think it'll get me anywhere or mean anything, but just for the sake of having expressed anything at all, before I get stabbed outside my apartment.

If you want further reading, I enjoyed these two posts and this zine regarding the game.

[psychagoguedigitalmusical]

Epic: The Musical - Lyric Textual Analysis 2 - Just a Man

(Skip to the end if you want to just see my analysis of The Infant and the Horse.)

Part 2 in my series of basic textual analysis of every song from Epic: The Musical. In this entry, I'm looking at Just a Man. Go look at part 1 for my approach for this post series, but TL;DR I am going through the exercise of looking closely at each song to see what information is explicitly and implicitly conveyed to the audience through the lyrics alone.

Just a Man is definitely up there in terms of my favorites from Epic. I'm a sucker for a good character study, and I gotta say that this is a strong way to establish a character and his moral character right out of the gate so have definitive traits to build on over the course of his journey. Also that one part of the music (you know which one) is just completely captivating.

This song is shorter than The Infant and the Horse, so there's not as much here to analyze, just from a "quantity of text" perspective. Also, as you'll see, pretty much nothing actually happens plotwise. Explicitly, he only looks at the baby. That's it lol. Considering that the first song had a higher proportion of explicit plot information, and this one is almost entirely implicit characterization, I think that does make sense. Establish and introduce first, characterize second, and then bam, you've set up your foundation to tell the rest of your story with. Makes sense to me.

With that all being said, here's the link to the spreadsheet. It's in View-Only mode and I'll be adding new tabs over the course of this analysis series. As always, supporting quotes and additional notes on each of these points are contained within.

Without further ado:

Epic: The Musical - Lyric Textual Analysis 2 - Just a Man

Central Conflict:

"How could I hurt you?"

Odysseus struggles with the moral implications of needing to kill a defenseless child in order to make it home and keep his family safe.

Resolution:

"I'm just a man who's trying to go home"

Odysseus ultimately decides to kill the child, though it weighs on his conscious.

Thesis Quote (Fundamental question or philosophy):

"When does a man become a monster?"

What factual information do we explicitly learn about the situation?

Odysseus looks into the infant son of Hector's eyes and contemplates the choice he was faced with of whether to kill him.

What factual information do we implicitly learn about the situation?

Odysseus kills the child.

What factual information do we explicitly learn about a character?

Odysseus has a son at home who was a baby when he left for war 10 years ago.

Odysseus has killed many people before.

Odysseus has been away from home for many years. (Was previously established)

What factual information do we implicitly learn about a character?

Telemachus is Odysseus' son, and he is approximately 10 years old.

What information do we explicitly learn about a character's relationships, perspectives, or philosophies?

Odysseus is strongly motivated by a desire to go home. (Was previously established)

Odysseus feels as though he is fighting for his life.

Odysseus would sacrifice a lot if it led to him being able to return home to his family.

Odysseus seeks forgiveness for his actions.

What information do we implicitly learn about a character's relationships, perspectives, or philosophies?

Odysseus and Telemachus do not know each other well.

Odysseus worries about the guilt he will carry from killing. He already carries at least some guilt from his actions that he believes might never go away.

Odysseus is capable of committing an action that will cause him guilt and shame while still going through with it, albeit reluctantly.

When faced with guilt and shame over his actions, one of Odysseus' coping mechanisms is to try to justify it.

Odysseus accepts that he is not perfect and is subject to selfishness just like other people.

Odysseus wants to live by his morals. Odysseus does not want to become a monster. Odysseus considers a "monster" to commit immoral acts.

Odysseus worries that continual actions against his morals will erode his humanity and he fears that he may be on a slippery slope to become a monster without realizing it.

Odysseus knows that his justification of "I'm just a man" is ultimately an excuse for his selfish decision.

I don't know about you, but I see a lot about Odysseus' characterization that is established here, just in song 2/40 that gets revisited, challenged, and transformed over the course of Epic. I think it will be an interesting exercise later down the line to group together characterizations that are either re-established or intentionally contradictory and plot them over the course of his journey to track the overall character arc and pinpoint exactly how certain events change him.

Anyways, my brain's fried, so I'm gonna log off for now and go touch some grass or something. Next post might not be for a little while since it's back to work tomorrow (garfieldMondays.jpg), and then I'll be out of town for some family stuff for a few days. But I will consistently return with more Epic analysis and Psychagogue development posts. On that topic, go check out my Psychagogue concepts post if you haven't already. It's still quite rough, but we're still at the beginning of the journey, all things considered.

That's all for now. I'll leave you with this quote from Arin "Egoraptor "Game Grumps"" Hanson.

[whencyclopedia]

Notework: Victorian Literature and Nonlinear Style

This book is recommended to academics and university students interested in different approaches to fiction writing and the evaluation of literary works published in the late Victorian period and early 20th-century literary criticism. Simon Reader provides a novel approach to the creative writing process and analyses the periphery of fiction.

Victorian literature often presents the two matching pieces of the same artefact – expressed and implied. Naturally, any work of literature written in this period carries traces of the obscure and intertwined. In Notework, Simon Reader draws attention to this fragmented aspect in his investigation of notes, diaries and writings of Charles Darwin, George Gissing, Roland Barthes, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Oscar Wilde, and Vernon Lee. Having been motivated by Darwin’s concept of useless organs, Reader endeavours to understand the impact of these useless fragments on the published works by scrutinizing the disorganised aspect of writing and aims to reach beyond the limitations of form and genre in literature. This book is the most suitable for academics or university students interested in literary criticism or literary history.

Through problematising the literary approach of the New Criticism, Reader argues that close and minimalistic reading of any literary work perceives beauty only at the totality or within the bounds of the text, respectively, and disregards the value of the parts on their own. He illustrates how this approach would focus only on a narrow space of meaning. Instead of disregarding so-called useless texts, he employs them to peer through writers’ personal lives and writing processes. What Reader calls nonlinear style is the totality of personal expressions and textual interactions of these notes, diary entries and other affiliated fragments. However, not all fragments evolve into the parts of a whole or necessarily become related to the fictional product. In other words, they defy their own usefulness. Reader argues this moment as the point when we see fragmentary writing in its own elements. Ultimately, this book draws attention to the process of literary production and a deeper appreciation of a literary text.

In Part I, Reader analyses the nonlinear as a machinery of processing momentary ideas and aspirations. Darwin’s diary entries, for Reader, are instrumental in forming his ideas on evolution because they allow him to roam around natural forms and the environment without any specific aim or argument in need of evidence. This is also true for the novelist George Gissing, whose notes reveal a style of degree zero realism in writing that is free from the necessity of prescribed ends and motivations.

In Part II, the book investigates the nonlinear writing that accompanies the creation of literary work. For Hopkins, there exists an intangible relation between the animate and inanimate aspects of nature and through his notes and observations, the poet yearns to be a part of this vast collective being. Torn between his poetic aspirations and vocational commitments, Hopkins seems to have used the nonlinear style to achieve a congregation of fictional creators with the Christian god. In his study of Wilde’s notes, Reader sees a computer-like attitude for achieving a large flux of information and data.

Reader then steps into the domain of modernity and examines how nonlinear style can work outside the limitations of classical fiction writing. Part III uses the previous analysis of Darwin to examine Vernon Lee’s notes to show how Lee's nonlinear style is an expression of fluctuating aesthetic responses by relinquishing any pretence of genre and form in her career. True to the modernist statement on the possibility of presenting a coherent expression of life through subjective observations of the writer, Lee is in search of life scattered around through objects of triviality and recollection.

Reader, Associate Professor of English at College of Staten Island, the City University of New York, concludes his project in a Darwinian way by proposing the existence of fragmented writings of an author beyond and independently from the affiliated work of fiction. He also foresees the possibility of recovering the individual via contemporary documentation of social media interactions and the impressions recollected through that documentation.

Continue reading...

[thebibi]

Could you explain how Van Helsing is the real sexual liberator of the story according to one of your recent posts? I’d love to hear about it, he’s my favourite member of the Drac Attack Pack!

In older literary analysis and media adaptations there's this theory that Dracula "liberates" Lucy and Mina from their roles in Victorian society, because being a vampire means being much more control of yourself and your sexuality.

However, personally I see Van Helsing being the bisexual awakening/sexual liberator to Seward. Quite literally, after he arrives in the story Seward is much more overtly descriptive of how attractive men are that wasn't present in the story before hand*.

When introduced into the novel, Jack is aware there is something "wrong" with him, and he wishes that Lucy would help him be normal. He has depression, possibly even before he proposed to Lucy. To cope he focuses on his work, but really he just performs exceedly unethical experiments on Renfield. Pointedly, Jack does not mention Van Helsing at all in the novel, but as soon as he does, we get a description of how wonderful and exceptional he is, way beyond professional capabilities and more akind to having a crush:

This, with an iron nerve, a temper of the ice-brook, an indomitable resolution, self-command, and toleration exalted from virtues to blessings, and the kindliest and truest heart that beats—these form his equipment for the noble work that he is doing for mankind—work both in theory and practice, for his views are as wide as his all-embracing sympathy. I tell you these facts that you may know why I have such confidence in him.

These are not facts, Jack.

The September 7th entry is really good at showcasing this. He hasn't described Arthur before, but today he says:

"When first the Professor's eye had lit upon him he had been angry at his interruption at such a time; but now, as he took in his stalwart proportions and recognised the strong young manhood which seemed to emanate from him, his eyes gleamed."

And it just snowballs from there. Ever since Van Helsing appeared, Jack is much more aware of men's appearances and their manliness. And Van Helsing brings up Jack sucking gangrene from his wound, which forshadows blood transfusions, as they are both intimate healing rituals where body fluids are shared. Van Helsing being present immediately brings out this trait in Jack, like he is meta textually encouraging it.

*The other exception to this is Renfield. Obviously its highly unethical, but I find Jack's interest in Renfield is a "safe" option for him to expressive obssessive feelings towards because he is a patient. Notice when Van Helsing meets Lucy for the first time, Jack immediately distances himself from Renfield, even avoiding calling him by name.