#the best villainous conspiring mastermind

[literary-nose]

some thoughts on ‘if we were villains’.

before i begin, i warn you that this is not going to be a short post.

so, after two months, i finally finished “if we were villains”. for me, two months is a long time, despite the book having something of 400 pages. usually, i am able to get through a hundred of pages within a single evening, but that was not the case with this one. i would constantly read a maximum of 50 pages at best, only to close it shut and deciding to continue it on a different day.

the main reason behind this was truly none other than the magnificence of the descriptions of feelings in it. multiple times did i find myself unable to continue reading, sometimes even forced to take breaks worth days, because, while reading, i could nearly experience all the characters’ emotions myself, and sometimes the characters even expressed my own thoughts about the circumstances they were in.

leaving the general speech behind and moving on to more specific details, i cannot leave out the fact that, observing the dynamic between meredith and oliver, i could not help but feel uncomfortable - especially in the beginning, on the night of richard’s death and soon after it. never did i once experience such discomfort when any other couple was described - alexander and colin? marvellous. james and wren? excellent. james and oliver? stupefying, hell, not even meredith and richard made me feel like this (up until things started to get the way they got, of course), and i have yet to find a reasonable justification for this, except maybe for the fact that i, too, similarly to james, perceived the initiation, the start of all of this as “revenge-fucking”. i doubt my asexual identity is in any way linked to this, because i am mostly sex-indifferent. i have resorted to attributing this to the fact that, as we learn in the end, oliver had been and still is in love with james, while his situation with meredith, to me, really seemed like a typical case of being unable to tell the difference between romantic and aesthetic attraction.

what puzzled me further was the complete lack of participation in the story from wren’s side, and my confusion is only being reinforced by the fact that she is richard’s cousin. we barely get to see her at all, and every time we do, her participation is minimal. this i can attribute to her nature and her typecast as the ingénue, since typecasting clearly affects the characters quite considerably, but, even so, in my opinion, she deserved more than what she got.

now, regarding james’ motive in richard’s death - something i am most eager to talk about. as stated in the book, james did not have any intention to kill richard - in fact, he was ready to drag him out of the water, upon discovering that he was alive. and yet, something does not sit right. throughout the entire book, the idea that an actor’s thought process and feelings can easily get intertwined with those of the character they are portraying is commonly promoted, explicitly stated by both oliver and richard - in one of the prologues and during gwendolyn’s class respectively. 

taking that into consideration and putting it aside for the time being, i remind that on the night of richard’s death it had been “caesar” that the seven were performing, with james having the role of brutus, and richard, inevitably, being caesar himself. in shakespeare’s play, the death of julius caesar is mainly attributed to the mastermind of the conspiracy, caius cassius, who wants caesar dead due to his own envy. knowing that “brutus is an honourable man”, cassius manipulates him by calling out to his sense of honour and getting him to conspire against caesar as well, allegedly for the benefit of rome, despite the fact that, originally, brutus had no personal conflicts with caesar.

seeing as james is stated and portrayed to have a difficulty snapping out of character - as clearly seen when he confesses his crime to oliver by speaking in verse exclusively - i pose this question; why is it not possible that on the night of richard’s death, having followed him into the forest, he found his own thoughts intermingled with his role’s to such an extent, where he consciously decided that the death of caesar (richard) would be for the benefit of rome (the six of them, mainly, but also anyone else)? essentially, what could have happened is that he, blinded by the thoughts of brutus and not his own, intentionally killed richard, believing it to be in everyone’s best interests.

of course, this did not happen, and, in my own view, because such a key (justification of james’ actions) would not open the door to the ending we eventually got; under no circumstances would oliver have forgiven james this easily, let alone taken all the blame upon him, if the death of richard was a result of “brutus” getting too caught up in his character. on the contrary, james acting out of pure terror justifies his actions in oliver’s eyes, especially seeing as “and who would keep him from drowning me this time?”. thus, we reach the ending that we currently have.

obviously, i am not claiming that my view of this is correct; it is but a mere speculation, one of the countless thoughts i had while reading. and, most of all, i am entirely not unsatisfied with the fact that i was wrong, and that richard’s murder was not intentional. to be entirely truthful, the justification given to james’ actions by me would most likely lead to a far more tragic and saddening end, and, honestly? i am glad m.l.rio’s explanation differs from mine this much. i don’t think i would have handled it if my theory had proven to be true, lol.

lastly, the decision of the author to end the book in the way she did. personally, i have never been an avid fan of open endings; i prefer it when authors give their pieces a definite ending, one that the audience has to get over and learn to live with. as, however, every rule bears an exception to itself, this time, i was rather relieved to receive an open ending, an opportunity to believe or denounce the survival of james.

and, myself? i believe james to be alive. in fact, this specific aspect i find myself to share with james; he uses the words of characters to speak the truth about himself, concealing it, so to say, behind the masks of roles in such a way that, if one does not seek a hidden meaning behind a verse seemingly spoken out of the blue, they are bound never to find it. as such, under no circumstances would he have otherwise chosen that specific speech of pericles, which had been pronounced, as remarked by oliver, before what would have been his death, “if he had not asked for help”.

with that, i conclude my train of thought. when starting this book, having read a maximum of forty pages, i had a clear outline of what i believed was going to unfold, and, though i was right about certain aspects (i.e. richard’s death i had predicted from act I, and james’ involvement in it - instantly upon seeing his reaction to richard choking on his blood in the water.), other ones i could never have foreseen, and that makes me more than happy. though this was a fantastic experience, i do confess that i cannot envision myself re-reading this book - at least not anytime soon. it’s true that, perhaps, now knowing the story, i may not be affected by it to such an extent, but i think, if only for the time being, i would rather keep it on my shelf, maybe occasionally quoting it, as i find myself doing with most of the media i indulge in.

also, alexander vass i declare top tier gender. the amount gender envy this man was giving me while i was reading is entirely ludicrous.

a playlist based on the book, in case anyone is interested.

[sshbpodcast]

Top 3 Star Trek Voyager villains

By Ames

Invaders! Cower in fear this week on A Star to Steer Her By as we unleash some of the biggest masterminds, ne’er-do-wells, and other villains in this week’s blogtivity. We covered our more universal (and frequently more heroic) favorite characters from Voyager last week, and this week we’re conspiring with some of the baddest baddies from the Delta Quadrant. Mwahahaha!

This should be no surprise anymore. We did it for TOS, TNG, and DS9, so crawl into your favorite B-movie costume, prepare to engage in mutiny, and maybe grow a goatee for this week’s most villainous Voyager villains. Put up your dukes as you read on below, follow along with the master plan over on this week’s podcast episode (discussion at 1:01:56), and steeple your fingers thusly. Now that’s evil.

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Ames – Wave after wave of our own men

Annorax

Arturis

Borg Queen

The diabolical plans of all of my picks are downright destructive when you get down to it. We see it with our Krenim friend, Annorax, whose beautiful timeship undoes so many people and only a patented Janeway Self Destruct™ can knock them out. We see it with the USS Dauntless, the fake Starfleet vessel programmed to get everyone’s ass assimilated, even if that means martyring Arturis in this revenge thing. And I can’t not see it in the Borg Queen, as I also did in TNG, when she willingly destroys her own ships to root out the beginnings of revolution.

—

Jake – Broken by circumstance

Annorax

Captain Ransom

Kashyk

Jake likes a villain who himself is a victim of a broader scheme, whether it be his own tragic backstory, his own people mutinying, or the player just plain getting played in his own game. So here are some more kudos for Annorax, who you can almost root for because his intentions are rational even if the execution is genocidal, for Captain Ransom whose displacement in the Delta Quadrant utterly ruined his crew, and for the double-crossing Kashyk who got thoroughly triple-crossed in just about every [Jane]way.

—

Chris – Mustache-twirlingly eeeevil!

Dr. Chaotica!

Kashyk

Warship Janeway

Chris is himself a cartoon character, so it only makes sense for him to pick some of the most over-the-top, Snidely Whiplash–adjacent, cartoonish villains for his list. Lean on that pipe organ as we introduce Doctor Chaotica!, with exclamation mark thoroughly intentional, as one of the most entertaining, least realistic villains we ever did see, but it’s a B-movie homage, so it’s okay. Let’s also bow before Kashyk, whose espionage skills rival a Bond villain’s, and Warship Janeway, the best mirror universe character not actually in the mirror universe!

—

Caitlin – Slimy scumbags, scummy slimebags

Henry Janeway

Penk

Dr. Kadan

Finally, all of the bad guys on Caitlin’s list are just scumbags to the core. They’re probably the most realistic villains on the show because we could see this level of corruption in a lot of people today. Dr. Kadan is just a kidnapping monster whose motivation is nothing but the capitalism of it all. Penk, played deliciously sleazily by Jeffrey Combs, is… also a kidnapping monster, etc. etc. And while Henry Janeway isn’t a kidnapping monster, per se, he also destroys a perfectly salvageable episode by being a selfish luddite who drags Shannon and Jason down with him.

— One more installment before we hit the Voyager finale and wrap up the series. What will we think? What will our favorite and least favorite episodes be? But I get ahead of myself: what will our favorite Voyager alien races be? Find out here next week! Also, obviously, follow along as we prepare to invade the Alpha Quadrant on the podcast, practice your maniacal laughter with us on Facebook and Twitter, and assimilate this!

[wonderencyclopedia]

First Appearance: Wonder Woman 196 (2003) Creators: Greg Rucka and Drew Johnson Abilities: Genius engineer, business tycoon, criminal mastermind and founder of Godwatch.

Backstory: One of Diana’s more complex adversaries, the deeply self-reliant Veronica Cale wears many hats: bio-engineer, CEO, dedicated mother, god hunter and of course, contemptuous villain who won’t stop until she evens the score. Despite being rescued by Wonder Woman several times, Cale uses here wealth, intellect and expertise in chemical & technological engineering to conspire against Diana, which has brought her in league (and conflict) with prominent members of the Amazon’s rogues gallery. Her motives have changed over time, however, the core reason for her resentment becoming deeper and more personal.

Talented and industrious, Dr. Cale worked hard to earn everything she has, but as a woman working in the fields of both medicine and business, she spent her life fighting an uphill battle—a familiar story: working ten times harder to make half the progress as people with a fraction of her insight or creativity; But Cale was up to the challenge, and became the founder of a hugely successful company, accumulating vast wealth.

She had grown cynical though, and developed a ruthlessness which allowed her to survive in a cutthroat world, so when Wonder Woman arrived with her graceful god-given gifts, preaching of peace and equality, she took personal offense. Cale would attempt to smear Diana’s reputation, and later played a role in the creation of the 3rd Silver Swan, Vanessa Kapatelis, by buying her from Sebastian Ballesteros, and turning her into a cyborg.

During Rebirth Cale would gain another layer of scorn for not only Diana, but the Gods of Olympus. As the CEO of Empire Industries she would launch Godwatch, which was founded for the sole purpose of locating Themyscira—not to enhance Cale’s own power or influence, but out of desperation.

The sons of Ares, Phobos and Deimos, seeking to free their father from prison on Themyscira, had exploited Veronica by placing a curse on her daughter, Isadore, which removed her face and soul from her body. Only upon the liberation of Ares from his prison on Themyscira could Isadore be restored. To add to her grief, she would also lose her best friend, Adrianna Anderson, who died and transformed into Dr. Cyber while on a mission to find the island.

Cale exacted revenge upon her blackmailers by partnering with the sorceress Circe, and even arranged to re-curse a newly cured Barbara Minerva in order to aide her in her efforts. When she located the island Veronica learned that Isadore could only remain whole if she stayed, forcing her to leave her only daughter and heir behind. Veronica blames Wonder Woman’s personal feud with Ares for their separation to this day.

[chancontrarian]

Getting Through a Bad Day the Villain Way

Welcome. If you’re here, there’s a good chance you’re having a bad day. I’m sorry. Whether a trusted co-conspirator just betrayed you, or you’re dealing with your arch-nemesis, PMDD, some days you feel so full of sour rage that you could set the world on fire just by breathing. But just because you're having a bad day doesn't mean you have to be a goody-two-shoes about it. In fact, sometimes the best way to get through a bad day is to embrace your inner villain. While we don’t condone carrying out your meticulously plotted revenge, sometimes it takes an evil mastermind to overcome the doldrums of a rotten mood.

The obvious stuff. You’ve heard it all… write in your journal. Go for a walk. Take a shower. Talk to a friend. Sure, go ahead. There’s nothing wrong with those things, and they can even be helpful. But don’t expect them to be a cure; think of it more as 1) a distraction 2) you deserve it. Sometimes when I’m having a bad (depression) day, I can barely get out of bed to shower. That’s not very villainous of me. At the very least, I deserve to be clean and aired out. Plot your perfect revenge in your journal. (If you want to be productive, make a list of things that are bothering you to take to your next therapy appointment.) Check with your friend that they have “space” for you to vent, and let them know if you want advice or just support. Setting expectations for the conversation will help you get what you need and also not overwhelm your friend.

Swear a lot. There's something about swearing that just feels good, especially when you're feeling angry or frustrated. So go ahead and let loose with all the curse words you know. No one's judging you. I grew up in conservative Evangelical Christianity, where it was expected that good little girls did everything “with a cheerful spirit.” Phooey on that! If you have a mountain of dirty dishes piling up, and washing dishes is your least favorite chore in the world… fuck those dishes. Fuck them to hell and back and all the way to the cupboard (or at least the drying rack).

Put on your vampiest makeup. Sometimes, the best way to feel powerful is to look powerful. So put on your darkest eyeliner, your brightest lipstick, and your most dramatic eyeshadow. You'll be surprised at how much better you feel when you look like a total badass. (If you can manage it, take some selfies. This is a good excuse to go outside.)

Go to the driving range or batting cage. Take out your aggression on some inanimate objects. Go to the driving range and smash some golf balls, or go to the batting cage and take some swings at some baseballs. Give them names. Destroy your enemies.

Post on social media for validation. This one requires a bit of planning ahead — unless your badass makeup has inspired you to take some selfies (which I recommend!) Don’t be a whiny drama queen, but a smoking hot selfie and a sassy caption can provide some welcome dopamine-spiking likes. You’re not attention seeking, you’re gracing the world with your fabulousness!

Make a Triumphs List. No, not a smarmy gratitude list. I want you to write down all of your petty victories and gloat over them. The time you corrected a teacher. The time you were able to send a forward with “per my previous email.” The fact that she (you know who) can’t do any better than your leftovers.

Listen to angry music, or a captivating story. Now is the time to break out that heavy metal playlist your ex boyfriend made for you. Or better yet, borrow an audiobook from your local library or find a podcast with drama and violence. You’ll get so drawn into the high stakes and machinations that you’ll forget about your own foul mood. (Walking while listening to metal and scowling is a great way to scare your neighbors.)

Do sudoku or a crossword puzzle. The trick isn’t to do mindless busywork, like knitting or jumping jacks, the trick is to occupy your mind.

Kill them with kindness. You have to deal with customers all day at work? Make it a game — you are undercover as a mild-mannered office worker and have to fool them all with your charm. If someone dares to be rude to you, shame them with the scintillating brilliance of your smile. You are an actor, and this is your stage.

You deserve a treat. Steer clear of self-medication with hard substances (believe me, I know the appeal, but it won’t help), but now is the time to get that super sugary iced coffee. Go out for ice cream. Get takeout instead of cooking dinner. Buy that pretty book you already own five editions of. Masturbate (that could be a whole point itself; get that buzz! (pun intended)).

Do it to prove them wrong. I know — you’re a strong, independent villain and you don’t need any external validation. But sometimes the only thing that can rescue you from the jaws of defeat is the threat of defeat itself. Remember when I said to plot your revenge in your journal? Identify what is putting you in a bad mood and write down steps you can take to address the problem. Stinging over a breakup? Honey, you are absolutely allowed to work on a revenge body. Coworkers bullying you? Fantasize about your dream job, then look for it! Polish up your resume! Take steps to remedy or at least make yourself feel better about sucky things.

Count the small victories. A shower or walk may or may not make you feel better. But you can say you tried, and that counts for a lot! Do five pushups or squats, you can say you exercised. Can’t shower? Wash your face and put on deodorant. Can’t go for a walk? Stand in the sun for a few minutes.  

So there you have it: a few non-conventional tips on how to get through a bad day like a villain. Remember, bad days are only temporary. So embrace your inner villain, have some fun, and get through it.

[lost-in-snow-lady-raven]

Happy Birthday,

Sosuke Aizen!

[askaceattorney]

Dear Anonymous,

My Raymond Shields essay can be found right here, but...do we really not have an essay for everyone’s favorite ambassador?

...

...

...

...

...

Hmm, it looks like we don’t.  Allow me to apologize for that with some free coupons!

As anyone familiar with Ace Attorney’s plot knows, the writers do a pretty good job of making the culprits look like innocent bystanders (except for the ones who are shown to be the culprit at the beginning).  Colias Palaeno strikes me as just the opposite of that -- the guy who looks like he could be the one behind everything (or at least in cahoots with them), but in actuality is just as innocent and friendly as he appears.

His friendliness is apparent from the beginning, when he agrees to allow Franziska to join the investigation into the death of Manny Coachen.

His willingness to cooperate with Interpol and let them investigate so quickly sounds just like the sort of thing you’d expect from the one’s actually dunnit, doesn’t it?  He also has a bit of a nervous disposition at times, which serves to make him look even more suspicious.

The only thing we know for sure about him is that he’s a proud representative of Babahl and its chief industry -- namely, tourism.

If his vest was yellow and his butterfly pin was a nametag, one would instantly assume he worked at Walmart, am I right?  Heck, he wouldn’t even need the vest or pin, probably.

His charitable attitude toward Edgeworth and Franziska and his desire to see justice for Manny’s killer seem to indicate that he’s either trying to save face as an ambassador, or he’s just that sort of person.  Could there be a hidden agenda somewhere in there, though?  Once again, this seems like the perfect recipe for a culprit who’s hiding in plain sight.

For most of the case (which changes from a murder to a double murder after the discovery of Ka-Shi Nou’s body), Palaeno stays in the background, providing Edgeworth and company with important details whenever they happen to cross paths.  The only strange thing about their conversations is how he reacts when his former secretariat is brought up.

But then, almost out of nowhere, he reveals his involvement in some less-than-above-board dealings.

Apparently, those in charge in Babahl wanted him to hide the fact that Babahl’s Primidux Statue (once a Cohdopian national treasure), was a replica, while the real one belonged to Allebahst.  Like many diplomats, however, he had good intentions -- the reunification of Cohdopia was the most important thing to him, even if it meant telling a few white lies.  Politics at its best, in other words.

Even so, there’s still nothing to connect him to either murder.  In fact, the only potential motive he could have to kill Manny is their...peculiar working relationship.

Another possible motive pops up when we find out that his secretariat hired Ka-shi Nou (a.k.a. Mask☆DeMasque II) to steal Allebahst’s Primidux Statue, presumably to ensure that Palaeno would become Cohdopia’s ambassador.  Palaeno claims he knew nothing about it, but can we really trust that?  Did something perhaps go awry between them when the plan was carried out?  (Yeah, I know he’s innocent.  I’m just building the suspense here.)

The suspicion suddenly shifts in a new direction when Agent Shih-na is exposed as the disappeared smuggling ring member, Calisto Yew, as well as the one responsible for starting two fires and tampering with some evidence, but the case doesn’t end there.

The real ringleader is still out there, meaning that Palaeno still isn’t quiiiiite off the hook yet.  Another scapegoat appears when Agent Lang points the finger at a possible co-conspirator with Yew...

...but thankfully, that theory is short-lived.  It’s not like we needed any more twist villains, after all.

We get one anyway, of course, but thankfully, it’s not our dear friend Colias.

It turns out the mastermind was a different ambassador -- one with the same friendliness and charm as Palaeno...as well as a lot more pride and arrogance.

To make a very long story short, Quercus Alba turned out to be practically the opposite sort of ambassador from Palaeno -- one whose ultimate goal was power and influence, even at the expense, so to speak, of Zheng Fa’s economy.

Palaeno, on the other hand, was just the opposite sort of ambassador.

Rather than fame, power, or money, Palaeno sought peace between two nations who had been torn apart, and for the person standing in the way of that dream to be thwarted.  To that end, he even supports Edgeworth from the sidelines.

And the beautiful irony of it all is this: The very position of power Alba sacrificed so many things to obtain, including human lives, was ultimately given to Palaeno, who did little more during the whole fiasco than cooperate and provide help when it was it needed.

If there’s anything to take from his story, it’s that being the nice guy may not put you in the spotlight (not to mention some bad things will happen regardless), but it can always lead to great benefits in the end.  Sure, he’s not exactly a saint -- he even sold the fake Primidux Statue to Zinc LeBlanc without letting him know it was fake -- but his friendliness, generosity, and peace-loving attitude have undoubtedly earned him many grateful admirers, as I’m sure the citizens of the new Principality of Cohdopia could tell you.

Oh, and guess what?  I didn’t realize until doing this essay that his English name isn’t supposed to be a pun -- it’s actually the species name for the Moorland Clouded Yellow Butterfly!  That’s a mystery that always bothered me, so thanks for pointing me to that piece of trivia.

-The Co-Mod

[multiversecarnavep]

Her role in Harvey Dent's past was updated into the currently prominent Two-Face origin: Batman Annual #14 (1990), a story called "Eye of the Beholder."[9] In this story, it is revealed that Dent's father was an abusive alcoholic who would nightly play a game with his young son: "I'll flip a coin: if it's heads, I beat you. Tails, I don't." Dent spends a lifetime burying his rage and resentment, only to discover that the coin was two-headed all along. While Dent is torn between loving and resenting his father, Gilda clearly despises him; she scoffs that after a lifetime of abuse and cruelty, the only thing Dent's father ever gave him was a coin.

Gilda tries to comfort Dent as his sanity deteriorates. She pleads with him when, upon awakening from a nightmare, he races out of their bed in the middle of the night and goes to his office, "where it's safe". After Harvey is disfigured, Gilda visits him in the hospital to try to give him back the coin. It was in his pocket during the trial, and was also hit by some acid, scarring one side of the coin. She last appears in this story right after Two-Face murders his corrupt former assistant, Adrian Fields, tearfully explaining Dent's abuse history to Batman.

Gilda does not reappear until Secret Origins Special # 1,[10] where she (here named Grace) appears on a TV talk show focusing on Gotham's villains. She talks about a time when one of the criminals Dent put away as D.A. returned for revenge by taking her hostage. Two-Face eventually rescued her, beating the ex-con to the point of death, but holding off because Grace demanded he stop. This represents a rare case where Two-Face is not influenced by the coin, but rather by someone else's welfare. She tries once again to appeal to his "good" side, but fails. At the end of the interview, she professes her belief that, one day, Dent would return to her.

Gilda returns in Batman: Two-Face Strikes Twice.[11] Here, she finds herself at odds with her now-ex-husband, as he believes their marriage failed because he was unable to give her children. She later marries Paul Janus, a reference to the Roman god of doors who had two faces, one facing forward, the other backward. Two-Face attempts to frame Janus as a criminal by kidnapping him and replacing him with a stand-in, whom Two-Face "disfigures" with makeup to make it look as if Janus has gone insane just as Two-Face had. Two-Face is eventually caught by Batman and sent away, and Gilda and Janus reunite. Years later, Gilda gives birth to twins named James and Luke, prompting Two-Face to escape once more and take the twins hostage, as he erroneously believes them to be conceived by Janus using an experimental fertility drug. The end of the book reveals a surprise twist; Batman learns from Gilda that Janus is not the father of Gilda's twins - Dent is. Some of his sperm had been frozen after a death threat had been made against him, and she used some of it to get pregnant. Batman uses this information to convince Dent to free the twins and turn himself in.[12]

Post-Zero HourEdit



Gilda Dent destroying incriminating evidence against her husband Harvey Dent in Batman: The Long Halloween. Art by Tim Sale.

After the events of Zero Hour: Crisis in Time, Gilda's entire history has been revised. She has a larger role and story arc in The Long Halloween,[13] a maxi-series that is part of Two-Face's origin in Batman Annual #14. During the nearly year-long story, a serial killer called Holiday systematically murders prominent gangsters. During the series, Gilda's marriage to Dent shows signs of strain; she wants to settle down and start a family, while he is obsessed with capturing Holiday. In a private monologue at the end, Gilda states that she was the original Holiday killer, having committed all of the murders up until New Year's Eve. Gilda indicates that Dent murdered Alberto Falcone on New Year's Eve, taking her place, and that he was the one responsible for the crimes from that point on. The confession is only known to readers, since Alberto confessed to all the Holiday murders upon his capture. Gilda destroys the evidence of her crimes and leaves Gotham City.

Due to the success of The Long Halloween, the events of the story have generally been accepted into continuity as the "official" story of Batman's early years, given that Zero Hour retconned the events of Batman: Year Two and rendered them non-canonical. In Batman: Dark Victory, the Calendar Man is about to reveal Holiday's true identity, but an enraged Two-Face cuts him off.

In Greg Rucka's novelization of Batman: No Man's Land, Dent thinks that Gilda is dead.

Post Infinite CrisisEdit

In the "One Year Later" story arc Batman: Face the Face, Dent mentions Gilda when recalling his past life, but the Two-Face persona states "No, Harvey. She's gone now".

During Dick Grayson's tenure as Batman, she appears standing over a wounded Harvey Dent. The Riddler reveals that she faked her death and was institutionalized following The Long Halloween, where she met Mario Falcone, who suffered a similar breakdown following the event of Dark Victory. After getting involved upon their release, Falcone kept Gilda like a prisoner, and she conspired with the Riddler to steal Two-Face's coin and entice him to rescue her. Knowing that Falcone was on Dent's tail, Gilda faked Harvey's death by appearing to shoot him at point-blank range. When they were finally reunited, she explained how much she missed him, and that she now believed in Two-Face as well as Harvey Dent. Feeling betrayed and manipulated, Two-Face tried to kill her, but hesitated, only to be stopped by Batman. To save Harvey, she shot Batman with a .22, knocking him out and allowing them both to escape. Her ultimate fate remains unknown, and Dick even expressed doubt that she was in fact the real Gilda Dent.[14]

New 52Edit

In the New 52 reboot, Gilda is a socialite that Bruce Wayne introduces to Harvey at a graduation party. She is killed in front of Harvey by Erin McKillen.

Other versionsEdit

FlashpointEdit

In the alternate timeline of the Flashpoint event, Harvey Dent has a wife and twin children. When the Joker kidnaps Dent's children, Mrs. Dent is emotional while her husband asks Thomas Wayne (the Batman of this timeline) for help in their search.[15]

In other mediaEdit

FilmEdit

A Victorian era version of Gilda appears briefly, without dialogue, in the animated adaptation of Gotham by Gaslight.

Gilda appears in the two part animated film Batman: The Long Halloween, voiced by Julie Nathanson.[16] In this version of events, Gilda takes the blame as the Holiday Killer, motivated by her anger at the Falcones after she had a past relationship with Alberto that ended with Falcone ending the marriage and forcing Gilda to get an abortion of her and Alberto's child.

TelevisionEdit

A character analogous to Gilda, Grace Lamont, appeared in Batman: The Animated Series, voiced by Murphy Cross. In the episode "Two-Face", she is D.A. Harvey Dent's fiancée. Alongside Dent's best friend Bruce Wayne, she watches helplessly as Dent loses his grip on sanity while going after gangster Rupert Thorne. After Dent is disfigured and becomes Two-Face, Thorne plots to use Grace against his new rival. A couple of Thorne's men disguise themselves as police officers and offer Grace a handheld tracking device, in case Two-Face ever approaches her. Two-Face eventually does, bringing her to his lair and wearing a scarf to cover his scars. She nearly succeeds in persuading Two-Face to reform, when Thorne's men show up, revealing that Grace inadvertently betrayed him. Nevertheless, Grace helps Batman and Two-Face fight off Thorne's men, and remains by his side as he is taken into custody with Thorne.

MiscellaneousEdit

Grace returned to animated continuity in the comic series The Batman and Robin Adventures issues # 1 and # 2, where the Joker manipulates Two-Face into thinking that Grace and Bruce are having an affair.[17] Two-Face abducts her and tries to kill Robin, but is ultimately thwarted when Grace jabs the jagged edge of the scarred coin into the disfigured side of his face. The story ends with the implication that their relationship is now damaged beyond repair.

Grace appears again in The Batman and Robin Adventures issue #22, in which Two-Face's life is thrown into chaos when he loses his coin during an unplanned breakout from Arkham Asylum, and is forced to replace it with a quarter. Little Jonni Infantino, the mastermind behind the breakout, threatens to hurt Grace if Two-Face doesn't provide information on one of Rupert Thorne's thugs, Weird Tony Hendra, whom Two-Face prosecuted as Harvey Dent.

[nat-20s]

I WANT THE GERTRUDE THESIS

time to demonstrate  my superhuman inability to SHUT UP here u go

*cracks knuckles* Okay so part of the enjoyment of Hamlet and what, I think, makes it a classic and intriguing play is the amount of ambiguity in it. Is Hamlet ever actually mad? Is the ghost real? If it is is it actually his dead father or some other vengeful spirit? Is hamlet like 19 or like 30? etc.

I personally love the ambiguity and how much is left up to interpretation, because even beyond staging and prop work and setting, it makes seeing multiple versions of the play immensely satisfying rather than repetitive. You get to watch each version and see what choices each director and actor made, which interpretation they decided to go with, how they wanted the characters to shine, whether they wanted to keep a lot of the ambiguity or eliminate it. For example, because the David Tennant version was the one I most recently watched, it seemed like it very much wanted to enforce the ghost is real by, even in the scene where only Hamlet can see it, having the ghost brush Gertrude’s hair and having her react to it. That little choice creates a huge amount of context.

“Nat,” you may say, “this is supposed to be about Gertrude, could you stop prattling on about why Hamlet good?”

Yes I can hypothetical You.

To me Gertrude is one of the most variable/ambiguous but also FASCINATING characters in the play. There’s SO MUCH you can do with her character, and it’s fascinating how the morality of other characters can be so deeply influenced by how you choose to portray Gertrude that it would almost work better as like, a flow chart, than a mini essay, but whatever.

The first place to start with her to me is with with how Aware of King Hamlet’s murder Gertrude was, ranging from the mastermind behind it to completely oblivious.

If you pick the first option with mastermind or at the very least co-conspirator, then you still have a sliding scale of whether or not you want to make her sympathetic or fully villainous. What’s interesting about that is that the more sympathetic you make her in the “in on it” scenario, the morality of both king hamlet and baby boy hamlet are likely to have to worsen in response. In a sympathetic scenario, Gertrude would be in on the murder of her husband but NOT on the murder of her son. In order for this murder to come across as sympathetic- you HAVE to make King Hamlet a bad man. If you’re going for tragic angle, you can make him abusive to Hamlet, and then you have a Hamlet that still worships and grieves for a man who was cruel to him. If you make him abusive to Gertrude but not to Hamlet, which she’s kept hidden, then it turns makes Hamlet look worse when he treats her incredibly poorly, grieving for a man he thinks is great but she knows better.

ON THE FLIP SIDE if you want to make Gertrude villainous you can a: have her in on the plot to kill Hamlet as well and/or B: make King Hamlet a kind man that she was having an affair of and decided to dispose of. In turn, by choosing either of these options, if Hamlet is aware of these things, you can make him seem more justified in his anger towards her.

Now lets loop back round to an Innocent Gertrude: if she is unaware of Claudius’s villainy, she becomes instantly more sympathetic to the audience, but it takes away much of her agency. King Hamlet can be a good man who she’s grieving or a bad man who she has conflicted feelings over her own relief towards his death. Her decision to marry Claudius may seem more abrupt, but it also becomes less costly to her morality: she is doing what she thinks she must and simultaneously trying to deal with her grief AND trying to help her son who she does genuinely love. You can even have her be so innocent that it results in her death- she drinks the final drink without knowing it’s her doom.

I personally prefer the Innocent Gertrude that becomes increasingly aware of Claudius’s true nature and tries her best to stop the oncoming fate but can’t fully- she’s into this too late, she’s waited for too long, her doom becomes inevitable. and it makes her story parallel Hamlet’s, and it makes her final sip become incredibly heavy. There’s also something more eloquent than i can manage right now to be said about her choosing death with open eyes (in order to try and save her son and or out of despair) as her only true act of agency- similar to how Ophelia’s likely suicide was hers. Kinda fucked up, but very much in line with the world created by Hamlet.

(note: no matter how you choose to play Innocent Gertrude, it does make Hamlet come across as a bigger prick. Just a fun little side note)

OKAY

tldr: Gertrude’s characterization alone has massive ramifications on how a hamlet telling goes, to the point where it almost makes hamlet a directorial choose your own adventure, and she’s a fascinating character to look at for innocence vs agency, especially with female characters both in the broader context of Shakespeare and the time period.

[minervacasterly]

Margaret Beaufort: The Maligned Matriarch

"Small of stature, shrewd and tough, Margaret was a very impressive woman. She was highly literate, a canny businesswoman and above all always mindful of her duty to protect what she could of her son's inheritance and future. Despite the trauma she had suffered while giving birth to Henry in Pembroke Castle during the plague-swept winter of 1457 when she was only thirteen years old, she had gone on to marry twice since the death of her first husband. In 1461 she married Henry Stafford ... When Edward IV's swept back into power, circumstance once again separated mother from son ..." (Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors by Dan Jones)

And she had the misfortune of her husband dying that same year that Edward won his throne (fighting for Edward at Barnet) because of his previous injuries in October. Her son and brother in law Jasper fled the country the previous month. It was clear what Margaret had to do. If she wanted her son back, she would have to curry favor with the new regime and so she married a prominent member of the Yorkist household, a previous turncoat who was now loyal to Edward and through him, Lord Thomas Stanley, she began to turn Edward's mind around and by 1482 she was *this* close to getting Henry's lands and earldom back but the following year Edward died and Richard took the throne and that became a whole new ball game for Margaret (who being the pragmatic woman she was, tried to curry favor once more but when she realized her son would not be safe under the new monarch, she turned to the Queen Dowager and began conspiring with her).

Despite  Philippa Gregory's fictional portrayal of her in the Red Queen novel and Amanda Hale’s rendition of her in the miniseries adaptation of the first Cousins’ Wars novels The White Queen, both of these versiosn were still able to capture Margaret's skill as a business woman and a survivor.

Margaret’s so-called fanaticism is the only real nit pick I have as she was no more devout than the real Elizabeth Woodville, Anne Neville, Cecily Neville and the rest of the other noblewomen during this period.

The real Margaret Beaufort became femme sole, title holder in her own right after her son's coronation in 1485, nearly two months after the battle of Bosworth had been fought. She was one of the most learned women of her age and translated many books and endowed many universities and patronized scholars. Bishop Fisher who later died in her grandson's reign, spoke very fondly of her and said that she was an example to behold.

“Margaret Beaufort presided over a regional court, something no woman in living memory had ever done or would do again for a further hundred years … Margaret had survived the dangers of her son’s both. She had helped protect him during the years that followed, and risked her own life to conspire on his behalf against Richard III. In promoting her son as king, she had sacrificed her own superior claim to the throne. But although she accepted male authority she had wielded considerable influence. Margaret had used her experience of English court ceremony to place the Tudors firmly within royal tradition, drawing up the orders for future royal christenings and funerals. Her best servants became the king’s, and he had continued to trust her judgment to the end. No wonder she came to sign herself in the regal style, Margaret R.” (Tudor. Passion. Manipulation. Murder. The Story of England’s Most Notorious Royal Family by Leanda de Lisle)

Despite the slow rehabilitation the Countess of Richmond is getting from notable historians, biographers and reputable novelists, pop culture still can’t get enough of turning the Tudor matriarch into a piece of work. Each portrayal worse than the last that came before it.

Michelle Fairley, who exceeded in her portrayal as the warring matriarch and faithful wife, Catelyn Stark in Game of Thrones, returned to the small screen to play an even more villainous portrayal of Henry VII’s mother in The White Princess (the direct sequel to The White Queen, and also based on PG’s novel of the same name). While the series managed to water down the most exaggerate aspects of PG’s novel, it could not do the same for Margaret whose villainy and ambition sometimes bordered on psychosis –enough to rival that of Cersei Lannister. There is also the matter of her clothes which in all honesty made her look more like Disney’s Maleficent from The Sleeping Beauty than a royal matriarch.

But all of that once again paled in comparison to the mother of all evils in Starz’ latest adaptations of PG’s novels, “The Spanish Princess”. A more seasoned Margaret who has finally met her match in Catalina of Aragon who is not about to bend the knee to the cold and unyielding King’s mother. She is gorgeous, intelligent, bold and unlike Margaret, knows how to kill more bees with honey than with vinegar. Of course, she ends up thrusting a sword in the dragon lady’s ambitions, when she gets to fulfill her destiny. It is only fair since Margaret had it coming!

History always trumps the fiction, and in the case of the real Margaret Beaufort, it is far more flattering.

Posthumous chroniclers banked on the popularity of rising Evangelicals and the clamor of Puritans who despited everythig that in any way extolled or glorified Roman Catholicism. Margaret Beaufort was a powerful reminder of that. Naturally, a vilification of her and Henry VII began, where the latter was emasculated by being portrayed as a man easily manipulated by his mother -who was the real mastermind behind the disappearance of the princes in the tower and the Tudors rise to power. While Margaret certainly deserves some credit for the latter; Henry’s cunning and intelligence can’t be ignored. More so, when all of these posthumous chroniclers and their (current) ardent supporters have going for them is the image of an austere, darkly clothed Margaret Beaufort. This image comes from the only surviving portrait of her which was painted during her older years. The real Margaret Beaufort dressed according to her status.

“In later life Margaret was exceptionally fond of clothes and a keen follower of fashion, and her interest was probably sparked during her youth. Even as a young girl, her wardrobe would have contained items made from the costliest materials in a sign of her status.” (Uncrowned Queen by Nicola Tallis)

Perhaps the Tudors were unto something when they began rewriting history and altering facts to suit their narrative and this is just karma coming full circle. Or maybe, if we truly wish to break the cycle and appreciate historical figures for who they were, we should start doing so by acknowledging their strengths and weaknesses. In the case of Margaret, there is a lot to admire and much less to fault.

[dwellordream]

Which ASoIaF character do you feel is most variably characterised in fanon? For me its Rhaella - I've seen her portrayed as a pathetic pushover, as cold and cruel, as secretly a mastermind, as a sexy milf. All could technically be true based on the little GRRM has told us of her, but I find it fascinating how people basically invent her character based on what role they need her to fill in their fic. Are there any other characters you think get this treatment?

I definitely agree that Rhaella’s characterization varies wildly in fanon because we know so little about her. She is alternatively either just there to be an abused women we feel sorry for, the scheming mother-in-law, secretly egging on Rhaegar, conspiring with the Martells, etc.  I would say Robb’s characterization differs wildly from fic to fic; granted we get a lot more of him in the books than we ever will of Rhaella, but because he is not a POV character and we only ever see him through Catelyn’s eyes, his personality tends to be a free-for-all. Sometimes he’s incredibly dark and edgy, other times he’s portrayed as the bumbling moron to make Jon look good, sometimes he’s just watered down Theon and hitting on women left and right.  I think Melisandre and Stannis are both often used in very different ways from their canon personalities depending on what the writer thinks they need for the plot. For example, Stannis will suddenly be portrayed as very sinister and deliberately cruel and sadistic, or Melisandre will be turned into a shrieking street preacher when we never even see her lose her temper in canon.  I would also say the Lannisters tend to have characters that are all over the place. Jaime is watered down to just be Cersei’s puppet, sighing sadly to himself that he will ‘never be free of her’, Cersei is cranked up to 11 and is killing people left and right with total immunity, Tyrion is totally woobified to just be ‘snarky womanizer’ who has no character flaws whatsoever, or Tywin is completely mellowed out into just ‘very stern father with no patience for his children’, with everything terrible he’s ever done just swept under the rug. I would also say Rhaegar, Lyanna, and Brandon Stark’s characters are all over the place. Rhaegar ranges anywhere from genius politician to overcome romantic to Disney villain to deranged prophet, Lyanna’s depicted on a very, very wide range, Brandon is either the best big brother ever or a total asshole, even abusive towards his siblings...  To an extent probably every character gets this treatment but for me those are the ones that stand out.

[ryouverua]

Trial 5 - Clash of Sidekicks (2)

“This is the worst movie I’ve watched since ‘The Wizard of Monomi’!”

"The fact that you can admit to watching that says a lot about you.”

Investigation 1 / 2 - second half is where I put my own theories that I penned before playing the trial. 

Trial: 1

That is a PERFECTLY REASONABLE REACTION to a snuff film. All the new sprites we’re getting this chapter are so brutal, jeez... D:

... with the sole exception of hangover!Shuichi which must be protected at all costs.

Kokichi is just going over all of the important parts of this evidence and Monokuma is not about it. Well you know, Monokuma, maybe if you had given us something to work with in the Monokuma file we wouldn’t be relying on good ol’ K over here!

Anyway, it just has play, record and pause... I was wondering if it had some sort of ‘speed up’ function to explain why the press suddenly went faster at that one point but apparently not, huh. I guess if pause/play was activated by accident or purpose it would make it seem artificially fast, like the way they cut frames in animation? that would be a lot of cut frames though, hm...

Anyway, hard to know if I should be questioning this or not but wow way to come in partway through the trial and throw up like an updated autopsy report. Who do you think you are, Miles Edgeworth? >3>

Confirmation is a bitch.

Then... if I’m going to take this as is which, for now, I guess I should... then the suspect part is the act that Kaito just lay there, not moving, right? And the fact that the press went down with no problems (unless that’s why the press seemed to halt for a second)... doesn’t that mean he was already dead?

ryukishi07 is that you

Actually for that matter it could be Uchikoshi - his description of a certain 999 scene got pretty detailed. >>

RIGHT?! There was nothing for him! He ended everything! The game was over, and I’m still sure he wasn’t the mastermind! The only thing I can think of is that it was an accident as a result of Kaito getting that crossbow and attacking him right under his nose! He knows if Kaito wound up dead he’d be the obvious culprit, and he’s made it incredibly clear that not only does he wanted to win the whole game, he has the intelligence to do it! Also the fact that he brought it here in the first place seems more like he’s making a point than confessing his guilt -

So... was it someone else? Or was it illness after all, and Kokichi taking advantage of the opportunity presented to him?

... hoo boy.

“You wrote ‘Kokichi Ouma killed Kaito Momota’ on the back of the exisal, you took a selfie with the press and uploaded it onto all of your social media counts with #oops #madeamess #galaxyprinthydraulicpress -”

“Don’t you do it -”

“KOKICHI ARE YOU SERIOUSLY GOING TO PULL ANOTHER TRIAL 4 ON ME?!”

well actually I guess he’s ‘confessed’ like, 10 times to various things over many trials so who even knows anymore

Not that I think he killed Kaito, but I do wonder if he conspired with Monokuma at all to set up an ‘unknown victim’ trial and if he did, what the extent of that collaboration was. If he did, he just went out of his way to deliberately undermine Monokuma... again. There is definitely no love lost between those two, huh. 8′D

I DON’T BELIEVE YOU!!! also nice use of the word space there sob sob

I CANNOT BELIEVE -

“You don’t understand guys, I’ve played so many courtroom games and murder mystery visual novels. So many. I’m an authority on this sort of game-based killing stuff, believe you me!”

finally, a place where Shuichi and Tsumugi can coexist in peace

.... BAH BUT THE ONLY PROBLEM WITH IT BEING KOKICHI (in the exisal, not the killer obis) IS THAT IT MESSES WITH THE WHOLE ‘MAKI WAS AN ACCOMPLICE THEORY’ and I just can’t get around the fact that she had to have been involved somehow! But other than mercy-killing Kaito, I can’t think of a reason why she would do anything to hurt him - and she certainly wouldn’t leave his body to be messed with so terribly by Kokichi!

Also, I’ve been treating her this whole time like she’s hiding Kaito actually being alive and that she’s pressing hard as Kokichi as an act but, unless my genuine-meter is off, she seems far too genuine about everything she’s said up to this point? Does she really think Kokichi is the one in the exisal, then?

damn it Junko can’t you leave v3 alone even when you’ve been dead for hundreds of years

LMAO

Oh shit he doesn’t know about Junko does he? Amazing. Wonderful. Fantastic.

Disclaimer here that I actually liked Junko as the villain of DR1 and I thought she had fantastic presence as well as a rocking’ cosplayable outfit but I really feel like she has no place here... though ugh, the fact that Monokuma exists is just something I can’t ignore, so I guess she was something that would need to be addressed down the line at some point. But not here, damn it!

SWEETCHEEKS IS SO UPSET BY THIS IT’S AMAZING!!

Shuichi is finally stepping in to the protagonist!shoes long enough to curse out Kokichi or K or whoever it is in there for breaking classic mystery protocol. 

WHY DID YOU SHOEHORN JUNKO IN AT THE LAST MINUTE DAMN IT

YES!!! GOOD!!! MY BOY IS TAKING CHARGE!!!

.... Kokichi has some sort of plan, huh. Trying to ‘trap’ us. Shuichi isn’t wrong for sure - and this is a very ‘Kokichi’ thing to do...

Man, it’s really looking more and more unlikely that Kaito is in there, huh? disregarding the fact that we literally just watched a video of him being crushed to death Shuichi is right - there definitely is method behind the madness, and that’s exactly the problem - we got a brief glimpse of Kaito (SERIOUSLY WHY DID HIS VOICE COME OUT) but everything after has been all Kokichi, not just by voice but by personality, cadence, speech... even the way he’s presenting information to us. I’m not saying Kaito isn’t smart - I know the game keeps trying to present him as dumb at some points, via Kokichi himself sometimes, but I’ve never agreed with that at all - but is he capable of mimicking Kokichi to this degree? That would require an incredible insight  on who Kokichi is as a person, and while Kaito has been incredibly perceptive on an emotional level, this is pretty next-level, right?

And other than survival, what could Kaito gain from doing this? 

yes

Shuichi it’s true and you should say it

Is it bad that I wanted a new sprite of Shuichi grabbing the platform and just, leaning forward to yell, “SERIOUSLY?!” at the top of his lungs.

togami on steroids

I’m feeling confused and lost and it’s fantastic.

If Kaito really is out of the running as the culprit, the game really seems to be pointing at Maki as an option? I don’t know how I feel about that - while it does seem to fit in a lot of ways it just... doesn’t feel right to me either? But then the only other options are Tsumugi, Himiko and K1-b0 and I really can’t imagine them being the right answer....

Kokichi is definitely not the culprit. I mean, there’s always that 1% chance I guess, but... 

And Shuichi - well, we haven’t had any indications of them pulling a second Kaede, right? I swear I’ve been paying attention this time... ;A;

Beatrice would be proud

Oh good, finally something I actually know how to deal with! The footage shows him being crushed, but that doesn’t mean it’s the time of death...

Once again, I’m so glad Shuichi is on the same wavelength as me. 8′D

Damn, it just switched to Maki standing quietly and staring daggers at us. Yikes.

Also it’s quite nice that K1-b0 can put his feelings about the press aside and stay on-point for this trial. 8′D I’m sure he’ll have a lot to say later, though - it can’t be nice to think you’re on the same level as a corpse.

oh thanks for showing us the video again, I really wanted to see that.

that acceleration is weird though! It’s really weird!!!

Wait, really?! It’s not built-in? I thought if the sensor was disabled then the press would be too!

I know Shuichi’s thinking about this from an immediate defensive tactical POV (aka Kokichi being able to protect himself), but I imagine losing control over the exisals guarding Monokuma would be a huge blow to Kokichi, too.

I do love the fact that he just casually throws in little comments to try and confuse the matter further. ‘D

Mm, Maki, you really shouldn’t be bringing something like this up. weeeeh I thought the answer was ‘Kaito’s coat’ aka the hole in it but I was wrong boo it was the bloodstain on the floor

Man it really seemed like it was lining up to match with Kokichi’s clothes...

Wait why are you bringing that up??? You’re the one fighting for Kokichi being in the exisal!

THERE’S THE HOLE IN THE COAT!!! Finally!!! I’ve been anxious to get to the crossbow and poison - oh suddenly Himiko’s getting upset. Yeah... yeah, considering the fact that she brought the crossbow, I can see why.

Wait...

Sorry, stepping back for a sec. Komaeda’s death was ruled Nanami’s fault because she technically killed him via throwing the poisoned canister, right? So if Maki applied the poison to one of the crossbow bolts Himiko delivered but never fired it herself - in fact, if Kokichi fired back in self-defense after wrestling it from Kaito in a fight - would that make Kokichi the accidental culprit? Could... that be where this is going? Or is this going to be a ‘different game, different ruling’ type situation where Maki becomes the blackened for setting things up so that someone would die? I was wondering why it would just be one, but maybe the ‘small amount of poison was used’ is the key to that - she tried to use just enough that the difference wouldn’t be obvious in order to fool Shuichi (but, well, failed in that regard).

That... could be interesting, right? Maki sends Himiko with one of the bolts being poisoned, Kaito and Kokichi struggle over the crossbow, Kokichi accidentally uses one of the poisoned ones and Kaito dies despite Kokichi’s best efforts... (antidote search? maybe? but he doesn’t find it - and Kaito is weakened from disease already, so...) So in order to attempt to survive an unwinnable trial that he tried to prevent by cancelling the game, he throws one loop after another - obscuring the body’s identity but then showing up because he had no choice anyway, but still in an exisal, taping himself crushing Kaito’s body with the clue of him being absolutely still hidden in there but then giving the video to them anyway, and then leading them to the answer that he was ‘set up’ as the killer against his best efforts?

This could be a narratively satisfying way of ending his journey with Shuichi - “Please solve this last riddle here at the very end, dearest detective. It’s been a pleasure.” nothing wrong with throwing a bit of saiouma in here at the very end, right?

Anyway while I was going off on a weird tangent Himiko created what may very well be the most terrifying non-lethal curse I’ve ever heard of in my entire life.

Gosh Himiko may actually be a worse liar than K1-b0 and that’s really saying something???

“That’s right, Himiko, I’ve got your number right down to that really, really weird quirk of yours.” no seriously why is ‘Himiko has to go to the bathroom a lot’ a thing

Also Himiko I’m pretty sure you only delivered it, so why are you freaking out so badly???

Maybe... I’m onto something with the revised theory...??? I don’t know why he would cover for anyone else???

“Guys, I spent a whole trial hammering the importance of lies and truth as the theme of the game into your skulls and you’re just chucking that out the window because I was gone for a few days? Seriously?”

It’s interesting that they’re bringing up being able to shoot Kaito from the outside because, I mean, the crossbow was found inside the hangar and I really don’t think it could have been tossed in through the window fully assembled, but I guess it’s a way to confuse the matter even further?

Oh hey, you included yourself for once!

“I  DON’T KNOW TSUMUGI, WEREN’T YOU THE ONE WHO COMMENTED ON ME BEING A TSUNDERE FOR KAITO EARLIER?! WHY WOULD I POSSIBLY BE ON EDGE?!”

Honestly though, she’s being incredibly vicious and, once again, I highly doubt it’s just because Shuichi accusing everyone, herself included. Even if Kaito is the victim...

I     S T A N D     O N     T H E     S I D E     O F     H O P E 

Kokichi chooses funny times to be helpful, huh. 8′D

YOU’RE ACTUALLY TERRIBLE AT THIS, HIMIKO

DAMN GET WRECKED HIMIKO

also LMAO Kokichi just declared Himiko the culprit

never change, kiddo

ARE YOU REALLY GOING TO TRY AND THROW MAKI ‘I MURDER PEOPLE WITH A LOOK’ HARUKAWA UNDER THE BUS RIGHT NOW

I feel like being scared should be the least of your worries right now.

You just want an Ace Attorney-style breakdown, don’t you???

AGAIN KOKICHI, PLEASE NEVER CHANGE

~one of these things is not like the other~

Also the fact that Kokichi yelling about how he’s the most suspicious being the dialogue blocking the actual right answer is kind of amazing.

“And please don’t ask him to prove it, I’m not really over the last time he printed something from his memory.”

“AND ANOTHER THING! I wouldn’t even cosplay as you if you were a fictional character!”

“NOW YOU HAVE GONE TOO FAR - !”

this trial is tearing our family apart

So, uh, did Shuichi just whip out the actual crossbow case or just a spare one he grabbed from Maki’s lab -

Thank you for summing it up so succinctly, Tsumugi!

That might be the longest one yet!

I actually believe that!

LMAO

THIS WHOLE DISCUSSION IS AMAZING AND SHOULD BE WITNESSED, FULLY VOICED, IN ITS ENTIRETY

It was worth messing up for this -

k1-b0, honey, you were doing so well and I believe you I swear -

We’re starting to circle around the next big answer, methinks...

Oooh man, you shouldn’t have talked about her like that earlier, Himiko!

AAAAAAAAAAW damn it okay that is actually really cute

She sounds so sad, aaaaaah D:

Implying that you aren’t lying about anything this trial? I don’t think so -

- but with that said, how sweet of you to come to her aid like this when you could have also thrown her under the bus! You really are starting to come along, Maki!

whispers why does Tsumugi voice my thoughts so often

But of course, we can’t avoid it. Someone asked Himiko to bring the crossbow there - I never was under the illusion that it was her idea. As for who it was that asked...

Yeah, I thought so. I wonder if it was Shuichi’s talk with him that spurred him to make that request. As soon as he thought the others were going to stick their necks out for him he decided to make his own plan of action, huh...

I’m taking this random opportunity to address the fact that I adore this particular sprite of K1-b0′s which practically screams, “I am so sick of your human nonsense” or perhaps more specifically, “Kokichi, why are you the way you are -”

what is happening right now

Het-ship potential? For Kokichi Ouma? The world must be endin - ohwait

TENKO IS ROLLING IN HER GRAVE RIGHT NOW

I hate to put it in these terms, and I hope dearly that Shuichi doesn’t make the same connection as me, but does this not imply that Shuichi was catalyst leading to his close friend’s death for the second time?!

Man, I can hardly imagine the panic she was in when she saw Kaito’s sleeve amongst all that blood. She probably feels incredibly responsible, and from the point of view of someone who thinks Kokichi is the mastermind, the obvious conclusion to draw would have been, “Kaito tried to rebel against Kokichi and this is the result!” And it wouldn’t have been too hard to go to, “I’m going to punish everyone who helped him” for that matter...

Yeah, so it was definitely after Shuichi talked to Kaito. K1-b0 only caught her going into the hangar the second time though?

Why in the world would you go there by yourself with the exisals wandering around? Kaito’s voice wouldn’t be able to reach you unless you were far into the hangar, so exactly what were you thinking???

Just... why. Why.

I’m so glad I have you here, Tsumugi.

Good. 8′\

I guess we’re not addressing why Himiko decided to take a nighttime stroll into the hangar before the request made then??? O... Okay???

Man, if it turns out that Kokichi was actually able to disarm Kaito of the crossbow despite being shot twice, one time in the back, that would be pretty damn impressive.

YOU ARE A LIAR, ‘K’-WHO-IS-MOST-LIKELY-KOKICHI-BUT-COULD-STILL-MAYBE-BE-KAITO!

Wouldn’t it be funny if after all of this, Maki’s straightforward determination to hang this all up on Kokichi actually turned out to be correct? And by the time we all come around to point the finger at him, Kokichi is revealed to not be the mastermind or morally responsible despite accidentally killing Kaito and Maki ends up getting him killed like she always wanted, but at that point actually regrets it - and Kaito’s life is lost in the crossfire as well?

Oh did I say funny? I meant extremely fucked up and tragic, whoops.

I think the one thing that I can stand by until the end is the fact that Maki was responsible for the introduction of poison to this whole wild affair. The electrohammer is obvious, sure - but the poison? They’ve been dancing around that the way I thought they would have been dancing around other things this whole time. 

?!?!

Yeah, what??? You’re supposed to be acting as the moderator, aren’t you?

ET TU MONOKUMA

FORGET THE WHOLE KOKICHI AND HIMIKO THING, CAN YOU PLEASE STOP PLAYING WITH MY HEART?!

“INTERFERENCE!!!”

It’s not like he called it off or anything when he visibly took the reins of the game OH WAIT....

how dare you point out the issues I’ve been having without my consent, bear

WHAT

NO HOW DARE YOU

AGAIN?!

I’M LOSING MY DAMN MIND

FUCK YOU K I’M GOING TO START CRYING ACTUAL TEARS

That’s it I hope Rantaro steps out of the exisal at the end of the trial and just ascends to the heavens without a word -

actually if it has a voice changer could you do anyone because that could be hella interesting

“There’s a bit of a situation going on” you are the most casual guy every -

Okay so if there’s a voice changer and DR isn’t going to pull out a whopper on us with both of them hiding in the exisal somehow, Kokichi is either having a hell of a time doing some low-key satire by portraying Kaito as the most relaxed, casual dude ever who thinks he can just handwave his mistakes via pure charisma, or Kaito is doing the most goddamn amazing Kokichi impression known to mankind and is also actually the Ultimate Improv Actor. The inflection difference alone between the two of them and the completely different way they address people - ‘Kaito’ has shown up briefly so it wouldn’t be too hard for Kokichi, but ‘Kokichi’ has been here for most of the trial and responded pretty effortlessly without slipping up once!

Maki is Not Having this shit anymore.

I-I THINK YOU JUST HIT HER BERSERK BUTTON

Also if it is Kokichi in there then, uh, yeah, point proven about needing to stay in the exisal.

Damn it, both of them have a plausible reason as to why they can’t come out of the exisal!!! And yikes, I wonder if I underestimated the severity of his injury from his run in with the exisal at the end of the escape tunnel? He didn’t break his ankle or something, did he? That would explain why he would rely on a long-ranged weapon like a crossbow to fight Kokichi!

WILL DO! .....

....

oh

I... I had a brief, faint glimmer of hope but -

apparently choosing Kokichi as the answer to ‘who is the victim’ is the wrong choice

How terrifying would it be to have that gatling gun-style arm waving around behind your back while you’re forced to think on your feet... >> Shuichi, I don’t envy you for even a second.

Really???? After all that, I thought... I really thought... we were leading into a flip of the script. Is - is it official then??? Man, was I just completely wrong the whole time then?

Look Kai - uh, Kokichi, K, whoever, look. Look. I was confident. I had a whole damn chart and notes written out, and even managed to work out a decent motive to go along with it, one with enough heart to make Will H Wright proud. BUT IT WAS ALL FOR NAUGHT, APPARENTLY, BECAUSE I GUESS I FUCKED UP THIS TRIAL PRETTY BADLY FROM THE GET-GO.

It.... It’s really saying that it’s Kaito, then....??? Damn....

My heart is actually aching for Shuichi right now. I understand he’s not literally in the audience POV, staring at the exisal behind his portrait with his voice encouraging him the way it always did in the last few trials - but maybe that’s what makes it worse for him?

Rather than standing at his side, ‘Kaito’ is behind him, where he can’t see him. Shuichi can imagine him though - imagine Kaito’s voice is actually coming from him, just outside of his peripheral vision, and Kaito is just about to clap him on the back and congratulate him on another well-made deduction. After the last trial, it’s so nice to have Kaito on his side again. They had finally just made up - !

..... but.

[probablyintraffic]

Higurashi could have been about something

What I really loved about Higurashi is the fact that there was a meta mystery to Higurashi’s endless web of mysteries, which asks, what kind of conspiracy is it? Elements of a supernatural horror, a small town political conflict, and a biomedical catastrophe were all introduced as early as the first story arc. They act as immovable mechanics of a greater, mysterious world which conspires to have the same tragic events occur in every iteration.

The answers, though by necessity not as interesting as the questions, remain disappointing. It turns out to have been caused by the will of a single mastermind, an individual so strong and so defiant to God that she alone was able to move mechanics of nature and the state. This is the least interesting way Higurashi could have been resolved. 

I would have preferred the political story. In Higurashi, the small, ancient village of Hinamizawa would have been submerged underwater had a dam been built there, and the dam project produced most of the intrigue taking place before the main story began: Construction workers were murdered and villagers protested. The village itself was divided over who would have been satisfied to move and who wanted to protect their way of life. Old families fought over their visions of the future and ostracized outsiders. Proud people fought against displacement and extinction, and progress fought against myths of old demons and gods.

The political story invokes all other horrors, and in this age when supernatural and biomedical horrors are a dime a dozen we could have gotten a story that was really about something. As Arundhati Roy has documented about the Bodhghat Dam in India:

The Bodhghat Dam will submerge the entire area that we have been walking in for days. All that forest, that history, those stories. More than a hundred villages. Is that the plan then? To drown people like rats, so that the integrated steel plant in Lohandiguda and the bauxite mine and aluminium refinery in the Keshkal Ghats can have the river?

At the meeting, people who have come from miles away say the same thing we’ve all heard for years. We will drown, but we won’t move!

This, this is a real story about real struggles, about displacement and extinction and taps into our most primordial fears. I wish I read this story.

But the mystery had to be resolved and the villain had to be defeated. Beyond the fact that endings to stories of this complexity would never have been able to satisfy, the main conflict of the story, once stripped of its politics and having named a single villain to defeat, was practically non-existent. The truth is that had Higurashi been a political story, the conflict would probably have been irresolvable and the ending probably tragic. 

I personally liked the note that Rena’s story arc (Tsumihoroboshi-hen) ended on. In it, personal tragedy was prevented, but collective tragedy was not. Which is the best thing that can happen in a story about politics.

[aion-rsa]

Doctor Who: Revolution of the Daleks Review

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This Doctor Who review contains spoilers. Our spoiler-free preview is here.

It may be the start of a brand new year, but ‘Revolution of the Daleks’, an episode of Doctor Who that’ll need to tide us over for a while, is more focused on looking back and taking stock than teasing what’s ahead. As the pre-title sequence informs us, courtesy of some Big Chunky Captions that the show currently favours, not only is this episode a follow-up to the events of ‘The Timeless Child’, it’s also a sequel of sorts to the 2019 New Year’s Special, ‘Resolution’.

Things pick up a few short hours after that adventure, which saw a buried Dalek mutant hijacking a human host and eventually constructing a scrapyard casing. It’s the abandoned husk of that same travel machine that now gets carted away by an unwitting driver, a man who’s so obviously doomed from the second he signs the paperwork that you can’t help but feel sorry for him. (But then, who can’t sympathise with someone who gets through their day one cuppa at a time?)

The Dalek shell soon finds its way into a pair of grasping, familiar hands, and this is where a selection of festive snacks are likely to be flung at the screen by some of the fandom. The mastermind behind the theft turns out to be Jack Robertson – the Trump-envying, Scooby-Doo villain last seen burying toxic waste during the divisive ‘Arachnids in the UK’. Robertson, played once again by Chris Noth, hasn’t managed to realise his presidential ambitions, but his character is unapologetically the same.

This time around, Robertson is accompanied by a ruthless Defence Secretary with her eyes on Number 10. Given that this episode was almost certainly conceived back when Theresa May was still Prime Minister, it’s not hard to see the inspiration for this particular pairing. Together, their intention is to reverse-engineer the Dalek technology – which as far as they know is nothing but a very advanced robot – and mass-produce them to roam the streets.

The idea of these caricatures conspiring to build an army of alien neo-Nazis in the name of “national security” is the kind of brute-force political allegory that has proven extremely hit-or-miss in recent years. If the dastardly duo had stayed in control of the Daleks for any length of time and we’d seen Britain slowly fall into the depths of fascism while the companions looked on helplessly, the episode could have come across as both derivative and ham-fisted, particularly when compared to ‘Genesis of the Daleks’. Thankfully, the Daleks themselves are having none of it, but more on them later.

Shortly before the titular revolution, we find the companions kicking their heels back on Earth with no word from the Doctor, and no clue as to whether or not she’s even alive. Yaz is spending most of her time in the new-build TARDIS that brought them home, having gone a bit Zoom-and-Enhance as she tries desperately to concoct a rescue plan. Graham and Ryan, meanwhile, have all-but accepted the Doctor’s fate and are doing their best to look after the planet in her stead.  

Alongside the exterminations and screaming that are a given whenever the Daleks are involved, this episode asks itself two questions, the first being: how do Doctor Who companions save the world without the Doctor? Ahead of transmission, the idea that Team TARDIS would need to tackle the Daleks by themselves was played up as being the meat of this story, leading to speculation that Captain Jack would step in as a sort of surrogate Doctor – he’s certainly got Dalek experience.

For better or worse, though, life without the Doctor isn’t really a question the show cares to dwell on for very long once it’s been posed, despite what the trailers might have led us to believe. It seems that what Graham, Ryan and Yaz have learned from travelling through time and space is that when someone’s threatening to take over the world, you should march right up to them, issue a few vague threats before being unceremoniously arrested, then go home again and sulk. Graham grumbles that without a sonic screwdriver or some psychic paper they can’t follow in the Doctor’s footsteps, but given how often the show teaches us that the Doctor isn’t defined by her gadgets, their half-hearted attempt to confront Robertson and save the day still comes across as a bit of a damp squib.

Luckily for the human race, it doesn’t take too long before the Doctor’s broken out of space-prison. Not from our perspective, anyway – as far as Thirteen’s concerned, she spends a good few decades in the company of some returning alien races, all of whom have supposedly gone through the judicial process. (A Weeping Angel on trial is a Big Finish production just waiting to be written…) There’s even an imprisoned P’Ting, which seems a bit harsh, though it might just be locked up to keep it safe from Yaz.

When Captain Jack finally springs the Doctor from her cell, the two characters get their first proper interaction since ‘Journey’s End’ (not to mention a callback to Jack’s favourite smuggling technique). It’s a sweet, slow moment, as is the Doctor’s reunion with her TARDIS, even if it’s all a bit too straightforward to be a genuinely thrilling escape. The Doctor was obviously going to bust out of prison sooner or later, of course, but given all the hype surrounding her absence, it’s hard not to feel her reunion with the companions happens a bit too easily and without complication.

The next few minutes are more interesting. While Whittaker’s Doctor has always claimed to be fiercely devoted to her ‘fam’, she usually can’t wait to get out of the room as soon as she’s required to interact with her companions on an emotional level, meaning they normally have to lean on one another for support. This time, the dynamic is reversed – the Doctor, still stewing over being the Timeless Child, is being particularly clingy while the companions are keeping her at arm’s length, with neither group really able to conceive of what the other has gone through.

These scenes culminate in a line of dialogue from the Doctor that would be wildly out of character in most other situations: “New can be very scary”. The Doctor normally claims to adore ‘new and exciting’, citing it as the reason they travel – so long as it’s new and exciting on their terms. Failing to escape on her own, encountering resentful companions and a loss of her cultural identity have left this Doctor feeling very much out of control.

And then, like a roller-coaster lurching into motion, the episode kicks into high gear and we’re off to see the Daleks.

Read more

TV

Doctor Who: A History of Dalek Redesigns and Fan Reactions

By Andrew Blair

TV

Doctor Who: revisiting each Doctor’s first encounter with the Daleks

By Mark Harrison

Having been cloned back into existence by Robertson’s scientist-slash-flunky Leo, the mutant from ‘Resolution’ has been practicing its two favourite tricks – puppeteering a human host, and online shopping. With an army of freshly-farmed mutants just waiting to slither inside empty Dalek casings, it doesn’t take too long before the cries of “Exterminate” ring through Downing Street, putting an end to the new Prime Minister before she’s even had time to feed Larry the cat. Team TARDIS, along with Robertson for seemingly no other reason than so he can betray them later, now need to sort out humanity’s DIY alien invasion. The Doctor’s solution: call the Daleks!

Skaro-variety Daleks, that is, further adding to the cast of aliens we haven’t seen in a while, and they’re not too happy that their racial purity is being threatened by human-fed knock-offs. Dalek civil wars were quite common in the show’s classic era, and there’s definitely mileage to be had watching the pepperpots squabbling among themselves. With so much to wrap up in one episode, though, what we actually get isn’t a war. It is, to borrow a phrase, pest control. The 3D-printed Daleks are so much cannon fodder for the bronze originals, who – thanks to Robertson – decide that taking over the Earth sounds like a bit of a lark so long as they’re in the neighbourhood.

This leads to some running around on a Dalek saucer that accomplishes little. Despite repeatedly reminding everyone just how immortal he is, Jack gets spared a horrific series of deaths this time around, and before long the Doctor arrives to taunt every last one of the infuriated mutants into her TARDIS. Except it’s not really hers – it’s the new-build TARDIS in disguise, and its destruction takes out the Dalek forces and ties up that loose end in a neat bit of storytelling.

With the threat eliminated and Robertson once again weaselling his way out of punishment, there’s one last issue that needs to be tied up. We’d all been made aware that Tosin Cole and Bradley Walsh were going to be departing Doctor Who this week, so when we saw them demand to board a Dalek saucer alongside the immortal Captain Jack… Well, there was precedent for things to go badly wrong.

Companions old and new have died in Dalek stories. A heroic grandfather/grandson sacrifice to save the human race wasn’t too likely, but it wasn’t completely out of the question, either. Here are Ryan and Graham alive and well, and this is where the show has to confront its second question. What does it take for a companion to leave the Doctor?

It was quite common for assistants to jump ship in the classic serials. Sometimes they were travelling with the Doctor only reluctantly and would leave the TARDIS whenever they happened back to their rightful home, especially when the Doctor could barely control their next destination. Others fell in love, elected to remain somewhere they could make a difference or, sometimes, sacrificed their lives. Whatever their fate, there was always a sense they knew that their relationship with the Doctor was a transitory one; a journey into the unknown, but one that definitely had a final destination.

Then came the Time War, and the Doctor was suddenly the most amazing, brilliant, astounding and important figure in the universe. Last of the Time Lords, destroyer of Gallifrey, spoken of in myth and legend. He could take his companions anywhere in time and space and show them the delights of the universe. Showrunner Russell T. Davies made it abundantly clear that if you could handle the challenge, there was absolutely no drug more addictive than setting foot inside that TARDIS.

A few companions still chose to leave, or else got left behind. Mickey Smith lingered in a parallel universe where he was needed and loved. Martha Jones departed to care for her traumatised family. On the whole, though, increasingly convoluted ways have been concocted to forcibly separate the Doctor from his companions without actually killing them. Parallel universes, mind-wipes, temporal paradoxes… For many years now, the Doctor’s friends haven’t walked away – they’ve been ripped away.

Here, Chris Chibnall chooses to confront the scar that ten months has left upon the companions’ relationship with the Doctor. It’s something of a tell-don’t-show moment – Ryan makes reference to having reconnected with friends and family, but we don’t see any of that. It’s clear, however, that the past year has given Ryan enough time to realise how much home and a stable foundation still means to him. His decision to say goodbye doesn’t stem from any close call or tragic loss, but a new-found self-confidence and a desire to grow up. The Doctor may be a Timeless Child, but Ryan is not.

Ryan’s departure means that a clearly torn Graham must also say his goodbyes, although his reasoning is far more straightforward – if he leaves to travel with the Doctor, he’ll miss his grandson taking those first steps into adulthood. And so Yaz is left in a TARDIS control room that suddenly seems a lot bigger, her trust in the Doctor tarnished but intact thanks to a surprisingly earnest heart-to-heart with Jack earlier in the episode. And then, as is fitting for an episode that has spent so much time in its own recent past, we return to the same Sheffield hillside where the companions began their journey – and to Ryan Sinclair, cheered on by his hopeful Grandad, learning how to ride a bike.

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This is unlikely to be anyone’s all-time favourite Doctor Who episode. It won’t sit proudly in the number one spot when YouTubers rank the Christmas specials. It’s a little too reliant on navel-gazing for that – but what the episode does is try and tackle questions raised by the Doctor always being the centre of the series’ universe, and what it takes to overcome her gravitational pull. Even if you don’t care to chew over those metatextual issues on New Year’s Day, however, ‘Revolution of the Daleks’is still an enjoyable hour-and-change of telly, and one that ultimately chooses to (mostly) wipe the slate clean ready for adventures yet to come.

The post Doctor Who: Revolution of the Daleks Review appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[newstfionline]

Turkey Sees Foes at Work in ‘Smurf Village’

By David Segal, NY Times, July 22, 2017

LONDON--Akin Ipek, one of Turkey’s richest men, was staying in the Park Tower Hotel in London when the police raided his television network in Istanbul. The raid was national news, so Mr. Ipek opened his laptop and watched an unnerving spectacle: an attack on his multibillion-dollar empire, in real time.

It was an oddly cinematic showdown. Through a combination of shouting and persuasion, the network’s news editor convinced the officers that they should leave, then locked himself in the basement control room with a film crew. For the next seven and a half hours, until the police returned, the news editor spoke into a camera and took calls on his iPhone. One was from Mr. Ipek, who denounced the government’s action as illegal.

“I was shocked and angry,” Mr. Ipek said in a recent interview in London. “But I thought they would leave after a couple days. There was no reason to stay.”

Actually, the government never left, and the events were the start of a personal cataclysm for Mr. Ipek. His station, Bugun TV, was taken off the air a few hours after that phone call, on Oct. 28, 2015. His entire conglomerate of 22 companies, Koza Ipek, is now owned and operated by the state.

The episode proved to be a dry run for a nationwide series of confiscations that began soon after an attempt to overthrow the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on July 15 last year. Since then, more than 950 companies have been expropriated, all of them purportedly linked to Fethullah Gulen, the Muslim cleric who Turkish leaders say masterminded the putsch.

About $11 billion worth of corporate assets--from small baklava chains to large publicly traded conglomerates--have been grabbed by the government, a systematic taking with few precedents in modern economic history. Several thousand dispossessed executives have fled overseas to cities as far-flung as Nashville and Helsinki. The less fortunate were imprisoned, part of a mass incarceration campaign that has included purged members of the military, judiciary, police and news media, adding 50,000 new inmates to the prisons.

Turkey was once considered one of the world’s great emerging markets, with years of torrid growth and an Islamic government that embraced democracy. Tourism boomed and hundreds of malls popped up across the country. Starbucks arrived in 2003 and has since opened hundreds of stores.

But the political and financial are deeply entwined in Turkey, and the fallout from the coup attempt has damaged the economy. The corporate seizures have also changed the way the country is perceived in the international business sphere, largely because of what they say about the leadership.

The Turkish lira is crumbling and foreign investment has dropped by half compared with last year. All three of the major rating agencies have downgraded the government’s debt to junk status, citing among other factors the bludgeoning approach to companies suspected of having ties to the Gulen movement.

“We’ve seen this new narrative about Turkey as it has taken an authoritarian turn,” said Jonathan Friedman of Stroz Friedberg, a global risk consultancy. “In boardrooms, the country is now a very hard sell.”

Turkey’s war on its “enemies” in business--and the evolution of Mr. Ipek from revered industrialist to public villain--illuminates much about the tumultuous events that have so jolted the country in recent years.

Mr. Ipek stands accused of being part of a treasonous deep state run by Mr. Gulen, a reclusive 76-year-old who fled Turkey in 1999 and now lives in the Poconos of Pennsylvania.

For decades, Mr. Gulen has preached a theology rooted in Islam and focused on peace, science and democracy. The movement he leads is called Hizmet--service, in English--and is best known outside of Turkey for building schools across the country and the rest of the world, including 120 charter schools in the United States. Delegations of American politicians have flown to Turkey on trips paid for by Hizmet.

To Mr. Gulen’s detractors, his good works have all been all a cunning charade, propaganda camouflaging a vast moneymaking enterprise that sought to overthrow the government. He and his followers indoctrinated youngsters at Hizmet schools in Turkey, then encouraged them to find positions in the government, particularly the justice system--as police officers, prosecutors and judges.

For allies in the corporate realm, Gulenists in the government provided invaluable aid. Licenses were approved, permits issued, rivals thwarted. Entrepreneurs in Mr. Gulen’s favor knew that the levers of the state could make them wealthy, and one of his most successful protégés, if the Turkish government is correct, was Mr. Ipek.

Soon after the raid, a warrant was issued for Mr. Ipek’s arrest, stating that he laundered vast sums for what officials call the Fethullah Terrorist Organization. His assets were frozen and have gradually been seized, starting last year with his luxury cars and ending with all of his real estate and bank accounts. Prosecutors announced in June that they would seek a 77-year prison sentence for Mr. Ipek, though he has no plans to return to Turkey.

Now settled in London, Mr. Ipek spends his days trying to clear his name and somehow reclaim his life. No, he says, he is not a financial backer of Mr. Gulen or a beneficiary of favors from his followers. And no, he says, he didn’t flee Turkey with billions of dollars, as the government has charged. He says his current net worth is less than $10 million.

“I have not committed one single crime in my life, not a traffic penalty,” he fumed, during hours of interviews.

It isn’t easy to sort fact from fabrication in the government’s case, and parts of Mr. Ipek’s account of his own life sound nearly as far-fetched. Truth is a slippery, elusive concept in today’s Turkey, a place where the definitions of basic words, like “ally” and “traitor,” keep changing.

At least one allegation against Mr. Ipek is demonstrably absurd. A judge misconstrued a reference to “smurfs,” a term of art for people who launder tiny amounts of money, in a report by a government investigator. Taking the allusion literally, the judge, in his ruling, wrote that Mr. Ipek and a group of others conspired in “Smurf Village” in Ankara.

“For two years I’ve been trying to prove there is no Smurf Village in Ankara,” Mr. Ipek nearly shouted, “because some idiot mentioned Smurfs in a report.”

Of course, even if Mr. Ipek was one of Mr. Gulen’s truest believers, taking companies with scant due process would seem to violate most countries’ legal norms. Many inside and outside Turkey believe that Mr. Erdogan has exploited the failed coup as a pretext to expand his power, tossing people in prison or firing them from jobs for sins as minor as keeping money in a Gulen-connected bank. More than 130,000 people have been suspended or dismissed in the past year, and dozens of hospitals have been closed, along with 1,200 schools and 15 universities.

Mr. Ipek may simply have experienced the wrath of the president before everyone else. During their last face-to-face meeting, in 2012, Mr. Erdogan smoldered while reading aloud every word of a column in Bugun, Mr. Ipek’s newspaper, that he found objectionable.

“He was not reasonable anymore,” Mr. Ipek said. “I told him, ‘Consider me your younger brother and let me tell you some truths. You need to look at the whole wall, not concentrate on one brick. I’ll ask my columnists to be a little more polite, but we want people to be free to express their opinion. We promised them a free press.’”

Mr. Ipek must have realized that his future in Turkey was not secure. In late 2014, he began the process of relocating to London, forming a holding company here called Ipek Investments that would control all of his assets.

The leverage that the government now has over Mr. Ipek includes his younger brother, Tekin, who was imprisoned two years ago without a trial. Mr. Ipek has offered to fly to Turkey and take his brother’s place if the government releases him. Come to Turkey and we’ll talk, the government has countered, in Mr. Ipek’s telling. It is a proposal that he has declined, because he assumes that the government will simply imprison them both.

“I’ve seen them do that before,” he said.

[aion-rsa]

Max Lord: 15 Truths About DC’s Biggest Liar

Hopefully you are reading Josh Williamson’s new “Rebirth” mini series, “Justice League vs. Suicide Squad.” If not, let us be the first to tell you that the insidious Maxwell Lord is back in a major way! This opportunistic businessman turned cold-hearted villain seems to be up to his old antics, but this time he has “the original Suicide Squad” under his control.

RELATED: Evil Geniuses: The 15 Smartest Supervillains In Comics

His look in his “New 52” debut appearance, in “OMAC” #2, eschewed his trademark business suit and Checkmate looks, for a very sci-fi, Jack Kirby-influenced redesign. So, his arrival at the end of “Justice League vs. Suicide Squad” #1 in his classic Black King duds seems to infer this may be the pre-New 52 version of Max. Whichever Max it is, we thought it was a good time to give you the lowdown on this powerful mind-controlling baddie, and explain why he’s such a huge creep.

HE ESTABLISHED THE JLI

The version of the League that becomes Justice League International is initially brought together by Doctor Fate after the 1987 “Legends” miniseries. Fate believed that there was always need of a Justice League, but it is Maxwell Lord who gets them the United Nations charter, encouraging a more global membership, setting up embassies worldwide and renaming the team to reflect its global reach. Lord quickly goes from liaison to team leader in the first tentative displays of his manipulative powers (even if, at this point, they weren’t “super” in nature).

While Lord’s public persona is that of a business mogul who lacks ethics, he is actually much worse. In “Justice League” #1 (1987), he hires low-level criminals to fake a terrorist attack on the UN to bring the newly formed Justice League closer together. He continues manipulating the JLI for years, even going so far as to start a Justice League Antarctica branch staffed by former Injustice League members and headed up by knucklehead Green Lantern, G’Nort.

HE WAS MANIPULATED BY ALIEN A.I.

The cover of “Justice League International” #12 (1988) by Kevin Maguire famously shows Lord as half human, half robot, and the issue reveals his secret origin. It turns out his machinations to establish the Justice League as a UN sanctioned team were not his own. In a very convoluted bit of continuity, Lord finds an alien techno intelligence while spelunking, which immediately starts influencing his actions. The being was named Kilg%re and like all good computers, it was chiefly concerned with world domination. It was Kilg%re who suggested Lord ingratiate himself with the Justice League.

Further, the more global approach Lord encouraged once he had gained their trust was also just a part of the alien intelligence’s grand scheme. Eventually, Lord broke free of the techno life form when he destroyed the computer that housed it… or so he thought. This weirdness was all taken a step further when Lord gets brain cancer and the long-thought dead Kilg%re pops back up to transfer Lord’s consciousness into an android. This is a somewhat despised part of Max Lord’s history, to say the least.

HE WAS SHOT

The 1987, the company-wide “Millennium” crossover that was spearheaded by Steve Englehart told the story of a Guardian of the Universe (aka, Green Lantern’s bosses) and a member of their sister race, a Zamaron, who were visiting Earth to grant a chosen few accelerated evolution. The plan was for this group of 10 men and women to become the new Guardians of the Universe. As is often the case when the Guardians are involved, their own creations came back to bite them in their little blue butts. The Manhunters had infiltrated Earth’s superhero community and were ready to strike when the purpose of the ancient aliens’ visit to Earth was revealed.

Rocket Red #7 of the Justice League International turned out to be one of these overzealous robots, as did Max Lord’s secretary at the time, Mrs. Wootenhoffer. The Manhunter shoots Max four times before his computer (which we don’t know is Kilg%re at this point) neutralizes the threat. He survives the sustained injuries, but he suffered. And at least you can’t say that Max never took one for the team!

HE WAS POSSESSED BY… DORMAMMU?

To keep it simple, the best way to describe Dreamslayer’s group of super villains, The Extremists, is to say that they are analogues for Marvel’s greatest villains, like Doctor Octopus (Gorgon), Magneto (Doctor Diehard) and Doctor Doom (Lord Havok). Dreamslayer is the DC version of Doctor Strange villain Dormammu. These super-powered terrorists were denizens of an alternate dimension and hailed from a planet called Angor. When Dreamslayer discovered a way to get to Earth, he immediately launched an attack with robotic versions of the Extremists. His actual teammates had died in the nuclear holocaust they had caused on Angor.

While that may seem like a lot of backstory to tell you that Dreamslayer possessed Max Lord at one point, the “why” and “how” would be impossible to explain otherwise. When the fiery-headed troublemaker and his replicate Extremists were thwarted on Earth, Deamslayer’s body was destroyed and his spirit returned to his own dimension. However, from there, he was able to possess Max Lord, who he used to mind control The Flash, who then retrieved the powered-down Extremist robots for him. Circuitous, perhaps, but even Max would have to appreciate the lengths to which Dreamslayer was willing to go to manipulate the situation.

HE WAS CREATED BY GIANTS

The names Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis should be familiar to any comic reader worth their weight in long boxes. Giffen is the writer/artist behind such cult favorite characters as Lobo, Ambush Bug, L.E.G.I.O.N. and DC new A-lister Jamie Reyes (aka Blue Beetle III). He also wrote the recently adapted “Invasion!” mini series. DeMatteis, meanwhile, is a writer who started with DC in the late ‘70s on pulpy titles like “Weird War Tales” and “House of Mystery.”

Together, the two created the Justice League International, Justice League Europe, Justice League Antarctica and had a critically acclaimed run on “JLI.” They came up with droves of fun new characters to populate their books including Ice, Rocket Red #7, G’Nort, The Extremists, and, of course, Maxwell Lord IV. The upcoming comedy “Powerless” seems like it must be influenced by Giffen and DeMatteis’ work, as both superheroes that have been revealed so far, Crimson Fox and Jack O’Lantern (II), are their creations.

HE RAN A GLOBAL SPY AGENCY (TWICE)

During the “Countdown To Infinite Crisis” (2005) and “Infinite Crisis” (2005) events, Maxwell Lord assumed full control of the spy agency known as Checkmate. While their organizational structure based on Chess (Black King / Queen, White King / Queen) still existed, the balance of power it was supposed to represent was all but gone. Max also took over Batman’s AI satellite, Brother Eye, and secured the OMAC technology under this agency’s banner.

To say Checkmate’s authority was at an all time high under Lord would be an understatement. When The Black Queen, White Queen and White King conspired to kill Lord, he used his powers to control the Black Queen’s Bishop, Jessica Midnight, and had her shoot all three of them on the spot. Max’s reign of terror as The Black King ended when he got on the wrong side of Wonder Woman, but that’s a whole other entry. During the “Brightest Day” event, it was revealed in “Justice League: Generation Lost” that he was secretly back in control of Checkmate.

HE DEFEATED BROTHER EYE

Max Lord had controlled Brother Eye in the DCnU, similar to how things had played out before “Flashpoint” changed everything. Although, in the New 52 relaunch of “O.M.A.C.” (2011), Brother Eye escaped and sent his O.M.A.C. (a powerful cyborg designed to fight and destroy metahumans) on the offensive against Project Cadmus and Checkmate to maintain their freedom.

In the DCnU, Lord is yet again in control of Checkmate, and Cadmus is under the Checkmate umbrella. So, in response to Brother Eye and O.M.A.C.’s actions, Lord sends in his Checkmate Elite, including Sarge Steel, Maribel and Little Knipper to take the One-Machine Attack Construct down. When they fail, Lord recruits the Cadmus scientist Mokkari to do the job with his Build-A-Friend creations. This attempt is also unsuccessful and finally Checkmate’s sister agency, S.H.A.D.E., is contacted and its top operative Frankenstein manages to stop O.M.A.C. in his tracks. However, it is only when Lord defeats Brother Eye, that he deems the O.M.A.C. as no longer a threat.

HE FOUGHT IN INVASION!

Keith Giffen’s epic crossover, “Invasion!” (1989), was about alien races teaming up to stop the threat from Earth; that is to say, humanity. Well, mostly metahumans, but humanity in general, too. The event featured a plethora of DC Comics’ most popular heroes alongside its cult-favorite second stringers. All of the publisher’s top government official characters and their organizations got involved, too, including Amanda Waller with the Suicide Squad, General Eiling with the military and Max Lord with Justice League International.

However, even after the Alien Alliance had taken over Australia, the US president didn’t want to take action. So, he tells Lord that the JLI are to stand down and to contact Waller directly to stop her from doing anything rash. Eventually it’s all hands on deck though. “Invasion!” is the storyline that was just recently adapted for a monumental crossover that included all four of The CW’s DC shows. However, as good as the four nights of television were, it seems like a missed opportunity that the Arrowverse’s Max Lord (played by Peter Facinelli in “Supergirl” Season 1) wasn’t involved.

HE GOT MENTAL POWERS FROM A GENE BOMB

The alien race The Dominators were the masterminds behind the attack on Earth in “Invasion!” and their ultimate weapon was the Gene Bomb. They had studied human evolution and the emergence of metahumans, and then engineered a device to neutralize metahuman abilities. At the end of the crossover, when the Alien Alliance had come apart and The Dominators had all but lost, they set it off. We see the explosion from many perspectives, as well as what happens to a number of superheroes. What is unexpected is the bomb’s effect on humans with latent metahuman genes.

For some, like Maxwell Lord, it gives them powers. Did the most manipulative man in the DC universe really need the power to control minds? Probably not, but it did make him exponentially more dangerous, and more exciting to see show up in your favorite titles. When Lord collapses shortly after the Gene Bomb is detonated, he is taken to hospital. Though they seem to be sworn enemies, Amanda Waller comes to visit. In a rare moment of emotion, she reveals that she respects Lord and thinks he is (and we quote) “the best” while he is unconscious.

HE BLEEDS POWER (LITERALLY)

Super powers are a lot more interesting when they have a drawback, or a “tell” even. In Max Lord’s case, he gets a nose bleed any time he utilizes his psionic abilities. It’s kind of an awesome plot device because he can’t lie about if he is using his powers or not. When he is trying to control a powerful being, more than one person or creating psionic hallucinations, he may also experience more substantial bleeding from his eyes, ears and mouth, which adds a creepy, even horrific visual layer to his abilities. He’s also usually pretty happy about “pushing” people’s minds, as he calls it, and is often grinning ear-to-ear while hemorrhaging blood from his various orifices.

Perhaps the most gratuitous version of this physical manifestation of his powers was seen in “Brightest Day,” when he manages to mind wipe the entire planet! Even though he takes all the necessary precautions (basically, just multiple blood transfusions), he almost dies from blood loss.

UNRELATED FUN FACT: Aquaman can also get nosebleeds if he pushes his powers to the extreme. It tends to happen when he tries to command gargantuan sea creatures or whole schools of sea life.

BLACKEST NIGHT WAS HIS BRIGHTEST DAY

If you are writing an A-list hero’s next arc or a company-wide crossover and need a conniver pulling the strings behind the scenes, Max is a go-to sociopath. So, when this puppet master showed up in “Blackest Night,” it wasn’t too surprising. Being dead at the time, he was back as a Black Lantern, and his only mission was too get revenge on the one who had taken his life. His death is one of the top entries on this list though, so as to not reveal his murderer, let’s just say he is successful in thoroughly tormenting her.

His manipulations and flat-out mind control of superheroes and politicians alike puts him on par with DC’s worst villains, and unlike contemporaries like Amanda Waller and General Eiling, he seems truly unhinged. So, when he came back yet again in “Brightest Day,” and wiped all of humanity’s memories of him away, it wasn’t looking good for metahumans. However, before he could play his endgame, he is granted a White Lantern ring and told by The Entity to “Stop the war before it starts.” This involves Magog, Captain Atom and a future timeline where Lord has won his war against metas — for many, the darkest timeline.

BOOSTER GOLD SAVED HIS ANCESTOR

In 2007, Booster Gold got a solo series that spun out of the ambitious “52” event. The ongoing title was written by Geoff Johns and followed Booster as he was recruited by Rip Hunter (who just happens to be his son), to be a “time cop” and stop chronal anomalies. During his first mission, he saves one of his and Rip’s ancestors, therefore avoiding them being wiped from history. He also gets to drop in on pivotal moments for various other major DC heroes and villains.

In an ironic turn of events, he is thrown into World War I Germany and ends up saving an American soldier by the name of Cyrus Lord… who turns out to be the grand-pappy of Max Lord, the man who killed is best friend, Ted Kord. Interestingly, this storyline is very similar to the synopsis for “Legends of Tomorrow” Season 2. Not surprisingly, many fans had guessed Patrick J. Adams was playing Booster when his casting was announced.

JUSTICE LEAGUE VS. SUICIDE SQUAD: PART 1

The recent “Justice League vs. Suicide Squad” mini series is not the first time these two teams have faced each other down in a crossover. In fact, it’s not even the second or third time. Back in 1988, there was a two-part “Justice League vs. Suicide Squad” story that started in “Justice League International” #13 and concluded in “Suicide Squad” #13″ The plot involved the Squad going on an unauthorized mission to rescue one of their own from a Russian prison. “Unauthorized” meant they didn’t get the okay from Amanda Waller, who has the president call in the JLI to stop the Squad and avoid an international incident.

The only problem was that Max Lord saw this as the prefect opportunity to expose the Suicide Squad to benefit his JLI, stating that “it would help our standing tremendously with the foreign governments that don’t yet fully trust us.” However, things don’t go according to either Waller or Lord’s plans and their stand-off ends in a stalemate. At this point, Max is still in the hospital recovering from being shot in the “Millennium” event.

HE MURDERED BLUE BEETLE

The most important facts about Maxwell Lord are which major Justice League member he murdered in cold blood, and which of DC’s Big 3 ended up compromising their morals by breaking his neck. But let’s start with Lord’s most famous murder, which broke the hearts of DC fans worldwide. When his former cohort Blue Beetle figures out his nefarious intention to eliminate metahumans in “The O.M.A.C. Project” (2005), he tries to explain himself.

Lord admits his fears about super-powered heroes and villains, and says he had wanted to bring Beetle in on the plan to neutralize this threat for years. In response, Ted clocks him square in the jaw and tries to escape. However, he doesn’t get far before getting jumped by Sasha Bordeaux, followed by a pummelling at the hands of an O.M.A.C. Lord makes him an offer to join Checkmate, but his curt answer of “Rot in hell” prompts Lord to shoot him in the head at point blank range, leaving one of the most lasting images ever in DC comics.

HE WAS MURDERED BY WONDER WOMAN

Max Lord is a master manipulator on the level of Lex Luthor and Amanda Waller, with the big difference between them being that he has powers. Because of his abilities and machinations, he was one of the main villains of the “Countdown To Infinite Crisis” and “Infinite Crisis” events. In “The O.M.A.C. Project” (2005), he utilized Brother I (aka Brother Eye) to catalogue the world’s metahuman population, with plans to eventually wipe them out with scores of O.M.A.C.s. Another aspect of this conspiracy involved him using his mind pushing abilities to control Superman to murder his JL colleagues.

While under Lord’s sway, the Man of Steel served Batman and Wonder Woman severe beat downs. However, Diana managed to get Lord in her Lasso of Truth and when asked how to free Superman from his command, Lord simply answered “Kill me.” She then proceeds to snap his neck in her bid to save the world. As the DC Comics Encyclopedia explains it, “Faced with the choice between saving millions of lives and keeping her oath to never kill, Wonder Woman killed Lord.”

What do you think are Max Lord’s most vile features or moments? Let us know in the comments!

The post Max Lord: 15 Truths About DC’s Biggest Liar appeared first on CBR.com.

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