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Sansan Meta - Beauty & The Beast

(Obscenely long wall of text ahead, you have been warned)

Tale As Old As Time

George R.R. Martin is a fan of the classics. He is influenced by authors like Tolkien, and by the stories told in different mythologies and fairy tales - so much so that, during his time working in TV productions, he was one of the writers of a modern version of Beauty And The Beast. There are many references to this particular tale in A Song Of Ice And Fire, and there is a character that fits the role of the Beauty perfectly: Sansa Stark the girl who spent the vast majority of her story being held hostage, and that is so beautiful that pretty much every boy and man of story lusts after her, even though she's yet to turn 14 in the books. She is also a hopeless romantic and dreamer, and wants her prince and epic love.

He's No Prince Charming

Sansa has quite a list of potential suitors/love interests, and they're all wrong for her in one way or another... more often than not, they're all wrong for her in MANY ways, including morality, age, power imbalance due to status, and even incompatible sexuality. For the sake of simplicity, I'll stick to the ones that, so far, are the most important for her story and development as a character.

First we have Joffrey Baratheon and Loras Tyrel. They both fit into the traditional idea of what a girl like Sansa would want, the first being a literal prince, who Sansa is engaged to for quite a while, and the later being a handsome knight that she fantasizes about despite already being promised to another. She falls for both of them pretty hard - not in the sense of truly feeling love for them, but rather experiencing very intense crushes based on the idea of them, and on a shallow "connection." Once Joffrey shows his true colors, revealing himself to be a sadistic monster, Sansa's affection turns into hate. His appearance suffers no transformation and he is a monster mentally, not physically, but after Ned's death Sansa full on asks herself how she could have ever found him (physically) attractive, and due to the truth about his parentage, he is considered an abomination to their society. Sansa is still not completely over Loras (she fantasizes about him and is still very infatuated in the third book, and thinks of kissing him in the fourth) but not only is he a member of the King's Guard, meaning he cannot take a wife, he is also not interested in women, meaning there's zero possibility of them ever getting together - and they'd both be ridiculed if they did. Loras is not the Beast, or the transformed, redeemed prince. He is Beauty's idea of the prince.

Secondly, we have Tyrion Lannister, "the Imp" and Petyr Baelish, "Littlefinger". Both are much older men, who are very rich, very smart, and feel entitled to have Sansa - the first due to an inferiority complex and deep trauma brought on by being a dwarf in a deeply ableist society and for the tragic circumstances regarding his first marriage, and the later due to a life-long obsession with Sansa's mother, Catelyn Stark, who was "stolen" from him by Brandon and Ned Stark. Tyrion's physical appearance leads to many people calling him a monster, but instead of it being a punishment for his cruelty, he becomes cruel after a life of mental abuse, trauma, and manipulation, as well as his drinking problem. Petyr also doesn't fit the role of the cruel man who was cursed to look like a monster, since he is a monster that looks like a completely ordinary, harmless man. Sansa is not interested in either of them, but is forced to marry Tyrion (who is, at first, a far more humane character than Baelish, and their marriage is seen as a big joke by everyone), and is then rescued/kidnaped by Petyr.

Finally, we have Sandor Clegane. He is much older than her, his family doesn't have any real status, power, or money. He worked for the Lannisters, is a deeply traumatized man who is very prone to violence, was horribly disfigured, and is so dehumanized by everyone, including himself, that he is known as a dog - as The Hound, a loyal animal that shows no mercy to anyone he is ordered to attack. He is by far the one that has the least in common with Sansa's ideal lover. Yet he still ended up becoming the man Sansa compares everyone around her to, and despite him being a walking disaster of a person, she always seems to conclude that he is the superior option. And Martin clearly agrees, so much so that he constantly has him say the Beast's line of "I'm no ser."

So, we have the Beauty and we have the Beast. But how does their story play out in this version, and how can we even be sure we found the right Beast?

Be Our Guest

Right from the start, Martin is changing the formula. Instead of being a traveler that is imprisoned by the Beast after entering his home without permission/stealing something and is later freed by his self-sacrificing daughter, Ned Stark is a man that would have never left his home if it wasn't for the insistence of others and his fear that his friend was in danger, and Sansa comes with him willingly. She sees it all as the beginning of her song, of her epic romance, a dream that has come true. She has a prince and knight, and they will surely defeat and slay all the evil monsters of the realm, protecting the innocent and being seen as heroes. She finds that one or two people are not what they seem, like Sandor Clegane who despite being far from a good man is still much better than his brother, Gregor, who is as wicked as any traitor despite being a knight, but overall, everything is just like in the stories, just like in the songs.

Once she finally realizes what her situation truly is, it will be too late for her to save herself - or her father, who she will have accidentally sold out to his enemies. And while Sansa will beg for mercy for her father, Ned is the one who is going to make a sacrifice for her, admiting to a treason he did not commit and being ready to spend the rest of life away from the people he loves, only to then be killed anyway because, unlike the Beast, his captors (who would then have his daughter as their prisoner) did not stay true to their word. On top of that, her grief will not be seen as proof of her immense love for Ned or of what a kind heart she has, but rather as evidence that, in this version of the story, Beauty is a traitor.

"Take Me Instead"

Joffrey and Sansa's "romance" is a cruel alternative version of Beauty and the Beast, that seems to begin at the end and work its way back to the start. Sansa is happy and in love with her handsome prince, but he turns into a monster that holds her hostage and shows her father no mercy despite her pleas and of the promise he made her. The only thing that stayed the same was the Beauty finding herself in a situation in which her captor is replacing the company of her family - Joffrey is the one who gives her away to her husband on her wedding day.

Speaking of her husband, Tyrion also "doesn't play his part right." Not only does he never hold anyone of her family hostage, he offers Sansa to choose another husband for herself, younger and taller, but just as much of a Lannister, just as much of a captor. Sansa decides not to risk it and sticks with Tyrion, but she never really warms up to him enough for a romance to bloom, or for him to truly replace the presence of her family. Tyrion also develops a bond with Jon Snow and shows kindness to Bran, but he does because he feels a connection with them, not with Sansa. On top of all of that, he was held hostage by Catelyn and was denied guest rights by Robb at Winterfell.

The one that "fits" the traditional formula the most, at first glance, is Littlefinger. Sansa is replacing her mother as the object of his obsession, and he also makes her take her aunt Lysa's role as his co-conspirator after he murders her. But he goes a step further, seeing Sansa as his daughter and wanting to replace Ned (whose death he plotted) as a father figure in her mind, making his sexual advances towards her even more disturbing. The problem is that their "connection" is completely one-sided, since even though she tries to "be his daughter in her heart" and addresses him as father even when they're alone (because he told her to, not because she felt he deserved that title), she doesn't seem to want to be with him, in any way. She full on thinks to herself that, while Petyr treats her well enough, Littlefinger is no friend of hers and is not to be trusted.

As for Sandor, he also does a bit of a reversal of the tale, asking Sansa to leave with him to Winterfell, is turned down, lets her go - and then kidnaps her younger sister, who he will develop a platonic bond with, but there will still be quite a lot of bad blood between him and Arya.

The thing he does right, however, is "replacing" her family in a much more natural way than all the others, and it starts before they even have any kind of meaningful connection. When Ilyn Payne scares her, she bumps into Sandor and mistakes him for Ned. When Sansa's dire wolf is killed, King Robbert says Ned should give her a dog, and during the battle of Blackwater she runs to her room, wishes that Lady was with her, and then realizes Sandor is hiding there as well. In the fourth book she once again wishes for her dire wolf to be with her, but instead finds a blind dog on her bed and refers to him as a "Sad old hound", and it all happens right after she dreams of Sandor on her marriage bed, replacing Tyrion on their wedding night. After Stannis fails to take King's Landing, she dares to hope, despite knowing it's practically impossible, that the man who stopped him is her brother Robb and that he is there to rescue her. When she's at the Veil, she is saved from an attempted rape, and despite knowing he simply could not be there, her first thought is that her savior is Sandor. That last one shows that Sansa has come to see him in a much more positive light than one could expect considering Sandor's typical behavior.

"You Should Learn To Control Your Temper"

Sandor Clegane is a violent man. He drinks too much, his trauma makes him lash out, he has anger issues, he's almost completely cynical and bitter (almost), he is impatient, rude, and can often be a huge jerk. Even though his "transformation" into a Beast (physically) was not a punishment for his awful personality, said personality did come to exist, just like it happened with Tyrion. He is Joffrey's dog and kills an innocent boy because Cersei told him to. He threatened to kill Sansa twice, both on the first big scene together, and then again at their farewell during the battle of Blackwater - the later involving him actually having a knife at her throat. In the third book, when he is "mortally wounded", he says that he should have fucked her bloody and killed her instead of leaving her for Tyrion.

But here's the catch of that last scene: Sandor says all of that to Arya, not just hoping that it will make her kill him and put him out of his misery, but because he feels he deserves to die. He lists all of his sins with tears in his eyes. He admits his lust for a girl he knows is way too young for him, admits he was inappropriate and even violent towards her, and brings up how he always let Joffrey's other guards beat up Sansa, just standing there in his white cloak (a symbol of honor, used by those who were supposed to protect the innocent) - the same cloak that he tore and threw to the ground, stained with his enemies' blood, on the night he tried to offer her his protection, but ended up almost killing her due to a PTSD episode (combined with excessive drinking). He was also in tears at that moment. Sansa's kindness, and his failure to properly repay her for it, brought him to tears twice.

Sandor is, to put it mildly, a terrible person, and there is no one in the whole world who hates him for it more than Sandor himself.

There is, however, one person who, despite being well aware of his monstruous side, still cares for him. Sansa Stark herself. She wished he was around to protect her right before the Blackwater incident, and while it was happening she sang him a song about mercy, brought a hand to his face to comfort him while he cried (I'll never forgive Martin for not making it clear if she's touching his scars or not) and then not only chose to wrap his cloak around herself for a second time (we'll get to the first time later) but also kept it her chest with her summer dresses. She even wonders if she should have left with him, despite how unstable he was at that night and of how dangerous it would have been for both of them since she was far easier to recognize than him or Arya. The guy did a ton of bad things, but he clearly got some stuff right as well - but how exactly did he gain so much sympathy from Sansa?

There's Something Sweet, And Almost Kind

When I first read the books, I did not expect kindness to be a word that I'd ever associate with either Sansa or Sandor based on their initial behavior. Sansa was snobish and even a little cruel at times, and Sandor fucking murdered a child. I was fully prepared to hate both of these characters forever. Yet by the end of the first book I liked both of them (and their dynamic), and by the end of second one they were my favorite characters in the series - and my favorite pairing as well.

From the moment Sandor tells her about how his brother disfigured him and she tries to comfort him, I knew they were both more complex than I first thought, and that there was no way George R.R. Martin had that scene happen "for no reason" or just cheap exposition about Sandor. In Martin's own words, "there's something there."

That one, simple gesture, that one person treating him as something other than a monster meant a lot to Sandor, to the point that tried his best to show Sansa the same kindness she continued to show him. He tried to help her avoid Joffrey's wrath many times, the fact he touches Sansa in a surprisingly gentle way is brought up many times, and he actually found the courage to scream "enough" when she was getting beat up and having her clothes thorn in public, and the second he was able to, he gave her his cloak so she could cover herself up - meaning he did NOT just stand there and let it happen as he said he did; he simply didn't have the power and influence to get the king to stop doing as he pleased.

There was one person who did, though: Tyrion Lannister. Despite their less than ideal behavior, both men saved Sansa from Joffrey many times, and she is grateful - but Sandor is undoubtably the one she has more affection for, because while Tyrion helped her when things were already bad, Sandor was the one trying to help her prevent things from escalating to that point. His advices weren't always the best, but he bothered to put on the effort of offering said advice and, of all of her suitors, he was the only one Sansa had an actual emotional bond with. There's a reason why Martin had Sansa wrapped in Sandor's cloak (a marriage tradition) twice, but refusing to kneel so Tyrion can put his cloak on her during their wedding. She is rejecting the symbol of Tyrion's protection and romantic advances, while accepting Sandor's.

If anything, Tyrion and Sansa's marriage seems to be a subversion of Beauty And The Beast, because although she has no ill will towards him, Sansa clearly has no desire to ever see him again. She doesn't want him in her life, and she definitively doesn't want him to be her husband. Considering Tyrion forgot about her the second he found out the truth about Tysha - aka the woman who actually was moved enough by his kindness to fall in love with him despite their society having labeled him as a monster - it is very clear that compassion alone isn't enough to build a friendship, let alone a romance.

True As It Can Be

The South is a viper pit, especially King's Landing. Pretty much everyone is plotting something against someone, and using somebody else as a pawn in their game. That is true of almost all of Sansa's suitors.

Joffrey had no real interest in her besides torturing her, only ever treated her minimally well at the beginning of the story because he was obligated to (and even then his true personality would come up every now and again), lied to her about his plans to be merciful to Ned to give her false hope before having her watch his execution, and then only continued being engaged to her because his mother said he had to.

Tyrion wanted her for her beauty and because marrying her meant the North was his. He is usually pretty nice to her, but he is still a Lannister, and he put himself and his own family (that he doesn't even like) over her and the other Starks because even though he is kind enough not to be her enemy, he is still an ally of her captors. He doesn't let her in, meaning she never gets to know him on a deeper level - she knows nothing about how much he was looked down on by everyone, or about how badly his own family hurt him every single day of his life, and she doesn't know the "true" story of his first marriage. Yet Tyrion is unhappy that she won't open up to him, and also gropes her ont heir wedding night despite her and despite knowing that she was forced into this marriage, is upset by her basically saying there's no way she's ever going to want to have sex with him, because even though he feels genuinely sorry for her, his "right" as her husband and her "duties" as his wife matter more to him than her actual wants and needs - both of which include not being married to him.

Petyr is by far the worse of her suitors when it comes to being truthful. He helps Cersei manipulate her into writing the letters to her family telling them to bend the knee to Joffrey, gives Joffrey the idea to kill Ned, pays Dontos to pretend to be her ally and make her (indirectly) involved in the king's death, kidnaps her, lies to her saying Catelyn used to be his lover before marrying Ned, gets her involved in another murder (Lysa's), and then pretty much forces her to play a part on his weird daughter/lover fantasy that is a freudian nightmare that lasts 24/7.

None of them was ever truly, 100% honest with her. None but Sandor. He is attracted to her, yes, but he knows better than to try anything with a noble woman (especially one that is engaged to the king - to king Joffrey), and Sansa is likely not the first nor the last pretty lady to ever catch his eye, so that is not the reason he gets close to her. His "ambitions" begin and end with a roof over his head, getting enough money for some food, lots of wine, and maybe fucking a whore every now and again, so he definitively has no interest in the North.

He is drawn to her for her personality, her kindness, and because he recognizes the unfairness of her situation. He is completely honest, including about his highly inappropriate attraction to her, his violent tendencies, and that he thinks all of her beliefs are wrong. She even knows of his biggest secret/trauma, because he told her about it (or rather blurted it out at a completely inappropriate time, in a very deranged way). He put all his cards on the table from the very beginning, and he constantly reminds her to keep her eyes open so she won't be fooled by anyone. He might not be the most polite and pleasant person to talk to, but he is the only one Sansa knows isn't lying to her since he quite obviously has no ulterior motives.

Hell, Sandor even goes as far as lying for her to spare her from being punished by Joffrey at the beginning of the second book. He claims to be the king's dog, and says "A hound will die for you, but never lie to you", but the person he never lied to, and almost died for, was Sansa. And on top of that, their dynamic starts with him trying to open her eyes and make her see that world isn't like in the songs and in the sheltered reality of Winterfell. Sandor is the one person in her life that never hid anything from her.

That means that he is also the only one she is honest with. Tyrion, her husband and the kindest of her suitors (at least until he goes off the deep end after he finds out the truth about Tysha) is not someone she trusts in the slightest, and he falls for her lie that she is going to the god's wood to pray - a lie that Sandor sees right through immediately and that was the one time Sansa lied to him. Her entire "relationship" with Joffrey is based on the lie that she is loyal to him despite his cruelty, and Littlefinger full on says that she is not supposed to say anything that could ruin his completely one-sided, semi-incestuous fantasy.

Sandor, as usual, is set apart from everyone else in her mind and seen as preferable. I cannot blame her one bit. Yet despite this, I also can't blame her for not leaving with him when she had the chance.

Neither One Prepared

Sansa and Sandor's situation in A Clash Of Kings can be summerized as "Right person, wrong time." No scene is better proof of that than their interaction during/after the battle of the Blackwater - which ironically enough is a favorite of most fans of the pairing, myself included.

During what can only be described as a PTSD episode, Sandor turns his back on the Lannisters, on the king, and goes to Sansa. There is A LOT of marriage symbolism in that scene (Sandor swearing to protect her, Sansa wrapping his cloak around herself, the two of them are in bed together, Sandor almost kisses her, and there's blood stains on white clothing). He offers to take her back to Winterfell, swears no one would ever hurt her again because they're all afraid of him, and wants a (literal) song from her. He also very clearly wants to have sex with her, and, due to his fragile mental state, snapped and almost killed her when he felt rejected.

Now, let me get one thing out of the way: I don't believe Sandor wanted to rape her. He is a violent, unstable man, and like all the male characters in the story he is sexist, but he is no Gregor Clegane or even a Robert Baratheon. He doesn't think he is entitled to sex, and when he wants it, he pays for it. He made inappropriate comments towards Sansa a few times, but he chastised himself for it and of all Sansa's "suitors" he is the only one (excluding Loras for obvious reasons) who never touched her against her will (even Sweet Robin kisses her without consent). When he found about her being forced to marry Tyrion, he was glad that she managed to flee him, and when the men talking to him brought her beauty, he made sure to bring up her kindness. After Sansa has her flowering and everyone is basically acting like that means she's an adult, he is the one who says that while she is starting to look like a woman she is still a little bird. His attraction to her is creepy and Sandor is well aware of it - that's why he refuses to act on it.

And while in a previous interaction he said he'd have a "song" from her, with it being an euphemism for sex, he did that while scoffing at the notion of Sansa literally singing to him, by saying the song about Florian and Jonquil is about a fool and his cunt, and rejecting her offer. But on that moment, even though he is literally on her bed, Sandor explictly brings up that same song he rejected by name. He wants sex, but that's not all that he wanted, and when he held the knife to her throat and said "sing for your life", without touching her in a sexual way and not getting mad when she did start singing it proves he was being very literal and NOT threatening to rape her.

That being said, everything the Hound did on that scene is still completely unnacceptable. He was in her room, in her bed, without her knowledge or permission. He scared her because he was visibly out of his fucking mind. His idea of keeping her safe was risking her life by wanting to bring her along in a dangerous journey without any kind of plan. He wanted sex with a 12-year-old. He almost killed her. All of that is why, once he comes to his senses, Sandor cries, backs off, and leaves his stained white cloak behind as a symbol of his disgrace and shame - had Sansa not chosen to wrap herself in it and even keep it, this scene could have been read as her rejecting the possibility of a future romance between them, just like she did by not kneeling to Tyrion on their wedding day.

The Blackwater scene is brilliant and incredibly important because, while it shows the chemistry and potential for this pairing, it also highlights why they were not supposed to be together at that point:

1 - Even if the Hound can control himself 90% of the time, and Sansa is able to easily calm him down whenever he does go beserk, it is still unfair to place such a responsibility on her, and constantly being scared of her partner, even he never physically hurts her, would completely wreck her mental health.

2 - Sandor's misery will only get worse if he doesn't find some way of dealing with his trauma.

3 - While Sansa likes Sandor, and would later realize she's attracted to him, she's still a child. She might grow to love Sandor someday, but at that moment, the kind of romance she wanted and was ready for involved sweet words, love songs, a dashing young knight giving a beautiful young maiden a rose after he wins a tourney and maybe a kiss or two, not sex with a man twice her age who is drunk as dog, in the middle of a panic attack, wounded, and covered in puke and blood from the men he killed.

The message is very clear: if these two are to ever be together, in any way, Sandor can't be the Hound anymore. That side of him has to die. Luckly, Martin already took care of that for us.

"Kill The Beast"

Sandor went through a horrible trauma when he was disfigured by his own brother, and in many ways he made it worse by trying to "cope" with it by becoming (almost) completely cynical, fully accepting violence as normal and even enjoyable, and by drinking a lot. A LOT. Sandor's main survival tactic, and the thing that is slowly killing him, is his refusal deal with his emotions, or accept that he has them, out of fear of being hurt again.

In many ways, his interactions with Sansa have a lot in common with the typical romance in which an immature boy likes a girl and has no idea how to desmontrate it properly - when Sweet Robin kisses her, she explicitly compares said kiss to her false-memory of kissing Sandor, and when Arya sees him crying after being burned during his fight with Berric, she says he looks like a little boy. Even some of his cruel/rude comments can be seen as a deliberate attempt to shock people, piss them off, and keep them far away from him.

But the Hound isn't just a reflection of his immaturity. He is, above all, a manifestation of Sandor's rage and pain, pushes him to lash out against the whole world, and makes him a very dangerous... that's why George straight up made him go through the ASOIAF equivalent of therapy and rehab.

After having Sansa pray for him, hearing her sing about mercy, and confessing his sins to Arya, the hound "dies" slowly and agonizingly, being found by the Elder Brother - who somehow knew a whole lot about Sandor's life despite finding him almost dead, and said "The Hound is dead, Sandor Clegane is at rest" highliting a separation between the two. And then, on the Quiet Island, there is now the gravedigger, a huge man who just happens to have a lame leg, like Sandor, and has his horse, who is as temperamental as it's owner.

The Beast is no more. Now there is only the man. But will the Beauty accept him?

Tune As Old As Song

To the shock of no one with a minimally functioning brain, songs are very important in this book series, which is literally called A Song Of Ice And Fire and in which the author is constanly showing us songs that thematically fit with a character's story, and that even foreshadow things that will happen. Since Beauty and The Beast is Martin's favorite story, it makes sense that the characters representing that tale get not one, not two, but three different songs about their relationship and hinting at their future romance with all the subtlety of a brick to the face.

The first one is the Mother's hymn, a song about mercy in wartime, representing Beauty's kindness to the Beast as well as him freed of the curse. This song is the most obvious since it's sung by Sansa herself to Sandor on the Blackwater scene, the verses of "Soothe the wrath, tame the fury, teach us all a kinder way" fitting perfectly with her pray for him before the battle, telling the Mother to save him if she could and to gentle the rage inside of him.

The second is The Bear And The Maiden Fair, a song about sex/rape involving a beautiful, delicate young girl, and a "bear" (an older, beastial man). We see it come up while Sansa is talking to Ollena and Magery Tyrell... and fantasizing about Loras. While she doesn't imagine full on sex with him, she sees herself feeling him up underneath his cloack - which is a great sign since it shows she's starting to see sex as something she could want and enjoy instead of enduring. It is important to note that, while he is the object of lust in this fantasy, Loras doesn't fit the role of bear at all. If only Sansa had a potential love interest that is compared to an animal, be a bear, a wolf, or a dog all the time...

The third and last is one that, despite being mentioned constantly, we still don't have the lyrics to: the song of Florian and Jonquil. "A fool and his cunt" as the hound so kindly put it for us.

The fool who became a knight out of love for a woman. Sansa offers to sing this song to Sandor, and he later demands it. Dontos (who is an agent of Littlefinger) explicitly compares his situation with Sansa to this song... right before she runs into Sandor and he warns her about all the liars that surround her (once again, Sandor is naturally taking on a role that Petyr wants to forcefully insert himself into).

Considering how often the song is mentioned, we're definitively going to get it, and it will probably be when Sansa and Sandor are ready to actually be romantically involved with each other. There is a bit of an awkward situation since, despite noticeably maturing, Sansa is still very young, and will stay too young for Sandor since Martin will no longer add in a five year time jump, meaning she won't be an adult once they're reuinited - but at the very least we're already seeing Sansa's interest in Sandor developing, as well as her understanding of the world, and especially love and sex, maturing so they'll be on a more equal footing.

There May Be Something There That Wasn't There Before

"The Unkiss" is one of those things us Sansan shippers talk about over and over again, and for good reason. It is, in George's own words, Sansa correcting the events of her last interaction with Sandor, adding to their bittersweet goodbye a kiss that never happened.

Sansa "remembers" that moment a few times, but there is one specific scene that makes it very clear why Martin added it there: when Sansa is asked if she knows what happens between a man and a woman on the wedding night. Now, remember Sansa IS married. To Tyrion. Yet is Sandor she is thinking of when they are getting married, when they kissed, and she even dreams of him turning into Sandor - and during that dream she also finally understands what Sandor meant when he said he'd have a song from her, whether she sang it willingly or not.

Sansa has, unfortunately, experienced A LOT of unwanted advances from many men, and yet whenever she thinks of sex she pictures either Loras or Sandor (and like I said before, only one of these two is really an option). It's her transition from childhood to her teenage years and eventually to adulthood. The Knight Of Flowers is a nice dream, a young girls fantasy that she has not yet moved on from. Sandor is rough and often unpleasant, but he is real. He is the man she will love in the future.

We even have Cersei say that Sansa would be "Singing to the stranger, begging for his kiss" (REAL subtle there, Martin) and while she obviously meant it as Sansa begging for death, come on! Who is the guy constantly associated with death, who has a horse named after the God of death, said "knights are for killing", and that Sansa has already promissed a song to? I believe the subtext is rapidly becoming text here.

So Sansa is becoming/realizing she is romantically and sexually attracted to Sandor, he is obviously interested in her, and the Hound is dead. Everything is working as it should... but they're in completely different places. How do we know that they will ever be reunited and that this won't be just a bittersweet "What could have been"?

Ever Just The Same, Ever A Surprise

In one of Sansa's chapters in A Storm Of Swords, she is having a meal with Littlefinger, her uncle by marriage, and he offers her a pomegranate. This happens after he has stolen her for himself, and, in the words of Ned Stark, winter is coming. Anyone who knows even a little bit about Greek myths can the similarities between that situation, and the story of Hades and Persephone. The god of death taking his niece to his realm (volutarely or against her will depending of which version of the myth we're dealing with), and once she eats part of a pomegrante, she has to spend at least three months with him each year - the winter months.

Considering the seasons last YEARS in the world of Westeros, this could easily be a symbol of how Sansa will be trapped with Peter for a long time... if it wasn't for the fact that she refused to eat the fruit. Martin was also kind enough to describe Littlefinger openly shown with his hands dirty with what looks like blood on that same scene, indicating not only that Sansa will escape him, but also that his downfall is right around the corner.

There's one more story that also shows that there's just no way Peter will be able to keep Sansa around for much longer - his own life story.

Littlefinger was completely obsessed with Catelyn and did all he could to make her his wife, but lost her both to Brandon and Eddard Stark, two northerners, all the same. He has now shifted his focus to her daughter, who is very simmilar to her, and who as I've already shown you, is clearly much more interested in Sandor Clegane - a man with dark hair and grey eyes, and who tried to be Sansa's night in shining armor not too long ago.

So there we have it. All the pieces are falling into the place and the future events are set up. We just need to see them playing out now (oh Martin, forget the Targaryens for just a few months and at least give us the sixth book already, will ya?)

#sansan meta #book sansa #book sandor #sansan #sansa stark #sandor clegane #beauty and the beast #sansa meta #sandor meta #the hound and the little bird #sandor x sansa #i'll stop shipping it when martin stops shipping it

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happyocelot · 2 years

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Haku, Hinata, and Precious People

“When a person… has something important they want to protect… that’s when they can become truly strong.”

***

In this post, I’ll compare and contrast two different characters, their relationships, and their effects on Naruto, as well as clear up misconceptions and inaccuracies surrounding these characters and their roles in the story. These two are so similar, yet so different, that they’re worth exploring: Hyuuga Hinata and Haku.

Please note that this is just an essay and not intended for “bashing” purposes.

I’d just like to say that Hinata is one of my favorite Naruto characters, and NaruHina is the relationship I love the most within the series. I also really love Haku and find him to be a great and interesting character who set the tone for many of the recurring thematic elements in the series.

I’ll start with a brief description of Hinata as she’s presented to us in the manga. We’re first introduced to her in the Chuunin Exams, as a shy, timid girl with an aristocratic, overbearing, and abusive family, who disdain her because they believe she is weak. Her greatest attributes are her kindness, gentleness, and unwillingness to hurt others; these, combined with her fearful nature and serious self-esteem issues, make her unable to utilize her latent abilities to their fullest, a fact that her cousin Neji cruelly uses to browbeat her. She’s inspired to change herself thanks to Naruto’s encouragement and adopts the same ninja way as him - to never go back on one’s word. This newfound moral courage allows her to survive even the most hopeless situations, strengthen herself, and quite literally save the day, both against Pain and Obito.

Haku, unlike Hinata, was introduced a bit earlier, during the Land of Waves mission, the first arc of the series. Just like Hinata, he is known for being kind, gentle, and unwilling to hurt others. He is an orphan from the Land of Water with a rare ability called Ice Release and a tragic family history - he accidentally killed his father, who had killed Haku’s mother. The Land of Water was in a constant state of war, with kekkei genkai users hated, singled out, and targeted for special abuse. He inherited his Ice Release from his mother, who kept it a secret until his father found out and killed her and unsuccessfully tried to kill him. After these events, we are told that he was a lonely orphan who wandered the streets, hated by everyone and wanted by no one, until he was discovered by Zabuza, who valued him for his Ice Release and trained him to be the ultimate weapon; though he’s kind, Haku learns to kill his kindness in the service of Zabuza, who he credits as the first person to ever acknowledge him, thereby becoming a precious person to Haku.

Now, these two characters have a great many similarities as well as differences. As mentioned above, they are both kind and gentle people with miserable pasts, who credit an important person with acknowledging or saving them, people who became “precious” to them. However, Hinata’s character develops significantly more positively than Haku's for a variety of reasons.

To begin with: the nature of their inspirations is significantly different. Many, many anti-Hinata people like to make the claim that she’s not a strong character, that she’s weak, that her whole life revolves entirely around Naruto as his satellite, and that she has no significant ambitions or personality other than to be with Naruto. This is a massive mischaracterization of Hinata. She is Naruto’s friend and love interest in the story, that is true. This isn’t very different from Iruka, Kakashi, Jiraiya, and Killer B being described primarily as Naruto’s teachers, Team 7 as being Naruto’s new family, the Konoha 11 and Sand Siblings as being Naruto’s friends, or the Akatsuki as being Naruto’s enemies. Hinata does not stand out significantly in this regard; being Naruto's friend and love interest does not do her any particular disrespect in the series, as mostly every character is framed in this way.

More to the point, Hinata’s life does not revolve around dating Naruto, pleasing Naruto, making him happy, or even helping him reach his goal as Hokage. Her goal is actually to change herself, for herself, for her own self-improvement.

Even in scenes where she says she wants to walk with him side-by-side, holding his hand, this is presented as supplementing her aforementioned goal of changing herself, and does not actually overtake her goal of self-improvement. More tellingly, the imagery of walking side-by-side with someone and holding their hand is one of equals, not of one person revolving around another person like a satellite.

The only time she’s ever actively pursuing a relationship with Naruto is in the Last, a movie about how she and Naruto got together; even in her “confession” as she’s about to fight Pain, she merely explains to Naruto why she stepped in when he asks her why she’s there. She went in there to save him after he saved her. This is actually why I find people who complain that Naruto didn’t respond to her confession to be missing the point; that was never the intent of that scene (plus, Naruto had his own issues in not understanding entirely what she meant). If you remove all the romantic connotations of her relationship with Naruto, her character would survive intact and would most likely resemble Neji or Gaara’s development, two other characters who were in the “darkness” and were inspired to change because of Naruto (though oddly, they never seem to receive hate for this unlike Hinata).

Now, we move on to Haku. Unlike Hinata, Haku’s inspiration was Zabuza, and in Haku we find everything that Hinata is accused of being. Zabuza and Haku’s relationship is not presented as one of equals. Zabuza and Haku’s relationship is extremely unbalanced and unhealthy. Haku gives and Zabuza takes. Haku is a tool that Zabuza uses. Haku’s dream is only to make Zabuza's dream come true. He doesn’t even have a dream of his own, just his own. He compromises his kind nature by going along with Zabuza’s murderous behavior, perhaps not even seeing the need to stand up to him. He is literally a satellite of Zabuza. His character revolves entirely around Zabuza, and together this duo causes a huge amount of mayhem and destruction in the Land of Waves. He gives up his life for Zabuza, a man who never thanked him. It’s only after his death, after all was said and done, that Haku ever found out that he was important to Zabuza too. This is unlike Hinata, who actually challenges Naruto as he’s about to give up and slaps sense back into him.

One bond is constructive, the other is destructive. One bond fashions a kindhearted person into a tool for the whims and fancies of a murderous person, and the other makes a kindhearted person strong enough to inspire others in turn, without making them lose that essential quality of kindness, and prevents them both from falling into darkness and despair.

One is presented as a cruelty of the shinobi world that inspires Naruto to seek his own ninja way. The other is the culmination of Naruto’s ninja way.

And that, friends, is the difference between Hinata and Haku.

#hyuuga hinata #naruhina #naruto

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sakebytheriver · 2 years

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If you got a chance to make your dream film with an unlimited budget/resources what would it be?

Oh God what a question, I have so many big ideas for stuff I'd want to make, most of which are not movies/films but TV shows instead, like the crazy complicated high concept sitcom dissection series I've been drafting, or the numerous ideas for reboots or continuations for already existing properties I have like a queer poc lead reboot of Firefly that I've only created character bios for, or the original prequel TV series I have a pilot outlined for Vala Mal Doran from Stargate SG1 about her time before she joins the team but after she's no longer the host of a Goa'uld, or the live action reboot of American Dragon Jake Long that exists purely in my head, and I have an idea for a Joker style stand alone tragic romance movie for Mr. Freeze and Nora, that I've completely outlined and have started writing a screenplay for

But I think if someone were to approach me today with this offer, there's one movie I'd make in a heartbeat. I have finished screenplay about two high school seniors, a second generation Chinese boy named Jin and a darkskin black girl who just moved to the area named Shirley, falling in love in the 1960s in that liminal space where school integration had just started, but interracial marriage was still illegal federally in San Fransisco Chinatown. It's a period piece romance filled with all the tropes of the genre with many lingering shots on their hands with their fingers almost touching but not quite, a scene with their own version of prom and another scene on a ferris wheel where they talk about running away together, a bubbly lesbian best friend character that acts as their wingman, the forbidden/secret romance they develop etc etc.

I love the characters in that script so much, I have such an emotional attachment to them and to their story, it's a bittersweet story that I personally think the phrase "two ships passing in the night" was invented for (do not judge me but the song The One by Taylor Swift was literally such a big inspo for their romance, there were days while I was writing this screenplay that I just put that song on repeat to get me in the zone because that song was literally written for these characters and if I was to make this movie that song would HAVE to be included it is literally their song I'd make it into their theme song).

I wrote the screenplay after being inspired by this tweet

And I even incorporated those pictures into the story, having Shirley and Jin take pictures in a photobooth at a fair and then the end of the movie has a closeup on their pictures that fades into the real life pictures of couples from that time as the last frame of the movie.

Now, I'm going to talk about Jin and Shirley as characters because they are my babies and you should know about them.

Jin is the second son of Chinese immigrant parents who own a laundromat. His older brother is the disowned family disappointment whose failures loom over Jin's every action. Jin's parents want him to become a doctor, but he's the loner character archetypr that always has a book in his hand and he even has a journal always on him that he writes quotes down into that touch him in some emotional kind of way. Jin is Shirley's manic pixie dream girl and he is very happy being so. Shirley tells him he should be a writer one day and he laughs her off thinking it's an absolutely ridiculous idea because he'd always been told by his parents that he was going to be a doctor and that he had to make money and that he could never end up like his brother, but she doubles down basically telling him it's obvious that writing would make him happy and the first thing Jin ever wrote was a sonnet for Shirley. And throughout their relationship he is always writing her poems and notes and little things that he slips in her locker or her books or into her hands at the end of the day after he's walked her home, because he always walks her home, because he always asks her at the end of the day if he can walk her home and at the end of their story he promises that for her, he will never stop writing.

And Shirley, my sweet, soft-spoken Shirley, she's the oldest child and about to be the first in her family to go to college. She's a math genius that I may or may not have taken some inspiration from the West Computers of NASA to write her character. She's the logical left-brained counterpart to Jin's manic pixie dream girl energy, she even tells Jin outright that it would be a bad idea for them to be together, but then she's the one to kiss him first after he saves her from a group of bullies. There are a lot of references to princesses and damsels in distress and princes and knights in shining armor, with Shirley telling Jin he is not her prince or her savior and she absolutely doesn't need him to be and him saying of course he isn't but if there's a time when he can take a punch for her he will every time. Shirley starts the film shutting out her emotions and focusing instead on the logical side of things, but as she slowly starts to fall in love with Jin she opens herself up to her feelings and emotions, and just as she inspired him to become a writer he inspires her to use her mathematical genius to become a programmer, (since at the time it was a relatively new career that seemed to be the career that the female computers were starting to move towards instead). Also Shirley has a very strong relationship with her family, it's a lot more loving and supportive than Jin's, but she still keeps their relationship a secret from them out of fear that this could be the thing that takes all of that away. She has a scene with her little brother when he walks in on her and Jin kissing, that is like the biggest turning point in terms of her journey with her emotions. In the end, she's the one to walk away first, but she's also the one that makes sure the two of them will never let go of each other in some way or another.

Anyways, I've probably rambled on about this movie for long enough and I doubt this film will ever be made and if it is it'll be years before that ever happens. I really wrote this script because I have always wanted to write a movie where an East Asian man is the handsome charming love interest and a darkskin black woman is the soft instantly loved beautiful main character in a romance movie, because these two groups of people almost never see themselves in those roles and they have never both been in those roles in the same movie which I personally think is a crime. This film will probably be my Magnum Opus if one day I have the money and ability to make it, because I love it so much and I would make sure that that love is in every single frame. The genre and the story itself is kind of cliche and played out and it's nothing like EEAAO or the big Blockbuster superhero movies with big effects and high concept sequences and storylines, but it's something soft and sweet and meant for people to see something new and different in a genre so familiar and done to death that is meant to make you feel like you've just been given a tiny glimpse at this one moment in the lives of two people who could have existed in the past with an emotional journey that I ultimately want to leave the audience with a sense of bittersweet longing and maybe one day it will

#ignore me #personal #ask #answered #esevik #my writing #film #movies #tv #long post

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dangermousie · 1 year

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S2 ep 7

Aka the last ep before Ivan acquires a body count.

1. I have never watched a reunion between a character I adore and character I like and where I don’t ship them with anyone else at this point in the story with more exasperation. JUST END IT!!! Ivan is probably in my top 5 show characters of all time and I like Caro just fine in s2 but this is a ship that just does not work. She is not in love with him (I don’t think she ever was) and by now, even if he hasn’t caught on, neither is he. It’s just inertia and familiarity and need to have someone. And I don’t even know why Caro came back to him again - he wasn’t chasing her any more, it’s not love, it’s no longer pity, so what? Knowledge that he is a good boyfriend who treats her as a princess? But then what does it say about her supposed great thing for Marcos - it was one thing when she gave up on Marcos because she felt so bad for Ivan who was broken at the time. It’s another matter when she gives up on Marcos because Ivan is a solid boyfriend. Not much of a deep yearning for Marcos to be had there.

I do love that the show never turned either of them into a bad guy or even gave one of them some epic love that ended the relationship - Caro was never obsessed with Marcos and it was a long time after his break up with Caro that Ivan hooked up with Julia. It’s just sometimes two perfectly fine people are not compatible. Anyway, I am with Julia - having a hormonal roommate waking you up because she snuck a dude in and is loudly making up is a quintessential experience in college but annoying as hell :P

2. Since this is a rewatch, any time I see Amelia and Marcos interact, I get a full body shudder. Enjoy dying in a literal ditch, statutory creep!

3. Teacher is terrorizing a student. Is anything gonna happen to them for that? Of course not. But also start of explicit theme that people who prey on underage students are horrors. He spins some story to Julia that he loved the missing girl and Julia (who after all, had a “relationship” with her stepdad) views it as tragic and romantic. But we the viewers are shown that in addition to statutory, he murdered the girl. Math teacher, Julia’s step dad, Amelia - the show never goes into “eh nbd” territory - is is always a symptom of hidden horror.

4. “Gnome” became friends with Paula because she was a ringer for Irene (because she is a clone!) who was kind to him back in 1970s. Once again, in retrospect, Nazis is so obviously an answer to who is doing stuff - they threw away the “damaged” twin - hell, the “gnome’s” mother hated him and said she wished he died. God. They are horrors. (Side note - how much do I adore that Nazi Prince Marcos (with daddy and granddaddy being high up Nazis in this org) brings them down working with so many types of people they hate - son of “undesirables” (teen druggies) Ivan, resident of psych ward Maria, Jewish Fermin, etc etc. In your face!)

5. Slash goggles activated!

6. Marcos realizing Caro is the traitor. You know, I forgot this part - no wonder he has horrifying trust issues by the end. Even some of his closest allies betrayed him (either briefly like Caro or long term like Roque.)

7. Marcos continues to be the best brother ever. Seriously. But you know what hits differently on rewatch? Paula saying that sometimes people look good and are good, it’s not always a mismatch - and uses the example of their parents. Ah, the irony!

8. Slash goggles activating again.

But on a plot note, when Ivan is told Caro is a traitor, his initial reaction is to get in Marcos’ face and defend her; quite a contrast with Caro earlier in the season.

9. When Fermin told Maria he was in love with her, I screamed like I did the first time.

Maria is a fan too. Because a little later, this is going on. And I love that Fermin makes the first move but Maria is the one in charge.

But also, yet another total hint - the painting they found, that Fermin was looking for, is by Bosch - most famous for his phantasmagorical paintings of horror and hell. (Also, Nazis were known for stealing paintings of their victims.)

10. Caro trying to distract Ivan from her theft of evidence by appealing to his hormones is ummm.

Side note - what the hell school is it where students can full on make out half clad in bright daylight in their rooms and nobody notices. (To be fair, later on, Ivan x Julia were literally full on banging in school, but at that point, the place was openly overrun by Nazis, had the plague and/or was cordoned off by the military, so potential teen STDs were the least of their concerns.)

The thing where it goes from umm to WTF STOP GIRL!!! is when she tells him she loves him - and she never said it before. I do think she means it, even if not in a romantic sense - she feels guilty to him and she definitely appreciates how good he is to her, but she also says it as a distraction and that’s not good! (I do love that she is learning her tone-deaf self-righteousness in s1 was not awesome - here is Caro, the one who was most uncomprehending of people not wanting to search for truth for valid RL reasons, betraying that search for a valid RL reason of protecting her mother. I never got into any of her romantic stuff, but she had a really good character arc in the show.)

11. She is confronted by the gang for destroying all their evidence and she explains that she was threatened via her mother’s life and seriously, I don’t ship them but Ivan is boyfriend goals.

Here he is silently comforting her as they watch a snuff film of the judge (they are 16-17 and this is the second snuff video they’ve seen, my god! No wonder they never tell anyone again if they can help it - they get betrayed/it’s futile AND it gets innocent people killed.)

12. And the ep ends on the “gnome” being killed by the cops, for the sin of being different and for a murder that was actually committed by the evil org but he was blamed for because hey he looks like a freak. Summing up the theme that no authority can be trusted in this world because if they are not actively evil, they are complacent, easily fooled, and judging by appearances - powerful, well-mannered people can never be wrong, but those on the margins or that do not fit in, or are outside the structure (by being young, or with weird abilities like Julia or with mental stay record like Maria or w/e else) will not be listened to.

#spanish tv #el internado #mousie rewatches el internado

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sagittariuswritings · 2 years

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now that season 1 house of the dragon is over and the soundtrack is out, i can finally ramble about everything!!

i'm gonna be rambling a lot, and linking and timestamping so i'm putting the cut off here if you're not interested in my rambles!

main title - starting off strong with the game of thrones theme, of course

reign of the targaryens - just everything about it. it's a great combination of the existing game of thrones music we have with the new house of the dragon music. it's a perfect piece, and i just get feelings from it of this being the height of the house targaryen. the piece itself feels on top of the world about 3/4 through it

an impossible choice - my god, when i watched the scene of aemma's death, the music was what got me the most. the way ramin has the ability to play music into how the characters are feeling will never fail to amaze me

the prince that was promised - this piece feels like i'm being told a story, and when it was released with episode 1, i of course latched onto it seeing as it was all we had from the series until about 3/4 in

the power of prophecy - the second i heard this music with rhaenyra striding back into camp, i was HOOKED on that theme

surrender - this piece lives up to its name. it makes me feel like i'm just surrendering myself to whatever may come. it's a menacing piece as well, especially just considering the context of daemon being the most stubborn and petty human being to ever walk in his universe

whatever may come - a similar piece to i am hers and she is mine and break the wheel in my opinion; there's something about these 3 pieces that are so softly horny - and yes that is unfortunately the best description i can give you

the green dress - i wish the beginning of the piece wasn't so drawn out, because towards the end where the music really picks up, we get to hear alicent and team green's theme. i personally get light of the seven vibes from it, and i love it... it's just giving

house valaryon - there are no words. the way this theme matches that family and their style and just everything about them BAFFLES me. every single time i heard even just the slightest wind pipes when driftmark was discussed or it was set in driftmark, i fell more in love with their music

celebration dance - the second this music started playing i knew the night was not going to go according to plan for the wedding :|

we light the way - what a beautiful theme to a tragic wedding

destiny - the chills. THE CHILLS and emotions i went through because of the combination of the scene AND the music (specifically at 2:07 when it starts to climb)

funeral by the sea - another case where the music got me more than anything else. i was in shambles and tears. the violin, like in goodbye brother, has me in a death grip on me

aemond rides vhagar - this music combined with the scene had my eyes watering. it was such a beautiful scene (hE sToLL a DraGOn shut up let me live IT WAS CINEMATIC AND BEAUTIFUL), seeing how aemond (quite literally) got lifted by getting a dragon finally. the way the music would just match vhagar's movement, oh my god

sealed in fire and blood - what is there to hate about this music. it's just as ethereal as the scene in itself

protector of the realm - oh god my jaw was on the floor, tears were trying to sneak out, this music and viserys standing up for his daughter with every ounce of his life left PLUS the music...

intermission, i wish he would have released the music that was going during viserys' last dinner with the fam. diego mitre published a video of it on youtube (see here) and i just wish it was on spotify because that is currently my drug

lament & fate of the kingdom - quite similar to the green dress (alicent's theme), but the music in these is giving 'the realm is officially royally fucked'

dragons will rule the kingdom - yes

the crown of jaeharys - it starts off sad, perfect considering the scene, and it quickly leads into rhaenyra FINALLY getting what she deserves, and the relief the music provides but also has a hint of a heavy burden around it? ugh *chefs kiss*

bloodlines will burn - you can feel the fear of luke and the mischievousness from aemond in this, and then you get to around 2:40, when we see daemon breaking the news to rhaenyra about her son. but THEN as the music goes on, it slowly sounds almost horror-like, the slope downward of the music. i don't even have to see the scene of rhaenyra looking back into the camera to get absolute chills. you can FEEL rhaenyra lose it with the music alone, let alone emma d'arcy's phenomenal acting

the promise - it's just getting me amped up for season 2 which is too far away, but i love it. it feels like a mash up of everything we heard for season 1

THANK YOU FOR COMING TO MY TED TALK!

#ramin djawadi #soundtracks #soundtrack #music score #house of the dragon #hotd #game of thrones #got #eternals #the eternals #westworld

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mysteriouslyoptimistickid · 19 days

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ADORATION IN THE EYES OF THE BEHOLDER

Eros:

Eros is the Greek god of love. It represents romantic or passionate love. This one is the most popular form of all types of love in literature, especially in the classics and pre-classics, and likewise alluring. The more famous are Romeo and Juliet, Pride and Prejudice, and Anna Karenina.

Philia:

The word Philia stems from Philos. It is the love of goodwill and friendship. Furthermore, this understanding of love transforms the possessive love into an impulse for philosophy. Friendship is regarded highly in literature. There are many stories of true friendship such as A Tale of Two Cities and The Kite Runner that warm the cockles of your heart.

Storge:

Storge is the Greek word for natural affection. It is familial love. Little Women, Robinson Crusoe, Inheritance and The Weight of a Piano are most noteworthy examples of this.

Agape:

Agape is the universal love. It is the comprehensive feeling for the entire cosmos. This type of love in literature is more spiritually inclined. This genre includes powerful literary works such as Outwitting the Devil, The Disappearance of the Universe When Breath Becomes Air.

Ludos:

Ludos originated from the word ludo, meaning ‘I play’. This is the skittish kind of love. This type of love, in literature, is portrayed many times as betrayal. A few examples are Macbeth, Paper Princess, and The Sense of an Ending.

Pragma:

Pragma stems from ‘pragmatic’, duty and reason are the foundations. Consequently, it is seen in the form of arranged marriage. A beautiful classic- The Bride, and from more recent times, A Thousand Splendid Suns, and The Princess Diaries make you see the world from a totally different perspective.

Philautia:

Philia, which means ‘between equals’ , is the root for Philautia. Philautia means self-love, love within oneself, it is the process of loving ourselves. The most classic examples in literature are The Four Agreements, The Gift of Imperfection and Untethered Soul are more recent examples.

TOP TEN CLASSIC ROMANCES

Pride and Prejudice:

Why end with tragedy when you can end with a wedding? Jane Austen, that queen of Regency romance, wrote many love stories, but none can beat that of Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy. Their societal dance around one another is inescapable, and the threat of destitution looming over all unmarried women gives Elizabeth’s journey real tension. Pride and Prejudice endures as THE favorite literary romance.

Romeo and Juliet:

Before all the rest, Shakespeare wrote the quintessential tragic love story that has been the mold for star-crossed lovers ever since. Their families hate each other, but somehow, these idealistic adolescents find a love that could end all strife. Of course, we all know that it was not to be for Juliet and her Romeo. Whether you root for them or not, Shakespeare’s characters speak truths which have echoed through the centuries.

The Great Gatsby:

F.Scott Fitzgerald’s great American novel set during the Roaring Twenties gave us the story of Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby, a man who quite literally built his fortune just to impress the love of his life, remains separated from her until the narrator introduces them again.

Jane Eyre:

When Jane is hired as a governess to the ward of Mr. Rochester, she practically stumbles into his affections. But what do you do when the man you love forgot to tell you that he’s already married to a madwoman? Charlotte Bronte’s Gothic love story is at times baffling, but always filled with intensity.

The Notebook:

Nicholas Sparks’ first published book (and popular movie adaptation) tells the story of love’s endurance. Noah and Allie share an exciting teenage summer romance, which is stopped by Allie’s mother. Years later, they are reunited and rekindle their love. The story is told by an elderly man to his wife who is suffering from Alzheimer’s.

Gone with the Wind:

Scarlett O’Hara may be the epitome of a difficult woman, but Rhett sure loves her. Money, power, and the Civil War drive them apart, yet they are drawn back together time after time. Scarlett and Rhett share a stubbornness that makes their romance raw and unapologetic.

Wuthering Heights:

Catherine and Heathcliff, lovers without the opportunity. Their relationship grows from childhood but is sabotaged by both their family and themselves. The overlapping of family ties and romantic love may raise some eyebrows, but their story remains a much-beloved classic.

The Remains of the Day:

If your tastes tend away from the dramatic fire of your romance, Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel about the would-be love between an English butler and housekeeper may strike your fancy. It’s a story of what could have been, woven into the daily work of pre-World War II service.

Anna Karenina:

The passionate (and tragic) affair between Anna and her lover Vronsky is contrasted with one of the sweetest, most gentle romances in literature: Kitty and Levin. Although Kitty initially dismisses Levin for his age (fourteen years her senior), his patience and enduring love win her affection. And unlike most romances, the novel continues past their wedding day.

Lady Chatterley’s Lover:

Yes, it’s been accused of being thinly masked pornography, but the torrid love affair between Constance (Lady Chatterley) and her gamekeeper, Oliver Mellors, is filled with passion, class struggles, and a woman’s acceptance of her desires.

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ohnoitstbskyen · 2 years

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Ruined Miss Fortune vs Ruined King Miss Fortune

Ruined Miss Fortune is, to me, a deep disappointment of a skin, for multiple reasons.

The first is the method of her Ruination. Basically: Gangplank isn't dead and Fortune is super duper way the hell extra special scared of him, and so she voluntarily gets Ruined by Viego because he'll give her the power to definitely for sure kill Gangplank this time!

It sucks. The entire scene sucks. The way her characterization is played sucks. She is fully written as a Hysterical Woman™ who is too emotional to see reason and who gets corrupted because she can't handle her anger and fear, and the f***ing visual imagery of Miss Fortune willingly submitting to Viego by asking him to penetrate her with his eight foot Overcompensator Sword is just... good grief, the semiotics of that entire thing are just bafflingly bad.

The second is that if she had to get Ruined there was a much, much more compelling way to do it that would actually relate meaningfully to the core themes of the entire Ruination event.

Viego is driven fundamentally by a tragic loss, and total inability to cope with the grief of death. He lost Isolde and, being the spoiled little hyperromantic princeling that he is, absolutely could not accept that something he loved could be "taken away from him."

Miss Fortune is driven fundamentally by a tragic loss, and total inability to cope with the grief of death. In her case, it is the brutal murder of her mother by Gangplank, and the complicated mess of survivor's guilt and vengeful hatred that has left her unable to ever put her mother's memory to rest.

So... what if we had built some kind of thematic connection between the two characters, a shared form of loss, the connection of which is exploited by the abusive, manipulative monster to further his own goals? What if Viego had said to Fortune "I will bring back to life she who you love the most?" with the absolute insane certainty and sincerity with which he believes he will bring back Isolde?

And rather than MF being the dumbass who gets taken in by an obviously lying man's obviously false offer of power because she's just so scared of Big Bad Gangplank, she gets taken in by a moment of connection and a glimmer of hope, however vain, that the literal worst thing that ever happened to her can undone?

I dunno, given that the entire Ruined King event was thematically about learning to cope with grief, to let go of those who are dead and to stop making other people's lives and deaths about yourself, that seems to me like it would have been cool, actually.

Anyway the third reason is that the skin itself is basically a bland-as-hell "EVIL = SEXY!!!" fanservice skin, which first of all is extremely tame and boring as fanservice (srsly, cleavage and a bit of thigh action? That's the best you can do for a sexy evil pirate queen?), but which also simply does not fit the character story being told here.

Miss Fortune falls for power, she falls for the strength to destroy her enemies, she falls for the power to rule and control. The Ruined Skin looks no more dangerous, powerful or domineering than her Captain Fortune skin, it's just a sexy pirate halloween costume with all the colors turned off.

Now, in the spirit of fairness, there are some production reasons for this. It was not a Legendary skin and Riot puts a hard budget limit on how many actual changes you can make to a design at lower skin levels. So no changing her animation, for example, and only limited changes to her model itself and no changes to its rigging. There was probably a corporate and technical mandate not to stray too far from her base form.

On top of that there is in-game readability. Silhouettes are important for character recognition, and Riot are... usually quite careful about broadly preserving them skin to skin to avoid gameplay confusion. Usually.

So yeah, there's some limits on how much you can do, but if you want an example of what I would consider a good "Ruined" version of Miss Fortune, Riot Forge and the people over at Airship Syndicate helpfully went and made one:

Good feature number one: The Crown. The corruption of Miss Fortune as it is told in the Ruination is that she lets her paranoid lust for power blind her and this allows Viego to take over her mind.

So what do we have here? A crown literally blinding her, mimicking the shape language of Viego's crown, indicating his deception of her and his domination over her mind. That's some good visual storytelling.

It is also Sauron-esque as hell, so it reinforces Miss Fortune as an imperious, domineering, regal presence. Queen, sovereign, it is the visual language of power.

Good feature number two: the chains incorporated into her design, which are just about the most widely used visual shorthand for enslavement and control. Riot L4T3NCY, creative lead at Riot Forge, confirmed for me that this and the blindfolding of MF were both extremely conscious choices in her skin design here:

Good feature number three: Miss Fortune's own pirate aesthetic is entirely supplanted by Viego's Camavoran army aesthetics. There is no hint of the Bilgewater fashion left here, everything that was Bilgwater about her has been torn away, which again is good, solid, basic storytelling showing us that she is mind-controlled and subverted.

Good feature number four: I am definitely reaching here, but I quite like that the hands that grasp her guns are the most wraith-like and corrupted. It is Miss Fortune's grasp for power that is corrupting her, and it is the trauma of the loss of her mother, a gunsmith who is intimately connected to her weapons, which is ultimately the source of the paranoia and power lust that has destroyed her. Is this intentional at all? I have no idea, but I like the idea.

Good feature number five: It is still sexy. Not in as blatantly pin up-ish a way as the base game Ruined Miss Fortune is, but there's some solid Hot Mean Evil Lady appeal in that cleavage and armored bustier. MF has always been a flirty, sexy character (albeit definitely too much so in the past *shudders in League Judgment*), and that aspect is still present here, without being distracting from the character storytelling of the skin.

I think Miss Fortune being ruined by Kevin McKilledbyhiswife of Camavor is a bad idea on the whole, I think it gets catastrophically in the way of her much more interesting base story of slowly being corrupted by the structural violence and brutality of Bilgewater itself, reducing it all down to a "Sad Woman Very Angry About Dead Mom" personal grief narrative (which is honestly a little too eager to paint her desire to see justice done to Gangplank for his crimes as a bad thing.)

But if she has to be Ruined, at least do it with some gosh darn character storytelling as part of the skin. If she has to be Ruined, at least do it in a way that thematically reflects on and interacts with the general themes of the Ruination event as a whole.

Don't do it just for a D-tier generic hot lady fanservice skin.

#league of legends #miss fortune #ruination #viego #the ruined king #ruined king #gangplank #sarah fortune #sentinels of light #riot games #character design #league of legends lore

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hamliet · 3 years

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A Game of Thrones: Ming Dynasty Edition

Or, Hamliet received a recommendation for Qiang Jin Jiu (thanks @khunsimp) saw the premise of enemies-to-lovers, disgraced sons, and sins of the father themes, was like “that’s my jam,” and read 164 chapters in a single weekend. (There’s still like. ~120 to go that aren’t yet translated #fun).

It is indeed my jam and is essentially the love story of Mulan’s Shang and 2ha’s Shi Mei. I’m kidding, the leads are their own characters (very much so!) but that’s whom I kept comparing them to in my mind.

Shen Zechuan is a particularly compelling character. He’s introduced as a somewhat pathetic figure, a PTSD-stricken teenager who’s lost everyone he ever loved, was never really treated as a son by his father, and yet is being tortured and sentenced to die for the sheer fact that he is his father’s only surviving son. His father supposedly committed treason, for which Shen Zechuan pays the price. But then the story switches, and you see Shen Zechuan’s cunning nature, which is in many senses just as pitiful but dangerous. I mean the guy’s skinning people alive by chapter 30 so.

Xiao Chiye at first was, to me, likely to be less interesting as a character because I’m not usually into the physically driven characters--but I was wrong. He’s equally as well-developed and complex as Shen Zechuan, and his continual struggles with duty, his love for his family, and his internal struggles are compelling. His relationships with his family is particularly heartwarming. The scene where he tells his father he’s fallen in love with a man, essentially coming out to him, was deeply touching and wholesome--which stands out all the more because of the story’s extremely dark tone (which I’ll talk about later).

The plot is highly complex. It's also very political, which I enjoy, although I will admit that not having the conclusions yet definitely means some parts feel fragmented at this stage--but they probably won’t feel this way by the end. I’m highly intrigued by the mysteries surrounding Bai Cha, Shen Zechuan’s mother, and by the premise of Qi Zhuyin and Hua Xiangyi’s relationship (also, canon lesbian couple! Who are complex characters! It’s like the characters from Female General and Eldest Princess ended up in a good story!)

The story’s tone is quite dark--I literally have no expectations for any character besides, I’m told, the main pairing and the lesbians to get a happy ending. It’s very tragic and violent, dark and exploring the worst of humanity more so than the best. Hence, why I compare it tonally to A Song of Ice and Fire. However, that doesn’t mean the story is nihilistic--for the most part, it’s really not. That dark tone is its strength as much as it is also my largest critique.

For the latter element, there are chapters where the story can almost feel as if it is wallowing in that darkness--I’m not sure, for example, I needed the scene of a pregnant concubine being drowned, nor the told-to-us backstory of Mu Ru if she was never going to be properly explored before dying. Nor Li Jianheng’s tragic childhood, which was almost too much to bear especially with the ending he got. A lot of the unnecessary elements also seem to concern violence against women, and while it does have really nice female characters with arcs, this was... a lot.

However, as hinted above, the darkness does make the beautiful, loving, heartwarming, and yes, funny (the novel has a great sense of humor) moments shine more brightly. The way Xiao Chiye is clearly light to Shen Zechuan, and his own redemption might pave the way for Shen Zechuan’s growth. The story hinted early on that Shen Zechuan might have to choose between his hatred and his will to live, and recently picked up those threads again with Xiao Chiye’s father’s wariness of Shen Zechuan’s demeanor. I think this is a worthy theme and really hope it’s further developed through his character.

But this idea--that hatred helps him live--ties into two other strong themes of the novel: wanting to live no matter what it costs, and the cost of victory/defeat. Whether on a physical battlefield or a political chess game, trade negotiations, torturing a prisoner, a marriage, the story is constantly asking the characters what the cost of victory is, and when it is worth it and when it is not--when a defeat can truly be a victory in some sense. I’m very interested to see how these ideas continue to develop.

Anyways, I quite enjoy this novel, especially the main characters, and am interested to see where it goes! Personally, the writing is less my taste than MXTX’s works (which are very, very character driven in a personal way, and have a distinct kindness to their tone), but it is extremely well written and the two leads are excellent characters. The themes are worthy questions, and it’s truly moving and enjoyable. I definitely recommend it!

#qiang jin jiu #shen zechuan #xiao chiye #cezuan #xiao ce'an #shen lanzhou #hamliet reviews

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shaz-ni · 3 years

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Everyone thinks Cas only one who had free will because chuck wasn't controlling him but it was basically just Cas transferring his loyalty and devotation to Dean instead of God and heaven. Like he went from I serve my father and heaven, I will die for my father and heaven to I serve Dean and I will die for Dean.

And Dean just like God and heaven expected him to be a tool, to give him one hundred percent loyalty and follow orders without question.

And just like with heaven if he questioned orders or done anything for himself he was punished. Except with Dean the punishment wasn't quite as harsh as heaven. Dean's punishments were hurtful words like no one cares your broken or your dead to me and the silent treatment and orders to go to hell and abandonment once in hell which wasn't quite as harsh as literal torture or mind programming.

So because Dean was slightly less harsh on him Cas thought his new God was the most selfless loving caring person he ever knew. Once upon a time he had the same complete awe and faith in Chuck.

Like even his "we are real" scene. Cas desperately needed something to be real. For there to be some divine righteous being for him to serve because as much as free will was talked about Cas never had it.

He never got out of the mindset he had to serve someone, he had to be useful to have a meaning, his whole perceived purpose of himself was to be a sacrifice when the right time came.

He never learnt he mattered or he could be his own person. We came close in s15 ep03 he stood up for himself he left but then he came back because he had to serve had to be useful in the fight.

And his death scene wasn't really free will it was him giving up his life for this new God that Dean had become in his mind. Like that speech made Dean into some kind of God no one on this earth is the most selfless the most caring the most loving person that has never done anything wrong and has no faults unless you view them in some unrealistic Godlike pedestal. He paid his undying love and worship to his new God before laying down his life.

And I think Chuck knew this and was mocking it. He watched Dean and Cas and he pulled Cas on his self loathing and how he never done what he told because he knew Cas would hang himself on the metaphoric rope. The rope being Dean.

It wasn't that Chuck by blindsided or didn't notice Cas. Why bother with someone you know is going to do your own dirty work for you. Cas was going to doom himself completely on his own.

Chuck likely helped it along by nudging events to happen like Dean's prayer. The prayer was very likely Chuck's doing because at the time Chuck was trying to break Sam by telling him that him and Dean needed others that Dean would give up without others and him and Sam alone wasn't enough for Dean.

Chuck showed Sam a future where Dean gives up because Cas is in box and their other friends die whilst Chuck is forcing a situation where Dean is crying over Cas and not by Sam's side.

Two birds with one stone, try to weaken one target (Sam's) faith while strengthening the other targets faith (Cas) in the rope (Dean) that Cas is going to hang himself on.

If anything Cas was the one who Chuck got most satisfaction with. He let the story write itself apart from directing a few scenes with Dean and he got his tragic twisted story. The self loathing angel who longed to serve to be useful sacrificed himself for the man he had transferred all his loyalty to.

It was his happiness moment just saying he loved him and dooming himself into the empty a place worse than hell while the object of his affection had no reaction, didn't care and instantly forgot he had ever existed.

Chuck would of seen it as some type of mix between tragic storytelling of unrequited love and revenge on Cas for worshipping a fake God.

#anti destiel #anti dean winchester #cas never had free will #dean was Cas' new god #chuck loved cas' ending #cas was never free #cas deserved better

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bertolts · 3 years

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Maddie, I think you've finally done it. I think you've converted me to the Dramione side. Do you have any suggestions for fics?

OwO Oh boy do I. I have so many suggestions but I’ll just link a few that I’ve read and reread. I tend to lean toward angsty romance fics so I’m unsure if I have any fluffy fics. Unsure of what exactly you’re more into but these are some of my faves:

The Rights and Wrongs series by @lovesbitca8 : An excellent series focusing on Hermione’s and then Draco’s POV in a 2 part story of their post-war relationship. It’s filled with intense pining, angst, sexual tension, and slowburn. Part 1 is ‘The Right Thing To Do’ and Part 2 is “All The Wrong Things” Part 3 is a ‘Voldemort Wins’ AU set in the same universe. This part ‘The Auction’ is currently WIP and is quite dark so I’d recommend checking the tags before proceeding. Hermione is captured and sold into the service of Death Eaters. “But despite the horrors of Voldemort’s new world, help - and hope - seem to arise from the most unlikely of places.” There’s also a few ficlets/oneshots in this series. (Part 1 & 2 Complete - Part 3 ‘The Auction’ In-Progress)

Wait and Hope by @mightbewriting : Is a fic I love so much I just finished rereading it for the third time this past weekend. It’s a memory loss fic. Hermione loses that past 7 years of her memory and finds herself married to Draco Malfoy. It’s a bitter sweet and angsty fic about Hermione relearning her own life and relationships. Some of the chapters really punch you in the gut. I’m tearing up just thinking about it. (Complete)

Shattered Oaths by @ JustAlongTheMirrorOfErised : Just picked this up this past weekend. “There have always been whispers of old magic in the woods. Some say that you could make a promise to an ancient creature for whatever your heart desires. What the stories never told her is that all magic comes with a price. Hermione could never have known that the oath she broke as a child would threaten to destroy everything that she worked for and everyone that she loves.It all started with the being who spoke to her with words forged from liquid silver. Destiny is just as fickle as it is inevitable.” It’s a Fae AU and it is a delicious slow burn. Draco is a Fae and Hermione essentially stole his magic. together they have to try and restore the imbalance she created before they die or WORSE! It’s the type of trickster dangerous Fae lore too. The whole ‘power in a name’ type of magic(In-Progress)

Bittersweet and Strange by @ UndiscoveredQueen19 : “ Trapped to share the same cursed fate in a world ruled by Voldemort, Draco and Hermione find that their differences are what make them similar and that their flaws are what make them whole. Dramione AU with a Beauty and the Beast twist.” Draco is cursed, Hermione is a desperate order fighter, and the two get bound together and locked inside a manor. Very much angst and fluff. (Complete)

Isolation by @ bexchan : This fic has somehow become a staple to the Dramione community. This takes place post-Half Blood Prince. “ Ron and Harry are Horcrux hunting and Hermione has been left at Hogwarts to help the Order make it safe for the other students. Draco is forced by Snape to stay in Hogwarts for his own protection, but he can't leave the room he is given; Granger's room. Hermione is the only student trusted with this information, so her and Malfoy share the small space, and Draco tries to avoid insanity as he becomes increasingly isolated with only the Mudblood for company. Something's going to give.” Read this one awhile ago. I think I’m due for a reread because I don’t remember all of the details. (Complete)

Never In Heart by @ In_Dreams : “ Hermione Granger had never anticipated that Draco Malfoy would be her best friend, a decade after the war. She'd also never meant to wind up trapped in a marriage pact, borne of one late night with too much wine. But as his thirtieth birthday draws near, time will either seek to push them together or drive them apart.” This is heavy on the pining and is definitely a Friends to Lovers fic. It’s uber sweet but can get a bit heart-achey at times cause they’re idiots in love. I think this is also the shortest rec I’ve put on this list... (Complete)

Splash of Colour by @ kyonomiko : Here’s a fun short fic rec. This one’s 3 chapters and just recently finished updating. Hermione accidentally has a spell cast on her that makes her see the entire world in a different colour of the rainbow every day. But for some reason Draco is a different colour from everyone else. I thought it was pretty cute. (Complete)

Literally anything and everything that @senlinyu has ever written. Literally all of it. I’ve read every fic they’ve put on AO3. Manacled, All You Want, Love & Other Misfortunes, The Creature Anthology, etc. These works tend to lean towards darker themes, heavy smut or both. They also write a lot of creature fics which is my absolute favourite kind of AU. Sometimes the Omegaverse is traipsed into *coughs shamefully* I blame reylo tumblr for exposing me to that. Love & Other Misfortunes is a Veela!Draco vic and also the first Dramione fic I ever read. I fell in love with it. Manacled is my favourite fic I’ve ever read. Like out of any fandom. It’s so tragic and has what I consider the best portrayal of a morally grey Hermione that I’ve ever seen. However it is VERY dark and can be very triggering so please be careful and check the tags before even attempting to read it.

There are literally hundreds of one shots that I’ve read. Most of the soulmate oneshots are lovely and I’ve gone through the ‘Pining Draco Malfoy’ tag one too many times now. Also the ‘Veela Draco Malfoy’ tag.

I think I’ll cut myself off here. I definitely also recommend going through that list of Dramione fics I just recently reblogged as well. They have a lot of fics on there that are great and I intend to check out some of the ones I haven’t read yet. I really should start utilizing the bookmarks feature on AO3... That would’ve been a lot easier T^T But I had a lot of fun just gushing about some of my favourite fics. Dramione has been such a massive fixation these past 7-8 months.

#dramione #about me #this honestly made me so happy #biowill

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sendme-2hell · 2 years

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Ranking the books I read in January

Still doing this yo. I wrote a LOT. because I have a lot of thoughts about the very good books I read this month. and…I’m avoiding my homework (oops)

The Rehearsal - Eleanor Catton

All of my favorite authors have one thing in common, and that is that they allow their characters to have thoughts that make no sense. Thoughts that are selfish and odd and just plain confusing. Because if we are honest, we all have thoughts like these. In The Rehearsal, the characters voice these thoughts out loud. They say extremely rude, mean, things to each other. They say these things as if they are in a play, almost as if they are ‘fleabag’ style, turning to the audience. And yet none of the characters ever confront the speaker about the weird speeches. Very normal standard situations turn weird when, for example, a saxophone teacher tells her student’s mother that her daughter really is quite a boring child, and her least favorite student. This abject truthfulness weaves its way through the book, and can become addicting to read. The book follows three main stories: a saxophone teacher and her students, a boy at a performing arts college, and a student at the local high school who was groomed by a 30 year old teacher. Except the third story is only told through the perspective of the first two. And eventually it all does come together. Additionally there are parallel storylines about two unfortunate unrequited sapphic relationships, which I thought was the most interesting aspect of the book. In addition to the themes of adolescence, pedophilia, and homosexual relationships, I would say the main theme is Performance. The book itself feels almost as if you are reading the script to a play, and there are many points in which the author literally describes a set. This book really delves into the shakespearian/sociological idea that ‘all the world's a stage, and everyone is playing a part’. The characters show their true feelings as if they are monologuing in a play, and yet true adults would be breaking character in so many taboo ways if they behaved this way. I really cannot speak highly about this book enough. I know many people mark this as Eleanor Catton’s stepping stone before she wrote The Luminaries, but this is easily one of my new favorite books. A very niche way of describing it is if you combined the theater/grooming parts of Trust Exercise and the sapphic parts of My Education into one very fucked up book.

No One Belongs Here More Than You - Miranda July

Remember how I was saying I love it when characters have weird thoughts? Yeah. Well, Miranda July is the queen of writing characters like this. Her characters will say the most illogical, confusing, naive things with the utmost confidence, and you almost have no choice but to agree. But underneath this confusion is a deep, tragic layer of sadness. My interpretation is that these illogical ideas her characters have are a byproduct of their deep loneliness. The logic of loneliness. The type of ideas you catch yourself having when you are so sad that you realize are very odd. I don’t know if I would have related so much to this book (and The First Bad Man), if I had not read it now, after two of the loneliest years of my life. I’m sure many people can relate. Ultimately the thing these short stories all seem to have in common are deeply lonely main characters who form unexpected relationships. Some of them are heartbreaking, in a way I don’t think many stories are able to accomplish (My heart has still not recovered from The First Bad Man). My favorite story in the collection is one about a girl who moves to Portland (hey that’s where I am) with her childhood crush/best friend/unrequited love. Her friend abandons her and through a few circumstances she realizes her friend will only love her when she wears a wig. It is genuinely so sad, but it will stay with me forever.

The other thing about Miranda July is there is a layer of absurdity to her stories that I just love. Who else would write a story about teaching swimming to senior citizens without a pool, or having Madeleine L’engle randomly appear, but for seemingly no reason!

But ultimately I think the thing about Miranda July is that nothing I have read has been able to explore the absurdity and heart wrenching feelings of loneliness.

Now that I have read The Last Bad Man and watched Kajillionaire (literally amazing movie. Go watch if you haven’t) and read this book, I am devastated that she hasn’t published any other books. She’s probably too busy doing artsy stuff. All my old art professors follow her on instagram.

Disobedience - Naomi Alderman

What I really appreciated about Disobedience, a book about two sapphic women raised in a stifling orthodox Jewish community, is that it is not a love story. It is a story about one woman who “escaped” the homophobic, misogynistic community, and the other one who did not. They used to be romantically involved, and when the one who left returns for a funeral, it makes the first evaluate her entire life. I thought it was very nuanced, and absolutely lovely writing. The way it connected faith with feminism and sex was really well done I thought. I also really appreciated that the husband character was very well written and a very interesting character unto himself.

I was actually surprised at how good I found this book to be. Mainly perhaps because I read The Power before this, and I honestly didn't’t know Naomi Alderman knew what a lesbian was. But I guess she does.

The Vegetarian - Han Kang

This book was so well written but unfortunately I don’t have anything smart to say about it. The first third was an incredible exploration of social norms and what will happen if a woman decides she no longer wants to adhere to them. The next two thirds are equally interesting, and I just loved the writing and the family dynamics explored.

Ruinsong - Julia Ember

Ruinsong is a wlw retelling of The Phantom of the Opera (though a bit different because the Raul equivalent is actually likable!) and I have to say, I enjoyed it way more than I thought I would! I usually DNF YA books if I don’t think they are written well enough, but this one was great.

The Power - Naomi Alderman

Oh…what can I say. This book was made to make you think. And you know, I can respect that. About half way through is when this book started to make me angry. Like really angry. Like throw down the book angry. And that’s because a lot of it is unrealistic, and hard to read, and frankly annoying. But honestly, I do think I can look past a lot of that. I think it’s made to make you angry and unsettled. But there are some things I cannot look past.

The main idea of the book is this: if women were given power over men, they would start sexually abusing, objectifying, and discriminating against men in the same way men do to women currently. This, obviously, has caused many people to hate the book. Here’s the thing. I can get down with the main point. I mean…it’s unpleasant to read about. And for me it’s hard to imagine women would be so terrible so quickly after gaining power over men (but maybe they would…), like I think it would take some time! But anyway, all that aside what I cannot get past about the book is how the author decides because she is making this giant general point, that she does not have to reckon with race or queerness. As a white person idk how much I can say about the race aspect except that it’s not in it at all. The cast is very diverse, but racial discrimination is barely mentioned at all. But now…let’s get into the queerness aspect. This author packs so many different characters and different perspectives into one book. And yet none of them are queer. There are sections in this book that are all about how, if women got superpowers, suddently the whole dynamic would shift. Boys would be worried about interacting with their female classmates, teenage girls would have more control,etc etc etc. There is a lot about how the relationships between men and women would change and yet not once do they even the word “gay” or “lesbian.” The closest it gets is one character is mentioned to “like girls and like boys, especially boys who looked like girls” okayyyy… but that’s as far as it goes. I’m sorry but in a book that is literally about the relationship men and women have between each other, and mention the sexual dynamics of that A LOT, it’s a kinda large oversight to not even mention any queer people. She really is writing a book for 5 year olds who think there are two genders men and women and that’s the only kind of relationship there is. If you read the book you will understand how frustrating this is. I would have said “I don’t think Naomi Alderman knows what a gay person is,” except she literally wrote Disobedience! About lesbians!! AGH.

Not even to mention the biggest, most glaring problem with the book is that her idea of a society that's MAN VS WOMAN, really doesn’t account for trans people at all. There is a man who has the superpower, which I thought was her talking about a trans man. But no. It’s just that he has a genetic disfunction. How could she not address this? at all? The entire book is just an extremely binary way of looking at the world. So yeah…that just sucks.

The book is also written as a historical document written by a man (who in the future is discriminated against, remember) who is writing about a faraway time when men were in power and how they lost it. So, in theory the author could excuse anything by saying it is how the man writing it sees things, and how it is historically perceived. But I will call bullshit right there. I’m sorry there is no excuse for not including a trans and gay perspective into your story since it’s literally such a giant part of what you are writing about. If you have read The Power and you are reading this text post (very unlikely) and want to tell me your opinions, I’d be very interested. Never has a book made me feel so many conflicting things.

Sweet and Bitter Magic - Adrienne Tooley

This YA book was less good. It had a compelling idea behind it. But it just didn't pan out that good in my opinion. Honestly I’m surprised I finished it. YA WLW story about a girl who is really powerful but has been cursed not to love, and another girl who is like a magic source, and they go on a little adventure.

#my rankings #my ranking #books #wowww i really was procrastinating my homework wasn't i #well if anyone actually reads this they should read the first two books on this list because they are literally so good #the rehearsal #eleanor catton #no one belongs here more than you #miranda july

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silenceinternalmonologue · 3 years

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A Review of Loki (2021)

[The following is an exact transcription of Twitter user @/diolesbian ‘s thread linked here . They gave me permission to cross-post their thread on my Tumblr. Keep in mind that this review is fairly long and quite critical of the series. I agree with this review wholeheartedly, and would be welcome to discuss it with anyone else.]

Loki is a character who has died many times, but his own series may be his most brutal character assassination yet.

1. Loki’s role in the series. Instead of tackling Loki's most villainous state of mind in Avengers 1, the series literally speedran through his development in the subsequent films, after which they almost entirely halted his character progression.

Because this series was set right after Avengers 1 it had the responsibility of developing Loki further in place of The Dark World and Ragnarok. In Episode 1, this development was kicked off by having Loki watch a reel of some of his defining moments in the MCU, allowing him to see his future all the way up to his death in Infinity War. Sadly, this scene ended up being the most development he received in the entire series. And arguably, this isn’t even true development but more like a speedrun of his character up until that point, serving as a simple tactic to explain why he wouldn’t be acting all dictatorial and murderous during his own series. As soon as he had been made “good” (read: docile) enough to follow along with the plot, his agency was completely thrown out. From that point on, the series wasn’t about Loki making things happen but about things happening to Loki.

Loki was supposed to be the main character, but he wasn't the protagonist in this story. In fact, he was more of a side character than we’ve ever seen him be in the MCU before, perhaps excepting IW and Endgame.

A protagonist is by definition someone whose important decisions affect the plot, whose development is followed most closely by the audience, and who is opposed by an antagonist. Loki exhibited none of these traits in this series. Especially the latter half of the story, he was reduced to simply reacting to the revelations around him, such as the reveal that the TVA members were all variants and that Kang was the true mastermind behind everything. He never truly involved himself or acted based on any of these plot points, and hardly played a key role in what was supposed to be his own story. Even in the films, where Loki is a side character, he makes choices which impact the plot to a larger extent. He almost seems more like a background character in the role of protagonist than in the parts he plays in the films.

2. The antagonist. The TVA could have worked as the perfect setting for Loki to have a new arc. It’s a thematic antithesis to who we know Loki to be. But when this Loki turns out to not be who the audience thought he was the TVA’s thematic significance falls apart as well.

In Episode 1, the TVA’s Agent Mobius enlists the help of Loki the Variant to pin down a greater foe who we are told is another, more malicious version of Loki. Order and chaos meeting in the middle, teaming up to take down an enemy, who even happens to be the protagonists’ literal evil self: that works, it sounds promising. But this dynamic is soon undermined when Loki leaves with Sylvie. Still, the benefit of the doubt is easy to grant here: a story about tricksters is bound to contain twists. But by Episode 3 the series is halfway done and the TVA has been appointed as the main antagonist again: we’ve now established villains three different times. And then the Cloud Monster At The End Of Time is introduced, and finally Kang. In other words, the Loki series has no consistent antagonist, no one to pit its main character against. And this is where we once again miss out on an enormous aspect of Loki’s potential characterization.

Protagonists are always defined by an antagonist, whether a purple Titan, a flat tire, or themself. Loki is not given anything to define his morals, motivations, or development in opposition to and this is a huge oversight. Especially given the fact that Loki has taken on the villain’s role in the past: how is the audience supposed to know that the “bad guy” is now a “good guy” if there’s no “even worse guy” to stand up against?

3. The plot. A plot should show off its MC’s strengths and match their personality. The Loki plot hardly relied on his presence at all, he didn't play a key role. The story had so little to do with Loki that it seemed as though he has barely any impact on “his” narrative.

One of the most central conflicts in the Loki series doesn’t involve him at all: it’s between Sylvie and the TVA. This plotline was a good concept overall, but its main problem is that it’s practically the only conflict in the series. Loki himself, as mentioned before, isn’t set in opposition to anything or anyone. And thanks to his relationships with Sylvie and Mobius being weakened by conflicting storytelling devices, he appears to be in a bubble by himself away from the rest of the cast for much of the story. First he follows Mobius around, then Sylvie, then he wanders aimlessly in the void before following Sylvie once again and learning that Kang is a Really Bad Guy who he should be opposed to even though by this point he has interacted so little with the story unfolding around him that the audience doesn’t even understand why he should be choosing to play the hero.

The plot and the characters both suffer by being so incredibly unrelated to each other. A series, especially an MCU one, should tell an overarching narrative through the perspective of its main character.

In the beginning of the series, when Loki was still getting his bearings in the TVA, this lack of decision-making was more understandable, especially since some of his skills were still being shown-- he discovered Sylvie was hiding in nexus events, and he made the choice to leave Mobius and follow her. But by the latter half of the series he still hasn’t had much impact on the story or taken any actions of his own, and simply allows plot points to happen to him. Just because the Loki series had to introduce the TVA and Kang didn’t mean it had to forgo telling a story about its protagonist. If Loki’s story had been intrinsically tied to the overarching plot points, if his choices had been some of the primary factors determining how events ended up taking place, the series would have succeeded in every aspect. But instead Loki is pushed aside by the plot of his own series, a plot which subsequently ends up coming across as largely hollow and pointless due to its lack of character drive.

4. Loki’s arc. One of the main reasons MCU Loki is loved is for his excellent character development across his films. TVA Loki was extremely lacking in that aspect and chances to take his character in interesting new self-aware directions were thrown away without much thought.

Throughout the MCU, Loki is on a journey with many highs and lows. He goes from a bitter and disheartened prince standing in the shadow of his brother, to a self-loathing Jotun bent on destroying his own people in a desperate attempt to win his father’s love, to a half-mad partially mind-controlled dictator with delusions of grandeur fueled by his own insecurity, to a prisoner wondering what there is left for him to lose, to a savior of Asgard’s people finally coming to accept his place in what is left of his family, to a tragic sacrificial victim who knew he had to die so the true hero might live on. That’s a hell of a journey, incidentally shown in less than TWO HOURS of screen time, and the prospect of TVA Loki embarking on an equally stimulating one, this time told over the course of over four hours and shown from his own perspective the entire way through, was exciting. But as it turned out, this relatively simple expectation went completely unmet.

For a story trying to say so much about individuality and self-acceptance, the Loki series seemed to pass by every obvious opportunity to tackle those questions.

Sylvie’s introduction seemed like a good idea at first: Loki would be able to literally bond with himself and learn to accept who he is that way, and forays could be made to explore what Loki’s personality could have been like if he grew up under different circumstances! But aside from a scene or two in Episode 3, this was not how things ended up going. Loki didn’t come to any grand or important conclusions about his identity, he didn’t choose to act differently, all that happened was a vaguely-worded confession of pseudo-romantic feelings which was cut off in the middle, made no sense, and weakened the narrative in a whole host of other ways explained elsewhere. Loki’s encounter with other versions of themself in the Void was similarly meaningless: Loki didn’t end up expressing or demonstrating a single thing he learned from meeting all of those alternate selves, despite the fact that there was potential for massive self-discovery there.

Less than 2 hours of MCU screen time portrayed Loki more coherently than this entire series. Loki is loved because of how much he changes, and it felt like he didn’t in this series. He started off lost and stayed that way throughout the entire plot.

By the end of the series, it was impossible to identify who Loki had become. He said he didn’t want a throne, but it was not obvious why not. He looked sad to be betrayed by Sylvie, but never expressed what that meant to him. He seemed afraid once Kang was unleashed, but why? Why did he care about the Sacred Timeline? What were his motivations? Throughout the series the answers to these questions became less and less obvious, culminating in the final episode which ended without a single moment of reflection or explanation as to who Loki had become. He wasn’t a villain, but only because he wasn’t murdering people. He was in some capacity a hero, for… being against Kang, probably, but once again with no explanation as to why Loki had decided to feel that way. He never seemed self-assured in his heroism, as if he hadn’t chosen the role for himself. Again, making one’s own choices that shape the narrative are what differentiates a protagonist from a side character, but Loki did not do that in this series.

5. Loki and Sylvie’s relationship. Loki and Sylvie had the potential to be a powerful duo representing the process of self-acceptance but instead they were reduced to a strange pseudo-romance.

Despite Loki’s many developments in the films, he never truly liked himself. He has been known to act extremely confident and self-righteous at times, but this is merely the opposite side of the coin containing his self-loathing and insecurity. Having him literally meet and subsequently befriend himself in Episode 3 was a move towards developing this aspect of him and potentially teaching him to finally accept himself as he truly is, but this buildup was all shattered in Episode 4 when the relationship is portrayed to have romantic undertones. Instead of a powerful struggle to accept oneself, the relationship between Loki and Sylvie becomes a twisted thing which is memeable at best (selfcest LOL amirite?) and outright damaging to both characters and the very concept of loving oneself at worst.

Ultimately, Loki and Sylvie's relationship didn’t add anything to either character’s development and actively detracted from what could have been a touching story.

Romantic love is extremely different from self love; romantic love has connotations including dating conventions and sexuality which are impossible to ignore and in this case serve as a distraction. And on top of ruining a potentially powerful storyline, this strange relationship makes both Loki and Sylvie seem out of character. Loki is once again one thousand years old and he has never even had a true friend, so why would he possibly fall for someone after knowing them for only two days? Meanwhile in Sylvie’s case, Loki’s “feelings” for her cause the audience to pay more attention to her romantic life and gestures rather than her actual character and motivations.

6. Loki’s Sexuality and Gender Fluidity. Loki’s sexuality and gender has been shown in several comic runs, and the series was advertised as featuring this representation as well. But due to several fundamental errors and problematic storytelling this also fell flat.

Sylvie’s introduction filled many fans with hope regarding the portrayal of Loki’s identity. In the MCU neither of their LGBT identities had ever been touched upon, while the series introduced a female variant of Loki and explicitly stated their sexuality. But this portrayal soon unraveled, most notably in Episode 5, in which many other Loki variants were shown but not a single one besides Sylvie was non-male. On top of that, when TVA Loki mentioned Sylvie and referred to her as “a woman Variant of us”, the other Lokis agreed that that sounded “terrifying”. Why should a genderfluid being be afraid of a version of themselves presenting as a different gender? It read as both fluidphobic not to mention strangely sexist.

The pseudo-romance between Loki and Sylvie only aggravated the situation. Not only did the nature of the “relationship” seem to follow heteronormative storytelling tropes (falling in love after a couple days of knowing each other, one party being reduced to a love interest, valuing romantic love above any other type, etc) but it also seemed distressing and offensive to many genderfluid people. A romance between a male and a female Loki, one of which doesn’t even call herself by that name, seems to be implying that an individual becomes someone else when merely presenting as a different gender, which of course isn’t at all the case. The writing wasn’t necessarily malicious here, but it was certainly ignorant and potentially even harmful. The opportunity was there to translate Loki’s powerful comic representation into the framework of the MCU, but this attempt did not succeed.

7. Loki’s characterization. Loki is a chameleon, but there are certain traits fundamental to his character. These traits were either ignored or actively mocked in the series. The audience already knew “what makes a Loki a Loki", but the series threw that knowledge away.

Episode 1’s premise of stripping Loki of everything he is used to was an intriguing setup to ensure the discovery of the core of who Loki truly is. The only problem was that this truth didn’t end up being found at all. Mobius made fun of Loki’s most defining traits, such as his habits of lying to manipulate people and acting out of a place of insecurity, which seemed to be a signal for the narrative to forbid Loki from exhibiting any of those traits from that point on in any way. This reduction in Loki’s character was reflected in everything, from his lack of humor (in the films he’s even funny while he’s taking over the world!), the underpowered way in which he fought against Sylvie (he’ll use magic to dry his clothes, but fight with a damn vacuum cleaner?) to the way that he wore the same boring outfit in every single episode-- it may sound shallow, but clothes are important when presenting a character. Every one of Loki’s looks in the films said something about him and his state of mind, and sadly that bland TVA outfit seemed to convey that Loki really was nothing more than a subservient pawn in what was supposed to be his own story. Ironically, the writing stripped Loki of everything that made him Loki, and left us with nothing but a Jotun-shaped void to be swayed by the whims and wills of the characters and plot devices surrounding him.

8. Loki’s past and abilities. This series could have elaborated on aspects of his character which had been teased at in the films and theorized about by fans, but ended up being a disappointment in this aspect as well.

Aside from Loki’s characterization and development, something else the series ignores is much of his canon story in the films. Since Thor 1, a truth that always overshadowed Loki was his Jotun heritage. He struggled with it up until the time of his death, clearly visible in his relationship with his foster family. It’s understandable that Loki was supposed to be independent from Thor in his series, but that’s no excuse for completely ignoring this central part of who Loki is. It doesn’t matter how much he goes through or how much his circumstances change, this feeling of unbelonging sits deep in Loki’s core and should have been both explored and explicitly discussed in the series. A series all about Loki was the perfect opportunity for him to finally confront and explain his relationship with his heritage, and potentially come to terms with it as well. And this isn’t even to say how cool some more insight on Loki’s Jotun inheritance could have been-- hypotheticals aren’t the point of this review, but it would have been fascinating to see Loki reacting adversely to heat like he has been hinted to in the past or even using his ice powers like he did in Thor 1.

Loki's magic was tragically underused. It felt like he was stripped of all of his magical powers even after his TVA chains had been removed, and this was never explained.

A second huge oversight is his magic. His powers are all over the place in this series. They were always a bit vague in the films, but this series was the opportunity to set that right and explain exactly what Loki was capable of as a sorcerer, especially now that the MCU has embraced magic more than it had ten years ago. But instead, Loki showcased an inexplicable lack of magic use-- again, the vacuum cleaner fight can be presented as evidence. There is a single scene in which Loki says that he learned his magic from Frigga, but no information is given as to how much he learned or why he doesn’t always favor spells. His power levels are incredibly inconsistent (he forgoes using magic when first confronted by the TVA, but is later shown using telekinesis to save himself from being literally crushed to death). And, strangest of all, there is a scene in which he tells Sylvie that he “can’t” enchant living beings. Loki, the millennium year old Trickster sorcerer god, who can hold an Infinity Stone with his bare hands, reanimate Surtur in the Eternal Flame, and trick the average person using illusions with ease, can’t cast a little enchantment? And if so, why not? The series offered precious few explanations concerning Loki’s magical abilities and instead only raised more questions. And in this way, Loki is once again relegated into the background and left with not a single shred of any new characterization or development.

Loki contains multitudes, but the series reduced him to two dimensions.

This isn’t to mention every other facet of Loki’s story that could have potentially been explored to great success in this series-- his torture and subsequent partial mental influence at the hands of Thanos just before the events of Avengers 1 is one obvious example, as is his youth on Asgard, as are his suicidal tendencies (people don’t tend to survive falling off the Bifrost, and he knew that when he threw himself off of it), plus infinite other facets of him. Of course, it was both necessary and more interesting for this series to be its own story rather than one which lingered on past films-- but that’s not to say that none of these plot points should have come back, at least subtly, to play a role in this story. Plot points exist to be brought back later, not completely ignored. Otherwise a story may as well be written about a completely original character.

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