#This goes out to all the people who witness characters in media whose only canonical relationship with each other is something like 'friend'
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Just for your consideration, characters don't have to be siblings/family to each other to be able to participate in nonsexual/nonromantic intimacy.
#This goes out to all the people who witness characters in media whose only canonical relationship with each other is something like 'friend'#do stuff like take baths together or be domestic without being weird about it and have to immediately rush to tell the internet that these#characters are sibling/family coded because they can't fathom people engaging in nonsexual/nonromantix acts with people if they're not#either 'family coded' or aroace#‚ and also because they need a reason why no one in their right minds should be able to read between the lines and ship them (basically‚#also having to resort to 'family coded' because they see this as a hard stop to any possible shipping‚ whereas 'just friends' leaves it open#to people liking it without being able to be branded as weird or evil#Also before anyone says it yeah it goes both ways. you also don't have to be romantically/sexually attracted to participate in things that#are widely considered only for non aro/ace people#but the post isn't about that#i just be ramblin#semi vent post
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Who do you think is the most incompetent character in Canon HP? I think it's Fudge or Lockhart, but then again they're only incompetent in SOME areas. So, what do you think?
Oh my god, there are so many contenders.
I feel like this is almost every single character. We’re talking Harry who only seems to accomplish his goals by divine luck. We’re talking Umbridge whose methods are so ridiculous I can’t even imagine what she imagines the outcome of her actions will be. We’re talking Lockhart (though I’m not actually sure incompetence is the right word, it’s more that he’s so drowning in narcissism he can’t even recognize his abilities, Lockhart is a wonder). Fudge, for obvious reasons...
I’m not even sure where to begin with this, really.
I guess I have to go with Fudge just because his incompetency is not only a near constant but it’s also often nearly lethal on a catastrophic level.
Just, god, Fudge, you are a wonder.
Let’s start with Sirius’ breakout from Azkaban.
Fudge panics and thus causes the population to panic. Advertisements are being run by the hour, Sirius Black’s face is on every newspaper page. This is in a society where dropping the very name Voldemort sends the population into fits of terror. Fudge could very easily have inspired riots and then gone and joined the riots himself because Sirius broke out of Azkaban. I am mildly surprised that Diagon Alley wasn’t completely in flames by the time Harry got there. And this is on the competent end for Fudge.
We have Fudge running advertisements on the Muggle television. Now, I’m sure somebody told Fudge this was a brilliant idea. It even sounds like a good idea if you don’t think about it much: this way he can’t even hide in the muggle world. The trouble is what if somebody looks into this? Sirius Black is being mentioned every hour in the muggle media? What high security prison did he come from? What crime did he commit? Did Fudge even bother to make up a fake muggle history for this fake muggle murderer he just made up? Remember, the coverup for the muggles Sirius supposedly murdered was a gas leak, so Sirius can’t be blamed for that. I expect some muggles started asking questions and either the obliviators had to work overtime, Fudge got lucky, or a more insidious but likely answer is that the wizarding world didn’t even notice that they had dropped the ball. They’re so secure in their belief that they have the statute under control, that muggles are inherently gullible and stupid, that one day the statute of secrecy will break without them even knowing.
Fudge then loses Harry Potter. How does he manage this? Harry walks out the door of his muggle home and steps onto a bus. I imagine this nearly gave Fudge a heart attack but the fact was that no one had told Harry to stay there, Harry wasn’t aware that there was even any danger, and there was nothing at all preventing him from doing it. The kid calls the goddamn Night Bus and steps right up on board. Fudge’s solution of what to do with Harry later? He tells Harry to stay in the Leaky Cauldron, doesn’t even assign him a minder, just has him stay there. Good lad, please don’t die.
Fudge then sends soul eating demons who nobody understands to Hogwarts in case Sirius Black might show up to ‘protect the children’. Within only a few hours on the train one student, Harry Potter at that, passes out from dementor exposure. Fudge is convinced he can control these things. The dementors show up to a quidditch match. Fudge is so unbelievably lucky that half the Hogwarts population wasn’t eaten. Fudge, however, is so incompetent and short sighted he doesn’t even realize he’s lucky. Of course the dementors listen to the ministry! He’s the minister of magic! To top this, the dementors aren’t even effective, they fail to catch Sirius Black.
Also, a smaller thing of Fudge but very in character, Harry learns about Sirius Black through the world’s most contrived means. He happens to be hanging out in Hogsmeade where he’s not supposed to be, hiding under Ron and Hermione’s table, and Fudge drops by. Fudge then loudly says, “Ah, Rosmerta, random barmaid! Have I told you all about the time Sirius Black was responsible for the murder of Harry Potter’s parents? No? WELL SIT RIGHT DOWN” This isn’t quite as bad as murdering all the children, but it’s pretty ridiculous.
But hey, Fudge was there to almost murder a hippogriff who attacked Malfoy’s son? I mean, it escaped, but... FUDGE DOES THINGS!
Later, fifth year, he runs the smear campaign against Harry Potter. Now, running a smear campaign against a fifteen-year-old is a shitty thing to do but that’s not why it’s incompetent. It’s incompetent because he goes all out. Actively calling Harry Potter, beloved savior of the nation, a narcissistic liar just gives him credence. It’s too strong and it only works (not even for the full population at that) because people are so terrified of Voldemort they’d accept this Rita Skeeter tabloid madness rather than face that again. As it is, Harry has his interview in the Quibbler, which is basically the National Inquirer, AND PEOPLE READ IT. THAT’S INSANE. YOU FAILED FUDGE. YOU FAILED SO HARD.
A better plan would have been to acknowledge Harry had been through a traumatic event. Cedric somehow died in the tournament, Harry has lived all his life with this crushing expectation he’s defeated the dark lord, Harry probably watched this happened and is in such traumatized shock he believes Voldemort did it. Worse, Dumbledore probably convinced Harry somehow that Voldemort had done it, and Harry not knowing what happened and trusting his headmaster agreed. This would have been far more effective.
But Fudge is panicking. So he goes even more ridiculous than a smear campaign led by Rita Skeeter (which, of all the people to pick, you choose her?)
He sets loose Delores Umbridge. Umbridge’s first brilliant plan is to send dementors to a muggle neighborhood. What was the outcome of this? Was Harry Potter supposed to be terrified into silence? Was the entire muggle neighborhood supposed to be eaten? Was Harry Potter, savior of the wizarding world who had just claimed Voldemort had returned, supposed to be assassinated without people thinking Voldemort did it? Seriously, I’ve turned this over in my head, and I have no idea what the ideal outcome here was supposed to be. Just that Umbridge is nuts.
As it is, the best thing for them happens, Harry Potter stops it and is put on trial. Except then they get accused of somehow losing track of dementors. They try to brush this away with there being no witnesses and Harry being insane but then Mrs. Figg shows up. So, either the ministry is so incompetent that soul eating demons are roaming the country or the ministry just tried to assassinate Harry James Potter, the boy who lived. Fudge saves himself by going, “Oh gee, look at the time, case dismissed.”
Despite Umbridge having gone completely mad and unhinged, Fudge sends her to Hogwarts. There she tortures students, presumably to silence them, but again it just gives Harry Potter credence. Why is Umbridge trying so hard to silence these people? She directly fuels Harry Potter building a seeming guerilla army of school children planning a coup of Fudge in Dumbledore’s name. It’s Fudge’s worst nightmare. More, she actively sabotages the education of an entire generation, students actually drop out of school. And then she fails to do the one thing she went to Hogwarts to do: silence Harry Potter.
Then, of course, Fudge finds out the ministry is lousy with spies, Voldemort really is back, and he just has to stand there and go, “Welp, guess I’m fired.” Yes, Fudge, you’re fired.
In short, I can’t think of a single action he takes that is in any way competent. More, nearly every action he takes could have very easily resulted in dozens of deaths.
#ask#anon#headcanons#minister fudge#harry potter#incompetence#there are a lot of incompetent characters in harry potter but it's hard to top fudge
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(LMY anon) Ahh I just saw your character notes for LMY. Thank you, that's very helpful! You're right that it feels insulting to LQQ to make LMY too emotionally intelligent, esp considering we have canonical evidence that she's also a weirdo. Even if it's a non-transmigrator AU, I feel like the only way I can even begin to understand her character is through the lens of a fangirl. The concept of writing RPF for a teacher+an ex-classmate who actually tried to end the world is a new level for me
I don’t even understand or like RPF on the normal level, personally. I mean, RPF fans, you do you! I vaguely comprehend the concept of treating celebrities presented/public personalities as characters, but I’m not personally comfortable with it. So that was one of my biggest obstacles when writing Liu Mingyan, like... this woman is in-a-different-universe-to-me-brained.
This was more or less my thought process, like, how I personally worked out better understanding Liu Mingyan’s situation:
(TL;DR: It’s easier to think of Liu Mingyan as a bard.)
So that was one of my biggest obstacles when writing Liu Mingyan, like... this woman is in-a-different-universe-to-me-brained.
But, at the same time, I don’t get the same squick with fiction surrounding historical figures. I mean, I do sometimes, but the distance of time makes it easier. I’m also fine (most of the time) with stories inspired by a true story. A lot of fiction is based on real events! Authors draw from real life! I don’t really watch Hollywood movies based on modern events and human interest stories which go viral, but they’re definitely a thing and they’re basically RPF. People like Real Person Fiction and Real Person Non-Fiction.
And, like, okay, this world doesn’t have the same overwhelming variety of content that our modern world has. Unclear on whether or not there’s widespread literacy or printing presses, but it sounds like most stories are going to come from storytellers and singers and other performers. Many of these performances are going to draw on historical and recent events, especially because it’s unclear how news might be otherwise spread. Look at what a huge industry just plain gossip is in our modern world! People need to be entertained and singing for your supper is an okay gig.
I need to stop thinking in terms of Modern RPF as I know it on AO3 and start thinking more in terms of bards.* Liu Mingyan is perhaps more like an artist meeting a journalist (or a publicist or a historian) than a modern fanfiction writer. Or like any playwright writing an embellished history for a ruler (except she did it on her own). Is a bard or storyteller hired to write something putting history in a specific light not essentially a historical paid publicist?
Except Liu Mingyan is doing it for her own benefit. And I would still personally call it fanfiction even if in this case it’s a for-profit adaptation.
*(I should probably better research Chinese historical forms of performance and spreading news, but SVSSS allows me to be lazy and hand-wavey about it. Thanks, Airplane.)
So, for me, I’m picturing Liu Mingyan and her friends are just a step to the left of historical reenactment meeting gossip meeting music/poetry/songwriting practice that got really out of hand. Friends can be terrible enablers sometimes, right? Then, bam! Real Person Fiction that people found compelling and spread like wildfire. All of the people involves are celebrities / political figures whose movements matter to the common people, and they don’t have news sites or social media sites for Keepin’ Up with the Cultivators.
I mean, it’s funny to think about it in terms of RPF and fanfiction as we know it, so I absolutely do. I think she’s a bit of a fangirl, yes! I relate to that! (But am I reducing her to “just a Modern BL fangirl” because she’s a woman writing romance and I’m looking at it from a modern fanfic author’s lens and not taking the situational context into account? She’s a BL fangirl with potentially significant societal impact. She’s not out of place in the world she lives in.)
Adaptation is pervasive throughout society and goes beyond fanfiction and fanart as we know it in what we call “Fandom”. Journalism is arguably non-fiction adaptation! Historians adapt the world around them to record it for future generations. Music can be an adaptation of people’s life’s experiences! People put on plays about other people’s stories they’ve witnessed. There are places in the world (our world) were the line between fiction and non-fiction blurs. And truly being objective is impossible when people’s creations are filtered through the lens of their own perspective, whether they’re writing a news article or a novel. So, like, there are types of adaptational fiction that society is willing to slap a “official” label on and this is one of those cases.
I mean, it’s still weird behavior in my eyes! It’s invasive! Liu Mingyan didn’t do this as journalist or a historian; she did this for her own entertainment and maybe for any potential money, and I would still totally call it fanfiction. Shen Yuan is reasonably mortified that someone has made something of his life! And misinformation can be extremely damaging to someone’s personal life and dangerous politically and I don’t know if she took that into account!
But, yeah. Liu Mingyan = on a similar boat to Jaskier from The Witcher. (Who is, I say affectionately, also a weirdo and could be called a fanboy.) Except she’s also a bit more repressed like Liu Qingge. It’s easier for me personally to understand the RPF angle if I attempt to understand the potential for RPF as it exists in her world, not as it exists in mine.
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Dear Chocolate Box 2021 Author
Hi! Thank you for writing for me! I’m reconditarmonia here and on AO3. I have anon messaging off, but mods can contact me with any questions.
Elsinore | Fullmetal Alchemist | The Locked Tomb | Motherland: Fort Salem | Simoun
General likes:
– Relationships that aren’t built on romance or attraction. They can be romantic or sexual as well, but my favorite ships are all ones where it would still be interesting or compelling if the romantic component never materialized.
– Loyalty kink! Trust, affectionate or loving use of titles, gestures of loyalty, replacing one’s situational or ethical judgment with someone else’s, risking oneself (physically or otherwise) for someone else, not doing so on their orders. Can be commander-subordinate or comrades-in-arms.
– Heists, or other stories where there’s a lot of planning and then we see how the plan goes.
– Femslash, complicated or intense relationships between women, and female-centric gen. Women doing “male” stuff (possibly while crossdressing).
– Stories whose emotional climax or resolution isn’t the sex scene, if there is one.
– Uniforms/costumes/clothing.
– Stories, history, and performance. What gets told and how, what doesn’t get told or written down, behavior in a society where everyone’s consuming media and aware of its tropes, how people create their personas and script their own lines.
General DNW: rape/dubcon, torture, other creative gore; unrequested AUs, including “same setting, different rules” AUs such as soulmates/soulbonds; PWP; food sex; embarrassment; focus on pregnancy; Christmas/Christian themes; focus on unrequested canon or non-canon ships; unrequested trans versions of characters.
Smut Likes: clothing, uniforms, sexual tension, breasts, manual sex, cunnilingus, grinding, informal d/s elements, intensity.
Requesting fic; open to art treats!
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Fandom: Elsinore
Relationship(s): Hamlet & Ophelia; Hamlet & Horatio & Ophelia; Bernardo & Hamlet & Laertes & Ophelia
I found the friendships in this game, and the different ways that characters can reconcile or try to find a way forward together, to be really sweet and moving, and I'd love to read something that focused on those relationships of trust and support. I like how important Ophelia and Horatio's counsel and friendship is in timelines where Hamlet becomes king; I like Hamlet regretting how he behaved towards Ophelia and striving to live through his depression and find out what it is that he wants, not what everyone else wants of him; I like seeing childhood friends Bernardo and Laertes and Ophelia and Hamlet, whose growing-up has stretched them so far apart, taking time to catch up and enjoy each other's company a little.
So, futurefic in one of the timelines where everything doesn't go to shit? A timeline that we don't see? (There is something narratively interesting to me in Permanence/Passion in that the entire plot of Hamlet ends up as a distant backstory to someone's full life; I don't know how compatible that idea is with these requests, but if you want to write any of these groups fucking off to Italy or Constantinople or London and living until the Elsinore pressure-cooker is a distant memory, I'd be just as happy with that as with fic about them building some kind of future together still in Denmark, trying to make it better for its people and to hold on to who they are as individuals, and friends, beyond their roles.) If you want to write Hamlet/Ophelia, Hamlet/Horatio, or for that matter Horatio/Bernardo as shippy, I'm fine with that, but I don't want a focus on the romantic aspects of their relationship.
Fandom-Specific DNW: death of requested characters within the timeline being explored, or focus on death of requested characters. These characters die in this game a lot and I don't need you to pretend entirely that it's not a time loop game, but I would like them to be happy. If you write the Bernardo & Hamlet & Laertes & Ophelia request, I'm fine with either or both names/pronouns for Bernardo|Katherine, but I don't want to read a story focused on their gender or coming-out. Please don't include Peter Quince as a character (you do not need to retcon, you know, the existence of the time loop).
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Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Relationship(s): Maria Ross/Olivier Mira Armstrong
I'll admit: I am a shallow, shallow person who loves the heartwarming and id-satisfying Briggs loyalty-kink complex (The watch! Buccaneer handing Olivier a clean pair of gloves after she kills Raven! Constant and deeply sincere saluting! Olivier’s explanation of why she wants Miles around and her lack of patience for anyone’s shit) but would like an f/f manifestation of it for actual shipping. Post-canon or AU where Maria is assigned to Briggs, or works for Olivier in Central? Does Maria foil a plot against Olivier, or Olivier save Maria's life in battle? Does Olivier order Maria into a firefight? Hit me.
Fandom-Specific DNW: Olivier/men, even mentioned.
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Fandom: The Locked Tomb
Relationship(s): Abigail Pent & Dulcinea Septimus; Gideon the First & Matthias Nonius
Dulcie and Nonius were two of my favorite additions to the cast in Harrow the Ninth (and Dulcie in "Doctor Sex" via letter). I loved everything we learned about Dulcie - her wit, her quick thinking in a pinch when confronted by Cytherea and her secret to Harrow. I found her "The only thing preventing me from being exactly who I wanted..." speech both genuinely moving and very funny, and I love her thirst for revenge. What else might she and Abigail Pent, "independent research? it isn't even my birthday!" daredevil spirit-talker par excellence who has just conjured up a ghost out of an epic poem, get up to after Harrow's bubble collapses? Or what were they up to when they weren't on screen in Harrow's dream, putting together this whole, well, play?
Nonius's arrival, entire scene, and departure to fight the Beast made me very, very happy on levels I have trouble explaining. It was so heartwarming?! Because it was impossible, and because poetry won, and because they went off to do the best they could...I don't know, exactly. I'd love to read either more about his mysterious past with Gideon the First, or about their second encounter as allies (throw in Marta, Ortus and Pro if you like as well!)
Fandom-Specific Exception: to my unrequested ships DNW, Dulcie/Cam & Dulcie/Pal. I love their three strand thing.
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Fandom: Motherland: Fort Salem
Relationship(s): Abigail Bellweather/Raelle Collar
I fell hard for this show and Abigail/Raelle is the ship I’m most excited about - they get off to a bad start for all kinds of personal history reasons and have problems with each other, but when it gets down to the wire Abigail would do anything for Raelle and is very gung-ho about having Raelle’s unconventional but extremely powerful magic under her leadership, regardless of Raelle being a loose cannon. She told her she loved her!! <3 And by the end, Raelle also clearly knows what Abigail's going through (like when she talks her down in "Citydrop"), respects her leadership, and cares deeply about her and wants to protect her in return. I love that loyalty dynamic, and their competence as fighters/witches.
Physical combat, strength in general, magical strength, ability to work magic together, knowledge of the magical canon vs. out-of-the-box techniques...what parts of their skills and their bond could be challenged in the weird dimension that the end of season 1 leaves them in? Or when they get back home and new challenges await? (In my head, the decision not to send them to War College is not revoked; the unit becomes some kind of special-forces secret strike team rather than cannon fodder.) Maybe something where Raelle goes/has gone into a fight as a berserker-type for Abigail and then comes back to her, or where Abigail protects/has protected her soldier (her girl!! I love her protectiveness of Raelle towards the other cadets, imagine it in a battle!)? Or an arranged marriage AU where it's usual for witch soldiers to marry to combine their magic power or something...
I would also be up for smut for them, especially something d/s-y where the loyalty-kinky dynamic of Raelle being Abigail's weapon, at her command, is echoed in sex!
Fandom-Specific DNW: sex solely for magical purposes without an emotional connection (sex for magical purposes is fine), focus on Raylla (I don't need you to retcon it, but please don't dwell either on Raelle still having feelings for Scylla or on her getting over Scylla for Abigail), Scylla bashing, Abigail/Adil (I would prefer to imagine, if he is mentioned in the fic, that they’re just friends).
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Fandom: Simoun
Relationship(s): Aer/Neviril; Aer/Neviril & Neviril/Paraietta; Aer/Neviril/Paraietta; Aer & Floef & Neviril & Paraietta & Rodoreamon & Vyuraf
Aer, and Aer/Neviril, really grew on me on my recent rewatch. I appreciated her more as the determined bit-of-a-loose-cannon, who grows into a respected role in the choir, than the manic pixie this time, and noted Neviril's comments about how she was drawn to Aer's determination. (I've written a lot more about what I love and am interested in about Neviril and the show in general, her journey of figuring out what it means to her exactly to lead an air force, here.) I'd love to know what happens to them post-canon - what is the "new world" and their travel in it like? It's an escape for them, sure, but what are they escaping to, not just from? Are there problems there, too?
I'd also be up for a poly situation where Neviril is involved with both Aer and Paraietta, her long-loyal second-in-command whom she's blessed and forgiven, as a V where they're friends or as a triangle where Aer and Paraietta are also involved (I don't quite know what that leg of the triangle would look like but I do like how they work together in battle even when they're shown as having personal issues.)
If Neviril and Aer make it back to the main world when war is brewing again, as at the end of the series, but their old cohort can't fly anymore, what do they see their role as being? Does Neviril see herself as a leader for peace, for war, for something else? How do they interact with their former squadmates, whether as part of a more plotty piece or not?
I could be interested in explicit fic for this canon, as an option - the series is, on some level, about the contrast between the reality and physicality of their bodies and the general perception of what they do (which even in its non-spiritual military capacity is removed from a connection to their bodies via the Simoun aircraft), about becoming an adult, and of course about gender.
Fandom-Specific DNW: I'm not really interested in Kaim and Alty and would prefer for them not to appear or for their backstory to come up. I would also not like to see pre-timeskip Dominuura/Limone.
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AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004)
“Mr. Weyland, what I told you in there wasn’t bullshit. If you rush this, people will get hurt. Maybe die.”
A strange energy reading leads a team of explorers to an ancient extraterrestrial pyramid located underneath a remote island in Antarctica. But things take a turn for the worse when they learn that the structure is actually the battleground for a race of extraterrestrial hunters and their deadly alien prey.
Fright: 1.5 / 5 Crossover Events
To the movie’s credit, when it tries to generate horror it actually does an alright job. That being said, it almost never tries. The majority of the time it sacrifices scares to go for a more Action-flick kinda vibe.
Gore: 3 / 5 Incidental Alien Autopsies
Okay, so there’s certainly some gore. But it’s not the usual sort.
I mean, sure, there’s some impaling, bits are chopped off, chests are burst, organs are seen, etc. But the gory stuff is almost always one crazy alien doing something gory to another crazy alien. Outside of getting stabbed, there’s an oddly minimal amount of anything being shown done to a human. Some messed up stuff is implied to have happened to them, yes, but you almost never see it.
Jump Scares: Light
There’s certainly some potential startles, but it’s more of an action flick than a horror one, so it never bothers attempting any serious jumps.
Review:
While it certainly delivers a lot of Alien and Predator action, it never fully grasps onto any of the deeper elements from the respective franchises. If all you want is some Who-would-win-in-a-fight-between style action, it certainly delivers. However, it doesn’t really offer anything much beyond that.
Thoughts:
There is something weirdly human about wondering who would win in various bizarre fantasy fights scenarios.
And what deeper expression of that is there then the weirdly long-running existence of Alien vs. Predators stories.
But the big question on everyone’s minds is whose decision was it to name it “AVP”?? I’m dying to know who was in charge of that decision.
Am I wrong here? I think we can all agree that “Alien vs. Predator” is a much better title. There’s just something about a “AVP” that that screams old people trying really hard to sound “cool.”
Anyhoo, before we get into it I should let you know a couple things:
I have only seen the theatrical PG-13 version of this one. I’ve heard word that there’s an extended unrated version, but I think it’s only available on fancy home media versions and thus I’ve never seen it.
Despite the fact that the filmmakers wanted AVP to be canonical for both franchises, both Prometheus and Alien: Covenant chose to completely disregard it. And I honestly can’t blame them, because this movie is so clearly meant to just be ridiculous action fun. So please don’t waste your time trying to figure out how this thing fits into the timeline.
Okay? So with that out of the way, here’s why AVP bugs me: it pays homage to all sorts of memorable visual elements of its respective franchises, but doesn’t even attempt to pay homage to any of their themes. So yeah, there’s predator heat vision and sneaking around all invisible. And sure, there’s chest bursting, facehugging, wee-little-mouth frenching, and all that good stuff.
But…that’s about it. If you look past those flashy actiony bits the film is rather thematically hollow.
The original franchises had very different styles, but like all horror movies they were both stories of survival. A big part of what makes stories of survival so intriguing is the excitement of seeing characters being pushed to their limits only to overcome them. We want to watch with rapt excitement as people are put against impossible odds only to keep going through sheer feats of wit, skill, and sheer determination.
And yet AVP basically puts all the characters into a death trap from which escape is more or less impossible. Characters are put up against impossible odds and then...well, then they just die.
It isn’t a story of survival so much as it is a string of people/aliens dying in X-treme ways. Everyone kind of feels like a redshirt more than a flesh-out character, because their choices never really have any impact and they’re really only there as meat for the grinder.
Now to be fair here, lots of movies sacrifice story and fulfilling character arcs for the sake of hardcore action. But this one takes it to such an extreme that they don’t even bother letting you know what most of the characters’ names are. And yet a while into the movie someone will be all like “WHATSYOURFACE! NOOOOO!” and I’m sitting over here thinking “wait, that dude had a name?”
When it comes to a movie like this the real question is who is this movie for? The way I see it there are three types of people that would be intrigued by AVP:
People who want to see a movie that delves deeper into the lore of these respective franchises.
People who love bizarre B-horror movies.
People who just want to see xenomorphs have crazy fights with Predators.
If you’re in the first category and are looking for a movie that provides an interesting addition to your beloved Alien and Predator franchises? Well, you should probably lower your expectations.
But what if you already know the premise is inherently silly-good-fun and just want a crazy action fest, chalk full of predators (aka Yaujita/Hish-qu-Ten) and Aliens (aka xenomorphs) taking out humans and each other with signature style?
Well this movie certainly has lots of that!
Is it a quality example of that though? Well...that’s up for debate.
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content warnings: ummm...shockingly I don’t think there are any serious ones here.
after-credits scene?: None.
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Directed by: Paul W.S. Anderson
Written by: Paul W.S. Anderson
Country of Origin: USA...
[also the United Kingdom, Czech Republic, Germany, and Canada? I’m really not sure of what the story behind that is.]
Language: English
Setting: Bouvetøya Island, Antarctica
Sequel: Alien vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)
If you liked this you might also like: Aliens (1986), Predator (1987), Tomb Raider (2018), Freddy vs. Jason (2003), Cowboys & Aliens (2011), Sadako vs. Kayako (2016)
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Context Corner:
Although it may seem odd, the connection between the Alien and Predator franchises actually goes back decades.
So the basic timeline goes like this:
Alien was the first one to hit the scene way back in 1979.
Then 7 years later (1986) its sequel Aliens was released.
A year after that (aka 1987) we got Predator.
The two franchises had nothing to do with one another, but they were both distributed by 20th Century Fox. Then later both franchises were licensed to the comic book publisher Dark Horse Comics.
The first time the world saw the two extraterrestrials cross paths was in a Randy Stradley and Chris Warner’s “Alien vs. Predator” chapter in Dark Horse Presents issue #36 in 1990.
Shortly thereafter the connection resurfaces as a pretty great easter egg in the 1990 film Predator 2, wherein you can see a xenomorph skull on the trophy wall in the Predator’s ship.
And ever since then it’s been a thing. Way before this movie ever came into being there were tons of Alien/s vs. Predator books, comics, video games (including a pinball video game), and even board games.
If you think Alien vs. Predator is still a slightly whacky concept, I feel compelled to mention that the crossover madness could have gone so much deeper! There are MULTIPLE examples of comics wherein the xenomorphs and predators encounter Batman...and Superman...and sometimes BOTH!
[I’m 100% serious. Look it up.]
—————————————
“I wish you’d reconsider coming with us, Lex. Come on, don’t make me pull out pictures of my kids again.”
“Your kids aren’t that cute.”
“What if we got pictures of other peoples’ kids?”
“Want my advice?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Stay on the boat.”
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Witness: Jaetion
Creator name (AO3): Jaetion
Creator name (Tumblr): Jaesauce
Link to creator works: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaetion/works
Creator name (other platform- please specify): Pillowfort: Jaetrix
Q: Why the Mad Max Fandom?
A: MMFR movie was incredible! It hit all of my sweet spots. And the fandom is great: really supportive people, creative fanworks, and great discussions. I've been playing around with fandoms online for a long time and I've met some awesome people, but the MMFR fandom is just chocked full of interesting fans and ideas (like this spotlight!).
Q: What do you think are some defining aspects of your work? Do you have a style? Recurrent themes?
A: Oof, I'm not sure. I think my style is a lot of conversation, and very little and very poorly written action? As far as themes go, I love referencing music. Music is important to me, so it usually influences my writing. I identify as a feminist and try to put progressive messages into my stuff. I try to write women who form relationships, live their lives, and drive the plot without having to play second banana to men. On a similar, I like writing/reading sex scenes that are fun and funny for the people involved - enthusiastic yes from both/all parties. (Unless I'm filling a fic request that specifies something else, of course.)
Q: Which of your works was the most fun to create? The most difficult? Which is your most popular? Most successful? Your favourite overall?
A: “Take the A Train" was fun because I love writing about NYC. But the stories in "Citadel City Serenade" have definitely been the most rewarding. I really like trying to fit plots and characters together, and it feels awesome when things snap into place. "Six-String Soldier" is my most popular fic, probably because I started writing it right around the release of the movie and it's shippy. Overall... hm, I think my favorite MMFR thing I've written might be "Metal Bars." I think I did a pretty decent mix of kid naivety and shitty oppression.
Q: How do you like your wasteland? Gritty? Hopeful? Campy? Soft? Why?
A: Hopeful, but realistic, I think. With everything that's going on in politics, both in America and internationally, and the unbearably awful reports on climate change, I need to cling to some remnants of hope or else I'll just lie on the floor and never get up. I love solarpunk! Reclaiming/recreating the world is what interests me.
Q: Walk us through your creative process from idea to finished product. What's your prefered environment for creating? How do you get through rough patches?
A: I write drafts, either as notes on paper or outlines in Google docs. I have a bunch of notebooks full of fragments. I do a lot of editing - I have a hard time articulating things, so it takes a number of attempts until I get it right (or at least close to right). When I get stuck, I read fic. There are so many talented authors who've produced so many amazing stories that it's pretty easy to find something inspiring.
Q: What (if any) music do you listen to for help getting those creative juices flowing?
A: Folk music! I have a couple of playlists on Spotify specifically for writing Mad Max fic.
Q: What is your biggest challenge as a creator?
A: Writing! Specifically writing something good! I'm not sure if this counts as a challenge, but I also struggle with self doubt; posting something that gets no attention really sucks and it's hard not to take poor reviews/no reviews as a personal affront.
Q: How have you grown as a creator through your participation in the Mad Max Fandom? How has your work changed? Have you learned anything about yourself?
A: I've never attempted to write something as long as "Six-String Soldier," or the whole series of "Citadel City Serenade," really. Trying to manage a couple of different timelines at once with different POVs has been complicated and fun. Because of this fandom, I've also been writing more articles for the Fanlore wiki and tracking down references/resources for preservation. I'm an archivist and being able to use some of my professional skills in fandom and even develop them has been sort of neat.
Q: Which character do you relate to the most, and how does that affect your approach to that character? Is someone else your favourite to portray? How has your understanding of these characters grown through portraying them?
A: I probably relate most to Max: tired, wants to be alone, many grunts. But I prefer to write the Wives. They're so fascinating, each in their own way. I love how distinct they are and yet how well they work as a team. The first few times I saw the movie, I focused on Furiosa as the feminist hero that we all needed, but the more I watched and the more I read, the more I realized just how courageous, intelligent, and yes, feminist the Wives are. Victory doesn't require fighting and heroes don't need to be killers. The Wives achieve so much over the span of the story without physically fighting.
Q: How do you translate various elements from the film, such as the theme of the importance of bodily autonomy and critiques of an oppressive ruling class, into a modern setting?
A: This is an amazing question, thank you for asking! MMFR portrays a reality that is uncannily close to our own - In fact, it might as well be a peek into our future. In my mind, there's not even much of a need to translate those elements/themes because oh god we're dealing with them right now. What I was trying to translate with "Citadel City Serenade" is the victory of the characters over those adversities. In MMFR, the characters participate in violent, bloody battle; in CCS, they start social movements. Which is something we can do in the real world! Marches, protests, grassroots activism in general are tools we can use - Music, art, hell even gardening can be parts of a revolution.
Q: Do you ever self-insert, even accidentally?
A: Nope! I'm far too pathetic to survive in the wasteland. Hopefully I'll just die in the initial blast.
Q: Do you have any favourite relationships to portray? What interests you about them?
A: Yes! I'm a shipper at heart, so I am all about the couples. My two favorites are Capable/Nux and Toast/Slit. I love having the women be the ones leading the relationships - not only setting the boundaries but also expanding the War Boys world into completely new territory. I'm also totally into male characters who are sexually inexperienced. Alpha male dudes are meh in my opinion - Give me someone sweet and enthusiastic, someone whose love is based on respect, someone whose enthusiastic about learning. I think Nux is firmly in the category of awesome boyfriend, and I like trying to figure out how to lead Slit in that direction. There's also the idea of redemption in their relationships that I find fascinating.
Q: How does your work for the fandom change how you look at the source material?
A: Hm, I think that I definitely view the film through a feminist gaze. It's entirely possible that MMFR is just an action film but that's not my take on it!
Q: Do you prefer to create in one defined chronology or do your works stand alone?
A: Why or why not?Bit of both! I just want to read, read, read - As long as the fics are well written, it doesn't matter to me if the settings are consistent. As far as my own writing goes, I get so many ideas for fics that it's not really possible to have them all exist in a single chronology.
Q: To break or not to break canon? Why?
A: The great thing about fanfiction is that it's transformative. To me, canon is the foundation, but you can build whatever you want on it. Hopefully I keep the characters close to their canon portrayals, but other than that, I like to mix things up. Also, a modern AU setting just fits so damn well in the Mad Max world. I think also that canon itself can be flexible. Death of the author and all that. Once media is out in the world, it'll be interpreted by the audience - and sometimes those interpretations are vastly different from one another.
Q: Share some headcanons.
A: I don't really have any! Since most of my stuff is AU, the headcanons are limited to those settings.
Q If you work with OCs walk us through your process for creating them. Who are some of your favourites?
A: I have a smatterings of OCs who populate the world as background characters: Vuvalini, milking mothers, and War Boys. I played a MMFR tabletop RPG a couple of years ago, and my character from that and an NPC she saved both ended up in 6-String. That particular War Boy (Stacks) now has a couple of fans and so I've been giving him more screentime, as it were. He's sort of interesting as a foil to Nux and Slit: those two have girlfriends to learn from, but Stacks is on his own as he tries to escape from the WB life.
Q: If you create original works, how do those compare to your fan works?
A: I do! I participate in NaNo every year. I think my fanfiction is better than my original stuff since I write, since the fanfic is intended to be shared and thus I have to write decently enough to get readers. However my stuff tends to be in the speculative fiction genre, so that's something my fanfic and original fic share.
Q: What are some works by other creators inside and outside of the fandom that have influenced your work?
A: There are so many! In Mad Max, @supergirrll, @redcandle17, pbp (@primarybufferpanel), @bonehandledknife, Tyellas (@thebyrchentwigges), and hell all of the Boltcutters are all really important; the early writers of Nux/Capable fics also really influenced and inspired my love of the characters and the ships. Spicyshimmy, an author in the Dragon Age fandom, has also been one of my favorite authors for years, and I return to her stuff regularly to see how awesome writing can be.
Q: What advice can you give someone who is struggling to make their own works more interesting, compelling, cohesive, etc.?
A: I struggle with this myself, so I don't think I really have an answer unfortunately other than read everything you can get your hands on, write everything you can think of. I write basically what I want to read; if I can make the reader!me happy, then at least I've satisfied one person. However, what I consider interesting, compelling, etc, isn't always what other people want. Maybe my advice is to try not to take it personally when your hard work isn't rewarded. Which again, I'm not always able to do.
Q: Have you visited or do you plan to visit Australia, Wasteland Weekend, or other Mad Max place?
A: Yes, Wasteland Weekend! It was a lot of fun and I'm hoping to go again. Being able to immerse myself in the world was a great experience - A totally new way for me to engage with fandom.
Q: Tell us about a current WIP or planned project.
A: Still chugging along with "Citadel City Serenade!" The two main stories in that series are going to intersect in a meaningful way soon. In fact, they're going to crash. Looking forward to getting that out there (and getting it done!).
Thank you @jaesauce
#Mad Max Fandom Spotlight#Mad Max fandom#mad max fandom creator spotlight#fury road fandom#fanfic author spotlight#mad max fanfic author spotlight#Jaetion
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Extensive Les Mis fanon character interpretation Discourse under the cut, read at your own risk
I’ve been thinking about this for an embarrassingly long while and I know I’m not the best person to discuss this, because talking about Les Mis is like opening this huge box of things which you need to be a scholar to be prepared to back up fully. That’s why this is under ‘read more’, because I am aware and accept my own ignorance and limitations BUT I also think this is an interesting topic, so here we go.
One thing that has been increasingly bothering me in what we can call “the current fanon interpretation” of Les Mis, namely the fanon interpretation that arose/became popular post 2012 movie and through tumblr/ao3, is this idea that Enjolras is a toxic person and he tramples selfishly over people’s feelings.
This is something that escalates sometimes a lot, even to a point in which I had to one time witness someone on tumblr dot com saying that Montparnasse was a better person and preferable ship partner than Enjolras which made me just stop and stare at the screen for a long moment trying to comprehend where this was coming from.
There was an escalating fandom acceptance of Enjolras being incredibly selfish towards people in the benefit of “his cause”, which makes him a sort of childish persona who is unable to take care of himself and who doesn’t understand people’s feelings in the slightest.
This is 99.999999% of the time paired with Grantaire’s interpretation, which I think is a key to understanding why this happened in the first place and why it evolved into turning Enjolras into an unfeeling person who understands nothing of human emotions.
And I think it’s a fascinating thing to think about and deconstruct, even if I’m not fond of the interpretation.
I think that Grantaire is, to the current Les Mis fandom (more so than ever before, but I’ll talk about that in a bit), what Éponine was to the musical fandom (and creators) in the 80s/90s.
A big problem I have with Éponine’s interpretation in the musical (and again, I’m in no way the most qualified person to talk about this and my word should be taken with a bucket of salt) is that she was taken as the victim in a made up “love triangle” that never was. The musical uses Éponine as a tragic figure whose love for Marius is depicted as wholesome and romanticized, whereas Cosette is reduced to a Cinderella story and a very shallow characterization once she becomes an adult (let’s remember her storyline is reduced to being an object to Fantine’s hope, Valejan’s salvation and Marius’s survival without much of an own agency since her entire plot and growth and storyline are cut after she’s rescued by Valjean). So the musical puts the two against each other as the two “options” Marius has, but doesn’t focus on Marius and Cosette’s relationship aside from a couple songs and moments, instead gives Éponine a solo on how much she’s unrequited and a death scene where the entire plot point of her wanting Marius to go to the barricade is erased.
Éponine’s character complexity is reduced to the character people is meant to feel for and women are meant to root for because she is “the underdog”. And, most often that not, that’s what love triangles do, the underdog is the one people root for because they’re meant to identify with their unfair situation and their tough luck.
This is a disservice to Éponine and to Cosette, who are much more complex than this and it’s something most people tend to let pass because the musical didn’t have as much time to expand, but it isn’t a matter of amount of content depicted but on which perspective to focus and what lens to see the story through.
Ask anyone who was a fan of the musical in the 80s and who hasn’t read the book or seen any other adaptation who they prefer between Éponine and Cosette, if you don’t believe me. I mean, On My Own was adopted as the “anthem of the female friendzone” as cringe-y as hell as that sounds.
Anyway, what does that have to do with Grantaire, you ask me? Well, first of, it’s very easy to see how modern fandom tends to interpret Grantaire and Éponine as friends, really really close to one another. This is a very common occurrence that results from the comparison of their situations and strengthens my point, but it’s not where I’m going with exactly.
What I think that has happened with Grantaire, and here is the anthropological/sociological hypothesis nobody asked for, is that he became the embraced character for the current tumblr/ao3 fandom as Éponine was for that 80s/90s musical fandom, due to the interpretation he is given, to satisfy certain fandom needs that are current. Which isn’t wrong in itself, it’s what happens with archetypes all the time (and a subject of study for me, which is why this interests me specifically, I’m currently writing two projects that involve literary archetypes, but I digress).
Grantaire’s drunkenness and confrontational nature were turned into coping mechanisms for a battle with severe depression, in most cases, or other underlying mental illnesses. Which isn’t that much of a long shot in itself, all things considered, it has a canon basis to stand on, but creates a complex case when it comes to the consequences of the things he does.
Fanon transformed Grantaire’s confrontational nature into a constant cry for help, one which Enjolras most often, if not almost always, ignores. Sometimes out of being oblivious, sometimes out of selfishness, sometimes out of derision and contempt. Sometimes all of them at once.
And one consequence of this was that it started becoming more and more often for Grantaire’s actions to be fully embraced by fandom because he was starting to be conceived as a vessel for a lot of self-reflection. It isn’t completely random that Grantaire’s characterization became more inclined towards the narrative of mental illness and conflicting coping mechanisms, because they are all subjects we talk about more openly now than ever before, especially in the platforms where this interpretation is more often seen, namely tumblr and ao3. Not that they didn’t exist before, but that they’re discussed more freely now, especially through the idea of safe zones that social media and the internet in general allow.
What Éponine’s character was for the female fandom of the 80s looking for an underdog to root for, in a market filled with products about the female underdog who was unrequited and deserved to be loved, Grantaire somewhat became to a fandom needing to express this idea of existential emptiness and overall doubt about not only one’s state of mind but also where one is going with their life when others seem so certain about it.
And talking about being certain about a life goal, what’s going in with Enjolras, meanwhile? I believe that, much like Grantaire’s fandom characterization having somewhere canon to stand on, Enjolras’s severity has some places where it came from which we can all clearly see. I am a little bit tired of how many times people use the “capable of being terrible” phrase at this point, and then there was the whole thing with Saint Just which I’m not getting into because this is already too long.
But, much like characters written to be two sides of the same coin, Enjolras and Grantaire tend to be connected to each other’s characterization. They were like that in canon, they were written to be a pair which influenced, directly or indirectly, the other, so it isn’t strange to see that in fanon interpretations, the two also go hand in hand. Pun very much intended.
The issue I have with Grantaire’s interpretation isn’t that his perspective is more directly viewed, or that fandom goes more in-depth with his underlying issues, but the fact that sometimes identification turns into idealization. It happens very frequently in writing (and not only in fic) that authors who see themselves reflected in a character tend to try to erase any blame from them in a way to channel a sense of embrace for their own actions, and that can be counterproductive to the character’s complexity.
Because it isn’t really the problems and hardship what make a character relatable, it is their growth which comes from learning, which, in turn, comes from making mistakes.
When Grantaire’s mistakes are characterized as reactions to things that are outside his capability to control, when they are seen as mechanisms of what anyone would do if they were in his place, Enjolras’s reactions to them turn not severe but unfair.
Suddenly, all of Grantaire’s mistakes, jokes, derision and his unfavorable actions are seen as a product of an inescapable situation, out of his control, which, in turn makes Enjolras’s anger unjust and an over-reaction. Which, paired with the fact that Enjolras’s “cause” varies from interpretation to interpretation (especially in modern contexts, which are the most popular among this generation of fandom, where the “cause” has to be determined from social and political contexts that tend to be very vague out of the global state of the world and the intersectionality of issues, which overlay in every one of them), makes him unfairly distant and overall incapable of feeling empathy.
Something that can be seen very clearly in the way in which, when it’s written as a ship, Enjolras often has to “choose” between Grantaire and “his cause”, whatever that is in each specific narrative.
More so than making Enjolras too severe, my problem is with his desensitization. I feel that making Grantaire a constant victim (out of fandom willingness to grab onto him as a vessel of current issues of the generation he represents due to his canon-ish age) makes Enjolras desensitized to human emotion, especially because, most often than not, it is only him who is represented as oblivious or uncaring, while the rest of the group understands and sometimes even defends Grantaire, in stances even turning their backs on Enjolras for that reason, which always baffles me, truly.
Enjolras is a very complex character and his actions are matter of many essays and interpretations, but one thing I don’t think he can be seen as is uncaring. Even less so uncaring towards human emotion. His constant inner turmoil during the barricade is something to behold and I always turn to his decision to execute Le Cabuc/Claquesous as one of my favorite parts in the entire thing, and the fact that he grieves his decision in the way he does is a proof of his emotional complexity and empathy.
I don’t have a problem with Enjolras’s severity or Grantaire’s motives, I have a problem with the simplification of their narratives into a judge and a victim, which I think is what leads to these conversations of toxicity among them, opening another bag of complications.
But even if it’s something that bothers me, it also fascinates me to see how these interpretations shift so much and how they change according to the audience that embraces the text at a certain point in time. How we charge it with additional symbolic value as we go, transforming it a bit with each read.
I want to clarify, very strongly and vehemently, that these ramblings are IN NO WAY meant as derision of fandom interpretation or anyone’s particular writing. I too have written Les Mis fics and have fallen into interpretative conundrums that now, with experience, I judge unfitting to my current views, some which I have deleted, others which are still around. So this is in no way a call out of any form, not at all.
It is also not to criticize Grantaire’s interpretation, as someone who suffers from mental illness myself, I find it not only positive but necessary the inclusion of these topics in writing, whether it is in fic form or in any other type.
I find this a fascinating topic because, like Tournier said: “In some masterpieces - and that is why they are first among universal literature - there is an incentive to create, an infection of the creative verb, a way to put in motion the creative process of readers. I confess that, for me, that is the peak of art”. That is the magic of works like Les Mis, that we can use them to see ourselves, no matter how much time has passed, and if these characters still help to see ourselves and our reality in a way in which we can observe it better, I think Hugo would be glad.
#les miserables#luly rambles#i was gonna be brief about this and I ended writing an essay whoops#i know i'm not the best person to talk about this but I have thoughts to share i guess idk#les mis#essay posts
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So, I hear you liked TURN.
Apres the Season 4 finale, I know there’s going to be a lot of crying, and hand-wringing, and rewatching, and these are all good and proper things to do in the wake of a TV show you’ve enjoyed.
But after the smoke clears from all of that, you’re maybe going to go looking for your next 18th century fix, just something in between rewatches or while you’re trying to flesh out your next story idea. (Hey, now that we have our canon, go hog-wild on story ideas, guys, seriously.)
So I’ve saved you some trouble and made you all a helpful list.
Obviously there are a lot of movies and TV shows out there - this is just a selection that I wish more people knew about.
Note: Everyone enjoys a show or movie for different reasons. These shows are on this list because of the time period they depict, not because of the quality of their writing, the accuracy of their history or the political nature of their content. Where I’m able to, I’ve mentioned if a book is available if you’d like to read more.
Before we get to the rest of the list, there are three excellent shows that are either currently on television or about to be very soon:
Poldark (BBC/PBS) is based on a series of books by an author named Winston Graham. It was made into a PBS series in the 70s starring Robin Ellis as the handsome Captain Poldark, who returns from the American Revolution to find his family farm in tatters and his long-time love interest married to his cousin. Drama ensues. The 70s series is worth your time, and the recent remake with Aidan Turner in the title role is also definitely worth a go. (If you like leading men who make terrible life decisions and the women who put up with them, this is totally your show.)
Harlots (Hulu) - If you really loved the TURN ladies, thought Lola and Philomena deserved more than they got, or are just interested to learn more about what life might have been like for the lower classes in London in the 1750s, have we got a deal for you. Harlots follows the lives of 18th century sex workers in this new drama, which was just recently renewed for a totally deserved second season. Female-lead ensemble drama. A little violent at points and deals with some pretty heavy-duty topics like rape, murder, and bastardy, but in a humane and understanding way. Totally bingeable.
Outlander (Starz) - Based on the wildly popular series of books by Diana Gabaldon, this time traveling drama jumps between a couple of different centuries and follows the story of Jamie and Claire, two very strong personalities trying to literally find their place in history. (Hewlett talks about the blade his grandfather picked up at Culloden; that battle forms a critical part of this show’s storyline.) It’s a real pretty show with very high production values.
And, without further ado, the rest of the list!
John Adams: If you haven’t watched this already, do yourself a favor and go pick it up from the library. Starring Paul Giametti in the title role, this HBO miniseries follows John Adams’ role in the formation of America, through his early days in Congress up through his own presidency. As with any biographical show, characters that we know and love from other media (Rufus Sewell’s Hamilton comes to mind, but see what you think of David Morse’s Washington, too) are presented in a slightly different light and provide some food for thought about how history can be selective in how it remembers us. The costuming is great, the sets are fantastic, and the acting is first-rate.
The Patriot: An oldie but a goodie. Mel Gibson plays a highly fictionalized version of Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox while Jason Isaacs turns in a really stellar hottie we love to hate in Colonel Tavington. A little heavy-handed at times, this is a good movie to laugh over with friends.
Sons of Liberty: I’ll be really honest - for a show from the History Channel, the history on this show is pretty awful. But the cast is pretty. This one’s up to you, really. It fills a hole.
Garrow’s Law: William Garrow was a barrister and a pioneering legal mind in the 18th century, and this show (which ran for 3 seasons) is based on real Old Bailey cases and Garrow’s defenses, while also working in his fraught social life. Were you interested in learning a little more about Abe Woodhull’s erstwhile legal training? This is the show for you.
City of Vice: A miniseries that explains the origins and work of the Bow Street Runners, one of London’s first police forces. Does a great job of opening up some of the early 18th century underside of London including a smidge of 18th century gay culture.
A Harlot’s Progress: William Hogarth was an 18th century artist, printmaker and social commentator whose “A Harlot’s Progress” famously depicts the downfall of a woman who goes into prostitution. This 2006 series explores the relationship that inspired the ‘Harlot’ piece.
The Incredible Journey of Mary Bryant: At around the same time America was busy trying to figure itself out, halfway around the world another one of Britain’s colonial possessions - Australia - was just getting started. Hundreds of convicts found themselves stuffed in ships and sent to the other side of the world - a sentence deemed almost more humane. This 2005 series with Romala Garai follows a very famous convict, Mary Bryant, and her experiences.
Banished: Another take on penal colonies in Australia. Currently available on Hulu.
Black Sails: A more recent offering from Starz, this show explores the backstory of the pirates in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. Lots of great representation issues, a whole lot of ‘how does your story get told’ - and there’s a real big community on Tumblr who loves it and very actively produces all kinds of fic.
Clarissa - Simcoe fans, this one is totally for you. Based on the epistolary novel by Samuel Richardson, Clarissa follows a girl of the same name as the infamous rake Lovelace tries to seduce her. Another look at what how women can be corrupted. Also, for you fandom nerds in the crowd, Lovelace was one of the first characters to inspire fix-it fic. Yes, really! Fix-it fic in the late 1700s. Lovelace is one of the original men for whom the ‘No, really, I can reform him’ trope was created. (Richardson, his creator, was so horrified by this reaction by his fans that he actually revised the book several times to try and make Lovelace even more villainous and irredeemable, with little success. Then as now, women apparently love the idea of a bad boy.)
Amazing Grace - The history of slavery in England and its colonies is complicated and nuanced; this story deals with one of the more famous names from that story, William Wilberforce, and his contribution.
Belle - Based on the true story of Dido Elizabeth Belle, the mixed race daughter of a Royal Navy Admiral. Another look at racial politics in England.
The Aristocrats - One of my all-time favorite TV miniseries and based on the nonfiction book by Stella Tilyard, this show follows the (actual, nonfictional) Lennox sisters, daughters of the Duke of Richmond as they grow up, marry, and adjust to rapid social change from the early 1700s into the 1790s.
The Duchess - About the same time the Lennox sisters were out in society, so was Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire. This is based on (I’m not sure how closely) Amanda Foreman’s biography of Georgiana, one of the leading ladies of her day.
Dangerous Liasons - Another story about corruptible young women, this one has 3 very well deserved Oscars to its name and an absolutely stunning Glenn Close.
Barry Lyndon - a very evocative, sumptuous film by Stanley Kubrick. Short on action, but very, very Aesthetic, as only Kubrick can do.
The Scarlet Pimpernel - Based on the book by Baroness Orczy, The Scarlet Pimpernel is largely considered to be one of the world’s first ‘superhero with a secret identity’ stories. Sir Percy Blakeney uses his identity as a dim-witted fop to provide cover for his activities rescuing French aristocrats from the guillotine during the French Revolution. The 1982 version with Anthony Andrews and the 1999 version with Richard Grant are both a lot of fun.
Speaking of the French, where would we be without them? Our small domestic dust-up with Britain has far-reaching international consequences, setting in motion so many other social movements in Europe. The French, for instance, will have their own revolution several years after ours, which, of course, will lead to a total political shakeup ending with an artillery officer named Napoleon Bonaparte on the throne as Emperor. (You may have heard of him. He goes on to have his own series of large wars and, you know, completely changes the geo-political landscape of Europe. Like you do.)
La Revolution Francaise, filmed for the 200th anniversary of the Revolution, is available on YouTube in it’s entirety with English subtitles! Starts in 1774 and goes through the 1800s. C’est merveilleux.
Marie Antoinette - Sofia Coppola’s wild, modern romp through the life of one of the 18th century’s most notorious women. It may not be great history, but darn me if it isn’t fun to watch.
Farewell, My Queen - Another story about Marie Antoinette - this one is in French.
Nicolas Le Floch: An 18th century crime procedural set at the court of Louis XVI. The whole show is in French, so watch with subtitles, but the costumes are a lot of fun and it gives an interesting picture of the life a character like Lafayette would have left behind when he came to America. (He gets name dropped a few times, actually, though he never actually appears.)
Ekaterina: A 2014 miniseries from Russia discussing the rise of Catherine the Great, the Empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796, contemporaneous to the Revolution. The 18th century is a fascinating time in Russian history and Catherine is a really, really interesting lady. Totally go and read about her.
Anno 1790: A Swedish crime procedural set in 1790s Sweden and following Johann Däadh, a doctor recently roped into the police force. Däadh is a bit of a reformer, interested in the rights of man and giving everyone a chance to be heard. Costumes are fun, and there’s a really great slow-burn romance between two of the characters, one of whom is (gasp) married. This show only ran for one season, but it was a really, really good season.
If you’re still jonesing for period dramas after the rest of this list, here’s a lot of shows and tv series set during the Napoleonic Wars that are also totally worth your time - the Richard Sharpe miniseries, the Horatio Hornblower miniseries, the BBC’s War and Peace, Master and Commander, and then, of course, anything based on a Jane Austen novel.
Have fun!
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what do you personally dislike about Slott's ASM? also do you know how he has been the main writer for so long? It feels like marvel should have switched it up
This turned out so long, sorry, anon.
I don’t know the circumstances that have led to Slott’s extremely long run on Amazing Spider-Man, but I do feel it’s long past time to switch it up for a number of reasons, and frankly, I’m surprised they didn’t chose Legacy as the perfect time to bring in a new writer. I’ve got two bones to pick with Slott’s Amazing Spider-Man, and one is a couple of personal experiences I’ve had that centered around Superior Spider-Man (importantly, they’re both scenes involving the run’s treatment of women) and then just a general note on why his Peter Parker voice doesn’t work for me, personally. I have liked other comics by Slott, for the record.
The personal experiences first:
I’ve witnessed Slott harass a friend of mine on social media over a comment on a frankly awful panel in Superior Spider-Man, saying that they shouldn’t criticize Otto’s actions because he was “on a journey.” This kind of behavior is apparently not an isolated incident where he’s involved, but I should note that my friend was at the time very young (I can’t remember if they were 18, but quite possibly they were younger). I believe it was made obvious to him at one point that he was arguing with a teenager, but I can’t recall for sure. I do know they did not tag him in their criticism. But most importantly, this is the panel they were discussing:
For those unaware, Superior Spider-Man was a storyline where Doctor Octopus bodyjacked Peter and intended to live his life as Peter and as Spider-Man. Nobody knew that Peter had been replaced.
Otto’s thought boxes are positioned over Mary Jane’s dialogue, effectively silencing her, and not only is HIS gaze clearly fixed on her breasts, but the reader is essentially forced to stare at them, too. I don’t know how the average man feels looking at this panel, but I can say, as a woman, it 100% feels like the comic is creepily staring at my boobs and I’m not cool with that. This is not a fun cheesecake page, embracing Mary Jane as a confident, sexually attractive woman – it’s treating her like a piece of meat. If this was intended to be funny, I’m sorry, but the joke is bad. Even if we were to say Otto was “on a journey” to become a better person and that his behavior in the first issue is not indicative of who he’ll become so he shouldn’t be judged on it – which, currently, he’s in a Peter clone body, being all sad because his Parker Industries coup failed and the woman he lied to and seduced using Peter’s identity doesn’t want to date him, so I guess the last stop on the train was Disgusting Man Valley – it’s still a page where a man infiltrates a woman’s private life using the body of one of the closest people to her and then ignores her voice to stare at her breasts. (Make no mistake: Otto was explicitly and aggressively trying to trick her into bed using Peter’s identity. Later, when he realized he could access Peter’s memories, he replayed Peter’s sexual encounters with Mary Jane. I don’t like any stop on this journey, guys.)
The “journey”, I suspect, was meant to refer to Ock’s growing feelings towards Anna Maria Marconi, but that just highlights another set of problems I have: Mary Jane, a beautiful model turned entrepreneur, is ultimately deemed by Otto as “unacceptable” for someone of Peter’s intellect, and cast aside in favor Anna Maria, who works in STEM, can cook like an Italian grandmother, and who is pretty but not conventionally desirable. It would be one thing for the character to do this, but Slott did once say that Otto was better at appreciating “real beauty” than Peter, and that Peter’s love for Mary Jane was “anti-Marvel”, because Mary Jane’s “superficially beautiful”, implying that she lacks inner beauty and ignoring the canon fact that Mary Jane’s moral center has always been stronger than Peter’s. This disregard for Mary Jane solely because she’s pretty continues in a scene where Mary Jane gets all dressed up and goes to meet a new guy she’s interested in, only to get pushed into the mud before he sees her. While humor via humiliation is common in Slott’s Spider-Man, I don’t really think I need to elaborate on why a scene all about taking a woman who is confident in her appearance and sexuality down a peg leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I really dislike how often Mary Jane is disregarded by fans because she’s “a shallow male fantasy” (please read comics) so to say that Peter loving her is anti-Marvel is just, like, no.
More under the cut.
(It’s also out of character for Mary Jane not to realize Peter’s not Peter, considering she outfoxed (and then bludgeoned) the Chameleon and can pick Peter out from among his clones:
but for the sake of Superior’s deceit, I can let this go. The Superior Spider-Man scene where she sits in a burning building waiting for Spider-Man to come save her, The Most Out Of Character Mary Jane Scene Of All Time, I cannot.)
So there’s just, generally, the treatment of Mary Jane in Superior Spider-Man, as well as his reaction to a criticism of it. Then there’s an encounter with a male Spider-Man fan I had which, while this isn’t a direct criticism of Slott’s work, I do think it ties into the way women are treated in it, especially within the body of Superior Spider-Man.
So I used to cosplay, and one time I went to a big outdoor shoot with a bunch of friends and friends’ friends and some photographers, etc, and afterwards we all crowded into a big diner booth together, Jersey style, and this guy I don’t know starts chatting me up. (I guess he missed the memo about superficial beauty.) And it’s a cosplay thing, so like, we’re all nerds, and somehow we start talking about Spider-Man. And this guy rushes to tell me he is loving Superior Spider-Man. Do you know what he just can’t wait to tell me he loved about Superior Spider-Man? He loves that Doc Ock punched Felicia Hardy in the face. “That was awesome,” he told me, referring to a scene where Felicia comes across Spider-Man and, not knowing it’s Ock in there, initiates some playful banter, which he responds to by punching her in the face hard enough to knock a tooth out. Because he’s the Superior Spider-Man! And obviously that’s ~superior~ to what “shallow” Peter would have done, which was most likely engage in consensual sex with Felicia, because they’re both adults who enjoy having sex with each other. Did Dan Slott hold a gun to that guy’s head and make him tell me how awesome and funny it is when men violently assault women in fiction? No, but he did write a scene that it’s possible to interpret as glorifying said assault. At the very least, it does not condemn it.
Dating tip, guys: when talking to a girl for the first time, please don’t tell her how cool and funny you think violence against women is. (Actually, if you find it cool and funny, please be upfront about that, so she can get out of there and never talk to you again.)
Ugh. You guys. I do not like how this title treats women. I don’t like how other Slott titles treat women, although they’re less egregious about it, because at least when Peter Parker is in control of his body and the title you’re forced as a writer to deal with the fact that, while Peter canonically is real enthusiastic about sex with women, the character does actually like, respect women as human beings. Slott has also fridged several important Spider-Man women, notably both Dr. Ashley Kafka and Marla Jameson – both professional women. I love Cindy Moon and I love what other writers have done with the concept of someone who spent ten years locked away in a bunker, but I’m not actually sure Cindy’s introduction needed to be about a woman who was locked in a box since she was a teenager, you feel me?
My issues with Slott’s Peter characterization are entirely a matter of personal taste. I’ve already mentioned that I don’t love humor via embarrassment or humiliation, but I really, really don’t like it. And Slott uses it a lot – his conception of Spider-Man as a funny superhero involves Peter being the butt of a lot of jokes, instead of Peter just… being funny. I also find that his Peter lacks an edge. This is also my problem with Bendis’ Peter, though I feel Bendis nails the rhythm of Peter’s banter better than Slott does, and his dialogue-heavy writing is a good fit. Also, he knows Peter’s Jewish. But like, for instance, you have an iteration of Peter who was only ever written by Bendis in Ultimate Peter! And he’s a good boy! He is! I care about him so much less than 616 Peter. This is related to my dissatisfaction with Homecoming, where he was completely toothless and the narrative went out of its way to point out how NOT scary he was. I’m sorry, but a teenage boy who can punch through concrete no big deal is actually always going to be at least a little scary – instead of rejecting that fact, I’d rather explore how Peter makes himself gentle as he grows up, and how he struggles to be as good and as moral as Spider-Man is, and when he leans into that threatening nature. I want that struggle, and that relationship with violence, throw in some Spider-Man as a predatory animal metaphors okay at this point I should note that the modern Spider-Man writer whose voice for him I like the very best is J. Michael Straczynski’s. You can see what I’m talking about in this scene, for example:
He’s completely gentle with Mary Jane – but when Tony gets in his way to keep him from going after a paparazzo (Tony wouldn’t know this, but Peter once threatened to rip a sleazy photographer’s head off after he called Mary Jane cheap, so y’know, trying to get him to calm down is reasonable), Peter’s reaction is hostile – threatening to forcibly move him, the clenched fists, etc. (One of my big Peter characterization rules is you can’t write how he interacts with other people the same as the way he interacts with his family.) He also just tossed Wolverine out a window, so.
“You were chosen for your rage” ooooh Mr. Stracyznski, tell me more. This sounds like I am joking no 10000% give me more of Peter shirtless and beating up the Kingpin. His freaking murder polo:
Basically, as a reader, I appreciate the depths of Peter’s kindness best when they aren’t necessarily first nature for him. Slott’s Peter doesn’t have that same edge to him. He’s not reining himself in. (There was a Norman vs Peter fist fight and I WAS NOT INTO IT, which should be impossible.)
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What do you think of the direction the Pokemon anime is taking on Lusamine? They are trying to make her more sympathetic and she don't seen to be abusive. I feel conflicted because will they are whitewashing the only female villain, they are also going into to the USUM route without the unfortunate implications.
Well, first, before anything—I mean no offense, but I just feel that you should know for future usage that “making a villain out to be a good person” is not the correct use of the term “whitewashing.”
“Whitewashing” is a very specific term which relates to portraying a character of non-white ethnicity as white in adaptations of the original work. So for instance, the characters Katara and Sokka were whitewashed in the live action film adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender, because although they have dark skin in the original cartoon, they were played by white actors. The character Yagami Light was whitewashed in the recent Netflix film adaptation of the series Death Note, because although he is originally a Japanese character, he was portrayed by a white actor and his name was changed to Light Turner, and so on and so forth. “Whitewashing” applies specifically to the depiction of race (and sometimes culture) within media adaptations, and doesn’t at all refer to the heroics or villainous traits present within the characters. Again, I don’t mean to call you out on this or attack you or anything even remotely close to that, but I just thought you should know for the future, since there are some reactionary people on this website who might get a little more volatile about it, even though it’s just an honest mistake on your part.
As for the actual content of your question: It’s complicated.
First, before anything else, it needs to be said that Lusamine is still abusive in USUM. Gladion’s line about how he was “an ornament to [his] mother” is still in tact, as is all of the verbal abuse she hurls at Lillie and Gladion right there on screen when you confront her at Aether Paradise. I actually transcribed this while playing through that scene last night, so I can share that now:
LUSAMINE: “A gifted young trainer like [player] … and they bother with someone like you? How disappointing. […] My … you do say such imcomprehensible things. Calling me mother? I don’t have any children! Certainly not any wretched children who would run off and reject my love! So tell me how you’ll save that pokémon. What can you do, Lillie? You failed to convince me to listen to you. You don’t even have the strength of a trainer. The only thing that you’ve ever done on your own is steal someone else’s research material! It’s so terribly unattractive. But know that my fathomless love will save even someone like you … when I protect this entire world from darkness!”
The very first thing the player witnesses Lusamine saying to Lillie, her daughter, is that it’s disappointing that the player has “bothered” with someone like Lillie. The fact that Lusamine takes the time to point out that the player is gifted hammers in the point that she feels that Lillie is not. By saying that the player is a gifted trainer bothering with Lillie, Lusamine is—in essence—saying that Lillie is not worth their time. She is not good enough for the player. She is worthless. Given that this is the first thing we witness Lusamine saying to Lillie—and that this is the first time they’ve even spoken in person in some time—we can see right off the bat that she’s an abusive mother.
But she doesn’t stop there. When Lillie tries to defend herself by saying that she doesn’t need Lusamine’s approval, and that she will save Nebby, Lusamine says that she says “incomprehensible things”. This ostensibly applies to everything Lillie just said, but Lusamine decides to drive the nail in further by disowning her (and Gladion, though not by name), saying that she doesn’t have any children, and that the children she does have by blood are wretched children who rejected her. Even if you wanted to argue that Lusamine is just lashing out in anger and rejecting those who she perceives rejected her first, the truth of the matter is that Lusamine is the adult. She is their mother. She is supposed to love and support them, and do the right thing, which she has not done. She treats them, as Gladion tells us, like objects and possessions, and when they don’t behave the way she wants them to, she throws them out and blames them for how poorly she treats them. This is emotional abuse.
And again, she doesn’t stop there! She continues to berate and belittle Lillie right in front of the player character, to the point where Lillie ends up bowing her head in shame and hurt. She blames Lillie for her own refusal to listen to or acknowledge Lillie’s concerns, saying that it’s Lillie’s responsibility to convince her rather than her own responsibility to listen. She insults Lillie for not being a trainer, and calls her a thief (while at the same time reducing Nebby to an object, calling him “research material”). She then goes on to call her unattractive, and to say that she’s going to save someone like [Lillie], once again pointing out that she sees Lillie as the lowest of the low without directly saying that. All of this is verbal and emotional abuse. All of it. It’s extremely realistically written, something I can say from personal life experiences with my own biological mother, and it is high-key abusive.
And then, shortly after that, we get:
HAU: “:Daughter? Son? Wait … you all are a family?!”
LUSAMINE: “Perhaps once we were … sweet Hau. But those wretches beside you left me.”
She straight up once again says that Gladion and Lillie are no longer ones she considers family, and calls them wretches on top of it. (Note that, despite the fact that Lusamine says this to Hau, Hau still calls her “a good person” later. Have I mentioned how much my opinion of Hau has plummeted by this point?) Despite the fact that her intention now is to save the world, and despite the fact that she has moments where she does things like call Gladion “a sweet boy” for seemingly worrying for her, it’s more than evident that Lusamine is every bit as abusive toward her children in USUM as she was in SM. If anything, Lusamine changing her tune only when her children seem to care about her is even more indicative that she’s an abuser. Abusers will act nice and sweet toward their victims when their victims “behave”; it’s when they start to “step out of line” that abusers bring down the hammers of pain, and that’s exactly what Lusamine is doing here. Oh sure, she’ll act like a sweet, caring mother if her children are doing what she wants them to do, but the second they try to think or act for themselves she declares them wretched traitors that she wants nothing to do with. Considering the last conversation I had with my own biological mother ended with her calling me a traitor because I got out of her house (and me saying I didn’t have to listen to that, and her saying I did, and me saying I didn’t before I hung up the phone), yeah, that’s all very familiar to me, and it is absolutely abusive.
So make no mistake: Lusamine is still an abusive mother, and is still the most realistically written abusive parent that we’ve had in Pokémon to date (far more so than Ghetsis, whose dialogue makes him sound more cartoonish than anything). Even though the anime is clearly looking to adapt USUM, that shouldn’t affect the fact that Lusamine is an abusive parent to Gladion and Lillie, because she is. The only real difference is that here it doesn’t seem as if her abuse is being blamed on Nihilego toxins; instead, it’s just being handwaved and treated as though it isn’t abuse at all (along with Lillie’s experiences pre-canon being erased, since we no longer have the, “… you left me alone with Mother. She became so bad after you left!” line that she delivers to Gladion on Poni Island in the original games). And honestly, that’s kind of even worse, since now the fandom’s awful behavior of ignoring / downplaying Lusamine’s abuse and excusing her because she’s a woman is being validated by Game Freak themselves. Disgusting.
With all of that said, I would argue that Lusamine’s behavior still carries shades of emotional abuse in the anime as well. It’s clear from the few interactions that she has with Lillie that she doesn’t actually respect Lillie’s autonomy or agency very much at all. She ignores Lillie’s personal space, and handwaves the fact that Lillie is upset being hugged and cuddled by her. She also completely disrespected Lillie’s wishes regarding her old clefairy, treating Lillie as though she was an ignorant child and evolving the clefairy despite the fact that she knew Lillie wanted to raise the clefairy as a clefairy, rather than as a clefable. Whether Lusamine was right in that it was illogical to raise a pokémon in a pre-evolved form simply because it was cuter that way or not is irrelevant. The point is that she railroaded over Lillie’s wishes and boundaries, and she seems to have a habit of doing so. That said, you’re right: That is far less overt than the emotional abuse she hurls at Lillie and Gladion in the games, so it does seem as though they’re treating her as though she’s just an oblivious, overbearing mother rather than an actively abusive one in the anime.
As for how I feel about it? Well … I would think that would be obvious.
I’m livid at the way Lusamine has been handled in all forms. I was so, so excited to finally have a female Big Bad, and I had so many high expectations for her. Game Freak and TPCi have successfully ruined and destroyed every last one of them. In USUM, which the anime is clearly taking its cues from, she’s not even a villain anymore; she’s an antihero at best, because although she clearly abuses her children and is willing to sacrifice Nebby, her decision to sacrifice Nebby is not one borne out of selfishness, but rather is one borne out of perceived necessity. If Necrozma comes over to this dimension, he’ll steal the light, and presumably everyone and everything there will die. Lusamine is taking the tack that sacrificing one life is worth it if it means saving billions. That’s logic that can’t be easily argued with. It’s an ethical dilemma, and ethical dilemmas often don’t have hard line right or wrong answers. (Often, but not always. There are some “ethical dilemmas” which aren’t ethical dilemmas at all and do have hard line right or wrong answers.) They’ve completely stripped her of her villain status, presumably because in their minds women just can’t be villains. (And by “their” I mean “Game Freak’s”, because remember, the anime staff did have Hunter J back in DP.) It’s upsetting and infuriating both on the basis that I really wanted a competent, dangerous female Big Bad for once, and also because she’s still a blatantly abusive mother in the games, and that’s just treated as if it doesn’t matter. I guess, in the eyes of Game Freak (and a large part of the fandom) abuse just doesn’t count or isn’t that bad if it comes from one’s mother. What a great fucking message to send. [/s]
Anyway, I’m not happy about it, but there’s also nothing I can do to change it. So long as Alan is left out of the Team Rainbow Rocket arc coming up (or at the very least, if he’s involved, he doesn’t have his character assassinated), I don’t have it in me to get very worked up about it, emotionally.
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Understanding The Bible - A Practical Guide To Each Book In The Bible - Part 23
Written by: PETER KREEFT
TWENTY-THREE
________
History, Wisdom, and Apocalyptic Visions: The Deuterocanonical Books and the Apocrypha
The following books and parts of books are listed separately because they are “Deuterocanonical”. That means they are the “second canon (list of sacred writings).” They were added later to the canon of the Old Testament, both by the Jews (in Greek Alexandria) and the early Christian Church.
The Deuterocanonical Books were written only in Greek and not in Hebrew. This is one reason why most Protestants and the Jews of Palestine do not include them in their Bible. But the same Catholic Church that defined the first canon also declared the second to be inspired at the Council of Trent. The Orthodox churches of the East also accept them as canonical, with the exception of Baruch.
Tobit: God’s Providential Care
Delightful, charming, enchanting in its simplicity—these are some of the characteristics critics find in the story of Tobit. Like most storytellers of the past, its writer set his tale in days gone by, in Nineveh, the capital city of the Assyrian empire. There, in exile from his native Israel, lived Tobit, a good Jew (his name means “the good”), who goes blind because of a very peculiar accident. The story centers on the journey of his son Tobias into faraway Media to reclaim a fortune Tobit had left there, with the help of a disguised angel Raphael and even a faithful little dog who makes the whole journey with them. In Media there lives the beautiful but unfortunate Sara, whose seven husbands all died on their wedding night, slaughtered by the demon Asmodeus. But the angel Raphael knows how to deal with demons and tells Tobias how to defeat Asmodeus with a fish’s liver!
In addition to these supernatural elements, there are many realistic details, like Tobit’s wife’s irritation at her husband’s scrupulous honesty, her anxiety for his blindness, which forces her to take in sewing to support the family, her constant watching the road for her son’s return, and old Tobit counting the days.
Is the story meant as fiction or fact? We cannot decide it is fiction simply by pointing to the supernatural elements, for the whole of the Jewish and Christian religions are based on a supernatural and miracle-working God. But the literary style of the story is very different from the historical books, and it is probably meant to be taken as a “tall tale”. Whether history or parable, biography or fiction, its lessons are true, for they are those of the rest of God’s Word: faith and trust in God’s providential “tender loving care” always pays off in the end.
Judith: A Courageous Woman Delivers Her People
The name Judith comes from the Hebrew Jehudith and means “Jewess”. She is the heroine of a story whose historical background is hard to place accurately, since names, places, and dates seem out of historical order and treated very freely and loosely. But its point is not history but character.
Judith is a widow. Her husband has died of sunstroke three years before the story begins, and she is still in mourning. The Jewish nation is in danger of being destroyed by an enemy army. Her city Bethulia is under siege, and the evil king Nebuchadnezzar’s general-in-chief Holofernes has cut off its water supply. The despairing citizens beg their rulers to surrender, but Judith has a better plan. Her courage and strong faith in God contrast with their cowardice.
She takes off her mourning clothes and makes herself so beautiful that she is sure to “entice the eyes of all men who might see her” (10:4). Then she brings gifts to the camp of Holofernes, wins his confidence, and eventually wins his head, which she cuts off and brings home in a food bag. The drunken braggart and bully is defeated by the charm and wit of a woman, and the mighty army of Holofernes is defeated in a rout. Thus King Nebuchadnezzar’s plans are frustrated. His ambition was to conquer the whole world and destroy all religions that did not worship him. Some commentators see Judith in her beheading of the evil Holofernes as a foreshadowing of Mary as the new Eve crushing the head of the serpent, or Satan, the one who does indeed desire to conquer the world and destroy all true religion. Judith is the Jewish Joan of Arc. Too bad she was not around to deal with Hitler.
Esther (Greek Version): The Religious Interpretation
This is the same story as the Hebrew Book of Esther (see page 90), but with some additions. The religious lesson here is not left implicit in the events as it was in the Hebrew version, but made explicit in the Greek author’s comments.
In Esther, as in the Genesis story of Joseph, God makes no outward or miraculous manifestations of His power. Rather He directs events by natural causes, yet brings good out of evil in the end, justice out of injustice, and shows that “in everything God works for good with those who love him” (Rom 8:28). The lesson that success comes from trusting in God’s providence and plan is like the bones of the original Esther story (see Esther 14:14), and the Greek additions are like an X-ray that makes the bones prominent, makes the religious structure and meaning of the events clear.
The Wisdom of Solomon: The God behind the Law
This book was written not by King Solomon, but by an anonymous Jewish author a century or two before Christ who seems to have lived in the Greek city of Alexandria, Egypt, the world’s center of Greek learning at the time. The title was not meant to deceive anyone, but to express the author’s admiration for Solomon and to claim to be his disciple and imitator of his wisdom.
The book is a synthesis of ideas from Jewish religion and Greek philosophy and literature. Its main lesson is the same as that of the rest of the Old Testament: justice and fidelity, God rewarding those who are faithful to His law. This fidelity is the heart of wisdom. The book clearly affirms God to be all-just, all-knowing, all-good, and the origin only of good: “God did not make death, and he does not delight in the death of the living” (1:13)—a theme already taught in Genesis 3, where man’s death is the result of sin, not of God.
In Wisdom, the perfections of God reach a new high point of theological development, and the author reflects on the lessons that the history of God’s people have taught about the nature of God and the nature of wisdom. The understanding of God’s character and intentions grows throughout Jewish history, just as a plant, an animal, a human body, or a human mind grows. For instance, the later prophets of Israel emphasized the need for personal virtue and not just external observance of the law. They place more responsibility on the individual since increased knowledge brings increased responsibility.
“Wisdom” here means not merely the practical ability to succeed well in life, or even the art of behaving ethically, but spiritual vision, understanding of God and His activity in our lives and history. This wisdom had been deepening among God’s people for two thousand years, all leading up to one point: the time when the complete and perfect understanding of God would once for all become available to the whole world in Christ, God’s Wisdom incarnate. The best wisdom of all the ages was a series of pointing fingers or signs to Him. “Wise men still seek him.”
Ecclesiasticus: The Teachings of a Great Sage
This fifty-one-chapter book is the longest among the Deuterocanonical Books. Its author, Jesus (or Joshua) ben (son of) Sirach, was a teacher, scholar, and poet in Jerusalem about one hundred eighty years before Joshua ben Joseph, Jesus the Messiah. This book is probably a series of lectures Jesus ben Sirach gave in the school that he ran in that city.
His writing seems to indicate that he had traveled and studied widely about other countries and observed life carefully in order to build up his own philosophy of life. Most of the book resembles Proverbs in being realistic and practical. Its most beautiful chapters are the most poetic ones: 1, 24, 38, and 43.
The basic theme is a defense of wisdom and the claim that “all wisdom comes from the Lord” (1:1). This claim, repeatedly made by Jewish writers in the Old Testament, does not mean “listen to me because I’m as wise as God”, but rather “whatever wisdom I have, give God the credit for it, not me.” It is like the claim to be God’s chosen people: a claim that seems arrogant, but is really the most humble interpretation of the fact that the Jews are really different. It ascribes their achievements to God, not themselves, and turns our attention from them to Him: “To fear the Lord is the first step to wisdom” (1:14).
In chapter 24 wisdom is personified, much as in Proverbs (see chapter on Proverbs). These words of Jesus son of Sirach could well be seen as applying to another Jesus, whom “God made our wisdom” (1 Cor 1:30).
Baruch: Speeches Given to the Exiles in Babylon
Baruch was Jeremiah’s scribe or secretary. This book contains four short speeches by Baruch given to the Jewish exiles in Babylon. Their effect on the people was moving: “Everyone cried, fasted, and prayed to the Lord. Then everyone gave as much money as he could and the collection was sent to Jerusalem” (1:5-7). When you read it, imagine you are a poor, defeated, powerless Jewish exile in Babylon and that you believe this is the long-awaited message from God to give new hope to you and your defeated nation. Note especially the inspiring poetry at the end (4:36-5:9).
The Letter of Jeremiah: The Failure of Idolatry
The first verse explains the source of this book: Jeremiah the prophet sends a letter to the people of Jerusalem who are about to be captured and taken into exile in Babylon. The prophet foretells this and interprets it as God’s necessary punishment on the people’s foolish idolatry. It was foolish both for knowledge (confusing the living God with a dead idol—but idols include to dollar bills just as much as stone statues) and for practice (for since the idols have no power to save, those who trust in them will not be saved). The result of idolatry in practice is always failure, like leaning on a broken crutch.
The Prayer of Azariah and The Song of the Three Young Men
This addition to the Book of Daniel is found in the later, Greek version of Daniel. The “song” is a cosmic canticle of praise that the three young men sing from the middle of the fiery furnace into which the evil king Nebuchadnezzar had thrown them when they refused to worship him (Dan 3). In the song, all of creation praises God, from snow to snails. “Inanimate” matter and “dumb” animals are living works of art that loudly praise their Divine Artist, just as a good song praises its composer or a great play praises its playwright.
This canticle was for a long time well known and loved in the Church’s public liturgy and is still loved and used by many in private prayer. It brings prayer into the realm of the concrete world when we call on specific things like whales and stars and heat to praise God. Saint Francis’ “Canticle of the Sun” is a miniaturization of it. It is an application of Psalm 150, which commands everything to praise God. All goodness is God’s goodness, all truth is God’s truth, and all beauty is God’s beauty.
Susanna: An Innocent Woman Is Vindicated
This is a short story of the same kind as Tobit and Judith: simple, full of surprises, and enchanting. A beautiful woman,
Susanna, is falsely accused by two jealous, evil judges and saved by the young judge Daniel, who shows Solomon-like wisdom. It is one of the earliest forerunners of the modern detective story. Though only one chapter long, it contains many memorable details, such as the two trees that are silent witnesses for Susanna. Once you start the story, you cannot put it down until the end.
Like Tobit, this story seems to have the literary form of fable rather than history. I think one should not be too dogmatic either way. But the literary style is like that of Tobit and Bel and the Dragon, rather than straightforward historical narrative like Maccabees.
Bel and the Dragon: Three Detective Stories
These are three stories that the later Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures added to the Book of Daniel. All three are exciting detective stories, or “thrillers”. The first two center on Daniel and his wisdom in overcoming an idol set up by the Babylonians, who had destroyed Jerusalem and taken the Jews into captivity in Babylon. In the first story, Daniel exposes a clever technological trick by a trick of his own and proves that the idol Bel did not magically eat the food offered to it, as it seemed. In the second story, Daniel destroys a large, live dragon (perhaps a giant crocodile), which the Babylonians worshipped, without using any weapons. The point of both stories is not primarily Daniel’s cleverness, but the foolishness of worshipping idols of any kind, anything in the world except the one true God.
The third story is an addition to the story of Daniel in the lion’s den. It tells of the prophet Habakkuk, an interrupted stew, and an angelic air transportation by the hair from Israel to Babylon to feed Habakkuk’s stew to Daniel as the lions watched, hungrily, waiting until Daniel’s enemies were thrown into their den. Then they had their just desserts.
First Maccabees: Resistance against Tyranny
This is a historical book that tells of the Jewish struggle for religious and political freedom from the Greek empire of the Seleucid kings who had inherited the world from Alexander the Great. The Maccabees are a Jewish family chosen by God to stand up against the tyrant Antiochus Epiphanes (“that wicked root”), who persecuted the Jews and blasphemously desecrated the temple. This tyrant stole its holy treasures and set up altars to heathen gods, tore and burned the sacred books of the law, and mistreated any Jewish women who had their baby boys circumcised in obedience to Jewish law.
The first two chapters of the book set up the two sides of the war as irreconcilable enemies. On the one hand, the Greek rulers insisted not only on political conquest of Israel and the removal of political freedom, but also religious persecution and instituting practices the Jews considered blasphemous, especially in the temple. Many Jews compromised with the Greek conquerors and even helped them. On the other hand, those Jews who remained faithful to God, His law, and His temple worship resisted Antiochus Epiphanes both by force and by martyrdom.
The rest of the book is the story of three resistance movements, one for each of the sons of Mattathias: Judas Maccabeus, “The Hammerer”, and his brothers Jonathan and Simon, who each led the resistance in turn and were killed in turn. It is a story of war, intrigue, and murder—full of detailed descriptions of ancient warfare, including mounted engines to throw fire and rocks, and elephants with towers of wood. The battle scenes remind us of The Lord of the Rings. Yet even in this bloody time God’s hand is seen, testing His people, punishing them with national suffering only in order to bring them back to Himself, and aiding those who were loyal to Him. The Maccabees, like the Jews of older times, succeed only by God’s help and fail only when they turn away from God.
God’s providence over history was keeping the nation of Israel alive, against all ordinary odds, because they were His chosen people, carriers to the whole world of His revelation, the true knowledge of who God really is. They were the people from whom His promised Messiah was to come. These years, full of wars and violence, without a prophet from God for over four hundred years between Malachi and John the Baptist, were the dark before the dawn.
Second Maccabees: Praise for Martyrs of the Faith
This book covers part of the same period covered by First Maccabees. It is the story of the Jewish fight for Jerusalem and the temple, for political and religious independence. There is some overlapping, and many of the same events are told from another point of view. The style here is more like a sermon than a history. The author’s purpose is to teach loyalty to God’s law and to praise the martyrs who died for their faith.
Second Maccabees also contains the Old Testament’s only clear passage that teaches us to pray for our beloved dead because of the resurrection.
Highlights include the stirring story of the mother and seven sons who were tortured and slaughtered for their faith (chapter 7), and the teaching on the resurrection of the dead (6:26; 7:9; 12:41-46; 14:46) and on the intercessory prayers of the saints in Heaven (15:12-16) where Jeremiah the prophet is seen praying in Heaven for Judas Maccabeus on earth. The Church Militant on earth and the Church Triumphant in Heaven are one. In prayer they have real contact with each other. Death no more destroys or even separates God’s people, the Church, the New Israel, than it could destroy or separate ancient Israel. “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us” (Heb 12:1).
Apocrypha
The First and Second Books of Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh are not part of the seventy-three books the Catholic Church accepts as the canon or list of books of Scripture (that is, divinely inspired, authoritative, and infallible). But they are wise and useful reading. The reason they are included as part of the Apocrypha in many Catholic and Protestant Bibles is that the Jews in Alexandria, Egypt, who made the Septuagint Greek translation of the Old Testament did include them; some Protestants (mainly Anglicans and Episcopalians) include them as part of their Apocrypha; and they were used by Christians for the first few centuries. In fact, some non-Chalcedonian Orthodox churches, which have no closed second canon of Scripture, hold that First and Second Esdras are “inspired”.
First Esdras: Second Chronicles 35-36, Ezra, and Nehemiah 6-8 Retold
The events told in the First Book of Esdras are also told in 2 Chronicles 35-36, Ezra, and Nehemiah 6-8. But First Esdras adds the interesting philosophical debate of the bodyguards before the emperor (chap. 3-4).
Second Esdras: Apocalyptic Visions
Most of this book consists of seven apocalyptic visions, that is, visions of the end of the world and the crises that are to come before the end. It offers answers to some of the greatest philosophical questions asked in any time: questions about the problem of evil and suffering and about the meaning and end of history. The style is more philosophical than that of the canonical books of Scripture, and more typical of the Greek mind than the Hebrew mind.
What are we to make of prophecies and visions like these that are not in the canon of Scripture but seem to be wise and edifying? On the one hand, they are not infallible. We cannot be certain that they are true. On the other hand, when they dovetail nicely with Scripture, when they explain Scripture and when Scripture explains them, we should give them a respectful hearing and expect to get from them great wisdom and inspiration.
The Prayer of Manasseh: A Prayer of Repentance
The story of Manasseh, who was a very evil king of Judah, is told in 2 Chronicles 33. This short prayer is a prayer of repentance for sin. Whether Manasseh actually composed it or not, it is a beautiful prayer to use. It begins and ends with praise, which is the main theme of prayer in the Bible, and it encloses repentance in that context.
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