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phoenixrisesoncemore · 6 months

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Why Eru Didn’t Trip Gollum: Providence, Free Will, and Con-creation in The Lord of the Rings—Part 1 of 5

Author’s Note: The following essay was written between Nov. of 2020 and June of 2021 and was itself an expansion on a short social media post that was that written in 2018. The version presented here has undergone further editing for length, but represents work from an earlier stage in my research and writing journey—I hope I have grown since then. Some ideas which first appear in this essay including the notions of “Con-creation,” “Story as Emergent Property of Eä,” and “The Infinite Variety of God” are all things I would like to develop into papers one day, but after so many years of this sitting in Google Drive, I simply want to get it out there. I’ll deal with the papers later. I am cross-posting this from my long-form blog (DM if you'd like the link) in 5 parts because it is very long. Works Cited will be included only in this post, part 1, so I don't have to repeat it.

Part 1: Introduction

Here’s a question: in the climactic moment of The Lord of the Rings, who was responsible for the Ring’s destruction? Was it Frodo? Gollum? Maybe Sam? Alternatively, was it Eru? Is there a sense in which we could say it was Sauron, or even the Ring, itself?

There’s a reading of the climax of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings that takes a strong stance on the answer to the above questions. It’s a reading that has floated around fan spaces since at least the mid 2000s. Put simply it states that Gollum’s Ring-destroying fall into the Cracks of Doom as he “danced too close to the edge” was not directly caused by his careless dancing, but rather was the result of him being “pushed” or “tripped” by Eru, Tolkien’s Creator-God. The argument for this reading appears to be centered on the contents of a letter Tolkien addressed to Amy Ronald in July of 1956 (hereafter referred to per its designation in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien as Letter 192). In it Tolkien explains that the climax at the Cracks of Doom represents a time in the story where “the Other Power took over,” completing the task that Frodo was incapable of completing on his own (Tolkien, Letters 252). The “tripped” interpretation of this moment appears to assign to Tolkien’s statement in Letter 192 the meaning that Gollum was made to fall by a singular, direct, unilateral act of Eru—that is: divine intervention—a literal deus ex machina as the “finger of God” intruded into history. This reading of Letter 192 is prominent enough in fan consciousness that as of this writing, even the entry for “Eru Ilúvatar” on One Wiki to Rule Them All lists it alongside The Drowning of Numenor as one of four moments in the history of Middle-earth when Eru actively and miraculously intervened (“Involvement”), an association that is significant for reasons which will soon become clear.

This reading of the scene, and of the Letter used to argue for it, is highly selective and disregards both the context of said letter and numerous pieces of evidence that suggest contrary readings, both within the text of The Lord of the Rings and outside of it. It also requires mischaracterizing the very present and widely-recognized functioning of Providence in Eä by recasting it instead as miracle. Additionally, if true, it would work to undermine some of the most prominent themes in The Lord of the Rings, including those themes Tolkien, himself, identifies within his letters, damaging the work’s dramatic unity and rendering The Lord of the Rings unsatisfactory from a narrative perspective. Most important for my purposes, I believe that this very unsatisfactory-ness is evidence that this reading cannot be true without running afoul of one of the most important underlying aspects of the metaphysics of Tolkien’s Legendarium—the “story-nature” of Eä.

I will “unweave” this interpretation and then “reweave” the loosened threads of story into a different pattern, one I am calling “con-creation.” In my usage “con-creation” is the total continuous creative activity (by which I also mean choice-making about mundane things) of all creatures capable of choice, across all time—rather than the creative activity of a set number of said individuals greater than one (“co-creation”)—as a means of creating in concert with a Prime Creator who supports the total product of con-creation by supplying it with primary being. It could be likened metaphorically to the production of an improv-heavy play. This idea is so central to The Lord of the Rings in particular and to Tolkien’s Legendarium in total that it—like eucatastrophe—”rends the web of story” (Tolkien, Tolkien On Fairy-stories 76) and enters into the real world, encompassing the reader as well.

[Continue to PART 2: Catching the Snag]

———————

Works Cited

“Involvement.” Eru Ilúvatar, One Wiki to Rule Them All, lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Eru_Ilúvatar. Accessed 16 Nov. 2023.

Blount, Douglas K. “Uberhobbits: Tolkien, Nietzsche, And The Will To Power.” The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy: One Book to Rule Them All, edited by Gregory Bassham and Eric Bronson. Carus Publishing Company, 2003.

Caldecott, Stratford. “Over the Chasm of Fire: Christian Heroism in the Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings.” Tolkien: A Celebration, edited by Joseph Pearce. London: Harper Collins, 1999.

Dubs, Kathleen, “Providence, Fate, and Chance: Boethian Philosophy in The Lord of the Rings.” Twentieth Century Literature, vol. 27, no. 1, 1981, pp. 34-42.

Hibbs, Thomas. “Providence and Dramatic Unity in The Lord of the Rings.” The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy: One Book to Rule Them All, edited by Gregory Bassham and Eric Bronson. Carus Publishing Company, 2003.

Ivey, Christin. “The Presence of Divine Providence in the Absence of ‘God’: The role of Providence, Fate, and Free Will in Tolkien’s Mythology.” The Corinthian, vol. 9, no. 1, 2008, pp. 189-99.

Kocher, Paul. Master of Middle-earth. New York: Ballantine Books, 1978.

McIntosh, Jonathan. The Flame Imperishable: Tolkien, St. Thomas, and the Metaphysics of Faerie. Kindle ed., Angelico Press, 2018.

Meyer Sparks, Patricia. “Power and Meaning in The Lord of the Rings.” Understanding The Lord of the Rings: The Best of Tolkien Criticism, edited by Rose A. Zimbardo and Neil D. Isaacs. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004.

Purtill, Richard. J.R.R. Tolkien: Myth, Morality, and Religion. Ignatius Press, 2003.

Sandwell, Ian. “Lord of the Rings almost had a much darker ending.” Digital Spy, 4 Mar. 2021, http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a31925985/lord-of-the-rings-ending-frodo-gollum/. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.

Tolkien, J. R. R.. “The Hunt for the Ring.” Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-earth, edited by Christopher Tolkien, Annotated ed., Kindle ed., Mariner Books, 2012.

—. The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Edited by Humphrey Carpenter, 1st ed., Kindle ed., Mariner Books, 2014.

—. The Lord of the Rings: One Volume. 50th Anniversary ed., Kindle ed., Mariner Books, 2012.

—. Morgoth’s Ring. Vol. 10 of The History of Middle-earth, edited by Christopher Tolkien. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993.

—. “Osanwe-kenta.” The Nature of Middle-earth, edited by Carl F. Hostetter. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021.

—. The Peoples of Middle-earth. Vol. 12 of The History of Middle-earth, edited by Christopher Tolkien. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996.

—. Sauron Defeated. Vol. 9 of The History of Middle-earth, edited by Christopher Tolkien. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1992.

—. The Silmarillion. Edited by Christopher Tolkien, Reissue ed., Kindle ed., Mariner Books, 2012.

—. Tolkien on Fairy-Stories. Edited by Verlyn Flieger and Douglas A. Anderson. London: HarperCollinsPublishers, 2014.

Wood, Ralph C.. “Conflict and Convergence on Fundamental Matters in C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.” Renascence, vol. 55, no. 4, 2003, pp. 315-38.

#Why Eru Didn’t Trip Gollum #Tolkien #The Lord of the Rings #The Silmarillion #On Fairy-stories #eucatastrophe #providence #free will #miracle #Eru #Gollum #Frodo #Anthrabeth Finrod ah Andreth

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etherealspacejelly · 6 months

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i feel like infodumping so here is my opinion of every new who companion!!

Rose Tyler

shes the og, shes That Girl, she is the moment! (lol, get it?) Rose was one of the best companions fr. her love story with the doctor is so beautiful and so tragic and honestly, he Needed her. ninerose >>> tenrose i said what i said. 9/10

Jack Harkness

very fun character! they kinda ruined him in torchwood a little bit. some of the earliest explicit queer rep in mainstream media i ever saw, if not the first! i loved his dynamic with rose and nine. 8/10

Mickey Smith

my sweet boy, my babygirl. he deserved so much better fr. dont get me wrong, i love Rose, but the way she treated Mickey was so mean. also the doctor hated his ass for no reason other than he was competition for Rose's affection. plastic Mickey was iconic. 8/10

Martha Jones

ICON!!! QUEEN!!!! i Love Martha soooo much. she was the only companion to Get Out and i love that for her, she deserved it. she slayed fr. however i do kinda hate that most of her character was simping for ten like. girl. stand up. 9/10

Donna Noble

Oh My God, incredible. cant wait to get her back!!!! the adipose scene through the windows???? hilarious, i can quote every word!!! she gave the doctor a run for his money and i love that for her. she was exactly what he needed after Rose and Martha, just A Mate. 10/10

Amy Pond

my favourite companion!!! eleven was My Doctor tho so thats probably why. every episode of season 5 is a banger. i love that she and Rory and River became a family to the doctor. love her. little Amelia is so cute and grown up Amy is a total badass. fish custard/10 10/10

Rory Williams

my beloved <3 hes so boyfriend fr. raised my standards as a kid. he waited 2000 years for her ;-; 10/10

River Song

hello sweetie :)

i love that her story was told backwards, very interesting narrative choice! knowing that she was always doomed to the library was so tragic. learning all of her secrets over each series was very fun and satisfying!! 10/10

Clara Oswald

hmm. not one of my favourite companions. she's ok i guess? the impossible girl thing was kinda cool but i dont really like her as a character. 5/10

Bill Potts

YESSSS! i love lesbiabs. lessbiens. women. her ending was super sad tho :(

she was cool and fun and gay 9/10

Yasmin Khan

hrm. boring. didnt have much of a personality, not really her fault the writing was just so shit. she had potential!! thasmin 4 lyfe! 4/10

Ryan Sinclair

yea. no. dont like how they made his dyspraxia a fun quirky thing that he just. magically got over somehow??? its a literal disability. my brother has it. it could have been so interesting to see how that manifested over the course of his travels with the doctor but its almost like they just. forgot about it?? also he was boring as hell. 2/10

Graham O'Brien

i literally didnt even remember his surname, i had to look it up. he was just kinda. there. a little more interesting than Ryan i guess?? but. still. 2/10

Concluding remarks

looking forward to Donna coming back and meeting the new companions!!! i hope the writing is better in this season :/ chibbers was Not It. anyway. thanks for reading my silly little ramble!! special interest go brrrr

#doctor who #rose tyler #donna noble #martha jones #amy pond #bill potts #clara oswald #dr who #special interest #robin rambles about his hyperfixations

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eemcintyre · 23 days

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30 movies that absolutely devastated me in alphabetical order

Cinematic experiences that made me cry, made me cry, haunted me with a days-long feeling of emptiness, made me vent about the Injustice, and/or stunned me with their harsh realities and lessons

Doomed by the narrative. The love was there. Right person wrong time. The uniquely angst-ridden female experience. Being forced to grow up too fast. Self-destruction. Revenge. Star-crossed lovers. Striving for something unattainable or just plain failing to reach your obsessive goal. The ends didn't justify the means. What might have been. Corruption arcs. Bittersweet redemption arcs. Bittersweet endings. The senseless cruelty that the world sometimes thrusts upon random and innocent people. There's a sprinkle of everything here.

"AMY", 2015

"Black Swan", 2010

"Born on the Fourth of July", 1989

"The Breakfast Club", 1985

"Camille", 1936

"Carousel", 1956

"Citizen Kane", 1941

"The Crow", 1994

"Eddie and the Cruisers", 1983

"The Green Mile", 1999

"Hotel Rwanda", 2004

"I, Tonya", 2017

"In a Lonely Place", 1950

"Jackie", 2016

"JFK", 1991

"Leaving Las Vegas", 1995

"The Outsiders", 1983

"Roman Holiday", 1953

"Se7en", 1995

"The Silence of the Lambs", 1991

"Splendor in the Grass", 1961

"Taxi Driver", 1976

"Titanic", 1997

"Truly, Madly, Deeply", 1990

"Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me", 1992

"Ulterior Motives", 1992

"Valkyrie", 2008

"Vertigo", 1958

"West Side Story", 1961

"Zodiac", 2007

#film #movies #cinema #favorite movies #90s films #80s films #the love was there #doomed by the narrative #star crossed lovers #obsessed artist #right person wrong time #angst

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variousqueerthings · 5 months

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And I’ve been flouting the principle of my people ever since

FINAL EPISODE FINAL EPISODE FINAL!!!!! "Time Of The Doctor," let's do it: it's ASDA's Own Brand "Parting Of The Ways"

sexism rank objectification (female character is ogled/harassed/turned into a sex joke by the doctor and/or a lead we’re supposed to root for and/or the camera): 4/10

sexism rank plot-point (lead female character is only there to serve plot, not to have her emotional interiority explored, or given agency to her emotional interiority): 2/10

interesting complex or pointlessly complex (does the complexity serve the narrative or does it just serve to be confusing as a stand-in for smart, this includes visually): 3/10

furthers character and/or lore and/or plot development (broader question that ties into the previous ones, at least two of these, ideally three should be fulfilled): 4/10

companion matters (the companion doesn’t always have to be there, but if the companion is there, can they function without the doctor– and overall per season how often is the companion the focus or POV of the story): 3/10

the doctor is more than just “godlike” (examines the doctor’s flaws and limitations, doesn’t solve a plot by having it revolve entirely around the doctor’s existence): 3/10

doesn’t look down on previous doctor who (by erasing or mocking its importance, by redoing and “bettering” previous beloved plotpoints or characters, etc.): 5/10

isn’t trying to insert hamfisted sexiness (m*ffat famously talked a lot about how dw should be sexier multiple times, he sucks at writing it): 4/10

internal world has consistency (characters have backgrounds, feel rooted in a place with other people, generally feel like they have Lives): 4/10

Politics (how conservative is the story): 4/10

FULL RATING: 36/100 (if I can count….)

CONGRATULATIONS! ELEVEN'S RUN HAS ENDED ON THE OFFICIALLY LOWEST RATED EPISODE BASED ON THESE CRITERIA OF THE ENTIRE RUN!

Now there's a saying that goes something along the lines of being Bad is not bad. Boring is bad

well this episode is Bad and Boring. but at least the music is great!

OBJECTIFICATION: there's a woman who's the high priest of a religious organisation (it's in fact the religious organisation that filters back in time and causes all the trouble for the Eleventh Doctor this whole era) and guess what????

she's sexy

shocking, really. she's the amalgamation of the River Song/Queen Liz The Tenth/Nefertiti with a sprinkle of Irene Adler Bullshit given one last Hurrah!

genuinely she's meant to be at the centre for quite a complex arc of powerful leader with whom the Doctor has an uneasy alliance to years long antagonism with a dash of strange friendship to sticking up for one another at the last Conflict, and all I can tell you about her is that she is sexy, allegedly

OH also that she's apparently a psychopath too

there's also non-consensual kissing, which I've opted to put in the "sexiness" category, but belongs just as much here!

PLOT-POINT: Clara calls the Doctor to be her pretend boyfriend for Christmas (at least she has a family, and while we've not properly met them before now outside of her dead mum in flashbacks, I can buy these people in this estate!)

and from there Clara's feelings about things is uh. The Doctor is great and please don't leave me behind, which the Doctor does... twice!

but this is no Parting Of The Ways/Dooms Day big dramatic event -- Clara is not the focal point here, or her emotions about her life and what it means to be whisked away from it on these adventures, no matter how dangerous, or how it affects her relationship with just-met family, or anything to do with class or feelings of self-worth or or or... no nonoooo what this episode suggests is that she fancies the Doctor

and she has another similar Moment to Parting Of The Ways in which the Doctor changes in front of her (the big emotional moment is with a hallucinated Amy Pond, Clara is kind of just... also there), and she asks him not to, even though to her, as far as I've seen this season, the Doctor is a really good mate, whom she already knows regenerates, because she's seen all 11 of their lives, so where is this emotion coming from? Idk, I guess because she thinks Eleven is hot, or something, that's all I can come up with. general human angst about things not being the same? whatever it is, it's not grounded in anything character-based that I've seen

the point is that things happen and she does some things but none of this is about her and she could as well not be in this story

COMPLEXITY: ARGH okay so me calling this Parting Of The Ways redux -- the Doctor lands on Trenzalore (without knowing it's Trenzalore?) after a bunch of pointless buildup that is way too similar to Pandorica Opens and once again gathers the greatest hits of Daleks, Cybermen and... Slitheen (this has happened twice, does M*ffat know the Slitheen are a family and not a species? gosh I'm getting pedantic now, but you ain't seen nothing yet, because I've just watched all of Eleven's era and had to suffer through things that could have been good but instead were.... this!)

and other species, Sontaran uh... oh Angels at the beginning and... just take my word for it, other species. because there's a Signal, and the Signal is beaming out a Question, and the Question is... it's still Doctor Who, that's still The Question, which the Answer is a Code Word that will bring back the Time Lords from where they're hiding. so many things are Capitalised, because everything is given Capital Importance All The Time

Anyway, this is all centred on a... town called Christmas. because it's a Christmas episode. we're really going to have to get into some cultural Christianity type judgement at this point I feel, although I do acknowledge this isn't a M*ffat fault so much as the fact that there is a Christmas special. one day the Doctor is going to travel with someone who's idk. Jewish. Hindu. Muslim. Druze. Sikh. Take your pick

I do think M*ffat is worse than RTD for inserting Christmas as this all-important Universal Type Thing, whereas at least in Christmas Invasion it was just like... we're celebrating a local family's Christmas traditions. Runaway Bride? fucking hate Christmas. Titanic episode a bit shakier, but makes fun of Christmas, which I enjoyed

eh The Next Doctor... shakier. anyway, it's shaky, where was I?

A TOWN CALLED CHRISTMAS! where you can only tell the truth, which will not matter at all to the plot, I think? unless I missed something massive while yelling NO STOP FUCKING WHAT???? at the screen

and the Doctor and all these species enter into a several hundred years long stalemate, where the Doctor allegedly can't leave because... they'll bomb it to get rid of the signal that indicates where the Doctor must answer the Question to bring back the Time Lords I think? and then the people of Christmas will die

and they can't invade Christmas because the Doctor is single-handedly defending it, which the Doctor can do now I guess

but then at the end the Doctor can't because he's old and it's been hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years in this frankly boring as fuck town that never changes and has zero personality, and the Daleks invade, and then Doctor regenerates (he was afraid he couldn't because due to technicalities this is the last regeneration, except we know it's not -- not mad at that, I get it, give it some emotion, makes sense) and uses the energy to just blow up all the Daleks

IIII am not convinced that regeneration energy can blow up all the Dalek ships, dunno... but it's not the stupidest part of this episode, which is really just the Doctor's whole *waves hands* Thing about this town that needs to be this way because the Plot Demands It and the surrounding aliens and the Doctor is so very interesting and powerful and rather than dig into the plot, we have a Voice Over giving quick explanations to tie us in from one scene to the next

I'm not sure we ever find out who that is? but M*ffat LOVES a Voice Over, almost as much as he likes a not-so-cryptic mysterious prophecy wrapped in a simple rhyming sche- OH YEAH WE GET THAT TOO

If I'd known to count these from the beginning I would have done so, because frankly it turned out to be one of my biggest pet peeves of the era. why is this thing happening? oh see, there was a prophetic Rhyme said at some point by any rando so it's gotta, sorry. Prophetic Rhymes. gotta Prophecy, because it's in a rhyme that could have been put together by a five year old, that's how you know it's extra Prophetic

anyway then the Crack In The Wall/Universe reappears in this place and is just vibing with the Doctor for all these years, and at the end Clara kneels down next to it and asks it to... save? the Doctor... I've gotta be honest I must have faded out at that point, because I cannot remember if it's explained

. how does Clara come up with the idea to do this?/what is her connection to the crack in the wall that she'd think it was sentient or even that important to events or idk... capable of doing what it later does?

. how does it become sentient??

. uh what does it do other than be kind of spooky and suck up a few daleks?

. where does it go?

. why was it there?

OH and the Daleks infiltrate that Religious Organisation and take over all of them/turn them into the human Daleks we saw back in Asylum and it's... idk whatever, I never cared about this organisation (but we'll get to that)

and then the Doctor regenerates into Peter Capaldi

the point is, I couldn't help but think of Nine's final episode, staying behind to protect the earth, as every character we met in this two-parter has died doing the same. in this episode Eleven stays to protect... some people in some place who have no real character other than as reflecting onto the Doctor. Rose and Clara are both sent away, and both come back, but for Clara that's not part of her arc, it's just that she arrives at key moments to witness the Doctor Doing Stuff

all of the emotional weight behind Parting Of The Ways is superficially recreated in this story, right down to big old Massive Dalek Spooky Voice, which I think epitomises M*ffat's writing. stay on the surface and it'll feel epic and big and complex and like it's emotionally doing something and going somewhere, look at it the tiniest bit closer and it's just... Flash Scene after Flash Scene

CHARACTERS/LORE/PLOT: And then the Doctor regenerates into Peter Capaldi. nothing else important happens in this episode. Clara and the Eleventh Doctor end statically (no real Anger anger about being abandoned twice, it's a short little argument and then they hug the first time and the second she's just... there at the end)

no new info really on the Time Lords/Gallifrey. the name being a Code Word might be new actually

um. Christmas is just some place at the end, why is it safe now?

COMPANIONS MATTER: Sorry Clara you got pulled into the Bullshit of a patented M*ffat finale episode

“GODLIKE” DOCTOR: uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurgh the Doctor can single-handedly hold off fleets of Daleks, Cybermen, Angels, Sontarans...... Slitheen... I guess... etcetc... and yes they can't bomb the place from orbit, but wow what a way to render all of the main players in DW as apparently utterly boring when up against specialist boy of all time

also the episode cloaks itself in so much grandeur (the most successful layer of which is of course Murray Gold's score), and so much alleged mystery and Oh The Doctor Is So Interesting for a story in which, I cannot stress enough, despite my large write-up above, Barely anything happens!

back into pedantic mode but having just watched Eleven's whole era, which had a few great episodes, a bunch of mediocre ones, and wahaaay too many absolutely unwatchable ones, I find the speech at the end to be entirely too meta self-aggrandising. what are the important things about Eleven, what do we take away? that it was all super awesome and "I'll never forget when the Doctor was me" said straight at the camera -- I'm shocked he didn't wink

yes, Nine had "you were fantastic and so was I" (paraphrased I know), and Ten had "I don't want to go," but it's based in what's been going on with the characters up until that point in various ways, and also wasn't preluded by seasons of narrative that made you want to claw your brains out, so that a line about not wanting to forget a single moment makes you go "actually I'd be happy to forget a fair bit"

this probably feels different if one really enjoyed this Era outside of select episodes, but since I have sooo much baggage tied into it and it hasn't mysteriously improved upon rewatch, it makes me want to shake M*ffat by the scruff of his neck

PREVIOUS DOCTOR WHO: mmmm as far as I'm aware there's barely anything here, apart from youknow. Daleks and Cybermen and a throwaway about TenToo being down to "vanity issues" which I can take, because the Doctor often trivialises things in order not to discuss them

I guess all the callbacks were for Day Of The Doctor, but still. kind of an oddly connectionless regeneration episode. it's your last Hurrah and it's tying up all of M*ffat's loose ends unsatisfactorily and in a rush before getting the heck outta dodge (because who cared about this town where the whole thing is set, really???)

oh and "reverse the polarity"

“SEXINESS”: OHHHHHHH WELL YOU SEE! YOU REMEMBER! that woman I mentioned who's the allegedly mysteeeerious powerful leader of the Religious Organisation?

well she just can't resist the sexy sexy Doctor. her introduction scene includes all of this within idk. ten seconds: Hey babes. New body, give us a twirl. Nice though. Tight.

it is important to note that although the audience can't see it, the Doctor is technically naked when she says these things, because there's a pointless plotline where they have to briefly beam onto the planet and can't bring anything with them, including clothes, so they... hologram them on???

the Doctor also does this in front of Clara's family who all see him naked and don't really interact with this beyond grandmother being visibly into it, and Clara pushing the Doctor into the kitchen and saying "he's Swedish"

also actually, in the beginning of the episode Clara calls asking the Doctor to "be her boyfriend" (omitting the word "pretend" by accident) and he responds by going "Ding Dong"

it's just... really M*ffat's Greatest Hits

I wrote the words WHY IS THIS BEING SEXY??? AGAIN???? several times in my notes, including one bit where he insults Religious Lady enough to make her angry enough to reverse her Dalek brainwashing/death... whatever just to slap him (I think this also doubles as a sexist moment, because the Doctor starts the insulting by pointing at Clara and going that is a Woman! meaning Clara is just representing People better by not being cowardly, but like... why frame it like that, when there's been all this badly-written non-tension between you two), at which point he grabs her and dip-kisses her without her consent

Religious Lady, winded: Kiss me when I ask The Doctor: Well you’d better ask nicely

she smiles, clearly kind of turned on by that bit of misogyny

oh so sexy

INTERNAL WORLD: Town called Christmas? Nonsense, no personality, nothing. Big Religious Organisation that engineered the whole set of events of this era? as bland and boring as when we met them back in s6 (seriously what do they stand for, I still don't know who they are in any meaningful way). Clara's family? yeah I'll give it that, she has a family, which is, again, more than can be said for Amy

POLITICS: I've already done my Christmas Spiel. the other thing is something I said in the review for the last episode, which is that "ordinary" people don't matter. the people of Christmas, Clara, her family, they're just set-dressing for the really Important people (Big Religious Organisation, Dalek Commanders, The Doctor) to do their Important People Things

how do they feel about it? what part of the story do they affect? why do we care about these people?

no, the important thing about this story is apparently the Gods, the Military, the Religious Institutions, who also aren't represented by ordinary people for that matter, but by their Structures and the Leaders Who Uphold them... as practically Inhuman

FULL RATING: 36/100 (if I can count….)

listen... Capaldi is here. and yes, he starts underground in terms of the bar and has to claw his way up, but I know he does it!

meanwhile what can I say about the end of an era?

there were some good'uns. we'll get to that on a bigger summing up, but I will not lie, they were there. not... when M*ffat was writing

it was around this time (actually earlier s7) that I stopped watching, and I'm glad I did, because I can watch it now and enjoy the good without taking the bad so much to my very emotional teenage heart

this episode shouldn't exist, if I'm being honest. they should have ended Eleven's run in the 50th Anniversary, which, while very very flawed, was at least suitably actually epic and is the episode that sets up a lot of the next arcs

the most I can say for this is that it leaves behind a lot of the baggage of s5-7 -- not tying it up suitably, but at least ending it. don't need to care about cracks in walls, the silence and their weird cult, Trenzalore, or The Question... at least I bloody hope not!

#im watching nu!who #im watching eleven who #the time of the doctor #the measurement

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besidesitstoowarm · 7 days

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"The Beast Below" thoughts

when i was in college i took a sci-fi class and once a week one of us had to find some movie clip/ep of tv/short story to make the rest of the class watch so we could discuss. stupid me, i thought watching this story, a bottle episode of the most famous sci-fi show in the world with a cool setting and interesting, debatable moral dilemma, might make a good topic of class conversation. instead it turned into mostly bitching about how much moffat sucks. anyway i love this episode

future spaceship london, some poor kid gets a bad grade and gets sent to what looks like an incinerator. amy floats out of the tardis w the doctor holding her leg, which makes for good trailer/promo imaging but also like, that's just amy. death wish amy. she does not give a fuck, she found her imaginary friend and she is riding him til the wheels fall off. figuratively but also literally

eleven tells amy they need to be like a nature documentary "i never get involved in the affairs of other peoples or planets" at this point my boyfriend goes "that's the only thing you do!!" eleven quickly deduces they're in a police state and says he's going to "stay out of trouble. badly."

amy goes to help a crying girl and gets almost attacked by a scorpion and abducted by the secret police. eleven investigates why there is no engine running and meets liz 10. amy is taken to a voting booth where "you have the right to know the truth....you may protest or forget" we see an evil montage in her eyes and she slams FORGET. the screen then shows her a video of herself saying to leave w the doctor immediately and don't let him investigate

he shows up and slams PROTEST cause he's messy like that. they go to the incinerator which is not an incinerator it's a mouth. and they get vomited. liz 10 reminds us that victoria knighted and exiled him on the same day and references the virgin queen debacle again "you bad, bad boy" so we confirm narratively she is in fact elizabeth the tenth, queen of this spaceship. she is so beautiful it makes me want to throw up. she's also basically just river song i must say

we go to the tower of london (dungeon) and learn the spaceship is on the back of a whale and they're torturing it to make it go. they can 1. keep torturing the whale, 2. free the whale which will doom the entire ship, or 3. lobotomize the whale so it's not in pain but the citizens live. eleven is FURIOUS at making this choice, they realize amy hit FORGET so that they could leave without eleven having to make this choice. it's rich. "you don't ever decide what i need to know" "nobody HUMAN has anything to say to me today" i don't know what i would do, in that instance!

luckily. amy remembers what liz said about the whale showing up. "it came bc it couldn't stand to watch your children cry" i want to cry just hearing this. "if you were that old and that kind and the very last of your kind, you couldn't just stand there and watch children cry" do you get it. it's fine they'll say it out loud later. she slams ABDICATE which was liz's version of protest and surprise, the whale does NOT abandon them! bc it loves them and wants to keep them safe! "you could've killed everyone on this ship" "you could've killed a star whale" i like that. eleven recognizes amy could have doomed a ship of people like herself, and she in turn recognizes he was ready to almost-kill an alien, the last of its kind. the same kind of agony, the same impossible choice

"all that pain and misery and loneliness and it just made it kind" Do You Get It. i like that amy was the one to have the 3rd-option-brain-blast, that was a very doctor thing to do. she fucked up and then she fixed it! i think this is a wonderful, empathetic story, and iirc the next one is pretty mid but i love the skittles daleks so lfg

#doctor who #besides its too rewatch #dw s5 #The Beast Below

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cannibalistic-cucumber · 2 months

Text

Okay so

For various reasons, Sonic Adventure (SA1) is among my dead favorite games. The two relevant to this rant are the characters and the gorgeous soundtrack (in fact, I might go on a tangent about individual songs at the end of this).

My favorite character in the game is E-102 “Gamma” (btw if you derail this post about Omega, you die), a robot built by Eggman, who runs on animal power, as Eggman’s robots usually do. However, Gamma contains a very special animal - it’s a surprise tool the will help us later. Five minutes into being born (and after training, ofc), he is forced to shoot his brother, E-101 “Beta”. Following this, he board’s Eggman’s ship (the Egg Carrier) and is tasked with catching the tailed frog. Upon collecting the frog, he is transported to the past, where he experiences childlike wonder at the chao. Back on the Egg Carrier, the rest of his siblings are cast out because of their failure to get the frog. After that, Gamma is sent to execute a prisoner. On the way, he makes a wrong turn and ends up in the machining room, where he experiences eldritch horror at the sight of his brother being disassembled and reassembled. In the prison, he finds Amy Rose, who has a blue bird flying around with her looking for its parents. She convinces him not to kill her a la Mindy Animaniacs, and protects Sonic out on the deck of the ship, further confusing Gamma. He leaves the crashing ship, now convinced to “rescue” his disowned brothers. After successfully disposing of them, he is ambushed on the Egg Carrier by Beta Mk II, who feigns death in order to shoot Gamma in the back, and they both die as a result. Lo and behold, Gamma and Beta contained the parents of the bird. Reunited, they fly off into the sunset.

TLDR: Gamma is Eggman robot who experiences eldritch horror and compassion and forsakes his master as a result. He “rescues” his siblings before dying himself, and the animal inside him reunites with its family.

Now, a little more background before we get to the main point. SEGA Sound Team popped off for this game. Each character has a theme song that plays during their respective recaps and end credits (each one has an entire storyline with slight variations on who does what (it’s all happening at once)). Side note: I’m like 70% sure SA1 is the origin of Knuckles jazz. It should also be noted that I have a youtube playlist of songs on queue for downloading, and when I run out of ideas I scroll through the recommended additions section.

E-102’s theme is in my top three favorite songs from SA1. You’ll never guess what it’s called! Theme of E-102γ. And that’s my first talking point. I was reading the comments on one of the music videos, and one of them made a connection that his theme doesn’t get a proper name because he’s just another cog in the machine. Even Big the Cat has a greater role in the main story than him. And yet, doomed by the narrative as he is, he gets his own story. As another comment pointed out, each story has its own (literary) theme: Sonic is Adventure, Tails is Independence, Knuckles is Recollection (I’m kinda iffy on that one), Amy is Protection, Big is Friendship, and Gamma? Gamma is heart and soul. Compassion. Morality, something that shouldn’t be possible, and definitely isn’t comprehensible for a robot, especially one of Eggman’s creation.

As a side tangent here, I’ve been putting rescued in quotes when it comes to Gamma and his brothers, but I realized something between the time I started writing this and now. The animals that drop from the E-series robots are birds. They’re all his brothers, inside and out. I had always assumed that Gamma had meant rescue only in the liberation sense. I never realized that he meant it both ways. I just… I’m need a moment.

As a side side tangent, I think this is one of the biggest differences between E-100 ZERO and the rest. To my knowledge, he didn’t have any animals, much less another bird, and that was what led him to the brutish oafishness that we see displayed by him.

Back to the main points, I think that all of this is reflected in the song. It starts out with all of the synth, vague vocals, electro, etc. that would be expected from the theme of a robot, and then you’ve got… PIANO. Oh my god the piano. Piano Man has its harmonica, and this song has its piano. In the midst of the circuits, the wires, the computers, there’s life, a heartbeat, a soul. And with the soul comes that twinge of sadness. Sure he freed the animals, but to do so, he had to kill his brothers with his own two (?)(does the gun count?) hands. Due to this and the cumulation of everything else, hearing the song (or the variation of it) during his final cutscene hits and hits hard.

youtube

THE REPRISE OF THE MAIN THEME PIANO AS HE DIES IN OBSCURITY. THE OTHER BIRDS ARE LIKELY THE ONLY ONES THAT END UP KNOWING ABOUT HIS DEATH

It’s okay I’m okay I’m so normal about this

Now that the main rant is over, it’s time for me to hoot about the other songs

Be Cool, Be Wild, Be Groovy …for Ice Cap

I get that it’s a snowboarding section, but still. THEY BOTHERED TO USE GUITAR IN A SNOW LEVEL. NAME ONE OTHER INSTANCE OF THAT THAT ISN’T LITTLE BIG PLANET’S THE WILDERNESS’S SITAR.

Limestone Cave …for Ice Cap

Ambience plain and simple. Good for falling asleep to

Snowy Mountain …for Ice Cap

Another ambience piece, this time with another guitar (no this doesn’t count for the challenge I posed above). Love the mix of electric and acoustic

Welcome To Station Square

“The train headed for the Mystic Ruins will be departing soon.” Came for the guitar, stayed for the trumpet.

Red Barrage Area …for Hot Shelter

SAX (shout outs to the rest of Hot Shelter’s music btw)

Militant Missionary … Boss Egg Walker & Egg Viper

Hopelessness, despair, DRAMA. Things may not have gone to plan, but Eggman is surely still the one in control.

And finally, shoutouts to Bad Taste Aquarium, Pleasure Castle, and Dilapidated Way for going full throttle right out the gate.

@green-mountain-goose @greetings-inferiors @cue-jay @kimu-dem

#Youtube

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beevean · 8 months

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What's your opinion on clip from bumblekast from Flynn the "lord and savior of sonic shit"

https://twitter.com/candyypirate/status/1699456415008539130?s=20

https://twitter.com/candyypirate/status/1699462944440889623?s=20

I don't think the tweets embedded well, so here's the script:

What is up with Shadow's bio on the Fast Friends Forever website? According to the bio, Shadow is fighting to protect the planet, but only for the sake of Maria's memory while having no personal investment on the planet itself. I don't know how important these are to the series or characterization, but wouldn't making this aspect of his character the main reason for his protection of the planet be a regression and a contradiction to his development during Shadow the Hedgehog's final story? I know he still thinks about Maria due to the Sonic Channel stories, but we also know he decided to stand up for humanity himself while Black Doom was manipulating and pelting him with only bad memories. Assuming these bios aren't just oversimplified for marketing reasons, how come he's going back to doing everything for Maria's wish, if he already did all that without those memories, learned to move on from his past and her promise, and was written in 06 to show himself as a hero on his own terms?

F: That is a very good question, it is very valid... and I cannot talk about it right now. That is not a hand wave: there is other stuff that plays into this that I cannot get into just yet. So... hold your horses.

K Is this a... Is this a "#KnowingLook moment", like, maybe not a smile...

F: This is a "#KnowingSmile" combo :)

The implication here is that Shadow will have a major role in a future game? I... I honestly don't even care about keeping up with the FFF bios because the whole thing looks like a very simple show for kids lol. It is a little tiring to chain Shadow to Maria, but him having no investment on the planet itself kinda reminds me of the Sonic Channel story that this person is referencing.

As someone who just likes the games, barely read the first IDW issues and isn't interested in going further, what kind of potential impact on the games can I expect from the inclusion of IDW/Prime as official canon? I dread having elements from the comics/Prime directly coming into the games, thus alienating game-only fans who don't/can't read the comics. Given that comics seem to have much more going on than the games in terms of events, dialogue, character moments due to their structure, including IDW comics as canon make it seem like the canon medium where most stuff happens since Forces, thus a bit alienating to game-only fans. Especially when games nowadays don't release as often as they used to and aren't as "narratively intense" as a comic series, while the IDW comics have been releasing for 5 years and counting.

F: A fair concern, and I think to a degree it's new territory for everybody that's largely untested, because since IDW started we've had one Mainline game - that's really hard to gauge by...

K: And we still don't know when the game takes place in relation to the comics! You might, Ian but we don't, largely as an audience...

F: But I think everyone involved is aware of just that concern. So if Tangle were to show up in Frontiers 2 or whatever (that is not a #KnowingSmile, that's not me dropping a hint, that's just me giving an example), she would still need to be introduced as a new character.

Using Sonic Frontiers as the example by itself, if this was your first game with Sonic, there is a lot of deep character interaction between Sonic, Amy, Knuckles and Tails that, if you haven't played the Sonic series or kept track with 30 years of miscellaneous lore bits, you could potentially be a bit lost. But, so long as you understand the core relationships between them, the greater details aren't necessarily necessary for understanding the game. Like, you understand that Sonic and Knuckles are kind of friendly rivals, you don't necessarily need to know that they first met on Angel Island resolving the Death Egg crisis, you don't have to know that Knuckles discovered his history through a flying pink talking orb, that's irrelevant! It's that they are kinda at odds and, you know, despite that they still look out for each other.

K: And you can cut the tension between them with a butter knife!

F: You know Sonic and Amy have a very, uh, deep relationship, you don't need to understand the roller coaster of Amy's characterization from Adventure onward: you just need to know that they mutually trust and respect each other a great deal.

So, same thing if there's any crossover with the IDW material, then it needs to be presented in a context that is accessible, and that would come from in the Sonic and Tangle example, you know, they would encounter each other, and they would greet each other, there'd be like a little bit of expository dialogue to make you understand that, okay, they're friends, and she's kind of, uh, bouncing off the walls fun, and go from there. We don't necessarily have to reference that, you know, she sacrificed herself to help Sonic in the Metal Virus Plague. Is that relevant to the story that's going on? Probably not. Is it something neat for you to read later on if you want to? Sure! But I honestly do not foresee us directly referencing IDW events in the games, because I don't see that being a continuation.

Like, case in point, as of this recording... the Japanese Market is just now getting the end of Metal Virus. They haven't even been introduced to Belle, or any of Starline's personal arc. If we released a game within the next couple of years that relied on those, they'd be in the dark, never mind the rest of the global community! So, the events of the games do matter to the comics, and the comics will introduce elements that I imagine can cross-pollinate, but they will hopefully be handled in a way that is accessible to the largest audience of Sonic fans.

K: And would you say the same pretty much applies to Prime as well? There's some concern about that. I know you can't talk...

F: Prime is kind of a special case and I can't get into it without spoiling the end of Season 1 so... *disgusted tone* and none of this Season 1, 2, 3 nonsense, it's Season 1, Netflix is just chopping up into pieces.

K: Thanks Netflix for nothing.

I agree with the asker's point but not their reasoning lol

God there is so much going on here. This is why I hate the Bumblekasts lol, Flynn jumps from topic to topic and I have even less attention span than apparently he does.

So Flynn knows where the comics take place in canon, but we don't? Uh. That's a little concerning. Kyle makes it sound like they're going to drop a lore bomb soon...

"deep character interaction" just call them callbacks. That's the only thing that would confuse a newcomer, the sheer amount of pointless callbacks. Without them, you can more or less get their personalities just fine... Tails is the only one whose arc hinges on you knowing that Forces made the fandom explode lol

When he said "she would still need to be introduced as a new character", I thought he meant that Tangle will be a different version of herself in the games. I'm sorry, no, it would be so weird if I played a new Sonic game and Tangle showed up and Sonic was like "hey my good bud Tangle! Long time no see! Still chilling with Whisper?", like ??? whomst the fuck are you?

Nice dig at Amy, by the way :) thank you :) that was totally relevant to the point :)

... I completely forgot that Tangle sacrificed herself for Sonic. lol. lmao. You know she's a great character when you forget about her most heroic moment because IDW reduced her to a cute quirky ADHD babygirl.

Good point about the global marketing. Kudos to Flynn for remembering that the world doesn't begin and end with the US.

Basically his point is that it's possible that the games will reference the comics, but not in a way that will require your average fan to pick up the whole IDW series. Obviously this is just hypothetical at this point, but... I mean, I said it above. Introducing new characters as if they already belong to Sonic's friend circle feels weird to me, I would feel as if I missed something important. And if I want to understand who Tangle is, I'd still have to read IDW to get the idea, and get lost in all that mess.

Sidenote, it irks me that he says stuff like "if we released games". You're not a dev.

#good fucking god why do i do this to myself #i'm sorry but i genuinely can't follow flynn and i need subtitles #fans don't look #<- for lack of a better tag

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