One major factor missing from most debates on Arya and Lyanna's beauty is that they're being judged by their society's extremely patriarchal values. In both looks and personality, that context is essential to understanding how others perceive them. George explores the misogyny experienced by non-conforming women, especially with Arya, and it's interesting how he plays with that regarding their physical beauty.

Her mother used to say she could be pretty if she would just wash and brush her hair and take more care with her dress, the way her sister did. (The Blind Girl, ADWD) "You never knew Lyanna as I did, Robert," Ned told him. "You saw her beauty, but not the iron underneath. She would have told you that you have no business in the melee." (Eddard VII, AGOT)

These two quotes offer a nice summation of this idea. With Arya, her supposed lack of beauty is defined by her being a non-conforming wild child. Her hair is messy, her face is dirty, and she's often in "lower class" clothing while engaging in unladylike activities. None of this says anything about her physical beauty but it tells us everything about how she's perceived. Arya could be pretty...If she conforms to society's standards for a highborn Lady. With Lyanna, however, we get the opposite. Where Arya is judged based on her personality, Robert's romanticization of Lyanna is rooted solely in her looks. He doesn't know anything about the person she really was. There is an assumption that, because she looked a certain way, her personality must fit and Robert imagines her much softer and more passive than she actually was.

That Arya isn't pretty or Lyanna wasn't wild are two perceptions that George specifically pushes back against. This is where people miss the brilliance of them being linked as literary mirrors; it is largely about us learning more about Lyanna, but it touches on more than that. The significance of them being written as wild, willful, and with their own beauty is that George isn't writing his female characters around patriarchal expectations. When people debate their beauty, that's often the trapping they fall into. Beauty and non-conformity are treated as mutually exclusive factors when the story itself never makes that point; this is also the logic that leads people to the (incorrect) conclusion that Lyanna and Arya aren't meant to be similar. Arya's self-esteem issues around her looks and being a Lady make this a topic certain to be addressed in the future; George has made it a part of the story. The conclusion shouldn't be that "looks don't matter", but that looks aren't indicative of a character's value, personality, or morality.

My thoughts on Peaky Blinders...

Now I’ve finished Season Five, I wanted to get out my thoughts/ideas/opinions regarding the show. So strap in! - So first of all, the fucking cinematopgraphy in this series is gorgeous. You could take almost any scene and it looks like a painting. The lighting, the way it’s staged, it’s all just so visually pleasing to look at. My inner film student was just sighing dreamily at the shot composition. There’s a shot of John, Arthur and Tommy walking somewhere and you could fucking frame it and put it in your wall. - CILLIAN MURPHY, CILLIAN MURPHY, CILLIAN MURPHY. I mean, I always knew he was a good actor and also a pretty one, I think the role I remember him best in is Batman Begins, but holy shit, I never realised how hot he is until like two months ago. I know he apparently hates his Tommy haircut, but good lord, he can pull it off. The cheekbones! The eyes! The eyelashes! The sexy voice! Needless to say I saw him and immediately developed the biggest fucking crush. Apparently when I talk about Tommy to people my face goes pink. Thank you so much, show, for enlightening me to this human. Tommy is such a fantastic character, and I do wonder if another actor could pull him off quite as well. So much debate over his actions, motives, mindset, etc. I could probably write essays about the complexities of Tommy, but I won’t because this is a long-ass post anyway. He’s such a boss and I would die for him. - I actually really like Arthur??? So the very first clip of PB I ever saw was accidental, when I happened to turn the TV on and the Blinders were taking over the Eden Club and Arthur was glassing a guy in the face. I thought, “Oh, he’s probably like the dangerous thug character everyone is scared of.” (I didn’t know he’s Tommy’s brother at the time.) But actually he’s kind of endearing despite being the Shelby’s pitbull? Idk, the concept of the “failure” elder brother, how Arthur is the character the verbalises PTSD the most out of everyone, how one minute he can be lashing out like a rabid bear and then sobbing like a kid the next... I’m always like, “Oh, Arthur,” because you can see he wants to be a better person, but he just...doesn’t know how. - JOOOHN. I miss him! And it’s weird because in the early parts of the Season John doesn’t DO much but tag around after Tommy and Arthur, but his marriage to Esme is actually So Good and again, he’s actually kind of a softboi under the hard gangster act. (Also his “Do THIS, John, Do THAT, John, KILL YOUR FOOKIN’ TEACHER, JOHN!” is so fucking good.) He kind of provides a lightness when contrasted to Tommy and Arthur that I really do miss, because the last two Seasons have been very grim and I think John’s absence has something to do with it. I liked Esme too, even if she’s a stroppy bitch, her love for John but resentment of her role in the family and also she’s HELLA PRETTY. I’m sad her character has gone for now, but at least she wasn’t killed off. - I also love Ada a lot - I was really shocked when I read that Sophie Rundle hasn’t been acting all that long before she got the part in PB, because honestly she’s very good! And her concept again is a fun one - the only girl in a family of violent gangster boys. (Or as Freddy puts it, “The only princess”, which she is.) Having said that, I’m not sure how I feel about Ada’s character arc over the course of the season. In One she came off as kind of childish and still sort of stuck in her Rebellious Teen phase, then she became a mother and Freddie died, then in Season Two she’s trying to distance herself from the family and go legit, then in Season Four and Five she’s helping run the business and taking money from Tommy. Idk, I wish she’d play a more major role like her brothers because her motivations seem to change based on what the screenwriter wants, not what feels natural for her. Plus it annoys me that Ada blamed Ben Younger’s death on Tommy, but Tommy gets a lot of blame for things that aren’t his fault so I guess he’s used to it. Still, Ada is still a lot of fun when she does get to play a big role and gets some great lines later on. “Tommy Shelby is going to stop a revolution with his cock.” - POLLY, MY QUEEN! Easily the best woman on the show (sorry, Ada) and such a fucking badass. She’s definitely the voice of reason within the family and conflicting loyalty is a really interesting theme that gets explored with her, between her arguing nephews and niece, between her family or whether she wants to marry again and leave, her relationship with Michael, it’s all so great. Helen McRory is such a brilliant addition to the show. Also I love that Polly kinda represents women taking over after all the men went away to war and now they’re back, but the women aren’t just going to creep back into the house - World War One changed the workplace forever for women and I think Polly being the second in command after Tommy reflects that really well. - I think overall my favourite seasons have been Seasons One, Two and Four, I tend to find I get a bit bored in Peaky Blinders whenever it gets especially heavy on politics like in Season Three and Five and I admittedly kind of miss the simplicity of the early days of the show when it was about horse-racing, but the Changretta vs Shelby feud was genuinely really gripping and Adrien Brody was also Very Good. (I mean, I couldn’t take him seriously because of Brodyquest, but I like him a lot.) - I HATE GRACE. There, I said it. And honestly I have SO MUCH to say on why I hate her and also why I think she is the epitome of bad writing that has happened on this show that I might as well save it for a whole nother post, but Tommy and Grace’s relationship always felt so unnatural and forced to me, like they are in love because the screenwriter said so - Grace is the only woman Tommy knows who isn’t related to him and also because it pisses off Campbell. Like, she was tolerable if highly irritating in Season One, but then Two came along and she just got worse and worse. She’s annoyingly convinced she’s better than everyone else, pulls off a LOT of questionable shit that NO-ONE except Polly ever pulls her up on and Tommy repeatedly pining over a woman who lied to him and betrayed him makes no goddamn sense. I wish Stephen Knight would just let him get over her, because her showing up over and over again in the show after the bitch died two Seasons ago is so infuriating I want to throw my remote at the TV. The best bit of Season Three was someone finally putting a bullet in her, honestly. /rant - On that note, I really wish that they’d use May properly. She was introduced in Season Two and honestly her chemistry with Tommy is about a thousand times more believable than anything he had with Guuuhrayce and also May doesn’t consistently talk in that annoying, breathy voice and also she doesn’t shamelessly manipulate Tommy constantly. It’s too bad Stephen Knight couldn’t get Charlotte Riley back for Season Three owing to her pregnancy, because I think the trajectory of the show would have been very different. But her scene where she spoke about her husband and tried to hide that she was crying? So good. The fucking Face Tommy gives her when she asks for a mixer in her gin? Priceless. Agh - May’s been chronically underused in the show but she keeps getting mentioned every now and then, so I’m hoping there are plans for her to come back in Season Six. I really like her and I honestly think Tommy/May has been the best relationship he’s had, because it’s the only one that’s felt A) Natural and B) Equal. - Lizzie Stark. Okay, so I have mixed feelings about Lizzie. I liked her in Seasons One and Two, because she was this down-on-her-luck woman who was treated like crap by everyone, but she wasn’t wholly without her own flaws or personality - she did lie to John and Tommy did act in his brother’s best interests to tell him the truth. The scenes she had with Tommy in Season Two when he promotes her to his secretary were honestly very cute and my heart broke for her when that solider nearly (?) raped her in Season Two and she cried in John’s arms. But over time she’s started to irritate me. I know that people feel bad for her because Tommy honestly does treat her badly at times, though other times she’s also one of the few people he’s nice to, their relationship is complicated. But truthfully I don’t see Tommy/Lizzie every working out properly because Lizzie was a whore. She’s always been Tommy’s inferior and while I do think he cares for her, she never seems to think it’s enough. He doesn’t love her enough and she’s never satisfied with it and she’s always resentful of him. But you can’t FORCE someone to love you and it’s interesting that the minute she learned she was pregnant, you could see her thinking of how to make this work. She pulled the Baby Trap on him just like Grace did and got married like she wanted, but Tommy still doesn’t truly see her as his equal. And honestly, I don’t think she’s smart enough for him. Add that to Lizzie being EXTREMELY petty to other women (including her being really rude to May and slut-shaming her - bit rich from you, isn’t it, Lizzie?), and I don’t think they have a healthy relationship. I do like little Ruby a lot (way more than Charles, who is a spoiled brat because he’s Grace’s son and has a martyred dead mummy), but honestly I don’t see Tommy/Lizzie working out. I just hope that she doesn’t leave and take Ruby, I think it’d break Tommy to have his daughter taken away from him. - Alfie Solomons. So...I have to confess I have mixed feelings about Alfie. I liked him in Season Two because he’s batshit crazy, Tom Hardy is clearly having the time of his life and it’s refreshing to have a rival to Tommy who isn’t cartoonishly evil like Billy Kimber or Sabini. He ties into Season Two very well and yeah, I can see why he’s so popular. Also he’s pretty attractive, so that always helps. But. Alfie is starting to come across a bit like a creator’s pet to me. He consistently betrays Tommy every goddamn Season and while I know the fandom love to joke about this, it’s pretty inexplicable that Tommy would bother to continue to do business with him after being burned so many times and now it turns out he’s alive. Why? Why bring Alfie back? I feel like he was brought back because he’s a fan favourite and to add another suspect to who betrayed Tommy. I don’t hate Alfie at all, but I am starting to wish he’d face actual consequences for his actions, considering every Peaky Blinders character who fucks with the Peaky Blinders tend to suffer horribly for it, but not Alfie...for some reason. - Michael. Okay so Michael’s actor is pretty damn good and I thought it was cute that he and John’s actors are actually brother irl - you can see the resemblance. And honestly bringing back Polly’s missing kids was a really clever idea because there’s a family tie, but one that isn’t so strong you can always be sure of where his loyalties lie. His subplot with Father Hughes in Season Three was both very sad and very well done - I was cheering him on the whole way. But Season Five has made my opinion of Michael take a dramatic nosedive. He’s gone from sorta-sympathetic to an entitled brat almost overnight. I get he’s probably salty about being banished to America by Tommy in Season Four, but where has this sudden desire to rule the company come from? How did he meet Gina? Is he lying about Gina being pregnant because he figured it’d win him sympathy? I don’t know. He’s changed so drastically, and when Polly gave him that slap, I think she was doing what everyone wanted to. It’s too bad they just wrote Anna off as being dead, though, Michael having a sister and Polly a daughter would have been interesting. - The music?? Is so good?? I love it! Especially the themesong, obviously, but so much of it is always ON POINT. It makes me wanna buy the entire soundtrack. - Unpopular opinion, but I think Campbell was the best antagonist of the show, mainly because he was a vile person but still believable and had the best dynamic with Tommy.  - Season Five was honestly kind of hit-and-miss for me, it seemed like a lot of people are pissed at Tommy for fairly silly reasons in the beginning and I just didn’t find the political subplot all that interesting...but I still will definitely tune into Season Six. (Also these are all just opinions, so please don’t send me hate if you don’t like something I’ve said. Ain’t nobody got time for that.)

The Darkness Of Mere Being - Watchmen blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. if you haven’t read this comic yet, you may want to before reading this review)

Watchmen is often called a groundbreaking work of literature, and I very much agree with that sentiment. It’s also often described as a masterpiece. This I take issue with. While the graphic novel explores some very compelling ideas, I do honestly think the last few issues are where Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons... I wouldn’t say they dropped the ball, but they were definitely fumbling with it a little bit.

So just to forewarn you, these reviews are going to be a tad more critical from here on out.

The Darkness Of Mere Being continues directly on from the events of Old Ghosts after Doctor Manhattan has taken Laurie to Mars. It has apparently been predestined that the future of Earth and of mankind would be decided there as Laurie has to try and convince this emotionless, all powerful entity that the world is worth saving.

From a conceptual standpoint, this works really well. You feel Laurie’s frustration and desperation as she tries in vain to convince her ex that humanity has value. Over the course of the graphic novel, we’ve seen Manhattan grow more and more distant from humanity, and now that he’s been accused of giving those closest to him cancer, the last remaining ties to his humanity have been severed. He’s distanced himself from Earth because he finds life too complicated and tiresome. He’d much rather live in exile on Mars playing with atoms because, unlike people, atoms have structure and order. Once again, it’s a meditation on the nature of power. How Manhattan is paradoxically both powerful and powerless within the world of Watchmen. He’s a godlike figure and yet is completely at the mercy of predestination theory. As he himself puts it:

“We’re all puppets Laurie. I’m just a puppet who can see the strings.”

At the core of this issue is the question of what possible reason could a superhuman have to care for mere mortals like us. And the answer is... there really isn’t. As we’ve discussed before in my previous reviews, the only reason Manhattan stuck with Laurie was more out of a sense of obligation rather than genuine love or affection. So this isn’t like Superman and Lois Lane where Kal-El/Clark Kent was raised on Earth and became humanity’s champion with Lois being his main source of inspiration. Whereas Superman’s perspective is focused exclusively on the people around him, Manhattan’s goes beyond that. He understands the whole of time and space. He can see the very atoms of everything around him and control them at a whim. He has no reason to truly care for anyone because humans, to him, are mere atoms in a sea of atoms. Again, as he himself puts it way back in the very first issue:

“A live body and a dead body contain the same number of particles. Structurally there’s no discernible difference.”

Even his change of heart at the end isn’t motivated by emotion or a sense of moral duty. As the two discuss Laurie’s life, she discovers that the Comedian, the same man who raped her mother, was her biological father. While she understandably breaks down over this revelation, Manhattan sees inspiration in this. That a woman is capable of falling in love with the man who raped her to the point where she would give birth to his child proves, in Manhattan’s mind, that humanity is worth saving after all because of their unpredictability, comparing it to a thermodynamic miracle of turning air into gold. So he’s going to save humanity. Not because he cares about us, but because of a newfound fascination with them. His goals may have changed, but the character is still just as cold and uncaring as he was before, seeing us like microbes under a microscope to be studied rather than actual lives.

The ideas are all sound. I even like the idea of the Comedian being Laurie’s real father because it ties in with the overall themes of Watchmen. Sally Jupiter falling in love with and having consensual sex with her rapist is similar to Nite Owl partnering up with Rorschach despite his ultra right wing, bigoted and extreme views. It all speaks to the nihilistic nature of both the characters and the book. There’s no black and white and things are often much more complicated than we would like. Also credit has to go to Dave Gibbons for his stunning artwork in this issue, including the final image of the real life smiley face crater on Mars, which hammers home everything I’ve described very effectively.

However...

Yes, this is where the criticism comes in. Brace yourselves.

One aspect I find very suspect is the revelation that Manhattan may not quite be as omniscient as we first thought. You see despite being able to predict future events willy nilly throughout the graphic novel, when Laurie asks him to just tell her how the debate ends, he’s conveniently unable to do so because of a sudden burst of tachyons blocking his vision. Now I don’t know about you, but this has the tiniest whiff of bullshit about it. It’s like Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons were halfway through writing the story when one of them suddenly realised that Manhattan’s omniscience could potentially lots of plot holes later on, so they just pulled this out of their arses to cover it up. It’s kind of stupid, especially when there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation without the use of tachyons. Like with the Kennedy assassination, Manhattan could have been aware of what would happen at the end of the graphic novel, but doesn’t do anything because of predestination theory. That would have been fine. That would have been perfectly in-keeping with the character and his themes. Instead we get the biggest bloody plot convenience this side of the pissing Sorting Hat from the second Harry Potter book. I mean if his vision is being blocked by tachyons, then surely he shouldn’t be able to see the future at all, right? Why is it only affecting him now? Utterly ridiculous.

My second complaint centres around Laurie herself.

Up until I’ve been very much enjoying what Moore is doing with Laurie and her alter ego Silk Spectre. Using her sexualised, impractical costume and the clash between her and her mother as a way of exploring and critiquing how women are often viewed and presented in comics. The problem I have however is, having now thoroughly explored it, at no point does Moore ever try to challenge it. This problem first emerged back in A Brother To Dragons where we see her serve Dan’s power fantasy, but this is where it really becomes apparent. She’s just made a shocking and terrible revelation. That her father is the Comedian. A rapist, a murderer and a bastard. Naturally she’s very upset by this, but Manhattan, being so distant, doesn’t fully comprehend her distress. Now this isn’t bad in and of itself for the reasons I’ve just explained. It works from a conceptual standpoint. I’d honestly be fine with it if we see this properly addressed in a future issue. And that’s the problem. Aside from a few brief mentions, we never get to see Laurie fully come to terms with the knowledge of who her father is, which is just crazy to me. It’s as though Laurie serves no purpose as a character in and of herself, but rather how she influences the story’s of the male characters. Laurie discovering her real father isn’t important. It’s Manhattan’s change of heart that’s important. She’s just a means to an end. I can’t tell if this was deliberate or accidental on Moore’s part, but either way, I don’t like it because it reduces her as a character and completely undermines the feminist critique she was offering. It reminds me of the anal sex gag from the first Kingsman movie where it crosses the line between mocking the reductive roles of women and actively reinforcing them. Whereas before Laurie’s character was making a mockery of the unrealistic way women are often portrayed in comics to support a man’s story or to titillate a male reader, now she’s become the very thing she was designed to mock in the first place. It’s such a shame because it just feels like a missed opportunity.

The Darkness Of Mere Being has some brilliant ideas and doesn’t shy away from exploring them. However a few missteps along the way unfortunately lessens the impact of those ideas, at least in my opinion.