Reading/Watching Log #109

For the final month of the year, I decided to look back over what I’ve been watching across the previous eleven months and then go with something that corresponded to the theme of each one. For instance, I watched historical epics in March, seventies/eighties fairy tales in April, Shakespeare in May, teen rom-coms in June, Robin Hood and Ivanhoe adaptations in July, vampire movies in October, and foreign-language films/shows in November.

That’s not to mention plenty of things based on the Plantagenets/Tudors, some Apple paperbacks of a ghostly nature, a variety of material in The Dark Crystal franchise, my ongoing Babysitters Club reread, and the end of my Slavic Fantasy reading list. Oh, and my slow-but-steady rewatch of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (Can you believe I was also going to attempt rewatching Avatar: The Last Airbender this year? That certainly never happened).

It ended up being a surprisingly structured year in terms of viewing, and it was fun picking out more films based on the categories I’d already covered in 2024. As a result, you can expect... more of the same! But in a good way. Some things even manage to be twofers: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and the 1961 Snow White are both foreign films, but the former is also an epic, whilst the latter ticks the “old school fairy tale” box.

I was originally planning to gorge myself on pop-culture junk this month, only to find I didn’t have the stomach for it after all. I might save up all those things (House of the Dragon, The Rings of Power, Doctor Who) and wait for new seasons of Andor, The Wheel of Time and Stranger Things just to make a real meal of it.

I do have a New Year’s Resolution pertaining to my viewing in the coming year, but I won’t spell it out explicitly. See if you can guess what it is once the whole thing gets rolling. I also plan on doing something different for 2025’s Woman of the Month series, so stay tuned...

Happy New Year! 

Links and Updates

This may be one of the last Links and Updates I do for a while, as I’m currently enjoying a complete media blackout. I’m not going to any of my usual pop-culture websites, am avoiding all news coverage, and only scroll a little way down my Tumblr dashboard.

Basically, I’ve given myself permission not to care about the world for a little while. And a part of me would feel guilty for sticking my head in the sand, were it not for the fact that not caring about anything means that you don’t actually care about anything. It’s been quite liberating actually, and if World War III starts, I’m sure someone will let me know.

Here are some links and trailers and upcoming projects to finish off the year...

Woman of the Month: Balsa

Balsa from Moribito: The Guardian of the Spirit

This was an easy one! Almost three minutes into watching this standalone anime, it was blatantly obvious that Balsa was going to be my final Woman of the Month for 2024. The sad truth is that female characters like her are so rare: mature and stoic and kind, yet also efficient and highly-trained and lethal when need be – and all in such a way that she doesn’t get Mary Sue accusations lobbed at her.

Balsa is a bodyguard-for-hire approaching her thirtieth birthday, proficient in wielding a spear in defense of herself and her clients. Though we don’t learn her backstory until far into the series’ run, she’s on a self-appointed mission to save the lives of eight people, as atonement for the eight lives that were taken to protect her when she was just a child.

She gets her chance to save the eighth and final life when happenstance puts her in the right time and place to save young Prince Chagum from a carriage accident that sees him fall off a bridge and into the river below. But it’s not that simple – on being summoned to the palace in secret later that night, the prince’s mother reveals the accident was a planned assassination attempt, ordered by the boy’s own father.

Now Balsa doesn’t have to just protect Chagum, but to find out why exactly his father wants him dead. Though she’s not a naturally maternal person, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the two of them will bond across the course of their journey together, and that Chagum will grow into a wiser, nobler ruler due to the influence Balsa has upon him.

The most notable aspect of the story is that although there are hundreds, if not thousands, of Lone Wolf and Cub tales, the lone wolf in the equation is hardly ever a woman. And neither are there any silly depictions of Balsa being unnaturally standoffish or unpleasant to the boy in her charge – she may not have much familiarity with children, but all the expected clichés (she’s bad at cooking, she’s a strict disciplinarian who gradually lightens up) are avoided.

In fact, there are plenty of subversions regarding gender roles strewn throughout the story, such as Balsa’s old friend and quasi-love interest Tanda, a healer who spends most of his time collecting herbs and sharing his gifts with those in need. Though there is something of longstanding attraction between them, the show’s conclusion doesn’t depict them settling down into marital bliss. Instead, Balsa heads off on another mission while Tanda tells their friends he’s content to wait for her return.

That’s not even getting into Balsa’s reluctance to use lethal force when she’s fighting her enemies, or the circumstances of her vow to save eight lives, or the fact that she’s technically past her prime and just as often has to use her wits as much as her strength in battle...

In short, just an incredibly rich and wonderful character to close off the year.

Reading/Watching Log #108

This month ended up being foreign-language month, which in many ways came as a balm. Sometimes it’s important to remember that America, despite how it sees itself, is not in fact the centre of the world. There are other democracies, other struggles, other lives. In fact, it comes as a coincidence that a short story I read this month contained the line: “Americans, you never think anything interesting could possibly be happening anywhere else in the world, do you?”

And it’s true – not the part about Americans necessarily thinking that, but that interesting things are happening all over the world.

Lo and behold, it’s now December!

Legend of the Seeker: Tears

And so we come to it, the season finale of Legend of the Seeker, which ended up being its Grand Finale as well. For those that have been following along with my reviews since the beginning, you’ll recall me saying that I didn’t watch this season back when it first aired on television, simply because I didn’t want it to finish. I wanted these episodes in reserve!

And yet all things must come to an end, and finally I’ve reached the conclusion of this one: fourteen years after its original air-date and four years since I started my rewatch of season one.

With all my grumbling about how shows are always getting cancelled, it’s timely reminder that this is hardly a new phenomenon. Legend of the Seeker was unceremoniously cut down in its prime, when the writers clearly had plenty more steam in their engines, and there were plenty of narrative seeds sown throughout these episodes that were clearly meant to have payoff in a third season.

Though in saying that, we get forty-four episodes in total. These days cancellation at the end of a second season would probably leave you with only sixteen episodes, if you were lucky.

Let’s get to it then: the very last episode of Legend of the Seeker. I am bereft!

Legend of the Seeker: Unbroken

Back to it. I am determined to have this season (and the show in its entirety) finished before the New Year. And here we are at the penultimate episode, with the Boxes of Orden and Jennsen appearing in the “previously on” segment. Ooh. And hey, this episode is directed by Michael Hurst!

If the finale of season one dealt with time travel, in which Richard was thrown forward through time and into a Bad Future, then the second season finale side-steps into alternative timelines, in which a spell is cast that changes a single element of the past, which subsequently has a butterfly effect on the present day.

Woman of the Month: Catherine Standish

Catherine Standish from Slow Horses

There are plenty of great female characters featured in Slow Horses, so why am I going with Catherine Standish? I love watching long-suffering Louisa, ice-cold Diana Taverner, and scrappy, furious Shirley, but Catherine Standish is a great example of a character trope I love: Hidden Depths. Or to put it another way: more than meets the eye.

Think Mrs. Gummidge in David Copperfield, who ceases her complaining and rallies the family in the wake of Emily’s disappearance, or Hopper in Stranger things, who comes out of his depressed, drunken stupor to demonstrate he’s a lot more competent than he looks, or Mary Hamilton in Batwoman, a vapid influencer who is secretly running a free medical clinic.

There’s something about concealed duality in characters, whether they’re deliberately putting up a front or are simply better people than they realize, that always inspires.

Catherine Standish fits the bill, initially tottering about Slough House in dangerously high heels, on her daily routine of distributing menial paperwork to the team. She always looks on the brink of taking a fall, which is a clever character note for a recovering alcoholic, with a meek and quiet demeanour. She has a passable appearance – not unkempt, but hardly well-groomed either – and emanates the air of a cleaning lady or old fuddy-duddy.

And in many ways, she remains that way throughout the series. It’s not like she ever morphs into a glamourous secret agent at any point.

Exiled to Slough House due to her alcohol abuse, she is nevertheless a lot sharper and more efficient than anyone gives her credit for, and is surprisingly good at handling people in her quiet, determined, measured tones. Every season will give her a sequence that demonstrates her capabilities, whether it’s pulling a concealed gun on Head of Security, endangering her sobriety while partaking in a chess game to gather intelligence, silently conveying information about her kidnappers to the team via the hostage video, or gently helping an ex-colleague suffering from dementia.

Heck, putting up with Jackson Lamb is a superhero ability in itself, and she’s the epitome of a woman who can get away with a lot because she’s so underestimated.

Four seasons in, and the show has yet to really explore her relationship with Charles Partner, her former boss who was killed by Lamb on the orders of David Cartwright (protagonist River’s grandfather). I can honestly say I don’t know how she’ll react when the truth comes out, but there’s a chance her former colleagues could be in serious danger. As they say, Beware the Nice Ones.