Reading/Watching Log #57

I don’t mean to alarm anyone, but we’ve got only three months left before 2021.

As it happened, I had some very overdue leave that needed to be taken, and in the two weeks I had off I decided to focus more on movies and books than television, leading to a whopping ten films watched and nine books completed.

This month was very much about the biopic: Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Marie Curie, Tonya Harding, Mary Shelley and Queen Anne (sort of), and the usual assortment of superheroes, fairy tales, and YA fiction. And somehow, two entirely separate stories about detectives called Agatha.

I also ended up watching Legend of the Seeker for the first time in years, which was fantastic. There was a Tumblr post floating around that said a lot of people rewatch things over and over again because there is a type of comfort to be derived from knowing how a story is going to pan out, and after being burned so badly by so many big-budget franchises, settling down to a series in which the heroes are uncomplicatedly good, the love story based on clear communication and mutual respect, and a plethora of interesting female characters, was like a balm to my soul.

I’ll keep posting about each episode separately, so there won’t be an entry for the season in full below the cut…

Legend of the Seeker: Destiny

The second episode of Legend of the Seeker (which I suppose is the second half of the first episode) already demonstrates a marked improvement on the trope-leaden premiere…

Legend of the Seeker: Prophecy

 I have two weeks leave, and I plan to spend it (at least partly) on watching something that makes me happy. That means I’m watching Legend of the Seeker, a fantasy show produced by Sam Raimi and Robert Tapert, filmed in New Zealand, based on Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth novels, and which aired between 2008 and 2010.

That about covers it. I watched the first season back when it was first released on DVD but always put off getting to the second and final season, knowing that once it was over, it was done for good. I’d been saving it for a rainy day essentially, and now that rainy day (or year) has finally come.

And despite having a male lead, I’d argue that it still complies with my New Years’ Resolution by dint of two fantastic female deuteragonists that have agency, complexity, development and structured arcs of their own. Yes, the original author sounds like a real weirdo and some of his very specific fetishes are on full display, but Tapert and Raimi are the guys who brought us Xena Warrior Princess, so for the most part they know what they’re doing.

And honestly, I’m ready for a show with a straightforward good-versus-evil storyline, where the heroes are uncomplicatedly good, the central romance is based on respect and communication, and the girls have a multifaceted relationship that’s neither bitchy competition or instantaneous BFFery.

I’m ready to relax into this…

 

Xena Warrior Princess: Maternal Instincts, The Bitter Suite, One Against An Army

And we’ve arrived at last: the darkest episodes of the darkest arc in all of Xena Warrior Princess, which caused plenty of controversy at the time due to its violence, and is still rather difficult to watch today: specifically the murder of two children (though granted, one of them is an evil demon in the guise of a child) and the infamous “Gab Drag”, in which Xena lashes Gabrielle to the back of her horse and gallops off full-tilt, dragging her friend’s body across fields till they reach a cliff-face, over which Xena tries to throw her.

The Rift is the fan-name given to this arc, in which Xena and Gabrielle’s relationship is sorely tested due to their experiences in Britannia, Chin and Illusia, specifically regarding the fates of their children Solan and Hope. The more violent aspects of it were badly received in the nineties; by today’s standards it would have caused an absolute social media meltdown, overshadowing the actual content of the episodes in question (there’s always that one scene in any given show or film that completely dominate people’s memories).

These episodes comprise the conclusion of this arc – for better or worse – so let’s get into it…

Angela Barrett: The Wild Swans

In dark times you have to seek out beautiful things: that which exists for the sole purpose of spurring contemplation, admiration, and tranquillity. This is a blogpost series I’ve been planning for a while now, in which I chose a particular illustration from a picture book by one of my favourite artists and look at it in more detail: the colours, the composition, the symbolism, all that jazz.

I have several illustrators in mind: Jackie Morris, Trina Schart Hyman, P.J. Lynch, Kinuko Craft, Jane Ray, Ruth Sanderson, and the plan is to work through all of their work as the mood takes me, looking at each of their published books and picking out the most impressive illustration in each one – or at least the one that speaks mostly strongly to me.

Lately I've been poring over the work of Angela Barrett, an illustrator I've loved for a long time now, though I've only recently been inspired to explore her back catalogue. One trip through the library records later, and I settled down to relax into her body of work, which largely consists of children's stories, with a particular emphasis on fairy tales.

Woman of the Month: Allison Hargreeves

Allison Hargreeves from The Umbrella Academy

The first season of The Umbrella Academy was not particularly kind to Allison Hargreeves, a.k.a. Number Three. Though she and her six siblings were all ranked by their individual usefulness, putting her near the top of the pecking order of their adopted father’s private school, the writers seemed a little unsure of what to do with her.

This was perhaps due to the fact her ability unmistakably makes her the most powerful of the seven students, with the ability to persuade people into doing her will by simply prefacing a statement with the term: “I heard a rumour…” Yet paradoxically this makes it difficult to place her at the centre of the story, for after all, she only needs to speak a command to solve almost any problem.

As such, the first season largely kept her on the outskirts of the main action: giving her a quasi-incestuous relationship with her brother Luthor, lightly delving into the abuse of her powers in how she handled her career and daughter, and finally silencing her when her sister Vanya slashes her throat.

That season wasn’t great anyway, but it was especially egregious in regards to Allison. It’s easy to compare her to Marvel’s Kilgrave, who had similar powers of persuasion but absolutely no moral compass whatsoever, and I felt the writers dropped the ball on exploring what it would actually be like to grapple with the profound temptation of knowing you could get whatever you wanted with only a whispered turn-of-phrase. Seriously, would it even be possible to remain uncorrupted with such a gift?

Because despite her shortcomings, Allison remains an essentially good person, even when she arrives in Dallas in the 1960s and finds herself in an environment that’s deeply hostile to a woman of her colour. If ever she had an excuse to unleash her power on a well-deserving public, this was it (and I know I would have been ordering every racist to jump off the nearest bridge).

Yet Allison decides to “go clean” and join the Civil Rights Movement without utilizing her abilities – showing far more restraint than I ever could have when she’s faced with abject hatred for simply entering a local diner and asking for a cup of coffee. The depiction of her calm and dignified staged sit-in is a surprisingly effective and respectful tribute to the struggle for social justice that clearly still resonates in our current climate – but when she’s finally had enough of the disrespect and unleashes the full brunt of her power… well, who can blame her?

But does lead me to wonder how much control Allison actually has over her abilities. In the lead-up to the sit-in she articulates her fear in ever using them, stating that they only bring trouble. Later she manages to mind-control one of the Swedish assassins that’ve been sent to kill her, but instead of simply ordering him to leave, she tells him to kill his own brother. Why the unnecessary sadism? Is she even aware she’s doing it? Do her abilities inevitably lead her to the cruellest possible solution to her problems?

The writers haven’t divulged this information yet, and they completely gloss over the interesting stakes that could have arisen from Allison’s presence in the 1060s. Could she have helped speed up the Civil Rights Movement? Did she have a moral obligation to do so? Or was her fear of what she could do and the subsequent risk to the time-line too great? Again, it’s not just that we don’t get answers, it’s that nobody even asks the questions!

With seven protagonists and a range of important supporting characters, it makes sense that no one should get to hog all the screen-time, but there’s so much potential when it comes to Allison and her abilities. Her power makes her the show’s most interesting character, mostly in regards to the ramifications it has on herself and the world around her, and going into season three I hope the writers aren’t afraid to really explore the effect it’s had on her daughter, on how Reginald raised her, and on whether it has an undue influence over Allison herself. Just who is really in charge when she utters the words: “I heard a rumour…?”