Reading/Watching Log #77

I’ve been taking it easy this month, trying to concentrate more on reading than watching things, though I can still get in a surprising amount just by sticking to my “one episode per night, two movies per weekend” rule. I clocked in two Robin Hood movies, two Poirot mysteries, and the two latest Scream instalments, not to mention two period dramas and the second season of Evil (still one of the strangest shows I’ve ever seen).

Seeing as it was a month for twos, I also read the first two books in The Babysitters Club series (ah, memories) and the next two books in Catherynne Valente’s Fairyland quintet (which I’ll refrain from commenting on until I can do a post on all five).

With the films featured here, I feel like I’m reaching the end of the Robin Hoods that have been adapted for the big screen – the remaining ones listed on Wikipedia are very obscure, though I’ll do what I can to find them. But I’ll probably be turning to the television shows soon, from the old Richard Greene serial to Maid Marian and her Merry Men (which I’m sure I watched as a child, though I’ve all but forgotten it). Also, remember The New Adventures of Robin Hood, which was essentially a Hercules/Xena Warrior Princess rip-off? Oh yeah, I definitely have to track that one down.

And apparently there’s something called Back to Sherwood about nineties kids that time-travel back to the Middle Ages and discover their ancestors were Robin Hood and the gang? SOLD.

Review: The Dagger of Amon Ra

After finishing The Colonel's Bequest (several times) I naturally had to follow up with the game's one and only sequel: The Dagger of Amon Ra.

It’s... not great. The game was written and designed by Bruce Balfour, with Roberta Williams taking a backseat as she worked on other projects. She’s credited as “creative consultant”, which apparently meant she was tasked with making sure the spirit of the first game remained intact and that there was character consistency in the portrayal of Laura.

A switch in creative control doesn’t necessarily lead to a drop in quality – after all, Jane Jenson wrote King’s Quest 6, which is largely considered the best in the series – but there are several problems with this game that leaves it with none of the Replay Value of its predecessor.

Released in 1992, the graphics have advanced in leaps and bounds, going from the 4-bit colour palette and pixelated sprites of just three years ago to rich and detailed scenery and characters. But honestly, I prefer the visual limitations of the first game, largely due to the Nostalgia Filter and the scope for imagination that it provides – often your mind ends up filling in the details of the more unsophisticated graphics.

The Dagger of Amon Ra sees Bequest’s old plantation house in the midst of murky swamplands and raises it a New York museum after closing hours. That’s not a bad exchange as far as ambient locations go, and the designers make the most of the popular 1920’s Art Deco style in order to create the Leyendecker Museum, where most of the game’s action takes place.

Review: The Colonel's Bequest

As a child, I was what you would call a gamer. We owned dozens of floppy disks that ran adventure games designed by Sierra On-Line, many of which fell under the various “quest” titles: King’s Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest, Hero’s Quest (later called Quest for Glory) and the two Laura Bow mysteries: The Colonel’s Bequest and The Dagger of Amon Ra.

Released in 1989, the inspiration for The Colonel’s Bequest is fairly obvious: storywise it’s based on Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, what with a group of disparate characters brought to an island where they one-by-one fall victim to an unseen murderer, but there’s a dash of Cluedo in there too – specifically some of the characters’ colour-based names (Colonel Dijon is obviously a nod to Colonel Mustard) and the setting of an opulent but remote mansion.

It's also a much more sophisticated remake of Sierra’s very first game from 1980: Mystery House, which also involved the player investigating a series of murders that take place in a singular location, and which is considered the very first graphic adventure game ever. Like, the very first ever. Did I mention that it was conceived, designed, written and illustrated by a woman, Roberta Williams? She literally came up with the idea to combine a story with visuals for a gaming format.

She also wrote and designed The Colonel’s Bequest, and was further inspired by her most recent instalment in the King’s Quest series, The Perils of Rosella, which in 1988 was the first graphic adventure game to feature a playable female protagonist (this is somewhat contested: there had been playable female characters before, but Rosella was the first in an adventure, rather than an arcade game).

Woman of the Month: Kate Sharma

Kate Sharma from Bridgerton

Sometimes choosing a Woman of the Month is like searching for a needle in a haystack; other times I have a surfeit of riches to choose from. This month it’s feels like there’s been dozens of great female characters to enjoy: Meilin Lee from Turning Red, Freydis from Vikings: Valhalla, Peggy Scott from The Gilded Age, Oona Lee from 5 Worlds... but March really belonged to Bridgerton’s Kate Sharma.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the first season as anything but the lightest of fluff, but was drawn back in after seeing promotional pictures of the Sharma sisters: Kate and Edwina. They looked gorgeous and I was curious to see how the show would handle two Desi girls in this particular context. Certain comments in season one made it clear the world these characters inhabited wasn’t entirely colourblind and there is a literary precedent for wealthy Indian women coming to England in search of titled husbands, as briefly touched upon in William Makepeace Thackery’s Vanity Fair.

But the handling of the show’s Black and mixed-race characters last season wasn’t done particularly elegantly, and it would seem that at some point during the hiatus the showrunners came to the simple decision to treat their 19th century England as an alternative universe, free from any racial prejudices. As such, the Sharmas demonstrate some Indian customs (they perform the Haldi cleansing ritual the night before Edwina’s wedding) and vocabulary (the sisters call each other “Didi” and “Bon”, which – according to a Google search – means “older” and “younger sister” in Hindi) but otherwise their race and background is barely a factor in the way their story unfolds.

Or is it...?

In the discussions surrounding the release of season two, many have noted that the portrayal of Kate’s psyche and worldview has resonated deeply with other South Asian women, and it doesn’t feel like a coincidence that the most important beats of her story-arc are grounded in characterization we’ve also seen recently in the likes of Encanto and Turning Red. That is, the immense pressure and responsibility that’s felt by many of the daughters of Asian and South American families. Generally referred to as Oldest Child Syndrome, there’s been plenty of talk in the wake of these projects as to how deeply viewers of similar backgrounds have related to the likes of Luisa, Meilin and Kate.

In this case, Kate is motivated almost solely by her need to serve and protect her family, to the point where she responds with confusion and even anger at the possibility that she might want anything for herself. She’s completely internalized the expectations and sense of obligation that has been placed upon her, and because no one has ever prioritized her, she can only outsource this feeling of duty and self-love to others.

Kate and Edwina are half-sisters who share a (deceased) father rather than a mother. Kate’s mother died when she was very young and she’s been raised by her father’s second wife Mary, who was cut off from her family after she made what was considered an unsuitable match. But the marriage brought about Edwina, who Kate loves fiercely. At times she’s more like a second mother than an older sister, and on coming to England to find Edwina a husband, Kate stringently vets the available suitors. Only the very best will do for her baby sister.

That’s already a fascinating family dynamic, and there’s more than a little of The Taming of the Shrew woven throughout, from Edwina’s eligibility being carefully gatekept by the behaviour of her older sister, to the Belligerent Sexual Tension that erupts between Anthony and Kate, to (most obviously) Kate’s very name.

Anthony Bridgerton, still heartbroken from the events of last season, wants to secure a wife with as little fuss as possible. With Edwina announced as the diamond of the season, Anthony sets his cap at her, though Kate is less convinced – first due to overhearing his mercenary opinions about marriage with some other men, and then because the two of them grow increasingly attracted to one another.

The ensuing love triangle is only able to play out the way it does due to Anthony and Kate’s personal neuroses. I won’t get into Anthony’s hang-ups, but Kate’s sharp tongue, competitive edge and standoffish persona are a direct result of her upbringing, and the usual clichés and contrivances of the romance genre are rooted specifically in Kate’s generational trauma (another big theme of Encanto and Turning Red).

To her, the wellbeing of her sister – and by extension, the rest of her family – trumps every other consideration. Kate defines herself by what she can do for them, demonstrating overwhelming guilt and horror at the possibility that her own desires might somehow act as an obstacle between her family and their success in society. The whole mess only gets as far as it does because she sublimates her feelings, to the point where she doesn’t believe she deserves any happiness at all.

A pertinent conversation with Edwina takes place near the end of the season, in which she astutely points out that everything Kate has provided for her under the guise of helping her, is in truth what Kate wants for herself. In fulfilling the duties that have always been expected of her, and in staunchly suppressing her own feelings, Kate has unconsciously projected herself onto her sister. It’s a surprisingly complex psychology at play.

So ultimately it’s Edwina who gets the more obvious self-actualization arc, in which she comes to learn of unpleasant truths that have been concealed from her and finally decide for herself what she wants in life. In comparison, Kate’s story is one of release. By the final episode she is freed from her obligations, both real and imagined, and given herself permission to take what she wants for herself.

I need to stress at this point that I’m a white kiwi girl, so cannot write any of this from personal experience and don’t presume to speak for anyone. But I’m fascinated by the discussions surrounding the likes of Meilin, Luisa and Kate (both positive and negative) and what they mean to viewers that exist outside the usual mainstream target audience. It’s like a shaft of illumination has fallen on a type of female character we’ve never seen before, one based on cultural mores, generational trauma, the expectations of women, and a specific kind of psyche that emerges from the intersection of all those things. Going forward, I think Kate Sharma will have a much bigger impact on the representation of South Asian women than she’s so far been given credit for.