Reading/Watching Log #97

Whew, I’m finally finished. Getting laid low with Covid was one thing, but after the monthly deadline passed, I found it difficult to get motivated in finishing up this post. Plus, I still have my Recommendations of 2023 and Women of the Year posts to make, and I’ve no idea how long they’re going to take me.

It’s a little strange looking over this log and seeing it divided into what I watched before, during and after Covid. More than that, there are some crazy coincidences in what this material contains, including a. a small, almost throwaway, scene in which a person of colour deals with a passive-aggressive comment on where they were born (Doctor Who and Dial of Destiny), a skeleton that is animated by sentient bandages/rags (Zita the Space Girl and an episode of Legend of the Seeker), two social climbing women (The Crown and Dangerous Liaisons) and actors who looks like Eddie Redmayne, who are not actually Eddie Redmayne.

So here it is, better late than never.

Links and Updates

So what did you get for Christmas? I got Covid, which meant I didn’t get a Christmas. I’ve finally dragged myself out the other side of my sick bed, though I still feel like crap and barely have the energy to type this (the post you’re about to read was written about a day before the symptoms really hit).

I’m ticked off, as I was able to avoid the virus for this long, but I suppose I knew deep down it was going to catch up to me eventually. In any case, I hope your Christmas was better than mine.

My last Links and Updates post was a bit miserable, as there’s been so little to look forward to this year and so much more that has been unceremoniously cancelled. And then, in the past couple of weeks, something happened – the promise of good stuff!

And yes, a lot of it is prequels and sequels and remakes and continuations, but they appear to have a level of care and quality involved that piques my interest...

Legend of the Seeker: Desecrated

We start with another of those patented camping scenes in which the characters are ribbing each other over the fire (it’s a staple of this show by now) when Kahlan emerges from the forest and announces that gars are attacking a nearby village. They all race off to lend their assistance... only for it to turn out to be a surprise party for Richard’s birthday.

Aww. But also – enjoy it while it lasts.

Legend of the Seeker: Creator

Ah, it’s a good old clip show episode. This should be an easy one.

With the advent of short-form television, in which a season gets approximately eight to ten episodes at most, the use of the Clip Show has pretty much disappeared. Their purpose back in the days of twenty-two-episode seasons were obviously to fill in a bit of time and save a bit of money by showcasing footage of the show that had already been shot, usually under the guise of catching the audience up on events, or demonstrating how much a character has grown.

For my money, the best justification for a clip show was “Past Imperfect” from Xena Warrior Princess, in which the story involves Gabrielle literally revisiting her memories leading up to a particular life-altering choice, with a twist on what was actually occurring in that moment.

In this case, Legend of the Seeker goes for more of a Courtroom Drama, where our characters are forced to defend Richard’s integrity as a hero to a mysterious figure who confronts him with the prophecy that he’ll end up helping the Keeper by giving him the Stone of Tears.

Woman of the Month: Zita the Space Girl

Zita from Zita the Space Girl

I feel like I’ve been waiting forever for my reserves of these graphic novels to come through the library system, but it turns out it was worth the wait.

Having read the afterword in the final book, the genesis of this character is its own little story: originally conceived by a girl called Anna in high school, Ben Hatke began to expand the character’s adventures (presumably with Anna’s permission) in a bid to impress her. The gambit paid off, and the two are now married with four daughters – one of whom is called Zita.

The fictional Zita is a young girl hanging out with her friend Joseph in the fields behind their houses when a meteorite crashes close by. Naturally they investigate, and discover a strange device that looks like a big red button. And as it happens, Zita is exactly the type of girl who – on finding a big red button – presses it immediately.

A portal opens in the crater, and tentacles drag Joseph through. She runs away in terror, hesitates, thinks for a bit, and then rushes back to follow him to Who Knows Where. That’s a pretty good summation of Zita’s character: a girl whose impulsiveness makes trouble for others, only for her to then try her darndest to get them out of it.

The adventures that follow regularly have Zita use the phrase: “don’t tell me who I can’t save!” as she’s very much a big-picture-comes-last kind of hero. If someone is in immediate danger, then their life is prioritized before any world-saving shenanigans, which naturally creates for her a very tight circle of loyal friends.

The stories are pretty fun space adventures for the most part – though this underlying theme of Zita’s choices and what she deems most important provide an interesting look at a very popular moral equation that comes up a lot in fantasy/sci-fi: her thirst for adventure often comes across as selfish, and yet she’ll put her own safety and happiness on the line every time to help someone in need.

So she’s deeply flawed, and yet truly inspirational at the same time. It’s nice to see a story get that balance right in a female character.

Reading/Watching Log #96

It’s been a busy month, filled with Christmas parades, Christmas ballets, Christmas markets and Christmas decorating (and it’s only just December now!) But I feel like I’m on top of it, especially concerning my Christmas shopping. Parents, sister and nephew are all accounted for regarding their gifts, and of course I bought my presents to myself ages ago (The Daughters of Ys illustrated by Jo Rioux and The Mabinogion illustrated by Alan Lee – yes!!)

Reading wise, there are more graphic novels, a very strange Babysitters Club book, and some Slavic fantasies (I’m finally getting to the end of that massive TBR pile). Watching wise, there was a more eclectic mix, including my sister’s favourite movie, some leftover werewolf films, the end of Disenchanted (and my Netflix subscription) and a return to season four of Doctor Who to catch up on Donna Noble’s history before getting to this year’s Christmas Specials.

I have also been sporadically watching episodes of the BBC’s Robin Hood with my friend, though I’m still working on a much longer review for the show as a whole, so there are no comments on it here.

Legend of the Seeker: Bound

It’s taken me this long to notice that Legend of the Seeker doesn’t have any opening credits, just a quick montage of the main characters set to Zed’s voiceover (and the clip they chose for Cara is just awful). Does anyone else miss the art of the opening credits? With a tableau of clips and cast credits played to a proper theme song that set the tone? Nobody does that anymore.

In any case, this episode starts with the Sisters of the Dark standing in their trademark circle and engaging in a little chanting. They do that a lot, though it never seems to do them much good. A mutiny against Nicci is a-brewing (even though they brought her back from the dead only last week) as well as some backstabbing when the ringleaders enhance their own power (or Han) by stealing energy from others as part of a predetermined plan.

Now they have the strength to take on Nicci, though – still in possession of Richard’s Han – she disappears before they can kill her with their increased odds, and clocks in some facetime with Rahl through a campfire to get advice on what to do next. To redeem herself, she must find the Stone of Tears (I’ve totally forgotten what this does by now) and bring it to the Keeper, though she points out the compass that leads to it only works in the hands of the Seeker.

Therefore, she must find a way to control the Seeker. The exposition is a little clunky, but it neatly lays out Nicci’s objectives for this episode: control the Seeker, find the Stone, and kill the Mother Confessor (as you’ll recall, there’s a prophecy that states the Keeper is doomed to fail while Kahlan’s “pure heart” still beats). And that’s this week’s set-up!

Links and Updates

My ongoing topic of interest (and outrage) at the moment is the dramatic culling of television shows by studios and streaming services, with dozens upon dozens of projects being canned long before their stories are completed. I’ve touched upon this before in other posts, but as the death toll continues to rise, I find myself more curious as to what exactly is going on. Why does this keep happening? (I mean, besides capitalism screwing us all over).

Legend of the Seeker: Princess

I’ve known this one has been coming up for a while (and been looking forward to it) because there are so many GIF-sets out there depicting Cara in her fancy regalia. I’m under the impression that this is a fan-favourite episode as well, though – like the last episode – it has some odd tonal shifts, with the resurrection of Nicci and the threat she poses set alongside some whacky hijinks at the court of a lecherous margrave.

And as is the way in serialized television, there’s no mention or worry about the Banelings in this episode, even though the zombie apocalypse should be in full-swing by now.

But hey, two Cara episodes in a row! That’s compensation for keeping her on the fringes for so long.

Legend of the Seeker: Hunger

Welcome to the most tonally dissonant episode of the season thus far! It’s also something of a minor Continuity Cavalcade, what with two prior guest stars returning from separate episodes in season one: Ted Raimi as Sebastian and Jon Brazier as Thaddicus. You know, Zed’s brother? It’s okay if you don’t, as I kinda forgot about this guy too, and initially wasn’t even sure if they’d brought back the same actor (they did). Given the content of this episode, I half expected the con-artists from “Mirror” to return as well.

And remember the Banelings? How they were introduced as a pretty big deal in the first handful of episodes? They’re back too, and the horror of what’s required of them to maintain their existence sits extremely uncomfortably next to the hijinks of Sebastian and Thaddicus, two greedy rascals who deliberately water down a cure for the undead so they can make more money. A fair portion of this is played for laughs, and they’ve gone right back to selling snake oil in the final scene. Hah... hah?  

And that’s not even touching on what Cara goes through in this episode. Holy tonal shifts, Batman!

Woman of the Month: Sam and Tara Carpenter

Sam and Tara Carpenter from Scream 5 and 6

I’m doubling back and editing this post to finally bring you November’s Women of the Month (plural).

For the first time since starting these posts in August 2014, I was completely without inspiration. I couldn’t think of a single female character to showcase. The ground rules I set for myself meant I could only feature one woman per film/book/story, and that she had to be heroic (or at least not overtly villainous) in nature – but given that most of my reading and viewing this year has been continuation of stories rather than new material, the well had simply run dry.

And then last week, I watched Scream 6. It was a lot of fun, and held up surprisingly well given the absence of both Neve Campbell and David Arquette, largely due to the baton of main character being passed to sisters Sam and Tara Carpenter. For my money, I think they fill Sydney Prescott’s shoes pretty well – though of course, there’s no replacing the original Final Girl.

Once the credits rolled, I filed the Carpenter sisters away in my mind, expecting to one day write about them at some point (maybe in an end of year retrospective) but not before their shared story reached what would have presumably been its conclusion in the inevitable Scream 7. Despite moving past their differences and teaming up to take down their would-be killers, the ending definitely left room for more growth – especially given the fierce, almost deranged glee they demonstrate when turning the tables on the Ghostface killers.

Except... now there won’t be. Just yesterday news broke that Melissa Barrera had been fired from the franchise after speaking out against the ongoing genocide in Gaza. This morning, Jenna Ortega also announced she wouldn’t be returning for Scream 7, and although the official word is she wanted a release from her contract so she could film season two of Wednesday, that this announcement came so quickly on the heels of Barrera’s firing is pretty transparently not a coincidence.

So that’s it for the Carpenter sisters. It’s disappointing, and a terrible look for Spyglass/Paramount studios who have lost their first leading lady by not offering her a decent pay-check, fired their second one for speaking out against genocide, and then promptly losing their popular young starlet a day later. Where on earth does the franchise go from here?

And yet given the way Scream 6 ends... it works as a conclusion to Sam and Tara’s development and relationship with each other. The two of them were first introduced in Scream 5, with Tara in the franchise’s traditional role of victim in the cold open: the young girl who gets a phone call while she’s alone in her house at night, which quickly escalates into a full-blown attack by the Ghostface killer.

The twist on expectations is that Tara survives. The action then cuts to Sam, who we quickly learn is Tara’s estranged sister, living with her boyfriend and working retail in Modesto. She rushes to her sister’s hospital bed in Woodsboro, where the two of them quickly realize they’re in the eye of the storm when it comes to the township’s latest killing spree. In a somewhat dodgy but still interesting reveal, it turns out that the reason for the sisters’ estrangement (and their parents’ divorce) is that Sam is the illegitimate daughter of Billy Loomis, one of the killers in the original Scream.

As such, the story is just as much about Sam coming to terms with this potential hereditary darkness within her as it is surviving the rampage of a serial killer, who is clearly very aware of this biological connection with the franchise’s first murderer. It’s a theme that continues in Scream 6, which gives time and space to exploring the natural consequences of surviving a mass murder: intense psychological trauma.

The sisters now live in New York, with Tara trying to live life to the fullest and Sam getting trapped inside a paranoid outlook in which anyone and everything could potentially be out to get them. And yes, their relationship is still very strained. But Sam’s overprotectiveness of Tara leads to the inevitable thematic outcome when she eventually trusts her to take care of herself (complete with an echo of her “you have to let me go” admonition), after which the girls call upon their own resourcefulness and strength to take down their assailants.

Like I said, there was room for more character exploration here, particularly in the way the sisters are clearly relishing the violence they inflict upon the Ghostface killers (which we are vicariously sharing in). As Sam feared, there is darkness not only in her, but Tara as well.

Yet in the final scene, Sam casts away her father’s mask and joins her sister and her friends as the sun rises. The Carpenter sisters get to walk away together, having come to terms with their history and their relationship. Like Sydney before them, I hope they enjoy their happy ending – and that the actresses are able to move on to better, more worthy projects.  

(And hey, a character played by Jenna Ortega gets to be Woman of the Month two months in a row!)

Reading/Watching Log #95

It’s the spooky season and along with a glut of scary stories, I decided to apply an EIGHTIES WEREWOLVES THEME to this October. I don’t know what was in the water during that decade, but films in the eighties were rather obsessed with that subject. In 1981 alone, there were no less than three werewolf films.

I’m a big fan of themed viewing/reading, though it often bites me in the ass when I end up getting tired of whatever subject I’ve decided to focus on. And as it happens, werewolf movies can be strikingly similar in the major narrative beats they hit, and they’re often a metaphor for an individual losing their inhibitions.

There are some plot-points that reappear in nearly every film: the fateful bite or wolf attack, a gradual heightening of senses in the recipient of the bite, a few brutal killings, the horrific (and prolonged) transformation sequence, and an opportunity to either reject or embrace the curse.

But in almost every case, turning into a werewolf grants a character a level of freedom and confidence they’ve never experienced before, from the light-hearted Teen Wolf (Michael J. Fox suddenly gets popular) to the much darker Wolf (Jack Nicolson gains stamina, ruthlessness, and the inexplicable ability to be attractive to Michelle Pfieffer).

But of course, there’s always a price; a reason that werewolfry is referred to as “a curse.” Many of the transformations are painful and grotesque to behold – particularly in The Howling, The Company of Wolves and An American Werewolf in London, and actually being a wolf leads one to massacring innocent people before waking up naked in a strange place with no memory of what you were up to the night before. In such cases any transformation will be framed as a tragedy, in which the protagonist’s identity is at risk of being lost to the wolf persona.

Yet although the protagonist is usually desperate to stop the transformation in order to save lives (Brigette in Ginger Snaps: Unleashed, Karen in The Howling), they can just as often find a new lease on life with their new condition (Wolf, The Company of Wolves, Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning). On that note, sometimes becoming a werewolf is an extended metaphor for puberty. Scott’s hair-growth and sex drive in Teen Wolf is a very blatant example of this, but The Company of Wolves is filled with symbols and motifs that signify Rosaleen’s sexual awakening through an overtly feminine lens.

But if the film’s protagonist is not the werewolf and instead the character trying to hunt the werewolf (as The Howling, Silver Bullet and Wolfen) then any wolf will be portrayed as terrifyingly animalistic and brutal; creatures which simply must be stopped by any means necessary.

And interestingly enough, the idea of a silver bullet being the only thing that can kill a werewolf is seldom used. In fact, Silver Bullet (obviously) is the only film that has this be the case. In everything else, normal bullets will suffice.

In any case, this pelthora of werewolf films were interesting to view in quick succession, though I simply don’t have the time to delve deeper into the implications and meaning of the werewolf as a symbol. Mostly it was just fun to revisit the eighties, as the multitude of shows/films that are made today in tribute to that decade don’t really compare to anything actually made in that decade.

I suspect that the surprising amount of werewolf stories made around this time was due to the advances in practical effects that made the transformations so intense and visceral. These days, you’d just run it all through a computer.

Legend of the Seeker: Torn

And with this episode, I am halfway through the season! (Though well over halfway through the year, which is an annoyance since I was hoping to get this project wrapped up before 2024).

If the last episode provided a minor character study on Richard, then this is Kahlan’s turn to step into the spotlight. This entire story is devoted to exploring the duality of her character, by using that favourite fantasy trope: splitting the individual into two halves. That is, their personality is split between two separate (and identical) bodies, which TV Tropes calls a Literal Split Personality.

You’ve seen it in early episodes of Charmed and Farscape (though there Prue and Crichton were divided into three parts) and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (where it was Xander, making use of the convenient fact that actor Nicholas Brendon is a twin). I also recall a Star Trek episode where two separate people are merged into one, and then refuse to be turned back since he doesn’t want to die, a storyline that’s somewhat relevant to this episode of Legend of the Seeker.

And those examples are just off the top of my head. I’m sure there are thousands more out there.

It makes for a fairly interesting look at what makes Kahlan tick, though it’s rather on-the-nose compared to the last episode’s more veiled depiction of Richard’s fears and how they pertain to his self-image. This is essentially just knocking Kahlan’s fundamental personality out of kilter and demonstrating that the two sides of a person need to work in harmony – which is true, but true of anyone, not just Kahlan.

King's Quest: To Heir is Human

This game could well have been called King’s Quest: Something Completely Different, as its introduction throws out everything previously established in the series thus far in favour of a brand-new set up. So much so, that initial reactions to the game were negative simply because Graham and Daventry were nowhere to be seen. And if there’s one thing that fans hate, it’s change.

The opening introduces us to a seventeen-year-old boy called Gwydion, who lives as a slave in the clifftop mansion of a cruel wizard called Manannan in the land of Llewdor (yes, Roberta Williams had clearly been reading up on her Welsh mythology). He lives a lonely, miserable existence, longing for freedom and the answer to the question: “who am I?”

The game manual reveals that this Gwydion is only the latest in a long line of Gwydions, for even though Manannan is powerful enough to conjure spirits to do his housework, he prefers the cruelty that comes with having a mortal child at his beck and call. As such, he’s been kidnapping babies for years in order to raise them as his slaves – only to realize that with age comes agency. After the first Gwydion was found dabbling with spells in Manannan’s secret laboratory, the wizard vowed never to let another child live past the age of eighteen.

Woman of the Month: Wednesday Addams

Wednesday Addams from The Addams Family

It’s the spooky season, which requires an appropriately Halloween-y entry for Woman of the Month. And what better choice given the success of her recent Netflix show than Wednesday Addams?

That said, the character has been around a lot longer than Jenna Ortega’s take, which means this post has ended up just as much a retrospective as a spotlight on her latest interpretation. I dug a little deeper into the history of Wednesday, and the results are a fascinating look at how a character can evolve over time.

Created by cartoonist Charles Addams, she first appeared (without a name) in the August 26, 1944, issue of The New Yorker, in a comic that featured her being told to stop whining and “go tell your brother you’ll poison him right back.” In fact, none of the iconic characters had names at this point, they were simply designed to be the deliberate antithesis of the idealized American nuclear family.

It wasn’t until the comics were adapted for the 1960s television show that names were bestowed, with the daughter dubbed Wednesday, adapted from the familiar children’s nursery rhyme: “Wednesday’s child is full of woe.”

But whereas the comic iteration of the character, with her pale skin and oddly-shaped egghead, was obsessed with dark subjects such as torture, death and crazy science experiments, the Wednesday of the show (as played by Lisa Loring) was in many ways a normal little girl. She liked ballet and dolls, is well-mannered and sweet-natured, and comes across as surprisingly normal.

Okay, so her doll has no head because she’s just learned about Marie Antoinette, and she raises spiders as pets, but there’s no sign of the Deadpan Snarking that would eventually become the staple part of her characterization. In fact, her first day at school leaves her in tears after she’s read a story about a knight slaying a dragon. Poor dragon!

The 1991 film takes Wednesday back to her comic roots, but still doesn’t go too hard on the deadpanning. Yes, Christina Ricci’s take on the character is definitely our most popular rendition of the character, but she also regularly demonstrates fear, excitement and joy. It’s the second film, Addams Family Values, that really codified Wednesday as the cold, emotionless pre-teen we recognize today.

Slightly less known are the two Hanna-Barbera cartoons (one in the seventies and one in the nineties) as well as two animated movies in 2019 and 2021. These all very much depict Wednesday as she appeared in the original comics: chalk-white skin, an oval-shaped head, and dark hair in two braids. I can’t say I have much interest in watching any of them, but a quick glance over the Wikipedia and TV Tropes pages tells me Wednesday is borderline psychotic in these iterations, making – among other things – several serious attempts on her brother’s life.

Then there’s the Broadway musical and the straight-to-video releases and the webseries, the most famous of which features Wednesday confronting some cat-callers.

But to watch the three most famous adaptations of The Addams Family: the original television show, the two nineties films, and the Netflix adaptation, is to watch the character grow from child to tween to teenager. By the time we’ve reached Jenna Ortega, the emotionless deadpanning has become the very crux of her character.

Still, her introductory scene is wrecking bloody vengeance on her brother’s bullies by unleashing flesh-eating piranhas in the school swimming pool, and her subsequent investigation into the mystery of Nevermore Academy is as much to do with s sense of societal responsibility as sating her own curiosity (though she’d never admit it). There’s a heart beating somewhere deep beneath all those layers of black.

But what to actually make of Wednesday Addams? What’s the appeal given her Ensemble Darkhorse status within the franchise? For my money, it’s that subversive element, her complete refusal to conform.

In a world where teenage girls (and women in general) are meant to be bright and bubbly and cheerful, Wednesday has zero interest in following the crowd. She’s the girl we want to be when we’re tired of smiling, tired of conversation, tired of being endlessly polite. She’s our sadistic tendencies and morbid obsessions; the melancholic disposition that we’re meant to keep concealed at all costs.  

And she’s completely unapologetic about it. How freeing it must be to truly not care what other people think, to always have a devastatingly backhanded comment at the ready, to be completely unmoved and unfazed by any attempt at bullying. The character’s appeal lies in her ability to be both a projection and a fantasy – albeit a dark one.

Reading/Watching Log #94

Thanks to an accumulation of annual leave, I had three weeks off this month, and spent a fair portion of it desperately trying to make a dent in the massive pile of library books that I’ve brought home from my new place of work. This is not as much fun as it sounds, as after a while it began to feel more like a chore than a pleasure, which is not how you should be spending your holidays.

Rest assured, I also went on plenty of walks, and took my friend’s daughters to the movies (Barbie again). Spring has finally arrived in Aotearoa, and I’m soaking up all the available Vitamin D after what feels like a very long, cold and dark winter.

When it comes to the general theme of this month’s reading material, I temporarily put aside Slavic Fantasy and focused instead on what can only be called Old English Children’s Folktales. There were plenty of books based on English folklore or set in specific English locales, with titles like Sisters of the Lost Marsh and The Green Children of Woolpit and By Ash, Oak and Thorn. In terms of their general collective vibe, think The Borrowers by way of The Wind in the Willows.

Viewing wise, my choices were much less themed. We had another movie night at work, and thankfully everyone seemed to enjoy Casablanca (I say that because it was my recommendation). I finally caught up with Netflix’s Wednesday, which means I also watched the two The Addams Family films of the nineties. My sister introduced me to Vigil, a show I didn’t even know existed before she told me about it (which is very weird, since I usually have at least heard of most things) and rather sadly completed Carnival Row and The Nevers, two shows that vibed perfectly together, not least because they were both completely screwed over by their networks.

I did however manage to get in one unofficial “trilogy” – that is, three projects that were directly inspired by the works of H.G. Wells: the 2019 adaptation of The War of the Worlds, the 1979 film Time After Time, and the 2001 miniseries The Infinite Worlds of H.G. Wells – all so different, and yet all standing as a tribute to the reach of this man’s vision.

And three of these projects featured Eleanor Tomlinson!

Legend of the Seeker: Perdition

Back to it! I’m hoping that I can get through this season before the end of the year, but I’m not even halfway through these episodes and life isn’t getting any less busy. Plus, I don’t want to rush it. Once this season is over, that’s it. Show’s over.

This episode starts with Verna waking up Richard, who is very confused to find himself back at the Palace of the Prophets. Naturally there’s some weird shit going on, and though Verna has an easy explanation about what’s happening (his wizard powers are messing with his head) Richard isn’t remotely convinced that this is reality.

Neither is the audience, who has seen this scenario play out in countless television shows: Xena, Buffy, Angel, Charmed... they’ve all done a “trapped in a false reality” episode. Heck, I’ve just watched one on The Wheel of Time with Nynaeve!

Thankfully the show doesn’t insult our intelligence by trying to make us believe any of this is really happening. In fact, they reveal Richard’s true circumstances before the first ad-break, and instead chose to use the illusion as a chance to delve into his psyche and explore what he fears the most.

So, let’s have a run-through of what exactly that is...

His Dark Materials: The Botanic Gardens

And we’re done. All things considered, this was a decent ending to a fairly by-the-numbers adaptation of one of my favourite book trilogies, but at every turn it seemed to lack the vision of Pullman’s work. The show hit all the major plot-points, had a solid cast who knew what they were doing, featured relatively good visual design (costumes, set design, cinematography, etc) and seemed to understand the underlying themes – but there was simply no X-factor to the proceedings; no passion, no conviction.

In a way, this is because so much of the His Dark Materials trilogy is unfilmable. Not only is it well-nigh impossible to demonstrate the profound bond between a daemon and a human being without the insight that text can provide, but because ultimately the trilogy in its entirety is a theological mystery that contains an alternative spiritual worldview to Christianity and is solved through careful thought, research and discovery by its myriad of characters.

That naturally doesn’t translate well to a visual medium, best seen in the fact that the story’s emotional climax isn’t a no-holds-barred CGI battle between two massive opposing forces, but the sexual awakening of two preadolescents.

Because of that, this episode in particular feels more like an epilogue than a culmination of all the plot-threads that the show has been weaving for the past three seasons, the physical battle having already been won in the previous episode. It’s an unconventional ending to a deeply unconventional story, one that’s broken plenty of the rules of narrative structure along the way (there, we don’t even get a clear answer regarding who won the battle between Asriel and Metatron’s forces – only that the Magisterium’s power in Lyra’s world was weakened long after the fact).

This “wind-down” episode encompasses the last seven book chapters, yet given the stakes of the story as-written thus far, it’s tasked with the need to reestablish the central narrative issue: Dust is flowing out of the world and somehow our main characters must find a way to stop it.

His Dark Materials: The Clouded Mountain

It’s the penultimate episode, and unsurprisingly it has the sacrifice of Lord Asriel and Mrs Coulter (along with their daemons) as its centrepiece, though it also tries to dramatize some of the Final Battle that the entire show has been leading up to, with mixed results.

The problem is that in the books, Pullman himself had zero interest in exploring the physical outcome of this war. Lyra and Will ran across the battlefield in search of their daemons, and that’s all we ever see of it. The focus is instead on the defeat of Metatron and the (deliberately) anticlimactic death of the Authority.

But that doesn’t fly in a visual adaptation, especially since we’ve spent the better part of this season watching the multitude of soldiers in Asriel’s camp preparing for battle. The audience expects to see them actually fight.  

So with the Clouded Mountain approaching in the sky above Asriel’s encampment, his forces get ready for the inevitable conflict. There’s lots of hustling and bustling, witches hover in the sky above, Ogunwe hugs his daughters (aww), and Xaphania lays out the stakes, which are glaringly obvious for anyone that’s been paying the slightest bit of attention thus far: “The Clouded Mountain draws closer.  The way forward now depends on Lyra. If Eve survives the Fall once more, all worlds will be liberated. But if Metatron can control the children or their daemons, the future is his forever.”

Thanks for that.

Woman of the Month: Claudia

 Claudia from The Dragon Prince

In recent years I have been reluctant to feature female characters in these posts before their stories have been completed. I well remember writing enthusiastically about the likes of Lexa and Vanessa Ives, only for them to come to deeply depressing ends.

But I feel reasonably confident that Claudia will come out the other side of this story intact, regardless of how closely she’s currently skirting to true darkness. It’s clear (to me at least) that Aaron Ehasz based this character heavily on Azula, of whom he once said he would have liked to write a redemption arc, one attained through the unconditional love of her brother. Having not been given the chance to do that with Avatar: The Last Airbender, the concept has been co-opted for The Dragon Prince between Claudia and Soren, the best characters of the show by an embarrassingly large margin.

Claudia is first introduced as a young mage with burgeoning powers, as well as the focus and discipline to hone her craft, but it’s her relationship with her widowed father that informs most of her character. As glimpsed in the graphic novel Puzzle House, the disappearance of her mother and the control that magic can give her are important facets of her personality, leading to blind obedience and loyalty to her remaining parent.

Across the seasons, she grows increasingly proficient in Dark Magic, something that initially seems incongruous with her sunny, cheerful disposition. This gradually becomes more ominous as her father ropes her into participating in various crimes (including the attempted assassination of the Crown Prince) though it’s her brother Soren who first realizes just how far across the line Viren has gone.

Most of the major turning-points in her life have involved her family: sacrificing a deer to save her brother from paralysis, turning on Soren after seeing him kill what he thinks is their father to save an innocent, and finally bringing Viren back from the dead and going to increasingly compromised lengths to ensure he stays that way. There’s even a visual component to her fall into darkness: her dark black hair gradually turning white with the strain of the magic she’s using.

I love a good corruption arc, and where we leave Claudia at the end of season five is definitely a point of no return for her. Having used aggressive force against the show’s heroes in an attempt to free a profoundly dangerous being from captivity, their counter-attacks lead to the loss of one of her legs. I have a strong suspicion that she’s not going to take that very well.  

There’s real darkness in this girl and she’s probably going to get worse before she gets better. And yet, I’ve never showcased a villainous character on a Woman of the Month post before, and I don’t think I’ve done so now. There’s still hope for Claudia, but she’s got to hit rock bottom before she can start finding her true self.

Reading/Watching Log #93

Well, Spooks is done. Done! All ten seasons and the movie. It was a great ride: half brand-new experience (since I’d never seen it before) and half trip down memory lane (since it took me all the way back to 2002). I enjoyed my visit to the noughties so much in fact, that I think I’ll stay there a while longer. I’ve found Inspector Lynley on a free streaming service, and have Hustle ready to go as well. It’s so nice to enjoy shows that don’t get cancelled after a single season!

I find myself in a bit of a reading/watching routine lately: more graphic novels, more Slavic fantasy, more Babysitters Club. And by a complete coincidence, I managed to read/watch three stories about the Holy Grail this month: a graphic novel, a short story, and a film. What are the odds? I’ve also made it through Genndy Tartakovsky’s latest offering, the third season of Harley Quinn (and the Valentine’s Day Special), the fifth of The Dragon Prince and the next Indiana Jones movie. Oh, and two more Robin Hoods. Whew.

His Dark Materials: The Abyss

    We’re on the homestretch now.

With this episode, many of screenwriter Jack Thorne’s choices in adapting Pullman’s work have become clearer, particularly in the cause/effect nature of his original story additions. I’m speaking specifically of what exactly happened to Alarbus, the intercision device, and Metatron reaching down from the sky with a beam of heavenly light to detonate the bomb.

As Mrs Coulter very helpfully spells out for us, Metatron was responsible for the bomb going off, and did so in retaliation for Asriel’s “war crimes.” It’s a continuation of the scene between Ogunwe and Ruta of a few episodes ago, in which they pondered whether the angels would continue to stand with Asriel if they found out what he’d done to Alarbus.

Their question isn’t exactly answered here (since the angels on Asriel’s side still aren’t aware of what went on behind closed doors) but that basic idea is still carried into this episode, with Mrs Coulter drawing that correlation between Asriel’s treatment of Alarbus and Metatron’s decision to make bomb go kablooey.

His Dark Materials: No Way Out

Okay, so I have to correct two things from prior episode reviews. One is that Lord Asriel didn’t murder that angel after all, he apparently just sort of forcibly sent him back to the Authority’s throne room in order to deliver a message. The other is that the mulefa do utilize the oily seedpods to roll around on, even if the designers couldn’t find a way to replicate the diamond-shaped skeleton described in the book.

So that’s something of a relief, even though it’s unclear how exactly the mulefa are using the seedpods. You’d still need some sort of opposable claw to use as an axel, which doesn’t appear to be the case here – instead, they’re using seedpods as a form of roller skates. I’m not sure that looks better than what Pullman described in writing, but the episode I watched unfortunately didn’t come with any subtitles, which presumably would have helped explain the symbiotic relationship between the creatures, the pods, and the trees.

Genderfluid Person of the Month

Nimona from Nimona

I have to admit, I was not thrilled at the first glimpse of Nimona in the teaser for the film named after her. Between the Dreamworks Smirk (so punchable) and Chloë Moretz’s singsong delivery of lines like “this is the part where you run” and “that would be me,” my first impression was that she was going to be agonizingly obnoxious.

But almost as soon as she appears in the film itself, it becomes clear that her attitude is a protective front against a world hellbent on destroying her. The most surprising thing about Nimona is that she’s technically not a child – she’s over a thousand years old, and the monster of legend that Gloreth defeated in order to found the kingdom.

That’s given her a lot of time to build up her defences, and when we first see her she’s very much embraced her role as an anarchic villain in a Then Let Me Be Evil sort of way, with a gleeful excitement about the thought of causing fear, mayhem, public damage, and even death (though I don’t think she ever goes that far).

I love her design: she’s simultaneously round and soft and circular, denoting youth and innocence, but also clad in spiky armour with pierced ears and little fangs, illustrating the protective layers she’s put up between herself and the world. And yet she’s also pink, the colour of warmth and love and vulnerability. Her entire personality is all there in her default appearance, which is ironic considering she’s a shapeshifter.

A flashback sequence about three-quarters of the way explains her history, and it’s a heartbreaker. A shapeshifter with no family of her own, she attempts to integrate herself among various groups of animals before finding a human friend. The two get along well, and Nimona even finds the courage to divulge her shapeshifting abilities – which her friend accepts.

But it all goes wrong when others discover what Nimona is capable of, and soon the inevitable torches and pitchforks emerge. Most tragically, her friend (revealed to be Gloreth) turns on her, not out of genuine malevolence, but peer pressure and the contagious nature of fear. Sometimes that’s worse than an out-and-out betrayal, and it neatly explains Nimona’s profound distrust and dislike of other people.

Because even though it's subtle, you can’t talk about Nimona without discussing the transgender allegory. For the record, Nimona presents as female throughout most of the film and (if memory recalls) is referred to with she/her pronouns. But she shapeshifts into a little boy a couple of times, not to mention all those animals, and there are plenty of conversations that take place which have her explicitly reject any labels put upon her: “I’m not a people” and “Easier to be a girl? Easier for who?”

Eventually a poignant conversation between Ballister and Nimona takes place in which she divulges how she can change and what that means to her. She’s given the opportunity to describe how the process feels: “I feel worse when I don’t [change], like my insides are itchy. You know that second right before you sneeze. That’s close to it. Then I shapeshift and I’m free.” Her shapeshifting isn’t just a device to set her apart from others, it reflects her own rejection of a fixed identity.

It might be lost on very young viewers, but the subtext is woven deeply into the narrative, from the Director preying on the fear that Nimona is a shapeshifter and therefore cannot be trusted, to Nimona going to such a dark mental place that she considers ending her own life. It’s so easy to manipulate people’s fear, to gain power through their dread of the unknown, and to scapegoat anyone who is the least bit different. The machinations of the film’s true villain are frightening because her tactics are so familiar.

And in the end, all it takes is someone to simply see Nimona for who she is, and let her know that she's not alone. The story is filled with these sorts of reflections and analogies, right down to the final tearing down of the fortified wall, originally built for the safety of the citizens within, but eventually revealed to be hiding a beautiful vista of mountains, valleys and streams. The unknown isn’t always terrifying.

Reading/Watching Log #92

Another month flits by, are you tired of me continually pointing that out? The thing is, with my new job taking up so much more time than usual (largely through the commute) I have far less time to write this blog, which means there are much longer gaps between posts – which in turn makes it feel like time is moving at a much brisker pace than usual.

I’m definitely ready for it to be summer again, as the cold and dark always gets me down, but I’m chugging through my Slavic Fantasy reading list, and a never-ending supply of graphic novels (every time I think I’m done, another one nabs my attention). I’m definitely on the home stretch with Spooks, and nearing the thirties in The Babysitters Club. I carved out time to watch two oldies (Gaslight and The Seventh Seal) as well as the long awaited Nimona and – it was inevitable – Barbie. Plus, after my work’s movie night last month, I found myself on a bit of a The Sound of Music kick.

And if you're wondering why the formatting looks so wonky on this post, well it's because my computer has updated and essentially fucked everything up. It also took away my ability to open up sub-folders containing pictures in my sidebar, and completely eradicated bookmark manager, which let me search for specific webpages by typing them into a search engine instead of scrolling through the entire bloody list from the top. Updates! Making everything a THOUSAND TIMES MORE OF A HASSLE TO OPERATE. If you're going to change things, fine. Just change it into SOMETHING THAT'S NOT WORSE. AAARRRRGGGHHHHH.