Standing Tall #31

I haven’t done one of these in a while!

This giraffe, called The Best of Times, was one of the best sculptures on display. It was beautifully located outside Riccarton House, which is a heritage site comprised of two of the earliest buildings constructed by European settlers in Christchurch, and a native bush area containing kahikatea trees up to six hundred years old. It’s also where my uncle and aunt got married, though that’s neither here nor there.

Sponsored by Kidicorp (a childcare organization) the artist is Penny Cameron, herself a preschool teacher. According to my guidebook, it took over 170 hours to create, with thousands of pieces of coloured tile making up the mosaic surface of the giraffe, portraying a variety of places, seasons and activities to be found in Christchurch. I can see depictions of the Chinese lantern festival, the daffodils at the Botanic Gardens, and the Ferrier Fountains outside the Town Hall to identify but three.

I ended up visiting this one twice, as Riccarton House and its weekend markets are one of my favourite places to visit at the best of times (see what I did there?) and it was ultimately one of the most popular giraffes put to auction.

Woman of the Month: Prue Halliwell

Prue Halliwell from Charmed

This month I plan to watch the first season of the original Charmed, a quintessential part of my early adolescence and perfect viewing for the month of October.

Whenever there’s a trio of fictional sisters (or even just a duo), it’s inevitably the eldest one I’ll relate to most since – well, I’m the eldest one. To be the firstborn of the family means being the most responsible, the de facto leader, the homebody, the one with the most expectations placed upon your shoulders – at least, that’s the characterization this type usually gets.

Prue embodies all these attributes, and in many ways her role as the oldest Halliwell sister informs her entire story-arc. She’s the one most reluctant to embrace her witch heritage, the one imbued with the most power, and the one burdened with juggling a full-time job, maintenance of the family home, the awakening of her telekinesis gift, and the arrival of an old flame...

If you could sum the character up with one word, it would be “duality”, as despite her very name (Prudence) implying cautiousness and common sense, the fact that she can move objects with her mind – or throw them, fling them, hurl them – is a reflection of her true inner self. That is, there’s a storm of emotions beneath her brisk, professional exterior, and after a later episode reveals that her power is triggered by anger, a new context is brought to the way the gradual mastery of her abilities is staggered across the course of the season. She’s tapping into her long-suppressed emotions, and her newfound telekinesis is their outlet.

I have pretty much memory-holed everything that came after the first season of Charmed: I recall the plots got dumber, the outfits got uglier, and Prue... died. (Though I read her character page on the wiki, and apparently she eventually gets reincarnated in another witch’s body? Then goes missing? And then gets reunited with Piper and Phoebe before ascending to the afterlife? Man, I missed a lot!)

But as far as I’m concerned, the first season’s twenty-two episodes, with its solid arc and decent characterization, is all I need from this particular franchise. The witches of the nineties – the Charmed Ones, Willow and Tara, Sabrina Spellman, the Owens sisters, and the coven from The Craft – will always be remembered fondly by me, as they are the characters that kept me company as I transitioned from child to teenager. Of course, Prue is possibly the one I most aspired to be: confident, intelligent, level-headed, and able to throw things around with her mind.

Reading/Watching Log #69

This month was ostensibly Part II of the superhero-themed month that I started in August, but aside from finally getting to the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover and finishing up with the first season of Batwoman and the very last season of Arrow, I still don’t feel I’ve made significant headway on the ever-increasing roster of CW superhero shows (Supergirl, The Flash, Black Lightning and Legends of Tomorrow are still waiting patiently for completion – and apparently Stargirl is already on season three! I will never catch up).

Reading-wise I finished Elizabeth Knox’s Dreamhunter duology and the third book in Mary Hoffman’s Stravaganza series, started on Robin Hobb’s Assassin’s Apprentice trilogy, was introduced to Tony Cliff’s Delilah Dirk (who also provided September’s Woman of the Month) and enjoyed... some miscellaneous stuff.

Movie choices were even more irregular: a black-and-white screwball comedy, an animated cult classic, and the deconstruction of a late 14th-century Middle English chivalric romance.

At least October will provide me with a much easy theme to adhere to: witches.

Legend of the Seeker: Sanctuary

The one with the magical painting...

Could this be the strangest ever episode of Legend of the Seeker?

The objective of the story is easy to discern: to reunite Richard and Kahlan with the Book of Counted Shadows, or at least a copy of it. The original is what Richard deliberately threw into a fire in the very first episode because he felt that choosing his own destiny was more important than following a guidebook. (And for the record, TV Tropes tells me that the “counted shadows” part of its title refers to the fact it’s meant to be an instruction manual for the Boxes of Orden, which each cast a different number of shadows when they’re in direct sunlight. Here, the boxes contain no such quality, which only adds to the half-baked feeling of this particular MacGuffin).

Deciding that yes, perhaps destiny guidebooks are the way to go (or at the very least to keep it out of Darken Rahl’s hands) our trio go in search of this new copy.

Legend of the Seeker: Cursed

The one with the werewolf that isn’t actually a werewolf...

Like many episodes in this series, Cursed is more important than it initially appears. Though you could get away with skipping it, the story introduces the concept of the Rada’Han, reminds us of Shota’s existence, and fills in a little background on Zed...

In a rare story development, the gang doesn’t stumble upon trouble or meet with a Resistance assignation, but rather receives a message with a request for help. Having long since accepted that helping individuals will be prioritized over any big-picture Rahl-defeating missions, Kahlan and Zed accompany Richard to the territory of King Gregor to hear his story...

Legend of the Seeker: Mirror

The one that’s just comedy filler...

Ah, the comedy episode that I promised you, a light breather before we head into the darkness of the last four episodes. And man, I am so ready to get to the finale and the second season, you have no idea. Not long now!

As it happens, this story also counts as filler, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing if it’s entertaining to watch, and for the most part – this is. Heck, some of the best character beats can take place in filler episodes, because the writers are relaxed enough to explore certain dynamics without having to worry about the overarching plots – though this specific episode largely provides an opportunity for Craig Horner and Bridget Regan to show off their comedic timing.

Woman of the Month: Delilah Dirk

Delilah Dirk from the Delilah Dirk webcomics/graphic novels

It’s becoming increasingly obvious that graphic novels for young readers are a great place to find amazing female characters. Cleopatra in Space, Oona in 5 Worlds, Aster, Hilda, Nimona, Zita the Space Girl, the Lumberjanes, Emily from Amulet... even The Babysitter’s Club is enjoying renewed attention as they’re adapted for the pages of various comic books.

Delilah Dirk has a place among them, the main character of Tony Cliff’s webcomic (check it out here) and subsequent graphic novel series. Though I hate to reduce her (or any female character) to a Distaff Counterpart, she’s best described as a gender-flipped Indiana Jones: adventurer, explorer, swashbuckler and treasure-hunter. Though unlike Indiana Jones, she’s also the occasional mercenary.

She’s introduced to us through the eyes of one Lieutenant Erdemoglu Selim, a young soldier whose life she saves and who tags along after her as she travels across the Mediterranean in the early 1800s – half out of curiosity, and half out of the debt he feels he owes her.

There’s a lot to be impressed by: she’s athletic, brash and headstrong, she’s the daughter of an Englishwoman and a Greek ambassador, and she captains a flying sailboat (very little is done to justify this thing’s existence; it seems to operate on Rule of Cool). In her knee-high boots she towers above most men, and she’s a veritable Amazon when it comes to her sword-fighting prowess.

Delilah Dirk is wish-fulfilment, pure and simple. Though not without a few foibles (a tendency to act before thinking, for example) there’s something oddly soothing about getting to enjoy a female character who is written as unabashedly awesome. Plenty of male characters are permitted to swagger their way into palaces, defy the laws of gravity, discover ancient artefacts, deliver witty one-liners, and save the day – and my contribution to the endless “is she a Mary Sue?” discourse is that if a writer strikes the right balance, there’s nothing wrong with that.

As soon as lockdown in New Zealand is over, I’m looking forward to introducing Deliliah to several young library patrons...