IntenseDebate - Glamourweaver

5 years ago @ Mark Watches - Mark Watches 'Leverage... · 0 replies · +1 points

On the fatphobic comment, and that struck me as the writer’s room not quite knowing the difference between socially inept and actively cruel. I don’t think it fit Parker’s character at all. Even if she made an inappropriate observation about someone’s weight that caused offense, it would be done innocently, without the judgement clearly carried in the lines here.

5 years ago @ Mark Watches - Mark Watches 'Babylon ... · 0 replies · +1 points

I enjoy this movie, but I take some of its "reveals" with a huge grain of salt.

It's portrayal of the circumstances of the destruction of the Black Star make it unambiguously ethical (Sheridan was in distress and sent out a distress signal, and the Black Star came to kill them when he blew it up; it wasn't a trap where he used a Minbari distress signal to lure it, or anything like that) while previous descriptions have portrayed it as gray.

Sheridan, Franklin, and G'Kar had a secret adventure together years before we knew them to have met!

Susan's brother served under Sheridan and the two of them have never mentioned it.

Etc.

HOWEVER - one thing makes all of these questionable reveals work. The framing device. Londo is an unreliable narrator using people he knows to fill in blanks he didn't personally witness!

Sidenote: I seem to recall in the commentary track on this movie they mention that Garibaldi isn't in the movie because he was on Mars at the time and not involved in the war. This of course contradicts canon elsewhere where it was clearly stated Garibaldi was a GroPo in the war and saw some brutal combat with Minbari soldiers.

5 years ago @ Mark Watches - Mark Watches 'Deep Spa... · 0 replies · +1 points

I largely agree. After all, the Maquis are settlers themselves. They’re not indigenous people being colonized. But the franchise does evoke that idea at times, especially given that the whole premise of Federation colonists who ended up on the wrong side of border with Cardassia was introduced via NATIVE AMERICANS HAVING TO BE RELOCATED INMASS! So obviously the idea that the Maquis are anti-colonialists is an idea that the franchise has invoked on purpose, despite it not actually lining up. One could easily tell a story from the Cardassia POV in which the Maquis are paramilitary settlers fighting to expand their colonization of space toward Cardassia and far far FAAAAAAAR from Earth by comparison.

5 years ago @ Mark Watches - Mark Watches 'Babylon ... · 1 reply · +1 points

I’m not sure why Mark finds Delenn being PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE EARTH-MINBARI WAR, and this guilt having driven everything she’s done since then, such an anti-climatic revelation...

5 years ago @ Mark Watches - Mark Watches 'Babylon ... · 0 replies · +2 points

Can we talk about how the triluminaries have no origin? They were brought from the future by Valen, and the Grey Council kept them as holy relics until Delenn used them and Sinclaire took them into the past. They exist in a loop in which they were never created.

5 years ago @ Mark Watches - Mark Watches 'Babylon ... · 0 replies · +6 points

I don’t believe Naroon truly realigned his nature as religious caste. He is a noble warrior through and through. He had to claim to be religious caste when he died in order for the religious caste and Delenn to be victorious to establish the council. If he had died Warrior Caste, Shakiri (or a succeeding Caste Leader) could have claimed victory.

6 years ago @ Mark Watches - Mark Watches 'Babylon ... · 0 replies · +2 points

Va “Gur Tngurevat”, gur svefg guvat Xbfu fnlf gb jub ur guvaxf vf Fvapynver vf “Ragvy Mn Inyra!”

Ol gur gvzr jr’q unir nal vqrn jung guvf zrnaf bs pbhefr, ab bar erzrzoref gur ng-gur-gvzr zrnavatyrff terrgvat.

Obviously before losing O’Hare, the future half of Babylon Squared was planned to be the series finale, hence elderly Sinclaire. You may notice a small change between Babylon Squared and War without End - Delenn doesn’t stroke Sinclaire’s shoulder. Extradiagetically this implies they were planning on romance between Sinclaire and Delenn before they lost O’Hare. Interdiagetically it implies time is less fixed than it appears, even as Sinclaire is literally saying the words “it all happened just as I remember”.

6 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'Equal Rite... · 0 replies · +2 points

So I know it’s been over 4 years, but here’s my 2 cents that everyone’s way past this book to care about.

This section actually really jumped out at me as ahead of its time. Specifically in the 80s the norm in feminist fantasy fiction was still the seizing of traditionally masculine roles as empowering and the rejection of traditional feminine ones as silly. The EARLY Alana books show this attitude clearly.

Here though Pratchett is taking a more nuanced view that I think a lot of women would identify with Esk’s attitude. When she’s barred from traditionally masculine paths to power she wants that opportunity desperately - but when Treatle disparages traditional feminine roles (even if unintentionally in his patronizing attitude) Esk is ready to throw down to defend the very thing she was earlier struggling to leave behind. And the whole experience leads her to reject the false dichotomy.

As I said this seems far ahead of a lot of “ it like other girls” feminist fantasy heroes of the era.

6 years ago @ Mark Reads - Confirmed Books for th... · 0 replies · +4 points

I know you're a fan of Sarah Rees Brennan's other series. "Turn of the Story" is one of my favorite things of hers published. It's a brilliant deconstruction of a lot of the tropes inherent in portal fantasy and pseudo-medieval magical worlds. representation of there isn't remotely enough of elsewhere. Tons of wonderful snark!

May be one of the only successful uses of matriarchy to comment on real-world patriarchy I've read in fiction.

11 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'The Sandma... · 0 replies · +2 points

For the purposes of these books - no, she is not.

Before 1985, she was, but in the continuity we are dealing with here, she is not. Her mother was a superheroine called Fury.

As far as you NEED to keep straight - there are 3 Sandmen... Sandmans... whatever:

Golden Age (40s) Sandman was Wesley Dodds - he was a masked detective with a sleeping gas gun driven by his own dreams. He's referenced in Preludes and Nocturnes.

Silver Age (60s) Sandman was (for our purposes) Hector Hall - he's a superhero who fights nightmares, he's the one who is established here to be part of Brute & Globs (sidekicks from his book) little game.

Modern Age (90s) Sandman is Dream of the Endless - the anthropomorphic personifications of Dreams, whose imprisonment resulted in the other two's careers.

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