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lore-of-the-silvereyes-rwby · 3 years

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The Hero that was never meant to be

I’m going to ask you guys a quick question. Think back to the volume 2 season finale in 2014. Or before Salem's debut. Once all of the antagonists are defeated and you're now left asking; Who's going to be the next antagonist for the series?

Before we proceed with this inquiry let's take a look at what exactly distinguishes a hero, from a villain.

Hero/Villain/Anti;who knows?

Below are multiple examples/definitions and meanings of heroes and villains as well as their anti sub groups.

Hero

a person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities.

the chief character in a book, play, or movie, who is typically identified with good qualities, and with whom the reader is expected to sympathize.

“a person of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his or her brave deeds and noble qualities." Heroes come in many forms in life, ranging from one's family and friends to athletes to movie stars. A person's heroes can change over time.

Villain

(in a film, novel, or play) a character whose evil actions or motives are important to the plot.

a cruelly malicious person who is involved in or devoted to wickedness or crime; scoundrel.

a character in a play, novel, or the like, who constitutes an important evil agency in the plot.

Anti-Hero

a central character in a story, movie, or drama who lacks conventional heroic attributes.

is 'a central character in a story, film, or drama who lacks conventional heroic attributes'. These missing attributes include idealism, courage, and morality. Anti-heroes can sometimes do the right thing, but it is usually because it serves their interests to do so.

Anti-Villain

is the opposite of an Anti-Hero — a character with heroic goals, personality traits, and/or virtues who is ultimately the villain. Their desired ends are mostly good, but their means of getting there range from evil to undesirable.

Now that we have some measure of clarity about this let's get to the point. Basically Ironwood is a Anti-Villain character

If you think back to the things we have learned throughout the series, all the people we have met, you will find that all of Ironwood’s traits align better with Salem, Cinder, Jacques, and Adam. All of them have this hunger for power and/or control, all of them are trying to protect themselves and increase their control.

All of them use a level of manipulation and none of them really cared about the damage it would do to others. Ironwood might be a little better because, at first, it was something he kind of thought about. Kind of. He had trouble relating to the idea that protecting more was better than protecting less, and it seems that he had been struggling to find his heart since the beginning.

Ironwood is a well intentioned and desperate man who wants to protect Atlas against Salem, but he can reach extreme means to do so. By the end of Volume 7, he's willing to abandon both Mantle to die and throw away humanity's best chance of survival by leaving Amity Tower; he also falls far enough to shoot a teenager for comparing him to Salem.

Going hand in hand with his Never My Fault tendencies. Ironwood hates anyone bringing up how his ways don't work, with extreme annoyance being the best reaction possible. It doesn't matter if someone is simply stating the objective tangible negatives of his actions, he will not hear it. He gets into a shouting match with Nora when she calls him out on how much damage he's doing to Mantle and only stops when she points out his proposed solution to deal with the current unrest (martial law) is just going to cause far worse problems if he goes through with it.

While he demands complete loyalty from others, Ironwood has repeatedly betrayed the trust of others in the name of the greater good. If someone is an obstacle to accomplishing what he believes is necessary, he will use political or even military power to enforce his will.

Ironwood has helped Ozpin fight Salem for years but they disagreed over the best way to defend Vale; Ironwood secretly convenes a meeting of the Vale and Atlesian councils to report Ozpin's behavior, resulting in Vale removing Ozpin from overseeing the Vytal Festival security in favor of Ironwood. Qrow later tells Ironwood that he has a strange idea of showing gratitude if he responds to Ozpin bringing him into the fight against Salem by betraying him. Even after being confronted, Ironwood insists that he had no other choice.

Ironwood spends most of Volume 7 promising that the Kingdom of Atlas is safe and that Mantle can count on him to protect them. However, when he discovers Salem is arriving in person to attack Atlas, he decides to abandon Mantle to the Grimm in favour of raising the floating city of Atlas higher in the atmosphere where the Grimm can't go. When Ruby tries warning her allies about Ironwood's plan, he disables her scroll, and has Teams RWBY, JNR, Oscar and Qrow arrested.

Ironwood's a man with good intentions, but he seems to believe the best way to handle any sort of situation is if he is in full control of it. This is seen as early as Volume 2, where he both brings a large fleet (composed mainly of machines) along with students for security and later has the Vale and Atlas Councils transfer security control of the Vytal Festival from Ozpin to himself.

After the Fall of Beacon, James continues to tighten Atlas' defenses with a Dust embargo and closing of its borders, and by the time the heroes arrive in Mantle, there are broadcasts of the general practically saying that as long as they cooperate with his laws, he can and will keep them safe.

As Salem's forces continue to sow discord and increase his paranoia, and when he discovers that Team RWBY has consistently hidden important information from him, Ironwood decides to invoke martial law and raise Atlas out of Salem's reach, under his control. When Ruby warns the others of his plans, he shuts off her call with his own Scroll.

Ironwood is noted for being a man who never gives up pursuing his vision of how people should be protected. When his attempts to convince Ozpin that they're on the wrong path fail, he convinces the Atlesian and Vale councils to override Ozpin's authority and give him direct control of protecting the Vytal Festival Tournament.

In Volume 7, he is willing to pursue his goal of protecting the Kingdom of Atlas against Salem no matter how bad his public reputation becomes with the citizens.

To be clear Ironwood is an Anti- Villain type character in the RWBY story. He may have good intentions but it is unknown as to their extent of what they are. His methods to achieve those methods have only made things worse.

I couldn’t let you breath, cause I didn’t wanna Die

We all say we would die for something but do we actually mean it?

“I would die without regret I offer up my life”

It is hypothetical but not in the way you suggest. The difference between using would or will is not about whether the speaker is being disingenuous about their offer, it’s about whether the speaker knows if they are ever going to be in a position to fulfil their promise

It is hypothetical because the speaker does not know whether there will ever be a situation where they would be in a position to give their life to save you. If they were to use will, it implies they are anticipating that they will be in a position to give their life to save you

When someone says “I would die for you if you need it,” is it just a hypothesis that's never going to happen, the subject doesn’t want to die at all, otherwise they’ll use “will” instead of “would”?

Kill or be killed

All the weapons in rwby appeal to the audience as they have options when it comes to fighting. Ironwoods does not. His weapon is only designed to kill as a reflection of his inability to see reason. As opposed to other characters that show that when they kill it would be a last resort option.

(Think of the Jedi's preference for lightsabers instead of blasters)

Ironwood has a revolver - reliable, never jams. high attack power, similar to his mentality on robotics in general and how he values them focusing on the characteristics of the revolver is the important part, and you see it in another Atlesian character--Weiss Myrtenaster is a Rapier and a Revolver as well, and revolvers are still used nowadays because of their reliability. They'll never jam, and when it comes to a gun all that really matters is hitting the target on a pragmatic mindset at least, and ultimately in the show the weapons used by characters say a lot about them. For example;

Qrow has a scythe - not a weapon, a farmer's tool, alluding to the scarecrow. The actual weapon would be the sword mode, and is inspired by the grim reaper, who uses a scythe because he reaps souls like one would reap what was sown(or harvest)

Jaunes shield and sword are both offensive and defensive weapons which offers a variety of options as to handle conflict

Ozpin's cane symbolically conveys the message that it's okay to be weak and its normal to accept help and support from others

Yang's gauntlets are basically Bruise but don’t kill type weapon as such they give her more control of the damage that is inflicted on her opponents

As ruby put it the Weapons in the show are an extension of the characters. The extent of Ironwoods weapon is that it conveys his blunt, and cold methods that he can’t or won’t embrace alternatives solutions or anyone else's ideas to problems

This can also be seen with his use of militarized Huntsmen and the use of mindless android soldiers. As I stated in I am power Ironwood’s personnel combat abilities are mediocre to non-existent with his true power stemming from the consent of the people to die for his cause instead of him since it's guaranteed that he will die instantly due to his lack of unique or special combat abilities.

(Pretty self explanatory considering he had to sacrifice an arm to beat a nerd)

Fear of death is basic human instinct

Ironwood believes that he is this chosen savior and can’t die and he believes his life is more important than others and would instead sacrifice everyone else instead of him if it would mean victory

Now you're probably asking why does Ironwood not want to die when he said he would? As stated before he doesn’t trust anyone but himself to do the job right. His narcissism and ego prohibit him from trusting others and having faith that people besides him can win.

This has been hinted as early as his debut in V2 where he asks Ozpin;

“Do you honestly believe that your children can win a war?”

Because of this and his Nihilism for rejecting the truth, he believes that he is the most important piece on the bored and everyone should listen and die for whatever he needs if it would mean victory

Ambitions and desires of a broken kingdom

A character without motivation is a really boring character as opposed to one who does. But to realize what their motivation is or what it is truly is another. Ironwood is no different but what exactly is his personal motivation that is unique to him one must wonder?

That's just it, he has no real personal motivation. Like what does he have to lose? What does he have to gain? What is so important that he is willing to go to such lengths that clash with the ideas of Ozpin and the heroes? To answer Atlas. After all, what is Ironwood without Atlas?

It is important to know the effects of a characters home and origins to better understand a character's personality. Ironwood's plans have always been in line with Atlas, whose intentions are that of Ancient Mantle. Now what exactly are the intentions of the former capital that would live through Ironwood.

Atlas as I stated before is more or less a Technocratic Conservatives society led by Authoritative totalitarians with a focus of becoming an Extreme Militaristic Oligarchy that had originally started out as a Resource driven Empire out of necessity and without restriction

To clarify, Ironwood is a byproduct, and enforcer of Mantle’s(later Atlas) Philosophical Ideology and Culture. The effects of one's origins can have a very lasting impact on one's life. Ironwood’s life has been heavily affected by his homeland to the point that he will die for it, and sacrifice whatever he deems necessary for it.

Because of this Ironwoods alignment is that of Lawful Evil because of his Atlas ideology

A Lawful Evil character is an evil character who either tries to impose or uphold a lawful system on others without regard for their wishes, and/or adheres to a particular code. They believe in order, but mostly because they believe it is the best way of realizing their evil wishes.

In other words Ironwood will always be the loyal son of his Kingdom and will do anything to save it.

Now that clears his main motivation and the scale of what he is willing to do to achieve it but what motivates him personally?

Well that's just it there is none. His primary motivation is pretty shared by most of the heroes and main characters and as is the common clause of save the world stories everybody knows they can’t let that happen as peter quill would say;

“Why do you want to save the Galaxy?”

“Because I'm one of the idiots who lives in it.”

So with that in mind what's in it for him that he can’t lose or let the world be destroyed?

You overstepped your boundaries

To help understand his character it is important to understand what exactly his role in the plot was originally and how he ended up biting off more than he can chew when he broke away from it.

Essentially Ironwood was meant to be the overseer and guardian of the relic of creation as well as the trainer of the next generation of huntsman/huntresses. Meaning the only position of power that he should only have is Headmaster of Atlas academy. As I stated in I am machine Ironwood's heroism stems from a lack of trust and in doing so has burdened him with more responsibility than he can handle.

The catalyst

All of the events and conflicts that plague remnant at the shows present can all be traced to Ironwood. An argument can be made for Salem but to me she seems more of an opportunist instead of an actual evil master mine. Being the opportunist she is she needs ammo for which she is otherwise incapable of making on her own. Thanks to Ironwood she has plenty of it to enact her plans and reach her goals

Below is a list of events and conflicts as well as characters that have been affected by Ironwood

(Whether Directly or Indirectly)

The Schnee Dust Companies Immoral and shady practices

I know Jaques is mostly to blame for all of this but one must ask; Why didn’t anyone stop him before V7?

It's already been established in the show that the S.D.C. and Atlas Military have a corporate alliance to mass produce Weapons and ammunition. The most prominent weapons to come out of this alliance was the paladin assault mechs. Now how important was this alliance to Ironwood?

In short, they are the best choice to provide for his needs for war. As long as he gets weapons and all that he needs to sustain a war he doesn't care what the giver has to do to meet his demand. As such Ironwood had enabled Jaques and allowed him to continue his immoral ways so long as he gets what he needs. On the other hand Jaques seems to be at least a decade older than Ironwood so there is a possibility that the corporate alliance has already been there long before Ironwood ever came to power.

But I ask again why didn’t Ironwood who was aligned with a man like Ozpin didn’t stop him? As the Volume 7 commentary stated Ironwood doesn’t care for Ozpin's rules and sees being efficient is more important than being morally good. Because of this Ironwood had been more focused on starting a war first and caring about people second thus he has only spread misery by enabling Jaques’s greed just to have his war. The crimes of the S.D.C. are also Ironwood’s

The family strain of the Schnee family and Winters abandoning

While we’re still on the subject of the Schnee's let's talk about how essentially Ironwood made Winter the Blake to his Adam

As I stated before in “You had me with your words” we don’t exactly know why Winter would be so loyal to Ironwood to the point of saying that her life doesn’t matter in V7 and why she would be so against her family to the point that she makes no effort to see Weiss, and Whitely included and only bothering to be apart of Weiss’s life only because she seems to be following the same path of defiance against their father. In other words she only chooses to interact with her sister only if she is rebelling against their father. If she is not, then Winter wants nothing to do with her.

Now who or what exactly would cause Winter to have this unhealthy mindset in regards to her own personal existence and relationships?

The answer being Ironwood.

If we were to consider Jaques words being serious than it is more than likely the truth. Ironwood did steal Winter, not just from her father but from the rest of her family. I don’t know what exactly Ironwood said or did to turn winter away from her family but it wasn’t out of the kindness of his heart. He did this just to have a loyal subordinate with incredible power( her hereditary semblance) & status( her grandfather's legacy and accomplishments) just to give his power and status more legitimacy.

By doing so Ironwood made Winter believe that her family as well as herself is beyond redemption due to the actions of her father thus leading her to abandon them and only believing Ironwood can redeem her hence why she values her life so little and is willing to die for whatever Ironwoods says.

I understand that winter joined the military to get away from her dad but she had options besides the military and like weiss she could have went to the other academies to get away from her dad but she didn't which i consider Winters greatest flaw is that she has no idea of an actual healthy relationship

The White Fang

This is also speculative but not unlikely as the show has clearly shown; Faunus and Atlas don’t mix.

Same thing with the S.D.C. this can really be seen as indifference on Ironwood’s part and lack of care but still Ironwood didn’t do anything to settle the racial inequality in Atlas even though he is allied in a secret circle that's supposed to keep the peace.

Especially when that inequality was being used to help legitimize a terrorist organization that can be used as a disposable army for Salem which it did.

Watts’s Defection & the P.E.N.N.Y. Project

Ironwood commissioned 5 scientists including Watts and Pietro to make Weapons for war.

Even though Watts is an egotistical bastard it really makes you wonder how someone as smart as him would work for a literal demon lady hell bent on conquest. The same can also be said about why he chose Penny instead of any other actual and practical projects ideal for war.

One thing to note is the possibility that Ironwood did not tell the 5 about the real reason as to why they’re making these weapons in the first place. For example would Pietro really want Penny the closest thing to an actual child that he may have had to be used as one of Ironwoods militarized assets?

We’ve seen what Pietro is like and that he really cares about Penny and if it were his choice Penny wouldn’t be in the situations that Ironwood would place her in. Ironwood had basically taken and drafted Penny without her or Pietro's consent and made her a tool for war and much more.

In semi canon sources(Amity Arena) the general consensus is that the Paladins were Watts’s idea and project. One of the misconceptions is that it was a contest for whose idea would be made but since we see both the Paladins being used and Penny that's not the case. All 5 projects were going to be used but only 1 would take top priority first before others and that project was Penny.

This might actually explain why the paladins were ugly and incomplete in V2 as opposed to their slicker and finished versions in V3. The Penny project took both praise and priority first before the others. Once penny was finished the other projects would begin that may also explain why the Paladins weren’t first revealed until the events of V2 even though Pietro said that the commissions for the projects including the Paladins were almost a decade ago as of V7 ep 7

To Watts he felt insulted that his (to him) practical project was being postponed for a sad man's personal self indulgent pet project. This and due to not really knowing as to why these projects were going to be used for. Because of this and Ironwood’s lack of concern for people He had essentially driven Watts to Salem and made him one of her most valuable assets that she ever had. Salem herself even states that she should have employed his services years ago that alone tells us how valuable an asset Watts was and Ironwood discarded it. Which led to the fall of Beacon and the civil unrest in Mantle With Watts out of the way let's move to the next question

Why the Penny Project?

We all know at this point that Penny is the Pinochio for Pietro’s jopedo. So why would Ironwood approve a project that seems the least efficient and effective for war? There have been many theories as to why but two of them stand out the most; Potential vessel for the maiden powers and Espionage

It has been made clear that Ironwood has been readying for war against other people Salem specifically but how does one go about that? The first of which can be explained as Ironwood trying to make the ultimate artificial warrior with incredible power. As Ironwood has more faith in machines than people he would see Penny as the ultimate super soldier that he can use in his war

The second theory as to why he chose penny could be for spy and espionage purposes. As stated by cinder in volume 3 where this theory originates from; why would Atlas make a robot look like an innocent little girl? We know why Pietro made Penny look human but why would Ironwood go along with making a T800 complete with realistic skin and hair? Besides Pietro there was no logical reason to make penny look as humanly as possible. Like the Terminators who were designed for infiltration and assassination missions and Ironwood being a paranoid individual who sees the world as one of two things; you’re either an asset or a threat / Penny or similar models would have been used to spy and eliminate potential threats in the other kingdoms. With the possibility as to what Ironwood would use penny for before her reveal in V3 clear let's move on to the last part of this bullet point

Why didn’t Ozpin know about Penny?

Prior to the truth of her origins being revealed via her death by Pyrah the only people who knew she was an android are cinder’s team, Ruby, Pietro, and Ironwood. The villains knew that truth after being fortunate enough to have Ironwoods scroll infected by the virus and Ruby found out by accident from penny.

So officially the only people that were allowed to know the truth about Penny were Pietro and Ironwood. Winter and the Ace-opts don’t count as Volume 7 confirmed that they were brought into the fold after the fall of beacon along with penny so by the time of the fall of beacon they had no idea about salem or that was the sole purpose as to why penny was made.

The same can be said for Watts too since Penny was still an idea being developed along with being assumed dead and not seen in atlas for years. Thus Watts never even knew what penny looked liked. Had he known i'm pretty sure he would’ve revealed that to Salem who would have given it to cinder for use in her mission. But as V3 shows Cinder finds out after getting access to Ironwood's personal scroll. Meaning that Ironwood kept Penny so secret that he never even bothered or considered to tell Ozpin.

By the end of PVP Ironwood sounded like a terrified child who got caught while trying to explain to a pissed off Ozpin about Penny only to be coldly told in a threatening tone to use the army that he brought to clean up his mess or else. That alone is proof enough from Ironwood that he never told Ozpin about Penny and was scared of what Ozpin would do to him for catching him on his secrets and lies.

So why didn’t Ironwood tell Ozpin about Penny? Short answer Ozpin would never approve the use of Penny. It was already established in V3 ep 6 that Atlas has been doing unethical experiments with Aura. Ozpin and most of the inner circle don’t really approve of such practices but can tolerate it and use it if they have to. But most likely not to the extent of using it to make artificial living beings just to be soldiers.

This would be a similar moral dilemma as the clone troopers from star wars who were bred and mass produced at an accelerated rate to fight in a war that they didn’t even understand or have a choice to fight in with the mindset and innocents of a child. The Umbara arc from season 4 of the clone wars series perfectly depicts the unhealthy amount of abuse the clones faced and the length of being taken advantage they were forced to endure

Now apply that to an army of pennies with the same childlike innocence and naivety and sentience being deployed into combat without much preparation and are expected to die just to buy time for the real heroes to win.

Now who is more likely to use a clone army without concern for the morality and ethics about making it let alone not care for the well being of those clones

A key important factor to remember is that until V7’s end Ironwood was pro war as he thought he could win against Salem if he had the largest army at his disposal. Penny was no exception and Ironwood only saw her as a potential part needed for his war machine. Because of the war centric views of Volume 2 & 3 Ironwood and lack of concern for the safety of others Ironwood had set the stage perfectly for volume 3’s finale

The Fall of Beacon

The points above actually help validate and contribute to the Fall of Beacon, but it's true Beginning for its fall started when Ironwood arrived at Beacon in Volume 2. As stated by Oz in Ironwoods first appearance Headmasters don’t usually attend the vytal festival with their students. Given what we now know about the importance of the academies, Ironwood pretty much abandoned his post and risked the safety of the relic under his charge.

All in what appears to be an effort to make a power grab against Ozpin and promote Atlas.(That’s probably speculative but not far off the bat given Ironwoods doubts and actions by the end of V2).Ever since his debut Ironwood has always been a character that contradicts the main characters that are suppose to be the heroes

He seems to only believe the best way to handle any sort of situation is if he is in full control of it. This is seen as early as Volume 2, where he both brings a large fleet (composed mainly of machines) along with students for security. Ironwood has helped Ozpin fight Salem for years but they disagreed over the best way to defend Vale; Ironwood secretly convenes a meeting of the Vale and Atlesian councils to report Ozpin's behavior, resulting in Vale removing Ozpin from overseeing the Vytal Festival security in favor of Ironwood.

Volume 2 also has Ironwood reveal to Glynda that he thinks Ozpin is hiding something from them. Glynda points out that he's part of the inner circle that's hiding things from the rest of the world and that he needs to stop talking about trust and learn how to trust others. Ignoring her advice, he secretly collaborates with the Vale Council to strip Ozpin of his control over the Vytal Festival security, then tells Ozpin to trust him.

This also brought up the possibility that Ozpin would be removed as Headmaster of Beacon academy. Not only was Ironwood willing to depose the leader he was following from his position of power but also remove an important ally from safeguarding one of the most important and crucial places in all of the world that also holds probably the most important relic of all of them(The Crown of Choice)

I already talked about how Penny’s secret had contributed to the fall so I’ll be talking about how Watts contributed to it since I forgot to include in the last bullet point. Its a very small Easter egg but on Cinders scroll as she was rigging the vytal tournament for CVFY’s match and discovering Penny’s android nature there is a small cursive W at the corner of her scroll. The small W that Watts uses as a holographic icon when he calls Leo in V5. RT has said that they had WTCH in their back pocket for years until they were revealed taking that into account it is clear that the virus that infected Beacons CCT Ironwoods scroll and forcing the droid army to commit order 66 was made by Watts.

The virus and the cyber warfare aside the next final contribution on Ironwood’s part was the imprisonment of Roman Torchwick

It's pretty much been clear that Torchwicks' imprisonment was an improvised plan on the villains part to get an inside man aboard a warship. Basically it was like Heath Ledger's joker in the dark knight; he wanted to get caught. Torchwick himself said that he is where he wants to be to Ironwood at the end of V2. As V3 showed Torchwick and Neo took over what can be assumed to be Ironwood’s personal flag ship and used it to destroy the rest of the air naval section that was brought for the Vytal security team.

This could have been avoided had Torchwick not been released into Ironwood's custody or at the very least kept somewhere else that should he escape he couldn’t have done so much damage. The Airships aside it was also possible that Roman had used the onboard artillery on the city as well that means that innocent civilians weren’t just being mowed down by hacked robots but being carpet bombed as well increasing the death toll at the fall of Beacon.

The Dust embargo and closing of borders

Since the fall of Beacon Academy, Ironwood has become increasingly unstable and paranoid, making more and more ethically questionable decisions that he repeatedly justifies as the greater good; by his own admission, he will do anything it takes to stop Salem.

This however does not fare well with the rest of Remnant though.

As Atlas is the primary location for most of Remnants Industry as well as having a monopoly on Dust; Remnant’s most crucial resource that everyone needs in order to survive, the other kingdoms rely heavily on Atlas for technology, resources and weapons. By placing an embargo he has cut off everyone in the world from their most valued resource. Though he did this to stop the enemies chain of supply he is still letting people suffer and die by with-holding the one thing they need to live and survive.

Which brings us to the borders

Though it could have eased tensions after the fall of Beacon it just lasted too long as well as the fact that Ironwood had essentially turned his back on the world and refused to help the other kingdoms in their time of need. In the CFVY book spin-off all of the Beacon students either went to Haven or Shade academy to finish their training. As well as the Vale refugees going to other kingdoms as well. But due to Atlas closing its borders none of the students or the people went to Atlas for help. Basically due to Ironwood’s orders the Kingdom of Atlas was forced to not help the other kingdoms when they needed it the most.

And it has only gotten worse due to the events at Mistral in V5 as not only are the students of both Beacon and Haven going to shade, putting a strain on the academy but leaving the entirety of the worlds largest kingdom unguarded and undefended as it now lacks able huntsmen to protect it due to Ironwood’s refusal to help

It should also be noted that when Ironwood closed the borders he had failed to inform any off his subordinates of who can and can’t enter the kingdom especially in regards to allies like Glynda or Qrow who again are allies against Salem and Ironwood made little to no effort in keeping contact with the other Oz members. This is made evident in V6 when the Argus soldiers refused to believe Qrow about being an ally to Ironwood. you could say that he was waiting on the amity project to make contact with the other members but he had to have realized that they needed to get into atlas at some-point. But did he make it easy for them or any other ally to reach him? No he did not.

The Mistral Huntsmen Genocide and the Battle of Haven

Second verse, same as the first, he had put them in a hearse. Another example of Ironwood’s indifference and hypocrisy that led to the death of allies and innocent people.

Due to the events of the Fall and it being broadcasted the enormous state of panic had spread throughout all of the kingdoms. The negative emotions in mass had attracted the Grimm and caused much havoc and loss throughout all of them and the worst to suffer from this mass hysteria was most likely Mistral due to its larger population and territory.

In V5 Lionheart had confirmed that Mistral losses were heavy and many of the local huntsmen including the Professors from Haven were killed in the initial grimm invasion that plagued Mistral following the fall of Beacon. After the initial panic had settled down the Mistral council had been employing Huntsmen in mass and restricted their activity to crucial and vital missions in high profile areas to ensure the safety and stability of the Kingdom.

Now the real question comes in where was Atlas?

In the world of remnants shorts its confirmed that Mantle and Mistral have an alliance that eventually carried into Atlas. With that being said, where was Mistral’s ally during the fall out and what were they doing. We know in V5 that all Military Assets were recalled within the month prior to the battle of Haven. I know that the kingdoms are weary of Atlas at this point but given the state of the world after the fall, Mistral needed all the help they could get. As such Mistral would have to call upon the old alliance and have them honor their word and offer aid.

Or at the very least transfer some assets over to Mistral to use it as needed. We have the base in Argus sure but that was just a forward border control base that didn’t really help anybody. Prior to the recalling Ironwood had Winter gather intel on potential activity that would lead to a second fall of a huntsmen academy and he chose to do nothing. This is further proof of his hypocrisy and arrogance. Ironwood at this point is reading the military for war and with holding aid and support that was actually needed.

His V4 self is a stark contrast to his V2&3 self as that version of himself was willing to manipulate and intervene in the affairs of other nations under the assumption that the ends justify the means and would see himself above the rules so long as it's for the greater good and stop the threat before it can escalate. That was exactly what Ironwood did at the end of V2 by stealing power from Oz and tried to enforce his own set of rules if it would prevent a disaster.

Now why did Ironwood not do the same thing with Mistral and try to prevent the potential fall of its academy regardless of the bad publicity that it would warrant? It's already been said by Ironwood that he doesn’t trust Leo to handle the situation at Mistral and based his dissection to close the borders on Winters report and decided to prepare for an potential attack on Atlas rather than sending a small task force to handle the threat at Mistral.

Taking into consideration his plan for Amity it's quite possible that he wanted Leo to fail and Mistral to be ready to eat from his palm. In other words unless there is something to gain and benefit from he’s not going to do it.

Ironwood all the way till he was told the truth about Salem in V7 had a War is the Answer mentality and was hoarding everything and anything that would help sustain a long campaign as well as increasing the size of that force with the intent that that the large numbers were enough to intimidate Salem and her faction into surrendering and eventual destruction. The only problem is that the people he needs were born in a time of relative peace.

Because of the 80 year age of peace that followed the Great War the Modern world of Remnant has had zero to no conflicts as large or damaging since that one war. There were small conflicts sure like the faunus war, the White fang terrorist cell, and the criminal underworld but they weren’t that much or a threat or concern to a majority of remnant it wasn’t until the Fall of Beacon that the foundation of this peace was shaken so intensely that the cracks started to show but it was still together if only held by a thread.

With the Peace in mind and the peoples faith still with the huntsman as their distrust for Atlas Military lingers no one in the world of remnant outside of Atlas would have any motivation or desire to mobilize for war let alone a war for a foreign leader of a foreign land that has recently come under suspicion. Ironwood was never going to be able to unite the Kingdoms and mobilize their people for his war after the fall of Beacon with Atlas being painted as the bad guy. Unless the situation went from worst to extreme.

Like if another academy were to fall with the same or greater results like Beacon. Then maybe people all around the world would consider following Ironwood’s lead and wipe out the threat before things can get even worse.

Because of this Ironwood had allowed Mistral and possibly the other Kingdoms to exhaust themselves so much that they would be unprepared for the next major Grimm invasion should they come after the next major hysteria induced panic. Panic like Ironwood’s original plan to unite the world and tell them about Salem causing the kingdoms to fall into further disarray only to be saved by the flying grace of Ironwood and his Military. And the only repayment for his help is that you join his fight.

I know this is all speculative and you can say Lionheart was the one who was responsible for mistrals problems after the fall, but remember Leo was the only Faunus on the council of a racist kingdom and only had one seat over the huntsmen and can only give out and approve mission assignments that would get them killed thus he had no real authority or power in Mistral besides siding with the majority and even if he tried to talk the council into refusing Ironwoods help their racism wouldn’t listen to Leo and they would do the opposite and call for aid.

But again Ironwood prior to the fall was willing to stop the threat at its source regardless of politics. But after the fall he had put all of his focus on preparing for war instead of helping people that needed his help at that moment. This may be due to his semblance(still dumb BTW) but ultimately he was focusing on his own needs first than the needs of others. Because of this he had ignored the issues of Mistral and failed to see the truth of what Lionheart was doing and had allowed Most if not all of the well trained and experienced huntsmen of that kingdom to die leaving the kingdom defenseless and unprepared for any conflict that would come.

Like the Battle for Haven for example. Had Ironwood not recalled everyone back and had Winter and whatever Atlas personal that were with her its quite possible that the battle may never had happen, the truth about leo would have been discovered sooner and the genocide of Mistrals huntsmen wouldn’t have been as bad had Ironwood actually chose to help, Instead he started to fall back and focus on the Amity Project and Atlas instead of spending any resource outside of them, due to a narrow focus to and putting everything on it just so he can have his Victory.

The Civil unrest in Mantle

A loved and respected leader will die by the side of his people: A feared and hated one will die by their hand. Short term closing the borders cloud have helped ease tensions between Atlas and the rest of the world but long term it had made things worse

Due to the fall of Beacon it's quite possible the initial attacks that came after can explain why Mantle's defensive wall was so destroyed and ruined by the time of V7. That means that potentially for almost over a year that wall has had no repairs or maintenance and has had the bare minimum leaving the citizens in a state of constant peril and danger since the fall of beacon

This is further made worse when Ironwood closed off the borders and cut off the chain of supplies and trade not only to Atlas but also to Mantle as well making the kingdom suffer more than it had to. As the original capital, the rise of Atlas reduced Mantle to a shadow of its former self. Streets are run-down, technology is old, security defenses haven't been updated in years, and smog from the mines hangs heavy over the city. People struggle to eke out an existence, depend on dangerous mines for work and experience regular Grimm attacks that the city increasingly struggles to repel. Meanwhile, Atlas hangs in the sky above their heads; a constant reminder of the wealthy elite that is failing to share the wealth that Mantle creates, and a target of Mantle's growing resentment and anger at having been left so far behind.

Ironwood who is again allied with and a member of a secret circle that is supposed to keep the peace and prevent any social unrest that can cause a conflict. Thus he should have tried to ease the tensions and made the conditions of Mantle better in order to maintain peace. Now I know it's not solely Ironwood’s fault for the state that Mantle is in as he hasn’t been in a position of power for long but still he should have focused on the people instead of preparing for a war that may have never come. A stark contrast to Ozpin’s way of preserving peace and handling threats

Because of his narrow focus and indifference he made things worse as he was only focusing on potential threats that have yet to come instead of focusing on the issues and preventing them before they escalated. After the fall, the embargo and closing of Borders Ironwood concerned himself with preparations for an assumed winnable war instead of trying to restore peace and keep the people on his side. Which is ironic as he was doing this to rally a large force and stop the threat but did not consider that he may have been pushing away potential troops and allies that he would have needed. And only stoked the people's frustrations

This is mostly due to Ironwood never giving an estimate of time for how long the embargo and the borders would last as well as not giving a clear and believable reason as to why he was doing all of this in the first place. I know he was going to tell Mantle and the world about Salem eventually and he did in V7 but that was only because he was forced to and used it to take out potential threats by baiting them. This is also added with the fact that he really didn’t have any solid proof that would make the people believe him about Salem as well. Due to the frustration of the people it would just sound like made up propaganda and Ironwood shifting blame onto a fake enemy to drive people's attention onto something else. And yes the people believed it but remember they were being evacuated so i don’t think they were buying Ironwood's statement but were just glad that they were being saved.

And in the end it doesn’t even matter as ultimately Ironwood caved in to fear and decided to leave Mantle for dead. Which could have been avoided had Ironwood focused his attention to the needs of people rather than the needs of war. One of the constant themes of the show is that victory is not in strength or in mass numbers but within the small and willing hearts of those that will fight no matter what.

In conclusion Ironwood had played a pivotal role in contributing to all of the conflicts that plague the world of Remnant at present, even if it were minor role he nonetheless helped set the stage for the villains and Salem

The reason why I say that; as stated in earlier sections: Despite all of his talk about the greater good for the world he really means the greater good of Atlas and by extension himself. He is prioritizing his kingdom above all else at the expense of the other kingdoms and exploits of their people for his kingdom's own personal gain. As well as with holding beneficial technology that could actually benefit and improve the living conditions and way of life of the other kingdoms.

Ironwood’s inability to trust and have faith in people and others to keep the peace ultimately led to him intervening in affairs that he had no right to and with his own belief that his way is what is best had caused the Fall of Beacon and the events and conflicts before and after it.

It was over before it started

Now the Question must be asked what was Ironwood’s plan?

Ironwood throughout the series believed that he could win against Salem, and by the end of volume 7 he still believed that he could win, but in reality he had already lost the moment he tried to start a war.

To quote Ruby as she asked Ozpin: what was Ironwood’s plan to stop Salem if he ever had one to begin with? As far back as Volume 2 to Volume 7 Ironwood’s ideas and plans to handle Salem seemed to be; gather a large force, blitz run her stronghold, and destroy her with WMD’s. Most of his plans stem from an appeal to force and intimidation tactics via large numbers with heavy armament. In any other circumstances this could have worked had it been a different kind of villain that wasn’t immortal. As V6 has revealed Salem can’t die through traditional means such as modern warfare thus making Ironwood’s plans and solutions moot and pointless. Once he is told the truth in V7 he still continues down the same path of thinking that has not only failed but enabled the villains goals as well. So it must be asked why does Ironwood not see that his way is flawed and that he was never going to win if he continues down this path?

Ironwood's numerous conflicts throughout the series occur because he feels he does not need to follow the standards he sets for others; He demands people trust him while showing them none in return. He forces others to sacrifice much for the cause while giving up very little in return. He insists on loyalty when he has turned on others solely because they disagreed with him.

As Volume 7 progresses, he becomes willing to commit increasingly dubious actions in order to oppose Salem. He starts off by imposing a military embargo on Mantle despite the economic hardships said embargo is causing for the civilians on the ground and diverting resources that Mantle needs to rebuild its infrastructure to build a comm tower at Amity Colosseum. By the end of the volume, he's degenerated into declaring full martial law, abandoning Mantle to die, and either attacking or having arrested anyone who opposes him.

Salem and her faction were a tumor that can only be handled with the surgical precision of a scalpel not with the bulk of a fleet or large armies. The Huntsmen were that scalpel and to be specific the Huntsmen that Oz had chosen as they were meant to protect all people and prevent conflicts without personal bias or desire. Ironwood only acted in the self interest of Atlas and the benefits that he would gain from it

Ozpin’s priority had always been the people, no matter where they came from. However, I think he was once in Ironwood’s shoes. I am pretty sure he tried everything, including the same things Ironwood did, and saw it fail horribly. Ozpin or at least the soul, has had centuries to millennia's of experience in fighting Salem and managing the world. The delicacy of the human mind and heart are something he is well acquainted with, and I think he already knew what type of person Ironwood was, or at least was becoming. Near as I can tell, the big reason he kept Ironwood on at this point was because Ironwood had the resources and technology he needed to keep his plan moving forward and wouldn’t relinquish them.

Ozpin worked hard to maintain the peace and goodwill of the people. Ironwood, so far, has not. Having robot sentries on every corner without the concept of morals and stopping trade for a kingdom that can not easily generate its own resources, as well as hoarding those resources and preventing necessary repairs and aid to those people–those actions all show that he is not keeping this important aspect of leadership. He is not making sure that the people are on his side so when he needs them because he does not consider their needs as important unless they are in line with his own

Even with the Knowledge of the truth of Salem’s immortality he is still sacrificing everyone and everything else for nothing just to keep up the illusion that he is the hero and to keep his source of power high in the clouds away from anyone who really needs it

I may have been a little harsh on Ironwood for his actions, especially V7 and I understand the circumstances that led to escalation by the end of the volume. He was making dubious decisions but he was trying to do better, he listened at times and tried to show an extension of trust, the kids with giving them the lamp back, and later with Robyn at the dinner. These were due to the positive influences of Oz. He just fell back to old habits hard and turned to extremes when it became clear he had non control of what was happening by V7 end. He was struggling with old habits and opening up and was doing better that first part of the night a prime example of what the creators meant if Ironwood had been more open and trusting of others but when everything went down he was pushed over the edge in the latter half of the night cementing his fall and decent into an antagonist further making the problem worse as he has always done. This is mostly due to his primary source of influence; Atlas (which we can agree has been the biggest source of conflict in the show so far) and probably his lack of understanding and planning for what comes after all is said and done.

What did you think would happen?

The question must be asked; What happens after Salem? The fandom has pretty much each their own idea of what might happen after Salem is finally defeated. But do the characters know what happens after the war especially Ironwood? As the end of the hero’s journey goes; Nothings the same after you become a hero. And given Ironwood’s behavior and actions before his fall in Gravity, Ironwood seemed to have ambitions and plans in the works for the long run after Salem was no longer a threat. As stated before in I am Machine no one is truly altruistic to the point that they do something that doesn’t benefit them. So what exactly did Ironwood want after Salem was gone to the point that most if not all his actions and decisions were in the effort to reach and make those plans come true?

As stated in Broken Kingdom Ironwood doesn’t really have any personal desires or motivations that aren’t related to Atlas or the Heroes common goal to stop Salem. As far as we can tell Ironwood has no current family members at present and there's very little that tells us that he has anything in mind outside of either Atlas or Salem ,so what does Ironwood have to gain from this conflict?

All hail the conquering Hero

Ironwood’s biggest issue is that he has to be the center of everything, that he has to be in control. First he’s going to try and gain control with his army, while trying to wrangle anyone else back under his control. Then, when it becomes clear that anyone who has a plan that better and could work, he’s going to get competitive, come up with new and crazy superweapons to throw against the enemy in an attempt to prove that he can defeat Salem before the heroes can gather allies from across Remnant. He believes that He is strong, that He is brave, that He doesn’t need to run to anybody for help! He believes that he is the hero and is letting his self entitlement cloud his mind and it has gotten the better of him

An In-Universe example of this false belief comes from RWBY: Amity Arena as it gives bios to every character in the game compiled by the In-Universe developers. While many try to be objective, the ones representative of the Atlas Elite tend to demonstrate a notable bias, most prevalent with the General's. His bio is very defensive of him, calling him the "hero of our time" and that he wears the burden of the world on his shoulders, talking him up as a Hero with Bad Publicity. The bio goes as followed;

General Ironwood. The hero of our time and Atlas' greatest protector. Under the general, we have advanced to incredible heights, discovered new technologies, and created the world's first artificial intelligence. Though horrifyingly revealed at Amity Arena, Penny is our proud foray into sentient AI, and Ada is the culmination of the machine learning we have long developed in our labs.

As reviled as he was for his misguided attempt to protect Vale, how can the world fault our General when the culprits are out there? How can the victims be blamed for the sins of the perpetrators? Is incompetence somehow a greater sin than premeditated evil? Our General may have failed to protect Beacon, but he's not the one that hacked our weapons into hurting the innocent.

Yet... he wears that burden on his shoulders like he is alone in the world...

Ozpin, missing. Lionheart, dead. Theodore, uncertain. We say Atlas is the greatest, the mightiest... the city in the clouds, but what is first place when there is no competition? Yet, our kingdom and our General... we're the best chance that humanity's got... which scares us to death.

Menagerie?

...what about it?

After reading that you can probably see through the propaganda, hypocrisy and ego that are written in the bio. A key factor to note is that this was possibly made after the main heroes arrived in Atlas and before the election night. And since there's been no contact or travel between the kingdoms and Ironwood was aware of Leo's status by worst case scenario it tells us that the heroes have shared everything with Ironwood in regards to those events concerning Haven.

Since Ironwood is looked up to as a god by his subordinates and since he was the one of the only few to have known about them as well as to have the status to make any key choices since the app is made by atlas scientists contracted to the military. Thus Ironwood had used it and the blind loyalty of his loyalists to make propaganda and shift the blame from himself to something else as well as try to emotionally manipulate the people by making them sympathize with him while ignoring the truth.

He is not Remnant's only hope nor is he the best choice.

This is another example of his never my fault montra and he does things right and its further shown in the bio as it not only continues to discredit the other Headmasters(I am well aware of leo) but ignores all the good and actual heroism of other people like the Faunus of Menagerie as they are to the primary reason as to why Haven didn’t become the next Beacon and as stated before in an earlier section the opportunity for the Battle of Haven was in a way created by Ironwood who had chosen to flee and protect his city instead of preventing an attack like he had originally intended with Vale.

It may also show how much Ironwood believes in his own hype as it does paint him as some sort of de facto king of Atlas. Again he views himself as the chosen savior of the chosen people and that it is his destiny to rule and change the world as he sees fit. Or as Watts puts it the Giant that stands above all

I’m the Captain now

I think it's safe to say that almost everything he does is a twisted version of Ozpin's ways as well as to place himself as Remnant's ultimate leader as he believes he is the one that can ensure a safe and secure world. Ever since his debut he has undermined everything that Ozpin has done and stood for because he believes his ways aren’t efficient ( Or beneficial) to him and has been systematically taking power and control away from him and placing himself as the new big good.

He wants to be the New warrior king and change the world as he sees fit as he only sees Ozpin as either a failure or a hindrance to him and his plans. Combine that with his Atlas ideology and a lot of things make sense. I mentioned in the False chosen one that Ironwood may have been influenced and tried to emulate the Warrior king as to better rise and gain power and correct the supposed mistakes of Ozpin. Even though that he has claimed to be doing it for the greater good of all of Remnant but he really means only Atlas and himself

A world Reborn in my image

A major factor to consider is that Ironwood is a by-product of Atlas that was a by-product of Ancient Mantle. Ironwood is essentially a living mouthpiece for Atlas. He pretty much the living embodiment of the kingdom if it were a character. That's the sad truth of Ironwood is that he is simply an extension of this toxic environment and tricked into believing that its this ideal society when in truth it never was. In other words a legacy of tyranny lives on through Ironwood

We’re all aware of the origins of Atlas and its rise to prominent power. It started out as Mantle that began with a handful of people that prospered by adapting to the harsh conditions by making advanced technology faster than the rest of the world. It eventually formed a trade alliance with Mistral trading tech for food. A grimm incident occurs and Mantle thought being cold emotionless robots was a perfect solution. It tried to force its toxic ideology onto other civilizations and was met with mixed results. The Great war happens they lose and all of their resources are spent forcing it to rebuild its economy that eventually gives way to Atlas

Now how does this affect Ironwood?

Well Mantle through its alliance with ancient Mistral possibly adopted their ideals of imperialism and expansion as Mistral was the world's largest territorial economic empire of its time. When it comes to the rise of an empire and the type they are as well as their need for expansion it can be summed up to these 3

Economic empire

Ideological empire

Territorial empire

Due to Mantle's lack of essential resources like food and energy, its early days were more or less focused on establishing a strong economic trade empire in order to get the essential supplies needed to sustain life in solitas. After its great depression period after the War the kingdom's economy began to grow at a rapid rate that by the time the kingdom shifted to Atlas it had Remnants largest economic empire.

This is also an important factor to consider since the sad truth of it all is that as long people can make a stable income and support themselves, they are more than likely to turn a blind eye to any shady or immoral activities so long as there's something to gain. What does this have to do with Ironwood you ask? Well as his bio card said Ironwood has pretty much been proclaimed as the kingdoms benefactor for its prosperity. This may have been due to his Corperate alliance with The Schnee’s since it was Mostly Nicolas and Jaques as far as we know being the most prominent reason as to why Atlas has prospered.

When Ironwood formed that alliance with the SDC it gave him at least half of the power and influence of the company that was truly responsible for the kingdom's wealth and claiming it as his own. Once he had gotten some control over the economy it was time to move onto the next step and increase the empire from economic to Ideological or Political expansion.

Empires change and adapt in order to satisfies their needs now that Ironwood is the de facto head of that empire and given what we know about him and Atlas it is quite possible that he has been indoctrinated to have this desire to create an empire for Atlas as the politics and ideologies of its people have given it a false sense of entitlement and need to have everything under their control.

When looking at it from V1 to V3, it looks as if Ironwood was trying to occupy without resorting to force then you're left asking the real questions like "Why is ironwood selling the people of Vale on Atlas military Technology?" "Why is it that when a breach happens in vale, Atlas Bots rush in?" "Why did Ironwood make a power play to become the security of the Vytal Tournament?" It all seems to point to the same thing, Ironwood wanted control over Vale

A section of Lyrics from the song “When it Falls” may help reveal Ironwoods true intentions since his introduction and to be honest they seem relevant only to him and given his actions this is mostly likely the truth as they go like this;

“They play the part of allies

Claiming peace their only goal

But once the fight for power starts

They'll eat each other whole

Their iron gloves point fingers

They'll wage a war of blame

And mankind will wilt in pain”

As of V7 aren’t those words mostly relevant to Ironwood? After all, what has he done recently? He claims to be an ally with intentions of peace but he’s really trying to control those who buy that lie and escalates the situation to the extreme for no logical reason other than to set the stage for the next part in relation to the lyrics.

After all is said and done the fight for power will start and he wants to win and consume everyone before they can consume him. And as things go wrong he points his metal hands blaming everyone but himself as he tries to gain control and power, the world suffers.

Ever since his debut he has been trying to amass Political power which would lead to a territorial empire under Atlasian control. Playing into the theory that he does want to be a better version of Oz he wouldn’t make the same mistakes that he assumed the king did by letting the kingdoms remain independent instead of being under the control of one.

A king has his reign and then he dies

To continue on with the theory that he is essentially a bastardized version of Oz, Ironwood may have been trying to find ways as to make himself immortal

Another reason as to why he would see Ozpin as inferior is due to the fact that for all his power he can’t stop himself from dying, or at least maintain the same amount of world power and status from his last life. This may have given Ironwood ideas and ambitions to pursue any methods that may yield results that may make him a true immortal version of Oz hence why he most likely authorized the research and development of the aura transfer technology as a means to artificial reincarnate till proper immortality was achieved.

This could also be another reason as to why he may have chosen the Penny project. As it could lead to a way of extending his life as a means of transhumanism; immortality through technology

To reiterate Ironwood doesn’t trust anyone to do things right so he micromanages everyone under his control and makes them dependent on him. This is best seen with Winter and Clover as Winter would side with a madman as opposed to siding with her sister and clover’s inability to think for himself led to his death.

Due to his lack of faith in people Ironwood makes them less independent and make them rely on him as he may believe if everyone is dependent on him then the more control that he will have over them as to better determine who is a threat as the people he controls are more or less robots now without a conscious or sense individuality and are less likely to commit evil acts. Similar to ancient Mantle’s anti life policies before the war.

If he believes that to be the case and since he only trusts himself to see it through he’s going to try and find ways to make him live as long as possible until his methods become autonomous. Because of his lack of faith for others Ironwood doesn’t understand or refuses to understand the fact that he is going to die one day and everything that he has ever accomplished will be undone by the ultimate victor; TIME.

This is sadly the likely outcome as everything changes through the passage of time. As time moves so does the advancement of decay upon the world. Ironwood is already dying by aging and all that he has achieved will be undone or outdone by others that will come after him. The same thing can be said for everyone else in the show as they already lost.

Ruby, Oz, Cinder, even Salem herself have already lost to time. Everything they have or will achieve will be undone as well and one day they will all die. It’s just a matter of how and when.

To better explain let's take a look at Epsilon’s final speech from RVB season 13;

“There are so many stories where some brave hero decides to give their life to save the day, and because of their sacrifice, the good guys win, the survivors all cheer, and everybody lives happily ever after. But the hero... never gets to see that ending. They'll never know if their sacrifice actually made a difference. They'll never know if the day was really saved. In the end, they just have to have faith.”

Does Ironwood have faith in anyone that's not under his control?

People only do wrong when the perceived benefits outweigh the cost in that moment. Ironwood doesn’t just see an opportunity to stop Salem he also sees an opportunity to bring the world under Atlasian control with him at the top. Since he has amassed so much power and authority he sees himself above the rules that everyone respects and follows. Because of this Ironwood tries to hold unto that power because without he is nothing and would become a lesser and weaker being which would be an affront to his perfectionist ideologies

If your nothing without it then you don’t deserve it

Take away Ruby’s Silver eyes and what is she? Someone that will continue to fight no matter what

Take away Atlas from Ironwood and what is he? Nothing but a broken man who had this coming for a long time.

As I stated in I am power Ironwood by himself has nothing to contribute to the fight against Salem. Let's face it the only thing that he had going for him was the fact that he lead the Military and as we later find out that Military isn’t going to be useful against Salem since the key concept of the show since V1 was that there is no victory in strength but in the simpler things in life that start with simple and honest souls.

How does this concern Ironwood?

Well that's just it Ironwood was never going to win with his methods and he was never going to get the benefits that he wanted if he followed someone else with theirs. Again Ironwood had plans and ambitions after Salem that saw him as the ruler of the world instead of her, and controlled it so that a threat like her or any threat to his power would never come again. This is probably what he thought would happen before being told of her immortality.

Now with the knowledge that he can’t destroy her and that she’s coming he decides to cut his losses and settle with ruling the city instead and leave the rest of the world in her mercy instead of accepting the fact that he is wrong and relinquishing power to someone that can handle the situation better. Remnant doesn’t need Ironwood to survive. This is the biggest problem with Ironwood that he thinks he is the hero so long as he is in control of Atlas. Because without it he is truly nothing and has defined his whole existence around it. And will continue to make whatever plans to keep himself in power and is willing to pay the price at the expense of others.

“What if all the plans you made,

Were not worth the price they paid?

Even with the lives you stole,

Still no closer to your...

Goal.”

He never cooled the fire but he still incites the crowd for he can't see what he has become a crown with no kingdom

Ironwood had only played to win and he would laugh at the ones who lose while millions are shouting out for him to stop but he Still lit the fuse

He says he wants to fight but Then he always runs because he doesn't want to die yet he Still shoots the loaded gun escalating things for the worse

His refusal to see the faults in his own actions. Ironwood continually defaults to and relies on methods and actions that have repeatedly been proven to not work because he refuses to see the error in using said methods to begin with.

This isn’t your story James

One of the important aspects to remember is that this isn’t Ironwood’s story. His entire character and story revolves around the main protagonists and how he interacts with them and more importantly what role he played in it. Ironwood started out as a side character that ended up getting a lot of focus because the story of Team RWBY and the show in general is to show how the last generation can fail the next and how that generation has to learn and grow so it can avoid the mistakes of the past.

Before we delve further into Ironwood’s true character in the show let us explore whether or not he was an antagonistic or protagonistic force in the story. Keep in mind these terms are different from hero and villain. Below are several definitions and meanings for the 2 narrative characters types;

Antagonist

a person who actively opposes or is hostile to someone or something; an adversary.

a person who is opposed to, struggles against, or competes with another; opponent; adversary. the adversary of the hero or protagonist of a drama or other literary work

Protagonist

the leading character or one of the major characters in a drama, movie, novel, or other fictional text.

an advocate or champion of a particular cause or idea.

In modern literature, the protagonist drives the story forward by pursuing a goal.

The protagonist of a story is sometimes called the main character.

Since this is RWBY’s story and to an extent Oz’s, Ironwood(and Atlas to an extent) was always meant to be an antagonistic force in opposition to the show's true ideals of heroism and saviors.

The antagonist is the principal source of conflict for the protagonist. Often, the antagonist is a bad guy, a villain, but he doesn't necessarily have to be. He may just be someone who has a different agenda. Antagonists might be one person, a group, or even an animal.

Due to the beliefs that his methods are for the best even though they contradict the intentions that were thought to be shared by the heroes Ironwood was always going to become an Antagonist for the series at some point

Volume 7 slowly sees him fall into this, as his paranoia and determination to stop Salem cause him to perform increasingly questionable decisions for the greater good. While Qrow, Oscar, and Teams RWBY and JNPR support Ironwood, they increasingly debate the merit of doing so, given how concerned they're becoming with his behavior. When Cinder breaks into his office and plants a black queen, Ironwood sends Winter to forcefully take the Winter Maiden's powers, and he begins to question every decision he's made and speculate whether he's played right into Salem's hands. His confrontation with Team RWBY over their decision to leak intel to Robyn triggers the appearance of a Seer Grimm, forcing him into a verbal confrontation with Salem. With the discovery that the conflict with Watts and Tyrian distracted them from realizing they'd lost long-range sensors and that Salem is already on her way to Atlas, Ironwood snaps. He orders the arrest of Qrow, Oscar, and Teams RWBY and JNPR, and decides to abandon Mantle to die in an effort to prevent the two Relics and the Winter Maiden from falling into Salem's hands. Volume 7 ends with him and the protagonists actively opposed to each other, as his refusal to acknowledge that his methods are flawed and his opposition towards anyone who might stand in his way solidifies him as an antagonist.

The events of Volume 7 slowly but surely tear away at the positive aspects of his character as he succumbs to fear and paranoia, and questions whether Salem's strength comes from her ability to strip away her humanity. By the end of the volume, he has degenerated into a paranoid tyrant who abandons Mantle in favor of saving Atlas, is willing to kill a dying Winter Maiden to protect the Relics from Salem, and arrests the heroes for disagreeing with him. At the end of the volume, Oscar even points out that Ironwood's actions and current mentality make him no better than Salem.

His character deconstructs the mindset of the Necessary Evil character archetype. He declares his willingness to sacrifice his reputation and humanity for the greater good by forcing others to sacrifice for his cause. Characters constantly question the morality of his choices and his own actions create consequences that later bite him in the ass. His lack of concern over his image and the negativity his actions generate serve only to assist Salem's plans and increasingly alienate him from the heroes. He appoints himself the judge of what counts as the "greater good", he neglects Mantle's security and makes it increasingly vulnerable to attack by viewing it as less important than Atlas. Oscar lampshades the deconstruction by pointing out that being willing to sacrifice all of Remnant just so "a few can live" is making him just as dangerous a threat as Salem.

In a way Salem and Ironwood are also foils to each other as they appear to be dark lords from their respective genres

Ironwood being the syfy equivalent clad in white to convey the false message of order and peace while masking evil intentions and crimes

Salem being the Fantasy equivalent clad in black to emanate a sense of Mystery and fear of the unknown while using it to her advantage

Discussed between Ironwood and Oscar. Ironwood spends Volume 7 utterly haunted by how Leo's fear of Salem destroyed him and endangered Mistral and Haven. He is so determined not to end up like Leo, that he doesn't realize what mistakes his own fear of Salem is causing. While Leo completely submitted to Salem and became her puppet, he has full self-awareness and knows exactly how far he's fallen and why. Ironwood cannot accept that he has any fear of Salem at all and interprets the problem as possessing "humanity". He believes Salem is a threat because she has none and speculates that the solution is to become the same. He becomes increasingly controlling over his kingdom and his allies; regardless of how much suffering his methods cause, he persists in believing it's for "the greater good". While Leo is willing to give up the Relic of Knowledge and his kingdom's Huntsmen, Ironwood is so determined to prevent Salem getting the Relics, his Huntsmen and the Winter Maiden, and thereby avoid Leo's mistakes, that he travels in the opposite direction, becoming a dangerous authoritarian instead of a spineless coward.

Ironwood has made it clear that he will use whatever means necessary to defeat Salem. When Team RWBY calls out his decision to raise Atlas out of Salem's reach, he calmly says he's aware that he is essentially damning Mantle to her wrath. He later tells Oscar that he is done letting others' opinions hold him back from doing what he thinks is right. The boy warns him that he'd become as dangerous as Salem herself like that; the general simply nods to himself but doesn't deny it.

This is who he has always been. The only difference is the more desperate he becomes, the more extremes he goes to to maintain the illusion he is strong and in control of the situation.

During Ozpin's speech, notice how this unique line of dialogue is purposely inserted over Ironwood's last scene of Volume 7.

“Or will the person staring back at you be the very thing you should have feared from the start? I suppose we all find out... sooner or later.”

As the other parts of the speech are relevant to the other characters shown in the montage This specific line cements the Truth of Ironwood's character being a threat that was planned for a very long time. Going with the show's themes of Grey morality and the balance of light and dark, we are to learn of the possibility that with the potential to do great good also comes with the potential to do great evil.

As we were focused on the obvious threats in the show like the grimm, the white fang, Cinder, and Salem we are tricked to neglect the obvious signs of evil intent that are hidden and growing among the heroes. The real monsters of the world aren’t the ones with fangs and red eyes hiding under your bed, No the real monsters of the world look just like you and me. After all if we assume everyone is like us then how can we tell who the real monsters are, that are hiding in plain sight.

Ironwood’s evil nature and antagonism was subtle and growing under the skewed perception that he was the hero and that he was right. But this comes down to the fact that he is only in it for himself and what he has to gain from it.

I understand that James Ironwood was a tragic character even from his introduction, and the seeds for his volume 7 turn were planted in volume 2. I eventually recognized that RT was setting up this pivotal plot point way back in the day and now they are harvesting what they had sown.

Ironwood didn’t snap when he found out RWBY lied to him. He was content, even after he defeated Watts. He snapped as soon as he saw Cinder’s present. The Queen piece. He unraveled immediately and, sure, the discovery of RWBY’s lies didn’t help, but it wasn’t the cause for Ironwood’s descent.

He genuinely means well in opposing Salem and her forces, but his severe paranoia complex, exacerbated by the stress of being one of the only ones in the know about Salem and having to explain his actions to the skeptical populace and council, cause his decisions to degenerate over time. By the end of Volume 7, he becomes willing to abandon everyone in Mantle to die, violently lashes out at anyone who opposes him, and manages to undo all of the hard work he's accomplished by second-guessing his own actions.

James Ironwood is undoubtedly a fascinating character that has this certain appeal to most people. I can understand Ironwood's viewpoint but it is not the same as forgiving or condoning as good. Sure, I thought him intervening in affairs that he had no right to was a skewed perception, but I understood where he was coming from. I thought him ignoring the concerns and advice of people was reckless, but I also kind of understood his limitations and his upbringing. But in all honesty I was neutral about Ironwood ever since he debuted and didn’t think he had much to contribute to the story besides being the guy with an army along with the pride and arrogance that comes with.

Because of that Ironwood was always an antagonistic force in RWBY with ideals and plans that contradict the established ideals and motivations that are already shared with the world of Remnant. He just simply couldn’t fit in and when he tried he didn’t like it. When he tried to change it and take charge he only made things worse. Ironwood had potential to be good and a proper hero due the influence of Oz but his pride and ego that he got from Atlas got the better of him and now the show's true heroes will have to fix the problems that he has caused.

Summary

#rwby #rwby ironwood #james ironwood #general ironwood #Ironwood analysis

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dwellordream · 3 years

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“The history of European Jews during the century and a half after the dissolution of the Carolingian Empire remains obscure. This is not so surprising when we remember that understanding most aspects of this period is made arduous by the lack of evidence. This darkest of medieval periods is also one of the most crucial in terms of fundamental changes in European society. The seeming cohesion of European society under Carolingian rule quickly evaporated in the tenth and eleventh centuries. The societies that emerged by the eleventh century in the core countries of western Europe were radically different in terms of Christian identity, political authority, and economic structures.

Even if we assume that the degree of royal centralization under the Carolingians was exaggerated or romanticized, the polities that emerged around the turn of the millennium were societies where power was in the hands of local leaders. These “lords” exercised authority not as the regional representatives of kings but by right of their position as the military strongman of a certain land. The examples of the dynamic kingdoms of England as well as the increasing effectiveness of Ottonian rule in Germany show that traditions of royal government survived the demise of the Carolingians. The kings likely retained some of the power and cachet that had accrued to Charlemagne and his descendants. The experience of France, with its relatively weak early kings, should not be taken as the standard of European development.

Nevertheless, real power in these societies devolved into the hands of lords who imposed judicial authority and economic control in their own names. In the ninth and tenth centuries these rulers bore the brunt of defending against Viking raids, Islamic incursions in the south, and Hungarian attacks in the East. By the end of the eleventh century the basic structures of this new society of lordship were in place. The vast majority of rural people were now under the control of local lords. They were not slaves per se—for chattel slavery had declined over the centuries—but virtually all aspects of their lives were controlled by lords. Freeholders still remained but most of the core countries of Europe operated on a system of labor services, rents, and limitations on peasant freedom, inheritance, movement, and marriage.

Scholars continue to argue whether mutation or revolution best describes the shift and when this occurred. Whatever the particular process, in the end, military leaders with dreams or memories of aristocratic ideals (and church institutions such as monasteries) accumulated enough influence to dominate local societies. Changes in Christian culture as opposed to local power relations were equally dramatic and reflected the same tension between a unifying European-wide culture and local variations. The tenth century is usually seen as a period of retrenchment for the institutional church as it struggled against the depredations of local lords and continuing pressure from non-Christian peoples. The institutions of the church survived this period of instability. Fueled by the surge in population and economic growth, after the turn of the millennium, new churches and monasteries were being constructed throughout Europe.

At the same time that the church was growing physically, clerics and others had begun to think of the church and society in new ways in the eleventh century. This movement of reform was an effort to redefine the boundaries of church and secular society. By trying to purge the church of the interference and control of rulers and lords, most notably in the conflict over the investiture of church leaders, this movement created spheres of behavior that could be understood as sacred and secular. Although the traditional terminology of church versus state may be overdetermined, there was by the year 1100 a sense of society as divided into separate spheres or at least, contested spheres of influence. The attempt to free the church from external interference that marked reform created some social spheres for a secular identity outside the formal bounds of Christian religious life.

It made European society in some sense more hospitable to Jews who did not have to be part of a universal religious society. These changes allowed Jews social space for their own identities even in an increasingly Christian world. As with our earlier period, we have to make do with fragments of evidence in trying to assemble a coherent picture of how Jews lived in this period of social and cultural change. In terms of geography, the Jews still lived within the core countries of Europe. The large Jewish communities of Spain were now in the orbit of Islamic culture. We know of no Jews in the Scandinavian countries, and only small groups in the eastern kingdoms newly converted to Christianity. Their residence seemed restricted to the southern areas of France, Italy, and then later the Rhineland towns of Germany. By the end of the tenth century, there were probably four thousand to five thousand Jews. That number would grow to approximately twenty-five thousand before the First Crusade.

Even within these relatively restricted parameters, by the eleventh century Jews were at home in Europe. They were increasingly acculturated to European society and rooted in different locations. As part of this acculturation, they shared a common cultural discourse with Christians. Scholars have long recognized this reality for Spain. Even in the most obscure period of the tenth and early eleventh centuries, we can get a sense of how Jews found niches for themselves in local societies that were continually evolving. The evidence of Jewish landholding suggests a larger range of hidden relationships with Christians as servants or as fellow farmers sharing the risks of weather and market. The violence and instability of this early medieval world shaped the lives of Jews as well as Christians.

Rabbinic accounts of Jewish merchants who profited from the plunder of local conflicts suggest that some Jews were adept at exploiting opportunities in this dangerous world. Some Jews also engaged in the same kind of internecine violence that was tormenting the Christian community. However, even these rather tragic episodes speak to the interactions of Jews and Christians on very intimate levels: the acculturation of some Jews to medieval habits of violence and their ability to capitalize, even temporarily, on such disorder. Some Jews had grown so close to Christians that they left Judaism altogether. By the tenth century Jews were finding ways to make peace with their condition of seemingly permanent exile.

Despite what appears to be idiosyncratic violence against several communities in Italy, Jewish cultural voices were seeking a reconciliation with the Christian societies in which they found themselves. The tenth-century Yossipon, a Jewish retelling and expansion of the account of Josephus’s Jewish War, fits the Christian Roman Empire into the schema of the four empires in the Book of Daniel. However, the account of Jewish suffering and defeat at the hands of these empires, Babylonia, Persia, Greece, and now Rome was foretold long before the advent of Christ. Thus it was not the Jews’ rejection of Jesus that determined their exile but some previous crime for which God was punishing them. At the same time as the chronicle explained their suffering without reference to Christianity, it also held out assurances of their redemption. Jews could live under “Rome” with a certain degree of confidence and pragmatism. Jews remained part of God’s plan—a plan that would transcend the transient victory of Christianity.”

- Jonathan Elukin, “From the Carolingians to the Twelfth Century.” in Living Together, Living Apart: Rethinking Jewish-Christian Relations in the Middle Ages

#high middle ages #medieval #jonathan elukin #living together living apart #jewish #religion #history #feudalism

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roguestarsailor · 3 years

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So I really do not like is Elain in ACOTAR and I want to explore why I feel this way. This is going to be a critique of Elain and a critique of SJM too.

So I think about this tweet whenever I feel passionately about a character; many of the characters I love or hate clearly have these things outlined.

Elain is positioned as a central character who is vital to be part of the main protagonist group but she doesn’t have any supporting characteristics that make her valuable or interesting as a character. If you parallel her story to literally any other main characters, they all have grit, flaws and passion whereas Elain doesn’t. The story really doesn't change when you take Elain out of the equation. Her only relevance happens in ACOWAR and she weaves in and out. She’s so absent most of the time, and she’s barely thought about more than precious and gentle and likeable. that doesn’t make the character interesting.

Elain is the type of character that other characters react to. Sometimes I think she should have died in the cauldron because she was the type of character that would motivate people to action. She functions best as a symbol of purity and good that everyone will throw themselves for or go to the end of the earth for. Even from Freye’s point of view, she would do anything to defend her sisters and most of all her gentle and caring Elaine. Even the description of Elain being shoved into the cauldron with Freye and Nesta pleading and struggling to save Elain was intense! if Elain had died, this would have made the reason to go to war significantly more impactful, more heated and more personal. We would get to see so much action from Freye and Nesta; we could have watch these characters flex their strengths and grow into more powerful women (another critique is that Amren and Mor are supposedly top tier individuals but we don’t see what they're actual function is within the night court. we see Cassian and Azriel doing their thing and hold meetings w Rhys but not those two?? they just hang out in Valaris). We would even see politics change in Prythian! We got a glimpse of what they did at the High Lords Meeting and then we saw them speak united after the war in the human realm in ACOWAR. Imagine the possibilities! So many directions this could go.

This story isn’t suppose to be lovely. It’s not suppose to be a happy ending (although a bit cheesy but good amount). Every character has a dark past, and have to overcome their traumas. Every character had to make choices they don’t like and have suffered in the most intense way possible. UTM scenes in the ACOTAR was actually hard for me to read the first time around because I wasn’t aware of how dark it was going to be. But we saw the impact on Freye and watching her overcome that which was the main reason why i kept reading (ACOMAF is by far the best book in the series for its healing arc).

So letting all these characters thrive despite all of it is interesting and the reason why I keep thinking about and reading and rereading these books! This is where SJM failed Elain’s character. She doesn’t have conflict. Her conflicts are surface level at best i.e. marriage to gregory (or whatever), society life and nothing in her character says she will fight for what she loves. Nobody dislikes Elain, Elain doesn’t dislike anybody (except maybe Luciein). What motivates her? We see her fit in so well the the IC on Solstice, she thrives in Valaris, she’s even made friends out of Cerridwen and Nuala. She enjoys gardening and she enjoys caring for others, shopping for others, etc. She seems to have her life relatively together compared to literally everyone else.

What did give me pause and peaked my interest in Elain was when she asked Amren why she chose the female body form (ACOFAS, pg 109). When I read that scene, I thought she was asking about changing gender like being trans fae which would really be taking her character in a whole new direction, potentially sexuality exploration too?? But turns out she asked because she wanted to know the possibility of changing into a human again. I know ACOFAS showed her mourning her father and being sad and quiet all the time which is normal and fine. But conversations with her (at least with Freye’s POV) shows she’s still stuck on being human or living a human life again which makes her character stagnate and hard to tell a story that would be interesting. At least Nesta has moved on to more than just mourning her human life and see her clearly struggling through it all.

Elain seems to only be valuable as a symbol more than anything. She isn’t essential to the story, not saying she didn’t play a good role in the war effort but by in large, her story arc was bland. Take her out and the story would have to find a new route but nothing will be amiss. Her worth as a character is based on the hope that she does more, the love people have for these type of character and a symbol for “good” in the world which isn’t compelling enough and doesn’t make her character interesting. The only interesting part about Elain is that people can project their Elriel or Elucien ships onto or people just like because she’s unproblematic and agreeable.

But I want to end with hope with what direction Elain’s character could take. I can’t think about a situation where Elain would leave the comforts of Valaris on her own, so it would have to be with someone. I don’t see her character growing with Azriel. Azriel is chained to Night Court and to Rhys (and if we want to see him grow he needs to take a different direction away from Night Court and maybe not someone who comforts him all the time??). Although I do see her story growing with Lucien. Lucien has no residence and for now he’s fitting well with the Band of Exiles who are in the human realm and maybe they go on an adventure there and Lucien introduces her to the new human realm or she introduces Lucien to her human life or something (I don’t really care about the mate stuff since rhys said ppl can reject the mate so??? its not anything important?? not enough info for me to care about tbh). To be fair, I have been reading elucien like this and I can see how Elain and Lucien compliments each other but that doesn’t make Elain’s character any interesting on her own which is sad. I hope Elain becomes more than what she has been. I hope she starts fighting for the things she loves (it doesn’t have to be physically), I hope she isn’t so passive and I hope she finds her way of bringing fire into herself. Every character has that grit and passion, I demand she has the same or what is the fucken point??

#amandathoughts #acotar #a court of thorns and roses #freye archeron #elucien #elriel #anti elain #a bit #sarah j maas #sjm #a court of frost and starlight #elain can exist as a background character #and it would be fine #acotar critique #acotar discourse #amandabookthoughts

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desdemonafictional · 3 years

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The Squire of Gothos

Here’s a little Lost Light Scene that may or may not grow into a longer fic, eventually, with megarung banter

Megatron was recharging. In his recharge flux, he was dreaming. In his dreams, the cart haulers were taking their loads up into the sunshine on an endless uphill tread, Megatron among them, his cargo space full of crackling brittle nucleon ore. The haulers were singing a working song as they went*. Up ahead the day was a yellow promise glimpsed dimly between the pillars of the mineshaft door, no closer now than it had been a chorus before.

The dream shattered abruptly at the sound of a klaxxon, and Megatron jolted upright on his berth slab. The hallway to the command center was empty of crewmates, and Megatron was unhappy to see that when he forced open the door to the bridge, the bridge was empty too.

Ah, except for one.

“Rung,” he greeted, letting the abused automatic door slide shut behind him on its own. The klaxxon fell silent behind it.

“Captain,” Rung said, sparing him the polite smile that few would have bothered with. He was ensconced at the surveillance station, tapping over and over again at the apparently unhelpful screen. “You’ve arrived just in time for the sitting around and waiting portion of the misadventure, I’m afraid.”

Megatron watched him with a faint smile. He’d pulled his glasses off in order to better squint at the screen display, prodigious eyebrows furrowed.

“I hope it’s not another one of your ex-colleagues,” Megatron said, settling himself smoothly into the captain’s chair at the center of the bridge. “We barely survived the last one.”

“I shouldn’t think there’s any therapist with the ability to dematerialize an entire bridgecrew off their ship in one go,” Rung said, “although who knows, the last one certainly caught me by surprise…”

“Do you know where they’ve been dematerialized to?” Megatron asked.

“Insofar as I can interpret these readings,” Rung said, with pronounced frustration, “it seems like they’re down on that little planetoid, with the absurd energy readings. Rodimus got a call off to me, a moment ago. Something about a scheme or a bet, I couldn’t quite follow. I’m given to understand he’s working on extricating the group.”

Megatron rested his jaw in the L of his thumb and forefinger. While there certainly wasn’t a lot of love lost between Megatron and the majority of the crew, he was captain, and a captain did have certain responsibilities. And anyway, Rodimus was down there. Someone should really save him before he had the chance to do something characteristically reckless.

“Perhaps we should fire on the planet,” Megatron said, considering a nexus of options. “We do have weapons, although not on a planetary scale. Still, enough damage to the surface might-”

“Absolutely not,” Rung said, whipping around from the station, glasses still pushed up on his helm. “Even setting aside the foolhardiness of bringing weapons into a conflict you know nothing about, our crewmates are down there. You don’t know what chain reaction you might ignite.”

Megatron frowned.

“I am the captain here,” he reminded Rung, “not you. In fact, as you have recently abdicated your post, you have no authority at all to tell me what I may or may not do aboard this ship.”

Rung looked at him with surprise. Then he set his expression smooth. “May I remind you then,” he said, “that you are in fact a co-captain, officially speaking, and your fellow co-captain in down there on that planet you’re thinking of launching a missile into.”

“Well I was only thinking of it,” Megatron said, dryly. “Besides, he’s gone, and I’m not.”

“He’s not dead, he’s just popped down to rendezvous with some alien intelligence,” Rung retorted. “And he’s still got the helm, so in point of order, if he wants that planet bombed, I’ll need to hear it from him.”

Megatron raised his brows. “Very stubborn aren’t you,” he said. “You could give Ultra Magnus a run for his credit, I dare say. I suppose it comes in handy to be able to talk circles around whatever daft idea your patients dream up.”

Rung flushed, very brightly blue-green, as if he found the suggestion objectionable, but then abruptly he sagged. He reached up and pulled his glasses back down over his handsome optics. “I don’t do that anymore,” he said, “I told you.”

“I can’t say I understand why,” Megatron replied, “you were doing as good of a job before Froid as you would be doing after him. Nothing material has changed. I find it… troubling, that you would turn your license over just to punish yourself.”

“That’s not why-” Rung started, and then he dug his fingers into the corners of his faceplate. “You’re only saying that because you don’t understand why someone would approach a therapist in the first place.”

Megatron struggled to find an appropriate retort. He didn’t, actually, understand the appeal. But it seemed to be important to Whirl, among others, and whatever kept Whirl out of his target sights must have some merit to it in his mind.

“I suppose it’s as good an opportunity as any to make… friends,” Megatron said, by way of graceful retreat. “I keep being told that it’s the central autobot experience. And here I had thought that was flashy acts of martyrdom.”

“Making friends is what got me into this state,” Rung muttered, turning away.

Megatron tracked him with keen optics. He did wonder what the circumstances had been, but he imagined they were mundane at the heart of it. But then Rung said nothing else, either way, and though Megatron wasn’t particularly curious about the politics of therapeutic licensure, it began to bother him that Rung didn’t say anything else, one way or the other.

He became very annoyed with himself for caring, and then very annoyed with himself for being annoyed with himself, because he was supposed to be taking an interest, and he quite liked Rung, as far as players went in this prison of nonsense that now served to characterize his life.

“Without patients, you’ll have to find some way of filling the hours,” Megatron remarked. “I’ve heard Swerve is hosting some absurd social event… rapid mating, was it….”

Rung made a noise like a lever getting stuck in a gear, and thumped himself on the chest until it gave way. “Speed dating,” he said, weakly.

Megatron frowned. That was not what Ravage had said. “Just as well if it doesn't involve orgies or any such,” he decided. “I had deeply begun to worry about the state of Autobot debauchery.”

In fact he had asked Ultra Magnus, very delicately, about the whole thing, and been somewhat aggrieved that all he’d gotten for his trouble was Ultra Magnus quoting subsection I.QE* and making hasty retreat to the safety of a sprinkler inspection.

“I doubt Swerve would agree to the cleanup,” Rung said, sounding a bit faint.

---

* A liberal English translation of this song might go: “work all night on a drink of rum/daylight come and me wanna go home”

* “We Won’t Ask If You Don’t Tell”

#megarung #transformers

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newstfionline · 3 years

Text

Wednesday, September 22, 2021

Trudeau’s Liberals win Canada election, but miss majority (AP) Canadians gave Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party a victory in Monday’s parliamentary elections, but his gamble to win a majority of seats failed and nearly mirrored the result of two years ago. Trudeau’s Liberals were leading or elected in 156 seats—one less than they won 2019, and 14 short of the 170 needed for a majority in the House of Commons. The Conservatives were leading or elected in 121 seats, the same number they won in 2019. The leftist New Democrats were leading or elected in 27, a gain of three seats, while the Quebec-based Bloc Québécois remained unchanged with 32 seats and the Greens were down to two. “Trudeau lost his gamble to get a majority so I would say this is a bittersweet victory for him,” said Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal. “Basically we are back to square one, as the new minority parliament will look like the previous one. Trudeau and the Liberals saved their skin and will stay in power, but many Canadians who didn’t want this late summer, pandemic election are probably not amused about the whole situation,” he said.

COVID has killed about as many Americans as the 1918-19 flu (AP) COVID-19 has now killed about as many Americans as the 1918-19 Spanish flu pandemic did—approximately 675,000. And like the worldwide scourge of a century ago, the coronavirus may never entirely disappear from our midst. Instead, scientists hope the virus that causes COVID-19 becomes a mild seasonal bug as human immunity strengthens through vaccination and repeated infection. That would take time. “We hope it will be like getting a cold, but there’s no guarantee,” said Emory University biologist Rustom Antia, who suggests an optimistic scenario in which this could happen over a few years. For now, the pandemic still has the United States and other parts of the world firmly in its jaws.

Why Louisiana’s Electric Grid Failed in Hurricane Ida (NYT) Just weeks before Hurricane Ida knocked out power to much of Louisiana, leaving its residents exposed to extreme heat and humidity, the chief executive of Entergy, the state’s biggest utility company, told Wall Street that it had been upgrading power lines and equipment to withstand big storms. That statement would soon be tested. On the last Sunday in August, Hurricane Ida made landfall in Louisiana and dealt a catastrophic blow to Entergy’s power lines, towers and poles, many of which were built decades ago to withstand much weaker hurricanes. The storm damaged eight high-voltage transmission lines that supply power to New Orleans along with scores of the company’s towers throughout the state. Hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses were without power for days. Ida damaged or destroyed 31,000 poles that carry lower-voltage distribution lines in neighborhoods, nearly twice as many as Hurricane Katrina, according to Entergy. Lawmakers and regulators require utilities to ensure safe, reliable service at an affordable cost. The grid failure after Ida is the latest display of how power companies are struggling to fulfill those obligations as climate change increases the frequency and severity of extreme weather. In California, electricity providers have been forced to shut off power to tens of thousands of customers in recent years to prevent their equipment from setting off wildfires and to reduce energy demand during heat waves. In February, the grid in most of Texas failed during a winter storm, leaving millions of people without power and heat for days.

White House faces bipartisan backlash on Haitian migrants (AP) The White House is facing sharp condemnation from Democrats for its handling of the influx of Haitian migrants at the U.S. southern border, after images of U.S. Border Patrol agents on horseback using aggressive tactics went viral this week. Striking video of agents maneuvering their horses to forcibly block and move migrants attempting to cross the border has sparked resounding criticism from Democrats on Capitol Hill, who are calling on the Biden administration to end its use of a pandemic-era authority to deport migrants without giving them an opportunity to seek asylum in the United States. At the same time, the administration continues to face attacks from Republicans, who say Biden isn’t doing enough to deal with what they call a “crisis” at the border. Immigration is a complex issue, one no administration has been able to fix in decades. And Biden is trapped between conflicting interests of broadcasting compassion while dealing with throngs of migrants coming to the country—illegally—seeking a better life.

Haitian journey to Texas border starts in South America (AP) Robins Exile downed a traditional meal of plantains and chicken at a restaurant run by Haitian immigrants, just a short walk from the walled border with the United States. He arrived the night before and went there seeking advice: Should he try to get to the U.S., or was it better to settle in Mexico? Discussion Monday at the Tijuana restaurant offered a snapshot of Haitians’ diaspora in the Western Hemisphere that picked up steam in 2016 and has shown little sign of easing, demonstrated most recently by the more than 14,000 mostly Haitian migrants assembled around a bridge in Del Rio, a town of only 35,000 people. Of the roughly 1.8 million Haitians living outside their homeland, the United States is home to the largest Haitian immigrant population in the world, numbering 705,000 people from the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country. Significant numbers also live in Latin American countries like Chile, which is home to an estimated 69,000 Haitians. Nearly all Haitians reach the U.S. border on a well-worn route: Fly to Brazil, Chile or elsewhere in South America. If jobs dry up, slowly move through Central America and Mexico by bus and on foot to wait—perhaps years—in northern border cities like Tijuana for the right time to enter the United States and claim asylum.

‘We were them:’ Vietnamese Americans help Afghan refugees (AP) In the faces of Afghans desperate to leave their country after U.S. forces withdrew, Thuy Do sees her own family, decades earlier and thousands of miles away. A 39-year-old doctor in Seattle, Washington, Do remembers hearing how her parents sought to leave Saigon after Vietnam fell to communist rule in 1975 and the American military airlifted out allies in the final hours. It took years for her family to finally get out of the country, after several failed attempts, and make their way to the United States, carrying two sets of clothes a piece and a combined $300. When they finally arrived, she was 9 years old. These stories and early memories drove Do and her husband Jesse Robbins to reach out to assist Afghans fleeing their country now. The couple has a vacant rental home and decided to offer it up to refugee resettlement groups, which furnished it for newly arriving Afghans in need of a place to stay. “We were them 40 years ago,” Do said. “With the fall of Saigon in 1975, this was us.” The crisis in Afghanistan has spurred many Vietnamese Americans to donate money to refugee resettlement groups and raise their hands to help by providing housing, furniture and legal assistance to newly arriving Afghans.

‘Crisis of trust’: France bristles at US submarine deal (AP) France’s top diplomat declared Monday that there is a “crisis of trust” in the United States after a Pacific defense deal stung France and left Europe wondering about its longtime ally across the Atlantic. France canceled meetings with British and Australian officials and worked to rally EU allies behind its push for more European sovereignty after being humiliated by a major Pacific defense pact orchestrated by the U.S. Speaking to reporters in New York, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said European countries won’t let Washington leave them behind when shaping its foreign policy. Le Drian reiterated complaints that his country was sandbagged by the submarine deal between the U.S., Britain and Australia, which led to France losing a contract to sell subs to Australia. Washington, London and Canberra say the deal bolsters their commitment to the Indo-Pacific region, and it has widely been seen as an effort to counter an increasingly assertive China. But Le Drian, who is in New York to represent France at the U.N. General Assembly, said it was a “brutal, unexpected and unexplained breach” of a contract—and a relationship.

Pedestrians take to the streets of Paris to celebrate the city’s seventh annual ‘day without cars’ (Business Insider) On Sunday, Paris turned over its streets to pedestrians so that citizens and visitors could enjoy its seventh annual “day without cars.” Announced by socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo in 2015, the city received enthusiastic support from both ordinary Parisians and unlikely parties including the head of a French drivers’ association, USA Today reported. From 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., cars, motorcycles, and scooters are banned throughout Paris, and any offenders face a fine of 135 euros, according to the Paris Without A Car website. Certain vehicles like buses, emergency vehicles, taxis, and private drivers are allowed to circulate, although their speed is limited to 20-30 kilometers per hour (12-19 miles per hour) in certain areas. Events at this year’s “day without cars” included a techno parade, picnic, bicycle fair, rollerblading marathon, and street art exhibitions, according to the event website.

More evacuations as lava gushes from Canaries volcano (Reuters) Lava gushing from the Canary Islands’ first volcanic eruption on land in 50 years has forced authorities to evacuate another part of El Paso municipality on the island of La Palma and to urge sightseers attracted by the phenomenon to stay away. About 6,000 of the 80,000 people living on the island have been forced to leave their homes to escape the eruption so far, TVE said. The volcano started erupting on Sunday after La Palma, the most northwestern island in the Canaries archipelago, had been rocked by thousands of quakes in the prior days. It has shot lava hundreds of metres into the air, engulfed forests and sent molten rock towards the ocean over a sparsely populated area of La Palma. Experts say that if and when the lava reaches the sea, it could trigger more explosions and clouds of toxic gases.

Magnitude 6.0 earthquake strikes near Melbourne (Reuters) An earthquake with a 6.0 magnitude struck near Melbourne in Australia on Wednesday, Geoscience Australia said, causing damage to buildings in the country’s second largest city and sending tremors throughout neighbouring states. The quake’s epicentre was near the rural town of Mansfield in the state of Victoria, about 200 km (124 miles) northeast of Melbourne, and was at a depth of 10 km (six miles). The quake was felt as far away as city of Adelaide, 800 km (500 miles) to the west in the state of South Australia, and Sydney, 900 km (600 miles) to the north in New South Wales state, although there were no reports of damage outside Melbourne and no reports of injuries.

‘An iron curtain’: Australia’s covid rules are stranding people at state borders (Washington Post) The four figures huddled in the shade on the side of the highway, eight miles from a border they had hardly noticed until it slammed shut behind them. As flies buzzed and crows circled and their supplies ran low, they waited for emails that would allow them to leave New South Wales and return to their home state of South Australia. Teresa Young and her husband had been stuck at the rest stop—little more than a toilet in the middle of the Outback—for 10 days. “All of a sudden, Australia has been cut up like pieces of a cake,” the 75-year-old said on a recent day. Welcome to covid-era Australia, where state border closures designed to keep the coronavirus from spreading have turned retired office workers into roadside nomads. When the pandemic began, many Australians found that the leaders of the country’s six states and two territories, rather than the federal government, suddenly controlled the most vital things in people’s lives, including who could go to work and where they could travel. The closures have upended domestic travel and stranded scores of Australians internally, even as a vaccination ramp-up means some states—and international airports—will soon open up. People in Sydney could find it easier to fly to Singapore or Los Angeles than to Adelaide.

Sudan’s coup attempt (Foreign Policy) Sudanese state media reported a “failed coup attempt” early Tuesday morning. The coup reportedly involved an attempt to take control of the state radio services. If confirmed, the attempted power grab would be the fourth putsch attempt the African continent has seen this year, following military takeovers in Guinea and Chad and an unsuccessful coup in Niger.

#headlines #news

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tanadrin · 4 years

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Legal Systems Very Different From Ours (Because They Do Not Exist)

(I forgot Scott had already done this, lol)

AZAREN

There is the land of Azaren, far to the north; a rugged, windswept country, it was settled by hardy explorers in an ancient age of migration, who have always been disdainful of central authority, and permit themselves to be governed only to the most minimal extent. As a consequence of this skepticism of government, there is also a general skepticism of public law. All law in Azaren--except the few scraps of administrative and procedural law necessary to operate the government--is private, and there is no criminal law. All disputes between parties are resolved by what we would consider in other countries civil suits, governed by strict rules involving standing. Theft, arson, even murder may all go unpunished, unless there is an interested party willing to file suit to obtain redress. The Azarenes by and large consider this system exemplary of freedom and justice, and we cannot help but admit an attraction to the cleanness of its philosophy.

A key component of Azaren justice is the principle that no entity is above the law; no entity, however powerful, is so majestic that it is immune from suit. This meant that gods, natural forces, even celestial bodies have been sued (though principally in more superstitious days long past), and where by the weight of evidence, or the simple failure to appear, have been duly issued fines, which remain on the public register of debts waiting to be paid. And naturally, Azaren countenances no doctrine of state or sovereign immunity. This principle, especially due to the absence of public law, extends also to relations between Azaren and other states. Naturally this principle extends to sublunary bodies like Azaren's own government: Azaren recognizes to doctrine of state or sovereign immunity, and not a few political revolutions have been wrought through cunning arguments in the courtroom. And note also that Azaren conducts no foreign policy as a unified whole--for that would require an intolerable tyranny imposed on her people, that is to say some form of tax to pay the salaries of a diplomatic corps--but what individuals and groups of individuals see fit to conduct. So from time to time, an individual or group of individuals together will decide some foreign state has wronged them, and, as is Azarene custom, will petition their courts for redress; and despite the diplomatic protestations of the representatives of that government, that any such proceeding is a clear violation of precedent in the community of nations, that by dint of its sovereignty no state may be sued in the courts of another, the Azarene court will hear the suit. And should the plaintiffs prevail, an order will be issued for the recovery of damages.

And it is for this reason and this reason alone that Azaren has any armed force: in case of a judgement entered against a foreign government, the militia of Azaren is authorized to confiscate property--in Azaren or abroad--belonging to that government (and if need be, its citizens) until enough has been seized to cover the amount owed. Whereupon, whatever the state of the field of battle, however close the foe is to total capitulation, they return to their ships instantly and retire to their home country.

GKNAI

The land of Gknai is ancient, possibly one of the longest-inhabited regions in the world; and as it is nestled deep in often-overlooked mountain valleys, it has enjoyed a history of uncommon peace and tranquility, well-fortified against the ambitions of neighboring princes; it has indeed earned its epithet of Many-Fortressed-Gknai; and in later millennia, this reputation for indomitability has served by itself to safeguard its borders.

As a consequence of its long, long history, it is said, Gknai is uncommonly bound by the pageantry of Tradition. Just as other countries have monarchies that have withered away into irrelevance, performing a few desultory functions of government under the strict control of their ministers, Gknai has its own titular kings and princes. Indeed, it has them by the wagonload. The difficulty of warfare in the region and the bombasticity of ancient aristocrats means that every valley is thick with Kings and Over-Kings, and Lords President, and Grand Dukes, and even Emperors. Most Sublime Hierophants tend their vegetable patches across the road from Thrice-Exalted Tyrants, and the multiplication of titles is not helped by the fact that under Gknaian traditions, every child inherits some share of the honors of their parents.

The Gknaians have never had a single political revolution to sweep the old order away, only centuries of incremential change. Therefore, each of these titles, in the abstract legal sense, still has some privilege attached to it, however slight it may be. Nor, if they wished to abolish their cumbersome system, is it clear how they might legally do so: there is no legislative authority in Gknai but custom, and for every amendment to the law some precedent, even if very weak, must be found that may be expanded and elaborated upon and carefully argued for until it is generally agreed upon in the whole land. Gnkaian legal codes incorporate much of this commentary, and a Gknaian law library is thus a fearsome thing indeed.

The most curious relic of Gknaian tradition is a form of trial, still in general use, called gopi-gai ogmo, or Trial By Endurance. It was argued by an ancient Gknaian scholar that wealth, strength, and even legal persuasiveness were poor proxies for the righteousness of a cause, and so poor criteria for deciding a lawsuit. For with wealth often comes prestige, and undue influence over the public; with strength, assured victory in the trials by combat; and a well-spoken orator might convince even the best of judges to decide a case in contravention of the law, if his eloquence and flattery are sufficient. Better, said this scholar, to align public interest with individual preference, and a hint of utilitarianism: clearly, the side that *wishes* to win more, should prevail. And how to decide that more efficiently, than with a test of endurance?

This is the form of the test: a hillside of a valley is chosen, one warm in the morning and cool in the evening, but not too hot or too cold; and the plaintiff and the defendant are seated upon it, gazing down at the valley below; and the judge and officers of the court withdraw to observe. That is all. Whomever remains seated and motionless the longest is judged to desire victory more. To stand, speak, cry out, laugh, smirk, or fall down is to forfeit the case. Neither of the parties may be spoken to; neither may be disturbed in any way. The only modification ever made is this: in matters deemed especially urgent, sometimes the parties are made to stand instead.

Judgement, naturally, usually takes days. One especially notable figure, Hrakal the Vexatious Litigant, widely feared for his tolerance of boredom and inclement weather, successfully lodged no less than three dozen lawsuits against his neighbors, until he met his match in Tatavru the Stubborn. That particular proceeding lasted more than two weeks, until an out-of-season snowfall gave Hrakal frostbite, and caused him to relent. I have also heard of a legendary conflict over a spite-fence in the valley of Upper Dabbar, where, it is said, the parties sat immobile for *three years*, sustained by surreptitious nighttime meals and the kind of intense mutual hatred known only by neighbors who share a property line. Another interlocutor I spoke with, an older woman, said that this was a corrupted version of an older tale, altered for believability's sake. In fact, she said, the dispute was *never* resolved. The parties sat immobile until the vegetation grew thick on their laps and shoulders; and if you visit a certain hilltop in Upper Dabbar, you can still see them, two seated figures covered in grass that have now become part of the hill.

BOSSUL

In the city of Bossul, all important questions must be settled by a consensus agreeable to all parties. Although apparently cumbersome, this system has many virtues. The government of Bossul enjoys approval ratings usually seen only in the most tyrannical of dictatorships, and though the city's martial fury has been inflamed many times, it has never actually gone to war, for there have always been one or two heads cool enough to refuse to support it. Alas, every occasion of government is nearly interminable as a result: even the most trivial meeting of the least prestigious committee can drag well into the night; and nothing about the culture or institutions of Bossul does anything to restrain the impulses of busybodies or know-it-alls who have, in every other culture on the planet, driven such consensus-driven systems into the dirt. Yet Bossul's persists, for uncertain reasons.

One, perhaps, might be the custom of Utabani-mo-Kalutabani, which might very roughly be translated into English as "Agreeing To Disagree." When a consensus *cannot* be reached--for instance, in an intractible legal case--a temporary truce may be enacted in the form of Utabani-mo-Kalutabani. In short, each side continues to live their life, pretending that they have won. Thus, from time to time, you may explore the city of Bossul and find such oddities as two different families, each on the opposite side of an inheritance dispute, living in the same apartment and pretending the other does not exist. You may find an employee, who has sued for wrongful termination, coming to work every day at a company that insists she does not work there. You may even, on occasion, find someone walking the street as a free man, whom the police insist that they currently have in their custody.

It is a strange custom, and one cannot help but wonder if it is of any practical use at all.

MOZICK

Mozick is a small island in the Hraspedain Sea, rainy in winter but temperate in summer, which like Gnkai has a deep respect for the usages of its past. In Mozick, this is something of a religious conviction, for their society is organized around the pronouncements of the Great Oracle of the Smoky Mirror, who lived and died more than a thousand years ago.

Such was the inerrancy of the Oracle's predictions (it was said), that the Oracle was trusted utterly in settling disputes and prosecuting criminals. Usually, the Oracle heard arguments before pronouncing judgements, but this was considered a formality; many times, a judgement could be given as soon as the parties entered the courtroom. And such was the faith the people had in their Oracle, that they feared what would become of their society when she died; so she set down in an enormous volume a list of judgements--thousands of them--in cases yet to come. They named no parties, nor any details of the case: only Guilty, Not Guilty, Liable for a sum of 400 Mozickian drachmas, etc.

The procedure in Mozick is thus: when cases are brought before the court, the time and order of each filing is carefully noted. Once a year, amid solemn ritual, the Book of Judgements is opened, and a judgement for each case is read off, in order. It is an article of faith in Mozickian law that the judgement is never wrong, though at times the wisdom of the Oracle has, the Mozickians admit, seemed... startling. There was, for instance, the legendary case of Uckmar the Arsonist, caught in the act of burning the Temple of Ytrabel-Sheh; the sentence read aloud before the prosecutors was "Defendant to go free, be compensated 10 drachmas." But, the legal scholars carefully explain, Ytrabel-Sheh was the god of rain, and an unusually wet summer that year had caused the slugs to flourish in Uckmar's garden, devouring his tomatoes. The arson was, perhaps, justified, or considered just compensation; the 10 drachmas were for emotional damages. So the careers of legal scholars in Mozick are made, harmonizing the decisions of the great Oracle with the principles of justice.

A careful accounting of judgements is important to the system--once it was discovered that one judgement had accidentally been used twice, necessitating a redistribution of three years' worth of punishments and fines; fortunately, no death penalties had been handed out. But the Book of Judgements is finite. And one day--a day that soon will be in the expected lifetime of Mozickian lawyers now practicing--those judgements will run out. What does this portend? Will Mozick be conquered? Sink beneath the sea? Will--as some quietly hope--the Oracle return? No one knows. But each year sees more of the judgements used up than the last, and soon the book will be empty.

#tanadrin's fiction #gratuitous worldbuilding #nonsense

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paulinedorchester · 3 years

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Hodgson, Vere. Few Eggs and No Oranges: A Diary Showing How Unimportant People in London and Birmingham Lived Through the War Years 1940-1945, Written in the Notting Hill Area of London. London: Dennis Dobson, 1976. Reprint (as Few Eggs and No Oranges: The Diaries of Vere Hodgson 1940-45), with a new preface by Jenny Hartley, London: Persephone Books, 1999.

Winifred Vere Hodgson (1901-1979) was born in Edgbaston, Birmingham, into what seem to have been shabby-genteel circumstances. On the one hand, after her father’s death in 1907 her mother was obliged to run the family home as a boarding house in order to make ends meet; on the other, she was educated at King Edward VI High School for Girls before reading history at the University of Birmingham. She was a niece of Thomas Vere Hodgson, the marine biologist on the H.M.S. Discovery during its voyage of 1904-6.

After graduating, she taught for several years at – wait for it – L’Istituto Statale della Ss. Annunziata, Florence, Italy, where – wait for it again – Edda Mussolini was among her pupils, and then for several more years at schools in (apparently – I’m a bit confused about this) Folkestone and Wimbledon. Deciding on a complete change, in 1935 she answered a “positions available” advertisement placed by a philanthropic body. Thus began her career as a social welfare worker, which seems to have been deemed important enough to have kept her from conscription during the war.

The organization for which Hodgson worked, the Greater World Christian Spiritualist Association, was located at 3 Lansdowne Road – still standing, this building was referred to at that time as The Sanctuary – and served primarily the Notting Hill and Holland Park areas, both of which seem to have been pretty down-at-heel at the time. They operated a night shelter for homeless women and gave grants of money and needed goods to the poor. (The Greater World, as its staff called it, doesn’t seem to me to fit the definition of a cult, so I’ll refrain from making any value judgements; you can read more about it here and here. It is still active.)

Hodgson’s job involved a good deal of secretarial and clerical work, but she also worked directly with the association’s beneficiaries as well as making nice with its benefactors. She often spent nights at The Sanctuary, either to be present for the women sheltering there or, once the war began, to take her turn as a fire-watcher. Although in her diary she always expresses gratitude for any free time she had, the job clearly brought her a great deal of satisfaction:

Went to see one of my poor old souls today. She has been getting a bit of chair-mending to do, and was better. She dreads the winter – as last year she was compelled to beg in the streets; but now we shall help her. The dread of complete destitution is terrible.

Like Clara Milburn, another wartime diarist whose output was published in the 1970s, Hodgson wasn’t writing primarily for her own benefit. Mrs. Milburn kept her diary with an eye to creating a record of the home front for her son, Alan, an officer in the British Expeditionary Force who was taken prisoner in Belgium in 1940. Miss Hodgson initially wrote for a cousin, Lucy Hodgson, who when the war began was in England on sabbatical from her job as an education officer in what was then known – to some people, at least – as Northern Rhodesia, and returned there in the Spring of 1940 “with grave misgivings,” according to Vere Hodgson’s introduction to the book.

Hodgson began sending installments of the diary to Lucy, who returned them to her and also sent parcels of cheese, tea, and other rationed foods. At some point Vere began mailing the pages to a round-robin of friends and relations, the last of whom would then send them on to Africa. (Amazingly, only one installment went missing.) Another thing that Hodgson’s diary has in common with Milburn’s is that she didn’t actually use printed diaries, allowing her to write very long entries at times.

The diary first came to public attention when Hodgson answered another advertisement, this one from the journalist Leonard Mosely, who was looking for first-hand accounts of life in wartime London as source material for his 1971 book Backs to the Wall (which is clearly something that I need to read). He quoted her entries for September 3rd, 1939, and May 7th, 1940. This resulted in a request from the publisher Dennis Dobson that Hodgson prepare an edition of her wartime diary as a whole. According to a publisher’s note in the Persephone reprint, “This she did, cutting by about three-quarters and editing substantially.” Since the reprint runs to 590 pages, one has to wonder what the original was like!

Few Eggs and No Oranges begins on June 25th, 1940, with the announcement that “Last night at about 1 a.m. we had the first raid of the war on London.” Air raids were at the very center of Hodgson’s war. She details, blow by blow, each and every raid and alert that she experienced. Indeed, she offers so much granular information on raids – where bombs fell, how many people were killed, etc. – and other topics that British newspapers weren’t permitted to discuss in any detail that it’s a wonder that the diary was never censored on its way out of the country. (At one point she reports that the censor returned to her a letter that she’d sent to a friend in Canada, so clearly this was something that really did happen! At the same time, she records many major events of the war all over the globe, seeming to assume that Lucy won’t have heard or read about them and leaving me wondering whether Northern Rhodesia can really have been that isolated by 1939.) Her preoccupation may have had something to do with the fact that she always found herself living on a building’s topmost floor: when the war began she was renting a room in a boarding house at 56 Ladbroke Road; in October, 1941 to her great delight, she moved to a “flatlet” across the street at 79 Ladbroke Road, the process of furnishing which she recounts with relish. Among other advantages, this allowed her to shelter friends who needed it: one of her friends was bombed out three times over the course of the war. To be sure, Hodgson did develop a good deal of sang-froid: “Very blitzy indeed last night,” she remarks off-handedly on January 10th, 1941.

When bombs weren’t falling, Hodgson simply recorded everyday life, often hilariously:

Spoke my mind to the cat. It is disgraceful that all the Cats have joined some sort of Pacifist Organization. To keep a cat in these awful days of food scarcity, and then have to catch the mice yourself, is a bit thick. I explained this to our animal.

As you might guess from the book’s title, food was another of Hodgson’s central preoccupations. There seem to be two conflicting narratives about food rationing in the U.K. during and after World War II. One is that pre-war Britons were overfed on a fatty, starchy diet, and that the nation’s overall health improved as a result of rationing. The other is that rationing was not only damaging to the nation’s morale, but led to widespread borderline malnutrition. Hodgson was inclined to the latter view. She repeatedly details all of the edibles she’s having to do without (fresh fruit was a major lack), either because they’re simply unavailable or, in the case of unrationed goods, because their prices have skyrocketed. On the other hand, she takes great joy in her own and other people’s ability to make whatever food could be had go further. (She writes about her Auntie Nell’s jam-making activities with obvious pride.) And whenever she had a windfall she was happy to share it.

And about those windfalls: Hodgson gleefully records each of the “gifts” of extra food she received from retailers – which included oranges that only children were supposed to get – and items bought from roadside vendors on trips out of London. It’s really quite shocking how common fiddling the system seems to have been, and how unrepentant people were about doing it:

Went for my bacon ration and while he was cutting it had a word with the man about the Cubic Inch of Cheese. He got rid of the other customers and then whispered, ‘Wait a mo’.’ I found half a pound of cheese being thrust into my bag with great secrecy and speed!

Then going to the Dairy for my butter ration I was given four eggs and a quarter of cheese!

Despite the housing and food problems she and her friends and neighbors had, Hodgson seems to have enjoyed a lively social life throughout the war, with neighbors, co-workers, former pupils, visiting relatives, and complete strangers she encountered over lunch at the Mercury Café. She saw plays at the Mercury Theatre and wrote about them as well as the films she saw. (She seems to have had no objection to American adaptations of British literature – How Green Was My Valley was a favorite – but did complain that American films were too fast-paced for her liking.)

Hodgson’s answer to the iconic question “Is Your Journey Really Necessary?” was nearly always an emphatic “Yes!” Throughout the war she made frequent trips to Birmingham to see her mother and sister (there, too, she recounted air raids and the damage they caused); to Brede, Sussex, where two more aunts lived; and occasionally to other places in search of fresh air, quiet, and a change of pace. Although she makes note of the bad travelling conditions that she often endured, she almost always persevered.

Her politics are difficult to pin down. She idolized Winston Churchill (“The bravest of us all!”), even though his policies led to the internment of a close friend, and on weekdays she read The Daily Telegraph. But on Sundays she read The Observer and The People, and once Germany invaded the Soviet Union she became a great fan of the Russians. Hodgson was also enthusiastic about Americans: she expresses equal admiration for Roosevelt and his 1940 opponent, Wendell Wilkie, and remarked that “Really the Americans seem to give the best Postscripts,” after hearing one from Dorothy Thompson in August 1941. (She seems never to have actually met any Americans, however.)

On religion, too, she is very vague. She greatly admired the altruism and sheer energy of Winifred Moyes, the founder of the Greater World Christian Spiritualist Association, and at least in the published version of her diary she never criticizes Moyes’s Spiritualist “meetings,” but neither does she ever seem to have attended one. She appears to have been only an occasional church-goer, more often listening to broadcast services. However, she did regularly read her horoscope, as well as Edward Lyndoe’s predictions in The People, and was irritated by a Mass-Observation report that disapproved of the finding that 40% of the British public had some degree of interest in astrology.

A couple of aspects of Few Eggs and No Oranges did make me uncomfortable. One is Hodgson’s enthusiasm for what could be called “air-raid tourism”: as soon as possible after learning where bombs had fallen during a recent raid she went to have a look at the damage, telling her readers about what she saw. This seems to have been a popular pastime, as she rarely seems to have been alone in her rubbernecking. People probably wanted to be reassured that others were worse off than they were, which is understandable but doesn’t make the behavior any less creepy.

And then there are the bits that brought me right up against the limits of my Anglophilia. On several occasions Hodgson mentions off-handedly, and for no apparent reason, that someone she encounters is Jewish: “Met Ivy [Croucher, an actress and elocution teacher; she’s the one who was made homeless three times] coming back from her lunch at the Grosvenor with her Jewish pupil.” Later, during a visit to Birmingham, she notes that she “got four [oranges] from a Jewish trader by spinning him a yarn.”

What exactly is the point? Did she enjoy inducing the produce vendor into actions that could easily have landed him in court? How did she even know that either of these people were Jewish? The distinctive dress of those now known in the U.K. as the strictly Orthodox would have been a rare sight at the time, especially away from London; and if Crompton’s pupil was eating at the Grosvenor Hotel, as is implied, then he or she can hardly have been Orthodox at all. And then there’s this:

Went to see The [Great] Dictator today. How I enjoyed it! Superb satire! For all its tomfoolery written with a profundity of serious purpose. The speeches of Hynkel, half-German, half-English, are there. People who understood German were even more convulsed than I was. ... The palace scenes, where Hynkel did not waste a moment, were all in the spirit of German thoroughness. But Mussolini in real life does not smile so much. All done by an East End Jew! [emphasis added]

One hardly knows what to say — other than “Wrong on both counts, sweetheart.”

When Persephone republishes a book, they don’t simply reprint it from the original, but set it into type anew. (Their reprint of Mollie Panter-Downes’s London War Notes 1939-1945 features a row of tiny U.S. flags at the top of each even-numbered page and a corresponding row of British flags on each odd-numbered one.) The original Few Eggs apparently included illustrations that aren’t in the reprint. All we get is a hand-drawn map of Notting Hill and Holland Park; while beautiful to look at, it’s reproduced here on such a small scale as to make it essentially useless. I’m slightly sorry that I didn’t try to find a used copy of the original publication.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed reading Few Eggs and No Oranges, and recommend it to anyone who’s looking for a (very long) first-hand account of the British home front.

#world war II #u.k. home front #first-hand accounts #diaries #a long post for sunday #the beta post editor is unable to handle a post of this length and complexity

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terramythos · 3 years

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TerraMythos' 2020 Reading Challenge - Book 32 of 26

Title: The Siren Depths (2012) (The Books of the Raksura #3)

Author: Martha Wells

Genre/Tags: Fantasy, Adventure, LGBT Protagonist, Third-Person

Rating: 8/10

Date Began: 11/09/2020

Date Finished: 11/21/2020

Moon's past has always been obscure. A winged shapeshifter, he has spent most of his life as a solitary wanderer. He has few memories of his childhood, and only recently found others of his kind-- the Raksura. Now Moon has found a home as first consort to the queen Jade in the Raksuran court of Indigo Cloud.

However, when a neighboring queen recognizes his bloodline, Moon's new life is upended as he's forced to return to a family he doesn't even remember. Seemingly abandoned by Jade and overcome with doubt, Moon has to navigate the complex politics and grave secrets in the court of Opal Night alone. But an old enemy is about to return, threatening every Raksuran court in the Reaches.

The one thing he hadn’t expected to do was miss Indigo Cloud so much. He had been leaving people all his life, to the point where all the turns seemed like an uninterrupted progression of departures, and there had been people he had missed terribly. But this was a never-ending ache in his chest... You’ll get over it, he told himself. You always get over it.

But somehow, this time was different.

Some major spoilers and content warning(s) under the cut.

Content warnings for the book: As always, graphic violence and action. There is a disturbing scene that's... kind of forced cannibalism I guess (I'm not sure how else to describe it). Some sexual content is implied but not graphic. The r*pe plot point from The Cloud Roads is relevant, but is not depicted or described in detail. A romantic relationship with a significant age gap is briefly mentioned (both are consenting adults but it may make some readers uncomfortable).

For the most part, I enjoyed The Siren Depths more than the previous entries. I connected much more strongly to the central conflict, and was pleased to see some deeper character development than in the last two books. This entry also introduces fascinating new settings and characters while exploring some genuinely interesting ideas. It serves as a good parallel to The Cloud Roads, with similar plot beats explored in different ways. I did have one big problem which I will detail further in the review, but let's talk about the good parts first. Moon's conflict in this story, like the rest of the series, has to do with belonging. But The Siren Depths has the advantage of two books of development. From what we know of Moon's past, he sees any home as temporary, and when he's suddenly forced to leave Indigo Cloud (presumably for good), his new attachments and way of life come into question. To some degree, Moon sees this as an inevitable part of his life. Sooner or later, something out of his control will happen and he'll be abandoned. What I found relatable is there's several times Moon knows he is being irrational but still can't stop the negative downward spiral. Like... jeez, just call me out specifically next time! While a depressed protagonist can be a drag to read, I think it really works here because we've grown attached to Moon and know how far he's come. And sure enough, he does get his ass in gear when he realizes this ISN'T like before, and lots of people do care about him. The found vs biological family conflict is interesting as well. I think The Siren Depths does great here because you can see both points of view. Moon always assumed his biological family died, and they assumed the same thing about him. This should be a happy homecoming, but under the circumstances simply isn't. Moon resents being torn from Indigo Cloud because a group of people he barely remembers have a legal claim on him. Opal Night seems strangely hostile until you learn more about its politics and secrets. Even though they're early antagonists, they're not really villains; just a traumatized group of people who see Moon as a missing link from their past. When he's not what the others are expecting, obvious issues ensue, but Moon finds he does care about some of these people, even if it's not really his home. Outside of Moon, several other characters have arcs in this book. While the previous books feature a likeable enough cast, the characters are mostly one dimensional. Not so here; we explore the insecurities and struggles of some of the supporting cast. Jade isn't nearly as self-confident as she appears to be, and grapples with this throughout the book-- for example, wanting to prove to Moon that she is willing to do whatever it takes to get him back. Similarly, Chime's struggle with his involuntary transformation comes to a head here as his strange new powers become relevant again. We see just how bitter he is that he's cut off from his old magical gifts and still holds out hope that they'll return. We even get some indication that while this HAS happened before in Raksuran history, it's incredibly rare. There’s also an interesting hint on what the powers really are, which has some pretty big implications. This is potentially a future plot point, so I’m hoping it gets explored. (Also, I was totally right about Moon/Chime, do I get a prize?)

There are several new characters I found really interesting, namely Malachite and Shade. Malachite (spoiler: Moon's biological mother) is initially presented as the antagonist, and her behavior seems inscrutable. She's a powerful queen who commands respect, yet seems unpredictable and standoffish. All of this starts to make sense as one learns more about her. Turns out unbelievable, extended trauma really fucks with a person. The Fell destroyed her colony, killed her consort and most of her children, and she spent almost a year in full guerilla warfare against them. Yet she adopted the Fell/Raksura crossbreeds and raised them as her own children, demonstrating nothing but indulgent love and kindness towards them. I'm not sure I would be able to do that in her place. In general she's just a huge badass; totally decked out in scars and the first to leap into battle. At least we know where Moon gets it from. Did I say Fell/Raksura crossbreeds? Yup, that plot point is back. Only, it's explored in a different way here. The crossbreeds in The Cloud Roads are terrifying weapons deployed by the Fell. The ones in The Siren Depths, raised in a loving home, are just kind of weirdly pale Raksura. I liked Shade in particular, who we learn is Moon's half brother and serves as an interesting foil. Moon would probably be much more like Shade if the Fell attack on Opal Night never happened. Shade is an earnest and kind (if naïve) man and behaves like none of the Fell we’ve met in the series. I hope we see more of him (and Lithe, the other crossbreed) in future volumes, because I think they're an interesting take on nature vs nurture with the "inherently" evil Fell. Speaking of the Fell, while they themselves haven't changed much, I thought they were more effective villains than in The Cloud Roads. We see their manipulations and twisted views of the world in much more detail. There's a long sequence where much of the main cast is captured by The Fell, and their struggle to survive and potentially escape is harrowing. I also like that Moon isn't their main focus this time, which adds some nuance and perspective to their behavior. They’re also just... creepy as shit. While I do have some issues with the ending of the book, I think the Fell are handled pretty well beforehand.

I'd be remiss to ignore the always excellent worldbuilding in this series. Like in The Serpent Sea, we get to see more Raksuran courts, all of which feel distinct. It’s cool and impressive for a singular fantasy race to have multiple believable factions and societies. The settings in this book are also creative, including a giant half-dead mountain tree, a city carved into a giant statue, and what I can only describe as "Rapture, but make it a solarpunk prison". Wells goes into vivid, loving detail when it comes to the world. That being said, I would like to see more of the sea/sky realms, since this series has largely focused on the earth. The Three Worlds is kind of a misnomer if two of them don't really show up much. Oh well, maybe in future books/stories.

My main complaint, and what drags down the rating, is the ending. It's... underwhelming, confusing, and seems pretty rushed. I'll go into more detail below. *major spoilers for the ending* So... one of the big plot points in both The Cloud Roads and The Siren Depths is that the Fell are crossbreeding with captured Raksura. In The Cloud Roads, this is explained as a ploy to strengthen the Fell with some unique Raksuran abilities; queens can prevent others from shifting, mentors can scry future events, and so on. In The Siren Depths, however, we learn it's not that simple. There's some third party manipulating the Fell and encouraging their actions. The goal is to produce a crossbreed that physically resembles the (unnamed) Fell/Raksura common ancestor for... reasons. We are led to believe the being orchestrating this is in fact an ancient ancestor, though its motives are unknown.

While this feels like a retcon, the discrepancy is acknowledged in the story, and it is explained that the Fell in The Cloud Roads were either lying or those specific ones decided to pursue their own agenda. Which... fine, makes sense based on what we know about them. I'll let it slide. Perhaps it was hinted at earlier and I just don’t remember.

So Moon and the others follow the Fell to the mysterious source, a vast and abandoned underwater city. Soon they find the creature that's been imprisoned there. Turns out it's not the Fell/Raksura ancestor, but something different. I can only describe it as sort of eldritchy, with a vaguely creepy physical form, and the abilities to speak through dead/dying Fell and to create disturbingly realistic illusions. The Fell/Raksuran ancestors trapped it there eons ago, and the only way to free it is the physical presence of a member of the ancestor species (for some reason). Which explains why it has been encouraging the crossbreeding, since their common ancestor is presumably extinct. It's freed from its prison since Shade fits the "ancestor" criteria based on his physical appearance. Then, in the span of literally one chapter, it attacks everyone, chases the characters through the underwater city, gets hit by some water, then promptly melts like the Wicked Witch of the West and dies.

I had a couple problems with this ending. First, the whole Fell crossbreeding conflict with the Raksura is a huge generational trauma thing. Moon has his own horrible experience with them, of course, but it's also a big issue with both Indigo Cloud and Opal Night. Hell, it's the whole reason Moon was separated from his family and lived thirty-some years in exile without knowing what he was. The series literally wouldn't have happened without this conflict. To have everything explained away by "an eldritch wizard did it" is very anticlimactic. I vastly prefer the original explanation.

Second, we know basically nothing about this creature. How was it able to communicate with the Fell (and Chime)? Why was it imprisoned other than being super evil and stuff? Who knows. And yeah, it's possible this will be expanded on later. Except I'm pretty sure that when this book came out, it was the last one planned for the series. The next two books follow a different storyline and came out four years later. So this was probably the only explanation we were ever going to get.

I'm not totally against the concept, but it needed more time and a more interesting/memorable villain for it to work. Introducing all of this in the second to last chapter of (presumably) not only the book but the series, then defeating it with little effort, feels unsatisfying. Hell, there’s more time dedicated to discovering and exploring its prison than anything involving the creature itself! As it stands, the Fell were much creepier and more memorable bad guys in this book, yet narratively serve as bit players in the end. It just feels off.

Also, a nitpick, but the title of the book is weird. The Siren Depths is obviously referring to this imprisoned being. It's trapped underwater and is calling the Fell to it. But it's never referred to as a siren; I'm not sure that word is used at all in the book. It just seems like an odd choice of title that doesn't really fit the vernacular of the world. Siren has some very specific meanings/connotations in our world that don't translate to The Three Worlds. Not a huge deal, just something I noticed.

*ending spoilers end here*

Despite my issues with the ending, I really enjoyed everything else about the book. It does everything the other books do well while featuring serious improvements. I've heard mixed things about the next two books but plan to go in with an open mind.

#8/10 #taylor reads #2020 reading challenge #BONUS ROUND #*casually posts this a week late*

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sleepykittypaws · 3 years

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The Christmas House

Original Air Date: November 23, 2020 (Hallmark) Where to Watch?: Hallmark will replay it multiple times this season, and for every season in perpetuity

It's impossible to review Hallmark's The Christmas House without noting that this time last year, then-Crown Media CEO Bill Abbott was personally taking phone calls from a SPLC-designated hate group, and pulling a Zola ad showing two brides chastely kissing from his network, at that hate group's behest. The ensuing firestorm of well-earned criticism following Abbott's bad judgement, is, without question, what brought us to today, with Abbott ousted, a woman of color, Wonya Lucas, now at Hallmark's helm, and a still totally G-rated holiday lineup that now regularly features former Hallmark no-gos like, interracial romance and LGBTQ+ inclusion, improving Hallmark's abysmal diversity record, one movie at a time.

So, even though Hallmark had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century, it's still hard not to be at least a little emotional that they're finally joining us here. The bigots are still having online temper tantrums about losing their all-white, all-straight safe space, but Hallmark's holiday ratings are up 7% year-over-year—a significant jump in a world where cable subscriptions are declining by 10-15% annually.

Now, what that progress looks like on a network known for being “clean,” conservative and about as unwilling to take risks as any channel on the planet, is another story. Frequent Hallmark star, and out gay actor, Jonathan Bennett, has been tirelessly talking about The Christmas House, since the day it went into production. And Bennett brings a lot of energy to this ensemble story, written by co-star Robert Buckley, of a family getting together to decorate their home one more time before it's sold.

Buckley and Bennett play the sons of Sharon Lawrence and Treat Williams, a recently retired couple struggling with that fundamental shift in their relationship. Buckley is the star of a ridiculous court show, Handsome Justice, of which we luckily get to see a clip, and Bennett, a baker, and his husband, played by Brad Harder, are waiting to hear about an adoption, after several previous disappointments.

Bennett and Buckley bring more humor than is normal for Hallmark to their portrayal of loving, competitive brothers, who clearly enjoy ribbing each other.

How conservative was past hallmark, you ask? Well, that Buckley's girl-next-door love interest is divorced, not widowed, is still a somewhat shocking twist in that world, as is the fact that both Buckley and Bennett are "allowed" to sport some facial scruff, rather than be clean shaven. Oh, and that the family next door is (gasp) Latino, is also something we likely wouldn't have seen in the Hallmark of yore. All of which is just mind-blowing, since those “days of yore” for this TV network were [checks notes]…2019, not 1968.

Lawrence and Williams are believable as a long term couple, and their life-change struggle to re-center their relationship feels real, but the way it's revealed is almost as anti-climactic as its resolution. The movie laid very unsubtle hints along the way—all storytelling progress aside, Hallmark movies are still written so you can half watch and not a miss a thing, allowing folks to join 20 minutes in, or do the dishes and come back without being confused—that Williams and Lawrence's wanting to have "one last Christmas" was about more than just downsizing in retirement.

When Lawrence told the story of the clearly-actually-brand-new-and-from-Homegoods Santa pot, and what it meant to her, I thought Williams was going to later accidentally break Checkov's sentimental teapot and, in her anger, Lawrence would blurt out something about that's why they were separating, shocking their grown sons.

And, honestly, as predictable as that would have been, it would probably have had more impact than what did happen…Lawrence just casually telling Buckley while stringing lights, and then nobody really mentioning it again, excepting oblique references during a single conversation between the brothers, and then Lawrence just announces at breakfast that they're not doing that after all.

Definitely feels like Hallmark's aversion to conflict in its stories is one of those provisions that is still firmly in place. (We saw a similar unwillingness to commit to actual marital difficulties, despite that being the central plot point, in Cranberry Christmas.)

Which is too bad, because Lawrence and Williams being much better than the actors usually used for these parent roles, could have handled a more realistic story well, and brought some real emotional beats to the movie.

As expected, Buckley's romance with Ana Ayora was the definite A-plot here, but why did their memory lane rekindling catalyst have to be close-up magic, the worst of all entertainment options? Was there no mime troop they could have been teenage members of? When it comes to magic, and jazz, I'm like Indiana Jones and snakes…Why'd it have to be magic?

Also, no way that 29-year-old guy they have playing "teenage" Mike grows up to be Robert Buckley. Nope! They definitely had to soft focus all the mostly unnecessary flashback scenes so that those actors, easily less than a decade younger than our leads, didn't quite look their age.

And, c'mon, Buckley, who, again, is the star of his own TV show, gives the love of his life a necklace he bought…in high school? For real? I'm surprised we couldn't see her neck turn green in real time. At least get a gal a little upgrade. Sheesh!

The whole rival real estate agent thing went nowhere. And what was that subplot even supposed to be about? Would have much rather seen a scene from the Handsome Justice episode where Buckley's character defended a dog accused of murder, than that whole waste of time.

On the other hand, loved the Grift body spray mentions, and so glad we go to see that ad. Hallmark doesn't do subtle—"But will they get it?" is basically the network's motto—but this is one case of subtext just being text that worked.

Oh and, how did his parents buy a house on the Hudson river just by selling a nice, but fairly average, suburban home? Sure, they said it was a fixer upper, but anything on the water is gonna be way more pricey than where they were, and you've still got to have the cash to do the fixing. Also, you know the old adage about how nothing soothes a struggling marriage like a whole house renovation project, amirite?

Speaking of money…Why didn't Buckley just buy his folks the house right away if he didn't want to see it go? I mean, even if he's only a mid-level TV star, this wasn't some extravegent manse, and certainly wouldn't be an unusual thing for a well-off child to do for their middle-class parents. Why all the rigamarole with the weird guy and the rescinded offer? And, like, what was that all about? So many stories I'd have rather seen from this talented cast than some of the filler we actually got.

Harder didn't get nearly enough to do, but he and Bennett had decent chemistry and they got most of the best lines. The joke about "Will we decorate like this for our kids," and Bennett's emphatic, "No," cut the tension of an emotional scene well, with perfect timing, making it actually, laugh out loud funny—a Hallmark rarity. And when Harder appears in doorway after hearing from the adoption agency, and Bennett knows just by looking at his face what the call said, I got emotional.

That all the couples in this one got to kiss, including Bennett and Harder, is important. With the specter of last year's Zola debacle absolutely lingering over the entire movie, it's hard to think of a better, actual example of #LoveWins, than that moment.

I also teared up when we saw Bennett and Harder's family at the end, not only because it was a long overdue Hallmark milestone, but also because Harder's real-life son, Kael, played he and Bennett's on-screen adopted child, and is just so stinking cute.

Am I giving this bonus points for finally having an LGBTQ+ storyline, even if it was pretty far from the foreground? For sure. But Buckley and Bennett also brought humor and heart to this one, of a variety not usually found on Hallmark, and Lawrence and Williams also upped the ante on the quality here. Notable that Hallmark also sprung for two actual, name-brand holiday songs, so they were willing to spend a little bit of extra cash on this effort, which says more about their “commitment to diversity” than years of empty promises ever did.

Would have liked House even more, if Hallmark had been brave enough to swap the storylines; Bennett falling in love the boy next door, and Buckley and his bride waiting to hear about adoption, but barring that, do wish it had been bit more of a true ensemble (i.e. all three love stories had equal weight).

Despite quibbles, I'm still putting this on top of the 2020 Hallmark heap, at least for the moment, because I laughed, I cried and I felt good about the progress that has been made, no matter how long overdue it is.

As I've said so many times, representation really does matter, particularly on a channel like Hallmark, which caters to exactly the audience that most needs to see LGBTQ+ people laughing, living and loving, just like every other family.

Representation really can change lives. It opens hearts and minds. It can help those struggling within themselves feel seen and worthy. Really can not underestimate how transformative these normalizing glimpses can be, particularly for a network like Hallmark, with a large "conservative" audience.

"Conservative" is in quotes, because there's nothing genuinely conservative about human rights, and respect for those unlike you. Empathy and acceptance for others should be a baseline standard for living in a society—not a political statement.

No one has the right to deny someone else's humanity, and someone's choice to hold hate in their heart deserves no respect from Hallmark, or society at large. Really hopeful that some kid out there who feels excluded and awful about themself because their family and upbringing has told them everything they're feeling is wrong and sinful, can now see representation like this on their family's safe space TV channel, and know it's going to be OK.

It's a small step, but it's definitely a good one, and I'm really looking forward to the actual lead LGBTQ+ holiday romances coming soon, like Hulu's Happiest Season (Nov. 25), Lifetime's The Christmas Setup (Dec. 12) and Paramount Network's Dashing in December (Dec. 13), and hoping Hallmark joins that club in 2021.

Until then…

Final Judgement: 3 Paws Up

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Best War Movies to Watch: A Complete Streaming Guide

https://ift.tt/32Bbpxh

Sadly, the human race has pretty much never not been at war. We remain an ever violent, combative crew. Hopefully one day that’ll change and we’ll enter an era of unprecedented peace. Until then though, we have the movies!

War might be hell, but war flicks can be pretty great at times! Armed combat and all the other various theaters and forms of battle makes for high-octane drama and gripping backdrops. And that’s pretty much exactly what we are looking for out of our drama films.

What follows is a (mostly) comprehensive list of all the war movies available with a streaming subscription on the major streaming services. If you’re interested in paying per movie, options like Amazon, Google Play and YouTube should help broaden the field. Otherwise, scroll below because the films here are all free with a log-in subscription to Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, or HBO Max.

‘71

Available on: Hulu (US), Amazon Prime Video (UK)

An underrated British thriller from the last decade, ’71 turns “the Troubles” in Ireland into a pseudo-horror movie. At a mere 99 minutes, this is lean, economical filmmaking with a barebones premise about a British solider (Jack O’Connell) who gets separated from his unit during a Belfast riot in 1971—the height of British-Irish tension. His plight to survive the night is riveting filmmaking and a grim look back to still fresh nightmares.

The African Queen

Available on: Amazon Prime Video (purchase only in UK)

An unlikely war movie at first glance, The African Queen is very much the story of two middle-aged people caught up in the chaos of the First World War. It’s also a crackling adventure yarn about autumn romance between a drunken river boat captain (Humphrey Bogart) and a Christian missionary (Katharine Hepburn) who’s brother was just killed by Germans in colonial Africa. Both set out to get down the river, and away from the Germans’ reach, in this charming John Huston classic with still stunning location photography.

The Alamo

Available on: Hulu

As an ironically little remembered version of the Alamo siege from director John Lee Hancock, The Alamo (2004) is still the best film version of these events. With a refreshing eye for historical authenticity instead of Texan mythmaking, the movie unpacks the lives of David Crockett (Billy Bob Thornton), James Bowie (Jason Patric), and William Travis (Patrick Wilson) with a warts and all approach. It also relays the events of the battle in its actual context at night, and in grim chaos, and gives needed attention to the overlooked contributions of the Tejanos to Texan independence.

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But most significantly, it has a bittersweet soul as expressed in Carter Burwell’s score, which is at its most beautiful when Crockett climbs a parapet to serenade both sides of the battlefield with his fiddle.

A Bridge Too Far

Available on: Netflix (US Only)

The last of its kind, A Bridge Too Far is one of those old-fashioned all-star war epics about World War II that came into vogue between the 1950s and ‘70s. But this nearly all-British production is not about one of the Allies’ greatest triumphs, but rather one of their most disappointing defeats: the failure of Operation Market Garden in the Netherlands.

Director Richard Attenborough and screenwriter William Goldman try to squeeze it all in, which will honestly be exhausting to some viewers. For others, seeing a historically accurate (if too lighthearted) rendering of this battle with the likes of Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Gene Hackman, Anthony Hopkins, Ryan O’Neal, Robert Redford, and more will be enough.

Casablanca

Available on: HBO Max

Another Bogie movie where the war is adjacent to the central conflict, Casablanca is the best wartime melodrama ever produced. Some even consider it the greatest American movie for that matter. Actually made during the Second World War, there is a great rush of patriotic idealism and anxious uncertainty about its vision of a seedy Moroccan city that is ostensibly under free French rule, but is not-so-secretly being occupied by the Nazis. There everyone goes to Rick’s, a café run by a disillusioned American (Bogart) who sticks his neck out for nobody.

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But Rick must soon pick up the fight again after an old flame named Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) walks into his gin joint, bringing with her a French husband, a freedom fighter who has the Nazis breathing down his neck. All three are going to make some tough choices, as will complicit French police officer Louis (a marvelous Claud Rains) as the forces of World War II finally start pulling.

Cold Mountain

Available on: HBO Max

An attempt at an old fashioned sweeping wartime epic, Cold Mountain still brings modern historical insight to the oft-mythologized Civil War. The film is about several people from North Carolina’s Appalachian region. Like many Confederate soldiers, particularly from NC, Inman (Jude Law) has no slaves and no real reason to fight for the Southern cause. So after hellish battle, he deserts and attempts to make a sprawling trek back home.

Elsewhere, however, his sweetheart Ada (Nicole Kidman) must make hard decisions of her own with the leering eye of the Home Guard peeking over her shoulder, especially as word of Inman’s desertion reaches the mountains. An odyssey of the Civil War from the vantage of the impoverished it rolled over, Cold Mountain is a refreshing melodrama.

Da 5 Bloods

Available on: Netflix

Spike Lee’s latest joint is also one that opened up wounds from the Vietnam War that never really healed. Set more in the 2010s than 1960s, Da 5 Bloods follows four Black veterans who’ve ostensibly returned to Vietnam to find the remains of their fallen brother (Chadwick Boseman in one of his final roles). But they’re also here to reclaim gold that was stolen back in ’69.

Something of a heist movie, Lee mixes genres yet never loses sight about the anguish of those who fought in a war, and the legacy it leaves even decades and generations later.

The Dirty Dozen

Available on: HBO Max

Even if you haven’t seen Robert Aldrich’s epic 1967 adventure, the term “dirty dozen” and the basic premise of the movie have found their way into popular culture over the decades and influenced recent movies like Suicide Squad.

A grizzled (as if there’s any other kind) Lee Marvin leads a team of prisoners–including Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, Jim Brown, John Cassavetes, George Kennedy, Telly Savalas, Donald Sutherland and more–on a suicide mission during World War II, with full pardons as their reward if they survive. The results are explosive and, at the time of release, controversially violent. They also make for one of the great war movies of the era.

Enemy at the Gates

Available on: Netflix, Amazon (US Only)

Sniper versus sniper; eagle versus eagle. That is the basic appeal of Enemy at the Gates, the rare Hollywood World War II drama where America is not even present. Rather this is a film about the war of attrition between the German and Russian forces at the Battle of Stalingrad, the nightmarish conflict which began turning the tide against the Third Reich. The movie features an all-star cast, including Jude Law, Ed Harris, Rachel Weisz, and Bob Hoskins, but it’s the chilly environs of hell on earth which make this worthwhile.

Five Came Back

Available on: Netflix

A film told in three parts, Five Came Back tracks the singular, and now fairly astonishing, choices made by five A-list Hollywood directors: John Ford, Frank Capra, George Stevens, John Huston, and William Wyler. They all chose to leave Hollywood either at the peak of their careers, or at the beginning of it, to make films about the Second World War. Each ultimately served as an officer, and several were in the actual thick of combat to capture war footage (and propaganda) for the first time in history. It was a patriotic and revealing choice then and now, and it’s examined with insight by the likes of Mark Harris and Steven Spielberg here.

Flags of Our Fathers

Available on: HBO Max

Not as good as director Clint Eastwood’s companion film told from the Japanese perspective, Letters from Iwo Jima, Flags of Our Fathers is nonetheless a worthwhile film. A rather skeptical look at the lives of American marines who were turned into an inaccurate legend by the U.S. military when they were photographed raising the American flag above the sands of Iwo Jima, the picture tracks the home lives of soldiers who did their job only too well and were then asked to return home as glorified heroes… and then live an ordinary American life.

The Four Feathers

Available on: HBO Max

One of the great British adventure films of the pre-war era, The Four Feathers is director Zoltan Korda’s sweeping reimagining of the A.E.W. Mason novel. Set during Britain’s colonial wars in Egypt and Sudan during 1882, the film tracks an English officer who only took a commission in the military to honor his family’s ancient war record. However, when the call of war comes, he fears he would not do his duty in battle and resigns his service… so his three friends and even a fiancée give him four white feathers: white for cowardice.

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To redeem himself, he travels to Sudan and helps the British cause while posing as a local. Filmed on actual African locations and in glorious Technicolor at a time when American movies were afraid to leave California, The Four Feathers is a classic (and politically incorrect) throwback.

Gallipoli

Available on: Amazon

Australian filmmaker Peter Weir has directed just 13 films, but probably 10 of them are classics, and this 1981 drama is one of them. A 25-year-old Mel Gibson stars as one of several young men who enlist in the Australian Army during the First World War. They eventually find themselves on the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey, site of a costly and lengthy battle that ended in defeat, but marked a turning point for Australia’s perception of itself and its place in the world and a seemingly disinterested British Empire. It’s a harrowing tale about the loss of innocence, national character, and the price of war for both.

Glory

Available on: Netflix (US Only)

Arguably the greatest film ever made about the American Civil War, Edward Zwick’s Glory continues to shine like one gallant rush. Based on the lives of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry regiment, the film tracks the hard fight for respect—and freedom—endured by the first African American regiment in U.S. history.

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With a still crackling ensemble that includes Morgan Freeman, Matthew Broderick, Andre Braugher, and Denzel Washington in his first Oscar winning role, the movie both mythologizes and humanizes the 54th’s struggle as the American struggle. It also soars with James Horner’s most transcendent and ethereal musical score.

The Great Dictator

Available on: HBO Max

The rare comedy on this list, The Great Dictator was a film of political courage by writer-director-producer-and-star Charlie Chaplin. Filmed in 1940 when much of the world was already at war, but the United States was not, this Hollywood film made a farce out of the hatred and fascism of the Third Reich, with Adolf Hitler being especially skewered.

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In the film, Chaplin plays both a fictional barber and Hitler-like dictator who switch places in a Prince and the Pauper styled mix-up. Chaplin thus makes a still hilarious deconstruction of Hitler’s madness and insecurities at a time when most Hollywood studios chose to pretend there wasn’t a war going on. The film also concludes in one of the greatest anti-war speeches in cinema history.

Hacksaw Ridge

Available on: HBO Max, Amazon Prime Video UK

The rare film that is told in merely two acts, director Mel Gibson’s World War II drama is fairly underrated. The film follows the remarkable true story of Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield), an unlikely U.S. Army corporal since he was also a conscientious objector who refused to hold a gun. Nearly court-martialed for his defiance of orders, as a medic Doss insisted he could serve his country well by saving lives on the battlefield. He got his chance at the Battle of Okinawa when he pulled 75 lives out of the carnage, which is captured in grisly detail by Gibson. Likely the bloodiest WWII movie since Saving Private Ryan, Hacksaw Ridge is also one of the best.

Hamburger Hill

Available on: Amazon Prime Video (US Only)

This 1987 film set during the Vietnam War recounts one specific mission: a 1969 assault by the U.S. Army’s 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry, 101st Airborne Division, known as the “Screaming Eagles,” on a well-fortified North Vietnamese position near the Laotian border. Dylan McDermott, Don Cheadle, Courtney B. Vance, and Steven Weber all make early career appearances in the film as young soldiers thrust into a situation where victory almost seems more like defeat—as good a metaphor for the Vietnam conflict as any.

Hostiles

Available on: Netflix

Director Scott Cooper did the rare thing with Hostiles: He looked back at American history with nuance and sincere contemplation. This film is ostensibly about a U.S. Cavalry officer on his final mission, which is to escort a family of Native Americans across the last remnants of American frontier. But when that officer (Christian Bale) knows he’s escorting the dying Cheyenne war chief (Wes Studi) who led the doomed side of American Indians in previous conflicts—and alongside a woman (Rosamund Pike) who just lost her family to Indian attacks—the ghosts of America’s sins and recriminations walk with them.

The Hurt Locker

Available on: Hulu, Netflix UK

The film which won Kathryn Bigelow the Oscar for Best Director, The Hurt Locker is the first great movie about the War on Terror in the 21st century. Boiling down the madness of war to being like “a drug” for some soldiers, the film essays the high-stake tension—and adrenaline—of being an officer in the Army’s bomb squad who is responsible for disarming IEDs, bomb vests, and other hidden weapons of death.

It’s terrifying… and exhilarating as personified by Jeremy Renner’s addicted Staff Sgt. William James. Also with a career-making performance by Anthony Mackie and a pseudo-journalistic script by Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker gets under your skin.

Platoon

Available on: Netflix, Amazon Prime Video (US Only)

There were plenty of Vietnam War movies before Oliver Stone’s Platoon, but what shook audiences in 1986 is that this was the first time one was made by a Vietnam veteran. Not that Stone didn’t take liberties: He makes his soldier’s eye view of the generation-defining conflict a fever dream of America’s darkest moments in the shit.

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But his lament for the soldier also brought a renewed sense of sorrow and regret to how veterans were treated in the aftermath. With a heartbreaking supporting performance by Willem Dafoe, whose demise in the film has become iconic, there’s a reason for many this remains the only Vietnam War movie of consequence.

Red Tails

Available on: HBO Max

Here is executive producer George Lucas and director Anthony Hemingway’s well-meaning but so-so aerial war epic about the Tuskegee Airmen. The real-life Black pilots, mechanics, bombardiers, and more made up a segregated flank of African American airmen (as well as flyers from Haiti, Trinidad, and other Caribbean nations) in World War II. This film attempts to honor them with a cast that includes Terrence Howard, David Oyelowo, Nate Parker, and Cuba Gooding Jr.

War Machine

Available on: Netflix

David Michod (Animal Kingdom) wrote and directed this Netflix satire set during the ongoing war in Afghanistan, eight years after the 9/11 attacks. Brad Pitt stars as four-star general Glen McMahon (loosely based on real-life general Stanley McChrystal), whose bleak assessment of the situation on the ground puts him at odds with President Obama and others. Like other less-than-reverent films before it, War Machine is interested in the sheer insanity of war: doing the same thing over and over again while hoping for a different outcome.

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kaialone · 4 years

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Spirit Tracks Translation Comparison: Zelda’s Body Taken

This will be a comparison of the original Japanese version and the US English localized version.

Specifically, this will cover the cutscenes in which Princess Zelda’s body ends up being stolen.

You can also watch these cutscenes for yourself in English and Japanese. If you want, you can check out the EU English version, too.

For the comparison, the usual points apply:

Bolded is the original Japanese text, for the reference.

Bolded and italicized is my translation.

Italicized is the official NOA translation.

A (number) indicates that I have a specific comment to make on that part in the translation notes.

As you read this, please keep in mind that with translations like these, it’s important not to focus on the exact literal wordings, since there is no single “correct answer” when it comes to translations.

Rather than that, consider the actual information that is being conveyed, in which way, and why.

Cirokuni = Alfonzo, Kimaroki = Cole, Dego = Byrne

After Link’s Train Derails:

Alfonzo:

姫さまあれを！

Your Highness, look over there!

Your Highness! Look over there!

Zelda:

…なんということでしょ一刻も早くあの塔に行かないと

...My goodness, we have to reach that tower as soon as possible.

What's happening to the Tower of Spirits?

Cole:

…困りますねぇ姫さまお忍びで散歩などされては…

...Now this just will not do, Your Highness. Going out for a little secret stroll like that...

Out for a leisurely stroll, Your Highness?

Tsk, tsk, tsk! You know that's not allowed!

Zelda:

大臣?

Minister?

Allowed by who? You, Chancellor Cole?

Cole:

ガキはおとなしく城で王様ごっこしてりゃいいんだよ!!

You brat should've just kept playing pretend-monarch at the castle like a good girl!!

Who else? Who do you think is really in charge?

Zelda, Link and Alfonzo:

…

Cole:

我が名はキマロキ…

長い間人間の振りをしていたので肩がこりましたよ

My name is Kimaroki...

Pretending to be human for so long has taken its toll on me. (1)

My goodness, pretending to be human is exhausting.

Who knew that chancellor was just another word...

for royal babysitter?!

Cole:

まあもう少し大臣でいるつもりだったのですが…

予定を早めました

Well, I had actually intended to keep being the minister for a while longer, but...

We ended up going ahead of schedule.

I had meant to keep up the ruse a bit longer.

Cole:

姫さまが悪いのですよ ? 余計なことをかぎ回るから

The fault is yours, Your Highness, is it not? You and your unnecessary meddling.

But you pushed me to this, Princess.

Cole:

しかもそんな小僧や機関士なんぞに手を借りてまで…

Moreover, you even went as far as to call a mere boy and an engineer to your aid...

Bringing in the boy and the engineer didn't help either.

Zelda:

あなたは… 一体?

What in the world... are you...? (2)

What are you talking about?

Cole:

おぞましき神の遺物…

The relic of that repugnant god...

I'm talking about your infernal meddling!

Cole:

忌まわしい結界が消えうせ今時は満ちた…

Now that this repulsive barrier is vanishing, the time is at hand...

But now that those vile tracks are disappearing,

the time is finally at hand!

Cole:

あと必要なのは…

All we need now is...

Cole:

あなたの… カラダ

Your... b o d y. (3)

A little help--hee hee--from you, Your Highness!

Alfonzo:

何者か知らねえが姫さまに仇なすってんなら…

I dunno who you are, but if you harm Her Highness in any way...

I don't know who these two are, Your Highness.

But with your permission...

Alfonzo:

このシロクニ容赦はしねえぜ？

I, Cirokuni, won't hold anything back against ya.

I'd be happy to teach them some manners.

Cole:

かっかっか… 人間ふぜいが

Ka ka ka... Typical human.

Nyee hee hee hee hee! How gallant! How brave!

How incredibly foolhardy!

Alfonzo:

なめんなよこちとら先々代から王家にお仕えしてんだ

Don't you underestimate me! My folks've been serving the royal family for generations, you know! (4)

Enough out of you!

My family has served the royal house for generations!

Cole:

!… ディーゴ様…

...! Master Dego...

Melodrama bores me.

Byrne, would you kindly dispose of this fool?

Byrne:

この男の言うとおりだ… かなり腕に覚えがあるようだな

It's like this man said... He certainly seems confident in his own strength.

This man speaks the truth, Cole.

His movements are not those of an amateur.

Byrne:

だが私の敵ではない…

But, he's no match for me...

But he is only human.

Alfonzo:

…なあんなって言っただろ？

...I told you not to underestimate me, didn't I?

I told you, I will defend the princess at any cost!

Byrne:

こちらも言ったはずだ我が敵ではないと

And I told you. You are no match for me.

And I told you. You're only human.

Cole:

キキキッさすがディーゴ様！お強に！イカス！

Keekeekee, I expected no less from you, Master Dego! Such strength! Tubular!

Nyee hee hee hee hee!

Oh, Byrne, you do know how to put on a show!

Byrne:

しょせんは人の技だ

あの程度で私の前に立つことはかなわぬ…

That's just the extent of human skill.

One can't hope to face me with something that meager...

It was hardly a fair fight, Cole.

Zelda:

あ… リンク…

Ah... Link...

Help me, Link!

Zelda:

こ来ないでください… それ以上近づかないで…

P-please stay away... Do not come any closer...

No! Don't come any closer!

Cole:

…まあ良いでしょう必要なのは王女の体…

...Ah well, that should be alright. We just need the body of the princess...

Good work, Byrne.

That takes care of the first step of our plan.

Cole:

さあディーゴ様参りましょうくっくっく…

Now, let us depart, Master Dego. Ku ku ku...

Nyee hee hee hee hee! Our work is done here.

Come now, Byrne!

Translation Notes:

What I adapted as “taken its toll on me” more literally translates to “made my shoulder stiff”, but from what I've seen, this is a generic phrase characters sometimes say when they’re exhausted? In any case, I adapted it the way I did because I thought it sounded a bit better. The English version likely did the same thing.

In this line by Zelda it’s not exactly clear if she is just supposed to be saying “What in the world are you...?” or if she means to say “What in the world are you talking about?” but doesn’t finish the line completely. The response from Cole makes the latter seem plausible though, which is probably why the English version went with that.

In Japanese, the word for body is 体/karada, but in this line here Cole drags it out for dramatic effect, saying it syllable by syllable as “ka ra da”, which goes along with the animation in this scene.

Alfonzo uses a somewhat informal word to refer to his family, so I translated it as “my folks” here, in case you were unsure what he meant.

Comparisons & Thoughts:

In this part, we are formally introduced to our main antagonists, as well as the central conflict of the game, which gives us a lot to go over.

Some of the changes to Cole in particular also become more apparent here, so I will start off with those.

A strange difference between versions is when and how we first learn Cole’s name.

In the English version, he was named right when he was introduced, but in Japanese it’s only at this point in the game right here that his name is revealed.

And the way he introduces himself with “My name is Kimaroki...” raises some questions. He’s using a rather dramatic way to say it in Japanese, too.

Since he was the minister, it seems unlikely that Zelda wasn’t aware of what his name was, so why would he need to say it like that?

Perhaps he was only introducing himself to Link and Alfonzo? But that's also kinda unlikely, since he doesn’t really address those two directly, he mostly speaks to Zelda.

Alternatively, this could imply he was actually working at the castle under a fake name, so this moment is him revealing his true name for the first time.

I think this would make the most sense from a story perspective, given how this dialogue flows.

But, we aren’t really given a clear indication of either option, so it’s also possible this was just a result of clunky writing.

Given this, I can understand why the English version changed it up so that Cole was already referred to by name at the castle.

Since it’s not really clear what, if anything, the Japanese version was trying to imply here, it's easier to go with something else that simplifies the issue.

As a fan, I am still interested in the potential implications of the Japanese version here, assuming it was intentional, but the change makes perfect sense from a localization perspective.

In the Japanese version, Cole says “You brat should’ve just kept playing pretend-monarch at the castle like a good girl!!”, when he reveals his true nature.

This calls back to what has been established back at the castle, namely Zelda being more of a figurehead ruler, with seemingly only Cole holding any real authority.

But it also shows us more about how Cole regards Zelda in this version. Whenever he addresses her, he scolds and berates her like one would a misbehaving child.

The English version does include these bits of information, with lines like “Who else? Who do you think is really in charge?“ and “Who knew that chancellor was just another word…for royal babysitter?!”

But I personally feel the Japanese version does it a bit better. It just feels slightly more natural, whereas the English version has Cole spell it out a bit too directly.

It’s not much of a difference right now, but the English version eventually drifts further from the Japanese version’s portrayal of how Cole talks to Zelda.

At this point, we also see more of how Cole’s general characterization has been tweaked in English.

Like I mentioned when he was first introduced, Cole has a formal and technically polite manner of speaking in the Japanese version, even if he is still condescending, of course.

But, that’s only half of it.

He actually has this character quirk where he flip-flops between that formal speaking style, and a very informal style, to the point of being almost crude sometimes.

And it’s not just him being insulting, he genuinely goes to talking more like a goon, no hint of class, not even ironic.

It’s different from the way Alfonzo switches up his speaking style, too. It’s a fairly normal thing to speak differently depending on the social context like Alfonzo does.

I’ve seen Cole’s flip-flopping being compared to the Happy Mask Salesman, who has some memorable outbursts in Majora’s Mask.

But with the Happy Mask Salesman, those are always caused by anger, whereas with Cole they don’t happen every time he’s angry, and can also happen when he’s delighted.

In any case, there is this clearly deliberate duality to Cole’s personality in the Japanese version.

In the English version, this aspect was dropped.

Here, Cole’s speaking style doesn’t really change, it’s always technically formal, but in a smug, more openly insulting manner.

It’s almost like a merging of Cole’s formal and informal sides from the Japanese version, slightly leaning more towards formal.

Compared to other characters, Cole’s lines will also see more rewrites from this point on, usually to make him seem more pompous, toning down how goony he can get during his informal moments.

Which characterization you prefer is up to you, of course, but it's arguably one of the bigger changes when it comes to the characters.

Though this change with Cole here is probably related to the next one I want to talk about.

Something that might have caught your eye is Cole referring to Byrne as “Master Dego” in Japanese.

Specifically, he uses the very respectful suffix 様/-sama when addressing him.

And yes, in the Japanese version, Byrne is presented to us as the leader of this scheme the two of them have going on, while Cole is his underling.

This is reflected by their interactions as well.

You could read them as equals, since Byrne doesn’t give out any orders, but Cole definitely addresses Byrne like one would a superior.

Of course, Cole doesn’t exactly come off as trustworthy, but still.

In English, this dynamic between them is completely turned around, so Cole is now implied to be directly in charge of this duo, with Byrne being an underling who does his bidding.

I’m guessing this is also part of the reason why Cole’s characterization was altered, or perhaps the other way around?

Since Cole is in charge now, he’s portrayed as less goofy, so to speak.

Most of Cole’s dialogue addressing Byrne in this cutscene has also been changed to reflect this change in their dynamic.

In Japanese, Cole acts subservient and flattering to Byrne, to an almost silly degree.

In English, Cole will flatter Byrne too, but in a way like a master would flatter an amusing servant of theirs.

I probably don’t need to go over each line between Cole and Byrne in detail.

But as a quick example, Cole’s reaction to Byrne actually stepping forward is completely different between the versions.

In Japanese, Cole says “…! Master Dego…”

Here, Cole is surprised about Byrne stepping forward like that, and seems a bit nervous, almost like he’s worried Byrne is getting impatient, or something similar.

If you pay attention, you’ll see his animation reflects the tone of this line, too.

But in English, he instead says “Melodrama bores me. Byrne, would you kindly dispose of this fool?”

In this version, Cole continues to be condescending, and dismissively summons Byrne to take care of the situation for him.

This also means that in the English version, Byrne presumably wouldn’t have acted on his own, while in the Japanese version he fought Alfonzo because he himself wanted to.

The latter is more consistent with how we see him act later.

It’s kinda interesting though that Byrne’s own dialogue remains mostly the same, despite these changes.

The way the dynamic between Byrne and Cole was changed between versions really does affect Cole more than it does Byrne. It’s really more how Cole plays off of him, and the implications of that, which are different.

There isn’t much of a direct difference to how Byrne treats Cole in Japanese compared to English. The implications are more those between the lines - Byrne working with a guy who acts more like a bootlicker to him in Japanese, while in English he works with a guy who treats him like a lackey.

One could speculate that the Japanese version of Byrne would have been too prideful to work with someone like the English version of Cole, but we have no way of knowing for sure.

Alright, so in my translation notes I already mentioned that during the line “Your… b o d y”, Cole is slowly dragging out the word 体/karada in Japanese, which goes along with how the camera zooms in on his face.

The English version adapted this with “A little help--hee hee--from you, Your Highness!“, which the last part is dragged out as “Your-High-ness”.

This is a clever adaptation, especially since you need to think outside the box a little here. A literal translation like mine wouldn’t work at all in-game.

Still, maybe they could have gone with something shorter like “your-bo-dy”?

Minor difference, but when Alfonzo steps forward, he directly talks to Cole and Byrne in the Japanese version, but in the English version he is talking about them to Zelda.

This could have been an oversight, or a deliberate change to give Zelda more authority in this part.

If it’s the latter, I’m not sure if it works, since it’s not like Zelda responds anyway, so it doesn’t feel any less like she’s being talked over.

I want to talk about the line “But, he’s no match for me“, because here we got a prominent example of the EU English version actually getting it wrong by being too literal.

In actual Japanese, Byrne says “だが私の敵ではない”/“Daga watashi no teki dewanai“, which literally translates to “But, he’s not my enemy”, and the EU version went with that.

However, that was a bad call on their part.

Because “He’s not my enemy” is a Japanese figure of speech which means “He’s no match for me”. As in, not being strong enough to even be considered an enemy.

Therefore it should not be translated literally like that.

The US English version adapts this line as “But he is only human”.

This makes use of information Byrne originally gives after the battle in Japanese: “That’s just the extent of human skill. One can’t hope to face me with something that meager…”

In turn, that bit is then streamlined in English as: “It was hardly a fair fight, Cole.“

I am impressed by the way they spread around the information they needed to convey in a manner that allowed them to use less text here.

But it also changes up the flow of this scene, as in the Japanese version, we don’t get the confirmation that Byrne is not human until after Alfonzo is beaten by him.

It’s an easy guess of course, but there is that initial bit of tension.

As Alfonzo and Byrne fight, Alfonzo’s dialogue is changed from “ …I told you not to underestimate me, didn’t I?“ to “I told you, I will defend the princess at any cost!”, kinda shifting the topic of this conversation, which was originally about pitting their strength against each other.

This is notable because Alfonzo has been built up for the audience as being one of the strongest people in the land.

And without confirmation that Byrne is not human, there is this illusion of hope that maybe Alfonzo can match his strength.

The power of regular humans compared to beings of demonic or divine nature is one of the themes of this story, so this fight is part of the audience’s more personal introduction to it.

I do think the English version does a good job of setting this theme up in its own right, it’s just done differently.

And lastly, Cole’s comment after Zelda’s spirit is expelled from her body and flies towards the castle differs between versions:

…Ah well, that should be alright. We just need the body of the princess…

Good work, Byrne.

That takes care of the first step of our plan.

In the Japanese version, Cole acknowledges the fact that he just saw Zelda’s spirit fly away, but brushes it off as being unimportant, openly dismissing Zelda as a possible threat at this point.

But in the English version, that part isn’t mentioned.

I feel this was probably an oversight due to lack of context.

In the actual cutscene, we see Cole watching very closely as Zelda’s spirit emerges and flies away, so his comment follows up on that animation in Japanese.

But translators are rarely able to see the visuals of what they are translating, as they are usually only given the text itself.

And if that was the case here, the translators would have only gotten to see what amounts to Cole saying something along the lines of “That’s alright, we just need the body of the princess”, without any additional context.

If we assume this is what happened, it makes sense that they adapted the line the way they did in the final version.

I don’t know how the translation process was handled in Spirit Tracks, but I do know that with many game translations, you will usually have a first translator doing a more literal, rough translation draft, and then a second translator who rewrites that raw translation into the final text.

And if that second translator is unable to check the Japanese version to clear up any potential confusion, you can end up with even more deviations from the original quite easily.

This is just some possible examples of how various factors can affect text translations in ways the translators themselves have little control over.

Overall, this batch of scenes is interesting when it comes to the localization.

They’re rather faithful for the most part, outside of general slight differences I mentioned previously, like Alfonzo’s speaking style. The dialogue is mostly the same, though.

The biggest difference is really Cole’s characterization and dialogue, particularly in regards to his interactions with other characters.

Especially the flipping of his dynamic with Byrne is a notable change to the story from a character perspective.

But this part is already pretty long, so I won’t dwell on it more than that for now. Feel free to check out the next one!

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