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tdcloud · 2 years

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Vikings and Witches and History--Oh my! [blog#10]

September is here, and good god, where has the year gone? This monthly blog just makes me forcibly cognizant of the passage of time, and I’m not sure that’s a good thing. At least fall is on its way and cool weather along with it—as well as my yearly patreon event! Only one more month until I start rolling out my new novella over there for all patrons. I’ve still got another forty-odd pages left to write, but I’m well on schedule and looking forward to unleashing Carnival, a demonic masquerade fever-dream, onto people. It’s been a blast to write so far, and I think it’ll be even more fun to read.

Consider joining us by pledging at least $1 by October to get access to each chapter as it drops every week. You’ll also get access to so many completed novellas and book-length works from past events and serializations on top of our ongoing serialized work Apotheosis, the prequel to Letifer. The support means the world to me, and the more, the merrier!

For this month’s blog, I’ve decided to continue on in the vein of teasing future works, though in this particular case, it may be a throwback as well as a first look. Those who have kept up with me since my early fanfiction days may recall a story I wrote for a big bang event called Aubade. I’ve always intended to turn it into a full-length book, and I’m happy to report that its time to shine is nigh. To give everyone a refresher—or a sneak peek, if you aren’t familiar with this particular old work—let’s take another look at Aubade, a Norse historical fantasy!

I hope you take note of how I describe this story: Norse historical fantasy. Not romance. Not erotica. That isn’t to say this story doesn’t involve traces of both of those things; Aubade does have a sex scene and there is a main character and what could, in the loosest terms possible, be considered a love interest. Just as I put in the author’s note when I first posted it back in 2016 though, I do not consider Aubade romance. It was always intended to be a treatise of a sort, one commenting on toxic masculinity in Old Norse culture, and in part, our own. It follows the story of Sindri, a male völva, as he finds himself strong-armed into curing a mysterious blight ravaging Jarl Iarund’s lands. For those unaware, a völva is a Norse magic-user, a witch for lack of a better term, but one highly respected within a community and relied upon for matters of wisdom, health, and war. The problems Sindri faces from the get-go are related to his gender—in this culture, magic holds a sacred space, but one reserved only for women. The story begins with him imprisoned, awaiting execution for the crime of wielding magic when it isn’t his domain. In any other world, any other situation, the Jarl would see someone like Sindri drowned in the nearest bog. The only problem is, the blight afflicting his lands is clearly caused by magic, and its targets begin with each village’s völva before spreading to the rest in turn.

Sindri is the only magic-wielder left, and Iarund can’t afford to be picky when his rival—smelling weakness—is all but scratching at his door.

I initially came up with the concept of this work after receiving a bevy of asks from a Norwegian fan on tumblr. She was curious if I’d ever heard of völvas before—specifically about how they were known to perform sex-magic during some of their rituals—and asked if I’d ever consider writing something in a similar vein. At the time, I wasn’t familiar with the term. To be honest, I wasn’t all that familiar with Norse mythology in general, and my history courses only ever touched on Scandinavia in passing, though some of my medieval courses included talk of vikings and their exploits (as well as my Old English class where we translated the eternity of Beowulf into modern English, but that’s neither here nor there). It was an interesting, unique concept and one that invited a lot of research to execute. I adore both of those things, and given I had a big bang event coming up, I found it the perfect prompt for what would, in turn, become the 90 page-long angst-bomb known as Aubade.

And boy, was it angst-y. There are only a few fics I’ve written that have inspired the emotional response Aubade earned me, but even with those existing, Aubade definitely occupies a league of its own just for the sheer amount of comments I got begging me to change the ending whenever I ended up turning it into a full book. So many people wanted this story to be a romance when it just flat-out couldn’t be one. I’m sorry to disappoint them, but it still won’t be one when I throw it on the rewrite block early next year. It’s going to be the next patreon serialization, and it’s going to be just as painful an experience as it was the first go-around, just this time with another five or so chapters and a more impactful final arc. If you’d like to read the old version, go take a gander at my Ao3; it’s still up there, and even though I find it woefully old, bad, and immaturely written, I think it’ll at least serve as a good indicator of the tone and type of story it’ll be. The ending won’t change—that’s a promise. Just the way we get there.

Even with this story set to be as emotionally grueling for me to write as it will be for you guys to read, I can’t help but be excited to dive into it. I’ve attempted some re-reads of it here and there, but every time I try to read it in full, I fail. I just… cringe so badly when I read it now, and it’s not necessarily just from my antiquated writing. Like I said before, I find it very immaturely handled. I know when I posted it that many people enjoyed it, and I have several close friends who have no problem telling me when I’ve fucked something up who, upon first reading it, praised it highly for the way I handled the heavy themes, but… God, I just don’t see it now. I could have kept things subtler. I could have handled things more deftly. A lot of it was just my inexperience showing through, and I think that’s what keeps me looking ahead at what a great story this could be now that I’m older and better equipped to convey the heavy tones it holds. I don’t want people to leave this book wishing things had been more romantic—I want people to close the book and understand the theme I always intended it to have: sometimes, fate has other plans, and sometimes all you can do is go your separate ways. Some people aren’t meant to be together. In another world, in another time, maybe, but right now? Right now, it’s not meant to be. And that’s okay.

This may be the one story I don’t feel bad about giving the ending away for. To be honest, I want people to know how it ends. It can only end, in my mind, this singular way, and the journey really is the important thing. I won’t tell you what all happens in the inbetween, but I want people to know this story doesn’t end well, but it doesn’t end badly either. It’s meant to be bittersweet, and I feel like that’s an ending you don’t see enough in works like these. In so many stories the characters treat one another horribly and still end up together by the time the movie reaches its credit sequence. If there’s one thing watching a lifetime’s worth of straight romances has taught me, it’s that just being hot and involved in a shared crisis is not the bedrock for a long-lasting relationship. Sure, you’ve saved the world, but do you really think you’re going to last longer than a month without the threat of shit exploding gluing you together? Especially after he did like, the worst shit imaginable in the first half of the movie?

I can’t pretend Aubade is like any movie Hollywood’s made, at least to my admittedly thin movie knowledgebase. These issues go beyond a character’s inherent personality flaws. Redemption arcs are all well and good, but when the issues reside on the societal level, there’s only so much you can do, you know? A person can change, but the person they have to be for the world at large isn’t nearly as malleable. Iarund can be a bad guy. I know he can be a better one, but he won’t, because he can’t, and I’m not willing to forgive him enough for what he could be to change the ending to suit a fairytale cliche.

I know I may be in the minority when I willingly embrace bittersweet endings, but I need to see it in my fiction every now and again. Sometimes you need to acknowledge that the world can be unjust and unfair, and that fairytales don’t actually exist to erase the issues we so glaringly see at the beginning of each story we embark on. Seeing a character survive the unjustness and walk away from it, changed but uncowed, disappointed but buoyed by the realization that there’s more for me out there, better things, and I can still move towards them even though it hurts to walk away… That’s a valuable lesson too, in its own way. It’s more realistic, and I hope people will be able to empathize with Sindri throughout this story because of that.

To be honest, it almost feels like kismet, bringing this story out of the vault right now. I sort of feel like a band going through a new marked “phase.” I had my fae phase, my drow phase, and now we’re in the midst of my “tragic lead witch/vampire” phase, though the latter half of that isn’t so much of a quantifiable output as a behind-the-scenes slow-burn that will be paying dividends as soon as these long-ass books are completed. The first half, however, is where Sindri firmly falls. Someone should really start a support group for my severely maligned witch-boys who keep finding themselves in terrible situations with men who aren’t good for them physically or mentally. My editor will likely be the one to lead the charge—they tell me almost weekly how horrible I am/was to Rehan and Thierry. Adding Sindri to the mix won’t make that much of a difference in their tirades.

But anyway, I suppose I’ll take the time now to tell you some more about our two leads. I’m not too sure what else to talk about in regards to this story beyond that—the fic version is available to the public, and if you’re really curious about the overall premise, it’s there for you right now. The characters, at least, have seen development since Aubade was merely fanfiction, not just some shining new names. Sindri, our woebegotten hero, is a male völva, as I said before. We’ll start with him.

The name Sindri means “sparkling,” which I found rather cute, and he came by his trade by learning it from his mother, a well-respected völva who passed away a few years before the start of Aubade. Sindri has been traveling from the moment he could walk, and running from society’s prejudice almost just as long. He’s noticeably foreign-looking. His father was likely a slave from the West. In almost every way, Sindri is “othered,” and when he isn’t being gawked at for that, he’s being maligned for the great power residing with him instead.

Sindri is probably one of the strongest people in the land, even before the plague took the other völva out. The sad thing is, it doesn’t matter. Throughout the story we explore the old Norse concept of “ergi” and how it directly relates to Sindri’s horrible situation. Like I said before, Aubade is a treatise on toxic masculinity within this culture. Back then, the concept of “manliness/masculinity” was paramount. It meant courage both on and off the battlefield, and, ultimately, a willingness to defend one’s honor, even if it resulted in death. There was a social hierarchy to things much as there is now, and well-defined social rings specific groups of people were meant to occupy. A man’s place was on the battlefield, defending hearth and home. A woman’s place was within the home, or in the case of völvas, alongside the battlefields—in many ways, magic was a form of power women could exert without worry, and it was a point of social standing if they were knowledgeable of such things. But only for women.

For a man to occupy a woman’s place was for a man to physically put himself in the position of a woman. For a man to dabble in magic, it was akin to becoming a woman. Debasement into a woman’s role was one of the worst offenses a man could suffer. If it were a willing debasement, that was a crime against society worthy of death.

There are accounts of male völva being drowned in bogs, laden down with sticks to keep them from surfacing so that the men doing the drowning wouldn’t have to touch them. There are accounts from an old saga of a male völva who was beaten and then burned inside a building when a band of warriors caught him practicing magic. To be considered “agyr” (a conjugated form of “ergi”) was just about the worst insult a man could suffer, and it was so great an offense that the accused could challenge the accuser outright and kill him in response to prove that the claim was false. If the claim was found true, it reduced one in society to the level of a woman, or worse. I recall one source specifically stating that it was akin to being viewed as an animal meant only for breeding, and despite what tumblr history posts will try to tell you, homosexuality was not a well-accepted thing among vikings. To be a passive partner in a homosexual relationship was, again, to willingly debase oneself into a female role. These men were also considered guilty of “ergi.” Dominant partners, however, were not—there’s nothing more masculine than reducing another man in status, evidently, and while I’m positive relationships where this dynamic wasn’t the case exist, the overarching societal perception isn’t as kind.

But this post isn’t meant to be an info-dump on vikings and what not, even if it does allow me to dabble in my degree. Back to the matter at hand: Sindri experiences a lot throughout the story. We find him wasting away in a frigid prison cell, half-starved, abused, and fresh from the betrayal of a village he thought was grateful for the magical help he’d offered them. He is a character abundantly aware of his place in the world and bitterly cognizant of the fact that capture likely means death for him. Still, he is proud of who he is, what he can do, and where he came from. Odin, the All-Father, uses magic—something no one seems to think about when they disparage him for doing the same. There’s a nobility in him that transcends his situation, and I really respect him as a character for how he refuses to fall into the hatred so many people have for him and his kind. He’s kind through it all to those who need kindness most.

Those who have read the old story know this abundantly well. (There’s an MVP in this story that needs no introduction. Coming fresh off my Tempest books, I recall a friend telling me that if I kept putting animal companions in my work I’d get typecasted. The thing is… if Moop wasn’t in this book, it’d be unreadable. Suffice to say, she’ll make it into this extended cut. The world needs her. The world needs Moop.)

Now, for our not-really-a-love-interest, let’s talk a little about Iarund. My memory’s a little foggy on what his name means—I picked out the names like, four or five years ago, and I’m not sure I ever wrote it down. Also, I’m writing this at 12:06 a.m., so I doubt that’s helping things much either. I believe it means “battle-worn” or something to that effect, and he’s the Jarl in our viking not-romance. He’s a quintessential one at that. He believes in the core values this society holds in the highest regard. He defends his territory and cares about his people, and even though he absolutely reviles Sindri and what his existence stands for, he understands that the only chance he has at maintaining his kingdom resides in suffering to let Sindri live—at least, just as long as it takes to cure the curse-plague. Though his men don’t agree with him, Iarund is the sort to see the bigger picture. As dedicated as he is to his beliefs, he is willing to put them aside when the situation needs it—though his prejudice is still loud, regular, and readily exacerbated by the men who look to him as the pinnacle example they all try to follow.

Iarund is a symbol more than a man with desires of his own. He’s a reflection of those around him, and in turn, society. He’s also the worst sort of man while he’s at it. I’m sure you all know the type, the one who is only kind when no one else is looking. The one who makes a show of knocking the books out of your hands when his buddies are around but returns one you missed once they’ve moved on to other targets. He has the capacity to be a better man, but not the flexibility in his position to allow that sort of “weakness” to color him. He’s the man who you hate and can’t help but hate yourself even more for hoping that he’ll get better as the story goes on. And the terrible thing is, he does. He’s not a bad person. I truly believe that. But the world won’t let him show it. It’d need to be changed too much for one man alone to instigate, and we learn in this story just how weak a Jarl actually is.

Because Iarund is the weak one in this story. He’s weak because he can’t be free like Sindri is. He has to live within society’s dictated structure, he has to follow its plan to the letter or risk everything he’s built. Toxic masculinity hurts more than those it targets; it also prevents men from engaging with their emotions in healthy ways, from letting them be soft, vulnerable, or fragile. Sindri can seek comfort while Iarund can’t. This isn’t a story about how terrible men are—it’s a story about how terrible the concept of toxic masculinity is for those who have to live with it, men, women, and everyone in between.

To be honest, I don’t expect a lot of people to like this book. I already know I’m going to have to have a disclaimer on the sales page, my website, and likely inside the book as well reminding people what sort of story this actually is. The ones who liked the old version are the ones I’m hoping will appreciate this the most. It’s never been meant to be a feel-good book. You’ll probably cry while reading it. You’ll definitely curse out Iarund and be upset—maybe even triggered—by the actions of his men. If you aren’t a cis man, it’s likely going to be a difficult read at times because so much of Sindri’s experience resonates with the afab/gender non-conforming experience at large. I just hope that those who give it a chance get something positive out of the whole thing, and if that’s asking too much, then at least understand my intentions behind writing it and picking the themes I chose to explore.

I feel like a lot of the work I’m putting out right now has taken a bit of a darker tone than the stuff that came before. I can’t pretend like the Tempest and Duskriven books didn’t have their fair share of dark content—I’m far too fond of putting my characters through the wringer to claim I’ve got clean hands as it is—but the content in Infaust, Ossuary, and soon Aubade are definitely Dark as a genre type. To be honest, I can’t really say why that is. Infaust was dreamt up and written years ago. Same with Aubade. Ossuary is newer, but still an idea from pre-2020. Perhaps we really are just entering the Dark Phase of my publication period, but I do hope you guys know better than to judge this phase as the new normal. I’ve always been, and continue to be, a firm believer in eclectic tones, eclectic genres, and the overarching goal of writing at least one thing for every palate. Lighter things are on the way—need I remind you of the Vigilante trio? And Carnival is much closer in tone to some of the Duskriven stuff than anything else. There’s still so much more on the way. I really hope you’re all excited for it, and that you give Aubade a chance if you feel up to it—and if not, seriously, no hard feelings. I’m happy to just have you wait for the story after it, and for the continued trust that better is always on the way.

Now, let’s turn things over to some questions. Since Aubade was previously published, there are several die-hard fans who have sought me out just to ask about the rewrite process, and therefore, there are many readers familiar with it and brimming with questions on what might happen or be included in the full version. I’ll try to keep things spoiler-free as much as I can—at least in regards to major spoilers.

Questions come from Instagram and private messages this time!

I’m curious about the historical context of Aubade’s magic topic. Which sources did you use for it? And was there a model or some other inspiration for Sindri’s personality? He is very different from Chrollo’s personality.

Good questions! I can’t pull sources for you at the moment given they’re on my old laptop and buried beneath several years’ worth of other documents, but I’ll definitely have them dug up when it comes time to begin work on this story again. Off the top of my head, I recall reading through several scholarly articles found via my college’s JSTOR account (ah, the perks of having student access to those databases! I miss it terribly), general searches online for open-sourced documents related to the concept of “ergi” which thankfully referenced male magic users to some extent as it was a fairly egregious crime when it came to that term, and a few Old Norse sources that hadn’t been translated for some reason? But that I’d brought to my Old English professor and puzzled our way through together to make sense of the stuff.

There’s also, of course, our good friend Drømde mik en drøm i nat from the Codex Runicus, the oldest known secular song in the Norse world. I stumbled upon that while researching as well as it’s believed to have been sung by a völva to her lover out at sea. That’s what encouraged me to name the story Aubade in the end. I’m a sucker for tragic shit and it just fits far too well to pass up.

But beyond that, like I said before, there really is precious little to be found on this topic. There’s an alright-amount of information on female völva, but very little on male ones. A lot of my research only told me what about the typical female völva, and from there I had to extrapolate what the experience of a male one would be like. Also, never google “Viking Sex Magic” in hopes of learning about traditional völva rituals. You will not find what you are looking for, and it will not be a fun experience! As with most magic in my work, it is mostly made up. Magic is real in this world, so it’s a little difficult to apply it to historical things that, you know, weren’t actually magical. I just tried to incorporate the culture as much as I was able and hoped it all translated well in the story itself.

I intend to do a lot more renewed research once we hit 2023 to refresh myself on all of the information out there, and I know I have a few people (German speakers, believe it or not) who have offered their services in researching and translating some German works on viking culture for me, as they believe the scholarship in that language is a bit more robust than what I’ve got available to me in English. We shall see if anything comes from that. Either way, I’m just excited for a new research project. It’s been entirely too long since my last one.

As for your other question, I don’t think I have any model for Sindri’s personality in particular. I tend to write with a set amount of archetypes that I change up based on the story at hand. I’m not exaggerating when I say that Rehan, Thierry, and now Sindri are all very thematically similar. They are all outcasts with their backs against a wall being forced to react to a bad situation as it grows worse in hopes of keeping their heads above water. I think the big difference between Sindri and Chrollo is that Chrollo is almost never out of his depth. Sindri, in contrast, is by design always struggling to stay afloat.

I really enjoy writing protagonists like this because they are very easy to get behind and root for. You feel a much deeper kinship with them because they are only doing what they have to in order to survive, and if they manage to be kind despite that, as Sindri will be (not Rehan or Thierry though lol), you just root for them even more and feel proud of them for keeping their humanity when it would have been so much easier to throw it away. I know Sindri will change from how he was portrayed when he was still just Chrollo in the fanfic. He’s going to undergo a lot of personality tweaks and some alterations, but I want him to end up kind at the end of this. He defends himself and those he thinks need defending, and he never strikes out unless provoked. He’s stronger than Iarund and all of his men combined—still, he only wields his power to help others. He’s living proof that kindness can be more powerful than any sword, even if society refuses to believe that. Even if the proof is right in front of them too!

Am I allowed to forcefully put them in a happy relationship in my mind? Yes or yes?

Seems to me like you’ve rigged this little quiz XD I mean, more power to you if you choose to think of it like that. You wouldn’t be the only one to do that, going off the comments on the fic itself. A lot of people begged me to give the full version a happy, romantic ending or cursed me out for not letting them get together, but if you’re able to look past Iarund’s shortcomings and still want him to win Sindri’s love at the end of this, then by all means, daydream away. Personally, I don’t want them to be together, but that’s why fandom exists. The world is your oyster, and your headcanons are always valid.

Why do you make us suffer like this?

So you know what it means to be happy.

Really though, I do it because sometimes I get tired of writing nice things and I want to dust off other emotions and have my fun that way. Writing is all about evoking emotions in the reader. They don’t always have to be good feelings, and I find it cathartic to indulge in heavy concepts like this so I don’t get bored by writing the same thing over and over again. As always, I do try to give people notice before they read my work if it’s going to be intense content, but I think you guys pick up the stuff because you know it’s going to make you feel things you wouldn’t have felt otherwise. You’re still here waiting for the rewrite, so I gotta imagine you enjoyed the suffering XD

Here’s to the pain, and may your tears always fill my goblet to the brim!

Can Moop get her own spin-off series?

Now this is a fun question! While I firmly believe Moop is deserving of one and would be one hell of an animal childrens’ show star, no, I have no plans to make a Moop spin-off. That’s probably because I don’t know how to write something like that. What I do know though is that I always mulled over the idea of having an Aubade sequel/spiritual sequel stand-alone, one involving actually giving Sindri a happy ever after with someone who could accept him and be with him without anything getting in the way. It either involved another male völva or a traveling mercenary coming across Sindri in the woods where he eventually made his home, either by accident or on purpose. If it was on purpose, the warrior would be there to ask for a spell, and if by accident, he would have been injured on the road and Sindri would have felt honor bound to lend him aid, even if aiding him did invite potential betrayal or exposure once he went on his way. Moop at that point would have become Sindri’s familiar and would always be a little lamb.

I don’t know if I’ll ever get around to writing this—to be honest, Aubade doesn’t really NEED a sequel, and I’m not convinced making one wouldn’t lessen the impact it holds by ending the way it does—but it was a thought I had and would be the closest thing Moop could get to a spin-off of her own. Who knows though. It may become a completely different story with new characters in the future. I’m currently hitting a point where I need to come up with some future story ideas, and this may be revisited at some point. Keep an eye out, I suppose. Perhaps this post teases two future IPs for the price of one XD

But anyway, that’s it for this month. Hopefully you guys found this… fun? I say the word “fun” a lot when it comes to things that probably aren’t very fun. Maybe “edifying” is the word I should use instead? Either way, I hope it whet your whistle for this story if it is indeed something you are interested in reading. As it currently stands, we’re set to wrap up on Apotheosis in… April, I think, of 2023 over on patreon. That means that May should bring with it not only flowers, but the first chapter of Aubade, too. Consider joining us for it then, or hop on now and join us for Carnival in October. If you like lovesick demons, 2008-era Goths, and infernal masquerades, it’s definitely a story you won’t want to miss <3

As always, until next time!

T.D. Cloud

#author blog #blog #aubade #ip teaser

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blurred-cat · 2 years

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BEOWULF

so i took a mythology class in high school and at one point we had to all take parts of the play Beowulf and we were in groups of 3. of course me and the other 2 band kids teamed up. i did the direction for how we should perform and wrote out the flow of things. like. ok. so we were the fight scene between grendel and beowulf. the other scenes came before us, people were just chillin, or laughing, nobody really paid attention.

but when ours came around?

I’d given everyone the proper parts. my friend, she was a bit on the shy side, but we used to read our stories to each other so she trusted my direction. i knew she had a GREAT narrator voice and could really give it emotion, so i left her to narrate the scene. The other guy was the very confident but pretty emotional type. like he was kind of a shit but I knew that emotion would do GREAT for the scene cause we needed someone to PUNCH THOSE LINES as Beowulf. naturally i’m the fucking monster lol. i’d brought in this lightsaber that when you hit the button did the FULL NOISE and shit. it glowed blue. i covered that in some paper to make it a Bigass Broadsword. I also gave myself a Mask that had a taller “head” portion. Made some of those folded paper claws, etc. so one friend does the narration. my other friend is beowulf (of course i’m the monster how could i not be). dude walks into the “cave” by walking out of the classroom, comes back in, looks around, walks through the desks- i subtly enter while everyone has their attention on him. he weaves back through and i JUMP out from behind a podium. Silence falls in the class. he says his line and IGNITES his blade. I do my ROAR (because of course i practiced monster roars in the hayday of my werewolf era) the fight script was “two dodges, then one hit” back and fourth. I told ol’ boy to ACTUALLY hit me and he agreed to ACTUALLY GET HIT back we were supposed to go like 6 rounds. but we were FIGHTING so HARD. like the guy playing beowulf sweat quickly, it was a running joke during band practice, and he sweat under any amount of activity so he was LEGIT sweating in that class during the fight. really sold it. our poor narrator got worried we were REALLY FIGHTING and called it at 4 rounds, then says The Line. The one where He CUTS gendel’s fUCKING HEAD off. So the dude- he’s a football kid too, so he’s a bit muscular and fits the whole warrior thing- he SWINGS this blade and CHOPS OFF the upper “MASK” portion. the SOUND was LOUD like the Thunking TEARING noise of all that stuff hitting cause it was cardboard tubes holding the upper mask off and the lightsaber was one of the types that RATTLES and does the impact noises? the fucking teacher YELPED when the head came off, people gasped, because i’d put all this red shredded paper and streamers in it for the BLOOD. The mask FLIES across the room and I DROP FLAT without much control. see I also used to practice death drops so I FELL. HARD. and people like- my buddy said people legit got up a little bit to see if i was okay but he stayed in character and didn’t say anything. even planted his foot on my shoulder. that was the end of our scene and i just remember people saying “yall actually fought??? wtf????” and the applause lmao. shit was hype. the people following that scene were painfully demoralized LOL. if i’m not mistaken, the teacher recorded it too. man i wish i could see it again. anyway. one of my favorite memories. (don’t ask me what translation this was but beowulf said something like “AS A TROPHY” before he took grendel’s head off. something like that idk.)

#I'm Talking #Long Talk #Beowulf

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delta-queerdrant · 11 months

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big doctor energy (Heroes & Demons, s1 e12)

Yeah, our first holodeck episode + our first Doctor episode! This one is pretty silly but it's a capital-R Romp and I'm here for it.

Once again this is an episode that begins with resource management! One of the things that has been cracking me up during this rewatch is what a hands-on and, perhaps, micromanager Janeway is. She really does love science and is always going on away missions, peeking over people's shoulders, and in this case, beaming aboard samples of "intense photonic activity" to see if they can be used in the ship's power converters. No one seems to mind, but there are presumably some off-screen science officers who are grumpy because they never get to do the fun labwork.

Janeway hair watch - the "bun of steel" has been swapped out for a side-swept French twist kinda thing. It's definitely an improvement, though the twisty parts are slightly fussy and overcomplicated. Damn this woman would look good with an undercut! Anyhoo.

If I were sending the Doctor on a fantastical adventure, would I choose Beowulf? Perhaps not - Hollywood depictions of the "Dark Ages" do little for me - but it's an okay time. I appreciate the inclusion of Freya; shieldmaidens are authentic to early Scandinavian culture if not to Beowulf itself. And I have always enjoyed Unferth as a side villain - he is the ultimate undermining coworker and I love that he has existed in literature for at least the last millennium. We all have our inner Unferth and I think that's fine.

Shame they're not all speaking in alliterative verse, or that the forest looks like no forest that ever appeared in Denmark, or that the Doctor is eating what appears to be a giant turkey(????) leg despite it being pre-Columbian Exchange times, but none of that is the point.

Watching the Doctor laconically roleplay his way through this adventure is, of course, a fun and silly time. He is such a fish out of water and his blunt, uncomplicated responses are all accidental zingers. By the end he has really come into his own and his moment of heroism feels earned, facing down Unferth with the absolute banger line, "The only reason you won't die is that I've taken an oath to do no harm." I wrote big doctor energy in my notes and I think we can all agree with this assessment.

I should probably be mad about Freya getting fridged, but, like, she feels surprisingly three-dimensional for a fictional character? And at the same time, she is an in-universe fictional character and it doesn't matter? It's complicated, since both she and the Doctor are holograms. From where I'm standing, she genuinely had her own character arc and her death felt meaningful on its own terms. I will have things to say later in the series about the Doctor's sexuality, but I don't think I'll say them here.

The Doctor makes peace with the glowing squiggle (sorry, photonic life form) and the captured crew are restored, including Harry Kim in his very cute LARP outfit. I am always here for Harry being the absolute dorkiest of dorks; in this episode he looks like he is cosplaying Bilbo Baggins.

As mentioned in an earlier review, I am an ex-ELCA Lutheran (Lutheranism and I are still pals, we just weren't right for one another) so I was tickled by the Doctor briefly taking on the soubriquet of Schweitzer. I am not culturally Lutheran, but Albert Schweitzer is definitely a big Lutheran hero and gets Lutherans going (other things that get Lutherans going - potlucks, Prairie Home Companion, "A Mighty Fortress is our God").

After watching this episode I went down a Schweitzer rabbit hole and was reminded that, in addition to his humanitarian work, he also wrote one of the important "historical Jesus" books, in which the facts of Jesus's life were reevaluated. It was so interesting reading about his (shockingly recent) rediscovery that early Christianity was basically an apocalypse cult. Schweitzer was down with this, because he thought it was punk rock or something. I find this approach to religion - religion as something that can be analyzed, that is both culturally contingent and, at its nucleus, contains a critique of powerful political and social forces - such a compelling antidote to gray goo evangelism, in which no belief is ever examined. This is not to excuse Lutheranism for its complicity in many shitty things, or to privilege belief over various forms of nonbelief, but the fact is that many of us have a Christian worldview lodged in our brains whether we like it or not, and it helps to spend some time thinking about what Christianity actually is, deciding what we'd like to hold onto and what's better discarded.

Sorry! This isn't a theology blog! I, ah, definitely can't promise I won't do it again.

Hardly gripping television, but a pretty good entry point to a beloved character's journey. 3.5/5 improbably sized turkey(!?!?) legs.

#star trek voyager #star trek #holodeck #emh #not that doctor #janeway's hair #science fiction theology corner

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qqueenofhades · 3 years

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The Green Knight and Medieval Metatextuality: An Essay

Right, so. Finally watched it last night, and I’ve been thinking about it literally ever since, except for the part where I was asleep. As I said to fellow medievalist and admirer of Dev Patel @oldshrewsburyian, it’s possibly the most fascinating piece of medieval-inspired media that I’ve seen in ages, and how refreshing to have something in this genre that actually rewards critical thought and deep analysis, rather than me just fulminating fruitlessly about how popular media thinks that slapping blood, filth, and misogyny onto some swords and castles is “historically accurate.” I read a review of TGK somewhere that described it as the anti-Game of Thrones, and I’m inclined to think that’s accurate. I didn’t agree with all of the film’s tonal, thematic, or interpretative choices, but I found them consistently stylish, compelling, and subversive in ways both small and large, and I’m gonna have to write about it or I’ll go crazy. So. Brace yourselves.

(Note: My PhD is in medieval history, not medieval literature, and I haven’t worked on SGGK specifically, but I am familiar with it, its general cultural context, and the historical influences, images, and debates that both the poem and the film referenced and drew upon, so that’s where this meta is coming from.)

First, obviously, while the film is not a straight-up text-to-screen version of the poem (though it is by and large relatively faithful), it is a multi-layered meta-text that comments on the original Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the archetypes of chivalric literature as a whole, modern expectations for medieval films, the hero’s journey, the requirements of being an “honorable knight,” and the nature of death, fate, magic, and religion, just to name a few. Given that the Arthurian legendarium, otherwise known as the Matter of Britain, was written and rewritten over several centuries by countless authors, drawing on and changing and hybridizing interpretations that sometimes challenged or outright contradicted earlier versions, it makes sense for the film to chart its own path and make its own adaptational decisions as part of this multivalent, multivocal literary canon. Sir Gawain himself is a canonically and textually inconsistent figure; in the movie, the characters merrily pronounce his name in several different ways, most notably as Sean Harris/King Arthur’s somewhat inexplicable “Garr-win.” He might be a man without a consistent identity, but that’s pointed out within the film itself. What has he done to define himself, aside from being the king’s nephew? Is his quixotic quest for the Green Knight actually going to resolve the question of his identity and his honor – and if so, is it even going to matter, given that successful completion of the “game” seemingly equates with death?

Likewise, as the anti-Game of Thrones, the film is deliberately and sometimes maddeningly non-commercial. For an adaptation coming from a studio known primarily for horror, it almost completely eschews the cliché that gory bloodshed equals authentic medievalism; the only graphic scene is the Green Knight’s original beheading. The violence is only hinted at, subtextual, suspenseful; it is kept out of sight, around the corner, never entirely played out or resolved. In other words, if anyone came in thinking that they were going to watch Dev Patel luridly swashbuckle his way through some CGI monsters like bad Beowulf adaptations of yore, they were swiftly disappointed. In fact, he seems to spend most of his time being wet, sad, and failing to meet the moment at hand (with a few important exceptions).

The film unhurriedly evokes a medieval setting that is both surreal and defiantly non-historical. We travel (in roughly chronological order) from Anglo-Saxon huts to Romanesque halls to high-Gothic cathedrals to Tudor villages and half-timbered houses, culminating in the eerie neo-Renaissance splendor of the Lord and Lady’s hall, before returning to the ancient trees of the Green Chapel and its immortal occupant: everything that has come before has now returned to dust. We have been removed even from imagined time and place and into a moment where it ceases to function altogether. We move forward, backward, and sideways, as Gawain experiences past, present, and future in unison. He is dislocated from his own sense of himself, just as we, the viewers, are dislocated from our sense of what is the “true” reality or filmic narrative; what we think is real turns out not to be the case at all. If, of course, such a thing even exists at all.

This visual evocation of the entire medieval era also creates a setting that, unlike GOT, takes pride in rejecting absolutely all political context or Machiavellian maneuvering. The film acknowledges its own cultural ubiquity and the question of whether we really need yet another King Arthur adaptation: none of the characters aside from Gawain himself are credited by name. We all know it’s Arthur, but he’s listed only as “king.” We know the spooky druid-like old man with the white beard is Merlin, but it’s never required to spell it out. The film gestures at our pre-existing understanding; it relies on us to fill in the gaps, cuing us to collaboratively produce the story with it, positioning us as listeners as if we were gathered to hear the original poem. Just like fanfiction, it knows that it doesn’t need to waste time introducing every single character or filling in ultimately unnecessary background knowledge, when the audience can be relied upon to bring their own.

As for that, the film explicitly frames itself as a “filmed adaptation of the chivalric romance” in its opening credits, and continues to play with textual referents and cues throughout: telling us where we are, what’s happening, or what’s coming next, rather like the rubrics or headings within a medieval manuscript. As noted, its historical/architectural references span the entire medieval European world, as does its costume design. I was particularly struck by the fact that Arthur and Guinevere’s crowns resemble those from illuminated monastic manuscripts or Eastern Orthodox iconography: they are both crown and halo, they confer an air of both secular kingship and religious sanctity. The question in the film’s imagined epilogue thus becomes one familiar to Shakespeare’s Henry V: heavy is the head that wears the crown. Does Gawain want to earn his uncle’s crown, take over his place as king, bear the fate of Camelot, become a great ruler, a husband and father in ways that even Arthur never did, only to see it all brought to dust by his cowardice, his reliance on unscrupulous sorcery, and his unfulfilled promise to the Green Knight? Is it better to have that entire life and then lose it, or to make the right choice now, even if it means death?

Likewise, Arthur’s kingly mantle is Byzantine in inspiration, as is the icon of the Virgin Mary-as-Theotokos painted on Gawain’s shield (which we see broken apart during the attack by the scavengers). The film only glances at its religious themes rather than harping on them explicitly; we do have the cliché scene of the male churchmen praying for Gawain’s safety, opposite Gawain’s mother and her female attendants working witchcraft to protect him. (When oh when will I get my film that treats medieval magic and medieval religion as the complementary and co-existing epistemological systems that they were, rather than portraying them as diametrically binary and disparagingly gendered opposites?) But despite the interim setbacks borne from the failure of Christian icons, the overall resolution of the film could serve as the culmination of a medieval Christian morality tale: Gawain can buy himself a great future in the short term if he relies on the protection of the enchanted green belt to avoid the Green Knight’s killing stroke, but then he will have to watch it all crumble until he is sitting alone in his own hall, his children dead and his kingdom destroyed, as a headless corpse who only now has been brave enough to accept his proper fate. By removing the belt from his person in the film’s Inception-like final scene, he relinquishes the taint of black magic and regains his religious honor, even at the likely cost of death. That, the medieval Christian morality tale would agree, is the correct course of action.

Gawain’s encounter with St. Winifred likewise presents a more subtle vision of medieval Christianity. Winifred was an eighth-century Welsh saint known for being beheaded, after which (by the power of another saint) her head was miraculously restored to her body and she went on to live a long and holy life. It doesn’t quite work that way in TGK. (St Winifred’s Well is mentioned in the original SGGK, but as far as I recall, Gawain doesn’t meet the saint in person.) In the film, Gawain encounters Winifred’s lifelike apparition, who begs him to dive into the mere and retrieve her head (despite appearances, she warns him, it is not attached to her body). This fits into the pattern of medieval ghost stories, where the dead often return to entreat the living to help them finish their business; they must be heeded, but when they are encountered in places they shouldn’t be, they must be put back into their proper physical space and reminded of their real fate. Gawain doesn’t follow William of Newburgh’s practical recommendation to just fetch some brawny young men with shovels to beat the wandering corpse back into its grave. Instead, in one of his few moments of unqualified heroism, he dives into the dark water and retrieves Winifred’s skull from the bottom of the lake. Then when he returns to the house, he finds the rest of her skeleton lying in the bed where he was earlier sleeping, and carefully reunites the skull with its body, finally allowing it to rest in peace.

However, Gawain’s involvement with Winifred doesn’t end there. The fox that he sees on the bank after emerging with her skull, who then accompanies him for the rest of the film, is strongly implied to be her spirit, or at least a companion that she has sent for him. Gawain has handled a saint’s holy bones; her relics, which were well known to grant protection in the medieval world. He has done the saint a service, and in return, she extends her favor to him. At the end of the film, the fox finally speaks in a human voice, warning him not to proceed to the fateful final encounter with the Green Knight; it will mean his death. The symbolism of having a beheaded saint serve as Gawain’s guide and protector is obvious, since it is the fate that may or may not lie in store for him. As I said, the ending is Inception-like in that it steadfastly refuses to tell you if the hero is alive (or will live) or dead (or will die). In the original SGGK, of course, the Green Knight and the Lord turn out to be the same person, Gawain survives, it was all just a test of chivalric will and honor, and a trap put together by Morgan Le Fay in an attempt to frighten Guinevere. It’s essentially able to be laughed off: a game, an adventure, not real. TGK takes this paradigm and flips it (to speak…) on its head.

Gawain’s rescue of Winifred’s head also rewards him in more immediate terms: his/the Green Knight’s axe, stolen by the scavengers, is miraculously restored to him in her cottage, immediately and concretely demonstrating the virtue of his actions. This is one of the points where the film most stubbornly resists modern storytelling conventions: it simply refuses to add in any kind of “rational” or “empirical” explanation of how else it got there, aside from the grace and intercession of the saint. This is indeed how it works in medieval hagiography: things simply reappear, are returned, reattached, repaired, made whole again, and Gawain’s lost weapon is thus restored, symbolizing that he has passed the test and is worthy to continue with the quest. The film’s narrative is not modernizing its underlying medieval logic here, and it doesn’t particularly care if a modern audience finds it “convincing” or not. As noted, the film never makes any attempt to temporalize or localize itself; it exists in a determinedly surrealist and ahistorical landscape, where naked female giants who look suspiciously like Tilda Swinton roam across the wild with no necessary explanation. While this might be frustrating for some people, I actually found it a huge relief that a clearly fantastic and fictional literary adaptation was not acting like it was qualified to teach “real history” to its audience. Nobody would come out of TGK thinking that they had seen the “actual” medieval world, and since we have enough of a problem with that sort of thing thanks to GOT, I for one welcome the creation of a medieval imaginative space that embraces its eccentric and unrealistic elements, rather than trying to fit them into the Real Life box.

This plays into the fact that the film, like a reused medieval manuscript containing more than one text, is a palimpsest: for one, it audaciously rewrites the entire Arthurian canon in the wordless vision of Gawain’s life after escaping the Green Knight (I could write another meta on that dream-epilogue alone). It moves fluidly through time and creates alternate universes in at least two major points: one, the scene where Gawain is tied up and abandoned by the scavengers and that long circling shot reveals his skeletal corpse rotting on the sward, only to return to our original universe as Gawain decides that he doesn’t want that fate, and two, Gawain as King. In this alternate ending, Arthur doesn’t die in battle with Mordred, but peaceably in bed, having anointed his worthy nephew as his heir. Gawain becomes king, has children, gets married, governs Camelot, becomes a ruler surpassing even Arthur, but then watches his son get killed in battle, his subjects turn on him, and his family vanish into the dust of his broken hall before he himself, in despair, pulls the enchanted scarf out of his clothing and succumbs to his fate.

In this version, Gawain takes on the responsibility for the fall of Camelot, not Arthur. This is the hero’s burden, but he’s obtained it dishonorably, by cheating. It is a vivid but mimetic future which Gawain (to all appearances) ultimately rejects, returning the film to the realm of traditional Arthurian canon – but not quite. After all, if Gawain does get beheaded after that final fade to black, it would represent a significant alteration from the poem and the character’s usual arc. Are we back in traditional canon or aren’t we? Did Gawain reject that future or didn’t he? Do all these alterities still exist within the visual medium of the meta-text, and have any of them been definitely foreclosed?

Furthermore, the film interrogates itself and its own tropes in explicit and overt ways. In Gawain’s conversation with the Lord, the Lord poses the question that many members of the audience might have: is Gawain going to carry out this potentially pointless and suicidal quest and then be an honorable hero, just like that? What is he actually getting by staggering through assorted Irish bogs and seeming to reject, rather than embrace, the paradigms of a proper quest and that of an honorable knight? He lies about being a knight to the scavengers, clearly out of fear, and ends up cravenly bound and robbed rather than fighting back. He denies knowing anything about love to the Lady (played by Alicia Vikander, who also plays his lover at the start of the film with a decidedly ropey Yorkshire accent, sorry to say). He seems to shrink from the responsibility thrust on him, rather than rise to meet it (his only honorable act, retrieving Winifred’s head, is discussed above) and yet here he still is, plugging away. Why is he doing this? What does he really stand to gain, other than accepting a choice and its consequences (somewhat?) The film raises these questions, but it has no plans to answer them. It’s going to leave you to think about them for yourself, and it isn’t going to spoon-feed you any ultimate moral or neat resolution. In this interchange, it’s easy to see both the echoes of a formal dialogue between two speakers (a favored medieval didactic tactic) and the broader purpose of chivalric literature: to interrogate what it actually means to be a knight, how personal honor is generated, acquired, and increased, and whether engaging in these pointless and bloody “war games” is actually any kind of real path to lasting glory.

The film’s treatment of race, gender, and queerness obviously also merits comment. By casting Dev Patel, an Indian-born actor, as an Arthurian hero, the film is… actually being quite accurate to the original legends, doubtless much to the disappointment of assorted internet racists. The thirteenth-century Arthurian romance Parzival (Percival) by the German poet Wolfram von Eschenbach notably features the character of Percival’s mixed-race half-brother, Feirefiz, son of their father by his first marriage to a Muslim princess. Feirefiz is just as heroic as Percival (Gawaine, for the record, also plays a major role in the story) and assists in the quest for the Holy Grail, though it takes his conversion to Christianity for him to properly behold it.

By introducing Patel (and Sarita Chowdhury as Morgause) to the visual representation of Arthuriana, the film quietly does away with the “white Middle Ages” cliché that I have complained about ad nauseam; we see background Asian and black members of Camelot, who just exist there without having to conjure up some complicated rationale to explain their presence. The Lady also uses a camera obscura to make Gawain’s portrait. Contrary to those who might howl about anachronism, this technique was known in China as early as the fourth century BCE and the tenth/eleventh century Islamic scholar Ibn al-Haytham was probably the best-known medieval authority to write on it extensively; Latin translations of his work inspired European scientists from Roger Bacon to Leonardo da Vinci. Aside from the symbolism of an upside-down Gawain (and when he sees the portrait again during the ‘fall of Camelot’, it is right-side-up, representing that Gawain himself is in an upside-down world), this presents a subtle challenge to the prevailing Eurocentric imagination of the medieval world, and draws on other global influences.

As for gender, we have briefly touched on it above; in the original SGGK, Gawain’s entire journey is revealed to be just a cruel trick of Morgan Le Fay, simply trying to destabilize Arthur’s court and upset his queen. (Morgan is the old blindfolded woman who appears in the Lord and Lady’s castle and briefly approaches Gawain, but her identity is never explicitly spelled out.) This is, obviously, an implicitly misogynistic setup: an evil woman plays a trick on honorable men for the purpose of upsetting another woman, the honorable men overcome it, the hero survives, and everyone presumably lives happily ever after (at least until Mordred arrives).

Instead, by plunging the outcome into doubt and the hero into a much darker and more fallible moral universe, TGK shifts the blame for Gawain’s adventure and ultimate fate from Morgan to Gawain himself. Likewise, Guinevere is not the passive recipient of an evil deception but in a way, the catalyst for the whole thing. She breaks the seal on the Green Knight’s message with a weighty snap; she becomes the oracle who reads it out, she is alarming rather than alarmed, she disrupts the complacency of the court and silently shows up all the other knights who refuse to step forward and answer the Green Knight’s challenge. Gawain is not given the ontological reassurance that it’s just a practical joke and he’s going to be fine (and thanks to the unresolved ending, neither are we). The film instead takes the concept at face value in order to push the envelope and ask the simple question: if a man was going to be actually-for-real beheaded in a year, why would he set out on a suicidal quest? Would you, in Gawain’s place, make the same decision to cast aside the enchanted belt and accept your fate? Has he made his name, will he be remembered well? What is his legacy?

Indeed, if there is any hint of feminine connivance and manipulation, it arrives in the form of the implication that Gawain’s mother has deliberately summoned the Green Knight to test her son, prove his worth, and position him as his childless uncle’s heir; she gives him the protective belt to make sure he won’t actually die, and her intention all along was for the future shown in the epilogue to truly play out (minus the collapse of Camelot). Only Gawain loses the belt thanks to his cowardice in the encounter with the scavengers, regains it in a somewhat underhanded and morally questionable way when the Lady is attempting to seduce him, and by ultimately rejecting it altogether and submitting to his uncertain fate, totally mucks up his mother’s painstaking dynastic plans for his future. In this reading, Gawain could be king, and his mother’s efforts are meant to achieve that goal, rather than thwart it. He is thus required to shoulder his own responsibility for this outcome, rather than conveniently pawning it off on an “evil woman,” and by extension, the film asks the question: What would the world be like if men, especially those who make war on others as a way of life, were actually forced to face the consequences of their reckless and violent actions? Is it actually a “game” in any sense of the word, especially when chivalric literature is constantly preoccupied with the question of how much glorious violence is too much glorious violence? If you structure social prestige for the king and the noble male elite entirely around winning battles and existing in a state of perpetual war, when does that begin to backfire and devour the knightly class – and the rest of society – instead?

This leads into the central theme of Gawain’s relationships with the Lord and Lady, and how they’re treated in the film. The poem has been repeatedly studied in terms of its latent (and sometimes… less than latent) queer subtext: when the Lord asks Gawain to pay back to him whatever he should receive from his wife, does he already know what this involves; i.e. a physical and romantic encounter? When the Lady gives kisses to Gawain, which he is then obliged to return to the Lord as a condition of the agreement, is this all part of a dastardly plot to seduce him into a kinky green-themed threesome with a probably-not-human married couple looking to spice up their sex life? Why do we read the Lady’s kisses to Gawain as romantic but Gawain’s kisses to the Lord as filial, fraternal, or the standard “kiss of peace” exchanged between a liege lord and his vassal? Is Gawain simply being a dutiful guest by honoring the bargain with his host, actually just kissing the Lady again via the proxy of her husband, or somewhat more into this whole thing with the Lord than he (or the poet) would like to admit? Is the homosocial turning homoerotic, and how is Gawain going to navigate this tension and temptation?

If the question is never resolved: well, welcome to one of the central medieval anxieties about chivalry, knighthood, and male bonds! As I have written about before, medieval society needed to simultaneously exalt this as the most honored and noble form of love, and make sure it didn’t accidentally turn sexual (once again: how much male love is too much male love?). Does the poem raise the possibility of serious disruption to the dominant heteronormative paradigm, only to solve the problem by interpreting the Gawain/Lady male/female kisses as romantic and sexual and the Gawain/Lord male/male kisses as chaste and formal? In other words, acknowledging the underlying anxiety of possible homoeroticism but ultimately reasserting the heterosexual norm? The answer: Probably?!?! Maybe?!?! Hell if we know??! To say the least, this has been argued over to no end, and if you locked a lot of medieval history/literature scholars into a room and told them that they couldn’t come out until they decided on one clear answer, they would be in there for a very long time. The poem seemingly invokes the possibility of a queer reading only to reject it – but once again, as in the question of which canon we end up in at the film’s end, does it?

In some lights, the film’s treatment of this potential queer reading comes off like a cop-out: there is only one kiss between Gawain and the Lord, and it is something that the Lord has to initiate after Gawain has already fled the hall. Gawain himself appears to reject it; he tells the Lord to let go of him and runs off into the wilderness, rather than deal with or accept whatever has been suggested to him. However, this fits with film!Gawain’s pattern of rejecting that which fundamentally makes him who he is; like Peter in the Bible, he has now denied the truth three times. With the scavengers he denies being a knight; with the Lady he denies knowing about courtly love; with the Lord he denies the central bond of brotherhood with his fellows, whether homosocial or homoerotic in nature. I would go so far as to argue that if Gawain does die at the end of the film, it is this rejected kiss which truly seals his fate. In the poem, the Lord and the Green Knight are revealed to be the same person; in the film, it’s not clear if that’s the case, or they are separate characters, even if thematically interrelated. If we assume, however, that the Lord is in fact still the human form of the Green Knight, then Gawain has rejected both his kiss of peace (the standard gesture of protection offered from lord to vassal) and any deeper emotional bond that it can be read to signify. The Green Knight could decide to spare Gawain in recognition of the courage he has shown in relinquishing the enchanted belt – or he could just as easily decide to kill him, which he is legally free to do since Gawain has symbolically rejected the offer of brotherhood, vassalage, or knight-bonding by his unwise denial of the Lord’s freely given kiss. Once again, the film raises the overall thematic and moral question and then doesn’t give one straight (ahem) answer. As with the medieval anxieties and chivalric texts that it is based on, it invokes the specter of queerness and then doesn’t neatly resolve it. As a modern audience, we find this unsatisfying, but once again, the film is refusing to conform to our expectations.

As has been said before, there is so much kissing between men in medieval contexts, both ceremonial and otherwise, that we’re left to wonder: “is it gay or is it feudalism?” Is there an overtly erotic element in Gawain and the Green Knight’s mutual “beheading” of each other (especially since in the original version, this frees the Lord from his curse, functioning like a true love’s kiss in a fairytale). While it is certainly possible to argue that the film has “straightwashed” its subject material by removing the entire sequence of kisses between Gawain and the Lord and the unresolved motives for their existence, it is a fairly accurate, if condensed, representation of the anxieties around medieval knightly bonds and whether, as Carolyn Dinshaw put it, a (male/male) “kiss is just a kiss.” After all, the kiss between Gawain and the Lady is uncomplicatedly read as sexual/romantic, and that context doesn’t go away when Gawain is kissing the Lord instead. Just as with its multiple futurities, the film leaves the question open-ended. Is it that third and final denial that seals Gawain’s fate, and if so, is it asking us to reflect on why, specifically, he does so?

The film could play with both this question and its overall tone quite a bit more: it sometimes comes off as a grim, wooden, over-directed Shakespearean tragedy, rather than incorporating the lively and irreverent tone that the poem often takes. It’s almost totally devoid of humor, which is unfortunate, and the Grim Middle Ages aesthetic is in definite evidence. Nonetheless, because of the comprehensive de-historicizing and the obvious lack of effort to claim the film as any sort of authentic representation of the medieval past, it works. We are not meant to understand this as a historical document, and so we have to treat it on its terms, by its own logic, and by its own frames of reference. In some ways, its consistent opacity and its refusal to abide by modern rules and common narrative conventions is deliberately meant to challenge us: as before, when we recognize Arthur, Merlin, the Round Table, and the other stock characters because we know them already and not because the film tells us so, we have to fill in the gaps ourselves. We are watching the film not because it tells us a simple adventure story – there is, as noted, shockingly little action overall – but because we have to piece together the metatext independently and ponder the philosophical questions that it leaves us with. What conclusion do we reach? What canon do we settle in? What future or resolution is ultimately made real? That, the film says, it can’t decide for us. As ever, it is up to future generations to carry on the story, and decide how, if at all, it is going to survive.

(And to close, I desperately want them to make my much-coveted Bisclavret adaptation now in more or less the same style, albeit with some tweaks. Please.)

Further Reading

Ailes, Marianne J. ‘The Medieval Male Couple and the Language of Homosociality’, in Masculinity in Medieval Europe, ed. by Dawn M. Hadley (Harlow: Longman, 1999), pp. 214–37.

Ashton, Gail. ‘The Perverse Dynamics of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Arthuriana 15 (2005), 51–74.

Boyd, David L. ‘Sodomy, Misogyny, and Displacement: Occluding Queer Desire in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Arthuriana 8 (1998), 77–113.

Busse, Peter. ‘The Poet as Spouse of his Patron: Homoerotic Love in Medieval Welsh and Irish Poetry?’, Studi Celtici 2 (2003), 175–92.

Dinshaw, Carolyn. ‘A Kiss Is Just a Kiss: Heterosexuality and Its Consolations in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Diacritics 24 (1994), 205–226.

Kocher, Suzanne. ‘Gay Knights in Medieval French Fiction: Constructs of Queerness and Non-Transgression’, Mediaevalia 29 (2008), 51–66.

Karras, Ruth Mazo. ‘Knighthood, Compulsory Heterosexuality, and Sodomy’ in The Boswell Thesis: Essays on Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, ed. Matthew Kuefler (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), pp. 273–86.

Kuefler, Matthew. ‘Male Friendship and the Suspicion of Sodomy in Twelfth-Century France’, in The Boswell Thesis: Essays on Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, ed. Matthew Kuefler (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), pp. 179–214.

McVitty, E. Amanda, ‘False Knights and True Men: Contesting Chivalric Masculinity in English Treason Trials, 1388–1415,’ Journal of Medieval History 40 (2014), 458–77.

Mieszkowski, Gretchen. ‘The Prose Lancelot's Galehot, Malory's Lavain, and the Queering of Late Medieval Literature’, Arthuriana 5 (1995), 21–51.

Moss, Rachel E. ‘ “And much more I am soryat for my good knyghts’ ”: Fainting, Homosociality, and Elite Male Culture in Middle English Romance’, Historical Reflections / Réflexions historiques 42 (2016), 101–13.

Zeikowitz, Richard E. ‘Befriending the Medieval Queer: A Pedagogy for Literature Classes’, College English 65 (2002), 67–80.

#the green knight #the green knight meta #sir gawain and the green knight #medieval literature #medieval history #this meta is goddamn 5.2k words #and has its own reading list #i uh #said i had a lot of thoughts?

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maniacwatchestheworld · 2 years

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Okay, so I was just thinking and... I think that pretty much every book that I was assigned to read in high school (exception to ones that we got to pick off a list) were united by one thing except for one type of exception... Almost every book that I was assigned to read in high school was in some capacity misanthropic. And having come to this realization, now I think that I really understand why I hated so many of the books we were assigned. Books where mankind is awful all the time, kindness and innocence is fool-hearty and will eventually be stamped under the cold boots of others, and things can't ever get better just are not very interesting, especially if it serves basically no purpose.

For a few of these stories, the misanthropy serves a purpose. In The Great Gatsby, these people are cruel assholes because they're out-of-touch and rich, able to get away with pretty much anything they want with impunity. So of course they're selfish and hate everyone, because they see everyone else as lower than them. In Frankenstein, largely the story is told from the point of view of two people who are each monsters in their own way. One feels rejected by society and so can't help but to hate it in return, and the other sees himself as above most of humanity and so often doesn't think through the consequences of his actions. The monster's misanthropy is a tragedy brought on by his circumstances, and Victor is an asshole. It serves a purpose and the writing is strong enough to not make the experience loathsome! And so I liked those books just fine!

The Crazy Horse Electric Game, The Natural, Catcher in the Rye, Into the Wild, The Stranger, Of Mice and Men. These books do not like people and humanity as a whole and honestly. And most of them came off as incredibly whiny or pretentious to me. For some people, perhaps this misanthropy is a philosophy that they agreed with and so that's why they resonated with these books a lot. But I just found them tedious and annoying.

The major exception to these assigned readings were... Books that were being used to teach history or to expand on those lessons. All Quiet on the Western Front and Night are both war stories. From World War 1 and the Holocaust respectively. The Iliad and The Odyssey are Greek classics, Beowulf is the oldest story that we have in English, Shakespeare is taught for obvious reasons, and The Crucible was used to teach both about colonial America and the Cold War. They even somehow managed to use To Kill A Mockingbird to teach some about racism during the period that it takes place in. Hell, even the two books that I mentioned liking were also used to teach history. The Great Gatsby to teach about 1920's American culture, and Frankenstein to teach about the romantic movement in art and literature.

I just think that this says some... Interesting things about the English teachers I had and what kinds of things that they wanted to teach. And I think that once again it's an instance of people confusing mean and dark with deep. And I just think that mean and dark usually isn't very deep. And the thing is... When we got to pick a book from a list, because the teacher wasn't directly dictating what book we had to read, they weren't like that! I chose to reach Catch-22, a book largely about people trying to cope with the insanity of war and literally starts with the main character saying how much he loves the Chaplain, and Huckleberry Finn which is largely about how this kid really cares about his friend who has just run away from slavery and what he is willing to do to help him! So clearly the classics are not all full of anger and misanthropy! So why are so many of the books they required us read have to be so angry?

Just saying, when I got to college, this stopped being a thing. Even the horribly racist writings of Thomas Jefferson were not nearly as angry and misanthropic as what I had to read in high school English class. This is a very interesting discovery that I have made and I would be curious to know if anyone else had a similar experience in their English classes.

#english #english class #high school #high school english #misanthropy #misantropía #classical literature #classic literature

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rachetmath · 3 years

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JRY vs Ace-ops

Warning: Long read. This is theory on who would survive a fight. A analyses. In my opinion. So with clear, if you agree, then like or comment. Disagree, fine, go wild.

Hello, so you must have read the title. Okay you might be thinking, "Ratchetmath, bro, you can't be serious. There is no way Jaune and Ren can ever defeat the Ace-ops. Only Yang, considering her and her teammates did in volume 7." Which I would completely side with you on. However, I've come to realize that the Hound was never a threat, and more importantly the boys could've done more if the Worf effect wasn't in place. So, let's give these guys a fighting chance and see what they along with Yang, could've done if they had to fight Winter and Ace-ops.

First, let's discuss the Hound and why the Worf effect failed. For those of you who don't know what the Worf effect is, it is when a new character is placed in the story and to prove their strength: you make them fight already deemed strong characters and let them win or stand a chance of winning the fight. The reason the Worf effect failed for the Hound is because Oscar is not a very strong character. Oscar skill level as the show presents is random at best. The Hound should have aimed for Jaune. Jaune as the show and writers made clear, has an incredible amount of aura. Seeing the Hound break his aura completely without even trying would've been more terrifying and makes sense. Or Yang, showing that it could fight.

But why? Why the Hound taking Jaune or Yang down first makes sense? Yeah, Yang is fine but Jaune is not strong or a capable fighter. Maybe not much of a fighter, but he is strong. In fact, he holds back grimm twice his size on a regular basis like an Urosa and Nuckelavee. Even Yang and the other characters, well except Elm because of her physical appearance, are guilty of this. The Hound is no different, it's basically a harder version of the Beowulf. Let's face it, Jaune couldn't do anything because the show must go as planned. Jaune could've save Oscar by getting close and blowing it away with his gravity dusted shield. The hound attacking Jaune first would prove it was watching them carefully, seeing their weapons and abilities to find who could be a threat to its mission. Proving its power and intelligence.

Now, the main event, team JRY versus The Ace-ops. The fight starts when the Ace-ops arrive after Jaune told them about the grimm river. Sadly, when they arrive, things were not so good. The Ace-Ops were more focused on finding Penny instead of the river. Now the grimm river destroyed the Atlas barrier and Atlas was under attack. However, the Ace-ops still want to arrest the group. Instead of going down peacefully, Jaune, Yang and Ren won't go down without a fight. Can they win?

Now, let's scan the environment. They were in an open plain field full of snow. There is nowhere to hide and almost no way to escape for team JRY. The motorcycle is not fast enough to outrun Harriet or a plane. But more importantly there was a crater beside them where the grimm river used to be. Now there are two ways this can go down, but I'll explain later. Let’s focus on the characters.

Let’s talk about the Ace-ops. They are elite hunters in Atlas. And from what we got from volume 8, Harriet told us that Marrow and Winter are replacements for their fallen comrades. Meaning Vine, Elm and Harriet herself are the remaining, long term members of the Ace-ops. So, they work very well together unlike with Marrow and Winter. That could give team JRY an advantage, but not much. Do to the fact that it's five against three and with only one of them being the strongest fighter, they need a plan to set the odds to their favor.

Now for team JRY. Beacon students turned hunters thanks to James. Now they’re with adults. However, there are a few problems with this team. There are three people in the team and two of them, barely fight or have barely won a fight at all. Jaune is more on the defensive while Ren... well, he spams his attacks, and relies heavily on long range. Sadly, the Ace-ops over power them with combative semblances and fire power. Their best shot would be to run. However, there still a way to win. This is a fight or flight situation, so what would happen if team JRY choose either option?

For flight, the reason being because they're not capable, it's a waste time and more importantly lives are in danger. First, remember they were on a field of snow. What does Jaune have? A shield that shoots gravity waves on contact weather it's from enemies or to the ground. Jaune was already in front of the bike and with good timing, he could activate and slam his shield to ground, sending snow flying, causing a smoke screen. Giving them little but plenty of time to hop on the one motorcycle and ride, while making sure Winter or Marrow have no time to stop them with either of their semblances. The crater also plays a key role for their escape. They can ride in it, but Harriet, due to her semblance granting her speed, will be on their tail. However, if orderly seated, Jaune can stop Harriet from getting too close. But what about the other members? Well, they'll be back on the ship, but they can't do anything. If they fire missiles, they'll get in Harriet's way and more importantly hurt her in the process. Jaune could also block her path himself with shield bomb.

Now, for fight. Reason being is Oscar is in danger and needs saving. More importantly the plane is better for traveling around Mantle and saving people than a motorcycle. This will be a difficult battle but not one sided. This is going to involve the team trusting each other. And putting their skills to the test.

First off, they would need to get rid of Marrow. Marrow may be the rookie of the Ace-ops, but he is the most powerful. His semblance can stop time just by looking at his opponent or pointing at them, commanding them to "Stay" in place.

To take out Marrow, they need to knock him out before he uses his semblance. So, before the fight truly starts, Yang should be close to Jaune, grabbing his clothes and amplifying her aura. When she has enough, Jaune, since team JRY will get a plane, launches the bike and Ren shoots the gas tank. The explosion should cause a temporary smoke screen. Yang should immediately get on Jaune shield for him to launch her towards the Ace-ops and activate her semblance to knock Marrow out. Wait a minute, but Yang's semblance doesn't work like that, she needs to take damage to even use it. However though, Blake revealed that Yang and Adam's semblances are one of the same. Meaning, both can activate their semblances any time without the need to be attacked. Yang has done this once back at Beacon and in Atlas considering Elm couldn't even touch her. But this would wear her out. Too bad she was amplified by Jaune, so she may not experience the same negative draw backs when using her semblance recklessly before.

Wait, but what about Aura? Can't aura protect Marrow from harm? Well, sadly no. Aura, as the show so far made clear, is limited to what it could do for its users. If you have a broken arm, get poisoned and/or critically wounded, your aura my not save you. So, a heavy blow to the head is something your aura is useless in healing, especially when you need to be conscious.

Now, it's four against three. So, what should happen next? Jaune pushes Harriet into the crater, allowing Ren to fight her. Harriet may be fast but with the crater being narrow and deep she'll have a hard time moving around and probably climbing out. This will allow Ren to adapt to her movements and fight in her in hand-to-hand combat. Hopefully, he's still good at that and not relying on his upgrade.

Jaune may have to take on two opponents. They are being Vine and Elm. Don't get me wrong, it took Blake and Yang to beat them, but Vine and Elm aren't really that good. In fact, they are just stronger versions of Ren and Nora, except Vine's semblance is better suited for combat. But let’s be clear, Jaune survived a journey of pain without his aura being broken but a few times. Never mind, only once, do to being tired after fighting a giant mech.

Now, hear me out. Elm is strong, and her weapon is an RPG. But her semblance is useless if the ground is cracked, which Jaune can do without wasting aura, or entering a burst mode. Elm also has not demonstrated any hand-to-hand combat skills. Even if she was willing to still use her weapon without her semblance, it only further proves she will suffer from the recoil from her weapon once fired. Plus, Jaune can block or deflect the missiles back at her using the gravity waves from his shield. Also, though Elm is stronger than Jaune, he's faster, has more movability and a sword. So as the saying goes, "Bigger doesn't always mean better."

But hey, what about Vine? He beat Jaune before. But who can't beat Jaune? More importantly, didn't Vine need the high ground to fight anyone. In the snow plain field, Vine has no high ground but the ship, Jaune already fought him once so he might know how far his arms can stretch, and more importantly, Jaune is physically stronger than Vine. He might use his weapon but again, the shield can deflect it. And if Jaune grabs his stretchable arm, he basically can throw Vine around.

I will make this quick for Yang. Yang will take on Winter. She would be able to reason with her considering she's friends with her sister. But Yang might have some ways to fight Winter considering she should knows how Weiss fights and been working with Weiss for a while. However, we still must consider that Winter can make an army of grimm, but she has not used any other tactics.

But these are still highly trained hunters. They aren't so easily to be defeated especially against Jaune and Ren. Well, Jaune can assist Ren by knocking out Harriet. How? Ren could use his grappling gun to capture and slow down Harriet. Ren gives Jaune a signal, Jaune goes to him, Ren releases Harriet who was running too fast for her own good with no time to react. Finally, Jaune use his shield to knock her out. They climb out and both can fight Vine and Elm. Same for Ren if to assist Jaune first. Harriet may be fast but won't be able to climb out the crater. Once all four members are down Winter would be the only one left. And sadly, the Schnees despite their abilities, still manage to lose battles.

Well, that’s all folks. Remember this is in my opinion. If there are ways for team JRY to win or if there are flaws to my plan, then please leave a comment. However, despite what I said, team JRY would still lose. Mostly due to what I said about the Worf effect not being used properly. And the villains have way more plot armor then the heroes.

#rwby #Jaune Arc #lie ren #yang xiao long #rwby ace ops #Oscar Pine #rwby elm ederne #vine zeki #rwby marrow #marrow amin #harriet bree #winter schnee #clover ebi #rwby vine #rwby harriet #The Hound

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cogentranting · 3 years

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Tier Ranking All the Classics/”Literature” type Books I’ve Read

Or at least all the ones I remembered to include/didn’t arbitrarily decide to leave out. (Within each tier the books are not ranked)

Other books wish they had what these books have

(The best of the best. )

Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoevsky) A Tale of Two CIties (Charles Dickens) Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) The Lord of the Rings (JRR Tolkien) The Chronicles of Narnia (CS Lewis)

Love it

Les Misérables (Victor Hugo) East of Eden (John Steinbeck)- honestly I don’t remember much about it but I remember liking it a lot Frankenstein (Mary Shelley) Great Expectations (Charles Dickens) The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald) As I Lay Dying (William Faulkner) Sense and Sensibility (Jane Austen)- but if I reread this might very well move up a category. Haven’t read it since I was like 11 Emma (Jane Austen) Catch-22 (Joseph Heller) The Hobbit (JRR Tolkien) The Space Trilogy (CS Lewis) Til we Have Faces (CS Lewis) A Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine L'Engle)

It makes me think

(It’s not fun in the way you might think but it has really interesting ideas or elements that I enjoy engaging with)

The Brothers Karamazov (Fyodor Dostoevsky) The Stranger (Albert Camus) Night (Elie Wiesel) Grendel (John Gardner) The Sunflower (Simon Wiesenthal) Confessions (Augustine of Hippo) The Man Who was Thursday (GK Chesterton) Orthodoxy (GK Chesterton)

Good Vibes Only

(I don’t really remember it but I remember liking it)

Remains of the Day (Kazuo Ishiguro) Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury) Hard Times (Charles Dickens) Oliver Twist (Charles Dickens) Persuasion (Jane Austen) My Antonia (Willa Cather)

Really Enjoyable

Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (T.S. Eliot)- It’s absurd and a delight. To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee) The Martian Chronicles (Ray Bradbury) Cloud Atlas (David Mitchell) Life of Pi (Yann Martel) War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy) The Crucible (Arthur Miller) Hamlet (William Shakespeare) The Color of Water (James McBride) Beowulf A Separate Peace (John Knowles)- Also featuring not one but two movie adaptations of the “so bad they’re funny” variety Middlemarch (George Elliot) White Fang (Jack London)- except the ending. Let White Fang stay wild. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)- they’re trash people doing terrible things and it’s a good time And Then There Were None (Agatha Christie) The Silmarillion (JRR Tolkien)

It’s good BUT

(I like it but there’s one glaring exception to that)

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Victor Hugo) - Most of it is fun but also I’m pretty sure the one major plot point is very racist Gone with the Wind (Margaret Mitchell)

yeah, it’s good

(I like it but not strongly)

The Jungle Book (Rudyard Kipling) The Idiot (Fyodor Dostoevsky) Macbeth (William Shakespeare) The Possessed (Fyodor Dostoevsky) Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck) Moby Dick (Herman Melville) Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain) Paradise Lost (John Milton) The Bean Trees (Barbara Kingsolver)- respect the fact that between when I read this as a high school freshman to when I read it as a student teacher, it worked its way up from “bleh) to be here The Three Musketeers (Alexandre Dumas) The Hound of the Baskervilles (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Sure

(I feel slightly more positive than neutral)

Animal Farm (George Orwell) Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck) The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne) Medea (Euripides) Antigone (Sophocles) The Odyssey (Homer) David Copperfield (Charles Dickens) Player Piano (Kurt Vonnegut)

That’s definitely a book that exists and I have read

(I have no emotions regarding this book)

The Portrait of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde) Tarzan of the Apes (Edgar Rice Burroughs) The Sun Also Rises (Ernest Hemingway) Death of a Salesman (Arthur Miller) Julius Caesar (William Shakespeare) Passing (Nella Larsen) Charlotte Temple (Susanna Rowson) Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)- I’m going to be honest. That category title is an exaggeration. I read a children’s abridged version when I was like 8 and that’s it. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)

Need to reread

(I feel like I missed something the first time through and would appreciate it more on reread)

Beatrice and Virgil (Yann Martel) Song of Solomon (Toni Morrison)- honestly though I think rereading would move it to “respect but don’t like” A Midsummer Night’s Dream (William Shakespeare) Canterbury Tales (Geoffrey Chaucer)

I respect it, but I don’t like it

(I fully think that this is a quality book, but for some reason or another, I don’t like it)

The Plot Against America (Phillip Roth) The House on Mango Street (Sandra Cisneros) 100 Years of Solitude (Gabriel García Márquez)

Bleh

Romeo and Juliet (William Shakespeare) The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood) The Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka)

Bad Vibes Only

(I don’t remember this book but I remember I didn’t like it)

Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad) A Portrait of the Artist as a Yong Man (James Joyce) Rose in the Heart (Edna O’Brien)

Strong Dislike

1984 (George Orwell)- It could almost go into respect but don’t like, because I think the world he creates and the idea of it all is very well done. And the essay on NewSpeak is brilliant. But the book is boring and the characters are bad and I don’t really care if Winston gets tortured to death. The Man in the Iron Mask (Alexandre Dumas)- There’s a reason why at least one movie adaptation looked at the plot and went “nah we’ll just write our own”. The first one is basically a swashbuckling adventure and then this one was like “hey want to see the musketeers sad and old and what if they went on one final mission which is deeply misguided where they all fail and die. Does that sound fun?” If I’m remembering it correctly.

“I can shoot the book physically but not conceptually and that makes me sad”

(I hate this book so much you don’t understand)

The Catcher in the Rye (JD Salinger)- this category was made specifically this book in mind.

#books #from your resident english teacher #tell me what I'm wrong about #or give me book recommendations #or you know ignore the massive ranking list no one asked for

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moviemunchies · 3 years

Photo

I’m going to start with pointing out that this:

“Lo there do I see my father. Lo there do I see my mother and my sisters and my brothers. Lo, there do I see the line of my people back to the beginning. Lo, they call out to me. They bid me take my place among them In the halls of Valhalla where the brave shall live forever.”

--is FROM this movie. I keep seeing it, or variations of it, circulated around media as if it’s a genuine historical prayer that Norsemen used in funerals. From well-meaning Tumblr users making gifsets to English white supremacist douchebags to freaking God of War this gets copied and pasted all the time and it makes me mad. One of those links goes into the history of the quote, which is derived from the book, which itself is derived from the historical record, but the words “Lo there do I see my father”? It’s not! I don’t mind that the movie uses this, but I hate that people, many of whom haven’t even seen this film, think it’s a piece of historical religion when it’s nothing of the sort.

STOP CLAIMING THIS IS HISTORY. IT ISN’T.

Anyway let’s actually talk about this movie.

Michael Crichton, on a bet from a colleague, wrote a book called Eaters of the Dead that’s a retelling of Beowulf from the point of view of Ibn Fadlan, a real life historical explorer who encountered Norsemen and is one of our early sources about Nordic culture in the medieval period. The book is meant to be read as a recently rediscovered historical document, but it’s also kind of a horror story, that strips away the overt supernatural elements of the original poem while still feeling like an epic fantasy quest and including other elements that are more speculative than historical, but still not outright magical.

It’s an interesting book, if you’re curious for something different.

A movie was made that was relatively faithful to the book, and then test audiences didn’t like it, so the director got fired and half of it was reshot by Crichton himself in the director’s chair and released. It didn’t do so well, costing the studio millions of dollars. But weirdly enough, I think the movie is seen fondly enough by casual audiences these days. It’s entered the culture somehow or another, if the prevalence of the “old Viking prayer” is anything to go by.

Basically, it goes like this: after falling in love with another man’s wife, Ibn Fadlan is reassigned from Baghdad to a far out post as an ambassador. He runs into some Norsemen, who are having a funeral for their king, and is there when they are called to go north and fight an unnamed evil by King Hrothgar. The soothsayer tells them that they need thirteen warriors, and that the thirteenth warrior must be a foreigner. So Ibn Fadlan, despite not being a fighter, gets roped into this adventure. He and his companions go on the journey and fight the wendol, a race of monsters that come with the mist and attack, taking people’s heads and eating corpses. They have to figure out how to kill these things and bring peace back to the land.

The main weakness with this movie, in my opinion, is that I don’t know who most of these people are. A good chunk of them aren’t named on screen in the film, despite the fact that there are thirteen of them. Vladimir Kulich, who plays Buliwyf, had his own ideas as to how to fix that in a short amount of time--have a scene during the trip where the camera goes through the entire crew, pausing on each member and showing their traits, but this never happened.

But the main Norseman in the group that Ibn Fadlan hangs out with? I could not tell you his name. According to things I’ve looked up, it's ‘Herger’ but I couldn’t be sure that’s accurate. That’s frustrating. I don’t need all of their backstories (although why one of them is apparently a Scotsman would be nice to know), but I would like to know at least a handful of their names so I cared what happened to them. Oddly, the credits give them a quick descriptor, but not all of those descriptors actually match, and it isn’t as if there’s indicators before some of them are killed off.

What I can tell you is that Antonio Banderas plays Ibn Fadlan. He does pretty well considering he’s not Arab. Yes, it would have been better to get an Arabic performer, but Banderas isn’t bad in the role. He’s a lot more of an action hero in the movie than in the book, but not so much that I ever felt like it was too much of a stretch.

Dennis Storhoi is Herger, the one Norseman who gets the most personality. He’s clearly having fun in the role, playing a Norseman who acts like he doesn’t take anything seriously but has a better grasp of what the others are thinking and how they’re going to act than he lets on. I liked him.

I mentioned Vladimir Kulich earlier plays Buliwyf, this story’s Beowulf. He plays it very stoically, which I felt worked for the character they’re portraying. However, I can understand if some viewers found it a boring performance. I didn’t think so--I thought he came across as thoughtful and calm despite his situation, very rarely having to raise his voice and yet still commanding respect.

The action scenes are alright--I can’t say there were amazing fight sequences, but they do feel like appropriately epic battles, and there aren’t any annoying camera tricks, and absolutely no CGI at all that I can find.

So yes, it’s a bit corny as a historical epic movie, but I think it holds up well enough. It’s a bit of fun, and if you’re familiar with the original poem, it’s an enjoyable movie. I think it’s worth seeing. I can understand that it’s not for everyone, but for me it worked.

I’m just tired of seeing that “traditional Viking prayer” all over the place.

#13th Warrior #Beowulf #Antonio Banderas #Ibn Fadlan #Movie Munchies

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adapembroke · 3 years

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Icelandic Sagas and Norse Culture: A Conversation with Jared Juckiewicz

There are some people who are so interesting and knowledgeable about a fascinating subject that I wish it was culturally acceptable to hand them a lectern and microphone in social settings and ask them to give an impromptu lecture. My friend Jared Juckiewicz is one of those people.

Jared’s knowledge of Norse history and culture is legendary in our circle, and it was a privilege to have the opportunity to chat with him about the Icelandic Sagas, Jared's class on the Sagas for Nameless Academy, and why you shouldn't carry a magical banner with a raven on it into battle if you value your life.

Ada: For those who are new to the subject, what are the Sagas?

Jared: So Merriam-Webster defines a saga as “a prose narrative recorded in Iceland in the 12th and 13th centuries of historic or legendary figures and events of the heroic age of Norway and Iceland” which is actually bang on for my definition of the historical Icelandic sagas. (I’d class things like Beowulf and the Nibelungenlied as sagas as well, but epic sagas rather than historical ones.) Most of them are attributed to one writer, an Icelandic gentleman by the name of Snorri Sturlisson, who took advantage of his position in the Icelandic Diocese to record as much of Iceland’s Oral History as he could. Each one is basically the history of one of the important families in Iceland at the time, typically going back a generation or two or three before the settlement of Iceland.

Ada: I’m surprised that the dictionary defines “saga” as Icelandic specifically. I always thought “saga” was a synonym for “very long poem.” I’m learning something already!

Was there something about the settlement of Iceland that inspired the Icelanders to write down all of these stories, or is it more that more of the oral tradition survived than it otherwise would have because of Snorri?

Jared: I mean, I would definitely quibble with the definition being specific to Iceland myself. But then again, I don’t work for Merriam-Webster, so you know. Not my say.

So, it’s definitely a case that more of the oral tradition survived thanks to Snorri than it otherwise would have. Admittedly, he did impart a lot of his biases to them, given that he was Christian, in fact being heavily involved in Iceland’s organised Church, and a lot of his subject matter predates the Christianisation of Iceland. But it’s less of an issue in the historical sagas than in things like the Eddas. I suspect a part of his motivation is that the 13th Century was around the time we start to see the emergence of true national identities in northern europe, and a recorded history tends to be a large part of those.

Ada: What sorts of challenges do readers have to be aware of accounting for Snorri’s biases, and why are those biases less of an issue with the sagas?

Jared: So the sagas are more of a historical account than the Eddas, which are a record of the icelandic forms of Norse myth. Being a historical account, there’s less room for interpretation, whereas most scholars agree that Snorris Eddas were revised, by him, to make them more palatable to the Church. So when reading the Eddas, it helps to be aware that the person recording them was a Christian, had been raised Christian, and so had certain views regarding morality and cosmology that may have (Read almost certainly did) differ significantly from how the Norse viewed things. Less of an issue with the historical sagas because history is less open to interpretation. His biases may have coloured his description of people’s motivations, but the events are likely accurate, as are the depictions of things like cultural mores and the like.

Ada: What is your story with the sagas? How did you get interested, and what fascinates you about them?

Jared: So, I’ve always had a bit of a fascination with history. When I was at University, a friend dragged me along to a meeting of what became our local Historical Reenactment Society by dint of showing up to class with a wooden shield on his arm and a wooden sword in his belt.

Ada: Best. Marketing. Ever.

Jared: I was hooked. Still am. Anyway, I’m like, 5’7” and am lucky if I weigh more than 120lbs. To be effective on the field of battle, I have to go for a mix of speed, savagery and complete disregard for my own personal safety. Four years of getting referred to as ‘The littlest Berserker that could’ lead to finding out everything I could about said Berserkers, which lead to the Icelandic sagas. They’re great stories. Dry reads, cause, you know, the 13th Century wasn’t known for popular fiction. But they’re very… human. Stories. Like you read them and it’s like “I can understand why that person would respond that way.” The culture is at enough of a remove that it feels fantastical, but because we’re talking about real people, and their emotions and their triumphs and their failings, it’s easy to emphasize with them, I find.

Ada: How did you get from berserkers to the sagas?

Jared: There are a number of sagas where major characters are berserkers, or berserkers are mentioned. Viga-Glums Saga mentions a Berserker who made a living challenging farmers to Holmgangr (a sort of duel where the victor took the losers property. Given they were generally to the death, the loser didn’t tend to object). The eponymous Egil Skallagrimsson is also described as being a Berserker in some translations. As well as a Skald (poet), Sorceror, and what passed for Nobility in his period of Iceland. Part of it is also a dearth of other sources. You have some mention in the Anglo-Saxon chronicle and in similar Scots and Irish records from the time, but they mostly complain about the Norse being evil pagans come to destroy the Christians (When they aren’t complaining that the Vikings only bathe so they can get laid). There’s Adam of Bremen, but he didn’t talk much about the military side of things, which is where berserkers come in, and there’s Ibn Fadhlan, but until recently translations of his manuscripts were a bugger to get a hold of.

Ada: What is it about the sagas that feels fantastical to you?

Jared: Everything is so much… MORE. If that makes sense? Like, there’s an account of a trial in Njall’s Saga where the defense witness perjures himself by libeling one of the victims, and the prosecuting attorney (Who happened to be related to said victim. No conflict of interest, it’s how things were done at the time) responded by impaling the witness, fatally, with a spear throw. And got away with it. They solve their disputes, when talk fails, with broadswords and battle axes.

Ada: It’s like they actually do the things we’re all imagining doing when someone does something that’s completely out of line.

Jared: Certainly the things I imagine doing. Although, I now realise I could explain it easier. Tolkien was a scholar of the Norse Sagas, and drew heavily on some of Snorri’s other works (particularly the Eddas) for the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. So part of why they feel fantastical is that the definitive work for High Fantasy is based on them.

Ada: Other than weapons, what Tolkienesque things can readers find in the sagas?

Jared: So the sagas are maybe less of an influence on his works than the Eddas, but he drew heavily on the mythology, and there are bits where that crops up in the sagas. There are also references to things like rune-carving as a means of casting spells, and at least one instance of a magic banner. Bear in mind that this was back when magic was an accepted fact of life (in fact at the time, the Catholic Church was heavily involved in magical research. There are guides on things like alchemy and necromancy and rune magic that were written in monasteries at the time). Poetry, I suppose. The Norse were big on poetry.

Ada: I would love to dive into the intersection between history and mythology with you, but I’ll restrain myself. What’s an example of the intersection of history and myth in the sagas?

Jared: The above mentioned magic banner, actually. It crops up in Njall’s Saga and the Orkneyinga Saga, and belonged to the Jarl of Orkney. Jarl Sigurd of Orkney, to be precise. It was a Raven Banner, sewn by his mother, who was reputed to be a Volva, which was a Norse term for a female magic practitioner, particularly one who practiced fibre magics. It was, reputedly, enchanted to draw the attention of Odin and his aid, and whatever army carried it into battle would have victory, but the bearer of the banner would be slain. Well, the Battle of Clontarf in 1014 was particularly hard fought, and after he’d gone through several standard-bearers, none of Sigurd’s companions was willing to pick it up. He informed them that by spurning Odin’s gift, the battle was lost, tied it round his waist like a belt, and led his final charge. Sigurd’s side lost the battle, and the few of his immediate companions were hunted down shortly thereafter by Kari Solmundsson (admittedly for unrelated reasons).

Ada: One of the reasons I wanted to have this conversation with you is because you are going to be teaching a class on the sagas at the Nameless Academy in February.

I’m really excited to have the chance to sit in on your class because you are a person who I regularly want to hand a lectern and microphone because you have so much knowledge and so many stories.

What is this class, and what will you be teaching?

Jared: So the class is called Íslendingasögur 101: Norse Polytheism and Medieval Culture in Icelandic Sagas.It’s a mouthful I know. Really, it’s just an introduction to pre-Christian Iceland. There’s a lot of misinformation floating about regarding the Norse. I’m not going to name any names. *Cough* Wagner *Cough* Victorian England *Cough*

Ahem. Don’t worry, it’s not Covid, I promise.

But no, there’s a lot of misinformation about the Norse out there, and it’s only in the past five or six decades that we’ve started to undo that. The thing is, the corrections started in Academia, and it took three or four decades before accurate information began to be easily available to the general public. So while we’re doing away with the popular image in peoples heads of the ravening barbarian with the horned helmet, it’s slow going.

I’m hoping in future semesters to do guided self-study of some of the Icelandic studies, but because I do not want to spend all my time correcting common misconceptions, I decided to teach this first, so that anyone looking into the sagas themselves, either under the aegis of the Nameless Academy, or by themselves, is doing so with at least a basic understanding of the culture those sagas concern.

Ada: Other than the horned helmet ridiculousness, what is a common misconception that tends to trip up newbies to the sagas?

Law. The Norse had the greatest respect for their Laws, even if they didn’t always follow them. Because of how sparsely settled Iceland was, and given the lack of urbanisation, they didn’t have permanent courthouses like you find nowadays. Instead they all met up at regular intervals at what was known as a ‘Thing’. No that is not a typo, it was actually called a Thing. The big one in Iceland was held at Thingvellir or “Place of the Thing”. “Field of the Thing”? I do not (yet) speak Old Norse and I’ve seen multiple translations. It was sort of a combination of court and county fair, that was opened by a member of the community, the Lawspeaker, reciting a portion of the legal code to all assembled. It was a great honour to be chosen as the Lawspeaker, even if it also meant moderating all the suits.

One of the most famous Sagas (and my personal favourite) actually focuses heavily on the Laws and Legal matters. In fact, more attention is paid in most sagas to legal nitty-gritty than to pitched battles.

Ada: Other than an interest in history, why might people want to take your class?

Jared: Perspective. People don’t change, even if the places and laws and the cultures do. It’s also a conversation piece. I mean, you can back me up on this. I can relate almost anything to the Sagas.

Ada: That is absolutely true. I feel sometimes when you're talking like they're stories that are happening now.

If people wanted to read the Sagas, where do you suggest they start?

Jared: So, if you prefer Dead Tree Editions, most of my hardcopies were released by either Penguin Classics or Oxford University Press. They tend to be older translations, but still very good, and I’ve never had a problem finding them at good second-hand bookstores or my local library. Well. Never had a major problem. And in this time of Covid, if you don’t want to go out or have someone bring a copy to your door. 13th Century is pretty much Public Domain now, so there are a few of the sagas available as ebooks through Project Gutenberg. Alternately, there’s an Icelandic Non-Profit that hosts a website, sagadb.org which hosts all the extant Icelandic sagas in a variety of languages and formats (although not all of them are available in English). If I do manage to lead some guided self-study it’s likely to be the SagaDB translations I use. Amongst other things, they’re free.

Ada: Thank you so much for talking with me, Jared.

How can people who are interested in learning more about you and your class find you?

Jared: So I’m on Tumblr. At present I’m A-Krogan-Skald-And-Bearsark, and if that changes, only the article and the first identifier will change. Admittedly, I don’t curate my Tumblr AT ALL. So there’s a bit of everything on it.

I’m also on Discord, and you can reach me there on the Nameless Academy server as Jared, or on Polytheists or Diviners Anonymous as JehanCriec. Mind you, my internet access can be sporadic, so if you don’t hear back from me right away, don’t take it as a slight, I’m just on a boat and will respond as soon as I get a chance.

#norse #norse pagan #witchblr

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lilatreus · 3 years

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All of my thoughts on Assassin’s Creed Valhalla!

Of course there are major spoilers for the game and ending. I know it’s been out for like three months now but you never know so I’m putting it all under the cut. And yes this is pretty long. A summary is at the end of the entire text.

also pls don’t send me hate like y’all did for what I said about odyssey literally these are just my opinions on the game if u dont care for them pls just skip I have a lot to say about it and there is actually quite a few things that I really enjoyed when playing the game and if u do read it pls don’t hesitate to shoot me messages and talk to me about the game bc I really enjoy the franchise and I need some more people to talk to in this fandom.

What I enjoyed about the game!!

The blending in with the monks/prayers in the streets to get pass the guards!!!!! Dude!!!!! I know it’s like a really small detail but it just made me so happy because it reminded me of when you had to do that in the first assassin’s creed game. It’s a nice touch of nostalgia and really liked it.

The “glitches” (while some were annoying) I’m super super happy that they were kind of bringing back the glyphs from assassins creed two. I loved doing them because I loved trying to get the little movie. It was really nice of them to bring that back so we can get another little movie like the one from AC2 again.

I think we can all agree: Hytham was a great character. I wish he was more involved in the story than already but that’s just me. I really liked his character so much he’s my favorite from the game.

Desmond having some Easter eggs and basically coming back into the series again was great. It was also a nice touch to see the vault from assassins creed three (the place where des dies). It really makes me miss connor and his band of assassins. I miss assassins creed three :( I want more about Connor please put out some more comics with him in it or some easter eggs please I’m begging you. Also fuck u haytham kenway I hate u.

Shaun and Rebecca being back and now it’s canon that they’re together is fucking awesome. I’m actually really happy about that and I missed them so much. I’m glad they’re in the story again. (Rebecca dude I was so worried that she died like no fucking joke I was so upset I thought syndicate really killed her off).

The game itself actually did very well keeping with the lore we were given from assassins creed origins and was actually doing pretty well trying to connect it to the first assassin game.

Speaking of lore I do think they did the best they could to expand upon the not so well liked lore from odyssey and try and fix it but also it did feel a little confusing but I guess that’s just because i didn’t finish the Asgard missions yet so who knows.

The scenery was very very beautiful and I throughly enjoyed walking around and just admiring the view no matter where I was on the map.

Reda just becoming immortal is so funny and the fact that he was just sitting there telling stories about Aya and Bayek.. please my heart. I love them so so much. The letter Bayek wrote??? Soulmates I’m telling you.

Also I did like that they fixed their plot hole for why Bayek and Aya aren’t known for anything history wise in the story (or mainly why Bayek isn’t in the assassin’s history books and Aya, as Amunet, is really the only one written down). I’m very glad that they explained it and I really think I’m just super happy that Bayek was brought back for some easter eggs within the game.

Basim is very handsome and I liked him but I don’t know how to feel about the ending with him. Yes I do love his character and it was super cool to hang around him and do a couple of missions with him but also it felt weird that now you’re technically playing as the bad guy.

Eivor was really cool to play as. I enjoyed running around as them and doing missions. I like the fact that Eivor was basically like “yo you guys [ pointing to the brotherhood ] are fucking crazy but you guys [ pointing to the templars/order of ancients ] are really fucking crazy and weird.” I really loved basically being an assassin and using the hidden blade again. (Yeah I know they technically aren’t an assassin but yknow just an honorary one).

The Canterbury Tales!! The fucking pardoner’s tale!! That was super cool to do I loved those stories and being able to do them in the game made me super happy. I know it doesn’t actually fit the timeline given it wasnt written until like centuries after the game took place but I just thought that side mission was neat!

Fulke was a very cool templar and I thought her character was really really interesting. I wish they did more with her honestly.

What I didn’t like about the game:

So! Speaking of templars! Boy oh boy I have a lot to say for that subject. So for “the order of ancients”:

— I think my biggest problem with this game (as well as odyssey) is that the templars (“OOA”) aren’t actually important to the game anymore. They’re barely in the story now like out of all 20 or so people you have to kill within their order only like 5 or 6 are actually important to the storyline and that’s my biggest problem with it, because now killing the templars is just like a “well since you’re in the area you can kill this dude” and I really hate it. I truly believe that’s why I didn’t like odyssey that much solely bc they made doing the most core part of the video game series a damn side mission and that also goes for Valhalla.

— Also so many of the templar stories, like scenes we get after you kill them, were just so bland. They don’t make them like they used to and that’s another big core part of the series lost.

— They’re straying very far from the main plot of the series and that’s why these last two games didn’t feel anything like an assassin’s creed game. (And you can’t say that “it’s just different because they’re taking place in a time way before the templars were called templars” bc assassins creed origins did very well to changing their game and how they play but also keeping the main goal from previous games: To be an assassin and kill the templars.)

— Also they need to not show us the outline of who the templars are because I could tell who “the father” was as soon as I was able to see the order tab. Please Ubisoft do better.

I know I said this before however the fucking Beowulf mission. My God Did I Hate That. I was really looking forward to the dlc and to see what they did with the story sucked. In Odyssey we got actual Greek monsters and gods and I expected to be given that in Valhalla for the norse deities. And it didn’t happen. (As of right now I can’t comment on the Asgard missions because I haven’t finished them but I’ll probably edit the post and put them in later)

As of right now with the ending and lore shit I’m really kind of indifferent with it. On one hand they are trying to fix the lore that they kind of fucked up in Odyssey by adding more things to explain it better but also that means they added on unnecessary stuff that makes no sense. On the other hand I really hate that Layla is now technically canonically dead because shes now in the grey and basim now has the one thing that would’ve kept her alive. I really wanted them to do more with her like they did with Desmond. I genuinely enjoyed her as a main protagonist and it sucks that she is now dead. Layla deserves so much better honestly!!!!

Also on des: While I don’t want to smack away a fan service gift that includes desmond; it did kind of feel weird that he’s back in the series. Honestly I don’t know how to go about this. I’m super excited that technically desmond is back in a way but on the other hand I wanted them to focus on Layla more and :( Idk man it’s complicated. They have to stop changing the story’s main protagonists Layla deserved to be in more games and hopefully she will be because her “death” felt so cheap. I also wish they explained what happened with her during the year apart from odyssey and Valhalla.

The side missions I have no problem with except for the fact that the little side mission icon just stayed in the place you first show up to to get the mission. I miss the old side mission mechanic bc this new one felt really really confusing and it made me get lost quite a few times.

This one might just be me but I guess they’re expanding more on the gods reincarnating but they’re not focusing on the sages anymore? Like when will Elijah Miles (the newest sage) be shown?? Odyssey fucked up that lore bit but now they’re not even talking about it because any isu god can reincarnate or can take ahold of anyone if they interact with a piece of eden or something. Idk this one little bit is super confusing for me right now and I don’t like that it’s confusing so I will be doing more research on the isu (again) to understand what the fuck is going on with this damn part of the lore.

I know that this is a game where you kill people but this whole game felt so gore-y that I like had to drop it for a bit. Like dude I didn’t really expect that. This one I really feel like is just me. I did not expect to like hear bones breaking when I played it.

The storyline felt kind of all over the place like yes I could understand the big part of the story but also it was all over the fucking place. I just miss the old plot I really do that had a system that was so good it caused several games to follow it’s lead. (I miss AC1 please remaster that damn game)

Also maybe it’s just me but the story felt so slow at the beginning when ur going to England. Literally I hate to say this bc I love this whole series but I was more happy about finally finishing the main storyline than I was while playing the game.

All in all: I did like the game. I did have fun even though some parts were rough. I’m super glad that they got rid/fixed the ship mechanic because I hated every fucking naval battle in assassins creed and that’s something I was worried about doing when I saw that we had longships in the story. The game was enjoyable and it had a lot of great side characters like Hytham, Gunnar, and Yanli. Basim was a treat, though I hope they explain more about him bc I’m going to be honest he’s a bit confusing with this whole loki thing. But yeah this is all I have so far on the game. If you actually read all the way down here comment or like shoot me message to talk about it bc I really really want to talk about the game. Pls pls pls.

#assassin's creed valhalla #ac valhalla #assassins creed #eivor wolfsmal #layla hassan #desmond miles #assassins creed origins #assassins creed odyssey #I’m tagging those two bc I do talk about it within the entire text #I really hope these make sense bc if not they’re just going to sound like ramblings by a crazy person

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eleathyra-art · 3 years

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Review by Jô P.: Fragments of your Soul by E. S. Erbsland

“Life gave Arvid a lemon, and she made a Caipirinha.”

(The original review is in Portuguese, so below is a google translate version in English. Original far below, and link to the source here.)

The review:

Good Morning! I'm not one to comment or create posts... But I stayed up until 03:00 in the morning, reading Fragments of Your Soul.

I want to thank the PL and Shifters teams. Well I'll try to make a brief review, without spoilers. From now on, forgive me if I write or type something wrong. I only slept 3 hours tonight... Anyway, let's go.

Is the book worth reading? YEA! MUCH!

Is the book too big? YEA! But I guarantee you all: no page or scene is unnecessary.

Do you have hot scenes? Few.

It's romantic? It depends on what each reader means by romantic.

Does it have a happy ending? oh! This is the cat's jump!!!! What is happiness? Guimarães Rosa says that "...happiness, we find it in times of chance." AND? READ TO UNDERSTAND.

I'll try to explain...The book follows the structure of ALL books that recreate, or create new mythologies. Anyone who has read Tolkien, Lewis, Frank Herbert will understand. I think it follows the structure of Scandinavian sagas (beowulf type), but I could be wrong...

When I started reading the book I realized where the plot was going: first, the protagonist, Arvid is introduced in her world. His characteristics, mainly psychological (interesting that in her case, the physical doesn't matter, because we'll be very interested in Loke's physical characteristics, and only later, we'll notice his emotional characteristics....). Then how she ended up in the Shadow World. Then the Arvid saga begins: learning to live in a new world, new customs, new languages, finding a way to return to the World of Light. With that, we see her interacting with the other characters.

Eventually, we meet the antagonist, who is also the protagonist (read!). But we're STILL focused on Arvid's new life and the challenges and heartaches she has to go through. Halfway through the book we realize that NOTHING is what it seems, and the story shifts focus and we begin to follow Arvid and Loke's interaction. And from then on I can't say anything else, because I'll give spoilers.

But why is the book good? Because despite dealing with legends, myths, supernatural beings, all characters are in the same struggle as us: earning a living, getting a job, going to college, paying the bills, falling in love with the wrong person, falling in love with the person right, wrong with the right person, right with the wrong person, and, above all, live with every act and choice of everyday life. We've all done things we regret. We've all regretted that we didn't do some things. And we've all had to close the past and understand that when we make a decision, we must back it up and learn to put an end to what's over. And moving on, even when we're finished physically, emotionally, because the world won't stop because we're sad, desperate, or in mourning. The world goes on. The pain is ours but the happiness is also ours. That's why I liked the book: life gave Arvid a lemon and she made a caipirinha out of it. She did what she had to do, with what she could do at that moment. And Loke, the god of Chaos, was what he was: the chaos we all carry inside of us: unfulfilled wishes, or very well-fulfilled wishes that took us the wrong way.

I warn you here: Loke is straight-forward. Many will be bothered by things and revelations about them. I read it myself and said: what is it like? But keep an open mind. Accept the God of Chaos without prejudice. We all have a dark, chaotic little place inside us. Anyone who has done psychoanalysis knows what I'm talking about.

Loke represents the unconscious... Arvid the conscious. Only in this book, the id is stronger. It's up to Arvid to bring the balance... Have you read The Power of Myth? The Hero with a Thousand Faces? These books tell us that we are all on a lonely journey in search of ourselves. When we put together the fragments of our souls, we are whole and we can love each other and love each other. So... we can say that Arvid and Loke, each in their own way, were on a lonely journey that, at some point, they found each other. What were 2 paths merged into one. And they knew how to appreciate the beauty of this meeting, transforming the 2 paths into a single one...

For me, the ending is VERY ROMANTIC and the book is worth it. Insist. Read a different book. Books like that are good for the soul. They bring our fragments together and make us whole, with a smile on our lips, because in the end, we realize that we all just want the hope of being happy. I don't pretend to sound cultured, erudite, nor am I a psychologist/psychoanalyst, but this book reminded me of so many things I learned about psychoanalysis!

Loke is not immoral or chaotic: he is what he is. Someone with his power (shifter and that's the only spoiler I'm going to give) can appreciate life, sex, nature, in a way that we mere humans would never understand. What for us is immoral, chaotic, dirty, perverse, for him, is a fragment of his own soul. I believe his emotions are very basic. He kills because he can, he has sex and falls in love (in many ways - READ) simply because he can. That's why he's all emotion (ID).

As for Arvid, the human, theoretically like all of us, could do the same: kill, love, whatever. But what prevents and prevents us is the deep moral sense and innate charity (EGO). Not that Arvid is a completely rational being. She is passionate, violent and loyal. But her moral sense is what Loke lacks, and Loke's self-centeredness is what Arvid lacks. In other words: a soul is a jigsaw puzzle of fragments of light and shadows, of morality and immorality. Of good thoughts, and perverted thoughts. Of purity and perversity. Of goodness and badness. What makes us human is the ability to know that everyone has a light within them, even when we only see apparent darkness. Arvid saw the light within Loke and Loke saw the darkness within Arvid. Accepting this in yourself and in others is the great adventure of life.

But, more than that, I believe the great lesson of the book is: HAPPINESS IS A DAILY FIGHT. There is no such thing as an entirely happy period. Over 24 hours a day, we experience good, bad, bad, stressful, because life is like that. Alongside the passionate kiss of his partner (o), there is the perrengue of not having money to buy the shoe; beside the job approval, there is the hassle of waking up at 5 am to take the bus. That's life. It's knowing how to live: knowing when to invest with everything for a dream and when to put a stone on the subject, because the subject is over. That's Arvid's great virtue: knowing when to insist and when to give up. This is the lesson that we should take for life... because the subject is over. That's Arvid's great virtue: knowing when to insist and when to give up. This is the lesson that we should take for life... because the subject is over. That's Arvid's great virtue: knowing when to insist and when to give up. This is the lesson that we should take for life. Review of Jô P.

Original Portuguese text:

Bom dia! Não sou de comentar ou criar posts....Mas fiquei acordada até às 03 horas da manhã, lendo Fragments of Your Soul. Quero agradecer às equipes do PL e do Shifters . Bom vou tentar fazer uma breve resenha, sem dar spoilers. Desde já, me perdoem se eu escrever ou digitar algo errado. Dormi só 3 horas essa noite....Enfim, vamos lá. O livro vale a pena ser lido? SIM! MUITO! O livro é muito grande? SIM! Mas eu garanto a todas vocês: nenhuma página ou cena é desnecessária. Tem cenas hot? Poucas. É romântico? Depende do que cada leitor entende por romântico. Tem final feliz? ah! Esse é o pulo do gato!!!! O que é felicidade? Guimarães Rosa diz que "...felicidade, a gente encontra em horas de acaso." E? LEIAM PARA ENTENDER. Vou tentar explicar...O livro segue a estrutura de TODOS os livros que recriam, ou criam novas mitologias. Quem leu Tolkien, Lewis, Frank Herbert, vai entender. Eu acho que ele segue a estrutura das sagas escandinavas (tipo Beowulf), mas posso estar enganada...Quando comecei a ler o livro eu percebi onde o enredo ia levar: em primeiro lugar, a protagonista, Arvid é apresentada em seu mundo. Suas características, principalmente psicológicas (interessante que no caso dela, o físico não importa, porque vamos ficar muito interessadas nas características físicas do Loke, e só depois, vamos reparar nas características emocionais dele....). Depois, como ela foi parar no Mundo das Sombras. Daí começa a saga da Arvid: aprender a viver num mundo novo, costumes novos, línguas novas, achar um jeito de voltar para o Mundo da Luz. Com isso, vemos ela interagindo com os outros personagens. Lá pelas tantas, conhecemos o antagonista, que também é protagonista (leiam!). Mas AINDA estamos centrados na nova vida de Arvid e os desafios e tristezas pelos quais ela tem que passar. Na metade do livro percebemos que NADA é o que parece, e a história muda de foco e começamos a acompanhar a interação de Arvid e Loke. E a partir daí eu não posso falar mais nada, porque vou dar spoilers. Mas por que o livro é bom? Porque apesar de tratar de lendas, mitos, seres sobrenaturais, todos os personagens estão na mesma luta que nós: ganhar o pão de cada dia, conseguir trabalho, entrar na faculdade, pagar as contas, se apaixonar pela pessoa errada, se apaixonar pela pessoa certa, errar com a pessoa certa, acertar com a pessoa errada, e, principalmente, conviver com cada ato e escolha do dia a dia. Todos nós já fizemos coisas das quais nos arrependemos. Todos nós já nos arrependemos de não termos feito algumas coisas. E todos nós já tivemos que encerrar o passado e entender que quando tomamos uma decisão, devemos bancá-la e aprender a colocar um ponto final no que acabou. E a seguir em frente, mesmo quando a gente está acabado fisicamente, emocionalmente, porque o mundo não vai parar porque estamos tristes, desesperados, ou em luto. O mundo continua. A dor é nossa mas a felicidade também é só nossa. É por isso que eu gostei do livro: a vida deu um limão pra Arvid e ela fez uma caipirinha com ele. Ela fez o que tinha que fazer, com o que dava pra fazer naquele momento. E Loke, o deus do Caos, era o que era: o caos que todos nós carregamos dentro de nós: desejos não realizados, ou desejos muito bem realizados que nos levou para o lado errado. Já aviso aqui: Loke é direto na fala. Muitos vão se incomodar com as coisas e revelações sobre eles. Eu mesma lia e falava: como é que é? Mas tenham a mente aberta. Aceitem o Deus do Caos sem preconceitos. Todos nós temos um lugarzinho escuro e caótico dentro de nós. Quem já fez psicanálise sabe do que eu estou falando. Loke representa o inconsciente....Arvid o consciente. Só que nesse livro, o id é mais forte. Cabe a Arvid trazer o equilíbrio.....Vocês já leram O Poder do Mito? O Herói de Mil Faces? Esses livros nos dizem que todos nós estamos numa jornada solitária em busca de nós mesmos. Quando juntamos os fragmentos de nossas almas, ficamos inteiros e podemos nos amar e amar o outro. Então...podemos dizer que Arvid e Loke, cada um a seu jeito, estavam numa jornada solitária que, em algum momento, se encontraram. O que eram 2 caminhos se fundiram em um. E eles souberam apreciar a beleza desse encontro, transformando os 2 caminhos em um único....Para mim, o final é MUITO ROMÂNTICO e o livro vale a pena. Insistam. Leiam um livro diferente. Livros assim fazem bem pra alma. Juntam os nossos fragmentos e nos tornam inteiros, com um sorriso nos lábios, porque no final, percebemos que todos nós só queremos a esperança de sermos felizes. Não tenho a pretensão de parecer culta, erudita, e nem sou psicóloga/psicanalista, mas esse livro me lembrou tantas coisas que eu aprendi sobre psicanálise! Loke não é imoral ou caótico: ele é o que é. Alguém com o poder dele (metamorfo e esse é o único spoiler que eu vou dar), pode apreciar a vida, o sexo, a natureza, de uma maneira que nós, meros humanos, jamais compreenderíamos. O que para nós é imoral, caótico, sujo, perverso, para ele, é um fragmento da própria alma. Eu acredito que as emoções dele são muito básicas. Ele mata porque pode matar, ele faz sexo e se apaixona (de diversas maneiras - LEIAM), simplesmente porque ele pode. Por isso ele é todo emoção (ID). Já a Arvid, a humana, teoricamente como todos nós, poderia fazer o mesmo: matar, amar, sei lá. Mas o que a impede e nos impede é o profundo senso moral e a caridade inata (EGO). Não que a Arvid seja um ser completamente racional. Ela é apaixonada, violenta e leal. Mas o senso moral dela é o que falta em Loke, e o egocentrismo de Loke é o que falta em Arvid. Ou seja: uma alma é um quebra-cabeça de fragmentos de luz e sombras, de moralidade e imoralidade. De bons pensamentos, e pensamentos pervertidos. De pureza e perversidade. De bondade e maldade. O que nos torna humanos é capacidade de saber que todos tem uma luz dentro de si, mesmo quando só vemos a escuridão aparente. Arvid viu a luz dentro de Loke e Loke viu a escuridão dentro de Arvid. Aceitar isso em si mesmo e no outro, é a grande aventura da vida. Mas, mais do que isso, eu creio que a grande lição do livro é: A FELICIDADE É UMA LUTA DIÁRIA. Não existe um período inteiramente feliz. Ao longo de 24 horas do dia, passamos por sensações boas, ruins, péssimas, estressante, porque a vida é assim mesmo. Ao lado do beijo apaixonado da companheira (o), tem o perrengue de não ter dinheiro pra comprar o sapato; ao lado da aprovação no emprego, tem a chatice de acordar às 05 horas pra pegar o ônibus. A vida é isso. É saber viver: saber quando investir com tudo por um sonho e quando colocar uma pedra no assunto, porque o assunto acabou. Essa é a grande virtude da Arvid: saber quando insistir e quando desistir. Essa é a lição que deveríamos levar para a vida..... Resenha da Jô P.

#fragments of your soul #book review #loki #loki fanfic #norse mythology

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britishchick09 · 3 years

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the best and worst books i read in school!

ever since 5th grade, i’ve been reading novels in school. with the end of high school looming (and today being the last day of classes), i’ve decided to list the ultimate show stoppers and the bird droppers. let’s begin! :D

the best of 5th grade- maniac magee! i don’t remember much about it besides the twinkie things (which actually exist at walmart!) and shipping maniac and the girl character. my 5th grade teacher reading it made it so much better :D we also read ‘chains’, which is about a slave girl names isabel going to freedom. it’s a very powerful book and the sequel, ‘forge’, which is about a freed soldier boy named curzon, is just as amazing! ‘esperanza rising’, the story of a girl named esperanza who moves from mexico to california during the great depression, is pretty great too from what i remember!

the worst of 5th grade- idk what else we read in 5th grade besides those three (technically four) books. it could’ve been an iconic book year! (it was already an iconic school year)

the best of 6th grade- drums, girls and dangerous pies! it’s an interesting story of a high schooler named steve dealing with a crush and his little brother’s cancer, yet there’s actually a happy ending! the end is really iconic since steve says ‘i-’ to his brother jeff and it’s clearly ‘i love you’ but it cuts off! bonus points to ‘the cay’, a story of a boy named phillip who ends up on a raft with a man named timothy and a cat named stew cat. it’s a neat adventure and timothy saying ‘malar!’ is an earworm of a phrase

the worst of 6th grade- HOLY FRICK ‘THE HATCHET’ IS THE MOST BORING BOOK EVER WRITTEN!!! it’s about this kid who gets stranded in the forest and there’s this skunk pal, so you’d think it would be like ‘the cay’ BUT IT’S NOT IT’S SO FREAKING DULL OMG!!!! bonus points to ‘the gadget’ which starts out cool BUT THEN THE MAIN CHARACTER(also called steve!)’S FRIEND ALEXI TURNS OUT TO BE A SPY AND TRIES STABBING HIM LIKE WOAH THESE KIDS ARE ELEVEN YEARS OLD STOP DOING THAT WTF!!!! if you thought the double digit chapter was bad... oh boy! also ‘boy in the striped pajamas’ was good but very depressing! :(

the best of 7th grade- tom sawyer! this is about a boy and his southern adventures. it was a great story, but the movie is one of my fave live action movies ever!! they say the book is better than the movie but the movie is miles better and it’s so cute!!! bonus points to ‘the giver’, which is about a boy named jonas who meets an old man who shows him life in a better world (and there’s a baby). jonas and the giver were very sweet together and i love how jonas and the baby escape their dystopian society at the end!

the worst of 7th grade- call of the wild! it’s about a sled dog named buck who goes on a wild adventure in the arctic. it’s not a bad book, but the movie was so cheesy and it focused on the humans WHY THO???

the best of 8th grade- the outsiders! it’s about a greaser named ponyboy who runs away with his friend johnny after johnnycake kills a soc named bob. pb and the other greasers were such great characters and the story was so interesting! i also liked how the story is set in tulsa, where my grandpa lived. the outsiders fandom is a lot of fun and i’m so glad the story became one of my faves! :D bonus points go to ‘the diary of anne frank’, which we only read the play, so i sought out the whole book and wow anne’s story is so tragic and inspiring! more bonus points to ‘the good earth’, which is about a man in china and has an awesome movie to it (despite having white actors) and ‘twelfth night’, which is a funny shakespeare play about a girl named viola who disguses herself as a man named cesario. it’s full of romance, laughter and a hot feste singing voice (in the 1987 audiobook at least). and olivia is definitely bi ;)

the worst of 8th grade- animal farm! it’s about an orwell dystopian society (hmm...) but in a barn with animals. it’s not bad, but many of the animals were jerks except old major and the 1999 movie we watched was so cringy! (and the beasts of england song was changed which wasn’t cool)

the best of 9th grade- the odyssey! it’s the ancient greek story of odysseus, a soldier who goes on an epic adventure to get home. the book was alright, but the movie was awesome and the movie ‘o brother where art thou’ (which is based on the story) is really great too! harrison burgeron, a dystopian society with a bad boi, was awesome too because i remember seeing the short film of it in 7th grade. ‘to kill a mockingbird’, which is about a girl named scout living in the segregated south, is really great as well! i loved how it was set in the 30s and scout was so much fun! (i’m a bit bummed at how we didn’t get to see the movie tho). ‘romeo and juliet’ is shakespeare’s most iconic work, being a tale of two star crossed lovers in fair verona. i really enjoyed the story(not the d jokes tho) and it inspired me to write a story set in 1596 (when the play was made)! i take back what i said about 5th grade being iconic 9TH GRADE WAS SO ICONIC YAS!!!!!

the worst of 9th grade- the scarlet ibis! it’s about a boy who takes care of his sick brother named doobie and tries to make him ‘normal’. it’s sweet how the iris symbolizes the brother, but how they die at the end is so sad! ‘the sniper’ wasn’t that good but the plot twist of the sniper guy shooting his brother was neat (also the ‘romeo + juliet’ movie wasn’t that good besides mercutio)

the best of 10th grade- a thousand splendid suns! the most recent book i’ve read, it’s about two women named mariam and laila who live in the afghanistan as the taliban take over. their story is so inspiring and i love how laila was able to be happy after all the horrifying things she went through with rasheed. mariam sacrificing herself for laila by killing rasheed was very powerful and i wish the stage version had her in it. bonus points go to ‘lord of the flies’! a group of boys are stranded on an island and there’s much boy chaos involved. it’s a great story and the fandom was too!

the worst of 10th grade- where are you going where have you been! this is about a girl named colleen who meets a guy named arnold friend. he’s very creepy and it’s an uncomfortable story to read (even more than rasheed!). equal bonus points to ‘the red bow’, a confusing story of a dead girl, a dog and red bows that i still don’t understand!

the best of 11th grade- the crucible! it’s about a girl named abigail who gets swept up in the salam witch trials. it’s a fascinating story with real life elements (rip giles) and the movie was pretty good. ‘the great gatsby’ was also a great story about how the roaring 20s wasn’t as fun as it seemed through the story of gatsby, all told through the eyes of nick

the worst of 11th grade- into the wild! this is a study sync thing, but we did a lot of those compared to novels. it’s about chris mccandles, a guy who tried surviving in a van in alaska and died, making a terribly tragic tale. ‘an incident at owl creek’ was ok but the best part was the plot twist of the guy running to his wife and being hung right before he can touch her (we saw the twilight zone ep instead of reading it and the twist was *chef’s kiss*)

the best of 12th grade- 1984!!! it’s the story of a dreamer named winston, who lives in the dystopian world of oceania. he meets a girl named julia and the two have a secret love affair, but they soon find out that no one is safe under the eye of bb. it’s terrifying tale that’s a bit depressing, but there are so many little moments that make me smile and the movie is even better. winston is relatable in some ways, julia is awesome and julston is a pretty great ship! it’s a big improvement over animal farm and it’s definitely my favorite adult story. bonus points go to ‘rime of the ancient mariner’, which is about an old sailor recounting his unfortunate journey at sea. the mariner telling his story to a random wedding guest was funny and it was an adventure like the odyssey! another round of bonus points to ‘beowulf’, an ancient norse tale of a warrior who fights a monster named grendel. the parts of the 2007 movie we saw sucked, but the story was really cool! wiglaf gets a shout out because he’s the best warrior :) another half bonus point to ‘hunger games’, which we saw the movie of. it’s about a girl named katniss who competes in a competition called the hunger games, which makes for a thrilling adventure!

the worst of 12th grade- hamlet! all of what we read this year was really good, but someone had to be last. this shakespearean tale is of hamlet, a prince who seeks revenge >:) it’s an ok story and i like the ghost dad!

now for my all time favorites! (and least faves)

the worst of the worst- the hatchet, the red bow, where are you going where have you been and the gadget

the best of the best!- 1984, the outsiders, a thousand splendid suns, the diary of anne frank, the odyssey, romeo and juliet, to kill a mockingbird, twelfth night, harrison burgeron, rime of the ancient mariner and the good earth (along with the tom sawyer/1984 movies and hunger games)

good or bad, the books i read throughout school were amazing and i can’t wait to see what college brings! :D

#what a trip down memory lane this was!#so many great stories! :D

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gennarenee · 4 years

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My Devil May Cry Game Ratings

Alright so I finally finished playing all the Devil May Cry games (barring DMC2 and DmC), so I wanted to write out my thoughts and reviews of the games in order of my favorite to least favorite. I played the games in the order of 5, 4, 3, then 1.

#1: Devil May Cry 5

DMC5 was my introduction to the series. I first watched a whole play-through of the game as background while I was working on a research project, but it looked so fun that I bought it on the steam summer sale and I loved it as much as I thought I would. The combat is intricate and fun, and I’m still discovering new tricks and play-styles (I think I’m on my third play-through of the game??). I love V’s character, but on my first play-through I didn’t know the story of the DMC universe, so I was disappointed when he turned back into Vergil. Now that I’ve played through all the games though, I love the story even more and I understand now how V is an important step in Vergil coming to terms with his humanity (also I love Vergil too now). Having played the other games too I can now see all the references this game makes to the previous games as well which is really cool.

Overall 10/10 this is my new favorite game and has beat out Bayonetta as being my favorite game of all time.

#2: Devil May Cry 4

As previously stated, I’m a huge Bayonetta fan, so you can imagine my excitement at all the parallels between this game and Bayonetta (aesethically, story-wise, etc.). However, DMC4 is definitely not a finished game, so I’m actually glad that Bayonetta basically stole the concepts of DMC4 and made them better.

The start of this game is my favorite out of all the DMC games. I love the scene of Kyrie’s performance in the church while Nero battles demons in the street, and I think this does a really good job of setting the scene for the game. Fortuna is aesthetically beautiful, and the game’s music is fantastic (I’ve had “Out of Darkness”, “The Idol of Time and Space”, and “Shall Never Surrender” on repeat for the past few weeks). Having finished DMC1, I can see now too that Fortuna, Fortuna castle, and the enemies take a lot of inspiration from Mallet Island in DMC1.

Combat wise, I loved playing as both Nero and Dante. After playing DMC5, Nero’s combat felt a bit lacking, but nevertheless I had fun smacking demons around with the buster arm. I adored playing as Dante, and I enjoyed his combat style more than Nero’s. HOWEVER, this brings me to the game’s biggest flaw: while Dante is super fun to play as, his levels are absolutely awful. Instead of creating a new area for Dante to explore while trying to save Nero, the entire 2nd half of the game is spent backtracking through all of the Nero levels. Like seriously Capcom?? I was aware of the backtracking before playing this game but having basically half of the game backtrack through the first half is ridiculous. The areas themselves also felt disconnected. Fortuna, Fortuna Castle, and the jungle all were interesting areas on their own, but it doesn’t make sense going basically from Italy, to a frozen mountaintop, to a jungle, all on a single island.

All in all though, I’d give this game a 7.5/10. While repeated sections were annoying, the combat was fun and I love the aesthetic of the game and its soundtrack. Also Nero and Kyrie’s relationship is adorable.

#3: Devil May Cry 1

This might come as a surprise, but I enjoyed DMC1 more than DMC3 (but I’ll get to this more in the next section).

First, I’m glad I played all the DMC games in reverse order. When I first picked up DMC1 after completing DMC5, I was shocked with how awful the camera system and general gameplay was, so I put down DMC1 to replay DMC5. However, when I came back to DMC1 after playing all the other games, I had become adjusted to the lack of features in each game, so I no longer felt as annoyed with the camera and gameplay. In fact, I enjoyed the gameplay a lot more than I thought I would. I imagined that the game wouldn’t live up to today’s gaming standards, but I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed the combat. I missed having access to the different playstyles of future games, but this Dante’s gameplay almost felt like a mix between trickster and gunslinger, so his combat style was not as empty as I thought it would be.

Much like DMC4, I also really enjoyed the aesthetic of this game. Having played DMC4 before DMC1, I almost had “reverse nostalgia” for the scarecrow enemies and the castle aesthetic. I also really liked the level designs. While the levels in DMC4 felt disconnected, I could see the areas (castle, canyon, coliseum, pirate ship, etc.) all existing on one island together. In terms of bosses, I wish that there had not been repeat fights. While I loved seeing V’s familiars having a role in this game (again, “reverse nostalgia”), I could’ve done with a couple less Nightmare and Nelo Angelo fights.

In the end, my biggest complaint about this game is that it’s too short. I started this game at 5pm yesterday, and I’ve completed it in under 5 hours. While the game is short, it felt like there was almost no plot until the very end of the game when you fight Nelo Angelo Vergil. I wish they would’ve expanded upon the story and included more information on Sparda and Eva and Dante and Vergil’s childhoods, but I understand that this game was the first in the series and made in 2001.

Overall, I’ll give the game a 7/10. While I can’t imagine myself replaying this game (especially since there’s no other playable characters besides Dante), I had an overall pleasant time playing this game.

#4: Devil May Cry 3

First, while DMC3 is the last game on this list, I want to clarify that I enjoyed all 4 games, and this game is almost tied with DMC1. However, there are just some choices in the game that made this game a less enjoyable experience for me.

Combat wise, while it took me some time to adjust to only having one style at once, DMC3 has my favorite weapon set out of all the games. I loved played with Cerberus in DMC5, so I was excited to have the opportunity to use this weapon again in DMC3, and the same goes for Beowulf and Kalina Ann. While I didn’t use it that much, I also adored the Nevan weapon, and it seems like a perfect weapon addition to the game series (if only we could’ve seen something similar in DMC5!). I also enjoyed the story of this game. It was nice getting more of a backstory on Dante and Vergil, and Dante definitely grew as a character by the end of the game. It was also nice finally seeing Lady’s backstory. Arkham/Jester annoyed me, and one of my favorite parts of the game is when Vergil basically goes from “I need to begin the all important ritual” to “Okay we need to get rid of this clown ASAP”.

But, what this game makes up for in storytelling, it lacks in general gameplay and aesthetic. The game’s aesthetics almost felt bland, and many areas in Temen-ni-gru were just brown/grey stone. I also wish the early enemy design went outside of the “grim reaper” aesthetic. While I know others have different opinions on the matter, I feel that DMC3′s aesthetic was very one note, and suffers from the opposite problem of DMC4. In terms of gameplay, I felt that most of the item quests did not make sense and were unnecessary. For example, many of the doors require orichalcum to open, but randomly finding a piece of orichalcum on the ground doesn’t make sense story wise. I remember a level specifically where you have to drop down to the library to find a key item, but the library is even before the start of the level.

Compared to this, the item quests and backtracking in DMC1 made sense. For example, finding a key in a room in a castle to use on another door in a castle makes sense. Even weirder item quests, such as finding the trident to open the door, make more sense than DMC3 missions. While I do not know what orichalcum does or what it is, in one of the rooms in DMC1 there is an item with 3 holes in it, and it makes sense that the trident item gained later on would go in this space.

Finally, one of my biggest complaints about this game is the boss battles. Now I might just suck at video games, but it took me way too long to defeat some of the bosses on Devil Hunter. For example, it took me longer to figure out the Vergil fights than it did for me to complete DMC1. Bosses like Beowulf also sucked due to relying on the smaller eye hitbox. In contrast to DMC1 as well, these bosses were at the end of a level, as compared to being a separate mission, so if I wanted to leave and come back later, I’d have to replay the entire mission first.

Overall, I’ll give the game 6/10. Will I replay it? Possibly, I know I can play as Vergil, so it would be fun learning his moveset. However, a game’s aesthetic is almost more important to me than gameplay (that’s just a me thing), so I’m not sure that I would enjoy playing through the levels again due to their lackluster design.

Ending Thoughts

And that’s my rating on (almost) all the DMC games! While some of the gameplay in the earlier games was annoying, I definitely love this series, and I plan on reading the extra novels/mangas outside the game (I’ve already watched the anime). Hell, I’ll probably read some William Blake and the Divine Comedy itself.

Let me know what your ratings are! I’d love to hear everyone else’s lists.

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