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tl-notes · 3 years

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Kobayashi’s Maid Dragon S2 Episode 9 Notes

...設立から大分地盤が固まってきており、少しずつだが、業態は改善されている。

One thing to note here is that Kobayashi(‘s narration) isn’t saying the company has already made solid improvements, it’s that the company has finally established itself somewhat (as it was only founded relatively recently, and typically new companies are especially busy while trying to get off the ground) and now is starting to make improvements.

Similarly in the second sentence, it’s not “was” slow going, it’s “is still” slow going, and the working conditions “are” improving, not “have improved.”

This is がんば ganba, short of course for がんばって ganbatte, which I’m sure most of you are familiar with: the (in)famous “do your best.”

I only mention it because I like this shortened version of it. Ganba!

This is a fun little idiom(?)/saying: 鼻で笑う hana de warau (conjugated as hana de warawareta), lit. to laugh using the nose. It’s used to describe laughing at someone you’re looking down on for whatever reason (not necessarily in a super serious way, could just be a friend being dumb etc.; in this case it’s Elma’s being naive).

Typically it refers to like a “heh-but-through-the-nose” kind of “laugh,” but as you can see in this scene (where clearly Kobayashi is laughing with the mouth, even starting with “pff” lips) it works idiomatically even if the laughing isn’t only through the nose.

You may have heard that Japan is/was a “lifetime employment” country, where typically people would get hired right out of school and stay at that company until retirement. While that’s much less true today than it was even a couple of decades ago (and has become kind of controversial in ways), it’s still much more common of a practice than in say the US.

One result of this is that there’s a much bigger distinction placed between hiring people in spring as part of the annual graduation rush (the Japanese school year ends in March), and mid-career hiring. Typically you can’t participate in the fresh grad hiring if you aren’t one, even if you’re new to the field in question.

For larger employers (i.e. 5k+ employees), roughly two-thirds of all hirings come from fresh grads, and only small employers (<300 employees) hire more mid-careerists than people directly out of school.

Of course, this split tends to apply mostly to “standard” full time jobs, not so much part time, and is not necessarily a thing in every industry/at every company.

Just as a minor point of clarity, this “organized text” in Elma’s document refers to the phrase まとめられた文章 matomerareta bunshou. In a literal sense, matomerareta can mean organized/consolidated etc., and bunshou text/passages, but meaning-wise it’s more like “writing that gets its point across clearly/cleanly.”

This is a pretty big compliment and a very useful skill to have in organizations like this, as writing such that people can quickly and easily understand exactly what you’re trying to say often saves a ton of time and frustration.

我々はエルマの気迫に押されるがままにその書類を読み始めた。

Another minor point, but where the English could imply that they were overwhelmed by Elma’s intensity through the act of reading her report, the Japanese implies more that they started reading it because of how intense Elma was being.

It doesn’t really make much of a difference either way, but it stuck out a little for me.

To justify mentioning it, I guess I’ll explain the grammar point Kobayashi uses: されるがままに sareru ga mama ni. Sareru is a generic verb/verb conjugation for having something done to you (technically here it’s 押される, to be “pushed/pressed/pressured”), and mama refers to a state, condition, or “way” (like “do it this way”).

Put together, the whole phrase is used to indicate “you” do/did something that someone else wants you to, without (meaningful) opposition. (Something similar in raw meaning but with a very different connotation would be “going with the flow.”)

If a friend says “hey let’s go do something,” and next thing you know you’re out bowling despite preferring to stay at home, this is you.

You can stick the mama ni to various other things as well to come up with a similar idea, but without the sareru the nuance may end up different.

The word for clairvoyance here is 千里眼 senrigan, lit. “eye(s) [that can see] a thousand li”, li being a Chinese unit of measurement for length (shorter than a mile, but for general purposes “eyes that see a thousand miles” is basically the gist).

Despite the perhaps physical-sounding nature of the term, it does actually describe the same power as “clairvoyance” in English: being able to perceive things outside your actual range of vision, including potentially into people’s hearts and minds etc.

Hence why it’s a thousand screen display, when she updates it with tech knowledge:

“Tainted by work” here is 職業病 shokugyou-byou, lit. an occupational disease. The “proper” definition is a disease one gets from working in a particular job, such as black lung for coal miners or even posture-related health issues for desk workers.

Additionally, it’s used colloquially to refer to noticeable habits or quirks that people in a certain profession pick up, like a baker always waking up super early or a programmer using programming lingo out of context in normal conversation. The latter being especially noticeable in Japanese, as a lot of such terms are English in origin.

“Shocking” here is a fun word: ドン引き don-biki. “Don” here is added just for emphasis; the main meaning revolves around 引き hiki/biki, from the verb 引く hiku, meaning to pull.

The idea is that someone does/says something that you recoil from. Maybe it’s gross (“I only shower once a week”), maybe it’s mean (“They didn’t smile enough so I didn’t leave a tip.”), maybe it’s creepy (“I sent like 30 texts yesterday but still no reply.”), just anything that has you feeling like you might want to create some distance because... phew.

It’s kind of similar to the current use of “cringe” as an adjective/noun, though with less of an internet-slang feel* to it, and generally used more as something the speaker is doing rather than describing whatever/whoever is being cringe.

(*I think it started being used popularly in this way in the early-to-mid 90s, with the “don”biki variant specifically popping up around 2005.)

A “Premium Friday” is the last Friday of the month, where you get to leave work at 3 pm. It is largely theoretical.

The idea was created by the Japanese government as a way to reduce working hours and encourage domestic spending (boost demand), but it has not been implemented by all that many employers, and especially not many smaller employers. There isn’t, after all, any mandate or government-provided incentive for doing so.

Evidence from the places that did implement it suggests it is actually good for the economy, but good luck convincing bosses to give extra paid time off.

“Last Friday of the month” was chosen because most people get paid on the 25th each month (Japan tends to pay monthly instead of every two weeks), so it would usually be right after payday, when people are more willing to get spendy.

Kobayashi saying eight hours here reminded me of a “fun” fact: the typical Japanese work day is eight hours plus a one hour break. Plus a one hour break, not with. So a typical work day is actually nine hours. Most commonly 8 to 5 or 9 to 6. Not many “nine-to-fives” here.

The characters for Joui are 上井, which usually read as Kamii or Uwai. It’s “Joui” because that means, when written as 上位, “superior.” As in “a superior life-form.” Like a dragon, say.

でも、ゆっくりやる事業改善案を見せてもらえたじゃない？

This one is actually kind of a critical mistake. In the English it sounds like she’s talking about the improvement proposal that Elma made and that the boss looked at. In the Japanese though, she’s talking about a different plan, one the boss showed them*, that is similar in idea but is going to take longer to be fully implemented**. So we’re being told that while Elma didn’t get what she wanted as fast as she wanted it, it is still basically going through at a slower pace.

*In ”見せてもらえた misete moraeta,” the misete vs mite means they were the ones who got shown something, rather than the ones who got someone to look at their stuff.

**Which you can tell from the ゆっくりやる yukkuri yaru, where yaru is basically “do” and yukkuri means (in this case) at an unhurried pace.

(Re previous note: Hence why she says “immediately” here.)

“Black (ブラック)” and “white (ホワイト)” in the context of Japanese employers refers to how well employees are treated: a company with good benefits/pay, reasonable levels of overtime, and feels safe to work at is “white,” while a company that has excessive overtime, often pays poorly, breaks labor laws, and allows harassment to fester is “black.”

While “white company” was created simply in contrast to the term “black company,” the latter finds its origins in front businesses for organized crime, which were called “black” in the sense of “illegal” (similar to “black market” or something being in a “grey area”). Given the international reputation of Japanese work life, you can imagine that “black company” as a term sees much more use.

There’s been some discussion about maybe replacing it due to the racial implications (especially since it uses the English word “black”), but while typically English translations drop the color for that reason (e.g. ブラック企業大賞, an “award” given to Japan’s worst employer each year, is officially “Most Evil Corporation of the Year Award” in English), it hasn’t really penetrated to the mainstream at this point.

The rice there is in a 飯盒 hangou, a metal container that looks… like that, and is the stereotypical item of choice for cooking rice while camping. It has its origins in the mess kits used by the military, but these days they’re primarily marketed as portable rice cookers for camping use.

You can get round ones too, but the bean shape is very popular.

“Settings” here is 設定 settei, lit. exactly that, “setting(s).” E.g. if you open a computer program and look at the settings menu, it’ll be settei in the Japanese language settings (settei).

I bring it up here because there’s a bit of a difference in how it gets used colloquially like this. In English, the “setting” for a story typically refers to where and when it’s set. In Japanese, “setting” in that sense is usually 舞台 butai. But settei is still used when talking about fiction, just in a different, more expansive way.

Often in these cases settei is used to refer to the various conceits that provide the context in which the story takes place. In this show, for example, one such “setting” is that dragons are real: another is that magic exists. It comes up especially often in fantasy/sci-fi type stuff where there are major distinctions between that universe and the real world—not that stories in a real-world setting don’t have settei of their own, but they often are lumped into descriptions of the plot in that case (”a dragon comes to live with an office worker in her apartment”).

It also refers to the “settings” of characters, like name or age, and things like “they run a bakery that’s going out of business and are trying to save it.” Basically all the details you’d have in a character profile.

It also gets used in conversation to refer to pretend things or (basically) lies: like here, where Saikawa thinks Shouta is playing pretend with his ley-lines talk, or e.g. if someone is trying to tell you some outlandish story (“my uncle works at Nintendo…” or someone asking for love life advice for “their friend”) and you’re just like “Okay so that’s the settei here, I see.”

Not really a big deal, but Elma’s line here in Japanese implies she won’t let Tohru call her that anymore (see her もう mou). Tohru’s response is also more of a “I haven’t been?”, since of course she wasn’t aware of Elma’s-mental-image-Tohru tormenting Elma in the previous scene:

The word for “full of” in the title here is ざんまい zanmai (a suffix form of 三昧 sanmai), usually meaning that there’s a whole lot of [whatever] to immerse oneself in. I mostly bring it up because there’s a famous restaurant chain called Sushi Zanmai that specializes in, obviously, sushi.

And you know, Elma is a water dragon that looks kinda like an eel… I’m just sayin’…

Not really a translation note, but wild that Elma didn’t even touch her parfait. (Not so wild that Fafnir finished his so quickly.) Serious business ahead...

“Genuinely” here is 素直に sunao ni, where the “ni” is used like “-ly” to make sunao work as an adverb. Sunao itself is an interesting word that falls into that category of “simple concept that is often hellish to translate.”

For some context, the first character, 素, is also used in the word 素顔 sugao, which is a face without makeup and 素材 sozai, basically raw ingredients/materials. The second, 直, is used in words like 直線 chokusen, a straight line, or 正直 shoujiki, honest.

Put them together, and you’ve got a word with connotations of directness and being unadorned. The original definition of the word tends toward “simple, natural” in the sense of e.g. life growing up on a rural farm.

The more common use for it these days is to describe people and their actions. Positively, it can mean something similar to a person being happy to help, or kind of like the opposite of conniving; open, frank, genuine. Less positively, it can mean someone is too trusting and easy to trick into doing things OR someone who is “too honest” and says hurtful things.

(If it helps: tsundere characters are often described as explicitly not sunao.)

In this case, the idea is that Tohru accepted the invitation easily as-is, without putting any conditions on it, or doing any “ugh, what a pain, do I have to, jeez” rigamarole—she just accepted. Another way you could put it in this case might be “It’s even more unusual for Tohru to accept an invitation like this without a fuss.”

Just to point out the hand on head thing again.

Also just to point out that this is another example of otsukare, as a reminder of how ubiquitous that word is.

And it makes a good place to end on: thanks for reading!

#maidragon #Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid #kobayashi-san chi no maid dragon #translation notes #anime

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tothelasthoursofmylife · 3 years

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Mistakes, clear-ups, and some other notes

So, I decided to re-read the last three main chapters before continuing with Malady 3 and I noticed that I messed up twice...

One time I messed up was when I wrote in “Malady 1″ that Cloudia and Cedric have not met Maxime the day before because he was away; they did meet him though in the chapter before...

The other slightly more serious mistake is that I scrambled the dates/day descriptions in “Mystery” and “Malady 1″. For example, in both, I wrote that the stranger came to the village “two days ago” although the chapters are a day apart! Etc. (And that even though I’ve been focused on getting it right ._.)

I fixed those mistakes on AO3 and here’s a little timeline for more clarification:

June 13 - Cloudia and Cedric head from London to Dover

June 14 - meeting up with the others; from Dover to Dunkirk by ship

June 15 - Dunkirk sightseeing (delay day)

June 16 - from Dunkirk to Lille by carriage; from Lille to Creil by train; a stranger comes to Nanteuil-la-Foret

night from June 16 to 17 - Nadia is murdered

June 17 - all day travel from Creil to Nanteuil-la-Foret; arrival at Chateau Charbonneau late at night

night from June 17 to 18 - Dominique is murdered

June 18 - first trip to Nanteuil-la-Foret by Cloudia and Cedric; they meet Guilloux and take a quick look at the stranger’s room; the drinking session and meeting with the Marquis

night from June 18 to 19 - Gustave is murdered

June 19 - second trip to Nanteuil-la-Foret; more thorough search of the stranger’s room; Anais’ picnic

night from June 19 to 20 - Marius is murdered

June 20 (here are we right now!) - third trip to Nanteuil-la-Foret (Cloudia, Kamden, Lisa); Cedric stays at the chateau with Milton; first interviews with family members

Very sorry for any confusions I may have accidentally caused ._.

Under the cut are some little notes/trivia about my little re-read:

Apart from me finding out that I messed up, it was actually rather fun to re-read those chapters. I usually dislike everything as soon as I hit “publish,” so it was very surprising that I didn’t dislike re-reading them!

I am always extra-wary about jokes/funny passages, but I do like this one and the next one!

(The sofa-thing is actually (partially) based on my armchair; it is more of an “energy-drainer” though because you get easily sleepy when you sit in it.)

“Room 1046″ is a reference to the “Room 1046 mystery” - the murder of Artemus Ogletree :(

Likewise, the number of the stranger’s inn room (245) is also a reference: to that one Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction episode (“Room 245″) about a woman mysteriously vanishing in a hotel room.

A rare instance of bullshitting Milton. (He is technically not lying (especially because this meeting “counts” as their first for Cloudia; he also does not like to lie), but it’s not really “all.” :) )

You forgot some things? Here’s a little recap:

I have been sitting on another Christmas bonus idea for ages, but this arc needs to be finished first ._. Not that there won’t be any other bonus and side story chapters here and there... (There are three side stories scheduled to come with this arc! The first (The Poker Game) is already out; the next one will come sometime during the run-time of the arc; the last one will come afterwards!)

Milton is hands-down the hardest character to write. He has perfectly fine social skills, but he just forgets to actually use them most of the time... (This instance and many others are still haunting him quite much. And me too. I also get a little embarrassed when I write a lot of his dialogue^^’)

Ah, re-reading this, I remembered that I wrote it outside! At uni during a break! :/ I haven’t set foot in a courseroom in nearly a year... (please stay safe and be responsible!)

I haven’t outright stated that, but The Maid’s Manifesto is in English, not French. That’s why Lisa can read it!

Pink-princess-Cloudia was one of my very first ideas for this arc ^^ In the original version, she and some others would attend a tea party by Anais - a cuddly toy tea party with little chairs and cups! I didn’t know if I could find an opportunity to put it in the story. I am really happy that I could!

Cedric being obliviously in love with Cloudia 🥰 a joy to write and hopefully a joy to read as well!

No idea if any of you noticed why he was sneezing here.

I said that before, but writing this arc in Milton’s perspective would be so much fun! That won’t happen though.

So, I have been looking forward to write their “date” for the longest time and there were certain things I wanted - and needed - to include. Like their conversation about Wentworth. Only, during drafting the above conversation went a different route which did not lead there; instead, it cumulated in awkwardness and a cut-short conversation. Some aspects (like the “we don’t know each other much” aspect) were re-used later. Anyway, here’s the deleted first version if you’re interested:

“It’s okay, Milton,” said Cedric and he wondered for the first time how often he would have to repeat this sentence or a variety of it in the next few hours – and how often he already had. “Anyway, this made me realise that we barely know each other and that I must know even less about you than you know about me. How about we do some ask game while we play chess to get to know each other better? Whenever it’s my turn, I have to ask you a question, and whenever it’s yours, you have to ask me one! Are you interested in doing this or will it make you too uncomfortable? I will not be made at you if it makes you uncomfortable, so don’t just agree to this to please me or anything like that. And?”

“Uhm, well…” Milton clutched his hands together, and Cedric’s heart sank. This had been the wrong approach. He should have thought of something else. Milton would certainly never agree to this – what had he been thinking?

“You are right, Kristopher,” Milton started and made his next move. “We don’t know each other very well – and I do want to get to know you better. And I am glad that you seem to want it too.” He smiled. “But… The question game… I don’t think…” He took a deep breath. “Maybe if we combine our chess turns with the questions, it will be too much? What if we contemplate too long on a question or an answer? I think that this may stall the game too much and we may never finish. Or we get confused. Or something like that. Uhm, what do you think, Kristopher? Of course, your idea is nice and I would really like to do something like that; it is such a playful, nice idea, but…”

Cedric beamed. “No, no. Your concerns are justified. Then, we forget the turn-question combination. We will just have a normal conversation laced with questions while we play. Is that all right, Milton?”

“Yes, yes, that will be all right,” said Milton and returned his smile. “As I, uhm, have found out a few things about you already in a rather… shameful fashion, I suppose it would be right for you to begin? And I am…”

“Don’t,” Cedric cut him off. “You were about to apologise again. You were doing so well.”

“Oh, right. I–”

“Don’t.”

Milton ran a hand through his hair and bit his lip. “I am trying but…” He sighed.

“‘It’s ingrained in your nature’?” helped Cedric, and Milton nodded.

Cedric reached out and moved his knight. “You know what? This has made me think of the perfect first question. Again, remember that you do not have to answer if it’s making you too uncomfortable – but why is it ingrained in your nature?”

“Why? Uh, well…” Milton stared at the chessboard. “I made missteps – I was expected to apologise. And, well… I made a lot of missteps and I still do, and apologising eventually became a habit because of this, I think?”

“Missteps? I can’t think of a single misstep you made since we started our travel – or since we met. And I should know. I basically hold a monopoly on missteps.”

“This is very kind of you to say, Kristopher,” replied Milton with a faint smile on his lips. “But I doubt I ever went a single day without at least one misstep.” He made his turn. “My question to you is, Kristopher… I heard you lived in the States before and only moved to the kingdom to inherit your uncle’s title – have you ever met him before all this?”

Cedric had not expected this question and his first instinct was to inquire why he wanted to know, but he could stop himself in the last second. If he had asked this, Milton would have surely grown suspicious. After all, such an inquiry would sound too guilty, too defensive. “I haven’t,” Cedric said instead. Cloudia would have been proud – if he could ever tell her, of course. “In fact, I barely knew he existed until he died.”

Sadness crept into Milton’s eyes. “This must have been immeasurably hard for you – to learn a relative of yours passed away who you never had the chance to meet.”

“Yes, but then I didn’t know him, so I wasn’t upset for too long. I couldn’t have been – how to be properly upset for a stranger’s death? He was also very withdrawn. He didn’t want to contact me,” rolled it out of Cedric as if he was indeed Duke Kristopher Underwood and not simply an impostor. Oh, Cloudia would be so proud of him for remembering the late Duke’s sheltered life. Even if Cedric couldn’t for the love of everything remember the man’s first name. “I think this says a lot about someone. Withdrawing from your own family. Anyway, it was a confusing affair when I learned about his death.”

Milton was silent for a moment. “It is – it seems to be. I cannot fathom your internal turmoil at that time.”

“It has long passed. Now it’s my turn again: Speaking of relatives… do you have any siblings? And if yes, are they anything like you?” Cedric wanted to know even though Cecelia’s file on Milton was still clear in his mind. Ida Salisbury, died only a few months after her birth – and their mother’s death. “The exact cause of her death is unknown, but it is not unheard of that, sometimes, infants die without an apparent reason.”

Milton halted in his movement, his hand hovering over a pawn. “I had,” he said with a thin voice before taking the pawn and shoving it a step forward. “Do you?”

Distressed or not, there was always a certain lovely warmth in Milton’s voice and aura, but my question seemed to have fractured something, and when he directed his question to me, an icy cold accompanied his words.

“I have been an only child for a very long time,” Cedric returned and made his move.

“Me too,” whispered Milton.

#that was quite a trip frantically looking through my notes and the chapters ._.#please tell me if I messed up in some other aspects too!#fixes #chapter notes

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tolkien-fandom-history · 6 years

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Interview with Angela P. Nicholas--author of "Aragorn: J.R.R. Tolkien's Undervalued Hero"

We were very excited to have the opportunity to interview author Angela P. Nicholas. Her book "Aragorn: J.R.R. Tolkien's Undervalued Hero" is an extremely detailed, in depth examination of Tolkien's Aragorn--his life, his relationships, his achievements, his skills, and his personality. It is a very worthwhile addition to any Tolkien library. She has some fascinating insights into Aragorn, book vs movie representations of the character, thoughts on the upcoming Amazon series and fan fiction as part of the Tolkien fandom. Hope you enjoy reading it!

1. How did you first become interested in Tolkien?

Answer:

Although The Lord of the Rings was very much in fashion during my student days in the late sixties and early seventies I wasn't interested in it at that stage – probably because I didn't tend to follow fashions! It was not until a few years later, in 1973, that a friend persuaded me to read it. He stressed that it would be a good idea to read The Hobbit first and promised me that I was "in for a treat". I was hooked immediately and when I got together with my future husband soon afterwards I wasted no time in introducing him to Tolkien's works as well! I re-read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings several times during the seventies and bought The Silmarillion as soon as it was published in 1977. Further readings have followed since, especially while working on Aragorn, extending to Unfinished Tales, the twelve volumes of The History of Middle-earth and Tolkien's Letters as well.*

2. Aside from reading the books, have you had any other immersion in the Tolkien fandom? Online, through societies, other venues?

Answer:

My Tolkien-related activities include membership of the Tolkien Society since 2005, leading to attendance at Oxonmoot (most years) plus a number of AGMs, the occasional seminar and the event in Loughborough in 2012. I've contributed several articles to Amon Hen and also gave a talk about Aragorn at Oxonmoot a few years ago. In addition I attend meetings of my local smial (Southfarthing) which is actually a Tolkien Reading Group.

3. There are so many richly written, deeply compelling characters in Tolkien. How did you decide to focus on Aragorn?

Answer:

There wasn't really any decision to make, as right from the start I found Aragorn the most complex and appealing character in the book. Every time I re-read The Lord of the Rings - including delving into the Appendices - I found new depths to his character and significance.

4. What prompted you to write this book? How did the impetus to write about him, in such rich detail, come about?

Answer:

The actual impetus came from Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films. Although I enjoyed his portrayal of Aragorn in some ways, it was clear that there were significant differences between the film and book versions of the character. For my own satisfaction I decided to re-discover Tolkien's Aragorn by studying all the Middle-earth writings and making detailed notes on anything of interest. I did not, at that stage, see myself actually writing a book.

5. Did you initially plan such an exhaustive and detailed study of this character, when you first decided to write the book?

Answer:

No, I didn't envisage anything so detailed. It just got out of hand: the more notes I made the more ideas I had and the thing just grew exponentially!

6. The title makes use of the word ‘undervalued’—how do you define that in terms of Aragorn and how did you come to associate that word with him?

Answer:

While studying Aragorn it became clear to me that his role in the story is a lot more significant than is immediately apparent. This is partly because the book is “hobbito-centric”, to use Tolkien's own word [see end of Letter 181 in The Letters of J R R Tolkien edited by Humphrey Carpenter], so is largely written from the hobbit viewpoint. For this reason Aragorn's ancestry and earlier life are only described in the Appendices, which not everyone reads. Thus his deeds - and their significance - are often overlooked, causing him and his role to be undervalued. Chapter 1.5 of my book in particular aims to address this problem by concentrating on the story of The Lord of the Rings from Aragorn's point of view. He does many crucial things behind the scenes, for example: the lengthy search for Gollum; standing in for Gandalf as shown by the secret vigil he conducts over Frodo during the months before the latter's departure from the Shire; and - the most significant achievement - confronting Sauron in the Palantír of Orthanc thus implying that he himself has the Ring and so diverting Sauron's attention away from Frodo.

7. If you were to consider writing a similar book about another character from Tolkien’s legendarium who would you choose to focus on?

Answer:

I find Finrod Felagund, Galadriel and Elrond interesting, especially in the light of their impact on Aragorn and his ancestry. Among the hobbits, Merry Brandybuck is rather appealing. However I have to say that I am not planning to do another book on this scale!

8. What were your thoughts on the portrayal of Aragorn in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies?

Answer:

Given “book” Aragorn's lengthy struggle to regain the kingships of Arnor and Gondor and to be deemed worthy of marrying his beloved Arwen, it was extremely disappointing to be presented with the image of “Aragorn the reluctant king” who breaks off his engagement so Arwen can sail west.

In general I felt there was too much emphasis on Aragorn as a fighter, along with almost total neglect of his formidable healing skills, impressive foresight and knowledge of history and lore.

Another great disappointment was the omission of the challenge to Sauron in the Orthanc Stone. Yes, this incident was included in the extended version of The Return of the King, but it appeared in the wrong place and also gave the impression that Aragorn lost the confrontation. (The credit for seeing the enemy's plans in the Stone was actually given to Pippin!)

In addition I found the beheading of the Mouth of Sauron particularly disturbing.

9. Did you find Viggo Mortensen believable and appealing as Aragorn?

Answer:

In spite of my answer to the previous question I liked Viggo Mortensen's performance. He did actually look something like my image of Aragorn and he seemed to capture the sadness, remoteness, physical courage and protectiveness I associate with the character. Basically I thought that Mortensen did very well with the part he was given to play - but the part was not that of Tolkien's Aragorn!

10. Amazon has bought the rights to the appendices of the Lord of the Rings and is planning a 5 part series. Rumor has it that the first season will focus on young Aragorn. What do you hope to see in this adaptation and are there any particular incidents/scenes/events that you think merit particular attention or inclusion?

Answer: The following seem to me to be important:

- Putting Aragorn's early life in the context of “Estel”, the Hope of the Dúnedain, who has been prophesied to be the one who will atone for Isildur's failure to destroy the Ring, and who will restore the kingship of Men.

- Some emphasis on his family members: Ivorwen, Dírhael, Gilraen, the death of Arathorn, subsequent fostering by Elrond, and training by Elladan and Elrohir. Some indication of the close relationship with his foster-father would be good: Elrond loved Aragorn as much as his own children but this was not made apparent in the Peter Jackson films.

- The scene when Elrond tells the 20-year-old Aragorn his true identity.

- First meeting with Arwen

- Friendship with Gandalf from age 25 onward

- Betrothal to Arwen, and Galadriel's involvement: he was 49 by this time, so that may not be considered part of his early life (though 49 would be young for one of the Dúnedain!)

- Perhaps some reference to the events of The Hobbit in 2941-2 when we know that 10/11-year-old Aragorn was living in Rivendell.

11. What do you find most inspiring about Tolkien’s world?

Answer:

The depiction of such a complete and seemingly realistic world, and the fact that one can pick up extra hidden depths in both story and characters on each re-reading. There is always something else to discover or a new interpretation of a familiar passage.

12. Are you involved in any more projects involving Tolkien?

Answer:

Not at the moment. I have one or two ideas for possible short articles.

13. What advice would you give to those first encountering Tolkien’s work and wanting to learn more about Middle-earth and its inhabitants?

Answer:

Speaking from my own experience I would say: Read The Hobbit first then The Lord of the Rings several times, including the Appendices, before delving into other works: The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, The History of Middle-earth and Tolkien's Letters, plus critical works, etc. - and of course online sources which were not available when I first became interested in Tolkien.

14. In the preface to your book you mention discovering the online Tolkien fanfiction community—what are your thoughts on Tolkien fanfiction? What time frame was this and did you join the fanfiction community at that time?

Answer:

I started writing fanfiction during 2003 and continued doing it until about 2007 which was when I made the decision to write a serious work about Aragorn. One piece of fanfiction appeared in Amon Hen, and the rest on a couple of websites which I think no longer exist.

My main thought about fanfiction is that it was this which started me off writing. It was very much an experiment as my last attempts at creative writing dated back to my school English lessons in the 1960s! Without trying the fanfiction first I don't think I would ever have got round to writing articles for Amon Hen, let alone my book.

15. Did encountering fanfiction or even writing it have an effect on your thoughts on Aragorn and the salient points of his character that truly defined him?

Answer:

Yes - because the chief aim of the fanfiction (mine and, I suspect, that of other fanfiction writers) was to fill in the gaps in Aragorn's story. I scoured the text for possible motives and feelings of the people I was writing about. My fanfiction was always based on the “book” version of the story and characters (never on the film version). I did sometimes use invented characters but only to add detail and interest to the story. For exampIe this approach was used when writing about Aragorn's Rangers and when describing his interactions with the inhabitants of Bree. Some stories were actually based on invented characters, in order to try and see Aragorn through the eyes of others. This probably helped me when writing the “Relationship” chapters [see next question.]

16. One aspect of your book that to me is truly unique is Part 2, where you study and interpret his interactions and relationships with the other races and individuals he encounters in Middle-earth. What made you decide to pursue this format?

Answer:

It just seemed the most logical approach. I couldn't study Aragorn's relationships properly without also studying the other half of each different relationship. There was so much to be revealed about both parties in these studies, many of which were based around families and generations (such as in Rohan, and Gondor, and in the Rivendell and Lothlórien communities).

17. Aragorn as a character brings together elements and bloodlines from the First Age into the Fourth Age—you outline these genealogies and relationships quite thoroughly in your book. How do you think this knowledge of his genealogy affected him in his transition from youth to Ranger to King? Is there a character from the earlier Ages that you think had a more significant impact on him or that he resembles the most in character?

Answer: Aragorn would presumably have learnt about these people as a child during his history lessons, but would not have connected them specifically with himself until he was made aware of his true identity at the age of 20.

Elendil, Isildur and Anárion stand out as the obvious significant ancestors whom Aragorn would have striven to emulate - plus, in the case of Isildur, also to atone for his failure to destroy the Ring.

Other ancestors who may well have inspired admiration and/or gratitude in Aragorn include:

- Elendur the self-sacrificing eldest son of Isildur. A passage in Unfinished Tales refers to Elrond seeing a huge similarity between Elendur and Aragorn, both physically and in character. [See footnote 26 at the end of The Disaster of the Gladden Fields.]

- Amandil, the father of Elendil, who advised his son to gather his family and possessions in secret and plan an escape from Númenor in the event of a disaster, before himself courageously setting out for the Undying Lands to plead for mercy for the Númenóreans. He was never heard of again, but the Númenórean race was saved due to Elendil's successful escape to Middle-earth after following his father's instructions.

- Tar-Elendil the 4th King of Númenor and his daughter Silmarien. The royal line of Númenor and its heirlooms only survived via this female line.

- Tar-Palantir the penultimate King of Númenor who resisted the influence of Sauron and tried to turn the Númenóreans back to friendship with the Eldar.

Another notable ancestor for a different reason was Arvedui, the last King of the North Kingdom, who tried to claim the throne of Gondor as well but was rejected and ended up losing both kingdoms before fleeing to the frozen north where he died in a shipwreck. Aragorn must have regarded his own mission to reunite the two kingdoms just over 1,000 years later with some apprehension.

Ar-Pharazôn would clearly have served as a dire warning!

I wonder if Aragorn felt any unease about his namesake, Aragorn I, being killed by wolves!

A comment in Appendix AI(i) of The Lord of the Rings states that the Númenóreans came to resent the choice of Elros to be mortal, thus triggering their yearning for immortality and their subsequent downfall. Did Aragorn ever resent his ancestor's choice? Personally I think he would have had the knowledge and wisdom to understand Ilúvatar's purpose in reuniting the immortal line of Elrond with the mortal line of Elros (through the marriage of Arwen and Aragorn) in order to strengthen the royal line prior to the departure of the Elves and the beginning of the Age of Men.

18. What are your thoughts on the original premise that Aragorn was Trotter, a hobbit?

Answer:

Eeek! The grinning and the wooden shoes! I don't think that the book could possibly have had the same impact, depth and sense of history if the main characters had all been hobbits. I seem to remember that the name “Trotter” still survived for a while after he became a man. “Strider” sounds much better. I'm so glad Tolkien didn't pursue the original idea.

19. Do you have any advice for budding Tolkien acolytes and scholars who are first delving into the legendarium?

Answer:

Read and re-read, record thoughts, ideas, passages worth quoting. Read what JRRT wrote and what others have written. This worked for me, over a very long period - more by accident than design.

*this answer is the same as Angela's answer in the Luna Press interview with her as it has not changed! Take a look at that article for more information on Angela and her book. https://www.lunapresspublishing.com/single-post/2017/09/04/Aragorn---A-Companion-Book

Interviewed by @maedhrosrussandol

July 14th 2018

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dailyaudiobible · 3 years

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04/12/2021 DAB Transcript

Joshua 5:1-7:15, Luke 15:1-32, Psalms 81:1-16, Proverbs 13:1

Today is the 12th day of April welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I'm Brian it is wonderful to be here with you today as we move into this week and get settled and get to work. We’re also getting settled and taking the next step forward in the Scriptures in this adventure that we are on together for a year all the way through the Bible all the way through a year all the way through life together. So, we…we’re getting ourselves moved into the book of Joshua. A couple days ago we began the book of Joshua, which was definitely and is definitely a transition. We crossed the Jordan River in our reading yesterday and it…in our reading anyway, it was the first time we’ve been there in 400 years, more than 400 years, but this time we’ve crossed the Jordan River with the children of Israel with the intention of settling the land, the promised land. And, so, let's dive in. We’re reading from the New English Translation this week. Joshua chapter 5 verse 1 through 7 verse 15.

Commentary:

Okay. So, in the gospel of Luke today we have a very, very famous passage, a famous story or a parable told by Jesus about the lost son who returned. And we know the story, we just read the story, so I don’t have to re-tell the story. And there are so many ways of looking at this story. It's a beautiful story that has been examined from a bunch of angles. I just want to kind of zoom in to the last part of the story because it seems as if one of the main points of the story is that…is that it's all already yours. That is essentially what gets said to the older son who is a little confused and a little ticked off that his…his brother comes home and all the sudden there’s this grand celebration, when this brother, all he did was take half of the assets and go squander them and wild living. And then he comes home, and he has the audacity to come home. And then dad is so excited that he's killing the fattened…like they're throwing a huge party. So, he’s a little bit exasperated and there's this confrontation with the father where he's like, “look I've served…I’ve served you…I’ve served you faithfully. I’ve done what you told me to do. I've obeyed your commands and you never did anything like this for me.” And the father's response, I mean quoting Jesus, the father says to the disgruntled son, “son, you are always with me and everything that belongs to me is yours. It was appropriate to celebrate and be glad for your brother. He was dead and is alive. He was lost and is found.” In other words, the father is saying, “son, it's all already yours.” And in the case of the story the son that had gone off and wild…and lived wild and squandered his resources, he's back alive but he already spent his resources. He's back with his father but everything in the estate belongs to his father and will be passed to the first son because the second son already took his reward and squandered it. So, the father's like, “I'm just glad to have my son back. Everything else is already yours.” The way that this becomes a mirror for us in our own lives is when we put ourselves in that same position. “I've been serving you faithfully. I have obeyed your commands. I have been faithful and loyal to you. And yet I look around and see blessing descending on people who don't deserve it. And you never did anything like that for me.” And you see how we can get into that posture very easily. I bet that even as I'm describing this, we can think of situations that are currently in our lives or have been in our lives we’re we’ve felt that way. And, so, it might help us when we find ourselves in this kind of tired out weary worn-out situations where you feel like, “I'm…I'm trying to be faithful, and I just don't see any breakthrough. I don't see any forward progress.” It would help us to remember what the father in the story says. “You are with me all the time and everything that belongs to me is yours. It's all already yours. Let's celebrate that one who was dead to us is the live.

Prayer:

Father, this definitely touches us in all kinds of places, places where we’re selfish and self-absorbed, places where we want to put ourselves in the in the seat of the judge where we can make the kinds of judgments that are only Yours to make. All kinds of things come from these kinds of postures. And yet if we would realize there's really nothing to get, it's all already hours that we’re not really trying to compete with each other to get more of You, that all of You has been poured out to all of us and You love us all, then we can enter into the rejoicing as well when one who is dead has been restored to us alive and when we remember that we are inheriting a kingdom. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In the mighty name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

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There are resources that are available in the Daily Audio Bible Shop there, fun things, things to take that journey deeper, things to write on, things to write with, coffee and tea. Just over the years we've just developed resources for the journey through the Bible in a year. And, so, check those out at the Daily Audio Bible Shop.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com as well. There’s a link on the homepage. If you're using the Daily Audio Bible app you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner, or the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement…well....you can hit the Hotline button that's in the app, it’s the little red button up at the top, hard to miss it, very plain, very easy to see. No matter where you are in the world, as long as you have Internet, you can hit the Hotline button and share from there, or there are a number of telephone numbers depending on where you are in the world. If you are in the Americas 877-942-4253 is number to call. If you're in the UK or Europe 44-20-3608-8078 is the number to call. And if you are in Australia or the lands down under 61-3-8820-5459 is the number to dial.

And that's it for today except to remind you of what is true every day, I love you, I’m grateful for you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

This message is to Carlos. We hear your prayer, we hear your needs, and we're all praying for you Sir. We're praying for your family, for your wife, your children, your grandchildren, and you as well. Just know that you're not alone during this time. This is Steve from Albertville AL and I just wanted to have maybe a word of encouragement that through prayer you can get through this situation. God bless you. I pray for you my friend in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Good morning DAB family it's the 8th of April I'm calling in today, this is Laura from Heather Hill Florida. I’m praying for Carlos who called in today. He's been listening to the DAB for 10 years. Carlos I’m praying for you and your family, all of you that have covid. I just know it's been a few days now since you called in and you're into this a few days and I just pray heavenly father that You would completely heal Carlos, his wife, his daughter, his grandsons. I pray You heal this family completely of this covid. I pray Father that they would recover quickly and that Father that they would not spread it to anyone else in their…in their vicinity. Lord I pray for complete healing, that they would not have any serious issues, that it would pass quickly and Lord that this virus would be eradicated soon in our world. Father, please bless this family. Protect them. Protect them from harm in Jesus’ name.

Keota from New Zealand DAB family this is my first time calling in. My name is Kate. I wanted to express my gratitude for all that I've learned and all that I’ve absorbed since the 1st of January this year when I started listening. It's really affected me deeply, the whole context of the word and understanding it. I feel like I’ve really encouraged and grown in my faith, my understanding and my relationship with God, my relationship with others. I'm seeing things in a whole new light. I was surprised by given a short notice of eviction from my rental. I live in an area where there's…it's a holiday area so there's not many rentals and everything and real estate is in high demand. So, the opportunity of getting a new place to live is very low if non-existent. Impossible would be more accurate. I decided when I got that notice I was completely relaxed and almost bemused about, “OK God. Where are we going with this? Where are you going to lead me?” The old me would have been panicking. After listening to Brian today 7th of April talking about “seek first the Kingdom” I realized that I have not been worrying, I've been relaxing and letting Him do it. And He's done it. He's provided the impossible, not only a rental but cheaper than the one I was in before and I am…had so many people just come and help. I am amazed. I am very grateful. I'm astounded. I’m humbled. So, thank you for all your input. I hope this encourages someone, that our God is a provider. God, He loves us so much. He's in every detail. Thank you.

My family is feeling a little bad because my uncle just passed away. Please Mr. Brian pray for...

Hello Daily Audio Bible family I'm reaching out. I need prayer from my beloved daughter. Her husband has been battling depression and…and mental illness of some sort and she tried fervently to get him help to get him committed and get him…and he was always able to say the right answers to not be able to be admitted to the metal place. And finally, he took things in his own hand and committed suicide on March 26th. And, so, now there's no chance of reconciliation at all, obviously, in this world. And my daughter she now wants to join him. And I thought that she meant like where he did the deed. No, she literally wants to end her life now too. They've been together 14 years. Anyway, I just appreciate if you could just uplift my daughter Robin, please. And she does know the Lord, but she is in such pain and suffering right now. I want everyone to know who even thinks of committing a suicide, do not. Do not. The pain and the horrific wave that results from it is just…if you only know how unbearable it is. Hopefully anybody who is tempted will not do it because it's just the horrific counter of the aftermath of suicide is so painful. I mean I…I grieve for people who die of natural causes or, you know, accidents or…or worse but when someone…

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salfordelim · 4 years

Link

Hi everyone

Here’s this week’s resources looking at Acts Chapter 4 1-31. As usual there is videos with me going through most of the content, but links to the video have to be accessed here due to copyright faffs that mean we can’t add them into mine! There’s a few daft ones this week for those that like them!

If following on Sunday, you will need:

Printed colouring/activity sheets

If you want to make the dancing puppet man craft, as well as the template printed off, you will need: Paper Cup, Craft/lolly Sticks, Card, Clear Tape, Crayons or Coloured Pencils, Wool, Heavy Duty Thread, Hole Punch and Scissors.

Game/Activity

Have a few rounds of ‘Would you Rather’ and tailor your suggestions to suit your household. Make each choice one that would require a certain degree of bravery, boldness or confidence! For example, for a younger child who you know doesn’t like insects, you might ask ‘Would you rather let an ant crawl on your hand or a ladybird?’ For older children you might ask ‘Would you rather sing in front of people at school or dance?’. Obviously you know your children and so will pick things relevant to them!

The link with the passage is that Peter and John were gifted a new level of boldness by the Holy Spirit to speak out not just the name of Jesus, but all that He offers.

Bible Bit

Here is the passage from the International Children’s Bible:

(It’s quite a long passage again this week so you might want to read it yourself and re-tell to younger children

)

Peter and John at the Council

While Peter and John were speaking to the people, a group of men came up to them. There were Jewish priests, the captain of the soldiers that guarded the Temple, and some Sadducees. 2 They were upset because the two apostles were teaching the people. Peter and John were preaching that people will rise from death through the power of Jesus. 3 The Jewish leaders grabbed Peter and John and put them in jail. It was already night, so they kept them in jail until the next day. 4 But many of those who heard Peter and John preach believed the things they said. There were now about 5,000 men in the group of believers.

5 The next day the Jewish rulers, the Jewish elders, and the teachers of the law met in Jerusalem. 6 Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander were there. Everyone from the high priest’s family was there. 7 They made Peter and John stand before them. The Jewish leaders asked them: “By what power or authority did you do this?”

8 Then Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit. He said to them, “Rulers of the people and you elders, 9 are you questioning us about a good thing that was done to a crippled man? Are you asking us who made him well? 10 We want all of you and all the Jewish people to know that this man was made well by the power of Jesus Christ from Nazareth! You nailed him to a cross, but God raised him from death. This man was crippled, but he is now well and able to stand here before you because of the power of Jesus! 11 Jesus is

‘the stone that you builders did not want.

It has become the cornerstone.’ (Psalm 118:22)

12 Jesus is the only One who can save people. No one else in the world is able to save us.”

13 The Jewish leaders saw that Peter and John were not afraid to speak. They understood that these men had no special training or education. So they were amazed. Then they realized that Peter and John had been with Jesus. 14 They saw the crippled man standing there beside the two apostles. They saw that the man was healed. So they could say nothing against them. 15 The Jewish leaders told them to leave the meeting. Then the leaders talked to each other about what they should do. 16 They said, “What shall we do with these men? Everyone in Jerusalem knows that they have done a great miracle! We cannot say it is not true. 17 But we must warn them not to talk to people anymore using that name. Then this thing will not spread among the people.”

18 So they called Peter and John in again. They told them not to speak or to teach at all in the name of Jesus. 19 But Peter and John answered them, “What do you think is right? What would God want? Should we obey you or God? 20 We cannot keep quiet. We must speak about what we have seen and heard.” 21-22 The Jewish leaders could not find a way to punish them because all the people were praising God for what had been done. (This miracle was a proof from God. The man who was healed was more than 40 years old!) So the Jewish leaders warned the apostles again and let them go free.

The Believers’ Prayer

23 Peter and John left the meeting of Jewish leaders and went to their own group. They told them everything that the leading priests and the Jewish elders had said to them. 24 When the believers heard this, they prayed to God with one purpose. They prayed, “Lord, you are the One who made the sky, the earth, the sea, and everything in the world. 25 Our father David was your servant. With the help of the Holy Spirit he said:

‘Why are the nations so angry?

Why are the people making useless plans?

26 The kings of the earth prepare to fight.

Their leaders make plans together

against the Lord

and against his Christ.’ (Psalm 2:1-2)

27 These things really happened when Herod, Pontius Pilate, the non-Jewish people, and the Jewish people all came together against Jesus here in Jerusalem. Jesus is your holy Servant. He is the One you made to be the Christ. 28 These people made your plan happen; it happened because of your power and your will. 29 And now, Lord, listen to what they are saying. They are trying to make us afraid! Lord, we are your servants. Help us to speak your word without fear. 30 Help us to be brave by showing us your power; make sick people well, give proofs, and make miracles happen by the power of Jesus, your holy servant.”

31 After they had prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke God’s word without fear.

Here are some daft videos! The first one recaps what we heard last week:

The next one continues and looks at this week’s passage:

This is a more serious recap of last week and this week’s passage:

Ages 3/4 -7: The main thing to help your child/ren to understand from this passage is that there is power in the name of Jesus, it is through Him the lame man was healed and that no one, even the most powerful people should ever stop us saying His name or telling others about Him. Ask:

Have you ever wanted to tell someone something but you were asked not to tell? Or maybe you helped plan a surprise for someone and you had to keep it secret so as not to spoil it! Was it easy to keep quiet?

For Peter and John they knew something about Jesus that they couldn’t wait for others to know about. But it wasn’t a surprise that would spoil anything, it was the opposite! It would let everyone know that Jesus has the power to do anything! The power to heal really sick people, the power to save. They couldn’t just keep quiet about that and even when the priests in charge at the temple told them they had to stop, they said they wouldn’t because God had told them to do it and they didn’t want to disobey Him! Even though they were put in jail, they didn’t let that stop them wanting to tell anyone about Jesus.

Can you make a list of all the powerful things that Jesus can do?

Ages 7-11: The main points we are going to consider from today’s passage are that Peter and John continued with this new-found boldness in telling anyone who asked or would listen of who Jesus is. It wasn’t just that they had confidence, but the Holy Spirit gave them the words that made them sound like they had been educated and studied the law, when they were just ordinary tradesmen. And let’s not forget it wasn’t too long ago that Peter denied knowing Jesus but look at him now!

After reading or watching the videos, ask:

What strikes you from the passage? Anything odd? Anything you don’t understand?

Do you know what a ‘Sadducee’ is? (It was a member of a Jewish sect or party at the time of Jesus. They didn’t believe in the resurrection of the dead, life after death or in the existence of spirits or angels. They were often priests in the Temple.)

When God is working in people’s hearts and doing great things, the devil doesn’t like it, so we shouldn’t be surprised that efforts are made to silence those telling the good news of Jesus resurrection.

Have you ever wanted to share something with someone and another person has asked you not to tell? I don’t mean a secret, but something else. Maybe you arranged to go the park with a friend and you want to invite someone else but your friend asked you not to. You can’t see why they wouldn’t want an extra person to play at the park with, in fact you think it would be better! Did you invite them anyway or did you feel a pressure to please the other person?

Have you ever been told not to do something by a teacher, parent, carer, grandparent or another adult? Is it always easy? Have you ever been told not to do something but you can’t see why you shouldn’t? Often when we are told not to do something it’s because those who have asked us not to know more than we do about why it would be a bad idea, or simply because it is a naughty thing we were doing. This was different. Peter and John were being told not to preach about Jesus because the priests and religious leaders didn’t like that so many people were becoming Christians after hearing (and seeing) the power of Jesus name and they knew that if loads more people started following Jesus, then they wouldn’t be following them any more. And they didn’t like that idea.

Peter and John went to jail for a night in this passage for speaking the truth about Jesus. They weren’t afraid of those in power and said they would always obey God over anyone else, even if that meant prison. The boldness they had from the Holy Spirit wasn’t just the courage to speak up, but it was courage to keep going even when they knew it might mean difficulties for them.

What would you risk in order to tell others about the good news of Jesus?

Read verses 23-31. After spending a night in jail and then being told not to speak of Jesus again, does this prayer surprise you? What might you pray if it were you?

Craft

Print off the colouring sheet below for an easy craft!

Download the colouring sheet

Open the Lame Man Cup Puppet Craft and it has all the instructions and a template to make one of these:

Open the Lame Man Cup Puppet Craft

Song

Here’s another song with Ian

#Salford #Elim #Church

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oldtumblhurgoyf · 7 years

Text

A Pseudo-History of Hypereconomic Diplomacy

So I corresponded with someone way back in 2009 who ran a game of HED way back in the 70s. I don’t remember at all how I found this wonderful man, but he scanned a bunch of the stuff he still had and then I took those scans and typed them up into the rules and tables I posted earlier. Even better, he helped me figure out where the original scans were incorrect (as they were from a game in progress and some stuff had changed) as well as sent along the maps which allowed for someone else to make the maps I posted earlier.

Anyway, I went back through my email and still had all of them we had exchanged. Below I’m pasting them bulk of them, which contains a bit of history of the game and how he did things back then. This is actually a series of emails he sent, often prompted to some extent by questions I had asked. I present it here as one big essay on the history of Hypereconomic Diplomacy as he remembers it.

Also on the off chance that you know the following gentlemen who were in some way involved in this game back in the 70s (they’d mostly be around 60 now I think and were all from Britain by the sounds of it), I’d love to chat with them and get some scans or maybe even pay postage for some old hard copies of HED stuff:

Don Miller Pete Ansoff Steve Norris Martin Feather Stephen Agar Frank Kopel

A little history then. Hypereconomic Diplomacy Mk I was designed by Don Miller (the man after whom Miller numbers were named) in about 1972. The earliest Diplomacy variants (I think Youngstown was the first) date from around 1967. Don created some of the basic economic systems and ran the first game in a zine called Aux Armes in 1968. You can see a run of Aux Armes at http://www.whiningkentpigs.com/DW/oldzines/aux10.pdf which also shows the relative simplicity of the game at that stage. It folded after about a year for unspecified reasons. I know that Don went blind at some stage in a life which is a bit of a drawback in running a zine.

The idea got taken up by one Pete Ansoff re-worked to create Hyperec Mk II and Pete launched it as a game, housing it in a zine of its own called The Siberian. Pete ran The Siberian for 15 issues (1971-73). But he was a law student and needed to actually pass some exams so he handed the reins on to Steve Norris who ran the zine for the next 5 years. Doug Kent’s archive reckons the last known issue as number 51.

In Britain we had one player who’d started playing in the game and he introduced me to it in 1973/4. At the time I was 17, running a sub-zine, studying for ‘A’ levels (the British equivalents of SATs) and planning a university life. I joined in Steve’s game and inside a few months was busy redesigning the game. Steve knew that there were flaws in his game that neither he nor Pete could by that stage correct and so they both contributed some changes whilst I did likewise and made the rules more coherent.

The zine I created for it was Hyperion. As well as being a pun on the game, it’s an allusion to a poem by Keats, and turns up in an SF book by Richard Cowper. What can I say? I was 17 for God’s sake and 80% geek to 20% hippy. The game started in 1974 and ran for 9 seasons in total. I did 5 seasons and I then went to University and discovered life, alcohol, women, sound and lights for visiting rock bands, running discos and anything but studying.

The game stopped. I eventually got it together enough to hand it on to a guy called Martin Feather who ran the game for 2 seasons (Martin now works at the Jet Propulsion Labs in CA and is a very high-end computer person). At the end of my first year in Uni, I got chucked out as they seemed to resent offering a college course to someone who didn’t actually go to lectures or study. How unfair - and in hindsight there are other things I should have done about it, but didn’t.

I move back home and as Martin was struggling with it, retook the reins, GMing the next couple of seasons, but then I moved back to live on people’s floors at my Uni and had a sort of surrogate 2nd year. It was never going to work to run a zine from that kind of existence and the thing died in a messy fold in 1977.

I got back into publishing a zine in 1981 once my life had sorted itself out and ran Home of the Brave for around the next 14 years and 130 issues. But that was just a calm dip zine with nothing special.

GMing Hyperec was hard. It took around 50 hours to GM a season’s play. There were around 55 players, 1 for each country in the world in 1900. The game revolves around 4 aspects of a country’s existence – Manpower, Agriculture, Industry and Money. So in 1900 China has lots of Manpower, reasonable Agricul ture and no real Industry. Holland has Industry and little Manpower etc etc. You have to trade these factors around and buy Stuff with them. Stuff includes the military units that are then able to fight the wars that inevitably result.

Money is a different thing because the game has a system that says that money is never spent out of existence. If you buy something from someone else, the money transfers to them. If you (as the US player say) spend money, it goes into the US economy and a proportion of it returns to your stockpile each turn. The total amount remains the same.

The game has a whole set of banking systems that support this system and which can be used to ‘grow’ money if the money is put to one side and not spent. And there are a whole load of other transport, research, fishing and other systems that form part of the game.

In 1975 I had a pocket calculator that I’d built myself, which was so slow that if you asked it to calculate a mathematical function it would think about it for 20 seconds. And there was lot of calculating in Hyperec as you’ll see. In a way I was running a PBM country management game.

The game developed quite a life of its own. As well as the actual zine itself, people published their own newspapers for propaganda purposes. One player sold his country (Peru) to the Bolivian player and used the money to actually play as a bank rather than a country. The combined Perivia was the dominant country in South America by the time the game folded. Maybe it’s no surprise that the guy playing Bolivia ended up in real-life politics and is now an MP and a possible member of Gordon Brown’s government in the next reshuffle.

I thought at the time that what I was doing was indulging in some damn stupid hobby. In hindsight if I’d have had a sense of application it could have been a living in itself. PBM games for computer adjudication got quite popular in the 80s as computers became a more established part of life. What I have found is that the skills I used to develop the game and to run a zine actually turned out to be useful life-skills. These days I have a small accountancy firm (www.emtacs.com) and the communications techniques and basic abilities to use language as a tool are enormously useful. The abilities to organise large systems, hold stuff in your head and to recognise patterns are all just good business skills.

The game in a modern context would need a serious revamp but it would be a relatively simple thing to use Excel to present reports, do the maths and control the mechanisms of the game. I’ll be quite happy to lend a hand if you ever threaten to get another game off the ground and I could even round up 2-3 players from the old game to join in!

Right - time to go hunt stuff in the garage and the attic. I'll get back to you.

OK – some progress to report, but I’m afraid they come with a bit of a story and a mumbling apology. The good news is that I have a set of rules for Hyperec which will be coming your way. The bad news is that I think I have less in the way of material of the passage of the game than I’d like and the better news is that I know where to get hold of copies.

I have been delving into my garage where old zines, unused toys and books etc are living and unearthed a ring binder and a folder with Hyperec written on them. I dragged them back in the house and sat down to read. And went “oh yes, now I remember.”…..

To carry the story on from where I left it, Hyperion folded and I dropped out of the hobby in 1977. The game died with no-one remotely able or willing to take it on. I kept in distant touch with a few people and then returned properly to running a zine in 1981. My finds in the garage prodded my memory that there was in fact another attempt at running a game of Hyperec.

Martin Hammon was a good friend who’d played in my game and vanished at a similar time to me and was returning when he had the idea that he’d like to run a game of Hyperec because he had had so much fun playing mine. He set up a zine called Stuart and asked me for help. And so I bundled a lot of stuff, copies of Hyperion, the rules and much more and sent them to Martin. His game lasted for a shorter period than mine.

It’s 25 years back now and so I’m afraid I can’t remember why the game ran aground. Martin was a bit of a chaotic and it may have been his (a) separation and divorce, (b) his kitchen-fitting business folding or (c) ill-health or (d) he just couldn’t hack it. When I handed on the stuff I probably said something about having it back and I may have more stuff to find in my garage.

Regardless – Martin died about 5 years ago (dodgy heart, about 48-50) and I’m pretty sure that’s a dead end (no pun intended).

What I do have are some relics of my running the thing – a couple of the set-up issues, a couple of the zine I used to publish between main deadlines (Japetus) and a whole lot of stuff pertaining to the game Martin ran and a set of the rules which Martin rewrote to incorporate some of the changes.

I’ll mail you over a whole lot of this stuff in the next day or so, but what I can do tomorrow is try scanning a whole chunk (including the rules) and emailing it over to you. I would scan it here but my home scanner doesn’t seem to want to play right now, but I’ve another scanner in the office and I’ll be in there tomorrow. I’m a little worried about the quality of the printing and whether it will stand up to scanning and reprinting, but we can try. I’m worried most about the maps but I can probably recreate these if necessary.

And I should thank you for taking me on a trip into the past. My younger daughter, Steph (19) was fascinated by the whole thing and the idea that I did this kind of thing when I was 2 years younger than she was. The whole idea of being able to write a zine of probably 10-15,000 words in the course of a long weekend, without a word-processor is quite scary. He most accurate comment when confronted with it all was “God you were such a geek, Dad”. You’re not wrong there girl, but it didn’t harm me in the long-term.

The other source of material is the UK Zine Archive run by an old friend of mine, Stephen Agar who has issues 1-8 of Hyperion and which he can either lend me or scan for me. If you are ever to run this thing as a reality then you’d probably find it fairly invaluable as a template to create a game report for the thing. I’ll talk to Stephen about that.

So – browse the rules and I’ll send you the rest of the stuff on Monday. I’m not sure if you gave me an address so give me it again. Have a think about it and then if you decide you’re serious I’ll give you a hand with setting up. I think the rules may need a bit of tweaking since issues 1-6 of Hyperion were full of rule changes.

There’s no doubt that Hyperec would make a fascinating test case in a new millennium. I ran it in a world where the only practical way to communicate internationally was to send an air letter and wait 10 days for a reply. I can quite see it being a big success. I was saddled with having to create the game reports every issue and spend hours working with fiddly numbers that would be a piece of cake done in Excel. It cost me a lot of money to produce something, print 65 copies of it and deal with a bulk mailout. You’d have none of these problems.

In terms of the number of people playing you ideally need around 60! The catch is that you need people who can be encouraged to be sufficiently in love with the concept that they are happy to play Nicaragua (not relly that much of a superpower in 1914. The trick is to have a kind of hierarchy of standby players. If Turkey misses a turn, then the following turn you invite the player of Nicaragua to send orders in for their country and for Turkey. Then you'll be able to offer someone else the chance to take over Nicaragua if Turkey dsrops out altogether.

As you'll see - a little inactivity in the minor countries doesn't matter too much but having an NMR from the UK or France is a bigger problem.

Some of the printing on the tables is a little bit faint and these are the ones I worry most about in a scanning sense. Let me know how they turn out your end. If there are a few missing ones I can fill in the blanks but if they're just illegible I can retype.

The more I look at this the more I realise that this is such an online accessible game. The tables and the maps were things I had to redo and redraw from scratch every turn or two. These days you'd just have an Excel sheet or 6 that hung on to this data and you could amend it as appropriate and then permit online access for all players. It would actually need an active website and the ability to update that website on a very regular basis. How are your HTML skills then?

The rules and everything are a little bit dry and I'll try and drop you a line that explains how the game plays in a more coherent way. My friend Stephen Agar has said he'll dig the copies of Hyperion out of the UK Zine Archive and stick them into pdf's that you and I can read and which will not require them to cross the pond. That's a big help although I will send over a whole bunch of stuff anyway. I don't think the postage cost will be hideous so don;t worry about that.

I think some of the maps and provinces may be 'in play' items. The rules permit subdivision and recombination of provinces so some people's actions will have produced different provinces. They all started as pretty straight. But then Bolivia and Peru agreed to merge into Perivia and some people started to label the newly-formed provinces with fun names - hence Midgard (which was the name of a free-form RPG of the 70's, or a book, or something), Doc's Pleasure Garden and Rivendell. Some peope went to an atlas and come up with the Cianares, Hejaz etc. This game taught me a hell of a lot about the geography of the world.

There's a number of changes to the first spreadsheet brought about because this version of the tables must have been compiled from the game-in-progress. A distant bell of memory is ringing to tell me that I put these tables together to simplify things. I think they once were a part of the rules at the relevant point but I separated them into a 4-page document which contained everything because that was what people referred to once the game was in progress. The game had one or two strange turnings. Different countries swapped bits of one another - hence anomalies like Greek Sumatra, Aden being a province of India, Brazil having renamed itself Rivendell etc etc. Plus a stab at humour here and there.

So - Doc's Pleasure Island was a renamed half of Haiti (named after Papa Doc Duvalier who ran the country for a long time with voodoo and a secret police). Perivia was the renamed combination of Peru & Bolivia, Rivendell I hope you'd know, Cyrenia was a half of Cyprus and Leazes End is named after one end of Newcastle United Football Club's ground. Hejaz was floated into a new nation, and divided between Benson & Hejaz etc etc. The investment performance table of countries in the various regions has been badly affected by this and is seemingly cocked-up anyway. I have tried to correct this and re-labelled a couple of the regions but in essence, it doesn't matter. Some countries are blessed with being in more than one investment return area for bank purposes.

What else? The Public Works thing is a strange iterm that just seems daft. It's really a means of transferring money into the escrow (economy) of a particular country. That can have a logic but I've forgotten what it was!

Having a bit of a browse trying to track down people who played in the first game led me to the NA Variant Bank that tells me there is a Hyperec 4 and a Hyperec 5, but I can't find any details of these nor do I have any idea if the NA Variant Bank is still intact. It didn't help me track down Pete Ansoff, Steve Norris or Frank Kopel who were leading lights of my game.

#diplomacy #hypereconomic diplomacy #history #this is really fascinating to me #even if I don't run the game ever #which was my plan when talking to geoff like 8 years ago #I kind of want to track down these folks and gather up as much info as I can about the game and the times it was actually run #also hope I'm not breaching any trust by posting all this #but he told it to me pretty easily and I was a random teenager from across the pond #who just happened to be fascinated enough by this old game to trawl the internet looking for names and then search out those names on facebo

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