Anghraine

For context: my best friend J is an ultra-ultra-dedicated Star Trek fan. I saw re-runs as a kid and had a lot of lingering goodwill towards TNG in particular, but not especially clear memories apart from First Contact (J and I had a beloved English teacher in high school who assigned it to our class :D). I haven't watched much of the newer stuff, even. I saw two JJ Abrams films (the first seemed a perfectly fine film if slightly vacuous—it felt rather more like SW than ST in some ways, but not enough to be fully satisfying as either, while the sequel sucked in a "we should have seen TROS coming" way). I haven't seen any Discovery, Prodigy, Lower Decks, or Picard episodes, just two episodes of SNW that were okay, but not really my thing. They're polished, but struck me as rather unambitious in a ST context. That said, J really, really loves other ST (he considers it basically his religion, despite decidedly rough patches such as Picard) and I hadn't seen any of the older stuff in ages, so I was thinking vaguely of catching up with some old school ST.

Meanwhile, we were negotiating our next Media Experience awhile back, and he really wants me to watch Andor. In part, this is so we can talk about it, and in part because he genuinely thinks I'd like it apart from his admission that it handles Cassian oddly given his characterization in Rogue One, but he thinks I could overlook this in the face of the show's greatness. (He does not do social media and does not fully grasp the extent of my Rogue One!Cassian stanning.) We were talking it over and I was trying to evade committing myself to watching Andor and was suddenly struck by a burst of Machiavellian genius.

him: I think you really would love it if you'd give it a chance.
me: I have a counter-proposal, since the last thing we watched was also your idea.
him: ...yeah? A different Star Wars?
me: No. Star Trek.
him: ...
him: ...
him: O_O
him: ...like, Discovery or...?
me: No. I've been meaning to catch up with the older shows, since I don't remember them very well, except bits of The Next Generation.
him: Wow. Okay. Um, well, which one ... it can't be Deep Space Nine because we're watching that later in the summer, and Voyager is, well, I love it, but like a three-legged dog. I can't really recommend starting there. But we could watch some highlights of TNG...
me: I wasn't really thinking of a highlights reel experience...
him: O_O
him: I guess we could actually start with the original series, though there are some complications with the early episodes and multiple pilots and everything, and, well, sometimes it's extremely 60s...
me: Okay, let's see!

So while this originated in a cunning plot to evade Andor by throwing in all of Star Trek in front of him like a red flag in front of a bull, I didn't want to only be using his favorite thing as a delaying tactic, obviously. I definitely wanted to give ST a fair shot and think about it and try to engage properly, etc.

I don't always have time for it, but so far we've watched the following episodes (in this order):

( Read more... )

heckofabecca responded to this post:

OH MY GOD I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO REMEMBER THE NAME OF WIZARD'S HALL FOR YEARSSSSSSS

I replied:

Glad to help! I haven’t read it since I was a kid, but it’s always stuck with me—maybe because it was such an influence on what I decided to write.

heckofabecca responded:

Dude the whole quilt of people and their names was SO DARK!!!!

I replied:

yesss

lotesse responded:

wizards hall is so good. did you ever read the pit dragon trilogy? I loved those

I replied:

I didn't!

toomerrymaiden said:

I loved the incarnations of immortality, it's a shame

I replied:

Yeah. :\

I mean, they always had their Anthony issues, but there was a lot that was really interesting and engaging about them (especially On a Pale Horse and With a Tangled Skein IMO). But he’s … blech.

gemmamelon said:

I, too, want Emelan, and was, just the other day, vaguely imagining Mara Wilson as Rosethorn, because I think she’d be able to be appropriately spiky while having a warm relationship with child actors that would also show through, on screen.

Also, my ambivalence over this year’s birthday has been vacillating between “ack! how have I lived this long” and “YAY,” but now that it’s in one week, I’m just like … BIRTHDAYYYYYY

Tagged: #hello ides of march!!! i am ready to mark 'still alive nyahhhh' #unlike caesar lol

Normally I just vaguely describe text posts I reblogged on a certain date, but this one really cannot be paraphrased:



[Text: Tumblr user problempippin posted on 15 Jan 2019 that "pippin is buff and the reason why boromir and other men of gondor describe him as childlike is bc in gondor all children are fucking shredded"]

I added:

#finally quality gondor content

[ETA 5/24/2024: this was mostly but not entirely tongue-in-cheek on my part! Tolkien is pretty clear that even Third Age Dúnedain are bigger and stronger than other people, including Elves, and their standards of physical strength are pretty distinct. I could believe that kids in Minas Tirith are shredded :P]

sulfin-evend said:

I love your take on Gondor. What do you make of Boromir's quote in the council of Elrond paraphrasing "those who shelter behind us give us much praise but little help". I presume he is talking about other Gondorians. And the Stewards are often referred to as Lords of Minas Tirth or lord of the city.

What does this mean for how Gondor and its provinces view themselves and how its armies function. Are the Princes of Dol Amroth minting their own coin? Do the lords of Morthond present their daughters at the Stewards court? Are all the lords related to each other in a tangle of blood and marriage ties or do they keep to their home fiefs? It could be envisioned so many ways I am curious to read your perspective.

I replied:

Thanks!

I’ve always taken the opposite reading of Boromir’s line—that he’s talking about the peoples of Middle-earth sheltering behind Gondor generally, and this is why (if I’m remembering correctly) the others at the council go out of their way to point out that it’s not just Gondor that’s protecting the people of Middle-earth.

That said, Tolkien described the Princes of Dol Amroth as almost independent, but not quite; they’re “tributary princes” who contribute … something … to Gondor as a state. So while it might not look exactly like taxation as we’d understand it and could refer to things other than money, I do think it suggests some degree of cohesion, if even the Princes of Dol Amroth (definitely the most powerful and independent of the regional nobles) have to contribute to the whole.

We do see that the fiefs have a lot of authority when it comes to what troops they raise and where they send them. They only sent 1/10th of the forces at their command to help defend Minas Tirith because they were so worried about their own people, and seem to have been entirely free to make that call (and the people of Minas Tirith are disappointed but not enraged). So there’s still quite a bit of regional power in the military sense, at least. But Tolkien also said that a Dúnadan king or Ruling Steward was a fairly absolute ruler in other ways (esp dealing with interpretation of law), so it may be that the lords’ authority is particularly pronounced in military matters and more limited in others.

I do imagine that there would be a lot of intermarriage between the Dúnadan noble families, given that there are only so many of them. While Gondorians have less hang-ups about ~purity than in the Kinstrife days, I think it’s still something people are conscious of, as with Éowyn’s joke that Faramir’s people will wonder why he didn’t choose a woman “of the race of Númenor” to be his wife (she doesn’t seem to think her ¼ Númenórean ancestry will count for Gondorians).

IMO it’s entirely probable that the Stewards and Princes of Dol Amroth have intermarried multiple times, say—not with first cousins (I think that taboo became pretty non-negotiable post-Akallabêth), but more distant connections. Perhaps Imrahil is recognizable as part-Elvish to Legolas despite the generational distance from Mithrellas because Imrahil’s actually descended from her many times over. Etc.

[ETA 5/24/2024: sulfin-evend did respond to this, but given that they acknowledged being "contrary" in this interaction and that they defended Elrond's profoundly racist characterization of modern Gondor, I didn't feel inclined to reply again.]