Ana Mardoll's Ramblings: March 2015

Narnia: They Might Be Enemies

[Narnia Content Note: Misogyny]

Narnia Recap: The trio have fallen deep underground.

The Silver Chair, Chapter 10: Travels Without the Sun

Chapter 10 is when we finally meet the ensorcelled prince, which I think we're due for in terms of "signs", anyway. Find the lost city, check. Obey the words on the stone, check. Now we just need for someone to ask for something in the name of Aslan. (I kind of regret that the trio doesn't use the signs more proactively, like, asking everyone they meet "and in whose name should we do this thing" until someone pops out with an "Aslan!" and bam, there's our lost prince. But Lewis' theologies do not seem to be in favor of proactiveness.)

“WHO’S THERE?” SHOUTED THE THREE travelers.

Pro-tip: If you're ever an author and you find yourself hurting for things that a certain character can do, these are good moments to make use of. I'm kinda blanking at a mental image of all three pilgrims--Jill, Eustace, and Puddleglum--shouting the exact same words in unison, whereas this could have been a useful point for Jill to actually be a protagonist. I mean, hell, she had all those mad social skills in the last chapter, and here is where she could employ them in non-disapproved-of-by-Lewis ways.

Open Thread: Focus

With cameras as with people, sometimes you can focus on everything but what you're actually trying to focus on.

Friday Recommendations! What have you been reading/writing/listening to/playing/watching lately? Shamelessly self-promote or boost the signal on something you think we should know about - the weekend’s ahead, give us something new to explore!

And, like on all threads: please remember to use the "post new comment" feature rather than the "reply" feature, even when directly replying to someone else!

Let's Play: Long Live the Queen (Briony Romance)

It's another Let's Play!

Technical details first: I used LiteCamHD to grab the video and my voice, and I used Freemake Video Converter to merge the video files together whenever I had to stop for any reason. And I am still unable to find a way to transcribe these with any degree of accuracy, and I apologize for that; I'm sorry to our deaf and hard-of-hearing members of the community.

Copyright permission next: I thank Hanako games for responding to my request for copyright permission to use this material with "open permission for people to make let's plays of our videos and to use the standard youtube monetisation tools if they want". That's a wonderful policy.

Content summary: Walkthrough 08 (Briony Romance) is my playthrough where I travel with Briony to the old forest, win the naval battle, and romance Briony for the ending (though we still marry other men). Game achievements include:

1. There And Back Again (You have survived a visit to the Old Forest.)
2. Things That Go Bump In The Night (You have encountered a monster.)
3. Victory At Sea (You have won a naval battle without disturbing what lies beneath.)

YouTube video below the cut, plus game transcript. I also strongly recommend the LLtQ wiki for any questions about the characters.

Open Thread: Dinosaur

As seen at the Great Vermont Maze. The maze, for whatever it's worth, is a corn maze. Which means that if you're going to get technical about it (or try to explain what it is to someone not from these parts) it's a maze made out of maize.

And, like on all threads: please remember to use the "post new comment" feature rather than the "reply" feature, even when directly replying to someone else!

Narnia: Boys Do It Better Than Marsh-Wiggles

[Narnia Content Note: Misogyny, Ableist Language, Self-Harm, Child-Harm]

Narnia Recap: The trio have reached Harfang and suspect that they are now prisoners.

The Silver Chair, Chapter 9: How They Discovered Something Worth Knowing

Chapter 9 is somehow the best and the worst chapter of this book. On the one hand, we finally get to see the female ostensible-protagonist actually do something; on the other hand, what she does do is coded heavily with female stereotypes, and the narrator even explicitly tells us that she's the best of the trio at this social stuff because she's a girl.

And the thing is, I don't think this necessarily has to be terrible. I don't recommend doing it when you only have one female protagonist in your book, because then you get into the small-sample-size problem of stereotyping minority characters, but the thing is that there is some small justification for female characters being decent at social skills in the sense that:

IF your female protagonist lives in a world that pressures her to be good at social skills
THEN she may have social skills that are useful in social situations

But just because it might make sense to equip a female character with female-stereotype powers doesn't mean that the end result is going to be palatable. We are, at the end of the day, left with a situation here where the one thing Jill is allowed to do well is a "girly" social skill.

We could be charitable and file what Jill does here under "subterfuge", but let us also be clear that what she is doing would more accurately be called "simpering" (and really only works because the giants are too stupid to recognize how far overboard she is going). And because Lewis hated simpering girls, and because hatred at what Jill is doing drips off the page, that also kinda takes away from any of the possible empowerment in this situation. As the reader, you're probably not thinking "aw yeah, Jill is Narnian Black Widow" so much as "yuck, girls sure are good at sucky things". (Because let's be clear: Eustace shoots food with a motherfucking bow and arrow, and Jill prattles and giggles. These are the skills being brought to the table here.)

And it's not just the narrator who hates what Jill is doing; Jill hates what Jill is doing. Again, I think this could be done well in the right hands, like with a character working through her anger at being forced to conform to these expectations by a patriarchal system, but I just plain don't think that's what Lewis was going for here.

Open Thread: Icicles

Picture taken on the seventh day of the year.

And, like on all threads: please remember to use the "post new comment" feature rather than the "reply" feature, even when directly replying to someone else!

Let's Play: Long Live the Queen (Exiled Queen)

It's another Let's Play!

Technical details first: I used LiteCamHD to grab the video and my voice, and I used Freemake Video Converter to merge the video files together whenever I had to stop for any reason. And I am still unable to find a way to transcribe these with any degree of accuracy, and I apologize for that; I'm sorry to our deaf and hard-of-hearing members of the community.

Copyright permission next: I thank Hanako games for responding to my request for copyright permission to use this material with "open permission for people to make let's plays of our videos and to use the standard youtube monetisation tools if they want". That's a wonderful policy.

Content summary: Walkthrough 07 (Exiled Queen) is my playthrough where I instigate a civil war, end it by strategic use of a hostage, and get driven out of Nova and into Talasse by the invading Shanjians. Game achievements include:

1. A Hostage To Fortune (You have demanded a ransom.)
2. A Land Divided (You have faced a civil war.)

YouTube video below the cut, plus game transcript. I also strongly recommend the LLtQ wiki for any questions about the characters.

Open Thread: Apricots

Lynn Greyling's Apricots on a Twig

Narnia: Taking The Blame

[Narnia Content Note: Misogyny, Fat Hatred]

Narnia Recap: The trio have reached Harfang.

The Silver Chair, Chapter 8: The House of Harfang

The hardest thing for me about going through Silver Chair is seeing how much of a decoy protagonist Jill is when I really dig into who-does-what-and-when. I really did like this book best of the series when I was a kid, and I really do think part of the appeal was having an actual female protagonist who isn't a straight-up saint (Lucy) or being slandered by the narrative at every turn as the sinsyest of sinners (Susan). Jill was a chance to have a "normal" girl, just like me, having adventures and doing epic things.

So it's incredibly disappointing to me that she... doesn't. We've given a lot of well-deserved flack to, say, Bella Swan for being the most unmotivated of protagonists, but when you really dig into the action of Silver Chair, Jill comes across to me as so much worse. At least Twilight is about a high school romance and I can realistically expect that homework assignments and long Saturday afternoons will be boring and unepic. Jill, in contrast, is on an adventure where epic things are constantly being hurled in her direction, and she keeps essentially playing dodgeball with any kind of plot involvement, character growth, and even just on-page screentime. She literally seems to be here for two reasons: (a) to mess up the signs so that we can have a plot where people keep messing up, and (b) to take the blame.

I was thinking about this when I was sitting down to write this post, and it occurred to me that I can't even say that Jill isn't the protagonist we were "promised", because every cover of this book that I've ever seen has always had Rilian on the front, not Jill, doing his manly stabbing of either the serpent or the silver chair itself. And, you know, I can't even imagine what iconic Jill scene you could use to replace that. My first thought was flying on the owl's back, but that would be the scene where Jill fell asleep and left the actual exciting adventures to Eustace. So not very exciting and iconic after all.

I've already complained that much of the book so far has been Puddleglum being the real protagonist and getting significantly more screentime for his opinions and thoughts than Jill. Chapter 8 is now going to expand that trend in order to give more screentime to Eustace. Hooray.

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