Something for Thursday

One of the people with whom I graduated high school was a guy named Dave Donavon. Dave was never particularly a friend of mine, but he wasn't someone I disliked, either; for whatever reason, I just never got to know him all that well. We weren't in a whole lot of classes together, and I wasn't much of a social animal back then anyway, preferring to spend Friday nights hanging out at home. Dave was a good guy whom I didn't know all that well. Come to that, virtually my entire high school graduating class was good people I didn't know all that well. I'm not sure, now, how I feel about that. I don't really regret hanging out at home, reading and watching movies and writing, but I do wonder if I missed out on some awfully cool stuff when I read people on FB saying things like, "Hey, remember when...."

Dave, sadly, suffered a heart attack and died earlier this week. Naturally, in this age we're in, I learned about this via Twitter and Facebook, and a lot of the folks I'm friends with on FB from that era are posting their memories of Dave. I honestly don't have any, but it still saddens me...Dave was 40 years old, the same age as me. Judging by photos, he had roughly the same body type as me right about now. And he is, to my knowledge, the first of our graduating class to die. I suppose we're lucky in that regard, but it's also a function of being a fairly small school where the graduating class numbered around 100.

I remember that Dave was into hard rock quite a bit back in the day, and really, hard rock's a bug you don't tend to get over, even as you discover other music later in life. According to my friend Andy -- also from high school, and a guy who knew everybody -- Dave's favorite band was Van Halen, which means that Dave and I would have had some stuff to talk about right there, had any conversations happened. So, in memory of Dave Donavon, here is Van Halen with "Dreams".

Fixing the Prequels: Revenge of the Sith (part two)

part one

When last we left our intrepid Jedi – months and months ago – they they had just made their way through an immense space battle to land on General Grievous's ship, through which they must now make their way to find the captive Chancellor Palpatine. This is pretty standard "infiltrate the enemy ship" stuff, but it's all pretty fun to watch anyway, because Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen actually have pretty good chemistry together. In this whole sequence, I like how Christensen portrays Anakin as more self-assured, more confident, but less obviously-arrogant than he had been in Attack of the Clones. The effect goes a long way to highlight the tragedy of Anakin's later fall from grace.

(Before I go on, I should note the very long stall in this series of posts, with an apology for those who actually enjoy reading this stuff. My reasons are the usual whiny "Nobody knows I'm doing this, but that Red Letter Media turd gets all kinds of love whenever he speaks!" stuff. So let's just stipulate all that and move on, shall we? OK!)

R2-D2 is another part of the puzzle here, and he has his own problems. He is trying to lie low when a couple of battle droids enter the landing bay, but his efforts are stymied by the fact that Obi Wan keeps talking to him, very loudly, via the commlink. Thus R2 is distracted at several points where Obi Wan and Anakin would find having a droid plugged into the computer system fairly convenient.

All of this is pretty standard Star Wars derring-do as Obi Wan and Anakin make their way to the observation deck where they suspect Palpatine is being helped. I find it all a lot of fun to watch, and it could have been even longer, what with some deleted scenes from this sequence that are available on the DVD. In one scene, our two Jedi heroes wind up in the ship's giant fuel pipes; in another, they are surrounded by droids and communicate with one another with baseball-coach type hand signals. These scenes are fun to watch, and I'm glad they're on the DVD, but I don't think they would have added much to the proceedings except for some fun action material. This entire sequence of the film takes an impressive bit of time, though, which is probably a good chunk of why it needed trimming.

Here again, by the way, we see R2 using his rockets that AOTC revealed, and yet another new gizmo: R2 has a supply of oil which he's able to squirt on the battle droids and all over the ground before setting it on fire. As usual, a lot of Star Wars fans complained about this, but also as usual, I'm fine with it. For one thing, I rather like what is now something of a gag, which is that each time there's a new Star Wars movie, we see something else that R2 can do. And what's also nice is that really, none of these particular abilities is particularly outlandish given what an R2 unit essentially is: a robotic space mechanic. You know how, within reason and given the right set of attachments, you can do pretty much anything with a Dremel rotary tool or Multi-Max? Well, that's what R2 is: a big, intelligent, Dremel tool. (Hmmmm...Dremel's colors are blue and silver, not unlike a certain droid...hmmmm....)

The other thing that stands out in this entire sequence, once we land on the ship, is that there's no music at all. We have music and all manner of sound effects when Obi Wan and Anakin are flying their ships through the space battle, but once we're on General Grievous's cruiser itself, there is no music at all: just ambient sounds of machines and distant explosions and wind in the elevator shafts and so on.

Our two Jedi reach the observation deck and find Palpatine there, restrained to a chair that looks a lot like the throne he will later use in Return of the Jedi. The room is bounded on all sides by giant windows that are overlooking the space battle. Now Dooku enters, and after a bit of preliminary boasting, the lightsaber battle begins:

OBI-WAN: (bows) Chancellor.

ANAKIN: Are you all right?

PALPATINE: (quietly) Count Dooku.

PALPATINE makes a small gesture with his hand. OBI-WAN and ANAKIN turn around. The elevator DOORS CAN BE HEARD OPENING AND CLOSING as COUNT DOOKU strides into the room. He is above the Jedi, standing on a balcony, with two SUPER BATTLE DROIDS. The Jedi turn to see him. He looks down on the Jedi. 

OBI-WAN: (quietly to Anakin) This time we will do it together.

ANAKIN: I was about to say that.

COUNT DOOKU jumps down to the main level. 

PALPATINE: Get help! You're no match for him. He's a Sith Lord.

OBI-WAN: Chancellor Palpatine, Sith Lords are our specialty.

OBI-WAN and ANAKIN throw off their cloaks and ignite their lightsabers. 

COUNT DOOKU: Your swords, please, Master Jedi. We don't want to make a mess of things in front of the Chancellor.

OBI-WAN and ANAKIN move toward DOOKU.

OBI-WAN: You won't get away this time, Dooku.

OBI-WAN and ANAKIN charge COUNT DOOKU. A great sword fight ensues.

COUNT DOOKU: I've been looking forward to this.

ANAKIN: My powers have doubled since the last time we met, Count.

COUNT DOOKU: Good. Twice the pride, double the fall. 

I really like this scene...all of it. Especially the little reference to their last confrontation with Dooku, at the end of AOTC, when Anakin decided to charge in by himself and got tossed aside for his trouble. They lost that duel because they didn't work together; this time, Anakin is willing to wait. But he hasn't grown up too much; he is still willing to boast about the growth of his powers.

What happens next is something of a pitched duel in which it still seems that Dooku is their better; he again manages to toss Anakin aside, and then he again incapacitates Obi Wan. But this time, Anakin is much stronger and holds his own...only merely that, until Dooku says something else:

COUNT DOOKU: (continuing) I sense great fear in you, Skywalker. You have hate, you have anger, but you don’t use them.

This goading of Anakin proves ill-advised for Dooku, as he immediately uses his hate and his anger. A minute later, he cuts off Dooku's hands and takes his saber, now holding two blades at the neck of the helpless Count. He knows that a Jedi is probably supposed to be merciful in such a situation, but Palpatine, laughing, tells Anakin: "Kill him. Kill him now."

This is a deeply chilling moment. Palpatine's warmth – feigned though we know it was in the previous two films – disappears instantly as Palpatine says "Kill him." And when Anakin hesitates, Palpatine allows his coldest, harshest tone to come forth: "Do it."

And Anakin does. Right there, with Palpatine looking on and with Dooku's eyes wide as he realizes he's just been betrayed, Anakin beheads the helpless Count.

Now this dialogue:

PALPATINE: You did well, Anakin. He was too dangerous to be kept alive.

ANAKIN drops COUNT DOOKU's lightsaber, moving to PALPATINE. 

ANAKIN: Yes, but he was an unarmed prisoner.

ANAKIN raises his hands toward PALPATINE, who is strapped in the Admiral's Chair. The Chancellor's restraints pop loose. 

ANAKIN: (continuing) I shouldn't have done that, Chancellor. It's not the Jedi way.

PALPATINE stands up, rubbing his wrists. 

PALPATINE: It is only natural. He cut off your arm, and you wanted revenge. It wasn't the first time, Anakin. Remember what you told me about your mother and the Sand People. Now, we must leave before more security droids arrive. 

Something interesting happens here, something easy to miss. As noted, this scene takes place in an enormous observation room with giant windows on all sides, so that during the entire lightsaber duel, we can see the space battle raging in the sky beyond; and occasionally, we hear the sounds of ships as they fly by very close to the windows. At the moment that Palpatine refers to Anakin's mother's fate at the hands of the Sandpeople, there is a sound that could very well be a ship in space outside*, or it could be the cry of one of the Sandpeople. It's a little aural reminder of what has gone before...and Palpatine is already starting to lay the groundwork for Anakin's temptation to the Dark Side of the Force.

But what's really interesting is that Palpatine allows Dooku to start that particular ball rolling, with his line about Anakin having hate, anger, but not using them. I always wonder...has Palpatine already decided to start working on Anakin's conversion? Or has he just now realized the potential of what he has in Anakin?

In AOTC, Palpatine manipulated the Jedi Council to assign Obi Wan and Anakin to the protection of Padme following the assassination attempt. Was he doing that with the intent of pushing Anakin's emotions to the fore, with temptation in mind, or was he simply working to sow seeds of dissent and distrust within the Jedi order? I might lean to the latter, except that we know that Palpatine has made good on his word to young Anakin from the end of TPM ("We will watch your career with great interest."). It's significant that Anakin has shared the dark secret of what happened to his mother – and what he did after that – with Palpatine.

As this scene ends, Anakin picks up the incapacitated Obi Wan and slings him over his shoulder, over Palpatine's objections that they don't have time to dally over him. "His fate will be our own," says Anakin, and they start making their way back down to the landing bay.

Of course, this is a Star Wars film, so they don't get there. They encounter some more trouble with elevators, this time when the cruiser they are on takes heavy fire and starts to aim straight down toward the planet, throwing off the perspective. Anakin and Palpatine enter an elevator shaft and start running down the walls, which are now the floors, since the ship is dropping straight down. But then the bridge crew gets things under control again, causing the ship to level back out again...which means that the walls of the elevator shaft are now walls again. Needless to say, they get out of this predicament, just as Obi Wan wakes back up; then they are back in a deserted corridor and trying to get back to the landing bay when they are imprisoned by something called "ray shields". After Obi Wan protests "How did this happen? We're smarter than this!", Anakin suggests that they just patiently wait for R2D2 to come along and release them. Obi Wan is surprised that Anakin is suggesting patience, but the plan goes awry when R2 does, in fact, arrive...with a whole bunch of warrior droids with him. "Do you have a plan B?" Obi Wan asks...and that's where I'll stop for this time.

If it seems like I haven't done much 'fixing' in a series called 'Fixing the Prequels', well, it's generally because I think that the entire opening sequence of RotS is as masterfully done as anything in the entire Star Wars saga. There's just nothing to fix here, but a lot to admire. Don't worry, though; we'll start fixing stuff next time out. In that installment we will deal with General Grievous, reunite two young lovers, and start to get hints of Darth Sidious's plan to lower the shroud of the Dark Side over everything. Tune in! (And it won't take the better part of a year to get there, either.)

* I know, I know, "Sound can't travel in space". For the purposes of Star Wars...actually, for most filmed SF in general...I just don't care.

Ask Me Anything!

Yup, folks, it's February, which means that it's time once again for Ask Me Anything!, wherein I throw open the doors to all comers who may wish to pose questions of goofy sort, or serious sort, or any kind of sort you can imagine. All questions and queries are welcome, so bring 'em on! This is your chance, folks!

Questions may be left in comments to this post, or if you prefer, you can certainly e-mail me (jaquandor AT gmail DOT com). Or send 'em via Facebook. Or Tweet 'em at me (make sure to put the '@jaquandor' thing in there, or I'll never see it). Or even in comments on Flickr, if you like. Lots of options here to make things easy.

I'll have more to say about it later in the month, but February 2012 marks ten years I've been blogging, so let's make this iteration of Ask Me Anything! a real hootenanny! (Or a lollapalooza. Or a shindig. Whichever.)

So...Ask Me Anything!

A Random Wednesday Conversation Starter

I can't believe I'm going to do this, but I just can't resist it. I'm going to steal an entire post from someone else. And not just the idea for the post, but the entire actual post. I hope you don't mind, Cal! (And if you want to comment over there rather than here, I'll completely respect that.)

Anyway, here are some burgers. Assuming that (a) you eat meat, (b) you like burgers, and (c) you see these on the menu somewhere, which one do you order?

Page One: A Game of Thrones

Page One: A Game of Thrones, originally uploaded by Jaquandor.

This ought to be my final word on A Game of Thrones for a bit, but it certainly warrants inclusion in my "Page One" series. So here it is: page one of A Game of Thrones.

The best way to comment on a book...

...is not actually a long and thought-out blog post, but rather, a series of Internet meme-photos with the captions altered. So here are some Y U No... pics in honor of A Game of Thrones.

"You still stammered on the 'W'."

I've seen British period dramas referred to as "Bigscreen episodes of Masterpiece Theater", which I suppose is kind of an apt description. But it's something of a dismissive description, isn't it? It seems designed to put off the kind of people who think that watching stuffy Brits on Masterpiece Theater is the stuff of torture. And it can be, if what's on Masterpiece Theater isn't all that good. But when it is good, what's wrong with that?

This is what I kept thinking of while recently watching The King's Speech: "This reminds me of Masterpiece Theater." And not in a bad way, mind you, because I've always liked the good things on Masterpiece Theater. But it's the air of the story: very little by way of visual invention; instead, it's very solidly produced drama, with a good script, acted out by a great cast. Aside from a few stylistic things along the way, there's no real feel of a particular "director's hand" in The King's Speech.

The story follows a particular Prince of Wales who is destined – although, being second in line, he doesn't know it – to be King George V of England. This particular Prince has a deep problem that seemingly makes any public life nearly impossible: he has a terrible stutter. The King's Speech would probably be the best movie I've ever seen about a stutterer, if not for A Fish Called Wanda. As it is, this movie runs a nice second.

Colin Firth plays the future king, Prince Albert, the Duke of York, who in the first part of the film is frustrated by his stutter when he needs to speak in public but is also thankful that as second in line, he isn't called that often to perform acts of oratory. He seeks out some treatments, but none of them work; it is his wife (Elizabeth, the Duchess of York, played by Helena Bonham Carter) who visits yet another 'expert' on the treatment of stuttering, one Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush). Over the course of the film Logue provides Albert with treatments, most of which Logue has developed on an ad hoc basis over his life. And over the course of the film the two men develop a deep friendship, despite Albert's insistence that they cannot (because of his station) and Lionel's insistence that when the door closes in his office, and it's just the Prince and Lionel, then it's Lionel's rules that must be obeyed.

Of course, we know – without even needing to consult the history books – that Prince Albert will, in fact, become King; we also know that he will be called to address his entire nation via the relatively new medium of radio, and that this speech will be either his big triumph or the hill on which he dies. How it goes really isn't a surprise at all, and it shouldn't be; for all the historical drama, Masterpiece Theater production full of Brits thing that this movie has going on, it's pretty clear early on that The King's Speech is simply a new version of one of storytelling's most classic tropes, the student who must learn from an enigmatic and idiosyncratic teacher if he/she is to triumph over his/her foes. The only difference is that here, the foe that must be triumphed over is a part of Prince Albert's own character. It's an inner struggle, and it's only in that that The King's Speech differs much in structure at all from, say, The Karate Kid.

A problem is established for which a person needs help. The person has a tentative, untrusting meeting with a teacher who promises to help. The lessons begin, and they're a bit confusing at first, both to the student and to us, watching it. But over time, as the connections begin to form, the lessons make more sense, and the story builds to the inevitable conflict, whether it be against a particular boxer, the rich blond black-belt karate dude, or against the expectations that the King will fail to deliver a stirring speech to his nation in a time of war.

Ultimately, what makes The King's Speech compelling is pretty much what makes all movies compelling that tell familiar stories: the characters and the relationships amongst them. Albert and Lionel form a friendship based in deep respect for one another and, even, need, without ever really coming out and saying it. Albert, obviously, needs help with his stutter, but Lionel needs some kind of acceptance. Lionel, it seems, is an amateur actor who wishes to play the lead in something, anything, but who seems eternally relegated to secondary roles. In helping the future King, he finally – in some way – achieves his wish. I also like how the film makes a gentle feint in the direction of having the King turn away from his teacher, but this well-worn and frankly unsurprising turn is avoided by the two men having a frank conversation.

Tom Hooper's direction is fairly understated; he seems content for the most part to let his actors do most of the heavy lifting after he decides where to put the camera or how to light the room. In fairness, there are a lot of interesting choices to be made there, and Hooper makes them. He rarely puts his actors in the center of the frame, for instance; they are always slightly off to the left, or close to the bottom. The lighting is generally bright and washed out; this is not your standard English drama with long walks in gorgeous gardens while everyone talks about God Save the King. After watching a bit of the film, I started to wonder why Hooper just didn't go all-in and shoot The King's Speech in black-and-white.

The King's Speech won the Best Picture Oscar for its year. I've seen some evidence out there, amongst the various pop-culture and film-oriented sites that I frequent, that the general opinion is starting to settle that The King's Speech was unworthy of that award, and that it should have gone to The Social Network instead. Speaking for myself, I personally found The King's Speech far more engaging and interesting, particularly in its human interactions, than The Social Network, which largely left me cold. Obviously your mileage may vary...but The King's Speech lingers in my memory much longer than The Social Network did.

(Apparently Tom Hooper is now helming the filmed adaptation, long-awaited, of the Les Miserables musical. Well, he's got his work cut out for him. I've made that movie in my head to the point where I can read the credits over the final montage.)

Sentential Links

Linkage...but first, Slinky-age!



Wow, those fellows need to get out more. Which is my way of saying, yes, I'm sad that I didn't think of this myself. (And at the very end, I can't help thinking, "Dude, watch out! You'll lose your fingers that way!")

Anyway, the linkage!

:: I realize this morning that what I have learned from the Curandera, the dream and Brian, is that I’m not a crazy dog lady. I just happen to love my dog. And anyone who is a true animal lover can understand that dogs really are members of one’s family. Yoda and I are a package deal. He’s not in my mate space, but he definitely has a huge chunk of my heart. And I’m never again going to hide that fact from a man.

:: Before I went on Lexapro, I said to the doctor that I felt like I was living on a thin precipice beneath a giant, sucking whirlpool that I couldn't get past. I don't feel like that now, haven't in years, and maybe the drug helped me get past it and I need instead to focus on controlling my anger for myself, by myself, instead of just letting the drug numb me to it. (For various reasons, SamuraiFrog is abandoning his antidepressants, and he's blogging frankly and honestly about the experience. I hope it all works out for him, and for his wife.)

:: I know I’ve mentioned before in these pages that I think Chuck Norris sucks and the people who like him kind of suck, but just to remind you: Chuck Norris sucks and the people who like him kind of suck. (Yes, SamuraiFrog again, but it's from a different blog he writes for, so we're all good.)

:: It’s been well established established that Dagwood and Herb use aggressive, angry breakdancing as a way to express extreme negative emotion. (Note to self: learn to spin around on your head like that! It would be awesome!)

:: On Wednesday, January 25th, Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich spoke to a crowd of supporters in Florida. In a short speech guaranteed to create a buzz—online, as well as among space enthusiasts—he declared that if elected president, “… by the end of my second term we will have the first permanent base on the moon and it will be American.”

That’s a pretty bold statement. Unfortunately, it’s also impossible.

:: To put it another way, when a competent writer tells you a story, you know what happened. When a good writer tells you a story, you feel it happen to you.

More next week!

Saturday Centus (Sunday edition)

This week's prompt is straight-forward, if a bit macabre. I'm going back to my science fiction roots here:

Two robots looked down on the fires of Earth from their orbital platform. They were there to monitor the climate, but with no one left to report it to, what now?

"Do you think anyone will remember humans?" asked the younger robot, with a quivering synth-voice. Its emotion chip was state-of-the-art.

"We will," replied the older, robot. His emotion chip was first-gen, so he wasn't given to sentiment. "We know where the bodies are buried, anyway." He pointed to a screen. "Cold front in North America," he said.

"Snow in the Caucasus," said the first bot.

I wonder what did us all in. I hope it wasn't us.

Convening the Department of Random Complaints, Grievances, and Pithy Observations

Time to get some stuff off my chest!

:: If you are standing somewhere, talking to another person or a small group of persons, please look around. If you are standing within ten feet of an entrance to the place where you are standing, please move out of the way. NOW.

:: If you run into someone you haven't seen in quite a while in a grocery store or a place like Target, don't stand where you are to catch up. These kinds of places almost always have some kind of cafe or seating area now; go get a cup of coffee and catch up all you want.

:: If we're going to have a warm winter with significantly less snowfall than usual, fine. But do we have to have 50+ mph winds every second or third day?

:: I don't think it's too much to ask that a retail establishment hours of operation as listed on the website actually match the hours of operation that are listed on the door. Nor do I think it's too much to ask that a retail establishment actually abide by the hours of operation that are listed on the door, if there is a discrepancy.

:: If you want me to actually read in its entirety your long list of reasons why Obama is the worst President in American history, you probably shouldn't lead off with "#1: He FAKED the assassination of Osama bin Laden!". Save the crazy for the end. (A bit difficult, that, as the list was ninety percent crazy.)

:: News websites that lure me in with vague headlines piss me off. I'd rather see the headline "Actor Ian Abercrombie dies" than "Seinfeld Regular Dies".

:: There are lots of tools designed for prying stuff. A slotted screwdriver is not one of them.

:: Slotted screws suck. Why do they even exist?!

:: I love it when a piece of equipment's casing is secured together with seven or so Philips head screws...and a single tamper-resistant TOR-X screw. Because it's fun having to use two drivers to open the cabinet up!

:: The only Presidential candidate talking about moon bases is the whacko moral-midget Newt Gingrich. And he's talking about them wrong, anyway.

:: I'm rapidly tiring of an apparent retail trend to put teevees displaying video content everywhere. I almost never see anyone watching the video content. All the teevees do is suck up energy.

:: I hate when I take too long to write a blog post, and am thus late in getting the pork roast into the oven. To the kitchen!

"Dark wings, dark words."

One down, four to go: I finished re-reading A Game of Thrones the other night. As noted the other day, I'm going to read something else before returning to Westeros (and the lands beyond the Narrow Sea) for A Clash of Kings. (What book will that be? I wonder!)

So...what do I make of A Game of Thrones?

As I've noted a number of times, my overall impression of the series is that it starts off very strong and gets less good with each book. I'll need to read the others before I can verify whether this is the case or not, but for now, my original view is somewhat confirmed: A Game of Thrones is a very strong book, indeed. But it's also a changed one when one knows what's coming. The moments that were clearly designed to shock no longer do so, and instead, I find myself being more attentive to George RR Martin's story architecture than simply being swept along in the momentum of his narrative. The question I kept asking myself during this re-read is simply this: What is this story about?

I don't mean this as a criticism, but I once compared A Song of Ice and Fire to a soap opera, and I have to admit that I'm standing by that comparison. All the trappings of soap operas are here: families with long-standing enmities between them, members within the families who are both honorable and complete louses, threats from within and from without, et cetera and so forth. I don't mean it a criticism when I say that often A Song of Ice and Fire feels to me like General Hospital with swords and dragons.

I'm also intrigued that the series, by its very nature and structure, seems to have absolutely no protagonist. Instead, we have the very soap opera-ish conceit that every person is the protagonist in their own story. And besides, protagonists are overrated, anyway.

So, to return to the question: what is A Song of Ice and Fire about? Well, given that we've got a story that currently stands at somewhere around 5000 pages in length, it's not going to be about a single thing, is it? It's about a lot of things. Here are some of them:

:: A Song of Ice and Fire is about the passing of conflict from one generation to the next. Every family depicted here has a history of not much liking the other families, and every family is depicted in multiple generations. Every conflict, it seems, is handed down to the kids to deal with. Especially the Starks versus the Lannisters.

:: A Song of Ice and Fire is even more about the demands and expectations placed upon children by their parents. If there's one dominant recurring motif in A Game of Thrones, this is it. How is it that the child of Eddard Stark who so seemingly manifests his father's honorable qualities is Jon, the bastard he sired outside of his marriage (and whose mother he refuses to discuss...now there's a plotline that's certainly not a dangling thread!)? Arya, too, seems to be cut from the block of Ned...but she's a girl, so it matters little, and by book's end, Arya's been used as a marriage pawn to buy an alliance, even though she's not even present to know about it. Then there is Tyrion Lannister, the misshapen dwarf who is loathed by his father and only allowed to be useful when preferred older brother Jaime is out of the picture. And let's not forget Samwell Tarly, who was so hated by his father that he was given the choice of either joining the Night's Watch or find himself the victim of an unfortunate 'accident'. Yeesh, indeed.

And then there's young Robert Arryn, who is still breastfeeding at six years of age. He actually isn't falling short of his parents' expectations, as father Jon is dead and mother Lysa is something of a protective lunatic.

It interests me that of all the characters in the book, the ones I like the most are the ones who are children whose success in things will depend greatly on their abilities to outstrip the expectations placed upon them by their fathers and by their world. Here I'm talking about Jon, Arya, Tyrion, Daenerys, and good old Samwell Tarly.

:: A Song of Ice and Fire is about great, vast, huge, oceanic amounts of suffering caused by people in power who care about two things, and two things only: Keeping their power, and avenging personal slights. That's it. What motivates Robert Baratheon to muster an army and ride to war against the reigning Targaryen dynasty? A personal slight. What motivates all of Cersei Lannister's scheming against King Robert? A personal slight. What motivates Viserys and Daenerys? Nothing more than the desire to get back the throne that was stolen from their family.

The only characters not motivated by some kind of personal slight or out of a desire for personal power seem to be the Starks themselves -- all they want is to get everything nice and peaceable again so they can all go back to living in Winterfell, far away from all the various intrigues and dark things going on – and the men of the Night's Watch up on the Wall, who are on guard against whatever very dark things there are that live in the icy, frozen North. There's a real sense in which only the men of the Night's Watch are concerned with the survival and protection of the entire realm of the Seven Kingdoms.

So, A Song of Ice and Fire is about suffering, and hereditary conflict, and grown-ups who drag their children into their conflicts and saddle them with all the issues that come from expectations, both unfulfilled and those that are impossible to fulfill. What a good thing that Martin is a fine writer with a gift for often sparkling dialogue, because otherwise, this would be an insanely depressing series to try to get through. Even as it is, an awful lot of depressing stuff happens. We're talking about a book that in the first hundred-fifty pages has one kid getting pushed out a tower window when he saw something he shouldn't have, another kid basically getting forced to go join the Night's Watch (a lifetime commitment of hardship) because he's not wanted around by his step-mother, and another innocent kid getting sucked into her sister's mischief and having her pet wolf killed because of it. Heavens.

I mention above that I noticed more of Martin's story architecture on this re-read, and it surprises me to see that some of the plot developments that shocked me the first time seem almost contrived the second time. Cersei's manipulation of Robert into ordering the murder of Sansa's pet direwolf is a good example. The first time I read this, I remember being viscerally surprised by this, and it certainly went a long way to cementing a hatred of Cersei as a character. But this time, I don't know...it just felt forced to me, as if Martin felt a need to really get the audience firmly on the anti-Cersei side of the fence.

Ditto a bit later on, when Ned Stark decides that he's had enough of being King Robert's Hand, resigns the position, and makes arrangements to leave King's Landing. Problem is he's attacked that night by Jaime Lannister and his men – for something his wife has done – and he's injured, this forcing him to stick around, so that the rest of the plot can unfold. There are more such false-feeling moments in the book, where it seems as though Martin is simply providing plot-related reasons as to why characters can't do the very obvious thing.

A special note about Ned Stark: he's a deeply likeable, deeply honorable man. And yet, he's a complete idiot whose time in King's Landing is marked by one mistake after another. This is a guy who places his trust in another guy who is well-known for being somewhat slithery as an individual, was once notably in love with Ned's wife, and who specifically tells Ned, "You don't want to trust me." Ned carries on an open investigation as to why Jon Arryn was killed, not bothering in the least to cover his tracks or look like he's not investigating; and when he discovers the reason, he tells the guilty party about it and leaves it up to them as to what to do! This, obviously, goes exceedingly poorly; so poorly does it go, in fact, that it quite frankly makes Ned Stark the dumbest blockhead in the entire book. Who else can compete? Well, there's Robert Baratheon, who is an awful King; seriously, folks, when a King cuts off virtually every discussion of some matter of statecraft with something like "Enough of this, let's go hunting/whoring/have a tournament!", you're not dealing with a good King.

Joffrey? He's a brutal bully, and that's all. He's stupid as a post and acts with no agency of his own...but then, he's not really supposed to. Cersei? She's a very lethal blend of stupid and shrewd, able to play Ned and Sansa like cheap violins but also sanctioning governing decisions after Robert's death that even her own family members judge to be awful notions. Sansa?

Ah, now Sansa is a special case. I remember hating her when I first read the book, but this time through, I didn't dislike her nearly as much. Again, part of this is probably sympathy from knowing just how disastrous her dream-life is about to become, but also, it's partly because I can understand her blissful naivete. The only thing I'm not sure of is how her blissful naivete even exists in the first place; Winterfell does not strike me as a place conducive to the raising of children who harbor deep illusions about the coldness of the world. No, I don't dislike Sansa now nearly as much as I did.

But Catelyn? Not nearly as fond of her now as I remember being. I find her attitude toward Jon to be deeply ugly, and her indulgence of her instincts as soon as Tyrion practically drops into her lap is the event that pretty much causes the entire state of the world to ride off the rails. True, she does come to her senses later on, but after the damage is done. I remember Catelyn as being more likeable than she came off on this re-read. Maybe I'm misremembering, though. Catelyn is one of the book's most three-dimensional characters, though.

I've heard praise of the worldbuilding of A Song of Ice and Fire for years, but to be honest, I just don't see it. Westeros is your basic northern European-style realm, with frozen wastes to the north, warmer climes to the south, important strongholds in various places, lands that are often trampled by war, et cetera and so forth. No mechanism at all is posited to explain seasons of varying length, magic and religion exist but aren't explained much at all, and so on. No, the strength of A Song of Ice and Fire is not in the worldbuilding; it's in the people that inhabit it. And I'm fine with that. I'm also fine with all the foreshadowing that goes on, and the fact that knowing a lot of what comes, I can see now how Martin sets a lot of it up. Now, I rather doubt that Martin really plans for what seems like a throwaway detail in Game of Thrones to come back as a fairly major point in, say, A Storm of Swords; but it's to his credit that he clearly knows his world and the history he's creating enough to be able to use stuff he's done earlier to good effect later. Even with things like the afore-mentioned plot contrivances, I never get a feeling of Martin not being in control. (This, I fear, is yet to come.)

Next up, obviously, will be A Clash of Kings. After I read Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny (and a few graphic novels, to be determined).

Things I thought while watching "St Elmo's Fire"

I decided to watch St. Elmo's Fire, the coming-of-age flick from 1985 starring quite a bit of that group of actors known as "the Brat Pack". I vaguely remember watching the movie way, way, way back in the late 80s or maybe early 90s. And by 'watching', I mean, 'being in the room reading comic books while the movie was on the teevee'. So my recollection is, shall we say, rather hazy.

Turns out I shouldn't have investigated those memories, because...well, that movie is Crap On Toast. Seriously. What garbage. I decided to try to make it bearable by mocking it on Facebook. Here are the things I posted:

So I'm watching "St Elmo's Fire", which I may well have never seen in its entirety. I'm about half an hour in. My plan is to watch until I encounter a character who isn't an asshole. I'm gonna have to watch the whole movie, aren't I?

(This was answered almost immediately by two friends saying, 'Yes'. Ouch.)

Oh god...a scene with a welfare queen. This isn't a movie about actual young people in the 80s, it's about what William F. Buckley thought young people in the 80s were like.

(Few things have the ability to INSTANTLY piss me off like the whole 'Welfare Queen' stereotype, and this was it, in spades. A white woman with her five kids with her, all of different races, who keeps responding to her case worker's attempts to interest her in job training with "Just gimme my check.")

Obviously my memories of the 80s may not be entirely reliable, but I don't recall women dressing either like streetwalkers or underneath at least four layers and buttoned up to the lower lip.

(Seriously, just look at the Mare Winningham character. She dresses like an cast extra on Little House: The Ever More Chaste Edition.)

If ever there was a person who just can't wear an earring, it's Rob Lowe.

(It's an awful earring.)

Rob Lowe tries to get his hand under her (the Mare Winningham character) skirt...but he has to pull up about eight yards of fabric to get there!

(This just cracked me up. He literally has to move his hand back down like three times to get the skirt far enough up that he can get a hand under there. It's like she has to walk around on stilts, just so her skirt isn't dragging on the ground. And this is seconds after she reacts to Rob touching her breast as though he's just zapped her with a cattle prod.)

Sweaty Rob Lowe is faking the hell out of that sax solo, I tell you! I keep waiting for CJ to walk up to him and say, "Sam, get your ass back to the office. Toby's pissed at you."

(A Georgetown bar is full of people rocking out to Rob Lowe on the sax as though he's Kenny G Van Halen or something.)

This movie is dragging my lifelong crush on Ally Sheedy outside, where it plans to beat my poor crush to death with a tire iron.

(Every time Sheedy was onscreen, I was reminded of Harrison Ford's great line from Working Girl, which he says to Melanie Griffith when she shows up at a function in a gorgeous dress: "You're the first woman I've seen at one of these things who dressed like a woman, not how a woman thinks a man would dress if he were a woman.")

Ahhh, the 80s...when eyeglasses were large enough to cover the vision span of four people!

(Holy shit, this movie has the Biggest Eyeglasses EVER.)

I have to think that anybody who has ever seen, oh, any movies at all takes one look at the city block that St Elmo's Bar is on and immediately yelps out, "Hey! The Universal backlot!"

(Ayup. This really broke the illusion for me. All that location shooting, and they couldn't do a couple of establishing shots someplace real?!)

Rob gets fired from his lucrative bar gig. Probably shouldn't have attacked the guy who showed up with his wife.

But it's all good, because he lets out a massive rant outside, gets kicked to the ground, and is well on his way to make-up sex within thirty seconds! Yay, him!

(This scene made no sense.)

Clearly the place to have a heart-to-heart with your friend is at the homeless shelter where she's doing volunteer work. WHILE she's doing volunteer work.

(Another really odd scene, with Demi Moore and Ally Sheedy showing up at Mare Winningham's homeless shelter to give her life advice, which is basically, 'Give in and make love to your boyfriend.' OK then. Winningham is wearing a long skirt with a bib and shoulder straps, not unlike overalls, over a button-down shirt which is over a turtleneck. Were the entire 80s a study in layers?)

In this scene, Ally Sheedy is wearing a frilly bow tie under the incredibly frilly collar of a blouse that is in turn under a jacket that has a really frilly collar. Were the 80s the frill decade?

Rob's having sex in a hot tub. Or at least he was. House owner got home early. Whoops. Hate when that happens.

(I thought that the producers had cast a Latino actor, named Mario Machado, as an Asian character. Turns out he's of Chinese and Portuguese ancestry. So I was wrong.)

Emilio Estevez apparently believes, as do all movie men, that turning up the collar of their suit jacket has the same effect as opening an umbrella.

(I never understand this.)

Stalking Andie MacDowell is creepy on two levels. Because it's stalking, and because it's Andie MacDowell.

(Cheap shot, I know, but there's just always been something about Andie MacDowell that's just a bit 'off' for me. I have a terrible time with Four Weddings and a Funeral on that basis.

Wow...as Emilio goes in to confront Andie, we get the "Person who shot JR" POV shot, complete with people stopping and staring at him! Every movie should include a shot like that.

(Here's what I'm talking about. This seemed a very odd stylistic choice for this movie.)

And for this she lets him go home with her?!

(I guess obsessive stalking wasn't deemed creepy until that guy killed Rebecca Schaefer.)

Rob is starting to realize what a loser he is. Took him half the movie. Took me thirty seconds of the movie. Yay, me!

THIS is Emilio's plan to win the heart of Andie MacDowell? Pretending to be rich?! Did we wander into a "Three's Company" episode?

(Apparently she's also stupid and will think that he's become rich overnight. Great plan, this.)

I'd forgotten how in the 80s, all men wore neckties, but the men who weren't to be taken seriously wore their ties so loose that the knot is eight inches below their collar.

(I hate neckties. They're stupid.)

Ooh, I gotta stop. This movie is terrible. Ye Gods. I'm just gonna read the WikiPedia plot summary and call it a night on this one.

For the record, I gave up just after the party scene where Ally Sheedy accuses Judd Nelson of cheating on her. I just couldn't even muster up enough emotional investment to make fun of the thing any more after that.

I really don't have anything insightful to add about St. Elmo's Fire. It just isn't good. It's annoying 80s fluff, the kind of thing that makes me wonder why so many people seem to fetishize that decade. I do like that title song and the synthesizer love theme, though. That's good. But the movie? The Breakfast Club it ain't.

Wolfgang at 256

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born this day, in 1756. His thirty-five years encompassed one of the finest creative lives in the history of our species. Mozart forever!

Something for Thursday

I'm feeling like some Wagner, so here's some Wagner. The Prelude from Lohengrin.