Obligatory disclaimer: sometimes life sucks, sometimes it does
not, but everything always comes to an end, not just your life, (as the book of
Ecclesiastes says), but also all times, good and bad. Most likely, I will not
be around to write anything, especially in my blog, next week (i.e. the very last
week of May), so let us try to put something extra this week, ok?
Let us start with Ms. Chokshi’s next novel about Aru Shah – ‘the
Song of Death’. In it, the titular heroine and her soul sister Yamini meet
another one of their number, as well as Aru’s love interest, a boy from her
town, one that lives across the street or down the street or something along
those lines. And?
When compared to the first novel – ‘the End of Time’ – ‘the Song
of Death’ feels more mainline as far as the promoted children’s books by RR go.
In ‘End’, Chokshi was all over the metaphorical place, treating RR no different
than she did J-Ro of the HP novels; in ‘Song’ there are no references to such
novels, but there are some references to Disney movies, especially ‘the Little
Mermaid’ and ‘Moana’. It should be noted that RR did something similar in his ‘Magnus
Chase’ series, especially the first books. Ergo, it looks as if Ms. Chokshi got
her gear in, well, gear, as ‘Song’ is now more similar to the mold of RR, less
clumsy, and with far less specifically American-Hindu social stereotypes.
Yes, Ms. Chokshi herself is an American woman of Hindu
origins who lives in the American state of Georgia, and yes, her mother is a
Filipino, (hence Yamini, Aru’s first friend and closest Pandava sister in her
series), but firstly, that culture
never got as much spotlight in her Aru series (so far), so clearly, there’s
some conflict of interest and culture that is going on in her background and in
the background of her Aru novels. Yes, ‘Song’ does not offer any social
stereotypes, not directly, as they happened in ‘End’; covertly – yes, about as
much as you would expect in RR novels about Percy, Jason and Magnus, meaning
that Ms. Chokshi got more help in writing ‘Song’ than she did with ‘End’
previously. So?
So, it is hard to say, but in ‘Song’, one of the main
protagonists is ‘Lady M’, sister of Ravana, the greatest Maharajah of the
Rakshasas, period, and of Kunkarna, their greatest champion, and ‘Song’ talks
about how she wasn’t entirely evil, she was also partially misunderstood and
abused. Sure, she was still evil, but-
But in truth, that story of which ‘Song’ talks about started
before ‘Lady M’ encountered Rama, Sita and Laxmana in the forest; it began,
when Ravana, by acting pious for centuries, tricked the Hindu gods into making
him almost invulnerable; only a mortal could kill him. So, a certain Hindu god
(no spoilers, you want to know more, Google it), reincarnated as a mortal man,
Rama, and eventually killed Ravana; ‘Lady M’, yes, was treated beastly by Rama
and his exiled family, but in the end? She was only a piece in a greater game
of thrones: who would win, gods or Rakshasas (demons, essentially).
…Yes, this brings us to GoT and the series finale. The
Internet is an uproar regarding the eighth and last season; some claim that the
characters changed too much, others – that not enough or reverted to their
initial selves (think the very opening episodes of the series). My take that
the main problem here is that HBO and co. did a hatchet job by combining two
versions of the final season into one: the first 3 episodes and the last 3 have
two very different feels.
What says the Bible? Nothing is new under the sun? Right on –
for me, this is reminiscent of the last ‘Jurassic World’ film, which also tried
two combine two movies into one: the first where Claire, Owen and co. go to the
dino isle one last time, and the second, where the evil E holds his dinosaur
auction and it all goes south, thanks to our plucky heroes. Ditto here, where
the Night King and the King’s Landing plots make two different stories that are
only loosely connected to each other; and what’s more…
What’s more, not unlike what has gone down in AoS for a
while, GoT’s S8 has the feeling of characters – and plot lines – getting reshuffled,
especially with Jon and Dany having very strong Jaime and Cersei vibes. Of
course, there is a perfectly valid point about how HBO handled GoT S8’s
characters and plot just fine, with GoT’s characters remaining true to their
nature: i.e., Jaime went back to Cersei because he always went back to Cersei; Arya went away because she was always on the run, and so forth. The
problem with that statement is that GM spent the entirety of his novels having
Jaime, Arya, Brienne, Sandor, Sansa, Gendry, and etc., etc., breaking free of
their mold and becoming something new: character development, put otherwise. In
S8, (and to lesser extent in S7), all of this went out the window…just because.
The actors, probably, didn’t care, (their counterparts in AoS aren’t that
unique, it seems), and neither did the crew, seeing how they rushed through S8 –
forgotten Starbucks™
coffee cups and plastic water bottles? Really? That is just inattentive – and rushed.
Guess they are now all-focused on the following GoT spinoff or something, yay.
What next?
Well, GM is keeping his opinions to himself, mostly – he may
not be the biggest fan of GoT fan works, but HBO has never been a ‘fan work’,
but rather paid him some very handsome sums of his own, so he isn’t going to be
widdling in a good thing, that’s number one.
And number two is last week’s episode of MLP: FIM, aka ‘Frenemies’,
where the titular characters are beginning to resemble the Lannister siblings
vaguely. Tirek is Jaime at his worst – not quite a musclehead or a jock, but
close. Chrysalis is Cersei, a crazy queen who has lost of all of her subjects,
with CG being an eviller, and crazier, version of Tyrion while Grogar is Tywin
with…minimal personality changes and slightly different goals, true. Sombra’s
Joffrey, though it should be pointed out that that shadow pony had had some
reboots of his own – in the comics, he even got redeemed, so Hasbro here is
trying to be Marvel, I suppose…
But as for the ‘Frenemies’ themselves – Sombra is gone now
for good, looks like – they are slowly moving towards a crossroads, where they
will have to accept friendship for real and stop being villains, (kind of like
Discord, who’s more of an anti-hero these days than a villain these days), or
not, in which case their friendship, (or the ersatz that they developed in its’
stead), is done and gone.
Yes, their relationship with Grogar complicates things
somewhat: the ‘Frenemies’ episode openly showed that they will betray him, or
vice versa, (since he is the biggest bad of this MLP season), but that does not
change anything, generally speaking: either ‘Frenemies’ will stop being evil, or
they stop being friends, and back to Tartarus they go, because otherwise? Tirek
wants to drain all the magic, CG – all the friendship, and Chrysalis – all the
love. On their own, every one of them had been a hoof-full for the Mane 6 and
associates; together, the three of them would destroy Equestria, which is both
resilient and fragile at the same time, period.
Back to GoT – if the ‘Frenemies’ are Lannisters, then the
Mane 6 are Starks: Robb and Jon, (who is not a Targaryen, period), Bran and
Rickon, Sansa and Arya, with Spike being Theon, and the sister princesses – the
Stark parents. (Yes, Ned as a sparkly pony princess is ridiculous, but regardless).
Everyone else – you make the equations; what we should keep in mind is that GoT
may be gone from live TV (you can always stream, or download it, or something),
but it can return in the most bizarre places, and hey, MLP – is just Starks vs.
Lannisters these days, (which is GoT at the most basic, really).
Well, this is it for now: see you all soon!
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