Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, which is why I wanted to talk about Riordan and Oshiro’s ‘Court of the Dead’ novel (CoD), when I realized that it was not that different from the Florida panthers. Say what?
This week, ‘Bizarre Beasts’ released the episode
about the Florida panthers – the wild cats, not the sports’ team and, again, it
is a straightforward retelling of the Wiki page, plus an audio quote of Ms.
Betty Osceola, an important person among the Miccosukee Native Americans. She
is talking, to nobody’s surprise, about the Florida puma, and-
-And, yes, the obligatory statement: the North
American ‘panther’ is another name for the puma, Puma concolor; it is only a distant relative to the ‘true’ panthers
– the jaguar and the leopard; its’ closest relatives are the cheetah and the jaguarondi,
a little-known wild cat that doesn’t look anything like the jaguar. Pause.
…All cats resemble one another; the differences
between a tiger, a puma, a bobcat, and a housecat are mainly due to their
sizes; there are few specialists as there are among the bovids, for example, or
the rodents. This allows the felines to be very successful carnivores, and the
puma is one of them; it is still the top feline carnivore in North America west of Mississippi. In the east, it is another story, as only the
state of Florida still has any in the wild. This group of pumas was shrinking
fast, due to inbreeding, so the U.S. government brought several pumas from Texas
to fix this – and they did. But because the Florida wild themselves are shrinking,
the pumas there are still dying-out and people need to fix this situation –
just watch the BB episode for yourself. Stop.
So, here is the situation – after the series’
premiere that talked about the potential recreation of the passenger pigeon
(done by a completely different narrator), and the dodgy episode about the dodgy
silphium plant, BB hit its stride – the Florida panther episode is straightforward
and simple, with nary a problem; it is delivered in a touching, poignant manner
that is supposed to resonate with its’ audience – and perhaps it does. Only, is
it enough to make the latter care enough to do something, to be affected by the
BB delivery? That is the question.
On the other hand, we have ‘The Court of the Dead’
novel, where Will and Nico (a homosexual WASP couple) team-up with Frank and
Hazel (a heterosexual POC couple) to help many monsters who don’t want to be
evil, defeat a group of villains that are quite reminiscent for J-Ro’s Ministry
of Magic in her HP books. These days she is keeping quiet (for her own
reasons), but Mr. Riordan is going full speed ahead!..
Of course, he might not have a choice – when he
stopped featuring sexual minorities and the like in his YA novels (‘The Trials
of Apollo’ series), the price for his books fell to a flat $10-$15 dollars a
book, that is very cheap by modern standards, and perhaps even a financial
loss. Therefore, if Mr. Riordan wants to stay in the green (and work for Disney),
he has to toe the party line, and if not, then just look at Gina Carano – she did
not, and so she is gone.
Therefore, again, Mr. Riordan continues to release
progressive and forwards-facing books; the problem here is that the society may
not care; these days, the Americans are highly individualistic, and care only
about what they think; a book, no matter how well-written, is not enough on its’
own to change their opinion – you need federal support to do so. In the U.S. In
particular, this is a chancy and an unlikely thing to have or to manifest, and
so that is that. ‘The Court of the Dead’ remains an inert, almost impotent,
almost pointless and unrequired YA novel that does not do anything, or does not
affect anyone, just as the ‘Endlings’ series of BB do – or don’t do. Sad, isn’t it? That is real life, however. It sucks.
This is it for now. See you all soon!
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