Moon Knight, 'Tomb' - April 20

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about MK instead.

Sadly, here is not too much to talk about either, except… for the Egyptian mythology: in this week’s MK episode – ‘Tomb’ – we get to meet Tawaret at the very end of the ep. So what?

‘The Kane Chronicles’ by Mr. Rick Riordan, that is still what’s up. In the second book of that trilogy, Carter and Sadie Kane – the titular characters – get to go to the Egyptian underworld, (because of Osiris, cough), where they meet Tawaret, aside from the other characters, (including the moon god, Khonshu). Here, in ‘Tomb’, Marc and Steven seem to be trapped in some sort of a limbo, depicted as a mental asylum, but that… is nothing new in the world of comics, DC’s Batman got trapped in this sort of thing quite regularly, for example, and they meet Tawaret.

To add injury to insult, Carter and Sadie encounter Tawaret who works in a retirement home for aged Egyptian gods, i.e. an alternate medical facility to the mental asylum that the Moon Knight, (Moon Knights?), has found himself/themselves in. I.e., Mr. Riordan associated Tawaret with a medical profession, and ‘Moon Knight’ seems to be running with it. Given how MK’s cast and crew reamed Gal Gadot and Patty Jenkins in regards to their treatment of Egypt in WW84, this dependence on Mr. Riordan’s works seems strange, almost hypocritical. Anything else?

Aye, ‘The Secrets of Dumbledore’ movie. I have seen it, and found it to be disappointing. Why?

Let us start with ‘The Book of Boba Fett’. Unlike ‘The Mandalorian’ series, ‘Boba Fett’ was less of a success because whereas ‘The Mandalorian’ series moved the entire SW universe onwards, ‘Boba Fett’ did not. Well, technically, it did, as the SW universe has the entire linear time concept, but you have to admit that ‘The Mandalorian’ also developed and expanded the SW universe in content, whereas ‘Boba Fett’ did not.

But the same can be said about ‘The Secrets of Dumbledore’ – it didn’t really introduce anything new into the wizarding world; the story did move forwards at a livelier pace than the ‘Boba Fett’ series did, but whereas MK has Tawaret, ‘The Secrets’ had a qilin.

A qilin is a mythical Far Eastern animal that is supposed to appear before a birth or a death of a great sage or a ruler, but to the Western audience/readers, especially the baseline members, a qilin is a Far Eastern analogue of a unicorn instead. Consequently, the use/participation of the qilin in ‘The Secrets of Dumbledore’ and the election that was the climax of the movie, transformed the election from, well, an election, as conceived by the Western audience into something more among the lines of ‘and the hand of God chose the rightful king and cast the pretender into Gehenna’ – this sort of thing. Given how the elections are a big deal in RL – maybe even an even bigger deal given the RF’s assault on the Ukraine – the way that ‘The Secrets’ handled the elections’ concept is outright insulting!

In addition, since we are going back to real life, people have already talked about the nearly complete absence of Tina Goldstein’s character from the movie. The team behind ‘The Secrets’ did not even try to explain it – they could have made Tina pregnant, or ill, or something, but no – and therefore, people are believing that she’s avoiding J.-Ro because of the latter’s transphobic statements. Fair enough, though it is weird – J.-Ro had no problems with Dumbledore being gay so that she could court the sexual minorities for her novels, or Hermione being a person of color so that the real life people of color would like her works before, so why the abrupt change of tune? Ah well, it is her life, her choice, and nothing else. Is that it?

Yes, pretty much – MK continues to be largely divorced from the rest of MCU, the occasional nudge-nudge wink-wink Easter egg aside, the Donald seems to be preparing for the 2024 election after all, and if he does win it, then the rest of the West will stop looking at the U.S. as their spiritual leader for sure, and – that is it.

See you all soon!

Quarantine entry #91 - June 20

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Today, for example, we have gone to the beach. It was not a bad place – we saw froglets there, (they already had legs, but still had tails), as well as minnows. Fun! (To say nothing of the dragonflies, damselflies, and what else have you). What next?

On the other hand, we have had a fight, and as always, it was a bad one. I hate fighting, but sometimes, there is no other choice, you know? So what is left?

Ferrets, actually – this is what we are going to be talking about today. Made famous by J-Ro, as in her fourth book, HPTT, Draco Malfoy got briefly turned into one, a ferret itself is, per say, a domesticated subspecies/variety of the European polecat, Mustela putorius, which is a relative of the American black-footed ferret, Mustela negripes, among others. Pause.

Now, the wild European ferret slash polecat is a medium-sized mustelid – it is bigger than the various weasels, but smaller than the wolverine, and the bigger martens, (such as the fisher). When compared to the other mustelids, the ferret’s/polecat’s characteristics include a long, but compact body, short legs, powerful muzzle, and a more terrestrial way of life.

For comparison: in North America, the various martens, (including the fisher), live in the forests, both on the ground and in the trees; the weasels – also, but prefer to life in the undergrowth; and the black-footed ferret lives in the prairies, away from the tree cover, where it feeds upon the local rodents, such as the prairie dogs. The black-footed ferret uses its’ long mustelid body to go not through the branches and undergrowth, but rodent tunnels, as it searches for food; in the Old World, the European polecat and the steppe polecat (Mustela eversmanii) acts similarly. Next?

The domestic/pet ferret got a mixed heritage, as in the U.K. the wild ferret/polecat isn’t very popular; it is known as a vermin and a killer of domestic poultry almost as bad as the red fox. Hence – Draco Malfoy’s less than voluntary animal form, as the DADA teacher of the book, Alastor Moody, was revealed a Death Eater fanatic, Barty Crouch Jr. instead. And-?

Here let us talk about J-Ro herself. The woman is in a bad spot, but she had maneuvered herself there, of her own free will. You cannot sit on two stools at once, not for long anyhow. On one hand, she tried to be politically progressive – first Dumbledore was made gay, then Hermione was made a POC, and then something else happened to somebody else, maybe.

And on the other hand, J-Ro’s latest anti-transpeople statement, that shows that she is a more conservationist person than how she pretend to be. Pause. Now what?

I do not know. If J-Ro does have standards, issues, values, etc., then she should stop pretending to be a ‘progressive person’ in her books and movies and etc., and just keep everyone as they original were. If she doesn’t, then she should stay the Hell away from the TERFs and the like, because otherwise? She is going to lose money, and she cares about money, doesn’t she?

…Well, maybe she doesn’t – supposedly, her Mary Sue version in the HP-verse is Rita Skitter, an unlikable character, but not a greedy one, you know? In this case, J-Ro should go ahead, but she should also remember as to how her Rita character ended-up in the HP-series – not on the bottom, but not on top either, and given just how tense the real world is at the moment, I’m completely unsure that she should go this routine. Anything else?

…No. For now, this is it instead. See you all soon! Good luck with the real world, as it does suck!

Quarantine entry #26 - April 16

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks: the snow may have stopped falling for now, but I have snubbed my big toe – and by extension, the rest of my foot – rather badly, so I am limping everywhere now instead. Life is not fair, it sucks, and we are stuck in it – thanks a lot, COVID-19, you really done it now, as in ‘ruined everyone’s plans until the middle of May’. Mr. Doug Ford, in particular, can go and screw himself – but we are getting distracted.

…Well, initially I wanted to talk about newts, but there is not a lot to go on, once you get Newt Scamander out of equation. (With COVID-19, it is anyone’s guess when the third movie is going to be made, period). They are a suborder of Salamandridae order of the tailed amphibians, differing from the rest of them by having a semi-terrestrial juvenile stage…pause.

Let us start at the beginning. Like all amphibians, newts hatch from the eggs as aquatic larvae with gills. Unlike those of frogs and toads, the larvae of newts and salamanders have extern gills, and their front legs grow forth, and then the hind ones, faster too than in case of frogs and toads. The gills, too, disappear, (in ‘true’ newts and salamanders, anyhow), lungs appear, and the baby newts become efts.

…If you are wondering as to what an ‘eft’ is, then it is a juvenile form of newt, (actually, for a while, newts as such were called efts in the English language; in other languages, they were called tritons, in honor of son of Poseidon, one of the original mermen – but we digress). An eft lives on the ground, out of water, but in humid conditions, until enough time passes, and it becomes a sexually mature adult. Pause.

Here where things get murky. North American newts – as adults – live mostly in the water or near it, unlike their eft offspring. The European species, on the other hand, return to water only to breed once they reach maturity, but otherwise they live on land. Where the rest of newt species falls, I have no idea. Anything else?

…There are over a dozen of existing newt genera, (anywhere from 14 to 17 at least), and another half a dozen of extinct ones. Many more newts are in danger of extinction, both from pollution – all amphibians are sensitive to it – and from exotic pet trade. Ouch! Did I mention that real life sucks?

…Ergo, I have escaped into yet another DW episode – this one from S3, ‘Joan of Arc vs. William the Conqueror’. It was the first time when one of the titular combatants on the show was a woman; there were female characters/warriors in the past seasons, once or twice, but never someone like Joan. She defeated William too, you should know; and-?

…And the face-off itself was quite fair; team Joan won because it had more derived weapons than team William did. A cannon will always defeat a catapult; William actually had a proportionally better crossbow, (though Joan got the advantage anyhow); and team William actually wielded a better sword, but had inferior armor as compared to team Joan, and so they lost. When DW wanted to, they could be fair and just without any political correctness involved. Anything else?

Regrettably…no. As far as escapes from reality went, ‘Joan vs. William’ was a good one, a straightforward one, but also – an almost boring one. As the management and leadership of DW changed between S2 & S3, DW tried to become exciting and intriguing and high-tech so hard, that it made the audiences feel nostalgic for the previous layout, and so the ratings dropped, and the show got cancelled for good, video games or not. At least no newts had been harmed in the production of DW. Real life sucks and can be so unforgiving somehow, whether you are a private person or a multi-personal company…

…Well, this is it for now, I am afraid. I will see you all soon!

Rick Riordan and co. - Dec 12

Now what, you make ask, in regards to our last talk concerning Disney and TLK, about Rick Riordan? While his fellow R-author, J-Ro, is busy with her ‘Fantastic Beasts’ movies, what does he do?

Well, he has written an anthology set in the world of Magnus Chase, about the 9 worlds. And?

And, sadly, it is no cat’s meow, but rather a tangled bag. As I said, it is an anthology, and…

There is Odin’s story, as he tries to figure out what the Valkyries are up, and who is the leader that they need. It comes across as comic relief, with little content beyond humor. When Riordan does humor, it is good and light…but perhaps slightly too light.

Then there is the story of Samirah’s boyfriend/fiancé/etc., Amir. Sabirah and Alex have to rescue him from a necromancer and a pair of evil pants. (Seriously!) So?

Well, the problem is that when Riordan was designing his Magnus characters, he was trying to go for political acumen. In an excerpt from one of his proper Magnus novels, Sabirah flies from her meeting with Magnus as ‘a super Muslima’. Sigh. When Riordan was writing down those lines, he was probably thinking about this joke: ‘What do you call a Muslim woman who flies a plane? A pilot’. This sort of American/Canadian humor was supposed to ease interracial tensions in the North American communities. Here is a hint: it did not work. For as long as there is freedom of opinion, there will be North Americans who will not trust Muslims, and there will be Muslims who will reciprocate in kind, if not up the ante. The governments of Canada and USA as well as their Middle Eastern counterparts can, and should do their best to counter the rise of such negative feelings, but some groan- and cringe-worthy jokes should not be a part of the counter, for they are not helping anyone.

…As for Samirah and Alex’s stories, they are set in Jotunheim and Muspelheim; the latter gets an especially bad rep because apparently Riordan considers it to be sort of a Norse Hell, while Asgard’s Heaven. This not so, not exactly – when it came to life after death, the Norse had only two destinations: Asgard, and Hel. Asgard was the destination of all of those heroic warriors that fell in battle; Hel was where everyone else ended up at, regardless of their lifestyle during, well, their lifetime. Norse pagan values had nothing in common with Christian; the Norse were among the last of the Europeans to convert to Christianity, and Muspelheim was no Hell, but rather the embodiment of the destructive aspect of fire, period. The exact details are unknown, but as their myth of Ragnarok shows, the Norse believed that their world – actually, their entire universe – would be destroyed by fire and ice, but especially fire, as embodied by Muspelheim and its’ king, the first giant Surt or Surtur (Surtr). He would inspire Tolkien’s balrogs, which, in turn, would inspire Marvel’s version of Surtur, (as seen in the ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ movie) – but Muspelheim was no Hell.

In the ‘9 worlds’ anthology, Alex is the one who went down there, where he defeated and embarrassed Surtur, and-

And the thing is that Alex is the gender-fluid character of Riordan’s multiverse. That is very commendable, the problem is that gender-fluid people aren’t very overt and you don’t see them very often in real life, and if you do, you may not realize it, especially during a Canadian winter, when all people, regardless of their gender, tend to dress in thick and warm clothing, preferring practicality over gender-specific clothing. If they speak, it is another thing – to hear a man speak in a woman’s voice and vice versa can be startling and surprising, but again, these are not occurrences that happen very often in one’s life.

So, where does Alex fit into this?  In ‘9 worlds’ he is depicted as…a boy, with nothing specifically gender-fluid about him. In real life, this is not a problem – a person with sexually alternative lifestyle can look as regular or irregular as they want; in Riordan’s books, where Alex is a representative of sexual minorities this depiction feels like a letdown instead.

Speaking of sexual minorities, what is going on with Hearthstone and Blitzen? (Aside from the fact that Hearthstone got depicted as a variant Draco Malfoy for his part). Hearthstone in particular got to rescue Inga the Huldra (a Norse nature spirit, sort of intermediate between a rusalka and a troll) in a very old fashioned way in a very old fashioned story – the rescue of a damsel, (here from a troll, mostly). Couldn’t Riordan design a better adventure for the elf? Blitzen in particular got to rescue Thor from an evil (eviller?) dwarf named Andvari instead…

…Yes, in my opinion, those are the same symptoms that are developed further in Riordan’s Apollo series – either Riordan or Disney, (who is sponsoring Riordan or whatever) had had enough of political correctness, progress and etc., and are just trying to write regular YA novels without much sexual minorities, racial minorities and such similar political progressives. Samirah, (getting back to her), went to Jotunheim to check on an egg of a magical oversized chicken and had to outmaneuver a giant; to Helheim went TJ, who had to restrain Garm the Norse hell hound, and both of those adventures were ok, but kind of underwhelming, restricted. Riordan had some good ideas in ‘9 worlds’ the anthology, (the last ones are Halfborn in Vanaheim and Molly in Niflheim, built along similar lines as Samirah and TJ’s adventures), but due to the specifics of ‘9 worlds’ they never got fully developed, remaining more of a disappointment instead…

But then – on topic of Riordan – is Jennifer Cervantes’ ‘The Storm Runner’ novel. Just like Roshani Chokshi’s ‘Aru Shah and the End of Time’ novel, this is a novel that is associated with Mr. Riordan and his universe and is built on the same lines that his YA novels are built: a teen – or a preteen – discovers that one of their parents is a god and hijinks follow. The two novels are different – Chokshi’s ‘Aru Shah’ is very dialogue heavy and description heavy and while it has some references to Riordan, it has some Rowling references as well and comes across as somewhat silly. It is good for a laugh, but its’ humor is kind of immature, and in general Ms. Chokshi just tries to hard to shoehorn her YA novel as a teenage/pre-teenage girl read.

Ms. Cervantes and her novel are different; it is more mature, edgier, and it feels like two novels stitched into one – her own novel about acceptance, (here the differences are physical deficiencies rather than sexual or racial minorities), including Mesoamerican mythology, and a Riordan-imitation novel, also regarding Mesoamerican mythology. To compound matters further, she used Riordan’s ‘Lightning Thief’ novel for plot and plot points, with variations; i.e. it is not the hero’s mother who gets taken to the underworld, but his dog, (so the entire novel takes on a very weird tinge), Grover the satyr’s role is taken over by Zane’s – the titular character’s – wrestler-wannabe uncle, and the entire novel begins to feel like an imitation of the aforementioned ‘Lightning Thief’, with the injected story of team Zane confronting a pair of selfish twins, (Jordan and Bird). They are supposed to help Zane save the world from the god of death, Ah-Puch, (whose name serves as a recipient for some jokes that again come across as immature rather than funny), but just eat-up Zane’s time and pad-up Ms. Cervantes’ novel instead. While both novels promise sequels in spring and autumn of 2019, it is anyone’s guess as to whether this will happen.

And where’s Rick Riordan in all of this? He is the one writing the introductions to those novels. Why? Probably to show that both Ms. Chokshi and Ms. Cervantes have his stamp of approval and are a part of ‘his’ universe rather than independent works. Ms. Cervantes’ novel comes off as a professional imitation of ‘the Lightning Thief; it is professionally distorted – dog as opposed to mother, the issue of appearances, (good vs. ugly, inside vs. outside), but still, is it flattering? …And on the other hand, we have Ms. Chokshi’s ‘Aru Shah’, which succeeds – as an amateur – where Ms. Cervantes’ professionalism fails: ‘Aru Shah’ is a completely independent novel that has nothing to do with Mr. Riordan’s works as such Ms. Chokshi may have had to insert some concrete references to Mr. Riordan’s works, however oblique they were; as a consequence, they stick like sore thumbs in her novel.

Therefore, this is the current stage of Mr. Riordan’s input into the Western literature: the Apollo series, (that feels as if it is on hiatus while Mr. Riordan and co. hammer out the kinks), a couple of anthologies, (‘9 worlds’ and a ‘Kane Chronicles’ one that feels like a mix between an anthology and an activity book…with a throwaway to a semi-bisexual Setne, a villain – ouch!), and the above-mentioned novels of Ms. Chokshi, (an independent work, basically), and of Ms. Cervantes, (an on the nose imitation of ‘Lightning Thief’). Not something to be proud about, one suspects.

…And then there is J-Ro, who is not doing so hot either. Yes, by now she has three illustrated novels (re-editions, with Jim Kay), as opposed to Riordan’s only one, (Chad Rocco), but they all are selling the same way – badly. There is the release of the ‘Crimes of Grindelwald’ script released in a book form, but it is going the same way as ‘Cursed Child’ did – badly. Regardless of the movies’ success, and of the fact that ‘HPGF’ is being remade into a concert, the sun is setting upon J-Ro, as it does upon Rick Riordan.

…Well, this is it for now – see you all soon!

Real life & etc. - Sep 20

…Sometimes, life sucks. Sometimes, some days just feel wrong, no matter what, and sometimes, you just think about the future and wince: you can see what is coming clearly, you just cannot figure out a way to get out of it.

Or maybe you can, you just are not sure, (or maybe you are), if the way out is not worse than staying on course is. Or maybe it is worse, but you are just going to go that way anyway, because which is the lesser evil here? …But we digress.

…No, not really, we do not. The hurricane Florence is gone, whatever is going on down with Kavanaugh and his accuser is a storm that few people want to touch, and whatever changes the ‘me too’ movement was supposed to bring were not brought, and people are beginning to experience backlash from it instead. That is important, because if ‘me too’ does not begin to bring-in sociopolitical advantages, but brings disadvantages instead, its’ support, official or unofficial, may begin to dwindle and then…it would end, leaving everyone right back where they have started…if by ‘everyone’ one means Americans. Even Canadians never got as much involved with ‘me too’ as their southern neighbours did, never mind the Europeans, and-

And nothing. The Americans love to believe that they are the entire world when they are not. Post-1990s they could – and did – impose their will and values onto the rest of the world and it worked…until it did not. Everyone and everything, even a country, even its’ regime, have a time limit, and once it runs out, that is it. You are screwed. Well, not necessarily screwed, but certainly done, and will have to invent something new or bide your time until the next opportunity to bring back your old bag of tricks. What next?

Yes, Russia, (and maybe China, and other countries), have participated in steering the U.S. in the direction of the mess that it is currently in, but so did the U.S. itself – it has no idea where it is going; it still has, well, democracy as its’ political polar star/lighthouse/traffic light – you make the metaphor – its’ light has grown vague and indistinct, and this is bad.

Look at Russia – it doesn’t have anything like democracy in its’ system of values, not anymore: Putin is apparently setting himself to be the modern Ozymandias: ‘look at my works, yet mighty, and despair!’ with not a sentient soul around to appreciate the colossal wreck – but it still has plenty of will and determination…and also an idea, or even – the idea, that democracy and Western-style politics is good, and it tries to go there, and maybe, one day, they will even achieve it, whereas the U.S….

Whereas the U.S. does not have that, or perhaps – it has too many majorities in it instead. There are too many people who have, well, ideas, of where the American democracy should go, and they all are pulling it in different directions, set against the background of the still-weakened state/country of U.S.A. The concept of ‘Balkanization’ of U.S. is not anything new; it is actually a common American dystopia, depicted in ‘into the badlands’ show among other things, for example. Will it come true in real life? We will have to wait and see.

Does the mention of ‘Badlands’ bring us back to the realm of fiction? In there, various goings-on are happening, too. The ‘Charmed’ reboot is happening in October 2018 and already there are people praising it for being ‘woke’ (or whatever), for having a mixed-racial cast. Sigh. The various films have already tried this out. ‘Black Panther’ – with a primarily Afro-American cast. It was praised…until people realized that ‘Black Panther’ was not about ‘real life’ Africa, but more about an idealized, American version of Africa – and the hype about that movie quickly died. ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ had a primarily Asian-American cast, (if not an exclusively one), and the same thing happened, only quicker, because as far as movies go, ‘Asians’ were less fictional than BP was, so its’ differences from reality are starker and more obvious. ‘Charmed’ isn’t a movie, it’s a TV series reboot, one that deals with witches and demons (among other things; the original series also had ghost pirates, ancient Greek gods and demons, and anything else, really), and the real-life racial issue didn’t really feature much in it; from the trailers of the reboot, it seems that the reboot will go down the same route, the races of the actors and actresses playing regardless.

The worst that can happen? ‘Charmed’ v2 will be a variant of ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’, in which Rowling has racebent Hermione, making her Afro-British, and by extent, Rose and Hugo Weasleys, (Hermione’s children with Ron) into biracial people. (Though yeah, I do not remember Hugo being in the story, but still. Let us mention him by default). And what happened next?

The play did not bomb, but only because the actors delivered – yay for them. There had been rumors of a musical/movie adaptation of the play, but the matter of Hermione and her race has come back once more. Either she really is Afro-British, in which case we need an Afro-British, or an Afro-American, actress in the HPCC movie, and that…isn’t something that is easily done by anyone, not even Rowling herself, who is very pointedly involved with the ‘Fantastic Beasts’ movie series, (where the bulk of characters, and especially – main characters, is Anglo-American, or European…basically, Caucasian), and not with anything ‘Cursed Child’-related. This means that all of her words in defence of Noma Dumazveny had been just that – words, and if the readers/viewers/fans are not buying them, J-Ro will easily switch back to an Emma Stone-Hermione, as she did with Jim Kay.

To be more precise, in collaboration with Jim Kay, J-Ro has started to re-release her HP books: they are already up to ‘Prisoner of Azkaban’, and the Hermione featured there is more like Emma than Noma, to put it blankly. Merlin knows why, of course, but if people are praising J-Ro for being ‘woke’…then maybe they should not, and she is not. Not really.

This, of course, brings us to Rick Riordan, who in his last novel, ‘Burning Labyrinth’, or ‘Burning Maze’, or whatever, also showed that he didn’t have to be ‘woke’ either if it didn’t deliver, and who has also started to release illustrated hardcover versions of his novels; so far, there’s only ‘The Lightning Thief’, done by John Rocco, (who seems to be Riordan’s artist of choice, when it comes to illustrating his novels and mini-novels in color), but it’s a start.

The dramatic irony is that J-Ro’s novels, illustrated by Jim Kay, are not selling so hot, and neither is the illustrated hardcover edition of ‘The Lightning Thief’. People just are not buying those books as much anymore, so both J-Ro and Riordan have their work cut out for them and need to invent new tricks or something, (as we have talked in the beginning, here). J-Ro is already doing this approach with her FB films; Riordan…we will have to wait and see.

Speaking of movies… a Disney/SW representative has made a statement, that they will be slowing down with the new films; after the SW9 movie is release, no new SW movies will be made for a while. This isn’t surprising; in fact, after ‘Solo’ this statement was to be made soon or later – right now, Disney has brought SW and itself into a corner when it comes to SW movies; but there’re always TV series to keep the SW franchise afloat. Maybe it will work in the end.

Anything else? No, not for the moment; see you all soon instead!