'Knight' S1 finale - Feb 23

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Life is turning out rather for the worse; I really do not want to make it until late spring of 2026, but the odds of me achieving that are quite high. I am so happy – no, really. Real life sucks; I swear an oath upon it. Next?

Well, ‘Knight’ had its’ S1 finale last night, so we are going to talk about it, but in a roundabout way, I suppose. First stop – the A.I. It is not going to take away jobs from humans because humans make it, and does only what humans programmed/designed it to do – make pictures, or stories, or etc. There is a story about how people had A.I. make Brad Pitt fight Tom Cruise, and now Hollywood is huffy – but because the people in question are Chinese… yeah, Hollywood will deflate even more rapidly than how it inflated.

As I wrote before, A.I. has its’ flaws – you often need to be precise with your instructions to it to get exactly what you want, (and sometimes, not even then). Otherwise, you are liable to get something else entirely – it might be bad, it might be good, but it will not be what you wanted, and that is the point. You need to know what you want to get what you want, for otherwise? You do not need to start the process, what you will get will be something else entirely. Of course, you might have no problems in working with the new result, (it’s called a compromise when you’re dealing with other people rather than A.I.), but it doesn’t apply to everything, and, again, when it comes to A.I., it’s either your job, you get paid, and so you don’t really need to get emotionally invested in your A.I. works, or it’s not, and you are emotionally invested, and-

Where were we? Ah yes, RPG. An RPG – especially the 3.5 D&D generation and the like – is not unlike an A.I. – you need to design the characters, the obstacles, the setting, the lair, the traps, etc. You need to be precise and accurate in your designs too, or else you will fail and your ‘tenure’ as a DM is over.

Again, an RPG is a luxury good – it needs to be demanded and desired, or else it is over, done, as Pathfinder (2^nd edition) shows – this franchise is dying, however, slowly – people just aren’t buying enough of its’ products to sustain it, so it cuts down on the released product, but there’s even less of it for people to buy and to spend their money on; Pathfinder’s income diminishes further… you get the gist. Where does it leave the ‘Knight’?

As it was written before, ‘Knight’ is positioned between the other HBO Westeros TV shows… and an RPG. When he was writing the ASOIAF book cycle, Mr. Martin had one agenda… no, wait. In ASOIAF, the end game is the return of the rightful dynasty, the Targaryeans, in the characters of Jon and Dany. GoT did not do that, so it ended badly – though that was only one of the reasons. However, GoT and ASOIAF are two different aspects of the same franchise, and since then both HBO and Mr. Martin himself moved onto the Targaryeans proper – ‘the House of the Dragon’.

…HoD is returning to the screens only in the summer of 2026, so all is still I the air, but the point is that for Mr. Martin, the Targaryeans are just ‘fire and blood’, and HBO does it’ best to do so with its’ TV shows. If that is a good thing is debatable, but the point is that when ‘Knight’ didn’t have any of the Targaryeans, (and Egg was undercover, cough), it was just an RPG – Dunk went here, Dunk went there, Dunk succeeded on Diplomacy checks, Dunk failed on Bluff checks, etc. It is not bad, but it is generic – and then Egg’s adult relatives arrived, and the plot accelerated like a spurred-on horse; suddenly there is death, and drama, and the Blackfyre rebellion – fun. Well, fun for the fans of Mr. Martin, HBO, and Westeros at least – and ‘Knight’ does not ask for more. Ser Dunk, who is still a hedge knight, or rather – a landless knight; legally, he is a noble, sort of, but in reality? He is right there with the proletariat; his status is not higher than that of Bronn (the one and only), who is a man-at-arms instead, (technically). Still, Egg is now his official squire, (I think), the other Targaryeans appear to like him, and Aerion (who right now is not as bad as GoT’s Aeris was), is sent to Essos instead. Overall, it is not a bad place where he is right now.

…Ok, right now he is between yet another Targaryen HBO drama on one hand, and a generic fantasy RPG/TV show on the other. However, hey, ‘Knight’ is not pretending to be more than that either. Its’ first season made it an OK show at least – better than real life, which just sucks.

This is it for now. See you all soon.

Story idea 2 - Feb 18

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, even the weather, so here is another story idea; but first, a shout-out to the ‘Knight’: HBO’s Westeros underdog is coming into its’ own at last.

Why? Because it is finally moving past the bloody tourney and into the greater Westeros: in the penultimate S1 episode, we have to see a bit of a Blackfire rebellion, and, um, we have an active Targaryen killing Targaryen action once more. This time it is Baelor who is dead and Daeron (the Waffle) who did the deed – unintentionally, unlike how it went down in HoD…

What does it mean for Westeros? Strife and war, of course, because those are the only things Mr. Martin makes there; there’s also scheming, of course, but as a rule it leads only to violence and little more. At the beginning of D&E S1, the Targaryens are at peace with each other, Westeros is peaceful, inasmuch as it can be, but now peace is ending again – the heir to the throne is dead, and his siblings, children, and so on will soon be jousting for the Iron Throne because, hey, it’s Westeros. I am no so desperate to research in depth just how many Targaryens there are in Westeros at this point In Westeros’ history, but since we know that the throne will go to Egg in the end game of ‘Knight’, it doesn’t matter anyhow.

…I do not know if Mr. Martin intended it or not, but a lot of Westeros action ends up being rather pointless, as the throne is kept by the Targaryens no matter what. In the novels, in particular, it is becoming clear that Jon and Dany will eventually occupy the Iron Throne, (i.e., the Targaryens will recover their rightful kingdom and domain), and in the TV series… well, HoD has Targaryens fighting each other while everyone else plays a supporting role, and ‘Knight’ until now it was almost a Medieval RPG, with Dunk trying to find his place in the Westeros society now that his father figure, mentor, and master, is dead and he is anchorless… So now, the choice is the familiar, by now, Targaryen vs. Targaryen violence, or more of the lukewarm and rather shallow Medieval RPG that we had before. Maybe HBO will throw in another CGI-looking robin in for a good measure…. Where were we?

My latest story idea, seeing how real life sucks, thanks to the Donald and his late friend Jeff – but also thanks to the Donald’s opposition, and how they’re handling the situation; spoilers – they don’t. Let us get back to fiction, shall we?

…A world populated primarily by the ‘goblinoid’ races (trolls, orcs and ogres are not a part of them, they are separate). To wit, they are, as follows.

The bugbears. They are the physically biggest of the goblinoids, but also the least numerous. In a big part because they are also anti-social loners – they hate most other sentient beings, including their cousins, as well as each other. A bugbear is quite happy dominating hobgoblins and goblins and never meeting another bugbear in their lifetime – hence the low population numbers. Only now, with more powerful beings, such as evil dragons and the mind flayers being also around, this lifestyle is no longer working, and bugbears need to re-think it, or else they just might go extinct.

The hobgoblins. If the goblins are smaller than the humans are, and the bugbears are bigger, (and stronger, and more formidable and imposing), then the hobgoblins are human-sized and are rather humane in their lifestyles, etc.

Enter the dragons. They are blue dragons, meaning that they exhale lightning (electricity) rather than fire, and are immune to electricity, not fire; they’re also lawful, as in tyrants, and have enslaved the hobgoblins, (not that they resisted much, because hobgoblins themselves are lawful evil). As a result, the hobgoblins became racially diverse, (among other effects).

There are now four races of hobgoblins. There are the ‘ordinary’ hobgoblins, (the ancestral race), the half-dragon hobgoblins (obvious), the draconic hobgoblins, and the ‘sunscorch’ ones. The draconic hobgoblins look like scalier, more feral versions of ordinary hobgoblins, while the sunscorch are really just ordinary hobgoblins, but smarter, and with blue eyes or blue-tinged hair. The hobgoblin society is acutely hierarchical, of course, and plenty of them are trying to rebel – well, trying to figure out how to rebel, not just because they are afraid of dragons, but also because they are not good at rebelling in the first place. (Scope aside, the hobgoblins aren’t that better than the blue dragons are).

The goblins. They are the smallest and the most numerous of the original goblinoids… and are dominated by the mind flayers. (Some of whom are liches, or alhoons, in the mind flayers’ tongue). Therefore, some of the goblins become Dekanter goblins – a mix of goblin and anthropomorphic rhino – and they are more formidable, given their relatively small size…

The Dekanter goblins serve the mind flayers loyally, (moreso than the ancestral goblins), but the mind flayers meddling had unexpected side effects. First, some of the goblins are born with blue skin color, eyes…, and psionic powers of their own; they are smarter than the ancestral goblins are, and are slowly forming their own councils, trying to counteract the mind flayers.

Second, some of the goblins are born as worghests instead – those are the goblin analogues of tieflings, but rather than from demons or devils, they are descended from barghests instead. (The barghests themselves may still be around, but they are not making themselves known in the immediate moment). Those worghests are anarchists instead, spreading chaos, (not that that goblins themselves are bad at it but their worghest kin are even better).

…The blue dragons and the mind flayers are aware of each other, of course, but neither side is ready to be actively hostile – not yet. In addition, their goblinoid pawns are slowly discovering their own free will and initiative as well.

This already heterogeneous mix of related races and conflicted interests develops on the background of a greater conflict – the orcs are going to war against humans, elves, and dwarves. How will the goblinoids (and their puppeteer masters) affect the conflict is an open question…

Therefore, this is my new story idea. I hope that you will like it, too. See you all soon!

Minions and Monsters 1 - Feb 10

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us turn to the movies, and… what is that? The seventh ‘Minions’ movie? Why, for the love of God?!

Let us try again. The DM1 film (I am just numbering them, come on, all know which DM movie is which); the DM1 film was about Gru adopting three orphan girls as his stepdaughters and becoming less despicable and villainous. DM2 introduces Lucy, his love interest; DM3 – his brother, and the trilogy was complete.

The DM4 film explained the origins of the Minions as well as their metaphorical journey to become, well, the Minions. DM5 – showed them becoming, well, minions to Gru when he was a teen or some age like that. DM6 introduced Gru and Lucy’s new baby son, as well as Poppy, a teenage girl that becomes somewhat of a family friend – eventually. It also introduces the Super-Minions, but they do not appear to be in this film, at least – thank God for small mercies. What next?

The DM7 film appears to be a new expansion of the DM-verse, as the Minions are going for the Monsters to have them star in the Minions’ movie. Guess someone watched MCU’s ‘Wonder Man’ series, eh?

Right, Disney/MCU’s ‘Wonder Man’. It is more ambiguous than it looks. Namely, on one hand, it looks to be the culmination of Disney/MCU’s desire to have a mini-series with a P.O.C. in charge; they tried it with RiRi ‘Ironheart’ Williams, and when her own series failed first, and Marvel Zombies cartoon series were almost just as bad, they went with Wonder Man instead. Therefore, on the other hand, WM appears to be more like ‘Agatha All Along’: it is connected to MCU but doesn’t appear to influence it; as Agatha and co. were dismissed after AAA finished, so did the WM – it is done, it is gone, Disney/MCU has its’ feel-good, and it puts WM into the storage, right next to AAA, if it ever will need either of them again. (It will not). What next?

‘Knight of the 7 kingdoms’ continues apace, with even more Targaryens that we ever wanted. The people are continuing to watch it; they like it well enough, but nothing more; the fan support is getting there, of course, but slower than they had with HoD, so there is that. Dunk and Egg are joined by Waffle – I mean, Daeron Targaryen and are about to go against Aerion the Monstrous; say what you will, but Aerys from GoT (ASOIAF) was much worse by far out of the two (for now). Guess we will have to wait to see if he does live up to his moniker, or not.

In addition, it will be curious to see just how Lyonel Baratheon’s friendship with Dunk and Egg will evolve. The Baratheons were Lords Paramount of Stormlands, and as such – just below the Targaryens themselves, but Egg is a Targaryen, (and will become king, cough), while Dunk will become the Lord Commander (and the ancestor of Brienne), so Lyonel’s friendship with them can easily become a Good Thing for the House Baratheon – and maybe it did. Certainly, until the Targaryens did that shit with the Starks the Baratheons were loyal to them well enough; why, everyone was loyal to them until Rhaegar listened to his inner Tarquin, and then almost no one was. (Just look up Shakespeare’s poem ‘The Rape of Lucretia’ would you? It is that Tarquin). What next?

Well, DM7 is going to be a cash-grab; good or bad is another story, but this one? It is going to be a cash-grab. ‘Illumination’ is already sticking Minions wherever, anywhere, regardless of whether people want it or not, and now they are getting their own movie. Again. DM4 was their first movie, and it did lay the groundwork for the second DM trilogy, but you have to admit that the DM6 film has a rather final feel to it, especially the last scenes that just re-introduce all the main characters from all of the six films in one capacity or another; it leaves Gru with his wife, daughters, son, and even brother (and some family friends) on his lawn – clearly, it was supposed to be the series’ finale. Now we are having a new Minions movie, (just when the U.S. movie industry seems to be struggling as it is). Why, for the love of God?! Oh, wait, it’s real life. It sucks. Yay.

Well, this is it for now anyhow. See you all soon, instead.

Robins - Jan 22

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Somehow, when we talked about the premiere of HBO ‘Knight’ last time, I did not expect to be suckered into talking about robins of all things. To Mr. Martin, robins are somewhat important, I think, as there are a couple of secondary characters that are named, or nicknamed, ‘Robins’, in the honor of the bird. I am guessing that Mr. Martin was inspired, a bit, by the British folk song ‘Who killed Cock Robin?’ here. If he was, good for him.

…Robins are an important feature in the British culture; even Shakespeare, (one of Mr. Martin’s most important inspiration sources) mentioned them in his plays from time to time. Those are the European robins, Erithacus rubecula, the robin redbreast of the British poems, songs, and the like. They are smallish songbirds, about 12.5-14.0 cm in length, and are members of the Old World flycatcher family – meaning that they specialize on insects, and forage on trees and shrubs rather than elsewhere. Their breasts and faces are orange-red; their upperparts are brown, while the underparts are white instead. Overall, the European robins give the European winters a splash of color, (they do not usually migrate south for the winter), and are popular birds, especially in the U.K.

The other birds named robins are different. The most known one, of course, is the American robin, Turdus migratorius. It is a member of the ‘true thrush’ family, and is a thrush itself. In the wild, it is an exclusively New World bird and is not found anywhere else, (i.e. not an introduced species). It is the bigger bird out of the two – at 23-28 cm in length, it’s twice as big as the European robin is, and like many thrushes, it feeds both on the ground and in the trees; its’ legs are long and strong; it has a red belly rather than a breast, its’ back is black, (especially in the adult male birds), as is its’ face. (Its’ beak is yellow). It lives on the North American continent and does not go further south than Mexico in winter. It is a lively and a common North American bird.

Other robins are much more exotic to the Western people. The so-called Pekin robin, also – the Pekin nightingale or the Japanese nightingale, is one of them. The modern name is the red-billed leiothrix, Leiothrix lutea, and it is a handsome and colorful bird. It is 15 cm long, about the size of the European robin and it behaves similarly – i.e., it forages among the shrubs, and it prefers animal matter (insects) rather the plant matter (fruit and the like). The American robin, conversely, is more of a generalist, (though the chicks do prefer insects), and it prefers to forage on the ground instead. Moreover, the red-billed leiothrix is olive-green, but its’ yellow throat does have an orange shade to it, as are the edges of its’ wing feathers – in fact, they are red, orange, yellow, or black, as is its’ olive-brown forked tail – at the end, it is more blackish in color. Overall, the red-billed leiothrix is vaguely similar to the European robin, but its’ family, the Leiothrichidae, while related to the Old World flycatchers (and thrushes), are separate from both.

It should be noted that Andersen, whose stories ‘The Little Mermaid’ and ‘Snow Queen’ were adapted by Disney, also wrote a shorter story called ‘The Nightingale’ that was about the relationship of the nightingale and the emperor of China. The European nightingale that Andersen knew well doesn’t live in China, and neither does the red-billed leiothrix, but when did that stop Disney? The live adaptation of TLM was a biological/biogeographical mess in particular, so if Disney decides to adapt ‘The Nightingale’ next, why not use a red-billed leiothrix instead? It is more closely related to the common nightingale (and the European robin) than a gannet is to a sea gull…

Back to the robins proper, we have the scarlet robin, Petroica boodang, or rather several Australasian passerine birds known as the Australasian robins. Again, they have their own family among the passerines, the Petroicidae; the scarlet robin, as a sample bird, lives only in Australia in the wild. What does it look like? Unlike the previous three bird species, the scarlet robin is sexually dimorphic – the adult males and females of the species look different. Namely, the males are black and white with red, or even scarlet, underparts, while the females are much more drab and subdued. Up to 13.5 cm in length, they are roughly the same size as the European robins are too, as is their behavior – sort of. In the summer, they feed on trees, while in winter – on the ground. (Keep in mind that since Australia is south of the equator, the summer and winter months are opposite of ours).

Finally, we have the forest robins of Africa. They are three species in the genus Stiphrornis… and they are the closest relatives to the European robin out of all the birds mentioned here – they are a part of the Old World flycatcher family too. The orange-breasted species, Stiphrornis erythrothorax looks especially robin-like: is about 12 cm long, (the same length as the European species), has dark upper parts, while its’ throat and chest are deep orange… or yellow-orange – close enough. The behavior is similar too – foraging on trees rather than on the ground. Pause.

Are the African forest robins the most accurate imitations? From one point of view, they are the closest relatives of the European robin that we went through here. From another, the designation ‘robin’ is a human one, and all of the robins talked about here do not perceive themselves as ‘robins’; what do they perceive themselves is another question, one that we do not know the answer to – yet. The cow that used a human tool to scratch herself is Austria may very well know – we just do not know how to communicate with her… What we do know is that all of the ‘robin birds’ are perfectly adapted to life on trees, on the ground, or both… and that is good enough for them.

And for now, moreover, this is it. See you all soon!

Knight of 7, series premiere - Jan 21

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Toronto Public Library, of which I am a card-carrying member and all, decided to remake its’ website fully, and so now I had to re-register myself online and all. It was unnecessary, redundant, and all, but they did it regardless. Damn them.

The weather is just as bad – this winter is a bad one and the weather network cheerfully reiterates it day after day. Between that, and our apartment needing repairs, life sucks. So, let us look at HBO’s ‘Knight of the seven kingdoms’, shall we?

…Well, my first avenue of escape from reality was our RPG, based on D&D 3.5. (Why is a story for another time). One of our opponents was a Green Star Adept, that is to say something of a magic user who is slowly becoming a construct instead. The person who was designing this opponent just had the GSA be a wizard before becoming a GSA; one of our players wanted the GSA’s base class story to be more diverse, and so the gaming session just imploded; person 2 proclaimed that the GSA was just a basic wizard with the prestige class tackled on and that the base class history should’ve been more diverse, and person 1 pointed that a lot of GSA’s skill requirements were Knowledge skills, and so a wizard was a best choice… it was a mess. Onto the ‘Knight’?

Eh, after watching the series’ premiere I have one question: what happened to HoD? GoT was able to finish itself, though no one was pleased as to how it happened, and HoD? HoD ended with S2, so far there is no info when HoD will go onto S3, and HBO is already presenting an entirely different Westeros show. Is HoD on a hiatus or something? People would like to know, I bet…

As for ‘Knight’ itself… it is an RPG. It is a quasi-historical RPG, set in a quasi-England, with Dunk and Egg being the main players. They have to pass obstacles, surmount challenges, flat-out survive and all… it is not a bad concept, and not a bad delivery, and I, for one, have no problem with ‘Knight’, but that robin…

One of the scenes in 1x01 is Duncan hearing – and seeing – a robin in a tree. Since Westeros is based on England (of Shakespeare, and Chaucer, and even Bearns, just a bit), I am guessing that it is a European robin rather than some other – in our times the name ‘robin’ is applied to several bird species, not really related to each other. Of course, given how Westeros is imaginary, and that Mr. Martin tends to use animals in his novels as random monsters if at all, HBO could’ve used an American robin just as well, seeing how no one cared; but.

But what exactly did they do with the robin? I am reckoning that they could have gone into public video domain and got the footage of the European (or any other) robin to use in their show. Instead, I am mostly convinced, they used some sort of an AI to generate the bird; it is not a bad idea, it just makes the bird look rather fake. Duncan’s (ok, his actor’s) look at the singing bird only drives this point further – it’s quite fake and the show didn’t even tried to pretend that the fellow was really staring at an actual bird; instead, the actor just did his best to look incredulous… at nothing in particular. Fun!

That said, CGI-birds and the like aside, ‘Knight’ is a good TV series and I am surprised at the general lack of reaction towards it. Sure, there are reviews about it online, but little else; seemingly the Westeros fanbase itself is suspicious of HBO’s new move, even though ‘Knight’ does work. Oh, and Mr. Martin is teasing his new book, ‘The Winds of Winter’. Sigh.

Did not want to go there, but perhaps part of Mr. Martin’s, and HBO’s, problem is that people are moving past Westeros; his books aren’t selling as they did before, and overall the franchise’s popularity is waning; HBO tries to fix this, and they’re doing it better than how Disney did with SW, but regardless…

Regardless, it might not be enough. Right now, it’s winter 2026, it’s a bad and snowy one, and the Donald seems to be trying to destroy democracy on the planet, so of course people will watch anything to escape reality, and ‘Knight’ is a good show. Of course, so far, it is just the series’ premiere, so what happens next is anyone’s bet, but so far, the show is promising, so let’s be optimistic for the moment, even though real life still sucks.

Well, this is it for now, actually. See you all soon!

PJ Masks & FH - June 18

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us briefly talk about the new FH development instead.

Ok, no, first I need to address the issue of why I am not talking about the current PJ Masks’ development. To this, I reply: real life sucks already, so why should I talk more of the same? In greater detail, listen: here, Disney Junior is trying to softly and slyly reboot the PJ franchise, just as Disney/Marvel is rebooting AoS via the upcoming ‘Secret Invasion’ series, and Disney itself is rebooting its’ animated movies as well – just look at the TLM-2023 version and compare it with the original 1989 one. However, in the case of PJ Masks, the soft reboot ran into a specific problem – the lack of continuation. Seriously, look at the previous seasons, as I’ve written before – there’s no consistent character development either among heroes or villains; neither side seems to learn anything from their repeated clashes, or they do, but never utilize it – and thus, all of them are caught in an endless loop of fights, night after night. You could really write a dark story here, about several children who are caught into some sort of a crazy Groundhog Day – pardon, night-like – scenario and cannot escape it unless they do something drastic…

Ok, this will not happen because the titular characters – the PJ Masks – have daytime/civilian identities and their nightly emergencies have something to do with their daytime issues. That is fair, but sadly, the series reboot seems to have gotten rid of this, now there is even more nighttime action and even less daytime, making the cartoon series even less realistic than it was before… Yes, I do understand that ‘PJ Masks’ was never about realism, but still, this is depressing, so I’m ignoring the series for the moment, and am not commenting on it either.

As for Ubisoft’s FH property… yes, they seem to be going Mesoamerica now, and are introducing a new named character Vela the conquistador. Yes, the conquistadors were the initial conquerors of Mesoamerica for the Spanish empire. For me, though, they strike closer to home: one of their most famous members, Hernan Cortez, appeared in the third and final season of DW, where he faced-off against Ivan the Terrible.

I have written before that the match-up didn’t make historical sense: like many eastern despots, Ivan IV the Terrible stayed safely behind the front lines… of course, so did the king of Spain during Cortes’ times… so the point here is that in this episode, DW had a Russian/Eastern villain defeated by a Western/European anti-hero! How novel… not. Still, DW is done and gone now, and what is left is… FH, for as we talked before, the creative team behind FH has plundered DW for ideas a lot, and the new conquistador character is yet the latest example – with one difference.

For the melee weapons, Hernan Cortes used a halberd, (which became a trademark weapon of one of the original team knight characters – the Lawbringer), as well as the ‘espada rapera’ – the Spanish rapier. However, since FH’s new character is based on their previous Warmonger character, their weapon is the Warmonger’s old weapon – the flamberge sword. Essentially, this is a rapier/sword combo, with a wavy, stylized blade, a la a tongue of flame. Put otherwise, the FH team also seems to be running dry, Mesoamerican styles or not.

…So, what we got here is the ‘PJ Masks’ show, which has transformed from a relatively decent pre-teen superhero fable show into its’ flawed imitation, where style is more important than substance, and conversely, we got the latest FH update, which has delivered – so far, but still – another update, also on style, nothing more. That is flat-out depressing. Have I mentioned that real life sucks? It does, and one can always count on oneself and one’s family to make it worse.

For now though, this is it. See you all soon!

FH: Afeera - Jan 27

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about something else. The latest FH character – the Afeera. No, I do not know what meaning this term/label/name has in RL – from what I have seen, this is a fully Ubisoft invention – and it shows.

How so? Let me be straightforward here: the Afeera is generic. And it shows.

Let us start again. Throughout the game’s existence, the PC characters of FH had flavors – knights, Vikings, samurai, and so on. Lately, however, this state of affairs began to change with the appearance of the ‘Outlanders’; until now, there were only two of them: the Pirate, (think 17^th-18^th century here than anything more modern), and the Medjai. The latter was clearly inspired by the characters in the Mummy franchise, the non-Tom-Cruise one, that is.

…For their part, the Medjai were based on the Western depictions of Ancient Egypt, and while that is neither here nor there, what matters is that while the Pirate was more modern, (proportionally), than the rest of FH heroes, the Medjai was more ancient instead, even moreso than the Gladiator and the Centurion were. This could be gleamed from the appearances of the two characters alone. The Afeera on the other hand, is different.

Officially, this character hails from ‘the kingdom of Arabia’, which is self-explanatory, but otherwise, there are few details that make them specific; even their weapon – a heavy mace – is generic, there’s nothing about it that is associated with an ‘Arabia’ of any kind.

A brief aside: as a weapon, (there are various meanings behind this word), a mace is a club, that has a big iron head with spines, or flanges, or so on, and a tough, stout handle, also made from iron, or from wood, with which to swing the head. Unlike a Morningstar or a flail, there are no chains to connect the two pieces; they are connected directly to each other.

Also, a mace is a weapon that a) inflicts mass damage – a direct or a glancing blow can easily rupture organs and break bones if there’s enough force behind the strike, even if you have armor on you. And b), a mace is not a precision weapon; while you certainly need to train with it, it is a different training from training to fight with a sword: to kill with a sword, you need to land a blow/strike at just the right place, (and if you don’t, your opponent just might survive…at least long enough to kill you), while with a mace or a club – not so much. It is proportionally easy to kill a person with a mace (club), than with a sword; as such, at least during WWI there were trench clubs as weapons… where were we?

Ah, yes, alongside the sword and the spear the mace is a standard RPG weapon these days, whether it is a LARP or a tabletop game – you can be certain that one of the less monstrous foes will use a mace or a club against you. Put otherwise, there is nothing special about a mace, and while, yes, one can argue that there is nothing special about the other weapons in the FH game, well… Somehow, the FH staff managed to make swords, axes and the other weapons unique and individual in the past, each PC had something unique and unusual, even the Pirate and the Medjai have… the Afeera doesn’t. Ah well, this is how the cookie crumbles, and also, you can always count on your family to make everything worse – but that is another story.

For now though, this is it. See you all soon!

FH: Gryphon - Dec 1

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Second, non-obligatory disclaimer: I am not dead yet. I just did not feel like writing much, not with real life being so, well, sucking. And real. And everything else in-between.

…Yes, things are not being so bad as I make them sound – I found the full episodes of AFO on YouTube, and they’re in English rather than in Spanish, (as I had them earlier), so this is important, so yay! Real life does deliver us some gems in all of the dung, after all.

…AFO is a mere one-season TV series, done by AP, which has moved on and beyond it? Fair enough, but I have been looking for it for years, and so it is a pleasant breakthrough in the entire morass of misery and bad weather and what else have you. COVID-19 maybe. Real life sucks, and lately I am grateful for anything that I can come across, and this includes the latest FH update. Pause.

Now, FH has been going through various updates lately, but ever since the Warmonger and their flamberge sword, they had no new characters. The flamberge, if anyone has forgotten, is a ‘flame-bladed sword’, aka… any sword whose blade is not straight, but wavy, to inflict greater damager. The sword types vary from the rapier, (self-explanatory), to the Zweihander, a two-handed sword, (a sword that you need both hands to wield, that is). Frankly, the two blades represent two ends of a wide spectrum of sword blades, yet both can have wavy- or flame-shaped blades. FH was scraping the bottom of the barrel here, not to mention that the term ‘warmonger’ is extremely generic in and of itself, (I do not have to explain it, do I?), but then they turned around – or did they? Let us talk about the gryphon.

…The ‘gryphon’, of course, is primarily just an alternate writing of ‘the griffin’, which is an eagle-lion hybrid that had its’ start in the Ancient Greece and Rome, but somehow survived through the Medieval times and beyond. Secondarily, of course, it is used as a name for various businesses, organizations, movies, art pieces, and even a mud volcano in geology, a parachute system in the military, (and also an American military rocket), and an asteroid, (6136 Gryphon, FYI). What do they have in common outside of their names? Absolutely nothing!..

…That is because the gryphon – or the griffin – itself is not so much generic, as it got a very specific appearance, as it is lackluster, unlike the dragon: the dragon has plenty of mythos to go on by, while the gryphon – doesn’t. In the ancient times, it pulled chariots of gods, (sometimes, when gods needed chariots that needed pulling and regular winged horses weren’t available, I guess), and it also guarded gold out in the East from the one-eyed Arimaspians, or Arimaspoi, a fictional race.

The Arimaspians themselves are gone, (since they were just smaller versions of Cyclopes, really), but the gryphons have survived in various fantasy RPGs, novels and comics, eking out some sort of a living as steeds for various characters…though the hippogriffs do a better job of it, apparently, and now, we got this. The Gryphon character in the FH.

Sadly, the man in question, (in the promo video this character was male, so I will be referring to the Gryphon as such), doesn’t look very eagle-like or lion-like – rather, he is just a man, armed with a bardiche.

Now, a bardiche – there are several ways of spelling it, but we will be calling it just a bardiche – is a poleaxe. If it sounds familiar, that is because the Lawbringer of the Knight version is already using a poleaxe in FH. Unlike this basic version, however, a bardiche is more elongated vertically with a crescent moon shape, and it has no spikes on top or in the back, unlike the halberd.

…The halberd brings us back to DW proper, because this show put the halberd against the bardiche in the ‘Ivan the Terrible vs. Hernan Cortez’ episode back in S3. We’ve discussed this episode when it first came out, and, admittedly, I don’t want to discuss it again – it had its’ flaws, it had its’ prejudices, but it was never truly bad or anything like that; but then again, DW had never been intentionally bad or stupid or prejudiced; now unintentionally is another story, but DW is gone, and we won’t be talking about it anytime soon, not for a good reason. That said, it had been a good show, just as good as AFO had been, for AFO, unlike of the later AP series, aimed to both entertain and educate, and its’ CGI wasn’t so bad for the early 2000s period…. Where were we?

Ah yes, the bardiche. It is a battle-axe, a poleaxe, or what else have you. It does not have two blades as the hitokiri’s weapon does, for example, though the FH version also has a stabbing tip. Neat. Anything else?

Sadly, no. I just wanted to remind everyone that I am still alive and kicking, at least for now. See you all soon instead!

FH: Hitokiri - April 27

Let us talk, for a change, about FH, and its’ newest character – Hitokiri. Supposedly, this name/title means ‘executioner’, but even minimal research reveals that rather it means – if translated directly from Japanese – ‘manslayer’ or ‘mancutter’, because of the subtleties of Japanese language (and of Japanese to English translation). Okay. What is next?

So, the FH creative team designed Hitokiri to look like an executioner, or perhaps – THE Executioner from MCU; certainly, Hitokiri confers a similar feel to the MCU’s real life version from the ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ movie; why did the FH creative team decide to make him a Samurai than anything else is another question: there’s nothing inherently Japanese, or even Oriental, about executioners. Yes, they were going for an anti-hero here, just as how they did with Vortiger/Black Prior for the knights, but if with Black Prior that made him/her almost into a specific person, (reminiscent of Apollyon, remember her?), with Hitokiri they went rather the other way and made him/her almost oblique and personality-less. Maybe that was supposed to be intended, but it is still weird.

Now, in regards to the weapon – what is it? It is an ono, a Japanese version of axe or hatchet. Unlike the Vikings’ Dane axe and battle-axe, FH’s ono has two sides; in reality, there had been only one. It was used as a weapon of war, but also for other purposes; in fact, it was only rarely that the Japanese used their axes for war. Usually, it were not the samurai proper who used them, but rather the sohei – warrior-monks, or the yamabushi, (mountain hermits). Does Hitokiri look like a Japanese warrior-monk? I honestly cannot say – in FH, appearances and themes usually did not go past the external aesthetics, for it is the sort of a game where everyone tries to kill everyone else, (or at least – everyone else who is not on their team), so anything past appearances is superfluous.

Getting back to weapons, let us get back to Black Prior. As we have discussed him, he was armed with a sword and a kite shield, and we talked primarily about the shield, letting the sword go, since it looked like a one-handed version of Warden’s sword. Apparently, some people claim that it is different. Warden’s sword is a longsword – a typical knightly sword with a straight double-edge blade and a cross-shaped hilt, built to be gripped and used by both hands, whereas Black Prior’s sword is a broadsword, also known as a basket-hilted sword, because its’ hilt was usually shaped like a basket of some sort. It was a military sword, unlike the rapier, which was used more often in civil duels instead, and was invented later than the longsword did, in the Late Modern period, as opposed to the Post-Classical one. Seriously, the precision of some people is overwhelming.

Back to Hitokiri? Honestly – no; so far, Ubisoft deemed that we should know only little about their backstory – a glorified executioner of some sort. Seriously, this is what FH is coming to? Its’ creativity team could use some work, I am thinking.

…This is it for now – see you all soon!

FH: Black Prior - Jan 24

…With ‘the Gifted’ taking a hiatus for the next week, (dumb idea, but theirs, so there), let us talk about FH once again instead. They are introducing a new character into their mix again, his name is Vortiger, and he is a Black Prior.

Let us start with the most obvious feature of all – his name. If it sounds familiar, it is because it is – it is a variant of Vortigern, who was the king of Britain – well, one of them – before king Arthur, and in the 2017 movie, he was a villain that His One and Future Majesty had to defeat to become, well, the One and Future King. That said, in reality, Vortigern had been just ‘a king’ that reigned before Arthur did; Hell, he reigned before Uther did, (i.e. Arthur’s father), and to be honest, ‘reality’ isn’t the best term to use here – the man was already obscure by the Medieval times, (when king Arthur’s legends began to take shape for real), and the most established version of him is that he was the British king, (or a British king, or a chieftain, whatever) that invited some of the first Saxons, (i.e. Viking invaders) to help him battle Picts and Scots – a very ironic action. Why?

On one hand is that the Saxons themselves took over Britain, (if king Arthur had been real, he would have battled them long and hard and often), and then they got conquered themselves, by their more derived continental cousins, the Normans. Does anyone remember DW, S3? The second episode of the season featured William the Conqueror, precisely the king who had conquered Great Britain, (hence the nickname Conqueror). The result was a culture clash – yet another one – depicted in such literary classics as Walter Scott’s ‘Ivanhoe’ - you should really read it.

And on the other? Those Picts and Scots and co. that Vortigern had Saxons help him battle with, they were here before the Britons, or whatever the proper name of Vortigern’s people was. Vortigern and his people were initially conquerors themselves, just like the Vikings, (who became Saxons and Normans at different times in different planes), and then they were conquered themselves.

…That is it for the historical Vortigern, such as he is. There is even a theory that ‘Vortigern’ is not a proper name, unlike Arthur, say, or Henry, but more of a title, meaning something like ‘the high king’. However, this theory is not very popular or thorough, so let us not bother with it.

Then we come to FH Vortigern’s ‘label’ – he is a ‘black prior’. In real life, a prior is a generic term, or title, for any monastic superior, aka a high-ranking clergyman (in the Catholic Church)…well, one that ranks higher than an average cleric, anyhow. We’re talking monastic orders, here, not some sword-wielding yahoos – but as we’ve discussed on a regular basis in the past, FH often mislabels its’ characters, going for whatever name/label that sounds cool, regardless of what it actually does. In case of Vortigern, (and the entire new Black Prior class) it is swinging a sword, and – a kite shield. To paraquote Captain Obvious, it is a shield that is shaped like a kite… or a leaf… or an almond… or even a raindrop – usually rounded on top and curving down to a point, (rounded or otherwise) on the bottom. FH made it more angular and flying-kite-shaped, as opposed to raindrop-shaped in real life. They were made especially popular by the Norman cavalry in the 1000s – see William the Conqueror mentioned above. Their size and shape made them poor choice for infantry, but unlike the Saxons, the Normans preferred to fight on horse rather than on foot. By the mid-thirteenth century or so the kite shields got replaced by so-called heater shields instead, which were more compact and proportionally smaller and wider than the kite shields were, making them easier to use. The Crusaders, (especially in the First Crusade) introduced this sort of shield to the Muslims… and where does it leave FH?

Being more derived, actually. For a while Ubisoft struggled with making new memorable and interesting characters, and it even went for the ancient Chinese for a while, but now it seems to be coming back to its’ initial stock, which is mainly Medieval Europe. Yay! Yes, the character probably still has flaws, but Ubisoft did get better at ironing those kinks out, so playing a Black Prior, (whether male or female – Ubisoft has both by now) should be fun.

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

FH: Shaolin, Tiandi, Jiang Jun - Oct 15

…Sometimes life gives you lemons even though you have no idea as to how to make lemonade. Sometimes it does give you lemonade instead, even though you were not expecting it, (or really needing it, truth be told). But – a silver lining on any cloud and so forth. Where were we?

Ah yes, FH has finally revealed all of its new characters. Let us look at them. We already discussed Nuxia yesterday; today we are beginning with the Shaolin monk – as opposed to a Hungarian short track speeder skater, whose last name is also Shaolin. Yeah, real life sometimes is simply bizarre. We have talked about him yesterday too, in regards to the hook swords – the gun staff was another one of his weapons, though it fell short of its’ Maori counterpart – a staff-slash-club. Seriously, there was no reason as to why Maori should not have won, and yet he lost the fight – but we talked about it yesterday too. The Shaolin monastery is also famous for its’ Kung Fu, but there was little of it in DW, and FH is all about the weapons, so it is doubtful that we will see any especial martial arts in the upcoming update. The Nuxia, of course, had some unusual moves, but then the hook swords are unusual, exotic weapons, so naturally her moves are unusual; the Shaolin’s are more straightforward…

Speaking of swords, next we got the Tiandi and his dao saber. Well, maybe it it’s the dao saber, but that’s what it looks like – the blade that was used by DW’s Ming Warriors, when they faced-off against the French Musketeers – and lost. Were the weapons mismatched? Not exactly; the Musketeers’ had more derived weapons, still not as good as the modern ones, but already more derived, reliable and better than the Ming Warriors’ were.

Any weirdness? Perhaps the fact that the face-off took place on a mountain pass of some sort that the Musketeers were storming, and the Ming were doing their best to hold them off; spoiler alert – they failed. The Musketeers won; their rapier triumphed over the saber, but it should be kept in mind that they also had a parrying dagger with them. Here is where DW would bend its’ own rules some – sometimes one team had ‘an extra’ weapon over the other team. The hosts didn’t really offer much justification, and even if they did, still having the Americans have 4 weapons, while the French had only 3, (the S3 premiere), for example, looked rather dishonest. The Americans love to win, but they prefer if it is done fairly…or at least not by obvious cheating, as it happened on DW. Then again, DW got its’ comeuppance – it is still cancelled these days, and there is no talk of it being rebooted. Pity, for it was a good show despite its’ flaws…but FH is filling its’ gap in the game world, at least.

Finally, we got the Jiang Jun. Apparently that is a literal name, not a title or whatever; it is the name of some mythical Chinese warrior or hero. His weapon is the guandao, which is the ancient Chinese version of the naginata used by team Samurai already – or the western glaive. The glaive’s main difference from a lance is that it was not used from horseback, but more on foot, against cavalry. It has a bigger tip than the lance does, and in case of both the naginata and the guandao, it is curved, more like a saber than a lance, rapier or spear, which are straight, and can stab instead.

This brings us to another Ubisoft game that was launched this year – their latest Assassin adventure. Apparently, Ubisoft hasn’t severed all of its’ ties with AWE Me YouTube series, as it had commissioned them to make the broken spear of king Leonidas, (featured in the 300 Spartans movie), and a khopis. The spear is a spear, save that its’ haft is broken, so it can be used as a sword or a rapier of some sort, while the khopis is a Greek adaptation of the traditional ancient Egyptian khopesh, which was a sickle-shaped blade, and according to some sources, the sharp edge was the inner, not the outer one, meaning that perhaps the khopesh was more like some sort of a military sickle than a saber.

The saber is mentioned here because the khopis was exactly that – a saber of the Antiquity. In DW’s S2, it was one of the weapons of Alexander the Great, put against Attila the Hun’s Sword of Mars, aka a longsword. Just think the Samurais’ nodachi (or katana), put against the Knights’, well, longsword. The difference is still there…and Alexander lost to Attila, but that face-off was one of the worst in DW from the technical point of view, (and that is unusual – usually DW had the technical side of things done completely right), so we will not go into it this time…

And this is it for now – see you all soon!

Reverie, 'Nice Guy' - June 14

On one hand, ‘Reverie’s’ new episode – ‘Nice Guy’ – was aired last night, and let us be honest: the series is growing more complex, but you can still see the AoS’ influence in its roots. ‘Reverie’ is doing its best to get away from them through rapid character growth and plot development, and it does a better job than Marvel’s ‘InHumans’ had. ‘InHumans’ hadn’t been a bad show, just insipid, and had bad PR problems from the start, even during the production stage, as did the current ‘Solo’ movie. ‘Reverie’ does not appear to have so many problems, but so far, it is a new show, untested, not overly popular, and – overly dramatic.

Plus, Sarah Shahi, who plays the main lead as Mara, is developing her own aura of weirdness – in the last episode, (‘Jane Bond’), the titular character, (the woman who was looking for her father and became a spy in the reverie), almost never appeared in the same shot, say – face to face – with Sarah. In this week’s episode, it was the wife of the titular character, Nate the ‘Nice Guy’, who also almost never appeared in the same shot as Sarah. What gives? Does Ms. Shahi not get along with the other women on the set, (something that might have also been true for AoS’ Daisy/Skye – Chloe Bennett), or is it some sort of ‘Reverie’s production gag? We will probably never know.

Also, Ms. Nate, the wife of the titular character, is supposed to be pregnant. She does not look pregnant at all. Yes, this is nitpicking, but Hollywood these days has suits for just such roles – couldn’t ‘Reverie’ get one? Just what kind of a budget are they working with?

…That is actually an interesting question: ‘Reverie’ does have special effects, but in a fairly dosed, controlled amount and so far, it seems to be not relying on them very much. On one hand, this is good; AoS showed that excessive CGI and special effects could be a bad thing, but on the other, given that ‘Reverie’ is not just a mystery drama, but a sci-fi one as well, this approach can backfire still. Again, we will just have to wait and see.

What we have already seen, instead, are the new characters of FH, and we were wrong – they are neither Saracens nor pirates, but rather ancient Chinese warriors, ancient being the time period here, rather than anything else. Do they work? So far, we only got the basics, but yes, they work as well as any of the already established FH characters.

…And who are they, the new characters? Undoubtedly, FH and Ubisoft™ will tell us more in the days for come, but even now, we know quite a few things from all the released material. There is the swordsman, the man with the falchion/saber. He is reminiscent of an assassin from the ‘Assassin’s Creed series, (also from Ubisoft™), done in an eastern/oriental style rather than the traditional one, and it works. Of course, the Assassin series also work, but they are a somewhat different game series from FH, so let us not compare the two – it’s like apples and oranges.

Second, is the monk with the quarterstaff. He is the Shaolin monk, so yes, he is a direct relative of the Shaolin monk from DW S1, and that deserves a mention of its own, for while the Shaolin monk did defeat his opponent, the Maori warrior, this victory was lopsided and weird, in a bad manner: the Shaolin won because his tiger-hook swords were superior to the Maori’s spear; this was the only Shaolin weapon that had the advantage, and it was a big one! Maybe even too big – in tests, the swords were not that overwhelming compared to the spear. As a result, when DW did the episode follow-up, as it always did, none from team Maori were there; it is unknown just what went behind the scenes during the making of this episode, but something certainly did.

Back to FH? The third member of team China uses these swords – she is probably the team’s assassin – and the last character uses a spear that is more like Nobushi’s naginata, rather than Valkyrie’s spear – a longer weapon that needs two arms to wield with a tip more designed for slicing than stabbing – so for now let’s call it a glaive to differentiate from the other weapons with reach.

This brings us to the rest of the differences. All of team China’s members have no masks, but open faces – something that only a few other characters have – Highlander and Shaman of the Vikings, and the Aramusha of the Samurai. This already sets the Chinese warriors apart from the rest, and as for the rest… FH has released, or is going to release, a new scenario – breaching the castle – and Warden of the Knights, at least, got a new look, one that’s rather reminiscent of Tolkien’s Sauron. What gives? Then again, FH is as much about the looks as it is about the content, so there must be some logical reason behind their decisions…

Well, that is it for the moment; see you all soon again!

For Honor: new characters - June 9

Warnings, spoilers ahead. Turn back, or go forth – we begin.

Firstly. FH has made a new declaration/promo – we see some Knights, (and maybe Vikings), in some Middle East land, complete with palm trees, and one of the Knights is about to be hit in the face with – a falchion. Not a nodachi, which is a sabre-like blade itself, but a genuine falchion, and the hand that holds it, seems to be dressed in some sort of Middle East fashion too. Neat!

…Or maybe it is a pirate – you know, XVII century pirate, armed with a cutlass. In DW, the pirate was the knight’s opponent, and the knight was armed with the weapons used by the team Knight of FH – the sword, the Morningstar, (in FH, it is called the flail instead), the halberd, (the poleaxe in FH, but the principle is the same). Ergo, it is possible that we are going to get pirates out of the PotC franchise, but that would mean official firearms – black powder weapons, but so far, FH did not have even those, so most people think that FH is introducing Saracens, or maybe Mamluks, next instead.

That makes more sense than PotC-like pirates do. Not only we are talking no firearms, (no more so than the Knights, who are out of the Crusade/pre-Crusade era than from a later time), but it would take care of the South neatly too. The Knights are the West, (Europe, that is), Vikings are the North, (just ask Thor from MCU), and the Samurais are the East, (duh). This leaves the South, and whom can you choose?

Africans, (not Afro-Americans, BTW)? In DW, in S2, the Zande warrior defeated the Aztec jaguar knight, even though the Jaguar knight had the deadliest weapon in that episode – the maquahuitl. Bet that you cannot say that word three times fast, but it was a greatclub, studded with razor-sharp flakes of obsidian, and it could decapitate a horse, yet the Zande warrior prevailed still – his other weapons carried him through, especially the kpinga, (one wonders what the Black Panther would think of that), points-wise. As it was written before, DW had a problem with its numbers/experts in some of its’ episodes, but in this one? Everything was fair, the experts were detached and reasonable, and the Zande warrior won. Only… he had no armor, and in S1, when Shaka Zulu went against William Wallace, he lost.

True, Shaka Zulu lost because he used a spit of poison against William Wallace’s spiked buckler and dagger combo, but the lack of armor did not help either, (DW S1 had been weird like this). FH has its characters all armored… the Gladiator has no armor, but as we’ve discussed it in the past, a gladiator was no knight, he was a pit fighter from the Roman Republic & Empire, which was located in southern Europe… right. Southern Europe is still Europe, and strictly speaking, south is either Africa, and the using of its’ native people by Westerners can become a PR nightmare very quickly, or the Mesoamerica, which brings us back to the Aztec jaguar knight – it was this guy and his friends. They were armored, but their armor was padded cotton mostly, so it just is not up to the standards of the armors used in FH, and they are important – just look at all the weekly FH updates and their pretty colors, would you?..

Nope, neither Africans nor Mesoamericans really function in the FH world, so we are probably stuck with Saracens, Mamluks, or whatever FH will call them. Maybe they will be Pirates instead, but it is too much of a stretch, actually. Anything else?

Couple of other points. One is that ‘Solo’ shows that Disney has maneuvered the SW universe, (at least its’ movies) into an area not unlike the one inhabited by such TV shows as ‘Roseanne’, ‘Gilmore Girls’, even ‘Fuller House’ and ‘Girl Meets World’ – they tried to coast into new glory on the back of the old, and it backfired on them; ‘Fuller House’ seems to have gotten over it somewhat, ‘Girl Meets World’ has ended on a higher note, ‘Roseanne’ – let us just not go there, and ‘Gilmore Girls’… not so much. ASP, who invented them in the first place, may not be a supporter of the Donald, but she clearly had ideas of how GG should end, and it showed in their four-part reboot, which did not quite mesh with the series’ initial finale, and it hurt the GG franchise. Not as much as Roseanne’s twit (or whatever) hurt the ‘Roseanne’ franchise, but it still rankled to a point where no next sequel is in plan for them. Will SW end up like this? We have discussed this already and will have to see what happens after ‘Solo’…

And secondly, in ‘Cloak & Dagger’ we’ve got the detective Brigid O’Reilly, and it matters not that she’s yet another stereotype, (even ‘Blindspot’ got over them in S3, regardless of its own problems), but she seems to be destined to become a vigilante from ‘Cloak & Dagger’ comic series named Mayhem. Considering that for now Marvel™ is downplaying the comic side of the ‘Cloak &Dagger’ equation, this statement might be somewhat premature to tell, we will have to wait and see what the future episodes of this series will bring us…

This is it for now…see you all soon!

PS: And ‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’ movie will be discussed some other time.

S.H.I.E.L.D. 'Past Life' - Feb 3

AoS has taken a break for this February, what with the winter Olympics, and the ‘Black Panther’ movie and all. Where did they leave us?

The agents have returned to the present, the Kree seem to be all dead – though we never learned just how many of them there were, exactly – and the last of humans seem to be making a brand/great new world in the same old place…wait, what?

Here is the thing. MCU has been building this AoS episode, ‘Past Life’, to be something special – and then it shot itself in the foot instead. It actually began earlier in the week, when MCU’s news revealed that Dove Cameron will be appearing on the show as a new character – Ruby Hale, daughter of General Hale – who has a big fan girl crush on Daisy/Quake. This means that regardless of what the MCU clip of ‘Past Episode’ tried to play at, it was already shot in the foot – the Marvel fans knew that Chloe Bennett’s character, Daisy/Quake, is staying on the show, thus neutralizing the clip’s ominous atmosphere. Weird and depressing, but that is life. It does not have to be, not for MCU and AoS, but it is.

Fast forward to the ‘Past Life’ episode proper, and we have few things to think over. One is that Coulson chose one of the worse ways of bringing Daisy back to the present – by force. Basically, he took away her choices by ICIng her into unconsciousness and bringing her back into the present literally. Yes, ‘Past Life’ also did its best to show the impromptu family – Phil, Mel, and Daisy…but because Coulson and May’s relationship was all over the map in the show, the scene did not have quite the emotional impact it was going for, plus by now the audience knows that Daisy will forgive Coulson in the wrong run, though it would be nice if she made Coulson apologize, even if just for a tiny little scene.

While Coulson and May rescued Daisy by completely overriding, if not disregarding, her opinions as a person (and etc.), Yo-Yo had an adventure of her own: she found her alternate self. Few episodes ago, the audience learned as to what has happened to the agents in the original timeline; Yo-Yo, in particular, went to fight the Kree, (with one of their stabbing spears), and was never seen again. Now we learn as to what has happened to her: the Kree overpowered her, kept her prisoner, and tortured/forced her to tell them things from the past – and this was done several times already.

To elaborate. What the agents are caught is not exactly a time loop, more like a time horseshoe, with Robin in the centre. Thanks to Robin and Enoch, (and how did team Enoch have a workable Kree Monolith ready to apprehend Coulson and his team except for Fitz?), the agents get to travel to the future twice – once with the Monolith back, twice as ordinary people – by going directly through the time stream, facing the future as it becomes the present, and later on – the past. …I am sure that the FitzSimmons could have explained it zillion times better and clearer, but they are not here. They are fiction. Real life sucks.

…Getting back from the philosophies, what about the action? As Yo-Yo the Younger was leaving Yo-Yo the Elder, she ran into Kasius and a couple of his minions, and…was overpowered? On the show, what we saw was this. Mack went into the arena, where he was confronted by the Kree, and saw Kasius killing Yo-Yo – the Elder, as judging by the clothes. Then Kasius drank the berserker bug juice and went to fight Mack, beating the daylight out of him long enough for Jemma to come to the rescue by sticking one of those deafness-causing devices into Kasius’ ear, which disoriented Kasius long enough for Mack to get to his axe-gun and stab Kasius to the death.

That is right. Kasius was stabbed to death with an axe.

Here is the bizarre bit. The axe part of Mack’s weapon is reminiscent of a weapon like the berdiche used by Ivan the Terrible’s people in DW S3, a great-axe in game terms, or if you want to think in FH terms – the Dane-axe used by the Viking Raider. It really is not built for stabbing, Mack should have gone for the good old decapitation instead – or instead of an axe, he crossbred his gun with a bloody halberd – or as FH calls it, the poleaxe, (used by the Lawbringer of the Knights). Unlike the berdiche, the halberd has an axe-blade in the front, a spike on top, and a hook in the middle – a more versatile weapon of the two. It was the only weapon, (not talking about firearms, here), that DW had in all of its’ 3 seasons – the halberd was that good.

….The Kree melee weapon of choice, incidentally, resembles a glaive or even a naginata – a slicing spear, used by the Nobushi of Samurai in FH…but we digress.

And so, Mack won with Jemma’s help – and Yo-Yo immediately ran in to her hero. Again, racial stereotyping, though not very extreme or noticeable. What should be noted is, firstly, this was Mack’s moment to shine, and he did not. In yet another earlier episode, Gryll, (later killed by Flint), made a big point of calling Mack ‘a beast’, and Yo-Yo made an equally big point of telling Mack that he wasn’t. Here, in ‘Past Life’, AoS actually had a perfect opportunity of having Mack struggle with those two views of himself and reconcile this inner controversy of his, and triumph, at least morally, by being a better person than Kasius was – and that never happened. Instead, we had a completely unnecessary fight…and some shifty behavior from Yo-Yo. (Yo-Yos?) Seriously, she is a better fighter than Jemma is, (no offence to Jemma), maybe even than Mack, but…she did not help. Why?

Yes, there were Kree with Kasius, but Mack gunned them down rather easily – AoS never got to flesh out the Kree fully during the time that the agents were in that dystopian future, so there was no reason as to why Yo-Yo could not help, but she did not. Another plot hole? Or a sign of another plot twist to come?

And finally – just what will happen to the humanity now that the Kree are dead and the agents have left back for their own time? Yes, they won their freedom, and are now free to live…exactly how they did before, on a desolate planet, in a lighthouse, with xenomorphs that not even the Kree could properly and fully control…yeah. Not the fairy tale ending you expected to have, (and why did Tess and Flint end up together? So that AoS could have a ‘proper’ interracial relationship, no matter how token, at last? Cloak & Dagger are so impressed!) Frankly, you could’ve had a final 5^th season with the agents staying in the future and becoming a part of a new hope, (yes, there were some SW associations, the way that Deke and Enoch perished was reminiscent of the ‘Rogue One’ movie, for example), but instead…we’re going to get something else.

And why this season may be the last? Because Coulson is dying, apparently, and now that he has a limited time left to live, he got to wrap some things up, yeah? And Daisy may yet end up the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. – a new S.H.I.E.L.D. since the old one is gone for good.

…Unless, of course, what Coulson is actually dying off is old age, and he still got several decades left in him instead – he just has not figured it out yet. Either way, ‘Past Life’ was good, but it could have been great, if not for some RL factors. See you all soon, then!

Runaways: Destiny - Nov 30

The third episode of ‘Runaways’ got aired (on TV and otherwise), and what can be said about it?

Deviations from the comics abound, and if this is how things will keep going, then we can safely speak about a separate universe from the ‘Runaways’ comic-verse. The TV/web-TV series continues to loosely follow the main comic plotline, but are continuing to create something that is more original than otherwise.

Again, is that bad? As it was already commented in the review of the first two episodes, by now MCU has developed and implemented several strategies when it comes to canon vs. original content in its’ TV shows. AoS is original, period: it does introduce canon characters, (as do the MCU movies proper) but in new, original ways; the show’s plotline in the end is its own. This is a good thing, but AoS does not have too good a grip on it, and so its’ numbers have fallen – the viewers, the ratings, etc. This is AoS’ fault; AC had something similar during its run, but it managed to do so more coherently than AoS did…but it was the one show that got cancelled. Go figure.

Conversely, ‘Gifted’, (as well as ‘Legion’, probably) has some canonical characters (at least), but it is set in a completely original, different setting…basically, the same thing that AoS, (and AC – even more so) did, just in ways that still keep the audience enthralled; fast pace of the series, and the intense conflict that is the main plot-driving device helps. ‘Runaways’ doesn’t have it, period.

No, ‘Runaways’ aren’t a ‘teenage soap opera’ according to some reviews, at least. That will probably be more of ‘Cloak & Dagger’ thing – that show comes to Hulu in 2018, next year. It will feature two teenage superheroes, the titular Cloak and Dagger – an Afro-American young man who has a cloak of shadows and an Anglo-American woman who generates daggers of light. Together, they fight crime…and even in canon, there was some soap opera/drama elements to their tale; what will Hulu do to their story remains to be seen. But ‘Runaways’? They are a soap operate, just not a teenage one – a family one: the parents have as much drama as their children do, if not more.

Now this probably reminds one of ‘Riverdale’ the TV series, only ‘Riverdale’ is based on ‘Archies’ comic series, and unlike Marvel™ or DC™ ‘Archies’ never had any specific canon; their comics were, or are, mostly one-shots that weren’t really connected to each other, plot-wise. These days, this situation has changed, to some extent, but still, ‘Archies’ don’t keep all of their eggs in one basket; i.e., ‘Riverdale’ is only a part of their franchise, and a distinct one – but we got sidelined.

Unlike the other shows mentioned so far, ‘Runaways’ it trying to be both – remain true to the original plotline of the comics, and be original. The result is unusual – a mixture of sorts, but is it ‘the best of both worlds’?

…It is always possible to sit on both chairs for a while, but only for a while. Then we enter the FH territory, with its’ Shaman, who is armed not so much with a hatchet and a dagger, but rather with a hatchet, (or a hand-axe), and a kukri. The latter is something intermediate between a proper dagger and a short sword, a weapon that can not just stab, but also slice – it was featured in the penultimate DW episode, as a Gurkha weapon, when the latter went against the French Foreign Legion (FFL). WWII settings aside, that was a good DW episode, but the point is that the kukri is decisively not a Viking weapon, so how does it fit into the FH universe?

…And the same can be said about the Centurion and the Gladiator of the FH’s Knights’ faction, as it was discussed earlier: FH has clearly strained into the outer margins of its initial idea – knights vs. Vikings vs. samurai. They now have to go back to what they had, or abandon the old entirely, and go for the new. Since so far their main updates are various suits and armor designs, (for example, the Vikings now have an owl motif named the ‘night raptor’ or something similar), they will probably do neither, but end up worse, (respectively) than AoS has had by the end of S4 – and ‘Runaways’ are going down the same route as FH has had: sooner or later they will have to turn back to the old plot, or go somewhere entirely new, (but then they won’t be ‘Runaways’ anymore, technically speaking), or continue to straddle the line, eventually failing on both sides – but many seasons can pass before this actually happens, and in the meanwhile? We will be watching.

Well, that is it for today; see you next time!

For Honor: Aramusha and Knight - Nov 9

FH has finally released its latest heroes, the Aramusha and the Shaman, fully. What can be said about them?

As we have talked about them the last time, the ‘Aramusha’ means a fierce warrior, which is a fairly basic description, when you think about it: which warrior, especially in FH, isn’t fierce? Today, however, we heard the full promo – and now we know that for FH the Aramusha is a ronin, aka a masterless samurai.

To elaborate, in RL history samurais were knights of ancient and Medieval Japan, serving a noble lord – in theory. In practice, most of them ended up unemployed for a part of their lives at least, and were named ronin – masterless. Such masterless or unemployed samurai wandered the lands of Japan, ready to work for anyone for money or food and board, doing anything…but usually something military, because the samurai were the professional military class of the feudal Japan, just as the knights were of the feudal Europe.

So far so good, but if the European kings, emperors, lords and popes usually sent their knights, (especially the poorer ones) to fight abroad, especially in the Crusades in the Middle East and in similar undertakings in eastern Europe, keeping them under control, and their numbers down, their Japanese counterparts…didn’t, and as a result feudal Japan had plenty of professional warriors in its lands that were ready, eager and/or desperate to join in any civil mischief/uprising and make it worse/more intense, because professional warriors, remember? Consequently, feudal Japan was much more tempestuous and unpredictable than feudal Europe was…for a time. Then it all changed…and it can be noted that the European system of dealing with unruly and sometimes landless knights didn’t always work – from the Middle East came the Templars – yes, those Templars, which caused a lot of trouble in western Europe…and might’ve become the Illuminati…but we’re going conspiracy theory here, which isn’t good or healthy.

And in eastern Europe? The knights failed there too, though perhaps not as spectacularly, and vanished without a trace from history again. At least the samurai left a spiritual legacy to their descendants, which has caused no end of trouble for the Sino-American relationships in WWII and beyond – the two countries do not always get along, no matter what both of them would say…

However, this is RL. What about FH?

In FH, the question here is why the ronin is called an Aramusha instead? A rose by any other name and all that – but before get into it, let us talk about the Shaman also.

…As it was said before, the Shaman may be a part of the Viking faction, but in FH, s/he is also a Native North American stereotype, and the weapons do not disavow this motion either. The Aramusha is armed with two katanas – the Japanese version of the longsword that requires just one arm to wield, unlike the nodachi or the claymore, for comparison, which require two. This puts the Aramusha right next the Orochi, who, admittedly, uses only one katana, a fact that is so convincing to players, undoubtedly.

…And on the other hand, we got the Shaman, who is armed with a dagger and a hatchet/hand-ax, more similar, especially in size, to the ones used by the Berserker than the Dane-ax used by the Raider. This is not the worst idea the game designers could have come-up with, but-

Why a Shaman? A Shaman is a religious person, a priestess or a priest, in a non-European tradition, (especially of Native Americans and Asians). So how exactly did the Shaman in question become a ‘Viking assassin class’? Leaving aside the fact that contemporary Native Americans tend to view this sort of their depiction with dissatisfaction and are able to protect their legal rights quite well, where exactly, in what imaginary depths, did a ‘Viking assassin’ become associated with a Shaman?

Here is the thing – imagination, especially when it comes to mass media – online games, TV series, movies, etc., can be tricky. Just look at the ‘Dark Universe’ – it was supposed to be some sort of a response to MCU & DCEU, but with movie monsters, (including Frankenstein, Dracula and the Wolfman). Sadly, after the first movie, (yet another ‘Mummy’ reboot), this idea half-stalled and recently has fallen apart completely. There will be other monster movies, (a ‘Creature from the Black Lagoon’ reboot is in the works), but they will not be a part of a shared universe, that is shelved, for now. Minus one for imagination, here.

Or take the upcoming SW8 film. The previous, SW7, was already rather lackluster by SW standards, ‘Rogue 1’ was the better film out of the two, but the point is, SW8 will be introducing yet another ‘new’ character, Rose Tico, as a possible love interest for Finn.

Here is the thing – Rose is Asian, Finn is Afro-American, whereas Rey and Kylo Ren are WASPS – and the last two are supposed to be/become a couple. Unfortunately, as far as many people are concerned, Kylo and Rey showed zero romantic interest in each other, (though plenty of the other sort), while Rey and Finn had plenty of romantic interest between each other. The problem is, Rey is the female lead, while Finn is a sidekick, plus there is the entire racial issue.

To clarify: the racial issue exists in Hollywood, whose inhabitants ruminate on it long and hard, about as much as politicians from D.C. do. In real life, there is no issue, aside from what some morons make about it. One of them may have become the current president of the U.S., but so far, there is no indication that even that character is actually racist, because if he was, the press would have ferreted it out by now – but no, he is just an overly horrid person, it seems. However, SW has nothing with RL, (duh!), so there are issues; there is already an Afro-American actor playing a role of importance, (does anyone remember Lando Calrissian, anyone?), so let us give him an Asian-American love interest as well.

The problem here is not just racial, it is the cliché – in movies and on TV WASPs tend to get paired-up with other WASPs, and POCs – also with each other. When there is an exception to the rule, such as on ‘Remedy’ as an example, they do not always last, (the couple on ‘Remedy’ broke up by the end of S2, and the show itself got cancelled not long after). Basically, when it comes to relationships, Hollywood and co. (‘Remedy’ was a Canadian show, actually), are clichéd and unimaginative – kind of how the FH creative team was with the Shaman. With the Aramusha, they might have gotten ‘too clever’ instead, and unnecessarily so: when push comes to shove, ‘Ronin’ can be as good as a label as ‘Orochi’ is, for example.

Moreover, as for the weapons… The Aramusha has the same katana(s) as the Orochi does – this is the first time FH repeated a weapon; it might be a landmark but not a good one – and the Shaman’s weapons are a part of the character’s image problem, which was discussed earlier…

So, there you have it: a ronin by unnecessarily different name, a Native American/Asian mystic that has even less ties to Vikings than a Centurion and a Gladiator have to the Knights, and a possible creativity problem in FH in general. See you all next time!

For Honor - Gladiator & Highlander

It happened that Ubisoft and co. have finally released the promo videos for Gladiator and Highlander, and etc. Yay! But what can be said about them?

The Gladiator, as I might have mentioned in the past, is armed with a trident and a small shield – I believe that it is a buckler, rather than a net. This makes FH’s Gladiator their own creation, (sort of), rather than a take-away copy of one of RL gladiators, such as the Retiarius, (armed with a trident and a net), or the Murmillo, (armed with a shield and a short, stabbing sword). And? It is no big deal.

Let me elaborate. Ever since ‘For Honor’ became available, I had a strong suspicion that it’d been influenced, no matter how bigly or smally, by ‘Deadliest Warrior’, both the TV series and the video game that it tried to sell as part of its’ franchise. The former was discussed repeatedly in the past; the latter was one of those one-on-one combat games, where people could play a pirate, a knight, a Roman centurion, a Spartan warrior, etc., fighting each other: this was it. Even ‘For Honor’, for all of its flaws, was more advanced, from the start.

Now, the Gladiator, (and we are talking about DW the TV show here, not the game), was one of the very first two characters introduced by DW. He fought the Apache in the opening episode of the series, and lost. That is not surprising; the Gladiator’s weapons were more ceremonial, while the Apache’s were more practical, but what matters to us here was that DW too had ignored all of those little RL distinctions of the gladiatorial combat, and rather made ‘their’ Gladiator out of everything, and the kitchen sink besides. No style, no strategy, and he still lost. This does, and did, raise questions about the integrity of DW’s rating system…but I discussed this before, and it is not the point. The point is that FH’s Gladiator is built along the same lines as DW’s was, and it works. Hell, in their promo ‘For Honor’ admitted that ‘their’ Gladiators were newcomers to the battlefield, and that it was up to the players to decide just how well the Gladiators will perform.

And the trident itself? Yes, it is more of a ritualistic weapon than a practical one, but ‘For Honor’ is an online game, so such discussions are moot. Except that ‘For Honor’ itself brings it up with Highlander’s claymore sword.

In RL, the claymore was one of the two-handed swords that were invented in Europe; in fantasy terms, GoT’s Ned Stark’s sword Ice was a claymore, or a two-handed sword, or a greatsword – pick your term or make your own, okay? Yes, it makes sense for Highlander’s claymore to be bigger, more massive and more powerful than the Warden’s longsword, because this was how it was in RL, (most of the GoT’s swords, again, can be used by one hand, as opposed to Ice, which was actually re-smithed into two swords in the original novels, but this is another discussion completely, let’s talk GoT another time). Again, since ‘For Honor’ is an online game it is kind of pointless to explain that the claymore is the biggest and baddest sword in the game, because it is all imaginary, (by online games’ standards, anyhow). What are we discussing here, after all? Damage to the hit points of the other PCs?

As for the Highlander himself, I cannot shake away the feeling that he was based, (however partially) on DW’s version of Sir Wallace, also known as Braveheart, when Mel Gibson had played him. (The AWE Me YouTube channel has made a replica claymore from that movie as well, BTW). In DW, Wallace faced against Shaka Zulu, and won…because DW’s cast and crew included – in Zulu’s warchest – a ‘spit of poison’, just as they did with the ninja, (both were DW S1 episodes). Naturally, poison won Zulu no points, and Sir Wallace won by default, if you want to be technical – but yes, his claymore was still cool.

And yes, once again, FH’s crew admit – in the promo video (for the Highlander, here), that the Highlander was not exactly a part of the ‘original’ team Viking; he and his fellows were drawn-in by the war (the original war from S1, maybe?), and now are making their mark on the world….and that, perhaps, brings up to the next topic: there’s bad blood.

There is bad blood between Ubisoft and the players, and there is bad blood between the players themselves. They are divided, and this cannot be good for ‘For Honor’, especially since Ubisoft does not exactly need it, it has other irons in the fire, you know? So far, ‘For Honor’ may not be as wonderful as ‘Injustice 2’ is, for example, but it is still a good game to play. Let us try not to ruin it for ourselves and everyone else.

This is it for this time; see you in the future, soon!