My Latest Hot Take Is That Warrior Cats And Yellowstone, While Vastly Different Media With Vastly Different

It’s an epic false dichotomy we’ve got in the US and the hope that we’ll escape it is what keeps me going.

Realizing that you can (should! must!) have compassion for everybody and you needn’t (shouldn’t! can’t!) pick and choose who to look out for based on what’s popular or who you personally like or any other qualification other than who happens to be existing in your sphere of influence and who needs your help can be a tough pill to swallow in today’s political scene. May God provide all of us with a big sip of water to get it down.

The thing about political polarization that really gets me is what do you mean I have to pick between caring about the unborn and the elderly, or minorities and the poor??? Sounds like a totally made-up rule to me. Skill issue. I CHOOSE ALL.

"If you’re going to care about the fall of the sparrow you can’t pick and choose who’s going to be the sparrow. It’s everybody, and you’re stuck with it." - Madeleine L'Engle

Radium Girl

So, what’s The Scene for you, the one that just has to make it into the movie? For me, it’s hands-down the mute “Buddy?”

Need to have my heart shattered a second time by seeing Haymitch’s reaction to Ampert’s death on screen.

Because he knew almost as soon as he met Ampert that the kid had no chance. Ampert’s reaping was an execution order, even more than anyone else’s. From a purely practical perspective, Haymitch should have been closed-off toward him, should have resigned himself to Ampert’s inevitable death at the hands of the unstoppable Capitol and just looked out for himself. After all, Snow offered Haymitch a deal if only Haymitch would lay low and let the Capitol do as it pleased.

Instead, Haymitch promised to fight for Ampert, to protect him, to keep his death from being whatever torture Snow had in mind for him. He promised to do whatever could be done. Why? Not because it was easy (it obviously wouldn’t be) and not because it was even possible (how could it have been), but because it was right. Because Ampert was a kid caught up in other people’s problems and he didn’t deserve any of it. Anyone who could have stepped in was obligated to, even if it didn’t do any good. There was no saving him, but there was no justifiable option but to try anyway.

Haymitch was all-in with this impossible task. He understood the doomed necessity of protecting the kid marked for death, not because he could succeed but because he couldn’t not try. That’s why he fought for him even as he realized the mutts were only there for Ampert, that this was the brutal execution Snow had planned to make an example out of an innocent kid. That’s why he tried to save someone who couldn’t be saved. That’s why he tried to call out to bones that couldn’t hear.

Rings of Power and orcs. I get wanting to show that villains can be redeemable, but that’s possible if and only if said villain wants and pursues redemption and recognizes where they’ve been wrong. LOTR and every related work prior to RoP consistently showed us orcs who firmly believed it was their right to torture and eat people. Saruman’s main obstacle in using them was that they couldn’t get along; they were killing each other for the opportunity to dismember and eat Merry and Pippin. There’s a lot of work to do before you can make people sympathize with orcs and RoP was not equipped to do even a fraction of that work.

Not to mention it didn’t need to be done. LOTR was already full of nuanced race relations, redeemable villains, and characters making themselves better or worse via their own free will. I would venture a guess that this is why Tolkien made the orcs so intensely reprehensible in the first place—in a world where Gollum, who attempts murder onscreen multiple times and explicitly states his desire to eat more than one of our beloved protagonists, is a sympathetic and redeemable character, you need a very concrete reason to see orcs as consistent, clear-cut villains. I would say we definitely have that. The orcs engage is gruesome violence and they like it that way; we never see an orc who wants to do things differently, therefore by their own choice, none of them have been redeemable.

Gollum is very nearly the same, except for a few moments where he shows disgust for what he’s become and a desire for something good and lovely, like sharing a meal with friends. It only takes a little bit to make him redeemable and it’s a clear picture of how real-life redemption can be accomplished from the measliest of starting points.

But you have to have that starting point, and I don’t think it’s unrealistic or in any way bad to have characters who don’t embrace that starting point, especially when there’s another character right next to them showing that their actions could have been forgiven if only they had any remorse.

the reason "robot racism" is often a really stupid metaphor is the same reason that like. discrimination against demons or vampires or whatever doesn't work, is because there's often a pretty justified reasons humans are scared of vampires or robots or whatever, in a way that doesn't apply to real life minorities, like a fantasy author will be like "the reason vampires are discriminated against is because most of them and kill and eat people for fun and pleasure, and so humans respond by trying to kill them, isn't that so sad" and like no that's a perfectly fine reason to not trust vampires i think.

There’s a time and a place for overthinking fiction, and if the time and place is here and now:

Do you find it endearing if the love interest is stupid or are you just afraid of other people’s free will?

TBOSAS showed us why Snow believes poor kids from 12 can be influential and SOTR showed us that he still lives in fear of that decades later. Snow was working double-time to make Haymitch look bad—and still couldn’t do it!

The recap cut out him holding Lou Lou while she died, trying to save Ampert (don’t even get me started on how it’s because of Haymitch that the last interaction Ampert ever had with another person was a gesture of affection and a compliment), working out how to call off the porcupine (only possible because the distorted crying sound reminded him of consoling his baby brother), trying with Maysilee to revive Hull, sharing the chocolate with Silka because she was crying, admitting to Maysilee that he didn’t want her to leave . . . and the few positive aspects they were forced to leave in (e.g. defending Maysilee, killing only in self-defense) were enough for 12 to welcome him home with open arms.

They held him back from going in the house to die with his family, Louella’s mom took him in and told him it wasn’t his fault, and his friends tried to stick by him until he literally beat them off.

I can only conclude Snow only hated him so much primarily because he knew Haymitch was loved and going to stay that way, whereas Snow had long since ruined his own life. He comes down on Haymitch like a ton of bricks because, from the moment he laid Louella’s body down in front of him, Snow’s known that Haymitch sees him for what he really is, sees the Hunger Games for what they really are, and he’s petrified that Haymitch might make other people see it, too.

Petition to start referring to Susan Pevensie's arc as "The Tragedy of Susan" rather than "The Problem of Susan." Her arc is not defined by the "problem" of growing up; it is the tragedy of forgetting she is a queen.

In Prince Caspian, we see the seeds of this. "It's no good behaving like kids now that we are back in Narnia," Peter tells her when she is afraid of entering the treasure chamber in the ruins of Cair Paravel. "You're a Queen here." Aslan does not chide her for being too grown-up to believe in him; he lends her his breath for bravery so that she can stop listening to her fears. Susan's "problem" in this book is in fact that she behaves more like a child than a queen.

In many ways, Susan's arc parallels Prince Rilian's in The Silver Chair. He is the Lost Prince; she becomes the Lost Queen. He is enchanted to forget who he really is. The Green Lady twists his birthright so that he is going to conquer his own land and rule as a usurper--the land where he is meant to be the rightful ruler! He unconsciously trades his role as the true prince for a false kingship (similar to Edmund trading his birthright as a true king of Narnia for the Witch's false promise to make him a prince ... hey, you'd almost think this was a theme or something).

Susan likewise trades her identity as queen for a false substitute in England, exchanging the substance for the shadow. She is a child pretending to be a grown-up, not actually being grown-up. Lewis never says there's anything inherently wrong with "lipstick and nylons and invitations," but they are merely the outward trappings of society. What makes a person a king or queen comes from inside. When Rilian returns to Narnia, he is instantly recognized as a prince, despite his lack of a crown or any of the other formal trappings of royalty. He is recognized because he is no longer hidden by the armor of the Green Lady--and so he looks like himself. In fact, he not only looks like himself, he looks like his father. (Which is also how Lord Bern recognizes Caspian in the Lone Islands, despite Caspian not having any outward proof of his kingship--Caspian looks and sounds like his father. Shasta is recognized as a prince because of his resemblance to his brother--oh hey, we've got another theme going.)

Susan has put on the armor of the world, and in doing so has lost herself as queen. That is what makes her arc a tragedy. But! There is always, always hope. Rilian is rescued. Shasta is restored to his true identity as Prince Cor. Edmund is redeemed. Aslan breathes on Susan. Caspian's kingship restores right order to the Lone Islands. No one is ever irredeemably lost.

Once a king or queen of Narnia, always a king or queen of Narnia.

Even when they themselves have forgotten who they truly are.