River Song the Hero

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Analysing River Song's life according to the Hero's Pattern (as identified by Lord Raglan):

1. The hero's mother is a royal virgin - hm. Well, no. But she is a one-woman man who lives next to a crack in reality, so is singled out for the attention of the god for that reason.
2. Her father is a king
3. And often a near relative of the mother
4. The circumstances of her conception are unusual - no fooling! On the tardis, which makes her a Time Lord.
5. She is also reputed to be the child of a god. How many people weren't sure who the father was? All of us, and it keeps coming up, over and over; the series really yanks our chain on this one.
6. Atbirth an attempt is made, usually by the father or maternal grandfather, to kill her.Not kill, in this case, but abduct, destroy what she was and make her into something else entirely; not the father, who does his best to save her.
7. She is spirited away - by the Silence
8. And reared by foster-parents in a far country - indeed; in the demonic orphanage, by Madame Kovarian, and the Silence.
9. We are told nothing (or little) of her childhood - pretty much; we have seen the orphanage, we see her when she's 9 and she's dying and regenerating, we see her briefly throughout her teens.
10. On reaching adulthood she returns or goes to her future kingdom - is sent to meet and kill the Doctor, which is, or with whom is, her future home.
11. After a victory over a king, wild beast, giant, or dragon - in this case the Doctor, and twice (kills him once, persuades him not to die once)
12. She marries the princess - the point of this is that the hero marries the person by and through whom she becomes a ruler herself, which works fine
13. And becomes ruler. Time Lord, Ruler of Time and Space, Master of the Universe, who can fly the Tardis better than her husband can.
14. For a time she reigns uneventfully - read "carries on adventuring with the Doctor", which is implied throughout her story -
15. And prescribes laws - not sure what this would correspond to -
16. But eventually she loses favour with the gods and/or her subjects - which happens immediately,with her incarceration in the Storm Cage -
17. and is driven from her throne and city - actually by the time of her death she seems to have been restored to full honours, as Professor Song.
    After which she meets with a mysterious death - true enough!
18. often on top of a hill - in the bowels of a library in this case
19. Her children, if any, do not succeed her - we don't know yet
20. Her body is not buried - nor, indeed, ever found
21. But she has one or more holy sepulchres - the computer, which contains and maintains her heroic spirit for visitors, just as the sepulchres did for hero cults.

That's 15, plus a few maybes, so could be as high as 19. Hercules himself only scores 14.

turtles

On my way home from running this morning (note how I casually insert that; I went for a run this morning! not sure I'll make a habit of it though) I passed the local private school (junior branch). There was a flood of little moppets in their little kilts and cardigans washing towards the school, and my attention was caught by a little girl standing beside her Dad's big black SUV, looking nervous but determined. I couldn't figure out why until her father came round the car carrying her little brother, sighed, pulled out of her hands the little stuffed turtle she was trying to smuggle into school with her and tossed it back in the car window. Somehow this was the more touching given her little uniform. I hope she learns to hide it under her jacket soon. Anyone needs a little friend in a new school.

Um, True Blood? We have to talk

Just saw yesterday's True Blood (4.11), "Soul on Fire".  As has been true all season, everything was great except for any scene with Sookie in it.  Now Anna Paquin is a magnificent actress and hasn't lost her chops, so that's not the problem.

I have a theory, and here is my theory: the screenwriters, who are also great, and doing the best job they can of getting something worth seeing out of the truly awful novels, are less handicapped the less attention  the original author paid a character, because then they can make stuff up, and it will be much BETTER stuff than they'll find in the books.  So who's the best character in True Blood?  Jessica, who doesn't even appear in the novels.  Who's the next best?  Lafayette, who was killed off at the end of the first book, in the novels.
Image by Vanessa Stehling via Flickr
But Eric and Sookie and Bill are all very important in the novels, and try as they may, the screenwriters can't get away from that, or change the characterizations too much.  Worse, structurally, Sookie's in the center of the story; it's All About Her.  Her character fascinates novelist Harris, is Harris' focalizer, and Harris can't imagine that we wouldn't be fascinated too; so she has done nothing to make Sookie particularly interesting, because to Harris, she's already interesting.

So we have, this season, a character at the very center of the story, on whom it all depends, who is very dull, who has no motivation beyond sheer stupidity and unthinking self-centredness for any of the things she does, but whom we are supposed to find as fascinating as the two vampire sex-gods who are so consumed with her that they're willing to INSTANTLY agree to die to save her life.  INSTANTLY.

And when we don't go along with it, the story falls completely flat.

In fact Sookie is a Mary Sue.  And in the first three seasons the series worked with that, because we were as much in love with her as the author , so we went along the show's assessment that every little thing about her was completely absorbing.  (Though the io9 recappers didn't agree, and this season I'm beginning to see their point..)

This season, we aren't willing to go along.  At least, I'm not.  I don't really care whether she takes Billie or Eric to the prom; I just want her to grow up already. (And how old are Eric and Bill?  They're acting like they're about 14, which is unbelievable as well as dull.) In the meantime, I'm more interested in the characters that are actually showing some kind of growth arc - Jessica; Jason; Tara; Hoyt; Alcide; Sam (sorta); Andy; Terry, especially Terry - the ones that are already adults and the ones that are trying hard to grow up.  Sookie's just in a holding pattern, and I don't care anymore.  Too much of her behaviour is irrational and uninterestingly so.  Meanwhile, she needs to get a job. She doesn't even own her house anymore; who's supporting her?

Marni/Antonia was great as always, and Debbie Pelt too, and the Werewolf Divorce was oddly moving.  "Debbie Pelt, I abjure you. I see you no longer.  I hunt with you no longer.  I share flesh with you no longer."  Perhaps it has to be delivered while growling.

I haven't done a Bechdel-Wallace analysis of this season.  Sookie is generally at odds with women this season, when she interacts with them, which she doesn't much.
Related Articles

• Sookie is a Mary Sue (Merely Academic)
• True Blood 4.11 (Soul on Fire) recap (io9.com)

guilt-free TV

Image via WikipediaWatched the latest Dr. Who tonight; it was very good, but I don't think Amy and Rory can be put off forever.  The Doctor said he would find their child, but meant, surely, their BABY.  Discovering that Dr. Song is their daughter, as was their best friend the childhood JD Mels, that she was raised by evil aliens in that terrifying orphanage, and ultimately leaving her in a hospital to be cured of her psychopathic tendencies, is not good enough.  Saving another child, who is a little boy who loves his Dad, but is not the son of his parents - unlike Mels/Dr. Song, who is their daughter but not a child, and for that matter doesn't love them - is not good enough either.  You can save all the children in the universe, and that's a very good thing to do; but that does not absolve the Doctor of his promise to restore their baby to them; to restore to them a child they can raise and love and become family with.  George is his father's son in that he's part of the family, has been adopted.  Mels/River is not part of Rory and Amy's family.  That's what the Doctor promised to restore to them, and he hasn't done it.

And - just as an aside - interesting feature, that it's the Doctor and the father that save little George, while the mother's at work.  Why? On reading "Let's Kill Hitler (and break my heart)" (below) and its comments on feminism in Dr. Who, now I'm wondering; why is the mother - and why is Amy - being left out of the loop here?  Why is the only significant parent the father?  (On the other hand, Dad's home because he's unemployed; is Mom the responsible parent, or the absent parent, here?)

Also
Image via Wikipediawatched another episode of Battlestar Galactica, and have got to "Pegasus", where we have essentially the AU Galactica.  The commander is female, and there is no civilian authority; it's an entirely military operation, and it's insane.  Everyone on Pegasus is either a collaborator or terrified into submission.  They are rapists, abusers and torturers, and Admiral Reid, Marianne from True Blood, really gets off on shooting people to get her own way.  Of course she only does it when military law, as interpreted by herself, gives her some shred of an excuse.

Wondering, again, what to make of the fact that the female leader is evil and has produced an evil ship - it takes its tone from the top, and even if she is killed off, as I suspect will happen eventually, all those under her are so damaged that it won't be possible to integrate them; the entire culture of the Pegasus is toxic.  And sure, we have Laura the President, who is wonderful.  But now I want to watch carefully for other signs that even in the BSG world, apparently a woman in power = a bad thing.

Haven't been posting about True Blood (and haven't seen this evening's show yet) because everyone on it is more interesting than Sookie this season. Unfortunately Sookie is the linchpin of the whole show.  If she's not interesting, it all falls apart. But everyone's got a story except her - I'm afraid I can't buy the "Sookie's in love with a vampire" storyline as worth her (or our) primary attention yet again.   I could cut her
Image via Wikipediasome slack for considering the world well lost for love the first time, but it's time she got a life that involved, you know, holding down a job, figuring out something else to do besides shagging pretty vampires.

Interestingly everyone else on the show has also noticed this, thinks, correctly, that Sookie is behaving like a crazy person and is walking away from her.  Tara: "are you crazy?" Alcide: "Sookie, what are you doing?"  Sookie responds by ignoring them  - not even bothering to answer the question - because Twu Wuv Conquers All.  Well, no, it doesn't.  Her vampire habit doesn't seem to endanger her - at least, she tends to live through it - but it endangers everyone around her; and she doesn't seem to notice or care.  I have lost patience.

Nor do I know how True Blood managed to make Eric so dull and sexless, but  it did.  The idea, I suppose, was to make him childlike so that Sookie could feel maternal towards him and re-parent him, re-"make" him post-Godric; but the mother-child bond is really not easy to sexualize, and they didn't succeed.  The idea was, I suppose, also to contrast this relationship with Sookie/Bill, where Bill was definitely being overly paternal, "protecting" Sookie - and himself - by not telling her things she needed to know.  So while I appreciate why they were making the attempt, it did not in my view succeed.  (Do I find it suspect that the father-child bond is remarkably easy to sexualize?  yes, and I don't want to think about it right now.)

Meanwhile, Jessica, Lafayette, Jesus (who I suspect is not long for this world), Marni/Antonia, Debbie, Alcide (especially shirtless), Nan, Pam, Ginger, Tommy, Hoyt, even Sam, even Marcus - they're all excellent, and make the show worth seeing.  But the central Bill/Sookie/Eric storyline, and all three characters, could frankly be left out entirely and the season would be better for it.

Related articles

• Doctor Who Recap: "Let's Kill Hitler" (wired.com)
• Let's Kill Hitler (and break my heart) (iamdustdaughter.wordpress.com)
• Doctor Who, series 6.9: "Night Terrors" by Mark Gatiss (ravereader.wordpress.com
• Doctor Who and the One Woman the Doctor Can't Screw Up [Tv Recap] (io9.com)
• The Well-Tempered Plot Device (ansible.net)

My rich and fulfilling fantasy life

Image via Wikipedia

It is my habit, in times of stress and overwork, to imagine a life in which I have free time and sufficient energy and concentration to do something with it.

In that imaginary life, I'm the kind of person who faithfully goes to bed at 10 or at latest 11, and gets up early to go for a run, because my classes have all been prepared the evening (or possibly even the week) before, so there's never a mad a.m. scramble of dear God I thought I had that lecture somewhere OMG I haven't even read the text yet where are the images! I was supposed to make up the exam when? and life proceeds on an even and cheerful keel and I even have time to get dinner going first thing in the morning, make the children's lunches, make sure they've got their homework (which, in this fantasy life, I helped them with the night before) and wave them off to school with a cheery smile before heading out myself.  In this fantasy I am already dressed and have had breakfast before the children get up.  In this fantasy, I suspect I got up at 4 a.m. But whatever.

In the fantasy, I have ample free time and the concentration and energy to do something with it. I'm not spending all this extra time that has mysteriously appeared in my life writing (or even reading) for publication, because the very thought of doing that causes me enough anxiety that I hastily shy away from it. I mean I can't even imagine, as a fantasy, enjoying doing that. And I truly do not enjoy reading most of the things that are published in my field anyway. These activities have no place in a fantasy life; they are very much Real World. They may be why I fantasize in the first place.

In this fantasy life, I sew a lot. Marvellous things. Mostly for me, though occasionally for my family. And during term time I find myself wistfully buying patterns, more and more patterns, as a promise to myself that the time WILL come that I will be able to muster the energy, and time, and concentration to make them all, every one of them.

This term my fantasy life has been particularly rich and compelling, thanks to a great pattern sale at Vogue (also Butterick and McCall's, but Vogue really caught my eye).  Now I have never made a Vogue pattern - I have aspired to do so many times, judging from my pattern stash - but never actually tried.  But my fantasy life has apparently decided that's what I want to do.

So, by way of sharing my fantasies, here are all the patterns I have bought this term; I mean since September. In my dreams, I have the time and even the skill to make every one of these things, and furthermore, they will all look fantastic.

These fantasy projects come in many different styles.  There are the ones I might conceivably be able to make, and the ones so far beyond my skill set only complete ignorance would make me consider them.  There are the ones I might even wear somewhere, and the ones that even if I could make them, I'd have to remake my entire image - not to mention my body - to take them out of the house. But still I'll tell myself, happily,  "I could wear this to teach!" Or, "Ooh, just the thing for lounging about the house!" - as if I ever wear anything when lounging about the house besides old Course Union t-shirts* and yoga pants.

So here are this term's fantasies.  I've bought every one of these patterns since September.  If I quit my job and did nothing but sew, it would still take me a year - or so - to make them all:

*****
*My favourite is the one with the steatopygous Venus captioned "magnae clunes mihi placent, nec possum de hac re mentiri."**  I forget which year's union produced it.
** Sir Mix-a-Lot's "Baby Got Back", translated into Latin.  For an interlineated translation, translated back into English for added hilarity, and with lengthy scholarly discussion in the notes (I'm not making any of this up), click the link.

(Patterns below the fold)

More interim True Blood research

 A chart of the scenes that satisfy the Bechdel-Wallace test in seasons 1 & 2 of True Blood.

Some idle thoughts:

interim research on True Blood

Why yes, there ARE other things I should be doing right now, why do you ask?

Here is a graph of the number of scenes that pass the Bechdel-Wallace test in each episode of True Blood, season 1:

NB I didn't rewatch all the episodes, but have just relied on the HBO episode recaps to jog my memory; so some short scenes may have escaped me.  I think though I've got them all.

Note that Sookie's interactions with other women decrease sharply after she loses her virginity (at least I'm guessing that that's the turning point),  and in the last 3 episodes there are none.  Tara, however, has not yet formed a secure relationship with a man, and in the last several episodes almost all the Bechdel-Wallace passing scenes involve her.