It's only a matter of time...
Dec. 21st, 2003 01:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
malsperanzaSat in a meeting on Friday in a room with no ventilation; on my left someone with wicked flu (coughing and sneezing), and on my right 2 people with bronchitis. Also, my assistant was out for 2 weeks with pneumonia--yes, real pneumonia--and is now bravely dragging herself around, wheezing and wobbling and fainting in coils. And now half my flist is down with thrombotic pulmonary disorders.
I am doomed.
*coughs*
*breathes deeply; listens for telltale signs of emphysema, sarcoidosis, lymphangioleiomyomatosis, or common cold*
OK, nothing nasty yet, but I'm not optimistic.
Well, having grouched about ROTK, I feel bad. Will pause for 5 min. of
1) Mmm. Aragorn.
1a) Mmm: Aragorn with clean hair (briefly). Why is it that Jack Sparrow looks just fine with messy hair, and Aragorn does not? Note to self: pursue interesting male grooming question for 2004 Popular Culture Association Conference panel discussion.
2) Beacons!
Beacons were hot! (Yes, literally and figuratively.)
3) Grond!!
Why has no one mentioned Grond yet? Grond also was veryveryhot! (Yes, literally and figuratively.) Grond was totally excellent.
4) Shelob!
W00t Shelob! Much though I'd enjoy watching POTC Undead Pirates fight ROTK Undead Dead, what I REALLY wants to see, preciouss, is Shelob taking on Mothra. Or the giant ants in "Them." Or both. Shelob would kick Mothra's ass. (But, dude, the POTC Undead Pirates would totally kick the ass of the ROTK Undead glowing vaporous ghosties. I bet Jackson was spitting nails when he saw the quality of the computer work in POTC--made his GreenEctoplasm!Undead look like the phantoms in Caspar the Friendly Ghost.)
(Only more of them, of course.)
Shelob was perfect. In fact, the whole Cirith Ungol part was perfect, despite being (O horrors!) Not Entirely Canonical.
5) Smeagol and Deagol!
Excellent opening gambit for the movie. Such a relief not to get a whole lot of awkward summary of FOTR and TTT frontloaded, but instead the very backstory that we got part-way through the book, in much the same manner. Elegantly done.
6) Absence of Saruman.
Well, I wasn't crazy about Cher!Saruman in TTT, so I didn't miss him. Her. Whatever.
7) Giant Eagles!
And to those who ask how come the Nine Walkers couldn't have flown by EagleAir to Mordor in the first place, I say: Well obviously because the Eagles dint feel like it that day, okay?
I wouldn't mind seeing a Giant Eagles vs. Shelob smackdown either, come to think of it. Or Shelob vs. Grond. Or the Eye of Sauron Meets the Smog Monster. That would be good.
8) Wizard of Oz quotations.
I have decided I like these, though on Wednesday night they made me laugh inappropriately & I pissed off the veryveryserious folks wearing Spock ears (or possibly Bad Santa's Helper ears) in the row in front of us. I liked the Wizard of Oz quotations in Oh Brother Where Art Thou too.
I think all adventure/fantasy/quest/Odyssey movies should quote from The Wizard of Oz; if Cold Mountain includes a horse of a different color, I will be veryveryhappy. Let's not forget the brilliant but subtle auteur moment in The Last Samurai, after the great massacre, when the hero clicks his sparkly red samurai geta clogs together and in the next scene is seen returning home to the village.
And all romance/noir/spy movies should be required to quote from Casablanca.
9) Misc.
Shadowfax. The Nazgul. The way Minas Tirith looked. The palantir. The fact that Merry and Pippin were distinguishable from one another.
10) The general pacing.
11) Did I mention Aragorn?
Mmm.
OK, that's enough of that. What I really want to post about is The Trickster Figure in Literature. Have many quotes and brilliant auteur insights to share, but must first get LOTR out of system a bit.
FWIW, the main Trickster figure in LOTR is Bombadil.
I still can't find one in HP, which I find both curious and interesting.
Have also not forgotten promise (now one month old) to deal Mighty Cold War Humor Death Blow Challenge to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
black_dog upthread. Am currently researching Judith Exner/Marilyn Monroe/Luttwak connection. Stay tuned.
I am doomed.
*coughs*
*breathes deeply; listens for telltale signs of emphysema, sarcoidosis, lymphangioleiomyomatosis, or common cold*
OK, nothing nasty yet, but I'm not optimistic.
Well, having grouched about ROTK, I feel bad. Will pause for 5 min. of
1) Mmm. Aragorn.
1a) Mmm: Aragorn with clean hair (briefly). Why is it that Jack Sparrow looks just fine with messy hair, and Aragorn does not? Note to self: pursue interesting male grooming question for 2004 Popular Culture Association Conference panel discussion.
2) Beacons!
Beacons were hot! (Yes, literally and figuratively.)
3) Grond!!
Why has no one mentioned Grond yet? Grond also was veryveryhot! (Yes, literally and figuratively.) Grond was totally excellent.
4) Shelob!
W00t Shelob! Much though I'd enjoy watching POTC Undead Pirates fight ROTK Undead Dead, what I REALLY wants to see, preciouss, is Shelob taking on Mothra. Or the giant ants in "Them." Or both. Shelob would kick Mothra's ass. (But, dude, the POTC Undead Pirates would totally kick the ass of the ROTK Undead glowing vaporous ghosties. I bet Jackson was spitting nails when he saw the quality of the computer work in POTC--made his GreenEctoplasm!Undead look like the phantoms in Caspar the Friendly Ghost.)
(Only more of them, of course.)
Shelob was perfect. In fact, the whole Cirith Ungol part was perfect, despite being (O horrors!) Not Entirely Canonical.
5) Smeagol and Deagol!
Excellent opening gambit for the movie. Such a relief not to get a whole lot of awkward summary of FOTR and TTT frontloaded, but instead the very backstory that we got part-way through the book, in much the same manner. Elegantly done.
6) Absence of Saruman.
Well, I wasn't crazy about Cher!Saruman in TTT, so I didn't miss him. Her. Whatever.
7) Giant Eagles!
And to those who ask how come the Nine Walkers couldn't have flown by EagleAir to Mordor in the first place, I say: Well obviously because the Eagles dint feel like it that day, okay?
I wouldn't mind seeing a Giant Eagles vs. Shelob smackdown either, come to think of it. Or Shelob vs. Grond. Or the Eye of Sauron Meets the Smog Monster. That would be good.
8) Wizard of Oz quotations.
I have decided I like these, though on Wednesday night they made me laugh inappropriately & I pissed off the veryveryserious folks wearing Spock ears (or possibly Bad Santa's Helper ears) in the row in front of us. I liked the Wizard of Oz quotations in Oh Brother Where Art Thou too.
I think all adventure/fantasy/quest/Odyssey movies should quote from The Wizard of Oz; if Cold Mountain includes a horse of a different color, I will be veryveryhappy. Let's not forget the brilliant but subtle auteur moment in The Last Samurai, after the great massacre, when the hero clicks his sparkly red samurai geta clogs together and in the next scene is seen returning home to the village.
And all romance/noir/spy movies should be required to quote from Casablanca.
9) Misc.
Shadowfax. The Nazgul. The way Minas Tirith looked. The palantir. The fact that Merry and Pippin were distinguishable from one another.
10) The general pacing.
11) Did I mention Aragorn?
Mmm.
OK, that's enough of that. What I really want to post about is The Trickster Figure in Literature. Have many quotes and brilliant auteur insights to share, but must first get LOTR out of system a bit.
FWIW, the main Trickster figure in LOTR is Bombadil.
I still can't find one in HP, which I find both curious and interesting.
Have also not forgotten promise (now one month old) to deal Mighty Cold War Humor Death Blow Challenge to
black_dog upthread. Am currently researching Judith Exner/Marilyn Monroe/Luttwak connection. Stay tuned.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-23 10:11 pm (UTC)Frodo is certainly no Trickster (he has no madness in him, and no folly, and though he loses his home, he is not by nature homeless or rootless);
Yeah. Poor little guy, he tries. I think the closest he ever really got was the table-dancing scene in the Prancing Pony. From Weathertop on out, he's clearly operating on a different wavelength from Bilbo.
~
Just to pretend for awhile that I am not totally maniacally hobbit-obsessed, let me see if I can remember my Trickster mythology from college:
Brer Rabbit (African-American) and Rabbit (African) and Bugs Bunny; Reynard (French) and kitsune (Japanese); Coyote (Native American)... Hyena, I think, but I can't remember where that came from.
From Genesis, there's Jacob and his mother and Rachel and her father (our major texts that semester were Genesis, Mann's _Joseph and His Brothers_, Wagner's Ring Cycle, and a couple other things that didn't really have Tricksters in them afaicr).
Shinto mythology has some funny story about Amaterasu (sun goddess) sulking in her cave, and none of the other deities can lure her out. The Trickster (whose name I can't remember, but who iirc is an old hag) sneaks into Amaterasu's cave and flashes her pussy to make the goddess laugh.
Erm. I suspect I'm getting that one mixed up with one about the Egyptian gods. I don't know.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-24 03:43 am (UTC)Odysseus has a whole bag of tricks in The Odyssey--sneaking out of the Cyclops' cave and stealing his sheep, tricking the Sirens, etc. He is called "polytropos" in the first line of the poem, usually translated as "man of many ways," or "many minds." The word (poly + trope: many turns, or many figures) implies clever, tricksy, multifarious, complex, many-masked, even sly or slippish.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-24 10:05 pm (UTC)