Hi! I'm Really Enjoying Your Blog, Your Predictions For S2 And How You Analyse The Characters! I Apologize

You should have seen me on set that day. I was a bloody mess. [Laughs.] It was a very important moment for me, for obvious reasons. I wrote the “wedding night” episode in season five, which was a huge turning point for Sansa and for Theon. They are the only two people in this world that know know what the other endured, because they both were the victims of this abuser — sexual victims, psychological victims, pretty much every way you can be victimized, he inflicted upon them. They both survived it. They’ve both come through it. They both have a very long way to go, but they know that they have each other. I actually worked for a while on a dialogue scene between them where they talk all about it. I never even turned it in — it didn’t even make my first draft — and no one ever has read it but me. It felt like recapping something everyone had already seen. The audience knows what they endured. Those characters know what they endured. Having them talk about it felt forced, it felt contrived, it felt like I was writing a scene to answer my critics, which is not the reason you should write a scene. And when you have actors like Sophie [Turner] and Alfie [Allen] and a director like David [Nutter], you don’t need that stuff. So a scene that I never got right became distilled to what’s there: “I’ve come to fight for Winterfell if you’ll have me,” and then that shot in the middle of the song where they’re sharing a meal together. They’re drawing strength from each other even now. Having them share that meal on what could be their last night in the world spoke volumes.

Bryan Cogman about the scene where Sansa and Theon reunite and embrace (via sophietisthebest)

i’m sorry

The Best of Eddie

Hercule de Valois

Hercule Valois, aka Francois Duke of Anjou and Alencon, would like to challenge (former) Prince Harry to a literary duel.

If Anjou could write a memoir about his life as the “spare” brother, it would be far more entertaining than Harry’s “Spare.” 

Elizabeth II seems a much nicer grandmother than Catherine de Medici was a mother to her youngest two children. 

{Megan and Harry fans, please disregard this post, this post is for people who know a lot about the Valois family and Catherine de Medici’s children. I don’t know (or care) enough about Megan and Harry to have an opinion on them. I do, however, love to learn about 16th century royal scandals.} 

No matter what happens tomorrow, we’ll always have jonsa

Movie Reflections: Swept Away

This reflection is about the 1974 film, Swept Away, directed by Lina Wertmüller. It is not about the 2002 remake of this movie, which stars Madonna.    

The volatile, isolated relationship between Gennarino and Raffaella made me very uncomfortable as I witnessed the two individuals bicker about a variety of issues from democracy to taxes. Then, they eventually start to enjoy each other’s companies, or it at least appears that they are starting to become fond of each other. Gennarino and Raffaella even start to have sex. They communicated by surviving on an ideal island void of yachts, champagne, and spouses. After suffering an extended period with no luxuries, the hostility between Gennarino and Raffaella evolves into a negotiation of lifestyles. Gennarino quickly roasts meals and lives in shelters as Raffaella eventually gives in to his order and command. I did not know how to respond to their acceptance of each other after witnessing the two characters cuss at each other and viciously fight on a desert shore. I was even more stunned by the brooding power of class or economic status that controlled Raffaella. Her power is inevitable once Gennarino and Raffaella leave their twisted form of paradise. She returns to her bourgeois lifestyle leaving Gennarino stuck with his struggling third-world culture. I was anticipating that Raffaella would have a change of heart towards her servant. Then, it dawned on me why Wertmüller would build up and tear down Gennarino.

There is the sense that Wertmüller wants her audience to feel shocked, disturbed or even frustrated with how distant the servant and the socialite truly are. Their class controls a specific character. It is as if power and selfishness manipulates every move that Raffaella makes once she is back home. It makes more sense now why Wertmüller mentioned Caligula while talking with Ernest Ferlita since he was consumed with the same ideals revealed in Raffaella. She never felt true, intimate concern for Gennarino. She thinks according to her husband and their democratic principles. Her adamant contradiction towards third-world classes is why I was so shocked by the heartless ending. She never had a heart in the first place. She personifies the materialism associated with the bourgeois class. Wertmüller paints her as a victim privileged by her class. Yet, I only recognize her as a victim on the island, not on the dock. She receives back her identity once they are rescued. A scene that was pivotal in the relationship between Gennarino and Raffaella was when Gennarino skinned and roasted the rabbit. Raffaella realized that she was nothing without her democracy and wealth. She even cried to Gennarino that she felt like that rabbit. She is metaphorically being stripped of customs that spoil her. I even felt sympathy for Raffaella as the medium shot unflinchingly focused on her desperate, hurt expression. Then, the tension between the two main characters adheres to how Wertmüller thinks. She feels that men and women should not be separated, according to an interview with Ferlita.

As Gennarino and Raffaella are stranded, the island is representative of  society, but the isolated desert also does not have the luxuries that allow Raffaella to feel like that she is above everyone else. The dominance of each role becomes reversed once they are stranded on the island. It is also through the freedom of the isolation that Gennarino and Raffaella confront their difference. Although they start helping each other, there is always some distance between the characters. Bird’s eye angle showed Gennarino and Raffaella fighting with each other. There are no close-ups or sudden cutting. It is just an abandoned atmosphere stained by a ridiculous feud. I do not feel a part of the feud, for it is their problem or circumstances. They are fighting, but there is no one to help Raffaella from her impoverished conditions. The extreme long shot amidst the desert only makes the bird’s eye angle more effective according to the mood of the ridiculous argument. No one is listening or paying attention to them. They have to deal with each other. The camera follows each individual around with the presence of classical cutting in order to develop his or her search for identity. It ranges from Gennarino reminding himself of his masculine traits or Raffaella helplessly wandering around the island. I think the island also symbolizes people who are built by the power of disorder because Gennarino and Raffaella are still the same people dictated by their class and country. They think everything is fine once they get to make love or make a necklace of flowers. The impending doom of betrayal only awaits them once they leave their illusion of harmony. I feel that Wertmüller made us uncomfortable as a means to think more critically about society.

Yet another Sansa stan being an Alicent Stan lmao you guys need to stop being so predictable. I don't even hate her show version but the way you peeps love to latch on to a passive redheaded character who accepts her suffering in a feminine woke submissive way is getting comical at this point xD. Stan whoever you want, just keep your same old 'too-powerful-for-their-own-good' Targ takes to yourself thank you

The way you people finds ways to shame and denigrate female characters for how they handle and process patriarchal violence and abuse is absolutely astounding, and imply that there's good victims and bad victims is absolutely ridiculous. None of these characters ''accept'' their suffering. That's such an incredibly disgusting thing to say. They are young girls that live in a society that restricts and limits them, and preys upon them and these are victims to men in power that use that power to use and abuse them as they see fit. That's why (alongside a plethora of other reasons, of course) you're not going to see me shame Rhaenyra for getting groomed by her grown male uncle, or Cersei for getting abused by Robert or Daenerys for being abused by her brother for years and sold to and SAed by a grown man.

All of these characters were stripped of any real choice and power and were forced into submissiveness and passivity by their violently patriarchal society for years and years, and the most meaningful part is seeing them break out of it. Stop making weird connotations to people emotionally connecting to victims of abuse who were regulated and constrained by people that have power over them, and had to survive by enduring and pretending. Like of course this is a narrative that I would be emotionally engaged with considering how much I personally relate to a lot of aspects to it in regards to my own life and experiences, and so many other people see differing aspects of these characters and their hardships, how they endured, who they became and how they broke away from all of the limitations, and it means something to them in regards to their own lives, and that's an absolutely beautiful thing.

Sansa, for example, attempted to kill herself, attempted to push Joffrey off the tower, constantly made digs at him when she could, bolted away and refused to kneel when she was forced into marriage and continuously aimed to get out at the right time. She never ''accepted'' her suffering. She did what she had to do to survive, but there was always steel underneath even as she was only eleven/twelve. There was a lot of power to that, and there was also a lot of power in all of the moments of her faking and enduring these horrors and continuing on pretending regardless. Also, Alicent strode in, interrupted and boldly declared war at her current enemies' wedding. All of these women are forced into horrible positions, had to endure, and break away from it or take control of their lives in their own time. Even if they hadn't endure, or didn't break away from it at the end, they definitely wouldn't be ''worse victims'' for it like you seem to imply. My other issue with the other side of the HoTD fandom is how you all try to dictate who people are and are not allowed to like and what takes people are and are not allowed to have based on your own personal narratives. Also, the ''too powerful for their own good'' isn't just my Targ take, it's the whole conundrum that GRRM explicitly stated he wanted to explore with that family. Like wow I'm talking about what this man wanted his readers to talk about. Big problem. Anyways, if you don't want to see my takes, don't go to my account. Block me instead of immediately checking my account and sending hate in my inbox whenever I make a new post.

Bad Feel: The silent film classic Metropolis was taken out of the US  Public Domain via the Uruguay Round Treaty; which was ultimately ruled by the courts to be an okay thing to do; and it doesn’t go back into the PD until 2022.

Good Feel: The original novel from 1925 went into the public domain just now, so you can still totally adapt that!

Weird Feel: The famous robot’s design was wildly different in the book tho, less of an art-deco gynoid and more described as akin to a Terminator-type skeleton in a transparent “skin,” a bit like a Henshin Cyborg or Crystal Bowie from Space Adventure Cobra, if you’re familiar with either of those exceedingly obscure points of reference…

Niles: Dad, have you mentioned Eddie yet? 

Frasier: Eddie?!

Niles: Ta-ta!

Frasier: Oh, no, Dad, no, no! Not Eddie!

Martin: But he’s my best friend!

Frasier: But he’s weird! He gives me the creeps! All he does is stare at me!