One for Sorrow

The concept, I mean. According to Joseph Campbell's The Power of Myth there are these stages the hero passes through as part of that big uber-story where the hero has a thousand faces (and one of them is Luke Skywalker).

I was thinking about this concept this week because I finally saw The Hobbit and really enjoyed it. I've been resenting the fact that they took this small book and blew it up to be possibly even longer than LOTR. I just hate the whole "we're splitting this one book into more than one movie" trend and have since DH. So I wasn't in a rush to see this, but I went with a group of fellow pervy hobbit fanciers, and it turned out to actually draw me in more than I expected. Some of the ways PJ found to add more weight--both in terms of the plot and the emotions--I thought worked pretty well. One moment I really liked was Bilbo's refusal/acceptance of the call.

( More on that within... )

Can't believe how long it's been since I updated. I've been distracted by a lot of non-fandom things still going on, and spending a lot of time babbling about Mad Men on TWOP—no, not bashing Megan or JP’s teeth! There were times I was overdosing on her a bit and I don't think JP is that strong of an actress, especially relative to the rest of the cast, but in general, had a lot of fun analyzing Megan the character in many words! I may do a post on my thoughts about Megan--and one more on Pete because as annoying as it is for Megan-fans to read her bashing man I hate reviews that dismiss Pete's story with "I hate Pete and don't care what happens to him so his story made no sense and was dumb."

I've also been watching The Legend of Korra. I didn't have the same obsessed reaction to Korra as I didn’t to ATLA. Having seen the finale now, I just had to get thoughts out on how the storyline fell flat for me. So fair warning for criticism within--if you love the show I don't want to harsh your squee at all so please don't click! ( Korra spoilers within. )

So yeah, it just seemed like an odd series to me.

I was kind of blown away by Mad Men last night. It was a night of Pete Campbell at his worst, and yet it made me realize that he's probably my favorite character. I've always perked up whenever he was in a scene and last night he just made my heart hurt. Going to bed I was like...how can you be so taken with such a nasty, sad little character nobody likes for good reason? Because he's so damn unhappy and inadequate and is cursed to try too hard and get exactly the opposite results because he just can't relax or be himself if he even knows who that self is and he's...

OMG, he's Draco Malfoy.

( Oh no. I've found another one. )

"I wish the show would just be cancelled."

I was reading a discussion about this attitude today--I happened to agree with the sentiment in this case. I would have liked if the show in question was cancelled years ago before it retconned characters and stories that made the show for me (it's a soap opera, so it's always a danger of the genre). Several people objected to the idea really strongly--on a moral level. ( Which seemed really strange to me. )

I had one of those click through journeys this morning, you know, where you look at something that links to something else, that links to something else and eventually you can't quite remember how you got there?

In my case it was to a Huffington Post review of the SPN episode The Man Who Would Be King. I enjoyed the review in itself since I liked that ep. I've never really been too deep in the SPN fandom but the few things I remember reading after the ep were mostly just using it as grist for the mill of ongoing fandom arguments about Castiel and whether or not Dean and Sam should kick him to the curb etc. The reviewer felt like the story of Castiel's fall is great because of how it reflects the main themes of the show about faith and doubt. It is therefore, he her view, a Hall of Fame ep. An ep that encapsulates "what this show is about." An ep that was "richly rewarding on its own terms and that also provided a road map of the themes that have made 'Supernatural' worthy of six seasons of attention"

I'm not going to argue about whether "The Man Who Would Be King" actually deserves that title (since I don't know if it's as well-loved as most eps like that usually are)... ( but the concept really is interesting--the eps that do that. )

Glee is one of the weirdest shows on TV, I swear. On one hand I can’t follow it like a real show because it’s so inconsistent, but otoh it’s fascinating watching what stuff they throw at the wall every week to see if it sticks, seeing what strange ways people will behave this week and how it contradicts the strange ways they behaved three weeks earlier. Sometimes an episode will seem even weirder than usual. ( I thought last night’s show was one of those. )

Why is she still writing about it?

So I had an awesome weekend in Vail at Sirens, which was even better than I expected. I came back all excited about women in fantasy and with a long reading list that should keep me happily busy for weeks or months. (Just finished The Thief.) So don't ask me why I suddenly have something more to say about X-Men: First Class, which I saw months ago. If there's anyone up for meta about it, though, apparently I'm your lj! Though to link it to Sirens, it does touch on that general fantasy topic of a person's powers and personality working together.

What happened was I happened to come across an exchange about the scene on the beach that raised the possibility of Charles actually pushing Raven mentally to leave him, and that then led to ( many other tl;dr thoughts )

I had stuck a couple of things up on Tumblr that can be a little grouped together here, plus there's a link to a good article, so ( Poor, poor Starfire... )

I've been having this ongoing conversation about Inception recently--yeah, I know, a year too late. But it got brought up again! It was the standard convo about whether it's a dream or not, and my position is always: could be. But it got me thinking about the compulsion to have a set narrative for a story that doesn't want to have one. ( Spoilers inside for Inception and Mulholland Drive. )

I don't know if anybody else even watches the show The Big C, but it's on after Weeds, so I do. It's not a big favorite, but last night I was a little weirded out by something in an ep, and it makes me wonder how I was supposed to have reacted to it.

The show stars Laura Linney as a woman who has terminal cancer. Last night’s ep involved a high school reunion. Spoilers for the ep within, but you probably ( don't need to know the show to follow the post... )