I find HP to be very, IDK, Verne-like? Like that kind of adventure 19th novel. I skipped most of the movies and yes, its characters tend to be really attractive.
I agree with most of your assessments, actually. Even the Sirius >>> James thing. I might be a hardcore Remus/Sirius shipper but Sirius felt really strongly for James.
Because I think you're the only one I know who's read it (not counting real life friends into whose hands I physically forced the book and said READ THIS NOW). . .K. J. Parker's Engineer trilogy?
The Engineer series has, to this date, the privilege of being the only series of book where I'm afraid of reading the conclusion because I'm scared of seeing bad things happen to the characters I like. It's very weird because I love dark stories in general, and I don't mind seeing my favourite characters suffer usually, but KJ Parker managed to scare me that way.
I think it's a little bit... overly long and overly systematic in its style; but overall I love Parker's style of writing, and I love her characterisation.
I don't mind seeing my favourite characters suffer usually, but KJ Parker managed to scare me that way.
Ahahah, yes. Or, as I usually put it to people when I'm describing Parker, "You know how Martin's known for killing characters off? Parker's more on the side of leaving them all desperately wishing for death to release them from their agony."
She did publish a short story with something resembling a happy ending recently, though! (Well. Happy for Parker.) I was shocked. Perhaps it's the beginning of a new era.
The big problem with Glee is that I feel like the show creators hate the characters. Like, really loath them. And possibly everyone.
There's also some huge problems with the way it tries to be a parody of itself one second, and to do itself straight the very next one. It just keeps shooting itself in the foot, it keeps destroying trust in the narrative.
And yet on occasion it was brilliant, and often funny.
I hated all the episodes with a focus on a specific musical artist.
What impresses me the most in that series is the quality of the continuity / world building / coherency. This is extremely rare in TV series in general; and doubly so in SFF TV series - to see a children show reach to that so easily makes me think little of a good amount of SFF series that do not manage it.
Also it had excellent storytelling.
And action scenes!
It was also impressive to see that the authors learned and improved in term of representation of female characters in the course of the series.
To steal a page from a_white_rain: it does not have the fandom it deserves.
Aang/Katara was boring :p
Ursa is badass. I'm especially impressed with her because what she did to save her son was not nice. She murdered a man (who was evil enough to order her child dead just to punish his son, but still).
I want to learn so much more about that world and its history.
Despite the fact there are thousands of ways it can go wrong and offensive-like; I adore the whole premises of Mutants-as-metaphore-for-oppressed-minorities.
I've yet to read any story that would convince me that Xavier represents the "right side" of the discussion. Which doesn't really mean that Magneto is right (or anyone else for that matter); just that everything I've read so far has done a shitjob at showing me how he's supposed to be better than them or his dream more righteous.
The more I read stuff, the more it becomes apparent that the series has gone backward in terms of being progressive and diverse in terms of characters and stories. Say what you will about Claremont, at least he was great at including female and minority characters.
On that line, it cracks me up that, like, 75% of the LGBT characters in the marvel universe are mutants. (ttly not a coincidence!)
I liked the uniforms from Morrison's run. :p
Speaking of Morrison's run, I'm almost as pissed off and offended by his starting his run with the genocide of Genosha as I am by Planet X. Especially since he had absolutely not intention to deal with the aftermath and consequences of such a staggering mass slaughter.
Decimation was one of the most horrible idea to do to X-Men franchise. It's really stupid in terms of what it does to the thematics of X-Men and the consequences were not at all realistic. OTOH, I rather like the developments after that, with the relocation in San Fran & the creation of Utopia (even though in the context of the past of X-Men it's also a remarkably stupid idea).
Much as I liked First Class, I'm actually rather bored with most of the fanfics for it. I'm not entirely sure why. It did some things right, enough that I enjoyed watching it a lot, but it did enough things wrong that I'm not actually interested in exploring that universe, I guess. Kinda like the first movies better on that front (I don't consider it the same universe). Which is the shame since it contains the version of Xavier I like the most as of yet.
I also really love thinking about mutant identity politics, even though 99.9999% of the time it's handled really stupidly in canon :P
UGGGHH GENOSHA I KNOWWW. And Decimation. FFFffff. That kind of almost... offended me, in some weird personal way. Sometimes it seems like they keep holding the story back from where it's supposed to go.
And hmmm about Erik/Xavier. Good point. I guess I've always thought it belongs in the Foe Yay category, where things usually remain in subtext-land, but considering they spend practically as much time not being enemies... hmmm.
I also really love thinking about mutant identity politics, even though 99.9999% of the time it's handled really stupidly in canon :P haha so true!
Sometimes it seems like they keep holding the story back from where it's supposed to go. Yeah. It frequently seems as if comic book editors are deathly afraid of changing the status quo :/ which i can understand from some PoV, but seems such a waste of storytelling on the other. It's very very true of X-Men where it's obvious that the way mainstream society thinks and tells narratives about anti-oppression fights has radically changed from waybackthen. So change is needed.
Good point about them being Foe Yay. Though really, in the original movies you could have them being canonically ex-SOs without it really changing anything to the story as such, yeah. And giving them a canonical romance in first class would barely make a different either (asides from acknowledging the amount of homophobia at the time) and make more sense story wise given their level of connection.
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a_white_rain
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I don't like the movies much.
What HP does great is sketch and summon to life characters even with a very short "screen" time.
I think for a story that tries to tackle themes of discrimination etc. it does so terribly
The world building especially is horrible. I wince every time I hear it praised.
But again, the atmosphere of it is sketched easily and convincingly.
And everything related to the Ministry of Magic was really brilliant.
Book 5 is my favourite. The chapter "Spinner's End" from Book 6 is my favourite chapter. (Overall I very much liked Book 6 actually).
I have a ridiculous love for the House of Black.
Snape is gay.
Also Jewish.
Everyone was in love with Sirius Black. It is known.
Sirius was in love with James.
Andromeda was the oldest of the Black daughters damnit!
I still find the HP houses sort of useful to "sort" characters into based on the attitude they have to morality.
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I skipped most of the movies and yes, its characters tend to be really attractive.
I agree with most of your assessments, actually. Even the Sirius >>> James thing. I might be a hardcore Remus/Sirius shipper but Sirius felt really strongly for James.
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I think it's a little bit... overly long and overly systematic in its style; but overall I love Parker's style of writing, and I love her characterisation.
Not sure I have much more to say about it ^^;
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Ahahah, yes. Or, as I usually put it to people when I'm describing Parker, "You know how Martin's known for killing characters off? Parker's more on the side of leaving them all desperately wishing for death to release them from their agony."
She did publish a short story with something resembling a happy ending recently, though! (Well. Happy for Parker.) I was shocked. Perhaps it's the beginning of a new era.
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Due to the length it's been taken being released, it's already starting to show its age a litte. Fantasy has been a fast moving genre.
Most of the plotting is superb.
It's got some skanky race issues, and at best manages mixed result on gender.
I expect Tyrion to be the next Littlefinger
I expect Littlefinger to be killed by Lady Stoneheart.
I really fucking hope Sansa will slay Gregor in a castle of Snow.
I hope Jon Snow never leaves the Wall.
There are way too many people who get caught up into the trapping of medieval societies and buying into the logic of it.
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or
Supernatural
or
Glee
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There's also some huge problems with the way it tries to be a parody of itself one second, and to do itself straight the very next one. It just keeps shooting itself in the foot, it keeps destroying trust in the narrative.
And yet on occasion it was brilliant, and often funny.
I hated all the episodes with a focus on a specific musical artist.
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Also it had excellent storytelling.
And action scenes!
It was also impressive to see that the authors learned and improved in term of representation of female characters in the course of the series.
To steal a page from a_white_rain: it does not have the fandom it deserves.
Aang/Katara was boring :p
Ursa is badass. I'm especially impressed with her because what she did to save her son was not nice. She murdered a man (who was evil enough to order her child dead just to punish his son, but still).
I want to learn so much more about that world and its history.
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I loved learning that Toph was going to be a boy, and then they went "wait, we need more girls!"
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Despite the fact there are thousands of ways it can go wrong and offensive-like; I adore the whole premises of Mutants-as-metaphore-for-oppressed-minorities.
I've yet to read any story that would convince me that Xavier represents the "right side" of the discussion. Which doesn't really mean that Magneto is right (or anyone else for that matter); just that everything I've read so far has done a shitjob at showing me how he's supposed to be better than them or his dream more righteous.
The more I read stuff, the more it becomes apparent that the series has gone backward in terms of being progressive and diverse in terms of characters and stories. Say what you will about Claremont, at least he was great at including female and minority characters.
On that line, it cracks me up that, like, 75% of the LGBT characters in the marvel universe are mutants. (ttly not a coincidence!)
I liked the uniforms from Morrison's run. :p
Speaking of Morrison's run, I'm almost as pissed off and offended by his starting his run with the genocide of Genosha as I am by Planet X. Especially since he had absolutely not intention to deal with the aftermath and consequences of such a staggering mass slaughter.
Decimation was one of the most horrible idea to do to X-Men franchise. It's really stupid in terms of what it does to the thematics of X-Men and the consequences were not at all realistic. OTOH, I rather like the developments after that, with the relocation in San Fran & the creation of Utopia (even though in the context of the past of X-Men it's also a remarkably stupid idea).
Much as I liked First Class, I'm actually rather bored with most of the fanfics for it. I'm not entirely sure why. It did some things right, enough that I enjoyed watching it a lot, but it did enough things wrong that I'm not actually interested in exploring that universe, I guess. Kinda like the first movies better on that front (I don't consider it the same universe). Which is the shame since it contains the version of Xavier I like the most as of yet.
I'm with
W&tXM was a very good show. Shame it was discontinued.
Greg Land needs to be kept away from every x-men titles, for fuck's sake.
Marvel should really, really remember that it is one of the comic franchise that has historically appealed a lot to women.
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I also really love thinking about mutant identity politics, even though 99.9999% of the time it's handled really stupidly in canon :P
UGGGHH GENOSHA I KNOWWW. And Decimation. FFFffff. That kind of almost... offended me, in some weird personal way. Sometimes it seems like they keep holding the story back from where it's supposed to go.
And hmmm about Erik/Xavier. Good point. I guess I've always thought it belongs in the Foe Yay category, where things usually remain in subtext-land, but considering they spend practically as much time not being enemies... hmmm.
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haha so true!
Sometimes it seems like they keep holding the story back from where it's supposed to go.
Yeah. It frequently seems as if comic book editors are deathly afraid of changing the status quo :/ which i can understand from some PoV, but seems such a waste of storytelling on the other. It's very very true of X-Men where it's obvious that the way mainstream society thinks and tells narratives about anti-oppression fights has radically changed from waybackthen. So change is needed.
Good point about them being Foe Yay. Though really, in the original movies you could have them being canonically ex-SOs without it really changing anything to the story as such, yeah. And giving them a canonical romance in first class would barely make a different either (asides from acknowledging the amount of homophobia at the time) and make more sense story wise given their level of connection.