I literally forgor 💀 You can read my whole 15,000-word Obra Dinn-ssertion about Pope's use of the virtual dead body as text, as a game, and a Gothic medium in Return of the Obra Dinn on muh website. WOE. cadaver nerd essay be upon ye.
Thinking about how Glinda never really hated that hat. She actually really loved it. It was dear to her. Her granny made it for her and probably played pretend with her, making Glinda’s dreams of becoming a sorceress come true. Glinda was just embarrassed when Pfannee and Shen Shen found it, so she pretended to hate it.
Maybe when she said she didn’t hate anyone that much to give it away, she really meant she didn’t love anyone that much— she didn’t trust anyone to understand how she could love a hat so hideous.
Maybe she knew Elphaba would understand. Maybe she knew Elphaba would take care of it.
And maybe Elphaba proved her right. And now, Glinda gets to admire as the most fearless person she has ever met cherishes her hat as dearly as she did.
I’m thinking about Wicked tonight, specifically why Elphaba ends up with Fiyero instead of Glinda in the musical despite Elphaba and Glinda having the more well-rounded relationship.
You could chalk it up to the writers wanting a heteronormative ending (and I’m certain that’s part of it) or the fact that Elphaba and Fiyero had a love affair in the book. But I think there’s a bit more nuance to it.
The whole point of Glinda’s character is that she upholds the status quo of Oz. No matter how much she loves Elphaba or sympathizes with the plight of the Animals, she will always align herself with the current system and those in power. And as long as that remains the case, a relationship between her and Elphaba is futile because Elphaba will not give up her cause.
Elphaba and Glinda represent to different ends of a spectrum. Elphaba resists the oppressive forces in Oz, while Glinda upholds them. But Fiyero is somewhere in the middle. He starts out privileged and carefree like Glinda, but quickly turns to Elphaba’s side. He does become Captain of the Guard, but only to find Elphaba and help her evade arrest.
And therein lies the difference between Glinda and Fiyero as love interests to Elphaba. Glinda would never sacrifice her title as “the Good Witch” and all her power granted from the Wizard, even if it meant helping Elphaba. Fiyero, on the other hand, does give up his privilege, his title, and even his human form for Elphaba. Glinda clings to what the status quo gives her, while Fiyero ultimately rejects it.
Yes, the writing around Elphaba and Fiyero’s romance is a bit rushed and doesn’t have the same gradual development that Elphaba and Glinda have. And yes, I have no doubt heteronormativity played a role in giving Elphaba a male love interest in the end. But I see a lot of people write off Fiyero and his relationship with Elphaba and I just don’t agree.
Why does Elphaba end up with Fiyero instead of Glinda? Because Fiyero makes the sacrifices that Glinda wasn’t willing to.
Glinda to Dorothy: Yup, if you want to travel to the Emerald City you have to follow this road and only this road for like 70 miles in heels. Everyone does it like that don’t worry about it
#this made me cry INSTANTLY#I think you’ve unlocked sans’ actual theme#sans wouldn’t want megalovania to be is theme. he’s a dork. megalovania is the theme he’s forced into when the world is being torn apart (via @theladyem)
Agnes wants to be rich again, Jack wants to stay in the house with the people he considers his family. Here’s how a marriage between the two of them would solve all their problems— *gunshot sound*
Hear me out — what if she adult-adopted Jack, and then he became her new favourite son, much to Oscar’s chagrin? A riff on the Anyong / Buster dynamic with Lucille from Arrested Development.
Create characters with strength of virtue, not strength of skills.
I just finished A Tale of Two Cities with the character Lucie Manette, who "does" nothing but love the people around her and extend compassion toward everyone within her sphere of influence. She makes no "choices" that contemporary audiences would award the stupid badge of "giving her agency" to.
She doesn't make a speech that saves Charles Darnay's life. She doesn't lead the victims of the French Revolution into a counter-revolt. She doesn't fight off the soldiers that come to take her husband, or beat up Madame Defarge when she threatens her child, or even come up with the escape plan to flee Paris.
She makes none of those kinds of choices. (You know who does? Madame Defarge. But the compare-contrast between those two can wait till another day.)
But she makes these kinds of choices:
She'll give her honest testimony in a trial for a potential traitor to the crown, and demonstrate her compassion and grief for a near-stranger, wearing that vulnerability on her sleeve in front of a huge court of people clamoring for blood.
She'll be compassionate toward Sydney Carton, even though he's rude, careless, and brings a bad attitude into her happy home.
She'll spend the energy of her life making that home happy.
She'll stand for two hours in any weather on the bloody streets of the French Revolution so her husband might have a chance of glimpsing her and getting some comfort from the prison window.
She'll trust the older men in her life when they ask her to.
She'll allow an old woman to care for her and go everywhere she goes, and treat her like a child, as long as it makes the old woman in question happy.
And what, WHAT is the consequence of these kinds of decisions, choices, that some ignorant people call "passive?"
That old woman is allowed to love Lucie Manette so much that she defeats the villainess in the climax of the story, holding Madame Defarge back from getting revenge with sheer strength that comes directly from that love.
Her father is allowed to draw strength from the fact that Lucie believes she can depend on him--because she chooses to let her father take the lead and do the work of saving her husband, Dr. Manette is fully "recalled to life;" he doesn't have to identify as a traumatized, mentally unstable victim anymore, because Lucie is treating him like he can be the hero.
Her husband does see her in the street, and does draw strength from that--just that--instead of losing his mind the way her father, starved for a glimpse of his loved ones, did during his own imprisonment.
Lucie's home is so full of the love and kindness that she fills it with that not only does her father return to remembering who he is after his long imprisonment--but Mr. Lorry, a bachelor with no family, can feel at home with a full life, there. Miss Pross, whose family abandoned and bankrupt her, has a home with a full life, there. Charles Darnay, whose life of riches and pleasure as a Marquis was empty, has a home with a full life, there. In Lucie's home, because she spends her life making it the kind of home others can find rest in.
Sydney Carton, a man whose whole life has been characterized by a LACK of "care" for himself or anyone else, suddenly cares about Lucie. When he thought it was impossible to. And he doesn't care about her because she's pretty. Her beauty was just a source of bitterness for him--one more pleasure he could've had but can't. Until he "saw her with her father," and saw her strength of virtue, of pity, of compassion, of self-sacrificial love--then he felt that she "kindled me, a heap of ashes, into fire." He started caring about life again, where it was associated with her, because she brought to life every good thing. Just by being a woman of good virtue. And we know what that inspiration led him to.
Without Lucie's strength of virtue, and the decisions that naturally came from that, none of the "active" choices other characters made would have happened. Sydney would not have been redeemed. Darnay would not have been saved. Her father never would've been recalled to life. Miss Pross and Mr. Lorry would've had no light or love in their lives. Even Jerry would've had no occasion to learn from his mistakes and resolve to stop abusing his family.
A character like Dickens' Golden Thread, who does what a woman should do, inspires the choices other characters make. That makes her more powerful, in her own way, than the heroes and any decisions they make. Because she's the cause. She's the inspiration. She's the representation of everything good, right, precious, worth fighting for.
Lucie Manette's not the only character like this. Cinderella. The original Disney Jasmine. The original Disney Ariel. Lady Galadriel. Jane Eyre. Amy March.
"Behind every great man is a great woman," indeed! Absolutely! Bravo!
Hang on! Hang on to those kinds of characters. Those a real "strong female" characters. The muses, the inspirations, the reminders of The Greater Good. The people who make fighting the dragons worth it at all. Who cares about fighting the dragon? That's not so great, without her.
Don't forget those kinds of characters! Reading Dickens just makes me desperate for our generation to keep up the reminder: make characters that the next ten generations can learn from: strength of virtue is much more important than silly little strength of skill.
This is beautiful, not just because of the lyrics, harmonies and relatable message, but also because Cinderella (Brandy), One of the Hercules Muses (Roz Ryan) , and Mama Odie (Jenifer Lewis) are singing it. Like we have been blessed.
This was the final episode of The Great North I worked on. I had such a great time, and I love how the episodes turned out. Loving my time at Wonder Wharf, but I'll always remember the good times in Lone Moose.
snowghoul
romaincrisis
turnnoffyourmind
vaporwave
annaxmalina
andulkaphoto
