Julien Davinos appreciation post: unironically I love this guy. Doesn't fall into any of the solipsistic shallow sadboy bs and explicitly does not want endless pity, would probably bite someone if they offered him pity. He's caught up in his grief and he has the worst case of tunnel vision in this side of Araman but our boy is a boots on the ground pragmatist who lands on his feet after the worst day of his life and keeps fucking going spurred on by a simultaneous death wish and stubborn will to win. He doesn't want sympathy he wants purpose and is possessed of a frankly terrifying tenacity when turned to it. He doesnt flinch from a challenge greater than himself and he'd do it again. He can be sobered into responsibility. He is not above being respectful and he can hear hard truths (except that one, the Thjazi Fang one) surprisingly easily, he's bull-headed to a fault but sees literally everything as tactics and tactics are adaptable. Simultaneously daddy's little boy and daddy's shame. The narrative is haunting him but he can scramble back up bloodied after his own hand choked him half to death you guys it's fine. Has a protective streak as relentless as his mean streak. He calls himself a weapon of war and he's not wrong, he defers information to people who know better than him and he is not afraid to accept this fact. He wants to be able to trust his companions because he wants to trust the hand that weilds him now that Aranessa is away from him. He's the prince of fuck castle (everyone loves him at fuck castle) and as pretty as he is lethal besides.
He cannot carry the body of his father and his friends and his lovers and he never got a funeral. Violence is a language he is most eloquent in so revenge comforts him but revenge is also the only closure he will ever get now. He could not carry their bodies so he watches the body of Frons Tachonis hit the ground and it is the feeling of a wake. He drinks to remember and he drinks to forget and he loves deeply even if he doesn't always love well. Booed and living man. #mybooedandlivingman.
"they should teach media literacy in schools" english class "they should teach students how to spot misinformation" it's english class "they should teach kids critical thinking" it's called english class
Y'all, the complaining and finger-wagging about everything Aabria does when she has the temerity to not give the precious little white boys the gravity some of y'all think their every skinned knee deserves is getting ridiculous.
Like, let's put aside whether or not what Matt or Alex or Brennan want to do with their characters and story are even in line with your idea of them (I can almost guarantee you they're not). These are grown adult men. They're clocking in at 43, 37, and 38 respectively. They are working professionals. They have known and worked with Aabria for over half a decade at this point at least. If they have a problem with her, they can and will talk to her about it, and if they don't, it's on them for not being able to handle a disagreement like adults.
This is the exact same thing we had to hold people's hands and explain to them throughout the entirety of Campaign 1. People complained up and down about everything Keyleth did because it was "taking away" from the moments men were supposedly having and insisted that Travis or Sam should heroically save the show from her. You are doing 2016 era misogyny, Now With Organic Grass-fed Antiblackness. Cut it out.
No but like, this is the thing about Sam carrying Frodo and the ring up the mountain. It's a cool scene in the movie, but they don't explain what's happening at all. The ring at this point is so heavy Frodo can't even lift his head. It's like essentially a cinder-block he has to carry around his neck. And finally he gives up and Sam offers to carry him and:
DO YOU GUYS GET IT? THE RING IS A BURDEN, BUT FRODO ISN'T. FRODO DOESN'T WEIGH ANYTHING TO SAM. SAM CAN LIFT HIM EASILY!!!! HE'S NOT A BURDEN AT ALL I —
the thing is. as we discuss wizards vs. sorcerers. it is not impossible to see Primus Tachonis as this world's Ludinus: guy who is furious that the gods were killed, who prizes effortlessness and heredity and uses the position into which he was born, and who is surrounded by a large and obedient family, but who shares the villainous qualities at the core: a desire to reshape cosmology with no concern for the lives of others just to get what he feels is his due, and an ironclad sense of superiority. And both of them end up having to pretty much immediately debase themselves and violate those principles. Ludinus "magic is something to be mastered by intellect" Da'leth finds himself utterly reliant on Ruidusborn sorcerers, who do even less for their powers than do clerics; and Primus "effortlessness" Tachonis is, as stated, running around collecting materials and experimenting like some kind of Penteveral academic. And, for the audience of both, it is pretty clear that that's fucking stupid.
Something something sam winchester slowly having to abandon his life, friends, and romantic interests for the jealous, enmeshed, dangerously codependent brotherhood situation that is so fucking alienated from normal society that nobody can be let in or out without leaving scars. where the brothers' every move is a devotional act towards the apple pie americana lifestyle they can never again reenter.
Okay, since it seems to be in the fandom zeitgeist right now, let's talk about Tolkien, allegory, and Campaign 4.
Tolkien has a somewhat famous quote about his dislike of allegorical storytelling, which Brennan paraphrases in the first Tale Gate - and basically says, "hey, Tolkien, are you saying your work wasn't inspired by the times in which you lived?"
Here's the full quote:
"I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history – true or feigned– with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author."
So, Tolkien here is making a distinction between two concepts we usually lump under allegory today: elements of a story that readers interpret in parallel to their real lives, which he calls applicability, and true allegory, which lies in the "purposed domination of the author."
Essentially, Tolkien used allegory to describe stories which allow only one possible interpretation of themselves, that impose a specific message and perspective on the reader. George Orwell's Animal Farm is a classic and helpfully unsubtle example: Napoleon the pig is Literally And Unavoidably Stalin, and engaging with the work means engaging with that allegory.
Applicability, by contrast, "resides in the freedom of the reader". An applicable text comments on the past, present, and possible future(s), and allows readers to draw their own diverse conclusions. Lord of the Rings is applicable to Tolkien's experiences as a WWI vet, but you can be a veteran of a different war and still see something of yourself in Frodo's story. And you can also engage with the story completely straightforwardly at face value, or interpret it in any number of other directions. Tolkien would later describe the work as "not an allegory of Atomic power, but of Power." A story with applicability discusses broad, universal experiences and themes, and does not impose a lens through which to view those themes on the reader.
Which brings us back to Campaign 4. Under this definition, very little of C4, at least what we've seen so far, is allegorical, but it is an extremely applicable story:
The Sundered Houses are not Literally The Modern Billionaire Class - they can be interpreted that way, but they represent unjust power structures as a concept, not any particular kind of unjust power structure, and are also literally exiled noble houses.
Wick and Thaisha's relationships with their respective faiths are applicable to any number of religions and religious experiences - Sam describes Wick as having "Catholic-Mormon-Jewish Guilt", and Thaisha's struggle to reconcile her genuine belief in the Old Path's tenants with her actions at the Palazzo Davinos can reflect almost any faith.
Thimble, as a faerie, is part of a diaspora, and her relationship to other faeries can draw on the shared history of many cultures.
I've seen people apply Occtis' experiences with his newly undead body and relationship to his family along the lines of disability/chronic illness, but also gender identity.
Events like Thjazi's execution, the Falconer's Rebellion, and the closing of the Doors to Faerie can be compared to a number of real world historical events, but do not specifically represent any of them.
It's possible this will change as the campaign continues. Brennan has many strengths as a creative but I would not describe "subtlety of theme" as one of them. But I do think the story would be worse off for it. If Primus Tachonis devolves into Literally Peter Thiel, then what aspects of his character and villainy does the viewer have left to engage with?
Wild how we've all had a couple of centuries to chew on it, and Wuthering Heights is still so freaky that people routinely just cannot wrap their minds around it. It's a novel about a romantic relationship -- so it's a romance? It's absolutely not! Although it's entirely about Cathy and Heathcliff, they're in large part absent from the novel, so are they the protagonists? Sorta! Actually they're kind of the inciting incident, and the book is about the impact crater these two fucked up people leave behind after they do whatever it is they're doing, which is kind of conducting a forbidden love affair, but also something different from that? Whatever you think it's about, you're right, but also wrong. It's Weirder Than That. People are obsessed with the book but also it doesn't really exist in the way that most people remember it. This has been going on since 1847, and by "this" I mean audiences failing to match Miss Emily B's freak. The words Unparalleled Media Experience come to mind.
Scientist on the ship: listen you laugh at the regulations but one time a woman DID try to tale a penguin home with her. I swear. She got it on the ship and was keeping it in her bathroom.
Me: that's WILD. These bathrooms aren't up to spec for penguins even overnight
Scientist: ...how would you know that
Me, realizing I'm about to get to tell my story about managing a hotel when there was an emergency stopover for penguin transport and we were the only place in the area with bathrooms that would work for the night:
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