Ok so this came up in one of my uni classes: Jorge Luis Borges once trolled a bunch of ppl by claiming that an ancient Chinese text classified all animals into 14 arbitrary categories. Which one are you?
(edit) apologies but I had to combine a couple similar ones bc tumblr only allows up to 12 poll options)
Which one are you?
those belonging to the Emperor
embalmed ones
trained ones
suckling pigs
mermaids (or sirens)
fabled ones
stray dogs
those included in this classification/et cetera
those that tremble as if they were mad
innumerable ones/those that from afar look like flies
It's 1989 and you're a brainy, misfit, hopeless romantic teenage girl. Boys at school are sexually harrassing you, but you've got the school's queen bee protecting you.
One day, you meet a mysterious, brooding boy. But when he witnesses you having a traumatizing fight with a woman who threatens to ostracize you, he kills her right there, and you think it's an accident.
Suddenly, your life is a lot better. You bond with the boy. He avenges your sexual assault by killing the boy who hurt you. You're in a Bonnie and Clyde romance and are trying to cover up multiple deaths.
okay so as someone who read the books in 2014 when i was barely the same age as alek and deryn, this adaptation has had me hyped since the day it was announced. this story had such a chokehold on me during some fundamental years of my development, and it influenced not only the person i grew up to be but also the reader that i am.
considering the rich worldbuilding and visual nature of the story (looking at you, keith thompson illustrations), an animated adaptation was the perfect choice. it by far excels anything that live action could have accomplished (despite my attempt at a fan movie in 2015, which was so horrendous that my friends still roast me about it to this day). now, ten years later, as someone with a degree in literature (and a thesis in adaptation) who is now completing a master's in film analysis, let's get into my thoughts on the show (SPOILERS AHEAD):
firstly, i'd like to say that i really enjoyed it. what a dream come true to see something you love being appreciated in a new space and developing new fans (despite netflix's shoddy job at marketing it).
something which i had failed to realize going in was that the change in medium from novel to show would mean that one of the story's greatest strengths would be lost: the rich interiority afforded to our protagonists. to me, a large part of the novels' charm was seeing the world through deryn and alek's eyes and experiencing the unique ways in which they interact with the world and people around them. especially as the books go on and the protagonists develop emotionally complex relationships with their own identities and with their feelings for one another, much of the angst, pining, and dramatic irony reaches its peak whereas in the anime it falls overboard (metaphor pun intended). this, of course, would happen in any screen adaptation and is no fault of the anime. it just made me appreciate the books so much more.
now, to go into my specific positives and criticisms for the show. we'll start with the positives:
-the art and animation is phenomenal, and absolutely does the world justice. i was always so entranced when watching.
-i loved how they incorporated music as a through line for alek's emotions, expanding on the 'young mozart' comment from the very beginning. having him and sharp know the same song but in different dialects was not only a beautiful way to connect their characters but was also a great metaphor for the theme of world peace!
-unpopular opinion, but i loved the voice acting in the dub. while i have my gripes with giving the austrian characters american accents while maintaining all the other characters' national accents, i found that the casting was done brilliantly. i was especially a fan of broghane jessamine's performance as sharp (it felt so reminiscent of rayla in the dragon prince, which is a parallel i've already spoken about in other posts).
-lilit was perfect. her queer insinuations at alek were so enjoyable. her kiss with sharp was animated with a brilliant homage to the book illustrations.
-when sharp emerged in the striped suit and slicked back hair in new york??? i gasped. now THAT'S the sharp i was crushing on when i was fourteen. THAT'S the swagger and charisma inherent to the character. and when she jumped out the window bond-style to rescue alek from the kidnappers, i swooned. that's MY SHARP.
-it's a sound adaptation overall. many of the structural changes made plenty of sense to me considering the constraints, and their ability to condense the story (even if it lost some great moments) so successfully into 12 episodes was masterful.
as for my critiques:
-i see why they had to change bovril from being perspicacious to being a calculator, but i really missed my scrunkly little shit and his out-of-pocket remarks. we lost a lot of charm from this.
-i loved dr barlow's design and characterization EXCEPT for having her reveal that she clocked sharp immediately. it felt a little... gender essentialist? her speech about relating to sharp's struggle as a trailblazer for women was great! i just wish it came from a place of having only now discovered her secret, instead of one that felt like it was preaching with a 'biological women are women' undertone. (that's me reading extra into it tbf, as someone who champions the genderqueer readings of the books and was hoping for a substantial re-evaluation of sharp's identity)
-we got queerbaited about sharp's identity. the marketing (despite there being so little of it) heavily implied a postmodern approach to sharp and gender which took into account the leaps and bounds that the queer community has made since the book's publication. but nope.
-having sharp clutching her chest and getting overly flustered repeatedly wasn't all that funny to me. it again came across as diminishing her cool nature and clever tricks used to pass as a boy. similarly, having the entire crew of the leviathan discover her identity and punish her with *cleaning* was unnecessary to the plot and felt super regressive.
-count volger would NOT fucking do that. as much as i enjoyed seeing a new take on the third act in other scenes, making him go so intense with his monarchist beliefs that he puts alek in danger and threatens his life was both character assassination and just plain nonsensical. they could have done literally anything else with those characters during that time while maintaining their values. also, having alek forgive him and actually beg for his "wisdom" after all that was really strange.
-no topside storm kiss!!! although i loved the scene in the bay which replaced it, the kiss still could have been there. the confused pining and gender fuckery still could have been there.
-introducing the papal edict as a one-off line which immediately propels alek into a "rightful heir" persona instead of his more bookly insecure misfit arc was also weird. it felt like he just conceded to volger's antiquated ideas about monarchy and bloodlines (though he did at least express that he didn't want to be out-of-touch with his subjects like other rulers). i wanted to see that scroll thrown overboard!!! SHARP IS WORTH THROWING AWAY A KINGDOM FOR! instead, he just... sadly separates from her and boards a boat to be king. this change had no structural need to be made. the entire rest of the series could have gone exactly how it did and the ending run time could have been the same with the original plot, but they opted against it for some reason. it felt like it went against the central messaging of the story and it killed the chemistry between our leads.
ALL THAT BEING SAID, i still enjoyed the show and i'm still thankful it exists. however, it works far better when consumed in tandem with the books, rather than as its own art, as much of the nuances and messaging which hold the plot together and make the characters so lovable are only to be found in the novels.
I know I've already compared Rayllum to Wirt x Beatrice, but if you're looking for another ship in the same genre as Rayllum, I've gotta recommend Deryn x Alek in the Leviathan books (and upcoming Netflix show!)
-Dark-haired boy who is a prince of his kingdom despite being unable to inherit the throne due to lacking proper noble ancestry. He's studious but grew up in comfort, orphaned at the beginning of the story
-Blonde girl with a Scottish accent who is an excellent warrior despite her snarky attitude, also lost members of her family (both through death and estrangement) and this sometimes interferes with her expectations as a soldier
-The world that they live in is vastly different from our own and abides by different natural laws (namely, a lot of fantasy creatures)
-Start the series on opposite sides of a multi-nation war but are brought together due to a rogue mission and a shared goal (involving crossing the world to save the life of an egg/a large flying creature). Their alliance is a symbol within the story for the potential for peace
-Bicker but become fast friends, which develops into mutual confused pining and a difficulty confessing
-And while not the same, this evokes a similar dynamic: while Rayla and Beatrice are both girls who are in some way inhuman/magical, and this creates the interspecies tension, Deryn spends almost the entire story disguised as a boy and keeping the secret from everyone (including Alek). Cue tension surrounding secret identities and also queerness (in a presumably homophobic time period)
-Animated show using experimental techniques
This concludes my PSA. Everyone should go read the Leviathan books and watch the show when it drops!
