Mod Post! Off-Topic Tuesday

[icon_uk]

In the comments to these weekly posts (and only these posts), it's your chance to go as off topic as you like. Talk about non-comics stuff, thread derail, and just generally chat amongst yourselves.

The mire surrounding Brett Kavanaugh's likely appointment to the Supreme Court continues to get muddier and messier. A second woman has come forward with sexual assault allegations, and in the meantime POTUS 45 (and Angry Orange wannabe) managed to outdo even his own record for inappropriate tweeting (and in a week where he described Hurricane Florences as "one of the wettest we’ve ever had from the standpoint of water." that's really saying something), by publicly expressing disbelief about the first claim, using the "If it had been a big deal why didn't she report it earlier?" approach.

Even leaving aside the tastelessness and dubious legality of such a statement, it at the very least prompted a storm of replies from people explaining in painful, personal detail exactly why someone might not report a sexual assault. It makes for harrowing reading. (Kavanaugh also going on Fox News, with his wife, to protest his innocence is also a highly unusual move, suggesting desperation on someone's part). In a PURELY unrelated note, those in the US might want to make sure they are registered to vote in Novemeber's midterms.

Speaking of desperation, Brexit has been reaching new levels of ridiculousness. Theresa May presented her plans to the EU at Salzberg and, despite them having said that parts of it would be rejected for the last years or more, expressed her appalled outrage at their decision to do exactly what they've said they would do.

Meanwhile Labour are trying to cope with the fact that their vague musings about being both pro AND anti-Brexit, but more pro..-ish, in the right light, are facing calls at their national conference this week to actually back an option which would reverse Brexit. As someone put it, the Labour leadership makes a big deal about supporting the will of it's members, unless the members take a stand they don't like. It's all a bit of a mess, which is practically our national slogan at the moment.

I've watched a couple of episodes of  the anime "Dragon Pilot" (I think since Netflix saw I liked Dragon Prince, they thought "how different can they be?" Answer... a LOT). The plot appears to be "What if your dragon-type Pokemon was actually also a Transformer who has to swallow you in order to fly properly", and the main character, a young woman, is a bit like Shinji Ikari if he were prone to doing the healthy thing and occasionally letting rip and speaking up about all the crap that's building up around him because no one ever listens. Not sure I'm invested enough to watch much more, but it was worth a shot.

I DO thoroughly endorse the new Netflix series "Hilda", based on the series of graphic novels by Luke Pearson. A charming children's series, Hilda is a sensible, adventurous young girl who lives in a sort of alternate modern day Scandanavia where trolls and other creatures are just part of life and are usually fairly decent beings. We have beuraucratic elves, dragons with social anxiety, who are heavily into horticulutre, deer-fox as pets and and mountain trolls who don't always watch where they're going. I must see about posting some pages from this.

A new trailer for the Bumblebee movie dropped, and holy cow, they have the Gen 1 cast actually looking like the Gen 1 cast!!! Shockwave, Starscream and (joy of joys) Soundwave (Who is actually seen ejecting what looks to be Ravage!)

The trailer also arrived for "Stan and Ollie" starring John C Reilly and Steve Coogan, and looking at my favourite comedy double act of all time in their later years touring the UK and looking back on their careers. The performances look to be astonishing and I will judge this movie DAMN

Oh and Mary Poppins Returns has it's proper trailer too.

Comments

[lordultimus]

The final trailer for Fantastic Beasts 2 is out. It turns out Nagini was an Animagus all along. Claudia Kim is playing her, so sexy Asian snake villainesses are still a thing, so make of that what you will.

[cyberghostface]

Kind of bummed that's what the only Asian character turns out to be.

[lordultimus]

I do now want to see Bellatrix acting all catty towards a snake.

[locuatico]

okay. first Shelob, now Nagini. is WB trying to make all female animals they have rights to into sexy human ladies? what is Ne...wait a second...
*sounds of google*
HBO is doing a Watchmen mini-series... and Bubastis is female...... god have mercy on our souls.

[icon_uk]

Shelob has a sexy human form? That's.... not right.

Googles in case has missed some long forgotten chapter of The Silmarillion et al.... Ah, it was in a video game... that's STILL not right.

[shadur]

Yeah, ME: Shadow of War pretty much tossed out the entirety of Shelob's backstory in the Silmarillion in order to reinvent her as a sexy elf that's also a giant spider because Sauron was a massive asshole.

... The story is actually fairly interesting despite its sparsity and it's presented well, it just has absolutely zip-all in common with Shelob's canon past except for "giant spider hiding in caves in the outskirts of Mordor"

[icon_uk]

Apparently not an Animagus, but a Maldictus, which is a blood curse on a female lineage where every woman born of the cursed line has the ability to assume snake form, but will evenertually become a snake forever.

As they note in the link above, this may be what JKR has planned all along, but it does mean the only woman of Asian descent we've seen in the series (apart from Cho Chang) is a cursed snake who becomes the literal pet of a white man who was inspired by Nazi's. This is... problematic.

[cyberghostface]

I really doubt she had 90% of this stuff planned. Chris Carter tried something similar with the last season of the X-Files, saying he knew all along the big plot twist with Mulder and Scully's baby when he clearly pulled it out of his ass at the last minute.

[arilou_skiff]

Yes, because in real life asians never teamed up with nazis!

Mod Note!

[icon_uk]

I seriously hope I don't need to point out to you how inappropriate a comment that was?

[ericadawn16]

The Patil sisters?

[deh_tommy]

Why? Is there a stereotype about Asian people and snakes?

[icon_uk]

Aside from the "sinous, oriental Dragon Lady" trope you mean?

And in this case the fact it's a snake is almost seconadry. The problematic aspect is having not just any woman, but a woman of Asian ethnicity (of which the movie series has had vanishingly few), be portrayed as a cursed victim who ends up being treated like the dehumanised pet of a Nazi analogue should be self-evidently a problem.

[deh_tommy]

I see where you're coming from now, even if I don't entirely agree. Sorry for not understanding or knowing sooner.

[silverhammerman]

I really do hate what they're doing to the legacy of Harry Potter at this point, but I must admit to be highly amused at just how stupid everything they're doing is. I mean between the utterly abominable The Cursed Child and Fantastic Beasts it's like a concerted effort to do this worst things possible with the world.

[janegray]

I thought the first Fantastic Beasts movie was excellent. I really loved it.

But the second one is definitely raising some red flags...

[locuatico]

I think JKR lost A LOT of good will with the whole............ how do I say it nicely?... her deciding to handwave away the whole "racism" thingy by claiming that Wizards did not have racism or something along those lines.

[janegray]

Sorry, but I could never understand how JKR stating that bigotry in the HP universe is focused on issues of blood "purity" and species (centaurs, elves, giants, etc) rather than skin colour, is any different than what virtually every other fantasy writer has always done.

Tolkien had the Elves VS Dwarves VS Orcs thing, zero mention of racism against black people or asian people or other poc. Pratchett had "white & black lived in harmony and ganged up on green." That has always been the norm in 99% of fantasy.

I heard the argument that JKR should be bound to the rules of the real world, where racism based on skin colour is most definitely a thing, because HP is supposed to take place in the real world. But the Wizarding World is massively segregated from the muggles, to the point that any wizard (even a child) who accidentally uses a spell in front of a muggle risks being sent to a prison that for all intents and purposes is a torture cellar, and any muggle who sees it is subjected to memory erasing spells that are known to cause brain damage. To the point that Arthur Weasley, who is widely despised by his society for his extensive and detailed knowledge of muggle society by their standards, still doesn't know how a phone works. The Wizarding World only takes place in the real world insofar as it's physically set over British soil, but its culture has zero interactions with muggles. Why, then, is Fandom furious that JKR stated that the two different cultures harbor different types of bigotry?

[deh_tommy]

I guess? Different cultures have different prejudices, though. Historically in the United Kingdom, people couldn't care less if you were black or white, what mattered was if you were Catholic or Protestant.

Is Mass Effect problematic for suggesting Humanity's prejudices towards themselves are largely gone? Should the X-Men franchise be criticised because there's no arguments between Mutants on which of them is superior to the other because of the usefulness of their powers? Is Zootopia bad because discrimination happens exclusively between species and not shown from subspecies (I.E., the difference between Western and Eastern Lowland Gorillas) or countries of origin?

[icon_uk]

Those who I know who've been to see The Cursed Child have thoroughly enjoyed it as a theatrical experience (and no, I don't think it was to make themselves feel better about the price). Not sure the scriptbook experience is quite the same.

I might be only hearing from people who enjoyed it mind you.

[lordultimus]

As someone who prefers the books to the movies, it sounds pretty similar in that the overall "mood" it creates fits with the universe even if the characterization and plot don't.

[locuatico]

I did like "Fantastic Beasts" and thought it had some interesting ideas. But it fell to the same blockbuster trappings that, to me, ruined the last few Harry Potter movies. IE, having big explosions and showy special effects when... you know... THE WIZARDING WORLD IS SUPPOSED TO REMAIN HIDDEN.

[janegray]

But that was the whole point. The Wizarding World is supposed to remain hidden. The villain's evil plan is to start a war by forcibly outing the Wizarding World with flashy showy explosive disasters that are so flashy and showy that they can't be covered up.

[locuatico]

it's not a matter of wether it made sense for them to do so or not. it is a matter that Suspension of disbelief of how long the masquerade is kept only going so far.

[tripodeca113]

Oh.
That's actually whats happening.
She's a snake, she's not important. I never asked about her origins and backstory.