So, I took it upon myself to write the comics post this week. Probably not the best idea, but we must evolve if we are to persist.
Melissa published us an awesome Ant Man post yesterday. It got comments. Obviously I couldn’t ask her for another post the very next day. Melissa’s time and attention are too valuable for me to do that.
David offered to put something together early in the day yesterday, but I decided it was time for me to just say “I’ve got it,” and do a goshdarn Wednesday post myself. Because David and Holly have la Geek Baby to mind, and they also have an awesome blog that needs to keep publishing.
Diana, just so you know, is reading a lot of comics lately. She has ideas and stuff. But she’s in the process of re-designing her blog and we all know how trying that is.
Luther, OMG. Has offered to do sci-fi comics posts for the asking here, given adequate notice. But he’s busy busy busy right now. I’ll not dare ask a man for a sci-fi comics post when he’s just discovered hardwood flooring that isn’t up to code in his domicile. (Is “domicile” not one of the coolest words ever?)
Of course we’ll have more Ms. Marvel from Hannah — I probably need to go ahead and give Ms. Marvel a category if I haven’t already.
Anyhoo, we’re having a #DramaticSummer, and while I was supposed to be writing this post last night, I was getting up to some mischief on the other social media instead. Have a tweet.
Here is what we are left with. Today I tell you where I am with the comics. And I give you a list of five comics things I could write by the end of the year, if you are interested. No matter how you feel about all this, if you are still reading, you’re stuck with me today. I’m your substitute teacher.
I’m also the ringmaster of this particular circus. That means: It’s not my role to do the trapeze act nor tame the tigers. It’s my job to keep a few of you interested until the high-wire walkers are ready to take the stage again.
Hi, everybody! I’m excited to be back on Sourcerer and I have something new and exciting to talk about! Cartoons!
Okay.
I know, I always talk about cartoons here. Just go with it.
I started posting about children’s media last year with an enormous discussion of the Disney Princess franchise. That post was supposed to be a one-off, but it turned out to be my most popular article. The conversations it inspired are what made me realize how strongly I feel about children’s media as something that should be valued and taken seriously.
I never really had a chance to respond to every comment the way I wanted to. Silly Rabbit started as a bunch of comment responses. The tone is a little bit different from my He-Man and She-Ra series, but I think anyone who enjoyed that series will like this one.
I like cartoons. I like them so much I’m going to spend the next several weeks sharing about why I think more adults should watch them and responding to comments about them. If you’ve been on my blog at all, which I hope you have by now, you’ll know how opinionated I can be, and I can never resist the urge to blog about animation.
I want to greet Peter Capaldi’s Thirteenth Doctor (yes, he’s Thirteen, not Twelve) with an open mind. And I think I can, because I have no special attachment to Matt Smith’s Twelfth Doctor. I am afraid of the new Doctor Who because of the writing; while I hope Capaldi brings a new and interesting take on the Doctor,I have little hope that the writers know or understand what they’re doing.
Many articles point out thedecline in quality since Steven Moffatt took over Doctor Who, and lay blame accordingly. I do not agree. People, especially fans, like when there is a single point of failure – just look at how many cried out against Ben Affleck as the new Batman. Moffatt may be part of the problem, but a television show has too many moving parts to lay the blame on any one thing.
The writers do bear the brunt of blame, however. They wrote the show, after all. And while there are not so many terrible episodes, there are few genuinely great ones. Most are mediocre. I examined the writers of series 1-7 and found something interesting: there’s little difference between the two groups. Moffatt and Davies share 6 writers between their eras, not counting Moffatt himself. Davies and Moffatt each wrote about half of their own episodes. And both have close to the same number of two-part stories and single, one-shot episodes. Analyzing the writing from a meta view does not explain the quality of the stories.
Are the writers responsible then? Maybe it really is Moffatt’s fault. He okayed even the bad episodes after all; and he wrote much more after taking over the show. Under Davies he wrote some great episodes, like “Blink” and “The Girl in the Fireplace.” “Blink” establishes the weirdness of a time loop, while “The Girl in the Fireplace” hands a heavy defeat to the Eleventh Doctor (David Tennant… yes, we have to get used to this. Blame Moffat and John Hurt). Compare “Fireplace” and Madame de Pompadour (Sophia Myles) with Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) and series 5-7. Both characters are women who wait their entire lives for the Doctor. Madame de Pompadour dies waiting for him, but Amy Pond is rewarded by traveling with him longer than any other companion.
I think this indicates a shift in attitude. The Tenth (Christopher Eccleston) and Eleventh Doctors were both serious, and their stories often involved heavy lessons and moral defeats. Series 5-7 and the Twelfth Doctor are much more lighthearted, but the subject matter is not. The Silence, the series villains, kidnap and brainwash Melody Pond into an assassin. The Doctor kills and doesn’t look back. In “The Day of the Doctor,” the Moment describes the Doctor as “The man who regrets [Eleven] and the man who forgets [Twelve].”
This attitude toward Twelve as “the man who forgets” might explain why sayings like “Rule one: the Doctor lies” came to be. It absolves both the characters and the writers from ever really explaining themselves. By not offering explanations, bizarre events like Holy Roman Emperor Winston Churchill in The Wedding of River Song can exist just to be cool. A fine line exists between style and fanservice, however, as “The Day of the Doctor”shows. All the Doctors gather together, to reverse the Doctor’s greatest failure. Of course, that failure never really existed because, if it had, the Silence would not have tried to kill the Doctor. Because the Silence try to kill Twelve before he saves Gallifrey, we know that he never actually destroyed it.
Using “timey-wimey” is just a symptom of the attitude the writers of Doctor Who hold. Steven Moffatt has said in interviews that a time-travel show doesn’t need an established continuity. But as we see from the confusing explanation I just gave of the consequences of “The Day of the Doctor,” and the overall quality of series 5-7, this attitude drags the show down. It allows the fanboy side of each writer to run wild; fanservice becomes normal instead of occasional. “The Day of the Doctor” is pure fanservice from beginning to end; therefore, it’s boring. The Doctor’s victory is never in doubt, and the audience goes along with it, because it is just so cool to see thirteen TARDISes (plural?) flying together.
I think that’s what needs to change. I wrote earlier drafts in which I pointed out everything the show did wrong during series 6 and 7. The drafts were several thousand words long. But each came back to the same thing: the attitudes of the writers, the showrunner, and the audience. We’re not innocent: the series 8 premier got thehighest ratings since 2010. As long as style triumphs over substance, as long as “are bowties cool?” remains the most morally complex question the Doctor and his companions have to answer, the show remains mediocre.
This is something Tolkien fans won’t want to miss. I’ve never thought about Mordor’s military organization in this kind of detail, but the textual evidence James provides here is impressive, and the whole thing is fascinating. (Not much time for blogging today, but hey, it’s almost Spring Break!)
As has been said before, Sauron’s main force consisted of orcs, with separate divisions controlled by captains. Nevertheless, it must be noted that there might have beenpreferences within the army itself – in fact, some hints are given to us throughout The Lord of the Rings.
2.2.1 Orcs of the Red Eye and the Morgul Orcs
It seems quite clear that there is a distinction between Orcs serving under Sauron (the Red Eye) and those in the service of Minas Morgul. Once again, the basis for this argument comes from The Return of the King, in the chapter ‘The Tower of Cirith Ungol’. After the fighting in the tower, a dialogue ensues between Shagrat and another orc, Snaga –
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