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Jan. 19th, 2006 11:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spokeI? Am very very tired. However, I have too much coffee in me, and am too annoyed by my failure to reach the zoo, to sleep just yet. Managed to get myself a tiny bit lost trying to find the Starbucks at which I wanted to sit and write some, but I found myself again! And because I was cheered up by that success, I decided I could find my way to the zoo without the aid of directions.
Which I happened not to have in the car, anyway.
Anybody else see the gaping huge pothole flaw in this plan? Because Iwouldn't didn't. :P
But now I am home. Still moody and aggravated, but with some tiny success in the writing department, and hopes for more tonight, considering I figured my way around a literary road block. While trying to figure my way around that, I realized something about the differances between Malory and White. I remember reading somewhere, I believe on lj but it might have been during an im... the relavant thing is this: Read the works of a genius, and you will learn how thier mind works. Read the works of, say - J.K. Rowling, and you will learn something about the way people's minds work, in general.
because I would rant about rude people except I'm finally sleepy
White would be the genius, if by genius one means literarily transparent, and Malory would be Rowling. >.> And I like White, I do, but - an excerpt from a mini-biography found here : Constance White, on the other hand, inspired thoughtful loathing in her son for his entire life. Possessive, vain and self-absorbed, she stifled him until, he said, he could no longer stand women. She insisted that he love her most, in every way, and he despised her for it.
I could've told you that already, except that I am not so good at analysis (yet). All I knew was, there was something bothering me about the women in The Once and Future King. Then I read the Book of Merlyn, in which some of this is also mentioned, and well. Duh! Then with the 'omg! That's why - and Morgause is, like, his mother - and damn!' XD
On further reflection, though - they're not so bad. And the thing is, there are two entirely positive examples of the female gender in there, those being Maid Marian (yes, White stuck Robin Hood into King Arthur - but to be fair, the historical precedents are that everything gets stuck into King Arthur. The Grail-Quest wasn't even part of it at first, but when people started to want more and more and more! King Arthur stories, things started getting... shall we be polite and say compiled? Yes let's!) and Lyo-lyok the Goose. And I am dead serious about the goose, because White was dead serious about his animals. In fact, they are a little too human, like idealized humans who happen to be animals - but that's probably another discussion.
So, you've got Marian and Lyo-lyok on the positive end of the scale, Morgause in the 'I hate women!!' end of it, and Elaine... ...given the choice between being Morgause or Elaine I would pick Morgause. Elaine has the personality of boiled cabbage. >:/
Then there's Queen Guenever. She was probably doomed from the start, all things considered. But, to borrow a phrase from Bujold? "He was trying so hard it hurt to watch." And some of my favorite lines revolve around Gwen, when I would guess he's trying to see past his own issues and deal with her fairly, and it's just... there's this description of throwaway characters, of how some characters can just be filed neatly under good and evil - to say that the Queen was not like that, because she was a real person and could be many things. "It is difficult to write about real people." And again, at a point where Lancelot is coming home to his 'Jenny', it goes off into this comparison of the range of activities available to men versus women of the time. And the way he describes her, it finally ends coming off with this feeling of someone trapped in a cage, she keeps getting associated with hawking and the like. "We must imagine the Queen, then, as a woman who had been robbed of her chief attributes."
From Malory? I have been picking up such interesting things as that it didn't matter if somebody was a bastard - so long as Daddy was found, turned out to be famous to some degree, and you behaved yourself. Everyone not having these exceptions... eh. >.> Oh! And all the good women have knights to defend them, whereas the bad ones spend all thier time decieving knights or thier husbands or trying to kill them - and all intelligent women are witches of some degree or another. Or nuns. >.> Except the ones like Morgan le Fay, who was sent to school in a nunnery, where we are told she learned witchcraft.
There is nothing I can say to this concept that is not inherently blasphemous! XD It's just, so - wrong!
Though they do seem to have had a concept of a 'good' witch? Good = not ambitious. Nimue, who uses her arts to trap Merlin in a cave where he was going to show her something marvelous - and otherwise, to enspell a knight into loving her. But the lady she took this knight from, she didn't love him anyway and was being astoundingly stuck up - and really I could just go in circles about the hypocrasies involved in Nimue and Merlin and this lady and the knight Pellas. Basically she doesn't want Merlin and he won't leave her alone, so she takes matters into her own hands. Then the lady I can't remember the name of, and Pellas, are in the same situation, on Pellas is being very very properly knightly about it. He's not pushing himself on her, he just. Won't. Go. Away. *tiny snarl*
So what does Nimue do? Takes it upon herself to punish the lady by casting a spell that makes her fall in love with him, only to make him fall in love with herself. So the lady dies of heartbreak and Pellas goes off with Nimue, and they all live happily ever after. O.o Ohh- and this thing were in one sentance you hear about someone (so far Merlin, then Nimue) casting a spell - and in the next sentance the spell-caster themself claims God did it. And I'm serious, that's exactly how it sounds -
Someone else in the scene: *marvels at these wonders what have just happened*
Person actually responsible: << >> God did it!
And I swear it sounds like someone not wanting to be burned at the stake or something and yet I laugh every time I see this. It just sounds so - immature. Especially coming from Merlin, who was being given freaking carte blanche! Nobody cared how he did what he did so long as it worked, but still - God did it! Not me, you didn't see me do it you can't prove anything!
And speaking of Merlin - I am so not impressed. I thought White's Merlin annoyed me, ranty little English professor-type person that he is. But Malory's? ...okay, when I think Merlin, I am accustomed to thinking of this wise, Ben Kenobi/Dumbledore type. Someone with some dignity, darnit! ...omg so not Malory's Merlin. Who is, like, always running to and fro and pulling shape-shifting tricks for really no apparent reason - it seems to be just because he can. :P And the man is a tagger! Seriously. The first gold words written on somebody's tomb, predicting future events, oookay. And it was a nice touch for the chairs at the Round Table. But by the third or fourth time he shows up to freaking graffiti somebody's tomb, I was looking forward to Nimue sealing him in a cave! *head.desk. repeat until the sealing of Merlin. send thank you gift to Nimue*
Once it doesn't even say it was Merlin, but who the heck else goes around writing gold predictions on people's tombs?! And the elaborate set-up for the battle between Lancelot and Gawaine, that he was only going on about and laughing. *thwaps!!!*
And really I am moody and silently ranty, and I'm aware that this Merlin is much more a Trickster than anything else, but I'm enjoying ranting about him. So nyah. 8-)
But Morgan le Fay rocks. This is a woman with some ambition! And the brains and nerve to go about it. Arranging plots to kill Arthur, whoo-hoo! First plan fails, no problem - she goes to him and tries to do it herself! >:) Except he was sleeping with the sword in his hand, such that she couldn't kill him without getting killed herself. So she takes the scabbard, which as Merlin only tried to beat into Athur's head, is the more important piece, and really it shouldn't be that hard to grasp: a sword. It cuts things. There are many many many of them, however cool Excaliber in particular might be.
As opposed to a magical scabbard that prevents blood loss. No matter how deep the wound, so long as you're wearing it. And there's only the one.
How dense can Arthur be?!Augh!!!
Dense enough that after her first two attempts to kill him fail, and he gives chase, and she turns herself and those with her into stone - he doesn't think 'Hmmm, I am chasing a sorceress. Perhaps she did some magic, here.' Oh no. He assumes that God has punished her, and is sad on her behalf even though she was a traitor. >:P Dense enough that after he gets a message from her about, that is in essence:
'Dear brother,
You've been had. Sucker!
No love,
Morgan le Fay'
She later sends him a lovely red cloak and he was going to put it on. If Nimue hadn't been there, and had an interest in protecting Arthur because his interests are Pellas' - he would've worn the thing and been duly burned to a crisp. Gah the stupidity!!! XD
The interest of fairness rears its head to put out that this is not so much stupidity as it is an utter lack of guile, something not uncommon to any version of Arthur, but still!! Okay, swallow everything that has to do with Lancelot and Gwenievere, but not! From the woman! Who wants you dead, you idiot!!!
And I have a feeling there was something else I was going to rant about - something about the world would be better if we all still rode horses, not because of the pollution, etc issues to deal with cars? But because riding a horse involves learning to communicate with an animal (one hopes) and I've seen a lot of people who could do with better communication skills. Also it annoys me when totally citified, never seen a live animal except other people's pets, type-persons try to talk about animals not having feelings, or any intellgience. Like an animal is a machine with fur on, or something. But I seem to have lost all my intelligent thoughts on the subject. About now, all I really want is to lock some annoying person in a room with some variety of very ticked off animal, and watch the fun. I think I'm about ready to crash now.
This ends today's nonsensical rambling! *beeeep*
Which I happened not to have in the car, anyway.
Anybody else see the gaping huge pothole flaw in this plan? Because I
But now I am home. Still moody and aggravated, but with some tiny success in the writing department, and hopes for more tonight, considering I figured my way around a literary road block. While trying to figure my way around that, I realized something about the differances between Malory and White. I remember reading somewhere, I believe on lj but it might have been during an im... the relavant thing is this: Read the works of a genius, and you will learn how thier mind works. Read the works of, say - J.K. Rowling, and you will learn something about the way people's minds work, in general.
because I would rant about rude people except I'm finally sleepy
White would be the genius, if by genius one means literarily transparent, and Malory would be Rowling. >.> And I like White, I do, but - an excerpt from a mini-biography found here : Constance White, on the other hand, inspired thoughtful loathing in her son for his entire life. Possessive, vain and self-absorbed, she stifled him until, he said, he could no longer stand women. She insisted that he love her most, in every way, and he despised her for it.
I could've told you that already, except that I am not so good at analysis (yet). All I knew was, there was something bothering me about the women in The Once and Future King. Then I read the Book of Merlyn, in which some of this is also mentioned, and well. Duh! Then with the 'omg! That's why - and Morgause is, like, his mother - and damn!' XD
On further reflection, though - they're not so bad. And the thing is, there are two entirely positive examples of the female gender in there, those being Maid Marian (yes, White stuck Robin Hood into King Arthur - but to be fair, the historical precedents are that everything gets stuck into King Arthur. The Grail-Quest wasn't even part of it at first, but when people started to want more and more and more! King Arthur stories, things started getting... shall we be polite and say compiled? Yes let's!) and Lyo-lyok the Goose. And I am dead serious about the goose, because White was dead serious about his animals. In fact, they are a little too human, like idealized humans who happen to be animals - but that's probably another discussion.
So, you've got Marian and Lyo-lyok on the positive end of the scale, Morgause in the 'I hate women!!' end of it, and Elaine... ...given the choice between being Morgause or Elaine I would pick Morgause. Elaine has the personality of boiled cabbage. >:/
Then there's Queen Guenever. She was probably doomed from the start, all things considered. But, to borrow a phrase from Bujold? "He was trying so hard it hurt to watch." And some of my favorite lines revolve around Gwen, when I would guess he's trying to see past his own issues and deal with her fairly, and it's just... there's this description of throwaway characters, of how some characters can just be filed neatly under good and evil - to say that the Queen was not like that, because she was a real person and could be many things. "It is difficult to write about real people." And again, at a point where Lancelot is coming home to his 'Jenny', it goes off into this comparison of the range of activities available to men versus women of the time. And the way he describes her, it finally ends coming off with this feeling of someone trapped in a cage, she keeps getting associated with hawking and the like. "We must imagine the Queen, then, as a woman who had been robbed of her chief attributes."
From Malory? I have been picking up such interesting things as that it didn't matter if somebody was a bastard - so long as Daddy was found, turned out to be famous to some degree, and you behaved yourself. Everyone not having these exceptions... eh. >.> Oh! And all the good women have knights to defend them, whereas the bad ones spend all thier time decieving knights or thier husbands or trying to kill them - and all intelligent women are witches of some degree or another. Or nuns. >.> Except the ones like Morgan le Fay, who was sent to school in a nunnery, where we are told she learned witchcraft.
There is nothing I can say to this concept that is not inherently blasphemous! XD It's just, so - wrong!
Though they do seem to have had a concept of a 'good' witch? Good = not ambitious. Nimue, who uses her arts to trap Merlin in a cave where he was going to show her something marvelous - and otherwise, to enspell a knight into loving her. But the lady she took this knight from, she didn't love him anyway and was being astoundingly stuck up - and really I could just go in circles about the hypocrasies involved in Nimue and Merlin and this lady and the knight Pellas. Basically she doesn't want Merlin and he won't leave her alone, so she takes matters into her own hands. Then the lady I can't remember the name of, and Pellas, are in the same situation, on Pellas is being very very properly knightly about it. He's not pushing himself on her, he just. Won't. Go. Away. *tiny snarl*
So what does Nimue do? Takes it upon herself to punish the lady by casting a spell that makes her fall in love with him, only to make him fall in love with herself. So the lady dies of heartbreak and Pellas goes off with Nimue, and they all live happily ever after. O.o Ohh- and this thing were in one sentance you hear about someone (so far Merlin, then Nimue) casting a spell - and in the next sentance the spell-caster themself claims God did it. And I'm serious, that's exactly how it sounds -
Someone else in the scene: *marvels at these wonders what have just happened*
Person actually responsible: << >> God did it!
And I swear it sounds like someone not wanting to be burned at the stake or something and yet I laugh every time I see this. It just sounds so - immature. Especially coming from Merlin, who was being given freaking carte blanche! Nobody cared how he did what he did so long as it worked, but still - God did it! Not me, you didn't see me do it you can't prove anything!
And speaking of Merlin - I am so not impressed. I thought White's Merlin annoyed me, ranty little English professor-type person that he is. But Malory's? ...okay, when I think Merlin, I am accustomed to thinking of this wise, Ben Kenobi/Dumbledore type. Someone with some dignity, darnit! ...omg so not Malory's Merlin. Who is, like, always running to and fro and pulling shape-shifting tricks for really no apparent reason - it seems to be just because he can. :P And the man is a tagger! Seriously. The first gold words written on somebody's tomb, predicting future events, oookay. And it was a nice touch for the chairs at the Round Table. But by the third or fourth time he shows up to freaking graffiti somebody's tomb, I was looking forward to Nimue sealing him in a cave! *head.desk. repeat until the sealing of Merlin. send thank you gift to Nimue*
Once it doesn't even say it was Merlin, but who the heck else goes around writing gold predictions on people's tombs?! And the elaborate set-up for the battle between Lancelot and Gawaine, that he was only going on about and laughing. *thwaps!!!*
And really I am moody and silently ranty, and I'm aware that this Merlin is much more a Trickster than anything else, but I'm enjoying ranting about him. So nyah. 8-)
But Morgan le Fay rocks. This is a woman with some ambition! And the brains and nerve to go about it. Arranging plots to kill Arthur, whoo-hoo! First plan fails, no problem - she goes to him and tries to do it herself! >:) Except he was sleeping with the sword in his hand, such that she couldn't kill him without getting killed herself. So she takes the scabbard, which as Merlin only tried to beat into Athur's head, is the more important piece, and really it shouldn't be that hard to grasp: a sword. It cuts things. There are many many many of them, however cool Excaliber in particular might be.
As opposed to a magical scabbard that prevents blood loss. No matter how deep the wound, so long as you're wearing it. And there's only the one.
How dense can Arthur be?!Augh!!!
Dense enough that after her first two attempts to kill him fail, and he gives chase, and she turns herself and those with her into stone - he doesn't think 'Hmmm, I am chasing a sorceress. Perhaps she did some magic, here.' Oh no. He assumes that God has punished her, and is sad on her behalf even though she was a traitor. >:P Dense enough that after he gets a message from her about, that is in essence:
'Dear brother,
You've been had. Sucker!
No love,
Morgan le Fay'
She later sends him a lovely red cloak and he was going to put it on. If Nimue hadn't been there, and had an interest in protecting Arthur because his interests are Pellas' - he would've worn the thing and been duly burned to a crisp. Gah the stupidity!!! XD
The interest of fairness rears its head to put out that this is not so much stupidity as it is an utter lack of guile, something not uncommon to any version of Arthur, but still!! Okay, swallow everything that has to do with Lancelot and Gwenievere, but not! From the woman! Who wants you dead, you idiot!!!
And I have a feeling there was something else I was going to rant about - something about the world would be better if we all still rode horses, not because of the pollution, etc issues to deal with cars? But because riding a horse involves learning to communicate with an animal (one hopes) and I've seen a lot of people who could do with better communication skills. Also it annoys me when totally citified, never seen a live animal except other people's pets, type-persons try to talk about animals not having feelings, or any intellgience. Like an animal is a machine with fur on, or something. But I seem to have lost all my intelligent thoughts on the subject. About now, all I really want is to lock some annoying person in a room with some variety of very ticked off animal, and watch the fun. I think I'm about ready to crash now.
This ends today's nonsensical rambling! *beeeep*
