Corri's Musings

NaNoWriMo Crisis Time!

corrielle@yahoo.com — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:41:16 GMT

So, I have broken one of my cardinal rules for surviving National Novel Writing Month, and today, I'm paying for it. The rule I broke was, "NEVER write a story you care about for NaNo." As some of you know, I had decided to write a sequel to my BigBangHood story during November. I thought that writing fanfic would be easier. I thought that I had momentum that would help me through the month. But this isn't just any fanfic I'm trying to tackle. This is a continuation of a fic that's one of my favorite things I've written EVER. And I care. I care A LOT. I've got 5,000 words or so of it already, but I hate most of them, and I can't write with the calloused, "I don't care, this is just a first draft" attitude that is required for surviving NaNo with one's soul intact and 50,000 words on the page.

So, the way I see it, my options are as follows:

1. Continue to write my fic with the intention of hitting 50,000 words and hope that there's something salvageable at the end of November and that I don't throw up my hands and decide I don't care enough to edit because I'm so burnt out.

2. Say, "forget getting 50,000 words, I'm going to use NaNo to encourage me to write every day, and I'm going to try to write a quality story. Even if it's less than 50,000 words, at least I won't hate everything all the time while I'm writing."

3. Put Guy and Marian on the shelf for a month, come up with a completely original idea for NaNo and try to make up for lost time starting tomorrow. Then, when I'm done with November, I'll be so happy to see the Robin Hood gang again that writing them will be a breeze.

What should I do, f-list? I clearly shouldn't be making decisions for myself right now.

A Request for Artists and Some Birthday Wishes

corrielle@yahoo.com — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 04:31:04 GMT

First of all...

Happy Birthday scifichicx!

I hope your birthday was a good one. I can't think of anyone who deserves it more.

Second, as I'm sure most people know, I'm participating in a Robin Hood fic challenge right now, and we're looking for some artists who want to do art for the stories that have already been submitted. I think that some of the people who had originally volunteered have dropped off the map. So, we find ourselves in need of at least four artists who are interested in participating. I know I have some pretty talented folks on my flist, so I thought I'd spread the word. If you're a Robin Hood fan, have some artistic talent, and want to do something fun and cool for the fandom, check out the artists' sign up post here and the revised due dates here. What do you get out of this, I hear you ask? Well, you get a banner for taking part in the challenge, you get to read one of the stories before everyone else does, and you get to do something nice for an author who has put a lot of work into her story. (I think I'm safe in using "her" here...)

And finally... Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh The Gathering Storm came out today and I don't have it yet because I ordered it on Amazon yesterday because it had a really good pre-order price and I don't know what to do with myself. *ahem* Sorry. This is the first time since I was in London that I haven't had a new WoT book on the day it came out, and it's making me twitchy. I'm not even done rereading Knife of Dreams yet, so it's not really that big of a deal. Except it is!!!! There are people out there READING IT right now, and I'M NOT! And considering the amount of grading I have left to do tonight, that's probably a good thing.

I'm a teacher. I HAD to learn something from this.

corrielle@yahoo.com — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:15:44 GMT

With a great deal of pacing and some serious marathon typing sessions, I finished my fic draft on Sunday. (I think I started typing around 10 AM and finished around 6 PM.) I had taken Saturday off to go to the annual pirate faire that’s within driving distance of my house, and Friday night we had some guests over (which was a whole load of fun…), so I didn’t get to work on it then. So… Sunday was it. I think I wrote upwards of 3,000 words that day, and when I was done I ran around the house telling everyone who would listen to me that I had finished, and then I promptly went to do anything other than stare at a computer screen for a while before I got down to grading the twenty essays I still had lying around that needed to be looked at before 7:30 Monday morning.

I know I have some work to do on my draft, but on the whole I’m very happy. I’ve learned (or been reminded of) quite a bit about myself as a writer as I’ve gone through this process. And because I internalize by writing, here’s my list. (I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging here… I’m just astonished that any of this worked at all, and I’m trying to figure out exactly what I did for the future.)

1. I. Need. Deadlines.
When I stop to think about it, most of the long fics I’ve ever written have had some sort of deadline to them, whether external or self-imposed (I was leaving for school or there was a holiday theme that set a date the fic needed to be finished by). The only one that didn’t took me more than two years to complete. With a deadline, though, I ended up going from 4 or 5 thousand words at the beginning of September to just under 40,000 by the time my draft was done. And that’s not NaNo “I can’t believe I’m actually calling this writing” stuff either… I like most of my scenes. A lot. Freed from the pressure to make everything perfect and given a concrete deadline, I can produce quality and quantity.

2. I need a plan.
I will never be one of those people who is able to write without an outline. When I sat down to start writing, I planned out six or seven sections that I thought the story was going to have, and I added to the outline as the story progressed and the specifics I couldn’t have predicted at the beginning started to become clear. However, sitting down and being able to say, “Today, I’m going to write the scene where….” was key. I didn’t have to ask myself, “What now?” I already knew, and a lot of times I had been planning out said scene in my head a couple of days beforehand. Also, I discovered that any time spent planning out the specifics of complicated actions scenes that involve a lot of people is definitely not time wasted. It makes it so much easier to figure out who is where when and not have people in two places at one time.

3. Feeling like I’ve accomplished other things frees me to write.
I have been incredibly busy this month with grading and school, and yet I have still somehow managed to bang out my draft. I think that writing has actually made me more on top of things because each day when I came home from school, I would think to myself, “Ok, what do I need to get done so that I can survive tomorrow and the rest of the week before I turn off my teaching-brain and turn on my writing-brain?” Then, I would get that stuff done, and because I wanted so badly to get to writing that I got it done quickly. And then, when I began to write, I knew that there was nothing (for a few hours, at least) that was going to get in the way of the creative flow.

4. Being in contact with source material is key when writing fic.
I honestly think that doing the Season 1 re-watch is the reason that character voices and traits were in my head when I needed them. From Djaq’s distinctive cadence to the way Marian sounds when she’s annoyed to the way Guy phrases things when he’s being patronizing… it was fun to play with, and watching canon kept me from straying to far from the basics of characters’ personalities even as I altered events radically.

5. Writing begets more writing.
Once I got rolling, the story kind of… wrote itself. Plot points I wasn’t sure how to connect dovetailed without my realizing it, things that obviously needed to happen worked their way into the story even when they weren’t in the outline, and characters acted and spoke out of what seemed like their own free will. This doesn’t mean it was always easy… I agonized over many sections, especially anything where feelings were involved. Using Guy as my third person limited viewpoint character made writing anything that had to do with emotions like pulling teeth because he either wouldn’t talk or think about them, or they would be this gnarled mess that did not sound anything resembling coherent. But even with those scenes… I told myself that I didn’t have a choice. I had to power through them to get to the next scene, and then the next, and somehow, I always did, and a lot of times, there was something in the hard scene that showed me a new facet of what I was going to write next.

6. I need feedback, but not too much feedback.
I will admit it. I love getting comments on my fic. A lot. However, it has been noted by others far smarter that I that all of those comments an author can get from short fic are a form of instant gratification. If I can get it on a short fic, why bother writing a longer one? So… as I wrote, I made Rae read my latest work. Sometimes I was excited to be sharing it. Sometimes I just needed her to tell me it didn’t completely suck. (She never did, though she let me know when things weren’t working.) A lot of times, she gave me the push in the right direction that I needed. At a very early stage, she made several suggestions that significantly improved major parts of the plot and made Guy a lot more sympathetic, and I don’t think the story would be half as good without her. However, I don’t think it would have gotten written if I’d shared it with too many other people. Then, I would have gotten the comments without finishing the work. I needed to finish the work first.

I can't wait to read what everyone else on the challenge came up with, and to see the artwork! I've never participated in something this BIG before, and the idea of having such an influx of long work into the fandom makes me ridiculously happy.

BigBangHood Writing Update

corrielle@yahoo.com — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 05:55:20 GMT

Just... passed... 23,000.... words. *collapses*

That means that I have 7,000 words to write if I want to have a complete draft in by the 26th. I can do that, right? RIGHT? (In all actuality, I think I can do that... and if I don't quite hit the word count or have to turn in a detailed chapter outline for the last section, I don't think anyone involved is going to kill me.)

I... can't believe I've gotten this far. In the last few days, I've learned about medieval arrow extraction techniques, herbs native to England that stop bleeding, and the length of an arrow shot from an English longbow. More research than the writers of the show probably ever did, but I'm having such fun learning these things... I'll be going over the whole thing with a fine-toothed comb once the draft is done, but on the whole, I'm pretty happy with what I have. People seem to be reasonably in character, and I'm having fun working with a very different set of relationships than the ones in canon. I don't think I've written this long of a fanfic since 2005 when I finished my Peter Pan fic and my Patriot fic. (Is it any coincidence that my next spate of writing long fic features around another gorgeous, dark-haired baddie? I don't think so.) Apparently, I just needed an extra push to get off my rear and write.

In short... I. Love. This. Challenge. Massive kudos to jedi_of_urth for organizing it.

Writing Robin Hood fic: my anti-drug

corrielle@yahoo.com — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 03:06:32 GMT

I am coming down off a major writer's high right now.

I spent a good chunk of this afternoon writing a very pivotal scene in my bigbanghood fic, and by the time I was done, I had so much adrenaline running through my veins, I could feel my heartbeat in my toes, and I felt like I could run a four minute mile if I needed to. I was in the middle of the scene, wondering why my body's "fight or flight" response was kicking in, and I suddenly realized that I was having my viewpoint character's reactions. (Yes, it's Guy... not a surprise, there, but pretend for me like it is?) It was weird. When I was finished, I had to go outside and do something for a while to burn off all of the excess energy, so I watered all of the plants and then made myself sit down and eat some leftovers slowly enough that I could actually taste them. (I fixed honey Dijon pork chops and cauliflower last night... not as complicated as it sounds. My meat recipe went something like this: "combine bottle of Lawry's marinade + defrosted meat + skillet + fire." Still, it was delicious.)

I haven't felt this excited about a writing project for a long while. I've been writing regularly for a few days, and I've managed between 1,000 and 2,000 words a day since Wednesday, and it's on now. I'm actually getting to the point where I look forward to sitting down each day at the computer because I can't wait to pick up where I left off, rather than putting it off because I'm dreading the prospect of having to produce all of those tiresome words. I'm still behind where I wish I was in terms of word count, but with a little bit of luck, I'll be able to continue to tap into the reserver of self-discipline I seem to have stumbled into and actually have a draft of my story completely finished by the time our first drafts are due.

In other news...

My classes are going well. They're all huge, and there are a couple of kids in one of my classes who think they're too good to be there, but unfortunately, (for them and for me) they're not. They're also guys who think that because I'm a young-ish, fairly soft-spoken female who is painfully nice and understanding most of the time that I won't reign down fire on them for goofing off in my class. They're wrong, and if they don't shape up, they're about to find that out. The majority of my students, though, seem to be nice people who want to improve.

Rae and I went on a mini Labor Day vacation that took us up the coast a ways. We spent a lot of time at a place called Moonstone Beach near Cambria, and we drove up to San Simeon so I could take Rae to Hearst Castle for the first time. I have a lot of pictures that I'll post soon. It was a nice break, and exactly what I needed before school got crazy.

Book #14 – Mistborn and Book #15 – Well of Ascension

corrielle@yahoo.com — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 21:29:38 GMT

These are the first two books in the Mistborn trilogy. I'm trying to read all three of them before The Gathering Storm comes out so that I can get a sense of how Sanderson handles long, multi-novel plot arcs. My feelings on the matter so far? Guarded optimism with several niggling caveats.

14. Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson

First of all, I have to hand it to the author for creating a system of magic that is, as far as I know, completely unique in this history of doorstop-fantasy novels. The primary type of magic in the Mistborn novels is something called "Allomancy," which is the power to use different trace metals in the body to do different things. Tin, for instance, heightens the senses, and pewter makes the person using it supernaturally strong, quick, and indestructible. The power is limited by how much of a metal is in an Allomancer's system at any given time, and using the ability associated with a metal burns through it, so Allomancers have to swallow flakes of different metals to keep their supply at a high enough level. It's a fascinating system, and as far as I can tell, he keeps to the rules he has established throughout the books. (Except when there is a very good reason for the rules to be bent, but even then, the characters remark on it.)

The story was… solid. A small group of thieves and one slightly crazy visionary named Kelsier are attempting to topple a millennia-old, oppressive, stratified society with a demi-god at its head. And when I say oppressive, I mean that the Lord Ruler makes the Sheriff of Nottingham look like Santa Clause. (Please excuse me while I wipe that mental image from my brain…) Also, the world in general is just bleak. Ash falling from the sky keeps plants from being anything more than brown and sickly, and no one can remember the sky being blue. They all think it's a myth that it used to be any color other than gray. Anyway, along the way, our ragtag band find Vin, a girl who has the ability to use every kind of metal (a rare talent) and recruit her to the cause. Vin and Kelsier are probably the two characters who are best developed, though I like Sazed (Vin's tutor in… pretty much everything from how to act like a lady to how to read and write) quite a lot as well.

As he did in Elantris, Sanderson has a good grasp of how people work, and on the power of hope and a little bit of dignity. He's not preachy about it, but it comes through very strongly all the same. I'm also fascinated by his take on religion. There is no religion but the worship of the Lord Ruler, but Keepers like Sazed do their best to remember and record the old religions that disappeared when the Lord Ruler took power. Sazed seems to think that all of the faiths he has recorded have value and power, and that faith is something that people need rather than an expression of objective truth. By the end of the book, Kelsier has managed to martyr himself, posthumously get made head of his own religion, and caused a revolution that never would have been possible without the fervent belief that the population had in him. This… practical, but not overly supernatural view of faith seemed to be something that the rest of the story agreed with, until the end of Well of Ascension. It's going to be interesting to see how the world Sanderson has created handles a real, actual divinity coming onto the scene (if Ruin is a divinity at all, that is… the Lord Ruler certainly wasn’t). But I get ahead of myself.

15. The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson

It took me a little longer to read Well of Ascension than it did the first book in the series. Though it's about a hundred pages longer, I feel like… less happens than happened in Mistborn. I think that this book suffers from "second in a trilogy" syndrome. Things have to keep happening, the plot has to be moved forward, but there's not the excitement of discovering a new world or the tension that comes along with moving toward the climax of all three books. I also feel like certain things should have happened sooner. Elend (Vin's bookish sweetheart) losing the crown and coming into his own as a leader were well done, and I liked Tindwyl, the lady Keeper who lit a fire under him and got him to stand up and lead, immensely. But I felt like the standoff with the three armies and the council taking the throne away from Elend took up far too much of the book, and that Vin should have left for the Well of Ascension much sooner than she did. As it is, the last two hundred pages or so are packed, and quite exciting to read, and the five hundred before them are… slower. Not boring, just… slow. There was a lot of talking, a lot of trying to decipher exactly what the prophecies about the Well and the Hero of the Ages said, and a lot of "Oh no, there are lots of armies here… what are we going to do now?" I also couldn't help thinking that the side plot with Zane trying to win Vin away from Elend and poison his father was… unnecessary? I guess that Vin needs that "dark mirror" to show her what she could have become under different circumstances and to help her to choose Elend in the end when it's important, but… something was flat there, and I can't quite put my finger on it. On the other hand, the subplot about Vin's developing friendship and respect for OreSeur, the kandra that she employs even though she had a great deal of distaste for his kind, was really well done, and I was actually quite upset when his big secret was revealed and he had to leave her because he had broken the Contract.

The book ends with Vin knowing that she's released something not-very-nice into the world, and worrying about what's going to happen now. It also ends with the revelation that everything they thought they knew about the prophecies was a lie – a trick thousands of years in the making to get Vin to release the power to Whatever It Was that wanted it. And now, like all good fantasy heroes, they're going to deal with the consequences of their actions in the third installment that I'll pick up very soon.

To sum up: Sanderson is often very good at complicated relationships between people and races that don't understand each other very well. This bodes well for his foray into the WoT world. However, he has lots of scene with people standing around and talking and planning rather than actually doing. This worries me. The WoT series is already very talk-y. It doesn't need any more of that than it's already got. He also tends to give big events less focus than I think they deserve, and that worries me as well. But, to end on a positive note, he's really good about describing the workings of "magic," staying within the rules he establishes, and explaining new developments in a plausible way. That's key for anyone who's going to try to be writing about saidin and saidar for fans who have been meticulously paying attention to how they work for going on twenty years now (Eye of the World was published in 1990…). I'm hoping that Mr. Jordan's plotting and notes and the experience of having written a trilogy like this one already will alleviate some of the problems I've mentioned.

I don't want to make it sound like I didn't like these books... I liked them very much. I think I'm just getting to be a more critical reviewer in my old age. (Old age being just shy of thirty, in this case... though I feel much more crotchety than that.)

Two Episodes' worth of RH thoughts for the price of one! (1x04, 1x05)

corrielle@yahoo.com — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 18:36:57 GMT

Though I haven't gotten around to posting my comments in the rewatch threads for the last two episodes, I do have thoughts. Loud, occasionally-squee-filled, occasionally-angry thoughts.

So, here are my musings on "Parent Hood" and "Turk Flu."

1x04

Four episodes into the series, and we lose our first member of Robin's gang. I can't decide whether that was a good idea on the part of the writers because this was a good point in the series to show that the characters aren't immortal and immune to danger, or if it was just writing him off because they knew Djaq was going to show up in the next episode and managing too many characters and relationship dynamics is hard. Still, I found myself getting very sad as I watched this episode again. I feel sad for John's sake - he has lost so much in the way of family, and for him to lose Roy, who he thought of as a son... must have been tough. (Also, John's reaction to Roy's betrayal is exactly like his reaction to Allan both times John thinks Allan has betrayed them. Nice bit of consistency, there.) I'm fully on board with the idea that Robin had instructed his team to do the "name, rank, serial number" bit, and I'm impressed that Roy managed to keep it up for as long as he did. One of the things that I think makes Roy's death so poignant is that Roy is the one of them who has been changed the most obviously by Robin's "message" (at this point, at least...) He went from being a bit of a brawny thug in the second episode to really believing in Robin's cause. Enough to die for it. And I like that... I like that the writers show that what Robin and the gang are fighting for is important. And that it changes people.

There are a ton of brilliant Allan moments here... (every time he's on screen...) From the grin on his face as the horses thunder on their way to the trap Robin has set to the exhausted look on his face when he says, "Sleep!" at the end, he's just... awesome. There are some adorable Allan and Will friendship moments here, too. The scene where Will hands Allan the baby is so sweet... right until Allan demonstrates that no one should be handing him babies ever. Allan does seem really horrified by what might have happened to the kid, though... so it's not that he doesn't care about kids... he just has no idea what to do with them. Also, Allan and Will discussing the prison door was amazing. I love how it started out as a conversation with everyone and turns into a conversation between just the two of them. I have a thing for people named Will to know their hinges. (Will Turner, Will Scarlett... practical knowledge is sexy.) Also, the really muted satisfaction and humor in Will's voice when he says, "Robert of York can't make a hinge to save his life" is love.

I don't remember if I was in the fandom early enough to be around for the Allan/Annie shipping, but now that I've seen this episode again, I can see why people did it. The scene where Allan brings her the blanket is heartbreaking. It seems that he is really angry on her behalf, and he gets to beat Guy up pretty well there at the end! Though I'll probably ship Allan/Djaq from here to eternity, Allan/Annie has some interesting possibilities. I have no canon basis for this, but I think that a lot of Allan's sympathy for her comes from the fact that he knows what it's like to have nothing... to wait around at the edges hoping for some scrap from the upper classes and come away empty handed. (I have theories about Allan and his brother pulling cons where Allan plays the nobleman...) Anyway... I like that we get to see a side of Allan that can get angry on someone else's behalf instead of thinking about his own skin for once.

I really like Robin and Marian's scenes in this episode. I remember why I enjoyed their dynamic so much in this first season before they admitted that they still cared for each other. They were quick and pointed and acerbic, but there was this underlying romantic tension between them, too... The scene where Marian sews up his arm is quite good. The clipped way that Marian says, "This needle is thick and blunt... are you prepared?" is... fantastic. I love Lucy's delivery there. Also, I love that Marian points out that no one has had their tongues cut out because of her. Way to call Robin on his own bullshit, Marian! (And also, I think it's interesting that when Marian asks Robin if the baby is his, there is no condemnation or jealousy in her voice. She just... accepts that little Seth might be Robin's.)

Marian and the Sheriff's interactions here are really fun to watch... I can't think of another time when the Sheriff so obviously makes an issue of Marian's womanhood. Cutting her hair, intimating that there is something wrong with her because she isn't married and that is why she is so outspoken... it's fascinating, and very smart on the Sheriff's part. He manages to discredit her in front of a whole bunch of important people in that first council scene. When he has her hair cut at the end, though... I think that has two purposes. Obviously, it's meant to humiliate her, to make an example of her, but also, I think the Sheriff is already trying to keep her away from Guy. He doesn't want her morality rubbing off on his new right-hand-man (and I would argue that Guy is pretty new to the position... more on that later.)

And speaking of Guy... we never get to see much of his reaction to the child or Annie's accusations. All we know is that he looks uncomfortable in the scene where Annie asks him if Seth cried and that he doesn't take well to having a knife held to his throat. I am so curious about what actually went on between him and Annie... how much of her "softer side" speech is her making Guy into the man she wishes he was and how much of it was truth... and I'm sad we'll never know. I am completely happy to believe what seems to be a prevailing fannish theory: Guy told her Seth was going to the Abbey, but then paid someone to take Seth somewhere much less expensive. That person pocketed the money and left the baby in the forest. Guy is still a jerk for lying, but it's much less reprehensible than exposing the kid to the elements. I'm really kind of annoyed by the writers for doing this to him... it's out of character even for Guy, and as many people have pointed out, noblemen had bastard children all the time. It was no big deal, and sometimes they even came in handy when there was no legitimate son. *sigh* I write it off as the writers wanting to show how very eeeeeevil Guy was and failing a bit... especially in the light of the way RA plays some of the scenes in the next few episodes.

One last note... the commentary on this episode is amazing. I love Gordon Kennedy more and more with each cast commentary I listen to. And RA is amazing and droll and Lucy complaining about how the baby cried every time she picked him up and really quieted down for Jonas was quite funny. I don't think I have EVER loved a cast like I love the actors on this show. They are... funny and fantastic and pick on many of the things that fans have picked on. I have never heard any other cast do this, and I love them for it. They have a good laugh over the fake!baby in the fight scenes and the question of where the heck the flowers on Roy's grave came from. (My answer? Same place they got Robin's lily in the last episode... Somewhere near the "orphanage in Sherwood," there's a florist in the forest. *cue Court Jester routine*)

1x05

As I've rewatched this series with my house mates, I've become more and more convinced that the theory my beloved gaelic_bohemian had is right.  When Guy kills DeFortnoy in "Who Shot the Sheriff?" he suddenly becomes much closer to Vasey (and to power) than he ever has been before. He's still learning just how soulless the Sheriff is, and there are some very interesting moments of hesitation and surprise in this episode. First of all, when he kills the man at the mine in the first scene, he only does it after trying to convince him to go back to work AND after the following (paraphrased) exchange:

Guy: They say they would rather die than go back in the mine.
Vasey: You're giving them a choice?

With that prompt, Guy kills the mine worker. I know... "Guy's first impulse wasn't to kill the man..." isn't much of a defense, but I still think it's worth noting that I don't think Guy would have done what he did had the Sheriff not been so obviously expecting him to do it.  Also, at the archery competition, Guy is surprised that Vasey isn't going to give the arrow to the winner. He thought that the man he had chosen to win the competition would actually get to keep the arrow as a reward for his skill, and he seems uncomfortable with the idea of Vasey just taking it back from him. Guy has an... odd sense of fair play, here.

This episode is also home to one of the first really amazing Guy/Marian interactions of the season. I had... forgotten how very awkward he used to be around her. When he invites her to accompany him to the archery contest, he is SO uncomfortable, like a high school boy asking a girl to a dance for the first time. He can barely get the words out, and the way he rambles without every saying what it is he wants her to do... SO well done. However, this pseudo-high-school-boy also remembers that he has a lot of power and position that he thinks he can throw around and try to impress her, which he does at the worst possible times. Classic Guy. And... we have the first instance of Guy giving her gifts. I don't know what it was exactly that was in that box, but I think it was... more considerate that I would have expected of Guy that he would have thought to give her something to cover her hair. I know Marian's not ashamed of it, but many other woman would have been, and that Guy actually thought about that and wanted to do something specifically for her and not just give her something that could have been for any woman... yeah. I hadn't realized before how really in love with her he already was by this point. It wasn't just that he wanted a noble wife. I was convinced that by the time we see this episode, it was her he wanted. Guy knows that Marian and her father are not in favor with the Sheriff. In fact, this is the episode with the Sheriff's "leper" speech regarding women.  Guy knows that his courting her does nothing for him in terms of power or position. But he does it anyway. Again, "He'll be seen with Marian in public when he knows she's not on the Sheriff's good side!" isn't exactly a ringing endorsement, but I'm using the special Gisborne sliding scale of morality here. And on that, it ranks pretty high. I have... way too much baggage from later seasons right now to even talk rationally about any of the scenes where Guy hurts her when she's in disguise, so I'll just say that Guy and the NWM's first encounter is an interesting counterpart to the Guy/Marian interaction here.

And now... for the thing that I was waiting for as we approached this episode in the schedule... Djaq. I love her. She's quick and witty and resourceful and smart and gorgeous... And she's just about my favorite thing in any scene that she's in.

Throughout this entire episode, there is such fire in her eyes. I think that intensity is one of the things that makes her so compelling. You can see her watching, observing, calculating, trying to find ways to escape... and she almost does! I love that she absolutely does not trust the outlaws at first. And why should she? Still... I also like that she's willing to listen to Robin's plan, that she will extend tentative trust to this Englishman she's just met because he seems different than the ones who enslaved her. Also, she's quick to help them save John after they helped to free her. She didn't have to help them. She was free... she could have led her countrymen off into the woods and left Robin and his gang to save John themselves. But she doesn't.

One of the things I've always loved about Djaq is the sense of humor that Anjali infuses into so many of her lines. The conversation that she and Much have about renouncing God is priceless beyond words, and the fact that she continues the joke with the magnifying glass at the end... AMAZING. I always wondered why she stayed in England when all of the other men went home. I think there were several reasons for this. First, even though she still has friends in her homeland, her family is dead. Being somewhere far from home might make that easier. Second, I think she's genuinely curious about this brash, crazy group of guys who treat her with respect even if she is a Saracen. And... by the end, most of them know she's a girl, and she doesn't have to hide that fact from them.

Speaking of that Djaq's girl-ness... in the scene where Will finds out, is that a tattoo on Anjali's left shoulder? I've tried to pause it a million times, and it's always fuzzy. It looks like... some sort of dragonfly to me. She's got another one on her arm in 1x06, though it looks henna-ish. Still... some hasty online research confirmed my suspicions that Muslims have prohibitions against any sort of body modification. Or is that a more modern interpretation of scripture that wouldn't have been in force back in the Middle Ages? Or an interpretation supported by one sect and not another? I swear, if they did it to make her look more "exotic," I'm going to smack my forehead at the Otherness!fail and continue to think Djaq is made of win and awesome. Because she is.

I have to hand it to Allan. He is... really good at selling the "Turk Flu" con. He was ready with an explanation for why he was European and not Saracen, he really played up the sickness, and he didn't complain at all about being the one to get in the cage and pretend to be a prisoner. And what did he get for his trouble?  A really strange, trippy day after he swallowed whatever it was Djaq gave him. And he missed out on finding out she was a girl!! I had forgotten that!  As of the end of 1x06, he still doesn't know!  Poor Allan... all left out of the amazing secret that Djaq isn't just a very pretty boy. (Not that I think Allan would have felt weird about being attracted to "him..." I've always thought he was pretty flexible in that regard.)

Loooong day.

corrielle@yahoo.com — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 03:22:09 GMT

I was up at 5:30 this morning so that I could get to my class in Sylmar at 7:30. My morning class is huge, and the room I'm in is cramped, though there are enough desks for everyone. Sylmar was covered in smoke that had blown in from the fire, and it was hard for me to breathe, and I'm usually not terribly affected by things like that. It was bad.

I did my notes for my Tuesday class tomorrow and made sure that I was on top of things there... no sense in letting that fall behind just because it isn't my only class any more.

Yesterday, I had a fun chat with a whole bunch of other lovely RH writers... but I put off working for my syllabus this morning and tore my hair out over it until far too late at night.

I set myself a goal of writing 1,000 words for my RH fic today, and after several hours of writing, I did it! It was a tough section... especially since I happen to care about historical accuracy and I was doing lightning-speed-research and fact checking as I went. The next chapter is a lot of action, so hopefully that will go more quickly.

Things I found out:

Does it snow in Nottingham? Yes!

Would a well-off woman in the late 1190's have a Book of Hours? No, but she might have had a Psalter.

How many t's in the RH2006 version of Will Scarlet(t)? Two.

What color are Will/Harry Lloyd's eyes? I don't know! I pulled up several different groups of screen shots, and they are either grey, blue, green, hazel, or brown depending on what he's wearing and the lighting. Pick an eye color, Will! In frustration, I rearranged my description so eye color isn't mentioned any more.

An update before school gets crazy

corrielle@yahoo.com — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 22:24:02 GMT

My class at Ventura started a week ago, and my classes at Mission start a week from tomorrow. So, before I plunge into the land of "Teaching Three Classes" again, here's what's been up with me lately:

First the "real" stuff...

- Went to my parents' house for the first time since I told them about me and Rae. It was remarkably calm (perhaps "remarkably" is the wrong word here... my parents are always calm), and almost freakishly normal. We both went to my Great Aunt Lorraine's birthday breakfast with a whole bunch of family members my mom had to remind me how I was related to, I got to have lunch just me and my mom, and along with lady_entropy17 and quinn_merrick, we hung out with smexy_pocky, ald_fan_girl, and angelsbaby0910 at their apartment for quite a long while. (All I have to say about that is: Disney-princess "I have never" is hilarious. Especially when certain people play Ariel.)

- Helped a friend of ours pack up her apartment in preparation for a move a couple of weekends ago. It was... typical dusty moving work, but it was good that we went, I think. It was good to see her again before she moves away from the area, and she directed Rae and me to a delicious Indian restaurant near her apartment that I wish was closer to us.

- I've taken it upon myself to care for the trees and roses in the back yard. We have a pomegranate tree, a lemon tree, a citrus tree of indeterminate type (it's never put out fruit, and only in the past month has it flowered...) and a whole bunch of roses. I learned how to deadhead roses (kind of) and despite my beginning attempts, I think our roses have survived me and are starting to put out new buds again. This was quite a relief, as I was worried there for a while.

- I've also been swimming a lot. My tolerance for cold water is getting higher, and I feel like I have a lot more energy on days when I swim around actively for a while. Also, my lung capacity is starting to be more than completely nonexistent. Hurrah!

- I went to Disneyland with lady_entropy17, estelofimladris, and scifichicx for lady_entropy17's almost-birthday. There were a ton of people at the park, but we had a good time anyway and ate dinner at Joe's Crab Shack. (I got to see the birthday girl have her first mudslide... fun times.)

- smexy_pocky, ald_fan_girl, and angelsbaby0910 came down for lady_entropy17's birthday party on Saturday. That was a lot of fun... there were lots of people I don't usually get to see at the same place at the same time there, and it was very low-key and chill. (But there was a spectacular Batman cake!) When it got late, angelsbaby0910 crashed at our house, which was fun. I'd been wanting her to see where we live. In the morning, her room mates came to pick her up, and Rae and I made breakfast for everyone. It was very domestic and very fun.

- True Blood is fast becoming a necessity on Sunday nights. Jason Stackhouse is officially awesome (and slightly smarter than a post, now... just slightly). Eric is a beautiful sarcastic smartass who I love beyond all reason. And we're starting to get interesting combinations of people working together... Bill, Sookie, Lafayette, and Lettie Mae all working together to bring Tara back was... intense. And really sweet. Also, poor Sam... getting stuck with only Jason and Andy Bellefleur for backup? That's rough. But it worked! Jason Stackhouse pretending to be... whatever it is Mary Anne is trying to summon was priceless and haplessly badass. (Now there are two words I thought I'd never see together...) And next week... Sam talking to Eric? That ought to be fun...

- Burn Notice wins my "Most Wonderful Surprising Moment of the Summer" award for the following:

"Fiona is not my past." *bang* *bang*

There are very few times I have been so happy to be so surprised. And now I have to wait for January for new episodes. *pouts*

- I'm participating as much as I can in the Robin Hood rewatch that roh_wyn is hosting over at her roh_fics journal. We're watching an episode a week and discussing them as we go. There are even discussion questions for each episode if you're so inclined, and the people participating are all wonderful and insightful. (Just like most of the RH fandom folks I've met!) I watched 1x04, "Parent Hood" with caedhe yesterday. It's the one with the baby. Hard episode for me as a Guy apologist, but I managed. It's been a lot of fun going back to the beginning, back when the show, you know... set up their big plot points like they had a plan for what was going to happen ahead of time. Back when Will Scarlett said tons with just his eyes and Marian had a brain and usually knew how to use it. Back when Allan had a personality... *sigh* For the interested... 1x01 discussion, 1x02 discussion, 1x03 discussion, and finally... 1x04 discussion. Next week is "Turk Flu" and the appearance of Djaq... I can't wait.

- I'm making headway on my bigbanghood fic. I'm a bit behind where I should be on my word count, but as soon as I get a couple of chunks of uninterrupted time, and I'll fix that little problem. I'm having such fun playing with this AU. I'm not sure how much of the plot I have mapped out I'm going to be able to get done by the deadline (or by the time I reach 30,000 words... though if I reach 30,000 way before the deadline, I'll see how much I think I can realistically add and still leave the story at a good stopping place), and... I don't think it matters. I love this thing so much that I plan on writing big chunks of it until it's finished. I'm just glad to be working on a big project that really has my attention again.

A fandom meme snagged from jedi_of_urth

corrielle@yahoo.com — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 05:41:46 GMT

I'm certainly post-happy tonight! Because I miss thinking about all of the fandom characters I write... here's a meme.

Give me a character or a pairing and I'll give you something from my personal headcanon about them. Can't promise I'll come up with anything particularly interesting for all of them (I HAVE MY BIASES, AFTER ALL), but I'll certainly try!

San Diego Comic-Con Report: 2009 Edition Part 2

corrielle@yahoo.com — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 03:19:15 GMT

Neko, Rae, noirrosaleen, and I woke up at a terribly early hour of the morning (6 AM, I think), and I made a breakfast of oatmeal and tea for those who wanted it. We were actually out the door at a decent hour, and Neko left before us to save us a spot in the Ballroon 20 line. I had gotten the room as packed up as I could with several other people still asleep, and I left knowing that by the time I got back, it would be mostly empty and I'd just have to grab the last of my things and check out.

We got to the line around eight when no one had even let the beginning of the line into the building yet. We found caedhe, got into line, and waited. We managed to see most of our Torchwood cosplay crew while we sat there, and I think that noirrosaleen made xanmuse very happy when she wondered if maybe, just maybe, we hadn't been talking to Naoko Mori instead of a very convincing cosplayer. (Yep, our Tosh is that good...) We made room for yamikonubmer7 when she got there, which wasn't too terribly long after we arrived, and eventually they started letting us into Ballroom twenty.

We got amazing seats. We weren't front and center, but we were... front and to the left. We were close enough that I got some really good shots of people that I took with my camera's zoom and some stabilizing from noirrosaleen's shoulder, not from the screens. (Though I got some good shots from those, too.)

The first thing they did was show a trailer for "The End of Time." (By the way, have I mentioned how much I love Doctor Who episode titles? I do. They're grand and melodramatic, and I love them a lot.) The trailer was... eerie. It starts out with the narrator saying something like, "At the end of the world, people began to have bad dreams..." followed by some very creepy shots of a bearded fellow laughing a bit psychotically. From what I remember of the rest of the trailer, we see Donna's grandfather Wilf (yay!) Donna herself (OMGYAY!!!!), and in a bit of cross-fandom casting that makes me happy, David Harewood (Tuck from Robin Hood) looking very classy but ominous in a dark, tailored suit. In fact, he's one of the first people we see after the crazy laughing dude, and I may have screeched a bit loudly when I recognized him. (This makes me think he's someone important... good for him!) Also, at the very end of the trailer, we hear someone say, "He returns," and then a deep, computerized voice says, "My name is the Master." Again, the crowd went crazy. Actually, we were kind of going crazy the whole time, what with Donna being back and all. When the guests came out on stage, there was uproarious applause for just about everyone, but Russel T. Davies and David Tenant, obviously, got some pretty big reactions.

David is an absolute geek and I love him for it. He came out on stage wearing a t-shirt with a storm trooper helmet made of silver sequins(?) on it, and the first thing he did when he sat down was ask them play the new trailer again so that we could all see it without the shock factor. And they did. Here are the fun things I wrote down from that panel (in no particular order):

One of the fans asked David what one of his biggest fannish moments was when he started filming, and he talked about the first episode he filmed with Sarah Jane. He said it was amazing hearing a voice from his childhood calling him "Doctor," and he told the story with this look on his face that tells me he's still amazed that it happened after all this time.

He also talked about being very nervous on the first read-through because every BBC executive in the universe apparently showed up and took notes... at one point, he joked about wondering when he was going to lose his job since they were writing so furiously. (He SO didn't need to worry.)

Both Russel and David talked about being surprised that Doctor Who was getting so big in America. They're something of a cultural artifact in the UK, but they weren't quite prepared for how many people were going to know and love them here. (Apparently, one of the people who was at the San Diego TV station where they'd been doing an interview that morning had been wearing a Doctor Who shirt!) When one of the fans asked about how Russel dealt with writing for an international audience, his basic answer was, "I don't... I think that most of the people outside of the UK who watch it like it because it's British..." He got big cheers there. And he's right. I love my BBC shows precisely because they're not like what's on TV here in America .And I wouldn't want him to try to write to please Americans or anyone else...

Russel talked about going for "blockbuster" stories and thinking big. From the beginning, he didn't want to do little, safe stories. He wanted to do thing that would get people excited and rock the foundations of the Doctor Who universe. I don't always agree with how he's done these things, but I have an enormous amount of respect for him for daring to think big and bring back the Doctor with such big, fun stories.

I don't know how they got on the subject, but apparently there was some kind of gameshow/race thing that happened between the cast members, and Billie won, and this led to David saying, rather facetiously..."If Billie Piper didn't have such good breasts, I'd be higher up on the leader board!" and looking pouty about it.

Fans were really lovely in this segment. A lot of people prefaced their questions by telling David he was their Doctor, and he took it really graciously and humbly. I have... so much respect for the man. He talked about how it's weird seeing his face on everything from action figures to, of all things... cake. I want a Doctor Who cake with Ten on it now!

Lucy Saxon is going to be back! I don't remember how this came up, but I have the words "Lucy Saxon" underlined with a lot of exclamation marks in my notes.

The last thing they did is show a Waters of Mars trailer. I think it's a little bit different from the one they showed at the end of Planet of the Dead. I'll have to go back and look. I can tell you one thing: it looks creepy. I've never been so terrified of water before. It looks dark and atmospheric and interesting and the people who have been "possessed" by the water look... really scary. And the last thing we hear before the trailer ends is something knocking on a metal door four times. It was... a really well put-together trailer, and I can't wait to see the actual episode.

As soon as the panel was over, I made sure someone was saving a seat for me, and I made quick time to the trolley station and then half-walked half-ran the seven or eight blocks to our hotel. The Doctor Who panel let out at around
11 AM, I needed to check out by noon and be back at Ballroom 20 long before the Torchwood panel started at 2:15. I had no idea how hard it was going to be for me to get back into that room. We had a plan where some kind soul who didn't really care about Torchwood was going to wait for me to get back and then procure a bathroom pass and let me have it... but we didn't end up needing to be that complicated.

I got to the hotel in good time, let them know I might be a few minutes late checking out, and did a few runs down to my car (which was parked gloriously close to the elevator doors this year). I did a couple of last sweeps of the room, grabbed a cold soda from the fridge, turned in my keys and got my receipt, and booked it back to the convention center. On the way back, I ran into Mike, who is the Boy!Jack from rum party. I somehow managed to run into people I knew every time I was running between one place an another. Mike while getting into the Torchwood panel, xxdreamwaterxx while trying to get to Rae in the Boondock Saints line... it's weird. There are 120,000 people at Comic-Con, and yet I always manage to run into almost everyone I know who's there.

Anyway, it turned out that when I got back to Ballroom 20, they were still letting people straight in with no waiting. So, I went back up to the front where my group was still sitting and claimed my seat. We sat through a couple of panels for a couple of small things that I know nothing about, which was fine. Why they didn't put Supernatural in Ballroom 20 instead of the tiny little room they try to have it in every year continues to baffle me. At the same time that I got back to find Ballroom 20 was half empty, Supernatural fangirls were probably trying to eat each other to get into the way too small room where they had scheduled it. devidarkwolf managed to shed some light on this for me, though... if they'd had Supernatural in the big room, they would have had two warring fandoms. Supernatural fans would have crowded out a lot of the Doctor Who people by getting in line and waiting through the DW panel since they don't clear the room in between. It would have been... bad for the Doctor Who fans. Also, I think that there is a money issue going on as well. I wonder if it costs more to have your show's panel in the big room... and the CW isn't willing to shell out like BBCA is. And finally... I think that they underestimate the size of the Supernatural fandom every year. They could have filled that big room with Supernatural fans. It was good for me, though, because I was able to run to the hotel telling myself there was no way I was going to get into the Supernatural panel. If it had been in the room where I already was, I would have been really angry at being forced to leave. In fact, I probably would have done everything in my power to make sure I didn't have to.

In one of the more infuriating occurrences of the con, we sat through a couple of other panels and I tried my hardest not to murder the two rude morons sitting behind me. *WARNING: RANT AHEAD* I don't care if you're not there for the panel that's going on at the moment... be polite and respectful and shut the hell up about how you think what you're seeing is dumb. There are people there who don't and they don't need your idiocy. Don't ruin their fun or make fun of people who enjoy... whatever is being presented. You are the one sitting in a panel for something you don't even like and making fun of people, which is a thousand times more lame than being a fan in the first place. *ahem* Um... yeah. These are the same guys who were making cracks about how "gay" John Barrowman was (were they just figuring this out now?) and being loud and homophobic during Jack and Ianto's last kiss in the Children of Earth recap. I almost wanted them to be just a little louder so that a hoard of Jack/Ianto fans would descend upon them with the fury of a thousand suns... I'm just saying it was a dangerous place to make fun of the death scene of one of the fandom's most beloved characters. There were a lot of already-pissed-off Ianto fans (for one reason or another) in that room... (And I say that with all the love in the world for the Jack/Ianto fans I know... heck, I would have helped.)

Anyway, the BBC America panel started off with Being Human, which was fine by me. I'd seen the original pilot, and I was anxious to see the new cast. All three of them were there, as well as the creator, and they are all as cute as can be and were obviously very happy to be meeting fans. They showed a decent amount of footage and managed to play some pretty dramatic scenes involving each of the three main actors, so the audience got a good introduction to them. I'm anxious to see the show now. A vampire, a werewolf, and a ghost sharing a flat and trying to "blend" looks like a lot of fun.

And then... the Torchwood panel. It was basically the same faces from the Doctor Who panel (Russel, Julie Gardner, Euros Lyn, who directed some DW episodes and Children of Earth) but this time the big star was John Barrowman instead of David Tenant. I'd seen John the year before, but he's always fun to watch. He has such love for the show and the fans and for Jack... it's impossible for me not to love Torchwood more than I usually do when I'm listening to him talk about it.

Things I remember from the panel:

John Barrowman telling everyone that they were "cute" - he told the moderator, he told Euros Lyn (and someone eventually quipped that it didn't mean anything if John said it to often...)

The reason we never really got to see the 456? Plain, old fashioned "what you don't see is scarier than what you do." And it worked for them, I think. Seeing the child that is attached to the alien is enough to imagine the horror of the rest, and each person's horror is going to be a little bit different.

John talking about how he has to view what Jack did at the end of Children of Earth as "The right thing." Because Jack thinks it's the right thing. It was a terrible decision, but Jack has always been the one making hard, calloused decisions that no one else has the stomach to make. And from what John says, he has to believe it pretty intensely himself to play Jack right.

There was a lot of love for the actors who played Frobisher and Lois. Russel had been dubious about cross-casting Frobisher from Fires of Pompeii, but he was glad he did because that actor did one heck of a job.

Russel T. Davies has some serious guts. Twice during the panel, he fielded questions from fans about the negative fan reaction to Ianto's death. (A caveat before I go on: What I'm about to say is in no way meant to insult people who were sad when Ianto died, or even upset at Russel. I hurt when that happened. I'm talking about entitled fanbrats who overestimate their own importance and think they have a right for everything to go exactly the way they want it to on their favorite shows because the creatures owe it to them.) If I remember correctly, the first person was fairly polite. I don't even remember exactly how she phrased her question, but it was something about the negative fan reaction. Russel cheerily said, "I'll take the blame. I killed Ianto. No one could talk me out of it. I killed him, and no one's bringing him back." You could have heard a pin drop the moment after he finished speaking. He wasn't rude, he wasn't condescending, he was just... direct. And it was kind of amazing. I think he might have been a little ticked off about the vitriol that some crazy!fans have directed at people who really had nothing to do with the decision. (I'm looking at you,all you you meanies who said nasty things on James Moran's blog...) He went on about how it was important that Jack lose something big to set up the decision to sacrifice his own grandson. And... as much I love Ianto, I think he was right. Losing Gwen wouldn't have had the same effect. It had to be Ianto. (And I think that Children of Earth treated Ianto well, actually... we got to see him develop and grow and have conversations with his sister and try and figure out what exactly it is he had with Jack... they may have killed him, but they respected his character even as they did so. Unlike some OTHER SHOWS I could name.)

The second question that made me blink was the girl who asked Russel if he wanted to clarify what he'd said (either earlier in the panel or in other interviews, I'm not quite sure which she meant) as to avoid offending Ianto fans. That was hilarious in and of itself, but the calm way he handled it was golden. First of all, he said very politely that he had never meant to offend anyone, and that he was very sorry if he had. He went on to say that he understood that people were upset about Ianto's death, and that he was glad that he had been able to create a character people cared about so much. (And somewhere in here he brought up that it was the nature of the show for people to die and for characters to have a high turnover.) He said he even understood that there were some people who would stop watching because Ianto had died, and that he wished them well. However... he also brought up that the "send coffee to the BBC Wales office" plan had so far turned up nine packs of coffee, so the ones who are so angry they stopped watching seem to be outnumbered by the vast number of people who watched Day Five (the last day of Children of Earth) on BBC1. Apparently they had great ratings, and they deserved them. I'm glad for the show. Anyway... I thought it was an answer to a kind of rude question that managed to be both polite and the slightest bit snarky.

The last thing I remember is John talking about which scenes were most difficult to film. He talked about the last scene with Ianto being Gareth's last day of filming and how that was really hard, but he said that the scene that takes place the day after with Gwen and the red tarps was harder to do. This was the moment that Jack realized that his kiss hadn't saved Ianto this time. (I hadn't even thought that this was what he was trying to do... but it makes sense. It's worked before.) But this time, Jack's body had been dying too, and whatever life-energy he has to give couldn't save him and Ianto at the same time. And he sits up, finds Gwen kneeling next to him, and knows that he couldn't save the one person he most wanted to live. I... am so glad I got to hear him talk about that scene. For the insight it gives me into Jack, for the way John's voice broke a little when he talked about it... it was amazing. And to lighten things up, he told a story about how one time, when Eve Myles lifted the tarp over his face, he was wearing a big, fake handlebar mustache. I really hope that's on the DVD blooper reel.

After the panel was over, we headed met up with our Torchwood cosplay friends, took some pictures of them in their snazzy updated costumes, and went down to the exhibit hall one last time. I meant to get myself an SGA sweatshirt, but I couldn't find one in my size. Luckily, I rand into devidarkwolf, who helped me to pick out appropriate TOS science officer/medial badges and a Starfleet medical patch. We geeked out over Star Trek and fandom in general for a while until the hall closed and they kicked us out of the convention center.

On the way back to the hotel for the last time, we stopped at a little pizza place called Pizza Bella that always had Sinatra playing every time we walked by it and smelled absolutely divine. It was a small, cozy little restaurant with delicious food. Rae and I split a personal pizza with Italian sausage, mushrooms, olives, and sun-dried tomatoes and some manicotti (or something very similar... I don't remember what it was called!). I also splurged and got tiramisu for desert and was glad I did. I love tiramisu, and this was good stuff.

Back at the hotel parking garage, we had to rearrange our stuff so that we could fit four people, all of our luggage, and all of our con swag into my usually very spacious Camry. Rae is magic because she eventually did it, though she and noirrosaleen were tucked into the back seat like sardines in a can. The drive out of San Diego was filled with traffic as every single con attendee tried to go north on the I5 at the same time. It was very late by the time we got home, and caedhe, bless her heart, spent the last forty-five minutes of our drive coming up with increasingly ridiculous questions about characters I write about in order to keep me awake. We were both a little loopy when we pulled up at the house. So, we dumped everything that was absolutely necessary on the living room floor and fell into bed, exhausted and a little dazed. Con is tiring, but if you come back from Comic-Con rested and chipper, you're doing it wrong.

And now, some lists...

Things I didn't purchase because I couldn't find them:
I. Want. A. Hypospray. You'd think that in a room filled with geeks, nerds, and vendors wanting to take our money that someone would have a replica hypospray... TOS, movies, new movie... I'm not picky. But no. I contented myself with Star Trek patches instead.

An SGA sweatshirt in my size. I was all ready to buy this awesome sweatshirt that had the gate symbol for earth inscribed over an actual photograph of the earth, but they only had men's larges (which would fit three of me) and men's X-Larges (which would fit four of me)

A Star Trek t-shirt in my size. Apparently, the t-shirt booth I was at didn't have anything smaller than a men's large either, and unless I want to sleep in it, that's way too big. And that's really too bad, because there was an awesome shirt that just had the words "Star Trek" filled in with well-chosen scenes from the new movie... I would have loved to have it. But it seems that they don't think that girls who come in small sizes buy shirts at con. Hmph.

Purchases:
Vampire Haiku book
Athena Voltaire comic book (I bought this because of a quote saying, "...like if The Mummy and Van Helsing were actually, you know, good" on the artist's display table... The quote made me laugh even though I adore The Mummy, and the comic looks like a whole lot of fun, and the artist was really sweet and signed my copy for me.)
Starfleet medical patch and TOS gold badge
Two Stephanie Law art prints

Swag report:
Bright yellow Burn Notice t-shirt with a pixelated orange image of Michael's face. (Thank you, Rae, for making sure we got the tickets for that... we almost got skipped and had to run down someone who worked for the con to get our "free shirt" tickets.)
Red True Blood Shirt with "It Hurts So Good" on it
True Blood Tote bag
A frajillion book samplers, fliers, key chains, and bookmarks.
Twenty free novels/books (two of which I've already read!)

San Diego Comic-Con Report: 2009 Edition Part 1

corrielle@yahoo.com — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 03:16:11 GMT

We survived Comic-Con 2009! And what's more, we have our sanity, all of our limbs, a whole lot of free swag, and some awesome memories.

On Wednesday, I had to give a final to my summer school class in the morning. I had told my students that they would have the entire class period to finish the final, which is a computer-based grammar post-test I'm required to give, but I had not expected any of them to use all of that time. Of course, because I was in a hurry to leave, some of them did use all of the time. And so I stayed. I didn't get back to the house until around 1:30, and after eating lunch, packing the car, and making sure the cats had food and litter for the weekend, we didn't leave until after 3:00. In the car with me were gaelic_bohemian and caedhe, two of my seven con room mates.

The drive to San Diego went fairly smoothly. There wasn't a lot of traffic, and we found our hotel very easily. We stayed in Old Town again, which is farther away from the con than the hotels on the shuttle route, but it's close to a trolley station and close to a whole bunch of wonderful little restaurants. It's also quieter and less crowded than the closer con hotels. When we got there, we met yamikonumber7 and... Squeak, whose lj name I don't know. They were waiting for us to be let into the hotel room. We got most of our stuff that we needed for the night up to the room, claimed a bed, and Rae, Neko and I went down to the trolley station to buy our passes for the weekend. Unfortunately, the ticket window was already closed, and we ended up buying our Wednesday one-day passes from the machine.

We got to the con and found lynxgriffin (and tegurunrampant?), who handed us our badges. We got into preview night for only a little while before getting herded out by con security. The one thing I did get to do was bother the people at the BBC America booth about their sad lack of anything resembling Robin Hood merchandise. They had Doctor Who and Torchwood books and toys and other stuff coming out their ears, but when I asked about Robin, they shook their heads. One girl very kindly told me that the series was going to be on BBCA in a couple of months, and I grinned and told her I'd have to watch it again when it came on. The "exhibit hall" was just as huge as I remember it being, and I made a mental note of where the things I wanted to do were. In the midst of all of this, we got to talk to Frank Beddor, who wrote The Looking Glass Wars, and he was a total sweetheart who was excited to talk to Neko, who is a huge fan. When the hall closed, we hopped back on the trolley to go back to the hotel. Back in Old Town, I had a noodle bowl for dinner (thank goodness for the portable kettle we brought from home), and we listened to yamikonumber7 do readings from an entirely inappropriate old children's book that Squeak had brought with her about a family of cats. I... cannot even begin to describe the hilarity that went on there. For having as many people in the room as we had, I couldn't have asked for a more congenial, lovely group of room mates. All of you are awesome.

Every year, I say that I want to go to the theonering.net panel. Every year, they have it at either 10 or 10:30, and every year, I'm not up in time to get a good spot in line. Someday, I'm actually going to go to that panel. This year, I got close. I got to the con before the panel started, but the line for the room was ridiculous. I did run into sizzlemuffin and some of the hobbit ladies very near the front of the line. I haven't seen her in what feels like a thousand years, so I chatted with her for a while about life and horses and other things. I could have snuck into line with her, but Rae wasn't with me yet, and I felt bad jumping into line ahead of all of the other people who had waited. So I didn't, and when I got in the back of the line, it was obvious that I wasn't going to be getting in. It was no big loss. I told myself, "Next year!" and when Rae caught up with me, we went down to the exhibit hall to see if we could score some free books before the next group of panels we were interested in.

One of the most awesome areas in the exhibit hall is the row where all of the publishers are set up. If you hang around for long enough, you will eventually be around when the booths put out the advance reader's copies they are planning to give away, and you can end up with a whole stack of books. For the more brazen among us, straight-up asking, "Do you have any books you're giving away?" also works quite well if you phrase it right. Some publishers have set schedules of when they're going to hand out what book, and all you have to do is show up at the right time and they'll hand you a copy. I may have planned some of my activities around making sure I was in the right place at the right time... especially because the Tor booth was giving out first books in several series I have been wanting to read. Anyway, I ended up with about ten books in the hour or so Rae and I hung around the book aisles, including the one I reviewed yesterday that I ended up carrying around for the rest of con. I bought one book on Thrusday morning. It was half off, and it's a book called Vampire Haiku. I laughed at the title too... but it's really neat. All of the poems go together to form a longer story, and some of the poems are extraordinarily dark and clever.

My big priority on Thursday was the Burn Notice panel, which was going to be held in Ballroom 20, the second largest room at the con. Even though the place probably seats several thousand people (anyone know Ballroom 20's capacity?), it can still be really hard to get into if the panel is popular enough. Just to be on the safe side, Rae and I wanted to show up early before Burn Notice. And by early, I mean two panels before. This was not such a bad thing, though, because the panel before Burn Notice was called "Wonder Women: Female Power Icons in Pop Culture." On the panel were Sigourney Weaver, Eliza Dushku, Elizabeth Mitchell (who's from Lost, which I don't watch... but she was smart and interesting, so that was awesome), and Zoe Saldana. Guys... guys... Just in case you missed it, I got to be in a room with Zoe Saldana. *squeeflail* For those of you who don't know this... I have found her to be spectacularly amazing for a really long time.   She was Anamaria in Curse of the Black Pearl, where she was gorgeously beautiful and woefully underused. (And sorely missed in the next two PotC movies.) She's one of the only actors in the PotC universe who I still hadn't seen in person, and I had kind of given up the hope of it happening. But then... I saw her name in the program, and I knew I had to be there. The conversation itself was great fun to listen to. Sigourney Weaver is incredibly smart and well-spoken, and she said some really thoughtful things about being a woman and an actor. (I wish I could remember what some of them were... my notes for this panel mostly revolve around how beautiful Zoe and Eliza are. Zoe looked stunning.) They talked about the need to approach their characters as complex, whole people who happen to be women rather than strictly as women, and they talked about times when they've been able to talk to directors and producers about the way their characters were being portrayed and get positive changes made. Eliza talked about working with Joss, and Elizabeth Mitchell talked about having to play her morally ambiguous character as if she believed she were right all of the time, because no one really makes decisions consciously believing that they're the wrong ones. It was fun so see Zoe and Sigourney Weaver interact like old friends since both of them are working on Avatar together... they seem to have a sweet friendship going. Zoe talked about getting to play Uhura a bit, but my favorite thing she said was when one of the fans asked the panel what they thought of the rumors that Megan Fox had been cast as Wonder Woman. The person asking the question wanted to know if they thought this role needed an older, more "regal" actor. Zoe's response made me happy forever. She smiled a bit wickedly and said something to the effect of, "I've got a huge crush on Megan Fox, so I'm not hating that idea..." (For the record, I think Megan Fox is lovely, and I haven't seen her act, so I'm withholding judgment. But the idea of Zoe crushing on her makes my life.) I was very sad to see that I couldn't find her anywhere in the autograph schedule, or I would have been there.  I don't care what I would have had to miss.

On the heels of that heady fandom experience, I was in for another one. The Burn Notice panel was fantastic. First of all, it was moderated by Michael Shanks, who played Victor in season two. He's snarky and funny and knows the show really well, so he had a great rapport with the panelists and asked smart questions. In attendance were Matt Nix (the creator), Alfredo Barrios Jr. (one of the producers) Bruce Campbell, Nate Westen's actor, and the guys who play Brennan (a recurring villain) and Strickler (Michael's new way back into the game?).  Throughout the panel, they showed video clips of Michael giving tips about how to do such things as get the best con swag or delay a panel when two things you want to see are happening at the same time. ("The key phrase here is technical difficulties. Unplug enough microphones, and you'll probably be able to keep the second panel from starting until you arrive. Just remember, you're looking for delay, not cancellation.") It was completely in character, and it was hilarious. There is such a sense that everyone on this show really loves it. I don't just mean they love it because it's their job and it's getting them a good measure of success.  They love it because it's... something special.  During the actual Q&A, there were too many funny moments for me to remember... Here are the ones I wrote down:

-Someone asked about Nate getting more screen time and perhaps having Sam take him under his wing, and Matt Nix leans across the table and asks Seth Petersen (Nate), "So, would you like to be on the show some more?" And Seth shrugs and says, "Yeah, sure..." And the crowd went wild.

-When talking about Michael's father, Matt Nix said that he hadn't meant to start speculation about missing parents by having Michael's father be dead by the time the show started. He made a quip about "some other spy show that has already had missing parents coming back..." which had all of the Alias fans laughing. Then, he assured us in the most wonderfully deadpan way, "Michael's father... did not burn him."

- Bruce Campbell is one of the most hilarious human beings ever. I had never gotten to see him in person before, and.... wow. I think I cracked up every time he opened his mouth, and some times when he didn't. His facial expressions were priceless. And also, he apparently sometimes hands out cash to people who ask flattering questions. My favorite: "So, are all of Sam's funny lines Bruce's?" His reply, I think, after he'd given her some cash from his wallet, was something along the lines of, "Matt just blows shit up." The other brilliant moment was the girl who asked what Bruce would be drinking since we know that Sam likes mojitos so much.

- At one point, they were all joking about the possibility of a combination spy AND zombie movie. Someone (Bruce, I think...) said it would be called "Dead Notice" and Matt Nix starts Michael-monologuing, "There's a reason you want to fight a zombie with a chainsaw..." I think most of us just about died of laughter.

- They also showed a preview for the rest of season 3. There was... a lot of stuff in there that made me want more. It looks like Michael is close, very close, to getting back in, but there were also shots of him getting kidnapped, and Fi along with him. There was also a very tense conversation between Fi and Michael where he says something like, "One fight and you're leaving?" And she says, "I'm going home." (At least... that's my very vague memory of it. My brain malfunctioned at the word "fight." It must have been one hell of a fight to make her leave, though Fi's dissatisfaction with the status quo has been building all season.)

With the Burn Notice Panel over, Rae and I went to pick up noirrosaleen at the hotel and show her the ropes of how to get to con. We were lucky that the hotel had let her into our room without one of us there, or she would have been stuck in the lobby for a long while. We stopped for dinner at a Mexican place called Rancho Corona in Old Town, and I had delicious chicken mole enchiladas and a really great pina colada. We got noirrosaleen to con in time to get her badge and, I think, show her the dealer's hall for a while, and then we left her to her own devices while we grabbed Neko and headed back to the hotel to watch the latest Burn Notice episode. (I wish there had been a showing at con... but there wasn't. I miss having the shows I watched conveniently shown in big rooms so I can watch with lots of other fans... too bad I don't pay much attention to SciFi Fridays any more.) The episode... was a relief. I'd been worried sick about Fi since I saw her get "shot" in last week's preview, and it was good to see that they were faking those wounds, because they were in bad places. I like that this was another "Michael gets emotionally involved with a kid with a troubled home" episode. The way he related to the kid was just right, and the scene where Michael has him help make the bug to keep him out of trouble? Priceless. At the end of the episode, though... he takes Strickler's deal. I don't know if Fi knows he's done it yet, and there is going to be a (perhaps literal) firestorm of the century when she finds out. (Edited to add: I have since seen the most recent episode. I've been writing this con report all week. Fi's reaction was... not as explosive as I thought it might be, but no less heartbreaking. Don't leave, Fi! Michael needs you, even when he's being stubborn and single-minded!)

After the show was over, we hopped on the trolley back over to the Hyatt, which is this amazingly fancy hotel right down the street from the con center. estelofimladris, scifichicx, lady_entropy17, and hystericblue42 were all there, as well as the always-fun-to-be-around Tony Lee, who wrote a Doctor Who comic I really do need to get my hands on how that it's all out in trade format. I was tired when I got there, but I really did want to spend time with everyone, since this is the first time I haven't been in a hotel room with the Torchwood crew in... three years or so (in fact, I was rooming with the Torchwood crew before there was a Torchwood... weird...). Anyway, we had a fun time, made fun of each other, showed off our con swag, and swapped stories. At some point, quinn_merrick showed up as well, and it was good to see him too... I had an exorbitantly expensive rum and coke and a bit of champagne, which was just enough but not too much. (Knowing me, "too much" would have had me falling asleep in the lobby rather than dancing on the tables.) It was entirely too late when we finally decided to go back to the hotel, and the trolleys had stopped running. All of them. This means that noirrosaleen, Rae, and I had to flag down a taxi (which was really easy at 2 AM in front of the Hyatt bar...) to get back to Old Town. It actually wasn't that expensive when we split the fare three ways, and it was totally worth it to have some fun, relaxing times with this particular group of friends. I dragged myself through the shower when I got back to the room and promptly fell into bed.

I had toyed with the idea of going to the Stargate: Universe panel on Friday morning. I am on record as an angry Stargate: Atlantis fan, but I'm curious about what they're going to do with the new series. However, seeing as how we had gotten back to the room at around 2 AM, that didn't exactly happen. We got to con around eleven and hung around in the exhibit hall some more while we waited for it to be time for the Bones panel. I picked up more fun free stuff and hung around the artists' area some. I had a fun geek moment that I'm sure confused the gentleman manning the booth I was at at the time. Basically, I found a place that was selling a whole bunch of WWII fighter plane stuff. Shirts, bookmarks, replicas, that kind of thing. One of the things they had were a bunch of bookmarks (and I love me my bookmarks) I was looking at them, and I saw that there was a type of plane called a Dauntless. (Anyone I've ever talked to about Flyboy-verse will know why this is unutterably special.) I grabbed it and excitedly started gesturing to Rae. The older man behind the booth looked at me in a bemused fashion and asked if I knew someone who had flown one. I told him that I didn't, but that it was exciting to me because of a character I write, and I asked him to tell me a little bit about it. Turns out that it was an American-built plane that got a lot of use at Midway... (and here endeth my history lesson for the day.) Anyway, I got myself a bookmark and walked away happy.

About an hour and a half before the Bones panel was due to start, we wandered upstairs to see how long the Ballroom 20 line was. It was long. This was my first real "standing in line" experience of the con. For people who know how Comic-Con is set up, they had the line wrapped under pavilions outside all the way down the length of the short side of the convention center - the side that runs from Ballroom 20 down to the room where you turn in your tickets for free stuff, then all the way back down once you got in the door at the far end. Luckily, they had tents up this year to shade people in line from the sun. At first, we weren't even in line because they weren't letting more people in line. We were in a line (more like a slightly organized blob) to eventually get in line. We ended up talking to some folks with amazing Stargate costumes who had been in the panel, and they seemed like decently intelligent people, so I asked them what they'd thought of the Universe preview. They... seemed optimistic, so I am now cautiously so. We finally got into the actual line and spent the next hour or so sitting down for a while, standing up and moving a few feet, then sitting down again. I actually worried for a while that we weren't going to get in, but I didn't need to.

The Bones panel consisted of Hart Hanson and Emily Deschanel. David Boreanaz was supposed to be there, but his wife is very pregnant and he didn't want to be four hours away from her when she might be going into labor at any second. So, he recorded a fun, David-esque message from a place where they were filming in Long Beach.

Though I was sad I didn't get to see David (and doubly sad I didn't get to see him interact with Emily...), she and Hart Hanson were really entertaining all on their own. They played off of each other brilliantly. At one point, someone asked if it had been David's idea to give Booth such an astronomically high sperm count in the episode where he's thinking about donating so Brennan can have a child. They both laughed and said no, and then Hart started saying something to the effect of, "Booth was a sniper, so even if he only had one..." *hand motion/sound to indicate a bullet hitting its target*

Other fun/intersting things I remember:

Emily did Brennan's "dancing phalanges" thing, and commented on the fact that as soon as Booth showed any reluctance about the baby, Brennan was suddenly less eager.

David is going to be directing the 100th episode.

They want to have Zack back, but his actor is apparently quite busy doing other stuff, so it's a matter of coordinating schedules.

Hart Hanson said that Booth's "who are you" at the end of the last episode wasn't total amnesia, but rather confusion about which version of Brennan she was, since he still had all of the dream memories running around in his head. (YOU COULD HAVE FOOLED ME, SIR!)

Emily is very Brennan-like. She's smart and loud and opinionated... I love her. She is very involved as an animal rights activist, which has caused some interesting discussions on the set (and is the reason there weren't any circus animals in the circus episode. I hadn't even noticed that before now...)

Tamara Taylor (Cam) is apparently one of the most squeamish of the group about the "gross" stuff. Judging from what I remember about the actors from last year, this doesn't surprise me.

With the Bones panel over, Rae left me to go wander around the exhibit hall some more (and pick me up a copy of Gardens of the Moon at the Tor booth... Thank you!), and I stayed in Ballroom 20 for the Dollhouse panel. I have recently watched all twelve episodes that were aired, and lady_entropy17 had told me that they were going to show the unaired 13th at panel, so I was pretty excited. Joss came out first and talked a little bit about what he was up to and what we could expect in various universes. There's going to be a comic about Book, which is exciting. Also, Joss talked about how Alan Tudyk got the role of Alpha after one of the Shakespeare readings at Joss' house where Alan played Julius Cesar in Antony and Cleopatra with a lot of egomania and a bit of psychological imbalance. Wish I could have been a fly on that wall... Also, Alexis Denisof is going to be in the next season of Dollhouse! That makes me happy. I've missed seeing his beautiful face on screen.

I know that there were some interesting questions at the panel... I think someone asked Eliza at one point what here favorite "role" was, but honestly, I don't remember any of them. I was too blown away by the lost episode. It was... amazing. It's hard to explain. It was supposed to air between episode eleven and episode twelve. (After Alpha takes Echo, but before we really figure out why.) It's one of those episodes, like Firefly's "Out of Gas" that has multiple time periods going on and does all kinds of interesting things to linear storytelling, but somehow manages to make complete sense. After I realized what he was doing in the first couple of minutes, I was never confused. The episode takes place in the future, beyond what we've seen in the show, but there are bits and pieces in the past and everywhere in between. We get to see sides of these characters (especially DeWitt and Topher) that we've never really been shown before, and it takes a lot of these characters to really difficult emotional places. It is... a departure from the rest of the show, in some ways, and I understand why FOX decided that this was the one they wouldn't air, but I also understand why Joss wanted to air it between the pieces of the two-parter. Knowing what we learn in the 13th episode would have given the events of the finale.... a lot more weight. There were some familiar faces in this episode... Felicia Day is a major character, and the little girl who played Molly on Heroes is there as well (and she does a fantastic job). What is the episode actually about, you ask? Well... it's complicated, but it's basically dealing with the fallout of the imprinting technology being used on a massive scale as an offensive weapon. I only hope that FOX lets the show stay on the air long enough that we can get to this point in the story and tie everything together...

After the episode and the very brief Q&A, I ducked out of the room and found lady_entropy17 so that we could flail about what we had just seen and lend each other moral support. It was a fantastic bit of television, but it was rough. Especially for Jess, who relates so much to Topher. He doesn't have a good time of it in the 13th episode, to say the least. (Massive kudos to his actor, though... he managed to make me more upset than I have ever been at this show.)

Since it was getting close to dinner time, I went to find Rae, ducked into the dealer's hall for one last purchase, and collected caedhe and noirrosasleen so that we could have our traditional Friday night dinner at Tin Fish. It wasn't too terribly busy, and I love me some fish and chips and scallops. We ate and talked and watched people from con walk by, and then it was back to the con for one of my favorite con events: The Star Wars Fan Film awards. We found seats near lynxgriffin and yamikonumber7 completely on accident, which was fun since I hadn't seen them all day. One of the things I really miss about Anime Expo is the focus on fan creations. Sure, Comic-Con has an Artists' Alley, but most of the people there are professionals, or very nearly so.   I love Comic Con for the actors and the big studios and the huge booths, but I miss the purely fannish joy of the AMV awards and the crossover fanart and other amazing fan creations of the AX artist's alley. The place at Comic-Con where I most find this "by fans, for fans" spirit is the Star Wars fan films showing. They're always amazing and fun, and it's so obvious that there was so much love and affection for the Star Wars universe put into them. And Lucasfilm encourages this. It's one of the things they've done right over the years, and I love them for it.

This year's entries were great. I loved the doodled "Star Wars on a Notebook," which was basically the story told as though a grade-school kid was drawing it in the margins of his lined paper. It was touching and really sweet. The "Saber" cologne add was... funny, sexy, well-choreographed, and otherwise amazing. Basically, two girls at at a bar, one in white and earth tones, the other in black and red, have an amazing light saber fight over a very ordinary looking guy. There are clothes sliced off and other humorous Star Wars references... it was great, and it totally deserved all of the awards it won. The other really fun one was "Star Wars Retold," which is basically a girl who hasn't seen Star Wars and is a friend of the film maker telling him what she thinks the story is while animations matching what she's saying go by in the background. It is... a riot. The poor girl has since seen Star Wars and was too embarrassed to be at the awards, which is sad. She wasn't dumb... she just hadn't seen the movies! (Favorite bits of mine? Leia's "gold suit" and "Hans Solo." "It's HAN! H-A-N!" "Yeah, that's what I said... Hans Solo..." All of these videos are up online, as well as a bunch of other finalists. My favorite that didn't win anything is the Wampa (the ice creature from Hoth) who just wanted to serve Luke tea...

Just to tell you how cool this was... even the actual "getting the envelope" part was awesome. Each presenter was handed the envelope by a different awesomely costumed character. (And Seth Green was one of the presenters! He was geeking out a LOT.) One of the coolest "costumes" was a black R2-D2. It looked like someone had... made R2 go darkside because the way the lights were arranged was reminiscent of Vader's chest panel... it was SO NEAT. (I think I got a picture. I'll have to post it with the others.)

There wasn't much to do after the awards were over, so it was back on the trolley and to our hotel. I wanted to get a good night's sleep while I could.

On Saturday morning, I hung out with caedhe some as she worked her free book magic. I got signed copies of a couple of books, included a collection of short stories called Geektastic that came with a pocket protector and (appropriately) a box of nerds with the book's cover on the box. I also got to nab another copy of Luck in the Shadows, and Lynn Flewelling was there to sign it. I also found out that she's working on another book, White Road, that's due out some time next year. (In checking the name of that book, I stumbled across her lj and this most hilarious "inspirational" poster. Johnny Depp fans should go look.)

Rae hadn't been feeling well when I left the hotel, so I was pretty much left to my own devices for a while. I got to meet Stephanie Pui-Moon Law, who draws stunningly beautiful fantasy art. I contemplated buying a print, but wanted to wait for Rae so we could decide on one together.

One of the things that I really wanted to do on Saturday was go to the Boondock Saints II panel. I've been hearing rumblings about this movie for years now, and when I saw that Sean Patrick Flannery was going to be there, I decided that it had just become my Saturday priority. (This only left me 45 minutes after the panel ended to get to True Blood, but I've adored him since I was eleven and saw him in Young Indy... and I knew my old fandom would win over my new one.) However, it wasn't to be. I didn't get into the panel, but I have a really good excuse. Here's what happened... as I was walking around the fantasy artists' area, I saw a guy carrying a really kickass Boondock Saints II poster (that I can't even find a good image of online yet... I'll try to take a pic of mine). I ran after the guy with the poster and asked him where he got it. He pointed at one of the studio booths, and I ran over there as fast as I could in the Saturday crowd in the exhibit hall. I got a poster for me and an extra, and as I was getting my poster, the lady at the booth was talking about a signing. "Who's signing?" I asked. She looks at me and says, "The whole cast...." I freak out for a moment as quietly as possible and ask if I need a ticket or anything to get an autograph. She says, "Nope, just show up."

I showed up what I thought was pretty early, but the line already wrapped around the booth. It was mass confusion. It turned out that we did need tickets to get autographs, and I was mightily unpleased about this since they had handed out tickets very soon after I'd left the first time having asked if I needed a ticket. It all turned out ok, though, because one of the guys working the booth had some extras he had been holding for people who hadn't come back to claim one, and he gave one of them to me. I then proceeded to sit in a really disorganized line for the next 45 minutes. I ended up talking to a nice guy who was a San Diego local about Comic-Con, fandom in general, and crazy costumes. We were right where the line turned and snaked back down the aisle, so both of us spent a lot of time saying, "We are NOT the end of the line! The end is down that way!" I also nabbed a Stargate: Universe cast photo and watched the trailer at the booth at least 999 times. It's definitely "Stargate Does Voyager," but this was stop number two on my "slowly coming around to where I maybe might watch it" tour. At one point, I debated leaving the line to go upstairs and get in line for the panel, but I knew I wasn't going to have a chance to meet anyone at the panel, and I'd been waiting for a long time already. When the signing actually started, the line moved fairly smoothly and quickly. I got to have the cast personalize the poster I got signed to Rae and me, and I got to look Sean Patrick Flannery in the eye and tell him that I'd been a fan of his since Young Indy. When I told him that, he got this lovely boyish smile on his face and said something like, "Really?   Thank you!   That's great..." It seemed like he was happy to have someone remember the show, but maybe that's just me. In any event, he was really nice and sweet and wonderful and I have two things he signed now. I got him to sign my poster and my little odds and ends journal I carry around with me. He's a few pages after this year's con report notes and a few pages before a scene Rae wrote about Jack and Davy Jones. I love my fandoms... (Just to show you how big this was for me... it is very possible that Julie Benz (Darla from Angel/Buffy) was there. She's going to be in the second movie. I was so elated about meeting Sean that I didn't notice. I feel really stupid about that now. Julie is awesome and lovely and I wish I had had the presence of mind to tell her so.) Even though the autograph line moved well, it still didn't move fast enough for me to get a good spot in line for the actual panel. Rae was waiting for me with the spot she'd gotten, but in hindsight it was pretty obvious we weren't going to get in. The panel wasn't in a huge room, and there were a ton of people ahead of us. After some spirited debate about whether we should try to stay in line or go get in line for True Blood, we decided that True Blood was the better bet. So, we dashed back over to ballroom 20...

...where we got to wait in line for a long time. We weren't as far back as we might have been, though, and we eventually did get into the room with plenty of time to spare. And I am so glad we did. The panel was fantastic. The entire main cast was there... Sookie, Bill, Sam, Tara, Maryann, Lafayette, Jessica, and Eric, as well as Alan Ball and Charlaine Harris, who wrote the Sookie Stackhouse novels in the first place. Everyone on the panel was just delightful. Charliane Harris looks like the stereotypical image of a middle aged white Southern woman about to go to a church potluck. And then she talked... and she has this thick, brilliant accent and... that mix of politeness and force of personality that ladies from the South are known for. At one point, someone asked her if the TV show was going to influence how she wrote future books, and she smiled and said point blank, "Alan and I have a good arrangement. I don't tell him how to make his show, and he doesn't tell me how to write my books." From the knowing look on Alan Ball's face when she said that... I'll bet he doesn't... and wouldn't even think of it if he knows what's good for him. I think that she went on to say something about how the books and the show are two different versions of the same story, told in two different forms forms of media, and that people should learn to enjoy them both and not expect them to be exactly the same. I respected her a lot for that. She also talked about writing on a deadline and not sitting around waiting for inspiration to strike, especially when she had to make a deadline, and at one point, someone asked her about all of the sex on the show, and if I remember correctly, she laughed and said something about how she hoped that some of her older relatives weren't watching.

It was fun to hear Alan Ball talk, as well. He spoke about how he tries to make events in the show grow naturally out of the characters' emotional needs and responses. Someone joked that they might as well have had a sign that said, "It's the emotions, Stupid," pasted up in the writer's room. And then, there were the actors... I am coming to love this cast more and more as I watch more of the show. I got to hear Stephen Moyer (Bill Compton) speak in his real accent, and even though Jess had told me he was British, it still surprised me to hear those short, clipped words coming out of his mouth instead of Bill's Southern drawl. When it came time to take questions from the audience, a lot of them were for Alexander Skarsgaard (Eric... and did I mention he was Bootstrap Bill's son? I still can't get over that) who is apparently immensely popular. Not that I begrudge him that... Eric is awesome. I think I'm a little bit in love with him my own self. And Alexander was droll and funny and laid back. One of my favorite things he said was in response to a decently intelligent question about how working in the film industry in the U.S. was different than working in Sweden. He thinks for a moment, and then he says, "Well, if this event was happening in Sweden, we would be in a barn right now. There would be about thirty-five people here, and half of them would be named Skarsgaard." It was so deadpan and serious... and the hall cracked up when he said it. He went on to talk about how he relates to Eric, and I grinned when I recognized the tell-tale signs of an actor who loves the "bad boy" character he plays. He talked about how he spent a lot of time when the first series was airing defending Eric from people asked questions about what it was like to play the "evil" vampire. He got this half-confused, half-hurt look on his face and explained that Eric isn't evil... he does have a softer side (one that we've started to see in the second season, I might add...). I have visions of him and Richard Armitage forming the "They Aren't That Bad, Really!" Society.

Other fun things I remember include Deborah Ann Woll (the absolutely adorable Jessica) talking about how nice the cast had been to her when she joined, especially since she was really sick in on of her early scenes. She talked about how very nice the actor who plays Hoyt is, and I don't know if it was character bleed through or not, but she actually seemed to have a bit of a glow about her when she talked about him. And finally, she talked about how it was hard to be badass and scary when the soft plastic fangs she was wearing kept slipping out. Apparently, they had two different types of fangs... a soft kind and a harder kind. Someone (I don't remember who) remarked that the hard kind were actually kind of sharp and painful, and Anna Paquin leans forward to her microphone and said, "Yes they are..." And the crowd went a little crazy again.  (This line makes even more sense to me in retrospect now that I know that she and Stephen Moyer are really dating.. they're sweet together.)

I was kind of sorry that no one asked Rutina Wesley anything specific that I managed to write down (I don't think anyone asked her a specific question at all... I was waiting for it because I love Tara like nobody's business), but with a panel that large and the moderators forcing fans to direct questions to specific actors this year instead of having questions that any of the panelists can answer... I guess it's understandable that Bill, Sookie, Eric, and the writers/producers got most of the attention.

I almost forgot... at the beginning of the panel, they showed a trailer for the rest of the season. I'm sure it's up online now, but it was pretty intense seeing it in a room full of fans. It included the Fellowship of the Sun actually burning a vampire at sunrise on that platform Jason and Luke are constructing, Jason getting caught(?) and in trouble for messing around with the preacher's wife, Sam getting chased through the woods by someone wearing Maryann's bull's head, and Sookie lying in a bed with someone who looks like he has blond hair. There were some massive, major fannish freak outs going on when that shot went by (mine was one of them), but when someone asked Allan Ball and Alexander Skarsgaard about it during the panel, both of them were cryptic and vague (and seemed to be enjoying being so, darn them...)

With the panel over, Rae and I headed back over to the exhibit hall to pick out some art prints, which didn't take too terribly long. With that done, we went out the back entrance of the hall that lets out on the side of the convention center that faces the ocean. This made it much easier to get to our destination: the Joe's Crab Shack that sits right on the water. We were both about to die of hunger by the time we got there, and Rae still wasn't feeling too good. Luckily, we got seated pretty quickly and had a nice dinner, just the two of us. I think we both needed it at this point. We got jalapeno crab cakes and split one of their big steamer pots with crab and mussels and other goodies. I've never eaten crab out of the shell before in my life... it's always seemed like too much work to get and a little bit of food. But with a bit of instruction from Rae, I managed. And it was delicious. Well-steamed and very tasty.

After dinner, it was back up the massive flight of stairs on the back side of the convention center so we could get to the overflow room and watch masquerade. caedhe was saving some seats for us near lynxgriffin and yamikonumber7, which was nice of her. The room was full this year, which was a departure from years before. I think they were even directing people who couldn't get into the main masquerade room into ours. It was packed. As masquerades go... it was ok. There were some sound problems at the beginning, and so I got to see the True Blood trailer again without any dialogue, but they eventually got everything all sorted. There were some obnoxious people in the room where I was sitting who thought that their repetitive cracks were funny enough for the whole room to hear, and so I breathed deeply and tried not to think thoughts of murder. The costumes that really stood out to me were:

The amazing Looking Glass Wars group. I haven't even read the books, but the Queen of Hearts and the Mad Hatter in this group were fantastic. And I have feeling that if I'd read the books, the actual plot of the skit was pretty interesting too.

The Disney villains vs. Disney heroes having a cheer-off skit to the "We are Cheerleaders" song was hysterical. Also, how many times in my life am I going to see Maleficent and Jafar doing cheer routines?

And one of my personal favorites... the female cast of She-ra singing to Skeletor about how to treat a woman. Their costumes were great, their skit was simple and easy to follow... and after all of these years, I could still name every single character from her outfit. (They had She-ra, Catra, Castaspella, Glimmer, and Flutterina. I may have used Wiki for the spellings, but I know those costumes. I didn't spend hours as a child of the 80's playing with She-ra dolls for nothing.)

We left when judging began. On the trolley ride back, I realized that I wanted to be out of the room by 7 AM the next morning, and it was very likely that the rest of the room would not, and Sunday was the day I needed to check out, so I had a bit of a breakdown before we got everything sorted out. Which we did. Eventually. We got back to the room and packed up everything we weren't going to need in the morning, then went to sleep as soon as possible. Sunday was Doctor Who day, and even thought I was tired and cranky and frazzled, I was also excited.

Book #13 - Ash

corrielle@yahoo.com — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 05:57:15 GMT

13. Ash by Malinda Lo

Every year around the end of July, I seem to rediscover the joy of devoting whole hours of my day to reading and the satisfaction of finishing an entire novel from cover to cover in the time between waking up and going to bed. Perhaps it's because summer school is over and con is done with and I have some space to breathe before classes start up again. In any event, I read a book today. It was the second of my Comic-con advance reader's copies, and it was fantastic. I was excited about it from the moment I picked it up and read the back, and it was even better than I thought it would be. When I got to the end, I found myself wanting to go right back to the beginning and read it again... a compulsion I haven't felt for a long time.

At its most basic, Ash is a retelling of Cinderella. But it is... so much more than that. The faeries in this version of the story play a much larger role than simply granting the orphaned girl her wishes, and the object of her desire is not a prince but the King's huntress. There have been a great many faerie tale retellings recently that have played with gender and orientation, and I think that Miss Lo does it here with a deft, light touch that makes the changes seem completely organic to the very particular version of the story she is telling.

The writing is beautiful and lucid. I don't think I've mentioned yet that this is a first novel, and a darn impressive one at that. The author has an incredible feel for detail and for atmosphere. The captures the perfect ache and glamour of the faerie world, the rush of the hunt, the mystery of the wood, and the difficulty of choosing between enchantment and real love. She also captures that wonderfully non-specific "time that is not our time" feel that good faerie stories need to have. There are bits and pieces of world building here and there, but for the most part, she paints the world with simple strokes so that the characters stand out that much more vividly against it. Ash (the Cinderella character, obviously...) is sympathetic and highly relatable, She has a mythic quality about her writing that is pitch-perfect for what she was trying to do.

I won't say any more about the plot because... that would spoil things. It is, needless to say, very satisfying, though there were a couple of places where I wish there had been three or four chapters where there were none. Not that I think this distracts from the awesomeness of this book... I just wanted more in certain places. But I'm used to wanting more from the stories I love. That they make me want more is probably one of the reasons I love them.

On a completely unrelated note, this book had a very lovely design. I realize that what I had was not a final copy, but the front cover image and the fonts and the highly decorated first letters of each chapter really made me feel like I was reading something special and ornate. I don't notice little things like that very often, but this was nicely done.

In short, I'm so glad I got my hands on this. It's fast on its way to becoming one of my favorite fantasy standalone novels.

Book #11 - Inkdeath and Book #12 - The Hunchback Assignments

corrielle@yahoo.com — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 22:23:55 GMT

We're back from con. We got in at around midnight last night. After I unpack and get all of the stuff I bought/acquired put away, I'll start work on my con report. For a short preview... It was fun. David Tenant rocks. Lines were LONG. There were lots of free books to be had. The True Blood cast was amazing. Bruce Campbell is a hilarious human being.

And now... books I've read recently.

11. Inkdeath by Cornelia Funke

I have been reading this book for a very long time. I have a tendency to put off finishing series I enjoy. I've had the last novel in Lynn Flewelling's Tamir Trilogy sitting on my shelf for the past year, and I've been reading Inkdeath since January. I suppose I don't want them to end, and I think that by letting them sit on my shelves collecting dust, I can postpone the inevitable.   (Also, I was terrified that she was going to kill Dustfinger for good this time, and I wanted to make sure I had time and space to deal with the emotional fallout from that. So, of course, I finished it the day before we left for Comic-Con.)

First of all, let me say this: It was good. I have enjoyed this series immensely, and the ending did not disappoint me, even though I read the last book so sporadically. Cornelia Funke is remarkably good at portraying complicated characters and messy relationships, and this book is full of them. Meggie, Mo, and Resa are not a sappily happy family. Violante was as interesting and ambiguous as I had hoped she would be, and Dustfinger continues to be his wonderful, enigmatic self, though he is much changed by his time with the White Women.  (I think I almost cried when he saved Brianna from the Nightmare...)

There was so much going on here I don't know where to start... so... a bullet list is in order.

- The scene where Mo goes to retrieve Dustfinger from Death was wonderful and terribly creepy at the same time. Of all of the "conversations with Death" that exist in this genre, this one unnerved me the most.

- The author continues to play with the possibilities of story and writing. The fact that a character from another of Fenoglio's stories shows up in the world of Inkheart fascinates me, and it was interesting to watch the old man learn how to gently guide his world without doing it too much damage.

- What Mo did to the Adderhead with the rotting book was... chilling. And speaking of the book, having the spoiled child be the one to find the book and bring it to our heroes was not something I expected, but it worked for me. Because under all of the posturing, Jacopo is just a lonely little kid who wants attention.

- Resa grew on me immensely at the story went on. The arc about her turning into the bird and not being able to control the change because she did it so many times was... really beautiful. It created a distance, a sort of longing that I don't often come across in books meant for children.

- The split between Mo and the Bluejay was fascinating. As long as he can keep himself in Mo's identity, the things Orpheus (may terrible things happen to him for all eternity) writes about the Bluejay don't touch him. I know there have been superheroes with dual personalities before, but this was a new take on the issue for me.

- The end was satisfying, but didn't tie everything up with neat, straight bows. It's a hard balance to strike, and I think she did well. The Adderhead is dead, and Violante is Queen in Ombra, but there is still trouble on the other side of the forest and the sense that this world goes on even after the last page has been turned.

12. The Hunchback Assignments by Arthur Slade

This is the first of my post Comic-Con freebie reads. I picked an advance reader's copy up on Thursday and had it mostly read by Sunday afternoon. It was a great companion in those long lines.

This is a novel for people who like Victorian England, secret societies, mad scientists, or any combination of the three. It's filled with literary references, and it is quite dark in some places.

The story centers around Modo, a child born with a hunchback and an extremely deformed face who also happens to have the ability to shapeshift for a limited amount of time into other people. He is discovered as a toddler by an enigmatic fellow named Mr. Socrates, who seems to have a great many young people with extraordinary abilities working for him. The author does a good job of making his audience care about Modo and his insecurities about his ugliness while at the same time moving the story along at a fast clip.  A group of terribly unbalanced individuals calling themselves the Clockwork Guild are out to destroy the British government, and they have a fellow by the name of Mr. Hyde making them potions that allow the Guild to control those who drink it...

In the middle of all of this, Modo has to work with another of Mr. Socrates' operatives, a girl named Octavia, to try and figure out what the guild is up to and why large numbers of street children and orphans are going missing.  He also tries desperately to keep Octavia from seeing his real face, fearing her reaction if she did.  Throughout the course of the book, Modo starts to think for himself more and more. He's been incredibly sheltered all his life, and having to face the harsh realities of life in Victorian London in the flesh rather than simply reading about them is a great shock for him. He makes good choices though, I think. Choices that are based in compassion and knowing what it's like to be an outcast. By the end of the book, he's questioning the choices his mentor makes and acting on what he thinks is right. I see a lot of potential there, for conflict and for character development.

Modo's name is obviously a reference to The Hunchback of Notre Dame, but I find it interesting that Mr. Socrates (who named him) dropped the "quasi" part. "Modo" just means "formed," or "shaped." On the one hand, I like the way that this emphasizes that he isn't half-formed, and on the other, I like the way it references his shapeshifting abilities and the fact that Mr. Socrates has "formed" him into a very effective agent and weapon against his enemies. Significant names for the win.

There's a lot of other stuff going on... like the mechanical giant that's stomping through London by the end (and it makes more sense than the one at the end of the Doctor Who Christmas special...), there are hints of a larger battle between the Clockwork Guild and Mr. Socrates's organization, and the end of the book definitely has that "tune in next time" kind of feel. Too bad this book isn't even officially out yet. Who knows how long it will be until the next one.   What was that I was saying about unfinished series? That I wasn't reading any more of them?  *sigh* I broke that rule a long time ago, so why not break it some more?

Comic Con in 3... 2... 1...

corrielle@yahoo.com — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 21:01:01 GMT

Lots of snacks and water bottles? Check.

Fannish t-shirts? Check.

Sun screen? Check.

It's time for COMIC CON!!!! I'll be back late Sunday evening with a hoard of books and a lot of story.

See the look on my face in my lj icon? All crazed and sun struck but really happy? Yeah. That's how I feel about now. (With maybe a bit less squee...)

Summer School, Swimming, and Fandom.

corrielle@yahoo.com — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 01:15:37 GMT

The title of this post basically sums up what I've been up to for the past few weeks. For a more detailed account, see below.

My summer school class has been eating up most of my time since it started at the end of June. I've never taught English 21 (a really basic composition course) in the summer before, but it seems to be going well. I've seen marked improvement in almost every student in the class, and like other short-term classes I've taught, many of the students are extremely motivated to get the class out of the way. So it's a good group. I finally found an interesting, analytical, repeatable essay topic to do with them. They're writing essays analyzing advertisements from print sources (magazines, newspapers, etc), and from what I've seen people bring in as possibilities so far, I'm going to get some very interesting essays. We looked at a couple of ads as a class already, and my students got really into looking at details and figuring out what the various messages behind the ads were. I'm excited. If this works, I think I've just found a fun, engaging topic that'll help students to move beyond the personal writing we do for most of the course.

I've spent most of my weekends at home since my class started, but Rae and I did make it up to Porterville for the 4th of July. We got to see angelsbaby0910 before she went back to work, and we got to stay with ald_fan_girl and smexy_pocky. I also got to set off grown up fireworks, not those tiny little sparklers, for the first time in my adult life. That was fun. We ate a delicious meal prepared by Megan's mother, and a really yummy spice cake for dessert. After we were done with the fireworks, we played a whole lot of Hand and Foot. For those of you who don't know... this was the game my family played for years at major holidays. It's canasta on steroids. It's cut-throat and nasty and there are a lot of cards involved, and one either wins big or loses big. There really isn't much in between. And I love it to death, but all of the relatives who used to play with me are either no longer with us or too old to remember how to play. So... it was great to be able to play, and to have one of my best friends in the universe for a partner.

Back at home, when I'm not grading papers or trying to plan what I'm doing for the next couple of days in my class, I've been taking advantage of our pool. It is hot here in Simi Valley. And while our air conditioner works very well, we can turn it up less during the day if we're outside splashing around instead of inside complaining that it's too warm. And swimming is good exercise! (Especially when "swimming" means the version of "pool tag" that caedhe and I made up.) Water resistance is amazing. I'm... developing muscles in my arms, and I'm not quite sure what to do with myself. I've never had much upper arm strength, so it's a little strange.

Tonight, I'm off to a midnight showing of Half Blood Prince with my room mates (the ones who are here, anyway...) and lynxgriffin. Well... technically it's not the midnight showing. Who knew all of the tickets for that would be sold out? So, we're seeing it at 12:20 instead. In fact, when we went to the theater last night to buy our tickets, we got the very last ones for that showing. This... may be wilder than I thought it was going to be. I had expected Simi to be pretty calm... (And yes, I will be wearing my Hogwarts sweater and tie... the sweater may come off if it's too hot, though.)

As for what's going on with me fandom-wise...

Last week was all about Torchwood: Children of Earth. I... don't have time right now to explain my reaction to this show. Writing-wise, it was good. It was... amazing in some places. Was there a touch of melodrama? Sure. But... it worked for me. I really liked it from a storytelling perspective. But then... there were my reactions as a fan of certain characters. Losing Ianto was like... losing a friend, and it was hard for me to take and then go right into the next episode the day after. (However, I do like that we got it all in a week.  The mini-series format worked well for them.)   We got together with estelofimladris, hystericblue42, and scifichicx over at lady_entropy17's house to watch Day Five. We all knew it was going to be rough. I... don't think I was prepared for how rough. But now that I've got some distance, I think it's becoming clearer and clearer to me that... I liked it. It was really good. Not just the team, though I loved Gwen and Rhys in this like I've never loved them before. It was... everything. It was Ianto's sister Rhiannon and her amazing, adorable Welsh husband. It was the amazing woman that was Alice. It was the fact that in the end, when John Frobisher died, I cared. And the entire room sat there in stunned silence after that fourth, final shot. It was Jack Harkness making his last, most terrible decision. (Still not sure it was the right one, but at least he made a decision, and saved all of the other children.) It was all of these things coming together to make some darn fine television.

Rae and I have also recently gotten into True Blood. We watched over half the first season this weekend, and I'm really intrigued. Sookie and Bill are... interesting and sweet. I love Bill's gentlemanly veneer and his nonchalant displays of strength. Jason's dumb as a post (and that's an insult to most posts I know), but it's hard not to feel for the kid just a little bit. Rene... I can barely even talk about Rene right now I'm still so angry. When we first started watching, someone in the room pointed at him in the room and said, "It's Cajun Allan!" And he was. Not just because of the hair color or the scraggly beard. It was the attitude and the way he talked. I was contemplating fics involving reincarnation. But then I found out what he really was. *sigh* I had guessed the big secret before it was revealed... I knew that there was a secret to know about him, and when I saw the scene in the bar where Sookie gets attacked without seeing his face, something clicked in my mind and I knew it was him.

Moving on... Sam is the sweetest thing in creation, though he's emotionally dense sometimes. (I can forgive him that, though.) Eric the ancient Sweedish vampire is sex in a black wife-beater. (I know, he doesn't wear it all the time... but when he did... rrrowr.)  I also find his poise and his droll understatement to be fantastically amazing. I think Jessica is hilarious... the scene where she wants to learn new cuss words just because she's run out of the ones she knows still makes me grin when I think about it (and about poor Bill's reactions). But... the person I love most in this show? Tara. Hands down. She's smart, she's stubborn, she's gorgeous, she's messed up as the rest of them, but at least she knows it, and she's managed to get through life with he alcoholic mother and come out a kind of amazing human being. I'm worried about what the strange lady with the pig and the big white house is going to do to her.

And besides all of the pretty people with their interesting character traits... I think True Blood has some really cool thematic stuff going on. We've got prejudice against vampires as a metaphor that doesn't quite fit perfectly for racism or homophobia, but has some qualities of both. We've got questions of faith, of why it works and how it works and if it really matters if any of it is real. And we've got questions about individuality and conformity... neat, complicated stuff. I can't wait to get my hands on season two.

And of course... Robin Hood. I really felt the lack of an episode this past Saturday. The fandom seems to be humming along nicely. There are tons of funny/sad/dramatic/silly/amazing drabbles and short fics being posted over at rh_drabblefest, and I've been using them to get my daily dose of Guy and the Outlaws. Also, we have proof that Richard Armitage is even more awesome than I thought he was. The link goes to a really smart, insightful interview he gave that makes me want to simultaneously hug him and sit him down for a long chat about Guy and being sympathetic for historically "villainous" figures. (Many thanks to endcredits for pointing me toward this...)

I know I should have gotten a lot more done on my longer fic by now, but I'm still ironing out the wrinkles in the basic plot construction. I'm having to figure out where I want to start this massively AU beast of mine, and then I have to find a place to end it... (This is always a problem for me with big fics. Because I know a ton about what happened before that isn't interesting to anyone but me, and unless I want to kill them all, I'd happily write about their adventures forever past the point where anyone wanted to read them, so endings present a bit of a challenge, too.) However, even as I wring my hands, character arcs and relationship dynamics are becoming more clear to me. Hopefully when I start actually churning out chapters, it'll be filling in what I already know.

Robin Hood Fic: In the Sight of God

corrielle@yahoo.com — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 06:12:31 GMT

Title: In the Sight of God
Rating: PG
Characters: Guy, Vasey
Prompt: Guy: faith (this was written for rh_drabblefest)
Word Count: 218
Disclaimer: Alas, they belong to legend, not to me.

"You will position yourself behind him, and when the man is finished speaking, you will stab him in the back." Vasey jabbed at Guy's ribs from behind. "Here, between the bones and into the heart. He'll die quickly, and there should be a lot of blood. Don't wear anything you don't want stained."

Guy shifted uncomfortably, and Vasey put a hand on the young man's shoulder.

"Is there a problem, Gisborne?"

"I am to do this… in the sight of God, and many men?"

"That would be the point of this whole exercise. Any man who sees what we do tomorrow will go home and remember that I… that we are not to be taken lightly. And as for God…" Vasey schooled his face into a mockery of devout piety. "I have done far worse things, and He hasn't stopped me yet."

Guy did not argue, but he knew his master was wrong. He knew from painful experience that God didn't punish evil men at the moment of their sin. No, God simply kept a record of wrongs done.

The next morning, Guy did as he was told. He put his knife in the back of Vasey's rival, but even as warm blood ran over his hands, Guy had a grim and unshakable faith that He still watched.

Robin Hood 3x13 Review: Something Worth Fighting For, Part 2

corrielle@yahoo.com — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 03:26:05 GMT

I'm sitting here at my desk with six pages of handwritten notes in my lap, and yet I have no idea where to begin. This was it. This was the last episode of a show I have loved and hated and screamed at and cried at and fangirled over for going on three years now. This was a show that meant so much more to me than campy scripts, whooshy arrow sound effects, anachronistic clothing, and Richard Armitage's pretty face. It meant sitting down with friends and snacks and drinks on a Saturday afternoon with the remote control firmly in hand so that we could pause and rant and make wisecracks. It meant getting to see what craziness was going to happen this week. On occasion, it meant having my breath knocked out of me because it was wonderfully, terribly good. It meant getting to see characters I loved like they were members of my family. It meant Guy. And Allan. And Robin. (Yes, I loved him even when he was an ass.) And dear, sweet Much. And Little John. And even Tuck and Kate. (Someone close to me loves Kate the way I love Guy and Allan... and it has made it difficult for me to hate her as much as I might have otherwise.) In seasons past, it meant Marian and Djaq and Will. It meant Isabella's unstable morality, the Sheriff's camp, and the possibility of Prince John's SUPER-CAMP. It meant getting online after the episode and reacting and debating and crying and squeeing with the most understanding, intelligent, talented fellow fans I could have asked for.

And even when the writers didn't treat the characters well, they were still my people. And I loved them much more than reason might have dictated.

Like a lot of ensemble shows, Robin Hood always did have some of its best moments when the gang worked together, and this episode is no exception. I have never been prouder of all of them as a group. Here at the end, something about the group dynamic clicked perfectly into place, and I... can barely put into words how much I love it. We see it in the scene where Much saves Kate. While the Sheriff is still reveling in the evilness of his own evility (not a word, I know), Robin is looking around, thinking about what options he has, and all he has to ask Much is, "Can you do it?" No other explanation needed. They know each other too well for more to be necessary. And when Much says yes... Robin trusts him.  But it takes all of them to pull it off. Much got to be the daring one, and I love him for it, but I also love Archer for covering him and Tuck, John, and Guy(!!!!) for pulling them up to safety. We can see it in the scene where they're falling back to the castle. Much is wonderfully, heroically competent here (finally... we get to see the man who spent years in the Holy Land fighting at Robin's side), and I think the "fire an arrow, run, hide behind the next line of men ready to shoot" strategy worked pretty damn well. They got everyone they could into the castle, which, considering what was coming at them, was impressive. What I think I love most, though, is Robin, Tuck, Guy, and John sneaking out the sabotage the trebuchets. The four of them make a fantastic team. (And they make some fantastic explosions.... The image of the fireballs going up, and then coming straight back down makes me gloriously, vindictively happy.) My heart was in my mouth when they were discovered, though. There they were... surrounded by enemies,  and I was thinking to myself, "One of them is not going to survive this scene. Probably Guy. This is it.  This is how I'm going to lose him."   I didn't need to worry, though. Much and Archer were on top of things, ready to save the day (or night, as the case may be). There were a lot of moments where I liked Archer in this episode... but I flat-out loved him here. Was this the show pulling a "Han Solo comes back just in the nick of time" stunt? Of course it was. And... that almost makes it better in my eyes. And also... Archer looks good firing flaming arrows from horseback.   At any rate, this is how the gang is supposed to function. This is how Robin is supposed to treat his people - like competent, valuable friends who know what they're doing and can handle themselves when the going gets rough. And... this is how they're supposed to work together to protect each other. Because when they do that... people live. It's a shame it took losing Allan to remind them of that.

Speaking of Allan...

I was ready to cry this episode. I had a box of Kleenex and everything. But I was expecting to work up to it. I had a feeling that most of the deaths were going to happen in the last ten minutes, so I did not expect to be bawling withing two minutes of the opening shot. But I was. When I watched Part One, I cried because Allan had died alone. I may have made some noise to the effect of "The gang had better feel BAD about what they did to him..." When I watched Part Two, I cried because all of them so obviously did.  I couldn't be angry at them for not trusting Allan any more. Not after the broken, devastated look on Much's face when he says, "We did this..." John's insistence that they "honor the dead" before the situation gets too dire, the anger on Much's face when he's the first one to light the fire, the silent determination on Robin's face when he's the last one left standing by the pyre... No. They cared for Allan. He was one of them, and they know it now.

Guy and Kate both have interesting reactions in this scene. Kate is the first one to slip away, but I think that it wasn't lack of caring that made her leave. I think this was the moment where she realized, "This is serious. One of our people has already died, and a lot more are going to. We need help. We're not going to make it through this without it."  caedhe has suggested to me that this is Kate's way of honoring Allan... being sneaky, giving the Sheriff the slip, and bringing back an unexpected army so he (and all of the others who will die) won't die in vain. It's a kind reading of Kate's motivation, but I like it. Guy... hangs back, as usual.  He doesn't get in the middle of their grief, but I think that there is something in him that sees how they treat each other and... wants to be part of that. He could just as easily have gone off and found something else useful to do. But he's there.  Even though he doesn't really know what to do, what his place is, he takes some more steps towards humanity and stays. I'm so glad the writers let him be in this scene, though it makes me weep for the awkward, halting friendships that could have been.

A Few Brief (or not) Points About Individual Outlaws

I have a lot to say about Guy and Robin, but I really do feel like this episode was good to the whole gang. John got to be big and large and strong and wise... He got to give voice to my anger at Robin's death with his, "It's not FAIR!" and he got to be the one who insisted that they take care of Allan. John has always been the one who reminded the gang why they fight, who looked at the needs that people had right now when they were nearly lost in the "big picture." So... to have him do this for the sake of Allan's memory... it was good.  I also have a soft spot for John's fatherly relationship with Kate, and the scene where she's on the walls about to sneak down was really touching. He could have stopped her leaving, but he lets her go. He trusted her to do her part, get word to the king's army. I also love that we get to see him checking on the wounded after the first big battle... it's a very John thing to do. Personal and compassionate.

For her part, Kate was... herself. Still young and a bit reckless, but I found myself liking her anyway. She wasn't as obnoxious as she has been in past episodes, and she blended smoothly into the gang during the group scenes. I like that she decided to go get help. She realized she wasn't much good in a fight, and probably thought that she could be doing the most good by bringing back reinforcements. And, though a lot has been made of the fact that she got captured again, I think that this is the time when it is least ridiculous for this to have happened. Kate got out of the castle, all the way to the army, and was on her way back when she got caught. I think it's a miracle she didn't run into trouble before then. caedhe pointed out to me on our rewatch that Kate probably didn't think she needed to have a plan for getting back into Nottingham. She thought she was going to be riding at the head of an army. And you know what? She could have stayed away. She didn't have to go back after she found out that they were on their own. But Robin needed to know that the army wasn't coming. So she came back bearing that important information, and I think that shows tremendous bravery.

Of all of the characters in the gang, we've gotten to know Tuck the least. We know that he wants freedom and justice for the people of England, but we never really get a sense of why. However, I think that even he got his moments in this episode.  I have a long history of liking the brilliant characters who are dropped into the midst a group that needs their specific knowledge. (Rodney McKay, Stephen Maturin, Wesley Wyndham-Pryce...) So... I may have geeked out just a tiny little bit at Tuck playing with chemicals in the great hall, figuring out how to make ~~Greek~~ Byzantine fire at the last moment. I know it's the middle of a battle, I know that there are real stakes here, and I think Tuck knows that too. Very keenly.  But there's something in me that appreciates Tuck's curiosity and his well-earned satisfaction at solving the problem, figuring out the formula. I also like that Tuck is the one that encourages Robin to make his last speech. I don't think this was simply Tuck acting as Robin's PR man. Tuck understands how people work, how quickly morale can falter in situations like this... And he knows that Robin has the power to give people hope, give them courage, and maybe, just maybe, get them through the siege alive. Quality of the speech aside, the people needed to hear from Robin at that point, and Tuck knew it.

I was especially happy with everything Much did. I've talked before about how he got to shine, how he got to lead. Sam's acting in this was top notch, I thought. He was angry and driven and focused and broken and... I have never loved him more. (And he got to take off the *&$%^ hat for once, but I'll get to that part later.) I could say more, but it would just be me repeating more of the same: They finally treated Much right!

And now, I am going to add my voice to the chorus of people in this fandom who have already said, "I didn't want to like Archer, darn it!" I really didn't. I wanted to find him pretentious and over-the-top and not-as-good-as-who-he-was-replacing. I wanted to hate him so much that I couldn't stomach the idea of watching a fourth season (when I thought there might be one) so I could have a clean break with the show and not watch with no regrets. But... I couldn't. In this last episode, I actually saw the potential for him to be a really interesting character, and I'm sad that I don't get to see what they were going to do with him. One of the things that intrigued me the most about him is that he doesn't seem to have many illusions about nobility or morality, his own or anyone else's, but he's still got enough of a conscience that he won't run out on his brothers when they need him. He admits to selling the Byzantine fire to Vasey (which he didn't have to do, by the way... he could have played dumb, but they needed to know how much Vasey had, and Archer had the information), and when Robin calls him on it, Archer does something that not many people have done before. He calls Robin on the cost of ROBIN'S choices. And, what's more, Archer isn't judging Robin for it, he isn't saying that Robin shouldn't have asked people to fight for him, even. He's just pointing out the hypocrisy. Yes, Archer selling barrels of the stuff to the Sheriff is probably going to get people killed. But, from his point of view, so is Robin asking them to fight. I thought that was a really nice scene in general... Clive Standen is certainly pretty... but I think that he also had the beginnings of some good chemistry (of the non-sexual variety) with the rest of the cast. Of course, I mostly mean "with Robin and Guy," and we were going to lose the two of them anyway. *sigh* I really wish the three "brothers" could have had more time together, because it was amazing seeing them all playing off of each other.

Archer has some other great moments, but I appreciated him most when he went into the tunnel after Guy. He wants to go with Guy when they both see Isabella in the first place, but Guy won't let him. In a way, I think that Archer understands Guy's "I have to do this alone" attitude. He knows Guy won't ask for Robin's help on this, even if it kills him. And while Archer understands Guy's reluctance, he thinks it's ridiculous, so he does the sensible thing and lets Robin know what's going on. I... am so grateful to him for that, I can hardly stand it. It meant that Guy didn't have to die alone. And again, I feel the loss of what could have been.  I saw the beginnings of Archer acting as a bridge between Guy and Robin when the two of them needed him to be. I think he sometimes understands both of them in ways the other just doesn't get. (Yes, I know Guy and Robin have a lot of shared history that binds them together, but I think Archer is enough like both of of his brothers that he gets reasons and motivations that would be difficult for Guy or Robin to wrap their minds around because they're on opposite sides of the spectrum.)

Vasey and Isabella: At Long Last, Villainy Doesn't Pay

Though Isabella acted completely out of self-interest throughout this entire episode, I still found it hard not to feel for her. She is alone, she has no friends, and hell is about to reign down on Nottingham. I'm not excusing what she does, but there is a mad desperation to her actions that almost makes me sorry for her. I think Lara has a lot to do with this, too. Even when she's doing terrible things, her expressions and body language are confused and conflicted. For instance, when Guy comes down to offer her the poison, she throws everything she can at him, psychologically speaking. Marian's death, his own skewed sense of mercy... and for what? Was she trying to convince him to let her go? Perhaps. But... I also think that she senses that he's starting to feel sorry for the things he's done, and she wants to twist the knife as much as possible. However, when he turns his back and leaves, she says his name to herself, almost gently, as if she is sad that he's leaving. I don't know what to make of it, and honestly, I think that Isabella doesn't either. She's angry and afraid and unbalanced, but there are other feelings there as well... feelings that she is trying to tamp down and push as far back into the recesses of her consciousness as possible. Because caring would make her vulnerable, which is the last thing she wants to be right now.

I had some timeline issues with her luring Guy into the tunnel. How did she know exactly when the Sheriff would be there? There was no point where she could have communicated with him. I suppose she didn't know, then... She was probably was simply remembering her instructions to get Guy into the tunnel and thought that if she could give Guy to Vasey, she might be able to get some protection and retain some of her power. And... Vasey seems ready to offer that to her. The look on her face when she drops that cloak, though, and goes over to Vasey's side... she'll take what she can get, but she is not happy about it. (What WAS that dropping the cloak thing, anyway? A symbol of the Sheriff's office? Vasey sure never wore it... Why did she have to get rid of it to show her allegiance? Because the less clothing a woman is wearing, the more vulnerable she is? *stops that line of thinking before the monster in my chest that's still angry at the FEMINIST FAIL of Isabella's arc wakes up*) Anyway... I thought it was really interesting that Isabella finally honestly recognizes that Archer is her brother. What changed? Last week, she was up in arms about her mother's sacred memory. Here's what I think it is: she believes it because Archer is still in town. In her mind, the fact that he stayed with Robin and Guy when he could have gone anywhere with the money she had given him is all the proof she needs. Why else would he have stayed?

It has occurred to me that Isabella wants Guy to die in despair. She wants him to die regretting what he did to her, remembering that he hurt one of the people who trusted him. That's why she brings up the "You loved me once" again at the beginning of the fight in the tunnel. She wants that to be the last thing on his mind. But... she's doesn't get that satisfaction. Later, when the Sheriff and his men pass by the body, Isabella is angry.  The only explanation for that look I can come up with is that she's upset that Guy looks like he's at peace.   At the end, she failed to crush his spirit as completely as she would have liked to. It's terrible and messed up beyond all belief, but I like it, if only because it showed that Guy was able to rise above that very same impulse for anger and cruelty.  Still, though, I'm sorry that Isabella died without even a little bit of redemption. She didn't get to have a Marian or a Meg or a Robin come along and see the good that was buried under all of that insecurity and hunger for power. And it makes sad, because I'll always believe that with just a little bit of kindness, she could have been a different person. I'm... actually tearing up as I write this. I've cried for Allan, for Guy, for Robin and the rest of the gang... but I hadn't realized how much I'm sorry that Isabella died. She has such potential... she deserved to be better than she show allowed her to be.

And now... on to Vasey, whose death caused me NO pain at all. I have never loved to hate a character so much as I hated him in this episode. Keith Allen was wonderful, as usual (and he had a very snazzy cape, if I do say so myself). The confidence with which he declares, "I want my town back!" the nastiness of his "Welcome to hell, Robin Hood..." and the fact that he attacks in the middle of the night when he was supposed to wait for dawn, his not-at-all-contained glee when he realized Isabella had killed Robin were all classic Vasey. However, something is... different about him. He's bored of the game where Robin cleverly tricks him and makes him look the fool. People have mentioned that for three seasons, Robin and the Sheriff have danced around each other, but nothing has really changed. It was an interesting self-referential jab for the Sheriff to make. He knows how the game is played, and he's done playing that way.

Still, though... I wanted him dead. From the moment where he talked about Allan... I wanted to see blood. Mostly because what Vasey says only seemed to confirm my fears that he tortured Allan before he died, though I suppose that he could have been saying it to get under Robin's skin. We've always known Vasey liked to see people break. He's done it to countless one-shot characters, and he tries to do it to Guy in the end, adding his reminder of "You loved me once, too," to Isabella's. So, it gives me a grim sort of satisfaction that Vasey got to know that he was defeated, if only for a few seconds, before he died. There he is, Lord of the Castle once more, only to realize that Robin Hood has fooled him one last time, and this time, it will cost him his life.

And for the last time... Some thoughts on Robin.

It's no secret that I have never been on the best of terms with this version of Robin. It didn't help that he was written as too young, too immature to be the legend I had always envisioned. However, in this last episode... I respected him, I felt for him, and I was sorry to see him die. It's too bad that we couldn't have had this Robin around for the past season or so. Much of what impressed me so much about Robin here is how he treated other people.  The way he takes his gang for granted has always been one of my major problems with him, and in this episode, he didn't. He trusted Much with his life, and with the defense of the castle if he didn't make it back from trying to destroy Vasey's weapons. And then, there's how he treated Guy... I had one of those moments when I had to blink a whole lot and pinch myself to make sure I was really seeing what I thought I was when the two of them rode out of the castle to parley with Vasey.   I... cannot get over how amazing that was. Robin goes out to seek terms with his oldest enemy, and who does he have at his side? Guy. Even though Guy had claimed to kill the Sheriff, and he is obviously not dead, Robin trusts Guy's word when he swears he didn't know and rides out onto that field with him. And it was a good thing Guy came, too... He kept a cool head when Robin would have done something rash (putting himself within reach of Vasey's sword? Not too smart, Robin...). Also, I share Guy's shock at Robin's utter rejection of Vasey's offer. Yes, it wouldn't have been like Robin to give in, but he didn't even think for a moment about giving Guy up. He may go on about all of this being bigger than Guy later, but I also think that the reason Robin didn't consider Vasey's offer is that he already thinks of Guy as one of his people... He wouldn't trade Much or Kate or John to Vasey, not even for the sake of all of Nottingham, and he's not going to trade Guy. He wouldn't be Robin, though, if he didn't get a little pissy at Guy for assuming it was "about him." I even liked that, though, because Robin gave Guy the chance to leave, or to choose to fight with them, and once Guy made that choice... Robin trusted him completely, no questions asked. (Yes, my "thoughts on Robin" have turned into "thoughts on Robin and Guy." What were you expecting?)

All season, Tuck has been encouraging Robin to do more than be the leader of an outlaw band in Sherwood, but Robin has been reluctant. He knew that if he were to try to raise an army of his own to fight the Sheriff and Prince John, a lot of good, earnest, untrained men would die. This time, though, he has no choice. He thinks that if the men from Nottingham and the villages who are trapped in the city don't fight, they'll be slaughtered. (And he hasn't yet factored in Vasey's greed... he really thinks the Sheriff intends to take no prisoners.) And you can see the responsibility of that decision weighing heavily on him. He does the best that he can to make sure as many people make it as possible, and when they are checking on the wounded after the retreat, you can see him taking in what they've lost, dealing with it, and moving on. When I really felt for Robin, though, was the moment he learned that King Richard wasn't coming. He had never intended to hold the castle indefinitely. He'd been holding on to the slim hope that he, his team, and some determined villagers and city folk who hated the Sheriff could hold out just long enough for Richard to return an show up with reinforcements. Learning that they're on their own, that no help is coming? It breaks him a little. You can see what the loss of that hope does to Robin, and it's not just himself or his friends he's worried for, either. He knows that a lot more people are going to die, now, and he knows that with Richard being held for ransom, things are only going to get worse for everyone in England.

However, even knowing that Richard isn't coming... knowing that they have very little hope, Robin leads. I've made fun of his speechifying right along with the rest of the fandom, but sometimes, people need to hear from their heroes. And... I even like his speech. He doesn't promise them victory, because he knows that it's not very likely. He promises them meaning, though, and that's even more important, sometimes. And I even like to think that he's right... that sometimes the examples of a few brave people can change things. It's happened before. Sure, this is a kind of preachy kids show... but I think that's one "message" I'm ok with. And I love Robin so much for giving people what they needed as their leader when he obviously had so little left to give.  That is leadership. That is what Robin could have been if he'd decided to be more than a cocky kid tweaking the Sheriff's nose.

After Robin is poisoned, he accepts his death sentence with a lot of grace, and he still does what has to be done with the time he has left. He cares for his people, makes sure they get out of the castle, and fights like he has nothing to lose. He doesn't want anyone making a big deal out of him before he knows that the Sheriff has been taken care of, and for that, he has my utmost respect. In keeping with the fact that Robin is supposed to be a preternaturally good archer, I love that he gets to shoot One. Last. Awesome. Arrow. And what an arrow it was... with his last shot, he destroys Vasey, Isabella, an entire army, and all of Nottingham castle. I also think it was significant that he brought Archer with him. He recognized that he might not be able to make the shot, that Archer might have to do it for him. I know I've been terribly annoyed at him for his "Of course I can do it! I'm Robin Hood" lines before, but this time... it was quite poignant when he said it as he visibly struggled to draw his bow properly.

I cannot even pretend to be objective about the scene where Robin says goodbye to everyone. I was a crying mess by this point, and I wasn't much better my second time through. I really did think it was nicely done, though. I thought it was fitting that they started with a reminder of Robin's connection to Sherwood. The forest has given him shelter, a place to hide, a place to call home when he gave up his lands and his titles. He loves Sherwood, and his remarking on the beauty of the sunset (and yes, even the Gladiator-esque hand on the grass) let us see that in a way we don't usually get to. When he begins to say goodbye to everyone... I think that he tries to give each of them what they need in his last words to them. He gives Much confidence. He recognizes the man that Much is and how very important their friendship has been to him over the years. And when he says "You're already a better man than I'll ever be," I think he means it. He gives John strength. John doesn't need gentle words or consolation. He needs Robin's big, loud "This is a GOOD DAY to die," and a gruff man-hug. Robin gives Archer a place to belong, and reminds him that he's got a family if he wants one. He gives Tuck a continuing sense of mission, assuring him that the future they fought for together won't die with him.  He gives Kate... his respect and a hug.  I've laughed at him calling her "brave" before... but not this time.  This time, she was brave. And, I may be going out on a limb here, but I think he did her a favor by not giving her dying declarations of love or reminding her of what they'd had. It will be easier for her to move on without Robin's dying assurances of affection ringing in her ears.

And then... he leaves them. Because he doesn't want them to remember him weak and in pain and dying, I think. And because they need to comfort each other, not him. The image of John putting one arm around Kate and the other around Much is... so perfect. Those two are the ones struggling most, and John knows it.

Again, I make no promises about coherency when I talk about Robin seeing Marian. I knew she was going to be in this episode. And my number one guess for how she would be featured was as heavenly welcome party for Robin. But still... even though I knew it was coming, I still stopped breathing for a moment when I saw her walking through the forest. I cried at this scene. I'm a Guy/Marian shipper down to the depths of my soul, but I cried anyway. The way he says her name is terribly, beautifully romantic.  He still loves her, and she's been waiting for him, and he finally gets to take her hand and laugh with her with no worries, no cares, no enemies waiting to find him. He can rest now, and I think he's earned it. We leave them with one last shot of him spinning her around, their voices echoing through the trees until it fades into nothing and they pass from life into legend.

I haven't said much about the scene after Robin's death, and I suppose here is as good a place as any. Everyone's reactions are very much in character, I think. Much is so broken he thinks he can't go on, can't imagine continuing their work without Robin. Tuck is trying to keep everyone together, making speeches, trying to inspire them to honor Robin's memory and remember why they fight.  Kate is ready to do what she thinks Robin would have wanted.  John... doesn't say anything at all, but he's quick to join Kate and Tuck, which works for me. Archer hangs back for just a moment, as if he's consciously making a choice, and then he's in. Much... is the last to be in. In a way, he's just lost the most. He's known Robin longest, and he's least ready to even begin to move on. But when John calls him, he's in, but he's still broken. He barely mouths Robin's name when all of them say it.    And the last thing we get to see is all of them, carrying Robin's body together. The episode started with the gang honoring one dead outlaw, and it ended with them burying another. Rest easy, Robin. You and I didn't always get along, but I think I cared for you in the end all the same.

In Which I Couldn't Be More Proud of Sir Guy of Gisborne

In the group of friends I do fannish things with, I'm "the one who likes the villains." Point me to a fandom I love, and I'll point you to at least one character I adore who is either morally ambiguous or just plain evil. I make up excuses and come up with implausible rationalizations for my villains' heinous actions in my spare time, and I come up with missing tragic backstories like it's my job. So, when I first "met" Guy of Gisborne, I couldn't have been happier. He was working for the wrong side, he was Not a Nice Person, and he made things difficult for the hero. However, from the very beginning, I was almost certain that there had to be something more to Guy. There was a reluctance, a depth and a complexity to him that went beyond the black-clad right-hand-man he could have been in the hands of a lesser actor. And if that was all we had ever gotten to see -- those little early hints of compassion, those times where it appeared that, just for a moment, there was more to him than the villain's role life had dealt to him -- I would have been content. I would have joined up with other Guy fangirls, and we would have talked and squeed and theorized about why he was so damaged (we did that anyway...) and written fics that milked those moments of humanity for all they were worth, and we would have speculated about what it would be like for him to do the right thing, just once.

But then, the most amazing thing happened... I didn't have to pretend to make Guy better than he was. Canon did it for me. The writers may have made a lot of mistakes on this show, but letting Guy turn into a person was not one of them. He got to fall in love with Marian in canon. He got to begin to make real, beautifully noble choices. He got to begin to change, and then... he killed her, and I worried that we had seen the last of Guy's humanity, but as the third series progressed, I realized that it was still there.  It was horribly trodden upon and abused and haunted, but it was there. And then, he was standing up to the Sheriff and having life-changing conversations with young, naive girls in prison cells and offering Robin a hand up so they could go traveling together... And so, while I see where all of the people who think that Guy's turnaround and integration into the gang went by too quickly are coming from, I'm so terribly happy that Guy got any sort of redemption at all that I don't care. Sure, I wish he could have had a long, awkward time of it getting to know his place in the forest, but with Richard leaving, they didn't have a long time. So they did the best they could with the time they had, and I think it was fantastic. All of that is to say... I loved the Guy that we got to see in this episode - smart and proud and tragic and everything I had always hoped that he would get to be.

Guy may have been warily accepted into the gang, but even as he works with them, he knows he's an outsider. When Vasey shows up at the gates, and Guy and Robin about to ride out to meet him, one of the first things Guy does is try to convince Robin that he didn't know Vasey was still alive. Guy knows that it looks bad for him that he claimed to have killed Vasey, and yet there he is... at the head of an army with a serious yen for revenge. In a way, it's as if Guy feels responsible for Vasey showing up. If he had killed the Sheriff properly, they wouldn't be in this situation, and he's expecting Robin to blame him for his "failure." Vasey certainly would have if the situation had been reversed. (In fact, Vasey DID get angry at Guy every time Robin turned out not to be "dead.") I think that all of this plays into Guy's surprise when Robin doesn't turn him over to the waiting army. In Guy's mind, that's what happens when you fail spectacularly: you get cut loose. And though he knows that Robin is different from Vasey, it still doesn't make sense to him that Robin would choose to fight rather than give him up. I think he's finally beginning to realize just how different Robin really is... and that realization, as much as anything, is what prompts him to tell Robin, "I'm with you." That, and the fact that he couldn't ask for a more dedicated and willing group of people who detest Vasey down to the very core of their beings.

I find it to be brutally ironic that Guy gives Isabella the poison that ends up killing Robin. At first, I thought that this was a stupid move on his part, but now, I'm not so sure. When he gave it to her, she was behind bars, had no weapons, and was about to be caught in the middle of a short, bloody siege. Isabella sarcastically asks him if giving her the poison is his idea of mercy, but really it is. Guy has almost been publicly executed twice in the second half of this series, and he knows all about the shame and the fear that comes with dying in front of a crowd. He doesn't want her to have to suffer that. As awkward and strained as it was, this scene breaks my heart for a couple of reasons. First of all, we finally get Guy showing genuine kindness to his sister, and it comes in the form of a vial of poison. One last messed up, weirdly gentle gesture on the part of the elder Gisborne sibling. And even then, he's still Guy, ready to accuse her of being in league with Vasey and thinking the worst of her. (I kind of think this makes his "mercy" even more surprising...) Second... Isabella tries to throw Marian in his face, and he barely reacts. In fact, he agrees with her that there is too much blood on his hands. Having taken responsibility for what he's done, nothing Isabella can say to him can condemn him any more than he already condemns himself. That is... staggeringly sad, but appropriate.

(A brief note about the poison: If I remember correctly, in several versions of the Robin Hood legend, Robin does die by poison... and sometimes, it's even a female relative of Guy or the Sheriff who gives it to him, out of revenge for killing her kin. I wonder if they meant to be referencing that...)

When Guy isn't wondering why on earth Robin hasn't turned him over to be tortured and killed by Vasey or giving his sister poison so she won't be killed painfully by whoever wins the battle... he's being brilliantly competent at what he's supposed to be doing: helping the gang fight off the Sheriff's army. The second he comes back from giving Isabella the poison, he's asking, "What's happening?" He wants to be part of the conversation, thinks he might have something important to add, and... everyone else reacts like this is the most natural thing in the world.   And he does remind them of a pretty major weakness in their defenses... the tunnel that all of them think is blocked. I've already flailed a considerable amount about Guy being one of the men Robin takes with him to take out the trebuchets... so I'll only do it a little here. *flails just a little* That was Guy, crawling through the dirt with Robin and Tuck, sabotaging war machines, getting saved by Archer, and helping them to bar the city gates with riders coming up fast behind them! GUY! *flails a little more* See? Done. Guy also knows when to fall back. He probably knows the defenses of Nottingham better than anyone else in the city, and when he shouts to Robin that the gates aren't going to hold much longer, Robin listens, and later, when they're falling back even further into the great hall, Robin yells for Guy to get people organized, and Guy starts to do it. No questions asked. And by the end of things, it seems as if he actually cares what happens to everyone. He may say he doesn't care about the people, he may tell everyone that the only reason he fights on their side is to get even with Vasey, but I think that somewhere in the middle of this episode, that changes. After the first big fight when they've all pulled back into the courtyard, Guy surveys the damage, and he looks worried, and a little upset.  And it isn't a "counting the number of bodies and adjusting plans based on current tactical disadvantage" kind of thing. It's... much more personal than that. He has been around dead and dying soldiers many times, but this is probably the first time he's been around common people - not soldiers, not outlaws, just everyday, common people - who are so willing to fight and die for a cause and for each other. I... think it might even inspire him just a little. Because when Robin makes his big speech at the end, none other than Guy of Gisborne, Robin's most sarcastic, cynical detractor, is raising his sword in salute. And in that moment, I think Guy finally believes in it -- all of Robin's ideals about hope and meaning and justice -- not because Robin finally showed him the light, but because Guy has always been a terribly disillusioned idealist who still wanted to believe. And in that moment... he does.

The first time I watched this episode, I yelled at Guy when he went into the tunnel after Isabella, "No! Don't go in there alone!"   But of course, he wouldn't be Guy if he had asked for help. The way Guy sees it, Robin has more important things to attend to than one escaped prisoner. Isabella is Guy's responsibility, and he'll be the one to deal with her. However, even though he stopped Archer from getting Robin, Guy doesn't seem particularly surprised when his brother tags along at first. (And it's a good thing they were down there, too, because with all of the noise upstairs, I'll bet no one even heard the explosion underneath the castle.) So, having sent Archer up to warn Robin that the tunnel is open, Guy runs into the Sheriff and Isabella alone. And for the first bit of that fight, it's just Guy and Vasey. He's on his own, just like he's always been, and then... Robin's there, and then Archer... sure, both of them were there for "big picture" reasons like making sure they weren't about to be attacked from the inside, but... they're also there for Guy, defending him when he needed it most. It was... wonderful to watch. And it was an excitingly choreographed fight scene, too. The PotC fangirl in me loves that at one point, Guy tosses Archer his sword because Archer needs it more than he does. Also... I love that Guy saves Robin. Guy saw Isabella about to stab Robin in the back, and he is the one who pushed Robin out of the way, leaving him with no weapon standing over the Sheriff. The moment I saw Vasey grab that sword and put it through him... I think my heart stopped beating for a couple of seconds. Looking at it now, though... I'm glad that it was Vasey and Isabella who killed him.   So much better than him being killed by a random guard or an impersonal arrow.  At least Vasey and Isabella were... worthy opponents. In a way, it's fitting that the man who tried to kill Guy's spirit slowly for all of these years should be the one to kill his body. (Though the final victory, I think, is Guy's, not the Sheriff's.  His spirit was alive and well there at the end.) And... I cannot emphasize this enough... Guy died saving Robin. Yes, Robin got nicked by the dagger, but Guy at least saved Robin for long enough for Robin to save everyone (using the secret cellar Guy points out with his dying words, by the way!). Not a useless way to die at all, and for that, I am relieved.

When Robin sees that Guy is hurt... he calls his name with a mixture of desperation and genuine concern, and a lot of the anger that he directs at the Sheriff seems to be on Guy's behalf. Robin is angry and upset that Guy is dying... and it seems right. If this is what happens when the universe is slightly out of alignment, I don't want it to ever go back. Guy's actual death is one of the hardest things for me to watch, still. I loved the way they wrote it, but it's hard. He is calm and ready for it, and he doesn't seem afraid. I hadn't realized this before, but I think that Guy smiles in this scene more than he did in any almost any episode this season. Possibly even the one with Meg. I've become quite the connoisseur of Guy-smiles over the course of the show, and I've learned to recognize the sardonic ones, the fake ones, and the crafty ones. That wasn't what he was doing here. He really smiles at Archer when he calls him "Brother," and... that peaceful, not-quite-there look that settles over his face, corners of his mouth just slightly upturned.... I don't think I've ever seen that before. Not even when Marian was alive. There was always too much fear and power getting in the way when he smiled for her. But this... this was the smile of a man who is at peace. He knows that he's near the end, and it's almost as if he's already seeing the other side as he speaks. At the last, Guy knew three things: he loved Marian. Marian and Robin loved each other. And both of them helped him to die free of the Sheriff and the evil he represented. Yes, I think that when Guy says, "I lived in shame, but because of you I died proud and free," he's talking to Marian and Robin.  He's come a long way from that desert courtyard in the Holy Land, where the idea of Marian loving another is enough to drive him to kill her. In his last moments, Guy loves Marian still. He's also grateful to her for what she showed him how to be, and, without rancor or reservation, grateful to the man she loved for what he allowed Guy to become.

Oh, Guy, my Best Beloved... You died a good man, and that is more than I ever thought I could ask for. I'll miss you, but I'm glad you're free at last.

Next week on Robin Hood...

Oh wait. There won't be a next week... what am I going to DO on Saturdays from now on? (Grade, see friends, and work on my bigbanghood fic... that's what I'm going to do!) Actually, it looks like there won't be a "Next Time on Robin Hood" at all, now. The BBC canceled the show. Not that I'm terribly surprised. I am, however, vacillating between being relieved that it's over and strangely sad that I don't get the choice to watch Series 4 or not. Because, with the right writers/producers working on it, I think that the gang we were left with could have been a lot of fun.

Robin Hood 3x12 Review: Something Worth Fighting For, Part 1

corrielle@yahoo.com — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 01:32:41 GMT

For as long as I've been watching it, Robin Hood has been all about trust, camaraderie, and teamwork. When I think of other penultimate episodes of this show, they have all been about the team coming together, whether they're stuck in a cave with the Sheriff surrounding them and Marian bleeding nearly to death or heading out to the Holy Land to save the king, with Allan newly welcomed back into the group. The point is, they were all together. This episode felt different to me. For a long time now, there have been divisions, little cracks in their solidarity waiting to be exploited. John almost left over Guy's introduction into the gang, Much almost left, too (and the reason for it was never dealt with...), Kate is trying her hardest to trust Robin and accept Guy, but it's not working very well, Guy is around being useful but making everyone tense, and though they didn't show this to us at all, it's pretty obvious that though they may have forgiven Allan, none of them ever forgot his betrayal. My point is, Isabella may have been the catalyst that separated them from each other, but the only reason she was successful is that there were already existing problems that she brought out into the open. (I'm reminded of the Buffy episode "The Yoko Factor," in which Spike does to the Scooby gang pretty much the exact same thing Isabella does to the outlaws, but with a lot more subtlety.) At the end of the episode, when all of them are standing at the castle gates, they are together again, ready to shut the door against whatever storm is coming, but they've paid a price for forgetting that they are strongest when they trust each other, and they are less than they were before.

The Death of Allan a Dale, the Most Wonderful Rogue Sherwood has Ever Known

I was not ready to lose Allan. I even knew that it might happen. caedhe and I have "odds of dying" for each character written on the the whiteboard in our dining room, and I'd pegged Allan at 80%. Still, I wasn't ready. I didn't think that it would happen in this episode, and I didn't think that it would happen like that. I know that Allan has been horribly underused this series, but it seemed to me that he was... happy. He was content to be back in the gang, cracking jokes, making fun of Much, doing accents and wearing disguises and getting people into the castle. And why? Because of what he told John last week. These people were his family in a way that his real relatives never were. Especially Robin, Much, and Little John. I think he considered Kate and Tuck family to some extent as well (and who knows how he thought about Guy... we'll certainly never know now...), but the three of them who have been with him from the beginning... they were special. They were the ones who had taken him back after his betrayal. They were the ones who knew what he'd done, had seen him at his worst, and let him fight by their side anyway. And that is why the scene where Allan is accused of working with Isabella is so heartbreaking. Other people have said it, but I'll say it too. Joe Armstrong really outdid himself here. He's so sure that at least one of them will believe in him, and the moment he realizes that no one is going to, you can see him break a little. One moment, his face is an open book, and he's pleading with his friends to trust him, and then, the "Who cares? Not me!" wall goes back up.

I can almost understand the gang's reactions. Things are going badly. It looks like Prince John has the army to force Richard into a civil war, the villages they've fought so hard to protect are conscripted and emptied of food, and the plan to take the castle is a gamble at best. The old Allan... the Allan of series one, or even the middle of last season, might have taken the opportunity to skip out on them. (Incidentally, I don't think that anyone thought Allan had been working with Isabella for a long time... I think they assume he recently made a deal with her for his own safety.) I even understand that Robin doesn't want to take the risk of bringing Allan along or leaving him free. But... the way they treat him makes me so upset that I can't really write coherently about it. Especially the way John reacts, not even giving Allan time to speak before throttling him. John was one of the angriest at Allan back in series two, and he's the angriest now.   It doesn't matter how close he and Allan have gotten... John's still ready to believe that Allan would run out on them, given the chance. This applies to Much, too, who is quick to bring up that Allan has betrayed them before.  All of this was a revelation for Allan. He didn't realize how easy it would be to get them to turn on him, and I think it shocks him to the core. (This is my excuse for his not defending himself better. Why didn't he point out that, had Isabella pardoned him, he would be long gone by now? Because he was too busy trying to wrap his brain around the fact that none of his friends trust him at all.) As for Robin... I think I like his reaction best of all. I understand why he didn't trust Allan, and Robin does keep John from hurting him. Also, when he says "we'll sort this out when we come back," he implies that there is something that needs to be sorted out. I don't think Robin had made a decision yet, and that buys him an awful lot of credit in my book. He knows that Allan might be innocent, but won't take the chance that he might not be. I'll hand it to Jonas here, too. He makes leaving Allan look like a hard thing for him to do. He's not angry or preachy or blustery about Allan's potential betrayal... he just looks tired and worn.

I will be angry for the rest of time that we didn't get more Guy and Allan interaction. It was great that we got to see Allan reaching out to Guy for support (though he was the last one Allan turned to, I believe...) but Guy is smart enough not to get involved. Besides, I think Guy knows that nothing he can say is going to change anyone's mind. In fact, speaking up for Allan might make things worse, not better. That being said, I'm not sure what to make of that little smirk on Guy's face after he shrugs. A very mean part of me thinks that it's Guy having a moment of amusement at the fact that Robin's much-vaunted band of brothers isn't as cheery and close as they're supposed to be. Or maybe Guy's just smiling at the irony of Allan asking him to speak to his trustworthiness.

When Allan frees himself and leaves the camp, it's the third time over the course of the show that he has left the gang, and he does it thinking that he's not wanted any more. And this time, he's done nothing wrong. He's angry, and understandably so. He risks his life for the cause, just like they do, and what does he get for his trouble? Left behind at the camp, defenseless and a prisoner. I love that he still has a knife up his sleeve, and I love that he walks away grumbling about giving Robin "the best years of my life." That is so... quintessentially Allan.  Even when he's really hurt, he's theatrical and dramatic about it. (For what audience? The universe in general, I suppose...) However, Allan's attitude shifts remarkably quickly when he spots Vasey.  I could have hid. He didn't have to turn around. He could have kept walking right out of Sherwood, away from Nottingham, and he could have left Robin to deal with Vasey on his own. But he doesn't.  The first words out of his mouth are, "I've got to get to Robin."   And he turns around and goes back to warn a bunch of people who have just proved that they have no use for him. Because he loves them. No matter how he may grumble and complain, he loves them, and this isn't just garden-variety danger that he knows they're in. Storming the castle? That's fine with him. They can do that on their own. It's everyday danger. Vasey returning, though? That is scary. It's the kind of danger they won't see coming. The kind that might get them all killed very quickly. And as angry as he may be at them, he doesn't want them dead.

People have remarked on the fact that Allan smiling as he runs and the arrows fly by him. That is very Allan, too. He thinks he's clever, thinks he can outrun the guards, thinks he's going to foil Vasey's plan, and he's grinning at the thought of it. Also, I think he's smiling because he knows that he's got a piece of information will prove his loyalty to the rest of the gang. And that's really what he wants: for them to trust him again. And he keeps running even when he's hit... such courage and determination there... I'm getting all choked up just writing about it, but I am so proud of him. It hurts beyond all belief, but it was a good death, given what the writers had to work with. Yes, he got shot in the back. Yes, he died alone, but he died trying to get back to his friends to warn them. He died trying to do the right thing. I think the worst part for me is that Allan died thinking his friends didn't trust him, and knowing that they were in danger and he hadn't gotten to them in time. That kills me. Also, I realize that the gang has figured out that Allan was innocent, but I almost have this perverse hope that Vasey will taunt Robin with the fact that Allan was coming back to warn them. Because I don't think any of them realize that right now. And they need to.

The scene where the gang discovers Allan's body has some really fantastic acting on everyone's part.  Much is the one who finds him... and he looks like he's crying just a little. They all look pretty devastated, actually. (And I have to disagree with people who think Kate doesn't care... she just looks numb. She's having a terrible day already, and I don't blame her for not emoting.) I think my favorite, though, is Little John sitting down in shock. I wonder if he feels the worst, having been the one most ready to accuse Allan. The way they all gather around him and Tuck closes those gorgeous blue eyes of his for the last time... it was good. It hurt like hell, but it was good. I may be blazingly angry at the gang for not believing in him, but I have to sympathize with them. I know how they feel. I just lost Allan, too. And then... John picks up his body and carries it inside. Because that's what we do for our fallen comrades. We make sure they're treated with care. (Though it sure looks like Vasey roughed Allan up before he died... caedhe pointed out that Allan's face is more bloody than it is in the last scene where he's alive, and he got shot in the back, not anywhere near the head. I don't want to think about what might have happened to him between that moment and... yeah. Not thinking about that.) I know I mentioned it before, but that last shot of all of them standing in the gate before it closes really gets me. Allan made it back to them in the end... just not the way he thought he was going to. Wow. I hadn't thought of that before now... I think I'm going to go cry some more now.

Another discussion I've seen going on revolves around whether or not Allan's death was "meaningful" enough. People have pointed out that his death isn't a big, flashy one because Allan isn't "the hero type," and that the fact that he fails to get back to Robin makes it more dramatic. And they're right. It does. But this show does flashy deaths for its major characters most of the time. It's not the kind of show that kills people off in useless ways because Life's Like That. I get the tragedy, and I can even respect what the show runners were trying to do, but did they have to do it to him? Also, gaelic_bohemian pointed out to me that from a writing perspective, killing Allan ups the ante. No one is safe now, and killing him in the first part of the finale makes the audience fear for every single character every time someone so much as sneezes in the second part. It's the same thing that happened in Serenity, if you'll bear with me for another Joss Whedon reference. He killed Book, and we knew to be worried. He killed Wash, and I felt real, gut-wrenching fear for each and every member of that crew every time they took a hit for the rest of the movie. But the writers of Robin Hood aren't Joss Whedon. Joss makes it work while still respecting the integrity of the characters. As well as Allan's actual death was handled, I feel like it was a little too obvious that Allan's death was serving a functional purpose - making us wonder what's coming and proving that the show runners aren't afraid to kill people. And it seems... disrespectful to a character I really loved to kill him off for such a utilitarian reason. *sobs* I'll miss you, Allan a Dale.

Some Thoughts on Robin

Looking back at some of the things that I have written about Robin, I realized that I have not been terribly kind to him this series. This episode, though, I had a lot of respect for him. He's still himself... still giving inspirational speeches about how the castle belongs to the people, but he also had a seriousness and a gravity that suited him really well. He also did some things that showed him to be a good leader and a good friend, which is what Robin is when he's at his best. First of all, the plan to take the castle is quite a gamble.   But Robin is desperate... and he knows he wouldn't have to hold the castle permanently. If things had been different, he just might have been able to pull it off if Richard was indeed coming back within the month. Gamble or no, the gang seems to be willing to follow his lead (except for Kate, but her reasons have nothing to do with Robin's leadership abilities and everything to do with the fact that it's Guy providing the way in). And that is what makes Robin special. He can announce to his gang, "Hey guys... We're going to take over Nottingham castle! Just the six of us!" And they believe it. Or at least they're willing to try.

Robin's treatment of Guy in this episode is really interesting. With everything going to pieces, Richard about to return, and the gang's dynamic dangerously out of balance, Robin continues to trust Guy without question, which at first seemed really odd and out of character. However, the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. Robin knows that Guy isn't going to betray them to Isabella. He's been around Guy long enough to figure out that Guy's desire for revenge on his sister is greater than any reward Isabella might offer him. Also, Robin knows Guy needs him and the rest of the gang to get what he wants. Still, when Robin said, "Gisborne is one of us now... our fate is his," I nearly fell out of my chair. I don't think I'll ever stop being surprised at lines like that. I think that though this was directed at Kate, he was saying it to Guy as well, just as a reminder that not only are their purposes intertwined, but their lives kind of depend on each other at this point.

I really don't know what to think about Robin/Kate. At times, it almost seemed sweet. However, the moment that intrigues me most is when he can't tell her that he needs her more than her family does.  From a certain point of view, he is the reason that she has left the people she loves so that she can be in danger all the time, and I think he's feeling a bit guilty about it. He isn't willing to say, "Yes. Stay with me. I need you so much more than your family ever could," because that kind of selfishness is reminiscent of conversations he had with Marian. He was constantly asking her to come to the forest with him, even when Edward was still alive.  He's older now, and wiser, and I don't think that Robin is ever going to be able to be that selfish when it comes to a relationship again. From where I sit, it's a mark of maturity that he couldn't say what Kate wanted to hear. He even seems a bit relieved when he thinks Kate has gone to her family. There's sadness there, yes, he's certainly not rejoicing, but he knows that he and his plans are not always the most important things in the universe, and he thinks Kate has every right to look after the ones she loves, even if it means leaving him.

The last place where I think Robin really shines is the scene where he's trapped with Much and Guy. Robin isn't the one accusing Guy, which I suppose isn't surprising, but still... the fact that there's no anger there at all, no accusation, floors me a little. And then, Robin is honestly concerned about getting all three of them out. (We pause this serious discussion for a brief quibble. If the point was for one of them to grab the grating and let the other two hang onto him, Robin had the right idea at first. GUY should have been the one standing on their backs. He's taller, making it easier for him to get up there and more likely to reach the top. I understand why it needed to be Robin for story purposes, though. I also think that it's fascinating that Guy doesn't argue when Much says, "No... it has to be you, Robin...") Anyway... though the falling "limestone" did look an awful lot like kitty litter, as other reviewers have pointed out, I actually thought that the scene where Robin is holding onto Much's hand and yelling for him and Guy to hang on to each other was terribly sad and strangely moving. It was hurting Robin that he was the one surviving longest while the other two sank, (Much especially...) but even though he knew the situation was dire, he was still trying to help them make it through, trying to give them some slender hope to hold onto.  Because having hope in the face of insurmountable odds is what Robin does.

Guy of Gisborne: The Man with a Plan

We saw less of Guy than I would have liked this episode, but I will admit that I have been rather spoiled lately, and what we did get to see was quite good. Guy seems to be integrating into the group without being ridiculous about it. He's no one's bosom friend yet, but he takes that message from Isabella's rider like he's been an outlaw for ages. Also, he seems to be quietly keeping up his role as The One Who Thinks Things Through. When Much and John show up worried, out of breath, and carrying news of the conscriptions, Guy is the first one asking, "How many?" He's not appalled at the human cost of what is going on because, as he says later, he really doesn't care much for "the people." Though this is classic Heartless Gisborne Thinking, Guy's lack of caring makes him a valuable asset. Because Guy thinks this way, he can be more immediately clear-headed about what needs to be done.   He can usually strategize and see the big picture without emotion and righteous outrage getting in the way. I think that in a way, this partially explains why Robin trusts Guy so much. Guy has been very up front about his motivations. He doesn't pretend to be noble or high-minded. He wants revenge against an enemy of Robin's, and he's willing to join up with the outlaws to further that ultimate end. If Guy had suddenly started caring deeply and passionately about the concerns of the peasants, he would have been much more suspicious and much less useful.

The scene where Tuck, Guy, and Robin are the ones who find the locket is really interesting. First of all, I'm having tons of fun seeing Guy interact with combinations of characters he's never been on screen with before. The Tuck, Guy, and Robin trio oozes confidence and strong personality. Guy's face when he Tuck hands him the piece of the locket is hard to read. Could it be that he's a bit sad to see one more memory from his childhood turning up broken?   Then, Robin and Tuck both turn to him with accusation in their eyes, and Guy gets this momentarily hurt/frightened look on his face that quickly dissolves into, "Really? Are you guys really going to accuse me after I've just told you what it is?" Guy actually defends himself quite well here. His logic is pretty good. Why would he speak up about the locket belonging to Isabella if he was the one in league with her?   I know this is my bias shining through, but I can't help but laugh every time Robin reminds Guy that Isabella is his sister, and Guy comes back with, "Yeah... a sister who has betrayed me many times and tried to kill me," all the while looking at Robin as if he were an idiot child for even suggesting that line of argument.

It seems to me that Robin believes Guy about the locket not being his, because it's after that scene that Guy suggests using the tunnel, and Robin is all for it. I really like that Guy got to bring that piece of information to the group. It's something that is uniquely his that no one else, not even Allan, could have known. I also like how he explains what he knew. He doesn't nice it up, he doesn't try to make himself sound better.  Guy tells it like it was, murdered workers and all, and makes no apologies. (I could go on a mini-rant here about how the Bootstrap Bill lookalike in the bar knew about the tunnel, but I won't. I'll just go with the "he needed to know to further the plot" explanation and have done with it.) And when Robin chooses someone to come with him and Much to actually go through the tunnel, who does he choose? Guy. He is the most logical choice... he knows the tunnel, knows the castle, and is probably the most effective person to have around if their purpose is to get to Isabella. (Also, kind of clever on Robin's part, actually... if the tunnel had been a trap Guy had set, he might have tried to get out of it. Am I giving Robin too much credit? Maybe... But I'm in a charitable mood today.)

This brings me to possibly one of the funniest things that happened all episode. The hugging scene. This was... so wonderfully in character. Robin and the rest of the gang are shaking hands and hugging and clapping each other on the back (except for Allan, who is tied up, and Kate, who has run off, but no one seems to care about them at the moment...), and Guy is standing there watching them, looking disgusted and impatient and the tiniest bit awkward. I really wanted someone to shake his hand, at least, to recognize that he was risking his life as well, but really, the way they did it makes sense. None of them would really care too much if they never saw Guy again, and he probably has no desire to see them again... so all he can do is stand there and wait for them to get it over with.  I really want an icon of this scene with Guy eye-rolling in the background. It needs to have Spike's, "This is the crack team that foils my every plan? I am deeply shamed" quote on it. I will be deeply grateful to anyone who does this for me.

In the tunnel, poor Guy has to deal with still more idiotic accusations, this time from Much, who thinks that Guy led them into a trap and then put himself in the middle of it as well. But he's quick to see that the three of them are going to have to work together to stay alive, and he doesn't even grumble about letting Robin stand on his shoulders. The most we get from him here is a slightly annoyed, "THIS is how I'm going to go? Really?" look. Poor Guy... stuck dying in a shower of limestone with his former-worst-enemy and his former-worst-enemy's ~~boyfriend~~ Best Friend Ever. I'm being flippant about it, but that would have been kind of terrible. It's one of the lonelier ways for him to go that I can think of.  It would almost be worse for him to die in the presence of people who don't care about him than for him to die physically alone. Because Robin and Much's devotion to each other would have underscored how Guy... still has no one.

We don't get to see much more of Guy, but I think it's worth mentioning that there is something odd about the way he looms over Isabella once the gang catches her.  He is... almost protective. I can't quite put my finger on why I think this, but a lot of it has to do with the way he drags her back inside the castle at the end. Yes, he's keeping an eye on her, yes, it's probably because he wants to kill her himself, but I swear that the vestiges of protectiveness are there, and I don't know what to make of it.

And finally, I love that Guy is the first one to notice the approaching army. There's a calm, quiet focus that comes over him when he draws his sword and says, "Close the gates." It sends shivers down my spine. He knows what's coming, and he knows that no one else is going to give the needed orders because they're all too focused on Allan. So in that moment, he's the one who HAS TO. I have always had a thing for Guy taking charge in the midst of hopeless situations. Watching "Walkabout" 9,376 times will do that to a person.

Isabella's Continued Descent Into Madness

I have to give Isabella credit. Her plan to drive a wedge between Robin and the rest of his gang was clever and insidious. She used what she knew about them to do something that Vasey hasn't managed since series one: get a member of the gang killed. (I'm not counting Marian here...) Also, as usual, Lara Pulver is rocking her costumes. That black number with the red underskirt and all the buckles was... horridly anachronistic, and I didn't care because she looked so good in it and managed to own the screen anyway.

Behind all of the bluster and the black and red wardrobe, though, Isabella is desperate. She knows she is in danger of disappointing John, and she knows what that will mean for her. Her letter offering support to John seems to be in earnest, and she is trying to get herself onto the winning side before the war ever breaks out. Also, she knows that Robin and Guy are out there, putting their heads together and plotting her demise. No wonder she's a bit paranoid. Even paranoid, though, she manages to function quite well for most of the episode. She's still making plans, carrying out her plots against Robin, shooting at peaceful demonstrators from the castle walls... Doing all the things a good Sheriff of Nottingham does, in other words. I don't think she's quite mad, yet, but she is on her way there. She is a terribly broken woman who got her hands on power for a while only to find out she was in the middle of something larger than herself. (That really doesn't sit will with me, actually... I wanted to wipe that smirk off of Blamire's face when he taunted her with the "You really have no idea what's going on" line. Way to make a cool, powerful female villain completely ineffectual in the space of 2.5 seconds, Show. *sigh* I always knew it was coming. She needed to be humbled so that Vasey's return could seem more sinister. I still don't like it.)

I think it makes sense that she never really believes that Archer is her brother. He offers her no proof other than facts about her family that anyone could have known, so for all she knows, he is just a con-man out to try and use her for her position and her power. The only reason she gives him the time of day is that he convinces her that he can be useful, and as soon as she's done with him, she's ready for him to go away. Honestly, I can't really blame her, and the way she threatens him in that last scene is classic. Lots of people have suggested that the way she idolizes her mother is a little off, but I... can't see it that way. She was pretty young when her mother died, Guy obviously never told her what he knew about the affair, and so why shouldn't she hold her mother's memory as sacred and be really peeved that this upstart, scruffy kid is showing up claiming to be her bastard half-brother? </Gisborne apologetics>

I have done a lot of thinking about whether or not Isabella is still in love with Robin. And... I don't think she is. She never says anything about it to anyone other than Rebecca, and I think that speech about being Robin's "one true Isabella" was entirely for Kate's mother's benefit.

I know I've mentioned it before, but I felt for her in those last scenes. She looks so utterly lost and broken after she loses her position. It would have been easier to hate her if she'd been all bluster and yelling, but she's just... quietly devastated, and the part of me that has always loved her a little just wants to tell her that it's going to be ok. (The part of me that is still angry about Meg, however, is going for the knife collection.)

In Which I Reluctantly Fangirl Over Archer

I don't want to like Archer. In fact, a lot of the time, I don't like him. But I came out of this episode glad that he (and his very impressive arms...) had finally come down on the right side. Like Isabella, he's manipulative and out for himself, able to land on his feet no matter what happens. However, he's not willing to do horrible things on a massive scale, or to stand by while they happen. He's perfectly fine with trapping the tunnel because he's going to get paid for that job, and that will get him out of England. It's nothing personal against Robin or Guy, even... he just happens to have some information that will set him up comfortably for a long time if he can figure out how to use it right.  And if it means selling Guy and Robin out to Isabella, so be it.

The turning point for Archer is when he saves Kate. He's been watching the situation for a while now, has a feel for what's going on, and he has to decide whether or not he's going to get involved. I see his saving Kate as a moment of, "I could do the right thing, or I could do the profitable thing and keep walking…" and he does the right thing. I like to think that in that moment he also realized WHY Robin fights. Because THIS is what Robin and the gang are up against. People who will shoot people in cold blood for no reason other than that they are defiant. I think that some latent nobility of heart was awakened in that moment. It's the only way I can explain Archer's sudden insistence to Kate that "We have to save Robin" .  Having realized he was on the wrong side, he immediately starts to make up for it. While it's a sudden turnaround, I can respect it.   The throwing star, however... *sigh* Ridiculous, but not the worst thing this show has ever done.

One last flail-y note:

VASEY IS BACK!   And he's as flippant and wonderful as ever, even though I'm rooting for him to die a terrible, horrible death for what he did to Allan. How like Vasey to have someone working for him in Nottingham all along, getting Isabella to trust him.... and did anyone else notice that the bird on the pommel of the sword he has looks a lot like the bird on the old Black Knights' rings? Could be coincidence, but I like to think that Vasey has been running around, reaching out to the brotherhood... getting them to come back around to his way of seeing things.

Next week... is going to break my soul. I just know it. I bawled over Allan this week, and next week is going to be even worse.

I've spent lots of time since this episode aired engaging in spoiler-free speculations with caedhe and gaelic_bohemian about who's going to die, who's going to kill them, how the gang is going to look when the dust settles, who the villain of next season is going to be... I might post about some of our more outlandish possibilities if I've got time.

Robin Hood 3x11 Review: The Enemy of My Enemy

corrielle@yahoo.com — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:39:59 GMT

I really enjoyed this episode. It was funny and exciting and had that wink-and-a-nod quality that has been missing of late, but it also had some nicely satisfying emotional bits in unexpected places.

Guy and Robin - Working Together at Last

This entire episode, I kept doing double-takes every time Robin and Guy were on screen together, and it wasn't because they were trying to kill each other. I had to keep reminding myself that they were, in fact, working together. It was weird and strange and wonderful, and Richard and Jonas play off of each other so perfectly that I'm sorry Guy didn't turn outlaw sooner. As with many things in this series, I think the trust between them could have been developed more slowly, and that the audience is being asked to accept too much too soon, but it was nicely done all the same. I actually think that Robin and Guy are also pushing themselves to accept each other more quickly than either of them is comfortable with for the sake of their "shared goals" of rescuing Archer in the short term and thwarting Isabella in the long term. We can see them struggling with this, too. They have a lot of history to work out, and I wouldn't be surprised if they end up beating each other up some more before this is all over. For a very long time, both of them have been defined (at least partially) by being the other's opposite. This may be pushing it a bit, but I think that in working together, both Guy and Robin are having to redefine who they are, and this is unsettling for them. So, they're trying to set boundaries. Hence, we have have Guy's, "Don't ask me to forgive your father for what he did," and Robin's "Don't ask me to forgive you for what you did to Marian." It's like they're both saying, "I can work with you... just don't ask me to change who I am and let go of things I still need to be angry about. Because being angry about those things makes me me."

All of this is to say that Guy and Robin are still wary of each other, though they've recognized they are going to have to work together. Throughout the episode, they keep casting these quick, surreptitious glances at each other, as if they're expecting to be turned on at any moment. Robin does it twice in the first scene where they're riding through the forest, and he seems very uncomfortable in the scene where Guy robs the toll station. Robin looks worried that Guy is about to kill the attendant, and looms over Guy's shoulder, ready to intervene.  Robin also has an interesting reaction when the bar fight first breaks out before they get involved, too. It's just a quick glance over at Guy, as if Robin's unsure of how Guy's going to handle himself in this particular situation. Guy's mistrust shows itself in slightly different ways.   He knows that he's in Robin's territory, working with Robin's gang, and he knows in theory that Robin will help him if he needs it, but he doesn't really believe that Robin's "no man left behind" policy extends to him. In Guy's mind, Robin is using him as an expendable convenience, easily left behind if need be.  So, he doesn't trust Robin to come for him in the prison, and I don't think he expected Robin to help him out of the noose, either.

They do work together splendidly though, don't they? Guy brings his practicality and problem solving, and Robin brings the improvisation and daring. Lots of people seem to be focusing on the scene in the tavern (and for good reason because it's BRILLIANT), but I think that they're very first "job" together, robbing the toll booth, says a lot about them as well. First of all, I don't think Robin would have done it had he been on his own. It's not his kind of robbery. He tends to steal from the nobility directly, and though he's been known to hit corrupt tax collectors, he leaves minor functionaries alone. (Probably because he knows what the Sheriff would do to them if they went back to him empty handed.) Robin can still feel good about relieving the ostentatiously wealthy of their extra jewels, but there's no such gratification in taking a few coins from someone who wasn't even going to keep them. Guy, on the other hand, thinks practically. Robbing the toll road means less money for Isabella and more money for them if they need it, and it's a good thing they have it, as it turns out. That... brings me to the scene in the tavern. After wandering around York with Guy making grumpy observations about how well-fortified the castle is and Robin cheerily assuring him they'll find a way in, they end up at a tavern, drinking together. Again... I cannot tell you how much this scene both breaks my brain and makes me insanely happy. Because they're actually sitting together and talking about the problem like grown ups.  Robin, as usual, takes inspiration from whatever is going on around him and comes up with the "get arrested" plan, which, in true Indiana Jones style, he's making up as he goes along. Guy, being the type who likes things planned out and thought through, is none too impressed with it. (Guy has acted impulsively before, I know, but when he actually has time to plan something, he tends to think things through pretty thoroughly.) Yes, part of this is trust issues, but I think Guy would have had problems with this plan even if he trusted Robin with his life. What amazes me about this scene is, when Guy points out how problematic it is for one of them to be on the outside when neither of them really trusts the other, it's Robin who takes the risk and extends trust to Guy. I fully believe that when Robin threw that loaf of bread, he was intending to get himself arrested, leaving Guy on the outside. This is... huge. This is Robin pretty much putting his life in Guy's hands. It's not Robin's fault that Guy can't help but grin at the idea of the notorious Robin Hood getting carted off by the York city watch... (And really, it was probably for the best that Robin was left with the improvising part... I don't know if Guy could have pulled it off.)

And, though they bicker and fight, they continue to work really well together throughout the rescue. Guy is ready to catch the guard when Robin knocks him out in the dungeon, and they have a bunch of little "silent communication" moments that had me blinking in surprise and running the episode back to see if I was imagining things. One of my favorite things, though, is Guy's "live to fight another day" line when he, Robin, and Archer are all surrounded. It's a very pragmatic thing to do, and it shows a lot of trust in Robin's ability to get them out of trouble later. (Also, I would like to point out that it would have been very easy for Guy to have turned on Robin here, and I was almost afraid that was what was going to happen. But he didn't. How he's grown...)

Some Thoughts on Robin Alone

I'm actually really proud of Robin in this episode. I re-watched a whole bunch of episodes from earlier in this season last night, and the shift in Robin's attitude towards Guy is staggering. He may not be ready to be Guy's new best friend, but I think he's beginning to understand some of what Guy's been through. The moment when Guy says that he'll never ask for Robin's forgiveness for what he did to Marian because he can't forgive himself... Robin's whole demeanor changes. One moment, he's angry and defensive, ready to put Guy in his place, and the next, he's holding himself back, letting what Guy has just told him sink in. I think Robin has always known that Guy did care for Marian, and that he does carry tremendous guilt for her death around (and probably always will). After all, Robin told Guy he wanted him to live with the pain he was feeling when he cut Guy's face in the first episode, and he taunts Guy with it later in the episode with the Irish brothers. What's different this time?  Well, I would suggest that this time, Robin doesn't take any pleasure in thinking of Guy's suffering. And for Robin, that's huge.

Though it almost gets lost in the ensuing fist fight, I think it's worthwhile to point out that Robin wasn't planning to bring Guy into the camp without knowing he was trustworthy. Robin stops and tells Guy as much before they start arguing. Robin isn't careless, and he does care about the risk that Guy might pose to the rest of his gang. However, I have to wonder... what would Robin have asked of Guy? What proof of good will or loyalty could Robin have demanded? He clearly had something in mind... was he planning on blindfolding Guy the first time he brought him to the camp, maybe?

This brings me to how Robin stands between Guy and rest of the gang. Robin has to walk a really fine line here. On the one hand, he has to be the one defending Guy to everyone else, because it's Robin's idea that Guy be there in the first place. On the other, he has to let his friends know that he hasn't gone mad, that he cares for them and for the pain Guy has caused them, and that he isn't being reckless. Despite his habitual "I'm Robin and I'm right" take on things, I think he does a pretty good job of this, especially since neither the gang nor Guy make his job any easier. I really like that Robin has to save Guy from the rest of the outlaws... literally. Robin tackling Guy out of the way of Much's arrow will never cease to amaze me, and the look Guy flashes at Robin when Kate's sword comes down inches from his face is... really interesting. I think Guy understands how much Robin's putting on the line for him, and how very much he needs Robin's protection at that moment, and Robin is still adjusting to the idea that he's actually concerned about Gisborne's life.

Robin's argument for Guy's inclusion in the gang is simple - he's one more person to help in the fight against the corrupt prince and Isabella, and he's got knowledge and skills that make him incredibly useful. It... makes sense. Guy, even more than Allan, knows how Nottingham works, and he knows Isabella (though THAT fact hasn't done him a whole lot of good so far, but who knows... it might in the future).  Since John and Kate are the most vocal with their objections, they're the ones we get to see Robin deal with the most. (And might I point out that Allan is the ONLY one besides Robin who chimes in with support for Guy in that initial argument?) With John, Robin is very pragmatic. He emphasizes Guy's choice to join them, and that Guy killed the Sheriff. With Kate, he takes much more of a "do it for me, and for yourself" attitude. Robin doesn't want Kate eaten away by the need for revenge, and in his own Robin-ish way, he's trying to look out for her by encouraging her to let it go. Also, I think that Robin needs the two of them to accept Guy, because that will make it easier for Robin to deal with him. He practically says as much to Kate, as if he knows it's going to be a lot harder to be civil to his former enemy if Kate and John are both there reminding him how much Guy has hurt all of them in the past.

As for the rest of the episode... I already touched on how much I love "fly by the seat of his pants with half-formed plans" Robin, and it was great fun watching him do what he does best... get himself into difficult situations and then out of them by means of cleverness and a great deal of luck. Words cannot describe how much I love his fancy accent and the too-large coat that looks like it came out of Prince John's closet and his pretending that he's bailing his drunk friend Gisborne out of jail. It's... perfect and hilarious and wonderful.

I also need to mention how much I love that Robin does his classic "shoot through the rope that's about to hang a man" trick for Guy's sake. He could have let Guy hang, helpful or not. This is, after all, the man who killed Marian, the man who has made Robin's life difficult at every turn. So, it's amazingly significant that Robin does for Guy here what he would do for anyone else in the gang... he saves his life. Because Guy's part of the group now, and because Robin has promised Guy that he can be trusted. I think Robin knows how fragile that trust between them is, and he knows that every time their trust in each other is rewarded, it will be that much easier for them to rely on each other when it's really important.

In Which Guy Tries to Act Human and Almost Succeeds

I will admit that I was a little worried about how the writers were going to handle Guy being tossed in with the outlaws. How were they going to preserve the things that make him Guy while integrating him into the group? All in all, I think they did a good job of it. Guy is not nice. He is not cuddly. He is still his prickly, over-sensitive, sarcastic, newly possessed of a conscience, prone-to-violence self. (And I love him for it. "He stole my horse..." is probably one of my favorite lines in this whole episode, in terms of delivery. The annoyed, put out way he said it... classic.)

Guy is keenly aware of his position. He knows that he's almost completely dependent on Robin's good will for protection from the other outlaws. He knows that most of them hate him and would as soon kill him as look at him. And what's more, he thinks he deserves it. He may talk big with his "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" business, but he only brings that up after Kate mentions her brother. This may be giving Guy too much credit, but I think he's putting up an "I don't like you, and I don't need you to like me" front to avoid dealing with the fact that his awakening conscience actually is feeling a bit awkward at being confronted with someone he hurt in the very recent past. Another big step in the evolution of Guy's conscience comes when he's talking about Marian to Robin. He says, "I loved her as you loved her," which, if I'm correct, is the first time that Guy has ever recognized the fact that Robin loved her too, and that the whole thing was more complicated than "She should have been mine!"

However much Guy may have grown, he's still incredibly sensitive about some things, and he easily falls back into the pattern of threatening violence when people get too close to certain topics. He's sensitive about his mother, and about losing his title. When Archer is giving both Robin and Guy attitude about their poverty, Robin takes it in stride. He's used to people who don't get why he gave up what he did. It's still... very new for Guy, and he's been used to shutting people up at the point of his sword, so this is naturally what he would fall back on. Other people have pointed out Guy's reaction to the older prisoner asking for death... and II agree that this moment is pretty important. Guy has just threatened to kill the next person who touches him, and I really don't think he expected anyone to take him up on it when he said it. So, having the old mad plea for death shocks Guy back into reality... and I think it reminds him of just how recently he himself would have been happy to die.

This brings me to something else that has changed about Guy recently. He really doesn't want to die. He may not think that the future holds a great deal for him, but he would at least like to find out what that is. There is desperation on his face when he's surrounded by outlaws with revenge in their eyes, and there is real fear in his face when that noose goes around his neck. He's doing a great job of keeping it together and not breaking down under the stress, but it's obvious that he is afraid of dying. Whether it's a new sense of purpose, the faint possibility of family or friendship, or a need for revenge that's driving him, this is quite a difference compared to the last "execution" scene we got to see Guy in. There was a soul-deep serenity when Isabella was going to execute him that's missing here. Also, there is a terribly sad resignation on his face when he's the last one left in a noose and he wonders if the others are going to free him as well as Robin. (Like I said... I don't think he expected them to.)

Call it contrived it you will, (I know I have) but I love the fact that Guy helps Little John at the end. Guy has slowly been figuring out how to work with other people this whole episode, and Robin's just proved that Guy is "part of the group," and so Guy... wants to do his part, I think. I like that we get to see that Guy knows how to protect "his" people in a fight, and he's actually quite good at that. Also, I think that a part of Guy knows that John is the one outlaw he most needs to win over. John is the most vocal about his dislike of Guy, and his position of seniority gives him a lot of influence. Guy knows that if he can win John over, or at least make him tone down the dislike, things will be easier for him. Also, Guy recognizes that John is one of their strongest assets in a fight. He knows that losing him would make all of them weaker. (Not that I think that Guy was so clearly calculating in the moment... though some of this may have been going on subconsciously.) And that he offers John his hand... wow. The old Guy remembers who doesn't like him, and makes those people miserable. This Guy is rushing to their aid and offering them a hand up.

And, in the "WHY DOESN'T THIS SHOW LET SCENES RUN TO THEIR NATURAL CONCLUSIONS?" category, we have the, "So, where do you want me to sleep, then?" line. I love this. I love it to death. I love the outlaws' various reactions, with all of them looking up from their day-to-day activities like they hadn't even thought of the practicalities of Guy staying there. I love the stiff, formal way Guy asks the question, not meeting any of their eyes as he asks it. I've seen that expression before... usually when he was telling Vasey some particularly distasteful news. He's embarrassed to have to ask them for anything in the first place, not sure at all how he fits in, and he's expecting the worst. I really wish we had gotten to see just a little more of this instead of cutting to Archer jumping toll fences and showing off on horseback. Who was it who made the first move to answer Guy's question? Was it Robin, like it's been the whole episode? Was it Much, since I have a feeling he takes care of stuff like extra supplies? Was it Tuck, showing some of his vaunted religiously motivated compassion? WHO??? (I suppose that's what fanfic is for, but in this case I want a canon answer so badly it hurts.) Actually, it's almost a surprise that Guy is still with them at all. Having failed to retrieve Archer and bring him to the cause, what reason does Guy have to come back with them? I suppose the better question is, where else is he going to go?

Archer – The New Kid on the Block

Let me say again how very good Archer's casting is. Every time I look at him, I can see Guy and Robin both. I am quite prepared to like him. I'm going to hold off on deciding just how much I like him until I get to see a couple more episodes with him, but he amused me greatly in his first showing. I don't know much about him yet, but with my track record, it's hard for me not to give man who's a con-artist, a ladies' man, and a compassionate rogue a whole lot of leeway. And he's got a pretty face, too. The hair could use some work, but did you SEE him shirtless? [/shallow fangirling]

I like that he uses his... ahem... privileges with the Sheriff's wife to get food for the other prisoners. I was about to be very disappointed in him when I thought that he really was selling food to men who obviously had very little, but when I saw he was simply humoring the slightly crazy old man, I melted. It was really sweet.

Lots of people have talked about how like Robin and Guy Archer is, personality wise.... What I want to know is, what about the part that's just like Allan? I think that the two of them could team up and sell beach front property in Arizona to just about anyone. I LOVE what a showman Archer is, how he makes up stories and rolls with the situation, and obvious as it may be, I love the "turning lead into gold while really obviously flirting with the Sheriff's wife" scene. One big criticism of Archer that I've seen is that he's extremely self-interested. I don't mind it so much because really, he has no reason not to be. He grew up alone, with no parents and no family, and he's used to looking out for number one and making the best of any situation he finds himself in. If this means using people... so be it. (Do these sound familiar? I'm pretty sure they're similar to the excuses I made for Allan when he betrayed the gang last season... Honestly, I think my soft spot for Allan has greatly influenced my opinion of Archer.) Sure, Guy and Robin came to save him, but he doesn't know them at all, for all that they claim to be his brothers. And though he certainly could be a little more grateful, from his point of view they have nothing more to offer each other. What are they offering him? An opportunity to be poor and fight for justice and The Right? No thank you. Isabella can offer him far more in terms of money and security, and, if I remember correctly, Archer doesn't know much about how morally problematic she is. (I refuse to call her "evil." Why yes, I AM a Gisborne apologist... why do you ask?)

I see this episode as one big "refusal of the call" for Archer. He has too much "good" in him to be comfortable with being on the side of Isabella's newly oppressive regime. His insistence on taking all of the prisoners with them, his compassion for the old man, his attempts to keep Gwennyth out of prison by taking the blame on himself, his part in saving Guy from the hangman... all of these things make him a likely candidate for redemption. And it's not like the gang hasn't worked with worse people... I guess what I'm trying to say is that Archer has potential. And I think that his actor handles the campiness of the show quite well. There are things that could have sounded ridiculous or forced that he managed to pull off with flair and tongue firmly planted in cheek.

And finally, two random things about Archer that made me smile:

First, I couldn't NOT hear Jack Sparrow in some of his lines about unfortunate misunderstandings and telling Gwennyth they should "try to resist each other." The ever-present PotC fangirl in me couldn't help but squee a little.

Second, his rushing at the guards is pure Han Solo.

No wonder I think I could love him with just a little push from the show...

In Which John and Allan Have Lines, and Kate's Rage is Understandable

Family was a huge theme this week. It's what ties Robin and Guy to Archer, and by extension, to each other. However, the idea of being family is what holds the outlaws together. Looking at it from that point of view, John's anger at Robin for bringing Guy into the camp and calling him "one of us" is understandable. "One of us" isn't a title that's given lightly. John isn't like Tuck. He couldn't care less about the "big picture," and he doesn't care that Robin can bring his enemies around to his way of seeing things.  Being part of the gang a privilege that's earned, that implies trust and mutual friendship. If Robin can bring Guy to their secret camp and announce that he's now part of the group, he can bring just about anyone, and the trust that he's given to all of the other outlaws means less. John has had to live under Guy's heel for the longest, and it makes sense that he would be the most reluctant to accept him. Still, all of the rationalizing in the world doesn't mean that my heart didn't hurt like crazy when John dropped his staff and walked away.

I really like that it was Allan who went after him. Allan seems to be quite the caretaker this week. He's the one who alerts the gang to Robin's fight with Guy, he's the one who goes after John, and (thanks to caedhe for pointing this out to me) when they're all walking down the road with Tuck, John, and Kate arguing in front and Much bringing up the rear, Allan is in the middle, listening to what's being said and constantly looking over his shoulder to make sure Much is all right. Then, when he goes after John, Allan's puts himself in a lot of danger, staging a rescue all on his own. And why? Because John is family. And it's Allan, occasionally self-serving, roguish Allan who's reminding John of that fact. The reversal of the usual roles worked nicely here, I thought, and it was good to see how much Allan values his friends. We've always known he loved them, but it's good to hear him say it. Having been reminded of how much they all mean to each other, they head to York. And why? Because Robin (NOT Guy...) is family. And he's in trouble. I don't care how much this show has burned me... I get warm snuggly feelings every time something like this happens.

Oddly enough, I even liked Kate's rage. Her anger at Guy is newest, her loss the most raw.  That fact makes me forgive an awful lot of shrillness.   The way that she plunges her sword into the ground inches from Guy's face was... really powerful. All of that built up energy had to go somewhere, even if it couldn't be directed where she wished it could be. And once again, we are reminded that she is very young. Her insistence that Guy is "pure evil" shows it... But then she manages to move beyond her desire for revenge, or at least to start that process. And though I'm usually not a fan of the "we should listen to Robin because he's Robin" argument, I like that she trusts that Robin has good reasons for teaming up with Guy enough to let him go to York with no more than a sweet "come back to me safely."

Cue the Isabella Fangirling

Isabella doesn't get much screen time this week, but I love her every second that we see her. I miss Keith Allen like crazy, but Lara Pulver is having a fantastic time playing at being eeeeeevil.   I love her incredibly sexy black outfits with lots of buckles and red. I love her with her hair swept up and her evil freckles in evidence. (Why are her freckles evil? I don't know... we didn't see them as much when she was "good"?) I love how she manages to look sensuous and feminine and sharp as steel at the same time. I love her competence and that we get to see her brain working as she ponders why Robin and Guy are traveling together. Other people have mentioned this, but she seems to be including her underlings much more in her planning than Vasey ever did. Her tall, dark, and handsome lieutenant never got a name, but she seemed to be showing him a lot more respect than other sheriffs have given THEIR right-hand-men. Too bad Robin killed him.

I love the way she knocks Kate's arrow aside in the fight in the forest. That was... some hard-core awesome, there, on both of their parts. Both of them were fierce and intense and amazing. We can call Isabella a lot of things... faint-hearted isn't one of them.

It's interesting that we get to see her with the Sheriff of York after everything has gone down. She does NOT like losing face in front of her colleagues, and the other Sheriff's "keep your problems in your own city" line was perfectly designed to get under her skin. She is still insecure in her position, and the last thing she needs is other Sheriffs complaining about her to Prince John.

Re: The Next Episode

*mindless flailing* This is bad. This is... very bad. Lots of soldiers... surrounding the city... I have no spoilers, but my gut tells me this is going to be EPIC. My hopes for Guy getting through this episode on the right side: very good. Hopes for Archer: Somewhat less good, but maybe he'll come around. I'm still trying to figure out what to make of the shot that has Guy, Archer, Much, some other gang members, and Isabella all standing together, with Isabella looking forlorn. Is she going to switch sides too, out of necessity? It would be a surprise, but that would make me SO happy... I wonder who the big enemy who unites them all is going to be... my money's on Vasey.

And on a final note, I have a request. I want to know if 3x12 and 3x13 are both airing this Saturday, like with the last finale, or if they're going to be split over two weekends. I'm spoiler-phobic and am afraid of going to the BBC website to find out for fear of finding out other things I don't want to know. (I know nothing but what we saw in the next episode preview, and I'm trying really hard to keep it that way.) So, if anyone has any information about airdates, I would be happy if you shared it with me.

Lest one think my life is completely ruled by certain BBC shows...

corrielle@yahoo.com — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 22:58:22 GMT

So, I realized I hadn't posted about anything that wasn't Robin Hood or fandom for a while now. What's been going on with me, you ask?

My last final was on Monday, and I have a break until the 22nd of June. I've been loving it. I still have a bit of grading to finish up, but I still have lots of time to do things that usually get shoved to the outer reaches of my schedule. I've been cooking a lot, for one thing. I like the feeling of making a plan, rounding up ingredients, and puttering around in the kitchen until I have something edible that the rest of the house can also eat. The atmosphere in the house is generally family-like, but I really feel it when I cook for everyone. Tonight, it's chicken and potatoes in yellow Thai curry (from a TJ's bottle... I'm not that ambitious) and some sort of rice dish that Rae picked out that required us to buy a bottle of white wine. Should be fun.

I've been getting back into the swing of writing regularly. It's fanfic, but it's writing. There are some smaller things in the works, but mostly I've been hit on the head with an epic Robin Hood idea that won't go away. I'm thinking about doing it for bigbanghood when it gets off the ground.

Rae and I went to a Cajun festival a couple of weeks ago. That's right... sleepy little white-bread Simi Valley (which I love, by the way...) has a Cajun Festival. It was fantastic. There were two big stages with all kinds of music, and the food... oh... the food. I had a personal-sized fresh-baked peach cobbler, and a sandwich made with something being advertised as Carolina pulled pork... might as well have called it The Most Awesome Sandwich Ever. It was FANTASTIC.

I start to teach summer school on the 22nd. It's an English 21 class, which I've never done in the summer before, but at this point, I'm glad to have the work at all, so I'm not complaining. I need to write my syllabus next week... Other than that, I'm fairly prepared this time around. It's a good thing I got to the bookstore before Spring semester ended, because I think my book is already in stock. It's nice to be able to tell the students who are writing me asking what they need that it's already there.

I've been watching the new Burn Notice season. Love it. SO MUCH LOVE for this show and for Michael and Fi and Sam and the brilliant continuity and character building... As much as I love RH, it's nice to be able to watch a show and not make excuses for it for a change. (After last night's episode I was giddily running around the house in awe of things like the more-than-competent use of previously established canon and character traits.) Also, I've seen the first two episodes of Royal Pains now, and it's pretty fun. Snappy writing, interesting characters... I usually can't stand shows that center around how very rich the rich are, but this seems to be an exception.

Speaking of shows I'm seeing for the first time... I was over with hystericblue42 after she had her wisdom teeth out, and she showed me the pilot of The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. Guys. GUYS. I... have not been so amused in a long time. Did any of you know about this and not tell me? WHY NOT? It's a Western! I love Westerns! And this one's got UFO's! And incredibly smart, self-aware writing! And Bruce Campbell is uncomfortably attractive! I LOVE IT SO MUCH! Until I'm able to borrow hystericblue42's copy, I'm making due by introducing Catherine to The Magnificent Seven, which she's never seen. I'd forgotten how very much I love that show, camp, preachiness, and all. Ezra Standish ~~was~~ is one of my first and greatest less-than-squeaky-clean crushes.

Other summer happenings coming up for me include...

Going up to Lake Piru tomorrow with the housemates. It was Kelli's birthday last week, and we wanted to do something just the four of us to celebrate. I've been feeling a need to get outside lately, so it should be fun. I've never been up there.

COMIC CON! Yes, still going this year. Kind of like last year, I don't know what big things I should be excited about, but I'm sure that it will end up being awesome all the same.

Going up to Visalia for another birthday party later this month. Also need to see my parents and wish them both a happy retirement. It's weird that I'm going to be teaching in the fall and they're not.

Robin Hood 3x10 Review: Bad Blood

corrielle@yahoo.com — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 00:45:28 GMT

For the first time that I can remember, I have a fandom opinion that makes me really nervous when I think about airing it in public. In fact, if I didn't have such faith in the maturity of the people in the Robin Hood community, I'd heading over to fandomsecrets right now to post a secret containing this next statement rather than writing it in my journal.

My big secret? I loved this episode.

Before you start taking my temperature and wondering if I haven't contracted some sort of rare, aggressive, degenerative brain disease, let me explain why.

The name of today's performance: A Terrible Idea, Well Executed, or, It Could Have Been So Much Worse.

Most of the fandom outrage seems to center around the fact that it is very difficult, nigh on impossible, even, to reconcile "Bad Blood" with everything we thought we knew about the history between these characters (though railise makes some really interesting points in attempting to do so here).  Back when I first heard about the flashback episode, I was angry as well.  I heard rumors there was going to be a flashback episode several months before series three started to air, and I even saw pictures of the actor supposedly chosen to play Young!Guy. I suspected/knew even then that he was going to be meeting Robin in the flashback and wreaking havoc with previously established canon. That means I had months to adjust to the possibility of this episode, and a week from the time I saw the actual trailer to adjust to its reality. Therefore, I had largely dealt with my "THEY'RE SCREWING OVER SERIES 1 AND 2 CANON!" rage before the episode ever aired. (Though I understand and sympathize with those who felt it anew or for the first time as they watched.)

It goes without saying that I have some problems with the direction that this show is going. I think the show runners have approved some terrible ideas in terms of character development and story arcs. And as terrible ideas go, the idea of having an episode with a love triangle involving Robin and Guy's parents where they find out from Robin's long lost father that they have a half brother is REALLY bad. It's right up there with, "The audience will love a feisty village girl named Kate!" and "Personality? Allan doesn't need a personality!" and even possibly "You know what would be cool? If we killed Marian off."  Yeah. It's that bad.

However, my options at this point seem to be these: I can stop watching completely. This is not very likely. I'm dying to see what Richard does with Redeemable Guy. Or, I can set aside the over-arching wrongness and try to enjoy the little things. And when I did that, I realized that for what it was, "Bad Blood" was really well-executed (rays of sun and magically appearing bows aside). We got to meet some sympathetic, believable new people (Roger, Ghislaine, and Malcom) who made bad choices and good choices and generally acted like human beings, and it managed not to mangle either Robin or Guy's characters, which is a huge feat.

Some Thoughts on The Present.

I am very curious as to how long Guy has been roaming around the forest. He's still wearing the same clothing he was the last time we saw him, but I don't suppose he'd be able to find spare shirts and trousers lying around Sherwood. My guess is that it's been a couple of days, though I suppose it could be as early as the day after Meg's death. However long it's been, Guy has obviously had time to arm himself. He's got a bow and a sword now, and I have a theory as to where he got them. Guy must have known that at some point, he might need to leave Nottingham in haste, either with Vasey or without him, so, he's stashed weapons in various hiding places in outlying areas of Nottingham, and he simply went and retrieved some of them. That being said, he still looks terrible... jumpy and tired and desperate.

I actually really enjoyed the interaction between Guy and Robin at the beginning.  Robin could easily have killed Guy here. He's been following Guy for miles, and though Robin taunts him a little about it not being so easy in the forest, he doesn't seem eager to kill him or chase him off. It's almost like Robin was just waiting to see what Guy would do. Perhaps seeing Guy have a moment of selfless compassion made Robin think twice about passing judgment on him. Of course, Guy is running on nothing but anger and adrenaline at this point, so it's not too surprising that he doesn't want to talk and draws his sword on Robin. And even then, Robin doesn't seem to want to fight. It would be an easy victory for him, and yet he is reluctant. This very easily could have been an awful, cocky, "I don't want to fight you when you're weak because that would be too easy" moment, but it isn't. Robin just seems weary of it all. I think there is something of pity there, as well, and I think I might even hear a little bit of concern in Robin's voice when Guy falls. It wouldn't be unreasonable for Robin to be thinking Guy had collapsed from hunger and exhaustion. And he actually looked worried about it. Of course, he's probably also (rightly) worried that whatever got Guy might be about to get him, so his concern could be completely out of self preservation.  I like to think it's a little of both.

Robin and Guy both react characteristically to Malcom's story, Robin in his naive, slightly preachy way, Guy with mistrust and anger. However, I think that the way the episode unfolds, with the characters putting pieces of information together slowly, coming to at least understand what the other has gone through, worked really well. For instance, the moment Guy realized that his mother had been in labor is really nice. There's this strange mixture of regret and hope on his face as it dawns on him that he might have other family out there.  On Robin's side, I tend to take his "It made me a better man" speech in regards to lying about whose arrow had brought down the fire as classic Robin, but what's new is that when Guy calls him on it, Robin seems to listen. (He doesn't have much of a choice, being all tied up and all... It seems that on this show, to make characters have any sort of meaningful interaction with each other, they have to be tied up or in prison to prevent them storming off or trying to kill each other. Does anyone else notice this trend?) I really do think that it's significant that Robin apologizes to Guy here, though it's a case of too little, too late.

The big thing for Guy this episode, I think, was the revelation that his parents' death wasn't his fault. Everything else, the stuff about his brother, the fact that Robin's dad is alive... that's all insignificant in comparison. We all knew he was walking around carrying guilt about Marian this whole season, and I've been saying since the first series that Guy seems... uncomfortable with some of the more horrid things the Sheriff does, but for him to carry around the "I killed my parents" kind of guilt for all those years... that has to leave a mark on a man. And Guy knows it. That's why he's so angry at Robin's dad for letting him think it for so long... but behind that anger, you can see a tremendous amount of relief, and he's different after this. More... balanced, somehow.

As for the reappearance of Robin's father... yes, it's contrived, yes, it raises questions like, "What the heck has Malcom been doing all these years? Why didn't he come to Robin before now?" but the reactions that Guy and Robin have to this unlikely turn of events work for me. I liked that Robin didn't immediately forgive his father. In fact, I like that he tells Malcom he's lost the right to call him "son." That was a powerful, well-delivered line. Of course, he forgives Malcom eventually, but that is in character for Robin too, I think. As for Guy... Malcom seems to know how to play to Guy's humanity. He emphasizes conscience, which is a big deal for Guy right now, and he reminds Guy that he would be saving Archer for Ghislaine's sake, and think what he might of her for her affair with Malcom, Guy loved his mother. It was exactly the right thing for Malcom to say to get Guy's attention.

In an episode filled with brain-shattering revelations, I think it's worth mentioning that Robin seems genuinely stunned that Guy killed Vasey. You can almost see Robin's entire conception of the world rearranging itself when Guy tells him that he was the one who held the knife and rid Robin of his worst enemy. In that same vein, a lot has been made of the fact that Robin is mad at Guy for not showing remorse for killing Marian, but he also mentions the fact that Guy served Vasey and did horrible things in his name for years... in a way, I don't think Robin thought Guy capable of standing up to the Sheriff, and Robin reads the fact that Guy did as a show or remorse, or some sort of attempt to atone for all of the things he did in Vasey's name.

The purpose of this episode was to bring Guy and Robin together, and for me, the moment that was really achieved is when Robin asks his father, "And you expect us to forgive you?" Ladies and gentlemen, that would be Robin referring to himself and Guy as us without batting an eyelash. I think it is so important here that Robin uses "us" instead of "me." It shows that on some level, he recognizes Guy's feelings, Guy's reasons for not wanting to forgive Malcom, as equally valid and worthy of outrage. The deal is sealed, of course, when Guy offers Robin his hand. I love that Robin, at first, assumes that Guy still wants to fight here, but when he sees that Guy is on board with helping their brother, he takes it with no grimaces or reservations.

For all that I don't think I'm going to be able to stand Archer, I'm glad that Guy has something to do at this point other than kill Isabella. Guy needs purpose. He's got it now, and it's a purpose that involves saving a life instead of killing someone.  It makes sense that, having lost both of his parents and his baby sister hating him, he'd like to meet some family with whom he can have a fresh start. Also, I don't think Guy would want to let anyone who had his mother's blood die unjustly. (Though he's perfectly ok with killing Isabella, who is also his mother's child, after what she did to Meg, and I'm not going to call him on that on account of extreme Meg-bias.)

Young!Guy and Young!Robin

First of all, let me just say that I adore the casting in this episode. The kids who they got to play Guy and Robin were perfect. I wonder if they got to spend time with their older counterparts, because they both had mannerisms and expressions down really well.

Now, let's talk about Robin. Does he act like a spoiled brat on several occasions? Yes. Yes he does. Is that perfectly understandable? I think it is. Robin is (to his knowledge, at least...) the only son of a very wealthy, well-respected member of the land-owning nobility. He's obviously got some natural talent in the archery department, and he knows it. However... I also found myself really feeling for the kid. Not that I never wanted to smack him around for being a prat and terribly mean to Guy, but... his actions are understandable. Take lying about who shot the arrow, for instance. I don't think that was a pre-meditated lie. In the shock of what's just happened, Robin denies doing something that he thinks has just killed a man. I don't even think it crossed his mind that Guy would be blamed for it when he denied shooting the arrow. Then, when Guy is accused, Robin looks horribly guilty. Could he have spoken up? Yes, but I don't know many nine year olds (that seems to be the age I've settled on for Robin...) who would be so mature and brave as to own up to doing something really dangerous and then lying about it, especially when he sees how angry the crowd is getting at Guy. He's obviously terrified, and though I think that he feels bad about Guy getting the blame, he can't quite bring himself to speak up.

In a way, Guy is right. Robin was naive and sheltered. Malcom didn't help this by hiding things, like the fact that he was going to marry Ghislaine, from his son because he's "too young" to handle it. So, while Young Robin is immature and a bit bratty, he shows promise. First of all, he does run in and tell his father that they're about to hang Guy outside. Not a terribly impressive moral act, but better than letting Guy die for a crime he didn't commit. Second, I am incredibly impressed that Robin tells his father whose fault it was later. He didn't have to do that. The priest had lived, and no one was talking about hanging any more. He could have let his father continue to assume that Guy had shot the arrow. But he owns up to it. I also really like the advice his father gives him here, because I think that when Robin is at his best, you can see this sentiment, the idea that fear shouldn't keep you from doing the right thing, shining through. Robin could have kept his lands when he returned from the Holy Land... all he would have had to do was let Will, Luke, and Allan die. But he doesn't. And I think the memory of this speech is a big reason why. (And that is all I'm going to say about 1x01 and this episode. Any more and I'm going to start thinking too hard about it and foaming at the mouth.)

I also like the scene where Robin is being bratty about going to a "leper's house" and Malcom takes him aside and reminds Robin of what Guy has lost. This inability to put himself into the position of someone he already doesn't like is a trait that Robin still struggles with, and it was good to see that his father was starting to work on that with him. However, Malcom doesn't stay around long enough to help him completely grow out of it. I think that just as much as Guy, Robin needed his father around, because I would imagine that none of his "advisers" that helped him run his estate were as hard on him as they should have been.

And now, for younger Guy. I loved the kid they got to play him. He had Guy's broodiness, his black and white view of the world, and his sarcasm, but there was also a vulnerability that we only get to see in very rare occasions in older Guy.  The scene with the two boys standing side by side with their bows says a lot about how they relate to each other. Guy... almost acts like an older, more responsible brother here, old enough to know Robin's out of line, but young enough not to be able to correct him in any sort of useful way. So instead, he's fed up with younger Robin's ego and making brilliantly snide remarks about how everyone only thinks Robin's the best because Robin keeps telling them he is. *snerk* I knew I was going to love younger Guy in that moment.   But underneath the sarcasm, Guy really doesn't want Robin to hurt anyone. He may be a bit mean and overbearing about it, but that's how older kids are when they're fed up with younger ones. And Robin is certainly being a prat here.

This scene also makes me wonder how much contact the two of them have had with each other... a question we will probably never have answered. I really don't think Guy has been living near Locksley his whole life, though. It would make sense for him and Isabella to have been born in France and moved to England when Roger was granted lands there for his bravery in the crusades. (Meaning that it was more of a recent thing? Who knows... considering there were no crusades going on at the time, for all we know, the writers are going off of the assumption that the Middle Ages were all One Long Crusade, and Roger could have been granted his lands years ago. *sigh*)

Having done a lot of thinking about Guy's father/son relationship with Vasey, it was good to be able to see him interact with his own father. It is obvious that Guy not only looked up to him and needed him to be around, but he loved him. A lot. And he can't understand why Roger would allow himself to be run out of the village without a fight. It's classic Guy black and white thinking again... if his father loved them, why wouldn't he fight for them? He can't wrap his mind around the idea that Roger is letting himself be exiled because he loves them, and thinks they'll have a better life without him. His father telling him to be a man, not a boy about it... wow. I understand why Roger said it... to keep Guy from making a bad situation worse, but Guy takes it hard. Guy's reaction when he finds out his mother has been secretly seeing his father is also very telling. I think Guy sees caring for his sick father as a privilege, and he's angry that his mother took it upon herself and didn't allow him to be part of it. Also, he might see it as, "If you're strong enough to care for him and watch him die, I am too."

When he finally confronts his father in the leper camp, Guy acts very much like one would expect - hurt and confused and lashing out at his father with the most hurtful words possible. I think it's very significant that Guy only calls his father a leper after he's decided that Roger could have done more to fight for them. (That whole scene is brilliant... especially the devastated look on Roger's face when Guy calls him a leper.) Also, I think it's worth mentioning that Guy tells a pretty big lie here to get under his father's skin. Robin may be a prat, but Guy is no angel either. He tells Roger that Malcom is forcing his mother to get married. This isn't true, and Guy knows it. His mother has told him it's for the best, and that Malcom is a good man, and he's seen that she cares for him.  Guy has no evidence that Ghislaine is being rushed. However, that's how Guy sees the situation. I think he's made up a story for himself about his mother being forced into marriage because he can't deal with the thought of her loving another man when his father is still alive. So... perhaps Guy isn't lying, but rather presenting things from his point of view because he can't see them from any other. We all know how difficult it is for Guy to step outside of the reality he's built for himself. Still... not the most honest moment of his young life.

Lots of defining moments in Guy's life have involved standing by helplessly while Really Bad Things happen to him. He had to watch his father get exiled. He had to watch Marian get traded off to another man, once. (Yes, they got her back later, but he didn't know that was going to happen at the time.) He had to watch Prince John burn down his church in his village. And now, we learn that he had to stand by and watch his house burn down with his parents in it, thinking it was his fault. (Though he assures Longthorn it was an accident, I think he's already blaming himself for it here.)  And not only are his parents dead, he's now landless and homeless... and there's nothing he can do about it, no one he can rely on for help. I think this scene also drives home the fact that even when they were younger, Robin was surrounded by people who were willing to help him, to support him and give him the chance to grow into his responsibilities. Guy has no one after his parents die. Longthorn chases them off "his" lands, and no one lifts a finger to stop them from going. Guy's intense need for position and for land start right here. If he'd had more power, if he'd been more secure in his position, he could have told Longthron to jump off a cliff and taken his rightful place. But he didn't, and I think that he's been compensating for it ever since, trying to get to a place of security where no one can take what he values from him or hurt people close to him.

Locksley/Gisborne Love Triangle, version 1.0

Before last Saturday, for all any of us knew, Robin had sprung fully formed from the head of King Richard and Guy had come from somewhere in France. Maybe. At least we knew his mother did. So, I was curious as to what they were going to do with Guy and Robin's parents. I was dubious about the love triangle, but I think it ended up working quite nicely. Again, this show manages to pull off some excellent casting and make these three one-shot characters real and well-rounded.

I really felt for Ghislaine. I don't think that she started her relationship with Malcom until after she thought that Roger was dead, and she seems to genuinely love both men. That was... well done. If she had only been using one of them (and on this show, I fear it would have been Guy's father) it would have been taking the Robin/Guy/Marian parallel one step too far. The circumstances were different enough that it echoes the other story without repeating it. Also, from what little we see of her, it seems that she was a smart, kind, confident woman. (And stunningly pretty, as well... I can see where Guy gets his strong features.) I really love the little moment between her and little Robin when she's asking him to "help" her. It's... sweet, and idyllic and seems to indicate that she knows Robin well enough to be in his "adult I want to please" category. Yes, she makes mistakes, like letting Malcom reveal Roger's sickness to everyone. But I think that was a mistake made out of love and a great deal of emotional distress. She makes some hard, grown-up decisions, like declaring herself a widow for the sake of her children, and I really respect her for that. That's the pragmatic part of me. The romantic in my loves her going into the forest to nurse Roger even though she's about to marry someone else. Sometimes things aren't simple. I think she gets that, and is making the best of a very tangled situation.

Now, as for Malcom... I have mixed feelings here.  His leaving at the end was ridiculous, but necessary for the plot of the show. Before that, though, I actually liked him a lot.  He seems to have a sense of fairness, which comes out when he throws his authority around for Guy's sake when Longthorn is about to hang him. He also seems to be a good father to Robin... reminding his young, somewhat spoiled son that there's more to being a leader than talent and ego. He also tried to do the "right thing" and stay away from Ghislaine after Roger came back. I think that shows a lot of honor on both of their parts. Finally, He seems to truly love Ghislaine and want what's best for her, and for Guy and Isabella as well.   He does seem to be planning to preserve Guy's inheritance when he talks about the future with Ghislaine... it wouldn't have been difficult for him to take it all back for Robin's sake.  But he doesn't. Yes, he makes some bad choices, but they were choices based on love and concern. I don't know much about how the families of lepers were treated historically, but if it's as bad as Malcom is making it out to be, he has every reason to be afraid for her sake and for her children. Should he have talked to Roger privately first before getting the priest and the bailiff involved? Yes. And I think that together, they could have worked out some way to hide it better until the end. But I don't think the thought ever crossed Malcom's mind. So... bad choice, but understandable given the circumstances. I'm a little angrier at him for throwing the love-child, until then kept secret, in Roger's face there at the end, but I guess I could see this more as a "remember your newborn and get out of the burning building" thing directed at Ghislaine than an attempt to hurt Roger.

That... brings me to Guy's father. Roger of Gisborne is... amazing. We don't get to know very much about him, but in what we do get to see, he does some things that make him a pretty fantastic human being. He is a good, kind man who loved his wife, loved his children, and had the maturity to think of their future when he was gone. I was ready for some anger on his part when he found out about the affair, and the calm, understanding way he took it blew me away. It also breaks me to think that if he'd been allowed to die in peace, some of that understanding might have rubbed off on Guy. It's blatantly obvious that Guy would have been a better person if he'd gotten to spend more time with him... Anyway. Roger takes the shame of being exiled upon himself, practically forces his wife to declare herself a widow, and is willing to go die in a leper colony until he thinks that his wife is being taken advantage of. I don't think one can get much more self sacrificing. However, the big thing he does that earns him my infinite respect is this: He has the chance to kill Malcom, and he doesn't do it. (And did anyone else think that for a man with leprosy, Guy's dad is a kickass swordsman?) Think about this. Malcom has fathered a child with his wife. He's the one who was responsible for revealing the leprosy. He's just killed Ghislaine, and Roger has him at the point of his sword and lets him go. He doesn't want revenge. He wants to mourn his wife. (I know I talk about things that break me all the time... but the continuity of Roger holding Ghislaine and Guy holding Meg and Marian really did make me feel like I'd been punched in the chest.)

Oh, and on the subject of Ghislaine's death... I think that this moment suffers from the show's reluctance to show real violence/blood. I've watched that moment a couple of times, and I think that Malcom hit her in the nose with either the pommel of his sword or his elbow, and he hit her hard enough to kill her. I think I remember reading that one can die from that if one gets hit at the right angle with enough force... it was just bad luck that Malcom happened to do it on accident. There's no way she died from falling straight back like she does. Also, we have to take into account that she's still recovering from giving birth less than a week earlier at this point... and the show seems to indicate that it wasn't an easy delivery.

Places where they missed the boat.

Longthorn should have been Vasey. It would have explained the timeline issue from "The Taxman Cometh," and unless they have a better Vasey backstory planned, I will continue to be disappointed.  If he had been Vasey, it would have expalined how he knows what Guys weaknesses are, and he could have used them to scheme to get power back after he was dismissed... *sigh* Such a wasted opportunity.

I want to know what village most of the action took place in. Was it Locksley? I was under the impression that it was a village attached to Gisborne manor. Or was Gisborne manner just that... a manor with no village? Just some land worked by neighboring peasants? That's not the impression I got from the episode. I got the impression that the village was under the Gisborne family's control. So, how is Robin the best shot in Guy's village? Robin doesn't even live there.

Tell me if I'm wrong, historian types on my f-list, but if I remember correctly, Ghislaine's pregnancy would have been no big deal as long as Malcom acknowledged the child as his own and adopted him as an heir. Her insane worry about people finding out about the pregnancy seems out of proportion. Sure, people would have talked, and it would have been shameful, but if Malcom says, "I will be treating this child as legitimate," no one can really do anything about it.

I am with the rest of the fandom when I say, "WTF, magically appearing recurve bow." I liked that Robin went to his mother's grave for strength. That was sweet. To have the light from heaven grant him a bow... that was ridiculous. So... here's what I think happened. While Robin's eyes were closed, Malcom ran by (still steaming from being burned) and dropped the bow off for him, finally having decided that Robin is "ready" to have it, then ran off into the trees with Robin none the wiser. That's my theory, and I'm sticking to it. (As for the fact that it's a recurve bow and not a longbow... I'm not even going to try.)

Malcom deciding to leave his nine year old son on his own because he's ashamed of an affair Robin wouldn't even know about unless he told him is ridiculous. I know they had to get rid of Malcom to keep up some semblance of continuity, but I could have bought a thousand other stories that would have been less made of FAIL. That he was so badly wounded that by the time he'd healed, he didn't want to disrupt Robin's life any more. (Still horrible, but better than "I couldn't face the shame in your eyes.") Or maybe that he had forgotten who he was for a long time... they haven't had an amnesia episode for a long time. Or even that he had tried to come back later, but no one had believed he was who he said. ALL OF THESE work better than what really happened.

With Roger dead, why didn't Guy get Gisborne manor (or what was left of it and the surrounding lands)? I know that Longthorn had tried to get the deed, but I didn't think anything official had happened yet. I don't understand how little Robin running Longthorn off makes the village Robin's instead of Guy's. One would think that anyone with knowledge of the situation would have counseled young Robin to give the village back to its rightful heir (Guy and Isabella couldn't have gotten too far down the road by then...). I can understand younger Robin not thinking of that, but surely someone would have... It's like as soon as Guy and Isabella left, everyone conveniently forgot about them and their rights.

And to end on a positive note... Random things that were really cool:

The leper's bell! Historical accuracy win! (Though I'm having trouble coming up with a source that confirms the part about wives being allowed to declare themselves widows. Anyone have more info about this? The information I've found in this school project and in the pages I can see from this book all seem to suggest that spouses were either expected to be celibate or go with their husbands/wives into exile or to the lepers' hospitals.) There's some more historical accuracy win with the speech the priest gives at the graveside. Turns out it's something called the "Mass of Separation" and there are two more complete versions of it here.

The leper colony is at the site of the outlaw's camp. I know that configuration of trees, and I know those rocks. I know this may have been a choice made due to ease-of-filming, but I think it would be cool if the outlaws had chosen the site not knowing that it had once been a leper colony... (And if Will and Robin chose it for its sustainability as a long-term camp, it makes sense that others would have seen its potential too...)

I love it that when the priest says Robin will have help, Longthorn says, "What, from a simpering priest and a few villagers?" I know it was an obvious anvil of foreshadowing, but it made me grin. That's exactly who he's going to have help from, and they're awesome, thank you very much.

Re: The Next Episode Preview.... *crosses fingers* Archer is good-looking, Guy interacts with the outlaws for the first time all season, and Guy and Robin are on the same side, back to back surrounded by enemies. This has potential to be awesome, but there are so many ways that they could fail, and with this show's track record, I have every reason to be worried.

Robin Hood 3x09 Review: A Dangerous Deal

corrielle@yahoo.com — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 21:14:29 GMT

I make no claims about being rational or balanced here. I love this episode. It broke me, but I love it. Except, of course, for the parts that I hate. And I hate the parts I hate as much as I love the parts I love. Therefore, expect flailing and ranting in equal measure.

Word Count: 7,876 (so be warned)

Wow. It has occurred to me that I'm pretty much writing a full length, in depth analysis essay every week... And I was so happy to be teaching school instead of attending it. At least I get to choose my own subjects, now.

Guy, Meg, and Unexpected Redemption.

It is difficult for me to know where to begin in talking about this. Because really, it shouldn't have worked. With this show's track record, an episode with the basic premise of "Guy gets stuck in a cell next to a teenage girl who teaches him Valuable Life Lessons" should have me foaming at the mouth in rage. But it doesn't. What follows is my attempt to explain why.

First of all, Holliday Grainger did a fantastic job making Meg sympathetic and interesting. This episode would not have worked without Meg being exactly as she was: impertinent, naive, and young on the one hand; quick-thinking, kind, and selfless on the other. Though she was quite young, she had such obvious potential for more, and I am sorry we didn't get to see more of her. From the look of her clothes, and her father's, she is at least a little wealthy, which goes a long way toward explaining her somewhat spoiled, entitled attitude in her first couple of scenes with Guy. Coming from a well-off family also might explain why she is so comfortable speaking in her own defense to Isabella. (Though I like to think she's buttering Isabella up just a little with the "women should be in charge" bit. Clever, Meg.)

Meg also shows herself to have a strong sense of loyalty early on. She didn't have to follow Thornton and Isabella into the castle. She did that on her own, and I like to think she did it as a way of repaying Isabella for freeing her. No one was paying much attention to Meg in all of the confusion, and she could have slipped away with no one the wiser. Instead, she very vocally tries to help Isabella in front of Thornton, who has already showed himself to be a throughly terrifying man. And then, clever girl that she is, she offers Thornton the one things that she's betting he'll want more than revenge on his wife: riches. (How Meg knew about the treasure and how it remained untouched by grave robbers, I have no idea. This is one of those "the show needed it to be that way" things, and I'm content to let it be.)

One of the things that I think makes this episode work so well is that both Guy and Meg have undergone some pretty fundamental changes by the end, and each learns from the other. If Guy had been the only one to change, the story would have felt contrived and hollow.

When Meg is first brought to the dungeon, she's all spitfire and indignation, with a touch of entitlement. She is very young, very scared, and very bitter, and it shows. She complains childishly about men, throws around "Isabella is a friend of mine" as if this makes her important, and seems to take great joy in telling Guy he's small. I think she does all of this to cover up her fear, but it also serves the purpose of letting Guy see himself and his history from an outsider's point of view - something he hasn't been confronted with for a long time, and a purpose that Meg continues to serve throughout the episode. Guy's initial responses consist of typical Gisborne snarling until Meg brings up the fact that he is going to be executed. He almost looks surprised here. I thought that he'd always known that Isabella was going to execute him eventually, but perhaps he wasn't aware that his sister had set a date. Still, not one to let his vulnerability show for long, he maliciously reminds her, "You might not be far behind." This visibly rattles her, and though she has enough fire left to tell him to go to hell, she doesn't seem to want to talk any more. The two of them, having exchanged opening salvos, retreat to their separate corners.

The second time we see them, nothing has changed. He's still grumpy, and she's still a wee bit annoying. (And I say that with nothing but affection for her...) Meg has probably never been treated so roughly before, and she's complaining about it loudly, much to Guy's dismay. He's never been a very patient with weakness, his or other people's, and at this point, she's just a pathetic girl whining about her shackles who needs to shut it. It's her reaction to his annoyance that sets her apart. Guy lashes out at her, and she's not put off. She keeps trying to talk to him. That right there makes her different from almost everyone else Guy has ever known. He's gone through life thinking that he can protect himself from uncomfortable conversations with a few forceful words, and it's almost always worked. So, for me, the moment when things start to change between them is when Meg says, "You're here, I'm here… what else are we going to do?" There's a little catch in her voice when she says this that I love so much. She's still frightened, but trying very hard to be cheeky and pragmatic. And what does she choose to talk about with the touchy, emotionally unbalanced black-clad man in the next cell? Something light and inconsequential and safe? Of course not. She pushes him about the sister who threw him in the dungeon in the first place. The girl has some nerve, and I love her for it. Guy defends his decision to marry Isabella off, actually articulating his classic Gisborne spin on it, which, by the way, the fandom has had pegged for a long time. It's basically, "She should have made the best of it." But that's old news. What's new is that Guy's conviction seems to waver for just a moment when Meg comes right back at him with, "You sold her to a monster!" Even though he's quick to fall back on, "You know nothing about it," it sounds more like a lame excuse than a deeply held belief. (I tend to agree with the fandom consensus that Isabella has never told Guy just how much and in what way Thornton hurt her. It was probably too shameful, too humiliating for her to put it into words.) The very end of this scene is so telling. Guy, even having dismissed Meg so roughly, does the first nice thing he's done all day. He may not have water to share with her, but he does have knowledge, and that, he gives her. I really like the idea of him knowing this little trick. Something he picked up in the desert? Or perhaps an old soldier's trick? (That it also serves to shut her up is not lost on me. Guy is clever, too.) Also, Meg sulkily doing as he advised her is too cute for words. They've reached an uneasy truce.

By the time we get to the third scene in the dungeon, I believe that Meg is genuinely fascinated by him. Though I am mesmerized as ever by Richard's fantastic acting in this scene, I also can't get over how great Holliday is at riding the line between curiosity and pity. She really wants to understand what makes him work the way he does because, let's face it, most people in Guy's position would not be reacting like he is to his impending death. A lot of what Meg says seems, on the surface, incredibly impertinent and tactless, but I think Guy doesn't need tact or carefully chosen words. In fact, he needs someone who will ask him, point blank, if he feels sorry for all of the terrible things he's done, point out that no one is sorry to see him go, and remind him of how very empty his life must be. For the first time, there's someone calling him on all of the things he's done who he can't send away or ignore. He's got no power over her, and he can't get away from the questions she's asking. It's physically impossible. He can do his classic "I can't help what people think of me" thing, but she's not buying it, and from the tone of his voice, he's not really buying it either any more. And finally, we have world weary Guy, who knows about things like how to knock the maggots off your bread when you're really hungry and maggoty bread is all you have, doing something nice for her. This is BIG. She just told him he was a terrible person, and he's FEEDING HER. When he doesn't have to. Incidentally, I love that Guy's humanity first starts to manifest again by fulfilling a really simple human need. It's not gold that he shares with her, or fine clothes, or anything else of value. It's a piece of bread. And it's gorgeously symbolic in its simplicity. (The English major in me might be drooling just a little over all of this.) The significance of this action is apparently not lost on Meg, and she echoes Luke Skywalker and tells Guy there must be some good in him… And then… he gently pokes fun at her with the "I thought you hated men." (That exchange is so cute I can't think about it with devolving into fangirly flailing.) A few hours ago, she was vowing eternal hatred of men, and now all she can manage is an utterly unconvincing "I do... I do." Meg's changing too.

I can say this for Meg: when she makes up her mind about a person, she jumps in with both feet. When Isabella comes to release her, Meg is already speaking up on Guy's behalf, perhaps because she believes that Isabella's lenience will extend to Guy as well. Also, the Guy that Meg has gotten to know is quite a different person than the Guy Isabella thinks she knows. Unfortunately, I don't think that Isabella is ever going to get to know the "nice" version of her brother. Meg got to see him precisely because she was a stranger, and Guy didn't have years of baggage and games to get in the way of being honest with her. Incidentally, this scene tells us a lot more about Isabella than it does Meg. I can understand Isabella being upset that Meg is apparently warming to Guy... she's in the middle of dealing with Thornton, which is, in a way, Guy's fault in the first place. No wonder she doesn't want impressionable girls around him. Look what he did to her.

Meg continues to show that she really is a nice, loyal girl when she tries to bring Guy food in the dungeon. My notes on this scene are sadly lacking, mostly because every time I watch it I nearly have heart failure because it's just so good. The surprise on Guy's face when she comes in with the plate of food is heartbreak number one. He'd probably assumed that Meg was off with Isabella, being spoon-fed hatred for men in general and him specifically. I've thought a lot about why he refuses what she brings him, and I think I've come to the conclusion that he knows it's dangerous for her to be even this kind to him, and he doesn't want her to get into trouble. And then... one of the best exchanges in this history of this show forever and ever. "You've done more than enough already," Guy tells her, and Meg really doesn't get how much of an effect she's having on him. So (Oh, happy day...) he gets to spell it out for her. He gets to tell her about Marian. Guy is grateful to her for making him think about Marian, for helping him to remember that she did see good in him. And, I think he's grateful for the chance to tell all of this to another person. Meg is, in some ways, like a confessor here. The way his voice breaks when he says "I destroyed her. I destroyed everything…" Wow. Just... wow. This is the admission and guilt and shouldering of responsibility we've all been waiting for.

On the heels of that scene, it's understandable that Guy is genuinely confused when Meg shows up with the keys. He really has no idea what's going on, and his confusion is almost sweet. That she would risk so much for him is unthinkable. Because no one else ever has. And now this girl, to whom he's just told her his darkest secret - that he destroyed the only person who saw goodness in him - is standing at the door to his cell with keys in hand. People just don't work like that in Guy's experience. You let them see you weak, you let them know your secrets, and they will use them and hold them over you and make you feel like the lowest creature imaginable, but they certainly won't help you. But Meg does. And in that moment, that makes her the center of his universe. From now on, Guy does everything in his power to protect this girl who helped him when she didn't have to.  He fully intends to fight off the guards and let her escape, and barring that, he's immediately trying to defend her to Isabella, promising that Meg didn't know what she was doing. There's also a brilliant Meg moment here that I didn't catch the first time around because of all of the other noise. When Isabella says, "I'm on my own," in the midst of her "I can't trust anyone but me" speech, Meg shoots back with, "You put yourself there, Isabella!" WHOA. What does Meg HAVE? The "Standing up to Gisbornes" gene? Whatever it is, I love it. She looks like the enormity of what she's just gotten herself into dawns on her as Isabella leaves, but I don't see any regret on her face. She could have pled for her own life. Meg is clever enough that she could have spun a story about Guy beguiling her, and Isabella would have believed it. But she doesn't.

The scene with the "execution" made me so amazingly happy and so terribly upset that it is... hard for me to be coherent about it. I love Guy here. I love his eyes-forward, resigned-to-death expression juxtaposed with Meg's very understandable and well-played fear. I love the calm, gentle way he tells her, "When it comes, it will be very quick."* This is his repayment for what she's done for him. A calm voice and some much-needed reassurance in the last moments of her life. I love that he lowers himself before Isabella at the chopping block. That, I have a feeling, was a Big Deal. I think that Guy was ready to go out silent and defiant, holding onto some of his self-respect. He wasn't intending to give Isabella the satisfaction of seeing him falter. It took a lot for him to beg. But he did it. For Meg. And Guy is still yelling about Meg's innocence even as he's forced down. (Side note: The "Who is this and what has he done with Gisborne?" look on Robin's face as he watches all of this is priceless.) And for the first time, Robin agrees with Guy. (I wonder if he was planning on just saving Meg, or if the thought of rescuing Guy passed through his mind as well.  Also, way to stop the execution and then fail to protect the innocent girl they were planning to execute, Robin. What was the plane? Leave her in life in Guy's weaponless hands?) Complaining about Robin aside, there are so many really sweet things packed into the next few seconds... the way Guy takes Meg's hands to help her off the platform, the little giddy, relieved smile on Meg's face... She is so full of life there. And then, because the show can't handle having an awesome female character for too long, and because they wouldn't know how to deal with the fallout of Meg sticking around and Guy having to deal with her when they're not about to die, she gets stabbed. (So, female characters this series are useful as brainless love interests, overly sexualized villains, and Teachers of Important Lessons.  Once they have served one of these purposes, if their further existence would complicate things too much, they get offed. I... really hate this show sometimes.)  And what's more, she gets stabbed protecting him. For the second time, she puts her life in danger for his sake, and dies for it. *sigh* Sorry, Meg. You really were awesome. Too awesome, it seems.

The last scene in the forest is one of the more beautifully filmed things I've seen on Robin Hood. The dark greens of the trees and the surface of the water, the way the light casts everything with a little bit of gold... Others have compared some of those shots to a Pre-Raphaelite painting, and I'm inclined to agree. It's that pretty. And then... there's the way Guy treats her in this scene that really shows how much he's changed. He handles her so gently... just look at the unsure, hesitant way he kisses her, the way his hand trembles a little when he passes his hand over her eyes to close them… I'm getting choked up just thinking about it. I feel so terrible for Guy in this scene. I see the Marian parallel, and I love it, but I think he's mourning for both of them in equal measure. For Marian, who he didn't get to cry for, and for Meg, yet another girl that died because she was close to him. And he couldn't stop it. It's a terrible lesson, really, and one that I wish he hadn't had to learn so soon. Sometimes, even when he does the right thing, people still die. And it's that's a hard thing to know.  We're left with the image of Guy actually crying, wracked with grief over a girl who he didn't even know the morning of the day before.

There are logistical problems with Meg's death, by the way. If they could get all the way out into the forest with her walking and not bleeding out… she should NOT be dead. And what possible reason did he have for running to the forest? Why not... you know... a doctor? Guy might be recognizable, but Meg's not. He could have banged on the door and run away. Or used a hood. Those are surprisingly affective in this universe. Of course, all of this is a moot point since Meg had to die anyway for reasons that have nothing to do with logic or coherent storytelling.

*(I have a narrative kink for romances that blossom when both parties are about to be executed. When I was in high school, my English teacher gave us an assignment to write a "missing scene" from A Tale of Two Cities. My friend wrote what amounted to an amazing Sydney Carton/little-seamstress-who-has-no-name-in-canon fanfic that gave her a name and a back story and has made that pairing my ToTC OTP forever. Lucie? Lucie who?)

Isabella and the Epic Feminist Fail of DOOM. (Yes, there will be capslock here. I apologize. I tried to remain calm. It didn't work.)

Usually, I refrain from writing about the feminist fail of this show because writing feminist critique of Robin Hood is like shooting DEAD fish in a barrel. That's right... the fish aren't even moving. And you know what? The barrel is FULL TO THE BRIM WITH DEAD FISH. No water. However, this episode was asking for it. (Beware the capslock rage in this section. I tried to control it and failed miserably.)

I always wondered if we were going to get to meet Thornton. And now that we have, my heart aches for Isabella more than ever. He is far worse than anything I could have imagined. I was expecting a caricature - a much older jealous man, perhaps, or a loutish warrior type, built like a linebacker... but no. Thornton is smart and commanding and terrifying. Honestly. I have to applaud the actor that they got to play him. He managed to scare me more than the Sheriff, Prince John, and every other villain on this show put together. I also have a great deal of respect for Lara Pulver in this episode. Her reactions to Thornton and her eventual metamorphosis into a truly ruthless villain were both really impressive.

I am ready to believe that Isabella meant to be a good Sheriff. She meant what she said to Robin in her bedroom. She intends to be the best Sheriff that Nottingham has ever seen, and if her freeing Meg was any indication, she very well might have been if Thornton hadn't showed up and spooked her. Yes, freeing Meg was a bit of a publicity stunt, but I really do believe that Isabella intended good things for the people of Nottingham, and she had the confidence and the poise to make things different. However, the second Thornton shows up, all of that confidence and self assurance are gone, and she's staring at him like a frightened deer. Just listen to the panic and desperation in her first "get off of me." Thornton is terrifying for several reasons. First of all, he has the ability to take from her the very choice position into which she has very skillfully maneuvered herself. Second, he is very clearly a sadistic rapist. Honestly, I am a little surprised that this "kid's show" got away with alluding to it as blatantly as they did. Lines like Thornton's "It's time I taught you some respect" with the single tear rolling down Isabella's face, or his "Small dark room" speech were quite powerful, but really hard for me to watch. After some thought, I've realized that Thornton's obsession with having complete respect and immediate obedience in both action and spirit explains a lot about Isabella. It explains how she's able to flatter with such ease, slipping like a chameleon between Robin and Guy and Prince John. Also, sadly, it explains why even one perceived slight or threat, one instance of disloyalty on Meg's part, or on Robin's, will set her off. After living so long with Thornton, sadly, that's the way her mind is wired now. Even the smallest insult is reason for swift, definitive punishment. I don't think, though, that she is completely cowed by him. In the brief moment when she sees Robin hiding in the trees at the burial mound, her confidence seems to return. The Isabella who says, "You never know when your luck is going to turn" with irony dripping from her voice is no frightened woman. And why is she suddenly different? Because she knows someone is there to help her, that she's not alone. Whatever she may think about Robin, she trusts that he will not let Thornton hurt her.

However, she has no such assurances in her last scene with her husband. At the beginning of the episode, she had him at the point of her knife, and she was paralyzed by fear. By the end, he has pushed her beyond fear, and she can finally use her ability to turn herself into a sweet, submissive woman as a deadly weapon against him. We've seen Isabella do the "I'm just a silly woman, and I'll put myself in your hands" thing before, but this is the ultimate expression of it. For a moment, I was worried that Thornton was going to stay around for a few episodes with Isabella cowering timidly at his side until Robin took care of him once and for all. With that in mind, I am SO GLAD she killed him herself. As a character, she needed to do it instead of having Robin or some other man kill him for her. And Robin calling her on it? I HATE HIM SO MUCH FOR IT. Her "first murder" MY ASS.

This brings me to the part that makes me angry. The audience has seen the way that Thornton treats Isabella. We know how much he terrorized her, and we know this is why she has problems trusting Robin, or anyone, for that matter. The way Robin handles her is exactly the wrong way. He puts himself in the position of being just another man giving her orders. He sneaks into her bedroom (a place where Isabella already has ample reason to feel vulnerable and unprotected) and pretty much threatens her. Telling her "If I wanted to kill you, you'd already be dead" and if she won't agree to be his friend, "You'll find out what it means to be my enemy" are not the way to get Isabella to trust him and work with him. Also, when Isabella tells him she wants to be a good Sheriff, wants to do the right thing, what does Robin do? Support her? Tell her, "That's great. I can definitely support you in that. I'm so glad you care about the people of Nottingham"? No. he tells her, "No. It will never work." Way to be encouraging of the slightly psychotic woman trying to do the right thing. And why won't it work? Because Prince John appointed her. Wait a second. Prince John is Richard's regent. He must have legitimately appointed dozens of people to important positions during his time in power. Are all of them going to fall from grace when Richard returns as well? It seems to me that Robin is threatening to speak against her specifically, which is a really horrid thing to do. I'm actually really glad she cut the rope. Robin deserved it, and it was a smart thing to do. When she's not scared out of her wits, Isabella is a very intelligent woman.

I think that one of Robin's problems is that he's not taking Isabella seriously. He laughs a little bit as he gets up off of the stones and walks away after she cuts the rope, and he seems quite glib, as if he thinks it's some type of game that they're playing. I have to give Robin some credit. In the next scene where the outlaws are in the courtyard watching Meg's trial, Robin seems genuinely interested in how Isabella is going to act as Sheriff. He even defends her to Kate and talks about the possibility of having a Sheriff on their side like it's a real possibility in his mind. This... placates me somewhat, but not completely. It simply shows that Robin's awful treatment of Isabella comes from ignorance and immaturity, not from purposefully trying to be cruel to her. However, he is consistently making idiotic choices when it comes to her, which is surprising considering Robin seems quick enough to pick up on the fact that there will be no reasoning with Thornton. You'd think that some of that would translate into the way he chooses to deal with Isabella, but it doesn't.

When he saves her from Thornton, she expresses real gratitude. I don't think there was anything feigned about the way she hugs him. Robin had an opportunity there. An opportunity to comfort someone who was obviously in need of it. No strings attached. But, like Guy, Robin's help has conditions and stipulations. He'll help her and work with her, but only if she helps him in his fight against Prince John. In that moment, what was Isabella supposed to do? Reject one of the only people who might be able to help her get rid of her sadistic husband who was at that very moment crashing through the trees calling for her in that angry, creepy way of his? No. So, of course, she agrees. And perhaps she means it.

So, what changed between Isabella agreeing to help him and Isabella ambushing him in the Knight's Glade the next day? I would argue that it's her scene with Little John that tips the balance. Isabella might be a little mad to think that she still has a chance with Robin after everything that has happened between them, but I think that she still has feelings for Robin. So, Little John's blunt, gruff, "It's just business. Robin only has eyes for Kate" pronouncements sting a little. At first, I had a hard time wrapping my mind around why on earth John would say these things to her. However, after extensive conversations with gaelic_bohemian, I think I understand. It still makes me so blindingly angry I can barely see straight. John likes Kate as a person. He really cares for her, and he thinks that she is the "right" choice, the obvious choice, for Robin. Isabella is the "wrong" choice, and he's trying to scare her for Robin's sake. (And for Kate's as well.) He succeeds, in the process destroying any hopes Isabella may still have, and even worse, making it seem like Robin is using her, which is exactly the opposite of what Isabella needs at the moment. (And don't even get me started on how wrong it is that we have an interesting female character making big choices because she can't have Robin's affection. But... this was RH. What was I expecting?)

This brings me to the scene where Isabella sets up the ambush. She's really quite clever here, and were it not for Much's wonderful and timely rescue, the gang would have been in serious trouble. This scene bothers me on so many levels. When Robin says, "I offered you friendship," she says, "No, you threatened me." AND SHE'S RIGHT. I... don't think there's any disputing that point. Robin's been threatening her all episode, albeit with far less cruel intent than her husband has. THEN, THE A&S^DYA(ISYDA*S&D^AS*&^ writers have Kate and Robin have their "Looks like you were right" conversation IN FRONT OF ISABELLA. HOW can he be thinking Kate was right? Isabella calls him on his bullshit, and his response is, "Guess you were right, Kate..." THE LOGIC MAKES NO SENSE. IT KILLS ME AND I AM COMING TO HATE THIS PART AS MUCH AS I LOVE GUY/MEG. AND THAT IS SAYING SOMETHING FOR SRS GUYS. [/capslock rage] And then, to top it all off, Kate tries to stop Robin from helping Isabella when Thornton is really obviously about to kill her, and Robin has the gall to get angry at Isabella for killing the bastard herself when he wasn't there to do anything about it.

And, from the way the show is structured, it seems that we're supposed to think all of this is all right. I don't understand how we are supposed to cheer for Robin's treatment of her (and Kate's endless harping about how Isabella isn't to be trusted) when we have ample evidence that Isabella, despite her questionable choices, deserves our sympathy, not our condemnation. She is simply, like Guy, very easy to sway back to her old ways, especially when she feels threatened.

Ok. Here's my problem in a nutshell. Robin tries (in really really failtastic ways) to give an abused woman the benefit of the doubt and see the good in her, Kate thinks she's bad news and says so, and by the end, said abused woman has killed her rapist husband and Robin has declared himself her enemy. Kate, who has been completely unsympathetic to Isabella throughout, gets to see Robin renounce the "other woman" cruelly and say "I told you so." FEMINIST FAIL. Also MADE OF FAIL is Kate's "We finally get to see what kind of a woman she really is" line. WHAT KIND OF WOMAN IS THAT, KATE? A woman so damaged by years of abuse and being told that she was weak and stupid because she was a woman that she reacts almost instinctively out of fear and shame? A woman whose only models of powerful men have also been assholes? (I'm including Robin, here.) A woman who, like Guy, could have been a good person if given just a little bit of understanding? That brings me to REDEMPTION FAIL. Haven't we seen that all any Gisborne needs is a little bit of trust and some kindness and they'll follow you anywhere? How can an episode all about GUY'S redemption be so calloused to Isabella? (I agree with bookishy's "Scrap of Humanity" theory. The writers have decided that the Gisborne siblings have ONE scrap, and Guy was using it in this episode.)

And finally, Isabella's dress in the last scene is MADE OF SEX. (Ok... so that's maybe a little feminist fail on my part, but she's stunning in it.) And I LIKE her threatening Robin. For a moment, I actually felt some glee in the dark parts of my soul as I contemplated the idea that she might kill him in the end. (I have gotten angrier and angrier on her behalf as I've re-watched and thought about this episode.)

The Much/Kate/Robin Triangle

This episode is filled with instances of Much getting pushed to the side in favor of Kate. For instance, WHY is Kate the one who stays with Robin in the courtyard? Much obviously wants to be the one who stays, but she sends him away, and he does it because he seems unable to NOT do what she says. The look on his face is the look of a man who's heartbroken because the two people he cares for most in the world are choosing each other over him. (and not just romantically… I think it hurts him that it happens in everyday situations, too.) Gosh darn it, Kate, let Much spend some time with his best friend once in a while! Treat Much Right!

So.. here's my interpretation of the Robin/Kate courtyard kiss: Kate doesn't want Robin working with Isabella because she's jealous. She may not trust Isabella, but it's not some sort of keen sense of Isabella's questionable morality that has her worried. It's because Isabella is another woman who Robin seems to want to work with. My reasoning? Robin asks her why she's so angry, her answer is to reach out and KISS HIM. For all intents and purposes, she's saying "I'm angry because I want to kiss you, and you're paying attention to Isabella instead of me." She's not angry because he can't see Isabella for "what she is." She's angry because Robin might choose another woman over HER. I'm... oddly proud of Robin in this scene. He doesn't encourage Kate. In fact, he seems not really to know what to do, which is odd for Robin.

My ever-so-slight respect for Robin continues when he tries to take Much's feelings into consideration. He mentions Much to Kate in a "I don't want to hurt him" way that could be read in so many interesting ways. (I could hear the Robin/Much camp rejoicing from my living room.) Also, I think Robin looks just a tiny bit disappointed in Kate that she would be so cavalier about Much's feelings. Unfortunately, Kate doesn't take the hint. Robin leaves them together watching Thornton (I can't decide if Robin's trying to play matchmaker here), and Kate does very possibly the most insensitive thing I can think of. The scene is... awkwardly written. It sounds like a high school drama, not Robin Hood, with all the "I think he likes me." However, Sam's face when she says it... is so sad I almost feel bad for mocking what's going on here.

I don't quite understand what we're supposed to take from Much forgetting his part in the heist while watching Robin and Kate fight off the guards. Is this his moment of realization that they are "meant to be?" Is this him deciding that he'll speak to Robin? I fear that that is exactly what we're supposed to take from it, and I don't like it one bit. One, it was cheesy voiceover, and two, if "they look really neat fighting together," is reason for epic romance, then Tuck/Allan should be canon yesterday.

Much continues to break my heart in the scene where he leaves. I really think this is his "I'm getting out of the way so they can be together" gesture, but I don't think it's just that. I think it's an equal part "I don't need to be around for this, I can make my own way." I quite like how this scene was shot, with the camera panning over each of the sleeping outlaws, giving us some great references for how the camp is set up, then with Much hefting his pretty shield and his sword and turning his back on the camp as the early morning light streams through the trees... Nice. Also, I agree with others who have said that Much's silence here is brilliant. No last speeches, no goodbyes spoken to those who can't hear him. He just leaves. And when he does come back, he doesn't want to be made a big deal of. When Kate guesses what he was doing, he gives her a look that says, "Please don't tell…" and she doesn’t, which may just be the first smart thing she's done in regards to this whole mess. Robin is characteristically confused, and before anything can get resolved, Tuck is there announcing that "the plan" needs to be discussed. I hate how important conversations on this show are constantly interrupted by dumb plot.

So, what has changed by the end of the episode? Much may have come back and saved his friends, but there's been no closure there. Also, what has changed between Robin and Kate since she kissed him in the courtyard? They're still living an incredibly dangerous life, which is the excuse that Robin gave her before. So, what new things has Robin seen in Kate other than her ability to "predict" Isabella's ~~sudden but~~ inevitable betrayal? He lists several adjectives to describe her, and the one that I can remember because it made no sense to me at the time is "compassionate." Where in this episode does Kate demonstrate this? She's inconsiderate to Much, downright nasty about Isabella, and self-righteous to Robin. I... don't know how that translates to compassion in any way, shape, or form.

I... don't know what to do here. It's like the writers don't even realize how what they're doing is coming across. They write Kate as mean and petty and immature, and then they throw her into tender scenes with Robin like we're supposed to be happy about them getting together. My mind boggles. What's sad is, I was actually starting to like Kate before this week. I really thought she'd grown. But no. The instant she actively sets her sights on Robin, she's insufferable.

General Complaining and "Next Week on Robin Hood"

It annoys me that every character has been given, if not entire episodes, then at the very least entire scenes where they got to shine this season. Tuck was fantastic in his first episode and in the one with the Bible in English, and John got his gladiator episode. Much's affection for Kate has put him in the spotlight, though not in a terribly flattering way until this episode. Guy, the Sheriff, PJ, Isabella, and Kate all have ample screen time. Robin has his usual amount of dashing around and being heroic. Who does that leave out? Allan. I challenge you to find a single episode where Allan is doing anything other than fighting, helping people sneak into the castle, or pulling a con. He hasn't developed. He hasn't changed. You may point out the scene with Kate when they get captured, but as funny as it was, I would argue that scene was for Kate's development, not for his.

Also, Allan seems to be quite the "men are better, women are stupid" guy in this, doesn't he? First, we have his "As if" moment in the courtyard at the beginning, then he's saying they'd be better off with a donkey… This isn't my Allan. It's not the Allan who respected Djaq and Marian and thought they were competent people as well as women. I HATE this show for using one of my favorite characters to bash women and make Robin look good in comparison, especially when Robin is really no better.

All I ask for is ONE good Allan episode this time around. We got at least 10 of them last season. What happened? Did the writers decide Allan had gotten his fair share of attention last season? I suppose I should reserve judgment until the series is over, but I'm not holding my breath.

The one brilliant Allan moment of the episode: "He was the queen of Sheba last week." ILU ALLAN.

And some more minor nitpicks...

Didn't they use the "scare people off by making them think it's a ghost/curse" ploy last week? I mean… I understand, Viking treasure and all… it's really cool and Tuck and explain about Valhalla and Allan can ask about it being near Norwich, but seriously folks. Get a new plot device.

CGI axe is CGI. And from where Robin is standing… (On Guy's side of the stage, if I can tell?) why did it get knocked to Guy's side of center when Robin hit it with the second arrow? Even if I'm shaky on the logistics, There is some physics fail here. I can feel it.

SINCE WHEN does Sherwood have Mirkwood-sized spiders that build Mirkwood-sized spider webs? Because Isabella needs to fall through one of them. That's why. *facepalm*

Next week:

WEE!ROBIN!!!11!! And not-so-wee!Guy! I'm holding my breath for wee!Much, Will, or Marian… or wee!Allan and his con artist family passing through the area, or wee!Djaq on a vacation from the Holy Land with her family... (Ok, so some of those are a bit far fetched. Stranger things have happened.)

I think I'm poised to like the casting of the parents. However, I'm curious. Did we see Robin's mum? Or get mention of her? "Mysterious man in hood" says he knows the truth about how Robin's parents (note the plural) died, but wee!Robin only yells about his FATHER being in the burning house. I'm pretty certain the lovely dark-haired woman was Guy's mother, so where was Lady Huntingdon?

I'm not sure I'm ok with the Locksley/Gisborne love triangle version 1.0. that they seem to be setting up here. It could go very ridiculous places very quickly. If Guy and Robin are related, (half-brothers?) I... won't quit watching, but I'll be very upset if it's not handled exactly right. You hear me, Show? You managed to turn a terrible premise into a fantastic character arc... let's see you do it two weeks straight.

Question for discussion: Who's the figure in the hooded cloak? Guy's father? Not dead all these years? The undead Sheriff, wanting to make trouble? (Finding out... whatever the big secret is will surely mess with both of them, which would be just fine by Vasey.) Someone new?

Robin Hood 3x08 Review: The King is Dead, Long Live the King

corrielle@yahoo.com — Thu, 28 May 2009 05:31:50 GMT

This week's episode was solid. We had a high-stakes plot, some decently clever trickery on the part of the outlaws, and a continuation of the Gisborne family drama that certainly upset the status quo.

For me, the big question to be answered this week was, "What IS Guy going to do now that he's an outlaw?"

Guy's actions in this episode are those of a man who has lost everything. He is no longer thinking of the future, no longer scheming for position or desperately trying to protect what he has gained. He has nothing left to try and protect. He is without position, without friends, and without means, and the only thing that seems to matter to him is getting revenge on the sister and the prince who have "betrayed" him. I see no reason for him to think that killing Isabella will benefit him politically, and certainly no reason to think that assassinating John is going to help him. So, it seems to me that he wants them dead for the sheer satisfaction their deaths will bring, and that he isn't really planning to survive them by very long. He surely must know that killing John is going to make him even more of a hunted man than he is already, and I truly believe that he doesn't care. He sees no future for himself, so why not take out his treacherous sister and Prince John, consequences be damned? Except for the scene at the table with Isabella, everything he says and does in this episode boils down to this. He demands nothing of his sister or of the Prince in the two scenes where he's trying to kill both of them because there is nothing that he wants from them more than he wants them dead.

I seriously doubt whether the Guy of even a few episodes ago would have been so reckless.  However, he has slowly and systematically had everything that gave his life stability and purpose taken away from him. He had already lost Marian, which made him none too stable, but he still had Vasey and the hope of eventual power at his side to cling to. Then, Vasey betrayed him to Prince John, and the myth of Vasey as a sure route to power and stability was shown to be just that - a myth. Isabella returns, with the promise of some family loyalty (however dysfunctional that may be), only to betray him for Robin soon afterward and leave him alone once more. John steps in, filling the void of leadership that Vasey left, has Guy kill Vasey with his own hands (which clearly disturbed Guy a great deal),and proceeds to give Guy what he's been wanting all along for a grand total of ten minutes before banishing him and making him an outlaw.  Each event builds on the next until it's no wonder that Guy is lashing out.

This episode also served to highlight the contrast between Guy and Robin. Throughout the series, the two of them have mirrored one another. Robin is cast in the "true" heroic mold, and Guy is a shadow, his darkness a reflection of Robin's brightness.  I believe on the the creators even said once that Robin is what Guy could have been if things had been different. They come from a similar social class, they loved the same woman, they both look toward a future where things will be "better." (Robin looking to Richard's return and Guy looking to Vasey's accession to power.) These parallels were only heightened by Guy's becoming an outlaw. Finding himself in Robin's position but lacking Robin's sense of compassion and justice (which, as much as I complain about Robin, continue to be evident), Guy acts selfishly. Like Robin, he is a dispossessed noble, but he is a dispossessed noble who cares nothing for the people and everything for revenge. This makes his interaction with Robin in the church really interesting. In a strange way, they both want the same thing: to stop that coronation and prevent John from walking out of the abbey with that crown on his head - they simply have different ideas about how much Prince John is going to end up bleeding in the process. Robin's thoughts in that scene are for England - he may have an arrow trained on Prince John, but he never intends to kill him, knowing the chaos it would cause. Guy's thoughts are for himself, as shown in the question he asks Robin: "What has England done for me?"  (The answer? Not very much. But that completely misses Robin's point about things going badly for lots of people if John dies.) Once again, Robin is put in the position of protecting a tyrant he hates for the sake of national stability, and because he is the "hero," he does it.

I don't mean to imply that Guy is acting completely without forethought. Just as John took away Guy's dreams of being Sheriff just as he had finally realized them, I think that Guy was waiting to try to kill John until after he had been crowned, to let him taste success and feel that he was king for a moment before taking it away. It certainly explains the reason why he didn't take the shot earlier. John was an easy target as he walked through the crowd, and not being in the church would have made it easier for Guy to get away. (Though again, I don't think he was really expecting to.) Robin's entrance upset this plan of course, and Guy had to improvise. I think he was reveling in the irony that that he was about to kill John with the crown of England at his own feet. That is why he revealed himself. He wanted John to know that irony as well.

While Guy may act throughout like he has nothing to live for, his interaction with Isabella shows that, at least in the first part of the episode, he is not yet completely devoid of hope for himself. When he first appears in her room, he could have killed her, but he hesitates. Why? Others have brought up the obvious parallel with Marian, and I certainly think that's part of it. Also, I think that Isabella challenging him to do it was exactly the right thing to do. Part of his desire to kill her stems from a desire for control, for power. Having her basically say, "Go on, do it. I dare you," puts the power in her court. She would have been allowing him to do it, and that isn't what he was going for. Of course, I think that Isabella knew this and was bluffing the whole time. She simply wanted to get him to hesitate so she could slip in her offer to speak to Prince John for him. And one last time, Guy believes her. By the time he's sitting at her table drinking her wine, he's back to talking about "us" and "we" and planning their inter-dependent futures with an ease that is surprising considering how little he trusts her. However, he is still completely unable to apologize to her. He's willing to work with her, but only on his terms. And those terms don't include apologizing for the the decision that got him on the road to power in the first place. (I am SO glad that we got this bit of backstory/context, by the way. Guy sees Isabella's marriage to Thornton as essential to their advancement. He did it because he thought there was no other way. I'm not saying it was right... I'm saying that's how he sees it, and it makes me feel better than if Guy had had other options.) That moment, where Isabella demands the apology, made my heart break for her a bit. I am ready to believe that she would have forgiven him. That she meant what she said about speaking to John for him, and that they could have worked something out together. However, Guy can't seem to get it through his head how much she needs to hear him say "I'm sorry," and Isabella has no idea how difficult it is for him to say those two little words, and so the scene plays through to its tragic but inevitable end. I was quite impressed with Lara in this scene. You can see the hope on her face, and (feigned?) gentleness with which she treats his wound, and you can see the moment when she makes the decision to drug him. It was pretty obvious to me that she had two bottles there, one with medicine and one with the drug, and that she was waiting for Guy's answer. Guy, not knowing he was being tested, failed, and she chose the Valerian. This was a great scene... all of their choices were perfectly in character, but it still hurt me to watch them both destroy what little chance still remained for an alliance between them.

In the end, Guy is given the choice between trying to kill Isabella and trying to kill John, and it seems that he chooses John. It makes sense. John took away his public position, while Isabella's betrayal is more personal. In a terrible, messed up way, this is yet another example of Guy deciding that his power and position are more important than she is. (Only with the Gisbornes could I make the argument that his not trying to kill her could be read as at all insulting... )

So, speaking of Isabella...

Isabella spends this episode on the edge of either great power or utter failure, and there is a very thin line separating the two. She knows it, and what's more, Prince John knows it.  The first interaction that the two of them have is a glorious conglomeration of thinly veiled innuendo, flattery, and shifting power dynamics. John is very much in charge in the midst of all the chaos, yet another example of his being more sane than one might at first think he is. He is clearly enjoying Isabella's attention, but he is no fool. He understands exactly what she's playing at, and he likes watching her squirm. This, I think, is why he introduces her to Sheridan. We know that John likes playing his subordinates off of each other. He did it with Guy and Vasey, and now he's doing it with Sheridan and Isabella, patiently waiting to see who can please him more. (Yes, that sounded bad. It... probably should, considering the way that his comments about Guy could have been taken.) As with Guy, John knows how to push all of Isabella's buttons.  The knowing look on his face when he tells Sheridan she has traitor's blood... chilling, but fantastic. He knows she'll fight tooth and nail to erase any association with her brother's treason from his princely mind.

Knowing she is in such a precarious situation, Isabella spends much of the episode not only trying to get her footing with the Prince back, but reaching so far as to suggest herself as a candidate for sheriff. These far-reaching ambitions might lead one to think that she never intended to help Guy in the first place, that she was going to drug him, apology or no, but I don't think this is the case.  There was too much focus on her demand for an apology and her choice of the drug. It seems that Isabella truly thought that she and Guy might have stood a chance of rising in power together. However, when he throws her offer of an alliance back in her face, she has no problem trussing Guy up and presenting him to John. And here, we get to see yet another reason that Isabella is a more effective political player than Guy will ever be. She has a flair for the theatrical that Vasey and John both share - that sensibility that says, "Don't just execute Robin... make him fight to the death over a vat of boiling oil!" Or, "Let me throw myself over the casket of my not-dead brother, weeping copiously." Anyway, I love that Isabella comes to John when he is in a foul mood, thinking that she has exactly what he needs to get him out of it. Then, the dramatic sweeping back of the sheet... only to find that Guy has somehow ~~charmed the servant girl with his fantastic looks~~ overpowered the servant girl while tied up and switched places with her.  (By the way... I find it strange that John immediately assumes that Isabella and Guy are in league with each other when it is so obvious that Guy is trying to kill both of them, but I suppose his royal paranoia knows no bounds.)

Her scene with Sheridan and Prince John in the dungeon, though, is what really fascinates me about Isabella in this episode. John thinks that the contest has been decided... Sheridan has gotten him the crown back (that he touches in entirely inappropriate but hilarious ways...) and Isabella has failed him. As despicable as Isabella is sometimes, my heart ached for her in this scene. She has come so far from where she was, and it's obvious from her expression when John "gives" her to Sheridan that she's panicking just a little at the fact that yet another powerful, trusted male "protector" is about to her away to another man for his own gain. However, Isabella is no scared thirteen year old this time. She acquiesces momentarily in the dungeon, but has by no means given in. She thinks she can do something to change John's mind, to prove her usefulness. And she does.  She watches for her opportunity, and when Robin and Guy present it to her, she makes her choice. She knows that the saving John is as close to a sure way back into his good graces as she's going to get. Could she have died? Of course. Putting herself between Guy and John was a calculated risk. If she "wins," she gets John's trust and his patronage. If Guy happens to shoot her dead in the process, at least she doesn't have to live tied to another man she doesn't love. So, she uses what she knows about Guy and about Robin to make herself supremely useful to Prince John. And... it pays off. She may have a nasty wound in her arm, but Isabella comes out on top. And she's SHERIFF. Historical inaccuracy aside, I think I love it just a little.  I can't wait to see what she's like when she's in charge.

Other stuff I liked:

I haven't really touched on the main plot of the episode or the outlaws yet. In general, I really liked the "John fakes Richard's death" plot. Sure, the wax-work may have been anachronistic. But all in all, it was a clever ploy on John's part, quite stealthily executed, and we got to see Toby Stephens camping it up so much it was like... looking into the campy SUN sometimes. ("Wakey wakey archbishop..." *snerk*)

I actually liked that it was Kate who notices that Richard's head is wax. It made sense to me. She comes from a family of artisans, right? Not that pottery-making is exactly like waxwork, but I can see her having an eye for that sort of thing where the others might miss it.

I like the archbishop. He's obviously a man who feels constrained by traditions and laws and appearances, but he was also more than happy to tell John, "No crown, no coronation." He seemed to be just waiting for the chance to tweak John's nose. Also, his threats about spilling blood in the house of God were kind of hard core. (Though I fail to understand how it's not ok to skewer someone on your sword or your arrow, but it IS ok to punch someone in the church.)

I had a lot of fun watching the scene where Kate, Allan, and Robin stealing the keys from Sheridan. It was a really good con, and the three of them worked together fantastically. However...

Stuff that was aggravating:

Why did Allan, of all people, break character in the tavern? The first rule of being a con artist, right behind "don't get caught" and possibly before "never run a con with your own money" is "don't talk about the con directly in front of the person you're conning." He knows this.  We've seen him lie under pressure before The first time we see him, he's making up pregnant wives and hungry children to get out of having his hand cut off. Allan lies as easily as he breathes, and they're trying to tell me he couldn't whip up a quick, "Hey! Get your hands off my sister"? I call shenanigans.

Allan and Much have taken to bickering over Kate. This needs to stop. It was cute when their liking her made them have cute buddy moments. It is not cute when it makes both of them act like petulant children. (And as much as I like Tuck calling both of them on it, Kate's "focus on the mission" speech was ill-conceived. Tuck can get away with those most of the time. Robin can... sometimes. Kate can't.)

It is also not cute when Much and Allan do things to protect her that they would do for any other member of the gang and she gets all huffy over it. For instance, Allan had no way of knowing that she had the situation in hand... he came in at a really inopportune moment and assumed she was in over her head. Not because she was a girl, but because Sheridan was ten times bigger than she was. And Much... I can't see him leaving any member of the group behind with a knife to his throat.

Where did that skull come from for their little "scare the guards away from the burning body" ruse? What was with the grave desecration? It's supposed to be funny and clever when Robin does it, but when the Sheriff was digging up the Abbey's churchyard looking for "relics," we were supposed to be suitably horrified. Massive consistency FAIL, show.

(Also, when Robin asked about getting a cloak, I went, "Holocaust cloak! Princess Bride! I am the Dread Pirate Roberts! There will be no survivors!") And then, it happened just that way. I don't know whether to groan at the unoriginality of it or smile at the homage. I prefer the second. It's the way I went on the "Indiana Jones booby trapped crown" sequence. I do a lot better when I think they're making references on purpose.

Next week: Thornton! (Younger and much better looking than expected.) Guy, a pretty girl who says something nice to him, and… WHY IS GUY STANDING AT A CHOPPING BLOCK? *flails* And why does he sound so resigned about it? Oh yeah... and Robin and Isabella flirt/threaten each other some more. Must be Saturday. (Is it? Is it Saturday yet? No? *sigh*)

Witchfinders Robin Hood Audio Drama reaction

corrielle@yahoo.com — Wed, 20 May 2009 06:20:20 GMT

So I finally listened to Witchfinders...

So this is the story about Guy seeing Marian's "ghost." Richard Armitage reads it. I've had it for a couple of weeks now, and I figured that today, in the midst of my Robin Hood withdrawal, I should listen to it while I drove out to Ventura to administer my final.

I thought I was going to be ok. I thought it couldn't possibly be so bad that I shouldn't listen to it while driving. I was wrong. I got through about half of it before I got to campus, and I was in tears while driving. I had to pause it a couple of times I got so upset. Don't get me wrong... it was good. It was really good. Richard does a fantastic job of reading the narration (some of the places where he was describing the Marian-hallucination and Guy's reaction to her had my breath catching in my throat. I could FEEL the ache of it.) Also, his character voices are hysterical. His Vasey is maniacal and growly, his Much and his Allan are spot on, his Robin is a bit ponce-y, and the one-shot characters are all pretty distinct. (The older Witchfinder was CREEPY, too...) Oh... and his Kate is pretty funny. Kate in general in this is interesting, and the interactions between her and Guy were really good...

So... yeah. It was good. It was also heart-stoppingly sad. The Marian that Guy hallucinates isn't a comforting type of vision who tells him what he wants to hear. She's... she's just Marian. Saying what Marian would say and not letting him off easy, but still trying to get him to see that he could be better. It was good, but it broke me. I got to campus and had to go in my office for a while and sit and calm down.

My final went well. (except for the fact that one of my student's computers got the blue screen of death while she was trying to write... but that turned out ok) In what probably ended up being a good turn of events safety-wise, my car's CD player decided it didn't want to play the rest of the story while I drove home, so I had to wait until I'd gotten back to the house and eaten some of the delicious home-made nachos Rae had made before I could hear the end.

It wasn't disappointing, Robin's ridiculous escape-of-the-week aside. It would have been impossible for Guy to have a complete change of heart, but... they let him have a moment of goodness, a moment of doing (or in this case, not doing) something that made the world a fairer place. And then... there was his last conversation with Marian, where she tells him he's the one who's fading and suggests that everything she's said to him has been what he really thinks deep down... wow. And the pain in Guy's voice when he said, "You're not her" killed me dead. And then she fades. She's gone... and Guy almost wishes she would have stayed even if it made him a little crazy and my immediate reaction was something like Oh my gosh they gave us a totally shippy Guy/Marian story I love them. *flails a lot* *sobs* Why? Why couldn't this have been an episode?

*ahem* Sorry about that. I'm not quite better yet. Don't know if I will be in the near future. Or... you know... ever.