Links to entertaining rants, and why I won't write any

[selenak]

The rant meme making the rounds has produced some interesting results so far. (No, I won't post it here. I'm not much good at rants, unless we're talking films that have Romans bathing with their togas on or novels that write Elizabeth Tudor like a total ditz ruled by her favourites. (In other words, like Queenie in Blackadder only without the irony and without Mirana Richardson.) (Looking at you, Philippa Gregory.) You can also have a Richard III was framed diatribe, but that's it, and anyway, right now I don't have the time.

I've got the time for some fun and quick reading, though. Here are three of the most entertaining rants I found:

Shakespeare authorship rant. Or, why it was Will from Stratford and not Bacon/de Vere/Marlowe, you literary snobs. G.B. Shaw wrote a rant like this once, but the lj version is a kick for my inner Shakespearean as well.

(I'm also vaguely reminded of coffee_and_ink recently defining the stages of the oedipal aspects of fandom like this: (1) I love the show! It's perfect! (2) The show used to be perfect, and now it sucks! But it can't be the fault of the same person who gave me the previous perfection -- it must be this other person who is making my idol do these horrible things! (3) Fuck it, my idol has become an abomination, I hate them all. In Shakespearean terms, we'd get: (1) These plays rule! (2) Okay, Pericles and Cymbeline not so much. And what was he thinking with that bore about Henry VIII.? I know, it was all Beaumont & Fletcher, the hacks! (3) Never mind the Stratford guy with his bourgeois tastes, Marlowe is the real thing anyway!)


Xavier and Magneto (mis)characterisation, by penknife, who writes them beautifully. If you're not into X-Men, you can apply what she says to many a hero (suddenly rendered as a vile humourless megalomaniac brute in fanfic) and many an ambiguous villain (suddenly finding himself performing out-of-character villainous deeds without regard to his motives and general code; I'm still smarting from the Bester, torturer-at-large nonsense over at B5).

And because I just can't resist, and because their 'shippers take it so very seriously, no pun intended: : Remus/Sirius - their love is so fanon. Besides, I just love the phrase: Shutting oneself up with dead rats and a hippogryff is not a sign of a man happily reunited with the love of his life.*g*

Comments

[artaxastra.livejournal.com]

It's a pity you're not doing the meme because I'd love to hear the Richard III was framed rant! Oh don't get me started on that one! I will beat people with a heavy copy of Thomas More!

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Loyalité me lie.*g* I'll expand when RL isn't quite so much.

[artaxastra.livejournal.com]

Twins! *extends ring for superpowers activation*

[selenak.livejournal.com]

*accepts ring and starts to order dashing twinset costume featuring white rose, as white boar not so becoming*

Of course we are!

[artaxastra.livejournal.com]

Yes, I can see that the Big White Pig might make me look like I was advertising Piggly Wiggly* rather than saving the king!

*supermarket chain in the South -- logo is a happy pig

[wychwood]

Ooh! Ooh! Yes! Please do the RIII rant some time! I love "The Daughter of Time", and Tey's so right when she points out the inherent silliness of the traditional story...

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Okay, I will, when RL is more merciful towards me. Have you read Sharon Penman's The Sunne in Splendour? Best novel about Richard and the rest of the last Plantagenets ever. (In the sense of historical novel; as far as mysteries are concerned, Ms. Tey rules, of course.)

[midnightsjane.livejournal.com]

The Sunne in Splendour: wonderful book!
The Shakespeare rant was very entertaining. I think these so called academics just like to hear themselves expounding, so grab onto some obscure rational to deny Shakespeare his due. I agree completely that it doesn't matter what Shakespeare did or did not do in his life; what matters is the amazing body of work he left us.