This article tells me there's a new play on the London stage about the encounter between J.S. Bach and Frederick the Great, titled Score, which causes the article writer, Michael Billington, to muse about other plays about composers (starting of course with Amadeus), and because this is an English article, and thus German language works do not exist, there's no nod to Mein Name ist Bach (German language Swiss film about that very encounter, used to be in its entirety up at YouTube, with English subtitles, no less, but no more, and thus I can't link you to the thing itself, but I did write an extensive review with screencaps; if nothing else, that film has a claim to fame for being the first movie to unambiguously, on screen textually present good old or rather young Friedrich as gay) or the play Mögliche Begegnung der Herren Bach und Händel about an imaginary encounter between Bach and Händel during Händel's last trip home to Saxony, which a couple of years ago was a stage and audio hit back here. Re: this new play Score: Brian Cox as Bach, eh? Not the first actor who'd come to mind, but of course I would love to see his interpretation.

On to this week's episode of Ahsoka: ( In which we catch up with the villains. )

And speaking of villains:

Since last week's episode was extremely short, I waited for this week's with my review, which turned out to have been the right choice.

( Spoilers ended this week's ep with AWWWWWWWW )

For Valentine's Day, the Candy Hearts Exchange went live, and I received two gifts, both SW: The Clone Wars stories: give us something to celebrate and yet peace, both stories in which conversations Anakin has with Ahsoka (and Obi-Wan) make fundamental changes.

I also finished reading A Thousand Ships, a, hm, less than a novel than an interconnected tapestry of stories based on Trojan War related myths by Natalie Haynes. Each of the myths is told from a female perspective, and in a non-liniear fashion; for example, the Penthesilea story (near the end of the war) happens before the Iphigenia story (at the start of the war). Like The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker, this one's take on Briseis and Chryseis (and for that matter any of the female prisoners taken slaves by the Greeks) pointedly avoids presenting their relationships as romances. I think this is the retelling whose take on Cassandra was most visceral for me, because the author had Cassandra experience her visions of the future as memories. (I.e. like Doctor Manhattan in Watchman, she experiences past, present and future simultanously and all the time. Unlike him, she remains human. Talk about a curse.) I'm reasonably well versed in Greek mythology, but there were some myths I hadn't been familiar with, and afterwards had to google, such as the story of Hecuba's revenge on Polymestor, which I see is from both a Euripides play and Ovid. Though Haynes made one telling change; in her book, as in practically every modern retelling I've seen save for an intriguing Yuletide story from years past, Agamemnon is an unredeemable villain, and thus the Greek hero who sides with Hecuba in her version isn't Agamemnon but Odysseus.

Another decision any author tackling the Trojan War myths has to make is whether or not to use the Gods. Haynes does include them, and provides some intriguing twists, most of all by using the non-linear storytelling to reveal bit by bit the underlying true reason for the Trojan War. There are some surprising yet effective decisions, like ( a spoiliery one regarding Thetis the mother of Achilles. ) Unfortunately, one of the very few intallments that don't work for me are the Penelope passages, perhaps because all the other female povs come across as telling their own stories, whereas Penelope tells that of Odysseus (except for the first time she speaks). I mean, I do see the basic problem - evidently Heynes wanted to include the Odyssey stories and she wanted to include Penelope as a pov, and so she has Penelope tell those stories via letters to her absent husbands where she repeats what she heard from the bards about his adventures with her own sarcastic commentary. But that still makes them not Penolope's stories, and I wonder whether a better solution would have been to divide the Oddyssey tales between Penolope, Circe, Kalypso and Nausicaa.

Lastly, as opposed to some other modern retellings where the brutality of the male characters' actions is preserved, but not of the female characters, here this doesn't happen, which means the various revenge acts by women fall on the guilty and innocent alike (true for both Hecuba's and Clytemnestra's revenges, for example), and thus several the female characters are victims and perpetrators alike. It's a compelling book, but definitely not one for escapist purposes.

I submitted to the Mouse for a month again, like last year, so I can marathon the second season of The Mandalorian and also WandaVision, now that it's finished. A few thoughts:

WandaVision( : Spoilery cut. )

The Mandalorian, Season 2: continued to be my hands down favourite post Return of the Jedi set incarnation of Star Wars. (This doesn't just include the sequels but also the few novels I did read which are now ex-canonized.) ( Spoilery musings to follow. )

Since I have the rest of the month to explore Disney+, any recs since last year?

More catching up post Holidays: so there will be one more Clone Wars Season! On the one Hand, I'm pleased. This is my era of Star Wars; not the OT, not the sequels, though I am fond of both, but for me, the prequel era is the one that touched my heart most, and The Clone Wars is my favourite incarnation of it. Incidentally, note to the sequel creators: the way The Clone Wars managed to individualize the Clones and make them sympathetic hammers home that what will happen is their tragedy as well, with the added outrage that their entire existence from artificial creation to death is basically glorified slavery. ( Slightly spoilery comparison between clones and stormtroopers and the narrative treatment in CW vs the sequels ensues. ) Now I know that Rex makes it into Star Wars: Rebels, but hooray one more outing for the other clones before Order 66 strikes!

On the other hand: the s5 finale in terms of Ahsoka as an individual, Ahsoka and the Jedi, as well as Ahsoka and Anakin, can hardly be topped dramatically. So I'm afraid that whatever Ahsoka's s6 story will turn out to be, it will feel anticlimactic by comparison. What I do hope for is that Filoni will put Padme's cut subplot from Revenge of the Sith about organizing parliamentary resistance against Palpatine together with Bail Organa into this last season, and maybe Ahsoka's story could interweave with this?

Also recently watched, due to it being on Netflix: season 3 of I, Zombie. Which was as entertaining as ever, though I do have some serious and not so serious complaints. Early in the season, Ravi continued the unfortunate late s2 trend of making me forget why I liked him so much by displaying an irritating case of Nice Guy Syndrome vis a vis Peyton. Thankfully, by mid season this was over with, and he got back to being an endearing character. The very last scene of the season between him and Liv was one of the show's most emotional and best and earned by three seasons of friendship and trust. This also was the first season where all of Liv's nearest and dearest ( did something spoilery )

Speaking of alterations of the status quo, the s3 finale actually went through with the major game changer foreshadowed since the s2 finale. Which makes sense in terms of all the preceding events, though less in terms of having to suspend disbelief as to the reaction such an event would cause in anything resembling the current day US. Which reminds me: I'm usually not a "but think of the children" type of viewer, but Rob Thomas, did you have to use a nefarious scheme for your big evil finale revealed plot that could have been dreamt of by an anti vaccination nut? In the current climate?


And one more thing about the finale: ( which is too spoilery to mention above cut. )


On to the good stuff: other than my complaint about Ravi, I felt on board with how ( a spoilery triangle resolved. )

Clive had a good season, to the point where at times he felt like the co-lead. Given the finale's events, though, I wonder whether the show's case of the week format won't be gone or at least radically altered next season, which makes me wonder about which role he'll have then. Anyway, while we got Ravi's early season romantic woes and Major's long term social angst due to the s2 events, it's noticable that Clive, who in late s2 sacrificed a major relationship (as far as he knew forever) for friendship and the greater good, never spent much time navel-gazing but focused on the job throughout, without this feeling like he'd just forgotten what he'd lost.


Whereas with Liv it felt like the season wanted to avoid letting her react in anything other than a short scene at the end of the season opener to something enormous she had to do in the s2 finale, and that this got lampshaded in a later episode which told us she threw herself into her vision-caused alternate personalities to avoid processing might have been a rueful acknowledgment of this. If you think about how the first season took its time letting her process her zombiedom and used this as a depression metaphor, the contrast is pretty startling. Incidentally, I am relieved her third non-Major love interest ( did not do something spoilery )


All in all: nitpicks aside, I do like this show a lot, and am very curious indeed about season 4.

After marathoning The Clone Wars, I was awash in Star Wars feelings in general, and feelings about the Anakin and Ahsoka relationship in particular. Which inevitably resulted in fanfiction. This story is a bit too long to do a commentary for the entire text, which you can find here, so I’ll focus only on some of the, to quote the summary, “Eight lessons Anakin Skywalker learns through Ahsoka Tano, and one Darth Vader does”.

( On what happens when you give a kid to Anakin Skywalker to teach )

Star Wars, Clone Wars edition, continues to be on my brain. And to inspire fanfiction. This time about a supporting character whose actions have a major affect on everyone's storylines, but whose key development happened off screen... or did it?


Another Way To Fall (5271 words) by Selena
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types, Star Wars - All Media Types
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Barriss Offee & Ahsoka Tano, Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, Barriss Offee & Luminara Unduli, Barriss Offee & Anakin Skywalker
Characters: Barriss Offee, Ahsoka Tano, Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader, Luminara Unduli, Sheev Palpatine | Darth Sidious
Additional Tags: Master & Padawan Relationship(s), Character Study, Episode: s05e02 The Wrong Jedi
Summary:

Barriss Offee had many reasons to act as she did. Or none. Or just one.

Alternatively, this one could be called "How Screwed Up Are the Jedi: The Return".

The Citadel arc in s3 of the The Clone Wars introduces one Captain Tarkin (to the audience and Anakin Skywalker alike). He shows up now and then on the show thereafter. (His voice actor is no Peter Cushing, but the characterisation is v. plausible as a younger version.) My question is this: in A New Hope Admiral Tarkin clearly knows Darth Vader used to be a Jedi (he refers to Vader being the last thing left of the Jedi in the 'verse), but do you think he's also aware Vader used to be Anakin Skywalker? I'm usually going with the assumption that on the Imperial side, no one other than the Emperor and Vader himself is aware of this, and the official Imperial story is that Anakin Skywalker died on Mustafar (or just plain died, maybe defending Palpatine against the Jedi coup - something like this). However, Tarkin, who shows up at the end of Revenge of the Sith in a favoured position and presumably was involved in the execution of Order 66 before that, may just have been enough of an insider to have either figured it out or have been told by Palpatine for some Machiavellian reason (playing out Tarkin and Vader against each other to a certain degree to ensure they don't team up, for example). (Tarkin clearly outranks Vader in ANH in the Imperial hierarchy. One my pet peeves in reviews of The Force Awakens is when reviewers sum up the backstory by referring to Vader as the dead ruler of the Empire; guys, not only was he never No.1., he arguably wasn't No.2 as of the start of the OT, either.)

The reason why I'm asking may or may not have to do with an idea for a New Hope AU in which Vader figures out at the worst possible time that Leia is his daughter, i.e. either when he's interrogating her or when Alderaan gets destroyed. (Maybe either occasion inadvertendly makes Leia's Force potential break through a la Rey in TFA.) Which wouldn't immediately make him repent, of course, let alone go light side, but being Vader, he's bound to strongly react and do something, and then I think it would make a difference whether or not Tarkin is aware of the Vader = Anakin truth. (Not least because near the end of The Clone Wars, Tarkin ( did something spoilery in connection with Ahsoka ), which would invite possible parallels in Tarkin's mind.

Politics is so depressing right now, crazy nationalists on the rise everywhere, and this morning I learned about Umberto Eco's death, which somehow hit me harder than Harper Lee's. Not just because her bad state of health had been widely commented on last year apropos Go Set A Watchman; The Name of the Rose back in the 80s had meaning for me, and only gained more as the years passed. (Teenage me recognized William of Baskerville as a Holmes avatar, but hadn't read Jorge Luis Borges yet.) Also: the essays! The not giving into the quagmire of Berlusconidom!

Anyway, I needed some comforting fiction, and thus can share a few links. These aren't new stories, so you might already know them, but if you don't:

Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit:

Or would they go on aching still:

Tauriel comes to Gondor in the days of the king. Arwen wants to help her carry the grief she shoulders, but in the end, they help each other. Tauriel as Arwen's companion in the world where soon, all the other elves have gone is a lovely idea, and the meshing of book and movie canon works beautifully.


Star Wars: The Clone Wars:

Old Shadows: Ahsoka asks Anakin about his past after the events on Kadavo and Zygerria. The short Zygerria arc is the most overt way in which The Clone Wars adresses the long term impact Anakin's childhood as a slave had on him, and the story is also a great example of the Ahsoka-Anakin comraderie that makes the show.

Don't Unlace Your Madcap Abandon: in which Anakin takes Ahsoka and Rex to some illegal racing in the Coruscant underground (it's for a mission, honestly!); the story starts out deceptively light hearted but takes some inevitably darker, angsty corners, and again, is a great showcase for the Ahsoka and Anakin relationship (this time complete with both their friendship with Rex).

So The Good Wife is finally coming to an end? Two seasons too late for me to care, but it was once an amazing show.

New Civil War trailer: so I was hoping that movie would resolve my Bucky problem, to whit, that I'm indifferent to the character beyond a mild "gosh, what an awful brainwashed life", and indeed I'm starting to have Bucky feelings, but unfortunately, they're all negative ones. I'm completely invested in the wrong sidekick in this movie, because when I watched the trailer and ( spoilers ensued )

(It helps that I do think superheroes should be accountable to someone who aren't other superheroes. Not insane military generals, obviously, but definitely some institution.)

Black Sails not having much of a fandom on lj or dw, I'm driven to check out the dark side tumblr now and then, and predictably, this irritates me into the need to vent:

( which I shall do in a spoilery fashion )

Lastly, trying to find good Clone Wars inspired stories reminds me how many badly spelled and/or badly written fanfiction is out there. Good lord. Thankfully, there are a few bright lights.