Entries tagged with january meme

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january meme

January Meme: My favourite post Enlightenment Scandinavian Princess

As unfortunately I am not very well informed about Scandinavian princesses post Enlightenment (and only about a few pre-Enlightenment), I have to default to the one I do know something about, which is the current Queen of Sweden, Silvia, nee Sommerlath. Not so much because she hails from Heidelberg but because I met her, twice, both times on charity occasions, and she impressed me by not making the same speech (with just a few different local allusions) on said occasions but making a different speech, with both speeches being poignant and full of facts, not vague phrases. Now this may all be to the credit of her speech writer - I'm assuming she has one, though I don't know -, but she still was the one delivering those speeches, largely free style, looking into the audience, and later answering questions from said audience, which largedy consisted of representatives of other charity organisations, so they asked questions like "how do you deal with issue x", or "and what if in country y the government tries to do such and such", not paparazzi stuff.

Silvia founded the World Childhood Foundation, with a focus on child victims of sexual abuse, and that was the reason she spoke on the two occasions I participated in, and her work for it has been steady ever since its foundation, not just cutting ribbons but actual work, and therefore I found myself respecting and liking her.

(Incidentally, the reason why she's Queen of Sweden is because she worked as an interpreter and hostess at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, which brings us back to the subject of my entry two posts ago.)

The other days

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January Meme: Roman Babylon 5 AU?

redfiona99 asked me: how would you feel about a Roman AU for Babylon 5? (I quite like the idea of circa fall of the Republic but ...

This got my imagination going, but not to the fall of the Republic; it went to either the Third Century Crisis or later the Attila the Hun era instead, or maybe Justinian. Either way, it's tricky whom to cast the Minbari as, since they are canonically the most powerful of the space faring "younger" races - as Londo says, even at the height of the Centauri Empire, they left the Minbari alone - but there has to be something more powerful standing in for the Shadows and Vorlons, while the Centauri need to be still powerful enough to re-conquer the Narn with Shadow aid.

Preliminarily, I'm going with....

Minbari: Persians (The Sassanian Empire, to be precise)

Humans: Arabs

Centauri: Romans (naturally, but depending on whether we're talking Third Century or Fifth Century or Sixth Centauri, the location of Centauri Prime can be Rome in the first case and Constantinople in the other two)

Narn: Goths

Shadows: Attila the Hun

Vorlons: ???? (If you want to be mean, you can say Christianity)

I could also see the Humans as Franks (equally an up and coming power). Howver: the Minbari really need to be the Persians no matter which century you set the story in in a Roman AU because the Persians (or Parthians) for a thousand years were the one Empire the Romans, even at the height of their power, were forced to see at least as equals. The Romans and the Persians never managed to conquer each other, and it's highly symbolic that after a thousand years (Delenn's favourite time span) of duking it out or being in cold war, you have first one and then the other near victorious and then the newly islamized Arabs steamroll over both in the 7th century. (Well nearly steamroll over both, they didn't get Constantinople, and the Byzantines managed to regroup after a century, reconquer big parts and hang on for some centuries more.) Which is why my AU couldn't be later than the sixth century. And if the Minbari are the Persians, you have the problem that the Franks are far, far away and have no direct conflict with them, whereas the various Arab kingdoms, usually client kingdoms of the Romans when the Empire was powerful and in its decline getting more and more independence, did have conflicts with the Persians.

Babylon 5 itself is a problem. I'm tempted to go with Alexandria as THE multicultural city of antiquity and keeping that distinction well after it had no more politicial power, but it's a bit tricky to justify why the Goths should send a representative there. Well, maybe Theoderich really wanted good doctors and illegal copies from the great Library?

Anyway, I could see Sinclair and Sheridan as being (nominally) Roman governors of Egypt in present time who used to fight for their Arab kingdom of origin against the Persians in the past. Londo is a Roman (either Roman Roman or Byzantine Roman) at the start of the story aware of the utter pointlessness of his Senator position and the decline of Roman power and wishing for the past who gets sold on the idea that allying with these new barbarians, the Huns, is just the ticket to get the Empire back to full strength, and of course finds out how horribly mistaken he is, but in fact he's following tried and true later Roman policy of trying to play one nomadic warrior nation against the other. (Later, when he tries to fix what he's done, he has overtones of Aetius "The Last Roman".) The Narn/Goths are first exposed to the Huns (hence them ending up in Northern Italy and Spain to begin with), which is why Goth!G'Kar is an early warner who doesn't get listened to.

Delenn is a direct descendant of Aradashir I. i.e. a member of the Sassanid royal family, and a Zoroastrian, of course. She is on the track to becoming Queen of Queens but declines in favour of "pursueing her studies at Alexandria" while maintaining all sorts of important political connections to Persian generals and heads of influential families. This has long term consequences. (I could also see Delenn as Pulcheria, with Sheridan as Marcian, but then she's Roman, not Minbari.)
Pulcheria, but then she's not Minbari

Arab!Sheridan's breaking point when he declares independence: if it's the Third Century Crisis, can be at any point when the various Roman Emperors assassinate each other in dizzying speed. If it's the Fifth or Sixth Century, when it looks like the Huns could take over the entire Roman Empire, full stop. And then the Archbishop of Alexandria or Justinian himself wants him to kill all the heretics, at which point Arab!Sheridan breaks with the Church as well.

By the end of the story, the Huns are gone, but what was the Roman Empire has been irrevocably transformed, and many new kingdoms arisen. It is a new age, etc.

The other days

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January Meme: : Give the Julio-Claudians a rest: Josephus-Centric Flavian series to go!

cahn, who asked me this, guessed, said show would definitely be inspired/partially based on Lion Feuchtwanger's trilogy of novels about the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus/Joseph ben Matthias. But not exclusively, not least because there are aspects of the Flavian era which don't show up (Pompeii, for starters), got downplayed (Vespasian's life partner, the freedwoman Caenis, who used to be the slave of Antonia, the daughter of Mark Antony and mother of (I ,) Claudius, does show up in the first novel, but you could do far more with her than Feuchtwanger does), or are hardly mentioned (for example, an adolescent trauma each for Titus and Domitian respectively; Titus was childhood or teenage friends with Claudius' son Britannicus and was in fact present and supposedly co-poisoned at the dinner where Nero poisoned Britannicus and made everyone continue eating, and Domitian was present and in Rome in the year of the four Emperors, as opposed to his father and brother who were in Judaea and Egypt, and barely escaped with his life when Vitellius was Emperor, as opposed to his uncle, Vespasian's brother Titus Sabienus, who led the "Vespasian for Emperor" campaign in Rome).

Still, Joseph(us) is an ideal main character for a show covering the time between the last Nero years, when the Julio-Claudian dynasty ends and after that violent interludium of year the Flavian one starts, and the death of Domitian. He's an interesting person in his own right, he's a historian and thus with a good excuse to either be present or research about most of the key events in these years, though the opposite of an easy hero (extremely simplified, because of the "from resistance fighter to collaborator" development), and because his pov is that of basically three different worlds - the Jewish one, the Hellenistic one and the Roman one - often in great opposition to each other which he tries to bridge and yet is also at odds with - , you get a very different kind of story as if you either just go for the ruling family soap opera, or do what Lindsey Davies did with her highly entertaining Falco series, i.e. fictional mysteries set during Vespasian's reign with a deliberate parody of the noir template, in which our detective hero and his beloved are on the trail of villainy first in Rome and Britain and then all over the Roman Empire. (While fictional Falco hails from a plebeian family, he's still a Roman from Rome - just at a time where "born in Rome" slowly but surely stops being a criteria for "being a Roman", no less.) (BTW: I would love a film series based on the Falco novels as well, of course.) Joseph is both an outsider who experiences the human cost of Empire first hand, and an insider has a close up and personal view on the Flavians, and through him, you can connect storylines of a great variety of people who otherwise are hardly going to encounter each other.

Other tv series friendly elements offered by the Flavians:

- Game of Thrones happens literally in the first seaon as the Flavians come to power in the year of the Four Emperors, and since Vespasian was the Dark Horse candidate (Joseph(us) made a gamble there when declaring him ~~ther Messiah~~ the next Emperor after being captured), you can milk a lot of suspense out of that (especially if teen Domitian in Rome gets his own subplot)

- These are the guys who build the Colloseum (i.e the "Flavian Theatre"), to give it its official name) and inaugurate it in a 200 something days of games marathon, so Gladiator obsessives will get their part of choreographed violence

- Vespasian dies a natural death in old age, Titus dies of a sickness, but not least due to a lot of ancient writers hating his little brother's guts, you have enough of them side-eying Domitian to justify a murder mystery plot if you want to do one; Domitian definitely was assassinated, so you can go all Ides of March and do a tense conspiracy story there

- interesting women! Caenis I already mentioned, Berenice the Jewish princess whose affair with Titus is so open to a gazillion interpretations (politics? actual love? mutual benefits? all of the above?) and who is someone I've yet to encounter a fictional counterpart off that really satisfies me (the first of Feuchtwanger's Josephus novels comes closest, but then alas there's the second one where he doesn't handle her as well), Domitia Longina (who in Feuchtwanger's novels is called Lucia), the wife of Domitian and supposedly the only person never afraid of him, despite a temporary exile after an affair she had with an actor (Domtiian couldn't live without her and called her back)

- incest! Domitian supposedly had an affair with Titus' daughter Julia after refusing to marry her while Titus according to master of sensationalistic gossip Suetonius could have had a fling with Domitian's wife near the end of his (i.e. Titus') life

- competence! Here you have that oddity, a whole dynasty (since Domitian was the last Flavian on the throne) where not a single member was actually born into the purple amd were actually working Emperors; Vespasian had to clean up the whole mess left behind by Nero and the three short lived Emperors in between and stablize the Roman Empire again, Titus was essentially co-Emperor already during Vespasian's time and in his own short rule had to cope with three natural disasters in a row, including Pompeii, and Domitian may have been a creepy tyrant, but he was a competent creepy tyrant who pushed through the biggest building programm since decades (not just in Rome itself, either) and managed a balanced economy for most of his reign

- doomed rebellions and heartbreaking sieges (in Judea, of course) (I mean, Masada got its own extra tv series already) (with a final successful conspiracy when Domitian gets killed)

- some of the best known ancient writers in addition to Josephus are around (Suetoniius, Martial, Tacitus, Pliny the older and Pliny the younger), and "how to be a writer in a dictatorship" is an eternally challenging question

All of which offers enough material for five seasons at least, especially in this day and age when seasons are no longer 22 episodes long but only eight or six per season. I think old age make up should be up to aging everyone through the years (especially Josephus, who will be around the entire time), though if we do flashbacks to teenage Titus during the murder of equally teenage Britannicus, there needs to be an actual young actor, and Domitian in s1 should look young enough that it's clear he is still in his teens then, so possibly also another young actor than main Domitian who needs to be around till the end as well. Caenis can be a great role for a middle-aged or older actress, and very refreshingly, Berenice is canonically older than Titus when they meet, so no actress in her early 20s/ actor in his 40s or older pairing here. Depending on how much the series draws on Feuchtwanger, controvery is guaranteed, because a great deal of the Josephus trilogy ponders what it means to be Jewish and whether that meaning can change (or not) in the diaspora, and whether or not revolting against a greater military power whom you know will respond with devastating force can be justified. But that's what makes the books so captivating and if the writing of the show is up for it, it might be the same.

Expensive: very, given that not only do you need to show ancient Rome but also ancient Judea and ancient Alexandria in Egypt, and depending on how much you want to include events there, ancient Britain and ancient Germania. Otoh, I, Claudius solved the problem of a small budget by having everyone in costume but no sweeping landscape shots whatsoever (or battles, or gladiator fight scenes - we see what's going on from the reactions of the main characters who are among the audience whenever something takes place during the games), and GCI can do so much these days; it should be workeable.

Fan favourites: party, this depends on the actors. You need a really good one for Joseph(us), and if he's also handsome, I think early fandom will pair him with Titus (and again, depending on how much Feuchtwanger the show includes, definitely with his frenemy and rival Justus of Tiberia), but I'm pretty sure he'll never be the favourite, and will frequently be the cause of long rants early on, though later will secure a kind of "no one's first but many people's second or third favourite" fondness. Teen and young Domitian might get a lot of woobie sympathy if people consider him ill done by because Dad and Big Bro don't take him that seriously and are such a working team that they exclude him, but I don't think that will survive once he actually gets into power, because even if the show goes all revisionist on Domitian he's still going to do a lot of less than palpable things in a slow, methodical way instead of flamboyant craziness. At the latest when he's ordering the first Vestal in over a century to be killed for having had sex in the traditional gruesome way, he'll be out of favour. I'm betting on his wife as an overall favourite, because fearless ladies who have a sex life they themselves choose and don't end up dead or (permanently) exiled, have the All Powerful guy of the show be often putty in their hands and who are alive and well at the end of the story deserve to be.

The other days

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January Meme: How I’d (try to) do a Babylon 5 Reboot

My first instinct is still to say „I wouldn’t, because the original is so great. Not perfect - nothing ever is, and I‘m aware of B5‘s flaws - but it is still one of my all time most beloved tv series, and thus I instinctively dread it getting a second rate makeover.

My second instinct is to do what I suggested a couple of years ago, when we first heard rumors there might be a reboot, which is: a parallel show which covers the same years as the original does but focuses on different characters and situations, those we didn‘t or couldn‘t see much of in the original show - Centauri women ( you knew I‘d start with the Centauri, didn‘t you?) from their own pov (both women who live on Centauri Prime and women who try to have a different life elswehere), and more of the non-noble Centauri in general, ditto for the Narn (and here one could use, for example, Na‘Toth‘s departure at the end of s2 for a storyline following her and through her some other Narn), more human civilians, too; how did the Minbari who weren‘t in the Grey Council react when it was broken up, how about making a worker Minbari a pov character, what became of Delenn‘s s1 friend the poet, and so forth.

HOWEVER. This isn‘t what was asked. And in past years and decades, I‘ve come across reboots of sci franchises wich I really liked - not just of shows where I didn‘t have an emotional attachment to the original (Battlestar Galactica comes to mind) but where I did (the German sci fi series Perry Rhodan since some years now runs parallel to the original a reboot called Perry Rhodan Neo. ) Pondering what makes a good reboot (for me, as always, this is highly subjective), I decided that a good reboot wonders what the core of a story/series is. And then doesn‘t try a remake (a remake is a different thing), but tries to put its own spin, influenced by the different time of creation, on it. In the case of BSG, I‘d say Moore and friends concluded the core is „planets inhabited by humans get attacked by androids, cataclysmic events ensue, the survivors then look for Earth, but the Cylons are still an issue“ and went from there. Presumably he was also aware original BSG was influenced by Mormon beliefs and decided to include a strong religious element - but not for the human characters, for the robots/androids/cylons. As for the original BSG characters, some made it in name and function to the reboot, but not necessarily in personality, others were combinations, and others were unique to the reboot.

( So what is the core story of Babylon 5, and how could one reboot it? )

So these are some thoughts of how to make a reboot that‘s not just a remake.

The Other Days

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January Meme: Differences between British and German Culture

This is somewhat tricky to answer, not least because: what do we qualify as „British“? English and Scottish and Welsh and Cornish and Northern Irish? English only? Doesn‘t, say, Liverpool, or York have a somewhat different cultural background than London? (And isn’t Liverpool blessedly free of The Sun and other Murdoch productions?) Similarly, even leaving aside the biggie (i.e. East German* and West German differences, which after thirty years of reunification do not only still exist but in some ways seem to get larger), we don‘t have that Federal structure for nothing. I always protest that statements like „Bavaria is the Texas of Germany“ don‘t really fit, but there are certainly differences between Bavaria and, say, Nordrhein-Westfalen, or between Hamburg and Württemberg, and so forth.

*A relatively minor example: one of the ceremonies when a German chancellor leaves office is the so called „Zapfenstreich“. One of the things that happen is that the Chancellor can ask the army orchestra to play three pieces of music for them. Angela Merkel‘s choices were 1) Großer Gott, wir loben dich, 2) „Für mich soll‘s rote Rosen regnen“ as sung by Hildegard Knef, and 3) „Du hast den Farbfilm vergessen“ as sung by Nina Hagen. The last song sent the West German part of Germany googling, but it had been a very popular hit in the GDR. (If you‘re curious: Nina Hagen version, and as played for Angela Merkel by the Bundeswehr.

And then there‘s the next question: what do we mean by „culture“ - culture as in literature, music, painting and sculpture? Pop culture? Folklore? Food culture? Daily traditions?

(One of my professors died recently - at 99, so not unexpected - , forgive the wrangling for precision and meaning, it‘s what he taught me.)

All this being said, I‘ll reach for some generalities:

1. Tea. Before my first visit to GB at the age of 13, I had never drunk it with milk. Decades later, I still try to avoid this. I do love tea, in many variations, but milk doesn‘t belong into it in my German-inprinted taste. I‘m pretty sure Catherine of Braganza when introducing the habit of tea consumption to the British Isles didn‘t do so with milk addendum, so this must be a GB original contribution.
2. Christmas. Famously, the Brits owe the Christmas trees to our boy Albert, the Coburg prince who married Queen Victoria. Presumably it‘s also his fault that the British Royal Family alone in all of GB celebrates the giving of gifts on Christmas Eve, December 24th, not on Christmas Day, December 25th. It‘s a German tradition, and we still do it this way.
3. Federalism. This is mostly the heritage of the HRE (Holy Roman Empire), the way the Emperors after the 13th century kept losing power and the individual princes within the HRE kept gaining it, while both France and England got centralised and unified instead. This has the result that for the longest time, Germany (geographically speaking) did not have a capital (the Emperors kept changing their residences until the Habsburgs monopolised the position, but Vienna was never the capital of the HRE in that sense), a city comparable to London or Paris, but what it did have were numerous cities that became cultural and economic centres, and a strong sense of regional identity tied to what used to be those principalities. And I think when Blair was PM the parliaments in Scotland and Wales got some more responsibilities and power (or did I osmose this wrongly), but even so, that‘s a relatively recent development, whereas Federalism in Germany is deeply entrenched. Mind you, the downside of having cultural and economic centres in every region is that there are some heads of Federal States who still confuse themselves with Princes (any German readers know whom I am thinking of), but there it is. Anyway: love it or hate it, I think it‘s undisputable London is unique for what it is in England as well as Great Britain, and in the British cultural consciousness. There is no comparable German city which evokes the same feelings in Germany. Berlin is a relative new arrival on the scene, speaking in centuries and millennia - it really started to become a must in terms of visiting only in the 19th century, and post reunification in the 20th, there was some serious debate on whether or not the capital should remain in Bonn where it had been for some decades in West Germany, with the late Wolfgang Schäuble being instrumental on campaigning for Berlin. Today, Berlin is of course a big deal, not just politically speaking, but it‘s still not „THE“ German city, the way London keeps getting confused with England (or GB) in pop cultural depictions. (Au contraire; due to decades of having the US Army stationed in Bavaria, it tends to be confused with Germany as a whole in American media. Meanwhile, the fact that the Brits were stationed in the Rhineland (I think?) doesn‘t appear to have made a similar impact.)
4. Puns, black humor and self deprecating humor. This for the longest time was seen as something the Brits are exceptionally and uniquely good at, and which we much admire them for. Contrary to slander, Germany did and does produce wits, satirists and even comedies, but not nearly to the same degree. I will say that the existence of Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Moog and the effect they’ve had has had the effect of seeing British humor in a somewhat more sour light on some folk over here.
5. Dresscode for theatres. Mind you, this might be out of date, but I remember being shocked the first time I went on a theatre marathon in London and everyone (save yours truly) was wearing jeans. (Given sometimes you buy the tickets only hours before, it makes sense.) Back in the 80s and 1990s at least, i.e. when I was young and impressionable, you dressed up in evening wear for a visit to the theatre.
6. School uniforms. As in, while I‘m not sure about private schools, no - I hesitate to use the term „public“ because it means something different in a British context - no school paid by the government and which you visit for free has them in Germany. Now this might be a strictly post 1945 thing for all I know, but the whole „uniform“ part of „school uniform“ gets seriously side-eyed here. Or used to when I was a youngling; Harry Potter might have made a difference. We still don‘t have them in our public schools, though.

The Other Days

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January Meme: Star Trek: Prodigy - What should a 3rd season be like?

Well, considering one of the delightful things about seasons 1 and 2 was that they kept surprising me in a good way, I feel that I shouldn't really make predictions or requests, because I want the show to keep doing that, if there is a third season. For example, the first season had something of a Farscape vibe (while being utterly Trek), whereas the second season had something of a Doctor Who vibe (dito), and if the show creators want to tackle The Expanse next, I'd be all for it, but equally if they don't and do something very different entirely.

All this being said, here are some ideas and wishes:

( Cut for some spoilers in Prodigy, Picard and DS9 )

- Again, these are just some ideas, but even if none of that happens: my main wish is for the show to continue its great level of storytelling.

The Other Days

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January Meme: None-20th Century Historical Sites in Berlin to visit

aelle_irene asked : : What are the historical sites you recommend visiting for those who want to avoid 20th Century History?

Given Berlin was heavily bombed in WWII and had to be rebuild, it's next to impossible to avoid the 20th century, but there are still sites from previous centuries to visit and enjoy, of course. Bear in mind I myself am talking as a tourist here; I never spend more than a week in Berlin, and the week was decades ago; in more recent years I was only there for one or two days.

In general, since you're travelling in May, I reccommend a boat tour on the Spree, like this one. It will surprise you with how much greenery Berlin has to offer and give you a true sense of location of the city core. On to buildings and museums.

Now: in Berlin itself, there is the Museumsinsel, the island mid-River Spree full of interesting museums. (Link goes to the English version of its website.) This is where you find the famous bust of Nefertiti and a lot of other pieces of Egypt's Armana period, for example, the Pergamon Altar (currently getting renovated, but there's a 3 D model), the Ishtar Gate, but also a lot of 19th century art (including arch romantic Caspar David Friedrich). I can also reccommend the big museum shop for all the museums located near the James-Simon-Gallery, if you want, say, a mousepad that looks like a Persian silk carpet, or that shows all the Roman emperors, or books about any of the eras and people featured in the museum (not just in German, also in English).

Then there's Charlottenburg Palace. I just linked you to the English version of the museum website again, but for a recent personal pic spam (from last year) of this baroque palace and its park, check this out. Aside from offering really well restored Baroque and Frederician Rokoko, this palace also includes in one exhibition a panoramic view of mid 19th century Berlin, a city that was gone even before WWII. Also, if you don't have the time or inclination of joining a tour, all the rooms offer biligingual or trilingual signs (i.e. German, English and French) explaining the context of what you're seeing, and you learn a lot about Prussian history.

We'll return to (some) Hohenzollern later, but on to non-royals. The Mendelssohn Remise, at the location of the Mendelssohn bank, is a small museum devoted to one of the most fascinating artistic families in German cultural history. The most famous members were Moses Mendelssohn (the 18th century philosopher), Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (grandson), the composer, his sister Fanny (equally a composer and musician), and their aunt Dorothea (nee Brendel) Schlegel (writer and translator). Depending on how into the Mendelssohns you are, you can also visit several of them (including Felix and Fanny) at the "Friedhof vor dem Halleschen Tor", where there is also a crypt reworked into a permanent museum on the history of the Mendelssohn family. Other famous artists buried at the same cemetery include Rahel Varnhagen (famous Jewish femme des lettres of the late 18th and early 19th century) and E.T.A. Hoffmann. The Mendelssohn Society even organizes In the Footsteps of Fanny tours through Berlin, as well as In the footsteps of Rahel Varnhagen through Berlin.

Speaking of Berlin history for special interests, there's the Hugenottenmuseum. When Louis XIV revoked the toleration edict of Nantes in the later 17th century and tried his best to kick all Protestants out of France if he didn't terrorize them into converting, a really huge part of them ended up in Brandenburg and Prussia in general, courtesy of its ruler, another Frederick William, "The Great Elector" (Prussia wasn't a kingdom yet). This is why for a long time you had a lot of French speakers there, why for example one of Germany's most famous writers, Theodor Fontane, grew up pronouncing his last name the French way (his father being Louis Fontane, and grandfather Pierre, and so forth), and why there is a museum devoted to the Huguenots in Berlin. The "French Colony" really was an important part of the city for several centuries.

If you have enough of buildings and the weather is nice, I reccommend a visit to the Viktoriapark in Kreuzberg. This park was created in the 19th century and named after Queen Victoria's oldest daughter Vicky, she who married the Prussian Crown Prince who only briefly became Frederick III, the mother of (boo, hiss) Wilhelm II. As the website I just linked you to says, it is however nothing like an English park but goes for wild landscape romanticism with waterfalls. There also some nice beergardens where you can sit down and have a drink and something to eat.

Outside of Berlin:

I really reccommend a trip to Potsdam, which is easily reachable from Berlin Central Station by train, bus or tube. Mainly, of course, because that's where you'll find Sanssouci Palace and Park, i.e. Frederick the Great's palace(s) (there are actually three belonging to the overall Sanssouci complex). I just liinked the main palace's website in English again, but of course, yours truly has personal pic spams to offer: Sanssouci in summer (that's the pic spam with the interior as well), Sanssouci in spring time (only outside pics). It's 18th century "Frederician" Rokoko at its best, and surrounded by a beautiful park. If you like bread: the famous mill next to the main palace actually offers freshly baked bread for sale.

Bonus reccommendation:

Now, this inevitably and poignantly does include the 20th century. But it shows all the centuries before as well. I can really reccomend the Jüdisches Museum, the Jewish Museum of Berlin, which you can find here. The core exhibition, about Jewish life in Germany, goes back all the way to the time of the Roman Emperor Domitian. One highlight is the story of the very successful Renaissance Jewish merchant woman Gickl of Hameln, whose memoirs, the first written by a woman in Jiddish, I believe, were later translated into standard German by none other than Bertha Pappenheim (a Jewish feminist who also as Anna O. entered the history of psychotherapy as she was one of Freud's earliest patients). Obviously, a considerable part of the museum does tell the story of the Holocaust, because how could it not? But if you can avoid it, you can stop before that point. The story of Jewish Germans is just so fascinating and important - for Germany in general but also for Berlin in particular - that I think it's worth visiting.

The other days

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January Meme: Star Trek in the For All Mankind Universe

bimo asked: Since Cavendish and I have recently finished binging For All Mankind, a show in which astronaut Danielle Poole outs herself as a major Star Trek fan: In which aspects would you expect a FAM universe version of Star Trek most likely to differ from ours?

Excellent question, fun for both fandoms. (Which share writers in the person of Ronald D. Moore.) Mind you, I had to look up when exactly TOS was broadcast, and found it finished on June 2, 1969, i.e. just when For All Mankind timeline departs from "our" universe (by letting the Soviets get to the Moon first), which means the entirety of TOS stays the same.

(If TOS had been broadcast two or three years later, I'd have said we'd have been spared the episode Turnabout Intruder, and also Uhura would have had Sulu's job, given the presence of female astronauts in the FAM universe from 1969 onwards.)

By the time TNG comes along, though, the differences are well and truly established, so instead of Patrick Stewart as Picard, we get Helen Mirren as Jeanne-Lucienne. (Sorry, Patrick Stewart. You still continue a fine career as a British character actor.) Ellen is still a senator and hasn't come out (TNG starts broadcasting in 1987, Ellen runs against Bill Clinton (and wins) in 1992), so American attitude towards homosexuality is still the same, which means no, Jeanne-Lucienne doesn't get to have repressed romantic feelings for Beverly Crusher (who still remains a woman), but otherwise she has basically the same characterisation (stoic, uneasy with kids, Shakespeare and archaelogy nerd). As to the fan reaction, while there is some of the same criticism Janeway got in our universe, it's not as much, not least because by this time, Danielle already has been commanding a few missions, and also, more consistent writing in TNG. (Mirren!Picard does get shipped by fandom with both male and female characters, of course. It's Helen Mirren! It's fandom!) The other thing different about TNG is that peace with the Klingons and Worf as a crew member is somewhat more controversial in fandom than in our timeline because while FOM does have Glasnost and Gorbachev, the US-Soviet rivalry went on far longer with greater heat (including that shootout on the moon), and the Klingons are definetely read as standing in for the Russians. But overall, FAM! Trekkers are on board with this.

Storywise, it's mostly the same for TNG, except there are a few more spy stories than there were already, and there is at least one shady rich entrepeneur character aiming at reintroducing money and privatizing space flight. Legend has it that this was first a Ferengi, but then some of the writing staff said "You cowards!", and it became a human character.

DS9, starting as it does basically simultanous to Will the astronaut and Ellen outing themselves, is mostly the same except for Garak/Bashir going from subtext to text. (Legend has it Ira Fehr pushed for Bashir/O'Brien instead, since they were his faves, but was told that would make Miles a cheater on his wife and he just wasn't that guy.) Which of course means no last second hookup with Ezri for Julian, but I'm afraid Jadzia still dies. Part of fandom gets upset and does "not my Star Trek!" demonstrations, and DS9 never reaches TNG's viewing levels, but as in our timeline, it gets regularly praised as the best and most ambitious of the Treks from this point onwards.

(JMS in the FAM timeline still is convinced they stole the idea of a space station from him. But B5, too, has some changes in this timeline, incuding Susan/Talia being more blatant from the get go instead of just sailing under the radar until "Divided Loyalties", and Delenn as well as the rest of the Minbari do get to be androgynous as originally planned, with Delenn only becoming female when she becomes half human.)

Voyager: has both minor and larger differences. For example, Harry Kim is definitely Korean and talks about it, because the American-Soviet-Korean basis on Mars is now a thing in the FAM timeline. Does Alt!Voyager use the premise of two originally hostile crews forced to work together for more and longer? I'm torn on this, because I do think in the FOMverse, there would be the identical problem that part of Voyager's writing and producing staff has been working non-stop in ST since the early TNG days and there is such a thing as creative exhaustion, plus they want to do the harmonious crew thing because of a perceived backlash on the more argumentative folks on DS9 (and they want to get the TNG ratings back here, too, and here, too, ST is no longer the sole SF game in town, and new very different SF shows have arrived, Farscape etc.). Then again, the Mars base might have served as an example of how to keep at least part of the crew at odds for longer. Because Janeway isn't the first female lead on a ST show any more, and female commanders and captains are now no longer unusual for the viewing audience, the writers can be more relaxed with her, having less to prove. But I'm afraid Janeway/Chakotay still doesn't happen, because of the Captain/Crew member problem. Hence also no Janeway/Seven. But Seven is officially gay (or bisexual) here already. (Still the same costume, I'm afraid.) One thing that is definitely different is that the Voyager crew is far often forced to trade for food and supplies because their technology starts to break down. This is a viewing audience which is familiar with at least some of the Mars supply situation (though not the worst details) and its difficulties, and thus wouldn't buy that the Voyager can basically endlessly resupply and repair this far from home.

Enterprise: Instead of a Southern guy, the main engineer is a grumpy Russian. This becomes awkward a bit once the coup happens and Soviet/US rivalry is back on, but that's minor because instead of the Xindi storyline in s3 being the effect of 9/11 happening, here we get an entire season where one early colony wants to become independent from Earth (mirroring events on Mars), and there a hugely controversial storyline where Archer tortures one of the rebel leaders whom he suspects of being responsible for a terrorist bombing of Headquarters on Earth. (Given what happened at the end of s2 of FAM, this is also regarded as exploiting a rl tragedy by some fans, buy others as a valid attempt to engage with problems of the present as ST often does.) Most of the remaining fans do love the fourth season (which is basically identical) and are pissed off by the finale .

...and that's how far the FAM timeline has carried us, and so I can't say what will happen further. :)

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january meme

January Meme: Comfort Food

ffutures asked me this. My rather boring reply: Chocolate, first and foremost. Not dark chocolate, sad for my health to say. I'm more the milk chocolate or nougat type. In the winter and pre Christmas, I'm also very fond of Lebkuchen, which aren't quite the same thing as gingerbread in English, taste deliciously and hail from my home region of Franconia.

In the summer, when it's really hot and chocolate thus isn't an option, I like fried mushrooms with salad especially. Eating that combination never fails to put me into a good mood. Ice cream: is fine now and then, but not comfort food.

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January Meme: Which 18th century ladies deserve their own show?

A few words about my personal selection criteria. I had to find cut-off points, not least because there are so many interesting ladies. But I decided not to pick any who while born in the 18th century had the majority of their lives happening in the 19th, and/or key events of their lives, which meant, among others, no Emma Hamilton (who should definitely get a miniseries), and no Rahel Varnhagen. (Generally speaking, I used the French Revolution as a cut off point, not least because it felt like the beginning of a new era, though in one case I picked somone who did experience that era and beyond, will explain there.) Conversely, I didn't pick any lady who lived into the 18th century but had the majority of their lives happening in the 17th, which means, alas, no Liselotte (Elisabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate, she who was married to Philippe d'Orleans, Monsieur, the gayest man of his time and our German correspondent in Versailles with ALL the good gossip) and not her favourite Aunt, Sophia of Hannover (almost Queen of England but for Cousin Anne surviving her for a few months), either. (Both definitely deserve their own series.)

Also, I tried to consider the demands of tv, i.e. someone like Laura Bassi, philosopher, physicist and sole female member of the University of Bologna has the drawback that her life went too smoothly, the patriarchy not withstanding. She got the recognition. She married the man she loved (despite some grumblings from the university which was prepared to accept chaste Minervas but not married women as lecturers (of men, omg!). Her husband was a champ who didn't oppress her or stand in her way but supported her. She was financially independent. Basically, unless you invent a lot and make her life very different from what it was, there are no big obstacles to overcome. I could see a movie made about Laura where the grumblings about her getting married are the obstacle and the happy ending is when she continues to teach as a wife and mother, but it's not enough for a miniseries, never mind a multi season one. On the other end of the scale, there's Luise Gottsched, one of the female pioneers of German writing, who had a very very depressing life in that her husband (also a writer) demanded she devote herself to his work first and foremost, exploited her, and in the end cheated on her. Leaving aside the difficulty of dramatizing the act of writing (always tricky with writers who didn't have another job), it's just one depressing thing after another, and no satisfying pay off because it would take centuries until she was properly appreciated in cultural history.

All this being said: here are some fascinating women from the 18th century with series format friendly lives, belonging in several (overlapping) categories: ladies of the theatre, ladies of science, writers, politicians and courtiers. This is by no means a complete list, but Darth Real Life has returned to me.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

Who was she? Georgian wit, writer, traveller and member of a bisexual love triangle

Miniseries or multi season: Both possible; you could focus on just one era of her lilfe (miniseries) or cover the decades from her childhood where she's teaching herself Latin when she's not cheeky with members of the Hellfire Club to her middle and old age in Italy when she's dealing with Italian robbers when she's not shocking young Horace Walpole by dancing and having bodily fluids while over 50.

Lady Mary's most famous work as a writer were the Embassy Letters, from when her husband was the British Ambassador to Turkey. (Which also led to her becoming a medical pioneer who brought inocculation against smallpox to Britain.) You can read my review of her biography here and a summary of her part in the bisexual love triangle here.

Émilie du Châtelet

Who was she? French Mathematician, physicist and philosopher; had a stormy decades long love affair with Voltaire

Miniseries or multi season: Miniseries. Alas, she died at age 42 in the aftermath of childbirth, so you can do the childhood, youth and getting married thing in the first episode and devote the rest to her career as a scientist and love affairs, of which there were several in addition to the main one with Voltaire, until she dies early and tragically but not before finishing her magnum opus, the translation and commentary of Newton's Principia into French which is still the one in use today.

Reviews of several biographical works about her can be read here.

Caroline Neuber "Die Neuberin"

Who was she? German actress, company manager (which women just weren't in those days, so people constantly felt obliged to say she had a manly spirit) and German theatre reforming pioneer

Miniseries or multi season: Both are possible, again depending on whether you pick just one era of her life or cover the whole thing. Given teenage Caroline has an abusive Dad to escape from (seriously: he whips her, she has a scar from that in her face for the rest of her llife, and given she's an actress, a great many people get to see it, and then after her first escape attempt he gets her locked up in prison for 14 months, but then she escapes again and for good), it starts with great drama right from the beginning. What she's most famous for is a) working with the Gottscheds (see above for Luise and her exploitative but important for German literary history husband) to produce dramas in German on the stage that weren't just Punch-and-Judy farces, thus proving the claim you can do serious drama in German instead of French, and b) leading her company instead of letting a man do it. Her life ended mid 7 Years War, so about as dramatic as it started, and there really is enough material for a a whole series, but equally you can do a classical theatre drama (i.e. focus on Caroline getting her company going against the odds and landing her first successful performances, something like that.

Her wiki entry is here.

Margaret "Peg" Woffington

Who was she? Georgian Irish stage actress, successful in both female and male parts (her debut was as Macheath)

Miniseries or multi season? Miniseries; another lady who made it barely past 40, alas. But she died wealthy and admired, i.e. the exact opposite of the contemporary cliché involving actresses with lots of love affairs and fiery rivalries.

Her wiki entry is here.

Barbara "La Barbarina" Campanini

Who was she? Italian Ballet dancer, international European superstar of her day

Miniseries or multiseason?: Miniseries, this time not because of an early death but because once she retires into respectability and heading charities in Silesia, there's not much tv friendly material for her old age.

Here is a highly entertaining summary of her dramatic life (and love life) written by

mildred_of_midgard; let me add that since then, we found out the Scot Barbarina was either engaged or married to when Frederick the Great kidnapped her was the brother of Lord Bute (as in teacher of George III, short lived PM of same, son-in-law of Lady Mary, because it's a small 18th century world).

Gertrud Elisabeth Schmeling Mara

Who was she? musical violinist Wunderkind turning soprano European superstar; marries debauched cellist and boyfriend of Prussian Prince.

Miniseries or multi season? Miniseries, but one devoting the entire first episode on her wunderkind phase where her father is a wannabe Leopold Mozart, not least because it's an interesting possible reply to "what if Leopold had continued to tour with Nannerl as well as Wolfgang once she hit puberty?" Conversely, the last episode will have to cover her entire old age once Napoleon invades Russia and this sets her retirement funds literally aflame. The dramatic middle point being of course her time in Prussia, complete with bisexual love triangle and dramatic escape attempt. (Again; what is it with Prussia and dramatic escape attempts?)

All the juicy details about her life are to be found here.

Julia von Mengden

Who was she? Livonian courtier, favourite and likely lover of Anna Leopoldovna; was involved in Anna Leopoldovna becoming Regent in 1740, got engaged to Anna's male fave, Saxonian Envoy Lynar (if you're thinking threesome, you're thinking what everyone was thinking at the time); after Elizaveta Petrovna's coup that deposed Anna, chose so go with Anna into exile and imprisonment; was eventually freed by Catherine II.

Miniseries or multiseason? Miniseries, with the last episode devoted to the decades of imprisonment - entire seasons of same would not offer much drama, after all.

Julia has only a short wiki entry in English, but I picked her for a couple of reasons: a) as a courtier, she experiences four female Russian rulers in a row (Anna Ivanova, Anna Leopoldovna, Elizaveta and Catherine), but by focusing on her instead of them, the miniseries has the chance for simultanous closeness and critical distance; Julia's loyalty to Anna Leopoldovna is genuinely touching; it's one in the eye for Putin's homophobia and machismo.

Maria Theres(i)a

Who was she? Archduchess of Austria, Queen of Hungary, Queen of Bohemia, Empress (Consort, technically) of the Holy Roman Empire, etc., etc. One of the most important rulers of the 18th century. She and Frederick the Great were each other's Arch Nemesis. English speaking folk mainly know her as the mother of Marie Antoinette, which is a source of frustration to me.

Miniseries or multi season? Multi season. There has been a series in recent years which was basically three different miniseries, one for young, one for middle aged and one for old MT, but while it had some good bits, by and large I felt all the changes were hugely talking down to the audience, assuming it wouldn't get 18th century politics or female main characters as problematic in their way as their male counterparts. So I really want a series that covers her entire life (okay, fine, it can start when she's a teenager) in the spirit of John Adams.

Her English Wiki entry is okay as a start, but if you want something less dry with original quotes that are fun to read and give a good idea of her personality and why I find her interesting, here is a collection of quotes by her and Frederick about each other during their life time rivalry.

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Januar Meme: Time Travel Team consisting of historical figures

avrelia asked: You are going to time travel. Which historical figures you will pick up as your team and how they will help or complicate your travels?

A veritable challenge! Let's see what consuming a lot of time-travelling featuring media has taught me.

- Evidently, I would need a good engineer in case whatever time travelling device I use breaks down, because I really don't want to stay in the past. To that end, I shall recruit Nikola Tesla and Hedy Lamarr. (Why not Émilie du Chatelet? Because Émilie was a theoretical physicist, and I'd need someone with experience in practical applications who can repair stuff.)

- I would also need a doctor in case someone catches an infection in the past; as this has to be someone who on the one hand is experienced enough in modern medicine (no bloodletting, OMG!) to be of use but otoh not too far away from an era where a lot of current day medication isn't available (so they could improvise instead of going "where the hell is my aspirin!"), I shall pick Rahel Straus, the first woman who studied medicine and graduated in a German university (earlier medical ladies had to graduate abroad); she's also related to my guy Feuchtwanger, but that's not the deciding factor here. Rahel has experience in both high tech (for her time) and primitive (for her time) surroundings, is tough and extremely practical.

- Next, I need someone who is really good at gatecrashing, who is practically immune to social embarrassment (which I'm not) and who will persuade most of the interesting historical people and eras we want to meet and experience to give us the time of the day. Someone with a proven track record of cajoling even the most prickly and hermit-like people into conversation, someone with endless curiosity and ability to chat. That someone should also have a good memory and an ear for gossip so we can later note down our amazing experiences together. There's an ideal candidate for this role: step forward, James Boswell!

- in case you're wondering, I'm not recruiting a historian because I consider myself well versed enough to fill in that spot, but I do want someone with insight and knowledge of the natural life and into geography, someone with a keen scientific mind when it comes to the natural sciences, with lots of travel experience, who can observe the flora and fauna of our time travelling destinations and make sure we don't step on the proverbial butterfly and end up ensuring our own extinction; this must be Alexander von Humboldt.

- and finally, most past eras are dangerous places; I need someone with fighting experience who could defend members of our team, someone who could, depending on where we end up, do this either as a man or as a woman. I did consider the Chevalier d'Eon, but clearly, it has to be Julie d'Aubigny.

Complications: Boswell will of course hit on all female team members and be rebuffed. (Well, mostly; I could see Julie D'Aubigny having a one night stand with him in the right circumstances.) He will also end up catching some veneral disease in whichever era we end up in, and better hope he's not annoyed Rahel Straus too much. Nikola Tesla and Alexander von Humboldt might either have a mightly clash of the egos or a flirtation or both. Julie d'Aubigny will definitely hit on Hedy Lamarr, and I have no idea how that would go. Also, she might end up in a duel with someone just when she's needed elsewhere to defend the team, but Humboldt is an 18th and early 19th century Prussian noble, he does have the requisite training with weapons, so I hope he'd step up in that case.

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January Meme: Star Trek: Discovery - a Manifesto

Aka the long promised manifesto about what has become my favourite post DS9 Star Trek show, or version of Star Trek, full stop. Some preliminaries and disclaimers about what this isn't: A declaration that Discovery is best, or flawless. No ST movie or show is. Or that I'm 100% behind every plot or character decision. I'm not. People getting creative - which TPTB most certainly did with this show, which is one of the reasons why I fell in love with it - inevitably means that some of their ideas just doesn't work out the way they intended, or they didn't work out for this particular watcher. With every season, I praised and I nitpicked, in different degrees. This is how I do fandom. (When I reach the point where I catch myself only complaining and not enjoying anymore, I say goodbye.) With all these caveats being said, here's why I think Star Trek: Discovery isn't just a fabulous show, but specifically a fabulous Star Trek show:

( 1) Something New )

( 2.) Something Old )

( 3. Something Blue )

And there you have it: My personal Manifesto of love for Star Trek: Discovery!

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January Meme: Which biographies would I reccommend?

lirazel asked me this. Now, to me, a biography I'd reccommend should ideally:

- offer a compelling portrait of its subject in the context of the times and other people said subject lives in

- be decently annotated, because it's not a novel, and I do want to know which primary source material the author bases their conclusions on, especially when it comes to motivations (so if you're telling me X loathed Y, I would like a footnote somewhere telliing me "See letter blablah blah")

- be fluently written; I've read biographies that are good with the facts and the sources but manage to come across as very dull due to the (lack of) writing style.

These demands can sometimes come into conflict. For example, a few years ago I read Nancy Goldstones "Daughters of the Winter Queen", which was very entertainingly written and came across as informative, and told me a lot of new things about historical characters I didn't know much about before, with one exception (i.e. one of the daughters I did know things about, having read her memoirs). Then I read Nancy Goldstone's "Ihe Shadow of the Empress", about historical figures I knew a lot about. This was also entertainingly written, but alas, I found big mistakes or at best omissions to produce a certain impression, or downright falsifications every second page. This in turn made me distrustful towards the earlier book. So no more Goldstone recs, though she can write well. Otoh, Simon Beale's two volume biography of Joseph II is thorough and reliable and dense - but not easy to read, especially if that's your first going at the era and the people in question.

All this being said, here are some recs for biographies which I found both readable and reliable (with the caveat that research always marches on, so with older biographies you can always have the experience that new discoveries can mean some earlier assumptions are now outdated or disproven). I've also separated them for biographies focused on one person (or two), and books focused on an era which is described through the eyes of an ensemble of (historical) characters; not classic biographies but still biographical and historical in nature.

A) Biographies of individuals

Emma Southon: Agrippina. For a more detailed review, see here. Short version: Gets around the source problems by directly adressing them, creates a vivid portrait, since I have it on audio I keep relistening to favourite passages.

Claire Tomalin: Charles Dickens. A detailed review is here. Short version: Tomalin comes near the platonic ideal of a biographer as someone who on the one hand is empathic and makes it clear in non-abstract terms why the reader should care about this person but on the other doesn't shy away from depicting the flaws in a non-prettifying manner. Why this one and not her earlier biography of Ellen Ternan, The Invisible Woman? Frankly, because Dickens himself offers far more material to write about than Nelly, who herself is included in the Dickens bio.

Mike Duncan: Hero of Two Worlds: The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution. A detailed review is here; again, it's a biography with great empathy for its subject that doesn't shy away from the less admirable parts of said subject's life.

Jean Orieux: Voltaire. You can find a detailed review and plenty of quotes here; it's an older biography (i.e. we're talking several decades here), and highly opinionated, but a) the author makes clear when it's his opinion he voices, instead of disguising them and/or treating them as facts, and b) it definitely fulfills the requirements of being both compellingly written and offering annotations for all its assertions.

Robert Caro's The Years of Lyndon Johnson series (still unfinished, the last published volume ended with Johnson's first year in office: Now, the sheer size of each volume - I think each over 1000 pages - is a challenge, but I can say without hesitation that these are the best political biographies I've ever read. Caro makes the US political institutions comprehensible to a non-American like yours truly, how the Congress works, how the Senate works, the appointment of Judges etc. He gets across how many people are actually involved in the legislative process without this reader feeling adrift, and he brings these many people to life. He never demonizes Johnson's opponents to build up Johnson. He manages to get across both Johnson's gazillion flaws ("flaws" is at times putting it mildly), but also his incredible strengths. If you have a competence kink for politics, and getting things done, Johnson is your man. At the same time, Caro notably builds up to the not yet reached Vietnam era because it's pretty clear that some of the same traits that enabled Johnson to make it to the top and push through more social reform legislation than any other president since FDR will also cause him to make misjudgment after misjudgment on Vietnam. More detailed reviews of volumes I and III, and volume IV. Let me add that when I watched Spielberg's Lincoln, I had the problem which another European commenter memorably described of watching that film feeling like attending a service of a religion you're not part of. (At times, you can literally see the halo around Lincoln's head because of the way Spielberg frames him.) This is definitely not the case here. Now of course LBJ is a very different character from Abraham Lincoln, and one of Caro's points is actually that the lessening of respect for the Presidency and the person of the President (which he regrets) started with Johnson, not, as commonly seen, with Nixon, but for me, Johnson the infinitely flawed but ultra competent is both more believable and more compelling than Lincoln the Saint.

b) Portrait of Eras via Biographies

It's getting German. Thankfully, several of these have been translated, so I can rec them to non-German speakers.

Uwe Wittstock: February 33: The Winter of Literature In which our author describes how a Republic turns into a fascist dictatorship within a few weeks through the eyes of some of Germany's greatest writers, male and female, Jewish or not. If you're German, you're probably more familiar with some of these than if you're not, but all of them are brought to life, and the quotes are from their letters, diaries and interviews at the time, not with hindsight. The contemporary relevance is obvious, but even leaving that aside, it's just a damn good read. Wittstock has published last year "Marseille 1940", in which he describes the intellectuals fleeing the Nazis in increasingly occupied France, which is excellent as well, but hasn't been translated into English yet.

Evelyn Juers: House of Exile. In which Ms. Juers uses the same quoting from letters and diaries technique to describe the fates of a couple of European exiles ending up in the US, focused on Heinrich Mann and his wife Nelly, with brother Thomas, Brecht and others also playing important parts; a detailed review is here. (My only complaint is that it also includes Virginia Woolf - not because I have anything against her, or that she's not ably described, but she really has no connection to the other characters who are all connected to each other.) Very moving, vivid, and again of great contemporary relevance.

Leonard Horowski: Das Europa der Könige. Alas, not translated into English, but a must-read if you can read German and are in any way interested in the later 17th and in the 18th century. It's an incredibly entertaining overview of Europe (that includes you, Brits!) from the later Louis IV era to just about the end of the French Revolution, and feels as if you're told all the good (and hot) gossip by an insider of the various courts, whether it's one of the big ones (i.e. Versailles) or the smaller scale German principalities. Horowski uses memoirs and letters but also - as opposed to, say, John Julius Norwich - points out when an entertaining story is extremely unlikely to have happened, and if there is counter evidence. And he's really great at making constant connections. (Not just all the royals are related to each other all over the continent, but so are a lot of their courtiers, lovers and mistresses, and that does matter.) It's witty, it's fun, it's immensely readable, and disproves anyone who believes to remain factual you have to be boring.

Lastly: Happy Birthday

lirazel!

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January Meme: Favourite Historical Dramas

For the purpose of this reply, I shall understand the question to mean specifically theatre plays, not "drama" in a wider sense including tv shows, or not-stageplay based movies. This being said, here are some of mine, in no particular order:

Friedrich Schiller: Don Carlos

Good old Schiller wrote many a historical drama, and his Wallenstein trilogy is somewhat closer to actual history than Don Carlos, the titular hero of which has little to nothing to do with the historical Carlos, and the actual hero of which is an OC. (Which makes Don Carlos still more historical than, say, Maria Stuart, which in addition to the famously not occuring meeting between Elizabeth and Mary also includes invented Leicester/Mary invented backstory, and another OC in the form of Mortimer - not nearly as cool as Posa. And let's not even talk about Schiller's take on Jeanne D'Arc wherein she falls for a sexy Englishman and dies on the battlefield.) But Don Carlos just works as a drama. It has it all: a tragic villain in Philip of Spain (seriously, Schiller's Philip is all the more remarkable because he's written at a time when not just Philip but Catholic Spaniards in general showed up only as moustache twirling villains when a Protestant author was doing the writing - whereas Schiller's Philip is so much of a tragic villain that "is Philip the true tragic (antihero) of the play?" is a favourite school essay writing topic, and the role is one of THE big roles for German actors to tackle once they've passed out of the youthful hero stage), the most famous bromantic (do we still say that? Or slashy?) relationship in German fictional literature in Carlos/Posa, while Posa also has tension of Carlos' Dad Philip, and not one but two more dimensional and actually interesting women in Queen Elisabeth and the Princess Eboli. The big OC of the play, Posa, is that rarity in fiction, a hardcore idealist who is at the same time manipulative and hasn't met a complicated plan he didn't like when a simple one would have done better (basically, he's Roj Blake without an Avon, because Carlos definitely isn't Avon, and nor is Philip), and the Inquisitor puts all other creepy Inquisitors to shame in his relentlessless, passionless inhumanity (think post reveal O'Brien in 1984. And it has some of the best dialogues and rethoric ever written in a stage play. "Sire, geben Sie Gedankenfreiheit!"

(Alas, there isn't a good translation in English that I'm aware of. The one available for free online is some flowery Victorian 19th century thing which isn't up to Schiller's 18th century cutting edge German.)

(Some guy named Verdi did a pretty nice musical version in both French and Italian with universal accessability, though. (*veg at

cahn)

William Shakespeare: Julius Caesar

Speaking of plays with some of the best dialogues and rethoric written for the stage... Never mind clocks on towers strike in Shakespeare's ancient Rome, this one is a tense political thriller in its first half, and then presents us with the fallout. It's another one of those where the title character isn't actually the main character or hero, though while Brutus is the closest thing the play has to a hero said second half is also an illustration of "why you should never let Brutus do the planning, and actually, Cassius does care". The small "Cinna the Poet" scene is one of the best and disturbing illustrations of what mob violence means. And it's a play without neat answers - no matter how it's produced, you're neither cheering for the victorious triumvirate at the end, nor can you see Brutus winning. And there hasn't been a depiction of the running up to Caesar's death, the assassination itself and the aftermath since that hasn't been influenced by it or argueing with it. I've yet to see a production which doesn't captivate me.

George Bernhard Shaw: Saint Joan

Of the many, many depiction of Jeanne d'Arc, this is still my favourite, and I think you can make an argument that it's Shaw's greatest play. I've watched it on stage, I've seen it filmed, I've heard it in audio form, and I never, ever, had enough of it. Historically speaking, it's also the first one that takes the by then publicly available trial records into account, and of course said trial was one of the reasons why Shaw went for Joan as a heroine to begin with. The dialogues are all brilliant - Shaw at his best there - but the play also has heart, which isn't always the case in his oeuvre. Notably in contrast to almost every other depiction (that is, where she is the heroine, not counting Shakespeare's villainess), Shaw doesn't present her opponents as evil, but as earnestly convinced of their own righteousness (Cauchon) or simply being practical (the Earl of Warwick), and by using Stogumber's English patriotism as a comic foil of Joan's French one, he even avoids letting the play be abused for propaganda value (as happens to poor Jeanne by the French extreme right these days). The fact that no one twirls his moustache has been led to the play being described as not having a villain, which is and isn't true. I think it has one, and that's why you really need the epilogue, with its "Woe to me if all man praise me", and Joan upon learning she has been declared a saint asking whether she should do a miracle and return, upon which every single one of the characters who just praised her being horrified. Also the earlier question to Stogumber, who through the shock of watching Joan's gruesome death in the fire had a change of heart, being asked whether he couldn't have known already, as a Christian, that painfully killing someone is horrible, whereupon he says he'd known in theory, but seeing it was a very different thing. The villain is the state of the world, both in Joan's time and Shaw's (our) own, which keeps demanding human sacrifice. And thus the play doesn't end on a triumphant "she died, but she won!" note but with this: "O God that madest this beautiful earth, when will it be ready to receive Thy saints? How long, O Lord, how long?"

(BTW, for a fascinating discussion of Saint Joan at the time of its publication, see the letters of T.E. Lawrence to Charlotte Shaw - wife of GBS - about it. Not only did he identify with Joan but he drew a line from the scene where she signs the confession to his night in Deraa. I'm quoting from said letters here. )

Michael Frayn: Copenhagen and Heiner Kipphardt In der Sache J. Robert Oppenheimer: listed together because the question of ethics in scientific research, the unreliability and subjectivity of memory, and the different types of responsibility are all themes both plays have in common. Along with the nuclear bomb and WWII as a backdrop. Frayn's play is set when all three main characters - Werner Heisenberg, Nils Bohr and Margarethe, Bohr's wife - are dead and while it circles around the question as to what exactly Heisenberg said to Bohr during his visit in Copenhagen mid war and what Bohr replied as a read thread, it is also uses the fact Margarethe is a third main character to question both of the physicists in their assumptions, to being out the complicated emotional dynamics between them, and to keep the scientific language understandable for an audience which mostly wouldn't have been able to follow a rl Heisenberg and Bohr discussion. There's also a chamber play intimacy achieved with the three characters as the only appearing characters which isn't there in the second play, which uses the 1950s Oppenheimer hearings as its basis (though while it quotes from the actual hearings, it also dramatizes and reorders etc.), meaning you have plenty of characters (though Kipphardt did cut down the number of witnesses from RL). As with Frayn's play and Heisenberg, here it's Oppenheimer being asked what he truly intended, what his responsibility is (and to whom - country in war time, humanity?), and whether or not he betrayed someone and in which sense. Again, as with Margarethe Bohr, the fact that several participants in the hearing aren't scientists is used as a device by the dramatist to use "comprehensible" language. And both Heisenberg and Oppenheimer start their respective plays with one idea about the past and what they did and leave with another. Kipphardt's play is not well known in the English speaking world, but it often ends up as part of the German curriculum, and is one reason why when Nolan's movie Oppenheimer used the 1950s hearings as a framing device this did not surprise or trouble me (as opposed to many a critic who wondered why it couldn't have been solely set in the 1940s). Anyway, both plays ask questions about scientists and their responsibilities without giving an easy answer and use some of the key events of the 20th century as their background without trivalizing them. Kudos.

Lastly, in case long term readers are wondering: Goethe's Faust (either Faust I or Faust II or the Urfaust) isn't on this list because while it's one of my all time favourites, I wouldn't call it a historical play, vaguely medieval setting and the fact there was an actual Faust not withstanding. Goethe went out of his way to avoid tying his version of Faust to a particular era in German history. I mean, the Gretchen plot in I has to happen at a point before the Enlightenment, but that's about it.

The other days

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Januar Meme: The Return of RDJ and the pivot from Kang to Doom: opinions

lightofdaye asked me for my opinion(s) on the impending return of RDJ (as Dr. Doom, not Tony Stark) to the MCU and the pivot from Kang to Doom in terms of main antagonist to be in the future movies. I see these as two different issues, so I'll deal with the later ones first.

Now, even folks like yours truly who tries her best to avoid spoilers did hear that essentially, Kang the character was dropped because of the actor's behaviour. While they could have recast - after all, there's precedent, see also: Rhodey - , I wouldn't be surprised if this was a welcome opportunity to drop the character as well as the actor. Because honestly, in the two cases where I've seen Kang - Loki season 1 (I didn't watch more than the opening episode of s2, not because the show got bad but because I never really connected to it to begin with, and the day has only so many hours) and Ant-Man: Quantummania - he didn't exactly wow me as a character. IMO as always.

One can endlessly argue about what makes and doesn't make a good villain/antagonist (not always the same thing). I think it depends on the type of story you want to tell. Often (not always), it helps with the villain/antagonist has a personal connection to the hero, or is a plausible "What if?" version of him/her. For example, I would say the Marvel cinematic franchise which managed to pick exactly the right villain(s) in all their installments so far were the three Tom Holland Spider-Man movies. ( Spoilers for same ensue. ) Both Black Panther movies have done well, too, though I'm a bit atypical for the general audience in that I actually prefer Namor in the second to Killmonger in the first. Either way, though, both antagonists were given interesting backstories and (some) good arguments while also showing themselves so callous that it was clear why they were the antagonists and not the heroes. Both had a certain degree of mirroring and contrasting/paralleling with the heroes going on.

Now, in a big ensemble movie - i.e. the Avengers movies - it's harder to do that, because you don't have a single protagonist. Still, I will say Thanos worked for me to the degree he did (again, ymmv) because of Nebula and Gamora and the backstory built up in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies that came home to roost in both Infinity War and End Game. What I saw of Kang in both Loki the show and Quantummania made me suspect they were going for something similar - but without the crucial Nebula and Gamora element. And a super powerful antagonist by themselves doesn't have the same emotional hook. I mean, Quantummania tried to make it personal by giving Kang backstory with Jan, but... nah, didn't work for me. And honestly, I was almost dreading more endless action sequences focused on various versions of Kang when I didn't care about any that I'd seen so far.

Doom, otoh, has the comicverse intimate connection required (with Reed Richards), a tragic backstory (even a lay person such as myself who mainly knows of Doom via a very memorable version played at

theatrical_muse where I was decades ago is aware), the "what if?" factor with not just Richards but also Tony Stark (didn't they have to team up in some comics issues as well?), and a larger than life personality. So far, so good: introducing Doom to the MCU and making him a main antagonist instead of Kang isn't a bad idea, though it would have made more sense introducing a new version of the Fantastic Four first, surely.

However: casting RDJ as Doom not only smacks of desperation but on a symbolic level is the exact opposite of what Marvel did when casting RDJ as Tony Stark for the first Iron Man movie all those years ago, and that's depressing. Because back then, it was a decision that showed a willingness to risk and be creative on so many levels. Iron Man wasn't a Marvel character well known outside of comics circles, and in fact, his popularity in said circles, such as it was, had just tanked because of the Civil War storyline, which was really really recent back then. And RDJ had started to rebuild his reputation as an actor, but he still was known as the guy very publicly an addict who'd fallen of the wagon twice before and was not even insurable. Making him the lead in a movie that was anything but a guaranteed money maker, wasn't even guaranteed to bring back production costs, was an incredible gamble.

Whereas now, he's one of the world's most popular actors, an almost guaranteed money maker, and casting him isn't just a shameless nostalgia ploy for disaffected MCU watchers but the least inventive and courageous casting decision they would have made. It's not that I think he'll be bad in the part, absolutely not. But casting him shows TPTB want to play it safe instead of going for interesting and challenging options. Many of the most memorable characters were created by actors who weren't, at that point, beloved stars (including of course MCU Tony Stark). Think Bryan Cranston spending decades as a character actor, which included a memorable creepy one episode guest spot in one X-Files episode and a longer term gig in comedy in Malcolm in the Middle, in between paying the bills via not memorable guest appearances like playing a Ranger in s4 of Babylon 5, before Vince Gilligan cast him as Walter White in Breaking Bad. I don't mean that the MCU should have cast an acting newbie in a multi million movie - they absolutely should have cast someone with experience. But without super stardom, never mind specifically super stardom reached within the MMCU. There are any number of talented and experienced actors who'd be bound to enjoy themselves and doing their all playing a Marvel supervillain - not choosing one of them is a pity.

(BTW, none of this means I think the MCU in totem has run its course. If anything, Jac Schaeffer's latest outing was another case in point that if you give someone the chance to go creative within a corner of it, they can deliver something amazing.)

The other days

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Return of the January Meme

Pick a date below and give me a topic, and I'll ramble on. I'm good at talking. It can be anything from fandom-related (specific characters, actors, storylines, episodes, which Disney Marvel shows are my faves and why, why the world should give the Julian-Claudians a rest and make a Flavius Josephus/Josef Ben Matthias centric show set in the Flavian era instead, which 18th century ladies need their own series, etc.) to life-related to favorite tea brands to whatever you want.

They will probably be brief, or not, depending on the subject. Also, I reserve the right to decline prompts that I don't feel equipped to meet.

Topics: you can get an idea from my tags/from the stuff I usually ramble about/from things you maybe wish I talked about more but don't. Also, please feel free to check out the 2024 meme, the 2023 January meme, the2022 January meme, the 2021 January Meme, the January Meme: 2020 Edition, the 2019 one, the 2018 meme, the 2017 edition , and the 2016 January meme to see which topics I've written about in past years.

January 1:
January 2: The Return of RDJ and the pivot from Kang to Doom: opinions? (

lightofdaye)
January 3: Favourite historical dramas (

saturnofthemoon)
January 4: Which biographies would I reccommend? (

lirazel)
January 5:
January 6: Star Trek: Discovery (

aurumcalendula
January 7: Time Travel Team consisting of historical figures: My Choice (

avrelia)
January 8: Which 18th century ladies deserve their own show? (

kore)
January 9:
January 10: Comfort Food (

ffutures)
January 11: In which aspects would a "For all Mankind"-universe Star Trek differ from ours? (

bimo)
January 12: Historical sites in Berlin for those who want to avoid 20th century history (

aelle_irene)
January 13: Star Trek: Prodigy - What should a 3rd season be like? (

trobadora)
January 14:
January 15: Differences between German and British Culture (

watervole)
January 16:
January 17:
January 18:
January 19:
January 20: Babylon 5 Rebooted: How I'd Do It (

wychwood)
January 21: Give the Julio-Claudians a rest: Josephus-Centric Flavian series to go! (

cahn)
January 22:
January 23:
January 24:
January 25: Roman AU for Babylon 5? (Redfiona)
January 26:
January 27:
January 29:
January 30: My favourite post-Enlightenment Scandinavian Princess (

aelle_irene)
January 31

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January Meme: Favourite German Princess?

This seemingly harmless question by

avrelia runs into the trickiness of language and history both. First of all, the English term “princess” can be translated in two different ways into German. Either as “Prinzessin”, as in, daughter of a monarch, or as “Fürstin”, someone who can be a ruling monarch herself, not necessarily a Queen, even; a ruling Duchess, say, can be a Fürstin, but so can an Empress be.

Secondly, “German”. Which definition does apply? Citzien of a realm which is located in territory that either today is in Germany or used to be in Germany pre WWI? How far back does this go, i.e. would we count the Frankish Carolingians? (Charlemagne: seen as German in Germany and French in France. Ditto for his offspring.) Do ladies count who came from decidedly non-German (by any definition) countries but who spent the majority of their lives as a princess of the HRE (think Theophanu, originally of Byzantium, or Irene who was married to Philip of Swabia)?

Conversely: what about princesses who are definitely the daughters of German monarchs but spent their entire lives in non-German realms (even by the definition of their era) and who did not speak German, to boot, but who were actively involved in German (by the definition of their era and ours, too) politics? I’m thinking of Margaret of Austria the daughter of Maximilian I (HRE) here. Born in Burgundy, raised in France, moved to Spain for a few years, returned to Burgundy, then Savoy, ended up as regent of the Netherlands for first her father and then her nephew. (Margaret and her Dad corresponded in French with the occasional Latin thrown in. She never spoke a word of German in her life. But she was a princess of the HRE all her life, and without her, it’s questionable whether nephews Charles would have become Emperor, or indeed whether the Habsburgs wouldn’t have lost their hold on the German and “Roman” crown after two generations again and gone back to being one (powerful) House among others within the HRE. (Okay, extra powerful because Charles inherited Spain via his mother, now with new colonies. But still.)

Or: how about princesses who start out German (in whichever sense of the above) and move to another country where they spend most of their lives? Catherine the Great being just one of the more famous cases in point - those first fourteen years as a German versus decades as a Russian definitely would favour “Russian” as the category to put her in, but she did start out as a German princess. Same for every Queen Consort of England starting with Caroline (of Ansbach, wife of George II) until Alexandra (Danish, wife of Edward VII).

Moving on somewhat nearer to the present, there’s the fact that today, Austria and Germany are two different nations. Both use the German language, but Austrians are not Germans and vice versa. (Unless you hold dual citizenship.) However, for most of our shared history, this did not apply. Mozart, born in (Austrian) Salzburg, referred to himself as a German in his letters, as of course did his father Leopold, born in (German) Augsburg. When a mid 18th century British pamphleteer calls the Maria Theresia versus Frederick the Great wars “a German civil war”, he’s not disingeneous, in that while Frederick was a Prussian and Maria Theresia an Austrian, they both also would have regarded themselves and each other as Germans.

(I’m just grateful that the question aims as princesses, not writers. Would you call Franz Kafka a) a Czech writer, b) an Austrian writer, c) a German writer? I’ve seen all three categorisations used.)

And lastly, what about German princesses who never lived but who were created (or at least solidified into written existence) by German writers? I mean, hello, Snow White? (Though my favourite fairy tale Grimm princess would probably be Allerleirauh - who runs from her father the King when he wants to marry her and lives dressed in animal skins for a while.)

With all this in mind, here’s a selection within different criteria:

Category: “Princess” as in Fürstin

Subcategory Imported Princesses

It’s a contest between my two favourite medieval Empresses, Adelheid (originally of Burgundy, kinda, sorta) and Theophanu. More about them here.

Subcategory exported or even completely extraterritorial Princesses:

Margaret of Austria; her praises sung here, here and here.

Subcategory not the daughter of a King and doesn’t rule a kingdom, but is a Fürstin in charge of a realm:

Anna Amalia of Saxe-Weimar: for contributing very much to Weimar’s a few decades long existence as the hotbed of German literature. Also for not using the Hohenzollern method of child raising on her own kids despite being a granddaughter of FW, for trying her best to keep her subjects out of Uncle Fritz’ recruitment clutches in the e/7 Years War, and for enjoying her retirement via travelling to Italy, staying there for a few years and (as a Protestan princess, no less) having an affair with a hot Catholic Bishop

Category: “Princess” as in Prinzessin

Subcategory: Exported to non-German country Princess: Anne of Bohemia, wife to Richard II (of England). I am admittedly influenced by her portrayal in various fictions, be they AU novels like Wheel of Fortune by Susan Howatch, straightforward history plays like Josephine Tey’s Richard of Bordeaux (though this one has a hilariously English-author-caused line where Anne, daughter of an HRE, refers to herself as provincial compared to Richard), or all the Richard II fanfiction on the A03, and won’t pretend not to be. But Anne comes across as a very sympathetic character all around, a patron of the arts, a loving spouse to her husband (who adored her and went bonkers when she died), doing her best to mediate between him and his family and nobles in an increasingly stressful situation.

Subcategory: Born into German realm, lived in (another) German realm: Wilhelmine of Bayreuth. Author of tell-all memoirs about her dreadful family, builder of magnificent Rokoko opera houses and palaces, one part of a co-dependent intense sibling relationship with brother Frederick the Great, like him a sometime composer and passionate music lover. Dreadful snob. (As noted by some snobbish themselves contemporaries.) (Hey, if both of your parents go after your self esteem throughout your childhood, you cling to whatever gives you a boost.) Great friend to have, though (ask Voltaire). More about her here.

The other days

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January Meme: How to adapt Raphsody of Blood for TV?

Which

lokifan asked me. Which reminded me, I've been meaning for quite a while to write my review for the last novel in this epic five volulme series by Roz Kaveney, Raphsody of Blood: Revelations, which brought it to a close. A quick general recap of the saga, for those who are unfamiliar: it starts by following two main plot threads. On the one hand, in the present (the near then-present from when the books started to be published), there's our heroine Emma Jones who has just fallen in love (with Caroline) when she comes to rescue a faun from two angels, and things go increasingly more fantastical from there (in third person narration). On the other hand, there's the first person narration of Mara the Huntress, which leads us, not in chronological order, through the seven thousand years Mara has been alive, covering an enormous amount at myths from all cultures and historical events in which she pops up. Her personal mission is always the same: prevent anyone trying to make themselves (or others) into Gods via blood rituals, or if not prevent, take them out. She's also intermittently looking for the reincarnations of her two sisters (and lovers), Sof and Lillit, and is one of those stoic hero types who insist they're a loner but has managed to collected dozens of friends (and foes, naturally) through the millennia.

By the time volume 5 opens, though, past and present have caught up with each other, which I was a bit wary about, because while I've hugely enjoyed the Emma-and-Caroline present day tales with their clever banter, the history and myths lover in me had a slight preferene for Mara's adventures through space and time. However, something else that happened by the time the fifth volume opens is that Emma is in, err, a mythological position, to put it as unspoilery as possible, allowing her to interact with people (and myths) from millennia ago as well (I was thrilled when one of my favourite historical ladies showed up, the Empress Theophanu, here called Theophania), plus we get one more long Mara flashback (Apollo focused this time) before the big showdown we've been gearing towards for several volumes really kicks in, and is suitably epic but also humane, in lack of a better term, at the same time. Now part of the charm of the entire series is that while it's chock full of flippancy and one liners (at one point, Mara says re: the internet that it's just a better version of the Library of Alexandria, easier to search and less prone to burn), you also get some true heartbreak, the occasional Lovecraftian horror raising its head, and some growing anger at rl events. Where the previous volume included a Tony Blair diss (via one of Mara's immortal friends, Polly - of Three Penny Opera/Beggar's Opera origin, who went from queen of the underworld to eternal leader of ~~Torchwood~~ a secret service in the Spooks vein; where other PMs and monarchs, no matter how well or little they liked her, kept her on, Blair fires her), the fifth one has some choice things to say re: 2016, Brexit and US elections alike. And of course the growing power of Evangelicals is a plot point. But here's what's truly amazing: this story also finds the humanity in some genuine monsters. A relatively new character does one of the best and most biting "no, we're not doing the *spoiler*, we need to do better, check out all you've done before, supposed good guys!" speechs I've seen in recent fiction. And the overall conclusion satisfies my inner Star Trek fan. (No, space ships aren't involved.)

With all this explained, here are some thoughts to the actual question. First of all, these books have a gigantic cast, so inevitably some would not make it or would be merged with other characters. Though I would magically wish the 22 episodes per season format back, then we really could do a five season adaption for all five novels. Secondly, while the early novels have lengthy Emma sections and lengthy Mara sections, a tv adaption I think should intermingle the two from the start. (You know, like Jackson's Fellowship of the Ring instead of holding back on what happened to Gandalf after he said goodbye to Frodo until the Council of Elrond, the way the novel does, keeps cutting between the Shire and Frodo on the one hand and Gandalf on the other.) Now I'm a Highlander: The Series and Lost fan, so having present day stories with historical flashback sections is nothng new to me, though in the case of Raphsody in Blood, it's trickier in that the connection between the two storylines isn't always immediately apparant but unfolds bit by bit. But I think you could trust the audience to be curious and intrigued enough for some patience. (I'm thinking of the 2019 Watchmen tv series where we didn't find out just what the connection between the Adrian-on-Europa scenes each episode and the rest of the storylines was until the last but one episode, and that absolutely worked for me.)

Another important thing would be that there is commitment to filming all five novels from the start, and that the filming is done in a row, because with a good part of the recurring ensemble of characters immortal, there's the human aging factor to consider. And I would encourage some filmic experimentation - animated sequences, or black and white, why not? Casting: tricky in that while Emma and Caroline are adult women, Mara became immortal when she looked like a sixteen years old. Plus given where and when she's from, she should be small (but athletic enough that her being a lethal fighter is believable). Of course, casting (supposed) teenagers with twenty somethings has a long tradition. So - Zendaya for Mara? Given Chani, she should have practice with fight scenes, she has presence, and I could see her as a stoic character with often boiling rage or fervent longing under the surface. My alternative candidate would be Madeleine Madden, who really impressed me in the second season of Wheel of Time (where she plays Egwene). As for Emma, there's an in-novel joke that she got played by Charlize Theron (some years back). I could see that, but I think Emma is still in her early twenties when the story kicks off, and she's one of the few main characters who can age along with her actress, so I'd cast Charlize as another character, Heccat/Morgan instead, and give Emma to another Emma, Emma Stone. Caroline: Anya Taylor-Joy. (BTW, I would not cast Spoiler and Spoiler with Emma Stone and Anya Taylor-Joy as well, the novels make it clear they don't look identical. Instead: Lily Gladstone as ( Spoiler ), and Zoe Robins as ( Spoiler ).

Despite her having played not Polly, but Jenny in the original Three Penny Opera production, I couldn't help but imagine a young English version of Lotte Lenya for Polly. Able to speak Cockney without getting in Dick van Dyke territory. But there's no one English and Lenya-esque who comes to mind right now, so abandoning all thoughts of Lotte L., him - Billie Piper? (I'm thinking of her being different enough from Rose as "The Moment" in the DW anniversary special a good wile ago that I could accept her as a very much not human character, and also her dual roles in Penny Dreadful, as Brona and Lily. All of which makes me think she could play Polly through the ages - someone who is both very much an Earthy Georgian character and an immortal occasionally showing her age. Though given how much older Mara is, Polly will always be young in comparison.)

Other ideas: Young Josh aka Spoiler: Jamie Clayton (Nomi in Sense 8) Nameless aka Spoiler: Michael Sheen. (Just for the record, fellow readers of these novels, I'm thinking less of Sheen as Aziraphale and more of Sheen as both Tony Blair and Sheen as Roland Blum.) And Iman Vellani should definitely play someone, though I'm still wavering as to whom.

The other days

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January Meme: My Favourite Black Sails Things

Let's start with a frivolous observation: I haven't read the Percy Jackson books, nor have I watched the two movies (though I osmosed the book fandom hated them, by and large), but I do follow the tv daption currently being shown at Disney +, and last week's episode - which belatedly also told me two of the producers were the Black Sails PTB (i.e. Jonathan Steinberg and Robert Levine) - made me sit up and gurgle in delight when I saw whom they had cast as Poseidon. Why? Because more than one Black Sails fanfic I'd come across actually had gone with a similar idea.

And that's all I have to say on that casting, she observes mysteriously. :)

Okay, more seriously now. It's been a while since my last rewatch, but Black Sails is still a show I adore. Do I have some nitpicks? Sure. But not nearly enough to lessen the fannish love. I love the way how almost every character, whether minor or major, is interesting to me, regardless as to whether or not I like them. I love how 99% - okay, 98% - another shows would not have brought a character like Charlotte again after ( r spoilery stuff happens ) This respect for its minor characters as more than canon fodder, this remembering people not in the credits are no less human, is one of Black Sails' best qualities.

Mind you: if I didn't love the major characters, said respect wouldn't be enough to make me love the show, either. But I do love (most of) them. Not everyone in the same degree, or even always in the same way, but I do, and I love how without going overboard with the meta at the expense of the characters Black Sails is among other things brilliant meta about storytelling - and story tellers.

And the tasty, tasty character development. I love how the show kept surprising me in a good way with that. For example: Max' relationship with Eleanor. In the first three episodes of season 1, when they're lovers, all the need for presentation in the world wouldnl't have made me ship them, because it seemed too uneven to me, in every sense - uneven social standing, uneven emotional investment by both parties, you name it, it's there. At the time, I did think Max/Eleanor was there because for the hot lesbian scene factor for the viewerhip of a new show. Readers, I would have been very wrong. Because while Max/Eleanor might not compel me as lovers, they have an absolutely fascinating relationship as exes, and it would not be as intriguing and layered if they did not have that backstory. By the time Max says "That fucking chair!" to Eleanor in season 3, I couldn't wait for them to share another scene again, all their scenes were fabulous.

Let's see, what else: how in this show, you could be absolutely furious at a character without being less fond of them. Jack in season 3 being a case in point. I think I spent a good third of the season inwardly going grrrrrrrr at him, but all he did was entirely ic, and it didn't lessen his endearing qualities. (Just as a point of contrast: Ed in s4 of Fall All Mankind. My positive emotions about Ed were definitely very much lessened by his behavior in that season.)

And: how many of the relationships - both romantic and not - are just so interestingly complicated, and that unfolds as we follow the story, with the show having the patience to not give us all the answers at once, but just enough to keep us hooked, and a good pay-off. (Flint and my early seasons fave Miranda being a case in point.)

And lastly: this is a show (with canon m/m and f/f and m/f/f and m/f/m along with the traditional m/f) which values its non-sexual relationships (note that I don't say "non-romantic", because there are relationships you could argue are romantic while being entirely platonic - later Flint and Silver being a case in point) and its sexual relationships alike, you never get the sense one is played out against the other. In conclusion, it's the pirate show of my heart, and thus it shall ever be.

The other days

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January Meme: Kingdom Swaps

I wll say something about the swap suggestion that inspired this question at the end, because I have my own opinion about it, unsurprisingly, but first, here are some spontanous 18th Century ideas from yours truly. I tried to pick contemporaries of the same generation:

( Kingdom Swap 1: Friedrich Wilhelm I. (Prussia) swaps with his first cousin George II (Britain and Hannover) )

( Kingdom Swap 2: Stanislas I. Poniatowski (Poland) swaps with Joseph II (HRE) )

( Kingdom, err, Realm Swap 3: Peter the Great (Russia) swaps with Gian Gastone de' Medici (Tuscany) )

Now, what thornyrose42 wrote to me was: I was listening to a podcast (You’re Dead to Me) where a comedian quipped that Peter III of Russia and Frederick the Great would have both been quite satisfied with a kingdom swap, since Peter admired Prussia so much and Frederick would not have said no to such a giant hunk of Empire.

Whether or not that is true, what do you think would be some of the best and worst kingdom swaps from your favourite periods? Whose style of governance was much better suited to another kingdom’s problems? Who managed where they were ruling but would have floundered when forced to deal with someone else’s political brew.

( And okay, Peter III and Frederick are contemporaries but of two different generations, but here's my own opinion of how that would go: )

The other days