Random randomness

[wiseheart]

Cos I'm on sick leave, although the sickness has passed, and feel like babbling a bit, yo!

The telly - or why I might end up spend my hard-earned cash on shows that I cannot watch, even though everyone says they're rubbish.

I heard really, really bad things about Starz' Camelot. So I googled a bit, and what I saw confirmed my worst fears. Come on, guys, WTF, Arthur a girl??? Okay, I know he technically isn't a girl, but he looks like one. Imagining him having sex with the actual girls on the show is... off-putting, to say the least. No offence against anyone, but if I wanna watch femslash, the least I could demand would be that both participants be real girls, right? At least Bradley James looks like a knight who would be capable of raising his sword without collapsing under its weight.

But... the show stars Eva Green as Morgan, and she looks absolutely stunning. I could never warm up to Katie McGrath's Morgana, so perhaps I should give "Camelot" a chance, after all. Plus, it has Sean Pertwee, with whom I've been in selfless love ever since I saw him as Hugh Beringar. And Clive Standen! *flails* Granted, I only saw him in Dr. Who, where he had a total of about three seconds of screen time, but I'm so totally fangirling him. Embarrassing, really, considering that I could be his mother. Ah, well. I might even buy some random Robin Hood episodes to watch him. I'm shallow that way. I like me some ruggedly handsome men from time to time.


Procrastinating - or the pain of too many choices after finishing a story.

Now that I've finally gotten "Eye Witness" out of my hair (not that anybody but artemis10002000 would give a rat's arse about my Torchwood fic), I've taken a good hard look of my unfinished WIPs - and blanched. There are too many, in too many different fandoms!

My best candidates to be finished in the foreseeable future would be "Vox Angelica" in the Cadfael fandom, "Brothers-in-Arms" (also in the Cadfael fandom) and "A Visitor from Avalon", my Merlin-Torchwood crossover. Consequently, what have I done all day? Background work on "Sea-Flower", a pre-Ring-War Tolkienfic taking place in Umbar.

Yeah, right. That's me, doing the least logical thing. But at least I've figured out how to include the bull games and cast some of the characters. Not surprisingly, Princess Ivriniel will be played by Eva Green and Lord Caliondo of Umbar will be played by Clive Standen. What? I told you I'm shallow! And I need my visuals. I'm seriously considering having Colin Morgan play the Dark Elf assassin, but I'm not sure I can pull that one out. Although he'd be creepy. Oh, and the malicious Haradric slave girl is played by Indira Varma.


Baking - yep, I did some of that, too!

Not much; we won't dare eating anything with cream in the next few days, so I made some Ischler and a small lamb out of almond biscuit. And I hung up the decorated eggshells in the living room. Mum is pleased with the results, so I'm pleased, too.


Other than that, I'm lazing around and wishing I had people I could discuss silly fannish things with. But you can't have everything.

Comments

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

There were a lot of things I found very hard to take about the films, but Faramir & Denethor were the things I absolutely couldn't tolerate. Two of my very favourite characters, completely trashed.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Well, Gimli, Merry and Pippin were trashed, too. And Legolas, the Idiot. *grrrrrrr*

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Yes, but none of those was among my very favourites. And I don't much like book-Legolas to be honest. Or at least I thought he was the thinnest of the Fellowship characters in the book.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Funny, I always loved him. And Gimli. And their friendship. But again, I started off with "The Hobbit", and Legolas was the son of the Elvenking and Gimli was the son of Glóin, so I was kind of biased from the beginning.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

I think I first read The Lord of the Rings and went back for The Hobbit, but I was so young it's hard to recall. Let's see, top ten LotR characters... perhaps Denethor, Aragorn, Faramir, Saruman, Elrond, Galadriel, Gandalf, Theoden, Bilbo & Treebeard, though I keep changing my mind. Denethor/Thorongil is the pairing I most adore.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

The films have completely changed my character preferences. I used to adore Aragorn, Faramir, Elrond, Galadriel, Gandalf and Frodo - now I can't stand any of them.

Well, Gandalf was okay as long as he was the Grey, even if a bit more hysterical than one would expect from an incarnate Maia, but when he became the White... Apparently, the bleach has ruined his brains and his character irreparably.

But Sean Bean made me a devout Boromir fangirl, and ever since then I steadfastly refuse to accept Aragorn's claim for the throne of Gondor. ;) Especially the claim of whiny, emo movie!Aragorn.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

My character preferences have stayed much the same, I just completely ignore the film versions even when I quite like them. I always felt Aragorn's claim to the throne rested more on the incumbent Steward's madness & his heir's death than anything else. I'd like to see what might have happened had Faramir been a different character who cared to challenge, especially after his alliance with Rohirric royalty.

Sean Bean was indeed wonderful as Boromir. His death scene was the best bit of all three films, I think, and the only thing that I felt was dramatically more successful than the book.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

I think if Boromir were alive, Denethor wouldn't have succumbed to madness, and with the two of them around, Aragorn would have had a frigging hard time to get onto the throne. There was the small matter of Pelendur's Law, after all, which got conveniently forgotten, just because Faramir felt way too grateful and had no ambitions to rule, and everyone else was dead.

All my favourite scenes in the films were about Boromir. First, at the Council, where he tells the idiots that "One does not simply walk into Mordor..." Then in Lórien, when he speaks about the ringing of silver trumpets. And then, of course, the death scene. No offence to Viggo Mortensen, but Sean Bean was the absolute best, and the real hero of the first film.

The second and third films were so much worse than even the first one, IMO, that I won't even start about them. I'm quaking with fear how "The Hobbit" is going to turn out.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

No offence to Viggo Mortensen, but Sean Bean was the absolute best, and the real hero of the first film.

One of the good things for me was the way Mortensen & Bean played off each other. Bean was much weaker opposite Wenham.

The second and third films were so much worse than even the first one, IMO

Indeed. I was a bit curmudgeonly about Fellowship, but generally thought it was enjoyable, especially the first half, and while I didn't agree with all their decisions I could understand them. But the other two... there were bits I liked, but they were drowned in an ocean of bits I hated.

I'm quaking with fear how "The Hobbit" is going to turn out.

I was really looking forward to del Toro's vision. Jackson does seem to have pulled in some good actors, though, if Wikipedia is to be believed. Not sure what Ken Stott will make of Balin, my favourite TH character, though.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Wenham is a joke. A bad one. Unfortunately, just before the second film aired, I saw him on TV in some really cheap, Aussie soft porn, and whenever I was supposed to take him seriously as Faramir (hah! that caricature of an ill-used character!) the mental image before my eyes was how he scratched his naked arse after urinating in that crap.

You're a Balin lover, too? I absolutely adore Balin. Although I'm very fond of Bombur as well. Fat people must stick together, the world is a hostile enough place for everyone who doesn't look like a starving rat.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

I was lucky enough never to have heard of Wenham before, and he was so bad I've gone out of my way to avoid him since.

And yes, a signed-up Balin fan. I'd love to write some The Hobbit fic with the early years of him re-establishing Moria. Perhaps more likely to put it as a Yuletide request.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Actually, I've started a long project about just that a year or two ago. It's titled "The Book of Mazabul" and I'm still about to tell the stories of the various Dwarves taking part in the quest. I have a character list of about 50 or so Dwarves, with clan identification, family ties, work and stuff. I used Ro's fantastic Dwarf drawings as inspiration.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

This sounds fascinating. I love good Dwarf fanfiction & it's sadly thin on the ground. I'm beginning to feel all nostalgic for the days when I read lots of Tolkien fanfic, but I need to be a bit careful not to break myself out of my carefully constructed Chandler/Earthsea writing mould at the moment...

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Well, the story will keep. It's going to go on for a long time yet anyway, and whenever you are ready, you can start it from the beginning.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

I always felt that Faramir didn't want to rule Gondor. It was never his job growing up but rather Boromir's, of course, but I think that Faramir was never jealous of this. He saw what a hard job it was and then getting it instead of Boromir would always have reminded him (as if he needed to!) of how his brother was dead, and his father didn't think he was as good. I felt Faramir was quite pleased to be able to relinquish the ruling of Gondor to Aragorn and I think he had a better life for not having to do it.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

You do have a point here. I think he and Boromir would have been a fabulous team, sharing different kinds of responsibilities: those of the soldier and of the scholar. I think it tells a lot about Denethor's fortitude that he managed to be both.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think Boromir and Faramir would have been a great ruling team. They did seem to care for and respect each other, not so much in spite of their differences as because of them, so I think they would have been very pleased to have each other's help. You are right that it says a lot about Denethor that he could manage ruling Gondor on his own, but somehow his dislike and distrust of Gandalf who I adore makes me not care for Denethor.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Gandalf doesn't share much information with Denethor. I can quite see why Denethor responds with distrust.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

It may indeed be a very reasonable response on Denethor's part, but I love Gandalf and that trumps reason in my heart.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

I'm extremely fond of both characters, though I tend to defend Denethor more often because book-Gandalf never needs defending (except from fantasy-hating idiots). I'd love to write cuddle Denethor fic but my muse doesn't run to that kind of thing.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

Fair enough! I can certainly see resons to like Denethor, though as I said he hasn't quite won a place in my heart. That is probably at least partly because there are so many other characters to love in the book though.

And no book-Gandalf really doesn't need defending, does he? I think one of my chief complaints about the first film was how we didn't get the build-up of Gandalf's character: this made his failure to turn up when he promised less scary and his loss in Moria less devastating, which I think really weakened the story.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

As I've said elsewhere in this sprawling epic, Fellowship is by far my favourite film. The main structural problem it has, IMO, is the removal of the long gap between the Party and Frodo's departure, which means that the threat of Mordor feels weaker, Frodo is far too immature (which Wiseheart pointed out as one of her major gripes), and also that Gandalf isn't properly established. I do wish they'd stuck with JRRT's timeline.

Having listened to some of the commentaries, I think the writing team didn't really get to grips with how Tolkien's story worked until a long way down the writing process -- so the casting had already been done years back, which just gave them the completely the wrong casting for Frodo. (Not that I object to the talented Elijah Wood, but he was far too young for Frodo. He might have made a great Pippin.)

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, indeedly, he'd make a most adorable Pippin!

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

I think that in a nutshell is what I love about book-Denethor; he's got the strong sides of both Faramir & Boromir.