igenlode: The pirate sloop 'Horizon' from "Treasures of the Indies" (Default)
[personal profile] igenlode
(very old meme picked up at random from betweensunandmoon)

Pick five series and then answer the questions. Don't look at the questions before you choose!


  1. Fionavar
  2. Swallows and Amazons
  3. Blake's 7
  4. Frozen
  5. Narnia





1. Which is your favorite series from your list? And why?

... Possibly "Blake's 7", because that was my first introduction to the concept of fandom, and was associated with events that literally changed my life and have affected my writing ever since. I'm not sure if that is a reason for 'favourite'. 'Most significant', maybe?

2. If you were to pair two characters from 1 and 4, who would they be?

If I had to imagine two characters getting romantically involved cross-universe... maybe Kevin Laine and Anna? Kevin's bright, quick and mischievous, which would probably go down well with Anna, and he does have a sensitive and protective streak, which she needs. And he doesn't have any in-canon love interests, apart from a brief casual encounter with Ivor's daughter Liane, who actually has more than a little in common with Anna...

3. What is one thing you'd like to change about 3's plotline?

Apart from the obvious (not having the entire cast massacred...) I'd like to bring Blake back for more than a couple of cameos in the second half of the show -- give some idea of where he was and what he was doing, even if the crew never do manage to catch up with him or he refuses to return.

4. If both main characters of 2 and 5 were falling off a cliff, which one would you save?

'Both' main characters? Neither series is centred around a single protagonist... I suppose Lucy is probably the nearest thing to the main viewpoint character in Narnia (although she only really appears in three of the seven books!), with Titty taking a similar role in "Swallows and Amazons", given more or less identical caveats. (It's interesting that in both cases it's the imaginative little sister and not the older boy who is 'head of the family' who gets chosen as viewpoint character.)

So if it were a choice between Lucy and Titty -- probably Titty. (Besides, people *have* been known to magically survive falling off a cliff in Narnia: c.f. "Prince Caspian"! There isn't any magic to rescue the Swallows from their own mistakes...)

5. Which event was the most horrible for you in 1?

Diarmuid's death on the battlefield. Although it's horrible in an unbearably tragically beautiful sort of way, so maybe Jennifer's stony rejection of her son in the name of free will, which always feels like a slap in the face. (How is he supposed to choose love of his own will when she refuses to give him any?)

Jennifer's rape and desecration at the hands of a god probably ought to count, but somehow it doesn't -- it's a terrible thing, but it's external and it's ultimately survivable. (And partly, I think, it's that we don't really know her all that well at that point in the story; she could be any woman, and it would be bad, but we don't have all that much emotional connection with her. Whereas Diarmuid is vivid and charismatic and impossible, and clearly sidekick material rather than a main protagonist, so lacking in Plot Armour...)

6. Which is your least favorite character of 2?

Interesting question. There really aren't any 'villains' (unless you count George Owdon in the two 'Coot Club' stories, or I suppose Black Jake in "Peter Duck", and they're fairly two-dimensional and don't appear much). Peggy is always underwritten, but then Ransome manages to bring her to life as a character in her own right in "Winter Holiday" -- albeit by the drastic expedient of removing Nancy from the action altogether, and forcing Peggy into the situation of trying to fill her missing sister's shoes!

I think possibly Dorothea, poor girl, because I did find her pretty annoying (with hindsight, she reminds me rather of some of the members of fanfiction.net, especially with the tendency to plan huge epics and then only write a few paragraphs or at best a chapter or two!) She basically represents an exaggerated view of what it's like "to be a writer", with her wildly overblown prose and habits of daydreaming reality into improbable situations -- and as a writer myself, I didn't find her at all convincing, and I suppose felt attacked by the author's implicitly inviting us to laugh at her. Which is odd, because of course Ransome was himself a writer, and Dorothea is generally reckoned to represent his own childhood self-insert, or at least Dick and Dorothea between them.

7. If the antagonist of 3 were to rape the main character of 1, what would you do?

Well, again you come up against the question of most of these series simply not having a definite 'main character'...!
Servalan, on the other hand, is more than capable of raping anyone -- and having him like it, or else ;-p The classic rapacious Black Widow... but I'm just not sure who you would credibly pick out as 'the main character' on Fionavar.
Paul Schafer is probably the least able to cope with Servalan on an emotional/sexual level, since he's already all tied into knots in that respect; I think he'd probably have a breakdown, or even more of one. As to what *I* would do (as a writer, or a reader, or a protagonist?) -- there's precious little I could do to the Supreme Commander on any level. She has her vulnerabilities, but not in any way that would be of any good where I was concerned. And I certainly wouldn't be qualified to help Paul, other than by simply pretending that the whole thing hadn't happened and trying to behave as normally towards him as possible.

So I suspect that's the answer: I'd do nothing and try to pretend nothing had happened...

8. What song reminds you of 5?

An odd question. Probably one of the mediaeval carols that remind me of Pauline Baynes' illustrations: the Boar's Head Carol?

Date: 2021-08-30 05:16 pm (UTC)
erimia: (Default)
From: [personal profile] erimia
Ooh, I would have loved to see more Blake in later seasons. Unfortunately, very few fics about his post-S2 life are that good.

Date: 2021-08-31 11:08 pm (UTC)
erimia: (Default)
From: [personal profile] erimia
I'm very interested in Blake's politics and love reading the stories that focus on them, not just set during the show but pre-canon too. But fans usually don't deliver even when they do explore the subject. It's noticeable that fan authors have very little knowledge or interest in how resistance movements work, or what living in a non-democratic society is like.

Date: 2021-09-04 03:33 am (UTC)
erimia: (Default)
From: [personal profile] erimia
Eh, I'm not an expert myself, but the parts about the "Operation" were some of my favorite ones in BRH! You clearly did a much better job than most.

Date: 2021-08-31 06:14 pm (UTC)
watervole: (Default)
From: [personal profile] watervole
Have you read the Machiavelli Factor? https://archiveofourown.org/works/4053562/chapters/9120958


Complete AU post season 2 - takes the crew to another galaxy. Contains lots of Blake and Avon, and a fight against injustice of a totally different kind.

Date: 2021-08-31 11:10 pm (UTC)
erimia: (Default)
From: [personal profile] erimia
No. :( I thought about it long ago but this story is too long and descriptions in the reviews don't sound like something I'd love to read.

Date: 2021-09-01 08:59 am (UTC)
watervole: (Default)
From: [personal profile] watervole
It's a marmite story.

Date: 2021-08-30 05:54 pm (UTC)
watervole: (Default)
From: [personal profile] watervole
I loved Pauline Bayne's art. I kept her poster for the Lord of the Rings until it was virtually falling apart. And Bilbo's Last Song, and all the Narnia drawings. They are still how characters like Reepicheep appear in my mind.

I was so pleased when the movies had him just as she drew him!

If I could get a new copy of those posters, I'd buy one tomorrow.

Date: 2021-08-31 08:26 pm (UTC)
watervole: (Default)
From: [personal profile] watervole
It's sad isn't it. I guess it's possible that the original artwork no longer exists, or that they don't have the rights to it.

There may be no good digital copies in existence for them to use to make a good quality print.

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