I Can See the World From There

Julie & Julia (2009) dir. Nora Ephron, D.P. Stephen Goldblatt

Yes, there were some shitty, problematic elements from the start (like the goblins), and yes they were marketable as hell, but I’d say the first few books successfully captured some elements of whimsy, and the humor in them hit the right notes for kids. The first few are not great books but they’re also not terrible. (The later ones were bloated and awful tho, imo).  

And of course certain books are published because they’re marketable but that doesn’t mean they’re automatically bad books or lack any entertainment value. 

The thing is she doesn’t have to have had bad books to be a bad person. Someone that wrote some decent books that kids liked can still be a shitty person and we need to learn and accept that shitty people can and do make good art or at least quality entertainment. 

The reason we need to recognize bad people make good art rather than create a revisionist history that every single thing the person has done was terrible, is because we have to be comfortable with criticizing and condemning (and sometimes boycotting) creators even when things they made were beloved to us at some point, even when there was some good or some entertainment value in the things they created. 

I think it’s good to look back at her work with a more critical eye but the first few books were actually decent (regardless of yes, a few shitty flaws like the goblins, and regardless of being super merchandisable). That doesn’t change that she’s still a bigoted dickhole. And we don’t have to pretend everything she created was awful to treat her like a bigoted dickhole. 

It’s argued as if the people who “realized” that Harry Potter was Bad All Along were picking up on some…single big quality that includes both the bigotry of the author and the quality of the story, worldbuilding, et cetera. It’s absolutely bizarre.

But, all of that aside. Holy shit, no, no, no, Harry Potter was not a toy marketing scheme, what on earth, that’s the weirdest thing I’ve heard all day.

The category of children’s lit was on death’s door in the late 90’s. YA was straight up not a thing in the way it is today. Book series still don’t get toy lines by themselves, and the fact that the book-to-movie adaptation of Harry Potter was successful is still kind of a weird fluke. Nobody is publishing a book counting on a film adaptation that can be turned into a toy line, and they sure as hell weren’t in 1997. If that worked James Patterson or whoever the hell that guy is would be doing it.

There are a LOT of series that fit the “capitalist marketing scheme” idea a lot better than Harry Potter (read: Lorien legacies, the unwanteds, wolves of the beyond, fablehaven, wings of fire, that series a while back that was about like animal shapeshifters or something? With a different big name YA author behind every book?) and they haven’t successfully marketed anything except themselves.

Please, not every piece of media that has problems has to have a capitalist conspiracy theory at its core

Zuko’s like no, yeah, I totally get it, and just makes her one of his advisors. At first it’s just so she has a good excuse to stay but after the first meeting Toph storms out shouting about how EVERYONE was lying why would you even need to lie about what kind of tea you want??

Zuko: I mean they’re politicians.....but also who, and when, and in what way

They make a subtle Morse code system so Toph can warn him when someone is lying to him without tipping anyone off that she can sense lies.

So even if you and I are writing a fic with the same characters, they can still be uniquely different despite having the same core and they’re each dear to us personally as our take on the person.

What’s more, every reader who’s read more than one version of a character has their internal perception of that character enriched by the versions of that character written by those authors.

And those are the result of every version of the character in every fic the authors have read.

It’s a massive progression towards complexity and realism for the character in the minds of the storytellers.

Positive emotion trumps negative emotion every time. We all yearn for reconciliation, for catharsis.

me, remembering that peggy carter’s character arc was about moving ON from steve rogers, that she found strength in her independence, met someone and fell in love and got married and had kids, and that she died peacefully : 

nothing’s stopping you from being all that and a caring person overflowing with love

In the stables of Rohan, there is an unruly horse named Brego. This horse is so wild that even the horse-masters of Rohan can’t tame him. He’s just a lost cause, they say. “There’s nothing you can do– leave him,” they say.

BUT THEN ARAGORN COMES IN. And like the heroine of a Horse Movie™ he’s all: “You just don’t UNDERSTAND the horse! The horse is wild and rebellious and free– like me!” 

Aragorn begins gently talking to the horse, first in Rohirric, then in Elvish. He calms him down and asks him what’s wrong.

You could easily draw a parallel between Aragorn and Brego’s “rebelliousness.”  To Theoden, Aragorn was acting overly unruly and difficult.  “When last I looked, Theoden, not Aragorn, was King of Rohan.” Then Brego acts unruly and difficult – and Aragorn’s like “the people of Rohan just don’t understand you!!!!!!”

And then Eowyn explains that Brego used to belong to Theodred.

Suddenly Brego’s unruliness IS completely understandable— his master was killed in battle.  He’s a horse with a Tragic Backstory.

“Your name is kingly,” Aragorn tells the horse. Aragorn is also a king. Aragorn is projecting. 

Now that she’s explained the horse’s tragic backstory, Eowyn tries to get Aragorn to open up about his own Tragic Backstory™. (”I have heard of the magic of elves, but I did not look for it in a Ranger from the north….?”) She fails. Aragorn is briefly like “yup I was raised by elves,” does not elaborate, and then peaces out.

But as he leaves Aragorn dramatically says: “turn this fellow free; he has seen enough of war.”  

And Eowyn is forced to wonder whether Aragorn is talking about the horse….or about himself….

Then Aragorn has a Near-Death-Experience, but Arwen’s elven-magic (just roll with it) saves him. And the horse who comes to carry him to safety is none other than Brego.

It’s Brego, repaying the kindness and understanding Aragorn showed him earlier in the film! 

 Aragorn set Brego free, and in return Brego saves Aragorn’s life!

 Because they UNDERSTAND each other, as fellow free spirits who “have seen too much of war.”  Both of them are KINGLY but also WILD, they’ve lived through too much and lost people they cared about, and their strong wills cannot be tamed by anyone in Rohan!

 It’s beautiful. Aragorn canonically has Disney-Princess-level animal friendship powers. 

When they arrive at Helm’s Deep, Aragorn smiles and earnestly says in Elvish:  “thank you Brego, my friend.” And we know that Brego understands….