Monthly Archives: May 2019

The Fascinating Conservative Response to HBO’s ‘Chernobyl’

For the last four weeks I have been utterly engrossed by HBO’s production of Chernobyl  a dramatization of the Soviet nuclear disaster. I remember the news surrounding the event quite clearly and the series has from all accounts been a fantastically accurate portrayal of life within the Soviet Union.

For those unaware, Chernobyl was a nuclear power plant located in Soviet Ukraine that operated 4 reactors and during a safety test reactor number 4 exploded. Because Soviet reactor design did not include containment vessels the explosion spread highly radioactive debris around the facility and spewed radioactive particles into the atmosphere contaminating terrain from the Ukraine into Western Europe. The series pulls no punches depicting the horrific deaths by radiation poisoning; the herculean efforts to contain and clean up the disaster, and the search for the reason why a reactor thought impossible to explode nevertheless did explode. With a fantastic cast, deft direction, and superb writing the series is quickly becoming an ‘event.’

On social media and at conservative website I have been watching with interest as a sadly predictable reaction spreads through the waters on the right; ‘see, ‘socialism’ kills!’ The truth f the matter is that all audiences bring their own filters when they participate in any art. Part of the skill in receiving critiques is being able to correctly attribute what is a flaw in a piece versus what is a perception created by the critiquer’s own filters but it is still fascinating the lengths some will go to in order to avoid what is plainly in front of them.

What is the cost of lies?

That is the very first line uttered in Chernobyl  and it is the heart of the series’ theme. Time and time again throughout the series lies are central to the disaster, to the reaction to it, and to failures in dealing with the fall-out. In the first scene we are told the cost is not that lies might be believed but rather that when lies cloud the air we lose the ability to perceive what is true. That suborning fact, truth, and science to party positions will yield an inability to see what is fact and what is convenient myth. This is a story about the importance of truth and the courage to recognize it when the rewards for listening to lies are so terribly tempting. This is something more fundamental and far more reaching than ‘socialism.’

Do not get me wrong, the Soviet Union was a deeply evil government but the attempt to conflate that with American Liberalism is a lie, a convenient myth that exist solely to protect the party.

We are right now in a crisis of truth. It is never easy to disentangle self-interest from pleasing myths and lies but more than ever it is important that we do exactly that or our won disaster will hurtle down on our heads.

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The Worst Film Noir by the Worst Director

While exploring the content on some of the Roku streaming channels dedicated to Film Noir  I discovered what is possibly the worst Noir ever produced, Jail Bait  directed by what many consider to be the worst director of all time, the auteur responsible for Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959), Edward Wood Jr. Full spoilers follow.

Jail Bait(1954) has the elements of a film noir but like mayonnaise left in the summer sun it has gone quit bad. Don Gregor is the son of a wealthy, world-famous, Plastic Surgeon (This will be important later, putting Ed Wood ahead of Benioff and Weiss in understanding Chekov’s Gun.)  but Don, for *reasons* likes to carry pistols and hang around cheap hoodlums. At the movie’s opening Don’s sister Marilyn, played by Ed Wood’s girlfriend Dolores Fuller, bails Don out of jail after the police arrest him for carrying a revolver. After getting home and wasting time with stilted exposition laden dialog Don quickly takes his father pistol from its hiding space inside a book and leaves to hang out with his hoodlum friend, Vic Brady. Vic drags Don into a robbery of a theater that of course goes badly and end up with a retired cop dead and a woman shot. But it did net them 23,000 dollars which is over 200,000 dollars adjusted for inflation, so that theater must have been showing Avengers: Endgame. Within hours the radio’s exposition specific station is now broadcasting the news of the robbery, along with Don’s and Vic’s names and identities, here is where we learn that Don’s father is a ‘world famous’ plastic surgeon, but the reports even positively identify Don as the gun man who murdered the retired cop. Don goes back to his father, confesses to the crime and Dr. Gregor extracts a promise from Don to turn himself over to the police later, it has to be later for *reasons*. The police arrive and Don scoots out the back way. The police seem to know everything except the location of the back door but because Dr. Gregor is such a great upstanding citizen they don’t press him on anything. By the way the junior police lieutenant is played by legendary muscle man Steve Reeves but I doubt this is the movie Frank-N-Furter had in mind when he suggested an ‘old Steve Reeves movie’ in the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Any who Vic nabs Don coming out of Dr. Gregor’s officer and forces him back to Vic’s hideout where Vic’s girl Loretta is waiting. There more tedious dialog and to shut him up Vic kills Don. To escape the law, Vic decides that he needs a new face because apparently only the face is used to identify people as fingerprints an apparently lost tech in this alternate 1954.  Threatening to kill Don, who is of course already dead, Vic forces Dr. Gregor is perform surgery and give him a new face. Ed Wood apparently could not afford a hospital set in his budget, nor an operating room staff, so the doctor performs this major reconstructive surgery assisted by his daughter and with Vic chloroformed on a living room sofa. Now before the doctor could perform this living room plastic surgery he needed a basin of hot water, apparently facial reconstruction and delivering babies have the same equipment requirements, and while searching for a basin in Vic’s kitchen he discovers Don’s *standing* dead body. Dr. Gregor completes the surgery and advises Loretta that Vic must come to him in weeks when the healing will be complete. The two weeks pass and the police are baffled how two people can just vanish as they have found neither Vic nor Don and that just seems impossible. They get a call from Dr. Gregor and leave to get to his house. Vic and Loretta get the doctor’s house and before the bandages are removed the police bust in. Vic is smug and confident that he’s in no danger, assuring the police he is not the man that they are searching for. The bandages come off and Vic is revealed to have Don’s face. The police go to arrest ‘Don’ and there’s a gun fight which ends with Vic/Don dead face down in the house’s pool, a vision shameless stolen, poorly from Sunset Boulevard.

For those of you who have seen Ed Wood’s magnum opus Plan 9 From Outer Space you may have considered that the man had little talent as a filmmaker but I assure you that Ed’s skills had matured by the time he produced, wrote, and directed Plan 9. Jail Bait,and despite the poster the title has nothing to do with the women of the film, in addition to a most laughable surgical scene posses the dullest car chase ever committed to celluloid. Many noirs  have a nightclub scenes where the romantic interest of the protagonist performs some sultry song and while Jail Bait  has a night club scene in the middle of the movie it involves none of the characters, has no torch singer in a slinky dress but instead presents that most offensive of all club acts an honest to god white man in blackface minstrel show. So this move is not just bad, it’s deeply racist and has been, until the advent of streaming and YouTube, justifiably forgotten.

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Movie Review: Brightburn

Sunday morning I ventured alone to see the new film Brightburn  as this movie held little interest for my lovely sweetie-wife. The one line description of this feature is ‘The Superman origin story done as a horror film.’

This is a modestly budgeted movie, R-rated for horror, graphic violence and imagery that succeeds on its own terms. Produced by James Gun who is best known widely for the writer/director of the Guardians of the Galaxy  franchise inside the massive machine that is the MCU, though for those of us more familiar with his body work Brightburn  represents a return to the genre where we first discovered his unique vision, horror. Brightburnis also a family affair with Gunn’s brother Brain and cousin Mark writing the screenplay while David Yarovesky directed.

Elizabeth Banks and David Denman star as Torie and Kyle Breyer a loving couple living on an farm in the middle of Kansas struggling with infertility and desperate for a child when a spaceship, more of a pod than a ship, crashes on their property its sole occupant a infant boy. Passing the child off as one that they had adopted Torie and Kyle raise the boy they named Brandon as their own. When Brandon reaches the edge of adolescence his begins to manifest powers and abilities  unlike anything found in nature and the Breyer’s suddenly have to confront the reality behind their fairytale of adoption.

Brightburn  knows what it wants to achieve wastes very little screen time with subplots or extraneous stories focusing on its core theme, what if someone with fantastic powers was simply evil? Jackson A Dunn who plays Brandon caries off the role with a subtle and creepy performs managing to convey menace with only body posture and his expression. David Denman is perfectly adequate as Kyle but the real star of the movie is Elizabeth Banks as Torie, she walks that line portraying a mother who loves her son, does not want to believe the worst is true, and yet has the strength in the end to face reality.

The production design on the film is outstanding. Normally when someone is aware of the production design it is because it captures some sort of beauty, usually an unaffordable one to the audience or an unearthly one such as in Thor: Ragnarok  but neither case applied to Brightburn. The Breyer’s home reflect a reality I recognize, despite having inherited a sizable farm with a large home they are not people of wealth, not even solidly middle class but rather they exist towards the lower end of the middle class. Too often in Hollywood productions this is either made to look much richer than the characters are, with stylish furnishings and art works, or it is made to appear cheap and trashy, but Brightburn  avoids both extremes, presenting a realistic home, one I recognize from my own life.

The violence and injuries in this movie are graphic fully earning the R Rating from MPAA. This movie may not be suitable for younger audiences, certainly children should not see this movie, the themes of vengeance and parents turning against their children in addition to the bloody scenes are too intense for most children, for younger teenagers, depending on their level of maturity, caution should be exercised. Over all I enjoyed this movie and for anyone who is a fan of horror this should be on their list of movies to see.

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Memorial Day 2019

Another three day weekend has come and gone and while it is pleasant to have the extended time away from our regular routines it is also a somber time to reflect on those men and women that died while in service to our nation.

It is important to remember that this is not simply death on the battlefield, or lives lost in wars, both wise and foolish conflicts, but the passing of people as that served their greater community. Some did lose their lives in the anger, heat, fear, and confusion of battle, some lost their lives in the miscalculation during energetic trainings, some lost their lives due to carelessness and accidents, and some lost their lives in a myriad other ways. It is a dangerous profession serving in the armed forces. During my brief time I the service and on my single deployment to the Western Pacific more than one service person aboard my ship lost their life.

More important than moments of silence, and contemplations on their service, is the duty and obligation laid upon us the civilian authority to ensure that their sacrifices are never wasted, never discounted, never expended for mere political position. We are the ultimate arbiters of our government and the Armed Forces are an expression of that government around the globe. When we vote, we are making a statement about what sort of government and its relationship to its service member. More importantly we make a different statement if we do not vote, abstaining from our duty to those serving under the colors on our behalf, and discounting their dangerous and vital mission. To not vote, to ignore the vital issues and persons of our political processes is to dismiss as unimportant the lives of everyone who stepped forward and risked everything for the chance to serve.

I hope you paid a moment to honor the service and sacrifice that has been made on your account and when an election rolls around I hope you remember that it is there, where you advance a person to use their best judgment on your behalf, that you participate to fulfill that obligation to those who no longer can.

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Movie Review: Aladdin (2019)

Disney continues their adaptations of classic animated feature into live actions productions with Aladdin from 1992 now exploding across silver screen as a ‘bollywood’ inspired musical staring Will Smith and a cast of new faces. I am a major fan of the original animated Aladdin, I was blown away in the theater, grabbed the soundtrack at once, added to that with an album from Lea Salonga who provided Princess Jasmine’s singing voice, and of course the DVD. To give the 2019 feature a fair shake I did my best to set aside expectation and memories, judging the film on its own merits but the very nature of the movie and its production history makes that nearly impossible.

Perhaps the most famous stand out element of Aladdin 1992 is Robin Williams’ memorable vocal performance as the fantastic Genie but critical to that character and its integration is that fact that writers from the very start envision Williams performing the part and when he signed to do that molded more of the script as well as allowing serious latitude in Williams famous propensity for going off-script, something that became a seri9ous challenge for the animators. The match of concept to performer is a large part of the alchemy of film production. Will Smith in Aladdin 2019 has been hampered by the fact that not only will his performance be compared to Williams but that too much of the original Genie character remains in the script, forcing Smith to perform a character that was designed for a singular performer. At times this is a great weight holding back Smith from his own winning charm and screen charisma and at other points in the film he’s given a character more tuned to his performance and there he soars but the see-sawing between the two styles hurts the overall production and is unfair the Smith.

Sadly the other weight dragging down this movie is Mena Massoud as titular character Aladdin. let me clear it is not because Massoud is a bad actor or even a bad singer, were he paired with actors and singer of a comparable quality I doubt I would have seen him as a fault in this movie but caught between Will Smith and Naomi Scott his performance suffers. Naomi Scott is the break out actor of this movie. She is compelling, convincing, and her vocal talents as a singer are on a par with Lea Salonga’s iconic and mesmerizing voice. She commands the scenes she appears in, delivers dialog that at time is written flat with a realized character’s voice, and project a charisma that filled the theater, compared to her quite a few actors would have been found wanting.

Aside from those hard to ignore elements Aladdin 2019 over all is a decent film. Not one that I loved but certainly an enjoyable evening at the movies. The major beats and story elements remain unchanged, though a few have been given a twist. Jasmine now instead of existing solely as a prize has her own goals and gifts beyond wanting select her own husband and the reason for her isolation in the palace is more fully developed as part of her back-story. Jafar is given a little more to want but frankly it wasn’t quit enough and I think another writing pass on this character, just a few lines here and there, would have done wonders for fleshing him out. The CGI animation is spot on and the CGI tiger and monkey are amazing. A new subplot has been added concerning the new character of Dalia, Jasmine’s hand maiden, but essentially this is the same story but expanded and now with impressive effects. Aladdin  2019 is worth seeing at least once but it is unlikely to find a home in my video library.

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And Now Our Watch Has Ended

Spoilers Follow

So, Game of Thrones, that cultural moment when so many joined the geek community and discussed dragon, zombies, magic, and noble houses has reached it conclusion and many are left — well not the way that they thought they would be left.

As a viewer/consumer of the series I have feelings and as a writer I have feelings and those two identities don’t always agree on how things need to go down. I started the series about the time it began airing. A friend brought over a recording of the pilot episode and I was intrigued but certainly not completely sold and for the first few season that’s how it went. He would record bring over a disc and my sweetie-wife and I would enjoy, once HBO Now launched we got our own subscription stayed up to date on our own.

Over all I enjoyed the series, the shocking turns with Eddard’s Stark’s demise, followed by the Red Wedding, and a rich tapestry of political and social forces that constrained the character made for compelling storylines. (Side note: I speak only of the series, I never read any of the books. In general I read more SF than fantasy.) However once the show outpaced the novels the stories seemed simplified. Great houses fell and the positions seemed vacant, prizes to be awarded without any pesky ‘Bannermen’ seeing their shot and moving in for an increase in station. Winterfell seemed to burn down and rebuild with alarming speed and the vast distance that occupied entire episodes compressed to ‘down the block’ trips. Ravens carried news with the speed of the Internet and rescue missions from Dragon Stone to beyond the wall hardly earned a mention. Now we have come to the end, the final resolution to all this blood, fire, toil, and death and how do we feel?

Eh.

It was okay but hardly a great ending. For me endings are very special things, it is often in the ending that I feel we see the real point of the story Personally I cannot write a short story or novel unless I know how it ends, that is my north star, the reason for setting out on the journey to begin with and what did we end up with at the end of GoT? A decent person sits on the Throne, but that itself a somewhat inconsistent characterization. A season ago Bran was so disconnected from the rest of humanity he was unable to see the emotional trauma he left in his wake, dismissing people who had borne great sacrifices without even a thank you and now he’s a wise and compassionate rule? This is an ending that has been hammered into place and not one that grew organically from the characters and the theme. I never fell into the Daenerys is a hero camp. She never actually seemed to care about the people she ‘liberated’ and instead they only seemed to server her ego and inflating her reputation as a breaker of chains when in actuality she simply broke and re-forged them to herself. Her cruelty laid the groundwork for her eventual turn, but as with the vast distances of Westeros it was compressed beyond any sensible recognition. Arya I liked much more but in the end her story was also cut short and badly constructed. Her deep motivation was seeming abandoned by one ‘special episode’ chat and that broke with season of suffering and drive that had brought her to this place and time. It could have worked had they taken a little more time and performed the emotional transformation as a consequence of the final battle at Winterfell when Arya truly seemed to meet the god of Death and learned that when we say ‘not today’ we mean not just for ourselves but for those we do not kill today. She then could have left Cersi to others ready to find something other than death to live for. Jon’s ending seemed under paid. If Daenerys was the love his life and yet his duty compelled him to kill her he needed to pay a far higher cost than exile. Peter Sagal, host of NR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, had an alternative ending for Jon that worked wonderfully. Basically after killing his love Jon would sit on the throne and order Drogon to melt it and kill him. Sansa had the best and most character arc satisfying ending, she learned from everyone who tormented her and became a powerful figure of the north.

Still, I have seen worse endings and overall I enjoyed the ride but I will view D & D future project with some suspicion as it seems clear that best elements of the show came from Martin and not their minds.

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More Thoughts on Noir

Recently I have been re-reading my SF/Noir novel Vulcan’s Forge  in anticipation of editor’s notes as we proceed towards our early 2020 publication date and, along with watching classic noirson streaming while reading some of the classic works in their original forms, I have been thinking about the nature of the genre and what really makes up this beloved form.

In previous posts I have discussed how one of the principal driving factor of noiris to me is how characters are consumed by their appetites and I still hold that this is an essential elements in noir  fiction, be it film or literature, but I am now thinking there is an additional element, beyond the stylized ones, that feels central to the genre and that is the conflict between the character and their culture.

In noir  fiction characters are often immoral and that immorality is judged against the larger culture that character comes from.  Murder, theft, and unsanctioned sexual activity are the hallmarks of noir  movies and from the classic period running through the 1940s and 1950s acting on these desires places a person firmly beyond the boundaries of ‘polite society.’ Even when the heroes of noir fiction aren’t murderous insurance salesmen but rather the hard-bitten border-line alcoholic private detective they still transgress far beyond anything accept my society at large. Sam Spade before being entangled in a hunt for the ‘black bird’ and temptation of great wealth it represents is betraying both his partner and societies morals by his affair with Archer’s wife. Time and time again the main characters in noir  reject society’s conformity, sometimes they do so with an internal code such as Spade or Jeff Bailey in Out of the Past  or in other instances they simply violate society’s rules out of greed and lust such as Walter Neff in Double Indemnity.

All of this prompts the idea, that I am sure is far from original with myself, that a close reading of noir, either in a film or prose piece, can also been seen as a commentary on the society surrounding those characters. This is doubly so when the noiris combine with another genre such as fantasy or science fiction where the society is likely to be as fictional as the protagonists leveling an additional responsibility on the creator to be detailed and thoughtful about their narrative and what it says about human nature both at the individual and societal levels.

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Political Accessories

When you get dressed for a night out or for many people just getting dressed at all, there is the core outfit you assembled, colors and shapes that reflect the mood, your tastes, and the style you best thinks fits for the events to come, and then in addition there are accessories, rings or pendants, watches, and little elements of flash that accentuate the overall ensemble but are not essential to its completion. Politics, what we believe and what we support, either with our votes or with our time, toil, and treasure, is much the same.

We have the core elements of political philosophy, those things that are at the very center of what we believe, that reflect our understanding of the world and in a very real sense our understanding of what it means to be human. (This is why all narrative art is at some level also political art because it reflects an understanding of people and that requires a judgment as to what people actually are and that is always a political judgment.) Ideally, at least in my opinion, that core political fashion should come from careful consideration and deliberative thought about what is and isn’t permissible though I suspect for many it is born from desire, from what is wanted personally rather than any carefully constructed framework. No matter the origins, the core political fashion is the driver and essential nature of a person’s political actions, how they vote, how they expend time, toil, and treasure is the only true indicator of what they believe and hold valuable, everything else is an accessory and ultimately discardable.

But what about those accessories that you own but never wear? Watches, bracelets, and accentuations that you tell people you like, that are valuable to you and yet when it comes time to choose an outfit you never select one for which those are complementary, what about those items? Your actions and your choices make it clear that those items, no matter the protestations that they have emotional value, are valueless and the same goes for political accessories.

Everyone has a grab bag of political positions, very, very few people forge a political identity solely from cool, reasoned, principles. Because so many people have this odd-ball collection of positions, some become the ignored watches and bracelets of their political philosophy, items of claimed value that never influence their time, toil, and treasure. This is a natural byproduct of the compromise that lies at the heart of political action. Politics is the realm of the possible not a lofty idealized system divorced from the realities of human frailty, limited resources, and enemy action. However if there positions that you never vote for, if your own desires and need always outweigh those of your fellow citizens as their rights as assaulted, as the freedom is abridged, then perhaps it is time to admit that those concerns really are of no importance to you, that what really matters is getting your and too bad for others who lose in the process.

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The Obligatory Daenerys Targaryen Post

Naturally no one who cares about spoilers and who has not seen Season 8 Episode 5 should read this post.

 

I am of two minds about the events of The Bells  where Daenerys gives her rage and anger full reign destroying most of King’s Landing with dragon fire. (Along with the occasional sympatric explosion her father’s still existent stores of Wildfire cached around the city.) Quite a few fans are upset about this ‘turn’ where a character that

Photo Credit: HBO

they had looked upon as a hero, as a symbol of someone over coming tremendous adversity to achieve greatness suddenly is seen as monstrous, petty, and cruel. However to me this has been a moment of revelation where freed from the constraints of others Daenerys exhibits her true character, a character that is monstrous, petty, and cruel, a character that has been evident from the beginning of the series if you cared to pay attention.

When Daenerys was a pawn in her older brother’s schemes to regain the Iron Throne of Westeros, she showed no ambition for herself, accept that Viserys as the older and male heir had the legitimate claim to be the sovereign. However immediately upon Viserys’ brutal murder at her husband’s hands, a death she shed no tears at her lack of sorrow accepted because of Viserys’ own cruelty and stupidity, she begins asserting her claim as Queen of Westeros and attempts, repeatedly, to get his Dothraki husband Drogo to invade and conquer the seven kingdoms so she can take what is hers. At no point is she tempted to remain the Khalessi to a powerful Khal, to live within this new community with the love she has discovered, all that is to be tossed aside and used to achieve her desire of power and title based solely upon her name. Long before she claimed ‘Breaker of Chains’ she sought to establish herself as an absolute monarch. Daenerys’ lust for power has always been present.

For years Daenerys fought to claim her throne, suffering bitter losses including her husband Drogo, and repeated betrayals by those she trusted. It is important to note that at nearly every turn when faced with an enemy, traitor, or someone unwilling to accept her unquestionable authority, and with the power to inflict punishment upon them, Daenerys has chosen the cruelest methods available as punishment, and that method was often fire. Now my point here is not that Daenerys should have ‘turned the other cheek’ or otherwise forgiven those that robbed her of children, subjected her husband to a living death, stolen her dragons, sought to enslave her, or refused to bend the knee. Westeros is a brutal land and death to your enemies is a norm, it is the manner of those deaths that is the heart of her character. Burned alive upon funereal pyres or from the mouths of dragon are for the vast majority of people the most horrific death imaginable. Also note how throughout the series fire is a motif that is repeated and the use of fire by characters such as Daenerys father the ‘mad King’ burning suspected enemies alive in the throne room or seeking to burn all of King’s Landing, Gregor Clegane, burning and scaring his little brother Sandor for playing with his toys, or Melisandre, the Red Priestess, who burns children alive as sacrifices to her god. All character we are expected to consider as evil and yet when it come to Daenerys this propensity for execution by flame is excused.

It is a tribute to the writing and to Emile Clarke performance that we empathize with Daenerys so completely through the years that her repeated acts of cruelty as dismissed with the simple thought ‘They Deserved It.’ Of course that is the crux of the matter, with all these other character, their use of fire and flame is seen as horrific acts, at best misguided as they obsessively chased goals that they have deemed sufficient to justify these barbarous actions, but with Daenerys we are in her point of view, not watching horrified from some other character. It is no surprise at all that Daenerys, stripped of her trusted advisors, thwarted in her life’s consuming goal, and crushed by the twin revelation that the man she loves can’t love her in return and like Viserys has the more legitimate claim on her treasured prized, lashes out, giving in to her well shown nature of punishing with fire and blood. Her slaughter of innocents at King’s Landing is no ‘turn’ it is the culmination of years of character and if you loved Daenerys as she crucified hundred perhaps it would be best to look and understand how easily we are lead astray from what we consider good and just. The same is true for Daenerys lust for power. Never has she offered compromise, she had been pleaded and wheedled into it from time to time but she offers nothing to others except her terms. The North cannot be allowed to be free, even if such freedom would acquire her allied against her war with the Lannisters. Daenerys gives up nothing and makes enemies where should win friends because it is her destiny by birthright alone to the absolute monarch of all seven kingdoms. Despite he constant tirades against tyranny she is blind to the fact that she herself is a tyrant. The Bellsis the logical culmination of Daenerys’ choices and personality.

I said I was of two minds about this episode and here’s my other mind.

While the conclusion of her arc is on point the execution is flawed. Bereft of GRRM’s books as guidance the shows writers have fallen back in tricks, tropes, plot driven coincidences, and hand waving more typical of television scripts. Vital information is withheld to create ‘surprises’ that are in actuality lies to the audience, time is compressed in the sake of speed versus more credible world building, and characters have lost all subtlety and this episode parades these flaws, undermining the powerful commentary of the slippery nature of righteousness into evil that Daenerys’ arc has provided.

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Two Statistics

With the surge in draconian abortion laws sweeping the nation as conservative forces see glimmers of victory with the current make-up of the Supreme Court I think it is instructive to look at two disparate statistics.

Mind you, this is not an exhaustive argument, the reason why I consider myself to pro-choice are legion and at the heart of that reasoning is the simple fact that people should be allowed to live as they wish, including getting elective medical procedures that they want.

Maternal Mortality:

NPR and Pro-Publica published a finding on maternal mortality in the United States. The shocking and horrifying figure is 26.4 deaths per 100,000. Out of every 100,000 pregnant women 26.4 die from complications due to that pregnancy. (Other industrialized nations have far lower rates ranging from 3.8 to 9.2 per 100,000.) To carry a pregnancy to term is a decision that risks your very life and certainly the instances where the state can compel you to risk your life should be held to be most stringent of standards and not merely to suit the whim of moralistic politicians.

An argument I have heard is that the state can compel women to not have abortions to ‘save a life.’ First off that presumes an embryo or fetus is the same as a person and that’s something I reject but even accepting that standard yields strange and vast powers for the state. For example could the state compel someone to donate a kidney to ‘save a life?’ However let’s put aside the idea of the state grabbing people and dragging them of to suffer unwanted medical procedures to save a stranger and look at another statistic.

In 2017 the FBI reported the national murder rate to be 5.3 murders 100,000 people. An argument I have often heard against nearly all forms of firearm regulation is that people have a right to self-defense and such regulations put people in danger from denying them the tools they may need to exercise that right of self-defense. Of course we are currently experiencing an epidemic of mass shootings as unbalanced people, nearly always men and far more often then not white men, cowardly murder unarmed people in schools, public places, and houses of worship, sure to ‘save a life’ these rights could be as trampled as cavalierly as a woman’s right to determine her own destiny. After all a pregnant woman faces a death that is five times as likely as random person is to be murdered.

Naturally these statistics are unlikely to cause anyone to change their minds on either abortion or firearm regulation, both issues transcend any sort of reasoned position and are more strongly held as a marker for group and individual identity. The core driving factors are for the most part quite simple, anything that ‘tramples’ a right ‘I’ want to exercise is tyranny and those that ‘trample’ the rights of others or right I do not wish or cannot exercise aren’t being trampled at all but the product of ‘rational’ restrictions. It is much more difficult to recognize the rights of other than it is to vigorously fight for your own.

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