From: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org (chakram-refugees-digest) To: chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Subject: chakram-refugees-digest V3 #14 Reply-To: chakram-refugees@smoe.org Sender: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk chakram-refugees-digest Wednesday, January 15 2003 Volume 03 : Number 014 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [chakram-refugees] Flirty Xena [cr ] Re: [chakram-refugees] Flirty Xena [cr ] [chakram-refugees] Xena Multipath Adventure at Dollar Tree [Xwpacolyte@ao] Re: [chakram-refugees] Flirty Xena [IfeRae@aol.com] [chakram-refugees] [OT] Harem [KLOSSNER9@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 19:09:49 +1300 From: cr Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Flirty Xena On Tuesday 14 January 2003 10:53, IfeRae@aol.com wrote: > >> OK, so how then do you reconcile A&C with your subtext views? I > >> thought > > that did cause you a problem? >> > > I don't have to reconcile anything. A&C is in the "best friends" folder of > my brain. It has no impact on the subtext part of my brain. This is how I > avoid it causing me a problem, which it might otherwise. Understand now? Ahh. Perfectly. > >Rather than choosing one over the other, I simply > > appreciate what I can of both. > > A sort of voluntary schizophrenia ;) Actually, I applaud it. It > certainly increases the enjoyment you get out of the series, I think.>> > > Yes! And, ironically, contributed to my mental health, as otherwise > certain aspects of XWP might have driven my logical mind insane. Hmmm... like my careful 'ignore' of OAAA, which would have driven me round the twist if I attempted to come up with any rational explanation. Ditto MWF, which I cultivate a careful mental blank over All the other eps I can handle, I just carefully 'overlook' the more significant YAXIs. cr ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 19:26:47 +1300 From: cr Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Flirty Xena On Tuesday 14 January 2003 11:49, IfeRae@aol.com wrote: > << This is why I figured she'd drop sexual enjoyment also. I still think > that's what usually held her back from consummating most of her > sexual interest sparks.>> > > Again, that goes a bit far for me, mainly because I saw as much suggestion > that she would do so if she had a mind to. I'm sure she would have. (Even with a subtext interpretation, I'd merely add '.. but for the subtext' ) > > Okay, forget my painstaking reply above. Grrrrrr. Are you > > agreeing with Thel or not? > > On what? SMILE>> > > On whether the chicken or egg came first, apparently. Don't like chickens much. Hate eggs. Hate KFC too. ;) > Hmmmm. Yeah--this is a motif, you're right. BUT she only betrays them as > don't want to change for the better. Or who feel they *can't*.>> > > True, but I don't think that lessens the pain of an honorable person who > must turn against someone she once had feelings for and who weren't > prepared for her to become someone else. I don't see her as having to > judge them as "bad" people, just because they don't follow her example or > to rationalize what she has to do to them because she's trying to be > "good." Actually, that sentence of KT's - "she only betrays them as don't want to change for the better" - reminded me of Najara. If you substitiute 'killed' for 'betrayed'. I didn't like Najara ;) cr ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 08:35:32 EST From: Xwpacolyte@aol.com Subject: [chakram-refugees] Xena Multipath Adventure at Dollar Tree Just wanted to let y'all know that one of the Dollar Tree stores in Mobile, AL has the Xena Multipath Adventure game "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun." The stock apparently came from a Wal Mart inventory clearance because many are still marked with a Wal Mart price sticker. Don't know if Dollar Tree's in other parts of the country would have gotten any of this stock, but for $1.00 it's worth checking. XWPacolyte Cupid and Psyche... Antony and Cleopatra... Xena and Gabrielle. ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 13:01:46 EST From: IfeRae@aol.com Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Flirty Xena In a message dated 1/14/03 2:12:34 AM Central Standard Time, cr@orcon.net.nz writes: << Actually, that sentence of KT's - "she only betrays them as don't want to change for the better" - reminded me of Najara. If you substitiute 'killed' for 'betrayed'. I didn't like Najara ;) >> Excellent point. I rarely saw Xena as hypocritically moralistic, but as unapologetically honest about the double standard she often applied. I'm not disagreeing with KT. I simply think what she says might be *our* rationale, but I don't think it's Xena's. To her, a betrayal is a betrayal -- no less painful or possibly unfair because her reasons were "right." - -- Ife ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 22:14:35 EST From: KLOSSNER9@aol.com Subject: [chakram-refugees] [OT] Harem Last week the History Channel had a two hour documentary titled Harem, about the harem of the Ottoman sultans in the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. It cast an interesting light on the situation which inspired parts of the Gurkhan episode. In Gurkhan a girl was excited about coming to the harem because she expected a better quality of life and more exciting lifestyle than in her village. But she is quickly disillusioned by the brutality with which the women are treated and is happy to escape with the others at the end. The docu covered the Seraglia (the Sultanbs harem) in the16th and 17th centuries. The women were considered slaves. They were mostly Christians, from the Balkans or Ukraine, since it was illegal to enslave Moslems. They came to the harem in their late teens or early twenties. They did not expect rescue from anyone like Xena. They had to do the best they could in the circumstances. There were usually between 100 and 600 women in the harem. This enormous number was a matter of prestige for the sultans. Of course, most of the women rarely saw the sultan and never slept with him. The less favored women were not idle. They cleaned the place and did embroidery. They were able to sell their embroidery outside the palace through intermediaries and received the money. They were taught Turkish and apparently how to read andwrite. There was nothing in the docu about brutality to the women, except that women could be executed for having sex with anyone other than the sultan. The place was staffed by eunuchs, but sometimes the castration was botched and the supposed eunuch could function. All the eunuchs were black, so that any children they produced could be identified. Sleeping with the sultan was the path to success and sometimes to power. The docu identified four women who had long-term relations with sultans and attained considerable political power. They gave orders to officials and army commanders. There was at least one case of a women assaulting another woman, from jealousy over the sultanbs favors. But nobody got killed, as almost happened in Xena. A Sultan was supposed to enjoy several women, but not too many. He was not supposed to favor one woman over others. He was supposed to produce one child with a woman, then move on to another. As Aphrodite could have told them, love did not always follow the plan. Several sultans fell in love and produced several children by the same woman. Another sultan went to the other extreme, became very randy and had children by many women. Both too many children by one woman, and too many children by too many women, were problems because children of harem women could succeed to the throne. The grimmest part of harem life was that the womenbs sons were often killed. Girls were safe enough but sons were potential heirs. Each sultan would choose his successor; on the sultanbs death his other sons, the successorbs brothers and half-brothers, were killed to prevent plots and possible civil war. There was at least one occasion when a harem woman had to urge her son to kill his brothers, her other sons, to secure his succession. On one occasion 19 potential heirs, some young men, some children, were killed. There was a public reaction against this in the early 17th century and the policy was relaxed. Extra heirs were not killed automatically but were held in the bgolden cage,b a luxury prison within the palace. They were permitted to live to adulthood, but many were accused of plotting and executed. The new policy was really that only the killing of children was out; boys were allowed to grow up but were killed soon after they became adults. Lest we feel too superior to the Turks, we should remember that the same sort of thing happened in Europe. During King Johnbs reign, his young nephew Arthur disappeared forever. So did the two nephews of Richard III. By the 18th century Europeans had adopted the Turkish policy b inconvenient heirs were allowed to reach adulthood, then killed. In 1741 Ivan VI, a child Tsar of Russia, was overthrown and put in prison. He was allowed to live until he was 24, then killed. Similarly, Napoleonbs only son, the King of Rome (called bNapoleon IIb by Bonapartists), was held by the Austrians until he was 21; then he died, undoubtedly killed by orders of Metternich. During the Reign of Terror, Robespierrebs government was so frightened of the only son of Louis XVI and MarieAntoinette that they went back to the medieval way and killed him quietly while he wasstill a child. King Gregorbs dilemma in bCradleb b what to do with anunwanted heir b happened in real history again and again. Amazingly, the Turkish Seraglio was not even the largest harem in the world. A couple years ago, when the Jodie Foster film Anna and the King came out, the History Channel had a documentary on Anna Leonowens, the publicity- mad English tutor to the son of the King of Siam. During her time the King had a palace containing thousands of women. Nobles from all over the kingdom kept giving the king more and more women. This was eventually abolished and the women were freed. Anna Leonowens took credit for this reform, certainly without justification. Boeotian, the lurker king ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ End of chakram-refugees-digest V3 #14 *************************************