From: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org (chakram-refugees-digest) To: chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Subject: chakram-refugees-digest V3 #369 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 Tuesday, December 9 2003 Volume 03 : Number 369 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [chakram-refugees] [OT] Warrior Queen [cr ] [chakram-refugees] Entelechy Destiny Fate and big collisions [Brule31x63@] Re: [chakram-refugees] Entelechy Destiny Fate and big collisions [IfeRae@] [chakram-refugees] Re: Entelechy Destiny Fate and big collisions [KTL Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] [OT] Warrior Queen On Mon, 08 Dec 2003 15:47, KLOSSNER9@aol.com wrote: > The film sneers at the Romans, showing a condescending Claudius and a > nasty Nero. The Romans repeatedly call the Britons "terrorists" and Nero > once says the Romans are fighting for "the good Celts -- there must be > some of them." This appears to be a shot fired by the BBC in its very > severe struggle with the Blair and Bush governments over Iraq. The BBC > has effectively charged Blair and Bush with lies about Iraq. Blair has hit > back strongly and threatened to take away the BBC's state subsidy, which > could destroy the BBC. The stakes could hardly be higher, and the > references to U.S./U.K. policy in Warrior Queen were not coincidental. Hmmm. I seem to recall that other productions have hardly been kind to the Romans. S3/S4/S5 of Xena, for instance. And it's not as if *anybody* has ever portrayed Nero in a sympathetic light . However, there were also a couple of decent Romans in 'Warrior Queen', such as the Roman general. I do agree, the 'magic' scenes didn't mesh particularly well with the rest of the movie. I saw the movie and it never occurred to me to translate it into modern politics. It was a British/Romanian (!) co-production, I really don't remember if it was commissioned by the BBC or an independent. Umm, I unearthed this report (written during the filming) from the Sunday Times. Note that it says the movie was being made for *ITV* (so did the Sunday Herald). ITV is Independent Television, the Beeb's competition. So much for that theory ;) Anyway, the report is interesting enough - and demonstrates that Pacific Renaissance were far from alone in having their problems during filming - that I've attached it here. My favourite quote: "Unfortunately, the extra being raped won't stop laughing." cr Sunday Times, July 27, 2003 Chariots of satire: The battle to make a TV epic about the warrior queen Boudicca A TV epic about the warrior queen Boudicca has been filmed in Romania. But did the cast shield themselves from the dramas that went on behind the scenes? Report: Richard Johnson Drama school teaches you 'dagger'. Even 'broadsword'. But nobody - not even the RSC - teaches you 'chariot'. Which is why, when she was first offered the role of Boudicca, Alex Kingston decided to build her own - out of a dustbin. 'A friend pulled me round the streets on a bike,' she says, 'while I threw spears into people's gardens. Until we got stopped by a traffic cop. Luckily, he knew who Boudicca was. I think that's why he let us off. That, and the fact that his buddies would have laughed if he turned up at the station and said, 'Hey, guys, I've just booked my first chariot.'' But that was LA. In the summer. And Boudicca - a two-hour drama for ITV - is filming in Bucharest. In the winter. The fields are rutted and muddy, and Kingston's chariot-training isn't helping. She is riding something more authentic than a dustbin, but it's every bit as difficult to manoeuvre. And her gypsy horses - $50 the pair - don't exactly help. One has thrown itself off the bridge and the production crew has been dispatched to find horse tranquillisers. It hasn't been a happy shoot. Props have gone missing - including jewellery, a severed head and a severed hand. 'We're working with people who don't understand film-making the way the British or the Americans do,' says Kingston. 'For instance, I haven't seen anybody taking continuity photographs today. So we're filming a battle scene, and background artists [extras] arrive with different face paint. It's left to the actors to check if the horses have any buckles showing. And to check if the Iceni warriors have remembered to take their woolly hats off.' The set is far from professional. The Iceni warriors are playing with their wigs. They remove them then put them on again - backwards. Which they think is hilarious. As Romanian wigs weren't of a good enough quality, the costume department had to FedEx Britain. But they could only get 60 back-up wigs - for an Iceni army of 100. So the warriors who are lucky enough to have wigs are manhandled to the front of the shot. The director can only pray that the wigs are still facing the right way. Hollywood it ain't. The rain is becoming heavy, which doesn't help Kingston's mood. She's ready to lay waste to Colchester, even though she can't quite remember if she should slash or stab the Romans. A warrior queen needs to know such things. The swordmaster decides she should do both. Boudicca will ride through the city, slashing and stabbing, before she torches the market. The market is, after all, selling historically inaccurate vegetables. Potatoes weren't actually available in ancient Britain. The swordmaster seems to think if she lays waste fast enough, nobody will notice. This isn't the first screen adaptation of Boudicca's story. There was a silent movie called Boadicea, starring Phyllis Neilson-Terry, in 1928. And there was a TV drama called Warrior Queen, starring Sian Phillips and Nigel Hawthorne. But that was back in 1978, when the Iceni heroine was still known as Boadicea. Historians still argue about the name. It's thought she was nicknamed Boudicca (or Boudiga) after the Celtic goddess of victory - it was the Roman historians who changed her name to Boadicea. The story of Boudicca is contradictory and confused. But we do know that she was married to Prasutagus, the king of the Iceni and a loyal client of Rome. When he died he left his money to his two daughters and appointed his wife as regent. But the Romans wanted to reassert the primacy of the empire. Boudicca was taken hostage, stripped and 'put to the rods' in front of her family, while her daughters were raped. She vowed to wreak revenge and, in AD61, led an army of 120,000 tribesmen in bloody rebellion. Colchester was the first campaign in her war against the Romans. It was an almighty conflagration. To this day, archeologists are still turning over red, scorched earth - five metres down - on digs in Colchester, London and St Albans. They call it the Boudiccan Horizon. But if the rain gets much harder, today's conflagration of Colchester is going to be short-lived. There are some advantages to filming in Romania. The countryside is away from flight paths, motorways and pylons - which makes it easy to dress as the 1st-century AD. And extras charge only $20 a day. It shows. 'What irks me,' says Kingston, 'is we'll do the best job we can. And then, as it's a good story - it's a female Braveheart - Harvey Weinstein will come along and say, 'Let's make this into a multi-million-dollar movie.' He'll bring in a swanky star, and do it with heated trailers and running water. But I'm still having to flush my toilet with Coca-Cola.' The Romanians are keen to make the most of this. It started when Cold Mountain, the $80m film starring Nicole Kidman, Renie Zellweger and Jude Law, began shooting in the Transylvanian Alps. The civil-war epic offered farmers free TVs in exchange for the use of their land, and #100 for each animal they kept locked up during filming. Farmers expected the same from Boudicca, but the budget of the ITV film is nearer $5m. The local mayor had to be brought in to mediate. Hugo Speer looks comfortable on his horse. Even though he's only ridden once before - on the beach in Mauritius. And on holiday (I'm guessing here) he didn't have Romans trying to stab his face. He plays Dervalloc, the most fearsome of the Iceni warriors. 'So if you drop your sword, fart and laugh, you'll look a twat,' he says. The make-up designer Marella Shearer is tending to Speer's war paint. Her inspiration came from the Book of Kells, a Latin translation of the Gospels interleaved with intricate illustrations. It was later than Boudicca (around AD800) but it gave Shearer some ideas. 'For the warriors I settled on woad green, and a make-up that looks like mud. But I went for silver in Hugo's hair. It's authentic: younger warriors sometimes mixed chalk and mud. I mix up baby powder and gel.' Speer is grateful; it's a sweeter-smelling alternative. He is, quite clearly, ready to unleash hell. 'The thrill of galloping with your horse, when your face is painted, your sword is brandished and your army is behind you - who wouldn't be excited by that?' But until the director is ready, Speer is patiently walking his horse up and down. Kingston smiles. 'This is a very, very close production. In a strange sense it's now more about doing it for one another. All of us would love to walk away because it's been so tough.' As if to illustrate the point, her horses start pulling at their reins. 'What's 'left' in Romanian?' she shouts. But nobody knows. At least she doesn't need to contend with a period saddle as well. The Iceni saddles have horns in all the corners, and have been coming apart in mid-gallop. 'My crotch has split again,' says Boudicca's elder daughter, Isolda, giving the crew a flash of her white thermals. She should count herself lucky. The extras weren't issued with thermals, and they don't have anywhere to dry their wet clothes. It's difficult to believe that this could be any kind of model for the future of British TV production. But Gub Neal, who owns the production company behind Boudicca, disagrees. 'These days,' he says, 'budgets are very restricted, and you're only ever going to get half the money you need to make something this challenging. The last thing I commissioned [when Neal was head of drama at Channel 4] was Shackleton. And I couldn't see something that expensive happening again. So you've got to work out other ways of doing things. And battle with the logistics.' Neal knows all about battling with logistics. After all, he's just finished shooting another film in Romania - all about Sherlock Holmes. Which meant building Baker Street in Bucharest. So he understands the frustrations, even sympathises with them. 'But that's offset by the fact that you don't get to work on material like Boudicca every day. And, to be honest, if you don't like the food and the atmosphere, and you find it tough working with the Romanians, go back and do a studio piece - go back and do The Bill.' The stunt co-ordinator, Tom Delmar, is rehearsing the foreground of the shot. Unfortunately, the extra being raped won't stop laughing. He's had the same problem with three girls this morning. After the 15th run-through, he gave up - - he has other problems to solve. As the extras rehearse their charge on Colchester, blood-curdling cries of war turn into roars of laughter. 'Well,' says one warrior, in faltering English, 'we're going to kill Romans - why not enjoy it?' But Kingston isn't laughing. She is too cold, and holds Andrew Davies, the busiest writer on British TV, personally responsible. She worked with him on Moll Flanders, which was a romping success, watched by 12m. 'But this should have been filmed in the summer,' says Kingston. 'It should have been an easy eight-week shoot. But Andrew Davies didn't deliver the script when he was meant to. So we're having to struggle through now.' To be fair, it didn't help that Kingston's filming schedule on ER was so rigid. 'Before I left to come here,' says Kingston, 'the cast said, 'Oh, Alex, we wish we could come with you.' They have no idea. Only English actors would do this. If this production was staffed by Americans, they'd have left on the second day. They wouldn't have been able to handle the lack of star treatment. I've always known I'm more of a trouper than other actresses. If I commit to a project, I commit to it passionately. Boudicca has just confirmed that.'When the director finally shouts 'Action,' that's exactly what he gets. Kingston is terrifying, leading the Iceni as they create chaos, crisscrossing in random patterns to make a mess of the Roman formation. The Romans make a wall with their shields, compacting the Iceni so they can't brandish their swords. The Romans stab their enemy through the wall. It's a tactic that explains why 80,000 Iceni died in the uprising. And only 400 Romans. Of course, the figures are from the Romans - it helps if you're the ones writing the history. Delmar recruited his entire stunt team in Romania, even though he doesn't speak a word of the language. He trawled the local athletics clubs looking for talent. 'When I was working on Gladiator,' he says, 'it was very choreographed. Braveheart was less so. There were days on the Braveheart battlefield when you would just cut and slash and make it up as you went along. But with this, because we had so little time, I've given the team certain moves and allowed them to develop their own fights. To be honest, the result is some of the most realistic action I've ever seen.' For the close-ups of the attack, the warriors are using swords made from Durilium, a lightweight aluminium alloy, with a sheen that catches the sunlight. Not that there is any sunlight. For long-range shots, the warriors use polycarbonate. It's safer for hand-to-hand pillaging. Kingston is in the thick of it. The only let-down is that her chariot doesn't have knives on the wheels. It wouldn't have been authentic. 'I'd love to have seen them cutting into the calves of strong Roman soldiers,' says Davies, 'but my researchers are more responsible than me.' The Iceni camp has been built two hours west of the battlefield, in the reeds of the Romanian national park. As part of a deal with the government, it's being left intact once filming is over. The authorities want to use it for corporate hospitality. The real Iceni base was in East Anglia, which wasn't drained in the days of Boudicca. So the design team decided to build the encampment on stilts. It's an educated guess. All that's known for certain is that the Iceni lived in round rather than square houses; the rest is pure supposition. Gub Neal liked the freedom that gave him. 'I knew a huge amount would turn on who adapted the story of Boudicca,' he says. 'And having worked with Andrew on Moll Flanders, I thought he would be perfect. Moll Flanders was similar because the original book had quite a thin story. Andrew took liberties with it because it just wasn't fat enough. And Boudicca had a similar sort of premise. So I told him to have fun with it.' We know what Boudicca looked like. According to the Roman historian Cassius Dio, she was 'huge of frame, terrifying of aspect, and with a harsh voice. A mass of bright red hair fell to her knees'. So Kingston was perfect for the role. 'I don't think I've got a contemporary face,' she says. 'I've got a face that belongs to the 18th century or earlier. It's the same with my body. I don't have a boyish physique, but a more old-fashioned form. That works well for period dramas like Boudicca. 'You need someone you believe could wield a sword and kill, with the strength to bring the disparate tribes of Britain together and defeat the Romans.' Kingston is, apparently, just such a person. She sees herself as a typical Pisces, 'all ditzy and dreamy,' she says. 'A woman who can't make a decision. It would be nice to play a shy dormouse for a change. I can do it. But it's not something people would think of casting me for.' Davies was thrilled to bring Boudicca to life. Although he is better known for adapting the work of other writers - from Pasternak to Austen - it was nice to be given a free rein. 'In Boudicca I'm more exposed as a writer,' says Davies. 'That was exciting.' There was a lot about Boudicca that intrigued Davies. 'Especially how her battle with the Roman empire has parallels with present situations in world politics,' he says. 'The Romans would have called Boudicca a terrorist. She'd have called herself a freedom fighter. I think the druids are a bit like the Taliban.' Not that he's written Boudicca as a metaphor. It is what it is - a rattling good story. 'And I haven't put in any more sex and violence than there was in the original,' he says. 'There was quite enough to be going on with.' It was a complicated script to write. 'Which is why it was so late. I didn't know how the Iceni should talk, and I wasn't sure how modern to make their dialogue. Gub said, 'Go for it, make it contemporary.' I suppose it's a way of easing yourself into writing in a more demotic way, to use a lot more 'f---s'. Some have been cut out, but at one stage I worried that it was going to turn into an amalgam of Braveheart, I Claudius, and Carry on Boudicca. Now I'm not sure. We'll have to wait and see how it turns out on screen.' ========================================================= 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, 9 Dec 2003 10:22:20 EST From: Brule31x63@aol.com Subject: [chakram-refugees] Entelechy Destiny Fate and big collisions Well, Ife, Thelonius (CR) & KT have been circling the Drain of Fate all presenting various considerations of the episode `When Fates Collide`. As a Gabfan, I thought I'd intervene, but my one pot-shot just stirred the juices, I guess. Gabfans are rather more likely than Xenafans to enjoy `Fates`. Conversely, Xenafans will like `The Path Not Taken` much more than Gabfans because `TPNT` gives an utterly Xenacentric view of things. It's all a matter of priviledge, you see. In `WFC` the PRIVILEDGED point of view was with Caesar & Alti - with Evil EVIL, in other words. The only goodguys with a claim on knowing what was going on were Gabrielle & Joxer; not Xena. To me, the purpose of the episode was to justify Gabrielle destroying the Fates' loom near the end of the episode. Early on in the episode, we saw Caesar perverting Fate by making a masturbatory change in the weave, as he refered to events in the episode `Destiny` when he had Xena tricked. He changed things to KEEP Xena tricked. What did NOT Caesar change? Gabrielle - she and her life and times had not intersected Xena's at the time of `Destiny`. And, to Caesar, she was insignificant in and of herself. Okay, well, entelechy is a philosopher's word for how potential things become reality. All "alternate universe" fiction stories play games with entelechy, usually without conscious intent by the writer of the story. Ife, CR & KT have argued and argued about just what or who this FatesXena is, but they haven't stepped back and considered just what kind of evidence any alternate universe interpretation would provide anyways. Some games with entelechy keep all other things the same. Others don't. I very much think `When Fates Collide` changed a lot of things. So many in fact that the Fates themselves were unable to set things right. Dilbert inspects the accounting department. They have a "random number" monster who provides random numbers. "Nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine ... " the monster intones. "Are you sure that's random?" Dilbert asks his guide. "That's the problem with randomness," the accountant replies, "you can never be sure." Modern science declares entelechy a non-issue. Random numbers are random because they're random; that's the definition of random and nothing more can be said. This is perfectly fine as far as it goes, but fiction (and people who read astrology columns and numerology and Lord knows what else) demands more. Aristotle made up the word entelechy. He also said that if, in a fiction story, a statue tips over and kill the person who is suspected of the murder of the subject of the statue, then there had better be a plot explanation! "Random" fluctuations mean more in fiction, then. KT knows Xena - she's right about FatesXene, even though she's wrong about what a cool episode it is{n't}. Caesar has some pompous lines about destiny in `Destiny`. Come `When Fates Collide`, and he's "raped" Xena. She is what he twisted. Gabrielle, though, is untouched, ready to experience the entelechy-driven change in her life that we all saw her make in `Sins of the Past1. Even the Xena of `Fates`, though, understands that Gabrielle's existence proves the falseness of her existence. So I shouldn't have said that this Xena suicided. In order to suicide, you have to be living. Once the Fates-Xena realized the falseness of her existence, all she cared about was that the one true compass of this existence, Gabrielle, would survive. Of course, Gabrielle went ahead and justified Xena's trust. Alternate universes play with entelecy in differenty ways. In `Armageddon Now`, we see Xena the Conqueror, as she would have been without Hercules. That Xena was truer to "our" Xena because none of her own decisions were perverted. She just had no Hercules and lots more Ares in her life. In `Remember Nothing`, we have a truer still Xena because the only thing changed was one of Xena's own decisions and that at her metauniverse will. Xena's volition decides which potentials will become reality in both these universes AT ALL TIMES - it's just that there's something external missing. In `When Fates Collide`, though, Xena's whole universe is twisted from the moment Caesar changes things in `Destiny` to the time the story begins. Xena's will had no purchase on the entelechy at any point in the tangled skein of the fates. Now, since Gabrielle can do no wrong , she has to be justified in destroying the entire universe by burning the Fates' loom. Gabrielle had no knowledge of what would happen. Xena's 40,000 in `FIN` and the big army in `Back in the Bottle` pale before Gabrielle's destructive impulse! And, remember, within my interpretation, Fates-Gabrielle stands in a position similar to the Xena of `Armageddon Now` or `Remember Nothing` - only an _external_ factor (meeting Xena) has changed. Gabrielle, then, is fully accountable for her actions. FatesXena couldn't do this because she could NOT trust herself to be true to herself. KT's disgust with FatesXena is, IMO, way too mild. She really was wrong, wrong, wrong. Heck, if I had written the episode, I'd have written Xena as a doting sex-toy of Caesar; he would have seen that thread at the time of `Destiny` and preserved it, I would have thought. Xena-the-sex-toy would really have pissed off the Xena fans, though, so, I guess compromises have to be made. What's more, Xena's puissance, already present and on the prowl in the Xena of `Destiny`, would remain in muted form, if Caesar wanted to retain the "good lighting". So, KT asked me privately: > accepting that this is what must be. You say she wouldn't do that under > any circumstances, that it's "wrong" in terms of her core character and > therefore should be relegated to the "never happened" bin. Cleanthes > suggests that, under the circumstances, this was the "wrong" Xena, period, > so can't truly represent what "characteristic" Xena would do. I straddle IS that what you meant? I had the impression that you meant that the wrongness of this world was too much for "our" Xena and the only honorable thing to do was to remove herself from it--kill herself. ? KT And I say, that "our" Xena consisted only of those portions of Xena that had noticed the connection with Gabrielle and had seen in Alti's vision the twisting of fate. That Xena had to preserve these true parts at all costs. And she did. Trust Gabrielle, she'll do good. And when Gabrielle can't be trusted, there's hell to pay! (see `The Bitter Suite`; incidentally, what happened to Solan when the Gods fell? Xena sent him off to Elysium, but then she killed Hades. To save Solan the universe of the gods had to go. In fact, `When Fates Collide` ties up a lot of loose ends. I like it as the series finale, which it is even if it doesn't come last - such are the contradictions that ensue when one messes with the mediations of infinity - cause and effect, before and after must be confused.) This is why I mentioned the existential leap in my previous post. I'm fondest of the existential Christian writers, Dostoyevsky and Kierkegaard, which I should have mentioned last time, but didn't. It makes more sense for poor, perverted Fates-Xena to make this leap of faith toward the puissant, universe-destroying Gabrielle, from the standpoint of Christian (or theistic) existentialism than it does from the standpoint of the atheist existentialism of those French philosophers that most people think of. I think CR interpreted my statement from the atheist standpoint. Sorry for the confustication. Xena did the honorable thing - not kill herself, but make the existential leap, much as Gabrielle did in `Sacrifice`. The Xenaverse has gods and Eidos and metagods, and the rules of heaven can change when Xena attacks from hell, and who knows what else, maybe even Japanese rules of atonement. Xena can afford to trust that _something_ would happen, and given her realization of the wrongness of the Caesarverse, she could hardly go wrong loving Gabrielle. non aut Caesar, aut nullus, Cleanthes ========================================================= 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, 9 Dec 2003 17:41:50 EST From: IfeRae@aol.com Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Entelechy Destiny Fate and big collisions In a message dated 12/9/2003 9:26:20 AM Central Standard Time, Brule31x63@aol.com writes: > Well, Ife, Thelonius (CR) &KT have been circling the Drain of Fate all > presenting various considerations of the episode `When Fates Collide`. >> Heh, that's an understatement. > > As a Gabfan, I thought I'd intervene, but my one pot-shot just stirred the > juices, I guess. >> We Xenafans were already stirring the juices among ourselves, though probably more in the same direction. Gabfans are rather more likely than Xenafans to enjoy `Fates`. >> In terms of whole ep, that may be true. I've actually come to appreciate the whole ep, but probably for very different reasons than Gabfans. > Conversely, Xenafans will like `The Path Not Taken` much more than Gabfans > because `TPNT` gives an utterly Xenacentric view of things. >> Hmmm, most eps were Xenacentric to me, with TPNT not being onf of my favorites. > > It's all a matter of priviledge, you see. In `WFC` the PRIVILEDGED point > of > view was with Caesar &Alti - with Evil EVIL, in other words. The only > goodguys with a claim on knowing what was going on were Gabrielle &Joxer; > not > Xena. >> Um, not sure I understand. At first, Caesar was the only one who knew. Then Xena and Alti learned at about the same time, followed by Gabs. Joxer simply followed Xena's orders to help Gabs. I also don't see that the Xena in FATES was the Evil one who rampaged just because she felt like it. Indeed, this one was presented as fairly benign -- certainly not one of the "bad guys." To me, the purpose of the episode was to justify Gabrielle destroying the > > > Fates' loom near the end of the episode. Early on in the episode, we saw > Caesar perverting Fate by making a masturbatory change in the weave, as he > refered > to events in the episode `Destiny` when he had Xena tricked. He changed > things to KEEP Xena tricked. >> Okay, I can buy that. > > What did NOT Caesar change? Gabrielle - she and her life and times had not > intersected Xena's at the time of `Destiny`. And, to Caesar, she was > insignificant in and of herself. >> Uh huh. Still with you.... > > Okay, well, entelechy is a philosopher's word for how potential things > become > reality. All "alternate universe" fiction stories play games with > entelechy, > usually without conscious intent by the writer of the story. >> Huh? You lost me here. Are you saying they don't think about what they're doing -- how it relates to the "other" reality or the "logic" of how it could play out? << Ife, CR &KT have argued and argued about just what or who this FatesXena is, but they > haven't stepped back and considered just what kind of evidence > any alternate > universe interpretation would provide anyways. Some games with entelechy > keep all > other things the same. Others don't. I very much think `When Fates > Collide` > changed a lot of things. So many in fact that the Fates themselves were > unable > to set things right. >> Okay, I'm back with you here. > > Dilbert inspects the accounting department. They have a "random number" > monster who provides random numbers. "Nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine > ... " > the monster intones. "Are you sure that's random?" Dilbert asks his guide. > > "That's the problem with randomness," the accountant replies, "you can never > be > sure." >> Bwhahahaha! Which is the kind of thing that drives me nuts. > > Modern science declares entelechy a non-issue. Random numbers are random > because they're random; that's the definition of random and nothing more can > be > said. This is perfectly fine as far as it goes, but fiction (and people who > > read astrology columns and numerology and Lord knows what else) demands > more. >> I can't wait to see cr's reponse to that. Heh heh. Hmmm, although he'll probably agree with this ("for the most part"). > Aristotle made up the word entelechy. He also said that if, in a fiction > story, a statue tips over and kill the person who is suspected of the murder > of the > subject of the statue, then there had better be a plot explanation! > "Random" > fluctuations mean more in fiction, then. KT knows Xena - she's right about > FatesXene, even though she's wrong about what a cool episode it is{n't}.>> Oh, no! You did *not* make that last statement! Don't you know how hard KT's trying to rid herself of this discussion? Haven't you seen how she gets with fresh meat, when she smells new blood? She may burst a vessel if she clamps down on her primal urges. Maybe she'll let you pass, because you agree with her in the first part of that statement. We'll see. > > Caesar has some pompous lines about destiny in `Destiny`. Come `When Fates > Collide`, and he's "raped" Xena. She is what he twisted. >> You used the "r" word with Xena? No way! You guys can use it all you want with Gabs, but no under no circumstances can it apply to Xena! Harrumph! :-) > > Gabrielle, though, is untouched, ready to experience the entelechy-driven > change in her life that we all saw her make in `Sins of the Past1. >> "Untouched," eh? Wasn't her life changed too because of Caesar -- in both timelines? > > Even the Xena of `Fates`, though, understands that Gabrielle's existence > proves the falseness of her existence. So I shouldn't have said that this > Xena > suicided. In order to suicide, you have to be living. Once the Fates-Xena > realized the falseness of her existence, all she cared about was that the > one true > compass of this existence, Gabrielle, would survive. Of course, Gabrielle > went ahead and justified Xena's trust. >> I'm not sure why, but I'm actually buying this too. > Now, since Gabrielle can do no wrong , >> she has to be justified in > > destroying the entire universe by burning the Fates' loom. Gabrielle had no > > knowledge of what would happen. >> Um, now I'm lost again. Are you really saying Gabs can do no wrong? Oh, wait! You're saying Gabs can do no wrong, because the whole thing is wrong ffrom the get-go? Now *that* I can accept. But while I agree she didn't know what would happen, I do think she knew *something* would change. Xena's 40,000 in `FIN` and the big army in `Back > > in the Bottle` pale before Gabrielle's destructive impulse! >> Won't get any argument there. That Gabs was never one to shy away from putting her all into what she believed. And, remember, > > within my interpretation, Fates-Gabrielle stands in a position similar to > the > Xena of `Armageddon Now` or `Remember Nothing` - only an _external_ factor > (meeting Xena) has changed. Gabrielle, then, is fully accountable for her > actions. > > FatesXena couldn't do this because she could NOT trust herself to be true to > > herself. >> I'm drifting out to see here. I don't see how the Gabs in Fates was "truer" and therefore could be trusted to be truer to herself. I saw both of them as different, but retaining key aspects of the women we knew from before. KT's disgust with FatesXena is, IMO, way too mild. She really was > > wrong, wrong, wrong. Heck, if I had written the episode, I'd have written > Xena > as a doting sex-toy of Caesar; he would have seen that thread at the time of > > `Destiny` and preserved it, I would have thought. Xena-the-sex-toy would > really have pissed off the Xena fans, though, so, I guess compromises have > to be > made. >> Doting?!! Sex toy?!!! Have you gone mad?!!! She called herself seducing *him,* with plans to use him for her purposes, just as he had similar plans. However, I think he realized that she could've brought many (nonphysical) assets to their partnership, had he not betrayed her. No, he underestimated her ferociousness the first time, so I doubt he expected (or wanted) a sex kitten in his new scenario. And yes, I would've been highly skeptical that the teenaged Xena who didn't allow her village to be subjugated would turn around and accept a relationship where she was somebody's plaything, not a full partner. I disagree with both you and KT about the extent to which Xena was "wrong." > I say, that "our" Xena consisted only of those portions of Xena that had > noticed the connection with Gabrielle and had seen in Alti's vision the > twisting of fate. >> Um, I think both KT and I are arguing that you can't ignore those "portions" of the Xena who existed before Caesar cut the thread, which was before she met Gabs (heh, in that life, anyway). KT doesn't see many of those "portions" in FATES, while I do. For KT, Caesar is a big problem. For me, the biggest flaws flow directly from the need to show X&G as soulmates. I found it problematic in FATES in a way I did not in Between the Lines. The irony is that the main reason I'm not in KT's camp is precisely because it made "sense" in the romantic presentation (which she hates), where everything and anything can happen because of love. > That Xena had to preserve these true parts at all costs. And she did. > Trust > Gabrielle, she'll do good. And when Gabrielle can't be trusted, there's > hell > to pay! >> I agree with the first part of that. But if you recall, she told Gabs something like, "I have to do this alone." She was right in one way and wrong in another. I do think she trusted Gabs, but not to save her. She trusted Gabs to live out her life, continuing to uplift people. Maybe that's what you meant? (see `The Bitter Suite`; incidentally, what happened to Solan when > > the Gods fell? Xena sent him off to Elysium, but then she killed Hades. To > > save Solan the universe of the gods had to go. >> Whew, that *is* a leap. I won't quibble for now, though, as we've got more than enough other stuff to quibble about. > > < fondest of the existential Christian writers, Dostoyevsky and Kierkegaard, > which I > should have mentioned last time, but didn't. It makes more sense for poor, > perverted Fates-Xena to make this leap of faith toward the puissant, > universe-destroying Gabrielle, from the standpoint of Christian (or > theistic) > existentialism than it does from the standpoint of the atheist > existentialism of those > French philosophers that most people think of. >> A "poor, perverted" person making a "leap of faith" toward a "puissant, universe destroying" being. My. No wonder crosses give me the willies. :-) And for your next lesson? - --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, 9 Dec 2003 15:08:27 -0900 (AKST) From: KTL Subject: [chakram-refugees] Re: Entelechy Destiny Fate and big collisions Oh bravo, Dude! (massive snippage of your most excellent post only for bandswidth sake) > Well, Ife, Thelonius (CR) & KT have been circling the Drain of Fate all > presenting various considerations of the episode `When Fates Collide`. Yes, but not all of us have resisted the pull to the sewer. ;-> > > As a Gabfan, I thought I'd intervene, but my one pot-shot just stirred the > juices, I guess. But you sent us off yammering in new directions AND brought other people into the discussion. It actually brought me back in to the discussion since you had original thoughts on Fates that I hadn't heard before. Gabfans are rather more likely than Xenafans to enjoy `Fates`. LOL! Gee, ya think? As i said, Season six had something for everyone. > Conversely, Xenafans will like `The Path Not Taken` much more than Gabfans > because `TPNT` gives an utterly Xenacentric view of things. Well, most eps did. Particularly the very early ones like Path. But this continued throughout the series. Most notable with the episodes that PacRen spent most time, money and effort on, the big multi-part eps like Debt, Sin Trade, and the Ring Arc having less Gabrielle in them than regular eps. Most eps had Xena's quest to atone for the deeds of her past as the driving force, but these eps showed us very explicity just how bad that past had been and just what Xena had to overcome. And what demons resided in her skull. > > It's all a matter of priviledge, you see. In `WFC` the PRIVILEDGED point of > view was with Caesar & Alti - with Evil EVIL, in other words. The only > goodguys with a claim on knowing what was going on were Gabrielle & Joxer; not > Xena. Interesting. I don't see that myself. I don't see exactly where you see that. To me, the purpose of the episode was to justify Gabrielle destroying the > Fates' loom near the end of the episode. Early on in the episode, we saw > Caesar perverting Fate by making a masturbatory change in the weave, as he refered > to events in the episode `Destiny` when he had Xena tricked. He changed > things to KEEP Xena tricked. > > What did NOT Caesar change? Gabrielle - she and her life and times had not > intersected Xena's at the time of `Destiny`. And, to Caesar, she was > insignificant in and of herself. > But she did change. Exactly because she hadn't met Xena. She was a mealy-mouthed, passive, totally meek person. Granted, she was VERY little when Xena was being crucified in Destiny. But she was probably at least 7 or 8. And she HAD to be a fiesty 7 or 8 year old, ya know? So what happened to her? Perhaps she was a slave for a while since Xena wasn't there to save her. (In the "It's a Wonderful Life" type of alternative world--where everything miraculously remains the same EXCEPT for the hero showing up.) Me, I'm more a butterfly wing beat type of gal--one little change has multiple and eccentric ramifications for the world at large. The external world at least. And yes, we are what we've experienced. But endlessly I repeat, those women in Fates experienced the same formative years as our grrls did. snip snip >Okay, well, entelechy is a philosopher's word for how potential things >become reality. New words, new words, YAY! All "alternate universe" fiction stories play games with >entelechy, usually without conscious intent by the writer of the story Oh, now that's interesting. Without conscious intent? Or with intent that doesn't resonate in every reader? Who of course then makes up their own version of the story. I very much think `When Fates Collide` > changed a lot of things. So many in fact that the Fates themselves were unable > to set things right. Well of course that's the premise. The Fates BEFORE the change are however presented differently than the Fates in "Fates". Before this, the Fates were always all powerful and absolutely immutable in doing their duty. As I pointed out, even Zeus has to "obey" them. I remember the first time we talked about Fates, we had a discussion on "Do the Fates MAKE what happens happen? Or do they just record it?" In other words, which comes first--the woven parts of the loom or that actions that the loom records? Sicne they speak in riddles, one always wonders exactly what's going on. For example, in "looking Death in the Eye", they literally say that Xena must die. (Dialogue from Whoosh transcript) X: "What do you mean? It's me that determines when the twilight begins? How?" Atr: "You must die, Xena." Clo: "Only in the essence of death-- will the child find salvation-- and the twilight be set in motion. Until then, a storm without end lies upon your path, and hers." G: "You're saying that, the sooner Xena dies, the faster Eve brings about the fall of the gods? [Whispers] No [Normal Voice]-- Xena, let's go. Hey-- what are you doing? You're not listening to them? Xena, you have said we _always_ determine our own fate. It's not written for us. You've always believed that." (You GO grrl! Exactly...grin) X: "I still believe that, Gabrielle. So do they. It's the only way. I have to die, Gabrielle." Two things. First, Xena latches onto the "essence of death". Second if anybody could destroy the loom to make things the way she wants them, it SHOULD have been Xena. Heh. Anyway, were the Fates giving Xena clues about how to create the coming events? Thus leaving the loom as created by the free will of individuals, rather than it existing as a type of "Predestination" thing, with the loom itself creating what happens to a person. (I think the second is much closer to what the Greeks believed then.) Xena of course never followed that believe. From Sins of the Past on, she's out to recreate herself, no matter what the Fates may say about it. And of coures in this ep--she doesn't die to start the Twilight, thus defying what the first Fate proclaimed. > > Modern science declares entelechy a non-issue. Random numbers are random > because they're random; that's the definition of random and nothing more can be > said. And I say, good on them! This is perfectly fine as far as it goes, but fiction (and people who > read astrology columns and numerology and Lord knows what else) demands more. LOL! > Aristotle made up the word entelechy. He also said that if, in a fiction > story, a statue tips over and kill the person who is suspected of the murder of the > subject of the statue, then there had better be a plot explanation! "Random" > fluctuations mean more in fiction, then. KT knows Xena - she's right about > FatesXene, even though she's wrong about what a cool episode it is{n't}. > LOL! Amazingly, I keep hearing that. (From SOME quarters...grin) > Caesar has some pompous lines about destiny in `Destiny`. Come `When Fates > Collide`, and he's "raped" Xena. She is what he twisted. > > Gabrielle, though, is untouched, ready to experience the entelechy-driven > change in her life that we all saw her make in `Sins of the Past1. > Oh Cleanthes! Sins of the Past never happened! Worse, Xena never happened for her. And THAT apparently makes her as I think md called her the "insipid wimp" we meet in Fates. Sure that Gabrielle of Sins jumped right on Xena as her warhorse out of potedeia. But the Gab of Fates is somehow a person who refuses to take chances like that. Again, that's inexplicable to me, since the real Gabrielle DID take chances like that. She had the guts to run away from home, defying her father, leaving her fiance, and sacrificing being with her family. That takes guts to leave your family behind! And a thirst for adventure and real life experiences that this Fates Gabrielle just didn't have at all. Again, where the hell did that go? > Even the Xena of `Fates`, though, understands that Gabrielle's existence > proves the falseness of her existence. So I shouldn't have said that this Xena > suicided. In order to suicide, you have to be living. Once the Fates-Xena > realized the falseness of her existence, all she cared about was that the one true > compass of this existence, Gabrielle, would survive. Of course, Gabrielle > went ahead and justified Xena's trust. > Two major problems for me in that scenario, bud. First because giving up and dying on the cross was the one thing that practically guaranteed Gabrielle also dying. Since we saw that Alti and Caesar wanted her dead. Would Alti have let her live after killing Caesar? I think that Alti was mean enough and twisted enought to go kill Gabrielle just to pound spikes into Xena even more than the crucifixion did. Alti has never stopped at tormenting people even WAY beyond the grave. Crucifying was Julie's thing. Alti was into the pleasure of torturing others just for the ..uh..pleasure of it. And two, Xena trusted Gabrielle's GOODNESS absolutely. But it's very hard to say that destroying a world for the good of one (or two) individuals is a good thing. So Xena should never have expected that Gabrielle would do that. NOR more importantly, wanted her to. She never wanted Gabrielle to besmirch her soul with violence and murder. Not even for one person. Not even for one person who had killed her parents. (Though of course she DOES "allow" that in Gurkhan, but I suspect only because she KNEW that Gabrielle wouldn't be able to go through with it.) But Xena doesn't trust Gabrielle's ability to rescue herself or to defend herself. Xena has a HUGE protective streak where Gabrielle is concerned. Gabrielle deserves to live no matter what happens to Xena. This leads to Xena running off to do dirty deeds and leaving Gabrielle behind. As in numerous eps, right up through season six, in Gurkhan, in Valkyrie, in FIN. (In terms of going off knowing she's going to die and sending Gabrielle out of danger.) Even in the test in FIN when Xena's checking to see how Gabrielle will do without her, yeah Gabrielle gets them to the water tank. But it's Xena's impatient sword that opens the valve. Even though Xena then declares it a Gabrielle victory. (Many people did enjoy the straining Renee though...grin) This protective streak is shown in Fates when Xena follows Gabrielle to make sure she gets home safely. But it's almost immediately discounted in Fates when Xena gives up and dies, thus leaving Gabrielle alone to face their enemies. Again, as someone said--it's like two if not three people wrote this episode. snip snip > Xena's will had no purchase on the entelechy at any point in > the tangled skein of the fates. > > Now, since Gabrielle can do no wrong , she has to be justified > in destroying the entire universe by burning the Fates' loom. > Gabrielle had no knowledge of what would happen. Xena's 40,000 in > `FIN` and the big army in `Back in the Bottle` pale before Gabrielle's > destructive impulse! Amen! SNIP SNIP >Alternate universes play with entelecy in differenty ways. In >`Armageddon >Now`, we see Xena the Conqueror, as she would have been without Hercules. >That Xena was truer to "our" Xena because none of her own decisions were >perverted.J She just had no Hercules and lots more Ares in her life. In >`Remember Nothing`, we have a truer still Xena because the only thing > changed was one of Xena's own decisions and that at her metauniverse > will. Xena's volition decides which potentials will become reality in > both these universes AT ALL TIMES - it's just that there's something > external missing. > And, remember, within my interpretation, > Fates-Gabrielle stands in a position similar to the Xena of > `Armageddon Now` or `Remember Nothing` - only an _external_ factor > (meeting Xena) has changed. Gabrielle, then, is fully accountable for > her actions. > I don't get this at all. Xena didn't make really make a decision in Armageddon Now, as you say. She DID make a decision in Remember Nothing. But she didn't make a decision in Destiny. Caesr did, not her. So I'm not totally tracking how Caesar changing the events of Destiny makes Gabrielle accountable for her actions in Fates, but not Xena. Perhaps I have missed your whole point. (There's a reason Philosophy 101 was the only class I ever dropped in my entire college career. And it was MORE than the 8 am starting time...) > FatesXena couldn't do this because she could NOT trust herself to be true to > herself. Uh--do what Gabrielle did you mean? KT's disgust with FatesXena is, IMO, way too mild. She really was > wrong, wrong, wrong. Heck, if I had written the episode, I'd have written Xena > as a doting sex-toy of Caesar; he would have seen that thread at the time of > `Destiny` and preserved it, I would have thought. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Loverly! Damn, that would have been FUN to watch Lucy play. And Renee, showing Gabrielle's disgust, though then you'd need to have Gabrielle know she was Gabrielle and not a shadow Sappho. Now THAT would be a real kewl ep! Xena-the-sex-toy would > really have pissed off the Xena fans, Oh, whoops! Uh.. yeah--I'm appalled. APPALLED I tell ya! Now a world like THAT would of course deserve to be blown up. Uh-HUH! though, so, I guess compromises have to be > made. What's more, Xena's puissance, already present and on the prowl in the > Xena of `Destiny`, would remain in muted form, if Caesar wanted to retain the > "good lighting". Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. (Little snort) > > So, KT asked me privately: > > > IS that what you meant? I had the impression that you meant that the > wrongness of this world was too much for "our" Xena and the only honorable > thing to do was to remove herself from it--kill herself. > > ? > > KT > > And I say, that "our" Xena consisted only of those portions of Xena that had > noticed the connection with Gabrielle and had seen in Alti's vision the > twisting of fate. > That Xena had to preserve these true parts at all costs. And she did. Trust > Gabrielle, she'll do good. And when Gabrielle can't be trusted, there's hell > to pay! You Gabfans are just so CUTE! Smile. (see `The Bitter Suite`; incidentally, what happened to Solan when > the Gods fell? Xena sent him off to Elysium, but then she killed Hades. To > save Solan the universe of the gods had to go Welll, she'd already rescued Solon from the Blockbuster Video rerun section of Hades. Besides, Fates proposes that Hades and Elysim still exist. But that folks are apparently free to come and go, no? That's why Julius Caesar can get to the Fates. I buy that as possible. But I still dont buy that he could overpower the Fates the way he did. In fact, `When Fates Collide` > ties up a lot of loose ends. I like it as the series finale, which it > is even if it doesn't come last - such are the contradictions that > ensue when one messes with the mediations of infinity - cause and > effect, before and after must be confused.) I don't care for it as the series finale for two reasons. One, it portrays our hero as an incompetent, stupid, helpless coward with our final vision of her, unlike FIN where she refuses to take the coward's way out of just turning her back on those souls she hurt And two, because it doesn't tie up the main theme of the series--Xena's atonement quest. It's not a series ender to me any more than any other ep where X&G just continue their journey. This in fact is the MOST used image for ep endings--the grrls continuing their quest, as they do in Fates. Only in FIN does the dialogue literally say, "You've redeemed yourself!" Yes it's Akemi who says this. No, I don't think Amkemi is NOTHING more than a despicable lying B*tch, Harlot of Hell, whatever. Akemi was guilty of sins of omission to get her agenda finished and her quest fulfilled. But then, so was Xena at times. > > This is why I mentioned the existential leap in my previous post. I'm > fondest of the existential Christian writers, Dostoyevsky and Kierkegaard, which I > should have mentioned last time, but didn't. It makes more sense for poor, > perverted Fates-Xena to make this leap of faith toward the puissant, > universe-destroying Gabrielle, from the standpoint of Christian (or theistic) > existentialism than it does from the standpoint of the atheist existentialism of those Uh...I don't know about that but I still argue that Gabrielle in Fates did not appear as puissant, universe-destroying until AFTER the fact. BUT I do understand that you're saying that THIS was exactly the leap of faith that that stupid Fates Xena took--that Gabrielle would save the world. I don't agree. (I actually laughed out loud when I said that--KNOWING it's not going to be a surprise in some quarters. grin) Because I don't see the script or the characters created by Fugate supporting that. She DOES blow up the world. But that is totally inconsistant with ANY Gabrielle. At least in MY version of the Xenaverse. Because there's just too much at stake for others in destroying a whole world. And as FIN and OAAA prove, The Greater Good is the ultimate goal of X&G. Beyond almost ANY personal desires. (Except, for Xena where her kids are concerned.) Again, it's down to the characterizations. This ep to me has external discrepancies in characterizations (i.e., with the women we see in the rest of the series who were the adults of the young woman and child of the real world) and internal (within this episode) character inconsistancies also. I KNOW the point is that their world was changed. But a story like that is very tough to write and be true to what was real in the regular world. (Though Manheim and Sears managed it very well in Remember Nothing, as did Manheim in Chakram and Skopov in Return of the Valkyrie.) Though those alternative worlds did not have a conscious twisting of Xena's fate, her story was lost to her just as fully in Chakram and Valkyrie as it was in Fates. But she was still 100% Xena. > French philosophers that most people think of. I think CR interpreted > my statement from the atheist standpoint. Sorry for the > confustication. Xena did the honorable thing - not kill herself, but > make the existential leap, much as Gabrielle did in `Sacrifice`. > I'd argue here that Gabrielle EXPECTED to kill herself in Sacrifice. And in contrast to Xena's decision in Fates, she did it for a Greater Good--saving someone else. Both because she loves that someone else and doesn't want to see her die for Dahok's plan but also because she probably feels that Xena can save the world from domination by Dahok and his spawn. And besides, she KNOWS Xena will do anythign to get her back and will probably suceed. (It's too bad they DIDN'T have Xena battling Dahok directly for Gabrielle--that would have been far better than either the old "I was blown into a niche" bit or the later massive mess of Soul Possession. Though that one DID give the Xena/Ares shippers the image of Xena standing at the altar as Ares' bride. > The Xenaverse has gods and Eidos and metagods, and the rules of heaven can > change when Xena attacks from hell, and who knows what else, maybe even Japanese > rules of atonement. Xena can afford to trust that _something_ would happen, > and given her realization of the wrongness of the Caesarverse, she could > hardly go wrong loving Gabrielle. Nice line. BUT...(grin) loving Gabrielle always meant saving her for Xena. (Except in SacII when she inexplicably doesn't leap into the pit after G the minute she sees her falling.) Ahhhhhhhhhhh. You know, I honestly am not being stubborn. (Not with YOU anyway.) But I just can't get around that non Xena Xena. NO reason has ever made that credible to me. Not even these nice new ones. And certainly nothing has ever made it something I ever wanted to see--Xena dying for no reason, giving up to her enemies and leaving Gabrielle unprotected, a specific problem unsolved and her quest unfinished. > > non aut Caesar, aut nullus, > > Scowl. Caesar and zero? KT ========================================================= 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 #369 **************************************