From: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org (chakram-refugees-digest) To: chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Subject: chakram-refugees-digest V5 #178 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, July 13 2005 Volume 05 : Number 178 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [chakram-refugees] Destiny [IfeRae@aol.com] Re: [chakram-refugees] Mouth To Mouth on XWP [IfeRae@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2005 12:42:42 EDT From: IfeRae@aol.com Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Destiny In a message dated 7/11/2005 3:39:37 AM Pacific Daylight Time, cr@orcon.net.nz writes: > But obviously Caesar took enough notice if M'Lila to ask Xena where she was > > when he captured them. So, having seen M'Lila in action, he might very > well > have deduced from what the guards said, that she was the rescue party. > > I think he would have regarded M'Lila as a threat, and been quite happy to > have her killed along with Xena. >> Same here. He did, after all, warn Xena about M'Lila in the beginning. > I would have loved to find out more of M'Lila's back-story. She was > gorgeous, fascinating and mysterious. And she would have made a > fascinating > sidekick for ten-winters-ago Xena (can't call her Evil Xena because M'Lila > wouldn't have died, and would doubtless have exerted some restraining > influnce on Not-so-evil-Xena). It does work, dramatically, for the hero to > > have a faithful, very capable, dependable and reliable sidekick. > I think M'Lila was too much her own woman -- as independent as Xena herself. I believe M'Lila would've had her own agenda -- e.g., returning to her homeland, avoiding some of the ruffians or questionable activities Xena deemed "necessary." Xena was already bored and attracted to power when she met Caesar. I'm not sure M'Lila could've dissuaded Xena from her insatiable curiosity about acquiring armies, power and skills regardless of the consequences. I think Xena would've become impatient with M'Lila's opinions about that or with M'Lila's notions that maybe Xena was getting in over her head. We could attribute Evil Xena's behavior to Caesar, but a lot suggests that it was only a matter of time before she crossed the line into an area M'Lila might not have wanted to enter. - -- 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, 12 Jul 2005 12:42:40 EDT From: IfeRae@aol.com Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Mouth To Mouth on XWP In a message dated 7/11/2005 3:39:38 AM Pacific Daylight Time, cr@orcon.net.nz writes: > >By "imposed," I mean that some took those properties to mean that the > chaky > >had a spiritual connection to Xena, which gave special significance to what > >they saw it do. Others saw what it did as simply the effects of a > >physical object in the hands of someone who'd mastered it -- like we later > >saw with Prince Morlocke (?) and his flying thingy. > > I could equally well argue that viewers 'deduced' those views from what they > > saw. There's no requirement that different viewers deduce exactly the same > > conclusions. "Imposed" to me implies that viewers' opinions somehow had an > > effect on the chacky's behaviour - which obviosuly isn't so. > > But I think this is just splitting hairs over the meaning of a word. I > think we both know what we both mean >> It may be splitting hairs, but it's the same difference in perspective we've had before. You believe we can separate what we perceive from what is "actually" happening. While I agree the two are independent, I believe what we "see" it doing can be affected by the meaning we give it. No, it doesn't change the "actual" chaky's behavior, but we're discussing what we bring to the chaky, which leads us to deduce different things -- e.g., it's merely a fancy piece of metal vs. it's a piece of metal with a special connection to Xena vs. it's a metal of the gods that can give a certain edge to anyone (or certain someones) who master it, etc. It's not like we're blank slates, all watching from the same perspective. If we were, maybe we would deduce the same thing, in which case there'd be little need to discuss -- or disagree about -- why we care about what the darned thing's doing. > > >>Admittedly, its abilities gradually increased throughout the series, but > >>at no time did it suddenly start doing something completely untypical. > >>We knew, for example, that only Xena could catch the chacky. That was > >>why, when Callisto caught it, it was a shock. TPTB _depended_ on our > >>knowledge of the chacky's properties to get that element of surprise. >> > > > >Um, that seems a bit of a contradiction. If it never did anything > >"untypical," why would we be so surprised Cally could catch and throw it > >with no problem? That would only be the case if we had thought such > >ability was limited to Xena, because of her special "relationship" with the > >chaky. (Which I initially thought.) > > Yes, precisely. We had a picture of the properties of the chacky, > including > the 'fact' that only Xena could throw / catch it, which were at variance > with > what Callisto did. >> So does that mean the "unwritten rule" got changed in your mind? Or just that the chaky broke an unwritten rule, but the rule didn't change? > > > >Afterwards, some viewers saw > >philosophical significance in the fact that someone else could "command" > >the chaky. Others (like myself) gave the chaky less signficance than > >before, because we now knew someone besides Xena could handle it. > > You thought it detracted from the chacky, I thought it added to Callisto's > stature. But either way, this atypical chacky behaviour was significant, > and only because we previously had a mental idea of what the chacky could > do, > which we had to adjust. >> Ah, so your saying the "mental idea" changed, but the "typical" behavior (unwritten rule) didn't? > > > >>The chacky's quite a good example simply because it is only seen in XWP > >>so its operating rules are unique to the series. *How* the chacky did > >>it was indeed debatable, but *what* it did was fairly consistent. >> > > > >But it's the interpretation of what we saw that we're debating, not the > >fact that it could bounce off, cut or fly above things. Even then, there > >was often a question in my mind as to whether the chaky had killed or or > >simply disabled some opponents. That's a key "what" unless you limit it to > >"the chaky knocked those soldiers down" and don't worry about whether > >they'd ever get up or not. > > Often it didn't matter, they were background ruffians, who just needed to be > > put out of action one way or another.>> It didn't matter to you maybe, but it did to me. At first I wondered how/if Xena was making a judgement about which ruffians needed to die. Whether it said something about her propensity to kill. For awhile later on, it seemed she was more purposeful in using it, often preferring less lethal means. But since I rarely got to see somebody get up afterwards, I didn't think about it as much. I still wonder if Gabs killed that guy at the end of AFIN. I think I heard different views from Xenastaff on that in the interviews, though I believe ROC was one who believed Gabs killed him. > > >>I'm sure there is a host of such unwritten rules, which just pass by us > >>unnoticed because we're so used to them - but we'd notice if they were > >>broken. > > > >Again, it's not that I was used to things performing a certain way, but > >that I accepted almost any "rule" could be broken at any time. Hence, > >constantly being surprised. > > Well, not so. 99% of 'rules' (or 'properties' or 'characteristics') were > NOT being broken at any time. And this was quite essential otherwise the > saga would have been far too confused to paint any sort of coherent picture. > > There wouldn't have been a story for us to get attached to. This is > necessary for *any* story, whether a TV series, a movie, or a book. >> I agree to a certain extent. What I thought Xenastaff were masterful at was establishing something (or relying on our assumptions), then throwing us a curve. Sometimes it was hard to tell whether a "rule" had changed, whether it signaled a change in Xena or whether it was simply dependent on the situation. Xena's watching Callisto sink in the sand was a huge curve for me. Cally using the chakram was one. Lots of curves in S4, which told me Xena was having issyews. One of the things that surprised me was Xena not putting certain bad guys out of commission who would probably jeopardize everyone, like that idiot in Tsunami. Anyway, I loved the ambiguity and the way it made me look at what happened from many different angles. > > Still, there was a lot more that stayed the same about Tartarus - the domain > > of Hades, where the dead went and from where some lucky ones graduated to > the > Elysian Fields - than there was that changed. >> Heh, when Ares said he didn't have power in Hades' domain (Godfearing Child?), I thought, "Since when?" - -- 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. ========================================================= ------------------------------ End of chakram-refugees-digest V5 #178 **************************************