From: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org (chakram-refugees-digest) To: chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Subject: chakram-refugees-digest V5 #179 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 Thursday, July 14 2005 Volume 05 : Number 179 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [chakram-refugees] Destiny [cr ] Re: [chakram-refugees] Mouth To Mouth on XWP [cr ] [chakram-refugees] Kit 9 DVD flying out the door! ["Creation (Sharon Dela] Re: OT: Narnia (was Re: [chakram-refugees] Bruce Campbell book signing appearance) ["Daniel T. Miller" Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Destiny On Wed, 13 Jul 2005 04:42, IfeRae@aol.com wrote: > > 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." Yes, on reflection 'sidekick' is very much the wrong word. As was 'faithful, capable, dependable' - which make M'Lila sound subservient. 'Associate' or 'companion' or 'ally' might be a better description. And, I'm sure that M'Lila - as an associate of Xena's - would have been entirely trustworthy and dependable. > 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 Yes, that's entirely possible. But when that happened, I'm sure that M'Lila would have been upfront with Xena about it. I don't think she would have committed a tactical error ('betrayal'?) such as Gabs did in The Debt - simply because she didn't share Gabs' naivete. I think she would have said to Xena, in effect, 'right, that's as far as I go - - you'll have to go on without me'. 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: Thu, 14 Jul 2005 07:17:36 +1200 From: cr Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Mouth To Mouth on XWP On Wed, 13 Jul 2005 04:42, IfeRae@aol.com wrote: > 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. Well, to me, 'imposed' suggests our beliefs are having an actual effect on the behaviour of the chacky - which is obviously not so. The chacky (or the scriptwriters) have no idea what we're thinking (unless we start some noisy fan campaign, which is a whole different can of worms If you mean we're 'imposing' our idea of the chacky's properties on our own mental image of the chacky, then yeah. But to me, that's very similar to what I mean by 'deduced' which I've already said might be influenced by our own subjective predispositions. > 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. Well, I've already said, we may not all deduce the same thing. > > >>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? Yes, the 'rule' (which in this case might better be called 'properties') changes a bit. Not a heck of a lot. In fact it's not so much that the properties of the chacky (specifically, 'can only be caught by Xena') changed, as that Callisto got added to the very special and limited group of 'people who can control the chacky' (which group previously only had one member - Xena). So, yeah, the chacky's properties changed very slightly - but not a lot, it's not as if I concluded that anybody could control it. > > >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? Umm, no, I'm not saying that. Whether I say 'mental idea' or 'rule' or 'properties' or 'characteristics', for the purposes of the present discussion I mean the same thing. > > >>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. Well, of course, one could also ask about the fate of those ruffians which Gabby whacked round the head This may sound callous or elitist, but for the purposes of the plot I still don't think it mattered much what happened to those ruffians. Like the villagers that Callisto and every other warlord's men beat up. I guess, in order to minimise any moral problems with Xena's path of redemption, it would be convenient to assume she had the chacky set to 'stun'. Re Morimoto at the end of FIN, that was one of those incidents where the participants did have different ideas (and, guess what? - it made nooo difference to Gabs' portrayal on screen) - from the DVD transcript (the Director's Cut DVD, not Season 6) - ROC thought she killed him, Lucy didn't realise that. > > >>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. Well, yes, and 'rule' is possibly too rigid a word for my intended meaning. Maybe 'in character' or 'typical behaviour' would be better. (But applied to situations and inanimate objects as well as people). And it's precisely because of our assumptions of typical behaviour that TPTB can surprise us. For example, in Deliverer, didn't almost everybody have Khrafstar's one-God mob mentally pegged as early Christian-like peaceniks? (And that didn't come just from our experience of XWP, but from our experience of TV dramas in general). So it was a huge surprise when they turned out to be devil-worshippers. Cool. > Xena's watching Callisto sink in the sand was a huge curve for me. Yes, that was a departure from her usual. And it wasn't just a departure from Xena's usual behaviour (good Xena, anyway), it was also against the established conventions ('rules', behaviour, whatever) for heroes. > Cally using the chakram was one. Lots of curves in S4, which told > me Xena was having issyews. Yes, though while the departure in Return of Callisto was interesting, even though disconcerting, the departures in S4 I didn't like. > 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 As I recall, Ares never did have any power over Hades in his own domain. Do you have an incident in mind that suggests otherwise? 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: Wed, 13 Jul 2005 13:02:07 -0700 From: "Creation (Sharon Delaney)" Subject: [chakram-refugees] Kit 9 DVD flying out the door! They're here! And the shipping dept is working at warp speed -- oops, wrong show! -- to send them on their way. Some of you will have to return those movies you rented and prepare to spend your weekend with the lovely Lucy and Renee. Happy viewing! Sharon outback@creationent.com Official Xena Fan Club ========================================================= 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: Wed, 13 Jul 2005 18:43:54 -0700 (PDT) From: "Daniel T. Miller" Subject: Re: OT: Narnia (was Re: [chakram-refugees] Bruce Campbell book signing appearance) For a short while the BBC radio versions of some of the Narnia novels are on the blog site, "Gwangi's Radio Reviews." http://www.bsu.edu/web/00taholaday/GRR.html. Because of limited space, "Gwangi" keeps mp3 files up for about a week. But he is on vacation, so this may stay up a little longer. Some nice OTR programs there as well, plus some BBC Jeeves & Wooster stories. _____________________________________________________________ Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ========================================================= 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 #179 **************************************