themadpoker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
themadpoker) wrote2010-10-23 11:56 am
themadpoker) wrote2010-10-23 11:56 am
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The Big Post Of Books and TVD
Stefan and Elena made me cry. Like actually cry. I am so invested in those two and their amazingly stable healthy relationship, I couldn’t deal. Just watching Stefan’s face break set me off. ;_; Moving on, moving on, do not want to start tearing up again.
Anyways I loved this episode. It did alot of things I’d really wanted the show to handle. I’m so glad they brought Bonnie back and they addressed how she’s been excluded from all the recent plot shenanigans. It would have been great if it hadn’t happened but I liked that they actually let her have her say. And that she and Caroline are on the road to working things out, so so happy about that.
Also Caroline and Liz. I was so pleased to see them actually talk and to see Liz move away from her initial reaction of rejection. I knew she would if they just gave her time. <3 the Forbes. It killed me when after all that happened Caroline compelled her anyways. ;_; TVD was all about the heartbreak this episode.
Damon screwed things up which yeah. That is what Damon does. Torture scenes were distasteful to watch, I know why they did it and it’s completely in character for Damon to go that far but still. Eugh. Cannot handle watching torture. Katherine compelling Jenna to stab herself was a pretty surprising plot twist which I might have thought of if I’d considered Jenna more but I didn’t so. Good job TVD! I am always impressed by this show’s ability to keep the plot moving at such a breakneck pace.
And now for some reviews. I spend approximately three hours on commute every day for school and I usually use them to get some reading done. If I run out of stuff to read sometimes I write reviews in my notebook! I thought I’d just go ahead and type a few up for sharing purposes. =)
BOOK BUZZ: So hey this is a story about the high school love of a rich young white girl with family problems and a Mexican gangster boy! Basically, I am milking the clichés for all I am worth.
ME: Ooh I like clichés!
BRITTANY: I am the aforementioned rich white girl! My big sister is disabled and much like Sue from Glee I am pretty unhappy about how people treat her. Also my mom is super focused on appearances and as a consequence I have many issues surrounding my need to appear perfect at all times. You will know this because I say so straight up. Repeatedly! You may wish to hand the author a note on showing instead of telling by the time you are done this book!
ALEX: I am the eldest in my family and I have two younger brothers. After my dad was shot I joined our local Latino gang in order to protect my family. I have some reservations about this choice of lifestyle but what are you going to do? Other occurrences in my life include my recent breakup with my Evil Sexy Girlfriend Carmen. If you suspect you’re going to have to sit through comparisons of her with Brittany’s pure innocent beauty you’re right! An Evil Sexy Latina/Pure White Girl dichotomy is only one of the ways you will be made to feel uncomfortable with this book’s approach to race.
BRITTANY AND ALEX: There is a near miss with a car-motorcycle accident upon our meeting! It is symbolic for the force of our future love.
STORY: Clichés its way along. Nothing is surprising! Characters feel underdeveloped! Readers latch on to Carmen the Evil Sexy Girlfriend and decide she is off being interesting and cutting people with her super long killer nails just to the left of Alex and Brittany.
BOOK: So hey Zeineb are you going to bother finishing me once you’re off the bus and have access to better reading material?
ME: Ahahaha NO oh my God, how are you so amazingly terrible AND dull? I could deal with the terrible but dullness is a sin I cannot forgive!
CAR CRASH ON HIGHWAY SEVEN: Happens.
BOOK: Guess you don’t really have a choice now that the road block extended your bus ride by an entire hour huh?
ME: D=
STORY: Oh no! The guy who you had pegged as the Secretly Evil Traitor twenty pages into the book has betrayed Alex! Shock! Dismay! Really obvious character death!
ME: Shoot, I liked the obviously pegged to die character. =( We never got his POV, I could pretend he was having adventures with Evil Sexy Carmen out of sight.
STORY: If it makes you feel any better Brittany and Alex get married and live happily ever after?
ME: What’ll make me feel better is getting home and striking your sequel off my Books To Read list. I do enjoy seeing that list get shorter.
LIST: Is now down to 177 books!
And now for some tl;dr on Naruto.
THIS VOLUME. This ridiculous polarizing mess of a volume. It both royally ticked me off and managed to reinterest me in the series. I’m going to split this review into two parts: the good and the bad. Bad comes first since the frustrating part occurred halfway through, before the bit that managed to hook me again.
THE BAD
Okay, some background for non-Naruto readers. Naruto is the star of the story, your basic brash shonen hero with special powers. Just prior to his birth a powerful nine-tailed fox spirit called Kyuubi was terrorizing his village. The village leader, the fourth Hokage, figured the best way to deal with it was to seal it into baby Naruto. This lead to him being ostracized in his village all his life since the villagers apparently have trouble separating their antipathy for said fox from their feelings towards his Naruto-shaped container. Naruto reacted to this by being as much of a troublemaker as possible and vowing to one day become the Hokage. They’ll have to notice him then!
Hinata is the eldest daughter of the head of the Hyuuga clan, one of Leaf village’s most powerful ninja families. She’s extremely shy and retiring which doesn’t mesh well with her father’s tough love style of parenting, particularly in light of her position as clan heir. Hinata is in love with Naruto, admiring his spirit and never give up attitude. To some extent she sees him as a role model (yes to the determination! No to the stupid pranks!). There’s an early storyline revolving around this when she takes him as inspiration to keep fighting against her gifted cousin Neji.
So what’s happening in this volume is Naruto’s fighting this guy named Pain. He’s a very powerful Big Bad type and the fight isn’t going well for Naruto. Hinata hears about this and decides to help. She arrives at the scene and gives a big speech about how she’s determined to help Naruto defeat Pain even if it means her death and she tells him she’s in love with him. This is a huge moment for her. It used to be she could barely talk around Naruto, she’d end up completely flustered and stuttering. Now she’s both admitted her feelings and she’s going to try her best to fight against Pain, despite his ridiculous godmod level powers. In short it is her Crowning Moment of Awesome.
Or at least it should have been. When she runs over to attack Pain he knocks her down in an instant, leaving her to lie bleeding on the ground for the rest of the chapter and inspire Naruto to brand new levels of RAGELY POWER. It is the most textbook case of fridging I have ever seen. Putting aside the massive amounts of sexism that made that moment possible it was an incredibly dumb move to pull from a narrative standpoint. This should have been her moment to shine. In two panels the story of how Hinata overcame her internal obstacles and grew enough as a person to confess her feelings and stand against the man who destroyed her village got completely derailed in favour for the totally fascinating tale of Naruto Does Anger-Enhanced Kyuubi Powers: Take 74. It’s not like I’m asking for much here! I know Naruto has to be the one to beat Pain, it’s his comic, but would it have killed Kishimoto to give her a two page battle sequence? Let her strike a few blows that weaken him or have her distract him enough that Naruto manages to get in a good hit. It was a stupid, frustrating, rage-inspiring story choice and that is all I have to say about that.
THE GOOD
The reasoning behind Pain’s capture Naruto and harness the power of Kyuubi plan is he wants to create a weapon of such destructive power that once it’s been used the ninja world will never want to fight again. Basically he’s been taking tips from US Cold War nuclear deterrence policy. Naruto’s all ‘but that kind of peace is a lie!’ so Pain challenges him to find a better way. Cue flashback to his old mentor Jiraiya-sensei entertaining similar thoughts on how the shinobi world is founded on hate but not knowing how to change that. He truly believes peace and harmony will come one day though!
So Naruto replies he doesn’t know what to do but he believes as Jiraiya did that he can find a way. What I found interesting here was that both Pain and Jiraiya see the cycle of hate and violence as structurally embedded in the shinobi system. Which I agree with, standing armies are generally not a good recipe for peace. I’m starting to get the impression the series might end with Naruto becoming Hokage and abolishing the shinobi hidden villages system entirely. This is something I’d be interested in reading. Most shonen manga I read tend to skirt around the idea of problems emanating from the way their society is structured. Usually they’ll just attribute everything to some big bad manipulating the system and once the hero’s defeated him everything is better. To which I say blah. Bring on the revolution! I don’t know for sure yet if this is the route Naruto’s heading down but I’m willing to stick with it for a few more volumes to find out.
I also wrote up about half a review of Batman: Under the Red Hood the other day but I don’t particularly feel like typing it up and finishing it right now. Suffice to say I thought it was a decent movie, the art and voice acting were adequate, I liked the smooth acrobatic way they choose to animate their fight scenes and it felt pretty accessible to someone who doesn’t know much of DC canon. Worth picking up from the library if you like Jason Todd.
Anyways I loved this episode. It did alot of things I’d really wanted the show to handle. I’m so glad they brought Bonnie back and they addressed how she’s been excluded from all the recent plot shenanigans. It would have been great if it hadn’t happened but I liked that they actually let her have her say. And that she and Caroline are on the road to working things out, so so happy about that.
Also Caroline and Liz. I was so pleased to see them actually talk and to see Liz move away from her initial reaction of rejection. I knew she would if they just gave her time. <3 the Forbes. It killed me when after all that happened Caroline compelled her anyways. ;_; TVD was all about the heartbreak this episode.
Damon screwed things up which yeah. That is what Damon does. Torture scenes were distasteful to watch, I know why they did it and it’s completely in character for Damon to go that far but still. Eugh. Cannot handle watching torture. Katherine compelling Jenna to stab herself was a pretty surprising plot twist which I might have thought of if I’d considered Jenna more but I didn’t so. Good job TVD! I am always impressed by this show’s ability to keep the plot moving at such a breakneck pace.
And now for some reviews. I spend approximately three hours on commute every day for school and I usually use them to get some reading done. If I run out of stuff to read sometimes I write reviews in my notebook! I thought I’d just go ahead and type a few up for sharing purposes. =)
BOOK BUZZ: So hey this is a story about the high school love of a rich young white girl with family problems and a Mexican gangster boy! Basically, I am milking the clichés for all I am worth.
ME: Ooh I like clichés!
BRITTANY: I am the aforementioned rich white girl! My big sister is disabled and much like Sue from Glee I am pretty unhappy about how people treat her. Also my mom is super focused on appearances and as a consequence I have many issues surrounding my need to appear perfect at all times. You will know this because I say so straight up. Repeatedly! You may wish to hand the author a note on showing instead of telling by the time you are done this book!
ALEX: I am the eldest in my family and I have two younger brothers. After my dad was shot I joined our local Latino gang in order to protect my family. I have some reservations about this choice of lifestyle but what are you going to do? Other occurrences in my life include my recent breakup with my Evil Sexy Girlfriend Carmen. If you suspect you’re going to have to sit through comparisons of her with Brittany’s pure innocent beauty you’re right! An Evil Sexy Latina/Pure White Girl dichotomy is only one of the ways you will be made to feel uncomfortable with this book’s approach to race.
BRITTANY AND ALEX: There is a near miss with a car-motorcycle accident upon our meeting! It is symbolic for the force of our future love.
STORY: Clichés its way along. Nothing is surprising! Characters feel underdeveloped! Readers latch on to Carmen the Evil Sexy Girlfriend and decide she is off being interesting and cutting people with her super long killer nails just to the left of Alex and Brittany.
BOOK: So hey Zeineb are you going to bother finishing me once you’re off the bus and have access to better reading material?
ME: Ahahaha NO oh my God, how are you so amazingly terrible AND dull? I could deal with the terrible but dullness is a sin I cannot forgive!
CAR CRASH ON HIGHWAY SEVEN: Happens.
BOOK: Guess you don’t really have a choice now that the road block extended your bus ride by an entire hour huh?
ME: D=
STORY: Oh no! The guy who you had pegged as the Secretly Evil Traitor twenty pages into the book has betrayed Alex! Shock! Dismay! Really obvious character death!
ME: Shoot, I liked the obviously pegged to die character. =( We never got his POV, I could pretend he was having adventures with Evil Sexy Carmen out of sight.
STORY: If it makes you feel any better Brittany and Alex get married and live happily ever after?
ME: What’ll make me feel better is getting home and striking your sequel off my Books To Read list. I do enjoy seeing that list get shorter.
LIST: Is now down to 177 books!
And now for some tl;dr on Naruto.
THIS VOLUME. This ridiculous polarizing mess of a volume. It both royally ticked me off and managed to reinterest me in the series. I’m going to split this review into two parts: the good and the bad. Bad comes first since the frustrating part occurred halfway through, before the bit that managed to hook me again.
THE BAD
Okay, some background for non-Naruto readers. Naruto is the star of the story, your basic brash shonen hero with special powers. Just prior to his birth a powerful nine-tailed fox spirit called Kyuubi was terrorizing his village. The village leader, the fourth Hokage, figured the best way to deal with it was to seal it into baby Naruto. This lead to him being ostracized in his village all his life since the villagers apparently have trouble separating their antipathy for said fox from their feelings towards his Naruto-shaped container. Naruto reacted to this by being as much of a troublemaker as possible and vowing to one day become the Hokage. They’ll have to notice him then!
Hinata is the eldest daughter of the head of the Hyuuga clan, one of Leaf village’s most powerful ninja families. She’s extremely shy and retiring which doesn’t mesh well with her father’s tough love style of parenting, particularly in light of her position as clan heir. Hinata is in love with Naruto, admiring his spirit and never give up attitude. To some extent she sees him as a role model (yes to the determination! No to the stupid pranks!). There’s an early storyline revolving around this when she takes him as inspiration to keep fighting against her gifted cousin Neji.
So what’s happening in this volume is Naruto’s fighting this guy named Pain. He’s a very powerful Big Bad type and the fight isn’t going well for Naruto. Hinata hears about this and decides to help. She arrives at the scene and gives a big speech about how she’s determined to help Naruto defeat Pain even if it means her death and she tells him she’s in love with him. This is a huge moment for her. It used to be she could barely talk around Naruto, she’d end up completely flustered and stuttering. Now she’s both admitted her feelings and she’s going to try her best to fight against Pain, despite his ridiculous godmod level powers. In short it is her Crowning Moment of Awesome.
Or at least it should have been. When she runs over to attack Pain he knocks her down in an instant, leaving her to lie bleeding on the ground for the rest of the chapter and inspire Naruto to brand new levels of RAGELY POWER. It is the most textbook case of fridging I have ever seen. Putting aside the massive amounts of sexism that made that moment possible it was an incredibly dumb move to pull from a narrative standpoint. This should have been her moment to shine. In two panels the story of how Hinata overcame her internal obstacles and grew enough as a person to confess her feelings and stand against the man who destroyed her village got completely derailed in favour for the totally fascinating tale of Naruto Does Anger-Enhanced Kyuubi Powers: Take 74. It’s not like I’m asking for much here! I know Naruto has to be the one to beat Pain, it’s his comic, but would it have killed Kishimoto to give her a two page battle sequence? Let her strike a few blows that weaken him or have her distract him enough that Naruto manages to get in a good hit. It was a stupid, frustrating, rage-inspiring story choice and that is all I have to say about that.
THE GOOD
The reasoning behind Pain’s capture Naruto and harness the power of Kyuubi plan is he wants to create a weapon of such destructive power that once it’s been used the ninja world will never want to fight again. Basically he’s been taking tips from US Cold War nuclear deterrence policy. Naruto’s all ‘but that kind of peace is a lie!’ so Pain challenges him to find a better way. Cue flashback to his old mentor Jiraiya-sensei entertaining similar thoughts on how the shinobi world is founded on hate but not knowing how to change that. He truly believes peace and harmony will come one day though!
So Naruto replies he doesn’t know what to do but he believes as Jiraiya did that he can find a way. What I found interesting here was that both Pain and Jiraiya see the cycle of hate and violence as structurally embedded in the shinobi system. Which I agree with, standing armies are generally not a good recipe for peace. I’m starting to get the impression the series might end with Naruto becoming Hokage and abolishing the shinobi hidden villages system entirely. This is something I’d be interested in reading. Most shonen manga I read tend to skirt around the idea of problems emanating from the way their society is structured. Usually they’ll just attribute everything to some big bad manipulating the system and once the hero’s defeated him everything is better. To which I say blah. Bring on the revolution! I don’t know for sure yet if this is the route Naruto’s heading down but I’m willing to stick with it for a few more volumes to find out.
I also wrote up about half a review of Batman: Under the Red Hood the other day but I don’t particularly feel like typing it up and finishing it right now. Suffice to say I thought it was a decent movie, the art and voice acting were adequate, I liked the smooth acrobatic way they choose to animate their fight scenes and it felt pretty accessible to someone who doesn’t know much of DC canon. Worth picking up from the library if you like Jason Todd.