fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #585 ]

[ SECRET POST #585 ]

⌈ Secret Post #585 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 12 pages, 280 secrets from Secret Submission Post #084.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 2 - broken links ], [ 1 2 3 4 - not!secrets ], [ 1 2 - not!fandom ], [ 1 2 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - take it to comments ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

101. Word. Wordy-word-word word. There's no call. Seriously.

102. Buh...what? Gandalf had no personality? Did you read the books? Because everyone had heaps more in the books. Gandalf's all crochety and sarcastic and I love him.

107. I'd rather get them to read Companions of the Night. Heh. Vamps should be for the lolz.

123. I remeber being really disappointed when I found out who he was under the mask, because I loved Rorschach so much even though he was a total psycho, but that guy just creeped me the heck out.

126. Another person who doesn't get it. Look, Heath!Joker was just hot, okay. It's a statement of fact. He's almost Affably Evil, but is just way too psycho for that. But he's fictional. As a fictional character, he's hot. Deal with it.

140. Heheheh...sweeeeeet.

148. Actually, I think that the fact that Batman won't bring himself to kill the Joker is not only weakness, but selfishness on Batman's part. He's already breaking oodles of laws and has set himself up as a vigilante. He beats up people every night. Oh no, the Joker would "win" by making Batman kill him. On the other hand, if Batman would just stop pussy-footing around and do it, then hundreds, if not thousands of lives would be spared.
No, I don't really think people should take killing into their own hands. And I've got complicated feelings on the death penalty.
But a) it's fiction. b) Batman has set himself apart from civilized society and plays by his own rules. He won't kill the Joker because it conflicts with the arbitrary rules he set himself so he doesn't feel too crazy about himself in the morning.

152. Heath wasn't a freaking drug addict.

153. To be honest, if you ever have trouble reading a Shakespeare play, you really actually should rent the film (make sure it's a well-reccommended one) and watch it. I say this as a huge English nerd who loves reading Shakespeare. But his stuff wasn't meant to be read, it was meant to be watched.
And if I'd read King Lear first, I probably wouldn't've cried when I saw it performed. Or actually said "no" when he came back on stage with her body at the end.

168. Well, here's my not-secret. I think the book was crap. And I read it first. The musical took the concept and actually turned it into a coherent story with characters who weren't completely disgusting and told it well. Hey, I liked Elphaba! Hey, the lovers actually made sense.
And yes, I'll be shallow--Hey, I was actually happy at the end of it.

178. While not as drastic as most of that secret, I have been having conversations about him with myself (or else imagining what I'd say to him if I could, which usually starts with "You stupid, selfish b*****d!" and ends with raving fangirl deconstructions of how good he was and what he could've been if things had just been a little different). And I don't even have the excuse of being drunk. (Granted, these conversations aren't usually out loud.)

180. I kind of was too, even though at first I thought the idea of her being a lesbian was kind of cheap. But by the end of it, heck I was wondering if Hazel's boss might not turn me gay, she was so cute and supportive. She does deserve all the lesbians in the world.

GOSH DARN IT WHAT IS IT

webcomic: Girls with Slingshots. It's kind of brilliant. My favourit thing is McPedro, the talking Scottish cactus with a sombrero and a moustache. But he only talks if you're drunk!

AY THENK YEW

Elphaba wasn't supposed to be likable. She was supposed to be a martyr. All the book did was try to show her from another point of view. But you don't have to like her to get the point of the book.

And Glinda? God, way to completely ruin her character. Seriously, at least Maguire's Glinda was more on par with Baum's Glinda. As for the lovers actually making sense? Um, where, exactly? Glinda/Fiyero was solely thrown into the musical for ~drama~

Glinda/Fiyero was solely thrown into the musical for ~drama~

And what, pray tell, was the point of Elphaba/Fiyero in the book? It wasn't even drama it was just...a mess.
Galinda/Fiyero made perfect sense in the context of the play, as did Elphaba/Fiyero. Contrast to the "relationships" in the book which were basically just random sex. And sex with a tiger!

That whole book was a mess, like someone took a paint palette and muddied everything together to no real purpose. The musical shows Elphaba from another point of view from the original story as well, it just actually makes it coherent.

Why wasn't Elphaba supposed to be likeable? If she wasn't, was anyone? Why read a book if every single character in it seems disgusting, inhuman, and unrealistic? But Elphaba seemed like she was going to be likeable enough in the beginning. Until random craziness took over and kept spiralling like mad.

Look, the book was a mess. Loose threads of plot everywhere, and a narrator who, by the end, was just too friggen crazy to bother tying them together into anything resembling a satisying story.

And honestly, "more on par with Baum's" anything is fair moot in either case.

Woah, are you me? I pretty much agree with everything you've said (except I think the musical is pretty dumb too, but that's just me.)

What really bugged me about the book is that the author seems to be thinking, "Hey, I'll take a charming, whimsical story for children and turn it into a nightmarish dystopian world to make some kind of point" which would be fine expect I really don't know what the point was. This is also why I don't understand the appeal of Tinman. "Hey, let's take a charming, whimsical story for children and turn it into a nightmarish dystopian world, and then throw in every lame sci-fi/fantasy cliche we can think of!" Geez, people, if you want your Wizard of Oz a little darker, go watch Return to Oz, at least that actually tries to be faithful to the books. Or better yet, just go read the books, for a children's series it can get pretty weird. :P

"Hey, I'll take a charming, whimsical story for children and turn it into a nightmarish dystopian world to make some kind of point" which would be fine expect I really don't know what the point was.

That's exactly what I hated about the book. Honestly, I think the concept was good. In the original story, Dorothy never encounters the Wicked Witch of the West until she's sent to kill her by the Wizard, who only gives her the justification of "she's very evil and should be killed!" And given the fact that he's been lying to the citizens of Oz since he got there, it's not too far a jump to wonder what else he's lying about (and as to the kind of leader he'd be, well, 1920's Midwesterner's bound to have some latent racism, or, if he's clever, be aware of how discrimination against a minority unites the rest of the people).

Heck, even in the movie, the Witch has darned good justification for wanting revenge off Dorothy--that was her sister, after all.

But...the point of the flipside got completely lost somewhere along the muddled way. I feel like, even as oversimplified as it was, at least the musical stays coherent.

Tinman's another one I liked the concept of, but not the execution. It could've been better. I didn't really care about seeing Wizard of Oz "darker" (because nothing can beat the good ol' fashioned Nightmare Fuel of the movie...unless it's Dorothy getting electroshock treatment in Return to Oz. I think my little sister still considers that to be the freakiest movie she ever saw). I just like the idea of reinterpretations.

IAWT 2 C. Seriously. IMHO, the book was a bunch of poorly thrown-together stream-of-consciousness novellas that attempted to come across as sinister and instead came across as disgusting and misogynist. The plot of the book is completely incoherent and there's *never* a point to the (ridiculous and unrealistic) shit that happens, only a halfassed attempt at a mood. The idea - presenting the horrible dark reality of a fairy-tale world via fragments of the life of a villain - is a brilliant one, but the execution of that idea was... well, to put it kindly, *sub-optimal*.

:/ I really freaking hated the book, to the extent that I strongly resisted listening to the musical.

But the musical is pretty darn good. It's also about dark, sinister realities - but they apply to the real world, too, and the execution doesn't involve gratuitous sex scenes OR any completely and repulsively irredeemable characters. The musical is self-aware, too, and makes fun of itself; a song like "Popular" could never be anything but tongue-in-cheek, regardless of how unpleasantly true it is.

Teal deer, I fucking hate the book and I like the musical.

I like the musical for the same reason I like any musical--the singing is fantastic ^^ And you're right that the self-awareness makes palatable a lot of things that would otherwise lead to headsplosions. I bailed out on the book shortly after Elphaba hooked up with Fiyero. I couldn't take the WUT factor and the ostentatious writing style any more :P Life is too short to read bad books!

thank you for articulating exactly why i got annoyed with this book. i mean it started good, but by the end i was praying for it to be over. a fish in the well and a convent and what the fucking fuck was even going on???

I'll have to disagree. To reduce Batman's vigilantism and strict moral code to something as simple as "he's breaking oodles of laws but can't break one more and kill the Joker" is to miss the point. Batman knows the system is corrupt (political figures are shady, every other Gotham cop is on the take), but he refuses to kill because he (and Jim Gordon) want to believe so badly that the system, in the end, does work. If -Batman- gives up on justice, who and what is left to believe in?

The truth is, I think Batman's as crazy as anyone else in his Rogue's Gallery, and that it's less about Justice for the city as it is a personal vendetta. Of all things, it was Batman Forever that made me think that, but I think it's just that he's still taking down criminals because something Very Bad happened to him when he was a kid. I mean, it's much, much more complex than that, and I know it is.
Gordon wants to believe the system works. Batman just wants balm on his well-nursed wounds. I think he says it's for justice, and that he's said it often enough that he believes it, but really, he's fooling himself.
Pragmatically, it's a good thing he is and all, given the good he's done for Gotham. But purely clinically? He's nuts.

Killing the Joker wouldn't be giving up on justice either, I don't think. Batman's scared of what he'd become if he let himself do it, and I'll admit with good reason, but I still think it's either weak or self-indulgent that he won't do it, especially since he knows (and has told the Joker as much) that it will have to end with one of their death's. He knows the Joker can't be helped or contained, so in a way, he's either putting off the inevitable, or hoping that someone else will wind up doing it for him.

He can't believe that the system works and do what he does, pure and simple. He'd like to think that, I suppose, but he takes himself out of the system, meaning that the only rules that apply to him are the ones he sets himself. His "strict moral code" is just something he has to make himself feel better about that and everything. I suppose you could be a little melodramatic and say that's what seperates him from them (although cops, even non-corrupt ones, will shoot to kill if dealing with a psycho like the Joker. So what's the deal, Batsy?), but I keep thinking of something Wolverine told Chamber when the latter was told to infiltrate Weapon X. I can't remember what he said exactly, but it was something along the lines of "This is something that needs doing and it isn't pretty or glamourous, but if you've got a chance to save hundreds of lives and the cost is a piece of your soul, you pay it."

It's not something I agree with 100% IRL, but in comic/story-logic, I do.

(And yes, I agree, comic-wise, Batman can't kill someone, and I'm not sure that I'd want him to. But playing pure devil's advocate...I still think he's nuts and a little spoiled.)

You raise very good points. Batman can't do what he does without being a little crazy himself, and time and again the residents of Arkham have tried to prove that. However, I've always felt the key difference between Batman and most of the Rogues Gallery is that Batman, while crazy in his own way, still has the power to say no. NO, I will not hurt this person any more than is necessary in order to gain information. NO, I will not murder in cold blood. Many members of the Rogues Gallery are too far gone in their insanity to make a conscious choice anymore (though I suppose you can still argue that the Joker's level of insanity surpasses insanity itself and becomes that "super-sanity" that Morrison talks about in Arkham Asylum).

He can't believe that the system works and do what he does, pure and simple.

I agree with this in part because I can see how hard it would be to reconcile the two, but I think Batman believes in justice more as an abstract concept, while at the same time he makes up his own justice to fill in the gaps.

I still think he's nuts and a little spoiled

Ahahaha, spoiled definitely. Most orphans don't have a billion-dollar company and a gigantic trust fund at their disposal.

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[ SECRET POST #585 ]

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