Well, you’re certainly entitled to your opinion.
It’s wrong, but you are entitled to it. 
2 Likes
Still gonna love the books.
I love all his books.
Even Ysabel.
Sorry not sorry.
Still super fucking excited this is being made, don’t watch it if you don’t want to. I’ll watch it twice just for you!
9 Likes
Oh, I’ll watch it. I’ll even reread the books. They’re full of imagery that sticks with me even now, years after the fact and it’d be awesome to see some of those play out on the screen.
But the problems stick with me too. For example, all the protagonists are white, although they’re from Toronto (which may have played fine in the 80s, but not for me in the 90s, when I read the books, and certainly not now), playing out the role of saviours of all the worlds through their noble sacrifices[1]. I hope there’s some retooling of the characters that doesn’t just involve casting $BURLY_SAMOAN as Dave Martin, rugby fullback and honorary Dalrei plainsrunner.
[1] One of which involves carrying a child who is a product of rape to term and raising him. I found Jennifer’s arc disturbing, dissonant and ultimately unconvincing and I’m not alone, I’m sure. Im interested in seeing if they can make it work on TV, but have serious reservations.
2 Likes
Re: your spoiler - I see you don’t watch Law & Order SUV. Cuz thats literally Olivia Bensens’ back story. And it is wholly believable. 
I found Jennifer’s arc super disturbing, but not unconvincing at all. I found utterly too believable hence why so disturbing. Also messing around with Arthurian legend is all good in my books.
1 Like
Oh, don’t get me wrong here, it’s not that I didn’t find Jennifer’s raising of her rapist’s child and all that came with it unbelievable (it was believable and hence disturbing), it’s her “happy ending”, that I couldn’t accept (hence the dissonance).. It’s been almost 20 years(!) since I read the books, so maybe I’ll see things differently upon rereading.
1 Like
I’m going to be optimistic and let the Temple Street peeps update it for a modern telling. 
And I don’t mind “happy endings” in so much as someone that went through what Jennifer went through can have a happy ending… LOL
1 Like
If I remember, it wasn’t that Jennifer got a happy ending that bothered me. It was that the whole Arthurian trio did. And not just any happy ending; their ending was practically idyllic (see: Rowan Atkinson wrapped-in-a-bow comment above). They literally sail off into the sunset.1
I understand that they broke out of what amounts to a version of Hell, of having to live through the same story, the same betrayals, the same tragic ending, over and over again. And I like that as a concept.
But their ending’s not presented as the characters choosing to change their nature to escape their past mistakes: it’s more like an episode of Oprah: “And you get a happy ending! And you get a happy ending! Everybody gets happy endings!” It’s an effect disconnected from its cause.
That kind of redemptive, on-a-new-path moment should feel like the beginning of a story. Take the true ending of The Dark Tower, for instance. When Roland climbs the Dark Tower, he is sent back to the beginning of the story, but with the Horn of Eld, a token of some power that he had lost long before the point he was sent back to. And the reader is left thinking, “What kind of difference will this make? How will this small alteration change what will happen next?”
The ending of Fionavar, on the other hand, leaves the reader thinking, “Welp. That story’s over.” Particularly for those characters I’m talking about, but for most of the others, too.
Contrast with the ending of Kay’s Tigana. The book ends with three men seeing a riselka, and there are so many ways that the story could continue from there.
I have no problem reading stories where damaged people find happiness, and I certainly have no particular fondness for downer endings. But a happy ending for a damaged character should feel like said ending is the start of the damage being repaired. It should feel hopeful, not conclusive. And for Fionavar to cheat like that, and take some of the most damaged and tragic characters in the entirety of English literature, paper over their damage and flaws, and shove them into the sunset with an impossibly happy and conclusive ending…
It’s a disservice to the characters, it’s a disservice to the reader, and it’s (if you couldn’t tell) one of the biggest problems I have with Fionavar.
1"Then it seemed to those that watched from the plain that that ship began to rise into the night, not following the curving of the earth but tracking a different path" feels particularly like it was ripped directly from Tolkien.
Ripped from or an homage?
I never felt like they got a happy ending, so much as they got an ending.
Just like Frodo.
3 Likes
So… I am very hot and cold on fantasy. When I like it, I like it lots, but I don’t read a lot of it.
This bit twigged with me though. How would it compare to, say, Neverwhere?
2 Likes
Thank you.
World needs more CanCon.
5 Likes
Conservative “media advisor to the Ontario PC Party” gets smacked down by Ottawa police, just for being a conservative.Twitter commenters show little sympathy.
9 Likes
2 Likes
2 Likes
It’s an ill wind…
8 Likes
I say this with love… fuck off America, keep your mitts off our butter tarts!
6 Likes
I think you are now obliged to say “sorry”, eh?
3 Likes
Butter tarts an Nanaimo bars are sacred, Canadian desserts! (I just picked up some from the farmers market today, in fact).
The bigger problem lately has been “contamination” of the purity of the butter tart with additions like raisins, pecans, walnuts… bah!
5 Likes
Raisins ftw! Raisins raisins raisins!
1 Like
PECANS OR NOTHING!
You and your dirty RAISINS can go back to New Brunswick!
5 Likes
You’ve just described a mini pecan pie. Are you sure you aren’t part American?
eta: Firm, not runny.
3 Likes