They could grind them down or chip them. I somehow managed with a much more forgiving diet.
I was just rewatching (and complaining) about Wolf Hall Season 2 because of its addition of black guards and a black sister for Jane Seymour. It led me into a search for Tudor fiction where I learned the deep hatred of Philippa Gregory by Tudor history fans (apparently the Woodvilles really were witches, go figure).
But it was also pointed out that that's a feature not a bug. We know the story of the Prince in the Tower. It's just depressingly mundane, which is why we want it to be anything else besides the obvious. We know how it ended for Anne Boleyn. If Gregory wants to tell a story where these women gained agency by being witches or femme fatales is it the worst thing in the world?
Thirdly, and most importantly, historical fiction doesn't have to be written this way. If you want to change the outcome of a historical event because it makes your story better, you can write in a heavily inspired parallel universe like Guy Gavriel Kay, who has El Cid go down fitting Muhammad ibn Ammar in the Lions of Al-Rassan and Belisaurius becoming Emperor after Justinian in The Lord of Emperor's. You can also can be entirely truthful: Javier Moro's El imperio eres tú has biographical levels of accuracy on the life of Pedro I of Brazil, but reads like a novel. You can even make up your own characters, like Bernard Cornwell does in his Saxon Tales series and use the historical setting as a backdrop of what would otherwise be a fantasy novel.
Ah, but what if I, median viewer, don't want the real story (nor do I want to be told a story in a different timeline). "Richard did it" is boring and is the first thing anyone thinks of. I want something new and interesting that could be what happened!
If you're into straight history it can hardly be more accessible (especially European history obviously). Sometimes we don't want history though, it's often disappointing. We want a story about it.
It's hard to know how much to blame writers when they expect that you can just find the real story on your own time. In practice, yes, fiction often informs our views but at what point are the public to blame for that? Hillary Mantel is clearly reacting to a certain view of Cromwell and More. But she's clear that she's writing historical fiction.
That's kind of where I'm at with it. It's hard to come up with a line on historical realism because we will not reward writers for being historically accurate. The public may even laugh and dismiss you for violating their assumptions about what the world was like in the past.
But I draw the line at black Tudors. The difference there being that it's a clear top down imposition from the BBC not done to serve some story-telling purpose.
In a real historical piece, if they tried to make everything slavishly right any show would be unwatchable, because there would be too much that the audience couldn’t understand. The audience would be constantly distracted by details like un-filmably dark building interiors, ugly missing teeth, infants being given broken-winged songbirds as disposable toys to play with, crush, and throw away, and Marie Antoinette relieving herself on the floor at Versailles. Despite its hundreds of bathrooms, one of Versailles’ marks of luxury was that the staff removed human feces from the hallways regularly, sometimes as often as twice a day, and always more than once a week.
...
Even costuming accuracy can be a communications problem, since modern viewers have certain associations that are hard to unlearn. Want to costume a princess to feel sweet and feminine? The modern eye demands pink or light blue, though the historian knows pale colors coded poverty. Want to costume a woman to communicate the fact that she’s a sexy seductress? The audience needs the bodice and sleeves to expose the bits of her modern audiences associate with sexy, regardless of which bits would plausibly have been exposed at the time. I recently had to costume some Vikings, and was lent a pair of extremely nice period Viking pants which had bold white and orange stripes about two inches wide. I know enough to realize how perfect they were, and that both the expense of the dye and the purity of the white would mark them as the pants of an important man, but that if someone walked on stage in them the whole audience would think: “Why is that Viking wearing clown pants?” Which do you want, to communicate with the audience, or to be accurate? I choose A.
(The article then goes on to suggest "historicity" vs "historical accuracy": aka just pick your battles and try to maintain a history-like vibe)
It's pretty funny that the most pilloried Word of God from JK Rowling (well, maybe barring the declaration that Dumbledore is gay) is probably a result of her knowing the above fact about Versailles and just adding it to her world.
If the audience doesn't reward you for this and it actively harms their SOD, why do it?
When the big team owners in European football got together to propose a US-style European super league with franchise teams protected from promotion and relegation, the hardcore fans mutinied
This almost certainly would not have been enough. Everyone, including the other teams and the pundit class disproportionately drawn from those top teams, absolutely revolted. The Premier League in particular was started to seize more of the money for top teams without locking out the other teams needed for an exciting league, they saw the implications.
And the people who market European football think that the commitment of the (very local and traditional) hardcore fan base is part of the product they are selling to the Asian TV fans
Derby day is a big deal across the world even if you never set foot in Manchester or London and don't really have any of the proximity that made it so exciting originally. It's quite something.
Tanista
3d ago
Heck, it might actually be a good thing, since Cletus is dealing with all of that now, and his suffering is also an unalloyed good.
Mr Neather was a speech writer who worked in Downing Street for Tony Blair and in the Home Office for Jack Straw and David Blunkett, in the early 2000s. ... He said the final published version of the report promoted the labour market case for immigration but unpublished versions contained additional reasons, he said.
He wrote: "Earlier drafts I saw also included a driving political purpose: that mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural.
"I remember coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended – even if this wasn't its main purpose – to rub the Right's nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date."
Tanista
3d ago
Well, that's exactly what happened. They didn't just scare the hos, they made them (me) mad.
Not to be an asshole, but if you're here I'm not sure you qualify as one of the hos.
You can be a bro though.
That last part is so incredibly far off from the way the book portrayed Aragorn that it's a total insult.
Jackson's Aragorn has always been significantly different from his book counterpart though. Probably somewhat of a necessity if you don't want to get into details of his and Gondor's history (though they do bring in the Numenorean stuff in the Extended editions)
It actually affects what you think the themes of LOTR are. A lot of people take the One Ring to represent power as such which I think can be directly traced to the idea that Aragorn, the good king, doesn't want to be king unless it's pressed upon him by the most extreme circumstances. e end...
Tanista
9d ago
State-endorsed science denialism is bad.
It's especially bad in states that don't have US-style free speech protections.
So he needs to find the most emotionally-potent video of death he can find and then exaggerate the details.
I'm pretty sure this happened during Biden's run. Part of the reason it worked is that there was no counter-narrative of dead American citizens.
The other thing is: the border is no longer as relevant now that Biden isn't actively paroling people. Stories of recent migrants showing up and wrecking things are naturally going to drop in number and salience.
My impression is, for better or worse, Americans don't have coherent ideas about immigration enforcement. Or not enough of them do to form a coherent policy. His approval on his strongest issue has been dropping, it just seems like people didn't like chaos at the border but once that was resolved the urgency just dropped off.
Trump using ICE to go after what are almost certainly populations of citizens (take it up with past Presidents!) in a hostile city because of topical scandals is a high-risk, low-reward strategy if you assume that a lot of people simultaneously don't like border chaos but also don't want to be mean or deal with random ICE raids and attendant counter protests.
Tanista
16d ago
It seems to me that ICE is the least effective way to punish Minneapolis if you consider that a worthy goal. Mass prosecutions, withholding federal money and so on surely would be vastly superior to following a policy that seems to be cratering your own popularity, is not serving to make you more credible on your top issues and will fade into mist at best when you leave office.
Tanista
17d ago
Didn't they spend a bunch of money on illegals during Biden's term? I heard some complaints about it in the recent budget row. Doesn't seem like amoral cupidity to me.
Tanista
22d ago
I'm neither American nor Canadian (though I have lived in the latter for a significant chunk of my life and my siblings were born and live in the US till now). Maybe that explains it.
But I think it's not so hard to satisfy Poles. France should give them security guarantees
American security guarantees =/= French security guarantees, especially since you admit that European hard power is, as it stands, underbuilt. That may change faster than I imagine but it isn't the case now and that colors things.
With Americans, that sort of problem is obviously lessened which is what made their guarantees so credible. You can't necessarily crib from their notes right now
Merz talks of Russia being a «European country».
I mean, he's German. Germans have not, within my lifetime, been the Russophobic country. They're the country Russophobic countries tell not to build pipelines to Russia.
If anything Russia's forays into Ukraine are just interrupting what was a seemingly mutually beneficial relationship.
They could reroute supply chains (rein in Ukrainians, accept Russian exports again, more EU-side JVs with China as Macron proposes)
Besides any fiscal issues, there's the problem of coordinating "Europeans" to do this. France may want to cool down the Ukraine thing and welcome Russia back but is it what Poland thinks is wise?
Trump's approval ratings are relatively low. Democrats' are apparently even lower.
I don't think it's just that Trump is good at politics, though he is. Democrats need to decide where to hold on and where to give ground policywise. And no one has the authority or charisma to do so right now (especially because I suspect part of the cope is "he's unpopular and will lose midterms and then be term-limited so I don't want to fuck anything up and stand out")
Not just because of Trump. Because their own party will rip them apart for picking wrong. Dean Phillips and Seth Moulton faced serious criticism for breaking early on certain matters. Ezra Klein was basically put in a struggle session with the anointed black prophet for daring to suggest Charlie Kirk wasn't the devil. Why is this even seen as a "black" thing? Because Kirk said some things about affirmative action? It seems to be the least interesting or dangerous thing about him. Imagine trying to take any position when dealing with this sort of thing.
I think when there's a nominee there will be someone with both an interest and ability to decide, to pick targets.
Even more punitive and damaging tariffs, fucking around with the upcoming USMCA negotiations, fucking with Canadians crossing the border, kicking out of Five Eyes, maybe sanctions for Canadian officials as individuals. Hell, even attempted retaliations would hurt Canada: pipelines to Eastern Canada pass through the US too .
All of those would rapidly result in the whole world looking for a better deal with a new protector.
I think it's one thing for France to try to be independent. Canada will find it hard to find anyone that could protect it from the US. Especially when there are existing issues with Chinese influence and espionage (not that China did Venezuela much good). It's a bit of a rock and hard place.
Tanista
22d ago
I think there's a transition from the old guard that means a huge lack of leadership. There's no presidential nominee to act as party head and people like Pelosi who were, if nothing else, competent are gone.
Seriously, who is the boogeyman for right wingers right now?
Not to mention the diversity and multicultural shit has always been product of US intellectuals first and foremost.
That makes it less mysterious? MAGA loathes those sorts of people.
It's an extension of the culture war, Europe is focused on because they function as a proxy for America (well, the white Americans) and is seen to be suffering from being ruled by the same sorts of people MAGA considers its foremost enemies in the US.
Tanista
22d ago
The engagement with China is a common theme, spearheaded by Carney. His partnership with China in particular is prompting Americans to fantasize of seizing Alberta. Maybe that'll happen too.
If the American-led, rules-based liberal international order is collapsing, why would Canada be allowed to sidle up to China? The assumption that that is something it can do is the ALRBLIO.
Yeah, at least we're gonna see how much a change of orientation from the PM alone matters. Or what he can or is willing to do if it doesn't.
It's clearly a policy choice to take continually expanding First Nations' claims (one of the blockers for infrastructure in Canada) seriously. Granted, it's not purely a legislative decision - the judiciary has its role here. But nobody forced Trudeau to enshrine these rights even further by rolling the UNs view of native rights into law and making it a part of his administration (even after he left Canada was paying off claims)
Environmentalists help it along by cynically claiming FN have an absolute right of veto, which conveniently suits their interests.
Yes, it's a coordination problem.
But the issue is that there's no benefit to solving said problem. Why would Ridley Scott make his movie slightly worse to correct the impression that the Vikings dressed like goths?
Especially since the misconception may last precisely because it is of no great importance to anyone. People can find counterarguments to all sorts of sacred truths today...when they care.
More options
Context Copy link