Random Banter #239 - Now 50% more tangible!

[Anonymouswizard]

A dozen or so years ago, I read the first issue of a comic book called Universal War One and I remember liking it but not being able to finish the series.

I came across it in a comic book store recently a bought all six volumes (well I bought the first half and a month or two later bought the second half), I'm just done reading through it.

For all that it's a really good comic that does very well my favourite things about science-fiction... It really shows how much society's attitude towards women changed in the twenty years since its publication.

Spoiler

Show

All the three women of the main cast:

-One is initially presented as the main protagonist and the leader of the squad (with her main trait as a leader being "being motherly") until she has to hand over command to the actual (male) main protagonist one third of the way in and straight-up gets fridged in the second to last book to justify the twist vilain's turn to evil (said vilain apparently kept her bleached skull as a memento for 95 years).

-The other gets raped by a squadmate and later marries that guy. Granted she did (accidentally) shoot him in the spine leaving him wheelchair-bound. And from what we see of their life together, it seems she apologizes for shooting him a lot more than he apologizes for raping her.

-The third one ends up marrying the protagonist. Said protagonist having at one point spent an entire page mentally scolding himself for staring at her bottoms while she's asleep (why exactly she was sleeping without trousers when they didn't have any form of blankets or sheets available isn't explained) when he's roughly old enough to be her father (42 years old to 24). Also, her main defining feature is being the daughter of the admiral they all work for (and therefore pretty wealthy).

Argh. Especially the last one, it just makes the main character scream 'creep' to me. Plus she's allowed to sleep as bottomless as she wants.

But yeah, that's not good. Reminds me of the feelings I get watching Classic Who, where sometimes it feels like women are only there to get captured.

And also all of the women in the squadron end up being romantically involved with a man in the squadron and everytime I was scratching my head because there was basically no prior chemistry or hints of interest before they start making-out. The last one especially felt more like the author checking a box than a natural progression of the characters.

I feel like media got adults has a truly bad tendency to treat 'be in a relationship' as a box ticking exercise. Okay not just adult oriented media, it's also one of my major gripes with the Avatar cartoons (the only main character without an on-screen relationship is, IIRC, Toph). I want more media about happy characters who begin single and remain single*!

* And are in circumstances where romance would be realistically feasible.

[LaZodiac]

A dozen or so years ago, I read the first issue of a comic book called Universal War One and I remember liking it but not being able to finish the series.

I came across it in a comic book store recently a bought all six volumes (well I bought the first half and a month or two later bought the second half), I'm just done reading through it.

For all that it's a really good comic that does very well my favourite things about science-fiction... It really shows how much society's attitude towards women changed in the twenty years since its publication.

Spoiler

Show

All the three women of the main cast:

-One is initially presented as the main protagonist and the leader of the squad (with her main trait as a leader being "being motherly") until she has to hand over command to the actual (male) main protagonist one third of the way in and straight-up gets fridged in the second to last book to justify the twist vilain's turn to evil (said vilain apparently kept her bleached skull as a memento for 95 years).

-The other gets raped by a squadmate and later marries that guy. Granted she did (accidentally) shoot him in the spine leaving him wheelchair-bound. And from what we see of their life together, it seems she apologizes for shooting him a lot more than he apologizes for raping her.

-The third one ends up marrying the protagonist. Said protagonist having at one point spent an entire page mentally scolding himself for staring at her bottoms while she's asleep (why exactly she was sleeping without trousers when they didn't have any form of blankets or sheets available isn't explained) when he's roughly old enough to be her father (42 years old to 24). Also, her main defining feature is being the daughter of the admiral they all work for (and therefore pretty wealthy).

And also all of the women in the squadron end up being romantically involved with a man in the squadron and everytime I was scratching my head because there was basically no prior chemistry or hints of interest before they start making-out. The last one especially felt more like the author checking a box than a natural progression of the characters.

Wow, that's just... absolutely horrible, in every single way!

The relationship stuff is DEFINITELY box-checking. Boys must become partners with girls and have one and a half children because That Is The Norm Society Demands and all that rubbish.

[Rater202]

As far as I'm concerned, being a "man," that is to say, living up to the masculine ideal, has virtually nothing to do with sex or gender.

The same is true of being a "woman," that is to say, living up to the feminine ideal.

And frankly, there's enough overlap between the two ideals that honestly there shouldn't even be a distinction in the first place.

[Anonymouswizard]

As far as I'm concerned, being a "man," that is to say, living up to the masculine ideal, has virtually nothing to do with sex

Please tell that to society. There's far too much focus on 'a man must have sex'.

FWIW, sex is overrated and not something I'd pursue in and of itself. But I don't think 'people give the beast with two backs too much attention' is really a new observation. Remember kids, Shakespeare says that if you do it you'll poison yourself!

[Rater202]

Please tell that to society. There's far too much focus on 'a man must have sex'.

FWIW, sex is overrated and not something I'd pursue in and of itself. But I don't think 'people give the beast with two backs too much attention' is really a new observation. Remember kids, Shakespeare says that if you do it you'll poison yourself!

...I was referring to physiology, not a reproduction.

[LaZodiac]

You're both right, kings.

Anyway; I've had a really fascinating day today. A lot of busy work, and also helped call an ambulance for someone who might have been in distress!

[Form]

Please tell that to society. There's far too much focus on 'a man must have sex'.

FWIW, sex is overrated and not something I'd pursue in and of itself. But I don't think 'people give the beast with two backs too much attention' is really a new observation. Remember kids, Shakespeare says that if you do it you'll poison yourself!

I suppose it's not, but it still bears repeating every now and then considering sex is still given excessive focus in contemporary culture.

[Dame_Mechanus]

Please tell that to society. There's far too much focus on 'a man must have sex'.

There's also an emphasis on the inverse, to be fair. Everyone's going to have their own different experiences, but it's just as limiting to assume that every man must be perpetually interested in intercourse and pursue it at every opportunity as it is to assume that every woman wants to remain permanently uninvolved and has no particular desire for intimacy but must be talked into it. Cultural scripts about the ideal man or woman are limiting even for heterosexual cis individuals; they get worse for those of us in the queer community, but that has more to do with how quickly we immediately break part of the script.

You know how they have sites that tell you whether or not the animal dies in media? I want one of those that tells you if the story has women with agency who aren't there to be a romantic hookup with anyone by the end of the story.

[LaZodiac]

You know how they have sites that tell you whether or not the animal dies in media? I want one of those that tells you if the story has women with agency who aren't there to be a romantic hookup with anyone by the end of the story.

That's a good idea and I think Does The Dog Die has it as one of it's filters/search criteria, actually!

[Form]

It feels just a little strange to, as a Dutchman, read a book translated into English from Dutch. In my defense I just grabbed something that looked interesting in the English fiction section and the story takes place in America, so it fits better this way.

[Dame_Mechanus]

That's a good idea and I think Does The Dog Die has it as one of it's filters/search criteria, actually!

I'll have to check on that! I usually do my research anyway independently, but I'm always glad for more resources in that regard.

"Is this why half of the time when you want to watch something you just wind up slapping on Pacific Rim, Mad Max: Fury Road, or Gunpowder Milkshake for like the millionth time?" It is... one of the reasons.

[Peelee]

I understood your point; I was using it as a springboard to make a different point, which is that Everybody Loves Raymond was a terrible show and I don't like it. Except there I was being subtle about it instead of just saying "Everybody Loves Raymond was a terrible show," which I just did.

Well, yes, but "Everybody Loves Raymond was terrible" was just a universal axiom already.

Personally I've always found the least interesting part of Survivor to be every part of Survivor.

I would agree, but I've never even seen a full episode.

[Form]

Well, yes, but "Everybody Loves Raymond was terrible" was just a universal axiom already.

To be fair, from what I remember 'Everybody loves Raymond' didn't really stand out in how terrible it was with respect to a lot of other sitcoms. There are a bunch of sitcoms that I find mediocre at best and plain unfunny most of the time and 'Everybody loves Raymond' is just another one of those.

[HalfTangible]

ELR was just... okay. It wasn't special but it wasn't awful either.

Unlike some other shows I could mention.

[Jasdoif]

ELR was just... okay. It wasn't special but it wasn't awful either.

Pretty much how I feel about it; the show definitely had its moments, but I wouldn't recommend watching it to get to them. I suspect a lot of its appeal came from how it flipped from the typical sitcoms of the time, sidelining the children in favor of the relationships among the adults (most notably Ray's parents).

[Mokèlé-mbèmbé]

When did Survivor ever have survival in it?

In the early days, the premise was that people would vote based on how poorly they thought a certain member was contributing to the tribe. Took about four episodes for a group of them to go "Hell naw I ain't takin no part in no meritocracy" and formed a voting block. CBS saw this and went "Damn, that's actually way more compelling."

Personally I've always found the least interesting part of Survivor to be every part of Survivor.

I mean, say what you want about it, it's certainly not an uninteresting show. If anything it's got too much going on, sometimes. Except Redemption Island, of course, I mean Jesus Hecking Christ.

[Fyraltari]

I think I made the third thing sound worse than it.actually is.

Argh. Especially the last one, it just makes the main character scream 'creep' to me. Plus she's allowed to sleep as bottomless as she wants.

To be fair they were stranded in deep space in an old shuttle at the time. They had maybe twenty square metres for four people and the other two were sleeping fully clothed, so it's not like he broke in her room to watch her sleep. So this is a situation where one would expect people not to undress, hence my complaining about it not being explained.

Wow, that's just... absolutely horrible, in every single way!

The relationship stuff is DEFINITELY box-checking. Boys must become partners with girls and have one and a half children because That Is The Norm Society Demands and all that rubbish.

Thinking about it, it makes some sense for the conclusion to have the surviving characters settle down and have lots of children (it's mentionned that these two in particular have a dozen) because they're founding a new civilization and there's a whole religious thing going on that I can't discuss here, but "be fruitful and multiply" does apply. It's just that there's no reason for them to settle down together (they're going with a few other people, at least several hundreds, but exact figure aren't givrn) apart from being main characters and since this is all dénouement/epilogue stuff, the author could simply have had them remain friend while still keeping the main character becoming "The Patriarch" at the end.

Edit: the first two things are just as bad as I made them sound, though.

[Rater202]

Pet Peeve: When a series has clearly defined rules for how the magic works but they never fully explain it to you.

Example: In the early 2000s Jackie Chan produced a cartoon where a version of himself was an archeologist and he, along with his fictional uncle and a character based on a composite of Chan's various iRL nieces and nephews, are recruited by a top-secret organization affiliated with Interpol to collect and safeguard aset of artifacts being pursud by an international organization "tied to all aspects of crime only to discover that the artifacts are a set of magic talismans.

And then every season is just more of that, mundane crap happens then turns out they have to collect all the magic things.

The uncle character, Uncle, is a "Chi Wizard," that is to say, someone who can cast spells using a combination of chi manipulation and Chinese alchemy.

But... This isn't the only magic that exists n this world. We see several kinds of magic, but at the end of the day they all seem virtually interchangeable... Until season 4, where the villains are a group of Japanese Oni who need specific spells to defeat and the new enemy mooks of the season can shrug Uncle's usual spells. He had to study Japanese magic to keep up and a few episodes emphasized his discomfort in no longer being an expert

Narratively, this was because the season was focused on the character development of Uncle's apprentice Tohru, who did a lot of research on these things as a child to cope with a cripping fear of Oni and is now the expert when in prior seasons it was him learning magic and arcane lore from Uncle.

...Bt the thing is, what we see of Japanese magic paints it as being virtually identical to the magic that Uncle already knew, other than being chanted in a differant language.

We never get a watsonian reason for why the two most similar magic systems in this world are the only ones that aren't interchangible.

That question keeps me up at night.

[LaZodiac]

Pet Peeve: When a series has clearly defined rules for how the magic works but they never fully explain it to you.

Example: In the early 2000s Jackie Chan produced a cartoon where a version of himself was an archeologist and he, along with his fictional uncle and a character based on a composite of Chan's various iRL nieces and nephews, are recruited by a top-secret organization affiliated with Interpol to collect and safeguard aset of artifacts being pursud by an international organization "tied to all aspects of crime only to discover that the artifacts are a set of magic talismans.

And then every season is just more of that, mundane crap happens then turns out they have to collect all the magic things.

The uncle character, Uncle, is a "Chi Wizard," that is to say, someone who can cast spells using a combination of chi manipulation and Chinese alchemy.

But... This isn't the only magic that exists n this world. We see several kinds of magic, but at the end of the day they all seem virtually interchangeable... Until season 4, where the villains are a group of Japanese Oni who need specific spells to defeat and the new enemy mooks of the season can shrug Uncle's usual spells. He had to study Japanese magic to keep up and a few episodes emphasized his discomfort in no longer being an expert

Narratively, this was because the season was focused on the character development of Uncle's apprentice Tohru, who did a lot of research on these things as a child to cope with a cripping fear of Oni and is now the expert when in prior seasons it was him learning magic and arcane lore from Uncle.

...Bt the thing is, what we see of Japanese magic paints it as being virtually identical to the magic that Uncle already knew, other than being chanted in a differant language.

We never get a watsonian reason for why the two most similar magic systems in this world are the only ones that aren't interchangible.

That question keeps me up at night.

I wanted to learn so much more about that stuff!

My best guess is that Uncle's standard wizardry is Dao based stuff, whereas the Japanese magic was based on Shintoism. There's enough like, differences in these that I could see them being incompatible. I do wish they'd told us more though.

Also this show was fantastic.

[Lord Raziere]

Yeah, I've seen Jackie Chan Adventures when I was a kid

it is kind of weird that happened yeah, in retrospect. especially since Japan's culture practically came from China, so their magic should be more compatible with each other than anyone elses.

though I'm looking at the incantations used:
Uncle's traditional chant: "Yu Mo Gui Gwai Fai Di Zao" roughly means "Spirits, demons, ghosts, monsters, quickly leave". in Cantonese
the chant used to remove the demon masks is "Nukeru He Men Ja'aku" which roughly means "Come out mask/face of evil". in Japanese.

so it could be the specific spell needed: the spell traditionally used is against Shendu often times controlling things who is a chinese spirit controlling the Shadowkhan from afar with his power. the spirits of the oni masks however cannot really "leave" in the same sense as they are inhabiting bodies. I guess it could be downside of banishment vs. containment of a spirit, as if you banish the spirit to somewhere else, you can't contain it and if you contain a spirit in something you can't really banish it- its stuck in what its contained. Uncle's traditional spell is a banishment one, which can't work if the target is bound to something like a mask- they're anchored to it. so the spell has to instead separate the mask from the body instead of banishing the spirit, because the spirit can't be banished, its already in the mask and breaking the mask would probably just make things worse, as you'd just be releasing the oni- you already have a ready made prison for it, you just got to get it off and make sure no one puts it on. the Shadowkhan on the other hand, are just demons from somewhere else that just get sent back wherever.

Edit: it could also just be a programming language kind of thing where it'd be theoretically possible for Uncle to make a similar spell in chinese magic, but the time to translate the things it does in japanese magic to chinese would take too long, so its just faster and better to use the spell thats known to work rather than reinvent the wheel when that wheel could potentially be buggy and not work.

Edit 2: I remember an episode where one of the masks broke in two and all it result was Jade controlling half a shadowkhan army without their heads. don't know why I remember that episode specifically, but it does tell us that breaking the masks and sending the oni back to wherever isn't viable since physically breaking them doesn't do anything.

[Rater202]

Not only does breaking the masks not do anything, the season finale established that destroying the masks utterly let the oni out.

Which happens automatically if all nine masks are in close proximity to each other.

(though the tenth mask, used to seal the Oni King, will also seal the other nine Oni as well as all of the Shadowkhan.)

[enderlord99]

Why did Marvel name two black guys after the (white) actor who played Ghost Rider{?}

[LaZodiac]

Why did Marvel name two black guys after the (white) actor who played Ghost Rider{?}

They... didn't name Luke Cage after Nicolas Cage, and I have no idea who you mean otherwise. People just have similar names sometimes. My deadname is shared with a semi-famous musician, and a friend of mine shares a name with Mellow Deathnote's boyfriend. It just is a thing.

[Rater202]

Luke Cage first appeared in the 70s, my dude. Marvel wanted to cash in on the Blaxsploitation craze at the time.

This, naturally, led to somethings that were... Really problematic in hindsight but he got cleaned up over time.

He's also one of the exceedingly few people that Doctor Doom legitimately respects.

[enderlord99]

and I have no idea who you mean otherwise.

Eyepatch Avengers Man.

Also please note that I asked the question with curly-brackets, because I knew the premise was flawed and was only asking as a joke.

EDIT: apparently, it turns out Eyepatch Avengers Man includes the "k" at the end of the shortening.

[LaZodiac]

Eyepatch Avengers Man.

Also please note that I asked the question with curly-brackets, because I knew the premise was flawed and was only asking as a joke.

EDIT: apparently, it turns out Eyepatch Avengers Man includes the "k" at the end of the shortening.

Nick Fury was also a white guy when he was introduced, and was only changed in the Ultimates universe.

[Rater202]

Eyepatch Avengers Man.

Also please note that I asked the question with curly-brackets, because I knew the premise was flawed and was only asking as a joke.

EDIT: apparently, it turns out Eyepatch Avengers Man includes the "k" at the end of the shortening.

Nick Fury is white in the comics.

...Well, kind of.

In the early 2000s when they made the Ultimate Universe they decided just for the hell of it to composite Nick Fury with the original concept of Isaiah Bradley and make the resulting composite look and act like he was played by Samuel L. Jackson.

Jackson-As-Fury became ridiculously popular so they started basing adaptions of Fury on the Ultimate version instead of the 616 version until ultimately they just made Jackson the official Live Action actor for him in the films.

All cards on the table, Fury 616 does have a biracial bastard son named Marcus, who inexplicably looks like Jackson, and operates under the code name "Nick Fury jr." as an Agent of SHIELD but he only turned up relatively recently in the comics.

[Anonymouswizard]

I think I made the third thing sound worse than it.actually is.

To be fair they were stranded in deep space in an old shuttle at the time. They had maybe twenty square metres for four people and the other two were sleeping fully clothed, so it's not like he broke in her room to watch her sleep. So this is a situation where one would expect people not to undress, hence my complaining about it not being explained.

Oh, the creepiness was at least 60% the age thing, this context just downgrades him from mega-creep to standard creep. I get slightly uncomfortable at the fact I'm dating humans half a decade younger than me, but that'll fade in a few years as the mature students finish their undergrad degrees.

Plus her sleeping bottomless (or trouserless, I'll admit she might have knickers on) still doesn't excuse staring. Turn around and start starring at the wall if you must.

[Dame_Mechanus]

They... didn't name Luke Cage after Nicolas Cage...

It's actually the inverse. Nicolas Cage took the name partially as an homage to Luke Cage. (Also composer John Cage.) His real name is Coppola, and he didn't want people to assume he was getting film roles and working because of his uncle.

So the question was accurate, just in the wrong direction.

[Peelee]

It's actually the inverse. Nicolas Cage took the name partially as an homage to Luke Cage. (Also composer John Cage.) His real name is Coppola, and he didn't want people to assume he was getting film roles and working because of his uncle.

Imean, he was getting film roles because of his uncle, but he just didn't want anyone to assume that.