In a monomyth, the hero begins in the ordinary world, and receives a call to enter an unknown world of strange powers and events. The hero who accepts the call to enter this strange world must face tasks and trials, either alone or with assistance. In the most intense versions of the narrative, the hero must survive a severe challenge, often with help. If the hero survives, he may achieve a great gift or “boon.” The hero must then decide whether to return to the ordinary world with this boon. If the hero does decide to return, he or she often faces challenges on the return journey. If the hero returns successfully, the boon or gift may be used to improve the world.

~life at the moment. never fails to amaze how every action leads me to somewhere above and beyond. the unknown is too beautiful to just be seen. Live the unknown.

which is how jack ryan & the redhaired musical warrior doctor & her bold daughter & all their various doppelgangers got tangled into the mythos from the start , incl but not limited to richard sharpe & patrick harper & teresa moreno

but that isnt the all if it by long leagues

bc one of the stars of ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE REVOLUTION was rod steiger

who played the corsican emperor of france in that great russian WATERLOO i sometimes rant abt in the twists of this maze

against none but christopher plummer - & theres the trek connection going far back before it ever happened , b4 gates mcfadden played a redhaired doctor whose place was filled by anne archer as the badass lady fighting her doppelganger in a clash of empires in the sequel to RED OCTOBER

i saw the chain but not its first link -not being a westerns fan nor a film scholar nor critic

but i see how a n 18th c british supernatural novel abt italian nobles FITS into a GUERNICA-referencing story of the spanish civil war by a contemporary mexican dramatist now

EXPLICITLY FRAMED as the exact opposite , as someone who consciously & knowingly & deliberately BC MORALITY rejects a certain model of violent masculinity in a more sophisticated modern style than that of conan , sorry – cohen – the barbarian , but which is @ heart NEARLY the same swaggering machismo ….only w that extra twist of sadism that as howard wld say only civilization can give

& that tension , between versions or models of what is civilization , is as much @ the heart of discworld as the tension btwn models of “manliness’ @ the heart of sam vimes chara , & the watch itself – sir terry playing as equivocally & wickedly & to the same purpose & effect as tolkien even if in mirror image , w the definition of the word w BE A MAN -JOIN THE WATCH = WATCHMEN

( 1 hobbit dude + 1 human princess on 1 horse = 0 "living men’ if yr overliteral enf to rely on prophecy for yr shield of +10 immunity to disintegration ; likewise everyone can be a watchman in ankh morpork whether human or ‘monster’ or machine – YES I SEE WHAT I DID THERE – no matter yr gender … )

so i have another adversary for team wall & the possibility that a LOT of discworld things that seemed like random jokes werent , ever – i realized on reread that FIFTH ELEPHANT leads directly to MONSTROUS REGIMENT in some key ways – and MR has the jeanne d'arc expy , which yeah luc bessons MESSENGER

so now i gotta watch both of em to see if besson is clearly on the side of team elitist vs humanist all the way back then , i cant trust my memory for beans

but anyways

leading into MONSTROUS REGIMENT w its multiplex satires of church & state & nationalism & militarism to the point of bankrupting its citizenry ( sun tzu wld NOT approve borogravia ) but following on the heels of YET ANOTHER restatement of the fact that sam vimes - no matter how tempted - is NOT & never will ( let self ) be

Dirty Harry

there is the moonshot apocalypse-averting via bleedng edge tech of LAST HERO

& now i suspect that its not just a bit of a takethat to ARMAGEDDON

we all remember that captain ironfounderson is very big on civic responsibility & the demand of the "heroes ” of bays film is to avoid all such forever as price of worldsaving

but also of a now forgotten but then splashy & def bellwether film called SPACE COWBOYS

an early entry in the “old action movie heroes clinging to their laurels ’ genre see also THE EXPENDABLES & idek what all else by now

anither thing to check into

but meanwhile i can see very clearly now the OTHER references in SNUFF -vimes as mirrorverse javert , sybil as a nascent class traitor via inept tricoteuse - & , @ the same time the syncretism of vimes-&-vetinari w nick fury

combined w a reference to UNFORGIVEN

following refs to THE ROOKIE & oc the obligate rejection of DIRTY HARRY as a model of manliness

( altho willikins is a kink-positive alfred it turns out tho ankh-morpork is a bit unclear on safe/sane there yet as in so many things )

but yes IMDB confirms that LUTHER is def part of the monomyth

& SOUL MUSIC explains why elba wld take the role of a motorcycling monastic in an otherwise wretched film

& yes my suspicion that he was playing a captain carrot expy in THE OFFICE as "charles miner” are abt 100 per confirmed now

bc for reasons indelicate but which ive already dealt w back when in my “RECESSIONAL” posts on my then suspicions of PR as a complex takethat to the raj

terry pratchett has yes indeed & in a not insignificant way coded captain ironfounderson as black even before he showed up on the page or in the city eternal

“You know what they say about dwarves…”

–in THE LAST HERO , sir terry set up the PETER PAN syncretism whose deducted presence in PANS LABYRINTH he then confirmed in SNUFF - bc there is the crocodile , on the banks of the alt mississippi , not to mention the counter to vidals seeking personal / familial immortality by begetting a son who will “carry on his legacy” as he was forced to

but ghengiz cohen rejects that too in LAST HERO - what matters is how yr remembered in stories & he hopes his kids live for themselves not for him - agn STRAIGHT DIOTIMA , STRAIGHT OUTTA PLATO

but in SNUFF pratchett sets that out plain , w old sam happy that young sam looks like he is going to be a scientist aka wizard when he grows up & nurturing that

instead of taking it as a rejection

but also that he HAS kids following in his footsteps careerwise

oodles of em

& the most recent a mixed-race rookie who has a lot to learn from him

but also teaching him a thing or 2

including karate

& as importantly reminding him that he can never ever slip & become dirty harry

even when he is disobeying orders bc the orders were wrong ones or bad ones

or being a vigilante bc there ARE no laws to appeal to then

but most important to not do evil in the name of the good cause

ppl carelessly call discworld satire & dont think WHAT OF? let alone remember that good satire famously punches up

& i note again that sah ridley coyly told idris elba to read MOBY DICK to prepare for his role in PROMETHEUS

remembering that 1 ) gregory peck played both captains ahab & hornblower 2 ) there are i think strong & deliberate parodic swipes from the HORNBLOWER movie in PROMETHEUS along w swipes @ HOGFATHER & the watch books along w the swipes @ HELLBOY & BLADE 2 & CRONOS ive pointed out

& 3 ) in NIGHT WATCH pratchett moved the eastwood /leone plot themes from the US civil war to the post waterloo civil unrest in england following the napoleonic war

just as del toro moved them to the spanish civil war

& 4 ) put an ahab-expy as a salvific figure & manifestation of his hekate-avatars lasting power in the world , in THE WEE FREE MEN

& in SNUFF both the witches & the feegles are present as are the decadent sparkly aristocratic louche young vampires -& thus the old count of the legends , who was hornblowrers doppelganger in the old movie recall –by the law of magic & lit called Synechdoche

bc it is rev oates & his doubleheaded cretan style ax of liberation who sets the plot in motion there

but he was first set in motion by granny weatherwax

& the witch books & the watch books came tog in I SHALL WEAR MIDNIGHT

& “own goal’ scott didnt realize what he had done , by mocking BLADE 2 & HELLBOY 2 in his ROBIN HOOD

& then w his arch little janek-vickers charade

but sir terry set up sam vimes as a fisher king without it being clear to any not looking for patterns of strata

that it was an answer to the MUMMY 3 makers / mockers ( reread of LAST HERO adds a bit of knifetwist to millar & goughs scavenging bc the barbarian heroes code is no grave robbing – temples & palaces & wealthy merchants - but never the dead )

& so the first kaiju drift flashback scene falls into place in the long game that isnt poker but might be football AM style , & the role of dogs in the mythos comes into sharper focus bc DOGS = OUR FIRST FRANKENSTEIN MONSTERS for real which pratchett explores repeatedly in the werewolf context

& in CRONOS the first ppl we see are guillermo & his wife walking their own dog as a bystander cameo , so that parallel was always there in their multiverse , whenever they synched them up

but there is something fitting in the first key for me starting to unlock it all bein the fact that idris elba was channeling gregory peck so perfectly that i got it right off , even if i didnt realize which movie was foremost in importance bein distracted by chronological trappings ( but TWELVE O'CLOCK HIGH is part of the weave so it wasnt wrong exactly … )

it
is
an
anagrammatic
equation

similar to how PPDC = SPQR only monoalphabetical & phonetic this time

( & the whole PPDC = ROME goes w the discworld & HK-as-AM thing , QED )

bc

RAMKIN
KARMIN
CARMEN

& yes im pretty sure now theyve been working on this shared multiverse since DEVILS BACKBONE / NIGHT WATCH

bc otherwise there is a MASSIVE coincidence involving a sergio leone movie w major elements –yet non-overlapping ones–that just HAPPEN to show up to overflowing in both works of fiction

it cld be the zeitgeist haunting i suppose

but i think it unlikely

i dont have the access right now to lay it out & i need to do some more starchart checking , i mean by that looking @ the timelines of publication & broadcast & all

but im pretty sure i know now why whedon decided out of nowhere -ahem!!- to make a space western w alt confeds as good guys instead of sticking w paranormal romance for his 3rd tv series outing

& no not innocent

& you shld be able to triangulate from NIGHT WATCH & esp ‘john keel" & ESPINAZO DEL DIABLO & what those 2 stories have in common by way of setting & charas

exactly WHICH sergio leone movie im talking abt

@ least if yr more of a film scholar or post-ww2 era film or western film buff than i am

but i dont think im imagining the patterns

not when i have so many non identical overlapping sets

& that means im not imagining / imposing the GUARDS! GUARDS! as anti-WATCHMEN fic either

bc if there are 2 things alan moore stands for , its elitism & despair

& if there are 2 things terry pratchett & guillermo del toro both stand for , that wld be a guarded hopefulness & a faith in ordinary humanity both of which come from a firm belief that the world IS worth saving , even if even the biggest damnedest heroes of all sometimes , or often , feel like chucking it all , running away , or yes burning it all to the ground themselves

i thnk i know exactly why & how & why WHEN both of them almos simultaneous made a classically influenced cryptic remake/fixfic of a western that was ultimately a “take that” to KILLING JOKE ,

& now im pretty sure that LABERINTO wasnt retconned into the same multiverse that holds great a'tuin

and it isnt a coincidence that it AND the 1st tiffany aching book share that darkfic cryptic remake of a cult classic movie based on the older kids book of the girl who wishes her brother to the fae

but the game of mirrors that reflect backwards & forwards is unbelievably complex & always in play

however the existence of it is not in doubt

bc INTERESTING TIMES w its yellow -which is after all heraldically gold–butterflies & benevolent AI -both of which lend cred 2 my claim its ROAD TO EL DORADO mirrorverse fixfic–

also bgins w the gameboard of the gods-which makes it instantly CLASH OF THE TITANS fic

& the game of the gods returns in 2001s LAST HERO , w Fate vs The Lady agn

& also is APOLLO 13 & RIGHT STUFF fic , plus COLD EQUATIONS hatefic -and ends w the old heroes of the pulps realizing theyre NOT the last , the heroic age isnt over after all

but the new heroes are a different sort is all - gentle & courteous & dutiful instead of impulsive violent jerks as of old

and in that tale–which id ttly forgotten– sir terry syncretized ALEXANDER THE GREAT & CHARLEMAGNE – in a story of a lunar landing –which makes it oh so much ORLANDO FURIOSO fanfic !!!, AND referenced an old & obscure story abt a spaniard who flew to the moon in a space chariot pulled by swans

yeah i cant even either

but this explains my ORLANDO FURIOSO by way of mirrorverse LOEG:CENTURY impressions

& now also raises the poss that moore deliberately wrote LOEG CENTURY as a “takethatbackatcha” to pratchett & del toro

altogether now

can we say OWN GOAL???

but the best part so far , another thing i d forgotten

not only is the agatean empire depicted in interesting times as a place where gold is as common as lead

which is NOT part of the traditional “easier route to asia” mythology EXCEPT in so far as it got there thru the accidental collision w intervening continents

& involving stories of lost cities & kingdoms collectively termed “el dorado’ aka "of gold ”

thus making it as much a story of the americas as of imagined & historical asia alike

& giving a fanficcer all the warrant he cld ask for to (re) syncretize china & mexico in a story of resistance-to-endless-empire

involving sorcery & soothsayers & workingclass heroes w plain functional swords & battered armor

& the million-to-one chance

but in that book

which was from p1 ray harryhausen fanfic , long before the silver horde start arguing over whether cadmus got a mislabeled packet of seed-teeth BC IN THE MYTHS THEY ARENT SKELETON WARRIORS , THAT WAS HARRYHAUSENS ADDITION ! !

& so the alchemy of the awful protoscript , of which the few traces remaining in PR the play-on-screen are peculiar & telling –im highlighting them page by pg by degrees of fidelity , most are tag MIRROR-REVERSED – includes that meta connection to the horrible CLASH remake

& lol now i wonder if LONDON CALLING is actually part of it too & not something i added in , either , in my headcanon , but intuited subconsciously via that CLASH OF THE TITANS –> CLASH –> theme of failing harvests & floods & climate change & the little people getting told tough luck –> but somehow mysterious & heroic endurance–

but back on point INTERESTING TIMES has the Lady tellin Fate thefollowing

I NEVER SACRIFICE A PAWN

NO MORE SACRIFICES

its def EL DORADO fixfic –& done w kenneth branaghs blessing!!

but while Fate may play the game by cheating , w 2 queens on the chessboard

IE MASSIVELY OVERPOWERED PIECES

IE LEATHERBACK & OTACHI

( also OTACHI MK 1 w MK 2 included for bonus hell unleashing )

THE LAST HERO talks of how the gods forget what happens when you let a mere pawn get all the way up the board….

fans of the ALICE stories –as the creator of PANS LABYRINTH famously is –will not make that mistake

( VIVAT REGINA – the original 'leveling up" )

& then agn i despair –bc what good does it do , me or anyone , figuring it all out ?

it is fixfic / fulfillment fic of INTERESTING TIMES

remember i identified the butterfly-shape of the mask as closest to a type of butterfly found in n & central america aka FRITILLARY back in sept last yr

http://cerulean-spork.tumblr.com/post/61123147064/butterfly-gd-del-toro

&then tagged it to the butterflies gold & otherwise in the waite-rider-coleman tarot , esp those found on the thrones of the court of swords

http://cerulean-spork.tumblr.com/post/71736575624/butterfly-gd-del-toro

which made me wonder if the gold points on striker eureka werent meant to emulate the gold pointing on the fritillaries pupal form ? ?

http://cerulean-spork.tumblr.com/post/65221347443/variegated-fritillary-pupa-theyre-common-all

WELL YES I THINK SO

I RATHER THINK SO NOW

IN FACT I CANT NOT THINK IT ANY MORE

“See the wings, slightly more ragged than those of the common fritillary. In reality, thanks to the fractal nature of the universe, this means that those ragged edges are infinite—in the same way that the edge of any rugged coastline, when measured to the ultimate microscopic level, is infinitely long—or, if not infinite, then at least so close to it that Infinity can be seen on a clear day. And therefore, if their edges are infinitely long, the wings must logically be infinitely big.

They may look about the right size for a butterfly’s wings, but that’s only because human beings have always preferred common sense to logic.

The Quantum Weather Butterfly (Papilio tempestae) is an undistinguished yellow color, although the Mandelbrot patterns on the wings are of considerable interest. Its outstanding feature is its ability to create weather…”

bc this is also where GREEN AS THE COLOR OF HOPE & DANGER & PROMISE THAT MAY BE FULFILLED BYTHE LADY– FITS INTO THE MONOMYTH , SEAMLESSLY BETWEEN DISCWORLD AND DEL TOROS PERSONAL COLOR HERALDRY

its in WIZARD OF OZ of course which he has cited as a major influence on his work

but first there was the ‘green spectacles’ & deceptive decaying green & illusory gold of the poem “VERDE EMBELESO” by the 17th c lesbian poet known as “the phoenix of mexico” that i have ranted so much abt bc that same poem has the phrase “EYES IN MY HANDS” as a metaphor for skepticism , & bc del toro used her poem INCENDIO as a heartwrenching bit of dialogue in DEVILS BACKBONE | EL ESPINAZO DEL DIABLO along w a highly relevant chunk of tennysons IN MEMORIAM to be repeated in HELLBOY 2 : THE GOLDEN ARMY

which yes isnt just a “take that’ to the trend of carelessly transmitting the worst aspects of the old pulps as seen in comics & films & games , but specifically engages w THE MUMMY 3: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR

& now after finally rereadin INTERESTING TIMES long after i shld have, i realize that M3 was def stealin-wo-understanding from pratchett – looting , in fact , w a snickering giggle in their sleeves abt tomb robbing , bc everyone involved in writing & directing that movie is assholes

–its been noted here b4 that my major failing is overlooking the obv bc HEY ITS SO OBV , OBV NOBODY WLD GO THERE but then after putting the two & the two & the two of the vampires VAMPIRES YAH & the lamp of poison / FISH SHAPED LAMPS WE GOT EM & the fasces AXE & STICKS in FEET OF CLAY tog

http://cerulean-spork.tumblr.com/post/94510000389/lampe-au-poisson

& getting ( obv! ! ) 8 as a result

( 8 are the sides of the bagua , the mirror of divination on which the moon-toad sits , guarding gold –& this is not irrelevant either )

not only did i see where gough & millar got their plot elements of sacred jewels in temples combined w the resograph , i mean earthquake weathervane used as a magic gadget to raise a "red army” of terra cotta golems , i mean ghost soldiers , to be fought by ray harryhausens army of dragons-teeth warriors from JASON & THE ARGONAUTS which yes cohen & the rest of the silver horde discuss in INTERESTING TIMES

but i understood the HOW of how guillermo flipped everything abt via the magical handmirror & turned HK into AM

ok i was already gettin there bc “We own all your helmets, we own all your shoes” any more these days sounds like yes china rather than the west , except that the only bit of mass manufacturing weve held on to was our military stuffs in a rare bit of prudence-over-profit ( which has backfired from humanistic perspectives bc we are kinda stuck bein war merchants & profiteers now …)

but i hadn’t quite put the bit where YET-AGAIN-WHITEWASHING-GODSDAMMIT SKY1 CASTING SEAN ASTIN AS TWOFLOWER CREATED THE HINGE ON WHICH TO TURN IT AROUND

or the axle of the wheel rather SEE ALSO THE TAO TEH CHING

but if twoflower is anglo-american in the film version then (obv ) ankh-morpork must be on the counterweight continent , QED

& i wrote off the sky1 adaptations back when the casting was announced so i had not even realized that jeremy irons AKA THE WICKED BROTHER in disneys HAMLET was vetinari in that COLOR OF MAGIC but there are all my meta links to BRIDESHEAD REVISITED and THE PROFESSIONAL | LEON confirmed via LION KING & jean reno voicing & thus RONIN & SHARPES RIFLES via so many degrees of sean bean

& yes sir terry is in on the game & has been for a long while now – @ least since UNSEEN ACADEMICALS

bc he set up the serves perfectly for PACIFIC RIM starting there w bioengineered monster supersoldiers who 'reboot’ after bein killed

whose role as cannon fodder is proven via necromancy through a bit of skull from a battlefield , & magitech that is operated by a lawful evil (ish) wizard w a skull ring & his skeletal partner

trains have finally come in their roundworld form to the disc – but they were there earlier , in FIFTH ELEPHANT as a wagon train too

& in SNUFF there is a boat train

not only that there is a classic train-roof-chase-fight straight from a century of action films

but that is nothing

i reread SNUFF this past week too

there are SOMANYSPECIFICTHINGS THAT TIE INTO THE DEL TORO MONOMYTH and esp which bounce back & confirm PANS LABYRINTH | EL LABERINTO DEL FAUNO as NIGHT WATCH elseworlds darkfic but also lock into the bondverse / batverse / bprd-&-bladeverse connections - names , & functions , & heraldic symbols THE CROCODILE THE SCOTS (WANNABE) DRAGONRIDER THE LINKING OF THE OLD AMERICAN SLAVE TRADE & GENOCIDE W THE 20TH EUROPEAN GENOCIDE & SLAVE LABOR VIA TOBACCO

yeah

that is exactly what i have been tapping & chipping @ for all these months I DIDNT SEE IT WHEN I READ THE BOOK BC I HADNT SEEN “PANS LABYRINTH” & when i first watched LABERINTO i didnt understand that VIDAL IS AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE VIMES WHO DID KILL SYBIL , AS THE HISTORY MONKS OBLIQUELY WARNED WOULD HAPPEN , IF VIMES DIDNT GET A LESSON IN GOOD COMMUNAL POLICING FROM JOHN PEEL , I MEAN KEEL , IN “NIGHT WATCH”

for obv reasons NIGHT WATCH w its themes of societal apathy to authoritarian wrongdoing , the militarization of the police , & eventual flareup to repeat the cycle again as victor hugo described so long ago , has been much heavily on my mind of late

but that isnt the only place nor the first place pratchett talked abt it

“This is where people have learned to do what they’re told…The Empire’s got something worse than whips all right. It’s got obedience. Whips in the soul. They obey anyone who tells them what to do. Freedom just means being told what to do by someone different…”

fyeah its a dark WATCH fic , just as it is a bright WATCHMEN fic –just as GUARDS! GUARDS! was a bright WATCHMEN fixfic , & so too is INTERESTING TIMES , agn w a too-clever ambitious junior faking an overwhelming enemy – dragon , or rebellion , or invasion – that turns out to be realer than planned–

bc there IS hope in LABERINTO , the lawless lawman realizing that he is defeated & choosing not to destroy the future w him , surrendering his son & accepting his own execution & so the possibility of a new world to come in time

& the ending scn , w his scarred face , the dread captain embodies that SAM-AS-BATMAN-AND-GORDON-BUT-ALSO-JOKER-AND-TWOFACE paradox that is the darkness within vimes which he fights & recognizes in his worst adversaries, which was strongly brought out w carcer in NIGHT WATCH & even moreso w the gleeful willing killer of the protofascist House of Rust

but the tying of vimes to the dangers of fascism isnt something that guillermo came up w & terry only retconned in OH HELLS NO

in FEET OF CLAY we are told that the coat of arms of old stoneface vimes –the ankh morpork incarnation of the regicide cromwell & there is yr stuart connection w prince nuadha as bonnie prince charlie in HELLBOY 2 –is a combo of grapevines ( close enf of a pun for heraldry ) & a marble bust for his nickname SEE ALSO : PALE MAN goes w the transformation of lord damaskinos to apparent marble and the dead king balor to crumbling literal stone

“But the King did not even get a trial.”

“No willing judge could be found,” said Vimes.

“Except you…that is, your ancestor…”

“Well? Someone had to do it. Some monsters should not walk under the living sky.”

Dragon found the page he had been looking for and turned the book around. “This was his escutcheon,” he said.

Vimes looked down at the familiar sign of the morpork owl perched on an ankh. It was atop a shield divided into four quarters, with a symbol in each quarter. “What’s this crown with a dagger through it?”

“Oh, a traditional symbol, ah-ha. Indicates his role as defender of the crown.”

“Really? And the bunch of rods with an axe in it?” He pointed.

“A fasces. Symbolizes that he is…was an officer of the law. And the axe was an interesting harbinger of things to come, yes? But axes, I’m afraid, solve nothing.”

Vimes stared at the third quarter. It contained a painting of what seemed to be a marble bust.

“Symbolizing his nickname, ‘Old Stoneface’,” said Dragon helpfully. “He asked that some reference be made. Sometimes heraldry is nothing more than the art of punning.”

“And this last one? A bunch of grapes? Bit of a boozer, was he?” said Vimes sourly.

but in SNUFF vimes himself becomes – temporarily – a king 

king over the water in fact

( which means that all my meta links & mirrorversions & conjectures are locking firmly into place & selfwelding like the links of the golden army control crown , bc not only do we get the stuart & thus tudor & plantagenet links to the del toro verse via discworld , but also that PR is a “take that’ to THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND too )

& yes sir terry has deliberately & overtly identified sam vimes w Death there , to the obv point that even the lspace wiki has noticed the parallels w REAPER MAN

http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/index.php/Book:Snuff/Annotations

in fact vimes IS the avatar of the bearer of the scythe WHICH IS ALSO AN ATTRIBUTE OF PAPA LEGBA who makes no other appearance in it & i m pretty sure that is the first time its true of a DW book –

ah

ahah

no

Death isnt there in the 1st tiffany aching book either

tiffany aching , who guards the crossroads of timespace in her backyard

tiffany aching who must become a hive-mind demonic entity in her second quest , to save it  as much as the world

by teaching it mortality (also abt evolution )

and who must become (for a time) a goddess in her third ordeal , to teach the god of winter how to be human - which means dying as well , at least for a time

yes – the darkhaired darkeyed shepherdess cheesemaker BLESSED BE apprentice witch in the sensible boots & hardwearing blue who doesnt like smug blond princes who swan abt expecting everything handed to them just for showing up –

& INTERESTING TIMES flat out says that retcon is how myth works , @ least in the discworld universe – that the future changes the past , in cyclical history

& the first great agatean ruler , w the helmet-&-glove-&-boot controlled golem army , who unified the empire , whose name was ONE SUN MIRROR

is presented to us  via rincewind  as an ARTHURIAN figure  in an ensorcelled funeral boat on a hidden lake , a ruler quondam et futuram –et aeternam as well

& there is a little girl , a war orphan , in INTERESTING TIMES , who loses her stuffed rabbit – but is protected by valiant older sisters-by-found-family 

& there is a highly symbolic cute dog which is also a weapon

which yes fits into why BLUE hair to symbolize a spider , or an assassin ( & yes that is in SNUFF & in the process ties DISCWORLD to the MCU – and to australia yet agn , which along w valkyries & the venerable bede (x) appeared back in INTERESTING TIMES … . the history monks working overtime to keep it all aligned ! )

bc its not just anyblue

it is very def a DELPHINIUM blue –& that is another tale for the telling & ties american atrocity & monsters to hapsburg ones in history , as surely as riverboat pilots & downriver to a city that is also paris just as much as ankh morpork ever was , but also thus as much new orleans as genua is

( this is another post of its own but i can tell you it is no coincidence that anguas 1st given name is what it is , nor the name that she chooses to go by , & it is connected to the jaeger armor design on which i have spent a fair amt of pixels discussing / speculating as well – bc the universal horror canon is as much part of the bedrock of the disc as the cthulhu mythos )

bc everything was discworld all along after all , & it is all laid out for us in the very first page of the book

which guillermo read far more attentively than any other of us fans of both authors –

This is where the gods play games with the lives of men, on a board which is at one and the same time a simple playing area and the whole world.

And Fate always wins.

Fate always wins. Most of the gods throw dice but Fate plays chess, and you don’t find out until too late that he’s been using two queens all along.

Fate wins. At least, so it is claimed. Whatever happens, they say afterwards, it must have been Fate.

Gods can take any form, but the one aspect of themselves they cannot change is their eyes, which show their nature. The eyes of Fate are hardly eyes at all—just dark holes into an infinity speckled with what may be stars or, there again, may be other things.

He blinked them, smiled at his fellow players in the smug way winners do just before they become winners, and said:
“I accuse the High Priest of the Green Robe in the library with the double-handed axe.”

And he won.

He beamed at them.

“No one likeh a poor winner,” grumbled Offler the Crocodile God, through his fangs.

“It seems that I am favoring myself today,” said Fate. “Anyone fancy something else?”

The gods shrugged.

“Mad Kings?” said Fate pleasantly. “Star-Crossed Lovers?”

“I think we’ve lost the rules for that one,” said Blind Io, chief of the gods.

“Or Tempest-Wrecked Mariners?”

“You always win,” said Io.

“Floods and Droughts?” said Fate. “That’s an easy one.”

A shadow fell across the gaming table. The gods looked up.

“Ah,” said Fate.

“Let a game begin,” said the Lady.

There was always an argument about whether the newcomer was a goddess at all. Certainly no one ever got anywhere by worshipping her, and she tended to turn up only where she was least expected, such as now. And people who trusted in her seldom survived. Any temples built to her would surely be struck by lightning. Better to juggle axes on a tightrope than say her name. Just call her the waitress in the Last Chance saloon.

She was generally referred to as the Lady, and her eyes were green; not as the eyes of humans are green, but emerald green from edge to edge. It was said to be her favorite color.

“Ah,” said Fate again. “And what game will it be?”

She sat down opposite him. The watching gods looked sidelong at one another. This looked interesting. These two were ancient enemies.

“How about…” she paused, “…Mighty Empires?”

“Oh, I hate that one,” said Offler, breaking the sudden silence. “Everyone dief at the end.”

“Yes,” said Fate, “I believe they do.” He nodded at the Lady, and in much the same voice as professional gamblers say “Aces high?” said, “The Fall of Great Houses? Destinies of Nations Hanging by a Thread?”

“Certainly,” she said.

“Oh, good.” Fate waved a hand across the board. The Discworld appeared.

“And where shall we play?” he said.

“The Counterweight Continent,” said the Lady. “Where five noble families have fought one another for centuries.”

“Really? Which families are these?” said Io. He had little involvement with individual humans. He generally looked after thunder and lightning, so from his point of view the only purpose of humanity was to get wet or, in occasional cases, charred.

“The Hongs, the Sungs, the Tangs, the McSweeneys and the Fangs.”

“Them? I didn’t know they were noble,” said Io.

“They’re all very rich and have had millions of people butchered or tortured to death merely for reasons of expediency and pride,” said the Lady.

The watching gods nodded solemnly. That was certainly noble behavior. That was exactly what they would have done.

“McFweeneyf?” said Offler.

“Very old established family,” said Fate.

“Oh.”

“And they wrestle one another for the Empire,” said Fate. “Very good. Which will you be?”

The Lady looked at the history stretched out in front of them.

“The Hongs are the most powerful. Even as we speak, they have taken yet more cities,” she said. “I see they are fated to win.”

“So, no doubt, you’ll pick a weaker family.”

Fate waved his hand again. The playing pieces appeared, and started to move around the board as if they had a life of their own, which was of course the case.

“But,” he said, “we shall play without dice. I don’t trust you with dice. You throw them where I can’t see them. We will play with steel, and tactics, and politics, and war.”

The Lady nodded.

Fate looked across at his opponent.

“And your move?” he said.

She smiled. “I’ve already made it.”

He looked down. “But I don’t see your pieces on the board.”

“They’re not on the board yet,” she said.

She opened her hand.

There was something black and yellow on her palm. She blew on it, and it unfolded its wings.

It was a butterfly.

Fate always wins…

At least, when people stick to the rules.

FLOODS & DROUGHTS PPL FLOODS & DROUGHTS REMEMBER WHAT I SAID ABT THE HORSE-SACRIFICES OF JAPAN & HOW THEY DIFFER FROM THE INDO-EUROPEAN ONES AS DESCRIBED IN CELTIC HISTORIES & THE GOLDEN BOUGH & MARY RENAULT???

http://www.greenshinto.com/wp/2011/12/05/ema-horse-picture-votive-tablets/

A WHITE HORSE OR A BLACK HORSE , DEPENDING ON WHICH PATTERN NEEDED TO BE BROKEN TO SAVE THE HARVEST –

( it goes w the whole kaiju-as-personifications-of-natural-disaster thing & global climate change … . )

asdfjkl; also SHIPWRECKED MARINERS STAR-CROSSED LOVERS MAD KINGS its all the freaking shakespeare themes tog when you incl the FALL OF MIGHTY EMPIRES argh ok & there is the 'westerns’ theme slipped in there

later we will def get a discworld homage to DARK CRYSTAL & thats where the complicated chain that runs from lord hongs barking dog to the golden army-as-garthim to lord shens cannon in KFP2 to the failed drift test by way of a double-back to Torrecastro ( also no coincidence that SNUFF is full of jane austen refs as much as TEMERAIRE ones ) and IT ISNT A RANDOM HODGEPODGE OR MISHMASH OF SYMBOLS

bc what these bards are trying to tell us , all the travelling players of la resistance , is simply this

ALL EMPIRES ARE ONE , IN THE END

WE ARE FIGHTING THE SAME BLOODSUCKING ENEMY WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN FIGHTING

& THE ENEMY , AS ALWAYS , IS US ( NOT "THEM” , IT NEVER WAS “THEM” BC THEYRE US TOO )

& thus the kite in the lightning to power the golems ( hang singly if we dont hang together ! ! ! )

but the story is the true weapon

as granny weatherwax knew all along , & tiffany aching figured out on her own , the narratives are the greatest weapons bc they motivate the armies no less than the mobs w the pitchforks

convince ppl that theyre not just cannon fodder regarded as interchangeable clones by their masters but ELITE SUPERSOLDIERS

or else convince them that freedom , & change , & a new universe 

arepossiblethings

& worth fighting for

even if it SEEMS like a death

& means symbolically dying if yr identity is entirely wound up in yr past
but still that is better than literally dying in the revolution – oh & there is a bastille in INTERESTING TIMES too btw , back to DEVILS BACKBONE & the COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO no less than dickens – also a fave of sir terry no less than guillermo

also im pretty sure that ramin djawadi that other heretic wizard sneaked in a Variation on the HILL STREET BLUES theme in the opening chords of the main title & that is why the offcenter rest in the underlying beat has been driving me crazy long after i figured out THE INVISIBLE TRAINS in the soundtrack which HELL YES THEY ARE HUGE IN DISCWORLD but i cant even any more bc too much 

( how far can we push the barricades ? ? ? )

bc ive worked out that in the del toro monomyth of multiverse / differing / legs of the trousers of time

which culminates to date in WATCHMEN VS THE WATCH aka PACIFIC RIM

& in which as stated in the DEVILS BACKBONE commentary similar initial letters in names indicates connection / similar ( tho mutable ) alignment

& in which an explicit DR STRANGELOVE fixfic things been goin on since HELLBOY (2004) & the use of vera lynns song

we get the explicit equation of captain vidal w group-captain mandrake in PANS LABYRINTH

no matter how different they seem in personality types on the surface

both loyal soldiers not given to questioning authority OR dominant charismatic leaders

tho lionel mandrake eventually resists - & lacks the barely controlled aggro of a vidal

or a vimes

& vidal is more in himself the clockwork prince such as vetinari - or adrian veidt - in his own realm , in relation to his own men

but in relation to his unseen master franco is definitely a vimes pursuing the kingdoms criminals for a puppet monarchy actually ruled by a false steward

which is coincidentally a temptation canon vimes was offered by fellow commoner secretary to the patrician wonse

& rejected

but is also the ongoing temptation / tension in his service as loyal oppo to the more aristocratic vetinari

to not question

to buy into the patricians pesssimism utterly

to try to “clean up” the city by brute force

& thereby make it genua under lily weatherwax

a false utopia kept outwardly happy by terror

bc the people arent worthy of anything else

& NEED to be kept in line by a secret police

a populace & a civilization made “strong” & purified by dragonfire

or fake alien squid

or a war

bc vidal | evil vimes as well as V & vader | mandrake | dr manhattan

to adrian veidt who is vetinari-as-wonse

& just as i think its hella interesting that both del toro & pratchett did retorts to THE KILLING JOKE w in a year of each other ( a sybil is an oracle no?)

tho not as interesting as the number of passages from discworld books i can illustrate w stills from del toro movies now

or the number of things in the more recent pratchett books that seem to be riffing off things in del toro movies

bc i can see why a series that tackles both theocracy & secular leftist attempts @ makin the perfect society by force wld appeal to gdt

& why video illos of said themes in myffic / fairy tale guise wld appeal to pratchett

but i also think it is hella interesting that GUARDS! GUARDS! was written less than 2 yrs after WATCHMEN finished

& alan moore is the only annointed high elder of the order of the golden fedora

who comes from the same cockbill street , dirty hands but lace curtains , backgrnd as sir terry & guillermo & sir kenneth , too–

if i had reread my entire DISCWORLD corpus as soon as i thought i recognized a certain young shepherdess-witch in her sensible boots  instead of relying on my memory & diving for pearls of recollected reference

i wld have understood a great deal much earlier

however i wldnt have known what i was looking AT let alone FOR wo makin the whole damn journey

however it wld have been easier had i done it sooner

when i still had my library unbroken-up

also easier access to a good many films

bc i just finally watched MUMMY 3 & guess what , there are a few missing bits & pcs of PACIFIC RIM that dont come from any other identified source but match up EXTREMELY congruently w M3 : TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR , which i hadnt guessed already ( along w those which i rightly did suspect )

not many but a few & some superimportant

also i know now that it wasnt SIMPLY chivalry or rather alliance btwn the barricades that team resistance supported rachel weisz by their cryptic bit of kayfabe abt OH YEAH IT WAS RLY GALLING TO HAVE TO PLAY AN OLDER GUY W AN ADULT SON lolol @ rob cohen for lyin abt weisz refusing to play along –& also @ ridley scott for takin cohens side in it w his MUMMY 1 cribs in PROMETHEUS & mocking bellos recasting

any more than it was an unprovoked act of satire to skewer M3 along w IJ4 in HELLBOY 2

bc it turns out that M3 is PACKED TO THE GILLS ( pun intended ) w ripoffs of del toros earlier films

CRONOS , BLADE 2 , PANS LABYRINTH & HELLBOY 1 are all cribbed in ways that are not @ all likely to be accidental or coincidental

& i dont think they were meant as homages or affectionate easter eggs either

this is partly internal stylistic evidence , & partly the meta

& part of the meta is the fact that the M3 screenwriters are SPIDER-MAN 2 & SMALLVILLEs alfred gough & miles millar –not to be confused w mark millar who afaik is no relation– who is a cambridge man

which is important

bc this means they are tied into fandom from way back – fyi & neither aspect of this is irrelevant – they ALSO worked w marti noxon of BUFFY / ANGEL writing on the screenplay for I AM NUMBER FOUR by “pittacus lore” aka james frey the notorious fabricator of a fictionalized “memoir”

but also miles millar bein a highly educated brit

noway he is ignorant of pratchett

so when there are a big pile of discworld ripoffs in a very tactless & thoughtless & missin-the-spirit-of-altogether way , in MUMMY 3 , it does not seem coincident- or accidental to me

& my own personal xp w the porosity of behind-the-scns professional access in fandom leads me to suspect that there was pre-production access by the M3 screenwriters to MAKING MONEY altho i am not 100 per sure of this

but there was hella behind the scns porosity the other way –& it may well have been thru rachel weisz aka mrs daniel craigs good offices– lettin del toro in on what little tricks millar & gough were up to , bc he beat them to it on HELLBOY 2 just like he did w IJ4 & the DARK CRYSTAL / CRYSTAL SKULL metaplay via (undoubtedly ) the aid of john hurt

bc the alliances are becoming more & more obvious now

& i dont pretend to understand them

but i do understand why luc besson accuses team shatterdome / team resistance , of violating omerta in his contribution to the arty-crime-drama trilogy by team wallbuilders aka ridley scott & michael bay

altho its hilarious & an own goal bc NOBODY else outside the film industry has figured it out , I MYSELF wldnt have figured it out if they hadnt gone & been so blatant abt flaunting their mirroring game – increasingly so

& the only critics who have come w/in sighting distance , have done so bc they have noticed weird similarities btwn scotts THE COUNSELOR & bessons THE FAMILY or wondered why scott was so blatantly ripping off the coens or wtf the deal w michael bays egregious weirdness in TF4 or the daddy issues in PROMETHEUS – all of these Clues to those of us w nasty suspicious minds to be sure

which brings me to FINALLY GOT MY COPY OF “FEET OF CLAY” BACK IN MY HANDS

remember this is not the only fish symbolism in PACIFIC RIM bein but 1 out of 7 that i spotted

but its also you may recall not the only fish LAMP in del toros work either

there are a couple in the troll market in HB2 along w the QUO VADIS & minotaur & maxfield parrish-dulac fairy tale illustration homages

lamps “au poisson”

the homages to DISCWORLD in del toros monomyth started at least as far back as his fixes to goyers BLADE 2 script

& make no mistake they ARE homages , bc they say the same thing that pratchett is saying – NO FATE NO DESTINY NO DOOM OF BIRTH & HOW YOU ARE MADE TO DETERMINE WHAT YOU DESERVE IN LIFE

NO KINGS ON THRONES

but

WORDS IN THE HEART CANNOT BE TAKEN

it is all there staring passersby in the face in FEET OF CLAY

which was a ROBOCOP fixfic as well as a FRANKENSTEIN fic aka THE MODERN PROMETHEUS

but which also contained a HOBBES LEVIATHAN reference

& a guy fawkes reference

along w the english civil war & french revolution references

& the expressed hope that there were better less bloody & more lasting ways of securing freedom than the old styles of uprising

FEET OF CLAY is also a vampire novel fwiw , along w bein I ROBOT fic

Vimes looked up at the entrance of the candle-factory. He could dimly see two cressets burning on either side of a shield.

“Look at that, will you?” he said. “Paint not dry and he flaunts the thing for all the world to see!”

“What’s dat, sir?” said Detritus.

“His damn’ coat of arms!” Detritus looked up.

“Why’s it got a lighted fish on it?” he said.

“In heraldry that’s a poisson,” said Vimes bitterly. “And it’s suppose to be a lamp.”

“A lamp made out of a poisson,” said Detritus. “Well, dere’s a fing.”

“At least it’s got the motto in proper language,” said Sergeant Colon. “Instead of all the old-fashioned stuff no one understands. ‘Art Brought Forth the Candle.’ That, Sergeant Detritus, is a pun, or play on words. ’Cos his name is Arthur, see.”

Vimes stood between the two sergeants and felt a hole open up in his head. “Damn!” he said. “Damn, damn, damn! He showed it to me! ‘Dumb plodder Vimes! He won’t notice!’ Oh, yes! And he was right!”

FEET OF CLAY you may also remember is abt the king-shaped hole in humanitys heart & the eagerness of the moneyed few to exploit the populaces desire for ‘strong’ leaders who touch the public sentiments PRINCES MADE TO ORDER , GOLDEN SCIONS W SHINY SWOREDS & SMILES THAT GO 'TING’ , GUARANTEED NOT TO INTERFERE W THE STATUS QUO ! !

“And then I started thinking: who wants a king?

Well, nearly everyone. It’s built in. Kings make it better. Funny thing, isn’t it? Even those people who owe everything to him don’t like Vetinari. Ten years ago most of the guild leaders were just a bunch of thugs and now…well, they’re still a bunch of thugs, to tell the truth, but Vetinari’s given ’em the time and energy to decide they never needed him.

“And then young Carrot turns up with charisma writ all over him, and he’s got a sword and a birthmark and everyone gets a funny feeling and dozens of buggers start going through the records and say, ‘Hey, looks like the king’s come back.’ And then they watch him for a while and say, ‘Shit, he really is decent and honest and fair and just, just like in all the stories. Whoops! If this lad gets on the throne we could be in serious trouble! He might turn out to be one of them inconvenient kings from long ago who wanders around talking to the common people—’”

“You are in favor of the common people?” said Dragon mildly.

“The common people?” said Vimes. “They’re nothing special. They’re no different from the rich and powerful except they’ve got no money or power. But the law should be there to balance things up a bit. So I suppose I’ve got to be on their side.”

“A man married to the richest woman in the city?” Vimes shrugged.

“The Watchman’s helmet isn’t like a crown. Even when you take it off you’re still wearing it.”

…Vimes flourished the parchment.

“I looked and looked at it last night, and then I wound my sense of humor down ten notches and let it go out of focus and looked at the crest, the fish-shaped lamp. Lampe au poisson, it’s called. A sort of bilingual play on words, perhaps? ‘A lamp of poison?’ You’ve got to have a mind like old Detritus to spot that one. And Fred Colon wondered why you’d left the motto in modern Ankhian instead of putting it into the old language, and that made me wonder so I sat up with the dictionary and worked it out and, you know, it would have read ‘Ars Enixa Est Candelam. Ars Enixa.’ That must have really cheered you up. You’d said who did it and how it was done and gave it to the poor bugger to be proud of. It didn’t matter that no one else would spot it. It made you feel good. Because we ordinary mortals just aren’t as clever as you, are we?”

He shook his head. “Good grief, a coat of arms. Was that the bribe? Was that all it took?” Dragon slumped in his chair.

“And then I wondered what was in it for you,” continued Vimes. “Oh, there’s a lot of people involved, I expect, for the same old reasons. But you? Now, my wife breeds dragons. Out of interest, really. Is that what you do? A little hobby to allow the centuries to fly by? Or does blue blood taste sweeter? Y’know, I hope it was some reason like that. Some decent mad selfish one.”

–Feet of Clay, Terry Pratchett, 1996

sir terry has been calling bullshit on it for a very long time

& so has guillermo del toro –esp since there is a whole gang of annointed media princes busily promoting the idea of a strong , manly , & above all DESTINED hero , a CHOSEN ONE whose choices cannot be questioned bc HE IS SAVIN US FROM A WORSE FATE @ every turn of the dial or corner of the cineplex

but they are notalone

& i have all the cards in hand i need to chain SKYFALL in the monomyth as a deliberate act & link the 007 reboot team w team resistance , now , just as ive connected up lots & lots of team wallbuilders dots in the past w comics & textual & screencap mirroring – i just dont have enf hrs or a decent enf computer to let me do it fast or easy

but ive given everyone enf to go on their own by way of Clues , now

oh & heres another before i get more of the george orwell –> terry pratchett –> guillermo del toro words-&-pictures mapping done

WHAT IS THE FORMER VIMES FAMILY COAT-OF-ARMS , EH??

quickly so you all can work on figuring it out before i spell it out

in 2002 the game changed again on a profound level

bc in NIGHT WATCH sir terry did something – deliberately , consciously , & acknowledged in meta – that whether he intended it @ the time or not , wld have the effect of tying discworld into the CRONOS setting

bc he incorporated something that had the effect of adding yet another city to the gestalt of the ur-city that ankhmorpork stands for

it wasnt just london-plus-birmingham-plus-new-york-plus-washington-dc as it had been ever since well the beginning , what w the Oblong Office & the Big Wahooni overlaid on the thames & dickensian grime plus industrial revolution mills

or london-birmingham-nyc-dc-ROME as it had been since gen tacitus appeared in the setting

or london-birmingham-nyc-dc-rome-PARIS as it had been since MASKERADE

bc he did something that made it now ALSO & as much & deliberately so , now modern-day MEXICO CITY no less than more northern capitols w all their corruption & decency inextricably tangled

so yeah

pratchett went there first

tho either in honest accidental synching or bc he had admired another tale of magic & undeath & common humanity triumphing over golden lures of power

& then sah ridley went there latest in hostility & explicitly welded the three worlds tog onscreen & the rest is history , or possibly jography

i still dont know if PR is officialauthorized unofficial discworld fanfic

but given the video games & comics meta connections

given all the narrowed degrees of separation

& given the alliance of THEMES & standing up for the ordinary ppl bc somebody needs to & it sure as hell wont be gods & the aristocracy coming down from on high

i know where i bet myshillings

so i said there were 3 orwell references in this diorama that i cld spot

the first & namesake is on the two tins of tea :

pls note that i cannot make out the first name of the tea importers firm & have not yet been able to determine if its a real historic brand or not , google turning up no matches for an “and appleby” line from the 19th c on the steampunk / reenactment / collectibles fronts (x)

however the look of them is very authentic , the art style and colors are exactly in line w actual historic advertising & marketing materials from circa 1890 - 1910

& the symbolism of the adapted heraldry of great britain  is quite in keeping w a brand aspiring to be awarded the honor of a royal appointment – or tryin to make casual shoppers think they already had one , hah !

but while to the vast majority of viewers this will symbolize at first & likely also 2nd glance ALICE IN WONDERLAND & THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS bc  tea –> parties (x) + lion & unicorn “were fighting for the crown” (x) = lewis carroll by default

there is something else , an obscure but super important essay by orwell from 1941

ie in the height of the blitz , during the battle of britain , but before the US had been bombed by the axis

after he & his wife had got back from the debacle of the spanish civil war

& it is called THE LION & THE UNICORN(x)

& begins w bombs falling from airplanes

& is a discussion of britain as a society & a culture & a govt as well as a changing one faced w a choice of directions imposed by war ( agn )

& in it , in the course of talking abt british culture , the “the nice cup of tea” - a subject so dear to his heart he wrote a whole other essay after the war on the right way to make tea (x) called just that -

& also the english love of flowers

all of which we see above in the CRIMSON PEAK display along w a chatelaine , a ring of keys - the key bein a symbol that features significantly in guillermo del toros previous films , both DEVILS BACKBONE & PANS LABYRINTH in literal / traditional fashion , & in more arcane modes in the HELLBOY films & CRONOS –& in BLADE 2 as in PACIFIC RIM more futuristic ones , but a key is a key if it be a puzzle-piece of metal or wood or a carefully guarded number sequence , or the DNA sequence of a member of the royal blood

–the key also oc simultaneously a longtime symbol of christianity , used heraldically esp by the church of rome , being associated w st peter the gatekeeper of heaven  & equally of hekate the guardian of the crossroads of life & death , used in one of the most famous rites of that goddess long before christianity–

–one of the keys appears to have a skull finial altho the photo is not as high res as i wld like–

the moss-green doily under the tea service keys & morning paper bein significant @ least for its color as well as its floral symbols

but then there is the paper itself & upon closest examination i see that it does not say that LADY BEATRICE ALEXANDRA SHARPE ( ! ! ! ) was the victim , but that someone connected tp her by an “of” was slain in their bath

so the plot thickens

bc there is a ton of stuffs goin on uncovered via this orwell link

& mainly it hotwires directly to discworld

bc tell me if this does not speak muchly of ankh-morpork as described in those books ??

But here it is worth noting a minor English trait which is extremely well marked though not often commented on, and that is a love of flowers. This is one of the first things that one notices when one reaches England from abroad, especially if one is coming from southern Europe. Does it not contradict the English indifference to the arts? Not really, because it is found in people who have no aesthetic feelings whatever. What it does link up with, however, is another English characteristic which is so much a part of us that we barely notice it, and that is the addiction to hobbies and spare-time occupations, the privateness of English life. We are a nation of flower-lovers, but also a nation of stamp-collectors, pigeon-fanciers, amateur carpenters, coupon-snippers, darts-players, crossword-puzzle fans. All the culture that is most truly native centres round things which even when they are communal are not official - the pub, the football match, the back garden, the fireside and the ‘nice cup of tea’. The liberty of the individual is still believed in, almost as in the nineteenth century. But this has nothing to do with economic liberty, the right to exploit others for profit. It is the liberty to have a home of your own, to do what you like in your spare time, to choose your own amusements instead of having them chosen for you from above. The most hateful of all names in an English ear is Nosey Parker. It is obvious, of course, that even this purely private liberty is a lost cause. Like all other modern people, the English are in process of being numbered, labelled, conscripted, ‘co-ordinated’. But the pull of their impulses is in the other direction, and the kind of regimentation that can be imposed on them will be modified in consequence. No party rallies, no Youth Movements, no coloured shirts, no Jew-baiting or ‘spontaneous’ demonstrations. No Gestapo either, in all probability.

But in all societies the common people must live to some extent against the existing order. The genuinely popular culture of England is something that goes on beneath the surface, unofficially and more or less frowned on by the authorities. One thing one notices if one looks directly at the common people, especially in the big towns, is that they are not puritanical. They are inveterate gamblers, drink as much beer as their wages will permit, are devoted to bawdy jokes, and use probably the foulest language in the world. They have to satisfy these tastes in the face of astonishing, hypocritical laws (licensing laws, lottery acts, etc. etc.) which are designed to interfere with everybody but in practice allow everything to happen. Also, the common people are without definite religious belief, and have been so for centuries. The Anglican Church never had a real hold on them, it was simply a preserve of the landed gentry, and the Nonconformist sects only influenced minorities. And yet they have retained a deep tinge of Christian feeling, while almost forgetting the name of Christ. The power-worship which is the new religion of Europe, and which has infected the English intelligentsia, has never touched the common people.

beyond that but also bc that there is a great deal in this essay which is politically & socially relevant despite the changed times – esp the bit abt bein simultaneously exhorted to save for the war effort WHILE simultaneously exhorted to shop shop shop in the name of patriotism

something anyone who was a conscious adult i n 2002 will remember bein revolted by , or even just an alert teen of which there were many

even if there is a good deal i wld disagree w from my distant & hindsighted perspective , like for one i think orwell –yes , old george orwell himself ! ! is far more sentimental abt england & his countrymen than sir terry , esp when it comes to matters of war & empire & militarism

that ankh-morporkians happily ranting against “johnny klatchian” & “the cheese-eaters of quirm” are more true to the spirit of john bull & that eric blair is FAR too soft on the raj harsh on it tho he was in the light of his own experience in burma (x) & i think george monbiot cld have taught him a few things (x) or put them in better perspective @ least (x)  –& i do wonder if there isnt also some cryptic connection w luc besson makin his last big movie abt a burmese protestor

bc here is the kicker

i have been goin thru all the watch books now w a close reading & a watchful eye for symbols & references that i might have missed or thought just a joke before

& MONSTROUS REGIMENT is not the first SHARPES RIFLES fanfic pratchett did altho it is more obv

& the earlier SHARPE fanfic / fixfic is also his LES MIS fanfic / fixfic

but also a very grim BATMAN fic –grimmer than anything alan moore or frank miller dared dream up – is NIGHT WATCH indeed

bc carcer is an evil vimes doppelganger & thus the joker to vimes noir batman who operates on the very broken jagged edge of the law in this one , seeking out the dangerous answer WHAT IS THE LAW ?? IS ‘ORDER’ FOUND IN OBEYING ORDERS – OR IN FOLLOWING THE ESSENCE OF THAT LAWFULNESS??

but it was also a dark & prescient take on the current reality of the War on Some Nouns WHICH IS STILL GOING ON

& CARCER IS A VERSION OF SGT OBEDIAH HAKESWILL played w vicious aplomb by the late great pete postlethwaite AKA THE NEMESIS OF SHARPE WHO JOINED UP FOR THE LOOTING

& if there is any doubt that sam vimes is richard sharpe HE EVEN MAKES A NAME JOKE ON IT TO LORD RUST ! ! !

however in the course of all this collision of memes pratchett did something else huge

bc he took the timelords , that most english of inventions in entertainment , & turned them into the MI-5 of the bondverse , that other oh so english of entertainments

& made them both as unenglish as cld be TIMEBENDERS AHEAD OF TIME  & also lightly made them part of UNCLE bc entrance thru a clothes shop here in their 3rd outing

its a huge subversion & of both universes , bc the bondverse is all abt “ENGLAND PREVAILS” defending the neoraj of the angloamerican pax thru strength

& the timelords are all abt the status quo in the name of benevolent handsoffery but rly to protect their privilege until it all goes blooey - except for the erratic champion-but-also-tourist the doctor

& in pratchetts hands the order of the history monks is defending reality from exactly the sort of authority figures that orwell criticized in his praise of toads & hares (x)

I think that by retaining one’s childhood love of such things as trees, fishes, butterflies and - to return to my first instance - toads, one makes a peaceful and decent future a little more probable, and that by preaching the doctrine that nothing is to be admired except steel and concrete, one merely makes it a little surer that human beings will have no outlet for their surplus energy except in hatred and leader worship.(…) The atom bombs are piling up in the factories, the police are prowling through the cities, the lies are streaming from the loudspeakers, but the earth is still going round the sun, and neither the dictators nor the bureaucrats, deeply as they disapprove of the process, are able to prevent it.

but it was in FIFTH ELEPHANT that del toro found the key for makin the lost daughter & the unsaved child & the unwanted orphan ALL THE SAME SOLAR WOLF-CHAMPION FIGHTING THE ELDER GODS GENERATION AFTER GENERATION

& it is hella grim in its lead for the alchemy

bc there is a girl & a shoe in that tale as well but her story didnt have a happy ending

& also i know how it too is a bondverse fic by retconnection now

not just bc NIGHT WATCH made sam vimes into james that time round

but bc of yes PACIFIC RIM

oh & there are also evil & unredeemed versions of hermann & newt in NIGHT WATCH

even as discworlds hakeswill is defeated in it

bc this is not the SHARPE fanfic w the folksongs in it – no hagman & harris except on the barricades as the multitude ( see how they rise up … )

& as there are good ( or good-ish ) versions of them in UNSEEN ACADEMICALS

but that will have to go in another post bc rl stuff calls

but yes the great game they are playing has a point , the story isnt idle diversion @ least on the side of team resistance

& THE CAKE WAS ALWAYS A LIE – & orwells essay goes into that in quite some detail for its brevity

http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/site/work/essays/cupoftea.html

hint - its in this diorama

& its repeated @ least 3x that i have spotted I AM DYING HERE @ HIS SNEAKY CLEVERNESS

pic from theaterguy105s comic-con post (x)

FYI ALSO NOBODY SEEMS TO HAVE RECOGNIZED THE MOTTO ON THE SHIELD

its psalm 120 | 121 dependin on which numbering system

AD MONTES OCULUS LEVAVI on the upper scroll means TO THE MOUNTAINS [MY] EYES I LIFT UP

which is a heraldic rearrangement of “levavi oculos meos in montes unde veniet auxilium meum” in the vulgate latin which as translated by the jesuit order who taught ( if not entirely what they mean to ) the young guillermo del toro to elizabethan era english goes “I have lifted up my eyes to the mountains, from whence help shall come to me” (x)

altho the spelling of it as “oculus” rather than “oculos” is curious & may have a significance beyond it bein an artifact of spelling in Olde – oculus is “an eye” singular , in latin but when spelled w two Os is plural in a specific case as in the above verse , but also means a little round window ( that looks like an eye ) so this may be a double entendre w the windows = the eyes of the house

also fyi this latin version of the scriptures was originally done by st jerome

who is the saint associated w , you may recall , a lion patronus

the lower scrolls motto is MORS VINCIT OMNIA which hardly needs translating but = DEATH CONQUERS ALL

this hi res wallpaper of the sculpted gate crest is nice (x) but the silkscreen version (x)  on this official legendary swag notebook is easier to read – i havent deciphered the rest of the imagery beyond the obvious overarching skull symbol bc none of the pics are clear enf yet & this may be starting red herrings but there maybe two rampant beasts – ?bears? lions? - opposed w a flying bird –? raven? –in the shield proper , or not 

but one thing is certain ,its the same mask hanging over the gate of the namesake LABERINTO

which echoed the mouth-of-truth symbol in the repaired menhir earlier

& the jaws-of-fate symbols in the “three caskets” sequence later

& which was the mirror of the mask formed by the windows of the arch in DEVILS BACKBONE

just as the lion-guarded caskets by the pale mans fireside were the mirror of the safe hidden by the stove in ESPINAZO , & the jaws-of-truth scn in BLADE 2

& which wld be echoed immediately thereafter in HELLBOY 1 ( along w so many other elements )

& now the gate / boca del inferno theme returns

& with it entire new layers of symbolism on all levels

but what it will be we can only guess

but jessica chastain tweeted a note abt green bein the color of hope ( ! ! ! )

& it sounds like they were LARPin it this time

& charlie h is so tuned in to del toros storytelling now , he wrote his own chara sheet for backstory & got to use almost all of it unchanged

& everyone got input on the editing process

& they filmed in toronto so they cld get as many of the same crew as had worked w them on PR as possible

SO YES THIS IS ANOTHER LINK IN THE MONOMYTH & WILL ILLUMINATE BACKWARDS AS MUCH AS IT IS ILLUMINATED BY THE PAST CHAPTERS

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3093522/

which involves lost heirs , wicked stepmothers , princesses disguised as pageboys , doppelgangers , deaths real & faked , ghosts , gods , omens & the political chaos in the roman empire following the death of julius caesar as the setting for an intergenerational family drama that involves a significant critique of the patriarchy for its times AND serves as a fixfic for R&J

& possibly MACBETH also

in a ttly chaotically anachronistic mashup of ancient / medieval / then-modern renaissance military & romantic fiction tropes

& the role that vondie curtis-hall is credited w is no mere random roman general

but the ambassador to a roman client state at first – a diplomat yep but NOT the kind who just hands arnd the cucumber sandwiches & foilcovered choclates – & then the leader of the invasion of britain after the client king announces that augustus is no julius & their old bargain is over

& a man who proves himself more decent & noble than the british nobles time & time again STANDS UP FOR THE IDEALS OF THE GENEVA CONVENTION CENTURIES B4 IT EXISTED

& who in the course of the multithreaded plot complications discovers the disguised princess in a desperate situation

thinks her a mere humble serving boy of no rank or importance

yet ! !

treats her kindly & takes her under his protection

telling her to think of him as a father

not as a boss

YEAH THIS

( oh & praises her work ethic skills & diligence to the skies later )

also HE HELPS SAVE THE DAY & BRING ABT PEACE BTWN THE REALMS AGN BY HAVING A RELIABLE SEER ON STAFF

who sorts out all the remaining mysteries to bring a happy ending

MYSTICAL EAGLES FIGURE PROMINENTLY IN THE TALE

also a highly symbolic RING as token of a faith / not / betrayed after all

its the SAME STORY & the shakespearean community is telling it hand-in-velvet-glove w that part of the fantasy-horror community that belongs to the resistance & not the wall –FYI  there is a lot of grue in CYMBELINE i warn everyone , lots of violence BOTH threatened & accomplished , VERY winterfell in feel

only w less actual rape & way more female empowerment both good & evil , since imogen WHO IS BEING PLAYED BY ANASTASIA STEELE ASDFJKL; ! !  is the one who steps forward out of her fears to SAVE EVERYONE in the end , the catalyst whose choice to reveal herself is the key to unlocking all the mysteries & bringing a joyful peace in place of war

& the wicked stepmother has her own complications beyond being a fairy tale caricature UTTERLY EVIL BUT ALSO CAPABLE OF HONESTY & BETTER CHOICES

& above all else its MUCH ADO ABT NOTHING fixfic

bc shakespeare doesnt just tackle the disappointing fizzle of MACBETHs WICKED QUEEN PLOTTING THE RUIN OF POLITICAL RIVALS FOR HER OWN DYNASTIC AIMS plot , or the spectacularly chaotic disaster of overcomplicated plots & missed connections = lovers dying in R&J – & yes clark-hall was in the 1996 ROMEO + JULIET too –

but the whole DUDE WHO IS SUPPOSED TO BE A ROMANTIC HERO DOUBTS HIS GIRLFRIENDS FAITHFULNESS & DUMPS HER BRUTALLY & ITS SUPPOSED TO BE A HAPPY ENDING WHEN HE TAKES HER BACK AFTER HE THINKS SHES DEAD & FEELS BAD which leaves such a bad taste in MUCH ADO bc claudio is just SUCH A JERK that nothing he does can make up for how he treated hero

welp

the untrusting lover in the much later story CYMBELINE has to be put thru the wringer

over & over & over again

humiliation conga before he can be worthy of his princess agn

& we see him agonize & beat himself up & suffer not just outwardly but go thru EVERYTHING HE DID WRONG & WHY HE WAS TTLY OUT OF LINE EVEN IF SHE DID CHEAT ON HIM W HIS EX BEST FRIEND HE WAS STILL THE BAD GUY IN THE SITUATION BC VIOLENCE IS NEVER THE RIGHT RESPONSE TO SEXUAL JEALOUSY which is way more feminist than a shitload of modern romances / action movies & our whole culture even today which shrugs it off as “man driven to anhiliating violence bc his ex is w someone else now”

there was a damn good reason max martini stepped up to be a spear-carrier in FIFTY SHADES OF GOR & it was the same good reason charlie hunnam threw himself on that 1st

tis a very tangled chain & long

but all the links connected

SO HOPING IT WINS A SILVER LION @ THE END OF THIS MONTH – I WANT IT TO GET WIDER RELEASE bc its one of the entries at the venice film festival where it debuts

veddy iiiinteresting

i wonder if there is more to it than him takin umbrage @ a SUPER oblique & encrypted fixfic in the form of a happier endin for LEON | THE PROFESSIONAL ,

or if he also thinks that he is the only one allowed to reinterpret the story of the maid of orleans

& is also pissed off that nobody appreciates his sublime artistic endeavors  eg the horrible reviews that THE MESSENGER got when it came out

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/messenger_the_story_of_joan_of_arc/

& also how his recent attempted biopic of aung san suu kyi THE LADY was panned as a failure as biography DESPITE michelle yeohs acting being praised GOOD ACTING NOT ENF TO SALVAGE BAD DIRECTING is the eternal lesson

but when i see that he – just like ridley scott , just like michael bay – made a weird “arty” low budget little crime flick w a big name cast

, that turned out to be awful & incomprehensible AND like scotts to have a major point of overlap w NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN but also to have so many points of congruence w other films , visually & in terms of degrees-of-separation via casting , & also via name magicsymbolism

that all are in some way connected w del toro films

that it is no longer a question to me if the PROMETHEUS “bandage underwear / running down the hall scn” was a deliberate or an accidental resemblance to 5TH ELEMENT also not a question if it was a swipe or an homage

nope

just like scott homaged BAYFORMERS in the yellow sports car scn in COUNSELOR

he homaged besson in PROMETHEUS

bc politics makes strange bedfellows but so i guess does bein scorned by critics & also havin yr own old fanbase wonder wth happened to yr talent & where is the bay / scott / besson who made the rock=&-armageddon / alien-&-blade runner / leon-&-element ??

so hey we can all join in self referential footshootin stupidity

which is also supposed to be a big NYAH BLARGH ARGH WE HATES YOU 4EVA ! ! ! to their rivals , all these upstart crew & actors who think they know how to make movies GRARGHSNARGRHL WE WILL SHOW YOU by makin a movie so terrible that nobody understands how we did it

wait

maybe we didnt think this plan thru

but yeah THE FAMILY has enf bits & pieces that only make sense if seen as slivers fittin into a goblins mirror reflection of PACIFIC RIM as a magic mirror reflection of , in this case esp , scotts ROBIN HOOD which was ripping off BLADE 2 in a huge way along w HELLBOY 2

but also the overall superheroes themes of all del toro movies

& yes THE DEGREES OF SEAN BEAN bc it is def a slam @ RONIN which hah yeah thatll ttly show everyone involved in PR

& yes the nastiness in LUCY is also stuffs that makes sense if yr lookin at it as , like TF4 , a backatcha to PR

& YES THERE BE ALREADY SALVOS FIRED @ BOTH DEL TORO & KENNETH BRANAGH IN SCOTTS EXODUS PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS

IF I CAN GET A PICSPAM POST TOG WO MY COMPUTER CRASHING YET AGN I WILL SET IT OUT PLAINLY

but im not sure what that will prove either

otoh IT WILL CERTAINLY PROVIDE RAW MATERIAL FOR THE ALCHEMICAL RETORTS & FURNACES OF “CRIMSON PEAK” & PR2

& who knows what else

bc i just discovered there is a MODERN VERSION OF CYMBELINE (x) COMIN OUT as a small art film by michael almereyda WHICH HAS BESSONS EXWIFE JOVOVICH and& PAIN & GAINs ED HARRIS and 50 SHADES DAKOTA JOHNSON as the princess AND BAYFORMERS 1-3 JOHN LEGUIZAMO and also ETHAN HAWKE WHO WAS RECENTLY STARBUCK TO WILLIAM HURTS AHAB – & WILLIAM HURT HAD A SIGNIFICANT ROLE IN SCOTTS ROBIN HOOD , MORE ON THAT LATER – oh & yes , was in ANTOINE FUQUAS TRAINING DAY & IVE TALKED ABT THE UNIVERSAL FIASCO W TAKIN AWAY AMERICAN GANGSTER FROM FUQUA & GIVIN IT TO RIDLEY SCOTT TO MAKE IT A CROWE GARY STU VEHICLE – in which you may be forgiven for forgetting that a certain british actor of increasing renown had a bit part as another gangster but yes THERE IS AN IDRIS ELBA CONNECTION TOO – and finally there is the STAR TREK / REBOOT CONNECTION bc ANTON YELCHIN AKA CHEKOV IN NUTREK is in it

& yes there was ANOTHER jab @ traditional trek fandom in PAIN & GAIN to go along w the travestyin of WRATH OF KHAN in BAYFORMERS 3

bc bay cast TONY SHALOUB AKA FRED KWAN FROM GALAXY QUEST as the real-life-victim-made-unlikeable-“deserved-it” of the based-on-a-true-crime-case story SO YEAH there is so much of a huge fuckyou @ their own fans by these great big babies but also , or primarily , idk which & not sure they know which , @ their perceived rivals

which yeah ok sure theyre makin gobs of money on these studio-supported mega projects & gettin carte blanche to make their ugly little id vanity projects that barely break even if that & get trashed on RT

but i guess its just so much salt in their eyes that upstarts get praised by critics & happy fanbases alike

so they gotta act out EVEN IF IT MEANS AN ENDLESS STRING OF OWN GOALS & PYRRHIC VICTORIES

meanwhile

the shakespeare / stage / series tv community is NOT HAPPY w the annointed princes of hollywood

& they are showing it @ every turn

accordin to imdb almereyda has cast VONDIE CURTIS HALL AS THE ROMAN GENERAL & ENVOY TO BRITAIN in his new movie

which isnt just diverse casting YES WE BITE OUR THUMB @ WHEDONS WHITEWASHING but also a connex to 1 . THE SOPRANOS aka take that besson ! ! & to ER yes that is both a BATMAN and a coen brothers shoutout

they are playin the great game

& i am wondering like hell what stanley tucci is gonna show up in after he finishes HUNGER GAMES series now … .

(im sure it seemed like a good idea @ the time , when bay cast OMFG ROBIN GOODFELLOW AKA PUCK as his heel-face-turn villain as a TAKE THAT to captain america fans - these sort of things always do , which is why yr supposed to keep a five-yr-old child on retainer to look em over first ! ! )

so followin on from the bit abt the wachowskis own “reincarnated princess” havin a dead scientist ASTRONOMER dad named MAX played by james darcy who was in SIR GAWAIN

Team Establishment sure is ticked off at Team Resistance

they keep killing off effigies of their charas esp harkin back to one maximilian carlo martini playin jodie fosters own Darcy as a longhaired surfer dude workin on a SETI proj in CONTACT see also TRANS4MERS & now this

but hey its just more confirmation of my theory that THOR & PACIFIC RIM were always meant to be AUs of each other

& i got a feeling & checked who plays her mom in this

& its an irish actress who played – yep! – the spanish queen katherine on THE TUDORS (x)

& also was on RTDs original QUEER AS FOLK w charlie h (& now on DOWNTON ABBEY)

& ppl are wondering abt the other chara names in JUPITER ASCENDING & welp aside from ABRASAX aka ABRAXAS = gnostic name of god &/or ancient archangel we have Kalique which is a very obv morph of “calique” which is a minced franco-american blasphemy

deriv of CHALICE (x) & which apparently is sometimes used by Northstar in the Marvel comics (x) so theres a couple-three connections w the del toro verse

Seraphi = seraph[im] aka angels agn pretty darn obv cx goin back to CRONOS

& Balem is probably another phonetic morph of “Belem” as in the brazilian city
which has a dual implication of colonial spain (see also the terry gilliam scn) plus also the name itself is a contracted form of BETHLEHEM

& if there was any sign heretofore that there was any respect for anyone else or acknowledgment of others filmmakin efforts in the wachowskis employment of such tropes id call it clever & a shoutout even if a fairly thin one

but given the uncredited & even twisted raiding of the 1st 2 BLADE films in MATRIX & VENDETTA on top of the uncredited raiding of cordwainer smith in this movie im not gonna give even that (& i suspect if i had the heart & patience for revisting the MATRIX sequels i wld catch a ton more of stuff that made no sense wo the ‘combative dialogue’ context of the time - but “Merovingian” fits bc the subject matter (x) is referenced explicitly in HENRY V opening in the whole angevin/plantagenet inheritance mess via “salic law” & theres that whole tacit allusions to outre-mer & the crusader kingdoms that guillermo plays w mostly visually in BLADE 2 – & then it all gets tied back in w the nonsense of dan brown & that earlier grail book abt modern european royalty bein descendents of Jesus so yeah)

ITS NOT AN ACCIDENT THAT THEY WENT W VAMPIRE ARISTOCRATS WHO ARE LIKE SQUABBLING ANCIENT DEITIES (sub in “blood” for “genes” in the film dialogue & it all makes so much more sense on multiple levels what w “the blood is the life” from scripture & original DRACULA & also “blood” as metaphor for biological heredity) 

any more than casting Richard Sharpe as another mentor / father figure to the hero

but mainly im just pissed that they went backwards w super reactionary gender politics & ALL the characters played by actors of color in servant / minor roles –at least MATRIX had characters of color in positions of authority & power but i guess after you do yellowface in the 21st century & call it something profoundly symbolic human unity blah blah the only thing you can do to top it is make your film look WORSE than 1960s & 70s TV shoes for diversity

at least ppl arent buying it any more than a “heroine” who just screams & flails & needs to be rescued by the manly action hero from yet another consequence of her own foolishness….

(& also nice to see , no matter what i think of their work ethic , is how every single reviewer so far is simply callin em the brother-and-sister duo & not misgendering lana or bringing up her transition – its just accepted now in the film criticism community & not a matter for discussion )

bc SONS OF ANARCHY duh

likewise his many shirtless scenes & shoulder “scars”

the heroines dad in the story is ENGLISH

his name is MAXIMILIAN

& he is played by a british actor james d'arcy who spent a long time in real life working in AUSTRALIA

http://m.imdb.com/name/nm0195439/

& was in the wachowskis notorious adaptation of reincarnation drama CLOUD ATLAS

& who was also in an Arthurian movie SIR GAWAIN & THE GREEN KNIGHT

in Napoleonic navy film MASTER & COMMANDER w russell crowe & paul bettany aka Jarvis in IRON MAN

& oh yeah NICHOLAS NICKELBY w charlie hunnam

(who is currently starring in ads that are the most awesome/hilarious take-that to FIFTY SHADES)

http://m.usmagazine.com/celebrity-beauty/news/charlie-hunnam-doutzen-kroes-topless-calvin-klein-reveal-ads-201459

its surreal to have all my complicated theories proven in such quick succession by the trajectory of returning fire

oh & i guess straczynski wasnt amused by del toro resurrectin Susan Ivanova & Marcus Cole & givin em their true HEA not w a creepy cloned dopelganger of her but havin em born in the same time and place & a heroic life & death together - both Russians , both Rangers….& havin em fight the ice giants under Heimdalls command!!

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Ivanova

sort of horrifascinated to see what the ppl who made MATRIX REVOLUTIONS & the writer of WWZ will do w The Drift…..

http://www.slashfilm.com/wachwoski-siblings-and-j-michael-straczynski-developing-tv-series-sense8/

so we have

a “reincarnated princess” from another world

who like Lu Tze is a janitor

& like Esme & Magrat & Tiffany is associated w bees

the other world is supposedly science fictional but in fact is pure fairyland w animal-people

incl a werewolf supersoldier “legionary” played by the lead of that whitewashed travesty of EAGLE OF THE NINTH not fassbender the other one

who self-identifies as a dog

& his mentor Richard Sharpe / Eddard Stark / Stinger Apini a bee-man

get it - BE(EM)AN

a pune or play on words

but BEE + WOLF = BEOWULF aka BEAR

so yah i said the disarming of Leatherback signalled PACIFIC RIM as BEOWULF fixfic

i wasnt the only one to catch that

but then theres the fact that her evil rivals are all IMMORTAL VAMPIRE ARISTOCRATS FROM SPACE im not the only one to catch that w early reviews invoking Countess Bathory even

& their decor isnt just SPACE MEDIEVAL GOTHIC (right out of the Daz Poser models catalog) its lighted & set to look like EL LABERINTO DEL FAUNO

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/new-tv-spots-images-for-jupiter-ascending-reveal-weird-creatures-sci-fi-spectacle-first-look-at-terry-gilliam-20150127

which makes the reviewers comments about tatum as resembling a muscular mister tumnus super funny

but while the OZ connection is right out there w the wachowskis talkin it up - & mila kunis playin one of the Wicked Witches across from the 1st SPIDERMAN movies Green Goblin Jr aka Harry Osbourne (get it-OSbourne = OZ another pune or play on words for director raimi tryin the name magic thing this time)

it doesnt make sense bc unlike what the wachowskis say its DOROTHY who learns & grows in her quest to fill the shoes of accidental heroic savior w deliberate actions out of her early “meekness” ALSO CALLED BACK TO IN THE OPENING OF ESPINAZO DEL DIABLO by facing a powerful tyrant & fighting to save her friends then insisting on true answers and honest dealing from another powerful leader

Ulysses on the other hand is only older & sadder when he gets home after losing all his crew to Poseidons revenge over them defeatin his son the cyclops -but still the same person when he left Ithaca

but it does confirm my belief that PACIFIC RIM is also TROY fixfic

as much as it like LABERINTO was VENDETTA & STAR WARS saga fixfic

bc the rly critical prior role for kunis

even more than as a witch misguided into villainy & greenness
by her evil sister

is as natalie portmans doppelganger in BLACK SWAN

if the direct ripoffs of multiple of Queen Amidalas costumes wasnt clue enf

still im glad to see im not the only one who saw the swan imagery in PACIFIC RIM & tied it all tog

even if the wachowskis are just mockin it all by makin THEIR princess a ttl helpless Damsel to be rescued by rugged white guys in a/ biology=destiny Chosen One pure Disneyfied fairy tale

theres a clincher in the use of the name Abrasax for the vampire royal family

if all the other stuff (plus more i havent even touched like celtic knot & neck tattoos & an Anglo-Russian lost princess w the name of the All-father NOT anastasia which = natasha & MEANS “reborn”, lost wings = ALLEGORY OF THE CHARIOT) wasnt enf

bc thats an old mediterranean gnostic name of the deity and-or an archangelic chimera guardian spirit

& ive been sayin for a long time that the del toro monomyth is Discworld AU or rather multiverse fanfic

but ive been sayin even longer that its neoplatonic gnostic heretical syncretist mystery-miracle plays w a slew of populist /humanist principles as grounding

vs the whole “born elite” destiny thing

which is true of pratchett as well

& its nice to have that confirmed w another salvo that also confirms my Wizards War w visual mirrors theory

guardian angels that are insect ppl lol sad thing is this COULD have been good if they hadnt tried to impose a reactionary narrative on it WE WANT OUR PRINCESSES TO BE THE HEROES TOO NOWDAYS!!!

cannot WAIT for CRIMSON PEAK to see the retort to this & 50 SHADES

there are so many more than i suspected some of which are harder to explain / describe  than others but here have a list of a bunch of em that i never suspected till i started a reread of all 40 DW books:

• “analog” vs “digital”
• Tendo’s rosary – aka a “paternoster” (x) 
• Raleigh’s photo collection
• & talent for languages
• Mako being exceptionally good at staff fighting
• the potted plant on the porch behind them in the alley during the Tokyo battle scene – this one is very verynaughty indeed!!
• the “Mark 1” device as the means by which the euhemerized hero is scarred & surviving proves himself worthy as leader of the people
• the fact that the personnel carrier & observation helicopters are black Pelican-class(x) ie Coast Guard versions of the Sikorsky Sea King aircraft (x) – this is very deeply encrypted & comes thru yet another series of books that pratchett himself is referencing
• helicopters in general
• all the chess references
• all the Shakespeare references
• all the mythology references including Troy, the Riddle of the Sphinx, Frost Giants, Fountain of Youth, Sword IntoStone,  Amaterasu as Wolf-Warrior guardian figure & Star Trek (what do you mean it isnt a Myth yet??)

SPOILERS BELOW THE FOLD

• “analog” vs “digital” – MOVING PICTURES

  Watch…

  This is space. It’s sometimes called the final frontier.

  (Except that of course you can’t have a final frontier, because there’d be nothing for it to be a frontier to, but as frontiers go, it’s pretty penultimate…)

  And against the wash of stars a nebula hangs, vast and black, one red giant gleaming like the madness of gods…

  And then the gleam is seen as the glint in a giant eye and it is eclipsed by the blink of an eyelid and the darkness moves a flipper and Great A’Tuin, star turtle, swims onward through the void.

  On its back, four giant elephants. On their shoulders, rimmed with water, glittering under its tiny orbiting sunlet, spinning majestically around the mountains at its frozen Hub, lies the Discworld, world and mirror of worlds.

  Nearly unreal.

  Reality is not digital, an on-off state, but analog. Something gradual. In other words, reality is a quality that things possess in the same way that they possess, say, weight.

  Some people are more real than others, for example. It has been estimated that there are only about five hundred real people on any given planet, which is why they keep unexpectedly running into one another all the time.

  The Discworld is as unreal as it is possible to be while still being just real enough to exist.

  And just real enough to be in real trouble.

  now – what does this mean for the movie & the metanarrative?? a very good question ( tho i have my suspicions re Jaeger sentience implications) but one thing it absolutely does is confirm all our vague suspicions that PR is the proper & rightful sequel to THOR 1 ….& mine that branagh has been part of it for a long time too bc

  “…and in that hill, it is said, a Door out of the World was found, and people of the city watched What was Seen therein, knowing not that Dread waited between the universes…”

  The Librarian’s fingertip dragged from right to left across the pictures, and skipped to the next paragraph.

  “…forOthers found the Gate of Holy Wood and fell upon the World, and in one nighte All Manner of Madnesse befell, and Chaos prevailed, and the City sank beneath the Sea, and all became one withe the fishes and the lobsters save for the few who fled…”

  He curled a lip, and looked further down the page.

  "…a Golden Warrior, who drove the Fiends back and saved the World, and said, Where the Gate is, There Am I Also; I Am He that was Born of Holy Wood, to guard the Wild Idea. And they said, What must we do to Destroy the Gate Forever, and he said unto them, This you Cannot Do, for it is Not a Thing, but I will Guard the Gate for you. And they, not having been Born yesterday, and fearing the Cure more than the Malady, said to him, What will you Take from Us, that you will Guard the Door. And he grew until he was the height of a tree and said, Only your Remembrance, that I do Not Sleep. Three times a day will you remember Holy Wood. Else The Cities of the World Will Tremble and Fall, and you will See the Greatest of them All in Flames. And with that the Golden Man took up his golden sword and went into the Hill and stood at the Gate, forever.

  "And the People said to one another, Funny, he lookes just like my Uncle Osbert…”

  

• the rosary – aka a “paternoster” (x) – from which name comes one of the oldest type of elevator (x) which is a major component of Hex the benevolent if eccentric AI introduced in INTERESTING TIMES–

  He’d explained at length to the Faculty that Hex didn’t think. It was obvious that it couldn’t think. Part of it was clockwork. A lot of it was a giant ant farm (the interface, where the ants rode up and down on a little paternoster that turned a significant cogwheel was a little masterpiece, he thought) and the intricately controlled rushing of the ants through their maze of glass tubing was the most important part of the whole thing.

  so they were quietly telegraphing not just Trek fixfic (x) but Trek fixfic by way of the Dysk (NOTE SPELLING) by this–

  

  in conjunction w this imagery

  

  

  bc of this

  A large hourglass came down on the spring.

  “What’s that for?” said Ridcully.

  “Er…it shows Hex is working things out.”

  “Oh. And that buzzing noise? Seems to be coming from the other side of the wall.”

  Ponder coughed.

  “Thatis the long-term storage, Archchancellor.”

  “And how does that work?”

  “Er…well, if you think of memory as a series of little shelves or, or, or holes, Archchancellor, in which you can put things, well, we found a way of making a sort of memory which, er, interfaces neatly with the ants, in fact, but more importantly can expand its size depending on how much we give it to remember and, er, is possibly a bit slow but—”

  “It’s a very loud buzzing,” said the Dean. “Is it going wrong?”

  “No, that shows it’s working,” said Ponder. “It’s, er, beehives.” He coughed. “Different types of pollen, different thicknesses of honey, placement of the eggs…It’s actually amazing how much information you can store on one honeycomb.”

  and
  

  But a lot of it had just…accumulated, like the aquarium and wind chimes which now seemed to be essential. A mouse had built a nest in the middle of it all and had been allowed to become a fixture, since the thing stopped working when they took it out. Nothing in that assemblage could possibly think, except in fairly limited ways about cheese or sugar.

  Nevertheless…in the middle of the night, when Hex was working hard, and the tubes rustled with the toiling ants, and things suddenly went “clonk” for no obvious reason, and the aquarium had been lowered on its davits so that the operator would have something to watch during the long hours…nevertheless, then a man might begin to speculate about what a brain was and what thought was and whether things that weren’t alive could think and whether a brain was just a more complicated version of Hex (or, around 4 A.M., when bits of the clockwork reversed direction suddenly and the mice squeaked, a less complicated version of Hex) and wonder if the whole produced something not apparently inherent in the parts.

  

  which is why i kept seeing both spider andant imagery in this bc HELLO JULIE TAYMOR COSTUMING INFLUENCES EVEN OUT OF THE DEFINING CONFINES OF THE THEATRICAL STAGE bc thats how symbolism works

  incl the rejection of the notion that humanity is essentially different from the aliens bc theyare a hive mind where we are not – our gestalt might be a different setup bc we dont have telepathy but we have workarounds for that aka communication technology & i cant begin to say what a radical statement this is from a sfnal pov since most sf still operates under the premise that what sets humans apart from any presumed alien species is our Rugged Indivuality ™ that wld make us stronger than anyone else–
  
  & what del toro & pratchett are sayin is that NOPE ITS OUR ABILITY TO FORM COOPERATIVE SOCIETIES THAT GIVES US STRENGTH TO STAND AGAINST THE DESTRUCTIVE ELEMENTS OF NATURE incl our own ( along w a ton of thoughts abt the nature of individual consciousness & AI & so forth)
  shorter HIVE MIND DOES NOT AUTOMATICALLY = EVIL OR OTHER

• Raleigh’s photo collection – MEN AT ARMS

  “I have expended three dollars on an iconograph box which, is a thing with a brownei inside that paints pictures of thing’s, this is all the Rage these days. Please find enclosed pictures of my room and my freinds in the Watch, Nobby is the one making the Humerous Gesture but he is a Rough Diamond and a good soul deep down.”

  He stopped again. Carrot wrote home at least once a week. Dwarfs generally did. Carrot was two meters tall but he’d been brought up as a dwarf, and then further up as a human. Literary endeavor did not come easily to him, but he persevered.

  “The weather, he wrote, very slowly and carefully, "continues Very Hot…”

  YEAHTHAT LAST BIT ISNT IMPORTANT OR RELATED TO A STORY W DIRE ALLUSIONS TO MASSIVE STORM SYSTEMS NOPE NO WAY

  

• & talent for languages – JINGO

  “What’d he say? What did you say?” said Vimes. “You speak Klatchian?”

  “Not very well,” said Carrot modestly. “I just can’t get the back-of-the-throat sound to—”

  “But…you can understand what he said?”

  which he may not share w Captain Vimes but does w someone else

  “I didn’t know you spoke Klatchian, my lord.”

  “Not a word,” said Lord Vetinari.

  “But you—”

  “I did not,” said Vetinari calmly.

  "Ah…right…”

  

  

  

  ( there is a further meta joke in this scn – well one of many & not even the biggest @ that – bc of the name-magic game theyre all playing…. bc one meaning of one of the names of one of the actors here is – interpreter)

• Mako as exceptionally good at staff fighting – SOUL MUSIC

  Susan surprised people by being good at Sport. Some sport, anyway. Hockey, lacrosse, and rounders, certainly. Any game that involved putting a stick of some sort in her hands and asking her to swing it, definitely. The sight of Susan advancing toward goal with a calculating look made any goalie lose all faith in her protective padding and throw herself flat as the ball flashed past at waist height, making a humming noise.

  so these = scythes along w the morris dance sword-stick analogs

  

  & yes function as a Setanta | Cu Chulainn (x) story connector thereby linking ball games & guardian beasts & epics across time & space

• the potted plant on the porch behind them in the alley during the Tokyo battle scene – THUD! – & the naughty / humorous aspects of the BUT IS IT ART?? q are ttly overshadowed by the confirmation of both the myffic & nonbinary nature of PR

  He knew in his heart that spinning upside down around a pole wearing a costume you could floss with definitely was not Art, and being painted lying on a bed wearing nothing but a smile and a small bunch of grapes was good solid Art, but putting your finger on why this was the case was a bit tricky.

  “No urns,” he said at last.

  “What urns?” said Nobby.

  “Nude women are only Art if there’s an urn in it,” said Fred Colon. This sounded a bit weak even to him, so he added: “Or a plinth. Both is best, o’course. It’s a secret sign, see, that they put in to say that it’s Art and okay to look at.”

  “What about a potted plant?”

   “That’s okay if it’s in an urn.”

  “What about if it’s not got an urn or a plinth or a potted plant?” said Nobby.

  “Have you one in mind, Nobby?” said Colon suspiciously.

  “Yes,The Goddess Anoia Arising from the Cutlery,” said Nobby. “They’ve got it here. It was painted by a bloke with three i’s in his name, which sounds pretty artistic to me.”

  “The number of i’s is important, Nobby,” said Sergeant Colon gravely, “but in these situations you have to ask yourself: ‘Where’s the cherub?’ If there’s a little fat pink kid holding a mirror or a fan or similar, then it’s still okay. Even if he’s grinning. Obviously you can’t get urns everywhere.”

  

  Potted plant -check

  Urn -check

  Plinth -check

  Cherub -check– which is another Sign to the knowing – “For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger”(x) – not only tennyson for the eng poetry refs here !! – leadin to the guardians of the points of the compass (x) WHICH IS ANOTHER REASON FOR THIS JUXTAPOSITION OF MAKO & CUTE STRETCHING CAT PIC:

  

  

  ALONG W AUTUMN - check! & METAL - check! & JUSTICE & FORESIGHT & DEMON-FIGHTING ASSOC yes to all of these if we needed any further proof of her status as co-avatar of the Four here embodying the WHITE TIGER OF THE WEST – & which is also anotherunicorn aka kirin symbol….learning something new every day!! bc that assoc wasnt one i ever knew abt before

  ( & we all know why cats are important in Discworld …)

  & oc now we see exactly how Amaterasu-as-solar-wolf – COYOTE TANGO which is also a THIEF OF TIME ref – gets helicopters as an attribute via syncretization since her identification w Guanyin (along w her folkloric role as one of the Three Oracles w her thunderstaff & wishing gem ) gives the Goddess of Lost Causes aspect bc dual meaning of “eggbeaters” & mirrors were already hers from of old so ascending = descending via mirroring along the horizontal & voila yet another classics ref & one linking w Aphrodite on several levels  via the pratchett allusion to the famous Venus rising from the Waves(x)

  

  incl the bit in the Orphic Hymns that hails Aphrodite as the great She-Wolf & motive force of all nature & a teensybit more of a badass than in the famous painting ( but even in old Italia there was an association of volcanoes & oracles )
  
  

  

  ( oh & the smiling kid is the mirror & modern fans look an awful lot like propellers ….)

• the “Mark 1” as the trying-by-fire of the mythic ancient god-king who was just an ordinary soldier who saw a greater duty …which happens to require abandoning the idea of revengeon their ancient foe – THE AMAZING MAURICE & HIS EDUCATED RODENTS (yes this one blew my mind too)

  The crowd opened slightly, and a man walked to the edge of the pit holding a terrier. There was some more shouting, then a ripple of laughter, and the dog was dropped in with the rats.

  The Changelings stared down at the circle of death and the cheering humans.

  After a minute or two Nourishing tore her gaze away. When she looked around, she caught the expression on Darktan’s face.

  Maybe it wasn’t just the lamplight that made his eyes look full of fire. She saw him look along the stable to the big doors at the far end. They had been barred shut.

  Then his head turned to the hay and straw piled up in the loft, and in the cribs and mangers below.

  Darktan pulled a length of wood out of one of his belts.

  Nourishing smelled the sulfur in the red blob on the end.

  It was a match.

  Darktan turned and saw her looking at him. He nodded toward the piles of hay in the loft.

  “My plan might not work,” he said. “If it doesn’t, you’ll be in charge of the other plan.”

  “Me?” said Nourishing.

  “You. Because I won’t be…around,” said Darktan. He held out the match. “You know what to do,” he said, nodding to the nearest rack of hay.

  Nourishing swallowed.

  “Yes. Yes, I think so. Er…when?”

  “When the time comes. You’ll know when,” said Darktan, and looked back down at the massacre.

  “One way or the other I want them to remember tonight,” he said quietly. “They’ll remember what they did. And they’ll remember what we did. For as long as they…live.”

  from there to here

  “You’re caught in a trap!”

  That was too much for Darktan, even if every word was agony.

  “Oh…really?” he said.

  “I’ll go and fetch S-sardines, shall I?” stammered Nourishing.

  Darktan could smell the rat’s panic begin. And there wasn’t time for panic.

  “No! Tell…me…” he panted, “…what… kind… of… trap?”

  “Er…er…er…” said Nourishing.

  Darktan took a deep, fiery breath.

  “Think, you…miserable widdler!”

  “Er, er…it’s all rusty…. Er…Rust everywhere! Looks like…er…could be a…Breakback.” There was a scratching noise behind Darktan. “Yes! I gnawed the rust off! It says Nugent Brothers Breakback Mk.1, sir!”

  Darktan tried to think as the constant, dreadful pressure squeezed him further. Mk.1? Ancient! Something out of the dawn of time! The oldest he’d ever seen was an Improved Breakback Mk.7! And all he had to help him was Nourishing, a complete drrtlt with four left feet.

  “Can you…see how…” he began, but there were purple lights in front of his eyes now, a great tunnel of purple lights. He tried again as he felt himself drift toward the lights.

  “Can…you…see…how…the…spring…”

  “It’s all rusted, sir!” came the panicking voice. “It looks like it’s a nonreturn action like on the Jenkins and Jenkins Big Snapper, sir, but it hasn’t got the hook on the end! What does this bit do, sir? Sir? Sir?”

  Darktan felt the pain go away. So this is how it happens, he thought dreamily. Too late now. She’ll panic, and she’ll run. That’s what we do. When we’re in trouble, we bolt for the first hole. Even me. But it doesn’t matter…

  only she doesnt - the squire rookie figures out how to defuse the bomb dismantle the trap on her own

  There was noise. It filled the world. And the terrible, terrible pain was back. And the Big Rat shouted, in the voice of Nourishing:

  “I gnawed through the spring, sir! I gnawed through the spring! It was old and weak, sir! Prob’ly why you weren’t cut in half, sir! Can you hear me, sir? Darktan? Sir? I gnawed all the way through the spring, sir! Are you still dead, sir? Sir?”

  and so to

  “You know I used to hang around in the theater an’ that,” said Sardines quietly. “And you pick up stuff in the theater. And the thing is…Look, what I’m saying is, you’re the leader, right? So you got to act like you know what you’re doing, okay? If the leader doesn’t know what he’s doing, no one else does, either.”

  “I only know what I’m doing when I’m dismantling traps,” said Darktan.

  “All right, think of the future as a great big trap,” said Sardines. “With no cheese.”

  “That is notalotofhelp!”

  “And you should let them think what they like about you and…that scar you’ve got,” said Sardines. “That’s my advice, guv.

  "But I didn’t die, Sardines!”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Huh?”

  “Something happened, didn’t it? You were going to set fire to the place with all the humans in it. And you decided not to. I watched you. Something happened to you in the trap…”

  & so a myth starts - & thus it all makes sense bc of pratchetts retellin of the Pied Piper story as a multilayered historical allegory & parable –all the subtly implicit Rat|Mouse imagery in PR –only it shld have made sense further as part of all the Bilingual Heraldry hich extends from color to animal symbolism bc the West may have no trad of Celestial Rats but benevolent rodents are part of the great cycle in the Chinese zodiac (x) (& associated w the Goddess of Mercy as well as the God of Luck in Eastern mythology) so not only thru WIND IN THE WILLOWS (x)….

  ( not to mention that NONE of that was in TBs original story - no heroic leader w unhealing wound - no careful teacher talking the younger gen thru dangers as yet inexperienced - no conscious rejection of vengeance as a moral value–however it goes & i have no idea how it willbut i do know for certain that PR2 is not going to be cast in the mold of STARSHIP TROOPERS or even ENDERS GAME–)

• the fact that the personnel carrier & observation helicopters are black Pelican-class (x) ie Coast Guard versions of the Sikorsky Sea King aircraft (x)– FIFTH ELEPHANT but this is very deeply encrypted & comes thru yet another series of books that pratchett is himself referencing in that story ( along w it bein a sort of fixfic / happier AU of his own WYRD SISTERS)

  

  (x) btw i find it surreal that nobody else over the past 15 yrs – even the L-Space wiki (x) – seems to have noticed the multiple similarities btwn FIFTH ELEPHANT & KING OTTOKAR’S SCEPTRE (x) – not just the overarching plot of assistance to a foreign king in a land that is a direct analog for eastern europe avoid being forced to abdicate due to loss of historic artifact required for the coronation ceremony YAH THIS SYNOPSIS IS IDENTICAL INORITE?? but also the refs to the spring-gun & the opera singer whose quick thinking will later save the day in CALCULUS AFFAIR  & that brings us to the former-captain who struggles w alcoholism & is also an investigator – & the concept of Tintin & Haddock as two aspects of the same persona thusly tied into the existing DW concept of everyone having / being multiple doppelgangers / incarnations across time & space…oh & there is the whole averting a lethal conspiracy by fascists to take over an oilrich region which is ALSO a Tintin storyline…

• helicopters in general – MONSTROUS REGIMENT

  “Aerial cavalry,” said Maladict.

  “Pardon, Corporal?”

  “Flying machines, sir!” said Maladict. “They won’t know where to expect us! We touch down in a handy LZ, take them out, and then dust off!”

  Blouse’s clear brow wrinkled a little.

  “Flying machine?” he said.

  “I saw a picture of one by someone called Leonard of Quirm. A sort of…flying windmill!It’s just like a big screw up in the sky—”

  “I don’t think we need one of those, although the advice is welcome,” said Blouse.

  “Not when we’ve got a big screw-up down here, sir!” Jackrum managed.

  ( so also a multiple / multilayered ref to JINGO via the Discworld version of da Vinci - & thus the us civil war via 20K LEAGUES bc submarine & LAST HERO thus ARMAGEDDON & CONAN & CAPTAIN AMERICA bc that book makes the Carrot = Steve parallel explicit–

  “I’ve taken the liberty of asking Rincewind to take a picture of me planting the flag of Ankh-Morpork and claiming the moon on behalf of all the nations of the Disc, your lordship,” Carrot went on.

  “Very… patriotic,” said Lord Vetinari. “I may even tell them.”

  “However, I can’t show you this on the omniscope because, shortly afterwards, something ate the flag. Things here… aren’t entirely what you’d expect, sir.”

  plus the presumptive DON QUIXOTE allusion (WINDMILLS OF COURSE THEY ARE ALSO GIANTS!!) finally locked down & contextualized @ last  on top of the PLATOON & APOCALYPSE NOW refs…which oc tie back into the myffic on multiple counts & function as re-refs to LAST HERO plus HOGFATHER plus INTERESTING TIMES bc valkyries)

  

• all the chess references – the Jaegers equation w steeds = knights – startin w COLOUR OF MAGIC spinning off the then-recent CLASH OF THE TITANS movie (!!!) & agn in INTERESTING TIMES

  This is where the gods play games with the lives of men, on a board which is at one and the same time a simple playing area and the whole world.

  And Fate always wins.

  Fate always wins. Most of the gods throw dice but Fate plays chess, and you don’t find out until too late that he’s been using two queens all along.

  & carries into LAST HERO (where also an ALICE ref)

  The city’s domestic appearance was because, while people are influenced by gods, so gods are influenced by people.Most gods were people-shaped; people don’t have much imagination, on the whole. Even Offler the Crocodile God was only crocodile-headed. Ask people to imagine an animal god and they will, basically, come up with the idea of someone in a really bad mask. Men have been much better at inventing demons, which is why there are so many.

  Above the wheel of the world, the gods played on. They sometimes forgot what happened if you let a pawn get all the way up the board.

  

  which is also where all the references to the story of the Fire-Stealer connect up – only for pratchett & del toro stealin fire from a monopolizing PTB is the right thing to do whether its Fingers-Mazda or Raven or yes Prometheus the rebel Elder God as the heroic Thief & it sure looks like ridley scott thinks it was unpardonable lese majeste on the part of us mere ants…

  …& under certain circumstances returnin it w interest is the right thing to do too…bc there must always be heroes to challenge the impossible odds

  “What’s the plan?” said Evil Harry, who had been watching the shimmering light over the city of the gods.

  “Plan?” said Cohen. “I thought you knew. We’re going to sneak in, smash the igniter, and run like hell.”

  “Yes, but how do you plan to do this?” said Evil Harry. He sighed when he saw their faces. “You haven’t got one, have you?” he said wearily. “You were just going to rush in, weren’t you? Heroes never have a plan. It’s always left up to us Dark Lords to have the plans. This is the home of the gods, lads! You think they won’t notice a bunch of humans wandering around?”

  “Weare intendin’ to have a magnificent death,” said Cohen.

  “Right, right. Afterwards. Oh, deary me. Look, I’d be thrown out of the secret society of evil madmen if I let you go at it mob-handed.” Evil Harry shook his head. “There’s hundreds of gods, right? Everyone knows that. And new gods turning up all the time, right? Well? Doesn’t a plan suggest itself? Anyone?”

  

  –altho this sequence owes at least as much to this (x) & poss this (x) as to DOCTOR STRANGELOVE in execution

• all the Shakespeare references bc as noted INTERESTING TIMES has a massive summing-up of plot overlap but they all coincide – incl yet again the helicopters bc WYRD SISTERS

  Hwel and Vitoller had watched the first few beams of the wooden framework go up.

  “It’s against nature,” Vitoller had complained, leaning on his stick. “Capturing the spirit of the theater, putting it in a cage. It’ll kill it.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Hwel diffidently. Tomjon had laid his plans well, he’d devoted an entire evening to Hwel before even broaching the subject to his father, and now the dwarf’s mind was on fire with the possibilities of backdrops and scenery changes and wings and flies and magnificent engines that could lower gods from the heavensandtrapdoors that could raise demons from hell.

  OH YEAH THIS TOO

  

  as much as this

  

  cockpit to hold the vasty fields of france forsooth!!
  

  

• all the mythology references including Troy – ERIC along w the Faust vs Mephistopheles dynamic – the Riddle of the Sphinx – debated by the prince in PYRAMIDS – Frost Giants – terraforming the Disc in SOURCERY – Ponce de Leon & the Fountain of Youth – ERIC again along w the Dante & Virgil dynamic – Sword Into Stone – MEN AT ARMS showin that&how the Arthurian mythos can be updated to a modern urban setting – & Amaterasu as Wolf-Warrior protector of mortals – FIFTH ELEPHANT yet agn

  & bonus tracks from JINGO & THUD! & MONSTROUS REGIMENT

  Waifs and bloody strays, because normal people wouldn’t be coppers.

  

  Technically they were all in uniform too, except that mostly they weren’t wearing the same uniform as anyone else. Everyone had just been sent down to the armory to collect whatever fitted, and the result was a walking historical exhibit: Funny-Shaped Helmets Through the Ages.

  

  Vimes found himself meeting the gaze of Angua, who was leaning against the wall. She rolled her eyes helplessly.

  

  

  

  “I got my badge carved on my arm,” Detritus rumbled. “Someone c’n try an’ take it off if dey likes.”

  

  She turned. A young man of godlike proportions* was standing in the doorway.

  

  *The better class of gods, anyway. Not the ones with the tentacles, obviously.

  

  And then there was the young-male walk to master. At least women swung only their hips. Young men swung everything, from the shoulders down. You have to try to occupy a lot of space, she thought. It makes you look bigger, like a tomcat fluffing his tail. She’d seen it a lot in the inn. The boys tried to walk big in self-defense against all those other big boys out there. I’m bad, I’m fierce, I’m cool, I’d like a pint of shandy and me mam wants me home by nine…

  

  (& THIS IS ONLY THE SURFACE LEVEL OF CONNECTIONS!)

  ok one more clue – this isnt a mistake but a Sign–

  

  or why wld they be seeing something that hasnt happened yet??

so this must be what Poirot wld feel like if he were about to deliver his all-revealing speech in the library only to have one of the assembled guests leap up and shout TWAS I — I DID IT IN THE CONSERVATORY WITH A POTTED BROMELIAD AND YOU NEVER GUESSED!!

bc altho for the past months i have had no heart to participate in fandom bein as it were utterly disheartened by the petty vapid & above all spiteful turn that PR & indeed the whole of selfstyled social “justice” fandom has gone down

makin me not willing to even log in for months on end

the confirming coincidences have not stopped mounting up where i keep running over & into them

& all my MAAAAYBE?s turn out to be so right my hesitance is laughable

bc chris nolan turned the son into a daughter & stuffed a watch into the revised INTERSTELLAR script

& ridley scott stuck a mockery of the horse sacrifice into his inexplicable-except-as-parody EXODUS

& stephen moffat spent the whole of last season getting more & more overt slams at GDT
to the point where i knew that elba showin up to talk abt relearnin to ride a motorbike for GHOST RIDER 2 while wearin red trainers wasnt a joke but a warning HMS LYDIA IS COMING ABOUT TO CROSS YR T — he wasnt just gunning for ridley scott but at the NuWho team bc they shot first & over again

& did it most explicitly by stealin the Jaeger pilot armour from Comic-con for Nightmare in Silver, but then went all-out hostile open fire in the s8 finale, when they mocked both Thor & PR in it

bc all of them are tryin like fuck to be the anti-Pterry — & succeedin tho its an own goal

& then on team resistance side charlie h went & took la muerte’s cloak from her hands & rode to his own king-horse sacrifice as a warrior jesus for modern america THE ONE YOU WANTED THE ONE WHO BEARS THE SWORD RIGHT PPL? if i had any more doubts that jax TELLER was stringer BELL in another incarnation & both of them evil mirrorverse versions of the eternal defender (& dominic west is just as much part of the game & has been all along as rinko kikuchi & jessica chastain now are)

but the proof will be tonight in the xmas special

that all these folks are acting in concert , even if some of them are on opposite sides
but meanwhile watch ENGLISHMAN IN NYC and see the proof that elba & john hurt have been playin the same charas all along

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d27gTrPPAyk

& everything else follows from that

ETA: no matter how many times team wallbuilder kills our heroes in effigy playin mr teatime in their love of empire & grimdark mundanity they have lost already - & partly by their own deeds!!

http://www.newyorker.com/cartoons/daily-cartoon/daily-cartoon-wednesday-december-24th

inmy defense it is one of the most obscure bits of old wills work startin w the title & nobody knows what 2 make of it so it isnt taught much & thus not discussed much either

but it s abt how the love of the ( female ) phoenix for the male ) turtledove was the greatest & purest in th e universe & @ their funeral no bird s of prey allowed but the royal Eagle

also namin Swan & Raven as chief in the rites

w modern warfare ( for a value of ‘modern" that incl von clausewitz , who i guess is no longer studied by warmongering politicians any more than sun tzu ….)

“GO TELL THE EPHEBIANS –WHAT TOOK YOU SO BLOODY LONG?”

so discworld & ergo the del toro verse had thermopylae before frank millar started swiping from STARGATE to make his unhistorical machofied version of THE PERSIANS

except mary renault had it first w the YA LION IN THE GATEWAY

& renaults version of THE GOLDEN BOUGH has been part of british sf & english lang pop culture & the us teenage education system since the 1970s & WATERSHIP DOWN

& it is no coincidence that the nac mac feegles , like hobbits , are so often equated w rabbits

but i get ahead of myself

altho getting ahead of oneself is part of the monomyth

bc cyclicality & retcon & time loops are there from the start of the multiverse

its in PYRAMIDS

& so is the royal assassin who is his own evil twin & saves the realm by parkour

which is how the bondverse reboot team got 007 as jamie lannister & moneypenny as the E-V & M as the red queen AND the sacrificial stag king in the scottish highlands too

& all of it a satirical retake on dame judis 1st outing as M

bc corn kings & king sacrifice & priestly substitution & tanists & GO BACK TO THE BEGINNING from the “good parts” story are there in PYRAMIDS

along w the frustrated romance btwn two heroes who turn out to be siblings of the DNA sort & this isnt wagner nor lensmen nor ancient times any more

so the bastard princess ends up , possibly , w the smuggler-who-Q-ships-pyrates

or poss , bc she is The Elizabeth as well , she chooses not to end up w anyone if she cannot have her 1st choice , we are never told –

& there is a long old linkage btwn discworld book fandom & the trodden stage

even if it isnt hardly known at all in the usa

so theres the likeliest line of alliance btwn sam mendes & kenneth branagh & sir terry , assuming it didnt go via comics 1st thru guillermo working on B2 which is also a likely ave of connection

but it is def there & all the mirroring of HB1 & 2 in SKYFALL are deliberate ( & even the name “mallory” has a sergio leone /eastwood & thus a DEVILS BACKBONE cx as well as an alistair maclean-&-so-gregory-peck connex , before ralph fiennes played him as an allusion to SHARPES RIFLES & used the bulldog icon from MUMMY 3 as a symbol of the stasis of the old kingdom prevailing….

bc PYRAMIDS is as much abt the pointlessness of the english monarchy as it is abt religious hypocrisy faced w the realities of belief ( & includes in the process an overt shoutout to narnia & THE LAST BATTLE in the form of hat the vulture god )

& crocodiles as the embodiment of devouring time -& devouring theocracy too , bc PYRAMIDS sets up all the serves for SMALL GODS & the omnian quisition to come–

equally a shoutout to those twin pillars of english fantasy jm barrie & lewis carroll

& yet by INTERESTING TIMES & reconfirmed in LAST HERO we also have the crocodile-god as one of the wisest of the great gods of dunmanifestin-the elder god who has learned most from humanity , who hates sad endings & doesnt burden his worshippers unduly , staying popular by only anathemetizing the bitter….

its complicated & im sure im missing more of the pieces of the mosaic than ive got & some of them are in the wrong place , or upside down

but PACIFIC RIM-as-the-latest-in-a-series-of-discworld-fics-that-have-become-a-round-robin-@-some-point-before-2008/9-&-UNSEEN ACADEMICALS

makes all my greatest confusions into logical necessities by laws if narrative causality

oh & there are invisible trains in PYRAMIDS & INTERESTING TIMES

& engineers , & bridges

( yes i now know why sah ridley mocked HOGFATHER & the watch both in PROMETHEUS , & why his next own-goal is set in fantasy-myffic egypt – im not sure why he thinks its going to go better than his last bit of spellcasting , tho ! ! !)

yeah it is all there in PACIFIC RIM

bc it is all there in discworld

specifically it is allthere in PYRAMIDS

which is all one big DOCTOR WHO injoke from p1

so yeah

its nice knowing WHY i was right

even if it is surreal to be so thoroughly anti-jossed from both sides

& also worrying

for reasons i cant quite explain

that i figured it out backwards , by spotting the orig allusions via visuals

ALSO AGN JUST GOTTA CHEER FOR GUILLERMO RE THE CLEVER NEATNESS OF MAKIN THE “PRINCESS BRIDE” REF ***BE*** THE RIDDLE OF THE SPHINX ANSWER

( which btw in PYRAMIDS feels very much like a NEVERENDING STORY shoutout )

& havin BOTH of those refs , & the whole scn & its imagery , BE the tsortean war -sorry siege of troy- ref itself

wounded achaian statue & priam @ hectors pyre , working backwards to the seers warnings heeded & the serpent of the hostile gods shattered

& just as there is the simultaneous paired refs of the laocoon grp statue plus one degree of idris elba as ruthless american general OH PLUS UNDEAD in 28 DAYS LATER / 28 WKS LATER

& all fans shld instantly go OH YES WHO IS THE OTHER MODERN FANTASY AUTHOR WHO SAYS DONT FEAR THE DEAD & MONSTER IS AS MONSTER DOES–THATS RIGHT - bc the two main ones these days ARE pratchett & del toro whose undead are as likely to be good - or neutrals minding their own business -as evil

so fans of one SHLD jump to the other as parallel creators

just on that alone

but there is more
bc THE WIRE fits in , bc the watch vs mister chrysoprase plot - only chrysoprase wised up & got out of the drugs business , so its young lord rust & his cronies who moved into It as of SNUFF

so yeah it locks in

& yes the game was bein played thru s5 of THE OFFICE at least by elba the way he sneaked in the clue that his GHOST RIDER 2 : SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE chara was an avatar of his persona in THOR & my conjectures how it fits as discworld au all make sense

& the jokey shoutout to THE WIRE in THE OFFICE arc stops bein just a giggle & becomes A Clue

( which per INTERESTING TIMES is yet another fave game of the gods )

but its in THE LAST HERO that we get the imagery of “boots w teeth”

everyone can see where guillermo went w that one now , right ???

& it was in PYRAMIDS that an egyptian kings unacknowledged daughter was syncretized w elizabeth regina just as ledas daughter is syncretized w that older queen of england who was daughter of france & mother of lions - whose own daughter was queen of spain , & also eleanor –

now i just need to find a single unequivocal WWI ref in discworld

altho the lilacs in NIGHT WATCH are probably that , which stand in for the red remembrance day poppies

that now today are flooding the moat of the white tower of the plantagenets that was a roman fortress first in ceramuc effigy of what they stood for in flanders 100 yrs ago

( lest we forget )

( or be lulled to sleep-of-conscience by poppy dreams of bygone glory from which the entrails have curiously been left out of the picture….)

altho the fact that they are LILACS i have finally realized is not only bc lilacs are a likely thing bein as they are a hardy common urban flower

but was all along a NAPOLEON OF NOTTING HILL ref by sir terry

who already brought both STAR WARS & TRANSFORMERS into the discworld multiverse lang syne

even b4 he made it TINTIN fanfic in FIFTH ELEPHANT w a KING OTTOKARS SCEPTRE homage

& makin sybil a bianca castiafiore alt who saves the day by singing of love

& truth

but “plastic toys that turn into other plastic toys” & a certain space opera involving a princess & a farm boy & a pair of smugglers was in GOOD OMENS

along w cold war espionage of a lecarrean style

& good guys ( which has zip to do w alignment on the nametags) doin disobedience for the greater good

which might be part of the GREATER plan , in the end

which is also out of the same chesterton story that gave us the “room like the inside of a bomb” imagery & the twins / rivals / siblings themes of HELLBOY 2

so its nice to finally understand why liz sherman is the preincarnation of elizabeth swan

& why raleigh becket chatters all the time & isnt selfconscious abt showing (more than ) a little skin

& why charlie h called rinko an “assassin’ after she knocked him down in the b-roll footage
( that was a clue too , for them wha had een tae see–)

The Lie That Every Story Has In Common - Kurt Vonnegut On The Shapes Of Stories