Hey, folks! It’s about that time of the year where I head to
an abandoned cabin and have constant sex with Olivia Williams, so there will be
no “Postal Apocalypse” next week. My apologies! But get those end of the year questions ready,
because “PA” will return on January 1st, 2014! (At Ms. Williams’s discretion, of course.)
Sansa Anarchy
New Game of
Thrones Fan:
Dear Mr. Postman,
A few weeks ago, you talked about how fans had been
unfairly slagging Sansa Stark in “Game of Thrones.” Your
defense of Sansa, that she was a product of too many romantic stories, made her
character understandable if not necessarily likable. Arya Stark’s
reaction to her older sister’s hopes of wedding Prince Joffrey made me laugh
out loud.
So why doesn’t a bit more Internet wrath fall on Ned
Stark’s head for being a dumbass? Unlike his daughter, the Hand of the
King makes some really bad decisions that winds up getting a lot of his
servants killed and sparks war among the kingdoms of Westeros. Also, his
utter lack of political savvy leads him to not take actions that would have
prevented his enemies from growing far stronger. Do you have an
answer more sophisticated than “well, Ned Stark has a wang and Sansa does
not?”
I do, actually! Ned is more of a primary protagonist than
Sansa, so it’s easier to take his point of view. Plus, he’s a man grown, with
plenty of fighting and ass-kicking behind him, and he tries to protect his increasingly
threatened family, and most of all, he’s honorable. Ned is a good man in a bad
world, and it’s very, very easy to root for that. Meanwhile, in comparison,
Sansa seems selfish for wanting to stay in King’s Landing and be Queen of
Westeros, despite the danger it puts her family in.
The thing is, Sansa doesn’t understand what’s going on,
because 1) she doesn’t see any of the bullshit or danger going on behind the
scenes, and 2) she’s a kid. To her point of view, her dad came out of nowhere
and said, “You know how I told you you’d be Queen of Westeros? Well, now you’re
not, you’re going home, and I’m not going to explain why.” Who wouldn’t be
pissed about that, at any age? And she certainly doesn’t have a clue about the
trouble her family is in, because she’s not given the information. I seriously doubt if
anyone asked Sansa, “Would you rather be Queen or keep your family alive?” that
Sansa would hesitate for a moment in choosing her family. Because when Queen Cersei tells her the only way to save her father and the rest of her family is to write a letter calling Ned a traitor, she does it. Not because she wants to marry Joffrey, but for the good of her family. That’s it.
But while Sansa doesn’t see how the world works — again,
she’s just a kid — the adult Ned refuses to acknowledge how the world works,
which I would argue is much worse. He knows people don’t follow the code he
does, but he’s determined to keep his honor anyways, no matter how this endangers his family.
Hell, he was all ready to die in King’s Landing because he refused to lie that
Joffrey was Robert’s son, until Varys reminded him that he had daughters and perhaps he ought to think of them before his honor.
By the end of season 3 of the show and the third book,
Sansa is more politically savvy than Ned ever was. She’s still young, and she’s
still powerless, but just surviving in King’s Landing with Joffrey, his
knights, and everything else is an impressive accomplishment. But she also
manages Joffrey, as much as anyone without any political power whatsoever can
do, which is beyond impressive. Now in the books, she’s in another terrible
situation and holding her own, but people still hold her early ignorance
against her. We’ll see what they think once Sansa rules in Winterfell.
Oh, it’s happening, people. I can feel it. [Mild Game of Thrones
Book spoilers here!] Ask yourself where all the other Stark kids are, and if
any of them will be in position to take the throne (or want it). Robb’s dead.
Jon, Bran and Arya have new jobs. All that leaves is Sansa and Rickon, and when
we last saw Rickon he was pretty much crazy, and apparently he’s spent his time
since on Skagos with cannibals. I have my doubts he’ll be a suitable ruler or even want it.
Not So Nifty Fifty
Anthony C.:
Greetings,
Postman!
In a couple of
missives from The Future, you’ve mentioned a general dissatisfaction with the
Day of the Doctor, but you’ve never actually clarified those views. So,
inquiring mind want to know – what did you think of the 50th anniversary special?
And since you’ve
seen The Future – how is Peter Capaldi as The Doctor, anyway?
I thought it was disappointing. Not overwhelmingly so, and
it certainly had its moments, but it wasn’t nearly as grand as I expected the
50th anniversary special to be.
First of all, I didn’t really think the Time War needed
fixing. I liked the pathos that it brought to the Doctor, because for me, the
Doctor has an edge — he’s not quite human, he’s willing to make some hard
choices, and if for one insane moment he decided to save the universe by
basically destroying his own people and the Daleks, and then had to live with
the guilt, and he spent his time afterwards trying desperately to avoid
having to get in a situation where he would have to make a similarly awful choice — that worked for me. But for Moffat, the
doctor is the guy who always does the right thing; when the situation is
nothing but bad choices the Doctor upends the rules and finds a way. Since that’s
how I view Superman and why I’m bitching constantly about Man of Steel, I can’t
really begrudge him that. Maybe that’s how a lot of British people view the
Doctor — as a being of absolute good. But that was not my impression of the
Doctor.
However, regardless of how Moffat or I view the Doctor, I
was super-excited by the idea of the War Doctor played by John Hurt. A Doctor
that had done things so horrible that the other incarnations had disavowed him.
A regeneration that spent all its time fighting, not because he wanted to, but
because he needed to, to avoid being forced to destroy his entire people —
which, in the end, he couldn’t avoid. I like the idea of the War Doctor even
better than if it had been the Eighth Doctor doing all this stuff, as Moffat
had originally hoped (but knew Chris Eccleston would probably never go for).
And then the War Doctor shows up and he’s just a mildly
cranky old man. He basically sits on the sidelines and is confused by Ten and
Eleven’s banter and meet-cute (which was nice, but hardly something to base the
entire 50th anniversary special around). Ten and Eleven aren’t
appalled by him, they don’t dislike him, they don’t look like they feel especially guilty at
the things this past self had to do. They all just kind of dick around
until the end, which, to be fair, was pretty epic — but that was only the last
10 minutes or so. Everything before it was nice, but I expected way more. I
think Moffat wasted the idea of the War Doctor, and I know he wasted John Hurt,
who could have brought all the steel and determination and edge to the War doctor that I was
looking for.
As for how Capaldi ends up? Good. He won’t replace David
Tennant or Matt Smith in anyone’s hearts, but no one has any complaints,
either. But the best thing about Capaldi is all the internet videos where
people use his Doctor Who footage and replace the dialogue with his
profanity-laden lines from The Thick of It. Totally worth it.
Having Your Fillion
Utsav B.:
Hey Rob,
Nathan Fillion seems to be a person who every nerd sees
as their perfect Green Lantern/Indiana Jones/etc.. Yet, while we see
him cameoing in some franchises, giving talks in conventions and all,
we haven’t seen him take up a major franchisee since Firefly. I doubt the nerd
in him is rejecting such roles for his role on Castle, so why do you think
studios are not taking Nathan in?
Thanks and Regards!
Well,
Castle isn’t a major genre franchise, but it’s a pretty major TV series. It has
115 episodes, it’s one of the 20 or so most-watched series on TV, it’s
syndicated on TNT — it’s big, man. It’s definitely big enough to keep him from
taking major movie roles that would require him to spend more than the 4-5
months he’s off from filming Castle, which is why the top of his IMDB includes mainly smaller things like Much Ado About Nothing and Percy Jackson and a lot of
voice-work. He also goes to Comic-Con, does awesome things like pose as Darth Vader in charity calendars, and other nerdy stuff.
As to
why he’s not a bigger movie star, he had to make it as a TV star first, and
that only happened with Castle. Hollywood knew he was a leading man — he’s
starred in a great many shows — but they kept getting canceled, and no one was
going to trust him with a movie franchise until he had a successful show. Now
he has it, but by the time Castle is over — and being a crime procedural, it
can run pretty much forever until one of the stars gets tired of it — he’ll probably be
too old to be the star of an Indiana Jones-type franchise (he’s 42 now). But I
can pretty much guarantee he can star in as many TV shows as he wants for the
rest of his life. And he seems happy doing what he’s doing, so that’s cool with me.
Story Crime
Mosno Al-Moseeki:
Dear Mr. Postman,
Two things I really don’t understand. Thing 1: If you want to make a good movie, then you need
a good script, right? So why not utilize the writers (or even the stories) that
are already in existence. For example, Joseph Loeb is my of my favorite
graphic novel writers, and he wrote some great Batman stand alone novels such
as “The long halloween”, which I think can be a great film.
Thing 2: There are so many great story arcs, that can be
easily adapted into killer mini-series. For example, the two part “Court
of the owls / City of owls” story line, its brilliant, in my humble
opinion. You also have “Hush”. Heck, Batman Incorporated
can be an awesome series, if done right.
So why on Planet Earth have they not utilized these,
obvious & accessible resources, to make better Bat-entertainment instead of
re-imagining the origin storyline every few years. Its frustrating. Thank you for your time Mr. Postman 🙂
Well, superhero movies borrow from comics all the time. Captain America: The Winter
Soldier will be based on Ed Brubaker’s run, obviously. Thor: The Dark World is
based on part of Walt Simonson’s amazing Thor comics, the ones where Malekith
the Accursed tries to plunge Midgard into eternal winter. Green Lantern was
based on his origin story and part of Geoff Johns’ Parallax stories. And X-Men:
Days of Future Past is based on X-Men: Days of Future Past, of course.
But I suspect you’re talking about why Hollywood doesn’t
just make straight adaptations of beloved comic stories and there are a couple
of reasons. Basically, each story is different, and there are a variety of
different reasons why they can’t (or shouldn’t) be made into a movie.
Some just aren’t defined enough. For instance, Marvel
couldn’t shoot an exact version of Ed Brubaker’s Winter Soldier comics, because
those comics were written during the Civil War event/mess and included the death of
Captain America, and the former would make no sense to mass audiences, and the
latter would just be complicated to insert. You have to edit them down.
Even if you found truly stand-alone stories with a clear
beginning, middle arc and an end, there can be problems. Say Hush: because of all
the villains included in it, a Hush movie would probably be 3-4 hours long and
cost $500 million to make. No one is doing that. I think the recent Avengers:
Endless Wartime graphic novel would be a great Avengers movie, but it has
Wolverine in it, so you know that’s not happening.
And of these stand-alone stories, how many are dependent on
being read by fans to be understandable or enjoyable? For instance, one of my favorite comics is Jason Aaron’s
current Wolverine and the X-Men. I’d love to see a movie of this. But would a
Hellfire Club run by kids really mean anything to mass audiences? I don’t think
so. Sure, fans know the Hellfire Club as major X-Men villains, but all most movie-goers know is Kevin Bacon. Seeing a bunch of kids on screen wouldn’t be a
credible threat at all.
And last but not least, there’s just the way Marvel and
DC/WB operates. Marvel is interested in expanding its movie-verse, and is happy
to mine its characters’ greatest hits — Winter Soldier, Malekith, Ultron, etc.
— just reframed for mass audiences. DC/WB, meanwhile, doesn’t trust their
comics. The can’t imagine that any of the comics could provide a suitable
story, so they either want all-new audience friendly stories like Chris Nolan’s
Batman films, or content rehashing of old ones, like Man of Steel. I’m certain
that Batman/Superman, especially with its ever-increasing cast, will be an
all-new story that barely draws upon the comics at all.
So no Batman: Court of Owls movie, at least for the
foreseeable future. Maybe once DC establishes a movie, maybe if it’s all well-received, they’ll be
forced to mine from their comics some in order to keep up demand. I wouldn’t
hold your breath, though.
ROB’S KORRECTION KORNER
So last week the main question was about the troubles with a female Doctor on Doctor Who. I misunderstood the letter, and it took one of you
to explain it to me. From SteBee in the comments:
https://gizmodo.com/why-peoples-problems-with-a-female-doctor-who-are-wro-1481134147
I think you fell pretty wide of Fake
Name’s point here. The point I took away is basically that, (1) half the
audience would view a female Doctor as a ratings stunt and/or kowtowing to
political correctness, and would switch off the show in disgust. Following
that, (2) the other half of the audience would, in a frenzy of hypervigilant
feminism, ruthlessly scan every line uttered by the Doctor looking for signs of
misogyny, and inevitably finding such signs switch off the show in disgust. Net
result: total disaster.
Fake Name was explicitly not saying
that it wouldbe a ratings stunt, or that the
writers wouldbe making cheap jokes—merely that people
would look for and find evidence of both. And frankly, I think that’s
incontestably true. I realize that from your post-apocalyptic vantage point,
you don’t remember how the Internet was, but trust me on this, when it comes to
generating white-hot outrage over wholly imaginary slights, the Internet is and
will forever be the absolute zenith of human achievement. The BBC would be
insane to risk this kind of fan backlash just to counter the very mild
tut-tutting it’s currently getting about the lack of a female Doctor.
https://gizmodo.com/1481184426
That makes sense to me. So let me answer FakeName again now that I know what the
hell he’s really saying — that a female Doctor would either be seen as a stunt,
or so overanalyzed as to be hated for any perceivable mis-step on the actress
or writer or Moffat’s part. And again, I remind you that I am a fake mailman
from the future. I am not infallible — so always feel free to correct me whenever you think its appropriate it (although
most of you already do).
I think there will definitely be some people who think a
female Doctor will be a stunt, and there will be many more people who freak out
at pretty much anything and everything a female Doctor will say or do (or not
say or not do). Tons of people, in fact. And the exact same thing will happen
when a person of color is finally cast as the Doctor.
But I think both
groups will be outweighed, and outweighed mightily by regular fans and viewers
who will judge the character on her merits and the actress on her talents and
the writing on its quality. Oh, the others will be loud, especially on the
internet, but I don’t think those will be the only two reactions to a female
Doctor — and I certainly don’t think that’s a reason not to have one. Even if
the first Doctor results in nothing but misogyny and moral shrieking, the
second female Doctor will be less provocative, and the third less still, and
eventually it’ll just be an accepted part of Doctor Who, as it should be. But
we have to start somewhere, and given that it’s almost 2014, it should probably
start reasonably soon.
Do you have questions about anything scifi, fantasy, superhero, or nerd-related? Email the [email protected]! No question too difficult, no question too dumb! Obviously!
