Fantasy archetype...

[fajrdrako]

I'm not sure how predictable it was, but this result for this quiz seems to list many of my favourite heroes:

What Fantasy Archetype Are you?
The Seasoned Veteran Friend You are the Seasoned Veteran Friend! You resemble Aragorn (Lord of The Rings), Merlin (Arthurian Legend), Han Solo (Star Wars), The Marquis (Neverwhere), Sirius Black (Harry Potter) and Chase (Wizard's First Rule). You are exceedingly loyal, tricky and hardy. You regularly pull the Unlikely Hero, Mentor and Pillor-of-Strength Love Interest out of trouble and into safety. Beware The Traitor, who will make your job intensely difficult. And don't coddle the Unlikely Hero too much, he has to learn how to fend for himself. Anyway, everyone admires you and your resourcefullness / reliability - good going!
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Comments

[kikibug13.livejournal.com]

Teeeheee. Another quiz for me...

I am glad your party went well :) Perhaps I should throw together one for ... English-speaking friends of mine hehe.

So, I've caught up to The Christmas Invasion. But I'm still behind on End of Days.

And am up early enough to hope I can manage today's assigned work.. :)

[kikibug13.livejournal.com]

Hahahaha... I got the unlikely hero.

Well, I could live very well along with being a little like Richard Cypher and Luke.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Who is Richard Cypher?

[kikibug13.livejournal.com]

Richard Cypher (later revealed to be Rahl, actually) is a character of Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series. Which got too long, but started rather well. The writing is extremely interesting, and one of the things I really enjoy about the characters is that they LOVE life. In all shapes and sizes, but their own first and foremost. Kahlan (the love interest, who is quite somebody in her own right, and can almost make it part-time as Mentor) is known to say "Fight till your last breath. With your last breath, if you have to!" (I may be imprecise, but that's the spirit).

Besides putting a great value on life, free choice (vs. prophecy, although so far the outcome is a tad doubtful - but I haven't read the last two books), and love, Richard is very clever (as in reasoning things out) and extremely powerful, although he has to pick his skills up on the go.

Richard is very much a favourite of mine. Terry Goodkind managed wonderful characterization (for both positive and negative characters); I only wish he would stop making up more and more absurd and insurmountable hardships in Richard and Kahlan's quest to... save the world :) This hopelessness is what has me upset enough with the series to stop reading it - at least until I get a hint it's drawing to a close.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Richard Cypher ... is a character of Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series.

Ah! There, I've heard of Terry Goodkind.

one of the things I really enjoy about the characters is that they LOVE life

Oh, wonderful! I love characters like that. This may seem contradictory, because I often like jaded/alienated characters too, but the one thing is the flip side of the other - cynics being romantics and vice versa, at least conceptually.

You make these books sounds very attractive. I am putting them on my 'to be read' list. Which one should I start with?

[kikibug13.livejournal.com]

Wizard's First Rule. That's where the story starts... and I haven't tried to read them out of order, so I cannot say what the effect of that would be.

As I said, the turn-off is the level of entanglement Goodkind gradually sinks them into.

Oh, another thing about Goodkind - very much of an Ayn Rand influence.

My favourite of the books is Faith of the Fallen... although the one before that almost lost me.

Much as I love the books, and much as they have kept me up till all hours of the night (and at a time when I was getting early for school, and rehearsing two plays), they are not the kind that one can immediately re-read (as LMB books can be, until the twentieth re-read or so).

Oh well. Even though the stories get a bit tiresome, I find I'm missing Richard and Kahlan. And Zed. And Chade. Oh, the whole bunch of them... That's why I think Goodkind did a decent job of character creation and development.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

another thing about Goodkind - very much of an Ayn Rand influence

Interesting! I have mixed feelings about Ayn Rand. Never liked her philosophy in the least, but found her books fascinating - until I came to an 'enough is enough' point and stopped reading them.

Good characters is more than enough reason to enjoy books.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Second thought: What's unlikely about Luke Skywalker? Seems to me he's archetypal and paradigmatic!

[kikibug13.livejournal.com]

OK, the full list was:
Others like you are Frodo (Lord of The Rings), Young Aurthur (arthurian Legend), Luke Skywalker (Star Wars), Peter/Susan/Edmund/Lucy (Narnia), Richard Mayhew (Neverwhere), Harry Potter (Harry Potter) and Richard Cypher (Wizard's first Rule).

Out of those, I'd say there was nothing unlikely in Arthur, Luke, and Richard (except that at some point they couldn't see it coming themselves). I don't know about Richard Mayhew; the rest... are in various degrees unlikely. But in each case they had it in them to become "the hero", so. I could ignore the "unlikely" part and just go for "the hero" :))

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Good reasoning. I think we are each the 'unlikely hero' of our own stories. Suddenly I fear the urge to read "Neverwhere" again. I haven't read "Wizard's First Rule" or even heard of it.

[kikibug13.livejournal.com]

And I hadn't heard of "Neverwhere". Care to comment on it?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Neverwhere (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neverwhere) was actually first a TV series written by Neil Gaiman, but I first came across it as a novel (also by Gaiman). It's a fantasy story about a modern urban Londoner named Richard Mayhew who chances on "London Below", a fantastical world under and among the subways and sewers of London, with characters like a girl named Door and a trickster-adventurer named The Marquis of Carabas (http://www.zetaminor.com/images/cult_tv/neverwhere/neverwhere_14a.jpg) (who was, unsurprisingly, my favourite character, though come to think of it, I really liked Door, too).

[kikibug13.livejournal.com]

Aw, Marquis of Carabas!
Does have a familiar ring... :)

I'll make a note to check it out... next weekend.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I'll make a note to check it out... next weekend.

me too! Hope you enjoy it.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I should throw together one for ... English-speaking friends of mine hehe.

Give it a try, and see if it goes as well as mine did!

I'm still behind on End of Days.

I was thinking of screwing up the courage to watch it again today. I have watched the last few minutes a dozen times. But the whole rest of the episode - ? Hmm.

am up early enough to hope I can manage today's assigned work..

Good luck!

[kikibug13.livejournal.com]

Heh. The only trouble is that when I do meet with my English-speaking friends, there is so much to catch up on that... watching things just isn't top priority.
That doesn't mean I'm not going to try :)

OOh. So, it isn't just my being a coward. ;)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

The only trouble is that when I do meet with my English-speaking friends, there is so much to catch up on that... watching things just isn't top priority.

So make it an occasion when you don't have catching-up to do, if you can. A sort of extra excuse to get together at a time you normally wouldn't.

So, it isn't just my being a coward. ;)

Well, I'm sort of cowardly myself, in my reluctant-heroic way. (See how I identify with Captain Jack?) So don't measure yourself by that!

[kikibug13.livejournal.com]

Heh. For distances and situations here, we live too far and work too much (well, one has a baby... that's pretty busy too), but I'd really love to. I know when I put my mind to it, things must click.

I'm just a regular chicken... still the eps of Torchwood when I got too scared and had to stop it for a bit (or a day) outnumber the ones I could watch start to finish.

BTW, this may be a premature question on my part, but when Rose said "I am the Bad Wolf", did "I" mean Rose or the TARDIS?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

we live too far and work too much

Groan, yes, here too. I don't think I've seen blackbyrde in a year.

I'm just a regular chicken...

I'm a chicken too but in a different way. I don't think anything in Torchwood ever really scared me, though the mutilation of Tanzaki in "Cyberwoman" pushed a lot of my buttons. Why not? I loved the suspense, but something in my love of Captain Jack and the whole idea of Torchwood kept my "I'm scared and I can't stand this" reactions from coming to the fore. Just as well, because once that happens, I can't recover - I watched the first fifteen minutes, or some such, of Supernatural and was so cared I could watch no more and never looked at the show again. And never will.

In my mind, this is the cognitive difference between "horror" which I don't watch or enjoy, and "dark fantasy", which I do watch and enjoy.

when Rose said "I am the Bad Wolf", did "I" mean Rose or the TARDIS?

It's a very interesting question. I have changed my mind a few times on the answer, I think. My current interpretation is that the "I" is Rose - with the power of the TARDIS behind her, but as enabler rather than any kind of consciousness.

[kikibug13.livejournal.com]

My current interpretation is that the "I" is Rose - with the power of the TARDIS behind her, but as enabler rather than any kind of consciousness.

So, what would "Bad Wolf" in the Ritz graffiti (In "Captain Jack Harkness") mean? Rose coming back?
(That I've been wondering about that since last night...)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

what would "Bad Wolf" in the Ritz graffiti (In "Captain Jack Harkness") mean? Rose coming back?

My interpretation is that back in series 1, Rose's "Bad Wolf" went through all of space and time, which includes 2007 or 2008 (or whenever the Torchwood characters are now) as much as 2005 or 2006 or the century the game station was in, so that it's permeated all of our universe, and this is just an irrelevant manifestation appearing - especially at a place where the links between past and future are weak because of the rift and because of the meddling of Bilis and Abaddon.

So it isn't a reference to any new manifestation of Rose, but of the manifestation we already saw in "Parting of the Ways", no longer in our future, but chronologically in the future time of the Torchwood characters - not personally but conceptually.

Irrelevant to the plot except as a brief reminder or tie-in to the scenes where Jack last saw Rose and the Doctor. And not incidentally, a reminder to the viewer of the connection between Jack and the Doctor Who storyline, so soon to be picked up again.

By which I mean the ending of "End of Days" came soon enough, but what comes next feels like an eon away.

[kikibug13.livejournal.com]

Makes sense. Although if she scattered the words _as a reminder to herself_...
Gah. I think I'm trying to make too much of this. Or perhaps this could work as a plot bunny in times of silence.
I have to finish DW season two first, though.

BTW, have you noticed a similarity in the ways (not colors, just clothes styles) that Gwen and Rose dress?
And even some mannerisms (like turning around without moving their feet, twinging their legs as a result)? Rose does this in Christmas Invasion when Mikey asks "You really love him, don't you?", and Gwen is I think (have to re-watch to be sure) in a similar position in the end of Cyberwoman...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Or perhaps this could work as a plot bunny in times of silence.

Good idea! Don't let it slip away.

I have to finish DW season two first, though.

Pleasures still to come.

have you noticed a similarity in the ways (not colors, just clothes styles) that Gwen and Rose dress?

Uh, no... I think of Gwen as wearing short-sleeves shirts while Rose wears hoodies and T-shirts. But I'm not very good at remembering (or even noticing) things visually. I love it, totally love it, that Nine, Ten, and Captain Jack dress pretty much the same all the time.

even some mannerisms (like turning around without moving their feet, twinging their legs as a result)?

Neat. I must look for this.

I confess, I sometimes wonder why people see Gwen as being a sort of Rose-substitute when I don't see all that much resemblance.

[wijsgeer.livejournal.com]

I got the traitor!!

can't we be friends any longer?


(sure, it is part of my attempt of mind games that I declare my traitorness outright, but since I am not the evil villain I am not so good at these things)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I got the traitor!!

Gasp of horror!

can't we be friends any longer?

Yeah, that's okay, like Captain Jack and Aragorn I'm very forgiving. C'mere for a hug, you traitor you.

am not the evil villain I am not so good at these things

Oooh, strategic!

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Oh, well done! As an archetype I always like mentor characters, particularly (from the list above) Merlin. Never liked Aslan, but that's C.S. Lewis' fault. Or Dumbledore either, come to think of it. But Obi Wan is one of the few Star Wars characters I actually l like, and Gandalf is... well, he's part of a magnificent whole.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

The only one I like is Gandalf...

i think I got this because essentially I'm a lazy old thing who prefers reading, research, and giving advice to running around in dangerous situations. And I used to teach in adult education.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I'm a lazy old thing who prefers reading, research, and giving advice to running around in dangerous situations.

Defintately the path of wisdom, compared to us reckless thrill-seekers who leap in where angels fear to tread, usually against the good advice or our mentors.

Teaching is good. I admire good teachers, and I'm a hopeless teacher.