five thingses

[raven]

Hello, internets. Have two songs that are making me cry:

Dar Williams & Joan Baez - You're Aging Well
I'm so glad that you finally made it here / you thought nobody cared, but I did

Dar Williams - After All (live)
I am the daughter of a great romance / and they are the children of the war

tau_sigma asked for the top five times Martha Jones was AWESOME:

1. The end of Gridlock, when she sits there and says to the Doctor, basically, sit down. I'm not going anywhere, tell me who you are. It took a whole season for him to even mention Gallifrey before, but it's Martha's third episode and the Doctor sits there, quietly, and tells her about where he came from. I love the quietness of the moment.

2. In Human Nature and Family of Blood, she is generally awesome - but the bones of the hand! Oh, so much love.

3. It's a little thing, but I love how she tells the Doctor at the beginning of The Shakespeare Code - "I'm not exactly white, am I?" Because, of course, the Doctor is blind to it, and she's angry with him for it, and yes.

4. Okay, right, Last of the Time Lords, right? Martha Jones. Saves the world. By herself. Without the Doctor. Without anyone. Without complaint, without a pause, she gets up and gets dressed and she saves the world. She does it herself. How can you not love her, after that?

5. And after that, when the world's been saved, she tells the Doctor, you don't call me, I'll call you, and you'd better fucking come running. I love her.

deathbyshinies wanted the top five things that made you want to go to Hogwarts:

1. Firstly? Dude. Magic. I love JKR so very much, but mostly because of this: the way she can follow through to the logical conclusion of her ideas and put magic in every detail. So we get magically appearing feasts, living portraits, ghosts that play polo, giant squid living in the lake, centaurs in the forest, whole rooms that only appear when they're wanted, humbugs. I love the huge embrace of it.

2. Also, it's a boarding school in a castle in the Highlands. That is kind of awesome all by itself, now I come to think of it. I absolutely love how well the (later) films capture this - the whole epic landscape aspect of the setting.

3. I have just been re-reading Half Blood Prince, and there is a brief moment where Harry notices something that he has in common with Voldemort: that for both of them, Hogwarts is the first and only home they've ever known. What a thing to say about any school, really. How can you not want to go there, after that?

4. Quidditch.

5. This may sound silly, but the fact it is a boarding school with houses and dormitories and trunks and a Great Hall and all the rest of it - but it's not uniform white. Parvati and Padma always made me happy when I was younger because, wow, Indians can learn magic! And also, Cho Chang, Lee Jordan, Angelina, the others I'm forgetting.

And, a bonus reason why I wouldn't want to go:

1. There is a MOTHERFUCKING GIANT SNAKE LIVING BENEATH IT. My god. Why was Chamber of Secrets not followed by every ophidiophobic student suddenly opting for home schooling, I ask you? Seriously.

(I have never seen the Chamber of Secrets film. No points for guessing why.)

petronelle wanted my top five Darren Nichols productions:

1. Romeo and Juliet with the giant chess pieces;

2. That one-man version of The Taming of the Shrew, with mule;

3. A high-school production of Cats - in Poland;

4. The Plantagenets, naked with meat;

5. East Hastings.

fahye wanted my top five Geoffrey moments in Slings & Arrows:

Oh god. Where to even START. These are just some of the times Geoffrey is awesome.

1. The razor blades. I love how they're never actually mentioned in the script, so could just be Paul Gross making an acting choice - but aha, oh, Geoffrey, the way to convince people you are sane is NOT to sit in board meetings rolling razor blades around your tongue.

2. This is really Geoffrey and Ellen, but there's this moment where they're rolling around and are clearly about to fall into bed for the first time in a decade, and for a second it looks like the show is going to fall into cliche for the first time ever and it's just going to fade to black - and then there's this pause, where Ellen looks up and says something about how, it's been years, right, and he's scared he's going to be disappointed - and, omg, I love it, I love how they are a real couple with a real couple's gamut of insecurities to go with the theatrical romance. It's perfect.

3. In the first series finale, Jack is counting off his soliloquies, one by one. And Geoffrey is sitting backstage, in the dark, mouthing them along with him. It kills me.

4. Darren, Geoffrey, and the bottle of antidepressants. Darren and Geoffrey duelling. Basically Darren and Geoffrey on screen together. Oh dear.

5. Sloane punching Geoffrey in the car park, and their subsequent manly bonding. It's so silly, and sweet, and somehow poignant. I love it.

gamesiplay wanted my top five fannish characters:

1. Remus Lupin (Harry Potter). For anyone who hasn't known me for more than a couple of months or so: hi, my name is Raven and this is my decade-long crush. Remus is a scruffy teenage-later-adult werewolf, he is wry and sharp and funny and bitter and a good person and an awful idiot. I love him with a love that is epic and undying and true. That is all.

2. Geoffrey Tennant (Slings & Arrows). It seems a cheat, when he got five moments of his own up above, but he is just that amazing. He really is. Not only is he tortured and mad and talented, he's likeable, he's prosaic, he's wry, and he's played by the one and only Paul Gross. What more do you want from anyone.

3. The Doctor (Doctor Who). He ran away from home in a stolen time capsule and never went back. And he's not a hero, but he makes other people into heroes.

4. Hawkeye Pierce (M*A*S*H). Ah, Hawkeye. Having said a lot about him previously, I can merely now sit back and say, ah, Hawkeye. And, also, since I first fell for him, I have tried to read The Last of the Mohicans and it's a truly dreadful book.

(And, this is getting increasingly tangential, I was very happy to discover that no less esteemed a personage than Mark Twain agreed with me on this point in 1895.)

5. Daniel Jackson (Stargate SG-1). It's like taking an enormous step back in time, but as he was originally written, I loved him - because he was a constantly-sneezing geeky archaeologist, and he got to save the world. I don't think I had come across the notion of geeks saving the world before.

(I am actually quite upset that these characters are all male. Someone please remind me to make a post at some point about the wonders that are Hermione Granger (although she's below), Tara Maclay, Martha Jones (and she's above), and Tonks.)

brewsternorth wanted my top five fictional lawyers:

1. Atticus Finch. I doubt any list of fictional lawyers is complete without him, and although I had the shine taken off him by having To Kill a Mockingbird as a set text, nevertheless, he's the defining instance of the genre. Of course, he loses - that's what stays with me. He does what he does knowing he's going to lose.

2. Sam Seaborn. This is possibily cheating, but Sam is a lawyer, isn't he? And he's still working as a lawyer when Josh comes to fetch him to work for Bartlett. Sam is, in a lot of ways, my hero - he's eloquent and principled and he stands up and shouts when shouting is required, and he's kind of a dork. I do love him.

3. Lionel Tribbey, the West Wing's White House counsel. I quote the following to detail his awesome:

[From "And It's Surely To Their Credit"]

TRIBBEY
Well, forgive me, sir, but when you have a few moments, I would like to discuss the hiring of a blonde and leggy fascist whose knowledge does not include the proper order of the alphabet for positions of the White House Counsel's office.

BARTLET
And we will, Lionel, but right now I don't know if you noticed but there are thirty or forty other people in the room, many of whom have donated significant amounts of money to the Democratic Party, so perhaps you could put a tighter grip on your horses and we will talk about it later.

TRIBBEY
Yes. Well. [swings the bat on his shoulder again] Good morning, everyone! Thank
you, Mr. President.

BARTLET
Well, obviously, Lionel Tribbey is a brilliant lawyer whom we cannot live without, or there would be very little reason not to put him in prison. Let's try again.

4. ....er. Let me go and try watching Boston Legal, I'll get back to you.


And, finally, for amchau, my top five four feminists (real or fictional):

1. Hermione Granger. I love Hermione, full stop, I think. I love that she is strong, and capable, but that her strength comes from her insecurities, and that she is frightened she will never be good enough, because she's a woman, because she's Muggle-born. It rings so true for me.

2. Cheery Littlebottom. Her beard has plaits and her boots have raised heels and she isn't sure what this being female thing is all about yet, but she's going to try.

3. Ainsley Hayes. No, please don't throw things at me. From "17 People":

"Because [the ERA] is humiliating! A new amendment that we vote on, declaring that I am equal under the law to a man. I am mortified to discover there’s reason to believe I wasn’t before. I am a citizen of this country. I am not a special subset in need of your protection. I do not have to have to have my rights handed down to me by a bunch of old, white men. The same Article 14 that protects you, protects me. And I went to law school just to make sure. And with that, I’m going back down to the mess, because I thought I may have seen, there, a peach."

I don't agree with her, but I don't doubt she's a feminist in her own special way. Also she speaks in iambic pentameter.

4. Bill Bailey.


...that took a lot longer than expected. I think I ought to go bed, at some point, maybe. Today has been a do-nothing day.

Comments

[subservient-son.livejournal.com]

Once everyone knew about the sanke, Harry had killed it, so no need for home schooling?


Is hoem schooling even legal though? I mean, what with the laws restricting underage wizards and witches from using magic?

[fyrdrakken]

I got into this wonderful meta conversation years ago about that -- given that the incident with Dobby and the floating cake proves that the Ministry of Magic can't actually tell which magic-user in a house may have performed a given spell (short of checking wands for prior incantations, which wouldn't do much good if a kid snuck off with a parent's wand), what the restriction against underaged magic really does is handicap muggleborn witches and wizards when they're at home. The Weasley kids for example were clearly doing all sorts of charms and tricks at home, restrictions or not, even before going to Hogwarts. And I can certainly understand the reasoning: Muggle parents aren't capable of solving problems or keeping spells from getting out of hand, while wizarding parents can supervise and even give their kids a bit of at-home tutelage -- plus there's the whole thing about the wizarding world's insistence on secrecy that would seriously hamper the activities of any wizards living in the muggle world (and that would have to be pretty much enforced on juvenile magic-users). But it's just another instance of the ways muggleborns are handicapped entering the wizarding world -- and how Hogwarts works by training them to fit into the wizarding world and weaning them away from the muggle one, so that when they graduate they're pretty much forced to live and work as wizards rather than putting the wands away and going and training as an accountant or dentist or whatever...

[subservient-son.livejournal.com]

Ah, but surely the Ministry can detect who uses a charm and its just that Dobby's elf magic is powerful enough to fool their detections? Mind you, if that sort of charm were possible, it would have been much easier for Voldemort to track down Harry in Deathly Hallows.

[fyrdrakken]

Nope, Dobby doesn't explain the Weasley kids doing all sorts of stuff, like Ginny hexing her brothers or Fred and George turning Ron's teddy into a spider. The rule is only enforced on muggleborn kids.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

That is really interesting, and I had never noticed it before! Thanks!

[fyrdrakken]

I don't think I noticed it, either -- had it pointed out to me -- but I was fascinated by the discussion of the handicaps a muggleborn had at Hogwarts, and the question of the various reasons why some wizards were against even training them. (Worrying about squibs showing up in the family if muggleborns married in was an obvious thought -- but the security risk of a whole family of muggles now knowing all about wizarding kind was another one, and how about the prospect of a muggleborn getting that Hogwarts education and then just turning their back and returning to the muggle world with what they know?)

[subservient-son.livejournal.com]

Ah, but that's the sort of magic they do pre-school, right? Like Harry accidentally teleporting himself, or Hermione boasting she'd tried out some of the spells before starting Hogwarts, it seems to be legal.

[fyrdrakken]

Accidental magic from pre-Hogwarts kids I'm guessing is almost certainly not cracked down on as a matter of sheer common sense -- the whole point of sending them to Hogwarts is that they can't control it yet -- but kids raised in a wizarding household are going to be seeing magic done around them all the time and, if their abilities start to appear early enough, are going to be attempting controlled magic well before getting that Hogwarts letter. Fred and George trying to get Ron to perform an Unbreakable Vow with one of them was not the sort of underaged magic that would have been allowed to let slide as an uncontrolled accident -- that was a specific spell and required a wand.

And the Prior Incantation spell (whose proper spelling I can't quite recall at the moment) is how Aurors or the Ministry figure out exactly who (or rather, whose wand) performed a specific spell or charm. Which goes to show that they can't just "tell" who did a particular spell without specifically checking that way, and it's just not going to be practical to watch a wizarding household and verify the caster of every little bit of magic. (Too many man-hours involved, the adult wizards and witches would be outraged at the lack of privacy, and it does nothing to stop an underaged kid from borrowing a parent's or older sibling's wand.) It's only easy enough to bother with watching if the only magic-users in a house aren't legally permitted to do so at home. (Possibly the Ministry trusts in parents to enforce the decree -- Molly Weasley shrieking at the twins for using magic for every little thing once they were legal strongly suggests that the Weasley kids weren't allowed casual magic in front of their parents up until they were of age.)

[deathbyshinies.livejournal.com]

Unless one of the older kids, probably Bill or Charlie, figured out a way to hack the Ministry wards so that any spell cast in the Weaseley house would appear to be done by Molly or Arthur... I think your explanation is a lot more likely, but I still wouldn't put it past any of them (except Percy).

Or possibly there is some sort of trade-off whereby you can sign an agreement with the Ministry allowing your kids to do magic at home, provided you promise to home-school them all and not allow them to have any contact with Muggle kids...?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

JKR has mentioned in interviews that she did picture Molly running a dame school for all the local kids, and that would explain it...

[fyrdrakken]

All of the Hogwarts kids had to have had some kind of education before coming, if nothing else to cover reading and writing and basic arithmetic type of stuff. The interesting question was indeed how the wizarding-family children were being taught if they didn't live in an area with enough other wizarding families to be worth organizing a small school for -- were they getting home-schooled, or were some wizarding families blending in with the muggle neighbors well enough to risk sending their children to regular schools?

ETA: Also, I think the existence of the Prior Incantato spell indicates that it isn't at all easy to tell which wizard cast a particular spell, since who'd be bothering with examining a wand (which could have been borrowed or stolen) if they could directly link a particular casting to the witch or wizard responsible?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but, but, it's a big castle, and if it can hide one snake the size of a house... this is the phobic's logic.

I can actually answer that question definitively, its having been on the page I just read - yes, home schooling is legal up until Voldemort comes back, at which point he makes attendance at Hogwarts compulsory so he can keep an eye on everyone.