Author: stevenattewell

What are your thoughts on Fox’s decisions regarding X-Men: Dark Phoenix? Cast, direction, characters and etc.

I think they’re going to screw it up like they did before. 

First, they haven’t given nearly enough screen-time to Scott and Jean for the story to land – the Phoenix Saga worked in the comics because it was the culmination of character arcs going back 17 years (it was also given 4 years to play out in the comics too), whereas in the movies this Scott and Jean have only had a few scenes together in X-Men: Apocalypse. Are audiences going to care enough about these two characters for the overall plot to land?

Second, the casting news suggests underlying weaknesses in the Singer X-Men movies are causing problems with story structure. The Phoenix Saga is about Scott and Jean, but the return of Fassbender, McAvoy, and Lawrence suggests they’ll be the central trio as they were in Apocalypse, Days of Future Past, and First Class, overshadowing every other element of what should be an ensemble cast. Also, Lilandra being described as the villain makes me worried that important people don’t get that the Dark Phoenix is the villain of the Phoenix Saga. 

Third, I’m a bit worried about the director. Kinberg is primarily a writer and producer – having written or co-written Last Stand, Days of Future Past, and Apocalypse – and while he may well want to get the Phoenix Saga right this time, I worry that as a first time director he’ll hew pretty close to the Bryan Singer model (which as a writer and producer he was instrumental in creating and sustaining) that has shown itself to be increasingly creaky as time has passed since the first X-Men movie came out in 2000. 

This is a Comics related Watchmen question…which touches on some issues. Do you think that Rorscharch condones the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki but opposes Veidt’s plans because the victims of the former are Japanese and the latter are white? Do you think Moore is trying to suggest a kind of unquestioned racism that makes it easier to condone and accept military justifications against non-white people?

That’s definitely part of it. Moreover that Roschach views wartime presidents like FDR, Truman, etc. as emblems of a morally pure, masculine America, in contrast to the decadence of the present day.  

A World of Ice and Fire says Duskendale was Westeros’s principal port on the east coast before Aegon’s Conquest. Is it ideally suited to be geographically? Why not White Harbor or Gulltown? Or even Spicetown on Driftmark? For being the principal port Duskendale didn’t must much of an army to protect itself.

Well, Gulltown has access to the Vale, but that’s it – there’s no riverrine access to the Interior. White Harbor was fairly new as cities go, so less time for trade routes to develop. Spicetown is on an island out in the bay, so there’s less room for facilities and a limited local market – it’s better suited as an entrepôt than a final destination.

Duskendale has a good harbor and access to a fertile and productive hinterland, and it’s fairly close to the Blackwater Rush which gives access to the interior. It is a bit surprising that the more proximate harbors near Rosby and south of what’s now King’s Landing didn’t develop first, but with trade routes you definitely have a first-mover advantage.   

What’s the best example from Westeros history of Starks and Targaryens working together to defeat a common enemy? The TV show has Jon Snow talking about this in a trailer, but I can’t think of a good specific example.

Well, the Starks were active during the Dance of the Dragons, Rickard Stark fought in the War of Ninepenny Kings, and Rickon Stark fought and died by the side of Daeron I during his “Conquest,” but it strikes me as a line that’s written more to sound good than to make sense. 

Western campaign.

Robb’s whole Westerland campaign seems extremely improbable. A hidden pass large enough for a army and to drive Cattle through, yet somehow hidden from the natives of the region. Crossing over a massive distance without the army being alerted by Ravens from any of the holdfasts or riders fleeing ahead. Then capturing a number of castles which seem to fall quite easily. The whole plan to beat Tywin also rings false. Tywin has at least 2 times Robb’s numbers at minimum. Without a battle of the Fords and with Robb’s own losses assaulting and fighting, it could be 3 to 4 times his number. Then his plan to outmanoeuvre Tywin. Except Tywin is on his home turf, has untaken castles aiding him and the remains at Oxcross. And cavalry don’t really March faster on a strategic level then infantry. And that Tywin likely has equal numbers of cavalry anyway. And his only escape is that narrow pass with the Golden Tooth untaken. Sure it lures Tywin from King’s a Landing, but Stannis is a enemy as well. Helping him win by getting the North’s cavalry destroyed is extremely foolish.

I strongly disagree. 

  1. The hidden pass thing is actually something of a historical cliche. It happened at Thermopylae repeatedly, it happened with Alexander, etc.
  2. Castles falling without being able to alert others we’ve seen happen repeatedly in other contexts (Tywin’s march through the Riverlands, Theon’s capture of Winterfell, etc.). An unexpected attack against undermanned garrisons because the main forces of those Houses are off fighting with Tywin, post archers to shoot down ravens, and you’re good to go. 
  3. Robb’s plan for the Westerlands makes a good deal of sense. Robb has repeatedly outfought larger armies, and as long as he can maintain local superiority and establish multipliers on his side, there’s no reason why he can’t win. Also, there are no remains at Oxcross, that army was wiped out. 
  4. If Stannis takes King’s Landing, then Tywin loses the war politically in an instant, because he has no king to fight for, and the man on the Iron Throne will have him declared a rebel, outlaw, and traitor. This knocks out Robb’s main antagonist, and he’s willing to make a deal with Stannis once Tywin’s out of the picture. 

Why didn’t the people supporting Robert Baratheon simply give the Targaryen children to the Night’s Watch and the Silent Sisters respectively? It puts them out of the line of succession, but denies the propaganda defeat of “the Baratheons kill babies!” I get the Lannisters maybe just wanted to be brutal to show loyalty, but Robert and Jon Arryn could have easily had Viserys captured and given to the watch.

I get the political logic, but that’s not what happened. Tywin had lethal custody of Elia’s children before either Robert or Jon Arryn arrived in King’s Landing, and the entirety of the Royal Navy was standing in between them and Viserys on Dragonstone, so it’s not that easy.

The fall of Quebec City is in 1760. Americans were still Perfide Albion as far as they could see. Also what was the reaction to the Quebec act you mentioned? Never heard about the American opinion of that.

Bailyn’s Ideological Origins of the American Revolution is quite old at this point, but he does a very good job explaining how the Quebec Act was seen by American colonists as a threat to *Protestant* religious freedom – that by empowering the Catholic Church in Quebec, it was creating a precedent to create established religion and/or “papism” in the American colonies.