WESTEROS AU X: TARTH-ELINA

This AU retells one of Andersen's most famous fairy tales with Jaime and Brienne in lead roles, a couple of crackships, some gratuitous Gaelic and German, a whole-scene shout-out/allusion to Cabaret (I'm referring to the Third Reich musical), a wedding crash, the bear of Harrenhal, and Easter eggs referring to the original series... Set in Westeros in an alternate storyline.

Dramatis personae

• Thumbelina: Brienne Tarth
• Cornelius/Jachimo: Jaime Lannister
• Thumbelina's Guardian: Selwyn Tarth
• Giver of the Seed: Maester of Evenfall Hall
• Fairy Royals: Tywin and Cersei Lannister
• Mother Frog Impresaria: Catelyn Stark (in plaid) (the Starks speak Gaelic like the frogs in the film speak Spanish)
• Eldest Froglet: Robb Stark (in a kilt)
• Other Froglets: Bran Stark (in a kilt), Rickon Stark (in a kilt), Hodor (in a -hodor- kilt)
• Jitterbugs: Meera and Jojen Reed
• Berkeley Beetle (Alpha Beetle MC): Renly Baratheon!! (as a parody of the MC in Cabaret!!)
• Assistant to Berkeley: Loras Tyrell (as a parody of the MC in Cabaret!!)
• Other Bugs in Ballroom: The rest of the Tyrell family and their entourage
• Mrs. Vole: (Fat) Walda Bolton
• Mr. Vole (Sir Not Appearing in the Original Fairytale): Roose Bolton
• Mr. Posh Mole: Ramsay "the B****rd" Bolton, né Snow
• The Reverend: Septon of Harrenhal
• The Bear of Harrenhal: Himself

MADOKA MAGICA: ON THE LABYRINTHS

The labyrinths in Madoka Magica are sheer colour/chaos display. Not eye candy, but eye drugs...

  

 

 

 

A

snapshot of the otherness of the world within which

the girls are fighting their opponents. Here, the mise en scene

is composed of a stylised collage of food and cutlery, layered and presented in a way that 

runs completely contrary to the sterile reality of the real world. 

A still layer of what appears to be melted white frosting slowly lowering

 from the top of the frame while a table in the background sparkles. This then cuts to what seems to be a

box of sweets, featuring the same alien script that has been present in the witches'

worlds throughout the series so far.
After writhing and contorting for a brief moment, the box bursts, and then the frame splits like an eye opening.

This is reinforced by the background showing a spoon and

fork that bookend Charlotte, whose head is shaped like a bonbon in a wrapper. The

alien script at the bottom of the frame is reminiscent of icing and sprinkles on biscuits.

The worlds the witches inhabit are colourful and full of life, while simultaneously alienating the girls from them.

IMPORTANT HAPPINESS CHARGE NEWS

This week, in the Happiness-Charge-Precure-verse, there has been an event that confirmed one of my worst fears when it comes to the series's premise:

Spain has fallen into the clutches of the Empire.
We don't know if the economic crisis is rampant in the Happiness-Charge-Precure-verse Iberian Peninsula, but we have witnessed the Phantom Hunter defeating the resident Cure (Cure Matador)!
Which is connected to both of these events:

• In the Happiness-Charge-Precure-verse, Sweden and the other Northern countries remain free and protected by their respective Cures... so far (and we're counting our fictional blessings).
• In the real world, Spaniards are recovering from the crisis and cheering on La Roja for this summer's long-expected footie World Cup. While an intellectual like me has unexpectedly caught the so-called "Red Fever". With two Euro Cups and the last World Cup under its belt so far, La Roja is going through a brilliant winning streak... Will the national team get its fourth big cup?

MORE HAIKU

LUNA LOVEGOOD
Eerie reverie,
outsider living elsewhere,
rabbit in the moon...

RENLY BARATHEON & LORAS TYRELL
Rainbow fades away,
without sunshine withers now
Renly's little rose...

PIPPI LÂNGSTRUMP
Freckles, blazing braids,
always showing a new skill,
freedom is her wealth...

GOTTFRIED WILHELM VON LEIBNIZ
Reasoning anew,
he found out that we all live
in the best of worlds...

JAIME LANNISTER & BRIENNE TARTH
"I was such a fool",
the bear-maiden showed me thus,
without my right hand.

STRUWWELPETER
If you're faint of heart,
cast aside these dramatic
cautionary tales...

PERSEPHONE
Springtime comes again,
now carefree, but I'll return
queen of dire halls...

STANNIS BARATHEON & MELISANDRE
That throne's mine by right...
with my faith and concubine,
flames on heart of steel...

THE RINGSTETTEN SAGA, ARC I
Who could ever say
we learnt everything in those
thirty years of war?

THE RINGSTETTEN SAGA, ARC II
Lost and far from home,
he was pleased with her, and she,
glad, set the youth free...

THE RINGSTETTEN SAGA, ARC III
One wish for each child:
student, courtier, officer,
flawed at heart all three.

THE REAL CHRIS... AND THE REAL POOH

Christopher Robin Milne and Winnie the Pooh, like they looked in real life.
Indeed, Chris (born in Chelsea, to learned and loving parents) owned all of the Hundred Acre Woods characters: Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, Rabbit, Eeyore (known as Igor in the Spanish version), Kanga and Roo (Rito)... Which inspired his father to write storybooks based upon all of their imaginary adventures, in which the token human always was the leader and the voice of reason.
Christopher Robin looks pretty cute here... He was (quite obviously) often teased at school for preferring stuffed animals to weapons and vehicles. So, he learned to box (boxing) to defend himself from school bullies (well done, Chris!).
Upon coming of age? He studied Maths at the prestigious Trinity College in Cambridge. During the Second World War, he temporarily interrupted his studies, serving crown and country in the Mediterranean theatre of the conflict, and he came to hate the Pooh books, the cause of his bullying having become famous at an international level (he saw the Pooh books abroad, during the war). After the war had given way to peace, he graduated with flying colours. In 1951, he opened a bookshop on the English coast, together with his wife Lesley de Sélincourt. It was a huge success.
In 1956, the Milnes were blessed with a daughter, Clare, born with cerebral palsy. She came to run a charity for the disabled, the Clare Milne trust (Alex, Chris, and Clare... three successful generations!).
In 1974, Chris published The Enchanted Places, about his early years (plushies, school, war, and the trouble with the Pooh series). He gave the Hundred Acre Woods plushies to his editor.
Christopher Robin Milne died in his sleep in 1996, having lived to a ripe old age.

PICTURES OF GENERAL EDWARD EDWARDIAN

HEARTS WILL THROB...

CHRIS RIDDELL'S GOTH GIRL BOOKS

Meet Ada Goth.
Born and raised at Ghastlygorm Hall, daughter of an aristocratic Romantic poet Lord Goth (read Lord Byron) and a Thessalian tightrope dancer (the beautiful Parthenope fell from a tightrope when her daughter was a rather young child), Ada is most often on her own, though the child servants of her household and the offspring of local eccentric inventor Charles Cabbage are eager to befriend her, leading to the foundation of a rather special adventure club.
This is more than just the Victorian version of The Famous Five.
It's a stunning work of art, to which you come for the characters... and stay for the shout-outs to art and literature, cleverly hidden by Riddell like Easter eggs. In fact, reading the Goth Girl books is like taking part in an Easter egg hunt... retooled in my favourite way!
This book can be thoroughly mined for its wealth of literary references such as governesses rejoicing in names like Hebe Poppins and Becky Blunt, a Secret Garden and an Even-More-Secret-Garden in the hall’s grounds, not to mention a lady novelist called Mary Shellfish and a surely self referential Martin Puzzlewit, the radical cartoonist. Chris Riddell has drawn his characters in loving detail and they appear in profusion throughout this book which is a beautiful and desirable object. With some of Ada’s previous governesses being Hebe Poppins, who ran away with a chimney sweep, and Jane Ear, who seemed far too preoccupied with Lord Goth... or another of the previous governesses, Marianne Delacroix, who had called herself a revolutionary and had taught Ada “several rousing songs in French, how to knit and how to construct a sturdy barricade…” – oh and “a contraption for slicing the heads off dolls…”).

The story is packed with references to classical literature, Gothic tales, and fictional and historical characters, most of which will go over the heads of young readers. Where kids do recognise the references – whether from books they have read or films or made-for-TV movies they have seen – it will make them giggle. For example, the previous governesses  Hebe Poppins who “walked like a penguin and was always bursting into song”, and “Jane Ear” who “wasn’t really very interested in being a governess at all. Instead she spent all her time making cups of tea and knocking on Lord Goth’s study door.”  Likewise the discovery of and images of the door not just to “The Secret Garden” but also to “The Even More Secret Garden”.

As an adult reading this book, it’s like a treasure hunt for historical, mythological, literary and popular culture references. Here are just a few (click on the link if you need the answer):

• A landscape gardener called Metaphorical Smith
• Former Governesses: Morag Macbee who had a single tooth and a large wart on the end of her nose; Hebe Poppins, who walked like a penguin, burst into song and ran away with a chimney sweep; Jane Ear, who was more interested in the heroine’s widowed father and tried to burn down the West Wing; Nannie Darling, a sheepdog and more… (or Becky Blunt, or Marianne Delacroix!!)
• Mary Shellfish, a lady novelist
• The housekeeper, Mrs Beat ‘em
• Charles Cabbage, an inventor, who is building a calculating machine
• Fabercrombie & Itch – intellectual weavers of West London

The plot of the book is very much a framework for showcasing the literary references. The heroine, Ada Goth, is the daughter of a thinly disguised Byron (although Riddell doesn’t go so far as to try and introduce Byron’s real daughter, Ada Lovelace’s mathematical prowess and contribution to the development of computing, perhaps slightly surprisingly given that a version of Charles Babbage does appear and his daughter “Emily Cabbage” is a character in the book). She is visited by Ishmael the ghost of a mouse who is haunting the sprawling Ghastly-Gorm Hall (so, we get the line from Moby Dick “Call me Ishmael” and are, as adults, lined up to view the setting as inspired by Gormenghast). The plot and characters then take in Frankenstein, Dracula, Jane Eyre, Mary Poppins, Tristram Shandy, Dr Johnson, Martin Chuzzlewit (here as a pugnatious political cartoonist perpetually in boxing gloves in the expectation of being fought by the subjects of his cartoons despite the fact that those cartoons are so obscure that nobody gets offended by them…), Gulliver's Travels and most likely dozens of others. You get the idea.

Clearly, lots of the literary and other allusions and references, from Homer to Fight Club and Abercrombie and Fitch, and the presence of parodies of historical figures like Mary Shelley and Samuel Johnson, aren’t going to be picked up by child readers.

Culturally rich, references include Mervyn Peake, Charles Babbage, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Charlotte Bronte, William Hogarth, Laurence Sterne, Greek mythology, Mrs Beeton, J M Barrie, Henry David Thoreau, Lewis Carroll, Christianna Brand, P L Traverts, Mary Shelley, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Bram Stoker.

The point of this lovely book is its oddball characters, witty details and literary references.

Much of our session was spent comparing notes on how many literary allusions and jokes there were in the text. (The eponymous ghost of a mouse introduces himself by saying: “Call me Ishmael”.) We spotted Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, Capability Brown, the albatross from ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’, Mary Poppins, Van Helsing, Dr Johnson and Boswell,  the Yellow Wallpaper, Tristam Shandy, the list goes on and on. Thus Goth Girl works brilliantly for adults and children. It’s also a great way of unconsciously introducing children to classic texts. I can imagine a child who has read this story reading Frankenstein with glee in their teen years as it reminds them of Goth Girl - which they can then re-read with this knowledge.

And now, this book (translated into Castilian, of course) is available in Spain! So I was drawn to it by a picture of Ada on the bookshop wall, I started reading it... and whoa! As I read Goth Girl, I was dying with elation! One allusion piled upon another, piled upon another, piled upon another... like the layers of a sky-high cake with all of my favourite ingredients! So... guess whether I purchased such a reference-loaded novel!
So, if you like intertextuality, classical literary allusions, historical references, and/or crossovers, you're going to LOVE Ada and everyone around her!!