Joss Whedon Will Destroy Us All (With The Avengers 2)

So I saw The Avengers and loved it so much I am considering going to see it another time (after the two other times I'm already planning to see it again with friends and family, of course, and factoring in that I will buy it on DVD as soon as it comes out). However, being as unspoily as possible, you can tell this is a Joss Whedon movie. You'll see what I mean. But (sort of spoilers) it's more early-season Whedon than the heart-crushing, "I've got you all hooked, now it's time to fuck with your emotions", ALL THE FEELS that shows up in the later seasons of his shows (I mean 'late' as in 'everything after season two', JSYK). It doesn't prey on your connections to characters, because Whedon doesn't think they're endeared to the audience enough yet. But if you know a little of his other work, it teases at the complete heartbreak that is coming.

Also, I found this quote from Joss Whedon:

"I'm, no offense, very tired of being labelled as 'the guy who kills people.' Shakespeare (he's this hot new writer) does it way more than me, and everyone's all excited about how he, as it were, holds a mirror up to nature, while I'm like the Jason Voorhees of the writing community. Unfair." 

 Poor Joss. He's not the guy who kills people, though. Anyone can do that, up to and including Shakespeare. Joss Whedon is the guy who creates wonderful characters; gives them strong personalities, interesting flaws, personal demons, emotional journeys and brilliant dialogue; makes the audience absolutely adore them; and then kills them. That's why people care so much when someone from Buffy dies way more than they do when Romeo and Juliet off themselves, because while it's all very sad how their love was all great and stuff and then they died, the point of the Buffy character is to be a person. A friend. A sibling. A parent. A lover. (Not all to the same person, though. That would be creepy.) When they die, you aren't just sad. You grieve. And no-one can ever forgive Joss Whedon for that, even though he invented that character in the first place.

It's like all the people who curse J.K. Rowling for killing [insert one of the many fallen characters here]. The reason we feel that way is because she made them so wonderful in the first place. It's a compliment, really. In gif/public death threat form.

So when I find this quote on Wikipedia, I'm not saying we're doomed because someone will die:

Joss Whedon stated that he would want a sequel to be "...smaller. More personal. More painful. By being the next thing that should happen to these characters, and not just a rehash of what seemed to work the first time. By having a theme that is completely fresh and organic to itself."

 I say we're doomed because we'll love them.

And then they'll die.

It's Never To Early To Bitch About Bella Swan

Humanity is no excuse for this fuckery.

And In Other News, I Still Hate Twispawn

Twispawn (|ˈtwīˌspôn|): Young Adult novels of similar quality (or lack thereof), storyline (or lack thereof), characterisation (or lack thereof), and standard (or lack thereof) to Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series, likely being written or published as a result of the popularity of said series. Currently choking the Young Adult section to death with their boring protagonists, abusive love-interests, pointless plots, abysmal prose, and dark broody covers that make it impossible to tell one from the other.

I have many a rant to address this phenomenon, but this is mainly a definition post that Pippa and I will link back to on RuR when using this term. But I would like to have a mini-rant about hair colour, if don't mind, because this type of thing has annoyed the shit out of me literally since I was seven.

Barbie is blonde, and in my life that is where this whole fiasco started. It probably goes back right to the start of visual media, but my first experience with hair bias was the Barbie film Barbie in Swan Lake.

This is Odette in Barbie in Swan Lake:

This is Odile:

Now, it's a fairly common thing in kids' stories to have the good guys be pretty and the bad guys be ugly (I just realised how Asian Odile looks there, OMG Barbie is so racist :P ) but the hair thing is weird. Brunettes and blondes aren't technically prettier either way, but there was a point in children's animation where blondes were awesome and brunettes were evil. It annoyed me so much because if there was a double agent, or a secret enemy or whatever, you could always tell by their hair. That kind, intelligent character who has no reason to hate the protagonist? Yeah, she's going to turn evil about halfway through. Wanna know why? She has black hair.

 Nobody believed the whole blondes = good, brunettes = evil thing applied to real life (I hope) but it seems a lot of people took offense and eventually they took a stand by... doing the exact same thing except in reverse.

See, if you look into Twispawn these days, you'll find that while the love interests have varied hair colours ("bronze", "chestnut", and "raven", to name a few), the protagonists are almost always brunettes, and being female and blonde automatically makes any character "bitchy", "shallow", and "a massive slut". I put those traits in quotes because that is what the characters are called. They are rarely shown to be any of these, and when they do act bitchy or shallow, they are quickly outstripped by the horrid protagonist who disregards the feelings of everyone but herself and occasionally her boyfriend and bases their entire "True Love" on how hot he is.

And we're meant to empathise and support these characters. Right.

Point is, Twispawn authors seem to think it's good enough to just say they're a blonde and therefore evil and everyone will believe them. It's part of a bigger problem of telling and not showing, but may I remind you who else is blonde in popular culture beyond your standard Regina George?

And that's just three of dozens of fabulous, world-saving blonde heroines.

 So you can take your paper-thin characterisation and shove it – these blondes will kick your Bella-clone's ass any day that ends with Y.

The What of Friendship? a.k.a. MLP: FIM episode 2

 

We start where we left off, with Nightmare Moon (who looks fabulous after her magic makeover Face-Heel Turn) laughing maniacally. Mayor Faragonda, unnerved by the evil laughter (It probably gave her bad flashbacks to the overly-Evul villains of Winx Club), orders the guards to attack, which makes a surprising amount of sense for a show with this many pastels in it.

I have to ask, though, why do the three guards all look identical?

That picture almost looks like it’s one guard shrinking as he takes off into the air, but it’s not. My point is, if you can be bothered to design those outfits, maybe you could change their eye colour so it doesn’t look like Equestria is founded on cloning slaves? I don’t know, maybe they’re triplets. Or maybe Princess Celestia only hires white ponies with blue eyes. I wouldn’t put it past her to be deeply racist, after all, SHE HATES BOOKS.

Yes, I am still hung up on that. Stop judging me, books are important.

ANYWAY, the guards attack and My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic makes the worst pun ever:

“STAND BACK, YOU FOALS!”

*shudder* Oh, that’s painful. Someone rename that meme “Lame Pun Moon”.

(Yes, that might count as a pun, depending on how you look at it. No, it is nowhere near as bad as “Stand back, you foals!”)

And then Nightmare Moon turns into a bunch of sparkly, smoky, night-ish stuff? I really don’t know why, apparently she felt the need to gloat about her victory for a moment and then leave. That’s evil for you.

“Night-time… forever?” Painbow Dash, you are clearly one of the ponies who made Nightmare Moon (What was her name before she was evil, anyway? Sweet Dream Moon? Silver Moon? Dancing With The Stars?) go bad because of your unappreciativeness of her night. Well, a descendent of one, anyway. Maybe if you were like, “Oh yay, night-time, I love night-time!” she wouldn’t be so evil. But no, night-time sucks because it’s slightly darker and slightly colder than daytime, boohoo.

Anyway, don’t you guys have lights? Surely you can just light everything up with some full spectrum lamps and continue your pony ways. And don’t tell me they don’t have electricity, Spike had a lampshade on his head last time which indicates the existence of a LAMP.

“You’ve been up all night, Spike. You are a baby dragon, after all.” You have a BABY for a SLAVE, Twilight Sparkle! Why does this not bother you?

“Elements of Harmony, A Reference Guide.”

“How did you find that?!”

“It was under E-ee!”

Also, where were you looking, Twilight Sparkle?

“The sixth is a complete mystery.” As opposed to just a sort of mystery that a small group of teenage ponies can figure out after learning the value of friendship, amirite?

Nightmare Moon is watching you!

Twilight Sparkle, how do you expect to figure out the value of friendship without your friends?

“We’re sticking to you like caramel on a candy apple.” And then they proceed to leave her at the entrance of the forest. What.

Applejack, I like you, but your new friend is hanging off a cliff. There is a time and place to test her trust in you by giving ambiguous statements like, “Let go and you’ll be safe.” Now is the time for a far more reassuring, “Painbow Dash and Fluttershy are there to catch you, so you can let yourself fall now.” Vague reassurances do not strengthen friendships, kids.

I like that Nightmare Moon is actually trying to kill them instead of just sitting around laughing evilly. That said, what is that thing?

“Yes, Rainbow, I was there.” Twilight Sparkle FTW!

“A manticore!”  Well, I guess that’s what that thing was.

“Rainbow!” I guess she really is a Painbow now. Thankyou for validating my opinion, Manticore.

“You poor, poor little baby!”

“Little?!”  My thoughts exactly, Painbow Dash.

Are you telling me that Nightmare Moon just Transfigured herself into a thorn and yet Fluttershy could just pull it out? Seriously, why didn’t she just grab a regular thorn and save herself the trouble of being stuck in a manticore’s flesh all day?

Why is she singing? PINKIE PIE, CEASE THIS SINGING RIGHT NOW! She is like the one kid on every hike who thinks the time will pass faster if we just sing Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall down to one.

You stole his moustache? Scratch that, you stole half of his moustache? Nightmare Moon, your game is slipping.

“I cannot let such a crime against fabulosity go uncorrected!” That’s it! The sixth element of harmony: Fabulosity!

Is this dragon colour-blind? Rarity, not that your hair isn’t the very essence of fabulosity, but it is also purple. His moustache is orange. Unless he is going for the asymmetrical look this season, your sacrifice kind of just made him look worse.

“Besides, it will grow back.”

“So would the moustache!” Painbow, you are reading my mind at the moment.

“What’s with you and falling off cliffs today?” I think Painbow Dash may be my third favourite character, after Nightmare Moon and Twilight Sparkle. She’s kind of like Anya from Buffy: What she says is sometimes rude, but always wonderfully true. Seriously, honesty should be her ‘element of harmony’, not Applejack’s.

Those echoes are totally calling her Painbow and you can’t say they’re not.

Thunderbolts, way to be deeply unsubtle. Painbow would have much more of a moral dilemma if you weren’t practically wearing badges declaring yourselves “Nightmare Moon’s Evil Cheerleading Squad”. Not to mention: Fluttershy can fly too. There was nothing to stop her going over and tying the bridge even if that terrible ploy did work.

Mate, there is a difference between, “Stand back, I don’t know what will happen” and, “You guys wait outside in the scary woods, leaving me alone in the creepy castle!” What happened to sticking to her like caramel on a candy apple?

“I’ll teleport us to the room next door! No reason, I just like it better.”

“Now you will never see your princess or your son ever again!” Wait, Twilight Sparkle has a son? Why? When? Is Spike the father? Godfather? IS SPIKE TWILIGHT SPARKLE’S ILLEGITIMATE SON?

Oh wait, she means sun. Okay, that makes more sense and feels less like a strange fanfic.

“Applejack, who reassured me when I was in doubt–” Now hold on a second. You were HANGING OFF A CLIFF! I wouldn’t consider thinking you would go splat if you let go doubt, I would consider it good f***ing sense! Also, “Fluttershy and Painbow Dash will catch you” IS NOT THAT HARD TO SAY! GEEZ! “–represents the spirit of honesty. Fluttershy, who tamed the manticore with her compassion, represents the spirit of–” Guidance counselling! “–kindness! Pinkie Pie, who banished fear by giggling in the face of danger, represents the–” annoying kid who is always giggling too much at absolutely nothing “– spirit of laughter!” Eh, close enough. “Rarity, who calmed a sea creature with a meaningful” if ill matching “gift, represents the spirit of generosity! And Rainbow Dash, who could not abandon her friends for her own heart’s desire,” A lifetime of being Nightmare Moon’s own personal cheerleader, “represents the spirit of loyalty!”

Got over your phobia of the word ‘friends’? Here, have a glowing round rock.

“You see, Nightmare Moon, when these element are ignited by the spark that reside in all of us, it creates the sixth element: MAGIC!”

Two things: One, I told you so; Two, the title is literal that is hilarious.

Anyway, Nightmare Moon is defeated by PAINBOW TORNADO!!!!!!! No, really.

And this show does have at least one thing in common with Winx Club: The eternal law of Save World, Get New Jewellery.

Am I the only one who thinks that crown is hideous? Also: “Gee, Twilight, I thought you were just spoutin’ a lot o’ houey, but I reckon we really do represent the elements of friendship.” Applejack, you just saved the world from Nightmare Moon and you thought Twilight was talking rubbish, but then you saw the pretty necklaces and you’re a believer? *FACEPALM*

THE BOOK HATER HAS ARRIVED!

“I told you that you needed to make some friends, nothing more.” Well, actually, you told her that she should STOP READING HER DUSTY OLD BOOKS! *grumbles incoherently*

Is it just me, or did Princess Luna just explode off her evil makeover? No, look:

Isn’t she just the cutest thing? All tuckered out after her evil rampage.

“We were meant to rule together, little sister.”

“Sister?!” Either they are very silly, or Celestia is somehow disguising the fact that she is an immortal goddess pony from the general public.

“Will you accept my friendship?” I love how all of them are leaning forward like, “Yes or no? God, this is better than Passions.” And Pinkie Pie falls over!

“I’m so sorry! I missed you so much, big sister!” Maybe Luna went evil because she was jealous of Celestia’s height. I mean, seriously, how is she not supposed to feel inferior when she is dwarved by her?

However, Rule of Cute:

Who cares if it makes no sense vis-à-vis criminal justice and exploding makeovers, it’s adorable.

I have, however, concluded that Princess Luna and Twilight Sparkle must be related somehow. Why?

The “Friends?!” face is genetic.

Why Time-Travel in Harry Potter Does Not Cause Plotholes

 

SCROLL DOWN TO SKIP TO THE EXPLANATION

I thought about starting this off with some time-travel themed gimmick (eg: “This is message from [past/present/future] [me/you/Daniel Radcliffe] to [past/present/future] [me/you/Emma Watson]”), but then I realised time travel isn’t what this is about. This is about pretentious wankers who will go on and on about their position and why something should or shouldn’t have happened, and refuse to listen when they are presented with a perfectly logical counter-argument.

Example: (Let’s assume they’re both women, okay?)

Person 1: I’m a feminist and I think that men should be used as slave labour because women are clearly superior to them!

Person 2: what.

Person 1: Don’t you think we should use men as slaves? They’re so useless.

Person 2: You’re joking, right?

Person 1: Of course I’m not joking! Men are useless and their only purpose is to carry stuff around and help us reproduce, and soon we’ll have robots and artificial insemination to do that so until then they should be slave labour.

Person 2: Okay, Person 1? Men are not useless. Men are just as capable of intelligent, creative, and progressive thought as women are. Think about Socrates, who gave his own life to prove to Athenians that law must reflect reality–

Person 1: His wife came up with that whole scheme, and she would have gotten him out alive if he hadn’t decided to be a martyr.

Person 2: Socrates didn’t have a wife! And the whole point of his ‘martyrdom’ was that he could have gotten out of Athens, and that basically everyone who had the money to did, but Socrates stayed because to do so would undermine the law and people needed to start thinking about what consequences their laws and rulings would have!(1)

Person 1: See? The only thing he was good for was dying. Men suck.

Person 2: One, that is one of history’s greatest philosophers you are talking about, and two, why do you hate men?

Person 1: Because they suck. Are you anti-feminist or something?

Person 2: You are not a feminist. Feminism is about how men and women should be equals, not that men should be enslaved.

Person 1: Excuse me, I’m a feminist and I think men are useless and should be used as slaves. My god, you are such a simpering housewife. Did your husband define feminism for you?

Person 2: I don’t have a husband!

Person 1: So then you agree that men suck and we should enslave them?

Person 2: ARGH!!!!!!!!

Okay, maybe that was less of an example and more of a side rant about one of my greatest pet peeves. Hating men does not make you a feminist; it makes you a misandrist, and that is about twelve shades of not okay. Misandry and misogyny (hatred of men and women, respectively) are the exact same flipping thing, and being on the receiving end of one at some point does not excuse the other. As for “I’m a feminist and I hate men”, you can’t call yourself a feminist and build the definition around your own opinions any more than I can call myself a conservative Christian and expect people to believe me. I don’t believe in any god or deity, I don’t attend church or own a bible, nor have I ever attended church or even read a bible, I don’t pray, my political views are predominantly liberal (of the small L persuasion), I’m clearly neither conservative nor Christian. I can shout out that I am one over and over, even call up some friends to join me, but I still don’t hold the views that define that group of people. Here’s a dictionary definition of feminism:

feminism |ˈfeməˌnizəm|

noun

the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.

While my computer’s dictionary may not be the be all, end all of sources on feminism, that is the basic gist of feminist philosophy. We are equal to men, we should be treated equally, we should be treated fairly. Not “We should be treated like a superior species.” So if you are a person who is offended by some twit ranting about how all men suck and calling themselves a feminist, don’t hate on feminism, hate on the morons who give feminism a bad name.

(As a side note to this side note, not wearing “girly” clothes doesn’t necessarily make you a feminist either. Hell, Buffy Summers wears feminine clothes and styles and has supposedly ‘girly’ interests like fashion and hot male celebrities, but she’s still a brilliant feminist role model and a million times better than Bella Swan, despite the latter’s habitual ‘jeans-and-a-t-shirt’ (and about fifteen jackets) attire.)

Where was I? OH YEAH, TIME-TRAVEL IN HARRY POTTER. Oops.

So essentially, sometimes people just don’t get a thing, and you’re not sure if you’re not explaining it right or if they’re trolling or if they’re just that type of person who doesn’t want to listen. I frequently have this problem with people and the use of the Time-Turner in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, so I decided to write a detailed explanation of it here, and link it to people if they bring it up. So if you’re reading this, and you have such an argument/discussion, feel free to direct the person to this post and leave it up to them if they want to understand. I’ll even leave directions so they can skip my long rant about feminism vs. misandry.

EXPLANATION STARTS HERE

(If it wasn’t evident, spoilers for the Harry Potter series.)

The main problem some people have with Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is that it introduces time-travel as an accessible source in the wizarding world, which seems to open a bazillion plot-holes in the series.

 

So let’s take a look at why it does not actually make Dumbledore a scumbag (That is what the hat means, okay?) and why the Ministry of Magic are not complete idiots for neglecting time-turners.

Reason One: Wizarding Time-Travel Is Linear

If you’re a Doctor Who fan, you’re likely to be familiar with the quote, “People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint - it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly... timey wimey... stuff.” But the thing is, HP time and the effects of time-travel therein is a strict progression of cause to effect. This means that whatever you do when you go back in time, you have already done it in your timeline and any effects it had have already shown up.

One example of this is in the climax of Prisoner of Azkaban, where Harry is waiting for his dad to show up and produce the Patronus that saved him. When his father doesn’t turn up, Harry realises that it was himself from the future who cast the Patronus, and so he casts said Patronus and saves his past self. Another is when Hermione forgets to go to Charms because she's so tired, and can't go back and be at the lesson because Ron and Harry already told her that she wasn't there.

One quote seemingly defies this idea, when Hermione says, “Professor McGonagall told me what awful things have happened when wizards have meddled with time… loads of them have ended up killing their past or future selves by mistake!” In relation to what else we know about wizard time-travel, this could mean one of three things:

1)                You can change time, but it makes the universe go into a violent seizure of not-niceness, in which one or both of your selves will end up dead.

2)                People have assumed they could change time, but ended up getting killed or causing the event that made them go back in time. (For instance, say a wizard is poisoned with a slow-working poison and he thinks it was his wife. He goes back in time to kill her before she can kill him, but puts the poison in the wrong cup and winds up poisoning his past self.)

3)                Professor McGonagall didn’t want to explain the entirety of time-travel theory to a curious thirteen-year-old lest she try to experiment with it, so she was just like, “Don’t mess with it or REALLY, REALLY BAD STUFF WILL HAPPEN.”

I favour the second option, which explains why the Ministry of Magic aren’t all like, “Let’s save some people!” because modern time-travel theory says that if the people are dead, they will stay dead and anyone sent back to save them will fail and possibly die themselves. That’s why Sirius or Lupin didn’t go back in time to warn James and Lily about Pettigrew, or to try and stop Voldemort, because they knew James and Lily were already dead and they couldn’t change that. (Also that would be bad because then Voldemort would still be terrorizing the wizarding community, JSYK.)

“But what about Buckbeak?!” I hear you cry. The thing is, Buckbeak was never dead, because Future-Harry and Future-Hermione came back to save him to save Sirius. And scumbag Dumbledore knows that Buckbeak lives because he walked out of Hagrid’s hut and saw that he had escaped. What he actually meant when he said, “If all goes well, you will be able to save more than one innocent life tonight” was “I hope your rescue of Sirius goes well, because I already know you’ve saved Buckbeak.” Essentially, you can only use time-travel to change the future, not the past.

So, let’s look at our list of things the time-turner could be used for. Due to the nature of linear time-travel, you could not use a Time-Turner to save the Potters, prevent escapes from Azkaban that you know happened, prevent Auror deaths of the same kind, or kill/arrest Tom Riddle. You can’t do most of the other suggestions either, because:

Reason Two: Wizards Can Only Travel Backwards In Time

How does a Time-Turner work? Well, say you are Hermione, and you need to get to Charms, Ancient Runes and Arithmancy at the same time. You head off to Arithmancy, sit through that hour or so and get House points for being brilliant, as you do. At the end of the class, you take out your Time-Turner and turn it once. You end up an hour back in time, and you head off to Ancient Runes, after which you repeat the process and go to Charms.

Notice what that does not involve? Going forwards in time. While there might have been Aurors who went back in time to witness whether Sirius Black blew up that street or not a couple of days after the incident, they would have been watching from afar so as not to get blown up, and they would have seen what the expected to see:

“Lily and James, Sirius! How could you?”

BOOM!

And if Sirius showed up twelve years later to have an actual trial (Barty Crouch Senior may not have been the raging psycho his son was, but he was still a douche) and look for what he was describing, who was going to volunteer twelve years of their life to go check out something that might not even be evident? Not to mention the risk of being killed trying to get close enough or ignoring the rules of time travel to attempt to stop Pettigrew. Time-Turners are probably only used in particular cases, as the time traveller cannot change anything and might have actually caused the problem, in which case everyone feels really bad for sending them back in the first place when they figure it out.

Reason Three: All the Time-Turners Are Destroyed In The Order of the Phoenix

So Time-Turners can’t help with the Pettigrew/Sirius confrontation, what else is left? Preventing Auror casualties wherein nobody found the body. We have no evidence to suggest that Aurors don’t use time-travel for this on occasion, so I’m thinking in particular of Mad-Eye Moody in book seven. Voldemort hits Moody with a curse that appears to be Avada Kedavra, and he falls off his broom and plunges to the ground below. If you were a die-hard Alastor Moody fan, you might think, “He could totally still be alive! It might be some other curse which emits a flash of green light! Quick, grab a Time-Turner and catch him with a Levitation Charm before he hits the ground!” Well, sorry Moody fans, you can’t. They were all destroyed during the Battle of the Department of Mysteries at the climax of book five, a fact which was confirmed at the start of book six. There’s a strong implication that the Ministry can’t just make more, or that even if they can it will take a very, very long time, long after the end of the Second Wizarding War.

In conclusion, we can say that the presence of the Time-Turner in Prisoner of Azkaban did not create massive plotholes, that the Ministry of Magic are not that idiotic, that Albus Dumbledore is not a hippogriff-saving scumbag, and that every painful, wrenching, tragic death in the Harry Potter series is permanent and indisputable.

God, that’s a depressing thought.

Stuff about Time-Travel in Harry Potter

http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Time-Turner

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Thry5mXld80

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1) That’s the simplified version. The actual thing is pretty complicated, but Person 1 isn’t arguing that Socratic philosophy is sexist, they are just repeating their opinion over and over and over again.