random viewing: Dresden Files ep 1.2, kdrama: Emperor of the Sea and HBO's Elizabeth I
Much viewing, longish stuff under the cuts.
Tonight’s Dresden Files was pretty good. Better than last week’s ep., I think, especially since we actually got to see Murphy do more, as she, Harry and Bob are the main characters. I was a bit surprised that they seem to be jumping straight to Harry/Murphy feelings/attraction suppression, which really didn’t show up until several books in (when Butcher decided to go that route) especially since IMDB says Susan is coming...though maybe they’ll have her already be Harry’s ex, unless they plan to set it up as triangle, which Butcher has completely avoided so far.
I liked the various nods to the book versions of the characters, like Bob’s indication that he’s still a sex maniac, just a better behaved one (and then saying he was heading to the skull just as Harry was obviously about to send him there) and Harry’s very adamant statement that he doesn’t watch TV (likely flashing back to trying to watch TV and having it blow up on him or something)
Curious to see where there going with Murphy having dreams about Harry, but then, Butcher seems to have been hinting that there will soon be more to Murphy than just a cop who gets mixed up in the supernatural, so maybe they’re taking a cue from them. Kid, height, and other purely superficial things aside, Murphy seems to be the closest to the book version, and she and Harry spark pretty well.
That said, while I didn’t much mind Harry not using magic much in the first episode, it stands out a lot more when it’s two weeks in a row. Now, granted, even in the books Harry only uses magic when he has to, and prefers to avoid flash unless he wants it to make a point, but I’d like to see a bit more magic, though this ep. DID have more magic than last ep. Still, that’s a book to TV thing, as opposed to anything annoying in the context of just the show, so I won’t let it get to me.
Now, 2 weeks until the next episode? That I’ll let get to me. I need to get me some Dresden Files icons.
I have also decided to start posting some more here about the doramas I watch. You have been warned. Many spoilers under cut.
I’ve been trying to think of what I’ll say about this series for a bit now. To say that I loved it is something of an understatement(I’ve taken to rabidly looking for info about other things the cast has done) but it’s hard to think of what to say without just recounting the entire plotline. Plus, I have to control myself, or once I start, I won’t be able to stop. Because, while I didn’t obsessively love it QUITE as much as I did(and do) Damo, the combined force of the two is almost enough to make me decree Korean period dramas to be the best thing ever.
The series, which is 51 episodes almost exactly an hour each, is about Jang Bogo, who was born a slave in Shilla(ancient Korea) and eventually rose to be a powerful merchant, warlord, and reluctant politician. It’s fictionalized, of course, but then, each accounting of the real Jang Bogo’s life that I’ve read has been different enough that this could likely be regarded as accurate enough. The entire storyline, which is seeped in romance and politics, is very interesting(though it did get bogged down a bit around the middle with the war with Yi Sa Do-which I probably got the order of the name wrong-but the personal goings on at the time made up for it) but it’s the characters that keep it going.
Going into as much depth as I’d like to would lose everyone long before I finished, so I’ll focus on the four main characters, Bogo, his childhood friend and later enemy(and friend) Yum Moon, his true love, Jung-Hwa, who is also loved by Yum Moon, who she has a VERY complicated relationship with, and Lady Jami, Bogo’s greatest enemy, who also raised Jung-Hwa.
I’ll start with Lady Jami. She is beautiful, brilliant, cunning, charismatic, scheming and wholly corrupt. At some point, I suspect, she was much like Jung-Hwa and Bogo...determined to forge her way in the world, and to do it honestly. But she’s a woman in a man’s world, and, while her origins are never explored, I suspect that she started from nothing, or near to it, at best raised to be a wife and support her husband. However, instead, she became the most powerful woman in Shilla, a woman who rules a major marketplace and is, in one way or another, the benefactress over many, if not most, of the nobles. She’s also a smuggler in league with pirates, who takes in young girls to raise them to be sold off as mistresses to noblemen. And into her life comes Jung-Hwa, a young woman as intelligent as she who has a good head for business, and she allows herself to care about someone, and raises Jung-Hwa as her own daughter. However, she unwittingly gives Jung-Hwa the strength to not be like her. By exposing Jung-Hwa to the methods she has had to use to get to where she is, she gives Jung-Hwa the strength to be determined to not be like her, and to forge her own way using only honest means. And, in the end, she’s forced to realize that in the process of becoming rich, powerful and independent, she’s cut herself off from everything that matters.
Then there’s Bogo. If every hero has a fatal flaw, Bogo’s is that he’s unyielding. And, for many years, his unyieldingness is what allowed him, and his friend, Yon, to survive. His refusal to sacrifice his integrity or to bend to those who tried to destroy him allowed him to survive slavery, torture, and the gladiator’s ring, and to eventually get the attention of Sul Pyung, a merchant who saw worth in him and freed him in exchange for his service, allowing him to eventually become Sul Pyung’s second in command, and eventually his heir. It’s also what allowed him to create a new base of power, and to obliterate the pirates that plagued merchants, and later, to become trusted by the Regent, and future emperor. But it’s his unyieldingness that destroys him, too, because when the time comes, he allows it to push him into a war that could have been avoided, had he been willing to compromise and negotiate. Instead, he is willing to embark on an unnecessary war and to sacrifice innocent lives in the process. Because of this, in many ways, Yum Moon’s killing of Bogo can be seen as saving him, as Bogo is taking the first steps towards becoming what he has always hated, a man willing to sacrifice everything in pursuit of his goals, no matter how noble those goals may be.
Then there’s Jung-Hwa. As much as I like her, she’s actually the least interesting of the main characters. She’s extremely capable and intelligent, and very strong, but in the process of becoming strong, I think she lost the ability to be happy. She lost her father at a young age, was given into the care of a corrupt woman, watched her brother lose himself in his quest to restore their family name, and finally saw the man she loved sold into slavery, and then presumed dead, when he attempted to free them both from Lady Jami. While she survived the many hardships she faced (which I’ve only barely touched on) she became more and more convinced that seeking happiness only brought pain to not only her, but also to the people she cared about, and so she forced herself to believe that contentment was enough, not realizing that, in the process, she denied them the ability to be happy because being happy when she wasn’t caused them guilt. One thing I like about her, though, is the fact that her appearance is incidental in Bogo and Yum Moon loving her. While she is attractive, her features are closer to plain than to pretty (and, frankly, neither man would ever allow himself to even consider loving a beautiful woman, at least, not at the point where they start loving her) and it’s her strength and intelligence that they respond to, and it’s rare that’s so clear, as it usually seems to be the opposite.
Then there’s Yum Moon, my favorite character from the series, who I’ve spent many an hour obsessing over. While he is, for a large chunk of the series, technically the villain, in many ways he’s actually a hero who was defeated by his own fatal weakness, loyalty, from the beginning. Yum Moon is an orphan who was raised by pirates, and has a deep sense of loyalty. Be and Bogo became friends when they were young, without Bogo knowing Yum Moon’s lifestyle, and it was Yum Moon’s master who caused the death of Bogo’s father, and then for Bogo and Yon to twice be sent into a far harsher slavery than what they’d faced so far, something that Bogo didn’t know for years. For as long as he could, he tried to be loyal to both his master and his partner, Lady Jami, and to Bogo, and to protect Bogo, but every time he was loyal to one, he was forced to betray the other. And, in the process, he was also constantly forced to betray himself. The best example of this is when he knew Bogo and Jung-Hwa were in love and he suppressed his own feelings for Jung-Hwa and kept them from both as best he could, out of the loyalty and love he felt for both(in many ways, Yum Moon and Bogo don’t feel like friends as much as they do like brothers who grew up apart and later were forced to become enemies) However, when Bogo learns that Yum Moon is a pirate and declares that they have to be enemies(again, unyielding) all that changes...he can stand aside when his friend loves the same woman he does, and support them, but not his enemy, and the only reason he is able to hate Bogo as much as he does later is because the love and jealous became so tangled up inside him. But his conflicting loyalties plague him throughout...to his master and Jung-Hwa, Jung-Hwa and Lady Jami, Lady Jami and Kim Yang, and, finally, when he has finally found a measure of peace and he and Bogo have set their hatred aside and resumed a friendship, however shaky, Kim Yang and Bogo. It’s not until the very end that he’s able to be loyal to himself, when he sets out to keep Bogo and Kim Yang from going to war at all costs, that he’s able to be loyal to himself.
In many ways, the final confrontation between Bogo and Yum Moon is a reversal of roles for the two. Bogo, an honorable, usually compassionate man who has always looked out for the needs of his friends and dependents, is now willing to sacrifice everything in pursuit of his goal, to prevent Kim Yang from controlling Shilla, and in the process, he has lost what made him good and noble. In contrast, Yum Moon, a man who has never had any conviction or goal beyond vengeance and loyalty, finally has a goal...to prevent war and bloodshed at any cost, even if the cost is the man closest to him, the only person he has ever allowed himself to call his friend. When he goes to Bogo, he is very clear that his goal is to prevent war at any cost. He wants to prevent it through negotiations and treaties, but if he must, he’ll kill Bogo. But one way or the other, neither man would leave the room until it was resolved. And he made it very clear that he would kill Bogo, using that word instead of "Fight’ and showing Bogo the dagger he’ll use to do so...a weapon not meant for a fair fight, but for murder, small, fast, erfficient. Bogo’s error is in assuming that Yum Moon isn’t serious, that he is as weak in his convictions as he has been in the past, despite Yum Moon making it clear that he finally has a goal. The tragedy of it is that Yum Moon has put his faith in the wrong person, and even had he succeeded, he had already been betrayed, putting all his efforts and sacrifice to waste.
I shall stop now, even though I could go on for quite a bit longer. Though, hopefully, I shall prattle about the 2 love triangles soonish.
I also just watched HBO's Elizabeth I with Helen Mirren, Jeremy Irons, and Hugh Dancy. This is easily the best depiction of Elizabeth's life I've encountered, either on screen or in print. It portrayed both her good and bad qualities equally, as opposed to focusing primarily on one or the other like others do, and never tries to portray her as being right or wrong, just as trying. The second half wasn't as good as the first-partly because it covered more and ended up feeling rather rushed, but mostly because because, even though he did an excellent job as Essex, Hugh Dancy can't quite hold up to Jeremy Irons. Still, the series was quite excellent, and absolutely gorgeous, and I wish I'd caved earlier, even though it cost more then.
Tonight’s Dresden Files was pretty good. Better than last week’s ep., I think, especially since we actually got to see Murphy do more, as she, Harry and Bob are the main characters. I was a bit surprised that they seem to be jumping straight to Harry/Murphy feelings/attraction suppression, which really didn’t show up until several books in (when Butcher decided to go that route) especially since IMDB says Susan is coming...though maybe they’ll have her already be Harry’s ex, unless they plan to set it up as triangle, which Butcher has completely avoided so far.
I liked the various nods to the book versions of the characters, like Bob’s indication that he’s still a sex maniac, just a better behaved one (and then saying he was heading to the skull just as Harry was obviously about to send him there) and Harry’s very adamant statement that he doesn’t watch TV (likely flashing back to trying to watch TV and having it blow up on him or something)
Curious to see where there going with Murphy having dreams about Harry, but then, Butcher seems to have been hinting that there will soon be more to Murphy than just a cop who gets mixed up in the supernatural, so maybe they’re taking a cue from them. Kid, height, and other purely superficial things aside, Murphy seems to be the closest to the book version, and she and Harry spark pretty well.
That said, while I didn’t much mind Harry not using magic much in the first episode, it stands out a lot more when it’s two weeks in a row. Now, granted, even in the books Harry only uses magic when he has to, and prefers to avoid flash unless he wants it to make a point, but I’d like to see a bit more magic, though this ep. DID have more magic than last ep. Still, that’s a book to TV thing, as opposed to anything annoying in the context of just the show, so I won’t let it get to me.
Now, 2 weeks until the next episode? That I’ll let get to me. I need to get me some Dresden Files icons.
I have also decided to start posting some more here about the doramas I watch. You have been warned. Many spoilers under cut.
I’ve been trying to think of what I’ll say about this series for a bit now. To say that I loved it is something of an understatement(I’ve taken to rabidly looking for info about other things the cast has done) but it’s hard to think of what to say without just recounting the entire plotline. Plus, I have to control myself, or once I start, I won’t be able to stop. Because, while I didn’t obsessively love it QUITE as much as I did(and do) Damo, the combined force of the two is almost enough to make me decree Korean period dramas to be the best thing ever.
The series, which is 51 episodes almost exactly an hour each, is about Jang Bogo, who was born a slave in Shilla(ancient Korea) and eventually rose to be a powerful merchant, warlord, and reluctant politician. It’s fictionalized, of course, but then, each accounting of the real Jang Bogo’s life that I’ve read has been different enough that this could likely be regarded as accurate enough. The entire storyline, which is seeped in romance and politics, is very interesting(though it did get bogged down a bit around the middle with the war with Yi Sa Do-which I probably got the order of the name wrong-but the personal goings on at the time made up for it) but it’s the characters that keep it going.
Going into as much depth as I’d like to would lose everyone long before I finished, so I’ll focus on the four main characters, Bogo, his childhood friend and later enemy(and friend) Yum Moon, his true love, Jung-Hwa, who is also loved by Yum Moon, who she has a VERY complicated relationship with, and Lady Jami, Bogo’s greatest enemy, who also raised Jung-Hwa.
I’ll start with Lady Jami. She is beautiful, brilliant, cunning, charismatic, scheming and wholly corrupt. At some point, I suspect, she was much like Jung-Hwa and Bogo...determined to forge her way in the world, and to do it honestly. But she’s a woman in a man’s world, and, while her origins are never explored, I suspect that she started from nothing, or near to it, at best raised to be a wife and support her husband. However, instead, she became the most powerful woman in Shilla, a woman who rules a major marketplace and is, in one way or another, the benefactress over many, if not most, of the nobles. She’s also a smuggler in league with pirates, who takes in young girls to raise them to be sold off as mistresses to noblemen. And into her life comes Jung-Hwa, a young woman as intelligent as she who has a good head for business, and she allows herself to care about someone, and raises Jung-Hwa as her own daughter. However, she unwittingly gives Jung-Hwa the strength to not be like her. By exposing Jung-Hwa to the methods she has had to use to get to where she is, she gives Jung-Hwa the strength to be determined to not be like her, and to forge her own way using only honest means. And, in the end, she’s forced to realize that in the process of becoming rich, powerful and independent, she’s cut herself off from everything that matters.
Then there’s Bogo. If every hero has a fatal flaw, Bogo’s is that he’s unyielding. And, for many years, his unyieldingness is what allowed him, and his friend, Yon, to survive. His refusal to sacrifice his integrity or to bend to those who tried to destroy him allowed him to survive slavery, torture, and the gladiator’s ring, and to eventually get the attention of Sul Pyung, a merchant who saw worth in him and freed him in exchange for his service, allowing him to eventually become Sul Pyung’s second in command, and eventually his heir. It’s also what allowed him to create a new base of power, and to obliterate the pirates that plagued merchants, and later, to become trusted by the Regent, and future emperor. But it’s his unyieldingness that destroys him, too, because when the time comes, he allows it to push him into a war that could have been avoided, had he been willing to compromise and negotiate. Instead, he is willing to embark on an unnecessary war and to sacrifice innocent lives in the process. Because of this, in many ways, Yum Moon’s killing of Bogo can be seen as saving him, as Bogo is taking the first steps towards becoming what he has always hated, a man willing to sacrifice everything in pursuit of his goals, no matter how noble those goals may be.
Then there’s Jung-Hwa. As much as I like her, she’s actually the least interesting of the main characters. She’s extremely capable and intelligent, and very strong, but in the process of becoming strong, I think she lost the ability to be happy. She lost her father at a young age, was given into the care of a corrupt woman, watched her brother lose himself in his quest to restore their family name, and finally saw the man she loved sold into slavery, and then presumed dead, when he attempted to free them both from Lady Jami. While she survived the many hardships she faced (which I’ve only barely touched on) she became more and more convinced that seeking happiness only brought pain to not only her, but also to the people she cared about, and so she forced herself to believe that contentment was enough, not realizing that, in the process, she denied them the ability to be happy because being happy when she wasn’t caused them guilt. One thing I like about her, though, is the fact that her appearance is incidental in Bogo and Yum Moon loving her. While she is attractive, her features are closer to plain than to pretty (and, frankly, neither man would ever allow himself to even consider loving a beautiful woman, at least, not at the point where they start loving her) and it’s her strength and intelligence that they respond to, and it’s rare that’s so clear, as it usually seems to be the opposite.
Then there’s Yum Moon, my favorite character from the series, who I’ve spent many an hour obsessing over. While he is, for a large chunk of the series, technically the villain, in many ways he’s actually a hero who was defeated by his own fatal weakness, loyalty, from the beginning. Yum Moon is an orphan who was raised by pirates, and has a deep sense of loyalty. Be and Bogo became friends when they were young, without Bogo knowing Yum Moon’s lifestyle, and it was Yum Moon’s master who caused the death of Bogo’s father, and then for Bogo and Yon to twice be sent into a far harsher slavery than what they’d faced so far, something that Bogo didn’t know for years. For as long as he could, he tried to be loyal to both his master and his partner, Lady Jami, and to Bogo, and to protect Bogo, but every time he was loyal to one, he was forced to betray the other. And, in the process, he was also constantly forced to betray himself. The best example of this is when he knew Bogo and Jung-Hwa were in love and he suppressed his own feelings for Jung-Hwa and kept them from both as best he could, out of the loyalty and love he felt for both(in many ways, Yum Moon and Bogo don’t feel like friends as much as they do like brothers who grew up apart and later were forced to become enemies) However, when Bogo learns that Yum Moon is a pirate and declares that they have to be enemies(again, unyielding) all that changes...he can stand aside when his friend loves the same woman he does, and support them, but not his enemy, and the only reason he is able to hate Bogo as much as he does later is because the love and jealous became so tangled up inside him. But his conflicting loyalties plague him throughout...to his master and Jung-Hwa, Jung-Hwa and Lady Jami, Lady Jami and Kim Yang, and, finally, when he has finally found a measure of peace and he and Bogo have set their hatred aside and resumed a friendship, however shaky, Kim Yang and Bogo. It’s not until the very end that he’s able to be loyal to himself, when he sets out to keep Bogo and Kim Yang from going to war at all costs, that he’s able to be loyal to himself.
In many ways, the final confrontation between Bogo and Yum Moon is a reversal of roles for the two. Bogo, an honorable, usually compassionate man who has always looked out for the needs of his friends and dependents, is now willing to sacrifice everything in pursuit of his goal, to prevent Kim Yang from controlling Shilla, and in the process, he has lost what made him good and noble. In contrast, Yum Moon, a man who has never had any conviction or goal beyond vengeance and loyalty, finally has a goal...to prevent war and bloodshed at any cost, even if the cost is the man closest to him, the only person he has ever allowed himself to call his friend. When he goes to Bogo, he is very clear that his goal is to prevent war at any cost. He wants to prevent it through negotiations and treaties, but if he must, he’ll kill Bogo. But one way or the other, neither man would leave the room until it was resolved. And he made it very clear that he would kill Bogo, using that word instead of "Fight’ and showing Bogo the dagger he’ll use to do so...a weapon not meant for a fair fight, but for murder, small, fast, erfficient. Bogo’s error is in assuming that Yum Moon isn’t serious, that he is as weak in his convictions as he has been in the past, despite Yum Moon making it clear that he finally has a goal. The tragedy of it is that Yum Moon has put his faith in the wrong person, and even had he succeeded, he had already been betrayed, putting all his efforts and sacrifice to waste.
I shall stop now, even though I could go on for quite a bit longer. Though, hopefully, I shall prattle about the 2 love triangles soonish.
I also just watched HBO's Elizabeth I with Helen Mirren, Jeremy Irons, and Hugh Dancy. This is easily the best depiction of Elizabeth's life I've encountered, either on screen or in print. It portrayed both her good and bad qualities equally, as opposed to focusing primarily on one or the other like others do, and never tries to portray her as being right or wrong, just as trying. The second half wasn't as good as the first-partly because it covered more and ended up feeling rather rushed, but mostly because because, even though he did an excellent job as Essex, Hugh Dancy can't quite hold up to Jeremy Irons. Still, the series was quite excellent, and absolutely gorgeous, and I wish I'd caved earlier, even though it cost more then.