Month: May 2016

Renly Baratheon and Loras Tyrell-or should we say Edward II and Gaveston?

Posted on by rantofalifetime

while doing drama section of my part-II section of Calcutta university, i had Christopher’s Marlowe’s scandalous ( of his time) copy of Edward the second to write five major critical essays for my yearly exam and i thought “ it feels like i saw something similar in game of thrones! lol”

i guess my mind finally deigned to make that connection 1 year later. oh no!

Gaveston is introduced to us in this 1594 play as vagrant, flamboyant favorite of the newly crowned Edward the second whose sole aim right now is to “ be the favorit of a king[?]” , to impress him with expensive masques and shows and basically employ boys to show their parts which “men enjoy” and to “draw the plaint king”, so that he could climb the social ladder and then has affair with the king’s niece. whereas, the poor Edward battles the wrath of his barons and snubs his increasingly despondent queen Isabella( thanks again to Gaveston’s rumors which he spreads through the king’s protection) all for his love for Gaveston. basically he is a blackguard whose love caused a good king’s horrific and tragic end in Marlowe’s play and then he himself dies at the hands of those homophobic , snobby barons.

these gems!:

“ My father is deceast, come Gaveston,’
‘And share the kingdom with thy deerest friend.’
Ah words that make me surfet with delight:
What greater blisse can hap to Gaveston,
Then live and be the favorit of a king?
Sweete prince I come, these these thy amorous lines,
Might have enforst me to have swum from France,
And like Leander gaspt upon the sande,
So thou wouldst smile and take me in thy armes.”- act 1 scene i

and then…:

Baldock
Tis like enough, for since he was exild,
She neither walkes abroad, nor comes in sight:
But I had thought the match had beene broke off,
And that his banishment had changd her minde.

Spencer
Our Ladies first love is not wavering,
My life for thine she will have Gaveston.- act 2 scene i 

so much for true love!

then we have this flowery Renly ‘knight of THE flowers” (whatever that supposed to mean) who goads Renly “not-traumatized-by-parent’s-death” Baratheon to be a good king over and over by the power of blow-job sorcery. Renly the good and naive then breaks every succession law on land makes a bid for the iron throne and dies at the shadow-hand of Stannis and Melisandre’s evil shadow baby. but how to show that Renly was so not worth this horrific end?? how to overcome GRRM’s timeline in which rely dies before his “ Gaveston”?oh of course! make him a dumb, whiny, lace-loving stereotype who eye-fucks Oberyn and gives his feather bed plenty of exercise with Olyver. then make him a prisoner of faith Taliban( thank you @wendynerdwrites for the term). he would probably die because of some homophobic, snobby religious people now.  yay! problem solved, DAN and DAVID successfully adapted Marlowe’s not so famous play and nobody sniffed it.

freakin’ liars, cannot even make an original disaster.

P.S: cover photo of the play is taken from amazon.com.

Crossfire Series by Sylvia Day: how she managed to establish Eva a hypocrite in  lieu of money.

Posted on by rantofalifetime

if you have read the usual spiel of E L James and the endless variety of clone . you must have stumbled across Sylvia Day crossfire series as a second option which is recommended as a book to get over you hangover from fifty shades. they might be right, you know why? because it took whatever elements it had from that series and inflated it to ridiculous bamboozlement .

case in point, is my rant about money and how it is used to completely undermine any sort of credence one might place on Eva, considering she was our only POV at that point of time ( it was the good ol’ day when even the die hard fans were unawares Day has decided inflate her books and her paycheck at their expense).** spoiler alert for this series and for some minor ones from fifty shades series as well as stark trilogy by j kenner.**super warned!**

i mean i don’t get it. a certain ambition for material gain and money is not bad. it is this motivation of not worrying about uncertain expenses and unknown and expensive desires. it is the reason we employed and unemployed folks are tirelessly working ourselves to an early ( probably) and stressful grave ( or pyre in my case). in this series day even has a minor character , Monica Barker blah blah Tramell blah ( i don’t get her mile long name!), that is Eva’s mom who rejects the proposal from her child’s father because she wanted a man with millionaire portfolio to be her husband. granted that is over the top but what is not in this universe where even the therapists who raped and tormented the hero is described creepily as attractive?- “they were patient, attractive..”. Gideon’s words as an adult in Reflected in You, not mine.

then Eva is introduced to us and is established as someone who loves the pollution and bustle of New York as if it is Disneyland, who is looking for a new start without feeling like a “vagina on legs” ( essay on it will come soon, mark my words), wants to make on top of career on her own and be independent and confident.all this is said in page and we have not seen a single action which will establish these traits on our mind. i mean just excusing her living her in upper west side Manhattan in a penthouse through her stepdad’s expense for safety from her past connections from her rapist Nathan barker, her lifestyle on the other hand is nothing but a giant middle finger to her own claims of independence! 

  • she lets her mommy buy her designer closet, her biological dad pay her education, 
  • her make-up and toiletries from Sephora( and even i know they will blow a major blow in an average incomers pocket),
  •  blows away her money on buying expensive flowers and jewelry and club hopping, considering it is her first job and is just two months in till date! 
  • let her mother pamper her in exclusive spas during her “excruciating” , brief break up with Gideon 
  •  goes away to Las Vegas and Ibiza for getaways and bachelorette ( spell check does not recognize bachelorette, WTH!?) party respectively, yes you read right .IBIZA! and then promptly switches to the designer closet and apartment of her super abusive and hot boyfriend!
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does that women buys her own groceries? why even bother with saying this sanctimonious lines of being above monetary attraction?? even Ana cannot be said to be such level of hypocrite ( Eva, Ana match-matchy names. oh lord!). at least she didn’t volunteer to work as a management head on her husband’s company before telling us she was proud to be an assistant manager on her own merits on a flimsy excuse of getting hired by her husband’s rival! J Kenner does this better( in fact she does a lot of things better when it comes to the billionaire meets damsel setting which is being used so much in romance genre) by 

  • making her heroin Nikki Fairchild establish her own business, 
  • paying her own education through scholarship and wearing her own damn clothes when she wants even when she marries her own bajillionaire and what is more? the bajjilionaire Damien Stark is even proud of her, presents her with her first business card ( how cute!) instead of badgering to work for him like a pig honking away.

it would have been infinitely more better if instead, Day made Eva as someone who says she likes money and it’s benefits without the usual spiel of ” money is beneath me and not enough” when she never has the “plot convenience” of donating away her 5 million portfolio she got after settlement from her rapist’s father   , even when she keeps saying she resents that money and has connections to various charities which needs those money. her pain looks heavily superficial when she laments on life being “nothing” when she has her dream job, friends and lifelong monetary security when she breaks up briefly in Reflected in You . her words sound hollow and unreliable.just end it OK!

so any writers who wants to pick this fifty shades setting for writing, please don’t be terrible with money as motivator. women don’t just turn 180 over their principles like that Sylvia day! we don’t fantasize of independence while infantilizing  and coddled and undermined like this! WTH Day???

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Image | Posted on by rantofalifetime

you should not shop anything when you are hungry either because you will end up with more pricey items because you were too distracted to play the bargain game in new market and end up eating 400 calorie kathie roll!!!!!!!!!!!!! *goes to pick up the abandoned jump rope and hops.sigh* 

crossfire series: some ideas for legitimate rant.

Posted on by rantofalifetime

it is really ironic that my avatar is named rantingdinguslady but i have never ranted about any of the shitty twilight-y books i write about once in a while. seriously people? you should have called out on me.

but fear not! Sylvia Day finally released her last book in her crossfire series after milking the twilight or fifty shades series and i am reminded all over again on why Sylvia is just the worst kind of writer there is when it comes to ripping off fan-fiction.

i mean there are grievances for E L James on how she blatantly misconstrues BDSM and then ripped off on her fandom community for her capitalistic gains and burned bridges. even Reynard is guilty of the same thing and using a problematic teacher-student dynamic for a setting on top of it but Sylvia seems determined she won’t ever admit that her books are not inspired by E L James’s series. she throws hilarious shade on James “..e-mail replies are classless” (translation) while using same model of dialogue” this [food] is divine.” and expect us to swallow that crap.

so keeping that in mind i am making a list of all things which is just too problematic in this series as a whole construct but  i won’t delve into the misogyny of it yet.

1. money and how it is used as a cheap-stick in this novel

2. the infamous inflatable ability of the series from original trilogy to pentalogy: on how Brett and Corinne story-line really was cheap suspense  at the end .

3. how the use of psychological therapy is used according to the author’s will: special reference to eva’s view of sex . self-esteem and exes.

4. some additional commentary through my reading of one with you: warning it is gag-worthy and rage inducing to go through.

look forward to my ranting for real! ( let me finish my exam and drag my lazy tush into creative mode again 😛 )

Posted on by rantofalifetime

heckabucky:

man, teenaged girls aren’t allowed to have a genuine interest in anything without being ridiculed for it. if a girl likes ugg boots and starbucks she’s stupid and stereotypical, but if she likes combat boots and obscure coffee houses she’s a hipster wannabe and is trying too hard. if a girl listens to boy bands and other popular artists she’s a dumb follower, if she reads comics or plays video games she’s a poser/fake geek girl, if she likes sex she’s a slut but if she doesn’t like sex she’s a prude, if she wears makeup she’s fake but if she doesn’t wear makeup she’s a slob, if she has low self-esteem she needs to learn to love herself but if she has high self-esteem she’s overconfident and vain, if she’s interested in politics she’s a crazy social justice warrior but if she prefers to stay out of social matters she’s a dumb airhead. girls are literally mocked for every single thing they like or do, no matter what those things are, and i’m really really sick of it.

more on this idea of ridicule and simultaneous fetishismof teenage girls and their bodies is explored in “the purity myth” by veronica roth. that book changed my whole perspective on west and america along with making me aware how desperately we need a new wave and awareness of feminism in pour society .