Salon: Watching PBS's "Les Misérables" As Notre Dame Burned: A Lesson In Processing Spectacular Loss

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Let’s take a moment to appreciate David Benioff and Dan Wiess. I may not like everything about how Game of Thrones ended...but at least they finished something and completed the task they set out to do. 

Errr Jonsa?

Josh Radnor or Richard Armitage :)

You are pure evil!! I mean  there’s Josh Radnor looking hot and brooding in a cravat.

And then there’s Richard Armitage, who also looks smoking in a cravat…

So don’t get me wrong, I love me some Josh Radnor as Jed Foster, but… I’m going to have to go with Richard Armitage, because I have been attracted to him in everything I have ever seen him in. I mean  ….

Speaking of which, I should really watch Hannibal, obviously for plot reasons and not for the above picture….

Everyone watching Sanditon: Nothing can replace Charlotte and Sidney!

Me: Will Tom Parker’s plans for Sanditon succeed? Will Georgiana meet more fortune hunters and turn them down with a wicked burn?! Oh and I’m sure Charlotte will turn out fine. She’s a lovely woman who doesn’t need a man to complete her, especially one that marries women for money and changes his mind at the drop of a hat. But really, WHAT ABOUT THE REGATA! I must learn about the Parkers’ latest plans for our Sanditon! 

Bring the tea and cucumber sandwiches cut ever so thin

Sanditon Season 2

Some favourite staging moments in productions of Shakespeare plays:

Clarence actually getting drowned in a barrel of wine on stage in Richard III; it was a small barrel, they stuck his head into it as he struggled, pulled him out for an instant as he gasped for air and screamed, his head was wet and sopping, his face all red

Macbeth clutching his empty hands to hold an imaginary child, casting a clawed shadow on the wall

Ophelia ripping out hanks of her hair to give to people during her ‘flowers’ scene (obviously fake hair in real life)

Benedict in Much Ado About Nothing hiding from Claudio, Leonato and Don Pedro, taking a swig from a can of beer that happened to be full of cigarette butts and spit-taking it all over Don Pedro and Leonato

who then awkwardly pretend to check if it’s raining

Angelo in Measure for Measure taking off a bloody cilice belt from around his thigh while saying ‘Blood, thou art blood’ 

Also a really good bit where Angelo shows up in a two way mirror later on when the Duke’s speaking to himself and cursing him; the Duke turns to point at the mirror and there’s Angelo, in the chain of office, pointing back, accusing the Duke as much as the Duke does to him

The moment in Julius Caesar where Brutus asks his servant Strato - who’s been sitting with his back to the audience and wearing a hat with a wide brim - to help him commit suicide; Strato stands while taking off his hat to reveal that he’s played by Caesar’s actor

(a collective gasp went around the theatre; really lent a whole new meaning to ‘Caesar, now be still. I killed not thee with half so good a will’)

After a frantic chase scene in The Comedy of Errors which ends with all the cast collapsed across the stage in exhaustion and the scenery itself falling to bits…a pair of underpants falls from the ceiling, and Dromio of Ephesus (who’d tried in vain to retrieve them at the start of the play) crawls over several other characters, seizes them and screams in triumph 

When it turns out that spending 8 seasons sitting in a chair was just foreshadowing for a lifetime of sitting in another chair.

Mary Queen of Scots Documents.

In February 2013 I read that the John Gray Centre in Haddington had found documents relating to Mary Queen of Scots, and you could go see them. I arrived at there a few days later and was disappointed to see no sign of them, so I enquired and was directed to a lady who said, yes they had them but were not on open display……but she could go bring them to me and let me see them!!!!

Wow there I was minutes later with the letter spread out before me and me, with a pair of white gloves, was allowed to actually handle these historic items that Mary had approved almost 450 years before! 

The document dates from March 1566, when Mary had just returned to Edinburgh after fleeing to Dunbar castle and has witnessed the murder of her secretary David Rizzio just two weeks previously. It is a grant of church land to the Burgh of Haddington. While this document was not signed by Mary it is appended with an almost perfect example of her great seal. 

Although in Latin and therefore unreadable to most it is a visually beautiful item with fine handwriting and of course the wax seal, I was surprised how large the seal was but the lady in the archives explained it was only personal seas that were smaller, usually on a stamp or as I imagined a ring. This would have been written by a clerk for the queen and is in near perfect condition, the white things you see on the pictures are lead weights to hold the document open as it has been fold for most of its 447 years!

The other document is more fragile and has been enclosed in a plastic case to protect it. This is a letter signed by Queen Mary and King Henry, aka Lord Darnley. The document is asking the burgesses of Haddington to remain at home from the various raids that were happening at the time. I find it amazing that these pieces of history are not just there to be viewed(on request) but that you can get up close and personal with them.

The John Gray Centre is East Lothian’s archives, a museum and local history services, it is free to visit and it was free for me to ask to see things held in the archive, the only thing you are charged for is if you want to take some pics, the fee then was a one off £5.

Or has the audience misinterpreted scenes, viewing them with shipper-goggles, when the writers wanted the audience to see something else?

As fans, we need to draw a line between what is actually depicted on screen and what we WANT to have happen on screen. 

We also need to learn to appreciate books/shows/movies for the stories the writers are actually telling and not the stories we WANT them to tell. 

we could really discuss why showrunners are so obsessed with pissing off fans because it is honestly fascinating

I finished the first book in the series. I came here to see if anyone else liked the first book like I did. 

Whoah! 

Maybe I should ease on back out the door I came in...

Shipping wars get ugly fast. 

I still enjoyed the book though. 

Bran being king makes no sense in the show and it still makes no sense in the book universe. I have no clue how in the hell GRRM plans on getting Bran there. 

Will the books really end the same as the show?

I found it difficult to believe this, there are more charcaters in the books and the way they get to the ending will be different in the books, but people has said that the ending will be essentially the same as in the show, and I can’t believe this. 

The reason is because the show’s ending seems to have been planted early in the show. It is said that George told D&D the ending about 6 years ago, like around season three of the show? I think. But there are things that happen in the show before that that did not happen in the books, and that were foreshadowing of the show’s ending. 

First, I refuse to believe the White Walkers are going to be so insignificant in the books, that just can’t be. That dialogue between Arya and Melisandre in the show, which they  used  as a foreshadowing for Arya killing the Night King, Im sure that scene is not in the books so there the show was already planning to deviate from the books ending. 

Then, Dany’s visions in The House of the Undying are so much different in the books. In the show they foreshadowed her burning of Kings Landing and her death, but none of that is in the books.

I can think of a few more examples like the Valonqar theory that didn’t make it to the show. 

Idk Im still pissed about the show’ s ending, I want to discuss this, what do you think?