Eruditorum Press

The trap at the end of the clickbait

Elizabeth Sandifer

About Elizabeth Sandifer

http://www.eruditorumpress.com

Elizabeth Sandifer created Eruditorum Press. She’s not really sure why she did that, and she apologizes for the inconvenience. She currently writes Last War in Albion, a history of the magical war between Alan Moore and Grant Morrison. She used to write TARDIS Eruditorum, a history of Britain told through the lens of a ropey sci-fi series. She also wrote Neoreaction a Basilisk, writes comics these days, and has ADHD so will probably just randomly write some other shit sooner or later. Support Elizabeth on Patreon.

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A Brief Treatise on the Rules of Thrones 1.07: You Win or You Die

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A Brief Treatise on the Rules of Thrones is brought to you by my backers at Patreon.

State of Play

The choir goes off. The board is laid out thusly:
Direwolves of King’s Landing: Eddard Stark
Stags of King’s Landing: Robert Baratheon, Joffrey Baratheon
The Lion, Jaime Lannister
Lions of King’s Landing: Cersei Lannister
Dragons of Vaes Dothrak: Daenerys Targaryen
Bears of Vaes Dothrak: Jorah Mormont
Mockingbirds of King’s Landing: Petyr Baelish
Direwolves of the Wall: Jon Snow
Kraken of Winterefll: Theon Greyjoy
Dogs of King’s Landing: Sandor Clegane
The Eyrie is deserted. 
The episode is in eleven parts. The first runs five minutes; it is set at the Lannister encampment in the Riverlands. The opening shot is an establishing shot of the camp. 
The second runs eight minutes and is in sections; it is set in King’s Landing.  The first section is three minutes long; the transition is by family, from Jaime and Tywin Lannister to Cersei. The other is four minutes long; the transition is by hard cut, from Cersei leaving the godswood to a street in Flea Bottom. 
The third runs two minutes and is set in Winterfell; the transition is from Ros to Theon. 
The fourth runs two minutes and is set on the Wall; the transition is by dialogue, from Osha talking about the things north of the Wall to Jon sighting the returning horse of a dead ranger.
The fifth runs seven minutes and is set in King’s Landing; the transition is by family and dialogue, from Jon Snow reacting to Benjen’s empty horse to Ned. It features the death of Robert Baratheon, murdered by a pig (and by Cersei Lannister). 
The sixth runs six minutes and is set in Vaes Dothrak; the transition is by dialogue, from Ned and Varys talking about the order to kill Daenerys to Daenerys and the attempt on her life.
The seventh runs seven minutes and is set on the Wall; the transition is by family, from Jorah to Lord Commander Mormont. 
The eighth runs six minutes and is set in King’s Landing; the transition is by family, from Jon Snow to Ned Stark.
The ninth runs two minutes and is set on the Wall; the transition is by family, from Ned Stark to Jon Snow.
The tenth runs four minutes and is set in Vaes Dothrak; the transition is by family, from Jon Snow to Daenerys Targaryen.
The last runs seven minutes and is set in King’s Landing; the transition is by theme, from Daenerys riding off to take the Iron Throne with King Robert’s assassin being dragged behind her horse to Ned Stark being informed of King Robert’s death and the passage of the Iron Throne to King Joffrey. The final shot is of Ned Stark with Littlefinger’s dagger at his throat, as Littlefinger hisses “Mornington Crescent.” 
Analysis
Given that it is the last episode to feature him in the bulk of it, it is fitting that “You Win or You Die” provides Ned Stark with a classical tragedy in miniature, taking him from his position of relative strength at the end of “A Golden Crown” as someone who has figured out the truth of Jon Arryn’s death and who literally need only succeed in making it into a room with Robert Baratheon and pointing out that Joffrey isn’t his son before he’ll have basically won to being completely and utterly defeated.
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Saturday Waffling (March 21st, 2015)

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Mostly announcements today. First of all, I’ve revamped the options on the Patreon a bit, changing around some thresholds for things. Comics reviews are now contingent on the Patreon staying over $200 a week, which we’re comfortably past at the moment. The continuation of the episode commentary podcasts past the initial eleven will be at $300, which we’re near. The Mind Robber will be going up next week sometime, all five episodes at once, on either Tuesday or Thursday depending on when I do the editing. And an extra essay a week is still at $400, which we’re rather a ways from, but which I’d obviously love to reach. That extra essay will be something of a floater, allowing for more idiosyncratic and one-off projects, and for more variety, either in two projects running simultaneously, or in getting through things like A Brief Treatise on the Rules of Thrones faster.

I’ve also added a $5 a week reward tier, whereby backers at that level will get a bunch of extra perks, including free print copies of new books (free ebooks are available at $2 a week), voting for future podcast commentaries, participation in a monthly Q&A, plus joining a rotating sponsorship of Saturday Wafflings, with a link to a site of your choice. You can, as always, back here.

Which brings us to Andrew Morton, sponsor of this week’s Saturday Waffling. He’s chosen the Verity podcast, which is something I’ve, personally, been meaning to check out, as I’ve heard fantastic things about it. I remember meeting one of the women involved at the DePaul University thing a few years ago, and she seemed brilliant and cool, and I just don’t ever have time to listen to podcasts. But the Verity podcast is an all-female Doctor Who podcast that has gotten rave reviews – I know Paul Cornell is a huge fan. So, yes, check them out. Do not make the mistakes I make. And thank you Andrew.

Also, I want to thank all of the backers. The Patreon has been a major help over the last few months, and has made the difference between a slowly dwindling savings account and one that’s mostly growing faster than it contracts. Notably, when Jill’s laptop went to the Great Apple Store in the Sky the other month, this was mostly an inconvenience and not a semi-major crisis. That was due almost entirely to the Patreon. So thank you, everyone. As I’ve said many times, but not nearly enough, I’m incredibly blessed to have this job.

Also, happy spring. (Or autumn, for the southern hemisphere.) What are people excited about over the next three months?…

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Their Almost Sexual Hatred (The Last War in Albion Part 88: The Softly Hissed Tones of a Mafia Hitman, The Liberators)

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This is the sixteenth of sixteen (it grew) parts of The Last War in Albion Chapter Nine, focusing on Alan Moore’s work on V for Vendetta for Warrior (in effect, Books One and Two of the DC Comics collection). An omnibus of all fifteen parts can be purchased at Smashwords. If you purchased serialization via the Kickstarter, check your Kickstarter messages for a free download code.

The stories discussed in this chapter are currently available in a collected edition, along with the eventual completion of the story. UK-based readers can buy it here.

Previously in The Last War in Albion: As Grant Morrison began turning back towards comics in 1984, he started with an unsolicited Kid Marvelman story for Warrior, entitled “October Incident: 1966.” 

“They were friends once, these creatures of near unimaginable power. Now, horns locked, they fight to the death in the pounding rain. There is passion here, but not human passion. There is fierce and desperate emotion, but not an emotion that we would recognize. They are titans, and we will never understand the alien inferno that blazes in the furnace of their souls. We will never grasp their hopes, their despair. Never comprehend the blistering rage that informs each devastating blow. We will never know the destiny that howls in their hearts, never know their pain, their love, their almost sexual hatred. We are only human, and perhaps we will be the less for that.” – Alan Moore, Marvelman

Morrison is blunt about what happened: “Alan Moore had it spiked. He said it was never to be published,” an event Morrison credits for the “slight antagonism” that exists between the two creators. Morrison goes on to claim that Skinn, following his falling out with Moore, “asked me to continue Marvelman,” an opportunity he was tremendously excited by, but that Morrison, when he wrote to Moore asking for his blessing, received back “this really weird letter” beginning “I don’t want this to sound like the softly hissed tones of a Mafia hitman, but back off” and threatening Morrison’s future career if he carried on.
This account of events was flatly denied by Moore three years later in an interview with Lance Parkin for his biography of Moore, saying that it “has no bearing upon reality at all” and defying anyone to produce such a letter. Moore recalled Morrison’s script, saying that “Dez had rather sprung it on me out of the blue, and it didn’t fit in with the rather elaborate storyline that I was creating,” and explaining that he was “almost 100 per cent certain that I never wrote any kind of letter to Grant Morrison, let alone a threatening one,” with Skinn separately clarifying to Parkin that for his part, “I never saw or asked to see the letter Grant got,” but that he “enthusiastically sent Grant’s wonderful little cameo story up to Alan Moore, ill-aware of his growing possessive paranoia.” It is worth noting, however, that Moore and Skinn are, in these interviews, conflating what Morrison depicts as two separate events – Moore’s spiking of Morrison’s spec script, and the separate instance of Morrison being offered the opportunity to take over the main Marvelman strip.
…

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Comics Reviews (March 18th, 2015)

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Comics reviews are a weekly feature provided because my Patreon provides over $200 for every week of blog content. 

From worst to best of what I bought, which wasn’t much this week.

All-New X-Men #39 and Guardians Team-Up #3

Two parts of the largely unwanted Black Vortex crossover this week, and it plods along with the relentless lack of speed that characterizes multi-title crossovers. We’ve at least made it to the point where different books follow different characters, which is something. Curious to see how this works when it buggers off to some distinctly more minor titles come April, losing its anchoring in Guardians of the Galaxy and All-New X-Men. But it’s a fairly intellectual curiosity – this is not particularly interesting, and I’m glad the X-books are now freed up to go work towards the end of Bendis’s run.

Batgirl Endgame

A wordless one-shot that ties Batgirl into some Batman event I don’t entirely understand, but that appears to involve some sort of Joker toxin virus. It’s a slender thing, but worth highlighting this week in particular for an illustration of why spiking that Joker variant cover for Batgirl #41 mattered by demonstrating the virtues of letting Barbara Gordon be resolutely undefined by The Killing Joke, which remains the worst thing Alan Moore has ever written.

Loki: Agent of Asgard #12

One of those issues that sets up interesting things more than it does them – for someone with a better knack for remembering plot lines from recent comics, I suspect the rush of references here is very satisfying and fits together brilliantly. For me, who can’t handle a comic without a recap page, it’s less engaging, although I’m still really interested in where Ewing is going with Loki in the general case.

Captain America and the Mighty Avengers #6

Ultimately, this just repeats the revelation from last month, although now with new details of exactly how it is that Nextwave is being considered in-continuity, where it had previously apparently not been. (That’s news to me, but.) Although the best line is clearly “The Beyonder? Oh god, I should have never taught that guy to poop.” Because remember, kids, while there’s apparently doubt that Nextwave: Agents of HATE, one of the greatest superhero series of the past decade, is in continuity, there’s no doubt at all that Secret Wars II is. Ah, Marvel. I bet next issue will have LOTS MORE PUNCHING.

Batgirl #40

Batgirl defeats the angst-ridden version of herself defined by her disability and victimization so that Gotham City can rock the fuck out. God, I love this New Pop aesthetic of comics.

The Unbeatable Squirrel-Girl #3

I laughed multiple times over the course of this issue, which is really all you can ask for from a comic called The Unbeatable Squirrel-Girl. Much like Batgirl, this is firmly in the New Pop style (see also Spider-Gwen, The Wicked and the Divine, and Sex Criminals), which is worth defining more rigorously, as it’s by miles the most exciting thing going on in comics right now.…

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Pop Between Realities, Home in Time for Tea: Cucumber, Banana, Tofu

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This is a bonus post, the topic of which was selected by my backers on Patreon. Voting is currently going on for next month’s bonus post, with candidates including Orphan Black and China Mieville. Also Deadwood. Please, if you enjoy my blog and my work, consider chipping in a buck a week or so. Thanks.

Let’s start with the title – mine, in this case, although Davies’s is magnificent in its own right. I say this mostly as disclaimer – there’s an awful lot to say about these three shows. They are very, very good. They deserve reams of analysis, and much of that really ought to come from within queer communities. They’ve gotten some, but not nearly enough. Nevertheless, I am me, and not the vast and polyvocal assemblage of queer communities, and I’m best known for writing a blog about Doctor Who, so the main angle here is going to be an auteur-centric take on the work of Russell T Davies. Much is left unsaid. Above anything else, I recommend watching them – if you’re in the UK, I assume they exist via some sort of catch-up or video on demand service. If you’re in the US, it looks like Logo TV is running them starting on April 13th, and hopefully they’ll make iTunes and Amazon appearances at the same time.

Seriously, watch them, because they are the best work of Russell T Davies’s career, and whatever we might say about the slow march towards an inevitable and entirely predictable end that was the tail end of Russell T Davies’s Doctor Who, Davies remains one of the best television writers in the history of the medium, so a phrase like “the best work of Russell T Davies’s career” carries some fucking weight.

So, to recap, after Miracle Day landed with the wet slap of a piece of tofu, Davies began developing a series for Showtime to be called Cucumber. This was a show he’d been talking about making since the latter days of his time on Doctor Who – a show about middle-aged gay men. Unfortunately production on this got delayed when his partner was diagnosed with cancer and the pair moved back to the UK, beginning a several year period of Davies basically not working save for Wizards vs Aliens and an episode of Old Jack’s Boat that I bet you haven’t seen either. Until, eventually, Cucumber re-emerged, now at Channel 4, and with a pair of spin-off shows in the form of Banana and Tofu.

The names, as Davies cheerily explained way back when he was making it in the US, and explains again in the opening scene of Cucumber, come from a study he read that classified the male erection into categories based on produce, with tofu being the softest and cucumber being the hardest. Indeed, much of the show is unchanged from the early teases, with the first episode retaining much of the description Davies gave Ben Cook back in The Writer’s Tale when talking about what he wanted to do next.…

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A Brief Treatise on the Rules of Thrones 1.06: A Golden Crown

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A Brief Treatise on the Rules of Thrones is supported by my Patreon. Please consider backing.

State of Play
The choir goes off. The board is laid out thusly.
Direwolves of King’s Landing: Eddard Stark, Sansa Stark, Arya Stark
Stags of King’s Landing: King Robert Baratheon, Joffrey Baratheon
Direwolves of the Eyrie: Catelyn Stark
Lions of King’s Landing: Cersei Lannister
Dragons of Vaes Dothrak: Daenerys Targaryen, Viserys Targaryen
Bears of Vaes Dothrak: Jorah Mormont
Mockingbirds of King’s Landing: Petyr Baelish
Starks of Winterfell: Robb Stark, Bran Stark
Kraken of Winterfell: Theon Greyjoy
And the Lion of the Eyrie, Tyrion Lannister
The Wall is unmanned.
The episode is in thirteen parts. The first is four minutes long and is set in King’s Landing. The first shot is of Ned Stark in bed recovering from his injuries.
The second is two minutes long and is set in Vaes Dothrak. The transition is by dialogue, from Ned and Robert talking about Daenerys to Daenerys. 
The third is five minutes long and is set in Winterfell. The transition is by family, from Daenerys Targaryen to Brynden Rivers. It features the death of several wildlings in a skirmish with Robb and Theon. 
The fourth is one minute long and is set in the Eyrie. The transition is by image, from Osha being taken captive to Tyrion in a skycell. 
The fifth is two minutes long and is set in King’s Landing. The transition is by image, from the closed door of Tyrion’s cell to Syrio closing the door. 
The sixth is six minutes long and is set in Vaes Dothrak. The transition is by hard cut, to Arya beginning dancing lessons with Syrio having heard his views on the Many-Faced God to Daenerys eating a horse’s heart. 
The seventh is eight minutes long and is set in the Eyrie. The transition is by hard cut, from Jorah to an establishing shot of the skycell. At the episode’s halfway point, Tyrion is demanding a proper trial. 
The eighth is six minutes long and is in two sections; it set in King’s Landing. The first is section is two minutes long. The transition is by hard cut, from Bronn shrugging to a shot of the forest and Robert’s hunting party. The other section is four minutes long; the transition is by theme, from Robert to the Iron Throne. 
The ninth is four minutes long and is set in the Eyrie. The transition is by dialogue, from Ned Stark talking about the Lannisters to Tyrion. It features the death of Ser Vardis Egan, killed in battle by Bronn.
The tenth is three minutes long and is set in King’s Landing. The transition is by hard cut, from Tyrion walking free to Sansa and Septa Mordane. 
The eleventh is one minute long and is set in Winterfell. The transition is by theme, from Sansa kissing Joffrey as part of his abuse and manipulation of her to Theon confronting Roz as she goes to King’s Landing. 
The twelfth is two minutes long and is set in King’s Landing.
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And So It Begins (The Last War in Albion Part 87: October Incident: 1966)

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This is the fifteenth of sixteen (it grew) parts of The Last War in Albion Chapter Nine, focusing on Alan Moore’s work on V for Vendetta for Warrior (in effect, Books One and Two of the DC Comics collection). An omnibus of all fifteen parts can be purchased at Smashwords. If you purchased serialization via the Kickstarter, check your Kickstarter messages for a free download code.

The stories discussed in this chapter are currently available in a collected edition, along with the eventual completion of the story. UK-based readers can buy it here.

Previously in The Last War in Albion: Eventually, the wheels came off at Warrior amidst a number of ego clashes, many involving Moore, who fell out with both Dez Skinn and his Marvelman artist and longtime collaborator Alan Davis. 

“There is a moment of crystalline silence. The storm holds its breath. And so it begins…” – Alan Moore, Marvelman

the period in question was one where Moore was bringing a number of projects to a close. He ended his Captain Britain work in June, done his last D.R. & Quinch in May, and then pulled Marvelman in August. Taken in the context of his ceasing work on Future Shocks for 2000 AD in the wake of the Swamp Thing job and a different picture of why he was dropping projects starts to emerge – especially given that this is around when DC would have started offering him additional work. Certainly that’s Alan Davis’s contention when he states bluntly, “Alan clearly quit both Captain Britain and Marvelman at virtually the same time but claims external, unconnected reasons for both. Isn’t it simpler to accept that with Swamp Thing and new offers from DC – which were far better paid – the volume of work increased to a point where choices had to be made. I know I, amongst many other creators, was hoping for a call from DC.” But this “pure self-interest” theory of Moore’s actions still doesn’t explain why he persisted with V for Vendetta in Warrior, which would have been just as low-paying. Some of it, surely, is that Lloyd was keen for it to continue, noting that “I was very happy to keep doing it because Dez was still paying me money,” and that, more importantly, he was passionate about the work, saying that “nothing was more important to us… it was ours. And we could do what we liked with it.” And there was, to be sure, a practical consideration: the project had a planned ending that, one reached, would allow it to find new life as a stand-alone volume. Whatever Warrior’s flaws, it was at least adequate to the task of funding the work’s completion, and if Lloyd was happy with its payment, well, he was the one who most needed the money. V for Vendetta was still his main job, as opposed to a passion project to be done on days he didn’t have any Swamp Thing work to do.
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Comics Reviews (March 11, 2015)

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From worst to best of what I bought this week. Rather a drab week on the whole, although I really did love my top two a lot.

The Amazing Spider-Man #16

A split story, with a fourteen page lead feature and a six page backup. The result was unsatisfying to me – nothing felt like it had quite enough room to be interesting, and the result falls firmly into a trap plaguing a couple Marvel books right now, namely “is it Secret Wars yet?”

Miles Morales: The Ultimate Spider-Man #11

The shock final page reveal is the appearance of the character on the cover.

Thor #6

I gather that, among misogynistic assholes, this comic has become the preferred object of hatred for its allegedly pointless diversity. This is silly. The idea of a female Thor remains a good one. The idea of Rosalind Solomon as Thor, which is the main one they’re teasing, is an absolutely great one. The decision to make this a mystery and not just do a “Rosalind Solomon is Thor” book, on the other hand, is continuing to be badly underwhelming. I want to defend this comic, given the sheer toxicity of its attackers, but… it’s just not working, story wise.

Captain Marvel #13

More basically competent space adventure. I should probably drop this.

Star Wars #3

My basic lack-of-caring about Star Wars kind of flared up here, and I was definitely reminded that this is a book I’m only reading because Kieron Gillen is writing its counterpart. Nevertheless, I suspect this is the best Star Wars comic in recent memory, just based on how good it seems to be at being Star Wars. It’s just that this doesn’t much recommend it to me.

New Avengers #31

This was the first comic I opened this week, which means I have to grudgingly admit that I’m excited for Secret Wars. That said, it’s tough to think of a revelation that could have been less promising than “Rabum Alal is Doctor Doom,” simply because of how conservative an answer it is. Ah well. Still excited, I think.

Silver Surfer #10

Capable and fun, but I have to admit, this feels in hindsight like a box ticking story. Of course a run on Silver Surfer had to do Galactus eventually, and while this was a fine take on that, it was also notably less inventive than the book can be. I was mildly surprised to find out there was going to be an issue eleven, although I’ll admit, it sounds like a very exciting one.

Southern Cross #1

Picked up on a whim. I’m not quite as sold on Becky Cloonan as a writer as I am as an artist (where she’s one of my favorites), but this is a capable sci-fi mystery story, and I’m glad I checked it out. We’ll see if I notice and remember to grab the second issue, but if I see it, I’ll pick it up. So, not quite committing to this as one to rave about and follow, but it’s worth having a glance at if “sci-fi mystery” is up your alley.…

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A Brief Treatise on the Rules of Thrones 1.05: The Wolf and the Lion

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A Brief Treatise on the Rules of Thrones is funded by my backers on Patreon. I apologize for the late post this week.


State of Play

The choir goes off. The board is laid out thusly:
Direwolves of King’s Landing: Eddard Stark, Sansa Stark, Arya Stark, 
Stags of King’s Landing: Robert Baratheon, Joffrey Baratheon
Lions of King’s Landing: Jaime Lannister, Cersei Lannister
Direwolves of the Eyrie: Catelyn Stark, 
Mockingbirds of King’s Landing: Petyr Baelish
Kraken of Winterfell: Theon Greyjoy
Direwolves of Winterfell: Bran Stark
Dogs of Kings Landing: Sandor Clegane
And the Lion of the Eyrie, Tyrion Lannister
Vaes Dothrak lies abandoned. The Wall is unmanned. 
The episode is in eight parts. The first runs eight minutes and is set in King’s Landing; the opening shot is an establishing shot of the city over a bridge, which Ned Stark is walking across. 
The second runs three minutes and is set on the road to the Eyrie; the transition is by hard cut, from Ser Loras sharing his victory with the Hound to one of Lady Stark’s men gathering water, and by family, the previous scene having featured Sansa. It features numerous deaths in a small battle, including a hill tribesman killed by Tyrion, who smashes his head with a shield repeatedly.
The third runs four minutes and is set in Winterfell; the transition is by family and into dialogue, from Catelyn to Bran, who brings her up in conversation. 
The fourth runs fifteen minutes long and in three sections;  it is set in King’s Landing. The first section is mere seconds long; the transition is by hard cut, from Theon and Ros to a cat being chased by Arya. The second is eleven minutes long; the transition is by family, from Arya to Ned. The last is four minutes long; the transition is by hard cut, from Varys addressing Littlefinger to Arya exiting the catacombs. At the episode’s halfway point, Arya is trying to warn her father about what she overheard in the dungeons just before Yorren arrives to warn him of what Catelyn has done. 
The fifth part run one minute and is set in the Eyrie; the transition is by family and dialogue, from Ned Stark learning that Catelyn has taken Tyrion to Catelyn and Tyrion.
The sixth runs five minutes and is set in King’s Landing; the transition is by family, from Catelyn to Ned.
The seventh runs three minutes and is set in the Eyrie; the transition is by family, from Ned and Littlefinger to Catelyn and Lyssa Arryn.

The eighth run fifteen minutes and is in three sections; it is set in King’s Landing. The first section is four minutes long; the transition is by hard cut, from Tyrion shivering in his skycell to Renly and Loras. The second is six minutes long; the transition is by family, from Renly to Robert. The third is five minutes long; the transition is by family, from Robert to one of his bastards. It features the death of Jory, stabbed in the eye by Jaime Lannister.
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