What I did on my weekend…

What I’m Watching: Xena, Warrior Princess

PETERMBALL Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption , , , , ,

So I’ve been watching the first seasons of Xena for the last couple of days. Largely I blame Tansy Rayner Roberts for this, since I borrowed the DVDs from a friend after reading the Xena Rewatch Notes on her blog. I can recommend going and checking those out, should you want to follow an in-depth discussion of the first season, for although I’m enjoying the show I’m primarily going to note the three things that are really, really bugging me.

Surprisingly, it’s not the casual relationship to history – I’m totally down with the mix-and-match approach to myth and historical reference points. It’s not the dodgy CGI monsters either (although I’m struggling to figure out where the hell the bat-winged, skeletal dryads came from in one of the early Season 2 DVDs). It’s not even Gabrielle, who is irritating for the first half of the season *with a damn purpose*. It’s not even the complete disregard of the laws of physics that occur during the fight choreography.

No, I’m irritated by a couple of very specific things. Basically, they go something like this:

1) Why is Xena a Warrior Princess?

Seriously, this is bugging me. I get that Warrior Princess scans better than any of the more obvious sub-title options, but I can’t quite figure out why she isn’t just a Warrior, a Warlord, or even a Warrior Queen. I mean, princess of what? Where’s the damn the lineage? And if you get to pick your own title, why pick the secondary role rather than selecting a title at the top of the damn hierarchy? I could probably have lived with this if it was just a sub-title for the show, but it keeps coming up in conversation. Secondary characters call Xena a Warrior-Princess a couple of times throughout the season, and at least once she’s used it to reference herself, so it’s obviously a thing. A real thing, in the setting. And I just don’t get it.

2) Fights where people balance on things

I mean, seriously, there are a half-dozen of these over the course of the season. And I could maybe understand it as a motif thing – there’s a certain balancing act going on in Xena’s character – but they rarely play it as such in the same episodes where they actually depict the emotional balancing act. And I suspect I’d be totally put off if they did tie the two together, for it would be twee and obvious, but at this point I don’t trust the show to be doing this kind of thing with subtlety.

3) The Use of Christian Mythology

Not because I feel any particular attachment to Christian myth or ideology – I don’t – but the realities of pitching of a television show to a contemporary audiance mean that it’s very hard to treat the mythology in the same way as the other myths due to the frothing-at-the-mouth-and-complaining factor that’ll inevitably follow. There are still the occasional moments where this is handled well, but by and large things take a downhill slide the moment a character talks about having a new, singular god.

Still at Aussiecon 4

PETERMBALL Madcap Adventures and Distracting Hijinx , , ,

Today’s the last day of Aussiecon 4 and I’ll be kicking around the convention centre for most of the day, soaking up the remaining hours of the geek-nirvana that is the worldcon. I have also hit the part of the con where I’m surviving on about four hours of sleep a night, but that’s a good thing.

Other good things:

– I met Rob Shearman early in the con and he misheard my name. This, in and of itself, isn’t the stuff that squee is made of, but when I later bought a copy of his short story collection and he was doing the signing I was given the opportunity to tell him I was a Peter, not a Paul. Still not squee-worthy? Bare with me, for the next thing that happened was awesome. Rob Shearman glanced at my namebadge and was all “Wait, Peter M Ball? The unicorn porn guy? I really liked Horn” (actual wordage may be slightly different due to the vagaries of memory, but this was close). Rob then drew a picture of a Dalek on the inside cover of his book, and I was filled with nerdy joy.

– I won the Best New Talent category at the Ditmar Awards. I also managed to miss the ceremony, so there were several confusing conversations with people afterwards where they tried to explain what’d happened and I was all like, “wait, what? You’re kidding, right?”

– Bleed is out, and apparently selling well. People actually game to my reading yesterday, some of whom went and bought copies of the book afterwards.

– Met a whole slew of new folks, including the awesome Narelle Harris (who was recruited to my first panel early in the convention), Jennifer Brozek (who fished my story Clockwork, Patchwork, and Ravens out of the slush for Apex), and Will McIntosh(who I got to chat too early in the con, and was such a nice guy that I was really, really pleased when he won a Hugo last night). Caught up with lots of old friends too, and spent part of a dinner conversation convincing Dirk Flinthart to get his act together and make an e-book version of Brotherly Love available (or, at least, take steps to get it reprinted).

More to come when I get home. Or not, as the case may be.

4 Days ’til Worldcon

PETERMBALL Journal ,

And man, doesn’t that feel like an ominous thing to type in the title of the post.

I’m in a vaguely half-asleep state this morning, largely because I started reading Seanan McGuire’s Rosemary and Rue just before going to bed last night and it’s one of those books where the temptation to read just one more chapter is terribly, terribly strong. 

Were I a less lazy blogger there would be a whole post here about yesterday’s adventure to Pulp Fiction, whereupon my plan to buy just one or two books quickly fell apart. Fortunately, I am a lazy blogger today. That’s what Sunday’s a for.

Today there is writing. And write-club. And bugging the inimitable Ben Francisco about co-writing a YA novel, ’cause there are some writerly shenanigans that work better when they’re shared with other people.