Frak!

Sorry there has not been new content posted since Sunday. My evenings are getting more and more full, so I'm going to try to work ahead in some cases, OR just make the content I do post up much better.

For what I have done recently, I just posted my own little report of the tournament for Warhams that I took second place in this past weekend, so if anyone's interested in that, here's the link

www.ritesofbattle.blogspot.com

I wish I had pictures to show my movements and deployment, and generally I think I did blocking and advancing decently. I'll see if the TO has any pictures.

Expect a decent write up on Shienar this Friday evening. Tomorrow is full, and Friday I have a meeting at 5 p.m., and won't get done til maybe 7 or so.

Hopefully I'll have the WoT RPG books in the next week!

As an aside, if anyone wants me to address a philosophy question, or even just give an opinion on something, shoot me an email at dominobi@gmail.com

Ya ta! Ishamael

Sunday Updates

Yesterday was my first real reintroduction into 40k after my summer hiatus, and gradual decline in desire to play. A more full write up will appear on Rites of Battle, both from the TO, and from myself. I took second place with my Space Marines, and was only 5 points behind the person that won. What was most interesting is that an Ork player took first place, and I cannot help but think that it was due to his generalship more than anything.

Last time I wrote, I was going on about how the correlation between the White Tower and its ease of access through waterways and whatnot keep its influence constant. What I wonder after this is this: does the fact that the Aes Sedai have so much power directly affect gender roles? I'm going to sit for a while on this one, because you have places like Ebou Dar, which is out of the way for Aes Sedai, yet women take command, but the places I would like to read about, Arad Domon and Falme, are further in the story for any decent analysis to be done, and Falme's already been contaminated by the Seanchan invasion.

BUT, just to have something to assert and motivate me, I am going to say that generally in Randland there is an overall equality between the genders, whether it be through the One Power, or the fact that Goodwives in the Two Rivers have complete control over the house, while the men spend their days farming and hunting. For other places, the ones that are already invaded or torn apart by Dragonsworn, I will have to look outside the normal series to find information on.

Oh, and I'm hoping to get ahold of the 3.5 D&D rendition of the Wheel of Time RPG. Honestly, it looks pretty damn good with how it approaches characters, roleplaying, the world, and the One Power.

I think I'll talk about Shienar soon. At least I can come up with material for that crazy place. :D

Quad-autocannon Dreadnoughts are awesome! Ishamael

Divisions of the Land

The significance of the Tower since the Breaking lies mainly in its services to Randland. Rulers give tribute, the amount of which seems to be relatively staggering, considering the stipend Aes Sedai are given to live off of per year, along with the fact that there are about a thousand in the Tower, along with all the servants, guards, and general upkeeping of the Tower. I think the amount was something like a thousand gold crowns per Aes Sedai.

So, men that can channel can appear just about anywhere, and tribute to the Tower seems to afford rulers a couple things: Reds will come to gentle false Dragons and channeling men, or rulers are entitled to have an Aes Sedai advisor available, and even get the services of a Gray when a treaty must be brokered between nations. The Tower as a whole also seems to be more than willing to browbeat nations into complying with the Tower's wishes. This is evidenced by how pissed Gareth Bryne is that Siuan told him to quit whatever border dispute was going on, forcing him to kneel in submission. Latently, as evidenced by how Aes Sedai determine rank in a combat situation, the White Tower is still, on some level, a military order, and their attitudes towards the world and eachother reflect that.

Next on the gender question is related to geography.

So, how do the nations of the western lands act towards Aes Sedai and channeling?

Considering the immensity of the Misty Mountains, the fact that Amadicia is controlled by the Whitecloaks, and how Far Madding is special in its own way, the amount of respect given to the Aes Sedai is directly dependent on the landscape, since that generally dictates where Aes Sedai can go easily and influence events.

For example, in Shienar early in The Great Hunt, the Amyrlin and everyone from the Tower are afforded every courtesy. Far to the west, in the Two Rivers, Aes Sedai are given the status and respect worthy of women who are in the Women's Circle. At least partially, given that half like Moiraine in The Eye of the World, and the other half look at her with suspicion. To the south you have the unique Power-negating guardian of Far Madding, where Aes Sedai don't want to go, and Tear, where channeling is outlawed.

Further from the Tower correlates with less authority, although there seems to be a minimum amount afforded Aes Sedai.

This portion is important because the role and status of women, I will assert, is directly related to how easily an Aes Sedai can travel to a certain place. Shienar, relatively easy, The Two Rivers, not so much, but hardly impossible.

Alright, it's time to hop off here to get some business done, more to come!

My Madness rating is 20, Ishamael

The Age of Legends

I realized earlier that I should get ahold of the Wheel of Time encyclopedia for some more research material concerning gender, but here I am going to give a brief overview of the world as it was before the Breaking.

So, we are told that in the Age of Legends, strength in the One Power between the genders was balanced overall. Women are better generally with Water and Air, while men are better with Fire and Earth; Spirit is equal between the genders. Yes, this is material we all know, but it needs to be stated for framing my approach. So, the best things done in the Age of Legends required men and women to work together, but everything goes tits-up when Lanfear makes the bore to the Dark One.

Then we have the War of the Power, then Lews Therin tries to get women to help him go seal the bore, but for some reason they opted out of the best chance they had to seal the Dark One's evil ass up. So, Lews and the Hundred Companions, all men, fight their way to the bore, make the seven cuendillar seals, then the Dark One taints saidin. All the men go mad, the Breaking begins, and we end with the first scene in The Eye of the World.

What follows are three thousand years of cultural development and change, in which the only real constant is the White Tower and the taint on saidin. Symbolically the Aes Sedai change, going from the quasi-yin-yang to the Flame of Tar Valon, as well as the Dragon's Fang. Three thousand years of Aes Sedai hunting men, or even rumors of men, that can channel. As it turns out, even though Lews Therin and the Companions essentially sacrificed themselves in order to keep the Dark One at bay for any period of time, wilder men are just sought out, and executed. Oh, I'm sorry, "gentled." They cut him off from magic, and he loses the will to live. Fear of men that can channel becomes so ingrained in the culture, even though the Aes Sedai know the Prophecies, that even when Rand does use the Eye to touch pure saidin, the Aes Sedai that know what he is still feel that tug that he should be gentled.

So, I think here I will make my first assertion: the truth that men cannot touch the Source without being tainted, while Aes Sedai can still channel it, lessens the status of men in the various cultures of Randland. Now, I think it would be better to consider the issue of gender-status macroscopically, but in what comes next I will go over the various countries, their laws, if any, they have concerning channeling, and how men and women interact in these cultures.

I'm going slightly mad, Ishamael

Roleplaying Madness update

Y'know, I really don't think that a good adaptation of channeling from The Wheel of Time can occur within 4th edition D&D. This is the ONE time I have ever seen spells per day work out in any context, especially considering that D&D doesn't even explain how magic works!

I have taken a look at the WoT RPG that came out in 2001, and it seems surprisingly well-designed, considering the detail on the One Power required. I must acquire this and the Prophecies of the Dragon expansion to play some games.

This is unsatisfactory as an update, so I think what I'll do to generate WoT content is to give an update on where I am in the series, and some things I may notice.

I think I may even begin my gender analysis.

Workin on my Latin, Ishamael

Roleplaying Madness

This evening I had a thought occur that will take some work to alter the current framework in D&D's fourth edition to bring about:

Adapting it to coincide with The Wheel of Time campaign setting. Mainly this will deal with how to approach channeling with the advent of at-will, encounter, and daily powers, but I think I will do something like what the Psion class has with its power points.

Simply put, divide the characters into those that have magic, and those that don't. From there, consider how those classes work, and name them to correspond with maybe a particular Ajah, or even an Asha'man. Heck, off the top of my head, the Avenger or Paladin classes can easily be altered to be considered Warders.

Honestly, I'm quite excited for this, and I think my ideas about this will be my first real project to show here about The Wheel of Time.

I just started Lord of Chaos today, and I think this semester I will begin writing my thoughts on gender and Power.

Kiss me, I'm ta'veren, Ishamael

Conan Part 2

Before I begin again on this movie, let me state that one of the trailers for this movie is easily the most unnecessary, sickening remake that does not deserve to exist.

They are remaking John Carpenter's The Thing. Instead of a great suspense film, it looks to be more like a typical monster movie, and the Thing itself seems to have its own regular form...which means the creators did NOT see the original fucking movie. I have never had one of those moments in the theater before when I was literally saying, audibly, "no...no...they didn't!" I am fearful of this trend.

Back to slaying! So, big bad villain man is apparently looking for someone that has "pure blood," and his freakish daughter, aside from being able to sense bits of that mask, can somehow taste the purity of another woman's blood by pricking them with her goofy, Freddy-esque metal nails. So, they raid some place called the Shaipur Monastery, where apparently the "peaceful monks" learn how to defend themselves Shaolin style. Bring tha' Ruckus, I guess. Suffice to say, they get their asses kicked while Conan comes searching for the big bad. Yet, the monks somehow secure a friggen wagon with the mask's emblem on it for some random chick, and cart her away in the middle of the battle. Conan, seeing that emblem, immediately uses his first daily use of Barbaric Rage to get on top of the vehicle, only to find some chick in there. Then some evil dudes come and kill the monks that were supposed to protect her, they all die, and then Conan gets a pretty cool horseback scene and kills every one of them.

Except where he knocks out the commander to get information out of him. The woman, in true Conan fashion, is relatively helpless. And annoying. BUT, at least she has spunk, and won't take shit from the barbarian in the ruins. Mind you, during the last fight scene of the movie, the little bitch will not shut up, and nearly kills the scene entirely. When tattoo-face wakes up, he tells Conan that the woman is worth a ton of money, and he will show Conan where the caravan will be so he can turn her in. Conan, showing his pension for creativity, decides to wad the bad guy's face with cloth, after writing a message concerning where to meet him, and promptly launches the bad guy into the weird land-boat thing while strapped to a chair.

Entertaining.

So, apparently there's some abandoned city where Conan wants to meet the big bad, and when he arrives, Conan tells him he wants no money, just his head. He brought along his weird daughter- there's some implication of incest in the film- and she promptly summons what I can only call sand elementals in the shape of humans to fight Conan. One thing great about this scene is how it shows, once again, that Conan is quite a climber, and has the agility to fight unnatural things. Eventually he kills them all, and fights the big bad. The choreography is fine, but the main villain's weapon is rather strange. It's one of those katana-like swords with two blades side by side so you can't stitch it up, but in the hilt is a screw or something to either whip one end around, or separate them. Seems like a lot of effort when the man could just use two swords...and he does. Anyway, his daughter poisons Conan, and he promptly gets high as hell, and has to retreat with the girl in tow, by jumping off a cliff where his friends are waiting for him.

After they're on the ship, they all go to sleep, and the ship gets raided by a bunch of henchmen. Two things: why the fuck were they not very far along the coast, and why in the nine hells was no watch posted when you have the one thing keeping the main villain from world domination? But the chick gets woken up, screams like the bitch she is, then Conan bursts through the fucking wall to get him off her. They eventually repel the attack, and Conan decides he's had enough shit, and will go after the bad guy again, so long as his buddy takes the girl away.

However, when Conan goes ashore, his buddy gives a map to the chick so she can go say "bye," albeit with her lady-parts. Somehow they found a shack on the beach, which I'm pretty sure was in the perfect position to get fucked by the tide daily, and start to go at it, Cimmerian style! I'll admit the scene was pretty tasteful, yet when the girl wakes up she goes into the freaking forest...away from where the ship was, and immediately gets captured. I know Robert E. Howard didn't depict women as all that sensible in his stories, but they must be channeling his spirit for all this damsel in distress crap. Conan comes upon the aftermath of the kidnapping, and with the most random horse in the frame that trots off, Conan decides to run off towards the huge skull cave. Honestly, I wanted some good footage of Conan running, if only to show off his barbarian stamina. Those that have read The Frost Giant's Daughter know what I'm talking about. Except that that particular story was creepy in its own way, since Conan attempts to ravage a woman against her will, which is contrary to later when Robert Jordan (read: God of fantasy) wrote Conan books.

So, Conan comes upon the ritual in which the blood of the damsel has to be drained into the mask to activate it, since she has the blood of ancient necromancers flowing through her veins. Apparently, the big bad wants to use her blood and body as material components to bring back his dead wife of a bitch, whom is a sorceress that tried to conquer the world. Then the mask starts wiggling with the blood inside, and I actually thought he might get a Cthulhu face or something weird like that, but no, even though Conan is pretty much in continuity with the Lovecraftian lore, you never get the feeling that there are things in the world that are beyond the stars and understanding. Conan, remembering that he can sneak like a boss, snaps a neck, steals a cloak, and makes his way to the place where the chick is dangling above a lake of lava...which is too reminiscent of Temple of Doom to be a coincidence.

So, he halts the ritual, the weird wheel-thing the girl was on falls down the strange, cylindrical shaft, only to be caught. Conan goes to get her, and the villain jumps down, and there's a bit of a topsy-turvy fight scene on the wheel thing. Then everybody ends up falling down. The girl runs off to hide, and Conan stalks around, while the bad guy calls out after him "rawr!!! barbarian!!!!" Freakish daughter then tries to kill the girl again, only to find Conan, whom immediately chops her damn hand off, then throws her off a ledge to get impaled on a piece of railing. Big bad then comes across her, and I thought that the ANCIENT NECROMANTIC HELM OF VECNA would be able to bring the little bitch back, but no.

There's a quick fight scene where Conan and the mask-wearer fight, he gets his father's sword back (LAUUULL, YOU TOOK MY FATHERS SWORD, YOU KILLED MEI PEOPLE!), so he knocks him back and takes off.

So, we come to this bridge, the chick falls down, and Conan catches a chain to hold on to the girl. The bad guy then comes along the bridge all smug-like, and immediately summons the soul of his dead wife to supplant the one in the love interest. Bad man then tells Conan that all he has to do is let go of the chain, and it's over. Hell, even the woman tells him to let her fall so she can die and destroy the last vestige of "pure" necromancer blood, whatever that means. But, Conan destroys the planks beneath the bad guy, he falls down, Conan takes the girl to her destination, and Conan goes off to find more adventure.

While I didn't go into much detail with Conan taking his thief buddy up on his offer to sneak into the baddie's castle, wherein lies some squid-thing, some of the action sequences blend together so they're hard to distinguish.

So, that's Conan The Barbarian, and there are two real problems I have with it, the first being that Conan never really learned what it means to use fire and ice to make steel- like knowing when to be a cold killer or hot headed-, and that damn necromantic artifact never paid off. How dare they build up something like that, only to make it not import any powers on the main villain, and then he just dies like a bitch? Really?

Tell you what they did do right, even when continuity is suspect, and the girl is practically railroaded into the plot to give Conan some tail, and that is that I think Conan, the character, was done pretty well. Physically he strikes me more as barbaric over Arnold, and he certainly doesn't come off as stupid.

As such, if you like action films, or the Conan character, go see this movie, it ain't bad.

He didn't swear by Crom much, but I will, Ishamael