Activity

@karthmin Honestly I forgot this corner of the forum existed. There have been several times where I have wanted to rant about a book I have read recently. This is the place to do it. I’ll start some rants off right now.

1. I was reading this book called Delia’s Shadow about this MC who could see ghosts. I got about five chapters into it before I stopped because it seemed like every conversation she was in there was a moment of “Oh I can see ghosts it is so sad and mysterious and it makes me feel sad and oh the sadness. What were we talking about again?” At least twice she had to ask someone to repeat themselves because she was distracted by a ghost staring at her. She has had this power since she was little. It shouldn’t be so shocking. She should’ve developed coping mechanisms, or regarded it as normal.

Then she went and told three people she could see ghosts (two of which she was meeting for the first time). They all accepted it instantly, although they had no prior incidents with ghosts and would have no reason to believe the MC. And since it was such not a big deal to tell these people, why hasn’t she told anyone before? Why have a big (well, more medium) “I see dead people” conversation if no conflict resulted from it?

2. I love the Beauty and the Beast fairytale (I literally have five retellings of the story I am planning on rewriting someday, all touching on different aspects of it.) But I have come to some troubling conclusions about the Disney movie. At the end of the movie, all the servants turned into actual furniture as part of the curse. What happens to their minds?

There are two options. 1) They die. 2) They live on, unable to move or speak but still aware of what is happening around them. I’m not sure which is worse. The prince really got the better end of the deal here. He only gets uglified, superstrength-ified, and a bunch of servants that are even easier to see as less human than before, with nowhere to go. It’s a lot easier to break a plate than break a person. And we know he had anger issues. He seems like the kind of guy who would go around breaking furniture.

But it gets worse. There were children (Chip and siblings) in the curse. The sorceress was willing to murder children because their parents worked for a guy she thought was a jerk, with no way they could get out of the curse other than hope the boss of their parents shapes up. How is she the good guy in this situation?

But wait there is more! The Be Our Guest song changes dramatically when you think about the fact that every dish is a person. It’s creepy, first of all. Is she eating off the head of someone when she uses a fork? Second, the way that they talk about their work “Why, we only live to serve”, reminds me of the way Southerners talked about slavery before the Civil War. “They like doing it! It’s what they were made for!” There are some pretty troubling implications.

So… ta da! Rants.