ayascythe | About (Reply)

So I finally finished reading Les Mis and ... well. What can I say? It took me over 2 months to get through and it was quite a journey.

Les Mis is not an easy book to read. I can see why people keep complaining about Hugo's way of straying off and rambling on and on about topics that don't seem related to the plot. He does that. He does that a whole fucking lot and it's not always entertaining. But then, I'm someone who can enjoy a certain amount of stray thoughts in stories as long as they're written in a way I like. Hugo does that, too. A whole fucking lot and I've grown rather fond of his ramblings. But even more so when he's going on about his characters. Especially then.

You have to bring patience and time and the willingness to leave entire plotlines for dozens of pages to learn about Waterloo, slang or the Parisian sewer system. But if you do that, Hugo makes it worthwhile with a great story and great characters.

In case anyone is still looking for a German translation that doesn't cost horrendous amounts of money and has a decent cover: apparantly in October Anaconda will release an affordable paperback edition. No idea yet who's the translator, but it can't be any worse than the stilted English Gutenberg edition. I'm not kidding, I usually don't think it makes a difference whether it's English or not, but I'd advise anyone who has the possibility to read a translation in their native tongue - choose that one. The historical references are hard enough on their own, no need to make things even more complicated with old vocabulary and awkward sentences.

I finally got around to catch up with Supernatural, too, and I felt about as underwhelmed as with the Doctor Who season finale*. You know how there's always "The road so far" at the beginning of every season finale? All I could think of this time was: "well, now I realise just how boring this season was."

I mean, it was nice. Good, even. Some episodes were really cool and fun. But that's about it. I don't really felt anything about all the angels falling from Heaven or Castiel losing his Grace. I mean, what exactly is the harm except for a little chaos? It's not even like anybody of importance died. Except for Naomi and the way I understand it, everybody hated her anyway?

I did like Metatron, though. Because he has his own motivations and I think he is a fascinating character and he'll make for an even more fascinating character(/antagonist?) next season. He doesn't even seem evil or, you know, like he has this huge masterplan. He was an ignorant book-nerd, fed up with the world, and when he saw what had become of it he made a decision and went through with it. So I'm looking forward to Metatron (and Crowley's new character development, because wow!), but I'm not exactly looking forward to next season in general. Because all I can think is: when's it going to end, at last? When will they stop drawing out a plot and show that have ended 3 seasons ago? Isn't it better to go out when it's best than this downward-spiral into mediocrity?

Everything after S5 felt just so ... bleh. The storylines felt contrived and forced just to keep the show running because of its popularity. Please don't ask me about Castiel. I have an issue with Castiel that I can't exactly name or pinpoint, because I used to like him a lot. I still do, but somewhere along the way I also grew really tired of him. And of how the writers seem to push him into those central plotlines that this character doesn't quite deserve. I mean, I LOVE Charlie, but I wouldn't want her to be a central plotpoint of an entire season or even several seasons either. I wouldn't want her to be in half of all the episodes. Castiel has grown out of being a side-character to be pretty much a third main character and it's not working for me. But, oh well. I'll keep watching because it's still an entertaining show and because I do hope S9 or S10 (?) may finally be the last one.

* Shush, don't talk to me about it, I love Clara and Eleven, but what they're doing with the plot is a mess. (Here's a nice article about Moffat as a writer vs. Moffat as a showrunner and I think that sums up the problematics pretty well.)

I am glad that they didn't tell the Doctor's name, though, because that big of a reveal would pretty much ruin everything for me and the show? IF they ever reveal that secret - because I sincerely doubt that they will - it should be in the very final episode. Or maybe just be hinted at. Because with that much hype nothing could ever be as satisfying as the speculation and everything will feel disappointing. The Doctor needs his secrets to be the Doctor, so I really don't want to know his name.

Also, Clara desperately needs some more characterisation because 5 episodes in, I feel that we had about five times as much information about Amy than we do about her now. I lovelovelove Clara, but they can't let us go on with what little we have about her, if they want to keep up sympathies.