A to Z Blogging Challenge 2024 - Villains! D Is For Darth Vader and Dolores Umbridge

Two villains today, Darth Vader(Star Wars) and Dolores Umbridge(Harry Potter).  I probably should keep them for V and U, but it’s nice to be able to have them together.

One main difference between them is that Darth Vader had a redemption arc, due to his love for his son. Dolores had no redemption whatsoever. She was plain evil - and she is very real as a person. She has powers, as she is, after all, a witch, but nothing special. But she is real in that she is someone you might actually meet in real life. And I have - the real-life Dolores was someone I had to work with, and a nasty piece of work she was.

Let’s start with Vader. He was born Anakin Skywalker, son of a slave woman. As a child, he was very sweet. He built C3PO to help his mother. We do eventually find out why C3PO doesn’t remember his early days. Not his maker’s fault! 

When presented as a potential Jedi, the council says he is too old, but his mentor, Qui Gon Jinn, has faith in him and then, dying, asks his own “padawan”(apprentice) Obi Wan Kenobi, to train him, even if he isn’t admitted to Jedi school. Poor Obi Wan. I can’t help wondering if things might have been different if Qui Gon had survived. 

He falls in love with Senator Padme Amidala and they marry at the end of the second prequel movie. But it doesn’t take long for him to go to the Dark Side, and not only because he is tempted by Palpatine, the future Emperor. His first evil deed is when he wipes out an entire tribe who have captured his mother. He could have simply rescued her, he has the power for that, but this is revenge.

And then he kills a lot of children studying to be Jedi, the “younglings”. The consequences of this show up in the TV series Obi Wan Kenobi. Dear, dear! Anakin has really gone dark. He is then persuaded by Palpatine to do certain things to save his pregnant wife. She dies anyway, in childbirth.

We meet him again in Obi Wan Kenobi. He hasn’t changed for the better.

But if, like me, you saw the original trilogy, you know that he will reform, even if at the last minute. And he isn’t as bad as you might think. He still believes in the Force. He might throttle those who irritate him, but his underlings don’t seem afraid to ask him questions - which he answers! 

 When I saw the original Return Of The Jedi, before Hayden Christensen took the role of the young Anakin, his Force Ghost was shown as a smiling, pleasant faced middle aged man instead of young Hayden. I really hated the change of image! 

It does make it a bit odd when his grandson, Ben Solo aka Kylo Ren, becomes obsessed with Anakin’s evil self and wears dark clothes and a mask at the start of the sequel trilogy(he did take off the mask, looking like a young Severus Snape). I kept waiting for the Force Ghost to turn up and tell him he was being stupid. It didn’t happen, but that young villain did repent, for love of Rey, the female Luke Skywalker of this series.

Now for Dolores. She first appears in Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix. Something I have always wondered is why wizarding school teachers don’t seem to have to get qualifications. Either they are naturally good or they are dreadful. Ironically, the villainous Barty Crouch Junior, posing as Madeye Moody in the fourth novel/movie, is one of the naturally good teachers! Even after the students know the truth, they still say they learned a lot from him.

Dolores is dreadful, but it doesn’t matter to her, because she has the support of the Ministry of Magic. She even gets the job of Headmistress when Dumbledore escapes. She is, after all, working for Fudge, that totally useless Minister of Magic. 

She makes her first appearance when Harry is on trial for having done magic outside of school. It was she who sent those Dementors that made Harry do what he did, to protect himself and Dudley. She doesn’t even deny it. 

When she arrives at the school, she literally tortures students, including Harry, who is forced to write “I must not tell lies” while it appears - painfully - on his hand. All this in her pink office filled with pictures of cute cats and kittens. 

She has her own squad of supporters led by Draco Malfoy. She boots out Sybil Trelawney, the Divination teacher. Trelawney is pretty hopeless as a teacher, but generally harmless and the act is cruel. Considering what a poor job Dolores does in her own class, this is ironic. 

She later gets a job in the Ministry and abuses the Muggleborn wizards and witches. Something really odd is the scene where she has a Patronus(cat shaped, of course) in the court room, walking back and forth, protecting her. A Patronus is supposed to be created using a really happy memory. You do have to wonder what a happy memory would be for her! It’s scary even to think of it.

In the play, Harry Potter And The Cursed Child, she appears as Hogwarts Headmistress in an alternative universe where the Death Eaters won, Harry was killed and his son Albus was never born, the result of Albus and his friend Scorpius Malfoy trying to save that gentle boy Cedric Diggory from dying in the Triwizard Tournament. The school is celebrating Voldemort Day. Dementors are permanently surrounding the school. Snape has been hiding Ron and Hermione from her. 

Magic apart, Dolores is very real, which makes her worse than Voldemort, who is a fantasy Dark Lord. My real life Dolores bullied students and staff alike. I remember some students who went on a school bus trip telling me that they couldn’t believe the things she did on the ride. No, I won’t go into detail here. Mainly, she was a bully. When I read the book, I wondered how J.K Rowling had known about her! I guess she just wasn’t unique. 

Which makes the character truly scary! You can escape a Dark Lord - you can’t escape someone you might actually meet.

A to Z Blogging Challenge 2024. Villains! C Is For Circe

 Looks like I have covered this subject before - whoops! Still, a good post in a villains theme.

Circe is a Greek goddess, the daughter of Sun god Helios and sea nymph Perse. She is the aunt of Medea, sister of Minos’s wife Pasiphae, who was the mother of the Minotaur. Quite an impressive family line up! 

She lived on the island of Aeaea, where she turned men who visited into various animals, including pigs. This included the crew of Odysseus, but not Odysseus himself, who was warned and received a herb called moly from the god Hermes, which he put in his mouth to protect himself. After that, he demanded she change his men back before he would sleep with her. She agreed and they all stayed on her island for a year.

When they were about to leave, she gave them advice. The only way to get where they needed to go was to travel between monsters Scylla and Charybdis. Scylla was on a rock and had six heads, which could lean down and snatch men off their ship. Charybdis was a whirlpool which would simply suck the entire ship down. She recommended they go closer to Scylla. When Odysseus protested, she told him he was an idiot. Better, in her opinion, to lose six crewmen than all of them. 

Ironic, really, since, according to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, she was the one who had turned Scylla from a beautiful girl to a monster! 

Madeline Miller’s wonderful novel Circe shows her in a more sympathetic light. It is absolutely accurate according to Greek mythology, but still lets the reader see the story from her viewpoint. She is, in this novel, the only decent family member. Yes, she does turn Scylla, who has taken  Circe’s boyfriend Glaucus, though Circe is actually regretting having changed him from human to god. 

But she starts turning sailors into animals after the first crew she welcomed raped her. Her family are a bunch of crazies. She falls in love with Hermes and Odysseus, but they turn out not to be what she thought them. 

I’ve reviewed it here. 

https://suebursztynski.blogspot.com/2018/05/just-finished-reading-circe-by.html

A to Z Blogging Challenge 2024 - Villains! B is for Baba Yaga

 

When I was a small child, about five or six, our house had a back yard toilet, at the back of a narrow yard. Mum used to scare my older sister by telling her she might meet Baba Yaga if she went outside at night. Mum is a lovely person, not sure why she did that, but it does tell you something about where she came from. 

Baba Yaga is a witch who comes from Slavic folklore. There are many stories connected with her, both in folklore and modern stories. I even remember her from a collection of stories about Russian Prince Ivan I read when I was about seven. Sometimes she is a villain, sometimes she helps the hero. 

She appears in music(Pictures At An Exhibition) and fiction, by the likes of Jane Yolen and Peter Morwood.

She flies around in a mortar and pestle - yes, a giant version of the kitchen equipment we use to grind stuff. Her hut, deep in the forest, is on chicken legs. It is surrounded by a fence of human bones - the bones of her victims.

Author Susan Price’s Ghost World sequence has those huts as homes for shamans. At one point they have a sort of  shaman conference in which everybody arrives in their chicken leg houses. 

Usually, Baba Yaga stories involve someone on a quest, passing by her home and having adventures, or sometimes going there because they have to. 

For example, Vasilisa the Fair, a sort of Cinderella figure, is sent by her wicked stepmother to fetch a light from Baba Yaga.

The witch demands she does some housework in return for the light. She does it with the help of a magic doll her mother left for her and returns with a glowing skull. The stepmother and sisters are burned to death. 

Eventually Vasilisa marries the king. We don’t hear what happens to Baba Yaga, who had thrown the girl out in disgust when told that Vasilisa did all that work with the help of her mother’s blessing. Presumably she is still out there in the forest, meeting young questers and threatening to eat them.

Jane Yolen wrote a verse novel, Finding Baba Yaga, seen from the viewpoint of the witch.

She is in Peter Morwood’s Tales Of Old Russia trilogy, starting with Prince Ivan. This is set in a specific time in mediaeval Russia, but it’s fantasy all right. It begins with the story of Prince Ivan, whose sisters all marry shapeshifting men, before he marries the warrior Marya Morevna. 

In Orson Scott Card’s Enchantment, a young man doing research for his PhD thesis encounters the Sleeping Beauty, who is in a Ukrainian forest. She was put there by Baba Yaga. When the couple marry and move to the US, she follows - and absolutely adores aeroplanes! 

There is plenty more in modern fiction, though many modern stories tend to turn her into a feminist figure. 

Up to you to decide what to call her! 

A To Z Blogging Challenge 2024 - Villains! A Is For Abomination

Found on the Villains Wiki. Fair use.

 Just letting you know, I’m only referring to MCU, as I haven’t read the comics.

Abomination is the super villain name of Emil Blonsky, a soldier who wanted to become like the Hulk and got his way, with a super soldier serum. He is, however, mainly a villain in his first MCU appearance in The Incredible Hulk. He is the antagonist to Bruce Banner in that film, when Banner is escaping from General Ross, the real villain. Ross has appeared in a number of MCU films(played by William Hurt, now being replaced by Harrison Ford).

In Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings, he appears briefly in a fight club scene. Despite his huge, monstrous appearance, he doesn’t win, but after the fight we see him with Wong, the Sorcerer Supreme, who is giving him advice for next time, and the two travel through a magic portal to the city of Kamar-Taj, Wong’s home. In fact, we see him again with Wong, who likes organising fights for him, in TV mini series She Hulk.

By She Hulk, he really isn’t a villain at all any more. In fact, he has become a humorous, quite likable character.  In that series, Jennifer Walters, Bruce Banner’s cousin, who is a lawyer, can only get work with a company that specialises in defending super heroes and villains. Her employers require her to defend Blonsky in his parole hearing. She is not happy about it, because he was her cousin’s enemy at one stage, which makes it a conflict of interest, as far as she is concerned, but Bruce doesn’t mind(he’s busy heading for Sakaar, a planet where he spent some time as the Hulk) and her employers want it. When the hearing begins, it turns out Abomination/Blonsky has a female fan club cheering for him from the gallery. 

Blonsky is freed on condition he agrees not to become Abomination any more. He has an ankle bracelet to stop it, and to enable monitoring. He sets up a therapy centre on his block of land. He even helps Jennifer, who is angry and frustrated about a nasty romantic disappointment. 

Of course, he does get into trouble again when he changes to Abomination, as we would expect, but Wong helps him out and he escapes his cell to return to Kamar-Taj.

He does make some appearances in some animated shows, which I haven’t seen yet, and I believe he was also in the original comics, created by Stan Lee. 

Still, he has an arc, from villain to comedy character. What’s not to like? 

Tomorrow, B for Baba Yaga! 

A To Z Blogging Challenge Reveal 2024

 I’ve been taking part in the A to Z Blogging Challenge for several years now. Every year I think I might sit it out and every year I come up with something after all. I have a hard time doing any blogging these days, due to family commitments, looking after my mother - and this year I have had to do that for over a month, as well as my regular three to four days a week. But I’m going to give it a go.

My original plan was to write about female SF/F writers - maybe next year. This morning I came up with another topic: villains! Fictional villains, of course. I really don’t want to get into arguments about real world nasties. It will be a mish mash - books, comics, films, mythology…whatever I’m in the mood for. I hope you will enjoy.

Just Been To See…Dune 2

 

Poster. Fair use.

I’ve just been to see Dune 2. I was impressed with the first film, which was pretty faithful to the novel, though it ended, not on a cliffhanger but with “Let’s all go to the Fremen sietch!”

Have you read the novel? It took me quite a while to finish it, but I did, and consider it a classic piece of world building. I even got my copy signed by the author when he was in Melbourne after a convention in another state. We all went to Space Age Books (long gone, alas!) for a chat and some signing, crowding around his table and asking questions. I asked him if he was researching while writing or did all the research work first. I happen to be a pantser, myself, so not an unreasonable question. He said firmly that he had not written a word till he did all the other stuff. Which is probably why the world building is so good. Someone else asked who, if he was casting a film, he would choose for the role of Duke Leto Atreides, the hero’s father. He said Sean Connery, so now we know!

In case you aren’t familiar with this story, Dune is the first in a science fiction series. I’ve only read the first book. 

There is a huge Empire ruled by an Emperor and there are a number of planets ruled by Dukes. One of them, Leto Atreides, is ordered to leave his home world of Caladan and take over Arrakis, a desert world which has only one resource, but one vital for spaceflight, the spice, which is produced by the giant sand worms and doesn’t exist anywhere else. In the novel, it’s for the navigators, who don’t even look human any more, but that doesn’t happen in the films. However, for this reason, anyone who controls the spice is fabulously wealthy. It has, until recently, been controlled by the villain, Baron Harkonnen. But the Emperor has no interest in making the Atreides family rich. Not long after the family’s arrival, Leto is killed and his partner Lady Jessica and son Paul are on the run.

The local tribe, the Fremen, have learned to live with the desert. It’s so dry, if someone spits at you, it’s a compliment as they are sharing their body’s water. People who die are drained of their water, which goes into a massive pool. Paul and Jessica take refuge with them, and Paul is considered their messiah. 

The first film only went as far as the walk to the Fremen home, their “sietch”. The second picks up soon after and goes to the end of the novel, though some things are changed. For one thing, Chani, Paul’s Fremen girlfriend, is a lot tougher than in the book. I admit it has been a long time since I read the novel, but the film worked for me, and I accepted the producers’ explanation of the reasons for the changes. I can’t say more  without spoilers. It does end more or less where the novel did, though Chani’s reaction is…different.

It’s visually stunning and I will be very surprised if it doesn’t win some Oscars next year. The costuming is also beautiful. Hans Zimmer’s music fits in with the massive action scenes so well!

Of course, you do have to have seen the first film to be able to follow this one, but why wouldn’t you?

The film is well cast, but for anyone who has seen some Marvel and DC films it’s even more fun.

This film starts with Princess Irulan, the Emperor’s daughter, played by Florence Pugh, whom you may remember as Yelena Belova(in Black Widow and Hawkeye). Chani was played by Zendaya(Spider-Man’s girlfriend). Duke Leto was played by Oscar Isaac, who was so brilliant in Moon Knight. Jason Momoa(Aquaman and Game Of Thrones) and Josh Brolin(villain Thanos) as Duke Leto’s men Duncan Idaho and Gurney Halleck, he of the baliset instrument - Patrick Stewart played that role in the 1980s film. I first saw Josh Brolin as a teenager in The Goonies, one of my favourite films. The evil Baron Harkonnen was played by Stellan Skarsgard, whom you may have seen as Jane Foster’s mentor, Erik Selvig, in the Avengers movies. His sidekick, “Beast” Rabban, was a member of the Guardians of the Galaxy(Drax), Dave Bautista.

Of course, if you aren’t into superhero movies this may mean nothing to you, but the actors were excellent anyway. Timothee Chalamet hasn’t done a superhero movie, but I saw him as Henry V in The King, a film loosely based on Shakespeare - very loosely, as Falstaff is shown as a strong fighter and supporter of Henry. Also, he did Laurie in Little Women.

I have bought Dune 1 and will get this one too, as soon as available. 

Just Finished Reading… Of Judgement Fallen by Steven Veerapen. Edinburgh: Polygon, 2023

 

This is the sequel to Of Blood Descended, in what I am guessing is the second of a duology, so… probably no more Anthony Blanke mysteries. Which would be a shame, but understandable as the hero works for Cardinal Wolsey and we know what happened to him, don’t we? A few years after the setting of this novel (1523), but there was plenty going on in the meantime. The afterword implies that he might write another one, but only “might”.

I have reviewed the first novel here: 

 https://suebursztynski.blogspot.com/2023/09/just-finished-reading-of-blood.html , but to give it a basic outline, the hero, a (fictional) son of historical figure John Blanke, one of Henry VIII’s “trumpets” - the musicians who used to do the fanfares at tournaments and feasts - is also a trumpet, but has resigned from Wolsey’s service, making his living as a music teacher. That’s until he’s called in to take part in a masque, to play as the Black Knight and, incidentally, dance with Anne Boleyn, who is not yet the king’s favourite.

A dead body turns up on the lawns of Wolsey’s palace the day he arrives. After he solves the mystery, he is persuaded to return to the Cardinal’s service by his friends Mark, a fellow trumpet, and Harry, who works for one of the Cardinal’s men. (Both appear in this novel and help Anthony.)

The current novel starts soon after. Again, a dead body turns up in Wolsey’s palace in the first couple of scenes, this time in the waiting room. The dead man was no friend of Wolsey’s, but the Cardinal didn’t kill him or order him killed. Once again, Wolsey  wants Anthony to find the killer, as he did so well in the last book. And he really has to do this, because he’s the top suspect in the case, as well as for other killings, and if he doesn’t find the real killer by Wednesday, about three days away, he is likely to be arrested and executed. Wolsey knows he is innocent, but his hands are tied. He does give him the chance to work with Thomas More on the case, but that doesn’t work out.

Of course, there isn’t a lot of time for our hero to play his trumpet; that tends to be the case with most amateur sleuths in whodunnits. 

 

I have to admit, there is a twist at the end; I wouldn’t have guessed whodunnit, but the author doesn’t cheat; if you read all the clues, carefully, you can probably work it out, as you would expect of a good murder mystery. 

The characters are believable and Mark, especially, is very likeable. I’d want a friend like him to help me if I was in trouble.

I do hope the author manages to squeeze in at least a couple more novels before Cardinal Wolsey gets into trouble with the king! Meanwhile, he does have another series, set in the time of Elizabeth I, so I’m going to look those up.

These two are available in both print and ebook from your favourite booksellers. 

Just Finished Reading … The Revenge Club by Kathy Lette. London: Head Of Zeus, 2024

 Four women, university friends, have reunited after many years. They have all become successful professionals. Jo is a special effects artist in Hollywood who has returned to London to work at Pinewood. Penny is a highly successful TV journalist who has been in war zones. Cressida was an actress until her ambitious  lawyer husband Rupert persuaded her to throw her energies into his career instead. Matilda, the Aussie of the group, is a novelist with fifteen successful books behind her, and a new one she is expecting to get a contract for, as usual. They are all very good at what they do. 

Unfortunately, they have all committed the crime of reaching middle age in a man’s world. 

Jo, who knows all about special effects, experiments with living as a man. She hasn’t transitioned, she just wants to see what will happen if she applies for the job she lost, as a man. 

It works. Now she has met her old friends, all of whom have lost their jobs because they are no longer young and attractive to their bosses, and one of whom, Cressida, has found her husband in bed with a pretty young thing. He doesn’t want a divorce, as that will spoil his chances of getting a job in the High Court, and makes her life difficult, to stop her divorcing him. 

This is the start of the Revenge Club, when the four meet to plot ways to make the men who wronged them pay for what they have done…

Kathy Lette is best known in Australia for the book Puberty Blues, written with Gabrielle Carey, which became a film and a TV series. She has written a lot more since then, but this is her most recent novel. I bought it after hearing the author interviewed on the radio. 

The novel is good fun, with an over the top story. I read it in a day and a night. I don’t read much mainstream fiction, but thoroughly enjoyed this one.

Definitely a story for anyone who enjoyed the film The First Wives Club! 

It has just been released, but should be available everywhere soon.

Just Finished Reading…Two Can Play That Game by Leanne Yong. Melbourne: Allen And Unwin, 2023

 

Teenager Sam Khoo has always dreamed of becoming a games designer. Her passion has kept her working in her room every spare moment, along with her best friend Aneeshka, also a games designer. One day, the two of them will move from Brisbane to start a studio together in Sydney. And she has a wonderful game, Vinculum, which she wants to show at a workshop with her favourite publishers. The only way she can get there is via a ticket in a limited edition game - and the last copy is snatched first by that dreadful boy, Jay Khua! But Jay is fair; he agrees to play a series of games with her. The winner will get the ticket.

The novel proceeds with the two of them playing those games and, along the way, getting to know each other and their delightful Malaysian families. The Malaysian community is pretty much like other ethnic communities - everyone knows everyone else, gossips and, in this case, decides Sam and Jay are dating, and plans out their future wedding…

Sam has a university scholarship which she wants to ditch in favour of spending a year working with a publisher on her games. Her parents want to see her with a backup that will let her get a steady job, marry Jay and maybe do games then if she wants. How does she tell them?

The characters are all likeable, no baddies in this book. Jay has a very good, unselfish reason for wanting that ticket. Because this is a YA novel, of course, it’s enemies to lovers. And Jay is worth having, as Sam discovers in the course of the story.

At the same time, she is justified in feeling that female game designers have a right to do what they’re good at. In the real world, female game designers do suffer from male harassment, such as the misogynistic Gamergate harassment campaign. However, that isn’t really Sam’s issue, though she and Aneeshka have been sneered at by male gamers in the past.

I enjoyed very much the introduction to gaming. The author knows her gaming and even shows the names of real life counterparts of the games in the book. Leanne Yong, an Australian of Singaporean and Malaysian background, works on escape room games as her day job and has done very well internationally. This is her first novel. It’s to be hoped there will be more. 

I bought this as a print book, but you can buy it in ebook or in your local good bookshop.