Was just about to make a somewhat uninteresting entry, then went to check my email and found that the fanlistings.org had approved my application for the Otto/Rosie fanlisting, and hotmail sorted it right into the junk mail folder. Waa.
Anyway…the somewhat uninteresting entry.
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Hmmm…I think my results have changed since I last did these. I always get Brock on the Pokemon test, got Sora last time I did the Digimon one but now have switched to Takeru, got Bianca last time I did the Spyro one but now have switched to Elora, and always get Bant on the JA one, even if I cheat. :)
In the past few days, I’ve been attempting to work on two Holes fanfics. I got halfway through one of them, but the other one, which was meant to be novel-length, sort of…stopped. Which is quite annoying.
Anyway, the last Holes fanfic which I actually completed was Name. It was about the Warden’s childhood, and it rather freaked me out. (What can I say, the lizards scare me ) And I read through it again for no real reason, and I wondered about something…
In the book, the Warden isn’t given a first name, she’s called ‘The Warden’ or ‘Ms Walker’ all the way through. But in the movie (which was written by Louis Sachar also, so it probably counts as canon if it doesn’t contradict anything in the book) Dr Pendanski calls her Lou. And that got me thinking…Sam’s donkey was called Mary Lou, and the Warden’s grandfather hated Sam, and…well, as the fanfic turned out, the Warden’s father named her Lou and her older sister Mary in order to humiliate them. And when I read all that again, I started thinking about something again…hardly anyone at Camp Green Lake goes by their real name. The Warden is called the Warden by the staff and the boys…she’s just the person who’s in power around the camp. If you accept some parts of the movieverse as canon, Mr Sir doesn’t go by his real name either, because he’s on the run from the law. It’s a big thing in the book that all the boys go by nicknames…when Stanley gets accepted into the group, they give him a nickname, Caveman.
And (heh, sorry, just going with my train of thought) Kate begins her story as Miss Katherine, the schoolteacher, and after Sam is killed, stops being called Katherine and goes by Kissin’ Kate Barlow, the name of an outlaw, instead.
I think I’m onto something here. ;)
The camp itself, Camp Green Lake, only has one name, but it’s a deceptive name, since it’s hardly a camp, there’s very little green and there is no lake. Which is really quite clever, because one of the the storylines is the Warden decieving the boys into digging for her.
There’s also Pendanski. At first I couldn’t think of anything for him, but then I remembered he actually did have a nickname…the boys call him Mom. And of course, by the end of the book, it’s obvious he’s anything but the parenting type.
Hmmm…what else? I suppose there’s Trout, who’s real name is Charles, but I’m not sure if that works, since with either name he’s a racist and a killer. (Unless…I suppose you could have it so Charles is just a rich jerk, but Trout is actually the murderer*.)
Yeesh…anyway, what am I getting at here? I’m not sure. (I’m really, really bad at writing essays, as you can undoubtly tell) I think it’s supposed to mean…the fact that a lot of the characters have more than one name…that they all have sort of a dual identity as well. The D-Tent boys…on the one hand they’re a bunch of bullies, on the other hand they’re vunerable kids (flicked through the book again and found something I missed last time…when Stanley hears Squid crying in the night). Kate…she was a schoolteacher, and then became a murderer. And so on.
There’s also Zero. He’s different, because, as Stanley realises, he’s the only one who ‘either didn’t have a real name or else didn’t have a nickname’. However, he doesn’t know which one Zero doesn’t have. But as he gets to know Zero better, he finds out Zero’s real name (Hector) and thus the real Zero, who’s a smart kid who just doesn’t like answering stupid questions.
Now I come to think of it, of all the major characters, I think Sam’s the only one who keeps his name all the way through his part of the story. Katherine becomes Kissin’ Kate, but Sam stays the same. Admittedly that’s because he’s dead, but it’s sort of interesting, because Sam and Stanley are the only characters in the book who don’t really do anything wrong. Stanley has his flaws, but he was innocent of the crime he was acccused of, and he befriends Zero while the others don’t. Sam, on the other hand, was guilty of the ‘crime’, but it oughtn’t to have actually been a crime. Sam is the innocent party all the way through, and he gets killed for it.
How all this gets back to Stanley (because hey, it’s his story) I’m not sure. Stanley’s name, Stanley Yelnats, is the same forwards and backwards, as is pointed out in the book…I read a review of the movie that explained that rather nicely, but I don’t want to go looking through my History files for it. Anyway, I think I’ve got it…Stanley’s name is actually one of the things that saves him in the end (the other is the fact that he teaches Zero to read) because of the suitcase belonging to the first Stanley Yelnats, and by that point the nickname Caveman doesn’t really mean anything for him at all. Stanley Yelnats is his real name. I also think there’s some significance in the fact that the first Yelnats in the Holes timeline, the one who accidently sets the curse in motion, was the only Yelnats male in the story not called Stanley…it means that our Stanley isn’t just like the first Yelnats sent back to remedy the curse, he’s his own person as well. And he does more than simply right the curse, but that’s a whole ‘nother essay.
Also, in the end Squid tells Stanley to tell his mother that Alan…his real name…said he was sorry. (And in the movie, Armpit does, and the other boys are impressed by it). So I suppose that with Stanley finding out who he is as a result of his misadventures (it’s a coming-of-age story, after all) he helps everyone else decide what ‘name’…what side of them…they want to use.
If you managed to follow all/any of that, well done. ;)
*=Oh, all right, it doesn’t exactly say that Trout was the one who shot Sam, but I think it very probably was. He was the one leading the mob, anyway.
Yes, I know I did this exact same thing for Prisoner Of Azkaban. Well, tough!
-When Peter drops his glasses and clenchs his fist and goes into Heroic Mode, there’s a sign next to him that says ONE WAY on it. I imagine that was on purpose. :)
-Chocolate cake girl is called Ursula. Got that from the novelisation. *nods*
-Peter at the party…all in one night his boss yells at him (nothing new, I know), his best friend slaps him, and the girl he loves gets engaged to someone else. And he can’t get food or a drink. Poor guy.
-That hospital (you know the one I mean) is one seriously ugly hospital.
-John’s face after MJ leaves him…doesn’t he become a bad guy in the comics? (How many movies are they gonna make, anyway? They may not be planning to use like every villain, but they’ve set a lot of them up)
-I’m not really sure what I think about Mary Jane…I don’t dislike her or anything, but the look on her face at the very end…I just hope she doesn’t want to divorce Peter in the next movie, or something, because he’s in love with her and has a important job to do, and she’s given him the oppotunity to have both things, it would be incredibly unfair if she took it away again. Personally, I hope in the next movie she helps Peter take down the bad guy…she nearly did this time, after all.
-Harry was wearing a green bow tie at the wedding. That’s rather interesting.
-I like that they developed May’s character more, although I’m worried she’s going to die in the next movie
-Otto/Rosie is still my OTP. I wish they’d mentioned her at the end, though, like with Peter pointing out that the fusion-reactor thingy had killed her, so if he really loved her he shouldn’t have tried to build it again…or something. Meh.
Marietta, Marietta, Marietta. What do we know about her, anyway? She’s Cho’s friend. She reluctantly joined the DA. She betrayed them to Umbridge, and wound up with a memory charm and a SNEAK written across her face. She doesn’t, as far as I can remember, speak a single line in the book, but she seems to have left an impact nonetheless.
So who is she and what’s she for? Is she just to show the good side’s philosophy of ‘the ends justify the means’…it was alright to memory charm her because something bad could’ve happened? Is she just to show Hermione’s arrogance…branding someone was alright because she betrayed them? Is she going to redeem herself later? Who knows?
Thus far, I have written one Marietta fanfic and am now working on a second. And she has become a favourite character of mine, for reasons I can’t fathom. She’s betrayed the DA, after all. She doesn’t seem to have many redeeming qualities.
And yet…
I don’t know. I think in the end, a lot of people would do what she did if they were put in her position…as in, let parents down or let friends down and choose parents over friends, if they were putting pressure on you. I know it’s not much of an excuse, since as Harry pointed out, Ron’s dad also worked for the Ministry and he didn’t betray them…but Marietta was only sixteen (I think), hadn’t been through as much or seen as much or well, loved as much as Ron had. She wasn’t a heroine, just a normal, probably quite popular, slightly bratty, ordinary teenage girl…and she took the easy way out. As many people would.
Hopefully, though, she won’t next time. Who knows?
There’s also the SNEAK thing to think about…whether she still has it or not, whether Hermione was justified…but I’ll leave that to you to discuss. ;)
Icon 1-was entered at sw_chorus, didn’t win ;)
Icons 21 and 22-were entered at sm_chorus. 21 won Mod’s choice. :)
26-I have an eyebrow fetish. Probably best you don’t ask.
1. There are always, always, always people to talk to.
2. A good percentage of them are excellent writers and artists.
3. Therefore, if you’re bored, there will always be something to read or look at.
4. No matter what you ‘ship, there will always be at least one other person who thinks it’s a good idea.
5. We band together, probably more often then we would like
6. Nifty fandom newsletters like daily_snitch and quickquote…no other fandom I’m in has that
7. No matter what sort of LJ icon you want, someone will have made it.
8. There will always be someone else who likes your favourite character, even if said character is supposed to be a bad guy
9. We have a sense of humour. Seriously. Most of the time.
10. There’s always people on hand to help you with your writing
11. So many fanfiction archives…sooo much fanfiction…
12. All the fandom in-jokes
13. The debate about Blaise’s gender that lasted for…er…a long while
14. Sorting yourself into houses
15. No matter what theory you have, there’ll be people around to discuss it with
Okay, only fifteen for now, but maybe I’ll think of some more later…(BTW, comment and add your own if you want.) :)
Look at this picture. Look at the expressions on their faces. Look at how close they are to each other. Look at how desperate Obi-Wan looks. Look at how uncertain Anakin looks. Bear in mind that in several years time one of them will kill the other in cold blood.
And then tell me Episode III isn’t going to rock. :D
Y’know, if ff.net is going to stop accepting interactive stories, then they’d better close down altogether, because dude all stories are MEANT to be interactive.
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