Game of Numbers.

 Fantasy fans must currently be riding a tidal wave of smug bastardry.

 For years, fantasy fiction - dungeons and dragons and wizards and such - was the nerdiest corner of the nerd universe. Fantasy fans were the people that other geeks looked down on. I know more about X-Men than my own family, and have a "Billy and the Cloneasaurus" sticker on my man bag, and even I think fantasy stuff is lame.

 Then Game of Thrones came along, and everyone shut the fuck up. Fantasy fans could suddenly earn enormous respect from their peers for understanding the root causes of the War of Five Kings or the true parentage of the bastard Jon Snow. Everyone thinks GoT is cool. We're all part of the "fantasy fan" demographic now, whether we like it or not.

 I could go on and on justifying my reasons (that GoT is really a political thriller with fantasy overtones, that it replaces the childish black-and-white morality of Tolkein with myriad complex, grey characters) but no, I'll just bite the bullet and admit that I'm a total fanboy for a TV show that features dragons and shape-shifters and giants.

 With my love for Game of Thrones established, however, there is something that's really beginning to bug me: Just what fucking year is it, exactly?!

 I don't mean in whatever arcane and fictional calender the show uses. I mean mathematically.

 In recent weeks, we've been reminded, for example, that Jaime Lannister (played by spell-check meltdown cause and Danish actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) is meant to be several years older than his brother Tyrion (Peter Dinklage.) A recent episode makes mention of Jaime being old enough to stand over his brother's crib as a child, which means he'd have to be at least five years senior. It's established that Jaime is 40, which would put Tyrion somewhere in his mid thirties. According to the spoilerific website "A Wiki of Ice and Fire", Jaime is in fact meant to be nine years older than his brother.

 Here they are next to each other:

 Admittedly, Jaime Lannister is renowned as something of a golden boy, so it makes sense that he should age extremely well. Also, the TV series has done well in casting Coster-Waldau, a man so attractive I actually think we should have him neutered just to give the rest of us a fighting chance of getting laid once in a while. Still, there is no way in hell I'm buying him being ten years older than his brother. (In reality, Peter Dinklage is a year older than his co-star.)

 This brings me to my next problem, the under-written Oberyn Martell.

 In the current series, Oberyn is introduced as being a Dornish Prince who suspects that his sister was raped and murdered by the enormous, psychotic Ser Gregor Clegane ("The Mountain That Rides") on the orders of the Lannister family. This is all well and good, except Oberyn Martell is clearly much older than the Mountain:

Pedro Pascal is 39, Hapfthor Johnson is 25.

 The Mountain raped and murdered Oberyn's sister during the last war, which was... when, exactly?!

 Prince Oberyn claims to remember Tyrion as a baby, meaning he, like Jaime, is around forty. The last war seems to have been about fifteen years ago, which would make Jon Snow, the bastard son of Eddard Stark, fifteen years of age. Which he clearly fucking isn't:

 That's a better beard at "fifteen" than I could grow any time before the age of twenty six. At around the time Jon Snow was born, the infant Daenerys Targaryen was smuggled across the narrow sea to escape the slaughter that befell the rest of her family. In the intervening fifteen-ish years she grew up to be a 27 year old actress, which is a neat trick:

The two biggest talents Emilia Clarke has.

 

 

 If the events of the last war were long enough ago that the younger actors are the right age, then then older actors are too young, and if the older actors are the right age then we're all under arrest for looking at a fifteen year old girl's tits just now.

 Or maybe I'm just over-thinking it.

Episode VII: A New Disappointment.

 It's May the 4th, so it seemed only apt I did something about this.

 The nerdiverse worked itself into a minor frenzy last week with the news that the new Star Wars trilogy has been cast.

 To the shock of nobody (except the touchingly optimistic - and typically ignored - Dave Prowse) the original stars were anounced to be returning.

 Call me cynical, but I wasn't that surprised to hear that Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher had signed on for huge paycheques in their first cinema release in years. Even Harrison Ford's career has been on the rocks (or crystal skulls) of late.

 Perhaps the best bit of not-news to come out of the anouncement was the Independent, who insightfully pointed out that Ford would be playing "an older version" of Han Solo.

You read it here first, folks. Harrison Ford is not an immortal necromancer and ages in real time.

 I'm calling this one right now: The new films are going to suck. 

 The biggest problem is that the original Star Wars movies went to great lengths to create a believably vast galaxy populated by untold numbers of people and alien creatures of all stripes, and the new films are going to honour that legacy by continuing to focus on the same half dozen characters.

 Never mind that the stories about these characters have been told - their arcs are over and there's nothing more that can be written organically. That's not stopping the money-men, however, who will be shoe-horning aged characters into new stories for the sake of the nostalgic geek dollar.

 As pointed out by Rich Dursley of thedurs.com, another crippling flaw with all things Star Wars is that for years now, every game and story has to feature the Jedi who, when all is said and done, are some of the most boring protagonists imaginable. They are supposed to be almost immune to emotion, which doesn't make for very compelling characters. There's a reason Dirty Harry wouldn't have worked as a Shaolin monk - flawed characters are inherently more interesting.

 As the plot hasn't been anounced yet, me and Durs spent some time playing "How could they possibly make the new films interesting using the old characters without it feeling samey?" My preferred method would be to go with a religious/political analogy.

 In the wake of the collapse of the Empire, Luke Skywalker has attempted to reform the Jedi, allowing them to marry etc, in the hopes of avoiding the kind of repression and frustration amongst the Jedi that eventually drove his father over the brink. This would mean we could have Mark Hamill in a prominent role as some sort of Jedi Pope* without making him do a lot of action scenes that he looks way too saggy for. 

 Conflict comes in the form of a splinter group of hard-line Jedi who disagree with the reforms and want to see the order restored to its roots. Think Mel Gibson's crazy brand of Catholicism that wants to repeal the second Vatican Council, or, more obviously, fanatical Muslims like the Taliban. These militant Jedi begin waging a terrorist war against the now-largely-peaceful galaxy.

 I'm not sure if this arc is going to stretch to three movies, but it's the best idea I have to make the films work. I also really like the idea of Han Solo and Chewie going out in a blaze of glory by 9/11-ing the Millenium Falcon into the enemy stronghold. There's something very appealing to me about seeing the all-American, cowboyesque Solo using Al Qaeda tactics, and it would finally get Harrison Ford his wish of killing off the character, something he was pushing for as early as "Empire Strikes Back." Although it wouldn't surprise me if he was a little less willing to kill the character off now that his box office mojo is on the wane.

 In reality, I suspect the films won't do anything like this. I have a depressing gut feeling that they're going to have some more cartoon baddies for everyone to fight, and the whole thing will sell a bunch of toys, make billions, and put another nail in the coffin of interesting movies. 

 I hope I'm wrong.

*Anyone with any sense has just stopped reading and started work on their own Jedi Pope script.

Jeremy Clarkson Is A Monument To Hypocrisy - Our Own.

 For anyone who's had their head under a rock at the bottom of the ocean on another planet, Jeremy Clarkson is currently accused of mumbling "nigger" during an un-aired clip from Top Gear. It's an unpleasant word and one that I'm just going to bite the bullet and use a few times, here, because we're all grown ups and it's childish and patronising when people obscure words with asterisks.

I should probably start by saying that I like Jeremy Clarkson.

 I understand that he's opinionated, confrontational and arrogant. These are all qualities I've been accused of, and maybe it's an underlying narcissism that makes me like these qualities in others. I'd rather have an interesting argument with someone for five minutes than an hour of polite small talk.

 So I'm going to be defending Clarkson here, at least a little.

 First and foremost, I don't think he's a racist. Not a genuine one. I don't think he has any actual problem with people of other races or nationalities.

 I actually buy Clarkson's excuse that, whilst playing "Eenie-Meenie" with two very similar cars, he was just mumbling non-words to himself in an attempt to avoid saying something untoward. I'm also aware that if I were to recite that rhyme to myself, the word "nigger" would be in the back of my mind.

 Generally speaking, I don't have to play "eenie-meenie" very often, if at all. But if I do, here's what's going through my head:

 [Aloud] "Eenie-meenie-mynie-moe..."

[Thinking] "Jesus, can you believe racism used to be so widespread that they used to say "nigger" in this rhyme without a second thought?! That line's coming up, by the way. Better replace it with one of the substitutes, even though they don't make any sense. We used to say "Tiger" at school, I think, before we worked out what the word obviously used to be. I mean, it's impossible to catch a tiger by the toe. Do tigers even have toes?! You could catch one by the tail, maybe, like the Buck Owens song, but even if you did that, a tiger doesn't so much 'holler' as claw your throat out. I'm over thinking this. Maybe I should just pick another rhyme in future..."

 Clarkson, for his part, mumbles the line but does start the word with a hard "N", which I genuinely think might be subconscious. It's on his mind because that IS what the line used to be, and it's a fairly standout word. Like I say, it'd be in the back of my mind, as well.

 So I'm giving him a pass on this one. I don't think he did anything deliberately wrong, and I certainly don't think that in his private moments he calls black people niggers.

 This isn't to say he's entirely guilt-free, however. The controversy a few years ago over Top Gear's comments on Mexico was deserved. In that particular instance, Clarkson came in for a lot of flak despite the fact that Richard Hammond was the one who made the offensive and unfunny remarks about Mexicans. It's actually resulted in my having a lower opinion of Hammond ever since, and I suspect that people only took aim at Jeremy Clarkson over the incident because he is still the face of Top Gear and it's somehow taboo to be nasty to Richard Hammond since he survived an horrendous brain injury.

 If anything, the brain injury is the only thing that excuses Hammond's comments about Mexico, but nobody seemed willing to join those particular dots. I digress.

 So far I think Clarkson is (mostly) innocent on the recent scandal, and that the Mexico controversy was unpleasant and Richard Hammond should feel ashamed about it. The interesting one for me is the other incident that gets trotted out.

 In the greatest hits reel of Top Gear scandals, the other biggee is the recent Burma special in which Clarkson made a play on the word "slope." For non-fans, the Top Gear crew built a bridge over the river Kwai and, when it was completed, a Burmese worker walked across, leading Clarkson to comment that although the bridge looked sturdy, there was "a slope on it."

 That was childish and racist, although once again I suspect that the media has the knives out for Clarkson in that many articles I read had to explain that "slope" was a derogatory term for a person of South East Asian descent. Generally speaking, it's an antiquated and largely American term that I've only previously heard used in Christopher Walken's blistering, comedic monologue in "Pulp Fiction." A quick scan of an online slang dictionary reveals that the most common reaction to "slope" as an insult is "I've never heard of it."

 I'd heard of it, and I admit, it's racist.

 It's also the sort of joke I might make among close friends - people who would know I'm not a racist. The sort of smirky, giggly joke that I'm pretty sure everyone makes among friends in a "look how naughty I'm being!" tone. It's not bad as a piece of wordplay, although it's dicey because of the race connection, but it is still primarily a joke about the word itself. It's not unpleasant to the locals - it's not saying that people from Burma et al are bad or stupid or anything negative. It just acknowledges a rude word for them and transplants it to an architectural context.

 The fact that Top Gear broadcast that joke is where the real debate lies.

 I'm willing to bet that most of us make off-colour jokes. They might be about women. They might be about other ethnicities. This is absolutely not limited to white males, incidentally. I'm sure black people make jokes about Asian people, and Asian people about white people, women make jokes about blondes, or about black people or Asians, even if they are themselves black or Asian, and so on and so forth. This isn't to say that everyone is racist - just that everyone likes making jokes, and sometimes at the expense of others. The great Shaun Micallef once perceptively framed the question as "Should we laugh at racist jokes?" When scolded with a firm "Of course not!" he asked "But what if they're funny?"

 So Top Gear occasionally broadcast jokes that people would normally only make in a corner of a pub.

 Does that mean they're doing something wrong, or does it mean they're honest? They're not "saying what we're all thinking" so much as "saying what we're all privately saying." The fact that the media then engineers a storm of controversy is, to my mind, a sign that the media is disingenuous and two-faced. How many reporters have made or laughed at crude or unpleasant jokes in their private time?

 The real issue here is that, if we're honest and grown up about things, most people still make racist jokes. Does this mean most people are racist? No. From a strictly evolutionary standpoint, we're a tribal species and will always maintain at least some awareness of people from groups that are "different". It's therefore all but impossible to ever have people stop making jokes about these differences.If a program with black presenters - and I think Lenny Henry is right, in that minorities are under-represented on TV - featured a scene with a white guy using a horn and someone did a joke about "honky honky", I imagine it would be taken as light-hearted. Yes, I'm aware that it's a little different in that white people have traditionally treated black people appallingly, and we therefore deserve any abuse we get, but again: I don't think Jeremy Clarkson treats black people appallingly. I know I don't. So I think in the spirit of fun rather than malice it's sometimes okay to take the piss out of people for their differences. I have several friends of various colours and nationalities who make short jokes at my expense, but I know they're not actively trying to offend me, so I take it with good humour, and possibly mock them in return for things that are beyond their control.

 When it comes to jokes deemed offensive, I tend to side with Billy Connolly, who said "funny's good, and not funny's not good, and nothing else matters." By definition, nothing malicious can be funny. Genuine racism is repugnant and spiteful. Nonetheless, I'm sure we've all made jokes or comments in private that we wouldn't want broadcast to the nation. There's a difference between a joke and an attack, and whilst few of us would ever launch a verbal attack on someone based on ethnicity, most of us have probably made a joke now and again.

 Is Jeremy Clarkson a bit of a dickhead? Yes. Does he occasionally make jokes that aren't PC? Yes.

 Would you describe yourself any differently? Do you behave any differently? I doubt it, if you're honest.

This Is What Happens When A Crazy Person Mourns A Celebrity.

 Bob Hoskins died.

 I'm a little sad about it - not completely devastated, but sad in that he seemed like a nice, normal bloke and I liked a lot of his film work. Also, as one of the few major stars who supported the short, stocky end of the spectrum, there's a certain kinship.

 Stan Lee, the comics guru who invented basically every major superhero you can name (all of the Avengers in the movie, Spider-Man, all the original X-Men, etc etc) was asked about superhero casting in the early 90s. This was when nobody ever dreamed that making a superhero movie would be a money-spinner. He said that Bob Hoskins would be good for Wolverine.

 That's ridiculous for a number of reasons, but Wolverine in the comics is short and square, and Hugh Jackman is tall and lean, and short Wolverine fans are always annoyed about it. I can see where Stan Lee was coming from, even if he was (and still is) crazy.

 I'm totally going off on a tangent, but in an ideal world, Wolverine would have been played by Jack Nicholson circa 1990:


​


 Fantasy nerd casting aside, it made me think that what made Hoskins so good was that he was only ever going to play Bob Hoskins, but he did it well. Compare his character in "Mona Lisa" - a down-on-his-luck ex criminal who can't possibly win in life, or in love - against his character in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" -  a burned out, borderline alcoholic detective who is baffled and exhausted by the world.

 Both characters are similar - they're beleaguered but ultimately decent losers who have to rise to the occasion and try just once to do something right - but appearing in polar opposite films; one a dark story of prostitution and unrequited love, the other a Raymond Chandler pastiche featuring appearances from Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny. 

 And ultimately, maybe this is the problem with life. No matter which version of Bob Hoskins he was, he was still Bob Hoskins to everyone. He was a versatile and talented guy, but he was still "Bob Hoskins." You're still "you" to people. I'm still "me" to people. In the eyes of others, we'll always be what we are, regardless of ability or talent or deviation.

 The whole thing made me think about Peter Dinklage, the dwarf actor from "Game of Thrones." He's probably one of the best actors of the last 20 years, and one of the many things that make "Game of Thrones" great is that it doesn't conform to standard fantasy tropes. He's a dwarf in a fantasy series, sure, but he's not playing "a dwarf"; his character in the series is seen as exactly as weird and deformed as most people would perceive him in real life.

 It doesn't matter that Dinklage (and the character) are charming and intelligent and funny. He's a dwarf actor, and he happened to get lucky playing a role that doesn't involve singing "Hi-ho, hi-ho" to anyone*, but ultimately, even in the best of all possible dwarf roles, he can't escape the fact that he's still playing a dwarf.

 I guess my overall point here is that you can't escape that you will always be what other people think you are. For better or for worse.

 And that's either depressing or uplifting, depending on what the consensus on you, personally, is.

 The only hope you'll ever have for improvement is to work very hard and change that consensus for the better.

 When I was sixeen I got my heart broken, and I became such an asshole as a result.

 I was like a wounded animal; I just wanted to crawl into a hole, psychologically, and lick my wounds, and God help anyone who disturbed the dark corner of my mind I was hiding in.

 Anyone who was even vaguely close to me I actively pushed away. I think, subconsciously, because I'd loved her and she'd hurt me more than anything, and I didn't want any additional hurt from anything I loved at all. So I tried to get rid of it all.

 I was so angry and hurt and unpleasant, I pushed a good many people away. And once I'd succeeded in pushing everyone away, I repeated the cycle. The part of me that was hurt needed to be loved and supported, and the part that was angry and scared needed to push away anyone that cared about me in paranoid self defense. It led to several occasions where I befriended people and then immediately started fights with them.

 After a few years of this - I dropped out of college, I retreated from everything - I was forced by age and circumstance to get a job. I was healed enough that I felt ready to be around people again and I made a conscious effort to be nice to the people I met. Through sheer coincidence of age and timing, they were almost all wide-eyed and optimistic students who were trusting and caring, just as I was ready to trust and care again, and it worked out for the best for me in every way possible. I met my best friend, and sure, he was older and a little more cynical, but that just gave me a healthy place to show my mental scars, and to a wonderful person at that.

 Even if not for this, I met a lot of people I still love.

 Ask anyone who last knew me at sixteen, they'll (rightly) tell you I'm an asshole.

 Ask anyone from my first job at 18 and they'll (rightly) tell you I'm sweet and lovely.

 Everyone should try to generate more of the latter opinions of themselves in life, by making the best possible version of themselves the real one. Let positive people into your life, even though it's scary, and let them see the best of who you are.

 Even if you're Bob Hoskins, be the best version of Bob Hoskins.

 Which happened to be the actual one.

 Bob Hoskins died.

 I'm a little sad about it.




*Smart-arses will now point out that Bob Hoskins featured in "Snow White and the Huntsman," recently.