I mean, there are a probably plenty of cis-woman who, for various reasons, are unable to carry a child. I’m not sure how much we’d want to dig into an actress’s medical history in casting her?

Well it’s not like they are likely to have captured tons of AS to test it on. They aren’t easy to grab hold of.

Presumably the people who are telling you about the things they themselves experienced rather than the people who are trying to tell you about what other people may or may not have experienced? Seems comically obvious.

There’s the dawning horror as you realize that the characters behave like you’d expect rich, entitled, jerks to behave but the writer thinks that exact obnoxious behavior is delightful. 

I don’t know. When someone is fired up and excited about something, sometimes they can share some of that enthusiasm. Like, reading A River Runs Through It gave me a brief moment where I wanted to fly fish.

Sure, but those shows aren’t about Chekov or the cops’ personal lives. The audience can comfortably assume that the family stuff is happening in the places we don’t see. SatC was about the day to day lives of the characters, particularly their romances. In that context, the absence of mention of family (e.g. What…

My perennial problem with ASP’s writing is she writes characters who behave horribly, but clearly does not see their actions as horrible. In fact, she sees them as adorable and delightful. It’s pretty much put me off everything she has done at this point.

I think Fellowship is the best adaption of the three LotR movies and I still love it so much.

I watched RT with my parents (I saw it first and recommended it).  We all got teary at the same time. I love that movie so much. 

LOTR “pandered” to it’s audience? It didn’t have an “audience” until it invented one for itself. And it started out as a weird cult vehicle beloved by hippies. 

My issue is that we already got a spectacularly disappointing answer to “Who gets to be ruler of Westeros?” And that was when the stakes were ostensibly interesting. Why would I care when the stakes are lower and we already know the answer?

Harry Potter? The Lord of the Rings? Both resolved pretty well and left their audiences happy.

Well this piece seems to be focused on it’s progression primarily as art, but I’d agree that it’s preeminence as a money-printer is interesting too.

Does it talk about Frankenstein?

Yikes! I didn’t know that happened to Connie Willis.

At first, no lie, I read this headline as “Jordan Peterson” and was filled with a kind of fascinated horror. I blame that Succession review for reminding me he exists. 

I sort of like this show, but I can’t help but feel like it is basically It’s Always Sunny except the real joke is on the common mass of humanity. Which is probably accurate regarding how rich people really are, but not entirely enjoyable. Especially over time.

I guess I thought I was clear. There is are fantasy books that tell stories that aren’t about “will the world end?” (e.g. Deerskin, Piranesi). I’d like to see more shows or miniseries in that vein (though, god, that Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell adaption was ghastly), in addition to these epics.

I’m not sure what you mean about Barbie. I wasn’t talking about Barbie when I was talking about smaller stories. My point was that I’m less concerned with stories leaning too hard on soft and easy fantasy tropes and more concerned that we’re just getting a parade of, “What do we do with this magical world ending…

I think what’s missing in tv fantasy now is less darkness, and more modesty of storylines. A lot of these series took their cues from LotR and told stories about grand, world-ending conflict (e.g. GoT). But there is a whole branch of fantasy that is telling more modest, personal, small-scale stories. Where the stakes…