Tag: fantasy

The Wheel of Time Season 1 Episode 4: The Dragon Reborn Recap

~ Metacrone

Much of episode 4 takes place in the Aes Sedai encampment, where Moiraine, Lan and Nyaeve stop for the night after meeting up with the sisters in episode 3. Moiraine reconnects with Liandrin and the other Aes Sedai sisters, has her wound healed and evaluates Logain, the potential Dragon Reborn. Nynaeve learns more about the Aes Sedai and their Warders.

Rand and Mat travel with Thom the gleeman, stopping at a local farm for the night. Egwene and Perrin travel toward the White Tower with the Tuatha’an and learn about their peaceful philosophy, the Way of the Leaf.

Recap

The episode begins with a flashback to the recent past in Ghealan, where Logain (Álvaro Morte) is waging war on his own people. This is the war the Two Rivers villagers discussed in episode 1 that’s taking place in the south. Logain’s peasant army has stormed the gates and is sacking the king’s castle. The king’s retainers attempt to move him to a secure location, but he’s a dedicated leader and refuses to leave the battle. Logain approaches, all power and intensity, repelling attacks with barely a twitch of his finger.

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The Wheel of Time Season 1 Episode 3: A Place of Safety Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 2 Comments

Wheel of Time S1Ep3 Danya Waits for Payment

After a brief flashback to Nynaeve’s capture by the trolloc, episode 3 picks up where the previous episode left off, with Nynaeve’s knife at Lan’s throat and the four villagers on the run from the sentient evil of Shadar Logoth. Once they get past their initial hostilities, Lan convinces Nynaeve to help treat Moiraine’s infected wound. Perrin and Egwene encounter a pack of wolves who chase them toward a group of travelers. Mat and Rand find a mining town with an inn, where they have some educational encounters.

Recap

Before the opening credits we jump back to the trolloc battle in Two Rivers, moments after Nynaeve (Zoë Robins) was taken. As a trolloc drags the Wisdom out of the village by her impressive braid, Egwene can be heard crying for her in the background. Nynaeve’s captor drops her on the ground while he stops to brutally murder and cannibalize a wounded trolloc comrade.

I’m sure it was a mercy killing.

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The Wheel of Time Season 1 Episode 2: Shadow’s Waiting Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 1 Comment

In episode 2, Moiraine, Lan and the four young villagers begin their journey from Two Rivers to the White Tower, where they will get help from the Aes Sedai. The trolloc army follows close behind, forcing them to make dangerous choices. Moiraine grows weaker from her wound due to the trolloc poison that was on the weapon.

Recap

The episode’s opening scene is not for the faint of heart.

A young boy crosses a Whitecloak encampment with a breakfast tray for Eamon Valda (Abdul Salis), a Questioner- think Witchfinder General, with all of the attendant misogyny, torture and murder. The Whitecloaks, or Children of the Light, believe that all uses of the One Power lead to the Darkness and must be stamped out with prejudice.

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The Wheel of Time Season 1 Episode 1: Leavetaking Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 2 Comments

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Amazon Prime’s new high fantasy series The Wheel of Time is based on the 14 novel series by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson. The series takes place in a future universe that looks like the late medieval past, after a cataclysmic battle between good and evil thousands of years ago brought societal collapse and confined the use of magic to women. Men are driven insane when they wield the One Power. Time is cyclical and as the Wheel of Time spins it creates the Pattern of Ages, with human lives as both the threads of the tapestry and drivers of the Wheel.

Souls are reborn, with some able to channel power and meant to change the course of history. 3500 years ago, one such soul, who became known as The Dragon but was a man named Lewis Therin, fought the Darkness and won, but at great cost. The world has never recovered. Now prophecy states that the Dragon has been reborn and will stop the Dark One again. The Aes Sedai, a powerful magical sisterhood, seek to find him before he comes into his power. He must be carefully managed so that he doesn’t destroy the world a second time.

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Lovecraft Country Season 1: Review

~ Metacrone

 

Now that I’ve finished recapping the German time travel nightmare that is Dark, let’s move on to the quintessentially American nightmare that is HBO’s Lovecraft Country. The series is adapted from Matt Ruff’s 2016 novel of the same name, which takes place in 1950’s Jim Crow America, emphasizing the competing horrors of racism, trauma and monsters of pure fantasy.

The “Lovecraft Country” of the title is a pun, referring both to scifi-fantasy author HP Lovecraft’s non-human creations, which are referenced sporadically, and to his racist, xenophobic and misogynist beliefs, which permeated both his writing and mainstream America at the time. Lovecraft Country is an intricate dance competition between metaphorical, cinematic and human monsters. It’s not always clear who wins, but the people of color definitely fight for their lives, on every level.

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Carnival Row Season 1 Review

~ Metacrone ~ 2 Comments

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In the world of Carnival Row, Amazon Prime Video’s latest entry into the fantasy epic genre, the darkness is rising. You probably didn’t notice it before if you’re human, so it’s presence now feels new. But in actuality, the darkness has always been around, and has been pretty active for a long time. If you aren’t human, you’ve always known this, since for many years humans have been busy colonizing nonhuman lands, exterminating nonhuman sentient species, and exploiting whoever’s left alive.

We aren’t given much backstory on the whole extermination and exploitation thing, and since Carnival Row is an original story rather than being based on a more detailed original source, such as a book series, we’re left to fill in a lot of blanks. The metaphors are pretty on the nose, so on the surface that’s not hard to do.

When you stop to think about it, even by the end of the season, the entirely fictional geographical and political worlds of Carnival Row are left exceedingly vague for a show that’s supposedly about political issues which affect refugees. For example, we’re never shown a map, despite shipping routes and battle strategies being discussed repeatedly, providing ample opportunities for the characters to casually flash one.

And I never did figure out who the Pact were, the enemy who drive Vignette, our heroine, from her homeland. I just mentally inserted “Evil Empire” whenever I heard their name. In the long term, their sole purpose was to create refugees, so they didn’t matter enough for me to bother with learning anything more. After that, in a twist of fate, the Burgue, who were supposed to be the refugees’ friends, become the “Evil Empire”.

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Always a Witch Season 1 Episode 3: Ouija Recap

~ Metacrone

Always a Witch 103 Johnny Ki and Carmen.png

Episode 3 begins with Johnny Ki explaining the threat he made to Carmen at the end of episode 2. He shows her a video his mom made the last time he saw his parents, then explains that his parents were killed in a boating accident. He was learning to drive and lost control of the boat, so he blames himself for the crash. He wants Carmen to help him talk to his dead parents so that he can get their reassurance that they don’t hate him and that they forgive him.

Carmen can’t speak to the dead, so she can’t help him. But she assures him that real love is unconditional, so, wherever his parents are, they still love him and have forgiven him.

Carmen tries to leave, but Johnny questions why she can levitate, but she can’t speak to the dead.

Because those are two really different powers?

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Always a Witch Season 1 Episode 2: A University Witch Recap

~ Metacrone

Always A Witch:Siempre Bruja 102 Carmen Takes a Nap and Levitates

In episode 2 of Always a Witch, Carmen settles into the 21st century as she makes an arrangement with Adelaida to stay at the hostel while working there. She also gets acquainted with a new group of friends, while searching for clues about Ninibe’s disappearance and trying to stay one step ahead of Lucien. Carmen audits biology classes as part of her modern cover story, which brings her into contact with many of the people she needs to meet and increases her knowledge about the 21st century and witchcraft.

It’s so refreshing to watch a show about a witch who fends for herself, without an older male handler acting as a father figure to “guide” her actions and education. Carmen has various friends, advisors and mentors in her life, as any normal person does. But there’s no one in her story whose opinion she allows to take precedence over her own, such as a vampire slayer’s watcher, the Charmed witches’ whitelighter, or the male partner of virtually any fictional woman. In both time periods, Carmen listens to the opinions of others, then makes her own decisions. Not even Cristobal can sway her opinions or decisions for long.

Since I hate the trope that a powerful/magical woman always needs a male handler or she’ll become out of control (looking at you right now, Roswell, New Mexico), I’m thrilled to see Carmen able to think for herself at 18. Once Cristobal teaches her to read and write, she adds those skills to her supernatural powers and begins to leave the mindset of a slave behind. During her arrest and trial, it’s clear that existentially, her mind is already free. The Inquisidor even accuses her of seeing herself as equal to her master. It’s not an attitude she develops in the 21st century.

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Always a Witch Season 1 Episode 1: A Leap in Time Recap

~ Metacrone

Always a Witch Carmen with Christobal & Esteban

This is a recap. My review of Always a Witch S1 is HERE.

Always a Witch is the story of an enslaved, time-traveling young witch who escapes the danger she faces in Cartagena, Colombia in 1646 by jumping to the Cartagena of 2019. In the present day, Carmen Eguiluz, the young witch, must perform a mission for the wizard who helped her time travel. Then she can go back to her own time to save the man she loves from being shot and killed when he attempts to defend her, and stop her own execution as a witch by burning at the stake. But once she gets to 2019, completing her mission is more complicated than she expected. She makes friends and enemies as she navigates the future, and it takes teamwork to achieve her goal.

Recap

The episode begins with a seaside vista of sailing ships anchored off the Caribbean coast of Cartagena, Columbia, in 1646. On the shore, a young, dark-skinned woman is chained to a cart, pulled by soldiers. She is being brought to her execution in a coastal fort made from local stone. Soon, the woman, Carmen Eguiluz, is tied to a stake, with a pyre beneath her feet, ready to be burned as a witch.

The Inquisidor reads a heavy-handed list of charges against her:

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Always a Witch (Siempre Bruja) Season 1 Review

~ Metacrone ~ 1 Comment

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Always a Witch, or Siempre Bruja, is a Netflix Original from Colombia. This Spanish language show (with English subtitles and dubbing) is a time travel fantasy about a young 17th century slave named Carmen who is also a witch. She uses magic to escape execution and travel to the present day. Much like the series Outlander, she travels between the two time periods, fights evil foes in both, tries to save the man she loves, must adjust to her new time period, and works to make life better for the people of the past.

Always a Witch is a fresh take on the time traveling witch concept, with a young cast and storytelling that’s grounded in Latin American culture. This show avoids the graphic nature of Outlander, keeping its content more suited to younger audiences, while still addressing the harshness of Carmen’s life as a slave, and the realities of the modern world.

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