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beccaelizabethThing I want to write about but lack sufficient depth of knowledge:
I have been reading some books that treat Wales and Native Americans as some sort of mystical Other, a fairyland you can visit and notice has a homelessness problem. And it made me think about Torchwood. Because Torchwood isn't doing that.
I have read a Bunch of stories that decide Wales is some kind of mystical theme park, just Other enough to go visit and bring back a bit of magic from. Wales exists to be Mountains with occasional Castle. Also mud. Possibly sheep. There may be a pub. But it is being Iconic and Scenic and not terribly functional.
Torchwood just has the story set in Cardiff, a real functioning city with police and local government and sports events and wheelie bins and people on a night out and just, you know, everything you get in every other city.
Plus aliens, but this is the Whoniverse, so we are real clear by now that all this all is happening in several places, we're just watching the Cardiff team.
A team including Welsh people.
And, yes, an immigrant from outer space with an American accent, but.
Welsh people aren't just the backdrop or the victims or the comedy sidekick, they are the actual protagonists and there to save the world.
(arguments about efficacy and technique are for another time)
The more I read this book that assumes that not only the characters but the reader will identify with white Americans who own their own house and might have met a black person but find Native Americans to be exotic emissaries from a mystic power and or possibly ghosts the more annoyed I get.
And I am aware that there are significant differences between that and visiting Wales
but these books aren't.
But to figure out if it's more than just these two texts to compare contrast and write this up properly I'd need some kind of survey of how Wales was depicted in pre Torchwood media and to read around the topic and actually know what I'm talking about, which, I feel I do not.
It's just winding me up.
And that's without getting on to how some stories treat being descended from. All those ancestors and all that math to figure out how many people you descend from across a thousand years? Oh we'll just be talking about the one of them and being vague and hand wavy.
I have a headache and a grumpy.
New hair is excellent but the going and getting it done is exhausting.
I'll go read some more.
I have been reading some books that treat Wales and Native Americans as some sort of mystical Other, a fairyland you can visit and notice has a homelessness problem. And it made me think about Torchwood. Because Torchwood isn't doing that.
I have read a Bunch of stories that decide Wales is some kind of mystical theme park, just Other enough to go visit and bring back a bit of magic from. Wales exists to be Mountains with occasional Castle. Also mud. Possibly sheep. There may be a pub. But it is being Iconic and Scenic and not terribly functional.
Torchwood just has the story set in Cardiff, a real functioning city with police and local government and sports events and wheelie bins and people on a night out and just, you know, everything you get in every other city.
Plus aliens, but this is the Whoniverse, so we are real clear by now that all this all is happening in several places, we're just watching the Cardiff team.
A team including Welsh people.
And, yes, an immigrant from outer space with an American accent, but.
Welsh people aren't just the backdrop or the victims or the comedy sidekick, they are the actual protagonists and there to save the world.
(arguments about efficacy and technique are for another time)
The more I read this book that assumes that not only the characters but the reader will identify with white Americans who own their own house and might have met a black person but find Native Americans to be exotic emissaries from a mystic power and or possibly ghosts the more annoyed I get.
And I am aware that there are significant differences between that and visiting Wales
but these books aren't.
But to figure out if it's more than just these two texts to compare contrast and write this up properly I'd need some kind of survey of how Wales was depicted in pre Torchwood media and to read around the topic and actually know what I'm talking about, which, I feel I do not.
It's just winding me up.
And that's without getting on to how some stories treat being descended from. All those ancestors and all that math to figure out how many people you descend from across a thousand years? Oh we'll just be talking about the one of them and being vague and hand wavy.
I have a headache and a grumpy.
New hair is excellent but the going and getting it done is exhausting.
I'll go read some more.