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thetransintransgenicYeah, I (finally) got around to watching and finishing it.
I know I'm, like, a couple months late -- I took my time, as one OUGHT to for 90% of TV series, darn Netflix and their policy of "let's dump whole seasons all at once like unwanted litters"* -- but, like.
First of all -- it was, of course, very fun, and great to see them actually, like, thinking about their audience's experience re. gender, race, etc. seriously, and all that.
But that said. Let's get into the politics of technology.
Mostly 'cause, like, it's really WEIRD?
[ Some spoilers ahead for, obviously, She-Ra, but also some Nimona gets touched on with a warning before it ]
Like of course there's the obvious "Technology vs. Magic" theme to the conflict, the Horde being Technological to the Princesses' Natural, which, of course, uses a variety of other oppositions which are really common to that same set-up in fantasy universes:
Industrial to the princesses' Artisanal,
Militaristic to the princesses' Peaceful,
Conformist/Mechanical to the princesses' Unique/Human,
Destructive to the princesses' Harmonious,
Manipulating to the princesses' Open,
Malice to the princesses' Kindness,
...
(See (to greater or lesser extents): Lord Of The Rings mythos (especially The Fall Of Gondolin), Star Wars, Fern Gully/James Cameron's Avatar, etc. **)
And we're definitely getting a kinda more nuanced view even before significant Plot starts happening, sure -- Entrapta, who is knee-deep in technology, gets her intro an episode or two before it kicks off, and while that intro is a pretty standard "creations revolt against the creator", Entrapta is still definitely a Good Guy, and even the plot itself, arguably, is solved by SOME kind of technology (the sonic arrow).
And then Entrapta gets left behind and joins the Evil side (which is... a whole 'nother discouse, I guess), which (maybe) kinda undoes the nuance from before...
... and then we get the whole "the entire planet/system/magic IS technology!" thing in the last two episodes.
Which is a reasonable move! It's a good way to modernize generic ~magical planet~ into a twist that is kinda relatable to people nowadays! Especially since, as per Clarke "Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". There's a strong history of it, playing with the interplay between SciFi and Fantasy genres, going at least back to, e.g., Heinlein's Glory Road*** in 1964.
But. She-Ra in particular has ALREADY taken "technology vs. magic" as message! Technology and magic were already playing thematic roles!
The sum total message/theme is... what? combining them?
"technology vs. ancient technology"? "technology vs. more advanced technology"? "vs. less understood technology"?
Are any of those coherent, even? "technology vs. magic" is an oversimplification, and one I disagree with, but it has a relatively clear thing that it's saying -- abstracting away the human element removes the humanity and leads to less empathy in the system, etc. But what do we have now?
Is it "technology vs. ancient technology"? "Old things are better than new things"?
"vs. more advanced technology"? "things that are slightly less advanced are significantly worse"?
"vs. less understood technology"? "understanding is bad"?
She-Ra will definitely continue, and definitely has more to say on all its themes, but where could they possible go from here?
... well, here's at least one place.
This isn't the first time Gingerhaze has mixed and played with and weirded technology and magic. I haven't read all of her work, but I have read one of her first works to make a significant impact, The Broship Of The RingNimona. Discussing the themes will also be spoilers for some of it, and honestly this is probably something you want to track down first. I'll still be here when you get back. (Also you'll be able to judge my bad analysis, 'cause I don't own a copy and haven't read it since it was coming out in 2013, so I'm probably forgetting stuff.)
But yeah -- Nimona sloshes together random technology (videochat, surveillance cameras, large cities), and magic (transformations, potions, evil black magician/mad scientist), and comes out... for, neither, really?
Partially just because neither one is used by one side or the other -- Blackheart's mad-science is half black magic, half just plain science, the knights in shining armor joust with lances that also have rockets on the end and have radios in their helmets. People shapeshift while talking through videosceens. And so on.
But she does more than just mix them -- she carefully plays them off of each other.
Magic/Fantasy are always people playing strongly into their assigned roles -- Knights in shining armor joust because knights Goldenloin acts the good guy because he Is The Good Guy, and Blackheart the bad because he Is The Bad Guy. Dragon!Nimona is The Big Bad Dragon because that's... what she is then, what everyone expects her to be, what everyone knows she is the moment they look at her.
Science/Technology, meanwhile, is control and hierarchies -- the radios give commands, the lance-rocket is -- spoilers -- done reluctantly, under orders. The Institute use Technology to contain/hold Nimona, and plan to use Science to control her and use her to their benefit.
And after all that, the answer is, of course, neither. In the end, everything blows up, and what's left is people, being people to each other, and being kind not because they're less abstracted by technology or whatever -- nor, had she chosen to flip the standard moral, by tossing away the superstition and classical roles and accept moral (and technological) progress by walking away from the past.
They win, and they continue, and they walk away from BOTH paradigms, by choosing to recognize each other as people-not-roles, as people-not-resources, as people-not-pieces. REGARDLESS of whether they're working with magic or a technology at the time.
And -- MAYBE -- that's somewhere she could go with She-Ra.
The theme set-up isn't entirely there -- the whole Magic vs. Technology which I started this by talking about is strong there in She-Ra, but pretty much not-at-all in Nimona. The technology-is-hierarchy/magic-is-assigned-roles bit is... kinda there in She-Ra? Maybe? At some point very much so -- the Horde is definitely strongly hierarchical, and we do see Adora being pushed into her assigned role by Light Hope, but... that's not much. So far.
She-Ra's attitude toward technology is weird and inconsistent and leaves a lot underdeveloped and unquestioned -- so far. But Gingerhaze has done good on this before, and I feel pretty confident hoping that we'll see much more coherence and nuance as we go.
In the mean time, I'll be waiting for Season 2, and keeping a close eye in general on technology, and in specific and the further adventures of the best character in the series, Entrapta.
Until then onward to meta and fanfics!
(* I have, like, a Rant on this, which I might have tossed out somewhere? I should put it here at some point maybe.)
(** I'm sure I'm oversimplifying/missing the very important nuance for plenty of those, if you dig deeper. .... *sigh*, sure, fine, go ahead and litigate the nuances of the issue in the comments section if you must. )
(*** that's technically a spoiler, sorry, but the book holds together even knowing it. And given what else he pulls that's uh um UH WELL, it's not even the most dramatic spoiler)
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Date: 2019-01-04 06:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-01-05 10:55 pm (UTC)but,
then I got distracted by the rest of it.
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Date: 2019-01-05 05:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-01-06 02:19 am (UTC)Which, like, nice. But I'm not sure if it was anything bigger.