This month, I have a pondering for you with spoilers for Horatio Hornblower: Duty and Terry Pratchett's Night Watch. So, here's your spoiler space:
Will the Hornblowers have a girl or a boy?
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So Maria’s already in a family way (a veritable miracle, considering she and Horatio have only spent, what, three nights together?) The obvious question is what will the baby be? Like with the Vimes child, I am highly curious and wishing fervently that I didn’t have to wait what seems like 500 years for the answer. But unlike with the Vimes child, I don’t have a clear-cut preference. Why the smeg did Vimes have a boy?! Why?! Everyone I know thinks he should have had a girl.
We’ve got a couple of theories about it, but the point remains – he should have had a girl. Think of how the entire society would change had Samuel Vimes raised a girl! I know Esk and Cheery have done some to break down the gender barrier, and the barrier is fairly intermittent to begin with, but just imagine a little girl with Sybil’s presence and Sam’s influence. A little girl who grew up with Angua and Cheery as handy role models. A little girl who can wrangle a swamp dragon OR a member of the Assassins Guild. I keep envisioning Sam and a little girl in messy pigtails and a backward hat out in the front yard tossing a baseball around. That’s a precious image, that is. A boy is likely to just be Samuel Vimes with less humble beginnings.
But Horatio and Maria... I’m actually kind of leaning toward the boy on this one. With Maria as the mother and Horatio never being around, a girl would grow up to be another Maria. Not that a boy would be much better in the situation, but Maria would likely raise a little boy slightly differently. Or at least the environment would give him an interesting background that would likely make him an unconventional character. Of course, if Maria were to die in childbirth, or if Horatio were to get promoted to Admiral before too much damage is done to the child (both of which seem reasonable hypotheses), they could still raise an interesting young girl. Though part of me also suspects the child will die, too.
Or, hey. I could finally get around to reading the books...
Would the priestesses of the Goddess of Seamstresses be chaste?
For the most part, priestesses in temples to pagan gods have been, at least in theory, chaste. Something about purity and piety. I don’t presume to know. But it’s typically true. And Terry Pratchett mentioned the Ephebian goddess of women of negotiable affection at least in Small Gods, if not in others. So are they the exception to the rule? Or is it more in keeping with Pratchett’s delicious sense of irony for them to be chaste?
What does Tino’s mother do for a living?
She has evidently been divorced for at least eight years, and though she seems very happy with her boyfriend, she has not remarried. I think it’s pretty safe to assume that Tino and his mother do not live off of Mr. Tonitini OR Dixon.
I have no doubt that Tino’s mother has a job, but what? And when? She’s always there when Tino’s home, so when is she ever at work? And while it’s a pretty good bet that she doesn’t cook or do anything particularly artistic for a living, what does she do? She’s fairly adept with automotive repair; maybe she’s a mechanic. Except they seem fairly well off. Could she actually make that much as a mechanic? She’s also quite good at dispensing advice. Maybe she writes an advice column or something. That might explain her never seeming to go to work...
I dunno. Suffice it to say, she’s a good mother.
Why the need for two actors to play Binx in Hocus Pocus?
I watched Hocus Pocus for the first time in years this morning. Wam! played it, and I just happened to have seen that it was coming on just soon enough that I had a chance to run downstairs for a tape.
I’ve discovered that I still know the movie backward and forward. I still really enjoy it (despite its obvious flaws). And Binx is still my favourite character (and, since he was _always_ my favourite, I have validation that I’m _not_ biased because of his actor). I also discovered that Thackery Binx (the boy who was turned into Binx the Cat, and who Kelly and I always thought was really cute), who I knew wasn’t played by Marsden, WAS _voiced_ by him. They dubbed over Sean Murray’s voice so that Thackery the boy sounded like Binx the cat. Which makes sense. But it would have made MORE sense had they just had Marsden play Thackery...! I mean, with a lot of voice actors, that wouldn’t have worked. Cummings, Bennett, Bell... None of them could have played Thackery, who couldn’t have been more than about fifteen or sixteen. But Marsden played a fifteen-year-old when he was _twenty_, and he was only eighteen at the time. And he’s _definitely_ cuter than Murray turned out to be.
I’m posing this argument because Marsden deserves some respect. Really. It has nothing to do with the fact that I want to see him in seventeenth century colonial garb.
The ever dubious Fay brought another couple of questions to my attention the other day regarding the residents of Halloweentown.
Where’d they come from?
Well, they appear to be on roughly the same plane of existence as Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, so I think it’s safe to assume that they are immortal (or at least undead. Or something. That all gets a little grey) Therefore, they wouldn’t need to procreate, as they never die. Or whatever it is that they don’t do.
How’d they get to be there?
Why don’t any two look he same?
So, they came from human imagination. They got to be there because that’s where they wound up when they were imagined. And no two look the same because there aren’t any relatives, because there is no procreation. Or the animators were just having fun with the character designs.
Yeah, I’m rather late. Sorry. Deadlines everywhere... I need some inspiration for my next one and it’s not coming... Pah.
In the movie version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, how did the Grangers get to Diagon Alley?
Hermione’s parents are both muggles, so they have never gone through all this weirdness before. Fay makes the point that there is no way that she would run headlong into a solid wall if her daughter were to tell her to. And I agree. And there’s no other way for them to get to Diagon Alley. So. Are they just really trusting? I don’t know. But this isn’t getting my article written, so I’m going to leave it up to you.
But, Fay came through again, and not only reminded me that I need to do a pondering, but also gave me a question. I love that girl.
If Bloo has no nose, how can he sneeze?
In “Bloooo,” our dear Blooregard gets a cold, turns white as a...well, a ghost, and wanders through Foster’s sneezing all over everything. Bur Bloo doesn’t have a nose. This is even addressed when, in his stupor, his reflection suggests that he blow his nose and he points out that he doesn’t have one.
It is possible to sneeze through your mouth. Even so, the simple fact that he was congested and expelling fluid relies on the fact that he must have sinus cavities. Are they connected directly to his mouth? (How disgusting would that be? It’s bad enough already with a nose between the two...), or does he simply have small nostrils in the manner of a snake or such?
Whatever the answer is, it was disgusting.
