Insta rec: podcast

[jainas]

I just listened to the excellent two first episodes of Be The Serpent, a fanish podcast of “extremely deep literary merit” (^^) which I found very interesting.

The first episode discusses Those who walk Away from Omelas by Ursula Le Guin, and the conversation the fic Victory Condition by Astolat has with it, but also how it is linked to genres such Hopepunk, Grimdark, and Noblebright. Excellents analysis, I found if really insightful and interesting, they pointed out stuff I hadn't considered both in Le Guin and Astolat works, and they managed to make me love Victory Condition even more, which I didn’t think was possible.

The second episode is about characters taxionomy, daemons, Hoghart houses, the Sorting Hat Chats... I never had much interest for the sorting system, but they introduced me to the concept of primary/ secondary houses, burned houses, and had interesting points on how personality classification systems can be a fun and useful writing tool.

Comments

[mekare]

Oh that sounds like a great podcast, thanks for the rec!

[jainas]

It is great! I'm now up to episode 5 and still going strong.
Episode 5 is about fealty and loyalty tropes, so totally relevant to my interests... I seem to have much of the same tastes as some of the hosts. :D

[mekare]

Mmh fealty and loyalty, I‘m up for that.

[jainas]

So much! :) Let me now when/if you listen to the podcast, I'd love to hear what you thought about it.
I was sad the fancake Loyalty round didn't get more fic recs... ^^

[mekare]

I‘ve just listened to the first episode and must thank you again for the rec! This was so absolutely my thing and very thoughtprovoking and educational! I know lots of literary theory, unfortunately none of my courses at uni back then dealt with fantasy (only so-called classical literature). I am definitely going to hunt up LeGuin‘s short story and am looking forward to applying the new concepts of hopepunk etc. to other fantasy that I know.

[jainas]

Here it is! https://www.utilitarianism.com/nu/omelas.pdf :)

A lot of Astolat Transformer fics are actually about Omelas ("The Revolutionary" strongly works the themes too), and I found that keeping it in mind while reading the fics made them even better...

I'm glad you enjoyed the podcast!

[mekare]

Thank you! I read it and it is such a powerful story.

[sunlit_stone]

I am not usually a podcast person (well, more precisely I'm not usually a listening-to-things person) but I really love Be The Serpent! Interesting people talking about things I love with interesting observations, it's great!! That said I am (unsurprisingly) way behind right now; I still haven't gotten any further than episode six. I've got a lot to catch up on!

Speaking of Hogwarts houses, what House are you, if you don't mind my asking? I'm currently, uh, very confused, myself--used to think I was a Slytherclaw, now I'm not so sure...

[jainas]

I thought of you while listening to the loyalty episode, as I recall that you share my love for this kind of dynamics. :) I'm at episode six too. :)

I'm actually not sure of my secondary house. I'm certainly a Hufflepuff primary, but I'm not so sure of my secondary, either Slytherin or Hufflepuff I think, with probably a Ravenclaw model thrown in for good mesure... ^^
What make you doubt your houses then?

[sunlit_stone]

I'm now at episode 14, thanks to a habit of listening to it while I cook. It's so good!

I could definitely see a Hufflepuff secondary? You do a lot of community-building stuff like posting in rec comms and so forth, it's really worthy of admiration :) a Slytherin secondary would be harder to detect from the outside, I think, but I can definitely see that you've got some Ravenclae :P

For me...ugh. A Ravenclaw Primary approach to morality seems to be the only sensible way to approach ethics, to me--it just doesn't make sense otherwise--/but/ I find it a lot less emotionally compelling than I think someone with a "real" Ravenclaw Primary should...so am I a Slytherin? I admire loyalty but I think there needs to be something more than that. A Hufflepuff? Hmmm. It's true I like being around people a lot for how introverted I am, but...I don't know. Gryffindor? Has my instinctive admiration, but there's nothing that goes up against my sense of Wrong Wrong Wrong like I see in my Gryffindor Primary sister--I'm usually able to stop and think. Idk. If I had to guess--maybe Slytherin, maybe Hufflepuff, but all hiding under a strong Ravenclaw Primary model. As to secondary--Ravenclaw for sure, except that I also have Slytherin secondary tendencies that I've had as long as I remember, so...? Like I said, c'est beaucoup compliqué !