Author Topic: PC316, Giant Episode: The Meaning of Love  (Read 14197 times)

ctjhill

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Reply #25 on: July 29, 2014, 09:20:56 PM
I totally loved this story. Even though it was a Giant episode it didn't feel long, times flies when you're having fun I guess. I actually ended up listening to the story multiple times, which is unusual for me.

I just loved the characterisation. How clever and devious Asa was even though the prince was far from a smart choice. I guess the point is that the meaning of love doesn't have much to do with smart. Plus we clearly aren't supposed to like the prince, but you can totally understand how he reaches his point of view.

I didn't spot the trick with Asa's gender until it was mentioned at the end of episode, though when it was pointed out I did remember a 'he' that I'd assumed I had misheard the first time. It's interesting how Asa's gender was so rarely directly alluded to, we tend to assume a certain amount of "he said" "she struck" but the writing was skilful enough that I didn't notice the absence until it was pointed out.



ctjhill

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Reply #26 on: July 29, 2014, 09:49:49 PM
Have just had a look at the varied discussions about Asa's name/gender and our assumptions. Interesting stuff.

Even though I know Asa is also a boys name (Asa Butterfield, for example) I kinda assumed Asa was female straight away.
Not sure if that's because I'm female (I know I've leaped to that assumption when unsure of gender before), because I made a hetero-normative assumption since Asa loved the prince, or because the reader was female. Possibly a mixture of all three. Whether Asa was cross-dressing didn't really cross my mind until the girl starting try to remove Asa's clothes, though crossing dressing is common enough in this type of setting. I think it's also interesting that we see little of female roles in this setting. It's clearly a hard and desperate place, but that probably means women have to be as involved in the shady side of things. Plus it being secondary world I could see no reason Asa's schemes couldn't be done by someone openly identifying as female.

When I re-listened I noticed that an informant refers to Asa as "a waste of spunk", which I took to be the UK usage of the word where it refers to a male-only bodily fluid. Also one of the magistrate's men refers to Asa a a "freak of nature". Both of these could be simple insults, but perhaps there is something that means Asa cuts an unusual figure.



J.T. Evans

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Reply #27 on: August 07, 2014, 12:37:06 AM
The visions, smells, feelings (emotional and physical), and experiences of the characters were so evocative that I didn't realize this was a giant episode until it was over. Daniel knocked this one out of the park with a very engaging story about characters that bloomed to full life in my mind's eye. While the capricious nature of the prince's "love" seemed shallow to me, it really wasn't his story. The true depth of the story fell from Aysa's experiences, insight, twists of mind, and turns of action. Now I have to add Daniel Abraham to my "must be read" list, and Rogues shall be mine to occupy a space next to the anthology, Dangerous Women.



Scattercat

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Reply #28 on: October 30, 2014, 12:50:52 AM
For me, I immediately twigged on the Shakespeare connection when we had two dudes, one royal and one not, sharing a room, with one of them in love with the other, and then someone said a country name that sounded like "Lyria."  I said, "Oh, Twelfth Night."  And then the prince is madly in love with a girl he saw for only a moment and I said, "Ah, R&J instead.  Is this just going to be a rundown of the romances?"  Then there was almost no Shakespeare for the rest of it and I was mildly disappointed.

But that's why I thought Asa was a girl for a longish portion of the early story; I assumed s/he was Viola. 

(On the other hand, I also associate Asa as a boy's name because Samaritan's cover identity in Astro City is "Asa Martin."  So I dunno.  It didn't bother me super much either way, honestly.)

(What DID bother me was the bit where he sleeps with Zalani while she's drugged and clearly not all there.  That's on the Unforgivable Sins list for me, and it made Asa a character I no longer wanted to see much of.)



woodenmango

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Reply #29 on: January 20, 2015, 06:54:22 PM
I know this was an old episode and that there hasn't been much talk about it for awhile but I love it so much! I love the description of the city and would very much love to read more stories in this setting.  I like Asa getting giddy from their own cleverness, it makes them very relatable. And I am very much a fan or rogues. 

On the note of Asa's gender I originally thought they were a man, given that early once or twice "he" was used. But then I started to get suspicious since pronouns never came up again, and also I noticed that Hobson used deeper, rougher voices (or what I interpreted as such) for the other male characters and not so much for Asa. So I started to wonder if Asa was a transman or a woman disguised as man and that is how interpreted their comment to the woman about not being what she was expecting.

In any case i loved this story, both for the plot but also for the clever play with gender. I would love to see more like it.



Unblinking

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Reply #30 on: January 27, 2015, 04:01:46 PM
I know this was an old episode and that there hasn't been much talk about it for awhile but I love it so much!

Threadomancy is encouraged, no matter how old the episode, if you have something you want to say.  :D