PC345: Makeisha In Time

[DKT]

And I would love to hear a Podcastle story about medieval brewsters!

Just wanted to pop in and also welcome you, as well as say I'd read the hell out of a story about medieval brewsters. Someone write that story STAT! 

[Ariadnes-thread]

Thanks for the warm welcome, both of you!

[albionmoonlight]

Wow.  Now that's a discussion.  Makes me glad in a way that I am behind on listening.  I LOVE the story's attack on our idea of "if I could only go back in time and change this one thing," I would go and make it better.  The idea that the forces of prejudice that keep re-writing history a certain way are so hard to overcome.  As the story says, there is a deafening chorus of voices drowned out by history.  This really helped to demonstrate that idea.  Great, great story.

[UnfulredJohnson]

Oh man, gotta love the smart people arguing. It's like chess with words. Well done you guys.

I liked the story. I can't say I'm crazy about stories that are trying too hard to push some moral and what not (I'm more or a swords and 'splosions guy myself), but honestly I just liked the story and I thought it would have stood up just fine (maybe better) without the 'we have always fought' preface. I thought it was cool that she got to be kind of immortal, living 1000 plus years. I was kind of hoping that she would go back enough times and do enough cool and crazy shit to actually change things, maybe she could sit in on some history lecture in the present and the woman rocket scientist would point at some white guy on her projector and say: 'Men are pigs.' And they all live happily ever after. Sorry. That's a joke.

Also it was kind of quantum leapy. I love quantum leap. Setting right the wrongs that once went wrong or something. I can see why people are saying it's a bit rich that she's being all moral about women's lib and then slaughtering people in past, but this really didn't occur to me when I listened to it. I just thought it was a fun story.

I also thought it was cool that she tried to kill herself a bunch of times. I love characters with grit. And I think it was just good writing. The ending was what got me. It was a fantastic finish, and I just smiled to myself and thought, you can't argue with that. I think it speaks to Rachel K Jones strenght as an author that she could make me like a story that I really would have prefered not to like.

Good job.

[Unblinking]

I was kind of hoping that she would go back enough times and do enough cool and crazy shit to actually change things

I've been thinking back on the story and wondering--CAN she actually change anything?  In some time travel narratives, changing the past is impossible, in others it's not.   She certainly changes with each jump back, but does the world?  Of course once she goes and comes back if she had been famous enough she can look up what history says about her, but maybe history had already said that about her before she left? 

I don't know if I prefer it better one way or another, if the past is immutable it perhaps could just add a layer to her sense of futility with the struggle.  Could maybe even be a metaphor for how hard it would be for a single person (even in multiple lifetimes) to change history.

[Ocicat]

This episode was voted the second best PodCastle story of our first ten years, and was re-aired as PodCastle 516d.

Please do not abuse the castle time-turner to attend the birthday celebration multiple times. It's rude.

[TrishEM]

This was such an amazing story. I wouldn't have been a bit surprised if it had been voted the all-time favorite.

[Katzentatzen]

I've never forgotten this story. One could become drained trying to discover how many women and people of color have been forgotten by history. Makeisha has been given a great gift, but it comes with so much suffering. She's my historical hero, but I'm happy that she has not returned, after the story.