Mastodawn

Beat Walti Jan 16

Douglas Adams once said something, answering a question from a fan about whether Arthur Dent was a “hero”, and whether the Hitchhiker stories were “gaily whimsical” or cynical. The whole thing won't fit here (see: https://shreevatsa.net/post/douglas-adams-cultural-divide/) but quoting the main part:

> I suspect there is a cultural divide at work here. In England our heroes tend to be characters who either have, or come to realise that they have, no control over their lives whatsoever – Pilgrim, Gulliver, Hamlet, Paul Pennyfeather (from Decline and Fall), Tony Last (from A Handful of Dust). We celebrate our defeats and our withdrawals – the Battle of Hastings, Dunkirk, almost any given test match. There was a wonderful book published, oh, about twenty years ago I think, by Stephen Pile called the Book of Heroic Failures. It was staggeringly huge bestseller in England and sank with heroic lack of trace in the U.S. Stephen explained this to me by saying that you cannot make jokes about failure in the States. It’s like cancer, it just isn’t funny at any level. In England, though, for some reason it’s the thing we love most. So Arthur may not seem like much of a hero to Americans – he doesn’t have any stock options, he doesn’t have anything to exchange high fives about round the water-cooler. But to the English, he is a hero. Terrible things happen to him, he complains about it a bit quite articulately, so we can really feel it along with him - then calms down and has a cup of tea. My kind of guy!
>
> I’ve hit a certain amount of difficulty over the years in explaining this in Hollywood. I’m often asked ‘Yes, but what are his goals?’ to which I can only respond, well, I think he’d just like all this to stop, really. It’s been a hard sell.

Karthik Ganapathy Jan 15

@svat Reminds me of Stephen Fry's explanation regarding the distinction b/w the sense of humor of Americans and the Brits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k2AbqTBxao

Stephen Fry on American vs British Comedy

YouTube

Nicola Romanò Jan 15

@karthikganapathy @svat Or Eddie Izzard's take on it https://youtu.be/TjC3R6jOtUo?si=wlpODLzANqR3Rq9Y

Brit vs. U.S. Movies - Eddie Izzard

YouTube

@svat A true hero keeps calm, and carries on - in the face of all tribulations..

Taran Rampersad Jan 15

@svat well, this earned you a follow!

Yes, this has been a pebble in my shoe for some time. As a tck who read Adams outside of the US, what you are pointing out is something that never quite jived in the US.

For that matter, neither did Monty Python.

This is great work to read. Thank you.

Lappenjammer Jan 15

@knowprose They have 42 followers at this moment so everyone needs to abstain from following now 😁

Taran Rampersad Jan 15

@LappenjammerDieZweite I'm busy pretending I'm an olive jumping in and out of some gin, so...

Aedius Filmania ⚙️🎮🖊️Jan 15

Owh !

I understand now why I don't click with many British stuff.

I don't care about heros succeeding or failing but for me they have to have control over their destiny.

Lappenjammer Jan 15

@Aedius Isn't the exact definition of "destiny" that you don't have control over it?

Aedius Filmania ⚙️🎮🖊️Jan 15

@LappenjammerDieZweite

I would say it depend in which branch of the philosophy you have faith in.

If I remember correctly for the "fatum stoicum" the destiny is only for the thing that have a relation with the physics, for example it's the destiny to be crush by a meteorite, you couldn't know and avoid it, but it's not your destiny to die from a disease because you could have call a doctor.

Lappenjammer Jan 15

@Aedius That is an interesting point. I don't believe in a "destiny" as such. I do believe we don',t control much of our lives' ways but should drive to change the world for the better whenever we can.

Analog AI Jan 15

@LappenjammerDieZweite @Aedius to quote an American Poet, "I am the captain of my soul".

I think the analogy kind of works, if instead of a ship, I imagine "my soul" to be a dingy caught in a swift current. I may have enough control to avoid the next rock, but I don't even have time to contemplate where I'm actually going.

Will Deakin Jan 15

@Aedius @svat I'm with Death here:

"Take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. and yet... and yet you act as if there is some ideal order in the world, as if there is some... some rightness in the universe by which it may be judged."

Terry Pratchett

@svat The American Dirk Gently is also, imho, exactly the opposite story of what the books were saying. I've forgotten my point but I remember being furious by the time I got to the end of season 1 (did they make more seasons? Hope not).

Lappenjammer Jan 15

@drgroftehauge The one with Elija Wood? There was a second season that didn't share anything with the books either.

Alan Langford 🇨🇦🧤🧊摏 Jan 15

@svat And then we have Canadian humour, which is this weird hybrid between British and American, with a little Swedish/Finnish thrown in there just to keep it entirely confusing to the rest of the world.

anyGould Jan 15

@alan @svat I think Canadian humor starts with the Brit self-deprecation, adding in a view of the US and winking "well, at least we ain't THAT".

Paul Turnbull has moved.🇨🇦Jan 15

@svat This reminds me of how Peter Jackson almost ruined the ending of Lord of the Rings.

They had planned and even shot some of a giant hero battle between Aragorn and Sauron that was supposed to be happening while Frodo successfully destroyed the Ring. Fortunately they came to their senses and stuck with the book version where the battle at the gate could only be a losing one and Frodo claims the Ring for himself. Even the destruction of the Ring comes from Gollum's failure when he steals back and falls into lava.

M. Grégoire Jan 15

@Chigaze
They filmed that!? Unbelievable.

Paul Turnbull has moved.🇨🇦Jan 15

@mpjgregoire @svat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vm-sA8R3QCA

Aragorn vs Sauron unreleased scene (better quality) - edited

YouTube

M. Grégoire Jan 15

@Chigaze
I was hoping you'd share something like that. 😉

It was less bad than I'd feared, but not nearly so good as what the movie shows: the Eye struggling and the tower of Barad-dûr crashing down.

https://youtu.be/FyzE9thQIPo?si=V_SWEmm2f5PaVqXD&t=1m11s

LOTR The Return of the King - Sauron Defeated

YouTube

Paul Turnbull has moved.🇨🇦Jan 15

@mpjgregoire Oh I think it would have looked very good but was very much at odds with the book. It's kind of like I have big issues with the portrayal of Faramir and his rangers in the movies. I think on their own they are good story but it is a story very different in tone and portrayal to what Tolkien intended.

M. Grégoire Jan 15

@Chigaze My favourite scene in the movies is the lighting of the beacons. It's in the books, sort of, but it's a minor element in the plot.

Movies are different from books, and some things that work well in one medium don't work in the other. We should generally judge the creations on their own merits.

Paul Turnbull has moved.🇨🇦Jan 15

@mpjgregoire That was a change from the books that worked for me. Having Pippin light them was good movie making and didn't change anything significant in the story.

My issue with the changes to Faramir are that they made him cruel which he absolutely was not in the books and I don't think necessary for the movie. Further he is the character Tolkien said was most like himself so that change bites rather hard.

Lee Hauser Jan 23

@mpjgregoire @Chigaze This is how I've always viewed the films. The whole question of adaptation has always fascinated me, and I think (with a few quibbles) Jackson did a magnificent job, considering he's a movie maker while JRRT was an author.

M. Grégoire Jan 15

@svat The Battle of Hastings was a defeat? Hadn't pegged Douglas Adams as pro-Anglo-Saxon.

@svat maybe I'm English at heart, because I find Arthur completely, utterly relatable.

Simon 🐝 🫖Jan 15

@svat tell me you're English without telling me you're English. "Arthur dent is my hero"

well, I think he’d just like all this to stop, really.

Arthur Dent is the hero we need.

MKSchmidt Jan 15

@svat I think Bilbo and/or Frode Baggins could fit into this as well. Bilbo witnessed so much, but only played a small (though important) roll in the Battle of the Five Armies before getting knocked out. Not a typically heroic ending!

Allusion Jan 15

@svat I always get slightly confused because the edition I grew up with is called The (Incomplete) Book of Failures, which I guess was the North American title. I hadn't really made the connection between Stephen Pile and Douglas Adams, but it makes perfect sense.

I first read about The Man from Porlock in the Book of Failures, so I knew exactly what Adams was talking about when it came up in Dirk Gently.

Mandrake 🐎Jan 15

@svat You can learn a lot about England's celebration of failure by their relationship with football. Most football teams go for years, if not decades, without winning any trophies, and those which do will inevitably fail to defend their titles next season. They'll spend millions buying superstar players/managers who immediately flop or become seriously injured for months. Fans will watch their favourite teams lose every single weekend, but would rather die than switch to a better team. Millions play Fantasy Premier League, a game about making bad decisions and picking players who inevitably fail to score or keep clean sheets for as long as they're in your team. Meanwhile, the national men's team has not won a major international title for nearly 60 years and our most popular football song is explicitly about how they've failed to win the World Cup since then.

To quote Frank Skinner: "Being a football fan 90% of the time is about losing. Most of being a football fan is disappointment"

@svat A related comment I saw somewhere is that when an American does something that’s a bad idea, he does it because he thinks it’s a really good idea. Whereas the English person knows it’s a bad idea, but does it anyway.

(*cough* Brexit *cough*)

Ari "Two Foxes" Jackson Jan 16

@svat Fascinating... I never even considered wondering if he was a hero or not. He's a protagonist, and all sorts of absurdly awful things happen to him, yet he perseveres and attempts various modes of normality like making tea and eventually making sandwiches. I've find that he is one of the most resilient main characters I've ever read, honestly. That he takes all of this strangeness absolutely in stride and keeps that very British stiff upper lip the entire time is pretty astounding. I do admire him for that.

Cassana 🍻Jan 16

@svat @markrprior This reminded me of Samwise’s musings: ‘The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of a sport, as you might say. But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind."
Full quote: https://mountebank.org/sams-speech/#:~:text=Sam:%20I%20know.,But%20I%20think%2C%20Mr.

Sam’s Speech – Joseph Ugoretz

Wolfgang Lutz Jan 16

@svat @axel this explains “slow horses” too.

Reinald Kirchner Jan 17

@svat thank you for sharing.

Because #Americans cannot #loose, they are the biggest #Losers at all and in the #World.