The Pop Culture Holiday Sampler: Hunger Games, Game of Thrones, Doctor Who, Sherlock, & More

The Pop Culture Holiday Sampler The Hunger Games, Game of Thrones, Doctor Who, Sherlock, Buffy, Firefly, The Avengers, and More

Introduction Sherlock: Every Canon Reference You May Have Missed in BBC’s Series 1-3 Doctor Who - The What, Where, and How: A Fannish Guide to the TARDIS-Sized Pop Culture Jam Winning the Game of Thrones: The Host of Characters and their Agendas Symbols in Game of Thrones: The Deeper Meanings of Animals, Colors, Seasons, Food, and Much More History, Homages and the Highlands: An Outlander Guide Katniss the Cattail: An Unauthorized Guide to Names and Symbols in The Hunger Games Choosing to Be Insurgent or Allegiant: Symbols, Themes, and Analysis of the Divergent Trilogy Joss Whedon's Names: The Deeper Meanings behind Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Cabin in the Woods, The Avengers, Doctor Horrible, In Your Eyes, Comics and More Pop Culture in the Whedonverse All the References in Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Cabin in the Woods, The Avengers, Doctor Horrible, In Your Eyes, Comics and More Other Works About the Author

Introduction I am the author of many books. They cover all the best franchises, the fandoms that have people wearing shirts that say “Wholocked” and “Then Buffy Staked Edward” to say nothing of the “Keep Calm And…” Collection. At cons, I approach people in Tardis dresses and Thrones t-shirts with descriptions of the delights of my books, guaranteed to enlighten even the most studied fans with the symbolism of wolves or the meaning of a name like Peeta or Xander…not to mention Thor!

So here’s a real fannish spectrum: free samples of many fandom books (though I have many others locked down by their publishers).

I also have links to the latter on Google Books, where large samples are available free. The books were published 2012-2014, so they shouldn’t be horrifically dated…though there’s a tendency to avoid spoiling Game of Thrones season four.

Basically, there’s a chapter included for each, and the sample chapters are very representative: the Sherlock book covers the other episodes in the same way as the sample (episode one) and the Whedon pop culture guide’s B-Z entries are quite similar to A. In addition, this collection emphasizes the merit and richness of all these popular shows, with analysis of all the hidden gems, from literary references to symbols to fannish homages that the beloved series have to offer.

Sherlock: Every Canon Reference You May Have Missed in BBC's Series 1-3

A Study in Pink The Title In the books, Holmes complains about the “romanticism” Watson adds to their first adventure when he publishes it “in a small brochure with the somewhat fantastic title of ‘A Study in Scarlet’” (presumably referring to the violent murders and the message written in blood above the undamaged body).

“A Study in Pink” subverts and modernizes the story – pink is a cheerful, feminine color, and the garish look of the woman in pink from head to toe adds a lighter touch to the murder. Above all, it emphasizes that this story is a loose adaptation, not a retelling of the original tale.

The Story The episode and “A Study in Scarlet” are notably similar, though with details often flipped or twisted. In both, Watson has just returned from war in Afghanistan as an army surgeon. He’s looking for lodging, so his friend Stamford from St. Barts introduces him to Sherlock Holmes, seeking a roommate. Much of the dialogue is identical. Holmes of the books is a bit friendlier, but his priorities are much the same.

“Dr. Watson, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” said Stamford, introducing us.

“How are you?” he said cordially, gripping my hand with a strength for which I should hardly have given him credit. “You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.”

“How on earth did you know that?” I asked in astonishment.

“Never mind,” said he, chuckling to himself. “The question now is about hœmoglobin. No doubt you see the significance of this discovery of mine?”

Modern Sherlock asks a quick “Afghanistan or Iraq?” then returns to his case. Later, both detectives explain their reasoning:

The train of reasoning ran, ‘Here is a gentleman of a medical type, but with the air of a military man. Clearly an army doctor, then. He has just come from the tropics, for his face is dark, and that is not the natural tint of his skin, for his wrists are fair. He has undergone hardship and sickness, as his haggard face says clearly.

His left arm has been injured. He holds it in a stiff and unnatural manner. Where in the tropics could an English army doctor have seen much hardship and got his arm wounded? Clearly in Afghanistan.’ The whole train of thought did not occupy a second. I then remarked that you came from Afghanistan, and you were astonished.

On the show, Sherlock notes: I didn’t know, I saw. Your haircut, the way you hold yourself says military. But your conversation as you entered the room...said trained at Bart’s, so Army doctor – obvious. Your face is tanned but no tan above the wrists. You’ve been abroad, but not sunbathing.

Your limp’s really bad when you walk but you don’t ask for a chair when you stand, like you’ve forgotten about it, so it’s at least partly psychosomatic. That says the original circumstances of the injury were traumatic.

Wounded in action, then. Wounded in action, suntan – Afghanistan or Iraq.

In both stories, Holmes is pleased to hear there’s been a murder in Lauriston Gardens. Both times, he invites Watson to come and tells him about being a consulting detective – when the police are out of their depth, they call him. “Naturally, being the arrogant soand-so he is, he’d had to give himself his own unique job title,” Watson adds in his blog entries, available online for those seeking supplemental insights to the episodes (Watson’s Blog, “A Study in Pink”) In both stories, Watson admires Holmes’s deductions; on the show it’s far more obvious that many people hate him for them.

In the book, a man has been murdered by being forced to take poison. RACHE is written over him in blood though he has no wounds. On the show, it’s a woman in pink, and she scratched RACHE, not the murderer.

In the original adventure, a second man is murdered, stabbed, but with the pills left behind. Testing them, Holmes deduces the murderer has been making the other man choose a pill while he

takes the other. As it turns out, the murderer, an American named Jefferson Hope, has come from America to revenge himself on the two men who killed his sweetheart. He makes them take the pills so God can choose the guilty and punish them.

Both this man and the modern “Jeff” work as cabbies (and thus get close to their victims, whom they murder in empty houses). Both murderers are terminally ill with aneurisms. In the book, Holmes calls for a cab, handcuffs the man, and reveals him as the murderer. The show has a more complex battle of wits, with Sherlock’s own life at risk.

Certainly, in the book, there’s no Moriarty or Mycroft, and Holmes and Watson are not in personal danger (though they are in many other cases).

Symbolism: Pink!

John Watson explains his titling, saying, “Well, you know, pink lady, pink case, pink phone – there was a lot of pink.” “A Study in Scarlet” is renamed “A Study in Pink”…but what change does that create? Scarlet is of course the color of the splashed blood even at the violence-free crime scene (the first at least – the second involves an actual stabbing.

Pink by contrast, especially eye-searing electric pink, is a frivolous color, indicating the ridiculous, more modern and silly than noir. It’s artificial, flamboyant, the shade of one desperate for attention. This is not just the dead woman but Holmes himself, as he shows off for all he’s worth at the pink-colored murder scene.

Pink is a feminized color, one the cabbie fears as it will stand out and make him look ridiculous. Sherlock and Watson of course both fear looking ridiculous – for Watson, it’s letting his life be taken over by Sherlock’s wacky adventures, for Sherlock, it’s loosening his rigid unemotionalism enough to make a friend. All their companions warn them they’re in danger of being tainted forever by their association. By the episode’s end, however, both have thrown out caution and embraced the madness of becoming a team. They’ve submersed themselves (metaphorically speaking) in a world of pink.

Blog

Moffat notes: “I think one of the fun things is, as you update it, as you find each equivalent...I remember Mark thinking, “Well, he wouldn’t write a journal now, would he? He wouldn’t write memoirs, he’d write a blog.” And suddenly you realize, of course, that tells you what memoirs were. They were blogs” (“Unlocking Sherlock”). Thus John blogs about Sherlock’s adventures and thus catapults the Great Detective into fame. This blog is actually available on the web at johnwatsonblog.co.uk, providing background information and John’s emotional reactions to each of the cases, along with the tales of unseen cases references in “A Scandal in Belgravia” and “The Sign of Three.”

So yes, we had a quick look at the flat and chatted to the landlady. Then the police came and asked Sherlock to look at a body so we went along to a crime scene, then we chased through the streets of London after a killer and Sherlock solved the serial suicides/murder thing. And then we went to this great Chinese restaurant where my fortune cookie said, “There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before.”

After the night I’d had, I beg to differ. (“My New Flatmate”) This morning, for example, he asked me who the Prime Minister was. Last week he seemed to genuinely not know the Earth goes round the Sun. Seriously. He didn’t know. He didn’t think the Sun went round the Earth or anything. He just didn’t care. I still can’t quite believe it.

In so many ways, he’s the cleverest person I’ve ever met but there are these blank spots that are almost terrifying. (Watson’s Blog, “A Study in Pink”) John, I’ve only just found this post. I’ve glanced over it and honestly, words fail me. What I do is an exact science and should be treated as such. You’ve made the whole experience seem like some kind of romantic adventure. You should have focused on my analytical reasoning and nothing more. –Sherlock Holmes (Watson’s Blog, “A Study in Pink”)

This last directly quotes the text of Holmes’s reaction to Watson’s write-up in the books.

Canon References

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In “The Problem of Thor Bridge,” Watson mentions a couple of cases which most likely will never be cleared up. One is the case of “James Fillamore, who stepped into his house to fetch an umbrella and was never seen again” That is also the name of the second victim in A Study in Pink, the teen who goes back for his umbrella.

Watson and Holmes call each other by first names, which is a bit jarring. Even in Young Sherlock Holmes and Elementary, this behavior is unusual.

John is from the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers in both the episode and the original story.

Anderson is named for the village constable in “The Adventure of the Lion’s Mane,” one of Holmes’s last adventures, after his retirement.

Sgt. Sally Donovan is from Sally Dennis, a fictitious character made up by the killer in “A Study in Scarlet” (there aren’t many women’s names in the story).

Sherlock Holmes beats dead bodies with a stick and in “A Study in Pink” he does so with a riding crop (an oddly old-fashioned choice), in both cases to see how far bruises are produced after death.

In both stories, Holmes asks Watson whether he objects to a roommate playing the violin. He adds that he doesn’t speak for days sometimes and that “Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other,” in an adaptation of the original story’s text.

Instead of going to the Criterion Bar, Watson and Stamford get Criterion takeaway cups of coffee.

When Sherlock borrows John’s phone, he texts Lestrade that he should arrest the brother if he has a green ladder.

(A reference to an outline for a Sherlock Holmes story found among Conan Doyle’s papers.) Sherlock goes into more detail about this case on his blog.

Benedict Cumberbatch cites Jeremy Brett and Basil Rathbone (probably the most famous and iconic television/film Holmeses) as influences: There’s a certain theatricality and ethereal spirituality to [Holmes] which Brett physically manifests beautifully; it’s very animal, it’s very cat-like and predatory and sharp and angular and slightly cold at times as well, and

there are moments where I did want to use that. There are great descriptions of his physicality in the books as well, whether he’s curled up on the chair with his feet tucked up so he’s got his knees up and his hands on his knees and then the hands actually resting underneath his chin sort of in a prayer position. And I sort of wanted to play with motifs of that that people could recognize as being Holmesian because, without the pipe, without the deerstalker, without the old magnifying glass, it was important to establish certain codas and behavioral physical patterns that were recognizably Holmesian (“The Great Game” DVD Commentary)

The Jeremy Brett television series was adapted very little – each episode was meant to bring the book episode to life, nearly word for word. The Basil Rathbone ones mixed classic and original stories, and crossed in and out of the traditional setting. For instance, Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942) begins with a title card describing Holmes and Watson as “ageless,” as an explanation as to why the film is set in the 1940s rather than Holmes’ era of 1881–1914. At Watson’s insistence, Holmes swaps his deerstalker for a fedora. By the next film, Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1943), the detective is sneaking into Europe to save his country. This series takes much from the mannerisms of both detectives.

• Sherlock hops up onto his chair in a way very reminiscent of Jeremy Brett (in “The Adventure of The Empty House,” among others).

• Sherlock has a website (which actually exists, like John’s blog) called “The Science of Deduction.” This the second chapter in the original “A Study in Scarlet” describing his methods after book-Watson finds his printed article, dully titled “The Book of Life.” Oddly this is also the title of chapter one in Doyle’s second book, “The Sign of Four,” in which Holmes makes deductions from Watson’s watch.

• Watson looks up Sherlock online and says disbelievingly, “You said you could identify a software designer by his tie, and an airline pilot by his left thumb?” This appears to be a nod to a canon quote: “Pshaw, my dear fellow, what do the public, the great unobservant public, who could hardly tell a weaver by his tooth or a compositor by his

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left thumb, care about the finer shades of analysis and deduction! (“The Adventure of the Copper Beeches”).

The lamps in Baker Street resemble gaslamps. Executive Producer Beryl Vertue notes: “It was interesting for everybody doing the interior of 221B Baker Street because, you know, we’re not into gas lamps, as I’ve said to you. This is contemporary; this is modern-day, but at the same time you need – for the Sherlock Holmes aficionados – not to just lose it totally” (“Unlocking Sherlock”).

The cluttered desk and mantelpiece, red walls, haphazard book piles, can all be seen in the Sherlock Holmes Museum on Baker Street today. Downstairs is a souvenir shop, not a café.

Of course, Sherlock keeps the sitting room in a terrible mess. His chemicals have been moved to the kitchen.

Watson notes in the books: An anomaly which often struck me in the character of my friend Sherlock Holmes was that, although in his methods of thought he was the neatest and most methodical of mankind, and although also he affected a certain quiet primness of dress, he was none the less in his personal habits one of the most untidy men that ever drove a fellow-lodger to distraction. Not that I am in the least conventional in that respect myself. The rough-and-tumble work in Afghanistan, coming on the top of a natural Bohemianism of disposition, has made me rather more lax than befits a medical man. But with me there is a limit, and when I find a man who keeps his cigars in the coal-scuttle, his tobacco in the toe end of a Persian slipper, and his unanswered correspondence transfixed by a jack-knife into the very centre of his wooden mantelpiece, then I begin to give myself virtuous airs. (“The Musgrave Ritual”)

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There’s a running joke about organs in the fridge and microwave. Watson mentions in the books: “Our chambers were always full of chemicals and of criminal relics which had a way of wandering into unlikely positions, and of turning up in the butter-dish or in even less desirable places” (“The Musgrave Ritual”).

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In the books, Holmes doesn’t keep a skull around, but Sherlock appears to use it as just a head to listen to – on the show he tells John he’s a replacement for the skull. In fact, Holmes enjoys talking aloud to solve cases in both stories.

Mark Gatiss notes in a DVD special: We were dressing various things in, and I spotted this picture, just there where it is now, and in the original stories Doctor Watson has an unframed picture of a man called Henry Ward Beecher. (He points to the picture.) This is not Henry Ward Beecher, but it’s a complete coincidence. The props people had just dressed in an unframed picture and I said, “Oh, leave that; that’s like a little accidental reference,” you know.

Um...and obviously through there in the kitchen, which Sherlock has just completely converted into his laboratory, we’ve got a lot of microscope equipment and test tubes and stuff like that. (“Unlocking Sherlock”)

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The three-patch problem is an update on the “three pipe problem” (“The Adventure of the Red-Headed League”).

Benedict Cumberbatch notes that it would have looked strange if he had been smoking a pipe on the show and that he wants to maintain the message that “cigarettes are bad for you” (“The Great Game” DVD Commentary) Modern Holmes has given up drugs and smoking (though continues with patches and skipping meals). He notes, “Impossible to sustain a smoking habit in London these days. Bad news for brain work.”

In the other modern retelling, Elementary, Sherlock Holmes is recovering from drugs and cigarettes.

Cellphones, corporate crime, blogs, hacking, etc. feature heavily in both series.

Mrs. Hudson is the housekeeper in the books and appears to be a genteel widow. In the show, she insists constantly she’s not the housekeeper, and she owes Holmes for making sure her husband was condemned to death.

Mrs. Hudson mentions “Mrs. Turner next door.” Doyle accidentally renamed Mrs. Hudson “Mrs. Turner” in “A Scandal in Bohemia.” On the blog, Mrs. Hudson often

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posts from Mrs. Turner’s account, adding to the confusion.

Sherlock in both versions keeps his unopened letters on the mantelpiece, affixed by a knife.

Watson says in the books he has no family in England (many fans have added the facts of his “three continents” of experience with women and concluded he was born in Australia). Modern Sherlock observes that Watson clearly has no close relatives he likes.

Watson’s wound switches between shoulder and leg in the books (Doyle wasn’t the most consistent). On the show, Watson was shot in the shoulder but has a psychosomatic leg injury.

In “A Study in Pink,” John receives three text messages from Sherlock: Baker Street. Come at once if convenient. SH If inconvenient, come anyway. SH Could be dangerous. SH

This is straight from the book: “It was one Sunday evening early in September of the year 1902 that I received one of Holmes’s laconic messages: ‘Come at once if convenient - if inconvenient come all the same – S.H.’” (“The Adventure of the Creeping Man”).

• Mycroft’s aide ignores Watson. In the books, however, Watson’s implied to be something of a ladies man: In “The Adventure of the Retired Colourman,” Holmes tells his friend, “With your natural advantages, Watson, every lady if your helper and accomplice.”

• “You should come down and meet the Mrs. Just remember she’s mine, Casanova!” – Bill Murray (Watson’s Blog, “Serial Suicides”). Thus Watson’s war buddy (Murray saved his life in the books) reminds viewers Watson really is a ladies’ man. Harry is skeptical, but Bill adds, “The things he got up to before we went out to A. Dirty boy!” Perhaps he’s just having an off year.

Holmes was certainly not a difficult man to live with. He was quiet in his ways, and his habits were regular. It was rare for him to be up after ten at night, and he had

invariably breakfasted and gone out before I rose in the morning. Sometimes he spent his day at the chemical laboratory, sometimes in the dissecting-rooms, and occasionally in long walks, which appeared to take him into the lowest portions of the City. Nothing could exceed his energy when the working fit was upon him; but now and again a reaction would seize him, and for days on end he would lie upon the sofa in the sittingroom, hardly uttering a word or moving a muscle from morning to night. On these occasions I have noticed such a dreamy, vacant expression in his eyes, that I might have suspected him of being addicted to the use of some narcotic, had not the temperance and cleanliness of his whole life forbidden such a notion.

Television Sherlock is far more annoying, dragging Watson across the city because he can’t bear to get up. On the show, as in the book passage above, Watson is surprised to learn the disciplined Holmes takes drugs.

• Mrs. Hudson says their glee over the homicides isn’t “decent”; Watson likewise comments, “I can hardly think that you would find many decent citizens to agree with you” (“The Adventure of the Norwood Builder”) when Holmes complains about his recent boredom.

• Holmes says “The game is afoot!” in “The Adventure of the Abbey Grange” and Watson thinks it in “The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge.” It’s one of Holmes’s most famous expressions. Here, Sherlock says, “The game is on,” for the first of several times. This will also nod to “The Game is Back On” in “Many Happy Returns.”

• Mycroft is described here with the words “He is the British government,” a line from “The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans” that will be repeated through the show. In the books, Mycroft coordinates departments with his massive brain and is indispensable though not necessarily that powerful. In the creators’ beloved The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) however, Mycroft heads many secret projects, as he does in this show.

• Sherlock calls Mycroft “The most dangerous man you’ve ever met, and not my problem right now.” In the books, he calls Moran, Moriarty’s lieutenant, “The second most dangerous man in London” – Sherlock had appeared to be

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the first, but it could in fact be Mycroft. (“The Adventure of the Empty House”) Mycroft’s three-piece suit and malacca-handled umbrella may nod to John Steed from The Avengers. As Mycroft leans on the umbrella and crosses one leg behind the other, he mimics Steed’s mannerisms. This emphasizes his role as spy and government agent.

Mycroft says, “If you do choose to move into two hundred and twenty-one B...” which is a line a character played by Charles Kay says in the Jeremy Brett series.

The establishing shot of Baker Street and the layout of Sherlock’s furniture are modern day versions of the Jeremy Brett scenes.

Angelo’s helper is named Billy. This is Sherlock’s “page” in “The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone.”

The scene in which the police dismiss the dying woman’s message mirrors a scene in The Woman in Green (1945) where a victim clutches a matchbook as a clue. Likewise, in The Woman in Green, Moriarty sponsors a series of murders when he arranges mysterious deaths across London.

A murder victim scratches a message in “The Adventure of the Retired Colourman” – in this and “A Study in .Pink,” Holmes emphasizes putting himself in the victim’s place.

In the books, the detectives are sure RACHE is short for Rachel, and Holmes remarks it means revenge in German and is frequently used by secret societies…however, the letters don’t have a German flourish to them, so he’s sure it’s a false clue. On the show of course it’s reversed – the detectives think it’s “Revenge,” but Holmes concludes it is the name Rachel. “No, she was writing an angry note in German. Of course she was writing Rachel!” he says sarcastically.

The woman in pink’s wedding ring gives Sherlock several vital clues. Likewise, a wedding ring is the basis of the killer’s motivation in the original “A Study in Scarlet.”

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The men follow a cab in “Hound of the Baskervilles,” and in “The Sign of Four,” Holmes reveals that he always knows where he’s being taken.

Cabs and guns follow the pair through all of their stories, mostly because they use those in canon. Nowadays, firearms are illegal, and Holmes and Watson might logically take the bus through London. But the producers decided to keep these essential Holmes attributes. Steven Moffat notes: Now, you really wouldn’t be running round London [with a gun]; you wouldn’t be allowed! Also, we never actually say how he got that gun; it’s just there. It’s one of those marvelous things you can do in television: you say, ‘He’s got a gun,’ and it doesn’t seem incredible that a military man would have one. Maybe not supposed to have it but he’s got it. (“A Study in Pink” DVD Commentary)

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The American cab driver Holmes catches is innocent because he’s recently come to London – in the book, an American is the murderer.

In the book, Holmes advertises using Watson’s name to lay a trap for the murderer – that he has a lost ring. On the show, he sends a similar text but that the victim is still alive. Both times, the villain escapes by using another person as a decoy.

Irene Adler says in her short story, “I had been warned against you months ago. I had been told that if the King employed an agent it would certainly be you. And your address had been given me.” The cabbie is in the same situation.

Mycroft has a joke with the audience as he introduces himself as Sherlock’s “Archenemy” and wordlessly suggests he’s Moriarty. He’s far thinner than typical Mycrofts – one short story by Neil Gaiman sees Mycroft dying in his upstairs flat and his body being hoisted out and lowered like a piano. Thus as he wants to keep an eye on Sherlock, the viewers are fooled. This isn’t as big a twist as Elementary’s unique spin on Moriarty, but it’s big enough.

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Moriarty tells Holmes in “The Final Problem,” “You stand in the way not merely of an individual, but of a mighty organization, the full extent of which you, with all your cleverness, have been unable to realize. You must stand clear, Mr. Holmes, or be trodden under foot.”

JEFF: You’re not the only one to enjoy a good murder.

There’s others out there just like you, except you’re just a man...and they’re so much more than that.

SHERLOCK: What d’you mean, more than a man? An organization? What? (“A Study in Pink”)

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Sherlock tries luring the villain to Northumberland Street.

This street and Northumberland Hotel appear in “The Illustrious Client,” “The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor,” and “The Hound of the Baskervilles.”

Holmes prefers texting to calling. In “The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot,” Watson notes, “He has never been known to write where a telegram would serve.”

Watson no longer lounges lazily about the house for weeks (as in the books), but is undergoing counseling for his admittedly psychosomatic injury, and blogs as therapy not an eagerness to sensationalize his colleague’s mysteries.

The shock blanket at the end mirrors Sherlock’s iconic cape when he stands up.

The running joke that Holmes would make a wonderful criminal is treated more seriously in the modern version, in which Officer Donovan and Watson express honest concern that this antisocial behavior and constant arrogance will lead to murder. Holmes calls himself “a high-functioning sociopath not a psychopath” – while the Victorian gentleman was considered eccentric with his cocaine, solitude, and lack of friends, the modern detective acknowledges his social failings.

Sherlock appears oblivious to the signals he’s giving off and should be receiving – when Molly Hooper asks him about going out for coffee, he requests some, treating her as his secretary. In Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady (1991), Holmes is just as oblivious, inviting Irene Adler back to his hotel room just so he can have her try on

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a coat that’s evidence in a case. When she says a gentleman would escort her out, Holmes assigns Watson to the job.

Watson saves the day with his trusty army revolver – he brings it along in many stories and is sometimes forced to fire.

In “The Sign of Four,” Watson offers Holmes his watch as a friendly quiz: “Subject to your correction, I should judge that the watch belonged to your elder brother, who inherited it from your father.”

“That you gather, no doubt, from the H. W. upon the back?”

“Quite so. The W. suggests your own name. The date of the watch is nearly fifty years back, and the initials are as old as the watch: so it was made for the last generation. Jewelry usually descents to the eldest son, and he is most likely to have the same name as the father. Your father has, if I remember right, been dead many years. It has, therefore, been in the hands of your eldest brother.”

“Right, so far,” said I. “Anything else?”

“He was a man of untidy habits, – very untidy and careless. He was left with good prospects, but he threw away his chances, lived for some time in poverty with occasional short intervals of prosperity, and finally, taking to drink, he died. That is all I can gather.” …

“But it was not mere guess-work?”

“No, no: I never guess. It is a shocking habit, – destructive to the logical faculty. What seems strange to you is only so because you do not follow my train of thought or observe the small facts upon which large inferences may depend. For example, I began by stating that your brother was careless. When you observe the lower part of that watch-case you notice that it is not only dinted in two places, but it is cut and marked all over from the habit of keeping other hard objects, such as coins or keys, in the same pocket. Surely it is no great feat to assume that a man who treats a fiftyguinea watch so cavalierly must be a careless man.

Neither is it a very far-fetched inference that a man who inherits one article of such value is pretty well provided for in other respects.” I nodded, to show that I followed his reasoning.

“It is very customary for pawnbrokers in England, when they take a watch, to scratch the number of the ticket with a pin-point upon the inside of the case. It is more handy than a label, as there is no risk of the number being lost or transposed. There are no less than four such numbers visible to my lens on the inside of this case. Inference, – that your brother was often at low water. Secondary inference, – that he had occasional bursts of prosperity, or he could not have redeemed the pledge.

Finally, I ask you to look at the inner plate, which contains the key-hole. Look at the thousands of scratches all round the hole, – marks where the key has slipped. What sober man’s key could have scored those grooves? But you will never see a drunkard’s watch without them. He winds it at night, and he leaves these traces of his unsteady hand.

Episode one updates this to a cellphone, but the drunken charging (updated from winding), careless scratching, expense, gift from the older sibling, etc. are all intact. There’s one catch, Watson tells Sherlock – Harry is short for Harriet.

• “Across the road, we saw a taxi pull up. We ran out, but it drove off. Sherlock insisted on chasing it and luckily he seemed to have an intimate knowledge of London’s backstreets. Of course, as I realized afterwards, he’s probably memorized the London A-Z” (Watson’s Blog, “A Study in Pink”). This last line of course foreshadows the cypher of “The Blind Banker.”

Pop Culture • Steven Moffat notes: “The moment you bring it up to date, you...it sort of becomes half the familiar Baker Street and half “Men Behaving Badly” because that’s what it is: it is these two fellas living in a flat, putting dreadful things in the fridge.” (“Unlocking Sherlock”) • The typeface used in the overlays is Johnston Sans, wellknown for its use in the London Underground.

• Apparently Molly introduced Moriarty to Glee. (Molly Hooper’s Blog) Innuendo

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Holmes doesn’t confirm whether he’s gay or straight, leaving the fandom to speculate. He also, in an awkward moment, thinks Watson is asking him out. He responds, “John, you should know that I consider myself married to my work, and while I’m flattered by your interest, I’m really not looking for any kind of...”

At the time the original stories were written, Watson and Holmes were considered bachelors providing each other with company until Watson’s marriage. Fan speculation about homosexuality comes from a more modern lens. On the other hand, some adaptations such as The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) emphasize that there could have been Victorian-era speculation about the pair.

John, on his blog gushes for some time about Sherlock and how irritating, fascinating, etc., he finds him. The girlfriends he dates through the series barely rate a mention.

MRS HUDSON (pointing upwards): There’s another bedroom upstairs...(she winks)...if you’ll be needing two bedrooms.

JOHN: Well, of course we’ll be needing two.

MRS HUDSON: Oh, don’t worry; there’s all sorts round here. Mrs. Turner next door’s got married ones. (“A Study in Pink”) ANGELO: Anything on the menu, whatever you want, free. All on the house, you and your date.

SHERLOCK (to John): Do you want to eat?

JOHN (to Angelo): I’m not his date. (“A Study in Pink”) MYCROFT: What is your connection to Sherlock Holmes?

JOHN: I don’t have one. I barely know him. I met him...yesterday.

MYCROFT: Hmm, and since yesterday you’ve moved in with him and now you’re solving crimes together. Might we expect a happy announcement by the end of the week?

Locations • The actual address used for filming the exteriors of 221B Baker Street is 187 North Gower Street, London NW1.

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There was a possibility of filming in Baker Street, but Mark Gatiss notes that “it would have been madness, apart from the fact that you would have had to disguise a hundred thousand things with ‘Sherlock Holmes’ on them,” and the road was just too busy. (“The Great Game” DVD Commentary) Speedy’s Cafe, which is a genuine sandwich bar, exists on site, with Sherlock-flavored menu items.

The ancient Saint Bartholomew’s Hospital appears in most episodes. (Once a medical treatment center, it’s now an actual research facility.) Holmes and Watson meet here in both the original and “A Study in Pink.” This is also the site of his Reichenbach Fall.

Sherlock’s friend Angelo’s restaurant was called Tierra Brindisa at the time of filming – now it’s Tapas Brindisa Soho.

Scotland Yard, so famous in the stories, still exists, though it’s moved from the street Great Scotland Yard. The Metropolitan Police Force work there, and its database runs on a nationwide IT system named the “Home Office Large Major Enquiry System” or HOLMES for short. The software training program is named Elementary.

Actor Allusions Martin Freeman begins the first episode is in a dressing gown and pajamas. He dressed similarly in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie. In both roles, he played a normal British man being dragged along on wild, larger-than-life adventures by a near-lunatic. Of course, this also describes his role in The Hobbit.

Cumberbatch gets a promotion as Smaug and the Necromancer.

Doctor Who • The first actor to audition for John Watson was Matt Smith who, of course, went on to take a role in Doctor Who instead. They auditioned several very good actors but the moment they put Martin with Benedict, it changed Benedict and the way he played the role. “He was suddenly more like Sherlock Holmes,” says Moffat (“A Study in Pink” DVD Commentary).

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Many filming locations like the art museum of “The Blind Banker” or the cemetery of Holmes’s grave are also used on Doctor Who. Both shows are actually filmed in Cardiff, except when location shots are used.

David Tennant’s Doctor and Jack Harkness are both known for their ultra-cool long coats.

Sherlock asks John and Lestrade what it’s like to live inside such tiny minds in “A Study in Pink.” In Moffat’s Doctor Who episode “The Doctor Dances,” the Doctor asks Rose Tyler and Jack Harkness almost the exact same question.

Doctor Who - The What, Where, and How: A Fannish Guide to the TARDIS-Sized Pop Culture Jam

Huh? Deconstructing Who On one level, this is the story of a man and a human companion adventuring through time and space in a big blue box. Sure. But to some fans, something’s missing.

By the time of New Who, the Doctor addresses why he has adventures on Saturdays, why the show is named Doctor Who – “The ultimate question…hidden in plain sight” and whether, in a world of committing genocide against the alien races to protect humans (in “The Vampires of Venice,” “The Beast Below” and “The Satan Pit,” among others), he’s doing as much good as he thinks. The events of the show reflect its screening, cancelation, and even titles, playing with the audience while acknowledging their presence. Other running jokes and mentions continue to attack the show’s very premise or call attention to it, examining the show as if tugging at loose threads: •

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In several episodes, the Doctor mentions the faulty chameleon circuit…River and the Doctor-Donna even offer to fix it for him. Obviously, that would destroy the most iconic part of the show, so the Doctor firmly refuses.

“Time isn’t a straight-line. It’s all...bumpy-wumpy.

There’s loads of boring stuff, like Sundays and Tuesdays and Thursday afternoons. But now and then there are Saturdays. Big temporal tipping points when anything’s possible. The TARDIS can’t resist them. Like a moth to a flame” (“The Impossible Astronaut”). Doctor Who premiers on Saturdays, apparently the day when momentous things happen in the universe.

Doctor Who is filmed in Cardiff, with a wink to the audience during the Slitheen’s speech of “Boom Town”: “It’s Cardiff. London doesn’t care! The entire west coast could fall into the sea and they wouldn’t notice.”

“The Last of the Time Lords” ends with Martha’s departure, then the Titanic crashing through the TARDIS. Later, the minisode “Time Crash” was added between these two scenes, as Peter Davison briefly returns in a time paradox threatening to destroy reality. This only makes sense if time is being rewritten, in a self-referential science fiction moment.

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“When Christopher Eccleston’s 9th Doctor memorably stumbles into his TARDIS in the 2005 episode “Father’s Day” (written by Paul Cornell), only to find it has transmuted into an actual police telephone box, he is shocked along with viewers because it subverts our prior knowledge of the television show – The TARDIS itself carries mythic status within the wider culture,” notes C. B. Harvey in “Canon, Myth, and Memory in Doctor Who” (29). This is a symbol of the show and cannot be destroyed…though apparently it has been.

As the Doctor dies in “The End of Time,” Ood Sigma tells him that “this song is ending, but the story never ends,” which works as a reference to the show’s longevity.

In the Pandorica arc, the universe was scheduled to blow up on June 26th 2010, the day the last episode of that series aired.

Russell T. Davies assaults the idea of the Doctor himself in “Midnight,” in which all of the Doctor’s normal strategies backfire, and he fails to save the day, and then is almost killed himself. Characters like the last Dalek and his daughter Jenny point out that as a soldier, he’s not so different from them. In “Journey’s End” and “A Good Man Goes to War,” his enemies reveal that he is not the pacifist and do-gooder he had imagined himself. It’s finally revealed that the doctor’s enemies are so frightened of him that they commit terrible acts (like kidnapping baby Melody and creating the Pandorica) just to be rid of him.

The Brilliant Book 2012 reveals that Mels (like Susan) adopted a surname while she was living on Earth. Mels’ surname – “Zucker” – means “sugar” in German, it ties in very nicely with her catchphrase of “Sweetie” (102).

In the original era, the title had no bearing on the plot…in early episodes, the closing credits name the Doctor as “Doctor Who” in truth. Moffat has reimagined this into “The ultimate question, hidden in plain sight” (literally, as it’s on the title screen), and a question worth destroying reality over. Characters ask the signature question all the time (especially in “The Snowmen”), and the Doctor reflects on his name meaning as he considers betraying his

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name in “The Beast Below” or discovers it’s the word for warrior on one planet after he passed through.

By the Time War, the Eighth Doctor realizes that his identity as a Time Lord has made him a hated figure – calling himself the Doctor and “one of the nice ones” isn’t enough to set him apart. Thus, in “The Night of the Doctor,” he commits to war and redefines himself.

The reboot also addresses many unexplored aspects of the Doctor’s dynamic – Rose’s and Amy’s families worry about what they’ve gotten into, as do Martha and Donna’s in different ways. For the first time, consequences appear as Rose and the Doctor return to chaos a year after leaving: the cops demand to know if the Doctor whisked her away for a sexual relationship, missing persons investigations have begun, and Jackie is frantic. Thus a bit of reality enters the magical adventures.

The Doctor is not always the safe alien. He is threatening when seen from the other human perspectives of Mickey and Jackie, Rose’s friend and mother. He took Rose away for over a year, leading Mickey to be suspected of her disappearance and Jackie to be left alone. In “Aliens of London,” Mickey says, “You look deep enough on the Internet, or in the history books, and there’s his name…with a list of the dead.”

This points to the importance of considering standpoint for the experience of insecurity – for some (humanity, as represented by Harriet Jones), the Doctor (an alien) is a savior or, for Rose, a source of adventure and new experiences. For others, such as Jackie and Mickey, he is a threat to their families and way of life.…This duality in the Doctor’s identity draws attention to the importance of standpoint; meanings of “security” and “threats” depend on whose perspective we foreground. (Dixit 294)

The series also comments on its nature as television – television that in Who’s case can vanish if not archived properly. As the Doctor travels to a planet-sized storage archive in the Library or Clara roams the Doctor’s life from beginning to end, the concept of saving all the parts of the story becomes paramount. This reflects fans’ dismay over the infamous “lost episodes”: In the First and Second Doctor eras, tapes were recycled to save money, then deliberately deleted as the producers assumed fans would prefer the new color film

beginning with the Third Doctor’s era. (They also lacked various rights to rebroadcast without renegotiating with actors.) It was a different world, without home video. “Until 1981, viewers were absolutely sure that any given episode of Doctor Who was something they’d only be able to witness once” (Wood and Miles 143).

Only in 1978, after establishing the BBC Film and Videotape Library, did the BBC begin searching for and preserving the lost episodes. In 1983, a total of 134 episodes were “missing, believed lost,” and over the next 21 years, only 26 were retrieved (Chapman 203-204). (Episodes in this case refer to individual sections of fourpart or sometimes six-part serials. For many episodes, one or more parts have been saved and other parts may have been reconstructed in cartoons or other mediums.) Today, fans are scouring other countries, seeking the copies the BBC sent to far-off television stations. By the time of the fiftieth anniversary, 97 episodes still remained lost though fans were celebrating the sudden discovery of “The Enemy of the World” and “The Web of Fear” – the latter featuring the first appearance of beloved Brigadier LethbridgeStewart. Transcripts, novelizations, and fan-made audio recordings remain, but this is a blow for those longing to watch the originals.

As the self-referential world of analysis grows ever-deeper, the lost episodes themselves have gained prominence in fan culture: Legends persist of wealthy misanthropes holding episodes hostage or greedily enjoying private screenings as true fans went without. It is this mythic caricature, rather than “Doctor Who’s” very real greysuited state-employed despoilers, that passes for the story’s villain. The copious online literature covering the lost episodes exhibits meticulous knowledge of such minutiae as which episode marks the last of the 405-line screen transmissions and which heralds the beginning of 625-line video. But talk of bullying unions or state malfeasance is missing from the conversation about missing “Doctor Who” stories. Leave it to science-fiction fans to exhibit supersized imaginations, as capable of envisioning a secret society of aristocrats squirreling away lost pop-culture artifacts as they are of anticipating something that has been lost for decades showing up the day after tomorrow. (Flynn)

In another terribly self-referential moment, the American-produced Eighth Doctor from the movie was not clearly defined as legitimate among the television Doctors’ progressions (though the Seventh

Doctor was seen becoming him). Many did not consider him canon at all until he showed up in flashbacks on “The Next Doctor” and “The Eleventh Hour” as well as the Doctor’s sketches in “Human Nature.” However, these episodes themselves are subject to scrutiny and “rewriting of time,” suggesting more than initially appears.

“Interestingly, the 8th Doctor is portrayed via representative modes…in other words, as memories, which we might read and accept as liable to being misremembered, as opposed to flashbacks in which diegetic truth is portrayed,” C.B. Harvey notes in his essay, “Canon, Myth, and Memory in Doctor Who.” “In fact, both ‘Human Nature’ and ‘The Next Doctor’ concern themselves with the problems of memory as a central theme, and problems of remembering and misremembering can be perceived as a recurring concern for the Cardiff-produced series” (Harvey 30).

In other words, since he’s shown up as fuzzy uncertain memories, or in databases which soon are wiped (in the events of “Asylum of the Daleks”) the canon remains uncertain, and some would call McGann a “fuzzy” incarnation of the Doctor. This is an idea further reinforced by the BBC’s official Doctor Who website, intoned by an authoritative but otherwise unidentified female voiceover: “The 8th Doctor’s first adventure was to save Earth at the end of the twentieth century. There are many stories told about what happened next, but due to the Time Wars we don’t know how many are true.” (The Beginner’s Guide to Doctor Who). Indeed, the Time Wars serve an important role for many fan commentators in helping explain away inconsistencies through the series, and offer a potential loophole for more problematic works that might otherwise prove too contradictory to include. If all of time was rewritten, well, vanished episodes and inconsistencies may no longer exist. If the Daleks can be unwritten from time, why shouldn’t they have conflicting origin stories as well?

The Ninth Doctor may seem like a fresh start for fans, but the unseen Time War is a never-ending font of baggage. “Bored with his home planet and something of a rebel among the Time Lords, the Doctor always seemed content with himself. Since the final Time War, however…the Doctor is now fully self-directed and painfully alone” (Akers 146). Though he gains a companion and travels with her as usual, the happy-go-lucky attitude of the earlier Doctors appears marred by grief and guilt, as well as a terrible rage at the Daleks. As such, the Ninth Doctor starts in the middle of a story in more ways than one.

Retcon With changing concepts and writers through the fifty year series, there’s been a great deal of retcon. This is a fannish term short for Retroactive Continuity Change, contradicting a fact from an earlier episode. Some of the more ambitious fans have tried to accept all the versions as true and make them all make sense in context, creating guides like the online Cloister Library and Discontinuity Guide or the celebrated book Doctor Who: A History of the Universe by Who novelist Lance Parkin.

• Early closing credits, and episodes such as “Doctor Who and the Silurians” suggested “Doctor Who” is actually the main character’s name.

• The Daleks originally hide in their city for a few centuries waiting for their world to become habitable. They need radiation to survive and can only operate their “travel machines” on powered metal surfaces. They are not terribly intelligent or powerful – the Doctor soundly defeats them. Their flight and devastating military might come later, as does their time travel. Their creation by Davros only appeared in the Fourth Doctor’s era.

• The Time War allegedly wiped Time Lords and Daleks from all of history; however, most characters remember Time Lords as a legend at least. While the Daleks apparently vanished from existence, they reappear in many episodes through various excuses. Everyone in the universe appears to remember them as well.

• No one in the new show seems to recall aliens flattening London all the time – this is addressed multiple times as the Doctor bemoans humanity’s capacity for self-delusion.

• The Cybermen only gain their trademark appearance in their fifth episode, “The Invasion” (Second Doctor) and only gain a weakness to gold in “Revenge of the Cybermen.” However, New Who’s Cybermen are excused from the rules, as they come from an alternate dimension.

• Susan claims she invented the term TARDIS in the show’s first episode, but other Time Lords use it too.

• The Doctor visits three incompatible versions of “the real Atlantis” on the old series.

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The Doctor meets several historical characters, like Shakespeare, who should remember him from a previous adventure but don’t.

Mels’s entire existence and backstory with Amy and Rory appears in a lengthy retcon montage, inserting her in their history and clumsily explaining why she’s never appeared on the show before.

The American-produced Eighth Doctor from the movie describes himself as “half human,” a phrase that fans can’t explain (though they’ve tried) unless he’s lying, mistaken, or confused, or this regeneration brought him back as the wrong species.

Several more deliberate moments of Retcon or bandage-like explanations have appeared on the show as it actually uses broken rules as a storytelling tool: • The concept that “Time can be rewritten” suggests multiple contradictory origin stories and histories could be true, as time is always changing.

• Rose can never leave her alternate universe and never be with the Doctor. However, she slips through in the fourth series (in multiple trips!) and is given a Doctor-copy. It’s explained that reality is breaking down.

• Steven Moffat has reportedly said that, as a result of the cracks in the universe, the various alien invasions were erased from history and wiped from the public’s mind.

This concept appears in “The Eleventh Hour” and as critic Kevin Mahoney puts it in Steven Moffat’s Doctor Who 2010, “Moffat seems to be recalibrating the world of the show away from the situation that developed over the last five years, where pretty much everyone in the world was aware of both the existence of aliens and the organizations that deal with them” (Cooper and Mahoney 14). The new world, repaired through Amy’s imagination, may be subtly different.

• In “Asylum of the Daleks,” the Doctor was erased from every database ever, so nobody remembers him.

Presumably he will grow from a man with a terrifying reputation to an eccentric shadow, surprising people wherever he goes.

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The Tenth Doctor suddenly reveals in “The Stolen Earth” that the TARDIS is meant to be piloted by six people.

Through the early seasons, the Doctor had little-to-no control over his ship, which flew him about randomly.

The revelation of “The Doctor’s Wife” that the TARDIS is alive and taking him “where he needs to go” also helps explain its behavior.

“Time Crash” and other episodes reference “changing the desktop theme” of the TARDIS console room, explaining the radically different looks. It’s implied the ability has always been around, though no one in the sixties would have used such a phrase.

Idris insists that the TARDIS doors were meant to swing out in “The Doctor’s Wife.” This explains occasions like on “The Eleventh Hour” and “The Ice Warriors,” in which the doors in fact swung out.

The Torchwood show plays with the fannish concept, making the drug “retcon” that they give people to make them forget Torchwood’s existence. In “Something Borrowed,” Jack uses a very particular form of the drug, implying people will hazily remember Gwen’s wedding as normal, rather than disrupted by an alien pregnancy – an unlikely drug indeed.

How Many Regenerations Does the Doctor Get? Tennant noted when he took the role, ‘Time Lords can only have 13 bodies, but I’m sure when they get to that they can find some storyline where he falls in a vat of replenishing cream or something” (Merritt, Kindle Locations 652-654). Officially speaking, it is stated in “The Deadly Assassin” of 1976 that Time Lords can only regenerate 12 times, for a total of 13 “lives.” In December 2013, the Twelfth Doctor will appear, suggesting the show’s span is limited.

But anyone who watches science fiction knows there’s always a way.

Several episodes have explicitly numbered the Doctors we know as one through eleven, though again, the canon has a bit of flexibility. The First Doctor is only assumed to be the first, and the transitions from the Second to Third and the Eighth to Ninth Doctors weren’t shown. “The Brain of Morbius” reveals what might be earlier faces of the Doctor (in a self-referential moment, they’re actually photos of directors Christopher Barry and Douglas Camfield and script editor Robert Holmes, among others). Nonetheless, the list of

the Doctors is well-established (after fifty years, no one wants to renumber them all!) and television has supported the official count.

In “The Name of the Doctor,” for instance, Clara says, “I saw all of you. Eleven faces, all of them you! You’re the eleventh Doctor!”

Nonetheless, even on the show, the twelve regenerations don’t seem hard and fast. Once again, various levels of inconsistency and rewriting emerge. The “regeneration cycle” of a Time Lord can be transferred to other Time Lords, reduced, or increased. In “Trial of a Time Lord,” the Valeyard is bribed with his former self’s remaining lives. In the movie, the Master tries to steal the Doctor’s lives. When the Master returns in “Utopia,” he reveals he’s been given a new regeneration cycle (presumably 13 lives) to fight in the Time War. In the old series, he’s bribed with lives and finally steals a new body, confusing the count beyond measure. In a different type of example, River gives all of hers up to save the Doctor, and gets angry when he uses some of his to heal her broken wrist (both are concepts not fully explained). Thus the Doctor could steal lives or receive them as a gift (a problem with no more Time Lords around, admittedly). Visiting The Sarah Jane Adventures, he tells Clyde he can regenerate 507 times, but it’s likely he’s joking. Some fans have noted one can add the digits and get twelve – he may be hiding his vulnerability in code.

Regeneration was invented when the First Doctor’s actor wanted to leave the show. However, many aspects of the process grew organically or became contradictory. In “Power of the Daleks,” the Second Doctor describes regenerating as a function of his TARDIS, but other episodes show him or the Master regenerating far away.

The Time Lords force a regeneration on the Second Doctor, who complains, “You can’t just change what I look like without consulting me!” By the Tenth Doctor’s time, this would be described as an execution. He explains, “I can still die. If I’m killed before regeneration, then I’m dead. Even then, even if I change, it feels like dying. Everything I am dies. Some new man goes sauntering away, and I’m dead” (“The End of Time: Part One”).

Even beyond this, there has been rule-breaking for the purpose of the story. In “The Stolen Earth”/“Journey’s End,” the Doctor oddly halts the process and (presumably) doesn’t use up a life, though he creates a duplicate of himself. In “Destiny of the Daleks” the Time Lady Romana undergoes a voluntary regeneration and tries out several forms as if dress shopping before settling on the appearance of a woman she recently met. This incident contradicts most known rules, though Romana may have a particular talent or

better technology for regenerating because of her youth or for another reason.

Neil Gaiman, author of many bestselling novels as well as episodes “The Doctor’s Wife” and “Nightmare in Silver” explains: It’s interesting, that rule. It was obviously bendable to begin with (the Time Lords gave the Master a whole new round of regenerations). So I’ve always thought that it was more a law like a speed limit is a law than like Gravity is a law. And if there are no longer any police to make you observe the speed limit, you can drive as fast as you like. Although it’s a lot more dangerous. And that’s my opinion. As to what Mr Moffat thinks, he may either have a plan, or he may figure it’s not his problem, but is one for eight or ten years down the line. (Q & A: Neil Gaiman)

Books, Libraries, and Texts SHAKESPEARE: And you, Sir Doctor. How can a man so young have eyes so old?

DOCTOR: I do a lot of reading. (“The Shakespeare Code”)

The show reboots by describing the Doctor as “a legend woven throughout history,” as history and the companions see him. “The Doctor Who series has always been surrounded by an array of texts, some official, some not, since its inception in 1963” (Berger 66).

Episodes were novelized directly, until 1991 when independent Who adventures appeared as well. Over 50,000 works of fanfiction crowd the web, half of which focus on the Tenth Doctor. But that’s nothing compared to the number of books to be found within the Doctor’s universe, from the novelizations and comics of his adventures to the many classics he’s seen reading and quoting. All Eleven Doctors star in over two hundred original novels, including the Missing Adventures and New Adventures series. Big Finish Productions has created hundreds of audio adventures, often recorded by the actual Doctors’ and companions’ actors. There have been plays and fan films, short stories and long graphic novels. The Eighth Doctor, though only present onscreen for the American-made TV movie, has several long series of adventures, with new companions in audio and text.

“Who has always been intertextual: the new series made overt references to not only its own back-story and history but also to other texts such as Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series and even the Disney film The Lion King (Berger 69). It’s a show about books and the power of words, over and over, as the characters explore libraries in the depth of space or deep within the TARDIS, discovering the awesome mysteries their favorite character buries just as deep within himself. As the characters journey through worlds of books and meet writers and fictional characters, they remind the audience that this too is a work of fiction – one that reaches wisdom by laughing at itself.

Matt Smith, discussing his role as the Eleventh Doctor, reveals, “The script is where it starts, it’s always about the words, and luckily we’re in the hands of Steven Moffat, who has this show ingrained in his soul and searing through his blood…I really responded to Steven’s writing – it gives you so much” (Cook).

Critic David Layton notes that many Who episodes resemble fairytales, both with good triumphing over evil and sometimes with their specific trappings.

In “Terror of the Autons,” (1971), plastic chairs, dolls, flowers, and even telephone wires come to life. “The Web Planet” (1965) features intelligent, human-sized insects. “The Trial of a Timelord: Attack of the Vervoids” (1986) has talking carnivorous plants. Two stories in particular, “The Celestial Toymaker (1966) and “The Mind Robber” (1968), expressly take place in malleable fairylands where rules of causality are suspended.

(Humanism, 130)

Added to this list are the plastic Santas of “The Christmas Invasion” and “The Runaway Bride,” children’s drawings of “Fear Her” or dolls in “Night Terrors,” and many children’s adventures such as “The Rings of Akhaten” or “The Beast Below.”

In “Journey to the Centre of the Tardis,” Clara discovers the TARDIS library. Gazing at its towering stories of books, Gothic arches, and gleaming light, she mutters, “Now that’s just showing off.” Of course, fans’ mouths watered as they admired the Encyclopedia Gallifrey stored in speaking bottles and the History of the Time War, which Clara manages to leaf through.

In the episode, the TARDIS sends the Doctor a written message, actually burning the words “Big Friendly Button” into Clara’s palm.

Words have a great deal of power in this episode: The doctor’s threat

that he’ll overload the engines turns real. Two brothers lie and tell the third he’s an android and the lie defines his life. And Clara’s words instantly take form.

DOCTOR: So, so the fuel’s spilled out, so the rods will be exposed. Means they’ll cool CLARA: And start to warp.

DOCTOR: And start to warp. Maybe even – CLARA: No, you don’t say it. Don’t you dare say it!

DOCTOR: Maybe even break apart.

(A rod flies through the walls just in front of them.)

Memories and Doctor Who history are central to the episode – we hear the Cloister bell (seen in old series episodes) and hear the voices of old companions, even back to 1963’s Susan and Ian. At the episode’s climax, the Doctor tells Clara the truth about how he knows her and the copies of her he’s encountered. The Doctor’s line, “Secrets protect us, secrets make us safe” ties in with his personality.

Clara in turn appears to discover his real name and deeds in The History of the Time War, a book in the TARDIS library. However, her memory, like the day, is rewritten.

CLARA: What are you going to do?

DOCTOR: Rewrite today, I hope.

(He uses the sonic screwdriver to etch the letters onto the grenade.)

DOCTOR: I’ve thrown this through the rift before. I need to make sure this time. Going to take it in there myself.

There might be a certain amount of yelling.

CLARA: It’s going to hurt?

DOCTOR: Things that end your life often do that.

CLARA: Wait! All those things you said. How we’ve met before, how I died.

DOCTOR: Clara, don’t worry. You’ll forget. Time mends us. It can mend anything.

CLARA: I don’t want to forget. Not all of it. The library. I saw it. You were mentioned in a book.

DOCTOR: I’m mentioned in a lot of books.

CLARA: You call yourself Doctor. Why do you do that?

You have a name. I’ve seen it. In one corner of that tiny – DOCTOR: If I rewrite today, you won’t remember. You won’t go looking for my name.

CLARA: You’ll still have secrets.

DOCTOR: It’s better that way. (“Journey to the Centre of the Tardis”)

They end the episode reset yet trusting each other and their TARDIS a bit more. This episode sets up the importance of the Doctor’s name and the secret behind it: Significantly, when the Doctor “meets himself,” he calls himself Doctor – the person he wants to be.

In “Silence in the Library”/“Forest of the Dead,” the Tenth Doctor visits the Library, which contains every book ever published, a concept popular in science fiction and fantasy. He explains: It’s a world. Literally, a world. The whole core of the planet is the index computer. Biggest hard drive ever.

And up here, every book ever written. Whole continents of Jeffrey Archer, Bridget Jones, Monty Python’s Big Red Book. Brand new editions, specially printed. (“Silence in the Library”)

Library planets brimming with all the known books in the universe also appear in the novel Spiral Scratch (Sixth Doctor) and the comics War of the Words (Fourth Doctor), Hunger from the Ends of Time (Seventh Doctor) and The Time Machination (Tenth Doctor). This concept demonstrates authors’ love of books, as well as the Doctor’s.

As he explains, “Books. People never really stop loving books. Fifty first century. By now you’ve got holovids, direct to brain downloads, fiction mist, but you need the smell. The smell of books, Donna.

Deep breath” (“Silence in the Library”). Of course, the Doctor is mentioned in these books and a walking work of fiction himself. In the episode, his new companion of a sort River Song (Alex Kingston) defines the Doctor as “The only story you’ll ever tell, if you survive him” (“Silence in the Library”). In fact, he uses the library as a weapon, telling the shadow creatures: TEN: I’m the Doctor, and you’re in the biggest library in the universe. Look me up.

(There is a pause, and then the shadows withdraw.)

SHADOWS: You have one day. (“Forest of the Dead”)

Unfortunately, the library’s desire for real paper books created the episode’s monsters. The Doctor notes, “The forests of the Vashta Nerada, pulped and printed and bound. A million, million books, hatching shadows” (“Forest of the Dead”). Only the computer’s desperation to save everything – even people – proves everyone’s salvation. By the time the two-part episode has ended, his friends Donna and River have been saved in the library as data, just like a

book or television episode. This is an intriguing moment of narrative for viewers despondent over the missing episodes of Doctor Who – all information is worthy of being preserved.

Books, reading, and writing characterize the Doctor and River’s romance, from their meeting in the Library to her death in the same episode and her final appearance in “The Name of the Doctor.” In both, a companion is turned into data, though the Doctor manages to save her. The Doctor unravels the essential mystery of an important woman in his life – River or Clara. On the planet of Trenzalore, a name almost as secret as the Doctor’s own, the Doctor battles information incarnate, the Great Intelligence. Clara, transformed into information as the Great Intelligence is, revisits scenes from the Doctor’s life, spiraling through his stories beginning with a scene before his first episode, in which he steals the TARDIS. In both, the Doctor’s name is used as a password and symbol of trust, offered by River. Jessica Burke explains in “Doctor Who and the Valkyrie Tradition,” that River is more all-powerful seer than companion, because she understands the name’s significance.

Beforehand, expressing regret, she reflects even more intimate knowledge that his name isn’t only a secret, but a source of pain for him. Apologizing, her hand on his heart, she momentarily fetters him in fear and disbelief. Pervaded with grief, face bathed in silver and red light, she names him, and he is speechless. (158)

In other adventures, River and the Doctor compare journals or she sends him messages, from a High Gallifreyan inscription in a museum to “The very first words in recorded history,” inscribed on the ancient diamond cliffs of Planet One (“Hello Sweetie”). The Brilliant Book 2012 features a school essay by “Mels Zucker” in which she dreams of marrying the Doctor and traveling through time and space with him (102).

It would appear that she’s predestined to marry the Doctor, as well as kill him, along with adopting the name of River Song. The Doctor then actively encourages this mythmaking, as he gives her the “TARDIS blue” book of spoilers at the end of this episode. The Doctor knows that River will use it to record her adventures with him. As we know from 2008’s Forest of the Dead, the Doctor left this diary in the biography section of the 51st century library that featured in that story – although this library had few

visitors, who knows who could have read it after he left?

(Mahoney 2011, 134)

The twin journals become a major plot point as well as a running joke – River uses them to foreshadow the Pandorica and the crash of the Byzantium. Likewise, the Doctor gives River hers when she first becomes River Song, and he leaves it behind when she dies – it’s constructed as part of her identity. Burke adds, “We haven’t been privy to any sharing of ‘diaries’ before. So, not only does River become his wife, she becomes his confidante, his Companion, and, in some ways, his biographer” (159). He adds: River’s knowledge, her prophecy is exclusive to the Doctor – our hero – in the form of her little, blue, book, uncannily similar in appearance to the TARDIS. She also is able to contact him, to “call” him via his Psychic Paper. This time, the message arrived too early in his timeline, but we don’t rightly discover why she called him. In addition to her book of prophecy, her “spoilers,” she grants us a picture of the future Doctor. (Burke 159)

“People can find the Doctor through the stories that are told about him…We also know that River will pore through historical sources in her bid to find the Doctor, and she may even publish papers about him, so spreading his myth further,” Kevin Mahoney adds (Cooper and Mahoney 2011, 134). In fact, the Doctor’s and River’s biographies, which they read, in “Let’s Kill Hitler,” reveal their entwined fates of marriage and murder to come. She offers her love along with the love of the galaxy in their wedding episode, all through the message she sends. As she explains: I’ve been sending out a message. A distress call.

Outside the bubble of our time, the universe is still turning, and I’ve sent a message everywhere. To the future and the past, the beginning and the end of everything. The Doctor is dying. Please, please help.…

The sky is full of a million, million voices saying yes, of course we’ll help. (“The Wedding of River Song”)

Spoilers are constantly threatened in the Doctor and River’s relationship in a delightful moment of metanarrative – it’s River’s tagline, given to her by the Doctor after she gave it to him in a delightful loop. In the early days of internet fandom, those posting on fansites and in newsgroups would post the warning “SPOILER ALERT” before revealing crucial information. One of the first print

uses of “spoilers” was in the April 1971 issue of National Lampoon, in which the article “Spoilers,” by Doug Kenney, listed spoilers for famous films (Kenney).

There have been many real-life incidents with spoilers: show creators Davies and Moffat have bemoaned the fact that new companions and Doctors are heavily publicized, leaving no room for surprises. Moffat comments, “It was Russell’s plan not to tell anyone that Chris [Eccleston] was going to change in the last episode, but it leaked after one week” (Radish, “Matt Smith”). Following this, Davies began releasing incomplete episodes for review, which allowed some events, such as Rose’s cameo in “Partners in Crime” to go unspoiled. Moffat often requests that fans not post special showings on YouTube if they want previews to continue at ComicCon. This has been successful with trailers for the 50th anniversary special and the behind-the-scenes docudrama An Adventure in Space and Time.

Amy’s life with the Doctor is also characterized by books and words. She harnesses the power of storytelling, making it so powerful and filled with belief that she can drag the Doctor back from nonexistence, along with her family. Using River’s journal as a touchstone, Amy summons the Doctor from her imagination into reality, just in time to dance at her wedding. For his part, the Doctor gathers up little Amelia and tells her his bedtime story of a box that’s old and new, borrowed and blue. As he comments, “We’re all stories in the end” (“The Big Bang”). When time stops in “The Wedding of River Song,” Amy remembers her other life through her notes and artwork. “I have to keep doing this, writing and drawing things. It’s just it’s so hard to keep remembering.”

In the entire Pandorica arc, the Doctor is caught in a trap made of Amy’s childhood books and finally imprisoned inside Pandora’s box, itself a work of mythology: DOCTOR: There was a goblin, or a trickster, or a warrior.

A nameless, terrible thing, soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies. The most feared being in all the cosmos. And nothing could stop it, or hold it, or reason with it. One day it would just drop out of the sky and tear down your world.

AMY: How did it end up in there?

DOCTOR: You know fairy tales. A good wizard tricked it.

RIVER: I hate good wizards in fairy tales. They always turn out to be him. (“The Pandorica Opens”)

“It’s a fairy tale, a legend. It can’t be real,” the Doctor protests. But as she points out earlier, River and the Doctor are stories as well, in their universe as well as in ours.

When Amy Pond criticizes the Time Lord bedtime story about the Shakri, the Eleventh Doctor replies, “You can talk. Wolf in your grandmother’s night dress?” alluding to Little Red Riding Hood (“The Power of Three”) Time Lord fairytales (which invariably come to life) appear in several adventures as the Shakri are supposedly “The pest controllers of the universe.” The Doctor grew up with stories of the Toclafane, which the Master recreates in “The Sound of Drums.” The Eleventh Doctor also humorously mentions his childhood favorites: Reading’s great. You like stories, George? Yeah? Me, too. When I was your age, about, ooo, a thousand years ago, I loved a good bedtime story. The Three Little Sontarans. The Emperor Dalek’s New Clothes. Snow White and the Seven Keys To Doomsday, eh? All the classics. (“Night Terrors”)

Steven Moffat’s very first Doctor Who story, published in 1996 in the anthology Decalog 3, is called “Continuity Errors.” It takes place in a giant library, possibly the one of his episode “Silence in the Library.” There, companion Bernice Summerfield tries to read the finished version of her own published diary, while the Doctor needs a book to end a war and save lives. When the librarian is unfriendly, the Doctor starts manipulating her past (similar to his actions in “A Christmas Carol”) but her present fills with “continuity errors.”

Eventually, the Doctor succeeds and the book he wanted changes from Massacre on Deltherus 5 to Miracle on Deltherus 5. This story is interspersed with a Lunar University lecture that deconstructs the Doctor, discussing how he’s a terrible danger who snatches young women from their own timelines, brainwashes them, and then leaves them behind again. Apparently, his most insidious tactic is to insert himself into the popular fiction and even make up a TV show about himself so no one will believe he’s real (a comment presented in a fictional work about fiction that could make readers’ heads spin).

The Land of Fiction appeared in the Second Doctor serial, “The Mind Robber.” The Master of the Land tries to convert companions Jamie and Zoe into his characters, in a fun self-referential twist. “The concept for ‘The Mind Robber’ came from an observation by Peter Ling, co-creator of Crossroads, observing that some Doctor Who fans seemed to believe that their favourite fictional characters were

real,” the BBC commentary on the episode notes (Martin). The Doctor chats with Gulliver from Gulliver’s Travels (who only speaks using quotes from his novel), emphasizing their shared role as fictional travelers to unseen magical lands. Cyrano de Bergerac and Sir Lancelot fight beside the Doctor against illusory villains. As they wander, Zoe and the Doctor repeat to themselves that what they are seeing doesn’t really exist – it’s imaginary. Jaime reads his own story typed out in front of him like a script, and our heroes stumble through a forest of words before nearly getting crushed into the pages of a book. All this teases readers with the characters’ fictional nature.

The episode has a surreal quality, as they aren’t clearly seen entering the Land of Fiction or leaving it – perhaps as fictional characters, they never do. The Sixth Doctor returns to the Land of Fiction in audio episodes and the Seventh Doctor visits in novelizations – it’s a truly beloved area of the Doctor’s universe.

In “The Professor, the Queen, and the Bookshop,” Young Amelia and Young Rory stumble into a bookshop managed by the Doctor. The books there are named for Who stories that were set aside: Shylock, Scratchman, The Dark Dimension, The Master of Luxor, The Song of the Space Whale, The Imps. Amy even picks up a copy of the “lost episode” Shada. However, the Doctor cautions them that the library “moves,” as they can travel into any world through the pages – a popular description of reading itself as well as a reminder of the TARDIS. The name of the place, Phoenix Books, references resurrection and eternal life, while the entrance and sign are TARDIS blue and the interior is seemingly infinite. They race through magical worlds, avoiding the terrible White Queen who made it “always winter and never Christmas” in a direct Narnia reference. As they encounter Who monsters within the pages, Amy literally fights using the power of books, and rewrites their story to save the Doctor. In the end, C.S. Lewis adapts their adventure into his famous Chronicles of Narnia, and the Inklings’ newest member, the Doctor, suggests adding a magical wardrobe.

“The Shakespeare Code” is very much a story about the power of words. The theater itself, as a place of make-believe, becomes a source of another reality, just as the television set does.

DOCTOR: Oh yeah, but a theatre’s magic, isn’t it? You should know. Stand on this stage, say the right words with the right emphasis a the right time. Oh, you can make men weep, or cry with joy. Change them. You can change people’s minds just with words in this place. But if you exaggerate that.

MARTHA: It’s like your police box. Small wooden box with all that power inside.

The Doctor realizes that the play is a way of literally reshaping the world as well as figuratively. “Love’s Labours Won. It’s a weapon.

The right combination of words, spoken at the right place, with the shape of the Globe as an energy converter! The play’s the thing!”

The Doctor tells Shakespeare that as the Carrionites are witches who use words to remake the world, Shakespeare can save everyone using the same tools: “Trust yourself. When you’re locked away in your room, the words just come, don’t they, like magic. Words of the right sound, the right shape, the right rhythm. Words that last forever.

That’s what you do, Will. You choose perfect words. Do it.

Improvise.” The Carrionites are chased off in a flurry of pages.

Other Who creators reach out to their favorite authors or even critics – In 1988’s episode “Dragonfire,” the Seventh Doctor and a guard debate the concept that “The semiotic thickness of a performed text varies according to the redundancy of its auxiliary performance codes.” This is an actual quote from the academic book Doctor Who: The Unfolding Text, and simplified means “The less relevant an injoke is to the plot, the more cultural significance it has” in a brief self-referential joke. In “Vincent and the Doctor,” Dr. Black – Bill Nighy’s character – explains to Van Gogh how the latter managed to “transform the pain of his tormented life into ecstatic beauty” and “use [his] passion and pain to portray the joy and ecstasy and magnificence of our world.” Fans and reviewers spend their time making many similar comments on the show.

According to the Fourth Doctor novel Managra, a cult on Gallifrey celebrated a ritual called Thirteenth Night, combining it with the form of theatre called Mimesis, which allows the user to rewrite reality. The 31st century planet Managra (an anagram for anagram) uses this technology to bring fears and tales to life. Francis Pearson, a Shakespeare-era playwright transported to the planet, unites with the planet, becoming the composite entity Persona (an anagram of his name) and adopts the name Doctor Sperano (another anagram of Pearson and likely reference to Shakespeare’s Prospero) and becomes the Dramaturge, director of the world. The Doctor and Sarah Jane must face him on his new world, surrounded by fictional characters and famous authors alike. They meet Mary and Percy Shelley, Alistair Crowley, Paracelsus, Johann Faust, multiple Cyrano de Bergeracs, Casanovas, Byrons, Marquis de Sades, Emily Brontes, Goethes, Mozarts, Beethovens, Tchaikovskys, Metternichs,

Leonardo da Vincis, and the Four Musketeers.

The Doctor was the finest dream of hundreds of human beings, refined as they tapped away at their typewriters. For generations, they’d made him a hero to countless millions in over a hundred countries. Then, just once, he hadn’t come back. His enemies had kept him away. But despite their best efforts he hadn’t been forgotten. There were those who remembered him when they walked past a dummy in a shop window or sat on a beach looking out to sea, and every time they ground pepper. Some of those who remembered him had typewriters of their own. And, after far too long, a new generation of children were about to hear that music for the first time, and they would learn their sofa wasn’t just for sitting on. (Parkin)

The novel The Gallifrey Chronicles by Lance Parkin is a book about books and the Doctor. Marnal, the former Castellan of Gallifrey, is exiled to Earth in 1883, and there he writes numerous science fiction and fantasy novels, which actually contain the entire history of Gallifrey: The Kraglon Inheritance, The Witch Lords, The Emergents, The Giants, The Hand of Time (published in 1976), The Time of Neman, The Beautiful People, Marnal’s Journeys or the Modern Crusoe, Day of Wrath, The Monkey to Time saga, and Valley of the Lost. He once wrote an episode of Star Trek, but it was changed so much that he refused credit. After Marnal dies, the Doctor collects and keeps all of his novels, preserving another history of Gallifrey. The Doctor tells his companion, “One of the things you’ll learn is that it’s all real. Every word of every novel is real, every frame of every movie, every panel of every comic strip” prompting the self-critical reply, “But that’s just not possible. I mean some books contradict other ones.” This is a natural state of affiars in the Expanded Whoniverse.

“The Rings of Akhaten” is absolutely a story about the power of story. The Doctor explains that “The soul’s made of stories, not atoms. Everything that ever happened to us,” thus the people of Akhaten, especially their god-monster, are drawn to them and use them as currency. To save the young queen from sacrificing herself, the Doctor reaches out to her with his greatest strength: Hey, do you mind if I tell you a story? One you might not have heard. All the elements in your body were forged many, many millions of years ago, in the heart of a far

away star that exploded and died. That explosion scattered those elements across the desolations of deep space. After so, so many millions of years, these elements came together to form new stars and new planets. And on and on it went. The elements came together and burst apart, forming shoes and ships and sealing wax, and cabbages and kings. Until eventually, they came together to make you. You are unique in the universe. There is only one Merry Gejelh. And there will never be another. Getting rid of that existence isn’t a sacrifice. It is a waste. (“The Rings of Akhaten”)

Queen Merry in fact leads them to their escape through her knowledge of legends, especially those of secret passages. Clara battles with the strength of her history and her talisman of a leaf – “full of stories, full of history. And full of a future that never got lived. Days that should have been that never were.” The Doctor too defeats the creature by telling it a story – the story of itself and how it’s a parasite that viscously consumes others to sustain its life. He ends his tale with a final story – the story of himself.

So, come on, then. Take mine. Take my memories. But I hope you've got a big appetite, because I have lived a long life and I have seen a few things. I walked away from the last Great Time War. I marked the passing of the Time Lords. I saw the birth of the universe and I watched as time ran out, moment by moment, until nothing remained. No time. No space. Just me. I walked in universes where the laws of physics were devised by the mind of a mad man. I've watched universes freeze and creations burn. I've seen things you wouldn't believe. I have lost things you will never understand.

And I know things. Secrets that must never be told.

Knowledge that must never be spoken. Knowledge that will make parasite gods blaze. So come on, then. Take it! Take it all, baby! Have it! You have it all! (“The Rings of Akhaten”)

In Wolfsbane, a novel by Jacqueline Rayner, the Eighth Doctor, still suffering from amnesia, submits short stories from his adventures to classic science fiction magazine Astounding Stories, just as many Who writers once did. These include the Cybermen, the clockwork soldiers of “The Mind Robber,” walking cacti (presumably Meglos), the Axons (from “The Claws of Axos”), and the lost city of Atlantis (visited in “The Underwater Menace” and “The Time Monster.” In the short story “Mordieu,” the Eighth Doctor tries writing in the

1960s for American television, while in “The Kingmaker,” the Doctor mentions that he wrote a series of children’s books during his adventures with UNIT in the seventies.

The Companions too become writers on their adventures. Sarah Jane Smith wrote the book UNIT: Fighting for Humankind (seen in “Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?”). Amelia Williams apparently became an author and wrote Summer Falls in the past. Clara sees her young charge reading it in “The Bells of Saint John,” and tells him that chapter ten is good but “eleven is the best. You’ll cry your eyes out.” In an extra-fannish moment, the contrast between the tenth and eleventh is likely a reference to the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors and their warring popularity. Summer Falls was made into an actual digital novel by the BBC and released April 4th, 2013, bringing the fictional moment to life.

“The Angels Take Manhattan” opens with a clicking typewriter and the narration of a Raymond Chandler detective story. Once again, readers are reminded they’re watching fiction. The Doctor is reading the novel aloud, a tale of Melody Malone, who has “ice in her heart and a kiss on her lips, and a vulnerable side she keeps well hidden.”

“Only you could fancy someone in a book,” Rory tells the Doctor. In fact, Melody Malone is actually River Song and Rory is transported back in time and thus into the novel: Doctor: (reads) I followed the skinny guy for two more blocks before he turned and I could ask exactly what he was doing here. He looked a little scared, so I gave him my best smile and my bluest eyes.

Amy: […] Doctor? What did the skinny guy say?

Doctor: He said, “I just went to get coffees for the Doctor and Amy. Hello, River.” (“The Angels Take Manhattan”)

The Doctor and Amy must solve the mystery in the book and in their own lives, reading ahead without spoiling as whatever Amy reads will then come true.

Amy: Time can be rewritten.

Doctor: Not once you’ve read it. Once we know what’s coming, it’s written in stone. (“The Angels Take Manhattan”)

There’s a cut to a nearby gravestone inscribed “In Loving Memory Rory Arthur Williams,” indeed read and written in stone (though by

the audience not the characters). The Melody Malone book finally offers both Doctor and readers Amy’s final goodbye: Amy’s final request is that the Doctor find the younger her and “tell her a story...Tell her this is the story of Amelia Pond. And this how it ends” (“The Angels Take Manhattan”). In 2012, BBC Books released the ebook The Angel’s Kiss: A Melody Malone Story, a prequel to the book that the Doctor was reading in the episode, in another moment of fiction becoming reality.

Troubles with the Idiot’s Lantern Earlier in Russell T Davies’ career, between 1988 and 1992, he produced the television show Why Don’t You? which pushed children to stop watching television and do something constructive (a complex, circular message for a television program). “The minor hypocrisy of the message – “Thanks for watching my television show, now stop watching television” – has followed Davies into his career on Doctor Who,” Marc Edward DiPaolo explains in “Political Satire and British-American Relations in Five Decades of Doctor Who” (972).

Indeed, the Doctor delights in books, but also warns against the dangers of internet and television addiction. As critic Sue Short notes, many episodes question media power, including “Bad Wolf,” the show about killer gameshows and “Love and Monsters,” which stars the Absorbaloff – “a monstrous depiction of avaricious fandom literally living off other people” (175). Killer cellphone earpieces and idiot news channels satirize much of our modern culture. The creatures of the Silence, instantly forgettable by all who see them, are killed because they send out a message on television for the human race to defend itself. Viewers along with the people of 1969 see “You should kill us all on sight!” which then becomes a posthypnotic suggestion to the entire human race. As Elaine Graham notes in her book on the monstrous, “representations of the post/human” in the “‘stories we live by’ can be important critical tools in the task of articulating what it means to be human in a digital and bio-technological age” (17).

In the first episode of the reboot, ‘‘Rose,’’ the Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) criticizes Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), for being a typical human. “I mean, you lot, all you do is eat chips, go to bed and watch telly, while all the time underneath you there’s a war going on!” (“Rose”). The episode’s monsters, Autons, are plastic aliens, and “plastic is a distinctly corporate product that frequently symbolizes all that is wrong with our current culture of mass-

consumption” (Schuster and Powers 122). Rose Tyler, in contrast, appears to represent “The desire to live as more than just a mindless consumer” (Schuster and Powers 123). Of course, she leaves earth and her telly to join him in the battle.

Likewise, Rose’s friend Adam accompanies her and the Ninth Doctor into the future in ‘‘The Long Game.” “He becomes a negative example and a condemnation of those who cannot stop immersing themselves in television, the Internet, iPods, and other nonstop broadcasters of what the Doctor calls ‘useless information’” (DiPaolo 972-973). In the future, he buys a cybernetic implant that lets him download unlimited information, which he’s incapable of absorbing. The information fills his head, but he has no understanding of it and certainly no deeper wisdom as he only wants to use it for profit. The disgusted Ninth Doctor drops him back on earth to live with the consequences. As DiPaolo adds: The joke is on Adam because all of the information he downloaded into his brain was controlled, censored, and rewritten by the Jagrafess, a loathsome alien being clearly intended to represent mass media mogul Rupert Murdoch, owner of, among other things, The New York Post, The Sun, Star Magazine, 20th Century Fox, Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, Harper Collins, IGN Entertainment, and MySpace. Thus, all Adam succeeds in doing is becoming a spy and a stooge for the Jagrafess. (972-973)

“Satellite Five and the Game Station render humanity as susceptible to becoming mindless consumers of commodities and useless information as do our own mass-media outlets on present-day earth,” Schuster and Powers note in The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, their book on Doctor Who as cultural statement (124). Visiting Satellite Five later, the Doctor calls humanity “Brainless sheep” for watching reality TV, but reveals he enjoys it as well, asking, “Mind you, have they still got that program where three people have to live with a bear?” (“Bad Wolf”). In this episode, the television has turned murderous, as contestants are shot on The Weakest Link and permanently eradicated on Big Brother. As Lynda-with-a-Y explains, “There’s Call My Bluff, with real guns. Countdown, where you’ve got thirty seconds to stop the bomb going off. Ground Force, which is a nasty one. You get turned into compost. Er, Wipeout, speaks for itself. Oh, and Stars In Their Eyes. Literally, stars in their eyes. If you don’t sing, you get blinded” (“Bad Wolf”). All of these are

actual UK reality shows, subtly emphasizing the harm inherent in this type of exploitation.

“You lot, you’re obsessed. You’d do anything for the latest upgrade,” the Doctor notes in “Rise of the Cybermen.” In fact, the prized cellphone earpieces on Pete’s World become the key to controlling the population, then converting them into Cybermen in a literal “upgrade” – a warning about the hazards of an overly technological world. The Cybermen note, “We have been upgraded [into] the next level of mankind. We are Human point two. Every citizen will receive a free upgrade. You will become like us” (“Rise of the Cybermen”), chillingly our own catchphrases. The robot-like humans who tune in to music, news, and other media become literal robots as they disconnect from society. Cybus Industries with its madman CEO John Lumic offers Cybus earbuds (even diamondstudded ones!) and their Daily Download of lottery numbers and jokes, which hypnotize their eager consumers as much as texts and emails do on smartphones today. The Cybus logo actually resembles a computer’s power button, turned sideways. “A logo on the front,” the Doctor notes. “Lumic’s turned it into a brand.” This works as both commercial branding and a slave’s brand of ownership – one in some ways equals the other.

“Rise of the Cybermen” and “The Age of Steel” (both 2006),suggest that society’s fascination for new and improved technology can be of a benefit to the continued evolution of humanity – The Doctor comments on the ingenuity of the human race in creating gadgets and gizmos such as mobile phones and Bluetooth headsets that entertain and enrich lives.

It is only when humans – and in particular the Cybus Industries owner, John Lumic – become paranoid about the fragile nature of the organic body that they start to look to the potentials of the Cyber-race and their metal bodies. (Geraghty 95).

On “The Idiot’s Lantern,” the television is spreading through postwar Britain, turning avid watchers into “monsters.” Their faces vanish and their souls are wiped of everything – a metaphor for television where loved ones no longer see the person’s face and their heads are filled with empty nonsense. The television monster “The Wire” is endlessly hungry and slurps away at people even as they struggle. The Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) notes, “It feeds off the electrical activity of the brain, but it gorges itself like a great overfed pig, taking people’s faces, their essences. It stuffs itself” (“The

Idiot’s Lantern”). Her slave, metaphorically a slave to the television, says he only craves “peace,” away from her. Thus the new Doctor Who offers “an extended riff on advertising, consumerism, and the entertainment industry” (Schuster and Powers 119). Of course, the episode’s title in the first place points out television’s dumbed-down, moth-to-a-flame appeal.

There had been several recent reports of SatNav devices giving drivers incorrect information, leading to accidents and even nearfatalities, so the ATMOS device was created for “The Sontaran Strategem.” Along with the horror of technology and the environmental message, there’s a subtle protest at people who would follow driving directions straight into the ocean, directed by their shiny new satellite navigation system. This is also spoofed with the Victorian child “Thomas Thomas” who gives directions in “The Crimson Horror.”

On Torchwood’s “From Out of the Rain,” movies are the terrible threat, as the Night Travelers are preserved on ancient filmstrips.

When a film is shown, they are freed to travel the world and steal victims’ breaths. The Torchwood team refilm them and expose the film to sunlight, destroying them. Jack Harkness claims that they can come back from other old film canisters, as happens at episode end.

“Revelation of the Daleks” shows two applications of audio-visual systems. One is given in the free-spirited and jocose VJ, who mixes popular music, images from the surrounding environment, and his own patter for entertainment purposes. The other is given in Davros, the evil geneticist who monitors all that goes on in Tranquil Repose, the funerary and cryonic establishment he has taken over in order to carry out his experiments. The two characters are linked as thematic opposites: both have access to the same audio-visual system. (Layton, “Closed Circuits” 243)

When they’re introduced, V.J. and Davros are watching the same event – the arrival of the Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker) and his companion Peri (Nicola Bryant). VJ interprets events, calling Peri “a maiden in distress” and acts, in some ways like a sports commentator or DVD commentary. He’s a corpulent couch potato, like his television audience – one of them, in fact. With phrases such as, “Hey guys, viddy this!” or “I’ll be hearing from you, all right?” he calls for participation from his friends, and by extension from the audience. When his life is threatened, the VJ turns the system into a

weapon, “a highly directional ultrasonic beam of rock and roll. It kills!” The television becomes, not only his identity, but his power.

Peri, the American companion, is likewise pleased and entertained by the television.

Davros by contrast controls the action, tricking the Doctor into coming in the first place. His surveillance system ensures that he can control the civilization, not just watch it. He’s determined to know more than anyone, as he repeatedly executes people for “knowing too much.” While he comments on events, he also chooses what to do about them. “On the other hand, his reliance on the audio-visual system is a weakness…His image from the videophone is used so that assassins can identify him. The system can even be turned against him when the VJ and Peri use it to warn off the President’s ship” (Layton, “Closed Circuits” 244).

“Vengeance on Varos” examines the ways a government can use television to control the populace and subdue subversion and yet itself become slave to the audio-visual system. Of final interest is the way that in Doctor Who TV explores its own dangers and limitations. (Layton, “Closed Circuits” 242-243)

Etta and Arak are a couple who spend the episode observing – they are the show’s “ordinary viewers.” They begin the show watching an execution, mindlessly enjoying the same violence seen on “Bad Wolf” (and on The Hunger Games, for that matter). “When did we last see a decent execution?” asks Arak. Eventually, the pair find themselves watching the Doctor’s exploits (as the real viewers are), swept away with admiration for his heroism. The villain here is the legless slug Sil, the ultimate couch potato and exploiter of others.

TV also becomes for Etta and Arak the center of their personal political cosmos, pitting the dissatisfied Arak against the loyal Etta in a microcosmic battle in which a viewer’s report becomes a major weapon. In their world, in which TV is the sole means of both information and entertainment and the only mediator between the two people, whoever controls that device controls them.

(Layton, “Closed Circuits” 245)

Giving up one’s mind means others can exploit it, as mindless watchers trade free will for entertainment.

Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman)’s first appearance in the twentyfirst century, “The Bells of Saint John,” could be termed a story of

internet addiction. Moffat described the premise as “The traditional ‘Doctor Who’ thing of taking something omnipresent in your life and making it sinister, if something did get in the Wi-Fi, we’d be kind of screwed. Nobody had really done it before, so I thought, ‘It’s time to get kids frightened of Wi-Fi!’” (Doctor Who Magazine 458). Those who log onto the strange wireless internet connection are sucked into the computer and turned into literally hollow copies of themselves unable to do more than parrot their catchphrases. As the episode’s exposition warns, “Their souls live on, trapped. Sometimes you can hear their cries, ‘I don’t know where I am,’ on the radio, on the telly, or on the net.” This appears to be a warning against internet addiction, as those who are preyed upon improve their skills with technology but are permanently trapped in tiny computer screens.

Moffat however denied that his intention was to give a warning about technology, but rather tell an adventure story about a “new way [for aliens] to invade” based on something viewers were familiar with (Radish, “Matt Smith”). However humorous, the story calls to attention how much the technology has permeated our society, emptying people’s heads until they resemble the “spoonhead robots” in truth: DOCTOR: This whole world is swimming in wifi. We’re living in a wifi soup. Suppose something got inside it.

Suppose there was something living in the wifi, harvesting human minds. Extracting them. Imagine that. Human souls trapped like flies in the world-wide web. Stuck forever, crying out for help.

CLARA: Isn’t that basically Twitter? (“The Bells of Saint John”)

The enemy is defeated because of their unthinking fondness for social media – another commentary on today’s society: CLARA: You’ve hacked the lower operating system, yeah? I’ll have their physical location in under five minutes. Pop off and get us a coffee.

DOCTOR: If I can’t find them, you definitely can’t.

CLARA: They uploaded me, remember? I’ve got computing stuff in my head….It’s never about the security, it’s about the people. …

ALEXI: Someone’s hacking the webcams. All of them.

MAHLER: Everybody check your webcams.

ALEXI: But what would be the point, taking mug shots of us?

MAHLER: Who’s on Facebook?

Hands go up.

MAHLER: Bebo? MySpace? Abo? More hands.

MAHLER: Put your hands down if you didn’t mention where you work.

No hands go down. (“The Bells of Saint John”)

“That moment, in which the villains are hoist with their own social media petard, offers the episode’s most trenchant insight into the follies and fears of the Internet age” (Wilkins). In “The Power of Three” Smith puts disgust into the Doctor’s remark concerning Twitter in the episode, reflecting his real life decision to stay off the social network (Mulkern). Davies seems to share his feelings, commenting in 2007, “In the community of sci-fi shows, I think we’re the only one that actively ignores its online fanbase. American shows seem to court them, or pretend that they do. That way lies madness. I cannot think of a show that’s improved its quality, or its ratings, by doing it. It is like going in search of a massively biased focus group – why would anyone do that?’’ (qtd. in DiPaolo 975) Likewise, in “Planet of the Dead,” the UNIT automated helpline is so terrible it might doom the world to an alien invasion as the Doctor is put on hold: PHONE: This is the Unified Intelligence Taskforce. Please select one of the following four options. If you want to report a UFO sighting, press one...

DOCTOR: Aw, I hate these things.

In a world of advertisements, television monsters, corrupting cellphones, and brain-sucking internet, it’s important to keep things in perspective and not get overwhelmed. “Following the Doctor’s cue, we’d do best to approach these corporations – and our own relationships to them – with critical minds. We must question the meaningless drivel of the advertising industry. We must recognize the power of corporate logos and slogans to invade our minds and spread among us like viruses,” Schuster and Powers explain (135).

Breaking the Fourth Wall DOCTOR: Smile, Jo. JO: What?

DOCTOR: You’re on camera.

The Doctor waves at the CCTV at the fortress prison they’re visiting. (“The Mind of Evil”)

Obviously such moments are amusing and reflective as the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) and his companion Jo Grant (Katy Manning) are on camera literally as well as fictionally. In “The Mind of Evil,” the Master watches the Doctor’s nightmares of Daleks and monsters on a television screen of a sort, emphasizing the watchable and fictional nature of the Doctor’s foes…even himself. In another scene, the Brigadier and his aid plot a break in.

BRIGADIER: Have you seen Stangmoor Prison?

COSWORTH: No, sir.

BRIGADIER: Well, I’ve just been looking at it. It’s an old fortress. You’d need an army to get in there.

COSWORTH: A fortress?

BRIGADIER: That’s right.

COSWORTH: I suppose there couldn’t possibly be a secret underground passage or something?

BRIGADIER: Good, Major, good. Is that a map of the prison?

COSWORTH: Yes, sir.

BRIGADIER: Yes, you’re right. It hasn’t been blocked off either. It probably leads to the old dungeons.

COSWORTH: It’s rather like making a film, isn’t it, sir. (“The Mind of Evil”)

Even in the first episode, the Doctor points out the magic of our televised world when new companion Ian Chesterton (William Russell) is agape at the TARDIS, bigger on the inside.

DOCTOR: But you’ve discovered television, haven’t you?

IAN: Yes. DOCTOR: Then by showing an enormous building on your television screen, you can do what seemed impossible, couldn’t you? (“An Unearthly Child”)

This delightful self-reference tells viewers they can enter a marvelous world simply through watching. Of course, the greatest self-references involve clips of past Doctors, reminding viewers of the past and how it blends with the future’s canon.

When Davros taunts the Doctor in “Journey’s End,” he sees those who sacrificed themselves to save him from the beginning of the new series: Harriet Jones, Jabe, the Controller and Lynda from “Bad Wolf,” Robert MacLeish from “Tooth and Claw,” Mrs. Moore, the team of LINDA, the Face of Boe, Chantho the Master’s assistant, Astrid Peth, Luke Rattigan, his daughter Jenny, River Song at her death, and the hostess of “Midnight.” A second flashback sequence

travels through all of Donna’s adventures.

Travis Flickett of IGN describes the concept of “fan service,” cute moments like these that amuse the fans rather than moving the story forward: The idea of “fan service” is always a double edged sword. It’s great to see all of the things you may like about a series come together on screen, but it so often works better in theory than in practice. It’s like those giant crossovers that comic books do all the time – where every cool character meets every other cool character. While it’s interesting (to a degree) that they’re sharing a page, everybody ends up getting short-shrift. (Flickett)

“The Stolen Earth”/“Journey’s End” ends the Davies era with a bang as Sarah Jane (with her house, Mr. Smith, K-9, and Luke), Captain Jack (with Gwen , Ianto, and the Torchwood base), Rose, Donna, Martha, and their families all battle to save the world, aided by UNIT and Harriet Jones. They also journey to the frequently-mentioned Shadow Proclamation to face the highest arbiters of the universe law.

This epic story was actually much more elaborate in its first draft: The Daleks were intended to invade earth in a shot of their saucers filling the sky, not just their voices on audio. One saucer would shatter Big Ben and shoot the Prime Minister in a callback to earlier invasions of London. The Shadow Proclamation, a city which arched over multiple asteroids with shining metal towers, originally featured all the aliens from New Who with a few particular cameos: 47: INT. Shadow Proclamation lobby: Night.

Close on the Doctor and Donna – who’s recovering, brave face on – both stepping out...

The Doctor: ...right, the first thing we’ve got to do is...

Stops dead, as a platoon of Judoon march past, big, heavy boots stomping, left to right, the Doctor and Donna nipping through a gap in the formation, pushing forward...

The Doctor: ...whoops, ‘scuse me, sorry...

FX: Three Krillitanes swoop down, the Doctor and Donna brushing them off, still pushing forward...

Donna: Oy! Get off!

The Doctor: Keep your wings in, you lot!...then stopped by two Vespiforms buzzing right to left...

The Doctor: ...oh, mind those stings, thank you...

The Doctor and Donna then stopping to look properly.

Gulp.

FX: Wide shot. Big, white open smart-sci-fi-building.

Filled with crowd multiplication Judoon, crowd multiplication Slitheen, a few Hath, two helmeted Sycorax, and crowd multiplication space-extras: some in big opera cloaks; Sisters of the Wicker Place Mat from 1.2; plus a lot of monks and nuns. Also, Shadow police: like Judoon, but Human, in big stompy black uniforms.

Flying through the air: Krillitanes; Vespiforms; and Gelth. And in one corner, a huge 15ft Adipose, mewling.

All busy, chaotic, emergency!

The Doctor: Tell me, what’s everyone doing here?

Slitheen: The whole universe is on red alert! Planets have disappeared! We have lost Clom!

The Doctor: Clom’s gone?!

Slitheen: Clom’s gone!

Donna: What’s Clom?

Slitheen: Our twin planet! Without it, Raxacoricofallapatorius will fall out of the sky! [turns to go] We must phone home... [to Baby Slitheen] ...this way, Margaret.

Baby Slitheen talks with the voice of Margaret Blaine: Baby Slitheen: Take me home, Daddy, I don’t like the nasty policemen! (Davies & Cook 345)

“Is this world protected?” the Doctor demands in “The Eleventh Hour.” Images flash through the Atraxi’s projection: Cybermen, The Daleks spitting outward from the Genesis Ark. The Empress of the Racnoss. The Ood. The Sycorax. The Sontarans. The Silurians The Reapers. The Hath. “Cause you’re not the first lot to have come here.

Oh, there have been so many. And what you’ve got to ask is... what happened to them?” He steps through shots of all the first ten Doctors in order, then steps through them to make the Eleventh.

“Hello. I’m the Doctor. Basically…run.”

In “The Almost People,” the Doctor’s Ganger mumbles, “one day we will get back” from “An Unearthly Child,” uses the Third Doctor‘s catchphrase “reverse the polarity of the neutron flow,” craves the Fourth Doctor’s jelly babies, and mimics the Tenth Doctor. An unfortunately cut scene would have included a montage of the Doctor’s happy memories, including old and new episodes as well as events that had not transpired onscreen (Hickman 80).

In “Journey to the Centre of the Tardis,” the TARDIS leaks famous moments out of the past, quoting the first episode, “An Unearthly Child,” as well as recent companions Rose, Martha, and Amy on their first adventures. The Eleventh Doctor calls the

TARDIS sexy, and early companion Susan Foreman (Carole Ann Ford) explains how she made up the name from the initials: Time and Relative Dimension In Space” (“An Unearthly Child”). The Third and Fourth Doctors chime in as well, as the Third prattles to Jo about daisies and the Fourth contemplates the genocide of the Daleks. The Sixth Doctor warns the Time Lords, “Daleks, Sontarans, Cybermen! They’re still in the nursery compared to us,” during his trial on Gallifrey.

“The Name of the Doctor” offers many clips—original, restaged by recent actors, and even colorized in the first Doctor Who example yet. The scene of the First Doctor stealing the TARDIS (not yet a police box) is also shown for the first time. Traveling back into all their episodes, Clara saves him by cautioning him to steal the proper Type 40 one, and then calls after the Third Doctor in Bessie and the Second in his fur coat (both in scenes from “The Five Doctors”).

Clara aids the Fourth Doctor in “The Invasion of Time,” the Fifth in “Arc of Infinity,” and the Tenth in “Silence in the Library,” while she watches the Seventh dangle off a cliff by his umbrella in “Ðragonfire.”

In several episodes, the Doctor delights fans by addressing remarks to the camera: On “The Snowmen,” the Eleventh Doctor’s final line, “Watch me run,” is delivered right to the audience. They indeed get to watch him run as the second half of series seven begins a search for Clara and new purpose for the Doctor and his fans alike.

In “The Curse of the Black Spot” he stares at the camera. “Feels like something’s out there...staring straight at me.” Obviously, there is.

The Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) interacts with the audience more directly when encouraging them to applaud louder and showering the orchestra with the pages he’s written in his 2008 BBC Proms Season video appearance – he’s said to be using a space portal from the TARDIS to the Royal Albert Hall.

Meanwhile, an episode titled Doctor Who: “The Greatest Show in the Galaxy” must be considered at least a bit self-referential. In the episode, the Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) performs in the circus, emphasizing his role as performer on his television episodes.

As he talks with Morgana, who can see the future in a different way than he can, the Doctor faces his role as simultaneous performer and traveler.

DOCTOR: The Psychic Circus has grown into quite a sizeable operation, by the looks of it.

MORGANA: The greatest show in the galaxy.

DOCTOR: Quite so, yes. My, you have travelled, haven’t

you? The planet Othris, the Boriatic Wastes, Marpesia and the Grand Pagoda of Cinethon.

MORGANA: Yes, we used to have a great time in the old days, going from planet to planet. But we’ve really got settled in here since DOCTOR: Since?

MORGANA: Well, you have to hang up your travelling shoes and stop wandering sooner or later, don’t you?

DOCTOR: So I’ve been told. Personally, I just keep on wandering.

The episode opens like a curtain going up on a performance as the Ringmaster promises a delightful family show, much like Doctor Who itself: The Ringmaster promises “acts that are cool and acts that amaze,” adding, “There are lots of surprises for the family at the Greatest Show in the Galaxy! So many strange surprises, I’m prepared to bet, whatever you’ve seen before, you ain’t seen nothing yet.” The audience is a stand-in for us, the television viewing audience, as the Doctor engages with them and they begin criticizing: DAD: You are trifling with us.

DOCTOR: Really? I thought I was entertaining you.

DAD: You are on the brink of destruction, Doctor. We want something bigger, something better.

DOCTOR: Do you now?

He’s voicing the home audience’s desire for more, better, grander. “It was your show all along, wasn’t it?” his companion Ace (Sophie Aldred) acknowledges at the end. Indeed, the Doctor rules the circus and the larger show beyond. Thus his role as entertainer comes into prominence.

The acknowledgement that they’re all on television is always an excuse for fun. In “Night Terrors,” a parent worries his child has been watching too much scary television and needs to shut it off. The Doctor emphatically replies that he shouldn’t do that... Madame Kovarian peeks out of a pale square in The Brilliant Book 2012 and speaks as herself, in another disturbingly believable moment. Finally, one of the old series’ last episodes has a delightful moment as someone on television within the show announces, “This is BBC television. The time is a quarter past five and Saturday viewing continues with an adventure in the new science fiction series, Doc–” (“Remembrance of the Daleks”). By thus winking at viewers, the Doctor builds a larger world, dragging his fans into his fictional show and inviting them to interact there.

Winning the Game of Thrones The Host of Characters and their Agendas

Agendas on Game of Thrones Most characters, from the Tyrells to the Baratheons, want power. In fact most characters are quite upfront about their agendas. Some of the coming-of-age stories – Daenerys, Jon, Robb, and Theon’s arcs, for instance, are seen with them struggling between painful options as they choose what really matters. A few other characters are mysteries, leaving viewers divided on Varys’ secret agenda or Sansa’s perplexing words and actions. A deeper look, character by character, may offer clearer insight. (This is meant as character analysis – characters who offer startling spoiler-style revelations about who murdered who or what they’ve really been plotting are not included in this section.)

Petyr Baelish’s Obsession Petyr Baelish was born to an insignificant house on the smallest of the Fingers, hence his nickname Littlefinger. His father, a sellsword’s grandson, befriended his liege lord Hoster Tully and Petyr was sent to foster with him at Riverrun. Growing up alongside the lord’s children, Catelyn, Lysa and Edmure, Petyr fell in love with Catelyn. This lady, however, was betrothed to her social equal, Brandon Stark, and chose the powerful lord her father

had selected over her childhood friend. A jealous Petyr challenged the much older and larger Brandon to a duel for her hand.

Beforehand, Catelyn begged her fiancé for Petyr’s life, so Brandon only left him a scar and a lifelong sense of humiliation. Brandon was killed by King Aerys, and, while Petyr sent Catelyn a hopeful letter, she burned it unread and married Brandon’s brother Ned. Lysa in turn was in love with Petyr, and in the series, Petyr boasts around King’s Landing that he had both Tully girls’ maidenheads. After Lysa married Jon Arryn, she convinced her husband to give Petyr an appointment, and later to name him Master of Coin.

Ten years ago, Jon Arryn had given him minor sinecure in customs, where Lord Petyr had soon distinguished himself by bringing in three times as much as any of the king’s other collectors. King Robert had been a prodigious spender. A man like Petyr Baelish who had a gift for rubbing two golden dragons together and breeding a third, was invaluable to his Hand.

Littlefinger’s rise had been arrow swift. Within three years of coming to court he had been made master of coin and a member of the small council, and today the crown’s revenues were ten times what they had under his predecessor...though the crown’s debt had grown vast.

Petyr became indispensable to the crown, yet always overlooked and mocked for his birth. No one wanted him to wed their daughters or inherit their holdings, only watch the king’s money. And so Petyr’s resentment grew.

More than anything, Petyr Baelish wants respect from those who always sneered at him – in particular, he wants Catelyn Stark. His present-day actions all appear to be motivated toward winning back Cat or the nearest substitute.

Littlefinger befriends Ned and gives him a bewildering mixture of good advice and bad. At last he betrays Ned to seize power but also to get Catelyn. His glee as he personally holds a knife to Ned’s throat, the only time in the series he seems to get his hands dirty, emphasizes his agenda. He tries to have Ned sent to the Wall – with him giving up his lands and wife forever, Catelyn will be free to find another, but she won’t be as distressed as she would be on his death.

However, Joffrey kills Ned, and Catelyn is left to grieve. In season two, Petyr brings Catelyn her husband’s bones and tries to persuade

her to be with him. She’s revolted and rejects him soundly.

Back in King’s Landing, he offers to save Sansa and sneak her to safety. (In the books, Baelish also offers to take Sansa off the Lannisters’ hands and wed her after her father’s death. They refuse, for as Cersei thinks to herself, he’s hardly of worthy birth.) In the later books, his actions toward her are a combination of affectionate and incestuously creepy. Sansa of course resembles her mother with shining red hair. She’s an innocent seeking a protector – exactly what inflames Littlefinger the most. Petyr is also interested in wedding Lysa Arryn and inheriting her kingdom...but only after Cat refuses him.

He’s also eager to be named Lord of Harrenhal – it’s a vassal of Riverrun, but the Lannisters propose to make it the new Great House of the Riverlands – Cat’s father and brother would be subject to Petyr, the poor ward they once judged not good enough for Cat. He could thus take his revenge on her family. In fact, since they’re in rebellion against King Joffrey, Littlefinger could attack Riverrun and behead its lords if he desires.

On the show more than in the books, Petyr’s center of power is the brothel, where he can order women to do anything he wishes – he will never be refused again. His whores on the show are an unsubtle means of controlling women...and notably, the red-headed Ros, with hair the color of Cat’s, soon becomes his second in command. In the books, he “tutors” Jeyne Poole, Sansa’s childhood friend, on how to please men within that brothel – since he cannot drag Sansa or Cat into his lair, he accepts a substitute.

Though Petyr seems to be a major player in the Game of Thrones, his interests are selfish and petty – greed, lust, and revenge.

As he gains more wealth and power, his fall seems inevitable.

What’s Ned Hiding – Who’s Jon Snow’s Mother?

Three members of the Kingsguard: Ser Arthur Dayne, Ser Oswell Whent, and Lord Commander Gerold Hightower were mysteriously absent from the last battles of Robert’s Rebellion. Ned Stark found them guarding the Tower of Joy in Dorne, where Rhaegar had spirited his sister Lyanna. Ned and his six companions, seeking Lyanna, battled the three knights of the Kingsguard there, and only Ned and his friend Howland Reed survived. Lyanna died in the tower, amid some amount of mystery. Ned Stark delivered Arthur Dayne’s fabled sword to his sister, Ashara Dayne at Castle Starfall, and she killed herself from grief (again, under somewhat unclear

circumstances and rumor). Ned rode home with the bastard baby Jon Snow to present to his young wife.

On the show, Ned identifies Jon’s mother as “Wylla” when King Robert asks, but in the books it’s much murkier: Catelyn guesses it’s Lady Ashara, but Edric Dayne, Ashara and Arthur’s young nephew, thinks Ashara’s servant Wylla was the mother or at least the wetnurse (I:92, III:494). When Catelyn asks Ned about Ashara, he reacts badly: “Never ask me about Jon,” he said, cold as ice. “He is my blood, and that is all you need to know. And now I will learn where you heard that name, my lady.”

She had pledged to obey; she told him; and from that day on, the whispering had stopped, and Ashara Dayne’s name was never heard in Winterfell again.

(I:65)

Wylla has told everyone at Starfall the child is hers, while it’s kept a desperate secret at Winterfell, so it’s likely she’s not the mother.

Ashara Dayne is dead, so if she’s the mother, it’s unclear why the secret is necessary.

The presence of half the Kingsguard at the Tower of Joy (with only Jaime left in King’s Landing to defend the king and Prince Rhegar’s family) suggests they were protecting someone more important than their king or prince: their prince’s heir. Ned’s constant thoughts about Lyanna’s death also prove significant: He could still hear her at times. Promise me, she had cried, in a room that smelled of blood and roses.

Promise me, Ned. The fever had taken her strength and her voice had been faint as a whisper, but when he gave his word, the fear had gone out of his sister’s eyes.

(I:43)

Blood and fever suggest death by childbirth, and the promise that haunts him would have to be caring for her child but telling no one who he is. By this time, Rhaegar was dead, and Robert had allowed the Targaryen children to be butchered as he sneered in contempt.

Jon resembles his father and Lyanna. (In the book, all of Ned and Catelyn’s children resemble the red-headed Tullys except for Arya, who shares Ned and Jon’s brown hair – and in fact fears she’s a bastard because of this. Lyanna was so similar-looking to Arya that Bran confuses them in a vision.)

In the House of the Undying, Daenerys sees blue roses (Lyanna’s

favorite, symbolizing the unobtainable like Lyanna herself) blooming from an ice wall, hinting at Lyanna’s child at the Wall (II:515-516).

Further, Ned as he describes himself “had lived his lies for fourteen years, yet they still haunted him at night” (I:115). “The deceit made him feel soiled. The lies we tell for love, he thought. May the gods forgive me” (I:504). Jon’s mother is a secret, but it’s only a lie if Jon is not Ned’s son.

An honorable man doesn’t cheat on his pregnant wife, but an honorable man would keep his promise to tell no one the truth about Jon, even if it destroys his family life, making Jon grow up surrounded by Catelyn’s animosity. (In fact, Ned’s inflexible honor often blinds him to the problems caused by his stubbornness).

Lyanna’s death is romanticized heavily in book one, emphasizing her importance (while Ashara by contrast is only given a few sentences in any of the books). Lyanna, lovingly obsessed over

by Robert and Ned alike, is thus revealed as key. One pair of critics remarks: Robert’s vision of Lyanna is bound up with the past, with his recollection of her beauty as he remembers it now.

Eddard talks of her death, the details of which are vague but bring immediacy by putting the reader in the realm of the senses: a room smelling of “blood and roses”; the whisper of her voice as she pleaded; the clutch of her fingers; the dead, black hue of rose petals that fell from her fingers. The weight of tragedy and loss marking Eddard and Robert is palpable, bound in this shared sense of loss. (Antonsson and Garcia)

Even Ned’s brother and father are not described with this degree of love and value.

Of course, as a bastard, Jon is not heir to the Iron Throne any more than he is to Winterfell. With King Robert eager to kill the last of the Targaryens, Ned can be understood for letting Jon find safety and anonymity at the Wall if Rhaegar is his father. However, Jon’s Targaryen magic and destiny may yet come into play. Martin only has revealed that eventually we’ll learn the secret and discover who Jon truly is, and what he’s meant to become.

What Is the Night Watch’s True Mission?

“Make no mistake, good sers and valiant brothers, the war we’ve come to fight is no petty squabble over lands and honors. Ours is a war for life itself, and should we fail the world dies with us,” Melisandre insists.

All of them seemed surprised to hear Maester Aemon murmur, “It is the war for the dawn you speak of, my lady. But where is the prince that was promised?”

“He stands before you,” Melisandre declared, “though you do not have the eyes to see it. Stannis Baratheon is Azor Ahai come again, the warrior of fire.” (III.884)

Certainly, those of the Watch must remember that their mission is not to battle Wildlings (who are men like they are) but the wights and White Walkers against whom the Wall was built. Lord Commander

Mormont asks Sam: “If dragonglass daggers are what we need, why do we have only two of them? Every man on the Wall should be armed with one the day he says his words.”

“We never knew…”

“We never knew! But we must have known once.

The Night's Watch has forgotten its true purpose, Tarly.

You don't build a wall seven hundred feet high to keep savages in skins from stealing women. The Wall was made to guard the realms of men … and not against other men, which is all the wildlings are when you come right down to it. Too many years, Tarly, too many hundreds and thousands of years. We lost sight of the true enemy. And now he's here, but we don't know how to fight him. Is dragonglass made by dragons, as the smallfolk like to say?”

“The m-maesters think not," Sam stammered. "The maesters say it comes from the fires of the earth. They call it obsidian.”

Mormont snorted. “They can call it lemon pie for all I care. If it kills as you claim, I want more of it.” (III:451)

Have the ways of killing the White Walkers merely been lost to time as a thousand years pass? Or has someone helped the forgetting?

Mormont notes that the children of the forest, who once brought the Watch a hundred dragonglass daggers each year, were killed by the First Men and then the Andals. Why? Weren’t they on the same side?

The children of the forest knew how to fight the Others and win.

Likewise, the Maesters have aided the death of magic…they may have aided the forgetting as well. “The world the Citadel is building has no place in it for sorcery or prophecy or glass candles, much less for dragons,” one says (IV.683). Long ago, their dragonglass candles allowed them to watch the world:

The sorcerers of the Freehold could see across mountains, seas, and deserts with one of these glass candles. They could enter a man’s dreams and give him visions, and speak to one another half a world apart, seated before their candles. (IV:682)

Quaithe tells Daenerys “the glass candles are burning” with the return of magic (V:152-153). Will the maesters offer their ancient knowledge and forgotten books to aid in the war? Or will they become a new fanatic faction determined to end the world rather than share it with another kind of belief?

Throughout time, the Night’s Watch oath below has not changed, and within it may be keys to winning the war.

Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men. I pledge my life and honor to the Night’s Watch, for this night and all the nights to come. (I:522)

The war for the dawn, as Maester Aemon calls it, is coming, and the Watch must fight with light and fire (thus it seems likely the “Warrior of Fire” will be one of them, Azor Ahai reborn.) The phrase “the sword in the darkness” also echoes this. Certainly, Melisandre thinks, “I pray for a glimpse of Azor Ahai, and R’hllor shows me only [Jon] Snow” (V:408), suggesting he will be the wielder of Lightbringer, “the sword in the darkness,” not Stannis.

“The horn that wakes the sleepers” is literally true as the men on the wall announce visitors with horn blowing. But the wildlings are questing for the Horn of Winter, the fabled Horn of Joramun, that can awaken “giants from the earth” and even tear down the Wall (II:276). Many believe the small horn Sam discovers in a box of dragonglass weapons on the Fist of the First Men is this horn. But if the rangers left it, it may be that rangers will need to use it – what kind of giants will they call forth for their war?

Why Did Benjen Join the Watch?

As Ned Stark tells Jon, Starks have served on the Wall through all their generations, as a proud duty. Certainly, Ned’s younger brother

Benjen wasn’t required to take the Black, but he, like other Northerners, felt the southern lands could use his talents to protect them. Jon too is enthusiastic at the heroism of it all, before a few of Tyrion’s remarks.

Of course, some fans suspect that Benjen felt guilty about what happened to Lyanna, in which he may have played a small part, even aiding her to joust as a mystery knight at the tournament where she was noticed by Prince Rhaegar. (Meera Reed tells this story to Bran – it’s uncertain who the mystery knight in ill-matched armor was, but if it wasn’t her father, it may have been the young and talented lady of Winterfell).

What’s Sansa’s Deal?

Sansa is the character many fans have trouble understanding. Season one, she was charmed by the handsome prince’s choosing her above all others, sweet-talking her, and offering to make her the dazzling queen. But even as she deluded herself, the final episode left her betrayed as Joffrey valued cruelty over sparing her father.

The second episode heightens the contrast between the sisters: Arya names her wolf for the warrior queen Nymeria, Sansa names hers Lady – each wolf is named for who her owner wishes to become. In this episode, Sansa’s flawed judgment becomes clear: Ser Ilyn and the Hound are monstrous because of their scarred faces.

Joffrey the prince deserves her loyalty, for she is “his lady, his princess.” This thought process of course results in the death of her wolf, Lady, and with her, Sansa’s romanticized belief that handsome princes are always honorable and just. In the book, Sansa begins “crying herself to sleep at night,” clearly mourning her lost illusions as well as her wolf (I:136-137). In this scene, Cersei and Joffrey literally kill Sansa’s spirit, foreshadowing both killing her father in front of her and inflicting the slow emotional death that follows.

Some critics blame her parents for filling her head with tales of romance, but the loss of her wolf is significant. The wolves represent the children’s’ personal magic and power, the world of strength and otherworld magic they slowly explore as they learn. In one blow, Sansa has lost all this. “If Lady was here, I would not be afraid,” Sansa thinks much later (III:799). While her siblings are masks of civilization over growing wildness and warg magic, Sansa is only mask. As she imitates the queen’s hairstyle in season one and Margaery’s in season three, she demonstrates her obedience to the women who command her life.

In season two, she hates Joffrey and has seen that a flawed,

scheming Cersei isn’t really the power behind the throne. Sophie Turner, her actress, says, “She was very vulnerable and naive, and now she’s independent and has to survive in this world. That’s a lot of pressure for a 13-year-old girl.” Moving forward, “one of the main challenges is the mental and physical torture she’s going to get from the Lannisters and all the people around her” (Keveney).

Logically, she might be trying to be a powerful queen someday and doing whatever she must to achieve it…but she’s shown no sign that that’s what she wants. And Cersei’s example shows that she won’t really be a power in the kingdom, even as Joffrey’s wife. She spends the second season acting cold in public and miserable in private. She doesn’t seem to be plotting much of anything. The series has established that most characters are “playing the Game of Thrones” and seeking power. Is Sansa? She’s not manipulating people to achieve her own goals, only acting to save others and convince everyone she’s sweet and helpless.

She might be making the best of a bad situation. But that only makes sense if she has no other choice.

Littlefinger: You have a tender heart just like your mother did at your age. I see so much of her in you. She was like a sister to me. For her sake, I’ll help get you home.

Sansa: King’s Landing is my home now. (2.10)

Offered several opportunities to let strong, somewhat honorable men (namely Sandor Clegane and Petyr Baelish) escort her back to her family in season two, she refuses. Why? Every character has said she’s in danger. She doesn’t appear to being spying as Arya has been – she’s never in important council meetings, only the public throne room. If she’s loyal to the Starks, she should try to sneak back to them, but we haven’t even seen her send a covert letter (which admittedly, could condemn her to death). Imagine how Catelyn will feel upon hearing that Sansa keeps refusing to leave, even with offers of safe passage.

Of course, Littlefinger has a somewhat slimy crush on Sansa, and strokes her shoulder during his invitation. Directly after that scene, there’s one between Varys and a bruised Ros, in which Varys points out that Littlefinger exploits women rather than protecting them.

Further, Sansa may know that he betrayed her father to his death.

Does she fear him too much to accept? Does she want to stay in King’s Landing to play the Game? To stay protected as a valuable hostage?

The final possibility is that she’s too scared or traumatized to act, even by running away, and possibly make things worse. She’d rather stand around, no longer queen-elect, and let Joffrey abuse her, rather than acting and possibly being executed as her father was. This is psychologically valid, especially with all she’s been through, from losing her family one by one to her humiliations and injuries at Joffrey’s hands. She’s been taught that nice girls do embroidery, lead the women of the castle in hymns, nod and smile at the men, choose their words carefully, bear humiliation proudly. But this pattern of thought will only lead to a worse and worse life as she gives up her own happiness to be mistreated for the delight of others. If she’s going to be anything other than an anti-feminist punching bag that the Lannisters degrade in every episode for her family’s crimes and for being a “nice girl,” she’ll have to get mad. Or at least grow up.

In the book, the knight Sansa saves at season two’s beginning pledges his loyalty. Though he’s been made the king’s jester, Ser Dontos finds ways to help her subtly and they meet in the Godswood.

Their relationship is platonic, an image of courtly love in which the knight offers to lay down his life for his lady, and above all, to smuggle her home once they find the opportunity. Thus, in the book it’s clear Sansa is biding her time until that comes. Her turning down more corrupt protectors makes sense, as she has her one true knight.

Season three emphasizes her status as desirable pawn – the Tyrells, the Lannisters, and Petyr Baelish all want her. With Sansa’s passivity in this arena, as she mouths polite platitudes and refuses to accept or decline these matches, let alone make a run for it, she realizes she has no real choice – if Cersei, Joffrey, and Tywin decree her fate, or even chop her head off, she has no escape. And no one mentioned truly wants her for herself, only for the North. She has her scheme to marry Loras (in the book, it’s his heterosexual, crippled elder brother, clearly trimmed to avoid unneeded characters).

However, she modestly folds her hands and waits for Margaery to arrange it, not reflecting how precarious her situation is – after all, such a wedding could be arranged after she’s safe with Robb and her mother. Her schemes, or rather, her agreeing to be a pawn in others’ schemes, in fact come from a position of terrible weakness.

Many fantasy series feature the naive childlike protagonist, from Bilbo Baggins to Dorothy Gale. Martin subverts this by having most of his characters be quite worldly—those who are not die or quickly learn. Sansa cannot be the happily-ever-after princess, but she might absorb how to scheme. “Is it all lies, forever and ever,, everyone and everything,” a disillusioned Sansa finally asks (III:839). She’s slowly

learning that it is.

Nonetheless, it’s worth noting that all the other characters around her “win” or “lose” – many in the Battle of Blackwater. Since the death of her father, Sansa doesn’t noticeably do either. She pacifies, nods, smiles...and survives. “I am loyal to King Joffrey, my one true love,” Sansa says, fully of dignity after Joffrey has had her beaten in public. Though she delivers the words with trembling and cringing sincerity before Joffrey, her words here have more than a touch of cold sarcasm when repeated to Tyrion. “Lady Stark, you may survive us yet,” Tyrion observes (2.4). Like him, she knows when to keep silent and when to mouth off – when to lose her dignity and when to reclaim it. Like Tyrion, she’s learned to survive in a world without allies. If she’s killed, many fans would say she’s had it coming a while, as she puts her trust in corrupt Littlefinger and Joffrey. But it would be a far more interesting story if she grows from naive captive to someone who can truly play the game, or who at least finds happiness with someone other than a handsome prince.

Why Is Brienne so Loyal to Renly?

A flashback in the books reveals this: When Renly Baratheon came through Tarth on a lord’s progress, he was kind to an adolescent Brienne, dancing with her and treating her like a lady, rather than an ugly freak as most others did. At that time, she knew she wanted to spend her life in his service. He in turn, is struck by her desire to serve in contrast to his other knights’ greed and ambition.

What Does Craster Do with the Sons?

As Jon discovers through spying, he sacrifices them to the White Walkers, who presumably make them into fellow undead creatures.

(Craster’s wives comment in book three that if Gilly and her baby don’t flee, “his brothers” will come for them.) Because of this sacrifice, the walkers don’t attack Craster, almost the only wildling who hasn’t joined Mance Rayder. Along with demonstrating Craster’s immorality, this subplot shows how desperate life is in the haunted North.

Who or What is Jaqen H’ghar?

The Faceless Men of Braavos are perfect assassins – for pay, they kill their target and usually make it look like an accident. They worship the Many-Faced God, whose watchwords are valar morghulis, “All men must die”; the formal response to this is valar dohaeris, or “All men must serve.” (Both are episode titles.)

Jaqen is one of these men – when Arya frees him during a fire, he offers her three kills. He also offers her assassin training, though she must go to Braavos for it. Instead,, Arya prefers to find her family.

It’s unclear how long he was in the dungeons of King’s Landing, or whom precisely he murdered. He’s seen in the fourth book, as his description matches the alchemist that meets the prologue character Pate in Oldtown (prologue and epilogue characters have grisly fates, like the Night’s Watch deserter of the show’s first scene or the elderly priest of the Seven who tries poisoning Melisandre.) He may even adopt Pate’s face afterwards. It’s unclear, however, what his new mission is.

Braavos is also the home of Arya’s “dancing master,” Syrio Forel, who most likely died defending her (his death is not certain, just likely). There’s a popular fan theory that Jaqen was Syrio in disguise (suggesting the Faceless Men are so interested in Arya they’ll send one of their own to train her at swordplay – a rather unlikely circumstance). This theory is complicated by the fact that Jaqen was certainly in the dungeons while Syrio was teaching Arya, excepting the possibility of face-switching. It’s likely they were two different people and Syrio is dead. Jaqen, however, is alive and brimming with tricks.

Why Didn’t Arya Kill Someone Important?

After Jaqen H’ghar offers to kill three people for her, Book Arya considers her options for a few days. She finally names Chiswyck, who led a gang rape. When the habitually cruel understeward strikes her, Arya names him, and his dog appears to tear out his throat.

While considering a third name, Arya realizes she likely should have picked more powerful people. Her third name in book and movie is a clever trick – she names Jaqen in order to force his aid in saving her life. In the book, he helps her free the Northmen in the dungeon and stage an uprising.

Show Arya first names the Tickler, who has tortured many innocents, and nearly killed Arya’s friend Gendry. Clearly the world would be better without him. In the following episode, she names the guard about to betray her to Tywin – this is treated as an emergency.

When Tywin rides out, she insists that he must be killed right that instant. When told that is impossible, her next request is to allow her escape – perhaps she means to kill Tywin herself. When she names Jaqen to compel his help as she does on the show, he arranges an escape for her and her two best friends, though without the massive revolt.

In season three, Gendry asks the question most fans are dying to know – why didn’t she name a major player? She could have ordered the death of Tywin, Joffrey, someone who mattered. Even her first “test case” could have been someone important.

On the show, Arya is rushed, and in the books, she feels she’s been foolish in her modest choices. Besides that, the answer is complex. Arya is in fact a child – she knows the players but not the finer points of the war. Would killing Tywin help Robb? Possibly.

But Robb is currently winning against the Lannisters, and if Tywin were taken out, someone worse, like Mad King Joffrey might get charge of the army. Besides, Arya has a sense of fair play and Tywin hasn’t hurt her – in fact, he’s been kind to her and to her friends.

He’s not on her personal attack list.

Nonetheless, Arya fingers a knife and stares at Tywin’s bare neck on the show, wondering if she should – she can fight her own battles without the Faceless Man to help her. Certainly, Arya could have made her third name a deadly strike at someone like Joffrey, sacrificing herself in her brother’s cause, but she’s a survivor.

Though she whispers names to herself at night, of those she intends revenge against, she appears to want to kill them herself. In fact, in the book, she’s the one to kill the Tickler, as she stabs him repeatedly and sarcastically demands to know where gold and jewels are kept.

Many fans were disappointed that scene won’t take place.

“Show me how – I want to be able to do it too,” she tells Jaqen.

“If you would learn you must come with me...The girl has many names on her lips: Cersei, Joffrey, Tywin Lannister, Ilyn Payne, the Hound. [In the book, she doesn’t repeat Tywin’s name, and she has several more minor characters on her list] Names to offer the red god.

She could offer them all…one by one.

“I want to but I can’t. I need to find my brother and mother…and my sister.” (2.10)

Arya wishes her enemies dead, but at her own hand, not that of a disinterested assassin. Only her need to save her family comes first.

Once her family is taken care of, however, she holds the coin that will take her to train with the Faceless Men and see everyone who wronged her dead.

Like the Brotherhood Without Banners, Arya seems to have appointed herself a champion of individual justice: Long after everyone has forgotten a single butcher’s boy, killed on the king’s orders, Arya is still repeating his name and determined to kill Joffrey,

not for the good of the realm, but for murdering a single innocent. As she, like her sister, is disillusioned, she chooses not to pacify and be polite but to fight back for each individual. One critic notes: Mycah and Lady are killed almost as an afterthought, with nearly no effort being made to do what is just in the presence of the overwhelming power of the Iron Throne….A little girl, raised with illusions of justice and safety, must suddenly confront the reality of her world.

Those in power, often with a thoughtless flick of the wrist, can destroy those things we hold most dear. It isn’t long before trauma builds on trauma, as Arya witnesses the destruction of her family and the brutal execution of her father. Yoren may cover her eyes, but she knows what is happening. (Cole)

She responds to this injustice by righting it: kings and queens fill her vengeance list, along with the humblest of torturers and foot soldiers.

As she recites them each night, she vows to bring justice to the world, man by man if she must.

Why Was the Freys’ Bridge so Essential?

Robb Stark’s host needed to go south towards Riverrun quickly to break Jamie Lannister’s siege. The Freys’ bridge was close, and going around to the south would expose them to Lannister troops and waste time they couldn’t afford. Conquering the Freys, walking the long way round, all would take too long and expose them to danger.

Theon shook his head. “The river’s running high and fast. Ser Brynden says it can’t be forded, not this far north” “I must have that crossing!” Robb declared, fuming.

“Oh, our horses might be able to swim the river, I suppose, but not with armored men on their backs.

We’d need to build rafts to pole our steel across, helms and mail and lances, and we don’t have the trees for that. Or the time. Lord Tywin is marching north...” He balled his hand into a fist.

“Lord Frey would be a fool to try and bar our way,” Theon Greyjoy said with his customary easy confidence.

“We have five times his numbers. You can take the Twins if you need to, Robb.”

“Not easily,” Catelyn warned them, “and not in time.

While you were mounting your siege, Tywin Lannister would bring up his host and assault you from the rear” (I:640-641)

Who Killed Jon Arryn and Attacked Bran?

Certainly, Cersei has the obvious motive for both. But the obvious is rarely what happens on the show. There are manipulative characters who say the right word in the right ear. There are petty, jealous characters who make bad political moves for personal reasons.

Basically, there are murderers out there beyond the Lannisters.

The sheer number of players, especially in the books, makes the plot rather complex: Lysa Arryn’s letter to the Starks accuses the Lannisters of her husband’s murder. Then Jon Arryn’s former squire, Ser Hugh, is conveniently killed by the Lannister knight Ser Gregor Clegane before he can offer any information. Much of Ned’s quest is discovering the secret of Cersei’s infidelity, which Jon Arryn uncovered just before he died. As such, the actual murder becomes secondary. Later, Grand Maester Pycelle confesses to Tyrion that he let the poisoned Lord Jon die to help the Lannisters. Basically, it becomes clear there’s a massive conspiracy, even if some characters like Pycelle helped the murderer from afar. The murderer confesses to one of the main characters late in in book three, so it’s likely the real answer will be revealed in season three or four.

Bran’s attack is nearly as convoluted. It’s implied that though Jaime pushed him the first time, he’s not the sort to hire assassins.

The hired killer was given a rare dragonbone dagger, which Littlefinger tells Cat belonged to him, before he lost it to Tyrion in a tournament wager. After Cat kidnaps Tyrion and escalates the Lannister-Stark hostility, Tyrion reveals the dagger wasn’t his – he never bets against Jaime. Tyrion also points out that only an idiot would use his own knife.

In fact, King Robert won the dagger in that wager and kept it among his many weapons. One assumes he didn’t arrange Bran’s death, though he said in front of his family that it would be a kindness to end Bran’s misery (On the show, Cersei inherits that line). However, his armory was accessible to all of his household who traveled to Winterfell including the guards and trusted advisors.

In Lysa’s cells, Tyrion thinks to himself: If the old Hand had been murdered, it was deftly and subtly done. Men of his age died of sudden illness all the time. In contrast, sending some oaf with a stolen knife after Brandon Stark struck him as unbelievably clumsy.

And wasn’t that peculiar, come to think on it. (I:415)

He comes to the conclusion that he’s being used in a conflict that’s bigger than Stark and Lannister, and also believes Bran and Jon

Arryn had different assassins – someone is setting up his family.

Even if Littlefinger doesn’t arrange the assassin, he sets up Catelyn’s attack on the Lannisters. Like the other murderer, Bran’s attacker is revealed in the third book. So on both of these, just wait – it’s coming.

What Does Melisandre Want?

“He stands before you,” Melisandre declared, “though you do not have the eyes to see it. Stannis Baratheon is Azor Ahai come again, the warrior of fire.” (III:884)

Clearly she wants Stannis on the throne, or at least is aiming him that way. She seems to think he’s Azor Ahai, the Lightbringer of the prophecy. She also wants to sacrifice those of royal blood to increase her own and possibly Stannis’s power. She’s a fanatic desperate to protect the world from darkness, though she may be misguided about the nature of that darkness…or she may be completely correct.

One problem is the red priests’ inflexibility: Beloved characters like Jon and Sam are saved by the ravens and Heart Trees of the Old Gods, but Melisandre and Stannis go about burning the ancient groves, contributing, one must assume, to the power of evil in the world.

There is no ambiguity about [other gods’] nature among the R’hllor priests. To them, the Others serve R’hllor’s nemesis, the Great Other, reminiscent of the Christian split between God and Satan. The priest Moqorro explicitly says to the Ironborn, “Your Drowned God is a demon. [. . .] He is no more than a thrall of the Other, the dark god whose name must not be spoken” (A Dance with Dragons). To the Lord of Light’s followers, all faiths but R’hllor represent the Great Other. (Jones)

With magic newly returned to the world, Melisandre may be a key player against the Other, or her inflexibility and fanaticism may doom everyone.

Martin tells us only, “Melisandre has gone to Stannis entirely on her own, and has her own agenda” (rather than following the goal of the other red priests) (“Interview in Barcelona”).

In fact, in the fifth book, the leader of the Maegi in Volantis believes Daenerys is the chosen one. What has Melisandre seen?

Why does she pursue her own course? Possibilities include the following:

1. She honestly thinks she’s found Azor Ahai and needs him to fight the darkness of the wights that are coming. It wouldn’t be the first vision she’s gotten wrong, as she misnames the towers and characters – she sees the images but the meanings are often lost to her.

2. She has a crush on Stannis and is blinded by love for him, thus she thinks he’s Azor Ahai and wants to have his shadow babies. (This seems unlikely – Stannis is the least charming person imaginable).

3. Stannis is her power base while she waits for the conflict of ice and fire or the true hero. Possibly she’s seen in her fires that she’ll be needed in Westeros.

4. She wants something and being close to Stannis will get it for her – perhaps she’s plundering Dragonstone for its ancient secrets or seeking the real Lightbringer sword.

A single, carefully-written chapter from her point of view in the fifth book fails to clarify much of anything. She has a vision of the past in which a woman cries, “Melony” and a man calls “Lot Seven,” suggesting she was sold as a slave once (V:408). She believes she’s doing the right thing to battle the darkness and protect her King Stannis. And she has a number of powers we haven’t yet seen. Her story is still largely a mystery.

What Happened to Winterfell?

After Theon’s emotional speech, his ironmen hit Theon on the head and leave for home – Robb promised amnesty to all but their leader.

They’re surrounded on all sides by the Bastard of Bolton’s men – he’s the son of Robb’s bannerman, sent to save Winterfell and the Stark boys. When Bran and Rickon emerge from the crypts, their home has been burned to ruins. So who did it? Clearly the Bastard of Bolton. Why? Well, he’s a sadist and a selfish monster, as we see as he takes Theon home to his dungeons. The books show him filled with a jealousy, ambition, and need to prove himself that somewhat echoes Theon’s. Given the attack from a northern lord, perhaps it’s less puzzling that Maester Luwin urges the boys to find Jon on the Wall, not seek out other northerners for aid.

Why is Tywin so Useless?

Tywin seems the Machiavellian mastermind behind the Lannisters.

So why does he keep losing against Robb, letting Joffrey rule

idiotically in King’s Landing, and doing little else of use? Certainly his Lannister pride has led to arrogance. In season two, he, like many lords, is shocked by how well Robb is doing on campaign. As he struggles to modify his customary battle strategies, he’s been seriously taken off guard. On the other hand, he’s better in the council chamber than the battlefield. He notes that “some battles are won with swords and spears, others with quills and ravens” (III:260).

In fact, most of his great plots work behind the scenes.

In the Battle of Blackwater, Tywin arranges the alliance with the Tyrells and their massive army after Renly’s death and arrives at King’s Landing in time to aid with the battle. Tywin’s henchmen, like the Mountain that Rides, are terrorizing the Riverlands. In the books, he hires mercenaries to loot the Riverlands, but they desert to serve the Boltons (under the Starks) and savagely slice off Jaime’s hand when they capture him. Ironically, Tywin has orchestrated his own son’s maiming.

Season three Tywin returns to King’s Landing and demotes Cersei and Tyrion for being incompetent (though this seems unfair in Tyrion’s case.) There, a scene of chair-moving as the Small Council literally jostles for position seems his greatest accomplishment.

However, many of his complex schemes from book three have not yet unfolded by that point. Basically, he’s arranging covert and overt alliances, hoping that with a large enough army he can defeat Robb.

His schemes in the book and show include having Littlefinger woo Lysa Arryn and her army, wedding Sansa Stark into the Lannisters (with Bran and Rickon allegedly killed by Theon, and Arya vanished, she’s the only Stark heir after Robb), and even wedding Cersei off to Loras Tyrell. In the books, Princess Myrcella’s betrothal to the Dornish prince is only the beginning of pacifying Dorne and somehow giving them Princess Elia of Dorne’s killer (Unfortunately, Tywin Lannister is known for giving that order) in order to get Dorne’s massive armies. Going down the map, that’s five of the Seven Kingdoms, leaving only one for Stannis, whose war grows ever-shakier. The last kingdom, the Riverlands, are in the worst shape, as the most fighting and sacking has been happening there. By contrast, Tywin can add Highgarden, Dorne, and the Vale – who haven’t even lost troops yet – to the Crown lands and Lannister territories.

Further, Tywin’s the source of Robb’s two great betrayals, thanks to his “quills and ravens.” In the books, Robb imprudently weds Jeyne Westerling, whose family are bannermen to the Lannisters. This proves more foolhardy than just angering the Freys

– Tywin convinces Jeyne’s parents to remain loyal to him and prevent their daughter from getting pregnant (with a TV wife from the Free Cities, it’s unknown how much of this storyline will play out). He’s also conspiring with a few of Robb’s and Edmure Tully’s bannermen, who eventually commit various treacheries and then declare for the Lannisters. Basically, most of Tywin’s arrangements are quiet, underhanded work, withheld from viewers until they play out shockingly, but he’s not just snoozing behind the Iron Throne.

His plans to rein Joffrey in and teach him proper behavior are less clear, but he may feel they can wait until the war ends.

How Does Guest-Right Work?

In the most ancient times, enemies had to be set apart from friends – allowing someone into your house, past your walls, had to mean that neither guest nor host would kill anyone there. It was similar to the Geneva Convention – everyone agreed on a set of rules, the breaking of which, like using chlorine gas or torture, was considered an inhumane breakdown of civilized life. In medieval times, travelers had to stay in fellow knights’ castles or in inns. One might come down to dinner and find an enemy seated there already. Knowing there would be peace within the walls was vital, and losing that meant one’s life would always be in danger.

In classical times, all strangers had the right to hospitality.

Without even sharing their names, they were offered food, clothing, and gifts. Greek myth relies on this sacred law, and those who broke hospitality to attack a guest or host were cursed (this concept appears in the Iliad and Odyssey both). Zeus was called Zeus Xenios, guaranteer of hospitality and protector of guests.

This tradition may seem extreme or outmoded to modern readers, but in ancient times it was incontrovertible for moral people. In the Bible, Lot is prepared to sacrifice his daughters to an angry mob rather than give them his guests, and Abraham made a point of running down the road to beg every traveler to stop in for a meal.

Middle Eastern tradition is clear on this issue, and even the captain of the forty thieves in Arabian Nights refuses to eat salt rather than accept this guest-right and then murder his host.

Europe of course has strong roots in the classical tradition.

Dante’s Divine Comedy names those who break guest-right the second worst kind of traitors, condemned to the lowest level of hell.

The Hobbit references this trope – even irritating dwarves who show up from nowhere must be feasted. The Count of Monte Cristo refuses

to eat in his enemy’s house. Macbeth worries about killing his king, a guest in his castle, and certainly everything he does subsequently is cursed. Ivanhoe and King Arthur, especially Gawain and the Green Knight, use this concept. Basically, in classical, Biblical, and the medieval tradition founded on them, this really meant something.

Parts of this tradition, like taking a fight outside the building where one is eating or staying still remain.

So what are the consequences for betraying guest-right?

According to classical sources, as well as comments by Ice and Fire characters, those who do so are cursed forever by the gods. On a more practical level, someone who doesn’t abide by the sacred laws has shown himself an outlaw, not a member of the community. Thus, no one will trust them, and others will feel free to betray hospitality to the oathbreakers. There’s nowhere they’ll be safe, and their most trusted friends may turn on them.

Where Did Daenerys’s Eggs Come From?

Magister Illyrio introduces his gifts as “Dragon’s eggs, from the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai.” He adds, “The eons have turned them to stone, yet still they burn bright with beauty” (I:104). This is the land where the red priests originate and Bran has a vision of the country: He lifted his eyes and saw clear across the narrow sea, to the Free Cities and the green Dothraki sea and beyond, to Vaes Dothrak under its mountain, to the fabled lands of the Jade Sea, to Asshai by the Shadow, where dragons stirred beneath the sunrise. (I:136-137)

He may be seeing the past, or dragons may still exist, along with magic.

Dragon eggs appear to be like Valyrian steel weapons – hideously expensive, limited in numbers, but only somewhat rare in the east, more so in the west. Many fans wonder if Illyrio instead snuck the last few Targaryen eggs out of King’s Landing. However, the scene where they’re described in “The Mystery Knight” makes this unlikely as Egg (Aegon) Targaryen (great-grandfather of Daenerys) speaks to Ser Duncan the Tall: “I’d show you mine, ser, but it’s at Summerhall.”

“Yours? Your dragon’s egg?” Dunk frowned down at the boy, wondering if it was some jape. “Where did it come from?”

“From a dragon, ser. They put it in my cradle.”

“Do you want a clout on the ear? There are no dragons.”

“No, but there are eggs. The last one left a clutch of five, and they have more on Dragonstone, old ones from before the Dance. My brothers all have them too.

Aerion’s looks like it’s made of gold and silver, with veins of fire running through it. Mine is white and green, all swirly.” (“The Mystery Knight,” 668)

Daenerys’s eggs look noticeably different: One egg was a deep green, with burnished bronze flecks that came and went depending on how Daenerys turned it. Another was pale cream streaked with gold.

The last was black, as black as a midnight sea, yet alive with scarlet ripples and swirls” (I:104).

And certainly, it would be easier to come across dragon eggs in Asshai. At the same time, the reference to ancient eggs waiting on Dragonstone may come to be important. The next section discusses why Illyrio may have chosen to give them to her.

Illyrio Mopatis and Varys the Spider Contains mild spoilers concerning the introduction of a book five character.

The pair is hatching a complex scheme: It’s revealed when Arya overhears them while “catching cats” in King’s Landing that Illyrio and Varys have been collaborating for some time, though their goal remains unclear. Varys insists that he wants the good of the realm; however, his actions support a more specific agenda. As a eunuch, he appears to have less personal motivations than many – he has no family ties or grudges in Westeros, unlike almost every other character. Several characters comment that it’s impossible to tell what he wants. Illyrio arranges Daenerys and Drogo’s marriage, but he too is a shadowy figure. Neither man is a point of view character, so every single thing they say could be a lie (though probably not the conspiracy discussion they share in the first book). Even judging them by their actions is problematic.

Oddly, the two strongest possibilities are that Illyrio and Varys want a non-magical, non-Targaryen puppet king who will let them rule however they like through him or that the pair has realized the Others are coming, and only real Targaryens with dragon magic can save the realm.

Varys was born a slave in Lys (according to Pycelle anyway). In the Free Cities, he traveled with a group of performers, who taught

him much about disguises. However, a sorcerer of some sort offered the players a great deal of money for him and castrated him in a dark ritual; since then Varys has hated magic. (Varys tells Tyrion this in the second book. Tyrion notes that Varys’ voice “was different somehow” during the telling, suggesting Varys is unusually telling the truth.) On the show, Varys follows this season three conversation by revealing he’s captured the sorcerer and showing him to Tyrion.

While this suggests the tale is true, it also reveals that Varys has many connections in the East and is perfectly willing to wait decades to enact revenge from a place of total safety and power. Retribution matters to him, but he has no need to rush.

According to Illyrio in the fifth book, Varys started thieving in Myr, and then fled to Pentos where he met Illyrio and they became partners: Varys would steal things and Illyrio would “arrange” their return for a price. This gradually changed from wealth to information, and both conspirators gained much money and influence.

Mad King Aerys, hearing about this amazing spy, recruited him.

In King’s Landing, Varys sowed dissension between his royal employer and his son Rhaegar, and Aerys grew more paranoid under his influence. Stannis reflects in the third book that “Ser Barristan once told me that the rot in King Aerys’s reign began with Varys.”

Likewise Jaime tells Brienne that Aerys “saw traitors everywhere, and Varys was always there to point out any he might have missed.”

Varys alerted Aerys to the possibility that Rhaegar was recruiting allies against his father at the Tourney at Harrenhal, so Aerys attended, leaving the keep for the first time since his imprisonment at the Defiance of Duskendale. Rather than stabilizing the realm, Varys appears to have slowly unhinged it, or brought down the unfit ruler in preparation for another.

Why did he come to Westeros? Varys already had wealth and power in his homeland. Did he desire to play the Game of Thrones?

Or did he have another agenda?

When Rhaegar had been defeated, everyone felt the Targaryens had lost the war from that moment on. Partially this was because much of the army died with Rhaegar but also because he was regarded as an excellent future king. With Rhaegar dead, Mad King Aerys lost his tempering influence, and the remaining heirs were tiny children. No one remained that anyone wanted for king.

Nonetheless Varys advised Aerys to bar the gates against Tywin Lannister, who came to “help” and instead butchered the Targaryens.

Was Varys afraid for his own skin? Or was his loyalty to the king so

great that he supported him even in inevitable defeat? Was he worried that the Lannisters would butcher all the Targaryens and their spymaster as well? This may have been a clever application of reverse psychology, but with only the facts provided, Varys may have actually been going down with King Aerys’ doomed cause – an odd position for the intelligent spymaster to take.

Whatever his agenda, Varys then wheedled King Robert into leaving him spymaster, and as we finally learn, he and Illyrio set up a child to be raised as Prince Aegon, Aerys’ infant son whom Varys allegedly smuggled from the castle before his death. (There’s no proof whether the boy is who he claims.) In the fifth book, Varys and Illyrio both appear to want this boy on the throne (making this a long game indeed).

One possible but far-fetched motivation is that Illyrio and Varys, advised by Illyrio’s red priest friends (Illyrio swears by the Lord of Light), learn that according to prophecy, three Targaryen heroes will be needed to fight the Others. Illyrio comments in book five that the dragon has three heads – he knows the prophecy. Perhaps Illyrio even gave Daenerys exactly three eggs because he hoped she’d hatch them and find dragonriders. In this case Varys, needing a real Targaryen, protected Mad King Aerys and his infant grandchildren as much as possible. It also suggests Varys might have rescued the actual infant Aegon since he would be needed someday.

However, there are many problems with this: In fact, Illyrio and Varys let Viserys and Daenerys wander as beggars for a decade when they easily could have offered them more help. If Varys doesn’t value those young Targaryens, he likely doesn’t care about preserving a real Targaryen prince when any silver-haired baby would do.

After decades of scheming, Illyrio brokers the marriage between Daenerys and Drogo and gives them the dragon eggs, which he says he obtained from the Shadow Lands. Their hatching was not predicted by anyone – it’s that shocking and unprecedented for the people of Martin’s world. There are seers and prophecies around, certainly, but it’s unclear how well red priests could see the future before Daenerys’s dragon hatching brought magic back to the world.

Most likely, Illyrio gave Daenerys the eggs because they were an expensive, purposeless status symbol. In Daenerys’s thoughts, she explains, “It was a truly magnificent gift, though she knew that Illyrio could afford to be lavish. He had collected a fortune in horses and slaves for his part in selling her to Khal Drogo.” Certainly destiny may have taken a hand, but there’s no real indicator Illyrio

gave her the eggs with a purpose.

The gift might also be interpreted as “Look, I’m honoring you and calling you a true Targaryen, heir to these eggs…then secretly sending you off to die.” Illyrio later explains that Daenerys wasn’t expected to survive – a thirteen-year-old sheltered, naive princess wed to the powerful khal and hauled into the desert? Little surprise Illyrio thought that. The scheme of marrying her off would eliminate Daenerys – as they think, an untutored maiden with Targaryen blood.

He could not inherit in her own right, and the Dothraki would have no interest in conquering Westeros. The throne would be left for Aegon.

Having the Dothraki honor the egotistical and mad Viserys enough to give him a Dothraki army and sail across the sea they loathe so much is a far-fetched plan compared with setting Viserys up to be overbearingly arrogant until they kill him – which is exactly what happens. Illyrio tells Viserys Khal Drogo will give him an army, and then sends the unhinged, bratty king off with the Dothraki without even giving him a courtesy lesson. Viserys, like his sister, was set up to die.

If Varys and Illyrio wanted the Targaryen siblings killed, Illyrio could have simply poisoned their dinner. A more likely and complex plot is that Daenerys’s wedding was arranged to frighten Westeros and begin the panic and civil war that in fact resulted. Sending the Targaryen heirs off with the Dothraki, and reporting Daenerys’s marriage and pregnancy to King Robert, as Varys does, gives Robert an excuse to send assassins and spiral into paranoia as Aerys once did. In the discussion, Varys urges Robert to send an assassin and tells Ned that leaders must do “vile things” to preserve their realms.

Of course, the hapless assassin inflames the conflict further.

Around this time, Varys meets Illyrio beneath the Red Keep and Arya overhears the following fragments of conversation. (Martin has confirmed that the book characters she doesn’t recognize are these two, and they appear as themselves on the show).

Varys: “I warn you, the wolf and lion will soon be at each other’s throats, whether we will it or no.”

Illyrio: “What good is war now? We are not ready.

Delay.” …

[Illyrio suggests stalling by killing Eddard Stark.]

“If one Hand can die, why not a second…You have danced the dance before.”

“Before is not now, and this Hand is not the other.”

“Nonetheless, we must have time. The princess is with child. The khal will not bestir himself until his son is born. You know how they are, these savages.”

“If he does not bestir himself soon, it may be too late.

This is no longer a game for two players if it ever was.

Stannis Baratheon and Lysa Arryn have fled beyond my reach, and the whispers say they are gathering swords about them.” (I:343-344)

Varys goes on to list other families like the Tyrells who are scheming for power, and then asks for more money and more “little birds,” child spies he can train.

A few facts are apparent: Varys and Illyrio are scheming for a Lannister-Stark civil war, but not until the time is right. Drogo and his army won’t move on Westeros yet, and Varys and Illyrio need more time to organize their schemes. There’s no mention of the Dothraki reaching Westeros, only beginning to march (and presumably take slaves and assemble ships). All this would throw Westeros into panic, a goal the conspirators desire. Varys doesn’t want a strong kingdom uniting against a Dothraki horde, but instead a scattering of kings all fighting for dominance, some of whom might ally with Daenerys. They want chaos.

The conversation also reveals that Varys once killed a Hand or did something similar. Varys may have decided not to interfere with Jon Arryn’s death, as he needed the Lannisters strong without Cersei banished or executed. Illyrio may also be referring to Varys’ games in Aerys’ court, where Aerys went through several Hands. Tywin was the King’s Hand thenn before a paranoid Aerys fired him. Did Varys help arrange this?

“This is no longer a game for two players” is intriguing. Are Varys and Illyrio uniting against some other mastermind more devious and powerful than Littlefinger? (Tywin, who has all his enemies killed with a flick of his pen and has been playing for decades seems logical.) Is this a reference to the Lord of Light versus the Other? Or do they just mean it won’t be a civil war of two sides but five? The sentence that follows suggests the last option.

During the first season, Varys drops hints to Ned that the Lannisters killed Jon Arryn and that queen and Lancel killed King Robert, likely to encourage the Stark-Lannister conflict. Later, he convinces Ned to publicly repent his war against the Lannisters and make peace between the families, delaying the civil war. However, Joffrey unexpectedly kills him. Civil war begins, sooner than the conspirators planned. Then another startling event happens as

Daenerys births her dragons out of stone. Suddenly, the young marriage pawn has become an important player.

After this, the conspiring pair take a larger interest in Daenerys.

Varys suggests King Joffrey dismiss Ser Barristan Selmy. When Joffrey does, Illyrio sends Ser Barristan to join Daenerys. (In any case, Ser Barristan is a voice of reason in court, so he must go.)

Likewise Illyrio provides Daenerys with ships and gifts. When asked why much later, Illyrio says, “Not all that a man does is done for gain. Believe as you wish, but even fat old fools like me have friends, and debts of affection to repay.” This debt might be to Daenerys…but what did she ever do for him? Varys, who grew up with Illyrio and made him who he is, is a more logical choice.

There’s an intriguing interchange between television Tyrion and Varys on the eve of Blackwater Bay. Tyrion: What do you want? Tell me.

Varys: If we’re going to play, you’ll have to start.

Tyrion does, describing much about how he enjoys the power he’d never dreamed of having. This conversation drifts into one about the gods. Then Varys pauses, indicating a topic shift, which the following is: Varys: This morning, I heard a song all the way from Qarth, beyond the red wastes. Daenerys Targaryen lives.

They chat a bit about her half-grown dragons. Then Tyrion points out that Stannis is about to attack and adds that they must play “one game at a time.” (2.8). Did Varys actually confide in Tyrion? Tell him honestly what he wants? (The fact that Daenerys is alive, with dragons, is common knowledge, but in context it may be Varys’ answer, or at least the only answer he’s willing to risk: He supports the Targaryens, both known and hidden.)

Varys claims that the purpose of his machinations is not for personal power, honor, or loyalty, but simply the best intentions for the realm as a whole. After his support of Mad King Aerys, this seems unlikely. In fact, he goes on to destabilize the realm and prolong the conflict until the right time.

A possible right time could be young Aegon arriving as savior.

(Of course, if Varys is destabilizing the realm and Illyrio returns with a deliverer, they’re playing the same game they played in Pentos in their youth.) While the civil war, prolonged by Varys, is threatening

starvation, this only adds to the people’s misery under all the Westeros kings. Illyrio notes: “There is no peace in Westeros, no justice, no faith…and soon enough, no food. When men are starving and sick of fear, they look for a savior…A savior comes from across the sea to bind up the wounds of Westeros” (V:30). This would pave the way for Varys’ puppet king to arrive and bring peace and justice.

In the later books, Varys continues to mess with Lannisters, helping and hurting Tywin, Tyrion, and Kevan along with Pycelle to further destabilize the realm. In book five, Illyrio begins young Aegon’s campaign for power. Illyrio and Varys enlist the aid of the Golden Company of mercenaries to help. The Golden Company was founded by the Blackfyres, a group of Targaryen bastards who tried to seize the throne five separate times about a century before King Robert. (They feature in various flashbacks as well as the Dunk and Egg stories.) At last, the male line (specifically) was entirely killed off. In the year 2000, a decade before book five’s release, Martin wrote, “The Golden Company is the largest and most famous, founded by one of Aegon the Unworthy’s bastards. You won’t meet them until A DANCE WITH DRAGONS” (“So Spake Martin,” 180). Clearly the Golden Company is integral to Martin’s storyline.

Illyrio notes that the company broke a different contract and signed up because “Some contracts are writ in ink, and some in blood.” If Aegon is actually one of their descendants through the female line, they might be eager to topple both legitimate Targaryens and the pretender kings. While the company once refused to help Viserys reclaim the throne, defending their own may have always been their plan.

Why is Varys so desperate for his chosen heir to take the throne?

This has required about twenty years of labor, to say nothing of countless deaths and the destruction of good rulers as well as bad ones. This preference for Aegon over Daenerys and her brother suggests that Aegon as a person matters to them, or that Varys wants the satisfaction of creating an able, non-Targaryen heir, not a mad, magic-using Targaryen. That being said, Viserys showed signs of instability and madness even as a child, while women are forbidden to rule in their own right. Only once Daenerys has dragons does she become valuable – with them, she’s the most “worthy” Targaryen in the people’s eyes. Wedding her to Aegon will solidify their joint claim.

Several theories behind Aegon’s backstory are floating around online: 1. Aegon’s an actual Targaryen, needed because Winter is

Coming. He will be one of the three heads of the dragon and possibly Daenerys’s husband.

However, most fans are skeptical that the hero who will save everyone is not Jon, Daenerys, or Bran but a new character introduced as late as book five. There are several prophecies of a false dragon or mummer’s dragon that particularly cast doubt on Aegon. His traveling with a “halfmaester” and a false Septa emphasizes this as well. The classic Targaryen look is “silver-gold hair” and purple eyes” like Daenerys’s in the books (I:34). Aegon has silvery hair, but this is common in Volantis. His eyes are a lighter color than the deep Targaryen purple of Prince Rhaegar and Daenerys. Of course, if he’s legitimate but gets killed or refuses the throne, the story arc won’t be severely affected.

2. Most fans prefer the theories that he’s not Aegon Targaryen but is in fact a) A descendant of the Targaryen bastards who founded the Golden Company and Varys owes them something or is a descendant of theirs himself. (He’s spent the entire series as the observer with no family or selfish agendas of that sort, so this would be something of a disappointment.) b) A descendent of the mad, savage Prince Aerion from “The Hedge Knight,” who traveled to the east a century ago. c) Illyrio’s beloved son by his wife who had “pale golden hair streaked by silver,” making him beloved of the schemers but not actually royal.

(Of course, Illyrio’s wife could be a Targaryen descendent through the Golden Company or Prince Aerion.) d) A random baby from the silver-haired descendants of Old Volantis – Varys wants to make a good king, not watch one inherit because of an unstable, inbred bloodline. His hatred of magic and rough upbringing on the streets would support this.

Illyrio appears to care for the boy, sending him gifts and asking to see him before the conquest. Besides, the child, Targaryen or not, has been raised to Illyrio’s and Varys’ secret agenda and will show them

personal loyalty. The three of them could rule the kingdom. In one scene, Varys describes needing the right king, not just the heir: He is here. Aegon has been shaped for rule since before he could walk. He has been trained in arms, as befits a knight to be, but that was not the end of his education.

He reads and writes, he speaks several tongues, he has studied history and law and poetry. A septa has instructed him in the mysteries of the Faith since he was old enough to understand them. He has lived with fisherfolk, worked with his hands, swum in rivers and mended nets and learned to wash his own clothes at need. He can fish and cook and bind up a wound, he knows what it is like to be hungry, to be hunted, to be afraid…Aegon knows that kingship is his duty, that a king must put his people first, and live and rule for them. (V:958-959)

All this emphasis on his upbringing rather than his birthright suggests Aegon has been trained for kingship, not simply bred for it.

In summary, Varys seems to aid the following:  Mad King Aerys (at least to increase his paranoia and dependency)  Daenerys (only after she has dragons)  His own young Aegon – real or fake  A Lannister-Stark war (under the right conditions and timing).

On the surface, Varys seems to want Targaryen rule. But why? He’s from Lys, where he became a powerful master of secrets before Aerys recruited him. Perhaps Varys wants to install a puppet king on the throne. Or perhaps he knows the war is coming and the people of Westeros will need a Targaryen. Time will tell.

Symbols in Game of Thrones The Deeper Meanings of Animals, Colors, Seasons, Food, and Much More

Animals Bat In the books, Jaime, then Brienne, wears the shield of the Black Bat of Lothar, accursed “arms of ill repute” from a house of Harrenhal that died out (IV.131). In fact, the bat symbolizes death and rebirth, as it emerges from caves in the womb of the earth each night. It can also suggest illusion, emphasizing Jaime and Brienne’s desires to hide, remake themselves, and escape the burdens of past and family.

Bear A black bear in a green wood is the sigil of House Mormont, vassals of House Stark.

When Jeor Mormont “the Old Bear” took the black, he eventually became Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. He holds the Mormont ancestral sword Longclaw, which he gives to Jon, remarking that wolves have claws as well as bears.

Jorah, Lord Jeor’s son, is exiled by Ned Stark for selling slaves.

He eventually pledges fealty to Viserys, then Daenerys. With her brother on the Wall and his son in exile, Maege assumes control of her House in the book. She and her warrior daughters are trusted warriors in King Robb’s entourage, until the Red Wedding. As Commander Mormont describes her to Jon Snow: You are not the only one touched by this war. Like as not, my sister is marching in your brother’s host, her and those daughters of hers, dressed in men’s mail.

Maege is a hoary old snark, stubborn, short-tempered, and willful. Truth be told, I can hardly stand to be around the wretched woman, but that does not mean my love for her is any less than the love you bear your half-sisters. (I.783)

The Lords of Bear Island are surrounded by legends that they can shapeshift into bear form, as the Starks can with wolves. Dacey describes a carving over her gates of “a woman in a bearskin, with a child in one arm suckling at her breast. In the other hand she holds a battleax” (III.630).

Myths speak of many shapeshifting bears, as they were considered one of the species closest to humans. The song “The Bear and Maiden Fair,” popular at every celebration in Westeros, appears to be a Beauty and the Beast style story of the lovely maiden charming the savage creature. Like wolves, bears resemble humans in their intelligence and social interactions. They spoke to the basic, primitive side of mankind, as both Mormonts teach Jon and Dany practicality.

In heraldry, a bear is a symbol of healing and personal health and bravery (Mounet Lipp). He brings strength, cunning and ferocity to the protection of his clan. Thus Daenerys often calls large, hairy Jorah her “bear” in the books. She thought of her childhood protector, Ser Willem Darry, as a “bear” as well (I.31).

Other bears feature in the series, as Brienne must face a bear with a tourney sword in the third book or “The Bear and Maiden Fair.” Bears are savage, wild creatures of course, especially those goaded by man. By defeating the creature, Jaime and Brienne cast themselves as a “bear and maiden fair” though neither resembles the label. In fact, they use quick-wittedness to escape, emphasizing that they must abandon their accepted roles and find new paths. There’s a dancing bear at Joffrey’s wedding and elsewhere, but these tend to be sad, awkward and elderly rather than dangerous, a reflection of nature’s decline.

Birds Varys is known for his “little birds” – small children from the Free Cities who spy for him. The Hound and Cersei call Sansa “little bird” on occasion. In the early seasons, Cersei’s gowns are embroidered with birds, though she eventually develops a more ferocious motif. Costume designer Michele Clapton comments, “The bird embroidered on her clothes gives way to more and more lions” (Cogman 81).

Sparrows, religious followers named for the least assuming of birds, appear in the fourth book, bringing the dead to King’s Landing to appeal for an end to war. “As the sparrow is the humblest and most common of the birds, they are the humblest and most common of men” (IV.420). They’re “filthy, unkempt creatures, with leather shields and axes” (IV.357). While they seem harmless, they swarm the capitol in greater and greater numbers.

In each case, the bird imagery is meant to suggest a harmless, sweet quality, but the characters reveal themselves as far stronger

than others assume. The sparrows of King’s Landing, like lovely Cersei, unassuming Varys, and even little Sansa, all have a hard edge. Margaery laments that Joffrey’s taste in necklaces probably runs to “severed sparrow heads,” but he should not discount those weaker than himself (“Two Swords”).

Daario, the pretty popinjay sellsword who joins Daenerys’s crew, tells the others: “When you hear a songbird’s whistle, you come. I’m a great whistler. The greatest in the land” (“The Rains of Castamere”). Though he appears pretty and useless, he’s also a fearsome fighter.

Varamyr the skinchanger explains in the A Dance with Dragons prologue, “Bears, boars, badgers, weasels ... Haggon did not hold with such. Some skins you never want to wear, boy. You won’t like what you become. Birds were the worst, to hear tell of it” (V.10).

Birds don’t symbolize freedom in the series, but a harmless appearance that soon turns deadly. The symbolism links up well here.

Cats In heraldry, a cat is a symbol of liberty, vigilance and courage (Mounet Lipp). It is also a feminine icon, linked with the moon and various goddesses.

The Roman goddess of Liberty was represented as holding a cup in one hand, a broken sceptre in the other, and a cat lying at her feet. No animal is so great an enemy to all constraint as a cat.

The cat was held in veneration by the Egyptians as sacred to the goddess Bubastis. This deity is represented with a human body and a cat’s head.

Diodorus tells us that whoever killed a cat, even by accident, was by the Egyptians punished with death.

(Vinycomb 207)

As Arya “chases cats” in the first book and season, then strikes out on her own, she has a great deal of cat symbolism herself. Arya is very adaptable. “From working in the kitchens of Harrenhal to becoming ‘Cat of the Canals’ in Braavos, she learns to accept her situation for what it is and thereby to do what is required” (Jacoby, “No One Dances the Water Dance” 242). In Braavos, “Cats liked the smell of Cat” and they follow her about as she compares herself to the lean scrawny ones (IV.510).

Catching cats indicates her increasing skill and agility:

Catching cats was hard. Her hands were covered with half-healed scratches, and both knees were scabbed over where she had scraped them raw in tumbles. At first even the cook’s huge fat kitchen cat had been able to elude her, but Syrio had kept her at it day and night.

When she’d run to him with her hands bleeding, he said, “So slow? Be quicker, girl. Your enemies will give you more than scratches.” He had dapped her wounds with myrish fire, which burned so bad she had to bite her lip to keep from screaming. Then he sent her out after more cats. (I.338)

As she journeys the castle in search of them, she also encounters one cat in particular: The Red Keep was full of cats: lazy old cats dozing in the sun, cold-eyed mousers twitching their tails, quick little kittens with claws like needles, ladies cats all combed and trusting, ragged shadows prowling the midden heaps. One by one Arya had chased them down and snatched them up and brought them proudly to Syrio Forel... all but this one, the one-eared black devil of a tomcat. “That’s the real king of this castle right there,” one of the gold cloaks had told her. Older than sin and twice as mean. One time, the king was feasting the queen’s father, and that black bastard hopped up on the table and snatched a roast quail right out of Lord Tywin’s fingers. Robert laughed so hard he like to burst.

“You stay away from that one, child” (I.338-339)

He becomes her nemesis in a way, but also her path to knowledge – she overhears Varys and Illyrio talking while on her quest to catch him. Thus the black cat functions as a replacement wolf in a sense, alerting her to unseen dangers and guiding her to a safe route from the castle.

Many fans wonder if he guarded another girl before Arya, or even functioned as her trusted warg companion. Varys comments: Rhaenys was a child too. Prince Rhaegar’s daughter. a precious little thing, younger than your Arya. She had a small black kitten she called Balerion, did you know? I always wondered what happened to him. Rhaenys like to pretend he was the true Balerion, The Black Dread of old, but i imagine the Lannisters taught her the difference between a kitten and a dragon quick enough, the day they broke down her door. (I.636)

His name, for the great dragon of Aegon the Conqueror, speaks of strength as well as the human-animal bond. Many wonder if part of Rhaenys, Daenerys’s niece, lives on in this black cat. When asked if he is Rhaenys’ kitten, Martin replies only with an enigmatic “Could be.” As the cat menaces Tommen’s vulnerable black kittens – Ser Pounce, Lady Whiskers, and Boots – the ghost of the Targaryens seems to be haunting Tommen and preparing for his death, symbolically if not literally.

From soup to sweet Tommen burbled about the exploits of his kittens, whilst feeding them morsels of pike off his own royal plate. “The bad cat was outside my window last night,” he informed Kevan at one point, “but Ser Pounce hissed at him and he ran off across the roofs.”

(IV.276)

Many wonder at the significance of the large black tomcat as it prowls the palace and snarls at Tommen’s beloved kittens. Does he represent the violence that will rebound from Rhaenys’ death and kill Tommen? Does he represent catlike Arya, turned assassin and coming for the Lannisters? As a child, Joffrey cut open a pregnant cat and King Robert beat him severely for it. If cats in the castle are meant to be the sacrificed Targaryens, they’re coming for Tommen with a vengeance.

Varamyr the skinchanger explains in the A Dance with Dragons prologue, “Cats were vain and cruel, always ready to turn on you” (V.10). In her later adventures, Arya is selfish and violent, training in feeling only callousness. One of her many personas is “Cat of the Canals,” emphasizing her association with the wild creatures. She names herself, a sign of strength: She bit her lip. “Could I be Cat?” “Cat.” He considered. “Yes. Braavos is full of cats. One more will not be noticed.” (IV.326)

In a released chapter from The Winds of Winter, there’s another link between cats and selfish violence: “Braavos was a good city for cats, and they roamed everywhere, especially at night. In the fog all cats are grey,” Mercy thought. “In the fog all men are killers.”

Lastly, Syrio tells Arya a story about a cat that seems to touch themes of the series. A Sealord tells everyone his cat is a magical creature, and all agree with him because he’s rich and powerful, or they don’t trust the evidence of their own eyes.

“And to him I said, ‘Each night in the alleys of Braavos I see a thousand like him,’ and the Sealord laughed, and that day I was named the first sword.”

Arya screwed up her face. “I don’t understand.”

Syrio clicked his teeth together. “The cat was an ordinary cat, no more. The others expected a fabulous beast, so that is what they saw. How large it was, they said. It was no larger than any other cat, only fat from indolence, for the Sealord fed it from his own table.

What curious small ears, they said. Its ears had been chewed away in kitten fights. And it was plainly a tomcat, yet the Sealord said ‘her,’ and that is what the others saw. Are you hearing?”

Arya thought about it. “You saw what was there.”

“Just so. Opening your eyes is all that is needing. The heart lies and the head plays tricks with us, but the eyes see true. Look with your eyes. Hear with your ears.

Taste with your mouth. Smell with your nose. Feel with your skin. Then comes the thinking, afterward, and in that way knowing the truth.” (I.531-532)

If Arya can learn this lesson, she will be a fierce warrior in truth.

Dragons He lifted his eyes and saw clear across the narrow sea, to the Free Cities and the green Dothraki sea and beyond, to Vaes Dothrak under its mountain, to the fabled lands of the Jade Sea, to Asshai by the Shadow, where dragons stirred beneath the sunrise. (I.136-137)

Bran’s vision may indicate dragons still live in Asshai, or he may be seeing the past. Either way, dragons represent a world of magic and wonder, now returned along with the birth of Daenerys’s trio.

Pyat Pree tells her, “When your dragons were born, our magic was born again.” As animal symbolism goes, dragons are far more powerful than lions, stags, or wolves – the mightiest of the mythic animals. He is also the bravest of all the creatures in heraldry (Mounet Lipp). In alchemy, dragons symbolize eternal change, a strong representation of Daenerys herself.

All cultures have dragons, and not just because of the prevalence of dinosaur bones. In humanity’s cultural memory appears to be the giant lizard, fierce and terrifying.

The ancients conceived it as the embodiment of

malignant and destructive power, and with attributes of the most terrible kind. Classic story makes us acquainted with many dreadful monsters of the dragon kind, to which reference will afterwards be more particularly made.

It is often argued that the monsters of tradition are but the personification of solar influences, storms, the desert wind, the great deeps, rivers inundating their banks, or other violent phenomena of nature, and so, no doubt, they are, and have been; but the strange fact remains that the same draconic form with slight modifications constantly appears as the type of the thing most dreaded, and instead of melting into an abstraction and dying out of view, it has remained from age to age, in form, distinctly a ferocious flying reptile, until in the opinion of many the tradition has been justified by prosaic science. It is surprising to find that the popular conception of the dragon – founded on tradition, passed on through hundreds of generations – not only retains its identity, but bears a startling resemblance to the original antediluvian saurians, whose fossil remains now come to light through geological research, almost proving the marvellous power of tradition and the veracity of those who passed it on. (Vinycomb 59-60)

The word “dragon” comes from the ancient Greek for serpent. In Christian myth, it is often a force of evil, with the dragon being defeated by the heroic St. George, or Dracula taking his name from “dragon.” Revelations 12:7-9 explains: And there was war in Heaven: Michael and his Angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his Angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found anymore in Heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his Angels were cast out with him.

In variants of this image, a dragon can represent pure gluttony and avarice. In stories from the Norse Ring Saga to Narnia, terribly greedy characters slowly transform into dragons, and Smaug in The Hobbit is known for his hoard. Tyrion describes popular lore about dragons as “fodder for fools” including “talking dragons” and “dragons hoarding gold and gems,” emphasizing that Martin’s world uses dragons for another purpose (V:767).

This series abandons much of the evil and avaricious symbolism, in favor of the wonder and might of dragons. All bow before Daenerys when she hatches them, and rumors of her dragons spread around the world. Young Tyrion dreams of riding a dragon to feel the power and exhilaration of flight, far more magical than the wealth and privilege of the Lannisters.

People are also selfish to acquire dragons. They function in the center of the Westeros arms race – he who has dragons will win any battle. More importantly, they’re a symbol of divine right and royalty in Westeros.

The Celtic dragon was an ancient symbol of fertility, wisdom, and immortality. This creature was worn on kings’ torques as a sign of royal rule, then became a symbol of the York and Tudor kings of England. The Celts used the word “dragon” for “a chief,” leading to legends of Arthur Pendragon. “Those knights who slew a chief in battle slew a dragon, and the military title soon got confounded with the fabulous monster” (Vinycomb 89). Today it’s the Welsh dragon on the flag of Wales.

Richard III as a badge had a black dragon. “The bages that he beryth by the Earldom of Wolsr (Ulster) ys a blacke dragon,” derived through his mother from the De Burghs, Earls of Ulster… At the Battle of Bosworth Field Henry bore the dragon standard … Henry VII., Henry VIII., Edward V., Mary and Elizabeth all carried the dragon as a supporter to the royal arms (Vinycomb 89)

Daenerys’s Dragons The three dragons hatched from Daenerys’s eggs were given to her

by Master Illyrio, who arranged her marriage in the first episode. She names them Viserion (white), Rhaegal (green) and Drogon (black, the largest and fiercest), after her two deceased brothers and her late husband, respectively. In Qarth, Daenerys is given a crown decorated with three dragons in those colors, a crown she wears through the books. As with the Starks and their wolves, the dragons express the emotions the diplomatic queen cannot. They frequently lash out at those she dislikes, especially Pyat Pree in Qarth and the slavers of Astapor and Yunkai. As Daenerys loses control of her dragons, her time in Meereen suggests losing control of herself and her purpose.

Historical Dragons The three great dragons of Aegon the Conqueror and his sisters were Balerion, Meraxes, and Vhagar. Aegon rode Balerion, Rhaenys rode Meraxes, and Visenya rode Vhagar. Daenerys names her three ships for them after Qarth, emphasizing her kinship with the first conqueror. Aegon had two sister-wives, and Jorah tries to persuade Daenerys to have two husbands (one himself) to ride the dragons with her. Her ancestors never rode more than one chosen dragon, just as the Starks each have one chosen wolf.

Good Queen Alysanne, wife of Jaehaerys the Conciliator, rode a dragon named Silverwing. Balerion was killed some time in Jaehaerys’s reign. Silverwing’s fate is unclear.

Many dragons fittingly appear in the civil war called the Dance of the Dragons, shown in the novella, “The Princess and the Queen.”

Rhaenyra Targaryen, the queen apparent before her half-brother snatches the throne, rides the yellow dragon Syrax. “Syrax had long grown accustomed to chains; exceedingly well fed, she had not hunted for years” (749). Meleys, called the Red Queen, was an old she-dragon ridden by Princess Rhaenys Targaryen, Rhaenyra’s aunt and mentor. “Her scales were scarlet and the membranes of her wings were pink. Her crest, horns, and claws were bright as copper.

She had grown lazy but was fearsome when roused. Meleys was old, cunning and no stranger to battle” (713).

Rhaenyra’s three oldest sons ride the bold young dragons Vermax, Arrax, and Tyraxes, all of whom die the same day as their riders. Her other son Aegon the Younger escapes capture riding his dragon Stormcloud for the first time, though the dragon dies just after. “The boy was white with terror, shaking like a leaf and stinking

of piss. Only nine, he had never flown before … and would never fly again” (730).

The princess’s royal half-brother Aegon rides Sunfyre with gleaming gold scales and pale pink wing membranes. The Bronze Fury, Vermithor, is enormous and over a century old. Tessarion, the Blue Queen, dances with Seasmoke in the air, possibly in “more mating dance than battle” (773). She is Prince Daeron the Daring’s, with “her wings as dark as cobalt and her claws and crest and belly scales as bright as beaten copper” (713).

Seasmoke is a pale silver-grey dragon of Dragonstone.

Sheepstealer is a “notoriously ugly mud brown” (729). Grey Ghost is shy and pale in color. The Cannibal is “black as coal” and known for eating young dragons (779). All these are unclaimed dragons that Targaryen bastards attempt to ride during the war, with different levels of success. Though the scent of the Targaryen bloodline helps, many dragons will eat frightened would-be riders instead of accepting servitude.

Targaryens Dragons can also refer to the Targaryens, of course. Daenerys proclaims that her hero-brother Rhaegar was not the last dragon – she is.

Ser Barristan: When your brother Rhaegar led his men at the battle of the Trident, men died for him because they believed in him. Because they loved him. I fought beside the last dragon that day, my grace. I bled beside him.

Jorah: Rhaegar fought valiantly. Rhaegar fought nobly.

And Rhaegar died.

Daenerys: Did you know him well, Ser Barristan?

Ser Barristan: I did, your grace. Finest man I ever met.

Daenerys: I wish I had known him. But he was not the last dragon. (“Walk of Punishment”)

When the children of the previous regime are killed, King Robert famously remarks, “I see no babes. Only dragonspawn” (I.112).

Several Targaryens including Viserys proclaim they are the dragon or believe they can transform into one (thus one mad king drinks wildfire!). This may be

more than madness, considering the Starks’ warg power.

There’s a vision in a released chapter of the sixth book: It was then that pasty, pudgy Teora raised her eyes from the creamcakes on her plate. “It is dragons.”

“Dragons?” said her mother. “Teora, don’t be mad.”

“I’m not. They’re coming.”

“How could you possibly know that?” her sister asked, with a note of scorn in her voice. “One of your little dreams?”

Teora gave a tiny nod, chin trembling. “They were dancing. In my dream. And everywhere the dragons danced the people died.”

Since only three (known) dragons remain in the world, it’s likely dragons here means Targaryens and Targaryen claimants. Another civil war is coming, with the new kings Melisandre saw taking the old kings’ places.

Other Possible Dragons Dragon eggs are stored on Dragonstone Isle, home of dragonglass and many Targaryen secrets. The stone dragons around which the castle is built may in fact come to life as Daenerys’s eggs do.

It’s unclear whether the wolf Summer sees the red comet or something else when Bran and Rickon emerge from the Winterfell crypts in a type of rebirth: “The smoke and ash clouded his eyes, and in the sky he saw a great winged snake whose roar was a river of flame. He bared his teeth, but then the snake was gone. Behind the cliffs tall fires were eating up the stars” (II. 699). Did a dragon lie buried in the crypts under Winterfell?

Gold dragons are the most expensive currency, and characters sometimes make dragon puns. It seems unlikely that any prophecies about dragons battling or dragons coming forth from stone mean cold, hard cash, however.

There’s also a constellation called the Ice Dragon. Martin wrote a short story about a living ice dragon, and many wonder if one dwells under the Wall. In A Dance With Dragons, Jon repeatedly recalls Old Nan’s tales of an Ice Dragon, which may prove significant.

Dragonflies Dragonflies are magically glittering and lovely, but short-lived.

The dress Joffrey has torn off Sansa is grey with dragonfly details,

emphasizing Sansa’s evanescent fragility. In Targaryen history, Duncan the “Prince of Dragonflies” appears to have died young while tragically in love with Jenny of Oldstones.

The dragonfly is a symbol of free will, apt for Prince Duncan who gave up his crown and married the woman he loved. Likewise in the short stories, Dunk admires dragonflies and daydreams about dragons when choosing to be an independent hedge knight. Sansa appears to have little free will, but slowly develops it as she learns to create her own destiny.

In Dany’s last chapter of book five, “Insects buzzed around her, lazy dragonflies and glistening green wasps and stinging midges almost too small to see” (934). She is making a choice about a new destiny before her, as she seeks a world of permanence.

Eagle “He can enter the minds of animals and see through their eyes.”

Mance Rayder says of the warg Orell in “Dark Wings, Dark Words.”

Orell in book and show is a wildling raider who can put his mind into the body of an eagle. This allows him to scout great distances. While Orell inhabits the eagle, Jon Snow kills his body, leaving the eagle with part of his personality. He flies at Jon and attacks him. This may all be foreshadowing if a Stark (or Snow) is killed and retreats into a wolf.

The eagle is generally a symbol of resurrection, as the eagle was believed to rejuvenate by flying into the sun. Psalm 103:5 explains, “Thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” Thus it makes a logical symbol for the warg who lives on in animal form.

Falcon The falcon (indistinguishable from the hawk in heraldry) is the second most popular heraldic bird after the eagle. “Considering the very important past this bird played in the social life of earlier centuries, this cannot be a matter of any surprise” (Fox-Davies 181).

The hawk is a masculine symbol of striving for great heights.

A white falcon on azure with the words “As High as Honor” is the sigil of House Arryn. The inaccessible height of the Eyrie helps to define it as the hawk’s home. The hawk suggests swiftness and keen sight with great skill at the hunt – in fact, Jon Arryn unravels the mystery of Cersei‘s infidelity, though he isn’t quite fast enough to reveal it before his death. In heraldry, the falcon or hawk is

someone who eagerly pursues his goals and never rests until they’re achieved…a mindset that sends Jon Arryn to his death (Mounet Lipp). The bird “may have been a medieval allegory of the evil mind of the sinner” (Cirlot 140). In fact Lysa Arryn hides many secrets.

The other notable hawk or falcon in the series is the one that killed the patriarch of Highgarden: Olenna: Do you know my son? The lord of Highgarden?

Sansa: I haven’t had the pleasure.

Olenna: It’s no great pleasure, believe me. Ponderous oaf. My husband was an oaf as well, the late Lord Luthor. He managed to ride off a cliff whilst hawking. (“Dark Wings Dark Words”)

Again, the bird symbolizes male achievement and lofty goals … which in this case led to death. Like with Jon Arryn, associating too much with the honorable, powerful, and above all high-flying hawk becomes fatal.

Goat The goat is a symbol of practical wisdom in heraldry, and an emblem of a man who wins through diplomacy rather than strength of arms (Mounet Lipp). In Christian symbolism, the goat is a devilish figure. It represents fraud, lust, and cruelty, as well as the damned at the Last Judgment. In the Renaissance the goat usually appeared in art in order to distinguish the sinners from the righteous. This interpretation is based upon a Bible passage that relates how Christ upon His coming shall separate the believing from the unbelieving, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats (Matthew 25:3146).

Certainly Vargo Hoat, the “goat” of the books, is a figure of vile cruelty, slicing off Jaime’s hand to prove his superiority. He wears a helm shaped as a goat’s head and his coat of arms feature the Black Goat of Qohor, one of the faces of the Many-Faced God. Thus the Brave Companions ride under the goat banner of death.

While a prisoner of the Mountain, Wylis Manderly was fed parts of the Goat while at Harrenhal. Certainly, this stresses the Mountain’s inhumane treatment of prisoners under his protection. In fact, it’s Wylis Manderly’s father who is treacherous, playing a deep game of politics with Davos, the Boltons, the Freys, the Lannisters, and the Starks.

Other goats appear alongside moments of fraud and treachery.

Tyrion eats goat with Bronn just before revealing his past with Tysha, the wife Jaime and Tywin manipulated him into betraying.

Ser Jorah orders a goat killed for Daenerys’s supper upon hearing she’s pregnant, then betrays her moments later by selling the news to King’s Landing.

By contrast, Shagga of the Mountain Hill Clans is terribly violent, but not evil. He is loyal to Tyrion, despite his favorite tagline: Shagga: Shagga son of Dolf will chop off your manhood– Tyrion: –and feed it to the goats, yes. (“You Win or You Die”) Tyrion: ...cut off his manhood, and feed it to the goats.

Pycelle: Wha-no, no, no!

Timett: There are no goats, halfman!

Tyrion: Well, make do!

Tyrion, Timett and Bronn snicker. (“What Is Dead May Never Die”)

Griffon House Connington of Griffin’s Roost has arms of two griffins combatent on red and white. Jon Connington, a character of the fifth book, demonstrates a symbolic link with dragons as he sports his own magical creatures in colors of ice and fire.

The griffon, popular among the Babylonians, Assyrians, and Persians, has an eagle’s head (or possibly lion’s head) and eagle wings on a lion’s body. A snake tail is included as well. They symbolize bravery, strength, alertness and endurance in the banners of heraldry (Mounet Lipp). “Griffons were considered to be good guardians: attentive, swift, brave, and tenacious” (Shepherd 229).

Calling himself Griffon, Connington has indeed spent his life as a guardian. Both halves of the griffon creature “sacred to the sun,” are positive, solar animals, thus the creature often represents salvation (Cirlot 133). It has yet to be seen if Griffon and his son Young Griffon will bring this to Westeros in the sixth book.

The mythic animal was popular in heraldry, possibly representing families in which an eagle and lion were united in marriage. It is unclear to what extent the ancients believed in

griffons, and also whether they may appear in Westeros. Some beastiaries label the creature as clearly mythical: The griffin, gryfin, or gryphon, as it is variously termed by old writers, is best known as one of the chimerical monsters of heraldry – the mediæval representative of the ancient symbolic creature of Assyria and the East. It may be classed with the dragon, wyvern, phœnix, sphynx, “gorgons and hydras and chimeras dire,” and other imaginary beings, that world of unreality grown up in the mind of man from the earliest times, the influence of whose terrors have exercised no little power in the progress of humanity. (Vinycomb 147-148).

Harpy When Daenerys approaches Meereen, massive harpies support the city gates. The harpy is the symbol of Meereen and Old Ghis before it, the antithesis of all that is dragon and its ancient enemy. In Greek myth, harpies (“snatchers”) were horrible flying hags who tormented mankind. They lived in the world of the dead and had brass claws.

Though they don’t appear in the heraldry of Westeros but in Old Ghis, they were in fact heraldic creatures.

A poetical monstrosity of classical origin, described as “winged creatures having the head and breasts of a woman, and the body and limbs of a vulture; very fierce and loathsome, living in an atmosphere of filth and stench, and contaminating anything which they come near. Pale and emaciated, they were continually tormented with insatiable hunger.” They are best known from the story of the Argonauts, where they appear as the tormentors of the blind king Phineus, whose table they robbed of its viands, which they either devoured or spoiled. They were regarded by the ancients as ministers of sudden death. (Vinycomb 179-180)

“They were portrayed as foul creatures, indicating a patriarchal priesthood taking over funerary rites” (Walker 258). The harpy represents all that is negative in the feminine, seen in male-controlled cultures like the Greeks, who described the vicious monsters tearing indiscriminately at noble heroes for imagined crimes. Daario comments, with his own touch of the patriarchy, “The harpy is a

craven thing…She has a woman’s heart and a chicken’s legs” (III.774). Daenerys tears down the harpy throne in Meereen and appoints an ebony bench for herself, saying, “I will not sit in the harpy’s lap” (III.980). She thus associates herself with being a good “mother” rather than a cruel hag, dragon rather than harpy. She refuses to be part of the harpy system: “In the afternoon a sculptor came, proposing to replace the head of the great bronze harpy in the Plaza of Purification with one cast in Dany’s image. She denied him with as much courtesy as she could muster” (V.43).

Horse White horses in Norse folklore portend death in the family.

Many mythologies use this image with death coming for people on a pale horse. A plague in the east becomes known as the “pale mare” and it does in fact bring death.

Aside from this, horse culture is found in the Dothraki, who eat horse meat, drink fermented mare’s milk, make fires with dung, wear horsehair clothes, live in horsehair tents, and ride horses all their lives… and even after their deaths. The Dothraki city, Vaes Dothrak, features a great gate of bronze stallions. Horses often symbolize the power of mankind, as men domesticate the great animals and ride them. In heraldry “the horse is ready, ready for King and country. It is also a symbol of speed, intelligence and masculinity” (Mounet Lipp). They are often associated with the patriarchy, with straightforward conquests rather than subtle mysticism, much like the Dothraki themselves.

The great Dothraki prophecy features the Stallion Who Mounts the World. The ancient matriarchs of the city tell Daenerys: “As swift as the wind he rides, and behind him his khalasar covers the earth, men without number, with arakhs shining in their hands like blades of razor grass.

Fierce as a storm this prince will be. His enemies will tremble before him, and their wives will weep tears of blood and rend their flesh in grief. The bells in his hair will sing his coming, and the milk men in the stone tents will fear his name.” The old woman trembled and looked at Daenerys almost as if she were afraid. “The prince is riding, and he shall be the stallion who mounts the world.” (I.411)

This child dies before birth, and the prophecy may die with him. Of course, the prophecy of the “prince who was promised” is revealed

by Maester Aemon to be gender neutral – Daenerys is the prince. She could potentially be this prince as well, and even lead a khalasar, or another army of “men without number” like the Unsullied. Her “children” the dragons could also fill this role, though much less literally.

Hound “I like dogs better than knights. My father‘s father was kennelmaster at the Rock. One autumn year, Lord Tytos came between a lioness and her prey. Lioness didn’t give a shit that she was Lannister’s own sigil. Bitch tore into my lord’s horse and would have done for my lord too, but my grandfather came up with the hounds.

Three of his dogs died running her off. My grandfather lost a leg, so Lannister paid him for it with lands and a towerhouse, and took his son to squire. The three dogs on our banner are the three that died, in the yellow of autumn grass. A hound will die for you, but never lie to you. And he’ll look you straight in the face.” (Sandor Clegane, II.262)

Dogs appearing in heraldry were generally guard dogs – mastiffs or bloodhounds, greyhounds, foxhounds (Fox-Davies 154-155). The dog is the symbol for courage, vigilance and fidelity (Mounet Lipp).

Joffrey’s “Hound” fulfils a similar role, as he’s appointed to the Kingsguard in season two.

Few actual dogs are seen in the series, and Sandor Clegane the “Hound” and his brother Gregor “the Mountain” are anything but tame. Nonetheless, dogs are generally thought of as man’s partners, domesticated city creatures. Varamyr the skinchanger explains in the book five prologue: Dogs were the easiest beasts to bond with; they lived so close to men that they were almost human. Slipping into a dog’s skin was like putting on an old boot, its leather softened by wear. As a boot was shaped to accept a foot, a dog was shaped to accept a collar, even a collar no human eye could see. (V.10)

In fact, the Mountain and the Hound both spend their lives dutifully serving the Lannisters, until Sandor is confronted with something he fears more – fire.

He runs from Blackwater and finds himself traveling with Arya in an attempt to ransom her. Though he claims to be working for himself, he goes to considerable effort to protect her … he may have found himself a new master after all. After Arya gives up, he continues to push her. Arya thinks: If the Hound would have let her she would have sleep all day and all night. And dreamed. That was the best part the dreaming. If her nights were full of wolves, her day belonged to the Dog. Sandor Clegane made her get up every morning whether she wanted to or not. (III.883)

Gregor Clegane, the other brother with a three dog sigil, has “no splendor about him” with plain steel armor, dull gray and scarred with heavy use (I.685). Tyrion thinks of him as “an unthinking brute who led with his rage” (I.686). He is simple and loyal to the Lannisters, but a dog turned savage.

A few actual dogs appear in the series. Septon Meribald of book four has a pet called Dog, as he says the animal hasn’t revealed his name yet. It protects him from wolves, and has killed a dozen. The Bastard of Bolton names his hunting dogs after his victims. Sansa finds a kinder pet: Sansa found Bryen’s old blind dog in her little alcove beneath the steps, and lay down next to him. He woke and licked her face. “You sad old hound,” she said, ruffling his fur.

“Alayne.” Her aunt’s singer stood over her. “Sweet Alayne. I am Marillion. I saw you come in from the rain.

The night is chill and wet. Let me warm you.” The old dog raised his head and growled, but the singer gave him a cuff and sent him slinking off, whimpering.

(III.940)

This dog is not only a protector but a substitute for Lady, though not a wholly effective one. His weakness emphasizes how much Sansa lacks in her real protector.

Insects Drogo tells an enemy: “I will not have your body burned. I will not give you that honor. The beetles will feed on your eyes. The worms will crawl through your lungs. The rain will fall on your rotting skin until nothing is left of you but bones!” (“The Pointy End”). Thus

here and elsewhere, insects are associated with vile decay and filth.

After his injury, even before Daenerys’s terrible bargain, he lies listlessly surrounded by bloodflies. Dany reflects on how ordinarily he hates them, but now he cannot be bothered to swat them away (I.702). The hatred of the bloodflies suggests a revulsion and fear at his own death, which in fact occurs far before he expects it.

Similarly, Meereen is full of flies. Daario notes, “Flies are the dead man’s revenge. Corpses breed maggots and maggots breed flies” (III.981).

On the show, the Qartheen decorate their clothes with insects, suggesting a creepy-crawly association along with the glittering wings. Describing the costumes there, costume designer Michele Clapton explains, “It’s so far removed from any place she’s [Daenerys’s] been before. We were able to take some risks with it” (Cogman 183).

Kraken In a released book six chapter, Barristan asks his squire Tumco, whose young eyes can see more clearly, to identify the banners.

Tumco says “Squids, big squids.

Like in the Basilisk Isles, where sometimes they drag whole ships down.” Barristan replies, “Where I’m from, we call them krakens.”

It appears krakens exist in truth in Westeros instead of just in mythology and heraldry. Varys reports an actual kraken attack off the Fingers, and more appear in an early chapter of book six, with krakens pulling down galleys after the blood rouses them. A battle with true krakens may be at hand.

The kraken is the sigil of the Greyjoys: The Red Priest Moqorro sees Theon’s uncle Euron as “A tall and twisted thing with one black eye and ten long arms, sailing on a sea of blood” (V.447). There’s a tentacle motif around Theon’s father’s keep.

In ancient myth, the kraken was a giant squid or leviathan, a great underwater beast that dragged ships to their doom. As it was ferocious and cruel but undetectable before it struck, it has clear symbolism with Theon Greyjoy as he turns on his allies and takes

Winterfell. One bannerman comments, “You krakens have too many arms, you pull a man to pieces” (IV.27). Sea monsters symbolize “the unknown and mysterious abysses far from the sight of land” – the monstrous, savage sea itself (Walker 273).

Lion “No figure plays such an important or such an extensive part in armory as the lion” (Fox-Davies 133). It is a symbol of majesty, courage and strength. “The lion has always enjoyed a high place in the heraldry as the emblem of undying courage, and hence that of a valiant warrior” (Mounet Lipp). The Lannister motto, “Hear Me Roar!” emphasizes this pride and power as their members play the game of thrones.

It is also a patriarchal symbol of proud men who need nothing from women – medieval bestiaries claimed lions were born dead until the father breathed on them and brought them to life. This is suitable for the family of Tywin and Jaime Lannister in which Cersei feels she cannot have a voice.

The lions of Lannister are often savage as well as majestic – Tywin wiped out House Castamere for its pride, as detailed in the popular Westerosi song, “The Rains of Castamere.” Cersei’s pride and rage can often be her undoing. Thus they share a lion’s savagery and bloodthirstiness as well.

History, Homages, and the Highlands: An Outlander Guide

Adapting the Books I have distinctly mixed feelings about having a movie made of the story. It could be a perfectly brilliant adaptation, and I’d be thrilled and delighted. However, knowing what I do about the movie industry, chances are about nine hundred to one that it would be horrible, and I’d hate it. For one thing, the average movie is two hours long. A s I say to people who tell me how much they’d love to see the books made into movies: “Fine.

Which forty pages would you like to see?” Now, if the BBC wants to come along and offer to do a twentyeight- week mini-series, no problem! (Outlandish Companion 381)

Gabaldon’s wish came true when the story was adapted into seasons of sixteen episodes, with plenty of time to tell the story. Moore comments of his pitch to Starz: We were on the same page from the very beginning; I wanted to do a very faithful adaptation of the book. And they said “we want you to do a very faithful adaptation of the book,” which is kind of remarkable, actually…And [Starz CEO] Chris [Albrecht] said to me, “make this show for the fans and trust that anyone who’s not a fan will be swept up in the story the same way all the readers were.” And I was like, “yes, sir!” It was just great. That’s exactly what you hope that they’re going to do. (Prudom “Ron Moore”)

He consulted Gabaldon throughout the experience and was delighted that she approved. He explains: “I told her how I wanted to approach it, and some of the things that I thought I would change from the book, and she was very open to it. She got it, from the beginning.

She said, ‘I get it. It’s an adaptation. It cannot be literally the page. I don’t do television. I’m an author. You do that’” (Radish).

Gabaldon in turn has urged fans to relax about small differences, such as Claire’s eyes being blue not brown. “It’s the 18th century,” she says. “The lighting is such that 90 percent of the time you can’t even tell what color anybody’s eyes are” (Loughlin). As the costume designer explains: I had always seen clothing in my head as I read the books. It was interesting when I started to design it because I’d realized I’d never paid attention to the clothing descriptions. When I went back and read it again, I went, “Oh wait, that’s not what I had in my head.” There came a moment when we all had to decide if we were going with the descriptions in the book or going to do the look that we wanted. This dress is not what is written in the books exactly. When we make choices that are not exactly as they are in the book, they are never done casually or dismissively. They’re always done with tremendous consideration because we’re fans too. (Bell)

The Actors Four months after Sam Heughan was cast as Jamie, Caitriona Balfe auditioned. “We knew from the second that she came in to test and she left the room that she was the one. She had to play Claire Randall,” Heughan notes (Lash). Balfe was a catwalk model in many runaway shows, appearing on the cover of Vogue. The actress is actually Irish and her grandmother was a World War II nurse. She’s had a few television and film roles, including Breanna Sheehan on the web series H+. There, she’s a high-powered executive with a troubled marriage and an affair, paralleling her Outlander character.

She also had small roles in films like Super 8 and Now You See Me with a bigger part in 2013’s Escape Plan. “I just think it was something that I just always wanted to do. I mean, as a little kid ... my parents [tease] me about it now, but I used to go ‘round the house doing Margaret Thatcher impressions,” Balfe says (Lash).

Gabaldon thinks fannish adaptations of a photo of model Gabrial Aubrey are a good fit for Jaime, according to her Afterward in the comic. Gabaldon describes him as “a head taller than everyone else (he’s 6’4’’ in a time when the average man stood 5’8”).” The Scottish Sam Heughan is about his height, though everyone else is not significantly shorter. The first actor cast on the show, he was known for his role in Doctors, though he was in several historical shows as well. In A Princess for Christmas, he plays the oldfashioned Ashton, Prince of Castlebury. He’s Young Alexander the

Great in Alexander. His role as Jaime lies between the two, as born war leader and handsome heartthrob from a bygone era.

Tobias Menzies is best known as Brutus in Rome and Edmure Tully on Game of Thrones – both times the nice guy forced into a brutal situation. He appeared in A Very Social Secretary, a satire on Tony Blair and the British government, as well as The Honourable Woman, about a strong heroine in conflict who parallels Claire. He began in popular British series such as Foyle’s War, Midsomer Murders, and Casualty.

Graham McTavish (Dougal) is Dwalin in The Hobbit movies and Loki on the cartoon The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. A Scot, he also played the ill-tempered Mercenary Commander Lewis in Rambo alongside Sylvester Stallone.

Lotte Verbeek (Geillis) always plays the femme fatale who operates through powerful men. She’s Lidewij, secretary for a great writer, in The Fault in Our Stars. On The Borgias, she’s Giulia Farnese, a mistress of Rodrigo Borgia. As she encourages Lucrezia’s confidences and protects her from the French army, Giulia parallels Geillis in several ways. Her actress is Dutch, giving her a sense of not-quite-fitting in ancient Scotland.

Scottish actor Bill Paterson was in The Killing Fields, Comfort and Joy, A Private Function, Richard III, Law and Order: UK, Doctor Who, and Little Dorrit. He told The Scotsman: “I play Ned Gowan, an Edinburgh lawyer, who is a bit of an adventurer. He gives up the brass plates on his door and sets off to the Highlands for a bit of late adventure in life. He helps the clan chief to collect rent, but has got a double-dealing thing going on.” He describes it as “a lovely wee part,” adding, “I thought it was just going to be a cameo, but I’ve been on the show since February and have got another ten days or so to go on it” (Ferguson).

Duncan Lacroix, Murtagh, has brief parts in Reign and Game of Thrones. He plays Ealdorman Werferth on the show Vikings. Annette Badland, the middle-aged mayor and Slitheen villainess from Doctor Who, plays play the charming but dominant Mrs. Fitzgibbons.

“Angus Mhor,” Stephen Walters from Layer Cake (the movie said to have gotten Daniel Craig his role as James Bond) also appeared in Hannibal Rising and Batman Begins. Colum MacKenzie is Gary Lewis from Billy Elliot, Gangs of New York, Eragon and Three and Out. The Credits Discussing the striking song chosen for the credits, series composer

Bear McCreary explains: We performed “The Skye Boat Song,” one of the most famous Scottish folk tunes, one that is known to be about the Jacobite uprising, during which Outlander takes place. The lyrics are taken from the lesser-known Robert Louis Stevenson text, with one alteration in the gender of the speaker, which helps the song relate to Claire’s character. (“Comic Con 2014 Highlights”)

Since Stevenson was born in 1850, this is certainly an anachronism, but the song is one of the more famous Scottish songs, describing the flight of Prince Charlie. From the first episode, he is thus doomed to fail in his rebellion and flee with Flora MacDonald “over the sea to Skye.” Stevenson’s version replaces the original Jacobite lyrics of the battle with more lyrical, dreamy ones: Sing me a song of a lad that is gone, Say, could that lad be I? Merry of soul he sailed on a day Over the sea to Skye.

Mull was astern, Rum on the port, Eigg on the starboard bow; Glory of youth glowed in his soul; Where is that glory now?

Sing me a song of a lad that is gone, Say, could that lad be I? Merry of soul he sailed on a day Over the sea to Skye.

Give Give Give Give

me me me me

again all that was there, the sun that shone! the eyes, give me the soul, the lad that’s gone!

Sing me a song of a lad that is gone, Say, could that lad be I? Merry of soul he sailed on a day Over the sea to Skye.

Billow and breeze, islands and seas, Mountains of rain and sun, All that was good, all that was fair, All that was me is gone.

The Outlander theme tune excerpts a short portion of this, changing the character’s gender to indicate Claire: Sing me a song of a lass that is gone, Say, could that lass be I? Merry of soul she sailed on a day Over the sea to Skye.

Billow and breeze, islands and seas, Mountains of rain and sun, All that was good, all that was fair, All that was me is gone.

Sing me a song of a lass that is gone, Say, could that lass be I? Merry of soul she sailed on a day Over the sea to Skye

McCreary adds, “The Main Title builds energy, until at last it bursts into a rousing march of Great Highland Bagpipes and signature Scottish snare drums” (“Comic Con 2014 Highlights”). The Circle Dancers swirl, juxtaposed with scenes of Claire’s adventure (horse riding, wound stitching, romance, Frank, Jaime…). Thus the story unfolds in glimpses in between the stone circle dancers that hurled Claire into the past. The lyrics themselves emphasize the Jacobite storyline but also Claire’s connection with the natural world as she abandons a proper English world of cars and electricity for the beautiful green Highlands. Like the poem’s speaker, Claire embarks on a magical journey to far off lands, where she must unravel questions of identity and destiny.

First Person The books recount Claire’s story in first person. Later, other points of view are added (Roger in book two, Jaime and Lord John in three, Brianna in four), but they remain third person, leaving Claire’s “voice” the audience’s most direct line in the books much as in the show. Thus her early twenty century idioms and humor predominate.

Gabaldon explains, “I think I may have felt most comfortable with this (aside from the minor fact that Claire Beauchamp Randall took over and began telling the story herself); because many of my

favorite works of literature are first person narratives” (Outlandish Companion 372). As she adds, “If you look at the classic novels of the English language, roughly half of them are written in the first person, from Moby-Dick to David Copperfield, Swiss Family Robinson, Treasure Island – even large chunks of the Bible are written in the first person!” (Outlandish Companion 372).

Caitriona Balfe expounds, “It’s kind of unusual, this job, because so much of it is told through Claire’s perspective and I think it’s unusual to have a show where you have kind of one actor who’s predom-inantly in every scene. So there’s a responsibility that comes with that.” As she concludes, “But I think that’s one of the great things about this job is that it’s really shown me that I can step up to the plate and do something like this and it’s been a really incredible experience” (Lash).

On the show, the narration can feel quite heavy – as a first person book, it’s much less noticeable. The prologues, however, like the show, provide the one character a chance to speak directly… sometimes someone who isn’t Claire. “To me, the prologue is essentially the voice of the book speaking, if that makes any sense,” Gabaldon explains (Outlandish Companion 361). As she adds, “Evidently, either the abridger or Ms. James decided (they didn’t ask me) that the prologues of the first three books should be read in Claire’s voice, while the Drums of Autumn prologue was read in Brianna’s voice” (Outlandish Companion 361).

Oddly, there are no subtitles on the show. Moore wanted to keep the show first person – since Claire can’t understand the Gaelic, the audience shouldn’t either. “You’re very much with Claire,” Moore notes. “Stranger in a strange land” (Episode Podcasts 101). In the books, Claire generally summarizes the gist of the speech or expresses confusion over it. Following this point of view, 1940’s music follows Claire occasionally through her scenes in the past.

Likewise, the blurring filming in “Both Sides Now” emphasizes Claire’s disorientation and trauma during the redcoats’ near rape. It allows viewers “to be in Claire’s reality” with “a skewed sense of time and place,” as Moore explains (Podcast, 108).

On the show’s wedding night, Jaime gets to tell the flashbacks from his point of view. Moore has mentioned in interviews that the second half of the first season will feature Jaime’s voiceovers as well as Claire’s, adding a new perspective to the story. While Gabaldon has not precisely written a work like Midnight Sun (which was created to retell Twilight from the hero’s point of view instead of the heroine’s), the Outlander comic The Exile has some parallels.

The comic emphasizes Jaime’s story, as he returns from France, horrified by the fact that he killed an innocent young prostitute while trying to defend her (this story is also shown in “Virgins”). Still stunned, Jaime renounces violence and war, only to be dragged into intrigue and conflict. Murtagh meets him at the coast to keep him alive and protected. Meanwhile, Dougal and his men quickly take Jaime and Murtagh into a polite captivity, as the two men try to escape. As they ride together, this time with Claire among then, Dougal thinks, “Damn yon woman! If not for her, I might be rid of my dangerous nephew by now.” After the Gathering settles matters, Murtagh tries to save Jaime from marrying Claire – by force if necessary. In the comic, which is from Jaime and Murtagh’s point of view, all the Gaelic is translated with footnotes since they speak the language. There’s also a subplot with another time traveler named Kenneth who’s working with Geillis, The 1940s Gabaldon chose to make Claire specifically a World War II nurse because of the conditions and technology of the time. A nurse from this period would be accustomed to the brutality of war and to making do with limited resources. Unlike a modern nurse, she wouldn’t bemoan the lack of MRI machines but would understand field medicine. Antibiotics were new and in use, but older remedies were still around.

While techniques such as bleeding and purging had been abandoned, many older techniques – wounddressing and surgical practices – were still in common use. Therefore, a nurse who had worked under combat conditions in World War II would not find the conditions of the eighteenth-century Highlands to be nearly as strange or unusual as would a more modern medical practitioner. … While Claire is appalled at the lack of hygiene, the ignorance of nutrition, the crudity of surgical procedures, and so on – these are all matters of general medical knowledge that the modern reader also shares. Therefore, a person reading of Claire’s perceptions and adventures – bone-setting, woundstitching, curing fevers – would feel herself (or himself) very much in her shoes. (Outlandish Companion 196-197)

On the show, the added World War II scenes show Claire’s skillset and capability before she must rely on her medical training in the past.

Gabaldon also anticipated sending her character forward in time, and hesitated to date herself by being unaware of new technology twenty years in the future if the books took place in 2010, for instance. Claire’s returning after the 1940s would solve the problem.

As she adds: I didn’t realize it consciously at the time, but there was another reason for the choice of World War II as Claire’s original time – that being the “echo” between the Jacobite Rising and the Second World War, in terms of the effect of these conflicts on society. The ‘45 put an end to the feudal system of the Highland clans, and – as a side effect – threw a large number of Scottish immigrants out into the New World, where they contributed extensively to the development of what would become America. In a similar way, the disruptions and displacements of World War II resulted in a much larger wave of immigrants, who in their turn altered American society and contributed greatly to its modern form. (Outlandish Companion 198)

In Frank’s car, he listens to “A radio thing of Patton’s death” – around Christmas time in 1945 (Podcast, 108). There’s a parallel for Frank and Claire – both have just survived the war, only to encounter disaster just after.

In the forties, book and show do much to set the scene. Claire describes constant power outages and a pay-spout of hot water in the bathroom. Several times, she marvels at the end to rationing. As she notes, “those cottages near the road were nice. The bloom of postwar prosperity had spread as far as a new coat of paint, and even the manse, which must be at least a hundred years old, sported bright yellow trim around its sagging windowframes” (Outlander, ch. 3).

Caitriona Balfe adds: I personally love the ‘40s clothes Claire wears. That blue coat is fantastic! And that nightgown I got to wear in episode one, it’s so devastating that I only got to wear it for one scene because it was just fabulous! It was silk chiffon, and sort of 1940s Hollywood glamour. It was the one thing that we had decided that Claire had bought for her trip away. Even at that time, they were still rationing, so a lot of the ‘40s stuff is still from those patterns, those austerity patterns, but this is the one thing she had kind of splurged on, you know? (Vineyard)

“In Britain, clothes rationing was introduced in June 1941 to control not only the number of garments that might be purchased, but also the type and amount of material used in their manufacture, and restrictions were not lifted until 1949” (Nunn 207). Large numbers of suits bore the “Utility” label, easy to manufacture. Men’s suits were made with low wool content in plain navy, brown, or grey, with narrow, single-breasted jackets, no waistcoats, and trousers without pleats or turn-ups (Nunn 218). Women’s suits were blocky and simple, with three buttons only and very few pockets. Even more in occupied countries, hats were made of old curtains, plaited straw, or colored paper, while fabric and yarn for new clothes were repurposed from older garments.

Onscreen, Claire dons housedresses and suits, while Terry Dresbach, the show’s costume designer, has Frank in a Fedora like Cary Grant or Jimmy Stewart. As she adds: “Ron [Moore] always says these are two periods of war, but Britain after World War II was decimated. You still see and you still feel the ramifications. It was a place without color and a lot of joy and happiness” (Friedlander).

Dresbach comments on Claire and Frank’s wedding clothes on her blog (July 2014): Claire and Frank are getting married just as the war is breaking out, and while there is still optimism in the air, it is a more somber time. Ron [Moore, the show’s creator and Dresbach’s husband] wanted the clothes to be very faded as in an old photo, so we used tones of grey and brown. But Claire is in love, and it shows up in her jaunty little hat, tipped over one eye. We wanted her suit to carry through some of the deco lines of the 30s, but showing the direction of women’s fashions to come during the war years. It is a very tailored, masculine style, nothing frilly or frivolous.

This suits Claire’s character very well, and tells us a lot about who she is. She is a strong and savvy young woman, filled with optimism.

As she adds, “The later scenes with Frank, these are the stolen moments in the midst of war, and the peachy blush color of the peignoir coveys the romance they are trying to hold onto in spite of the war that surrounds them.”

The show also uses period music to set the scene. Composer Bear McCreary explains: I found the clarinet remarkably effective at signifying

our jump in time, every bit as useful as the saturated color scheme and the sounds of cars and telephones.

Because we would never otherwise hear a clarinet in the score, its presence announces to our subconscious minds that the narrative is leaping back to where we began. In the first episode, Frank’s Theme was wistful, nostalgic and romantic. In “Both Sides Now,” I altered the harmonic progression beneath the clarinet to highlight Frank’s sullen despair and loneliness; however, the melody remains the same. (“Outlander: The Garrison Commander, The Wedding, Both Sides Now”)

Ron Moore wanted forties music “that wasn’t instantly recognizable” rather than doing the “best of” hits, and these also serves to set the scene (Episode Podcasts 101). The first episode features “I’m Gonna Get Lit Up (When The Lights Go On In London)” as recorded by Carroll Gibbons & Savoy Hotel Orpheans and “Shuffle Rhythm” as recorded by Jan Savitt & His Top Hatters on the radio as Claire and Frank go driving together. In the Reverend’s library, “Beneath The Lights Of Home” plays, recorded by Geraldo & His Orchestra. “Run Rabbit Run,” recorded by Harry Roy & His Band emphasizes the time period as Claire reads in her room, then provides a jarring dissonance as she runs from British soldiers in the past. The forties music follows her through her eighteenth century adventure, emphasizing her role as modern point of view character.

The World War II footage is grainy like war footage and desaturated, almost to black and white. The 1740s are filmed with brighter colors. Moore notes, “Some of that is the on-set cinematography. We talk a lot about lighting it differently and shooting it slightly differently. And then, in post-production, we play with color timings and saturation levels, and all of those technical things, to give a separation between the two periods” (Radish).

“Claire, even in her own time, was not necessarily a normal woman,” Balfe admits of her character. “She’s quite timeless. She’s always been very feisty and modern in a sense. The ‘40s were a great time for emancipation for women because in the war, they were going to work and [doing] things that they hadn’t had the opportunity to do before. So that side of Claire felt quite accessible. And then going back to the 1700s, that clash of ideals, you don’t have to look too far to find that in our own time.” (Prudom, “Strong Female”)

The Episodes

Showrunner Ron Moore set up the first episode so fans would “root for Claire and Frank as a couple” and “hope that they’re gonna work it out.” This is necessary to show why Claire is so desperate to return (Episode Podcast 101). There’s also a Frank and Claire flashbacks thread, meant to make Frank more likeable and show why Claire is so eager to return to him. Moore explains the decision to use flashbacks during a group interview at San Diego Comic-Con: “So much of the show is her drive to get back to that life and to get back to Frank and I didn’t want to lose touch with that. I thought it was important that the audience keep understanding why she keeps trying to get back to those stones. What’s waiting for her? What’s that life she led? Otherwise, why wouldn’t she just hang around here?

“You have to understand her relationship with Frank and understand that for her, that’s home,” he continues.

“You have to remind the audience each week and show them more because they’re going to get really invested in the show in the 18th century but she’s trying to go to this other place. It’s important to keep touching it every once and a while to remind everyone.” (Schwartz)

Claire’s relationship with Frank is a little bolder on the show – not only are the sex scenes more graphic, but in Castle Leoch, Claire directs the action. Her actress explains: What was really important for us, and this was something we talked about with Ron [Moore] from the beginning, is that we want to show that Claire owns her own sexuality. I think that’s why we liked that scene, and we liked that she was the one sort of asking for it, and she was the one directing Frank what to do, and I think it shows quite an important side of her character.

Like we’re so used to seeing women being objectified, and as objects of desire of men, but it is very rare when you see a woman owning her own sexuality, and directing it, or orchestrating the sequence of events!

(Vineyard)

The scenes have interesting correspondences with the present, as Claire explores the same Castle Leoch in both times or marries Frank, then Jaime. Frank’s saying goodbye to her as she goes off to war in an episode three flashback emphasizes that for the first time she realizes she’s stuck in the past.

Other people and scenes subtly changed. Moore left out Roger in episode one, since there were simply “too many elements.” When he decided the Reverend Wakefield would be helping in the hunt for Claire in the eighth episode, Roger and Mrs. Graham smoothly worked into the scene. Beltane is changed to Samhain, which serves to make the story creepier and more ghostly.

Filming takes place at Castle Doune, famously used in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Unlike in the books, Frank and Claire visit Castle Leoch in the future, when it’s nothing but a crumbled ruin. As she explores the castle in the eighteenth century, she can’t help recalling her steamy moments with Frank in the very room that becomes her surgery.

Other touches emphasize the story’s roots in a subtle, spiritual magic. The circle dancers are portrayed as beautiful and mystical, in the credits as well as the first episode. On the travel itself, Moore specifically didn’t want to do “a scifi light show” instead he preferred the car crash metaphor, brought to life and shown to the audience (Inside the Episode 101).

There are several fake-outs, as episode three has an imaginary sequence in which Claire tells Mrs. Fitz she’s a time traveler and is denounced as a witch. In “The Gathering,” she appears to be running for her life, but is instead playing tag with the children. Writerproducer Matt Roberts adds: From episode three to four, we wanted to show that maybe three weeks or a month have passed. To do that, we had to show that she was comfortable in her surroundings, that the people there were more comfortable with her – in the opening scene when she’s playing with the children and they talk about how they played the day before and the day before, and where Angus and Rupert are much more easygoing with her, where they’re asking her if they can go somewhere rather than ordering her. Hopefully other people will see that too. (Ng, “‘Outlander’ Producer on Brutal Death Scene”)

New (or expanded) scenes appear as Claire saves a child from poisoning and defies the priest in the third episode. Father Bain’s early introduction foreshadows his conflict with Claire, giving him a reason to torment her later and emphasizing the clash between superstition and science. His theme song, a disturbing, organ-like drone, adds menace. This story gives Claire more time with Geillis and a chance to realize how superstitious the Highlanders are.

As Jaime translates for Claire: Now this one is about a man out late on a fairy hill on the eve of Samhain who hears the sound of a woman singing sad and plaintive from the very rocks of the hill.

“I am a woman of Balnain. The folk have stolen me over again,” the stones seemed to say. “I stood upon the hill, and wind did rise, and the sound of thunder rolled across the land. I placed my hands upon the tallest stone and traveled to a far, distant land where I lived for a time among strangers who became lovers and friends.

But one day, I saw the moon came out and the wind rose once more. So I touched the stones and traveled back to my own land and took up again with the man I had left behind.” (Episode 103)

“The Woman of Balnain” appears in the books, but on the show, the plot has even more of a correspondence, as the woman stolen through the stones grieves for her new lover as well as her old one.

McCreary adds: Due to the realities of production schedules, “The Woman of Balnain,” the song that concludes this episode, was actually the first music I ever composed for Outlander. The lyrics are by Diana Gabaldon herself, from her books, and getting to set them for this collaboration was the perfect way to start my experience on this series! … Gillebrìde’s vocal performance is moving, and the newly recorded harp bridges the performance in the hall with the instrumentation in the score. Even with the layers of source music and score, I think the story is easy to track, and more importantly, the emotional impact is there. We feel Claire’s growing elation and surge of adrenaline as she discovers there may yet be a way to get home. (“Outlander: The Way Out, The Gathering and Rent”)

“The Gathering” features folksongs “The Haughs o’ Cromdale,” and “Clean Pease Strae,” (the latter during the Shinty game). All the steps of Claire’s escape attempt gain immediacy as she makes her plans, and she takes additional time to joke with her two “escorts,” helping Angus and Rupert gain more personality as the comic relief. Claire’s scenes with Jaime and the Gathering are much the same as in the books.

The rent collecting trip expands many moments, as Claire tries

to become one of the men, or at least find some acceptance, and cracks dirty jokes they learn to appreciate. She also tells Ned the truth about the future: NED: You sound as though the future has already been decided. Outmanned we may be, but I would match our fighting hearts against the best army in the world.”

CLAIRE: Fighting hearts don’t stand a chance against cannons. You are going to lose.

NED: That’s your opinion. And you’re entitled to it.”

CLAIRE: It’s a fact, Ned. You have to believe me. History will never record the name of another Stuart king, but it will record the names of thousands of highlanders who’ve died needlessly for a doomed cause.

Meanwhile, traditional music emphasizes the culture as well as the themes when Claire explores the larger world outside Castle Leoch.

The folksong “To the Begging I Will Go” plays as Dougal collects funds. Composer Bear McCreary explains: “With the series now tying directly into the politics of the era, I felt compelled to use folk tunes to help establish the narrative” (“Outlander: The Way Out, The Gathering and Rent”). McCreary adds, “Some of the most authentic folk music you will hear this season is in this episode, in the scenes with the wool waulking group, and the traveling songs the Scots sing” (“Outlander: The Way Out, The Gathering and Rent”). The wool waulking song is “Mo Nighean Donn,” chosen as a nod to Jaime’s nickname for Claire.

By the fire, the men sing “The Maid Gaed to the Mill” (a bawdy song about a woman and a miller who “grinds her corn,” along sung in A Breath of Snow and Ashes). With a Jacobite flair, “The Skye Boat Song” calls attention and gravity to the moment when Claire finally understands Dougal’s true intentions. Scots who have been crucified along the side of the road hang to the tune of “The Highland Widow’s Lament,” with the most famous lyrics by Robert Burns, though it is certainly conceivable that the melody itself existed during 1743. Later there’s a rousing bar brawl underscored with “The High Road to Linton.” The last folk tune in “Rent” appears during Claire’s flashback of visiting Culloden and the tune “Ye Jacobites by Name” plays, sadly saluting the lost cause.

Throughout the episode, the Black Watch and the British soldiers expand their roles from the books, with more of each seen individually. “Rent” finally ends with a cliffhanger as the redcoats dramatically offer to rescue Claire from the MacKenzies.

“The Garrison Commander” is expanded enormously. “In the book it’s a very short section – it’s really only a couple of pages” but Moore wanted to “Expand it and make it a big cat and mouse game between Jack and Claire” as the heroine and villain face off for the first time (Inside the World, 106). The whipping flashback appears in great, horrifying detail, completely from Randall’s perspective, emphasizing his sadism and need to dominate. The episode also features a large fake out, as Randall apologizes to Claire for the nearrape and has her convinced he’s trying to change. She presumably sees much of Frank in him and is comforted by the traces of goodness she thinks she perceives. Suddenly, he punches her in the stomach and tells her he’s bad all the way through, shocking the television fans, while reassuring the book fans he hasn’t changed.

When Claire says there’s good in him, Jack Randall responds “it would be pretty to think so,” suggesting her belief is only optimistic fantasy. He’s quite introspective and self-aware, however, and with his massive monologues, he shares all this with the audience. “It’s an opportunity to sort of get deeper into Jack Randall and who he is,” Moore adds (Inside the World, 106).

Describing the music for the British officers at dinner (strikingly different from the Scottish instruments normally heard, Bear McCreary explains: Arne was a British composer of the time period, best known to modern-day audiences for his patriotic songs “Rule, Britannia!” and “God Save the King,” which would eventually become the British National Anthem.

Obviously, any of those melodies would have been distracting too ‘on the nose’ for a scene like this, but Adam sent me an elegant little piece Arne composed for harpsichord and viola da gamba, “Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind.” I made some simple adjustments to the arrangement, and found that it fit the scene perfectly.

The harpsichord and viola da gamba evoke upper class parlor music, while music history buffs will chuckle knowing that the tune was composed by a composer arguably more associated with the might of the British empire than any other. ( “Outlander: The Garrison Commander, The Wedding, Both Sides Now”)

The wedding episode puts events out of sequence, beginning with the wedding night, and following with Jaime’s stories of the wedding preparations then the ceremony itself – which a hung over Claire barely remembers. In the book, the wedding scene is all from

Claire’s point of view, and Jaime is the one to have his wedding clothes suddenly, gloriously revealed when they meet. One reason for the flashback series is likely to break up the long sequence of sex scenes. This also makes the circumstances of the day something Claire and Jaime can discuss, along with stories of their families, as they get acquainted.

The scavenger hunt emphasizes the community’s effort at getting the couple wed, emphasized again in the ribbing Jaime takes afterwards. Nonetheless, Ned Gowan negotiating with half-dressed whores for the dress seems unnecessary, as does the humorous sequence with the priest…complete with arguments over Bible verses. Costume designer Terry Dresbach comments on the wedding dress: This is a dress that they found at a local whorehouse.

When Ron told me that, I screamed at him for about four hours. Like really? You realize that whores wear clothes that advertise they’re whores, right? That’s the whole point.

Then he concocted the idea that the dress had been paid for by a wealthy man for services, so they had this dress stashed away in the back. That allowed us the liberty to make something spectacular and amazing.

(Friedlander)

The Ned and the Prostitutes scene in the wedding episode features the bawdy tune “Celia Learning on the Spinnet.” This plot too comes out as unnecessary. Admittedly, there’s some humor in Jaime’s delivery. As he recounts all the incidents to Claire and she protests, “Oh come on, now you’re just making things up” they add a tinge of the unreliable narrator to the scene – it’s actually not certain that television events proceeded as Jaime and Ned recount them.

Meanwhile, Murtagh stands out for the first time, and starts to show himself as Jaime’s most trusted companion. As his one relative on the Fraser side and sworn man among the Castle Leoch crowd, Murtagh is meant to be the one man Jaime truly trusts. In the wedding episode, Jamie wants the blessing of his family as he reminiscences about his mother and discusses his father for the first time. Murtagh offers the line, “Your mother had the sweetest smile…

Claire’s smile is just as sweet.” In fact, as book fans already know, Murtagh was in love once and has a romantic side behind the gruffness.

While show Jaime merely seems desperate for sex, book-Jaime is

very sensitive about Claire’s conflict. His opening line when they’re alone isn’t a toast to her beauty at all: “Tell me about your husband,” said Jamie, as though he had been reading my mind. I almost jerked my hands away in shock. …

“Well, I knew ye must be thinking of him. Ye could hardly not, under the circumstances. I do not want ye ever to feel as though ye canna talk of him to me. Even though I’m your husband now – that feels verra strange to say – it isna right that ye should forget him, or even try to. If ye loved him, he must ha’ been a good man.”

“Yes, he… was.” My voice trembled, and Jamie stroked the backs of my hands with his thumbs.

“Then I shall do my best to honor his spirit by serving his wife.” He raised my hands and kissed each one formally.

I cleared my throat. “That was a very gallant speech, Jamie.”

He grinned suddenly. “Aye. I made it up while Dougal was making toasts downstairs.”

I took a deep breath. “I have questions,” I said. … “If you don’t mind telling me. Why did you agree to marry me?”

“Ah.” He let go of my hands and sat back a bit. He paused for a moment before answering, smoothing the woolen cloth over his thighs. I could see the long line of muscle taut under the drape of the heavy fabric.

“Well, I would ha’ missed talking to ye, for one thing,” he said, smiling.

“No, I mean it,” I insisted. “Why?” He sobered then. “Before I tell ye, Claire, there’s the one thing I’d ask of you,” he said slowly.

“What’s that?”

“Honesty.”

I must have flinched uncomfortably, for he leaned forward earnestly, hands on his knees.

“I know there are things ye’d not wish to tell me, Claire. Perhaps things that ye can’t tell me.”

You don’t know just how right you are, I thought.

“I’ll not press you, ever, or insist on knowin’ things that are your own concern,” he said seriously. He looked down at his hands, now pressed together, palm to palm.

“There are things that I canna tell you, at least not yet. And I’ll ask nothing of ye that ye canna give me.

But what I would ask of ye – when you do tell me something, let it be the truth. And I’ll promise ye the

same. We have nothing now between us, save – respect, perhaps. And I think that respect has maybe room for secrets, but not for lies. Do ye agree?” He spread his hands out, palms up, inviting me. I could see the dark line of the blood vow across his wrist. I placed my own hands lightly on his palms.

“Yes, I agree. I’ll give you honesty.” His fingers closed lightly about mine.

“And I shall give ye the same.” (Outlander, ch. 15)

On the show he’s more eager for affection than words. When Claire looks distraught, Jaime gives her pearls or distracts her with compliments, rather than approaching her from a place of straightforward understanding.

In “Both Sides Now,” tiny Roger is introduced, to the delight of fans who missed him on Frank’s first visit to the Reverend Wakefield – he’s the Reverend’s adopted son after his parents were killed in the war, and he will be important to the series later on. Mrs. Graham also reappears to tell that she suspects people can travel 200 years as per the folklore. In the books, there’s no evidence she’s guessed this, but it’s certainly possible as she’s the leader of the dancers. The episode also shows Frank’s plot in the 1940s as he searches hopelessly for Claire. Moore notes that Frank naturally suspects the Highlander ghost of stealing his wife. “In some ways he’s right but only in ways he cannot possibly understand” (Podcast, 108). Unlike in the books, Claire gets close enough to touch the standing stones, with Frank rushing towards them on his own side. The drama as Claire is ripped away is thus that much stronger.

Katniss the Cattail An Unauthorized Guide to Names and Symbols in Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games

Big Three Katniss

“Katniss” is of course the cattail root, as she tells us. But it is a heavily nourishing plant, important to Katniss who sees herself as the provider for her family. Her entire life is devoted to nourishing, first as a hunter/gatherer, and then as the wealthy Victor of the games.

Katniss describes her special plant as tall with white blossoms and “leaves like arrowheads” (HG 52). Of all the nourishing plants in the world, Katniss is probably the most arrowlike—a perfect match for our heroine. She adds that the roots don’t look like much, but are as nourishing as a potato (HG 52). Katniss, from District Twelve, likewise doesn’t look like much, but she’s just as good, it turns out, as any of the children from the wealthier districts.

The plants of the forest are part of Katniss, so much so that the katniss roots give her her name. “As long as you can find yourself, you’ll never starve,” her father teases (HG 52). While this is literally true, Katniss survives by keeping herself grounded —remembering who she is and what she cares for. Indeed, if she can find herself under so many costumes and identities like the Mockingjay, she will survive. Though the Capitol trains its Tributes in brutality, encouraging them to turn on each other, Katniss follows her instinctive compassion and bonds with Rue and Peeta in the Games. This saves her in the end.

Elizabeth Baird Hardy, author of Milton, Spenser, and the Chronicles of Narnia: Literary Sources for the C.S. Lewis Novels has an interesting observation on the katniss plant: It is known as duck-potato, appropriate for someone whose sister always has a duck tail…but also as swan potato, wapatoo, tule potato, and, most commonly, as arrowhead, a name reflected in its Latin moniker— Sagittaria (or “belonging to an arrow”; the constellation Sagittarius, of course, is an archer).

Katniss’ name comes from the Zodiac sign of the archer (the sign for those born November 22 through December 21). Sagittarius, according to Greek myth, may have been the centaur Chiron, a kind and gentle figure known for forest lore and The Zodiac for training young heroes. More scholarly sources symbol for link Sagittarius with Crotus, the satyr or half-goat Sagittarius man who dwelt deep in the forest. He was a great musician and tracker, inventor of the hunting bow (“Crotus”).

Centaurs and satyrs are creatures of nature and the forest, a link between man and animal, hunter and hunted. For both of these mythic figures, there’s a clear link with Katniss.

Suzanne Collins notes that “Katniss Everdeen owes her last name to Bathsheba Everdene, the lead character in Far from the Madding Crowd. The two are very different, but both struggle with knowing their hearts” (Jordan). In this classic novel by Thomas Hardy, Bathsheba Everdene is courted by a rich landowner and by a poor shepherd who proposes marriage when they’re equals but then ends up working for her. Katniss, too grows up equal to Gale, her hunting partner, but then becomes as rich as Peeta, leaving Gale and his romantic plans far behind.

Bathsheba, like Katniss, struggles between two such different men, one gentle and chaste (Peeta comments that he’s never cared for a girl besides Katniss) and one more violent, temperamental, and experienced in romance. After betrayal and abandonment by the more violent man, Bathsheba finally weds the humble shepherd. The romantic pattern indeed seems to echo Katniss’s struggle between her equal in warfare, Gale, and the humble baker, Peeta.

Everdeen is also two letters off from “evergreen,” fitting well with the plant names of the outer districts. Evergreen pines are eaten several times in the series, offering another wholesome plant in a world of starvation. Like the katniss plant, evergreens are sharp and pointed, in this case with rough needles and pinecones to defend themselves. They, like our heroine, thrive in areas of low nutrition—in fact, the low nutrition prompts them to be evergreen, as losing leaves means losing nutrients (Aerts). These trees appear at Christmas as a celebration of life, as they’re healthy and strong even in the winter (and, significantly, even under vicious snow. Or President Snow). They symbolize a new

beginning and reincarnation of the world into a newer, better year.

Though the world is dark, sunlight and springtime will come again. This is a perfect symbol of Katniss Everdeen, remaker of the world.

Peeta

Peeta, an apparently meaningless word with Collins’s spelling, has many homophones, or soundalikes. “Pita” is a kind of bread, a humble, simple one that’s as far from “puffed up” as it gets. “The flat dense loaves” of District Twelve (HG 7) might even resemble pita bread. If Katniss’s father, a gatherer, named her thus, and Thresh, Seeder, and other children are named for their district jobs, Peeta’s bread name in his bakery family would make sense.

In Michelangelo’s famous sculpture, the Pietà (another homophone), Mary cradles a dead Jesus. In all three books, it is Katniss’s role to nurture Peeta and unlock the gentle mothering side of her nature. In book one, he is dying from a wound in his leg (prompting much literal cradling). Book two, he momentarily dies from electric shock; book three, Michelangelo’s Pietà Katniss must help him through the Capitol’s brainwashing and learn to love him. Pietà is Italian for pity—in all three books, Katniss must connect with Peeta through pity, compassion, and love to assure their survival. Of course, Peeta is sacrificed at the end of Catching Fire, so that Katniss and the others can escape.

Many scholars, particularly the “Hogwarts Professor” John Granger see this as a Christlike moment: “Peeta,” the man of town and “Boy with the Bread,” has a name that means bread (pita) as well as a vocation as a bread baker. As a child, he gives two loaves of bread to Katniss that he purchases sacrificially (he is beaten

for it by his mother), bread which saves her from physical starvation and the eating of which immediately inspires her to think of her “Family Book” and the means to provide for her mother and sister. His bread, in effect, saves her. In a world named “Bread” (Panem is the accusative case form of the Latin word for Bread), I think it is transparent that Peeta or “Peter” is an icon of the Christ, the world creator, Who in St. Peter’s church at least, is received as Bread, and Who loves the world and every soul in it sacrificially. (“Unlocking ‘The Hunger Games’”)

Peter was a humble fisherman who became Jesus’ first disciple, just as Peeta is the first to fight by Katniss’s side and believe in her. Peter may be most famous for denying Jesus when all the disciples were pursued by Romans. This echoes Peeta’s own rejection of Katniss after the Capitol’s torture and brainwashing. Peter too suffered at the hands of the Roman government. According to legend, he was executed as a scapegoat by the tyrannical Roman Emperor Nero. The Christians were rebels in the Roman Empire, but finally became its rulers, a scenario that plays out in Panem.

PETA is also the acronym for the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. For gentle, pacifist Peeta who never hunts, this too is an appropriate label. While Katniss is found gutting rabbits and shooting squirrels, Peeta bakes bread and frosts cookies, providing his friends with vegetarian bounty.

Melark might be a portmanteau (or squashing-together) of “meadowlark,” a nature symbol like so many names of District Twelve. The lark is a symbol of merriment and joy as it sings to welcome the daybreak. His last name also resembles “malarkey,” a word for misleading speech or foolishness, like “tomfoolery” or “fiddlesticks.” Katniss notes how Peeta always makes people feel better: “Ironic, encouraging, a little funny, but not at anyone’s expense” (M 299). Though Peeta jokes and lifts Katniss’s spirits, he’s not excessively foolish—but that’s what Katniss must come to realize. Before the Games, she easily dismisses him as dead weight, unable to hunt or fight. In time, however, she comes to value him and even his laughter. “This is why they’ve made it this far. Haymitch and Peeta. Nothing throws them,” Katniss thinks as the men joke loudly to distract suspicious Peacekeepers (CF 156).

Gale

Some may be surprised Gale isn’t named for a plant. In fact, he is: Sweet gale or myrica gale (also known as bayberry or bog myrtle) is a bushy shrub with bittertasting leaves. It’s versatile for many rural uses just as Gale himself is an excellent trapper, hunter, and gatherer: The branches Bayberry plant can be used for beer making, and the cones, for candlewax, the leaves for scenting sheets, the bark for tanning skins. Boiling it produces a yellow dye, or it can be made into a natural insect repellent. Since beavers love eating it, they build dams near clusters of gale and in doing so create traps for fish, an echo of Gale with his excellent snares (Grieve).

The more obvious meaning of gale is a mighty wind that can blow down houses and mighty trees. Gale as a revolutionary is just such an uncontrolled force as he demands the deaths of everyone in the Capitol and in District Two in vengeance for his losses. The weapons he designs are cruel enough to worry Katniss, and are finally turned on his own side as well as the enemy. As an unrestrained gale, he harms both sides in the war.

Granger has a different take on the wind connection with his name: Gale, the man of the woods, free and unbound except for his family obligations, is an embodiment of Nature, a “gale force wind” of spirit and the experience of natural beauty. His relationship with Katniss is platonic despite their spending years in each other’s company and both leading lives deprived of touch and love. He fosters rather than challenges Katniss’s purity, freedom, and individual strength or identity. (“Unlocking ‘The Hunger Games’”)

Further references to the name Gale appear in military history.

It’s not a surprise that there are many military names in the book, as Suzanne Collins heard much about the armed forces in her youth. As she explained in an interview: My father was career Air Force. He was in the Air Force for 30-some years. He was also a Vietnam veteran. He

was there the year I was six. Beyond that, though, he was a doctor of political science, a military specialist, and a historian; he was a very intelligent man. And he felt that it was part of his responsibility to teach us, his children, about history and war…If you went to a battleground with my father, you would hear what led up to the battle. You would hear about the war. You would have the battle reenacted for you, I mean, verbally, and then the fallout from the battle. And having been in a war himself and having come from a family in which he had a brother in World War II and a father in World War I, these were not distant or academic questions for him. (Margolis)

Humphrey Gale was Chief Administrative Officer of Lieutenant General Dwight Eisenhower’s Allied Forces Headquarters (AFHQ) during World War II. The British and American administrative systems differed so greatly that separate AFHQ organizations had to be established. Gale’s job, which Eisenhower called “unique in the history of war,” was to coordinate the two (Playfair et al.). Katniss is used to the life-ordeath struggle of the Hunger Games but not to District Thirteen’s army training or command system. Gale is the one to manage a grieving Katniss and help her present her demands to President Coin as he becomes liaison between the two worlds.

General Sir Richard Nelson “Windy” Gale learned enough from his ordeal in fighting World War I to challenge military thinking of the time and try to revolutionize procedures during World War II. With a suspicion of firepower-led operations, he argued for more stealth training and insisted on mobility and surprise on the battlefield (Dover 28-54). Gale Hawthorne often challenges the organizers at District Thirteen using the pain he endured at the bombing of District Twelve and his hunting knowledge to find better ways to fight. It is his plan that vanquishes District Two, and he eagerly joins Katniss’s stealth mission to assassinate Snow.

For his last name, the hawthorn is a thorny shrub in the rose family. It is called Crataegus Oxyacantha from the Greek kratos, meaning hardness (of the wood), oxcus (sharp), and akantha (a thorn) (Grieve). A “hard, sharp thorn” is a good description of Gale himself, especially for Katniss who must deal with his anger and stubbornness in the later books. Its wood is very hard and

resistant to rot, marking it formidable and well-defended, also like Gale. The hawthorn root-wood makes the hottest wood-fire known (Grieve). Gale’s fire for survival, and especially for revolution, indeed burns hotter and stabs more sharply than everyone around him. Gale is willing to kill their spies and allies, civilians, and even himself to win the war, as he announces in District Two, crying, “Bring on the avalanches!” (M 205).

Every shepherd tells his tale Under the hawthorn in the dale.

-John Milton, L'Allegro

The hawthorn was not only a country bush favored by the rural farmers of England and Ireland—it was one of the Three Sacred Trees beloved by fairies (oak and ash being the others).

These three trees combine to make magic, rather like the threesome who Hawthorn blossoms become the heroes of Panem. As a fairy tree, the hawthorn carries many superstitions—harming the tree leads to death, but those who care for nature will be rewarded by the fairies. Those who destroy Gale’s home find themselves caught in the fury of his retribution with savage fighting and deadly traps. There’s also a belief that if all the hawthorn bushes are torn up, all goodness will leave the land and that hawthorn bushes cause lightning storms (Watts 180-183). As Gale and his family leave District Twelve behind, it’s indeed destroyed by a firestorm. Finally, carrying its thorns leads to a bountiful fishing trip or cows that produce more milk. For Katniss too, bringing Gale gets her a much greater harvest.

The hawthorn was sacred to Hymenaeus, the Greek god of marriage, who was often seen carrying a brimming basket of nuts & fruits. In myth, he never wed, but always blessed the hero’s and heroine’s marriage to each other, a reference that hints at the trilogy’s end (Shepard 245). The hawthorn has also been regarded as the emblem of hope, back to the worship of the Roman Hymenaeus, god of marriage

goddess Flora, mistress of flowers and life. Following this, there’s a tradition that hawthorn branches were Jesus’ crown of thorns.

At the same time, some country villagers believe hawthorn blossoms still bear the smell of the Great Plague of London, thanks to their aroma of decomposition (Grieve). The bushes are associated with death and graves, as the unlucky thorns were said to spring from dead men’s dust (Watts 181). In Teutonic ritual, funeral pyres were made of hawthorn so its smoke could guide souls to the afterlife. Gale, of course, guides his friends from the ashes of District Twelve to a new life in District Thirteen. This mixture of hope, peace for mankind, and death fits Gale’s role in the story, as his best friend Katniss watches him grow from protector of her family to a leader of the revolution to a willing murderer of civilians.

Choosing to be Insurgent or Allegiant SYMBOLS, THEMES & ANALYSIS OF THE DIVERGENT TRILOGY

Dystopia “If utopian fiction became the new trend, instead of dystopian fiction, I wouldn’t read it,” Roth adds. “If you actually succeed in creating a utopia, you’ve created a world without conflict, in which everything is perfect. And if there’s no conflict, there are no stories worth telling – or reading!” (Roth, The World of Divergent, Kindle Locations 49-51). Today, many teens feel uncertain in a changing world, so many series explore worst-case scenarios, consequences, and possible outcomes for our modern lifestyle, pushed to extremes. “Western civilization used to produce literary utopias, but in the past century of world wars, financial panics, murderous totalitarian regimes and nuclear threat, dystopias have outnumbered sunny projections by several orders of magnitude,” comments critic Brian Bethune in his article “Dystopia Now.” “Telling a story in a futuristic world gives you this freedom to explore things that bother you in contemporary times,” Suzanne Collins, author of The Hunger Games explains. For her, these are “issues like the vast discrepancy of wealth, the power of television and how it’s used to influence our lives, the possibility that the government could use hunger as a weapon, and … the issue of war” (Hudson). Divergent, like most other dystopian series, sets up an implausible world to explore issues as a modern-day philosophy exercise. In Tris’s world, the Factions’ attributes are explored, along with the shallowness of personality tests – in our world, people are not only smart or only brave or only selfsacrificing. Tris learns to combine these three qualities in herself as tools to recreate her world. There are also themes of prejudice, bullying, and war as the hatred between factions escalates into violence.

“Western civilization used to produce literary utopias, but in the past century of world wars, financial panics, murderous totalitarian regimes and nuclear threat, dystopias have outnumbered sunny projections by several orders of magnitude,” comments critic Brian Bethune in his article “Dystopia Now.” Roth comments: DIVERGENT was my utopian world. I mean, that wasn’t the plan. I never even set out to write dystopian fiction,

that’s just what I had when I was finished – at the beginning, I was just writing about a place I found interesting, and a character with a compelling story, and as I began to build the world, I realized that it was my utopia. And then I realized that my utopia was a terrible place, and no one should ever put me in charge of creating a perfect society. (The World of Divergent, Kindle Locations 58-62).

“We like to be scared of things that are not real. The idea that we’re watching or reading things that are completely outlandish or impossible or realty dire helps us cope with what is,” comments Karen Springen in her own Publishers Weekly article on dystopias. “YA [young adult] authors are using the dystopian genre to grapple with the issues of today,” adds David Levithan, editorial director at Scholastic. “It’s about improving the dystopia rather than throwing up your hands and saying, ‘This is what we’re fated to be’” (Springen). Roth adds: When you’re a teenager, everything seems like the end of the world, and I don’t think that’s necessarily a silly thing. You’re waking up and becoming aware that the world has problems and those problems affect you, whereas when you’re young they don’t seem to affect you that much even if you’re aware of them. This dystopian trend picks up on that little part of your life where everything feels really extreme. (Carpenter)

Dystopia, whether for teens or adults, has various conventions. The story’s beginning introduces the dystopian world with situational irony for readers – they know it isn’t “normal” to have to wear all grey like the citizens of Divergent or Matched, to live in the ruins of a futuristic city, plagued by food shortages and climate change. For some time, the main character accepts her life and follows the rules. Then comes a revelation or epiphany for the main character that this life is exploitative and a lie. The term for this, according to the literary scholars, is Anagnorisis (from the root of discovery in Greek). Suzanne Collins notes: The interesting thing about Katniss is when the story begins, she doesn’t have much political awareness …

And so she is struggling to put things together as she goes through the series, and it’s quite difficult, because

no one seems to think it’s in their interest to educate her … Even though hers is an extreme case, I think all of us have to work to figure out what’s going on. (Hudson)

From this moment on, the young hero or heroine becomes a threat to the government. The character deliberates whether to become a revolutionary and change the system or succumb to despair.

Eventually, the character chooses action and succeeds or fails.

Frequently, there’s a love story, which is almost always antigovernment, in a world that bans love or independence.

Tris follows this pattern in her first book, when she realizes Erudite plans to control the Dauntless faction, and within hours, it does. As the Dauntless attack Abnegation, Tris instantly turns revolutionary. The third book sees her wrestling with a more complex disillusionment. First Tris walks out of her city into a world of billboards, and she sees “people with skin so smooth they hardly look like people anymore” who fly in airplanes and remember the history of the U.S. (Allegiant 103). Then comes the revelation that her world is an “experiment” to fix genetic damage, artificially constructed by those on the outside. As the GDs including Tobias attempt to fight the system, Tris must choose a side and finally evolve a better plan to recreate the world.

Most often, the story ends either with the government winning (a pointed message of 1984 and Brave New World, for instance) or a revolution bringing about a marginally better world.

Sometimes, the hero and heroine can only flee, finding a better life beyond the government’s influence.

Dystopian Inspiration Roth read several famous dystopias, from The Hunger Games to the classics of the past in order to construct her narrative.

Among her favorite books and inspirations, Roth lists Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, 1984 by George Orwell, Ender’s Game

by Orson Scott Card, the Animorphs series, Harry Potter, and anything by Flannery O’Connor (Goodreads). She also mentions the Bible, Gilead by Marilynne Robinson and Juliet by Andras Visky (Divergent Bonus Materials 10). She adds: I had this stretch of childhood where I read a ton of

children’s fiction, then I grew up and read it all over again. I’m a big fan of Lois Lowry, of The Giver, and Madeleine L’Engle, of A Wrinkle in Time. But my dad also instilled in me a science fiction streak. I read Dune by Frank Herbert when I was far too young to understand it. (Deutsch)

The Giver, like Divergent, begins with a coming-of-age ceremony as aptitude placement. Like Tris, the story’s hero Jonas is unique as he’s appointed apprentice to the mysterious Giver. Both receive the jobs they’ll have all their lives, but both slowly learn their community is more horrific than it first appeared. Tris experiences simulated fears, and Jonas, transmitted emotions and memories of the past – both use these images from a subconscious reality to grow and learn. However, Jonas, like Tris, discovers that his government murders innocents in order to maintain total control.

Leaving one’s innocence for a new understanding of horror and experience is present in most dystopian tales as a metaphor for growing up. Both teens finally escape into the outside world to find freedom from the restrictive rules and summary executions.

Unimaginably far into the future, the novel Dune takes place.

The matriarchal Bene Gesserit rely on controlled breeding, and learn to access their ancestral memory through a deadly initiation ritual. They seek a Divergent hero in a sense, one born to guide humanity toward a better future using awesome mental powers.

The initiation and emphasis on a chosen one with special mental powers are also found in Roth’s series. The Bene Gesserit Lady Jessica defies orders to conceive the child she wishes instead of the one required by duty – a similar choice to Tris’s mother’s.

Jessica and her son Paul escape into the desert where Paul grows extraordinary mental powers to the point where he can sense future paths. Paul, the child of two worlds, becomes the great savior as he leads a revolution. He is a Tris of his story as both struggle to bring about a better future. In Dune, the Litany Against Fear reads: “I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to

see its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing … Only I will remain.”

Roth adds that she imagines Tris repeating this to herself, over and over (Divergent Bonus Materials 13).

Dune is a novel of environmentalism and deprivation, in a future of severe water shortage. Many other series offer this theme, as Wither and Matched show food shortages especially among the poor. Cassia in Matched is only allowed to wear dull brown and black. Tris mentions shortages both of technology like cars and of fresh produce. Her own people eat canned and frozen supplies as part of their self-deprivation campaign. Of course, living this way emphasizes the suffering of the dystopia, but it doesn’t appear to improve people’s souls. As one critic notes: Abnegation has moved beyond self-discipline to extreme self-denial, to the point where mirrors, birthday parties and even hamburgers are forbidden indulgences. The have become convinced that they know how to best govern and, as the example of Marcus shows, there is a potential for abuse when someone in power can act unchecked for “someone’s own good.”

Through their constant and public self-sacrifices, they hamper their own ability to feel affection for each other and actually draw more attention to themselves than a regular glance in the mirror would or a piece of artwork would.

(Freeman II)

The novel 1984 is one of the world’s most famous dystopian works and a central inspiration of Roth’s. Big Brother, head of the Party, rules every aspect of people’s lives, from television watching to thoughts.

Cameras are in every room. The protagonist, Winston Smith, works for Big Brother, rewriting old newspaper articles to reflect the new version of history. Every moment, he must guard his expressions, pledge loyalty to Big Brother, second-guess whether the people around him are spying for the government. At last, one day he can’t take it anymore, and in his diary, his hand independently writes, “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER” (Orwell 20).

Tris has come to accept the spy cameras as a way of life though she’s horrified that “they didn’t intervene, they just invaded our privacy. Constantly” (Allegiant 135). Harder is the knowledge that she could be killed only for the mental skills she was born with – like a Thoughtcrime but less under her control.

“They don’t want you to act a certain way. They want you to think a certain way. So you’re easy to understand. So you won’t pose a threat to them,” Tobias explains (Divergent 312). The history lesson she’s told during the Choosing Ceremony is false, as is Edith Prior’s speech at the end of the second book. It’s revealed in book three that their entire history has been fabricated to manipulate them, much like in 1984’s world.

Smith resists the government with his secret love for Julia, as they sneak into abandoned buildings or meet in the forest. Lev Grossman, in his essay, “Love among the Ruins,” posits that this romance inspired much of the dystopian teen novels’ ubiquitous love stories: All these love stories are descended from the one in 1984 – the alienated bureaucrat Winston Smith’s passion for the beautiful Julia, a member of the terrifying Junior Anti-Sex League. But since then the focus has subtly changed. 1984 was a study of totalitarianism, and the love story of Winston and Julia was there in the service of that study, to show us the damage the state could do to individual lives. In the new dystopia, it’s hard to tell whether the love story is there to tell us about the dystopia or if the entire ruination of humanity has occurred just to set up the hookup.

(Grossman)

Both Winston Smith and Tris are tortured with their worst fears – however, it’s an attempt to break Winston of his love and to train Tris to overcome them. Tris faces the flock of crows, Peter setting her on fire, herself drowning in a tank or in the ocean, then herself watching her family die or being forced to shoot them (Divergent 263). Tris does not break or stop loving her family as a result – by the third book, she sacrifices everything she is to save her brother. It’s her training that makes her strong enough to do this.

Winston Smith, arrested for his thoughtcrimes, is tortured with his worst fear – rats – in order to remake him as someone

loyal to the Party. When they strap a wire cage of rats to his face, he finally screams, “Do it to Julia! Not me!” (Orwell 300). By the end, his love has turned to hate, much as Peeta’s does in The Hunger Games. “Both The Hunger Games and Nineteen EightyFour pit the power of hate versus the power of love,” notes critic Mary Borsellino. While hate triumphs in the latter, The Hunger Games “ultimately insists that love is strong enough to survive through the horrors placed before it” (31). Divergent makes a similar statement that facing fear and sharing it can improve one’s love for others.

Juliet by Andras Visky deals with people kept prisoner for decades, facing suddenly being set free, paralleling the experience of the Faction citizens in the third book. It’s one of the subversive stories from Eastern Europe, as common people struggle against an unjust government.

While The Hunger Games begins in Appalachia, three more recent dystopias, Marie Lu’s Legend, Veronica Roth’s Divergent, and Moira Young’s Blood Red Road (all the first of trilogies, optioned by the likes of Ridley Scott and the producers of Twilight), rise up out of, respectively, Los Angeles, Chicago, and the American flatlands that have been reduced to a second Dust Bowl.

In each case, the teenage-girl narrator has grown up sheltered in a zone of relative comfort. Her troubles multiply as society’s flaws are revealed to her and she must fight for survival and the safety of her family … By the end of Divergent, Legend, and Blood Red Road, the three couples have become rebels against a despoiled state, sprung from locked-in systems into unfamiliar territory. The relationships will be stressed and tested in future books – as Katniss and Peeta’s was in battling not one but two regimes in the Hunger Games trilogy. But the young women and men will apparently go forward together, partners in crime and world salvation. In this recession-battered age, these four authors (including two in their mid-20s) present the wild possibility of love and social change amid the ruins. If there’s hope in dystopias, what’s impossible in our world? (Nolan) ,

“I think it coincides with young people’s anxieties about the future, in that it’s about a heroic figure triumphing over the odds, but what drew me to write that kind of story was simply that it

gave me a big canvas in which to explore love, betrayal and mistakes,” says Moira Young, author of Blood Red Road (Craig).

Ender’s Game forces a young boy to battle endless simulations, conquering his fear as he becomes a battle genius, just in time to fight in a great war. Ender and Tris are both meant to be turned into ferocious killers. They, the good characters, train as soldiers, ordered to abandon their ethics. “These characters gain their power not only because of their suffering but also because of their empathy; yet the same empathy that makes them powerful makes their violence painful” (Murphy 204). Laser tag or paintball are blended with actual, even deadly bullying, forcing them into a world of shifting rules and no adult supervision.

Though they excel, both discover that violence has a terrible cost, especially for the young.

Brave New World programs its citizens for particular values – they are raised to loathe family, enjoy new clothes, have only shallow relationships. They are also sorted into five castes at birth, from the smart and powerful Alphas to the barely-competent Epsilons. Each is programmed to be happy, in what the author describes as an incredibly effective totalitarian state: “Slaves do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude” (Introduction, xv). With less literal brainwashing, people of the five factions are also unnaturally conditioned. Candor teaches that truth is more important than kindness, and the Erudite value knowledge over compassion. Amity with their laughter and friendship circles somewhat mimics the overly-happy citizens of Brave New World, as both are drugged to feel only joy and love –“Instead of feeling miserable, they’d feel jolly. So jolly,” the government head explains cheerfully (92).

Both Candor, with its truth serum, and Amity, with its tranquilizer-laced bread, resort to pharmacological short-cuts in their efforts to force their citizens to live up to the Faction ideals. In doing do, both Factions rob people of their free will, as much as the Erudite’s simulation serum does. (Freeman II)

While Brave New World is something of a tragedy, with a society that kills its rebel and continues into the future, Tris and Tobias shatter their society and release its people from their glassed-in Eden to become part of the outside world.

On the topic of glassed-in Edens, Divergent was sold to HarperCollins as “Hunger Games meets the Matrix.” Both The Matrix and Divergent are the story of a society living in a bubble, unaware there’s an outside world. Tris and her friends are shocked in the third book to discover their City is such a tiny percentage of the world that it’s almost nonexistent. Likewise, the “chosen one” Neo discovers that our world is merely a hallucination like Tris’s simulations. He, like her, has the power to break through them and finally escape into the real world. “This is what Jeanine was willing to enslave minds and murder people for – to keep us all from knowing. To keep us all ignorant and safe and inside the fence,” Tris realizes (Insurgent 524). Like Neo, she and her friends must find the courage to explore the world beyond their safe enclosure.

All these dystopias comment on making moral choices in an immoral world, a popular theme in dystopia. Roth explains: As a teenager, I put a lot of pressure on myself, and a lot of that, for me, was about finding a moral high ground. As I’ve grown up, I’ve decided to abandon that because it made me judgmental and also stressed me out. There’s really no way to be perfect. Perfectionism is a silly trait to have, so in a lot of ways that inspired the world of “Divergent,” in which everyone is striving toward that ideal and falling short of it. Tris is a character who experiences that stress about, “Am I doing the right thing? I always have to do the right thing. If I don’t, what am I worth?” (Carpenter)

Tennyson’s “Ulysses” also inspired Roth, especially the ending.

“For Tris and the people who help her at the end,” she explains: Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’ We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are, – One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Comparisons to Hunger Games Both “Divergent” and “The Hunger Games” feature

appealing, but not conventionally pretty, young women with toughness to spare. Both start out with public sorting rituals that determine the characters’ futures.

And both put the narrators in contrived, bloody battles that are in fact competitions witnessed by an audience.

Even the language sounds familiar: the Hob is a central geographic point in “The Hunger Games”; in “Divergent,” it’s the Hub in the remnants of what was once the Sears Tower. For a book that explores themes about the right to be individual and the importance of breaking away from the pack, “Divergent” does not exactly distinguish itself. (Dominus)

Certainly, tough, wary Katniss and Tris have many parallels, brought up to wear drab clothes and endlessly sacrifice for others, and then flung into conflict. Their battle begins as a game for a personal reward (making the Dauntless cut, winning the first Hunger Games) then expands outwards into revolution. Their first person teenagers who struggle to end the violence and bring about a better world are a poignant plea for peace, especially with the devastating deaths at the climax of each third book. Roth comments: The Hunger Games is pretty fantastic, so I always get a little scared when people make those comparisons because I think, “Well, I never tried to do that…” And it’s so good that it’s a little daunting to see those comparisons out there. But at the same time, it’s been pretty incredible what it’s done for the genre and for my book’s visibility. Also, if you’re going to be compared to something, it might as well be The Hunger Games because it’s really awesome. At least it’s not something I didn’t like.

(Truitt)

The books begin similarly with the girls preparing for their reaping and Choosing Ceremony.

Compare: “Tomorrow at the Choosing Ceremony, I will decide on a faction; I will decide the rest of my life; I will decide to

stay with my family or abandon them.” (Divergent 2) My fingers stretch out, seeking Prim’s warmth but finding only the rough canvas cover of the mattress.

She must have had bad dreams and climbed in with our mother. Of course, she did. This is the day of the reaping. (Hunger Games 3). “Family devotion only goes so far for most people on reaping day. What I did was the radical thing.” (Hunger Games 26)

The girls face psychotic killers like Eric and Cato, but also find allies and friends. Both attempt to protect the weak, though Al and Rue both die nonetheless. This is the beginning of many deaths of allies and friends as the war gains momentum. Roth says: What’s interesting about these characters is that a lot of their strength is expressed in a physical way. Tris is physically weak but she learns how to be skilled in a physical way. Katniss isn’t super buff, but she knows how to defend herself. I think that’s something that needs to be explored more. Characters like Tris and Katniss, their worth and strength is not limited to their physical abilities. They’re very much in control of their own destinies. In “Insurgent,” Tris says, “Where I go, I go because I choose to.” That element of “I can do it. I can control my life,” that everything that happens, good or bad, happens because of the choice of the main character, that’s sort of a new thing. (Carpenter)

The Districts and Factions have parallels as well – each creates specific products with individual attitudes, lifestyles, and symbols. Foods, naming patterns, and so forth remain distinct for each. In the second book, both heroines begin understanding the other districts and the concept that they’re all on the same side.

The two teens are tough, powerful survivors who can take care of themselves. They also have moments of breaking out and looking incredible, once they shed their drab, dystopian clothes: Compare: “My face is noticeable … This is someone whose eyes claim mine and don’t release me; this is Tris” “See?” she says. “You’re … striking” (Divergent 87).

And there I am, blushing and confused, made beautiful

by Cinna’s hands, desirable by Peeta’s confession, tragic by circumstance, and by all accounts, unforgettable. (Hunger Games 137-138) “I can’t force you. I can’t make you want to survive this … But you will do it. It doesn’t matter if you believe you can or not. You will, because that’s who you are,” Tobias tells Tris (Insurgent 365).

“Katniss will pick whoever she thinks she can’t survive without,” Gale says (Mockingjay 329).

Both girls break down from PTSD. They run endlessly, shake, refuse to touch their weapons. Both are caught in endless nightmares. As they repeat words of self-blame, like Tris’s “His hand, I could have shot his hand, why didn’t I? Why?” (Insurgent 9) or Katniss’s “How can I help the districts when every time I make a move, it results in suffering and loss of life?” (Mockingjay 12), they begin to succumb to despair over their situations. Only their willpower and the comfort of their friends helps them overcome it.

The heroines battle supervillain mass murderers President Snow and Jeanine Mathews, who specifically target the heroine’s home district and cause indescribable loss. The heroine is recruited by the other side – the Factionless or District Thirteen who exist to fight the great dictator. However, Katniss and Tris soon realize the women in charge of the anti-establishment, Evelyn Johnson-Eaton and Alma Coin, are no better than the enemy.

Compare: “What I’m suggesting, [Evelyn says], is that you become important.” (Insurgent 111) “What they want is for me to truly take on the role they designed for me. The symbol of revolution. The Mockingjay.” (Mockingjay 10) “I don’t trust her, I think she’s trying to use you,” Tris tells Tobias about his mother (Insurgent 294)

“The truth is, I don’t trust the rebels or Plutarch or Coin.

I’m not confident they tell me the truth,” Katniss confides (Mockingjay 114) Tobias mentions that the Divergent tattoo artist Tori “would also request the tight to rid the world of Jeanine Matthews.”

“I’m sure that could be arranged,” Evelyn replies. “I don’t care who kills her; I just want her dead” (Insurgent 292).

“I KILL SNOW” (Mockingjay 38). Coin replies that she’ll flip Katniss for it.

Evelyn appears to be Jeanine’s opposite: Jeanine wanted to kill everyone not in factions; Evelyn tries to disband them.

However, they both use tools of total control and insist on total obedience. Evelyn announces everyone must do a job rotation and share all the jobs equally. This parallels Coin’s District Thirteen in which all things must be shared, from food to skin ointment.

Every hour is scheduled. Worse, Coin begins bombing the enemy’s civilians just as Snow did, and celebrates her new reign by instigating another Hunger Games. When Evelyn takes over, she proves a second Jeanine – Evelyn forces a curfew and promises to get the Allegiant under control.

Tris’s journey to the outside world and the people studying genetics in O’Hare airport mirrors Katniss’s travels to District Thirteen. Both societies seem benevolent, but they ignore the people starving just beyond their gates and do nothing to stop the bloodshed in the experiments or districts. “How can I walk these squeaky floors and wear these starchy clothes when I know that those people are out there, wrapping their houses in tarp to stay warm?” Tris asks (Allegiant 367). Thirteen and the base both offer unheard-of technology but also a world of spy cameras and rules.

Outside these small, enclosed worlds is a larger world more like our own, with luxury, technology and fashion. This world also avidly watches the spy cameras, rooting for Katniss and Tris in a parody of our own actions. Both girls are repelled. Like a fan, Nita wonders what her fear landscape would be, if she were to enter the world of her on-screen heroes (Allegiant 239). Katniss’s supporters sigh over her love story with Peeta in the first Game,

then vote on her wedding dresses. These are clearly a reflection of us, the Americans who live artificial lives, with art and music, and flowers grown simply for ornament and luxury.

Compare: Outside her city, Tris sees “people with skin so smooth they hardly look like people anymore” who drink Coke and energy drinks (Allegiant 103).

“Do they really have no idea how freakish they look to the rest of us?” Katniss wonders (Catching Fire 49) What do they do all day, these people in the Capitol, besides decorating their bodies and waiting around for a new shipment of tributes to roll in and die for their entertainment? (Hunger Games 65) “People in the bureau watch the screens often and for the past few months you’ve been involved in a lot of interesting things. A lot of the younger people think you’re downright heroic” Tris responds sarcastically that she was obviously focused on heroism, “not, you know, trying not to die” (Allegiant 148)

Suzanne Collins notes: The Hunger Games is a reality television program. An extreme one, but that’s what it is. And while I think some of those shows can succeed on different levels, there’s also the voyeuristic thrill, watching, people being humiliated or brought to tears or suffering physically. And that’s what I find very disturbing.

There’s this potential for desensitizing the audience so that when they see real tragedy playing out on the news, it doesn’t have the impact it should. It all just blurs into one program. (Hudson) Tris calls watching the spy cameras “creepy and invasive” (Allegiant 191) “They’ve surely got a camera tracking me now.

I think back to the years of watching tributes starve, freeze, bleed” (Hunger Games 169).

I can see the plants in this room were selected for beauty not practicality – flowers and ivy and clusters of purple or red leaves … Whatever this place is, it has not needed to be as pragmatic as our city” (Allegiant 141) The roses are glorious. Row after row of sumptuous blooms in lush pink, sunset orange, and even pale blue.

(Mockingjay 354).

Both societies admittedly want the heroine and her friends for their genes. The heroines smilingly accept working for the corrupt leaders (Coin and David) in order to maneuver into the right place to take a real stand. These leaders believe in sacrifices for the greater good, but the life-loving heroine is determined to stop the war and end the slaughter of innocents. They pass through fire and trauma as they try to bring the world to peace: “The fire, the fire. It rages within, a campfire and then an inferno, and my body is its fuel. I feel it racing through me, eating away at the weight. There is nothing that can kill me now; I am powerful and invincible and eternal” (Allegiant 468).

Katniss, on the edge of death, imagines herself, saying, “I am Cinna’s bird, ignited, flying frantically to escape something inescapable” with “feathers of flame,” like a phoenix (Mockingjay 348).

“It seems like the rebellions never stop, in the city, in the compound, anywhere. There are just breaths between them, and foolishly, we call these breaths ‘peace’” (Allegiant 316).

"Now we're in that sweet period where everyone agrees that our recent horrors should never be repeated. But collective thinking is usually short-lived.

We're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction." But he adds, "Who knows? Maybe this will be it ... The time it sticks. Maybe we are witnessing the evolution of the human race.

Think about that." (Mockingjay 379)

Allegiant ends with the competent Johanna Reyes of Amity taking charge (her last name means king) just as Commander Paylor becomes president in the final wrap up of Mockingjay. Both are

nonwhite women determined to end the corruption and bring about a new world, in which the minorities and underprivileged will be welcomed with justice.

Epilogues What I need to survive is not Gale’s fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that.

(Katniss, 388) Since I was young, I have always known this: Life damages us, every one. We can’t escape that damage.

But now, I am also learning this: We can be mended.

We mend each other. (Tobias’s closing words, 526)

What to Wear: Dressing for Dystopia Katniss lights the fire of revolution from the first moment she dazzles spectators with her flaming costume in the opening procession. She continues to burn in her jeweled ballgown and yellow candlelight dress, until all who see her are consumed by her passion. As she puts on Cinna’s costumes, Katniss begins to grow into Girl on Fire and Mockingjay together, finally announcing, “If we burn, you burn with us” (Mockingjay 106). In the Matched series, Cassia’s gowns, like Katniss’s, indicate a progression through both maturity and rebellion. Cassia wears a fluffy spring green gown to her Matching party, like a prom or Quinceañera dress. It matches the color of the green pacifying pill everyone carries, and Cassia wears it on her book’s cover, looking content and properly pacified in her bubble. On the Crossed cover, she’s dressed more practically, in clothing she can move in. She wears the blue of her survival nutrient pill and is smashing out of the

bubble. Reached has Cassia in a more mature red gown, standing stately and proud. She’s broken out of the red sphere, the color of her dystopia’s brainwashing pill, as she broke through the other colors and conquered their pills to find the truth beyond.

Tris transforms when she finds a tight, provocative black dress, rather than the baggy, concealing grey clothes of Abnegation. In the world of Scott Westerfeld’s Pretties and Uglies, Tally can have all the disposable, worthless clothing she wishes, mirroring her disposable, changeable “pretty” face. Still, it’s the homemade sweater from the forest that means much more to her. For both girls, new clothing means a change of status, a desire to become part of a new fearless community. Most dystopian girls must follow this path in order to become leaders.

Divergent’s cover shades from blue to black, with an orange flame. Blue and black indicate twilight falling but also innocence shading into experience. Erudite members must wear blue, as they believe “blue causes the body to release calming chemicals” (Divergent 348). Blue is a tranquil color of the infinite sea and sky, suggesting an untested heroine who hasn’t begun her journey. The placid Virgin Mary wears blue in art. It’s a pleasant, calm color, the “green and brown and blue” of Cassia’s hometown (289). In the Delirium series, Julian’s childhood room is decorated in green, blue, and white, and those are the colors of Portland for Lena (66). Katniss wears a blue Reaping dress, and wears a finer blue gown in the second movie.

Even Four’s eyes are “dark blue, a dreaming, sleeping, waiting color” (Divergent 59). In all these scenes, the journey is about to begin.

Insurgent offers a spring-green cover with the Amity Tree. Green can represent youth and newness along with the growing things. It’s the color of lively nature and the protective forest – that’s why it’s Katniss’s favorite. Green, like blue and white, symbolizes innocence and childhood. Cassia sits placidly in a bubble

wearing her green gown, with green pills used as sedatives. Tris too is green, just beginning to let her roots travel outside her two factions to explore the others.

Within her first scenes, Tris is only allowed to wear grey.

Dystopian heroines are often unable to get pretty gowns, like Katniss or Cassia, who both dress dully. Grey suggests dullness, gloom, an unformed state, or uncertainty. Beatrice is ordered to wear concealing grey, to rarely look in a mirror, to be stiff and distant and selfless – literally. In Delirium, Lena loves grey, the “moment when the whole sky goes this pale nothing color … it reminds me of waiting for something good to happen” (35).

That’s the symbol of the untried heroine.

Tris in turn reveals, “It will be difficult to break the habits of thinking Abnegation instilled in me, like tugging a single thread from a complex work of embroidery. But I will find new habits, new thoughts, new rules. I will become something else” (Divergent 87).

In Dauntless, everyone wears dangerous black. Black represents death but also the fertile soil of new life. As such, black is the feminine color of yin, the color of destruction but also a stalwart defense against it. When Tris tries on a knee-length black dress and literally (and figuratively) lets her hair down, she’s transformed. Her friend Christina puts black eyeliner on her, and Tris looks “noticeable for the first time” (Divergent 97). At that moment, she feels she’s transformed from proper, quiet Beatrice into Tris. Everyone comments that she looks good, as she’s discovering who she was meant to become.

Other dystopian series also see slim black outfits appear as the rebels head into danger. Sneaking out to see her boyfriend Alex in Delirium, Lena wears black pajamas, black flats, and a black ski hat (206). Tough, black haired Raven is the leader of the group Lena meets in the Wilds – even her name suggests blackness. By contrast, her innocent daughter is named Blue. When Cassia finds the rebels of her world, they’re wearing “slick black clothes” (Crossed 347). In Uglies, it’s the scary Specials who wear “raw silks in black and grey” (Uglies 103).

Of course, the heroine protests that she doesn’t want to dress up. Lena confesses, “I don’t like makeup, have never been interested in clothes or lip gloss” (Delirium 15). Offered a universe of pretty clothes, Tally attends a Pretties dance in her old

brown sweater from the forest. Katniss sees the beauty treatments as something to endure. “You aren’t going to be able to make me look pretty, you know,” Tris protests. Christina retorts, “Who cares about pretty? I’m going for noticeable” (Divergent 86-87).

Likewise, Cinna makes his tribute unforgettable as the Girl on Fire, gleaming like flame and coals.

The catch is that Katniss and Tris don’t want to dress up – are coaxed into it by others. “If Katniss sought to be the center of attention, if she chose to string along two handsome young men more than willing to give their lives for hers, if she wanted to have her every movement photographed and admired, if she dreamed of leading the revolution, if she longed to compete and to win – if she had any ambition at all – she would be a bad girl by such a standard” (Miller). She must prove her goodness by not really wanting them. Tris too cares little for clothes, spending her effort on the revolution.

In the second book, Tris tries on bits and pieces from the other factions, as if uncertain who she’s supposed to be. Most of these color symbolisms are clear – Amity wears cheerful, bright red and yellow – the opposite of self-effacing Abnegation. Their hair is down and they giggle and joke in the corridors. Candor is stark in black and white – they believe there is truth or falseness with no shading between them. Their attitude is as abrasive as their color sense, and they’re as unlike Amity as possible.

The Erudite wear blue suits and glasses. Many ancient gods in India, Egypt, and more wore blue to demonstrate their heavenly sky power. Long ago, it was a royal color for its expense, but now we associate it more with business suits, like the clothing of the Erudite Faction. Among the Factionless and in the outside world, Tris mixes and matches her colors. She’s becoming a heroine of the world, not of a single faction but all of them, as we Americans are.

Book three’s cover is the red of conflict. The seventh Harry Potter book has many references to red as Rubeus (red) Hagrid crashes into Hogwarts amid fire and blood. “The sky is now streaked with long filaments of orange and red, like the tendrils of a massive jellyfish,” Lena notes on the eve of revolution (Requiem 328).

The third Matched book features Cassia in an elegant red dress, fully burst from her bubble and far more adult. John Granger, the “Hogwarts Professor” notes that Mockingjay’s climactic conflict is filled with redness: “Katniss watches a video of exploding rose bushes before donning her red-riding hood disguise (338) and entering the bloodiest, reddest pages of Mockingjay” with pools of blood everywhere in the Capitol. At the climax she burns, and sees herself as a fiery phoenix: “I am Cinna’s bird, ignited, flying frantically to escape something inescapable. The feathers of flame that grow from my body. Beating my wings only fans the blaze. I consume myself, but to no end” (348).

Only after the war can peace and rebuilding come, as the people rededicate their city. Everyone may wear colors and choose factions or no factions as they please, and within this rainbow, they begin to heal.

Joss Whedon’s Names The

Deeper Meanings behind Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Cabin in the Woods, The Avengers, Doctor Horrible, In Your Eyes, Comics and More

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Scoobies Alexander “Xander” Lavelle Harris Alexander is a popular American name, reminiscent of the great conqueror of worlds (who was also known for being unsubtle). This foreshadows a great future for Xander someday. His name means “defending men,” and indeed, he’s Buffy’s defender and “cavalry” on occasion. Xander turns into a soldier in “Halloween” (B2.6), showing that he truly does have a tough guy inside him. He retains the training and power of command, which he uses on occasion thereafter.

According to Greek legend, the first Alexander was Paris, who absconded with Helen of Troy and destroyed all his family and friends with his love. Xander’s romantic selfishness certainly throws his friends into chaos and creates the conflict of several episodes.

Thanks to his betrayals, Buffy transforms into a rat while women fight over him, Buffy nearly kills Angel, Cordelia wishes Buffy had never come to Sunnydale, and Anya turns vengeance demon once more. If anyone is the Paris of the series, it’s him.

At the same time, he calls himself Xander, an esoteric, even geeky version of the grandiose name, with the science-fiction “X” starting it off. Thus he sets himself up as described in the script: He is “bright, funny, and will one day be suave and handsome. Till that day arrives, he’ll do the best he can with bright and funny” (Buffy: The Script Book). The first time we meet him, he’s falling off his skateboard, and he goes through much of the series as comic relief, absent of the powers the other characters boast. Over time Xander “gradually acquires a sense of his own worth,” Roz Kaveney explains in her essays (“She Saved the World, a Lot” 11). At the same time, he’s the most “human” of the characters – someone for the audience to identify with, who strengthens his friends in times of emotional torment.

“Xander stands for Joss Whedon – and, again, for every normal person lost in a mad, mad world” (Wilcox, Why Buffy Matters 141).

Whedon is known for creating stand-ins for himself, geeky goofy boys who are the immature best friend to the story’s powerful women. He’s the ordinary teen, the science fiction fan with a crush on Buffy – he’s us. When Xander asks for an explanation “for those of us in our… audience who are me,” he provides a bridge to understanding for us, the audience who are him.

“Xander is another name clearly launched by Whedon. When the series debuted in 1997, Xander was a rarity. By 1999, he was in the US Top 100, and he’s gained quickly since” (appellationmountain).

On the show, Xander’s name stands out as unusual – when the team lose their memories in “Tabula Rasa” (B6.8), Willow calls him the standard “Alex.” Xander wants to be called the more impressive and daring “Nighthawk” in “Dead Man’s Party” (B3.2) and Sergeant Fury in the comics, but is always simply Xander (though by season seven, sometimes “Mr. Harris”). If a cool nickname is his goal, he never truly acquires one.

Like Xander, Lavelle is an unusual name. Meanings and uses vary widely, from a kingly household of Ireland to a surname and girl’s name. Xander too is struggling for his place as he decides which identity he wishes for himself. The Irish meaning of Lavelle is “fond of movement or travel,” while the French name comes from Laval, from Old French for “valley.” So Xander is “from the valley” (or rather the dale, specifically Sunnydale) and also eager to go travel (as seen when he decides to backpack around the world, drifts through jobs, and finally joins Buffy in Scotland during the comics).

Harris, from “son of Harry,” is one of the most common surnames in Britain. Thus he comes from traditional roots, even as he struggles to reinvent himself . It’s a soundalike for the Arabic Haris, which means “Lion” or “Guardian” and heir, hinting that he is an heir to the Slayer legacy as well as Buffy’s soldier and guardian. In Greek “alexo” means “to protect” or “to help,” and he is Buffy’s perpetual right hand, no matter the difficulty.

Xander may be named in homage to Zonker Harris, the stereotypical unfocused hippie from Doonesbury, though he grows far beyond his episode one role.

Anya Christina Emanuella Jenkins/Aud/Anyanka Some call this character “Aud,” others “Anyanka.”

Throughout her elongated life and namesakes – Anya Emerson, vengeance demon, Mrs. Xander Harris, Mrs. Anya Christina Emanuella Jenkins Harris, Mrs. Anya lame-ass made up maiden name Harris – we have come to know her simply as Anya. (Francis)

Aud begins her story with an “odd” name emphasizing her oddness. “But it is worth remembering that her oddity started in innocence and goodwill, distorted by a choice to control” (Wilcox,

Why Buffy Matters 55). Tellingly, the name means “deserted, empty” in Norwegian, heralding her lifelong struggle for the spouse, employer, job or even name that will give her a stable identity. Aud is domesticated mate to Olaf, cooking for him and keeping his house, while seething with love and jealousy: ANYA: I am sorry. I simply love you so much...I feel as though I could burst at times...I could not live without you.

OLAF: Fear not, sweet Aud, you will always be my beautiful girl. (“Selfless,” B7.5)

After her lover Olaf betrays her, D’Hoffryn informs Aud that she does not “see her true self” and names her Anyanka: ANYA: I am Aud. (pronounced Odd) D’HOFFRYN: Are you? Hmm. I’m afraid you don’t see your true self. You are Anyanka. I’m a patron of a family of sorts. We’re vengeance demons. I’m sure you’ve heard of us. (“Selfless,” B7.5) …

ANYA: Why do you keep calling me that? My name is Aud. D’HOFFRYN: Perhaps, but Anyanka is who you are.

She fights to continually say that her name is Aud, but D’Hoffryn dismisses her comments. D’Hoffryn calls Anyanka her “true self,” but it’s actually a stereotype. She is one of his many girls, but as he shows by killing Halfrek, they are disposable employees, not cherished family. “I’ve got plenty of girls. There will always be vengeance demons,” he tells her (“Selfless,” B7.5). Seeking the purpose he offers, Anyanka goes from happy dark ages housewife to ultra-radical feminist vengeance demon, who murders unfaithful men in cleverly brutal ways. In turn of the century Russia, Anya says, “Vengeance is what I do, Halfrek. I don’t need anything else.

Vengeance is what I am.”

In “The Wish” (B3.9), “Giles names Anyanka when he calls her before him, and moments later, he is the one who destroys that existence. Once again, a male figure has been allowed to create and eliminate an identity for this character. She was selected into vengeance through a male figure and removed from it by another male, not of her own accord” (Francis). Names have power, and here her name is used to rob her of her talisman and purpose (admittedly

to save all of Sunnydale).

Stranded in America but still clinging to her old purpose, she says, “I have witnessed a millennium of treachery and oppression from the males of the species and I have nothing but contempt for the whole libidinous lot of them,” she says, oblivious to the contradiction as she asks Xander to be her prom date (“The Prom,” B3.20).

The name “Anya” is obviously half of Anyanka, as she’s been cut in two. She has her demonic memories and experience, but no powers or sense of purpose. Anya is a Russian diminutive of Anna.

Thus she’s linked with Buffy’s middle name, which means grace or divine favor. Perhaps losing her Anyanka identity is meant to be a blessing, if she can only seize hold of it and find her chosen path.

Wilcox identifies “Anya” as “a variant of the name for an ordinary girl [Anne] or someone seeking normality” (Why Buffy Matters 62).

Like Buffy, Anya calls herself Anne/Anya while hiding and pretending to be an ordinary human girl. As Anya, she’s terribly lost, as she seduces Xander seeking some sense of belonging, just as she asks him to prom so she can participate in the high school ritual.

Three extra names appear suddenly when she tries defending herself to the Watcher’s Council in “Checkpoint,” (B5.12), insisting she is pure mainstream American so she won’t be exposed as a demon: “Anya Christina Emanuella Jenkins, twenty years old. Born on the fourth of July, and don’t think there weren’t jokes about that my whole life, mister, ‘cause there were. ‘Who’s our little patriot?’ they’d say, when I was younger, and therefore smaller and shorter than I am now.” While she determinedly adds three more names to “Anya,” along with an American holiday as birthday, they don’t give her a sense of purpose. Even the Watcher’s Council member dismisses her new identity, only inquiring how to spell “Anya.”

Her (invented) middle name Christina simply means she’s a Christian, another mainstream label she affixes to herself. Emanuella means “God is with us,” a match for Christina and emphasis that she is on the proper side. Her surname, Jenkins, is classic American, with British origins clarifying her upper-class heritage. “Jenkin” originally meant “son of John,” a derivation of the most popular of men’s names. With mainstream British and religious names, she marks herself as a WASP, the ultimate American insider.

Anya’s last name was planned as Emerson in the early seasons, and is thus listed in the yearbook (72). Emerson is another insider name, belonging to the famous transcendentalist writer. He was a champion of individualism, but not perhaps the best choice for Anya, who generally values cash over personal improvement.

Later Anya tries to find an identity through capitalism and the Magic Box, and then agrees to marry Xander. Secretly engaged, she pushes him to reveal their status to the group, once more hoping for a secure public identity: fiancée and wife. Falling into a new stereotype, she sings joyfully of wedding Xander and becoming “his Mrs.” in a Disney-style 1950s pink dress with long blonde curls (“Selfless,” B7.5). (singing) Mr. Xander Harris.

That’s what he is to the world outside.

That’s the name he carries with pride.

I’m just lately Anya. …

But who am I? Now I reply that I’m the Missis I will be his Missis.

Mrs. Anya Christina Emanuella Jenkins Harris. …

And I’ll be Missis I will be his Missis Mrs. Anya Lame-Ass-Made-Up-Maiden-Name Harris.

She longs for a name and sense of self like he has. Thus she hopes being his “Mrs.” will give her a path in life. However, it would mean trading a new stereotyped persona for all the others she’s held. When Xander leaves her at the altar, she strides miserably up the aisle in her white dress, aware that it’s meaningless as a sign of identity – she’s not going to be a bride. Filled with fury, she takes back the vengeance powers and becomes Anyanka once more. If she is not Xander’s, she will be D’Hoffryn’s again. “More than any other character, she is anxious about her existence, her mortality, and her role in the world,” Mukherjea notes. “What if I’m really nobody?” she asks sadly in “Selfless.”

In the same episode, D’Hoffryn and Xander squabble over calling her Anya or Anyanka. D’Hoffryn mentions a “funny historical sidebar” about her original name, but is interrupted when she bursts out, “I wanna take it back.” While she apparently means the vengeance spell that killed a room of young men, many scholars note that she seems to want to reclaim her original name. She would rather be “odd” and even deserted than an instrument of others’ vengeance. “Here, Anya wants to recover the lives of the fraternity members whom she had killed, but this is also a move to reclaim the self. In returning life to the fraternity members, an original name and

self may be possible to obtain for Anya, specifically because the desire is her own” (Francis). She tells Xander, “Xander, you can’t help me. I’m not even sure there’s a me to help.” She’s making an independent decision without a man guiding her. Anya offers her precious self to accomplish this, but her sister Halfrek is taken in her place. This is a turning point, as Anya realizes, “My whole life, I’ve just clung to whatever came along,” and resolves to find a path for herself without D’Hoffryn or Xander. Anya walks away into the night, more alone than ever.

Aud, lover of Olaf, has been left far far behind in Norway.

Though she may have been happier as a lover of rabbits, which she shared freely with her neighbors, that personality was lost long ago.

She returns to being Anya, and completes the journey she failed in season three, just after becoming Anya the first time. While she fled Sunnydale before the Mayor’s ascension, she stays for the final battle of “Chosen” (B7.22). As she tells Andrew: There was this other apocalypse...this one time, and...well, I took off. But this time, I don’t...I don’t know … Well, I guess I was kinda new to being around humans before. But now I’ve seen a lot more, gotten to know people...seen what they’re capable of, and I guess I just realized how amazingly screwed-up they all are. I mean really, really screwed-up in a monumental fashion … And they have no purpose that unites them, so they just drift around, blundering through life until they die...which they...they know is coming, yet every single one of them is surprised when it happens to them.

They’re incapable of thinking about what they want beyond the moment. They kill each other, which is clearly insane. And yet, here’s the thing. When it’s something that really matters, they fight. I mean, they’re lame morons for fighting, but they do. They never...never quit. So I guess I will keep fighting, too. (“End of Days,” B7.21)

To summarize, she wants to be part of the human condition, all of it, including foolish death, in order to save the world. Sadly, she only finds a noble purpose shortly before her sacrifice.

The name Anya may have correspondences with Áine, an Irish goddess of love, summer, and sovereignty. After her husband was cruel to her, she took her revenge by changing him into a goose, killing him, or both. In folklore, Áine is about as close as it gets to a vengeance demon. As a name, Anya is a Russian spin on Anna, and

it’s definitely increased in use since Joss added her to his cast.

It also must be remarked that Anya is quite close to Buffy’s middle name, Anne.

Like Cordelia, Anya is an occasional Shadow for Buffy.

After their similar romances in “The Harsh Light of Day,” both are crushed by the male’s lack of interest. But while Buffy must live with her mistake, Anya persuades Xander to begin a loving relationship. Much later, Riley’s leaving Buffy pushes Xander into the opposite reaction, and he tells Anya he’s in love with her. While Buffy has demon strength, Anya has the inverse – demon memories and arcane knowledge. As their stories progress, they share a forbidden lover in Spike as both try to lose their pain in covert, loveless sex. When Anya expresses Buffy’s annoyance with the world, her Faithlike desire to have tantrums and break rules, she is once again the neglected rage, fear, and whim-driven selfishness within Buffy, fighting to be heard. Though she’s shallow, Anya is a force for seizing the pleasures of life beside the increasingly-dark and duty-driven Buffy. As Buffy drifts unhappily through season six, Anya’s happy engagement and lust for work are her inverted mirror. And like Faith, when Anya goes too far and kills humans, Buffy must rein her in.

In “Selfless” (7.5), as Buffy struggles to allow the repentant sinners Willow and Spike back into her life, Anya expresses the fury Buffy cannot, diving so deep into her former vengeance demon self that she kills an entire house of frat boys. Buffy decides this destructive part of the Scoobies has gone too far. They fight, both in slim black and equally matched. As with Faith, Buffy stabs Anya, pinning her to the wall but not killing her.

With Anya trapped there, Buffy can force her to rethink her actions. Anya’s boss D’Hoffryn tells her, “You’re a big girl, Anyanka. You understand how this works. The proverbial scales must balance. In order to restore the lives of the victims, the fates require a sacrifice” (“Selfless,” 7.5). For Anya this is “the life and soul of a Vengeance Demon.” For Buffy, this is the rage she’s felt. She and Dawn can take their lives back if she lets go of her anger. Anya ends the episode alone, learning that, like Buffy, she must discard all her old identities to discover who she is beneath them all. (Frankel, Buffy 116)

Buffy Anne Summers

Buffy (a yuppie eighties name) sounds like a cross between Bunny and Fluffy – the most innocuous helpless damsel most likely to get axed in a horror movie. “In common cultural currency, Buffy suggests an upper-middle-class girl who has few material problems in life. The dissonance in its joining with the term ‘the Vampire Slayer’ makes for humor of course; but it is also a witty defiance of stereotype” (Wilcox, Why Buffy Matters 63). This was a deliberate gesture on Joss Whedon’s part: As he put it: The first thing I ever thought of when I thought of “Buffy: The Movie” was the little blonde girl who goes into a dark alley and gets killed, in every horror movie.

The idea of “Buffy” was to subvert that idea, that image, and create someone who was a hero where she had always been a victim. That element of surprise, genre-busting is very much at the heart of both the movie and the series. (Commentary, “Welcome to the Hellmouth”)

The new WB network wanted to name the show “Slayer,” but Whedon protested – the jarring mash-up of silly name and serious calling, he felt, was necessary to the franchise.

In “Buffy as Femme Fatale,” critic Jason Middleton describes Whedon inventing Buffy as the “beautiful blonde” cheerleader with a name that “could not possibly be coded as more feminine” (161). She triumphs, despite the traditional fate of gorgeous feminine blondes who have sex in horror. As such, she’s Whedon’s genre-breaker, a rewriting of all the horror tropes.

Buffy is technically short for Elizabeth, linking her with England’s most powerful ruling queens who took over the country in times of patriarchy and stunned the world with their strength.

Elizabeth means “Pledged to God,” and Buffy is indeed the Chosen One, battling forces of evil with a cross shining on her chest. It must be noted, however, that Buffy is never called Elizabeth, even on her gravestone – she is “sweet, brave Buffy” only.

In college, she has trouble finding this self: XANDER: The point is, you’re Buffy.

BUFFY: Yeah, maybe in high school I was Buffy.

XANDER: And now in college you're Betty Louise?

BUFFY: Yeah, I'm Betty Louise Plotnick of East Cupcake, Illinois. Or I might as well be. (“The Freshman,” B4.1)

Like her middle name Anne, Betty Louise smacks of countrified

normality, rather than the striking name Buffy (which has now come to represent iconic girl power, thanks to the show).

She names herself several times in the series, always a sign of self-determination. In “Anne” (B3.1), for instance, she must call herself “no one” until she bursts out “I’m Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

And you are?” Her self-aware quips likewise establish her power over her enemies. In “The Gift” (B5.22) significantly, she meets a vampire who’s never heard of her, and she reencounters her roots before her final challenge.

BUFFY: Wow. Been a long while since I met one who didn’t know me. …

KID: But you’re...you’re just a girl.

Buffy pauses in the doorway.

BUFFY: That’s what I keep saying.

No matter how much others label her “just a girl,” she’s still the slayer.

On Whedonesque.com, libradude pointed out a link between the heroine’s name and the “buffy coat” – the thin divider layer in a blood sample after centrifuge that contains most of the white blood cells and platelets. While there’s no evidence Whedon made the connection, the fact that “buffy” is the gleaming white layer separating the clear plasma from the red blood cells – like a protective barrier or dividing line between the unseen vampires and blood-filled humans – is delightfully serendipitous.

Meanwhile, Buffy Summers and her sister Dawn fight against creatures of the night. The surname suggests sunlight incarnate, enemy of vampires everywhere. Her name also marks her as the destined protector of Sunnydale. “Summers” are the mildest, gentlest season, suggestive of vacation. Thus it is a soft, harmless name like “Buffy.” It also, as Wilcox notes, suggests a Persephone figure, dying in winter and returning to life in the summer (Why Buffy Matters 63). She is the goddess of new life, resurrecting even after she’s stolen by death.

The middle name Anne is also worthy of mention. It’s a prosaic name, used to emphasize a difference between Buffy’s nondescript alias and Chanterelle the exotic mushroom in “Anne” (B3.1): LILY: So how come you came up with Anne?

BUFFY: It’s my middle name.

LILY: Lily’s from a song. Rickie picked it. I’m always

changing anyway. Chanterelle was part of my exotic phase.

BUFFY: It’s nice. It’s a…it’s a mushroom.

LILY: It is? That’s really embarrassing.

BUFFY: Um, well, i-it’s an exotic mushroom, if that’s any comfort.

LILY: Well, before that, I was following this loser preacher and calling myself “Sister Sunshine.”

BUFFY: What do they call you at home?

Lily looks away and doesn’t respond.

BUFFY: I like Lily.

Their conversation reveals much: Lily has completely rejected her past identity and allows men to name her. However by identifying Buffy and reminding her of her heroic past, she’s begun to guide Buffy back toward herself. Buffy of course named herself with part of her own name, contrasted with Lily’s secrecy and constant switching, all to please her string of boyfriends. By episode’s end, the girl has named herself the stronger Anne, after Buffy. She appears several times on Angel, as a force for good running a teen center in the worst part of L.A., keeping Buffy’s mission and name alive.

Anne also hearkens back, among other things, to the beloved children’s series that represents an early offering of girl power: Anne of Green Gables. Xander subtly references the series when he says, on Buffy’s return from being Anne in L.A., “So skip the heartwarming stuff about kindly old people and saving the farm and get right to the dirt” (This is the plot of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s novel Anne of Green Gables) in “Dead Man’s Party” (B3.2). It must also be mentioned that Kitty Pryde’s middle name is Anne. Whedon based much of Buffy’s bright, perky personality on the X-Men superheroine of his childhood, and the name may be a deliberate homage.

“Anne” means grace or favor. In Christian theology, grace is the spontaneous gift of love and mercy given to people by God through his compassion and generosity, not because humanity has earned it.

Buffy receives this divine favor when her frivolous socialite self suddenly receives Slayer powers, which transform her into a superhero. Her previous life was one of selfishness and indulgence, but she is given a gift to transform the world, together with strength and self-defense, though she’s clearly done nothing to earn them (in contrast with poor Kendra’s lifetime training and deprivation).

Another moment of pure grace occurs as snow saves Angel’s life in “Amends” (B3.10), just as Buffy’s pleading for him to live. Other

miracles (though only achieved with her friends’ aid) include her return from death twice and Angel’s restoration in “Becoming” (B2.22) moments before his death. Buffy has numerous close calls from a near-death at Luke’s hands in the series premiere to a photofinish escape in “Chosen” (B7.22). There are many lucky chances, fortunate coincidences, and other moments when the powers above seem to be protecting her. Angel’s protection of her can also be viewed as a type of grace, as she has an “angel” looking after her.

Buffy’s other alias is Joan, appearing in “Tabula Rasa” (B6.8).

Dawn offers to help, but Buffy names herself, a symbol of strength and determination.

DAWN: (to Buffy) So you don’t have a name?

BUFFY: Of course I do. I just don’t happen to know it.

DAWN: (smiling) You want me to name you?

BUFFY: Oh, that’s sweet, but I think I can name myself. (thinks) I’ll name me...Joan.

DAWN: (makes a face) Ugh! BUFFY: What? Did you just ‘ugh’ my name?

DAWN: No! I just...I mean, it’s so blah. Joan?

BUFFY: I like it. I feel like a Joan.

Joan is a variant of John, the most common name. It’s also the original name of Lily, according to “Lie to Me’s” shooting script, and thus the name of someone who hides from danger and needs rescuing. Possibly the chosen one is eager to get a “blah” name and retire from being a hero, but in fact, in this episode, she’s more Buffylike than in the rest of her miserable sixth season. Having sonamed herself, she instantly takes charge and battles the vampires.

Thus Joan doesn’t seem like an ordinary identity after all, but a heroic one – Joan of Arc. “When Buffy chooses her name, she chooses the name of a woman warrior who dies for her cause” (Wilcox, Why Buffy Matters 61). Even without her identity, she still chooses to be Buffy.

Daniel “Oz” Osbourne Whedon notes: “I just knew a guy named Oz. Kinda short. Played lead guitar for a band. He had this incredible cool about him; he wore bowling shirts before anyone else did” (Havens 62).

His real name is only mentioned after he leaves Sunnydale in “Wild at Heart” (B4.6). As such, he’s better known as Oz, linked with a bad boy image from the prison TV show, as well as with the fantasy world of Baum, all in a single laconic syllable. It

should also be noted that Oz is a nickname for Australia, home of the “Dingoes ate my baby” tale that inspired his band.

The name Daniel means “God is my judge,” not the most appropriate identity for one who plays God for Halloween.

(Notably, no one ever calls him Daniel – he seems to agree.) The more intriguing last name, Osbourne, comes from the Viking word for bear-god, the berserker who turns into a bear. Aside from the choice of animal, this is a nearly perfect fit. The medieval English surname lingered after the Viking invasions, linking the two cultures, gentlemen and savages, in the person of Oz. Dawn Summers “Dawn [as in the sunrise] is forever young, never aging, never dying, she follows her destiny and sees generation succeed generation,” as Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrant explain in A Dictionary of Symbols (275). Thus dawn is a symbol of total potentiality and hope for the future. In Judeo-Christian lore, Dawn symbolizes God’s victory over the world of darkness, the golden light that appears at the end of “Chosen” (B7.22). Dawn represents the sunlight and new world that Buffy fights and dies to create.

Welsh literature commonly describes dawn as “the youth of the day” (Chevalier and Gheerbrant 275). She’s both the most youthful character on the show and literally only a few months old – symbolically the most vulnerable. Whedon comments: I wanted somebody who wasn’t at the exact same stage in life that all my other characters were. Who was younger, so we got a different perspective on everything they do and also somebody who happens to have a different relationship with Buffy we’ve never seen her have before. Which is sort of a squabbling sister, pretentious yet a very charged relationship that we haven’t seen in her life [...] She’s fourteen and it’s good to have somebody who’s still about to go through what they went through. (“Joss Whedon at Wizard World”)

Faith Lehane Faith is a name straight from Puritan values along with Hope, Charity, Prudence, and all the rest. It, unlike some of Whedon’s favorites, was always a common women’s name. “Faith had been on the rise for a decade when Joss used the name, and would peak a few

years after the character slayed her first vamp” (appellationmountain).

It’s a jarring choice for this thoroughly modern girl who has faith in no one at all – she rejects individual offers of help and friendship from Giles, Angel, Xander, Wesley, Willow, and especially Buffy over and over. Writer Doug Petrie describes the character’s name as “wildly ironic” due to her cynical nature. According to Petrie, “She’s the most faithless character we’ve got. She doesn’t trust herself or anyone around her. We try to do that a lot with our monsters. It’s much more fun if you look at it from their point of view” (Golden, Bissette and Sniegoski).

After she flees to the show Angel, however, she transforms.

Angel shows perfect faith in her in “Sanctuary” (A1.19) as he offers his life to protect her. He takes her side against his precious Buffy, then proves willing for the police to lock him in a sunny cell and kill him – all to defend the murderess who beat up his team.

Faith responds to this gesture as she never responded to the characters on Buffy: She turns herself in and patiently submits to jail.

Only when Angelus returns does she break out, telling Wesley that Angel is the only person never to give up on her. In season eight, she plays a similar role. Faith undertakes Angel’s rehabilitation and redemption as he did for her in “Sanctuary.” This proves to be a long road.

Through the Angel and Faith comic book arc, she cares for the distraught, maddened vampire, protecting him on his (apparently) insane quest to collect scattered fragments of Giles’s soul. By the end, Faith has grown weary of the disheartening quest and decides to work with Kennedy in private security. However, she takes solace in the knowledge that she’s restored Angel to sanity through her faith in him. Unfortunately, Giles (who had mentored her during season eight) tells her Buffy is his priority, and she leaves him, hurt and abandoned once again.

Whedon created the surname “Lehane,” for her in January 2005, during the creation of Eden Studios’ Buffy the Vampire Slayer roleplaying game. Whedon explained at the time: “There was this role playing game or something. They said she hadda have a last name for her so I chose Lehane ‘cause I wanted something Southie” (Whedonesque.com).

Lehane is in fact Irish, from the Gaelic “O’Liathain,” meaning “descendant of Liathan.” “Liath” means grey, and Faith is a terribly grey character, as she proves with the expedient morality in season three.

BUFFY: We help people! It doesn’t mean we can do whatever we want.

FAITH: Why not? … You’re still not seeing the big picture, B. Something made us different. We’re warriors.

We’re built to kill.

BUFFY: To kill demons! But it does not mean that we get to pass judgment on people like we’re better than everybody else!

FAITH: We are better! That’s right, better. People need us to survive. In the balance, nobody’s gonna cry over some random bystander who got caught in the crossfire.

BUFFY: I am.

FAITH: Well, that’s your loss. (“Consequences,” B3.15).

In the comic No Future for You (B8.2), she uses the alias Hope Lyonne. Hope is obviously a play on Faith, Hope and Charity, while Lyonne is a French place name, both a play on Lehane and an upgrade to the British peerage for her role. It also (less than coincidentally) emphasizes she’s fierce as a lion.

Riley Finn Fionn mac Cumhaill was an Irish culture hero, a great supernatural warrior augmented with magical strength. He accomplished great feats, but his beautiful bride finally ran off with another man.

Riley means valiant and Finn means white or fair-haired. In everything he does, he’s certainly brave, proper, and noble. His name is very Irish (both names), indicating his family origins though he’s from middle America. As such, he represents classic American values – belief in the military and male hierarchy – that come into conflict with modern outspoken women. He’s also very conservative, as he attends church and joins the Initiative. As Spike points out, he’s not nearly bad-boy enough for Buffy: “What’ve you got? A piercing glance? Face it, white bread, Buffy’s got a type and you’re not it. She likes us dangerous, rough, occasionally bumpy in the forehead region. Not that she doesn’t like you, but, sorry, Charlie – You’re just not dark enough” (“Shadow,” B5.8). Unfortunately for Riley, this is true.

Rupert “Ripper” Giles Giles means “young goat” in Greek. Goats were associated with Paganism during the Christian era, marking Giles as a member of Buffy’s magical Wiccan community, rather than the mainstream culture. The Semitic god-god Azazel became demonized as a

scapegoat (giving us the modern word), much as Giles is scapegoated by the Watcher’s Council and sometimes Buffy’s mother from the crimes of the rebellious slayer.

“The fact that he has two ‘first’ names (Rupert Giles) allows him to be regularly called ‘Giles’ by the teen characters without this ever sounding strange (as it might if they called him ‘Smith’) and suggesting a degree of intimacy while not quite putting them on the same footing,” Lorna Jowett notes in her book on gender, Sex and the Slayer (127).

Rupert, a German variant of Robert, means “Bright Fame.” Of course, it’s a bit more exotic to American ears than Robert, setting Giles apart from the American mainstream.

Giles’ teenage nickname “Ripper” is presumably from Jack the Ripper. (Though the Angel and Faith comic Daddy Issues suggests an alternative similar to the origins of “William the Bloody Awful Poet”: As a boy Giles constantly played with a toy airplane. After he tore his aunt’s minidress, she said they should have called the little blighter Ripper.

The Ripper persona is the complete opposite of Giles. He represents Giles’s aggression, bursting out in the four Ethan Rayne episodes complete with working class accent (actually the actor’s own). Giles’s Ripper costuming in “Band Candy” (B3.6) “associates him with either a working-class hero (like early Marlon Brando) or, perhaps, a middle-class would-be rebel like James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause” (Jowett 130). Though he attempts to be the tweedwearing librarian who only helps behind the scenes, he brings a Ripper-like ferocity and expediency to the team when needed.

Spike/William Pratt William means “resolute protection” as Spike once was for his mother, and becomes for Buffy and Dawn, especially in “The Gift” (B5.22) and “Chosen” (B7.22). In his youngest appearance, he’s a shy, beauty-seeking Victorian who writes poetry and longs hopelessly for Cecily. “‘Fool for Love’ (B5.7) shows the ‘good man’ he once was and perhaps could be again, the one who politely courts a young woman and cares for his mother. But we don’t see him revert to this poetry-reading, self-accepting man until the final episode of Angel” (Frankel, Buffy 138).

When he was called William, Cecily spurned him, his mother rejected him, and Angel taunted his weakness. His last name, Pratt, suggests that he is in fact a bit of a Pratt, as useless and proper as Wesley before his character growth. “It would be a little

embarrassing for a die-hard killer to admit that in his past incarnation he was practically scared of his own shadow, and accordingly vampire Spike attempts to downplay his ‘William side’ as much as possible, in favour of being known as the much more impressive double Slayer-slayer” (Lowe). He becomes William the Bloody – ironic, since this is actually related to his poetry: ARISTOCRAT 1: Have you heard? They call him William the Bloody because of his bloody awful poetry!

ARISTOCRAT 2: It suits him. I’d rather have a railroad spike through my head than listen to that awful stuff! (“Fool for Love,” B5.7)

Thus Spike creates a new identity for himself: Slayer of slayers, most fearsome of all. “Spike is the name of his own choosing: it is phallic, it is violent, and it is clearly embedded in response to the mockery of the shy young poet” (Wilcox, Why Buffy Matters 59). He affects a lower-class accent and wears rougher clothes before finding his iconic leather jacket in the seventies.

Of course Spike, our vampire-du-jour, sees himself as a pretty cool monster: a ruthless, bloody killer who got his nickname by torturing his victims with railroad spikes.

He is over one hundred years old, and in a century or more of vampiredom he has left a lot of carnage in his wake, including (as he is proud to relate) the bodies of two previous Slayers. (Lowe)

Upon his first appearance in “School Hard,” (B2.3), Spike shrouds his identity in mystery: SPIKE: Nice work, baby.

BUFFY: Who are you?

SPIKE: You’ll find out on Saturday.

BUFFY: What happens on Saturday?

SPIKE: I kill you.

SHEILA: Who are you?

SPIKE: Who do you want me to be?

When asked if Angel knows his name, Angel likewise identifies him as terrifying, noting, “Once he starts something he doesn’t stop, until everything in his path is dead. Stay away.”

When Spike is introduced, he is intended merely as an impulsive, villainous “Big Bad,” taunting Buffy and Angel but losing the big

conflicts. Though he maintains his love for Drusilla which “stinks of humanity,” all other human characteristics have been banished. Still, the William personality still exists below the surface, desperate for love and starved for sunlight.

His human “will” grows through the series, cultivated as he cultivates morality and a soul. Buffy calls him William at significantly human moments, pulling back from his sincere feelings in “Fool for Love” and acknowledging his soul in season seven.

“Notably, in her rejection, she calls him William, a name that invokes his human (and feminized) side” (Jowett 161). In Spike’s final episode on Angel, he reads from the poetry he wrote as William so long ago, exposing the most vulnerable human self that was mocked and taunted out of existence.

Nonetheless, he does not resume the name William, instead reclaiming his leather coat, cigarettes, and bad boy attitude in “Get it Done” (B7.15), when Buffy insists he fight at full strength. In “Tabula Rasa” (B6.8) he confuses his name with Buffy’s stakes – he is “Buffy’s weapon of choice” (Wilcox, Why Buffy Matters 61). He turns from being her enemy to her “resolute protector” and slowly regains his William qualities as he regains his soul. Nonetheless, he’s still Spike.

Pop Culture in the

Whedonverse

All the References in Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Cabin in the Woods, The Avengers, Doctor Horrible, In Your Eyes, Comics and More

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Angel and Faith are like recovering alcoholics as they resolve to restrain themselves from violence or blood drinking. Angel devotes himself to God as the Powers That Be and abstains from human blood.

Whistler acts as Angel’s sponsor. Angel also makes amends, though he knows he can’t balance the scales. His first episode “functions like a drunkalogue” (Kociemba 137).

Buffy compares seeing Angel to a drug habit in “Revelations” (B3.7) and references patches and going cold turkey. When confronted, she asks, “What is this, Demons Anonymous? I don’t need an intervention.”

Faith tells Angel, “I don’t want to get all twelve steppy” (“Enemies,” B3.17).

Willow “uses black magicks to escape from negative feelings” (Kociemba 131). She tells Buffy in “Wrecked” (B6.10) that she “won’t miss the nosebleeds and the headaches and stuff.” She gets a rush from using.

REBECCA LOWELL: You’re not a killer.

ANGEL: I gave that up.

REBECCA LOWELL: Well, there is a support group for everything in this town, I guess. (“Eternity,” A1.17)

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In “Sanctuary” (A1.19), Faith says, “I’ve got to be the first Slayer in history sponsored by a vampire.”

GUNN (to Angel, who’s drunk Connor’s blood): You were all hyped this morning. Then you went all Tyson on those demons. Then you kinda crashed.

Then you had another drink, then you started throwing things.

FRED: Mm-hmm, just like my aunt Viola and her

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Southern Comfort.

ANGEL: Hey. Vampire. Need to drink something red. Doesn’t make me a blood-aholic. (“Sleep Tight,” A3.16)

Abbott and Costello • “The Yankees. Abbott and Costello. The ‘A’. Now, those were teams,” Xander says (“Go Fish,” B2.20).

Abbott and Costello were a goofy comedy team.

They’re referenced again later: XANDER: The joint’s not jumping. Where is everybody?

Mechanical laughter comes from a head with one eye hanging from its socket sitting in a punch bowl on a table next to the door.

OZ: Follow the signs.

Buffy looks at the severed head.

BUFFY: Terrifying. If I were Abbott and Costello this would be fairly traumatic. (“Fear Itself,” B4.4)

AC/DC • “Hell’s Bells” (B6.16) is an AC/DC song from their album “Back in Black.”

• Upon his entrance in Germany, Stark hacks the speakers to play AC/DC’s “Shoot to Thrill,” his entrance song at the convention of Iron Man 2 (The Avengers).

Academics I think it’s great that the academic community has taken an interest in the show. I think it’s always important for academics to study popular culture, even if the thing they are studying is idiotic. If it’s successful or made a dent in culture, then it is worthy of study to find out why. “Buffy,” on the other hand is, I hope, not idiotic. We think very carefully about what we’re trying to say emotionally, politically, and even philosophically while we’re writing it. The process of breaking a story involves the writers and myself, so a lot of different influences, prejudices, and ideas get

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rolled up into it. So it really is, apart from being a big pop culture phenomenon, something that is deeply layered textually episode by episode. I do believe that there is plenty to study and there are plenty of things going on in it, as there are in me that I am completely unaware of. People used to laugh that academics would study Disney movies.

There’s nothing more important for academics to study, because they shape the minds of our children possibly more than any single thing. So, like that, I think “Buffy” should be analyzed, broken down, and possibly banned. (“10 Questions for…Joss Whedon”)

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Buffy Studies have appeared across the globe as college classes, academic conferences, and essays in pop culture journals and anthologies.

Since January 2001 Slayage: The Online Journal of Buffy Studies has published quarterly essays through current times, with special issues devoted to Cabin in the Woods or Dollhouse.

WILLOW: “Images of Pop Culture.” This is good.

T-They watch movies, T-TV shows, even commercials.

BUFFY: For credit?

WILLOW: Heh. Isn’t college cool? (“The Freshman,” B4.1)

At the time, scholarly papers on Buffy must have been appearing, alongside all the other papers analyzing pop culture.

• SPIKE: Heard of me, have you? LYDIA: I...wrote my thesis on you. (“Checkpoint,” B5.12) • “As Dr. Horrible talks to his unseen audience on his video blog, we are given an example of “good” close reading, as modelled by one of his email correspondents (whose handle, deadnotsleeping, is not dissimilar to those of the posters on the Whedonesque discussion boards)” (Lang 376).

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Whedon is the author of the Official Companions to Firefly, Serenity, and Cabin in the Woods. Several books offer interviews with him and more books increasingly compare all his projects and his life.

Henry Jenkins, academic author of the widelyquoted Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture appears in Whedon’s ComicCon Documentary.

Accordion • Gunn mishears Acadian Magics as “accordion music” in “The Price” (A3.19).

Acrobatics • XANDER: First of all, what was with the acrobatics? How did that happen? OZ: Wasn’t Andy Hoelich on the gymnastics team? (“Anne,” B3.1) • Much Ado About Nothing has twins performing acrobatics, suggesting the many doubles of the film as characters disguise as each other and reflect each others’ plots.

Acting • Willow has nightmares about stage fright in “Nightmares” (B1.10) and “Restless” (B4.22).

• Buffy and Willow plan to take drama (“Real Me,” B5.2).

• Cordelia and Lorne spend many episodes dealing with the entertainment industry.

• Doctor Horrible has a vocal coach.

• Jemma Simmons is a terrible, terrible liar.

• The X-Men characters laugh at Kitty’s bad acting and tell her she’s not in a courtroom drama.

• Felicia Day sings in “The Art” that to act she requires “Memory, method, primal and deep/ All Stanislavsky, Strasberg, and Streep” (Commentary!

The Musical).

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Action Figures • “BtVS action figures have been made by three different companies; 9” figures by Exclusive Premiere, 6” figures by Moore Action and 12” figures by Sideshow Toy” (Kociemba 133).

• Adam finds a kid playing with an action figure and kills him in “Goodbye Iowa” (B4.14).

• Anya says of Xander, “It’s not like he was in the ‘Nam. He was G.I. Joe for one night” (“Goodbye, Iowa,” B4.14).

• Xander calls Riley G.I. Joe in “The Yoko Factor” (B4.20).

• Spike threatens to behead the trio’s limited edition, 1979 mint condition Boba Fett (“Smashed,” B6.9).

• Spike calls Riley a “tin soldier” in “As You Were” (B6.15).

• Spike says: “Oh, here we go, then. Just me and the walking action-figure” (“Two to Go,” B6.21).

• “This is way beyond my ken … and my Barbie and all my action figures,” Lorne says (“Offspring,” A3.7).

• In “Apocalypse, Nowish” (A4.7) Cordy says, “I’m not gonna turn into Amnesia Action Figure Cordy again.”

• Mike Peterson sends his son “All the heroes of New York action figures” (“The Bridge,” AS1.10).

• Xander likes comic books and action figures. Wash has his toy dinosaurs.

Actors • In the original Buffy movie, there’s a mention of Sting’s efforts to save the rainforests and a mention of Jimi Hendrix’s death.

• Cordelia mentions James Spader in “Welcome to the Hellmouth” (B1.1).

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John Tesh, an American television and radio presenter, is mentioned in “Welcome to the Hellmouth” (B1.1).

In “When She Was Bad” (B2.1), Cordelia asks Buffy, “what’s with the Joan Collins ‘tude?”

Buffy and Willow play Anywhere but Here in season two and the season eight comics: BUFFY: I’m on a beach, but not one of those American beaches, one of those island beaches where the water’s way too blue, and I’m laying on my towel, and it’s just before sunset, and Gavin Rossdale’s massaging my feet!

WILLOW: Oh, that’s good! Uh, I’m in Florence, Italy, I’ve rented a scooter that’s parked outside, and I’m in a little restaurant eating ziti, and there are no more tables left, so they have to seat this guy with me, and it’s John Cusack!

BUFFY: Ooo! Very impressive. You have such an eye for detail.

WILLOW: ’Cause with the ziti! (“The Dark Age,” B2.8)

In No Future for You (B8.2): Willow wants to be snowed in with Tina Fey. Buffy dreams of Daniel Craig on the beach, then Little Women Christian Bale and Reign of Fire Christian Bale.

• Cordelia describes a friend’s plastic surgery, saying: “She came in looking for the Gwenyth Paltrow, and it looked more like the Mr. Potato Head” in “Killed

by Death” (B2.18).

• Xander complains about Joyce “Bogarting” the “cheesy chips” when Buffy is sick, a common allusion to Bogart’s smoking the entire cigarette (“Killed by Death,” B2.18).

• Joyce admiringly compares Giles to Burt Reynolds in “Band Candy” (B3.6).

Harmony: Is Antonio Banderas a vampire?

Spike: No. [Though he played one]

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Harmony: Oh. Can I make him a vampire?

Spike: No. Wait, on second thought, yeah. Go do that. Take your time. Do Melanie and the kids, as well. (“The Harsh Light of Day,” B4.3)

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Oz says: “Nobody deserves a mime, Buffy” (“Living Conditions,” B4.2).

Buffy likes George Clooney in “Real Me” (B5.2).

Harmony would only have a threesome with two boys or with Charlize Theron (“Crush,” B5.14).

“I Was Made to Love You” references Warren Beatty.

Andrew hoped for a Christina Ricci robot in “Flooded” (B6.4).

One thing Amy missed while being a rat is Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman’s divorce (“Smashed,” B6.9).

One of Amy’s dance partners in “Smashed” (B6.9) calls Willow “Ellen,” a reference to Ellen Degeneres.

“Good Godfrey Cambridge!” Xander quips (“Gone,” B6.11).

There’s a Marilyn Monroe statue in the frathouse of “Selfless” (B7.5).

Andrew tries to play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon in “Showtime” (B7.11).

In “Lies My Parents Told Me” (B7.17), Buffy tells Giles, “It was boring, old, and British…like you…le Brynner.”

Of the “Chosen” amulet, Spike complains, “I’m getting zero juice here, and I look like Elizabeth Taylor” (B7.22).

Buffy suggests she might sleep with Judi Dench in a quip gone wrong (Wolves at the Gate B8.3).

Buffy mistakes the demon Morgala for Morgan Freeman (Time of Your Life B8.4).

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“If you’re a god, I’m Lillie Langtry,” Edna says to the vampire she’s meeting (Tales of the Vampires).

She was a celebrated actress from the turn of the century.

DOYLE: All I’m saying is, if you and I ever hope to take that cruise to the Bahamas together, we’re gonna need a lot more clients with means.

CORDELIA: And an alternate reality in which you’re Matthew McConaughey. (“In the Dark,” A1.3)

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Cordy references Jonny Depp (“In the Dark,” A1.3).

Cordelia’s friend Serena hits on Wesley and compares him to Hugh Grant in “Expecting” (A1.12).

In “Are You Now or Have You Ever Been” (A2.2) a man says, “Ah, come on, honey! How do you think Lana Turner got started?” There’s also a comment about a “zany redhead” character who’s clearly Lucille Ball.

Cordelia says Gunn should act less like Michael Madsen in Reservoir Dogs and a bit more like Guy Pearce in L.A. Confidential. Gunn reveals that he boycotts the movies because Denzel was robbed of the Oscar for Malcom X. The rest of the team agree Denzel is wonderful. (“First Impressions,” A2.3).

WESLEY: I even spilled it on her in front of Mr. Fat Chow...Chow.

CORDELIA: Chow Yun-Fat! ANGEL: What? You met Chow Yun-Fat? (“The Shroud of Rahmon,” A2.8)

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Cordelia says: “Maybe we can buy one of those star maps, find out where Steven Seagal lives. You telling me he got to be a movie star without a little demonic assistance?” (“The Thin Dead Line” A2.14).

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Lorne says, “Aggie is never wrong when it comes to hotspots. She was doing sky bar way before Brad and Jennifer –” (“Over the Rainbow,” A2.20) “Jude Law was a little busy, huh?” Cordy quips (“Birthday,” A3.11).

In “Provider” (A3.12), Lorne says of the Nahdrah’s ship, “Jules Verne meets Leona Helmsley.”

Billionaire Leona Helmsley was known for being cruel but successful.

In “Couplet” (A3.14) Lorne tells Angel “Fine Miss Garbo, Have it your way, be alone” Fred asks Gunn, “So, what was it like?...Being dead. Gone. See anything interesting? White light?

Shirley MacLaine?” in “Ground State” (A4.2). The latter is a known spiritualist.

In “Ground State” (A4.2) and “Long Day’s Journey” (A4.9), Gwen calls Gunn “Denzel.”

A demon considers getting an older Shirley Temple Black style body (“Just Rewards,” A5.2).

Lorne chats with Roberto Benigni (from Life is Beautiful) in “Life of the Party” (A5.5).

In “Life of the Party” (A5.5), Lorne says into his phone, “Well, I’m pretty sure that Henry Fonda’s dead, sweetie. Yeah. Bring him back to life? Let me talk to my science people” and later “Wes, if you see Fred, can you have her pencil me in for later? I gotta talk to her about Henry Fonda’s big comeback.”

Shaq sends Lorne muffins (“Harm’s Way,” A5.9).

Lorne entertains Wesley’s father in “Lineage” (A5.7): “...so I am covered in cherries, the police are just pounding on the door, and Judi Dench starts screaming, “Oh, that’s way too much to pay for a pair of pants!”

“So, we’re not going to snap Twiggy into little sticks?” Lorne asks about Eve in “Damage”

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(A5.11). Lorne enlists the psychic who “does all Tom Arnold’s readings” and Andrew tells Spike, “Bravo. I see your senses seem to be as well-honed as your Viggo Mortensen pectorals.”

Lorne tells Cordy: “Hey, listen, crumbcake. When you’re ready to splash back into that acting pool, just say the word. I’ll have you lunching with Colin Farrell like that” (“You’re Welcome,” A5.12).

Lorne tells Eve, “If I was about to face your future, I’d make like Carmen Miranda and die!” (“A Hole in the World,” A5.15).

In “Power Play” (A5.21), Lorne says Angel “suddenly started channeling Leona Helmsley,” the vicious boss.

In the Spike comic, Minnie Pearl: The Sound Generation is playing in Vegas. Spike tells Beck to “bring the house down” and quips, “No one’s scared by your deep, booming Michael Clarke Duncan voice.”

In the Angel & Faith comic In Perfect Harmony, Harmony shares advice she got from Charlie Sheen.

In the original movie script, Buffy wanted to marry Charlie Sheen.

Lavinia thinks Ethan Rayne resembles Humphrey Bogart (Angel and Faith 4).

Jayne’s favorite gun, Vera, may be named for the actress Jayne Mansfield, whose real name is Vera Jayne Palmer.

“I’d never been asked to play a girl before, so I knew I’d need to summon my inner hero, Carol Burnett,” Adam Baldwin jokes in Better Days and Other Stories.

Ivy notes that they’ll need lots of imprints because “the Jonas Brothers are back in town” (“Vows,” D2.1).

The team sings in “Strike,” “It’s convincing as a cockney/Dick Van Dyke” (Commentary! The

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Musical). Neil Patrick Harris references Liza Minnelli and Hal Holbrook, of the one-man show “Mark Twain Tonight.”

“Every kid gets to go to school…’cept us…and Dakota Fanning,” Molly says in Runaways.

KINGPIN: I dislike Semantics. CHASE: Yeah so does Mel Gibson (Runaways) Whedon’s Comic-Con Documentary features interviews and cameos with actors and directors Kevin Smith, Seth Green, Olivia Wilde, Seth Rogen, Morgan Webb, Paul Scheer, Eli Roth, Corey Feldman, Jamison Newlander, Thomas Jane, Kenneth Branagh, Edgar Wright, Jon Schnepp, Jamison Newlander, and Guillermo del Toro

SEE: BRODERICK, MATTHEW; DEAN, JAMES The Addams Family • Harmony calls Drusilla “Morticia,” from The Addams Family in “Crush” (B5.14). Mercedes McNab actually appeared in the 1991 Addams Family movie.

• “Showtime!” in the musical and “Shells” (A5.16) is from here, as is “You Rang?” (“Older and Far Away,” B6.14).

Africa • The First Slayer may originate in Africa, though it’s not made clear.

• Wesley mentions dark power in “a volcano deep in the forbidden jungles of South Africa” (“Hell Bound,” A5.4).

• “Xander’s in Africa. He sent me an mbuna fish,” Andrew says in “Damage” (A5.11).

Afterlife

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In Whedon’s early unmade movie script, a dying Daniel Hoffstetter has his memory transferred to a serial killer’s body. As he quests for his wife, the killer’s personality slowly returns. While it has pop culture references, this story is more notable for its many Dollhouse concepts.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Whedon describes his newest show saying: Anybody who’s ever seen one of my shows knows I love the ensembles; I love the peripheral characters. This is basically a TV series of “The Zeppo,” which was a very deliberate deconstruction of a Buffy episode in order to star the person who mattered the least. The people who are ignored are the people I’ve been writing as my heroes from day one. With S.H.I.E.L.D., the idea of [Clark Gregg’s Agent Coulson] as the longsuffering bureaucrat who deals with Tony Stark’s insufferability is delightful and hits the core of something I’m also writing about all the time—the little guy versus the big faceless organization.

(Hibberd)

The show, an Avengers spin-off, features Agent Coulson, back from the dead (and dealing with the trauma in Buffylike fashion) along with his team of original characters: Leo Fitz has something of a Wash-Xander-Topher vibe while Melinda May is the deadpan Zoe-type warrior. Skye is Echo or River – the untrained girl with growing superpowers. The show remained episodic as the characters mopped up from the superheroes in an X-Files or Men in Black style, up until Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Then the team found themselves surrounded by traitors within and without, fighting for their lives in a genre-busting story. there are a few pop culture references as Fitz and Simmons are Doctor Who fans and Skye quips about The Hunger Games. Still, most are to the Marvel universe, with constant in-jokes and nods to the comics and The Avengers.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Marvel 195

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Skye tells Mike that “with great power comes...a ton of weird crap that you’re not ready for!” a riff on the line from Spider-Man (Pilot).

At the end of the pilot, Coulson quips that they must “cut the head off the Centipede,” echoing H.Y.D.R.A.’s motto, “Cut off one head, two more will take its place.”

The website The Rising Tide shows clips from the Marvel movies resembling poorly filmed camcorder footage.

Characters are described as “Gifted,” because the show doesn’t have the rights to X-Men’s mutants.

Ward is recovering from a “Chitauri neural link” after The Avengers. He’s described as having the highest grades as a Stealth Expert since Romanov.

Coulson’s “Welcome to Level 7” answers Jasper Sitwell’s question in The Consultant (“Come on, there’s a level 7?”).

Coulson’s mobile command is designated S.H.I.E.L.D. 616, after the primary Marvel comics universe, Universe 616. The official name for the Bus – Mobile Command Unit, or MCU, nods to Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Maria Hill is in the first episode, and Fury’s in the second.

The Centipede project looks to combine the Extremis virus (Iron Man 3) with gamma radiation (which created the Hulk) and Dr. Erskine’s superserum (which created Captain America) to create new super soldiers. The first user of the Centipede device mimics The Incredible Hulk movie, yelling at the lab worker, “I want to feel more!” Mike notes that the change depends on “what kind of person you are,” a nod to the Captain America movie.

Howard Stark invented an anti-grav car in the 1940s, like Lola. In the S.H.I.E.L.D. comics, flying

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cars supplied by Stark Industries have been standard since 1967.

The 0-8-4 is H.Y.D.R.A. tech. Reyes also mentions the fall of H.Y.D.R.A. and their Nazi allies (“0-84,” AS1.2).

Skye mentions that S.H.I.E.L.D. had covered up New Mexico’s Thor visit and Project Pegasus (where they were studying the Tesseract).

Simmons asks Skye if she is ready to join them on their “journey into mystery,” a Marvel Comics anthology title.

“Technically Stark’s a consultant” (“0-8-4,” AS1.2) is an Iron Man nod. Agent Coulson starred in a video short about his dealings with Stark called “The Consultant.”

The last dangerous artifact that S.H.I.E.L.D. designated an “0-8-4,” was apparently Thor’s hammer Mjolnir, which appeared on Earth before Thor himself in another Marvel short movie featuring Coulson, “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor’s Hammer.”

Coulson mentions cleaning up a fragment of AntiMatter that crashed down near Miami – the AntiMatter Universe comes from the Fantastic Four (“08-4,” AS1.2). Fitz-Simmons say, “Take that, Professor Vaughn!”

The Holographic Interface is from the Iron Man films.

Supervillain Graviton was created in the Rockies, according to the comics. On Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., his origin story episode has a truck marked “Rocky Mountain Office Supplies” (“The Asset,” AS1.3).

Coulson mentions sacrificing his card collection to help Fury in “The Asset” (AS1.3). Agent Tyler reappears.

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Echoing “Eye Spy” (AS1.4) there are many Marvel characters with cybernetic eyes, including Cable, Revanche and Crossfire.

The equation that Ward photographs in “Eye-Spy” (AS1.4) has some sections written in Skrull. Later, Garrett and Coulson are seen writing it.

Skye says “bang” when she pulls a trigger, an amusing nod to the comic book text bubbles.

Akela mentions that she was held prisoner in the small village of Shang-Chi. This is a criminal mastermind in the Marvel universe.

In “The Girl in the Flower Dress” (AS1.5), Coulson blows the lock with the same device he used in Iron Man to enter Obadiah Stane’s workshop with Pepper Potts.

Some are claiming that Scorch might be a version of Tommy Ng, a half-Vietnamese villain who fought Night Thrasher under the alias Scorch, but this Chinese character named Chan Ho Yin doesn’t seem to fit.

It’s suggested that Scorch gained his pyrokinetic abilities thanks to a nuclear plant that caught fire near his house. Coulson fears his getting a superhero name will make him a monster. Both are common tropes.

S.H.I.E.L.D’s Index and Power Protocols echo the comic books’ Superhero Registration Act, which plunged their world into civil war.

The Bus’s interrogation room is lined with a vibranium alloy, also used to create Captain America’s shield.

Skye makes an awkward Big Lebowski reference (“F.Z.Z.T.,” AS1.6). Its star, Jeff Bridges, is Obadiah Stane in Iron Man. “Item 47,” a short on the Avengers Blue-Ray, featured criminals recruited to S.H.I.E.L.D. just as

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Skye was. In “F.Z.Z.T” (AS1.6), Agent Blake from this short appears.

Agent Blake tells Coulson, “Someone might decide to take this dream team away from you.” In fact, portions of S.H.I.E.L.D. go bad by Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Skye says Coulson is acting like “a robot version of himself” on “The Hub” (AS1.7). This appears to be red herring that Coulson is a life model decoy android.

When the team walks through the Hub, there are numerous signs pointing to other divisions, such as H.A.M.M.E.R. or Sci Ops, A.R.M.O.R., and EuroMIND. These are straight from the Marvel Universe.

Simmons notes that there’s a S.H.I.E.L.D. base called the Triskelion that is even bigger than the Hub. Triskelion (on Governor’s Island near Manhattan) comes from the Ultimate Marvel universe, and is also mentioned as a look-ahead to Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

In the comics there are also eight levels of agents – Director Fury is the only occupant of Level Eight.

Fury’s old war buddies the Howling Commandos are mentioned. They appear in the Captain America movie.

Agent Jasper Sitwell (played by Maximiliano Hernandez) is a longtime S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and frequent ally of Nick Fury in the comics. He appears in “The Hub” (AS1.7) as well as “Item 47,” the Marvel One-Shot short film, with cameos in Thor and Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

S.H.I.E.L.D. was infiltrated with shape-shifting aliens called Skrulls in the comics. (In the Ultimate universe, and in the movie, the name gets changed to the Chitauri.)

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Victoria Hand works for H.A.M.M.E.R. and S.H.I.E.L.D. in the comics, complete with the red streak in her hair.

S.H.I.E.L.D.’s arch-nemesis agency, H.Y.D.R.A., builds the Overkill Horn in the comics, a sonic vibration doomsday device echoing the Overkill Device.

Agents Barton and Romanov (Hawkeye and Black Widow) are mentioned in “The Hub” (AS1.7) as the only agents who don’t use an extraction team.

Watching Simmons jump out of the back of the S.H.I.E.L.D. bus, to be caught by Ward in mid-air echoes Iron Man’s similar stunt in his third movie.

“The Well” (AS1.8) picks up directly after the events of Thor: The Dark World, with the team cleaning up the city. As the so-called Thor tie-in, it’s rather flimsy, with a movie montage, Asgardian protest group, superweapon, and warrior who decided to hang around on Earth.

Berserkers in the Marvel Universe include a Morlock from under New York’s subway system with electrokinetic powers, and a group given powers by Loki.

Coulson’s suggestion that Randolph move to Portland in “The Well” (AS1.8) is a callback to The Avengers. In episode ten, he mentions his lost girlfriend there, and she’s seen near season’s end.

In “The Well” (AS1.8), Skye wonders whether gods from other pantheons, such as the Hindu deity Vishnu, exist as aliens. Vishnu made his first appearance in Thor #300.

The gas station in the beginning of “Repairs” (AS1.9) is called “Roxxon,” an Exxon parallel in the Marvel Comics.

The Scrabble board shows the words strange and tales. Strange Tales is the comic book where Nick Fury debuted.

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In “Repairs” (AS1.9), the ship’s visitor says he’s trapped between our world and hell. This may be Surtur’s realm.

In “The Magical Place” (AS1.11), Fitz tells Simmons to “embrace the change.” This was the catchphrase was the teaser for Marvel’s 2008 multimedia event, Secret Invasion, in which Skrulls secretly replaced key people around the world. Is he an alien? It’s unlikely, as after discovering Ward’s defection, Fitz insists several times that he hates change. Chituri tech appears in the episode as well.

Memory altering and amnesia happens to most Marvel heroes. Coulson spends the first season as one of them.

In “The Magical Place” (AS1.11), Po is incapacitated by what appears to be the same sonic device used by Obadiah Stane in Iron Man. Raina claims Centipede and the Clairvoyant want to bring agents back from the dead. Baron Strucker of H.Y.D.R.A. and X-Men enemy Mr. Sinister have mastered this in the comics.

“Seeds” (AS1.12) references Vaughn and A.I.M. Quasar may be coming. The team visit S.H.I.E.L.D.’s academy, and Skye mentions Bucky Barnes.

In “Seeds” (AS1.12) Supervillain Donnie Gill (Blizzard) – the Iron Man enemy and one-time Thunderbolts member – is introduced with a new backstory.

“T.R.A.C.K.S.” (AS1.13) offers the obligatory Stan Lee cameo. Mike uses “Deathlok” technology, affirming his new identity. Coulson threatens to send Ward to Emil Blonsky and his “cryo-cell in Alaska,” from The Incredible Hulk. Coulson adds he “can’t deal with Asgard today.”

Agent John Garrett is a character from the Elektra Assassin run of Marvel comics.

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“T.A.H.I.T.I.” (AS1.14) forces Coulson to confront his own mortality with Skye dying, echoing Nick Fury in The Avengers when Coulson is stabbed.

May’s beating Quinn in the interrogation room echoes Wolverine beating Crossbones after the assassination of Captain America.

It’s possible Agent Triplett will become Triathalon, a gold medal sprinter who finds enlightenment with the Triune Understanding. Or he may be an original agent.

The GH-325 source, a dissected blue alien floating in a tank, may be a Kree, nodding to Guardians of the Galaxy.

Following the events of Thor: The Dark World, “Yes Men” (AS1.15) begins in a rural town like the first Thor. Lorelei and Sif explore the oh-sodifferent human world much as Thor does. Like Thor, Sif calls Coulson “Son of Coul.” Lorelai escapes her captivity during Thor: The Dark World.

Sif mentions the Kree and the Alpha Centaurians (along with Interdites, Levians, Pharagots and Sarks), in a shout out to Guardians of the Galaxy.

Sif is serving Odin – problematic after Thor: The Dark World. She also compares May’s relationship with Ward to her own with Thor.

“The End of the Beginning” (AS1.16) offers a meeting with S.H.I.E.L.D. heads including Victoria Hand, Coulson, Jasper Sitwell, and Agent Blake.

The phrase “Turn Turn Turn,” the next week’s episode, appears. It’s suggested Hand is the Clairvoyant. (In the comics, she defects against S.H.I.E.L.D. for the more proactive and morally gray S.W.O.R.D. and H.A.M.M.E.R.) There’s a shout out to Department H. The Fridge, the Marvel supervillain prison, is first mentioned here, and is visited in subsequent episodes.

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Mike Peterson looks exactly like the comic Deathlok on the x-ray screen, much to fans’ delight.

The dead partner, Dan Monroe, may be related to Captain America’s partner Jack Monroe.

The post credits tag of “End of the Beginning” (AS1.16) teases Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Sitwell’s got a boat to catch (the “Lemurian Star” for the Lemurians, a type of mermaid), which he is on at the film’s start.

“Turn Turn Turn” (AS1.17), with constant references and some footage, is a complimentary production to Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Both sets of Fury’s loyal agents battle H.Y.D.R.A. as it takes over S.H.I.E.L.D. Garrett references Jasper Sitwell from the film. Fitz mentions he never distributed his “mouse hole” laser cutter, which Fury and Hill use in the movie. (Garrett mentions, “the top agents always want the good stuff for themselves.”)

“I wouldn’t say I’m a true believer,” Garrett tells Coulson in “Turn Turn Turn” (AS1.17). That’s a nod to one of Stan Lee’s famous Mighty Marvel catchphrases. The debate over cutting off a limb or a head contrasts H.Y.D.R.A.’s old and new mottos.

In “Providence” (AS1.18), Coulson and Skye watch a report that replays Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Skye says they’re “agents of nothing.” Nick Fury: Agent of Nothing, a one-shot, set up Secret Warriors, a story about an unofficial team after S.H.I.E.L.D. gets disbanded.

Ward brings Raina to meet Garrett in a barber shop in “Providence” (AS1.18). The barber chair that lowers into a secret S.H.I.E.L.D. base in New York is a comics staple.

Eric Koenig, supervisor of Providence, first appeared in Sgt Fury and his Howling Commandos

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#27 (1966). A former member of Nazi Luftwaffehe became disenchanted with Hitler’s ideology after the attack on Poland and recently died battling H.Y.D.R.A. in the pages of Secret Warriors. While Patton Oswalt’s Koenig is different, more like Dollhouse’s geeky software developer Joel Mynor (played by the same actor), they both are killed by H.Y.D.R.A. Major Glenn Talbot, the U.S. government representative, annoyed the Hulk for years. General “Thunderbolt” Ross’s right hand man, he was once married to Betty Ross, Bruce Banner’s future wife.

Coulson mentions the Cube is still functioning. It has a long history in S.H.I.E.L.D. lore.

H.Y.D.R.A. Agent Kaminsky is mentioned in “Providence” (AS1.18). This may actually be Arnold Kaminsky, owned by the Fantastic Four franchise. Johnny Horton, the villain known as the Griffin, is the villain who grafted lion paws onto his hands himself.

In “The Only Light in the Darkness” (AS1.19), Patton Oswalt’s Agent Koenig offers a lie detector that “even Romanov couldn’t beat.” Koenig asks each agent if they were connected to Alexander Pierce or Project Insight.

Agent Koenig wishes he was descended from a Howling Commando…in the comics, he is one.

Triplett’s grandfather was apparently a Howling Commando – fans speculate it was Gabe Jones (played by Derek Luke and the only black Howling Commando in Captain America: The First Avenger). Meanwhile, Skye calls Eric Koenig “Steve Rogers,” trying to get him to be braver (“The Only Light in the Darkness,” AS1.19).

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Blackout, who first appeared in Nova #19 (May 1978), is the villain of “The Only Light in the Darkness” (AS1.19), similar to his comic book counterpart. The team use a gamma ray light weapon designed by Bruce Banner to bring him down. Blackout can use Darkforce, another Marvel staple. In the comics, Blackout can slip into the Darkforce Dimension, suggesting his explosion at episode end is not permanent.

In “The Only Light in the Darkness” (AS1.19), Melinda Mae reveals her middle name is Qiaolian (her previous marriage comes up and viewers meet her mother as well). In Iron Man: Titanium #1, AIM villain Huang Qiaolian was introduced. (This is Advanced Idea Mechanics, the research division of H.Y.D.R.A. that appears in Iron Man 3). Is May’s mother connected to AIM? Maria Hill returns in “Nothing Personal” (AS 1.20).

She talks to Pepper Potts on her cell and says she’s going to work for Stark, quoting his Iron Man 2 line of “privatizing world peace.” Black Widow is mentioned, as are Coulson’s and Nick Fury’s “deaths.”

Maria Hill tells Pepper that Congress wanted to know “who or what is a Man-Thing.” This is Marvel’s answer to DC’s Swamp Thing, and his wife (Ellen Brandt) was one of the Extremis soldiers working for AIM in Iron Man 3. She and Man-Thing also have ties to Doctor Strange, who was name-dropped in The Winter Soldier.

In a series of callbacks to the pilot, Skye takes Ward to the diner where she met Mike Peterson and discusses him in “Nothing Personal” (AS1.20).

There’s a “superhero jump” from Deathlok. Lola flies once more.

The drug lord killed by Deathlok in “Ragtag” (AS1.21) may be a nod to El Caiman, a Colombian

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drug lord from a 1988 comic. Garrett’s almost-death scene looks similar to the Extremis effect from Iron Man 3.

In “Ragtag” (AS1.21), the files on Deathlok go all the way back to 1990. He was title character in a four-issue miniseries that debuted in 1990, though the character was invented in a 1974 issue of Astonishing Tales.

Triplett shares a pile of Howling Commandos gear with the team in “Ragtag,” (AS1.21). The fake cigarettes, joy buzzers, spy glasses, walkie-talkies and so forth are delightfully retro post-World War II spy gear. “Where did they buy this stuff – in the back of a comic book?” Skye asks. While nodding to comic staples of the past, they likely foreshadow the upcoming Agent Carter series.

The Hypno-Beam Triplett produces doesn’t appear in Marvel lore but may be a nod to the HypnoHustler, an African-American Spider-Man villain from the ‘70s…his name is Antoine, and thus he’s a possible future for Trip.

May sarcastically says, “Watch out H.Y.D.R.A., here we come,” (“Ragtag,” AS1.21), the cry of the Invaders.

Fitz and Simmons are jettisoned in a cell like the Hulk’s on The Avengers.

Coulson, May and Triplett use the Asgardian Berserker Staff in “The Beginning of the End” (AS1.22).

Zeller, the head of the Cybertek facility in “The Beginning of the End” (AS1.22) may be named for Gretchen Zeller, a World War II resistance fighter created by Captain America: The Winter Soldier author Ed Brubaker. If he reappears, he may be revealed as her descendent.

Nick Fury hands Coulson the giant gun from The Avengers. In the film, Coulson points the giant

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firearm at Loki, saying “You like this? We started working on the prototype after you sent the Destroyer. Even I don’t know what it does. Do you wanna find out?” The second time, Fury says, “This packs a pretty good punch,” and Coulson replies: “I know what it does.”

Coulson was invented in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (beginning with Iron Man) as a fan favorite and ordinary man who then appeared in the comics, so it’s touching to see Nick Fury appoint him an Avenger.

Clark Gregg voices Coulson on Ultimate SpiderMan. The actor notes, “I grew up watching the Spider-Man animated show so when they said, ‘Do you want to do Principal Coulson’s voice in the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon?’ I was like, ‘Yes! Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes I do! Don’t audition anybody, I want to do that.’” (Burlingame).

Alcohol • Buffy notes of Xander: “It’s safe to say that in his animal state, his idea of wooing doesn’t involve a Yanni CD and a bottle of Chianti” (“The Pack,” B1.6).

GILES: Need anything?

WILLOW: Could use some courage ...

[Spike’s hand comes into frame, holding a flask.]

WILLOW: The real kind. But thanks. (“The Gift,” B5.22)

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Spike drinks often – “He is not too picky, appearing to drink Scotch, whiskey, gin, vodka, wine, bourbon, beer, you name it” (Ginn 119). He offers Buffy drinks on several occasions (she generally refuses). Buffy makes an odd face when drinking in season six. Wesley is seen drinking during his dark phase (though he uses alcohol to save Fred from a

parasite). Adelle is seen drinking heavily on Dollhouse while trying to live with her decisions.

Joyce has similar dark moments in Buffy season two.

CORDY: What’s her deal? Too much...(makes a drinking motion) DOYLE: Thumb sucking?

CORDY: Alcohol!

Dummy. (“Sense and Sensitivity,” A1.6)

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Rebecca Lowell gives Angel drugged Dom Perignon as a gift in “Eternity” (A1.17).

Lorne, who works in a club, enjoys sea breezes, though he’ll drink other things. Lorne mentions, “Baby formula and Kahlua – not as bad as it sounds” (“Provider,” A3.12). Later, Lorne asks, “Did I mention that the only shots I’m good at involve Tequila?” in “Release” (A4.14).

Mal’s drink of choice is Ng Ka Py, a Chinese brandy.

In Alien Resurrection there’s the quip that battery acid goes in the booze “jut for color.”

GENERAL PEREZ: Drink, Elgyn? ELGYN: Constantly. (Alien: Resurrection) In Much Ado About Nothing, everyone drinks heavily, but Whedon specifically wants his villains drinking sake (Much Ado About Nothing Commentary).

SEE BEER Alice in Wonderland • Oz calls Cordelia “a wonderland tour” in “Inca Mummy Girl” (B2.4).

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Describing Buffy entering the Initiative, Spike quips on “down the rabbit hole” in “Primeval” (B4.21).

Principal Wood observes Buffy and says, “Curiouser and curiouser” (“Lessons,” B7.1).

Willow goes “down the rabbit hole” in Twilight (B8.7).

There’s an Alice metaphor in the art of the prequel comic “Slayer, Interrupted,” as Buffy recalls a childhood reading of the story and extends the metaphor into her own life.

In Willow Volume 1: Wonderland, a spinoff from Buffy Season Nine where Willow quests to restore magic to the world, she meets giant caterpillars and other Alice creatures. Upon seeing the Zen Caterpillar, Willow says the dimension of Willow: Wonderland looks “like a rip off of Wonderland.”

The caterpillar says Lewis Caroll visited.

In “Through the Looking Glass” (A2.21), Cordelia tries being queen of and says, “Off with their heads!”

The conspiracy nut of “The Magic Bullet” (A4.19) comments, “Not a huge demand for photo books of serial killer autopsies when you’re living in a utopian wonderland.”

In Angel: The Wolf, The Ram, and The Heart, Angel notes in the future, “All I need is a rabbit with a pocketwatch.”

A vorpal blade is mentioned (Angel and Faith 4).

In Dollhouse’s “Echoes” (D1.7), Echo is infected with a hallucinogenic drug, and crawls through a manhole to break into a building. At the time, her personality imprint is named “Alice,” and she’s dressed as a schoolgirl.

Tim Burton cosplayers describe trying to meet Danny Elfman in Whedon’s Comic-Con Documentary.

Alien • The offspring of the Mother Bezoar in “Bad Eggs” (B2.12) is very similar to the facehugger. The dissection scenes in both are similar.

• Writer David Fury notes that “Go Fish” (B2.20) was partly inspired by Newt sitting in the waist-deep water in Aliens (Golden, Bissette and Sniegoski 225).

• A spider demon leaps onto a policeman’s face much like the face-hugger in the Alien movies in “Choices” (B3.19).

• On seeing an illustration of the mayor’s eventual demon form, Xander paraphrases Private Hudson from Aliens that he was “Getting short” (“Graduation Day, part 1,” B3.21).

• The Initiative track the chip in “The I in Team” (B4.13) with dialogue mirroring Aliens.

• Aliens gets a nod in “Chosen” (B7.22): on the bus, Faith tells Wood “ease off, we’re clear,” echoing a movie line.

• Andrew has a Hellboy bust and a Xenomorph bust (the primary antagonist of the Alien film) in Retreat (B8.6).

• Free Comic Book Day in April 2012, Andrew Chambliss released the mini-story “In Space No One Can Hear You Slay,” depicting Buffy and Spike on a “spacecation.” As one of the bug crew is turned into a vampire and Buffy hunts him on the lower decks, the scene is straight from Alien, especially with the monster-bug’s look.

• Wolfram & Hart has ties to Weyland-Yutani, a fictional corporation from the Alien and Predator films (“In Harm’s Way,” A5.9). In Firefly’s pilot, Mal uses a turret gun in the Battle of Serenity with their logo.

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In Angel Volume 3: The Wolf, The Ram, and The Heart, Anne Steele has a demon pregnancy that will “go Alien on her.”

Victor/Topher notes to Priya: “That is so Ripley of you, and supersexy” (“The Hollow Men,” D2.12).

Costume designer Shawna Trpcic comments that Wash’s Hawaiian shirts are taken from Harry Dean Stanton’s look in Alien (Firefly: The Official Visual Companion II:92).

In “Bushwacked” (F1.3), Simon examines the survivor and almost directly quotes Newt’s exam in Aliens. The crew’s horror at families dying appears in both.

One of the arcade games at Toy Story’s Pizza Planet features a “Whack-a-Alien” game. Aliens burst from a man’s chest just like in the movie.

Whedon cites Alien as influencing The Cabin in the Woods, noting that Ian Holm as the android showed him “a piece of humanity that I’d never seen before.

Everything he did made perfect, logical sense.

Ripley became [the hero], but Ian was the one who stayed with me” (Nashawaty).

Harry Dean Stanton, who played “Brett” in Alien, appears briefly in The Avengers and asks Bruce Banner if he’s “some kind of alien.” Whedon refers to Stanton’s character as Hulk’s “spirit guide” in the Avengers commentary.

Alien: Resurrection • Whedon, an Alien fan, wrote the script for Alien: Resurrection, though it was adapted by others and didn’t come out as he intended, much like his Buffy movie. Nods to his film and to the franchise are common in his series. Further, his group of mercenary misfits, led by a madwoman, were somewhat adapted from Alien: Resurrection into Firefly, from the ship itself to characters, especially 211

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Johner/Jayne. Buffy’s painful return to life is mirrored in Ripley’s agony, and both stories end with the heroine gazing into the distance, silent about what the future holds.

Sigourney Weaver of Alien: Resurrection is the Director of Cabin in the Woods.

In “Fredless” (A3.5), Fred’s mother mentions her husband loves Alien movies, “except that last one they made. I think he dozed off.”

Whedon comments: The history of Alien: Resurrection is fairly twisted also because I wrote a 30-page treatment for a different movie. They wanted to do a movie with a clone of Newt [the little girl from “Aliens”] as their heroine. Because I’d done some action movies and I’d done Buffy, they said, “Well, he can write teenage girls and he can write action, so let’s give him a shot.” The franchise was pretty much dead, and I wrote the treatment and they said, “This is really exciting. We want to get back in this business. But we want Ripley. So throw this out.”

That one was probably my favorite; I think it was a better-structured story than the one I ultimately wrote. (Kozak)

The Amazing Kreskin • Gunn says: “That’s some gift you got there, Kreskin” (“The Magic Bullet,” A4.19), referencing the Amazing Kreskin, a popular televised mentalist in the 1970s.

• Spike asks: “And how do you know that, Kreskin?” (“Not Fade Away,” A5.22).

• Garrett says of the Clairvoyant: “Just hope it’s not the Amazing Kreskin…I used to love that guy. (“End of the Beginning,” AS1.16).

American Folklore and Tall Tales • Spike notes that Angel doesn’t like “Babe the Blue Ox,” Illyria (“Time Bomb,” A5.19).

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Whistler says they must redistribute magic like Johnny Appleseed (Angel and Faith 3).

American History and Politics • “If this were 1776, she’d hack off her hair and join the Continental Army. If it were 1850, she’d be liberating slaves via the Underground Railroad. I can picture Buffy as a suffragette, or helping the French resistance” (Brin 4). These stories – slayers through history – are available in Tales of the Slayers.

• Pike’s friend quips, “Uncle Sam wants you” (Buffy movie).

• McAvan calls Buffy “television that straddles 9/11 and that makes an immense difference in tone in its later seasons” (88).

• Darla says she wants to tutor Buffy on the War of Independence, adding, “My family kinda goes back to those days” (“Angel,” B1.7).

• In “Angel” (B1.7), Darla says, “Come on, Angel.

Just say yes,” paraphrasing Nancy Reagan’s antidrug message from the 1980s: “Just Say No.” • Willow corrects Xander in “Go Fish” (B2.20) saying that it was Jefferson who wrote that all men are created equal.

• Mr. Trick quips on Daniel Boone (“Homecoming,” B3.5). Amelia Earhart and Maya Angelou are namechecked.

• Willow’s tutoring student Percy is writing a paper on Roosevelt (“Doppelgangland,” B3.16).

• The title of “Fear, Itself” (B4.4) is a reference to Roosevelt’s “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself” speech. Indeed, the fear demon is tiny and laughable.

• Willow complains, “Thanksgiving isn’t about blending cultures, it’s about one culture wiping out another. Then they make animated specials about 213

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the parts with the maize and the big big belt buckles. They don’t show you the next scene where all the bison die and Squanto takes a musket ball in the stomach” (“Pangs,” B4.8).

Anya as a vengeance demon would wish a man was “a dog or ugly or in love with President McKinley or something” (“Superstar,” B4.17).

“I Was Made to Love You” (B5.15) references actor Warren Beatty and President Warren Harding.

Buffy says in “Life Serial” (B6.5): “And then I’m going to marry Bob Dole and raise penguins in Guam.”

Sweet’s minions in “Once More with Feeling” (B6.7) all wear Richard Nixon masks.

In “Smashed” (B6.9), Warren tells the security guard, “Museums, libraries, Disney Hall of Presidents … not boring.”

Nancy’s boyfriend in “Beneath You” (B7.2) is Ronnie, a joke on the names of President Reagan and his wife.

“I like Ike” (referenced by Xander in “Help,” B7.4) was the slogan for Eisenhower’s presidential campaign.

In episode one, Angel tells Tina he passed through Missoula, Montana during “the Depression.” He also mentions he’s been in 14 wars, but Angel doesn’t count Vietnam because the U.S. “never declared it.” He’s been seen in World War II and the Boxer Rebellion, specifically. His World War I adventures appear in the Blood & Trenches comic series. Irish wars are possible.

Darla is dying in Virginia Colony in 1609 when she’s turned.

In “Parting Gifts” (A1.10), the oracle quotes Alexander Graham Bell: “All will soon be made clear. For every door that closes, another opens.”

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The Host quotes Ronald Regan in the movie King’s Row, asking, “Where’s the rest of me?” in “There’s No Place Like Plrtz Glrb” (A2.22).

Roger Burkle guesses that Spiro T. Agnew was a demon, and Angel, surprised, retorts, “I thought only I knew that” (“Fredless,” A3.5).

Sahjhan asks Holt: “Have you followed this part of the history? The American Revolution, Manifest Destiny, Westward Movement, the Beach Boys?” (“Quickening,” A3.8).

Gunn tells Angel, “Listen, man, I’m gonna need simultaneous translating on this thing. You know, like the President with the Russians” (“Supersymmetry,” A4.5).

Cordy says: “I know my ABC’s, my history, I know who’s President, and that I sorta wish I didn’t” (“Spin the Bottle,” A4.6).

Gwen tells Gunn, “Even the Pres. takes vacations” (“Players,” A4.16).

To reward the conspiracy nut of “The Magic Bullet” (A4.19), Jasmine says, “Dallas, November 22, 1963 —there was no second gunman. Oswald acted alone.”

LORNE: Hmm, well, this is interesting. Apparently old Joe Kennedy tried to get out of his deal with the firm.

ANGEL: That explains a lot.

LORNE: Yeah, but George, Senior – he read the fine print. (“Conviction,” A5.1)

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“Let freedom ring” is said in “Soul Purpose” (B5.10).

In “Damage” (A5.11), Fred tells Gunn, “9 holes instead of a jury of your peers. Just what the founding fathers had in mind.”

In “Underneath” (A5.17), Spike uses “Ben Franklins” to mean cash.

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An evil senator features in “Power Play” (A5.21).

Gunn quips to the vampires running for office, “And you wonder why folks don’t vote” (“Not Fade Away,” A5.22).

In Tales of the Vampires, Jeff Parker’s “Dust Bowl” follows vampires during the Great Depression, where dust blotted out the sun.

Jayne calls Canton, the ceramics workers’ town in “Jaynestown” (F1.7) a “company town.” These mining settlements were common at the beginning of the United States and were famous for oppressing its workers.

Paul Ballard says, “We split the atom, we make a bomb. We come up with anything new the first thing we do is destroy, manipulate, control. It’s human nature” in “Stage Fright” (D1.3).

In “Man on the Street” (D1.6), an African-American woman says, “There’s one thing people will always need is slaves,” making a blatent connection with what Dollhouse is perpetuating.

Caroline is shocked that there’s a black president in “Omega” (D1.12).

Zone says of Whiskey, “Let’s blow this bitch back to the Bush years” (“Epitaph 1,” D1.13).

Tony Stark insists: “We are not soldiers! I’m not marching to Fury’s fife” (Avengers). Clearly it’s no longer the Revolutionary War. Grant tells May of their affair: “I’m not some recruit who can’t separate church from state” (“The Bridge,” AS1.10).

The thug called Rooster thinks Ben Franklin was a US President, as he tells his “mistress” Lorelai, who decides to be the first female president in “Yes Men” (AS1.15).

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Emma Frost describes an alien dictator whose rise to power “did not…involve an electoral college” (X-Men: Unstoppable).

In Runaways, the teens travel to 1900s New York, with sweatshops, Typhoid Mary, strikes, and period costume.

In “Branch Wars” on The Office, Michael says of Stanley, “I don’t know how George Bush managed when Colin Powell left.”

The cabbie in Suspension discusses Reagan and Bush. The negotiator wants to charge in like Teddy Roosevelt.

Whedon jokingly asked Americans to vote for Mitt Romney in a YouTube video, explaining it would bring about a Zombie Apocalypse.

SEE 50S; 60S; BARNUM, P.T.; BONNIE AND CLYDE; CIVIL WAR; COLUMBUS; CUSTER; KELLER, HELEN; KENNEDY; KING, MARTIN LUTHER; KING, RODNEY; RUSSIA; SCIENTISTS; SEGAL, BUGSY; SIMPSON, O.J.; VIETNAM WAR; WIKILEAKS; WORLD WAR II An American Werewolf in London • Writers Dean Batali, Rob Des Hotel and Marti Noxon all cite this film for inspiring them to do a werewolf arc on Buffy (Golden, Bissette and Sniegoski 215).

• “New Moon Rising” (B4.19) may nod to “Bad Moon Rising,” a song memorably used in this film.

• Nina’s werewolf transformation is straight from this.

Angel Angel, the five season Buffy spinoff, has numerous crossovers as characters visit from Buffy’s fourth season to kick off the new show. Angel season four and Buffy season seven have

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extensive crossovers as well. The show’s genre is detectiveparanormal-heroic-action, and there are many allusions and sight gags to those, starting as Angel jumps into Forever Knight’s car instead of his own in the first episode. Angel and his friends make some pop culture references, though nowhere near as many as the Scoobies – Cordelia has her shopping, Gunn is passionate about movies, Angel lived through history, and Lorne has his songs and celebrities. L.A. culture often appears.

The Angel: After the Fall comics from IDW are “somewhat derived from what might have been season 6,” Whedon said (Furey). After reading Brian Lynch’s Spike: Asylum Whedon was struck with how completely the writer had captured his characters’ voices and asked him to take charge. “It’s a maxiseries, 12 issues, not continuing indefinitely as ‘Buffy’ seems to be,” Whedon adds (Furey).

After this comes Angel and Faith, a companion to Dark Horse’s Buffy seasons nine and ten. With both series made together, the characters engage in crossovers, combining the two series as with Angel’s first season.

Angels • Angel himself seems to have appointed himself Buffy’s guardian and protector in her first episode.

• The Powers That Be act very much like angels as does Cordelia after her ascension.

ANGEL: Angels?

PAIGE: I collect them! I think the angels are around us all the time, don’t you?

ANGEL: I-I think, uhm – there are – beings.

PAIGE: It’s a nice thought. Like someone’s looking out for us, keeping us out of danger. And tonight you really were our angel, weren’t you?” (“I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” A1.14)

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Holland Manners of Wolfram and Hart explains, “If there wasn’t evil in every single one of them out there why, they wouldn’t be people. They’d all be angels. Have a nice day” (“Reprise,” A2.15).

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Lorne asks of Cordy’s baby, “I’m guessing it wasn’t a chubby little cherub, huh?” (“Shiny Happy People,” A4.18) The angel James (or so he claims) and the Elohim appear in Angel: Aftermath.

Emma Frost, delusional, sees Kitty as an angel in XMen: Torn.

“Angels” swim in their ship wake in Titan A.E. These appear to be something like space dolphins.

When Hero is redeemed, Whedon notes in the Much Ado commentary that her friends in veils make her look like a winged angel.

Animal House • In the first episode of Buffy, the Master tells his minions “you are all weak.” Mark Metcalf said this line in Animal House as well, playing Doug Niedermeyer.

• The series finale of Angel resembles Animal House when instead of stopping the Senior Partners and the apocalypse, Team Angel decides to anger them in a bold and ultimately futile gesture of defiance by assassinating every member of the Circle of the Black Thorn.

Animals BUFFY: Well, it would... It’s nothing, I... We do the same zoo trip at my old school every year. Same old, same old.

XANDER: Buffy, this isn’t just about looking at a bunch of animals. This is about not being in class!

BUFFY: You know, you’re right! Suddenly the animals look shiny and new.

XANDER: Gotta have perspective. “The Pack” (B1.6)

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Xander and Willow visit the zebras at the zoo in “The Pack” (B1.6). Herbert the Pig, mascot for the Sunnydale High Razorbacks, is devoured.

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Willow is afraid of frogs in a series running joke.

Vampires routinely drink pig’s blood.

Buffy has the stuffed pig Mr. Gordo.

ANGEL: I’m just an animal, right? BUFFY: You’re not an animal. Animals I like. (“Angel,” B1.7) “Everyone can make a giraffe!” Xander complains of the balloon clown in “Nightmares” (B1.10).

“These people are sheep. They want to be vampires ‘cause they’re lonely, or miserable, or bored,” Billy Fordham says in “Lie to Me” (B2.7).

Willow and Oz joke about hippo and monkey animal crackers in “What’s My Line part 2,” B2.10) and Willow mentions hippos in Buffy’s dream of “Surprise” (B2.13).

CORDELIA: You know what you are, Harmony?

You’re a sheep.

HARMONY: I’m not a sheep.

CORDELIA: You’re a sheep. All you ever do is what everyone else does, so you can say you did it first. (“Bewitched Bothered & Bewildered,” B2.16)

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In “Bewitched Bothered & Bewildered” (B2.16), Buffy is turned into a rat. Amy has the same fate in “Gingerbread” (B3.11), then spends many episodes in her cage.

In “Bewitched Bothered & Bewildered” (B2.16) and “Untouched” (A2.4), Cordy says she’s done being a sheep.

Oz comments, “Maybe it’s because of all the horrific things we’ve seen, but hippos wearing tutus just don’t unnerve me the way they used to” when Xander rents Fantasia (“Fear Itself,” B4.4).

Anya explains Thanksgiving: “To commemorate a past event, you kill and eat an animal. It’s a ritual sacrifice... with pie” (“Pangs,” B4.8). Buffy “makes a bear.”

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Walsh mentions that raccoons set off the Initiative alarms (“The I in Team,” B4.13).

Faith says, “It’s like the whole world is moving but you’re stuck. Like those animals in the tar pits” in “This Year’s Girl” (B4.15).

Andrew tries to kill a pig but fails (“Never Leave Me,” B7.9).

“Oh, please Uncle John! When is the last time you pried yourself away from ESPN long enough to spill the blood of a she-goat?” Harriet asks in “Bachelor Party” (A1.7).

Lorne senses “a serious ‘mama bear’ vibe” from Angel in “Dad” (A3.10).

Willow notes that “Good things come in jars.

Peanut butter, jelly, those two-headed fetal pigs at the natural history museum. Come on, everybody loves fetal pigs” in “Orpheus” (A4.15).

Harmony supplies otter blood for Angel in season five.

Angel calls people “sheep” (“Just Rewards,” A5.2).

Spike calls Fred “busy little beaver” (“Unleashed,” A5.3).

Harmony orders a live camel to be served at a demon peace summit (“Harm’s Way,” A5.9).

Angel’s dream in “Soul Purpose” (A5.10) features a bear.

In “Underneath” (A5.17), Spike compares Eve to a “Rat? Snake? Beady little rat snake?”

At Wolfram and Hart they have dried scorpions in the vending machines downstairs (“Origin,” A5.18).

Illyria calls the team “ants” “plankton” and other insignificant creatures in “Time Bomb,” (A5.19).

Harmony serves “something in a rodent. We have some fruity, unassuming vole…” (“Power Play,” A5.21).

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Pandas, goats, frogs, & elephants appear in Firefly curses.

On Grant Ward’s review under “social skills,” Maria Hill draws a porcupine (which Coulson mistakes for a “little poop with knives sticking out of it”) (“Pilot,” AS1.1).

In Whedon’s X-Men short comic “Teamwork,” Thunderbird calls Wolverine an “animal.”

Karen Buckman describes her kids as “they all eat out of the same trough” in Parenthood’s “The Plague.”

Gil tells his daughter she looks much “less like a giraffe” when her chicken pox heals in Parenthood’s “The Plague.”

In Parenthood’s “Small Surprises,” a raccoon gets into the house.

SEE BUNNIES; CATTLE; CATS; DINOSAURS; DOGS; FISH AND SHELLFISH; HORSES; MONKEYS; SHIRMP Anne of Green Gables • Cordelia’s name links with Anne of Green Gables.

In the novel, Anne hates her plainness and practical name, saying, “I would love to be called Cordelia.

It’s such a perfectly elegant name.” In the same way, Buffy wishes she could be trendy, popular Cordelia, unencumbered by vampire slaying.

• Xander says: “So skip the heartwarming stuff about kindly old people and saving the farm and get right to the dirt.” This is the plot of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s novel Anne of Green Gables. Buffy has just told her friends she went by “Anne” in L.A. (“Dead Man’s Party,” B3.2).

Apocalypse Now

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There’s an Apocalypse Now clip with a helicopter playing on a monitor in Cabin in the Woods.

Principal Snyder walks into the library as the occult stuff is cleared out in “Gingerbread” (B3.11) and says, “I love the smell of desperate librarian in the morning,” an Apocalypse Now rewrite.

In “Restless” (B4.22), Xander brings over Apocalypse Now, and then ends up reenacting it in his dream. Xander is Benjamin L. Willard and Snyder is Colonel Kurtz.

In the opening envelope section, Xander asks the friends at this vid-fest to choose to view the “feelgood romp” of Apocalypse Now, though Will asks for something “less Heart-of-Darkness-y.” Both Eliot and Whedon chose Heart of Darkness in part, of course, because it is a story of a soul’s descent into the underworld of darkness. Though the kindly Xander, the “heart” of the group, does not seem a candidate for darkness, and indeed his dream (like the entire series) has touches of revealing humor, it is still true that he grapples here with his own hidden problems. (Wilcox 168)

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“Apocalypse Nowish” (A4.7) references Apocalypse Now, of course.

Alasdair quotes Apocalypse Now (Angel and Faith 5).

Apocalypse/End of Days • “I suddenly find myself needing to know the plural of apocalypse,” Riley says in “Doomed” (B4.11).

Many “end of the world” events appear on Buffy and Angel.

• The Master attempts them in “The Harvest” (B1.2) and “Prophecy Girl” (B1.12).

• Season two there’s Acathla and Angelus. Season three offers the Sisterhood of Jhe and the Mayor’s ascension.

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Glory, Dark Willow, and the First attempt these as well.

“A cat last week gave birth to a litter of snakes. A family was swimming in Whisper Lake when the lake suddenly began to boil. And Mercy Hospital last night, a boy was born with his eyes facing inward. I’m not stupid. This is apocalypse stuff,” Jenny Calendar tells Giles (“Prophecy Girl,” B1.12).

On Angel, there’s the Scourge, the freezing of time

by Gene Rainey, the Beast’s blocking the sun, Jasmine’s brainwashing humanity, Illyria’s actions in “Shells” (A5.16) and “Time Bomb” (A5.19).

The title “Slouching Toward Bethlehem” (A4.4) references the antichrist. “Apocalypse Nowish” (A4.7) and “End of Days” (B7.21) are also meaningful titles.

Spike says, “I got better things to do than wait around for the four bloody horsemen” (“Harm’s Way,” A5.9).

Wolfram & Hart perpetually insist Angel will have a part to play in the end of days. This may take place when Angel: After the Fall sees all of L.A. fall down to hell or the season eight comic in which Angel will destroy earth to create a new dimension.

Its resolution, the end of magic, is another possible apocalypse.

In Angel: After the Fall 2: First Night, a crazy guy who predicted the end of the world for years is vindicated.

Angel and Buffy both visit dark futures in the comics, where an apocalypse can be said to have happened.

Faith points out that without magic, global warming is the only possible apocalypse left (Angel and Faith 1).

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As Agent Brand says, “The Breakworld believes we as a species need to be put down” (X-Men: Dangerous). They try to destroy the earth and the X-Men must stop them.

Cabin in the Woods brings about the apocalypse Buffy and Angel spend so much time preventing.

In Parenthood’s “The Plague,” Karen Buckman calls her mother-in-law Marilyn “the end is nigh” Buckman for her pessimism.

Apples • In “Doppelgangland” (B3.16), Percy brings his teacher Willow an apple.

• Caleb says, “Curiosity. Woman’s first sin. I offer [Buffy] an apple. What can she do but take it?” in “Dirty Girls” (B7.18).

• Andrew says in “End of Days” (B7.21) after looting the grocery store, “Uh, the apples still look pretty good, so everyone should, uh, check those out.” The Potentials are about to be offered the ultimate choice.

• Fred wears an apple necklace in honor of Newton.

• In “Sleep Tight” (A3.16), Holtz offers Wesley an apple and persuades him to betray his friends.

• Angel bites Eve’s apple in “Conviction” (A5.1).

• Jayne buys the crew a crate of apples.

Aquaman • Willow threatens to tell everyone about Xander’s “Aquaman Underoos” in “The Killer in Me” (B7.13) Army and Military (U.S.) • Xander uses his military training from “Halloween” (B2.6)

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Xander and his pals steal weapons from a Sunnydale army base in “Innocence” (B2.14).

Faith says in “Faith, Hope and Trick” (B3.3), “The vamps, they better get their asses to DefCon One.” In “Bargaining part 2” (B6.2), Xander says, “this place is NORAD, and we’re at DefCon One.” The Marines’ semper fi gets a nod (“The Initiative,” B4.7).

Riley and the US military feature heavily in season four and return in later seasons. When Riley says his duties were “not just a job,” Buffy says, “It’s an adventure…” (“Doomed,” B4.11). This was the US Army commercial slogan: “It’s not just a job, it’s an adventure.”

A tracer or electronic tagging device is used on Spike in “The I in Team” (B4.13). Xander mentions he knows about tracers from army movies.

Spike quips to Xander on boot camp and “being all you can be. Or all you can be” in “The Yoko Factor” (B4.20).

Kennedy’s line “pushups, maggot” in “Get it Done” (B7.15) is from Full Metal Jacket as well as the clichéd boot camp experience.

General Voll and his soldiers are Buffy’s season eight adversaries.

Gunn says: “Angel wants to go all commando? No skin off my nose” (“Redefinition,” A2.11).

Fred gets a “standard issue army surplus Geiger counter” in “Benediction” (A3.21).

Spike says, “Here I save the world, throw myself onto the proverbial hand grenade for love, honor, and all the right reasons, and what do I get? Bloody well toasted and ghosted is what I get, isn’t it?” (“Just Rewards,” A5.2).

“Why We Fight” (A5.13) is the Angel World War II episode, named for recruitment films of the time.

• • • •

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In “Underneath” (A5.17), Harmony says Lorne’s M.I.A. Faith says they’ll go to Defcon one (Angel and Faith 2).

Spike tells Willow, “go check in with Sergeant Summers” in the Spike comic.

“Stop-Loss” (D2.9) features the return of war-vet Anthony’s true identity. His storyline mirrors and critiques the US Armed Forces stop-loss policy, which keeps him in service after his contract has officially ended.

Miles says: “You’re a hacker, Skye. Not Seal Team Six” (“The Girl in the Flower Dress,” AS1.5).

S.H.I.E.L.D. tangles with the US military in the last few episodes of season one.

Whedon’s Alien Resurrection features earth military.

Art

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Sunday and her vamp crew compete to collect Klimt and Monet pieces, since those are the only painters freshmen like.

Willow wants details on Buffy and Parker “like maybe a blurry watercolor” (“The Harsh Light of Day,” A1.3).

Riley says he basically grew up in a Grant Wood painting – woods, cabin, Iowa (“Pangs,” B4.8).

Van Gogh is referenced after a lost ear (“Pangs,” B4.8).

Buffy has an Escher painting in “Real Me” (B5.2).

Buffy takes Greek Art with Tara in “Triangle” (B5.11) In “The Body” (B5.16), Dawn’s art teacher describes drawing the negative space around the female body – Joyce’s body leaves a negative space in the world.

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Tara offers Buffy her renaissance art book in “Life Serial” (B6.5). The picture Buffy looks at is Bernini’s Ecstasy of St. Theresa, a possible reference to time standing still.

Joyce and Nina both work with art – Joyce in a gallery and Nina as a student. Priya on Dollhouse is an artist.

In “Parting Gifts” (A1.10), Cordy has a vision of Maiden With Urn. Going under cover as a museum guide, Angel gives a professional exegesis on one of Édouard Manet’s most famous works, “La Musique” (“She,” A1.13).

Trying to get Angel to rejoin the world, Cordy buys him art supplies in “To Shanshu in L.A.” (A1.22).

The seller tells her art is excellent therapy, common in institutions.

In “Deep Down” (A4.1), Angel says, “…three months under the ocean actually gave me perspective. Kind of a M. C. Esher perspective - but I did get time to think.”

After melting a watch, Gwen says: “Now it’s surrealism.” The famous painting, “The Persistence of Memory” by surrealist Salvador Dalí features melting clocks (“Ground State,” A4.2).

In “Ground State” (A4.2), Fred and Angel compare drawings – Angel’s is excellent, Fred’s is cartoonish.

Lorne calls Numero Cinco “Grandpa Moses” for painter Grandma Moses.

Fred says, “It’s like an M.C. Escher picture, but with wires and flesh instead of geese” (“Lineage,” A5.7).

There’s a Raphael in Ilona’s office (“The Girl in Question,” A5.20).

Connor thinks of his “fabricated Norman Rockwell family” in Angel: Immortality for Dummies.

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Mal has no idea who Mona Lisa is (“The Message,” F1.13).

The Firefly crew rob an art museum in Better Days.

Whedon chose the paintings Pam creates in his episode of The Office, “Business School.” They’re impressionist.

Loki walks in front of the stained glass art Justice while torturing mankind.

“Would you like to spend the rest of your life obsessed with the works of LeRoy Neiman? I mean, sexually?” Emma Frost asks as a threat (X-Men: Gifted). He’s an American artist who paints sporting events.

Wolverine makes paper chains in X-Men: Torn.

“You can be a painter and paint yourself,” Karen Buckman tells her son in Parenthood’s “The Plague.” She gives him the medicine, but he puts it in the wall.

Enola decorates the Mariner’s boat with crayons in Waterworld.

“I’m Picasso,” Mr. Potato Head says, awkwardly arranging his features.

Atlantis: The Lost Empire Whedon is credited for a treatment on Atlantis: The Lost Empire, but he actually worked on a completely separate movie. He explains in an interview with Jim Kozak: First they wanted to do “Journey to the Center of the Earth” meets “The Man Who Would Be King,” which eventually became “Atlantis,” which is why I’m credited on it. Because I was the first writer on it, even though I had not a shred in it. Then they said, “No, wait, we want to do ‘My Fair Lady’ with Marco Polo.” Which I not only wrote a script for, I actually wrote the lyrics for three songs that [veteran stage composer] Robert Lindsey Nassif wrote the music to.

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Austen, Jane • Zombies, pacified by Willow, ask the slayers, “May I have this dance?” (The Long Way Home, B8.1).

Dawn calls them undead Pride and Prejudice. In fact, Pride and Prejudice with Zombies gained popularity around this time.

• In “Sense & Sensitivity” (A1.6) an episode riffing off the popular Jane Austen novel about marriage and relationships, Angel parodies sensitivity.

• “First Impressions” (A2.3) is a nod to the original title of Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Both stories are about a young man and woman who make assumptions about each other and begin with mutual dislike, then grow affectionate (Cordelia and Gunn, in this case). There is also a hint that the audience is making false assumptions – Angel’s Darla hallucinations turn out to be real.

• In “Blood Money” (A2.12), Anne’s driver’s license lists her address as “Willoughby Ave.” Anne Steele and John Willoughby are characters in Sense and Sensibility.

• Tales of the Slayers features a Jane Austen parody – Jane Espenson’s “Presumption” as slayer and vampire meet on a crowded ballroom floor.

Austin Powers • Buffy calls her roommate Kathy “mini-Mom of Momdonia,” likely a reference to Austin Powers’ Mini-Me (“Living Conditions,” B4.2).

• When Echo meets a girl imprinted with her personality, she calls her Mini Me (“Epitaph 2,” D2.13).

• Superboy says he would’ve had fun in the hot tub “if Junior Batty hadn’t gone all ninja-star on my fembots” (Superman/Batman #26).

• Seth Green of course has a large part in the franchise.

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Australia • The urban legend that dingoes ate a woman’s baby inspired the name of Oz’s band.

• Spike notes that the hole in “A Hole in the World” (A5.15) goes all the way to New Zealand.

• Priya Tsetsang on Dollhouse is from here • Mal tells the crew to take a walkabout in Those Left Behind.

• Doctor Horrible plans to give Penny “the keys to a shiny new Australia.”

Authors • Isaacson, who wrote biographies on Benjamin Franklin and Einstein, is mentioned in “Nightmares” (B1.10).

• Wesley and Cordy visit the California Flower Mart looking for demons in “She” (A1.13). Wesley exclaims: “Look! Nancy’s Petticoat. Oh. They’re quite rare. They were named for Nancy Mitford, the author.”

SEE ACADEMICS, AUSTEN, JANE; BESTER, ALFRED; DICKENS, CHARLES; FITZGERALD, F. SCOTT; KING, STEPHEN; LOVECRAFT, H.P.; POE, EDGAR ALLEN; RICE, ANNE; SHAKESPEARE; VERNE, JULES The Avengers • Twice on the show (in “The Freshman,” B4.1 and in “The Body,” B5.16), Xander calls for the Avengers (as in his friends) to assemble. Though these comments were made long before Whedon took over the Avengers movie, they’re hilarious in retrospect.

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While filming Buffy, Sarah Michelle Gellar had a Maltese named Thor.

In “Reptile Boy” (B2.5), Tom says, “Anyway, the Hulk is gone, so you don’t have to dance with me.”

Xander calls Riley Captain America (“Shadow,” B5.8) and refers to Riley and his wife as “Nick and Nora Fury” in a blended reference in “As You Were” (B6.15).

In “Triangle” (B5.11), Olaf the troll cries, “Puny receptacle!” echoing the Hulk’s “puny human!” tagline.

The hammer only someone superhuman can lift in “The Gift” (B5.22) anticipates Thor.

“We’re needed!” in “Once More, with Feeling” (B6.7) is an Avengers quote Andrew describes Spike as “Hulking Out” after hearing “Early One Morning.”

In the comics, Xander wants to be called Sergeant Fury, probably as an homage to his eyepatch (The Long Way Home, B8.1).

XANDER: “Xander”. Renee, I told you, it’s “Xander”. Or “Sergeant Fury.”

RENEE: Wasn’t Nick Fury a Colonel when he ran S.H.I.E.L.D.?

XANDER: I like him better in his Howling Commando days. But your nerd points are accumulating impressively.

RENEE: I try, Sergeant. (The Long Way Home, B8.1)

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In Twilight (B8.7), Andrew dons a fighting outfit of Captain America’s shield, Luke’s flying helmet, Batgirl’s belt, t-shirt from The Punisher, and an electrified glove. Andrew defends them all with Warren’s replicas of Iron Man’s repulsor rays. He looks goofy.

Andrew mentions the “red skull situation” in On Your Own (B9.2).

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“Maybe I have been Hulking out lately,” Xander says (Welcome to the Team, B9.4).

Jack MacNamara says, referring to Angel, “What about Captain America here?” (“The Prodigal,” A1.15).

Angel says, “You wouldn’t like me when I’m happy” (“Untouched,” B2.4). This is a spoof on the Hulk line.

In “Supersymmetry” (A4.5), when Angel threatens Lilah, she responds with “Yeah, yeah. Hulk smash.”

Hodge says: “He’s some sort of super soldier like Steve Rogers or Captain America” in “Why We Fight” (A5.13).

Spike fears Angel would want his team to be “Angel’s Avengers” or something similar (“Underneath,” A5.17).

Caroline Farrell on Dollhouse may be named for Kat Farrell, a reporter in the Marvel Universe, who tries to root out government conspiracies.

Matt Fraction, writer of The Invincible Iron Man and Hawkeye, appears in Whedon’s Comic-Con Documentary.

The X-Men run by Whedon sees cameos by Iron Man, Spider Man, Thor, and others, though all are useless at saving the planet. In X-Men: Unstoppable, the X-Men use the terms “assemble” and “Earth’s mightiest heroes.”

Whedon’s Runaways and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. reference The Avengers and its characters and events constantly.

The Avengers and Marvel • Ironically, Whedon had no desire to work with the Avengers originally. In 2005, he said, “Y’know, the thing about the X-Men is they have a coherent core.

The Avengers to me is tough. I wouldn’t approach The Avengers, I wouldn’t approach the Fantastic 233

Four. The X-Men are all born of pain, and pain is where I hang my hat” (Kozak). Clark Gregg (Agent Coulson) notes: To whatever extent this was the plan, Marvel has done these origin movies–which you know, if they didn’t work there never would have been an Avengers. I think if even one of them had been a big bomb, I don’t think they ever would have given them the money to make The Avengers. But they pulled it off and they got all these people invested in these characters and feeling kind of like new fanboys and fangirls, who are now going the other way and starting to buy some comics.”

(Burlingame)

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Whedon comments of The Avengers, “With Marvel I said I know what you want, this is what I want. I want to make a war movie. I want to make The Dirty Dozen, I want to make Black Hawk Down, I don’t want to make it squeaky clean. I want to take a toll on these guys. They said we get that, we love it, do it in the Mighty Marvel Manner, and everybody wins” (Hosoki). As he adds, “The thing I cared most about—making a summer movie like the ones from my childhood—is the thing that I pulled off” (Hibberd).

The movie obviously combines characters and events from the other movies: Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America, and The Incredible Hulk.

Only the Hulk was recast.

The line “Avengers Assemble” is only used sarcastically by Stark, but is the movie title in the UK. Captain America, Hawkeye, and Black Widow dress like their Ultimate incarnations, but act more like their main universe counterparts.

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Thor’s costume takes elements from his original costume, the Ultimate line, and his contemporary comic outfit.

Banner wears a purple shirt for most of the film, subtly nodding to Hulk’s iconic purple pants.

In the comics, both Hawkeye and Black Widow started out as villains (they were even partnered together!) before reforming. In The Avengers film, Hawkeye becomes evil (temporarily) and Black Widow mentions her dark past.

Nick Fury is played by Samuel L. Jackson. His original character was white, but the Ultimate Universe drew him as Jackson, setting him up for this role far in advance.

The Avengers movie gets in some name references and catchphrases: Captain America says: “And Hulk...Smash.”

Hulk calls Loki a “puny god,” referencing his catchphrase in the comics, “puny human!”

“If we can’t protect the Earth, you can be damned well sure we’ll avenge it,” Stark says.

“It’s alright, sir. This was never going to work unless they had something...to...” “avenge” probably ends Coulson’s dying line.

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While talking to Loki, Tony calls the Avengers “Earth’s mightiest heroes,” and says “Avengers, Assemble.”

The Avengers takes its storyline from the first issues of Avengers (1963-64) with Loki setting Thor against the Hulk. His scheme backfires and the Avengers unite. Also, in the Ultimates, the 14 issue reboot of the franchise (2003-2004), Nick Fury, head of S.H.I.E.L.D., leads the Avengers against the invading Chitauri. (Guffey 282) In the movies, the Tesseract is a powerful item that the Red Skull found (in Captain America) and Loki steals (in Avengers). The comics have the Cosmic

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Cube, a reality-warping device that H.Y.D.R.A. covets.

Selvig reports “Nothing harmful, low levels of gamma radiation.” Fury retorts, “That can be harmful. This was what transformed the Hulk.”

Georgi Luchkow, the Russian Black Widow beats up early on, is a minor Black Widow villain from the early ‘90s.

“You have reached the Life Model Decoy of Tony Stark,” Tony mouths off. Life Model Decoy is the comic book term for robotic clones of characters.

Banner mentions that at one point, he tried to kill himself with a pistol “and the other guy spat out the bullet.” This was planned as the opening of The Incredible Hulk film (and appeared in the AltUniverse miniseries “Banner!”)

The Captain America trading cards display artwork

by Jack Kirby.

The Tesseract facility at the movie’s start is called Project Pegasus, a S.H.I.E.L.D. research site from the comics.

Thor’s lightning supercharges Iron Man’s armor in their first battle in the comics and in the movie.

Hulk chases Black Widow similarly to the Iron Man movie scene in which Iron Monger chases Pepper Potts.

Hulk died in the TV show by falling out of an aircraft and landing as Banner. The air-drop prison is a reference.

The movie rights to Skrulls are tied up with the Fantastic Four, so The Avengers uses the Ultimate equivalent.

Cap and Iron Man’s tag-team move is from Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2.

The character Shawna Lynde is from 1980s Thor comics.

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The World War Hulk arc is built around the concept that he’s always angry and thus can easily shift.

The Hulk leaps out at a Chitauri ship much like the way Mr. Incredible attacked the Omnidroid 10.0.

At the end, Senator Boynton asks where the Avengers are. He’s a minor figure from the Armor Wars storyline.

Stan Lee cameos near the movie’s end.

Stark Tower’s “STARK” logo is battered, leaving a stylish “A,” like the classic “Avengers” logo.

In the comic books, Thanos falls in love with Death after he sees her. Notably, he smiles on the show when saying “To challenge them is to court death.”

Whedon directed the post-credits scene of Thor and did a script treatment on Captain America: The First Avenger.

The Avengers 2 and Marvel • Ultron first appeared in the “Avengers #54” comic book in 1968. He will be the supervillain of Avengers 2.

• Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch will join the Avengers team. The Avengers will return, as will Peggy Carter, Colonel Rhodes, Maria Hill and Nick Fury.

• Baron Wolfgang von Strucker, a H.Y.D.R.A. leader from the comics, will appear as well. Paul Bettany, who plays J.A.R.V.I.S., will be cast as The Vision (Phillips).

Aztec and Mayan Myth • “Tezcatcatl” is the demon of “The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco” (A5.6). Tezcacoatl, Mirror Snake, is a carrier of the gods from the oldest Aztec codices.

• Mayan Jaguar Warriors appear in Angel: Aftermath.

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Regions in the Firefly ‘Verse include Quetzacoatl.

Other Works by Valerie Estelle Frankel…

Try them on Google Books!

Thought Catalog Doctor Who and the Hero’s Journey books.google.com/books?isbn=1629213209 Winter is Coming: Symbols, Portents, and Hidden Meanings in A Game of Thrones books.google.com/books?isbn=1625392125 How Game of Thrones Will End: The History, Politics, and Pop Culture Driving the Show to its Finish books.google.com/books?isbn=1632957213 Zossima Press The Many Faces of Katniss Everdeen: Exploring the Heroine of The Hunger Games Harry Potter, Still Recruiting: An Inner Look at Harry Potter Fandom books.google.com/books?isbn=1936294176 Myths and Motifs in The Mortal Instruments books.google.com/books?isbn=1936294230

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McFarland and Co. From Girl to Goddess: The Heroine’s Journey in Myth and Legend books.google.com/books?isbn=0786457899 Buffy and the Heroine’s Journey books.google.com/books?isbn=078648943X Women in Game of Thrones books.google.com/books?isbn=1476615543 Teaching with Harry Potter books.google.com/books?isbn=1476601224 Other Bloodsuckers on the Bayou: The Myths, Symbols, and Tales Behind HBO's True Blood books.google.com/books?isbn=0615857809 The Girl’s Guide to the Heroine’s Journey An Unexpected Parody: The Unauthorized Spoof of The Hobbit Movie Henry Potty and the Pet Rock: An Unauthorized Harry Potter Parody books.google.com/books?isbn=1935850008 Henry Potty and the Deathly Paper Shortage: An Unauthorized Harry Potter Parody books.google.com/books?isbn=1595942416

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About the Author Valerie Estelle Frankel is the author of many nonfiction books: • Buffy and the Heroine’s Journey • From Girl to Goddess: The Heroine’s Journey in Myth and Legend • Katniss the Cattail: An Unauthorized Guide to Names and Symbols in The Hunger Games • Winter is Coming: Symbols, Portents, and Hidden Meanings in A Game of Thrones • Winning the Game of Thrones: The Host of Characters and their Agendas • Doctor Who: The What Where and How • Sherlock: Every Canon Reference You May Have Missed in BBC’s Series 1-3 • Women in Game of Thrones: Power, Conformity, and Resistance

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Once a lecturer at San Jose State University, she’s a frequent speaker on fantasy, myth, pop culture, and the heroine’s journey and can be found at http://vefrankel.com.

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