Two Up, Two Down

Two up, two down

We talk about Potter as a timeless series, as quills and parchment will never date, but there are a few key elements which are of their time, and I sometimes suspect that eventually, their original meaning may be lost.

Snape’s house in Spinner’s End is one of these. If you visit Surrey, a house akin to Number 4 on Privet Drive can be found on hundreds of identical estates. Indeed, the three-bedroom house with a garage, and both front and back gardens, situated on a private housing estate in leafy surburbia is one that most British people will have strolled through at some point.

But Snape’s house in Spinner’s End is the opposite of the Dursleys’ aspirational abode, and is somewhere that few modern readers will have seen in its original form with their own eyes. Snape’s house in Spinner’s End is a traditional two up, two down through terraced house, mired deep in a maze of identical cobbled streets, overlooked by a looming mill chimney, and seemingly – by the 90s – entirely abandoned.

The difficulty that some may have in accurately picturing this scene is because these houses, in this state, no longer exist. A large percentage of two up, two down terraces were demolished as part of slum clearance, which should tell you all that you need to know about the state of the houses.

Those which remained have been extensively modified – usually knocking down the privy (outside toilet), and then building a two storey extension across the bulk of the yard to create a third room downstairs, and a bathroom upstairs. Some houses only have a single extension; it is rather common in some areas of the Midlands to have a bathroom that leads off the kitchen downstairs – because the bathroom was the missing room, and it was cheaper to build one storey than two.

Pottermore had an article earlier in the year which explained how the filmmakers originally wanted to film on location, but could not, because the houses simply did not exist in their traditional state.

The houses were typically constructed with two rooms downstairs and two rooms upstairs with a tiny backyard entry leading to the outhouse. Craig actually considered shooting on location, but even though the buildings were intact, they had been brought into the modern era, with up-to-date kitchens and plastic extensions, so the set was built at the studio.

Throughout the 20th century, cobbled streets were routinely replaced by various other road surfaces, namely tarmac and asphalt – and, of course, the scarcity of cobblestones now means that such streets are aesthetically desirable. However, the cobblestones in Spinner’s End are not an indication of affluence, but an indication of an area left behind. This is further illustrated by the rusted railings, the broken streetlights, and the boarded up windows.

These were workers houses, often funded by the owners of the mill, and therefore tied – meaning that rent was deducted from your wage before you received it. There were benefits to being in tied accommodation, including being close to work and having a guaranteed landlord – but that was as much benefit to the mill owner as the worker. Seeing great competition, some mill owners invested in their properties to entice workers – but Spinner’s End is not an example of this; Spinner’s End would’ve been regarded as little better than a slum even when fully occupied.

The narrow streets are indicative of when these houses were built, presumably in the late 1800s – cars were not a concern, and the attitude was to build as many houses on as small a piece of land as possible.

By the time the 90s roll around, and we see Narcissa and Bellatrix descend upon the street, Spinner’s End appears to be mostly deserted. With the closure of traditional manual industries, families would be keen to relocate to where work could be found. Estates which hadn’t already been cleared by the 60s would find themselves left to rack and ruin, their former occupants long gone – whether seeking a new life elsewhere, or having died.

For once, Bellatrix is not being anti-Muggle when she sneers at the Muggle dunghill; she is unnervingly accurate. It is a slum by her standards, but most importantly, it was a slum by everyone else’s standards as well. By the time Severus was born, work should’ve been well under way to clear the area, or to renovate it. This evidently did not occur – which itself explains how undesirable the area is; nobody wanted to spruce it up - they wanted to leave. There were no jobs, no amenities, no services – and eventually, no people.

We often ponder why Snape remains at Spinner’s End, but perhaps there lies the answer; he wasn’t just hiding from the magical world, but he was also hiding from the Muggle world as well…

Play me a memory--A sigma fic

Summary: Sigma hopes to transcribe the universe’s melody, in hopes of awakening his true powers, but gets more than he bargains for when the government facility he has escaped from has found him once again.

Read it here, or find it on AO3

Sigma sits in front of a piano. Not the Bechstein studio grand piano that used to sit in his apartment in The Hague but a cheap, upright Yamaha instead. He knows it is old just from the touch, the damp thud of the keys and the slow responsiveness of the pedals. Most aggravating of all is the tuning, the way the notes sound off to his ears. He does not have perfect pitch, and he never will, but if he concentrates hard enough, he can feel the shape of a note. Middle C is a yellow circle, and if he rises it up to a D, it transforms into an orange triangle. He hypothesizes that his abilities over gravity have given him a sensitivity to the electromagnetic waves that make up sound, but he cannot test this without rigorous testing. The beauty of these powers is that there are so many potential experiments and possibilities.

It’s been a long time since he’s played. Or at least, he thinks it’s been a long time. The last time he had touched a piano was one week before he went up to the international space station that caused his accident, but time is no longer linear and memories no longer make sense and he cannot say how many years have already passed since then. Has it been three years or longer? He cannot say.

He very much prefers listening to music rather than playing it, but he does not have that luxury. Talon is many things but it is not a musically inclined organization. His previous request for an parabolic microphone must have fallen upon flat ears for the next day he gets a regular microphone, the kind used for karaoke parties. It didn’t even have the batteries in it. So it is a miracle of sorts that his request for a piano got through. It was probably salvaged from a nearby dump, but it is still in working order, and he is grateful for whatever gifts Talon bestow upon him.

His body suddenly stiffens as he feels a shift in the air. He turns his head slowly, eyes wide as he finds himself staring back into his face. Only it’s not his face but another version of him, decked out in the orange jumpsuit that government facility crafted specifically for him. His copy smirks sinisterly.

“Gravity is like sanity. All you need is a little push.”

“W-w-what?”

“They called the geniuses of old insane back in their times.”

He is frozen in fear, staring into a face that is his but not his. The other approaches him and places his hands on his shoulders. He can feel the energy being sapped away from his body, his twisted mirror image growing larger, impossibly larger than him. As the energy leaves his body, he can feel his mind clearing. As his mind clears, he can see this twisted alter ego for what it truly is. It is sin, the devil in disguise. And behind that disguise is the black hole that destroyed his career and his mind. And it laughs. It laughs so viciously.

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khayltille

8 years ago

13 year old Peter Quill to go w/ the Yondu I did yesterday. He’s a little moody. For that mini comic that I’ll totally work on, probably.

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khayltille

1 year ago

‘By looking far out into space, we are also looking far back into time, back toward the horizon of the universe.’ - Siebren De Kuiper

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khayltille

2 years ago

THE BOX IS NABOO

That’s it, I’m doing it, I’m writing that stupid meta I’ve had in the works for two and a half years, I’m sharing it with the world. I promised it for last Thursday, my poll was forever ago, but whatever! I’m writing that freaking thing.

(super duper long post, press j to skip)

Enter my rabbit hole.

First thing to establish: the Box makes no sense whatsoever in-universe.

Recap of the context for the “Box” episode (s4e17): Palpatine is planning his own kidnapping. It was never meant to succeed, and while the plan would obviously benefit him (making the Jedi look bad, pushing Anakin closer to the Dark Side, making Republic citizens more afraid -> more docile, etc…) his actual goal is never explained, and it’s weird that he’d go to such extreme lengths for results so minimal that we’re never told what they are.

So Palpatine asks Dooku to kidnap him at the Festival of Lights on Naboo. Dooku hires Moralo Eval to design a giant box-thingy to test bounty hunters to hire the best of them to kidnap Palpatine. Moralo then gets arrested to alert the Republic that something is afoot, and hires Cad Bane to break him out. Obi-Wan - undercover to learn Moralo’s plan - goes with them. They evade capture and go to Serenno, and Bane and Obi-Wan have to pass the box-thingy test. The level of brainkarked logic here… Truly on par with Megamind, Gru and Heinz Doofenshmirtz.

Setting aside the insane plot holes and utterly nonsensical behavior of the villains, the Box itself is moronic from a plot perspective. It’s insanely complex, obviously incredibly expensive and would have taken months (more like years but it’s a short war) to make when it’s not even needed for the dastardly plot! Just hire some guys who have already proven themselves against Jedi! Throw cash at Bane and Embo and a few others! Maybe attack them with your saber and see how they do!

And after all that, Dooku still ends up trying to kidnap Palpatine on his own. I can’t even…

So why does the Box exist? Well, apart from giving us a good thrill and being generally awesome to look at, it has actual narrative purpose.

The box is Naboo.

What the Box lacks in plot relevance, it makes up for with its heavily symbolic meaning. It very closely follows Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon’s experiences on Naboo - but only certain parts, which I’ll explain later.

We start with clean, sterile environments, SW’s favored way of showing villainy.

Then we have the protagonists locked in a room as dioxis, a poison gas, pours in.

And then they escape… this way.

(Okay, here the shaft is down, not up. And it’s not a ventilation shaft per say, it’s the designed escape route. Same difference).

We then skip most of TPM (namely, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon discovering the droid army, finding Padmé, leaving Naboo, landing on Tatooine, going to Coruscant, etc, etc) to come back to Naboo and go directly to the lightsabers and catwalks.

(Note: in both scenes, Obi-Wan has to propel himself from a catwalk.)

In TPM and TCW, the catwalks are immediately followed by ray shields

And we finally end with the last scenes. Now, they don’t look the same but they are structurally identical.

Obi-Wan is faced with a challenge unsuited for his abilities (facing Darth Maul // shooting three moving targets when he’s far more skilled with a blade than a blaster) on a narrow space above a melting pit/pit of fire.

He first watches someone die failing to complete the task…

… and has to do it himself, faring much better than expected (holding his own against Maul // shooting all the targets easily).

He then almost falls to his death and gets saved unexpectedly.

And then there’s the final showdown.

In both scenes, Obi-Wan is angry. And in TCW Dooku eggs him on, banking on his anger. (More on that later.) In both cases though, he centers himself and is able to overcome both his opponent and his own unbalance. But in TCW, he doesn’t go for the kill, because he doesn’t need to.

The Box, as a literal character-explorator ex-machina, thus shows us Obi-Wan’s growth.

In TPM, Obi-Wan follows Qui-Gon’s lead. In TCW, he is the leader. He identifies the gas, makes the plans. He doesn’t fall from catwalks anymore - he runs atop moving ones. He doesn’t stay stuck behind ray-shields, he finds the solution. (Btw, how did Moralo know what blood type Derrown the Exterminator was? There was a 50% chance of him dying - thus killing all of the bounty hunters. Was that an acceptable outcome? TCW I need answers!) He doesn’t slay his foes, because he’s become powerful enough, skilled enough and wise enough to survive (and win) without needing to kill.

He’s grown - and, even more interestingly, he’s also stayed the same. In the previous episodes, we see some of the dark aspects of Obi-Wan. How he - like all Force-wielders, all people - could lose himself if he stopped maintaining absolute control.

But in the Box, surrounded by the worst criminals of the Galaxy, the most ruthless, worthless people, he’s still kind and tries his best to keep them alive.

The Box is a reminder and a reassurance for the audience that Obi-Wan Kenobi is still there under Rako’s face. He hasn’t lost his compassion, his restrain. He’s still a Jedi. And he’s an awesome, badass one.

And now, for what it tells us about Dooku!

It’s much shorter, don’t worry. Basically, Dooku considers that the best way to pick “the best of the best” of the deadliest people in the Galaxy is making them go through what killed his Padawan. There, I’ve broken your hearts, you’re welcome.

More seriously, Dooku is a manipulative ass. It’s pretty clear that he knows Rako is Obi-Wan, or at the very least suspects it.

He has an interesting reaction upon learning Rako’s identity, he keeps praising him despite his usual distaste for low-lifes, he smirks secretively after Eval says “I’ll show you who’s weak” (not included there because it’s a close-up of Dooku’s lips and no one wants to see that) and he tells Rako he’s very disappointed when he doesn’t finish off Eval.

[Later]

(Look at this smug asshole - I can’t. YOUR GRANDSON IS THE BEST, WE KNOW, STOP ACTIVELY RUINING HIS LIFE ALREADY.)

(Dooku… why…)

Now obviously Dooku couldn’t have made the Box specifically for Obi-Wan, because it would have to have been designed months before the Council ever decided to send Obi-Wan undercover, but he has no qualms trying to use it to push Obi-Wan to the Dark Side. Ffs Dooku, making your spiritual grandson relive one of the most traumatic events of his life on the off chance that he’ll join you and (desecrate his Master’s memory in doing so) is not okay!

Final tidbits of analysis: I mentioned that not all of TPM is mirrored in the Box. What’s omitted is the droids (even though Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon fight B1′s and droidekas between the dioxis and the ventilation shafts) and anything pertaining to Sidious (all the political stuff on Coruscant). You’ll also note that the fake lightsabers are orange.

=> The Box distances itself from anything that connects Dooku to Naboo. Red lightsabers are the trademark of the Sith, so they’re not used. The bounty hunters will be facing Jedi, so logically the fake sabers should be green or blue - but no, they’re orange, the color closest to red. It fits with Dooku’s special brand of dishonesty - he always tells bits of the real story but twists them just enough to absolve himself of any fault and to justify his choices.

(”We can destroy the Sith” -> fails to mention he’s a Sith Lord himself; “the Viceroy came to me for help, that’s why I’m attacking the Republic” -> fails to mention he’s Sidious’ underling and is playing the Viceroy like a fiddle; “Qui-Gon would have joined me” -> fails to mention he’s working for the man who ordered Qui-Gon’s death; “I told you everything you needed to know” -> never said that Palps was Sidious; “Sifo-Dyas understood, that’s why he helped me” -> doesn’t admit to killing Sifo-Dyas right after getting his help)

So we have a twisted version of Naboo, droid-free (as droids are now irrevocably associated with Dooku) and with sabers that aren’t quite red. Keep in mind that Dooku had already fallen by TPM. (We know this because he killed Sifo-Dyas and created the Clone Army - part of Sidious’ plan - when Valorum was still Chancellor, as per the episode The Lost One.) That means Dooku was (in)directly complicit in Qui-Gon’s death. And the Box doesn’t (refuses to?) acknowledge that.

(Also omitted in the Box are the Gungans and Tatooine. It makes sense, because Dooku probably wouldn’t have the full details regarding those parts of TPM, and would see them as irrelevant if he did. He utterly despises Anakin, and Gungans are the type of people he always dismisses out of hand).

Anyway, that’s my two cents about the Box. To quote Lucas…

“It’s like poetry. It rhymes.”

Thanks to @lethebantroubadour @impossiblybluebox @nonbinarywithaknife @ytoz and @kaitie85386 for voting for this one. Next up is a compilation of the Jedi being casually tactile with each other (because they’re a warm and affectionate culture, dammit).

Also thanks to @laciefuyu for giving me gifs I ended up not using ^^; you rock anyway!

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khayltille

1 year ago

Blaze Road / Frank Prigent Available in art print, 60x90cm, limited edition of five.

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khayltille

5 years ago

Commission for my friend @nikodavisartwork !

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khayltille

1 year ago

Do you ever just stop and think about how if Ernesto hadn’t poisoned Héctor then they could have potentially starred in movies together and double-teamed dance numbers…

I mean I know Héctor wanted to go home but there’s nothing that says that in the future he could have been persuaded to have small parts in Ernesto’s movies as a cameo for them to sing together, especially if he wouldn’t be gone for super long…..

I just want golden age movie dance sequence with the boys 😂

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khayltille

1 year ago