Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a 1956 American science fiction horror film produced by Walter Wanger, directed by Don Siegel, that stars Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter.
In Image's Redlands, Witches Are Feared Not Just for Their Magic, But Because They're Women. Witches have come in all shapes, sizes, and powers over the centuries, but there’s one thing they usually have in common: They’re women.
Image’s powerful series Redlands highlights the link between womanhood and witchcraft, showing the misogyny behind the mythology. It is impossible to talk about witchcraft without unpacking how fears about witches have been used as shorthand for real sexism. These parallels go back hundreds of years, targeting midwives, widows, and other women who existed outside of accepted norms of their time periods. It’s an issue that’s been explored in countless stories about witches, from Arthur Miller’s critically acclaimed play The Crucible to the 1. The Craft. Robert Egger’s 2.
The Witch, for example, is both literally a film about a family being terrorized by an actual witch and about how, when faced with labeled as being “different” by conventional standards, there was a point in time when women were summarily accused of witchcraft. In a disturbing, beautiful way, co- creators Jordie Bellaire and Vanesa Del Rey’s Redlands out today from Image revels in the idea that magic is born from unholy contracts between the devil and clever women. But it’s noticeably careful about making sure you understand that the terror and fear on the page is entirely subjective, and coming from the non- witches’ perspective. A tree engulfed in flames with three nooses swinging from its branches in the roaring fire stands at the center of Redlands’ first panel.
Somewhere off in the distance, an unseen man huddled in a police station curses to himself (and everyone around him) that the lynching and burning at the stake they’d attempted has failed. The witches have escaped, the humans are fucked, and everyone knows it. There’s little in the way of explanation as to exactly what happened in the scenes leading up to the book’s opening, but there’s enough to convey strong emotions in the absence of specific details. A group of local men—the town’s police force—are holed up in the police department as the witches move through the shadowy forest, daring them to step out into the light of the fire. In another story, you might feel sympathy for the men and be able to see them as the unlucky victims of Redlands’ demons, were it not for the handful of simple but heavy bits of character detail that co- creators Bellaire and Del Rey carefully place into each panel. Both we and these men know that they’re dealing with the supernatural, but to them, their adversaries are “bitches” before they’re witches, establishing one of the key elements of Redlands’ world- building. You get the distinct sense that the people of Redlands, Florida, fear the trio of witches for their magic, but they hate them because they’re women—exercising a sort of power that the men of the town are not prepared to handle.
As the policemen cower in their Confederate flag- lined station, the witches tease and play them from the outside, casting illusions to trick the men into repeatedly opening the door and even leaving, only to be promptly eviscerated by the literal demons waiting for them. While Redlands may initially lull you into seeing the witches as the book’s ultimate threat, Bellaire and Del Ray have the policemen turn inward on themselves. Their reflections deftly gesture to the fact that evil lived in the town long before the witches showed up. In the darkness of their building where they assume they’re safe, the policemen butt up against the prisoners lucky enough to be locked up that night and, in their interactions, you see that the lawmen aren’t exactly friendly with the locals. Racially- charged tension crackles between an imprisoned black man and the white officer on the other side of the bars.
The officer goads the prisoner with a flippant remark about being named after his absentee father. The prison responds by reminding the officer that his father’s only missing because the officer’s father killed him. Whatever horrors the witches may have brought to their town, the comic makes it clear it’s bound to be no worse than Redlands’ status quo. Women like the witches, one of the police men spits, are begging for it. And in a way he’s right, the witches are eagerly awaiting for him and all of his friends to just come outside and talk things over—to clear up any and all misunderstandings between their respective parties. But when the town sheriff does ultimately come forward to confront the witches and drive them away with his shotgun, there’s a subtle shift in Redlands’ tone that sets the stage for what the rest of the series holds. The witches haven’t just descended upon Redlands for their own amusement, or even to scare its citizens.
Redlands was sick and bloated with evil and rot before the witches set foot in the town. Del Rey’s kinetic illustrations and the shadowy, bloody shades of red Bellaire fills the page with are meant to make you feel the fear surging through the non- witches. But beneath that fear is a deeper understanding that sometimes, this is what change for the better looks and feels like when you’re a part of the problem. Seen from another perspective using a little imagination, the witches’ impending massacre of the police isn’t something to fear—it’s an attempt at healing the town. Almost every story about the persecution of women suspected of witchcraft is also a story about a society unable or unwilling to accept women as competent, powerful people. Darker, more psychological witch tales sometimes tease us as to whether the suspected witchcraft is actually real. Redlands manages to be both kinds of stories while leaving you with the distinct feeling that it’s less of a gritty children’s story retooled for adults and more of a cautionary tale about what happens when you run afoul of the wrong women.
As you can probably guess, last week’s episode of Game of Thrones—and its increasing dominance over the pop culture landscape—has filled the ol’ postman’s stolen mailbag to the brim. There are a few spoilers for last week’s episode, but more importantly, an answer to a question we should have been asking ourselves since the first episode: Should we want Daenerys and Jon Snow to fuck?
Aunt, Man. Aaron W.: So I’ve been struggling with this question a lot: Is it ok to . So the aunt/nephew dynamic is an absolute deal breaker to modern audiences, but maybe wouldn’t be the worst thing in Westeros? Lots of reasons it would be good, but one BIG reason it is unacceptable.
Thoughts? Shipping is. I’ve seen worse than aunt and nephew. And the show is definitely presenting them as future romantic partners/fuckbuddies, which makes it as legitimate as these things get. Ice Age 5 (2016) Movie Trailers here. Their familial relationship may freak you out, but that’s sort of the point. GRRM wants to show a medieval, feudal- type era with all the awfulness most fantasies skip over. The relentless sexism, the rape and torture, the horror that regular people could and did experience constantly as the result of what the nobility chose to do—you can absolutely complain about how omnipresent it is in his stories and/or how it’s portrayed, but it’s not inaccurate to the source material of that reality.
And one part of that reality is medieval (and certainly ancient) nobility’s tendency toward incest, especially between uncles and nieces—to the point where its got its own name, avunculate marriage. As you said, the books/show have already shown that Targaryens have been more than willing to marry within the family in order to keep their bloodline pure, so there’s a precedent for Jon and Dany starting a relationship. And since we’re talking about an aunt and nephew here (since Jon is the son of Dany’s deceased brother Rhaegar) and not uncle/niece, a Jon/Dany hook- up would.
I am far more skeptical that Jon would be cool with sleeping with his aunt, given the rest of Westeros isn’t nearly as cool with incest (hence Cersei and Jaime’s hiding of their sexual relationship—well, until Cersei took the throne and decided that yes, in fact, as queen she gets to have sex with anyone she wants, and everyone else has to deal with it. Or be tortured and killed). But Jon’s problem is easily solved by keeping his parentage from him until after Ice and Fire have fucked each other. In fact, I suspect Bran is keeping/will keep the truth of Jon’s parentage from everyone until after Daenerys gets pregnant for that very reason.
The Three- Eyed Raven knows this has to happen, so mum’s the word for now Or GRRM—or the show, for that matter, since we know it’s diverging from GRRM’s plan in major ways—could just throw a curveball and have Dany marry Gendry, the closest thing King Robert had to a legitimate heir, combining the Targaryen and Baratheon lines to create a progeny whose claim to the throne is unassailable throughout Westeros. Actually, that’s a pretty good idea! He’s way at the bottom . No way Bronn can hold his breath long enough to get down there, cut all the straps to all the pieces of the armor, pull them off, and then also pull him to safety before they both drown. I’m not going to say it’s unrealistic, since Jaime was pushed into the water to avoid a dragon, but the point of Game of Thrones is that it has fantasy elements but it’s still realistic in the basic laws of physics.
So isn’t Jaime getting rescued impossible? You bring up a good point about fantasy, in that the best fantasy has a set of rules, even if the audience doesn’t know them, and doesn’t break them.
Someone suddenly having a “hoist person out of lake” spell to save Jaime would be dumb. Cult Horror Movies Get Out Ver2 (2017). Tyrion running down the hell and begging Dany to have Drogon fish the dude who was about to kill her out of the lake is more realistic for Go. T, but implausible in terms of Dany’s character and the time it would take for Tyrion to get down to Dany and ask for her to save his brother. So that leaves Bronn. Here’s one thing we all need to make our peace with first, right now: Game of Thrones the TV show has begun playing fast and loose with strict reality in favor of presenting the most exciting story possible.
This is how armies and fleets are moving gargantuan distances in- between and sometimes even during episodes. It’s why Tyrion can pick out Jaime from half a mile away amid a battlefield full of smoke and destruction. It’s why Cersei and her allies can suddenly kick ass or all of Highgarden’s gold can get into King’s Landing with a mutter and a handwave. There are only nine episodes left, total, as of the time this mailbag hits the nerdernet. The show doesn’t have any time to waste. Yes, part of the reason the books are so good is because they were sprawling and complicated in the way life is, and yes, the show is 1.
I also, as I mentioned in my recap this week, think it doesn’t make any narrative sense for Bronn to push Jaime out of the way of a giant cone of dragon breath into a lake, only to have him immediately drown—if Weiss and Benioff are going to kill the character, having Jaime get turned into cinders by Drogon is a much, much cooler death. So I think the show will forgo realism (I mean, how was that lake at the side of that road a full 3. Bronn will cut Jaime out of his armor and drag him to the surface (because Jaime is the one who’s going to give him a castle, after all), and the Lannister will probably live to fight another day. And I also think he’ll be the one to perform those (book spoilers) valonqar duties, and obviously, he can’t do that if he’s dead. Last time I looked, I didn’t see any friendly priests of R’hllor nearby.
Where to even begin? Ser Barristan would have been the most solid member of Daenerys’ Queensguard due to military and combat experience, but his relationship to Rhaegar is most interesting. When Dany tells Jon that everyone loves doing what they’re best at, Jon disagrees. Ser Barristan once told Dany a similar story about her brother Rhaegar preferring singing in the street to killing. I also imagine Ser Barristan recognizing the late prince’s resemblance in Jon’s face, posture, or personality. Although Jon is very much Ned Stark in code and hair color, there would be a few opportunities for the show to make that connection. Are there any dead characters that would’ve enhanced the current story we have without breaking the series?
Barristan had to die because he had too many answers. He knew Rhaegar well, and he likely knew what Rhaegar was doing when he kidnapped Lyanna, or at the very least he knew whether Lyanna was kidnapped or went with him willingly. Even though we know the result of their union was Jon Snow, the reason why Rhaegar kidnapped her, thus starting a chain of events that killed most of his family and ended their dynasty, is such an integral mystery that it’s going to need to be saved until the very end of the series. Barristan may well have had those answers. The show could get away with not acknowledging this for a bit, while he hadn’t been in Daenerys’ service for long and wasn’t completely trusted. When Dany realized that Barristan knew her family pretty intimately, and was beginning to ask questions about them—well, that’s when he had to go.
Barristan literally died in the same episode he began to tell stories Rhaegar (“Sons of the Harpy,” episode five). So yes, Barristan would added a great deal to the proceedings, but would have added too much, too soon. My pick would be either Oberyn or Doran Martell, if only so one of them could make the Dorne storyline worth a damn. It would be cool so see Dorne have a major role to play in the great war other than serving as Cersei fodder. If a good Dorne storyline is off the table, I have to go Stannis, actually. Seeing him somehow bend the knee to Jon Snow and becoming part of the fight against the White Walkers would be really satisfying on a lot of levels, I think. But those are just mine—add and explain yours in the comments.