What if Hornblower and Jack Aubrey met when they were midshipmen
Tag: master and commander
In the past two weeks I have watched The Terror, Hornblower, Master and Commander, and started rereading Temeraire. In honor of this hole that I have fallen into, I’ve made a drinking game:
Drink every time:
– There is a long shot of a ship that slowly zooms out
– Someone gets flogged
– Something terribly nautical and fascinating happens (drink twice if you have no idea what part of the ship that word refers to)
– Something homoerotic happens
– Someone drinks grog and/or gets their grog ration cut
– Someone British insists on following tradition when it is impractical, irrational, irrelevant, or outright dangerous
– Two men have an intensely emotional heart to heart while standing at attention and calling each other “Sir”
– Two men engage scathing insults by standing at attention and calling each other “Sir”
– You realize that serving in the British Navy in the 19th century was actually horrifying and pretty awful
– Someone mentions Nelson
i’m watching MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD with my dad and honestly the entire english-speaking media landscape’s continued devotion in the year of our lord 2k16 to DEFEATING NAPOLEON (ON BOATS) is a massive inspiration to me
i thought it was just the uk media, like, okay, jonathan strange & mr norrell has waves upon waves of Furious Incoherent Yelling Frenchmen With Stringy Hair And Awesome Yet Terrible Cheekbones vs. bertie carvel attempting to fuck a wall using magic alone, that’s fair, if you count up the sheer amount of tv shows america has made about THE REDCOATS it’s probably about even
but then i found out MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD is NOT A BRITISH FILM, like, paul bettany (“is geoffrey chaucer in this movie????” -my dad) is a brit but russell crowe is from new ZEALAND and the director/writer is an AUSSIE and it was produced by AMERICANS
and ALSO, the original events of far side of the world (1984) had americans as the villains!! cos it was the war of 1812, a.k.a “that time we were mad the brits kept kidnapping sailors and the brits were mad we kept cozying up to napoleon and the canadians were like ‘well, no one’s looking, let’s burn down the president’s house’”
but this was CHANGED to avoid offending american audiences!! and it was changed to, wait for it, wait for it, FURIOUS INCOHERENT YELLING FRENCHMEN WITH STRINGY HAIR AND AWESOME YET TERRIBLE CHEEKBONES vs. russell crowe being Incredibly Passionate About His Boat.
and i am UNBELIEVABLY supportive of russell crowe’s boat. i would sail AT LEAST seven seas, and also possibly more seas, for this boat. russell crowe and geoffrey chaucer seem very devoted to defeating Boney, and saving Good Old England, and i am neutral about Boney and also neutral about England, having encountered neither and having no plans to do so, but i would go to the fucking MAT against Boney if it would save one plank of russell crowe’s boat. DO IT, PAUL BETTANY. CLASSIFY THOSE ANIMALS. PERFORM THAT SURGERY. TAKE NAPOLEON DOWN.
anyway, napoleon has been dead for almost two hundred years, and his ultimate defeat and the subsequent congress of vienna were not super great for european civil liberties in general, but literally all english-speaking media is totally fine with this and you know what? i am too. fucking fight napoleon and his armies of well-cheekboned yelling Bonapartists. win the whole peninsula. save your boats. do it, handsome yet angsty new zealanders wearing blue coats and pretending to be british. i can only support you.
A Pretty Taste for Paradox 