As soon as I read the original text I knew the thrown shoe thing was gonna come up somewhere in the comments

I get you pard, there are some creative works that I still hold on to as well despite learning disappointing things about their creators. Others I’ve let go.

I love Silk as well, he’s such a fun character. Belgarath I generally like except when he goes all in on mocking the stupidity of everyone around him, and when he starts dumping on Garion. The latter feels like a betrayal because otherwise he’s very supportive of the kid. Being a kindly grandfather-figure to Garion is a big part of his role in the story so it’s difficult when he acts otherwise. Durnik was always my favorite because I have a soft spot for the solid, practical, dependable types, likely based on my great relationship with my grandpa when I was young.

You have a point with the ancient characters being tired and jaded by all this, since they’ve been through all this type of stuff before many times, and having been around so long they do have an exceptional accumulation of experience and wisdom and knowledge, so I can see them getting frustrated more often with having to deal with their lessers. Still though: We see Belgarath fail. We see him be unsure of himself sometimes, we see him fall on his face, and even if begrudgingly, we see him own it. Same with Silk - he’s recruited largely because he’s the clever and witty one, but on more than one occasion we see him get bested and importantly (to me at least), he also owns it. Even Mandorallen, the guy whose whole shtick is being absurdly self-confident and self-assured, has his moments where he falters and struggles, and he owns it.

Polgara, though? Oh, no. Polgara is never wrong. If you ever question her, you had better be prepared for some mockery and intense cold shoulder and judgment by everyone else for even thinking of doubting her. And this will only end when you finally “realize” that you were wrong and apologize to her, at which point she oh-so-benevolently welcomes you back in now that you’ve admitted to her that you were wrong and sorry for ever thinking she was anything less than perfect. She feels like the type of character a narcissist would write as their self-insert.

Upon thinking about all this, I do also wonder about the fact that the humblest of the main characters end up getting together with the two most spoiled and self-satisfied ones. Given how I feel about Polgara, I was pretty bummed out when my guy Durnik never got over being smitten with her and they ended up together. But hey, there might be some evidence there that maybe he’ll be good for her, at least.

Oh, and on the note of Durnik and Polgara getting together … the one time she might have actually had to lose something, to really sacrifice something … nope! Just kidding, what a twist! She actually has to give up nothing, and instead Durnik is elevated to sorcererhood solely to give her the loophole she needs to continue on being just perfectly amazing in every way and capability! Even the friggin rules of the cosmos bend to accommodate her!

Yeah yeah, I’m ranting. But people typically rant about things they care about. I loved these books, and I’m not just ranting out of grumpiness but out of being bummed out that I can’t manage to love them anymore. Because I still want to. In any case, not trying to convince you to stop liking them, just venting and wanting these thoughts to be heard by someone. Thanks for the opportunity and take it easy out there.

I’ve been playing with calcurse and calcure, both TUI calendars because I can’t keep something like Thunderbird open on my cruddy low RAM laptop. There are some sync methods but they’re pretty janky. I’m tempted to just set up a plaintext file with appointments and have a script scan for the upcoming 24 hours for notifications or something

I feel like accounts like PugJesus, PicardManeuver, and LadyButterfly are doing a pretty hefty chunk of Lemmy posts. I don’t dislike any of them (I like how PJ adds little contextual informative notes to their memes and whatnot, Butterfly seems to provide a lot of positivity), but I did add little colored tags to their accounts to help me realize just how many posts were theirs. I don’t know how they manage to stay motivated to keep doing all that posting

I loved Belgariad/Mallorean as a late teen. I’ve recommended it and included it in my top five for decades.

I tried reading them again a few months ago and man, I just couldn’t.

Everyone craps on Garion constantly for what amounts to just being a young kid who has lived a sheltered life and not yet had many experiences (especially Pol). I feel like the poor kid is legitimately emotionally abused and manipulated by those supposed to be caring for him, and the writing is trying to make you agree that this foolish child deserves the constant harsh criticism and punishment his supposed caretakers heap on him.

Much of the main cast are constantly talking about how idiotic everyone else in the world is. I enjoy some good snark but there’s only so much smug and superior condescension I can take. It doesn’t matter if it’s an enemy or an ally: they’re not part of the main cast? 90% chance someone in the main cast points out that they’re a completely idiotic or naive moron and their cultural ways are totally backwards.

Everyone fawns over Pol despite her being constantly smug and arrogant and superior, and the writing is constantly going out of its way to show you how right Polgara is and how stupid everyone was that ever disagreed with her about anything.

Ehem. Sorry about that. Feels nice to get it out of my system though. I do still like some things about it. Many of the main cast are a lot of fun when they’re not in “wow we’re surrounded by ignorant idiots” or “Pol is the avatar of perfection and no one should ever disagree with her even when she’s wrong” mode. I couldn’t make it past meeting up with Ce’nedra though on my recent attempt to re-read. I couldn’t stand her even on my first read when I was otherwise madly in love with the books.

P.S. The constant casual (often gleeful) murder and genocidal remarks by the protagonists were pretty off-putting too

Thanks for bringing back a mix of childhood joy and trauma

I stopped listening to him because he was super arrogant and condescending and self important, didn’t know about the other stuff

Not denying Dawkins is plenty smart about some things but man, I miss Carl Sagan

I think I just learned I might have a degree of claustrophobia or something because reading the second part made me suddenly very anxious

Don’t worry, I bet you’re still gonna have a great time with your home server, love seeing people set up stuff like this for themselves

Billionaires are the worst in so many ways

The longer I look at it the more fun it is to alternate my understanding of it between milky way sky and shimmering canyon river

What an awkward job that must be

This is rad

Screw the courts, free Waldo

This is good. Putting on a nicer shirt helps me as well. I’m not in a white shirt and tie by any means, but just something nicer than my casual tees really does seem to make a difference in getting me in a good mental place for being more focused.

I’m sure for some it makes no difference and I would hate to sound like I’m supporting the stupid office dress code policies that I loathe, so please chime in if this doesn’t work for you

I got this one too, high five

And how do you and your fellow planes feel about that

“Well I know you’re not rich. Dang, you must be one lazy sonovagun.”

For all the goobers who aren’t rich themselves but still say stuff like this

As a haver of kids: Sure, why not? I’ll take some smoke breaks as a non-smoker, too. I’m saying this unironically or whatever by the way, that second part isn’t supposed to be a gotcha or anything. I’m also a worker in the US so I’m biased, used to workplaces that go the extra mile to try and squeeze every ounce of both productivity and humanity out of you. Give everyone all the flexibilities!

I think this is an important part of protesting that goes overlooked by the “protests don’t immediately solve the problem” people. I’m in a very conservative area as well but when I protest I get more support than opposition. It helps other people realize that hey, maybe I’m not actually surrounded by people who are okay with this. Maybe there are actually a lot more of my neighbors who aren’t okay with things, and there’s actually hope that if I start acting up more, I’ll have support. Hope and morale are pretty important for resistance movements.