Rules That Should Never Be Broken
Posted 27 September 2008 in Reading by Catriona
This post is brought to you by the difficulties of marking while Nick is holding a shouted video-cam conversation with my father a metre away: mind, I’m not blaming him for the shouting. It’s just distracting.
But if my obsessive reading and watching of television has taught me anything, it’s that some rules can be broken, and some are inviolable. These are the inviolable rules, as far as I know them.
1. Never go shopping with Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan.
2. Never mess with Veronica Mars.
3. If in doubt, nuke the planet from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
4. Never get involved in a land war in Asia.
5. Don’t go up against a Sicilian when death is on the line.
6. Always take a banana to a party.
7. Don’t wear a T-shirt reading “Clone” around Captain Jack.
8. There can only be one.*
9. Don’t forget your towel.
Have I missed anything important?
*(I have no idea why I’m currently obsessed with Highlander; I haven’t seen it in years, and I was never thrilled with the “rape as an object lesson” sub-plot. Yet I keep making jokes about it recently.)
Share your thoughts [6]
1
Tim wrote at Sep 27, 01:52 pm
Number 4 is debatable.
Number 5 is clearly violable.
The Highlander TV series casts doubt on number 8.
2
Catriona wrote at Sep 27, 11:47 pm
It’s true that numbers four and five are rendered somewhat moot, and number five, in particular, comes from a distinctly biased source.
I still think they’re good advice.
I’ve not seen the Highlander TV show: any good?
3
Tim wrote at Sep 28, 07:43 am
I don’t know, I haven’t seen it either. :)
4
Catriona wrote at Sep 28, 08:22 am
But you do know how why and how it casts doubt on number 8?
Share your wisdom, Tim! Don’t make me rely on Wikipedia!
5
Tim wrote at Sep 28, 10:47 am
As I understand it, the first season of the TV series takes place before the first film, but as the series went on, they moved away from the Gathering concept (and kept pushing it forward in the chronology). The fifth film pulls yet another retcon, making the Gathering something different.
Come to think of it, even the third film shows that when there was supposedly only one, there was in fact at least two.
6
Catriona wrote at Sep 28, 11:02 am
True—I’d blocked the third film out of my memory.
I suppose that’s the problem with television programmes based on movies; when the movies come to a firm endpoint, the television programme either had to retcon that or to move away from the original concept altogether.