8 Comments
May 3Liked by Jamie Paul, Johan Pregmo

Absolutely loved it! Spot on analysis. Highly recommend "Shogun"!

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Gosh, you all are real desperate for something to call good. I understand, it's bad out there. But this?

>The show demonstrates a concerted effort to accurately portray the period it represents,

You know what would be a real effort? Portraying the actual history.

What we have here is not "more-perfect-than-life" embellished history like King Lear - rather, it's cowardly "history with the names changed." The sole purpose of this maneuver is to free the writer from burden of actual fidelity to history while still drawing "inspiration" from it. It's like Bob Dylan music - an old song with some of the words changed, which makes those unfamiliar with the source material think you're being original.

>What’s interesting about Shogun is not just the sharp cultural contrasts of the brutal, hierarchical society of feudal Japan, but also the presence of cultural universals.

Cultural universals? Null hypothesis should be that the white guy writer put white guy things in his Japan-themed book. That's not "a bad thing" but it is the furthest thing from an indication of a "cultural universal." Nice job making the "identity" people right about something. That's hard to do but you've managed to manage it. Did you know that the people who actually lived in this period wrote books too, and you can read them?

Game of Thrones is self-avowed schlock, which is a cut much above this sort of thing -- complete and utter schlock that utterly lifeless, utterly miseducated adult men take as suuuper meaningful and serious. This might be crossing the line, but I bet you like Cormac McCarthy.

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author

"Cultural universals? Null hypothesis should be that the white guy writer put white guy things in his Japan-themed book."

...do you think macho pissing contests and teenagers being awkward and a bit cringeworthy are "white guy things"?

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Completely missing the point, and I think you know it! "Cultural universal" is a stupid term anyway. What does it mean other than "things people do"?

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author

Opinions differ. I appreciate the passion.

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I don't appreciate the bloodless equivocation, but it's whatever. If I was having someone guest-speak at my house I wouldn't let them be talked to this way.

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May 12Liked by Johan Pregmo

Spiky, I thought this was a good piece on Shogun, but what is it that you're trying to say? Can you use fewer words and speak more clearly? You might be onto something, but I can barely understand any of your comments.

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I write for me; for ye but second:

'Tis uncute to play dumb, but beckoned,

I come, t'tell ye, "Ho-hum,

to make it much clearer,

I'd need me a mirror,

or your see-through tongue

'stead of my English one.

If ye need word-help,

duly summon the elf:

have ChatGPT autosummarize me.

I, for myself, cannot so insult thee."

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