Women Fandom Loves to Hate--Anna Grant, Day 3

Blake's 7 wrote itself into a corner a bit by introducing Anna as a very important (and very sympathetic) presence in Avon's life about a series/season before we actually meet her. I suspect that for every fan who cares about Avon's personal life and who saw the series unspoiled and in order, this created a more-or-less jarring experience of seeing the Anna they'd created in their minds exploded. I know that happened to me. To this day, I have two totally different visual images of Anna in my head (and somewhat different personalities) and have a hard time reconciling them into one person with one life history, despite 15-odd years of coming to terms with the Anna of "Rumours."

On a narrative level, Anna got shortchanged. She was introduced in a way that was guaranteed to make most fans ultimately disappointed in her/disillusioned by her, because we all prefer our own stories to others'. And when we did see the "real" Anna, we saw her so briefly and under such bad circumstances that we had no chance to replace our own shattered visions with another understanding of a fully developed character. We were just given a lot of complexity and confusion, and some arguably good and some definitely bad behavior, and then it was over. Nuts.

The moral of the story is be very careful when giving a big, dramatic introduction to a figure you're not actually going to have show up for a long time. The move is almost guaranteed to disappoint.

The Tale of Yor--A Continuation Myth

A myth from The Tales of the Nine Clans of Ash'tor.

"The Tale of Yor, Being the Tale of the Fourth Clan"

In the Wandering Days, long since eaten by time, in the deserts of Ra'Ebsyn dwelt a fine family of the Clan Khebyq. Though they stood high in honor and piety, the Great God Trahae, in his wisdom, had winnowed their numbers till only the aged mother and her twin sons remained.

Now in those days, bands of renegades beset the worlds of the Traedah, plundering heavyships and murdering their crews. But the Three Clans of the Nahajûn, as ever, gladdened in the call of war and, hornet-like, sped toward the blunt-footed enemy.

These twin sons of Clan Khebyq both were noble men, young and taut in lineaments in the expectation of glory. And both would have hastened to the battle were not their aged mother frail and in need of aid to till the fields. Therefore, they agreed that, to honor their mother, one brother must earn glory and one must harvest locusts.

Now, Medhebaq was firstborn and, by the Law, had the right to depart. With many prayers and colored carvings, he readied the family's only lightship and sought Trahae's blessing to smite the marauders with ship and hand. But on the night that he stood in prayer vigil on his final turn on Ra'Ebsyn, on that very night, his brother, Sylseq, crept to the lightship in his Medhebaq's stead. A flood of fire swept him skyward, and Medhebaq saw his glory fail like an upward-falling star. And though he longed to exact justice, his honor to his aged mother bound him to his home sands. So he tilled the hard earth of Ra'Ebsyn in obscurity.

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