![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerSo I watched the first episode of Rome, and - STRANGELY COMPELLING. It's a blatant churning maelstrom of id and dominance games! Just like the ancient Romans themselves!
I always liked the Romans better than the Greeks. They never came up with highfalutin justifications for why they were so evil. And they built aqueducts! And roads! And useful things instead of silly little temples!
I like Vorenus, which is unusual given that he was clearly designed to be liked, what with the whole loving his wife and being sort of twitchy about crucifying people thing. But! He crucified people despite his twitchiness. And then he let them down when he got what he wanted, which is, like, humanitarianism for a Roman.
Speaking of the crucifixions, stabbing, ritual animal sacrifice etc.: on the whole it was less bloody than I expected. There's a fine line between "accurately depicted gore" and "gore porn," and Rome pretty much walked it. Given the Romans' general attitude toward violence I think this will shift in the gore porn direction in later episodes, which is going to be a problem for me.
The whole Julii family is pretty awesome (in a "Thank God they live two thousand years away from me" kind of way). I'm kind of at a loss as to how Octavia's idealism managed to survive this long without being gutted by the bitter realities of Roman life, though.
Brutus was not as totally awesome as I wanted, but it would probably be impossible for anyone to live up to Brutus, so. (This is embarrassingly geektastic, but my first and possibly only literary crush was Brutus in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Because he's so brave and noble and awesome and strangely slashy [with Cassius, of all people, because Brutus has terrible taste in men]! And kills his best friend Caesar for the greater good! And has so much angst and is so stoical about it all!)
And...I think that's it for now. Oh, except for the fact that I can totally see this show sparking REAMS OF ESSAYS about history and violence in fiction and so forth, which will be fun for me if not for you.
I always liked the Romans better than the Greeks. They never came up with highfalutin justifications for why they were so evil. And they built aqueducts! And roads! And useful things instead of silly little temples!
I like Vorenus, which is unusual given that he was clearly designed to be liked, what with the whole loving his wife and being sort of twitchy about crucifying people thing. But! He crucified people despite his twitchiness. And then he let them down when he got what he wanted, which is, like, humanitarianism for a Roman.
Speaking of the crucifixions, stabbing, ritual animal sacrifice etc.: on the whole it was less bloody than I expected. There's a fine line between "accurately depicted gore" and "gore porn," and Rome pretty much walked it. Given the Romans' general attitude toward violence I think this will shift in the gore porn direction in later episodes, which is going to be a problem for me.
The whole Julii family is pretty awesome (in a "Thank God they live two thousand years away from me" kind of way). I'm kind of at a loss as to how Octavia's idealism managed to survive this long without being gutted by the bitter realities of Roman life, though.
Brutus was not as totally awesome as I wanted, but it would probably be impossible for anyone to live up to Brutus, so. (This is embarrassingly geektastic, but my first and possibly only literary crush was Brutus in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Because he's so brave and noble and awesome and strangely slashy [with Cassius, of all people, because Brutus has terrible taste in men]! And kills his best friend Caesar for the greater good! And has so much angst and is so stoical about it all!)
And...I think that's it for now. Oh, except for the fact that I can totally see this show sparking REAMS OF ESSAYS about history and violence in fiction and so forth, which will be fun for me if not for you.
