Payton Rose Velligan, singer/bassist/keyboardist for the Rush tribute band The Camera Eye, and also guitarist for Weird Al's band, had a little fun killing time in the bathroom.
Someone standing outside the Great Hall might well have thought someone had cast a powerful Silencing Spell, so quickly everyone's voice shut. All heads turned to a single person — a first year, standing up at the Slytherin table.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Malfoy?" the Headmaster said politely. "I'm not quite sure I understood correctly."
Draco Malfoy swallowed heavily, feeling the pressure of every student's eyes on him. At the teachers' table, Dumbledore wasn't the only one staring at him: Snape's eyes, reduced to cracks, stared at him; and McGonagall looked like she was about to turn him into a rat. But now that he had spoken, he might as well go all the way.
"I challenge that, Sir," he said again. "You awarded the Gryffindor House fifty points for a game of chess which you called, and I quote, 'the best-played in many years.' — Well, what if someone plays better than him? Those fifty points should be awarded to that person, am I right?"
Next to Draco, Ursula Urquhart, Slytherin's Head Girl, leant towards him and whispered, "Malfoy, what the heck are you doing?"
"It's the only way," Malfoy whispered back, his lips barely moving, and feeling a drop of sweat running down his back. "We must put all our pumpkins in one cauldron."
Draco looked back at Dumbledore, who was now caressing his long, silvery beard. If Draco understood the old man correctly, he was considering his point.
"Albus..." Professor McGonagall whispered, "you can't possibly —"
"It is a fair point, Mr. Malfoy," Dumbledore said, after a time which felt like ages. "Minerva, please, bring the chessboard here. Each House will nominate a champion to play againts Mr. Weasley, whom I assume the House of Gryffindor will trust."
I was reading a scholarly article before. In a footnote the author said that the only available studies on the subject were "disappointing" and that they left the reader with just as much informations as they had before engaging the bibliography. Which is to say, as you may have guessed, nothing.
Well, boys and girls, this is not at all the case of the excellent essay by u/Callmesalticidae which I am now presenting to you.
As fan-readers, sometimes fan-writers, we all know Daphne Greengrass. She's tall, slender, blonde, blue-eyed (though variations do exist). Her beauty outshines that of the Rose of Beauxbatons herself—Fleur Delacour. Of course every rose has its thorns, and if Fleur was bitter, Daphne is more poisonous than the one that turned Adam into the beast. She's sarcastic, cold, her word is more cutting than Snape's Sectumsempra. She single-handedly supports Their Majesties' wizarding tobacco industry by smoking a daily amount of cigarettes that would make Dung Fletcher look like a teetotaler in comparison, yet her unparalleled beauty isn't touched by it. Maybe wizards have special charms on their tobacco? Or maybe, as I just made up on the spot, she has a seven-compartment trunk, in the last of which he hid a portrait of herself that her vices consume instead of the real her.
Trouble is, absolutely nothing of this is in the source material. Daphne is but a mere name in OOTP, and not even that before nor after, except for a marginal mention on the Pottermore article about Draco Malfoy and his post-Hogwarts wedding with Daphne's sister Astoria. Yet, she appears in some thousands of FFs and has so far been paired with pretty much every conceivable character, most famously (and at the earliest), Harry himself; but also Ron, Blaise, Draco, .
Salticidae made a truly commendable job reconstructing, as far as possible, the history of Daphne as a OC and her development from the books's blank slate, to one of the most popular characters in the fandom. They also wisely advised against their results being definitive, for a fandom is, by its own nature, extremely fluid, and FFs are born just as easily as they are lost to time. So, especially because we're dealing with pre-Wayback Machine material here, we can always suspect an older, now lost branch of tradition for Daphne's persona.
I strongly recommend reading through her work, not only because she has a compelling and entertaining prose, but also because she unearthed some early days FF (2004, 2005, 2006) that still today deserve a read, as well as pieces of trad literature that constitute the earliest instances of Ice Queens (dating to the early 19th century!).
I found especially interesting the last paragraph about the names given to the Greengrass' family estate. I agree with Salticidae about The Fields being one of the most interesting, and I was positively charmed by Caer Greengrass, for it adds a Welsh flavour to the family and I found that it fits with my personal HC that their estate is located in Shropshire.
I have not reviewed the literature Salticidae cites, so I cannot certify that they are right in their assumptions about dates and sources. Though, in all likeness, they are. I only want to add a small piece of information here, regarding one FF that they cited en passant.
Salticidae wrote that "[Daphne]’s also dating Ron in The Ground Beneath Her Feet, an Italian-language Dramione series published between 2004 and 2011."
This needs a bit of rounding. I don't know if Salticidae's source is the series itself (which is only accessible by subscribing to the website it was posted on), or the fandom wiki page, which was created in 2020 thus before their research.
Now, The Ground Beneath Her Feet is a four-part series. It comprises:
What's truly interesting is that Daphne is pretty much IceQueen!Daphne in the first work already. Without giving too much out, an excerpt from ch. 3 suffices:
>IT: Daphne Greengrass, settimo anno, Slytherin, lunghi capelli biondo chiaro, occhi verdi, altissima e snella, era una delle più belle ragazze della scuola; e stava ballando strettamente allacciata al ragazzo che fino a poco tempo prima aveva abbracciato lei, che aveva guardato lei, in quel modo.
EN: Daphne Greengrass, seventh year, Slytherin, long light blonde hair, green eyes, incredibly tall, and slender, was one of the most beautiful girls in the school, and she was dancing tightly clung to the boy who until just recently had hugged her, had looked at her like that. — TGBHF, ch. 3.
"The boy" being Ron Weasley.
Here Savannah predates, by almost a year, the FF that Salticidae identified as the most influential source for IceQueen!Daphne (Perfect Situations, by jeconais, 28 September 2005). And, nota bene, she does so in almost every Daphneism: she's tall, slender, beautiful blonde, green- (not blue-) eyed; she smokes; a lot; she's caustic and sarcastic; of course, she's a Slytherin, and close to Draco and Pansy; she's egoistic and sharp-tongued. And she has Seer blood running through her family, though this is only revealed in chapter 2 (8 May 2005) of OS, which can be connected to a major early-Daphne trope—being that Daphne had a gift for Occlumency and/or Divination.
Daphne will maintain these traits through the series, evolving for sure, but retaining a certain bitterness in her character and persona. For example, in OS, she thinks that Gryffindors are truly bizarre, since Hermione accepted to help her without asking for nothing in exchange.
Certainly, Savannah did not invent IceQueen!Daphne, though she most probably introduced the concept to the Italian fandom. I don't know what Savannah's sources might have been and thus I don't know whether or not she is witness to a lost branch of early tradition; she may be, but there is ground to speculate that we're dealing with extra-fandom sources here—TGBHF is closely related to Grease, including two famous scenes of the musical being pretty much transposed into the FF.
All in all, Salticidae's work is excellent, and a piece of meta-fandom that should be more widely known.
I am convinced that it can be useful not only to Daphne writers (Haphne, Blaphne, etc.), but to Dramione writers too, for Daphne is such a major character in this part of the fandom that a bit of character building around her, picking here and there from earlier sources, and maybe reshaping them, can still be a good way to write her. And an appreciation, and a tribute, to the dedication this fandom showed towards her.
When (manga 818; anime JP 701, INTL 753) the kids are about to take the Bell Tree Express, Sonoko suggests that the Detective Boys "better thank the Suzuki Conglomerate", for her family's company owns the train and she used her position to secure special seats for them, plus luxurious first-class seats for herself and Ran. Immediately after, it is said that in order to secure the seats, she had had Mr. Murobashi's reservation moved to another car and cabin.
Is this the first time Sonoko actually bragged about her family's wealth, and took advantage from it?
She is occasionally shown at her luxurious home, has referred to her family having multiple houses for vacation, there actually was a case involving a gem that was her family's heirloom, early in the series, but I can't remember another instance of her being so outrightly like "I did it because I can, and I can because my family owns the place".
'You lost. You pay.'
'I didn't —'
'You said that, should you have won the Cup over Gryffindor, you would have done it,' Theo insisted grinning.
'My word, he did,' Blaise confirmed.
Draco cursed. Yes, he had said it. But the implication was, against Potter. Who would have imagined that Bludger knocking him off his Firebolt fifteen minutes into the game, and sending the Lightning-Struck Insufferable Break-my-balls to the Hospital Wing with a concussion, a dislocated shoulder and a leg broken in three places? The weasel girl was a hell of a flyer, but — let's be honest — not at Potter's level. At least not as a Seeker. She had given him a hard time, but she clearly was out of practice in that role and... and he had caught the Snitch. He had done it. Fucking finally.
His memories of what followed were not always consistent. He remembered the a green-and-silver scream from a side of the stadium, like an explosion. He remembered landing with the rest of the team, he remembered Professor Snape receiving the cup from the hands of the old hag, and Dumbledore looking as though he’d just swallowed a whole lemon tree. He remembered lifting the cup and his teammates and the whole House carry them in triumph back to the school. The Great Hall in green-and-silver. The party in the Common Room — and that was when things started becoming confusing.
He didn't exactly know how he ended up, from being humiliated by Crabbe in a drinking contest, to the Seventh Year boy's bedroom, in front of Theo's most satisfied grin since years. But here he was. He sighed.
'Fine, I'm a man of my word,' Draco capitulated. Theo's grin widened. Draco did not like it.
Theo took a bottle out of his trunk. It contained what looked like snot mixed with mud and rotten peat. Polyjuice. Fantastic. Damned be the bottle of Fire Whisky that had made him accept Theo's sadistic terms for that bet.
'Polyjuice,' he had said. 'We have enough of it to cover the whole day. A student of our choice. We'll take care of the person and everything else, you don't have to worry about anything.'
'Except whoever you bastards would choose.'
Theo, Daphne and Blaise had grinned behind their drinks.
'Precisely. Deal?'
'Here's enough potion for a 24-hour cycle,' Theo said, pouring it into a flask. 'Extension Charm,' he explained. 'Daphne's idea. Brilliant, isn't it? You can keep it in your pocket and still will have enough for the whole day.'
'Who would have thought,' Draco spat.
Theo smirked again and emptied the bottle, threw it away, but did not close the flask. 'And finally...' He took a piece of parchment out of his pockets, put it on the bed, and opened it, revealing what it contained: a single hair. It was too thin, and Draco too drunk from the party, to tell the colour. Hell.
Theo put the hair into the flask, corked it, and gave it to Draco. Then, he checked the clock.
'Daphne has just left to dispose of the next you. Give her about thirty, forty minutes, after that... see you in twenty-four hours, mate.'
I like to inspect all the puns and references in the story: allusions to works by Edogawa Ranpo, to Suzuki Shinichi, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, etc. But I always missed this one.
Obviously Inspector Magure's outfit is a reference, but I never noticed that his name is the Japanese pronunciation of "Maigret".
Earlier today I was watching ep. 294 (INTL), and when Jodie called him "inspector Maigret" I had to pause and voice out loud "oh, yes, of course."
Unlike other books of the Laurentian Library (including all the Plutei), this rather famous manuscript has not been reproduced digitally so it's not easy to see specimens of it.
Laur. Conv. soppr. 627 (usually shortened as F) is a well known Greek manuscript of the late XIII century. The reason for its fame is twofold: it contains four of the five "Greek novels" (the only exception being Heliodorus), being codex unicus for Xenophon of Ephesus and Chariton, the only witness to the φ-family of Achilles Tatius (according to Vilborg), and a primary witness to Longus (according to Reeve).
The second reason is that, despite its pocket-size (17.3 x 12.8 cm: smaller than the Cambridge Green-and-Yellow format, roughly the size of an OCT edition), F contains no less than twenty-two items in 140 folios, written in an almost microscopic handwriting by a single copyist who regularly managed to fill fifty lines per page. The most notable pieces of literature herein are the four Greek novels, compressed and almost "hidden" in the span of a little more than 50 folios (ff. 22r–79v).
There also is a third reason for the manuscript's fame: the so-called «affaire Courier». Albeit known to scholars since the times of Politianus (who read Longus and Xenophon Eph. on this ms. before 1489) and Stephanus (who collated Achilles Tatius in 1547–55), F had been forgotten and, more importantly, never been closely inspected. Montfaucon and D'Orville knew the manuscript and signalled that it also contained Longus, but did not collate its text, even if Montfaucon had dated the handwriting to the XIII century (thus, earlier than the other known witnesses).
Paul-Louis Courier (1772–1825) "rediscovered" F in December 1807 and collated it more carefully in November 1809, finding that the text of Longus as it is transmitted by F does not suffer from the lacuna (1.12.5 τῆς ταινίας – 1.17.4 αὐτῆς) that distinguishes the other branch of tradition, represented by B (vat. gr. 1398). He published his finding in the same 1809, a complete translation of the novel in 1810 (limited ed. of sixty copies, advertised as "traduction complète d'après le manuscrit de Florence"), and shortly after the "new" Greek text with Latin translation and the complete text of Longus. Courier's editions are not memorable in terms of constitutio textus, but were unawarely based on the correct sources, for he had travelled to Rome and collated a Roman manuscript that is now identified with Vat. gr. 1398, that is B, the archetype of the other branch of transmission. In short, the transmission is bifid (and contaminated), and the two branches trace back to B and F which is, however, the only complete manuscript.
While Courier was printing his edition(s) of Longus, the librarian of the Badia fiorentina, Francesco del Furia, had found that the page of F bringing the 'new' text of Longus (f. 23v) had been damaged by a large blot which made the text illegible. The cause of this have never been established: Courier attributed it to a piece of paper that he had used as a bookmark, which got impregnated with ink and made it leak it on the manuscript; Del Furia (and Cobet), on the other hand, suspected that Courier had deliberately provoked the damage so that nobody else could claim the discovery. Only on 22 January 1811, fourteen months after the incident, Courier mailed his transcription to the Laurentian library. The document was immediately archived and lied forgotten, until Rosario Pintaudi rediscovered it in 1978.
Del Furia immediately published a pamphlet attacking Courier, Lettera della scoperta et subitanea perdita di una parte inedita del primo Libro de' Pastorali di Longo (1809). In its present state, the page is largely illegible, although modern photography and digital editing have permitted small progresses. There exist, however, a transcription made by Courier (aided by Del Furia and the vice-librarian Gasparo Bencini), later revised by Courier alone; and another transcription, made by Bencini and Del Furia, immediately after the damage had been found. Thus, for the "found and lost" Longus, we do not only depend on Courier's edition (which is emended ope ingenii, according to the practice of the time).
Reproduced are:
Sources
Reference editions
Pinakes: 15899 (with further bibliography).
Lupin III: Dead or Alive was released thirty years ago. It's the sixth animated feature film of the Lupin III franchise and the first (and only) directed by Monkey Punch himself—although he shared directorial duties with a number of assistants, and personally only directed the prison break prologue.
The movie's biggest pro are Monkey Punch's unwilling, but firm supervision; the aesthetics; and the Lupin-girl Oleander.
Punch's stylistic supervision is best seen in the only section on which he directly worked, that is the prison break prologue. All things considered, it looks like a more-or-less direct re-enactment of Richard Connell's The Most Dangerous Game (1924), and it probably is the closest that the animated franchise has ever come to a faithful manga adaptation. But there is more. Monkey Punch imposed that Zenigata not be the movie's comic relief and a more manga-like characterisation. He is probably at the most competent he has ever been in any Lupin movie. He is strong, determined, and in his personal segment he stomps his attackers.
Other rules which MP imposed were the darker, more serious tones—reflecting on Lupin's shirt, which is rather black than blue; and that the gang must actually take the treasure home in the end. The OST also reflects MP's influences, with the first chase across Drifting Island alluding to the Looney Tunes style that directly inspired him.
Finally, despite his well-known criticisms of Miyazaki's authorial formula for Cagliostro, Monkey Punch did not entirely reject it. DoA Lupin is ruthless, thieving-focused (overthrowing Headhunter's regime is a mean or a consequence, not the main scope, of his plan: his objective is always the treasure), even plays quite a dirty trick on Ole. But he still has that "heroic drive" that Miyazaki insists on all his stories: he tricks Ole and uses Panish's "return" for his scopes, but also avenges the late prince by killing the two men directly responsible for his death, finally giving Ole some relief—and freeing Zufu from the oppressive regime. And while Fujiko, Ole, Emerah, the biker girl—all of them have the pin-up silhouette that is practically synonymous with Lupin-girl, there is hardly any nudity in the whole movie. Yes Ole has a crop top and a mini skirt, and the biker girl looks like she has just finished her shift in a strip club; but never even one negligee shot is seen in the film, and even Fujiko avoids using her sensuality to her own advantage.
Aesthetics are another point where the movie goes off to a flying start. The tones are generally cold, dark—typically dark for a 90s anime movie. Ole has tanned skin tone and wears a dark green jacket (in line with female anime brawlers of the time). Lupin's shirt is black. Much of the movie actually takes place in the dark—a dark and stormy night, a room with the curtains shut, a basement, the caves inside Drifting Island.
Another typically 90s feature of this movie, is that the plot quickly steers towards the realms of science fiction. The Nano-machine is a prodigious micro-engineered, semi-sentient weapon. Lupin uses computers (frankly to the point of suspension of belief). In hindsight, the Nano-machine is a Positivistic, Frankenstein-like take on supposed almightiness and potential horrors of technology: its tentacles (a possible and quite frankly very not subtle take on, well, tentacle hentai) are near-instant assemblers, similar to the popular portrayal of nano-machines of the time.
Finally, Oleander. She is the movie's Lupin girl and, not entirely typically, a brawler-type: short hair, tan skin, physical skills beyond the foreseeable, as she demonstrates disarming both Lupin and Jigen and, later, fighting the thugs in her "solo" scene. She's competent, but still a girl in the growing. She needs Lupin's help, but won't directly ask. She's strong and a valuable, albeit voluntary/non-voluntary ally, but still retains her femininity and vulnerability.
I personally like her story arc, her willingness to help "Panish" overthrow Headhunter despite knowing that he is not really him, and her last scene, where she throws the locket in the sea, finally accepting Panish's fate and letting him go. She's tragic in a sense, but heroic in the sense that she accepts her own tragedy. And yes, I'm sure is had been a beautiful dream.
There are some cons, though, and plot order is the biggest issue. Some points are confusing to say the least:
But all considered, Dead or Alive serves as a good introduction to the animated franchise, and in many aspects it is actually closer to the manga and gives an idea of what the characters were before the anime series' clownishness. I believe this movie did not express its full potential, though, but this is to mostly be linked to the very close deadline the production was given. It is also why Monkey Punch "unwillingly" directed the movie: Toei failed to find another director, so Punch was co-opted to do the job. He admitted having hated it, and said that he would have never directed a movie again.
I also think that, in order to give all characters their space (Headhunter is quite canonically the big serious bad guy, Crisis is slimy, but underdeveloped) and the plot enough space to unravel, it could have been turned into a mini-series, say of two or three long episodes. But that was not really the norm, in 1996 anime industry.
DoA also the sixth Lupin movie to receive a theatrical release, after The Mystery of Mamoo (1978), The Castle of Cagliostro (1979), The Legend of the Gold of Babylon (1985), The Fuma Conspiracy (1987), and Farewell to Nostradamus (1995). It would take seventeen years for Lupin to appear again at the movie theatre, with Lupin III vs. Detective Conan: The Movie (2013). It was a shame, because DoA showed that the gentleman thief's adventures could still be successfully adapted to the big screen.
>One day we'll rise again
on wings of hope to be free