A comprehensive quiz + bonus fan faction about the the underrated cult classic show "Kelly Unicornstrider and Friends" (1982-1985). Questions range from really easy to really difficult.

I think putting this on "publish" makes it so only we can see this. It's just for us, sweetie. I made it to celebrate our anniversary and remember some special intimate moments together over the years in an interesting way as a present for you.

I hope you love it, Natalie, as much as I love you!

(Of course if there's any admin looking at this, or if I messed up, don't read this, because it's got private things in it.)

This is my required report to the full faculty in accordance with the rules noted in the Faculty Handbook (version 15.1, as of October 2017)

"Personally I can only read 16 words in one go before words stop working," wrote Mizal.

This game has sixteen words per path.  Not counting "The End."  So you can play quickly.

When reviewing, please use precisely sixteen words.   That should be plenty for your suggestions and observations.

Note this challenge connected with this game:  Write the Last Page!

Just a quick comment as the ball gets rolling:  I wonder about that Diomedes's amazing God-Vision and god wounding being *wholly* heroic and talking 'bout his generation, because it seems to me that the Aphrodite wounding is played largely for laughs--is she mocked in a different way than Ares here? 

I have a hard time yoking together Ares as War Embodied (in the same sense that Aphrodite *is* Love and Poseidon *is* The Ocean) while also seeing him as the most human of the Olympians.  I can't reconcile those two views, and I'm not sure Book V gives me much to work with in caring about Ares the person. 

I could have sworn that you told me not to read certain of your works, and I thought that was so funny.  It must have been really early on.

Oh, yeah!  I 100% forgot about this.  It would be fun to continue, actually.

My favorite thing about Eternal is that I have never read it, because End told me not to.

Something else I was thinking about was how part of what this chapter does is replay the catalogue of ship from the previous book--we get Agamemmnon walking by, noting all of the very most important Greek warriors, just making it crystal clear who our main characters are.

The catalogue of ships sort of flattens the hierarchy out--everyone, both the famous heroes and the not famous heroes, get their moment.  But in this book, the spotlight really points out the main Greek heroes as distinct from the rest.

They don't *want* things settled.  Athena and Hera (to name two who have specific grudges) are not going to settle for anything less than Troy being razed.  The war has to go on.

That moment where the veil is peeled back, and Diomedes can see the gods and goddess out there on the battlefield is at the same time overwhelming--there's Aphrodite and Apollo right there, doing things, manipulating events--and sort of homely.  Aphrodite is right there!--and you can stab her.  And she goes crying home to daddy.

Same sort of thing where Ares gets put in a time out (as my daughter called it when we were reading it together).  The fact that Ares is right there on the battlefield is awe-inspiring until you see that he's just sitting there.  That kind of stuff is whiplash-inducing, and I love it.

As far as Agamemmon's little parade goes, he sure could learn a lot from, like King Henry V on the night before battle, walking among his troops to inspire them.  On the other hand, Agamemmnon does have an impossible job.  He's not a king among his subjects, he's a king among peers, and he can't give orders or make comments without jockeying for status.  So in spite of Agamemmnon constantly getting moment where he looks terrible, I can't imagine how he wouldn't look terrible.  He can't do nothing, but anything he does is going to piss off Odysseus or get a snarky comment from Nestor.  Maybe Ideomeneus would be ok with it.

Another note on "god-like"--that's  θεοειδης  here, which is the sort of "godlike" which has also been translated as "very attractive" and is also applied to other people like Agamemmnon and Odysseus.  I probably wouldn't spend a *ton* of time thinking about that particular epithet as far as how much information they give us about the characters in question.

I read that scene a bit differently in the bedroom; this is a scene in which Paris is deeply under the influence of Aphrodite, and it's not clear to me that he has a lot of choice over what he's doing there.  Aphrodite whisks Paris into the bedroom, places Helen before him, and this is happening.  As far as I see, Aphrodite never leaves that room.  And that makes sense to me, in that Aphrodite both is a goddess with authority over sexual passion on the one hand and on the other hand, actual sexual passion itself:  there's sexual passion in that room. 

It's not a great look for Paris, to be sure, but we can also see the deep tension and friction between Helen and Paris and even so, they are smashed together by forces much larger than them like someone experimenting while playing Barbie and Ken.

As far as a place without joy regarding the underworld, I think that is right--it's a place marked by absence.  No joy, but I don't believe any torment either.   And as far as the shades concerned with worldly affairs--correct me if I'm wrong, but I *think* that's only after they drink the blood and are recalled to their selves--before than they are described in more bestial terms.  (We totally should not be discussing the middle of the Odyssey here.)

One thing I want to just point to, although I suppose we'll get there if we ever get to the Odyssey:  It's not 100% clear to me that the world of the dead is unpleasant, exactly.  It's just nothing.  Not punishment, not rewards, for the vast majority of folks, even great heroes.  It's not even clear to me that they are aware of all that much or have much sense of self or ability to articulate things (until they are given the sacrifice of blood). 

I don't want to get too much into the Odyssey here, but at any rate, I think the fear of death has to go hand in hand with the fear of dying in a shameful way, or with a net negative of glory ( κλέος ); I just read Book 3 of the Iliad to my kids, out loud, and they agreed that Paris was done dirty by Aphrodite by being denied the opportunity to go out fighting, as humiliating an experience as that would have been.  He wasn't fleeing at the end there!