🐬Sutcliff Ask Meme🐬
Dec. 18th, 2020 10:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silverink First of all, I just realized that Ms Sutcliff and my grandma share a birthday!!! So, happy 100th birthday to Rosemary Sutcliff and happy 83rd to my Nana! <3
Second, thank youverecunda for writing up this Q&A and for tagging me! The questions were super fun! :D I got a little carried away with some of the answers, so I’ll put them under the cut! (Originally from Tumblr, posted December 14th, but I wanted to share here too.)
Rules: answer the questions, tag anyone who you think might want to play along, and - if you like - add a question of your own.
1. Your favourite work by Sutcliff: The Eagle of the Ninth! I also love The Silver Branch and Frontier Wolf, though. EOTN was the first Sutcliff I ever read, so it’s very special to me.
2. Your favourite bearer of the dolphin ring: It’s gotta be Marcus <3 And Alexios is a close second!
3. A supporting or background character you love: I absolutely love Anthonius in Silver Branch and Lucius in Frontier Wolf. I enjoy pretty much all the background characters tbh, but Anthonius and Lucius were the first ones I thought of!
4. Your favourite animal companion: I have to say, Typhon the cat! Though I love Cub too…
5. Is there any setting you find especially memorable? Some of the settings in Outcast stood out quite a bit! Part of it was set in Rome, and that was very memorable because it was a bit of a diversion from her usual British settings, and I hadn’t read anything of hers that was set there before! Also in Outcast and a few of her short stories, the setting of a British tribe with very little to no influence from Rome was very memorable.
6. Wild geese flighting and striped native rugs: is there a classic Sutcliff motif that never fails to warm your heart when it appears? The phrase “it is in my heart/mind that…” always makes me soft and gives me warm feelings. I try to include that phrase somewhere in most of my Sutcliff fics, because it really seems to embody her writing style to me. I’m not sure if that counts as a motif, though, so I’ll also say I love “red-crested helmets” and “the wood-shore”!
7. The natural world is a vivid presence in all her work. Is there any particular nature description that sticks in your mind? Hmmm, one that really sticks in my mind is “the run-honey evening light” from the beginning of EOTN, but there are other ones that i love too. There are some descriptions of the Aquila farm in TSB that I really love (I think it’s after they go there to set up the farm as their HQ). Also, all of the descriptions from Alexios and Cunorix’s hunting trip in FW were just gorgeous!
8. Biggest tearjerker. (Happy or sad tears!) I cried so many happy tears at the end of Outcast, because Beric was finally getting to be happy after so much suffering. I also almost cried several times in FW, particularly when Rufus, Typhon, and Lucius died, when Alexios had to kill Connla and fight Cunorix, and at the end when things turned out happy. (I feel like most books usually make me cry happy tears lol)
9. How did you first discover Sutcliff? I think my mom had a bunch of her books, and I was getting pretty into ancient Roman stuff, so one day when I was about 12 she just gave me EOTN to read! I adored it and was glued to it for a few days (and then reread it a few times), but I didn’t really read anything else by her until several years later.
10. What is it about her work that appeals to you the most? Oh, there are so many things! I love the historical settings and how she brings them to life seemingly so easily. I also love her characters, and they’re probably what sticks with me the most. They’re all so original and have such diverse personalities that they feel like real people, and the relationships between them are wonderful and complex. I also love the themes of loyalty and honor and belonging that are so prominent; they feel timelessly relevant, and they really speak to me.
11. A book that deserves more love: The first one that comes to mind is The Silver Branch! Though all of them deserve more love from the general public tbh <3
12. A book you haven’t read yet, but want to: I started Lantern Bearers a while ago, but I got busy with school and couldn’t finish… I’d like to finish that, and read Sword at Sunset and Mark of the Horse Lord!
13. Which book(s) would you love to get a film or TV adaptation? I’d love to see an adaptation of FW! And maybe another film of EOTN that’s a little closer to the book...
14. Is there any historical period, incident, or figure you wish she’d written about? I feel like the transition from the Roman Republic to the Empire would’ve been such an interesting time period for her to explore! It would’ve been very different from her usual settings in Britain, but it’s one of my favorite periods and I think it would be very fitting for the kinds of stories she wrote.
15. Rec a Sutcliff-themed fanwork (fic, art, vid, etc.) to share with fellow fans: I love Omnia Mutantur, Nihil Interit by wraithnoir <3 Without spoiling the story, it’s an EOTN future fic about Marcus and Esca’s adventures on the farm, which involves horses and an intriguing plot.
And lastly, just out of interest... how far is it from Venta to the mountains? A long ways, I’m thinking!
My question is: Have you read any of Sutcliff’s short stories? If so, which is your favorite? My favorites are The Truce of the Games and The Chief’s Daughter! They’re both sweet stories about cross-cultural friendship, in ancient Greece and Britain respectively.
Second, thank you
verecunda for writing up this Q&A and for tagging me! The questions were super fun! :D I got a little carried away with some of the answers, so I’ll put them under the cut! (Originally from Tumblr, posted December 14th, but I wanted to share here too.)Rules: answer the questions, tag anyone who you think might want to play along, and - if you like - add a question of your own.
1. Your favourite work by Sutcliff: The Eagle of the Ninth! I also love The Silver Branch and Frontier Wolf, though. EOTN was the first Sutcliff I ever read, so it’s very special to me.
2. Your favourite bearer of the dolphin ring: It’s gotta be Marcus <3 And Alexios is a close second!
3. A supporting or background character you love: I absolutely love Anthonius in Silver Branch and Lucius in Frontier Wolf. I enjoy pretty much all the background characters tbh, but Anthonius and Lucius were the first ones I thought of!
4. Your favourite animal companion: I have to say, Typhon the cat! Though I love Cub too…
5. Is there any setting you find especially memorable? Some of the settings in Outcast stood out quite a bit! Part of it was set in Rome, and that was very memorable because it was a bit of a diversion from her usual British settings, and I hadn’t read anything of hers that was set there before! Also in Outcast and a few of her short stories, the setting of a British tribe with very little to no influence from Rome was very memorable.
6. Wild geese flighting and striped native rugs: is there a classic Sutcliff motif that never fails to warm your heart when it appears? The phrase “it is in my heart/mind that…” always makes me soft and gives me warm feelings. I try to include that phrase somewhere in most of my Sutcliff fics, because it really seems to embody her writing style to me. I’m not sure if that counts as a motif, though, so I’ll also say I love “red-crested helmets” and “the wood-shore”!
7. The natural world is a vivid presence in all her work. Is there any particular nature description that sticks in your mind? Hmmm, one that really sticks in my mind is “the run-honey evening light” from the beginning of EOTN, but there are other ones that i love too. There are some descriptions of the Aquila farm in TSB that I really love (I think it’s after they go there to set up the farm as their HQ). Also, all of the descriptions from Alexios and Cunorix’s hunting trip in FW were just gorgeous!
8. Biggest tearjerker. (Happy or sad tears!) I cried so many happy tears at the end of Outcast, because Beric was finally getting to be happy after so much suffering. I also almost cried several times in FW, particularly when Rufus, Typhon, and Lucius died, when Alexios had to kill Connla and fight Cunorix, and at the end when things turned out happy. (I feel like most books usually make me cry happy tears lol)
9. How did you first discover Sutcliff? I think my mom had a bunch of her books, and I was getting pretty into ancient Roman stuff, so one day when I was about 12 she just gave me EOTN to read! I adored it and was glued to it for a few days (and then reread it a few times), but I didn’t really read anything else by her until several years later.
10. What is it about her work that appeals to you the most? Oh, there are so many things! I love the historical settings and how she brings them to life seemingly so easily. I also love her characters, and they’re probably what sticks with me the most. They’re all so original and have such diverse personalities that they feel like real people, and the relationships between them are wonderful and complex. I also love the themes of loyalty and honor and belonging that are so prominent; they feel timelessly relevant, and they really speak to me.
11. A book that deserves more love: The first one that comes to mind is The Silver Branch! Though all of them deserve more love from the general public tbh <3
12. A book you haven’t read yet, but want to: I started Lantern Bearers a while ago, but I got busy with school and couldn’t finish… I’d like to finish that, and read Sword at Sunset and Mark of the Horse Lord!
13. Which book(s) would you love to get a film or TV adaptation? I’d love to see an adaptation of FW! And maybe another film of EOTN that’s a little closer to the book...
14. Is there any historical period, incident, or figure you wish she’d written about? I feel like the transition from the Roman Republic to the Empire would’ve been such an interesting time period for her to explore! It would’ve been very different from her usual settings in Britain, but it’s one of my favorite periods and I think it would be very fitting for the kinds of stories she wrote.
15. Rec a Sutcliff-themed fanwork (fic, art, vid, etc.) to share with fellow fans: I love Omnia Mutantur, Nihil Interit by wraithnoir <3 Without spoiling the story, it’s an EOTN future fic about Marcus and Esca’s adventures on the farm, which involves horses and an intriguing plot.
And lastly, just out of interest... how far is it from Venta to the mountains? A long ways, I’m thinking!
My question is: Have you read any of Sutcliff’s short stories? If so, which is your favorite? My favorites are The Truce of the Games and The Chief’s Daughter! They’re both sweet stories about cross-cultural friendship, in ancient Greece and Britain respectively.
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Date: 2020-12-30 01:11 am (UTC)The movie also completely changed the characters' personalities!! Especially Marcus's! I've actually seen the miniseries on YouTube and loved it. Cottia was so adorable in that, and so was Marcus XD And I definitely appreciated how close it was to the book. BBC just needs to do a reboot of it tbh!