Rache der Fledermaus

[winter]

I just saw Batman Begins again, in IMAX no less. Mmm, Liam with crystal-clear surround sound <3


- my research on Bhutan shows me that it's quite possible that people can speak English in a Bhutanese prison camp, or in a remote village; apparently English is the official language in school, since otherwise there are two languages: Nepali and Dzongkha. It also means that it's not a Chinese prison camp, even if we discard the fact that an American would not be imprisoned in a Tibetan lao gai camp, but transported to China proper.

- I need to find out what language Bruce is speaking in the arrest flashback. For the purposes of Snow and Steel, I'm assuming he can speak Dzongkha, which is a vernacular Tibetan dialect and national language of Bhutan. He'd certainly make an attempt to learn in the prison, he's that kind of guy. My bet's on Ducard also speaking it, and certainly Mandarin as well.

- OMG Liam squee!!!!!!!!! <- right, that's taken care of. Moving on.

- After taking the blue flower from Bruce, Ducard puts it in his buttonhole. Squee.

- Ducard's vicious, ambitious, driven, and convinced that he can impose his will on the world. There's a word for that attitude, and it's Sith.

- The phrase is "Always mind your surroundings". Right.

- Somewhere between Bruce entering the fortress and the birthday party, Ducard changes from calling him "Mr Wayne" to "Bruce". Fic fodder.

- What I didn't catch the first time around was that the flashbacks are stories Bruce tells to Ducard. Also fic fodder.

- Ducard is way too gleeful about being bested by Bruce. *shakes head*

- If they had been near the fortress, they wouldn't have spent the night outside by a fire, leaving Bruce to catch a chill. Therefore I was right about the hiking trips.

- Alfred: apart from the Michael Caine love, there are shades and layers to his character. This needs thinking about.

- I want to write about the kid from the Narrows turning into Anarky a few years down the road :S

- Come to think of it... Oooh, series idea. Or rather an idea for a loosely connected series of drabbles, which is what I do best, and what doesn't make me stress. Go me.


EDIT:

- Bruce starts off the party encounter with "I saved your life". There goes my theory of Ducard not being told who dragged his carcass down the mountain.

- Batman drowning in the crowd, before he hooks the railcar with his grapple: wonderfully iconic. They all fear, but he's a guardian demon for them, and so they flock under his wings.

- I think I've already identified a fanon point: more than one fic I've read referred to all of Ducard's pupils being Asian. To the contrary, each time we're shown a selection it's 100% politically correct - 1 white, 1 black and 1 Asian.

- Everyone in this movie is way too fond of throwing people's words in their faces.


Also, jewelry, but I don't have a camera right now :/

Comments

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

Ducard's vicious, ambitious, driven, and convinced that he can impose his will on the world. There's a word for that attitude, and it's Sith.

Teehee! :D I bet that's why he was cast. Everyone wants to see Darth Qui-Gon! Muahaha!

Also, yay for Michael Caine. I adored him, especially the fact he's always helping Bruce and chastising at the same time. Plus their relationsip is just frikking cute :D

[winter]

The scary thing is, in the shower yesterday I came up with a possible backstory to a Darth Qui-Gon fic. Now I need to figure out how to bring Obi-Wan and Anakin into it, whose POV to use, and what to do to Bruce to make him go away and stop whining about wanting to be a Sith, too.

I find it curious that many times, Bruce takes Alfred for granted. I don't think he's properly appreciative of how much Alfred helps him, or other things - like the fact that Alfred manages to sneak up on a goon of Ra's' and fell him with one strike O_o

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

*grins* Showers are always the best places for getting bunnies, I find. It's typical, because its one of the places you can't be in close range of a notebook to scribble said ideas down.

And suddenly, you've got me fantastically interested in Alfred. I'd completely forgotten about the knocking-out-of-the-minion moment (Mainly cos I saw the film with my brother and had to explain things to him and tell him to shut up about hallucinations, because I wasn't particularly picky when it came to favourites. My brother is morbid little nit at times :)). There's got to be something behind that, though whether or not it was English street culture or something worse, I can't even begin to imagine.

[winter]

Heh, I've got a separate category for fics that are shower ideas :) They're mostly the weird ones, too.

I wish I could remember the relevant Alfred comicbook canon better. I know he used to be an actor, and he taught Bruce all about disguises, but apart from that... hm, paratrooper in his youth, maybe? :S

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

*ponders* Could be something like Christopher Lee: he was an SAS trooper (I'm so amused by the fact he scared Peter Jackson with explanations of the sounds of death throes) and still very civil, polite, hard-working and very intelligent chappy :) Mr Lee doesn't gush about it, so I'd see Alfred as being similar, but probably left earlier, to go into a more... longevity-based job.

[winter]

You know, Alfred being a less successful Christopher Lee makes all kinds of sense. Only I'm now stuck with an Alfred who's a Tolkien maniac ;)

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

I'm just trying to resist the image of a butler like Christopher Lee. If he told you dinner was served, you would run to the dinner table to avoid his wrath.

But, Alfred being a Tolkien fan would be priceless :) Sly references and little injokes that make Bruce boggle would be right up his alley.

[winter]

Gaah. Now I'm thinking about what Alfred could be a fan of apart from Tolkien. Sharpe novels come to mind for some reason O_o

Where is my bunny mallet????

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

Surely something older than Sharpe novels? I think it's time to ask the folk at <lj comm="hp_britglish" for help

[winter]

He insists on Sharpe. And just for myself, I'd rather not make it something I'm not knowledgeable about, because I've got enough trivia dilemmas preying on my nerves. Like the above-mentioned question on whether Bruce's grasp of either Mandarin or Dzongkha is enough to let him communicate with someone who speaks Mandarin and Tibetan, because I've made a bloody plot point out of the fact that Bruce and Ducard don't know said someone speaks English ~_~

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

Like the above-mentioned question on whether Bruce's grasp of either Mandarin or Dzongkha is enough to let him communicate with someone who speaks Mandarin and Tibetan, because I've made a bloody plot point out of the fact that Bruce and Ducard don't know said someone speaks English

I suppose it depends on if either of them are *literate* in Mandarin.

I suspect Ducard is, especially if you are going with the canon background for him -- with that he's probably literate in Cantonese! He'd certainly have had time to pick it up.

[winter]

Ducard's not a problem, but I need Bruce to be the first one to meet Shan and talk to him in a language other than English. I don't need Bruce to say more than "go away", "what do you want" and "wait here" anyway, so I might put in that he'd been learning basic Dzongkha along with other skills... :S

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

BWAHA! I wouldn't object to Shape, since I am a huge fangirl :) How about the Hornblower novels, as well? They predated Sharpe, because Sharpe was inspired by them and they are fabulous as well :) And embody good, stalwart British stiff-upper-lippiness :)

[winter]

Well, there's the slight point that I have the barest idea of what Hornblower is about :S And no time at all to seize and read it - I do have to work, you know :P

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

Hornblower... hmm. Basic summary is Sharpe on ships with a less growly and manly hero ;) That's pretty much it. Upper class version of Sharpe, very polite and dignified and rising through the ranks at approximately same rate as Sharpe did. Also, very, very much about honour, loyalty and solidarity between allies, the kind of ideals that Alfred seems to hold with :D

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

Hey, Christopher Lee going all fanboy in the LotR movie appendix were alone worth the cost of buying the Expanded Editions.

If you do that to Alfred, I will fall over laughing.

[winter]

Oooh yes. And whenever they let him do the cast commentary... you could hear the squeeing. Priceless.

Alfred is, surprisingly, all for it. Closet fanboy, I knew it!

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

Forget about the cast commentary. Look at the actor interviews on the Fellowship EE dvd. Christopher Lee recited the One Ring poem in the Dark Tongue of Mordor from memory!

And turned into a 13-boy when he talked about meeting JRRT at a talk.

If you can transfer *that* onto Alfred... wow. Though Bruce will have a hard time when Alfred wants the weekend of to attend book signings and literary conventions.

[winter]

The only reason I wasn't completely floored by the poem was because, well, I used to be able to do it myself once ^^; I've never watched the whole appendices - where does he talk about meeting Tolkien?

I think I have a grasp on how to work fanboy!Alfred into a fic, though it'd have to be Batman Begins. Canon!Alfred is... stiffer.

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

After taking the blue flower from Bruce, Ducard puts it in his buttonhole.

The fact he's an assasin doesn't mean he can't be elegant about it.

There's a word for that attitude, and it's Sith.

Oh yeah. Ra's al Ghul would have given Palpatine a run for his money, that's for sure. He'd already discovered a method of immortality.

Ducard is way too gleeful about being bested by Bruce.

Oh, he was almost incandescent with joy. He'd finally found a *worthy* successor.

Alfred: apart from the Michael Caine love, there are shades and layers to his character. This needs thinking about.

I'll be very interested to see what you come up with for Alfred.

I want to write about the kid from the Narrows turning into Anarky a few years down the road

My friends and I were wondering if he was a Robin-in-waiting.

[winter]

Argh. How could I be so stupid? That's Jason Todd! Light hair (later dyed black to match Robin I), lowly origins - everything fits. Poor sod :P

Also, see edit - I noted that Bruce mentions saving Ducard's life during the party, so that "left for dead" line still doesn't make sense :S

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

Bad script continuity, or Ra's al Ghul getting the bit between his teeth and wanting to fight Bruce again?

Really, once I thought about it a bit, the fact that Ra's believed that Bruce 'left him for dead' was irritating. Ra's al Ghul does not allow himself to believe in things against evidence, and he's *not* stupid. Why did he tip off the Dark Knight that tonight was going to be THE night?

[winter]

It's possible that it was because Bruce pissed him off by blowing the lid on Arkham and disabling Crane (who could have been useful later). Or all this time, a secondary goal was to show Bruce how wrong he was in choosing sentimentality over Ra's :P

I think it's easy to interpret Ducard as having no emotions, because he has that English reserve. But really, he's a volcano under that cold lid. I can see him getting carried off by his anger.

[ariss-tenoh.livejournal.com]

The phrase is "Always mind your surroundings". Right.

When I first heard that, I had a flashback right to the beginning of TPM where Qui-Gon says in the exact same tone to his own pupil about "paying attention to the Living force."

Oh dear, that Qui/Ducard bunny is growing fangs^^

[winter]

Not to mention that Obi-Wan keeps telling Anakin to "mind his thoughts" and "mind his feelings" all the time.

Bad immortal eco-terrorist, no cookie :S

[kiraboshi.livejournal.com]

Hi. Found your journal through your fic. These notes are wonderful!

About what Bruce speaks in the arrest flashback....in the novelization of the film, it says he speaks Mandarian. If you look at the comic history, it's pretty evident he can speak French as well....I'm pretty sure you can be loose with what languages he speaks since he's supposed to be very smart.

I hope that helps a little!

[winter]

Thank you! That makes perfect sense - he sees a Chinese guy and starts speaking Mandarin by default. You'll get a cookie thank-you in the fic notes, of course :)

And hey, the movie definitely changed the fact movie!Bruce can't speak Japanese. I figured we're pretty divorced from the World's Greatest Detective continuity ;)

[kiraboshi.livejournal.com]

*g*

Actually, the fake Ra's was speaking Urdu, so movie!Bruce could still speak Japanese. But you're right....we're getting pretty far from the great detective continuity. At least they allowed him to make his own Bat gear.

[winter]

Urdu? Argh. What will they think of next?

I'm tempted to write out all of Bruce's journeys, just so I have a list of what my version of him knows and doesn't. I assume trapeze work wasn't there - the one thing I really missed was Bruce swinging through the city. Since he wasn't going about it systematically like in the comics, there's no telling what he may have learned >_

[kiraboshi.livejournal.com]

I thought it was strange, too, since Ken Watanabi is Japanese....oh well.

That sounds like a good idea, actually. Myself, I've been making a hybrid between movie!Bruce and comic!Bruce without straying TOO far.

But since this film was the beginning, you could always write how he learns trapeze work. Now that could be fun...

[winter]

...right.

I'll just go hide the 300 words I wrote at work about how Bruce tries that in a circus tent at night and gets surprised by Dick Grayson, shall I? :>

[kiraboshi.livejournal.com]

OMG, no! Write more words, and share them!

(sorry for being so chatty....i can't talk BB with any of my friends so it's nice to finally be able to talk to someone!)

[winter]

Soon. At the moment I'm writing three Bat-things at once, and having a more-than-full-time job in between :S

(Hey, chatting's the best of the fun! Fangirls of the world unite, and all that...)