because it reminded me of Stefan and Marco

If you were exchanged in the cradle and
your real mother died
without ever telling the story
then no one knows your name,
and somewhere in the world
your father is lost and needs you
but you are far away.

He can never find
how true you are, how ready.
When the great wind comes
and the robberies of the rain
you stand on the corner shivering.
The people who go by—
you wonder at their calm.

They miss the whisper that runs
any day in your mind,
"Who are you really, wanderer?"—
and the answer you have to give
no matter how dark and cold
the world around you is:
"Maybe I'm a king."

— William Stafford

On seeing The Eagle for the second time

First, it seemed much less homoerotic than it did on my first viewing. Probably it's because I've read so much slash about it since then. No matter how much subtext there is in canon, it's just not going to compare with fanon or fanworks.

Also, the movie's pacing seemed choppier to me. I think this has multiple factors. First, I knew what to expect from the plot, so I could pay more attention to other things. Second, the book's pacing is much slower. They didn't just cut out entire elements such as Cottia or Cub or the one-sided bromance with Cradoc, but also much of the relationship-building between Marcus and Esca. Some of it wouldn't have fit into Kevin MacDonald's vision of a much more hostile (and, admittedly, more realistic) master/slave relationship. Third, though, the fic in this fandom overall is quite good, and its exploration of that relationship is much more in depth than that of the movie. And, dare I say it, of the book.

That's not to say that the second viewing was disappointing. I found that the American accents didn't bother me as much this time, and my WTF reaction to the Seal People has diminished with exposure. (I still wish that MacDonald hadn't tried to bend the story into a parable about American imperialism.)

I liked Marcus much better this time around. He's a good, decent person, as the line "The men have to eat, too" makes clear (Channing Tatum's delivery notwithstanding). Nor is he stupid. He's just limited by the Roman mores and chauvinism he was brought up with. If his eventual enlightenment is a little pat, well, that's Hollywood for you. The speech he gave at the pyre toward the end worked for me. (I still snorted at Guern's "I ran from myeslf" line, though.)

Also, I paid closer attention to Jamie Bell trying to convey Esca as thinking on his feet between the first encounter with the Seal People and the "I thought I'd lost you" scene. While I'm happy to read and write fic that eroticizes the kneeling scene, in the movie (both viewings) I found it repellently brutal — which, of course, it had to be in order to be convincing. Esca's expression of guilt and strain when Marcus threatens to kill him is perfect. Obviously the situation isn't taking as much of a toll on him as it is on Marcus, but you can tell he's counting the days and hours until he can drop the pretense and they can grab the Eagle and GTFO.

Oh, and yeah. Half-naked, well-built men, rowr. That should go without saying. Also I think I need to find the soundtrack eventually, as it's very nice.