On a recent episode of “The Atheist Experience,” one of the hosts, Matt Dillahunty, had a conversation with a caller about veganism https://youtu.be/7jRPgDAHuoI Along the way, he talked about the difference between a moral obligation and a moral virtue. He said that he doesn’t consider not eating meat a moral obligation, but that it might be virtuous.

I agree on both points. My sister, my aunt and uncle, and one of my cousins have been vegetarian for the past several years. I definitely view them as more virtuous.

Even if I can’t say that humans have no moral obligation not to eat meat, I’m becoming less and less able to ignore the treatment of animals by the meat industry. These are animals whose lives are miserable, from beginning to end. There are alternatives, but they are more expensive, and my mother (who does most of the food shopping for the household) is not willing to spend two or three times the money for meat. My sister’s solution was to go vegetarian.

I’ve tried to go vegetarian previously, but I ran into trouble; rather than helping my bipolar disorder (which the internet had assured me it would) it made things worse. (I’ve had a lot of statistically unlikely reactions to various medications; for example, Nyquil keeps me awake.) I ended up going manic.

This time, though, I’m going to be taking a multivitamin as a nutritional “backstop.” And since I have my family around, they’ll be able to make sure that I’m still on an even keel. If I have to, I’ll bail on the whole project; I’m not going to sacrifice my health, mental or otherwise.

So why Lent?

The short answer is, I was an Episcopalian for a lot longer than I’ve been an atheist. Lent still seems like an appropriate time of year to give something up.

The longer answer is, if I think about never eating meat for the rest of my life, it seems overwhelming. It’s way too much of a commitment. But giving up meat for a month and a half? I can do that. I’ve given up chocolate multiple times, and, in what was the longest and most frustrating 40 days of my life, I gave up profanity. I can do this. And hopefully, it will be the springboard for a more lasting change, and a more virtuous life.

I used to read a lot of romance novels.  For the past several years, though, I’ve hardly read any.  And until recently, I couldn’t have pointed to why, exactly.  I’d just been less interested in the genre.

Recently, though, I read an article https://bookriot.com/2017/04/10/if-it-doesnt-have-an-hea-or-hfn-its-not-romance/ that started “If a love story does not have “an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending,” (via Romance Writers of America) does it fit in the romance genre?  In a word: nope.”

And I realized; a lot of the romance novels I’d been trying to read hadn’t been emotionally satisfying me.  Even ones that came highly recommended.

I’m not going to name any names here, but I am going to name a trend; the “alpha” hero who acts like a jerk to the heroine (and everyone else) and still gets the girl.  Maybe with a token apology, maybe he says that “I was such a jerk because I didn’t like how you made me feel” but really?  Far too many times, I had no reason to believe that the “hero” was really going to change.

Why should he?  The Heroine has  accepted his apology, without seeing any real work on his part.

To clarify, I’m not talking about a hero who is brusque, or rough-around-the-edges, or even suffering from a bout of situational rudeness.  I’m not talking about a guy who takes charge in an emergency situation, or because he’s genuinely the expert.   I’m talking about entitled “heroes” who boss the heroine around because they can, because they view her as potentially or actually their property.

I don’t know if jerkass “alpha” heroes who end the story not much less jerky than when they began it have really become more common, or if I’m just more aware that they’re probably going to continue to be assholes than when I was younger, or less willing to tolerate a “hero” who acts like an ass, no matter what kind of tragic backstory the author gives him.

I’m not saying that these books should never be written or published or given good reviews.  I know the difference between fantasy and reality, and I know that (despite what critics of the Romance genre might imply) the overwhelming majority of readers also know the difference.  

But that doesn’t mean that the Duke of Summerseve is my fantasy.

It’s not “emotionally satisfying” for me to watch a character that I’ve come to care about decide to stay with someone with a proven track record of jerkass behavior just because he’s apologized once.  (Especially if she’s living in a historical period where she has little or no ability to divorce him when he inevitably relapses to jerktitude.)  I need to see some indications that he’s actually working on changing his behavior.  And not just when the heroine is around to see it, either.  

Furthermore, it needs to be clear that he’s actually realized a) that he was wrong, and b) why.  

“I’m sorry that I called you a tramp; I don’t own you and I was completely out of line, and to make sure I never treat you or anyone else like that again I’ve signed up for anger-management classes,” is a completely different beast from “I’m sorry I didn’t wait to find out that the guy you were talking to was your cousin before calling you a skank in front of a room full of people.”

Also, it matters that he’s not just changing so that the heroine will let him back in her pants.  I want to see that he’s actually changing because it’s the right thing to do, because he wants to be a better person, not just because it will get him laid.

In short, I want to have some confidence that he’s actually changed, rather than putting on a show for long enough to get the heroine to the altar or the bedroom.

Of course, it’s impossible to tell from the first chapter whether any given book is going to have the jerkass “hero” rehabilitate into a mature, emotionally healthy guy, or whether this is going to be one of those books where his big “character growth moment” is just going to be excusing his own douchery by blaming it on being in love.

And really, what I want isn’t just the knowledge that the hero will stop being a giant tool by the end of the story.  I want stories where he doesn’t even start out that way.  Stories where my main question isn’t “why the hell hasn’t she bailed on this douchebag already?”

I realize that for a story to be satisfying, both characters have to grow.  And to have room to grow, characters need to start out with a character flaw.  But does it always have to be that he’s a big bag of dicks?  After all, there are many other starting places for a character arc than “total jerk.”

I know that there are stories like that out there; I’ve read some.  (Zoe Archer’s Blades of the Rose is one series that springs to mind.)  And now that I know what I’m looking for, I can figure out a strategy to actually find the kind of stories I like, with heroes that are worthy of the title through the story, not just in the last chapter.

This past Sunday, I went to the protests at LAX.  I live close enough that I really had no excuse not to go.  (Unlike the Women’s March, where I had the excuse of being in Urgent Care with the crud that’s going around.)

It was incredible how many people were there, considering the timeframe.  President Trump’s Executive Order came out late Friday afternoon, and by Saturday there were protests across the country, organized on social media.

I saw a man and a woman who had obviously come straight from the Arrival gate to the protest; they had their rolling suitcases with them, and their signs had been made from a file folder.

There were people of all different races, different religions, different ideas for saving the world.  The representatives from the local Communist party were standing next to a woman with a quote from Mother Teresa on her sign.

If you asked all of these people how they would build an ideal world, they would probably give a lot of conflicting answers.  Trying to find a positive agenda that all of these people would support would probably be impossible.  But they all came together because, however different their worldviews, they could agree on one thing: that the bigotry of the Trump administration is not acceptable in our America.

Previously, Danny found out that Clara was lying to him.  The two-parter opens with Clara’s confession being interrupted by Danny’s death in a (seeming) accident.

Clara being Clara, she is not simply going to accept this.  She collects the TARDIS keys and destroys them, one by one, to blackmail the Doctor.  Who had set up the dreamscape to find out how far she would go.

Even though she betrayed him, he agrees to help her find Danny.  Who is in the Afterlife that we’ve seen all along with Missy.

The Doctor and Clara go to 3W, they see the creepy skeletons in water, Missy shows up and we get to see the Cyberman eyes.  It’s all fun and games until Danny BREAKS MY HEART FOREVER.

There were tears in my eyes at the last “I love you.”  Because he wanted her to be safe, because it was the truth, and for once, one of Moffat’s “big moments” dovetailed with the actual character arcs of both the characters.

Then we went back to the a-story and Cybermen and Missy is the Master and CLIFFHANGER.

And may I say, the whole “Clara never existed” line from the next episode is BRILLANTLY used in the trailer?  Well trolled!

Unfortunately, things went rapidly downhill in the second part.  Kate darts the Doctor so she can kidnap him so she can… force him to be the President of Earth.

Clara has most of the good stuff in this episode.  The Doctor has his moments, though, both of them to do with the Brigadier.  First, talking about his picture, and later, saluting the Cyber-Brig.

(And I have so many complicated thoughts and feelings about the Cyber-Brig.  They may be their own post, later.)

Osgood gets fridged.

The plane gets blown up.

In freefall, the Doctor manages to locate the TARDIS, and with the key in his hand, plunges directly toward it.  And I suppose that you could fanwank that there is some sort of emergency guidance system for exactly that situation, but in that moment, I crossed the WTF Event Horizon.

Sometimes, in a story, something happens that breaks your suspension of disbelief so seriously that it’s impossible to get it back.  This went one step further; I could not take the any of it seriously.  I was really glad that I was watching it home alone, because I was laughing like a loon at this utterly tragic story.

Rewatching the episode later, I could appreciate it.  “Love is a promise.”  The Doctor saluting the Brigadier.  The Doctor and Clara lying to each other.

And of course, anyone who knows the Master knew that Missy was coming back sooner or later.  (I, personally, was glad to hear that it was “sooner.”)

The best thing about the series-ending two-parter Michelle Gomez as “Missy.”  She’s brilliant, she’s funny, she’s scary.  Her interpretation of the Master reminds me of Anthony Ainley’s performance in a lot of ways, but is, ultimately, her own.

Her plan is ridiculous.  It’s contrived, it’s downright daft.  But it isn’t even the Master’s most ridiculous plan ever.  It’s actually less contrived and roundabout than his whole “prevent the Magna Carta from being written” plot.

Let’s face it, the Master’s had a whole lot of plans that only made sense if his real objective was to troll the Doctor.

At the moment of revelation, I was shocked.  Not because I hadn’t made the Missy>Mistress>Master connection,  but because I’d thought “Nah, too obvious.”  Also, because the thought of one Time Lord referring to another as her “boyfriend” just made my brain go “nope.”

I was also initially annoyed that the canonical acknowledgement of Master’s feeling for the Doctor came when the characters were, for the first time, and opposite-sex pair.  It felt like the ultimate “NO HOMO” from Moffat.

But on reflection, Moffat’s No Homo renders all of those previous interactions, in retrospect, Pretty Damn Homo.

Also, Missy is a big step forward toward the Doctor also regenerating as a woman.  Someday.  (In my dreams, as Dame Judi Dench.)  No longer was this just a throwaway line about the Corsair.  Certain members of the fandom reacted badly, some  asking “would we have to call him the Nurse, then?”

(Gentlemen, Rory would like a word.)

For all of the symbolic importance (and the humor value of Moffat’s lack of self-awareness) the best part of Michelle Gomez’s casting is Michelle Gomez’s performance.  She can be downright chilling, but also, a little sad.  (Though never pathetic; she’s not an object of pity.)  She’s crazy, but she makes it work for her.

We understand; she’s not killing Osgood because she’s “bananas,” it’s not a random act, but a deliberate one.  She’s doing it to hurt the Doctor.

(I should probably say something about the Christmas episode, too.  Well: it wasn’t the worst Christmas special Doctor Who has ever had, by a long shot.)