Annotations
I had no punchline for this joke until around 11pm on May 3rd. That's quite late in the game for me. However, in this case it really resulted in a fun episode, in my opinion. Good old www.thesaurus.com came in handy once again. It is my most valuable and favorite punning tool. Often, the punishment you suffer from Perils of the Bold can be laid direclty at the synonymical feet of www.thesaurus.com. There are also several of my favorite words in this episode. It actually turned out to be one of my favorite scripts - phonetically, lexicographically, grammatically.
Panel #1 - The Prison Chamber of Thaumaturgic Vicissitudes. A terrible place for a sorceress, 'tis true.
Thaumaturgic - The working of miracles or magic feats.
Vicissitude - One of the sudden or unexpected changes or shifts often encountered in one's life, activities, or surroundings.
Panel #2 - Kamik's eloquence is unbounded. I blame his sobriety.
Panel #3 - Insidious. One of my all-time favorite words. I can't believe it took 44 episodes to actually get it into PotB!
Panel #7 - Badinage - Light, playful banter. This was my great find at www.thesaurus.com. Kreex's "hang" joke is an example of joking banter. But, he's not really being playful or light-hearted, he's malevolent and cruel - which makes this an inappropriate, or bad, bit of banter. And Kreex is evil and bad. And Kreex's "hang" joke is just a bad groaner. This pun is just plain bad on so may levels.
I love using groaners when someone is recovering from unconsciousness and can groan.
Having a character enunciate something obvious and perhaps over-the-top in literature is very effective at getting the audience to relax their criticism of the unbelievable thing that just happened. It's pushing up against the fourth wall, but not actually breaking it. For example, in the first Matrix movie, before the world was explained, Trinity and the Agent and a bunch of cops are running across the rooftops. At this point, we've seen some incredible combat skills from Trinity and we suspect something strange is up. But, when Trinity and the agent leap across the yawning chasm between two buildings, it's over-the-top action that cannot be fully explained in film world that we have been viewing. However, the Wachowskis wisely and cleverly and immediately have the cop who witnesses the jumps say exactly what the audience is thinking: "That's impossible." We immediately identify with the cop, and our critical thinking of the impossibility of the jump is relaxed.
Kamik is always good for a beer joke.
Okay, you guys have endured enough exposition and plot point exgurgitation. Our heroes have met the villain, suffered his threats and malevolence, and are now fully aware of their peril. I suspect that they will soon actually do something! Or at least plan to do something. ;)
The new Pirates of the Caribbean 2 trailer is online! It looks amazing. There's a 3rd Pirates movie coming out in 2007, but I don't see how they can top PotC 2 based on this trailer. Gore Verbinski is a genius. I'm really looking forward to this sequel to the best movie since the original Indiana Jones.
