Chanter (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
chanter1944) wrote2019-01-21 08:05 pm
chanter1944) wrote2019-01-21 08:05 pm
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snow in June is just plain rare! day 3
Well out of order, but I didn't have any brain for this particular challenge before now!
In your own space, share a favorite piece of original canon (a TV episode, a song, a favorite interview, a book, a scene from a movie, etc) and explain
why you love it so much. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.
It took me forever to come up with this one, not because I don't have canon moments I adore, but because I've had very little brain lately, and getting squee down in words is a nontrivial problem in itself. Ack! But let's see...
There is a scene near the end of BoB episode 8, The Last Patrol, that is if not my favorite in that entire series, then certainly in my top three. I won't tell you how many times I've watched it, because the number's downright embarrassing. The lead-up is horrifying in its graphic realism, and on the one hand, I'm grateful I can't see the screen, but on the other--blindness+imagination=plenty bad anyway, so maybe I don't *need* to see the screen. I know this isn't sounding like a scene one's likely to love, and yet...
The fifteen-man patrol has just come back across the river, a third of them soaked due to a capsizing boat, plus two German prisoners and carrying one severely wounded paratrooper, hit by his own grenade. It is utter chaos, and I don't say that lightly, in the basement of the house they're using for shelter. Everyone's yelling, whether it's unheard orders (the sergeant is shouting himself hoarse, it's that much of a jumble), questions, attempts to calm their wounded man, fury at the prisoners ("You think you one the war? You think you won the war!") There's a definite spark from a bare or shorting electrical wire at one point, which just adds to the grim desperation. Jackson, the wounded trooper, is writhing and screaming, clearly terrified and just about insensible of most of what's being said to him, including the news that a medic's on the way. It's obvious he's pretty far gone.
And then Doc Roe dashes in. And the entire room goes quiet. In seconds.
Including, the instant Roe puts his hands on him and starts talking to him, Jackson, the gravely wounded man, who *no one* else could reach.
I don't know how this lot managed to portray relief, trust and respect so well that they're all downright palpable through the screen, but they did. I've seen it written somewhere that, during this particular scene, when Roe comes in, the entire room goes as quiet as if an angel had walked in. He's not an angel in the expected sense, but calming people, with reason behind it (no frantic placating here), is very much connected to Roe in canon, and so is healing. Not the impersonal side of medicine, and not the actions of someone well-meaning but in over their head, but actual healing. He knows he can't save everyone, the rest of the unit knows he can't save everyone, and there's nothing wrong with the other medics in the 506, but he's the one the others automatically trust and look for with the worst of the worst cases, and with reason.
I won't go into how this ends up (not well, unfortunately) but this particular moment will never not give me the shiveries! I revert to type *again*.
In your own space, share a favorite piece of original canon (a TV episode, a song, a favorite interview, a book, a scene from a movie, etc) and explain
why you love it so much. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.
It took me forever to come up with this one, not because I don't have canon moments I adore, but because I've had very little brain lately, and getting squee down in words is a nontrivial problem in itself. Ack! But let's see...
There is a scene near the end of BoB episode 8, The Last Patrol, that is if not my favorite in that entire series, then certainly in my top three. I won't tell you how many times I've watched it, because the number's downright embarrassing. The lead-up is horrifying in its graphic realism, and on the one hand, I'm grateful I can't see the screen, but on the other--blindness+imagination=plenty bad anyway, so maybe I don't *need* to see the screen. I know this isn't sounding like a scene one's likely to love, and yet...
The fifteen-man patrol has just come back across the river, a third of them soaked due to a capsizing boat, plus two German prisoners and carrying one severely wounded paratrooper, hit by his own grenade. It is utter chaos, and I don't say that lightly, in the basement of the house they're using for shelter. Everyone's yelling, whether it's unheard orders (the sergeant is shouting himself hoarse, it's that much of a jumble), questions, attempts to calm their wounded man, fury at the prisoners ("You think you one the war? You think you won the war!") There's a definite spark from a bare or shorting electrical wire at one point, which just adds to the grim desperation. Jackson, the wounded trooper, is writhing and screaming, clearly terrified and just about insensible of most of what's being said to him, including the news that a medic's on the way. It's obvious he's pretty far gone.
And then Doc Roe dashes in. And the entire room goes quiet. In seconds.
Including, the instant Roe puts his hands on him and starts talking to him, Jackson, the gravely wounded man, who *no one* else could reach.
I don't know how this lot managed to portray relief, trust and respect so well that they're all downright palpable through the screen, but they did. I've seen it written somewhere that, during this particular scene, when Roe comes in, the entire room goes as quiet as if an angel had walked in. He's not an angel in the expected sense, but calming people, with reason behind it (no frantic placating here), is very much connected to Roe in canon, and so is healing. Not the impersonal side of medicine, and not the actions of someone well-meaning but in over their head, but actual healing. He knows he can't save everyone, the rest of the unit knows he can't save everyone, and there's nothing wrong with the other medics in the 506, but he's the one the others automatically trust and look for with the worst of the worst cases, and with reason.
I won't go into how this ends up (not well, unfortunately) but this particular moment will never not give me the shiveries! I revert to type *again*.
Band of Brothers
Re: Band of Brothers
I never knew Grandpa to go to any of the reunions; after what I know of Bastogne - of which he *never* spoke - I can't say I blame him. But many did, and a lot of the others in close units - including the Tuskeegee Airmen, who changed America in ways far beyond war - do get together on a regular basis.
One of my `ohana taught me something: Intimacy is not physical proximity. Intimacy is sharing that Thing or that Idea that isn't universally known or accepted, and having the other person say, that is safe with me. I accept that, and I accept you.
That's what this is about. They were *there*. They *know*, in ways those of us who never have, cannot. But even if we cannot grok, we should try to understand.
We band of brothers
For if you shed your blood with me
You are my brother
-- Ken Theriot, adapted from Henry V
http://www.calonsong.org/CalontirSongs/bandofbrothers.htm
Re: Band of Brothers
Re: Band of Brothers
Re: Band of Brothers
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no subject
Band of Brothers
That's such a beautiful way of putting it.
Re: Band of Brothers
Thanks for sharing this bit.
I wish I had the emotional fortitude to watch it all without falling apart, but I don't. Bailed after episode 3.
Re: Thanks for sharing this bit.