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"(S28) S2M4 Knights of the Tenth World 1"
 
   LAST EDITED ON Apr-02-10 AT 01:45 PM (EDT)
 
68 Tyr famously sacrificed his hand to bind Fenris, the giant wolf. In UF, Fenris was released by his father Loki to fight for the side of evil at the Ragnarok, but was slain by Gryphon. It was that act that earned Corwin's father the title "Midgard-Knight" and the permanent respect of the gods. In Asgard, Gryphon's formal name of address is "Gryphon Fenrisbane, Knight of Midgard".

75 Frey and Freyja are Vanir by birth, but were named to the Æsir Council as part of the peace agreement that ended the Asgard-Vanaheim War many years ago.

78 As was Njörd, who is their father.

82 Heimdall the Watchman is the Norse god whose job is to sound the alarm if danger approaches Asgard. In a 25th-century context that basically makes him the commander of Asgard's equivalent of NORAD.

87 Some sources tell us that Freyja is the goddess of love, and she may have held that post when she was among the Vanir. This may also explain why she has something of a rivalry with Urd. Well, that and the fact that (as we will see later) she hates svartelves.

90 One of the few UF Valkyrie who have anything to do with their mythical counterparts, Hildy is to this day a bit embarrassed about the rather histrionic dramatization of her grad school love life presented in the operas of Richard Wagner. ("I mean, throw myself on a funeral pyre for Sig? He wasn't even that good in bed!")

In the UF universe, Brünnhilde is not herself a goddess - that is, she holds no grade of divinity license in the celestial system - but she is a native of Asgard and, as such, could at least be considered an angel by human standards.

98 Odin sacrificed his left eye to the well of Mimir in order to gain, so the story goes, all the knowledge of past, present, and future. He must be feeling a little ripped off now, one would think, based on how that whole Ragnarok thing turned out.

140 Urd's been worrying about this meeting for months. She knew Frey was planning to ask something like that, and Corwin, like his mother, is not particularly known for his political skills - but he handled himself pretty well here.

176 Mortal charts always show the Nine Worlds one on top of another in a neat, orderly stack, as Hildy's précis implies, but the true arrangement of the Nine Worlds defies such simplistic mortal interpretation. To most minds, Asgard, Vanaheim, Alfheim, Jotunheim, and Svartalfheim all seem to be regions of the same planet, not worlds unto themselves; they can be reached - as, indeed, can the Hells - by road, after all... but no mortal roadbuilder ever made roads like the 666 Bypass connecting Jotunheim with Niflheim (and skirting Svartalfheim, which is why it's a bypass).

235 Odin's prophecy that the Ragnarok would be heralded by the death of Balder led Frigga, Odin's wife and Balder's mother, to extract a promise not to harm him from everything in the universe. (She missed out mistletoe, which was eventually used to, well, kill Balder and spark the Ragnarok.)

285 Hildy knows damn well that Bell told Corwin what she knew of the Tenth World at some point.

289 The gods and the dragons have not been on good terms for very long, and there are some very old undercurrents of mistrust that still linger.

299 Balder is not the UF pantheon's first sun god. The post was originally held by Odur, Freyja's ex-husband, who resigned his post and left Asgard, never to be seen again, after a certain incident involving a svartelven wizard, three duergar, and an enchanted necklace - but we'll get into all that later.

355 Another nod to Magic Knight Rayearth's car-name gag. "Viggen" is, or was, a trim level available on the Saab 93 (named after the jet fighter made by the same company).

373 And again; the Prince of this period bears the name of a Nissan sedan.

379 And once more. "Sabra" was the name of a now-defunct Israeli car company.

412 The first, slower destabilization results from Emeraude's increasing distraction, and may have been going on for rather longer than the CMB thinks, since Dios was able to keep the lid on things for a while before the increasing workload eventually worked him to death. The more precipitous decline, obviously, is because the outcome of the Lost Tournament threw matters into complete chaos (and, in fact, nearly broke the Tenth World outright). Things are going downhill even faster now that there is no Prince, the Pillar has gone mad, and the High Priest is merely sitting around waiting for her to die - the situation in Cephiro is developing so fast now, in fact, that the CMB can't keep up. The Æsir Council is unwittingly sending Corwin into a much more dire and dangerous situation than they realize or intend.

508 The standard Valkyrie sidearm is the Luger P.08, but I wanted something distinct from the standard for Corwin (who is, after all, not your garden-variety Valkyrie). The Mauser broomie has something of a heritage in his family, anyway - his father carried one during his time as a naval officer on Ishiyama.

515 Asgard's information is a bit out of date - but then, that's why they're sending him.

523 Myce, its Hunters, and their distinctive garment come from Iria: Zeiram the Animation, one of my favorite little-known OVA series.

525 Corwin's outback hat is not the kind with the brim pinned up on one side, made famous by all those movies with Aussie soldiers in them, but rather a broad-brimmed leather slouch hat.

532 Corwin's satchel is a tip of the hat to Ford Prefect from the late Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It is of the type more properly known as a Gladstone bag.

545 Vigdis's adult (or, well, nearly-adult) form resembles lingerie model Heather Christensen.

557 I was sort of hedging my bets here. I had a pretty good, but not totally concrete, idea of how the rest of Knights and its immediate aftermath were going to play out, and figured I might as well at least give Corwin some options. It hadn't really sunk in yet that, even if he had them, he probably wasn't going to take them.

570 There was a little shop in the Garage in Harvard Square that used to sell these (and for all I know still does). I have a Naudiz (which, for reasons I do not now remember, is associated with Skuld) one myself.

592 Gudrun Truemace did most of the work while Vigdis meditated on what Utena had told her, eventually deciding to seek an alchemist who could make the Draught of Years for her.

603 Belldandy is associated with mirrors in Ah! My Goddess. All the divinities in the manga series can travel from place to place using reflective surfaces of various kinds as gateways: Bell uses mirrors, Urd uses television screens, and Skuld uses pools of water. In her very first appearance, she emerges from the mirror in Keiichi Morisato's dorm room in response to a mistaken telephone call he makes to the wish fulfillment office where she works.

615 I like this little scene disproportionately, because it gave me a chance to show my favorite side of Bell - the side that is mystic and inscrutable, subtle and just a little fey: very different from the calmly domestic, rather mundane image she usually projects, but at the same time still true to her kind and unthreatening nature.

626 Forever identified in Utena's mind as her "Operation Retrieve the Package" look.

647 Bjarnnil is a made-up Sorta-Norse-Sounding-Or-Something name for an item that exists in the AMS source material, but as far as I know has no canonical name. Skuld's mallet, primarily used in the source material for clobbering bugs and Keiichi, has a collapsible handle and several interchangeable tips for its handle (she uses the blowtorch one several times in the original). The UF version is made of uru, the same material as Thor's hammer Mjollnir, and is much more a fusion of magic and technology than that seen in the source.

702 One of the supporting characters in the console RPG Lunar 2: Eternal Blue is a grimly humorless paladin-type named White Knight Leo. As befits a paladin-type character, he can't break the rules even when he knows it's the right thing to do. At a particular juncture in the game, the main characters are in the process of doing something needful that Leo forbade them to do, when they are joined by a dashing, swashbuckling, devil-may-care chap calling himself "Mystère"... who is obviously Leo in a domino mask. (So obviously, in fact, that the other characters tell him so to his face. -MFR) He didn't even bother changing his clothes.

722 "What's the problem?" "Eddy's in the space-time continuum..." "What, again?" PJM

749 There was no particular reason that I can recall for making the UF version of Umi a Hyelian, other than that it gave us an excuse to have her swear in Hyelian, which is always oddly satisfying. As things developed, it provided the unintended benefit of enabling us to add small moments of significance in which various characters do or don't pronounce her name right.

Well, there was that one particular piece of CLAMP art where she looked so remarkably elfin that the only thing missing was the ears. But that probably counts more as a weak justification than an actual reason. MFR

770 Fontainbleu appears here with its extra e, but not its extra a.

776 At least, no part of it Umi's ever heard of.

785 Hikaru, on the other hand, is a Salusian, and specifically a Kumbari Salusian, for a distinct and particular reason: namely, that she sometimes appears in the source material (usually for comic effect) with cat ears on her head, just as humanized Salusians are depicted (and they're white, which necessitates her sub-race; in UF, only Kumbari have white primary ears when they're young).

794 Master Smith Presea, who we will meet in part 2.

800 Mokona, AKA "the rabbitball", serves as a combination comic foil, McGuffin, and motivational tool for the Magic Knights in their source series. In UF, it's a magical version of a native Cephirean animal called an apapa (which Gar Logan impersonates briefly in the first Titans story). This is because it's named for Mokona Apapa, one of the members of CLAMP (the manga studio that made Magic Knight Rayearth).

823 We knew early on that Umi and Nall were just made for each other. Not only do their powers overlap spectacularly, their personalities are tailor-made to generate amusing sparks. Dovetailing their dialogue this way was the first indication.

851 Not that it would really be much of a search, given that Anne gave Cephiro a huge, efficient rail network. All he really has to do is walk into a station and look at the board.

873 This scene parallels a number of scenes from Revolutionary Girl Utena which served to illustrate the relationship between Touga and Saionji. They've known each other for a very long time, and for almost all that time, up until the very end of the Lost Tournament, Touga was the leader and Saionji the follower, Touga the one who controlled every situation and Saionji the one who could only grit his teeth and try not to fall more than one step behind. Here we - and Touga - learn that that balance of power has shifted.

968 Samurai-in-training Saionji demonstrates to lifelong kendoka Touga the difference between kendo - a sport - and kenjutsu - a killing art. In light of what has passed before between these two characters, this scene was colossally satisfying to do.

1021 Transvaar is a region of grassy steppes to the south and east of the Great Shalhara Desert. Its only major city is Vaaria.

1062 The Rune Knights' weapons are unique. They're the Knights' heartswords, drawn forth by the Master Smith and then fused with escudo (the Cephirean name for true elemental iron, uru) to make them permanent physical artifacts. They evolve with their wielders' skills, cannot be wielded by anyone else without their owners' permission, and are effectively indestructible.

1067 It's funny you should say that, Umi...

1084 Umi is unaware that the Master Mage can't show up personally, because he's busy being a statue in the Ohtori Academy gardens.

1099 As the daughter of a Funkotroni diplomat, Fuu was taught to defend herself at an early age. She's also a competitive archer.

1108 And in this fashion, Saionji takes the place that Fiero (another mysterious green-haired swordman in green and white) held in MKR. PJM

Part of the way, anyway. Later on his role is more or less usurped by Corwin. --G.

1151 Yeah, seriously. There's nothing out there but, uh, Azarath. And Akio's daughter. Not that they know that.

1174 Kinda-sorta inspired by a scene in the You're Under Arrest! OVA series in which Natsumi and Ken go bombing out to the coast on a dull weekend in a misguided effort to prevent Miyuki from going to her high school reunion. It does a really nice job of creating a mood - illustrating the strong but platonic bond between the show's two king-hell bike freaks through the parable of the road trip.

1183 Thermosuits? Damn straight, it's February. Skuld's a Norse goddess and Utena wears shorts in below-freezing weather sometimes, but there are limits.

1190 And that literally does mean "onetime".

1194 And seasoned salt. Mmm, it's good.

1221 It's vaguely amazing that she isn't pacing around the room doing hamstring stretches.

1232 The force still hasn't received its streamlined name; that won't take place until just before the Defiant-class destroyers are ready for testing.

1267 In retrospect, it goes rather beyond "damned bizarre", but ah well. More on this when we get to the Third Symphony.

1313 If I had a Latin translation of this, it would probably be the Irregular Projects Division motto.

1332 This segment (from here to the end of the ice cream and departure of her friends) is one of my favorite moments of the Symphony that I've written. The level of casual byplay between the characters nicely highlights how they've changed over the past year and a half, while still being true to themselves. I greatly enjoyed writing it, and I think it shows up in the dialouge and scene blocking. AND it sets up a nice bit of future development for the characters involved in the process. Everybody wins! PJM

1378 Terpsichore III (here misspelled "Terpischore") is named for the Muse of the dance and dramatic chorus. I think I was actually thinking of Euterpe, the Muse of lyric song. Or maybe Phil named it and I didn't catch it?

1378: I think it just got named that way because I was looking for a nice, alliterative name for a planet that would be focused on collaborative musical arts. PJM

1418 One expects that Bell has done this a few times.

1580 Trust Juri to be the one to point out that there ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

1645 Skuld's mighty love for ice cream is straight from the source material. She's been known to sit down with a half-gallon carton and a spoon when getting set to take on a major programming or design challenge; it fuels her mystic abilities.

1632 I do so like it when characters get so on the same wavelength that they start saying things in stereo. It's always amusing when it happens. PJM

1724 Corwin's too distracted right now to realize that this situation should be familiar to him - but we aren't.

1752 I love Corwin's delirious rant at the gods. He's doing it as much to keep himself engaged and at least somewhat conscious as out of real fury, but all the same, it was very satisfying.

1819 Oddly, Anne doesn't appear in the top-of-file credits. I'm not sure if that's because, while she was definitely in on the plotting, she didn't contribute any actual scenes to this part, or just because I'm a sloppy accreditor.

I was a sounding board for this movement, but I didn't write any of it, with the possible exception of maybe a few snippets of dialogue during IRC or IRL conversations. ALC


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