Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
The Torturous Wing Commander Poetry Department
Editor's note: in honor of the pop culture Behemoth that is the release of Taylor Swift's Tortured Poet's Department and the fact that it is the author's birthday and he is allowed one needlessly self-indulgent Wing Commander article per year we present to you…
One of my favorite things in popular media is finding a reference to some classic aspect of literature. Growing up, I found that it was something particularly distinctive in Star Trek. From Kirk quoting John Masefield or D.H. Lawrence to Picard's love of Shakespeare, there was something that was both enticing and approachable about these little connections to our greater culture. Such moments have always served to both elevate and contextualize the media in a way I've found incredibly satisfying. It lets you connect with characters, understand storytellers and to my liking it gives you exactly my favorite sort of guard-railed jumping off point to exploring new subjects yourself. With that in mind, I'm excited to present to you the first ever edition of the Wing Commander Combat Information Center's survey of poetry referenced in the Wing Commander canon!
Part I - What's a Paladin?
If the Wing Commander universe has an equivalent to one of Star Trek's warrior philosophers then that man is James "Paladin" Taggart. And despite what you may be thinking, Paladin's connection to the classics goes all the way back to his very introduction. The original Claw Marks magazine's description quotes him thusly:
What is Paladin talking about? The Death of Arthur is a 15th century work by Sir Thomas Malory retelling what you know as the familiar stories of King Arthur. While its sources include a number of poems it's a prose work and so doesn't actually fit the subject of our survey--but if you'd like to get further into Paladin's head then you can read it online via Project Gutenberg.
The second work mentioned, Song of Roland, is an uncredited 11th century French epic poem which tells the story of one of Charlemagne's heroic knights fighting Muslims in Spain. Roland is betrayed, martyred and avenged in the course of the story and much of the purpose of the tale is to celebrate this heroic sacrifice. Roland is doomed but he is shown to be the pinnacle of loyalty, a wise subject who will gladly suffer die rather than betray his lord. The story has been massively influential to the past thousand years of drama and it is probably referenced more often than you realize; even Wing Commander False Colors contains a disconnected reference to Roland naming a Landreich destroyed after his word, Durandel. Here's a famous example from Roland's (Rollanz) speech insisting his men must stay and battle the enemy no matter the cost:
You can read the entire work here.
This has always been one of my favorite small pieces of world building in Wing Commander and it's something that I think Aaron Allston deserves some special credit for. It's such a brilliant implied reflection of the greater nature of the Terran Confederation. Before much of anything was ever established about this universe we already had the sense of a human culture that is tied to its cycles of historical ideation the same way ours is. Taggart and the other young men went to war at a time when Arthurian legend and other medieval tales were a strong part of their pop culture, something our own culture likes to refocus itself on every couple of generations. We understand immediately what their society regards in terms of honor, personal sacrifice and so on. Additionally, there's another brilliant lair of implied world building to the importance of these stories specifically to the man. What, after all, is the name for a Christian knight battling Muslims in this era? Paladin.
Paladin picked his callsign from this sort of material and we even see him continue to regard it in later works. Novelist Peter Telep, who you will find as we go along is a consummate English literature professor, called back the Claw Marks description in the inner monologue of Paladin's ejection in the movie novelization: "As the gray-and-white surface hurtled toward him, he told himself that he had lived a glorious life, that while he had never been an Arthur or a Roland, he rested assured that he had inspired a young heart or two."
And this scene is worth another small note on our journey: in the movie's shooting script (and in the novelization) we are given Paladin's 'last words': a quotation from Romeo and Juliet. The novelizations read: "He grinned, remembering a few lines from his schooldays: 'My mind misgives some consequence, yet hanging in the stars, shall bitterly begin his fearful date with this night's revels …'". This line was actually shot for the film but ultimately cut and we're pleased today to announce that you can now watch a reconstruction for the very first time!
The line is from the end of Act I, Scene IV of the play. Romeo is speaking on his unease with the evening and, like Paladin, foreshadowing his death (Paladin is, of course, rescued by Blair's tractor beam at the last moment). Here is the entire speech:
Does this actually go in our survey or does it just inform Paladin's connection to classical literature. Shakespeare was an accomplished poet and while it's rare to refer to his plays as poetry specifically they are written poetically rather than as prose. The more you know! Okay, okay, it's tenuous. You can read all of Romeo and Juliet here (probably for the second time if you attended an American high school).
We also continue Paladin's reputation as a man of letters in a brief scene that did make it into the movie. As Blair comes to visit him to learn what it means to be a Pilgrim we hear him listening to diegetic music! We hear a short piece of opera in Italian, translated below:
The lines are from Mozart's Cosi fan tutte, specifically No. 10 - Trio from Scene 6 and the text is by Lorenzo Da Ponte. Such text can be written poetically, as is the case here. Così fan tutte is an 18th century opera in which a pair of husbands seek revenge on their unfaithful wives. This piece closes out the early scene in which the men leave for war and the song wishes them fair winds on their journey. In its placement in the movie, it seems to wish us the same as the story kicks off in earnest... as well as more directly serving to show us that Paladin has refined tastes despite initially seeming to be something of a scruffy looking nerf herder sort. You can find the entire libretto here.
But neither of those are the most famous time we saw Paladin and some poetry in a Wing Commander live action sequence, is it? In fact, when you saw the subject of this article this is probably the cutscene you immediately thought of. That's the Wing Commander IV interstitial in which Paladin and Taggart discuss the situation in the Border World and quote Yeats' The Second Coming together:
The Second Coming is a very famous poem that Yeats wrote in 1919 which reflects the tumultuous situation in his world: the great losses coming out of World War I, the beginning of Ireland's war for independence and the ongoing specter of a horrific pandemic. If there's a reason the work speaks to you today it's probably because the massive anxieties Yeats faced in his world are pretty darned similar to the ones we all manage today! Similarly, beyond Tolwyn's literal (and petty! and SIMPLE!) dig at Blair, the situation described in Yeats' lines matches very well the question and upheaval being experienced in 2673 amidst the Border Worlds crisis. And of course Tolwyn's choice of poems betrays him: it is not Blair who lacks conviction but Tolwyn himself who is the worst and full of passionate intensity.
Peter Telep, again ever the English major, pays tribute to this nod in Wing Commander Pilgrim Truth by having Yeats quote an older Yeats poem as he is being mentally tortured by a Kilrathi interrogator: "At least the Kilrathi had not stolen his gift to dream. What had the poet Yeats written about dreams? 'But I, being poor, have only my dreams; / I have spread my dreams under your feet; / Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.'" The poem is Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven from 1899.
--
Original update published on April 19, 2024
Editor's note: in honor of the pop culture Behemoth that is the release of Taylor Swift's Tortured Poet's Department and the fact that it is the author's birthday and he is allowed one needlessly self-indulgent Wing Commander article per year we present to you…
One of my favorite things in popular media is finding a reference to some classic aspect of literature. Growing up, I found that it was something particularly distinctive in Star Trek. From Kirk quoting John Masefield or D.H. Lawrence to Picard's love of Shakespeare, there was something that was both enticing and approachable about these little connections to our greater culture. Such moments have always served to both elevate and contextualize the media in a way I've found incredibly satisfying. It lets you connect with characters, understand storytellers and to my liking it gives you exactly my favorite sort of guard-railed jumping off point to exploring new subjects yourself. With that in mind, I'm excited to present to you the first ever edition of the Wing Commander Combat Information Center's survey of poetry referenced in the Wing Commander canon!
Part I - What's a Paladin?
If the Wing Commander universe has an equivalent to one of Star Trek's warrior philosophers then that man is James "Paladin" Taggart. And despite what you may be thinking, Paladin's connection to the classics goes all the way back to his very introduction. The original Claw Marks magazine's description quotes him thusly:
What is Paladin talking about? The Death of Arthur is a 15th century work by Sir Thomas Malory retelling what you know as the familiar stories of King Arthur. While its sources include a number of poems it's a prose work and so doesn't actually fit the subject of our survey--but if you'd like to get further into Paladin's head then you can read it online via Project Gutenberg.
The second work mentioned, Song of Roland, is an uncredited 11th century French epic poem which tells the story of one of Charlemagne's heroic knights fighting Muslims in Spain. Roland is betrayed, martyred and avenged in the course of the story and much of the purpose of the tale is to celebrate this heroic sacrifice. Roland is doomed but he is shown to be the pinnacle of loyalty, a wise subject who will gladly suffer die rather than betray his lord. The story has been massively influential to the past thousand years of drama and it is probably referenced more often than you realize; even Wing Commander False Colors contains a disconnected reference to Roland naming a Landreich destroyed after his word, Durandel. Here's a famous example from Roland's (Rollanz) speech insisting his men must stay and battle the enemy no matter the cost:
You can read the entire work here.
This has always been one of my favorite small pieces of world building in Wing Commander and it's something that I think Aaron Allston deserves some special credit for. It's such a brilliant implied reflection of the greater nature of the Terran Confederation. Before much of anything was ever established about this universe we already had the sense of a human culture that is tied to its cycles of historical ideation the same way ours is. Taggart and the other young men went to war at a time when Arthurian legend and other medieval tales were a strong part of their pop culture, something our own culture likes to refocus itself on every couple of generations. We understand immediately what their society regards in terms of honor, personal sacrifice and so on. Additionally, there's another brilliant lair of implied world building to the importance of these stories specifically to the man. What, after all, is the name for a Christian knight battling Muslims in this era? Paladin.
Paladin picked his callsign from this sort of material and we even see him continue to regard it in later works. Novelist Peter Telep, who you will find as we go along is a consummate English literature professor, called back the Claw Marks description in the inner monologue of Paladin's ejection in the movie novelization: "As the gray-and-white surface hurtled toward him, he told himself that he had lived a glorious life, that while he had never been an Arthur or a Roland, he rested assured that he had inspired a young heart or two."
And this scene is worth another small note on our journey: in the movie's shooting script (and in the novelization) we are given Paladin's 'last words': a quotation from Romeo and Juliet. The novelizations read: "He grinned, remembering a few lines from his schooldays: 'My mind misgives some consequence, yet hanging in the stars, shall bitterly begin his fearful date with this night's revels …'". This line was actually shot for the film but ultimately cut and we're pleased today to announce that you can now watch a reconstruction for the very first time!
The line is from the end of Act I, Scene IV of the play. Romeo is speaking on his unease with the evening and, like Paladin, foreshadowing his death (Paladin is, of course, rescued by Blair's tractor beam at the last moment). Here is the entire speech:
Does this actually go in our survey or does it just inform Paladin's connection to classical literature. Shakespeare was an accomplished poet and while it's rare to refer to his plays as poetry specifically they are written poetically rather than as prose. The more you know! Okay, okay, it's tenuous. You can read all of Romeo and Juliet here (probably for the second time if you attended an American high school).
We also continue Paladin's reputation as a man of letters in a brief scene that did make it into the movie. As Blair comes to visit him to learn what it means to be a Pilgrim we hear him listening to diegetic music! We hear a short piece of opera in Italian, translated below:
The lines are from Mozart's Cosi fan tutte, specifically No. 10 - Trio from Scene 6 and the text is by Lorenzo Da Ponte. Such text can be written poetically, as is the case here. Così fan tutte is an 18th century opera in which a pair of husbands seek revenge on their unfaithful wives. This piece closes out the early scene in which the men leave for war and the song wishes them fair winds on their journey. In its placement in the movie, it seems to wish us the same as the story kicks off in earnest... as well as more directly serving to show us that Paladin has refined tastes despite initially seeming to be something of a scruffy looking nerf herder sort. You can find the entire libretto here.
But neither of those are the most famous time we saw Paladin and some poetry in a Wing Commander live action sequence, is it? In fact, when you saw the subject of this article this is probably the cutscene you immediately thought of. That's the Wing Commander IV interstitial in which Paladin and Taggart discuss the situation in the Border World and quote Yeats' The Second Coming together:
The Second Coming is a very famous poem that Yeats wrote in 1919 which reflects the tumultuous situation in his world: the great losses coming out of World War I, the beginning of Ireland's war for independence and the ongoing specter of a horrific pandemic. If there's a reason the work speaks to you today it's probably because the massive anxieties Yeats faced in his world are pretty darned similar to the ones we all manage today! Similarly, beyond Tolwyn's literal (and petty! and SIMPLE!) dig at Blair, the situation described in Yeats' lines matches very well the question and upheaval being experienced in 2673 amidst the Border Worlds crisis. And of course Tolwyn's choice of poems betrays him: it is not Blair who lacks conviction but Tolwyn himself who is the worst and full of passionate intensity.
Peter Telep, again ever the English major, pays tribute to this nod in Wing Commander Pilgrim Truth by having Yeats quote an older Yeats poem as he is being mentally tortured by a Kilrathi interrogator: "At least the Kilrathi had not stolen his gift to dream. What had the poet Yeats written about dreams? 'But I, being poor, have only my dreams; / I have spread my dreams under your feet; / Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.'" The poem is Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven from 1899.
--
Original update published on April 19, 2024
