the neeeemo of the nautilus is theeere . . . INSIDE YOUR MIND

[skygiants]

So I realized while reading 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea that this classic work of science fiction literature is basically Phantom of the Opera . . . UNDERWATER!

NO WAIT HEAR ME OUT.

Okay, so we start out our story with our ingenue protagonist, Professor Arronax, whose great passion is AQUATIC SCIENCE (just like Christine's is music!) He lives with a Comic Manservant/BFF named Conseil whom we might as well call the Meg Giry.

(Sidenote: Conseil is genuinely hilarious. His great life passion is classification, and there are at least twenty scenes where every other character is like "ZOMG IMMINENT DANGER! SHARK! GIANT SQUID! WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE!" and Conseil is happily sitting there reeling off the genus, order and species of the seahorse in the corner.)

So the professor is on his way home when he gets invited off on an expedition to go on an expedition to hunt a possibly-mythical giant narwhal. While on the boat, he meets and hits it off very well with a Manly Canadian Harpooner named Ned, who serves the function of the Raoul. "Ah, my good Ned," Arronax rhapsodizes, "I ask nothing better than to live another hundred years just to have longer to remember you!" And all seems happy and well. However, Arronax, Ned and Conseil's idyll is INTERRUPTED when they discover that the narwhal is actually a SECRET SUBMARINE. Through a complicated series of events, the three of them end up on-board, where they meet the tall, the dark, the mysterious, the DRAMATIC ORGAN-PLAYING Captain Nemo. He tells them they have free reign of his submarine, the Nautilus . . . but they can NEVER LEAVE!!!! (dun dun dun dun) It is implied that the only reason he has not killed them straight off is because he is impressed with Arronax's scientific potential and wants to share ~the secrets of the sea~ with him.

(Captain Nemo: I HAVE BROUGHT YOU/ TO THE SEAT OF SWEET [OCEAN SCIENCE'S] THRONE/ TO THE KINGDOM WHERE ALL MUST PAY HOMAGE TO [OCEAN SCIENCE] . . . . [OCEAN SCIENCE] . . . .)

Then he's all, "hey baby wanna see my etchings," and takes the Professor away from his companions to show off his secret submarine lair! The Professor is kind of won over by his art collection and Beauty and the Beast-esque library but what really gets him all a-flutter is his massive . . COLLECTION OF OCEAN SPECIMENS. "A nervous conchologist would have fainted!" he exclaims, because nothing says "I am a total pimp" like a complete collection of polyps and echinoderms.

Captain Nemo divides his time between showing off his pimpin' ride, taking the Professor on long romantic walks along the ocean floor (liiiisten to the muuuusic of the seaaaaaaa), and going off into passionate mysterious fits of brooding and organ-playing and possibly murdering innocent sailors. Meanwhile, Ned grows frustrated and angry! He doesn't trust this evil captain! The Professor agrees in theory, but in practice he really doesn't want to leave, because he cannot resist the potential to create beautiful music OCEAN SCIENCE, and also if he tries to escape NEMO MIGHT NEVER TRUST HIM AGAIN. :( :( :( They have a lot of conversations that go like this:

NED: Nemo has made it pretty clear he will never release us from THIS DURANCE VILE, so I think we should escape as soon as possible!
PROFESSOR: Hmm . . . maybe . . . oh hey a pretty starfish!
NED: I think we should escape tonight.
PROFESSOR: Oh, we don't need to escape tonight, surely . . . look look look at that beautiful stingray!
NED: We have been trapped here for FOUR MONTHS! Let me tell you, the romantic walks may be fun for you, but I have never been more bored IN MY LIFE.
PROFESSOR: This conch shell we just picked up is so gorgeous, it is the biggest one I have ever seen. *_*
NED: We will escape! I am taking you with me! I won't leave you behind! CHRISTINE!!!!
PROFESSOR: I have to go show off this specimen to Captain Nemo! No one has ever understood me like he does.
CONSEIL: AMMONITE!

Ned also bitches a lot because Nemo won't let him harpoon any whales and this wounds his manly Canadian soul. At this point the 5 remaining Ned/Professor fans jump ship, because Nemo may kill people, but he's saving the whales!

But in the end, of course, once Arronax realizes that his Dark and Dramatic Othered Love Interest has pretty definitively murdered a whole bunch of people, he consents to break away and escape with the nice, manly, normative Ned, and return to the normal sunlit world. ("ANGEL OF DARKNESS, YOU DECEIVED ME! I GAVE MY MIND BLINDLY!") And after one last bout of passionate organ-playing, Nemo dies . . . OR DOES HE?

Never fear, Nemo fans: he'll return in the sequel, The Mysterious Island: LOVE (AND OCEAN SCIENCE) NEVER DIE. Which I will totally be reading! MORE OCEAN SCIENCE. \o/

Comments

[miseline.livejournal.com]

LOL. This was hilarious. Loved it. :)

[skygiants]

Hee, thank you! It is always good to know I amuse people besides myself. :D

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

!!!!!

O_O

♥ ♥ ♥

okay, now I need to reread 20,000 Leagues. And also possibly to request Arronax/Nemo for Yuletide.

all right, so I also need to CLOSE THE BROWSER WINDOW AND FINISH MY DAMNED WRITING SAMPLE... can you tell I'm in the state of altered consciousness caused by intense dissertation doom? I can tell. My blood runs on caffeine and adrenaline, and I am finding this post much more hilarious than it ought to be. Not that it isn't hilarious. But... never mind. *firmly closes browser window before babbling any more nonsense*

[skygiants]

You do! Everyone is hilariously shippable. Arronax/Nemo! Arronax/Ned! Ned/Conseil! Arronax/Conseil! ("Will monsieur permit me to cut his clothes away?" he said, and, sliding an open knife under my garments, he ripped them open with one rapid stroke. And that is all I have to say about THAT.)

LADY. Finish your writing sample! DO NOT, IN FACT, LOOK AT THIS COMMENT UNTIL YOU ARE DONE. IF YOU ARE READING THIS COMMENT, YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG.

[ojuzu.livejournal.com]

I absolutely must read this now. (After, you know, finishing the other . . . *counts* fourteen* books I am reading. Wow.) It sounds AWESOME.

But not Gentlemen of the Road! I finished Gentlemen of the Road! :D

[skygiants]

IT IS. Though, uh, fair warning that there is really, really a lot of ocean science. Which is very cool! But occasionally stretches a little much after twenty rhapsodic paragraphs about varieties of fish.

Oh yay! :D What did you think?

[genarti]

Never too much rhapsodizing about ocean science! Neveeeeeer!

(Uh, I have never read 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, but now you have made me want to.)

[ojuzu.livejournal.com]

Well, I have been reading very educational things lately, so why not? (*counts* History book, history book, Steppenwolf, history book, Maus, history book about comics, the Pillow Book . . . okay, maybe not that educational.)

It's the thing I would show to people and tell them "This is how to do friendship right." Witty banter! Tearful (well, hug-full) farewells! Good-natured bitching about hats! The actual plot felt kinda bleh, but Zelikman and Amram actually being awesome friends -- which is, sadly, a rather rare thing in most novels about two guys -- made up for it. And I loved that the ending was not 'he gets the girl' but 'that was fun, let's keep going'.

[dramaturgca.livejournal.com]

You are so right. Wow. *headdesk*

[skygiants]

See, it's times like this that I wish I was still in school so I could write a paper about iterations of the Beauty and the Beast mytharc in nineteenth-century French literature.

HOWEVER, since I am not, I LOL-Literature it all over LJ instead! IT'S BASICALLY THE SAME.

[dramaturgca.livejournal.com]

Except we are granted the fruits of your labours! All the better for us!

[dramawench.livejournal.com]

I love you so much right now.

Have you heard about the new sequel to Phantom ALW is making? Set on Coney Island? I kind of can't wait for that trainwreck to come out with a soundtrack so I can mock it properly :)

[skygiants]

<33333

HAHAHA YES ME TOO. It almost makes me sad I retired Meg, so I can't bring her in from the sequel as BATHING BEAUTY MEG. Do you know John Barrowman is on the soundtrack? *_* AS RAOUL?

[oneechan19.livejournal.com]

*keels over laughing* AMMONITE. And, you know, everything else. XD

[skygiants]

It doesn't quite reach Utena levels of crack, but then, it's hard to do that when nobody has any siblings to lust over . . .

[nextian.livejournal.com]

I never read 20,000 Leagues, but I did read Mysterious Island, which I think might be the worst idea for a plot twist ever -- either you know what the book is so you see it coming on page one, or you don't know, and then when Captain Nemo shows up, you're like, "What? Who is this guy? Why has he built a magical LOST island out of toothpicks and squid?" It's like reading a moody, realistic novel in which the twist is that Jack Bauer arrives on page 120.

That said, now I really, really want to read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

[skygiants]

I don't know what you're talking about , I expect magical islands made out of toothpicks and squid to put in an appearance in all moody realistic novels. :O They are a staple!

(Now I want to ask which camp you were in when you read it! DID YOU KNOW THE SECRET.)

[nextian.livejournal.com]

The world would be such a richer, better place if that was true. Like, halfway through To the Lighthouse, they are shipwrecked ... on a mysterious island! At the end of Mice and Men, Lenny moves to the island! In the middle of the Central Valley.

(I definitely did not know the secret -- I was in fourth grade, I did not yet know anything about Nemo but his name -- and so while I totally loved Nemo (HEARTS. HEARTS FOR THE PHANTOM OF OCEANOGRAPHY) I spent the whole book breathlessly waiting to find out his backstory. And they -- basically either don't explain it or don't explain it well? One of the two. So I finished and was like "WHAT. BUT WHERE DID NEMO COME FROM. WHY IS HE SO SAD." I didn't realize until I asked my father that the answer was supposed to be "Because he's Captain Nemo, dumbass.")

[gramarye1971]

It's like reading a moody, realistic novel in which the twist is that Jack Bauer arrives on page 120.

I can think of so many novels that would benefit from this. Like, pretty much anything nominated for the Booker Prize.

[villainny.livejournal.com]

I love your brain

[skygiants]

The feeling is mutual always! <3

[tiltingheartand]

♥_____♥

[skygiants]

:D! <3

[wanderlustlover]

I love you so.

[skygiants]

*giggling* I love you as well!

(Also very little has tempted me to break my personal rules and RP at work like seeing Edward's tag to Duck this morning, I will have you know.)