BrewsterNorth.Net

(looks in alarm at the number of bookmarks labeled "Fic Reference"; makes mental note to offload some of them onto here, since that was the original function of a blog, nicht wahr?)
Well, here's the latest one.

Have to concur with the estimable Kate Orman that Keeley Hawes is rather needlessly pooh-poohing feminism with her comment that "women want a man to scoop them up off their feet". That is, if it's supported by context (heaven knows where it came from; some interview or other, there's no link outward) as such.

It's an interesting jumping-off point for all that. Not the laughable notion that all women need is a strong man to sweep them off their feet (the last fellow to literally take my feet off the ground had tremendous difficulty keeping me and my Dr Marten boots aloft), but the idea that human beings sometimes find it much more convenient to abrogate their own responsibility and potential for power in favor of some other entity. Men and women alike may be "swept off their feet" by a charismatic person, or an ideology, or a nationalism, or whatever. People may be culturally conditioned to treat power as scary (particularly, alas, women), as remote, as belonging to a select few, rather than as a whole continuum of means of influence great and small.

(Note, I'm not trying for any political angle; this is just me thinking aloud on my keyboard here. Probably not terribly coherently either.)

Which brings me to Morg (Birdy's partner and another original character: more on both of these to come). Another one who confuses power and responsibility at times, but in a different way.
A scientist by avocation, he initially believes that his power in the world resides in a theory he has not yet completed. His delusion is at first encouraged by the authorities who spirit him out of his own time and place; the technology that enables them to do so is based upon science very similar to his own studies.
He is slow to realize his own irrelevance as a scientist. His power in fact relies upon his tendency to feel responsible for people, even complete strangers. However reluctantly, he assumes command of his squadron of securitykeepers with an almost maternal sense of responsibility - he trusts only himself to do it correctly, and his faith is echoed by his compatriots'.

Birdy by contrast (prior to the events that brought him and Morg together) liked the almost theatrical sense of being the one in power, and yet was loath to shoulder the responsibilities of command; it took trailing after Morg and following his lead and example to alter his mindset.