The Ramblings of an Inadequate Writer

I am driven mad by people who write things as fact and in all reality are just stating their own ideas. I tend to get irrationally angry at times by this. I can understand the weak minded, or those who just do not know any better. But when someone who claims to be a professional writer and even has a degree in journalism steps up to the plate and fails miserably, then I am truly upset.

Gia Manry, a supposed professional writer, or more specifically a pop culture writer, is a person whom I loathe. She writes reviews in which she bashes anything she thinks is ridiculous. I can understand that. I tend to do that myself some of the time. She claims to have a degree in journalism and a minor in creative writing. Well, the number one rule of journalism is to get the facts. Journalists do not print their opinions, they print the facts. This insult to the writing community posted her thoughts on the action flick Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. I would like to point out two major flaws she made in her rush to critique what she apparently saw as lack of creativity.

In her article she posted, and i quote: "Hassansin Is A Dumb Name
Let me break this down for you: Hassan is a fairly common Arabic name. So when you have a group of highly-skilled assassins and you need to make them sound vaguely middle-eastern, what do you do? You combine “assassin” with “Hassan” for “hassansin.” Excuse me while I vomit in the hassansink."

Point number one: Hassansin is not a dumb name. Neither is it something the movie writers merely made up. She just decided that since it's such an "obvious" fake that it must be true! Wrong! What Miss Manry could have discovered with a quick bit of research is that, contrary to her misconception, we get the term assassin from the ancient Persian elite warriors known as the hassansins or the hashanshins. They did exist though not in the overblown way that Prince of Persia portrays. Look it up people. It's quite simple. We get most of our words from old terms like this. It's a simple matter of looking it up. What irritates me is that when you Google the word hassansin the first article that appears is the one i just quoted. Sadly most people will stop there and just believe that it was all made up. That is what irritates me more than anything.


She also posted this: (quote) Jake Gyllenhaal Is Not Persian
I heard a lot of people whining about how Jake Gyllenhaal doesn’t look the least bit Persian. Prior to knowing more about the film, this seemed silly to anyone who’s read about royal harems: in Persia, Turkey, and other middle-eastern areas, the royal harem was filled largely with foreign women who had been gifted or kidnapped; as such, Persian royalty and even the upper classes were often filled with those of multicultural backgrounds.

Point number two: While it is always better to make the actors look the part, Persia does not even exist anymore. You can get a Persian to play a Persian in a movie because they don't exist!

There are several points I could cover, but I think I have made my point. Gia Manry is a disgrace to the writing community with her lack of research into subjects which she writes about in detail. She writes as if she knows exactly what she speaks of, and yet she does not. People that lead others into ignorance are the worst of society. Right up there with politicians. Miss Manry needs to stick to writing about Anime, because that is just about all she is good at doing. Even then, I shudder to think of what plots she has written on that were taken from something else, because she is likely to do the same. Get the facts, Miss Manry.

For the full article: www.fanboy.com/.../hassansin-is-a-dumb-name-and-other-prince-of-persia-revelations.html -