A borrowed rant

Yes, I am still on jury duty, but we're deliberating and (I hope) will be freed from Philadelphia'a judicial grip on Monday. At the end of every day, the judge tells us not to discuss the case with anyone, but why would you? For Pete's sake, you hear about it all day in excruciating detail, so by the day's end I for one am more than ready to change the subject. In addition, to discuss the case intelligently with anyone I'd have to go into a wearying level of detail. Bah. When I'm done with it, anyone who wants to know about the case is free to ask.

Anyway, I was talking to my brother about "The Dark Crystal" the other day, and we agreed that Kira, not Jen, is the real hero of the story. Here's my brother's (paraphrased) rant about why.

Kira has friends all over the land, Pod People and Striders and such. Kira has direct mind-to-mind empathic communication with animals, who seem inclined to do what she wants. She can hit a crystal bat at 15 yards with a bola while standing in a rowboat. She can fly. Jen, on the other hand, has two discernable skills: He can play a few notes on a flute and he can read. Given that the second ability is boasted by the majority of America's second-graders, I'm not impressed. Kira drags Jen's sorry ass all over the place, saving him from one danger after another, and along the way manages to kill one of the Skeksis by rallying an army of critters to push him into a pit of fire. Jen has to stick a peg in a hole, and he manages to fuck that up so that Kira has to get stabbed to give him another chance to put a peg in a hole.

Kira: A flying, telepathic ninja with allies capable of providing her with shelter, transportation, and tactical assistance. Jen: A literate flutist barely capable of performing a task easily accomplished by chimpanzees in laboratories the world over. Who's the hero of the story?