i usually don't get so super hyped about anime as it's airing, but dumb name aside, i really like The Saint's Magic Power is Omnipotent, and waiting for new episodes, now that season 2 has started airing, to go up on sites that aren't crunchyroll is unbearable.
"There is no ethical consumption under capitalism" is a statement about the general conditions of capitalist production, an understanding that we all make compromises to survive and an implication that the position of the working class under capitalism cannot be understood or improved through the lens of consumption. It is not a license to make the worst choices you can or give your money to fascists because you really like their chickie nuggs.
J. K. Rowling's publicity people apparently arranged for her to win a meaningless accolade in the British press—"greatest opening line of all time" for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. (EDIT: Rowling got fifth place, I should stress, so the Telegraph and all the other fawning press articles are simply stressing that she's "one of the greatest", not THE greatest.)
I read that book a month ago. I cannot remember its opening line. At all.
~Chara
Clears her throat.
I object most strenuously to that drivel of the TERF in Chief being the greatest opening line of all time, and submit for consideration by the vox populi:
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”
Charles Dickens - A Tale of Two Cities
Don't make me break out the Dostoyevsky, JK. Go have your publicist buy you another award you didn't earn.
I object most strenuously to that drivel of the TERF in Chief being the greatest opening line of all time, and submit for consideration by the vox populi:
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”
Charles Dickens - A Tale of Two Cities
Don't make me break out the Dostoyevsky, JK. Go have your publicist buy you another award you didn't earn.
ALSO
FUCKING
Gideon the Ninth has a fucking AMAZING first line
" In the myriadic year o our Lord – the ten thousandth year of the King Undying, the kindly Prince of Death! – Gideon Nav packed her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and she escaped from the House of the Ninth."
-"Gideon the Ninth" by Tamsyn Muir
that single line gives us a TON of info about the world and Gideon Nav. Like the original post said, I don't even REMEMBER what the first line of the winning book was. I don't know I'll EVER forget the first line to Gideon the Ninth
(I am not discrediting any of the AMAZING first lines in classic literature, I just wanted to use a more recent book)
But none of those hold to a candle to the famous line:
"I'm a wizard, so go fuck yourself!" said Harry Potter, to his fat uncle (he's fat so you know he's evil).
lmao god I wasn't that far off the mark
Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.
I'm just gonna take this opportunity to list off a few incredible opening lines that are way better than anything JKR has ever written.
All this happened, more or less.
Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Slaughterhouse Five
One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin
Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis, Trans. David Wyllie
No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream.
Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House
This is not for you.
Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves
O so vast, O so mighty, The Great River rolls to sea,
Flowers do waves thrash, Heroes do sands smash,
When all the dreams drain, Same are loss and gain.
Green mountains remain, Under pink sunsets,
Hoary fishers and woodcutters, Along the banks, find calm water,
In autumn moon or in spring wind, By the wine jars, fill porcelain. - Luo Guanzhong, Romance of the Three Kingdoms
I dont hold much particular fondness for A Tale of Two Cities over other novels or anything but I think pretty much everyone in the English speaking world knows the first sentence is "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."
Even "It was a dark and stormy night" is at least fuckin memorable, if infamous.
Is genuinely a better line than JKRs
"In the beginning the Universe was created.
This had made many people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move."
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Douglas Adams