(Oh screw you LJ. I want my 'old interface' option back, you pixellated wretch.) (Also your 'download a client' option isn't much help if you don't give me the client to download, now *is* it? Sheesh.)

Whatever, I am rolling along with Arang and the Magistrate, not quite halfway through. Young Dork Master ceases to be dorky when he has something to care about; I was beginning to worry about his perpetually stunned-fish expression. And I am utterly *delighted* to see echoes of Cocteau's Orphée emerging with the person the subtitles call the Grim Reaper, when of course what he is is a psychopomp; and, as has been said, a ridiculously hot one. Not Orphée himself, of course, but Heurtebise. Of course.

Subtitles being as subtitles are, I've no idea whether the homoerotic vibes between the magistrate and his servant are meant to be as strong as they come off, but I wouldn't be at all surprised.

But what strikes me most is the singular absence of servants about the place. Underlined when heroine finds herself in a well-kept mansion that's totally deserted, and goes about saying 'Hello? Is anybody here? Helloo???' Not that different from the compound where she lives. Both the magistrate and the local lord have a stunning lack of cooks, maids, house boys, washerwomen, and people to keep the place clean. For all that, their houses are impeccably tidy and their bed linen irreproachable. It might however explain the topos of 'I own a single garment that I also sleep in.'