We’ve pulled into the nice, fat middle of The Last Samurai. Here are a few notes I found for this section–add yours in on the comments.
Tyrone Power school of acting. Now hat Sibylla has mentioned the “Tyrone Power school of acting” more than a few times to deride certain individuals, I thought I’d pull up an image to we can see what she means when she says, for instance, “and he did change, but only in the way that someone from the Tyrone Power school of acting would show maturity: mouth set, furrowed brow, this is someone thinking tough thoughts.” [318]
Hugh Carey and Raymond Decker. If you’ve gotten this far yet, Week 4 has a wonderful story about two geniuses going to school in Oxford: Hugh Carey and Raymond Decker. Sibylla introduces them as though they are real people, though if you do a quick Google search you won’t find anything for these names resembling the individuals described in The Last Samurai.
Sibylla and Ludo. Even since we encountered the named of the lead and her son, I’ve been meaning to see what references can be dug up for each. Here’s what Wikipedia has to offer.
Sibylla has a ton of entries to disambiguate from:
* Sibylla of Jerusalem, queen regnant of Jerusalem
* Sybilla of Normandy, queen consort of Scotland
* Sibylla of Acerra, queen consort of Sicily
* Sibylla of Lusignan, queen consort of Armenia
* Sybilla of Burgundy, duchess of Burgundy
* Sibylla of Anjou, countess of Flanders
* Sibylla of Armenia, princess of Antioch
* Sibylla of Anhalt, duchess of Württemberg
* Sibylla Schwarz, a German poet
* Princess Sibylla of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, mother of King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden
* Sibylla Budd, an Australian actress
Sibylla might be too:
* Sibylla (genus), a genus of mantis
o Sibylla pretiosa, one such species
* 168 Sibylla, an asteroid
* Sibylla (fast food), a classic fast food concept marketed in Sweden
There is also the Sibyl, which seems the most promising, a word from Greek meaning “prophetess.”
As to Ludo/Ludovic, here’s what I found:
The boy’s name Ludovic \l(u)-do-vic\ is a variant of Louis (French, Old German) and Ludwig (German), and the meaning of Ludovic is “famous warrior; famous fighter”.
Ludovic has quite a bit of disambiguation:
Ludovic is a given name, and may refer to:
* Ludovic (opera), by Fromental Halévy
* The main character in Ma vie en rose, a Belgian film
or to the first name of the following:
In sports:
* Ludovic Assemoassa, French-born Togolese football defender who currently plays for Ciudad de Murcia
* Ludovic Badey, French race car driver
* Ludovic Butelle, French football goalkeeper
* Ludovic Giuly, French footballer who plays as a winger
* Ludovic Mercier, French rugby union footballer
* Ludovic Obraniak, French-born Polish international footballer
* Ludovic Roux, former French Nordic combined skier
* Ludovic Turpin, professional road racing cyclist
In literature:
* Ludovic Halévy, French author
* Ludovic Kennedy (1919-2009), British journalist, broadcaster, and author
In politics:
* Ludovic Stewart, 2nd Duke of Lennox, Scottish nobleman and politician
* Ludovic Vitet, French dramatist and politician
In other fields:
* Ludovic Arrachart, French aviator
* Ludovic Lindsay, 16th Earl of Crawford, prisoner at Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1644 and 1645
* Ludovic Zamenhof, eye doctor, philologist, and the initiator of Esperanto
And then Ludo:
“Brit a simple board game in which players advance counters by throwing dice
[from Latin: I play]” (defined here)
[from Latin: I play]” (defined here)
* Ludo (board game), a board game of the Cross and Circle game family
* Ludek Mikloško Czech football goalkeeper.
* Ludwig II of Bavaria, nicknamed ‘Mad King Ludo’, a king of Bavaria who reigned between 1869 and 1886
* Ludo Bagman, a character from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling
* Ludo (band), a band from St. Louis, Missouri
* Ludo (Ludo album), the self-titled debut album by the band of the same name
* Ludo (album), a 1967 album by Ivor Cutler
* Ludo (character), a character from the 1986 film, Labyrinth
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