Hello and welcome to the first Spotlight category post.

Happy New Year’s Day! & Spotlight: Best Inspirational Speech – EVAR

Happy New Year’s Day Everyone! I hope 2019 is a blessing for you all. Or at least a good time.

Today’s topic: Best Inspirational Speech – EVAR

Yes, the “St. Crispin’s Day” speech from Shakespeare’s Henry V is good. (See links below.) Really good. Yes, yes, it is moving. Yes, I cried when I first saw Kenneth Branagh deliver it on the big screen. I cried. It was amazing. I wanted to leap out of my seat and help Henry win at Agincourt (which was pretty easy in the end). Yes, it is considered one of the great literary speeches of all time. It has stayed with me for decades. Then I watched The Expanse. So now, for my money, Drummer’s “Sharpness” speech has got Henry beat.

The Expanse is a HUGE series. It is incredibly good and has some of my favorite characters ever! See my previous review – The Expanse. It is a miracle of TV and online viewing that such an amazing show exists. I highly suggest you watch it.

When I first watched Captain Carmina Drummer’s “Sharpness: speech, delivered in the ninth episode of season three, I cried. I watched it over and over again, thanks to TiVo. I now watch it over and over again on Amazon Prime. Check out the words below.

The Expanse, Season 3, Episode 9, Intransigence*

Speech starts at 29:14 in the episode. What you will see:

Captain Drummer surveys her nervous crew. Wait? Nervous? They are terrified. They are going through an unknown alien ring that could be a wormhole that no one has gone through before that leads to who knows where with no guarantee of life or coming home. They are TERRIFIED. Yet they are holding it in. So, Drummer reminds them of who they are. They are Belters – born in space, live in the Asteroid Belt. This is what she says:

Oye, Beltalowda.

Listen up.

This is your Captain, and this is your ship.

This is your moment.

You might think that you’re scared, but you’re not.

That isn’t fear.

That’s your sharpness. That’s your power.

We are Belters.

Nothing in the void is foreign to us.

The place we go is the place we belong.

This is no different.

No one has more right to this, none more prepared.

Inyalowda go through the Ring, call it their own, but a Belter opened it.

We are the Belt.

We are strong, we are sharp, and we don’t feel fear.

This moment belong to us.

For Beltalowda!

I still get chills. It still brings tears to my eyes. You may be a hardass, Captain Carmina Drummer, but I’d follow you anywhere.

Unfortunately at the time of this post, you can’t find the speech on Youtube. However you can watch a fan video salute to Belters and it begins with the last few words of Drummer’s speech.

The Sound of Sharpness – Speechless Reload (Expanse/Belter Fan Song)

LINKS:

Drummer and Belter Language 101

For the purpose of this show, creole means “a mother tongue formed from the contact of two languages through an earlier pidgin stage.” – From Dictionary.com

• Belter Creole 101 – Syfy.com
• Belter Creole – Expanse Wiki
• Belter Dialogue – Expanse Wiki
• That Cool Dialect on The Expanse Mashes Up 6 Languages

A bit more about Captain Drummer – Camina Drummer – Expanse Wiki.

Henry V

• Henry V of England – Wikipedia
• Henry V by Shakespeare – Wikipedia
• St. Crispin’s Day – Wikipedia
• St. Crispin’s Day Speech – Wikipedia

Henry V – Speech – Eve of Saint Crispin’s Day – HD

*My favorite synonym for this word is “Unyieldingness.” Now THAT describes Drummer.