All About The Context

Well, my enthusiasm for the One-Day Stablemates just fell several notches. Almost everything about the third release is just… wrong. So wrong it’s not even wrong. It’s “confusing the Proud Arabian Stallion for the Family Arabian Stallion” level of wrong.

First, the whole throwback concept: the model this Stablemate is based off of was a BreyerFest Raffle model in 2016. That’s not a throwback: that’s more like an accidental drop and roll under the kitchen chair. Everything that is past is history, but criminy, you’ve got nearly 30 years of history to work with and you go with something from three years ago?

Second, the name is misspelled on the blog: is Areia, not Aeria. Areia is a city in Brazil, and it’s also the Portuguese word for sand. It’s an appropriate name for a dappled sooty palomino horse made for a Brazilian Carnival-themed BreyerFest.

Just a few weeks ago I was half-joking with my friends that one of the two things I was hoping for with any potential new Social Media hires at Breyer HQ was an ability to spell – but that I wasn’t optimistic about it.

Way to prove my point, guys.   

Another thing: the name they chose for it. All of the other Stablemate doppelgangers have names that bear some thematic similarity to their Traditional counterparts. Red Velvet and Chiffon are both cakes; Boot Scootin’ Boogie and Toe Tapper are both dance-related; and Allegro and Andante are both musical terms.

The only similarity Areia and Arya have is in the spelling. And aside from the obvious pandering to female Game of Thrones fans, the mold is not a mare.

They’ve done this several times before in the past – release models on gender-inappropriate molds – that they now include swappable gender bits in many of their newer molds. Those bits are so small on Stablemates it’s a moot point most of the time anyway.

Stilll… they just couldn’t resist the temptation to be cutesy and clever.

(FYI: I have neither watched nor read Game of Thrones. I like my fantasy a little less depressing.)  

And finally, there’s this bit of copy in the blog post itself:

… on the always-popular Geronimo mold.

No. Just, no. If there’s one thing that hobbyists can agree on, it is that the Geronimo mold is not particularly popular or beloved. I have nothing against it personally – I’ll pick up a gloss version of the Bandera eventually, as a companion to my extra-dark variation of the Matte – but this is simply not true.

The sad thing about this is that, independent of its context, I like the model personally. But as someone who strives to couch every Breyer release ever in its own context, I am having a hard time dealing with this one.

(It also does not help my mood that my birthday weekend is apparently including SNOW in the forecast. Seriously? Can’t I have one birthday free from unwelcome guests?)