Easily the most powerful moment is all of Star Trek.

Let’s be honest, “signals” mean exactly two things. Jack and shit. A viable progressive is just not gonna appear on thoughts and prayers because someone signals hard enough. The only way to move the needle is by choosing the viable party that doesn’t actively campaign on the notion of eradicating “vermin”.

In a functional society, we would have options like ranked choice, but functional is not a great word to explain the current situation in the U.S. So you bite the bullet, and make the less evil choice. Then you do it over and over again until the party that is actively trying to destroy democracy no longer exists, and you can potentially make effective voting reform.

There are two ways to fix this, slowly with every election over potentially decades, or quickly. And doing it quickly almost certainly involves people in the streets and ugliness on a scale you really cannot comprehend. But no amount of “signaling” is gonna work because honestly close to half the electorate just doesn’t fucking care.

My personal favorites are the Assassin series, starting with Assassin Apprentice by Robin Hobb.

Some of the best most heartfelt characters I have read in any modern fantasy, with a brilliantly unique type of magic and adventure. There is some political intrigue, especially within the first trilogy, but it isn’t overly burdened by it.

The whole series has continued to be a heavily character driven emotional roller coaster that I would love to be able to forget just so I could read them again for the first time.