RE: tinkerbell_hips Dollhouse 1.6
RE: http://tinkerbell-hips.livejournal.com/243943.html
So. No [Dolls don't have persistent memory]. They aren't supposed to, but ESV manage to do it anyway.
I recalled the bison thing thus the question. My first question was what is ESV (ECHO SIERRA VICTOR) define your acronyms?
Could be the 5 seconds between engagements? They did it yesterday, so they "Always" do it. {confused/shrug}.
Topher's point, it wasn't 'intellectual', but 'instinctual', in case that wasn't understood. ESV shouldn't/aren't supposed to have persistent memory thus the query/confusion.
Also ESV have relationships interactions. Do these re-manifest so quickly after each wipe?
There is some real life precedence for some of this. Memory patient HM, had damage to the part of the brain which encodes short term memory. They made him work the same puzzle everyday. Everyday he didn't consciously remember working it, but his times improved.Also he can learn skills but doesn't realize he has them.
Maybe they 'relearn' each other quickly?
Or Maybe the 'tabula retard' imprint has ideas of the occupants built in?
Who WAS the actor playing Joel Miner?! I CANNOT THINK OF HIS NAME AND IT IS MAKING ME CRAZY.
I'm gonna say you're anxious to respond, 'cause I wrote it in my big 'ol post... Comedy Central's Patten Oswald.
This is why it's surprising he never struck me as anything but your usual obnoxious stand-up comic on that channel, but these sci/fi-type guest-appearances are apparently where he really shines.
The porn bit was funny, but a little off how calm she was with the random security people. Why did she think that it was normal for an FBI agent to assault someone with a gun over porn?
Her porn is different than yours. {smirk}
I think her comfort is part of the retardation. She's supposed to be X way, she's not prepared for a crisis, this time.
Mostly I think your over-analyzing the funny.
"Oh my God what are you doing! please Don't hurt us!" a normal person reaction, isn't as funny.
Then again, I don't know what I'd do about crazy violence in front of me: Runaway, hang out, make jokes, or relieve myself in fear?
Behavior is shaped with pressure.
Ugh. You knew that one of the handlers was going to do it. Though personally I was waiting for Dominic to take out some of his aggression.
Dominic isn't 'bad'. His motivations are somewhat understandable. ECHO keeps going 'off mission' it makes things complicated. He's also worried about an ALPHA situation. Crazy bloody scary freaking mess he wishes to avoid. ECHO is involved. People seem to end up dead around ECHO. Were I him I'd want to get rid of her from a security stand-point. Were I he, I'd be a bit more anxious with her around. Also you're missing a key point about that situation, we'll get back to at the end of this post.
I want to say it was Victor [who planted the camera] , the day he went to Paul's house for "help"
Who planted the Camera is immaterial.
My point was Ms.NOVEMBER has opportunity, and could have done so, meaning she was a doll.
Sending VICTOR is kind of funny, when you think about it. Granted if VICTOR gets caught not a big deal, but Ms.NOVEMBER?!? Still inefficient use of resources. Though that also helps the plot along, as it casted doubt on her doll status..
Was Echo prepped to kill Ballard, or was she prepped to make it look like he shot a cop?
It makes sense to me that, ECHO was prepped to frame him.
The killing idea was a mislead. 'Let them win' is let them think they've succeed in throwing you off the case/trail.
At the end of the episode, Dominic said something about how Ballard was suspended for the shooting of a cop, which made me wonder if that bit was intentional.
I didn't doubt it 'til you questioned it.
That was the plan, right? That could explain why she stopped in the middle, slipped a secret out, and the immediately shot a cop. Perhaps the arrival of law enforcement on the scene was what triggered her out of her state?
She was still speaking to him lucidly, at least after the fight ended. She was in control. This is what the 'house' wants we have to give it to them. This is also what the Insider (Pat O'Brien?) wanted.
Okay, someone corrupted the disc! I thought this myself as when you see Topher put the disc in, it lights up red, but when he returns it isn't lit up anymore. Not sure if this was on purpose or if the red light fading just signified the end of the process.
Sounds like a process thing.
My base guess is that Claire and Boyd are working together, but that is just because I love them.
That's boring.
I was somebody from left field. Though it still has to make some sense.
Another popular theory is that Adelle herself is the mole within the organization.
They need to introduce her boss, or take a trip the infamous 'attic', or something to make that more compelling.
She's big and bad now -- Darth Vader without the Emperor. Though more ambiguous than bad.
There is a thing between her and ECHO which is still very weird as you've suggested (speaking of Darth Vader?).
Ivy would be interesting. Gets tired of being treated like a sandwich lady by Topher. You know something will happen there are one point.
I see that as being general character happenstance.
She generally doesn't have a function yet; she's just there,thus the scrutiny. Mole would be a function.
Wasn't expecting multiple Dollhouses. That one got me.
The mole-thing didn't get you? It adds a whole new dimension to the show.
Not only might any given character be a doll, they may also be a mole, and/or both?!?
The whole "other purpose" made me wonder too.
World Domination, what's to wonder? Though for the purposes of world peace would be a neat twist.
Then again... I keep trying to apply old Whedon paradigmns to this. He's somewhat aware of these and is probably trying to outwit them.
You know, I saw this coming and yet I did not see it coming. EXACTLY.
If you thought they were going to rape/kill her, they got you.
I knew she was a Doll.
You didn't know.
but yeah, manipulation aside, it was obvious ... she served no other purpose... too pretty, too avaliable, etc.
At the same time she neatly falls into useless likable Tara/Fred territory which would put her on deck to be squished, though maybe not 'til that'd have drug it out for X many years.
I just assumed as much from the way her name on IMDB went from November to Mellie. Sort of the way Victor was supposed to be a Doll and then he wasn't, but he really was.
Stay off IMDB!?
or Don't tell me these things when you do find them out. I shrugged off the NOVEMBER thing.
I just didn't quite expect it to happen the way it did. When Adelle was talking to Hearn about taking out a Civilian, I honestly believed they were going to kill her. Thought Paul was calling her as soon as Hearn started kicking her ass, and I was just waiting for the Calendar scene again.
That's why it's brilliant, it makes you forget what you would normally assume.
...AND SO HERE ARE MY QUESTIONS.
I have all the answers,
'cause if I guess everything, then I'll eventually be right.
Is the Mellie personality a doll, or is that her real personality and she is only a doll when she is switched on?
Unless we introduce some sort of new concept, she's just another doll. She is also tasty, see just another doll.
And c'mon! if she's not been changed she's still definitely tweaked: "I'm so ugly and damaged! Why would anyone want to bother with me?", "I made untouched left-overs for you."
I could have all sorts of boys... but I've nothing better to do than throw myself at seemingly uninterested cop, who enjoys getting himself shot and chasing conspiracy theories.
A sleeper active? I think this leaves fans, especially the ones who keep crying the being a doll is basically rape, in an awkward position.
Fans are silly.
It's a T.V. show, granted the best of what that can be, but still...
I would guess 'Sleeper Active', just implies she's out there waiting to be activated, e.g. the vase thing, should she be needed presumably to harm or subvert Agent Paul.
Depends upon how you define 'rape'. Is rape lack of consent? or specific denial of consent?
She's a doll. She's not herself, so it's not good. She can't consent.
Most people LOVE Mellie/Paul and cried tears of OTP joy when they finally got together.
... um.
{too frightened to respond}
If she IS a doll, and it ISN'T her personality causing her to be super obsessed with Paul, does that make them bad people for basically supporting a relationship
Bad people? No. It's a t.v. show. No one's getting raped, assaulted, or murdered.
that is by their own definition rape?
Rape requires a rapist?
In my book that person has to be aware of their actions. i.e. Paul has been emphatically given consent, albeit false. He cannot be 'raping' her. Though while Paul is not 'raping' her, 'rape' could be occurring as she has not, and cannot consent.
How does it work when people are passed out/asleep? I've heard of instances of people requesting services in their sleep only to wake up to find people doing things they'd not knowingly requested.
While I find this somewhat silly, but on a deeper level this is the philosophical quandary:
If people are unaware and they have been shaped/conditioned are they responsible for their actions?
In the case of the dolls obviously not, 'til otherwise noted. It's touching on the whole B.F. Skinner / Sociology sort of thing: situation/collective vs. the individual.
This sort of demented thinking is where you get it's okay to fix this or that, because people aren't capable of being responsible for themselves.
Despite being fully grown and non-retarded. Stronger/better/smarter intellectuals are the only ones who should be trusted to shape and control. In the form of parents, religion, government: Authority.
As incentives are controlled, people are implicitly shaped. They play games within the confines of these paradigms. They want to rebel against minor issues... who's in charge, who gets what, the meaning of X, who is allowed to do Y. They want to control shape the system that is shaping them. The thought it does not occur to them that the system is the problem, and is ultimately causing their problems.
Some how I see it very loosely analogous to the whole idea of life-boat scenarios. If you're in a boat and there's only enough food for X many people, who do you kill?
Is it okay to kill them? etc. etc. people setting up screwed up extreme scenarios where their warped logic can be justified, missing the whole point of ... ideally you try to avoid the life-boat in the first place.
I really like Mellie and so I am part of the camp who hopes that Mellie is her real personality and they just decided to make her a sleeper active because she was close to Paul.
It's an evil lie until you can tell me different.
This is why I'm intrigued by Boyd. He's supposedly a good man doing evil things even if he's trying to make the system better he's assisting evil.
But then again, she would have had to consent to her job as a doll in the first place.
I go back to the black chick in the puff piece:
"No one consents to be slave unless they already are one."
Even so ... look at the dolls can you consent to all that? It's impossible really.
It's coercion of some sort to escape the threat of force.
Maybe after the five years is up, you get your personality back but there is still always the possibility that you'd be called back to duty without knowing.
I think the five years thing is a ruse.
I want to say that maybe there is a disk somewhere labeled CAROLINE. That's the idea I'm getting anyway.
I think that might be a story they tell people. Like five years.
Once 'you' are gone all that's left is the unclean slate. They use you 'til they send you to the attic? {shrug}
B) However, there maybe the motive of 'just in case' and they do have the CAROLINE drive/imprint. Not with any sort of intention to restore it, but just in case for some reason she would be needed {shrugs}.
C) Or perhaps they know they're going to be 'killed', but believe they are helping some greater 'cause, presumable unrelated to the 'house' or not directly. It's a crazy thought, but if you can go with it it makes the whole thing more interesting. What's worth that?
It took me a minute to catch onto the whole bit where Echo kept saying, "It isn't finished." And then the mildly horrified look on Adelle's face made me snap into it. "Would you .. like it to be finished?" It's like she is acknowledging Echo's special behavior and even rewarding it in the end.
I have a hard time wrapping my mind around the sentimentality, if that's what it is. Especially given the weird and creepy circumstances.
Consent?
And the look on Dr. Fred's face when Topher was talking about how all the dolls are beautiful. ;_;
Elaborate?
I think he may have said something more open ended like 'everyone' here is beautiful, or some open language? ... I thought it possibly being an oblique come-on.
Another thing. People in communities keep flipping out about how Topher said remote wipes were not possible and how Adelle did a remote wipe over the phone.
I personally say that having a code word to "activate" someone is not the same as being wiped. Sort of the way they are programmed to know about treatments and to trust their handler. Your thoughts?
That wasn't a 'wipe'.
That was an aspect of her programming. She did what she was designed to do. She was imprinted with the manchurian candidate? (not that I've ever seen that one, '62 or '04)
She proceeded to kick ass, not "Did I fall asleep?"
What is a 'wipe' ? Even when they're wiped they have the 'tabula retard' imprinted on them. There is not erase? only write-over?
Are there layers you can pull back? or are we still a slate?
How did Boyd know it was Sierra's handler and not Victor or that other temp. handler? Will possibly catch this on re-watching.
If nothing else. SIERRA's handler is suspect number one.
SIERRA is designed to trust him. SIERRA reacted in while eating... why did she not react while being violated?
VICTOR isn't smart enough to figure out the camera dead zones. The new guy might not have been around long enough to know.
Either way, SIERRA might have reacted, she's not supposed to implicitly trust those people. That's why it's über creepy. It very closely mirrors the abuse of a child, physically, and/or mentally disadvantaged person.
"Where there is a systematic disparity in power, given enough time and opportunity it will be abused.".
or more succinctly:
"Where there is a disparity in power it will be abuse"
It's important to the story he do something so heinous, it makes his death 'justified' by the standards of the plot. "He was a very demented creep."
Good actor perhaps, he played a very convincing lead hero on Earth Final Conflict (even despite the show being really weak and sad), and I believe him as creepy here..