Purgatorium Sancti Jossii

[frenchani]

Watching yesterday's episode of Dollhouse, "Belonging", I kept thinking:

- the actors are great but Enver is fabulous. How cute Victor is!!!!
- where's Tahmoh? Do handlers get a day off when their dolls don't have any engagement?
- if Joss Whedon is not God, he is really an unconscious Catholic! Well, sort of.

Because now we know that, no matter how

Comments

[frenchani]

I guess that as usual, and probably because of my background, I tend to read Joss' work through the prism of literature and mythologies, but as he often borrows from them(who else would have used Chaucer on a sci fi tv show? To me Joss is a bit like Dan Simmons) I feel justified in doing so. :- )

I keep forgetting that I might spoil people who haven't seen "Epitaph One" when posting a review. Sorry. But you really MUST watch it, for a lot of stuff that is showed in season 2 actually ties in with the matter from "Epitaph One".

[frenchani]

Oh I know he doesn't write all the episodes, but it's easy to say Joss than to change the name of the writet every new eppy when I wrote a review, Joss stands for Joss' team of writers ;- )

Besides he's still the boss and I think he gives them general direction for episodes they wrote in details (well I read that's how it worked in Buffy times).

Anyway I don't think you need to be religious inclined to use religious stuff in writing, it's just part of a cultural background, and it's often poetic. Joss did it all the time on BTVS and he is an atheist...and so am I by the way.

Having said that, as usual, I'm mostly having fun seeking connections that may exist only on my mind. It did strike me yesterday that the dollhouse looked like a purgatory.

PS: La Belle Chose is the episode based on the Wife of Bath prologue.

[stormwreath]

Is losing one's mind a form of salvation in the Jossverse, or at least a redeeming feature?

I get the impression it's that a person who's lost their capacity for rational thought has also lost their capacity to think up elaborate rationalisations and self-deceptions.Their madness might deceive them, but they no longer deceive themselves.

As for Joss being a secret Catholic: I doubt it, because the doctrine of Purgatory requires a Heaven too. I don't think Joss believes in happy ever afters...

[frenchani]

Maybe I am the secret Catholic!

I was kidding when I called him a Catholic but Joss may have his own version of Heaven actually, he isn't that hopeless. Have you seen his speech when he received the Cultural Humanist award?

http://forum-network.org/lecture/joss-whedon-cultural-humanist

He said he was probably a more of a true believer than religious people...

Anyway a writing can use cultural materials without subscribing to the whole system they are part of.

[stormwreath]

Maybe I am the secret Catholic!

Well you are French, and therefore part of the evil empire plotting to suppress the rights of freeborn Protestant Englishmen and subject us all to Popish tyranny and... wait, wrong century. This is 2009 not 1709. Sorry. :-(

I was kidding when I called him a Catholic

And I was (probably) kidding when I said he doesn't believe in happy ever afters - I don't know about his personal life, I can only go by what he gives us in his art... ;-)

[lijability]

Well.... I was Catholic.

I also got to read all of what Echo had scrawled on the lid of her bed-chamber.

It was mostly about what she remembered. But there was one thing about Topher that I could never make out the end to.....

[frenchani]

I tried to read it too but couldn't get more than "Topher makes".

Could it be "Topher makes us forget"?

[lijability]

I think you might be right.... ;-)