Ok, first, brief description of the fic I'm planning: Post-4.5, Effy has a lucid dream while unconscious in the hospital, and takes an Alice-Through-the-Looking-Glass-style allegorical journey through the problems faced by her circle of friends and her own mental issues.
My question to pose to group discussion is this: Do you think Effy is
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Note when Effy tells Freddie to fuck off when she tries to ..mount him, but later regretting it and begging for him to respond and if you look at the texts, there's a familiar pattern of what her emotions are at the time of the text - I thought that was so well done by Skins. It was such an accurate detail that I was blown away.
I can go on and on about this to be honest. S4 E5 was most likely the best episode of any show I've ever seen.
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personally, i think she became overwhelmed by her situation (family life, no tony, cook & freddie problems, etc)/emotions throughout s3 and s4, which led to her having a breakdown. but past that meltdown in 4x05, i don't believe effy is crazy. not for a second, actually. i think she's led to believe by other people that she's crazy, specifically freddie and doctor foster. but as for actually being truly mentally ill? nope. no way.
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Frankly, the whole situation that is presented to us in Freddie's episode is unreliable, as we're only seeing what/how Freddie sees Effy doing/acting. He's basing his perception off his mother -- and who knows what her issues were -- so everything is tilted more towards the "crazy" angle.
But seriously, Effy's "sane" in every episode except 405 and (most of) 407. Even in 408 she acts fine -- she doesn't even freak out when Cook arrives, like she did in 405. She's more like, Yeah, cool, whatever.
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Tbqh, I don't think she was ever intended to be written as a character with a mental illness -- or really, not "crazy" -- and that JB just wanted to give a character a mental illness to push his own "therapists are bad" agenda. (Which he basically said he did anyway, so.)
I suppose you could take the perception that she was crazy all along, and I wish I could agree with your theory of bi-polar disorder, but I just don't see it. I had a roommate in high school who was bi-polar and it was ... I guess "consistent" is the word I'm looking for. S4 aside, I just don't think Effy embodies that illness. *shrug*
If I was just looking at 405 exclusively? Absolutely, it's bi-polar disorder. But examining Effy's character/life as a whole? It doesn't fit.
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Sometimes I also get the feeling, like xthe_ingenue mentioned, that she played it up when people thought she was crazy, that a lot of her actions, the extreme partying in S1/2, meddling in people's relationships, "the list", fucking Freddie and Cook around for a year, the breakdown, had a lot more to do with boredom and power/control than real mental instability. She may have had the same feeling as Tony expressed in series one after Michelle broke up with him, that nothing ever happens in Bristol so he makes shit happen because it's fun and because he can. I don't know that that's what they were going for with Effy but the similarities in behavior are definitely there. Thanks for all the input guys, if anyone else has an opinion feel ( ... )
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So, 'crazy'? Absolutely not. No way, no how. If you ignore the couple of episodes in season 4 you have a picture of a deeply troubled, definitely depressive, possibly bipolar girl (although, bipolar requires manic periods too, and we see none of those that aren't drug assisted). She's also emotionally repressed, and dealing with the fact that her beauty, mystery and charisma make people fall in love with her without knowing her, or even bothering to get to know her. And even when they want to know her, she finds it incredibly hard to let them in ( ... )
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