So, I did the meme below for BtVS, AtS, The Good Wife, and Harry Potter. I'm still taking more requests. My answers are below the cuts
( Read more... )
Sorry I'm so late to respond. The work week was intense.
I both kinda love this and am eternally frustrated with it as an aspect of vampire 'verses because I feel like it's not deconstructed enough, though maybe that's me having an issue with fandom and not the shows, LOL. But basically in almost every instance I've seen of a vampire being like this, it strikes me as such a human (LOL the irony) response of genuinely thinking you want something because you think you should or because you have a rose-colored view of it and because you're not yet faced with the possibility of it really happening.
Right. My patience for Spike and especially Angel moping that they're experience DA BIGGEST TRAGEDY EVAH because they're not human when they get to enjoy being indestructible while the humans die very young and sustain horribly painful and expensive injuries is nil. And for what- just a vague feeling of being cursed and at war with their demonic instincts and bloodlust (as opposed to the human feeling of decay and at war with the constant pressures on earth for humans to do whatever to survive and live comfortably even if it's rough on their conscience) and because it's an obstacle in their relationship with Buffy?
OH GOD YES. I'm increasingly perplexed by the sheer OTT-ness of fandom's inability to accept their favorites not even being flawed, but even being human. The standard of "goodness" people impose on their favorite characters is just plain weird, so much of the time.
Yup! But I mean really!
Angel: I don't suppose we know what this other dimension is like - I mean, besides fortress-y and demon-y. Wesley: Well, based on the burn scars Cordy received from the last vision, I'd imagine fire is not out of the question. Angel: Fire. Wesley: And if the young man is imprisoned, I'd imagine there may be guards. Angel: Guards. Wesley: I don't need to explain to you that if Wolfram and Hart are behind this mission it can't be good. Just because Lilah tells you that this man is wrongly imprisoned doesn't make it so. Angel: You're right. Wesley: Nor do I have to explain to you that helping them violates everything you stand for. Angel: Right again. Wesley: Good. Then I don't need to convince you to let me go with you.
I don't think Wesley is a *conscious* hypocrite. IMO, he aggrandizes the people he loves and their importance to the world (especially Cordelia and Angel) to make anything in their service, no matter how dangerous to everyone else, into a Crusade for the World even though it's not. It's his way of comforting himself through his dually *incredibly* passionate Duties to the World and his Love for His Comrades In Arms which is admirable- but it ends up being his undoing and there's something stinkily elitist and short-sighted that like, Willow is more expendable than Angel *because* Willow, by the time of Choices, was just a young girl with some magic parlor tricks but not a grand destiny founded around being a vampire with hundreds of years of bloodshed behind him and a detachable soul.
Her construction grates on me so much because especially in the later books, I just get such a strong sense of her being written towards Rowling's Idea Of What The Coolest Girl Ever Should Be, and it's so annoying. She's an anomaly in the books, too, because I can't think of another character whose development felt so unnatural.
LOL. No matter the criticisms of the Harry Potter books, they're brilliant and JK Rowling was mindblowingly thoughtful and disciplined into constructing the universe on all levels- from plot to world-building to crucially here, HUGE ensemble of characters.
So, I try to explain the Ginny-problem as JK Rowling was committed to not get Harry and Hermione together. However, even such loooooong series with its loooong books (intended for children primarily, no less!), only had room for MAIN protagonist-development for the three young main protagonists in the Trio. Next, JKR's priority was older characters who were crucial to the plot- Snape, Dumbledore, McGonagall, Voldemort. She really had a big story that she really wanted to tell about the Malfloy family, especially Draco. By the time that was finished, JKR didn't have a lot of page-time for the other characters but she still wanted a big ensemble of more characters- and actually NEEDED it because the best thing about the books is that she creates a big detailed world that requires inhabitants of all stripes and personalities. So the extra characters by comparison to the biggie characters like Trio or Dumbledore feel like extras- INCLUDING HARRY'S ENDGAME ROMANCE.
....That said, Luna didn't get many pages devoted to her story and she wasn't a protagonist but she was still more interesting and appealing and *realer* than Ginny. JKR could have written an extra love-interest young character who meant a lot emotionally to the readership while being a small enough character to be a bit of a surprise and not sap up the pages for the designed protagonists WHILE STILL BEING A 3D CHARACTER.
I both kinda love this and am eternally frustrated with it as an aspect of vampire 'verses because I feel like it's not deconstructed enough, though maybe that's me having an issue with fandom and not the shows, LOL. But basically in almost every instance I've seen of a vampire being like this, it strikes me as such a human (LOL the irony) response of genuinely thinking you want something because you think you should or because you have a rose-colored view of it and because you're not yet faced with the possibility of it really happening.
Right. My patience for Spike and especially Angel moping that they're experience DA BIGGEST TRAGEDY EVAH because they're not human when they get to enjoy being indestructible while the humans die very young and sustain horribly painful and expensive injuries is nil. And for what- just a vague feeling of being cursed and at war with their demonic instincts and bloodlust (as opposed to the human feeling of decay and at war with the constant pressures on earth for humans to do whatever to survive and live comfortably even if it's rough on their conscience) and because it's an obstacle in their relationship with Buffy?
OH GOD YES. I'm increasingly perplexed by the sheer OTT-ness of fandom's inability to accept their favorites not even being flawed, but even being human. The standard of "goodness" people impose on their favorite characters is just plain weird, so much of the time.
Yup! But I mean really!
Angel: I don't suppose we know what this other dimension is like - I mean, besides fortress-y and demon-y.
Wesley: Well, based on the burn scars Cordy received from the last vision, I'd imagine fire is not out of the question.
Angel: Fire.
Wesley: And if the young man is imprisoned, I'd imagine there may be guards.
Angel: Guards.
Wesley: I don't need to explain to you that if Wolfram and Hart are behind this mission it can't be good. Just because Lilah tells you that this man is wrongly imprisoned doesn't make it so.
Angel: You're right.
Wesley: Nor do I have to explain to you that helping them violates everything you stand for.
Angel: Right again.
Wesley: Good. Then I don't need to convince you to let me go with you.
I don't think Wesley is a *conscious* hypocrite. IMO, he aggrandizes the people he loves and their importance to the world (especially Cordelia and Angel) to make anything in their service, no matter how dangerous to everyone else, into a Crusade for the World even though it's not. It's his way of comforting himself through his dually *incredibly* passionate Duties to the World and his Love for His Comrades In Arms which is admirable- but it ends up being his undoing and there's something stinkily elitist and short-sighted that like, Willow is more expendable than Angel *because* Willow, by the time of Choices, was just a young girl with some magic parlor tricks but not a grand destiny founded around being a vampire with hundreds of years of bloodshed behind him and a detachable soul.
Reply
LOL. No matter the criticisms of the Harry Potter books, they're brilliant and JK Rowling was mindblowingly thoughtful and disciplined into constructing the universe on all levels- from plot to world-building to crucially here, HUGE ensemble of characters.
So, I try to explain the Ginny-problem as JK Rowling was committed to not get Harry and Hermione together. However, even such loooooong series with its loooong books (intended for children primarily, no less!), only had room for MAIN protagonist-development for the three young main protagonists in the Trio. Next, JKR's priority was older characters who were crucial to the plot- Snape, Dumbledore, McGonagall, Voldemort. She really had a big story that she really wanted to tell about the Malfloy family, especially Draco. By the time that was finished, JKR didn't have a lot of page-time for the other characters but she still wanted a big ensemble of more characters- and actually NEEDED it because the best thing about the books is that she creates a big detailed world that requires inhabitants of all stripes and personalities. So the extra characters by comparison to the biggie characters like Trio or Dumbledore feel like extras- INCLUDING HARRY'S ENDGAME ROMANCE.
....That said, Luna didn't get many pages devoted to her story and she wasn't a protagonist but she was still more interesting and appealing and *realer* than Ginny. JKR could have written an extra love-interest young character who meant a lot emotionally to the readership while being a small enough character to be a bit of a surprise and not sap up the pages for the designed protagonists WHILE STILL BEING A 3D CHARACTER.
Reply
Leave a comment