a couple lists, because I'm strangely fried

[pocochina]

So I've had a suspiciously enjoyable week with Tumblr, which led to a shocking uptick in notes and....seven?! new follows in 48 hours. Which is cool but how did these people find me, people are reading my yapping and sending other people to read my yapping and WHO DID THE THING A MILLION YEARS DUNGEON!!

In seriousness, so far it's been pretty cool;

Comments

[pocochina]

I think her emotional unavailability and the way it's subtly handled by the text without making it an Oh Look, Emotional Unavailability is gorgeous.

AGREED. And I think it was really well-handled in that...that's a thing where it would've been VERY easy for me to just declare allegiance right there, lol. But the show didn't let me take the easy way out with her by erasing the impact it had on the people around her? Like, usually when emotional unavailability in women shows up in narratives, the "damage" to others is "you wound my pride by being too independent at me" (a la HIMYM), which just makes me more amorally protective. But I think Veronica's patterns - including her tendency to push to get people to disappoint her, and the power issues around her fascination with other people's emotional lives and vulnerabilities - were sometimes legitimately hurtful, in a way that kept her on the hook without eviscerating her.

the text neither castigates her for it and suggests that she will eventually learn to be more caring or something,

[youcallitwinter]

OMG, DISCUSSION = YAY (esp when it involves Veronica, because everything you say.)

BUT I HAVE TO SAY THIS ABOUT KLAUS BEFORE I GO BACK TO WORK: I LOVE YOUR VIEWPOINT ON HIM. I do think he's hilariously fail and find it hard to take him seriously at times, but I've never thought he's pointless. What I've always found really fascinating about him is that, imo, he's very different from how "powerful men" are often depicted. In the sense, that I always feel that his power literally derives from...the fact that he is powerful. Like, that's kind of tautological, but it's definitely my view of him. It's that, as far as I can tell, he has no particular political acumen, manipulative skills, or super-special levels of intelligence, or a "construction" of power (ala Elijah, who always ~seems powerful not only because of the way he is, but because of how he acts; he has that quiet, cool dignity that exudes power). Klaus can often be all bluster and emotionality and ridiculousness, but he is still powerful because he is powerful (and that too by

[pocochina]

OMG YES ALL OF THIS. And it's something I think only TVD could do, because it captures the essence of "life in the state of nature" in a way I've never seen another show do. The only other narrative I can think of off the top of my head that does it is Lord of the Flies, though I'm sure there are more.

I will say that I think Klaus has one edge on most people in terms of interactions, in that I think he is shockingly cynical and ruthless about acting on it. More cynical than the other werewolves, more so than Elena, his baseline expectation is not just that people might let you down, but that people are absolutely 100% always out to get him. And because he feels so wronged by the world - and though Klaus is the most awful character in the 'verse, I also think he is the most sinned against - he has absolutely no qualms about acting on it. (Exactly the opposite of Elijah in this regard, who time and again lets people fuck with him because he wants someone to pass on the opportunity and never learns that they never willBut...I'm still

[pocochina]

I mean, I think it can be as cynical as it is because it shows people (well, creatures with human-ish cognitive processes, so, setting aside the existential personhood question) operating in a world where everyone operates on the assumption that there are a lot of incentives for violent dominance plays, and absolutely no pre-existing social or moral disincentives for that violence. The Council is unreliable, and has been pretty well toothless for a very long time, and any mundane authorities are of course not going to do a bit of good. It's everyone for themselves, a modern exploration of Hobbesian war of all against all. There are some arguable mitigating circumstances (family ties), but even these are (a) closely tied to self-interest and (b) far from guarantees

[pocochina]

I WANT TO LIVE INSIDE YOUR BRAIN

I WOULD WISH THIS ON NO ONE.

Do you think it's over now that Silas has entered the picture? Nooooo, it's one of my favorite parts of the show! :(

I don't think the cynicism and status-jockeying is over, by any means, but I do think that the existence of someone so much more powerful than they are changes the nature of that status-jockeying? I'd compare him to R'hllor and the White Walkers in GoT - it doesn't erase the usual power plays, but you'll get critical mass for a few clumps of people to have an interest in the collective.

I really disagree with the tendency of fandom to condemn characters for making the system work for them, if they can? Like, I'm willing to bet that you (the general you) wouldn't want to die either, if you were in their place! And I can't fault any of the kids for not only wanting to make it out alive, but to get some enjoyment out of life while doing so.

Agreed, ofc.

[youcallitwinter]

UGH WHY DO I HAVE TO WORK. (Not that I am, I keep coming back here, lol, because omg such an interesting discussion.) But, I think this is the first time that I've realized why, out of all the characters, Katherine is the one most terrified of Klaus. I mean, she practically created the whole Klaus myth all by herself in S2, so when Klaus actually appeared on the scene, and was so ridiculous and waxed lyrical about hummingbirds, it kind of made everyone go "wait...this is the guy Katherine's been running from for half a millennium?! THAT MAKES NO SENSE." This is the first time I've realized that it DOES make sense, not only because Klaus killed her entire family (which it's so easy to forget sometimes, BECAUSE LOOK AT HIM), but because as someone whose spent her entire existence in just surviving, she recognizes power, and actively makes use of it wherever she finds it. Katherine isn't blindsided by externalities as most other characters are, because, in her way, she is as clear-sighted as Klaus is. For her, Klaus being a total dork

[pocochina]

as someone whose spent her entire existence in just surviving, she recognizes power, and actively makes use of it wherever she finds it. Katherine isn't blindsided by externalities as most other characters are, because, in her way, she is as clear-sighted as Klaus is.

I never even noticed that Katherine was more afraid of Klaus than the others were (and she's far more worried about him than about Elijah, because she has Elijah wrapped around her pinkie and because he's just not as dangerous as Klaus), but you're absolutely right.

Literally stabbing his family in the back is not betrayal for him. And yet, when the situation is reversed and he ascends to the "victim" state, he preaches conventional morality of the how-could-you-do-this-I-trusted-you variety.

Agreed. All's fair in love and war, and the Original family are very deeply mired in both. Though I will say in his defense that he never actually tried to permanently kill his siblings in the way they've threatened to do to him - daggering sucks, but it can be undone, at least

[lynnenne]

and though Klaus is the most awful character in the 'verse, I also think he is the most sinned against

I think this is one of the points that fascinates me about Klaus - that we actually get to see the construction of the monster, yet it does nothing to make him more sympathetic. Unlike shows like Dexter or The Sopranos where the audience is asked to root for the monster, Klaus remains the antagonist. I love watching him yet I don't feel one bit sorry for him. (He's kind of like Gaius Baltar in that regard.)

[pocochina]

YES. TVD - the TVD 'verse, I should probably get used to saying - does this so much better than any other show I can think of. Other shows, even shows that do have genuine and thoughtful philosophical perspectives generally, tend to fall into the trap of assuming that that which is understood is also condoned

[lynnenne]

I think I feel more sympathy for Gauis than I do for Klaus, because I believe that he genuinely regrets and is sorry for the role he played in the destruction of the colonies, and then in humanity's enslavement on New Caprica. Klaus, OTOH, shows no remorse for anything, so he inspires zero pity in me.

Yet I still love him the best. Weird, huh? I blame Joseph Morgan.

[youcallitwinter]

I AM GLAD WE ARE IN AGREEMENT \o/ (isn't it interesting we can have totally different emotional responses to a character and still essentially agree on them?)

I HAVE NEVER HEARD THAT TERM, BUT YAY, I SHALL SO USE IT FROM HEREON. Also, I think this is one of the major reasons why the Strong Female Character (TM) trope is such a sham. Because their power is almost always solely contingent on the performance of it, you cannot tell that a female character is ~powerful unless they perform that power, which is one of the first signs of their actual disempowerment. Real power is almost always invisible.

[lynnenne]

And it plays into the OSG trope in the sense that fandom (without even saying it explicitly), for the most part jumps to the assumption that, "Oh, he's ~different around her because of something intrinsic to her." Whereas really it's that the guy is ~humoring his whims because she happens to pique his issues/ego in the right way, and the instant she steps out of line, BOOM. There goes the fallacy. And people think it's the writers "ruining" the male character, when really it was a case of the audience mistakenly attributing his behavior to some inherent ~specialness in the girl, i.e. He wanted it to be Real With Her because of who SHE is. LOL no.

This is as true in life as it is in fiction.