Metaphor, Analogy, Fred

[butterfly]

Okay, I'm starting to understand Tolkien's pov re: analogies. If you only see something as an analogy (or a metaphor) instead of also as story and character, it definitely limits emotional attachment to the characters and the story.

littlesammy mentioned that Fred is used as a metaphor for innocence in A Hole in the World - which I agree with. But that doesn't mean that she stops being Fred. I get the sense from reading other journals that Fred was flattened in this episode into just this one thing. And I don't see that.

To me, she's still Fred. And Fred has always been among the most light-hearted of the gang (Lorne, too, but as a demon, he does come from a significantly different background - he's the way he is because he's deliberately being the opposite of the average Pylean - but that violence that he was raised with is still familiar to him). She's been a light for them, reminding them that keeping their humanity is more important than just keeping their lives.

Now they have no reminder. I don't worry about Spike - he found his own moral ground this season and doesn't need Fred's reminder anymore. Nor am I worrying quite so much about Angel - he has Spike and he went as insane as we'll ever seen him go, I think, in the aftermath of Connor.

It's Gunn, Lorne, and Wesley that I'm worried about. Gunn, who brought the instrument to destroy Fred into the country. Lorne, who hit and threatened a frightened and clearly defenseless woman. Wesley, who shot a man in the kneecap for daring to suggest that his priorities were not the only ones to be considered.

Six men. Three of them in love with her at some point. 50% isn't a horrible percentage - though it's still flunking, of course.

Could we divide them into cavemen and astronauts? The problem, of course, is that they're all both.

Last season, Fred was the second one to see the truth about Jasmine (Connor always knew). Illyria is different than Jasmine - she doesn't seem to feel the need to pretend she's other than she is. And she doesn't seem to have the ability to automatically sway people. She's merely Illyria. As Jasmine felt an ultimate expression of the worst of Cordelia, I wonder if that's how Illyria will strike me at the end - as the worst of Fred (As Angelus is the worst that Liam could be - transformed by a demon).

The heart consumed by a demon. It's Angel's heart, of course. Fred was in danger from the moment she started being the heart of the show - because the literal heart of the main character is a dried, dead, demonic thing.