Various late-night thoughts -
Oct. 9th, 2003 10:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
butterflyOne
I like fairy tales. Disney and original. Sometimes, it's nice to have a happy ending and sweet love and light. Sometimes, a woman is more in the mood for blood in the shoe.
Who else remembers that version of Cinderella? It's fun, in a horrible way, like most of the early fairy tales. They're morbid and twisted and often with blood. And sometimes, they even had unhappy endings.
Two
Oftentimes, you get out of something what you put into it. You go into a movie expecting to hate it? You're probably less likely to adore it. Now, some movies are just so good that they blow you away regardless, but prejudice can be hard to overcome.
You watch something looking for something to mock, you'll probably find it. Nothing in this world is perfect - there's always something mockable. Doesn't mean that watching something for the sake of mocking is wrong - I love MST 3000 as much as the next dude, after all. But I try to always expect to enjoy things for their own sake. And try to enjoy it for what it is, which may not be what I'm expecting. I mean, the hero journeys in Daredevil and Spider-Man are pretty much exact opposites - each ends where the other began, pretty much. If I went to watch Daredevil and expected the same kind of evolution and the same kind of movie as Spider-Man, I'd probably have been disappointed. Instead, I went because the trailer looked cool and I like Ben Affleck as an actor. And I really, really enjoyed it, on many more levels than I was expecting.
My problem with Angel was that I wanted it to be Buffy. Once I let that go, I was able to examine the show by its own merits and decide that it was actually pretty damn cool. I never had a problem with taking each season of Buffy as an entity of its own, with its own ideas to explore. I never wanted them to redo Season One's coming together, Season Two's epic romance/tragedy, Season Three's father&daughter/coming of age drama, Season Four's friendship split and college intro, Season Five's look at the meaning of family or Season Six's exploration of depression in Season Seven. I wanted something new. I got what I wanted out of Season Seven. I'm happy with it.
Three
'Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places' is so Connor's motto.
I've been thinking more about the fundamental difference between Connor and Harry Potter and it does all come down to love.
Connor did receive love from the father figure who hated everything that Connor came from. Harry didn't. The lessons that Connor learnt were all the deeper for the fact that Holtz did care about him. Harry, on the other hand, was never treated as a part of the Dursley family - so it makes sense that he would scorn their ideals.
Of course, this meant that they approached the shake-up of their worldview very differently - Connor was confused and broken by it and Harry welcomed it.
Connor's fall is three-fold -
1) He'd been taught from his youngest days that what he was was a killer. The Destroyer.
2) What he was taught was evil was not. And then, it turned out that one of the new 'good guys' really was a 'bad guy' after all.
3) Everyone who claimed to love him lied to him.
If Evil is not Evil ("There are 'Not Evil' Evil Things?") and people who say they love you lie, and the thing you know best in life is killing...
Connor wasn't fully formed (he was always parroting back someone else's words - about the only time he wasn't was in the monologue to Cordelia in the church). He never had the chance to grow up. He was emotionally stunted - grew up isolated. His only company was a man who despised his parentage and wanted to form him into a weapon.
I can't imagine what his childhood must have been like. Fighting as soon as he could. Always working to be what Holtz needed. Knowing that he was 'the bastard son of two demons'.
All his life, pain was his constant companion. Physical pain. Mental and emotional isolation. He knew how to manipulate people because Holtz would have taught him how, but he wouldn't really understand them. He'd never been exposed before, after all.
I like fairy tales. Disney and original. Sometimes, it's nice to have a happy ending and sweet love and light. Sometimes, a woman is more in the mood for blood in the shoe.
Who else remembers that version of Cinderella? It's fun, in a horrible way, like most of the early fairy tales. They're morbid and twisted and often with blood. And sometimes, they even had unhappy endings.
Two
Oftentimes, you get out of something what you put into it. You go into a movie expecting to hate it? You're probably less likely to adore it. Now, some movies are just so good that they blow you away regardless, but prejudice can be hard to overcome.
You watch something looking for something to mock, you'll probably find it. Nothing in this world is perfect - there's always something mockable. Doesn't mean that watching something for the sake of mocking is wrong - I love MST 3000 as much as the next dude, after all. But I try to always expect to enjoy things for their own sake. And try to enjoy it for what it is, which may not be what I'm expecting. I mean, the hero journeys in Daredevil and Spider-Man are pretty much exact opposites - each ends where the other began, pretty much. If I went to watch Daredevil and expected the same kind of evolution and the same kind of movie as Spider-Man, I'd probably have been disappointed. Instead, I went because the trailer looked cool and I like Ben Affleck as an actor. And I really, really enjoyed it, on many more levels than I was expecting.
My problem with Angel was that I wanted it to be Buffy. Once I let that go, I was able to examine the show by its own merits and decide that it was actually pretty damn cool. I never had a problem with taking each season of Buffy as an entity of its own, with its own ideas to explore. I never wanted them to redo Season One's coming together, Season Two's epic romance/tragedy, Season Three's father&daughter/coming of age drama, Season Four's friendship split and college intro, Season Five's look at the meaning of family or Season Six's exploration of depression in Season Seven. I wanted something new. I got what I wanted out of Season Seven. I'm happy with it.
Three
'Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places' is so Connor's motto.
I've been thinking more about the fundamental difference between Connor and Harry Potter and it does all come down to love.
Connor did receive love from the father figure who hated everything that Connor came from. Harry didn't. The lessons that Connor learnt were all the deeper for the fact that Holtz did care about him. Harry, on the other hand, was never treated as a part of the Dursley family - so it makes sense that he would scorn their ideals.
Of course, this meant that they approached the shake-up of their worldview very differently - Connor was confused and broken by it and Harry welcomed it.
Connor's fall is three-fold -
1) He'd been taught from his youngest days that what he was was a killer. The Destroyer.
2) What he was taught was evil was not. And then, it turned out that one of the new 'good guys' really was a 'bad guy' after all.
3) Everyone who claimed to love him lied to him.
If Evil is not Evil ("There are 'Not Evil' Evil Things?") and people who say they love you lie, and the thing you know best in life is killing...
Connor wasn't fully formed (he was always parroting back someone else's words - about the only time he wasn't was in the monologue to Cordelia in the church). He never had the chance to grow up. He was emotionally stunted - grew up isolated. His only company was a man who despised his parentage and wanted to form him into a weapon.
I can't imagine what his childhood must have been like. Fighting as soon as he could. Always working to be what Holtz needed. Knowing that he was 'the bastard son of two demons'.
All his life, pain was his constant companion. Physical pain. Mental and emotional isolation. He knew how to manipulate people because Holtz would have taught him how, but he wouldn't really understand them. He'd never been exposed before, after all.
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(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-10 05:56 am (UTC)Oh, I do. One sister cutting off her toe, the other cutting off her heel. Avarice and greed willing them to pain and blood . . .
I read so many fairy tales as a child. The good ones always had bloody bones and deathly consequences as a punishment for transgressions. Those are the ones I remember, anyway.
Oftentimes, you get out of something what you put into it.
I agree with you so much about this. I try to judge every piece of entertainment on its own merits. Some things just aren't to my taste or don't capture my imagination, but I'm not going to hate something because it doesn't conform to some arbitrary standard of the genre.
Connor, Connor, Connor. He and Wesley were why I came back to Angel. For me, the third season badly derailed the characters I'd adored (although the process was started in Epiphany, an episode which didn't make any sense to me). But Wesley's transformation and Connor's pain drew me into the end of the fourth season. I have tapes of Connor's entire adolescent run and I need to watch them and marvel.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-10 06:05 am (UTC)Brilliant stuff. And the little birds chirping, "Blood in the shoe, blood in the shoe, she's not the one for you." So wonderfully creepy. Loved it.
I read so many fairy tales as a child. The good ones always had bloody bones and deathly consequences as a punishment for transgressions. Those are the ones I remember, anyway.
Quality stuff. My mom has this old hardcover (her dad used to recover books as a hobby) of that kind of fairy tale and I just adored it. And now I'm itching to go find it again.
Connor, Connor, Connor. He and Wesley were why I came back to Angel. For me, the third season badly derailed the characters I'd adored (although the process was started in Epiphany, an episode which didn't make any sense to me). But Wesley's transformation and Connor's pain drew me into the end of the fourth season. I have tapes of Connor's entire adolescent run and I need to watch them and marvel.
That was just the way it was for me. I gave fourth season a chance for Connor and Wesley. Wesley'd gotten so interesting and Connor was fascinating to me from his first moment on screen. Talk about taking the typical adolescent feelings of isolation to the greatest extreme possible! He really was the most alone person in the world.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-10 08:22 am (UTC)As it is, I don't really know how they go, aside from hints I've picked up online- like the "blood in the shoe" here, or on some discussion list where they were talking about Sleeping Beauty, and Prince Charming did what to her? And she gave birth to twins while she was still asleep?
Weird. Like I said, I think I'd still like to know just where you can find copies of these.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-10 11:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-10 10:35 am (UTC)Daredevil rocked. One of the only movies this year that I saw twice in theaters. And then I turned around and bought it as my *me* gift for the birthday.
Spiderman irked me because it ended where I thought it should have started. Imagine my surprise when DD did the exact opposite. *g*
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-10 11:02 am (UTC)*hugs*
Whee! Someone else who liked DD better!
Raises fist in DD solidarity
Date: 2003-10-10 11:10 am (UTC)Spiderman? They did a bang-up job with Defoe, and then put the fucker in a plastic mask. Somebody pls explain that to me.
On the other hand, DD hired a black guy for a white guy's role, but made it believable. Made it Work. And I don't even have to bring up how fucking amazing CF was do I? Because, yes. And yes.
Re: Raises fist in DD solidarity
Date: 2003-10-10 12:13 pm (UTC)And yeah, I don't get the mask thing with Defoe either. Makes no sense. I mean, it's Defoe. The best scene in the movie for me was his argument with himself. And then they went and covered up his face with a mask that gave him no mobility.
And Peter did the stupid isolationist thing at the end. I mean, cutting yourself off from your feelings and your love will not help. But, of course, they were probably planning for a sequel even then.
And it makes sense for the character that he was set up to be. But it's unhealthy as all hell. I loved DD for making that point.
And Kingpin's white in the comics? Hadn't had a clue. Though it makes sense, since I probably would have heard of him had he been black in the comics.
Also, one things that bugs me about Spider-Man is the mantra 'with great power comes great responsibility'. Not really. Maybe it should, but it doesn't. It's always a choice. It wasn't Peter's great power that made him take on responsibility, it was his great guilt.
And I really enjoyed both CF and JG.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-13 12:22 pm (UTC)What a great line! And, I remember. The novel I'm working on is called Broken Glass Slippers. When you're in the mood above, you might like it. Assuming I ever get it finished. Right now I've got an outline, a first chapter, and major stage fright.
Mer
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-13 04:08 pm (UTC)