Story Structures...and other ramblings
Jan. 7th, 2004 12:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatBored, boredy, bored, bored and I can't shake this stupid chest cold - oh it's not bad anymore, just an occassional cough, sinus headach and blowing nose - but would like it to go away instead of just linger forever.
Anyways...after lurking on a few fanboards and listserves and watching A New World - ATS S3 (really love this episode) Gilmore Girls (repeat), 24 (brand spanking new episode) and Line of Fire (also new episode) - I got to thinking about how a writer/tv producer formulates a story, what their purpose is in telling it and how each of the ingredients works. Also how the fans/viewers perceive it as opposed to how the writers/producers may wish them to perceive it.
I'm an odd 'kat, while I do get obsessed with specific character arcs - I'm far more interested by and obsessed with how the storyteller is telling the story - how the story breaks down, how each piece fits, what the over-all arc is, and how each character adds to that arc and theme. What is the writer trying to convey through how each character handles the problem handed to them?
Line of Fire tonight was an excellent example of this.
Line of Fire is a television show that portrays two groups - the FBI and the Mob, sometimes the two groups are fighting each other, sometimes they are just paralleled or on separate issues. It is an episodic/serial combo - where we have an A plot then an overall arc B plot in the background. It's also an ensemble drama - with a cast of approximately 10 characters - each character has a flaw, a strength, goals, and pains to deal with. These strengths/weaknesses inform how each character works with the other characters to solve the problem set up each week.
In this week's episode the problem was finding a missing girl, whose father allegedly died in 9/11.
The character, Van Dorn, assigned to help the widowed mother cope - husband had died in 9/11 and it's her husband's death that motivated this character to become an FBI agent. While another character, who I can't remember the name of - we'll call her P, has two kids and is struggling to maintain her career and family - she suspects the widowed mother of killing her own child. The head of the FBI division - is currently separated from her daughter and husband, and is relentless in finding the little girl and returning her to her mother. Each character's background is highlighted in how they handle the problem and work together to unravel the mystery. During the episode it is revealed that the mother has a bit of a victim complex - she likes being a widow, likes the attention. Two years later and she still dwells on it. As a result P becomes convinced she must have done this to her daughter. It's also revealed to Van Dorn that the grandmother knows more about the little girl than the mother does - ie. what the girl is allergic to, where pictures of her are. And -- that the mother doesn't spend much time with her daughter. The mother had married the father right out of high school? and they'd been fighting. The FBI then gets a break and discovers the little girl was taken by a man - who is identified entering an airport. The id is sent to the mother who identifies him as her husband - the man she thought was killed in 9/11. The FBI convinces the man to turn himself in and bring back his daughter. Meanwhile the mother asks Van Dorn if she can go upstairs - change, take a shower before she sees her husband, now back from the dead. When he arrives the FBI cuffs him, leads him to the wife and gives them ten minutes to chat. He tells his wife that he saw the disaster as a second-chance. Things weren't working between them and he saw it as a way to escape the situation. His wife tearfully lifts her gun, while Van Dorn is standing beside her, and shoots him in the chest - Van Dorn screams no. Later Van Dorn tells P that she doesn't understand, the wife was given a second chance, why didn't she take it? And what about the little girl? P says the little girl will go with her grandmother. The next scene is Van Dorn punching a punching bag - this is the same scene the episode opened with by the way - in fact Van Dorn is called away from her session with the punching bag to help the mother, it had been Van Dorn's day off. Then we see the head of the FBI calling her little boy - asking to speak with him.
The parallel storyline is about the Mob - this one opens with the Mob boss Malloy at a gathering of his wife's family. He sits down with her cousin who is desperately looking for a job and offers her one at his "escort service" (aka whorehouse). She scoffs at his offer, at first, stating she has too much self-respect. But he seduces her with the money she could be making. Meanwhile his wife is playing with her nephew, a new baby, and showing him off to Malloy, who seems irritated by him. As the story progresses,
the cousin becomes a whore, the wife finds out - strongly objects, accuses her husband of not caring about *her* family and not wanting children. He tearfully asks how can she say that - he never said he didn't want kids. And they end the episode, making love. (Earlier in the episode you see Malloy doing it with her cousin to break her in.)
The third story - is about an FBI agent under-cover with Malloy's group. His co-hort, Malloy's Lieutenant,
is having family problems. The Lt. is white married to a black woman and can't deal with a black man who was starring at them, so beats this man up and calls his wife a horrible name for defending the guy. The Lt. is an ex-solider who considers himself patriotic and can't stand protests. He comes to crash at the undercover guys apt. The undercover guy appeals to the wife (who runs Malloy's whorehouse) to take her husband back - she says she can't right now but asks him to remove all alcohol from his apt. The last scene is the LT. trying to win her back with flowers.
So the question is - what was the writers purpose here? What is their theme? How did they use the characters to emphasize and develop that theme? Well - it's clearly about family and children, how we value them and how we pursue this dream and what gets in our way. Our own flaws concerning it. Van Dorn mentions she'd wanted children with her husband and she grieves the lack of that as well as the fact that they fought before he died. She craves the second chance that she perceives another woman as getting. (YEt, you can't help but wonder if she hasn't idealized her relationship a bit or perhaps she wonders this. Also is she holding on too tightly to the past as the guest character appears to be doing? The guest character is braced against Van Dorn as a contrast.) Malloy's wife wants a child - yet should she? Isn't she endangering the child's life? Is she idealizing her relationship with Malloy, not letting herself see the truth? Then there's the Lt. and his wife - who seem to be cognizant of their problems, yet unaware of the lives they are living. Each character seems to be deluding themselves in some way in order to cope. Yet, each in their own way wants the same thing - the comfort of family. Very interesting how the writers examine these needs from several different perspectives - and in a way comment on our own universal needs. They don't tell us what the right and wrong choices are - they leave that up to us to decide, demonstrating the consequences of each.
Too often, I find, we get distracted by our own desires for a specific character without clearly seeing what the big picture is. Angel The Series for example - I honestly don't think the series is meant to be a retelling of the hero's journey a la Hercules. I think the writers are interested in exploring something far less mundane, which is our own ways of dealing/coping with the everyday issues of existence -or the issues of being fractured? Needing to atone for past sins? Redemption - is it even possible?
The episode A New World that I saw tonight was an interesting exploration of these themes - also very interestingly structured. Like Line of Fire - A New World - ATS, has an ensemble cast, it was both episodic and serial, although leaned more towards serial than Line of Fire did, with an A,B and C plot. We had three groups of characters paralleled. First Wes/Lilah, then Connor/Angel, and finally Fred/Gunn/Lorne/Cordelia/Groo.
The main plot-line is about Angel's son returning from a demon hell dimension. The boy comes back hating Angel, wanting to kill him and tries in the opening, failing, takes off. Angel sets everyone in pursuit - leaving Cordy and Groo to guard the dimensional whole Connor sprouted out of.
Connor in plot B, discovers a girl attempting to buy drugs off a nasty drug-dealer. When the dealer starts beating up on the girl, Sunny, Connor intervenes and fights them off, knocking everyone out, but not killing anyone. Sunny steals money and drugs from the dealer, while Connor - considers killing the dealer, but Sunny stops him, so he just takes an ear instead telling her - "so he'll remember me." Later, we see Connor follow Sunny to a hotel for squatters - ie. an abandoned building, she provides Connor with some new clothes - (he's wearing animal hides from the demon dimension) - and junk food. As they are eating they discuss parents - Sunny says she ran to La to escape hers, while Connor ran to La to find his. She states that some parents are either too drunk, messed up, or plain evil to have kids and should be sterilized - indicating her own self-hatred perhaps or fear she's just like them? Connor states - if they are evil? They should be killed. Indicating his own hatred of his biological parents. Connor tries to use a spoon to eat something, but Sunny takes it from him - saying its for other things - like taking her medicine that makes her feel good (the heroine). Later she goes off to the bathroom to shoot up, while connor sleeps. Connor wakes up to find Sunny dead in the tub. Horrified, he turns to go after the people who gave her the drugs and finds himself face to face with Angel.
Angel and Connor confront each other. Seeing Sunny and the needle, Angel's first concern is Connor shot up drugs. The next one is to keep Connor from going after the drug dealers. Connor fights Angel on this. Tells Angel his name is Steven not Connor, which Angel declares, reluctantly, is a good enough name, not Irish, but good. Then Connor accuses Angel of hiding his true face - the face he kills with and taunts Angel to show it - Angel reluctantly does causing Connor to reel back in horror. ( A reference to Sunny's comment about addiction and monster parents, I wonder?) Angel tells Connor it is a part of who he is, not all of who he is, a part he hopes Connor will accept some day.
Connor declares he'll die first or kill Angel. They fight. The drug dealer and his fiends show up and stop them. Angel tries to talk the drug dealer out of fighting - drug dealer refuses - Connor and Angel fight them, shots are fired, police come in, Angel and Connor escape. Angel invites Connor back to the hotel - Connor appears to consider it. Yet the final scene is Connor going to Holtz than man who stole him from Angel and took him into the hell dimension.
Plot B is Cordy/Groo with Fred/Lorn/Gunn as back-up.
In this plot arc, Groo and Cordy are lovers, but Groo is slowly discovering that Cordy is more into Angel. In fact, even though Groo is going out of his way to help Cordy - all she can talk about is Angel. Sensing Groo's annoyance - Cordy distracts him from his post watching the dimensional porthole, by kissing him. The porthole opens again and knocks them unconscious - separating them to two different sides of the design on the floor. (Reference to how these two can't be together - and how what is coming through the portal keeps them apart?)
Gunn,Lorne and Fred revive them. Lorne hunts for a specialist while Gunn/Fred try to determine what happened. It is suggested they seek help from Wes, an expert on portholes and other mystical stuff, but Cordy nixes it b/c Angel wouldn't like it. (Wes betrayed Angel, with the best of intentions, by kidnapping Connor (b/c Wes believed Angel was going to kill Connor) as a result of Wes' actions, however well-meaning, Holtz got Connor, Wes got his throat cut and was ostracized by everyone. He's the C plot, which I'll get to in a moment). Groo makes a snarky comment about how they mustn't do anything Angel wouldn't like, since Angel is the hero and their leader, which everyone studiously ignores. (Didn't realize this was snarky until tonight's viewing - my appreciation for the actor playing Groo went up a notch, subtly played.) Lorne's mystical lady appears, she looks at the mystical design that Angel painted on the floor the week before and says she hopes this wasn't a dark and misguided attempt to close the portal? The lady is hard to find, she keeps disappearing and reappearing. (Which may be a reference to the difficulty of locating one's heart? Or calling? Or just a fun bit the writers did?) Finally she closes the portal, first explaining how it's not a portal but a rip and how she really doesn't want to meet whatever opened it - since doing so tears the fabric of reality and is a huge no-no. (Foreshadowing for how Connor later affects reality? Or fact Connor shouldn't be?)
Plot C is the shortest and deals with Wes, who out on his own now is visited by the evil attorney Lilah who gives him Dante's Inferno as a present. She tells him that the worst section of hell, the bottomost layer is reserved for a traitor like Judas Iscariot, which wait doesn't he bear a close resemblance to Wes and what Wes did to Angel? She also offers him a job which he refuses. She tells him he has no one else and is not better than W&H or her, since he is a traitor.
So the question is - what is the theme here? What are the writers trying to convey through the ways each character handles the problem of Connor, the problem of the porthole and the problem of what happened to Connor? I think it's a story about temptation and how we are tempted to hunt easy ways or short-cuts to deal with painful problems. Or we try to run/escape from them. But we can't escape or solve it the easy way - the problem is still there and if we aren't careful it will get worse. 1. Drugs - an escape mechanism that will kill you - shown through Sunny and indirectly through Angel, who craves blood and whose craving lost him his son. (As seen in the episode Wes kidnapped Connor - Sleep Tight) 2. Distracting yourself - being more interested in making out or sex, not dealing with the problem - Groo and Cordelia. 3. Escaping/Running from it - Connor who runs from Angel. 4. Refusing to do the hard thing and go to someone you hate for help, perhaps even forgiving them - WEs to close the porthole. Actually this interesting the past three episodes - Forgiving, The Price, Double or Nothing and now A NEw World - practically scream for Wes' help. Then in A New World - we have Angel confronted with two people from a hell dimension who won't forgive him and hate him for crimes he conducted while a soulless vampire (metaphor possibly for drunken spree - as shown by the drug addicts?) - crimes far worse and far less forgivable than Wes'.
The theme than may be - that by not taking the hard road - forgiving someone who hurt you, you make things worse for yourself. Each character is shown in this respect, each given the chance, each denies that chance and instead hurts themselves far more than the person they refuse to forgive. Connor is hurting himself more than Angel by denying him. Angel hurts himself more than Wes by refusing his help, and by association his friends. Yet, because of who each character is deep inside, their experiences, their makeup, any other choice would be "out of character".
So are the writers asking a question rather than answering one? Which is - can we rise above our nature and solve problems? At the same time are they telling us that by forgiving others, we pave the way for others to forgive us meanwhile showing how impossible a task this truly is and maybe beyond our ability? Interesting and incredibly complex structure.
Unlike Line of Fire - the issues here are murkier and less clear-cut, also the ending? Far less happy. On top of which - you have to pay a lot more attention and have been watching all the episodes to follow it, b/c plot A, B, and C are all somewhat serial in nature.
I think when we look at how each portion of the story or plot arc plays off of the others, ie A, B, and C, and how each character interacts with the problem posed and deals with it and explore why they do what they do without imposing our own values and judgements on them, we can see the underlying theme of the piece and why the writer chose to write it the way he/she did.
Why do we tell the stories we tell? I think it's to explore issues that bug us - whether these be our fears, our anxieties, or just the meaning of our existence. Through our stories we understand our world, other cultures, and ourselves better. We are able to confront our fears safely and find ways to overcome them. Oh - that character tried doing that and it didn't work, so when I'm confronted with a problem similar to that one? I'll try something else.
Stories are a way of solving problems. And studying the underlying structure - all the parts of the story - without giving into the temptation to project our own story or desire onto it - we can learn from it and incorporate threads into our own lives, possibly even create stories of our own. I know of one person who used BTVS S5 and S6 to figure out how to write a book.
New Year's Resolution - (one of many) to strive to see the writers theme or purpose in telling the story, to examine the structure, to focus on the big picture - as opposed to just one character's arc or my own desires for one character. Let's see how quickly I break it. ;-)
Anyways...after lurking on a few fanboards and listserves and watching A New World - ATS S3 (really love this episode) Gilmore Girls (repeat), 24 (brand spanking new episode) and Line of Fire (also new episode) - I got to thinking about how a writer/tv producer formulates a story, what their purpose is in telling it and how each of the ingredients works. Also how the fans/viewers perceive it as opposed to how the writers/producers may wish them to perceive it.
I'm an odd 'kat, while I do get obsessed with specific character arcs - I'm far more interested by and obsessed with how the storyteller is telling the story - how the story breaks down, how each piece fits, what the over-all arc is, and how each character adds to that arc and theme. What is the writer trying to convey through how each character handles the problem handed to them?
Line of Fire tonight was an excellent example of this.
Line of Fire is a television show that portrays two groups - the FBI and the Mob, sometimes the two groups are fighting each other, sometimes they are just paralleled or on separate issues. It is an episodic/serial combo - where we have an A plot then an overall arc B plot in the background. It's also an ensemble drama - with a cast of approximately 10 characters - each character has a flaw, a strength, goals, and pains to deal with. These strengths/weaknesses inform how each character works with the other characters to solve the problem set up each week.
In this week's episode the problem was finding a missing girl, whose father allegedly died in 9/11.
The character, Van Dorn, assigned to help the widowed mother cope - husband had died in 9/11 and it's her husband's death that motivated this character to become an FBI agent. While another character, who I can't remember the name of - we'll call her P, has two kids and is struggling to maintain her career and family - she suspects the widowed mother of killing her own child. The head of the FBI division - is currently separated from her daughter and husband, and is relentless in finding the little girl and returning her to her mother. Each character's background is highlighted in how they handle the problem and work together to unravel the mystery. During the episode it is revealed that the mother has a bit of a victim complex - she likes being a widow, likes the attention. Two years later and she still dwells on it. As a result P becomes convinced she must have done this to her daughter. It's also revealed to Van Dorn that the grandmother knows more about the little girl than the mother does - ie. what the girl is allergic to, where pictures of her are. And -- that the mother doesn't spend much time with her daughter. The mother had married the father right out of high school? and they'd been fighting. The FBI then gets a break and discovers the little girl was taken by a man - who is identified entering an airport. The id is sent to the mother who identifies him as her husband - the man she thought was killed in 9/11. The FBI convinces the man to turn himself in and bring back his daughter. Meanwhile the mother asks Van Dorn if she can go upstairs - change, take a shower before she sees her husband, now back from the dead. When he arrives the FBI cuffs him, leads him to the wife and gives them ten minutes to chat. He tells his wife that he saw the disaster as a second-chance. Things weren't working between them and he saw it as a way to escape the situation. His wife tearfully lifts her gun, while Van Dorn is standing beside her, and shoots him in the chest - Van Dorn screams no. Later Van Dorn tells P that she doesn't understand, the wife was given a second chance, why didn't she take it? And what about the little girl? P says the little girl will go with her grandmother. The next scene is Van Dorn punching a punching bag - this is the same scene the episode opened with by the way - in fact Van Dorn is called away from her session with the punching bag to help the mother, it had been Van Dorn's day off. Then we see the head of the FBI calling her little boy - asking to speak with him.
The parallel storyline is about the Mob - this one opens with the Mob boss Malloy at a gathering of his wife's family. He sits down with her cousin who is desperately looking for a job and offers her one at his "escort service" (aka whorehouse). She scoffs at his offer, at first, stating she has too much self-respect. But he seduces her with the money she could be making. Meanwhile his wife is playing with her nephew, a new baby, and showing him off to Malloy, who seems irritated by him. As the story progresses,
the cousin becomes a whore, the wife finds out - strongly objects, accuses her husband of not caring about *her* family and not wanting children. He tearfully asks how can she say that - he never said he didn't want kids. And they end the episode, making love. (Earlier in the episode you see Malloy doing it with her cousin to break her in.)
The third story - is about an FBI agent under-cover with Malloy's group. His co-hort, Malloy's Lieutenant,
is having family problems. The Lt. is white married to a black woman and can't deal with a black man who was starring at them, so beats this man up and calls his wife a horrible name for defending the guy. The Lt. is an ex-solider who considers himself patriotic and can't stand protests. He comes to crash at the undercover guys apt. The undercover guy appeals to the wife (who runs Malloy's whorehouse) to take her husband back - she says she can't right now but asks him to remove all alcohol from his apt. The last scene is the LT. trying to win her back with flowers.
So the question is - what was the writers purpose here? What is their theme? How did they use the characters to emphasize and develop that theme? Well - it's clearly about family and children, how we value them and how we pursue this dream and what gets in our way. Our own flaws concerning it. Van Dorn mentions she'd wanted children with her husband and she grieves the lack of that as well as the fact that they fought before he died. She craves the second chance that she perceives another woman as getting. (YEt, you can't help but wonder if she hasn't idealized her relationship a bit or perhaps she wonders this. Also is she holding on too tightly to the past as the guest character appears to be doing? The guest character is braced against Van Dorn as a contrast.) Malloy's wife wants a child - yet should she? Isn't she endangering the child's life? Is she idealizing her relationship with Malloy, not letting herself see the truth? Then there's the Lt. and his wife - who seem to be cognizant of their problems, yet unaware of the lives they are living. Each character seems to be deluding themselves in some way in order to cope. Yet, each in their own way wants the same thing - the comfort of family. Very interesting how the writers examine these needs from several different perspectives - and in a way comment on our own universal needs. They don't tell us what the right and wrong choices are - they leave that up to us to decide, demonstrating the consequences of each.
Too often, I find, we get distracted by our own desires for a specific character without clearly seeing what the big picture is. Angel The Series for example - I honestly don't think the series is meant to be a retelling of the hero's journey a la Hercules. I think the writers are interested in exploring something far less mundane, which is our own ways of dealing/coping with the everyday issues of existence -or the issues of being fractured? Needing to atone for past sins? Redemption - is it even possible?
The episode A New World that I saw tonight was an interesting exploration of these themes - also very interestingly structured. Like Line of Fire - A New World - ATS, has an ensemble cast, it was both episodic and serial, although leaned more towards serial than Line of Fire did, with an A,B and C plot. We had three groups of characters paralleled. First Wes/Lilah, then Connor/Angel, and finally Fred/Gunn/Lorne/Cordelia/Groo.
The main plot-line is about Angel's son returning from a demon hell dimension. The boy comes back hating Angel, wanting to kill him and tries in the opening, failing, takes off. Angel sets everyone in pursuit - leaving Cordy and Groo to guard the dimensional whole Connor sprouted out of.
Connor in plot B, discovers a girl attempting to buy drugs off a nasty drug-dealer. When the dealer starts beating up on the girl, Sunny, Connor intervenes and fights them off, knocking everyone out, but not killing anyone. Sunny steals money and drugs from the dealer, while Connor - considers killing the dealer, but Sunny stops him, so he just takes an ear instead telling her - "so he'll remember me." Later, we see Connor follow Sunny to a hotel for squatters - ie. an abandoned building, she provides Connor with some new clothes - (he's wearing animal hides from the demon dimension) - and junk food. As they are eating they discuss parents - Sunny says she ran to La to escape hers, while Connor ran to La to find his. She states that some parents are either too drunk, messed up, or plain evil to have kids and should be sterilized - indicating her own self-hatred perhaps or fear she's just like them? Connor states - if they are evil? They should be killed. Indicating his own hatred of his biological parents. Connor tries to use a spoon to eat something, but Sunny takes it from him - saying its for other things - like taking her medicine that makes her feel good (the heroine). Later she goes off to the bathroom to shoot up, while connor sleeps. Connor wakes up to find Sunny dead in the tub. Horrified, he turns to go after the people who gave her the drugs and finds himself face to face with Angel.
Angel and Connor confront each other. Seeing Sunny and the needle, Angel's first concern is Connor shot up drugs. The next one is to keep Connor from going after the drug dealers. Connor fights Angel on this. Tells Angel his name is Steven not Connor, which Angel declares, reluctantly, is a good enough name, not Irish, but good. Then Connor accuses Angel of hiding his true face - the face he kills with and taunts Angel to show it - Angel reluctantly does causing Connor to reel back in horror. ( A reference to Sunny's comment about addiction and monster parents, I wonder?) Angel tells Connor it is a part of who he is, not all of who he is, a part he hopes Connor will accept some day.
Connor declares he'll die first or kill Angel. They fight. The drug dealer and his fiends show up and stop them. Angel tries to talk the drug dealer out of fighting - drug dealer refuses - Connor and Angel fight them, shots are fired, police come in, Angel and Connor escape. Angel invites Connor back to the hotel - Connor appears to consider it. Yet the final scene is Connor going to Holtz than man who stole him from Angel and took him into the hell dimension.
Plot B is Cordy/Groo with Fred/Lorn/Gunn as back-up.
In this plot arc, Groo and Cordy are lovers, but Groo is slowly discovering that Cordy is more into Angel. In fact, even though Groo is going out of his way to help Cordy - all she can talk about is Angel. Sensing Groo's annoyance - Cordy distracts him from his post watching the dimensional porthole, by kissing him. The porthole opens again and knocks them unconscious - separating them to two different sides of the design on the floor. (Reference to how these two can't be together - and how what is coming through the portal keeps them apart?)
Gunn,Lorne and Fred revive them. Lorne hunts for a specialist while Gunn/Fred try to determine what happened. It is suggested they seek help from Wes, an expert on portholes and other mystical stuff, but Cordy nixes it b/c Angel wouldn't like it. (Wes betrayed Angel, with the best of intentions, by kidnapping Connor (b/c Wes believed Angel was going to kill Connor) as a result of Wes' actions, however well-meaning, Holtz got Connor, Wes got his throat cut and was ostracized by everyone. He's the C plot, which I'll get to in a moment). Groo makes a snarky comment about how they mustn't do anything Angel wouldn't like, since Angel is the hero and their leader, which everyone studiously ignores. (Didn't realize this was snarky until tonight's viewing - my appreciation for the actor playing Groo went up a notch, subtly played.) Lorne's mystical lady appears, she looks at the mystical design that Angel painted on the floor the week before and says she hopes this wasn't a dark and misguided attempt to close the portal? The lady is hard to find, she keeps disappearing and reappearing. (Which may be a reference to the difficulty of locating one's heart? Or calling? Or just a fun bit the writers did?) Finally she closes the portal, first explaining how it's not a portal but a rip and how she really doesn't want to meet whatever opened it - since doing so tears the fabric of reality and is a huge no-no. (Foreshadowing for how Connor later affects reality? Or fact Connor shouldn't be?)
Plot C is the shortest and deals with Wes, who out on his own now is visited by the evil attorney Lilah who gives him Dante's Inferno as a present. She tells him that the worst section of hell, the bottomost layer is reserved for a traitor like Judas Iscariot, which wait doesn't he bear a close resemblance to Wes and what Wes did to Angel? She also offers him a job which he refuses. She tells him he has no one else and is not better than W&H or her, since he is a traitor.
So the question is - what is the theme here? What are the writers trying to convey through the ways each character handles the problem of Connor, the problem of the porthole and the problem of what happened to Connor? I think it's a story about temptation and how we are tempted to hunt easy ways or short-cuts to deal with painful problems. Or we try to run/escape from them. But we can't escape or solve it the easy way - the problem is still there and if we aren't careful it will get worse. 1. Drugs - an escape mechanism that will kill you - shown through Sunny and indirectly through Angel, who craves blood and whose craving lost him his son. (As seen in the episode Wes kidnapped Connor - Sleep Tight) 2. Distracting yourself - being more interested in making out or sex, not dealing with the problem - Groo and Cordelia. 3. Escaping/Running from it - Connor who runs from Angel. 4. Refusing to do the hard thing and go to someone you hate for help, perhaps even forgiving them - WEs to close the porthole. Actually this interesting the past three episodes - Forgiving, The Price, Double or Nothing and now A NEw World - practically scream for Wes' help. Then in A New World - we have Angel confronted with two people from a hell dimension who won't forgive him and hate him for crimes he conducted while a soulless vampire (metaphor possibly for drunken spree - as shown by the drug addicts?) - crimes far worse and far less forgivable than Wes'.
The theme than may be - that by not taking the hard road - forgiving someone who hurt you, you make things worse for yourself. Each character is shown in this respect, each given the chance, each denies that chance and instead hurts themselves far more than the person they refuse to forgive. Connor is hurting himself more than Angel by denying him. Angel hurts himself more than Wes by refusing his help, and by association his friends. Yet, because of who each character is deep inside, their experiences, their makeup, any other choice would be "out of character".
So are the writers asking a question rather than answering one? Which is - can we rise above our nature and solve problems? At the same time are they telling us that by forgiving others, we pave the way for others to forgive us meanwhile showing how impossible a task this truly is and maybe beyond our ability? Interesting and incredibly complex structure.
Unlike Line of Fire - the issues here are murkier and less clear-cut, also the ending? Far less happy. On top of which - you have to pay a lot more attention and have been watching all the episodes to follow it, b/c plot A, B, and C are all somewhat serial in nature.
I think when we look at how each portion of the story or plot arc plays off of the others, ie A, B, and C, and how each character interacts with the problem posed and deals with it and explore why they do what they do without imposing our own values and judgements on them, we can see the underlying theme of the piece and why the writer chose to write it the way he/she did.
Why do we tell the stories we tell? I think it's to explore issues that bug us - whether these be our fears, our anxieties, or just the meaning of our existence. Through our stories we understand our world, other cultures, and ourselves better. We are able to confront our fears safely and find ways to overcome them. Oh - that character tried doing that and it didn't work, so when I'm confronted with a problem similar to that one? I'll try something else.
Stories are a way of solving problems. And studying the underlying structure - all the parts of the story - without giving into the temptation to project our own story or desire onto it - we can learn from it and incorporate threads into our own lives, possibly even create stories of our own. I know of one person who used BTVS S5 and S6 to figure out how to write a book.
New Year's Resolution - (one of many) to strive to see the writers theme or purpose in telling the story, to examine the structure, to focus on the big picture - as opposed to just one character's arc or my own desires for one character. Let's see how quickly I break it. ;-)
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With six frozen eyes, a brave new world
Date: 2004-01-07 09:47 am (UTC)I hadn’t even thought, or if I did, I’ve forgotten, about how the final speaking encounter in Inferno is also about being a parent. Good parent. Bad parent. Childless.
In Count Ugolino’s story of his death, his children weep, but he is stony hearted and does not turn to them. They offer themselves to him as a Eucharistic sacrifice, because he created them, but he turns away. It is only when they are dead that he cracks, but then it is too late. Dooming himself to be literally locked in the ice at the bottom of hell with the enemy, who caused their deaths, the presumably childless Archbishop Ruggieri.
Ugolino gnawing at Ruggieri’s neck for all eternity. Rather than, as presumably would have happened if Ugolino opened himself up to his children, making the long slog up Purgatory. A frozen world where there is no forgiveness, because the same behavior is endlessly repeated.
At its heart, all these feelings of betrayal. Lucifer gnawing traitors, himself a betrayer. A proud son. An angel with beating wings. Frozen Ugolino and Ruggieri. Angel. Connor. Wesley.
The recurring theme of damned fathers and saved sons in the Commedia. Sunny and Connor discussing parents. Hotz, the damned father, lingering in the wings. Apparently, it’s important to be a child. Steven/Connor/The new life begins. Sunny/Sunshine/fade to black with Lethe in her veins.
Very chewy stuff.