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shadowkat1. Watching this insane video series on MTV called Ridiculous which so far has managed to make me very happy I've never tried the pogo bouncing stick. And saw a turtle having an sexual orgasm. Stopped when they decided to show a video of some guy beating up some other guy and shouting at him and his girlfriend or they were all shouting and beating on each other - which was giving me headache. Off now.
Today, managed to clean out fridge, and buy a new phone - since I more or less did in the old one vacuuming. (The cord got sucked into the power vacuum that I borrowed from the landlord. Note to self don't use power vacuum again, or if you do, make sure you remove all cords from the floor first.)
Tummy still plaguing me, so had a weird dinner menu. It was basically one quarter baked potato, one quarter baked sweet potato, and tuna fish on brown rice crackers. Good news, tummy liked it. Can't argue with the tummy. I'm learning that. It's particular, in case you haven't noticed. There's all sorts of things I love that it hates. Haven't eaten much today, more or less skipped lunch. Had melon for a snack. Tried an organic gluten free peanut butter cup - but tummy hated that. Did a lot of walking and lugging of things - I don't need to lift weights, I do that just lugging my laundry and groceries home.
2.At the laundry mat, I read an article in EW about Sarah Michell Gellar-Prinze's new show Ringer. She was on the cover of it. (I don't know, I still think she was prettier when she was 18, with a bit more meat on her bones. She's too thin.) In the article she pretty much stated that after Buffy, she didn't feel she had anything to prove. She'd done it already, become a pop culture icon. People were teaching college courses on Buffy! (Bored academics who got tired of teaching, presenting, and writing about the same old literary classics. You can only teach Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby so many times, after all. Wish they'd done this when I was in school - wait, they did, I wrote a papers on M*A*S*H, Les Liasons Dangereux, Betty Blue, The Wild Bunch, Terminator, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, as well as That Obscure Object of Desire, and A Clockwork Orange. So never mind.) Do agree with Gellar regarding the difference between movies and television - she states that tv provides better roles for women. Finding a complicated, textured role in film is rare. Most roles are girl-friends or mothers. She states that Buffy didn't work as a movie - because in a movie you only have a limited amount of time to tell a story, and it has to have a clear beginning, middle, and end. No time to expand on the character. So it's basically just about a cheerleader who kills vampires. That's it. Maybe a romance thrown in. On TV - you get to explore what it means for her to do this, how it affects her friends, her ability to be a student, her relationships with parents, friends, etc. It becomes deeper more textured, more interesting. Television can go further than film.
For myself, I've come to realize that while I love visuals, and I do, I'm more interested in dialogue, in the unfolding of the narrative, the characters, and the performances - and far less in special effects or visual imagery. Pretty films don't really impress me that much if there isn't a good story, interesting characters, dialogue, or performance. Example: Avatar - I found pretty but dull. Same thing with Inception and The Hulk. While The Fighter, Black Swan, King's Speech...haunt me more. That's oversimplifying it of course, and when it comes to things like taste, it's seldom simple.
Regarding Ringer? It's apparently Buffy meets Cruel Intentions or a noir, with a female lead. She's playing a dual role - two sisters. Siobhan dies, Bridget who is on the run from the mob and witness protection, decides to pretend to be Siobhan, not realizing Siobhan has someone gunning for her as well. It's supposed to have a cliff-hanger before each commercial break. They have mysteries, but they are solved. And it is noire thriller, with soapy elements, and action. Gellar could actually pull this sort of thing off - I've seen her play dual roles before (Buffy). Let's hope the writing is good. It's a male/female writing team. The cast is actually pretty stellar, with Ion Gruffold, Nestor Carbondale (Lost), and the guy from Life Unexpected who played Baz and was basically the best thing in Life Unexpected and the only reason I bothered with it after a while. Also, Jason Dohring, Logan from Veronica Mars, has just been cast in a role. So, so far, so good.
3.Been thinking redemptive stories, in part because there have been a few posts on it on live journal, and often posts by others, regardless of whether I comment, will percolate for a bit in my own head until I post myself on it.
I don't think I really care if the character is redeemed.
I'm not in it for the morality play or the moral arc. In part, because I've learned that morality is often in the eye of the beholder and not always as black and white as we like to make it. For example: Some people on my flist despised Spike and saw that character as well, clearly morally despicable on all levels, yet were sympathetic towards Warren Miers, I was the exact opposite. I saw no redeeming qualities in Warren, while I did see redeeming qualities in Spike. Warren to me was a black and white villain, boring. But, there are people on my own flist who vehemently disagree. Often - it depends on what the characters did and their intent. For example - some people saw Spike's attempted rape of Buffy as irredeemable and the worst thing ever. For me? His intent and how he responded to that action after-wards, mitigated it, as did the circumstances surrounding it. It was far from clear cut - to me. I viewed it differently. It was not a black and white act. While Warren's attempted rape of Katrina, and eventual murder of her, albeit accidental, was clearly irredeemable, and the worst thing I'd seen the show do. I found that close to impossible to watch. Warren's and by extension his partners in crime, Andrew and Jonathan, intentions were clearly to use, hurt, and humiliate Katrina. There was no gray area. I wanted them all dead afterwards. And the show really couldn't redeem any of them in my eyes. Often it is how we relate to the action that we see, our emotional reaction to it - which may or may not always be rational. Which is why I don't tend to like redemptive stories for well the "redemptive" bit or the morality. Because I find that area uninteresting. Engaging in discussions on which act is worse feels pointless, since so much of it is well personal. After all, whether you found Spike's killing of Nikki more gross and difficult to deal with than say, Angelus' killing of Jenny Carpenter, and later Angel's actions in S4-5 Angel...is well, personal.
For me, what is interesting in a redemptive arc and why I tend to like them is how the character evolves and changes. I don't really care if they succeed. Or what they do. Just as long as there is change and evolution, and we aren't repeating ourselves. My difficulty with a lot of redemptive arcs - is often they will redeem the character but not have the character change or evolve. We don't see them change, their relationships change, how they deal with things change. They feel well stagnant.
A good example of this is House. Greg House has not changed. After about five years this gets old. He stays his insanely brilliant self, arrogant, and narcissistic. Feeling that he can do whatever he wants whenever he wants it. He never changes. So I find myself watching House just to see what insane thing he does next. And hoping, it may change him in some way. But, alas, it never quite does.
Dexter is an example of the same thing being done just a tad better, in that, Dexter himself doesn't so much change, or atone, as we get new angles on the character, which was the appeal of House for the first couple of seasons. Sooner or later, Dexter will run out of new angles, and unless the character changes...the show will grow stagnant. That said, Dexter's supporting cast, much like House's is changing, those characters are permitted to evolve.
Angel the Series had the same set-up. Angel himself never really changes or evolves, but those around him do - except being a noir series, they don't get redeemed, instead they become corrupted by their association with Angel. Much as those surrounding Dexter and House slowly become corrupted. In Dexter, his sister's moral code is slowly eroding. And in House, all of his assistants moral codes are eroding. The two who leave, do so, in part, because they can't handle it. This is the anti-hero set-up, where the audience is deluded into thinking that the writers intend to redeem the lead character, when actually they don't plan to do that at all - instead they plan on showing how the lead character's actions and outlook affects everyone around him. Everyone falls into the abyss - which is literally what did happen on Angel - everyone fell into hell, including the city they resided.
The lead never really changes in these shows. He never addresses his flaws. Or shows true remorse for his actions, if anything he continues to feel justified, and the moment he questions what he is doing - someone either close to him or another character will pat him on the head and say, no it is justified. He is surrounded by enablers. I noticed this in Dexter S5 - how many people unwittingly enable Dexter. This is also true in House, and in Angel. As a result, the lead character never does that act of contrition, he never acknowledges what he has done, instead he either denies it completely, believes it is justified, blames it on an addiction or possession or someone else.
This type of storyline in my opinion has a short shelf-life and really only works in films, which are only 2-3 hours in length. Twenty-two episodes times five years...is a bit much. After awhile the narrative just begins to loop around itself, and I grow bored. No one has evolved, they've either de-volved, or are stagnated.
That's not a redemptive arc so much as a false one or mislead. In Angel - there's only three characters, that get redemptive arcs...Darla, Spike, and Faith. Of the three, Faith and Darla are the most interesting and change the most. Spike is the most entertaining, although I'm not sure he changes much in S5, feels somewhat stagnant, all that really changes is his relationships with those around him - so I suppose he does change quite a bit if you consider his interactions with others.
I found Spike's redemptive arc in Buffy the most interesting - because the character does change. Or rather I see changes in his character, he goes from trying to kill everyone, to trying to save them - and it does not happen over night. Faith - was too abrupt. She's murderous, then suicidal, then in prison. Wham, bang, done. I was never given much chance to invest. Or root for her. And I didn't really see the hard work. Spike is more gradual...you see him go from remorseless killer, to getting a chip and slowly beginning to question what he's doing, to falling in love with a person who he had wished to destroy, to dealing with her rejection, to trying to help her regardless, to struggling to overcome his own demonic urges, to trying to find a moral compass, to falling down, and then getting up again. The character actually does change. He's completely different by the end of the series. Is he redeemed? I don't know or care. But he is interesting.
Faith on the other hand...not as interesting. Even though her arc is by the numbers redemptive, no arguments there, but it is not really all that interesting or innovative. It is your basic American wishful thinking prison rehabilitates you tale. Bad girl puts herself in prison, breaks out to save friend, is suddenly "good". She doesn't really change her coping mechanisms, or if she does, we are told she did, not shown it. So, no real surprises or real character examination. The writer took a short-cut. We never really get to see what makes her tick. Just snippets if that. Her character feels very cliche to me, very bad girl goes to prison because of hunky guy who inspires her, breaks out to help him then joins the cause. (How many movies have done that one?) So, while I didn't hate her arc, I was never invested. I never really cared. That's the writer's fault more than anything else, I think, although the actress is rather limited - it says something that the best Faith episode is the one in which Gellar played the role in Who Are You?. That's also the only episode that I felt invested in Faith or cared. The character comes alive in that episode. Granted all of this is fairly subjective. I don't dislike Faith. I just feel that the character's arc isn't that interesting. In some respects the fanfic written about Faith is more interesting than what appeared on screen, hell so is the meta. Because so much is left off-screen. We never really see her evolution...we just see the change. It's too abrupt.
It's true in books as well. Jamie Lannister in Song of Ice and Fire, fascinates me, because the character changes. He may never be redeemed, and that's not what I'm invested in, what interests me is how the character is changing, and why. How he addresses certain things. For example, he goes from being deeply and irrevocably committed to his twin sister, to the degree that he will do literally anything for her - to, well, not liking her or being at all devoted, and dismissive. And we see how that comes about, bit by bit. We also see how his relationships with other characters change and evolve. Why he becomes what he is, when we first meet him, and why he changes. He's not stagnant. I will give George RR Martin a great deal of credit for this much - none of his characters are stagnant, they all evolve and he has a cast of literally thousands. Almost too many for this reader to keep track of. Each character has a journey, each changes, none are the same, and we get to see those changes, why they happen and how, we see the intention, and the acts of contrition, or the justifications intricately laid out. It's not like the Buffy comics, where justifications are thrown out and we're expected to swallow them without question, no explanation or if one is given, a rudimentary one.
The Wire - is an example of a series that had multiple redemptive character arcs, where people changed habits and patterns, and we saw why. From Omar the hitman, who tries to seek a new path, falls into old habits...and well ends horribly, to McNulty, who in trying to do the right thing, screws up royally, and seeks redemption by trying to fix it.
Each character is thoroughly explored and rarely if ever judged by the writers. We get all the angles. In some ways, it is a bit like Martin's novel - extensive in its examination.
Even the drug-dealers, D'Angelo and Bodie, are shown detailed redemptive arcs. As are Kima, the narcotics/homicide cop and Frank Sobotke, the union man smuggling drugs. This may be the best example of how it can be done well across the board in a non-genre series.
Another example of redemptive arcs that work - is Doctor River Song in Doctor Who- whose redemptive arc is being done backwards. We see her redemptive act or acts of contrition first, we're told by Doctor Song that she did a horrible thing, an unforgivable thing, she killed a good man and that's why she is voluntarily in prison - although she sneaks out to help on various occasions. Then finally, we're told what she did, and why, we even sort of see it as does she, from a completely different perspective, and then we see her in the process of planning and pursuing it. Like Faith, River is only in prison because River chooses to be. They couldn't keep her in there otherwise. And in other respects we can compare Doctor River Song's arc to Faith's. It's a far more interesting arc - because first of all, it's told in an innovative manner, backwards. Or more accurately, out of order. With Doctor Song - we get to see everything, but out of order. And she does change. Doctor Song's arc is what Faith's should have been except not out of order, of course.
A good redemptive arc is not so much about "redemption" as it is about the journey to "redemption" or how we change and evolve along the way. Realize our mistakes, figure out if we want to change our behavior. Faith in Angel, realizes her mistake because Angel points it out. Which never worked for me. She should have figured it out on her own without him. In Angel - Faith's arc is more about Angel than it is about Faith, just as in Buffy, it is more about Buffy. In Doctor Who, Doctor Song's arc feels more like her own. This doesn't have to be the case - as we see with Spike in Buffy, who gets an arc that isn't all about her. And it doesn't always have to end well - see Mitchell in Being Human - who realizes he can't do the work to change, that there is no way out, that he'll fall into the old patterns again.
In most cases, a good redemptive arc is about examining one's own choices, taking responsibility for them, learning how to live with them, and changing how one makes choices in the future and/or present. Not falling into old habits, or at the very least trying not to. Take for example - Aeryn Sun in Farscape - who as we move through the series learns to trust others more, to not be opportunistic. Who moves away from violence. Her behavior changes. She opens up. Or once again, Spike in Buffy, who when Dru left him, her pursued her, captured her, and tortured her. OR when he discovers he loves Buffy - he captures her and tries to make her admit she loves him. Realizing this does not work and is a huge mistake, he changes his behavior. He works through his anger, his need to strike out when rejected, and he makes progress, slow agonizing progress. Until, he actually does get what he thinks he wants, but it doesn't work and he can't make her love him the way he wishes her too and falls once again into old habits, which only makes things worse and reveal that he is monster in his own eyes. Repulsed, he decides to take measures to ensure he doesn't do this again, and gets a soul, but that doesn't quite work either, since he gives in to the First Evil and its trigger (which apparently is a bit like heroine)...so once again he has to fight against old habits and finally, finally, he is able to let her go, to let her love him in her own way, and love her back without wanting more. Finally he gets it, and he is able to change how he does things. That's interesting to me! To see how the character changes his way of doing things, how he copes with pain, how he deals with rejection. Because these are things we all deal with. If something isn't working, and it wasn't, you have to change it. Aeryn similarly tries to change, she tries to compromise to meet John Crichton half-way, to learn his language, to go with him. At the end of S3, John chooses Aeryn, and it is not really until the end of S4 that Aeryn finally chooses John. We see her struggling to understand him, struggling to change how she operates, and it is hard going.
Television can show this type of thing better than film. So too can books. Particularly serial novels like George RR Martin's series, where you have time to explore the myriad of choices that we make each day, and the consequences. And most importantly why we make them.
A good redemptive arc - examines those choices, and examines how the character learns to live with them, finds a way to change, does an act of contrition, and tries not to fall into those old abusive/destructive habits. But examination is the key point here, not success. They don't have to succeed. Most don't. It's how you show it. Too often, a writer will tell us a character is redeemed or tell us they are on this arc, but they don't show it. So it feels false. Such as Angel - I'm constantly being told that Angel is on a redemptive quest or Angel is redeemed etc, but I don't really see the changes taking place. In House - we aren't told he is on a redemptive quest, it is clear that he is not. That's not the show's purpose. In both cases, it is a mislead.
Okay enough rambling...off to watch either Fringe or Mao's Last Dancer, before tonight's Doctor Who, which is most likely another horror episode - sans Doctor Song. My difficulty with Who, is that I don't tend to like the stand-a-lone episodes that much, with a few exceptions.
Today, managed to clean out fridge, and buy a new phone - since I more or less did in the old one vacuuming. (The cord got sucked into the power vacuum that I borrowed from the landlord. Note to self don't use power vacuum again, or if you do, make sure you remove all cords from the floor first.)
Tummy still plaguing me, so had a weird dinner menu. It was basically one quarter baked potato, one quarter baked sweet potato, and tuna fish on brown rice crackers. Good news, tummy liked it. Can't argue with the tummy. I'm learning that. It's particular, in case you haven't noticed. There's all sorts of things I love that it hates. Haven't eaten much today, more or less skipped lunch. Had melon for a snack. Tried an organic gluten free peanut butter cup - but tummy hated that. Did a lot of walking and lugging of things - I don't need to lift weights, I do that just lugging my laundry and groceries home.
2.At the laundry mat, I read an article in EW about Sarah Michell Gellar-Prinze's new show Ringer. She was on the cover of it. (I don't know, I still think she was prettier when she was 18, with a bit more meat on her bones. She's too thin.) In the article she pretty much stated that after Buffy, she didn't feel she had anything to prove. She'd done it already, become a pop culture icon. People were teaching college courses on Buffy! (Bored academics who got tired of teaching, presenting, and writing about the same old literary classics. You can only teach Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby so many times, after all. Wish they'd done this when I was in school - wait, they did, I wrote a papers on M*A*S*H, Les Liasons Dangereux, Betty Blue, The Wild Bunch, Terminator, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, as well as That Obscure Object of Desire, and A Clockwork Orange. So never mind.) Do agree with Gellar regarding the difference between movies and television - she states that tv provides better roles for women. Finding a complicated, textured role in film is rare. Most roles are girl-friends or mothers. She states that Buffy didn't work as a movie - because in a movie you only have a limited amount of time to tell a story, and it has to have a clear beginning, middle, and end. No time to expand on the character. So it's basically just about a cheerleader who kills vampires. That's it. Maybe a romance thrown in. On TV - you get to explore what it means for her to do this, how it affects her friends, her ability to be a student, her relationships with parents, friends, etc. It becomes deeper more textured, more interesting. Television can go further than film.
For myself, I've come to realize that while I love visuals, and I do, I'm more interested in dialogue, in the unfolding of the narrative, the characters, and the performances - and far less in special effects or visual imagery. Pretty films don't really impress me that much if there isn't a good story, interesting characters, dialogue, or performance. Example: Avatar - I found pretty but dull. Same thing with Inception and The Hulk. While The Fighter, Black Swan, King's Speech...haunt me more. That's oversimplifying it of course, and when it comes to things like taste, it's seldom simple.
Regarding Ringer? It's apparently Buffy meets Cruel Intentions or a noir, with a female lead. She's playing a dual role - two sisters. Siobhan dies, Bridget who is on the run from the mob and witness protection, decides to pretend to be Siobhan, not realizing Siobhan has someone gunning for her as well. It's supposed to have a cliff-hanger before each commercial break. They have mysteries, but they are solved. And it is noire thriller, with soapy elements, and action. Gellar could actually pull this sort of thing off - I've seen her play dual roles before (Buffy). Let's hope the writing is good. It's a male/female writing team. The cast is actually pretty stellar, with Ion Gruffold, Nestor Carbondale (Lost), and the guy from Life Unexpected who played Baz and was basically the best thing in Life Unexpected and the only reason I bothered with it after a while. Also, Jason Dohring, Logan from Veronica Mars, has just been cast in a role. So, so far, so good.
3.Been thinking redemptive stories, in part because there have been a few posts on it on live journal, and often posts by others, regardless of whether I comment, will percolate for a bit in my own head until I post myself on it.
I don't think I really care if the character is redeemed.
I'm not in it for the morality play or the moral arc. In part, because I've learned that morality is often in the eye of the beholder and not always as black and white as we like to make it. For example: Some people on my flist despised Spike and saw that character as well, clearly morally despicable on all levels, yet were sympathetic towards Warren Miers, I was the exact opposite. I saw no redeeming qualities in Warren, while I did see redeeming qualities in Spike. Warren to me was a black and white villain, boring. But, there are people on my own flist who vehemently disagree. Often - it depends on what the characters did and their intent. For example - some people saw Spike's attempted rape of Buffy as irredeemable and the worst thing ever. For me? His intent and how he responded to that action after-wards, mitigated it, as did the circumstances surrounding it. It was far from clear cut - to me. I viewed it differently. It was not a black and white act. While Warren's attempted rape of Katrina, and eventual murder of her, albeit accidental, was clearly irredeemable, and the worst thing I'd seen the show do. I found that close to impossible to watch. Warren's and by extension his partners in crime, Andrew and Jonathan, intentions were clearly to use, hurt, and humiliate Katrina. There was no gray area. I wanted them all dead afterwards. And the show really couldn't redeem any of them in my eyes. Often it is how we relate to the action that we see, our emotional reaction to it - which may or may not always be rational. Which is why I don't tend to like redemptive stories for well the "redemptive" bit or the morality. Because I find that area uninteresting. Engaging in discussions on which act is worse feels pointless, since so much of it is well personal. After all, whether you found Spike's killing of Nikki more gross and difficult to deal with than say, Angelus' killing of Jenny Carpenter, and later Angel's actions in S4-5 Angel...is well, personal.
For me, what is interesting in a redemptive arc and why I tend to like them is how the character evolves and changes. I don't really care if they succeed. Or what they do. Just as long as there is change and evolution, and we aren't repeating ourselves. My difficulty with a lot of redemptive arcs - is often they will redeem the character but not have the character change or evolve. We don't see them change, their relationships change, how they deal with things change. They feel well stagnant.
A good example of this is House. Greg House has not changed. After about five years this gets old. He stays his insanely brilliant self, arrogant, and narcissistic. Feeling that he can do whatever he wants whenever he wants it. He never changes. So I find myself watching House just to see what insane thing he does next. And hoping, it may change him in some way. But, alas, it never quite does.
Dexter is an example of the same thing being done just a tad better, in that, Dexter himself doesn't so much change, or atone, as we get new angles on the character, which was the appeal of House for the first couple of seasons. Sooner or later, Dexter will run out of new angles, and unless the character changes...the show will grow stagnant. That said, Dexter's supporting cast, much like House's is changing, those characters are permitted to evolve.
Angel the Series had the same set-up. Angel himself never really changes or evolves, but those around him do - except being a noir series, they don't get redeemed, instead they become corrupted by their association with Angel. Much as those surrounding Dexter and House slowly become corrupted. In Dexter, his sister's moral code is slowly eroding. And in House, all of his assistants moral codes are eroding. The two who leave, do so, in part, because they can't handle it. This is the anti-hero set-up, where the audience is deluded into thinking that the writers intend to redeem the lead character, when actually they don't plan to do that at all - instead they plan on showing how the lead character's actions and outlook affects everyone around him. Everyone falls into the abyss - which is literally what did happen on Angel - everyone fell into hell, including the city they resided.
The lead never really changes in these shows. He never addresses his flaws. Or shows true remorse for his actions, if anything he continues to feel justified, and the moment he questions what he is doing - someone either close to him or another character will pat him on the head and say, no it is justified. He is surrounded by enablers. I noticed this in Dexter S5 - how many people unwittingly enable Dexter. This is also true in House, and in Angel. As a result, the lead character never does that act of contrition, he never acknowledges what he has done, instead he either denies it completely, believes it is justified, blames it on an addiction or possession or someone else.
This type of storyline in my opinion has a short shelf-life and really only works in films, which are only 2-3 hours in length. Twenty-two episodes times five years...is a bit much. After awhile the narrative just begins to loop around itself, and I grow bored. No one has evolved, they've either de-volved, or are stagnated.
That's not a redemptive arc so much as a false one or mislead. In Angel - there's only three characters, that get redemptive arcs...Darla, Spike, and Faith. Of the three, Faith and Darla are the most interesting and change the most. Spike is the most entertaining, although I'm not sure he changes much in S5, feels somewhat stagnant, all that really changes is his relationships with those around him - so I suppose he does change quite a bit if you consider his interactions with others.
I found Spike's redemptive arc in Buffy the most interesting - because the character does change. Or rather I see changes in his character, he goes from trying to kill everyone, to trying to save them - and it does not happen over night. Faith - was too abrupt. She's murderous, then suicidal, then in prison. Wham, bang, done. I was never given much chance to invest. Or root for her. And I didn't really see the hard work. Spike is more gradual...you see him go from remorseless killer, to getting a chip and slowly beginning to question what he's doing, to falling in love with a person who he had wished to destroy, to dealing with her rejection, to trying to help her regardless, to struggling to overcome his own demonic urges, to trying to find a moral compass, to falling down, and then getting up again. The character actually does change. He's completely different by the end of the series. Is he redeemed? I don't know or care. But he is interesting.
Faith on the other hand...not as interesting. Even though her arc is by the numbers redemptive, no arguments there, but it is not really all that interesting or innovative. It is your basic American wishful thinking prison rehabilitates you tale. Bad girl puts herself in prison, breaks out to save friend, is suddenly "good". She doesn't really change her coping mechanisms, or if she does, we are told she did, not shown it. So, no real surprises or real character examination. The writer took a short-cut. We never really get to see what makes her tick. Just snippets if that. Her character feels very cliche to me, very bad girl goes to prison because of hunky guy who inspires her, breaks out to help him then joins the cause. (How many movies have done that one?) So, while I didn't hate her arc, I was never invested. I never really cared. That's the writer's fault more than anything else, I think, although the actress is rather limited - it says something that the best Faith episode is the one in which Gellar played the role in Who Are You?. That's also the only episode that I felt invested in Faith or cared. The character comes alive in that episode. Granted all of this is fairly subjective. I don't dislike Faith. I just feel that the character's arc isn't that interesting. In some respects the fanfic written about Faith is more interesting than what appeared on screen, hell so is the meta. Because so much is left off-screen. We never really see her evolution...we just see the change. It's too abrupt.
It's true in books as well. Jamie Lannister in Song of Ice and Fire, fascinates me, because the character changes. He may never be redeemed, and that's not what I'm invested in, what interests me is how the character is changing, and why. How he addresses certain things. For example, he goes from being deeply and irrevocably committed to his twin sister, to the degree that he will do literally anything for her - to, well, not liking her or being at all devoted, and dismissive. And we see how that comes about, bit by bit. We also see how his relationships with other characters change and evolve. Why he becomes what he is, when we first meet him, and why he changes. He's not stagnant. I will give George RR Martin a great deal of credit for this much - none of his characters are stagnant, they all evolve and he has a cast of literally thousands. Almost too many for this reader to keep track of. Each character has a journey, each changes, none are the same, and we get to see those changes, why they happen and how, we see the intention, and the acts of contrition, or the justifications intricately laid out. It's not like the Buffy comics, where justifications are thrown out and we're expected to swallow them without question, no explanation or if one is given, a rudimentary one.
The Wire - is an example of a series that had multiple redemptive character arcs, where people changed habits and patterns, and we saw why. From Omar the hitman, who tries to seek a new path, falls into old habits...and well ends horribly, to McNulty, who in trying to do the right thing, screws up royally, and seeks redemption by trying to fix it.
Each character is thoroughly explored and rarely if ever judged by the writers. We get all the angles. In some ways, it is a bit like Martin's novel - extensive in its examination.
Even the drug-dealers, D'Angelo and Bodie, are shown detailed redemptive arcs. As are Kima, the narcotics/homicide cop and Frank Sobotke, the union man smuggling drugs. This may be the best example of how it can be done well across the board in a non-genre series.
Another example of redemptive arcs that work - is Doctor River Song in Doctor Who- whose redemptive arc is being done backwards. We see her redemptive act or acts of contrition first, we're told by Doctor Song that she did a horrible thing, an unforgivable thing, she killed a good man and that's why she is voluntarily in prison - although she sneaks out to help on various occasions. Then finally, we're told what she did, and why, we even sort of see it as does she, from a completely different perspective, and then we see her in the process of planning and pursuing it. Like Faith, River is only in prison because River chooses to be. They couldn't keep her in there otherwise. And in other respects we can compare Doctor River Song's arc to Faith's. It's a far more interesting arc - because first of all, it's told in an innovative manner, backwards. Or more accurately, out of order. With Doctor Song - we get to see everything, but out of order. And she does change. Doctor Song's arc is what Faith's should have been except not out of order, of course.
A good redemptive arc is not so much about "redemption" as it is about the journey to "redemption" or how we change and evolve along the way. Realize our mistakes, figure out if we want to change our behavior. Faith in Angel, realizes her mistake because Angel points it out. Which never worked for me. She should have figured it out on her own without him. In Angel - Faith's arc is more about Angel than it is about Faith, just as in Buffy, it is more about Buffy. In Doctor Who, Doctor Song's arc feels more like her own. This doesn't have to be the case - as we see with Spike in Buffy, who gets an arc that isn't all about her. And it doesn't always have to end well - see Mitchell in Being Human - who realizes he can't do the work to change, that there is no way out, that he'll fall into the old patterns again.
In most cases, a good redemptive arc is about examining one's own choices, taking responsibility for them, learning how to live with them, and changing how one makes choices in the future and/or present. Not falling into old habits, or at the very least trying not to. Take for example - Aeryn Sun in Farscape - who as we move through the series learns to trust others more, to not be opportunistic. Who moves away from violence. Her behavior changes. She opens up. Or once again, Spike in Buffy, who when Dru left him, her pursued her, captured her, and tortured her. OR when he discovers he loves Buffy - he captures her and tries to make her admit she loves him. Realizing this does not work and is a huge mistake, he changes his behavior. He works through his anger, his need to strike out when rejected, and he makes progress, slow agonizing progress. Until, he actually does get what he thinks he wants, but it doesn't work and he can't make her love him the way he wishes her too and falls once again into old habits, which only makes things worse and reveal that he is monster in his own eyes. Repulsed, he decides to take measures to ensure he doesn't do this again, and gets a soul, but that doesn't quite work either, since he gives in to the First Evil and its trigger (which apparently is a bit like heroine)...so once again he has to fight against old habits and finally, finally, he is able to let her go, to let her love him in her own way, and love her back without wanting more. Finally he gets it, and he is able to change how he does things. That's interesting to me! To see how the character changes his way of doing things, how he copes with pain, how he deals with rejection. Because these are things we all deal with. If something isn't working, and it wasn't, you have to change it. Aeryn similarly tries to change, she tries to compromise to meet John Crichton half-way, to learn his language, to go with him. At the end of S3, John chooses Aeryn, and it is not really until the end of S4 that Aeryn finally chooses John. We see her struggling to understand him, struggling to change how she operates, and it is hard going.
Television can show this type of thing better than film. So too can books. Particularly serial novels like George RR Martin's series, where you have time to explore the myriad of choices that we make each day, and the consequences. And most importantly why we make them.
A good redemptive arc - examines those choices, and examines how the character learns to live with them, finds a way to change, does an act of contrition, and tries not to fall into those old abusive/destructive habits. But examination is the key point here, not success. They don't have to succeed. Most don't. It's how you show it. Too often, a writer will tell us a character is redeemed or tell us they are on this arc, but they don't show it. So it feels false. Such as Angel - I'm constantly being told that Angel is on a redemptive quest or Angel is redeemed etc, but I don't really see the changes taking place. In House - we aren't told he is on a redemptive quest, it is clear that he is not. That's not the show's purpose. In both cases, it is a mislead.
Okay enough rambling...off to watch either Fringe or Mao's Last Dancer, before tonight's Doctor Who, which is most likely another horror episode - sans Doctor Song. My difficulty with Who, is that I don't tend to like the stand-a-lone episodes that much, with a few exceptions.
