BSG, TVD, HAVEN, SPN: angst and payoff.
Oct. 1st, 2012 10:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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jaelle85, ewanmax and herowlness!!!
-HAPPY MONDAY you all, hope you had a nice weekend. We went to the movies yesterday and Gaia watche her first one on the big screen. It was the Ice Age 4 and she really enjoyed it. She said she loved it and want to go again :)
-This week is the SPN week, yay!!! Though Jared last words on Sam pissed me off, I am excited and happy to see Dean again. I can't wait.
-I had a long and interesting twitter chat withleelust and ann_tara about Haven and tv shows in general. They asked me to post my thoughts and this is what you'll find under the last cut.
First, some links forann_tara and leelust about Haven spoilers and the cast interviews.
The Three Amigos – Haven’s Emily Rose, Lucas Bryant & Eric Balfour
In this one you'll find how the relationship between Nathan and Duke should get more interesting and that Nathan&Audrey match up will satisfy the fans.
Lucas Bryant about S3
He said that Nathan is determined to keep Audrey in his life.
"Lucas Bryant".
This is older, before the finale last year but he addressed the N/A relationship for S3. He said there will be roadblocks and speed-bump (looks like TVD!)
Since this is also a Haven post, some thoughts about the second episode.
-I liked the storyline. I loved Cookie. I adored Nathan with Cookie;)
-The psychiatric is nice and I want to see more of her.
-I want Nathan and Duke to be BBF, but I get why Nathan doesn't trust him. He's been bullied and betrayed too many times by Duke in the past to trust him so easily. Also Nathan is jealous, so I think it will take a while for the two of them to become friends again.
-I want to know who the Hunter is.
-I don't trust Dwight. Not completly.
-Audrey you have to tell Nathan the truth. No secrets. He's the one you trust the most. He is your friend. You are going to pull away from him to protect him, but you will break him nonetheless, so please...don't do this.
I don't know if my cuople will end up together because I see a lot of angst coming. Obviously the stakes are too high and there might not be room for a romance right now, but they have been building up this relationship for 2 years and I don't think they are going to waste it. They are not going to sink my ship. NO way.
Let's say some words spoken by Lucas and Emily and the lyirics of the song played at the end (A Soft Place to Land), make me stay positive.
Long long post under the cut...
Premise: I'm not good at the meta thing. I'm not good at writing down why I like something. I'd rather talk about it but sometimes written words fail me, so bear me :)
My favorite genre on TV has to be sci-fi. I think it requires an extra effort to make a show work and let us be carried away by our imagination. It's also a way to talk about the reality without being in the real world.
Of course to get me hooked up, a show must have a good cast, well developed characters and storylines and has to balance the singe sl with the main arc.
What really makes me fall and feel for a show, in the sense that I feel the urge to watch it and can't wait a whole week, is the constant battle between angst and payoff.
What's Angst for me? It's that deep emotion that combines the unbearable angush of life with the hopes of overcoming this seemingly impossible situation (Urban Dictionary).
It's the internal turmoil of a character that you can find in every action, every word, every relationship this character lives.
I'm not interested in happy endings, I am interested in the journey the characters make to get their payoff.
There must be payoff. If a well developed character spend all his life in pain and suffering and he doesn't have a payoff, the whole journey would not make sense.
Let me explain this better with some examples.
Battlestar Galactica.
I still think it was one of the best show ever, so I am pretty content with how they wrote it.
As a shipper, my heart was broken multiple times and the end cancelled every hopes for Lee and Kara to be together. I was seeing that coming. I never had the feeling they would have been together because they didn't fight enough. They were stuck, trapped and they failed themselves as a couple. So where's the payoff? They didn't fail themselves as people. They both accomplished something. Kara led them to safety. Lee was able to have a fresh start and be whoever he wanted to be. As characters they got their payoff. They had a purpose and they didn't fail it.
The Vampire Diaries
Damon is angst, in everything he does, says, feels. Angst is a state of mind for him. This comes out especially in the relationship with the two people he loves the most: his brother and Elena. Damon's angst is strictly connected to his way of loving. He loves with intensity and desperation. All this love is not even always recognized from some of the characters, who still consider him as a selfish, bad guy. But you can see the angst also in this because Damon wants to be considered that way, so he doesn't have to live up to anyone's expectations. Damon is torn. He likes who he is and he misses who he can't be anymore. His payoff is the journey towards a healtier life. Damon is learning to accept love and frienship. He's learning to trust people, to grow up. His humanity has been taken away from him when he was still too young to be a mature adult, Damon's real payoff for me it's not being with Elena, but becoming the man he could have become before he turned. Ok I want him with Elena too :)
I see possible payoff for all the characters in TVD.
Haven
I've been watching this little show since the very beginning but got hooked rewatching S2 in August. It was a flash. I realized it had everything I wanted from a tv show.
What I love about it, it's that it mantains a pretty good balance between the three leads. Each of them has his own issues and storyline, but they are intertwined and well mixed up with the main arch.
Nathan and Audrey are the most angsty characters for me and this is why I am drawned to them mostly. Both as a couple and as indivuduals. Nathan breaks me because I can't even imagine how devasting his inability to feel anything might be. If I think about him as a kid, I can see how many issues he had to deal with. Add his strained relationship with his father, his insecurities issues, the lack of social skills in a pretty shy and reserved, yet friendly guy and you get the angsty picture. He is a tortured soul.
Audrey is angsty too since she doesn't know who she is and she knows she exists every 20 years for some months. Super angst too.
As a shipper I would loathe if they sink them as a couple, but S3 seems to be all about the impossibility for them to be together. I hope to see them fighting instead of running away as Lee and Kara did in BSG. Otherwise better seeing them falling in love with someone else, but not just being alone and not being together because of bad timing or advers fate. This is bullshit.
So where's the payoff here? If they don't end up together, but Audrey finds the way to stay and Nathan gets that he is worthy to be loved, they get it. If Nathan starts to trust Duke and they fix their friendship, this is payoff. If Audrey and Nathan finds a way to be happy even without being together, if Duke realizes that he can be a better man this is payoff. In this case the payoff is more about the three of them not losing each other than two of them becoming a couple.
My ship heart thinks I am writing a lot of stupid things. I want them together! Plus how cannot not love a guy who's like that with doggies??? Nathan FTW!
And finally SPN...it's a long long post I am making more because I needed to get all of this out. If you are still with me, I congrat you :)
Supernatural.
My little show has made me cry and feel like any other show in all my life. Mostly thanks to his unique main charactter: Dean Winchester. A character who can still live on his own and has often saved a show which lately has disappointed me in every possible way. Dean is the only reason I am still watching Supernatural.
So this is the premise, but it's important because you have to understand where I am with this show. Speaking of angst, I feel it if I care about the characters. Dean is angst, but he is alone because there is no connection with the other main characters for me. Not anymore.
Sadly, Sam is a character who might not even been on the show and I woldn't miss at all. I wouldn't miss the brotherly bond, which was the reason who got me hooked up, because they have destroyed it in the last two seasons. I am at the point where I think Dean and Sam should be apart so that they could really do what they want and be what they are. I don't want to see Dean stuck in the role of the brother's keeper anymore. I am scared by what S8 might be regarding the brotherly bond. ...who knew I would have ever said that.
Castiel...ann_tara asked me about my Dean/Castiel thoughts, so here we go. To love Cas as I used to, I have to detach and remember who he was in S4 and in S5 and mostly I have to ignore some rabid Cas fans who blames Dean for everything.
Cas betrayal for me is something I can hardly forgive. The way he acted, how he rejected Dean and ignored all the signs which were telling him he was wrong, are just testing my love for Castiel. I can't really explain why. Probably it's because I wasn't expecting him to betray his only friend like he did. I didn't think Cas would have never been able to turn his back on Dean. With Sam, everytime he did, I was exepcting it and his actions led me to where I am now. Indifference. I don't care about him anymore. I don't feel for him anymore. With Cas is different because I have loved him from the very beginning in a way I have never loved Sam. I was totally emotionally invested in his friendhsip with Dean, I was happy to see someone not taking Dean for granted, someone who chose to question his own beliefs for him. I have loved to see Cas changing and getting to love the humans because of his love for Dean. None has ever done something like that for Dean.
Castiel decided to trust Dean, the S6 happened and everything was wasted. I am not even talking about the fact that the writers didn't know what to do with him in S7 and screwed up with his character (do we really have to talk about crazy Castiel???).
They had him destroy what I have loved the most in him: his loyalty to Dean.
It's not enough for me what he did at the end of S7. Maybe it's enough for Dean, but something is broken for me and I don't know if it can be fixed. Probably Dean and Cas will be able to fix their friendship but I seem stuck at being too disappointed in Castiel to completly forgive him.
As for Dean,leelust, of course he is an angsty character. He has lived in hell since he was four and burdened with what none can deal with. He's depressed, he has PTSD and things can get only worse after Purgatory. I just don't feel the others. They left me all cold.
As for the payoff, SPN lacks totally in this department. Where's the payoff for the characters? Where's for Dean? Has he to be stuck forever in pain and sorrow just because he is Dean and that's his life? I want him to fight, to escape from the cage he seems to be stuck in. I don't want him to leave the hunt because Dean is a hunter, but he can be a healtier one. He can deprive himself of his burden, he can share it with someone who wants to take it, who choose to be with him because he likes Dean, not because he has to.
Fighting to get himself a real, complete life is the payoff he deserves.
Are we going to see this sooner or later?
jaelle85, ewanmax and herowlness!!!-HAPPY MONDAY you all, hope you had a nice weekend. We went to the movies yesterday and Gaia watche her first one on the big screen. It was the Ice Age 4 and she really enjoyed it. She said she loved it and want to go again :)
-This week is the SPN week, yay!!! Though Jared last words on Sam pissed me off, I am excited and happy to see Dean again. I can't wait.
-I had a long and interesting twitter chat with
leelust and ann_tara about Haven and tv shows in general. They asked me to post my thoughts and this is what you'll find under the last cut.First, some links for
ann_tara and leelust about Haven spoilers and the cast interviews.The Three Amigos – Haven’s Emily Rose, Lucas Bryant & Eric Balfour
In this one you'll find how the relationship between Nathan and Duke should get more interesting and that Nathan&Audrey match up will satisfy the fans.
Lucas Bryant about S3
He said that Nathan is determined to keep Audrey in his life.
"Lucas Bryant".
This is older, before the finale last year but he addressed the N/A relationship for S3. He said there will be roadblocks and speed-bump (looks like TVD!)
Since this is also a Haven post, some thoughts about the second episode.
-I liked the storyline. I loved Cookie. I adored Nathan with Cookie;)
-The psychiatric is nice and I want to see more of her.
-I want Nathan and Duke to be BBF, but I get why Nathan doesn't trust him. He's been bullied and betrayed too many times by Duke in the past to trust him so easily. Also Nathan is jealous, so I think it will take a while for the two of them to become friends again.
-I want to know who the Hunter is.
-I don't trust Dwight. Not completly.
-Audrey you have to tell Nathan the truth. No secrets. He's the one you trust the most. He is your friend. You are going to pull away from him to protect him, but you will break him nonetheless, so please...don't do this.
I don't know if my cuople will end up together because I see a lot of angst coming. Obviously the stakes are too high and there might not be room for a romance right now, but they have been building up this relationship for 2 years and I don't think they are going to waste it. They are not going to sink my ship. NO way.
Let's say some words spoken by Lucas and Emily and the lyirics of the song played at the end (A Soft Place to Land), make me stay positive.
Long long post under the cut...
Premise: I'm not good at the meta thing. I'm not good at writing down why I like something. I'd rather talk about it but sometimes written words fail me, so bear me :)
My favorite genre on TV has to be sci-fi. I think it requires an extra effort to make a show work and let us be carried away by our imagination. It's also a way to talk about the reality without being in the real world.
Of course to get me hooked up, a show must have a good cast, well developed characters and storylines and has to balance the singe sl with the main arc.
What really makes me fall and feel for a show, in the sense that I feel the urge to watch it and can't wait a whole week, is the constant battle between angst and payoff.
What's Angst for me? It's that deep emotion that combines the unbearable angush of life with the hopes of overcoming this seemingly impossible situation (Urban Dictionary).
It's the internal turmoil of a character that you can find in every action, every word, every relationship this character lives.
I'm not interested in happy endings, I am interested in the journey the characters make to get their payoff.
There must be payoff. If a well developed character spend all his life in pain and suffering and he doesn't have a payoff, the whole journey would not make sense.
Let me explain this better with some examples.
Battlestar Galactica.
I still think it was one of the best show ever, so I am pretty content with how they wrote it.
As a shipper, my heart was broken multiple times and the end cancelled every hopes for Lee and Kara to be together. I was seeing that coming. I never had the feeling they would have been together because they didn't fight enough. They were stuck, trapped and they failed themselves as a couple. So where's the payoff? They didn't fail themselves as people. They both accomplished something. Kara led them to safety. Lee was able to have a fresh start and be whoever he wanted to be. As characters they got their payoff. They had a purpose and they didn't fail it.
The Vampire Diaries
Damon is angst, in everything he does, says, feels. Angst is a state of mind for him. This comes out especially in the relationship with the two people he loves the most: his brother and Elena. Damon's angst is strictly connected to his way of loving. He loves with intensity and desperation. All this love is not even always recognized from some of the characters, who still consider him as a selfish, bad guy. But you can see the angst also in this because Damon wants to be considered that way, so he doesn't have to live up to anyone's expectations. Damon is torn. He likes who he is and he misses who he can't be anymore. His payoff is the journey towards a healtier life. Damon is learning to accept love and frienship. He's learning to trust people, to grow up. His humanity has been taken away from him when he was still too young to be a mature adult, Damon's real payoff for me it's not being with Elena, but becoming the man he could have become before he turned. Ok I want him with Elena too :)
I see possible payoff for all the characters in TVD.
Haven
I've been watching this little show since the very beginning but got hooked rewatching S2 in August. It was a flash. I realized it had everything I wanted from a tv show.
What I love about it, it's that it mantains a pretty good balance between the three leads. Each of them has his own issues and storyline, but they are intertwined and well mixed up with the main arch.
Nathan and Audrey are the most angsty characters for me and this is why I am drawned to them mostly. Both as a couple and as indivuduals. Nathan breaks me because I can't even imagine how devasting his inability to feel anything might be. If I think about him as a kid, I can see how many issues he had to deal with. Add his strained relationship with his father, his insecurities issues, the lack of social skills in a pretty shy and reserved, yet friendly guy and you get the angsty picture. He is a tortured soul.
Audrey is angsty too since she doesn't know who she is and she knows she exists every 20 years for some months. Super angst too.
As a shipper I would loathe if they sink them as a couple, but S3 seems to be all about the impossibility for them to be together. I hope to see them fighting instead of running away as Lee and Kara did in BSG. Otherwise better seeing them falling in love with someone else, but not just being alone and not being together because of bad timing or advers fate. This is bullshit.
So where's the payoff here? If they don't end up together, but Audrey finds the way to stay and Nathan gets that he is worthy to be loved, they get it. If Nathan starts to trust Duke and they fix their friendship, this is payoff. If Audrey and Nathan finds a way to be happy even without being together, if Duke realizes that he can be a better man this is payoff. In this case the payoff is more about the three of them not losing each other than two of them becoming a couple.
My ship heart thinks I am writing a lot of stupid things. I want them together! Plus how cannot not love a guy who's like that with doggies??? Nathan FTW!
And finally SPN...it's a long long post I am making more because I needed to get all of this out. If you are still with me, I congrat you :)
Supernatural.
My little show has made me cry and feel like any other show in all my life. Mostly thanks to his unique main charactter: Dean Winchester. A character who can still live on his own and has often saved a show which lately has disappointed me in every possible way. Dean is the only reason I am still watching Supernatural.
So this is the premise, but it's important because you have to understand where I am with this show. Speaking of angst, I feel it if I care about the characters. Dean is angst, but he is alone because there is no connection with the other main characters for me. Not anymore.
Sadly, Sam is a character who might not even been on the show and I woldn't miss at all. I wouldn't miss the brotherly bond, which was the reason who got me hooked up, because they have destroyed it in the last two seasons. I am at the point where I think Dean and Sam should be apart so that they could really do what they want and be what they are. I don't want to see Dean stuck in the role of the brother's keeper anymore. I am scared by what S8 might be regarding the brotherly bond. ...who knew I would have ever said that.
Castiel...
ann_tara asked me about my Dean/Castiel thoughts, so here we go. To love Cas as I used to, I have to detach and remember who he was in S4 and in S5 and mostly I have to ignore some rabid Cas fans who blames Dean for everything.Cas betrayal for me is something I can hardly forgive. The way he acted, how he rejected Dean and ignored all the signs which were telling him he was wrong, are just testing my love for Castiel. I can't really explain why. Probably it's because I wasn't expecting him to betray his only friend like he did. I didn't think Cas would have never been able to turn his back on Dean. With Sam, everytime he did, I was exepcting it and his actions led me to where I am now. Indifference. I don't care about him anymore. I don't feel for him anymore. With Cas is different because I have loved him from the very beginning in a way I have never loved Sam. I was totally emotionally invested in his friendhsip with Dean, I was happy to see someone not taking Dean for granted, someone who chose to question his own beliefs for him. I have loved to see Cas changing and getting to love the humans because of his love for Dean. None has ever done something like that for Dean.
Castiel decided to trust Dean, the S6 happened and everything was wasted. I am not even talking about the fact that the writers didn't know what to do with him in S7 and screwed up with his character (do we really have to talk about crazy Castiel???).
They had him destroy what I have loved the most in him: his loyalty to Dean.
It's not enough for me what he did at the end of S7. Maybe it's enough for Dean, but something is broken for me and I don't know if it can be fixed. Probably Dean and Cas will be able to fix their friendship but I seem stuck at being too disappointed in Castiel to completly forgive him.
As for Dean,
leelust, of course he is an angsty character. He has lived in hell since he was four and burdened with what none can deal with. He's depressed, he has PTSD and things can get only worse after Purgatory. I just don't feel the others. They left me all cold.As for the payoff, SPN lacks totally in this department. Where's the payoff for the characters? Where's for Dean? Has he to be stuck forever in pain and sorrow just because he is Dean and that's his life? I want him to fight, to escape from the cage he seems to be stuck in. I don't want him to leave the hunt because Dean is a hunter, but he can be a healtier one. He can deprive himself of his burden, he can share it with someone who wants to take it, who choose to be with him because he likes Dean, not because he has to.
Fighting to get himself a real, complete life is the payoff he deserves.
Are we going to see this sooner or later?
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Part 1
Date: 2012-10-02 06:20 pm (UTC)Thanks for the links to the Haven interviews. Makes me feel a little better about the possibility of some kind of a happy ending for Nate/Audrey. I never saw the Duke/Audrey possibility anyway - I honestly don't think it was intended that way. Duke was always a friend, always willing to help Audrey, but there was nothing romantic on that front.
I love how much this cast adores each other, and I think that comes through on screen in layers to characterization, and makes a huge difference in the likability of a show in general. :) I know this show is always on the fence come renewal time, because it's not just Syfy, but the production studio in Canada that decides if they want to continue with it each year - so we're always having to wait an extra long time on renewal. *biting fingernails*
All three characters are the epitome of angst - and maybe that's why we root for all of them. ;) Unlike you, though, I like Dwight - I don't get any kind of duplicitous vibe off him. I think he's been a good addition to the show so far.
The Vampire Diaries, of course, is one big honkin' ball of angst! Is there any character on that show who isn't full of angst - really? I don't think so. Damon, Stefan, and Elena are certainly up front and center with their angsty directions - but I can't really think of anyone who has an easy time of it. ;) I'm really anxious for next week's premiere. This season has the opportunity to be truly epic now that Elena has join the vampy ranks.
I don't so much care if Damon ends up with Elena or not. Quite frankly, once she embraces her new vamp status, Elena should discover that eternity is an awfully long time to be tied down to one guy. LOL! But, seriously, it should make her more open to other possibilities in time. But, ultimately, I just want Damon to accept himself and be comfortable in his own skin, being the way he wants to be, and not making any apologies for it.
Of course, my big fear is that he will die for good at some point before the series ends, because I have heard that he does die in the books. But I haven't read them, and I don't know how early or late in the story that happens.
Re: Part 1
Date: 2012-10-03 11:23 am (UTC)I agree. I don't see the triangle here. Also in another interview (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6Ph8LgPCx4) he said everything will be good and the fans will be sad, hopeful, sad again and then very happy. I am hopeful. Maybe it ends with a cliffhanger where they say they love each other...and we have to hope to get a S4 (looks like the process is more complicated than for the networks shows) :)
All three characters are the epitome of angst - and maybe that's why we root for all of them. ;)
YES! Waiting to talk more about new Haven episodes with you :)))
Unlike you, though, I like Dwight - I don't get any kind of duplicitous vibe off him. I think he's been a good addition to the show so far.
Rewatched some episodes with him in them and that vibe faded, so count me in the list of the ones who like him.
ITA on TVD!
He dies in the books but he gets back. It's the supernatural world after all :)
OMG I can't even think at the possibility of Damon dying for good (or Dean for the matters).