laeria | A Meme of Her Own Making

Happy New Year, friends and circlers!

I felt like posting about the new Sherlock, but I haven't actually watched it yet - I'm struck in that awkward rut where you REALLY WANT TO WATCH but also don't want to ruin a moderately good thing.

So, instead, I've been making a list of 15 Favourite Characters Ever and let me tell you, it was very harrrrd. Indeed, such toil and suffering went into it, I have no choice but to share it with you, my dears! I was thinking you could do it too?

Okay, I sorted them by categories for great convenience.

The Immortal being with a weird name and an unfortunate thing for humans:
The Doctor - Doctor Who
The Sphynx - Subnormality
Spike - Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Bonus mention: Crowley - Good Omens

The blondes who keeps growing beyond the scope of her (his) own narrative:
Briony Larkin - Chime by Franny Billingsley
Brienne of Tarth - A Song of Ice and Fire
Rose Tyler - Doctor Who
Bonus mention: Tyrion Lannister - A Song of Ice and Fire

The redhead who keeps the universe together and is the hero of the story:
Donna Noble - Doctor Who
Cordelia Vorkosigan - Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois Macmaster-Bujold
Ron Weasley - Harry Potter
Bonus mention: Mistress - Oglaf (NSFW, being Oglaf)

The classy pacifist:
Psmith as in pshrimp - Mike and Psmith, by P. G. Wodehouse
Lorne - Angel
Most Noble Adolphus Gillespie Vernon Ware, Duke of Sale - The Foundling, by Georgette Heyer
Bonus mention: Adelaide Brooke - Doctor Who

The sacrificial lamd:
Esmeralda - The Hunch-back of Notre-Dame (Disney!)
Aral Vorkosigan - Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois Macmaster-Bujold
Buffy Summers - Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Bonus mention: Steve, Son of God - The Second Coming

So, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to ask me about my feelings for however many characters you want to hear about - seriously, I could talk about these people for days - and then, if you want to, post a similar list to your own journals and thereby set forth a cycle of holiday-time squee.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I totally know what you mean about new Sherlock, but am selfishly going to say OMG WATCH IT, because I need a partner-in-squee. It's good, I promise -- I think Moffatt has been saving up all his decent writing for women characters for this show, because the character in question is actually really badass and does things for herself. And of course the boys, as always, are fabulous.

:|

Okay, so, I'm not quite certain I'm the best possible squeeing partner for this ep, because I am mostly intensely ambivalent.

Things I LOVED:

- Sherlock himself. Every moment of Sherlock. He's - growing up, oh my god. Character-developing. Apologising. Showing emotion. Being influenced by the people around him. Clinging to his self-image of heartlessness with increasing desperation. Swiping a royal ashtray for giggles.

- The Christmas party. Rather, Sherlock at the Christmas party: relaxed and mellow and showing off, basically being nasty as a party trick, because he was Among His People and this is acceptable - I mean, it isn't really, but it explains a lot about his 'sociopathy'.

- Joooohn. "I always hear 'punch me' when you speak, but usually it's subtext." John. Jooohn.

- Mrs Hudson. How awesome to have canon confirmation of her badassery. I think Sherlock and her interaction was my favourite in the show ever. She's basically my hero. (Also, heh, why so disturbed at the female orgasm sounds, Mrs Hudson? I need fic about that.)

- Mycroft!! I never cared much for him, but he was amazing here. His despairing sitting about when the Coventry plan failed. Oh, god, Holmesboyz, why so attached to seeing yourself as emotionless when you clearly aren't?

- the Sherlock-Irene "donning battle armour" sequence, and Irene's fabulous "damaged, deluded and you believe in a higher power - in this case, yourself". Actually, nearly all of Irene's dialogue.

- Staying Alive! Staying Alive! I have issues with camp!Moriarty, but that shit was just funny, yo.

The rest of it was SUPPOSED to be a technicolor dream come true - fluid sexuality! rampant kink! - and then it spectacularly wasn't my cup of tea, but, eh, can't have everything.

Yeah, the more I've thought about the episode the more I've been wavering back and forth over whether it was actually as good as I originally thought it was. I think I've settled on thinking that Irene is an awesome character that I really love... and that the last 10 or so minutes of the episode just do not fit with that awesomeness, argh. The whole point of Irene Adler is that she wins, Moffatt, have you read the original stories?! I'm not as upset about the rescuing thing -- she didn't ask or expect to be rescued, she was resigned to the situation, Sherlock just happened to show up because he's cool like that -- but having her lose, and especially because she falls for him? Really? As far as I can tell in the original canon, Holmes admires Adler because she was able to beat him. I sort of feel like this Sherlock isn't mature enough for that, unfortunately.

I agree on all your squee-points, though! Mrs. Hudson, omg. Such a badass. And I don't know how I feel about Moriarty's campness, but I love his viciousness. Wow.

Oh, I didn't mind the saving at all. Saving people is what Sherlock DOES. There's no shame in that.

(There IS shame in getting into ANY RANDOM CAR without backup, John, really.)

But, yes, the losing. Totally misses the point of the original story, yeah. Also, it humiliation-squicks me, because, "beg for it", really? (Not that I liked the Irene-humiliating Sherlock bits, either. Nor drugging and whipping him without his consent. There is a not so fine line between kink and abuse, lady, and you should really know that. I wouldn't even mind if she wasn't a dominatrix? But, come on, where're your professional ethics?)

The thing is, I love the theory of Irene, and bits of the actual execution too - lovely actress, wasn't she? - but I cannot get over how her sexuality is cool and awesome while she's using it to extort state secrets but becomes her downfall the moment it becomes genuine? Like, ladies, being sexually liberated means using sex to get material goods and the opportunity to wreak havoc, but you must always make sure to fuck people because they're useful, not because you want the fuck them, because that way lies self-destruction. Which, actually, hello, River.

aaaah. Anyway. I'm glad Irene exist, if only because there will be femslash, I'm glad she got awesome lines, I'm glad we there shall be tons of porn (some of it fix-it porn, with him begging her twice rather than what the show produced) and mostly I kind of imagine that whole SHERLOCKED thing was pre-arranged by her and Sherlock for whatever reason. Maybe, like, because she knows Moriarty is watching? Or something?

Also, I'm getting increasingly certain Molly is the brain behind Moriarty and I am okay with that.

Alsoalso, yes, the viciousness. "Wear you for shoes". He's not hot like the Master is, f'rex, but he's - effective.

I think maybe the biggest mistake, and the one that sort of screwed everything else up, was having Irene be allied with Moriarty. If she had just had her own criminal plotting going on, it could have been much more lah-di-dah-extortion-for-fun-and-profit -- like, yes she's an absolutely brilliant criminal, more than a match for Sherlock, but she can win and the audience can still feel pretty good about how it turned out. There are fun, intriguing villains and then there are villain villains, and Moriarty is definitely a villain villain. Sherlock can't let him or anyone associated with him win, ever. Since Irene is working with him (which, what? She's totally smart enough to figure out this scheme on her own, thank you), she can't win, because it would be a win for Moriarty as well.

I also wish they'd been a bit more careful with the dominatrix thing (pfft, like that was ever going to happen) -- I didn't have a problem with the drugging, since that's pretty common as a diversionary escape-from-my-pursuers tactic in film and TV, but her beating a drugged-out Sherlock with her riding crop did piss me off. There are plenty things she could have done that would have been more effective at getting the phone out of his hand, but nooo, she's a dominatrix, they hit people with riding crops! Um, not in that situation, they don't. Jeez.

I am so very annoyed at her sexuality being the reason she loses, and I can't find any way to explain it to myself that makes it even a little bit better. It really is a straight-up "lol women and their ~feelings~" deal, and I hate it. I am trying to console myself by insisting that it's not the kind of mistake she'll make twice, and from now on she'll be a good five steps ahead of Sherlock at all times, attraction or no... but it's not really helping. ARGH. You were SO CLOSE TO BEING GOOD, Moffatt, WHYYYYY?!

Also, minor as all hell, but I'm really starting to hate this apparent trend of using the name of a show as a huge plot point within the show, because it's like Moffatt is jumping up and down yelling LOOK HOW CLEVER I AM and um, no, you're kind of not. You've figured out how to use extremely basic wordplay, congrats, now could you maybe concentrate on not writing like a huge asshat?

And yes, Molly! Man, if she turns out to be a criminal mastermind it'll be no more than Sherlock deserves. He's so gleefully nasty to her at the Christmas party, she should get some comeuppance at some point.

Very good point about the two types of villain - the wacky/chaotic/harmless vs pure evil - and her allying herself with the wrong kind, and, basically, everything. I mean, it was a nice enough solution of the pool scene, but, like, yeah, it made her doomed to fail from the start.

(Irene Adler? Should have been an internet pirate. Just saying.)

Here's a post that sums up all my feelings nicely, which is good, because I'm lazy to type them out: http://rosa-acicularis.livejournal.com/43692.html#cutid1

Also, haaaah, very good point about the titles. Countdown before creepy angel motif commences?

A Meme of Her Own Making

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