Sally Manton wrote:
After I wrote: <They're a reticent crowd, after all. We never hear the names of Blake's murdered siblings,>
Jenny wrote: <Blake is hardly going to say, "Guess what everyone? I was arrested and convicted on paedophile charges. They weren't true of course." Mud
sticks.>
But what have the paedophile charges to do with his murdered family?
They're
two completely separate incidents (the murders being before TWB even starts). I don't follow you.
Well, in my wild and wacky canon, Blake IMO murdered and raped his entire family. Including IMO the family dog, the hamster and Stan the python. IMO. Either that or at half past two in the mornings I misread your post.
<These people are fictional characters within a fictional universe. Backstory seeds may be sown, but the full back story will only be
activated
when it is significant to the plot. For example Soolin's history tells us about GP and what we can expect. As a consequence Gan telling us about
his
"woman" is significant to the episode Time Squad, and Gan's actions in
Time
Squad are designed to tell us about Gan, or to lay future plot seeds for Gan.>
Again, I am aware that they're fictional characters, but I'm having
trouble
following your reasoning.
Evidently.
(For a start, imputing that amount of deep and
meaningful intent to two words written in extreme haste by Terry Nation doesn't work for me).
Oh well, if it doesn't work for you it must be crap then. BTW, it was only the later episodes of series 1 that were written in haste. The first four episodes were written before the casting was even done.
What is the difference between Gan's words/actions
telling us about Gan, and Soolin's telling us about her?
Could it be that Soolin tells us a lot and has no reason to lie, but Gan tells us very little and has every reason to lie? Just a wild guess.
In 'Blake', it>could have been shown that she told Dayna - who she's friendly with - some
of her history; she'd still have to tell the others, nothing would be
lost.But it's made clear she didn't tell Dayna. Therefore, IMO it's an indication of her reserve.
It *is* an indication of her reserve. You are right. Don't feel you have to qualify your answer with "IMO" all the time.
We seem to have two systems of interpreting the series here.
You don't say.
One of them is
the time-honoured (and vastly enjoyable) Playing the Game, which is concerned with internal consistency - external constraints (authorial intent>or lack thereof, budget constraints, acting etc) simply doesn't
count, what
matters is making sense of what's on the screen. The viewer has the right/responsibility to interpret what is on screen without recourse to external factors.
It's something I try to do, but it cannot be denied that external constraints play an enormous part in what we see on screen, and it is virtually impossible to "forget" certain external constraints. For example, no matter how hard you try, Travis is played by a different actor in series two, and no matter how hard you squint your eyes, Moloch still looks like a very bad prop. Unless you want to resort to surgery, you can't unlearn something. It will always be there and it will always have an influence.
It's my preferred system;
It may be your preferred system, but you are not working by its rules. Looking at internal consistency means *looking* at internal consistency, not saying "I don't see the logic, therefore there is no logic there."
though I enjoy hearing what the
makers thought or intended, it is of far less importance to me than
making
sense of the on-screen action as a whole (not, I emphasis, episodes in isolation.)
If Maloney stated that Travis was killed by a flying haddock, and then you see the episode and see that no haddock featured in Travis's death at all, then you go by on screen evidence. If however, Boucher gives a simple explanation of a scene that he wrote and that fits all the facts then, I am going to take more notice of his interpretation of a scene than I am going to of, let's say, yours. Especially if your explanation is extremely long, convoluted and references your personal fanon which is purely based on how you would like the scene to read.
The other is that the intent of the writers/actors/etc takes precedence over what the viewer may perceive from the episode; that what Terry
Nation/Paul
Darrow/David Maloney etc intended has to be factored into the interpretationeven if I as viewer don't agree with it (or can't even see
it).
See above. But in addition I would like to add that everyone to some degree will have their own "take" on something. This is undeniable. And just because a writer or actor intended something, it doesn't mean that it is valid if it is not born out by the text. But that same rule applies to everyone.
Personally, though I'm always interested to hear what these people have to say, I'm
not
much interested in doing things this way (especially when I find Playing the Game more satisfying) especially when what Terry Nation/Paul
Darrow/David
Maloney etc intended has to be interpret anyway and we all disagree on what they meant to say.
You can't disagree on "what they meant to say", if they "meant to say it" then they "meant to say it" there are no two ways about it. However, you can disagree on whether or not "what they meant to say" cames across or not. And you do that by analysing the text. You don't do it by ignoring the text and going on a flight of fancy, and then backing it up by bludgeoning people over the head with those three dreaded letters "IMO".
I can and have done this in literary criticism, but I'm not about to do it in fandom.
Why not?
<grin> perhaps all posts need a multiple warning system - Character
Junkie
Who Plays The Game and Sometimes Forgets the IMHOs ...
I've got a better one, Warning system - This is a No Discussion Zone.
Jenny
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Jenny Kaye