fannish five

[fileg]

it took me ages to get my head around this, and I'm not really done yet.

First I debated what "affected" meant to me, then I started bell-curving them based on the weight of my first answer, then I had to call Chris to see if she had the parts of my brain I hadn't been using.

So, not as finished as I would have liked, here is my


What five character deaths affected you the most?

I'm going to hold each fandom to one place, or (no surprise) there would only be one real answer.


1) Boromir (Lord of the Rings)

The most meaningful and least arbitrary death I've ever encountered in fiction. (not to say I haven't written him un-dead in various ways in my private heart)

Part of my absorbing this mythos is probably that I read it at exactly the right moment for me. Part is the Timelessness.

On top of Boromir's own story, I have him so tangled up in my head with that summer where Chris and I would drive an hour once or twice a week to see FoTR on the big screen, playing Dave Carter's music all the way in an effort to come to grips with all the pictures on our heads. Then, suddenly Dave was dead, and he was even more tangled up in the mythology. I'll never unravel it now.

There is hardly a death in this work that leaves me unaffected. When Hama is hewed down at Helm's Deep, when Halbarad falls on the Pellanor, when Hirgon's headless body is found still clutching the red arrow... there are no minor characters for me.


2) Hoban 'Wash' Washburne (firefly)

The most arbitrary and possibly useless death on my list (though I'm still sorting it out in my head) Honestly, the movie screws with FF's mythology enough that Chris wishes she could go back and never watch Serenity since it nearly ruins the series for her now.

Wash not only affects me for himself, but his death also does away with Zoe+Wash, which is actually worse for me. And as the pilot, he is almost part of Serenity for me, and I was, right up to the moment of Wash's death, afraid we were going to lose *her.* (I've always been a ship girl, what can I say...)


3) Which brings me to my ship death - The exploding of The Grissom in Star Trek III. Too much tangle here for me again - Gus Grissom was an early fixation of mine, and his death on pad 34 remains brand new in my heart. And, it was much much too soon after the Challenger disaster for me to deal wth those visuals.


4) Again, not a person, and not a single incident - but everything in Silent Running from the moment Freeman Lowell chokes up telling Huey and Dewey: Poor Louie, God bless him... he's not with us anymore... to the explosion of the Valley Forge, filling the screen over my head in the dark theater.


5) The death that is and isn't - that is to say, Hades. It occurred to me when I was young that Persephone went back every year because she loved him, and it changed the basis of my own mythology.


Honorable Mention:

Harris and Hagman going back to die in Sharpe's Waterloo. I'm a Harris girl anyway, but that moment when they turn around? Gah.


I avoided anime answers here, though I have some. I couldn't settle on which to pick - maybe I'll get into that sometime....


And since Historical Fiction is a fandom for me, Henry II. I know he's lost everything that made me admire him when he was young by the time he dies, but I get caught up in those last words: “Shame, shame on a conquered king”.

Comments

[shebit.livejournal.com]

Harris and Hagman dying hand in hand - they were such a wonderful hetero OTP. As enjoyable as Challenge was, Sharpe and Harper without Harris and Hagman just wasn't the same.

I'm sort of the same with ships. I've never forgiven Deanna for killing the D (my Enterprise), and I was almost more upset about Serenity's treatment than I was about Wash's death. I mean, I cried for the shocking, sudden pointlessness of Wash's death, and at Zoe's simple but perfect tribute to him at the end, but Mal's treatment of Serenity made me ferociously angry, the first time I saw the film. When he turned her into a Reaver ship, ripping off panels, stringing up the dead and daubing her in ugly red paint, it felt like the ultimate betrayal. Hell, in my mind, he raped his ship. He loved that ship more than anything in the world, and yet he betrayed and violated her.

I really like ships a little too much, don't I?

Re: Serenity

[redfiona99.livejournal.com]

I always saw it more the other way, that it was a show of Mal being willing to sacrifice everything to beat the Alliance.

Re: Serenity

[shebit.livejournal.com]

Interesting point of view, but he sacrificed her. Would it be acceptable for him to have shoved Zoe directly into the line of fire, getting her maimed or even killed, to beat the Alliance?

For me (with my strange, ship-loving ways) the bond between Captain and Ship is sacrosanct and far stronger than the bond between captain and first mate/officer. As much as I wanted Mal to tell Inara how he felt, he and Serenity are the real OTP for me.

Re: Serenity

[redfiona99.livejournal.com]

I think he would have done it if he thought it was necessary, and I'm reasonably certain that Zoe would have agreed to do it. And yes, it's entirely acceptable given that it was the only way of getting through the Rievers.

Re: Serenity

[shebit.livejournal.com]

Zoe would have voiced an opinion, even if she agreed. Serenity had no choice.

I felt better about it all after Serenity got patched up at the end, but when she was Reaverified and then crashed I was rather upset.

[fileg.livejournal.com]

well, you just about covered the rest of what's in my notes (I simply ran out of steam)

"I really like ships a little too much, don't I?"

I think you might have picked the wrong person to ask that of....

[gookachu.livejournal.com]

5) The death that is and isn't - that is to say, Hades. It occurred to me when I was young that Persephone went back every year because she loved him, and it changed the basis of my own mythology.

whut? i'm assuming you mean the mythological hades and persephone, right?

there is a reason why the famous painting of hades kidnapping persephone is called the "_rape_ of persephone". according to many tribal societies, you can force a woman to marry you by kidnapping and raping her for a successive number of days (see the hmong, who still practice bridenapping). that is what the myth depicts - the forceful kidnapping and raping of a goddess. according to myth, she was forced to return to hades because of the law that when you eat the food of the dead, you must stay there. it's an ancient archetype that's found all the way back to babylonian mythology.

it's also an allegory to historical facts of that region. the aryan invaders came down off the caucus mountains and razed much of the peloponese peninsula. that's why greek mythology is rife with stories of rapes of goddess by sky gods. it's an allegory to the conquering of the ayran sky gods religion to the indigenous, cthonic earth goddesses of the region. it's a pretty common archetype.

check out hesiod's _theogony_ and _works and days_ for a more accurate retelling of the myth. it's actually quite sad. there is nothing in the mythographic or historical record to indicate any sort of romance, or willingness on the part of persephone to return. in fact, in the myth of orpheus, he sings of her violent kidnapping and rape, which causes her to pity orpheus the more and persuades hades to free eurydice.

[fileg.livejournal.com]

While I did get all that soon after, my point here is I didn't get it when I first adopted the myth as a kid (I think I was about 7 or 8) so it affected me by making me invent motive for what was probably the first time, and by becoming my first AU.

[kortirion.livejournal.com]

I'd have to agree with you for 1# 2# and 4# - I always feel terrible about Silent Running and the point that not only are they 'only robots', but they are fictional 'only robots' is utterly lost on me - it hurts! Ditto Harris and Hagman

I'd add the scenes in 'Gallipolli' when you realise, run as he might, he's not going to make it with the orders not to attack. And the Elves arriving at Helm's Deep *whimper* - I have no objections on canon grounds [a film is not a book] but he did twist the knife when Haldir died. I was only comforted when on the commentary he said he was happy his character had a 'good death'.

And I will always thank you for introducing me to Dave Carter's music - I'm hoping to get permission to have a couple of his songs on the soundtrack of the film - when/if it gets made!
I presume you do have 'Seven is the Number'?