guardians_song (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
guardians_song) wrote2013-04-17 12:52 pm
guardians_song) wrote2013-04-17 12:52 pm
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*still annoyed about the Leah Clearwater lovefest at das_sporking*
Yes, she's a good character in an awful book. The utter worship, however, is [irritating].
And I know I'm not one to preach with my fannishness towards Ronald Weasley and the like, but I'd like to think that even I'd get unnerved if everyone constantly talked about how he was the Best Thing Ever.
Come on. Leah is a fighter, someone with a massive (and understandable) chip on her shoulder, and a character who got majorly screwed over by the canon. That doesn't automatically make her a strong leader, intelligent planner, or... any of that.
And also, while I'm ranting, I'm going to get something off my back:
If you insist on consistently piling a certain set of traits onto your favorite characters, regardless of whether those characters actually possess those traits in the slightest, it begins to imply that you don't think people without those traits are really worthy of admiration.
...Yes, this applies to me too. I tend to write characters as being more scholarly than they actually are. I need to lay off of this, unless I'm intentionally boosting the characters' abilities/intellect/whatnot.
Still. It irritates me.
And I know I'm not one to preach with my fannishness towards Ronald Weasley and the like, but I'd like to think that even I'd get unnerved if everyone constantly talked about how he was the Best Thing Ever.
Come on. Leah is a fighter, someone with a massive (and understandable) chip on her shoulder, and a character who got majorly screwed over by the canon. That doesn't automatically make her a strong leader, intelligent planner, or... any of that.
And also, while I'm ranting, I'm going to get something off my back:
If you insist on consistently piling a certain set of traits onto your favorite characters, regardless of whether those characters actually possess those traits in the slightest, it begins to imply that you don't think people without those traits are really worthy of admiration.
...Yes, this applies to me too. I tend to write characters as being more scholarly than they actually are. I need to lay off of this, unless I'm intentionally boosting the characters' abilities/intellect/whatnot.
Still. It irritates me.
no subject
I mean, it's one thing to show a certain level of favoritism to your favorite characters, but I wish the people over there would stop gushing about how awesome Leah is and get back to talking about the books. When I write Harry Potter parodies I may favor characters like Snape or Peter Pettigrew or whoever if they're actually on-screen and/or relevant, but I don't shoehorn them into EVERYTHING (and I poke fun at them too--I don't grant them immunity just because I like them and they get a raw deal in canon)! I can't help but feel like there are things the people at Das_Sporking could be discussing more broadly or deeply that they're just ignoring in favor of Leah Is Awesome!!
The way I see it, a good bit of why characters like Charlie and Leah come across as good characters in Twilight is largely because all the other characters are so awful. They stand out as good characters and people because they're given fewer opportunities than the leads to do anything offensive or moronic. That's the way it works in bad fiction. Leah may be a good character by Twilight's standards but I wager that if you were to transplant her into a world that had consistently-good characterization and character development, she'd be pretty indistinguishable in terms of quality.
no subject
Hey, it's good to know on MY end that I'm not the only one. I literally didn't know if anyone else reading the Breaking Dawn sporkings wasn't a de facto member of Leahdom (which doesn't exist yet, but I suspect eventually will under one name or another).
Devoting an entire post to the Leah Clearwater chatbox was just BEYOND WEIRD, in my opinion. I mean, fine, so the comm likes her. But an ENTIRE POST?
Yeah - I feel the sporkings and discussions are degenerating into 'No one except Leah, Charlie, and occasionally Rosalie and Emmett can do anything right, and Leah, Charlie, and Emmett and Rosalie are awesome'.
And if they do anything offensive or moronic, it's usually against the main characters, which will get ignored/justified/glorified because the main characters are such lousy people. D|
And yes, Leah would be an interesting but average character if she were transplanted into a world of decent quality. A quarter of the people now worshiping her would probably be bashing her because 'the place where she came from couldn't be THAT bad' (if she retained her canon Twilight background), 'she doesn't get over her grudges', and so on and so forth. Doubly so if she turned her aggression and snark on characters they liked.
As far as I'm concerned, she really is the Severus Snape of Twilight. The difference is that Twilight's hatedom is much larger and more unified than Harry Potter's. The fandom reaction is almost exactly the same.
(Speaking of Harry Potter, have you seen the newest Pottermore info? Oh good grief. Amongst other things, we now have a single charm that could duplicate the effect of the entire Marauder's Map. Because it's not like the existence of such a charm would have ripped flaming holes of most of canon or anything...)
no subject
What got me is when they were sporking Bree Tanner and not only saw fit to use her as a guest sporker (which would be one thing) but also named the chapter she guest-sporked after her despite the fact that she didn't even appear in the chapter at all!
"They stand out as good characters and people because they're given fewer opportunities than the leads to do anything offensive or moronic.
And if they do anything offensive or moronic, it's usually against the main characters, which will get ignored/justified/glorified because the main characters are such lousy people. D| "
In fairness, the most offensive/moronic thing Leah's done thus far is to whine about how she'll never be able to have kids and this somehow makes her less of a woman (or something). And they did talk about this, though they also wrote it off as out-of-character.
To which I'm like, no duh it doesn't fit with what we've seen of her thus far! She's a character in a bad novel! Characters in bad novels tend to be inconsistent!
It seems to me lately that a lot of the commentary they have is degenerating into the same points I always hear when I visit a Twilight discussion board, repeated over and over and over: yes the books are sexist and racist, yes the characters are all abusive assholes, yes Leah is getting screwed over--along with virtually everyone else who isn't Bella or Edward or maybe Alice. I mean, maybe it's because there's been such a lull in what's been happening in the books, but it's starting to feel like they've just run out of things to talk about. Which may be why they spend so much time worshiping Leah.
In any event, though, what these people seem to be missing about Leah is that she is really the ONLY halfway-decent character in Twilight, and that this is actually a bad thing in and of itself. I mean, we're talking about a four-book series with a cast that probably numbers solidly into the double digits if you count everyone...and yet only Leah has any real staying power. Even the leads are sorry excused for characters. This doesn't make Leah an especially good character, and it certainly doesn't make her the goddess of everything--it just means that Meyer is such a hack when it comes to character design and execution that she only ever got it right once!
no subject
I... missed that chapter. o________________o
"In fairness, the most offensive/moronic thing Leah's done thus far is to whine about how she'll never be able to have kids and this somehow makes her less of a woman (or something). And they did talk about this, though they also wrote it off as out-of-character."
I was thinking more of coming up with reasons to excuse Emmett and Rosalie's behavior, or giggling over how the two of them would totally **** Edward's sh*t up, while the same behavior would get unconditional condemnation in any other character. -_-;; I may also be cross-referencing the actual sporkings with some of the spitefic, which tends to be a lot nastier.
"To which I'm like, no duh it doesn't fit with what we've seen of her thus far! She's a character in a bad novel! Characters in bad novels tend to be inconsistent!"
Exactly - I mean, I like how Carlisle is supposed to be, because, as I see it, his monstrous behavior come from Meyer's general sociopathic misunderstanding of morality and compassion. (A hint, Meyer: Cannibalism is NOT just an alternate lifestyle choice, and tolerating it does NOT make you a good person!) But Das Sporking cuts him no slack because they take the monstrous behavior at face value.
"It seems to me lately that a lot of the commentary they have is degenerating into the same points I always hear when I visit a Twilight discussion board, repeated over and over and over: yes the books are sexist and racist, yes the characters are all abusive assholes, yes Leah is getting screwed over--along with virtually everyone else who isn't Bella or Edward or maybe Alice."
You forgot "*ragegif* *rantgif* *explodegif* *ragegif* *demotivational* *angry cat macros* *more angry cat macros*". :P
"I mean, maybe it's because there's been such a lull in what's been happening in the books, but it's starting to feel like they've just run out of things to talk about. Which may be why they spend so much time worshiping Leah."
The thing is, they really haven't. Breaking Dawn is chock-full of lunatic crack if you're willing to stop taking everything about it Totally Seriously for five seconds.
Half my problem with the constant rage and nitpicking is that they're somehow managed to make recapping Breaking Dawn boring.
"In any event, though, what these people seem to be missing about Leah is that she is really the ONLY halfway-decent character in Twilight, and that this is actually a bad thing in and of itself."
And it's solely because A) she's on the 'let's not eat humans, PERIOD' side, and B) Meyer hasn't paid enough attention to her. If you bribed Meyer to treat her "well", she'd slide right into sociopathy with the rest of the cast.
It happened to Jacob after New Moon. Why haven't people caught on that she's just female!"Jerkwad", Stage I?
"I mean, we're talking about a four-book series with a cast that probably numbers solidly into the double digits if you count everyone...and yet only Leah has any real staying power. Even the leads are sorry excused for characters. This doesn't make Leah an especially good character, and it certainly doesn't make her the goddess of everything--it just means that Meyer is such a hack when it comes to character design and execution that she only ever got it right once!"
As I said, I really think that she did NOT get Leah right - she just didn't give her enough "sympathetic" screentime. Rosalie and Emmett were also better before Meyer started treating them with more... fondness.
To be petty, I think it also helped that Leah's actor didn't have to put on the same clownface makeup that the vampires did, and that her face is more unambiguously attractive than Taylor Lautner's. Those 'Knights Who Say Leah' icons wouldn't be quite as popular if she looked like, say, Mary Tudor. *cynical*
Late reply is late.
Is it bad that I still like Carlisle and Alice for what they're supposed to be? I understand in-text that Carlisle's a shitty doctor and Alice is shallow as hell, but I mainly owe it to Meyer's Did Not Do The Research and inability to write endearing qualities in her "heroes." Otherwise Carlisle would've been intelligent and compassionate instead of hypocritical and sociopathic, and Alice's perkiness would've been a refreshing contrast to Edward's constant moping.Re: Late reply is late.
Agreed regarding Carlisle, and - to be honest, I enjoy Alice either way. Admittedly, I enjoy canon!Alice more in a Comedic Sociopathy way than anything else... but I don't have a blazing hatred for her, the way I'm apparently supposed to as an anti-Twilighter. :\