What do Wendy Darling & Buffy Summers & Harry Potter have in common?
Well, they're the main pov characters in their stories; they're supposedly 'good', all in different senses of the word, but all in a way that a lot of forward-thinking people of my generation find offensive or wrong or stifling, or perhaps just boring. Peter is more exciting and different and interesting than Wendy, isn't he? He's unapologetic where Wendy is constantly thinking of what the 'proper' & 'right' thing is. He's heartless where Wendy is a soft-hearted silly girl. He has adventures where Wendy just wants to come back home in the end, much as she's fascinated with the idea of having them herself. Wendy is a let-down, isn't she? And besides, in canon, Peter didn't really love Wendy, did he. No, I guess not.
So what it comes down to is that I think he could have. Or maybe should have. Or maybe I just I want him to, because that's my fairy-tale, dammit, even if it's doomed to an unhappy end.
Buffy is a stick-in-the-mud also, isn't she. Self-righteous and overly concerned with herself but not in an attractively arrogant way, just a lame way, and most of all concerned with normalcy. That's what these three characters have in common-- they want to be normal, and in the search for this mythical settled life they want to have (and don't), they do some insensitive and misguided things, maybe. And it's not like most people dislike them actively, but that's just too common to be very interesting, isn't it? So many people limit themselves and are messed up in ways that make them end up just like their parents.
They grow up to become who you always knew they were going to become. That's their story. They may have their slew of adventures while they're young and stupid, but then they Learn Their Lesson and settle down and are heroic and exciting no longer. They're the ones that make the deal with fate just to live, they're the ones that compromise their principles, they're the ones that pay in ways too subtle and long-term to be anything but depressing in a slow, undramatic sort of way. Because of course the hero always gets to be normal in the end, but the normalcy is always tinged with regret, with a constant sense of lingering loss.
Perhaps I always love the hero more because I empathize with this sense of regret coupled with the vicarious experience of their actual adventure, I think. lt speaks to me of all the adventures I've always wanted to have myself, and the constant disappointment and regret that life is so... frustrating and demanding and lonely and likely to just give you a hint of what you desire and leave you incomplete and craving something you can never have again.
( Speaking of the love for one's lost Shadow.... )
Well, they're the main pov characters in their stories; they're supposedly 'good', all in different senses of the word, but all in a way that a lot of forward-thinking people of my generation find offensive or wrong or stifling, or perhaps just boring. Peter is more exciting and different and interesting than Wendy, isn't he? He's unapologetic where Wendy is constantly thinking of what the 'proper' & 'right' thing is. He's heartless where Wendy is a soft-hearted silly girl. He has adventures where Wendy just wants to come back home in the end, much as she's fascinated with the idea of having them herself. Wendy is a let-down, isn't she? And besides, in canon, Peter didn't really love Wendy, did he. No, I guess not.
So what it comes down to is that I think he could have. Or maybe should have. Or maybe I just I want him to, because that's my fairy-tale, dammit, even if it's doomed to an unhappy end.
Buffy is a stick-in-the-mud also, isn't she. Self-righteous and overly concerned with herself but not in an attractively arrogant way, just a lame way, and most of all concerned with normalcy. That's what these three characters have in common-- they want to be normal, and in the search for this mythical settled life they want to have (and don't), they do some insensitive and misguided things, maybe. And it's not like most people dislike them actively, but that's just too common to be very interesting, isn't it? So many people limit themselves and are messed up in ways that make them end up just like their parents.
They grow up to become who you always knew they were going to become. That's their story. They may have their slew of adventures while they're young and stupid, but then they Learn Their Lesson and settle down and are heroic and exciting no longer. They're the ones that make the deal with fate just to live, they're the ones that compromise their principles, they're the ones that pay in ways too subtle and long-term to be anything but depressing in a slow, undramatic sort of way. Because of course the hero always gets to be normal in the end, but the normalcy is always tinged with regret, with a constant sense of lingering loss.
Perhaps I always love the hero more because I empathize with this sense of regret coupled with the vicarious experience of their actual adventure, I think. lt speaks to me of all the adventures I've always wanted to have myself, and the constant disappointment and regret that life is so... frustrating and demanding and lonely and likely to just give you a hint of what you desire and leave you incomplete and craving something you can never have again.
( Speaking of the love for one's lost Shadow.... )
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