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fannish5: Five canon moments that turned a character into a fav
Not an easy question, because usually, my opinion of a character is established early on and stays fairly level throughout. While it does happen that characters I start out as finding simply "fun" or "interesting" end up as favorites, most of the time that's a very gradual process. G'Kar, for example, grew on me that way; I enjoyed the character from the start (Andreas Katsulas' acting definitely had something to do with that) but it was only in the course of the second and even third seasons that the "like" turned to "love". The same happened, for instance, with John Locke and Ben Linus from Lost where it took me a while to realize their interaction had become the most fascinating part of the show for me.
The inverse is also true, by the way. Falling out of love with characters doesn't happen easily, and I can't think of a single instance where one particular moment in canon ruined the character for me. Changed my opinion for the worse, yes - nearly every BSG character save Saul and Ellen falls into that category - but for none of them there was a single "screw you" moment.
Still, for the following characters I managed to pinpoint, more or less, the occurrence in canon that made them awesome in my eyes. (Due to a not-so-impressive long term memory, I mainly went for shows I'm invested in now or have been recently. Old favorites like ST:TOS aren't in there, alas.)
1. Londo Mollari, Babylon 5
Londo is probably the only character where I can pinpoint not just the episode, but also the scene and even the line where something just "clicked" in me. Why that particular scene, I can't even tell. The episode it happened in isn't particularly known for its Londo Mollari moments, because those were overshadowed completely by the "Ivanova having 'human style sex' to sigh a treaty" subplot. *g* I'm talking about Acts of Sacrifice, the mid-s2 episode where it finally dawns on Londo what lonely path his choices (the most monumental of which he made a few episodes before, in The Coming of Shadows) have led him down. This is shown to us in two different ways: one is his attempt to try and share a bit of companionship with Garibaldi, who at that point, he realizes he's irreversibly lost as a friend. But what did it for me was the other, much less dramatic scene in which he's shown brushing off some clingy Centauri businessman and then sighs to a long-suffering Vir:
Six month ago, they were hardly aware of me. Now, suddenly, everyone is my friend; everyone wants something.
I wanted respect - instead, I have turned into a wishing well with legs.
Now before this scene, Londo was definitely among my favorites, but he was sharing the position with several others, including G'Kar and Delenn, and I didn't have that much of an emotional attachment to him yet. This scene, though, we see his regret and vulnerability and, also for the first time, I think, a Vir refusing to give any comfort at all, and... well, I fell for him then and there. Nothing rational about it. Just, as Ivanova would say - BOOM. :)
2. Juliet Burke, Lost
What I missed most in the first few seasons of Lost was a favorite female character. I've never been overly fond of Kate (an attitude that wasn't improved by the infamous love triangles and quadrangles) and while I liked both Sun and Claire well enough, as well as some of the supporting cast such as Rose, I would never actually have called them favorites. Neither was Juliet, to be honest, when we were first introduced to her. That said introduction happened through the eyes of Jack, as well as in counterpoint to his relationship with Kate, might have had something to do with that. But then we were given more and more glimpses into Juliet's own past, as well as her life with Ben Linus and the rest of the Others, and my curiosity was piqued. More than that, she wasn't painted in black and white - for instance, we knew she was capable of being tough as hell in crises, but on the other hand, while living with the Others she seldom really stood up against Ben (not that I blame her, seeing how Ben tended to react to that). She grew on me during the course of s4, but it wasn't until we were reunited with her in s5 that I really came to love her. The key episode being LaFleur, more specifically the scene where Sawyer convinces her to perform a cesarean section on Amy, despite her terror of seeing yet another pregnant woman die on her. That was a beautiful moment, showcasing both her weakness and her strength, and I've adored her as a character ever since. Up to and including her decision to side with Kate against Sawyer for reasons that were both terribly wrong and terribly right, which fitted her so well, in a gut-wrenching way.
3. Audrey Horne, Twin Peaks
My first impression of Audrey, same as most other viewers', I guess, was decidedly nonpositive. A spoiled brat, an attention-seeker, a flirt, all of those descriptions must have passed through my mind at some point, with the "stick-a-pencil-in-a-styrofoam-coffee-cup-and-then-pull-it-out" maneuver as the uncontested pinnacle of my dislike of her. I still pity that poor concierge. But then along came Special Agent Cooper, and with him what was in my opinion the most resounding character growth we've seen in all of Twin Peaks. No, strike that - it may have been the only clear instance of character growth we've seen. Apart from Audrey, who's gone through a huge change over the course of two seasons, most of the other characters end up stuck in their same little loop, or in an even worse one: Norma, Ed, Nadine, Donna, Doc Hayward, even Harry Truman... And those few that have found some peace, like Shelly and Ben Horne, didn't get there through any big feat of their own. (I'm in two minds about Bobby, who may have been the exception to that.) But for Audrey, it all starts with Dale Cooper, and the point where I finally found my distrust of her dropping away was her conversation with Cooper in episode 3, where she first tells him about One-Eyed Jack's. Before that, I still wasn't quite convinced there was anything sincere to her flirting, but this exchange convinced me otherwise.
COOPER: The rightward slant in your handwriting indicates a romantic nature, Audrey. A heart that yearns. Be careful.
AUDREY: (forgets for a moment to keep up her act) I do?
COOPER: I'm going to have to ask you to leave now.
AUDREY: (spots the Sheriff walking in) Police business...
(She gets up, then adds, in a quiet voice, possibly the most sincere thing she's said to him so far:) Thank you for talking to me.
That last line, and the way she said it, was what turned me around. Incidentally - and I'm aware this is a controversial topic *g* - I'm in the camp that believes Cooper turning Audrey away as a lover but offering her friendship instead, was a good thing for her. At that point, I believe what she needed most was someone to be there for her without any self-interest being involved, and to be shown that there are men (and women) capable of putting aside their desires to serve some kind of greater good. And I also believe she loved him for making that choice. That, more than anything, I think, helped her take her fate into her own hands and make something of her life. At first, Cooper was still the main driver for that (as in her attempt to infiltrate One-Eyed Jack's to help crack the case) but then at some point, it stopped being about him and started being about her and her own dignity.
4. Quark, DS9
Not sure if this quite fits in with the rest, as it's not actually a canon moment but a real-life moment that made me fall for Quark - but it deserves a mention anyway. For some reason, until a few months ago when I sat myself down to actually watch the show, DS9 had never appealed to me much. I'd seen a few loose episodes here and there, but I didn't feel any particular interest in the characters, and some of them downright annoyed me. One of those characters being Quark. Then I saw Armin Shimerman on a convention (FedCon in Bonn, a few years ago) and the man was just - well, let's just say that, out of all the actors we saw there, he was the one who made the greatest impression on me. He was kind, respectful, charming, funny - and he talked about Quark in such a loving way that it was very hard not to share that affection. Then I bought some DS9 boxsets not so long ago, started watching, and suddenly there wasn't anything annoying about Quark anymore. And two seasons in, my appreciation for him has only grown. I mentioned some time ago in my Cool Bits how I love 'Not-so-young and not-so-lovely characters that make up for it with enthusiasm and flirtatiousness' and I think Quark is a perfect example of that. In his dealings with women, you could say he's a shameless flirt and nearly everything he does and says is a mask, a game, and in a way that's true - but at the same time he's so open and honest about it, it's almost impossible not to be taken in by it. In that way, he's very much like Londo Mollari in the early seasons of B5: a womanizer, yes - but every woman he woos, he falls a little in love with. Maybe it is a game to him, but if it is, it's the most serious game in the world.
5. Sheldon Cooper, The Big Bang Theory
I have no idea if any of you watch this show (which is the funniest thing I've seen on TV in years, and I wholeheartedly recommend it!) so let me just sketch a bit of context first. The premise is very simple: two male science geeks share an apartment next to a decidedly non-geeky girl who's aspiring to be an actress. Despite huge incompatibilities in interest, a weird kind of friendship gets struck up between them.
The one who steals the show is Über-geek Sheldon Cooper (the actor won an Emmy for the role, quite deservedly): he's brilliant, but helplessly lacking in social skills, as well as a huge fan of Star Trek (and particularly Mr Spock), comic books, gaming, and various other obscure sci-fi series. He's also a doctor in theoretical physics. *g* All of this makes for a pretty nerve-wracking combination, both for his friends and for us viewers, and while I enjoyed Sheldon from the start as a comedic character, I never felt much of an - um, shall we say, emotional bond with him. Till the last 15 seconds of this scene, aka the one where Penny gives Sheldon a Leonard Nimoy-signed napkin as a Christmas present. Because how adorable can you get? *g*
And on a totally urelated note:
Indulge me, please?
- There are a**holes in this world, and I met one. Came home from work yesterday evening, needed to get a last-minute thing from the store, so I drop off my husband and park on the sidewalk - which I realize is *not* legal, but I figured if I stayed in the car, I could be out of there in ten seconds if it turned out I was bothering someone. One minute later, a van pulls up behind me and parks, a man steps out and comes tapping on my window. Said man then starts an outraged tirade about this not being a parking lot, and me supposedly blocking the entrance to his driveway (which I was *not* doing, but no matter), and demands I get the hell out of there this very instant. I apologize very politely, say I'll leave immediately, only before I've even started moving the car he jumps back into his van and drives forward until we're literally bumper to bumper, so I only have the space in front of me (about half a metre) to maneuver out. Now I was driving my mom's car at that moment (ours is in the garage being fixed) which is quite a bit bigger than I'm used to, so I wasn't sure I was even able to leave the space. So I get out of the car, tap the guy's window, apologize again, and ask if he'll please move backwards half a metre because otherwise I can't move the car. To which he responds that I'm crazy if I think that he's going to adapt to me and I'd better get my car out of there the next minute because he's calling the police. And takes his cell phone and starts dialling. At which point I had no other choice except to get back into the car - while my legs were literally shaking so badly that I wasn't sure I could have moved it on my own even if I wanted to. I was very lucky that before I started panicking completely, my husband came back and between the two of us, we managed to squeeze out the car without ramming either the guy's car behind us or the tree in front of us. Though by that time, I was very much tempted to ram something, and it wasn't the tree. I can't believe people can be such intolerant bastards. *is still fuming*
- On a more positive note, my Londo/G'Kar
help_haiti fic is turning out significantly more light-hearted than I'd thought it turn out, and writing the dialogue to it is so lovely and relaxing. It's still going to have a crushing ending, though. *sniffles*- I put aside my Twin Peaks fic for a little while, to give my muses some time to catch their breath. The last thing I wrote was two-thirds of a conversation involving, potentially, the two characters in TP-verse least likely to have anything to say to one another: Albert Rosenfield and Annie Blackburn. *g* I need the scene for plot purposes, and boy is it hard. But the most difficult part is fortunately done. Then I *only* have three... aah, perhaps four big scenes to go. And this is already longer than anything I've written before. *facepalm*
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(Incidentally, we've also just started watching Farscape, which we'l probably intersperse with seasons 2 and 3 of DS9 over the coming weeks/months. This promises to be all kinds of wonderful! :) )
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I do love the entire DS9 ensemble, too. (Maybe Dax, Quark, Garak and Bashir a little more than the rest, but still.) And they're amply featured in my DS9 fic; the one I'm proudest of is Quark's Day, which is set between episodes 6 and 7 of the sixth season and which features every single character (with Quark as the pov character interacting with them). There are some DS9/B5 and DS9/Farscape crossovers waiting for you, too, once you've watched more.
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And there's another Cooper in The Big Bang Theory? People keep recommending this show to me. I'll have to find some time to check it out.
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Dale (Twin Peaks) Cooper and Sheldon (Big Bang Theory) Cooper - oh, even naming these two in the same sentence is wrong wrong wrong as they couldn't be more different, LOL. (Unless one argues that Dale Cooper also has some slight autistic tendencies, such as the tape recorder compulsion, but compared to Sheldon, good ol'Dale is about the normalest guy on the planet, oh yes!) About The Big Bang Theory - I'd say someone liking sci-fi, gaming and comics has a pretty good chance of loving the show. :) And if perchance you have a bit of a scientific or research-related background, I daresay it's even funnier. For my husband and me it's hilarious because we both worked in a research lab at a theoretical physics department (the same department - it's where we first met :) ) and we're both pretty much invested in fannish stuff (über-geeks, don't tell me :) ) and all the characters and situations, however insane, are very recognizable. We often laugh at ourselves saying "oh my god, how terrible that we don't just understand the fannish jokes from the show, but even the ones about supercolliders and string theory, great big geeks that we are!" *g* But I gather the show has a pretty big audience in the States (otherwise it would hardly have won an Emmy, I guess), so it can hardly only be popular with the fannish and/or sciencegeeky communities. Anyway, yes, I'm joining the chorus of people who are recommending it very much! And Youtube has heaps of clips from the series that are great for getting a first impression. Like the one below, where they play a game of "Klingon Boggle". *g*
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Me, I'm not much of a science geek, more the bookish kind of nerd (you know, that kid who was reading Moby Dick during breaks in middle school), but terms like supercolliders and string theory do ring a bell. Maybe because I live almost next door to the LHC. And sci-fi, gaming and comics, those are my area of expertise *g*.
So yes, I'm definitely going to check this out whenever I find the time.
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Ooooh, so if they do accidentally create a stable wormhole, you'll be the first to know, won't you? :p I'm curious - how close is "almost next door to" the LHC? I know some people who worked there (one of my university friends could talk endlessly about when she was a summer student at CERN), but I've never had the chance to see it myself. Do they ever have Open Days or something where the neighbors can come and look at the collider? :) If so, me = jealous. *g*