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jarissaCritic's Foreward: This is disorganized as hell, because I'm working on it in between several other projects.
Of Eideann's MotU fanfics, I actually like Revelations and Regrets better than Highest Bidder. Note that I had to think about it in depth to reach that conclusion! As I theorized years ago, one of the main undercurrents in Highest Bidder seems to be the ways in which a single, very powerful event can catalyze character growth in some very distinct personalities. Characters on the "Good Guy supporting side" become stronger, more emotionally versatile people, while characters on the villainous side of the divide are at least becoming more *interesting*.
Nonetheless, I like R&R a little better, and I think it's in part because some of the key contrasting personalities *don't* grow so far out of their old selves, with a few critical exceptions: the unevenness highlights those exceptions, while adding comparative depth to those who remain unchanged.
In particular, I'll compare the Sorceress -- admittedly, my favorite character in either Filmation or 2002 incarnation -- to Randor, in both stories. Randor is learning, in each, to be a better father and all-around person: he has been faced with the tragedy of his canon personality, embodied by the harm done to his son, and he is determined to make amends. Obviously this theme is extremely important to the author, and I'm very glad of it. The cartoons treated Adam's relationship with his father very shallowly, turning Eternos's king into someone I have atrouble believing as the citizen's trusted ruler.
In Highest Bidder, as Randor grows more focused on a very narrow social perimeter, the Sorceress slowly grows more outward-focused: she becomes warm and personable, allowing strangers into her physical boundaries and her daily routine and possibly, ultimately, her sense of duty -- she has no objection to the Eternian garrison permanently stationed outside her walls, she lets the ruling family draw her into social functions, she even goes out of her way to ease "mere" emotional discomforts. This is the same woman who literally turned her back on overwrought seekers of exposition, when providing said exposition would have eased fears or guilt or bewilderment but not actually saved the world!
I felt as though Eideann did an excellent job of turning the Sorceress of 2002 into the Sorceress of the Filmation era, an overall more sympathetic and more likeable soul. Meanwhile, Randor started from a blindly disapproving point essentially equivalent to his Filmation portrayal, grew past the marginally-more-sensible leader shown in the first season of 2002 (who at least seemed realistically flummoxed by his lack of connection to his teenage son), and became a father worthy of the word, the sort of busy Man of State that I remember from old episodes of Jonny Quest.
And, really, why CAN'T a world-saving hero have parents who think he's a decent kid?
Randor faces much the same journey in Revelations and Regrets, though it's combined with the hardships of a parental relationship changing to one of near-equals as the child reaches true adulthood. In this version, however, the Sorceress doesn't seem to be at all inclined to change: she's still reserved, remote, responsibility-focused, austere. She does what she perceives as necessary for her goal -- including admission of shortcomings, when it comes to social considerations and interactions -- but she is who she is, and if she isn't /happy/ that way, it can still be said that she's comfortable with her life, and not about to change.
And yet, she does love:
(Chapter 14: Changing Perspectives)
(Chapter 16: A Little Forward Movement)
Both very simple, very poignant statements that do a better job of communicating affection than any vividly-described hugging or dramatic wailing could achieve, proving that this isn't a flat or one-trick character. Yet she's not the brilliant rising light of R&R -- Randor is, and Teela, and to a very much lesser extent, Evil-Lyn*.
Don't get me wrong: I loved the Filmation Sorceress, and consider her a better person in general than the one shown in the entire 2002 series. I just think Eideann's portrayals, in both, have led me to realize that I admire the latter portrayal more, for the more fundamental hurdles she faces as a co-savior of humanity if for nothing else. I don't think a character has to be broken to be interesting, but if they're already peachy-keen-perfect, what're they doing in the story? Besides serving as a backdrop for those who do have growth to undergo, of course.
* Evil-Lyn is, in fact, one of the brightest character growth portrayals in Highest Bidder, and I don't say that because she's found an evil she won't touch: in HB, she develops shading and complexity that was only briefly shown in hint during 2002 Season 1 episode "Lessons". The, ah, macking scene at the end of HB chapter 58 is a little jarring, but I trust the author that it /should be/ jarring, and will fit in the overall flow later. Seriously. What's she see in him? And vice versa. It can't be just "available, functioning gonads".
Eideann does three things that drive me to tear out my metaphoric hair, and I've addressed all three years before:
One day's adventures later, I notice that I never went back to my starting comment, specifically underlying themes in respective fics. It's a little harder for me to interpret -- Highest Bidder has somewhere in the neighborhood of four times the content currently in R&R, and that makes quite a difference in look -- but I see a theme in the latter of remorse. Connected, of course, to the regrets in the title, we're seeing several different people face very similar regrets, but handle them in very different ways: Teela, of course, steps forward into the responsibility of friendship with no holds barred, as she does everything else in her history. She expresses her remorse, and atones for it, by making a concerted effort to (not undo, per se, past harms can't be erased like unwinding a spool of thread, but rather) replace her past opinions and behaviors and examples with healthier, more mature ones. Mekanek, officially the most perceptive Master but canonically also the most self-focused of the team, becomes a very useful mirror for Adam and spends a lot of his stage time assisting others in perceiving what had been in their metaphoric blind spots.
Man-at-Arms seems to be expressing his remorse by keeping his nose out of other people's business. I have no trouble seeing this as a logical, characteristic turn for the wise-insider to take, however I'm not so sure this should be a functional path for him to gain enlightenment, or make much of anything any better, in the long run.
Evil-Lyn, a proper selfish villainess, seems to be regretting only that her insistence on collecting knowledge has led her to something she'd have been much happier without knowing: her fatal flaw is essentially that which she wanted all along, what the writers of Leverage have mentioned as an antagonist's "original sin".
Of Eideann's MotU fanfics, I actually like Revelations and Regrets better than Highest Bidder. Note that I had to think about it in depth to reach that conclusion! As I theorized years ago, one of the main undercurrents in Highest Bidder seems to be the ways in which a single, very powerful event can catalyze character growth in some very distinct personalities. Characters on the "Good Guy supporting side" become stronger, more emotionally versatile people, while characters on the villainous side of the divide are at least becoming more *interesting*.
Nonetheless, I like R&R a little better, and I think it's in part because some of the key contrasting personalities *don't* grow so far out of their old selves, with a few critical exceptions: the unevenness highlights those exceptions, while adding comparative depth to those who remain unchanged.
In particular, I'll compare the Sorceress -- admittedly, my favorite character in either Filmation or 2002 incarnation -- to Randor, in both stories. Randor is learning, in each, to be a better father and all-around person: he has been faced with the tragedy of his canon personality, embodied by the harm done to his son, and he is determined to make amends. Obviously this theme is extremely important to the author, and I'm very glad of it. The cartoons treated Adam's relationship with his father very shallowly, turning Eternos's king into someone I have atrouble believing as the citizen's trusted ruler.
In Highest Bidder, as Randor grows more focused on a very narrow social perimeter, the Sorceress slowly grows more outward-focused: she becomes warm and personable, allowing strangers into her physical boundaries and her daily routine and possibly, ultimately, her sense of duty -- she has no objection to the Eternian garrison permanently stationed outside her walls, she lets the ruling family draw her into social functions, she even goes out of her way to ease "mere" emotional discomforts. This is the same woman who literally turned her back on overwrought seekers of exposition, when providing said exposition would have eased fears or guilt or bewilderment but not actually saved the world!
I felt as though Eideann did an excellent job of turning the Sorceress of 2002 into the Sorceress of the Filmation era, an overall more sympathetic and more likeable soul. Meanwhile, Randor started from a blindly disapproving point essentially equivalent to his Filmation portrayal, grew past the marginally-more-sensible leader shown in the first season of 2002 (who at least seemed realistically flummoxed by his lack of connection to his teenage son), and became a father worthy of the word, the sort of busy Man of State that I remember from old episodes of Jonny Quest.
And, really, why CAN'T a world-saving hero have parents who think he's a decent kid?
Randor faces much the same journey in Revelations and Regrets, though it's combined with the hardships of a parental relationship changing to one of near-equals as the child reaches true adulthood. In this version, however, the Sorceress doesn't seem to be at all inclined to change: she's still reserved, remote, responsibility-focused, austere. She does what she perceives as necessary for her goal -- including admission of shortcomings, when it comes to social considerations and interactions -- but she is who she is, and if she isn't /happy/ that way, it can still be said that she's comfortable with her life, and not about to change.
And yet, she does love:
"Duncan, her path needn't be mine, and if she can take another, I would be glad of it."
(Chapter 14: Changing Perspectives)
There was a chuckle in her voice when she said, “Sleep, Adam.”
(Chapter 16: A Little Forward Movement)
Both very simple, very poignant statements that do a better job of communicating affection than any vividly-described hugging or dramatic wailing could achieve, proving that this isn't a flat or one-trick character. Yet she's not the brilliant rising light of R&R -- Randor is, and Teela, and to a very much lesser extent, Evil-Lyn*.
Don't get me wrong: I loved the Filmation Sorceress, and consider her a better person in general than the one shown in the entire 2002 series. I just think Eideann's portrayals, in both, have led me to realize that I admire the latter portrayal more, for the more fundamental hurdles she faces as a co-savior of humanity if for nothing else. I don't think a character has to be broken to be interesting, but if they're already peachy-keen-perfect, what're they doing in the story? Besides serving as a backdrop for those who do have growth to undergo, of course.
* Evil-Lyn is, in fact, one of the brightest character growth portrayals in Highest Bidder, and I don't say that because she's found an evil she won't touch: in HB, she develops shading and complexity that was only briefly shown in hint during 2002 Season 1 episode "Lessons". The, ah, macking scene at the end of HB chapter 58 is a little jarring, but I trust the author that it /should be/ jarring, and will fit in the overall flow later. Seriously. What's she see in him? And vice versa. It can't be just "available, functioning gonads".
Eideann does three things that drive me to tear out my metaphoric hair, and I've addressed all three years before:
- Reigning monarchs are "your majesty", potential heirs are "your highness". I actually have got my mental filter trained to automatically substitute the majesties for the highnesses in any Eideann or Catslynn tale, which only trips me up when Adam is addressed formally.
- Pronoun agreement in compound subjects or objects doesn't trip the spellcheck, and may also not trip the beta reader: if two people are bringing in bread and it is served to two people, taking out the named person to leave the pronoun will usually show if something is wrong. For example, "
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wookieegunner and I can bring bread to the table, and garlic bread tastes great to wookieegunner and me." ; The "me" doesn't go at the beginning, things don't happen to "I". Try it without the mister, and see: "I can bring bread to the table, and garlic bread tastes great to me." - Rumor once had it that these stories were both finished, it was the middle that had some gaps. My greedy audience-self, given these already brilliant and gripping novel-length-plus stories, occasionally froths to know how the story will turn out. I'm no idiot, I know better than to demand service as if I had some sort of entitlement regarding tale completion. It's simply one of those ways the world happens!
One day's adventures later, I notice that I never went back to my starting comment, specifically underlying themes in respective fics. It's a little harder for me to interpret -- Highest Bidder has somewhere in the neighborhood of four times the content currently in R&R, and that makes quite a difference in look -- but I see a theme in the latter of remorse. Connected, of course, to the regrets in the title, we're seeing several different people face very similar regrets, but handle them in very different ways: Teela, of course, steps forward into the responsibility of friendship with no holds barred, as she does everything else in her history. She expresses her remorse, and atones for it, by making a concerted effort to (not undo, per se, past harms can't be erased like unwinding a spool of thread, but rather) replace her past opinions and behaviors and examples with healthier, more mature ones. Mekanek, officially the most perceptive Master but canonically also the most self-focused of the team, becomes a very useful mirror for Adam and spends a lot of his stage time assisting others in perceiving what had been in their metaphoric blind spots.
Man-at-Arms seems to be expressing his remorse by keeping his nose out of other people's business. I have no trouble seeing this as a logical, characteristic turn for the wise-insider to take, however I'm not so sure this should be a functional path for him to gain enlightenment, or make much of anything any better, in the long run.
Evil-Lyn, a proper selfish villainess, seems to be regretting only that her insistence on collecting knowledge has led her to something she'd have been much happier without knowing: her fatal flaw is essentially that which she wanted all along, what the writers of Leverage have mentioned as an antagonist's "original sin".