Um, True Blood? We have to talk

Just saw yesterday's True Blood (4.11), "Soul on Fire".  As has been true all season, everything was great except for any scene with Sookie in it.  Now Anna Paquin is a magnificent actress and hasn't lost her chops, so that's not the problem.

I have a theory, and here is my theory: the screenwriters, who are also great, and doing the best job they can of getting something worth seeing out of the truly awful novels, are less handicapped the less attention  the original author paid a character, because then they can make stuff up, and it will be much BETTER stuff than they'll find in the books.  So who's the best character in True Blood?  Jessica, who doesn't even appear in the novels.  Who's the next best?  Lafayette, who was killed off at the end of the first book, in the novels.
Image by Vanessa Stehling via Flickr
But Eric and Sookie and Bill are all very important in the novels, and try as they may, the screenwriters can't get away from that, or change the characterizations too much.  Worse, structurally, Sookie's in the center of the story; it's All About Her.  Her character fascinates novelist Harris, is Harris' focalizer, and Harris can't imagine that we wouldn't be fascinated too; so she has done nothing to make Sookie particularly interesting, because to Harris, she's already interesting.

So we have, this season, a character at the very center of the story, on whom it all depends, who is very dull, who has no motivation beyond sheer stupidity and unthinking self-centredness for any of the things she does, but whom we are supposed to find as fascinating as the two vampire sex-gods who are so consumed with her that they're willing to INSTANTLY agree to die to save her life.  INSTANTLY.

And when we don't go along with it, the story falls completely flat.

In fact Sookie is a Mary Sue.  And in the first three seasons the series worked with that, because we were as much in love with her as the author , so we went along the show's assessment that every little thing about her was completely absorbing.  (Though the io9 recappers didn't agree, and this season I'm beginning to see their point..)

This season, we aren't willing to go along.  At least, I'm not.  I don't really care whether she takes Billie or Eric to the prom; I just want her to grow up already. (And how old are Eric and Bill?  They're acting like they're about 14, which is unbelievable as well as dull.) In the meantime, I'm more interested in the characters that are actually showing some kind of growth arc - Jessica; Jason; Tara; Hoyt; Alcide; Sam (sorta); Andy; Terry, especially Terry - the ones that are already adults and the ones that are trying hard to grow up.  Sookie's just in a holding pattern, and I don't care anymore.  Too much of her behaviour is irrational and uninterestingly so.  Meanwhile, she needs to get a job. She doesn't even own her house anymore; who's supporting her?

Marni/Antonia was great as always, and Debbie Pelt too, and the Werewolf Divorce was oddly moving.  "Debbie Pelt, I abjure you. I see you no longer.  I hunt with you no longer.  I share flesh with you no longer."  Perhaps it has to be delivered while growling.

I haven't done a Bechdel-Wallace analysis of this season.  Sookie is generally at odds with women this season, when she interacts with them, which she doesn't much.
Related Articles

• Sookie is a Mary Sue (Merely Academic)
• True Blood 4.11 (Soul on Fire) recap (io9.com)