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)

guilt-free TV

Image via WikipediaWatched the latest Dr. Who tonight; it was very good, but I don't think Amy and Rory can be put off forever.  The Doctor said he would find their child, but meant, surely, their BABY.  Discovering that Dr. Song is their daughter, as was their best friend the childhood JD Mels, that she was raised by evil aliens in that terrifying orphanage, and ultimately leaving her in a hospital to be cured of her psychopathic tendencies, is not good enough.  Saving another child, who is a little boy who loves his Dad, but is not the son of his parents - unlike Mels/Dr. Song, who is their daughter but not a child, and for that matter doesn't love them - is not good enough either.  You can save all the children in the universe, and that's a very good thing to do; but that does not absolve the Doctor of his promise to restore their baby to them; to restore to them a child they can raise and love and become family with.  George is his father's son in that he's part of the family, has been adopted.  Mels/River is not part of Rory and Amy's family.  That's what the Doctor promised to restore to them, and he hasn't done it.

And - just as an aside - interesting feature, that it's the Doctor and the father that save little George, while the mother's at work.  Why? On reading "Let's Kill Hitler (and break my heart)" (below) and its comments on feminism in Dr. Who, now I'm wondering; why is the mother - and why is Amy - being left out of the loop here?  Why is the only significant parent the father?  (On the other hand, Dad's home because he's unemployed; is Mom the responsible parent, or the absent parent, here?)

Also
Image via Wikipediawatched another episode of Battlestar Galactica, and have got to "Pegasus", where we have essentially the AU Galactica.  The commander is female, and there is no civilian authority; it's an entirely military operation, and it's insane.  Everyone on Pegasus is either a collaborator or terrified into submission.  They are rapists, abusers and torturers, and Admiral Reid, Marianne from True Blood, really gets off on shooting people to get her own way.  Of course she only does it when military law, as interpreted by herself, gives her some shred of an excuse.

Wondering, again, what to make of the fact that the female leader is evil and has produced an evil ship - it takes its tone from the top, and even if she is killed off, as I suspect will happen eventually, all those under her are so damaged that it won't be possible to integrate them; the entire culture of the Pegasus is toxic.  And sure, we have Laura the President, who is wonderful.  But now I want to watch carefully for other signs that even in the BSG world, apparently a woman in power = a bad thing.

Haven't been posting about True Blood (and haven't seen this evening's show yet) because everyone on it is more interesting than Sookie this season. Unfortunately Sookie is the linchpin of the whole show.  If she's not interesting, it all falls apart. But everyone's got a story except her - I'm afraid I can't buy the "Sookie's in love with a vampire" storyline as worth her (or our) primary attention yet again.   I could cut her
Image via Wikipediasome slack for considering the world well lost for love the first time, but it's time she got a life that involved, you know, holding down a job, figuring out something else to do besides shagging pretty vampires.

Interestingly everyone else on the show has also noticed this, thinks, correctly, that Sookie is behaving like a crazy person and is walking away from her.  Tara: "are you crazy?" Alcide: "Sookie, what are you doing?"  Sookie responds by ignoring them  - not even bothering to answer the question - because Twu Wuv Conquers All.  Well, no, it doesn't.  Her vampire habit doesn't seem to endanger her - at least, she tends to live through it - but it endangers everyone around her; and she doesn't seem to notice or care.  I have lost patience.

Nor do I know how True Blood managed to make Eric so dull and sexless, but  it did.  The idea, I suppose, was to make him childlike so that Sookie could feel maternal towards him and re-parent him, re-"make" him post-Godric; but the mother-child bond is really not easy to sexualize, and they didn't succeed.  The idea was, I suppose, also to contrast this relationship with Sookie/Bill, where Bill was definitely being overly paternal, "protecting" Sookie - and himself - by not telling her things she needed to know.  So while I appreciate why they were making the attempt, it did not in my view succeed.  (Do I find it suspect that the father-child bond is remarkably easy to sexualize?  yes, and I don't want to think about it right now.)

Meanwhile, Jessica, Lafayette, Jesus (who I suspect is not long for this world), Marni/Antonia, Debbie, Alcide (especially shirtless), Nan, Pam, Ginger, Tommy, Hoyt, even Sam, even Marcus - they're all excellent, and make the show worth seeing.  But the central Bill/Sookie/Eric storyline, and all three characters, could frankly be left out entirely and the season would be better for it.

Related articles

• Doctor Who Recap: "Let's Kill Hitler" (wired.com)
• Let's Kill Hitler (and break my heart) (iamdustdaughter.wordpress.com)
• Doctor Who, series 6.9: "Night Terrors" by Mark Gatiss (ravereader.wordpress.com
• Doctor Who and the One Woman the Doctor Can't Screw Up [Tv Recap] (io9.com)
• The Well-Tempered Plot Device (ansible.net)