(no subject)

[fan_eunice]

Damn, y'all. This SHOW!!! I am still slightly dizzy from marathoning seasons 2 and 3 in less than two weeks, but I am slightly calmer, and have more thoughts about Fringe in general behind cut. Well, about Walter mostly.



Here is the thing. I think Olivia is fucking awesome. I love Peter. And I adore madly the cast of supporting peeps all around. But this show? Is, for me, All About Walter. Walter absolutely fucking fascinates me in a way few fictional characters have. And a big part of that is actually because of, not in spite of, the horrible things he's done and the consequences of them. I can't justify his actions at all. How could I? He ripped apart two universes by way of the kidnap and torture of children. And yet. And yet.

I don't know, it's like the parent part of me looks at it and says, if that were my son dying and I had that power, could I have walked away from it? I like to think I could have. I can tell myself all the reasons it wouldn't be justified, and it WOULDN'T. But, I'd want to. Oh god, I would want to so badly. And I can't say with any degree of certainty that I could resist.

I'm not sure what I feel for Walter is even so much sympathy as it is...recognition in a weird way, and it kind of freaks me out. And horror at what I might be capable of in the same circumstances. And fascination at the questions his character raises. About the pursuit of knowledge in general. Of science as both savior and destruction. And the mind, both fractured and whole. And, and, and...I have more to say on that but I can't quite get it to coalesce into words. Possibly because my own brain is kinda fucked up.

But, yeah. Walter. I love them all, but Walter is the one keeping me up at night. And the reason I will forever think to myself 'Delicious strawberry flavored DEATH' every time I eat a pop tart. And...um, I eat a lot of pop tarts.

Comments

[franzeska]

Om nom nom, death. :P I lost interest in Fringe, but I still love Walter.

[fan_eunice]

Mmmm...yummy, yummy death.

I'm curious when you lost interest, 'cause marathoning it all at once is...quite the experience.

[franzeska]

I watched most (all?) of S1 as it aired because it got some press about being filmed in NYC and I was curious. Charlie was my favorite. When I heard they were kicking the actor off to cut costs, I was annoyed. I watched a lot of S2 in clumps, mostly not as it aired, and it was interesting enough, but I got a strong sense of a show that would never, ever get to the point unless the writers were told the show was definitely ending (which usually happens too late for writers to do anything anyway). I'm not a fan of meandering arc plot nonsense, and Fringe is no exception. I just got more and more bored and irritated as I watched S2, despite thinking that a lot of individual bits were cool. I can't remember when this happened, but Walter started hinting really obviously about original Peter being dead like a season before they finally bothered to show that, yes, that's exactly what happened. I love BAAAAD foreshadowing if I get the payoff within two hours. Otherwise, it's annoyingly coy. I loved the noir episode because it's so self-contained (and noir-y, and weird). The whole thing just made me feel weary, and I never got around to watching S3.

[fan_eunice]

Awwww, yeah, I can see why you drifted away if it irritated and bored you like that. I kinda mostly forgot to keep up even though the I loved the back half of season 1 like pie so getting back to it in this marathon was hitting characters and stories that were already mashing my buttons pretty hard.

It is no fun to continue to watch something that isn't doing that for you at all, though. I'm not sure if it makes a difference but Charlie is back in season 3 quite a bit. Well, alternate Charlie but he's a lot like original Charlie. :)

[franzeska]

I liked alt Charlie a lot too. I was just pissed as hell that they wrote him off in the first place, with a wrath I usually reserve for those "Save money! Kill off the women!" shows. If it goes like a million seasons and they don't kill Astrid, I may watch it all when it finally wraps up. As I recall, I only made it through the first 2.5 seasons of The X-Files, 1 of B5, uh... but 6 of CSI: Miami on DVD in less than a month.

I've come to the conclusion that I can't actively follow more than one show as it airs. I always start getting bored with most of them. I can watch infinite numbers of things on DVD, but the minute it's week to week, not a chance. I forget what I dropped Fringe for (Castle?); whatever it is, I'm not watching it anymore either. :P

[fan_eunice]

I'm a big fan of marathoning shows, either at the end of a season or closed canon. Except for reality tv I rarely have more than one show I'm following in real time. Mostly I'm really impatient and it is weirdly easier sometimes to wait and not watch at all until I can have my answers RIGHT AWAY, than to wait week to week.

I suspect after this, though, that Fringe is going to be my real time show for Doctor Who hiatus. Because apparently I like it when show runners FUCK WITH MY HEAD. :)

[franzeska]

Ha ha ha. Yeah. It might last for you. I usually have a much easier time sticking with a show if I start by marathoning it, even if I later watch it as it airs. I stuck through an amazing number of seasons of Supernatural. >:(

[franzeska]

Also, STATUS QUO IS GOD. *cough*

But seriously, while I don't expect them to write anyone else off (except for Astrid, who I'm utterly shocked hasn't been gruesomely and pointlessly killed yet), once a show writes a main cast member off for any reason other than the actor begging and pleading to get out of their contract (and even then sometimes), I lose faith that the show is going to keep giving me whatever it is I like and not spiral downwards into canon woobieville and depressing=deep plotting. Fringe has done better than most, but even so. I always like monster of the week better than mytharc for this exact reason.

[skipthedemon]

From Moffat's Jekyll:" It's our oldest, deadliest impulse, the need to protect our own at the expense of any other living thing... and we give that impulse such a nice name. ...Love, and love is a psychopath."

I don't actually believe that, in the sense that I think that's what love is. But we do tend to call that impulse love without thinking it through, don't we? There's so much of Fringe that is an exploration of what love actually is. We can't know what that is really, unless we have concept of ethics. We can know what love is, if our minds our so fractures that action and consequences, cause and effect, escape us.

Walter is learning, slowly and painfully, how to put all of that back together. To be whole, as you say.

Have you watched beccatoria's Fringe vids?

[fan_eunice]

But we do tend to call that impulse love without thinking it through, don't we?

Indeed we do and...>Walter is learning, slowly and painfully, how to put all of that back together. To be whole, as you say.

He is, and what fascinates me so much is that he's doing so in a context where it is impossible to make it 'right'. There can be understanding of what he did, explaining, but he can't make up for it or justify it. Can't change the damage he's done, not even if the universes were to magically heal tomorrow. I'm not even sure forgiveness is possible. But mercy is.

[fan_eunice]

Have you watched beccatoria's Fringe vids?

I haven't :(. And now that it is a pretty near certainty I'll be vidding Walter and possibly other Fringe vids at some point, all other Fringe vids are off limits to me. I get horribly insecure if I watch vids in the same source I am/plan on using, which puts a lot of amazing vids out of bounds that I'd love to watch. Someday I hope to not be ridiculous like that.

[skipthedemon]

I get it. There's a lot of fannish thoughts and story ideas that I don't actually type out because I feel like everyone else has said it, usually better than I could. And then when I do have something to say, I write stupidly long essays. Heh.

[heresluck]

Walter isn't as central to my experience of the show as he is to yours, but the emphasis on ethics that he brings to the show is one of my very favorite things about it. I rambled about this a bit back when I posted on Fringe a few months ago.

[fan_eunice]

Oooooooh, tasty heresluck meta. I need to go read that now, OMG.