In which our intrepid heroine discusses Will and metatext. And a sexy ship.

Primarily, my indifference toward Will is based out of my complete and utter lack of giving a crap about traditional heroism and the traditional accoutrements of the hero's journey ('cause for crying out *loud* dude.  He's an orphan, he picks up a mentor/guide, goes on a transformative journey, learns about his father, gets the girl, etc etc ad infinitum dull dull *dull*.  Though I admit, if he suddenly discovered a long-lost twin sister, probably a pirate, I would just...laugh so hard I died.).  The situation is not helped by Orlando Bloom's style of acting, which is appropriate for someone of Will's age and, more importantly, appropriate for the simplicity of his moral landscape (which is not a bad thing in any way, but it's not a POV that I think is capable of seeing the all the variances in the gray around him), but which is not terribly nuanced or subtle.  

As a character, he's also not helped by Ted&Terry not exploring outside the traditional journey or his metatextual role as Romantic Lead (so that CJS *didn't have to be*).  I think the metatext here is important, because what you've got in Will, IMO, is an essentially superfluous character whose main attributes are mirrored in CJS and Norrington. If he (Will) didn't exist, then the romantic triangle would have been constructed along the lines of Jack-Elizabeth-Norrington and that makes an *incredible* amount of sense from a storytelling perspective since it pares down the story and packs most of Norrington's scenes with a lot more oomph.  

I mean, honestly.  I don't hate him.  But as a *character*, I think his story has been done to death and that he serves almost entirely as a compromise between Jack and Norrington, which is *fine* except for the part where he and Norrington go on pretty much the exact same arc re: Jack and piracy, which um, you know.  Therein lies the compromise.  Could Norrington be the superfluous character?  Certainly.  I mean, there's no real reason that the dramatic foil to CJS should be his opposite extreme.

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Will/Elizabeth

Am perfectly happy with their incredibly selfish (but pure and true!) straight love.  moving on...


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Will/Jack

Please see: Will/Elizabeth, esp. "am perfectly happy with"

For me, this is the pairing of "If someone I know and really, really, really like writes it, I will read it."

Other than that, not so much with the caring.  Plus I have this whole fidelity issue that kicks in with Will/Elizabeth and not wanting to break up a canon relationship when I have a perfectly good, sexy, badass Commodore who gets all snippy and bitchtastic at first sight and where there's mutual manhandling and snarkage um, and let's move on to...

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Sparrington.

Um.  Actually, let's not.  'cause I think I would want to include that in the Jack/Norrington analysis-y post (which is where I will get into my epiphany re: Elizabeth/Norrington) and negotiations of space, and in which I will also reiterate points I have made in discussion re: Norrington and Will, Norrington and Jack, and probably some stuff about Governor Swann, 'cause I love him a lot.

Oh, can we say Sheila is bored tonight? I knew that we could.  Or, alternately, I could totally find some spare batteries and upload the pretty pictures themagdalene took of the Interceptor Lady Washington.  They closed the line for the tour like, ten people before us, so I will be making a return visit on Monday after class to take some close ups.

And dude, let me just say: that ship?  Oh my *lord*, is it sexy.  Sexy sexy sexy.  

There was also this whole thing about a guy in a leather kilt, but he was not sexy.  Amusing, but not sexy.