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ejbronte's Replies
I politely disagree (forgive misspellings, I can't spellcheck right now):
We witness the effect of Luke's death on all the major players, and can gauge character status and development from their emotional and their political responses.
We see at least two sides of Aegon's character: foolish inattention at the Small Council; attempts at charity in the throne room; back to silliness and inattention.
We see the various emotional, faith related and political knots begin major ensnaring for Aliceinte.
Cracks are already beginning to form within coalitions on both sides.
This is the start of wind-up. Personally I am willing to patiently wait to see to what pitch it winds before it spins out of control.
Ages ago I read a New Yorker article about how hard it was for clothing franchises to get started in NYC as opposed to other locations. One spokesperson observed that, while, in other cities, colors were the norm, here in NYC, "it's black, black, and more black." I'm a native New Yorker (by way of Brooklyn) and I can vouch for that!
It's up to both of them to act like intelligent people.
As far as this specific situation goes, she explains that he came onto her twice; she refused twice. In retaliation, he ignored her and her work, which would have been detrimental to her career:
Because he would not be advancing her culinary education with his attention and advice.
Because it might incite the others to treat her badly too, and isolate her within the team.
Because if she quit in response to this treatment, he might take it upon himself to write a negative review to a future employer, thus further damaging her future.
Because there is a general understanding about relationships in the workplace, which this incident violated.
Plus: no way should you get rid of Edward G. Robinson before you absolutely have to.
George ruined it: you're not supposed to tell your wish or it won't come true: he told Mary every bit of his wish. Mary, on the other hand, reminded him that telling would cause the wish not to come true. She kept silent, he was expansive.
So, well....
I'm thinking the Bailey family may have gone into its own crisis after Harry's death (and my mind is kind of embroidering on my idea that Sam Wainwright may have carried guilt over encouraging little Harry). It might be that Peter Bailey (and Ma Bailey, for sure) started declining after the death of their only child; Peter may not have had the wherewithal to fight Potter, and may have either given up the B&L or may have died earlier than in the actual timeline. We don't know of course; but for sure the Baileys would have been horribly affected, and they wouldn't have been the people we know in the actual timeline.
Here's a little character note for Mary, incidentally: she is a witness to the Gower-capsule scene. George isn't the only one who kept Mr. Gower's secret.
I don't say that Mary is trying to take Potter down. By the same token, in the actual timeline, the Baileys aren't trying to take him down either. They are simply attempting to offer a viable alternative to his slums and economic control. Similarly Mary would not necessarily be trying to take Potter down but to offer a viable alternative to that loud, messy, greedy world thriving under his hand: a place where a person can simple *be*; think; perhaps formulate a way out of Pottersville.
Also, of course, a place where a person can read, absorb ideas, think critically, argue intelligently. Perhaps it is in this way that Mary does the most harm to Potter, if harm she intends.
We assume she is miserable; we do not know. We see she is guarded, and protective against this world as she ventures outside, but this doesn't have to add up to miserable, unmarried woman. It can add up to a woman who knows she has to be on her guard on these streets - I'm a New Yorker; similarly, I also know I need to be on my guard in some areas of this city. That doesn't make me miserable, and I certainly don't consider myself such.
Oh. Something else occurred to me: In the absence of George, why was little Harry at the ice pond? From what George announces, it sounds as if there are mostly older boys there. If that's the case, Harry isn't tagging after his brother but after someone else. Maybe joky, funny, Hee-Haw Sam Wainwright. In which case, Sam is indirectly responsible for the death of the Bailey's only child. Perhaps indirectly responsible therefore for an early death for Peter Bailey. It may be, then, that this preys on Sam's emotional state of mind, and there may not be a fun, successful Sam for Mary to consider for marriage.
How's THAT for speculation...?!
But letting the opposition understand that opposition exists.
Thanks!
Of course this entire conversation is assumption and speculation, so I feel free to go at it.....
If Mary is at all alert in the former Bedford Falls/Pottersville, she would be aware of Potter, what he is, what he wants and how he gets it. If she has any of the integrity we see of her in the actual timeline, she wouldn't approve of Potter or what he has done. She would be that one out thousands for the same reason that Peter Bailey was. Peter Bailey could also have been far more comfortable and probably have lived longer without the B&L, and fighting Potter, but he did anyway. Why him among the thousands in Bedford Falls? Because he understood injustice and thought he had a way to counter it. Who's to say that alternate Mary, in the absence of the Baileys, didn't fall into this slot?
The B&L need not exist for a person to form a sense of outrage against Potter: Mary would not necessarily have needed the inspiration or example of the B&L to form her own outlook and ideas of counteracting.
Mary, though, is not George, and she need not be walking the down the same path of reluctance and obligation. We don't know how or why she reached whatever decision she made or rejected in the alternate time. Maybe she *is* resentful of her position. Or maybe she isn't: we don't see enough of her to know what she's truly feeling here. You may be right; or I may be right; or, in this little fan fiction (as this feels to be!), maybe there's something completely different motivating her. We know, in the actual timeline, that she is happy in Bedford Falls, is comfortable in a small town setting, and loves old, broken things that can be made whole. She may have seen this sort of life disintegrate as Bedford Falls turns into Pottersville, and maybe this is the start of her crusade.
Potter is also doing pretty well despite the B&L. In any case, it isn't necessarily the certainty of victory that can propel a fight, but (need to do part II)
I disagree.
I feel there's more to Mary's alternate life than we're seeing:
Figure, for example, that a library in Pottersville is a difficult place to maintain, though necessary. Kind of like the Building and Loan in actual time. I think that, absent of the Bailey family and the B&L, Mary has taken their place as the one who stands against Potter. She does it by maintaining a quiet, peaceful spot in this loud, superficial town, where money is spent on things that don't last. A library is a haven, where you can spend all day reading, thinking, being quiet and thoughtful. It is not a place of profit, and it wouldn't surprise me if Potter were after it in a similar way that he is after the B&L. In this world, Mary has no time for marriage because she is George Bailey here. But it's even harder for her than it is for George.
She seems fond enough of Willoughby, but disapproves of the way he and Marianne behave together. She basically says this to Brandon, adding words to the effect that she wishes her sister would grow up learn what the world is like and expects of her. Brandon, from experience, tells Elinor that this is something Elinor should not wish on her sister.
So Elinor probably feels that Willoughby is childish and thoughtless, but harmless.
I'm going to say that "GBU" has some dark and strong content, pertaining mostly to the travesty and brutality that is war. There is a lot of tragic and horrifying backdrop and forefront going on here: devasted armies shoot prisoners and dragging misery in their wake; the prison camp sequence; the drunken captain, psychologically destroyed by the vicious cycle of battle over the bridge. Angel Eyes flourishes in this environment, but Blondie finishes by becoming humanized by witnessing and communicating with the horror before him.
Tuco is much less affected, but he is indicative of another thread of darkness running through this movie: the perceived necessity of turning to crime and inhumanity because of how the world is, even without the war. Remember his scene with his brother, where he reminds Pablo that, where they came from, there were two ways out of poverty: the church or crime, and that Tuco chose the harder way. Remember that Pablo doesn't deny it, and that, when Tuco is gone and cannot hear him, Pablo asks for forgiveness.
No, i would say GBU has darkness aplenty in it. Its presentation is different than in A few Dollars More. I wouldn't say that one is inferior or superior to the other, and the same with Once Upon A Time. I appreciate all of them, findit hard to choose which is "better", and like them all on their own merits.
I am going to disagree: remember that Jennie is really not a little girl at this point, but the essence of the young woman who died, and that the child already has a premonition of her end as she looks at Eben's painting of Land's End. Given this, the mixture of adult and child in all the aspects of Jennie until she actually is an adult is, for me, part of the mystery and ambiguity of reality of this story.
That award would actually probably go to Veda (sp) from "Mildred Pierce". Ilsa, as I explain above, doesn't qualify for the title, and Rose is small fry in the category, if she qualifies at all.
Oh. Also, that bottle was already there. Renault wasn't carrying it around. It would have been handy for whoever was working there.
I think we're okay with Farley here - I didn't get an impression that he had a big ego, and that quick questioning reads like shorthand to me: It would be understood by the court that Vinny wouldn't ask, cutting to the chase: "What did you find out" unless he knew there was something to find out; when Farley says "on a hunch", he again silently acknowledges Vinny with a slight pause and inclination of the head (which Vinny silently acknowledges). On the record, you might be able to interpret it in one way, but in life, Farley indicates at least twice, nonverbally, that he owes the knowledge to Vinny. Scriptwise, we're heading toward the wire, and a sequence with Farley explaining what we've already seen Vinny ask for would drag some of the energy out of the scene. So we get some nice body language between the two and a tacit understanding.
I'm going to respectfully disagree with you about Lisa's ability to retain the kind of detail she does: we've already watched her enthusiastically spout off a series of technical trivia in the faucet scene; we've watched her in action during the voir dire sequence. We see her reading the book, and retaining the information about disclosure, which she would probably have told Vinny about when he'd have returned from hunting, with or without files. So she's capable of intelligently and thoroughly absorbing information, which means that her family background, and experience as a mechanic herself, supplies her with tons of opportunity to do so.
As an amateur enthusiast for several things, I can confirm that an enthusiast can retain mountains of trivia about the subject of interest, and can happily overload anyone unfortunate enough to mention the subject. So it's not surprising to me that Lisa would know all this information.
Very late to the party: Humperdinck chooses a commoner because he wants to have her killed, to have the killing blamed on Guilder, a neighboring kingdom, and therefore have an excuse to start a war with them. Remember he mentions to Rugen that he hired Vizzini to kill her, and mused that strangling her on their wedding night will be even more effective in rousing the people against Guilder. Killing a commoner will be ever so much less politically complicated than doing the same to a bride from a powerful family either in Florin or outside it. Her beauty and his arrogance regarding that aspect is incidental to his main (and arrogant) plan to go to war.
Yes, that young man was Hugo, for whom Vera had committed the murder. In the book, the Judge lets us know that she was about the last recruit. The Judge also designs his plan so that the people who, in his mind, are the leas culpable, or capable of remorse, guilt, or disintegrating under the stresses on the Island, are disposed of first. So, he judges that Blore, Lombard and Vera are the most culpable and in need of prolonged punishment; and Vera is the most, having killed a child.