In which I briefly voice very unpopular opinions, and then hope people stay to read the last bits

[meganbmoore]

I do not like Rochester.

Or Heathcliff.

Or Lovelace.

Lets see...wannabe bigamist who keeps his wife locked in the attic.  Man who gets so pissy about getting dumped that he devotes his life to destroying her family.  Man so bent on conquering a woman that when he can't, he sets out to destroy her, eventually raping her so he can "win."

I get the interest in the character, and the less evil/bastardy character types they spawned, but the adoration for the characters themselves, and wanting the women who should just run while the running's good to end up with them, weirds me out.

And now that that's off my chest...

I have Girl Scout cookies.  At some point today, I shall let you know if the new low-calorie Cinna Spin things are any good.

I also picked up an interesting looking manga called Purgatory Kabuki.  There is no proper descriptiob of it on the back, but flipping through it and reading the translation notes, it seems to be based on the legend of Benkei and the Gojou Bridge, only set in the underworld where the swods have spirits.  (Benkei was a warrior monk who posted himself at the Gojou Bridge in Kyoto and challenged every swordsman who passed and took their swords.  He had collected 999 swords when some punk named Minamoto no Yoshitsune came along and beat him.  So he became Yoshitsune's righthand man.)  The art kinda makes me think of Mononoke if it as designed by Amano.  Looking at the inside, though, I can't help but think someone was a little too fond of the shading tool.  I may read it after I read everything else I brought.

In other queries...has anyone read Jennifer Roberson's Tiger and Del books?  I keep seeing them around, but can't remember anyone ever mentioning them.

I will now read volume 2 of Hikkatsu! Strike a Blow to Vivify.  For anyone who has forgotten, it features a girl who was raised by pigeons who falls in love with an emotastic boy who lived in a Snowy Cabin of Emo Solitude atop Mt. Fuji...before he blew it up.  They now travel the world together, bsttling evil appliances as he struggles to perfect the appliance repairing One Shot No Fail Repair Blow.

Comments

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I like the characters they inspired, but not the characters themselves. Lovelace is potrayed as 100% evil and someone the heroine should be saved from, so I have no problems with that narrative. It's been so long since I read Wuthering Heights that I can't recall exactly how Heathcliff was portrayed, but I remember thinking that it seemed I was meant to somewhat side with him(though, oddly, I have no problems at all with Edmund Dantes...but then, he has much, much more done to him.) Rochester, though, we're meant to like, and to want Jane to be with him. I just can't do that.

[crumpeteer.livejournal.com]

While I'm not sure Bronte wanted us to like Heathcliff, I think she was at least aiming for the audience to understand and get behind his mad passion for Cathy. Rochester I still think knocked off his first wife. Run, Jane! Run far away from there!

Dantes I have no issue with liking. I love him in fact. I don't see his revenge plotting as evil or violent really (even though it was VERY cruel) because he was dishing it out to the people who really did destroy his life for no good reason. Heathcliff was just going after people who didn't really wrong him so he could manipulate Cathy into regretting that she dumped him.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Dantes was never reacting to being dumped, but to men betraying him and sending him to hell on earth for years to achieve their own ends. I can understand that, and he has more issues with hurting Mercedes(who married his enemy) and her son(the son of his enemy) than most vengeance characters do, and ultimately, tries not to.