[ SECRET POST #158 ]

[shahni.livejournal.com]

⌈ Secret Post #158 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

This is a magic post and I'm not really here. :D

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 58 secrets from Secret Submission Post #023.
Secrets Not Posted: 0 broken links, 0 not!secrets, 0 not!fandom.
Next Secret Post: Tomorrow, Wednesday, June 13th, 2007.
Current Secret Submission Post: Here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[i-am-the-apeman.livejournal.com]

See, I think that's exactly why I find her annoying. Even though all of you have made extremely logical and sensible arguments about why she's not a Sue, I still keep feeling like she is. And I think it's because of that very thing.

I guess I always felt like it was more naturally Will's story. In the first movie, he's the one with the Pirate father. He's the one with an adventure that takes his character on an arc. At the start he hates Pirates, and by the end he learns to appreciate his heritage. At the start he's too wimpy to try to get Elizabeth, and by the end he learns the initiative to win her. What was Elizabeth's arc? At the start, she though pirates were cool, and by the end she still thought pirates were still cool. At the start she wanted Will to pay attention to her, and by the end Will started to pay attention to her, but what did she *do* or *learn* that made that happen? Elizabeth was the plucky damsel in distress with plenty of initiative, but she was still more of a plot device to get Will on the his adventure or a goal for Will's happy ending than a protagonist.

I guess it just seemed artificial to me that suddenly Elizabeth was the one rallying the pirates to war. She'd been artificially (IMO) thrust into being *the* main character. And, to me, that's the Sue-ist thing of all--when a character steals all the attention from the character who's story it truly is.

[doubtful-salmon.livejournal.com]

I totally disagree. I mean, I even saw the movie in the first place because I'm a huge Lord of the Rings fan, and I never thought that it was Will's story. The first person you see onscreen is Elizabeth. She is the object of the first film...she is the reason that everything happens. It is she who finds Will, it is she who dreams about him, she who falls in the water, she who asks to meet up with Barbossa and call off the hunt, she who lies, and she who is chased after when she is finally stuck not necessarily because of her gender but because she made a mistake. Will is only an important character, at least in my eyes, because Elizabeth makes him one. All his actions, in the whole movie, seem to be fueled by Elizabeth...and almost all of hers are her own.

So yes, Elizabeth is a plot device, but actually, so are all protagonists. They're not mutually exclusive.

[i-am-the-apeman.livejournal.com]

The first person you see onscreen is Elizabeth...Will is only an important character...because Elizabeth makes him one.

In my eyes, these two things make Elizabeth the narrator of the story, but that doesn't necessarily make her the protagonist. For example, in "The Shawshank Redemption", Red is the narrator, but Andy is the protagonist.

It is she who finds Will, it is she who dreams about him...

You have a very valid point with all of these examples. You're right in that a lot of action not only revolves around Elizabeth, but she takes a lot of action. But again, I come back to the question of arc. And it doesn't really feel like Elizabeth has one, definitely not when compared to Will. To me that is what differentiates between a character who's integral to the story and a protagonist.

[doubtful-salmon.livejournal.com]

I don't know...if we were going to argue it that way, I'd say that the protagonist is Jack Sparrow. After all, the love story is an equal share Will and Elizabeth's...but the catalyst for a lot of the story is Jack Sparrow's desire to get back the Pearl.

[cephiedvariable.livejournal.com]

This is how I interpreted Elizabeth's journey: in CotBP, you get the feeling that she's ill suited for the life she's living. Keira Knightly likes to say that Liz is a 20th century girl living in the 18th century. She's restless and bored, but she doesn't actually seem to realize it. Over the course of the movies she is thrust into adventure for one reason: kidnapped, trying to rescue her boy toy, ect. ect. and learns what's she's actually capable of- both good and bad. Her journey is one of inner discover, while Will discovers *external* things about himself (and I hope I'm not giving the movies TOO much credit when I assume it was written this way on purpose).

I suppose this kind of character arc could be Sueish if she actually HAD stolen all the attention from who the viewers felt was SUPPOSED to be the main character, but Will's character arc was still strong. She just got to do more cool stuff in AWE. But EVERYONE did cool stuff in DMC. Jack fought on the mast of a ship, Barbossa sailed through a maelstrom (while fighting and reciting wedding vows SIMULTANEOUSLY), Will got to talk smack to the villains and Ragetti freed a Goddess. It was a movie full of people doing cool stuff. :P


... that was a markedly less coherent argument than I anticipated it would be. -___-;;

[cephiedvariable.livejournal.com]

*in AWE, not DMC

No one did cool stuff in DMC. Everyone SUCKED in DMC, which was kind of the point. :PPP

[panksters.livejournal.com]

iawtc. I'm glad there are people about with real talkin skillz that weeuns don't have round heer who I can agree with.