o.O?

[shipperx]

I want a gif and/or an icon of Mad Men's Peggy hitting her head on her desk from last week.  That would be a really, really useful gif/Icon.

Anyway, I think I've found something more annoying than fandom's tendency to say Bill Compton = Angel (no he isn't). and Eric Northman = Spike (No he isn't! I wish these analogies weren't given because they're giving me an irrational prejudice against Eric!).  A couple of steps up the "No he isn't!" meter is this quote:

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"If this show were Pride and Prejudice, would Bill=Wickham and Eric=Darcy? Bill throws Eric in a bad light whenever he can while his motives are definately not pure. Maybe at the end Sookie will realize Bill has been full of it and Eric is quietly helpful and competent."

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In what AU version?  Pride and Prejudice and Zombies?!

Love or hate Bill or Eric on their own merits and weaknesses. They aren't characters from an Austen novel.  Last I looked, Wickham's great crime was seducing girls and Darcy's was being an arrogant prig (who in Firth form was dreamy in a wet linen shirt).  Neither of them dealt drugs, regularly murdered people, used to own slaves, chained victims in toture-themed basements making them poo in a bucket before dismembering them with their bare hands and teeth, broke their lovers neck and twisted it around during sex, schemed 1000 years for revenge, drained sad strippers in limos, threatened people into being drug dealers, left Tara to die, or a host of ever so much worse crimes than Wickham or Darcy could ever have dreamed of.

Comments

[angearia.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've ever run across someone who says Bill = Angel/Eric = Spike to an exact and literal degree.

But they function in similar roles. They are indeed similar. It's a compare/contrast exercise and I find the comparisons hold water.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I just have a really, really difficult time with the comparisons. Other than Eric is blond and Bill is dark headed and they're stuck in an insanely annoying triangle that's inciting flamewars, they aren't the same to me.

Try as I might to see otherwise, Eric seems morosely serious 99% of the time and not the eensiest bit romantic. He's all Nordic distance and under-emoting, while Bill might share tendencies with Dork Angel but in no way resembles either Liam or Angelus. (Dork Angel I grant. Man, even in evil flasback, Bill was a dork).

Eric is an alpha male (more alpha than Bill actually). Eric is more powerful, more politically connected, less sentimental, more wealthy, more emotionally closed-off, and his human history was as a womanizing Viking with pleasing Daddy-issues (that's so Angel). That's just not analgous to Spilliam to me.

Bill is...well, he was definitely a vampire dork in all his flashbacks (boy those 1920s flashbacks were painful) and his Southern Planation Owner history is rather Louis de Ponte du Lac if I were reaching for a vampy similarity (Hm... or maybe Stefan Salvatore). He's not an alpha male but a 'somewhere in the pack.' Weirdly sentimental (please god, no more flashbacks to his wife!), and fandom seemingly loathes the guy to an astonishing degree.

It reminds me of when Lost got going and everyone was saying Jack = Angel, Spike = Sawyer. No, they weren't. They were themselves too.

*sigh*

I just hate everything being boiled down to a triangle and the endless comparisons have a way of making Spike and Angel stereotypes rather characters. The comparisons are usually reductionist (usually with something like "blond bad boy" (which Spike/William really wasn't. That's a title that he's saddled him with (most commonly by his detractors... and IDW), but that's not the substance of the character versus all around 'great guy' (which Angel(us)/Liam wasn't). It's pushing me towards resenting the TB vamps. Though, at the moment I have some tiny amount of pity for Bill over the fact that entirity of fandom seems uniformly aligned against him and he gets the bulk of the flame war roasting.) Plus, I don't know that I'll ever expunge from my memory book!Eric calling Sookie "My lovahhhhhh..."

[petzipellepingo.livejournal.com]

Love or hate Bill and Eric on their own merits and weaknesses. They aren't characters from an Austen novel. Last I looked, Wickham's great crime was seducing girls and Darcy's was being an arrogant prig. Neither of them dealt drugs, regularly murdered people, used to own slaves, chained victims in toture chamber basements, broke their lovers neck during sex, dismemebered someone with their teeth, schemed 1000 years for revenge, drained strippers in limos, left Tara to die, or a host of ever so much worse crimes than Wickham or Darcy could ever have dreamed of.

You're not wrong. I wish everyone would quit comparing characters to other characters, it's really pointless.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

The whole Eric as Darcy thing totally flipped me out. I'm not sure what tv show they're watching!

[powerofthebook.livejournal.com]

I want a .gif of Peggy riding her Honda motorcycle around in circles at the studio!

I'm having trouble just keeping the TV versions of Bill and Eric separate from the book ones, let alone comparing them to other characters. In this case, however, I think it just breaks down to the simple formula of so many televised love triangles - girl must pick between bad boy and good boy, and occasionally chooses herself. In the comparison between Bill and Eric and Angel and Spike, the "bad boys" and the "good boys" happen to have vaguely similar physical attributes...

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

It may be that I hate the 'bad boy' thing.

And, admittedly, I just don't like Eric enough to want him compared to Spike. Eric is morosely serious, revenge oriented, has Daddy issues, and is Nordically unemotional. That's not Spike.

Bill is a dork (well, that actually was Angel some of the time, but that's not usually the comparison that people are drawing when they say Bill = Angel).

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

And Peggy on the scooter was awesome (beautiful art direction)

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

Have to admit that I do see paralells too, though of course there are differences too.

The main difference to me is the girl in question though. On Buffy I cared about Buffy, on True blood I don't really care about Sookie, because I like my ships evenly matched and she doesn't do that. Not with Bill (whom I find just boring) nore with Eric (who I like, but a lot better with other characters).

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

See the thing is when people make that comparison it's in some "bad boy" versus "good guy" way and I think both actually do a diservice to Spike and to Angel.

And I must have very different views of Eric and of Bill because Eric doesn't seem remotely Spike-like to me and Bill isn't all that Angel-like.

Eric seems morosely serious most of the time and no way do I think of him as having a romantic outlook on life. He's all Nordic distance and under-emoting. Eric is an alpha male (more alpha than Bill actually). Eric is more powerful, more politically connected, less sentimental, more emotionally closed-off, and his human history was as a womanizing Viking with pleasing Daddy-issues (that's so Angel). Eric just doesn't seem at all Spike-like to me (not even in the book. Almost especially in the Sookie Stackhouse book I read that had seriously, seriously thin character development).

On the other hand, Bill might share tendencies with Dork Angel but in no way resembles either Liam or Angelus. (Dork Angel I grant. Good lord, even in evil 20s flasback, Bill was such a dork). Bill with his Southern Planation Owner history is more Anne Rice's Louis, to me. He's kind of narcissistic and no where near as hot as he thinks he is. He's more dull than anything else. He's not an alpha male. He's weirdly sentimental, and fandom loathes the guy with such a feiry passion that I pity him.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

To be honest I'm just not very hinged on shipping in True Blood.

For me the parallels are that Eric has a kind of honesty (not that he can't be deceitful, but he has an eye for the truth) that reminds me of Spike + he used to be less pompous than Bill (though last episode he was quite too pompous for my liking)

I'm not really set on the comparison and there sure are many things that set the characters apart. I guess with TB I'm just a normal watcher, I don't get passionate about it.

[silverusagi]

Hah. Hah so much. I do not find Eric "quietly helpful and competent" at all.

I wish these analogies weren't given because they're giving me an irrational prejudice against Eric... who isn't Spike!

I know exactly how you feel. In fact, you might be the only one who seems to feel like I do. First, I have to say that I think the books are crap. So, sorry, book fans. Yeah, stuff is getting changed. I keep seeing complaints that Ball is whitewashing Bill and demonizing Eric. To me, they're both pretty sneaky and evil at this point. Both have lied to Sookie "for her own good." And I'm not sorry that a rape scene was cut from the show, when it seemed to be unnecessary in the books anyway (I've had enough of unnecessary rape scenes, thank you very much).

Second, so much this. I don't dislike Eric. But I almost want to, just because of how much everyone is making him into some sort of saint. Which he's not. Neither was Spike, by the way. Likewise, the irrational hatred of Bill almost makes me want to like him more, even though I'm rather neutral on most True Blood characters.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Oh thank god. I'm not alone. This is exactly how I feel (including thinking that the books are crap with two-dimensional characters).

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

And I cannot express how reading the Eric/Sookie book as touted pretty much killed any interest in that pairing. The way everyone talked about it I was expecting something spuffy-like. Instead, Eric was a braindead sex toy who did absolutely nothing in the entire book other than call Sookie 'my lovah' and buy her a coat. He wasn't funny. He wasn't exciting. He didn't do anything ...except a couple of sex scenes. Yawn.

[silverusagi]

The only vampire who should be allowed to say "lover" is Franklin. *nods* Cause he can pull it off.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

This is true. LOL! He totally could.

[rahirah]

You know, this was how I felt when I finally got over the viscearl loathing I felt towards Veronica Mars and watched the first season. From the way my flist talked about it, I expected that the L/V romance was a huge factor, but surprise! It was barely there at all, and the show was way more about Veronica solving mysteries and her relationship with her parents!

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Totally with you on that one. The way everyone was declaring Veronica the new Buffy totally put me off the show. And the times I did watch it always struck me that Veronica was 17 but she was making pop-cult references for Gen X. It was always achingly clear to me that she was a 17 year old written by a 36 year old.

[rahirah]

YOU ARE MY BRAIN TWIN.

[silverusagi]

THERE ARE THREE OF US NOW!

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Awesome. I'm at least in good company.

(Seriously, the Eric= Spike thing bugs. Heck the Damon Salvatore = Spike thing bugs and I actually enjoy Damon more than Eric! Neither of whome are at all Spike-like.)

It just seems like such a lazy comparison. It basically requires buying into Spike as 'bad boy' and that was always what people barely familiar or openly hostile to Spike called him. What made Spike interesting was who he was not some surface patina 'bad boy' label.

[rahirah]

Well, at least it's marginally more understandable than the "Doctor Who = Buffy" that was going around for a bit. :P

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

But The Doctor has been around longer than Buffy...

My head hurts.

[rahirah]

Yeah, don't ask me. It was a bizarre attempt to map the B/A/S triangle onto the Doctor, Captain Jack, and... I can't remember who the third character was. But it made no sense at all.

[rahirah]

Maybe the Master was #3... I've blotted most of it from my brain.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Wow.

I never would have thought of that.

Ever.

[silverusagi]

I made a rant about this a while ago.

[nutmeg3.livejournal.com]

I think I'm really glad I got bored with TB and stopped watching.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

It actually isn't the show. I've found the show to be quite entertaining with Evil Russell running around and the batshit crazy Franklin Mott. It's fandom that can be annoying. :)

[nutmeg3.livejournal.com]

Truthfully, I didn't really connect with any of the characters anymore, and I was getting bored with the grotesquerie and torture porn. I didn't give a crap about any of the characters, and I had two unwatched eps and needed to make room on the DVR and no great desire to watch them, so...buh-bye. I might watch the DVDs one day. Or not.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I'm probably not the best person to defend True Blood as generally I only watch for the lulz and take none of it seriously. It's camp. Sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's outrageous, sometimes it's just groteque.

Last season I actually just about quit watching. The whole Maryanne plot dragged on waaaaayyy too long and the orgies were just boring. The thing that's been enjoyable this season are the Big Bads. Franklin, Russell, and Talbot have actually been amusing. (Still, even then, I thought one ep went way over the acceptable line with violence against women). The central triangle though does nothing but annoy me. I'm not overly impressed with any of the three of them, and I honestly don't care who has current possession of Sookie's glittery hoo-hah.

I do still like Jessica/Hoyt. I still like Lafayette and can be happy with his pairing with Jesus if it doesn't turn out disastrously. I wish Tara weren't always being tortured. And I prefer Jason dimwitted and free (because I don't get his attraction to Crystal at all, but I do know what's supposed to happen in the books so I figure I won't have to put of up with that pairing for long).

I can understand being somewhat bored and/or grossed out by the show. It has significant periods of both.

[paratti.livejournal.com]

Spike - Pre-Raphealite.

Eric - Ingmar Berman.

'nuff said.

[queenofattolia.livejournal.com]

Heh. So true. I mean, if you're talking about TB Eric. In the books he's just a thinly-veiled shitkicker.

But Spike is definitely pre-Raphaelite.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Hee! That's a perfect description!

[queenofattolia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that really would be a stretch in Ball's True Blood, particularly as Sookie is such a whiny stupid ninny. Elizabeth Bennet she definitely is not.

How do people come up with this stuff?

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

OMG! Sookie as Elizabeth Bennet? The mind boggles!

Have you seen Stoney's Sookie description?
http://stoney321.livejournal.com/438512.html

[jnb71976.livejournal.com]

I AM SO WITH YOU. SING IT.

Seriously, it grates on my nerves to no end that Bill is compared to Angel and Eric to Spike. That's all surface nonsense, and it's baseless.

I have in the past, in fact, likened Eric to Angelus: He's The Man in Charge, he's focused, calculating, and can be sneeringly cruel. He doesn't wear his emotions on his sleeve and knows how to manipulate to get what he wants. This comparison has ZERO connection to Buffy or Spike or anything else - he simply strikes me as the same sort of vampire as Angelus was.

As for direct contextual character comparisons - they do not exist. I wish everyone would stop saying they do! It's insulting to Spike and Angel/us. And comparing Sookie to Buffy by extension is loathsome.