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Subj: Good luck getting a consensus from his family on that one. Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 at 06:30:01 pm EDT (Viewed 495 times) | Reply Subj: With all of the enablers in his life, maybe Dancer needs to stage an intervention... Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 at 10:48:29 am EDT (Viewed 2 times) | ||||||
We all know that his sister is still on the low end of the slope of the learning curve, when it comes to superhero codes of conduct, and Bettie was raised in an era in which "the enemy," in any conflict, was not nearly as humanized in the minds of their foes as we tend to do now, but his mom is perhaps the biggest stumbling block for Dream. I always sensed that Meg was equal parts proud of and annoyed by her son's ideas about heroism, because as awful of parts of his childhood were, her life has been infinitely worse, and now that Dream is not only older, but also a parent himself, it's starting to sink in for him how ruthless she's had to be, to ensure as much of his safety as she has been. Dream has always seen Meg as a superhero, but in the classic Silver Age sense, she's never been; but then again, his own Silver Age-style trappings aside, neither has he, because his mode of "heroism" is all about active defiance of authority, which is anathema to classical superheroism. All the way back during the Indian reservation subplot, I had Dream identify "tribes" as the defining unit of human society, but I don't think even he realizes the ways in which a "tribe," such as his own family and friends, is not necessarily the same as a "superhero team." Indeed, on Friday, I watched the Season 3 finale of Battlestar Galactica again, while I was waiting for the Season 4 premiere, and I was struck by how much of Meg's survival-first worldview regarding her family was echoed in Apollo's impassioned courtroom defense speech for Baltar, who was on trial for treason against humanity, particularly when he asserted that the human race was no longer a civilization, but a "gang," simply by virtue of necessity. And to me, this is how Meg has viewed motherhood all along; she's lived in a cold, unsympathetic world, that was waiting to prey on both her and her kid at every opportunity, so to her mind, there's no sense in feeling guilty about "cheating" if the deck is stacked against you. Yes, she's much more fortunate in her circumstances now, but like a lot of old generals, she's still fighting The Last War in her head. | |||||||
