Done
Spoiler:Power-hungry people lose direction when they attain the power. Very well done, imo
I'm higher on season 3 than 1 than 2.
Printable View
Done
Spoiler:Power-hungry people lose direction when they attain the power. Very well done, imo
I'm higher on season 3 than 1 than 2.
Rilla, that result was only a symptom. If it had been a theme and had been set up within the characters' personalities, it would have been incredible.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...u-lost-me.html
I don't see a problem. It was set up within the character's personalities.
Spoiler:They were power hungry. Once they had all the power and the game became about launching Claire and re-election to sustain their place as well as building a legacy to justify their gains plus using the power as is mandated, they floundered. I liked it.
The even floundered internally. Power is seductive. Once you have it... maybe it's like how they say never meet your Heroes.
PS
"Even more disappointing is the devolution of First Lady Claire Underwood (Robin Wright) from a ruthless operator who puts Agrippina the Younger to shame into a latter-day Lady Macbeth"
This is why you shouldn't study English/Literature.
edit:
"What’s going on here might be called the “Archie Bunker Effect,” and it’s no prettier than when All in the Family’s protagonist would belch loudly after chugging a beer while sitting in his favorite living room chair. When All in the Family started in the early 1970s, its protagonist was supposed to hold up a mirror to America and depict the petty and base racism, sexism, you-name-it-ism of the working class. Bless their hearts, Hollywood big shots such as creator Norman Lear just wanted to ennoble the little people."
Man, I was just looking for a good Simpsons quote to color my point but I found this instead.
Power, she's a burden, a sword of Damocles, as they say
http://samuel-warde.com/2013/01/jfk-...mocles-speech/
I really enjoyed this season. Every time I go to justify it in reality, I seem to come up with something based in real leaders.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xuy_9B1joTE
Rilla
Spoiler:We didn't see a struggle with power though. We saw Frank behave as if he never wanted power in the first place and instead just wanted to help people or have a legacy of such. We saw with Claire a messy smorgasbord of spontaneous conscience and contradictory actions.
I would have loved this season if their obstacles were created by their power. Instead the obstacles were manufactured trope. Power didn't break them. The writers broke them without proper illustration.
What happens when goal oriented people achieve their goal and can't find an equal or better goal to next rally to?
When you're goal oriented, you sacrifice to achieve it. What happens when you've climbed that mountain and have a chance to look down, look back and wonder why you're there?
These are open ended philosophical questions without spoilers.
Spoiler:One of the things that happens is what you said happens. Which I agree with. I just don't think that's how the writers constructed this season. The way they wrote this was as if the Underwoods changed off camera and that their dilemmas weren't created by an actualization of power but instead with some unaired laundry that we had always been told was aired
Claire went from being a heartless manipulator to a bumbling doofus without any actual struggle that took her from point A to point B.
I liked how I saw it. Isn't that one of the few lessons English can teach? It doesn't matter what you intended in your writing, only what the readers found
Spoiler:I found an enjoyable meditation on how those that hunger for power deal with getting their fill. As well as a nice side story about some guy whose back bone might be made of titanium and his blood titanium oxide.
Thinking back on Claire
Spoiler:She talks to that heartless nobody and sees heartlessness (read ruthlessness) with no aim. That's her without a man who promises her never a boring moment. And her reaction is to attack her man for who he is and then disconnect. She's got some soul searching to do.
So good.
You're such an optimist.
I was asked a few nights back for the last time I was truly happy and I said talking with you meaning the people I had just met. Life is a good place to be and these drama shows add nice color to it. :P :rilla:
that response is quick-witted and endearing in a way that they'll remember
No wit now though. I'd like to think I meant it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Spoiler:Claire was always a bumbling doofus from S1E1.
What really happened:
Spoiler:Claire tested her husband to see if he actually wielded the power he represented, even to her. He bent to her, and she lost respect for him because of it. She comments several times throughout the season how she wished he would have done [not coddling her] instead of [coddling her]. I mean she walks in on him crying for fuck's sake.
Quote:
Originally Posted by spoonitnow
Spoiler:See I was thinking about that. There's plenty of construction and subtext for it, but nothing declarative near the end of the arc. During the monologue where he chokes her, I thought for sure she was going to love it, that it was what she had been asking from him all that time. But since she hated it and tried to get away, I figured something else was going on. Granted, she could have made up her mind already while acting like she hadn't.
TBH I don't want to believe your interpretation because that's very savvy writing. Not in that I think it works well for the story but in that it's a realistic and insightful way to represent the behavior of a woman who never confronts her problems head on, who assumes her husband can read her mind, and who makes decisions internally yet acts like they're still open to change.
The other thing I didn't like about that potential meaning is that I don't think it fits Frank's character. It was fucking stupid when he didn't fuck her like she wanted and even said stupid shit about how he wouldn't mistreat her like that. The s1/s2 Underwoods already explored that nature of their sexuality to the fullest extent, even if we never saw it on screen.
If the arc is her displeasure of his weakness, I think the writers added several contrivances to get there.
In reply to that:
Spoiler:The scene in the Oval Office where he chokes her turns her off even more because she had to provoke him into doing it instead of him just doing it because that was his nature. He didn't do that from a position of strength. Instead, he did it from a position of weakness because he was still bending to her will.
Quote:
Originally Posted by spoonitnow
Spoiler:I like your interpretation, but I do not think it's all to the story. The subtext agrees with your interpretation a lot, but the actual text, what Claire actually says her views and motivations are, point to her dissatisfaction with her subordinate power role.
So I guess my explanation is the writing is schizophrenic. Half of her behavior and statements point to one motivation while the other half point to another.
However, I think her attempted solution to her dissatisfaction (leaving Frank) aligns more with the stated problem than the subtextual one. If she lost respect for him and thinks he's weak, she's still gonna stick by since he's the fucking president and she gains immensely by sticking it out for the time being. Her leaving over the stated reason, that she wants to no longer be subordinate to him, makes more sense even though it too is stupid.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Spoiler:She doesn't want to be subordinate to him anymore because he has put her up on the pedestal that he said he never would. No woman wants to be with a man who acts as if he is beneath her, and that's exactly what he started doing in Season 3.
I agree there is a ton in the subtext to support that motivation. I think the writing has been schizophrenic on the issue, as there is subtext as well as explicit behaviors that point in the other direction as well. I'm not saying I think you're wrong. Your position is substantive. My issue is that from the whole, the writers could have made that case much better if that's truly what they intended.
My guess is that they intended that to be a part of it, but didn't do the legwork on avoiding contrivances or ambiguities. It's almost like throwing darts blindfolded and hoping one hits the bullseye.
I'm pretty sure it's just going to turn Claire into omfg I'm a strong, young, educated, independent black woman who don't need no man.
I just read through the whole thread to arrive with this as the last post. Fucking awesome.Quote:
Originally Posted by spoonitnow
Spoon and Rilla make some good points. Season3 was better than I originally thought.
Spoiler:Now Frank just needs to stop being such a bitch and start setting the world on fire.
About that
Spoiler:Their relationship was on the outs at the beginning of s3. Frank wasn't broken by power but just had some momentary weird frustration that isn't that explainable. Claire didn't get broken by power; instead she felt like she didn't have power. We weren't shown the struggle so much as we were told to assume it.
It would have been really cool if the writers had written a story about how power breaks you. I'm not convinced this story is that. Granted the writers didn't create any coherent theme, so that makes it a little more open to interpretation, I guess.
Spoiler:I put an 8/10 rating in the original post of this thread b/c I didn't want to spoil it for anyone. That said, I didn't like Season 3. Perhaps it can be saved by a great S4, but the main problem I had was Frank & Claire's transformations into different characters altogether. That was completely unexpected and boring as hell to watch imo. It's wasn't like the gradual "Breaking Bad" character transformation of Walter White that was leading to an expected conclusion... the HoC transformations of the main characters was off-kilter and bad TV from this viewer's perspective... about as difficult to watch as the Underwood/Meechum steam in S2, which was interesting and already in-character (S1 library episode).
Finally finished. I liked the ending. I hate doug. He's a dick who has a pathetic sense of desperation to serve which is a quality I find almost embarrassing.
Reading rilla 's and spoon' s thoughts give a perspective that helps me accept certain behaviours that I found out if character. Any way I look at it I can't deny I'm intrigued to see how underwood deals with the situation he's left with.