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lydySo, I have had time to have thoughts, as well as feels, about the ending of Season 4 of Veronica Mars. I will put them after the cut, since it's spoilerific.
So, let's just get this out of the way. Logan dies. It's really damn tragic. He's been doing really well, getting his life together, he marries Veronica, and gets blown up in the last few minutes of the last episode. It's shocking. It hurt. But it just doesn't work. I have theories about why. But first, I have to talk about fridging as a concept.
Real briefly, "fridging" refers to a trope where a female love interest has no particular role in the story except to get killed so as to motivate the male protagonist. On occasion, she gets raped, instead. The woman has no agency, and is not portrayed as being a person in her own right. She is only seen in reference to the protagonist, and her only value is to spur the protagonist on towards some action. The term has gotten diluted to the point that anytime a beloved character, but most especially a love interest, is killed by the writer or a show-runner, it is referred to as a fridging. People get very sanctimonious about how bad it is to fridge. There are also people who argue that killing a male love interest cannot be a fridging, since it is entirely a gendered trope.
I think, though, that it would be useful to acknowledge that pain inflicted on someone we love can, indeed, be a motivator. That's a real, human experience. And it seems like we should try to distinguish between trying to portray real human experience and lazy writing. The big problem with the classic fridging isn't that murdering someone's girlfriend isn't motivating. Rather, the problem is that it is usually done in a world where the women have almost no representation, and they are only portrayed as adjuncts to their male partners. It is also typically done with a huge lack of empathy towards the character being fridged.
I also think that just killing off characters to "raise the stakes" tends to be lazy writing. I don't have a set formula for what is and isn't ok. But I think that if you are going to kill off a long-running and beloved character, it has to be for some reason other than just to hurt the reader/viewer. If the audience is not engaged, then killing people off is a cheap way to make them feel something, but often you'd have been better off figuring out how to engage the audience, not just hurt them.
So, here's the thing about Logan's death. It is, structurally, a fridging. I read some of the comments by Thomas and the crew, and it is clear that this is intended. Rob Thomas can't figure out how to write Veronica if she has a stable romantic partner and isn't a fucking hot mess, so he has to kill Logan off in order for her to remain the underdog. And, first of all, fuck you Rob Thomas. Fuck you for not being able to write better than that. Fuck you for not being able to see a woman as strong and brave unless she is essentially broken. But also, fuck you for not understanding the structure of a fridging.
Fridging has to happen during the rising action. The trope exists to motivate the character, to cause them to undertake or refuse a path. It makes no sense if it happens during the denouement. It has to lead to something. It needs to go somewhere. I mean, if you did want to do this utterly terrible thing (yes, I am Team Logan since way back) it should have been at the _beginning_ of the next season, and serve as the motivating force for that season. As the ending of Season 4, all it does is hurt. It does not feel right, it does not feel just, and it does not lead to any sort of closure or action. It's shocking, but not in a way that makes you want to see what happens next. Instead of driving action, it creates a sense of futility. Why even try? What was the point?
The other reason to kill off a long-running character is to raise the stakes and increase the audience engagement. Again, this does not work if you do it at the denouement. While there are all sorts of issues with Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 6, the Dead Lesbian Trope being chief among them, at least the killing was done at a useful point during the story arc, so that it both raised the stakes and provided motivation for Willow. Structurally, it worked exactly the way it was supposed to. Logan's death, not at all. It's the end of the season. There's no more risk. There's no more story. It's a painful and random killing, not foreshadowed, and it pays for nothing, does nothing.
So, that's my rant. What is wrong with Rob Thomas, anyway? I mean, the first season of Veronica Mars was brilliant, the third season almost unwatchable. The movie was a gem. Season 4 was wonderful until the ending ruined it. What is his problem? (Also, his bizarre idea of having Veronica be an FBI agent was always nuts. FBI agents have to follow rules, and that is kind of exactly what Veronica can't do.)
Oh, and I may need to rant about Weevil, too, but not this rant.
So, let's just get this out of the way. Logan dies. It's really damn tragic. He's been doing really well, getting his life together, he marries Veronica, and gets blown up in the last few minutes of the last episode. It's shocking. It hurt. But it just doesn't work. I have theories about why. But first, I have to talk about fridging as a concept.
Real briefly, "fridging" refers to a trope where a female love interest has no particular role in the story except to get killed so as to motivate the male protagonist. On occasion, she gets raped, instead. The woman has no agency, and is not portrayed as being a person in her own right. She is only seen in reference to the protagonist, and her only value is to spur the protagonist on towards some action. The term has gotten diluted to the point that anytime a beloved character, but most especially a love interest, is killed by the writer or a show-runner, it is referred to as a fridging. People get very sanctimonious about how bad it is to fridge. There are also people who argue that killing a male love interest cannot be a fridging, since it is entirely a gendered trope.
I think, though, that it would be useful to acknowledge that pain inflicted on someone we love can, indeed, be a motivator. That's a real, human experience. And it seems like we should try to distinguish between trying to portray real human experience and lazy writing. The big problem with the classic fridging isn't that murdering someone's girlfriend isn't motivating. Rather, the problem is that it is usually done in a world where the women have almost no representation, and they are only portrayed as adjuncts to their male partners. It is also typically done with a huge lack of empathy towards the character being fridged.
I also think that just killing off characters to "raise the stakes" tends to be lazy writing. I don't have a set formula for what is and isn't ok. But I think that if you are going to kill off a long-running and beloved character, it has to be for some reason other than just to hurt the reader/viewer. If the audience is not engaged, then killing people off is a cheap way to make them feel something, but often you'd have been better off figuring out how to engage the audience, not just hurt them.
So, here's the thing about Logan's death. It is, structurally, a fridging. I read some of the comments by Thomas and the crew, and it is clear that this is intended. Rob Thomas can't figure out how to write Veronica if she has a stable romantic partner and isn't a fucking hot mess, so he has to kill Logan off in order for her to remain the underdog. And, first of all, fuck you Rob Thomas. Fuck you for not being able to write better than that. Fuck you for not being able to see a woman as strong and brave unless she is essentially broken. But also, fuck you for not understanding the structure of a fridging.
Fridging has to happen during the rising action. The trope exists to motivate the character, to cause them to undertake or refuse a path. It makes no sense if it happens during the denouement. It has to lead to something. It needs to go somewhere. I mean, if you did want to do this utterly terrible thing (yes, I am Team Logan since way back) it should have been at the _beginning_ of the next season, and serve as the motivating force for that season. As the ending of Season 4, all it does is hurt. It does not feel right, it does not feel just, and it does not lead to any sort of closure or action. It's shocking, but not in a way that makes you want to see what happens next. Instead of driving action, it creates a sense of futility. Why even try? What was the point?
The other reason to kill off a long-running character is to raise the stakes and increase the audience engagement. Again, this does not work if you do it at the denouement. While there are all sorts of issues with Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 6, the Dead Lesbian Trope being chief among them, at least the killing was done at a useful point during the story arc, so that it both raised the stakes and provided motivation for Willow. Structurally, it worked exactly the way it was supposed to. Logan's death, not at all. It's the end of the season. There's no more risk. There's no more story. It's a painful and random killing, not foreshadowed, and it pays for nothing, does nothing.
So, that's my rant. What is wrong with Rob Thomas, anyway? I mean, the first season of Veronica Mars was brilliant, the third season almost unwatchable. The movie was a gem. Season 4 was wonderful until the ending ruined it. What is his problem? (Also, his bizarre idea of having Veronica be an FBI agent was always nuts. FBI agents have to follow rules, and that is kind of exactly what Veronica can't do.)
Oh, and I may need to rant about Weevil, too, but not this rant.
no subject
Date: 2019-07-26 03:22 am (UTC)In this case, the primary emotional role it seems to be serving is not to make the protagonist a hot mess, but to make her a gets-through-anything badass. Also, iZombie has a really high death rate for secondary characters, and a lot of the deaths are surprising.
But it was still unmistakably a fridging.
no subject
Date: 2019-07-26 02:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-07-27 05:33 am (UTC)Other than the fridging--which, again, wasn't terribly handled but wasn't great--it's been very good. I don't know anyone who thinks it's as good as Veronica Mars Season 1, and I don't think I know anyone who doesn't think it's been better than VM Season 3.
Of course, I like zombie stories and Nellorat loves them, especially ones which manage to be zombie comedy. (RomZomCom is a real identifiable genre with more than 2 exemplars!)