ljones
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Post by ljones on Jan 2, 2008 22:05:29 GMT -5
Spencer Ricks was not worth compromising one's morals or anything else. I would have left the man alone and get on with my life.
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Esmeralda
Charmed
S2 "What If...?"
Fan Fic Winner
Twenty Years Gone....But Never Forgotten.
Posts: 21,920 
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Post by Esmeralda on Jan 3, 2008 13:15:58 GMT -5
This whole discussion points out what I liked least about the latter seasons--when the show began to emphasize the "edy" part of "dramedy" rather than the "dram" part, to the point that it became a farce. The sisters became caricatures of themselves where as long as something was considered "funny" they were able to use their magic to do whatever they wanted. I truly believe that if we took the whole thing at face value (which I don't), that they were more on the path towards a Morality-Bites type future as compared to the Forever-Charmed type future.
The true "Ultimate Evil" of Charmed is the sisters themselves, as they set themselves up as gods, deciding who is evil and who isn't and destroying whoever they think is. That's NOT what their powers are for!
The fact that they were actually vanquishing fellow witches during the last show (and the fact that Billie was able to say she was sorry shows that she was still a witch, while Christy was a true innocent since it wasn't her fault that she was kidnapped by demons as a child) tells me that. Much as the fans hated the Jenkinses, that wasn't a good enough reason for the sisters to murder fellow witches. The sisters should've used their powers to save those two, not murder them. The fact that they didn't, and the fact that they weren't punished for murdering them is why I truly believe that the entire last season never happened--they are Piper's fantasy as she burns on the stake, hence the reason why it was *so* Piper-centric while being so unrealisitc with the rest of the series. I believe that Piper & Leo simply left their sons behind with Victor after Something Wicca This Way Goes, continued to use their magic for their own personal gain and to destroy whoever they thought were evil and finally were caught.
Although I agree totally that because death meant next-to-nothing to the latter set of sisters because everyone kept coming back to life probably gave them the feelings that they had the power to decide who can live and who should die. That was SOOOO wrong, mainly on the part of Brad Kern to let death mean so very, very little! And that truly started when someone was allowed to become an angel even before they were dead (Paige, Chris and Wyatt). They should not have had whitelighter-like powers until they were actually dead and had earned them, not because their dead dads were somehow able to have kids.
But that, "WRONG THINGS DONE FOR THE RIGHT REASONS ARE STILL WRONG" is the most difficult lesson to grasp, the one they never learned, the one KERN never learned.
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Post by whitelightertony on Jan 4, 2008 15:59:48 GMT -5
So then how do we know that everything that happened after "Morality Bites" wasn't just an alternate world scenario of what could happen if the sisters didn't refrain from abusing their magic?
Or that all of the events after "All Hell Breaks Loose" weren't an illusion where Piper or Phoebe created Paige as a way to fill the loss of their big sister?
Saying "this season never really happened" is a real cop-out, IMHO (unless it's actually confirmed by the show's creative team, like the final season of Roseanne).
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ljones
Whitelighter
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Post by ljones on Jan 4, 2008 21:01:27 GMT -5
When you think about it, everything after "Morality Bites" could be an alternate world scenario. Would make a great fanfic story.
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Post by whitelightertony on Jan 5, 2008 18:13:18 GMT -5
It certainly could be. Which is why I don't understand Esmerelda's point that "Something Wicca This Way Goes?" is somehow a better point than many others for the Halliwells' reality to diverge (via extended fantasy / alternate universe) from events of the actual Charmedverse.
For all we know, Leo and Piper could have disappeared up to the heavens at the end of Season 2 and just never came back down - - oh, Prue and Phoebe imagined everything from Season 3 onward.
Or, for all we know, Phoebe might have been so heartbroken after vanquishing Cole/The Source in Season 4 that she committed suicide after the screen faded to black at the end of "Long Live the Queen." Oh, and everything from "Womb Raider" onward might have been Piper and Paige fantasizing about what might have happened if Phoebe had lived on.
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Post by vandergraafk on Jan 5, 2008 23:22:10 GMT -5
It's amazing how someone can write that Christy is a "true innocent". How, on earth, can that be?
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Post by marienomad on Jan 6, 2008 17:25:53 GMT -5
It's amazing how someone can write that Christy is a "true innocent". How, on earth, can that be? She was kidnapped by demons as a little girl and brainwashed. She didn't know about her power at the time and that made her a future witch and the worse case senario when a demon attacks. |
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Post by craftsbypinky on Jan 6, 2008 17:46:58 GMT -5
How!Can that be that Christy was BrainWashed and "not!" Billie?  |
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Post by vandergraafk on Jan 7, 2008 18:40:13 GMT -5
But she certainly was aware of who Dumain was and with whom he was working. She withheld that information from Billie in order to compel Billie's loyal following out of pure sisterhood. In a legal sense, she (Christy) became a co-conspirator, even if she hadn't taken part in the original plan. By the way, that's the same reason why Patty Hearst was held criminally liable when she willingly chose to aid the Symbionese Liberation Army during several of their bank stick-ups. Stockholm Syndrome may be an explanation for such behavior, but it is not an excuse!
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Post by whitelightertony on Jan 15, 2008 2:40:59 GMT -5
Billie was still open to the possibility that they'd been too hard on the Charmed Ones. Christy wouldn't even listen to that possibility.
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ljones
Whitelighter
Posts: 4,123
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Post by ljones on Jan 15, 2008 17:04:01 GMT -5
Billie was still open to the possibility that they'd been too hard on the Charmed Ones. Christy wouldn't even listen to that possibility. Poor Christy. Brainwashed and later killed by her own sister, for the sake of the Glamour Girls. |
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Post by whitelightertony on Jan 15, 2008 21:39:53 GMT -5
So ljones, how innocent do you believe Christy was?
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Esmeralda
Charmed
S2 "What If...?"
Fan Fic Winner
Twenty Years Gone....But Never Forgotten.
Posts: 21,920
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Post by Esmeralda on Jan 15, 2008 22:12:33 GMT -5
So ljones, how innocent do you believe Christy was? I'm not ljones, but if indeed Christy had been under the influence of the Triad and Dumain until Billie freed her, then I'd consider her *totally* innocent, with everything the Triad's/Dumain's fault. The same as Cole when he was under the Source's influence. I believe the Charmed Ones were wrong in how they handled both situations. And Kern was wrong in how *he* had the sisters handle both situations. |
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Post by vandergraafk on Jan 16, 2008 19:13:26 GMT -5
Actually, innocence is not black and white, as it is being indirectly portrayed here. To what degree is Christy culpable? Was she capable of knowing the difference between right and wrong? How you answer these questions goes a lot towards assessing her degree of moral responsiblity and determining her innocence or the extent to which she is lacking in innocence.
For starters: Christy was captured as a child. As best as can be surmised, this traumatic event occurred when Christy was 6 or 7. For 15 years, she was either kept in isolation in a cave, subjected to brainwashing a la Manchurian Candidate or experienced a combination of both. Before her kidnapping, Christy probably had begun to develop a sense of morality. Though operating at a crude level, we can probably surmise that she had an elemental sense of right and wrong. Nothing in the description provided to us by Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins indicates otherwise. True, Christy tested limits and tried to enlist Billie in her escapades, but none of these was above and beyond what one might expect of young children.
During captivity, Christy's moral development essentially froze. Through brainwashing, her entire moral structure may have been turned upside down. Let's imagine that one method used to accomplish this was to in effect persuade Christy that her family was lost to her forever. Hence, she would have had no choice but to adapt to the morees of her new "family".
Had Christy been used to accomplish some demonic purpose as a hitwoman or something equally nefarious, we would have no hesitation in calling her truly innocent. She would not be deemed responsible for any of her actions, even if she were an adult! Of course, she would not be free to go. Any court would sentence her to psychiatric care in order to being the arduous process of de-programming.
As far as we know, however, Christy was not used in this capacity at all. Rather, the Triad held her back as their trump card in the battle against the Charmed Ones, a threat they must have anticipated as a result of counsel from the Seer, an Oracle or whomever.
Instead, Christy is rescued by her sister. At this point, all sorts of dissonances must have erupted within Christy. Learning that her sister was not only alive and well but was all a powerful witch surely had to create some dissonance between what she had been brainwashed into believing and the new reality that she is experiencing. Given time and the deepening of the relationship between Christy and Billie, this dissonance would have become ever more powerful a force and would have threatened to unravel all that the Triad had set in motion. This is precisely why the Triad were so worried and appeared to warn Christy against becoming too close to her sister and family and why ultimately the Jenkins' parents were killed. Indeed, they had to be murdered if the Triad were to have any chance of using their ace in the hole.
That Billie swallowed all of this ultimate threat nonsense is problematic, of course. There is nothing compelling in the final story arc that makes any critical fan even likely to accept the ultimate battle scenario. Billie has seen too many instances where the Charmed Ones have risked their own well-being to save others, including Billie: Re-Witched; Desperate Housewitches; Hulkus Pokus, etc.
Had Billie acted as any normal person might have and truly questioned the line of bull that Christy was peddling, then we might have had a chance at understanding just how innocent Christy was. For, given an alternative perspective (Billie's critical skepsis based on her own experience with the Halliwells), Christy would have been compelled to justify her own doubts and so reveal the extent to which she was just an innocent who had been duped.
Instead, the only opportunity we have for assessing Christy's innocence can be found only after love travel has begun and Billie is able to project herself back into the past before the Ultimate Battle Mark I has been fought. When she does, Billie finally challenges Christy and reveals the true villains in this hideous and diabolical plot. Yes, the Charmed Ones may act selfishly from time to time - who doesn't? - but the Triad are pulling the strings and Dumain is their majordomo. And, their purpose is clearly demonic. It is not a distortion of good dictated by self-conscious navel gazing (the charge directed at the Charmed Ones). With this knowledge, Christy can either opt out or simply follow a plan that is now doomed to failure since Billie will not be her ally any longer. The fact that Christy chose to throw her fate to the Triad after this confrontation with a fully informed Billie suggests that she is not an innocent, but a willing and witting participant in a demonic power play.
It's been fascinating to read suggestions that the saccharine flavor of Forever Charmed is really a figment of Piper's imagination. Phoebe really did die; Paige is MIA and possibly dead; Leo has returned. All that remains is to pick up the pieces.
What we get, as some have remarked, is a sort of Brain Drain Redux, as Piper gets this twisted notion that she can use Coop's ring to engage in love travel in order to undue all that has occurred. (And, believe me, there were many of us who immediately were skeptical of this whole notion of love travel, not least because it seems difficult to see Dumain and Christy engaging in love travel/hate travel or whatever you wish to call it.) Gosh, what a truly remarkable way for Charmed to come back to life again. (True, Phoebe is dead and the Charmed Ones are no more, but Paige could be found dazed and confused after she had orbed to safety.)
Of course, under this scenario, we would never have a way of judging Christy's innocence. All of the time travel events are a figment of Piper's imagination. Thus, Billie never confronts Christy. All we see is what Piper imagines Billie doing or wishes what Billie had done before the Ultimate Battle Mark I was fought.
Unfortunately, I suppose this ending would have pissed off a bunch of fans, though I would have been a) very intrigued and b) very pissed off that Charmed had been "interrupted". Yet, Brad Kern could have used the opportunity to bring back all of the family members and given us a truly Piperian vision of "normality": Paige has children (3); Phoebe has children (3) and Piper gets the daughter she once saw but had not yet had. Everything is neatly wrapped and bowed. The power of three is everywhere to be seen. Oh wait! That's what he did do. Nefariously, though, he could have maintained, all the while, a colossal opening to a Charmed continuation series, a sub-plot, as it were, that depends on all of this saccharine future being but a figment of a devastated Piper's imagination!
There you have the basis for yet another Charmed movie! Now, that's truly clever! (I bow down before thee, oh great Brad Kern. I am truly unworthy. Thank you for a superb plot twist even at the very end.) Now, tell me again, why exactly are the Simon and Schuster novels being discontinued? There are more plots out there than are evident in their imagination.
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ljones
Whitelighter
Posts: 4,123
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Post by ljones on Jan 16, 2008 22:49:00 GMT -5
Wow! Those are a lot of words just to tell someone that they are wrong.
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Post by vandergraafk on Jan 16, 2008 23:30:38 GMT -5
No, they are a lot of words that convey an argument, support it with detail, consider alternate points of view and come to a reasoned conclusion! That's what you fail to grasp!
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Post by whitelightertony on Jan 17, 2008 1:42:51 GMT -5
Vandergraafk, I'm going to focus on one particular excerpt from your well thought out argument:
Isn't it possible that Christy was still so indoctrinated by her prolonged brainwashing that she felt Billie was the one who had been brainwashed, and thus she needed to stick with The Triad in order to "save" Billie?
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Post by vandergraafk on Jan 17, 2008 12:02:03 GMT -5
Yes, that's a possibility. The problem I have with this scenario is that we don't know enough about the tactics used to brainwash Christy. One common technique is "persuade" the target that he or she is better off going along with the program. If you point out repeatedly that no one will rescue you because they are all dead and no one else cares, I imagine that, at some point, the will to resist erodes. Given the youth of Christy, I don't believe that was hard to accomplish.
Using that strategy, however, is risky if you attempt to place the trained assassin in a situation where he or she is confronted with "facts" that contradict one of the methods used in the brainwashing. (Again, this is pure speculation, as I noted above.) Certain dissonances will arise. We know that the Triad were worried enough about these dissonances to warn Christy about hopping on to Billie's bandwagon (she, after all, had been "brainwashed" by the Charmed Ones, as it were) and saw to it that Christy's parents were murdered.
Indeed, recall an early scene in Kill Billie Volume 2 when Coop expresses his concern about Phoebe to both Billie and Christy and notes that she (Phoebe) had been under a spell the previous night. When Billie attempts to use this bit of information to highlight her own unease at Dumain's plan, Christy is quick to choke this off by dismissing his statement as utterly predictable. Paraphrasing Christy, I recall her asking: what do you expect him (Coop) to say about his girl-friend? He would say anything to protect Phoebe, even if that meant lying about a so-called spell that Phoebe was under.
Indirectly, we have evidence here that Christy's indoctrination was so thorough that she rejected any dissonant voices emanating from the Charmed Ones or their associates quite promptly and without much hesitation, if any. That said, if the Triad and its henchmen accomplished this brainwashing by employing the method I suggested, then the fact that Billie is not only alive, but a powerful witch who is not in bed with the TRIAD is one bit of dissonance that cannot so easily be dismissed.
If there had been no Forever Charmed: the Saccharine Solution, that is, Piper's dream, we would never have witnessed the ultimate confrontation between Christy and Billie when Billie, fully informed of the true role of Dumain and the intentions of the Triad, breaks her sisterly pact with Christy. Christy might very well have continued to believe Billie had been brainwashed. Yet, the cognitive dissonance would have a stronger basis. Billie's arguments rest on evidence that Christy knows to be correct. She knows who Dumain is and Christy knows the role of the TRIAD in all of this. At this point, Christy would have a choice, though it may be quite a constrained one. She could pause, reflect and possibly question Dumain further. Or, she could dismiss Billie's arguments as irrelevant and plunge ahead with the plan. The latter, of course, is what she does as we see it portrayed on the screen.
You have a point that choosing the latter may not make her a legitimate co-conspirator or an "active" participant in a diabolical plot who has chosen the path she wishes to pursue. I'll grant you that the previous "brainwashing" is a powerful mitigating factor in her defense. Still, she is not a "total" innocent who cries out for rescue, i.e., going back in time to save her from the fate that awaits in the Ultimate Battle Mark II. At best, she is someone who is in deepest need of de-programming enabled and assisted by a supportive sibling. Alas, the "choice" she made doomed her to destruction during the Ultimate Battle Mark II.
Unless, of course, this is all a figment of Piper's imagination. Then, Christy's fate will rest on the ability of Billie to eat away gradually at the brainwashing by consciously or unconsciously adding to the cognitive dissonance that Christy must surely face each day as she remains attached to her sister and Billie continues to resist buying into the need to stop the Charmed Ones.
Alas, I have never been persuaded that the "conversion" of Billie makes much sense. The evidence cited is woefully inadequate to prepare me to accept Billie's realization that the Charmed Ones are the problem. To pull this off, Mr. Kern would have needed a few more episodes wherein the split between Billie and the Charmed Ones would become plainly visible, say, protecting one of Piper's children at the expense of one or several innocents. Christy might also have enticed Billie to project herself into the future to see what awaits the world when Wyatt and Chris mature. Or, Christy and the TRIAD could have sent Billie to an alternative future - a sort of IMMORALITY SUCKS - that convinces Billie of the grave danger posed by the Halliwell clan.
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Post by whitelightertony on Jan 27, 2008 17:29:14 GMT -5
VG, my main point is this: as part of Christy's indoctrination by Dumain and The Triad, they may have convinced her that the only way to "save" Billie was to destroy the Charmed Ones.
Therefore, Christy, from her brainwashed perspective, would view Billie as a morally-corrupted entity, but one who is still inherently *good* (as it relates to Christy's adopted moral code). Christy would believe it to be her duty to help Billie "see the light" at any cost, even if she had to work around Billie's resistance (which is why Christy declares that she will kill the Charmed Ones all by herself when Billie refuses to continue aiding her in "Forever Charmed").
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ljones
Whitelighter
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Post by ljones on Jan 27, 2008 19:50:55 GMT -5
Poor Christy. Brainwashed and later killed by her own sister, for the sake of the Glamour Girls.Whitelightertony, when did I say anything about Christy being an innocent or not? 
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