It is IWSG day,
an event Alex Cavanaugh started
to get writers sharing about their insecurities and other things on the first Wednesday of the month. Here
in California, it is around 11:30 PM on Wednesday, so I consider myself to have still “made it!” I believe this is the latest I've ever posted my IWSG post. It has been such a busy summer. I sometimes feel like I'm behind on everything!
My husband and I finally finished
watching the series finale of Revenge on our Tivo. While the show had its ups
and downs for me as a viewer, the writers kept me hooked nonetheless. A brief
intro to Revenge: Amanda Clark (played by the talented Emily VanCamp)
sought revenge on the people who framed her father, David Clark, for treason,
and subjected her to a childhood of misery. At the top of her "you're
going to be sorry" list were Hamptons royalty Victoria and Conrad Grayson,
her father’s former lover and boss, respectively. Other targets were the
corrupt judge and the district attorney paid off to wrongly convict Amanda's
father, the author paid off to write his unauthorized biography, the therapist
paid off to institutionalize Amanda as a child, the foster mother who abused
Amanda, etc…
I admired Amanda’s careful
execution of her plans, even the ones that failed. She planned ahead, refused
to be intimidated by others, and kept working and waiting until she got her
revenge.
I imagine some of you shaking
your heads as you’re reading this. Dedicating
your life to revenge is a bad idea. I don’t believe the writers of the
show were promoting revenge as a pastime. But they were tickling the part of
our moral center that aches to see justice served to people who seemed to have gotten away with their crimes. And don’t we
writers sometimes write for that very reason?
I also believe that creating or being
an audience to a good revenge story can ease our insecurities about the world
not being a just place.
If you watched Revenge, what did
you think of the show? The series finale?
What do you think is the appeal
behind revenge stories?
9 comments:
I watched it from beginning to end, some of the stuff in the middle was meh, but overall pretty good. Yeah, a good revenge tale to those who think they got away with it is always fun.
I've never even heard of it. Shows how behind I am. It sounds bit like the book Count of Monty Cristo. While I never could approve of his behavior I was fascinated by the details of his plot and I kept reading, hoping for him to find a way to redemption, rather than revenge.
I've never watched it, but sounds like she gets to do what we'd all secretly like to do!
I was a big fan and watched all episodes...but it sort of ended all of a sudden...or maybe I was not ready for it to end!
I'm not really a TV watcher.
You get those who DO dedicate their lives to revenge. It's a reality. I'm not condoning or condemning, but we'll never understand the demons they may be wrestling with...
Writer In Transit
Revenge fiction is rarely my thing, unless the revenge is particularly interesting. I Saw the Devil gets so messy with the failed attempts at revenge that it engages, but I'm not so into "getting back" at people. I'd much prefer we remedied bad situations and prevented further ones rather than avenge them.
I haven't seen Revenge, but you have to admire that sort of tenacity.
I started watching it in the middle and felt too lost to go on. I'm glad to have your explanation and think I'll start to watch this show. You've made me very curious about it ends.
I watched the first episode...I couldn't get into it. It just didn't have a character that grabbed me right off the bat, as shows I connect with do.
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