Idle Hands

[zweelee]

The newest Wolf 359 episode, Idle Hands, was released like a bolt from the blue and is probably going to strike me down hard. Several recent episodes were awesome, but the beginning of the fourth season - not very much so. I tried to like Lovelace, god, I tried. But it feels like the creators treat her very differently. Eiffel, Minkowski, Jacoby, Kepler, Hilbert - everyone makes mistakes and suffers for it, or there are consequences of their actions, when they do something not very smart. At least, usually. They are being confronted for it. But Lovelace? In her first team, she was a goddamn bully , who thought it was okay to mock someone or to nag at someone just for her amusement or if she didn't like them personally. And then she said that she wanted to be the person she had been once, and it is treated like some heroic and positive claim? After Eiffel was thoroughly scolded for his unintentional rudeness and his more than well-substantiated fear of her? That's fucking unfair.

She can bully someone, she can make stupid decisions, she can incite conflicts within her crew - and the consequences of her actions are never grave, or she appears to be right about it. When she learns that there is a fucking all-mighty entity within her, which could be not amiable to humans at all or do harm out of ignorance, and one crew has already gone through the worst possible scenario - all she thinks of is her own comfort, not the danger she poses for everyone around.

While I'm against the trope "alien = bad", I find her selfishness entirely unsympathetic, and I don't think a person should be scolded for a fear of the entity who melted someone's goddamn hand on their whim, and I also think it is extremely unfair to treat her as a special hero, when she does nothing except acting on her whims and impulses, without regard for the situation or possible consequences. And it is unfair to build the narrative in such a way that she can get away with such mindless acting. In reality, the consequences of her decisions would be dire, and everything would fall apart. :<

But let's see what this episode has in store. May be I am very wrong about it, and will change my opinion. Except for this issue with Lovelace, Wolf 359 proved itself one of the most amazing works of fiction I've ever read, watched or listened to.

Comments

[j_pole]

Hi! You don`t mind complete strangers talking to you, do you? I agree with you that Lovelace is treated differently and it`s a little annoying. I actually really like her and she got her "call out post" in season 2, and according to Gabriel`s commentary on Change of Mind, she isn`t meant to be seen as infallible. But I`ve got a feeling that after that backlash in season 3 writers felt a little limited in how they can write her. But that`s just me.

As for Eiffel being scolded for fear of Lovelace, I`m with you 100%. Every book and movie and TV show I loved taught me that there is nothing wrong with being afraid, the only thing that matters is what you do with it. And Eiffel sided with Lovelace immediately, alien or not. Further still, she was the one who asked him to "confess" in the first place. And there were only a few people on tumblr and here who talked about that. This situation still bugs me.

But despite those (and few other) nitpicks I have, Wolf 359 is still amazing and I`ll miss it very much.

Ой, увидела, что вы с дайри. Мир тесен)