I don't know how I missed the beginning of this series but so glad I found this latest installment!
I did go back and read the most recent previous chapter, Supernatural, first. Loved the easy interaction between Will and Liam; I think he'd be a good father not the typical martinet of the era. and Liam's pov feels accurately that of a brightly inquisitive, precocious child.
That chapter lets me know in the earlier chapters Will has to grapple with the idea of a "threesome" and his feelings for both Elizabeth and Jack.
This chapter is Elizabeth's for all that Jack has a strong part in the action. This chapter is her journey to self-revelation.
You touch on a trait of Elizabeth's I've not seen other writers' tackle or at least more than superficially. She may chafe at the restricted life of an aristocratic woman in the 18th century but it's light years less straitened than the life of a tradesman's daughter or a servant!
Her inborn arrogance, superiority and above all automatic entitlement has shaped her unawares and lent it's attitude to her every agenda and motive, even colored her relationships with the people around her.
She instinctively treats both Will and Jack as her inferiors--when she speaks so graciously to Will in COTBP, saying she dreamed of him and wants him to use her given name, all I could think of at first glance was "she stoops to conquer". She remains irritated with Will for not standing up to society and not being bold to claim her, oblivious to what would happen to him if he did. She's irritated with Jack because he DOESN'T show deference. Nor does he prove to be the romanticised hero of her imaginings and she punishes him for that: she burns the rum for discovering he's merely human as much as for a signal fire; she kills him because he ran even though he came back. If he refuses to be the creature she demands, she will force him to it. She will keep her own guilt and sorrows from Will because it doesn't concern him (!!??)
Frankly I grew weary of the kids' mutual exclusive adoration and ruthlessness to achieve that even in the first movie but by fadeout both appeared to have reached some new awareness and maturity and the story arc resolved by their actions. The sequels seemed to take them backward--gratingly.
I was pleased with quite a bit of the post-AWE fiction because it developed both beyond that shrill note. Will, especially, gained by AWE, but Elizabeth remained--it seemed to me--largely unconscious of this influence on her perception.
You meet that head-on in this chapter and I'm pleased to see Elizabeth up to the challenge of recognizing it.
In this chapter Jack is pretty plainspoken at last and rightly.
I like Elizabeth realizing her previous methods of dealing with Jack will not work to get him to talk since she was always on the attack.
After the bloodletting of dialogue like this:
>“Someone had to give a damn for him … what, with you selling him down the river to Davy Jones and him foolishly going along with it.” She dug the knife in. “I’m surprised he let you in his bed, considering the contempt and utter scorn we all know you have for him.”<
It's a relief to see her discover 1)that Jack in fact loves Will, might even love her; 2) that she has based her relationships with both men on an assumed superiority 3) that she may just love both of them.
It's the biggest relief of all--and a much-needed lighter note after such tension and bloody action too--for their tipsy hilarity, during which Will arrives in the middle.
Got to go scurry back and catch up the other chapters now so as to be ready for the next installment. It covers themes others have used but addresses new insights and slightly different takes on the basic idea by these characters; nevertheless feels quite IN character for each.
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Date: 2008-07-07 09:59 pm (UTC)I did go back and read the most recent previous chapter, Supernatural, first. Loved the easy interaction between Will and Liam; I think he'd be a good father not the typical martinet of the era. and Liam's pov feels accurately that of a brightly inquisitive, precocious child.
That chapter lets me know in the earlier chapters Will has to grapple with the idea of a "threesome" and his feelings for both Elizabeth and Jack.
This chapter is Elizabeth's for all that Jack has a strong part in the action. This chapter is her journey to self-revelation.
You touch on a trait of Elizabeth's I've not seen other writers' tackle or at least more than superficially. She may chafe at the restricted life of an aristocratic woman in the 18th century but it's light years less straitened than the life of a tradesman's daughter or a servant!
Her inborn arrogance, superiority and above all automatic entitlement has shaped her unawares and lent it's attitude to her every agenda and motive, even colored her relationships with the people around her.
She instinctively treats both Will and Jack as her inferiors--when she speaks so graciously to Will in COTBP, saying she dreamed of him and wants him to use her given name, all I could think of at first glance was "she stoops to conquer". She remains irritated with Will for not standing up to society and not being bold to claim her, oblivious to what would happen to him if he did. She's irritated with Jack because he DOESN'T show deference. Nor does he prove to be the romanticised hero of her imaginings and she punishes him for that: she burns the rum for discovering he's merely human as much as for a signal fire; she kills him because he ran even though he came back. If he refuses to be the creature she demands, she will force him to it. She will keep her own guilt and sorrows from Will because it doesn't concern him (!!??)
Frankly I grew weary of the kids' mutual exclusive adoration and ruthlessness to achieve that even in the first movie but by fadeout both appeared to have reached some new awareness and maturity and the story arc resolved by their actions. The sequels seemed to take them backward--gratingly.
I was pleased with quite a bit of the post-AWE fiction because it developed both beyond that shrill note. Will, especially, gained by AWE, but Elizabeth remained--it seemed to me--largely unconscious of this influence on her perception.
You meet that head-on in this chapter and I'm pleased to see Elizabeth up to the challenge of recognizing it.
In this chapter Jack is pretty plainspoken at last and rightly.
I like Elizabeth realizing her previous methods of dealing with Jack will not work to get him to talk since she was always on the attack.
After the bloodletting of dialogue like this:
>“Someone had to give a damn for him … what, with you selling him down the river to Davy Jones and him foolishly going along with it.” She dug the knife in. “I’m surprised he let you in his bed, considering the contempt and utter scorn we all know you have for him.”<
It's a relief to see her discover 1)that Jack in fact loves Will, might even love her; 2) that she has based her relationships with both men on an assumed superiority 3) that she may just love both of them.
It's the biggest relief of all--and a much-needed lighter note after such tension and bloody action too--for their tipsy hilarity, during which Will arrives in the middle.
Got to go scurry back and catch up the other chapters now so as to be ready for the next installment. It covers themes others have used but addresses new insights and slightly different takes on the basic idea by these characters; nevertheless feels quite IN character for each.