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Argh! Okay, college is mostly back on track, what with lectures on time, etc, and not having that soul-crushing one anymore, but ... I think I'd forgotten just how headache-inducing *normal* college was. The year away did me no favours, aside from, you know, saving my sanity. I have three papers to review before tomorrow's lecture, and my god they are tedious. Okay, okay, one of them appears to be making some good points, what I've read so far, but the other is all technical jargon to the hilt, trying to disguise some really, really shaky evidence, and my eyes are bleeding. At this point, I think I'm just packing it in for the night, and getting up an hour early tomorrow to finish it. I just can't look at that anymore. *sigh*
On the brighter side of things, I happened to watch Cyrano de Bergerac last night (Depardieu version), and loved it. I cried at the end. Shut up, all of you. But it also made me think 'where have I seen something like this before?', and then I realised that it reminded me a lot of Phantom of the Opera. Both of them feature your classical young, innocent couple in love, affected by a third, disfigured (though Cyrano never seemed really disfigured to me, despite his own admissions. He has a big nose, for crying out loud! My grandad has a nose that big!) party, who loves the woman, and who uses words rather than looks to get by. Well, music, in Eric's case, but still words. Poetry, music. They both interfere with the couple by channelling those words through on of the lovers.
There, though, the similarities end somewhat, both in the effect the third party has, their nature, and the end result. Oddly enough, though, it's Phantom, where the rival in the triangle is a psychopathic, homicidal killer, that things turn out happy. Cyrano, where all parties are fair and in their own ways good, has a fair more quietly tragic ending. Which makes me think it's easier for people to believe in happy endings where there is a clear-cut bad guy, who can be beaten without moral qualms. When both rivals are 'good', then things are much harder to decide, and whatever happens someone decent has to suffer for it. And in trying to avoid that ... they all suffered.
Really, though, the end moral for me, I think, is that you should never get involved in a rivalry for someone's affections, because it just can't end well.
Er. That's all the rambling, then.
On the brighter side of things, I happened to watch Cyrano de Bergerac last night (Depardieu version), and loved it. I cried at the end. Shut up, all of you. But it also made me think 'where have I seen something like this before?', and then I realised that it reminded me a lot of Phantom of the Opera. Both of them feature your classical young, innocent couple in love, affected by a third, disfigured (though Cyrano never seemed really disfigured to me, despite his own admissions. He has a big nose, for crying out loud! My grandad has a nose that big!) party, who loves the woman, and who uses words rather than looks to get by. Well, music, in Eric's case, but still words. Poetry, music. They both interfere with the couple by channelling those words through on of the lovers.
There, though, the similarities end somewhat, both in the effect the third party has, their nature, and the end result. Oddly enough, though, it's Phantom, where the rival in the triangle is a psychopathic, homicidal killer, that things turn out happy. Cyrano, where all parties are fair and in their own ways good, has a fair more quietly tragic ending. Which makes me think it's easier for people to believe in happy endings where there is a clear-cut bad guy, who can be beaten without moral qualms. When both rivals are 'good', then things are much harder to decide, and whatever happens someone decent has to suffer for it. And in trying to avoid that ... they all suffered.
Really, though, the end moral for me, I think, is that you should never get involved in a rivalry for someone's affections, because it just can't end well.
Er. That's all the rambling, then.
