Copy-and-pasted from this thread, wherein I babble confusedly at
shadadukal. Copy-and-pasted because I'm too tired to force them into something coherant right now, but wanted to put them up to see if someone else could manage. Heh.
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The Sanctuary Network As Main Character
I actually think Sanctuary is a show about one lead. Problem is, that lead isn't a character, it's a place, or concept of a place. I think Sanctuary is a show about the character of the Sanctuary itself. As a concept and as a place, it's the point of the show where the stake is driven into the earth, and all the stories tethered around it. And the stories and the levels of importance the characters get seems to be directly related to their importance to and relationship with the Sanctuary.
That's why Helen mostly looks like the lead, because Helen is practically an avatar of the Sanctuary, but also why Will is considered important, because Will's relationship with the Sanctuary is almost a microcosm of the Sanctuary's relationship with the outside world. John and Nikola are important, because they resonate with Helen, and are largely contemporaneous with the Sanctuary itself, and also both considerable sources of conflict with the Sanctuary, but they're not main characters because they're not part of it. Which is why the most screentime Nikola gets is when he's actually working for the Sanctuary.
It's where the stronger eps tend to come from too, I think. The strongest stories are those that deal with the Sanctuary as a force, as a body, either standing against threats (Revelations/End of Nights, Kali), discovering a mirror of itself (the Hollow Earth arc), in the process of being formed (the Five eps), and so on. The weaker eps tend to be those where the Sanctuary itself recedes into the background, used as a set and not a character, not a force.
***
The Sanctuaries are the physical embodiments of a concept, and in that way are both concept and place, in the way that a person is both body and spirit. They are a character, with a physical form to be attacked and for their force to emanate from, and a nature, a governing concept that motivates that force. A gestalt entity, but an entity nonetheless, self-contained and interacting with the world at large. Erm. If that makes sense outside my head ...
And Helen, of course, is the Avatar, the voice through which the entity speaks. In that sense, she is closest to the main human character.
Will ... Will is complicated, but Will in a sense is an Avatar of the 'real' world, the more normal world, and it's Will's contested relationship with the Sanctuary, what he believes and what he doesn't, what lines he will not cross, what places he disagrees with Helen, that show how uneasily the Sanctuary lies alongside the world Will comes from. Most of the Show shows how the Sanctuary deals with the abnormal world, with things like Kali and Hollow Earth and the Cabal, and almost all the characters, even Kate, come to it through that world. Will is what shows, at least in part, how the Sanctuary deals with the normal world. With us. The Sanctuary is a liminal entity, a between place, a seashore, and Will is the one approaching from the landward side, while everyone else comes from the sea. Heh.
As for John and Nikola ... they are bound in, but not absorbed. They stand alongside the Sanctuary, alongside Helen, and have woven in and out of it at various points, but they do not belong to it, not anymore. They could, but for now they don't. The Five are not synonymous with the Sanctuary. They were part of the impetus for it, but they are not the same thing.
***
I tend to think of the Network as a body, and the Old City Sanctuary as the heart/head, from whence the motive comes, and the voice speaks. It's the Sanctuary network that's the character, and the physical Sanctuaries that are its body. Concept and place.
And I think I'm making even less sense than usual. I should shut up now -_-;
I actually think Sanctuary is a show about one lead. Problem is, that lead isn't a character, it's a place, or concept of a place. I think Sanctuary is a show about the character of the Sanctuary itself. As a concept and as a place, it's the point of the show where the stake is driven into the earth, and all the stories tethered around it. And the stories and the levels of importance the characters get seems to be directly related to their importance to and relationship with the Sanctuary.
That's why Helen mostly looks like the lead, because Helen is practically an avatar of the Sanctuary, but also why Will is considered important, because Will's relationship with the Sanctuary is almost a microcosm of the Sanctuary's relationship with the outside world. John and Nikola are important, because they resonate with Helen, and are largely contemporaneous with the Sanctuary itself, and also both considerable sources of conflict with the Sanctuary, but they're not main characters because they're not part of it. Which is why the most screentime Nikola gets is when he's actually working for the Sanctuary.
It's where the stronger eps tend to come from too, I think. The strongest stories are those that deal with the Sanctuary as a force, as a body, either standing against threats (Revelations/End of Nights, Kali), discovering a mirror of itself (the Hollow Earth arc), in the process of being formed (the Five eps), and so on. The weaker eps tend to be those where the Sanctuary itself recedes into the background, used as a set and not a character, not a force.
***
The Sanctuaries are the physical embodiments of a concept, and in that way are both concept and place, in the way that a person is both body and spirit. They are a character, with a physical form to be attacked and for their force to emanate from, and a nature, a governing concept that motivates that force. A gestalt entity, but an entity nonetheless, self-contained and interacting with the world at large. Erm. If that makes sense outside my head ...
And Helen, of course, is the Avatar, the voice through which the entity speaks. In that sense, she is closest to the main human character.
Will ... Will is complicated, but Will in a sense is an Avatar of the 'real' world, the more normal world, and it's Will's contested relationship with the Sanctuary, what he believes and what he doesn't, what lines he will not cross, what places he disagrees with Helen, that show how uneasily the Sanctuary lies alongside the world Will comes from. Most of the Show shows how the Sanctuary deals with the abnormal world, with things like Kali and Hollow Earth and the Cabal, and almost all the characters, even Kate, come to it through that world. Will is what shows, at least in part, how the Sanctuary deals with the normal world. With us. The Sanctuary is a liminal entity, a between place, a seashore, and Will is the one approaching from the landward side, while everyone else comes from the sea. Heh.
As for John and Nikola ... they are bound in, but not absorbed. They stand alongside the Sanctuary, alongside Helen, and have woven in and out of it at various points, but they do not belong to it, not anymore. They could, but for now they don't. The Five are not synonymous with the Sanctuary. They were part of the impetus for it, but they are not the same thing.
***
I tend to think of the Network as a body, and the Old City Sanctuary as the heart/head, from whence the motive comes, and the voice speaks. It's the Sanctuary network that's the character, and the physical Sanctuaries that are its body. Concept and place.
And I think I'm making even less sense than usual. I should shut up now -_-;
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