February Monthly Letters

My usual time to take the monthly letters and see what they do to my characters.

Jeremy Jones – zippo, as usual. He is a school character and I think we have heard the last from him. In fact, with Mike and Deanna entrenched at Sharon Park Drive and the things which need to happen to get him moved in permanently, Elly and John in the Stibbs house, and Elizabeth ditching Warren and married to Anthony by September; I would surprised if we even see April back at school again.

Howard Bunt – Only mention is in Elly’s letter where she says:
the trial (which is still ongoing)

Since the letters have continued to indicate the trial is still going on, I can tell this means Lynn plans to revisit the trial and its verdict to draw a conclusion to that storyline, if for no other reason than to put Elizabeth back with Anthony again. I think she has made a mistake pulling Warren Blackwood back into the storyline, in order to dump him again in the final year of the strip. It’s just wasted time. If there is any hope of salvaging the story of the Liz and Anthony romance, she really needs to have Elizabeth interacting with Anthony and little Frannie, and showing scenes where she is not a depressed nutcase. The way Lynn has been plotting these days, the only question with Howard is how much time is he going to get in prison, and will Liz have any final cutting remarks to make to him?

Constable Paul Wright got lots of comments this time.

Elly's Letter, February 2007

We'd been speaking to Liz about finding herself an apartment, but she's been having a really rough time since Paul broke up with her and so we haven't been pushing too much. I'm worried about her - the trial (which is still ongoing) put her through a lot, and now that this relationship is over she's at loose ends. She comes home, plows through her marking and class prep, and spends the rest of the evenings alone, for the most part. Many of her friends are living in the city now, or they've moved to Ottawa or other distant locales. She hasn't got that many old chums nearby, so her social circle is pretty limited. She is meeting new people at the school, however, and I hear her talking to them from time to time. Most of the teachers are a little older than she is, with families, so it's not easy to "hang out". Still, in time she'll find her space.

Elly’s speaks of Elizabeth spending her evenings alone after the breakup. There is no real effect on Paul, but Elly clearly considers Elizabeth to be alone without the nightly 2-hour Paul conversations or e-mailings.

John's Letter, February 2007

Liz is emotionally pretty low now that her relationship is over with Paul, and April who has been merciless in her rivalry with Liz has at least shown a little sympathy. The space war that she had declared now has a truce (for a short while, anyway). They're warring over space for clothes, access to the bathroom, and even the phone.

John indicates Elizabeth is depressed from her relationship ending with Paul and April has recognized the depression long enough to stop fighting with her sister.

I thought it was neat that Liz got to fly all that way up north in a helicopter! I would really have enjoyed that, but yes, she is seeing things through much different eyes than mine right now. She will be fine, and will move on, I am sure. I really didn't think her relationship with Mr. Wright would work out all that well anyway. If Paul, who has lived his whole life in the north, would have moved to the big city just for her it really would be almost impossible for him. So, things have worked out for the better. Don't tell Liz I said that, though! She would definitely not agree.

Here John moves back to the theme he has in fact had since Day 1 of his commenting about Paul. He is too much of a small town boy to live in the big city. Considering John Patterson’s background is farm boy moving to the big city, this seems like an unusual statement, and you would think he would have much more in common with Constable Paul Wright. Of course, the underlying message is that Paul is “Stick to your own kind”. It’s a very understated racial prejudice.

I suspect she fabricated the relationship a bit to fit what she wanted. When you have to face the truth, you can see that the relationship was mostly fantasy, with each person making up what they wanted, not noticing what the other person liked or did not like, and that these things did not fit into the picture.

If I understand this correctly, Paul Wright would be fabricating the idea that Elizabeth was in love with Northern life and wanted to spend the rest of her life there, when in fact it was, as John says, “Her northern adventure” which is more like a little 2-year lark with the natives, much like Deanna’s Honduras trip. Elizabeth on the other hand was fabricating the idea that Paul would follow her around like a puppy no matter what she did, such was his devotion to her. None of these ideas fit in well with the presence of Susan Dokis.

Paul didn’t just decide not to transfer to Toronto. Paul, who doesn’t live in Mtigwaki, and for whom Mtigwaki was a trip out of the way, when he was visiting Elizabeth; had to have some motivation for visiting Susan Dokis enough times to establish a romantic relationship with her. In April’s Real Blog, I played it as though Susan was slowly trying to win Paul over by subtly pointing out Elizabeth didn’t care for him and she did. Of course the next question is why would Susan go out of her way to attract a man, who didn’t live close to her and who was planning to move to live closer to his girlfriend? She could have always been in love with Paul since their pow-wow days, but the fact they hadn’t seen each other since those days, makes it unlikely. It could be that Susan is one of those women who takes a special delight in stealing men from other women. In my dating days, I met a few women like that. In my mind, the stronger likelihood is that Paul was already disenchanted with Elizabeth for the way she treated and was continuing to treat him, and all it required was 2 little nudges to get him with Susan:

1. Someone nudges Susan and tells her how Liz treated Paul, and tells her Paul is ripe for the picking.
2. Susan nudges Paul and tells him she is interested in him, and she is a lot more like what he is looking for in a long term companion.


Liz's Letter, February 2007

This morning, for example, the first song I heard in my car on the way to work was "Four Strong Winds" sung by Neil Young. It's about someone migrating to someplace new and leaving a love behind. I guess Paul just didn't want to live in the city. He couldn't transfer down, I didn't want to stay up North, and...that's all she wrote.

Elizabeth is in denial. She can’t say, “I guess Paul liked Susan better than me, because she didn’t jerk him around. It has to be the north vs. south thing. It’s not me. It’s where I want to live." If that were true, then he would have never applied for the transfer to Toronto.

I wish things had worked out differently. If he'd just explained it to me on the phone, or if he'd sent a letter...I appreciate that he wanted to explain in person that he was moving on, but it was still pretty cruel for me to have to find out the way I did. I have Warren to thank for that. As much as I resent him for dropping me on the airstrip and then taking off to let me find Paul in Susan's house, I guess I appreciate him being the only one with enough backbone to actually force Paul's hand, unlike everyone else in Mtig who just seemed to wait and see what happened. They were in an awkward position too, though, being forced to work with Susan (and of course, plenty of them are related to Paul). This whole thing is just such a mess.

Lots of things here. Elizabeth wanted to be told as soon as it happened. That seems like a reasonable request. The business with coming a day earlier makes no sense and this letter can’t explain it any better. Warren gets praise for doing something which Paul said would have happened the next day, if Liz had come by bus.

The implication of the letter is that if Liz had come by bus one day later, somehow the people in Mtigwaki and the Cranes and Paul and Susan would have been “forced” to continue to keep Paul’s ugly little secret and thanks to Warren taking her one day earlier, Paul’s secret was exposed. What Liz is really saying is that the people in Mtigwaki were under the sway of Constable Paul Wright and Susan Dokis, who wanted to preserve the illusion that Paul was still dating Elizabeth, and there would have to be something about the image of being known as Elizabeth’s boyfriend which Paul would want to keep up. It is completely preposterous. I agree with the last sentence. The whole thing was just such a mess. I would have been ashamed to have written something so poorly.

I guess I'm glad to be free of it, anyway. I don't know if I'll be eager to visit Mtig again even though my spirit name means that I'll return. I don't think I'd want to stay with Gary and Viv knowing that Paul and Susan were in the adjoining apartment together. It was bad enough the first time. Heck, they may not even be together for any length of time. They knew each other as kids; who knows if they'll make a functional adult couple. Things are so much more complicated when you're an adult. Who knows. Who cares. Obviously, I do.

This was interesting, because it is an indirect snark of the Elizabeth’s relationship with Anthony, which has not really existed since they were kids. She has some points though. Paul fell in love with Elizabeth way too fast, and the means by which they met did make Paul look like an overeager stalker. Given that, it is entirely possible that Paul may be similarly obsessed with Susan Dokis, and their relationship may not last; just like Elizabeth and Anthony would not work out, if anyone were to really consider it. It is also interesting that Elizabeth is anticipating things might not work out. All of Elizabeth’s men to date have continued to be obsessed with her, except for Eric Chamberlain, so it is reasonable to expect Paul will be the same, if you are Elizabeth.

However, the similarities between Eric and Paul make this unlikely. Elizabeth was nice to Warren, and relatively nice to Anthony. Actually, she was pretty mean to Anthony in high school, but he seems to like that kind of thing. What I remember about the Eric and Liz relationship was she was constantly hounding Eric about every little thing he did away from her. We know he ended up cheating, but what we don’t know is what came first---the hounding or the cheating. With Paul, we know exactly what came first. Elizabeth had treated Paul poorly well before Susan came into the picture. Frankly, her relationship with Paul should have been over back in December, 2005, when she flew off with Warren Blackwood and didn’t take the time to meet Paul’s parents, when she was right there where his parents lived. It would have been so easy. “Paul. I have a ride in White River and he is leaving at this time. We need to leave Mtigwaki earlier, so I can meet your parents before I have to go.” That’s all it would have taken. The fact that it didn't go that way, showed an extreme lack of respect and consideration for Paul Wright. I have played this several times in April's Real Blog. Paul's parents would have been very aware of Elizabeth's departure, considering it was by helicopter, and it would have been extremely difficult for her to overcome that slap in the face she gave not only Paul but his parents.

But that's not all. Imagine if Paul had not been cheating, what he would have to have endure with more speculation of Warren, when Elizabeth showed up very publicly with him, at Mtigwaki where Paul has relatives. Liz gets no slaps for this, but she gets slapped for making the assumption a Northern man could move south. The only real slap she got and deserved was the one Vivian Crane gave her for not including Paul in her plans to move South.

The slap Elizabeth most deserves is the one which was her real motivation for moving South, i.e. Anthony Caine’s divorce. It was plain and obvious in the strip when it happened, but nothing in the strip or the letters has touched on it since. That part is a real shame, because it would show a lot about Elizabeth’s character, if either source could explain why she would throw away everything to pursue Anthony.

Now I'm home, and of course everyone has advice for me, some of it helpful, most of it not. My dad and I have had a few good talks, though - he has a way of asking questions that require a lot of thought and soul-searching. He helps you find answers for yourself. He had some good thoughts about dating. He even told me about a few of the women he was seeing before he married Mom...I don't get to hear that kind of stuff from my parents often, but it made me realize that I don't have to settle. A good relationship doesn't leave you feeling lost or hurt or like a stranger to yourself. So, I'll keep looking.

The implication from this passage is that if Elizabeth had decided to stay with Paul, she would be “settling” for someone who was not worthy of her. Elizabeth thinks the country boy is not good enough for the city girl, or the Northern boy is not good enough for the Southern girl. Even if this is not racial, it smacks of regional prejudices. The other implication is that Paul made her feel lost, feel hurt, feel like a stranger to yourself. I think Paul can take credit for the feeling hurt part. “Lost” is the fault of Liz’s own decisions. And of course, “feeling like a stranger to yourself” is purely Lynn Johnston, who catapulted all the good things about Liz’s character out the window.