April = Elizabeth
There was a certain point in reading For Better or For Worse and its character of April, where I got the impression that April was going to be the Patterson who would break the cycle of Pattersons ending up in Milborough married to their childhood sweetheart. Today’s strip put that idea to rest. The dialogue ending April’s relationship to Gerald practically jumps off the page yelling, “For the future romantic life of April Patterson, see Elizabeth Patterson.”
If we are still getting new hybrid material 9 years from now (and assuming Lynn Johnston backs off her anti-aging stance), when April would be close to completing vet school, it is easy to see Lynn Johnston referring back to this strip, and trying to come up with a way to get April and Gerald back together and living in Milborough. As far as the character of April Patterson is concerned, I no longer have to read any more strips involving her. Her future is mapped out by Lynn Johnston’s bizarre desire to take storylines she has done before and put minour variations in them.
Say what you will about Lynn Johnston, but she knows her audience, and she knows her fans love seeing the same story repeated with little twists to it. They also love seeing the outcome of a story telegraphed years in advance. We can’t have any stories with any jolt to them. No. The stories just need to slowly creep up on you, so that when things happen, it’s not too surprising for the people who love For Better or For Worse.
I think 9 years in advance is enough time for April and Gerald, who have dated for the last 4 years. Liz and Anthony will probably marry next year after being involved in each other’s lives for 15 years after meeting when they were 12. When April graduates from vet school, she should be 27 too. Perfect age for a wedding. Really the only question for me is: Whom is Gerald going to marry and divorce in favour of April? Becky McGuire just doesn’t seem the type to be an imitation Thérèse.
If we are still getting new hybrid material 9 years from now (and assuming Lynn Johnston backs off her anti-aging stance), when April would be close to completing vet school, it is easy to see Lynn Johnston referring back to this strip, and trying to come up with a way to get April and Gerald back together and living in Milborough. As far as the character of April Patterson is concerned, I no longer have to read any more strips involving her. Her future is mapped out by Lynn Johnston’s bizarre desire to take storylines she has done before and put minour variations in them.
Say what you will about Lynn Johnston, but she knows her audience, and she knows her fans love seeing the same story repeated with little twists to it. They also love seeing the outcome of a story telegraphed years in advance. We can’t have any stories with any jolt to them. No. The stories just need to slowly creep up on you, so that when things happen, it’s not too surprising for the people who love For Better or For Worse.
I think 9 years in advance is enough time for April and Gerald, who have dated for the last 4 years. Liz and Anthony will probably marry next year after being involved in each other’s lives for 15 years after meeting when they were 12. When April graduates from vet school, she should be 27 too. Perfect age for a wedding. Really the only question for me is: Whom is Gerald going to marry and divorce in favour of April? Becky McGuire just doesn’t seem the type to be an imitation Thérèse.
posted by howard at 10:40 PM
8 Comments:
The sad thing is that Lynn can't or won't see that this is a disservice to her characters and audience. Most of the people on Coffee Talk who gush about the joys of marrying high-school sweethearts probably didn't cause as much damage to those around them as Liz and Anthony, didn't unjustly vilify the people that got caught in the crossfire. As has been said before by myself and others, Anthony's constant presence destroyed his viability as a romantic lead. If he hadn't been in the background moaning about how he really wanted Liz all along, if his marital problems had come out of the blue, that 'Tell, don't show' would have been appropriate. Follow that up by Liz having her nose rubbed into the fact that she wasn't the nomad she posed as and then I'd get behind Lizthony. Lynn's slipshod storytelling has unwittingly subverted the happy ending she wanted to portray.
dreadedcandiru2,
Liz as a nomad was subverted by Lynn Johnston using her own life with Rod in Lynn Lake as the example of how Elizabeth should operate. The problem with the portrayal of Elizabeth is, unlike Lynn, Elizabeth was made to look like she really enjoyed Mtigwaki. Lynn thinks that she liked the experience of Lynn Lake, whereas in real life Lynn probably hated Lynn Lake and couldn't wait to get out of there, even if there were parts of it she liked. So the readers get behind Elizabeth the nomad, without realizing in Lynn’s mind, Mtigwaki is only a short term destination. It is what I would call the difference between what is in Lynn’s mind and what is on paper. After all the time she spent working with Perry to develop Mtigwaki, it wouldn’t do to show Liz hating it. But if she doesn’t show that, then we end up with what we had which was a sudden and unexpected homesickness.
As for Anthony and Thérèse, I think the problem there is that Lynn shies away from showing true villainy. With Howard Bunt, he attacks Liz in a wide open office and only manages to pull Liz’s shirt. With Kortney Krelbutz, she forged a few cheques, but never actually punched April into submission. With the Kelpfroths, they complained about things for which they had legitimate complaints. With Jeremy Jones, he never actually said the word “retard” to Shannon Lake. If Lynn wanted to make a case for the evil Thérèse, she should have picked something other than making her jealous of Liz and Anthony, because, considering how she plans things to end up with Liz and Anthony, that was a legitimate concern for Thérèse. There are a dozen different ways she could have turned Thérèse into a villainess and a bad mother, without implicating Liz at all, but they would have made Thérèse into a monster. I don’t know why Lynn avoids showing true villainy, but it does hurt her, when she wants her other characters to appear heroic. Shoot, Anthony rescued Liz from Howard, and he managed to come off worse than Howard did.
When you consider that there is real evil in the world, her attempt to soft-pedal things, to have the Pattersons and their freinds face off against grumpy non-entities seems almost cowardly. She could have, for instance, had Constable Brad show up and warn Mike that the Innocent Images task force had their eyes on Mel Kelpfroth, shown Kortney (or for that matter, Therese) pawning things so she could score smack, had Jermy Jeremy go all white power on us, given us a family with REAL enemies we could cheer on as they prevailed against them. Instead, we have one set of angst-ridden suburbanites grousing about another bunch of smirkers. It's like the Pattersons declared war on Les Moore.
dreadedcandiru2,
Jeremy Jones was actually a pretty good villain for young April back in the day. My most recent complaints about the villains (and the strip in general) have occurred in the last 5 years. However, back when Jeremy was chasing April on her bike, I had a definite feeling he was not going to knock her down and pull on her shirt or tweak her ear. Of course, I could be wrong about it, since Jeremy's revenge was interrupted by a motor vehicle. Nevertheless, Jeremy ended up doing hospital time, compared to Howard Bunt who ended up with a minimal amount of prison time and a sore ear.
Yes, he was about to kick the shit out of her before he got hit by a car. To top it off, it was for a stupid, selfish, half-way insane reason: "I have to half-way kill an inoffensive little girl because my dad ran off to play harmonica in a band." After that, though, she sort of drifted off into a sort of cloud-cuckoo land wherein nothing dangerous was supposed to happen.
dreadedcandiru2,
After that, though, she sort of drifted off into a sort of cloud-cuckoo land wherein nothing dangerous was supposed to happen.
That's definitely true. Howard the rapist who only pulls a shirt and is defeated by the most namby-pamby character in the strip. The apartment fire where the occupants have time to get dressed and gather their belongings before they stroll out. The open flirtations with another woman's husband, where the offending wife simply shoots the other woman dirty looks and doesn't get into a screaming match saying, "Stay away from my husband, bitch!!"
If Lynn dared to use a little realistic danger in her strip, then she would have a decent strip. I would have loved to have seen Anthony Caine and Howard Bunt pound the crap out of each other. Or to see Michael Patterson succumb to the smoke, and have to be dragged out of the apartment, and then be given a seething lecture by Deanna Patterson.
As it is, Lynn Johnston has a strip so ridiculously repetitive in its illogical plots, I enjoy making fun of it.
If Lynn wanted to be realistic, she could have had Liz and Therese get into a good old-fashioned cat-fight over Anthony, too. But, like I said, she got spooked into letting the Pattersons live in a world without danger.
dreadedcandiru2,
I still have high hopes for a Liz / Therese cat fight when she finally reappears. However, I expect that what will really happen is Therese will acknowledge Liz is a better mother and wife than she is, while at the same time feeling great guilt for having given up Anthony and Francoise.
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