Friday, August 29, 2008

The Conclusion (of the Dailies)

The dailies of For Better or For Worse and essentially the modern storyline end, not with Elly Patterson, but with the long-suffering Iris Richards. Tomorrow, we are supposed to be treated to a Sunday strip showing the long-term future of the modern characters past this point. It will be interesting to see if there are any surprises there.

Lynn Johnston had said she wanted to end her magnum opus covering 29 years with a circle being completed and she does have that, but it is not the circle I expected. Certainly one part of it was obvious, Elizabeth Patterson and Anthony Caine represent the newly-married couple. The surprise was that Iris and Jim Richards represent the completed and fulfilled marital vow of “for better or for worse” passing on their legacy to the younger couple. Iris has been a member of the cast of the strip for a relatively short time, so some of her lines have an odd ring to them. For example, “It’s a promise that should last a lifetime” would have been a closer fit to a couple that had been married longer, like Elly and John Patterson.

As far as representing the meaning of the phrase “for better or for worse” there is none in the strip better than Iris. We saw her monitoring Jim’s diet, dealing with his crankiness, helping him with his increased inability to walk, oblivious to his almost constant lechery, and then taking care of him as he has had not one stroke but 2 plus a heart attack. She did all this with minimal support from anyone else. She exemplifies the phrase more than any other character in the strip. I think she deserves to be the character who gets to say it.

As for Elly and John Patterson, their last appearance is oddly enough a sequence where John says, “That sounds like a nice way to end a story!” and Elly responds, “…It’s certainly a nice way to end today!” Elly and John Patterson have long been the avatars of Lynn and Rod Johnston respectively and the strip revolves around Elly. To not have her in the final strip or even the final 2 strips is unusual.

I can see the reasoning. Lynn Johnston wants to have someone represent the old couple with the successful marriage and that simply is not Elly and John Patterson. As a couple they are barely there. Over the last 27 strips depicting the wedding day, Elly and John have spoken to each other exactly 3 times. And where I would have expected a big, emotional, pre-wedding conversation between Elly and Elizabeth; they spoke exactly once in the whole wedding day sequence when Elly tells Elizabeth that Grandpa Jim is in the hospital. In fact Elly is only in 9 wedding day strips. I had expected Elly to throw herself into the wedding, and there would be this tremendous bonding moment between mother and daughter as the daughter prepares to marry the man her mother has been pushing her to since 2000. Instead, Elly isn’t there 2/3 of the time, and almost doesn’t talk to her daughter at all on her wedding day.

Elly is the avatar for Lynn Johnston, and I am not sure that Lynn Johnston believes in weddings and the sanctity of marriage vows anymore, after she has been cheated on by 2 husbands. It looks like she is willing to let the character who represents her, take a back seat, even in dishing out the final closing title line from the Anglican Church wedding vows. This is a very melancholy and surprising end to this strip.

10 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I actually wonder if the whole reason we see Iris at the end, instead of Elly, is that the basis for the Elly and John marriage (Lynn and Rod) turned out to be a failure. Iris is the only spouse in the whole strip who has 1) appeared with some regularity, and 2) has been a devoted spouse while 3) lacking major faults as a spouse.

It actually makes me think that Lynn has some redeeming humanity, if she realizes that Iris is a better person than the jerks who populate the strip. I'm happy to see her at the end, if perplexed. Although maybe it's not too surprising, given the interviews Lynn has given about how much she admires long-suffering, non-complaining old people. Iris certainly fits the bill.

Lynn should've started this wedding story sooner. She really neglected some of the most important aspects. Most notably, there is not enough development of the new family unit that Liz, Anthony, and Francoise form TOGETHER. It is telling that Liz and Anthony are so obsessed with the need to see Grandpa Jim than they forgot their own daughter. And what about April? She was totally forgotten after those nonsensical strips wherein Duncan imagined being a travel agent organizing international sporting events, or whatever.

I was hoping the strip would go out with more of a bang. Even if it was awful and stupid. But this is just a pathetic whimper.

11:08 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I don't know how much modern-day Elly has been representing Lynn so much anymore lately; I think she's been living vicariously more through Liz (whom Lynn said also represented her) and giving her a revamped-husband who will obsess over her the rest of her days.

She wants to ditch the older Lynn-dumped-by-Rod-but pretending-to-still-love-John Elly, and retreat to the nostalgic "rosy good old days" (of young, harried, screeching, gobsmacked Elly.)

11:27 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

qnjones,

It actually makes me think that Lynn has some redeeming humanity, if she realizes that Iris is a better person than the jerks who populate the strip.

That she is. I've always had the sneaking suspicion that, deep down, Lynn hates the Patterson family but wants to hide her disgust from the public. A lot of the things we see don't make any sense if you assume she really admires Elly.

2:24 AM  
Blogger Stella said...

Sometimes I think you are too hard on the strip, but this time I agree with your assessment.

Instead of leaving me with misty eyed nostalgia, the ending just leaves me sad. :(

Lynn is doing a good job of allowing her readers to experience exactly how she is feeling inside.

7:51 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm beginning to think that Iris has now become Lynn's avatar. Perhaps she would prefer to have a husband that is totally dependent on her, can't communicate and won't ever leave. Maybe she identifies with the isolation and the suffering.

Sad end to the strip, anyway.

7:56 AM  
Blogger howard said...

qnjones,

I actually wonder if the whole reason we see Iris at the end, instead of Elly, is that the basis for the Elly and John marriage (Lynn and Rod) turned out to be a failure.

I think this has a lot to do with it. I wasn’t sure if Lynn would show Elly and John at the end as a message as to how her marriage should have been and passing that on as a legacy, or if her anger with Rod (evident from mentions in the press just this month) would prevent her from showing them as a couple at all.

Although maybe it's not too surprising, given the interviews Lynn has given about how much she admires long-suffering, non-complaining old people. Iris certainly fits the bill.

Iris as a non-complainer, is a more recent characteristic. After stroke #1, Lynn wrote at least one strip with the Pattersons mocking her for it. Certainly in the last year since stroke #2, Iris has fit the Lynn ideal more closely.

Most notably, there is not enough development of the new family unit that Liz, Anthony, and Francoise form TOGETHER. It is telling that Liz and Anthony are so obsessed with the need to see Grandpa Jim than they forgot their own daughter.

I agree. When I compare this wedding to the Mike and Deanna wedding, Lynn took the better part of 2001 fleshing out relationships between Deanna and Elly, in contrast to Deanna and Mira, to show how Deanna would fit into her new family. What is most telling to me is that new step-mother, Elizabeth’s only moment with little Françoise on the wedding day is to scream at her. There should have been a moment were Elizabeth lets Françoise know that today is the day she is not only getting married but she is agreeing to be her mother. On the other hand, this may be exactly the message Lynn is trying to send. If she is modeling Lynn and Anthony off her and Rod, maybe this is supposed to show the inattention that Rod gave to Aaron.

And what about April? She was totally forgotten after those nonsensical strips wherein Duncan imagined being a travel agent organizing international sporting events, or whatever.

April’s grade 11 year was a complete non-event. She broke up with her band and her boyfriend, and had a career conversation with her friends. If you want to talk about a telling situation with Rod Johnston, then look no further than the complete absence of appearances by Shannon Lake, whose is related in real-life to Lynn by Rod’s brother living with (married to?) her birth father.

11:01 AM  
Blogger howard said...

Anonymous,

I don't know how much modern-day Elly has been representing Lynn so much anymore lately; I think she's been living vicariously more through Liz (whom Lynn said also represented her) and giving her a revamped-husband who will obsess over her the rest of her days.

There is some truth to that. Lynn has said in interviews that much of Liz and Anthony’s romance was lifted directly from hers and Rods.

She wants to ditch the older Lynn-dumped-by-Rod-but pretending-to-still-love-John Elly, and retreat to the nostalgic "rosy good old days" (of young, harried, screeching, gobsmacked Elly.)

I am not so sure this is the motivation. I think the original hybrid of modern strips going to reprints of the old strips was Lynn’s real desire. She wanted to freeze the modern strips in time, and then do gag-a-day stuff with them, while using the reprint strips to give her massive vacation time. I suspect the only reason she is going back in time for the new-runs, is to avoid the confusion the readers complained about with her going back and forth in time.

11:04 AM  
Blogger howard said...

dreadedcandiru2,

That she is. I've always had the sneaking suspicion that, deep down, Lynn hates the Patterson family but wants to hide her disgust from the public. A lot of the things we see don't make any sense if you assume she really admires Elly.

I am not so sure. If the interviewing in Caring Today was any indication, her reaction to her mother’s illness did not seem that far from Elly’s reaction to her father’s heart attack.

11:04 AM  
Blogger howard said...

Stella,

Instead of leaving me with misty eyed nostalgia, the ending just leaves me sad. :(
Lynn is doing a good job of allowing her readers to experience exactly how she is feeling inside.


That is true. The long suspicion of the readers was that Lynn was going to end the strip at the wedding vow, with Liz and Anthony saying the “for better or for worse” line. Having Iris say it in front of Grandpa Jim lying in a hospital bed, gives it a whole different tone, than if it had ended at the wedding ceremony.

11:05 AM  
Blogger howard said...

Anonymous,

I'm beginning to think that Iris has now become Lynn's avatar. Perhaps she would prefer to have a husband that is totally dependent on her, can't communicate and won't ever leave. Maybe she identifies with the isolation and the suffering.

Isolation is definitely a possibility. Lynn has told me that the staff of women who used to work with her to put out the comic strip has now been reduced to a staff of people who work out of their own homes. So, it is not just that she had to fire Laura Piché who did her inking and her background art going to the backgroundless new-runs, but the daily work at her studio is just her and Liuba Liamzini. That is a lot more isolated than having a crowd of women in your studio every day.

11:09 AM  

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