Pablo da Silva Lives!
The second panel line of Connie Poirier in today’s reprint of For Better or For Worse used to be: "I know. Still--when it's the only relationship I've had, it's hard to forget." The main reason Lynn Johnston would be making this alteration is to allow for the Pablo da Silva story to have taken place. Of course, since this is really Lynn Johnston speaking and not Connie, it makes more sense this way too.
Our timeline is then:
Pablo da Silva and Connie. If Lawrence is in pre-school and 4 years old, spent a few weeks together 5 years ago. If Lawrence is in kindergarten and 5 years old, 6 years ago.
Peter Landry and Connie. Assuming the Who's Who time of marriage of 2 years is now correct, they met 3.5 years ago. Married 3 years ago. Divorced 1 year ago.
Phil Richards and Connie. Dated and had sex a few times 4 months ago at Christmas and New Years.
Connie does like those “p” names, doesn’t she? When you get right down to it, I would have to wonder why Connie is so desperate and lonely. We have 1-2 years between Pablo and Peter. We have 8 months between Peter and Phil. You would think, from the way she is acting, she had a much longer time alone.
Without Pablo in the picture and using Peter as Lawrence's father, the timeline with Connie and Peter would have been 6 months dating, at least 6 years together, 1 year divorced. Even without Pablo in the picture, Connie's desperation for a man does not make sense.
On a personal note: The hospital where my mother-in-law is staying has started trying to wean her off the ventilator and let her breath on her own for a few hours a day. So far so good.
Our timeline is then:
Pablo da Silva and Connie. If Lawrence is in pre-school and 4 years old, spent a few weeks together 5 years ago. If Lawrence is in kindergarten and 5 years old, 6 years ago.
Peter Landry and Connie. Assuming the Who's Who time of marriage of 2 years is now correct, they met 3.5 years ago. Married 3 years ago. Divorced 1 year ago.
Phil Richards and Connie. Dated and had sex a few times 4 months ago at Christmas and New Years.
Connie does like those “p” names, doesn’t she? When you get right down to it, I would have to wonder why Connie is so desperate and lonely. We have 1-2 years between Pablo and Peter. We have 8 months between Peter and Phil. You would think, from the way she is acting, she had a much longer time alone.
Without Pablo in the picture and using Peter as Lawrence's father, the timeline with Connie and Peter would have been 6 months dating, at least 6 years together, 1 year divorced. Even without Pablo in the picture, Connie's desperation for a man does not make sense.
On a personal note: The hospital where my mother-in-law is staying has started trying to wean her off the ventilator and let her breath on her own for a few hours a day. So far so good.
posted by howard at 12:02 AM
9 Comments:
howard,When you get right down to it, I would have to wonder why Connie is so desperate and lonely. We have 1-2 years between Pablo and Peter. We have 8 months between Peter and Phil. You would think, from the way she is acting, she had a much longer time alone.
Without Pablo in the picture and using Peter as Lawrence's father, the timeline with Connie and Peter would have been 6 months dating, at least 6 years together, 1 year divorced. Even without Pablo in the picture, Connie's desperation for a man does not make sense.It makes sense if you assume her psychological development has been arrested; she acts not like a grown woman but some screwed-up teeny-bopper who thinks that she'll never, EVER get a date again just because she's in a temporary dry spell. Stick glasses on Greg Evans's Luann, add ten or fifteen years and a beige love child and you'll get the Connie Poitier Elly doesn't understand.
As for your MIL, that is good news. I hope for more of the same.
The original (Pete only; Pete is Lawrence's father and left when lawrence was about 5; Pete left for Brazil) makes more sense that the first or second retcon (Pablo, then Pete - maybe - then a brief fling with Phil).
The original has Connie only having one big, solid adult love relationship. That relationship included a multi-year marriage and the guy went so far as to leave for another continent. She's not used to being on her own as an adult and as a mother. She hasn't had several love affairs and it's not ridiculous that she could feel as if there's no hope for another - even after a comparatively short time.
Not the most mature emotions, as DC2 points out, but understandable as it was written at the time.
After even the first retcon (which is where I decided FOOB had *really* gone off the rails), this makes very little sense. Connie has had more than one love and should be somewhat used to the idea of being on her own in between them.
Continuing prayers for your MIL and her doctors.
DreadedCandiru2,
It makes sense if you assume her psychological development has been arrested; she acts not like a grown woman but some screwed-up teeny-bopper who thinks that she'll never, EVER get a date again just because she's in a temporary dry spell. The psychology actually makes more sense with the words of the original strip. If Connie were a woman who had only been in a serious relationship with one man, and she had thought this would be the only man with whom she would ever have a relationship, only to have the man shatter that notion, it would be a different story. Or rather, it would be the story Lynn had before. In the US, the divorce rate skyrocketed in the 1970s, and Connie’s story was very common by 1980.
When you get right down to it, you have Connie with a son of an obviously different skin colour from her, talking about how alone she is. The implications seem to be that Connie, with her women’s liberation ethic, is also a woman who may have lost the support of her family by marrying a man of a different ethnicity. Lynn Johnston never says that outright, but her loneliness and desperation make it clear that Connie has no support system whatsoever, except from Elly.
Later on, Lynn wrote in the part about Pablo da Silva in order to draw a contrast between Connie’s and Deanna’s medical trips as young single women, and the whole character of Connie changed. Connie is not a little local girl with no worldly experience who got left by the only man she loved. Connie is a worldly woman who intentionally decides to keep a baby in order to try and get a man to move to Canada to marry her. Peter Landry then becomes majour relationship number 2 and with its failure, it casts doubts not on Peter, but on Connie’s ability to choose men. Divorced once, shame on them. Divorced twice, then you better take a good look at yourself.
Back when Lynn wrote in Pablo da Silva though, it didn’t really matter that 1980s Connie was a different person. It had been over 10 years since then and Lynn was adding a nuance which did not exactly work with the strips from 1980. And who can blame her? If you want to do something like that, no one expects you to have been planning it for that long. It was a retcon, pure and simple. The only problem comes if you decide to go back and make it all work together and sell it again. Connie now comes off as a woman who is very disturbed.
As for your MIL, that is good news. I hope for more of the same.Thanks. I do too. I am anxious for a quick recovery, but my wife understands better than I do, that this may take awhile.
InsertMonikerHere,
The original (Pete only; Pete is Lawrence's father and left when lawrence was about 5; Pete left for Brazil) makes more sense that the first or second retcon (Pablo, then Pete - maybe - then a brief fling with Phil).Unfortunately for Lynn Johnston, Peter Landry is not exactly a Brazilian name. She has had an obsession with immigrants to Canada for a long time. If she had gone with a regular, old African-Canadian, it wouldn’t have been so obvious.
After even the first retcon (which is where I decided FOOB had *really* gone off the rails), this makes very little sense. Connie has had more than one love and should be somewhat used to the idea of being on her own in between them.Well, this is really Lynn Johnston speaking. Like Connie she has traveled and been married more than once and it hasn’t been that long since she was married. I can understand Lynn better because she was married for a long time, and she is more accustomed to having someone around. Lynn runs into this issue every time she makes one of her characters herself, and doesn’t adjust the character for the parts where the character is not herself.
Continuing prayers for your MIL and her doctors.Thanks.
howard,The implications seem to be that Connie, with her women’s liberation ethic, is also a woman who may have lost the support of her family by marrying a man of a different ethnicity. Lynn Johnston never says that outright, but her loneliness and desperation make it clear that Connie has no support system whatsoever, except from Elly.Unfortunately for her the retcons make it look as if she has no support system at all; unlike today's strip that has Elly trying her damnedest to be a friend in need, the preceding material makes it look as if Connie is talking to a radio. Lynn's attempts to add depth to the sad story of a local girl whose family disowned her because she married outside their community made a bad situation not only worse but more confusing.
howard, well, as I say over on the Foobiverse, when I was young and read it the first time, "Pete Landry went back home to Brazil" didn't bother me. I figured so what? Name =/= ethnicity. Ethnicity =/= country of citizenship.
Even now, if Pete were Brazilian I'd think: a bit odd, but it works. And I like stories to *stay* reasonable. Retcons had better fit.
My elementary school's history was long on the Metis ... :-)
"Pete Landry went back home to Brazil" didn't bother me. I figured so what? Name =/= ethnicity. Ethnicity =/= country of citizenship.Exactly. It was as if LJ were "fixing" something that wasn't even broken. It's not as if everyone in Brazil is the same ethnicity--they do have immigrants and descendants of immigrants.
DreadedCandiru2,
Unfortunately for her the retcons make it look as if she has no support system at all; unlike today's strip that has Elly trying her damnedest to be a friend in need, the preceding material makes it look as if Connie is talking to a radio. It’s difficult to get support from a Patterson, especially the eternally-busy new-run Elly drawn by Lynn who has forgotten how to draw characters looking at each other.
Lynn's attempts to add depth to the sad story of a local girl whose family disowned her because she married outside their community made a bad situation not only worse but more confusing.Part of the problem is that the depth Lynn is adding is basically Lynn. If we imagine Connie as a 60-year-old woman who was just divorced by man to whom she had been married for more than 30 years, and who left her for a younger woman; then all these issues with loneliness and feeling unattractive work great. Instead we have Connie, who is only 35. She’s saddled with a bad hair cut, but by For Better or For Worse standards, she is one of best-looking characters in the strip, even though the new-runs have taken to dressing Connie like a lesbian mountaineer. She’s not been sitting around alone, but she has a son and has been shown going out on dates, with some strong hints that she has been sexually active after her divorce.
It is pretty confusing, but at least it’s not as bad as when Lynn writes 4-year-old Michael Patterson with the language skills and emotional issues of a 60-year-old woman.
InsertMonikerHere,
Name =/= ethnicity. Ethnicity =/= country of citizenship. You make a good point. I think I have been influenced by Lynn’s own style of character name-choosing in the last few years, where each last name indicates a country of origin, and you can count on every new character being a recent immigrant to Canada.
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