Sam and Dean Winchester--Favorite Character Tuesday

Awhile ago I wrote a post stating the belief that Supernatural had gone on too long, indicating that the show was simply working too hard to outdo previous seasons.

A person should be woman enough to admit when she was wrong. Season 11 surprised me and ended far differently than I anticipated, but truthfully, that isn't the only reason I'm withdrawing my objection. I'm afraid I'm going to have to admit it. I'm in love with Sam and Dean. It feels like a dent in my status as a feminist to admit this. They are extremely macho, and whenever we see them interacting with women in a romantic capacity (which isn't often), they are pretty much dicks about it. But I can't help it. I'm in love. My son is rolling his eyes at me (in my imagination, that is). According to him, every woman is in love with Sam and Dean.

There are so many things not to like about them. They lie. A lot. Even too each other. Especially to each other. They use people. They have an extremely unhealthy attachment to each other. They make deals with demons for each other, go to hell for each other, betray damned near anyone to protect each other. Dean unleashed the Darkness into the world to protect Sam, and Sam sets Lucifer free from hell for Dean. Part of this is love for the other, but a lot of it is a pathological inability to face life without the other.

Despite knowing all this, I'm in love. True, they are incredibly sexy. Damned fine.

Seriously, look at that and argue with me.

But that is only a small portion of the reason I'm in love.

They have dedicated their lives to helping other people. They go to any distance for a friend in need and often do the same for a stranger. But worse for me, their good qualities are only another small portion of the reason. 

If you're a regular reader of my blog, you probably think you know where I'm heading. Yes, you guessed it. They are tortured souls. I'm unsure why I'm so drawn to the tortured soul. Give me someone who has been screwed over by life, and I swoon. (Maybe not swoon, but you get the idea.)

Life was pretty good for Dean for the first few years. Then a demon killed his mother while Sam was

in the cradle, and it all went to hell. Their father become so obsessed with avenging his wife that he forgot he had responsibilities to his living children. Hunting the demon who killed his wife, he dragged the boys around the country, staying in cheap motels, and giving them limited access to education. He rapidly parentified Dean, leaving both boys for long periods of time and having Dean care for Sam when he wasn't really old enough to take care of himself. This robbed him of his childhood. Later, Dean started going with their father, fighting creatures of darkness long before he would have finished high school. This left Sam completely alone, often in cheap motels until he, too, was deemed old enough (at far too young an age) to join them. No wonder, they're messed up and have a pathological attachment to each other.

As they've grow older, their problems just have gotten worse. Both have spent time in hell, being tortured. Sam lost his soul for awhile. They made mistakes in which things have gone badly and people gotten killed. Their entire life is dedicated to hunting and killing creatures of darkness. Yes, they're tortured souls.

So, it's okay with me if they make several more seasons.

Phédre nó Delaunay--Favorite Character Tuesday

Today's favorite character comes from Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Legacy series. Phédre nó Delaunay is an amazing character. She should be another one of my tortured souls, but despite her life, somehow she is not. Phédre is sold into indentured servitude as a child and is raised to be a prostitute and spy for her master. She becomes the ultimate BDSM submissive. (If you are curious about BDSM, read Kushiel's Legacy, not Fifty Shades of Grey. Carey understands it as James does not.) Prostitution is seen as a noble profession in her society, which doesn't have our society's hang-ups about
sex. Still, one would think such a childhood would leave a scar.

Instead, Phédre becomes a strong woman who not only revels in sex, but becomes much more when
her country becomes threatened. She uses her intelligence to uncover a plot against her kingdom, and with her bodyguard/later lover, Josselin, works to thwart it. In their relationship, there is never any doubt that Phédre is the dominant partner. However, her power is the power of her intellect. Josselin is the bad ass fighter, but it is her mind as often or more than his skills that get them out of trouble and solve their problems.





Throughout the series, she never loses this combination of sexuality and intelligence. She is always comfortable in her body and with her desires, something far too few of us real women are. But she is never defined by it, or at least not by it alone. Her relationship with Josselin is deep and lasting, but it never becomes the focus of the books. It is her mind that helps her to become a true hero. Many literary strong women seem more like men with breasts, but Phédre remains very feminine, proving the femininity doesn't need to mean weakness. For Phédre, it is strength.

The sexuality in the books is quite graphic, so but if that isn't a drawback for you, she is a character you will fall in love with.

Check her out in the first book of the series, Kushiel's Dart, and I guarantee you will want to read the rest of them. If you do, let me know what you think in the comments below.

Sookie Stackhouse, Charlaine Harris's mind reader

I'm back to my favorite character series this week with Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse. Harris introduces Sookie in Dead After Dark and does a marvelous job developing her after the 13 book series. True to my affinity for the tortured soul, Sookie has her fair share of trouble, chief among them is her ability to read minds. She refers to it as a disability because she can't turn in off but has the

Charlaine Harris

constant buzz of other people's thoughts in her mind. First, the inability to get some mental quiet would be maddening, and also, as she lets us know, most the time people are thinking about pretty boring stuff. It's also made having a relationship with a man impossible for her because she hears every non-flattering thing men think about her, things that most men have sense enough to keep to themselves.

Her life is further complicated when vampires enter her orbit. At first, she thinks this is a wonderful thing because unlike humans, Sookie can't hear vampire thoughts. She's able to have a quiet mind with a man for the first time in her life when she begins dating the vampire, Bill, and is amazingly grateful to lose her virginity to him. However, her heart is broken when she learns that he was ordered to get close to her.




Besides her disability, I like a lot of things about Sookie. Harris doesn't succumb to the temptation to make her extraordinary in other ways. She remains a believable character. Sookie never becomes a
great fighter, and she remains a waitress throughout the series. Still, she is a strong woman who thinks for herself and always tries to do the right thing although, like all of us, she sometimes fails in this.

Don't judge Harris's books based on the HBO series, True Blood. They are a lot better. In True Blood, the characters aren't as interesting, the plots more far fetched, and the gruesomeness that I was okay with when reading about made me a little sick seeing it on the screen. I didn't get much past the first season. Besides, can anyone tell me what the theme song, "I want to do bad things with you," has to do with anything?

If you've read the series, share your thoughts. If you haven't, you should check it out. You can get Dead After Dark by clicking on the link below:

Sherlock Holmes is Elementary

On today's favorite character Tuesday, I will indulge more in my love for the tortured soul by analyzing the greatest detective of all time. Although I've taught Sherlock Holmes in my literature classes and I will be so again, I've never been a fan of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Despite the dozens of stories Doyle wrote about him, Holmes is never developed past the rough outlines of his character. There is always an extreme distance between the reader and the character. Also, Holmes does everything too easily. He's too perfect to be of much interest.





When I saw that Sherlock Holmes is one of my favorite characters, it isn't Doyle's creation I'm Elementary that I have in mind. Sherlock Holmes purists far prefer the Holmes in British TV show Sherlock, but I have to disagree with them. Yes, the British show portrays Holmes closer to the one imagined by Doyle than the American program, but as I said, I'm not really a fan of Doyle, and the Sherlock Sherlock is a dull character.
referring to. Rather it is the Sherlock Holmes of the TV show

The Elementary Sherlock takes pieces from Doyle's creation, but re-imagines them in ways that creates a very appealing character, the ultimate tortured soul. Sherlock is the child of a cold, unfeeling father who sent him to boarding school very young to get him out of the way and still only sees him as an annoyance to be avoided or as a chess piece to be used. Throughout the first few seasons, Holmes's father would repetitively claim to be coming to visit. Sherlock assured Watson (another great character for another time) that his father wouldn't show, and he never did. In the last season, his father takes a more active role in Sherlock's life, but only because he is using him in a game he's playing.



Because of his father's coldness (and probably other reasons), Sherlock grows up as a person unable to relate to others on a human level. He is a narcissist concerned only with himself. And he becomes a drug addict whose addiction spirals out of control and nearly destroys his life. In Elementary he is trying to put his life back together. To do so, he must learn how to be human. Watson becomes his first friend. We see him struggling to relate to her as a person rather than as a useful piece in his own game. He is often rude and selfish, but he grows as a person as the relationship becomes so important to him that he realizes that he must change his behavior in order to maintain it. I also love that the relationship remains a friendship only. There is not any sexual tension between them. They are friends and partners, not lovers or potential lovers.

But Sherlock isn't magically transformed over night by his relationship with Watson, we see him continue to struggle to apply what he's learned with Watson to other relationships in his life. He grows in a believable manner that makes him one of my favorite characters.

What's your opinion on the Sherlock versus Elementary question? What's your opinion of Sherlock Holmes in any of his manifestations?