Well, I'm late to the party, but the fact that I felt compelled to make an lj account and comment when this thread is almost certainly dead says something about Iolokus.
I get where they're going with it. Really. And in a lot of ways, I appreciate what they're trying to do in letting Mulder and Scully actually experience the trauma of everything that's happened to them. I like seeing Scully having some agency, too, since so often it seems like she's just along for the ride, having bad things happen to her instead of being an active player in her own storyline.
That being said, I just can't get behind the characterization. So much of what makes Mulder and Scully good partners, lovers, and characters is that even when things are terrible, they draw upon each other's strengths to get them through, but Iolokus completely undermines that. It's as though all of their worst qualities have become their defining characteristics. Their mutual trust, respect, and friendship have been traded in for a miserable codependence and an angry desire to consume and hurt the other. And tastes of that - that would be understandable, given the circumstances, but their entire existences, both together and as individuals, have been squashed in favor of making them as bitter and spiteful as possible. They aren't themselves, but charicarures of rage meant to star in misery porn.
I really struggle with Mulder being characterized as a literal sociopath. Mulder, who on many occasions has bonded deeply with and wept for the people he encounters in his investigations. Mulder, who was handed the people who were responsible for Scully's abduction and the perfect opportunity to kill them, but decided not to because that wasn't who he was or wanted to be. Mulder is arrogant and often too caught up in his own world to truly be there for Scully, but a sociopath? Hardly.
And then there's Scully, who stands up for women and is by all means a compassionate individual suddenly taking sexual advantage of a prisoner... And Mulder, when he's intensely drugged and in no real position to be initiating a sexual relationship. These consent issues are not only treated flippantly in the story, but they're wildly out of character for Scully.
There are elements of the relationship dysfunction that are, deep down, pretty spot-on, but they're executed to such extremes that it seems at times as though Mulder and Scully are enemies. There's certainly legitimate despair between them - they both need something from the other that they probably won't ever fully get. But at the same time, there's genuine affection and warmth and respect, and there's no evidence of that here.
I'm all for flawed characters and messy relationships and spiraling downward in response to trauma, but there still has to be balance. Almost no one is their worst self 100% of the time, and those people certainly aren't out fighting in the name of what's right and good. Mulder and Scully are human beings, and snuffing out all of their light isn't a meaningful, or realistic, way to write them dealing with trauma. Mean, sarcastic quips don't count as lightening things up.
All in all, it just seems like deeply dysfunctional despair told in a million flowery metaphors and attempts at symbolism. In it's desire to show Mulder and Scully unraveling, it completely loses track of the basics of who these characters are. In attempting to create complicated, messed up characters, this story ironically just creates shallow, angry vessels who share little more than a name with Mulder and Scully. Iolokus is all heavy-handed bitterness and fire with no nuance.
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winterfish
no subject
Date: 2016-05-14 08:05 pm (UTC)I get where they're going with it. Really. And in a lot of ways, I appreciate what they're trying to do in letting Mulder and Scully actually experience the trauma of everything that's happened to them. I like seeing Scully having some agency, too, since so often it seems like she's just along for the ride, having bad things happen to her instead of being an active player in her own storyline.
That being said, I just can't get behind the characterization. So much of what makes Mulder and Scully good partners, lovers, and characters is that even when things are terrible, they draw upon each other's strengths to get them through, but Iolokus completely undermines that. It's as though all of their worst qualities have become their defining characteristics. Their mutual trust, respect, and friendship have been traded in for a miserable codependence and an angry desire to consume and hurt the other. And tastes of that - that would be understandable, given the circumstances, but their entire existences, both together and as individuals, have been squashed in favor of making them as bitter and spiteful as possible. They aren't themselves, but charicarures of rage meant to star in misery porn.
I really struggle with Mulder being characterized as a literal sociopath. Mulder, who on many occasions has bonded deeply with and wept for the people he encounters in his investigations. Mulder, who was handed the people who were responsible for Scully's abduction and the perfect opportunity to kill them, but decided not to because that wasn't who he was or wanted to be. Mulder is arrogant and often too caught up in his own world to truly be there for Scully, but a sociopath? Hardly.
And then there's Scully, who stands up for women and is by all means a compassionate individual suddenly taking sexual advantage of a prisoner... And Mulder, when he's intensely drugged and in no real position to be initiating a sexual relationship. These consent issues are not only treated flippantly in the story, but they're wildly out of character for Scully.
There are elements of the relationship dysfunction that are, deep down, pretty spot-on, but they're executed to such extremes that it seems at times as though Mulder and Scully are enemies. There's certainly legitimate despair between them - they both need something from the other that they probably won't ever fully get. But at the same time, there's genuine affection and warmth and respect, and there's no evidence of that here.
I'm all for flawed characters and messy relationships and spiraling downward in response to trauma, but there still has to be balance. Almost no one is their worst self 100% of the time, and those people certainly aren't out fighting in the name of what's right and good. Mulder and Scully are human beings, and snuffing out all of their light isn't a meaningful, or realistic, way to write them dealing with trauma. Mean, sarcastic quips don't count as lightening things up.
All in all, it just seems like deeply dysfunctional despair told in a million flowery metaphors and attempts at symbolism. In it's desire to show Mulder and Scully unraveling, it completely loses track of the basics of who these characters are. In attempting to create complicated, messed up characters, this story ironically just creates shallow, angry vessels who share little more than a name with Mulder and Scully. Iolokus is all heavy-handed bitterness and fire with no nuance.