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TriggerHappyJim
Professor
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She turned out fine didn't she?
Remember the reunion in "The Cyber House Rules"? She seemed to have at least some happy memories.
She has a good adult life and certinaly knows how to take care of herself so for God's sake NotHAPPY!, pull yourself together!
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Shiny
Professor
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Except we saw her in a prom dress in the photo album and it looked normal...
Possible fix: she made a prom dress out of carpet remnants, but then someone leant/gave her a normal one before the actual prom.
I think Leela's parents reasoned that being an orphan on the surface was still better than being a mutant outcast in the sewers. It's hard to argue with their logic - the sewer mutants have it pretty bad - but it wasn't devoid of trade-offs, either.
I think I summed up my opinion of their strategy in my "The Other Side of Parasites" story when I had Morris say "I'm beginning to think the baby girl we abandoned at birth to strangers has relationship issues or something."
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Shiny
Professor
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Bender is the one who says "I'm gettin' on the bus!" And while they were all three captured right outside of Planet Express, they could have been taken some distance away by the mutants before they got to the lake. (Bender's toxic waste would have flowed down to the lake, as the lowest point in the sub-city, even if it had to travel some distance laterally)
And yeah, Leela purposefully diving into the mutagenic lake is perhaps the weak point of that episode's plot. That's one of the few things I ache to "fix" in Futurama; I'd have had her try to (say) work her way across the earthen ceiling by grasping dangling plant roots, only one of them breaks off in her hand and she falls. Or maybe swing on the ladder and leap for the balloon only to miss and plummet into the lake.
It's possible that Leela figured the Professor could "fix" her, at least prosthetically, if she grew some extra things; or that she hoped, being an "alien," she'd be immune. I'd say she might even have begun to suspect the truth, but if she had, I really don't think she'd have come so close to almost blasting her parents.
It's hard to escape the thought that she simply wanted to know about her parents SO badly that she was willing to essentially throw her life away, not to mention her freedom to live above the surface, because someone might know something. Which seems out of character to me, but then, it's been shown before (like in "Bicyclops" ) that Leela's one real weakness is that her desire for a family/a past/a people is so powerful that it can overwhelm her caution, her common sense and even her self-respect.
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TriggerHappyJim
Professor
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Shiny, you really do get carried away defending Leela don't you?
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Skyman
Crustacean
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I think Leela's the best female character in any animated show. The (usually male) writers often just make female characters an avenue for jokes about the guys (Marge has to put up with Homer's idiocy, for example). Leela's childhood has a lot of humor potential, and gives her some interesting character traits that work well for the show. She's got a lot more depth than most comedy characters, particularly in cartoons.
I'm in agreement about her rejections too. It makes sense from her perspective, and it also makes the relationship a lot more interesting. The Devil's Hands ending would be meaningless if they'd both felt love at first sight.
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Shiny
Professor
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What Venus said. Also, a lot of the older fanfic is really hard on Leela.
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TriggerHappyJim
Professor
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People look through Fry's eyes and they do so because the show, more often than not, is done in that perspective.
Just remember that Leela remains a character in a cartoon.
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Shiny
Professor
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« Reply #22 on: 02-02-2006 18:55 »
« Last Edit on: 02-02-2006 18:55 »
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Originally posted by TriggerHappyJim: People look through Fry's eyes and they do so because the show, more often than not, is done in that perspective. Of course. Though I actually think there's a bit of cultural bias in there, too...in general, Americans have an anti-elitism bias, and characters with "high standards" are viewed with suspicion. Also, I think we accept flaws a little more easily in male characters than in females. Just remember that Leela remains a character in a cartoon. Of course she does...but human beings do become attached to fictional characters, whether they be animated, live-action, or literary. I accepted many years ago that a lot of my mental and emotional energy was going to be involved in people and places that don't exist; if that makes me a geek, then so be it - I'm comfortable with my geekhood. (And after hearing my coworkers talking about their soap characters like they were real people, I no longer feel quite as geeky... )
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TriggerHappyJim
Professor
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Originally posted by TriggerHappyJim: Just remember that Leela remains a character in a cartoon. I can quote myself till kingdom comes. Don't make me.
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Shiny
Professor
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Originally posted by TriggerHappyJim: >Just remember that Leela remains a character in a cartoon<
I can quote myself till kingdom comes. Don't make me. Now, there's a challenge if I ever heard one... Seriously, what does that matter? Either fiction is meaningful, or it is not; if it is, the form doesn't matter, only the content. If you think fiction isn't meaningful...why are you wasting time on a forum dedicated a meaningless fictional program?
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TriggerHappyJim
Professor
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Don't put words in my mouth! I do think this is worth while but as ever. Originally posted by TriggerHappyJim: Just remember that Leela remains a character in a cartoon.
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SpaceCase
Liquid Emperor
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Originally posted by TriggerHappyJim: Just remember that Leela remains a character in a cartoon. Uh huh. What's your point? Does the fact that; ... Leela remains a character in a cartoon. Somehow invalidate whatever feeling people have for her? If no, why are you posting here? If yes, why are you here at all? For myself, I think Leela is the most compelling character in the show. She's complex, flawed, she has depth. It's these characteristics that make her compelling (and fun to write for). I'll just ooze back out under the door now...
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Shiny
Professor
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But what do you mean by that? What is your point?
If fiction matters, then Leela matters, whether she be cartoon or not-cartoon; so what are you trying to get across when you restate that she is a character in a cartoon? What is the significance of "character" or "cartoon" that I'm not perceiving here?
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Officer 1BDI
Starship Captain
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« Reply #32 on: 02-05-2006 12:01 »
« Last Edit on: 02-05-2006 12:01 »
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Even after episodes like Jurassic Bark and The Sting, you still say Futurama is a "light comedy?" I don't agree at all, but to each their own. *shrug* Well written characters make people feel for them as if they were real. Yes we know she's not but that's not gonna stop us from discussing her psycology as if she were. That's pretty much my sentiment on the issue. Relating to and caring for the characters is what kept me watching the series. I notice many of the posters here write fanfiction. Really, in order to write good fanfiction, you almost have to dissect a character's persona and explore it. Maybe it's just out of habit (or enthusiasm?) that we take it beyond the story.
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Shiny
Professor
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I'm trying, but I'm not getting it. Futurama is light comedy...sometimes. Sometimes they get deeper into the drama. The characters have developed a depth to them that was intentional - Leela's removing her own career chip, and then seeing the moon from Fry's eyes, gave them both something meatier to their characters than, say, those on Family Guy. Given that those moments were in the first two episodes, the inescapable conclusion is that at least the main characters on Futurama were supposed to have a little more to them than just comedy. In addition to the eps that 1BDI mentioned, there's Luck of the Fryrish, Leela's Homeworld, Devil's Hands...
Futurama's status as an animated comedy doesn't invalidate a little deeper interpretation of the characters, and therefore a little deeper identification with them. So I don't see where threads like this are "too much."
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Shiny
Professor
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« Reply #38 on: 02-06-2006 18:51 »
« Last Edit on: 02-06-2006 18:51 »
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Well, if you'd elaborate a little rather than just dropping cryptic statements, the rest of us could discuss what it is you do mean, rather than what we guess you mean. Communicating your ideas is like giving directions to your house...you know the route by heart, but to describe it to others, you have to look at it from the point of view of someone who's never been there before. If you don't give detailed directions, others are liable to take some dramatic wrong turns and wind up on the other side of town. Let's start back at the beginning: Originally posted by TriggerHappyJim: Just remember that Leela remains a character in a cartoon. Other than purely a statement of fact, this doesn't, by itself, tell us anything. You might as well say that "Luke Skywalker is a character in a space opera" or "My friend Sally is a librarian." Obviously this is meant to imply more than the what is on the surface, because we all know she's a character on a cartoon already, so there's no new information communicated by it - at face value. What we've all been trying to guess is what ELSE you mean by this. Apparently you think it's self-evident, but I'm afraid it's not to the rest of us. If you'll just elaborate and tell us straight out what the significance of this statement is to you, then we'll be halfway to a real exchange of ideas.
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