Logan-centric musings
Apr. 11th, 2006 04:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dangermousieVeronica Mars is on tonight, as opposed to tomorrow. Yay. One less day of wait.
While browsing the TWoP boards, the Logan/Veronica thread, I came across this quote from one of the posters:
"That's sort of the tragedy of Logan, don't you think? It's what makes him a woobie. He's forever giving his whole heart away and only getting a little piece in return."
Which was one of those times when you read something and a lightbulb goes on and you go "exactly. Why didn't I see it before?" I think this is what makes him so attractive. Because, I realized quite a while back, even though the show's protagonist is Veronica (who I like just fine, btw), Logan is my favorite character. In fact, if I had to think of Top 10 VM scenes, I'd imagine the majority would be Logan scenes. My very favorite scene certainly is, and it actually encapsulates the sentiment above perfectly, as it's the scene of Logan, sitting alone in his hotel suite on Christmas Eve, watching the tapes of Lilly having sex with his (abusive) father, torturing himself over and over. I think it's the sleeves pulled over his hands as if he's cold, or maybe the fact that he isn't bawling but his eyes are devastated and teary and his voice broken when he talks to Keith.
Of course, if all he was is a woobie, an angsty mess for the writers to torture, I'd have much less interest in him. I just love the combination of a wholly vulnerable interior with the sarcastic, verbally clever, and yes, quite flawed (he is classist, he is NOT a humanitarian by any stretch of the imagination) rest.
But I think the most attractive thing about him is his passion (and no, I don't mean that kind of passion, get your minds out of the gutter). He is never indifferent. He can be hateful or loving or anything in between, but he is always engaged and he is always feeling keenly (perhaps too keenly). And it's his capacity for feeling and for love, which is a bit of a miracle, considering his up-bringing. He keeps looking for reciprocal love that he's never had from his parents, and after even a little bit of affection, he will cling like a drowning person and return that many times over. He would put much more of himself in than is proportionate, because he is so grateful for caring, and because of this, it would never be an even outpouring of emotion and he will end up hurt, yet this will make him more desperate to find affection and so he will grab onto anything and the cycle would start up again. The fact that he is still desperate for caring and he keeps looking for it over and over again is both sad and touching, and proves that Logan is both damaged and an optimist.
He loves his mother desperately, even though she is a sorry excuse for a mother, letting his father abuse him, spending her days in haze of booze and drugs, and finally abandoning him to his father's tender mercies completely through suicide (not to mention the tabloid stuff she leaked, never thinking the effect it would have on her son). Yet, all he wants after the suicide is to find his mother is alive. He just needs to know she is alive somewhere, and is in hiding, and got away and will never come forward, which is pretty damn selfless.
He loves Lilly, because she showed him easy affection and sex and he latches onto it, even though even before Lilly committed the ultimate betrayal by sleeping with his father, she was far from a good girlfriend and he knew it. His "I loved Lilly. And Lilly loved guys" shows just how well he knew the emotional power imbalance in that relationship.
He holds onto Duncan, childhood friend, who slips into zombie land and later runs off to Mexico without telling him (and a whole bunch of other stuff happens in between).
He hooks onto Hannah, even though it started as a manipulation to get him out of jail, because she believes in him and cares about him, even though she only knows his facade. He just can't remain dispassionate.
And he holds onto Veronica, who showed him caring after his mother's death and with whom he had a giddy and passionate but very brief relationship even after a whole bunch of events which I am sure I need not enumerate.
I think this season he is getting better at letting go, but just a bit. See his watching those Lilly tapes. He is a long way from healed or normal.
I remember when I was first thinking of giving VM a try, I went to look at the cast pics and ended up wondering: "Why is everyone so crazy about Logan. He is strictly average in looks." And then I saw the Pilot and my overwhelming reaction was "this is the guy everyone in fandom wants the heroine to end up with? The guy who taunted her, bashed in her headlights and whom she introduces to the audience as an 'obligatory psychotic jackass?' Are they insane?" Yet, long before the time of their first kiss, I had completely fallen for his character, and realized that good or bad, I couldn't keep my eyes off him, and Logan scenes automatically became favorites.
The thing that I think is most remarkable about the audience's changing view of Logan (for amusement's sake, go read the very early pages of the Logan thread. Everyone hated him) is that Logan is not 'reformed.' Instead, he is revealed. A few episodes in, he doesn't suddenly start helping old ladies across the street, or sees the light and joins the Peace Corps. But we learn what makes him tick, we learn about how much he loved Lilly, we learn about his vulnerabilities. We learn just why he is so horrible to Veronica (and significantly, it makes his reactions human and forgivable without making him either into a Saint or Veronica into a shrew), we learn about his home life and see how much it has shaped his prickliness and sarcasm and solipcism (and once again, kudos to RT for being so subtle and so good about the horrors of the Echolls home. That ending scene in 'Return of the Kane' is haunting more for what it doesn't show, and the show doesn't milk this, in fact barely refers to it afterwards, but you can never forget it, and you can only fully understand his interactions with his father in light of the RotK revelations). In fact, he has no guide in how to be a decent human being, not in the environment he is in, and he is still learning. And another key, understated, subtle revelation (in One Tree Hill it would be the subject of a teary special episode) is that Lilly's death changed him as much as it changed Veronica. Because we don't really think of it, even though we know Veronica's changed. We don't think that it could have the same effect on Logan. We take Veronica's word that he is an OPJ (and yet another instance of an unreliable narrator. We assume what she says is the sum total of the truth, but it's only part and not even she believes all she says) and assume he's always been one.
Basically, Logan is my favorite character because he is so complex. He is woobie and hurtful, snarky and vulnerable, abused boy and social opressor. He is such a passionate, vulnerable, dangerous contradiction, he is irresistable.
While browsing the TWoP boards, the Logan/Veronica thread, I came across this quote from one of the posters:
"That's sort of the tragedy of Logan, don't you think? It's what makes him a woobie. He's forever giving his whole heart away and only getting a little piece in return."
Which was one of those times when you read something and a lightbulb goes on and you go "exactly. Why didn't I see it before?" I think this is what makes him so attractive. Because, I realized quite a while back, even though the show's protagonist is Veronica (who I like just fine, btw), Logan is my favorite character. In fact, if I had to think of Top 10 VM scenes, I'd imagine the majority would be Logan scenes. My very favorite scene certainly is, and it actually encapsulates the sentiment above perfectly, as it's the scene of Logan, sitting alone in his hotel suite on Christmas Eve, watching the tapes of Lilly having sex with his (abusive) father, torturing himself over and over. I think it's the sleeves pulled over his hands as if he's cold, or maybe the fact that he isn't bawling but his eyes are devastated and teary and his voice broken when he talks to Keith.
Of course, if all he was is a woobie, an angsty mess for the writers to torture, I'd have much less interest in him. I just love the combination of a wholly vulnerable interior with the sarcastic, verbally clever, and yes, quite flawed (he is classist, he is NOT a humanitarian by any stretch of the imagination) rest.
But I think the most attractive thing about him is his passion (and no, I don't mean that kind of passion, get your minds out of the gutter). He is never indifferent. He can be hateful or loving or anything in between, but he is always engaged and he is always feeling keenly (perhaps too keenly). And it's his capacity for feeling and for love, which is a bit of a miracle, considering his up-bringing. He keeps looking for reciprocal love that he's never had from his parents, and after even a little bit of affection, he will cling like a drowning person and return that many times over. He would put much more of himself in than is proportionate, because he is so grateful for caring, and because of this, it would never be an even outpouring of emotion and he will end up hurt, yet this will make him more desperate to find affection and so he will grab onto anything and the cycle would start up again. The fact that he is still desperate for caring and he keeps looking for it over and over again is both sad and touching, and proves that Logan is both damaged and an optimist.
He loves his mother desperately, even though she is a sorry excuse for a mother, letting his father abuse him, spending her days in haze of booze and drugs, and finally abandoning him to his father's tender mercies completely through suicide (not to mention the tabloid stuff she leaked, never thinking the effect it would have on her son). Yet, all he wants after the suicide is to find his mother is alive. He just needs to know she is alive somewhere, and is in hiding, and got away and will never come forward, which is pretty damn selfless.
He loves Lilly, because she showed him easy affection and sex and he latches onto it, even though even before Lilly committed the ultimate betrayal by sleeping with his father, she was far from a good girlfriend and he knew it. His "I loved Lilly. And Lilly loved guys" shows just how well he knew the emotional power imbalance in that relationship.
He holds onto Duncan, childhood friend, who slips into zombie land and later runs off to Mexico without telling him (and a whole bunch of other stuff happens in between).
He hooks onto Hannah, even though it started as a manipulation to get him out of jail, because she believes in him and cares about him, even though she only knows his facade. He just can't remain dispassionate.
And he holds onto Veronica, who showed him caring after his mother's death and with whom he had a giddy and passionate but very brief relationship even after a whole bunch of events which I am sure I need not enumerate.
I think this season he is getting better at letting go, but just a bit. See his watching those Lilly tapes. He is a long way from healed or normal.
I remember when I was first thinking of giving VM a try, I went to look at the cast pics and ended up wondering: "Why is everyone so crazy about Logan. He is strictly average in looks." And then I saw the Pilot and my overwhelming reaction was "this is the guy everyone in fandom wants the heroine to end up with? The guy who taunted her, bashed in her headlights and whom she introduces to the audience as an 'obligatory psychotic jackass?' Are they insane?" Yet, long before the time of their first kiss, I had completely fallen for his character, and realized that good or bad, I couldn't keep my eyes off him, and Logan scenes automatically became favorites.
The thing that I think is most remarkable about the audience's changing view of Logan (for amusement's sake, go read the very early pages of the Logan thread. Everyone hated him) is that Logan is not 'reformed.' Instead, he is revealed. A few episodes in, he doesn't suddenly start helping old ladies across the street, or sees the light and joins the Peace Corps. But we learn what makes him tick, we learn about how much he loved Lilly, we learn about his vulnerabilities. We learn just why he is so horrible to Veronica (and significantly, it makes his reactions human and forgivable without making him either into a Saint or Veronica into a shrew), we learn about his home life and see how much it has shaped his prickliness and sarcasm and solipcism (and once again, kudos to RT for being so subtle and so good about the horrors of the Echolls home. That ending scene in 'Return of the Kane' is haunting more for what it doesn't show, and the show doesn't milk this, in fact barely refers to it afterwards, but you can never forget it, and you can only fully understand his interactions with his father in light of the RotK revelations). In fact, he has no guide in how to be a decent human being, not in the environment he is in, and he is still learning. And another key, understated, subtle revelation (in One Tree Hill it would be the subject of a teary special episode) is that Lilly's death changed him as much as it changed Veronica. Because we don't really think of it, even though we know Veronica's changed. We don't think that it could have the same effect on Logan. We take Veronica's word that he is an OPJ (and yet another instance of an unreliable narrator. We assume what she says is the sum total of the truth, but it's only part and not even she believes all she says) and assume he's always been one.
Basically, Logan is my favorite character because he is so complex. He is woobie and hurtful, snarky and vulnerable, abused boy and social opressor. He is such a passionate, vulnerable, dangerous contradiction, he is irresistable.
