Quick Thoughts On #505 And Season 5 (Spoilers)

Spoiler Space for #505 and Season 5
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     "The Story Of D" wasn't too bad.  Essentially, it was a superficial (it is
a 20 minute cartoon) variation on the "if at first you don't succeed, try,
try....well, you know the rest.  I was mildly surprised by how little
confidence Daria has in her superb writing skills.  Or perhaps it was just the
fear of rejection.  Interestingly, Daria hasn't been cast in the best of light
during season 5.  She was a bit petty in #502, somewhat rude to hapless Amelia
in #504, and actually childish towards Tom in #505.  I think back to season 1
and can hardly remember Daria being portrayed in an unfavorable manner -
perhaps a bit here and there, but not often.  It's almost as if she has
regressed somewhat.  Tom now stands as the most sensible character on the show,
having passed Jane, Helen, and Daria herself for that distinction.
     Other thoughts:  The Fashion Club's role has expanded by almost the same
magnitude as Kevin & Brittany's role has diminished during season 5.  I think
the trade off is more or less a wash.
     Is O'Neill impossible to stand or what?  This guy is really thoughtless.
I haven't liked him since "Esteemsters".
     I believe "The Story Of D" was author Jacquelyn Reingold's first effort,
and, as I said, was not a bad try, though it does not make my personal top 20
all time.  I'd give it somewhere between a B and a B-.  Overall, its been a
good season to date, with only #501 standing out as unimpressive.  Only 2 more
episodes until the mid-season break, so lets hope their keepers.

Yeah, there's a bit of truth about Daria regressing, but not entirely. She IS trying new things - going all the way to the superintendent in the Fizz Ed situation (though she required some prompting), submitting a story for publication, really getting comfortable with having a boyfriend.

As for Amelia, Daria has often been openly rude to people, but in the past she never tried to make up for it. In fact, in the past she seemed to think rudeness was an expression of integrity. If she no longer thinks so, that's progress.

As for being childish, well, she IS Jake's daughter, after all :-)

Tom is certainly sensible, but ...

Don't you think he's acting a bit priggish this season?

Note to Jane Lane: your best friend has a first name. Use it.

I'm not sure there's any more to say about Kevvy and Brit.

The FC is much more interesting.

(Now watch Eichler & Co come up with a kick-ass Kevvy-Brit episode :-) )

I've long thought that too much O'Neill ruins an episode. He's the reason why "The F Word" is my least-favorite episode ever. And I'm not all that big a fan of "Esteemsters", for that matter.

Yes to all in the above paragraph!

M Man

I have always detested O'Neill, and I'm convinced we're supposed to feel that way. Just like we were expected to detest Sandi until her recent reformation.

Steve Cross

Steve Cross said:

way.

O'Neill is a man who wants to be good, but thinks that this consists of simply doing what he's "supposed" to do to be "nice." He's too much of a coward to challenge any of the popular assumptions as to what he's "supposed" to do -- he's probably picked the "sensitive guy" template because it makes the least demands upon him which would put him in any physical or moral danger.

Thus, O'Neill fails to be "good." He cannot help anyone, because his advice and actions boil down to the mindless parroting of what other people have told him is right. In Objectivist terms, he'd be outright "evil" -- a classic "second-hander" -- in most people's terms, he's simply a wimp, someone who lacks the courage to be particularly "good" or particularly "evil." He does show quite well the difference between "goodness" and "niceness."

Note that, when one is under his authority, he can be positively harmful -- in IIFY (the movie) he rationalizes his own fears of the outdoors and of physical injury into essentially imprisoning the camp kids and ruining their summer. And in this episode, he can't control his own desire to boast about Daria, to the point of publicly embarassing her by revealing something he promised to keep confidential.

O'Neill is intelligent enough to realize that Daria actually is especially gifted, and even to communicate with her on her own level (See "The Lawndale Files"). IF he had moral or intellectual courage, he could probably earn her respect. The reason he can't is that he doesn't -- virtually every conversation he's had with her, he's said something which has outright disgusted her by its intellectual cowardice.

Daria, unlike O'Neill, truly _is_ a "good" person -- she has high and essentially rational moral standards, which she seriously, and mostly successfully, tries to live up to -- but she's not particularly "nice" -- she's quite willing to say hurtful things in accordance with her beliefs. Her flaw is in the opposite direction -- she is so determined to be honest that she's sometimes unnecessarily nasty (as towards Amelia in "Camp Fear").

Interestingly, DiMartino is almost O'Neill's polar opposite -- he's been driven insane by the pressures of living in an insane world, and he now snarls angrily at everyone, being unnecessarily nasty in the process, and thus pointlessly alienating people. Someone pointed out on this group that he's what Daria could evolve into, if she's not careful. I think that this is true -- he's a walking cautionary tale.

Janet Barch is interesting as an example of _why_ being like O'Neill is a bad idea. She exploits an aspect of Political Correctness ("women are always right") as an excuse to abuse male students because her husband abused her; she is the dark side of "niceness" in that she is an embodiment of what mindless acceptance of PC (or any philosophy, really) makes possible. In a conceptual sense she abuses and takes advantage of O'Neill's niceness, which may be why they're drawn to each other (it's very obvious from the series that the attraction is very mutual; while Barch initiates all the depicted sexual encounters, O'Neill fantasizes about her and keeps her photo in his apartment).

If they were just embodied concepts, I'd say that their relationship is very sick and destructive. Given that they are _people_, I'm not sure that this is true -- it's possible that, in time, O'Neill may learn some courage from Barch, and Barch begin to become less hostile towards men in general.

I don't know if O'Neill will ever change. He doesn't want to -- change is scary -- and he has a basically happy life at present, so he has little motive to overcome his fears. He also has a _huge_ pseudo-philosophy (PC) telling him that there's nothing wrong with him the way that he is, and blinding him to his own follies.

Janet Barch seems to want him to change, at least a little. But she too would have a reason to fear his maturing (she couldn't dominate him as she does if he grew a backbone), and in any case change must come from within.

wrote:

All I'm going to say about this thread is I really look forward to next week's show when the teachers go on strike.

Now for # 505: I liked it a lot. Daria's writing is something that we don't see dealt with much on this series ( Not since Write Where it Hurts, and that was the second season finale.), and seeing that she is uncertain about it is natural. It's one thing to believe you can write; can you write something someone will actually publish and pay you money for? Yeah, it's a simple message to try,try again, but how many writers get discouraged after the first rejection and never do?

Jeff M.

Jeff Morris wrote:

I suspect too many get discouraged after the first rejection. If I ever write a published story (I've thought of doing so, but it would probably have to be an original story with original characters instead of fanfic), I'd better prepare myself for possible rejection.

Belle Book

Belle Book said:

If you can get one acceptance for every 10-20 rejections, you're really doing quite well. If you can get a conditional rejection ("show us more of your stuff in the future"), as Daria did, _on your first try_ -- you are _definitely_ doing quite well.

Isaac Asimov got _exactly_ that sort of response from John W. Campbell on his first submission to <i>Astounding</i>. He went on to become one of Campbell's favorite writers.

In other words, Tom wasn't just trying to make Daria feel better -- what he told her was absolutely true.

Jordan S. Bassior wrote:

Thanks for the reassurance. I'll take it to heart -- and Tom's reassurances as well. I take it you're speaking from personal experience.

Belle Book

BelleBook said:

Yes. I wrote 25 stories and made well over 100 submissions to get 4 acceptances. Then, the zines which accepted my stories all folded! :P

"Jordan S. Bassior" wrote in message news:[email]...

reassurances

Tiffany: Being an author suuuuuuuuuuuucks.

;-)

Firah

Jordan S. Bassior wrote:

Tough break!

Actually, I also sent a fanfic to a fanzine -- it was a crossover between "Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego?" (my previous fanfic writing experience), and the 1990 version of "Zorro". The reason why I sent it was because it was for a Duncan Regehr fanzine (Regehr's an actor), and the version of "Zorro" I used had him as Diego/Zorro. The fanfic was entitled "A Tale of Two Outlaws", and since it was clearly NOT NC-17 or X-rated (I'd probably consider it G-rated), it was accepted. However, the fanzine hasn't come out yet, as far as I know. However, there's a difference between submitting a fanfic for a fanzine and submitting a work with original characters to a magazine or to a book publisher, and I haven't written any works with only original characters yet.

Belle Book

Um, have you written fanfics?

M Man

M Man wrote:

As a matter of fact, I have -- mostly "Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego" fanfics, plus one Daria fanfic that's been posted on Outpost Daria. And the response I've gotten from those fics have been highly positive. However, responses from fanfic writers or from fellow fans of a series are different from the responses of publishers.

My Daria fanfic is "Inner Demons", and as for my Carmen fanfics, you can find them on two websites devoted to WOEICS. Go to Yahoo, and search from there.

Belle Book

Sorry. I should have scanned BEFORE asking (at least I never kissed a new girlfriend BEFORE breaking up with the old one :-) ). I did scan after asking and found "Inner Demons" last night on Outpost Daria. Very good. The "freaky accusations" were the highlight of the episode - which I think was your intention.

<tooting my own horn>

You might check out "Chocolate Girl" on Outpost Daria's fanfic section if you have some time.

</tooting my own horn>

M Man

M Man wrote:

Hey, that's okay that you didn't scan before you asked. I can take that a lot better than I would if I had a boyfriend and this boyfriend kissed my best friend before breaking up with me (whatever his reasons for not breaking up with me in the first place, and I did try to give Tom some credible ones, even if they didn't justify what he did).

Thanks for the compliment about "Inner Demons" -- and yes, I think the "freaky accusations" were meant to be one of the highlights, if not THE highlight. We might not have been told just WHAT the freaky accusations were -- but I sure could guess, and my imagination simply supplied the details that Tom never gave, most likely because he was so frustrated.

I'll check out "Chocolate Girl", since you were kind enough to check out "Inner Demons".

Belle Book

Jordan S. Bassior wrote:

You have some great theories there about Mr. O'Neill, Daria, Mr. DeMartino, and Ms. Barch.

If Dante was alive in this day and age and wrote the "Inferno" section of "The Divine Comedy", he'd probably put Mr. O'Neill in the ante-Hell (actually outside of Hell proper) -- because Mr. O'Neill is a wimp, without the courage to be good OR evil.

Daria at least has the strength of her convictions and for the most part, is able to live up to them (the most notable example of failing to live up to her high moral standards is that kiss in "Dye! Dye! My Darling"), as you said, but she does have the bad tendency to go in the opposite direction -- being so honest that she gets nasty and risks alienating others. However, maybe she won't go the way of DeMartino -- maybe she can find a way to strike some balance between goodness and niceness.

I wondered if Ms. Barch was attracted to Mr. O'Neill because he was easy to control, but I thought I was thinking like Daria and therefore, watched too much of the show! And actually, there was a prior example of the image of "opposites being mutually attractive" in literature -- "The Scarlet Letter", where Hester's VERY courageous, and Dimmesdale -- isn't. However, his lack of courage isn't quite like O'Neill's -- it's more moral and spiritual, because Dimmesdale is a Puritan minister in Boston in the 1640s.

Belle Book

As neurotic as virtually all the faculty at LHS seem to be, they all seem to be knowledgeable about their subjects and care about teaching.

DeMartino also can't bring himself to OPENLY appreciate the students he does admire - remember his line in "Just Add Water" that Jane and Daria make him want to kill himself a little less than the processed sausages who call themselves their classmates?

The only exception was w.r.t. Quinn in IIFY.

We don't really know that her husband did abuse her. In "The Lab Brat" (I think) Barch is raving in class about how her husband left her and Daria sarcastically murmurs "Gee, I wonder why he left her."

She may have done the cooking and cleaning, but I expect she was a psychological terror to live with.

I doubt if Barch has courage. Assertiveness of a very crude sort, yes, but courage?

And I don't think Barch will become less hostile toward men in general by hooking up with such an unmanly man.

Unfortunately Daria seems to believe (though she seems to be changing) that nastiness is an expression of integrity or sincerity.

Probably "Mr. D" does too.

Does anyone think it may be intentional that DeMartino's BiCapitalized surname can be abbreviated D.M. - just like Daria Morgendorffer?

M Man

Why am I not surprised that Dria viewers know who Ayn Rand was?

P

OK. I give up. Why are you not surprised?

M Man

MMan37x wrote:

Um, because of the prominent mention in episode #208, "Gifted"? Which would lead those unfamiliar with the name to research it.. Maybe there should be a CRGD, Cultural Reference Guide to Daria, like the CRGA that was compiled online for Animaniacs...

A voice crying in the wilderness ([email] (Michael Sears)) was heard to say in :

Sounds like a good idea to me - I'm still trying to figure out the original sources of some of the alter ego pictures. (On the other hand, I think I'm doing better than the people who run the official website, who evidently missed the reference to _Pink Flamingos_ (Sandi as Edith the Egg Lady) and Mr. De Martino as a sideshow geek. (On the other hand, they did get the Henry Moore joke, so I shouldn't be too picky.)

-Mark Steese

Hmmm. One if the few episodes I've never seen. I'll definitely be watching for it in syndication.

MTV's Daria website keeps promising an "Encyclopedia Sardonica", but it's not there yet.

Another reason we've got enough discussion fodder to keep this ng and a lot a fansites going long after the series ends.

M Man

It's not exactly a CRG, but if anyone finds anything mentioned in the show unfamilar let me know. I'll be happy to add notes about things like that to my annotation files.

Sick, Sad World. All the news that can't get us sued. http://www.ssw.net/ssw/

Wraith "That dog's as subtle as a hand grenade in a barrrel of oat meal." -- Foghorn Leghorn

Paul Madison wrote:

SEE! I *knew* this was gonna happen. First it's the Where's Lawndale thread, now Ayn Rand's back.

There's a squirrel army behind this. I can feel it.

Peace Kevin

On 29 Mar 2001 13:17:32 GMT, [email] (KTrick45) wrote:

Could we see a return of the beloved fish?

Kyle wrote:

Dunno. It's a Friday in Lent. Your move.

Peace Kevin

I've been out of circulation for a bit. What *are* you people talking about?

Pierce

Profile: Physically unremarkable

On 13 Apr 2001 02:50:03 GMT, [email] (Pierces888) wrote:

This one goes waaaaaaaaaaay back.

Al52228 said:

I don't think it's that Daria has "regressed", I think it's that she's finding herself in more difficult situations than she used to, and the limits of her maturity are showing.

Tom is in the position of Daria's social mentor, essentially.

Well, how much can you really say about Kevin & Brittany? Neither their relationship, nor their characters, are really all that complex.

He's a hapless wannabe good guy, who totally fails to realize that strength is a pre-requisitie for goodness. The reason Daria doesn't like him, despite his frequent attempts to befriend her, is that she can tell that he's a pantywaist, and she doesn't respect that.

To compare him with her obvious model of male behavior, her father -- Jake is not always strong enough to deal with the world, but at least he _tries_ to be. Tim doesn't even make a credible effort.