PIERCED and THROUGH A LENS coped out

I have a gripe about PIERECED and THROUGH A LENS DARKLY that I want to air and get comments on.

Both started interesting with Daria taking a tentative step towards being a more normal teenager. In both episodes she rejected this in the end (which I applaud). BUT in both episodes there was an ARTIFICIAL factor that made the rejection not really one of principal

In LENS her contact lens BOTHERED HER EYES. So giving them up was not really principle though she portrayed it as such.

In PIERECED the piercing BOTHERED HER STOMACH So giving it up was not really a principle. I dont' recall if she portrayed it as such, but she did have discomfort that she did something, as Jodie put it ``just for a guy, which would be dumb''

SO in both episodes she didn't really make a hard moral choice or face a dilemma.

Hence her choice was not that bold.

Would it have been a stronger episode if she rejected out of principle?

I tend to think so, but welcome commentary.

[email] (William Gasarch) wrote in message news:...

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So do you mean: If Daria would reject having a piercing/contacts, then the episodes would be stronger? That can't be: Because she didn't came under pressure to do something against her will. She somehow was lured by Trent/Amy to do something you won't expect from her. Removing this "luring" would make these episodes obsolete and she wouldn't have interesting experiances, which show the audience the "darkness" of her soul.

The end of both stories, however follows this canon: "It was just a matter of knowing the secret of all TV shows: At the end of the episode, everything's always right back to normal." (Fry - FUTURAMA)

That is the reason why there is fanfiction.

There are times when principle tags along behind emotion

I liked the episode the way it was, after all Not even Daria can adhere to principle all the time, just like in the episode where she kisses tom for the first time.

"William Gasarch" wrote in message news:attehs$qc6$[email]...

"zarathustra" wrote in message news:NejU9.47294$wQ1.21798@fe01...

adhere to

Well, in the broader sense these "easy outs" actually go towards,first, making a point about the *character*, Daria: namely that she *is* after all, a young person who still has some way to go in the process of acquiring maturity. Someone who is totally secure would just do it, or not do it: Daria is not at that point in life. Notice in "Through a Lens" she is in constant discomfort about how nobody else can perceive her choice exactly the way she does.

Now, she may have got herself worked up over a supposed "principle" about vanity... but what she does discove in the end is the *real*, PRACTICAL "principle" at work: meeting some aesthetic standard is not worth inflicting pain upon herself. That IS a principle; otherwise she would be a Neo-Puritan who somehow thinks contacts and piercings are intrinsecally immoral. She may have started to realize that the "vain" people are NOT everyone who gets the piercing or the lenses, but the ones who insist upon it even though it may be hurting them.

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