When is a woobie not a woobie?
Feb. 17th, 2011 07:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
perpetual_motionWhen the woobie is Ezra Standish.
I've been dodging around the truth of this statement for awhile, so let me just put it out there: Magnificent Seven (tv version) is a HUGE fandom that is still active even though the show got shitcanned in 1999. This is impressive. This is also one of the most AU-loving fandoms I have ever seen. There's a major one (modern-day ATF), and there's at least a dozen smaller AUs. This is a fandom that loves its characters. But you know what? A lot of the fic is not very good.
There. I said it. Mag 7 does not have a large amount of solid fic. And it hurts me to say that because--as mentioned above--it's obviously a fandom that loves its characters. The pile of fic is ENORMOUS. There are multiple archives. And these archives are still getting updated. These are fic writers who write lots and then write lots more. But the quality? The quality is pretty meh. Some of it downright scares me.
Part of me says that part of this is due to the show itself isn't great television. It's entertaining, and it's fun as hell to watch, but it's no hard look at the American West. It's kind of goofy and silly and the characters can be written unevenly as needed for plot fodder, but it's still got a good heart so I love it to bits. And given that, I can see how the characters can be worked around in a certain idea.
Which brings me to Ezra. I love Ezra. Because Ezra is kind of an ass. He's not quite a buttmonkey, but he fills the roll as needed. And the stories I've read of him (and, hoo boy, have I read a LOT), always, always--ALWAYS--paint him as this loner within the group. He's superformal; he's twitchy; his terrible, sad childhood haunts him. And so on and so forth.
Except, when I watch the show (and I just started the second season on Netflix Instant), he's NOT like that. He does NOT call the rest of the Seven exclusively by their last names. He does NOT continually have a poker face going. He does NOT have issues with personal space. He is NOT some poor little lamb who is forever wrapped in a blanket of extra-strength ANGST over his mother being a heartless monster (which, okay, she pretty much is).
I know some stuff happens a little later in season 2 wherein Ezra's loyalty is tested, and even if that does bring out his angsty side, the fic I'm reading sounds like, post-money, everyone shuns the hell out of him and treats him like shit. Which, um, is kind of--exactly--not the point of a show about seven men who are brought together by fate or awesomeness to save a small, dusty town in bugfuck nowhere. So I feel safe in assuming that while he may get some initial hard looks from the boys, it wears off pretty quickly.
Oh, oh god, he and Nathan do not have some sort of super-tense, ex-slave-vs-southern-gentleman thing going on. In fact, in "Sins of the Past" (which I just watched and prompted this post), Ezra not only calls Nathan (and everyone else) by his first name, but Nathan also scurries AWAY from HIM because he's been busted doing something stupid. Ezra does not taunt him, and Nathan does not try to lord anything over Ezra. In fact, no one tries to lord anything over Ezra, and it's Ezra, in "Sins of the Past" who gets to say some of the kind words to Vin about helping him save himself from bounty hunters. If he's the odd man out, why is he offering encouragement?
So, in short: No, I have not seen the rest of the second season, but based on what I have seen (the first season and the first two eps of the second), I am wondering where the hell Woobie!Ezra came from because I am SO not seeing him.
Feel free to spoil me to any woobiness in the comments. I think spoiler warnings are uneeded as I wikied everything when I watched season 1.
Oh, and on a final note: Josiah does NOT call Ezra "son" every five seconds, and Chris does NOT shit all over Ezra all the time, and what the hell is up with this fandom calling everyone by their profession? I swear to Green Lantern, I'm gonna write a style guide for fic writers. I really am.
I've been dodging around the truth of this statement for awhile, so let me just put it out there: Magnificent Seven (tv version) is a HUGE fandom that is still active even though the show got shitcanned in 1999. This is impressive. This is also one of the most AU-loving fandoms I have ever seen. There's a major one (modern-day ATF), and there's at least a dozen smaller AUs. This is a fandom that loves its characters. But you know what? A lot of the fic is not very good.
There. I said it. Mag 7 does not have a large amount of solid fic. And it hurts me to say that because--as mentioned above--it's obviously a fandom that loves its characters. The pile of fic is ENORMOUS. There are multiple archives. And these archives are still getting updated. These are fic writers who write lots and then write lots more. But the quality? The quality is pretty meh. Some of it downright scares me.
Part of me says that part of this is due to the show itself isn't great television. It's entertaining, and it's fun as hell to watch, but it's no hard look at the American West. It's kind of goofy and silly and the characters can be written unevenly as needed for plot fodder, but it's still got a good heart so I love it to bits. And given that, I can see how the characters can be worked around in a certain idea.
Which brings me to Ezra. I love Ezra. Because Ezra is kind of an ass. He's not quite a buttmonkey, but he fills the roll as needed. And the stories I've read of him (and, hoo boy, have I read a LOT), always, always--ALWAYS--paint him as this loner within the group. He's superformal; he's twitchy; his terrible, sad childhood haunts him. And so on and so forth.
Except, when I watch the show (and I just started the second season on Netflix Instant), he's NOT like that. He does NOT call the rest of the Seven exclusively by their last names. He does NOT continually have a poker face going. He does NOT have issues with personal space. He is NOT some poor little lamb who is forever wrapped in a blanket of extra-strength ANGST over his mother being a heartless monster (which, okay, she pretty much is).
I know some stuff happens a little later in season 2 wherein Ezra's loyalty is tested, and even if that does bring out his angsty side, the fic I'm reading sounds like, post-money, everyone shuns the hell out of him and treats him like shit. Which, um, is kind of--exactly--not the point of a show about seven men who are brought together by fate or awesomeness to save a small, dusty town in bugfuck nowhere. So I feel safe in assuming that while he may get some initial hard looks from the boys, it wears off pretty quickly.
Oh, oh god, he and Nathan do not have some sort of super-tense, ex-slave-vs-southern-gentleman thing going on. In fact, in "Sins of the Past" (which I just watched and prompted this post), Ezra not only calls Nathan (and everyone else) by his first name, but Nathan also scurries AWAY from HIM because he's been busted doing something stupid. Ezra does not taunt him, and Nathan does not try to lord anything over Ezra. In fact, no one tries to lord anything over Ezra, and it's Ezra, in "Sins of the Past" who gets to say some of the kind words to Vin about helping him save himself from bounty hunters. If he's the odd man out, why is he offering encouragement?
So, in short: No, I have not seen the rest of the second season, but based on what I have seen (the first season and the first two eps of the second), I am wondering where the hell Woobie!Ezra came from because I am SO not seeing him.
Feel free to spoil me to any woobiness in the comments. I think spoiler warnings are uneeded as I wikied everything when I watched season 1.
Oh, and on a final note: Josiah does NOT call Ezra "son" every five seconds, and Chris does NOT shit all over Ezra all the time, and what the hell is up with this fandom calling everyone by their profession? I swear to Green Lantern, I'm gonna write a style guide for fic writers. I really am.
