I've always felt that young Elizabeth was motivated more by a sense of moral outrage and a fear of failing the state rather than by a fear of being disloyal. Possibly we're just using different terms to say the same thing, since in Soviet Russia, disloyalty was failure. Failing was disloyal.
True--I tend to fall back on that language because that's what Zhukov told her, that she was chosen because of her fear of surrendering to the enemy. But it's too simple to just make it that. Plus people at that time, from what I understand, overidentified with the state.
Elizabeth is definitely morally outraged at the idea of being disloyal and the idea of being that herself would be repulsive.
So far as Paige is concerned, she may have traded in Pastor Tim for Claudia, but if I were Claudia, I would be wary. Paige seems to want and need a cause to believe in, but if she can ditch Christianity after being baptized, she can just as easily ditch communism when the next cool idea comes along. Toss over Pastor Tim and he'll just pray for you and hope that you find your way back to Jesus.
Exactly. However much they "teach" Paige about what it's like to be Soviet, she's American and nothing else. Even faced with her parents being Soviet spies she still didn't really believe she couldn't just tell her Pastor whatever she wanted. You'd have to be crazy to think that just because she was totally into this idea at 18 and 19 it meant she was in it for life. Sure to *them* this cause seems obvious, and the ability to leave it impossible, but that's because they were brought up with it. Paige was brought up with totally different values and still has them. This is all imaginary to her.
I hadn't really given much thought to Philip's family in Russia. that storyline was so poorly handled last season that I think I put Mischa Jr and Philip's brother entirely out of my mind. I wonder if we'll see them this season.
I agree about how they were handled. I was really just furious at them throwing in something as big as Philip having a brother just for one scene where a non-character has dinner with him. But it also feels even more poorly thought out for it not to mean anything to the character we actually care about. And at this point it seems actually relevant to the current story since we're talking about changes in the USSR. Like it does seem like it could be important that Philip has a young family in the USSR that's looking to the future and cares about him compared to Elizabeth.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2018-03-26 04:41 pm (UTC)True--I tend to fall back on that language because that's what Zhukov told her, that she was chosen because of her fear of surrendering to the enemy. But it's too simple to just make it that. Plus people at that time, from what I understand, overidentified with the state.
Elizabeth is definitely morally outraged at the idea of being disloyal and the idea of being that herself would be repulsive.
Exactly. However much they "teach" Paige about what it's like to be Soviet, she's American and nothing else. Even faced with her parents being Soviet spies she still didn't really believe she couldn't just tell her Pastor whatever she wanted. You'd have to be crazy to think that just because she was totally into this idea at 18 and 19 it meant she was in it for life. Sure to *them* this cause seems obvious, and the ability to leave it impossible, but that's because they were brought up with it. Paige was brought up with totally different values and still has them. This is all imaginary to her.
I agree about how they were handled. I was really just furious at them throwing in something as big as Philip having a brother just for one scene where a non-character has dinner with him. But it also feels even more poorly thought out for it not to mean anything to the character we actually care about. And at this point it seems actually relevant to the current story since we're talking about changes in the USSR. Like it does seem like it could be important that Philip has a young family in the USSR that's looking to the future and cares about him compared to Elizabeth.