I phrased that badly. I didn't mean Paige's disenchantment with Pastor Tim would have been easier to buy if we hadn't seen it--I loved seeing it. I meant that it would be easier to buy that disenchantment without seeing it than it is to buy her evolution to where she is now from there.
Iow, at least with the church we would have just been asked to believe that a girl who was really into church at 15 was out of that phase by 19. There's a context for that. Her embrace of 60s Soviet idealism is a lot more extreme and unusual. We know that Elizabeth is the cause of it, but we're not seeing the process the way we saw, say, Martha being turned into a willing traitor.
So really I'm saying I thought it was good they spent time showing us how Paige separated from Pastor Tim and would have liked seeing Elizabeth taking her over just as clearly.
Because you're right, the more I think about it the more there would have probably been a lot of moments to show exactly how the thinking went. Doing it this way implies that all that was important was getting Paige away from her first group. Once she has no leader she's vulnerable to Elizabeth or whoever the closest person is. Once Elizabeth separated the weak gazelle from her herd it was nothing to bring her down. We even saw Paige signal that, imo, when she told Elizabeth she was no longer into the churchy stuff but would still do the food bank. I thought she was basically signalling to her there that she was open to Elizabeth's way.
But still, me clearly seeing how she'd be into it isn't the same as seeing Elizabeth chip away her beliefs one by one, including something so basic as not betraying her country. Especially since the show seems to have portrayed Paige as barely interested in the actual cause she's allegedly passionate about and leaned into this all being about clinging to her mother who only approves of that.
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timeasmymeasure
Re: Paige's conversion
Date: 2018-05-12 04:48 pm (UTC)Iow, at least with the church we would have just been asked to believe that a girl who was really into church at 15 was out of that phase by 19. There's a context for that. Her embrace of 60s Soviet idealism is a lot more extreme and unusual. We know that Elizabeth is the cause of it, but we're not seeing the process the way we saw, say, Martha being turned into a willing traitor.
So really I'm saying I thought it was good they spent time showing us how Paige separated from Pastor Tim and would have liked seeing Elizabeth taking her over just as clearly.
Because you're right, the more I think about it the more there would have probably been a lot of moments to show exactly how the thinking went. Doing it this way implies that all that was important was getting Paige away from her first group. Once she has no leader she's vulnerable to Elizabeth or whoever the closest person is. Once Elizabeth separated the weak gazelle from her herd it was nothing to bring her down. We even saw Paige signal that, imo, when she told Elizabeth she was no longer into the churchy stuff but would still do the food bank. I thought she was basically signalling to her there that she was open to Elizabeth's way.
But still, me clearly seeing how she'd be into it isn't the same as seeing Elizabeth chip away her beliefs one by one, including something so basic as not betraying her country. Especially since the show seems to have portrayed Paige as barely interested in the actual cause she's allegedly passionate about and leaned into this all being about clinging to her mother who only approves of that.