Yes, just recently I came across a comment I made where I'd been talking to somebody who didn't like Stan, and they were basically trying to argue that things like the poor writing (in their view) of Stan was what turned people off the show. I had said that people found the show boring and that's why they said they didn't watch it. They felt that when people said "It's boring" they meant the characters were boring. And that was just obviously not true at all, imo. It wasn't that people were following the character arcs close and thought the characters were boring, it was that they watched for twists in the spy plot. So unless a talking scene directly led to a big plot development it was a wash out because it didn't lead anywhere.
Where really all that stuff is the meat. I was thinking last night a lot about how I imagined, character-wise, how Philip and Elizabeth would react to Paige telling Pastor Tim and for me, at least, it felt like there were all these passing character moments that seemed like they could lay the groundwork for it. That's the sort of thing that usually matters.
It was also doubly interesting to think about because with Elizabeth you had a specific backstory to apply to the situation, while with Philip it was just patterns of behavior which made it even *more* subtle. Because you didn't even have flashbacks or past incidents that were discussed, it was just noticing what things he's reacted to in the past and how and what that might say about his character without having any explanation. Not to mention, too, that with characters like Elizabeth we're sometimes meant to understand more about her than she understands about herself. So again, you often have to look at things characters have done rather than even what they say, and what people say always takes precedence in the mind of the viewers. (Here too there's Jared claiming he killed his family out of loyalty for the cause, but that's totally not what happened.)
no subject
Where really all that stuff is the meat. I was thinking last night a lot about how I imagined, character-wise, how Philip and Elizabeth would react to Paige telling Pastor Tim and for me, at least, it felt like there were all these passing character moments that seemed like they could lay the groundwork for it. That's the sort of thing that usually matters.
It was also doubly interesting to think about because with Elizabeth you had a specific backstory to apply to the situation, while with Philip it was just patterns of behavior which made it even *more* subtle. Because you didn't even have flashbacks or past incidents that were discussed, it was just noticing what things he's reacted to in the past and how and what that might say about his character without having any explanation. Not to mention, too, that with characters like Elizabeth we're sometimes meant to understand more about her than she understands about herself. So again, you often have to look at things characters have done rather than even what they say, and what people say always takes precedence in the mind of the viewers. (Here too there's Jared claiming he killed his family out of loyalty for the cause, but that's totally not what happened.)