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Cobralily
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Re: Whatwith the "theories" about V being gay...
i have to see that! when is it on?
--- How do I love \/? Let me count the ways!
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10/27/2006, 10:13 am
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Leda74
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Re: Whatwith the "theories" about V being gay...
quote:
Cobralily wrote:
i have to see that! when is it on?
Here, it's Wednesday nights at 9pm. I don't know when it'll make it over the Atlantic. I'm sure it will at some point, though, being as it's a "Doctor Who" scion and I know the good Doctor has proven very popular over there 
--- "What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil" - Friedrich Nietzsche
"V For Vendetta" Shrine
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10/27/2006, 11:15 am
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Cobralily
VEEK
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Re: Whatwith the "theories" about V being gay...
i've been a dr who fan sice i was 11 and tom baker was the dr. I adored him! 
--- How do I love \/? Let me count the ways!
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10/27/2006, 11:32 pm
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VendettaObsession
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Re: Whatwith the "theories" about V being gay...
My theory is that V is a lesbian Not Valrie, but her lover, Ruth. V became man-ised from steroids in the concentraton camp mixed with other chemichles. Im sure others have heard this theory, and im tired so i dont really feel like going into it. But if you really want me to explain it all then i can.
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"only the things that matter."
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12/24/2006, 6:54 am
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friendlysolarflare
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Re: Whatwith the "theories" about V being gay...
According to the GN, Ruth killed herself in her cell because she couldn't live with her betrayal of Valerie.
Furthermore I doubt that Delia Surridge would refer to "the Man in room five", if the person in fact was a woman.
But please feel free to tell us about your theory
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12/24/2006, 7:41 am
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CyranoRox
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Re: Whatwith the "theories" about V being gay...
Does justice ever need forgiveness?
This has been on my mind lately. V executes poetic and complete justice on Evey, the betrayer, the coward, the child greedy to go home and feel better - and from that complex act of justice proceeds Evey, the true, the brave, the woman who can face anything.
Remember that Evey offered to Lilliman exactly the bargain that V/interrogators demand: his life for her release.
His act accomplishes punishment, redemption, education, transformation, and that most impossible of worldly boons, the opportunity to take back an evil deed. He changes her, and then sets her the same problem, but with the example of Valerie's purity of love, and she achieves her moment of sublimity, her lovely strength, her poised beauty in requesting to be shot behind the chemical sheds.
It's perfect. She benefits from every aspect and he does nothing that diminishes the result. Does it hurt? of course. But her fault has been choosing to avoid pain.
The Christ-haunted BW are playing with images from theology; thus Evey plays Eve, the betrayer, and Second Eve, ie, Mary Theotokos, who redeems the choice of the first in saying Yes [though Evey says No, but the link is there]. V, of course, plays God; but then he admitted it when he met her.
As an OT image, V is reminiscent of the God who purifies his beloved, through dreadful tests and struggles, against Himself in disguise, to make a fit bride for himself.
They slip in and out of the archetypes, like Bharatanatyam dancers doing Krishna, Shiva, Lakshmi, etc, shifting from one moment to the next. So a little later she's the Magdalene to his Christ, and he talks about the Tree waiting [or not] for him, and Finch is the Centurion - or even Paul, the persecutor.
So to tie it back to the early part of the thread: V is not like Creedy, because Creedy is not in the business of justice [la giusta vendetta], but mere power. Creedy's cruelties only harm the innocent and guilty alike, that is, have no Purpose but his own gratification, but V's terrible justice restores innocence to the guilty.
Redzen challenged us with this:quote:
V is different from Creedy in his transgressions of free will, consent, respect and dignity, but tangibly - clearly - only in context, execution, and especially outcome.
Of course we could never accept the same transgressions from Creedy. And the reason is, from Creedy, these three things - especially the outcome - would be different. Creedy would transgress for objectives that may even be noble and beautiful - but Creedy would never be able to succeed in those intentions. He can't, nor can the rest of Norsefire - because they don't have V's understanding, skill, or power. And this impotence - this outcome - would make Creedy's transgressions unforgiveable. That is all. And I believe that is what makes the question so complex: because our principled mind is flailing for a rational maxim - an intellectualization - to justifiy why our heart accepts what V has done, as it rejects all of the Creedys of the world committing (in principle...) the same transgressions - when in reality, it is all about nothing but what V has the power to do with those transgressions. Had V been someone other than V, and failed in his execution, failed in liberating Evey from her fear, and merely broken her - due to lack of insight in the use of his own power, as Norsefire is incapable of creating a perfect society no matter how much they transgress, because their grasp of the world is flawed - I challenge any to disbelieve that you would think V's actions wrong, and unforgiveable.
But that is an irrational and unprincipled measure of right and wrong. And that makes acceptance of what V does to Evey disturbing. It's not about principle, and it's all about V.
So what am I getting at? That what bugs many about V and E-V is that, because of context, execution, and outcome, V has transgressed - and redefined! - lines which lie at the very deepest places of our being.-snip-We've redeemed what he has done, even if we are reluctant to embrace that redemption. Even if your (intellectualized...) principles remain intact, and even want to condemn V, experiencing his actions has spoken to your heart, and your heart loves him for what he has done. And heart wins over the rational mind, every time.
The answer, that preserves the justice of V, turns on the question of identity between the act as done by Creedy and as done by V. There is no such identity, because an act includes the motive, expectation, and a slippery something alluded to as poetic justice, a grace beyond the reach of art, or transcendance. Even if you grant Creedy the intent of overall good [though utilitarianism is a form of evil in the romantic cosmos], he hurts this one to help that one - lesbians, to help Britain, or children, to aid his party's rise. Creedy calculates, plays 'lets you and him fight; V always stakes everything, throws in his whole purse, risks what he holds dearest - and loses it, as the mirror breaking scene makes clear.
Redzen asks, too; had V failed, would we not condemn him just iike Norsefire? Not in the way we condemn Creedy, but as imprudent, as too certain of himself [but see my other post on certainty], as a bloody fool - not as a plain villain. We would say he should not have attempted that; I still would not say he was simply evil.
Moreover, can you imagine Creedy et al giving Valerie's letters to Evey, buliding her strength and resolve? Using clean water [the shot emphasizes this] to plunge her face in? Give her a toilet that flushes? Leave her skin intact? Feed her no drugs? Tell her no lies, as jailers do, perhaps that V has already betrayed her, or that there is another woman? There's never a hint of sexual violation, no unspeakable drabbles on her thigh, no vomiting, no ugly words.
Consent? I'd say Evey's betrayal of him is a kind of consent; she certainly consented that someone wind up in a black bag, namely V. Dr Delia, too, consents, and her innocence is explictly restored.
So if the heart, that deceitful yet discerning mirror, wins over reason, perhaps that is because reason has not the reach and range to achieve understanding here. The heart is not always sub-rational: it perceives musically, erotically; it can attain a sunlit landscape of meaning where reason walks in dark night feeling its way.
Work with play the happy differentiation! - between the analysis of reason and the synthesis of the heart
Last edited by CyranoRox, 7/1/2007, 6:32 pm
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6/28/2007, 7:21 pm
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CyranoRox
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Re: Whatwith the "theories" about V being gay...
Continued from the last post.
The imprisonment/torture sequence solves a number of problems for V and Evey, in the mode of V's other solutions - eg the apron scene, the chalk mark etc
Evey, as of the first captivity, cannot be trusted, and must stay her year. She proves him right - she was not able to keep the promise she offers in the first Shadow Gallery scenes. He can't trust her, and he knows it, though there are hints that he would like to.
When he does release her, she takes his life in her hands - she walks out the door, she knows the address. Worthy of trust, she gains the freedom she once tried to buy with his life.
So to bring this argument nearer to full circle: V's justice restores her innocence, redeems her betrayal, and finally hands her as a gift her own life, and his- - everything that was bargained for or bargained away, as an extravagant gallantry.
But of course V is entangled, immanent - as if he forgot that he was in the play he played: he can't evade falling in love, as she grows lovely. From here, this line of thought needs to move to the mirror-breaking scene.
Work with play the happy differentiation! 
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7/5/2007, 6:49 pm
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RedZen
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Re: Whatwith the "theories" about V being gay...
You're obsessed, Cyrano. ^_^
But you've a talent for conjuring imagery:
quote:
As an OT image, V is reminiscent of the God who purifies his beloved, through dreadful tests and struggles, against Himself in disguise, to make a fit bride for himself.
At first I disliked your analogy, until (much later) my thoughts chained into a realization that we see marriage to God differently, and that your idea of God is much more like V than mine.
Your analogy between these two relationships, the more I think about it, is movingly apt... I wish more people thought of God the way you do. quote:
Redzen asks, too; had V failed, would we not condemn him just iike Norsefire? Not in the way we condemn Creedy, but as imprudent, as too certain of himself [but see my other post on certainty], as a bloody fool - not as a plain villain. We would say he should not have attempted that; I still would not say he was simply evil.
I doubt many would. Though the outcome would be different, the context and execution would still be V: the noble vindicator angel, to whom Evey owes her life. V captivated Evey (and the viewer) before he tortured her; had that transgression been done without this prior context, his transgression would be simply that, I think... a forever unforgivable transgression. And likely lead to a failure of outcome as well, given even the same execution, as Evey wouldn't trust V to carry her up to the rooftop.
*
But what, then, of the contrast: what if we'd seen Creedy in a context, preceding the story by seeing Creedy in his moments of great poetry?
What if we'd seen the story of his ascent to power as a sophisticated Dirty Harry, rising against a sea of honorless, brazenly villainous individualism? What if we'd seen his fascist gestapo begin with punishing pedophile gangs, arresting and humiliating muggers of the elderly; his torture protecting the delicate and innocent from the brutal street parasites of society? What if we saw Creedy command the respect of the finger cadre who followed him into death against V, and if we saw a Canon version of a world without Creedy, in which a tide of of leprous gypsy fugitives overwhelmed an England that has become a hellish Children of Men type chaos; desperately in need of a Machiavellian "Man of Virtu" to restore order? In that context, the very same Creedy might seem more complex.
If we saw Creedy as the protector and lover of fragile orchids before he fell into madness, and if we saw his execution of this purpose as having it's own Clint Eastwood kind of poetically just "principles" up until the story of V, and we saw the Outcome being dark, but a demonstrably greater good, we perhaps wouldn't see Creedy as a "plain villain" anymore, even given precisely the same actions (murder, torture, deceit...). Even if every one of his other actions in the movie was left quite unchanged.
That said, I don't think context could ever truly elevate Creedy from the sin of Saint Marys... he would be difficult to love as a character. Even in the best of portrayals, Creedy's heroism would be an icy and Machiavellian man of said virtu, and such men are ugly. Perhaps the most difficult to fall in love with of all. But that said: if, despite all of this, and by some amazing storytelling feat of context and circumstance, Creedy succeeded in winning some part of our respect and sympathy, his transgressions would achieve a status above "simply evil", wouldn't they? I think many would find it difficult to condemn Creedy in the same way. Creedy the shield of Orchids couldn't be Creedy the Spider anymore.
*
To be sure: In the Wachowski universe, I imagine that an unveiling of the unknowns of shadowy Mr. Creedy would reveal a context without poetry, an execution without beauty, and an outcome that would be better off without Creedy having been around in the first place. My point is that, our condemnation of Creedy rests upon context, execution, and outcome, much more than upon the principle methods of transgression he particularly employs... IE, "torture", "murder", "evil gestapo tactics". The principles are abstract for most, whereas the story is what the soul elevates as meaningful.
*
Does this mean that it's wrong for story - for perceived and subjective beauty - to supercede principle?
(as I'm saying that it de facto does, whether that's wrong or not)
When Nietzsche said that what's done out of love takes place beyond good and evil, he meant that about any kind of love: the love for a woman and the redemption of her soul, the love of Mother England against enemies, the love of a principle of dignity and restraint from torture, or even the love of the "good" which the love in the quote supercedes.
Nietzsche, I feel, would have seen the almost superhuman generosity of V's love for Evey, and wept for it - and placed it above all traditions of good and evil.
But Nietzsche qualifies this very much by another of his quotes... "Art is for artists, and artists only!" Basically, that his labyrinthine geometry of rules of love and beauty is valid (and even intelligible!) only for those poetic and deep souls whose burning heart may experience and understand the superceding sacredness of great love.
I'm certain he would have seen Cyrano as one such kindred spirit.
Last edited by RedZen, 7/10/2007, 9:11 pm
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7/6/2007, 5:50 am
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V4Valentine
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Re: Whatwith the "theories" about V being gay...
quote:
friendlysolarflare
I love your icon. Just wanted to get that out there.
quote:
Not Valrie, but her lover, Ruth
That theory sounds weird and improbable. But I do like it so. xD Even though I'm fairly sure it isn't true, it sounds interesting.
Last edited by V4Valentine, 7/11/2007, 4:06 pm
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7/10/2007, 11:49 pm
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