Comments | caboca: My Dr Horrible vs Severus Snape

caboca

My Dr Horrible vs Severus Snape

Jul 23, 2008 23:48

We two young men, A and B. Both are intelligent, uncharismatic, unpopular and deeply in love with a Charitable Redhead. They both share an inexplicable spiritual bond her, but they botch up their romantic prospects when they let their Career in Evildom get in the way. Her attraction to Phallic Opponent shoves them further along the path of bitter ( Read more... )

Comments 5

sixth_light July 24 2008, 04:09:23 UTC

I think you're right in that Billy had more inherent redeemability, but the key difference between Snape and Billy for me was that Snape genuinely loved Lily and had been her good friend - Billy loved the image of Penny but didn't have the guts to talk to her, ignored her in favour of his evil scheme when she talked/flirted with him, and was thrown over the edge by her autonomous decision to have sex with someone else. I think Billy was a better all-around person, but he never really loved Penny-the-person. Snape loved Lily-the-person. And I think that's _why_ he was turned around by a threat to her, where Billy wasn't turned around by Penny's death.

Main trouble is that I was just so incensed by Penny's fridging that I have a hard time thinking coherently about this. :/

caboca July 24 2008, 13:50:10 UTC

Oh, yes, Penny got offed before he got to know her enough, I agree. But he did try. I see why you feel he only loved the idea of her, although I wouldn't say it was just a physical thing. They did talk, with laundry and yoghurt, and he paid attention to her and was as honest as he could be. There was miscommunication, pretending("My role-model is the Black Horse." "The most evil equine villain ever to terrorise the town?" "Gandhi, I meant Gandhi." ~ paraphrasing), but there was also a mutual attraction, shared jokes, a kind of understanding, and overall it felt like their goals were similar, it was just their approach that was different.

It's odd, really, Captain Penis and his fantourage liked used her because she was a vegetarian humanitarian, while he rather liked her in spite of it. And he projected his own goals onto her - we often do, "He will surely like me if I lose a lot of weight", "Surely she shall be happy if I keep playing poker and win her a mansion", and not because we don't know our loved ones - it's just a thing ( ... )

penny_lane_42 July 25 2008, 01:00:24 UTC

Oh, I am so with you on this. I never, never would have thought of comparing the two, but I like this. I can always count on you to have interesting thoughts I never would have!

Her attraction to Phallic Opponent shoves them further along the path of bitter evildom I laughed aloud at this. For real.

And yet, Dr Horrible gets all my sympathy and adoration. Mine, too. I never much cared for Snape. And I admit that a lot of my Billy love is because it's Neil Patrick Harris and it's impossible not to love him, but I just care about him more.

but in truth, all his humanity seems to come from Lily. She is his redemption, and he cares about little else. Very, very true. It's why I was really disappointed by the big revelation about Snape in Deathly Hallows. I wanted it to be more than that, and it wasn't.

... In short: I value the potential to start anew above everlasting loyalty? That, or Billy is the most adorable creature since the pie monster. Both, I think ( ... )

caboca July 25 2008, 23:40:33 UTC

Yay, I'm so glad you liked my analysis. I confess I was thoroughly proud of it, actually ( ... )

penny_lane_42 August 7 2008, 01:03:06 UTC

This was my first experience with Neil Patrick Harris, and I can safely assess I want to shag everything from his voice to his name to that blinking thing and have several of his horrible babies. Yes, yes. I admit to having a crush on him when he was like 15 on that ridiculous "Dougie Houser" show where he played a kid who was a genius and a doctor and it was kind of horrible. But he was so cute! But now he's a million times cuter, and the great tragedy of my life is that he's gay so he won't marry me.

I was surprised by the way he included feminism - 'cause he's glamorously famous for "strong women characters". Not having seen Buffy or Firefly, just picking up some of the media huff - well, I'd expected strong woman character to equate to a macabre, cheeky, rather cruel but kick-ass kind of girl. Penny was... different. Naive, humble ish, caring, easy to hurt or mislead - a lot like a stereotypical hero-girlfriend, yes? You're so right. He does have that reputation because Buffy can kick ass and so can Faith and River and Zoe ( ... )