Meta - Etymology of names in Dollhouse
I actually posted this to dollhouse_meta about a week ago, but it doesn't seem to be a very active community. Either that or nobody but me cares about the way they've named the characters :(
Anyway, I thought I'd repost it here on my journal, in the hopes somebody else would find it interesting!
Warning: Spoilers for episodes 1.01 - 1.04
Etymology of names in Dollhouse
I’ve been intrigued since I watched the first episode with the naming of the Actives. Names are one of the most powerful tools writers use to tell us about characters when we meet them - taking Joss Whedon’s use of names in previous works, for example, in Buffy the Vampire Slayer Joss used names that seemed like contradictions for his characters. Buffy is not a name you would have associated with a butt-kicking, evil-fighting woman, and Faith was faithless, at least at first. Another Eliza Dushku character was named for her strong sense of right and wrong - Tru (from Tru Calling) always tried her hardest to do the right thing, even if it was bad for her. Names have power.
The use of names for his characters in Dollhouse tells us a lot about them and their world.
First of all, Echo is the perfect choice of name for our main character Active. Two of the definitions of echo are any repetition or close imitation, as of the ideas or opinions of another; a person who reflects or imitates another. How fitting for a person who has no thoughts of her own but can only be somebody else, whoever they tell her to be! She reflects back at them what they have put into her, is programmed so that that is all she can do!
I have to wonder if the connection this week with the Elgin Marbles and the pantheon - the classical depictions of the Greek Gods and Greek mythology - is a subtle connection to the legend of the nymph Echo, who was cursed by Hera into only being able to repeat back what was said to her first. In some ways you could say that out Echo is the same as that nymph, unable to express herself - even when she is wiped, she follows protocols and sentences that have been programmed into her by the Dollhouse, trusts who they program her to trust, does only what they tell her she can do. She is told that Sierra is to be a new friend for her, and henceforward they are friends. Would they have become friends if Topher hadn’t said that to her? Who knows?
The way they have used the military alphabet in Dollhouse is also interesting, from a meta perspective as well as for what it tells us about the mysterious company that runs it. By using names for their Actives that come from a strictly regulated list, The Company depersonalises them, little better than if they had given them numbers. They are not, in the realest of senses, names, especially when you take into account the conversation between Boyd and Sierra’s handler in the third episode - that this is “the new” Sierra, suggesting she is only the most recent of many. They have made their Actives replaceable, giving them the same names as their predecessors rather than giving them individual designations, like parents replacing a child’s pet with another, giving it the same name and hoping that the child won’t notice.
From a meta perspective, Joss has chosen to give the Actives we have come into contact with so far with designations that sound like they really are names, choosing Echo, Sierra and Victor for them instead of using something more abstract, like Whiskey, X-ray or Yankee. It would be easy enough to use names that would have less human personalisation to them, but this makes them people to us, even if they are only the most recent of many Actives. Who could empathise with a person called X-ray?
In stark contrast to this is Alpha, abstract, unknown, made inhuman by giving him an inhuman name. If you think of the discussion between Topher and Boyd in this week’s episode about how the Actives are “herding like bison”, while the housed Actives might be bovines, prey, Alpha suggests a wolf, a predator. The word can be defined as having the highest rank of its sex in a dominance hierarchy: the alpha female, or being the most prominent, talented, or aggressive person in a group: the alpha male of investment bankers. Alpha is a dangerous, powerful Active, with ‘gifts’ we don’t yet know about and the ability to kill almost indiscriminately and do any number of impossible things. The very word makes him sound more threatening, scary, in charge and in control of everything that happens and impossible to challenge.
I love how carefully the names have been chosen! It’s all so cleverly calculated to evoke feelings in the viewer, to infer things about the characters, and I will be very interested to see how other characters are named as the show continues, what their names suggest about them and the deeper workings behind the Dollhouse.
Anyway, I thought I'd repost it here on my journal, in the hopes somebody else would find it interesting!
Warning: Spoilers for episodes 1.01 - 1.04
Etymology of names in Dollhouse
I’ve been intrigued since I watched the first episode with the naming of the Actives. Names are one of the most powerful tools writers use to tell us about characters when we meet them - taking Joss Whedon’s use of names in previous works, for example, in Buffy the Vampire Slayer Joss used names that seemed like contradictions for his characters. Buffy is not a name you would have associated with a butt-kicking, evil-fighting woman, and Faith was faithless, at least at first. Another Eliza Dushku character was named for her strong sense of right and wrong - Tru (from Tru Calling) always tried her hardest to do the right thing, even if it was bad for her. Names have power.
The use of names for his characters in Dollhouse tells us a lot about them and their world.
First of all, Echo is the perfect choice of name for our main character Active. Two of the definitions of echo are any repetition or close imitation, as of the ideas or opinions of another; a person who reflects or imitates another. How fitting for a person who has no thoughts of her own but can only be somebody else, whoever they tell her to be! She reflects back at them what they have put into her, is programmed so that that is all she can do!
I have to wonder if the connection this week with the Elgin Marbles and the pantheon - the classical depictions of the Greek Gods and Greek mythology - is a subtle connection to the legend of the nymph Echo, who was cursed by Hera into only being able to repeat back what was said to her first. In some ways you could say that out Echo is the same as that nymph, unable to express herself - even when she is wiped, she follows protocols and sentences that have been programmed into her by the Dollhouse, trusts who they program her to trust, does only what they tell her she can do. She is told that Sierra is to be a new friend for her, and henceforward they are friends. Would they have become friends if Topher hadn’t said that to her? Who knows?
The way they have used the military alphabet in Dollhouse is also interesting, from a meta perspective as well as for what it tells us about the mysterious company that runs it. By using names for their Actives that come from a strictly regulated list, The Company depersonalises them, little better than if they had given them numbers. They are not, in the realest of senses, names, especially when you take into account the conversation between Boyd and Sierra’s handler in the third episode - that this is “the new” Sierra, suggesting she is only the most recent of many. They have made their Actives replaceable, giving them the same names as their predecessors rather than giving them individual designations, like parents replacing a child’s pet with another, giving it the same name and hoping that the child won’t notice.
From a meta perspective, Joss has chosen to give the Actives we have come into contact with so far with designations that sound like they really are names, choosing Echo, Sierra and Victor for them instead of using something more abstract, like Whiskey, X-ray or Yankee. It would be easy enough to use names that would have less human personalisation to them, but this makes them people to us, even if they are only the most recent of many Actives. Who could empathise with a person called X-ray?
In stark contrast to this is Alpha, abstract, unknown, made inhuman by giving him an inhuman name. If you think of the discussion between Topher and Boyd in this week’s episode about how the Actives are “herding like bison”, while the housed Actives might be bovines, prey, Alpha suggests a wolf, a predator. The word can be defined as having the highest rank of its sex in a dominance hierarchy: the alpha female, or being the most prominent, talented, or aggressive person in a group: the alpha male of investment bankers. Alpha is a dangerous, powerful Active, with ‘gifts’ we don’t yet know about and the ability to kill almost indiscriminately and do any number of impossible things. The very word makes him sound more threatening, scary, in charge and in control of everything that happens and impossible to challenge.
I love how carefully the names have been chosen! It’s all so cleverly calculated to evoke feelings in the viewer, to infer things about the characters, and I will be very interested to see how other characters are named as the show continues, what their names suggest about them and the deeper workings behind the Dollhouse.