(no subject)
For a while now, I've been thinking about the character of Eden and how she approaches the relationships in her life, but it's been kind of hectic around here, so this is the first chance I've had time to sit down and really write this out.
It's a curious thing, because playing Eden is walking a tightrope. It would be really easy to slip and have her become self-contradictory, because she does behave differently depending on who she's around. I think, though, that everyone does. It's been pointed out before that Eden does and it's one of the things I like to play in her -- she's a social chameleon, really, adapting to the people around her. It's kind of fitting, if you think about it. There's that element of adaptation and survival again. She's always been the kind of person to do whatever it took to get by, even to thrive. As a child, that meant keep quiet, being obedient and staying somewhere she was deeply unhappy. She didn't interact much with children her age, but that worked to her advantage -- she was, instead, an observer. When she grew older and had her power to help her, it meant shaking up her moral compass and finding a new north. Likewise, she adjusts to her social surroundings.
In canon, we only see her interact with men while on-screen. The few women in her life appear only briefly, but impact her heavily. Two of these relationships exist only in the comics; one plays largely off-screen, aside from one scene that was cut.
Her stepmother: who appeared only in comic #9 "Life After Eden." I think it's pretty safe to say that most of the blame for Eden's massive guilt complex can be placed on her, as well as Eden's intense dislike of being told what to do. In this interaction, we see Eden -- or Sarah -- as a quiet, obedient girl who never speaks and simply does as she's told as the years go on. From early on, she's learned to be what people want of her. It's not until one night when her stepmother is more than usually cruel that Eden finally snaps and says "I wish you'd just die!" This is the closest she's come to fighting back in her life, only it goes further than she intends and her stepmother dies. This death, the burning of the house and the things said that make Eden snap -- that her father left because of her, because she was worthless and unwanted and didn't tell him to stay -- all add to that burden of guilt she carries still.
Claire: There's one scene between the two of them, most of which was cut from the aired version of the episode. The cut version shows Eden and Claire as good friends, with Eden almost as an elder sister figure and Claire teasing Eden about a possible boyfriend back in New York, all while Bennet looks on. It's fairly clear that Bennet orchestrated their friendship to play on both Eden's guilt and her loyalty -- to increase the weight of what it is she has to do. In the version that aired, the two are strangers, even awkward around each other, and their meeting is short-lived and largely centered on their individual interactions with Bennet. Even without the friendship angle, though, Claire's impact on Eden's life is obviously life-changing. Bennet tells her "You need a goal, Eden. A purpose," and the purpose he gives her is the protection of Claire. Eden's obviously a young woman of high passions and, until she finds commitments to equal her focus on Claire, she is devoted to the younger girl, protective of her to the point of arguing with Bennet and physically kicking ass.
Elle the one who got her ass kicked for spying on the Bennets. While there's nothing to support the girls knowing each other well, the fact that Elle already knows who she is indicates that they are familiar with each other -- likely because Elle's been temporarily transferred to Odessa, so they work in close quarters. Mostly, though, this interaction just underlines that Eden will do just about anything for the people she loves.
And she does love -- quickly and readily and deeply. This is more readily apparent in her relationships with the men in her life. More obvious, too, is the changeability of her outward behavior. She takes a different role with each one, though it's the same girl underneath every version. She becomes different selves, but they're all the same self.
Mohinder: With Mohinder, Eden plays the love interest. She's dry-humored and playful, flirtatious, at once a breath of fresh air and a constant reminder of his work -- because she pushes herself to be, always questioning and encouraging. The desire to know more is a ploy to help her achieve her mission for Bennet, but it's also a consistent part of Eden, appropriately enough. She's also consistently supportive. With him, however, she never plays up the chaster, more maternal/sisterly angle seen in other of her interactions. Instead she leans in close over his shoulder and tells him he needs sleep and kisses him. Again, this is Company work -- but it's also not, and we can see here that Eden is quick to care. Despite everything she's been through, she's a soft touch and Bennet uses that to his advantage by making her care about Claire. When it comes to Mohinder, it's only a liability -- as with the father, so with the son. It's her friendship with Mohinder's father and her feelings for Mohinder himself that seal her fate, in combination with that previously instilled disdain for being commanded.
Isaac: I've never actually understood why people shipped Eden and Isaac, beyond their both being attractive. Eden herself says she's been in the same position as Isaac, and I think she sees more of herself in him than she sees a love interest. She's tender, but in an almost maternal manner (I feel strange using that word for her because she is very young). When they part, she kisses his cheek, not his lips. She sets him free, but that's as much because she likes him and freedom of choices as it is because she's angry with the Company. She plays the role of the benefactor, teaching him, helping him to regain his footing, and we see again how supportive she can be -- and how quickly she becomes attached. Her argument with Bennet clearly shows that she cares about Isaac as more than a Company project.
Bennet: In interactions with Bennet, Eden takes on a role she couldn't play as a teenager -- the rebellious daughter. She's more than willing to speak out now, lashing out when she disagrees, which is often. This says that, not only does she feel close to Bennet, she's comfortable with him in a way she never was with her own family. Bennet may argue and Eden may require reminding that he is, at the end of the day, her boss and not her friend or father, but the fact that she fights back shows that she's confident in both herself and in him. She feels secure that he's not going to leave her or hate her or cut her off if she has a voice of her own. The playfulness seen in her interaction with Mohinder and, to some extent, Isaac, is absent here, however, as is the softer side she shows Isaac. She's more sure of where she stands with Bennet. She's known him longer -- and, more importantly, he knows what she is. While Eden lives, Mohinder is unaware of her power, and neither he nor Isaac know that she's killed before. There's no need to smooth out her edges with Bennet, because he knows better.
Sylar: The shipping that goes on regarding these two surprises me far more than any inclination I've seen in fandom toward Isaac/Eden. Sylar's attitude toward her in 1x11 makes it pretty clear that, while he may have noticed her when he was visiting Chandra, he didn't pay much attention to her -- just enough to suspect he recognizes her ("I do know you, don't I?"). Eden's awareness of Sylar is far greater than his of her, and it's almost certain that she knew what he was when he was Gabriel -- and equally certain that, if she suspected he was dangerous, there wasn't anything she could do about it when orders from Bennet would have been to remain as inobstrusive as possible in order to avoid a) disturbing Suresh's research or b) calling attention to herself. She goes to that cell with every intention of killing him, then returning to Mohinder to continue to "make things right." This is the version of Eden, then, that is at once Company girl and rebel -- capable of being a calculating killer, but not of following Company orders; capable of rationalizing the need to kill, but not of barring the emotions that get so much in her way. If her interactions with others show us that Eden is quick to love, her brief scene with Sylar shows she's equally passionate when she hates. The only emotions he stirs in her other than animosity are self-doubt and guilt. This is a man she hates enough that she'd rather take her own life than help him.
She's different to each and the same with each, and the influence of Bennet and the Sureshes on her life seems to indicate a tendency toward dependence. That makes sense, given how many people she's lost in her life. She's been told before that it's her own fault if someone leaves her, and though she's older now and doesn't quite believe it, that thought is still a part of her consciousness. That she would, therefore, hold to the people who matter to her and make her own emotions clear makes a lot of sense.
This is even more true in her island canon, where people can and do disappear. In fact, almost everyone who's ever mattered to her in her life has been lost to her in one way or another: her mother died when she was very young, her father walked out, she killed her stepmother. Chandra Suresh was murdered, his son left for India and she told Isaac to walk away. Everyone else went with the end of her own life. On the island, she's lost a handful of people: O-Ren, who was good to her early on; Sandy, who was a friend; Nathan, whom she'd grown to like. More importantly, both the Bennets are gone. It's no wonder she's strengthening her ties to those who remain.
If she can sometimes seem dependent, though, it's not limited to the men in her life. One of her most important relationships is her friendship with Penny Lane; she'd be lost without Penny, broken-hearted. Female friendships have been rare for Eden, and she's more accustomed to dealing with men. Even on the island, most of her friendships are with men, and even with them, she plays roles the way she did at home. With Penny, she adapts herself into a kind of nouveau Band Aid, although their closeness means that, as with Bennet, she is increasingly comfortable in her own skin.
Again, on the island, she plays a different version of herself for every one of the people in her life. Around Claude, she slips into a mode somewhere between Company girl and the role she played with Bennet; it's not even that she doesn't trust him so much as it is that she matches his gruffness with her own attitude. With Rupert, she's a hybrid of her L.A. self (assured, flirtatious, outgoing) and her Brooklyn self (wry, playful, but toned down somewhat). It's as if she's not allowed to be serious with him -- unless the moment requires it, at which point she softens into that sisterly figure again, protective.
For Gideon and Desmond, she begins to take on the same role filled by Julie, Desmond's girlfriend, but on a platonic level. She is with him almost as she was with Isaac, but Gideon's roughness gives her license to be similarly sharper, snarkier, at the same time causing him to unconsciously tone himself down a bit.
Her "self" around Brodie is more complicated. She's never played the part of the girlfriend before, and she's still not entirely sure what exactly it encompasses. She tries hard not to be so serious around him, conflating her worrying and problems with being unable to give up her past, and seeing Brodie as part of this concept of the blank slate. Forcibly avoiding the past, however, only causes her to dwell on it; to rid herself of it, she'll need to let it go by coming clean -- and she's aware of this. Caring for Brodie as much as she does means, too, that she increasingly wants to come clean with him and be open and let all of that go. The trouble here was, initially, that she was worried that the knowledge of what she had done (the deaths of both her stepmother and herself) would scare him off. Although this is still true, it's developed into something else as well. There's now the sense that, if this is, in fact, a blank slate, then nothing can be done to change her past, and there's no need to place the same burden of knowledge on Brodie that she herself carries. Still, at the end of the day, he and Penny are the two people most allowed to see her clearly.
She's constantly running from herself, and I think that, at the heart of things, she's still much more "Sarah" than she'd like to admit. Dying shook her up and, even as she rebuilds her confidence, her insecurities are on full display again when it comes to the people she cares about. Just as she adapts to make her way in the world, she continues to shift and change in order to keep hold of her relationships and to try and maintain the upper hand. Here as with so much else in her life, it becomes a matter of survival of a different kind.
I kind of love that a lot. I never set out to have "themes" with pups or whatever, but they sometimes pick them up on their own. With Inara, it's a concern for control; with Meredith, it's her insecurities and flaws. For Veronica, it's trust and love and everything that's part and parcel of her canon. In writing Eden, I come across the same things again and again: hope, redemption, adaptation, knowledge -- all themes funnily appropriate to her chosen name and her previous life as an enabled human.
And that's enough rambling for one night. Given how late it is and how little sleep I've had, I'll be pretty surprised if this still makes sense in the morning.