I got into a weird exchange on IO9. Someone was complaining about the last episode, because it took a character he didn't really like and made her into a Mary Sue. This took me aback.
He says--what? She's better with computers than SAM??? Well, yes. She inherited that from Frank, who inherited it from Ash. Lots of people are better at computers than Sam. This doesn't make her special. The fact that she's being treated like a genius and gets to go off and have the magical adventures and have gay babies with the gay icon...just too much for him.
What I really don't understand is why the episode where she shows up with a database of monsters that the guys had never taken a moment to put together, outshoots Dean, replaces Sam on a hunt, gets called a little sister, and Dean (effectively) tells her he loves her--that needed a straw to break the Mary Sue back? After the Moondor episode where everyone is trying to get into her pants and she makes it with a fairy--that was okay?
I guess I didn't see a trigger last week. I thought if you had gotten past especially last episode, this was what you'd signed up for, so no sweat.
She's not my dream, except in literal dreams I've had--she isn't
aspirational,
is what I mean. But she's clearly what an unsubtle queer fan could put in and get mary sue labels and not be able to argue her way out from underneath it (did we cover her tragic and noble past yet? We could spend some time with that too, if you want...)
Like you said, lots of people are better at computer hacking than Sam. If they weren't, we never would have been introduced to Charlie, and Sam would have hacked Dick Roman's computer or whatever.
But I do think, as much as I love Charlie (and Robbie Thompson), Robbie Thompson is a little too in love with her. There's a bit of Frankenstein's monster adoration there, or something.
There's plenty of room to criticize Thompson for the special snowflake-ness of Charlie (not so much this episode, but in previous ones). But I still tend to enjoy those episodes, and when I see his name I can at least reassure myself that there won't be reapers moonlighting as mercenary thugs from Phillip Marlowe novels or people fucking their pets.
Oh, exactly, Matt. If a writer's going to have flaws, I much prefer his. And I love Charlie! If it's a Mary Sue I like, then I don't really care.
Since she was introduced, I think this is the tamest the writer-crush on her has been.
I hope Show got good money for their Surface use. It is one of the more subtle I've seen (check Vampire Diaries for the opposite of that word), which makes me think not.
The Microsoft Surface (see what I mean about subtle?). It's the device Charlie hooks up to Ye Olde Time Computere to download and decrypt the files.
I adore Charlie, but also think of her as the straight male fantasy of what it would be like to be a hot geek lesbian. Does she strike anyone else that way?
I am obviously the wrong person to judge, but I didn't think so. She struck me as more adorable than hot--but Felicia Day has never been attractive to me, not with that haircut. There's also nothing that codes gay (and what do I know about that?) for me in her appearance. Geek, yes.
Sometimes I find myself thinking that the new semi-permanent cast are too quirky, and then I remember Ash.
I have thoughts and questions about coding as gay, and how that is relevant or necessary on TV specifically, but am too tired to voice them properly. And may idicate that I need some schooling.
