FORKNI-L
FORKNI-L Digest - 3 Feb 2001 to 4 Feb 2001 (#2001-41)
Sun, 4 Feb 2001
There are 16 messages totalling 703 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. Nick and Jeanne (was Re: Nick's Failure's As A Sire)
2. LK ending (2)
3. The Stake (3)
4. Last Knight
5. "Last Knight"
6. My take on Last Knight.
7. Casting the First Stone Teaser or What's it all about, Nicky?
8. rambling omnibus post (was: all sorts of things <g>)
9. To Bring Across or not ... (2)
10. (no subject)
11. Canada versions vs US - something to look forwardto
12. Delurking....
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 27 Aug 1956 17:39:30 +0000
From: Jeannie Ecklund <jecklund@l.......>
Subject: Re: Nick and Jeanne (was Re: Nick's Failure's As A Sire)
.that
>would depend upon your perceptions of Jeanne.
Who's Jeanne
Jeannie
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2001 17:03:27 EST
From: Julia Kocich <JKocich@a.......>
Subject: Re: LK ending
Lucia wrote:
> Has anybody ever mentioned that somehow Nick is the Faustian type ?
> <snip> Well, Faustian in some few aspects not all... How about LC as
> Mephisto ?
Well .... <the list ducks for cover> ... as I understand the various
iterations of the Faust story, Mephistopheles is a fancy alias for
the one-and-only Devil of Christianity. LC is not (whatever he might
wish us to think) a one-and-only: he is one of a line that predates
Christianity.
Plus, doesn't Faust sign a contract with Mephistopheles? I just can't
see either LaCroix or Nick as getting that ... um ... scrupulous about
the deal. Vampires whipping out contracts, quills, blotting paper, maybe
a candle to see by, at the crucial moment, somehow ruins the moment,
no?
LaCroix is one particular vampire parent (and child) among many.
Nick is part of that family. (And Nick's battle is with vampirism
as a force, as what he has become, not just fighting to escape a
dysfunctional family.)
Faust was one of many individual victims of the Devil, who got what
they thought they wanted, but no relationship with other victims. That,
plus the fact that women in the Faust story get treated even more
shabbily than the female characters in FK (!), is why the parallel
doesn't work very well for me.
Your mileage may vary (especially if the Faust story speaks to you more
than it does to me <g>).
Best,
Julia
jkocich@a.......
UF list cobra
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2001 14:01:54 -0800
From: Klytaimnestra <lbowman@c.......>
Subject: The Stake
on 2/3/01 12:30 PM, Extremis wrote:
> Why did Nick and Vachon both keep stakes in their
> dwellings?
Why do people keep guns in their dwellings? The idea is, for other people,
as a rule. Vampires seem to be a pretty violent lot. Keeping a stake
around as 'personal protection' against unwelcome callers is probably not a
bad idea, in Loathsome Undead Creatures of the Night society ...
Why does Nick keep his decorated with ribbons? (not that I remember this) -
well, don't people buy guns that have pearl handles and chased metal barrels
and cool carvings on the butts and what have you? This insatiable human need
to prettify things... especially tools of destruction, who knows why ...
K
--
Klytaimnestra lbowman@c.......
Fanfiction at http://members.home.net/lbowman
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2001 16:18:42 -0600
From: "B. Stone" <STONEB@g.......>
Subject: Last Knight
McLisa's post also inspired me to watch LK with a
uncharacteristically irreverent eye:
Nick: Can a vampire have faith?
LC: Now that's a peculiar question at this juncture in time.
[Come on, Ger, old thing, it is *two* *o'clock* in the
blinking *morning*!!!! Let's stake you and get it over
with!]
I've never had faith in anything but myself. I suppose
I've seen too much.
Nick: Well, then, I suppose I haven't seen enough.
[Camera pans to Nat's fully-clothed body.... Her chest
rises almost imperceptibly. Disher is very, very good,
but she is human. And maybe just a tad rebellious. JP
can prevent her from twitching her foot, but by golly,
he'd better not tell her she can't breathe!]
B. Stone
stoneb@g.......
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2001 23:30:28 +0000
From: "A." <fictionbyA@p.......>
Subject: Re: "Last Knight"
B. Stone wrote:
> Were these the words chosen for the voice-over? Do any of us know?
"A glooming peace this morning brings. The sun for sorrow will not
show his head. Go hence to have some more talk... of these things.
Some shall be pardoned, and some punished. For never was a story of
more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo."
take care,
A.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2001 17:26:13 EST
From: LDukie913@a.......
Subject: Re: My take on Last Knight.
In a message dated 02/02/2001 9:23:46 AM Central Standard Time,
LISTSERV@l....... writes:
> But maybe LK is more about HIS loss of faith and hope - the series had been
> cancelled, so he threw in the towel and was determined to kill everyone,
> make all the characters lose faith too, and destroy the hope of the audience
> also. And if so, if that's what was going on behind McLisa's story about
> the struggle over the filming of LK, then James Parriott should be ashamed
> of himself. Just because he was upset was no reason to kill the characters
> off and make the rest of us miserable too.
>
I have to say that this is definitely how I saw Last Knight too. It seemed to
me that it was James Parriott having a temper tantrum and petulantly destroying
everything to punish TriStar for cancelling the show and the fans for not
moving mountains to keep the show from being cancelled. Here's a question?
Has Parriott created or produced anything since Forever Knight? Personally I
can't think of anything but I may just be oblivious. Do you think that what
Parriott did with Last Knight may be part of the reason why we can't seem to
get movies? Maybe TriStar doesn't want to deal with him.
Many of the Truths we cling to depend greatly upon your
point of view. -Obi Wan Kenobi
Lori
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2001 17:57:54 EST
From: WRDRR@a.......
Subject: Casting the First Stone Teaser or What's it all about, Nicky?
All,
I received about a dozen emails re this story so here's the tease for all
those who asked:
Casting the First Stone Rating PG-13 or less depending how conservative you
are.
at ftp://ftp.won.net/winnet/fkvoyage/fkfanfic/deangelo_wanda/
Warning: about 80,000 words (approx 300 pages) for those determined to print
it out.
Special thanks to Marg Yamanaka for authenticating Toronto for me; and to Liz
Newman for the tour of TO in her fab caddy.
<<The murderer waits while his victim dies in violent spasms, then places
three Runes above the head as a message to the police and to Nicholas Knight,
Toronto Homicide Detective and remorseful vampire. The message of the Runes
force Nick to face the blackest deed of his long life and the essential
truths he must face or abandon himself to his cursed life as a vampire
forever.>>
Yeah, I know, but all first books are overly ambitious.
This is btw, fan fic with the emphasis on *fan*. If you see a reference that
seems to sound suspiciously like a reference to (or perhaps an unprovoked act
of war against) a particular faction, it probably is. In fact, I can
guarantee that I did it on purpose. For instance, Tracy wears a magenta
jacket in her first scene. Can you guess why? There is a big rat motif in
the story. Can you guess why? etc. They are invisible unless you are a fan
so pay attention. The flashback will offend everyone but the Dark Knighties.
;-) I will talk Tser into posting an index to the jokes on the Caddywhack
site if there is enuff interest and I get to it.
And I am a hardcore Caddywhack - you'll be able to tell.
I hope this helps everyone get thru until the next FK book is published.
WRD Casting T. F. Stone Caddywhacked with a phone jack in the trunck.
And sorry Steph for hittiing the send key at the wrong time
And thanks for posting this.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2001 21:12:00 EST
From: Julia Kocich <JKocich@a.......>
Subject: rambling omnibus post (was: all sorts of things <g>)
Cindy wrote:
> Agreed. Which is why I can't accept (no matter how grief-stricken Lacroix
> would have been after staking Nick) that he would ever walk into the sun,
> so to speak. Imo, it would go against everything we've been shown about his
> character.
As someone else has pointed out, season 3 did give the
black-and-white, survive-at-all-costs, LaCroix some more
nuance. His baring his chest to the sun in ... um ... The Cure
(?) and telling Nick that Nick would always be his, and the
dispatch of Divia (again, in part over the question of Nick),
make the connection between LC and Nick a more visceral
one that it had seemed in previous seasons. I'm not sure
I buy the setup of LK, but I can see that, having given Nick
his freedom in the only way that would be possible, death,
that LaCroix *might* consider that the final game was over.
I mean, what would he do for an encore? And why? He was
unmoored as a vampire, having lost both his own "sire" and
his favorite child in the space of .. er ... three eps. Even LC,
in my worldview of FK, exists within the vampiric family
structure. Who else is left? Don Constantine? I don't insist
on a romantic notion that "LC couldn't go on without Nick,"
but ... I can consider the possibility that after killing Nick, there
just might seem to be only one logical conclusion for LC <shrug>.
Losing Nick was also a loss in almost a military sense, a
failure. Dunno.
> Is LC's immortal existence founded upon a love of life ...
> or a fear of death, which one assumes, to his way
> of thinking, would mean an end to everything? (For that
> matter, exactly what *does* he think, if anything, lies beyond?)
Great questions! Oh, you want answers???? I think that
it's ego-driven: how DARE the world continue on its merry
way without ME in it?! I think the ten-dollar word for that might
be "existential" <g>. As for what lies beyond, I don't think he
sees anything: to quote Verdi's Iago, "la morte, e nulla" -- death,
and nothing. Essay question: compare/contrast LC and Iago <g>.
Klytaimnestra wrote:
> If Nick followed Natalie into death it would have been for loyalty
> (which a knight would appreciate whether or not the church
> did), not for love (which both the knights and the church would have seen as
> a weakness.)
I also think he would have followed her because he HAD failed
to bring her over. Is that chivalric? I don't know. But after all the
preceding blows, I don't think he could have borne that failure.
Eric wrote:
> What's "weg"?
<weg> = wicked, evil grin. Is it just a UF kind of expression? I
do know I also see <eg>, for "evil grin."
> I think Nick just didn't know what he wanted, or he wanted his
> blood and drink it too.
Well <g> ... a more generous POV was that he knew what he
wanted but was constrained by what he needed and by what he was.
Nick wasn't Hamlet, thinking about what he should be doing. He
was out, doing what he thought needed to be done. And he was
perfectly comfortable using his vamp powers for the good of mortals.
So there's a really complicated relationship between what Nick
was, and what he wished (at times?) that he were.
> I wonder if sometimes Nick got a kick out of it when Nat
> backed off the search for a cure, and considered it an option
> instead. It took the pressure off him, and probably privately
> amused him no end. Maybeeeee...Nick didn't want a cure?
> He just got off on Nat's need to find one for him?
Interesting ideas, but I can't say that I see it that way. I think the
only amusement was on LC's part, at seeing Nat trying to remortalize
Nick. As for the serious question of "did Nick really want a cure," there's
a broad range of opinions. I suspect that Nick believed that he *should*
want a cure; that it would be "the right thing," ethically and religiously.
But that's like my saying, "I should lose forty pounds." Between the
"I should" and actual behavior there is a <sorry> wide wide gulp, er, gulf.
And I do think there was a deep sense of comradeship in that search
with Natalie. She wasn't a charlatan or mad scientist like the previous
mortals who had tried to help him; she really cared, both professionally
and personally. She could and did stand up to LC, which implied a level
of respect on his part, as well. So I think it was a special, genuine
relationship. I just don't think it was or had the potential to be a
consummated romantic one, is all. And one of the things I love about
Nick is that he's like the Road Runner: he doesn't hold a grudge, or
stops to think and remember what LC or Nat or Janette has done or
said to him the last time they met. Maybe the reason for the flashbacks
is that he doesn't dwell consciously on the past in any other way. And
instead of making him a dork, it just makes him harder to pin down, but
more mysterious and interesting.
> That part I got: Nick wasn't in love with Tracy, so he
> had no qualms about bringing her across. What I didn't
> get was Nat's anger.
<smile> I don't know about you, but the first thing that goes
by the wayside when *I* get angry is any semblance of reason
or logic. In this case, I think it was Nat's ... do I mean "id" or
"ego"? ... shouting, "THIS ISN'T FAIR!!!! I WANT WHAT YOU'RE
WILLING TO GIVE HER!!!!" We're talking about those messy
human emotions that predate logical discourse, and which can't
be parsed. (Like, without wanting to start a political discussion,
why so many folks in the US absolutely viscerally hate a certain
former President, as others do a certain current one <g>.)
As for why vamps keep stakes around: the cynical answer is
"You want a TV show for the American audience without weapons
of ANY kind? You outta your mind?!" They make great visuals when
thrown, especially when aflame. Why, for that matter, should candles
and fireplaces be in such evidence around our vamps, given that fire
is an enemy? It's not as if they were living in northern California circa
2001, for Pete's sake! <ducks and covers>
Regards,
Julia
jkocich@a.......
UF list cobra
<A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/1228/">The Unnamed UnFAQ</A>
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2001 16:20:02 -0800
From: Klytaimnestra <lbowman@c.......>
Subject: Re: To Bring Across or not ...
on 2/3/01 12:30 PM, Kit wrote:
> The baronness in ILCK wanted to preserve her beauty,
> but Nick wouldn't bring her across. Either Janette or LC
> did that -- you could pick either, depending on your
> favorite brand of cheese. <g>
I thought that surely Janette must have brought the Baroness across? LC
doesn't appear in the episode. The Baroness triumphantly shows Nick the
fang marks in her neck. Janette appears in the doorway behind her and
smiles at Nick, and says "there are some problems only another woman can
understand" (or words to that effect). The implication, to me, is clearly
that Janette brought her across.
The only problem is Janette's line in IWR that she has trouble bringing
people across. I hypothesize a continuity glitch.
K
--
Klytaimnestra lbowman@c.......
Fanfiction at http://members.home.net/lbowman
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2001 22:29:33 -0600
From: "Nancy E. Kaminski" <nancykam@m.......>
Subject: Re: The Stake
> on 2/3/01 12:30 PM, Extremis wrote:
>
> Why did Nick and Vachon both keep stakes in their
> dwellings?
Well (she said modestly), I wrote a pair of short stories about this very topic.
It probably hasn't been posted on the fanfic site yet, but if you care to read
"The Tale of the Shillelagh o' Doom" and it's sequel, "Some Souvenirs are More
Useful Than Others," I could send them to you. They're about Nick's odd living
room decoration, not Vachon's.
Nancy Kaminski
nancykam@m.......
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2001 18:54:01 -0000
From: Barbara Vainio <bevainio@w.......>
Subject: Re: The Stake
Extremis wrote:
>
> Why did Nick and Vachon both keep stakes in their
> dwellings?
I've wondered that, too. But finally came to the idea that it's the
equivalent of mortals keeping a gun in the house. The need a weapon that
will kill the one group they can't just overpower. And, like mortals, the
thing they need to kill others can also be used to harm themselves.
Barb
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2001 04:39:20 EST
From: Tammie Foley <X7xAngelx7x@a.......>
Subject: (no subject)
<< > Why did Nick and Vachon both keep stakes in their
> dwellings? >>
Why do people have guns in their house? when you live for a few hundred odd
years you get enimies and these guys can hurt you....its probably self
defense, at least in vachon's case. for nick, i wouldnt be suprised if he
gets it out and plays with it whenever he's one of his angsty moods hoping
he'll "accedently" slip or something.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2001 20:08:12 -0500
From: Marg Yamanaka <mytoronto@h.......>
Subject: Re: Canada versions vs US - something to look forwardto
mclisa wrote:
> First, several of us have copies of the Canadian versions, so if you ask
> onlist, you may be able to arrange something offlist. I have copies, but no
> means of reproducing them, so I can't help.
I can help with Canadian versions of FK. Contact me off-list if you
are interested.
--
Marg, in Toronto, the City of the Knight <mytoronto@h.......>
Please visit the Upper Canada Connection -
A Canadian Tribute to Geraint Wyn Davies:
http://members.home.net/gwducc/index.htm
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2001 18:12:31 -0000
From: Jackie Brown <jaxuk1996@h.......>
Subject: Re: LK ending
I know that I'm a couple days behind on posts, but this caught my eye.
Hope I'm not rehashing too much.
Marel Darby wrote:
>To
>me, Nick's death (too easy when in the throes of grief), is a cop-out
>from this 'brutish' life, and it would've taken more guts to live.
To paraphrase Annie Lennox:
"Dying is easy, it's living that scares me to death." (from the song
"Cold" on the album "Diva")
This was the first phrase I thought of on seeing LK for the first time,
and, sadly, I think it still sums up my feelings about the episode.
Until LK, Nick had not ever struck me as the type to take the easy way
out - his religion prohibited it. Added to that fact, which Nick had
had 800 years to dwell on, he loved life - LC said so himself in the
monologue that accompanied LK. I understand that grief and depression
can drive you to many things, but after 800 years of living with grief
and depression, you'd think that Nick would just be used to it by now.
Or maybe I'm taking too simplistic a view?
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2001 11:45:14 -0500
From: urtikit@m.......
Subject: Re: To Bring Across or not ...
Klytaimnestra wrote, re who brought the baroness across:
>The only problem is Janette's line in IWR that she has trouble bringing
>people across. I hypothesize a continuity glitch.
Aye, and therein lies the rub. A continuity glitch is the perfect
invitation to serve cheese.
So when Janette tells Nick flat out in IWR that she hasn't brought
anyone across (N: "So you have done it?" J: "No."), is she lying?
Or has she -- and Nick -- conveniently and surprisingly forgetten
about the baroness?
Some viewers, myself included, have therefore theorized and
speculated that perhaps there is a way to reconcile the two episodes.
Perhaps Janette went to LC and asked him to do the deed.
Sure, we never actually see him in the flashback, but then again, LC
has a penchant for always knowing when his children "need"
him, and showing up....
Wheat crackers and a nice pinot grigio, too, please. :-)
Kit
urtikit@m.......
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2001 18:07:43 -0000
From: Jackie Brown <jaxuk1996@h.......>
Subject: Re: Delurking....
>If you had a chance to actually _be_ one of the characters, who would
>you prefer to be, and who would you most likely end up being?
I'd be Nat. Been there, done that once already. Okay, so I'm not a
coroner, don't know any vampires - that I know of, and don't own a cat,
but I enjoyed my life then, though at the time it seemed like a bit of a
struggle. I occasionally find myself wondering where I'd be now if my
life had carried on like that, but I think it would be much the same as
it has turned out.
Still busy after all these years (apologies to Paul Simon).
Jackie
------------------------------
End of FORKNI-L Digest - 3 Feb 2001 to 4 Feb 2001 (#2001-41)
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