DARK SHADOWS FORUMS
General Discussions => Current Talk Archive => Current Talk '25 I => Current Talk '02 I => Topic started by: Joeytrom on March 06, 2002, 11:43:07 PM
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Lets not knock her being "dumb" at stating that people she meets in 1795 resembles present day characters.
Lets take them one by one:
Barnabas- She meet him first in 1795, so naturaly she would think he knows her.
Sarah- Vicky is still new in 1795.
Nathan Forbes- the first lookalike with a different name from a present time person. This is a natural mistake.
Naomi Collins- Again, she is still confused, being in 1795 a short time.
Abigail Collins- Vicki just woke up and would naturally believe she was seeing Mrs. Johnson at her bedside (after thinking she dreamed what happened before), so this case of mistaken identity is not unusual at all.
Jeremiah Collins- He resembles her fiance, believed to be dead, so on first sight this is justified.
Joshua Collins- She was startled by his resemblense to Roger..but didn't say anything.
Natalie Dupres, Josette Dupre.< Andre Dupres- Well...I guess I can't defend her anymore...except for....
Ben Stokes- Well, she was almost killed by Matthew Morgan, so naturally she would be shocked.
Joey
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You certainly are giving poor VIcki the benefit of the doubt...and I'm sure most people would have reacted the same way Vicki did...at first, that is. But once the circumstances became apparent, I think a person of average intelligence would figure out that he/she better play along...especially with Abigail the witch hunter watching their every move.
I'm sorry, I still think Vicki is just dumb ;)
MrsJ.
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I'm afraid I have to agree with Mrs. on this one....Vicky's behaviour was just dumb. Who in their right mind would treat an accusation of witchcraft so lightly in 1795?
Didn't this girl read "The Crucible"?....or live through the McCarthy Hearings?!!
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I guess Victoria thought the witch was the only REAL person since she had no one to compare her too ...
S
P
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until the return to the 20th Century in a couple of weeks!
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Ben Stokes- Well, she was almost killed by Matthew Morgan, so naturally she would be shocked.
Joey
and MM is DEAD [or did he get better?]
and Mrs. J adds
>and I'm sure most people would have reacted the same way Vicki did...at first, that is. <
yep, after a few of these, and esp. the encounter with the [crazd] Abagail, the art of holding the tongue shoulda been the order of the century!
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I think vicki's acceptance that she is in 1795 Dumb
I would have been thinking did someone slip me some mushrooms? I'm having a bad trip after all this is the sixties!! Would you believe you traveled back in time?
Cart me off to Wyndcliff please Julia
jennifer
sorry i had a long hard night in the trenches!!
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Some small spoilers here . . .
As much as Vicki irritates me, I am going to take a different tack here.
I don't think she is stupid, as much as she is in denial. Big time. I will go further and say that there is an argument that the character needed professional help before the substitute for a ouija board sent her tripping down the centuries.
Let's think about this. Her interest in historic times wasn't exactly academic. Vicki seemed to focus a lot on the concept of escapism, which explains why Barnabas and his drafty home were such attractions to her. The dream of Josette was the fantasy of putting on pretty ball gowns and being somebody else. Having an identity of someone who not only belonged, but who was a valued member of the family that Vicki ached to belong to (of course, Vicki seems to have completely disregarded the whole suicide thing, which to a lucid person should indicate that Josette was not the happiest of people and that ball gowns weren't everything).
To occasionally dream of escape or to fantasize is fine, but when it becomes a fairly chronic thing . . . well, there can be a problem.
There are much earlier indications that Vicki has problems with denial. Her very negative reaction when Julia suggests that Barnabas is obviously interested in her (that is, Vicki), for instance. Her almost violent reaction when Julia pointed out that Barnabas had a role for her to play as "Josette".
Let's now add the loss of her fiance in a sudden, unexpected, and disturbing accident to the mix. There's no closure for her because a)she didn't get to say goodbye and b)there's no body. Even with that closure, they say it can take two years to process a death of someone close to you.
She's had what? two weeks?
I was watching some episodes from earlier this week (or maybe it was last weeks)there was that scene where Vicki wanders into Angelique's room. It's one of the few times where I could sympathize with Angelique, btw. I mean, Vicki wafts in and Angelique is obviously not there. Does Vicki leave? No. Instead she wanders around. She looks at Angelique's possessions. She examines the furnishings. It's really a rather dreamlike Vicki that we see.
Taking that a bit further. Vicki, at this point, doesn't seem to be too clear about a lot of things. It's as if she doesn't quite realize where she is or why she's there. She's in the fantasy world she and Barnabas wanted, but instead she's there as a high-level servant.
Like Angelique she wants to be the heroine in the fancy dress--hence her repeated, if quiet, insistence on trying to be in the middle of things (it was a nice bit of writing, when Joshua put her back in her "proper" place, btw). The resemblance ends there, Angelique may suffer from some similar problems, but she can take care of herself and she works quite nicely from the sidelines, thank you very much.
Now Vicki was obviously, not even in the early days, never the sharpest knife in the drawer, but initially the character was just fine about looking behind the curtain to see who was pulling the strings. She's at the point now where she doesn't even want to see the curtain. That's not stupidity. That's avoidance.
Starting to babble now . . . but I think there really is an argument here to be made for mental instability. It certainly explains Peter Bradford ;).
Luciaphil
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Starting to babble now . . . but I think there really is an argument here to be made for mental instability. It certainly explains Peter Bradford .
Heeheee heeheeee.
Now that was good.
Luciaphil -- nice babble job. ;) Excellent insight into Vicky's character. Our minds run along the same path when it comes to her character.
--Mark
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but I think there really is an argument here to be made for mental instability. It certainly explains Peter Bradford ;).
So THAT'S what explains Peter Bradford! Thanks for finally putting your finger on it, Luciaphil. :D
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Though, it was very sweet and gallant of you to defend her. I'm assuming that you have now seen yesterday (Mar. 6th)'s episode and realize what a lost cause it is! Gad, what a moron! Someone tries to help her who just happened to hit on her once: her response was to be rude and so supremely self-centered as to be certain that he is still hitting on her. She gets a very fair warning from him and she thinks she can take care of herself. From a witch hunter???? Puhleeze.
If it makes you feel any less bad, realize that even the actress who played her thought this character was dumb, dumb, dumb.
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And what about Thursday's episode, where she starts rambling on about getting back to her own time and transending space and time. All this knowing she is being hunted down for being a witch by a self-proclaimed witch hunter who tied her to a tree all night.
I know that would be traumatic, but for crying out loud, you would think some common sense or some sort of instincts would kick in.
... sorry. I'm not usually like this, but come on, Vicky!
deron ?!?
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So THAT'S what explains Peter Bradford! Thanks for finally putting your finger on it, Luciaphil. :D
And all this time, I thought Vicki was simply attacted to guys who yelled a lot.
Ben ::)
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In defense of Victoria Winters :):
When confronted with Trask, she apparently did NOT blurt out: "Mr. [Tony] Peterson! What are you doing in that getup?!" * ::)
Actually, I don't think we saw her first impressions on meeting Trask, unfortunately -- the scene just opened in her room, with Trask already grilling her.
And, maybe she never actually met Tony Peterson ... surprising how memory can fail one regarding events of only a couple of weeks ago (mine, AND Victoria's :-[ ).
Which reminds me, something I've wanted to ask for ages ... whatever happened to Vicky's earlier lawyer love, Frank Garner?
Final thought: I've mentioned this previously, but the 1991 series writers definitely made a big improvement in their presentation of Vicky (i.e., perhaps somewhat naive, but not an idiot) ;D .
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* Later edit, per Luciaphil's response to Ben's thread: "Why are you wearing that shovel hat?" ;D
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In defense of Victoria Winters :):
Which reminds me, something I've wanted to ask for ages ... whatever happened to Vicky's earlier lawyer love, Frank Garner?
Maybe it was the whole "let's go to a crypt and rob a grave thing" that gave him pause? Anyhow, I always thought he was Vicki's only normal boyfriend. Cute too :)
Luciaphil
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OK, OK, new poster here
Lemme start by saying that I've always had a soft spot for Vicky's character (particularly because of the good job Joanna going did in the '91 series)
With that out of the way:
Vicky has become such a moron since the Barnabas' introduction (and no, she wasn't really dumb in the early days. Remember how she almost tricked Matt Morgan into thinking she was Liz? Anyway...) that its almost absurd. It seems that shes lost whatever common-sense or judgment she still had in these past few episodes. I'm sorry, but its gotten to a point where every time she says something I find myself asking, "What did AM do to the writers that they did THIS to Vicky?" (man, it must've been something bad)
A list of Vicky's erratic behaviors:
Becoming strangely obsessed with the past and Josette
Denying anything that might be slightly true
Burke Devlin II ('nuff said)
And that's BEFORE she wound up in 1975 where things really go down hill.
No, no I don' t think theres anyting that can be done to defend poor Ms. Winters' actions (sorry Vicky)
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>>Lets not knock her being "dumb" at stating that
>>people she meets in 1795 resembles present day
>> characters.
I wish I could share your generosity of spirit, and if she'd picked only ONE person for her "You look just like..." comment and then demonstrated reasonable caution and shut up, I might be able to manage it :)...however, the possibility that all and sundry would be a dead ringer for someone she knows is pretty remote, and for Vicki to keep blabbering about the resemblances to people who have already made it clear they think she might be a little whacked is nothing short of idiotic, IMO.
Cheers,
Linda
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Luciaphil wrote
>>>>Starting to babble now . . . but I think there really is an argument here to be made for mental instability. It certainly explains Peter Bradford
Whoaaaa, I love that! [lghy]
I have to agree with your denial and mental instability theory too. Kinda like she's suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome in a way.
[shadow=teal,left,300]Always, Minja[/shadow]
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Unfortunately, they dumbed down Vicki once Barnabas showed up. She started out as the plucky heroine in distress, trying to learn her identity (remember how she went up to Burke's apartment because he said he had the private detective's report there?), and somewhere along the way, lost her pluck. It's a shame, too, 'cause Vicki really was pretty intelligent when we first met her. I always thought once she had her first experience with a ghost (Bill Malloy), she kind of lost it, mentally, and was never really the same afterwards.
Still, I liked Vicki a lot in the first couple of storylines, and always hoped they would reveal who her parents were, since that was the driving force of the show when it first came on. It was a huge oversight not to clue us in, but there certainly have been enough fan fic stories written speculating upon it, and that's a good thing--you can provide any ending you want.
I don't know why Vicki couldn't have been an intelligent damsel in distress, but I think in Dan Curtis' warped mind, intelligence and beauty really did not go hand in hand and mututally excluded each other, at least in the show's heroines.
I have to confess that I DID grow annoyed at Vicki for not picking up on where she was and what had happened to her to the degree that she shut her mouth about how everyone looked like someone she knew. I gave her credit for more intelligence than that. However, Barnabas' arrival started the dumbing down of Vicki to the point that even Alexandra Moltke couldn't stand her character anymore.
Love, Robin