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Current Talk '02 II / Re: Victoria Winters' Parents
« on: October 01, 2002, 05:09:18 AM »
Now that Victoria Winters has left Collinwood, Collinsport, and the Dark Shadows story, it may be an appropriate time to re-examine the central mystery about her: Who were her parents, and what was her connection with the Collins family? Why did Elizabeth Collins Stoddard provide Victoria with a position at Collinwood, and why did she deny there was any particular meaning in her having done so to Roger, Vicki, and everyone else?
I apologize if I've somehow missed any recent threads dealing with this topic, but I haven't seen any direct discussion of this for some time.
I myself have vacillated on the solution to this mystery. During my first viewing of the series when Sci-Fi began airing DS about four years ago beginning with the Laura the Phoenix storyline, I saw little evidence for Elizabeth being Vicki's mother, as has often been suggested. Continuing to watch the show, the alternate possibility that Paul Stoddard was Vicki's father resulting from an affair seemed a much more likely and appealing possibility.
I later rethought this position when I saw the early episodes for the first time. There seemed to be hints that Elizabeth had a guilty conscience with respect to Vicki -- she obviously knew more than she was telling about Vicki's history and had a particular purpose in bringing her to Collinwood. At about that time, I saw an interview on TV with the adopted daughter of an actress who later discovered that her adoptive mother was actually her real mother, but I don't believe she ever confronted her mother with this information, and her mother (the famous actress) continued the charade. (I can't remember any more who this actress was, but apparently this was an out-of-wedlock birth perhaps in the 1940s.) This made me consider that something like that really could happen, that the psychology behind the mother's motives was realistic, though perhaps difficult to understand today. Society has changed, sometimes for the better, in the past few decades.
Still, did anyone really get any hint when Vicki disappeared into the past that Elizabeth was truly watching her daughter dissolve before her eyes? Any hints about such a relationship seem to have dropped by the wayside long ago.
In the series' early episodes, there seemed to be an effort to draw attention to the physical similarities between Elizabeth and Victoria.
One complication was the Betty Hanscomb portrait or drawing. Although some (perhaps it was SheilaMarch) have theorized that this was actually a portrait of Elizabeth ("Betty") being a nickname, I am doubtful of that possibility. It was established that there was a "B. Hanscomb" employed as a butler at Collinwood 20 - 25 years earlier. I believe there was mention that he had a daughter, although I'm not 100 percent certain about this; however, it is a logical inference. Sam Evans described Betty to Vicki as a local girl who had left town about 25 year earlier and died shortly after.
In keeping with the Gothic novel tradition (including Dickens, et al.), as well as common circumstances during the mid 20th century, this was almost certainly an implication that poor Betty had gotten pregnant and left town to have her illegitimate baby.
What interest would Elizabeth have in bringing the illegitimate daughter of a Collins butler to work at Collinwood so many years later? And why would Elizabeth apparently have provided financial support to Vicki via the Garner law firm over the years?
It seem inconceivable that a young woman of Elizabeth Collins' status could have been pregnant and given birth without anyone knowing at the time -- and then have left the baby in a basket outside an orphanage. No, it's far more likely that these would have been the actions of a much poorer girl with few connections -- someone like Betty Hanscombe, whose portrait shows her as almost a dead-ringer for Victoria Winters.
Elizabeth, it is to be noted, denied seeing any resemblance between the portrait and Victoria. It is probable that she has an invested interest in keeping the truth of Vicki's parents from her.
That truth -- which was postulated by "Bob" on the VantageNet forum in July 2001 (I'm guessing this was Bob the Bartender, unless there was another Bob posting at that time whom I don't recall) -- was that Elizabeth was covering for another member of the Collins family: her father, Jamison Collins.
Bob suggested that Jamison had a dalliance with his butler's daughter, and Elizabeth stepped in to help the girl when she (sometime later, in my opinion) learned what had happened. Vicki, then, would be Elizabeth (and Roger's) half-sister -- hence Elizabeth's emotional connection and clandestine support. In those days, few people, especially those of the Collins family's status -- would have been comfortable acknowledging an illegitimate half-sibling. Yet we know that Elizabeth is a good, caring woman (witness her tender feelings toward David throughout the series, to Amy, etc.). Her heart goes out to Vicki, but the emotional bond is not as strong as it would be had Vicki been a full sister or her own daughter.
This hypothesis also fits with what we later learn about Paul Stoddard, namely that Carolyn was his first-born child, whom he made a bargain over with "Mr. Best" (Death, personified).
This theory accounts for Vicki's resemblance to Elizabeth and also, very interestingly, makes her a Collins.
I believe Bob's theory resolves the mystery most satisfactorily and satisfyingly. I give Bob the credit for supplying the outlines of this theory, which I have further fleshed out. I would be interested in knowing if this was Bob's original idea or if he was drawing on someone else's previous suggestions.
I have identified four potential objections to this theory, none of which present insurmountable obstacles, in my opinion:
1. Shadows on the Wall, the "story bible" for the series, states that Paul Stoddard is Victoria Winter's father, if memory serves correct. I do find this an attractive possibility, but we should remember that a number of substantive changes and departures were made from this story bible as the series unfolded. (For example, Roger was to be wicked and fall off Widow's hill very early on.)
2. Joan Bennett's personal belief/testimony. Miss Bennett apparently stated at a DS festival that she believed Elizabeth was Victoria's mother. If Bennett acted under this assumption in giving an added layer of emotional depth to her performance (and I believe she did, at least early on), that still doesn't mean that she was in-the-know herself as to the solution to the mystery, just that this was a personal choice she made as an actor.
3. Sam Evan's statement that he had painted Betty Hanscomb's portrait 25 years earlier, and that Betty had died a year or so later. The problem this raises is that this would mean that Betty died at least a couple of years before Victoria was born. It's possible that Sam was mistaken, and gave "25 years ago" as a rough estimate as to when the portrait was done. I think there is a more likely and interesting possibility, though. I think he was deliberately concealing the actual date and time frame from Vicki. Sam most likely wished to "protect" Vicki from learning too much -- from concluding, as he obviously suspected, that Betty Hanscomb was Victoria's mother and that the Collins family was somehow involved. Thirty-odd years ago, illegitimate births were still hushed up, especially in small towns, considered shameful by many, and Sam would hardly have felt it was his place to reveal his suspicions to Vicki. So he throws her off the trail by padding the time frame by a year or two.
Significantly, Elizabeth does not tell Vicki, when confronted with the Betty Hansomb/portrait evidence that Betty had died three or four years before Vicki was born (she would know Vicki's age, of course). Had this been the case, though, Elizabeth would almost certainly have said so. Though she denied a resemblance between Betty's likeness and Vicki, she hadn't apparently felt comfortable with lying about factual matters that Vicki might someday check into, such as the date of Betty's death.
She would, however, wish to discourage Vicki from making any connection between Betty Hanscomb and the Collins family, and hence deny the physical resemblance.
4. Finally, Dreams of the Dark. This novel was sanctioned by DCP and reveals Elizabeth to have been Vicki's mother. Although I have a great deal of positive things to say about this book, I have to say I will take issue with it on this one point. The clues suggested in a 30-year-old daily drama were obviously complicated and not likely to be fresh in the minds of readers in 1999 or so, nor would many of today's readers be expected to be concerned with the minutiae of the matter. It's obviously more emotionally powerful to have a simplified solution at the end of Dreams of the Dark that fits with many of the hints and suspicions some viewers would vaguely have remembered. But remember that the actual solution isn't likely to have been the most obvious one -- the writers at the time most likely had a "twist" in mind, but sadly the entire mystery was completely dropped before this was revealed.
Although the scene in DOD where this was revealed was extremely well-executed, one aspect of it did not ring true for me -- and that was Elizabeth's apparent habitual occult ritual of protection for Vicki. There is never any indication in the series that Elizabeth would have employed the occult, especially before the appearance of Barnabas on the scene. Even then, Elizabeth voiced strong objections and even fear about the initial seances. What we do see with respect to Elizabeth throughout the entire series is that she refers to prayer at times of distress. It is more likely that Elizabeth's beliefs and practices fell within the conventional confines of a matron of a family steeped in tradition, and that if she had wished for the protection of Victoria from the time of her birth onward, she would have relied on the means most familiar to her with which she was comfortable -- prayer, not the practice of occult rituals.
I apologize if I've somehow missed any recent threads dealing with this topic, but I haven't seen any direct discussion of this for some time.
I myself have vacillated on the solution to this mystery. During my first viewing of the series when Sci-Fi began airing DS about four years ago beginning with the Laura the Phoenix storyline, I saw little evidence for Elizabeth being Vicki's mother, as has often been suggested. Continuing to watch the show, the alternate possibility that Paul Stoddard was Vicki's father resulting from an affair seemed a much more likely and appealing possibility.
I later rethought this position when I saw the early episodes for the first time. There seemed to be hints that Elizabeth had a guilty conscience with respect to Vicki -- she obviously knew more than she was telling about Vicki's history and had a particular purpose in bringing her to Collinwood. At about that time, I saw an interview on TV with the adopted daughter of an actress who later discovered that her adoptive mother was actually her real mother, but I don't believe she ever confronted her mother with this information, and her mother (the famous actress) continued the charade. (I can't remember any more who this actress was, but apparently this was an out-of-wedlock birth perhaps in the 1940s.) This made me consider that something like that really could happen, that the psychology behind the mother's motives was realistic, though perhaps difficult to understand today. Society has changed, sometimes for the better, in the past few decades.
Still, did anyone really get any hint when Vicki disappeared into the past that Elizabeth was truly watching her daughter dissolve before her eyes? Any hints about such a relationship seem to have dropped by the wayside long ago.
In the series' early episodes, there seemed to be an effort to draw attention to the physical similarities between Elizabeth and Victoria.
One complication was the Betty Hanscomb portrait or drawing. Although some (perhaps it was SheilaMarch) have theorized that this was actually a portrait of Elizabeth ("Betty") being a nickname, I am doubtful of that possibility. It was established that there was a "B. Hanscomb" employed as a butler at Collinwood 20 - 25 years earlier. I believe there was mention that he had a daughter, although I'm not 100 percent certain about this; however, it is a logical inference. Sam Evans described Betty to Vicki as a local girl who had left town about 25 year earlier and died shortly after.
In keeping with the Gothic novel tradition (including Dickens, et al.), as well as common circumstances during the mid 20th century, this was almost certainly an implication that poor Betty had gotten pregnant and left town to have her illegitimate baby.
What interest would Elizabeth have in bringing the illegitimate daughter of a Collins butler to work at Collinwood so many years later? And why would Elizabeth apparently have provided financial support to Vicki via the Garner law firm over the years?
It seem inconceivable that a young woman of Elizabeth Collins' status could have been pregnant and given birth without anyone knowing at the time -- and then have left the baby in a basket outside an orphanage. No, it's far more likely that these would have been the actions of a much poorer girl with few connections -- someone like Betty Hanscombe, whose portrait shows her as almost a dead-ringer for Victoria Winters.
Elizabeth, it is to be noted, denied seeing any resemblance between the portrait and Victoria. It is probable that she has an invested interest in keeping the truth of Vicki's parents from her.
That truth -- which was postulated by "Bob" on the VantageNet forum in July 2001 (I'm guessing this was Bob the Bartender, unless there was another Bob posting at that time whom I don't recall) -- was that Elizabeth was covering for another member of the Collins family: her father, Jamison Collins.
Bob suggested that Jamison had a dalliance with his butler's daughter, and Elizabeth stepped in to help the girl when she (sometime later, in my opinion) learned what had happened. Vicki, then, would be Elizabeth (and Roger's) half-sister -- hence Elizabeth's emotional connection and clandestine support. In those days, few people, especially those of the Collins family's status -- would have been comfortable acknowledging an illegitimate half-sibling. Yet we know that Elizabeth is a good, caring woman (witness her tender feelings toward David throughout the series, to Amy, etc.). Her heart goes out to Vicki, but the emotional bond is not as strong as it would be had Vicki been a full sister or her own daughter.
This hypothesis also fits with what we later learn about Paul Stoddard, namely that Carolyn was his first-born child, whom he made a bargain over with "Mr. Best" (Death, personified).
This theory accounts for Vicki's resemblance to Elizabeth and also, very interestingly, makes her a Collins.
I believe Bob's theory resolves the mystery most satisfactorily and satisfyingly. I give Bob the credit for supplying the outlines of this theory, which I have further fleshed out. I would be interested in knowing if this was Bob's original idea or if he was drawing on someone else's previous suggestions.
I have identified four potential objections to this theory, none of which present insurmountable obstacles, in my opinion:
1. Shadows on the Wall, the "story bible" for the series, states that Paul Stoddard is Victoria Winter's father, if memory serves correct. I do find this an attractive possibility, but we should remember that a number of substantive changes and departures were made from this story bible as the series unfolded. (For example, Roger was to be wicked and fall off Widow's hill very early on.)
2. Joan Bennett's personal belief/testimony. Miss Bennett apparently stated at a DS festival that she believed Elizabeth was Victoria's mother. If Bennett acted under this assumption in giving an added layer of emotional depth to her performance (and I believe she did, at least early on), that still doesn't mean that she was in-the-know herself as to the solution to the mystery, just that this was a personal choice she made as an actor.
3. Sam Evan's statement that he had painted Betty Hanscomb's portrait 25 years earlier, and that Betty had died a year or so later. The problem this raises is that this would mean that Betty died at least a couple of years before Victoria was born. It's possible that Sam was mistaken, and gave "25 years ago" as a rough estimate as to when the portrait was done. I think there is a more likely and interesting possibility, though. I think he was deliberately concealing the actual date and time frame from Vicki. Sam most likely wished to "protect" Vicki from learning too much -- from concluding, as he obviously suspected, that Betty Hanscomb was Victoria's mother and that the Collins family was somehow involved. Thirty-odd years ago, illegitimate births were still hushed up, especially in small towns, considered shameful by many, and Sam would hardly have felt it was his place to reveal his suspicions to Vicki. So he throws her off the trail by padding the time frame by a year or two.
Significantly, Elizabeth does not tell Vicki, when confronted with the Betty Hansomb/portrait evidence that Betty had died three or four years before Vicki was born (she would know Vicki's age, of course). Had this been the case, though, Elizabeth would almost certainly have said so. Though she denied a resemblance between Betty's likeness and Vicki, she hadn't apparently felt comfortable with lying about factual matters that Vicki might someday check into, such as the date of Betty's death.
She would, however, wish to discourage Vicki from making any connection between Betty Hanscomb and the Collins family, and hence deny the physical resemblance.
4. Finally, Dreams of the Dark. This novel was sanctioned by DCP and reveals Elizabeth to have been Vicki's mother. Although I have a great deal of positive things to say about this book, I have to say I will take issue with it on this one point. The clues suggested in a 30-year-old daily drama were obviously complicated and not likely to be fresh in the minds of readers in 1999 or so, nor would many of today's readers be expected to be concerned with the minutiae of the matter. It's obviously more emotionally powerful to have a simplified solution at the end of Dreams of the Dark that fits with many of the hints and suspicions some viewers would vaguely have remembered. But remember that the actual solution isn't likely to have been the most obvious one -- the writers at the time most likely had a "twist" in mind, but sadly the entire mystery was completely dropped before this was revealed.
Although the scene in DOD where this was revealed was extremely well-executed, one aspect of it did not ring true for me -- and that was Elizabeth's apparent habitual occult ritual of protection for Vicki. There is never any indication in the series that Elizabeth would have employed the occult, especially before the appearance of Barnabas on the scene. Even then, Elizabeth voiced strong objections and even fear about the initial seances. What we do see with respect to Elizabeth throughout the entire series is that she refers to prayer at times of distress. It is more likely that Elizabeth's beliefs and practices fell within the conventional confines of a matron of a family steeped in tradition, and that if she had wished for the protection of Victoria from the time of her birth onward, she would have relied on the means most familiar to her with which she was comfortable -- prayer, not the practice of occult rituals.
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