That's cool about your mom, fridfreak. And I think your communication with your daughters is admirable.
What wonderful comparisons, Barnabas'Bride! Did DS even have a satisfactory female role model for its time? While watching the series originally as the feminist-in-training that was pre-teen Midnite, I rooted for Julia to get a life, hated Angelique for her handling of rejection, and kept hoping that 1796 would be re-re-rewritten to give Josette a happier ending. Yet, knowing that Quentin was the quintessential bad boy and a heartbreaker, I wanted him SO bad. Go figure.
DS ... has such "love" cross over into actual obsession--a la "You are Josette" and Angelique's whole history with Barnabas, etc. Frankly, the former is a lot less disturbing.
I'm curious why you feel that Angelique's obsession is a lot more disturbing than his. If judging by results alone, then that might be the case since Barnabas got over his obsession sooner and suffered greater losses (though one could make a case that the latter was often due to the curse rather than to Angelique's machinations). And his opportunities to murder the objects of his obsessive thinking were lost to circumstances beyond his control. Both B & A became obsessed as defense mechanisms, each blamed the other for their emotional pain, and both affected the suffering of others through their special powers as a result-- Angelique targeted his loved ones, and consider what he did to Maggie before setting his sights on Vicki, while who knows what might have happened to Burke had he remained Barn's competition. I find their actual obsessions equally disturbing, just as, in the real world, a man's obsession in which denial plays a major part is just as scary, perhaps even moreso, than a woman's. And to get back to the comparison with today's parents, many are choosing to teach their sons and daughters that a case of obsession by either sex can turn dangerous.
