liz buried alive

[michael c]

this came up over in "luciaphil's idle thoughts" but i thought it was starting to get a little off-topic so i'll post this question here.

when nicholas relieves cassandra/angelique of her powers why is liz still under her spell?i think she's even visited by angelique in a dream which re-establishes the curse after ang is "something else".

i haven't seen the show all the way through so how does liz come to be out from under this spell?i'm assuming she doesn't spend the rest of the series run with this preoccupation with death/being buried alive.

[Gothick]

My explanation--involves spoilers, so if those make you squick, do not read (or, as a friend of mine once put it, "cover your eyes while you read"):

[spoiler]Cassandra's spell on Liz qualifies as a hex, or, as they prefer to call it on DS, a curse.  You may have noticed that when Ang was put to death in 1795, her curse on Barnabas remained firmly in place.  A hex/curse is a powerful energetic alignment aimed at a specific target (in Anglo-Saxon parlance, we find the term "elfshot").  Like a powerful poison administered to the bloodstream, it continues until its work is done, regardless of the subsequent actions of the person who set the hex/curse (word to the wise:   there's no such thing as "reversing" a hex/curse.  All that can be done is to work to raise healing or positive energy on behalf of the victim to counterract the negative impact of the hex.  Smart Witches don't set hexes that have no way out other than death. I am afraid as a Witch, Nicholas is correct in stating that his "dear sister" wasn't very smart--or very competent.  But, I digress.

In the story of DS, Cassandra's death curse on Liz persists until she does appear to "die." She's really in a catatonic trance.  Inexplicably, Julia, who is aware that something odd is going on, does not send Liz to a hospital to have tests done to determine whether she is really dead despite the lack of vital signs.  Did I mention that this part of the story requires suspension of disbelief?   However, Liz has been able to arrange for herself to be entombed in an above-ground mausoleum, equipped with an alarm bell.  You have to watch to find out what happens, but it does sort of explain why, once she is released from the tomb, Liz no longer suffers from the curse.

There's a very interesting scene where Julia, who doesn't know about Cassandra's curse, offers a psychological explanation for what's happening to Liz.  I see this is an attempt by whoever wrote that particular show to explain a train of events that otherwise don't make much sense to longtime viewers of the show.[/spoiler]

Hope this answers your question,  I apologize if it is more than you wanted or needed to know on this topic.

G.

[Sandor]

At the time Nicholas relieved Angelique of her powers, Elizabeth was stashed away at Wyndecliff. If Liz snapped out of her obsession at that point, figure the powers that be at the sanitarium wanted to keep her there for observation (no one seemed to get sprung from that place unless Julia Hoffman signed the pink slip, or the patient escaped... and shortly after Cassandra's demise, Liz wisely opted to bolt... traipsing through the woods in a blue velvet Ohrbach's number - Joan Bennett looked less like a mental patient and more like an Acamedy Awards presenter).
Fans seem to dislike the "Liz buried alive" storyline - which I hear Dan Curtis concocted to give Joan some extra time off to do a play - but I always thought the crescendo of that plot (with Carolyn, Barnabas, Julia and the werewolf in the mausoleum) was very tense and exciting. And of course, the sight of Julia sticking her head into Liz's coffin in hopes of hearing a heartbeat was priceless.

[Raineypark]

Considering how rapidly the dead vanished on DS it's a wonder they didn't routinely bury the still-breathing.  My favorite example was poor Carl.  He was dead one episode, and being spoken of in the distant-past-tense the next.  Once could imagine Collinwood having contracted curb-side pick up service from the local corpse valet, ( to "The Godfather") the way the rest of us have scheduled trash removal....

[Gothick]

Of course what I wrote does not explain [spoiler]how it came to be that Angelique put a similar spell on Vicki in 1796 (when Carolyn Groves was playing the character) and Angelique's death immediately released Vicki from her "sleep."  I suppose one could argue it was a different kind of spell, but I don't have the mental acrobatics at the moment to fudge on behalf of the scriptwriters.[/spoiler]

G.

[michael c]

thanks for the information guys.

although liz suffered a similar fate in the 66' laura story it didn't irritate me as much because,in addition to liking that storyline better a whole,it was much briefer.cassandra's spell lasts for months on end.plus liz gave laura a real challenge.one of my favorite scenes ever is when liz confronts laura at her cottage.the cat and mouse dynamic is so good!and them what happens when she returns to collinwood...well,it's sort of what we're talking about here.with cassandra liz just sort of relents.

it's interesting to know that julia doesn't further investigate liz's condition when she knew something odd was going on.does liz herself know what caused her to suffer from this curse?

i like the comment about liz's attire after her escape from wyndcliffe...traveling a hundred or so miles through the woods after an escape from a mental-institution?who wouldn't look as though they just stepped out of a beauty salon?

[Barnabas'sBride]

That storyline drove me me mad, along with much of the Cassandra plot. It just seemed to go on forever. I like Elizabeth a lot, but I hated hearing about her being buried alive constantly.

Though I was faintly amused by certain scenes.....like:

[spoiler]When Roger's talking about what Elizabeth wants for her burial (the alarm bell and such)...I don't remember the exact episode, I just remember being amused by the way he talked about it.
Also the scenes with Julia and Elizabeth (at the Old House with Roger and Barnabas) when Barnabas goes to stake Tom Jennings. Elizabeth is hiding there so Roger can't send her back to Wyndcliff. Elizabeth just hovers over Julia and keeps saying that Julia is going to die and then she will die. I couldn't help it I laughed.[/spoiler]

[michael c]

another sort of funny scene during this storyline is when liz has this cheesy cardboard "architect's model" of her mausoleum made up.

roger is so disgusted by the whole thing he angrily smashes it to bits!

[IluvBarnabas]

[spoiler]I thought Roger could have been more understanding about the whole thing. I think that even though he loves Elizabeth, he was more concerned at the time over the gossip that would spread among the folks of Collinwood if word had ever got out the mistress of Collinwood was making secret burial arrangements in a mausoleum because she was afraid of being buried alive.

I think it was a blessing in disguise that Roger was away when Elizabeth was pronounced "dead" and buried in the mausoleum....I have the unpleasant feeling he was prepared to disregard her wishes and would have seen to it to have her buried in the ground.[/spoiler]