An Ode to Helen Magnus
Jan. 10th, 2011 08:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grav_ityI'm all up to date on Sanctuary. And I'm not running off to read fic right now because I totally cracked on my lunch break today and found a few links on AO3, and now I am just waiting for my weird finale feelings to wear off before I go back to read them all again. Since the finale made me all "Really? All that build up and THIS IS WHAT YOU LEAVE ME WITH?", I am instead going to write my manifesto about why Helen Magnus has in the last two weeks taken the top spot on my Best Female Character EVER list (and, if we're being honest, probably the list where I'm not gender specific as well).
So the first thing I love about Helen Magnus is her wardrobe. Obviously. And the way she sits when she's wearing a pencil skirt and heels. Because I wish I were that fabulous. But the second thing I love about Helen Magnus is that she chose this. Every. Single. Step. And yeah, she had guides and a century and a half to practice, but nobody had to trick her into eating the pomegranate. She found it, she cut it open, and she welcomed the Underworld.
Which would be awesome enough for a Sam Carter or an Aeryn Sun. Or even an Olivia Dunham. But for a Victorian Lady of some status? Who had to argue her way into Oxford, endure who knows what kinds of rumours about her associations with her study group, and then somehow convince them all to be ten feet off the ground before they ask "how high"? Yeah, she's totally my kind of person.
As the previouslies tell us and tell us, Helen "procured" the source blood. We don't know how she did it, only that she did. I would like to think that it's not as simple as her father leaving it lying around, or guiding her to it (though his own longevity speaks to something, I think? Do we know why he's lived so long?), but even if it is, not only did she find a way to use it, she also convinced FOUR OTHER PEOPLE to do it with her. At a time when people only humoured women because Queen Victoria happened to be one.
In a nutshell, the reason I love Helen Magnus comes down to one very simple thing: SHE IS AWESOME. I realize that's a bit vague, but the full measure of her awesomeness is so multi-faceted it's hard to be specific. She's a polyglot. She's the world's most talented zoo keeper. She runs a multinational corporation in her spare time. She's a snappy dresser. She's an excellent mother. She'll love you so much that she can't kill you, but she'll never stop trying to catch you either.
Oh, and one time when she was stuck in a warehouse with Jekyll and Hyde, she drew a map of the building on the wall, worked out where he'd have to teleport in to every room in the building, laced said rooms with weapons, turned on the water so he couldn't see her, lured him to the roof, tricked him into teleporting her into one of the aforementioned rooms, and then BEAT THE CRAP OUT OF HIM.
(Not to mention the time she forced The Big Guy to live by refusing to save him and making him save himself, even though he wanted to die. Because nothing she does is ever straightforward. Probably the best scene of what about a gabillion options in the show so far.)
And that's just Helen Magnus when she's all by herself.
Put her in a team, either The Five or one of her later Sanctuary groups, and she's well nigh unstoppable. Because Helen Magnus is a natural leader, one so great that not even being born female in the Victorian period could get in her way for very long.
I suppose relatively speaking, it's fairly easy to forgive Nigel his larceny and James his coke addiction (I assume here that he had one, like his fictional counterpart), given that Tesla and John are so very much more...complicated. Yet Helen has no regrets and holds no grudges. She's not stupid about it by any stretch, in the very first episode we learn that not only has she designed her Sanctuary to be John-proof, she's also lied about him to EVERYONE because they'll all be safer that way. She took on the darkness willingly, and she's never really looked back because what she gained was far, far better than what she might have had if she'd lived and died a typical Victorian life.
And her dark side is kind of terrifying. She'll kill people for the Empire (although I would call it more of an assisted suicide, when push came to shove. Uh, poor choice of words there, maybe), lie to her daughter, lie to Will when she told him she wouldn't, and steal the occasional helicopter. Yet at the same time, when she gets pulled from the ocean by people who pretty much want her dead (or at least safely out of the way), she's on a first name basis with all of their underlings by the next commercial break.
When we meet her, Helen's team is her daughter, Henry and Bigfoot, soon to be joined by Will. Once again, four people who willingly follow her into fire and darkness because they love her, and because they world she shows them is more to their liking than walking around with their eyes closed. Ashley I find particularly interesting because their relationship is so...equal. I mean, when Helen delivers an ultimatum Ashely follows it, but aside from that they are a perfect micro-team ("She bags, you tag"). When Ashley discovers that John is her father, she's a bit shocked...but she also gets over it relatively quickly and doesn't hold a grudge, just like Helen.
I suppose what it comes down to is that this is a show about monsters, and the scariest one of them has an easy smile and an infectious laugh. It's not the vampire or the werewolf, the serial killer or the career criminal. Heck, it's not even the vindictive energy being or the spider that can make islands rise from the ocean. No, it's the woman who corrals them, who made them, who loves them, who is loved by them. It's Helen Magnus, and the world might actually revolve around her, because she refuses to budge. Praxis doesn't know what it's just unleashed.
There might be another post later, if it turns into something beyond "OMG, I LOVE THE FIVE!", but for now I am going to read FANFIC because I can no longer accidentally spoil myself.
And in case I haven't said it lately, THANK YOU FOR TELLING ME TO WATCH THIS SHOW!
ETA: Turns out I'm not the first person to go to the Persephone place!![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
artaxastra has an excellent meta on Helen (and the rest of the Five, and even a bit about Will). Here there be monsters
So the first thing I love about Helen Magnus is her wardrobe. Obviously. And the way she sits when she's wearing a pencil skirt and heels. Because I wish I were that fabulous. But the second thing I love about Helen Magnus is that she chose this. Every. Single. Step. And yeah, she had guides and a century and a half to practice, but nobody had to trick her into eating the pomegranate. She found it, she cut it open, and she welcomed the Underworld.
Which would be awesome enough for a Sam Carter or an Aeryn Sun. Or even an Olivia Dunham. But for a Victorian Lady of some status? Who had to argue her way into Oxford, endure who knows what kinds of rumours about her associations with her study group, and then somehow convince them all to be ten feet off the ground before they ask "how high"? Yeah, she's totally my kind of person.
As the previouslies tell us and tell us, Helen "procured" the source blood. We don't know how she did it, only that she did. I would like to think that it's not as simple as her father leaving it lying around, or guiding her to it (though his own longevity speaks to something, I think? Do we know why he's lived so long?), but even if it is, not only did she find a way to use it, she also convinced FOUR OTHER PEOPLE to do it with her. At a time when people only humoured women because Queen Victoria happened to be one.
In a nutshell, the reason I love Helen Magnus comes down to one very simple thing: SHE IS AWESOME. I realize that's a bit vague, but the full measure of her awesomeness is so multi-faceted it's hard to be specific. She's a polyglot. She's the world's most talented zoo keeper. She runs a multinational corporation in her spare time. She's a snappy dresser. She's an excellent mother. She'll love you so much that she can't kill you, but she'll never stop trying to catch you either.
Oh, and one time when she was stuck in a warehouse with Jekyll and Hyde, she drew a map of the building on the wall, worked out where he'd have to teleport in to every room in the building, laced said rooms with weapons, turned on the water so he couldn't see her, lured him to the roof, tricked him into teleporting her into one of the aforementioned rooms, and then BEAT THE CRAP OUT OF HIM.
(Not to mention the time she forced The Big Guy to live by refusing to save him and making him save himself, even though he wanted to die. Because nothing she does is ever straightforward. Probably the best scene of what about a gabillion options in the show so far.)
And that's just Helen Magnus when she's all by herself.
Put her in a team, either The Five or one of her later Sanctuary groups, and she's well nigh unstoppable. Because Helen Magnus is a natural leader, one so great that not even being born female in the Victorian period could get in her way for very long.
I suppose relatively speaking, it's fairly easy to forgive Nigel his larceny and James his coke addiction (I assume here that he had one, like his fictional counterpart), given that Tesla and John are so very much more...complicated. Yet Helen has no regrets and holds no grudges. She's not stupid about it by any stretch, in the very first episode we learn that not only has she designed her Sanctuary to be John-proof, she's also lied about him to EVERYONE because they'll all be safer that way. She took on the darkness willingly, and she's never really looked back because what she gained was far, far better than what she might have had if she'd lived and died a typical Victorian life.
And her dark side is kind of terrifying. She'll kill people for the Empire (although I would call it more of an assisted suicide, when push came to shove. Uh, poor choice of words there, maybe), lie to her daughter, lie to Will when she told him she wouldn't, and steal the occasional helicopter. Yet at the same time, when she gets pulled from the ocean by people who pretty much want her dead (or at least safely out of the way), she's on a first name basis with all of their underlings by the next commercial break.
When we meet her, Helen's team is her daughter, Henry and Bigfoot, soon to be joined by Will. Once again, four people who willingly follow her into fire and darkness because they love her, and because they world she shows them is more to their liking than walking around with their eyes closed. Ashley I find particularly interesting because their relationship is so...equal. I mean, when Helen delivers an ultimatum Ashely follows it, but aside from that they are a perfect micro-team ("She bags, you tag"). When Ashley discovers that John is her father, she's a bit shocked...but she also gets over it relatively quickly and doesn't hold a grudge, just like Helen.
I suppose what it comes down to is that this is a show about monsters, and the scariest one of them has an easy smile and an infectious laugh. It's not the vampire or the werewolf, the serial killer or the career criminal. Heck, it's not even the vindictive energy being or the spider that can make islands rise from the ocean. No, it's the woman who corrals them, who made them, who loves them, who is loved by them. It's Helen Magnus, and the world might actually revolve around her, because she refuses to budge. Praxis doesn't know what it's just unleashed.
There might be another post later, if it turns into something beyond "OMG, I LOVE THE FIVE!", but for now I am going to read FANFIC because I can no longer accidentally spoil myself.
And in case I haven't said it lately, THANK YOU FOR TELLING ME TO WATCH THIS SHOW!
ETA: Turns out I'm not the first person to go to the Persephone place!
artaxastra has an excellent meta on Helen (and the rest of the Five, and even a bit about Will). Here there be monsters
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-01-11 04:08 am (UTC)Did you point at the screen and scream 'Clarice' really loudly?
no subject
Date: 2011-01-11 04:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-11 03:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-11 03:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-11 04:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-11 04:18 am (UTC)Don't even get me started on her boots. ;)
no subject
Date: 2011-01-11 04:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-15 12:57 pm (UTC)And that is the reason I absolutely adore Helen! That! Right there! She's not a victim. She chose this, and she lives with the consequences. Because it's really cool, and she wouldn't trade it for a normal life on a bet.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-25 07:06 pm (UTC)I really must applaud the writers and Amanda for creating such an incredible character. Everything from her "I have standards" line in "Kush" to her wardrobe (love the shoes) to her rich history and her "complicated" relationship with John.
She chose this. Every. Single. Step.
And we know that none of this has come easily for her. There have been hard choices that she has had to make. I like the fact that she hasn't always made the right choice, but that she is willing stand up and admit it and take responsibility for it, but she always stands by her choice. And though she is usually right, she realizes that she has limits. I love how in "Eulogy" she brought Will in and told him she needed to have someone there to tell her when she had gone too far. There really is so much to discuss about her character.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-26 01:16 am (UTC)