FORKNI-L
Digest - 30 Nov 2007 to 1 Dec 2007 (#2007-130)
Sat, 1 Dec 2007
There are 2 messages totalling 231 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. Gosh Darn you, Bobby Ewing!
2. Where would they be now?
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Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2007 20:43:06 -0700
From: Walt <wdoherty5@c.......>
Subject: Gosh Darn you, Bobby Ewing!
Lori's recent post:
Personally, I have always believed that "Last Knight" was like "Curiouser
and Curiouser" and was
a dream/hallucination by Nick from the point that Tracy dies and forward.
McLisa:
What I'd like to have happened is that Nick eventually came to on the sofa
after imbibing a bottle of curare from Nat's lab, which he had mistaken for
her latest protein drink.
From the FanFic Archives:
Last Knight is esseantially a hallucination broke on by Divia's poison.
Walt Doherty
Phoenix, AZ
http://www.fkfanfic.com/fanfic/l/last2096.txt
Date: Sun, 19 May 1996 19:12:30 -0500
*************
Last Knight Plus One
a Forever Knight story
by Stephanie Babbitt
"You are my closest friend," Nick said to LaCroix in a voice that
was barely a whisper. He reached out and grasped the stake he had
placed in LaCroix's hands; the message was unmistakable. Kill me.
Please. Let me be with the one I love.
Nick turned away from LaCroix and knelt beside Natalie's body on
the floor. Gently, he took her hand and bent his body over hers,
waiting for the blow.
"Damn you, Nicholas!" said LaCroix, raising the stake.
Nick braced himself for the feel of the wood piercing his flesh,
entering his heart.
It never came. Instead, he heard the splintering crash of the
stake as LaCroix flung it across the room, shattering it against
the fireplace.
Nick looked up wildly, betrayal clear on his face. "Why?" he shouted
at the top of his lungs.
"Really, Nicholas," came LaCroix's voice, as if from a distance. Nick
could see that LaCroix was standing still, and his lips weren't moving.
"Don't you think you've taken this little melodramatic episode far
enough?"
Nick stared hard through a haze of tears at LaCroix. The ancient
vampire was laughing, but without sound. He looked as much like a demon
as anything Nick had ever seen. Suddenly, with a sharp click, all the
blinds flew open, and sunlight poured into the room. Driven by instinct,
Nick looked frantically for a shadowed spot in which to hide but saw
none. LaCroix stood unaffected in the bright sunlight, still laughing...
Nick's eyes flew open then. The light seemed so bright! Was it the sun?
But no, it was only a naked incandescent bulb burning directly overhead.
He was lying on a couch. LaCroix sat beside him with a tolerant smirk
on his face, unselfconsciously licking the blood away from a cut on his
wrist even as it healed.
"Well, Nicholas, it seems you have finally elected to return to the
world of the sentient, such as it is," said LaCroix. Nick looked at his
master carefully. Yes the lips were moving, and the words matched. At
least that much was back in synch. But...they weren't in the loft!
And where was...
and the story goes on. http://www.fkfanfic.com/fanfic/l/last2096.txt
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 09:18:35 -0500
From: Greer Watson <gwatson2@r.......>
Subject: Where would they be now?
Oh, my. The words sound so simple, but it's such a complicated question,
isn't it? I think it's a good point (made by several people) that one needs
to distinguish between--well, what Tolkien called the primary and secondary
world. The primary world where FK was a TV series, filmed on sets by
actors; and the secondary world where Nick, Natalie, and LaCroix are real
people living actual events.
In the primary world, LK was written with deliberate ambiguity, so that the
series could have *either* a tragic ending (if the show stayed cancelled)
*or* a cliff-hanger two-parter (if the campaign to save it had succeeded).
Judging by interviews, my impression is that the writers/producers
wanted the series to have a tragic ending--that is, if (as it proved) it
should indeed be the ending. They wanted to have an artistic finale, and,
rightly or wrongly, saw the deaths of most of the characters as being a
"classy" way to achieve that goal. Personally, I've always thought that
that sort of ending reached its apotheosis with "Hamlet". Anyone who tries
to top that has a hard row to hoe! However, I'd say that *they* thought
they were being very, very clever
If an alternative finale were to have been made, then one would have to
posit a very different sort of psychology for the *writers*.
They'd have to be the type of people who--while still wanting a classy
finale (of course)--would *not* consider it appropriate to imitate some
revenge tragedy, leaving the stage littered with corpses. Instead, they'd
have to be sufficiently innovative to come up with an alternative.
Also, please bear in mind that that alternative would have to
satisfy *us*! And, boy, are we fans the world's toughest critics of
finales. After all, we don't want our favourite series to end at all.
Personally, I rather liked the basic story concept of LK--that Nick and
Natalie try to make love, but he bites her and drains her. I just didn't
like what they did with that premise, partly because I thought the actual
script was pretty bad.
One alternative might have been that Nick bites Natalie, thinks she's
killed, but discovers she's accidentally been brought across instead. This
is the stuff of so many AU versions of LK in fan fiction. But I'm
considering it as an alternative *real* finale that they might have actually
have done.
The trouble is that it *would* be a finale. It would have to be,
because it resolves the fundamental tension that underlay the series--the
tension between vampire/human, past/future, LaCroix/Natalie, in terms of
Nick's choice of fate.
If the show had been more successful, such a finale could have led
on to one of those year-later (or five-years-on) one-off movies of the week
telling us what happened next. Most likely that they moved on. Together.
After all, they would have had serious problems in staying in Toronto once
Natalie was brought over. And, with Nick gone to another city, LaCroix
would have no reason to stay in Toronto either.
However, I doubt if the writers would ever have done this. Since
they were hoping against hope that there would be a resurrection (of the
series), they wanted to leave a bit of ambiguity that could lead to a fourth
season, and there's no ambiguity in this plot.
I realize that some people like the idea of a sequel series, one
following the lives of Nick and Natalie as a vampire couple. But that's
possible only in fan fiction, where anything goes. Remember, I'm trying to
think what might *really* have been done as an alternative. The people
making FK might have been hoping for another season; but it would have to be
a fourth season of FK, whose themes and characters they knew. Not a first
season of a sequel series. That would have required a lot of preparation
to create it; and it would then have to be sold as a new series.
So they wouldn't be turning Natalie into a vampire.
Another option is for the finale to continue on *after* the bite, with
Natalie surviving--say, if Nick or LaCroix had flown her to hospital, and
they'd given her a blood transfusion. Again, the stuff of plenty of fan
fiction.
Probably this was the option they were leaving open by not *quite*
showing us Nick being staked or Natalie dead. If, miraculously, the show
had been saved, they could have treated the final scene as a cliff-hanger;
and then, during the fourth season premiere, they could have filled us in on
how Natalie survived--either in the teaser, or by doing flashback scenes at
the hospital.
Personally, I think it's a pity this didn't happen.
Well, obviously! It would have meant that we'd have had a fourth
season!
But, leaving that aside, it would have afforded us the opportunity
to see the psychological effect on Nick and Natalie. I mean, she trusted
him: it's obvious in LK that she did *not* expect him to drain her. He
lost control. The obvious parallel is a date-rape type of situation. How
would this affect their subsequent relationship? Of course, FK being what
it was, the writers would work any consequences out in a single episode:
there was no continuity to speak of.
Would they have dealt with this sort of psychological trauma at all?
Here, we're looking at the gulf between what I personally would like
to have seen, and what the actual writers on the show would have done--and
the answer probably is that they would *not*. They'd simply have resolved
the cliffhanger as quickly as possible, treating it as a means to an end.
This "end", of course, is nothing more profound than just restarting the
series. Then they would have gone on to do the rest of Season Four as a
series of largely unconnected episodes, each with its own plot. Business as
usual, so to speak. Season Four would have looked a lot like Season Three,
maybe even with Tracy still as Nick's partner, through some contrivance.
What would *I* have liked?
Actually, it would depend on whether LK were to be a finale or a
cliff-hanger; and, of course, this requires the disambiguation of the final
scene, which is precisely *not* what was wanted from the writers'
perspective.
The lack of continuity in FK always bugged me. Even when it first aired, TV
shows were already well on the way to shifting to adding more continuity,
even when the series are basically episodic. The trouble in terms of LK is
that I wouldn't want the relationship between Nick and Natalie to be
seriously altered; and, for the trauma of his draining her to be believable,
the two of them would pretty well have to be affected by what happened.
If FK had been saved, and LK re-interpreted as a cliff-hanger, then
I'd want its effect minimized. I'd want Tracy back, though I wouldn't mind
a few guest appearances by John Kapelos in flashbacks. I'd want Vachon and
Urs resurrected somehow, and flashbacks with Screed, and some way to return
Janette, if only in historical scenes. (I've always thought it worked
better if she died in "The Human Factor".) In short, I'd want a perfect
synthesis of Season Three with the previous two. So, if we'd had a Season
Four, I'd prefer the events of LK to be got rid of in some way. (All a
dream?)
But if FK were truly cancelled--as it was--and LK the finale, then I'd like
a tragic ending, but I'd want a *modern* tragedy. Not a neat slaughter,
with all ends severed; but a nasty, realistic mess.
I wrote this, actually--long ago, as a catharsis for the effect LK
had on me when I saw it for the first time.
I'd like Natalie to live, saved (and human) because she was taken to
hospital. I'd like a police investigation into the attack on her, even if
she feigns amnesia and says she doesn't know who did it. I'd like her
feelings towards Nick to be shattered by the trauma of his betrayal--and I'd
like him to get this, and understand how hurt she is, and be horrified at
himself. I'd like *that* to be the thing that leads to that long
confrontational scene between him with LaCroix.
And after that? Well, I did say I'd fancy a tragic ending. What
would be more tragic than Nick punishing himself for his crime by giving up
Natalie, so that he would never risk hurting her again; and, with that, also
give up his hope of a cure. And move on.
Greer
gwatson2@r.......
http://ca.geocities.com/gwatson2@rogers.com/index.html
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End of FORKNI-L Digest - 30 Nov 2007 to 1 Dec 2007 (#2007-130)
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