"Keys to the Kingdom" by Ginny Shearin
http://www.classicalliance.net/tunnelta ... nkeys.html
So, ah, fasten safety-belts, dear hearts? I am going to dissect this puppy into smithereens.
My response to this story can be described by the phrase, "It rankles." I find this piece a well-written interpretation of that "A Kingdom By the Sea" scene. Yet its depiction of intimacy is marred by a unilateral misapprehension of Vincent's motives, and a complete denunciation of his value system. This story portrays a common approach in fandom to the issue of power. Specifically, it reallocates the power of Vincent's humility into Catherine's all-knowing control. It also dismisses as absurd all of Vincent's explanations for his own actions. The effect is one of gentle condescension, if there can be such a thing. At any rate, it is by far the "gentlest" variation of this type of story that I've yet read. I stopped reading fanfiction for months after encountering a similar scenario by Edith Crowe that detailed a truly appalling post-Winterfest encounter for our title lovers. But maybe "disguised condescension" is a better way to describe the tone of this piece. So it's actually a good example for me to critique. This is how my inquisitive mind perceives the elements of the story.
I'll point out the passages that most "rankled," and try to puzzle out why they bother me.
Catherine's Section:
...
Was she on the edge of another battle to stay in Vincent’s life? Was he trying to be noble and planning to send her away again, or was he testing the waters to see if she might be having second thoughts - about what? - about her relationship with him? - about her feelings for Elliot?... Surely Vincent couldn’t send her away now...or think she would want to go. Well, if that was what he was thinking, he would have his work cut out for him. He would have to shove her out of the tunnels kicking and screaming this time...and lock the gates behind her until she ran out of gates to re-enter. They had been making slow progress, and she would not be sent back "to find happiness with someone else" now. There wouldn’t be happiness with someone else. How could he possibly not understand that?
I'm just going to say it. I hate this train of thought. Hate it. It is the essence of a sickeningly manupulative and co-dependent relationship. If that's who people think Vincent is...then I believe they've completely misunderstood the story. Beauty is never at war with Beast, trying to keep him from kicking her out of his life. The entire point of the fairy tale is that the Beast keeps inviting her in, and further in, and further in. This author's interpretation absolutely refuses to listen to what Vincent said during "A Happy Life," about his feelings and motivations. Even then, in that one instance when he determined that separation from Catherine was the only recourse to permit final healing, he never "sent her away." Vincent does not ever, ever, ever, force Catherine to do anything Catherine does not want to do. Why do people get so condescending toward Vincent when he expects Catherine to treat him with the same respect he shows her?
...
...as she turned and eased herself into his lap - an unheard of breach of his normal boundaries. Moving slowly enough to allow him to protest if he felt the need, but quickly enough not to give him an excessive amount of time to think it through, she rested his arm across her knees and settled herself lovingly against him.
(1) A protest against a gesture of "intimacy" is expected. (2) This is "loving" manipulation. Not "seduction," as the author is ever so careful to point out later. But manipulation parsed as an act of responsible love. Vincent's "normal boundaries" don't matter. Vincent's "normal boundaries" are meant to be viewed as abnormal, according to this Catherine's standards. Comparing the present story to the original episode, Catherine's lap-sitting is actually out of character for the Catherine of the series too. So here's a double "I don't think so," from this reader.
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...and she thought Vincent seemed to need the reassurance of this new closeness as much as she did.
Which somehow justifies such intrusion when it's been clearly stated that the author's Catherine knows what Vincent's boundaries are and decides it's time to supercede them.
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"Maybe I was sympathizing...maybe I needed to be kissed, too. It’s been a long time...and it was a desperate moment."
And here's a subtle rebuke. If you had been kissing me regularly beforehand, my sense of deprivation would not have led me to find solace from another source. Ouch. Really? Assumption: Vincent withholds rightful affection from Catherine, while she does not do so with him. It justifies Catherine's bid for relational power in this scene.
...
"The only thing that would be better would be remembering that you returned it." She knew she was pushing her luck, but while they were being honest....
"I’m afraid...if I allow myself...." His voice trailed off, and he looked away again.
While they were being honest. Uh huh. So the habit of their relationship is to be dishonest? Or, at best, merely avoidant? (The author has more to say about this in the Vincent section.) Okay, I can see how one might arrive at this conclusion if one is dissatisfied with the tenor of the onscreen conversations Vincent and Catherine get to share. We've discussed that frustration with the storytelling style before. But this depiction of how Vincent and Catherine relate to one another is so...so...skewed. And the pushing (the author's word, repeated several times), Catherine's quiet coercion, is just ugly.
...
She would have been disappointed if he had stopped her, but she wouldn’t have pushed him any farther if he had.
And this self-limitation makes the rest of the "pushing" okay?
...
It wasn’t the experienced kind of kiss she would have had from Elliot, but it was the one she had waited for for so long...the one Vincent offered of his own accord. They had the rest of their lives to experiment enough to develop perfection.
Assumption: Vincent is woefully inexperienced. Assumption: Vincent's ignorance/inexperience does not match Catherine's notions of perfection. Assumption: Catherine knows what "perfection" is supposed to entail. Assumption: Catherine has been urging Vincent to "catch up" with her "normal" level of romantic experience. Assumption: Tonight's product of careful manipulation may be considered to occur "of Vincent's own accord." Assumption: Since this is a kind of "breakthrough" moment, the new conditions instituted in this scene may be expected to carry through into the future, perpetuating Catherine's dominance and Vincent's submission. And question: If Catherine kissed Elliot and wanted it to be Vincent, then why is she now kissing Vincent while comparing him to Elliot?
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"Catherine, he could give you so much. I limit your life...in so many ways. I would understand...if you chose to return to the life you were born to...but letting you go...would be...."
This is straight out of the disabled stereotype playbook. It reinterprets Vincent's earlier lines into a faulty construct. Vincent as I understand him would never say this. In the realm of logical fallacies, this statement sets up a Straw-Man.
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"... now that you’ll never try to send me away again...that you’ll never make another decision ‘for my own good’ without including me in the decision." Not hearing an immediate answer, she emphasized her demand by pounding the handful of vest against his chest. "Promise me...now!" That point would be settled before she left.
The Vincent of the TV show has never done this to the Catherine of the TV show. The Catherine of the TV show would never (not after her darkest moment in the Pilot) physically strike out at Vincent, just as he would never physically strike out at her. And again, this kind of dialogue reveals a failure to hearken to Vincent's self-expression in "A Happy Life" (and probably many other episodes as well).
...
Finally. She had his promise. He must have finally understood that she would settle for no one else.
Funny, though, how throughout the series, Catherine repeatedly turns from Vincent to focus on other relationships with all manner of someone elses. He knows her heart and so I don't believe he is confused or affronted by her behavior, but I could understand why he might be, especially in an alternate universe like this one where Vincent is ignorant to a fault and lacks both the wisdom and compassion of the Vincent from the TV show.
...
"A cut. It isn’t important."
"It is important, but we can discuss it another time, if you’d rather," she answered...
Again, Vincent's assessments about what is important and what is not important are thrust aside. Catherine says it is important, so it is. She knows better than he what they need to pay attention to. But her "politeness" in offering him a choice about "when" to discuss why she is right and he is wrong is supposed to validate her dismissal of Vincent's perspective. This patronizing condescension is indeed part and parcel with Catherine's Topside culture, but at least in the TV series the Tunnelfolk were permitted to live out a working protest against this kind of paternalism. Not so here.
...
Another astonishing display of truth. Catherine was both surprised and elated.
Um, why astonishing? Because Vincent and the truth are long-term strangers? I don't get it.
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She had already pushed him beyond his usual limits. Did she dare push one step more?
Of course this Catherine dares. How else is she going to achieve her conquest?
...
To allow him time to argue that thought with himself, she turned her attention to his bed.
Once again, it is assumed that Vincent must in some way protest a gesture of intimate affection. Once again, Catherine "allows" Vincent a Catherine-determined window of time to exercise the amount of free will that she grants him. This is what oppressors do to their victims when they want to elicit capitulation. They ensnare people with an illusion of freedom that allows the dominating party to get what they want. This Catherine is SO generous with her leash.
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She wanted to make it clear that there was no seduction intended in her offer.
Because if there were any seduction intended, it would undermine the whole moral justification the author has established in order to correct Vincent's faulty approach to his relationship with a blameless Catherine.
...
In another moment of silent acceptance, Vincent moved from his chair and sat down on the side of his bed to remove his boots, but the injury to his hand was slowing progress.
"Let me," Catherine offered, happy for the opportunity to help, and not quite believing the permission he had apparently granted.
The dominance-submission theme again, where Catherine is fully in command, and where her power is described in "nice" terms of being "helpful."
...
Vincent's Section:
[This part evoked physical nausea, so I'll try to be coherent, but it just felt so icky...]
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Vincent had once again protected Catherine, but this time she wasn’t there to help him back from the darkness.
This is another...interesting take on the storyline. When, after a violent confrontation with enemies, has Vincent ever needed Catherine to "help him back from the darkness"? That's always been his own work, the most private terrain of his soul. The following emotional landscape that the author paints for her reader functions within her universe, but I think Vincent's feelings are extremely simplified in order to portray him as a spiritually weak creature, the classic tormented soul unable to cope with the vicissitudes of life.
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...but he dreaded having to ask Father for help.
Why? I mean, okay he wants to be alone. But why "dread"? (Answer forthcoming during Father's participation in the story...)
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...hoping to clean the wound and assess the damage before Father saw it; but that hope was dashed when Father entered his chamber, having heard on the pipes that Vincent had returned.
First dread, now dashed hopes...all directed at Father. What kind of relationship do they have, that Vincent so fears his parent? (Wait and see...)
...
Vincent turned away as Father approached, much the way he might have when he and Devin had been up to some sort of mischief as children, but he knew Father saw the evidence of blood in the basin’s water. Knowing there was no way to hide it, and that he would soon have to ask for help anyway, Vincent turned back to Father...For once Father didn’t chastise him, or them, for carelessness, and Vincent was grateful for that. After all, Elliot’s help had saved Father’s life as well as his own. With a resigned attitude he told Father that love can wound, too...
How grudgingly the author allows Father to "voice his concern and love for both Vincent and Catherine"! Here Vincent is portrayed in terms of a child helpless against his Father's haranguing. Vincent is not grateful for Father's emotional and medical support, but for an unexpected lack of chastisement. What the author gives us is the malignant relationship between an abusive parent and his abused son. This unhinged and impotent Vincent is the product of his cruel upbringing. In other words, this Vincent, like the Vincent of the show, is the way he is because he was raised by Jacob Wells. But the Father in this story, unlike that of the TV show, is a very bad father indeed.
...
Blessedly Father didn’t argue or ask questions...and left his son sitting beside his desk brooding.
"Odd" how Father's compassion during this event must be described in terms of being out of character for him, isn't it? And it seems we've moved on from Vincent wanting to be alone "to think" so that now he is "brooding." I've come to strongly dislike the word "brooding." Extraverts constantly use it against introverts in order to depict how introversion is inferior to extraverted methods of processing thoughts and emotions.
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Whatever she said, he had no doubt that it would be the truth. She had always been open and honest with him. He couldn’t say that he had always been open with her - scrupulously honest about what he told her, but not always telling her everything he probably should.
Yup. This bit of commentary rounds out the author's earlier hints in Catherine's section. Vincent is the "problem" with the relationship between Beauty and Beast. Decent explanation follows of how their bond works in this author's universe. But now Vincent is sitting there in dread of Catherine. I think this piece must be recounting a moment from "Sexy, Saintly Beauty and the Scaredy-Cat Mopey-Beast".
[Edited during the afternoon of July 1st to add:] It also just occurred to me that the author is revealing a bias toward extraverted practices in matters of processing and communicating information. In "converting" Vincent to Catherine's (extraverted) modes of comprehending and sharing truth, we are devaluing intuition, contemplation, active listening, selective dialogue, and conscientious silence. I'm sure the storyteller is not deliberately trying to say that introverted persons are bad or wrong, any more than she's "deliberately" setting out to demean minority presences within majority cultures. Yet the result is to warp Catherine into someone she was not in the series, and to insert an abject paper tiger of a Beast where Vincent ought to be. Maybe the most immediate purpose of this story is to "fix" Vincent's introverted personality. Which, in the end, renders him utterly unVincent. ~Z]
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...the part of him that loved her so desperately felt betrayed...was happy that she felt guilt...that she suffered, too.
The sentiments that precede and follow this statement are bad enough, but this... This. Is. Not. Vincent.
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Vincent knew she was giving him time to stop her, but he couldn’t. It crossed his mind that he should, but the strength to refuse her loving gesture simply wasn’t there.
I note how insistent the author is on this point. "What's happening is consensual!" says the author. "He's submitting against his better judgment because he wants to! Catherine is assuming her rightful place as Vincent's savior at last!" Methinks she doth protest too much, because if Vincent really is as mentally messed up as he's been portrayed, this whole situation is far from being a romantic and healing interlude between two freely consenting adults. It's still a power play, no matter how insistently it's being justified in Catherine's favor.
...
Now he didn’t want her to feel guilt...didn’t want her to worry.
This Vincent is such a yucky quagmire of conflicted angst.
...
She was right to place it in the open...She deserved so much better than that, but she also deserved more than he could offer her.
Catherine's right, Catherine's right, Catherine's right. Vincent's wrong, Vincent's wrong, Vincent's wrong...etcetera and so forth. Catherine didn't need to smack him in the chest. Vincent is silently flagellating himself enough for both of them.
...
It was liberating. He had finally told her the kind of truth she needed to hear, and he felt the happiness that flowed through her.
Liberating. For whom?
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He knew it was far overdue, and he wanted to be truthful, but right now he didn’t need her to hear of the times he had imagined pinning her to the wall and kissing her until they could barely breathe...or of taking her to a distant cavern and... Enough of that! Those were fantasies. He needed to take care of the moment at hand.
Aaannnd, um, this is creepy as hell. "Pinning her to the wall"..."Taking her to a distant cavern and"...Catherine's social and emotional domination coupled with Vincent's fantasies of physical domination leave a sour taste in the aftermath of this imagery. I want no part of this author's idea of romance, have no interest in entering her fairy tale.
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Why did she stay with him? Because she loved him, he admitted to himself, and would tolerate whatever she had to, as long as she had his love in return.
Text book. Co-dependency. Shared psychological disorder. Not something I'd want to emulate in my own dreams, let alone my real life relationships.
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What was wrong with him? Why was he allowing this? Suppose he lost control? Suppose he frightened her? Frightened her? Not likely. He realized that nothing about him frightened her. He could frighten everyone else, but Catherine would not run from him. She had trusted him through everything they had faced, and so far she had been right. He knew she would be disappointed if he stopped her, but he also knew she would allow him to set the boundaries.
Okay. Here we finally get at the heart of Vincent's misgivings. It is ye olde vison of Vincent as a barely-in-control monster. Catherine trusts him even when he doesn't trust anyone, including himself. Catherine is (again) right, while Vincent is not right. This is consensual. This is consensual. Vincent can stop what's happening at any time. He would (of course, goes the atmospheric attitude) be wrong to do so, but he's free to do what she wants, free to do what she wants, and he wants it too, wants to please her, wants to become the man she wants him to be...give in, Vincent, give up your faulty values and inhibitions, let Catherine save you from your broken self.... I know this is nowhere directly stated in the prose, but this is the vibe I get from reading it.
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Vincent was gradually absorbing the fact that she didn’t want to kiss Elliot...a normal man, with normal lips, who could give her anything she wanted in her world. She wanted to kiss only the lips that set Vincent apart from the other men she knew...the lips he had despised because he couldn’t imagine her accepting them...so he hesitantly returned her kiss.
There it is. Abnormal Vincent, who has never accepted who and what he is, who cannot imagine anyone accepting him (probably because, somehow, Father and everyone else Below have never accepted him in all their years of life together in the Tunnels), must want above all else to be "normal." I'm just going to say here that this is such a terribly common assumption on the part of the mainstream world, when it comes to imagining how Other/Outsider persons experience life. It is also a false assumption. Unenlightened "normalcy" is not anywhere near as desirable as its proponents believe it to be.
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Where had he found the courage to kiss her? He was acutely conscious...and more than a little embarrassed, about his lack of experience in such things...self-conscious about his odd mouth and teeth...She was more patient than he felt he deserved, but he had always been a fast learner, and practice was something he would look forward to.
It is important for this Vincent to feel shame about being inexperienced. He has to regret not fulfilling the lovers' mutual needs sooner, to complete the justification for Catherine's righteous intervention. Experimentation...practice...applauding Catherine's patience. This is such a wacky hagiography of Saint Catherine Chandler. Sorry. Snark. My own patience is wearing thin.
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He didn’t want to remind her, but he had to give her one more chance to regain her senses.
*frustrated sigh*
...
So that was it. She was determined to be in his life. She felt that strongly for him...not for Elliot. He doubted he could muster up the nobility to send her away now, anyway.
This is the second time the author has disparaged Vincent's "nobility." I think she's working from a bad definition. She's also tapping into a very, very common stereotype of disabled characterization. Think of Disney's mutation of Quasimodo in
The Hunchback of Notre Dame, where our heroic hunchback "nobly" sets aside his attraction to Esmerelda to bring Phoebus and the Gypsy girl together. (Talk about poor Hugo rolling over in his grave!) This is neither Quasimodo nor Vincent, but the worldview behind this weird extrapolation of selfish selflessness insists that responsible disabled people do not cling to their non-disabled lovers...unless it's on said non-disabled lover's terms.
...
That was obviously another truth Catherine needed to hear. He felt the satisfaction in her when she heard that admission. He should have said such things before.
Note how the author keeps rewarding Vincent through the bond for each little acquiescence he makes to Catherine's way of doing things. Good Beast. Do that trick again. Good Beast.
...
In another moment of silent acceptance...
Silent submission, rather.
...
He allowed it, wondering how such a small thing could make her so happy.
Where did this Vincent grow up? In solitary confinement? How can he be so untouched by his underworld culture's suffusing ethic of giving and receiving help from one another? This. Is. Not. Vincent.
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And finally, The Epilogue:
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She had long ago realized that to Vincent it was perfectly normal...part of ordinary, everyday life. It still held her in awe that such things could have been happening around her all her life and she never knew.
And this is my whole problem with this story. Catherine's normal subsumes Vincent's at every turn.
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"I don’t believe...that I have the strength to go backward again," he answered. There was a pause and a small smile. "I believe this could become something of...an addiction."
"I never thought I’d be so glad to see you lose strength or become addicted," she grinned and stood on tiptoe to plant another kiss happily on his lips.
...the book and tea tray temporarily forgotten in favor of contently indulging Vincent’s new addictions.
Addiction. What an apt metaphor for this "romance." And the lap snuggling thing. The author obviously thinks this is the height of happy (non-intercourse-based) intimacy. To each her own, I suppose.
...
End of text.
...
Now you don't need to feel guilty that I did not like this story, or feel that you forced me to read it. Okay? And I really, really hope I have not offended, because I don't wish to be accusatory or stand in judgment over folks who do like this tale. The narrative structure is a good one, and the focus on character emotions is admirable. The touch of romance did well to unfold within a the given set of circumstances without plummeting into sex. The prose is formulated in a clean, direct style that reveals exactly who these characters are to the reader and to each other. So it's not the writing but the author's assumptions that kill it for me, especially her presentation of Vincent as an emotionally crippled figure. It parses the B&B story in terms of insidious stereotypes of disability that run deep and mostly unquestioned in our culture. Namely, the author assumes that Vincent must at some level hate himself, that he must at some level envy and resent "normal" people, and in this case the author goes so far as to explicitly state that Vincent wished Catherine to suffer the kind of pain he (according to the author) feels. That pain being ultimately self-inflicted in nature, of course, because in this ableist worldview, disability is a self-enclosed moral failure for which non-disabled people bear no responsibility (although the author has worked very hard to make sure Vincent exists purely as a wounded object of pity by shifting much of the blame for his damaged psyche to Father). Ginny Shearin's Vincent blends three common caricatures of disability: the Noble Warrior, the Obsessive Avenger, and the Sweet Innocent. (We can talk more about that, if you like.) I do not blame the author for going there; these images wouldn't be stereotypes if they weren't such easy traps to fall into...but I am injured by entering into that mindset. It's a dehumanizing place to visit.
Considering the prevalence of female fans writing fanfiction, I have to wonder whether this story, and other tales in fandom that proliferate along the same vein, might actually be fed by the wounds that sexism inflicts. Herein, I perceive the application of attitudes which sexist men use against women.
Come on, baby, you know you want it. There's something wrong with you if you think you don't want it. God almighty, what makes you think you can deny me what I want? You must be frigid, or damaged, or defective, or have low self-esteem. Hey, stop pushing me away. Get over yourself already. Here, let me help you push your self-restricting boundaries. See? Isn't that better? You DO want what I want after all. I'm happy I could help you make such good progress tonight. Ad nauseam. We internalize this junk and then it sometimes pours out when we are confronted with people (in this case fictional characters) who are more vulnerable than we are in the overall scheme of things.
Reading fanfiction stories like this one is like watching a child engaged in a session of play therapy who is using dolls or puppets to re-enact a rape over and over again. Only, in play, the rape-victim/fanfic-writer gets to take on the role of the rapist and see what it feels like to claim that kind of power, to assert those kinds of degrading values against another person's dignity. It's an unconscious imitation of supremacist behavior, antics that are sanctioned within a culture where the aggressors get to define "normality." It seems like when we talk about our discomfort with fans who "normalize" Vincent, we are tapping into a deeper repugnance for the way exploiters treat the exploited. That is what I guess may be seething beneath my indignation here.
In for a penny, in for a pound,
Your Zara