At What Point Did You Lose Sympathy for Theres and Teresa?

For discussion of John Ajvide Lindqvist's novel Lilla Stjärna
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CyberGhostface
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Re: At What Point Did You Lose Sympathy for Theres and Teres

Post by CyberGhostface » Sun Oct 21, 2012 6:23 pm

Just finished the novel right now. Overall, I never lost sympathy for them although I could tell that they had gone past the point of no return by the end.
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Re: At What Point Did You Lose Sympathy for Theres and Teres

Post by lombano » Sun Oct 21, 2012 10:25 pm

gattoparde59 wrote:
lombano wrote:Apples to oranges. As per the original novel, Oskar's fantasies are mere fantasies, and when push comes to shove he's a good kid. Oskar's fantasies are disturbing only in their insistence on realism and their obsessive nature; as for the degree of violence, boys' fantasies tend to be pretty violent.
This is the same type of fruit in terms of motivation. The difference lies in outcome, and I think I took care to make that distinction. I am not trying to justify action, or in action, my question is why? Oskar also has his candy eating ritual, and like Teresa is not an especially attractive child, at least in the novel. In their own way , Eli and Theres also suffer from this type of anxiety.
It's not just the outcome, but also the differences in their natures. Oskar is by nature kind, and this is shown most starkly, ironically, right after he whacks Jonny. He is kind to Eli early on, though Eli is rude. His fantasies are mere fantasies, which vanish like a puff of smoke when push comes to shove, at least up to the end of the original novel. Teresa shows not the slightest hint of kindness to anybody, ever. She is perhaps by nature cruel, at the very least unkind. She may not have violent fantasies, at least not very explicitly, but she is by nature far more violent. Also, Oskar seems to want to be accepted, in any terms as long as the acceptance is genuine. Teresa only wants to be accepted in terms that suit her pride - perhaps she would like Johannes to court her, to get attention from the boys, even though she doesn't want any of them. She seems to want admiration, or at least attention, from her peers whom she doesn't even like.
Eli and Theres I view as roughly on the same spectrum - Eli farther towards the innocent side of the scale, but essentially on the same spectrum. Oskar and Teresa I regard as almost polar opposites.
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Re: At What Point Did You Lose Sympathy for Theres and Teres

Post by drakkar » Mon Oct 22, 2012 7:44 am

gattoparde59 wrote:This is the same type of fruit in terms of motivation. The difference lies in outcome, and I think I took care to make that distinction. I am not trying to justify action, or in action, my question is why? Oskar also has his candy eating ritual, and like Teresa is not an especially attractive child, at least in the novel. In their own way , Eli and Theres also suffer from this type of anxiety.
For me LS balances on a razor edge between despair and warm-heartedness. LS is written by a much more experienced writer than LTROI, in short it is better crafted than it, and the bitterweetness is even more "a point". Awfulness leads to awfulness, the background leading up to the awful things the girls do is just as awful. After all this is, like LTROI, a story of outsiders that for various reasons fall outside the society, how they become outsiders and how they (re)act.

With LS, JAL has done a lot to explain to me the nature and dynamics of school mass murders. LS is also a parallel to the real life Utøya massacre in Norway last summer (one guy shooting and killing more than sixty youngsters trapped on an island), and in retrospection - JAL is dead on explaining the dynamics behind this event.
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Re: At What Point Did You Lose Sympathy for Theres and Teres

Post by gattoparde59 » Mon Oct 22, 2012 4:25 pm

lombano wrote:It's not just the outcome, but also the differences in their natures. Oskar is by nature kind, and this is shown most starkly, ironically, right after he whacks Jonny. He is kind to Eli early on, though Eli is rude. His fantasies are mere fantasies, which vanish like a puff of smoke when push comes to shove, at least up to the end of the original novel.
I did not find Oskar to be that monochromatic. Eli points out to him that he would kill, if he thought he could get away with it. Oskar does have a monster inside of him. The difference between him and Teresa is that Oskar is frightened and appalled by this aspect of his own personality. That comes out in the Jonny whacking scene. Oskar also has his own grievances with his father and with his friend Johannes.
lombano wrote:Teresa shows not the slightest hint of kindness to anybody, ever. She is perhaps by nature cruel, at the very least unkind. She may not have violent fantasies, at least not very explicitly, but she is by nature far more violent. Also, Oskar seems to want to be accepted, in any terms as long as the acceptance is genuine. Teresa only wants to be accepted in terms that suit her pride - perhaps she would like Johannes to court her, to get attention from the boys, even though she doesn't want any of them. She seems to want admiration, or at least attention, from her peers whom she doesn't even
like.
To be charitable to Teresa, I find her problem to be an inability to make a connection to other people and find acceptance as well. I did have sympathy for Teresa when she was forced to attend the "fancy dress" party. In addition to my own wealth of experience with situations like that, I have had to rescue what are now two shell-shocked children from grade school "dances," much like Teresa's father in the novel. Theres seems to suffer from a more acute version of the same problem. :shock:

I need to go back and review Teresa's "case history" and try to get a better picture of the character. I have read that Teresa was actually based on real case histories of mentally ill children. Someone may be able to tease a diagnosis out of the novel.

I'll break open the story and tell you what is there. Then, like the others that have fallen out onto the sand, I will finish with it, and the wind will take it away.

Nisa

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Re: At What Point Did You Lose Sympathy for Theres and Teres

Post by sauvin » Mon Oct 22, 2012 6:04 pm

gattoparde59 wrote:To be charitable to Teresa, I find her problem to be an inability to make a connection to other people and find acceptance as well. I did have sympathy for Teresa when she was forced to attend the "fancy dress" party. In addition to my own wealth of experience with situations like that, I have had to rescue what are now two shell-shocked children from grade school "dances," much like Teresa's father in the novel. Theres seems to suffer from a more acute version of the same problem. :shock:

I need to go back and review Teresa's "case history" and try to get a better picture of the character. I have read that Teresa was actually based on real case histories of mentally ill children. Someone may be able to tease a diagnosis out of the novel.
Possibly, but she may be an amalgam. The first thought to cross my mind when I read the quoted text was that she'd often spent days re-arranging her beads according to a system that nobody else understood. This, in tandem with her apparent lack of sympathy or empathy for other people, leads me to believe she was just plain born bad.
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Re: At What Point Did You Lose Sympathy for Theres and Teres

Post by drakkar » Mon Oct 22, 2012 8:23 pm

sauvin wrote:Possibly, but she may be an amalgam. The first thought to cross my mind when I read the quoted text was that she'd often spent days re-arranging her beads according to a system that nobody else understood. This, in tandem with her apparent lack of sympathy or empathy for other people, leads me to believe she was just plain born bad.
Perhaps a tad fast jumping to that conclusion - turn the page, and read about Teresa crying together with her father when she realises he hasn't yet got a bracelet from her. Then she offers him all the bracelets she got. Question is why didn't Teresa offer her father any bracelets earlier? Was it because she didn't want to, or was it didn't occur to her because her father just wasn't present for her?
We later learn lot about Göran not being there for his daughter, not understanding her at all.
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Re: At What Point Did You Lose Sympathy for Theres and Teres

Post by EEA » Mon Oct 22, 2012 9:58 pm

I think that no one was there for Teresa. Then when she becomes obsess with Theres since she is the only one that Teresa finds some connection with. And that only brings terrible things.
And is sad that her dad sees that he was not there for Teresa but by then is too late. Teresa has made her choice and there is no return for her.

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Re: At What Point Did You Lose Sympathy for Theres and Teres

Post by lombano » Tue Oct 23, 2012 2:49 am

gattoparde59 wrote:
lombano wrote:It's not just the outcome, but also the differences in their natures. Oskar is by nature kind, and this is shown most starkly, ironically, right after he whacks Jonny. He is kind to Eli early on, though Eli is rude. His fantasies are mere fantasies, which vanish like a puff of smoke when push comes to shove, at least up to the end of the original novel.
I did not find Oskar to be that monochromatic. Eli points out to him that he would kill, if he thought he could get away with it. Oskar does have a monster inside of him. The difference between him and Teresa is that Oskar is frightened and appalled by this aspect of his own personality. That comes out in the Jonny whacking scene. Oskar also has his own grievances with his father and with his friend Johannes.
True, but as you say, the inner monster is restrained. The key point is not that Oskar isn't tempted to murder Jonny, but that he doesn't try and offers him his sock instead. His actions were an open-and-shut case of self-defense. With Teresa there is nothing other than the monster, at least towards the end of the novel.
gattoparde59 wrote:
lombano wrote:Teresa shows not the slightest hint of kindness to anybody, ever. She is perhaps by nature cruel, at the very least unkind. She may not have violent fantasies, at least not very explicitly, but she is by nature far more violent. Also, Oskar seems to want to be accepted, in any terms as long as the acceptance is genuine. Teresa only wants to be accepted in terms that suit her pride - perhaps she would like Johannes to court her, to get attention from the boys, even though she doesn't want any of them. She seems to want admiration, or at least attention, from her peers whom she doesn't even
like.
To be charitable to Teresa, I find her problem to be an inability to make a connection to other people and find acceptance as well. I did have sympathy for Teresa when she was forced to attend the "fancy dress" party. In addition to my own wealth of experience with situations like that, I have had to rescue what are now two shell-shocked children from grade school "dances," much like Teresa's father in the novel.
I'm familiar with that sort of situation, extremely so. Yet I've never murdered anyone, and I've known other outsiders who have also never murdered anyone.
Theres seems to suffer from a more acute version of the same problem. :shock:
Yet she is kinder than Teresa - in a very twisted way, part of the motivation for the killings is trying to help the Wolves, beginning with Teresa. And she protects Jerry.
I need to go back and review Teresa's "case history" and try to get a better picture of the character. I have read that Teresa was actually based on real case histories of mentally ill children. Someone may be able to tease a diagnosis out of the novel.
That's pretty interesting - are there any links where we could read about that?
drakkar wrote:...Teresa crying together with her father when she realises he hasn't yet got a bracelet from her. Then she offers him all the bracelets she got. Question is why didn't Teresa offer her father any bracelets earlier? Was it because she didn't want to, or was it didn't occur to her because her father just wasn't present for her?
...
Perhaps, but she willingly turned her back on her father.


Yesterday I watched I, Pierre Rivière, and in some respects the protagonist was a bit like a male version of Teresa. He brutally murders his mother, sister and brother. While the entire story leading up to the murders (based on a true story) is told through his confession, police interviews and the trial itself, at least a few facts are established unambiguously - Pierre's innate cruelty, manifesting itself since childhood against animals (he makes Teresa look like an animal lover) and to a lesser degree against children (though until he murders his little brother, he had limited himself to terrorising children but not physically harming them), the lack of any meaningful social or family bonds (with the possible exception of his father, though in that respect some of the testimonies and his confession are contradictory), etc.
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Re: At What Point Did You Lose Sympathy for Theres and Teres

Post by drakkar » Tue Oct 23, 2012 5:54 am

lombano wrote:That's pretty interesting - are there any links where we could read about that?
I've also read this - that LS is dedicated to "girls in mental hospitals, but I cannot find the link now.
lombano wrote:Perhaps, but she willingly turned her back on her father.
Still the question remains unanswered - why? And still a rethorical answer might be, was it because she never learnt to know her father?

Getting the novel at some distance (two years since I read it) I also came to regard Teresa a kid with some diagnosis, asberger "light" or something. Not enough to put her entirely outside society, but enough to make it difficult for her, and for her parents.

The realism in John's portrayals makes me view the novel as a parallel to real life incidents, e.g. school massacres happening now and then, perpetrated by some misfit. Then, does it bring us any closer to a solution of the problem to simply blame the perpetrators (Teresa and Theres are "bad"), and that's that? Doesn't look like that, they still seem to pup up now and then, seemingly from nowhere.
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Re: At What Point Did You Lose Sympathy for Theres and Teres

Post by gattoparde59 » Tue Oct 23, 2012 9:54 am

drakkar wrote:That's pretty interesting - are there any links where we could read about that?
I've also read this - that LS is dedicated to "girls in mental hospitals, but I cannot find the link now.
That may be in one of the video interviews. He stated he needed to do research because he wanted to write about female characters.

I'll break open the story and tell you what is there. Then, like the others that have fallen out onto the sand, I will finish with it, and the wind will take it away.

Nisa

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