Random late-night poll

[lotesse]

brought to you by my tendency to plunge back into obscure childhood fandoms when faced with schoolwork. I've been reading in The Dark is Rising, and I keep finding fic that labels Bran as an albino, either in narration or in dialogue. And it keeps hitting me as incorrect, somehow - though I've no idea why. So I'm putting it to you all.

Poll #2314

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 10

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Hey kids, would you call Bran Davies an albino?

View Answers

yes
5 (50.0%)

no
4 (40.0%)

maybe?
1 (10.0%)

something that I will expound upon in the comments
0 (0.0%)

And if he is/is not, how on earth does that intersect with the Evil Albino trend that's been running these last couple of years?

Comments

[lotesse]

He's described as colorless - pale skin, pale hair - with fairly arresting golden eyes that he keeps hidden behind dark glasses. He talks about being teased, called one of the Tylwyth Teg. But I don't think Cooper ever uses the term "albino," though I could be wrong.

[starlady]

No, I think you're right that Cooper never uses "albino"--but clearly the characterization strikes people as albino, aside from the eyes. It occurs to me that the real Evil Albino in the books is the White Rider.

All right, so, let me ask--I loved these books as a kid, and I still think they're pretty great, but in retrospect I really don't think much of the characterization of Susan. What did you think (of anything about them, really)?

[lotesse]

Is it Jane you mean?

I've remained passionately in love with TDiR ever since I first read them as a twelve-yea-old. We're talking at least yearly rereads, here. And - I mean, Jane isn't Will or Bran, but of the three Drew children I feel like she comes off best. She's perceptive and compassionate, and Cooper gives her more moments of connection to the mythic than either of her brothers. Jane gets to talk to the Greenwitch, and to the Lady, and there's a girl in the Lost Land with a face that looks like hers. Not to mention that she pretty much gets the last word, at the end.

Jane isn't destined, again not like Will and Bran, but Cooper clearly doesn't think less of her characters for that. It's one of the things I really like about the books - the way that the ordinary and the sacral bump shoulders and inform one another.

[starlady]

She's perceptive and compassionate, and Cooper gives her more moments of connection to the mythic than either of her brothers.

But to what extent are these stereotypically girlish traits? I don't know where the line is, which is why I ask.

It's one of the things I really like about the books - the way that the ordinary and the sacral bump shoulders and inform one another.

Definitely. I think it's clearest in The Dark Is Rising, but it's definitely in all the books.