Morgan Micro Fiction

[Dina]

I'd attribute them more to arrogance and naivete, myself. She seems to me like a woman who dove into things with the mindset of, "I know what I'm doing, screw those old fogies, nobody can stop me!" then eventually realized she was in way over her head and made a lot of her last moves out of fear, regret and desperation.

Interesting that your interpretation is so different of mine, specially about her last movements. I see them as calculated and very rational, nothing of desperation (and she could feel fear and regret but that was not what fueled her actions).

[Bad Alias]

I agree with the points Mr. Death and Mira made, at least as to what lead Margaret astray. I'd say that a lot of young protesters find out that change is difficult and can backfire on you because of their arrogance and naivete which leads to a mindset of "I know what I'm doing, screw those old fogies, nobody can stop me!" because they see a system that needs changing. Sometimes that leads to a decision with grave consequences.

[morriswalters]

Be careful of comparing Margaret to protestors.  The era was much less simple than those comparisons make it seem. Margaret may resemble more closely in fact the ones who used murder as a political statement and who considered the status quo as something that needed to be crushed at any cost.

Dina's interpretation seems to be closer to the text.

I followed her nod with my gaze. The image-Thomas snarled something under his breath. The Hunger in the mirror answered in a slow, slithering tongue I did not understand. "Why didn't you help him?"
"I did what I could," my mother said. Her eyes flickered with something dark, an ancient spark of hatred. "I made sure that his father would endure a fitting punishment for what he did to us."

@Mira
Love isn't enough.  It does nothing for those who may have been hurt or who may be hurt by her actions. If she is to be redeemed in the text then we need something else. Or rather I should say you all will need more, at the rate he's writing I won't see the endpoint.  To use Jim's favorite movies. Darth Vader  gets redemption by killing the Emperor.  Maggie needs equal billing with Darth Vader.
"You and Thomas?"
"And you, Harry.

She set up her death curse on the way ot the door.  Whatever caused her to run didn't keep her from taking her vengeance on Raith and using her sons to fuel it.  And the quote implies that he has done something to Harry as well.  Darth Vader got redemption by killing the Emperor.  Maggie deserves similar treatment.

[Mira]

Be careful of comparing Margaret to protestors.  The era was much less simple than those comparisons make it seem. Margaret may resemble more closely in fact the ones who used murder as a political statement and who considered the status quo as something that needed to be crushed at any cost.

  Don't know if you lived through that era or not, but perfectly normal good kids protested and got radicalized..  Groups like the Weathermen were born,  she could have been susceptible.. Using the slippery slope argument and the ease that one can slip into black magic and justify it.

Love isn't enough.  It does nothing for those who may have been hurt or who may be hurt by her actions. If she is to be redeemed in the text then we need something else. Or rather I should say you all will need more, at the rate he's writing I won't see the endpoint.  To use Jim's favorite movies. Darth Vader  gets redemption by killing the Emperor.  Maggie needs equal billing with Darth Vader.
"You and Thomas?"
"And you, Harry.

Make up for what she did?  No, but love for a man like Malcolm would make her want to be a better woman.  Make amends for the damage she had done, and yes, in the end be redeemed.  Go back and reread the bits where Michael or Sanya explain what the Holy Knight's job is.  They try to get the host to give up the coin, then that person is free to seek redemption or not.  Giving up the coin alone isn't going to make up for past wrongs, but changing how he or she chooses to live the rest of his or her life can..

[forumghost]

Y'know I really don't get where the 'using her sons to fuel it' stuff is coming from with regards to her death curse. Wasn't it fueled by her lifeforce (like any death curse) and just tied to her bloodline so that the Curse stayed 'refreshed' instead of fading like a normal spell?

It's not like it hurt Harry, or Thomas, in any way, near as I can tell. Just that the presence of Maggie's descendants kept the spell anchored/strong.

[morriswalters]

Y'know I really don't get where the 'using her sons to fuel it' stuff is coming from with regards to her death curse. Wasn't it fueled by her lifeforce (like any death curse) and just tied to her bloodline so that the Curse stayed 'refreshed' instead of fading like a normal spell?

It's not like it hurt Harry, or Thomas, in any way, near as I can tell. Just that the presence of Maggie's descendants kept the spell anchored/strong.

Well it got Thomas tied to a rock as a tidbit for He Who Walks Behind, Murphy attacked and Harry almost murdered as well. But all's well that ends well, I guess. Look, Jim wrote it that way.  I'm just pointing out the notes in the score that he's written.  What I'm interested is in where the music takes us.  In Skin Game Jim told us that Maggie was a piece of work.  And he used the scion of a true nightmare to tell us.  He's playing with our expectations. And now comes the Journal.  I'm hoping in Pace Talks to get some clarity.

@Mira
You may be right.  We'll see.

[Bad Alias]

Be careful of comparing Margaret to protesters.

That's why I agreed with the statement. "Normal" kids ended robbing banks for the Symbionese Liberation Army. Or maybe how today "normal" kids went to Syria to join ISIS.

[Mira]

That's why I agreed with the statement. "Normal" kids ended robbing banks for the Symbionese Liberation Army. Or maybe how today "normal" kids went to Syria to join ISIS.

Yes, we can never forget that these people are skilled as well as evil and we can all be susceptible
when caught off guard or in a vulnerable moment.   People join cults all of the time, people get scammed all of them time.   Margaret was young and idealistic, she was also angry because her father made some serious mistakes during her training.   The experience with her father made her a bit resentful, put a bit of a chip on her shoulder and last but not least mistrustful of authority, in short not hard to recruit for the dark forces.  Let's not forget that Eb knows he screwed up with her and was determined not to make the same mistakes with Harry.

[exartiem]

Two points:

First, we should be careful about how deep we get into religious doctrine because this story is coming from Jim's mind.  It doesn't necessarily have to jive with his own beliefs.  He has said in interviews that he was raised fundamentalist Christian, but more from the "fun" end of fundamental rather than the "mental" end.

Second, as to whether we should care about Margaret, you guys seem to be treating this topic as it's own story.  This is Harry's story.  Harry cares about his mother, all the good and bad.  If you care about Harry then you should care about what affects him.

Of course, if you don't care about Harry, then why are you reading his story?

[Dina]

Perhaps the story is interesting enough to be read without actually caring for the lead character.

[Mira]

Two points:

First, we should be careful about how deep we get into religious doctrine because this story is coming from Jim's mind.  It doesn't necessarily have to jive with his own beliefs.  He has said in interviews that he was raised fundamentalist Christian, but more from the "fun" end of fundamental rather than the "mental" end.

Second, as to whether we should care about Margaret, you guys seem to be treating this topic as it's own story.  This is Harry's story.  Harry cares about his mother, all the good and bad.  If you care about Harry then you should care about what affects him.

Of course, if you don't care about Harry, then why are you reading his story?

 We care about Margaret's story, because without her story taking the turns that it did, we wouldn't have Harry's story.  At some point if Harry reaches another crossroads like he did when he was down with a broken back, the choices his mother made and why may be very relevant to him, the same goes to how and why his father died.

[morriswalters]

Second, as to whether we should care about Margaret, you guys seem to be treating this topic as it's own story.  This is Harry's story.  Harry cares about his mother, all the good and bad.  If you care about Harry then you should care about what affects him.

Of course, if you don't care about Harry, then why are you reading his story?

Context is king.  If Maggie's story doesn't land then Harry's story is weaker.  And we talk about her because Jim keeps dragging her to the forefront. So he wants you thinking about Maggie. Arguably Margaret is Harry's mentor.  More than anyone else other than Malcolm she has made Harry what he is. And if you don't understand her story then you can't understand Harry's. She is mentioned in almost every book and is connected to all the people in Harry's life.  His daughter was named after her.

[123Chikadee]

Hm, I tend to agree with morriswalters, Mr. Death, and Mira. Bad Alias makes some very good points as well. I think my ideas of Margaret are a tad different. I think that while she ultimately had a good heart, but she was running with a bad crowd for a reason and I think part of her liked the power that came with it, if only so she could use it to do good.
Narrative wise, I bet she's a dark reflection of Harry and when he finds out, it'll really throw him for a loop before he ends up believing that she did end up redeeming herself. I have a feeling that she might actually had a harder time dealing with her darker side than Harry had. Plus, I think this would be fairly interesting.
I also think that a lot of her calculations for how Harry came to be were both intelligent but also desperate. I think she overestimated her intelligence and it came back to gite her in a really big way. Maybe her creation of Harry was more of a last ditch attempt to combat outsiders. I don't know if Thomas was an accident or not; she did leave him, despite not wanting to.
I know that people were comparing Morgan and Margaret's situation to Lily and Snape, but what if in this variation, Margaret is Snape?

[g33k]

... Jim's kept it so vague that she could be a closet nun.  I'm just wore out with it ...

You're... just wore out with vague hints, speculations, possible/probable/improbable/nothing's-impossiblities ??!?   


Dude.   

You're hanging out on the wrong forum.

 

[Bad Alias]

Perhaps the story is interesting enough to be read without actually caring for the lead character.

In my experience, that's not a thing. If I don't care about the main characters, I don't care enough to keep going.