Yuletide treasures

[rivkat]

My Yuletide story was based on Anna to the Infinite Power, one of my favorite childhood sf books/movies. I still like both versions on recent rereading/rewatching, as stories about what adults expect of children who have been born for a specific purpose, and I have a huge jones for Anna/Rowan -- who isn’t really her brother, so it’s okay but still creepy! Anna and Everything After, by Dira Sudis, shows that liberation isn’t the end of the story, because Anna – or whoever she is – is still constrained by her (or someone’s) past.

The story I wrote is Clarity, a Heroes story featuring Claire. I have loved Claire since the beginning, because I saw in her a blonde cheerleader reluctant superhero who is not Buffy, which seemed to me an extremely difficult narrative trick. Not to mention that I have a thing for cheerleaders. I also saw in Claire a girl in the midst of a classic feminist awakening, her power a metaphor for sexual maturation: her body is a battleground, and everyone who sees its new potential wants to define it (and her) on their own terms, while she just wants to slow down, understand it, and learn to live with it. Maybe even, eventually, get pleasure from it, but at first she’s not ready for that. Peter’s the first person who really sees her body as a wonderful thing for her to control and define, which is a big part of why I started to like Peter at long last.

Along with the metaphor, Claire’s also living through another feminist experience: the discovery that patriarchy has done terrible things to women, specifically her mother. She has grown up believing that her mother is flighty and lightweight naturally and by choice (and that those things are in harmony). She discovers that her mother was made that way, through violent intervention, by her father. But she’s still part of the family. She has neither the power nor the desire to walk away. She can’t repudiate her father, and she can’t save her mother. Claire’s in a place that could lead her to despair, but I expect she’ll find strength instead.

And that’s why I like Claire.

Comments

[radioreverie.livejournal.com]

I loved Anna to the Infinite Power as a child! I didn't think anyone else had heard of it.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

It's always surprising how many of us have found the same secret pleasures.

[denynothing1.livejournal.com]

I haven't had a chance to read any yuletide stories yet, but I'd already downloaded this along with others, because the fact that a story about Claire even existed made me happy. I'll be particularly happy to read it now I've read your thoughts on the character, to which I can only add an emphatic, "Yes."

I confess that during the pilot, when the only female mutants revealed were a stripper and a cheerleader, my eyes rolled so hard they almost fell out of my head. But as with the rest of the show, the writers have subverted my expectations in an utterly delightful way and I love Claire to pieces. Especially in the later episodes, as she is just barely coming to terms with her powers, and mulling over how to use them -- it's an exciting thing we almost never get to see. (Unlike the transition of boys to men and men to heroes, which is all over popular media and has been for eons, it seems.)

The revelation about Claire's mother utterly floored me -- I never saw it coming. It's what I love about the show, how the threads of the story are woven so deftly, that even something that just seemed like a support piece is suddenly twisted in a way that makes it pop to the surface and shine. I can't wait for the next episode!

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

I'm still not thrilled about the stripper, or about most of the women, honestly, but Claire won me over almost instantly. And I absolutely agree about the plots -- the dialogue is largely bad, but the plot twists and the beautiful set pieces like Nathan landing in the desert have me jumping up and down with glee at least once an episode.

[kaseido.livejournal.com]

Damn, that's really good.

I've been avoiding Heroes fic, and I'm not entirely sure why. Probably because the story's so tight that it doesn't invite speculation for me, the same reason why I don't read BSG fic unless it's clearly AU.

I like your insight into Peter's perception of Claire - I find the shipping of them distasteful, but that does point to a constructive bond between them.

Very, very good all around - thank you!

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I don't have a need for fic, for exactly the reason you say. But Yuletide is a chance to do something different, and it turned out that I did have things to say about Claire.

I don't have much against the idea that Claire & Peter might get together in the future, but I have no need for it either. I like him as the friend and hero that Zach, for various reasons, can't be for her.