"I don't know she gets it from": Elly on Liz's temper.

[dreadedcandiru2]

Elly's inability to see that Lizzie behaves the way she does because she takes her cue on how to behave from her mother extends far beyond her inability to see that the timidity and the need to act cuter and younger than is good for her proceed mainly from watching how Mommy reacts. I've already covered Elly's lack of awareness concerning how her own tendency to sigh in despair about how old and ugly and fat she is filled Lizzie's impressionable little mind with the need to hate what she sees in the mirror; today, I'd like to talk about something that came up during our discussion of the Not-Fred Willis arc: Elizabeth's vicious temper.

As we've seen, it doesn't take very much to set Liz off and she doesn't really want to listen to anything like reason. She can be infuriated by by the need her friends have to 'betray' her by befriending someone who isn't her, royally peeved because of her (mistaken) belief that her friends are freeloading off of her, enraged by gentle chiding about her stupider habits and always, always pissed off at anyone who brings her crashing back down to reality when she's in love with being in love. To this day, she wishes that a meteor would raze Mtigwaki off the map because they didn't guide her destiny for her and also to this day, she damns the name of every man who had better things to do than to waste time on a clingy imbecile and she wishes that Jeremy had beaten April to a bloody pulp for making her feel unappreciated.

The amusing thing about all of this is that on the rare occasions that Elly takes notice of this, she has no idea in the world where Liz gets her vindictive streak and volcanic temper. After all, Elly doesn't see herself as being a raging loon who explodes at the least provocation and nurses grudges against otherwise inoffensive people who made the mistake of inconveniencing her. The same woman who sees herself as a loving, fair, firm and kind mother figure also looks back on a past wherein she was calm, tolerant and responded to life's little reverses with a cheery smile. Since she cannot seem to see that her default facial expressions are either a horrified gasp when faced with a commonplace thing she should have anticipated but didn't or a shout of irrational and violent rage when confronted with a mild irritant, she has no idea that she's mostly why Liz blows her stack over trivialities. It seems to me that it's a form of protective stupidity that allows her to sail merrily on screaming like a banshee at nothing all, safe from the knowledge that she'd have to humiliate herself by admitting that she's responsible for the less pleasant parts of her children's personalities. It's like how John is willing himself to not see that it's a lot of his and Elly's fault that Lizzie never felt as if she belonged anywhere.

Comments

[kefkaownsall.livejournal.com]

Incidentally the first Elly oyu linked had Mike smirk which is odd since I thought he couldnt control eye rolling

[dreadedcandiru2.livejournal.com]

Well, maybe he can. Elly cannot because she has no self-control whatever.

[kefkaownsall.livejournal.com]

Honestly with Liz her issues are 70% from parents. Mike I dunno he just seems like a bad guy inherently

[dreadedcandiru2.livejournal.com]

That's most of the problem; were John and Elly to be removed from the equation, Liz would have done all right for herself while Mike would still suck ass as a human being.

[kefkaownsall.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I say that in that the whole save laptop thing etc seem to imply lack of empathy

[dreadedcandiru2.livejournal.com]

That it does.

[fairest1.livejournal.com]

Could go either way, in my opinion; Elly always did encourage his more annoying tendencies -- who cares if he's an asshat as long as he says something funny in the process?

Mind, he'd still end up a crap writer and probably shouldn't have had kids, but he'd be a somewhat more tolerable human being if someone else raised him.

[dreadedcandiru2.livejournal.com]

The problem is deciding when to kill John and Elly off. If we were to wait until April is born, it might be too late for him.

[fairest1.livejournal.com]

Depends on how creative you get. Perhaps John and Elly decided that Mike came along before they were ready to have kids and put him up for adoption instead of sticking him in a bureau drawer. Liz would be stuck, but have things a bit easier without having someone who competes with her for attention. And John can be killed off as soon as April is conceived -- Elly can flail and look for someone to take Liz while she's grieving, letting the kid be raised by her long-lost uncle from Greenpeace.

[dreadedcandiru2.livejournal.com]

Cool. I like that idea.

[fairest1.livejournal.com]

Maybe combine it with the story of that guy mentioned on Cracked who was raised by wolves between the ages of seven and 19. As they point out, it sounds better than high school. Thus she goes to Mtig to stay, because it's the closest to civilization that she can tolerate. Paul would just have to deal with having a girlfriend who can take down a moose without needing manufactured weapons.