A reminder about what Irene is.
Jan. 6th, 2015 01:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Since we're about a week or so away from the revelation that Ted married Irene because he believed that since Connie had moved on, he had to as well, let's remind ourselves what function she actually did play. When first introduced, she seemed to be little more than a cipher meant to absorb tactless comments about being the other woman. A year and a half later, she was pretty much a mnemonic device who existed to remind us that Ted seemed to be incapable of realizing that his stupid alley-catting around might present a problem for the women he stepped out on. When last heard of, she seemed to play the part of a reminder that Ted never did quite understand this at all and somehow managed to blame his misery on her for not knowing that since the women he coupled with in his campaign to alter the gene pool in the Golden Horseshoe meant nothing at all to him, she too should find his sex with them as meaningless as he did.
You'll notice that there's not much room for a personality in there and, as his Liography indicates, it seems to be that one wasn't a requirement. When you translate words like "efficient" and "practical" into English, what you're left with is the disturbing image of Ted engaging in the moral equivalent of marrying a Dictaphone. Hell, Lynn even as much as confessed that Irene was meant to be little more than a plot device to show us that anyone who'd dare to not cower in fear when Elly rants like a God-damned maniac is bad meat in a can and unfit to live in the world of steady, regular life. It's much like how Warren and Paul were both completely unsuitable for Liz because they had the evil capacity to evilly take John aside and evilly tell him "Look, Skeletor, I'm twice your size and sick of your pompous and ignorant beefing about stuff you don't know jackshit about so any more of your damned attitude and so help me, I'll break you in half." Just as Anthony is a great guy because he's the only person on the planet someone like John could own, Ted's inability to stay married to a fireplug in a dress is there to remind us that he's too self-absorbed to have mature relationships.
You'll notice that there's not much room for a personality in there and, as his Liography indicates, it seems to be that one wasn't a requirement. When you translate words like "efficient" and "practical" into English, what you're left with is the disturbing image of Ted engaging in the moral equivalent of marrying a Dictaphone. Hell, Lynn even as much as confessed that Irene was meant to be little more than a plot device to show us that anyone who'd dare to not cower in fear when Elly rants like a God-damned maniac is bad meat in a can and unfit to live in the world of steady, regular life. It's much like how Warren and Paul were both completely unsuitable for Liz because they had the evil capacity to evilly take John aside and evilly tell him "Look, Skeletor, I'm twice your size and sick of your pompous and ignorant beefing about stuff you don't know jackshit about so any more of your damned attitude and so help me, I'll break you in half." Just as Anthony is a great guy because he's the only person on the planet someone like John could own, Ted's inability to stay married to a fireplug in a dress is there to remind us that he's too self-absorbed to have mature relationships.