Originally Posted by PerfectAnomaly:
He can have angry and/or tearful outbursts without them being directed at Lindsay personally. That would be understandable. If he directs his feelings at Lindsay personally, that isn't understandable. S3 Lindsay (and S4 Lindsay) directed her feelings at Danny and other people, and usually it was when people had no clue what she was going through. That's unacceptable
Unless he's having those outbursts at walls or at thin air, they're going to be directed at people. Even that "look at me" line from the promo implied he was shouting at a person - whether or not it was justified, we have no clue, but unless it's the person who shot him that he's yelling at, he's directing his feelings at someone not directly responsible for his condition. That's either okay or not okay for both characters, it can't be fine for one and not for the other. IMO it'd be perfectly understandable if he's shouting to vent, I don't care, but is this misguided anger any less unacceptable than any of Lindsay's outbursts? We don't know yet, but I'm inclined to think no.
From what we've seen of Danny so far, he typically doesn't lash out at other people, so it's fair to speculate that he won't do that in this scenario too. Just like Lindsay's history shows she does lash out at other people so we can speculate that she will do the same in this scenario. Obviously we won't know how it plays out until we see the episodes. But as far as speculation goes I don't think it's a huge leap to expect Danny to shut down and for Lindsay to be selfish.
Sure, but if you're going to take Lindsay to task for being "selfish" (especially on the grounds that she's married to him now, and has a responsibility to know better), you're going to have to do the same with Danny shutting down - he's just as responsible as Lindsay is for this marriage (if not more so); in which case we'd be back at Season 4's square-one, with both Lindsay and Danny being equally wrong on the same issue - and the fans being split the exact same way.
And I'm sorry, but life for me isn't all black and white. I'm gonna cut someone more slack if what they're going through happened last month than I will if it happened ten years ago. Generally speaking, someone who's had ten years to process and come to terms with something traumatic will (and IMO should) act differently than someone who only had a month or two to deal with a traumatic event.
Fair enough, but like you said, life's not black and white - I can't view things the same way. People grieve/deal in different ways, at different levels. And if someone went through something horrible ten years ago, I can't see them being more contemptible or less deserving of leeway because they
should be dealing better by now. How the heck wouldI know how they should be dealing? I'm not them. If I feel sympathy now, chances are I'll feel the same sympathy ten years down the road - and if I can't feel it then, it's probably because I never felt it. Similarly, if I can't find Lindsay's behaviour nice or excusable now (even if I find it understandable), it wouldn't be any more excusable ten years earlier just because that's when the crime happened. What would she be doing differently? Either way she'd be lashing out at people who aren't responsible for her trauma. Same with Danny (though yeah, we have no way of knowing just how he'll behave now).
Originally Posted by Top41:
Yeah, I guess I just can't see them as the same thing. One was ten years ago and she walked away. Two is the present and he's paralyzed. Trauma is not trauma--not in my book. There are levels--it's the same reason why murder and rape are treated more serious crimes than burglary or assault. Is the person who's assaulted traumatized? Sure. But I think someone who is raped is going to have a more difficult recovery than someone who gets beat up in a bar--emotionally at least. There are degrees, and time does make a difference. It's not just black and white.
Also fair. But you have to admit, personal bias plays a
huge role in the levels you see as more traumatic. Like, I may not be fond of Lindsay's S3 storyline, but I do have to think seeing/hearing three close friends be shot to death feet away would be more akin to the "rape" analogy than Danny's being shot is (given that he's apparently walking around again a couple months or so later, that actually seems more like the "beat-up-in-a-bar" trauma). No matter when it happened or how young she was. I can't see people who, ie, lost someone in Columbine or 9/11 as less deserving of sympathy or leeway than someone who got stuck in a wheelchair a month ago, just because those traumas happened at least a decade ago whereas the wheelchair-thing was more recent. Everyone's going to have a different personal bias. And personal bias isn't the best measuring stick to determine which character is "good" or "terrible".
There are degrees, and that's actually why I said trauma is trauma. There is literally no way to agree on which trauma is
worse, or which should be easier to get over (or how
long it should take to get over), which is why I'd think it'd make more sense to look at both storylines as they're presented: two characters separately going through a terrible time, and dealing with it as they did/will.
Again, if he yells at her, if he's a jerk to her--no, that's not acceptable. I'm not saying that at all. What I'm saying is that the burden is on her to be supportive of him during this. She's got to do exactly what she didn't do in season four--she has to reach out to him, she has to be supportive of him, she has to break through those emotional walls (the ones he probably won't be strong enough to have up anyway).
See, I can agree with this. I wouldn't be able to get behind Lindsay making absolutely no effort to be supportive. But I think Danny equally has the burden of doing what he didn't in Season 4, lowering those walls (which, to be honest, I'm iffy on how strong they will/won't be). If he doesn't, I couldn't see that as any more okay than Lindsay's not trying to reach him. I don't see him being injured as absolving him of that responsibility.
There is a big difference between interpreting dialogue that is said by a character on screen and assuming something happens off screen. It's an interpretation--maybe correct, maybe not, but based on something that happened on screen.
Maybe, but if it's not supported by anything else in the show/episode, I can't see how it becomes any more concrete than an offscreen assumption. I mean, I could just as easily assume that Danny's "Marry me" proposal from the episode "Super Men" was serious. There's absolutely nothing to support that interpretation, a
lot to contradict it; and to assume otherwise would require making a lot of offscreen assumption. With Lindsay's Snow-Day lines, we can come up with any interpretation we want, but the notion that she was just fishing for reassurance isn't supported - especially because she didn't get it, and in fact only got an affirmation that she
should be feeling guilty. She'd've been more reassured, I think, if she'd just stayed silent.
She shouldn't feel guilty about him taking her shift, but she should feel guilty for not doing what was best for him--making him wait for EMS to come to him like Flack wanted--and for fishing for him to reassure her minutes after he's been rescued.
The EMS/ambulance thing never came up once; and I agree, she shouldn't feel guilty about him taking her shift. But she was made to - by the end of that episode, we got the sense that Lindsay was already feeling guilty, or that she should be (and would soon start feeling guilty). Like I said, she'd probably have gotten more reassurance if she'd stayed quiet.
Yeah, we can assume she was fishing for reassurance, like we could assume Lindsay actually did chase after Danny when he left the morgue in "Child's Play". They're both offscreen assumptions, I think, because there's nothing onscreen to support either. Onscreen, Lindsay said her line and got no response. (If she was really feeling guilty, that would've only affirmed her guilt; if she was just fishing for reassurance, Danny's non-response would've indicated that he thought she should feel guilty. It comes down to the same thing either way.)
