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Maybe if I write it all down, I'll get it out of my system?
I really, deeply wish I were not this invested in Dollhouse.
Spoiler cut: This entry contains spoilers for all of season one, the unaired pilot, the unaired thirteenth episode of season one, and the first two episodes of season two.
Now that Echo is cognizant of what's happening to her, does that make it more or less rape? (Given that I completely agree that it was rape to begin with, because consent was impossible.) I'm leaning towards oh hey, still rape, because she's now under threat of removal of her growing sense of identity and/or outright death if she breaks character to resist. (Devil's advocate for a moment: should sex coerced in this way be regarded as different from rape? I'm thinking that distilling the above to "I didn't fight back because I was afraid he'd kill me" means, really, no, it's rape.) As a side issue,![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
echan and I were discussing whether Echo is self-aware when imprinted or only when in doll state. I think the line about "Wait, who did they make me this time?" pointed to self-awareness when imprinted, and further, there's that Russian girl scene in the thirteenth episode that does seem to be where Echo's headed.
I think it's hilarious that Ballard thinks Echo's helping him take down the Dollhouse and not the other way around. I also think Echo has half the staff of the Dollhouse in her back pocket and they each think they're her only ally. Ballard, obviously; but also, I think, Whiskey's discretion kept Echo's early self-awareness under the radar; Boyd would walk through fire for her; I'm not sure how far she could get Topher around, but she got major points with him when she asked him to make her someone who could help in Spy in the House of Love; and weirdly, I think Adelle is... not an ally outright, but not actually an enemy, and I'm not sure if she's a wildcard or if she's just going to side with the winners. Thirteenth episode suggests wildcard with unexpected moral compass, although I don't know how much salt to take her moral compass with when limited offer rape is okay but permanent rape is a bridge too far. I think it might have been the breach of contract, actually. She might be one of those people who's sticky as fuck about giving her word, because her word is her bond.
I agree with other reviews of the unaired pilot that say it's conceptually interesting but executionally omg a snoozefest. It also freaked me out how much it sounded like an advertisement-cum-PSA for the Dollhouse (maybe it's been too long since I watched the aired first episode, but I don't remember that much speechifying). Also, when I was watching the unaired pilot, it seemed to me that while helping out a drug addict and stuff was a creative use of the technology, it was actually a lot more believable that this toy for the fabulously rich would mostly be turned tosex rape. It's a flaw of the series at a meta level that it doesn't call it what it is, but in-universe, it makes sense that the Dollhouse would be that sordid, and also that they'd justify their little heads of pretending it wasn't. The meta problem is of course that by never calling a rape a rape, it makes the showrunners sound as if they are justifying their little heads off pretending it's not.
I have various thoughts about the thirteenth episode, but the main one that's sticking with me right now is: is it really Caroline who ended up in the little girl's body? I've watched it twice and went back to check just now, but the sequence of flashback that precedes our introduction to imprinted-not-Iris-Miller goes: Adelle watching circle time, Adelle talking to Whiskey, Adelle talking to Topher, Adelle joining the defense line as the barrier gets broken in by Caroline, one bit I can't explain with Caroline and Whiskey having a private conversation, and Adelle talking to Caroline. Overall, it seems like the through-line is Adelle. And we know Adelle's memory's are in the bank, the first one they put in Mr. Miller is Adelle's memory of selling it to a client. I would venture to guess the memory of Topher's first day was also Adelle's. In any case: I am starting to wonder if they got little-girl-Adelle. This would, perforce, imply that Caroline did not kill Adelle. Perhaps she found leaving Adelle's consciousness to be dumped into a variety of bodies to be a more fitting punishment. I also wonder if maybe Caroline's immunity to imprinting made it impossible to back her up as well.
Whiskey didn't commit suicide at the end, right? Whiskey stays forever. Actuals have come before and actuals will come again, but Whiskey stays and cleans everything up in between, resets the puzzle so that only the worthy pass on to Safe Haven. I mean, also she's waiting for Boyd, but he's not coming back because he dropped the antibiotics. And she couldn't go get herself immunized against imprinting because it would impair her ability to get Claire Saunders boosters, although she seems to have forgotten she needs them... but Actuals will come and Actuals will go and Whiskey remains as the guardian of the way.
I have a plotbunny about Topher that I feel guilty about giving much attention to because sure, let's glorify the rape orchestrator! The rape conductor of the rape symphony on the rape express to rape town, if you will. But I have this plotbunny wherein Topher is a self-designed doll, he's a composite of like, a dozen House programmers who got together and decided to combine their experience and share amongst themselves. So every House has a Topher. Also in my plotbunny eventually Ivy gets promoted and this means assimilated into the Topher profile and imprinted with it. Clearly the annual BFF session with Sierra is Topher running his own code on another doll to check how far he's deviated from baseline. Also Topher going around the bend in the thirteenth episode totally contributes to my theory. I choose to take Adelle's non-answer about whether Topher thought of the mass mind-wiping trick to be "not you, but one of the other Tophers" which is like, just as bad, because clearly it means he had the potential since they're all the same (right? right: except not, because over time the base personality strengthens in the composite, not that he admits this until, oh, Alpha, and also, each Topher is in a different set of circumstances facing different dilemmas and being shaped by different choices). And I've thought about it and while I don't think Topher has the standard prompt set, I think he does have a prompt set, and a handler, and I think the only person who could be his handler is Adelle. No one else makes sense, and this does make sense of an awful lot of her indulgence of him.
In conclusion: Rape.
Spoiler cut: This entry contains spoilers for all of season one, the unaired pilot, the unaired thirteenth episode of season one, and the first two episodes of season two.
Now that Echo is cognizant of what's happening to her, does that make it more or less rape? (Given that I completely agree that it was rape to begin with, because consent was impossible.) I'm leaning towards oh hey, still rape, because she's now under threat of removal of her growing sense of identity and/or outright death if she breaks character to resist. (Devil's advocate for a moment: should sex coerced in this way be regarded as different from rape? I'm thinking that distilling the above to "I didn't fight back because I was afraid he'd kill me" means, really, no, it's rape.) As a side issue,
echan and I were discussing whether Echo is self-aware when imprinted or only when in doll state. I think the line about "Wait, who did they make me this time?" pointed to self-awareness when imprinted, and further, there's that Russian girl scene in the thirteenth episode that does seem to be where Echo's headed.I think it's hilarious that Ballard thinks Echo's helping him take down the Dollhouse and not the other way around. I also think Echo has half the staff of the Dollhouse in her back pocket and they each think they're her only ally. Ballard, obviously; but also, I think, Whiskey's discretion kept Echo's early self-awareness under the radar; Boyd would walk through fire for her; I'm not sure how far she could get Topher around, but she got major points with him when she asked him to make her someone who could help in Spy in the House of Love; and weirdly, I think Adelle is... not an ally outright, but not actually an enemy, and I'm not sure if she's a wildcard or if she's just going to side with the winners. Thirteenth episode suggests wildcard with unexpected moral compass, although I don't know how much salt to take her moral compass with when limited offer rape is okay but permanent rape is a bridge too far. I think it might have been the breach of contract, actually. She might be one of those people who's sticky as fuck about giving her word, because her word is her bond.
I agree with other reviews of the unaired pilot that say it's conceptually interesting but executionally omg a snoozefest. It also freaked me out how much it sounded like an advertisement-cum-PSA for the Dollhouse (maybe it's been too long since I watched the aired first episode, but I don't remember that much speechifying). Also, when I was watching the unaired pilot, it seemed to me that while helping out a drug addict and stuff was a creative use of the technology, it was actually a lot more believable that this toy for the fabulously rich would mostly be turned to
I have various thoughts about the thirteenth episode, but the main one that's sticking with me right now is: is it really Caroline who ended up in the little girl's body? I've watched it twice and went back to check just now, but the sequence of flashback that precedes our introduction to imprinted-not-Iris-Miller goes: Adelle watching circle time, Adelle talking to Whiskey, Adelle talking to Topher, Adelle joining the defense line as the barrier gets broken in by Caroline, one bit I can't explain with Caroline and Whiskey having a private conversation, and Adelle talking to Caroline. Overall, it seems like the through-line is Adelle. And we know Adelle's memory's are in the bank, the first one they put in Mr. Miller is Adelle's memory of selling it to a client. I would venture to guess the memory of Topher's first day was also Adelle's. In any case: I am starting to wonder if they got little-girl-Adelle. This would, perforce, imply that Caroline did not kill Adelle. Perhaps she found leaving Adelle's consciousness to be dumped into a variety of bodies to be a more fitting punishment. I also wonder if maybe Caroline's immunity to imprinting made it impossible to back her up as well.
Whiskey didn't commit suicide at the end, right? Whiskey stays forever. Actuals have come before and actuals will come again, but Whiskey stays and cleans everything up in between, resets the puzzle so that only the worthy pass on to Safe Haven. I mean, also she's waiting for Boyd, but he's not coming back because he dropped the antibiotics. And she couldn't go get herself immunized against imprinting because it would impair her ability to get Claire Saunders boosters, although she seems to have forgotten she needs them... but Actuals will come and Actuals will go and Whiskey remains as the guardian of the way.
I have a plotbunny about Topher that I feel guilty about giving much attention to because sure, let's glorify the rape orchestrator! The rape conductor of the rape symphony on the rape express to rape town, if you will. But I have this plotbunny wherein Topher is a self-designed doll, he's a composite of like, a dozen House programmers who got together and decided to combine their experience and share amongst themselves. So every House has a Topher. Also in my plotbunny eventually Ivy gets promoted and this means assimilated into the Topher profile and imprinted with it. Clearly the annual BFF session with Sierra is Topher running his own code on another doll to check how far he's deviated from baseline. Also Topher going around the bend in the thirteenth episode totally contributes to my theory. I choose to take Adelle's non-answer about whether Topher thought of the mass mind-wiping trick to be "not you, but one of the other Tophers" which is like, just as bad, because clearly it means he had the potential since they're all the same (right? right: except not, because over time the base personality strengthens in the composite, not that he admits this until, oh, Alpha, and also, each Topher is in a different set of circumstances facing different dilemmas and being shaped by different choices). And I've thought about it and while I don't think Topher has the standard prompt set, I think he does have a prompt set, and a handler, and I think the only person who could be his handler is Adelle. No one else makes sense, and this does make sense of an awful lot of her indulgence of him.
In conclusion: Rape.
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Which, yeah. Just. Aaagh.
I think you might be able to make clear, even with an unreliable narrator, that Topher is the rape maestro via Ivy's promotion and how that goes down.
I mean, the interesting question is: if she doesn't consent to it, how stable does Topher think the imprint will *be* on her? Given that he has had to acknowledge that the base personality eventually comes up through the composite to some to degree thanks to Alpha. So -- if she doesn't consent to her promotion, will she end up an active at, say, another house?
Anyway. Yeah. I think you might be able to make it clear via that whole scenario. Otherwise you're probably going to have to drop out of Topher's POV at least part of the time because Topher? Might as well call himself Tutenkhamen.
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Or doing something to a *not* informed consenting doll, who is obviously not informed consenting. And by something, I mean like mindwiping for the first time or using as a creepy puppet. Not, er. The actual rape.
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