3 FK flashback ponderings

[brightknightie]

skieswideopen has very generously been helping me brainstorm for my fkficfest/fkficfest assignment. We've bumped into a few FK flashback ponderings that I think I can open up generally to everyone. I think that these won't reveal which prompts I received (or what I might do with them; I don't yet know, myself!).

If these inspire you to a story, in or out of the fest, please do write away! The more, the merrier!

Think over some FK history questions with us? :-)

1) Why London during the Blitz? Why all 3 together?

In the flashbacks of "Father Figure" (1941), we find Nick, Janette, and Lacroix in London during the Blitz. Presumably, they could have made their way almost anywhere else in the world, including, for example, a Canadian or US city which, while not exactly at peace, was at least not under siege. Did they choose not to? Or were they stuck for some reason?

• We know from "Unreality TV" (1861-1862), "Night in Question" (1853) and "Can't Run, Can't Hide" (1971), among others, that Lacroix quite likes battlefields for the blood, fear, and death. Is that why he chose to stay in London?


• We know from "Outside the Lines" (1942) (though I personally do so despair of those flashbacks; how could you possibly not know better, Nick?!) that Nick later involves himself in the fighting — specifically for free France, against the Nazis and Vichy. Is that why Nick chose to stay in Europe?


• What about Janette? I suppose, in times of such turmoil, she may be safer with Nick and Lacroix than alone... though if that's the reason, apparently it all goes to pot after the Daniel incident. And if Nick goes from London to Lyon, and Lacroix follows him, where does Janette go?

Prudent FK vampires would surely shelter from air raids just like anyone else. Bombs could burn vampires to death, as well as blow off their heads, or drive wood through their hearts. What is it like to be an FK vampire in a city of blackout curtains and curfews?

2) How did Nick and Janette each feel about the time Lacroix ordered Nick to abandon Janette to hunters?

In the flashbacks of "Hunters" (1840), as Nick, Janette, and Lacroix flee — on horseback, in daylight, trailing smoke — from armed humans hunting vampires, Lacroix orders Nick to "Leave her!" (meaning Janette) when she can't keep up.

That's, uh, not the most caring thing Lacroix ever says about Janette.

(Note that I'm positing that Lacroix means what he says here. If you'd like to posit that he didn't mean it, that's a different proposition.)

By 1840, it can be no surprise to either Nick or Janette that Lacroix's values, preferences, and practices are what they are. But that's not a common sentiment, a usual directive, expressed in so many words. After the incident ended, when they'd gotten safely away from the hunters and had a good days' sleep... how did Nick and Janette each feel about that order from Lacroix? Devalued? Bound together against him? Shrug it off, from knowing — even sharing — Lacroix's worldview, in which the weak should be eliminated for the sake of the strong? (Those philosophies only sound appealing when you're certain you're secure among the strong, I suspect. What happens when you suddenly feel your own vulnerabilities?)

3) When, and why, did Nick, Janette, and Lacroix stop regularly posing as nobility and begin living usually middle-class lives?

Obviously, until a middle class as we know it came into existence, this wasn't really an option. While there have almost always been merchants and crafters and professions, it wasn't always the same thing as what we today consider middle class. So, for a parameter, let's posit that this just wasn't an available option pretty much anywhere until the latter 18th century, and in some places not until much later. Before that, at least in Europe, where our main vampire characters mostly hung out, people were rich or poor, nobility or not, and Nick, Janette, and Lacroix usually chose to be among the rich and comfortable.

But at some point, that changed. They — even Lacroix, apparently last of all — got jobs. They didn't seek the rich and powerful (and famous! is that significant?) anymore. Were there specific turning points for each of them as individuals? Or was it just the way of the world, turning around them, without any specific decisions? Or was it something decreed or recommended in some manner, perhaps by Aristotle or Larry Merlin or the Enforcers?

Nick was still palling around with royalty as late as the flashbacks of "Strings" (1916). But then, and for many centuries before, he almost indiscriminately let people call him by his first name, which would have been quite an intimacy and sign of solidarity in most of those times and places.

When, in "Cherry Blossoms," Janette teases Nick about how rich he is and how much his loft doesn't show it, he replies as if instructing her about how to be an inconspicuous middle-class person. Does he really think she doesn't know? Or is he weighting it on the police officer side, which of course she actually wouldn't know? What about Lacroix's job at CERK — is it his first employment, as such?

Comments

[greerwatson]

I tend to think of Lacroix's job at CERK as more of a hobby than anything—and that he prefers to treat the jobs Nick takes as being hobbies as well (which I am equally sure is not Nick's point of view).

I suspect that, to Janette, owning the Raven is by way of being a sort of community service. She surely finds the obligations laid on her by mortal society, such as taxes, to be irksome; but the club allows her to offer refuge to other denizens of the night, both vampire and mortal. The working of some maternal instinct, perhaps, given that (aside from the Baroness) she has not brought anyone across that we know of, yet does sometimes seem to betray a measure of regret in that regard.

[brightknightie]

Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts on how Lacroix and Janette choose to spend their time!

I find it interesting that those who chose to comment on the third proposed pondering, both on DW and LJ, unanimously chose to follow up on jobs/employment specifically, rather than other aspects of class or identity or history. Certainly, the first question people ask in our society is, "What do you do?"

[lastscorpion]

Air raids during the Blitz were mostly at night.

Vampires are much quicker than humans, and they can fly. Maybe it's fun for them to be outside during the bombing, flying around & dodging the bombs. Most of your fire-and-wood-shrapnel hazards would be avoided that way (and it would be cool.)

Nobody could see you except Nazi pilots & bombardiers. And breaking into their planes & eating them would be patriotic!

[brightknightie]

I'm not always clever about tongue-in-cheek. :-) I'm afraid that, at first, I was baffled by your reply. :-)

Then it dawned on me in a blinding flash that you're proposing a richly "crackfic" reading! Yes! D'oh. :-) I'm such a goofball. :-) Now I see it!

Thank you for sharing this vision!

[greerwatson]

Crackfic for Lacroix's family, maybe. However, I can quite see Vachon playing plane-less fighter pilot and finding the whole thing hilarious.

[lastscorpion]

I guess I've just got a crackfic sort of a brain....
*shrug*

Too bad Spike & Dru couldn't fly.

[brightknightie]

>"Spike & Dru"

;-) Speaking of "crackfic sort of brain"s! ;-)

Would not being able to fly stop flashback Spike from dodging bombs for the sheer kick of it?

Approaching number 2

[senmut]

Bear in mind, I do not keep the timeline straight in my head very well at all. However, how close is Hunters to one of Jeanette's prolonged absences from them? Perhaps, if it was close, he was still smarting from her willful independence.

Secondary thought, daughters are far less gift and more burden to the Roman mindset.

Tertiary thought, I believe Nick is fully on his own two decades later, if I recall a Civil War flashback? Could that incident have sparked the separation?

Re: Approaching number 2

[brightknightie]

> "How close is Hunters to one of Jeanette's prolonged absences from them?"

That's a fascinating hypothesis! Thank you for sharing it! I've been pondering it since I received your reply. Either resentment, punishment, or simple "accustomedness" could play a role in Lacroix's motivation for commanding Nick to leave Janette behind.

I haven't yet checked the FK flashback timeline. Let me do that now:

• c.1812-1814 War of 1812 c.f. "Unreality TV" (Nick and Lacroix saw each other during the war; Janette's whereabouts unknown)
• c.1826 "Capitol Offense" (Nick on the run from Lacroix; Janette's whereabouts unknown)
• c.1825-1830 "I Will Repay" (Nick alone; Janette and Lacroix's whereabouts unknown)
• c.1828 "False Witness" (all 3 together)
• c.1830s "Let No Man Tear Asunder (Nick alone)
• c.1840 "Hunters" (all 3 together)
• c.1828-1850 "Hunted" (all 3 together)
• c.1849 "The Code" (Nick on the run, pursued by Lacroix; Janette on the wanted poster but whereabouts unknown"

Hmmm. It's not a clear case, but it's not impossible that for the 12 years between "False Witness" in 1828 (the one in which Janette murders the musician girl, and the musician boy is accused of the homicide, to Nick's distress) and "Hunters" in 1840, Janette went off on her own. While Janette doubtless got some manner of permission or acquiescence from Lacroix first — it's her pattern to manage her own survival, which for her and Nick both means always awareness of Lacroix, though their approaches are frequently opposite — her absence could have come to annoy or inconvenience Lacroix through circumstance as well as by sheer duration.

(As an utter, utter aside: the conversation between Nick and Lacroix in the "Unreality TV" flashbacks in c.1861-1862 strongly suggests that Nick and Lacroix hadn't seen each other since the War of 1812. But subsequent episodes supplied many flashbacks filling in the years between the War of 1812 and the US Civil War, some in which Nick and Lacroix do appear together. Ah, FK! ~grin~)

As for the "Hunters" flashback incident spurring Nick to break off on his own, also a fascinating possibility! Thank you! Nick may have wanted Janette to come with him and she refused, or she did come and we just didn't see it in the many years not illuminated by flashbacks. Most immediately after "Hunters" in 1840 (probably Britain) we have "The Code" in 1849 (probably Arizona), and Nick is certainly fleeing Lacroix then (though he, Lacroix, and Janette were enough together for all 3 of them to be on that wanted poster). Right after that, I'm afraid, comes "Avenging Angel" in 1850 (San Francisco) with Nick and Lacroix together, so if Nick did break out on his own to Arizona, Lacroix unfortunately managed to collect him again very soon after, and then comes "Night in Question" in 1853, and Nick and Lacroix are still in each other's company -- though that is a time when Nick declares he's definitely going off on his own again... and ends up in "The Fix" (the one in which the "resurrection doctor" straps him to a table and Janette rescues him) in 1857 (Germany). :-)

You've given me a lot of FK fun here. Thank you!

If any thoughts about Janette's possible reactions to Lacroix's order to leave her happen to occur to you also, I'd be very interested to learn them!

Re: Approaching number 2

[nicholas_lucien]

I had always wondered (unless Janette is just way more sensitive to sunlight) why she seemed more hurt than LaCroix or Nick during the chase. As long as the horse could run, all she had to do was hang on. Perhaps she had been hurt before, as in the hunters had found her and were chasing her. Perhaps LaCroix was irritated she had inadvertently led the hunters directly to them. Maybe he thought she should have to deal with the problem she had created.