A Rant of Sorts

[lifeisame.livejournal.com]

Since I'm not sure what people count as spoilers for episodes, and the progression during season, I'm putting my ill-put-together thoughts under a cut.

Now that I own all but season one of JW, I borrowed S1 from a friend and re-watched it. Is it just me or do Laurie and Fry play J and W differently as the seasons go on?

-S1 it is a very brisk interaction between them. "I'm not one of those men who become slaves to their valet's." (sidenote: You're so his bitch Bertie...) New, testing boundaries, and personalities.
-S2 is a bit of the same, all though after the "break up" episode, they do a little more... How should I put this? They are quicker to smooth talk each other out of disagreements.
- S3 is just, to me, where the ice breaks. From the first piano scene to the end of the season the relationship has definitely become more friendly.
- Honestly, by S4 they are more friends than employer/employee. In confidence with each other, that is to say when not around other characters, they are extremely friendly. But even in the presence of Aunt Dalia they are very bold in their manners. So much so that, during the cross-dressing scenes, they even take visible delight in the misfortune of the other.

I noticed this going on, and wondered if it was probably purposeful on the parts of the actors. I also was wondering if the same thing goes on in the books. I only own 4 of them, and I have no idea if there is any sort of continuity in them. I'm assuming you can pick up any JW book and be fine. There isn't an order is there? Anything that shows the growing friendship (and slashier things) going on between them?

Well, that was it. I hope my prattling wasn't too confusing. I needed to get this off my chest though, and this seemed the community to express it in.

Comments

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

Off the top of my head, I think Bertie refers to Jeeves as his friend twice, and one of those is in a pretty early book, but I can't remember which...

As for slashy bits in the book - too many to mention. I'm trying to think of one that has progression of the slash. There's a very sweet bit in Jeeves in the Offing:

"Jeeves starts his holiday this morning. He's off to Herne Bay for the shrimping and I'm feeling like that bird in the poem who lost his pet gazelle or whatever the animal was. I don't know what I'm going to do without him."

...Jeeves came in, bowler hat in hand, to say goodbye. A solemn moment, taxing our self-control to the utmost. However, we both kept the upper lip stiff, and after we had kidded back and forth for a while he started to withdraw."

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

* dies over the second one of those quotations *

[cuddlyfruit.livejournal.com]

Aww. Now I really want to go and watch Jeeves and Wooster non-stop until I've seen it all. Which would be a problem because I still need to get the fourth season. XD

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

The drag episode in the 4th season is a thing of wonder.

[cuddlyfruit.livejournal.com]

Drag, hm. That sounds interesting. I've seen them in drag in ABOF&L. They make beautiful women. XD

[peak-in-darien.livejournal.com]

:P

[parabuzzle.livejournal.com]

YES XD

[captainpellew.livejournal.com]

*Pouts* The fourth season is the only one I don't have!

[tootsiemuppet.livejournal.com]

The impression I got from the books was that to Bertie the relationship has always been pretty much of a constant teetering on the fence between friendship and professional decorum. Right from the start.

Well, I must say I'd thought fairly highly of those shirtings, but I bowed to superior knowledge. Weak? I don't know. Most fellows, no doubt, are all for having their valets confine their activities to creasing trousers and what not without trying to run the home; but it's different with Jeeves. Right from the first day he came to me, I have looked on him as a sort of guide, philosopher, and friend. (TIJ)

Come to think about it, the only time when Bertie seems not to have trusted Jeeves was in the very first book.

"It shows how little I knew Jeeves in those days that I didn't go a bit deeper into the matter with him. Nowadays I would never dream of reading a rummy communication without asking him what he thought of it." (JTC)

From the end of that book, he's completely dependent upon him and keeps referring to him as a sort of a father (or occasionally mother) figure.

The moment I saw the man standing there, registering respectful attention, a weight seemed to roll off my mind. I felt like a child who spots his father in the offing." (TACoC)
&
“Jeeves,” I said, “I feel like a lost child that has found its mother.”
“Indeed, sir?”
“If you don’t mind calling you a mother?”
“Not at all, sir.”
“Thank you, Jeeves.” (TYJ)

But also as something a bit closer and dearer than that, in which the roles seem to be reversed with Bertie turning into Jeeves's caretaker (thinking about the pet gazelle bit) or even (the several mentions of them being friends.)

Bertie is quicker to stand up for Jeeves, and gets increasingly warmer in his direct praise of him. And is it just me or does he see Jeeves and himself as a package deal sometimes? I don't think it's all that much change, though. Jeeves seems to have acquired a spot as a constant support in Bertie's life since the second week of his stay with him. He changes in a couple of other way, though, I think. Comes from living with Jeeves for so long, of course, but he increasingly reproduces and copies the quotes Jeeves uses (whether or not in the right context), he begins to believe himself capable of plotting and planning as well (using Jeeves' tried and true method of the psychology of the individual) and he starts to speak more French.


I keep reading that Jeeves from start to finish stays a two-dimensional deus ex machina on a lot of sites, as if he doesn't change at all. He does, though. Bertie develops intellectually just as much as Jeeves does emotionally. Where he does seem rather aloof and distant in the first books, he goes to melting at the look of Bertie, to being quite distressed about Bertie getting married and being chucked out of his ear (still secretly worrying), to openly expressing his hopes of staying with Bertie indefinitely. I think it probably takes a lot of Jeeves to be able to make a statement like that; he doesn’t like to be open about his own feelings. He normally never is, it wouldn’t be proper, after all.
That and I have a suspicion Jeeves takes an increasing delight in Bertie’s way of speaking. As well as the knowledge that he’s moulding him into something quite acceptable.
I’ve been giving the idea some thought that Bertie seems to be just enough of a project for Jeeves not to bore him silly (imagine Jeeves in a normal upper class staff? He’d go mad) and he quite likes the way Bertie IS so close to him and strokes his ego every now and then.

Oh dear, what am I talking about? I got off the subject, didn’t I? It’s early, let’s blame that.

*shifty-eyed* I don’t think I made any sort of point now.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Just wanted to say I found this a very interesting and thought-provoking read, and that your analysis of both Bertie and Jeeves has really made me see things in both of them I hadn't notcied before. Thanks for posting it!

[tootsiemuppet.livejournal.com]

You're quite welcome. *blush* I suppose I was in a bit of a pondering mindset this morning.

My next exercise will be to write long, ranty replies that actually have something to do with the opriginal post and don't side-track after five lines. ^^;

[tootsiemuppet.livejournal.com]

But even in the presence of Aunt Dalia they are very bold in their manners.

;) I always thought if anybody would catch on about Jooster, it'd be Dahlia. ^_^ Well, to be fair, either Dahlia (who wouldn't badger them TOO much about it, I think) or Bobbie Wickham or Stiffy Byng (who would blackmail him to death).

You're quite right about the shift in the series, of course. It probably is purposefully done. In the first season they've just met, while in the fourth they've been living together for years, Jeeves has saved Bertie from some 17 engagements, and Bertie's friends know they can just pop by Berkeley Mansions, W1 to call on Jeeves's gigantic brain if they're in a bit of a spot themselves.

I think an interesting thing about Bertie is that he can only develop and raise himself above that sort of innate chump-ness by the knowledge that he has Jeeves to back him up and catch him should he fall (wait, I'm quoting book titles now). Take Jeeves away and Bertie just falls apart. So for all that he's immensely dependent on him, at the same time that's exactly what allows him to be independent (and God forbid - mature) as well. Jeeves without Bertie loses his warmth. Strange, come to think about it, how a man who makes a point never to move more than four facial muscles at the same time can still be so warm and loveable.

NO!! I'm sidetracking again, and I WON'T let it happen a second time. So we were on change. In the series. Well, really to be honest it's been a while since I watched them all in order - I tend to just pick out a DVD at random - so I haven't really noticed, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if Stephen and Hugh did purposefully play it that way.


I only own 4 of them, and I have no idea if there is any sort of continuity in them. I'm assuming you can pick up any JW book and be fine. There isn't an order is there? Anything that shows the growing friendship (and slashier things) going on between them?
I didn't read the books in the correct order at all, mainly because I had immense trouble finding them in English in the first place. Heh. There IS an order, of course, and I'll look it up for you in a second, but it's in no way necessary.
And slash? Good lord, they're full of slash. Hee! ;) What do you think we needed a community for? *giggles happily*

[tootsiemuppet.livejournal.com]

Oh damn, I had it somewhere. I've got to go. Class and all that, but I'll post the list as soon as I get back online.

[lifeisame.livejournal.com]

but I wouldn't be at all surprised if Stephen and Hugh did purposefully play it that way

The reason I bring it up is because Jeeves (Fry) shows so much more facial emotion in the forth season. Good lord, he out right smiles in some episodes.

I know the dvd's have a PG Wodehouse bio, that lists all the books and when they were published. I could probably go by that. To save you some trouble. I know that some of the book titles have been changed... So I'll have that to contend with. *puts up her dukes*

It is dukes right?

[hoskie.livejournal.com]

The last two pages of Jeeves and the Tie that Binds are practically a marriage proposal as far as I'm concerned.

That was really the "last" book... though I believe it was the second to last book written (the last was Aunts Aren't Gentlemen/Catnappers - if memory serves).

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

I'm still upset that the British edition of Jeeves and the Tie That Binds doesn't have that bit. Totally ruins the ending.

[hoskie.livejournal.com]

WHAT?! Why no love in the British edition?

WHY?!

You just totally shattered my world.

*freaks out*