Apropos of Nothing...Drones Club Discussion Question

[dogwoodblossom.livejournal.com]

I read a fic recently that had an offhand reference to the Drones Club Darts Tournament. This gist of it was that the Drones are all too stupid to realize that they wouldn't always have ties if they'd play an odd number of games. This is manifestly true, but the fic had Bertie grouped with the rest of the mentally negligible Drones. I know I've read the story about the tournament but I can't really remember it, but I know that the impression that I got from the show was that Bertie was well aware of the problem but that he and his partner were using it to tie on purpose and split the winnings when the other Drones inevitably lost their bets. But I have been known to make up backstory out of whole cloth before, so I'd like to hear other thoughts on the subject. Am I right about the show, and was that implication part of the original story?

Comments

[erynn999.livejournal.com]

I'm wondering if the tie thing doesn't come from the TV show, rather than canon. Here's an excerpt from the show:

Stilton Cheesewright: [referring to Bertie's cocktail] Now what do you suppose those things are doing to your eye?
Bertie Wooster: For your information, Cheesewright, one does not administer alcohol by the eye, or even by the ear. The mouth is the correct orifice.
Stilton Cheesewright: Not if one's meant to be in trainng for the Drones darts tournament, it isn't.
Bertie Wooster: Ah, yes, of course, you've drawn me in the sweepstake, haven't you? Well, your money is safe, Cheesewright. The Wooster form is as devastating as ever.
Stilton Cheesewright: We want a win this year, Wooster, not another dratted tie. I happened to look in on the Drones Club this evening. Freddie Widgeon was at the darts board, stunning everyone with a performance that took one's breath away.
Bertie Wooster: Tcha!
Stilton Cheesewright: Eh?
Bertie Wooster: I said "tcha!" scornfully, with ref. to F. Widgeon. I know his form backwards.
Stilton Cheesewright: He's knocked off smoking, you know!
Bertie Wooster: No!
Stilton Cheesewright: He takes a cold bath every morning!
Bertie Wooster: [shrugs] He's forgotten where the hot tap is.


From Bertie Wooster Sees It Through/Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit:

The annual Darts sweep is one of the high spots of life at the Drones Club. It never fails to stir the sporting instincts of the members, causing them to roll up in dense crowds and purchase tickets at ten bob a go, with the result that the sum in the kitty is always colossal. This time my name had been drawn by Stilton, and as Horace Pendlebury-Davenport, last year's winner, had gone and got married and at his wife's suggestion resigned his membership, the thing was pretty generally recognized as a sitter for me, last year's runner-up. "Wooster," the word flew to and fro, "is the deadliest of snips. He throws a beautiful dart."

***

So I think those of us who have gone with the tie thing were probably heavily influenced by the show, rather than the books. Both are "canon," just of different sorts.

[storyfan.livejournal.com]

As soon as my kid gets home from school we're going to watch that episode. To hell with ACT prep.

[dogwoodblossom.livejournal.com]

Good. Yes. Clearly you have the right attitude.

[ladymoondancer.livejournal.com]

I can't help with the darts question, but wanted to throw my two cents . . . Bertie has always seemed to me to be portrayed as one of the brightest of the Drones.

This is rather worrisome.

[saylee.livejournal.com]

It is worrisome, but then Bertie seems to me to be brighter than he or anyone around him gives him credit for.

[ladymoondancer.livejournal.com]

I think he's very savvy in some ways and genuinely as dumb as a brick in others.

[saylee.livejournal.com]

I think he'd come across much smarter if he wasn't surrounded by crazy people ;)

[ladymoondancer.livejournal.com]

Partly, but a lot of his troubles come from being unable (or unwilling?) to correctly interpret the situations he ends up in.

Like when you're visiting Sir Watkyn Bassett's house and he is already very suspicious of you because you and your aunt have formerly stolen his cow creamer (and he knows it), perhaps it is not a good idea to repeatedly admire his new, expensive amber curio and make a bunch of remarks about how much your uncle would love it and your aunt has just been telling you all about it.

Or when your friend Tuppy is talking about how some man must have stolen Angela away from him in Cannes, you can certainly mention she didn't spend any time with strange men there, but maybe do not add information like "I'm devoted to her", "our long walks and mixed bathing were quite the joke at the hotel", and "she used to call me 'her little sweetheart'."

I love Bertie to death, but a lot of times I feel like the person in the movie theater shouting, "NO, DON'T OPEN THAT DOOR! OH GOD, YOU OPENED THE DOOR! WELL, DON'T OPEN THE NEXT ONE! OH GOD, YOU OPENED THAT TOO!"

That is okay, though, his wooly-headedness is part of his charm and, of course, it makes for hi-la-rious literature.

[wotwotleigh.livejournal.com]

That's definitely the impression I get. XD

I feel like he's actually significantly smarter in the books (especially the later ones -- he really does come off as an airhead in most of the early short stories) than he is in the show. Plus in the books one is reading everything through the filter of his own self-depricating narration, which further reinforces the impression that maybe he's not quite as dumb as he lets on . . .

[erynn999.livejournal.com]

I have to agree that the show presents him as significantly more stupid than he comes across in the books.

[ironicbees.livejournal.com]

I think the problem with the show is not so much that Bertie's stupider in it as that it doesn't show the progression in his intelligence that we get in the stories. Bertie starts out being pretty naïve and dim in them, but he gets progressively smarter as the series goes on. In the show, the stories they adapted are out of order, so there'll be one episode where Bertie's intelligence is just fine, and then the next one he'll be kind of an idiot, then he's back to being smartish, and so on.

[erynn999.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I suppose that could certainly be part of it. I think they also mash up several stories or books into one episode, which doesn't help at all either.

There is some serious WTFery in the tv show that doesn't occur in the books that just makes me want to bang my head on a desk. Superfluous blackface when it doesn't happen in canon comes to mind.

edited for oops

[trista-zevkia.livejournal.com]

I kind of think the show also makes Jeeves nicer than he seems in the books. In the books is either very stuffed frog, or Bertie understatement, but Fry has much more expressions than 'stuffed' uh, frog that is, that wasn't a euphemism.
But Bertie is always the smartest of the drones. Unlike, say Bingo, Bertie admits he falls in love with a profile, and right back out again. Bingo sees no worries with how he falls in and out of love, or drags his friends into situs and never learns anything.
I also think Bertie does grow after being exposed to Jeeves. Jeeves molds him, if you will, by being an example of what a brain is for. All the smart people in Bertie's life had been out for themselves, scheming to get this cow creamer or that woman, whatever. jeeves is the first person to come along and make things better for other people. He gets paid well and tipped, yes, but he doesn't do it for that reason. He does it to make Bertie happy.

[erynn999.livejournal.com]

I'd certainly agree that Fry's Jeeves is a lot less stuffed frog and probably kinder, generally, but man is he snarky. ;)

I'm sure that Bertie gets smarter because he's exposed to Jeeves. Jeeves is a lot more subtle about improving Bertie's mind than Florence could ever dream of being. And Jeeves does work toward Bertie's happiness most of the time (but not always). It's not that Jeeves isn't selfish -- you bet he is sometimes -- but that he does actually like Bertie, in a way that most of the people in Bertie's life just don't, and he really really wants to keep his cushy position with him, so he'll do whatever it takes to do that.

[ladymoondancer.livejournal.com]

Yes . . . it's funny reading through the books and gradually seeing Bertie incorporate all these little phrases and literary references picked up from Jeeves in previous books. I think by the time The Ties That Bind rolls around Bertie is actually borrowing Jeeves' thesaurus.

As for Jeeves, I think Bertie's influence makes him more human, both in the books and on the show. I think in the very beginning all he wants is an easily manipulated master who doesn't fuss a lot and will wear what he lays out for him. Hearing about the many positions he's had before, he strikes me as a (very properly attired) rolling stone that gathers no moss. Being with Bertie gives him some grounding and some roots.

[erynn999.livejournal.com]

I do very much think that Bertie humanized him and gave him a home. Jeeves seemed like he had been something of a drifter before he found Bertie. He may have been somewhat self-satisfied, but I don't think he was really happy before he found Bertie. Even if we don't want to read it as slash, I do think that, in his own stuffy way, Jeeves actually genuinely loves Bertie, and we all know that Bertie utterly worships Jeeves and tries to be a better man for him. He'd never have done it for a woman, only for Jeeves.

They may spat and disagree on a regular basis, but they are very much a symbiotic relationship. One without the other feels so terribly incomplete. They have, over their years together, changed one another and made each other better people.