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Post by Reality Bites on Mar 27, 2009 13:26:40 GMT -5
Was Patty Halliwell ever her own person? It seems as though her mother, Penny Halliwell, lived vicariously - or directly (depends on who you ask) - through her daughter. Penny had an unshakeable influence over Patty and how she lived her life.
Any decisions Patty seemed to make on her own, Penny seemed to find a way to recoup them into the way she deemed her daughter should live.
When Patty married Victor, Penny was there to emasculate her daughter's husband by commanding her daughter and granddaughters not to take his last name.
Penny also, as she claimed, "drove Victor away" from her daughter.
When Patty entered a relationship with her whitelighter, and conceived a child that she planned on keeping it was Penny that advised her to give the child up through fear tactics.
Just how much was Patty her own woman? Or was she just a doll that Penny could control and play with?
I'm currently writing a paper on A Doll's House and the main character Nora, somewhat reminds me Patty and her short-lived life.
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Post by Fourever Charmed on Jun 5, 2009 23:13:08 GMT -5
When Patty married Victor, Penny was there to emasculate her daughter's husband by commanding her daughter and granddaughters not to take his last name. Emasculate? I've always found the archaic practice of taking a man's name to be degrading the woman. A name is something you've had your entire life: it is yours! To give it up is substantial. Penny herself did this when she married Patty's father. Perhaps instead of "emasculating Victor" as you call it, she was merely trying to protect Patty from making the same mistake she viewed herself as making by giving up her own last name? While I do believe that Penny exerted far more control over Patty than she ever should have, I do think that on this topic, Penny was trying to protect her in her own way, even if it didn't come across as such. As for Patty herself, like I said above, Penny controlled Patty far too much (in some ways I think it was because she cared, but in many others I believe it was just because she could). I theorize this is why Patty ended up with Victor the way she did: a teenage pregnancy (pregnant at 19) with a baby at 20. I tend to believe Victor was Patty's "whirlwind" romance - perhaps even partially an act of rebellion against her mother if she realized early on that Penny didn't like Victor - and then ended up marrying him because of the pregnancy (and didn't even bother to tell him about her magic until after their wedding). I do think she grew to respect him, but I don't think she ever truly loved him. (Their marriage has always been troubling to me: she couldn't trust him with her greatest secret and even twnety years after her death, he couldn't accept her or his daughters for who they were.) And then of course Penny continuing to butt in throughout their marriage and lives with their children only hindered things more. And then when Patty did find a man who could understand her and who she really loved, it had to be her whitelighter, which Penny had to throw in her face as well. And judging from "Charmed Again, Part One," I'm sure Penny had a heavy hand in the decision to give Paige up. (I think Patty was more concerned with the welfare of her daughter - in the same way that she was concerned with her Prue's, Piper's, and Phoebe's when she told them in "That 70's Episode" that she'd rather have mortal daughters than dead witches - while Penny was more concerned with the legacy of The Charmed Ones that she delivered - "once removed".) |
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Post by Reality Bites on Jun 15, 2009 5:22:35 GMT -5
When Patty married Victor, Penny was there to emasculate her daughter's husband by commanding her daughter and granddaughters not to take his last name. Emasculate? I've always found the archaic practice of taking a man's name to be degrading the woman. A name is something you've had your entire life: it is yours! To give it up is substantial. Penny herself did this when she married Patty's father. Perhaps instead of "emasculating Victor" as you call it, she was merely trying to protect Patty from making the same mistake she viewed herself as making by giving up her own last name? While I do believe that Penny exerted far more control over Patty than she ever should have, I do think that on this topic, Penny was trying to protect her in her own way, even if it didn't come across as such. First off, I want to say that a woman taking her husband's last name is only degrading if she is forced to do so. In this day and age, women in the Western world have a bigger say in marriages and the decisions that come about because of them. To claim otherwise would lead one to think any woman in Western society who does so is unnecessarily degrading herself. I don't think that was your intention. On the flip side, a third-party stepping in and taking away a woman's right to choose is degrading to both the man and the woman. Which is why I questioned Penny's unhealthy control over Patty, and remarked that it must of been emasculating for Victor to have no say in the matter at all. If Penny's reasoning for Patty keeping her surname is to protect her daughter from losing herself, I could see why she would want Patty to keep her birth surname. But her granddaughters? What excuse can be used for Penny interfering with the parents decision for the surname of their children? Whatever relationship troubles Patty and Victor had aside, he was STILL THERE during the first four - five years of their marriage. He should of had a say in the matter. Penny taking away his voice on matters about his daughters' surnames - as well as how they should be raised - can be perceived as emasculating. Still... whether Victor is emasculated or not isn't the main focus -- Penny's heavy influence on Patty's choices in life, however, is. How much about the Patty revealed to us was the real Patty, and how much is just "a doll" Penny controlled and arguably lived through vicariously (That little slip about how she knew she'd always "birth the Charmed Ones" despite only having one known child is hint enough that she could have conceivably saw her daughter's life as her own)? What was Patty's needs, wants, and desires? "That Seventies Episode" seems to hint that Patty may have wanted to take on Victor's last name, which in itself was just one of several references used to highlight the unhealthy control Penny had over Patty. I would like to know... who is Patty Halliwell? And did she even know who she was as an individual? |
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Post by Fourever Charmed on Jun 20, 2009 4:01:23 GMT -5
If Penny's reasoning for Patty keeping her surname is to protect her daughter from losing herself, I could see why she would want Patty to keep her birth surname. But her granddaughters? What excuse can be used for Penny interfering with the parents decision for the surname of their children? Whatever relationship troubles Patty and Victor had aside, he was STILL THERE during the first four - five years of their marriage. He should of had a say in the matter. Penny taking away his voice on matters about his daughters' surnames - as well as how they should be raised - can be perceived as emasculating. Except you don't know that she did. It's entirely possible that by the time Prue was born, Patty wanted her children to have her last name. Maybe she came to see the reasoning and wisdom for Penny wanting her to retain her name? Maybe she was influenced by feminism in the late 60's/early 70's? Maybe she and Victor were having problems even before Prue was born (after all, her not telling him she was a witch until after the wedding probably sparked a lot of trouble) and maybe she decided to give Prue her last name to honor her magical heritage (maybe even snubbing Victor at the same time for not being able to accept her magical heritage)? There are so many possible reasons that Prue, Piper, and Phoebe ended up as Halliwells instead of Bennetts. It's unfair to blame that solely on Penny. She might've been responsible, she might not have been responsible. She is only one in a million possibilities. And then again, maybe Patty choosing to make her daughters Halliwells was even part of the real Patty showing through. |
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Post by vandergraafk on Jun 22, 2009 14:29:42 GMT -5
There is a paradox in all of this. We know the Charmed Ones as the Halliwells. And, as this discussion illustrates, this surname is not the name of their father: Bennett. (Please note I am assuming that the error in Season 1 stands corrected. That is, it is not Victor Halliwell, but Victor Bennett!) Still, Halliwell is the surname of Penny, Patty's mother and the girls' grandmother. Whence this name?
For want of a more definitive source and in light of Fourever Charmed's cautionary remarks with respect to Brianna and in full knowledge of liberties that whitelightertony has taken, I should like to point out that Halliwell is Allen's surname, not Penny's. She, it seems, was born a Johnson. So, why opt for Halliwell?
From Penny's perspective, perhaps this was the one man she truly did love and the only man who had been taken from her by demonic intervention. He was the only man with whom she sired an offspring. So, perhaps in her mind there was a special connection.
On the other hand, if as Fourever Charmed has asserted, Victor's fling with Patty, though it did result in three female offspring, was not a special relationship ala Allen and Penny. Thus, one might understand why Penny might prevail upon her daughter not to accept his last name.
Of course, this reduces Patty to a pawn in Penny's grand scheme a avenge the men (after Allen) who betrayed her. (Since we know little at all about the men she subsequently married or fell in love with (the Necromancer), we can only speculate here.) Why should Patty cave in to the wishes of her mother? Are we suggesting that Patty had no thoughts of her own?
Given the relative young age at which Patty begat Prue and perhaps the whirlwind nature of the affair with Victor, it might be tempting to conclude that Patty was too easily controlled by her mother, except she lived in flower power San Francisco! If anything, Patty would have been LESS LIKELY to do as her mother wished. Patty might have chosen a path that agreed with Penny's for the simple reason that the 60s were also a time of women's liberation (of sorts), a time when precisely the reputed paternalism and sexism inherent in simply adopting the surname of one's spouse gained popularity in urban settings.
Still, Patty chose to marry Victor as against cohabitation. Cohabitation with children would certainly have led Patty to retain her maiden name for her offspring. But, she went the traditional route and chose marriage, marriage to a mortal no less, a mortal whom she chose to inform about her special circumstances.
Time to end my random thoughts. Are they leading anywhere?
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