|
Post by Scott on Aug 26, 2006 1:19:32 GMT -5
Their coming was long ago prophesied. Yet, what was the purpose of their appearance? Had the struggle between Good and Evil reached such a critical stage that the Charmed Ones were needed merely to restore balance? Or, were the Charmed Ones needed to usher in a new world, one where Evil recedes into the background and men and women can carry about their tasks of making the world about them a better place. And what do we mean by a better place? Is it more of the same? Or is it a planet where the environment is not degraded, where people are not used as mere pawns, where corruption is not rampant, and where passions are unbridled? Discuss, debate and analyze the Charmed Ones here.
|
|
|
Post by kat29 on Aug 28, 2006 12:17:43 GMT -5
I assume that the Charmed Ones stopped the plans of demons which would have altered the natural order of the world. Maybe their sole purpose was to stop the source.
|
|
|
Post by vandergraafk on Aug 29, 2006 16:36:15 GMT -5
It surely must have been more than to stop the Source. Moreover, the position requires that the Underworld were cooking up a fantastic scheme or several fantastic schemes to tilt the balance between Good and Evil. Therefore, the Charmed Ones had to be born and come into their powers as witches to deter this threat.
But, that of course merely begs the question. First, we know that the Seer was pretty powerful in her visions. She certainly would have seen a great danger coming. Either she could have cautioned the Source to ease up on their schemes or to prepare for a coming battle. The Source chose to ignore this warning, if indeed it had been given, and would have ignored any such warning, given his arrogance. That he sent warlocks and minor demons after the Charmed Ones early on suggests that he did not take them seriously. Or, he thought he could vanquish these newbies without expending a lot of resources. Gradually, it dawned on him how wrong he was.
On the other hand, after Season 8 we now learn that the TRIAD may have taken the Seer's warning seriously, seriously enough for them to concoct a plot to dispatch an imaginary friend to both Christie and Billie, kidnap Christie for 15 long years of thorough indoctrination, and then con everyone in to believing they had been vanquished by Cole.
Of course, this raises even more questions about the hierarchy of Evil. The TRIAD are less powerful than the Source, but are somehow smarter? Well, why not? The Source has Zankou imprisoned for being a very real threat to his position. Yet, Zankou proved to be a cunning threat to the Charmed Ones. The Source may have won the battle that cost him half of his face, but it wasn't because he was smarter. He was just more brutal!
|
|
|
Post by vandergraafk on Aug 29, 2006 16:40:08 GMT -5
A second set of issues concerns the powers of the Charmed Ones. How do they compare with those among them in the community of good witches and those against them in them in the Underworld. The Charmed legacy suggests that these were the most powerful witches of all time. Were they?
I guess one of the major problems with Magic School is that it muddied the waters with respect to powers. The Charmed Ones have powers that date back to Melinda Warren and which have been enhanced and developed over the years. Now maybe that was the result of good witchcraft. Who knows? But Magic School makes it seems as if these powers are quite common and can be learned pretty much by anyone in Magic School. That Ms. Donovan, the librarian, can learn astral projection pretty much rips away the magic that was Prue, despite the sisters profession of gratitude to Prue in Something Wicca That Way Goes.
The character of Richard is even weirder. He has fantastic powers and dabbles in them. To summarize: he can sort of shimmer. He can conjure things at a distance, etc. Just how did he acquire all of these powers and still remain a witch. (He should have been well on the path to becoming a warlock, given all of the personal gain attached with everything he did.)
That Billie acquires even more fantastic powers just boggles the mind. And yet, we are supposed to believe that the Charmed Ones are still the most powerful good witches around. Something is terribly amiss in Charmedverse when new characters are included and assigned powers that undermined the credulity of the show's premise.
|
|
|
Post by Xenith on Sept 12, 2006 11:42:30 GMT -5
I don't really understand why you think Richard would become a warlock? I think we are pretty much shown that not all bad witches are warlocks, take the Stillmans or the Jenkins sisters, both use their powers to kill yet both sets of sisters are still referred to as witches. Which is why I believe that there is either some kind of dark ritual involved in becoming a warlock or else it is "inherited".
Besides Richard's personal gain magic was nothing more than that, I don't think it was inherantly evil magic, it benifited him without doing serious harm to others (ignoring that moronic Capulet/Montague plot) thus most of it does not violate the Wiccan Rede which is initially indicated as being the thing which seperated "good" witches from "bad" witches & warlocks.
----------
And as for the prophecy itself I've posted my thoughts on that several time. Here is one of my posts from the CharmedCafe:
And to talk about Melinda Warren and what might have been behind the prophecy. Up until Season 3 most people assumed that Melinda Warren had the power of premonition, and that she saw the future and that her vision of the future was the complete basis of the prophecy. And then came episode 3x04 All Halliwells Eve, and the events of which happened for a reason, and can not be brushed aside, as there is a very good chance that they factored into the prophecy.
Remember what Charlotte said near the end of the Episode:
And then upon finding out that the child was Melinda Warren what Phoebe said just before the Charmed Ones are returned home.
Melinda was likely to grow up hearing the story of how she was saved by her three descendants from the future, over and over again And then of course there is Eva and her side of the story, about how she prayed for
So of course Melinda would grow up associating the three strangers from the future with being the most powerful witches ever.
(And the fact that the Elder's sent the Charmed Ones is FAR from concrete proof that they really were based on what we've learned about the Elders. How many times could the Elders have helped the Charmed Ones with problems, yet instead chose to teach them a lesson, or refused to help because it did not fit with their ideals, or because it interfered with the Elders self-preservation. Face it with the Elders, what you ask for is not always what you get. It's very possible that the Elders thought the Charmed Ones needed to learn a lesson, so they were sent back without warning and without powers. Instead of simply telling Wyatt and Chris and having them cast a spell to go back in time with their powers intact. *Or the Charmed Ones could have been sent since it was Cole/Balthazar a demon they were dealing with that was attempting to interfere in the past*)
So if you think about it this childhood story of her rescue could definitely start to form the basis of the Charmed Prophecy. Three witches who are Melinda's descendants are the most powerful witches of all time. All that's missing is the fact that they are sisters (which may have been assumed or deduced by Charlotte or Eva), and that each one of them has one of Melinda's powers.
That's where Melinda's power of premonition comes in. It's very easy to believe that at some point in her life she had a vision of 3 witches (the Charmed Ones) performing a great deed, associated them with the Witches from her youth, and filled in the missing blanks of the prophecy.
Now even though this does diminish the prophecy (since it becomes based on an assumption rather than pure fact) it most definitely does not take away from the power of the Charmed Ones, they are still extremely powerful and at the time they became the Charmed Ones and with the power of three they are most likely the strongest witches the world HAS ever known (Note that these verbs apply to the past and present NOT the future.)
But there is truly no reason to believe that there can never be witches with more power than them, and that the existance of one is a continuity error. (Wyatt and *gag* B/C).
|
|
|
Post by vandergraafk on Sept 12, 2006 14:24:03 GMT -5
Point noted and well-taken. Richard's actions, though motivated for personal gain, i.e., to win Paige, did not necessarily result in the harming of innocents. Therein, of course, lies the key. Piper, Prue and even Phoebe harped on using magic for personal gain. At times, we forget that personal gain was not per se the problem. It was the unintended consequences of personal gain that were. But, using magic that has the consequence of harming individuals, especially innocent individuals, is clearly a violation of the Wiccan rede. Richard was getting awfully close to that when he captured "I Dream of Phoebe" and searched for his book on genie spells.
Your outline of the prophecy is very, very useful. How the Elders fit in with this prophecy has certainly puzzled me. The Elders have the ability to enhance powers. Certainly, the Tribunal has the authority to strip/bind powers. Yet, the Charmed Ones powers stem from their genealogy as Warren witches. Their powers may or may not be boosted - or protected - by the manor sitting astride a spiritual Nexus. Their control - and the re-assertion of their control over Magic School - allows them to access the powers that reside theirin (which incidentally may explain why Elders such as Odin can shoot flames within the confines of Magic School). And, the Power of Three is ultimately greater than the powers of the individual sisters. So, as any evolutionary biologist would seek to unravel: what is the relative contribution of each of these sources to the Charmed Ones fantastic abilities that make them the most powerful witches yet.
|
|