PIPER'S VISION?

[Scott]

Recently, in the Charmed Cafe, there has been speculation regarding the "reality" of Forever Charmed. Some, I suppose, were put off by the saccharine nature of Forever Charmed and sought a means by which to discredit its smarmy vision of future full of children and free of demons until the next generation can take upon the new crop of desperate demons, whacky warlocks and wannabe evil witchs. Others may have had doubts about the whole premise of Forever Charmed. That is, how exactly can a witch use Cupid's ring to engage in "love travel"? Worse: how can crafty Christy and demonic Dumain use this self-same ring when their purposes were truly evil? Doubts exist, then, about the reality put forth in Forever Charmed. Here's your opportunity to dissect this.

[Scott]

I don't know where it all started. I shall have to pull together some comments made by others in the Charmed Cafe. However, vandergraafk did summarize these thoughts and laid forth his thoughts on this intriguing notion.

"It's been fascinating to read suggestions that the saccharine flavor of Forever Charmed is really a figment of Piper's imagination. Phoebe really did die; Paige is MIA and possibly dead; Leo has returned. All that remains is to pick up the pieces.

What we get, as some have remarked, is a sort of Brain Drain Redux, as Piper gets this twisted notion that she can use Coop's ring to engage in love travel in order to undue all that has occurred. (And, believe me, there were many of us who immediately were skeptical of this whole notion of love travel, not least because it seems difficult to see Dumain and Christy engaging in love travel/hate travel or whatever you wish to call it.) Gosh, what a truly remarkable way for Charmed to come back to life again. (True, Phoebe is dead and the Charmed Ones are no more, but Paige could be found dazed and confused after she had orbed to safety.)

Unfortunately, I suppose this ending would have pissed off a bunch of fans, though I would have been a) very intrigued and b) very pissed off that Charmed had been "interrupted". Yet, Brad Kern could have used the opportunity to bring back all of the family members and given us a truly Piperian vision of "normality": Paige has children (3); Phoebe has children (3) and Piper gets the daughter she once saw but had not yet had. Everything is neatly wrapped and bowed. The power of three is everywhere to be seen. Oh wait! That's what he did do. Nefariously, though, he could have maintained, all the while, a colossal opening to a Charmed continuation series, a sub-plot, as it were, that depends on all of this saccharine future being but a figment of a devastated Piper's imagination!

There you have the basis for yet another Charmed movie! Now, that's truly clever! (I bow down before thee, oh great Brad Kern. I am truly unworthy. Thank you for a superb plot twist even at the very end.) Now, tell me again, why exactly are the Simon and Schuster novels being discontinued? There are more plots out there than are evident in their imagination.