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December posting meme: Harrison Wells and the multiverse
... so I kinda fell off the schedule just a tiny bit. Ahem.
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musesfool said: Harrison Wells and the multiverse!
Soooooo I TRIED to make a sensible, thinky post, but instead it turned into an explosion of random feels. sorry not sorry
First off, I love what the DC TV shows are doing with the multiverse, and I sincerely hope they don't plan on having some sort of Crisis on Infinite Earths-style event to put an end to it. Which they probably do, because DC. But in the meantime, it's just so much fun. Among other things, it means they can have shows operate under completely different rules (like Supergirl vs. the Flash/Arrow/etc shows) and still exist in the same 'verse with the possibility of crossovers.
And we get to see the actors play multiple versions of the same characters, which is always a treat. I have always enjoyed canons that give us canonical AUs, and in these shows, as in a few others (e.g. Fringe, Stargate) it's baked into the whole concept.
And, well. ♥ HARRISON ♥
I am still impressed at how differently Tom Cavanagh embodies different versions of the same character. Harry isn't Eobard, both of them are drastically different from HR, neither of them is like Earth-1 Harrison, etc. And yet, for the most part, you can see how the same underlying character could turn into each of those different people. Harry is plausibly a more cynical and damaged version of Earth-1's happier and more well-adjusted Harrison Wells (er, happier until he died tragically and horribly, I suppose), and HR is a version in which the scientific genius of the other Wellses we've seen has been redirected in a different way. (Assuming he is a Harrison Wells; I'm still holding out a small grain of skepticism that he might not be. But he works as a Harrison Wells sans science.) Eobard is very different, of course, since he's a different person to begin with.
My Harrison Wells feelings are mainly Harry feelings at the moment, although HR is growing on me. But. Harry.
He kind of had me at hello. This is why it really gets to me that all of these characters are played by the same guy, because I just don't think of them as the same person at all, and reacted to them very differently from the start. Harry seems to have mashed down buttons in my id from his first couple of scenes.
He's just so fascinatingly not Eobard. Eobard is all control; he's silky and smooth and thinking 5 steps ahead of everyone. And Harry is this barely contained mess. XD I think the best thing about Harry is that he tries to be that in-control guy, and he's terrible at it. Messy emotions keep bursting out all over: explosions of temper, explosions of feels -- basically he keeps trying to be what Eobard is naturally (a calm, self-controlled chessmaster) and he ends up being a messy bundle of badly contained emotions instead. He's angry and grouchy and scruffy; he throws things when he's mad; he keeps having ~feelings~ for people even when he's trying not to; he's pretty much just one desperately-trying-to-control-himself feelings leak. His one almost-successful attempt to chessmaster his way out of a situation (stealing Barry's speed) fails not because he does it badly but because he's not ruthless enough to pull it off; he cracks and does the right thing instead. And then he has to deal with the consequences all throughout the rest of the season. (I remember feeling gut-punched when Harry killed the guy in 2x10, because Harry, I didn't think you were that person ... and so, I love that the murder has repercussions right up until the last few episodes; he ends up having it kick him in the face and blow up his relationship with the person he values most. And he tries very hard not to be that person anymore.)
The thing about Harry is that he could have taken a different turn and become a supervillain. He came close. And then he walks himself back from that. His basic decency, and his love for his daughter (and eventually his friends on Earth-2) just won't let him. He recognizes what he's done and tries to make it better. By season three, he's pretty much dedicated his life (at least for the near future) to fixing what he broke on his Earth. It's not entirely a redemption arc because he wasn't that bad to begin with, but it hits all the best redemption arc buttons, where it's constant temptation and struggle and an uphill battle to get people to trust him, but eventually he manages to do it, and it's pretty much the best thing ever. All the hugs at the end of season two. eeeee.
Also, I will never stop finding it adorable and hilarious that since he couldn't stay on Earth-1 to help his friends, he went and FOUND ANOTHER HARRISON WELLS to help them. That's so ... him. (And kinda went like most of his plans do. Oh, Harry. You tried.)
I just have a lot of thoughts and feels about Harry.
And I hope that we'll see more Harrison Wellses eventually, because the actor is just about Tatiana Maslany-class at doing alternate takes on the character. We haven't found out anything about the Earth-3 Harrison yet (if there is one), or whether Supergirl's Earth has one of its own! I like this general trend of Tom Cavanagh playing a different version of his character every season.
Also, I want to see Harry have to spend time with HR, because that would be comedy gold.
It seems fitting to conclude with Tumblr's Harrison Wells version of the cinnamon roll meme, which is one of the more character-appropriate versions of it that I've run across, and also hilarious.
musesfool said: Harrison Wells and the multiverse!Soooooo I TRIED to make a sensible, thinky post, but instead it turned into an explosion of random feels. sorry not sorry
First off, I love what the DC TV shows are doing with the multiverse, and I sincerely hope they don't plan on having some sort of Crisis on Infinite Earths-style event to put an end to it. Which they probably do, because DC. But in the meantime, it's just so much fun. Among other things, it means they can have shows operate under completely different rules (like Supergirl vs. the Flash/Arrow/etc shows) and still exist in the same 'verse with the possibility of crossovers.
And we get to see the actors play multiple versions of the same characters, which is always a treat. I have always enjoyed canons that give us canonical AUs, and in these shows, as in a few others (e.g. Fringe, Stargate) it's baked into the whole concept.
And, well. ♥ HARRISON ♥
I am still impressed at how differently Tom Cavanagh embodies different versions of the same character. Harry isn't Eobard, both of them are drastically different from HR, neither of them is like Earth-1 Harrison, etc. And yet, for the most part, you can see how the same underlying character could turn into each of those different people. Harry is plausibly a more cynical and damaged version of Earth-1's happier and more well-adjusted Harrison Wells (er, happier until he died tragically and horribly, I suppose), and HR is a version in which the scientific genius of the other Wellses we've seen has been redirected in a different way. (Assuming he is a Harrison Wells; I'm still holding out a small grain of skepticism that he might not be. But he works as a Harrison Wells sans science.) Eobard is very different, of course, since he's a different person to begin with.
My Harrison Wells feelings are mainly Harry feelings at the moment, although HR is growing on me. But. Harry.
He kind of had me at hello. This is why it really gets to me that all of these characters are played by the same guy, because I just don't think of them as the same person at all, and reacted to them very differently from the start. Harry seems to have mashed down buttons in my id from his first couple of scenes.
He's just so fascinatingly not Eobard. Eobard is all control; he's silky and smooth and thinking 5 steps ahead of everyone. And Harry is this barely contained mess. XD I think the best thing about Harry is that he tries to be that in-control guy, and he's terrible at it. Messy emotions keep bursting out all over: explosions of temper, explosions of feels -- basically he keeps trying to be what Eobard is naturally (a calm, self-controlled chessmaster) and he ends up being a messy bundle of badly contained emotions instead. He's angry and grouchy and scruffy; he throws things when he's mad; he keeps having ~feelings~ for people even when he's trying not to; he's pretty much just one desperately-trying-to-control-himself feelings leak. His one almost-successful attempt to chessmaster his way out of a situation (stealing Barry's speed) fails not because he does it badly but because he's not ruthless enough to pull it off; he cracks and does the right thing instead. And then he has to deal with the consequences all throughout the rest of the season. (I remember feeling gut-punched when Harry killed the guy in 2x10, because Harry, I didn't think you were that person ... and so, I love that the murder has repercussions right up until the last few episodes; he ends up having it kick him in the face and blow up his relationship with the person he values most. And he tries very hard not to be that person anymore.)
The thing about Harry is that he could have taken a different turn and become a supervillain. He came close. And then he walks himself back from that. His basic decency, and his love for his daughter (and eventually his friends on Earth-2) just won't let him. He recognizes what he's done and tries to make it better. By season three, he's pretty much dedicated his life (at least for the near future) to fixing what he broke on his Earth. It's not entirely a redemption arc because he wasn't that bad to begin with, but it hits all the best redemption arc buttons, where it's constant temptation and struggle and an uphill battle to get people to trust him, but eventually he manages to do it, and it's pretty much the best thing ever. All the hugs at the end of season two. eeeee.
Also, I will never stop finding it adorable and hilarious that since he couldn't stay on Earth-1 to help his friends, he went and FOUND ANOTHER HARRISON WELLS to help them. That's so ... him. (And kinda went like most of his plans do. Oh, Harry. You tried.)
I just have a lot of thoughts and feels about Harry.
And I hope that we'll see more Harrison Wellses eventually, because the actor is just about Tatiana Maslany-class at doing alternate takes on the character. We haven't found out anything about the Earth-3 Harrison yet (if there is one), or whether Supergirl's Earth has one of its own! I like this general trend of Tom Cavanagh playing a different version of his character every season.
Also, I want to see Harry have to spend time with HR, because that would be comedy gold.
It seems fitting to conclude with Tumblr's Harrison Wells version of the cinnamon roll meme, which is one of the more character-appropriate versions of it that I've run across, and also hilarious.
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I love what you say about Harry here - I was so skeptical that they were going to be able to pull off a different version from s1 Thawne!Wells, but Cavanagh knocked it out of the park. I am looking forward to meeting the Harrison Wellses of many other earths, so Earth 2 Harry will always be my fave!
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