The Librarians and how I want a little more from Ezekiel Jones

[healingmirth]

Check me out with the many birds, one stone thing. This is what happens when one procrastinates long enough. Things converge!

snowflake_challengeDay 7: In your own space, share your love for a trope, cliché, kink, motif, or theme. (More than one is okay, too.) Tell us about it, tell us why you love it, give us some examples and recs.

Also super belatedly for cathalin: how about talking about your favorite tropes/situations to put characters into and/or read about your favorite characters being placed in. What are they and why do you think you like them, or just any discussion of favorite tropes.

My absolute favorite thing is when characters are wrong. (A close second is characters being specifically awesome at things. Hey, guess what happens when you have characters with both talents and failings!)

Ideally, I like it when one or more characters are wrong, realize they are wrong, and admit they were wrong, and then fix it, but I'm willing to sacrifice one or more steps in that series. I had a thought this morning in the shower that the relevant analogy might be that it's intellectual hurt/comfort. I don't have any recs handy, but luckily it's pretty easy to find. I might find a few examples when I get to bookmarks in a minute here, but it's not the sort of thing that's as taggable as, say, soulbonding. (Another thing I love!)

These stories don't need to be shippy, although, let's be real, it is frequently shippy, and first-time shippy in particular as people are getting to know each other, but there's absolutely a space for it in established dynamics where one character has an experience or a realization and makes some really bad decisions in response. It means that I am more than usually patient with the trope that if they would just TALK TO EACH OTHER, everything would be fine, so long as they do eventually talk to each other.

Doesn't matter to me why they're wrong, but some options: working within different sets of cultural or societal norms; assumptions, either totally unfounded or based on past personal experience; eavesdropping goes awry; a character who has always had to rely on themselves failing to take advantage of group resources; one of the characters starts out as just a straight up uneducated jerk; one character misguidedly tries to protect another character.

Which is why The Librarians 1x05 ...and the Apple of Discord was not precisely to my taste.

I appreciate what they're doing with Ezekiel, I guess? The problem was that I wanted Ezekiel to realize he was in over his head before his Very Special Skills saved the day. In a perfect world, the intercession and the conclave would have been a series of him screwing something up, and then figuring out how to fix it.

And on the topic of Ezekiel saving the day: I don't know y'all. Is it really a lol moment that Ezekiel is already the worst version of himself? He's self-interested - that's the worst thing to be? Okay. Jake's worst self has Really Firm Opinions about Art and abandons his team over it - he's ruled by his passionate interests over his relationships. And then Cassandra gleefully nearly murders hundreds of thousands of people. (Really, show? First she betrays her team, and then she has this hanging over her head?). But Ezekiel? Wholly unchanged.

Was this also in the Apple episode? Jake's moment where he tells Cassandra that he doesn't trust her, and that he's not bothered by that? I did really love that moment. It's terrible for her, obviously, and terrible for him to be so shuttered and wary of people, but love it as fodder.

But I said I was talking about Ezekiel, right? So then in the next episode, the one with the fables, when they're troll-hunting:

Eve: If you want to call yourself a librarian, you have to do the job.

Ezekiel: Job. Ooh, no. Don't like the sound of that word. You see, I became a librarian because it looked like fun. Stealing artifacts, dodging monsters. I like a challenge.

Eve: There's more to life than traveling the world and pushing your luck.

Ezekiel: Not for me there isn't. When it stops being fun, I get bored. and when I'm bored, I'm gone.

I mean, we've all loved a character like this at some point, right? And I am so completely here for the external half of Ezekiel's storyline, where everyone else comes to value the skills that he has to contribute even though he's just a thief, or whatever, but he seems doomed to be comic relief (he likes pizza! he uses Library resources to steal shiny things!) or a convenient plot device, rather than a character.

I don't know if what I'm missing is a lack in direction or writing or acting - or honestly, maybe I am so terrible at watching TV these days that I've missed beats where Ezekiel's expression shows some conflict. Or maybe they want Ezekiel to be pure id, and there is actually no facade there.

But let's assume he's more than an inch deep. Why haven't we seen any cracks in that facade? Most recently, Jake got his moment with that goth kid at the science fair. Cassandra can hardly make it through a scene without being challenged by circumstance or teammates in a way that clearly has an impact on her. Jenkins has his mysterious Arthurian past or whatever. Eve's got her Eve things - I do like her character, but I don't care quite enough to think through what those might be right now. But Eve's at least got scenes with Finn where it's clear she's a person with goals and conflicts and whatever.

Ezekiel, though, pure teflon, and I'm getting tired of it. I'd like to be wrong about him.