fannish5: Five Needing-To-Quitters

Five characters who should quit their jobs (and why).


1.) Severus Snape (Harry Potter). During the time canon was still open, of course. Let’s face it, Snape was a fascinating character but a really horrible teacher, even if you discount anything to do with Harry. The two most glaring proofs about Snape’s unsuitability as a teacher that come to mind are that he managed to terrorize Neville Longbottom so much that he, not, say, Bellatrix Lestrange who drove Neville’s parents insane, became Neville’s greatest fear, and that, as opposed to a certain fanfic subgenre, he treated an eager student like Hermione with contempt, best summed up in his reaction to the time when her teeth were bespelled into growing to gigantic proportions. Instead of helping her, he said “I can’t see any difference”. Basically, Snape and the students made each other miserable through the years, and yes, that was also Dumbledore’s fault for keeping him in this job instead of, say, giving him the magical equivalent of an university scholarship (Snape was brilliant at potions, no question, and would have thrived at only having to do research instead of teaching). But Snape was an adult, and really: he should have quit his job.

2.) Deb’s psychiatrist whose name I refuse to remember (Dexter): worst. Therapist. Ever. If you watched the horror that was season 6, you know what I mean. There is no excuse. After what she told Deb, she should never be allowed to treat another patient again.

3.) Jesse Pinkman (Breaking Bad). His current job is being a drug manufacturer and dealer, at which he’s grown ever more efficient in the course of the show, so quitting it is in the general interest, but it’s also in Jesse’s. As opposed to the show’s main character, it’s not yet too late for him and he still has something of a conscience, so quitting, while extremely unlikely right now, isn’t impossible. Here’s hoping.

4.) John Sheridan (Babylon 5). Good war commanders do not necessarily make good political leaders in peace time (or what passes for peace time at a galactic saga). Sheridan proved in the fifth season of B5 he was a case in point, even if his wife and his author think otherwise. By quitting, he would not only make room for a more capable president but also minimize his opportunities to play tasteless pranks on reporters with the misfortune of interviewing him, so that would be another plus.

5.) Thomas (Downton Abbey). I say this against my own viewing interest, because in the second season, O’Brien and Thomas became my favourite characters by virtue of not making me think “off with their heads” and “this isn’t romance, buddy, it’s stalking” respectively, and also for gaining layers in regards to s1 as opposed to losing them. Still. Instead of serving as another illustration of What Happens To The Lower Classes If They Forget Their Place And Want More Without Asking The Upper Classes For Support First, Thomas should quit his job and write a biting satiric novel, or become an impresario. He’s got business skills, scheming talent, organization talent, an acid tongue and a surpressed and only sometimes emerging romantic streak. He and Tin Pan Alley in the 1920s are practically made for each other.

Thirty Days of Borgias: Day Thirty

Day 30 ~ How would you end the show?

Welllllllll. It would be less angsty to end with Rodrigo’s death, I suppose there has to be a last episode about Cesare’s decline and fall and Lucrezia’s survivorness as well. So let’s say Rodrigo dies at the end of the last but one, which opens with chaotic Rome, Giuliano della Rovere taking over, and Cesare finding himself outmanoeuvred but at least able to secure the safety of his mother. (He had guards posted for Vannozza but as it turned out that wasn’t necessary; she was fairly popular, which della Rovere was aware of, so she was left alone.)

In order not to make it too depressing, I’d juxtapose Cesare losing territory and ending up dying in Spain (in a fight to the death, as previously mentioned) with Lucrezia managing to win over the d’Estes, who were strongly advised to get rid of her once Rodrigo was death, with the new Pope happy to offer annulment and making the defeat of the Borgias complete. But her father-in-law (soon to die) and her husband refused, and thus she became the Duchess of Ferrara, and a highly regarded one. (Which included her being occasional regent again, as she’d been for her father; in 1506 she initiated a law for the protection of the Jews.) So I’d cutting from Cesare’s death (cue epic fight sequence) to Lucrezia getting the news (from Micheletto, if he’s still alive in the show at that point), facing the possibility of her own impending end, with maybe some gleeful Rovere partisans waiting for her husband to discard her, head held high, and then hearing instead she won Ferrara after all. She prays for her dead family, takes her of the living one (her illegitimate son and however many of the legitimate kids the show will include, Giulia Farnese and Vannozza (who died Rome, not Ferrara, but never mind, show liberty) and as she was the first person we saw when the show started, as a young girl, she’ll be the last we see as it ends, a woman who has seen and done much and will do more, with the celebration of her and her husband taking over the duchy (after the death of the old duke, who in the show maybe WILL intend to discard her but dies before he can order his son to?) mirroring Rodrigo’s ascendancy in the pilot.


( The rest of the days )