This is going to be cut into slightly rearranged chunks for convenience.
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Originally posted by R. Daniel Olk 01
Hmm, I haven't really said what I want to say here... 'cuz I fear I'd just get a thread of people giving me strange looks via smileys. Any analysis of Alan and what his character blatantly represents is doomed to dip into the awkward. |
By all means, go right ahead. A mod can always up the rating of the thread, if really necessary (which, as I edit this, may be the case
). It wouldn't be the first time (Hot Robot Action, anyone?).
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Ah-ah-ah, but if you examine the underlying drive for why you like Alan so much (or at all)... that's when you're like.... "woah."
Meh.... or don't listen to me, "I'm just weird." I tend to read into everything, y'know? |
Well, since the floodgates are now open, I may as well say my own personal piece. Ahaha. I'm not sure there's any "woah" about it.
Why Alan. Why Alan... hmm.
It started with the looks. That's for certain. A man without eyes is mysterious. A man with red lips is androgynous and sensual. As a character, he's colored in incredibly basic and striking ways-- black, white, red. It's all very striking, and it's what drew me in. Harmonious, almost.
Which is funny, when you consider that Alan is... not entirely harmonious. He's got a lot of duality within him-- human vs. machine, Paradigm vs. the Union, passion vs. coldbloodedness, and so on. These attributes both coexist and don't. To elaborate on all of this and what exactly it emphasizes about his character, I would have to take the time to write a full-on character analysis, and I'm afraid I don't have the juice for that just now. You'll have to settle for my half-assed rambling. :3
But I do find Alan to be the most sexually-charged character in the series, by far. Yes, even more than Angel, for all her babealicious charms. Far more than Angel, honestly. Just look at him throughout the episodes-- he's surrounded in phallic symbols, man. XD His gun, which he gives a long lick before chasing down Dorothy with it. The
drill with which he attempts to penetrate her body. The wires connected to his body, which link him to Big Duo Inferno-- wires that eventually subjugate, smother, and crush him. What's so interesting to me is the way in which he interacts with those objects: he uses them as tools, directly appreciates them at one point, and is ultimately overtaken by them. That's not what you'd expect to see of a typically "male" indicator, which I tend to perceive as a man simply using those tools to affect
others and little else. Phallic symbols
do, and are much less commonly
done to.
It's very much a sex-as-power thing, I believe. And though frightening, I think many people have a certain drive to be attracted to and awed by that.
As I said, not someone I'd like to meet in a dark alley. Or even a lit alley. But there's just so much there that I can't resist looking a little deeper. From the safety of my own physical reality, mind. X3
And again, don't sell short the fact that he's just a very lovely and strange-looking creature to look at. He's what happens when you take something beautiful and warp it only enough to look and feel just the
slightest bit wrong.
So "woah" nothing.
It is what it is.
(And now who reads into everything? >.>)
nah j/k that's not the reason). But I just can't resist liking Alan (and Instro) because I'm most often like an odd combination of the two...
It's Alan. He's looks delightfuly yummy. He has his trademarks. He has that thing about him that makes people like him. Whay should ears matter when everything else is perfect? 
Crazy people are cool!