OOC: on Charlie, desire, want and need

[bloodyrockgod]

He looks exasperated. "All right. I was an abused child. I had a drug problem. I slept with too many of the wrong people for the wrong reasons and I drove away people who did love me because the thought of committment scared the living daylights out of me. I didn't visit my mother when she was dying and I didn't speak to my brother for months on end. I stopped writing music because it hurt too much to feel. And when the plane went down I was in the loo getting stoned."

I've been re-reading some old Charlie-Claire threads and trying to figure some things out about Charlie--how to get some thoughts I've been having into order. That speech above says a lot.


What Charlie responds to most in his relationships with men is being desired. Not being loved as such; but desire, passionate, hungry, right-now-this-very-second desire.

I've been wanting for a while to have him talk about how the male groupies they'd get were always his; and finally did in a conversation with Adam Whiteley--the idea being that when they'd get male groupies he knew that they were always there specifically, only, for him. Grils could be picked and chosen over by the other band members and roadies, but the boys were just his.

Charlie doesn't belong to any one of the Endless; in their different ways they all have claim on him. He's an artist and ths belongs to Dream; he's alive and thus belongs to Destiny; he has known Despair sharply; he has experienced both Delierium and Delight; and like all beings he will someday meet with Death the final time. But most of all he belongs to Desire. His own desires, the importance he places on others' desire for him; he is hisherits creatre almost more than he is his own.

But it's not even the wanting that stirs him so much as the being wanted. Cahrlie wants--does he ever want--but without the being wanted his own wants die down.

In one of the interviews Dominic Monaghan has given about Lost he said that Charlie still has issues with women to deal with. He's said to two different women in the series, Claire and the brunette in Homecoming whos name I've forgotten, that he just wants to take care of them. The brunette said he'd never be able to take care of anyone; Claire said she didn't need to be taken care of.

There's a difference between those two statements, even though they're both refusals. The brunette was referring to the weaknesses she saw in Charlie. Claire was making a statement to her own strength. Charlie is afraid of being seen as weak and/or useless, and his desire to take care of someone is his way of proving he has use.

So why addiction? Addiction is so oftern perceived as a failure and a weakness; and in Charlie's case it is certainly a shortcoming, a weakness he needs to overcome in order to be the man he desires to be; but it's also a coping mechanism. Crutches are, after all, intended to help you until you're strong enough to walk alone. But it's time for Charlie to stop relying on his crutch. (Which is why the potential of continued heroin use next season scares me so. He NEEDS to be stronger in order to be a good father to Aaron and companion to Claire. No crutches. No help outside of his own charater and soul. If he fails . . . he'll lose his family.)

Charlie grew up in a working-class neighborhood of Manchester, which is, by all accounts, a rather rough town. So. Here's a boy with artistic talents, a muscian, a creator of beautiful things, a dreamer. This, it's fair to say, was not taken wel by his father or the other boys in his neighborhood, possibly even by Liam though when they were older Liam didn't turn down the lifestyle Charlie's music offered him. But imagine being told for years that the thing that makes you special, the thing that's always in her head and on your mind, is useless. I imagine Pace Senior told Charlie many times to stop daydreaming and live in the real world. (Quite probably while smacking him around a bit as well.)

I've noticed that Charlie's inner monologue just shuts off completely when he's having sex for sex's sake. When he's making love it's there, how he perceives his lover and what they're doing (one of my favorite scenes with David described their lovemaking in terms of music, how the bass would sound and the guitar and the drums and all of it); but when it's just good old fucking it's all about sensation and movement, the physical. These times are like when he was getting stoned: there's no thought involved, it's just instinct and need. (When Bartleby said, long ago, "this one just needs", it cut Charlie deeply because it was completely true and he hates that part of himself.)

So take an uncertain creature who is trying not to be controlled by his desires (and not always doing a good job of it), who doesn't want to be perceived as useless or weak even though he often feels he is; who wants to be needed more than he wants to need; and . . . and you get Charlie.


Any thoughts on the subject are appreciated.

Comments

[rapunze11e.livejournal.com]

I guess in the bustle of flying home and moving the day you posted this, I somehow missed it.

I have thoughts, and they go along with what I've been wanting to write about Claire. . .

I'm still trying to make them coherent though, so. . .they'll be up soon.

[rapunze11e.livejournal.com]

And fuck. This is it: who doesn't want to be perceived as useless or weak even though he often feels he is; who wants to be needed more than he wants to need; and . . .


Shit. That's the thing that hadn't clicked in my mind yet.