Series 10 - Episode 6 Discussion

[binkie]

(26-10-2011 05:14 PM)Beatriz Wrote:  What I don't get is some comments about what should or shouldn't have happened, or whether it was fair or unfair... I know this is a show, but life is not precisely about fairness and justice...
I undertand that people can be disappointed by the ending, and that sucks, but the writers have outlayed an ending that thought fitting and that's all... Like it or not...

Yes: surely the whole point of Ruth's death, its lead-in and its aftermath, is that it is a result of all the choices made by and for her in her life to that moment. It is neither fair, nor unfair. It is simply consequence. Ruth is not herself anything other than an agent of determinsim (or a victim of the determinsim of others, depending on your interpretation of active/passive being in time). This is not to say she has no value other than as an agent/victim of determinism. Clealry she is of value in the narrative, both actual and meta, and clealry she has value to Harry. But the point of the event and circumstance of her death is that it happened on this occasion, rather than on any other. Someone was going to have to deal with it eventually, whether it was her cat, her neighbour, her closest living relative, or a stranger in the street. Circumstances dicated that it was Harry, and narrative convention dictated that we be witness to that.