Character Profile: Helena, Rei Ayanami with an actual personality
Ok first off this goes for all my posts but I'm going to spoil a lot of Orphan Black and it's very much a serial so you've been warned. Leave now and don't blame me if you find out something before it's revealed in the show.
Helena was my favorite character. I don't hate her but my love for her has diminished after my second rewatch. Helena is as the title suggests Rei Ayanami from Evangelion but with an actual character. Both are pale skinned and haired, both were trained as child soldier and were in a way groomed to be seen as ascending to their rightful place on the food chain, they're also clearly off putting to those around them.
I'm no fan of Evangelion but the parallels between the two weren't what soured me of Helena. What soured me to her is while she is objectively an interesting character in the series and serves as a multiple very important purpose (foil for Sarah, the muscle of the group, comic relief, slasher-like villainess, ect). Helena's entire arc is done in season two after she burns down the Prolethean compounds. The remaining 3 seasons is just her being a tag along, comic relief or just a plot device to rescue. She's still the quirky, off putting but charming woman but she has nowhere to go character wise outside of motherhood (which is when the show ends). As a character, I love her I always loved the quirky insane broken bird of a woman in media. However, as I said she has been drastically lowered in my fave clone due to her staticness.
Character wise. Helena is an interesting character, she's an abuse victim in almost every way overtly. However, in the Orphan Black bible "Dyad Classified Files" by Delphine Cormeir (no idea who the actual writer of it is sadly). Cosima is flat out diagnosed with autism and in the Helsinki comic MK also is diagnosed with autism. This logically means all the other clones are autistic and I think Maslany's acting to make all clones not just dress differently and act differently is interesting (especially since most of the clones have the quirks of some archetypical patterns of autistic people I've met). Especially since I've met plenty of autistic people and a lot of them tend to fall into clone habits they have. Helena is interesting since it's really hard to separate which parts of her personality are due to her abuse and what's due to her autism. Unlike the other clones where the autism signs are pretty clear once you know them, Helena's is hard to pin down since her trauma is so heavy and started at a young age. However at the end of the day I think the abuse exaggerated already existing traits, for example I think Helena's self-mutilation is very much caused by her abuse and was amplified by her autistic mindset of ritualism and compulsive on acts (this part will be covered moreso in Rachel, as the same thing happened to her but in a less traumatic way).
Oddly enough out of all the clones, I think Helena has the happiest ending. She has twins that are healthy. Probably will be with Jessie together who will love her regardless of her issues and overall has been redeemed or at least forgiven by her sestras for her murders of the clones she did kill.
Helena was my favorite character. I don't hate her but my love for her has diminished after my second rewatch. Helena is as the title suggests Rei Ayanami from Evangelion but with an actual character. Both are pale skinned and haired, both were trained as child soldier and were in a way groomed to be seen as ascending to their rightful place on the food chain, they're also clearly off putting to those around them.
I'm no fan of Evangelion but the parallels between the two weren't what soured me of Helena. What soured me to her is while she is objectively an interesting character in the series and serves as a multiple very important purpose (foil for Sarah, the muscle of the group, comic relief, slasher-like villainess, ect). Helena's entire arc is done in season two after she burns down the Prolethean compounds. The remaining 3 seasons is just her being a tag along, comic relief or just a plot device to rescue. She's still the quirky, off putting but charming woman but she has nowhere to go character wise outside of motherhood (which is when the show ends). As a character, I love her I always loved the quirky insane broken bird of a woman in media. However, as I said she has been drastically lowered in my fave clone due to her staticness.
Character wise. Helena is an interesting character, she's an abuse victim in almost every way overtly. However, in the Orphan Black bible "Dyad Classified Files" by Delphine Cormeir (no idea who the actual writer of it is sadly). Cosima is flat out diagnosed with autism and in the Helsinki comic MK also is diagnosed with autism. This logically means all the other clones are autistic and I think Maslany's acting to make all clones not just dress differently and act differently is interesting (especially since most of the clones have the quirks of some archetypical patterns of autistic people I've met). Especially since I've met plenty of autistic people and a lot of them tend to fall into clone habits they have. Helena is interesting since it's really hard to separate which parts of her personality are due to her abuse and what's due to her autism. Unlike the other clones where the autism signs are pretty clear once you know them, Helena's is hard to pin down since her trauma is so heavy and started at a young age. However at the end of the day I think the abuse exaggerated already existing traits, for example I think Helena's self-mutilation is very much caused by her abuse and was amplified by her autistic mindset of ritualism and compulsive on acts (this part will be covered moreso in Rachel, as the same thing happened to her but in a less traumatic way).
Oddly enough out of all the clones, I think Helena has the happiest ending. She has twins that are healthy. Probably will be with Jessie together who will love her regardless of her issues and overall has been redeemed or at least forgiven by her sestras for her murders of the clones she did kill.
Comments
Post a Comment