Emily lovers and haters
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John Henry
- Peach Cobbler
- Posts: 1430
- Joined: June 2014
Emily lovers and haters
Yes, how do you view this very controversial character, the wanna-be detective Emily Jones, daughter of Simon and Dorothy Jones, sister to musician Barrett Jones, and one who has appeared in some 30+ episodes? There has been much talk and fight from different people. It would be interesting to see just how many people LOVE her, HATE her, like her, or dislike her. Yes, it might even show how much support the ERK and the KRE have.
I want to really like Emily. I like her in the newer episodes, but it's hard to get past how rude and controlling she was with Matthew. I'm glad Matthew left there detective agency so he can be her friend and still have some free will. That being said, Matthew really should have stood up for himself. He didn't have to go along with her. But I still feel like she wasn't a very good friend to him.
While it's fair to say that 'she wasn't a very good friend to him' in some of the earliest episodes (which is incidentally around the same time period that most of the Emily hostility popped up on the forum), I don't think this holds true for long, and if we count material from outside the radio show we get a more balanced portrayal.
She did have a lot of issues in her earliest stage of development and a discussion of her character isn't complete without taking the time to acknowledge that. While she's always been a 'take-charge' person, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, she leans over into bossiness early on. She also had a manipulative side. Finally, she does have a prideful streak; she thinks that she knows best in every situation and that others, like Matthew or her brother, are slightly inferior at least when it comes to reasoning about real situations - a trait that's visibly shown by her early habit where she insisted on referring to Matthew as her 'sidekick'. With these traits all put together, she is the main antagonist in "Square One", and she's a culprit or otherwise at fault in no less than three of her first five episodes.
At the same time, though she saves the school play in Stage Fright, which involves encouraging Matthew into continuing even though he was afraid. While she is still putting pressure on him, it's to do the right thing and to be a better person. He showed no signs of doing that by himself.
I can say that this pattern continued over the course of their relationship, Emily often took him out to some place he probably never would have gone, to meet people he never would have met, and to do things he never would have done, on his own. While that's not to say that Matthew would have necessarily been doing wrong if he had stayed in the basement or in a workshop somewhere focusing on his special interests, it's hard to argue that he is a less complete person at the end of his time than at the beginning, and much of that, as far as we can see, corresponds to things that he did with Emily.
You make the point that he 'should have stood up for himself'. Well, he did a few times, when it was something that was really morally important to him - like not changing Barrett's card, or in the last discussion they have in Square One. But it's true that, overall, he didn't seem to be the kind of person who would make a habit of this. I'd argue that this was another area where Emily was helpful to him. In their episodes together, she gave him energy, purpose and direction which he may not have had on his own, and encouraged him to take risks and to follow through on ambitions that, left to himself, he wouldn't have thought could happen. She encouraged him to put himself out there and run for student president when he didn't think that he could do it. (Although it's true it didn't turn out well for him, that's not Emily's fault; all of her counsel (except perhaps for trying to restyle him as 'Matt') was in keeping with the nature of a friend and was sound, and he did well so long as he followed it.) All in all, she helped Matthew develop confidence, character, and the ability to confront problems, in relationships and elsewhere, instead of avoiding them. Those are all laudable traits.
I don't see it as though Matthew's free will was suppressed all this time by Emily's force of personality, and he just happened to gasp out a request for freedom at a time when Emily felt compelled to grant it given the extentuating circumstances. Rather, I think he initially was the kind of person who liked having someone there to direct him, and, over the course of his time with Emily, he developed into someone who no longer needed it. Their time in "Sacrificial Escape" completes this cycle, when Matthew is finally willing to admit he doesn't want to be involved in the agency (after an extended time of avoiding the problem, his natural tendency), and then takes charge of their escape, with Emily following his directions. And we learn that Emily was willing to give her life to save Matthew - which should ultimately put to rest the idea that she was not a good friend in the end.
* * *
All the above is what we get from the radio episodes. If we look at material from her Clubhouse mysteries (especially the ones that made it into the two "Best of" books), we get a fuller picture of Matthew and Emily's interactions. It does reinforce that Emily's bad traits were an ongoing thing early on, but collectively they also show many times that she was helpful and a good friend, either to Matthew or to his family generally. She, among other things, identified the cause of the Parkers' ant farm's demise, established the Parkers' proper place waiting for service in a restaurant, inadvertently gave Matthew a lead to figure out a glitch with his R/C helicopter, saved several youth, including Olivia, from being poisoned by dangerous chemicals, deduced that a college friend of Mr. Parker's was attempting to con them at Christmas, and helped 'debug' a bug zapper that Mr. Whittaker and Matthew were working on.
Moreover, these anecdotes portray young people who spend a lot of time together and seem to enjoy it and each other. While Matthew wasn't always eager about every aspect of mystery solving, he wasn't coerced as far as his overall participation; he seemed to enjoy the deductions and the logic.
The problem is that they were too good at it to stay at the level they were at. While they started out doing little things like finding Barrett's video game, or trying to figure out what happened to some maltballs, by the time of "A Sacrificial Escape", they were becoming major figures in solving actual, significant crimes. I think that Matthew realized that while being a detective might be Emily's passion and calling, it wasn't something he wanted to spend the rest of his life doing, and this was just about the last point where he could get off the track before it turned into an actual vocation.
* * *
Somewhat incidentally, although I don't think this is ever explicitly stated, I would guess that Emily is probably a little older than Matthew, although not by as much as Olivia, so when you combine this with the fact that they've apparently grown up together, she might feel a little like another 'big sister', which may also help explain the dynamic. (The Clubhouse stories give this extra force.)
She did have a lot of issues in her earliest stage of development and a discussion of her character isn't complete without taking the time to acknowledge that. While she's always been a 'take-charge' person, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, she leans over into bossiness early on. She also had a manipulative side. Finally, she does have a prideful streak; she thinks that she knows best in every situation and that others, like Matthew or her brother, are slightly inferior at least when it comes to reasoning about real situations - a trait that's visibly shown by her early habit where she insisted on referring to Matthew as her 'sidekick'. With these traits all put together, she is the main antagonist in "Square One", and she's a culprit or otherwise at fault in no less than three of her first five episodes.
At the same time, though she saves the school play in Stage Fright, which involves encouraging Matthew into continuing even though he was afraid. While she is still putting pressure on him, it's to do the right thing and to be a better person. He showed no signs of doing that by himself.
I can say that this pattern continued over the course of their relationship, Emily often took him out to some place he probably never would have gone, to meet people he never would have met, and to do things he never would have done, on his own. While that's not to say that Matthew would have necessarily been doing wrong if he had stayed in the basement or in a workshop somewhere focusing on his special interests, it's hard to argue that he is a less complete person at the end of his time than at the beginning, and much of that, as far as we can see, corresponds to things that he did with Emily.
You make the point that he 'should have stood up for himself'. Well, he did a few times, when it was something that was really morally important to him - like not changing Barrett's card, or in the last discussion they have in Square One. But it's true that, overall, he didn't seem to be the kind of person who would make a habit of this. I'd argue that this was another area where Emily was helpful to him. In their episodes together, she gave him energy, purpose and direction which he may not have had on his own, and encouraged him to take risks and to follow through on ambitions that, left to himself, he wouldn't have thought could happen. She encouraged him to put himself out there and run for student president when he didn't think that he could do it. (Although it's true it didn't turn out well for him, that's not Emily's fault; all of her counsel (except perhaps for trying to restyle him as 'Matt') was in keeping with the nature of a friend and was sound, and he did well so long as he followed it.) All in all, she helped Matthew develop confidence, character, and the ability to confront problems, in relationships and elsewhere, instead of avoiding them. Those are all laudable traits.
I don't see it as though Matthew's free will was suppressed all this time by Emily's force of personality, and he just happened to gasp out a request for freedom at a time when Emily felt compelled to grant it given the extentuating circumstances. Rather, I think he initially was the kind of person who liked having someone there to direct him, and, over the course of his time with Emily, he developed into someone who no longer needed it. Their time in "Sacrificial Escape" completes this cycle, when Matthew is finally willing to admit he doesn't want to be involved in the agency (after an extended time of avoiding the problem, his natural tendency), and then takes charge of their escape, with Emily following his directions. And we learn that Emily was willing to give her life to save Matthew - which should ultimately put to rest the idea that she was not a good friend in the end.
* * *
All the above is what we get from the radio episodes. If we look at material from her Clubhouse mysteries (especially the ones that made it into the two "Best of" books), we get a fuller picture of Matthew and Emily's interactions. It does reinforce that Emily's bad traits were an ongoing thing early on, but collectively they also show many times that she was helpful and a good friend, either to Matthew or to his family generally. She, among other things, identified the cause of the Parkers' ant farm's demise, established the Parkers' proper place waiting for service in a restaurant, inadvertently gave Matthew a lead to figure out a glitch with his R/C helicopter, saved several youth, including Olivia, from being poisoned by dangerous chemicals, deduced that a college friend of Mr. Parker's was attempting to con them at Christmas, and helped 'debug' a bug zapper that Mr. Whittaker and Matthew were working on.
Moreover, these anecdotes portray young people who spend a lot of time together and seem to enjoy it and each other. While Matthew wasn't always eager about every aspect of mystery solving, he wasn't coerced as far as his overall participation; he seemed to enjoy the deductions and the logic.
The problem is that they were too good at it to stay at the level they were at. While they started out doing little things like finding Barrett's video game, or trying to figure out what happened to some maltballs, by the time of "A Sacrificial Escape", they were becoming major figures in solving actual, significant crimes. I think that Matthew realized that while being a detective might be Emily's passion and calling, it wasn't something he wanted to spend the rest of his life doing, and this was just about the last point where he could get off the track before it turned into an actual vocation.
* * *
Somewhat incidentally, although I don't think this is ever explicitly stated, I would guess that Emily is probably a little older than Matthew, although not by as much as Olivia, so when you combine this with the fact that they've apparently grown up together, she might feel a little like another 'big sister', which may also help explain the dynamic. (The Clubhouse stories give this extra force.)
A classic never goes out of style.