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"Question: when we dream and, as often happens, we had a vague conscience of it and we try to wake up, don't we say and do things that are folly in the daily life? Can't we define sometimes the madness as the inability to tell the real life from the dreamt one? We often dream without the lower suspect of irreality: 'the dream has its own world', and it's often realistic as the other one."
NOTE: in case you had some questions about the WO story or the chara and you don't mind spoilers and such, just leave me a note in the WO livejournal community [this entry is open, so you can post messages even if you don't have a running lj account].
I promise I'll reply you soon!
° The Worlds: Wonderland vs. human reality.
° Basic timeline
° Character analysis [Elsie's side only]
° Details & curiosities SPOILER ALERT!
The Worlds: Wonderland vs. human reality.
Wonderland was originally a product of a human mind, Mother's one. It became 'real' when Mother gave humanity to her children, by 'making love' with Joel.
Here, things have to be considered both on their 'material' and 'mental' sides: an idea become real if its author decides to make it real… since Joel lived in her mind, he rose to the 'real' level when Mother started to think at him as a 'real' person; he's still an idea, if we look at him from the 'real' world, but he's perfectly alive if we look at him from 'his' world, Wonderland.
["I think, so I am": all the things I can feel/see are the product of my thought >> there's no real and no imaginary world, just an unique thing… and since I materially make up my own reality, I can create lives and people.]
But all we can see of Wonderland, is filtered by the POV of the Storyteller. Wonderland is a endless [story] cake, and the stories we can see are just like pieces of that [story] cake… it follows that there can be endless stories, and endless Storytellers… of course, Mother's version of Wonderland is only one of the many.
So, is Elsie's version of Wonderland different from her mother's one? Yes, but not entirely: she hasn't created a new settings for her story but simply used the one her mother gave to her, through her 'fairytale'. The major characters are still there.
There's another point: every change in the Wonderland's world is reflected on the 'real' one, simply because the two places are just like two versions of the same World, which is the place where the Teller lives in. The real world is the physical side, Wonderland is the mental/psychological one; they're connected through the person of the Teller. So, if somenthing happens in the real world, it happens even in the mental one; and if a Teller changes part of his/her mental world, it changes his/herself too, in a physical way.
There's no cause/effect relation: things happen at the same time.
1st level [Wonderland as a World]: characters are real people.
2nd level [Wonderland as a mental place]: characters are the representation of the [humans] Teller's psyche.
3rd level: Wonderland is a story/fairytale.
…so, Mother's characters are still in Elsie's world, because she takes their existance for granted. There must be a character who represents Elsie's child side, and since she attached the characteristics of that part of herself to Joel, he rose to the role of her 'childish' part.
Under Mother's control, Joel wasn't the 'child side' of her psyche. He wasn't a grown, angsty child either. But Mother changed the rules of the game, and changed the story… and changed him too. On the 'Wonderland as real world' side, he was abandoned by her [his mother], and suffered so much that he decided to protract his condition of 'child' until he had met her again. But in a real world the body can't stop growing, and this doesn't happen in Wonderland either. He acts as a child cause he WANTS to remain a child… so hard he REGRESSED to a childish condition.
On the other hand, since all the things are connected, being an angsty child represents perfectly the actual Elsie's condition. She doesn't like her childhood, and she doesn't like to be a powerless, useless 'teen'… she would grow up and rise to the adult condition. But indeed, she IS an angsty little child who'd like to have a grown body… [grown body = adult body]
So, the same situations are triggered by different causes, and have differents purposes.
Basic timeline:
Wonderland / real time
| Elsie's birth
| …
| creation of the story/characters - Wonderland is born again in the mind of a human
| Mother makes her 'story' become real / Mother starts to tell the Wonderland 'fairytale' to her daughter Elsie
| Mother leaves Wonderland / Mother divorces from her husband and leaves Elsie alone
| …
| Elsie becomes the new Storyteller / Elsie starts to tell herself the 'fairytale' again
| beginning of the actual WO story / Elsie adventures - both in the 'real' and 'imaginary' world
V
Character analysis [Elsie's side only]:
The italic shows a correspondence with the original Carroll's story.
SPOILERS are written at the end of the profile, between the slashes // [highlighten to read]
(Name [role]: description)
Joel [Mad Hatter]: the childhood, the innocence, the irrational side of her psyche. This turns into rage, against oneself and the others, weakness and corruption. He forced himself [his mind] to remain a child until he'll met his mother again. He doesn't want to grow 'cause he doesn't accept her leaving. He wants to keep things still, as if she wasn't gone away.
Alice's adventures in Wonderland - chapt. VII:
"…`Well, I'd hardly finished the first verse,' said the Hatter, `when the Queen jumped up and bawled out, "He's murdering the time! Off with his head!"'
`How dreadfully savage!' exclaimed Alice.
`And ever since that,' the Hatter went on in a mournful tone, `he won't do a thing I ask! It's always six o'clock now.'"
Joel's also the side of Elsie which acts against itself or the others. In opposition to Lewis [March Hare] who's her "static" side, which only suffers from the actions of the others [included herself]. On the 'real' level, Lewis was a gift which Elsie's mother gave to Joel… this is one of the reasons why he doesn't allow anybody to touch it or take it away from him.
Reuben [White Rabbit]: the projection of the male adult side of Elsie. He's her rational side and the representation of order and organization. This turns into egoism, exploitation of the others for personal purposes, and coldness. As a character, he's the dark ruler of Wonderland, who controls everything from the shadows on the Queen's behalf.
Cody [Chesire's cat]: he's Elsie's emotional side, the physics one. He's the personification of lust and physical love, which turns into fear of the others and the inability of relate oneself with the others in an adult way. He looks so unscrupulous but he's a very sweet guy... he's a younger "version" of his older brother Roger. He likes to read sexy magazines and girls seems to love him a lot...
// He'll fall in love with Elsie herself, more or less like what happened in the first Wonderland, between Joel and Mother. Elsie will eventually return this feeling.//
Two [one of the playing cards]: he's Elsie's emotional side, the mental one. He's the personification of pure love and altruism, which turns into the inability to take care of oneself or show one's own deepest emotions. He worships Reuben but he's never able to tell him what he thinks of him, in another way but doing his work with competence.
//He's one of the many nephews of the Queen, even his full name can deceive. In this world, Spades are the batmen of Reuben, Clubs are the employees who work in the Multinational which is property of the Queen, and Diamonds are the "aristocracy" who live in the Royal Palace, and sometimes serve her. Of course "Hearts" are the Royal family itself. When Two left the Royal Palace to enter the Spades, he changed his name accordingly. He has a very sad past, he was constantly ignored/abused by his Aunt - the Queen - and the rest of the family due to his 'positiveness' and softie behavior. Due to that, he became a very shy and naïve guy.//
Roger [Dormouse]: the projection of the male side of Elsie, like Reuben, although he's the representation of what she sees in the others: her personal vision of the "man". His counterpart is Elsie's mother herself. He's both Elsie's adult emotional and rational side, and he represents the ability of relate oneself with the others - more or less like his younger brother, Cody - but in an objective/adult way. As a character, he works as a reporter for the Wonderland Tribune, and he's one of the many informers of Reuben. He loves his younger bro and tries to take care of him, but on the other side, he deeply hates all the rest of the people who live in the City. He despises humanity, even he seems so sweet and generous… He also likes to write some particular novels, for fun... and the most of them often are published on those particular magazines which his bro loves so much to read.
The Queen [the Queen of Hearts]: the representation of the adult female side of Elsie. She's the female counterpart of Reuben on all the levels. She's represents the power of being adult [while Joel, for instance, is the weakness of the childhood], but even the irrational passion and the blind fury. She's the ruler of Wonderland, or at least, this is what the citizens could see. Are you wondering who's her husband? Of course there's a King of Hearts, somewhere…
Bill [the lizard who serves the White Rabbit]: Elsie's malice, duplicity and unfairness. He was Reuben's former right hand, before resigning. Two has taken his role.
//He said he resigned for some personal reasons, which involved his wife, and this is all we know about that. Even if he's officially not one of the Spades anymore, he's still working in the Multinational and helps Reuben, who's still his employer.//
Dinah [the Duchess]: she's Elsie's pragmatic side, the part of her who tries to put a check on her minds and find a solution for everything. She's Bill's wife.
Details & curiosities: [SPOILER ALERT!]
Spades are obviously thirteen, same number of the playing cards. Reuben can be considered as the 'King' of Spades, Bill was the 'Jack' [and still be, even if he doesn't have an active role in the Spades, anymore] and Two is the 'Queen'. [Of course roles doesn't involve a definited gender, so saying that a chara is the 'Queen' doesn't mean anything but he/she's one of the closest assistants of the leader. On the other hand, you can see that as a hint of the special relationship that links the two characters ;)]
Each character's name has a special meaning or contain a pun: some of them start with the same letter of their role [Reuben - Rabbit; Cody - Cat; Daniel (is Roger's second name) - Dormouse…]. Elsie's is short for Alice, but it's also a pun on the name of Carroll himself [Lewis Carroll - LC - /'elsi/]. Bill is taken from the original book, but it means 'guardian, protector', which explain a bit his role in the story [he was the bodyguard of Reuben]; Dinah is the name of Alice's cat in the original story, but it also starts with the letter of her WO role [Duchess] and it means 'she whom judge' in hebrew, which is an explanation of the 'duchess' role both in the original and the WO story.
Note: it's all intentional, of course... I chose Hebrew to follow the line I started with "Joel" and "Reuben" - which are hebrew names. They were chosen for other reason than the 'religious' meaning, but since I kept them, I also continued to choose the meaning of the next with the same strategy.
Lewis refers to the Charles Dodgson's pseudonym. Joel has a list of possible meanings ['celestial', 'God's willing', 'the Lord is God', 'the Lord who command', 'angel of the God'] which are related with his role in the story - he's not only the son of the first Teller, which is a god in the Wonderland world, but even the only one who has eerie, not human physical characteristics - yellow/amber eyes, a perfect [doll-like] body, the ability to contrast the will of the actual Teller, and so on…
Some of this puns/special meanings are hidden in the dates of birth too: Elsie's is the date of birth of Alice Liddell, Roger's is Carroll's one, Joel's is the date of the 'Mad Hatter day' [from the numbers written on his hat, 10 and 6], Cody's refers to the spring equinox, beginning of the springtime [that is quite fitting for the chara's behavior and personality].
Some of them refers to the character's behavior/personality, according to the zodiac meaning [the Queen is a scorpio, Reuben is a taurus…]
And some are just the day in which the chara was created.
If you read the Profiles carefully, you'll probably find some other of these puns too…
1.618 is called phi (Φ) number and 'divine proportion', and is the matrix of the whole universe.
Joel often refers to Reuben as 'daddy' [with no specific reason, but this matches the role he represents in Elsie's mind - also, he's known as 'Godfather' in the Spades' ranks], a thing that never fails to make him angry and dangerous, and uses to call his puppet as 'Lewish'.
Nobody in the whole world was able to find out if Lewis was alive or not, yet. And Joel is quite vague about this point.
Though Cody's a teen, he seems not to attend any school, even if schools are present in Wonderland, like all the other facilities of the real world. Could this be related to Elsie's will?
Joel, Reuben and Cody live in the same house, which is a tall, modern building near the centre of the City - Dodgson Road, number 1832, thirtheen floor; one of the peculiarities of the house is that the doors usually don't open onto the same rooms, and the rooms keep on changing, so their real number and position are unknown. Two has an apartment in the richest zone of the City, called 'Bourbon Manor" [from the name of the commonest rose breed of the 19th century - of course, as a Heart he couldn't live anywhere else] but of course he passes almost all his time in the offices of the Multinational.
The official name of Reuben's section of the Multinational is 'Taxes Collection Department', but the citizens usually call it 'Debtors Annulment Department', referring to the Spades' gentle way of acting. Not all the Spades work as employees in the official department… some of them are just Reuben's flunkeys. The whole Spades' organization refers to the japanese mafia [yakuza], Reuben himself has a nice - and big! - dragon tattooed on his back.