What does 'Leaving the characters changed but unchanged' mean?
Hello everyone. I'm a non-native English speaker. Could you please help me understand that sentence fragment (bold type)?
'Like Homer, the rest of Springfield now bore only a surface resemblance to the characters they’d once been. But this newfound enthusiasm for character development created another problem that has endured throughout the Simpsons. As the show became more emotionally heavy handed it also became wackier. And instead of doing one or the other, it tried to have it both ways at once. The episode would be dour and serious, but there was no payoff for the audience. No matter how sad the proceedings, everything was back to normal (or very close to it) by the time the credits rolled. The result is emotional episodes about sober Barney and widowed Flanders that don’t follow through, leaving the characters changed but unchanged, and still able to react to Homer’s antics.
Season 11 is rife with tone deaf juxtapositions like that. In addition to dead wives, multiple births and droning sobriety, Season 11 sees Homer use a full size motorcycle as a sword to rescue Marge, pirates kidnap half of Springfield and drown many of them, and an episode that ends with racehorse jockeys turning out to be magical, subterranean elves. Not only was the deft touch for tender or heartbreaking moments gone, but the stories that had grounded those moments had been replaced by adventures that Bugs and Mickey would consider outlandish. The show hadn’t previously been sappy or stupid, and now it was being both at the same time.'
Top answer
The writers wrote episodes that should have altered the defining characteristics of a character, such as Barney with his perennial inebriation, but he was the same old Barney afterwards even so. The illogic of "changed but unchanged" is a deliberate comment on the illogic of the writers' technique.
- The writers wrote episodes that should have altered the defining characteristics of a character, such as Barney with his perennial inebriation, but he was the same old Barney afterwards even so.
- The illogic of "changed but unchanged" is a deliberate comment on the illogic of the writers' technique.
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The writers wrote episodes that should have altered the defining characteristics of a character, such as Barney with his perennial inebriation, but he was the same old Barney afterwards even so. The illogic of "changed but unchanged" is a deliberate comment on the illogic of the writers' technique.
0I would interpret it thus:
In one part of the show the characters act as if they had reformed or gotten worse; they seem to be changed. But then they revert to their original selves and so are unchanged.
0In some episodes there are issues addressed which show the characters' failings and their behaviours may change for the episode, to make a point or to raise an issue. The characters, for that episode, are changed - they may become different in some way for the duration. However, when that episode is finished, the issue has been dealt with, the stock character comes back as if nothing had eve
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