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Post by utility_singer on Oct 24, 2013 11:08:25 GMT
"Pealing madly, but not necessarily for me"
I've looked around and this doesn't seem to have been brought up before. And now it is a bit of a sticking point for me in the chapter I'm working on. Trying to figure out what could have given her that impression. Georg was talking marriage, but simply hadn't proposed? She wasn't "feeling the love?" He was more distant/distracted? She was expecting a proposal when they were alone by the lake, and she asked what he would call her, and he gave her the lovely etc. comments but didn't go further?
I've already got a couple of things outlined, but it isn't quite clicking for me.
thoughts?
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Post by lemacd on Oct 24, 2013 11:40:13 GMT
i always thought it an odd thing to say. could it mean that georg had actually brought up marriage and she just wasn't sure? maybe everything max says to her about them being his friends, wanting to keep all the money in the family, etc was to convince her to say yes, not convince her to try harder (which is what i have always thought). i'm just thinking a bit outside the box here... i know it is quite inconsistent with a lot of other parts of the movie, especially the whole auf wiedersehen scene. it isn't so much the "not necessarily for me" part that is confusing... it's the "pealing madly" part.
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Post by utility_singer on Oct 24, 2013 13:09:33 GMT
I think maybe that's it----that the two phrases don't work together in the way I'd expect them to. I can't decide if it means he's brought it up but she isn't sure, or if she is dying for him to propose, but senses he just isn't into her enough. Maybe that's what the "I sense I'm here on approval" goes---that he isn't sure, and she suspects if the children don't approve he won't propose?
Just not sure which way to go with it. I want that dialogue to make sense with what I have going on in Vienna before her visit.
Maybe I'll try to write it both ways, and see which one feels right. Or try it out here on you lovely ladies.
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Post by augiesannie on Oct 24, 2013 13:14:56 GMT
that's a great idea.
and this was a great idea for a thread!
Another variable is - how up to date is Max? is he asking because they haven't really talked about it in months, or does he already know that she's hoping for a proposal and he's just checking in on the conversation by the lake? Because her response sounds different against these two backdrops - if it's the second, she might have been more optimistic till now.
Another variable: was it he who broached the subject of her coming to meet the children, and is this because he's talked himself into it OR because he can't decide till he brings her to meet the children? (maybe the former - he seems concerned that the children were not there to greet her). Or did Elsa push for the visit?
and "pealing madly" is SO intriguing - as though she's saying that he definitely wants to marry SOMEONE presumably to mother his children, even if it's not her? I don't see it that way.
I also have a bunc of questions about their lakeside conversation, will be back later with those.
Lemacd, like you, I try to go easy on Elsa, but I think it's stretching the point to say that she needs convcincing!
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Post by utility_singer on Oct 24, 2013 15:05:13 GMT
I've always thought Max was checking on their private conversation by the lake.
In my story, the telegram Georg got the evening Maria arrived was from Elsa, requesting he come to Vienna, and then bring her back to Salzburg to meet the children, adding that Max has agreed to come along as chaperone. Her way of pressing the issue. He starts feeling uneasy about once he arrives, and she doesn't mention the children at all. In typical Georg fashion, he suppresses that instinct in favor of the whole 'she'd make the perfect wife and mother' plan.
Hmmm.
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Post by augiesannie on Oct 24, 2013 15:27:36 GMT
that's a perfectly wonderful and reasonable take on it, not that there couldn't be others, can't wait to read it.
when he reads the telegram, it doesn't seem to take him long to decide so what's that about? he already was considering the trip? or he makes a spur of the moment decision because he wants to get the heck out of there? it's not like he takes a long time to deliberate. I always thought the telegram was kind of confirming a previous arrangement. But there's some good storymaking out of it the way you have set it up, especially given his suppressive tendencies as you say.
"I wonder where the children are. I thought they'd be here to greet you" - how does that fit in? Fun to think about.
My point about Max was that, if it's as you say(and that's what I always thought too,) then it could have been that, up till now, she has had real hopes/expectations for a proposal, and that his ambivalent response by the lake is a new, worrisome wrinkle. As opposed to if he'd been waffling all along. Was she expecting him to say something like, "It is beautiful here, darling, yes, but seeing you in this setting -- now that is real beauty. I've been waiting a long time to show it to you and - welll, let's just say, I hope you can get used to it." (or some other romantic drivel like that)
More later.
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Post by utility_singer on Oct 24, 2013 16:33:16 GMT
I've made it so the telegram confirms his trip to Vienna, with her wishing to return with him and Max agreeing to come along.
I'm actually setting up for his uneasiness to begin while he's away, though completely unaware of the cause.
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Post by lemacd on Oct 24, 2013 18:43:17 GMT
i was just trying to think outside the realm of the obvious, but i don't honestly believe that she needed convincing. she clearly had designs. that particularly line just doesn't make sense to me. and i was just trying to be clever like the rest of you.
we talked about this mysterious telegram before when it came up in my story... i interpreted the sudden reaction when he received it as he temporary forgot about the trip in the first place. the antics of the new governess knocked it out of him. or maybe he remembered he hadn't told the children yet.
as for her return... that is very interesting. i wonder who's idea it was... i bet it was elsa's but she had max bring it up nonchalantly in some champagne soaked moment in vienna so seem less desperate to make things move forward.
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Post by augiesannie on Oct 24, 2013 18:55:45 GMT
this story is already great and it's going to get even better!
My problem in these discussions is that I agree with everyone!
Given how quickly he reads the telegram, I also always figured that he'd already planned the trip, and that she had already (whether it was an effort or he had readily agreed) planted the idea that she should come back to meet the children, and that the telegram was just a confirmation.
I think the trip was already planned because, for one thing, he DOES seem mildly anxious about her first meeting with the children (is he anxious that THEY won't like her, or that SHE won't like them???). So he must at least partly want it to work out. And yet he's ambivalent, as with his uneasy reaction to "searching just like you."
Agree that "pealing madly but not necessarily for me " is perplexing. Who else WOULD he be marrying? Unless, like I said before, she is trying to say that he is mostly desparate to get them a mother. Maybe she means wedding bells are generally pealing for lots of people???
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Post by utility_singer on Oct 24, 2013 20:56:10 GMT
Honestly? I think he's anxious about both. While he doesn't know his children, he is keenly aware that they need a mother, and there is little in Elsa's dress or deportment to suggest she'd be eager to take on the job. Considering how quickly they can scare off a governess (who would seemingly enjoy, or at least understand, children) he'd likely to have concerns about that.
Thank you all. It has been setting up nicely in my story, so after some fine-tuning I'll likely post it later tonight. Carry on the discussion, though, as this is fascinating.
Now I can't decide where this will all end!
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Post by indigoblue on Oct 28, 2013 22:46:04 GMT
I had always been confused by the "Pealing madly, but not necessarily for me" phrase as well, because the only take I could get on it was that Elsa already suspected someone else was in her space, that sixth sense you get sometimes, which would have been augmented by Georg's evasiveness when he said, "Lovely...and my saviour", etc.(especially if she had been expecting that proposal at that point).
But the fact that Georg had only known Maria a matter of hours, and on bad terms at that, makes this unlikely, and for her to allude to the bells pealing for someone else at this stage doesn't really ring true ('scuse the pun). So your ideas are fascinating, as usual!
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Post by emilia78 on Apr 14, 2020 8:42:27 GMT
"Pealing madly, but not necessarily for me" I've looked around and this doesn't seem to have been brought up before. And now it is a bit of a sticking point for me in the chapter I'm working on. Trying to figure out what could have given her that impression. Georg was talking marriage, but simply hadn't proposed? She wasn't "feeling the love?" He was more distant/distracted? She was expecting a proposal when they were alone by the lake, and she asked what he would call her, and he gave her the lovely etc. comments but didn't go further? I've already got a couple of things outlined, but it isn't quite clicking for me. thoughts? Let's take into account that the discussion between Elsa and Max is a teasing and naughty one, they don't speak genuinely or open their hearts to each other. For me, what Elsa says in her playful tone of voice, on the one hand is provoking for Max's curiosity (yes the Captain wants to get married soon and the money must remain into the family but who knows who the lucky bride will be...) and on the other hand she does not show all her cards at once. She keeps a mystery around her. |
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