jarlath1

No. I believe that a DJo ending was planned all along but that doesn't mean they didn't build up a credible PJo relationship and that not everything about them was about Dawson. You tie every argument, every moment to Dawson.

No one, as far as I know, is disputing that Joey/Pacey have a ‘credible’ relationship (all too credible, in terms of the constant arguing, bitterness, blaming, etc.). There are even moments, at the start of their relationship, where they are sweet and endearing. No one – and certainly not me – disputes this (unless they are genuinely blind and completely prejudiced against this couple). I’ve never said that everything between them is about Dawson – indeed, I have repeated ad nauseum, that their second break up had nothing to do with him at all – it is all Joey realising that it’s not going to work with Pacey (I must have used the quote ‘even without Dawson’ twenty times at this stage!). What I point out is that their break up was always on the cards and that Dawson/Joey was the way it was meant to end, therefore other relationships they have need to be seen in the context of that overall ending and the view that Dawson/Joey are soulmates. It doesn’t mean that Joey/Pacey had no legitimacy, or didn’t actually love each other or care about each other, any more than it suggests that Dawson and Jen didn’t love each other. However, neither alternative couple (and there were quite a few viewers holding out for a Dawson/Jen ending!) loved each other as much as, or had the connection that Dawson/Joey had. This fact does not ‘delegitimise’ other relationships!

I’m going to reverse the claim you make here. You tend to ignore the (as I say, often clunking) references to the soulmate theme in other relationships in the show and try to make them somehow legitimate Joey/Pacey (Aunt Gwen, Brooks, AJ) when (and especially given the cultural references being made in these relationships) they are obviously contributions to the Dawson/Joey soulmate theme. For example, AJ first pulls Joey up because of her claim that Little Women is her favourite book. Little Women is famous for a lot of reasons, but one of them is that it was one of the first texts to generate considerable ‘shipping’ (because Alcott published it in 2 parts, and left the resolution of Jo’s love life until part 2, fuelling demands that she be paired with her best friend, the blonde boy-next-door Laurie). The debate about Alcott’s failure to do this was revived when a new adaptation of Little Women was released in 1994, a few years before DC first aired, and starred Christian Bale and Winona Ryder as the never-to-be-married Jo and Laurie, again generating fan disgust. It then turns out that AJ has his own ‘best friend’ who has just returned from Paris (reference back to the Joey of the end of Season 1). The signposting of Dawson/Joey here is so strong that it would take real determination to ignore it, not only in the shadow of the Little Women references, but in the revival of the soulmate theme.

We know there is evidence in Season 1 that they would get together. Objectively. Kevin Williamson told us so. It was seeing their chemistry in season 1 that made him want to pursue PJo later on. At the ATX festival last year he doesn't dispute it when Julie Plec says you can see it coming in the Pilot. Season 1 was where they decided to do PJo. Double Date was the moment it happened that they would go all in. As stated in Detention, there is meant to be sexual tension between the 4 of them. The kiss in Double Date is not out of nowhere, he's been grabbing her ass and trading sexy banter with Joey for the past 9 episodes. And on top of that in Season 3 they go further and say that Pacey has been chasing Joey around for years. Joshua Jackson of course adlibbed that bit in the finale. 'I have always, always loved you' because he was not happy about the PJo amnesia.

KW’s post-finale claims about Pacey/Joey are neither ‘objective’ nor definitive (he spends a lot of time explaining away rather than explaining). Moreover, there is a big difference between Pacey/Joey ‘getting it together’ (I think in another place he called it letting them ‘have their shot’) and the notion that somehow, even when he didn’t realise it, KW always really wanted a P/J ending and built it into the series from the start, even without knowing it (which is effectively what you are claiming, and what the people who constantly lob questions like the above at KW at every single convention where the series is mentioned). Essentially, what many P/J shippers want to be told is that: it was always meant to be, even though none of those involved in the production until the very last episode (you say 45 minutes, I say 15 minutes) knew it. I don’t need to revisit the claim that there was sexual tension between Joey/Pacey in season 1: if ‘grabbing’ a girl’s ass is a manifestation of ‘sexual tension’, then we have come to a pretty pass and there is sexual tension between every horny guy and the girl that happens to be around him. The sexual tension in this season is between Joey/Dawson (a kiss so hot it would ‘set the Atlantic ocean on fire’), and between Pacey and Tamara. I’m not going to comment on their supposed ‘sexy banter’ in this season either – P/J shippers may see it, and good luck to them. I don’t see it and I’ve looked quite hard. This is just something the two shippers will always disagree on, but it is certainly not an objective fact about Season 1. JJ’s ad libbed line in the finale, ‘I have always, always loved you’ remains nonsense – does he mean he loved Joey when he was totally, head over heels in love with Andie? Really? It has always been one of those lines that made absolutely no sense whatsoever – it was as if JJ suffered from amnesia at that point!

I think you are confused with the timeline here. Eve-Dawson-Joey was never going to be a major thing. See the end of Season 3 episode 1 on the dock. PJo is moving forward full steam ahead from that moment. That was Berlanti's central take on where he was going. His time on the show as main story writer is summed up by the rise and fall of PJo.

No, I’m crystal clear on the timeline. I am talking about the planning of this season and the way in which the P/J storyline was invented to solve a number of problems at the planning stage. Then the filming started. Even Berlanti knew where the show was supposed to end, even if he resented it.

I also think you are mistaken here. Pacey and Andie were for all purposes broken up in Season 2. She was going to do a Henry. Its the very fact that because she was popular she was brought back. 3 months to be 'cured' of mental instability her mother is institutionalised for? She was there to be an interim love interest for Pacey, like Jack was to be an interim love interest for Joey. Only with Jack his sexuality made for more of a story. They tried to make stories for Andie, it didn't work. Once she was not a problem for PJo there was no plot left and she went.

Hard to comment on this one! Doing a Henry was Season 4, and his disappearance was partly due to that particular actor’s feeling he was slumming it by being in DC. In relation to Andie’s cure …We are talking about a TV program, and not reality! 3 months is unrealistic, but (as I have argued repeatedly) this is a show that explicitly prefers certain kinds of fantasy (which is associates with Capra and Speilberg) to gritty reality. She was not an interim relationship for Pacey in KW’s view – which is the very reason why, in his first draft of the finale he also had an implied Pacey/Andie ending (a lot of us still say that had Meredith Monroe been available for a week rather than a couple of days, P/J ending would probably not have happened. If we are to take KW at his word, one of the things he was upset about was the way Andie was treated after he left (and so was JJ – given that he wore an ‘I Love Andie’ badge at the 100th episode party). She was very much meant to be an integral part of that show as far as KW was concerned, and initially endgame for Pacey, also as far as KW was concerned.

PJo happened entirely because of their chemistry. You often find it in shows that you can't cast chemistry. It springs up where you least expect it. So while there was meant to be a frisson between them with their back and forth it was explosive. You can't separate acting and writing as two separate things, they both combine to make the show. As much as you can write 'a kiss for the ages' if the actors can't sell it its not there. You can put as much mood music behind it as you want. What ended up happening is that PJo was in some ways accidental. Even when they got them together as planned, it was just too good. They are going to end PJo in Show me Love, its too good so keep it going. They are going to end PJo in True Love, its too good, the aftermath and potential is too great so keep it going. They are going to end PJo early in season 4, it provides great outlets for the characters, keep going. They could have probably found reasons to keep it going for even longer, like I said, Pacey and Joey living together was never shown. That banter would have been comedic gold like when Ben and Felicity moved in together for an episode.

I’ve nothing really to say about this in general – it confirms the point I was making more or less. There is a lot of subjectivity here, though: saying that ‘its too good so keep it going…’ Well, yes, P/J shippers seem to have found it so good (although, even at the time many of them were complaining on the forums: why do they always have to fight? Why do they always have to fight about Dawson? Where are the happy times?). The rest of us, after the first couple of episodes of season 4, found it rather less than good. Some of us, by the middle of that season, found it rather tough going and tedious watching them go at each other in a non-sexual and married-couple-who-are-now-sick-to-the-back-teeth-of-one-another kind of way profoundly boring. Personally, I could see the break-up coming from so early on in the season, that I actually became more interested in Jen/Henry (one of the creakiest plots in the series) than Pacey/Joey and this even though Pacey was then, and remains, my favourite character in the show. Their banter is very much a subjective issue.

But I don't believe the characters are necessarily lying or purposely not saying what they really feel unless we are guided to. When Joey says to Pacey that they have to deal with the people they used to love and that her future is with him, we are given no indication its a lie. When she says her future is with Pacey in Self Reliance there is no indication its a lie and the previous instance she said it supports it. Using the examples you give:

Joey has no problem with Pacey hooking up with Audrey- No one disputes that in the context of the show (the summer diaries on the website did. They had Joey write that she had to appear OK with it but that she doesn't like it and she doesn't like the idea of Pacey having an experience like their summer away with Audrey. Why not put that in the show?) We are saying that its weird and not emotionally real.
Joey 'Doesn't Feel It'- We dispute that because its contradictory to her words and actions in the previous 4 episodes. Also the fact that when she goes back to Eddie she isn't exactly delighted when her face falls as they hug. The writers also set up Joey's fear in 'That Was Then', 'Love Bites', 'Catch-22' and 'Joey Potter and the Capeside Redemption'. We are given reason to doubt she actually feels that way. That was then used to form the basis of Joey's 'Off the Hook' reply and the 'I've always known' speech.
'Pure Magic'- I don't dispute this. Magic isn't real. It doesn't really dispel my vision of Joey. Reality hit her hard at the end of Season 4 with the harsh reality that she can't live happily ever after at that time. She wants to hold on to 'magic', 'fairy dust', 'childhood' longer.
'I feel like I'm nothing'- Remember earlier in the episode Pacey says he is angry at Joey but doesn't know why? His Promicide rant is clarified in their talk after and in 'Seperation Anxiety'. He doesn't just blow up and leave it at that, there is an afterword. Which of course ends with 'If I were lucky enough to own a boat and I would ask the woman I love to come sailing with me, would she?' 'You wouldn't have to ask Pace'. PJo, not done. Which makes Season 5 even weirder but like I said, they worked very, very hard to get people back on the DJo train.

Again, this confirms my point: everyone tends to believe characters when they say things that confirm what that particular viewer believes to be the point of the series, and find myriad excuses for other things which don’t. I agree that we are ‘guided’ by other aspects of the series, but we disagree on what that guidance is directing us towards. The guidance for me is the grand arc. I wouldn’t never claim that characters are always purposefully ‘lying’ when they say things that are not the full truth. Sometimes what they are saying is just wishful thinking (like ‘I’m over you’, etc – when other characters point out, ‘no, you are not really over her/him’, and the viewer nods – it’s not that the character is necessarily lying, but that they don’t want to face the truth). At other times characters may be engaging in willful self-deception, which is not the same as wishful thinking (like, I would say, Joey saying she doesn’t care that Dawson/Gretchen have hooked up, which Pacey points out to her is not true).

You don’t dispute that Joey claims not to care about Pacey going out with Audrey, but then try to provide a host of reasons why you don’t accept it! It’s not ‘emotionally true’? I’m not sure what that means here – it seems emotionally true to me that when someone tells you that you have ruined their life and then goies on to humiliate you in front of your peers, and you then realise that you are still in love with your ex, you might genuinely mean it!

‘I don’t feel it’ – you don’t believe it and explain it away. Fair enough. None of the evidence you present makes any sense to me, but then as I’ve explained I think P/J and D/J shippers were actually watching two different programmes at times. I think she means it. I think that at this stage she has given P/J a second go and it hasn’t worked and knows it and wants to get back to someone else. I agree that Joey is afraid, but you know what I think she is afraid of (and the masses of evidence for that fear interspersed through all seasons). ‘I’ve always known’ she claims in the final 15 minutes (giving a speech cobbled together from one originally written to be said to Dawson, together with some last minute additions to make it seem relevant to Pacey). Did she know way back in Season 1, when she was crazy about Dawson? Really? I line it up with Pacey’s equally bizarre: ‘I have always loved you’. Neither of them make any sense. If KW had time he could have come up with better lines than this that would be believeable in their treatment of the entire series (or even just the two he wrote). He didn’t though, and we are left with senseless statements that are easily contradicted. Did Pacey really ‘love’ Joey in Season 1. Even if we grant your argument that he was genuinely into her, was he ‘in love’ with her? Was Joey then, in some back alley of her mind really in love with Pacey all through Season 1, and always aware that she would, in a contest with Dawson, choose him? This kind of argument just doesn’t work. We could explain it away as hyperbole and rhetoric, but if so, it is very hollow rhetoric.

Rather than the hastily thrown together final 15 minutes making everything else ‘richer’, it actually tries to undermine the entire arc of the series and render the first 2 seasons completely null and void. That it does so by also sacrificing the future happiness of Pacey is one of the reasons why I have always found P/J-shipping itself so problematic.