Saturday, January 10, 2009

I love living with Sookie

by Dallas

I agree with Keyyl over at Thinking from my own perspective who wrote this week "Sookie Stackhouse is one of the most creative, airheadish, strongest, and exciting characters ever. She's one of those people I'd love to actually meet and hang out with or just chat with over a good microbrew."

This feeling was confirmed this week when Charlaine Harris, author of the Sookie Stackhouse mysteries, speaking in Houston, said that Sookie was her favorite character. Charlaine said " I love living with Sookie. She’s a lot of fun. And I’ve gotten to know her very well now so that I‘ll know what she’ll do in any given circumstance; so she’s a lot of fun"

There has been some concern expressed amongst fans, both online and at the Charlaine Harris event at the Houston Library, that Sookie is not being portrayed the same way in the TV series as she has been by Ms. Harris in the Sookie books. That the “strong, caring, sensible" young woman is being significantly changed by the True Blood writers and this is not sitting well with the fans. No matter what the wonderful adventures are, or how fabulous, dangerous and mysterious the ‘supes’ are in the stories, or even how amazing her choice is between hunky vamp boyfriends -this series is about Sookie and we are all, at heart, big fans of Sookie.

Again, Charlaine from this weeks Houston event “I love what Anna’s done with the character. But, it’s true that Sookie, the way she’s written in the show, is a little bit different. She loses her temper more quickly than my Sookie--it seems to me. But I love what Anna is doing with it and I think she’s really inhabited that character and I’ve really enjoyed that a lot.”

Anna is doing a great job inhabiting the Sookie character, but she doesn’t write what the character says, nor does she decide on the actions or expressions used in any scene. She just does the acting, it’s up to Alan Ball and the incredible writing team to keep Sookie true to the wonderful character that has been winning over fans for almost ten years.

I wrote a little about this in a recent post, where I wrote about what I wanted to see in True Blood Season 2, and I listed some of the Sookie characteristics that I wanted the show writers to remember when they write for her. you can read it here.

But I recently found that an even more important person ( Yes , more important than the fans or even Charlaine Harris ) has also listed the Sookie characteristics that the True Blood writers need to keep in mind when they write for Sookie in Season 2 and beyond.

I would also like to remind them that this is someone you REALLY DO NOT want to cross.

In the 4th Sookie Stackhouse book entitled , Dead to the World Eric says to Sookie ...

"You are beautiful."
“You are smart and you are loyal"
"You have a sense of fun and adventure."
“You're brave."
"You're responsible and hardworking,"
"You have the most beautiful breasts I've ever seen. “
"You're creative, too."

Of course, he had to put in the ‘best breast’ part.

He’s right ( of course, he is ) that these ARE the characteristics that are so important to the Sookie character …

Hey Alan, you do know that we all have to listen to Eric ?

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