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black-rose-blue-lodge · 1 year

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The Importance of Donna in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me

Okay, so a lot of people like to ship Donna Hayward and Laura Palmer from Twin Peaks, and there is good reason for that. Throughout the original run, Donna is haunted by her complex feelings for Laura. She loved her, she envied her, she wanted to be her. She misses her. Donna gets close to James, Maddy and Harold in part because they all give her the feeling of being close to Laura. In Fire Walk With Me, we are shown just how close they were.

Donna is very important in Fire Walk With Me. I believe that none of this requires you to ship the characters, although I also find it compelling evidence for a romantic reading of the film. Basically, even if you think the characters have only platonic feelings for each other, this is a summary of why Donna matters.

Near the end of the film, Laura tells James “You don’t know me. There are things about me… Even Donna doesn’t know me.” Of all the people who apparently don’t know Laura, Donna knows her the most. She is given the most importance. While Laura’s relationships with James and Bobby are shown to be ineffectual and largely irrelevant to the story of the end of her life, Donna is front and centre. Their friendship, their love for each other, is the emotional core of the film.

Our first insight into Laura’s psyche comes when she confides her depression and existential dread in Donna with the lines: “the angels wouldn’t help you… because they’ve all gone away.” In this scene, she is much more candid, willing to expose this part of herself. She essentially believes that she is doomed, that no one will be there to save her. (And, on a surface level, she is correct: even Mike, the “one man… Bob is afraid of” according to Laura’s secret diary, does not save her from death.)

When Laura begins to realize BOB’s true identity, she turns to Donna. Donna grounds her in reality. Laura seems to walk “between two worlds” in the film, constantly teetering on the brink of life and death. Donna is perhaps her greatest remaining connection to this world. And, difficult as that responsibility may be, Donna gladly accepts it.

Donna is depicted in Fire Walk With Me as a shy and conservative girl, contrasting strongly with Laura, who is openly ‘dangerous’ and promiscuous. Donna daydreams about having “lasting love… true love” but doesn’t even have a boyfriend. She takes all her cues from Laura. When she tries to become more adventurous, she does it to be like Laura, to understand Laura. This is shown after the Pink Room sequence, where Donna asks tearfully “Why do you do it?” She desperately wants to know, to stand there with Laura between two worlds and comfort her, but she can’t. She can never understand.

In The Missing Pieces, after Laura’s breakdown at Donna’s house, Donna whispers something to her father, who then reads a (clearly fake) “secret message for Laura”.

We don’t know what Donna whispered to Doc Hayward, but she must have asked him to say something about the angels returning, because she was the only one present when Laura said that the angels wouldn’t help her. The camera reinforces this, lingering on Donna as her father “reads” the message. It is a message from Donna.

Laura leaves after this, clearly affected. The way it cuts to Donna during the line “the one that is meant to help you” suggest that Donna believes that she can help Laura. If no other angels are there, Donna will be the angel who helps Laura out of the darkness.

Now, BOB’s stated motivation in the film is to “taste through [Laura’s] mouth”, turning her into the next ‘vehicle” for his evil. In the series (2x9), Laura’s diary reveals that she died because it was “the only way to keep Bob away from [her], the only way to tear him out from inside.” She wrote, “I know he wants me, I can feel his fire. But if I die he can’t hurt me anymore.” She died to avoid a fate worse than death.

In Fire Walk With Me, the focus shifts, and it’s not just about Laura. In the film, Laura dies so that BOB can’t use her to hurt the people around her. It is strongly implied that the fate of Twin Peaks itself hangs in the balance. (This is arguably why the scenes of everyday town life in The Missing Pieces were included to begin with; they offer glimpses of what Laura dies to protect.)

If BOB possesses Laura, his fire will spread. The Log Lady warns her “the tender boughs of innocence burn first… and then all goodness is in jeopardy.” This is right before Laura goes into the Roadhouse, where Donna follows her, beginning the dangerous game of “chicken” that they play, where Laura keeps trying to scare Donna away, and Donna keeps trying to show Laura that she isn’t scared. This sequence is the last straw for Laura. When she sees Donna slipping into darkness in the Pink Room, she gets a firsthand glimpse of “the tender boughs of innocence” beginning to burn.

Laura’s influence, despite all her intentions, has started to corrupt Donna. It’s one thing for Laura to be taken advantage of by these men. In her opinion, she can handle it, and she is doomed anyway. But not Donna. In the screenplay, this is even more explicit during the Pink Room scene.

Donna represents everything at stake if BOB wins. For Laura, Donna is the incarnation of “innocence” and “all goodness”. In that way, she is indeed like an angel, and Laura doesn’t want to bring about her fall from grace.

This is the heart of the film. The essence of Laura’s sacrifice. She dies for Donna.

As much as I, like many others, ship Donna with Laura, Laura could never be with Donna, not in this universe. Though I believe Laura has feelings for her, she would not act on them, because she views Donna as someone fundamentally good, and herself as someone fundamentally bad. This is encapsulated in the line “I love you, Donna… But I don’t want you to be like me.” In the original series, a passage from Laura’s diary reads: “I love Donna very much, but sometimes I worry that she wouldn’t be around me at all if she knew what my insides were like.” Now Donna has seen Laura’s dark side, the things she does, and still she loves her, still she wants to be there for her.

So Laura returns the favour. She becomes the guardian angel of Twin Peaks, ignoring Cooper’s dream-warning and putting on the ring. She hopes that the evil will die with her. Of course, it doesn’t, because Laura was never the source of that evil to begin with. BOB’s power lies in his ability to be indistinguishable from human evil. As Albert remarks, “Maybe that’s all BOB is. The evil that men do.” BOB was never just Laura’s dark side. Laura ended up as just another victim, with a letter under her fingernail, like Teresa Banks before her and Maddy Ferguson after her.

Regardless, Laura’s death means something. She dies on her own terms, in defiance of beings far beyond her comprehension. Her choice to die is an act of love, born of the sincere belief that the world will be a better place without her.

At the very end of Fire Walk With Me, in the enigmatic purgatory of the Red Room, Laura sees a vision of an angel.

Earlier, Ronette Pulaski saw an angel while in the train car, but that angel actually did help her. Ronette escaped. Laura’s angel is different. It isn’t there to help her. Laura is beyond help now. No, it is the mere fact of seeing this angel that gives Laura comfort. The angel is pure, radiant, seemingly unaffected by the darkness that surrounds it.

The actress who plays Laura’s angel, Lorna MacMillan, has dark, curly hair, and from a distance, is somewhat reminiscent of Donna. (Similarly, Ronette's angel is blonde, possibly to remind us of Laura.) Now, it would have been far too obvious for Moira Kelly to play Laura's angel, and that isn’t really the point. The angel represents the goodness that endures. It represents the same thing as Donna. The innocence that Laura died to protect. In the end, Laura’s only comfort is knowing that, though her death did not bring an end to darkness, it did allow for the continued survival of light. The light flickers on Laura's face in this scene, just like in the Pink Room. There, she was watching Donna flirt with the darkness. Here, she is looking at the angel Donna promised would return.

The track that plays during this scene is “The Voice of Love”. Laura was not ultimately corrupted. Like that angel, she is now a lonely light in a world of darkness. The darkness did not win. Generations of trauma and evil could not make her give in. So why does the angel look like Donna? Because Donna was the best thing about Laura. As much as Donna tries to emulate Laura, both while she is alive and after her death, Laura saves herself, and the world, by emulating Donna. Donna’s selflessness, compassion and bravery are qualities that Laura already has, but she can’t see them in herself. That is why she sees the angel as something outside of herself. I believe the angel is Laura. Of course, Laura could never see herself as an angel.

But she could very easily see Donna as one.

#twin peaks #fire walk with me #laura palmer #laura is the one #donna hayward #the angels will return #meta #sheryl lee #moira kelly #lara flynn boyle #david lynch #the voice of love

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darkbluedownpants · 2 months

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to all who celebrate twin peaks: if you start the pilot at 10:55am today, coop will say he’s arriving in town at 11:30 on the dot (according to reddit)

#twin peaks #david lynch #literally have it queued & ready to go #I’m ready to go walking in those woods again #beyond the fire #the one who leads to many #laura is the one #laura palmer #dale cooper

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skipperdee · 2 years

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Laura is the one.

aka my interpretation of Twin Peaks that I want my husband to read with the visuals but its not the same in word or on messenger. HMPH.

Sooo According to Mark Frost…Sarah Palmer = the girl in “Got a light” (the one at the end who has the frog crawl in her mouth) and I accept that. To me it’s part of a greater metaphor of the show, about how life or the society we have created, eventually dims or turns off that bright light inside of all of us. We are all born pure and filled with light.

I read this interpretation today where someone said they felt that season 3 retconned the ending of FWWM out of existence and that they didn’t want Laura’s death to “have a "purpose* or larger role. Thematically speaking, Laura was just one of many women this could and does happen to - that's why the original run went out of its way to put other women in a similar situation to her. Making her some being of pure light and goodness as a reaction to Judy and human evil and making all that rape and murder part of The Cosmic Plan is, imo, a misstep so egregious and offensive that the only words I have for it are in Anglo-Saxon.”

Obviously this random person on reddit is entitled to their opinion but...it really surprised me that they saw it that way because I didn’t get that at all. Laura isn’t some pure being full of goodness...we saw her flaws plenty of times. They were highlighted quite well and very purposefully. I don’t think the rape and murder was part of the cosmic plan…or was it? I think that’s a question many of us ask ourselves all the time. Is there some grand creator and if so, why does he or she allow us to suffer? Is it all part of some larger “plan”? Are we just pawns in a greater game?

They explain in the show a few times how time isn’t really linear and how the past dictates the future. I think it’s a loop. Maybe Laura was created in that golden orb and sent into the world because that’s what they’ve always done. It’s like a bootstraps paradox. I think we see that same image of Laura…the prom photo in the orb for a reason.

The same reason why this one image is so prevalent in the show and in all the promotional material. She is often portrayed by those who knew her as this wholesome, selfless and pure angel when she’s only human. How could she be expected to destroy Bob when he ends up possessing her damn father?? No one gives her any clear information on what she’s supposed to do. It’s all so cryptic like dead Annie showing up in her bed and saying “the good Cooper is in the lodge” Laura doesn’t know who the hell Cooper is! What is a teenage girl who has just (or is just about to) find out that her father has been raping her for years, who has a cocaine addiction and works as a sex worker to support that habit…supposed to do with that information? She likely just thought she was losing her mind. I think there are also some metaphors tied to the amount of pressure and responsibility that is put on victims of not only sexual assault but all of the awful things that can happen to us in life. Like even just how people put the onus on homeless people to just “get a job” when life is a lot more complex than that. It’s like so many people are afraid to admit that we have very little control over our lives and that when there is a huge influx of homeless people, that means we should change society…not tell people how they should just “be better”. Some people seem to think we are all robots who should constantly do the right thing when we are all so damn lost in this world, I think many people just refuse to believe it. That’s why I love so much of the absurdism in Lynch’s work because to me…that is life. A collection of bizarre, confusing, profound, beautiful and terrifying occurrences.

The way I see it is that…we are all basically just children when you really take a step back and see how broken and confused so many of us are. And who wouldn’t be? We all live on a giant rock floating in space and we don’t even fully understand how or why gravity works. Some dead dudes made up a bunch of societal rules and laws and we all just convince ourselves that it all makes sense, even when it sometimes doesn’t. We all want there to be a grand plan…but realistically there just isn’t one. “Laura is the one” to me means the one that sets it all in motion but the “beginning” and what or where that actually starts is hazy so we don’t even know if that’s true. The only time Laura achieved a sense of peace was in death and then Dale just rips her out of that. Why? To save the world? Why can’t he do it or find a way to make a tulpa of Laura or use the dude with the strong hand!? Why is it all up to this broken, confused and traumatized girl who doesn’t even understand her place in all of this? I think that’s very intentional and why the show ends in such an abrupt and alarming way. Laura is not the savior of humanity. None of us are. I think we get so many “random/mundane” scenes of people just talking in this show or the scene when the boy is run over and then the old dude from FWWM just sits with the woman because it highlights the humanity within all of us.

Sorry, back to Laura. I think both of her parents (like many of our own parents, and ourselves) were “corrupted” in their youth. Their lights were dimmed more and more over time. Be it from abuse or something else. Leland was probably sexually abused too (I always took Bob possessing him as a child as a metaphor for this) and her mother was possessed by whatever crawled down her throat (Judy, perhaps). Her mom has visions and other bizarre things seem to happen to her.. To me the reveal of that dark entity in Sarah is just revealing how corrupted she has become or that she just stopped fighting it.

She lived in a town where they did nuclear testing. To me the nuclear explosion was the creation of Bob (that’s a lot of negative energy) and the “woodsmen” are representations of the people left behind/the ones who suffered the most from the fallout. I have no idea if those people (the ones in real life who were exposed to high levels of radiation) ever received any healthcare or compensation for the testing of a tool whose sole purpose is to kill as many people as possible and left so many people with permanent ailments, children born with birth defects, etc. Even just living with that knowledge and how many people suffered and continue to suffer such senseless violence is enough to make someone “unstable” like Sarah. Let alone the fact that her child is raped and later murdered by her own husband. The woodsman reads this “poem” (or whatever you want to call it) on the air after murdering the people at the radio station: “This is the water, and this is the well. Drink full, and descend. The horse is the white of the eyes, and dark within” I don’t completely understand the horse part (unless it’s a reference to the pale horse and…I’m not getting into that but the Bible verse about it is pretty relevant imo) but the part about the water and the well to me is a reference to all of the awful things (like nuclear testing) that so many people just seem to accept or later accepted over time. I don’t want to get too deep into politics but…the amount of people who have been slaughtered or “disappeared” in order to create the society we live in…a lot of people drank from that well and descended into a place where they either directly reaped the benefits of all of that murder and exploitation and/or they descended so far down it’s almost impossible for them to find their way out (whether they want to or not). I’m from the US so just domestically I think of the nuclear testings, the Tuskegee syphilis experiments, MK Ultra, how many majority black towns were intentionally flooded and new towns were built on top, the Tulsa riots, how every damn treaty between indigenous people and white settlers/colonizers were broken…to so many other awful things we have done to each other, or, more importantly, that people in positions of power have done for power and greed while we all suffered from the “fallout” be it figuratively or literally. Instead of embracing one another and trying to heal, we just keep drinking and then we descend even further into the abyss. Into this dark place where we can’t even see in front of us. We’re just stumbling around like the woodsmen, doing the bidding of evil and corrupt people who want us to remain in this place of suffering and complacency. People like to act as if none of these things that happened so long ago still effect our present but they do and you can try to bury them, but they will always resurface. Because “the past dictates the future”. Maybe that’s why his chanting or what have you…put the people listening to it to sleep, including Sarah Palmer, and she becomes possessed by the frog creature. Maybe it was something related to the woodsmen? Another entity that was also full of anger and rage and wanted to corrupt something/someone pure or to make her feel it’s pain (Judy). Maybe multiple people in the vicinity who heard there broadcast were possessed or consumed those creatures and it led to them becoming bitter and awful people or they became so overcome with the guilt and pain that they numbed themselves with drugs, alcohol, nicotine….etc. I think a lot of this is metaphorical and obviously open to interpretation. That’s why I love this show so much…because it can mean just about whatever you want it to mean and we all interpret things relative to our own reality. I will say that the biggest thing I took away from the show, the movie and the third season combined was this quote Bobby says to Jacoby or somebody like that...in the 1st season: “She said that people tried to be good. But they were really sick and rotten on the inside, her most of all. And every time she tried to make the world a better place, something terrible came up inside her and pulled her back down into hell, and took her deeper and deeper into the blackest nightmare. Each time it got harder to go back up to the light.”

People try to be good but we are constantly mistreated, abused, exploited, and put into a corner or pitted against one another when we should be working together and helping each other. Life/the way society operates turns a lot of us into awful people or versions of ourselves that we detest. I think the movie is the most straight forward in this regard…and the ending is a beautiful tragedy. This girl is in so much pain and is terrified of turning into a monster like her father that she sees death as the only way out. The phrase “fire walk with me” is about that temptation we all feel to allow ourselves to be consumed by the flames. To succumb to the ills of society and then project that pain and misery onto others. Laura fights this part of her so hard but feels hopeless. I think most of us feel hopeless because it’s so hard to do or be good in a society filled with so many bizarre and contradictory rules. Where appearances are more important than actually solving the problems we have within our families or within ourselves. Laura didn’t want to pretend anymore. “Your Laura disappeared”. She wanted to be free and I think she saw the Angel in the Black Lodge as a symbol of this freedom. She’s brought back in season 3 without anyone even asking her what she wants…and she’s brought to a much scarier world. The real one.

Yes I think that’s where they ended up in the end. The woman who answers the door in the last scene of the show actually owns the Palmer house in real life. That had to be done on purpose. They moved dimensions and in this one…their lives aren’t real (although that doesn’t make them any less real to each other, maybe our version of reality is just an absurd tv show in another dimension).

In short, I think the meaning of all of this is that humans want to do good, feel good and feel safe. We all want that and none of us are born “bad” or evil.

But all of the bullshit in our lives, the pressures of society and people’s refusal to talk about these very real and damaging issues kills the soul, literally and figuratively. No one helped Laura because they either didn’t know how or they couldn’t fully accept this “version” of her that wasn’t perfect, kind and pure. Instead they chose, even in death once they learned her secrets, to see her in that prom photo, to remember her that way, as this everlasting wholesome, kind angel when she was always just…Laura. A person like me and you with hopes and dreams. Maybe Sarah is trying to destroy the photo of Laura because she knows its a lie. Laura screaming at the end is the realization that this will never end. That she will always exist somewhere, somehow and that she has been destined to this role of a savior when she couldn’t save herself…let alone humanity or whatever they expected from her.

I love how meta the third season felt. To me the very last scene represents how Laura will never truly live or die. We keep bringing back Laura Palmer. By “we” I mean the fans, Lynch, Frost, etc. She will never rest. She will continue to be exploited and shaped in the eyes of the writers, producers, viewers, Laura’s friends, family and the fireman and that woman (don’t know her name) who continue to create her and send that golden orb out into the world. We will continue to do so in a way that is pleasing or satisfying to us. That knowledge is worthy of that last scream in my opinion. But this is also heavily based on my own feelings surrounding life and death. That I personally have wanted out of this “game” for as long as I remember…and part of me is terrified that there is no ending. We will never get to rest. Through the darkness of future past The magician longs to see. One chants out between two worlds Fire walk with me.

#twin peaks #laura is the one #fwwm

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losmimilocos · 8 months

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Me mama como Twin Peaks sigue haciendo que se me llenen los ojos de lágrimas cada que encuentro contenido nuevo

#Laura is the one #twin peaks

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laurasbailey · 10 months

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BAFTA Award winner Laura Bailey loves a dramatic, perfectly-timed gay pause

#critteredit #criticalroleedit #imodna #imogen temult #laudna #laura bailey #marisha ray #imogen x laudna #critical role #c3 #~#cr spoilers #literally queen of improv #if there's one thing the cr ladies will always do it's commit to the gay content #5k

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strolling-through-emon · 14 days

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very important parallel.

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shorthaltsjester · 9 months

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watching the sdcc panel and i am just very :) about how sweet their answers to “what are some of the micro moments from the game that have stuck with you the most over the years?” are. taliesin saying what the fuck is up with that which was the first like The Party Gets To Know Each Other moments of c3. travis saying asking his wife if he could kiss her in campaign. marisha going way back to the cannonball competition in campaign one. ashley choosing the beauyasha date but also just the silly goat noise matt made. liam adding onto that to compliment matt roleplaying grass so well and then saying his favourite moment was writing a story for laura and reading it to her as caleb for jester. and then matt saying that was his answer, and that his favourite moments of the game are when they find ways to give gifts to each other whether tangible or not. and sam saying his favourite moments have less to do with the story and is more so when he can just. see his friends across the table from him. when marisha perches and when laura and ashley are (badly) drawing dicks and liam saying he loves when sam sneezes and ashley tells him to stop it and just. yeah. they Are an extremely popular online powerhouse, but i’m so happy that they’re also friends building a world together out of gifts to and love for one another.

like i Am so enamoured with the characters and the world of exandria but the moments when you can feel the love that those people have for each other reach out from behind the stained glass of their performances (to steal a metaphor from brennan lee mulligan) are so extremely special and i am endlessly grateful that they decided to share their silly little home game with the world.