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isalabells · 3 years

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can u pls give me all ur thoughts on clarissa franklin? im legit so curious!!

Let me preface this, anon, by saying that this might be the most challenging ask I’ve received to date. That’s why I let it sit there for more than 1.5 weeks while agonizing over it on every run I’ve been on in between. So hats off to you because dang!

Thoughts on characters in the DDF universe are generally a tricky thing because none of them – not even (or: especially not) our three mains – are designed to be anything but two-dimensional. This of course shouldn’t stop anyone from diving deeper into some kind of character analysis, but personally, I’ve always found it a bit off-putting alas I probably have fewer thoughts and headcanons on the folks inhabitating the Rocky Beach universe than one might think. I don’t even find it that compelling to look at from a meta perspective (where, in contrast, I could spend hours talking and writing about TKKG’s narratives. And in fact I have.) So what’s mainly of interest to me here is looking at Minninger aka the one who invented dear Clarissa, and to speculate about his motives for telling the Franklin stories the way he did.

In an attempt to look at it from an in-universe POV first: Amazing character, most likely the best female villain this series will ever see (food for thought: there haven’t been that many to begin with, and most of the ones we got were either written by BJHW or Minninger. MUCH to ponder on), personally, I find her way more fun than Hugenay, giving her two (or three, if the rumors are true) follow-up stories is more than deserved. Furthermore, her legacy is that she appeared in two absolute killer episodes, which many (rightfully) consider to be some of the best the series has to offer (so do I, but plot twist, the best for me is not Stimmen aus dem Nichts but Rufmord). 100/10, can relate to Bob Andrews bc I already grew infatuated with her and she didn’t even need to hypnotize me for that. A great cunning, devious, manipulative, stone-cold bitch ready to kill a man or two at any given point, it’s what we all need and deserve. Shouldn’t even be that big of a surprise that this role slaps so hard bc the majority of things Judy Winter does gain IconicTM status, it is the law. Ever since @charlyritter brought up the idea that Sabine Vitua would be the perfect choice to play her in a live action movie, I cannot stop thinking about this. (And ever since I mistook a picture of young Sabine Vitua with short hair for Bibiana Beglau I am slightly fixated on the idea that she’d be a great fit as well.)

From a more sober POV: I’ve talked about this before but SadN is actually a very sloppily edited adaptation (e.g. Katharina Brauren most def was recorded separately, there are a lot of inaccuracies-that-easily-could-have-been-avoided-with-some-proper-research-and-a-capable-editor in the script etc.) AND most of it is just Minninger ripping off other stories published via EUROPA (I know none of you are aware of this bc y’all lack the refined taste to engage with TKKG, but the entirety of getting phone calls from the dead? Please listen to #82 Spuk aus dem Jenseits which got published in 1991 aka six years prior to SadN, which Minninger himself edited, and which imo is actually WAY more creepy, esp bc Wolf played a lot with elements from Hofmann’s Sandmann. While we’re at it, I might also drop that Franklin’s iconic line “Reiß Dein Maul nicht so weit auf, sonst schieb ich Dir eine Faust rein, an der Du erstickst“ also first appears, word for word, in TKKG #8 Auf der Spur der Vogeljäger. Well oops.) NEVERTHELESS I argue none of it matters in the long run bc the adaption makes it worth the while. Minninger himself is a trickster in that regard bc what he lacks in writing skills (lbr he doesn’t have any, his stories are mediocre at best) he makes up for in hedonism. As in: he mainly writes about what interests him most in a DDF setting (queer characters, middle-aged and/or old yet powerful ladies, horror vibes, scary, disturbing stuff bordering on the macabre and ludicrous) and designs his characters specifically so that he can cast all the actresses and actors he admires. (Honestly, that was actually a question I sent to him back in 2004 when his Fragebox at the rbc was still running; I wanted to know if he already knew he wanted JW to play CF, and he wholeheartedly confirmed.)

In this case, he got especially lucky bc I am firmly convinced he had no clue at all that Andreas Fröhlich and Judy Winter would play off each other so mesmerizingly. I mean, how could he have known? JW being great and killing it was not a surprise, sure, but Andreas was a far stretch away from being the hot shit he evolved into ever since. And if they hadn’t sold their two extremely unusual scenes so well… both episode and the character would have flopped, I think.

But it didn’t, and then Rufmord came along and the rest is history.

I have severe problems with Signale aus dem Jenseits ESPECIALLY bc of the way the narrative treats good ol’ Clarissa here, and I rather wish this ep had never gotten published in the first place. I don’t want to blow up this reply even further, but allow me to quote a snippet from the episode commentary I left on the rbc a while ago, as it sums up some of my troubles quite nicely:

“[Die] Wortwahl einer „Demontage“ Clarissa Franklins hat mich ins Grübeln gebracht. Vielleicht soll genau DAS die Krux der Sache sein – den Abstieg und Ruin einer Figur nachzuzeichnen, die einst bereit war, eiskalt über Leichen zu gehen und die selbst in Situationen, in denen sie auf den ersten Blick die Machtlose zu sein scheint, doch alle Fäden in der Hand hält und Menschen spielt wie Marionetten. In dem Fall wären die abgeschwächten Anleihen/Rezitationen/Referenzen an die Vorgängerfolgen natürlich geschickt (und bewusst?) gewählt und verstärken den Eindruck, dass Clarissa Franklin tief gefallen ist und mittlerweile nach jedem ihr sich bietenden Strohhalm greift (= Schmierenkomödie als Rache an drei Teenagern). Soll dies eine legitime Lesart des Textes sein, dann ist das Narrativ für mich allerdings falsch aufgebaut, weil es sich in zu vielen Nebenschauplätzen verliert.”

From the pov of my fangirl heart and all critical thinking put aside: Clarissa Franklin probably was the first character I was truly obsessed with!? In a way that I spent my entire Easter holiday break reading and listening to Rufmord 24/7. Thinking about her and her encounter with Just, Peter and Bob for hours each day. Desperately longing for more content with her. While my teenage self as evolved a bit, I’m still fond of her. So as much as I want Minninger to just let her rest, I am also hoping that his forth story featuring her only got postponed and not scratched entirely. The heart wants what the heart wants.

#also not to forget that I watched my first Tatort ever bc of Judy Winter (yes this is about Reifezeugnis bite me)#anaon this was a lot of fun altho answering this ask nearly killed me #sorry for trailing OT so much but *points to preface*#replies #isabel for ts #me @me: ...hoo boy u sure like to talk don't you

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