openingyourselfuptojoy | Meta Wednesday

So, the school is William McKinley High School, also known as the place where dreams go to die and the cesspool of everything wrong in this world.

Is it any surprise, then, that our protagonist/main adult is also named William? Is this a sign, then, that whatever makes McKinley such a terrible place is also what makes Will such a terrible person?

Also four_tens pointed this out, but there are only two letters difference between Schue and Sue. They are almost the same. ~~The difference is that Sue is a winner and Will is not.~~

Also Terri is terrible. Oh puns.

Anyone else have some name meta to play with?

Naderegen has a thing about people and naming, she should come play!

Brittany isn't a real character until we learn her full name, for example.

Also. Lucy Q. Fabray. Lucy--> Lucifer?

AND WELL. LET'S TALK ABOUT PUCK, AND HOW HE IS LITERALLY SHAKESPEARE'S PUCK.

Brittany isn't a real character until we learn her full name, for example.

She's also one of the few people we know the full name of! Brittany Susan Pierce and Rachel Barbara Berry and Finn Christopher Hudson and Lucy Quinn Fabray, correct? The rest is a joke/speculation, right? We don't know anyone else's middle name.

"Susan" means lily, and lilies are funeral flowers, though a quick google search tells me that As the flowers most often associated with funerals, lilies symbolize that the soul of the departed has received restored innocence after death. So, more innocence = Brittany connections here as well?

Rachel Barbara Berry seems obvious (Barbara = Barbara Streisand) but I wonder too if Rachel/Finn's middle names are more about their expectations. Rachel expects to be Barbara, Finn expects to be his father? Maybe, by that logical, Finn expects to be his father, and Quinn expects to be the Queen?

Lucified = Lucy Q. Fabray, is Quinn the Queen of Hell?

Puck is totally Shakespeare's Puck, but I wonder what it means for him to also be Noah, which is a religious name.

I always thought Kurt Elizabeth Hummel was supposed to be a joke (and maybe a nod towards The Producers?) but fandom seems to have run wild with it. What are your thoughts?

* Finn expects to be his father isn't supposed to be there twice. It's supposed to say "Brittany expects to be innocent" but I got confused, apparently.

yay go me.

I'm gonna quote Narceus re: Kurt Elizabeth Hummel.

"He's being a brat. He's pissed off, and marginalized, so he makes a Producers reference. He's just being a brat."

For the rest....hmmm.

Lucifer is not technically the same as Satan. Ah. He has a different job. He's not BAD. But if we play fast and loose with it, I see it as more of a fallen angel reference than a queen of hell, worst person in the world thing. (Though, arguably, if WMHS is a hellscape, Quinn was its Queen for a bit.)

Puck vs Noah....maybe pay attention to when people use one vs the other? It seems like Noah is almost a.....like a safeword. A way to call him off.

ELSJE COME TALK ABOUT PUCK VS NOAH.

I don't think Brittany is innocent, really. At all.

I've always wondered about the choice to name it "William McKinley," since the only thing I remembered off-hand was that Pres. McKinley was assassinated, by anarchist Leon Czolgosz almost immediately into his second term. I looked it up to check what else McKinley was famous for and saw that he was also governor of Ohio, so it makes sense for a high school there. But I think it's interesting with all the moments of riot and rebellion and fighting against the status quo, often provoked by the Glee Club, that Figgens and the school board try so hard to control. So New Directions are McKinley's Czolgosz?

I don't think this is relevant to anything, but there have been three Davids in the show. Dave Karofsky, David from the Warblers counsel, and David Martinez, the Spanish teacher. I'm pretty sure it's the most commonly used name on the show. None of these characters have ever met each other. I think Kurt is the only character who has met all three of them.

I like the idea that at the beginning of their relationship, Kurt and Blaine had to specify to each other which David they were talking about in conversation. ~~And that when Kurt was crushing on Mr. Martinez and he talked about his fantasies, "Oh David..." Blaine briefly thought he was talking about Karofsky.~~

David is a biblical name, and has the meaning "beloved." King David from the bible was a poet/musician, a soldier, and a prophet, and he killed Goliath. But I don't think we can draw too many connections between our three Davids since Warbler David was just a background character and Mr. Martinez was only in one episode.

Characters who talk about themselves in third person:

Kurt when he's happy: "Kurt Hummel has had a pretty good year." "Kurt Hummel is back at McKinley!"

Puck when he's feeling cocky: "The Puckster is about to make you his." "I'm still not down, and no chick intimidates Puckzilla."

Santana when she's being condescending/conniving: "Why don't you just settle down and let Auntie Tana here tell you a little story." "Today's your lucky day because Auntie Snixx just arrived on the Bitchtown Express."

Sue, like, all the time: "Pretty sure she stole that line from Sue Sylvester." "You are about to board the Sue Sylvester Express. Destination: Horror!" "When I first laid eyes on you, I was reminded of a young Sue Sylvester." "You know, there's only one person in the world who can tell you what you are... Me. Sue Sylvester. And she hasn't quite made up her mind about you."

A quick googling has given me some name meanings:

Rachel - sheep; one with purity
Finn - (Irish) blonde; bright; fair (Scandinavian) from Finland
Kurt - the wolf
Quinn - (from an Irish surname - Ó Cuinn) wisdom; chief
Mercedes - (from the Spanish title of the Virgin Mary) María de las Mercedes, meaning 'Mary of Mercies'
Noah - possibly meaning rest
Santana - from Saint Anne (who I know nothing about, but wikipedia tells me is patron saint of Brittany in France, among other places, intentional?)
Brittany - Bretagne (Brittany) in France; Britannia
Artie - shortened form of Arthur (confirmed in canon?) Arthur - bear; man; king
Tina - river
Mike - (from Michael) who is like God?
Blaine - (from Bláán) yellow (colour-theory meaning?)
Sam - (from Samuel) name of God/God has heard
Matt - (from Matthew) gift of God
Lauren - laurel tree; sweet of honour; victory of wisdom
Sugar - isn't an actual name
Rory - red king
David - beloved
Sebastian - venerable; (from sebas) awe; reverence; dread
Becky - (from Rebecca) captivating; soil; earth
Jacob - heel-grabber
Will - (from William) vehement protector
Emma - whole; universal
Sue - (from sausan) lily

Ooooh, you reminded me. My favorite thing about the names of Glee is that Santana is St. Anne, patron saint of Brittany.

o.O

I remember Needsmoregreen was pleased as punch to learn that Blaine means yellow- a few tumblr posts were made on the subject, at least.

I'm not sure if Artie's name was canon confirmed...

Names are interesting because which ones are used when tells us something about the interactions going on- Rachel almost always calls Puck Noah, unless he's made her mad (SHUT IT PUCKERMAN), and Kurt calls Karofsky several different things based on their interaction at the time.

Quinn has very strong name links in canon too- I know that Glee is doing it intentionally, but I'm not sure I yet know what all of them are supposed to actually mean. It's awesome.

Do you have a link to the Blaine/yellow thing?

The whole thread of the conversation with rm is here

That's so cool! Thanks!

I would add that, knowing how Glee uses references, I would expect them to choose names based on that as much as on actual definition. For instance, Rachel, with all her Jewish pride, could be a reference to Rachel the wife of Jacob. And her whole story is that she's so pretty and awesome, she outshines her older sister Leah, but her father goes all, THINGS MUST BE FAIR and tricks Jacob into marrying Leah first. And then there's stuff with childbearing and prophecy and an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical etc, but Rachel as the special one who deserves things because she's special, but doesn't always get them because it's fair? Could be a thing. (Also, JBI getting his name from Rachel is totally my headcanon, and you will not convince me otherwise.)

And then there's the Rachel-from-Friends reference, which I leave open to another commenter who's paid more attention to Friends than I.

Of course, it's totally possible for things to have multiple meanings. 'Blaine' means 'yellow' (which, in color theory, aaagh), but it's also been said that it's a reference to Pretty in Pink, where Blane is the prince charming rich handsome romantic interest. So Blaine is both an '80s prince charming male lead, and scared/sad/miserable but denying it. Sounds...dead on, really, to me.

Another example of things with multiple meanings: 'Santana' is totally meant to invoke Satan, always was, always is, right up through Smooth Criminal. And then she's Annie.

Responding to a couple of these comments in one, because aaaaaaaaaah names are the best <3

The Blaine thing (which apparently everyone else found out before me, guh) was really WOAH. But the other big thing for me, and I think I mentioned this on tumblr, is that Blaine's last name, 'Anderson', is a patronymic surname--meaning it traditionally means "son of [insert father's name]" (e.g. "O'-" is the prefix in Irish names, "Mac-" in Scottish, "-edes" in Ancient Greek, etc...).
So it's, well, kinda angsty that Blaine would have a name that traditionally places so much emphasis on the name of the father (living up to expectations, yadda yadda). WHAT IS EVEN MORE ANGSTY, though, is that 'Anderson' is 'son of Andrew'. Andrew comes from the Ancient Greek 'andros', which means 'man' or 'manly'.
So he's literally "Son of man"...

I AM FINDING IT INTERESTING THAT RORY'S NAME MEANS 'RED KING' THOUGH.

And of course all the biblical reference names are funtimes.

As are Mike and Tina--Michael gets 'like a God' (... and wasn't Michael the archangel who kicked Lucifer out of heaven...?), and Tina gets 'river', i.e. the crossing from life to death. Magical couple is magic.

If I recall correctly, there is a thread where naderegen and I and maybe some others were discussing it on here LJ. Ah! here!

Re. Son of Man: I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS.

I can confirm that Michael was the archangel who kicked Lucifer out of heaven. Or at least, the archangel who lead the angels who kicked Lucifer out of heaven.

Re: Santana....

I totally forgot to mention the obvious Satan reference. >_<

But yeah. Santana's transition from Satan, destroyer of worlds, to Annie, is pretty flawless and says so much about what this show wants to do.

I just remembered that there was some excitment from the Faberry fandom post-BTW, when Quinn was revealed to be Lucy, because of the film Imagine Me and You being about a lesbian couple called Rachel and Luce. I'm around 95% convinced that this is coincidental.

Compare and contrast, please.

~~Also, someone start writing that AU.~~

LOL I remember when Rachel said she had to talk to Kurt and he said "Oh god not another pregnancy."

~~cosigned~~

Because this show is all about the parallels, and so am I.

So, right, four_tens has done a lot with parallels between Will and Finn, Terri and Rachel, Terri and Quinn, Emma and Rachel, and Emma and Quinn. The show also really loves Sue and Quinn, and uses Sue vs Will ALL THE TIME.

I'm also interested in how Dave serves as a what-if to several different characters: a Kurt that tried to kill himself, a Santana without a support structure, and a Finn who didn't chose glee club. Glee does this thing where they don't just have characters paralleling each other, but also use several as different variations on a theme. The queer kids are a really obvious example, but it's also a device used in a lot of episodes, like Laryngitis or Born This Way. Puck, Rachel, Mercedes, and Kurt all have issues with voice and identity in Laryngitis, and resolve them differently, and in Born This Way the people struggling, and coming to different conclusions for different reasons, are Santana, Quinn, Rachel, Emma, Kurt, Tina, Finn, and Brittany. It makes the episodes feel like conversations.

(I don't think "conversations" is quite the right word, does anyone have anything better?)

So yeah. That's enough text for now. Thoughts?

And four_tens (IF I SAY YOUR NAME ENOUGH YOU WILL APPEAR) also noticed interesting Rachel/Puck parallels. I'm pretty big on the differences between Puck and Finn, myself.

IT'S LIKE BEETLEJUICE.

The Rachel Puck parallels are made explicit in Mash Up- Rachel tells Puck that he just wants things too badly, which she can relate to, because she wants EVERYTHING too badly. ~~As much as it pains me to admit Puck also parallels Ken pretty well for the front 13- in the Ken/Emma heavy episode, we get... Puckleberry.~~. He wants one of the McKinley power couple, he calls himself special and a star constantly, they're both Jewish. There are tons of parallels.

Puck and Finn is interesting too...

I think the big defining thing about the two of them is that Finn consistently gets things that he shouldn't, where as Puck consistently DOESN'T get things, even when he should.

~~unless it's girls, and that's sort of the problem~~

Puck is all these class issues bundled up and served on a nice plate. Finn.....finn _should_ be, but he parallels Will, he's our perfect male lead, so he's not.

(Or, he is, but in very subtle ways. But he always gets things he shouldn't, yes, whereas Puck doesn't get things he should.)

Also (season 1 at least) there are Emma/Kurt parallels, with the bows/chains in their fashion, and both crushing on someone unavailable.

This is true!

For some reason, I'm thinking about Mercedes and Emma now. I don't even know.

One thing I'm looking forward to in the back 9 and onward- the adult plots cease to be the only mirror for the kid plots, and that's when character parallels become more obvious for the kids- the front 13 are really boring parallel-wise imo because they're all generational parallels, and quite pedestrian as it were.

Still, we get some really interesting parallels in the front 13 regardless- like Rachel and Kurt parallels in 1.09, 1.10, and 1.11, for instance. As the show goes on, the parallels become more ambitious, and in my opinion more fun.

One reason I don't think the front 13 had a "conversation" episode is because of that- there weren't enough parallels going on in order to do that. The other reason? It was simply to soon to have fleshed out enough characters to do it. =/

Meta Wednesday

Name Game

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Character Parallels

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