Gladys: There is a paradox between A Vicious Cycle and the finale
A Paradox
Go Rodney Go! ha ha. Watched Ghost Whisperer tonight "A Vicious Circle." Dont know if this point was made or not... There is a paradox here; never saw it before: interesting that Prof. Payne's inability to forgive his deceased wife's transgressions makes it impossible for her to "cross over." Yet, in this episode, it is the deceased wife who can't forgive her husband. Yet she can cross over. Do we mortals REALLY have that much influence over the spirits? (Cant CC this to all the others, in the spirit of the Forum, yet; I only have "Brieskate" and you so far.)
--Gladys
Go Rodney Go! ha ha. Watched Ghost Whisperer tonight "A Vicious Circle." Dont know if this point was made or not... There is a paradox here; never saw it before: interesting that Prof. Payne's inability to forgive his deceased wife's transgressions makes it impossible for her to "cross over." Yet, in this episode, it is the deceased wife who can't forgive her husband. Yet she can cross over. Do we mortals REALLY have that much influence over the spirits? (Cant CC this to all the others, in the spirit of the Forum, yet; I only have "Brieskate" and you so far.)
--Gladys
Well, we have two points to make.
First, The Bears think it will quickly become unwieldy to carry on this discussion very long by email. But ever mindful of how our hero Melinda gets things done in whatever way she can we'll give it a shot. (Of course we don't have the hypnotic doe eyes or fabulous wavy brunette hair to help us with the task!)
Second, to get to the question at hand -- is there really a paradox between "A Vicious Cycle" where the spirit Anna Fowler crosses over even though she cannot forgive her husband and "The Collector" where the sprit Kate Payne does not cross (perhaps) because her husband Rick will not forgive her? We think not.
As we understand it, Mel's job is to help the earthbound spirits reach what grief counselors call the "acceptance" stage. In the real world, this means the dying person lets go of unfinished business and ties to loved ones and accepts her impending death. In other words, to reach some sort of closure and accept the inevitable. In the MelindaVerse, there is a parallel process where acceptance means the earthbound spirit lets go of her unfinished business and ties with the living loved ones. Then the spirit is at peace with herself and is ready to cross over. In getting to acceptance, Mel's duty is to the spirit -- not the living. But if Mel can help the living in the process she will try, of course, because she is a good person.
Now back to our seeming paradox. Anna was being held back from acceptance because she was trying to protect her daughter. Her husband, Brad, did not need her forgiveness (he had received it too many times already). What he needed to do was pass on his experience in breaking the vicious cycle of an abusive relationship to their daughter Lane. When the daughter acknowledged she was in an abusive relationship in the porch scene, her mother could reach acceptance and cross over. And as a bonus, Anna's refusal to forgive Brad sets us up to understand what goes on between Rick and Kate's spirit in "The Collector."
The situation with Kate and Rick is very different. Rather than being the victim as Anna was, the spirit Kate was the one who hurt her loved one left behind, Rick. But for similar reasons to Anna's, Rick could not forgive Kate. But getting to acceptance means letting go and accepting you are worthy of taking the next step, not fixing everything you did wrong in life. Kate was too full of anger (no doubt stirred up by Gabriel) to accept that her husband could not forgive her and thus unable to be at peace with herself. She will not cross over until she lets go of the anger and denial of her own responsibility for what happened. Melinda can help her get there but acceptance is something the spirit has to reach for herself.
Sorry to be so long, but uncle Nigel thinks this business of acceptance and crossing over is a key point in the MV.
Vivia la Melinda
(check out melindaverse.com)
-- The Bears
Reply to this
Melinda's main concern is helping the spirits get to the point that they can cross over, I'm in violent agreement about that. It seems to me that Melinda is much more effective with the ghosts than she is with the living. In fact, lots of times she is ridiculed and rejected by the living. It's usually only with the help of the ghost that Melinda can affect the living one way or another. She's not Ms. Fix-It, anyway. She doesn't go looking for ghosts to help, they come to find her. And it's only if she can't help them without contacting their survivors that she squares her shoulders and does what she can to get some resolution -- for the ghost she is trying to help. She's no crime-fighter, and she has a very focused task. She's good at what she does, but she doesn't do it all.
Lillie Rose
Reply to this