r/VCAndrews • u/MrsPhuckHughson Grandpere Jack’s Discount Swamp Tours • 4d ago
Talents of lead characters
The trope of each of our heroines being extremely talented at one thing has always been something that I enjoyed about the VCA universe.
Of all of the talents, which are your favorites or which ones made you eye roll?
I always loved thinking about Ruby painting, and I had a hard time taking Dawn’s singing seriously. How many times does one want to imagine her singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”?
10
u/catathymia 4d ago
There's a bit of an eye roll at Cathy being the most wonderful, best ballerina ever because she "feels the music" or whatever. Or maybe her magical hair was doing all the work? I don't know. That said, I love Cathy's stated talent that she's good at finding faults with everything.
I actually liked that Audrina didn't really have a talent exactly, and that Heaven's talents were that she was just hard working and studious (genuinely valuable traits, I'm not being sarcastic here).
10
u/playful_faun 4d ago
Yeah I'm sure she was good at dancing, but she didn't have any real training in the attic and I'm sure her bones would have become fucked up from the malnutrition.
6
u/MrsPhuckHughson Grandpere Jack’s Discount Swamp Tours 4d ago
I was always disappointed that Audrina’s talent for math didn’t turn into a career or her taking over her fathers brokerage firm
5
u/Infamous-Thought-765 Joel did it! 4d ago
I liked that she went on to be a ballerina, but it was ridiculous how the books made it seem like Vitamin D deficiency and malnutrition turned her into Anna Pavlova. I mean, it probably turned her into a ghost!
It would have been better if she just worked really hard and maybe became a teacher.
3
u/Longjumping_Hat_2672 4d ago
Well, later she did become a ballet teacher.
3
u/Infamous-Thought-765 Joel did it! 4d ago
Yes. Sorry, I just meant instead of going pro. She could have still gone to New York and found fame, making it clear it was the formal training and not the attic that led her to success, or she could have just become a teacher with no fame. Though all the teachers in the series were former stars. But I would have found it more believable if she trained really hard but didn't quite make it and decided to keep her dreams simple instead.
9
u/Round_Daisy_23 Every dern fool's been to McDonald's! 4d ago
I liked Ruby being a painter and Cathy's ballet was interesting to read about.
I rolled my eyes at times when Heaven bragged about how smart she was and the less intelligent people of the Willies messed themselves over because they weren't smart like her.
11
u/Prior-Entrance3156 4d ago
And for all her smarts she still ended up back where she started. It gets me how hard Heaven worked to get her college degree and become a teacher, but she gave it up as soon as she married Logan. She was too far up her own ass to understand that there’s different ways to learn and be smart—your neighbor down the street who can tinker with your engine and fix it in ten minutes flat, that’s genius too.
10
u/Round_Daisy_23 Every dern fool's been to McDonald's! 4d ago
One of the many things that I hate about Fallen Hearts is that Heaven suddenly becomes this genius business mogul who creates the Willies Toy Factory. It was Tony's money that paid for it anyway.
I wrote a fanfic years ago that had Heaven in a happy and stable marriage with Logan, and she is a teacher for years before she runs for governor of West Virginia. They both fight for the needs of the Willies people.
2
u/Prior-Entrance3156 4d ago
Oh that sounds like an awesome fanfic! I’d love to read it if it’s still up!
And yes, exactly. What did Heaven know about business anyway? I read a book once where the protagonist refers to her brother as Chapter Eleven because of the way he ran their family business into the ground after their father dies.3
u/Round_Daisy_23 Every dern fool's been to McDonald's! 4d ago
I wrote it over twenty years ago, but Troy's body is found and laid to rest. Heaven tells Logan everything about her background, and he is supportive and they marry in a small ceremony since Tony cut Heaven out of the Tatterton fortune and Logan's parents aren't too keen on her marrying a Casteel.
2
u/Prior-Entrance3156 4d ago
It really would’ve been better for them if they’d made their own way, even if they ended up staying in town.
8
u/Prior-Entrance3156 4d ago edited 4d ago
Audrina had a good head for numbers! She said that Damien would talk to her about stockbroking, and I remember a specific line where she says she didn’t think of money in cents but in points of a number. Damien even tells Lucky that “a young mind is a quick mind and she understands much more than you do” when she complains. It’s just too bad Damien didn’t nurture it. If Audrina had been able to go to college she probably could’ve worked at IBM like she’d dreamed in the rocking chair.
Dawn’s singing talents made me roll my eyes a little because it reminded me of the obnoxious girls in school who’d break out into song during class for no reason.
3
u/Infamous-Thought-765 Joel did it! 4d ago
Damian wanted Audrina to go into business with him and even bragged to the other employees that his daughter was going to take over one day. And then, for some reason, he decided to have Arden go into business with him instead. Arden ends up as "assistant vice president." I assume Damian was vice president by that point?
But yeah, Damian kept her from going to college because Ellie got on his case about that. I thought he maybe figured he could teach her himself. I just wonder why he gave up on that.
2
u/Prior-Entrance3156 4d ago
I think Damien was all talk in the end. He talked a big game of wanting Audrina to join him in his business to overcompensate for not having the son he so wanted—he makes some remark to Audrina that he wasn’t going to hurt a very pregnant Lucky because “he’s thinking of his son” or something. And once Audrina married Arden, he immediately talked about how much he’d love a grandson even though he knew full well Audrina had her hands full with Sylvia. It’s nice he took Arden under his wing, but it wasn’t out of genuine kindness, it was about control.
3
u/Infamous-Thought-765 Joel did it! 4d ago
I think you're right. He protested too much! He tried to convince himself he didn't need a son, but he was lying.
Also, poor Audrina. Between being forced to sit in that chair at night and have flashbacks and being forced to sit in the bathroom in the morning and watch him shave while he talks about boring stuff like "tax loopholes" and "percentage rates." And on top of that, I think he was training her to be a crook. I think she knew her father was dishonest and had her own sense of right and wrong, but I wonder if his lessons might have made it hard for her to function in society without him because she was being taught to cheat people, but didn't have the intent. She was being trained in the way one might train a robot. If that makes sense... It's just this thought I had.
2
u/Prior-Entrance3156 4d ago
I actually read a great book on this very idea: Crooks by Lou Berney! About, as the title suggests, a family of crooks—father is a low level mobster, mother is a pickpocket, and they teach their kids the same lifestyle of lying and cheating and stealing. But eventually the kids grow up and have to make their own way in the world. It’s one of my favorites and I’d love to see a miniseries someday.
2
u/Infamous-Thought-765 Joel did it! 4d ago
I'll have to check that out! Thanks for sharing!
1
u/Prior-Entrance3156 4d ago
Shoot me a DM if you do! I’ll probably reread it again now that I’ve mentioned it 😂
2
4
u/babysoutonbail 4d ago
I always loved how VC slipped painting in there as she was a talented one.
Eye roll probably Cathy’s ballet
8
u/Nerdlifegirl 4d ago
Which is funny because it was actually the ghost writer who did Ruby and actually VC Andrews who wrote Cathy as a ballerina.
9
u/Round_Daisy_23 Every dern fool's been to McDonald's! 4d ago
Dancers in the VCA forums say that there is no way that Cathy would've been that talented just by dancing in the attic. Her childhood ballet lessons weren't that advanced, either.
3
u/babysoutonbail 4d ago
I could see her in a dance trope (non ballet)
3
u/Round_Daisy_23 Every dern fool's been to McDonald's! 4d ago
They say that she was probably skilled, but she wasn't qualified to be a prima ballerina. 🩰
3
u/Longjumping_Hat_2672 4d ago edited 2d ago
Well, she did practice for hours on end nearly every day, being locked in the attic for over three years, not much else to do. There is a lot to say for practice.
2
u/Infamous-Thought-765 Joel did it! 3d ago
I kinda like the idea that maybe Petals, Thorns and Seeds were some fever dream as Cathy was dying in the attic. I don't love the idea of her dying up there, but it would explain the madness of the next three books. Maybe she only dreamed she was a prima ballerina and that some kindly doctor (who in real life would be a predator) took them in. Her revenge on her mother is very dream-like. And Foxworth Hall burning down? And Jory is basically Chris mixed with her fantasy prince. And Bart represents he fear of Malcolm and the tragic legacy of her family. And then Joel comes back? Wth? And Cindy is Carrie reborn. And Jory's twins represent Cory and Carrie.
And then Chris dies just like Daddy, and Cathy dies up in the attic, dreaming of a heavenly garden, as though she'd never left.
4
u/babysoutonbail 4d ago
I wonder if he painted? I remember Jory, Chris, and Heavens daughter did also
3
u/serialqueenmelodrama 4d ago
I think it’s actually really interesting that Heaven doesn’t really have a talent “thing” like Cathy. There’s some big class commentary happening there. The period of her life where she would’ve gravitated towards something like that and started developing specialized skills ended up needing to be about surviving and helping her family survive.
Education was her luxury and her dream and she returns to it again and again. Her fantasy is to become the school teacher she needed growing up, and she gets there (though the ghostwriter doesn’t really do anything with it once she gets there, which is a shame.)
I envisioned her becoming a journalist and writing important social commentary, like Joan Didion.
3
u/JoyDVeeve 4d ago
I always saw her desire and ability to learn as her talent. It's not something that comes easily to so many people and she has to overcome so many obstacles to do it.
1
u/seatea7777 3d ago
I felt the same. Heaven's talent was that she was naturally bright and academically inclined. I've always wondered what her major was supposed to be; I don't recall it ever getting mentioned in the books, but it'd be really weird for her to go to an Ivy League school for an elementary or primary education degree.
2
2
u/seatea7777 3d ago
I always liked that Cathy had to work for it once she left the attic. There's not a lot, but there's a few good scenes where she talks about how grueling the training is and how everyone's wrung out with sweat, and how her armpits are raw from practicing lifts.
I feel like we should make a master list of Andrews' Heroines and Their Respective Talents.
1
u/Infamous-Thought-765 Joel did it! 3d ago
Cathy - Ballet, writing, eternal youth due to endless stretching
Jory - Ballet, Painting
Bart - Acting, making money, tennis?
Olivia - Locking people in the attic room and keeping the servants away
Audrina - Good with numbers (assuming she was not just brainwashed into thinking she was), gardening
Heaven - Book smart, resourceful, she's some kind of animal whisperer
Annie - Painting
Leigh - ?
Dawn - Singing
Christie - Pianist
Lillian - ?
Ruby - Painting
Pearl - Doesn't she want to be a doctor?
Gabriel/le - ?
Melody - Fiddle
Laura - ? Dodging Cary?
Olivia - ?
Butterfly - Ballet
Crystal - Science?
Brooke - Baseball
Raven - ?
Wildflowers - ?
I'll stop there for now.
2
u/SteinerFifthLiner 2d ago
It always kind of hurt that Rain had to give up being an actress- something she had talent in and studied abroad for- after her injury. Being in a wheelchair shouldn't have been a nonstarter for roles, but the same could be said in real life- you don't see an overabundance of actors with mobility aids. :(
13
u/Infamous-Thought-765 Joel did it! 4d ago
I like Cathy's dancing plotline. By Melody, it seemed liked a talent was just forced in there at the last minute. Like these were American Girl Dolls and had to have their "thing" about them.
I guess Audrina had gardening?
Wouldn't it be funny if Dawn only thought she was a good singer, but she sounded like the video of that cat singing in the shower? The "Lulu lalala" cat.