Members DRW50 Posted February 12, 2012 Members Share Posted February 12, 2012 Tori was dangerous but only when pressed. She was perfectly fine with living day to day life as Viki, pretending to be nice with Clint and the kids, etc. Her main goal was to destroy Victor's legacy. This meant ruining the Banner by building up a rival paper and sabotaging the Banner's reputation. It also meant burning down the mansion. She never intended to kill Jessica and didn't know Jessica would be in the house. When they began to realize what was going on, she became more violent and out of control, but again never actually harmed anyone just for the sake of doing so. The only person she ever killed was Victor. Princess was the shattered little girl who represented Viki at that time. Niki was the persona Viki created to deal with Victor when Victor was raping her. Tommy was blind rage - all he could do was lash out with his fists. Tori represented the loathing of Victor and his legacy which had reined over Viki's entire life. Jean was the gatekeeper who felt that the only way for Viki to survive was to never, ever be reminded of the abuse, and to never feel anything. No one in Viki's head wanted her to turn into Princess. It just happened when she lost control. Here's an example. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SFK Posted February 12, 2012 Members Share Posted February 12, 2012 As mentioned, all of the alters didn't serve the purpose to protect, but Princess and Victor were reflections of the real-life disorder in which the child at the time of the abuse and the abuser are usually two alters that develop. Tommy also represented the tough big brother protector that Viki didn't have. Like Jean, who was in fact named for Eugenia, the name Tommy is similar to Tony but I think that's more coincidence. Viki didn't know Tony until adulthood. One thing I don't remember them addressing fully was the presence of the alters in Viki's childhood up until the s/l in '95. We know that Niki was around, and we know that Tori killed Victor, but I don't believe they ever touched upon the idea that the others emerged at other times in her life, in other words, whether or not they were dormant until that unfortunate evening when Dorian ate stairs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Scotty Posted February 12, 2012 Members Share Posted February 12, 2012 Descriptions of each alter from Viki's Wikipedia page: Nicole "Niki" Smith - a devil-may-care, sexually promiscuous party girl, approximately 22 years old. Niki has appeared more times than all of the other alters combined, and is very skilled at masquerading as Viki when necessary to hide her re-emergence. Niki has had two serious relationships with Vinny Wolek and Harry O'Neill, neither of whom realized at the time that Niki was an alter of Viki. Tommy - A 14 year old male alter emerged in 1995, who embodied Viki's anger and rage at her abuse. Tommy usually emerged to protect Princess (another alternate personality), and once threw Dorian Lord down the Llanfair staircase. Jean Randolph - Jean Randolph is the calm, cool, collected and calculating caretaker of all the other alters, who took over when Viki's abusive childhood was revealed. Her name is derived from that of Viki's mother, Eugenia Randolph Lord. Jean blackmailed con man David Vickers into divorcing Viki's sister, Tina, and also freed Viki's son, Joey, from Dorian Lord's clutches by imprisoning Dorian in a secret room in the basement of Llanfair, which led Joey to believe that Dorian left him. Jean then forced Dorian to marry David to keep them both occupied and away from Viki's loved ones. [*]Princess - a manifestation of Viki as a seven year old girl. She is a traumatized child who is constantly reliving the molestation by Viki's father. Protected by Tommy, the 14 year old alternate personality, who is most angry about the abuse. [*]Tori - Tori emerged in 1995, approximately 19 years old, after Dorian revealed the truth of Victor's abuse to Viki. It was established that Tori was the alter who murdered Victor Lord in 1976. (It would later be revealed that Victor survived and did not die until 2003. However Dorian has planted a seed of doubt regarding that notion, suggesting that the man who re-emerged as Victor in 2003 was a fraud.) Although her declared mission was to force Viki to face the truth, she wreaked much destruction before getting around to that. Tori started undermining The Banner by feeding stories and information to rival newspaper editor Todd Manning, and she torched Llanfair, nearly killing Jessica in the blaze. [*]Victor Lord - This personality is the image of her father within Viki. Very often, sexual abuse victims who develop alternate personalities develop a personality to reflect their abuser.[citation needed] The Victor Lord personality only emerged two or three times, but one of the instances that he took over led Viki to attempt suicide by cutting her own wrists to "expel" Victor from her body. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BKuzak Posted February 12, 2012 Members Share Posted February 12, 2012 My favorite was Jean also. Even now sometimes when i'm nervous about having to do something, i go to my inner Jean. Someone who can just block out all emotions and deal with stuff. She didn't care what the conquences would be, she just dealt with what needed to be done with and that was it. there was no emotions needed. the worst for me was the Niki of 2002. It was OK at first but it just went on for too long. she was very different from what i saw of the 1980's Niki. This Niki had a mean streak and did whatever she could to be free, like trying to poison Gabby and pushed Ben out a window. Thank god Mark Derwin wanted to leave the show because i heard at the time TPTB was going to extend the Niki run a while longer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Khan Posted February 12, 2012 Members Share Posted February 12, 2012 Jean looks best, IMO, because ONE LIFE TO LIVE went out of its way to make Niki Smith look so ridiculous and irrelevant. If you go back and look at previous stories, however, you'll see how much more nuanced Niki was BITD, and how it was hard not to sympathize with her, even if she was just one half of Viki's fractured psyche. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DRW50 Posted February 12, 2012 Members Share Posted February 12, 2012 I think it made sense to change Niki when there were so many alters, but once Viki was integrated, and only one returned, Niki should have been more moderate, as she was before the 1995 story. Her last appearances in 1991 showed that she did care about Viki and Viki's family. The idea that she would go wild in 2002, or the rewrite that she'd let Jessica be molested, just awful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Khan Posted February 12, 2012 Members Share Posted February 12, 2012 ICAM, Carl. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Skin Posted February 12, 2012 Members Share Posted February 12, 2012 So did the show basically just copy and paste Viki's alters with Jessica's other two in the form of Bree (Jean) and Tess (Niki)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DRW50 Posted February 12, 2012 Members Share Posted February 12, 2012 Yes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SFK Posted February 12, 2012 Members Share Posted February 12, 2012 I guess the latter day OTT Niki was more in line with the text book take on such an alter. Alters are splinters, not fully developed personalities showing varying shades of grey. There's no need. "There's an alter for that." Real-life cases often show dozens of alters. Still, Niki was so damn obnoxious, I really disliked the way ES played her as much as I adore her work. Now of course, BW got to have her Tess written more in line with earlier Niki. She was more of a 3D character when for all intents and purposes she should have been as one note and cartoonish as Niki "to be fair". Then there's the whole subject of her being BW's favorite to play and whether or not FV/RC were honoring that yadda yadda... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Skin Posted February 12, 2012 Members Share Posted February 12, 2012 Well that's to be expected, Williamson could never play Jessica. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DRW50 Posted February 12, 2012 Members Share Posted February 12, 2012 She couldn't play Tess most of the time either... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Khan Posted February 13, 2012 Members Share Posted February 13, 2012 Honestly, the only thing BW could play was jump-rope with my last nerve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Scotty Posted February 13, 2012 Members Share Posted February 13, 2012 Agreed....and speaking of alters BW couldn't play... Don't even get me started on Wes...lol. That was a disaster just waiting to happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BKuzak Posted February 13, 2012 Members Share Posted February 13, 2012 Agreed completly but in real life cases (even though this is probably the rareist diease ever) there are usually boys and girls alters in one person's mind. Like Tommy,...the boy's existance usually is in girls because their mind created a "big brother" to protect them from the abuser. Niki was in charge of dealing with the sex, Jean was in charge of making Viki block it out and Tori was the avenger who wanted justice done. Princess was the part of Viki's mind that was still the scared little girl constantly reliving the abuse. Now the whole "Wess. Tess. Bess. Jess." thing...forget it. that was pure soap. it's one thing to have Viki/Niki but in real life all the alters have different names. it's not a stupid ryhmining thing. They really thought-out Erika's 1995 storyline and i heard she even watched sessions of real victims (with their permission). With Jessica, the writers just decided to go crazy with no real thoughts put into it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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