I'm going to disagree with that a little bit. One thing I liked about Amanda's early incarnation was that she had this fragile, socially awkward outward appearance, when she was actually very manipulative and clever. Which I think were her Spaulding traits, whether they came from Alan or Brandon. Even Marland picked up on it at first, but then he tossed them later and turned her into a neurotic woman who was easily fooled by men. (Let's face it, he did that to a lot of the female characters).
One of the problems with Amanda, both early and late version, is the rather silly backstory Marland created--Alan engaged to the one sister, the drowning (what was the point of that, even), seducing the underage sister. I think it would have made much more sense if they had dropped Janice, and had Alan engaged to "Jane Marie" (although I would change that name, dear Lord, Marland could be so bad at naming characters sometimes) with Brandon feeling that the Staffords weren't good enough for his family. He could have had Brandon insisting Alan marry an heiress like Elizabeth. THEN he'd have a REALLY good reason to hide Amanda from him. I'm not buying the "not wanting Alan tainted by scandal" explanations because the Staffords would have been MUCH more interested in keeping it quiet. Rich boy making a girl pregnant would be chalked up to "boys will be boys" while Jennifer would be marked as damaged goods.
Also (this could have been more easily retconned later), Brandon could have raped Jennifer as a way to make her feel unworthy of Alan. Maybe that could have been the reason Alan became bitter towards women because she was his first real love and he never knew why she suddenly left him. The Staffords could have gone to Brandon, assuming Amanda was Alan's child, but he would have known the truth and forced Jennifer to keep quiet about it. Then, hiding Amanda with Lucille would have made a tad more sense.
(But then why would Lucille live in SF--it's almost as ridiculous as hiding Luke Skywalker on his father's home planet with his stepbrother and sister-in-law, but whatever).
Instead of making Jennifer a sackcloth and ashes wonder, she could be someone who is MAD at the Spauldings. Maybe with conflicting feelings about Amanda, if she was a product of rape. Maybe since Brandon is dead, she feels the need to take it out on Alan (while still having residual feelings for him). Maybe really hating Lucille as Brandon's henchwoman, which would have made the eventual murder trial a lot more interesting.
Anything would have been more interesting, honestly.
You're welcome! I was so happy to find it--you rarely see anything with Mart post-GL.
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DeeVee ·
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