Flow of Madness

This an opinion piece about why Jal deserves more affection. She seriously does. 

This an ode to Jal. Many times when you have your act together and you are stable to the bone you are seen as a boring character. If you are not busy trying to set the world on fire you tend to be overlooked in terms of fan favoritism and strangely enough attraction. As humans we tend to gravitate toward things that are bad for us or characters who behave in ways we wish we could.

However I not only love the Cooks and Tonys of this world I also love characters like Jal. People who are what they are and know who they are…I mean most of us never get to that point completely. That is a different kind of “behave in ways we wish we could,” right? Jal had to grow up faster than many of the other characters, because her Mom left leaving her as the only female in a house of males. This also contributes to her tom boy nature and her sharp tongue when people act like idiots. She has a natural giving spirit and is use to taking care of people. You see this time and time again with her friends. She is the main support and the main anchor of the group providing advice and knocking sense into her friends.

Boring is when you have a combination of inaction, dispassion, and aimlessness that creates a character that neither moves forward or backward. They are stagnant in the place in which they stand watching the world go by as they sit there passively never asking questions or dreaming. That to me is the definition of a boring person. I do argue that there are one or two characters that semi-fit that description, but Jal is not one of those people.

She is ambitious and wants to become an accomplished musician and she works extremely hard at it. She is a responsible student and works hard with that. She has passion and a quiet strength that many overlook. Not even just with Jal but in life in general the silently strong and the limitlessly kind tend to never get the attention and admiration they deserve in our society.

I guess I wanted to write this post in honor of Jal who is a character I respect and admire. Because she is who she is and was able to maintain an individualized sense of self even amidst insane characters.