Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt Langdon  Mary Jane seems selfish from the start. I don't know if I was having problems separating actress from character because Kirsten Dunst's recent claims that the franchise couldn't possibly go on without her made me wince. Mary Jane wanted to know if she was great, blah, blah, blah. When Peter wasn't giving her the attention she craved, she went elsewhere. That didn't turn out well for her. |
I don't think it was exactly that he wasn't giving her attention - he was focusing on fixing instead of matching.
See, in their interactions Peter was always extremely energetic due to all the praise he was getting while Mary Jane was feeling down, and the difference between energy levels like that in a social interaction is at least very jarring (ever found yourself talking to someone who seems to suck all of the energy out of the room?).
What Pete should have done is deliberately lowered his energy to more or less match hers, expressing the same emotion with regards her reviews, and then gradually lift her up, rather than just talking about how to fix it which makes him seem detached or aloof from her emotional state, which made her go to Harry who managed to cheer her up emotionally rather than logically.
It's a problem that a lot of guys have. I tend to do it too sometimes.
Anyway, on the subject of heroes: Joseph Campbell wrote an amazing book called The Hero With A Thousand Faces, which I strongly reccommend if you're interested in this subject. It's rather psychoanalytical, and talks about concepts like the Hero's journey, which repeats itself in the lives of many people going through a trial.