Benjiro and Jennifer are just like each other.

Luna may be the perfect secret agent, but can she survive her toughest challenge yet--fitting in at high school?

Moderator: Adam_Arnold

Locked
Contra Glove
Posts: 33
Joined: Sat Jan 07, 2012 4:54 pm

Benjiro and Jennifer are just like each other.

Post by Contra Glove »

I've reread the Amazing Agent Jennifer books, as well as all the Luna books released so far. I largely agree with the sentiments expressed about Benjiro Kajiwara in these boards: that he is a domineering tyrant who trampled on his daughter's hopes and dreams.

Jennifer, however, is just as tyrannical -- in fact, she is very similar to her father, despite hating him. Sure, the tough-as-nails attitude could be explained by Jennifer's status as a Control Agent, but remember that Luna didn't choose to join the Agency.

Benjiro: Has a child so he can have an heir.
Jennifer: Has a child so she can have the perfect fighter for the Agency and further her career.

Benjiro: Strictly controls Jennifer's education to create the perfect heir.
Jennifer: Strictly controls Luna's education to create the perfect secret agent.

Benjiro: The MAN who lays down the LAW in the house (is entitled to headship as a father, expecting total compliance.)
Jennifer: The CONTROL AGENT who lays down the LAW in the house (is entitled to headship as a Control Agent, expecting total compliance.)

Benjiro: His wife disobeys him to see Jennifer graduate.
Jennifer: Her partner disobeys her because she wants to make Luna a killer.

So Benjiro succeeded in making Jennifer just like him, though not the way he expected. Indeed, in the very first volume of Luna, DeFilippis and Weir allude to this similarity in upbringing:
Andrew Collins wrote:However, remember that you were not born in a test tube, nor raised by the US government in a secret hidden base. Even if you act that way sometimes. [emphasis mine]
This shows another interesting thing: the qualities that make for a good Control Agent also make for a terrible parent. Had Benjiro joined the Agency instead of marrying Emily, he would be Master Control.

Getting back to Jennifer, only in Volume 8 and later could we see if Jennifer truly imitates her father, and only then if Luna decides to run away from the Agency (no guarantee at all that it would happen.) Similarly, I expect someone, possibly Andrew, to compare Jennifer to Benjiro. The saddest thing about this is that if Luna were to escape the Agency's clutches without Jennifer's support, she would likely be just as strict with her own children since, like Jennifer, inflexible strictness is her only model of parenthood.

So while I agree with your assessment of Benjiro, let's not praise Jennifer for raising Luna the way she was raised.
My actual name is Rawle Nyanzi.

User avatar
Ravenhull
Not a Weirdo
Posts: 12704
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2009 10:32 pm
Location: LA: Lower Alabama
Contact:

Re: Benjiro and Jennifer are just like each other.

Post by Ravenhull »

You have some good points, and are right in many ways in my mind, but I see two main differences. One is that Andrew seems to be becoming a moderating factor in her behavior, with Jennifer letting him be so, something her mother wasn't able to be. Also, while it seemed Benjiro seems to have been motivated by ambition-by-proxy, Jennifer is afraid of the consequences of what would be happen if Luna was to 'fail' in the eyes The Agency. My gut feeling is that if Luna is to flee the Agency, the long run result will be that Jennifer and Andrew follow and support her.
"Don't call me a dirty old man.... Cuz I'm not old... I'm of a fine vintage..."
"Get your mind out the gutter... you're crowding me."

Contra Glove
Posts: 33
Joined: Sat Jan 07, 2012 4:54 pm

Re: Benjiro and Jennifer are just like each other.

Post by Contra Glove »

Ravenhull wrote:...Andrew seems to be becoming a moderating factor in her behavior, with Jennifer letting him be so, something her mother wasn't able to be.
Agreed. This is physically shown in Volumes 6 and 7, when they become more romantic with each other. Andrew initiates the lovemaking, showing that they don't always relate to each other as Control Agent and underling.
Ravenhull wrote:Also, while it seemed Benjiro seems to have been motivated by ambition-by-proxy, Jennifer is afraid of the consequences of what would be happen if Luna was to 'fail' in the eyes The Agency.
True -- Jennifer really does care for Luna as a mother, but this raises the question: Didn't Jennifer consider this before creating her? If she did, perhaps she has a plan just in case they try to kill Luna.
Ravenhull wrote:My gut feeling is that if Luna is to flee the Agency, the long run result will be that Jennifer and Andrew follow and support her.
We'll have to wait and see. And it could backfire in the interim -- Luna could just accuse Jennifer of trying to save herself while only pretending to care about her. If that does happen, it would create some very interesting protagonist vs. protagonist conflict. Of course, I'd want them to ultimately follow Luna.

EDIT: Changed "pretending to care" to "pretending to care about her" to make it clearer.
My actual name is Rawle Nyanzi.

User avatar
Error of Logic
Posts: 5862
Joined: Thu Sep 16, 2010 6:43 pm

Re: Benjiro and Jennifer are just like each other.

Post by Error of Logic »

Humans are not static entities. Possibly Jennifer's original intentions for Luna were more cold-blooded than they are now; from one moment to another - or so it may have seemed to her - she was responsible not for a project, but for a living being, which may have triggered her maternal instinct no matter how hard she tries to squash it. And then, as undesirable as she may have found it, she was thrust into a family role, with a partner, a child, and the necessity to make it at least look semi-normal.
That kind of thing can gradually change a person. ^_^ And though I agree that Jennifer makes a horrible parent at first, she has one advantage over Benjiro that we know of: she already knows that his style of parenting causes wounds that just barely scab over and may never heal. The further she breaks out of the role of 'Control' and the further she immerses herself in the role of 'Mom', she has a chance to improve. She's not stupid, after all, just... damaged.

User avatar
Nunzio DeFilippis
Posts: 95
Joined: Mon Oct 25, 2004 5:43 pm
Location: Los Angeles, CA

Re: Benjiro and Jennifer are just like each other.

Post by Nunzio DeFilippis »

Fascinating discussion.

On some level, Christina and I were very actively making Control a "bad parent" in ways that mimic what we did with Benjiro (especially what we did in AAJ, when we were able to delve into his character more deeply than his AAL appearance).

On another, we definitely strove to make her better - the battle between being a good parent (as exemplified by Dr. Andy and how he wants Control to act) and a bad one (as exemplified by Benjiro) is ongoing, and she feels that struggle. Plus, as was discussed, there are external forces, creating a pressure for her to act like Benjiro did.

He had no external pressures driving him to be so controlling, and he never seemed (at least not in scenes we've depicted) to second guess himself or worry about those choices.

Does that make her a good parent? Well, no. But it does allow us to explore the question of whether or not she can become one with some measure of suspense (at least we hope). If Benjiro were in her situation, we'd have no questions about how it would all play out.

If we did our job right, you guys should be genuinely wondering which way Jennifer will develop as a mother-figure to Luna.

Contra Glove
Posts: 33
Joined: Sat Jan 07, 2012 4:54 pm

Re: Benjiro and Jennifer are just like each other.

Post by Contra Glove »

Nunzio DeFilippis wrote:Fascinating discussion.

On some level, Christina and I were very actively making Control a "bad parent" in ways that mimic what we did with Benjiro (especially what we did in AAJ, when we were able to delve into his character more deeply than his AAL appearance).

On another, we definitely strove to make her better - the battle between being a good parent (as exemplified by Dr. Andy and how he wants Control to act) and a bad one (as exemplified by Benjiro) is ongoing, and she feels that struggle. Plus, as was discussed, there are external forces, creating a pressure for her to act like Benjiro did.

He had no external pressures driving him to be so controlling, and he never seemed (at least not in scenes we've depicted) to second guess himself or worry about those choices.

Does that make her a good parent? Well, no. But it does allow us to explore the question of whether or not she can become one with some measure of suspense (at least we hope). If Benjiro were in her situation, we'd have no questions about how it would all play out.

If we did our job right, you guys should be genuinely wondering which way Jennifer will develop as a mother-figure to Luna.
As for external pressures, I'm positive that Jennifer at least considered Luna running away a possibility, especially considering that Jennifer created her to serve as the Agency's perfect secret agent -- and after Luna was born, no one asked that little girl if she wanted to spend her life fighting for the US government's interests, nor was there some sort of extreme crisis that required absolute sacrifice from American citizens. Jennifer chose to walk this path, so she brought the external pressures of a secretive government agency on herself.

To make matters worse, she cannot run away without being pursued, since she knows too much. Instead of Benjiro, whom she could've broken away from by finding gainful employment (indeed, she does that very thing), she now has the Agency, whom she is chained to for life.

And then she subjects Luna to this, only belatedly realizing what she just did. But now it's too late.

In light of this, Jennifer has a lot of soul-searching to do if it turns out that the Agency is up to no good or Luna expresses doubts about a life she didn't choose.

Now to cross into speculation -- still relevant to this discussion. What does the Agency want with Project Luna?

My guess is that the Agency is trying to develop a super-powerful clone army. Luna is just the prototype.

There are two possibilities if they succeed.

Possibility 1: With such a clone army at their disposal, America will never have to send its citizens to war again -- if there's trouble around the world, or even a war on the scale of World War II, just send in the clones, who will ground the enemy into a fine powder even if it was a nuke-fest. They would reason that the price of American freedom is that there has to be a class of people who have no choice but to fight, simply to keep the country safe and preserve this freedom.

Possibility 2: They would use this clone army to engineer a putsch. Thousands upon thousands of superbeings would overwhelm law enforcement and even the military, resulting in a savage civil war that ends up killing dozens of millions as the lights go out and food becomes scarce.

My guess is that it would be Possibility 2 disguised as 1. As for 1, this is probably the strongest argument the Agency -- or Jennifer -- could make to a doubtful Luna: America has to be defended, and if you run away, your life among the citizenry will be meaningless because it'll all get destroyed by the enemies you didn't fight. Luna could counter that there are always more than enough people choosing to fight, whether as police, soldiers, or agents -- indeed, she will ask Jennifer if she chose her life or was drafted into it.

This, however, does not change the fact that Jennifer chose all this the moment she created Luna, and thus has to own it, whatever happens.

Defilippis and Weir, I'd say the two of you definitely did do your job right.
My actual name is Rawle Nyanzi.

Locked