Pros Novel Read-Along - Painted Angels by Angelfish - Chapter Three

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Apologies - I'd hoped to post this morning, but I've had a migraine all day, which is only just fading, and I couldn't bear the screen... (If anyone would like to volunteer to help with the introductions sometimes, then that would be great!) But here we are at last!

Painted Angels by Angelfish.
Cover art by firlefanzine

Chapter Three

Chapter Three
The lads are off on another test, this one apparently to find their way from Point A to Point B in the wilderness, and this time they're working alone. Doyle has reached the end, but instead of the comforting light and warmth and human companionship he's been looking forward to, the clearing is empty - except, he eventually realises, for Bodie peering around in a similar way.

Bodie makes himself known, and seems to be trying to be friendly - but Doyle is wise to this now, and determined not to open himself up to betrayal again. When he heads off to get some water from the river, though, Bodie follows him, and they end up trying to work things out together.

Sure enough, there are further instructions hidden for them in the clearing, and they set off together to find what they hope really is the final end-point. All does not, however, go wrong. Doyle is determined to prove to Bodie that he's equally as capable - which he's already doing with ease - to the point that when Bodie tries to hand him over a rocky outcrop, Doyle refuses his help. Unfortunately Bodie didn't explain why he was trying to give it, and so Doyle lands on a brittle ledge, and plunges them both down the steep hillside into the river below.

Bodie is knocked out by the fall, but Doyle is alert enough to be able to pull him from the river and administer CPR. Bodie revives, Doyle it turns out has four broken ribs and has lost his jacket, and they both limp on as far as they can go - which isn't all the way.

Doyle is becoming dangerously hypothermic, and so Bodie stops them and makes a shelter and a fire so that they can see out the night. They cuddle up close to share body warmth, and Doyle falls asleep. He dreams - and calls out to Gabe, and in his dream they're obviously very close, because Bodie finds himself the subject of sleepy sexuality. Knowing that any response on his part would not be a good idea, Bodie's just about to move them apart when Doyle falls silent and his dream takes a completely different turn - then finally he relaxes into sleep again.

With light comes a searching helicopter, and they hike out a final mile to meet it. Bodie makes the mistake of asking Doyle about Gabe, and Doyle immedately attacks - "Don't you ever... ever even fucking think of saying that name to me again." The lads are rescued - sure they've failed out of CI5 this time - and they're taken back to civilisation. Doyle is hospitalised for a week, although Bodie is passed fit even after his near-escape. Cowley is surprised to find Bodie staying close to the hospital, and in fact to Doyle's bedside. The lads are even more surprised, when Cowley speaks to them, to find that not only have they passed CI5 recruitment - but that it is on the condition that they work together as partners.

So - what do you reckon?! Does this read as our Bodie and Doyle? Is it realistic? What do we think of Bodie's apparent change of heart after the revelation of the last chapter - "Thinks he's made a friend. Spare me." Are you believing in the story?

Comments

[shooting2kill.livejournal.com]

When Bodie realizes, maybe with some compunction, that his efforts to build a shelter and a fire have been mostly for his own good

This is true and even the writer says:

It occurs to Bodie with a faint shock that all his measures so far have been towards his own survival.

And yet Bodie's given Doyle his jacket... and the fact that he's stayed and built a shelter (when he could probably have walked on to safety) seems to contradict what the author would have us believe of Bodie, given what she writes of his thoughts.

[firlefanzine.livejournal.com]

"...And yet Bodie's given Doyle his jacket..."
Exactly! And he has noticed quickly the signs of Doyle's hypothermia. And of course is the fire not only for his own benefit - so I can't understand these thoughts about '...have been mostly for his own good'.
Bodie seems very insecure about himself and his social competence!

[macklingirl.livejournal.com]

Bodie seems very insecure about himself and his social competence!

Excatly. I think it is because of the life he lived before he joined SAS and CI5. I think he has to learn to be social like a kid when it joines the kindergarten. They also don't know how to behave on a social level. Maybe for Bodie it's the same.

[shooting2kill.livejournal.com]

Bodie seems very insecure about himself and his social competence!

I must think about this. I know what you mean but I'm really undecided and that's what makes Bodie such an interesting character: who is the real Bodie and what makes him like that?

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Bodie seems very insecure about himself and his social competence!
He does a bit - or maybe he knows that he's putting on an act about being "too tough for the SAS" and so on - that it's all image. I think we were told early on that the other recruits are rather conflicted by him - they don't know if he's really one of them, or part of CI5 sent to test them even further, or what. And if you can't trust someone to be "one of you", then you treat them like an outsider, and Bodie must pick up on that and then almost encourage it by being defensive and acting even more tough...

(And just to go back to our previous discussion, it makes Bodie less-Bodie to me, because we see him being really friendly with everyone in the eps!)

I can't understand these thoughts about '...have been mostly for his own good'.
I wonder if Cowley and Murphy made him start thinking about it - it might not be entirely true, but leaving McCabe behind so that he could win was pretty awful, and Cowley just told him off for abandoning his partner in the other race, so maybe he's extra-conscious around other people right now. Especially since he's been somewhat abandoned (as he sees it) by Cowley and Murphy now...

[jat-sapphire.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was thinking about the sentence you quoted. But do you think Bodie already cares more than he admits to himself?

[shooting2kill.livejournal.com]

But do you think Bodie already cares more than he admits to himself?

I don't know.... I'm sure there's an awful lot of things Bodie doesn't admit to, probably his actual default, but I'm trying to think what would it be about Doyle, so far, which would make him care? Or maybe it's just carnal and he fancies him?!