It's recognized that you have a funny sense of fun
Apr 16, 2009 21:09:09 GMT -5
Post by Lawrence on Apr 16, 2009 21:09:09 GMT -5
Full Name: T.E. (Thomas Edward, Ned to his family) Lawrence
Fandom: POTO, original, other (specify)? Lawrence of Arabia (1962) with some details from real life
Age: 30
Height: The real one was 5'5". O'Toole is 6'2", and Fiennes is 6'.
Build: Slight and athletic
Hair: Blonde
Eyes: The blue of the desert sky
Nationality: English
Job: Became a colonel in the British army during the Great War
Personality: "I compared him once with Hamlet, a Hamlet who had slain his uncle neatly and efficiently at the beginning of Act II, had spent the remainder of the play in repenting his act and writing a long explanation of it to Horatio, and then had retired to a monastery."
Lawrence is, to be somewhat cliche, a mass of contradictions. A scholar, writer, soldier, military strategist, expert in Crusader castles and archeology student, later often accused of "backing into the limelight," Lawrence fell in love with the desert of Arabia and the people in it. The experience has Done Things to him, however, and though he went out to prove what he was, he has come back with less of an idea than ever. He is by turns diffident and assertive, serious and possessed of a wry sense of humor that he really does not expect anyone else to get. He is physically very capable, but can also be clumsy especially in social situations.
After a rape and beating in Deraa, Lawrence (never very experienced to begin with) has shut down all receptiveness to sexuality in any form, though it is possible that a pre-existing masochistic streak has been exacerbated. This, however, is likely to be firmly repressed by him and he does not talk about it, though his back is criss-crossed with scars that are nevertheless minor compared to those on his psyche.
Life Story (as much as you want us to know): Lawrence was born to Sir Thomas Chapman and his first wife's governess--hence the surname Lawrence. He grew up around Oxford, good at games despite his height but slightly queer from the start. He excelled in history and literature and languages but not at all in maths. He began traveling at an early age (solo bike tours around England) and first fell in love with Arabia while studying the sites of castles from the crusades. When the War came, he wormed his way into becoming a special envoy to Prince Feisal, who was waging a war of independence against the Ottoman Empire. Joining forces with Feisal, Lawrence drew the various Bedouin tribes together under the auspices of Arab freedom, earning himself the name "El Aurens" and donning the robes of the Bedu. Though he never became one of them, the pull of their way of life, their code of honor and hospitality, was strong. It is perhaps merely that he could not that kept him with one foot in the British and one in the Bedouin culture.
Lawrence set out to work miracles, but he did so at a grave cost to himself. Wracked both by self-doubt and fierce ambition, he was flung from thinking himself akin to a god to finding himself as lowly as any other man. He was also conflicted about the purpose of Britain in Arabia, a purpose he knew was not Arab autonomy but denied to himself and his new friends as long as he could. He now feels he betrayed them, and also feels betrayed himself, by both sides and by his own dark yearnings. The War showed him sides to himself he had not known previously, and would rather have left undiscovered.
We find him now on his way back home, released from the whirlwind of the past few years but suddenly without any structure, goals, or cause and a host of new questions about himself.
((Um, this is the one I was anxious about, because I have such respect for the real T.E.L., flawed as he was. So this is mostly the movie!Lawrence, with some background thrown in. And I'm sorry it's so long.))
Fandom: POTO, original, other (specify)? Lawrence of Arabia (1962) with some details from real life
Age: 30
Height: The real one was 5'5". O'Toole is 6'2", and Fiennes is 6'.
Build: Slight and athletic
Hair: Blonde
Eyes: The blue of the desert sky
Nationality: English
Job: Became a colonel in the British army during the Great War
Personality: "I compared him once with Hamlet, a Hamlet who had slain his uncle neatly and efficiently at the beginning of Act II, had spent the remainder of the play in repenting his act and writing a long explanation of it to Horatio, and then had retired to a monastery."
Lawrence is, to be somewhat cliche, a mass of contradictions. A scholar, writer, soldier, military strategist, expert in Crusader castles and archeology student, later often accused of "backing into the limelight," Lawrence fell in love with the desert of Arabia and the people in it. The experience has Done Things to him, however, and though he went out to prove what he was, he has come back with less of an idea than ever. He is by turns diffident and assertive, serious and possessed of a wry sense of humor that he really does not expect anyone else to get. He is physically very capable, but can also be clumsy especially in social situations.
After a rape and beating in Deraa, Lawrence (never very experienced to begin with) has shut down all receptiveness to sexuality in any form, though it is possible that a pre-existing masochistic streak has been exacerbated. This, however, is likely to be firmly repressed by him and he does not talk about it, though his back is criss-crossed with scars that are nevertheless minor compared to those on his psyche.
Life Story (as much as you want us to know): Lawrence was born to Sir Thomas Chapman and his first wife's governess--hence the surname Lawrence. He grew up around Oxford, good at games despite his height but slightly queer from the start. He excelled in history and literature and languages but not at all in maths. He began traveling at an early age (solo bike tours around England) and first fell in love with Arabia while studying the sites of castles from the crusades. When the War came, he wormed his way into becoming a special envoy to Prince Feisal, who was waging a war of independence against the Ottoman Empire. Joining forces with Feisal, Lawrence drew the various Bedouin tribes together under the auspices of Arab freedom, earning himself the name "El Aurens" and donning the robes of the Bedu. Though he never became one of them, the pull of their way of life, their code of honor and hospitality, was strong. It is perhaps merely that he could not that kept him with one foot in the British and one in the Bedouin culture.
Lawrence set out to work miracles, but he did so at a grave cost to himself. Wracked both by self-doubt and fierce ambition, he was flung from thinking himself akin to a god to finding himself as lowly as any other man. He was also conflicted about the purpose of Britain in Arabia, a purpose he knew was not Arab autonomy but denied to himself and his new friends as long as he could. He now feels he betrayed them, and also feels betrayed himself, by both sides and by his own dark yearnings. The War showed him sides to himself he had not known previously, and would rather have left undiscovered.
We find him now on his way back home, released from the whirlwind of the past few years but suddenly without any structure, goals, or cause and a host of new questions about himself.
((Um, this is the one I was anxious about, because I have such respect for the real T.E.L., flawed as he was. So this is mostly the movie!Lawrence, with some background thrown in. And I'm sorry it's so long.))