personality
Mar. 22nd, 2012 09:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
menacedNote: Since Lily is a complicated character, with a complicated history, I've used various author interviews and some research with person interpretation to flesh out who Lily is and why she has done the things she's done. Please bear in mind that everyone has their own interpretation of a character. This is just mine. If you want to get comfortable, here are some lovely threads here and here.
Lily Hollister is a complicated mixture. She's a maniac and she's actually medically insane. She's also depressed, and suffers from low self-esteem thanks to her father putting her down for so many years for not being the perfect son Mr. Hollister had wanted. And after the entire Osborn regime fell, and Lily realized that she'd made a horrible mistake in siding with Norman Osborn, Lily came to hate herself all the more. Don't excuse Lily right away. True, she was manipulated by Norman Osborn, and she had no choice but to go along with Norman's scheme, but she could have fought back, and Lily didn't. She could've refused to go with Norman, but she went anyways, knowing that it would hurt Harry Osborn, Norman's son and the love of Lily's life.
Lily is cunning and tricky. She is incredibly surreptitious and has told more than her fair share of lies. She's even killed, as a mean to an end. First, it started with her using the Goblin Serum's effects to frame Spider-Man and remove rivals in her father's campaign for Mayor of New York. She was his diligent campaign manager, pulling trick after trick and crime after crime in order to sway the public's opinion. Lily used Spider-Man for scapegoating, framing him for random deaths and various crimes that she had committed. This not only helped boost her father's approval ratings, but it eventually even won him office. Of course by this time, Lily had been defeated (by her own Harry Osborn) and sent to jail. Her schemes didn't stop there. They followed her all the way through the Osborn regime and only petered out when the regime came toppling down. Lily feels great guilt for her crimes, but knows that she can't change the past.
There are three people who Lily loves more than anything in the world and while she's betrayed two of them, Lily still loves them dearly and values their opinions. When Carly, Lily's best friend since they were small, threw Lily's rap sheet in Lily's face, Lily was crushed, though she accepted the hate and spite. She believes she deserves all the spite and more in response to her crimes. The other person is Harry Osborn. Lily loves Harry, and if it hadn't been for the Osborn regime, maybe she would've eventually tried to get back to Harry, but that was not the outcome, as we well know. Even after Harry walked away from the regime, Lily loves Harry all the more for knowing right from wrong. She believes that Harry hates her for all her treacheries and even with these gloomy thoughts, she still sought out Harry in her time of need.
Lily's capability for kindness stands. She can be kind, at first meet, to a complete stranger now that she's started her rehab. She's still fighting the effects of the Goblin Serum and that makes relationships difficult, but Lily can get past it, and that's key. No doubt she is addicted to adrenaline rushes, and has waking nightmares due to the deeper psyche complications of the Serum. She requires medical help, if she ever wishes to really move past the person into which the Goblin Serum turned her. There is still hope for Lily. She is still able to show affection and concern for complete strangers, but it's the Goblin Serum that she's pitted against in an unfair fight for right to her sanity. The way this occurs is, as the Serum continues to degrade Lily's perceptions of reality, the balance goes off kilter. She's already been exposed to the Serum for far too long, so her paranoia and fears are heightened already. What currently keeps her happy are the simple things. Knowledge alone that Harry is caring for their child, some jam slathered on hot toast, or a nice sunny day--these are the things that make Lily happy as she returns to the shift of her personality spectrum that existed before she became affected by the Goblin Serum. She wants to get back to that person, but her own self-loathing gets in the way if she's teetering on the brink in that particular frame of time.
Lily Hollister is a complicated mixture. She's a maniac and she's actually medically insane. She's also depressed, and suffers from low self-esteem thanks to her father putting her down for so many years for not being the perfect son Mr. Hollister had wanted. And after the entire Osborn regime fell, and Lily realized that she'd made a horrible mistake in siding with Norman Osborn, Lily came to hate herself all the more. Don't excuse Lily right away. True, she was manipulated by Norman Osborn, and she had no choice but to go along with Norman's scheme, but she could have fought back, and Lily didn't. She could've refused to go with Norman, but she went anyways, knowing that it would hurt Harry Osborn, Norman's son and the love of Lily's life.
Lily is cunning and tricky. She is incredibly surreptitious and has told more than her fair share of lies. She's even killed, as a mean to an end. First, it started with her using the Goblin Serum's effects to frame Spider-Man and remove rivals in her father's campaign for Mayor of New York. She was his diligent campaign manager, pulling trick after trick and crime after crime in order to sway the public's opinion. Lily used Spider-Man for scapegoating, framing him for random deaths and various crimes that she had committed. This not only helped boost her father's approval ratings, but it eventually even won him office. Of course by this time, Lily had been defeated (by her own Harry Osborn) and sent to jail. Her schemes didn't stop there. They followed her all the way through the Osborn regime and only petered out when the regime came toppling down. Lily feels great guilt for her crimes, but knows that she can't change the past.
There are three people who Lily loves more than anything in the world and while she's betrayed two of them, Lily still loves them dearly and values their opinions. When Carly, Lily's best friend since they were small, threw Lily's rap sheet in Lily's face, Lily was crushed, though she accepted the hate and spite. She believes she deserves all the spite and more in response to her crimes. The other person is Harry Osborn. Lily loves Harry, and if it hadn't been for the Osborn regime, maybe she would've eventually tried to get back to Harry, but that was not the outcome, as we well know. Even after Harry walked away from the regime, Lily loves Harry all the more for knowing right from wrong. She believes that Harry hates her for all her treacheries and even with these gloomy thoughts, she still sought out Harry in her time of need.
Lily's capability for kindness stands. She can be kind, at first meet, to a complete stranger now that she's started her rehab. She's still fighting the effects of the Goblin Serum and that makes relationships difficult, but Lily can get past it, and that's key. No doubt she is addicted to adrenaline rushes, and has waking nightmares due to the deeper psyche complications of the Serum. She requires medical help, if she ever wishes to really move past the person into which the Goblin Serum turned her. There is still hope for Lily. She is still able to show affection and concern for complete strangers, but it's the Goblin Serum that she's pitted against in an unfair fight for right to her sanity. The way this occurs is, as the Serum continues to degrade Lily's perceptions of reality, the balance goes off kilter. She's already been exposed to the Serum for far too long, so her paranoia and fears are heightened already. What currently keeps her happy are the simple things. Knowledge alone that Harry is caring for their child, some jam slathered on hot toast, or a nice sunny day--these are the things that make Lily happy as she returns to the shift of her personality spectrum that existed before she became affected by the Goblin Serum. She wants to get back to that person, but her own self-loathing gets in the way if she's teetering on the brink in that particular frame of time.
