![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I began to see that Agklok and Sofy did not agree about everything anymore. When it had first shown up there had been a few signs of conflict, mostly consisting of a barely-verbal Sofy shaking her head, pointing to a mess, and saying "Agklok no." But as she became more fluent in speech and began to express opinions about things beyond whether or not she wanted to put on a particular item of clothing, she and Agklok had presented a united front on every issue that I was aware of, until we had been watching the show for some time. Sofy sometimes had a short clucking conversation with herself, or I suppose with Agklok--sounding remarkably like the characters on the Gollakolla show, to no surprise at all--in an apparent dispute as to which episode to watch, or re-watch, on a particular day. I would have thought this would be straightforward--watch all the episodes in the order they were presented until the end (which was not in sight after more than a year of three or so episodes a week, depending on the other grandparents and he parents' schedule), and then rewatch if necessary. But it was not so simple. Right from the start Agklokj had its favorite episodes, and soon afterwards Sofy developed hers, and they were not exactly the same. So some days we just poked the next button and some days we had to scroll around while Sofy clucked and gurgled till she and her imaginary friend agreed on something. I finally felt comfortable in asking her about it in a general way, mostly just because I've always enjoyed listening to the thought processes of preschool children.
By now she was four, and her language was up to describing an argument. "Agklok is looking for instructions, but I don't think that this show has instructions really. I did at first because Agklok said so but we've been watching it for years and years"--fourteen months or so seems much longer to a small child--"and nothing seems like instructions. But Agklok says some of the things are instructions and we'll understand them if we watch them enough. So sometimes we argue about it because I get bored with just looking for instructions. I just want to find out what's going to happen to Logkillak. Logkillak is the blue one with the long pink claws who keeps making mistakes. Everybody's nice to it but maybe they will get tired of it after a while? Like the neighbors gave away their dog."
That had been, of course, a euphemism, and so was "tired of"--they'd been terrified of the poor thing, and for good reason, as it had been so damaged by ill-treatment before they got it that it could not adjust to normal dog life and presented a constant danger.
This was an interesting look into a small child's anxieties, I thought, and I waited for another opportunity to get more. I didn't want to push too hard for fear of distorting her storyline by the shape of my questions. But I started asking her more often what Agklok thought of the show, and how that compared to what she thought.
I thought, myself, that perhaps the show was getting a wee bit darker? Both visually, and in the storyline. I mean that the sky seemed to tend more to the medium mauve than the light periwinkle, and the expressions and voices of the animals seemed to trend more towards distress than formerly. I thought perhaps the creators had been editing the earlier episodes, also, as when Sofy scrolled back to play earlier episodes, they also seemed to have undergone similar changes. But it still seemed appropriate for children, but just sadder and more anxious than previously.
Sofy showed me which character was Logkillak, and it did seem as though it was being corrected more often than any other character. It was frequently taking off in a different direction, picking things up that other characters were staring at dubiously, getting tangled in vines or a yarn-like artifact that was occasionally produced by singing to a tree which extruded a material that was then twisted in the paws of the characters. I didn't see that it was doing anything so bad that its compatriots would reject it: clearly its role in the show was to represent the stumblings of younger children--someone to identify with and also to feel superior too, depending on the needs of the audience.
And after another while it seemed to emerge that, after an initial period when the point of view was relentlessly communal, Logkillak was emerging as the protagonist, or perhaps the interlocutor, of the show. A new feature emerged in which Logkillak would turn to the "camera" and ask a chirruping question apparently aimed right at Sofy, cocking its head to the side like an inquisitive bird, and then all action would pause for several long seconds before Logkillak would nod its odd little blue head and action would resume. Sofy always had two burbled little responses, apparently one for herself and one for Agklok--the one for Agklok was uttered ventriloquist-style, with closed lips and an altered voice.
It was a while before I gathered up the courage to ask Sofy what was being asked and answered at these moments.
By now she was four, and her language was up to describing an argument. "Agklok is looking for instructions, but I don't think that this show has instructions really. I did at first because Agklok said so but we've been watching it for years and years"--fourteen months or so seems much longer to a small child--"and nothing seems like instructions. But Agklok says some of the things are instructions and we'll understand them if we watch them enough. So sometimes we argue about it because I get bored with just looking for instructions. I just want to find out what's going to happen to Logkillak. Logkillak is the blue one with the long pink claws who keeps making mistakes. Everybody's nice to it but maybe they will get tired of it after a while? Like the neighbors gave away their dog."
That had been, of course, a euphemism, and so was "tired of"--they'd been terrified of the poor thing, and for good reason, as it had been so damaged by ill-treatment before they got it that it could not adjust to normal dog life and presented a constant danger.
This was an interesting look into a small child's anxieties, I thought, and I waited for another opportunity to get more. I didn't want to push too hard for fear of distorting her storyline by the shape of my questions. But I started asking her more often what Agklok thought of the show, and how that compared to what she thought.
I thought, myself, that perhaps the show was getting a wee bit darker? Both visually, and in the storyline. I mean that the sky seemed to tend more to the medium mauve than the light periwinkle, and the expressions and voices of the animals seemed to trend more towards distress than formerly. I thought perhaps the creators had been editing the earlier episodes, also, as when Sofy scrolled back to play earlier episodes, they also seemed to have undergone similar changes. But it still seemed appropriate for children, but just sadder and more anxious than previously.
Sofy showed me which character was Logkillak, and it did seem as though it was being corrected more often than any other character. It was frequently taking off in a different direction, picking things up that other characters were staring at dubiously, getting tangled in vines or a yarn-like artifact that was occasionally produced by singing to a tree which extruded a material that was then twisted in the paws of the characters. I didn't see that it was doing anything so bad that its compatriots would reject it: clearly its role in the show was to represent the stumblings of younger children--someone to identify with and also to feel superior too, depending on the needs of the audience.
And after another while it seemed to emerge that, after an initial period when the point of view was relentlessly communal, Logkillak was emerging as the protagonist, or perhaps the interlocutor, of the show. A new feature emerged in which Logkillak would turn to the "camera" and ask a chirruping question apparently aimed right at Sofy, cocking its head to the side like an inquisitive bird, and then all action would pause for several long seconds before Logkillak would nod its odd little blue head and action would resume. Sofy always had two burbled little responses, apparently one for herself and one for Agklok--the one for Agklok was uttered ventriloquist-style, with closed lips and an altered voice.
It was a while before I gathered up the courage to ask Sofy what was being asked and answered at these moments.