Tim and Nicola/Lawrie

[tosomja.livejournal.com]

Have just been reading End of Term and was struck by how vicious  Tim is to Nicola and how much it is not really ever explained why.  What has gone wrong since Autumn Term when Tim and Nicola seemed as good if not better friends to Tim and Lawrie?  I can see what Lawrie gets out of the relationship but what's in it for Tim? And what is going on in those conversations when Lawrie says she must talk to Tim - is Tim just nodding and sympathising and agreeing how awful Nicola is? if so, it doesn't sound much like the Tim we see the rest of the time...I am confused.

Comments

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

My impression is Tim and Lawrie really bonded over the 3R play and theatre in general, and Nicola just isn't of interest any more, so Nicola's default way of seeing the world, ie that people liked her better than Lawrie because that's how it usually was, probably got rather annoying. Isn't it End of Term when Nicola realises that, thinking "Tim liked Lawrie best."?

[highfantastical.livejournal.com]

I think Tim possibly prefers the balance of power that being friends with L. entails...

[highfantastical.livejournal.com]

(I mean, her role within the relationship is more interesting, flexible, suited to her talents (?) than it would be if she were best friends with N., who is a lot more uncompromising in some ways - interpersonally, not in terms of choosing dramatic roles, obviously - than L.)

[joyeuce]

IIRC there's something in Autumn Term about Tim feeling that the people on whom she bestows her friendship shouldn't ask anything more of life. Maybe when she realises Nicola has made friends with Miranda, rather than either waiting for a little of Tim's spare attention or going all pathetic at her, Tim is jealous and/or angry?

Also, there's the form prefect thing in End of Term; Tim and Nicola have been prefects together before, so Tim is obviously popular enough to be elected, but when Crommie chooses, she's "not good enough". And there are Nicola and Miranda together again.

[gair.livejournal.com]

what's in it for Tim?

Lawrie! Lawrie is what's in it for Tim!

::besots over Lawrie Marlowe::

[tosomja.livejournal.com]

The hostility was what intrigued me - when Nicola gets chosen for the shepherd boy Tim behaves as if she had asked for it - but maybe it is about Nicola's basic world view which is pretty Nicola-centric (maybe in its own way as much as Lawrie's is Lawrie-centric). Certainly it surprised me that Nicola was so pleased when she was first told she would play the Shepherd Boy as that implies she had completely forgotten about Lawrie's obsession with it.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's something to do with Nicola taking up with Miranda and Tim thinking that here are two people who might well be prefects without her. Though Tim's never seemed particularly hostile to Miranda, except during the row about only children during the Art lesson.

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

Isn't there a bit during one half-term where Tim and Miranda have to do things together without the twins? My memory is that they don't quite know how to get on with each other at first, but end up quite enjoying themselves.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Yes, in the Attic Term, I think.

[yiskah.livejournal.com]

Yes, when they write the carol together! That's one of my favourite bits in the books.

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

There's also the fact that Nicola gets moved up out of Third Remove into 3A before Tim and Lawrie do, although we don't know exactly when either of these events happened. As Tim and Nicola were 3A's prefects in the Summer term, I'd assume Nicola was moved up after Christmas, leaving Tim and Lawrie behind to bond. That's a book I'd like to read.

[geebengrrl.livejournal.com]

I started writing a fan-fic about that term - must dig it out and finish it some time

[colne-dsr.livejournal.com]

Yes please please!!

[antfan.livejournal.com]

I found those Tim being nasty bits so intense that I didn't often read End of Term as a child - but they were certainly credible, just painfully so. Tim does have her nasty moments in Autumn Term - over Nicola's tidiness monitoring for example - so I don't think it's out of character. She has a very nasty stinging temper and a barbed verbal nastiness. I think she likes the reflected glory of Lawrie's talents - miranda says to Esther that she she does rather do the "my friend the genius" bit over Lawrie - plus the fact as others have said that she can dominate Lawrie more easily.

By Cricket Term she seems to have become a bit fed up with Lawrie and less inclined to indulge her, although they haven't exactly fallen out. And she is more keen to get on with Nicola again. It always seems to me that Tim has mellowed, and also understandably is a bit impatient with some of Lawrie's histrionics. (Lawrie can't rely on her sympathy any more, we are told - whereas in end of term she could)

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

Also in the remove class, they weren't allowed to play games so Nicola's enthusiasm for sports didn't threaten the amount of time or attention she was able to spend on Tim. Whereas by End of Term, although Nicola didn't get on the team, she was becoming the sort of keen sporty type that Tim instinctively didn't like.
The way girls' friendships in the AF books can fluctuate, and even completely reverse on occasion is only too realistic.Ginty swinging from Unity back to Monica is another example.
Realising Tim had gone off her is such a painful but well written stage in Nicola's character development, along with some of Rowan's comments, and patrick's defection to Ginty. I think we, the reader like her more for going through these moments of realisation, rather than being the archetypal popular heroine of school stories.

[(Anonymous)]

"I think we, the reader like her more for going through these moments of realisation"

Yes - she's really upset with herself that she didn't realise Tim and Lawrie were now best friends, and it's not jealousy, or pique, it's shame that she has been insensitive and butting in.