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black-rose-blue-lodge · 1 year

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The Importance of Donna in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me

Okay, so a lot of people like to ship Donna Hayward and Laura Palmer from Twin Peaks, and there is good reason for that. Throughout the original run, Donna is haunted by her complex feelings for Laura. She loved her, she envied her, she wanted to be her. She misses her. Donna gets close to James, Maddy and Harold in part because they all give her the feeling of being close to Laura. In Fire Walk With Me, we are shown just how close they were.

Donna is very important in Fire Walk With Me. I believe that none of this requires you to ship the characters, although I also find it compelling evidence for a romantic reading of the film. Basically, even if you think the characters have only platonic feelings for each other, this is a summary of why Donna matters.

Near the end of the film, Laura tells James “You don’t know me. There are things about me… Even Donna doesn’t know me.” Of all the people who apparently don’t know Laura, Donna knows her the most. She is given the most importance. While Laura’s relationships with James and Bobby are shown to be ineffectual and largely irrelevant to the story of the end of her life, Donna is front and centre. Their friendship, their love for each other, is the emotional core of the film.

Our first insight into Laura’s psyche comes when she confides her depression and existential dread in Donna with the lines: “the angels wouldn’t help you… because they’ve all gone away.” In this scene, she is much more candid, willing to expose this part of herself. She essentially believes that she is doomed, that no one will be there to save her. (And, on a surface level, she is correct: even Mike, the “one man… Bob is afraid of” according to Laura’s secret diary, does not save her from death.)

When Laura begins to realize BOB’s true identity, she turns to Donna. Donna grounds her in reality. Laura seems to walk “between two worlds” in the film, constantly teetering on the brink of life and death. Donna is perhaps her greatest remaining connection to this world. And, difficult as that responsibility may be, Donna gladly accepts it.

Donna is depicted in Fire Walk With Me as a shy and conservative girl, contrasting strongly with Laura, who is openly ‘dangerous’ and promiscuous. Donna daydreams about having “lasting love… true love” but doesn’t even have a boyfriend. She takes all her cues from Laura. When she tries to become more adventurous, she does it to be like Laura, to understand Laura. This is shown after the Pink Room sequence, where Donna asks tearfully “Why do you do it?” She desperately wants to know, to stand there with Laura between two worlds and comfort her, but she can’t. She can never understand.

In The Missing Pieces, after Laura’s breakdown at Donna’s house, Donna whispers something to her father, who then reads a (clearly fake) “secret message for Laura”.

We don’t know what Donna whispered to Doc Hayward, but she must have asked him to say something about the angels returning, because she was the only one present when Laura said that the angels wouldn’t help her. The camera reinforces this, lingering on Donna as her father “reads” the message. It is a message from Donna.

Laura leaves after this, clearly affected. The way it cuts to Donna during the line “the one that is meant to help you” suggest that Donna believes that she can help Laura. If no other angels are there, Donna will be the angel who helps Laura out of the darkness.

Now, BOB’s stated motivation in the film is to “taste through [Laura’s] mouth”, turning her into the next ‘vehicle” for his evil. In the series (2x9), Laura’s diary reveals that she died because it was “the only way to keep Bob away from [her], the only way to tear him out from inside.” She wrote, “I know he wants me, I can feel his fire. But if I die he can’t hurt me anymore.” She died to avoid a fate worse than death.

In Fire Walk With Me, the focus shifts, and it’s not just about Laura. In the film, Laura dies so that BOB can’t use her to hurt the people around her. It is strongly implied that the fate of Twin Peaks itself hangs in the balance. (This is arguably why the scenes of everyday town life in The Missing Pieces were included to begin with; they offer glimpses of what Laura dies to protect.)

If BOB possesses Laura, his fire will spread. The Log Lady warns her “the tender boughs of innocence burn first… and then all goodness is in jeopardy.” This is right before Laura goes into the Roadhouse, where Donna follows her, beginning the dangerous game of “chicken” that they play, where Laura keeps trying to scare Donna away, and Donna keeps trying to show Laura that she isn’t scared. This sequence is the last straw for Laura. When she sees Donna slipping into darkness in the Pink Room, she gets a firsthand glimpse of “the tender boughs of innocence” beginning to burn.

Laura’s influence, despite all her intentions, has started to corrupt Donna. It’s one thing for Laura to be taken advantage of by these men. In her opinion, she can handle it, and she is doomed anyway. But not Donna. In the screenplay, this is even more explicit during the Pink Room scene.

Donna represents everything at stake if BOB wins. For Laura, Donna is the incarnation of “innocence” and “all goodness”. In that way, she is indeed like an angel, and Laura doesn’t want to bring about her fall from grace.

This is the heart of the film. The essence of Laura’s sacrifice. She dies for Donna.

As much as I, like many others, ship Donna with Laura, Laura could never be with Donna, not in this universe. Though I believe Laura has feelings for her, she would not act on them, because she views Donna as someone fundamentally good, and herself as someone fundamentally bad. This is encapsulated in the line “I love you, Donna… But I don’t want you to be like me.” In the original series, a passage from Laura’s diary reads: “I love Donna very much, but sometimes I worry that she wouldn’t be around me at all if she knew what my insides were like.” Now Donna has seen Laura’s dark side, the things she does, and still she loves her, still she wants to be there for her.

So Laura returns the favour. She becomes the guardian angel of Twin Peaks, ignoring Cooper’s dream-warning and putting on the ring. She hopes that the evil will die with her. Of course, it doesn’t, because Laura was never the source of that evil to begin with. BOB’s power lies in his ability to be indistinguishable from human evil. As Albert remarks, “Maybe that’s all BOB is. The evil that men do.” BOB was never just Laura’s dark side. Laura ended up as just another victim, with a letter under her fingernail, like Teresa Banks before her and Maddy Ferguson after her.

Regardless, Laura’s death means something. She dies on her own terms, in defiance of beings far beyond her comprehension. Her choice to die is an act of love, born of the sincere belief that the world will be a better place without her.

At the very end of Fire Walk With Me, in the enigmatic purgatory of the Red Room, Laura sees a vision of an angel.

Earlier, Ronette Pulaski saw an angel while in the train car, but that angel actually did help her. Ronette escaped. Laura’s angel is different. It isn’t there to help her. Laura is beyond help now. No, it is the mere fact of seeing this angel that gives Laura comfort. The angel is pure, radiant, seemingly unaffected by the darkness that surrounds it.

The actress who plays Laura’s angel, Lorna MacMillan, has dark, curly hair, and from a distance, is somewhat reminiscent of Donna. (Similarly, Ronette's angel is blonde, possibly to remind us of Laura.) Now, it would have been far too obvious for Moira Kelly to play Laura's angel, and that isn’t really the point. The angel represents the goodness that endures. It represents the same thing as Donna. The innocence that Laura died to protect. In the end, Laura’s only comfort is knowing that, though her death did not bring an end to darkness, it did allow for the continued survival of light. The light flickers on Laura's face in this scene, just like in the Pink Room. There, she was watching Donna flirt with the darkness. Here, she is looking at the angel Donna promised would return.

The track that plays during this scene is “The Voice of Love”. Laura was not ultimately corrupted. Like that angel, she is now a lonely light in a world of darkness. The darkness did not win. Generations of trauma and evil could not make her give in. So why does the angel look like Donna? Because Donna was the best thing about Laura. As much as Donna tries to emulate Laura, both while she is alive and after her death, Laura saves herself, and the world, by emulating Donna. Donna’s selflessness, compassion and bravery are qualities that Laura already has, but she can’t see them in herself. That is why she sees the angel as something outside of herself. I believe the angel is Laura. Of course, Laura could never see herself as an angel.

But she could very easily see Donna as one.

#twin peaks #fire walk with me #laura palmer #laura is the one #donna hayward #the angels will return #meta #sheryl lee #moira kelly #lara flynn boyle #david lynch #the voice of love

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