Why Annie Walker is NO Sydney Bristow: Illustrated

**WARNING: SPOILERS FOR ALIAS AND COVERT AFFAIRS IN THIS POST. AND LOTS OF SERIOUS MEAN GIRL JUDGING. SHOULD BE FUN.**

Alias has been my favorite show since 2001. That's a long time. That's actually more than half of my life, so I feel like a legitimate fan. A brunette who is a double agent for the CIA and spends her life kicking ass, taking names, and saving the world? Let's just say I have watched the series multiple times.

And then, I discovered Covert Affairs. I love the show. It plays on USA with Piper Perabo playing Annie Walker, a CIA agent who travels the world for undercover missions. Sounds familiar, right?

I want to admit that I love Covert Affairs. It is insanely entertaining and I am addicted.

But.

But, she is no Sydney Bristow. Here's why.

Physical Disguises

Lawd, this was one of my favorite parts of Alias. Sydney Bristow was blonde, brunette, and a red head (and blue and purple too, tae that!). She had short hair, long hair, straight hair, and curly hair. She had a mole on her face, she wore a fake nose, and she wore a hell of a lot of glasses. Every time she went in as someone else, she wore a disguise. GEEZ, EVEN WHEN SHE WAS PREGNANT, SHE DONNED A WIG.

^we have... short blonde, medium red, short purple

 

^we have... long blonde, short red

^we have... medium purple, medium red, short blue

Annie walker... no such thing. The closest she gets is dying her hair brown in season 4 (but she doesn't even cut it short or otherwise make it look much different), which I had been waiting for the whole time. How can you gallavant around the world with the same hair, same face, same SHOES, even, and not blow your cover? #lesigh

 

^we have... blonde in a bun, blonde down

 

^blonde down, blonde pony tail

^finally brunette! but the same hair

Names and Accents

Yeah, Annie Walker can speak a hell of a lot of languages, but so can Sydney Bristow, so they're tied there. 

Moving on, though... it seemed like Annie Walker was always Annie Walker. Whether she worked at the Smithsonian or was an "importer/exporter" (nice cover...), she used her real name almost the entire time until she went dark in season 4. And, most of the time, when she was speaking English, she sounded like herself.

And then there's Sydney. She had tons of aliases (hence the name of the show), tons of different characters with different accents and even different temperaments. She could be cool and professional and german, or fun loving, show off texan. And she pulled them all off. Flawlessly. And yes, even when she was pregnant, she played a gambling-crazy momma with an accent.

Secret Agent Bod

Don't get me wrong, both of these women are absolutely gorgeous and have killer bods. But there is something about the sheer muscle on Sydney Bristow that made you really believe she could kick your ass. Annie Walker, to me, looks super hot, but not so-strong-I-could-kill-you-with-my-bare-hands. Would I kill to have her bod? Yes. Do I believe she could kick ass against world famous assassins? Not so sure.

Sydney, on the other hand... nuff said.

Running

In chase scenes, Sydney Bristow is actually freaking running. Like, Jennifer Garner is sprinting so hard for her character that you can see her veins popping out. She is making it real. Annie Walker, on the other hand, kind of just... jogs. Maybe it's her Loubotin heels that are slowing her down (hey, props to good style - that's something SB probably didn't own much of), but it really just is not convincing. She doesn't look like she's running for her life.

 

Badassery

Sydney Bristow's bodycount is unreal. Hundreds, for sure.

Meanwhile, Annie Walker could barely shoot a gun in season 1. And she kinda freaks out every time someone dies.

Speshl Snowflake

I know every child thinks they are a speshl snowflake, BUT SYDNEY BRISTOW IS ACTUALLY A SPESHL SNOWFLAKE. She was basically raised to be a secret agent ever since the beginning (project christmas, anyone?). Plus, she is the CHOSEN ONE and part of a many hundred year old prophecy.

^Sydney Bristow as a child being trained to be a super spy

^Sydney Bristow as THE FREAKING CHOSEN ONE

Annie Walker, on the other hand, is just a smart, goodlooking girl who speaks lots of languages and decided to work for the CIA. Awesome and gorgeous? Yes. Speshl Snowflake? Notsomuch.

**I just want to reiterate that I still love Annie Walker and Covert Affairs. Alias and Sydney Bristow are just on a completely different level, and it was probably not fair at all for me to compare them, but WHAM I DID IT.**


SO IN CLOSING... there's only one Sydney Bristow.

On Growing A Thought Garden

I have finished my second book! Finished it, edited it four times, gotten beta feedback, edited some more, and gosh damn it, SUBMITTED IT. 

But, there was a time when I was so desperately in love with my first novel that I couldn't imagine ever writing about different characters. I was convinced I would write multiple books in that series (duh, a trilogy, the holy trilogy, as all YA writers do, uhh, write right?).

But, there was also a problem back then. It was like my first love. Everything, I mean everything had to be crammed into it. Every idea, every plan, every thought. I kept adding and adding until the novel looked like one of those houses you see that has had 10-too-many additions and now looks absurd.

No longer.

Now, I have about 10 ideas for 10 different books, and I have learned to keep them that way. Because I learned while writing my second book that there will always be more books. I will never be done. There will always be new ideas, more ideas, different ideas, and there will always be a place to put them, but that doesn't necessarily mean it has to be here, now, this book, this chapter.

And it is freeing. So damn freeing. Because instead of stressing out about how to fit every darn idea into my current book, I have grown a garden of new ideas in the background. Phone notes and email drafts and scribbles in my field notes journal. Ideas for different things, unrelated things, some of which will be added to some book - the right book - some day, and some of which can stand on their own.

Hallelujah. That's a lesson I'm glad to have learned.

Now, on to the slow, fiery death that is the submission process. You can hear me chanting: I am confident in my work. I am confident in my work. I am confident in my work.

so you fell off the wagon

The blogging wagon, that is.

Don't worry, I'm not too far gone. I've still been blogging here, but between that and writing/editing/subbing my second novel, I forgot about this little baby blog right hurr.

But I shant do that.






......the end