Storytelling Engine: Trent Lane

Trent Lane is a peripheral character who has two purposes: to provide a surrogate parent for his younger sister Jane Lane, and to be Daria Morgendorffer's crush. (I'll write more on the "crush" aspect later.) The "crush" aspect makes him a central figure in Daria's life. Any person that the protagonist of a story thinks is particularly important should not be overlooked.

Trent gets three character traits when other background characters would get fewer. Why Trent is such a special character will be explained below:

1. Cool. Face it...Trent is not only cool, he might be the coolest character on the show. He exemplifies "rock and roll cool", and in his case, grunge cool. Despite the fact that grunge was on its way out the door in 1997 (how could the writers of Daria know that?), Trent's coolness is not anchored in any social movement.

It's very hard to explain what "cool" is. The word "cool" is much like the mathematical term "random" -- the more you attempt to define what it is, the more you lose the essence. "Cool" might be something like Robert Pirsig's definition of "quality" in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainence. Cool is at the very edge of definition.

Trent has it all. He gets to be the lead singer in a rock and roll band. He dresses in his own aesthetic. He sleeps late if he wants to, and he has neither parents nor bosses nor principals looking down on him. Trent is free of authority, Daria's version of Huckleberry Finn. (*)

Furthermore, Trent has the core attribute of composure and self-control. Trent is never heard raising his voice or acting like a jerk. When he has to confront authority -- say, when he met Mr. O'Neill in "Lucky Strike" -- he remains calm and composed. Heck, even in "This Year's Model", he walked right into Ms. Li's undoubtedly-patrolled-by-guard-cobras auditorium and no authority figure lifted a finger to stop him.

One of the advantages of being cool is that if you're close to a cool person, it makes you a cool person as well -- cool people only hang out with other cool people. Trent's coolness filters down to Jane (who is hella cool herself) and even to Daria by extension. The fact that Trent finds Daria interesting merely confirms the fact that Daria must be very cool herself.

2. Sensitive. Trent is very sensitive to the needs of those around him. He knows how to deal with the problems of his younger sister, Jane, as we've seen when the Jane/Daria/Tom triangle reached its breaking point, and he was able to make the point of Daria's "betrayal" to Daria without being overtly obnoxious or angry.

The fact that Trent is sensitive (**) allows Daria to talk to him (when she gets the nerve) without feeling threatened. At the end of "Jane's Addition", Daria and Trent were able to have a real conversation about what happened with the music project, with subtext regarding the state of the Trent/Daria relationship. Daria might have had a problem confronting any other person, as was seen with the way she handled Tom's forgetting their "six-month-anniversary" in "Sappy Anniversary". Daria's pattern is to hold her resentments, her true feelings, to hold everything in until it explodes.

During her conversation with Trent, however, Daria is at last able to convey her anger and disappointment. There might have been no other person with who this would have been possible, except probably the most sensitive character on the show.

3. Lazy. At first, Trent's sloth made for an easy punchline. "Look, there's Trent sleeping in again!" "Look, there's Trent taking a lackadaiscal attitude toward practicing with his band!" It made for a few chuckles.

At the end of "Jane's Addition", however, Glenn Eichler found a way to use this minor character trait and turn it into a major attribute. Trent had promised Daria and Jane that he would write music for them on a multimedia project. Just two episodes earlier, in "The Lawndale File", Trent gets it together to write a jingle for a commerical for a used car lot. However, when he own sister and her best friend (and a girl he undoubtedly likes) need him...he drops the ball.

This event finally makes it clear to Daria that a Daria/Trent relationship will not work out. Trent is cool, and he's sensitive, but sometimes...he doesn't come through. You can't depend on him in the clutch, and Daria knows that if something serious happened between them, she'd have to raise Trent along with her own children.

Trent's sloth is sometimes a real problem. In "Art Burn", Trent simply can't manage the workers that build the gazebo, and Jane finally has to threaten them to either start working or get out. (Trent's punishment: he'll have to help build it.) The worst incident -- even worse than "Jane's Addition" -- comes at the end of the series in "Is It College Yet?" Jane, having been rejected by two schools, does not know if she wants to go to college. Trent, rather than encouraging her, supports her decision for his own selfish reasons. When Jane begins to get her head together and tries to apply again, Trent implies that she's "selling out" and refuses to drive her to the post office to send out her application.

At the end of the episode, we come to learn that for Trent, "sensitive" trumps "lazy". Without being prompted, he reveals the real reason he was dragging his feet about Jane's attempt to go to college -- he knew he would miss Jane and hoped in the back of his mind that she'd remain with him in the house. But Trent, to his credit, realizes that it's more important for Jane to grow as a person than to have things remain convenient for himself.

(* * *)

Did Daria learn anything from her relationship with Trent? I really wonder if she did. We know she likes cool, self-assured guys, but what girl doesn't? It seems more the case that only cool, self-assured guys could put up with Daria at her most sarcastic and stand-offish.

This leads to a brief examination of the three relationships she had during the show. Ted, Trent, and Tom. For Ted, his protected upbringing leads him to be fascinated with whatever crosses his path, and Daria was just one of his many fascinations. Daria saw that from the very beginning. This was a man who was amazed and astounded by gum, and had never heard The Beatles.

Trent Lane was out of her age range. It would have been illegal for Trent to start a physically intimate relationship with her. Furthermore, his slothfulness and his lack of a job or any ambition were matters of public record.

Tom Sloane was definitely hands off -- she was Jane's boyfriend. Rather than waiting for Jane and Tom to break up, Daria swooped in and grabbed Tom before Jane could drop him. Then, when Tom put time and effort into the relationship Daria dragged her feet the whole way. Daria drops Tom in the end, claiming that the relationship had gotten stale.

Daria seems to seek out these "unattainable" guys, guys who for one good reason or another you shouldn't start a relationship with. It's as if she deliberately sabotages her romances. Whether this says more about Daria's psychology -- or her sexuality -- is an exercise for the reader.


(*) - For example, Trent has strong opinions about Huckleberry Hound, undoubtedly named after Huck Finn.
(**) - Mr. O'Neill is not really sensitive. "Fragile" would be a better word.