Series 9 Episode 8 discussion

[binkie]

(07-01-2011 11:27 PM)Byatil Wrote:  Yeah, it's funny how the plot would have made a lot more sense if Lucas had simply slipped into a state of insanity. He could still have betrayed the team and could still have committed suicide... he didn't have to be pretending to be someone else I suppose the problem with that plot is that it gives cause for the audience to feel sympathetic towards the character (and for the other characters to feel guilt/sympathy) which are obviously not the emotions the writers wanted to create.

I have genuinely found myself wondering on a couple of occasions if maybe the whole Lucas-is-John storyline was created purely in an effort to avoid having to - in effect - kill a kitten. Balancing the acknowledged suffering of the character against suffering caused by the character allowed his death to be presented as something other than the final blow in a life of seemingly unrelenting misery and ill-disguised despair. If he was only masquerading as a kitten all along, the writers can breathe a sigh of relief at divesting themselves of the responsibility for the grief of an audience which can now blame Lucas for his own destruction.