[spoilers] Lucas. Just Lucas.

[Belle]

God, I'm totally overwelmed about all of your magnificent analyses, they realy go deep and are very thorough! Congrats to all of you!
I really find it interesting to see the relation between Harry and Lucas taken apart, almost sentence by sentence, to help us understand how fragile it is. I do believe that Harry feels utterly guilty for letting Lucas down, but his pride and the line of work he's in doesn't make it possible for him to face that feeling, he must remain stark to be able to save the kingdom yet again, no one on the grid is really allowed to be 'human', cause humans have flaws and only flawless people can save the world. (I admit that Jo and sometimes Ruth give in to their emotions, but I have the feeling it's not welcomed and has to be swepped under the carpet, emotions are to delt with in their private time).
That leads me back to Lucas. I think you really could feel the never ending struggle he had between being an A-class officer, for wich he also had to be stark, cold, emotionless and maybe even unhuman and the part of him that so desperatly wanted to become human again, after being deprived of anything human for 8 years. He almost wasn't allowed to learn to be human again, because that is a traid not welcomed in an MI5-officer, (hence the need to get commands, that way he knew how to act, if he didn't got a command he remained totally helpless because there was no one to teach him humanity on the grid. But that was pointed out in a post above.) I feel like we -the viewers- can understand, in some regards, how utterly destroyed Lucas was as a human and I think this is for the great part thanks to the amazingly detailed and accurate acting of Richard Armitage (like said in posts above).
The whole story arc of Lucas and Harry has indeed been destroyed in S9, and yes I feel cheated, very much!
I very curious to learn more about Lucas' tattoo's, thanks for reinstalling that thread!
Oh and BravoNine, curious to read that fanfic you're refering to here above