[spoilers] Lucas. Just Lucas.

[binkie]

(17-12-2010 12:18 AM)Byatil Wrote:  It's interesting how Lucas is constantly linked to these figures who (to a point) resent society and the various systems within it. Even more so, as the link to Gorky suggests that Lucas befriends people whose beliefs he doesn't necessarily share or agree with.

I like this observation. It's a clever connection to have made I wonder if Lucas' disaffection with prevailing systems is part of the reason he and Ros were able to move so quickly past her appraisal of him in 7.2 as "damaged goods." This largely unspoken, but keenly felt, sense that the world is wrong - and the systems which maintain it are keeping it that way - does appear to be a trait they share.

(17-12-2010 12:18 AM)Byatil Wrote:  On reflection, could this also link to Elizabeta? If she loved him she would have understood?

I have been thinking about this more or less all day! I'm sure my employer would be delighted to learn that I was working on a publication issued under their name while thinking seriously about the motivations of a couple of fictional characters from a piece of TV drama broadcast more than two years ago. Oh well: priorities

The answer is probably more complicated than it seems. Clearly, Elisabeta has concerns for Lucas that go beyond an investment in something (or someone) familiar from a shared past. In 7.3 she notices he has had stitches in his hand. This is a pretty small detail, and one which the camera has made a point of ignoring until she mentions it. We only notice the stitches because Elisabeta does. In 7.5 she tells Lucas not to come to her again for information unless he can "give [her] everything." She almost certainly knows he will not sacrifice his career for her (he has already failed to do so once before), but she is offering him an opportunity to consider the implications of that possibility. I'm not convinced she even really wants to re-establish an emotionally (not necessarily sexually) intimate relationship with Lucas. I think she is precisely clever enough to offer him a deal she knows he will not entertain, and to make the offer in terms that will enable him to feel he has made a choice. I think it is in this little manipulation that she demonstrates her understanding of the reality of the life Lucas kept hidden from her. Understanding, she realises, is not the same as forgiveness, but it can mean somthing like acceptance. Elisabeta accepts the strange reality, but cannot forgive the lie of it. She loves Lucas exactly enough to let him, in effect, leave her, because that is what they both need.