[spoilers] Lucas. Just Lucas.

[binkie]

Right, so I’m a bit late to this discussion (curse you, Real Life!!), but I’m lurching in anyway, because this is a properly absorbing subject. I’m going to be tiresomely analytical on some of the little details. I don’t do this to offend anyone, or to be needlessly difficult: it’s just the way my brain works. I’m sorry if anyone is annoyed by what follows.

(14-01-2011 05:25 AM)BravoNine Wrote:  ...I always thought that Lucas's relationship with Sarah and his willingness to continue to be with her and love her stemmed from this need to be loved, feel loved, and feel like he could achieve something and be useful and important in someone's eyes.

There is something in this ^^ that I have been thinking about for a while, but I have never known quite where to include it. We have talked a lot in various Lucas-centric threads about the extent to which the character’s experience of prison has lead to his becoming and being the person we first meet at the spy swap. We have tended to concentrate mainly on Lucas’ own self-determining actions and processes – the ways in which he relates his experience to the person he has been and to the person he has become. We have spent much less time talking about the extent to which the Lucas we meet in 7.1 has been brought into being by the actions and reactions of others. How much of Lucas is his own expression of intent; and how much is the result of his responses and reactions to the intent of others?

When we look into the eyes of another person, we are seeing them seeing us – we are seeing an expression of that person’s assessment and contextualisation of us. Lucas has spent eight years as a reflection of expressions of manipulation, aggression, dismissal, disgust, condescension and pity. I wonder whether he pursues a relationship with Sarah not because he wants or needs to be loved, but because he needs to have someone look at him as though he is capable of being loved. The expression on his face in 8.4 when he sees Sarah seeing him at the water tower – when he sees her seeing him as a victim and an object of horror and pity – is a devastating mixture of self-disgust, disappointment, apology and resignation. He knows Sarah can never now look at him again as anything other than what he has been to Oleg. This is, I know, a return to what I have written before about the difference between Lucas wanting something and wanting to want something, but I do think this is an important distinction to make in respect of this character in the context of his recent experience.

(14-01-2011 10:48 PM)Byatil Wrote:  It seems that Lucas holds more value in a physical relationship than anything else; his relationships with Sarah and Maya were rather superficial. This would make sense in terms of his time in Russia, where the only physical contact he would have had would supposedly have been the unpleasant kind.

Similarly, it is, I think, important to consider Lucas’ pursuit of physical relationships in terms not only of what he did experience in prison, but also in terms of what he did not experience. If we take the rather simplistic view that a person in a state of being in time is analogous to a vessel, we must consider more than what is in the vessel: we need also to consider what has been removed from the vessel, and what has never been in the vessel. Knowledge of all these conditions and values (presence, removal and absence) constitute facets of the experience of being this specific vessel. Certainly, Lucas’ experience of physical contact of one kind (torture) while in prison is vital to an appreciation of his character, but so is his correlated lack of physical contact of another kind (sex). Spooks was criticised in some quarters for a perceived failure to engage with the question of the consequences for Lucas of having been denied a sexual relationship (though not necessarily sexual activity) for eight years. His willingness to throw himself into “rather superficial” physical relationships is, it seems to me, evidence that the production has given this question at least some thought.

(14-01-2011 10:48 PM)Byatil Wrote:  So then why is he so keen to brush Ros off whenever she attempts to talk to him?

I’m not sure that Lucas is giving Ros the brush-off, in the sense that I see no significance in the fact that it is Ros in particular whom he is shutting out. He would have the same response to any other person on The Grid asking him about Oleg, or making comments about Sarah. Part of what is so interesting about the relationship between Lucas and Ros is their mutual disinterest in emotional exchange. This is not to suggest that either character is dispassionate or incapable of making emotional connections. Rather, they are content to have found in one another someone who, in the sustenance of their relationship, makes no demands in these terms. It is, paradoxically, this shared acceptance of emotional distance which makes their relationship so immediately companionable and so emotionally satisfying. Ros has genuine concern for Lucas’ wellbeing because she knows what it is like to be tortured and to feel like a traitor for wanting it to stop. When she asks him, in 7.8, if he is alright, she does so because she recognises the immense implications for him of realising (accepting) that he has been wrong in the certainty which has allowed him to retain focus in the face of something which might otherwise easily have overwhelmed him. When she watches him, in 8.4, walking across the marshes to meet Oleg, she unconsciously gentles the binoculars as she consciously withdraws what she understands to be an intrusive gaze from a scene of which she has no business being part. She wants to make this right, she wants to be sure of Lucas’ resilience, but she recognises that he is alone as he approaches the tower because he needs to be. Ros is inside Lucas’ head to a far greater extent than almost anyone else on The Grid. Crucially, though, she has the good grace not to press the issue.

(14-01-2011 10:48 PM)Byatil Wrote:  Apologies to drag S9 back into the discussion, but it seems to me that Vaughn represents one of Lucas' major weaknesses; he knows something that Lucas doesn't want other people to know. He has suddenly completely lost control of that part of his life, when he has been so careful to never reveal more than he needs to.

Ha ha! There is something undeniably curious about a show its own audience feels the need to apologise for, while at the same time remaining so committed to (most of) its content. It would be so liberating to be able to analyse the contributions of knowing and the control of what is known in relation to Lucas-is-John. But... [insert own reiteration of narrative dysfunction]. Perhaps season 10 will throw us a structural bone as far as this goes. And perhaps it won’t. My (non-existent) money is on the latter.

(14-01-2011 10:48 PM)Byatil Wrote:  Lucas seems to place more trust in women than he does men...

This is a really provocative insight with enormous potential for further consideration. What prompted your initial observation? Do you have a theory to explain the gender element in Lucas’ complex concerns about trust?