[spoilers] Sir Harry Pearce - Return of the Jedi (#3)

[Silktie]

Ooh, interesting discussion. For me, Harry is very much a product of his environment. His murky moral view of the world has been shaped by spending more than thirty years of his life serving a master (the British state) that has often demanded of him to do reprehensible things. He serves a state that can order him to blow up a train full of civilians in another country, or to have one of his men (Danny) assassinate a scientist that was producing a biological weapon, for instance. He lives in a world where you can't rely on the system to deliver justice for wrongs done, and where you are fighting an enemy that sometimes only understand one language - blood for blood, in Harry's own words.

Interestingly, I don't think it is only in the later seasons that Harry shows this tendency of delivering summary justice. Remember how he had Helen's killer taken care of in season 1, even after he was ordered not to do so? And he tells Johnny Cash, also in season 1, that he always does his own dirty work.

As was said above, he judges his own and other people's actions against one yard-stick: whether it is for the good of the country. He justifies Kachimov's killing as a message to the Russians in the only language they'll understand - blood for blood. He sees it as a graphic illustration to an enemy of Britain that you can't attempt to blow up scores of innocent people on Britain's streets and expect not to be held accountable for it. The same with Blake. In the same manner, he accepts that Blake has the right to order his and his team's assassination in order to safeguard the interests and safety of the state. He lives by the same rules he demands of others.

Does he have the right to do so under the real world's accepted moral guidelines? Absolutely not. But is it acceptable within the rules of the Spooks world as it has been presented to us from day one? Yes. I think that is why so many people have no problem with the questionable things Harry does; we got to know him in a world where normal moral guidelines don't apply, and where the difference between 'good' and 'bad' is broadly defined according to what is done in the name of protecting the state and its people, and what is not.