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

[Silktie]

Great discussion. I'll pretend I understand what you're talking about and add my two cents.

(25-10-2011 05:40 PM)A Cousin Wrote:  Also, I have been thinking about Harry as the Tragic Hero. (Yeah, that again! ) I have read a couple of mentions of viewers who felt emotionally manipulated by the tragedy of Harry. I did not. At all. In fact, I think that was the point, and a successful one too.

So a couple of questions based on some of Aristotle's ideas in Poetics about what makes a successful tragedy. (Hey! Lookee here - maybe I didn't waste that $40,000 spent on drama school! )

Tragic hero's are supposed to experience anagnorisis, some sort of revelation and/or recognition about human fate and destiny (and the will of the gods in ancient times.) Aristotle quite nicely terms this sort of recognition "a change from ignorance to awareness of a bond of love or hate." Do you think Harry experienced this and why?

I think Harry does experience this. Last season and this season we saw a man fed-up with what the job was asking of him, dreaming of leaving it behind and settling down with Ruth (the proposal, and his repeated proclamations that he's going to resign.) Yet every time he gets drawn back in, or is forced back in, whether by Ruth's refusal to marry him, a national crisis or his past coming back to haunt him. And here, in this final episode, he is at that point again, and for once it seems he will finally get his wish to settle down with Ruth, as she is finally ready to accept him for all that he is, no matter what he's done. Her unconditional support in this episode must have felt like the ultimate freedom, especially linked to her request that he leave the Service and be with her.

But then fate intervenes, and she dies, and her last words to him are that they were never meant to have those normal things. Even after her death he still harbours the illusion of leaving the job behind and going to live in 'her' cottage, but when he stands there in it he realises how empty it would be to do this when she is no longer there, and the truth of her statement that they were never meant to have this hits home. He knows it to be true, and that's his anagnorisis.

Quote: Aristotle mentions that a tragedy should end in catharsis or purification, whether he meant for the character or the viewer is still debated. But most accept that it could be for either or both. I absolutely experienced a catharsis. Did Harry?

Once again, I think he did. By the time he answers that phone, he has made his peace with the fact that this is what he was always meant to do. His catharsis, for me, was losing the doubts he harboured about staying in the job. He is once again fully committed to it.