[Spoilers] Sir Harry Pearce

[Silktie]

(05-12-2009 06:09 PM)JHyde Wrote:  I'm not sure it's necessarily as the show has progressed - I don't think Harry was exactly caring and sharing in season 6, for example.

I think part of it is that he's still finding his feet with this new team. Lucas hasn't really been back more than six months in real time (at best), Ros has a lot to deal with and she's never been a soft touch, he's inevitably gentle with Ruth by and large not least because of the events of 8.1.

He's sad and old and lonely and the body count just keeps getting higher. And however much we'd like to see it, I'd be surprised if Harry could ever really retire.

These are good points, but I do think the fact that he was forced to live through a mock-execution in 8.1 has had an impact on him. We tend to focus only on what happened with Ruth in 8.1, forgetting that Harry himself probably thought he was going to be executed, only to live through that and then having to sit on that chair for who knows how long, waiting for them to start torturing him and eventually kill him. That has to leave some emotional scars. The way he asked Malcolm whether he had a poem picked out for Harry's memorial is an indication of his emotional turmoil over what happened.