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Oct. 25th, 2003 11:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
katallisonIt's not like I don't have a metric ton of stuff I need to be doing today, but ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shellmidwife, drat her, is propagating a highly infectious meme that apparently originated in sparkly fandom--"Twenty Reasons I Love Character X"--and led me to ponder on
Twenty Reasons I Love Benton Fraser:
1. He is a freak. And he is almost wholly unselfconcious about, and unashamed of, his freakishness.
2. He is smart. I mean, *so* very smart.
3. In particular, though at times he dissembles about it, he's very smart about people. He knows who he can trust, and he knows how to manipulate and mindfuck when need be.
4. His beautiful, gentle empathy, especially with his fellow freaks. Bruce Spender. Eloise what's-her-name. The great care he shows in general for others' feelings, if not always for their physical safety. *g*
5. His refusal to give up on people, even when he should. I remain convinced that the real reason he ran after the train is that he'd never given up on the belief that Victoria was redeemable, that he could and should salvage her. Even after she'd shot his dog, killed her own partner, tried to get him and Vecchio sent to jail, and pointed a gun in his face twice. This frustrates me about him, but it's a beautiful thing.
6. His bone-deep attachment to the north is also a beautiful thing. He is attuned to place, in a way few TV characters are.
7. His stealth snark. Especially evident when he talks to his dad and Dief, but also with both Rays.
8. His potential for violence, which we don't see that often, and is all the more powerful for its rarity, and the sense of how tightly leashed he must keep it most of the time. The boot in Gerrard's chest. The knife-throwing. The "whoopsie, dropped you!" moment when dangling Lady Shoes out the window.
9. His adherence to his principles, even when they are patently crazy and dangerous to self and others (e.g., Good for the Soul), or when they alienate those closest to him (e.g., Juliet is Bleeding).
10. His willingness to accept the consequences of his actions and decisions, without second-guessing or whining (again, e.g. GftS, or any other episode where he gets beat up). He doesn't do self-pity.
11. His streak of vanity. Listen, there's no other explanation for his wearing those uber-tight jeans; he *knows* how fine-looking he is.
12. Um, the way he looks in those uber-tight jeans, especially with the leather jacket as well. It certainly constitutes a separate item worthy of note.
13. His capacity for solitude, autonomy, and loneliness.
14. The fact that he is willing to look like a big overly-earnest dork by taking things seriously; the fact that he has no need to be cool. His lack of embarrassment about his uncoolness.
15. The way in which his willingness to put both Ray's lives at risk in wildly bizarre ways grows out of (to me) a deep respect for them, a refusal to patronize or coddle, an understanding that they need to be his equals. (Of course, at times he needs to be smacked upside the head about this, e.g. Mountie on the Bounty.)
16. Related to #5, his assumption that there is good in everyone; his steadfast willingness to reach out to that good, to keep expecting it, and hence the way he elicits it almost against others' wills (e.g., in the Pilot, the way the panhandler tracks him down to return the money).
17. And again in a related vein, the way he brings out in both Rays capacities and largenesses of spirit they didn't know they had.
18. The utter ease with which he accepts others' quirks and peculiarities. "Ah." Just that.
19. His old apartment. The tin plate, the bare wooden table, the window you have to prop open with a stick. For whatever reason, that makes me all sniffly.
20. His absolute clarity about who he is and what he's doing on the planet, and his acceptance of that knowledge. In general, I dig existential-crisis guys, but Fraser is the big exception; he's the antithesis of existential crisis. He has a 19th-century certainty about who and what he is, and a philosophical/ethical system in which all his actions make sense, and he never really wishes himself otherwise. He's a glorious anachronism for us nervous moderns.
shellmidwife, drat her, is propagating a highly infectious meme that apparently originated in sparkly fandom--"Twenty Reasons I Love Character X"--and led me to ponder on Twenty Reasons I Love Benton Fraser:
1. He is a freak. And he is almost wholly unselfconcious about, and unashamed of, his freakishness.
2. He is smart. I mean, *so* very smart.
3. In particular, though at times he dissembles about it, he's very smart about people. He knows who he can trust, and he knows how to manipulate and mindfuck when need be.
4. His beautiful, gentle empathy, especially with his fellow freaks. Bruce Spender. Eloise what's-her-name. The great care he shows in general for others' feelings, if not always for their physical safety. *g*
5. His refusal to give up on people, even when he should. I remain convinced that the real reason he ran after the train is that he'd never given up on the belief that Victoria was redeemable, that he could and should salvage her. Even after she'd shot his dog, killed her own partner, tried to get him and Vecchio sent to jail, and pointed a gun in his face twice. This frustrates me about him, but it's a beautiful thing.
6. His bone-deep attachment to the north is also a beautiful thing. He is attuned to place, in a way few TV characters are.
7. His stealth snark. Especially evident when he talks to his dad and Dief, but also with both Rays.
8. His potential for violence, which we don't see that often, and is all the more powerful for its rarity, and the sense of how tightly leashed he must keep it most of the time. The boot in Gerrard's chest. The knife-throwing. The "whoopsie, dropped you!" moment when dangling Lady Shoes out the window.
9. His adherence to his principles, even when they are patently crazy and dangerous to self and others (e.g., Good for the Soul), or when they alienate those closest to him (e.g., Juliet is Bleeding).
10. His willingness to accept the consequences of his actions and decisions, without second-guessing or whining (again, e.g. GftS, or any other episode where he gets beat up). He doesn't do self-pity.
11. His streak of vanity. Listen, there's no other explanation for his wearing those uber-tight jeans; he *knows* how fine-looking he is.
12. Um, the way he looks in those uber-tight jeans, especially with the leather jacket as well. It certainly constitutes a separate item worthy of note.
13. His capacity for solitude, autonomy, and loneliness.
14. The fact that he is willing to look like a big overly-earnest dork by taking things seriously; the fact that he has no need to be cool. His lack of embarrassment about his uncoolness.
15. The way in which his willingness to put both Ray's lives at risk in wildly bizarre ways grows out of (to me) a deep respect for them, a refusal to patronize or coddle, an understanding that they need to be his equals. (Of course, at times he needs to be smacked upside the head about this, e.g. Mountie on the Bounty.)
16. Related to #5, his assumption that there is good in everyone; his steadfast willingness to reach out to that good, to keep expecting it, and hence the way he elicits it almost against others' wills (e.g., in the Pilot, the way the panhandler tracks him down to return the money).
17. And again in a related vein, the way he brings out in both Rays capacities and largenesses of spirit they didn't know they had.
18. The utter ease with which he accepts others' quirks and peculiarities. "Ah." Just that.
19. His old apartment. The tin plate, the bare wooden table, the window you have to prop open with a stick. For whatever reason, that makes me all sniffly.
20. His absolute clarity about who he is and what he's doing on the planet, and his acceptance of that knowledge. In general, I dig existential-crisis guys, but Fraser is the big exception; he's the antithesis of existential crisis. He has a 19th-century certainty about who and what he is, and a philosophical/ethical system in which all his actions make sense, and he never really wishes himself otherwise. He's a glorious anachronism for us nervous moderns.
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(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-25 12:07 pm (UTC)On number 12, I can only say (say it with me) "Witness". In the "stealing the Butterfinger" scene. How did that ever get past the network censors? *G* But I'm so glad it did. Whenever that scene comes up, I think I've misremembered and "it's not really going to be that blatant" but then it always is. Num!
And if you read number 13 really fast? The words "solitude, autonomy" morph right into "sodomy", which is also one of his capacities. *G*