(07-03-2011 07:42 PM)DogSoSmall Wrote:  I think Harry's line about betrayal is brilliant and completely apposite. He is saying it as he hands Lucas back his gun, don't forget. I have alway thought that he is saying to Lucas that he is going to trust him to stick to his word and do the right thing and bring Vaughn in, and that if Lucas chooses to betray his trust it will be on Lucas's conscience, not Harry's.

Harry has been betrayed before by members of his team - by Tessa, Tom, Beth, Connie - to name but a few. He could easily go down the route of ceasing to trust anyone. If he allowed the betrayals to eat away at his soul, he would not be able to continue functioning. He has to be able to trust that his team are as loyal as he is himself so that they can work as a single unit. He is a brilliant leader, as by showing his team that he trusts them implicitly he encourages them to live up to his expectations. If they don't, and they betray him, he knows that it will be them that suffers the consequences in their soul. And that shows some wisdom on Harry's part as that is of course what happens - Lucas cannot cope with the choices he has made and he kills himself. Harry has trusted him and believed him and tried to persuade him to come back and however much he may torture himself that he should have done more, his aim has never been to deliberately betray a member of his team.

That line did initially annoy me (seemed a tad melodramatic... I dislike lines that make me cringe inwardly a little) but I love your interpretation of it. It's true; Harry does continue to place his trust in people. Not necessarily because he wants to, but rather because he has to. His team would crumble and fall-apart without trust, as S9 has so aptly proved.

(07-03-2011 07:54 PM)binkie Wrote:  I'm still in an unforgiving mood on this storyline generally (I don't know if you can tell ), but at least now I can be incrementally less annoyed at Harry!

Then my job here is done! (But I do agree with you about the Lucas/John storyline in general).

Out of interest, was it ever explained exactly how Lucas managed to evade being murdered by the Russians after Katchimov was disposed of in 7.2? I'm assuming they all knew of this "double-agent" status, and after going to such lengths to retain the visage of a double-agent, it seems strange that they wouldn't want to exact revenge on him after the death of Katchimov? Apologies if this has been explained somewhere and I'm just being dense xD

(07-03-2011 08:10 PM)Byatil Wrote:  Out of interest, was it ever explained exactly how Lucas managed to evade being murdered by the Russians after Katchimov was disposed of in 7.2? I'm assuming they all knew of this "double-agent" status, and after going to such lengths to retain the visage of a double-agent, it seems strange that they wouldn't want to exact revenge on him after the death of Katchimov? Apologies if this has been explained somewhere and I'm just being dense xD

I understood that they made the Russians believe that Lucas was still their 'agent in place in MI5', as this allowed Lucas to continue meeting and debriefing Elizabeta, who was now MI5's 'agent in place in the FSB'.

If that makes sense.

(07-03-2011 08:07 PM)Byatil Wrote:  

(07-03-2011 07:42 PM)DogSoSmall Wrote:  I think Harry's line about betrayal is brilliant and completely apposite. He is saying it as he hands Lucas back his gun, don't forget. I have alway thought that he is saying to Lucas that he is going to trust him to stick to his word and do the right thing and bring Vaughn in, and that if Lucas chooses to betray his trust it will be on Lucas's conscience, not Harry's.

Harry has been betrayed before by members of his team - by Tessa, Tom, Beth, Connie - to name but a few. He could easily go down the route of ceasing to trust anyone. If he allowed the betrayals to eat away at his soul, he would not be able to continue functioning. He has to be able to trust that his team are as loyal as he is himself so that they can work as a single unit. He is a brilliant leader, as by showing his team that he trusts them implicitly he encourages them to live up to his expectations. If they don't, and they betray him, he knows that it will be them that suffers the consequences in their soul. And that shows some wisdom on Harry's part as that is of course what happens - Lucas cannot cope with the choices he has made and he kills himself. Harry has trusted him and believed him and tried to persuade him to come back and however much he may torture himself that he should have done more, his aim has never been to deliberately betray a member of his team.

That line did initially annoy me (seemed a tad melodramatic... I dislike lines that make me cringe inwardly a little) but I love your interpretation of it. It's true; Harry does continue to place his trust in people. Not necessarily because he wants to, but rather because he has to. His team would crumble and fall-apart without trust, as S9 has so aptly proved.

I never thought about the quote in this context before so thanks I will rewatch that scene with your explanation in mind and maybe I'll be less harsh on Harry

I will always have a double feeling with that quote; I totaly agree with what DogSoSmall and Byatil wrote about the fact that Harry, no matter what, must keep his trust in his agents or that it would be impossible to work as a well-oiled machine and that Harry's decision to let Lucas find his 'redemption' is admirable; but there's always that little voice in the back of my head that points out that it was Lucas who felt/was betrayed by Harry first, by leaving him to rot in Russia, and that Harry really isn't entitled to make that comment (in Lucas' mind, anyway).
I don't understand: in previous episodes we saw Lucas craving for Harry's trust and the moment he somewhat gets it, he throws it away. What does this mean: that Harry waited too long to show his 'trust' to Lucas and that Lucas was not needing it anymore (which I personally find very hard to believe)?
Does this quote means that Harry doesn't think he has let Lucas down, that he doesn't see the damage those eight years have done to his agent? Or that he conveniently 'forgot' the guilt he obviously felt in S7, ep1? I agree that he must move on, that he can't dwell too long over that feeling of guilt, but it seems that when he says: '... let it eat your soul, not mine' that he lets Lucas down, once again, by minimalizing the blame Lucas has put on him.

I'm sorry if this, again, doesn't make any sense, but I can't seem to get my head arround the evolutions in S9, I don't understand how the characters react towards each other (but, then again, I don't understand the way some people react in real life, too, so it probably has to do with me )

(08-03-2011 09:56 AM)Belle Wrote:  I agree that he must move on, that he can't dwell too long over that feeling of guilt, but it seems that when he says: '... let it eat your soul, not mine' that he lets Lucas down, once again, by minimalizing the blame Lucas has put on him.

That's my feeling about that line. I felt the line was a betrayal of Lucas by Harry as much as the other way round at worst or an indication of Harry's lack of empathy in the case of Lucas and prison at best. By never addressing the insecurities Lucas had around Russia and prison and by ignoring them, he denied those feelings validity and I always got the impression that this was always going to come back to bite Harry even in seven and eight. I feel that the above posts make things clearer and easier to accept though

Was I the only one who found myself thinking towards the end of series nine, 'If Ros were still alive this would NEVER EVER have happened?' She would have sorted out Harry and Lucas in ten seconds flat

(08-03-2011 06:33 AM)Silktie Wrote:  

(07-03-2011 08:10 PM)Byatil Wrote:  Out of interest, was it ever explained exactly how Lucas managed to evade being murdered by the Russians after Katchimov was disposed of in 7.2? I'm assuming they all knew of this "double-agent" status, and after going to such lengths to retain the visage of a double-agent, it seems strange that they wouldn't want to exact revenge on him after the death of Katchimov? Apologies if this has been explained somewhere and I'm just being dense xD

I understood that they made the Russians believe that Lucas was still their 'agent in place in MI5', as this allowed Lucas to continue meeting and debriefing Elizabeta, who was now MI5's 'agent in place in the FSB'.

If that makes sense.

So Lucas was still expected to report back to the FSB, or...? I'm slightly confused as to how he got out of that one o.o It seems that once Arkady was dead, no-one from the FSB was interested in Lucas any more, which is odd considering that you would assume he'd be useful to them.

The idea of Lucas still being a double agent for the FSB did seem to get overlooked as series 7 progressed. As far as I remember he proved he was still an FSB agent by pretending to blow up the restaurant in 7.4. After that I don't remember it being mentioned again. Maybe the FSB realised that Lucas wasn't their agent but couldn't kill him without causing retaliation from MI5 on their own agents in London.

(08-03-2011 04:19 PM)HellsBells Wrote:  The idea of Lucas still being a double agent for the FSB did seem to get overlooked as series 7 progressed. As far as I remember he proved he was still an FSB agent by pretending to blow up the restaurant in 7.4. After that I don't remember it being mentioned again. Maybe the FSB realised that Lucas wasn't their agent but couldn't kill him without causing retaliation from MI5 on their own agents in London.

Yeah, that's what I mean. After he manages to convince them he's still a double-agent, why is he not expected to report back to them? At this point, do the FSB believe him to be a sleeper or something?