Lucas North Speculation

[binkie]

I’m going to begin with an apology to Byatil, as I do not believe what follows was the intended purpose of this thread.

Discussion here and elsewhere regarding the question of redemption for the character / memory of Lucas has made me very conscious of the potential for considerations of the meaning of identity. I have mentioned before that the writers of season 9 were, in their choice of backstory for this character, presumably keen for viewers to consider existential questions about identity and self-awareness. I think it is interesting, to say the least, that so much of the reaction to the Lucas-is-John development has, instead, tended to focus on the extent to which the story was badly and inconsistently told. This says something about the significance of identity – and the significance of the identity of this character in particular – to an audience. We wanted a better story, or a better version of the story we got, because we felt this is what the character deserved. It is too easy to criticise negative reaction to the Lucas-is-John development as misplaced anguish about the loss of a (cipher) hero. To follow this line of criticism, though, is to miss what is, I think, one of the most urgent trends underlying the reaction: why does it matter so much that it was the identity of this character in particular that was undone? We still refer to him as Lucas. Are we, in doing so, referring also to John and his increasingly desperate and doomed efforts to retain this identity for himself? Are we, in doing so, referring also to the man whose life and career path were taken up by the deception? Are we, in doing so, referring to the idea of Lucas as we understood it from outside the narrative?

I am not interested in a version of the Darwin’s dog argument*. I think the writers of season 9 would like to motivate this discussion, but I also think this is a discussion that has been had many times before within the structure of this show, and the Lucas-is-John development brings little to it that is new. I am interested, though, in the extent to which betrayal and identity converge in the recent treatment of this character. BravoNine ponts out that:

(29-12-2010 04:30 AM)BravoNine Wrote:  ...the unfair part comes from the fact that everyone else who died, even Connie, died for something good. Lucas is the one tossed to the curb. Not that it isn't interesting to watch, but the glaring plot-holes did not help this story any better than making people confused and angry.

Connie’s betrayal was also bound up in notions of identity. Ros makes the point in 7.7 that, while Harry came back from Moscow the same after the Renaissance operation, Connie did not. This is just as much an observation about the relationship between motives and self-awareness as anything suggested by the Lucas-is-John strand. The vital difference between the two is that Connie’s name was Connie. Lucas’ name was, apparently, John. This seems to be a major factor in the failure of season 9 to translate into coherent, emotionally competent, storytelling, and I wonder why this small (huge) thing plays such a significant part in the acceptance of the conclusion. A discussion about the naming of names seems suitably Blake-ist for a Lucas thread.

*In order to raise debate about the nature of morality and the determination of conscious choice, Darwin used the example of a dog diving into a canal to retrieve a drowning man. If the life of the man is saved, Darwin asked, is the moral consequence sufficient to define the action as moral also? He asked the same question in the context of one man diving into a canal to retrieve another who was drowning, and of a man diving into a canal to retrieve a drowning man who owed him money.