due South: Benton Fraser
May. 7th, 2004 12:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
butterflyI adore Benton Fraser. Think that he's a great man. He's not at all 'macho'. He's got deep, deep reservoirs of emotion and spiritual energy. He's got enormous amounts of natural power and keeps it on a very short leash most of the time. That impresses me more than the physical (though I won't say that the physical has no effect, as BF is pretty much the idealized version of my perfect guy -- I really go for dark hair and light eyes (edit: well, really, when I say light, I mostly just mean 'blue' or 'green' -- Tom Welling would be another example. Because eye-shade can shift based on so many things -- clothing, weather conditions, etc.) -- it's not the most common look.).
He's a firestorm of emotion, but manages to keep it locked away most of the time. He damps down his natural energies, focuses it all into justice and helping society. All that energy has to go somewhere.
Then Victoria shows up, and we see the leash slip. Benton Fraser is intensely loyal. That's what made him find his father's killer and that's what made him not look for Victoria.
Because if anyone could find her, it would be Ben. And he never looked, never even seemed to think about going after her to bring her in. He told her that he should have let her go and he's abiding by his decision. She's gone and so he will let her go -- he won't chase her this time.
But it was a lesson about trust -- he doesn't trust his heart to make smart decisions. It's only later, in Seasons Three and Four, that we see him learn how to trust his heart again. And I'm not just talking about trusting Ray but about not trusting Denny. In Bounty Hunter, we see Fraser's loneliness laid bare. In Mountie on the Bounty, we see him bend and trust. Fraser is not good at trusting people -- he's very good at getting people to do what he wants and that's far from the same thing.
He tells people frequently that they can trust him, but rarely reciprocates that trust. He's disappointed but rarely surprised when other people back down, when they betray him or don't go as far as he would.
Something that RayK says in The Ladies Man sometimes comes to mind when I think of Fraser -- "This is not about neatness, Fraser. This is about the -- the nut, the bone core of what keeps the city ticking. Little things. You don't chuck stuff in the street. You stop at a red light, you go at a green light. I mean, if you cannot agree on the little things, I mean how are you gonna manage the big stuff?"
Fraser does the 'little things', the rules of society, to bind him to society. He's well aware that courtesy gets you far. A smile and a 'thank you' can be more useful than a fist, and it'll keep working on the same person. I don't mean to imply that Fraser employs his politeness cold-heartedly, but he is aware of the effects. Fraser has a very elaborate persona in place, all politeness and obliviousness, but all personas do come from the person, some more than others. He exaggerates some of his natural tendencies while damping down others.
The polite persona is just as much 'Fraser' as the snarky Fraser, and the Fraser who can throw a knife next to someone to shut them up. They're all Fraser, but some of them are more constructed, more planned than others.
And I find them all fascinating.
Edit: brief thought on a different subject -- one day I must get the dS dvds because I need to screencap the scenes where Fraser sees Victoria in VS and RayV in CotW. I can't ever see them at the exact same time, but watching them close together confirms that it's a very similar vibe. That look on Fraser's face.
He's a firestorm of emotion, but manages to keep it locked away most of the time. He damps down his natural energies, focuses it all into justice and helping society. All that energy has to go somewhere.
Then Victoria shows up, and we see the leash slip. Benton Fraser is intensely loyal. That's what made him find his father's killer and that's what made him not look for Victoria.
Because if anyone could find her, it would be Ben. And he never looked, never even seemed to think about going after her to bring her in. He told her that he should have let her go and he's abiding by his decision. She's gone and so he will let her go -- he won't chase her this time.
But it was a lesson about trust -- he doesn't trust his heart to make smart decisions. It's only later, in Seasons Three and Four, that we see him learn how to trust his heart again. And I'm not just talking about trusting Ray but about not trusting Denny. In Bounty Hunter, we see Fraser's loneliness laid bare. In Mountie on the Bounty, we see him bend and trust. Fraser is not good at trusting people -- he's very good at getting people to do what he wants and that's far from the same thing.
He tells people frequently that they can trust him, but rarely reciprocates that trust. He's disappointed but rarely surprised when other people back down, when they betray him or don't go as far as he would.
Something that RayK says in The Ladies Man sometimes comes to mind when I think of Fraser -- "This is not about neatness, Fraser. This is about the -- the nut, the bone core of what keeps the city ticking. Little things. You don't chuck stuff in the street. You stop at a red light, you go at a green light. I mean, if you cannot agree on the little things, I mean how are you gonna manage the big stuff?"
Fraser does the 'little things', the rules of society, to bind him to society. He's well aware that courtesy gets you far. A smile and a 'thank you' can be more useful than a fist, and it'll keep working on the same person. I don't mean to imply that Fraser employs his politeness cold-heartedly, but he is aware of the effects. Fraser has a very elaborate persona in place, all politeness and obliviousness, but all personas do come from the person, some more than others. He exaggerates some of his natural tendencies while damping down others.
The polite persona is just as much 'Fraser' as the snarky Fraser, and the Fraser who can throw a knife next to someone to shut them up. They're all Fraser, but some of them are more constructed, more planned than others.
And I find them all fascinating.
Edit: brief thought on a different subject -- one day I must get the dS dvds because I need to screencap the scenes where Fraser sees Victoria in VS and RayV in CotW. I can't ever see them at the exact same time, but watching them close together confirms that it's a very similar vibe. That look on Fraser's face.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-05-07 08:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-05-07 08:44 pm (UTC)Still, while Paul Gross may have deep blue eyes (Cobalt? Really? God, that's a gorgeous color. I love cobalt. Also? Ten feet away? I'm so jealous.), Fraser's eyes are definitely light in color most of the time.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-05-07 11:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-05-08 06:07 am (UTC)Ooo. Where? Would I be able to spot you? That's so amazingly cool. Was it amazingly cool? Is he that pretty from ten feet away?
(no subject)
Date: 2004-05-08 11:30 am (UTC)He's even prettier that close, but he was really busy and a bit tense (last days of shooting) so I didn't even try to go up and say hello. But he flirts marvelously.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-05-08 11:34 am (UTC)Wow. Wow, wow. Being freakin' cold ten feet away from Paul Gross who is even prettier in person (*tries to imagine*). That's so... wow. Very, very neat.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-05-07 08:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-05-07 09:07 pm (UTC)Ah, here's a good example -- cobalt something or other (http://www.oldcowstailantiques.com/images/cobalt.jpg).
(no subject)
Date: 2004-05-07 11:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-05-07 11:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-05-08 12:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-05-07 11:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-05-08 06:05 am (UTC)Timeage?
(no subject)
Date: 2004-05-08 06:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-05-08 11:31 am (UTC)