due South: Friends and Partners
Apr. 17th, 2004 04:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
butterfly*Brief name-related note:
Fraser always introduces himself as Benton or Benton Fraser, not as Ben or as Fraser. People who knew him from before or outside of work usually call him Ben (Mark, Quinn, his dad -- who occasionally uses 'Benton'). Buck Frobisher, Smithers (Mountie on the Bounty), and Muldoon (Call of the Wild) call him Benton. After the initial introduction, Ray Vecchio almost never calls him Benton (with a couple of exceptions), just Benny or Fraser. Frannie calls him 'Benton' before she starts working at the station, then she switches to 'Fraser' most of the time. Both Welsh and Frannie have been known to shorten 'Fraser' to 'Frase'. Ray Kowalski almost always uses 'Fraser' -- he used 'Benton-buddy' once and occasionally introduces Fraser to other people as 'Benton Fraser' like RayV did.
Now, Fraser never made a big deal out of being partners with Ray Vecchio -- to him, it was about friendship. Fraser was exiled in Chicago and Ray had helped him, so there was a bond. In all the Vecchio episodes, only three times are they referred to as partners (Ray called Benny his partner while undercover as car salesmen in that one episode where they went undercover as car salesmen, then in A Cop, A Mountie, and a Baby he says that they are partners. Also, Bob Fraser, who has a thing about partnership anyway, calls Ray Fraser's partner once. Vecchio implies partnership in They Eat Horses, Don't They, but it's clear that the primary relationship is one of friendship). When he's telling Fraser about their relationship in Flashback, it's about friendship. When Vecchio leaves in Burning Down the House, it's 'as a friend'.
But the first time that Ray Kowalski meets Fraser, it's as a partner. His goal from the beginning is to get Fraser to recognize him as a partner -- which he never technically was with Vecchio, which he and Vecchio didn't even think of themselves as, since they were friends first. So, Ray reads the files, sees how close Fraser and RayV are, gets told 'partners' and runs with it.
Ray: "Think about it. Lenon and McCartney, Leopold and Loeb, The Three Stooges. Strictly speaking, they were a trio, but in my opinion they should have dropped Larry right from the start because you could see the guy he just was not committed to it. Anyway, I think you know what I'm talking about."
Fraser: "No, I'm sorry, I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about."
Ray: "Partners, Fraser. Partners..."
- Burning Down the House
And in the next episode, Fraser picks up the 'partner' thread and entwines it into the fabric of their relationship. He uses the word in reference to the dreamcatcher and then directly to Ray. It's possible that he was thinking of Ray Vecchio the first time... except he thinks of Ray as first his friend. Not once from the Pilot to Flashback does Fraser refer to Ray Vecchio as his partner. (yay for the 'find' shortcut). If he'd been telling the story to Ray Vecchio, I think that he would have chosen the word 'friend' over 'partner'.
And then later (and this is telling, considering how it ends), he uses the word 'partner' to mean someone in a lifelong bond (and does so with absolutely no pronouns). He uses it to mean that, and then later in that same conversation tells Ray that he would be proud to call Ray his partner and friend. Friend is actually the sticking point, because with RayK and Fraser, they do click as partners -- they work exceedingly well together, even when they're both completely confused about where the other guy is coming from. Their partnership is instinctive and snaps into being the same day that they meet.
Ray introduces Fraser to people as his partner (Strange Bedfellows) while Ray Vecchio sometimes introduced him... god, he called him 'Benny Fraser'. To other people. He introduced him as 'Benny' (Some Like it Red). Which is painful for me to read, let alone hear. The many, many ways in which I hate Fraser being called 'Benny' are... well, they are too many to list and go with "he fucking goes by Ray" and "it is not pronounced 'fra-sier'" under "getting people's names right is a mark of respect, of which you are showing none".
Right. Sorry. Anyway, Ray introduces Fraser as his partner, starting in Strange Bedfellows. Later in the same episode, Fraser tells Stella that Ray is his partner and friend (and therefore he has faith in him! *happy sigh*) and asks his father how to help Ray in the context of them being partners. Which is, I would like to note, something that he never did with Ray Vecchio. Ray Vecchio is his friend, probably his best friend after Diefenbaker, so it probably feels more natural to call this new man 'partner' to further separate them.
In Mountie and Soul, Ray asks Fraser to confirm that they are, indeed friends and partners. Again, note that to friends, Fraser answers, "Sure" but to partners, he says, "Absolutely", which is a huge step up in emphasis. Sure, they're friends, but they are absolutely partners. Completely and without qualification. In Spy vs Spy, Pike refers to Ray as Fraser's partner and this would be the appearance of Ray's famous, "Partners means sharing."
And that spins a new twist into things. In Asylum, Fraser again reassures Ray by telling him that he knows that Ray, his partner and friend, would not be capable of killing Volpe. In Perfect Strangers, it's Thatcher's use of the word 'partner' to refer to Fraser that sets off Fraser's dad onto the matchmaking track. To him (and to Fraser), partners seems to lead to romance (which is interesting, considering the Buck Frobisher thing).
In Mountie on the Bounty, Fraser asks about the partnership and it's the partnership that's in jeopardy. Then, Bob Fraser makes the famous "Partnership is like a marriage" speech, which again throws that new wrinkle into things. Partnership is a marriage, is sharing, is a duet, is two people moving as one. Fraser calls Ray his partner when speaking of him to the crooks. "He's my partner. I have to try." Ray Kowalski is Benton Fraser's partner and I do have to wonder if he's ever had one before. He doesn't know how to handle it, how to settle into a partnership. Friendship he wasn't great at, but he wasn't controlling and niggling to the point of violence, either. Partnership is an intense thing. And it's always the partnership that's mentioned in Mountie on the Bounty. That's what is scaring Fraser, what he's afraid of losing. Not Ray's friendship, but Ray as his partner.
And in Mountie on the Bounty, he finally gets what Ray has been telling him -- it's a duet. It's about sharing and trusting. Partnership is like a marriage and Fraser accepts that and all that it means. "I have a partner that should be showing up just about now." The word 'friend' is used twice in reference to Ray and Fraser in MotB. 'Partner' is used nine times.
Then, they don't say it again -- they don't need to, because from MotB to CotW, there are no questions about the status of their partnership. Then Vecchio comes back, and once more, Ray asks for that reassurance -- but only as partners, not as friends. "So what, are we still partners?"
And Bob Fraser again compares partnership to a marriage, but this time to a very specific marriage: his and Caroline's.
Bob: "I pushed on through the cold and the pain. Kept each other going."
Fraser: "Because that's what partnership is all about."
No matter what. Partners keep each other going through the cold and the pain. They are each other's light in the darkness. With Ray around, Fraser is no longer in a candle-lit room, praying for release from loneliness.
Then, when they reach the camp, Ray tells Fraser that he'd understand it if Fraser partnered up with Ray Vecchio. But to Fraser, there is no question of that happening. Ray Vecchio is his friend, Ray Kowalski is his partner. No matter what the circumstances, Fraser knows who his partner is.
Then, at the very end of Call of the Wild, Fraser calls Ray Vecchio 'my old partner'. The only time he ever calls him a partner and it's firmly in the past tense. And he's with Ray, his Ray, setting off on their adventure.
There's an interesting formality in the way Fraser closes off the series. In his second-to-last lines, he makes a point of noting both that Ray's birth name is Stanley Kowalski and that he calls him 'Ray' ('we set off, Ray and I, on an adventure').
When we meet Fraser, he's alone, partnerless. We never hear of him having had a partner. Not once. That's... heartbreaking, really. That either he didn't or that they made so little impact as to leave the word 'partner' lying fallow in his vocabulary until Ray Kowalski jumpstarts it. We also never hear of him having friends from after his childhood. Again, that's tragic. So, he needed to embrace the concept of friendship -- and that was Ray Vecchio. Then, he could learn about true partnership. The kind that's like a marriage.
Trusting, sharing, and always knowing who your partner is.
When we meet Fraser, he's not just alone, he's lonely. When we leave him, he's with someone he trusts, shares with, and knows to his bones who he belongs with. And that's a pretty big change. Enough to make the southern detour worthwhile.
Fraser always introduces himself as Benton or Benton Fraser, not as Ben or as Fraser. People who knew him from before or outside of work usually call him Ben (Mark, Quinn, his dad -- who occasionally uses 'Benton'). Buck Frobisher, Smithers (Mountie on the Bounty), and Muldoon (Call of the Wild) call him Benton. After the initial introduction, Ray Vecchio almost never calls him Benton (with a couple of exceptions), just Benny or Fraser. Frannie calls him 'Benton' before she starts working at the station, then she switches to 'Fraser' most of the time. Both Welsh and Frannie have been known to shorten 'Fraser' to 'Frase'. Ray Kowalski almost always uses 'Fraser' -- he used 'Benton-buddy' once and occasionally introduces Fraser to other people as 'Benton Fraser' like RayV did.
Now, Fraser never made a big deal out of being partners with Ray Vecchio -- to him, it was about friendship. Fraser was exiled in Chicago and Ray had helped him, so there was a bond. In all the Vecchio episodes, only three times are they referred to as partners (Ray called Benny his partner while undercover as car salesmen in that one episode where they went undercover as car salesmen, then in A Cop, A Mountie, and a Baby he says that they are partners. Also, Bob Fraser, who has a thing about partnership anyway, calls Ray Fraser's partner once. Vecchio implies partnership in They Eat Horses, Don't They, but it's clear that the primary relationship is one of friendship). When he's telling Fraser about their relationship in Flashback, it's about friendship. When Vecchio leaves in Burning Down the House, it's 'as a friend'.
But the first time that Ray Kowalski meets Fraser, it's as a partner. His goal from the beginning is to get Fraser to recognize him as a partner -- which he never technically was with Vecchio, which he and Vecchio didn't even think of themselves as, since they were friends first. So, Ray reads the files, sees how close Fraser and RayV are, gets told 'partners' and runs with it.
Ray: "Think about it. Lenon and McCartney, Leopold and Loeb, The Three Stooges. Strictly speaking, they were a trio, but in my opinion they should have dropped Larry right from the start because you could see the guy he just was not committed to it. Anyway, I think you know what I'm talking about."
Fraser: "No, I'm sorry, I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about."
Ray: "Partners, Fraser. Partners..."
- Burning Down the House
And in the next episode, Fraser picks up the 'partner' thread and entwines it into the fabric of their relationship. He uses the word in reference to the dreamcatcher and then directly to Ray. It's possible that he was thinking of Ray Vecchio the first time... except he thinks of Ray as first his friend. Not once from the Pilot to Flashback does Fraser refer to Ray Vecchio as his partner. (yay for the 'find' shortcut). If he'd been telling the story to Ray Vecchio, I think that he would have chosen the word 'friend' over 'partner'.
And then later (and this is telling, considering how it ends), he uses the word 'partner' to mean someone in a lifelong bond (and does so with absolutely no pronouns). He uses it to mean that, and then later in that same conversation tells Ray that he would be proud to call Ray his partner and friend. Friend is actually the sticking point, because with RayK and Fraser, they do click as partners -- they work exceedingly well together, even when they're both completely confused about where the other guy is coming from. Their partnership is instinctive and snaps into being the same day that they meet.
Ray introduces Fraser to people as his partner (Strange Bedfellows) while Ray Vecchio sometimes introduced him... god, he called him 'Benny Fraser'. To other people. He introduced him as 'Benny' (Some Like it Red). Which is painful for me to read, let alone hear. The many, many ways in which I hate Fraser being called 'Benny' are... well, they are too many to list and go with "he fucking goes by Ray" and "it is not pronounced 'fra-sier'" under "getting people's names right is a mark of respect, of which you are showing none".
Right. Sorry. Anyway, Ray introduces Fraser as his partner, starting in Strange Bedfellows. Later in the same episode, Fraser tells Stella that Ray is his partner and friend (and therefore he has faith in him! *happy sigh*) and asks his father how to help Ray in the context of them being partners. Which is, I would like to note, something that he never did with Ray Vecchio. Ray Vecchio is his friend, probably his best friend after Diefenbaker, so it probably feels more natural to call this new man 'partner' to further separate them.
In Mountie and Soul, Ray asks Fraser to confirm that they are, indeed friends and partners. Again, note that to friends, Fraser answers, "Sure" but to partners, he says, "Absolutely", which is a huge step up in emphasis. Sure, they're friends, but they are absolutely partners. Completely and without qualification. In Spy vs Spy, Pike refers to Ray as Fraser's partner and this would be the appearance of Ray's famous, "Partners means sharing."
And that spins a new twist into things. In Asylum, Fraser again reassures Ray by telling him that he knows that Ray, his partner and friend, would not be capable of killing Volpe. In Perfect Strangers, it's Thatcher's use of the word 'partner' to refer to Fraser that sets off Fraser's dad onto the matchmaking track. To him (and to Fraser), partners seems to lead to romance (which is interesting, considering the Buck Frobisher thing).
In Mountie on the Bounty, Fraser asks about the partnership and it's the partnership that's in jeopardy. Then, Bob Fraser makes the famous "Partnership is like a marriage" speech, which again throws that new wrinkle into things. Partnership is a marriage, is sharing, is a duet, is two people moving as one. Fraser calls Ray his partner when speaking of him to the crooks. "He's my partner. I have to try." Ray Kowalski is Benton Fraser's partner and I do have to wonder if he's ever had one before. He doesn't know how to handle it, how to settle into a partnership. Friendship he wasn't great at, but he wasn't controlling and niggling to the point of violence, either. Partnership is an intense thing. And it's always the partnership that's mentioned in Mountie on the Bounty. That's what is scaring Fraser, what he's afraid of losing. Not Ray's friendship, but Ray as his partner.
And in Mountie on the Bounty, he finally gets what Ray has been telling him -- it's a duet. It's about sharing and trusting. Partnership is like a marriage and Fraser accepts that and all that it means. "I have a partner that should be showing up just about now." The word 'friend' is used twice in reference to Ray and Fraser in MotB. 'Partner' is used nine times.
Then, they don't say it again -- they don't need to, because from MotB to CotW, there are no questions about the status of their partnership. Then Vecchio comes back, and once more, Ray asks for that reassurance -- but only as partners, not as friends. "So what, are we still partners?"
And Bob Fraser again compares partnership to a marriage, but this time to a very specific marriage: his and Caroline's.
Bob: "I pushed on through the cold and the pain. Kept each other going."
Fraser: "Because that's what partnership is all about."
No matter what. Partners keep each other going through the cold and the pain. They are each other's light in the darkness. With Ray around, Fraser is no longer in a candle-lit room, praying for release from loneliness.
Then, when they reach the camp, Ray tells Fraser that he'd understand it if Fraser partnered up with Ray Vecchio. But to Fraser, there is no question of that happening. Ray Vecchio is his friend, Ray Kowalski is his partner. No matter what the circumstances, Fraser knows who his partner is.
Then, at the very end of Call of the Wild, Fraser calls Ray Vecchio 'my old partner'. The only time he ever calls him a partner and it's firmly in the past tense. And he's with Ray, his Ray, setting off on their adventure.
There's an interesting formality in the way Fraser closes off the series. In his second-to-last lines, he makes a point of noting both that Ray's birth name is Stanley Kowalski and that he calls him 'Ray' ('we set off, Ray and I, on an adventure').
When we meet Fraser, he's alone, partnerless. We never hear of him having had a partner. Not once. That's... heartbreaking, really. That either he didn't or that they made so little impact as to leave the word 'partner' lying fallow in his vocabulary until Ray Kowalski jumpstarts it. We also never hear of him having friends from after his childhood. Again, that's tragic. So, he needed to embrace the concept of friendship -- and that was Ray Vecchio. Then, he could learn about true partnership. The kind that's like a marriage.
Trusting, sharing, and always knowing who your partner is.
When we meet Fraser, he's not just alone, he's lonely. When we leave him, he's with someone he trusts, shares with, and knows to his bones who he belongs with. And that's a pretty big change. Enough to make the southern detour worthwhile.