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Post by Fallenbelle on Jan 1, 2017 2:06:55 GMT
So on FB group they're discussing which character has changed the most and how. So, let's discuss this here. Who has changed the most and how? The FB post is devolving into a Julia bash fest, so trying this here.  |
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Post by lizmc on Jan 1, 2017 2:13:45 GMT
Like a number of the FB people, I think it is Brackenreid.......he has gone from being a rigid thinking traditional cop, to having more understanding of what makes people tick, while still being a tough SOB when need be......I think he always had a certain amount of insight into people, now he has the confidence to express it. Plus, while he can still be reluctant to express it at times, he genuinely cares about his colleagues.
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Post by Fallenbelle on Jan 1, 2017 6:57:59 GMT
Like a number of the FB people, I think it is Brackenreid.......he has gone from being a rigid thinking traditional cop, to having more understanding of what makes people tick, while still being a tough SOB when need be......I think he always had a certain amount of insight into people, now he has the confidence to express it. Plus, while he can still be reluctant to express it at times, he genuinely cares about his colleagues. This is what I had said as well. It's been subtle, and he very much remains a man of his time, but he is less prone to rash decisions, calmer, and is more open to viewpoints and positions that are not his own. When his peers show their prejudice, he holds his tongue and sometimes tries to defend the other person. This is one of the key reasons I enjoy the dynamics between Julia and Brackenreid. |
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Post by Hodge on Jan 1, 2017 7:15:15 GMT
Like a number of the FB people, I think it is Brackenreid.......he has gone from being a rigid thinking traditional cop, to having more understanding of what makes people tick, while still being a tough SOB when need be......I think he always had a certain amount of insight into people, now he has the confidence to express it. Plus, while he can still be reluctant to express it at times, he genuinely cares about his colleagues. This is what I had said as well. It's been subtle, and he very much remains a man of his time, but he is less prone to rash decisions, calmer, and is more open to viewpoints and positions that are not his own. When his peers show their prejudice, he holds his tongue and sometimes tries to defend the other person. This is one of the key reasons I enjoy the dynamics between Julia and Brackenreid. Totally agree, Brackenreid has changed into almost a different person. He started out bigoted and intolerant and now he sees people for who they are not what they are. He's always been a decent man, he was just hampered by the old school way of doing things. I didn't understand how the person that posted the original question could say that Julia has changed the most and then think we'd all agree. In my opinion Julia has changed the least. |
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Post by lizmc on Jan 1, 2017 7:38:42 GMT
This is what I had said as well. It's been subtle, and he very much remains a man of his time, but he is less prone to rash decisions, calmer, and is more open to viewpoints and positions that are not his own. When his peers show their prejudice, he holds his tongue and sometimes tries to defend the other person. This is one of the key reasons I enjoy the dynamics between Julia and Brackenreid. Totally agree, Brackenreid has changed into almost a different person. He started out bigoted and intolerant and now he sees people for who they are not what they are. He's always been a decent man, he was just hampered by the old school way of doing things. I didn't understand how the person that posted the original question could say that Julia has changed the most and then think we'd all agree. In my opinion Julia has changed the least. What is interesting about Brackenreid, is he has been shaped by being obeyed by those who report to him that he can revert to his old form if defied or crossed, such as when he tried to warn Emily about the rumours about her, yet he learns from it, as can be seen by the compassion he showed towards her after Lillian's murder. He has gone from being quite one dimensional to a very complex character. He can also be relied on to express the "everyman's" opinion on things, like describing the model in the stolen Rembrandt as some bared arsed floosy washing her feet. (That remains one of my favourite lines.....) |
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Post by Fallenbelle on Jan 1, 2017 14:03:05 GMT
This is what I had said as well. It's been subtle, and he very much remains a man of his time, but he is less prone to rash decisions, calmer, and is more open to viewpoints and positions that are not his own. When his peers show their prejudice, he holds his tongue and sometimes tries to defend the other person. This is one of the key reasons I enjoy the dynamics between Julia and Brackenreid. Totally agree, Brackenreid has changed into almost a different person. He started out bigoted and intolerant and now he sees people for who they are not what they are. He's always been a decent man, he was just hampered by the old school way of doing things. I didn't understand how the person that posted the original question could say that Julia has changed the most and then think we'd all agree. In my opinion Julia has changed the least. Yep, I agree that William has grown and changed as well, but I don't think he fundamentally shifted who he is so much as he learned to be not as black and white in how he viewed the world. George-has he changed so much as he has grown up? I still think he's George, but that he's no longer a boy. I agree that Julia has changed the least, but I think she's learned to be a bit more secure in who she is and her place in the world. She can still be a bit high strung, but she acknowledges it and will adjust once she's had a chance to calm down. I think she's also learned that compromise doesn't mean abandoning who you are. But the FB group drives me crazy at times because there is a strong contingent of women who are too critical of her and will often attack her for the slightest foible while giving William a pass for quite a few things as well. No, Julia's not perfect, but that's one of the reasons I like her character-perfection is boring. Special honorable mention for most changed character is the trend of late to write William as socially inept and dumb. He's not. But then, I don't think that this is a character change so much as it is bad writing. What's going on with this? |
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Post by Fallenbelle on Jan 1, 2017 14:16:58 GMT
Totally agree, Brackenreid has changed into almost a different person. He started out bigoted and intolerant and now he sees people for who they are not what they are. He's always been a decent man, he was just hampered by the old school way of doing things. I didn't understand how the person that posted the original question could say that Julia has changed the most and then think we'd all agree. In my opinion Julia has changed the least. What is interesting about Brackenreid, is he has been shaped by being obeyed by those who report to him that he can revert to his old form if defied or crossed, such as when he tried to warn Emily about the rumours about her, yet he learns from it, as can be seen by the compassion he showed towards her after Lillian's murder. He has gone from being quite one dimensional to a very complex character. He can also be relied on to express the "everyman's" opinion on things, like describing the model in the stolen Rembrandt as some bared arsed floosy washing her feet. (That remains one of my favourite lines.....) He can revert to his old form, which is undeniably paternalistic and overbearing, but even then it's just a way of expressing his concern. Yes, he was overbearing with Emily in regards to the rumors, but it was because he didn't want anything to happen to her because he knew what was being said about her and he didn't care for it as he respected her too much. There was also the scene with Julia in High Voltage in which he tries to intimidate her into abandoning her campaign, but only because it would have ruined William, and he knew that she wouldn't have wanted that. Once she calmed down, Julia saw that and acted accordingly-which is another way that she has changed as well. |
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Post by Hodge on Jan 2, 2017 4:47:04 GMT
What is interesting about Brackenreid, is he has been shaped by being obeyed by those who report to him that he can revert to his old form if defied or crossed, such as when he tried to warn Emily about the rumours about her, yet he learns from it, as can be seen by the compassion he showed towards her after Lillian's murder. He has gone from being quite one dimensional to a very complex character. He can also be relied on to express the "everyman's" opinion on things, like describing the model in the stolen Rembrandt as some bared arsed floosy washing her feet. (That remains one of my favourite lines.....) He can revert to his old form, which is undeniably paternalistic and overbearing, but even then it's just a way of expressing his concern. Yes, he was overbearing with Emily in regards to the rumors, but it was because he didn't want anything to happen to her because he knew what was being said about her and he didn't care for it as he respected her too much. There was also the scene with Julia in High Voltage in which he tries to intimidate her into abandoning her campaign, but only because it would have ruined William, and he knew that she wouldn't have wanted that. Once she calmed down, Julia saw that and acted accordingly-which is another way that she has changed as well. Brackenreid stilll has his brusque ways but he usually has good intentions, he just doesn't know how to get them across when someone resists. |
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Post by urbanperegrine on Jan 30, 2017 3:30:10 GMT
Hello again all,
Real life has intervened rather a lot for me of late, but I couldn't resist replying to this thread. A caveat: I'm not on FB (and refuse to join it for a long list of reasons), so I only know what goes on that page second hand, through this board.
I'm inclined to agree that Brackenreid has changed the most (or perhaps more accurately, the changes in him are more obvious) over the length of the series. I'd give the runner-up place to George with the proviso that the changes in him are tied to the events of seasons 8 and 9 particularly. That said, I think there are significant changes in William and Julia as well, again tied to a specific event (their marriage), though they have changed rather less than the other long-standing characters.
Brackenreid's character seems to me to have a basic tension between ambition (particularly social) and integrity. He has repeatedly joined or attempted to join social groups that are more middle-to-upper class (Freemasonry, running for alderman, the Empire Club), only to have his rise curtailed (or his membership scuttled) by his honesty and his propensity to swear. You could even read his brief stint in the city records as an attempt to re-build his social status again thwarted by his blunt honesty, in the eyes of his then-boss in the department. At the same time, he expresses discomfort with academic types like university professors and relishes some of his more working-class bonds (his favourite football club, for instance). Structurally, this seems to be part of what tropers would call "Status Quo is God" keeping him in his relative position as an inspector in a particular station (recall that he ultimately refused the CC job in Ottawa at the end of season 5 because he "wouldn't be a copper anymore.")
That said, Brackenreid can't help but notice that more modern scientific and methodical policing (i.e. Murdoch's methods, also Dr. Grace's work in "Toronto's Girl Problem") turn out to be more accurate than simple fisticuffs and other "traditional" means of policing. He seems to be more amenable to Murdoch's methods (even praising him on occasion) as the series has progressed. He also seems to have shifted his allegiance to Murdoch in the struggles with their superiors over the conduct of investigations. So while he may tell Murdoch to curtail the explanations to get to the practical upshot of things, he more clearly values the results all the theories, experiments and gadgets produce. Interestingly, he even took to ferreting out the white-collar crime in "Bl**dy H*ll" by holding to his maxim "Follow the money" and pursuing a paper trail of corruption.
Age may also be a factor. After one run-in with some dock workers (including those two brothers) late in season 7, he laments that he's getting too old for the rougher aspects of the job. Murdoch has also commented to his boss about this new disinclination to apply violence to solve a problem. In his way, he seems to be maturing and adapting to a more modern world.
George's growth seems to have been condensed into the more recent seasons, and I'm inclined to agree it's more a case of events maturing him more than anything else. I'm not sure he would've stood up to both Murdoch and Brackenreid over Nina Bloom had he met her earlier.
As for William, I think the differences are two-fold: He's learning more ways to deal with people (abandoning his insistence that Desmond go to the station in "Colour Blinded" and almost ostentatiously shaking the man's hand after questioning him), and his emotions are more readily apparent, especially when he's with Julia (late in "24 Hours to Doomsday", watch his face as he seems to turn into a small boy caught out as Julia questions him about flying, and compare that to his recounting of the burned shed story in "Shipwreck"). He's been heading this way for a while (see the curling match in "Friday the 13th 1901"). As for the social ineptitude being new, I'm not sure what was meant by that. William has been the butt of gigs even back in the early seasons (hitting his head under the seance table, his awkward demonstration of the lie detector, to name only two). It seems to me the comedic bits have made him look or seem "dumb" right along.
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