Rambling about Fraser makes ANY DAY better!

[schmerica]

Sometimes it seems like people like to write Fraser as very ... cut off from the world, I guess. It's something that I don't quite understand fully. In some ways, Fraser is a very inward person, yes; I don't think a lot of people get to know him very well, and I don't think he has a lot of close friends. But on the other, he's also the person who knows every single person he's ever come across -- his neighbours, his coworkers, people around town -- and remembers their names and their kids' names and their jobs and any random information about them at all. Even in Chicago, he's purposely friendly: he makes an effort at community.

(There are post-CotW stories I have read that posit Fraser as inward and antisocial, and have Ray Kowalski pulling him out of his shell to interact with the people there. This blows my mind.)

I have a different favorite thing about Fraser everyday, just about, but today, I'm stuck thinking about his affinity for certain types of people. This is different from just the friendliness and neighborliness I was talking about above, because there are some people that he seems to have an instant connection with. The lost; the confused; the vulnerable. Teenage girls seem to fit into this category often -- Eloise from "Say Amen", Melissa from "Some Like It Red", Andy from "The Promise." You can see it with Bruce in "I Coulda Been a Defendent"; the scene where Fraser's in the interrogation room with his head on his hands makes me ache inside.

I think some of the strongest parts of the Fraser-Kowalski partnership probably come from Fraser seeing this in RayK, too. You can see bits of it as early as "Eclipse", but it really begins to blossom in "Strange Bedfellows." A couple more hints in "Mountie and Soul", "Asylum", "Easy Money", but it's really in "The Ladies' Man" that it comes to a climax.

And, really, Fraser's vision of Victoria is sort of the ultimate expression of this part of his character. Every time he talks about her, it's just pointing directly to this. Lost, confused, vulnerable: Fraser's a sucker for it everytime, he wants to help. Because, well. Fraser knows what it's like.

Comments

[mondschein1.livejournal.com]

See, I don't see Fraser as cut off in the way where I am cut off )e.g. I caught an URI from my lovely family and conquered the scratchy voice in half the time they did because I just Never. Talk) but more in the way where he's superficially very warm because it's his duty to, and doesn't really go further than the superficial good-natured helpfulness very often at all. So he'd feel fairly lonely, and in either of the Rays is trying to talk to him, he's kind of increasingly unresponsive -- which happens less with RayV than RayK, I think? Maybe because RayV leaving made him even more cautious, like he needed that. And, um, yeah, that would also explain his lack of emotion in the RayK era. But I, er, digress.

Basically I think he's got this deep-seated belief that he needs to help people constantly, and on some level I think that's the only method of human interaction he recognizes. He's this amazingly competent guy, and people are kind of freaked out by him -- but they also keep running to him for help when they need it, and so the only time he ends up actually talking to people is when he's saving them. (Exaggeration, a bit, but yeah.) Even with the Rays, he starts off being the protector and the extra dash of competence, because that's all he knows to do -- and then you have RayV trying to drag him out of the mess that was Victoria, and RayK in Bounty Hunter, and it just kind of sticks out like a sore thumb.

(Also now I want to collate all h/c stories ever, because -- well, okay, they're h/c, why NOT collate them? -- but also because it's be really interesting to see the ratio of Fraser-as-"c" as opposed to Fraser-as-"h".)

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

and so the only time he ends up actually talking to people is when he's saving them.

See, but I don't think that's true! What about his relations with his neighbors, or the homeless people in the neighborhood, or store owners and things, or whatever? Like, I agree with you, I don't think he makes deep connections or lets people get to know him at all, but I think he also thinks it's important to be part of the community and to know and like everybody.

[mondschein1.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, because he thinks it is important to HAVE a community. He is saving the people from their isolation! (Well, okay, the word "save" doesn't apply so well in that instance, but I wasn't so much going for the universal proof thing there.) The whole "a man can't survive on his own" thing.