First Season Question
Joseph Dornbierer
Last night I attended a "Forever Knight" party in Denver with a few other
FK fans. Before "Last Knight" came on (don't worry, no spoilers), we
watched some first season episodes (including the pilot, which I had
never seen).
We watched the episode in which Nick first meets Natalie. I believe it
was called "Only The Lonely". Apparently, Nick was not a cop with Metro
at the time. I asked the others at the party if there was an episode in
which it shows Nick joining the force. Apparently there isn't.
I find that rather curious, that they didn't go into that at all.
Getting onto a police force isn't that easy (though Nick was a cop once
years before, where he got his partner killed by not paying attention or
listening to instructions) and Natalie wouldn't be the examining doctor.
She wouldn't be the one that would have to explain his allergy to the
sun.
Just curious.
I really enjoyed the pilots and other first season episodes. I sure wish
TCI cable in Denver would pick up the SCI-FI channel so I could see some
more!
Forever Knight Fan Forever,
Joe
kev...@pixi.com
Joseph Dornbierer <jdor...@auc.trw.com> wrote:
I find that rather curious, that they didn't go into that at all.
>Getting onto a police force isn't that easy (though Nick was a cop once
>years before, where he got his partner killed by not paying attention or
>listening to instructions) and Natalie wouldn't be the examining doctor.
>She wouldn't be the one that would have to explain his allergy to the
>sun.
As I recall Nick had everything forged by a Hacker Called Larry
Merlin. Later there was another one called Aristotle, they help set
up new Identities for Vampires who move.
Glenn St-Germain
> We watched the episode in which Nick first meets Natalie. I believe it
>was called "Only The Lonely". Apparently, Nick was not a cop with Metro
>at the time. I asked the others at the party if there was an episode in
>which it shows Nick joining the force. Apparently there isn't.
There isn't.
> I find that rather curious, that they didn't go into that at all.
>Getting onto a police force isn't that easy
No, but getting someone to input records into a computer then making
them forget *is* easy for someone with vamp powers of persuasion. So
maybe he "transferred" in from another city's police force. "Only The
Lonely" takes place on Nat's 30th birthday, the flashback to their
first meeting took place on her 28th. There is NO WAY for someone to
make plainclothes detective within two years of joining the police
force, so I imagine that there was something else done, like what I
described above.
>Natalie wouldn't be the examining doctor.
>She wouldn't be the one that would have to explain his allergy to the
>sun.
Why not? She *is* a medical doctor. If she provides an explanation as
Nick's physician, why wouldn't the department accept it?
Besides, in any work situation, night shift is the least popular shift
to work on. Especially in public service work. So if the Metro Police
find a cop who wants to work nights permanently, and has a note from
his doctor giving a reason for it, I don't think they're going to look
too closely...
glenn st-germain ś edmonton alberta canada ś gl...@ecbs.sas.ab.ca
"I don't want a Rolls Royce. A computer will do." -- Nash the Slash
Lynda currie
In article <4o2qv8$g...@news.sas.ab.ca>,
this is mentioned. Maybe when he was blown up in "Only the Lonely", he just
arrived from Chicago.
JohnGorno
Actually, I think we are intended to believe that Natalie convinced Nick
to undertake this current vampire detective gig after his little explosive
misadventure (which occurred was while he was a civilian), and, to keep
him in the city for...purely scientific purposes... . Of course, we know
he was a cop once before, and had no computer records until one was
inserted by "Socrates," so he must have sweet-talked his way in. (I also
think there was a line about how his paper records were suppossedly on the
way, but once he wormed his way in and proved his merit, it seems
reasonable that Stonetree etc., wouldn't really make a fuss over his
credentials: its easy to overestimate the fastidiuousness of over-worked
public servants. Consider all the scandalous stuff that really happens
with teachers and police, etc. and it seem fairly reasonable that the
precinct's star detective gets cut a little slack.)
JF
Janet A Dornhoff
john...@aol.com (JohnGorno) writes:
>Actually, I think we are intended to believe that Natalie convinced Nick
>to undertake this current vampire detective gig after his little explosive
>misadventure (which occurred was while he was a civilian), and, to keep
>him in the city for...purely scientific purposes... .
There were a couple of lines from Schanke during first season which
gave a length of time he and Nick had known each other. I'd have to
go check to be sure, but I think he said Nick had been around a couple
of years at the start of first season, which would only be a year to
a year and a half since he met Natalie.
The guy who brought Nick in said, "They couldn't find any ID," so I
always figured he hid his wallet somewhere before charging to the
rescue, just in case he *did* get killed. No one with the police dept.
saw him before his face got blown up, so they wouldn't know if he was
a cop. It's quite possible he was already a cop; it's also possible
he wasn't. Pick whichever fits your fanfic best, I always say. :-)
>Of course, we know
>he was a cop once before, and had no computer records until one was
>inserted by "Socrates," so he must have sweet-talked his way in.
Actually, it was Larry Merlin who did his records first season. Merlin
and Socrates appeared in only one episode each, presumably because it
was too difficult to get the same actor back again.
>(I also
>think there was a line about how his paper records were suppossedly on the
>way, but once he wormed his way in and proved his merit, it seems
>reasonable that Stonetree etc., wouldn't really make a fuss over his
>credentials: its easy to overestimate the fastidiuousness of over-worked
>public servants. Consider all the scandalous stuff that really happens
>with teachers and police, etc. and it seem fairly reasonable that the
>precinct's star detective gets cut a little slack.)
Agreed. Nick could probably 'convince' anyone who asked too many
questions that they really *had* seen the required records, and had
gotten a *sterling* reccommendation from his old captain, and that
the Toronto department itself must have mislaid their copies... :-)
-Janet
dorn...@uiuc.edu
The mome rath hasn't been born that could out-grabe me!
JohnGorno
In article <4pneua$g...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>, dorn...@ux7.cso.uiuc.edu
(Janet A Dornhoff) writes:
>The guy who brought Nick in said, "They couldn't find any ID," so I
>always figured he hid his wallet somewhere before charging to the
>rescue, just in case he *did* get killed. No one with the police dept.
>saw him before his face got blown up, so they wouldn't know if he was
>a cop. It's quite possible he was already a cop; it's also possible
>he wasn't. Pick whichever fits your fanfic best, I always say. :-)
>
>
But I think we can actually extract a conclusion, because the whole deal
in the morgue is that Natalie is telling Nick that he has good in him,
which is why he rushed in to interfere in that gang fight. If he already
was a cop (doing that every day), it would make Nat's speech about it
redundant and silly. (I don't give much credence to chronological
references: we don't know if "game years" match season years, and the
writers aren't necessarily genuises who check every little line against
the (infallable) script bible, and neither is Schanke! We aren't supposed
to have seen Nick's whole career: we know he was working solo for some
time before being teamed (involuntarily) with Schank in "Dark Knight," so
there's room to fudge. Also, we've never seen Nick forget his badge.)
The dramatic tone of the scene would have to be reversed: Nick wouldn't
be so dark and pessimistic. Instead of sulking and bemoaning his evil
while Nat tries to cheer him up, he'd probably grin and mesmerize her
right off, or IF, and that's a big IF [footnote] , that didn't work,
trying to get Nat to see him as good so he could continue with his mission
without the danger of exposure. Instead of being disgusted with humanity,
he'd probably note how it had been worth it to save those people or whine
about the ones he failed to save, as usual. I haven't seen this one since
it was repeated last, but I got the impression that he was going to snack
and leave the city. Since his face was blown off and no one had seen him
except Nat, she would be the only barrier to Detective Knight simply
returning to work (I never before considered how the effacing was
necessary to allow him to escape later recognition by the responding
officers, whatever the case may be, but I guess I'm a just-enjoy-it kind
of guy at heart). Maybe I'm a Natpacker (I wouldn't mind packin'..., uh,
never mind), but I think this is one of her essential contributions:
convincing Nick to try once more to become human while cultivating his
humanity by repaying society for his sins...
[footnote] - I can't recall whether he actually tries to mesmerize her in
this episode: if he does and fails it might a non-lame argument that Nat
is a resister (a general assertion I reject, but am open to assuagement
on: I already have some-one's mail incoming on this point, so don't waste
your effort on this point in this post: I plan to dredge it up again
later anyway.)
To make a short aside long, people in the series seem to vary in willpower
and the degree of ease with which they can be influenced by various
vampires: this varies with circumstance and situation as well, so any
alleged resistance by Nat may reflect these factors as well (Nat thinks
Nick's a real cute guy ("Not bad...Not bad at all..."), he came back to
life before her eyes, a vary hard thing to forget for a loney, intelligent
woman; later on, the reality of his existence is a fact of her own, not
some trivia that could just be deleted or modified). Consider, similarly,
in "Sons of Belial," "Hunters," et al, that the vampires presumable can't
just sweet-talk their way out of getting staked: once you really believe
in vampires, it would make sense that you gain an intrinsic resistence to
their wiles.
I would also assert that a (hypothetical) vampire can't make a person do
anything they're truly opposed to (even when they're luring victims, they
are relying on Freud's Eros, the attraction to lust and death, rather than
a dispassionate comand to march to destruction). The vampire's power
seems to me to make the mind lazy: doctors _want_ their patients to live,
reporters want to get back in the news van and eat lunch, cops want their
partners to have been grazed instead of shot in the heart, Schanke likes
Nick and doesn't want him to be a supernatural monster, etc.. These are
all things the target wants and would prefer to be real, and the vampire
mostly uses his abilities to sway the memory to fit the target's
preconceptions and conveniences. The fact that modern people don't
believe in vampires is the latters' best defense: it makes it easy to
make people forget things that don't fit their world view and that are
more puzzling than important anyway. If a vampire killed a loved one
before your eyes, say, that would be another matter: even if things were
cleaned up and you could be made to forget, the traumatic and personal
nature of the event would cause it to reassert itself, in my opinion and
stlyistic sense. Without limits, there would be no danger: the mob could
just be convinced that there was no body in front of them, the daughter
the vampire just killed never existed, and that he isn't a vampire, but
the Pope, in a flaming chariot! ("It is a flaw in the design of the
Enterprise.") You wouldn't even need to make the person forget what you
were, just not care about it until the next session. ("You don't need to
see my papers, Joanne. Yes, I'm a vampire, and I lied about my
references...and you no longer care. Now give me the donut, file this
report, and wash my car. Aaah, this is the life...") More importantly,
it would be annoying, there would be no drama, and the philosophical
implications would be quite alien to a (very human) theme of the show:
free will and the struggle to find hope and meaning in the face of
tragedy, shame, self-loathing, and the very real evil within. Three
o'clock already? How'd that happen?
JF
Janet A Dornhoff
john...@aol.com (JohnGorno) writes:
>In article <4pneua$g...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>, dorn...@ux7.cso.uiuc.edu
>(Janet A Dornhoff) writes:
>>The guy who brought Nick in said, "They couldn't find any ID," so I
>>always figured he hid his wallet somewhere before charging to the
>>rescue, just in case he *did* get killed. No one with the police dept.
>>saw him before his face got blown up, so they wouldn't know if he was
>>a cop. It's quite possible he was already a cop; it's also possible
>>he wasn't. Pick whichever fits your fanfic best, I always say. :-)
>But I think we can actually extract a conclusion, because the whole deal
>in the morgue is that Natalie is telling Nick that he has good in him,
>which is why he rushed in to interfere in that gang fight. If he already
>was a cop (doing that every day), it would make Nat's speech about it
>redundant and silly.
Nick was a cop in the, um, fifties, I think. He's been *trying* to
be more human for quite a while now. We know he stopped killing for
food one hundred years ago, which was also about the time of his
search for the Mayan cups in the pilot.
When confronted by Natalie, Nick was clearly sunk into one of his
"I'm a poor doomed soul, I'm an evil monster, oh woe is me" funks,
something which can happen even to a cop who does good. "Last Act"
has a scene with Nick contemplaiting suicide, which Natalie again
bullies him out of. She's very good at that. ;-)
>(I don't give much credence to chronological
>references: we don't know if "game years" match season years, and the
>writers aren't necessarily genuises who check every little line against
>the (infallable) script bible, and neither is Schanke!
True, these guys did have Myra's mom dead in one ep, and in Tampa in
another, but they've usually been pretty good about the chronology,
and I'm pretty sure I heard more than one comment about when Nick
started working as a cop in Toronto. I can see it slipping by once,
but if it shows up more than once, I take it as less likely to be
an accident.
> Also, we've never seen Nick forget his badge.)
I didn't say he'd forgotten it. What I suggested was that maybe, when
he saw what was going on and decided to get involved, he *knew* there
was a fair chance he'd get killed and wind up in the morgue, so he
deliberately left his ID stuffed behind a bush somewhere so no one
would connect this John Doe stiff to his current mortal identity. It's
such a pain in the butt to try to set up a new identity, especially on
short notice, that vampires are probably used to protecting them from
being declared dead at an inconvenient time.
>The dramatic tone of the scene would have to be reversed: Nick wouldn't
>be so dark and pessimistic. Instead of sulking and bemoaning his evil
>while Nat tries to cheer him up, he'd probably grin and mesmerize her
Oh, and Nick has never been dark and pessimistic since becoming a cop?
We've never seen him sulk and bemoan his evil while Nat tried to
cheer him up?
>never mind), but I think this is one of her essential contributions:
>convincing Nick to try once more to become human while cultivating his
>humanity by repaying society for his sins...
Nick had been trying to find a way back and/or make up for his past for
a while now. Nat made two important contributions. First, she gave him
hope that a cure might be possible. He'd tried magical cures before and
always been thwarted, but her scientific view of his condition was
something new to him. Second, she is very good as knocking some sense
into him when he gets into one of his black funks. She's an intelligent,
articulate voice persistently reminding him of the positive side, the
hopes and goals he holds. In other words, she's a very good friend.
>[footnote] - I can't recall whether he actually tries to mesmerize her in
>this episode: if he does and fails it might a non-lame argument that Nat
>is a resister (a general assertion I reject, but am open to assuagement
Okay, this is covered in the Canadian version of "Only the Lonely," the
first-season ep which originally showed their meeting. After Nick wakes
up in the morgue, there's a second scene out on the street. Nick walks
past Natalie, bumping her shoulder as if he were in a hurry. Nat stops
and confronts him.
"You're testing me. To see if I've forgotten."
"I see you haven't." (moves closer)
"Oh, don't bother. It won't work. Maybe I'm just one of those people
who they say can't be hypnotised. Or maybe I don't want to be."
"And you're not afraid?"
"Fear is based on ignorance. I'd rather try to understand. Understand
who you are, and...*what* you are."
"You're a unique woman."
"No. I'm a scientist."
"Science won't help you to understand what I am, or the hell of an
existence I've locked myself into."
"What makes you think I can't help you?"
"Help me? Are you serious? No one can help me. My immortality is a
curse, a fall from grace. Evil is a metaphysical condition."
"You're not evil. You wound up on my examining table because you tried
to help people. Also, your condition *is* a physical one."
"I see. Your specialty. And how do you intend to help this eight
hundred year old body, this incessant hunger for blood, this 'physical
condition' of mine?"
"I don't know, but I am willing to try."
"And what is the reward for you? What could you possibly expect
in return?"
"Solving a puzzle is its own reward for me."
"Are you quite sure?"
"Oh, yes."
So, it's pretty clear that Nick has been through enough that he's
suspicious of her possible motives, but the idea of treating his
condition as a physical illness is something new to him. He starts
out skeptical, but Natalie's force of personality convinces him to
give it a try. They've shown some improvement, even a temporary
cure once, so Nick bound up more and more of his hopes into Nat's
finding a cure for him. And their friendship grew at the same time.
>I would also assert that a (hypothetical) vampire can't make a person do
>anything they're truly opposed to
As you can see, Natalie herself mentions that possibility, that she
simply didn't *want* to forget, so she didn't.
>(even when they're luring victims, they
>are relying on Freud's Eros, the attraction to lust and death, rather than
>a dispassionate comand to march to destruction).
It's interesting you say that, because in "Feeding the Beast," the one
time we've seen Nick choose a victim in the modern world, the girl was
someone fascinated by (and turned on by) death.
>The fact that modern people don't
>believe in vampires is the latters' best defense: it makes it easy to
>make people forget things that don't fit their world view and that are
>more puzzling than important anyway.
Exactly! Natalie's one of those rare people who enjoys a challenge,
whose mind isn't lazy, so she won't allow herself to be made to
forget things just because that's the easy way out.
In the case of "Close Call," where Schanke started to remember the
various things Nick had made him forget, it was because of an
underlying conflict within him, and once that conflict was resolved,
the hypnosis became effective again.
Have you ever read "Firestarter," by Steven King? The girl's father
has a mental domination ability very like the FK vampires' hypnosis.
He had to be very careful not to contradict himself in his commands,
and not to trigger any suppressed psychological problems or traumas,
because if he did, it would bounce around the person's mind as a
'ricochet' until the person could think about little else and it
drove them nuts. (Sort of like what Schanke went through...)
Of course, what the vampires can do *really* comes down to what the
writers need them to be able to do... ;-)
-Janet
dorn...@uiuc.edu
"You know, Erica had this theory that when you've stopped contributing
to life, when you become a burden, it's time to move on."
"Oh, come on, Nick, you make contributions to life every day."
"Well, I sure haven't been contributing much lately."
"Why, because you're stuck on a few cases? Well, frustration is a
part of life, Nick!" -Nick and Natalie, "The Last Act"
JohnGorno
Just watched "Only the Lonely" (American Version, sans Nick trying to
hypnotize Nat... which is one of those schismatic things which cause Holy
Wars!) so can now intelligently respond to the following response to a
response... (pardon me for fussing over such a trivial point, but I have
way too much free time!) It might not be the American version, either,
but the repeat showing, which I have heard is some seconds shorter, at
least for other shows, and since I think I remember the missing bit...
hmmm, is this AOL line width a problem for people with other display
formats (like emacs)? The following (among others) are written as if to a
more narrow line-width, depending on how the text is formated, so is my
stuff getting all choppy on other platforms?
In article <4pq04f$m...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>, dorn...@ux7.cso.uiuc.edu
(Janet A Dornhoff) writes:
<as many snips as possible!>
{
>>>. It's quite possible he was already a cop; it's also possible
>>>he wasn't. Pick whichever fits your fanfic best, I always say. :-)
}
>john...@aol.com (JohnGorno) writes:
[
>>. If he already
>>was a cop (doing that every day), it would make Nat's speech about it
>>redundant and silly.
]
>When confronted by Natalie, Nick was clearly sunk into one of his
>"I'm a poor doomed soul, I'm an evil monster, oh woe is me" funks,
Aah, but he's not moping (I was remembering it wrongly). He's just
answering her questions about him in a dispassionate and terse way, to
someone I figure he plans to "whammy," anyway. He starts sucking blood,
and chatting with Nat instead of trying to cover things up right away
(before anyone else shows up, like a cop, etc.), which isn't consistent
with Nick trying his darnedest to avoid blowing his cover. If he's not a
cop, however, there's less need for circumspection or haste: he can try
to make her forget whenever it suits him, and failing that, just leave (he
has no cover to blow, and who's going to believe her about a vampire in
her morgue?) There's a sense of vampiness about Nick's look and bearing
in those scenes which convey a dangerousness about him: this isn't the
Nick we're used to, and I don't think it's Detective Knight, either. And
there's the fact that he never identifies himself to Natalie as a cop in
those scenes: you'd think he'd end their first encounter by slyly
revealing himself (I'm terrible) to Nat.
>>The dramatic tone of the scene would have to be reversed: Nick wouldn't
>>be so dark and pessimistic. Instead of sulking and bemoaning his evil
>>while Nat tries to cheer him up, he'd probably grin and mesmerize her
Leaving aside that my characterization was wrong, have we ever seen him do
anything like this to any other stranger who'd witnessed his powers? ("I
am a vampire... I'm Dead.") This is not a vampire Detective trying to
keep his cover, this is a plain old vampire being disdainful, playing
intellectually with a mortal.
Nick has been a cop, and tried various treatments, in his brighter phases,
but I feel Nat should be credited for getting him to start (or continue)
this whole phase. I think it would make her look silly if the scene ends
(off-camera) with: "Actually, it's _Detective_ Nicholas Knight. I've
been working here for two years. We'll be seeing a lot of each other."
It also makes Nat less pivotal as his conscience and root of his current
hope. I find it more compelling and convincing that, as the driver said:
"this guy tried to stop a gang robbery and got thrown a pipe-bomb for his
trouble" (or some such): that Nick was indeed just some guy who happened
to be there and tried to be a good Samaritan. It also adds a more
pleasing sense of spontenaety: this is how I'd prefer Nick to have
started there (whenever he started), rather than as a calculated move; it
emphasizes what a mensh he is, despite his condition. If it's what he
does everyday, rather than something he found himself doing because he had
to, it's a less powerful statement of his intrinsic humanity.
>> , but I think this is one of her essential contributions:
>>convincing Nick to try once more to become human while cultivating his
>>humanity by repaying society for his sins...
>
>Nick had been trying to find a way back and/or make up for his past for
>a while now. Nat made two important contributions. First, she gave him
>hope that a cure might be possible. He'd tried magical cures before and
>always been thwarted, but her scientific view of his condition was
>something new to him. Second, she is very good as knocking some sense
>into him when he gets into one of his black funks. ... . In other
words, she's a very good friend.
>
I still think it is his encounter with her that launches this current
phase of hope, in both aspects. She's not just a friend, but his
inspiration on this latest crusade. I guess one can say that it hasn't
been ruled out that he was a cop already, but the badge thing is silly
(see below) and I think it's thematically cleaner and nicer anyway for it
to be otherwise. Of course, if he actually had forgotten his badge and
gun that day, it's somewhat more conceivable, although still a prime
candidate for Occam's Razor.
> the idea of treating his
>condition as a physical illness is something new to him.
There was the acupuncturist in "Cherry Blossums," and the Dr.
Frankenstein-type guy in the 18th Century, although that's a later
episode, so there's a hermeneutical issue about whether this should count
(as an essentialist (viewing the episodes as the writers' redaction of
events that hypothetically happened, and valuing essential themes and
issues over items of data), I would have to say, "sort of"). This is
related to the old "Does it matter that 'Number One,' from "The Cage"
looks so much like Nurse Chapel?" question. I say NO!
>>>The guy who brought Nick in said, "They couldn't find any ID," so I
>>>always figured he hid his wallet somewhere before charging to the
>we've never seen Nick forget his badge
- by forget, I mean, toss into the bushes, whatever. The logic about
vampires with secret identities that they're married-to is not illogical,
and Nick was solo then, so it might be possible, but he was in
plain-clothes, so it would have been hard to believe he'd walk into a
police (but not even probably explosive) situation, with witnesses
standing by, without his badge. And he's often on his own later, yet we
never see him doing this (when he sends Schanke out-back, so he can use
his vampire powers, can't really be counted, as he might expect Schank to
ID the corpse anyway.) Still, what about his gun? (he could clean that
up later but it alone would suggest a cop's body.) Wouldn't he draw his
weapon and verbally identify himself if he were a cop? (the driver's
account suggests that he had time to introduce himself), which would
obviate the utility of losing (i.e., ditching) his badge. (He tried to
stop a gang robbery, so he could hardly have expected to get his face
pipe-bombed off). Even in a strange precinct, he'd have to worry about
crime-scene photos if he got mangled but was identifiable. The odds of
him being rendered unidentifiable are pretty low and make this seem a very
odd, attention getting, tedious thing to do, and time-consuming when
people are in danger. Assuming this is his precinct, there's the
malleable but pesky issues of dispatch ("87 Kilo, where are you?"), the
caddy ("Hey, it's Nick's car"), and his colleagues ("Where the Hell is
Knight? And why is this guy of the exact same build and dressed just like
him?"). It's a stretch to suggest that he hides his badge so that if he
gets his face blown off, in a strange precinct, far from his car, before
he could identify himself to the witnesses, he wouldn't be forced out of
Toronto (Hell, why care? He didn't yet have Nat or Schanke or Lacroix to
keep him there...)
The most compelling arguments about the badge (assuming a compelling
argument can be made over a bit of trivia on a twice-cancelled, obscure TV
show about Nick Knight: Vampire Detective...) are: There was no
suggestion that it was Nat's first night or first case (the driver even
knew it was Nat's 28th birthday), so how come nocturnal homicide detective
Nick Knight hadn't met the city's night coroner yet; he has never done
anything else that anal (no bullet-proof vest, which would solve 90% of
these little problems, etc.); he uses his powers right and left, and
relies on his hypnosis like crazy to clean up his lazy messes. Why
wouldn't he use it to solve any potential faceless morgue appearances?
Since the witnesses apparently didn't come up with a decent sketch anyway,
he could even just lie: "The faceless samaritan who disappeared from the
morgue must have been the same mafioso who knocked me out (and stole my
badge and gun) 'round the corner from there! Wonder why he did it? And
why did they want the body so badly?" (This doesn't solve the problem
with Nat, or whoever, seeing him regenerate, but the badge only compounds
this entirely separate problem anyway.) Like I said, it's silly, and
thematically goofy. Come on, this is a guy who lets his partner come over
and never has anything besides a dozen bottles of cow blood in the fridge!
Caution isn't his byword.
>In the case of "Close Call," where Schanke started to remember the
>various things Nick had made him forget, it was because of an
>underlying conflict within him, and once that conflict was resolved,
>the hypnosis became effective again.
the additional spin I'd put on this is to give Schanke, and humans in
general, more explicit credit: Schanke knows Nick: he's a trusted friend
and a courageous compatriot, if a hog for accreditation. The fact that he
happens to be a vampire doesn't override these facts, which are all that
really matter to the Schank-meister: Lacroix succeeds in the end not
merely by assuaging the root of the suspicion but by reminding Schanke of
the facts that make his new knowledge ultimately unimportant to him. Not
only does Schank not want Nick to be an undead monster, but he hasn't seen
anything to really change his fundamental opinion of his partner. If he
had seen Nick do something evil, say, it would matter, and I'd guess that
Schanke would have been less of a patsy (and would become ever more
suspicious and resistant even if he could be made, temporarily, to
forget).
>> << Maybe I'm just one of those people
who they say can't be hypnotised >>
It's interesting to compare the FK vampire's hypnosis (I kind of like the
elegance of mesmerize) with real hypnosis. Is it the same thing or merely
similar? In the tag for "Francesca," Tracy the Resister is visiting a
Doctor who uses hypnosis: is she merely recounting a dream, or is she
hypnotized? (I think she's just remembering, but I hadn't thought of it
before.)
OK, enough of my silliness: I hate smilees, and I'm sure everyone's
already thought of this, but I can't resist ;-):
JF
-"You're weak, and need to feed, Jean-Pierre..."
Hi, Everybody!
Hi, Doctor Nat!