victor frankenstein defender

For example, consider the conversation between Blanky and Francis in episode 7, when they are about to abandon the ships. Blanky tells a story about the time the Terror almost sank only to come thru in the end and concludes about the present day "she may well triumph" with perfect sincerity of belief. In another show, one can imagine the Terror coming thru for the walking men just when all hope seemed lost, following a thaw. And yet, we know even as Blanky says those words, that the ship is doomed--it will never sail again.

And this keeps happening through out the show. Bridgens tells Peglar about the men who found themselves in hostile country in Persia, who "walked for hundreds and hundreds of miles through desert and snow, with no food," and survived, when we know they very much so will not. Lady Jane speaks with utmost conviction about being able to feel Sir John calling to her when we know that Sir John is long dead. The examples go on and on.

The most interesting thing this does is that it makes statements that would otherwise be read as the writer's ultimate verdict on the topic into these beautifully nuanced and ambivalent things. For example, Bridgens tells a dying Fitzjames that he was a good man. Was he? He who is being poetically killed by the ghost of a Chinese sniper whose worth he once equated to a roasted duck? Is self-awareness and remorse enough to make up for that when it makes no tangible difference in the real world?

Francis tells Goodsir that "even if God is seeing every last thing we do here, you have nothing to fear. Not you. You're clean, Goodsir. Clean--even if your hand is forced by swine." Such a resounding statement which in any other context would have absolved Goodsir of everything he has done. But does it? Goodsir certainly does not accept the absolution himself, and his suicide is...something.