Re: ATWT - Luke SPOILER

On Nov 21, 10:49 am, MarkH <MarkH_slipr...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

You depict an idealized depiction of a "man".

I'm not sure what you mean by "idealized." Such men do exist, Mark.
I've known some. (Not as nearly many as I would have liked, but enough
to know they're in existence and not quite so rare as to make them as
remarkable as you might think.)

 Many nice men

Nice men don't smooch their bride's grandson.

aren't
always in such control, but they are still fundamentally good.

Fundamentally good men don't put adolescent boys who look to them for
comfort in the awkward position of having to know that their
grandmother's new lover/boyfriend/husband/whatever is keeping a secret
about his sexuality. (And that's just for starters.) Doesn't Luke have
enough problems without having this dumped on him?

To want to offer comfort to someone who is hurting and who is
important to you is a beautiful thing. (Who could fail to be touched
by Luke and not want to be of help to him in his distress?) To let it
go beyond that, so that you add a bigger problem (actually, several
bigger problems) onto the problem that put him in such a vulnerable
position in the first place, that takes you out of the category of
fundamentally good.

I'll agree with you that the lack of premeditation, the lack of any
intent to be predatory, does make a difference, it does mitigate the
situation somewhat. But you can do a lot of damage even when you don't
mean to, when you behave carelessly and irresponsibly, and the damage
is no less real than if you had unleashed it maliciously. Luke isn't
going to be any *less* hurt by all this because Brian didn't mean for
it to happen.

To pick a different issue with a similar implication: Many people who
get behind the wheel of a car when they're drunk, for example, are
"nice" people, but when they mow somebody down and kill them, they
stop being "nice" people and become murderers. Obviously what Brian
has done is not in that league, but it's the same *kind* of mistake.

He could earn back some points, I guess, by undoing as much of the
damage as he can--by being upfront with Lucinda immediately, taking
full responsibility for what happened and relieving Luke of that
burden. I didn't get to watch today--is that the way this is going?
(I'm betting not.)

Moreover...not specific to this issue...I'm not a-priori concerned
about their age gap.  I can see it working, and do not question the
appropriateness.

The age alone is not what makes it inappropriate. In some
circumstances, a 50-ish man and 19-year-old boy or girl might be a
perfectly legitimate pairing. But like it or not, being the senior
member of the pair when the junior member is *that* young does confer
some responsibilities on the senior member, and one of those
responsibilities is not to take advantage, which is what has happened
here regardless of intent.

Michael
.

Relevant Pages