Paul and Madeline

[swatkat]

Since we were talking about harshness - are we, the Michael/Nikita fans, too harsh when it comes to Paul and Madeline? Even those of us who actually like and admire them (including myself)? We're always going on about their cruelty and how Michael or Nikita (Nikita for me *g*) would've done a better job as Operations - why is that so? Now that we know all about Oversight and Centre, wasn't what Paul and Madeline did for their own survival, just like the way Michael and Nikita fought to survive in Section? And what is the guarantee that Michael and Nikita wouldn't do the exact same things when they got the power? Your thoughts here. *g*

Nell, tell me why Nikita wouldn't fall in the same trap as Paul in order to survive.

Comments

Had to go back and look

[jaybee65.livejournal.com]

at the transcript, because it was making my brain itch...

Lolipop girl and the big quiet boy were mission collalteral - younger siblings/relations of badguys who were swept up by housekeeping.

All I could find in the transcript (unless my eyes glazed over looking for it, which is certainly possible) was a reference in the beginning to the fact that those two were already in Section custody. No reference to how or why they were picked up.

Jasmine was a political prisoner - again, not a common criminal and not necessarily expecting life in prison given the shifts of fate that come in that context.

While the statement was unclear, the description of her activities certainly suggested that the nature of her political activities might have been terrorist in nature. But she's an ambiguous one, I'll give you that.

I can't remember what the obnoixous boy did

Made a bomb.

Jason, Ben, Greg, Sarah, O'Brien (and he was offered life in prison for a murder he didn't committ - not death) - it doesn't really matter that each recruiting situation was unique - my point is that there were a significant minority of other operatives in section who would have no reasonable cause to think that an apartment alone was reward enough for being alive - which was Cyanide's arguement.

Thanks for the correction on O'Brien. But I don't believe non-criminals constituted a significant minority. There's no way to prove this one way or the other, but I think the bulk of the evidence suggests otherwise.

I'm also not sure that just because someone was in prison - even for a life term - makes them ill-educated or renders them without a desire to be truly free of supervision...again, I'm just arguing against the idea that there would be a large cadre of folks in section who might feel grateful for what Section did offer in exchange for their lives.

I don't really agree with the idea that a criminal would feel grateful, either. Actually, I'm going back to my earlier argument, which is the opposite -- since so many of Section's operatives were criminals, I think their psychological profile, on average, would make them less likely to become reliably loyal even if you treated them better than P&M did.

To quote Michael, I believe that the field ops, at least, would more often than not be "animals with guns".