Another view of Trask

[tripwire]

ok  if i may, will play devils advocate for trask...sure, he was overzealous, make up wearing, and cruel, but, he was called for to find a witch.. and there was a witch there........VW has no explanation for how she got there, seems to be able to predict the future, has a book of the collins family from the future, and finally admits that she is from 172 years in the future, and explains that she was transported to the past while they were having a seance...oh   and that she once "flew back from boston"...i was a little disappointed he didnt question angelique a little more, specially after her admitting she had a "vision" of someone at the new house...this while he was looking for a possible "coven" of witches...so, there was a witch, he got a conviction, just the wrong girl, but, under the circumstances, the obvious person was put on trial.

[Miles]

I sorta agree with you, i mean, hey, its not like hes the only one who thought Vicki was a witch, he just happens to be the nutcase/weirdo who hunts witches for a living.  He always struck me as a pretty pathetic baddie, shouting and waving some stick at the stoop of the old house.  Sheesh.  I think the writers realized this too when they added on talk of his other cruel evildoings (did we ever seen any of that on the show?)  IMO, he only ranks as the 3rd maybe even 4th most evil character of the 1795 storyarc so far.

[Luciaphile]

Trask interests me.  He does believe in what he's doing, right down to the bitter end.  It doesn't make him likeable, but it makes him interesting.

There's also a level of naivete in the character--that reference to not really knowing about physical love, or the fact that it was Abigail who had to prod him into attempting to bribe/threaten Peter and Nathan, and even then it took him a minute or two to get it.

And as far as the belief in the occult/Satan/evil, etc., well, it's not a stretch to see him (and Abigail) as being uncomfortable in the era in which they lived (they would have both gone through huge changes in political climates, wars, cusp of a new century and all).  Some people fight that type of thing every step of the way, blaming what they do not understand on an amorphous evil.

Luciaphil

[Nancy]

ok  if i may, will play devils advocate for trask...sure, he was overzealous, make up wearing, and cruel, but, he was called for to find a witch.. and there was a witch there........VW has no explanation for how she got there, seems to be able to predict the future, has a book of the collins family from the future, and finally admits that she is from 172 years in the future, and explains that she was transported to the past while they were having a seance...oh   and that she once "flew back from boston"...i was a little disappointed he didnt question angelique a little more, specially after her admitting she had a "vision" of someone at the new house...this while he was looking for a possible "coven" of witches...so, there was a witch, he got a conviction, just the wrong girl, but, under the circumstances, the obvious person was put on trial.

I don't doubt that many people were convicted for witchcraft back in those days because their mental illness or general weirdness was interpreted as being associated with the devil.

Trask is fascinating, but I do believe he is a villain.  He pressured Forbes to testify against Vickie, even to lie, and if you are interested in doing the right thing and particularly passing yourself off as being a man of God, you don't need to get your evidence via lies if you really have evidence.     I could have given Trask the benefit of the doubt believing he was doing the right thing right up until he pressured Forbes to say what he did.  Trask honestly  believed in witches in the same way that many ultra-left politicians at one time believed the communists were everuywhere.  They went after anyone who was different or did not conform and what makes someone like this a villain is not caring whether or not the suspect in question is really innocent or not. It's all about racking up another score to prove how powerful you are.

Nancy

[Josette]

I always felt that if he sincerely wanted to find any "true" witches, he would have looked for any witches that were there, not just deciding that Vicki was it and doing anything he could to prove it.

When he did his exorcism - he should have been calling for "witch" in general.  If his ceremony were true (since the true witch was unaffected, evidently it wasn't) and if he had simply asked for "the witch" and not writing VW and calling for Victoria Winters, then perhaps ANY witch that was there would have been brought out.

Then, in the trial, when Ben said it was Angelique, Trask looked furious and tried to discredit him.  This was before Angelique appeared and Ben claimed that she was dead.  If Trask were truly interested in finding witches, he should be glad to learn that it was Angelique.  Here's someone at least admitting that there WAS a witch and NAMING her.  It seemed more important to him to prove that he was right about Vicki than to actually catch the true one.

[jennifer]

Trask interests me.  He does believe in what he's doing, right down to the bitter end.  It doesn't make him likeable, but it makes him interesting.

There's also a level of naivete in the character--that reference to not really knowing about physical love, or the fact that it was Abigail who had to prod him into attempting to bribe/threaten Peter and Nathan, and even then it took him a minute or two to get it.

And as far as the belief in the occult/Satan/evil, etc., well, it's not a stretch to see him (and Abigail) as being uncomfortable in the era in which they lived (they would have both gone through huge changes in political climates, wars, cusp of a new century and all).  Some people fight that type of thing every step of the way, blaming what they do not understand on an amorphous evil.

Luciaphil

This thing about not knowing anything about physical
love does he ever mention a Mrs. Trask in 1795 or did the writers just create a son later in 1840 to fit the storyline?

jennifer

i think also he just wanted to be right and needed to find a witch and she was the best target. he didn't care if she was the right one  only that he could convict her to keep his reputation as a witch hunter strong!

[Cassandra]

Josette, I agree with you here regarding Trask. He didn't care to believe Ben about who the real witch was because he had already made up his mind about Vicky the first time he met her that day in her room. I felt he had a personal vendetta against her since then. Vicky spoke up to him and how can we forget how she dared to smack "a man of God" in the face! I think once that was done, her fate was sealed as far as he was concerned.  Also once he got into this bribery business with Forbes,  what little truth I found in his character, flew right out the window.

[Raineypark]

This is a picky thing to point out, but I'm going to do it anyway.....
NO ONE was persecuting (yes, I spelled that  correctly) "Witches" in New England in 1795!!  The DS writers took HUGE creative license with that one.

I know, I know, there wouldn't have been any SHOW if they couldn't have used "Witchcraft"....but honestly, if they were going to fling Vicky back in time,  they could have sent her back to the 17th century right from the beginning and gotten it right.

Regarding Trasks motives and beliefs......IMHO that's all crap.   There only ever was ONE motive for Witchhunting and that was power.  The power to get an irritating mother-in-law off the fertile farmland....the power to get rid of a bitch-of-a-wife...the power to get your hands on your NEIGHBOR's wife....but mostly the power to keep the uneducated masses under SOMEBODY's thumb.

Trask's motive would have been want of a church of his own.

Okay, now I feel better....
End of Rant....
Rainey

[MikeS]

Even assuming Trask honestly believed Vicki was the witch, and that he was doing God's work, I still see him as a villian.  His bribing of Forbes showed that he would do anything to achieve his ends, no matter how unlawful.  He closed out all other points of view besides his own, turning a blind eye to any contradictory evidence.  In his mind, he was always right, and this made him a very dangerous person.  No telling how many innocent people would have suffered if he had been allowed to go on.  A fascinating character indeed, but still a villainous one.  

[VAM]

I know, I know, there wouldn't have been any SHOW if they couldn't have used "Witchcraft"....but honestly, if they were going to fling Vicky back in time,  they could have sent her back to the 17th century right from the beginning and gotten it right.

That would have been even more interesting by placing Vicky in the Miranda/Judah Zachery storyline that was only touched over slightly in 1840 sequence.

With regards to Trask, he was a charlatan, who could not get his act together and conduct a worthwhile interrogation to be believable...

[ROBINV]

Trask was definitely a bad 'un.

I remember how eager he was to touch Josette's face during his interrogation.  In the 1991 DS series, Trask's lust for young women was even more blatant; I remember him pouring hot water over a naked young woman to "punish" her.  There was no doubt THAT version of Trask was intended to be a sexual predactor.  

This Trask believed there was a witch at Collinwood, but because Vicki had the gall to defy and slap him at their first meeting, he became determined to show her who was boss, and he was immediately launched on a one-way, determined course to see her prosecuted.  

He felt he was doing God's work, but in truth, he was an extremely flawed human being.

Love, Robin

[Luciaphile]

With regards to Trask, he was a charlatan, who could not get his act together and conduct a worthwhile interrogation to be believable...

Charlatan implies he was a con artist, a quack.  I'm certainly not saying that Trask was a worthwhile human being, but he clearly wasn't there to make a buck or take advantage, at least not consciously.

Luciaphil

[Nancy]

With regards to Trask, he was a charlatan, who could not get his act together and conduct a worthwhile interrogation to be believable...

I agree with you, VAM.  He had the "real" witch under his nose and yet all of his supposed experience and holiness didn't pick Angelique up on his radar.  What was odd is that Trask didn't really bother looking for motive.  If he had, he would have realized that Angelique (always fairly new to Collinwood) had motive to want to raise her station and marry a Collins.  He might have been ignorant of the secret love she had for Barnabas, but the sudden wedding of Angelique, a maid, to Barnabas should have indicated something might not be quite right.
Trask never questioned that.

Nancy

[jennifer]

This is a picky thing to point out, but I'm going to do it anyway.....
NO ONE was persecuting (yes, I spelled that  correctly) "Witches" in New England in 1795!!  The DS writers took HUGE creative license with that one.

I know, I know, there wouldn't have been any SHOW if they couldn't have used "Witchcraft"....but honestly, if they were going to fling Vicky back in time,  they could have sent her back to the 17th century right from the beginning and gotten it right.

Regarding Trasks motives and beliefs......IMHO that's all crap.   There only ever was ONE motive for Witchhunting and that was power.  The power to get an irritating mother-in-law off the fertile farmland....the power to get rid of a bitch-of-a-wife...the power to get your hands on your NEIGHBOR's wife....but mostly the power to keep the uneducated masses under SOMEBODY's thumb.

Trask's motive would have been want of a church of his own.

Okay, now I feel better....
End of Rant....
Rainey

you are right Rainey we did discuss this last time this came up but by 1795 the witchhuntswere over! also they were mostly about land control as you stated! i live about an hour from Salem and went to school there
a few semesters It is fascinating to go there and learn about the history of the salem witchhunts!
Hey rant on !!

jennifer(Who loves a good rant !!!!)

[Cassandra]

I agree with you, VAM.  He had the "real" witch under his nose and yet all of his supposed experience and holiness didn't pick Angelique up on his radar.  What was odd is that Trask didn't really bother looking for motive.  If he had, he would have realized that Angelique (always fairly new to Collinwood) had motive to want to raise her station and marry a Collins.  He might have been ignorant of the secret love she had for Barnabas, but the sudden wedding of Angelique, a maid, to Barnabas should have indicated something might not be quite right.
Trask never questioned that.

I could never understand that! Not one person, Trask or anyone else seemed to look for a motive here. What really got me is during the trial. why didn't Peter Bradford,who is suppose to be the defense lawyer, bother to question Angelique while she was on the stand? ?!? After Trask had questioned her, the judge asked Peter if had any questions for the witness, and he just sits down and shakes his head no!! What kind of a defense lawyer would do that? He could have gotten something out of her by asking the right kind of questions. Granted Trask would have been shouting objections at him, but at least he could have tried.