Barnabas and Reverend Trask...

[IluvBarnabas]

This will contain SPOILERS so anyone watching the show for the first time, avoid this thread.....



When Trask's ghost comes back in 1968 and bricks up Barnabas for revenge for Barnabas bricking him up back in 1795, do you think he was justified?

You all know how I feel about Trask, but being bricked up alive is a pretty horrible, nasty way to die....

[sallycollins]

He was justified only if he honestly didn't believe he did anything wrong in 1795. This would not have been the case with Gregory Trask, but the original actually thought he was doing the right thing.

Sally

[MagnusTrask]

So did Gregory.  That's how warped he was.

Thinking you're right doesn't justify killing people.   On the other hand, you've got to expect the worst from someone you buried alive.

[Doug]

It was too bad that Trask wasn't seen anymore after he encountered Nicolas Blair. He would have
been helpful for Barnabas.

[Lydia]

No, Trask's ghost wasn't justified.  But ghosts tend to act even more unreasonably than living people do.  They apparently get all het up about the circumstances of their death.  After a couple of hundred years, you would think they would get over it.

[arashi]

I think answering this would turn into a long winded essay on human nature if given the chance, so I'll just say Yes, I think Trask's ghost was justified, as I also think Barnabas in 1795 was also justified. An eye for an eye or something along those lines.

Given the show's predisposition to making Barnabas out to be the "good guy" after a while didn't really make him one. He still cheated, lied and murdered (or *planned* to murder) to get what he wanted.

[Raineypark]

Oh Hell.....every character in the show behaved like a Barbarian when it suited them.  It's one of the reasons we love them all.  Who among us has NEVER wished they could just snap their fingers and remove some pain in the ass from their life? 

[MagnusTrask]

Oh Hell.....every character in the show behaved like a Barbarian when it suited them.  It's one of the reasons we love them all.  Who among us has NEVER wished they could just snap their fingers and remove some pain in the ass from their life? 

I like this.  Thank you.   We all tend to feel as if we're standing on a hilltop objectively judging, but our own lives can be as morally murky and difficult to sort out or deal with as those of DS characters.  That may not be what you meant, but it's what occurred to me.

At some point, fine points of justice go out the window, and you scream in pain and want vengeance, not because you're immoral but because you're human.

Anyhoo, what gets me about that Trask is how his spirit still thinks it's a man of God.   I tend to think the scales fall from one's eyes when one dies, but I'm not sure why I assume that.   God has better things to do than to treat Trask to personal service, disillusioning him about his hypocritical ideas and behavior, even in the "afterlife", I guess.

I've been thinking about the nature of ghosts.   I think part of it is to be horribly, unbearably stuck dwelling forever on the situation that killed you.   They need to "move on" (heaven?) but can't.   Maybe it's the normal everyday human difficulty in "moving on" (coming to terms with something traumatic), written large.

[Doug]

I think answering this would turn into a long winded essay on human nature if given the chance, so I'll just say Yes, I think Trask's ghost was justified, as I also think Barnabas in 1795 was also justified. An eye for an eye or something along those lines.

Given the show's predisposition to making Barnabas out to be the "good guy" after a while didn't really make him one. He still cheated, lied and murdered (or *planned* to murder) to get what he wanted.

I could never figure out what made Barnabas turned good after Dr. Eric Lang gave him that blood transfusion, to
make him survive in the daylight.

[Brandon Collins]

Do I think Trask was justified? Heck yea! Why wouldn't he be? And do I think that HE thought he was justified? Well, of course. Otherwise, why would he have come back to brick Barnabas up?

Come to think of it, I think Trask was MORE fair to Barnabas than Barnabas was to him back in 1795 when he bricked him up. Barnabas didn't give Trask any way out of the situation. It was "Here, sign this letter and then get in that alcove there while I put bricks in front of you." That was that. At least when Trask came back as a ghost in the present day storyline, he summonded ghosts of the past who Barnabas had "wronged" and gave him a trail. Sure, it wasn't a completely fair trial, but it was more than Barnabas did for Trask in the first place.

Ultimately, did Trask deserve to be bricked up? Probably not. But given the circumstances and Trask's extremely crafty ways, Barnabas really couldn't trust that Trask would go to the courthouse and freely state that he was wrong about Vicki, and that he recanted all his testimony and his entire case basically. Who did Barnabas know that would accompany Trask that would seem to be credible? No one. Ben was only a servant after all, and Barnabas couldn't do it for himself because he was too busy snoozin' away in his coffin all day. So, really, Baranbas' only option was to somehow keep Trask captive and then make him visit the judge's offices or home at night, which would've been highly risky (Barnabas could've been seen), or to kill Trask after Trask signed a confession. The latter of the two seems the easiest.

[PennyDreadful]

So, really, Baranbas' only option was to somehow keep Trask captive and then make him visit the judge's offices or home at night, which would've been highly risky (Barnabas could've been seen), or to kill Trask after Trask signed a confession. The latter of the two seems the easiest.

Barnabas could have bitten Trask and placed him under his contol, forcing him to confess either verbally or through a written confession.  He didn't necessarily have to kill him.  I think he just wanted to.  There's also the possibility that Barnabas was not yet aware of the full extent of his powers.

~Penny~

[Lydia]

My general impression is that Dark Shadows vampires have real problems biting somebody whom they don't find attractive.  Beats me why; the teeth should always be functional, but maybe the gag reflex kicks in.  The thought of biting Reverend Trask may have been more than Barnabas could stomach.  This theory isn't watertight, however, because in 1897 Barnabas bites someone who should have made him want to throw up.

[arashi]

LOL Lydia! Why, whomever could you mean?

[MagnusTrask]

Good decoy vampire, that Dirk.

Spoiler:



The 1796 version of what has been suggested, with Nathan, didn't work very well.   It's so easy for a thing like that to go wrong.   If the bite marks are discovered, it's just another of Vicki's magic spells.

[sallycollins]

I'm on this board a month or so and I've noticed a recurring hostility to Roger Davis and/or his characters. I was wondering why.

Sally