DARK SHADOWS FORUMS
General Discussions => Current Talk Archive => Current Talk '26 I => Current Talk '08 I => Topic started by: IluvBarnabas on March 10, 2008, 02:20:27 PM
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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....
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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
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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.
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It was too bad that Trask wasn't seen anymore after he encountered Nicolas Blair. He would have
been helpful for Barnabas.
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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.
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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.
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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? [5363]
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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? [5363]
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.
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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.
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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.
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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~
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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.
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LOL Lydia! Why, whomever could you mean?
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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.
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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
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I'm inbetween on that. Sometimes I like RD characters, sometimes I don't. RD is good at going crazy. (Dirk, Tate)
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On my behalf, and I hope for others, I think it's more like good natured ribbing. A lot of it has to do with his behavior at Fests and the like.
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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.
It seems that most boards have one or two characters that get a lot of negative attention from the posters. On this board, the girl who took over for Alexander Moltke, Betsy Durkin, is really skewered most of the time. Human nature being what it is can use the anonymity of posting to really let loose with a lot of hostility. People become heavily vested in a character which I think is the reason for it IMO. If you ever go to the Dallas chat room, within 10 minutes, you'll see what I mean. [snow_rolleyes]
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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....
I thought this was totally out of character for Trask. As Jerry Lacy pointed out in an interview ones, the original (1795) Trask did seem to honestly believe what he was saying, and had a genuine drive to do good, despite being a fanatic. The other Trasks had little or no qualms about committing murder (Lamar tried to kill Barnabas, Gregory had all sorts of ethical problems). The original Trask (anyone know his first name???) seemed to be bound by ethics, so I really don't understand the "eye for an eye" mentality his ghost employed.
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I thought this was totally out of character for Trask. As Jerry Lacy pointed out in an interview ones, the original (1795) Trask did seem to honestly believe what he was saying, and had a genuine drive to do good, despite being a fanatic. The other Trasks had little or no qualms about committing murder (Lamar tried to kill Barnabas, Gregory had all sorts of ethical problems). The original Trask (anyone know his first name???) seemed to be bound by ethics, so I really don't understand the "eye for an eye" mentality his ghost employed.
None of the Trasks had any ethics at all, including the Reverend Trask of 1795. He proved that when
SPOILER ALERT:
He blackmailed Nathan into committing perjury and testify against Vicki at her witchcraft trial. I hardly think a man with good morals and ethics would stoop to that, even if he did think he was in the right.
Trask may very well have believed in what he was doing, but that doesn't justify blackmail and submitting perjury. If he truly was a man of God like he claimed he was, he would have realized that the Almighty looks down on lying and cheating.
I don't think it his revenge against Barnabas was out of character at all. The Bible does say whoever sheds the blood of man, so shall the blood of that man be shed. Trask, being the religious fanatic that he is even in death, probably chose to follow that very passage to justify what he was doing.
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None of the Trasks had any ethics at all, including the Reverend Trask of 1795. He proved that when
SPOILER ALERT:
He blackmailed Nathan into committing perjury and testify against Vicki at her witchcraft trial. I hardly think a man with good morals and ethics would stoop to that, even if he did think he was in the right.
Trask may very well have believed in what he was doing, but that doesn't justify blackmail and submitting perjury. If he truly was a man of God like he claimed he was, he would have realized that the Almighty looks down on lying and cheating.
I don't think it his revenge against Barnabas was out of character at all. The Bible does say whoever sheds the blood of man, so shall the blood of that man be shed. Trask, being the religious fanatic that he is even in death, probably chose to follow that very passage to justify what he was doing.
Your point is well taken about 1795 Trask's blackmail incident, although I think he could justify this by claiming that he was doing everything he could to bring to justice someone he honestly believed was a witch. Even in his death he appeared benevolent, in his own annoying evangelical way (by attempting to hunt down and destroy Angelique after he learned the truth). OK, maybe calling him benevolent is a bit of a stretch, but other than the minor trangression of "cheating" in order to condemn a witch (or so he thought), the behavior of his character as a human did not make him out to be a potentially vengeful and murderous person.
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I think being buried alive behind a brick wall would be enough to make anyone vengeful after death, even a religious fanatic such as Trask. Like I said, he probably used the whoever kills another man should be put to death to theory when he bricked Barnabas up.
I don't doubt Trask, while alive, would definitely have defended his actions to get Vicki convicted and hung as "the good of God," but it still doesn't make it right.
I don't think Vicki was the first girl he persecuted either. I wonder how many other innocent girls he sent to their doom all in the name of doing the work of God.
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I think being buried alive behind a brick wall would be enough to make anyone vengeful after death
Alright, I definately have to buy that justification. I still don't believe the human Trask gave us evidence that he could be that cold-blooded, but his ghost could be, given the particularly heinous circumstances surrounding his death. [snow_grin]
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I will say this for the 1795 Trask....he was nowhere near as bad as his descendent Gregory.
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Gregory was pure evil, it's shocking that he evil could pretend to me a reverand. I mean, the guy was a greedy multiple murdering blackmailer!! LOL!! He's on a whole nother level from Lamar and his father (although I would argue Lamar is worse because he actually attempted to murder Barnabas based on the slender evidence that he killed his father)
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I have to give credit where credit is due.
SPOILER ALERT:
Reverend Trask redeemed himself somewhat by going after the real witch Angelique/Cassandra and exorcised her once he got his revenge against Barnabas out of his system. Too bad though, that Nicholas Blair turned up to undo Trask's exorcism.
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Greg wasn't "pure evil" since that's something that's true only of supernatural creatures.
I think the only difference between Gregory and the others was the level of personal, financial greed. They were all equally hypocritical. Believing you're doing good ... that's a key component of the hypocrisy. It doesn't necessarily mean ANYTHING. Everyone in the world tells himself he's doing what's right, including Gregory. It outraged him that Charity was painting her face. He spouted off to Even about his moral principles at the same time that he was asking him to help in a murder. He's crazy enough to tell himself that whatever he does is holy.
The difference between a liar and a hypocrite is that the hypocrite is also lying to himself. That makes "meaning well" practically meaningless.
If Trask #1 was so wonderful, he'd take more care when accusing people. People like that are feeding their own egos. They need to feel powerful and righteous at other people's expense. They need to feel superior, even if others are hurt or killed in the process.
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Magnus--
Gregory could not possibly have thought he was doing the ethically correct thing when murdered that widow, or his wife Minerva. He may have thought he had moral principles, but consciously decided to ignore them from time to time (similarly to how Lamar ignores his when he decides to kill Barnabas). In none of these cases could any "greater good" result.
However, with the original Trask, you cannot say the same. His fault, albeit not necessary a moral one, was that he trusted his instincts too much. Besides, what the heck was he supposed to think when Victoria ran out of the house after the exorcism?? That was the final nail in the coffin regarding his opinion of Vicki, and from there on out he was completely determined to see her hang (which seemed to be a noble cause! If he had done this to Angelique in 1795 we wouldn't be talking about how morally faulty he was)
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Magnus--
Gregory could not possibly have thought he was doing the ethically correct thing when murdered that widow, or his wife Minerva.
Oh yes he could. It would be impossible for you or me, but not for him. It's amazing the kinds of total contradictions people can contain in their minds. That's where the idea for Orwell's "doublethink" began.
Minerva was a trial for him, someone whose constant suspicions were making it hard for him to have the serenity to do his work for the Lord properly and well.
There is a scene between Evan Hanley and G Trask, with ONLY the two of them in the room... and it's a conversation in which Trask has just blackmailed Hanley into agreeing to help Trask murder Minerva. Trask continues to speak as a "man of God", spouting righteous ideas and morals, even in the middle of this conversation. Remember, he's not talking to anyone except the man he's just arranged a murder with, so he doesn't need to lie to impress Evan with his "goodness"... therefore, Trask must really believe this about himself.
He knows on some very deep-down level it's wrong, but he's a man of God and the usual rules are flexible for special people like him. Rationalization becomes very easy after you've been practising a few decades.
Trask #1 is a similar hypocrite, lying to himself so that he can "honestly" lie through his teeth to others. It's about ego and power. As I said, if there were anything virtuous in him, he'd have some humility and question his own assumptions and actions, and take much more care before accusing anyone. He also would not enjoy the job so much. He's about to explode with pride as he accuses and torments and ties governesses to trees, etc..
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OK Trask I agree to disagree about whether Trask I was as bad as his successors. I just watched the awesome episode where Greg gets walled up-- the final scene with Tim Shaw and Judith laughing in front of the brick wall is pretty sweet.
By the way, earlier in the episode Greg jumped out of the way looking pretty scared when Mr Blackwood walked by [snow_cheesy]
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I have to give credit where credit is due.
SPOILER ALERT:
Reverend Trask redeemed himself somewhat by going after the real witch Angelique/Cassandra and exorcised her once he got his revenge against Barnabas out of his system. Too bad though, that Nicholas Blair turned up to undo Trask's exorcism.
Remember after that when Trask appeared to Vicki inside the Drawing Room to warn her about Angelique/Cassandra
until Jeff Clark entered? At that time, I was hoping to see more of Trask.
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Greg wasn't "pure evil" since that's something that's true only of supernatural creatures.
My Pastor at my church would strongly disagree with you on this one. He always taught us that we were all born evil because we eventually give in to the temptation of sin. It's just that some of us are more capable of feeling remorse and are able to repent than others are.
As a minister, Gregory Trask had to have been aware of THE most important commandment....Thou Shall Not Kill. I agree with Garth on this one.....Gregory deliberately chose to ignore it for his own selfish purposes.
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The world is FULL of people who rationalize bad actions, using arguments that make no sense, which they ignore the irrationality of, because they're not interested in right or wrong, but in getting what they want. Never underestimate the capacity of human beings to lie to themselves.
"Evil"... it depends on the definition one uses. Usually people don't bother to define the word before using it, making discussions about it meaningless. The concept of "evil" seems to mean people doing "bad" for "bad"s sake, to be "bad". That's Nicholas Blair helping Cassandra with her revenge on Barnabas, when no one but her gets anything out of it. Bad for bad's sake. That's what I say does not happen in the real world.
On "good" vs. "bad" in the general populace... if we divorce it from the idea of "evil" that simplifies it all... I say any scale has a zero point in the middle. Most people hover around that zero point, neither good nor bad. It's only when a challenge comes along and a person has to respond that the needle shifts in one direction or another. That's how I'm coming to see it.
Anyway, on Trask One, the position of DS is clearly that he's a hypocrite out for his own glory... Barnabas treats him that way, and even Nicholas does in 1968.
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My Pastor at my church would strongly disagree with you on this one. He always taught us that we were all born evil because we eventually give in to the temptation of sin. It's just that some of us are more capable of feeling remorse and are able to repent than others are.
There's a big difference between being imperfect and being evil. We are born imperfect, not inherently evil.
Nancy
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Obviously all the Trasks were flawed in their own ways. They each thought they were doing something that was "Gods" work.
Rev. Trask was hunting witches, and it was his objective to find them guilty no matter what it took, because that is what "God" wanted him to do. There was no place for witches in the world, so they had to be found out and hanged.
Greg Trask was doing "Gods" work in educating the children of the village to love and respect their elders, as well as respecting "God". He could rationalize that his deeds were committed for the good of the children because people like Minerva, with her constant probing, were hindering him from doing his job of educating the village. And Greg's forcing Judith to marry him could be seen as his wish to get hold of the most powerful name in the town, so that he could open up his school once again, and continue preaching "Gods" word to everyone.
Lamar, however, was putting people to rest. No matter their sins throughout life, he would bury there honorably, just as "God" would have wanted. Lamar wanted to pin the witchcraft of the town on Quentin because he was influenced by Gerudah (Gerard/Judah), and he believed that ridding the town of the witchcraft would prevent his dead corpse's from rising as zombie's and killing him.
Okay, so the last one is a bit of the stretch, but I'm hazy on the details of what all Lamar did.
My basic point is that they all believed themselves to be good people, who could rationalize what they were doing as being the work of their "God", whoever that may or may not have been. It's quite possible that they were all very much insane, hearing "God's" voice in their head from time to time. I agree with Magnus Trask that the Trask's attempted to rationalize their actions in their mind, but do I think they were evil? Hmm, not necessarily. I think it was more that they were lead down the wrong path initially, and found it hard to deviate from that path because they so devoutly believed in what they were doing. Most, if not all, of the acts they committed were hateful and wrong, and yea, they were pretty bad, but I think that evil is a term that is heavily over used in the place of "bad". So defining them as one or the other (good v. evil) is a tough call.
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I can't remember, but once Trask had married Judith, didn't he decide to close the school? I have some vague recollection of Charity being horrified at his decision. I could be mistaken, I honestly can't remember.
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I can't remember, but once Trask had married Judith, didn't he decide to close the school? I have some vague recollection of Charity being horrified at his decision. I could be mistaken, I honestly can't remember.
Yes, Trask did close down Worthington Hall once he married Judith, and yes Charity wasn't exactly thrilled over his decision but she went along with it.
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Yes, Trask did close down Worthington Hall once he married Judith, and yes Charity wasn't exactly thrilled over his decision but she went along with it.
I thought Worthington Hall burned down ... I could be wrong though-- it's been a little while since I'd seen those episodes
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I thought Worthington Hall burned down ... I could be wrong though-- it's been a little while since I'd seen those episodes
It did burn down, but they rebuilt it I believe...or at least Judith allowed them the funds to rebuild.
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Judith did say she'd give Trask the money to rebuild, but it never happened. Once he got Minerva out of the way, it was easier for him to marry her (and her money) than keep running the school.
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Judith did say she'd give Trask the money to rebuild, but it never happened. Once he got Minerva out of the way, it was easier for him to marry her (and her money) than keep running the school.
Aha...thanks for clarifying this. It's been awhile since I've watched those episodes.
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I thought Worthington Hall burned down ... I could be wrong though-- it's been a little while since I'd seen those episodes
It did burn down, but they rebuilt it I believe...or at least Judith allowed them the funds to rebuild.
Burned down by Laura Collins.
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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.
Makes me think of when Barnabas did the same thing with Carl Collins -- and as annoying as Carl was, he didn't cause anyone the tragedy and pain that Trask did. And at that point Barnabas WOULD have known he had the mind control as an option. Had already used it on Sandor when he first awakened, as a matter of fact. Guess we have to factor in the fact that sometimes Barnabas kills just because he CAN....
Jeannie
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[spoiler]
I agree that Barnabas just wanted to kill Trask. Wrong as it was, I can't say I shed any tears over the good Reverend, remembering how unscrupulous this "man of God" was to get Vicki convicted by any means necessary.
Carl is a different story. Even though a few generations seperated them, Carl was still related to Barnabas. And as you say, Pansity, Carl never really did anything to hurt anyone. Sure he played a lot of pratical jokes that annoyed the heck out of Judith and Edward, but he was nowhere near the monster that Gregory was.
I suppose Barnabas just acted without thinking when he strangled Carl. I'm not saying this excuses Barnabas from killling him, but it wasn't the first time Barnabas did something rash without thinking about the consequences. Nor would it be the last. [/spoiler]
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One thing I love about 1897 is that Barnabas is in a constant struggle between his human reformed self, and his vampire self, yet seems completely unaware of it.* They don't spell it out for us the audience, either. It unfolds as life does, without exposition. The re-vampirizing throws Barnabas so thoroughly (who hadn't even come to grips yet with becoming human again in 1968-9, I think) that he sometimes employs vicious methods in pursuing the right, humane goals (usually), and doesn't notice the contradiction. His perspective is just too thoroughly overwhelmed by vampirism. I think he never really catches on, not during 1897, anyway.
*- This is the new bit, that just occurred to me now. I've said similar things to this argument before, but that part's new.
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I forgot to include that he seems the same way in late 1795, with Trask, etc.. I'd say though that biting someone and getting him to testify the right way doesn't work, as we saw later with another pesky antagonist.