Lamar Trask's motivation?

[Garth Blackwood]

[spoiler]
I was watching the episode from 1840 where Daphne and Gerard got married and noticed something strange about the scene where Quentin arrives right after they married and Trask holds him at gunpoint to return him to the police. During that scene, Daphne clearly comes out of a trance and doesn't remember what happened to her and Gerard doesn't even bother to deny it when Quentin states that she was obviously under a spell, cast by Gerard. Trask hears all of this and is completely unphased and seems to have no problem with the fact that Quentin is innocent and he's been helping the true warlock all along. I thought Trask was only persecuting Quentin because he truly believed he was a warlock-- apparently not. So, what was his motivation? Is he part of the whole underground warlock conspiracy??? haha
[/spoiler]

[MagnusTrask]

Hmmm.  The Watching Project is just starting 1840 so I won't see that again for awhile.  I think I was mystified by Trask's motivations at that point too, though.   Maybe he was just too dumb to be able to shift his perspective easily or quickly....   Well, he managed[spoiler]to shoot a witch, one way or another![/spoiler]

[michael c]

sort of OT but i've been watching 1795 again and noticing that reverand trask is sort of ground zero for a new and different type of character on the series...

as portrayed by jerry lacey he is for me the first character played so broadly,so over-the-top,that he inaugurates the era where DS perhaps acquires it's (whisper it!)"camp" reputation.

before trask,even as ghosts as monsters began to overtake the series,the actors played at a certain pitch. it could be a bit flamboyant,a bit on-the-edge(think diana millay and grayson hall),but it never came close to the type of energy lacey brought to the proceedings.it's almost comical.

it's a type of acting/character that continues with doctor lang,adam,tom jennings and others for the remainder of the show's run but for me trask is the first.

[MagnusTrask]

I always thought that the Trasks were credible villains.  No matter how loudly they bellowed, I could believe it.   I could laugh at them too, but straightforwardly, not in that ironic sort of camp way.   I don't laugh at DS but I sometimes laugh with it.   Judgmental self-aggrandizing religious fanatics exist, and are dangerous but ridiculous too.

[ProfStokes]

[spoiler]In part, I think Lamar was too pig-headed and fanatical to ever even consider that he might have made a mistake.  In a broader sense though, I think that by this point, he had developed a grudge against the Collins family as a whole because of their association to Barnabas, who killed his father.  An injury to Quentin would indirectly be a strike back at Barnabas, so it may not have mattered to Lamar if Quentin was really innocent.[/spoiler]

ProfStokes

[Garth Blackwood]

Yes but I think the original Rev Trask really believed what he was doing was right. Gregory and Lamar seemed far more willing to compromise their ethics.

[Garth Blackwood]

[spoiler]In part, I think Lamar was too pig-headed and fanatical to ever even consider that he might have made a mistake.  In a broader sense though, I think that by this point, he had developed a grudge against the Collins family as a whole because of their association to Barnabas, who killed his father.  An injury to Quentin would indirectly be a strike back at Barnabas, so it may not have mattered to Lamar if Quentin was really innocent.[/spoiler]

I can buy that, but why [spoiler]didn't he at least go after Gerard as well?[/spoiler]

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I don't think Gregory had any ethics. All he seemed to want to do was further his position no matter the cost, not even at the cost of human life.  

As for Lamar, I haven't watched 1840 in a while, so I'm really not sure what's going on with him in that scene. And as Magnus mentioned the WP hasn't got up to that ep yet. But I suspect that when it does this topic will be revisited.  

[MagnusTrask]

Yes but I think the original Rev Trask really believed what he was doing was right. Gregory and Lamar seemed far more willing to compromise their ethics.

They ALL believed what they were doing was right, and they ALL were self-serving hypocrites.   That's what a hypocrite is: someone who's able to lie to himself, making himself conveniently believe that all the self-aggrandizing and all the pontificating and all the harm they do is for everyone's benefit.

The point of view of the show is clear:  whenever the first Trask is spoken of after we leave 1795, he is always characterized as vicious, dangerous, and hypocritical.   The first Trask's life consisted of compromising the principles he claimed to uphold.    It shouldn't be necessary to point out that he bribed Forbes to lie on the stand, when you only have to listen to him to know he's in it for his own ego and need for power over others.

I'd take Lamar over Trask #1 any day.   At least Lamar didn't have the delusions of perfection and power that made the first Trask feel free to do any violent thing he felt like doing, such as tying governesses to trees.

Gregory was completely able to excuse any and all selfish, material inpulses in himself as being for others' benefit.   Even though it makes no sense to us when he claims controlling Collinwood is for the benefit of the poor, crazy Collinses, he believes it.   He can make himself believe anything he wants; so technically you could say he "meant well", and you could say the same about the other Trasks... but so what?    "Meaning well" loses all meaning, when you're talking about people like this.

[Patti Feinberg]

I totally agree with ProfStokes about Trask(s) having it 'in' for the Collins. And, I further agree that the character portrayal was over-the-top fervent fanatical (crazy!)

Patti

[Philippe Cordier]

An injury to Quentin would indirectly be a strike back at Barnabas, so it may not have mattered to Lamar if Quentin was really innocent.

A very good analysis that makes this otherwise puzzling behavior understandable.

mscbryk writes:

as portrayed by jerry lacey he is for me the first character played so broadly,so over-the-top,that he inaugurates the era where DS perhaps acquires it's (whisper it!)"camp" reputation

I always thought Dennis Patrick was a bit over-the-top as Jason Maguire, but as I re-watch the first and second DVDs (the introduction to Barnabas), I'm not seeing that as much as I remembered. But I think you're right that Jerry Lacey's portrayal was a major departure from believability. I had liked him as Tony (?) and was really disappointed in the way he followed that up with such a cartoonish portrayal of Trask. As you say, that was the first of many such performances on DS, although it's most pronounced with the "villains." (I've been pelted with angry comments for this in the past and am not hoping to open a can of worms, but that's the way it seems to me and I wanted to affirm your observation. It is the type of performance that I think turns away the casual viewer and leads to the typical dismissive comments of the series as a whole)
 

[Gothick]

I think the Trask character had hated the Collinses for awhile.  He blamed them for the death of Roxanne, and then found out about his father.  I think by the time of the scene Garth Blackwood mentions, Lamar Trask is completely loony-tunes--his attempt to murder Barnabas establishes that fairly conclusively, I would say.

Just to defend Jerry Lacy, I'm not sure that the Trask character could have been effectively played in a more "understated" or "realistic" vein.  A number of the actors' memories of the direction on DS starting around this time refer to Henry Kaplan pushing for "more, bigger reaction" from the performers, particularly in those cliffhanger close-ups while Sybil angled the needle onto the sting record.  I remember a description of a set visit from 1970 where the journalist described Selby staring into camera three in fixed, utter horror for nearly a full-minute, then collapsing on the floor with laughter once the red light went off.  (In all fairness, Grayson might have been mugging and pulling faces at him off-camera--she did that sometimes because she did have a naughty streak.)

I thought Lacy had fabulous moments in each of his characterizations.  Gregory was my favorite because the hypocrisy was so deliciously nuanced, and I think in part we have Violet Welles' writing to thank for that.  The writing during 1840 got very loose IMO mainly because once again the writers were being goaded to run the story off the rails, this time by Lela because DC was off preparing his fabulous career as the new Orson Welles for liftoff *rolls eyes*.

Happy Thanksgiving, all.

G.

[MagnusTrask]

I've always hated the occasional periods of over-acting in DS, but have never included the Trasks in any of that.   It's not automatically better to have all characters act in an understated way.   Not everyone is like that.   In fact, Trask may be my favorite thing about DS.

[Philippe Cordier]

A number of the actors' memories of the direction on DS starting around this time refer to Henry Kaplan pushing for "more, bigger reaction" from the performers, particularly in those cliffhanger close-ups while Sybil angled the needle onto the sting record.  I remember a description of a set visit from 1970 where the journalist described Selby staring into camera three in fixed, utter horror for nearly a full-minute, then collapsing on the floor with laughter once the red light went off. 

MB has written about this several times too (not sure if he mentioned Henry Kaplan specifically). So many of these actors have done excellent work outside of DS (Chris Pennock, for example, and Addison Powell, apparently) that I'm sure the direction must have been a big part of the larger-than-life acting. It has taken me a while to see that, because on the other hand there were villains on DS who didn't "overact," IMO, such as James Storm. Perhaps someone else was directing Mr. Storm!

Performances in the two DS movies were uniformly "realistic," on the other hand. I appreciated seeing the theatrical showing of HODS in Burbank this summer because the acting in some cases had nuances that didn't come across as well viewing on a small TV screen.

Hope everyone had an enjoyable Thanksgiving!

[michael c]

i don't doubt for a minute that alot of lacey's overacting as trask came from his direction...

but still lacey himself said on one of the dvd interviews trask was pure melodrama and "mustache twirling at it's best"(his words not mine). it's almost like that classic villain from the silent movie era(broad,over-the-top gestures)except that we could hear trask and to say his voice was abrasive would be an understatement.

and not all DS villians behaved in such a ham-handed fashion...certainly not frid even at his worst. not parker. not selby. and as someone mentioned not james storm either.

i haven't seen any of his other work but just in terms of DS lacey was not exactly subtle. even his early tony peterson was such an obvious riff on "bogey" it was almost laughable.