...The other thing that I didn't like was the way Carl dies; Quentin has grown a lot as a person by this time, why would he just lock poor Carl up with Barnabas to be killed? (This murder really made my younger brother so angry at Barnabas and Quentin, Carl was his favorite character on the show; he even named his teddy bear after him). If they wanted to expose Barnabas, and needed to write Carl out, they could have done it in a better way. How did Barnabas know that Carl's death wouldn't change history? I'd have preferred that they have Trask kill Carl if they wanted to kill him, everyone hated Trask anyway, or have him leave town.....
Going to try and reconstruct the part of last night's post about Quentin and Carl. That scene in the mausoleum is, weirdly enough a favorite of mine. Its what pushed me from timeshifting every day because I had accidentally caught DS from the beginning, to keeping every tape instead of taping over them. The acting in that scene grabbed me and shook me. The actors just flew when they did it. Karlen's Carl was horrified and terrified and could NOT understand what was wrong with Quentin. Quentin on the other hand was like a man living his worst nightmare. Since he was still quite a coward, not to mention self serving at that stage of the storyline, he was terrified. YOu can see how he is torn -- its like he is watching himself from the outside for part of it, and that scene where he is against the wall listening to Carl's screams. Marvelous acting on Selby's part. You can see the reluctance and self loathing, but Quentin is still to much of a coward NOT to do it.
Interstingly, contrast this with later in the storyline, after he has matured and gained more empathy. Petofi forces him to go to stake Barnabas. He has the portrait, points out that he (Petofi) can detroy it or use it to make him transform at any time or place. Forget if he makes other threats or what they are. He goes to stake Barn as reluctantly as he locks Carl in. But that time, he has more MORAL courage. In the final analysis he CANNOT do it, no matter what the consequences to himself. And if you think about it, how much of that decision was made by the guilt over Carl's death?
As to the plausibility of him betraying his own brother to save his own skin? Its the last lifeboat scenario. People can -- and do -- do pretty ugly things in the name of survival. Ask any concentration camp survivor. Not to mention the cases of women with small babies when in hiding from some vicious enemy, nave been documented to smother their own children rather than risk the survival of the group.
