Booker thoughts
Sep. 6th, 2020 02:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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the_old_guardI've seen a lot of discussion about Booker, but there's one thing I've been thinking about lately that I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere, so I wanted to throw it out here in case anyone else thinks it's interesting too.
Booker's tragedy, the thing that made him so miserable he was willing to sell the team out for a chance at dying, was outliving his family and being resented by (some? all? of) them for it. And I don't mean to suggest that that isn't an awful thing, but if you think about it, it's not actually a situation that is unique to immortals.
Like, obviously it wouldn't have happened if Booker had died when he did and stayed dead, but consider the slight AU where he deserts from Napoleon's army but doesn't get caught and executed for it. Instead he successfully gets away and eventually makes it home. He could have gotten back only to find out that his house burned down while he was gone and his entire family died in the fire. Or maybe there wasn't a fire, but his wife was pregnant when he left and she ended up dying in childbirth while he was gone, and his older sons resent him for not being there (maybe if he had been around there would have been money for a doctor, or she wouldn't have been working so hard right up until she went into labor, maybe maybe maybe). And then over the next several years his sons die one by one in other wars or accidents or of diseases while Booker is just lucky and stays healthy. These things happen. There are countless people in the world who have, for one reason or another, lived much longer than their partner and children.
Or even, for that matter, everything else goes exactly as in canon. Booker says in the film that his youngest son died of cancer at forty-two. Depending on how old Booker was when Jean-Pierre was born, if he was aging normally he would presumably have been somewhere between late sixties and early eighties at that point. Sure, living that long in the nineteenth century wasn't super common, but it wasn't impossible either. And yeah, Booker talks about "them" finding out his secret and wanting him to share it, but being resented for your health and longevity by your child who is dying prematurely from a debilitating disease or disability that you can't fix is also not a thing that only happens to immortals. Booker didn't have to be immortal for his son to have unreasonable expectations in terms of his father's ability to save him from cancer.
Being immortal made it all worse of course - more cause for resentment, much more time spent having to live with all afterwards - but the core of his tragedy is something that can and does happen to plenty of ordinary people too. I'm not sure what point I want to make with this exactly, I just think it's interesting.
Booker's tragedy, the thing that made him so miserable he was willing to sell the team out for a chance at dying, was outliving his family and being resented by (some? all? of) them for it. And I don't mean to suggest that that isn't an awful thing, but if you think about it, it's not actually a situation that is unique to immortals.
Like, obviously it wouldn't have happened if Booker had died when he did and stayed dead, but consider the slight AU where he deserts from Napoleon's army but doesn't get caught and executed for it. Instead he successfully gets away and eventually makes it home. He could have gotten back only to find out that his house burned down while he was gone and his entire family died in the fire. Or maybe there wasn't a fire, but his wife was pregnant when he left and she ended up dying in childbirth while he was gone, and his older sons resent him for not being there (maybe if he had been around there would have been money for a doctor, or she wouldn't have been working so hard right up until she went into labor, maybe maybe maybe). And then over the next several years his sons die one by one in other wars or accidents or of diseases while Booker is just lucky and stays healthy. These things happen. There are countless people in the world who have, for one reason or another, lived much longer than their partner and children.
Or even, for that matter, everything else goes exactly as in canon. Booker says in the film that his youngest son died of cancer at forty-two. Depending on how old Booker was when Jean-Pierre was born, if he was aging normally he would presumably have been somewhere between late sixties and early eighties at that point. Sure, living that long in the nineteenth century wasn't super common, but it wasn't impossible either. And yeah, Booker talks about "them" finding out his secret and wanting him to share it, but being resented for your health and longevity by your child who is dying prematurely from a debilitating disease or disability that you can't fix is also not a thing that only happens to immortals. Booker didn't have to be immortal for his son to have unreasonable expectations in terms of his father's ability to save him from cancer.
Being immortal made it all worse of course - more cause for resentment, much more time spent having to live with all afterwards - but the core of his tragedy is something that can and does happen to plenty of ordinary people too. I'm not sure what point I want to make with this exactly, I just think it's interesting.
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Date: 2020-09-06 05:58 am (UTC)It's also - speaking as someone who has stood on the outside of a seemingly perfect pairing - incredibly difficult to want to open up to them when you're feeling unhappy, and I can totally see Booker not wanting to "ruin" that happiness.