Submitting this because while it's a bit thin, it makes a reasonable point: the defective detective trope is over-used, especially in the UK. Very many UK tv detectives have some kind of...
Submitting this because while it's a bit thin, it makes a reasonable point: the defective detective trope is over-used, especially in the UK.
Very many UK tv detectives have some kind of dysfunction. Sometimes these are written well, but often they're just shoe-horned in to add "depth". I find it a bit frustrating to see things like alcohol use disorders handled so clumsily.
The other problem is that it re-enforces the brilliant arsehole trope -- someone who is a terrible person but it's okay because they solve the crime (or in "House" they cure the patient).
My parents watch a lot of British shows and I'm always surprised by how they all seem to be "normal but quaint show but the main character is a _____." There's fish out of water big-shot [doctor]...
My parents watch a lot of British shows and I'm always surprised by how they all seem to be "normal but quaint show but the main character is a _____." There's fish out of water big-shot [doctor] in a small town but he's on the spectrum, fish out of water big-shot DI but he's on the Caribbean, murder mystery in a small town in the 50s but he's a priest, murder mystery in a small town in the 50s but he's a vicar, etc.
I'm not saying the shows are bad or that other countries don't do it, but it seems to be every British show they ever watch.
Yeah, they watch it and I think it's become one of my sister's favorite shows too. But I usually prefer shows like 30 Rock, Arrested Development, Curb Your Enthusiasm, or Oz.
Yeah, they watch it and I think it's become one of my sister's favorite shows too. But I usually prefer shows like 30 Rock, Arrested Development, Curb Your Enthusiasm, or Oz.
I very much agree with the premise of the article. I'm really over seeing police (in particular but not only) behave badly on screen because they're the protagonist. I was a big SVU fan growing up...
I very much agree with the premise of the article. I'm really over seeing police (in particular but not only) behave badly on screen because they're the protagonist. I was a big SVU fan growing up but it wasn't until I was older I realized how much of that "copaganda" really taught me that the detectives were always right even if they assaulted a suspect in custody, and the defense attorneys were scum sucking lawyers.
I appreciate they mentioned House but other medical shows definitely fall into the trope too
What I started noticing everywhere was how often the Fourth Amendment is portrayed as some kind of horrible inconvenience that is hobbling "good cops".
What I started noticing everywhere was how often the Fourth Amendment is portrayed as some kind of horrible inconvenience that is hobbling "good cops".
Tropes aren't inherently bad and there's nothing wrong with a well done defective detective. House was a good show. So was the first season of Sherlock (with Cumberbatch). And a host of other...
Tropes aren't inherently bad and there's nothing wrong with a well done defective detective. House was a good show. So was the first season of Sherlock (with Cumberbatch). And a host of other shows that feature defective detectives are just good shows.
You can take umbrage with the portrayal of certain mental disorders, or perhaps the frequency of the trope, but it's somewhat unfair to paint the entire trope with a single brush.
One of my favorite works of fiction ever, Disco Elysium, is centered around a defective detective. But I do think police procedurals that use this trope suffer from a challenge that makes it...
One of my favorite works of fiction ever, Disco Elysium, is centered around a defective detective. But I do think police procedurals that use this trope suffer from a challenge that makes it easier to execute poorly -- their episodic nature. Police procedurals are perhaps the one part of TV that's still truly episodic, and the amount of character growth you can affect in such an atmosphere can be limited. Especially when the "defective detective" is one of the selling points of the show, the writers often can't have them change too much or risk alienating regular viewers.
Both the books and the alter ego. I halfway wrote it as spoiler protection for his name and halfway as the book character. As you know, finding out protag's name is a plot point so I didn't want...
Both the books and the alter ego. I halfway wrote it as spoiler protection for his name and halfway as the book character. As you know, finding out protag's name is a plot point so I didn't want to outright say it.
For what it is worth, I lost interest in House around the third season when the show was obviously starting to transition away from focusing on the medical cases to focusing on House's...
For what it is worth, I lost interest in House around the third season when the show was obviously starting to transition away from focusing on the medical cases to focusing on House's increasingly outlandish foibles.
Meanwhile, I found Sherlock's personality grating and unbelievable from the very start.
Tropes are not inherently bad, but this one is hard to do well, in my opinion — not because quirks are hard to write, but because the temptation is to grow that quirk into a spectacle. Well-written characters are multi-facted, and their signature quirk should enhance their personalities, not absorb them, and it certainly should not steal the spotlight. That's especially true for the detective genre, where the cases are the whole point. It's possible to do this well; I loved The Wire and Jonathan Creek, for example. But these are older shows written at a time when quirky characters were allowed to simply be. More recent shows seem to be under this intense pressure to constantly up the ante, even when that's wholly inappropriate for the genre and setting.
This would be my thinking too; as long as the execution is done well then I have no issue with how often a trope is trotted out. Not to philosophise too much, but I do think humans are inherently...
This would be my thinking too; as long as the execution is done well then I have no issue with how often a trope is trotted out. Not to philosophise too much, but I do think humans are inherently flawed, or in another manner of speaking, no one is perfect, so writing believable flaws into a character that then inform the decisions they make can help to make that character more grounded, relatable, and overall more three-dimensional.
By the same token, I don't think there is any onus on the writer to pass moral judgement on the characters they write - that's on the viewer/reader. It's been mentioned here already but worth reiterating that there exists a quite common issue in modern media literacy where 'protagonist' and 'good guy' are too often conflated together. It's quite natural that people want to like the characters they become invested in and it's an understandable reaction that any detestable behaviour then gets taken as a betrayal of this wish, or else simply absorbed or excused unthinkingly.
It's kind of weird that Monk goes without mention in that his show was if not the first, then was marketed as "the defective detective," and what I remember about him is that he was a lot to work...
It's kind of weird that Monk goes without mention in that his show was if not the first, then was marketed as "the defective detective," and what I remember about him is that he was a lot to work with and made his friends lives a bit more difficult, he did have friends and he went out of his way to be upfront with them about his needs, and continue to do his job to the best of his ability. I think there is some combination of the premise being novel in its time and Monk being an extremely sincere character that made the show work where it's successors don't.
It was on my mind too, partly because I'd been rewatching and enjoying it recently despite being pretty apathetic to most crime drama. As you've pointed out, the way in which Monk was flawed felt...
It was on my mind too, partly because I'd been rewatching and enjoying it recently despite being pretty apathetic to most crime drama.
As you've pointed out, the way in which Monk was flawed felt less tired and formulaic. There's a warmth and kind-heartedness to the character that does a better job getting the viewer on board than the "loose cannon that gets results" trope this article largely seems to be railing against.
Monk is an example of the trope being done reasonably well. It's a good show. Monk started in I think 2002? The UK had Shoestring which featured a computer expert who had a "mental breakdown" and...
It's kind of weird that Monk goes without mention in that his show was if not the first,
Monk is an example of the trope being done reasonably well. It's a good show.
Monk started in I think 2002? The UK had Shoestring which featured a computer expert who had a "mental breakdown" and then became a private detective. This aired in 1979. It's a really long standing trope in UK crime drama.
All asshole protagonist follows the same formula, 1) Let them be whiny and angsty 2) give them way more screentime than their victims, so they get the viewers empathy. It's just such a cheap...
All asshole protagonist follows the same formula, 1) Let them be whiny and angsty 2) give them way more screentime than their victims, so they get the viewers empathy. It's just such a cheap emotional hack. Bonus points if you add the morality gray hard choices trope, like torture in a ticking-bomb scenario, or Harriet Jones mass killing the space muslims to send a shock and awe message.
On a positive note, I like how this trope is used, explored and subverted in Bojack Horseman (which, curiously, have a fictious police procedural)
Weak writing is weak writing. There’s a million tropes you can explore and subvert or just stick with. I liked House, I think The Wire is amazing, and agree that bojack is also great. I don’t see...
Weak writing is weak writing.
There’s a million tropes you can explore and subvert or just stick with. I liked House, I think The Wire is amazing, and agree that bojack is also great.
I don’t see much of a reason to complain about this when there will always be weak/cheap procedural style shows cashing in on what people enjoy
It's been interesting/?fun? to watch L&O SVU morph from "Elliot tramples the constitution to get justice" to "Liv and her team fight for victim's rights". I remember enjoying the Elliot bulldozing...
It's been interesting/?fun? to watch L&O SVU morph from "Elliot tramples the constitution to get justice" to "Liv and her team fight for victim's rights". I remember enjoying the Elliot bulldozing years (20 years ago), but have trouble rewatching them now... Conversely, I doubt I'd have had the emotional intelligence to appreciate the Liv->Victim's rights era 20+ years ago, but appreciate it now as something of an advanced (for me) course in practicing empathy even when it's inconvenient.
I browsed over the article, but didn't see Luther mentioned. It was definitely the most noticeable example to me. I love Idris Elba and wanted to like it, but the first episode felt incredibly bad...
I browsed over the article, but didn't see Luther mentioned. It was definitely the most noticeable example to me. I love Idris Elba and wanted to like it, but the first episode felt incredibly bad as far as "quality writing" goes, and I gave it another two episodes before just calling it off. The directing was fine and the acting was fine, but the quality of script they had to deal with was god awful and I just couldn't take it anymore. It was a perfect example of how they could have removed the "defective" parts of our protagonist (or at least for the love of God tuned them down) and ended up with a fine show, but instead they just cranked it up to 11.
They were not space muslims, they were alien extortionists who threatened to kill off a third of the population. No religion, no covert cells, just straight up threats.
Harriet Jones mass killing the space muslims to send a shock and awe message.
They were not space muslims, they were alien extortionists who threatened to kill off a third of the population. No religion, no covert cells, just straight up threats.
My main point was that at the time Harriet Jones decided to mass kill the aliens, they were leaving earth, after an unbreakable peace tract had been reached. The clip juxtapose the tolerant (but...
My main point was that at the time Harriet Jones decided to mass kill the aliens, they were leaving earth, after an unbreakable peace tract had been reached. The clip juxtapose the tolerant (but naive) Doctor Who against the more grounded Harriet Jones who has to do something about all those aliens coming towards earth—the parallel to the debate regarding illegal aliens just seem so obvious to me. Her mass killings were later used to give her literal martyr status for making The Hard Choices.
About me calling them "space muslims", I can't find anyone other sharing this intepretation, but I can tell you what makes me think that myself.
If I recall correctly, the reason the peace treaty was unbreakable was that the alien leader had sworn to it on their holy book. Despite being split into various clans (like, you know, muslims in Afghanistan) they all follow their holy book to the letter. (the idea of all muslims reading the Quaran the same is a racist trope. The Nazis antisemitism also followed the pattern of thinking of the Jews as an united force, reading the Talmud the same way)
Also, they look like stereotypical orientalist warriors. And they raving and threatening like the stereotypical fanatic Imam or suicide bomber.
Muslim as a treat towards western civilication was a basic theme after 9/11. I'd think this was the core of the decades Zeitgeist. So it is hard to create a alien race of angry primitive, superstitious zealots attacking the (western) world without it somehow buying into this trope.
First, I don't remember any holy book. Second, are we talking about the same leader who reneged on it and charged the Doctor the second he turned his back?
the reason the peace treaty was unbreakable was that the alien leader had sworn to it on their holy book.
First, I don't remember any holy book. Second, are we talking about the same leader who reneged on it and charged the Doctor the second he turned his back?
It's funny this comes up now. I was rewatching the series premiere of The Expanse last night, where (spoilers for anyone who has yet to watch but intends to) Miller throws a guy inside an airlock...
It's funny this comes up now. I was rewatching the series premiere of The Expanse last night, where (spoilers for anyone who has yet to watch but intends to)
Miller throws a guy inside an airlock and slowly vents it to punish him. It works solely because we as an audience know who the "good guy" is (because his name is in the credits) but honestly, it shouldn't be acceptable no matter the situation.
I think the books make it clearer that spoiler Miller is a sad sack failure and getting obsessed with the "right" missing girl was more accident than skill. at least that's what I recall, been a...
I think the books make it clearer that
spoiler
Miller is a sad sack failure and getting obsessed with the "right" missing girl was more accident than skill.
at least that's what I recall, been a while since book 1
It explains why he's a defective detective, but it doesn't excuse the trope in the first place, was more my thought. But yeah, it's clear there's extenuating backstory.
It explains why he's a defective detective, but it doesn't excuse the trope in the first place, was more my thought. But yeah, it's clear there's extenuating backstory.
The distinction I was making is that I think he's less idealized as the DD trope because IME the DD is almost always "right" and this justifies their defect, or other people tolerating the defect....
The distinction I was making is that I think he's less idealized as the DD trope because IME the DD is almost always "right" and this justifies their defect, or other people tolerating the defect. I don't think the book justifies Miller as DD trope the way the show did
But ymmv.
I don't think it's as much "the DD is always right" as it is "those qualities that make a DD are the same ones which give them the insight into the criminal mind", kind of you have to think like...
I don't think it's as much "the DD is always right" as it is "those qualities that make a DD are the same ones which give them the insight into the criminal mind", kind of you have to think like them to beat them.
I don't know if I think that is ingrained in the model that you need to think like the criminal. Sherlock Holmes doesn't act like a criminal, he does cocaine and acts an ass sometimes. I don't...
I don't know if I think that is ingrained in the model that you need to think like the criminal. Sherlock Holmes doesn't act like a criminal, he does cocaine and acts an ass sometimes. I don't think the Vicodin addiction gave House his superpowers. And I don't think detective Stabler "had" to cross multiple ethical lines over the years either
I think it's honestly a lot of pulling from autistic traits and noir "alcoholic detective" type tropes where if you mix them up enough you get the defective detective.
Sometimes it's that they're a genius without their "defect" and the world is holding them back. Sometimes the defect is their genius and they wouldn't be a genius if they weren't OCD, autistic, whatever.
I don't think I explained my view of the concept properly. It's not so much that I think they need to have a mind that has a criminal mindset, as I believe they have to have a mind that's...
I don't think I explained my view of the concept properly. It's not so much that I think they need to have a mind that has a criminal mindset, as I believe they have to have a mind that's sufficiently "damaged" enough to be able to connect to the same wavelength. They don't have to think in the same manner, just have a brain that's dark enough to be able to go places that most people can't.
To be clear, I am not one of those people... I think that damaged people are just damaged and brilliant people are just brilliant and it's possible to be both. But there is a school of thought that says that insanity and genius are parallel roads, and I think a good deal of people subscribe to that theory.
I'm not sure that this is actually at the heart of the trope, but I see where you're coming from. I'm particularly thinking of the addict subtype, they don't really seem to be needing the...
I'm not sure that this is actually at the heart of the trope, but I see where you're coming from. I'm particularly thinking of the addict subtype, they don't really seem to be needing the addiction to do the thing, it's just their personality flaw.
As ever, Pratchett is perhaps my favorite in subverting this. Vimes gets off the bottle and out of the gutter, Carrot is at worst naive (and not for long) Angua's er .."condition" is not a defect, etc. Colon and Nobbs are mostly alright, and Nobby is even a certified human.
Any fans of Foyle's War on here? The show highlighted the criminal lengths someone might go to in desperation or opportunism in times of war. But one of the things I appreciated most about it was...
Any fans of Foyle's War on here? The show highlighted the criminal lengths someone might go to in desperation or opportunism in times of war. But one of the things I appreciated most about it was that Foyle himself always takes the high road, even when it's hard, even when there's nothing in it for him. He keeps a cool head and doggedly does what's right. It's honestly refreshing to see a hero character who is genuinely heroic.
I don't remember how I was introduced to that show, but I do remember my grandad loved it. Foyle was a good detective, particularly good with his words, and never (IIRC) had to raise his voice.
I don't remember how I was introduced to that show, but I do remember my grandad loved it. Foyle was a good detective, particularly good with his words, and never (IIRC) had to raise his voice.
As an unapologetic fan of 'defective detective' shows, I think it resonates (for me, likely many others) in that you see someone deeply flawed still managing to function and even excel in spite of...
As an unapologetic fan of 'defective detective' shows, I think it resonates (for me, likely many others) in that you see someone deeply flawed still managing to function and even excel in spite of their demons. Elementary is a particular favorite b/c over the 8 seasons you get to see Sherlock grow/improve/actually connect with other humans. Much of the credit (explicitly mentioned repeatedly in the show) goes to the people around him who (sometimes) hold him accountable w/o entirely dismissing him (when he probably should have been dismissed). They also get more right than is typical w/regards to addiction.
I’m surprised no one has yet given a dishonorable mention to the entire Baltimore homicide unit from The Wire. It’s not just Jimmy McNulty: it’s a requirement to be a defective detective to get...
I’m surprised no one has yet given a dishonorable mention to the entire Baltimore homicide unit from The Wire. It’s not just Jimmy McNulty: it’s a requirement to be a defective detective to get hired there.
Submitting this because while it's a bit thin, it makes a reasonable point: the defective detective trope is over-used, especially in the UK.
Very many UK tv detectives have some kind of dysfunction. Sometimes these are written well, but often they're just shoe-horned in to add "depth". I find it a bit frustrating to see things like alcohol use disorders handled so clumsily.
The other problem is that it re-enforces the brilliant arsehole trope -- someone who is a terrible person but it's okay because they solve the crime (or in "House" they cure the patient).
My parents watch a lot of British shows and I'm always surprised by how they all seem to be "normal but quaint show but the main character is a _____." There's fish out of water big-shot [doctor] in a small town but he's on the spectrum, fish out of water big-shot DI but he's on the Caribbean, murder mystery in a small town in the 50s but he's a priest, murder mystery in a small town in the 50s but he's a vicar, etc.
I'm not saying the shows are bad or that other countries don't do it, but it seems to be every British show they ever watch.
I've been watching "Jonathan Creek" and it fits this pattern. The main character is a magician's assistant and lives in a windmill.
I suggest midsomar murders,
Yeah, they watch it and I think it's become one of my sister's favorite shows too. But I usually prefer shows like 30 Rock, Arrested Development, Curb Your Enthusiasm, or Oz.
I very much agree with the premise of the article. I'm really over seeing police (in particular but not only) behave badly on screen because they're the protagonist. I was a big SVU fan growing up but it wasn't until I was older I realized how much of that "copaganda" really taught me that the detectives were always right even if they assaulted a suspect in custody, and the defense attorneys were scum sucking lawyers.
I appreciate they mentioned House but other medical shows definitely fall into the trope too
What I started noticing everywhere was how often the Fourth Amendment is portrayed as some kind of horrible inconvenience that is hobbling "good cops".
All of the law was, essentially, existing just to thwart the good police from stopping the "bad guys™"
Tropes aren't inherently bad and there's nothing wrong with a well done defective detective. House was a good show. So was the first season of Sherlock (with Cumberbatch). And a host of other shows that feature defective detectives are just good shows.
You can take umbrage with the portrayal of certain mental disorders, or perhaps the frequency of the trope, but it's somewhat unfair to paint the entire trope with a single brush.
Plus there's a reason why the trope is overused—it has been used to great success before. Hence, cheap imitations.
One of my favorite works of fiction ever, Disco Elysium, is centered around a defective detective. But I do think police procedurals that use this trope suffer from a challenge that makes it easier to execute poorly -- their episodic nature. Police procedurals are perhaps the one part of TV that's still truly episodic, and the amount of character growth you can affect in such an atmosphere can be limited. Especially when the "defective detective" is one of the selling points of the show, the writers often can't have them change too much or risk alienating regular viewers.
The only reason I didn't mention Disco Elysium is because we're on ~tv.
If there was a poster child for a defective detective it would be Dick Mullen.
Oh yeah Dick Mullen is like the Platonic ideal of this trope lol.
Both the books and the alter ego. I halfway wrote it as spoiler protection for his name and halfway as the book character. As you know, finding out protag's name is a plot point so I didn't want to outright say it.
For what it is worth, I lost interest in House around the third season when the show was obviously starting to transition away from focusing on the medical cases to focusing on House's increasingly outlandish foibles.
Meanwhile, I found Sherlock's personality grating and unbelievable from the very start.
Tropes are not inherently bad, but this one is hard to do well, in my opinion — not because quirks are hard to write, but because the temptation is to grow that quirk into a spectacle. Well-written characters are multi-facted, and their signature quirk should enhance their personalities, not absorb them, and it certainly should not steal the spotlight. That's especially true for the detective genre, where the cases are the whole point. It's possible to do this well; I loved The Wire and Jonathan Creek, for example. But these are older shows written at a time when quirky characters were allowed to simply be. More recent shows seem to be under this intense pressure to constantly up the ante, even when that's wholly inappropriate for the genre and setting.
This would be my thinking too; as long as the execution is done well then I have no issue with how often a trope is trotted out. Not to philosophise too much, but I do think humans are inherently flawed, or in another manner of speaking, no one is perfect, so writing believable flaws into a character that then inform the decisions they make can help to make that character more grounded, relatable, and overall more three-dimensional.
By the same token, I don't think there is any onus on the writer to pass moral judgement on the characters they write - that's on the viewer/reader. It's been mentioned here already but worth reiterating that there exists a quite common issue in modern media literacy where 'protagonist' and 'good guy' are too often conflated together. It's quite natural that people want to like the characters they become invested in and it's an understandable reaction that any detestable behaviour then gets taken as a betrayal of this wish, or else simply absorbed or excused unthinkingly.
It's kind of weird that Monk goes without mention in that his show was if not the first, then was marketed as "the defective detective," and what I remember about him is that he was a lot to work with and made his friends lives a bit more difficult, he did have friends and he went out of his way to be upfront with them about his needs, and continue to do his job to the best of his ability. I think there is some combination of the premise being novel in its time and Monk being an extremely sincere character that made the show work where it's successors don't.
I thought a lot about Monk but idk that it ever crossed to the UK. It's definitely not the first though, just a particularly popular version
It was on my mind too, partly because I'd been rewatching and enjoying it recently despite being pretty apathetic to most crime drama.
As you've pointed out, the way in which Monk was flawed felt less tired and formulaic. There's a warmth and kind-heartedness to the character that does a better job getting the viewer on board than the "loose cannon that gets results" trope this article largely seems to be railing against.
Monk is an example of the trope being done reasonably well. It's a good show.
Monk started in I think 2002? The UK had Shoestring which featured a computer expert who had a "mental breakdown" and then became a private detective. This aired in 1979. It's a really long standing trope in UK crime drama.
All asshole protagonist follows the same formula, 1) Let them be whiny and angsty 2) give them way more screentime than their victims, so they get the viewers empathy. It's just such a cheap emotional hack. Bonus points if you add the morality gray hard choices trope, like torture in a ticking-bomb scenario, or Harriet Jones mass killing the space muslims to send a shock and awe message.
On a positive note, I like how this trope is used, explored and subverted in Bojack Horseman (which, curiously, have a fictious police procedural)
Weak writing is weak writing.
There’s a million tropes you can explore and subvert or just stick with. I liked House, I think The Wire is amazing, and agree that bojack is also great.
I don’t see much of a reason to complain about this when there will always be weak/cheap procedural style shows cashing in on what people enjoy
It's been interesting/?fun? to watch L&O SVU morph from "Elliot tramples the constitution to get justice" to "Liv and her team fight for victim's rights". I remember enjoying the Elliot bulldozing years (20 years ago), but have trouble rewatching them now... Conversely, I doubt I'd have had the emotional intelligence to appreciate the Liv->Victim's rights era 20+ years ago, but appreciate it now as something of an advanced (for me) course in practicing empathy even when it's inconvenient.
I browsed over the article, but didn't see Luther mentioned. It was definitely the most noticeable example to me. I love Idris Elba and wanted to like it, but the first episode felt incredibly bad as far as "quality writing" goes, and I gave it another two episodes before just calling it off. The directing was fine and the acting was fine, but the quality of script they had to deal with was god awful and I just couldn't take it anymore. It was a perfect example of how they could have removed the "defective" parts of our protagonist (or at least for the love of God tuned them down) and ended up with a fine show, but instead they just cranked it up to 11.
They were not space muslims, they were alien extortionists who threatened to kill off a third of the population. No religion, no covert cells, just straight up threats.
My main point was that at the time Harriet Jones decided to mass kill the aliens, they were leaving earth, after an unbreakable peace tract had been reached. The clip juxtapose the tolerant (but naive) Doctor Who against the more grounded Harriet Jones who has to do something about all those aliens coming towards earth—the parallel to the debate regarding illegal aliens just seem so obvious to me. Her mass killings were later used to give her literal martyr status for making The Hard Choices.
About me calling them "space muslims", I can't find anyone other sharing this intepretation, but I can tell you what makes me think that myself.
If I recall correctly, the reason the peace treaty was unbreakable was that the alien leader had sworn to it on their holy book. Despite being split into various clans (like, you know, muslims in Afghanistan) they all follow their holy book to the letter. (the idea of all muslims reading the Quaran the same is a racist trope. The Nazis antisemitism also followed the pattern of thinking of the Jews as an united force, reading the Talmud the same way)
Also, they look like stereotypical orientalist warriors. And they raving and threatening like the stereotypical fanatic Imam or suicide bomber.
Muslim as a treat towards western civilication was a basic theme after 9/11. I'd think this was the core of the decades Zeitgeist. So it is hard to create a alien race of angry primitive, superstitious zealots attacking the (western) world without it somehow buying into this trope.
First, I don't remember any holy book. Second, are we talking about the same leader who reneged on it and charged the Doctor the second he turned his back?
It's funny this comes up now. I was rewatching the series premiere of The Expanse last night, where (spoilers for anyone who has yet to watch but intends to)
I think the books make it clearer that
spoiler
Miller is a sad sack failure and getting obsessed with the "right" missing girl was more accident than skill.
at least that's what I recall, been a while since book 1
But yeah the show hits the trope hard.
You recall correctly. Miller is a protagonist. He is not a good guy. This is a distinction people mix up far too often.
I agree though that the show falls more into the "look see he was right all along" sort of vibe ala this trope.
The Expanse is definitely chock full of tropes; despite that I still really, really enjoy it.
It explains why he's a defective detective, but it doesn't excuse the trope in the first place, was more my thought. But yeah, it's clear there's extenuating backstory.
The distinction I was making is that I think he's less idealized as the DD trope because IME the DD is almost always "right" and this justifies their defect, or other people tolerating the defect. I don't think the book justifies Miller as DD trope the way the show did
But ymmv.
I don't think it's as much "the DD is always right" as it is "those qualities that make a DD are the same ones which give them the insight into the criminal mind", kind of you have to think like them to beat them.
I don't know if I think that is ingrained in the model that you need to think like the criminal. Sherlock Holmes doesn't act like a criminal, he does cocaine and acts an ass sometimes. I don't think the Vicodin addiction gave House his superpowers. And I don't think detective Stabler "had" to cross multiple ethical lines over the years either
I think it's honestly a lot of pulling from autistic traits and noir "alcoholic detective" type tropes where if you mix them up enough you get the defective detective.
Sometimes it's that they're a genius without their "defect" and the world is holding them back. Sometimes the defect is their genius and they wouldn't be a genius if they weren't OCD, autistic, whatever.
I don't think I explained my view of the concept properly. It's not so much that I think they need to have a mind that has a criminal mindset, as I believe they have to have a mind that's sufficiently "damaged" enough to be able to connect to the same wavelength. They don't have to think in the same manner, just have a brain that's dark enough to be able to go places that most people can't.
To be clear, I am not one of those people... I think that damaged people are just damaged and brilliant people are just brilliant and it's possible to be both. But there is a school of thought that says that insanity and genius are parallel roads, and I think a good deal of people subscribe to that theory.
I'm not sure that this is actually at the heart of the trope, but I see where you're coming from. I'm particularly thinking of the addict subtype, they don't really seem to be needing the addiction to do the thing, it's just their personality flaw.
As ever, Pratchett is perhaps my favorite in subverting this. Vimes gets off the bottle and out of the gutter, Carrot is at worst naive (and not for long) Angua's er .."condition" is not a defect, etc. Colon and Nobbs are mostly alright, and Nobby is even a certified human.
Any fans of Foyle's War on here? The show highlighted the criminal lengths someone might go to in desperation or opportunism in times of war. But one of the things I appreciated most about it was that Foyle himself always takes the high road, even when it's hard, even when there's nothing in it for him. He keeps a cool head and doggedly does what's right. It's honestly refreshing to see a hero character who is genuinely heroic.
Been quite a while since I watched it, but I remember loving that show. I should watch it again.
I don't remember how I was introduced to that show, but I do remember my grandad loved it. Foyle was a good detective, particularly good with his words, and never (IIRC) had to raise his voice.
As an unapologetic fan of 'defective detective' shows, I think it resonates (for me, likely many others) in that you see someone deeply flawed still managing to function and even excel in spite of their demons. Elementary is a particular favorite b/c over the 8 seasons you get to see Sherlock grow/improve/actually connect with other humans. Much of the credit (explicitly mentioned repeatedly in the show) goes to the people around him who (sometimes) hold him accountable w/o entirely dismissing him (when he probably should have been dismissed). They also get more right than is typical w/regards to addiction.
I’m surprised no one has yet given a dishonorable mention to the entire Baltimore homicide unit from The Wire. It’s not just Jimmy McNulty: it’s a requirement to be a defective detective to get hired there.