Question of the week #14

[treonb]

The writers of this show seem to have a love for full formal names when it comes to the KGB side of the Cold War. Philip is always Philip, never Phil, and Elizabeth is never Liz or Beth either--and this despite the fact that Russian names all inherently have multiple alternate forms that everyone simply uses as a matter of course. The same goes for Robert, the other Directorate S illegal who we've met, and for that matter, for Gregory (who's not Russian, but whose own culture isn't exactly known for its lack of informal names).

Given this, the question of the week is a two-parter: one, what do you think the writers are up to with this? And two, any thoughts on an explanation for this that works within the world of the show?

You can expect spoilers for the entire first season in the comments.

(There's no expiration date on these questions, so if you're reading this post months later and feel like jumping in, please do.)

Comments

[jae]

*nodding* And as another aspect of the age issue, there's the bit about how Elizabeth's father supposedly fell at the Battle of Stalingrad, which would have been too early in the war for her to have been two when he died. I explain this away by saying that she thinks it was in the Battle of Stalingrad when he died, but that's only because she wouldn't have had the opportunity to know the details of the history well enough, and he actually died fighting at the banks of the Oder in eastern Germany, in 1945. (I try to work with the various errors of canon unless they make it impossible. *g*)

-J