I don't actually disagree with most of this, and I definitely think the development you're observing is real (and intentional on the part of the writers). But I do think there's something missing in this analysis, and it's something that's bound to thwart any transition that Philip might be making back to his "real self." What it comes down to for me is the observation that some people's core selves are more malleable than other people's. This isn't the result of trauma or a pathology, it's just a trait: some people are brown-eyed, some people are athletically gifted, some people have weakness in their joints, and some people's core selves are malleable. And while I think every spy has to have this trait to some degree simply to do the job well, Philip has it to an extreme degree, and is about as malleable as it gets (I would list off all the reasons why I think this, but I actually think we're on the same page about this, yes?). That's not something that happened to him because he was a spy; it's something that's a part of who he is that he makes use of in his job as a spy. And it was almost certainly that way from a very, very young age.
The repercussions of that trait for the life he's ended up in are not incidental. The Misha "core self" that he shed like a snakeskin sometime in the middle of his illegals training and then literally left behind by leaving his home country is not just very far away geographically from the Philip life he's been living, it's also chronologically distant from his new life. And while the Philip Jennings identity has been permitted to take in new things and learn and grow and change, the Misha core self hasn't done any of that and been forced to stagnate as a result. It's a little bit like what happens to any immigrant who leaves his home and chooses to live within a new society: with every passing year, he gets further and further away from his old life, until the old place starts to feel strange to him (even if he never fully embraces the new one). But as a result of both Philip/Misha's malleability and his chosen career, this sort of thing is going to have a much, much bigger impact on him than on ordinary immigrants. Because in a way that would feel very real to him, he hasn't been living the life of Misha-who's-been-becoming-American, which is more like what he would have done as an ordinary immigrant--he's been living the life of Philip Jennings, an entirely different person with a different history and different personality traits and different beliefs. In the midst of all that, it would be almost impossible for someone like that not to lose track of his core self.
I definitely do think Elizabeth is a tie back to his Misha core self in many ways, even if she never has "met" him--her very Russianness is a factor in this, as I've mentioned, and also the fact that she's also had to go through the motions of leaving her core self behind but has never done that fully. But even Elizabeth is not going to be able to perform the Herculean task of "reintegrating" Philip with Misha in any fully articulated way, especially if they continue to live the lives they do. I mean, not only is he off playing house with another wife as Clark, the two of them even still call each other Philip and Elizabeth in private, even when they're absolutely certain that no one else is around to hear them. They never, ever speak Russian with each other, either, even as they allow themselves to occasionally dwell briefly on who they were before they became Philip and Elizabeth Jennings. And maybe for Elizabeth that's all just a sop to following orders, nothing more, but for Philip it would be something more significant and something more fracturing in an ongoing way.
Re: "I like the cold"/"I remember"
The repercussions of that trait for the life he's ended up in are not incidental. The Misha "core self" that he shed like a snakeskin sometime in the middle of his illegals training and then literally left behind by leaving his home country is not just very far away geographically from the Philip life he's been living, it's also chronologically distant from his new life. And while the Philip Jennings identity has been permitted to take in new things and learn and grow and change, the Misha core self hasn't done any of that and been forced to stagnate as a result. It's a little bit like what happens to any immigrant who leaves his home and chooses to live within a new society: with every passing year, he gets further and further away from his old life, until the old place starts to feel strange to him (even if he never fully embraces the new one). But as a result of both Philip/Misha's malleability and his chosen career, this sort of thing is going to have a much, much bigger impact on him than on ordinary immigrants. Because in a way that would feel very real to him, he hasn't been living the life of Misha-who's-been-becoming-American, which is more like what he would have done as an ordinary immigrant--he's been living the life of Philip Jennings, an entirely different person with a different history and different personality traits and different beliefs. In the midst of all that, it would be almost impossible for someone like that not to lose track of his core self.
I definitely do think Elizabeth is a tie back to his Misha core self in many ways, even if she never has "met" him--her very Russianness is a factor in this, as I've mentioned, and also the fact that she's also had to go through the motions of leaving her core self behind but has never done that fully. But even Elizabeth is not going to be able to perform the Herculean task of "reintegrating" Philip with Misha in any fully articulated way, especially if they continue to live the lives they do. I mean, not only is he off playing house with another wife as Clark, the two of them even still call each other Philip and Elizabeth in private, even when they're absolutely certain that no one else is around to hear them. They never, ever speak Russian with each other, either, even as they allow themselves to occasionally dwell briefly on who they were before they became Philip and Elizabeth Jennings. And maybe for Elizabeth that's all just a sop to following orders, nothing more, but for Philip it would be something more significant and something more fracturing in an ongoing way.
Does this make any sense?
-J