Question of the week #63

[treonb]

How do you think Henry will respond when he finds out his parents are Soviet spies? 

You can expect spoilers for the entire first three seasons 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

[soupytwist]

I think that will come down almost entirely to where Paige goes from here/how THAT plot goes down. Although I do also think he's got a much more naturally spy-like bent than Paige does. Provided they get a chance to make it sound cool, I think he might well be much more open to joining them one day than they might think. I don't think he cares particularly about America as an ideal - where Paige I think it's clear does, and sees herself in a tradition of American activism.

[sistermagpie]

You know, I'm not sure if he doesn't care as much about America as an ideal as Paige does. I mean, Paige might see herself committed to ideals that are Christian/moral rather than American. At 12 Henry probably just by default sees America as "the good guys" and I could see him always retaining that affection even if he grew up and became more of a citizen of the world (which I can see him doing).

Heh. I think I just basically said they were like their parents as usual!

[soupytwist]

That's a really interesting point about how Paige views her morals, because to me her entire thing seems INCREDIBLY American. Not that there isn't religious-based activism all over the place, but the specifics of hers all just scream a very specific tradition which is also very specifically a patriotically American tradition.

I love your comment about Henry being like his dad and yet also probably having default America-good-guys ideas. I think that if introduced in the right way, he is sufficiently like Philip to be like, ok, my 'team' is my family and it turns out they're not playing with the people I thought, but that doesn't mean they're not my team. I don't get the impression he'd have much trouble doing that: like your comment said, he seems very pragmatic, adaptable. But if before that sank in he had a challenge to the idea of his parents as good people at all, like he saw them killing someone, then that could be different.

And I also like the idea he already knows! The response being "well duh" would be a surprise, if nothing else. :D

[sistermagpie]

Oh, I think she is incredibly American and absolutely coming out of the American tradition. I'm just not sure she's aware that she is, if that makes sense. Like at this point it doesn't seem like the world outside the US is even real to Paige, or if she can imagine anything that isn't American because it's all she knows. So I can imagine herself thinking of herself as being international even when she's being her most American. She's pretty conservative in terms of her style, for instance, shocked at Gregory's criminal past and bad neighborhood, for instance. When I imagine Paige traveling I do think she'd prefer doing it as part of a mission trip.

Where as with Henry I can see him preferring to grab a backpack and come back with stories about guys he met on the road and had adventures with. So yeah, I do think he has the potential to be able to separate politics from people. I think the showrunners once said Henry was the most American in that he was just a happy-go-lucky kid (and his essay on the American Revolution was simply "America won"), but I can far more easily see an older Henry passing for not-from-the-US than I can Paige.

The more I think about it, the more interesting I think it would be to see Henry find a balance like that. Because we know he's always been very close to his father, presumably looked up to him as a kid. By the time he did his essay on a "hero" (I think it was) he chose Stan who had a job that was more traditionally heroic--like he thought of his dad as nice, but not larger than life like an FBI agent.

It would be interesting to see him try to balance learning that his dad is actually the villain--Stan the G-Man is his hero and his nemesis is the crafty Soviet agent--but also a hero like Stan in terms of his intentions. In fact in some ways he's got more sympathetic qualities because we see him trying to protect so many people.

[treonb]

In what way is Paige incredibly American?

[sistermagpie]

Just that I've never really heard her do or say anything that wasn't grounded in the perspective she has growing up. Everything she's been developing and exploring for the past few years are grounded in an American context, even the rare times it has to do with other countries. At least some of her clashes with Elizabeth have a little to do with their different perspectives. It's just her default on everything that I've seen so far. As I'd expect it's been her entire experience of the world.

Personality-wise she also seems a bit conservative and wary of things outside her comfort zone, so she doesn't strike me as somebody itching to explore differences on their own terms. Even when she wants to assert herself as part of something extraordinary (in a way happens to be very traditionally American) she wants her parents to be "normal."

[treonb]

Paige is a product of both the 1980s and the US, but she's also her mother's daughter. Elizabeth certainly sees herself as part of something extraordinary, and she's not American.

There's an American context to everything Paige does, because she lives there. But, for example, when she wanted to be politically active, she chose to go and protest against American nuclear weapons. Not, for example, for the rights of Soviet dissidents.

It's not that she's not American, or wants to be anything other than what she is, but I don't see what makes her particularly American.

[sistermagpie]

Elizabeth certainly sees herself as part of something extraordinary, and she's not American.

Right, but I didn't mean that made her American, I just meant that it's not like she found some particularly unusual-for-an-American way to do it. She's protesting with a church, which is very standard in American history, even (often especially) when it's protesting against American policy.

I don't think she's like the most American character or stands out as particularly American next to, say, Stan, Sandra, Matthew, Henry, Gregory....any other American character. My beginning point was to say that I didn't see Paige as committed to a particularly American ideal any more than Henry is--she doesn't seem to consciously associate her values with "the American way" or attach them to any American exceptionalism. I just also don't see her as detached from it either, any more than Henry is. She doesn't even really know anything else.

[soupytwist]

What sistermagpie said, but also that the tradition of activism she's working within is a very specifically American tradition. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that by the way!

[sistermagpie]

I've thought about this one a lot...but it's hard to know without knowing how he finds out, which probably depends on what happens with Paige.

This is what I do notice. There's been a lot of stuff with Paige showing that she and Elizabeth have very similar basic personalities. At first Elizabeth's personality sort of dominated the entire house because it was so strong, but Paige was always #2 and now she's pushed herself into the center.

But at the same time there's a lot of more subtle stories about Henry being like Philip. Sometimes it's little things like that ep where the two of them are doing parallel break-ins and long-angle lens spying. There's also Henry picking up interests on his own and just kind of doing them, keeping himself occupied. When people don't have time for him or whatever he just withdraws. When he's upset he withdraws and stops talking. He tends to ask questions rather than answer them (when Philip asks him about Paige's church he asks why Philip wants to know). He's instinctively a good liar. He reacted to Paige finding the picture of Sandra by creating a much better, elaborate hiding place that rivals the ones his parents have. He's friends with Stan partly, because he likes him, but also because he's hoping to get intel on Sandra--iow, just like his dad he's got multiple agendas he doesn't see as in conflict. Paige and Elizabeth chase truth as an idea. Henry seems to see deception as a natural part of being human.

But most important, there's the scene in the first season with the hitchiker. Henry starts off suspicious of the guy, is more observant in noticing the knife and when he senses a threat reacts violently and protects Paige. Only later does he go over what he did and worry it was wrong. You don't get much more Philip than that.

All of which leads me to say that where Paige has her mother's interest in commitment to ideals and other people like that, Henry seems like he's got his father's instinct for protecting himself and family. So while I don't know what how he'd completely react to his parents being spies (though the above-mentioned ability to compartmentalize and interest in people and their motivations could come in handy) I think they've laid the groundwork for him to potentially put family first if, for instance, Pastor Tim took it upon himself to tell him or whatever.

Basically, some of the ways he's different from Paige seem relevant to the situation. Paige was curious about her parents because she saw something amiss--Henry's curious in general. Where it's in Paige's character to come at people a bit like a prosecuter to make them explain themselves, I can see Henry being genuinely curious about how his parents got where they are...that is, maybe after he shut down and locked himself in his room.

[quantumreality]

That's a really nice insight:

Paige, like Elizabeth, can be inflexible and dogmatic about certain things and will draw certain uncrossable lines - such as Paige being insistent that her faith can provide answers to some things she has questions about, just as Elizabeth is insistent that her education and upbringing in a "socialist" society and its ideological underpinnings provide the necessary answers to questions she might ask.

Henry, like Philip, seems to be more of a "go with the flow" type which allows for certain mental compromises that, unless called onto the carpet for them, allow rationalizations and justifications for their behavior. I'm not sure Henry really thought it was wrong to break into someone else's house until his parents confronted him about it, and I think Philip, both in his casual adoption of certain 'softnesses' of American society and in his spycraft, also will go along until he has to either confront himself or someone confronts him.

And even then he still can insist his perspective is valid: e.g. getting a sports car. It's a very '80s American-male kind of thing to do, and it's a symbol of status which can easily be waved off as a mark of success. In fact 1982-3 was around the nadir of the '80s recession, so the travel company's nominal upswing in business wouldn't, I think, make the IRS question why Philip is buying flashy stuff.

I think Henry's equivalent is, he might be willing to argue with a Russian kid that the US are the 'good guys' and still be willing to chill and play a few rounds on the Atari 2600, as well.

[sistermagpie]

Yes, that's how I see them too. I think Henry and Philip seem more compartmentalized in that their lives are made up of different people and interests that aren't always connected. Henry seems to pick up interests and get really into them and then get interested in something else or be interested in something else too. When Pastor Tim's at the table he asks what baptism's about, when Stan's date's there he asks what EST is about.

His reaction to the video game is interesting too because another kid might have defended himself more boldly by saying "What's the big deal? Nobody was using the game!" But Henry basically defends his intentions, saying nobody was using it, yet cries over the damage to his relationships with other people. He values relationships too much to not care about that, but still thinks his original motivation was valid. Had he not gotten caught I don't think he'd have considered himself as having done anything wrong--and that fits with a lot of the way we seem him talk, actually. More than once when he's prattling on about something he's thinking through whatever was going on for himself even when he's going against the grain to do it.

Paige and Elizabeth both seem to want their lives to be totally consistent with one overriding philosophy. The church/the cause provide the answers to everything and it's difficult for them to relate to people outside of that because people who don't get it are wrong. Which can often require its own mental compromises. I think Elizabeth definitely has a habit of occasionally bending her own inflexible rules by convincing herself that what she wants is different enough to be okay or justified in some way. And I suspect Paige would do the same thing.

Paige's reaction to the revelation was in large part to focus on the things in her own life were lies. With Henry I can see him being very upset at his parents being the bad guys...but I can also see his curiosity winning out.

[theplatonicnonyeah]

I'm going to go out on a limb a say: What's to say he hasn't already worked that out? ;-)

[sistermagpie]

He's become regular chess-buddies with Gabriel, who taught him how to play risk to work Stan...

[theplatonicnonyeah]

Bahaha! There we have it! Gabriel has been working him behind their back all the time, just using Paige as a distraction. Series 4 begins with a BIG revelation... ;-)