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WoW Lieve - you've really struck through to the "heart" of what Straker is
all about in your last posting! I've saved part of your quote which I felt
was the "meat" of Straker's soul:
"I wonder how Straker feels when he has to decide over life and death. It
happens often enough.... To save a group of people, he has to risk the life
>of one of his pilots or one of the other SHADO operators. So of course he
keeps aloof and tries not to get too close to anyone, since he knows that
one day he may have to risk that person's life - he knows that getting too
close to anyone (anyone BUT his favourite MarsBase Commander, that is :-)
will perhaps impair his judgement one day... Straker is the way he is
because he has no choice. If he lets himself go, he'll not be able to do
his stuff any more....Only a very strong character would to be able to do
what Straker does, or someone who is totally unfeeling. And we know Straker
doesn't fall in the latter category... Me
thinks he tries to shut down his emotions or disregard them. Maybe what
happened to him in Timelash was a direct effect of that drug, but also a
result of what he had to be like for years..."
In my own recently UFO story, I've tried to depict the Straker we see in the
show (at least what I can remember of it! I confess, it's been 30 yrs - but
Straker's personality obviously made some long-lasting effect on me) - tough
and demanding, sometimes even bitchy (esp when he can't smoke! ha ha) - but
with enough heart to remember what it's like to have one's life totally
screwed up. His sympathy for one of my characters is not romantic - it's
based on "been there, done that, still wearing the T-shirt." He sees a
female version of himself, feels she could benefit SHADO if she could just
get past the loss of her family (who are actually still alive). I could have
written Kovac as a man actually. I thought about it.....
Straker, like Kirk, like Spock, is married to his job. SHADO is his only
mistress. Starfleet, the Enterprise, for K & S. It's that lack of someone
nice to curl up with and lean on that gives those characters their "lone
wolf" appeal. I read somewhere that the producers of the old Man from UNCLE
show opted to keep David MacCallum's character, Ilya Kuryakin (also another
of my favs when I was a kid) - unattached for the duration of the series
because his character "worked" better and had more appeal to both sexes if
he remained alone!
Keep up the great discussions here folks! Pam
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