All the same I'd hesitate to classify Sam merely as an "arsehole", any more than I'd classify Gene as simply a "thug". Sam's a complex character who can behave like an arsehole, just as Gene's a complex character who occasionally acts like a thug. And both are amply explained by the characters' back stories.
As for your description of SUV drivers.... hmmmm. Well Sam is definitely insecure, not only in his relationships but in his abilities. I think it's at the root of his whole "gut instinct" problem - he keeps second-guessing himself. It's why, imo, he has become such a rigid thinker, and clings to procedure. Also why he is so insistent he is "right" so often.
But lacking interest in his neighbours or his community? I'd say Sam's problem is he cares too much. You see it in his reactions to the victims of crime time and time again. I don't think it's really in his nature to be indifferent or uncaring, though he can wear an indifferent or uncaring facade.
(2.08 is where Sam is at his most "arshole-ish", though to be fair he has to psych himself up when he turns on his colleagues. ("You're not real.") Which leaves the suicide. *rolls eyes* I think that Matthew was trying to convey that Sam felt trapped in a bureaucratic nightmare where he wasn't allowed to feel passionate, but what I got from it was that Sam was badly brain-damaged!)
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Date: 2008-06-05 08:45 am (UTC)As for your description of SUV drivers.... hmmmm. Well Sam is definitely insecure, not only in his relationships but in his abilities. I think it's at the root of his whole "gut instinct" problem - he keeps second-guessing himself. It's why, imo, he has become such a rigid thinker, and clings to procedure. Also why he is so insistent he is "right" so often.
But lacking interest in his neighbours or his community? I'd say Sam's problem is he cares too much. You see it in his reactions to the victims of crime time and time again. I don't think it's really in his nature to be indifferent or uncaring, though he can wear an indifferent or uncaring facade.
(2.08 is where Sam is at his most "arshole-ish", though to be fair he has to psych himself up when he turns on his colleagues. ("You're not real.") Which leaves the suicide. *rolls eyes* I think that Matthew was trying to convey that Sam felt trapped in a bureaucratic nightmare where he wasn't allowed to feel passionate, but what I got from it was that Sam was badly brain-damaged!)