#his s1 characterization isn’t bad in my opinion. it’s just harder to swallow because it’s more brutal

[laurrelise]

THANK YOU. THANK YOU FOR EXPLAINING THIS

so today I had Luther thoughts.

In the family meeting in season 1 he learns Grace might be degrading after they discover the tapes of Reggie's death, and his initial reaction is to turn her off right? Even though we have no indication that he didn't think of her as Mom and care for her.

At the end of the season, he sees a threat, Viktor, and moves to neutralise the threat, even though that's his sibling. I wonder if, after four years of isolation and being able to only depend on himself, in an environment where a broken or degrading machine could mean death plus trauma plus grieving his Dad, Luther is just falling back onto stressed logic and hindbrain action.

His brain leaps from Problem? To: No time to fix nicely, just stop the problem. Grace degrading and becoming dangerous? Turn off before anybody is hurt. Viktor is dangerous and already lashes out? Lock problem away so it's under control until he knows more about what to do. Don't cut the wire on the bomb, make a perimeter.

Then after s2, where he has time to be in society again, to grieve his list siblings, to reacclimatise to the reality that not everything is mission and life critical, and that feelings exist and not everything has to be pragmatic and logic, we see this much more human Luther emerge that wants to work with and for the good of the family, emotionally not just results-focused.