#punct somehow you read my mind btw

[ethanhuntfemmefatale]

Hey Cecil, as a fellow MI1 enjoyer (although you are a gold medal winner where I am a hobbyist) and resident Luther(/Ethan) enjoyer, do you ever think about how Luther is literally the only person still alive who saw even part of Ethan and Claire’s dynamic together? In the same vein as your ‘what if Claire lived’ scenarios, I am thinking ‘what if Luther saw what was happening and/or ever tried to bring up the subject of Claire with Ethan?’

Oh god punct. I think about this literally every single day.

To start, I just want to say this idea is deeply close to my heart and hurts a bit to think about. Personally, though, I can’t imagine a world where it happens, at least not one that also maintains my specific take on the Luther/Ethan dynamic.

I have my own ideas of Luther/Ethan. Going off on a tangent for a bit, if you don’t mind indulging me, Luther is an interesting figure in MI. the other agents are routinely given “moral tests,” benji and the bomb in DR1, Brandt and the nuclear codes, Ilsa and the ‘come away with me’ scene as a few examples. Scenes that act to solidify to the audience the character’s morality, priorities, etc. Luther isn’t given those hardly ever, he’s treated as a known commodity—he’s Ethan’s friend. That’s his morality. And there’s an assumption that we must know him, he’s been around for so long, but his character arc has basically been as follows: MI1 gives us a very batshit snapshot of a hotshot (queer) wrong-side-of-the-tracks former agent who happens to have an unexpected almost naive moral core, that Ethan picks up on. In that movie, Luther’s most striking for his ability to roll with Ethan’s plan throughout while having no knowledge of his history or intentions. Then in MI2 he likes Gucci. Then in MI3 he likes gunning down relative innocents, and pestering Ethan about his love life. In MI5 he’s shown to generally trust Ethan to handle things himself—“you don’t know Ethan. They’ll never catch him.” “Sometimes Ethan is the one who can see the only way.” Then in MI6 he sits ilsa down to have a talk with her about ethan’s feelings, and his history with Julia, which would be probably fine if Ethan wasn’t such a private person, but he is, and the Julia Thing is his business, not to mention something he doesn’t generally bring up to Anyone. It’s…confusing.

This is why I generally base most if not all of my luther characterization off of mi1, because that’s where he feels the most dynamic and believable to me. With a side of mi5 cause it tracks with MI1 the most. There’s a lot about mcquarrie era luther that I love, but honestly I sometimes feel like his character never gets back to the sheer fascination he holds in MI1. Anyway, tangent concluded. Onwards:

Like I said earlier, Luther in mi1 minds his own business. Not only that, his friendship with Ethan is founded off of ask-no-questions, at a time when Ethan is deeply evasive and Luther is equally so. (Honestly, the principles of ask-no-questions are baked into early MI, the movies where Ethan’s relationship with luther is centered the most, just because none of them ever fucking reference each other.) I have this working theory about Ethan and Luther’s friendship which is, they don’t talk. And canon contradicts it, but I don’t totally care? There’s a professional respect that is established between them in MI1, based in the fact that they didn’t need to know anything about each other to trust each other. I can’t help but feel that Luther asking Ethan about his history or his personal life would violate their unspoken pact of Literally Completely Illogical respect and trust and care. And I think Luther, with his diva tendencies, his secrecy (“no one’s ever been able to prove I was involved with that”), values that mutual privacy and trust a lot.

Whenever I watch him in the cheek kiss scene, I’m struck by the way you can see him notice it, and then you can watch him look down. I think he’s trying to mind his own business—I think he’s a nosy bitch, and I think he wants to know badly, and I don’t think he would ever ask. I think part of his and Ethan’s loving professional QPR is based in the itch of the hacker to know more and the respect of the friend that holds that desire back. And on Ethan’s side, the itch of the agent, the itch of the honeypot, to leverage his friendship with Luther, to get closer to him, to figure him out, to test him—the way that that’s also held in check, by trust and respect. Luther is kinda the first person who has any kind of boundaries with Ethan, and that’s too sacred to me to imagine a world where it doesn’t last.

That being said I do think he holds the memory of seeing that kiss inside him and he thinks about it sometimes. I honestly love the way that Luther acts as a witness, the fact that by virtue of still being alive he means that the things that happened to Ethan were real. And they don’t need to talk about it for that reassurance to be there. Ethan knows that Luther saw it, and I almost feel like the trust deepens between them, with Luther being essentially handed blackmail on Ethan—without the context to understand it, but with enough context to realize it’s probably blackmail—and keeping his mouth shut and his head down. It’s a formative moment for them in my mind

I really really really like the idea of Ethan’s “sins” coming to light in a visceral way, particularly the Jim/Claire relationship and the Max relationship, as well as the Alanna thing. And I’m actually playing with that in fic form currently, mostly because I think it would be Ethan’s absolute worst nightmare, and those are fun to write. But I think that Luther takes his role as Ethan’s first real friend seriously. He would rather leave Ethan alone with his trauma and self hatred (trusting him to ultimately be fine) than risk violating the trust that they’ve formed over the years, comfortably living by the honor system in the most deceitful organization around. It’s not necessarily the “correct” choice, if there is such a thing, to ignore everything going on with Ethan—especially given how self destructive Ethan is in mcquarrie era—but it is a well-intentioned one, and one that I think is in line with Luther’s Deal in MI1 and tracks with the better part of his characterization (by which I mean, the characterization that’s good). Crucially, Luther is not the team member who gets to yell at Ethan. That’s benji’s job.

TLDR Luther Stickell World’s Best Ethan Hunt Enabler 27 Years Running. And I would be interested in what benji would do if he was handed evidence of something like what Luther saw

I am writing this at. just before 4 am. So if it is incomprehensible forgive me