I always hate it when a show gets so caught up in good vs. evil. Where someone does something wrong and can never be forgiven for it. They are just firmly stuck in the evil category forever. One thing I like about Buffy the vamp slayer is that there is some sense of ambiguity about the characters. Spike started out as evil as they came, but over time has become incredibly loyal to the slayer and friends. He still has some of that bad ass quality, but that chip in his head I think has let some of who he really was come back to the forefront. In some flashbacks to the before he was a vamp time we saw he was a very sensitive young man. Whether he has paid back society as a whole for the evil he has done, who knows if that is even possible. He has chosen a side and remained firmly loyal to it, even willing and ready to die for it.
In the X-files they never allowed that though, which is what never made sense to me. I like my bad guys well rounded. What made them this way? Is what I want to know. Some people are just born what some might call evil, with no conscious and a desire to harm others greatly. (Such as serial killers.) Most aren't though, things happen to them to harden them and turn them mean. I don't think Krycek is just evil in carnate. I think things happened to him and he adapted. TPTB just never allowed him to be fully rounded. Used him like some weird spirit guide leading Mulder to something or as Mr. Exposition.
I see Krycek as a raven or coyote kind of figure, if you want to play with Native American mythology. Which the X-files did tend to dabble in. Raven and Coyote were trickster gods, like the Norse Loki, they would tell you the truth as easily as they would lie to you. All served a purpose, taught you some lesson they felt you needed. Sometimes the raven steals the light and sometimes they illuminate things. That seems like Krycek to me. He inadvertantly enlightened Mulder abou the black oil, by becoming infect with it himself. I always wondered if he didn't expect Mulder to show up sooner or later. He had to know selling that info was going to draw Mulder's attention and interest. He lead Mulder to Russia to learn more about the black oil. He also got Mulder vaccinated. Krycek told him about the alien war and the vaccine. Hell, a good chunk of the conspiracy that Mulder has pieced together over the years has been due to Krycek.
Did Krycek kill Mulder's father. Probably. We didn't actually see him pull the trigger any more than Mulder did though. So CC did leave that up to us to play with within canon. Hell, it could have been a shape-shifter if you really want to go out there. Krycek has given Mulder info more times than he has done harm to him. Yet, in X-files tradition he has never received a drop of redemption from Mulder. I think it was idiotic that Mulder clung to that so vehemently on the show. "You killed my father." His father was a shit and Mulder knew it. Hell, he had talked to the old bastard only a few times over the years. He hated him. The only thing for Mulder to really be pissed about is that Daddy Dearest was about to spill what he knew about the consortium and Samantha. Yeah, he was his dad, but they weren't close and DD always played Mulder as abused. I've known people who were and the way he reacted to his father was exactly how they acted around their abusers. Scared to death to even look them in the eye. The actor who played him was being overbearing, abusive dad too. I kept expecting him to start calling Mulder worthless and maybe throwing fag in for good measure, whether he ever knew it was true or not. Just to hurt Fox.
I think that you killed my father crap was all the writers had Mulder to cling to. Krycek had helped him so much, if he didn't spout that off what was there. I didn't expect him to thank him for it, but at least move on to working together without pounding him into the ground. It got very trite after a while. At least, since Alex lost his arm they've refrained from it. Mulder beating up on a cripple would just be cruel I guess.
There were so many avenues they could have taken with the show and didn't. So much more they could have been into the characters, but just stuck with cookie cutter good and bad guys because it was easier. I don't know how many people I have heard who were dissatisified with the show. With the potential it had and just wasted.
Maybe is GA had gotten to do more eps we would have seen beyond the good vs. evil crap to a broader way of looking at it. To a more open minded view of people. One thing I hav always like about the concept of reincarnation is that you get plenty of chances to get it right. To mess up, be forgiven, and get another shot at things. I don't know what GA's beliefs are, but if they encompass any of that maybe we would have gotten more exploration and input in things.
I think the biggest disservice they did to her was not developing her character more in season 8. That they didn't give us any more insight into her. That we didn't get to see more of her character outside of work. That we didn't get to know her better. I wish they would have season 8 might not have been so forgettable.
Maybe that is part of what we can correct in fanfic. I was reading an article by Lefay called "We have seen the enemy and she is us" the other day. It was about how we make out the female characters to be such bitches. How we kill them off and generally exclude them from our fics if we can. They are the competition that stands between the guys so we just illiminate them, get them out of the way. We don't use them at all, just focus on the men. When we could include them, give them fuller lives, and a role in the story beyond the third in a love triangle destined to lose the guy and generally get slammed. It really got me thinking how I had treated Scully in my stories, not even there usually. She doesn't deserve that she is a wonderful strong character who could have and should have been fleshed out more on the show. I'm going to start including her more in 'the f**king epics* of mine, she could be what it needs in some instances. You know I've seen her portrayed as just a relentless harpy in stories and she isn't that bad. She knows when to back off, she doesn't push Mulder very hard. She knows the limit. I think we should give her more of a chance.
If you'd like to read the article you can find it here:
http://denofsin.slashcity.net/~lefey/stories/enemy.html
It really made me think. Maybe it will you to. I am rethinking how we treat women characters.
Clio