Analysis of torch's Ghosts and Lovers
| Meta | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Analysis of torch's Ghosts and Lovers |
| Creator: | Allie |
| Date(s): | 1997 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | X-Files |
| Topic: | fanfiction review |
| External Links: | Allie's essay on Ghosts and Lovers, Archived version |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Analysis of torch's Ghosts and Lovers is an essay by Allie. Its focus was two X-Files fics by torch.
It was written in 1997 as part of the Ghosts Zine Project, a fan project celebrating the X-Files stories Ghosts and Lovers (aka The North-West Passage) by torch.
Excerpts from the Essay
Mulder begins to see Krycek as a human being, but first as a capitulating enemy. Krycek is the enemy who feels remorse. He cries and has nightmares about killing Mulder's father. Krycek *does* feel remorse. He is attracted to Mulder as a way to do penance. They start by humanizing each other. Krycek becomes not just an enemy, and Mulder becomes more than a victim or part of a plan. Because they both need someone, they then become involved.Krycek experiences a sense of vulnerability after losing his arm. He needs comfort. And he's not going to get it. He's not going to get it because he doesn't have anyone who he has been kind or loyal enough to for them to want to comfort him. In other words, he hasn't done anything to deserve comfort. He wants to deserve it. So he tries to think of someone who'll give it to him. Someone who he's hurt. Because only someone he's hurt can give him absolution.
Mulder, for the first time, sees someone experience remorse over hurting him. In his world, where people who care about him (his parents) hurt him, only someone who hurts him can take away the pain. Not only that, but Krycek has suffered for his crimes; he has lost an arm.
"He believes I *care*, that I still have the moral standards to be ashamed at revelation. Only Mulder, I think, only Mulder would believe that someone like me would be bothered by what a seventeen year old girl might think of him. My chest tightens and the pain feels wonderful." --Krycek, Ghosts
Mulder makes Krycek feel human. He plays the role of his incarnate conscience. And Mulder, the conscience, forgives him.
He cannot give control to Krycek at first. He agonizes over admitting to him that he wants him, that Krycek has power this over him. Krycek matters emotionally to him as no one in Mulder's life does. Samantha was taken from him, as was his father who distanced himself before his death. Scully may matter to him as much as Krycek, but he does not relinquish control in quite the same way. Scully works her way into Mulder's life incrementally. Besides, he doesn't have sex with her. (in this work)The part where Mulder gets the shakes after having sex for the first time with Krycek in "Lovers" may seem odd to someone who has never experienced it, but it means that Mulder is accepting that someone who is not him is in some way responsible for his happiness. He has been betrayed by so many people, his parents included, that this makes Mulder feel too vulnerable. Trust is difficult for Mulder, and yet he has entrusted Krycek to make love to him. This raises another question:
Does Mulder love Krycek? He denies it to Scully, but it is impossible to say. He himself does not seem to know. He acts like a man in love, and it is this reader's opinion that he is indeed in love. The act of being in love involves trust greatly, in that when one loves someone they entrust them with their emotions, for Mulder, who dares not trust anyone with his emotions except himself due to numerous betrayals, this is extremely difficult. His motto is, after all, trust no one.
I am not saying that Krycek is doing penance by being with Mulder, I think it would be more accurate to say that Mulder is the person that Krycek would be involved with if he(Krycek) lived a more sane life, except that Mulder is more damaged than the person he would want to be involved with. If Mulder is the moral force, than his beating up Krycek is a way for Krycek to do penance for his wrongs. So, in that sense, it's penance. Being with Mulder in and of itself is not penance.
"I'm sorry it happened to you," he says. --Krycek, ghosts He might as well be saying "I forgive you." He offers sympathy, and comfort, the two things that Alex is looking for. The one assuages his conscience, the other his emotions. At the same time, Mulder is finally given a capitulating enemy. A part of both of them is healed.