About Gratitude, Love, and Lifeâs âCollateral Beautyâ
I was very hesitant to participate in this letter campaign for many reasons. For one, I would never want to pressure anyone into doing anything he or she didnât want to do, or overly influence someone to achieve a goal, however valid it may be. If this letter campaign had taken place straight after the finale of 6.12, I might have acted more impulsively and emotionally and jumped right in without thinking through the impact my actions could have on another person, as you are a fellow human being after all. Nonetheless, I do remember how strongly I felt four months ago, how devastated I was and my state of painful disbelief. At the time I felt so passionately about what happened that I did write something which I had worded quite strongly, angrily and desperately even. But that was then. My feelings have since changed. Iâm not angry anymore, though still conflicted and confused. And sad and strange as it may sound, there is a part of me which feels gratitude towards you. Not that it matters because itâs not likely you will read my letter, not only because it is going to be one of many, but because Iâm sure you have people employed to deal with letters like mine before they even get to you. In my head, I have this picture that my letter will end up in a shredder or a bin somewhere, and maybe that is where it belongs. Iâm not a writer. I donât understand anything about television shows, story arcs, character development, what you do and what your job entails, and what you consider to be important. I just remember falling in love with a character on your show for a very particular reason - a personal reason. I lost someone many years ago, also named Peter. He was a soldier who was killed doing his job âprotecting peopleâ. Ours was a beautiful, honest, and gritty love story which was sadly cut all too short. Even though many years have passed, his loss cuts deep and not a day goes by that I donât miss him. My story is a very personal one, and so my love for him and my grief I usually prefer to keep very private. Still, Iâm going to tell you a little bit about him, about my Peter, and about others too.
But first I will tell you how I started watching Homeland. I heard about the show through tv ads and a colleague and I was intrigued. I liked the idea of a female protagonist who had to face the challenges of being bipolar because I know people who face similar mental health challenges. It is a subject matter which interests me and I wanted to learn about it, and it was the first thing that drew me to Homeland. I tend to get captivated by stories and characters who have some kind of link to my reality, to real-life experiences, to the stories of people I know. It helps me process and find new and better ways of looking at something or someone, and sometimes it helps me resolve whatâs unresolved. Unfortunately, no matter how much I loved the character of Carrie, I lost the connection to her as a character as her relationship with Brody progressed. I stopped watching; it wasnât a deliberate decision but rather less conscious. Things just started to come in-between somehow, daily life things.
Years passed, and I was up late one night. I was sewing, not with a machine but stitching by hand. I felt tired and was nodding off, so to keep myself awake I switched on the television and coincidentally I stumbled upon a repeat episode of Homeland. It was during the scene when Quinn was sitting beside the pool getting hammered. When he finished, he threw the empty bottle into the water, and at that moment the landlady arrived and reprimanded him in a friendly, forgiving sort of a way. He in turn shrugged dorkily and tried to get up from the lounger, but he was so drunk that he fell back. It was that very scene that pulled me back into the world of Homeland- that short, small scene is the one that did it for me. It was so powerful that I pricked my finger, because what I saw onscreen felt so familiar. Quinn felt so familiar, because he reminded me of my Peter. He also used to self-medicate when something was really bothering him at work or after he had experienced something traumatic. Similar to the landlady, I couldnât be mad at him because my Peter, like Quinn, had an unusual, unconventional charm; he too was mesmerising on so many levels; he was drawn to the darkness but was made of light; he struggled with the moral implications of his job; he blamed himself for the death of a child; he suffered an injury, but was lucky enough to make a full recovery; he had self-esteem issues; he too was a turtle- tough on the outside, resilient but vulnerable on the inside, and capable of deep, deep love; he too was very good at his job, had nerves of steel, was a protector by nature; he also struggled with depression and PTSD and, as we later learned about Quinn, was a survivor of sexual abuse. And I could go on with the list of uncanny and extraordinary similarities which drew me to your Quinn in Homeland.
I also share some similarities and real-life parallels with your Quinn. I am a survivor of child sexual trauma and was physically and psychologically abused, and I am familiar with depression and PTSD. I was a street-kid like Quinn at one time and struggled against a failing foster care system, falling through that proverbial net. I was groomed and manipulated and controlled by Dar-like figures, and like Quinn came close to killing my abusers. The scenes at the Lakehouse in season six felt as if they were taken out of difficult chapters from my own life.
All these parallels felt extremely validating. It was as if someone had done their research to bring such realism to the many difficult issues raised by Quinn in Homeland. I felt like someone had taken meticulous care in telling such tough, controversial, complex, and painful stories like the one my soldier partner and I had lived through, and which had left us with many scars and a closet full of demons. Therefore, to me the story you were telling and how you were telling it made complete and utter sense. Where others saw plot holes or retcons, inconsistencies or implausibilities, I saw realism, consistency, truth, and accuracy, and it turned me into a fan. I admired your courage in wanting to highlight these difficult issues, to shed light on them. I interpreted it as proof of your real commitment to giving people like my Peter and me a face and a voice, and I was grateful to you, very, very grateful!
Looking at it from an entirely sober and rational perspective, I probably donât belong to the category of people you want to target in terms of marketing. Yes, I am interested in politics and I follow current events, but Iâm not usually someone who gets captivated by spy plots, political thrillers, or semi-current affair shows which mirror or try to predict what goes on in the world or behind closed curtains, all elements which are very important to you if past interviews are correct. Iâm probably your polar opposite; Iâm someone who is more interested in matters of the heart, in humanity and what makes us who we are. Iâm interested in the human experience, what shapes us and how we deal with reality, relationships, difficult past experiences, moral questions⌠the emotional and psychological journeys and challenges humans face in their lives and in their jobs, including the military, and how global affairs and politics impact us in human terms. That is why I love following the journey of characters on-screen, especially when I can connect with them for personal reasons.
However, I have never connected as deeply with a fictional tv-character as I have with Quinn, and I am convinced it will never happen again. It was a once in a life-time experience for me.
Peter Quinn was a tv character who stood out for me. He was a beautiful man and I could relate to him on so many levels, and that relatability allowed me to connect to and appreciate the spy plot and the political and prescient elements of your story-telling. And through him, I also gained access once again to Carrie and her journey. In other words, Quinn was my key to the overall Homeland experience. He made me appreciate other characters and the story-line as a whole, the totality of the Homeland universe you have created. But while for Carrie I cared, it was Quinn that I loved. I loved him because of what he represented and who he represented, âreal-lifeâ people. And, yes, one of them was my own Peter, a soldier who wanted to take a similar career path to Quinn. But he didnât make it. He came under intense machine gun fire and died during one of his overseas deployments. Quinn allowed me to connect to my own Peter in a positive way, and allowed me to understand him and his struggles better, his demons and his job and its psychological implication.
And then something happened on Homeland, an unexpected shift: Quinn suffered a stroke, which further drew me to the character. Now he not only mirrored my own Peter in complex ways, but also people I have the privilege to work with in a rehab and care-providing setting, people who face all types of challenges- physical, personal, cognitive, emotional, relational, societal. People I have huge respect for, people I assist and facilitate and support on their road to recovery and in making positive adjustments to achieve the maximum amount of independence, people with whom I enjoy connecting and who motivate me. I especially enjoy working with people like Quinn who are in danger of falling through the cracks of the system, or who are in danger for their very own personal reasons and the nature of their demons, or because they simply lack family support structure. I enjoy it because I can relate, in the same way I could relate to Quinn.
Another very important reason why I love Quinn is because he reminds me of my own husband. I was lucky to have found love twice in my life, and my husband is just as special and amazing as my Peter was. He is an exceptional guy and is also like Quinn, but in a different way. He lives with a physical and cognitive disability, though the expression âdifferingâ ability or âdifferentâ ability better describes the truth as he and we live it. And even though my husband doesnât resemble Quinn in looks, he wears Quinnâs face in the shape of his courage, agency, resolve, and capacity to love unconditionally.
Quinn was the face of so many of us. He stood for so many of us, and us for him. That is why I loved him, because he gave us a voice, a face, words. We saw people we loved in him, people we cared for, ourselves even. But he did more than that⌠He brought us into the living room and thoughts and minds of others who may not have shared our experiences, people who wore a different face, lived different lives, had different pasts, loved differently, thought differently. And, yes, they too loved Quinn. Quinnâs popularity and importance to the story felt like a beautiful validation. It bestowed worth upon all of us whose face he wore. And we felt a sense of worth through him and through the love others felt for the character, because if the wider audience loved and accepted and rooted for Quinn, then perhaps the wider society had the capacity to accept and root and even love people like âusâ. Perhaps we were deserving of acceptance and love. And it was not only because others loved and accepted Quinn but also because someone important like you who could reach many felt it was important to tell Quinnâs story, our story. And you managed to find an incredibly talented and believable actor who breathed life and realism into your creation in such a sensitive way that he touched every strand and fibre of our emotions. He made us love him, forgive him, understand him, admire him, feel with him, empathise with him, grieve with him, love with him, suffer with him, walk with himâŚ. An actor who made Quinn complex, mesmerizing to watch, and beautifully relatable.
Quinn touched me in the same way my husband, the people I work with, and my own Peter touched me. There is much I would love to tell you about the people I deeply care about and love, the many faces of Quinn. And when I think about that, I wonder if it is all just an amazing coincidence, or did you and your team deliberately write Quinn and his story in such a way that it allowed for a multitude of personal projections. Was it solely down to the direction? Or maybe it was all in the acting and talent? Maybe it was a combination, I have no idea. I just know that on that day when I was stitching and Quinn appeared I became hooked on the show, really hooked.
I remember how intensely I was looking forward to season six. I had read your interviews before the season aired and discovered that you wanted to tell the story of a wounded veteran. My own Peter suffered a blast injury from an IED. Thankfully he recovered and returned to duty, but it triggered all sorts of struggles in him, and his recovery was not an easy one. Therefore, I loved the idea of your commitment to telling the story of a struggling veteran. After 5.12, I believed Quinn was âsafeâ and his place in Homeland secure. To me, 5.12 had centered around Quinnâs death, and so I believed Quinnâs story in season six was going to be a tough story towards recovery and life. I absolutely wanted you to touch on gritty reality, on tough subjects veterans are facing in every country, what it might be like to be affected by traumatic injury, stroke, PTSD and other mental health issues like depression, to touch on the challenges of adjusting to and coping with âdisabilitiesâ and finding alternatives to old ways of doing things. I wanted you to raise the issue of the many shortcomings in the provision and accessibility of good care, rehab programs and home supports, of people facing isolation, and the struggle with reintegration and the difficulties soldiers and veterans can face when transitioning into civilian life. I also wanted you to show how some people might struggle to engage with Quinn and how he might struggle to engage with others. I wanted you to show how some carers find it difficult to relate to someone like him, and how some carers can fall into the trap of infantilizing or dismissing the person in need of support. I wanted you to highlight the pressure that acquired âdisabilitiesâ and mental health issues can place on relationships, and how the interactions between couples can become strained. I wanted you to show how professional carers can be unprofessional and compromised. I wanted you to show the reality of depression, the dark side, the self-doubt, and I wanted you to touch on suicide and anger management issues. I wanted you to go deep on all fronts, to go dark and touch on all the taboo subjects. I wanted it and was prepared for it, and you took us there and even deeper, and I was grateful to you.
Before season six I was not part of the fandom, had never heard of the term. But because of the many complex issues raised by Quinn, all issues which are close to my heart and in which Iâm personally and professionally invested, I started to engage in some online and offline discussions. I was grateful for these discussions because we were discussing and demystifying misconceptions and taboos, perceptions which needed clarification and reevaluation, and we did it together and with respect. It made people ask questions about themselves and others and about society as a whole. It led me to challenge my preconceptions and look at and question my own. It felt healthy and like a positive sign of the times, and it gave me hope that perceptions can change through raising awareness and through honest, respectful dialogue. It also made me believe in the power of love, that love is the most potent ingredient to affecting and bringing about change in society, and that even the love for a fictional character can unite people and move and shift things internally. Quinn was the common ground we could all relate to, and he was the catalyst for these discussions.
Quinn was almost universally loved and was such a strong character that he could carry that torch and be that beacon. He could take people by the hand and show us the difficult side of life, the struggles some of us face, the harshness of reality, the ugly and uncomfortable and unpalatable experiences some of us have to face, the damage and scars of trauma and abuse, the draw to darkness. Quinn could do this because he somehow coupled it with light and a touching vulnerability. Someone somewhere in the fandom eloquently and poignantly stated that Quinn showed us all of this without our ever losing the love we had for him. He mistook a friendly hug for a sexual one, did drugs and drank and smelled and yelled. He sucker punched Astrid, and even brutally killed. And still we loved him. He showed us his pain, his darkness, and his struggles so viscerally that we felt it too, we ached for him. And even when it was difficult we stayed and didnât turn away because we loved him. That in my view is an incredible achievement on your part, the writersâ part, and the actorâs part!!!!!
We all saw the worth in Quinn, and because of the way you were telling his story and the way you expressed that sentiment in your interviews, I believed that you did too. I believed you understood and valued Quinn and enjoyed telling his story, and that you wanted to continue to write and explore it in future seasons, seasons I was looking forward to because I wanted to know more.
And that is why I never saw his death in 6.12 coming. A few hours prior to watching the finale I had come across spoilers of his death, but my brain didnât fully process it. It made no sense. It was late at night because of the time difference, but because it was the finale I wanted to stay up. My husband was too tired and had fallen asleep, which meant I was alone. I was drawn into the story playing out on the screen immediately, to the point that I became part of it. I walked alongside Quinn and Carrie and followed Quinn into the underground parking lot. I stood beside them when Quinn told Carrie to do as she was told, and watched as she got in and shielded the president-elect with her body. I got into the car, but I was not afraid because I trusted you. I closed the door and clicked the buckle of my seat-belt. I felt the car move as Quinn drove us out of the garage and watched as he made his split second decision. I felt like someone who was about to embark on a roller coaster ride. I felt the adrenaline and the suspense. Yes, I did feel fear, but still I trusted you like one trusts the engineers who build a real-life roller coaster. I trusted that you had built the story in such a way that you wanted to challenge us, thrill us, frighten us, shake us, shock us even, but I didnât think, not for one second, that you actually wanted to kill us. Because that is how it felt when suddenly it all changed, when the bolts that held the roller coaster started popping, the bullets started flying, the windscreen started cracking, when it all started to fall apart around and underneath me, when I was sent into a terrifying free-fall towards an emotional death of sorts. Because like Carrie, I could not lose another one⌠Not Quinn, not a character who embodied so many of us, became the face of us, and who wore the face of my beloved Peter, the brave soldier who came under heavy machine gun fire and died protecting other people. And as time slowed so did my heart and my breath, because it was as if I was sitting in the front seat beside Quinn. I let you take me there because I had trusted you. But in that moment, as I became witness to Quinnâs death, I was hurled violently into the moment of the death of my own Peter. And the pain I felt in that moment was unbearable, because the bullets did not hit my flesh, they hit my soul. And it was sheer and blinding agony. I could feel myself choking, I had the taste of blood in my mouth, I felt the life drain from me and the world fade around me. And I died. I died with my Peter. I died with Quinn. My heart and soul bled out, and I died. And so I became a writerâs unwitting collateral damage, your collateral damage.
The next day my husband watched 6.12 and cried as I had never seen him cry before. You know when a man cries first in stillness, when he presses all the air out of his lungs and loses his breath completely, and still he tries to resist taking in air. But then he just has to breathe, and when he does he makes an indescribably painful and agonizing sound. That was the sound of my husband when he watched Quinn die, because he too did not see Quinnâs death coming, even though I had tried to prepare him. He too believed you wanted to tell a different story which focused on Quinnâs capabilities and abilities in future seasons. Because Quinnâs face was also my husbandâs face, my husband who lives with the challenges of his differing abilities and who has learnt to rise above it all and plough on through the obstacles in his way. And he was so proud of Quinn, proud of the story he believed you were telling, proud to a see an unconventional and complex hero on our television screen who functions differently just like he does, a man of agency and worth. But as Quinn died onscreen and the âburpâ of an alt-right radio personality marked the end of his existence, a little bit of my husband died too in that moment, because it raised questions about his own worth as nothing had ever done before. He started asking himself questions he had never asked himself nor had reason to. He asked himself whether he was âtoo damagedâ as a person, whether he could only have worth if he sacrificed himself, if his worth was tied to death. He asked himself if there was room in society for him, if he was a burden to me. And so he too became collateral damage, a writerâs unwitting collateral damage. Your collateral damage.
Recently I met a US veteran and his wife who were fans of Homeland, and they too were a writerâs unwitting collateral damage. Your collateral damage. And so was a young man who like my husband has differing abilities. I spoke to his mother who found a farewell note in his room. He was a fan of Quinn and felt that if Quinn could succeed, so could he. Following Quinnâs journey and his resilience allowed the young man to tap into his own strengths, and through Quinn he found the feeling of acceptance. But when Quinn died, he read some critical reviews which described Quinn as too damaged to have a place as a character in future seasons and that therefore his death was a logical and fitting conclusion. And thatâs when the young man started to write his farewell note. Thankfully, his mother found it before he could take his own life. Still, he too had become collateral damage, the writerâs unwitting collateral damage. Your collateral damage.
And there are many more stories like that, more collateral damage.
You could easily think this is not your problem, that we are not your responsibility. And if you do think this, I would agree with you. My emotions, my mental health, my past experiences, how I connected with your Quinn, my personal projections and those of others are not your responsibility. And how could they be? You canât know all the viewers and their own personal stories. You donât know my Peter, my husband, my patients. I understand that you donât know us. We are formless and faceless, a small part of the wider viewership, a small statistical number, a footnote. And there are a lot of people out there who are perfectly okay with Quinnâs death. But still, we do exist. We are the collateral damage.
I canât imagine you wanted to send such a soul-destroying message or cause such pain, I really donât. Instead, I want to believe that by telling the story the way you did that you wanted to effect positive change in society. Maybe you wanted to get people to confront themselves and their negative views by showing everyone the reality of the social and emotional seclusion that veterans can face, or that people with differing abilities or mental health issues face. Or the struggles of active service men and women and the difficulties they encounter when trying to re-enter civilian life, or the challenges and strengths of people who have been sexually abused. Maybe you wanted to encourage us to measure or define people not in terms of âdamageâ but in terms of ability, potential, and possibility. Maybe you wanted to encourage us to focus on what we find attractive in another human being, rather than the aspects which do not fit into our âidealsâ. Maybe you wanted to encourage us to think outside the box. That is what I hoped you were advocating for, that it was your dream to open eyes and not to shut them, that you wanted to foster growth of soul and heart and not pull the rug from under people.
And I wanted to believe that by not showing a memorial for Quinn, by answering his death with a burp, by applying restraint to Carrieâs emotional responses and having her use a bin liner to gather Quinnâs few belongings, you wanted to achieve the opposite- to emphasize and magnify the void Quinn has left in the hearts of so many and in the story itself. That by not talking about Quinn publicly until now, you were indeed letting the silence speak louder than words.
Iâm sure you have your reasons and I do believe you when you say that you too are grieving and that there are no fitting words. You too are made of flesh and blood and have feelings and the capacity to empathize. Iâd like to believe that, like us, you connected with Quinn on a deep level. There has to be a part of you in him. And because Iâd like to believe that, I would love to know why. Why did you kill him? Maybe your reasons are too personal or painful to share with strangers. Maybe that is the reason you did not publicly acknowledge and draw clear lines around the sexual abuse angle you introduced through Dar, why you didnât publicly âhave Quinnâs backâ. Just maybe you experienced what my Peter has, what I did, and maybe nobody had your back. Perhaps you didnât know and still canât process that what was done to you was wrong because you feel guilt or shame, maybe you felt you deserved it or were asking for it. Or possibly acts of abuse were sold to you and disguised as love, and so the lines became blurred and the emotions confusing. Maybe you felt your abuser somehow saved you from an even worse fate and that you owed the abuser something. Abuse is complex, and that is why clear lines and clear statements are so important and valuable, statements like the ones Rupert Friend made on the issue- clear, unambiguous statements. Maybe you couldnât do the same because it is hard for you, because it is a subject you struggle with like my Peter did, like I did and still do. Or maybe it wasnât you personally who was affected by the issue⌠Perhaps it was someone you deeply care about, or someone on your team whom you are trying to protect somehow. Maybe someone on your team was a victim of a sexual predator when they were a child, teenager or young adult. Or perhaps you left the lines so blurred because the person who inspired you to integrate the abuse angle between Quinn and Dar was not the victim, but the perpetrator. There are so many possible reasons for your ambiguity on that matter and for your silence in general because you are a human being, because you are made of flesh and blood. And that is why maybe you too understand what it is like to become collateral damage, because you have witnessed or experienced it through your own eyes or through the eyes of someone you love and care about.
This is what I would like to think and need to believe. Iâd also like to believe that behind the sparsity of your words hides an altruistic wish - the wish to trigger people into wanting to take note of people like Quinn. Maybe you want to propel us into meaningful action so that we contribute to a charity for those who have been affected by the issues raised. Maybe you want us to get in touch with a veterans organisation to see if there is something we can do, to take the time to write or adopt a soldier who is deployed overseas and who might not have a family. Perhaps instead of passing a homeless person and feeling uneasy or uncomfortable, you want us to stop and sit down and have a chat and ask real questions. Maybe you want us to sit down with a veteran and hear his/her story, for us to see a person who has experienced sexual abuse not as someone to pity or fear, who has become tainted or tarnished, but as one who has been tested and tested again and is resilient, robust and made of tough stuff. Maybe you want us to go and watch a basketball team that is being played by people who skillfully maneuver their wheelchair, or watch athletes with prosthetic limbs who can run faster than gazelles. Perhaps you yourself have tried to open a bottle or tie your shoelaces with just one hand, and maybe you too have become more aware of how ingenious people who live with some form of paralysis have to be, how they are constantly learning and discovering new ways of doing things. Maybe you donât want us to just stare or feel frightened when someone in a shop has an epileptic fit, when the personâs bladder opens and he or she starts to vomit. Rather you want us to know first aid procedures, what to watch out for, and how to safely support and be there for that person, to treat him or her with dignity. Maybe you want us to really listen when we meet someone who has a different speech pattern, whose speech is perhaps slurred or affected by aphasia after a stroke. Maybe you want to encourage us to give that person the time and space to answer, and for us to be interested in what he or she has to say and not feel âembarrassedâ for the person or get nervous ourselves. Perhaps you want us to appreciate the musicality, the beat, the pauses, the acceleration, the slowing down, the movement, the symphony of different speech patterns and hear not the âdamageâ but the âbeautyâ and âmusicâ. Maybe if we meet someone who lives in a world where someoneâs reality has a dreaminess to it, where someoneâs cognitive processes work differently, or he or she misjudges a situation on account of brain damage, you want us to see things from the other personâs view and ask if there is something we can do to best support that person. Perhaps you want us to see each other more clearly and empathically and for us to appreciate our differences.
This is what I want to believe is the reason why you say so little. I choose to believe that you want to give people space and time to find their own path and to develop their own response, rather than trying to influence us. Because I cannot imagine nor want to imagine anything else. Any other explanation just feels empty and cold. And because I choose to believe that you are not cold, I am not going to criticise or clamor for change or a different ending, or ask you to give us more in terms of an explanation, I donât need that, not anymore.
The reason why I am participating in the letter campaign is for a very different reason: Iâm writing to you because I want to thank you. Thank you for the creation of Quinn, for giving all of us a face and a voice, even if I feel Quinnâs story ended abruptly and feels incomplete. Thank you for telling aspects of the complicated struggles my own Peter had to face and also for reflecting on his character, his morality, his beauty, his heart. And thank you for challenging us and for uniting so many of us through the love we felt and still feel for this particular and very unique character named Peter Quinn.
This is not meant sarcastically; my thanks comes sincerely from the heart. And as strange as it may sound, I also want to thank you for opening my pandoraâs box of intense pain and grief which allowed me to set hope free, for making me confront my worst nightmares and demons. Thank you for making me remember my own beautiful Peter, for triggering memories I had locked away for too long. And thank you for reading my words, or to whoever took the time to plough through these many pages and this maze of feelings and thoughts of a stranger. And if nobody reads this, then I want to thank the universe or the shredder or the bin where my letter ends up, because Iâm glad for the opportunity to have written it, for the opportunity to remember.
With deepest gratitude to you, Mr Gansa, for creating Quinn. Thank you to Rupert Friend for breathing heart and soul into the character. Thank you to my own Peter, for the years we shared, for giving your love and for accepting mine. You were my soul-mate, and I will love you always. And of course a big and heartfelt thank you to my brave husband and life-partner who also understands the meaning of loss, for putting up with me all these years, and for your acceptance and love. And thank you to my patients, to soldiers and veterans, to all the other Quinns of this world, and the special friend who helped me water my flowers.
One of your many European viewersâŚ
