Slow Burn and Mr. Quinlan: Why Love Is Not a Reward for Him, but a Risk
Disclaimer: this article is not meant to be the final truth, and I am not trying to hurt anyone’s feelings. I am only speaking for myself, as someone who watched, felt, and wanted to understand. Every opinion has a right to exist, and mine is only one of many.
Small note: English is not my first language, so some wording may sound a little imperfect, but I hope the meaning comes through clearly 💌
So, let us start with the basics.
Slow burn is a storytelling device where the relationship between characters develops gradually. Not through instant love or a quick jump into romance, but through tension, distrust, caution, small shifts, inner resistance, and choice.
In fan communities, slow burn is often used for complicated characters, and in my opinion, Mr. Quinlan from The Strain is one of those characters this trope fits almost perfectly.
While rewatching one of the episodes, I paid attention to Quinlan and Gus’s dialogue in season two, when they first come face to face. It is only a few lines, but they reveal a lot about Quinlan’s view of love, attachment, loss, and the cost of human feelings.
Especially if you want to write a Mr. Quinlan and original character pairing, or if you are working with any other canonically complicated character who carries trauma, war, duty, and a life that has lasted far too long.
This dialogue fits his inner beliefs very well, strengthens them, and gives us a canon key to how Quinlan might perceive love.
Quinlan: His shadow looms over you. You crossed him and he does not forget. What has it cost you thus far? Your best friend? Your mother? Do you not see a pattern? She's very beautiful. Beauty and love are fleeting but powerful. I've known both. I've lost both. You can save her, Augustin, but the only way is to give her up. Until we slay the Master, that is.
Gus: I don't get it, man. Why? Why me? Why me?
Quinlan: That is a question I learned to stop asking myself many centuries ago.
Quinlan Understands Love as a Force, but Not as a Safe Salvation
One of his most important lines is this: “Beauty and love are fleeting, but very powerful. I have known both. I have lost both.”
This line directly shows that Quinlan is not some emotionless soldier. He knows love, beauty, attachment, and loss. He is not speaking about feelings as someone who has never experienced them. On the contrary, he speaks as someone who remembers far too well how they can end.
But that is exactly why he does not romanticize love as something that can save everything. To him, love is a force. It can give meaning, hold someone together, bring them back to life, return something human to them. But it can also become a vulnerability, a trap, and a pressure point.
That is why Quinlan’s love for an original character, whether that character is a woman or a man, would most likely not feel like an easy reward. He would probably experience it as something dangerous, because he understands the price of love far too well.
Quinlan Thinks in Consequences
There is another very important moment here. Quinlan directly asks Gus whether he sees the pattern. He does not look at one emotion separately from everything else. He immediately sees the chain of consequences: the Master, losses, attachments, pressure points, and the future cost.
This is exactly why he does not live inside the logic of romantic fantasy, where love automatically justifies and heals everything. For Quinlan, feeling does not exist separately from war. If someone becomes dear to him, that person immediately becomes part of the danger.
Even if the heroine is already in danger from the very beginning, the status of being loved by Quinlan turns her into a target of her own. She may already be unsafe simply because of the world she lives in. She may be dragged into the conflict, know about the strigoi, be useful to the resistance, or end up close to the canon characters by chance. But if his enemies find out that she matters specifically to Quinlan, her position changes.
She becomes not just a person in a dangerous world, but a way to get to him. And in Quinlan’s inner logic, that is almost a death sentence. He may want the person he loves to have a normal life, a chance, freedom, a future, and that is exactly why he would see himself as an additional threat to that future.
This is where slow burn is born very naturally. The character himself would resist the bond. He would keep his distance, test her, stay silent, step back, and refuse to allow himself to cross the line too early. And all of that can come from taking love too seriously.
Refusal as a Form of Protection
Another important line from Quinlan is this: “You can save her, Gus. But the only way to do that is to give her up. Until we defeat the Master.”
This is a direct canon foundation for a romantic storyline with him.
Quinlan is capable of advising another person to give up the woman he loves in order to save her. That means he could do exactly the same thing himself, because for him, refusal is a practical way of not turning another person into a target.
In a fanfic, this creates very strong internal drama.
Quinlan may look at the person he loves and understand that she is alive, real, beautiful, almost impossible for him, and that is exactly why he would be afraid to come closer. Because if he comes closer, the Master might one day see it or find out. And if that happens, he will absolutely try to use it.
Slow burn with Quinlan is the gradual breaking down of his internal restraints. It is not just “they do not kiss or have sex for a long time,” and it is not a series of random obstacles the author throws into the plot just to keep the relationship from starting too quickly.
At first, he does not trust. Then he notices. Then he gets used to her presence. Then he starts taking her safety into account when making decisions. Then he gets angry at himself for it. Then he realizes that she has already become part of his inner map. And only after that does he come to a choice that cannot be explained by tactics alone.
This kind of romance is not built on quick confessions, but on small things: glances, silence, split-second rescues, careful questions, unspoken fears, attempts to step away, and the inability to truly leave.
For Quinlan, love should not become comfortable right away. At first, it would most likely feel like a disruption, a breach in the order of things. Only after enough time and enough story events could it become something else, perhaps a new form of strength.
What Might Not Work
In my opinion, instant love without resistance does not work very well with a character like this.
If Quinlan becomes soft too quickly, jealous in a teenage way, domestic, and ready to forget his mission for the sake of romance, it can easily conflict with what canon shows us.
He is not the kind of character who gives up control easily. He is not someone who lets another person in quickly, and he is definitely not someone who would thoughtlessly place his personal feelings above the war against the Master.
But that does not mean he cannot be written as someone capable of love. It simply means that his love has to carry weight. It has to pass through fear, duty, memory, the experience of loss, and the understanding of consequences. Only then will it feel like the rare and difficult choice of a being who has spent far too long as a weapon.
A Small Addition
Quinlan’s final line in this scene is also very characteristic: “That is a question I learned to stop asking myself many centuries ago.”
You can hear in it the ancient exhaustion of an immortal being, tired of fate, mission, and the role of a weapon against the Master.
He does not see himself as chosen, and he stopped looking for justice in the question of why he, specifically, had to carry this war a long time ago. Quinlan is not a dramatic hero who enjoys his own tragedy. He is someone who has spent centuries doing what is necessary, even when there is no mercy, no reward, and no clear meaning in it.
That is exactly why slow burn with him can be so powerful. In a story like this, love becomes a serious internal trial, not just a beautiful bonus added to the image of a tragic hero.
For Quinlan, to love means becoming vulnerable again. And allowing himself to be vulnerable beside someone may be one of the hardest choices he could ever make.
Important Note
In this article, I deliberately did not touch on one of the most important parts of Quinlan’s life: his revenge for the murder of his wife and daughter, and his desire to be reunited with them after death, wherever they may be.
Tasa and Sura, if we follow the book storyline, were not just part of his past. They became the foundation of his soul, his pain, and his hatred for the Master. That foundation cannot be moved aside or replaced by one romantic storyline, especially if that storyline does not take the scale of his loss into account.
So, in my opinion, any new love in Quinlan’s story should not “erase” Tasa and Sura, compete with them, or take their place. It can only exist beside that trauma, through it, after it, as a separate, complicated, very cautious choice. And most importantly, it has to have real narrative weight and logic.
Isn’t it kind of sad how tiny and inactive The Strain fandom has become?
From what I’ve seen, The Strain never really had a large fandom, and I can only guess that the franchise probably had a promotion issue😅 I only got into it in the middle of summer 2025, and considering that I’m a huge movie nerd, the fact that Del Toro’s vampires somehow flew right past me is honestly LMAO.
As for the inactivity... the peak of the English speaking The Strain fandom seems to have been around 2015 to 2019, which was 7 to 10 years ago. Most fandom veterans are probably grown up, busy people by now. I think that is important to keep in mind.
But please do not feel discouraged. If you want to talk about The Strain, just message one of the fandom veterans or one of the few people who are still active now. You can even message me. That is what I did too, even though I was very shy about it.
P.S. It does not really matter whether a fandom is alive or dead. What matters is that you love it. Enjoy it 💌
I really love moodboards and all kinds of character info boards, so making a Quinlan moodboard for my fanfic was honestly such a damn satisfying experience.
Here is what I ended up with 👇🏻🙇🏻♀️
Of course, a lot of these details are just my own headcanon for what Quinlan might carry in his “Dora the Explorer” backpack. This is not everything, but I specifically picked some of the more interesting items: weapon oil, sandpaper for his blade, and even a flask. For water or blood, you decide. In my headcanon, both work.
Translating everything written on the moodboard 👇🏻
• Name: Mr. Quinlan (Quintus Sertorius)
• Place of birth: Roman Empire
• Date of birth: November 7, 40 AD (1,975 years old)
• Height: 190 cm / 6'3"
• Role: Dhampir, ancient vampire hunter
• Codename: Adamas
💭 Born against the Master’s will and became his future downfall.
💭 Cold, disciplined, silent.
💭 An ancient warrior with almost inhuman restraint.
💭 Precise and merciless in battle, almost ghostlike in silence.
💭 His memory is longer than empires. His loneliness has lasted for centuries.
And yes, the November 7 birth date is also my headcanon, and it will be explained in the fanfic. In canon, only the year is known: 40 AD.
The search was painstaking, but I still managed to get them this summer. The books came from an online store’s warehouse, still sealed in plastic. With The Strain being long past its peak, finding brand new copies after all these years felt like pure luck. The comic, sadly, is only Volume 1, bought secondhand, and it seems there are no other printed volumes in my country. I searched the entire internet.
A small but still delicious little The Strain collection.
A person sees the world through whatever poisons them inside. Revenge narrows your vision to the width of a gunsight, and for years all you can see is the target. I know this because I have walked that path. And you are walking it too.
| Abraham Setrakian.
I still can’t believe the absurd romantic storyline they gave Quinlan in the show. He deserved more than just a ridiculous wig and porcelain-doll makeup pasted onto a naturally beautiful, striking face that never needed any alteration in the first place.
Occido Lumen is a medieval manuscript which Abraham Setrakian believes is the key to defeating the Master. The book's title translates as "The Fallen Light" or even more literally "(I) Kill The Light."
The show canon really wasted the potential of this manuscript. It’s disappointing that the Lumen ended up being useless in the end. I’ve read that the religious elements were removed intentionally, but that’s not the real issue. The issue is that they never found a way to use the religious language of ancient people as something symbolic and open to interpretation, rather than something purely literal 😐 That was the most interesting part, the very place where the story could have expanded in such a compelling way, but they never went there.
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