You know in light of your opinions I actually find relation Legasov- Charkov more and more interesting. It would seem most of the things Legasov said at Charkov he was also saying at himself. I didn't consider them foils to one another before but I guess that's what they are. Maybe it's because I also find 5th episode to be the weakest and didn't pay it much mind. We should put in on our money indeed.
Hey yeah honestly I hadn’t thought too much about Charkov, but absolutely yes, they parry and riposte just as much.
I mean, of course Valery, Boris, and Ulana are our protagonist triumvirate, in the first place. There’s the bit in the abandoned school where Mazin said that Boris and Ulana are the angel and devil on his shoulders*, so all three of them are working off of each other beautifully. Boris, staid Party apparatchik; Ulana, ready to burn; Valery, bouncing between them.
(* exactly which of them is the angel and which is the devil is a fun question. I’ve seen the opinion float around that if Valery’s objective is to be safe, Boris has his best interests ie personal safety in mind and he’s the angel in question. For my own part, ‘best interests’ can’t be complete without maintaining integrity, so Ulana’s certainly the angel there. Also, considering how much Mazin uses her as his mouthpiece, I’m gonna go on a limb and assume that he also considered her the angelic option.I think a better question is in the script, where they’re called his heart and mind, without indication of which is witch. Does this mean that in his heart, he knows what he wants to do (Boris), and in his head, he knows what he has to do (Ulana)? Or does he know in his heart what is right (Ulana), despite what he had imagined as his more comfortable future (Boris)? I personally drift towards heart/Ulana and mind/Boris, but I’m very trepidatious?? pls debate!)
But there’s also the first real scene with Charkov, when the balance is shifted to Charkov vs Valery vs Ulana. Ulana has always been the brave and outspoken model for Valery to turn to, and Charkov is the epitome of silence and compliance. They’re created characters, and so they more than anyone else hold up specific mirrors to Valery.
Hot Take: Charkov Edition:
Honestly, I think Charkov is a great character. Mazin talks about how there’s absolutely no way that Charkov would see himself as a bad guy, and I agree: "Nobody ever wakes up and says, "I'm gonna do villainy today." They say, "I'm gonna do this today, for these very good reasons," as distorted as they may be.” He likes his job! When we meet him, the immediate crisis at Chernobyl has been resolved, there’s a plan for the cleanup, and it’s a great day to be Charkov. He’s comfortable and has a friendly laugh and speaks warmly and makes a little joke about Reagan. That’s not what evil looks like. But, he’s also the one at the top of the pipeline of lies and terror.
Every time they talk, he has a smile for Valery, and every time, he gets creepier. The first one was to appease Valery, when he had Ulana in prison at that very moment. To me, the expression is that he’s unruffled by Valery’s confrontation, and comfortable with how untouchable he is. His agents arrested a commission-ordained scientist from the halls of a hospital in the course of her research, and there’s nothing and no one who’s about to stop him. It’s not invitation, it’s mocking. Valery has to trade nothing less than himself for her, and not to get melodramatic with tropes, but that looks like nothing more to me than a deal with the devil*. For just a second, Charkov drops the mask, but as soon as Valery agrees, he’s friendly again. Snake in the grass.
(*hey, has anyone explored whether or not she acknowledged what Valery did for her? I mean, assuming she knows; does she have grounds to assume that he would barter himself for her freedom, or could she reasonably have assumed he pulled another string? Does she even know??)
Later, Charkov summons Valery off the streets of Moscow, and when Valery is reduced to sarcasm in order to snipe back for being abducted, Charkov smiles because Valery still has to acknowledge his power. Charkov knows what leverage he has over Valery, so he can absorb such little demonstrations of backtalk. They tickle him, instead of stinging.
LEGASOV (reads): "Hero of the Soviet Union."CHARKOV: Our highest honor. They haven't even given it to me.LEGASOV: "Promotion to Director of the Kurchatov Institute."Charkov gives that thin smile of his. He knows that's the one Legasov wants.LEGASOV: I'm humbled.CHARKOV: I don't think there's anything humble about you, Valery Alexeyevich.
Valery is in the palm of his hand. Charkov could gloat more over Vienna, he could take the time to rub more salt in Valery’s wounds, but he doesn’t need to. I think he would think that was rude, even excessive, here. Valery isn’t really worth being upset by. He’s compliant, and Charkov isn’t a bad guy; he’s willing to reward that obedience. Just one more request, such a little thing to do, and then Valery can have everything he wants*. In the script, Charkov even lands another parting shot-
CHARKOV: Talk to Shcherbina.LEGASOV (confused): Shcherbina's in Kiev. I haven't heard from him in--CHARKOV: He returned to Moscow an hour ago.Charkov gives Legasov that smile again.CHARKOV: Or so I've been told.
Or So He’s Been Told! honestly this is hilarious, right, I’m not the only one who thinks the actual head of the actual KGB making demure little understatements of his power is hysterical? because the contrast between his smile and the suggestion that hey, he could be wrong, he’s just the messenger, and the fact that he is the First Deputy Chairman of the KGB is an absolutely beautiful farce. For various reasons, I’m ultimately glad they cut the subplot around Fomin’s suicide attempt, but I’m so mad we lost that line, it’s awful, I love it. But I digress. Anyway, it’s another great day to be Charkov.
(* ok but like. we all know how a deal with the devil really goes, right? You give yourself up, and then there’s nothing you can do but watch as the goalposts are shifted back just an inch, just another inch, surely another inch can’t hurt. Of course there’s a reward promised at the end of the finish line, but the race keeps stretching out. It’s never really over.)
So. Yes. Charkov, what a creepy guy!
And yes, he is absolutely Valery’s foil. IMHO, here are two particular blows he lands on Valery in the kitchen. One, of course, is his ostracizement. I don’t think I need to rail on that one, we’re leveling on that misery. But the other deep cut is the recitation of Valery’s own history, his own guilty conscience:
He reaches into his coat pocket. Removes a piece of paper. Unfolds it. Puts on his glasses to read.CHARKOV: Valery Alexeyevich Legasov. Son of Alexei Legasov, Head of Ideological Compliance, Central Committee. (looks up) You know what your father did there?LEGASOV: Yes.CHARKOV (continues reading): As a student, you had a leadershipposition in Komsomol. Communist Youth. Correct?LEGASOV: You already know--CHARKOV: Answer the question.LEGASOV: Yes.CHARKOV: At the Kurchatov Institute, you were the Communist Party secretary. In that position, you limited the promotion of Jewish scientists.A long pause.LEGASOV: Yes.CHARKOV: To curry favor with Kremlin officials?Yes.This is how they break you. With the sins of your father.With your own.
Valery is one of them. He has no high ground, there’s nothing special about him. If Valery had followed his own father’s footsteps, he and Charkov might have been colleagues. For 50 years, they’ve been on the same team, and Valery can’t imagine that he gets to change the rules now.
You said that Valery’s words to Charkov are also aimed at himself, and I think the ultimate moment of that is when Valery finally gets one over on Charkov and lies to his face:
Charkov stares into Legasov's eyes. He sees no waver, no blink, no false bravado. He wasn't expecting that.CHARKOV: After all you've said and done today, it would be-- curious-- ifyou chose this moment to lie. LEGASOV (unfaltering): I would think a man of your experience would know a lie when he hears one.
A man of his experience.
Both of them make their business with truth-values. They deal in knowledge and the access thereof, and the information they disseminate has direct influence on their reality. Even without being Charkov’s hierarchical equal as the Director of the Kirchatov’s Institute, Valery is his peer as sharing the realm of epistemology.
Valery is a scientist, who deals in facts and figures and a world that doesn’t care for human preferences or politics. If he is an educator and researcher both, he should recognise the abject necessity for honesty, and not have any tolerance for willful lies. Instead, Valery spent 50 years comfortable with every lie and omission and injustice. It was just easier, to do what was convenient instead of what was good. A page earlier, he recognised this: in a just world, he would be shot for his lies. Is it lucky, then, that Charkov has no interest in justice. It’s easier not to kill him, is all, to avoid the inconvenience of public opinion. Valery picked the high road, but Charkov is still the mirror of everything he had been complicit in until then.
Obviously, as the KGB’s head, Charkov is a terrifying figure. But I think recognising their similarities would be far more disturbing to Valery.