Sortinghatchats - Suits
Have to do the sorting for the show I'm obsessed with for the past week - the legal drama Suits. Check out @sortinghatchats and @wisteria-lodge for explanation of the system in detail.
Suits is an amazing character dynamics study, fuled by relationships and personal conflicts, with the legal world drama cases as interesting and intelligent backround, testing the characters, pushing their limits and their loyalties to the brink while keeping a light-hearted banter tone.
Let's start with the most prominent influence character the legal world is apparently turning around, the famous lawyer legend Harvey Specter. Harvey represents the best of the double snake sorting - he is charming, confident, self-serving, enjoying luxury and wealth his job gets him. He is obsessed with winning, with walking away from every situation as the top dog and getting the deserved credit for it. And he is sneaky. You don't meet a better schemer than Harvey, who will get you on a space between lines, who will convince you he will lie even though he would not. Who can switch from being the serious trustworthy lawyer for the business meeting and the funny playful tease at work, to the predatory confident blood smelling shark at court. Changes faces like his suits and enjoys it. He is in it for the game of it all, and he is the greatest at it.
He is also a solitary player. It gets noted several times in the show that Harvey is successful, feared, famous, envied,...but he is not popular. His colleagues don't get along with him, he doesn't care about the team, his subordinates or his peers. He doesn't remember anyone by name, and if he can tease and sneak, he will do it to his colleagues too. Harvey has a very narrow circle of friends. Like a snake with his chosen people, he has exactly three during the whole show, and he would stick his neck out for them anytime. It's incredibly endearing to watch how the charming sneaky predatory ruthless lawyer in 12.000 dollar suit gets feral over loyalties. Harvey is all about loyalty, it's his greatest value and treasure, something he showers his people with - whatever they want it or not - and something he demands right back.
The show lives of his dynamic with Mike Ross. Mike is a young genius, a directionless university dropout with eidetic memory who sold out his ability to pass Harward law entrance exams. By completely coincidence, while running from trouble, Mike gets in an interview with Harvey, tells him everything, impresses the legend...and gets hired as young concipient in training. Boom.
Mike is special, because Harvey recognizes him as special and gives him a chance. Everyone around Harvey notes immediately how uncharacteristic it is of him to care about someone AND to do it so quickly. Mike becomes Harvey's person in record time that leaves everyone's head spinning. At first Harvey sees potential, and fun and an easy way to get nasty detailed work done, but he also sees himself in Mike, and this gets him protective like crazy. Harvey doesn't show emotion, that he cares, cause in the world of business and law, that's a weakness. Hell, he has trouble showing this to Mike, who he is hard on, testing and growing him to be better, to make his own way, to make his choices....while going around making threats and biting people's heads off, if they dare stand in Mike's way. It's sudden but also gradual and so heartwarming, how protective he gets of this little lion. This is the juiciness of their dynamic. That Mike is a Lion Badger and he gets adopted by a ruthless scheming Double Snake.
Mike is a hard worker. He is defined by his attitude of chipping away at big tasks, by working his skin off, by making friends and connections through being reliable and maming effort. Harvey likes to find shortcuts and different angles, Mike works his way through 100 pages to find one line of evidence he can give Harvey to use against the clients. Textbook badger secondary.
Mike has a roaring lion primary. He centres around morals, an emotional core and very strong opinions about what's right and wrong. The series shows numerous instances of this. He feels bad about sleeping with a married woman, cause it's "wrong" (not because he is hurting somebody in particular). He gets inspired and passionate about pro bono casds and when he smells injustice, cause he wants to be helping to "make things right". It's also what draws him to Harvey - that through all his arrogant and well-deserved competence in scheming and risky games, Harvey never cheats, lies or goes back on his word. His boss might walk on the edge of the law, but never crosses it. This is very important to Mike. During the mock trail at the firm, everyone doubts Harvey aside from his boss Jessica and Mike, who argues that Harvey has "principles" so of course he can be trusted. He doesn't get others don't see the side of Harvey he appreciates the most.
Mike suffers having to live in a lie. He gives up on his relationship with Rachel, because if he can't tell her his secret, it isn't "right" to be with her. He hated making a living through cheating on tests, proven also by the vigiriosity with which he threw himself at the quantum of difficult annoying law work and research. Because it's finally a good kind of work he can be proud of. The compassion and sympathy he offers to all his clients feels right and fulfilling.
Harvey calls him naive and idelaistic and soft, but only in private. He praises him into the heavens in front of everyone else, so no one has doubts how capable Mike is. You bad mouth Mike or look at him wrong and you get Harvey on your tail like a bulldozer.
Harvey complains it's ineffective and emotional, but he likes Mike's paragon moral lion. He admires him for it. Mike gets emotionally invested in the people, not the case, money, reputation or profit. He comes to Harvey with sense for justice and genuine concern, and Harvey let's himself get dragged into it. Their best cases are when Mike finds the unfairness, offers the compassion and the hard toil, while Harvey uses all the strings, tricks and schemes and his years long experiences to help him win the game. Slowly Harvey develops his moral system around Mike. If Mike says it's right, he will throw himself at the case. He mentions Mike is much better a man on occasion, because he admires him that much for the compassionate kind of work he partly tries to beat out of him to be a good lawyer and partly revives in himself, when around him.
Where Harvey adopts some of Mike's lion morals on top of his own, Mike builds a snake model solely for Harvey. Mike is not usually a person to be swayed by affection for specific people. He acts according to his morals, what's right and wrong, no matter how much that hurts the person he is supposed to be protecting. But Harvey gives him a chance, a job, a new life, guides and projects him, risking his career so Mike could do work he loves without the diploma and licence and Harvey wants loyalty, so that's what Mike gives him in return. Undying absolute loyalty. Mike buys his grandma a flat, not because he misses her or is sorry he hurt her by his absence (that too ofc) but mainly cause it's right thing to do. He turns on a client who turned out to be lying, cause that's not right. But Harvey gets priority over fair treatment, his own cases, trouble from Loius, from better offers, from other useful friendships. Mike turns every advantage into Harvey's favour smooth and automatic, and this earns him more and more protectiveness from Harvey. Harvey is the only person he doesn't turn against, even when he disagrees or feels it's wrong. Harvey is the person he would lose everything to protect. But it's a model he only got for Harvey, and it confuses his other friends, especially his on and off girlfriend Rachel. Harvey is put above her multiple times. It isn't right to be with her, when he can't tell her he is a fraud, it's not comfortable for his lion primary - so he wants to tell her and Harvey says no. It's too risky and too early to know whether Rachel wouldn't betray him. So Mike doesn't give the love a chance to grow, he breaks up with her and longs after her, but putting Harvey at risk for his secret is not something he can do.
Mike gives the schemer solitary charming snake compassion and something to protect, and when the lion badger becomes the double snake's person, it creates a duo heartwarming to watch, who tag at each other and overwhelm anybody in their way.
Jessica Pearson is the leading partner of the Pearson & Hardman law firm. She built Harvey up. Harvey is basically her Mike - she found a talented postman, paid for his Harvard degree and got the most loyal right hand man for her efforts. Harvey dazzles and fights and schemes in her honour, and she can't always control him cause Harvey doesn't like orders or limitations, but he always has her interests in mind and that is enough. They call Harvey her "pitbull" in the show and they are both proud of this. Jessica is a snake primary that shows up a lot like Harvey's. She likes luxury. She is the hedonistic enjoyed of money, opera dresses at work, and she only cares about her firm, married it over her husband, never had other family or kids. She is absolutely loyal to Harvey, and fine with manipulating everyone else. She favors him so obviously Louis and other other partners never get over it.
Jessica is a lion secondary though. A talented and brilliant lawyer alright, but she likes the posturing. The power. Being able to break through everyone with a straightforward "bend your knees to me", when she walks into their office. She does this to rivals as much as to her own subordinates. When she is at risk or at court, Harvey has to keep her from spilling the truth or going all out with everything she's got, cause that's not by any means the most effective evasive or profitable way his snake secondary came up with. Jessica doesn't want to back down, doesn't like the backhanded schemes and deals, she wants to power through.
Jessica doesn't allow people into her circle after Harvey, understands and syncs with Harvey's snake morals and loyalty, trusts his secretary Donna, cause she is Harvey's alright. Mike confuses her. It takes time to get used to Harvey expanding his circle without her permission or knowledge (quite possessive of him). Harvey shows her Mike and says "he is mine now, so take him too" and she just blinks and stands, and understands so she can't fight it, but she doesn't like it much either. But the parallels are obvious. Harvey's protective wings over Mike with his "if he goes, I go" mirror Jessica's over Harvey, when Hardman tries to kick him out. She is ready to lay down all her cards for her pitbull.
Louis Litt is the badger primary on deck who just wants to belong. He breathes for the firm. He rises the younger assistants and lawyers in training, guides them, bullies them, controls their mistakes. Louis just wants to belong and doesn't understand why he can't be part of Jessica and Harvey's "group". His competence, loyalty, insistence get him nowhere, cause these two are snakes and each other's people and Louis just can't get there with his group based thinking, no matter what he does. Louis feels undervalued, yearning for Harvey's acknowledgement and hates Mike with passion for jumping the ranks and becoming Harvey's overnight, something he never managed. Harvey sees his belonging flattering servile motives as "pathetic" and treats him quite unkindly. Jessica is trying to be more open and accommodating, but she can't expand her circle to him for some reason. Harvey is her world, there is no helping it. Louis in return, backstabs. Gets vengeful, scheming, petty and gives them hell. This makes me think of snake secondary. Sneaky playful snake enjoying his revenge and all the little ways to get back at Harvey, to punish Mike, to get around Jessica. But in the biggest crisis, he chooses them, since in the end all the revenge and backstabbing is him lashing out he can't belong to the group he chose.
Whike Jessica is a queen snake lion, being loyal and royal and massive, Donna Paulsen is a playful double snake secretary with her life wrapped around Harvey and then ranks people according to their importance after him. She doesn't have probelms adopting Mike, as he is Harvey's person, or be Jessica's ears and eyes, cause she is also Harvey's and she likes Louis, cause she recognizes he just wants to be Harvey's too and can't manage. She loves Harvey romantically too, but can't say it, cause he doesn't say it, and she is stuck with that for a long time. Her playful snake banter and ways are very fun and charming to watch.
Rachel Zane comes off as selfish, whiny and emotionally manipulative. Or maybe that's just her trying to use her beauty and sexuality to play around with Mike and get her way on the surface. Constantly guilts Mike into prioritising her and doing what she wants, demands his attention and his favour, getting spiteful when she doesn't get it. She tries to win over Harvey in Mike's heart and can't, not until she realizes that to win Mike over she can't be making him choose. I'm considering lion primary for her, since she wants to be important and special, suffers for not having a law degree and being a simple paralegal with no way up, and she isn't quiete about it. She hates that lawyers with degree get better treatment, when she is smarter and more experienced than them. Why it takes her so many seasons to go after the degree she wants, while burdening everyone down with her unhappiness and complexes, I have no idea. Rachel has a talent to make everything about her, even though she is just holding everyone back. Maybe that victimhood and not minding consequences as long as she gets what she wants makes her an exploded lion. Also the high ground moral speeches, the "wrongness" of some things she feels instinctively speak for a lion primary too.
Her methods are very lion too. Straightforward, honest, running you through with her arguments, valuing truth and clarity over effectiveness and logic, can't keep a secret, says and acts on what she feels, consequences be damned. And maybe that's why this double lion struggles so much in such a snake oriented firm. Everyone is picking and backing their people like snake primaries, while she just barges against walls, all loud and ineffective, cause raw emotions and just anger don't get you nowhere in the schemer snake sec world of the law.
Maybe that's why she obsesses over Mike so much. She smells resonance in his lion primary, in his emotional and moral motivations to help. He wins her over through arguments like helping someone, noble causes, not putting her interests above others. And that's why it confuses her to no end he has such blind snake model loyalty to Harvey, who is a double snake through and through, a person she loathes and doesn't get and doesn't want to get at all.
It's interesting how Mike, who is the main pov character, gets thrown around all these sortings. Double snake Harvey and Donna adopt him, Louis's badger primary tries to integrate him and then throws him out, cause Mike belongs somewhere where he can't, Jessica understands the snake loyalty, but her lion secondary is building an army he can join or fall off and Rachel's double lion resonates and is sympathetic, but in the end her lion ways are too loud and destructive for him. He builds a snake secondary for the law schemes, but he is the most comfortable in his proper caring toiling badger secondary, and he inspires and gets his morals from his lion primary, with one snake primary model exception for Harvey.
Harvey - Snake / Snake
Mike - Lion with Snake model for Harvey / Badger
Jessica - Snake / Lion
Louis - Badger / Snake
Rachel - exploded Lion / Lion
Donna - Snake / Snake