everytime i think about arthur bennett i think about the airport bathroom nap. gently smoking. recently almost killed. having the absolute Worst fucking time. im too tired to give a full analysis but i also keep thinking about when grizly said something derisive about pathetic characters and them being fan favourites. he can have his own opinion idc- but i also think that it's Notable how i only got attached to arthur after he completely fucked up his entrance in ep 1, and more attached when he terrified that lady with the serial killer vibes, and Because of that was able to appreciate the awesome awesome moves of surviving a whole team of vampire hunters. its the BALANCE thats so so important. you can't have a character that's always perfect, always doing x y z thing right and stoically, because then it doesn't matter when they're doing things right. why should i care about this character if i know theyre going to go in there, say something mildly wise, and then saunter coolly back out with wild explosions behind them? whatever.
but ARTHUR. because he is an rpg guy. is trapped by the whims of the dice and the world. he's the idea of a cool, suave vampire mentor placed into a world where approaching a women in a car park at night is an extremely terrifying thing to do. there are consequences to his actions!! he's not perfect!! he's just a guy who thinks that appearances are important. he has spent so long vamping it up that interacting with humans is difficult for him. he faces problems and overcomes those problems because he is competent (anya; airport sunlight) NOT because he's cool and cool things happen to cool guys. he is desperate to find a cure. his flaws and failures have turned him into a guy, not a story's mechanism, who feels emotion, who does really catty things, who gives up so much that he prides himself in, and that matters. because he is capable of actual failure instead of conceptual, dry, trope failure, it matters when he succeeds, and it gives the audience the opportunity to root for him as a character instead of someone's idea of a character.
idk this is mostly sparked by me not liking arthur so much in the beginning, but i really started to appreciate him as he settled into the story. go vamp boy go relive extreme loss and then get stuck in the airport bathroom. ill be dining cheerfully on the character traits that have gotten to shine because of it
