tw canon typical abuse/violence
I really do wish Bones gave the time to unpack Brennan and Booth's individual relationships with violence and how they intersect.
Brennan from the opening of the first episode, is violence first, always. I wonder where she learned that, as it seems she was defenseless while she was in foster care. More likely it was as a young adult in college, where she was finally free to make her own choices in her life. It's easy to imagine that she utilized those skills often on field-work trips. It would make sense if her school/work life was bouncing between 1) being the only woman at a field site in dangerous locations, and 2) being socially isolated in labs. If that's the case, it would make sense that she never really acclimatized to 'normal' life wrt to violence. In the States, you'd figure she'd have had some repercussions for doing things like breaking noses and wrists on an impulse.
God forbid there be police violence accountability in a copaganda show, but it would make an interesting story if Brennan attacking a suspect had real consequences, getting charges dropped, blowing the case no matter how good the evidence they had. How would she cope?
Meanwhile with Booth,
All of this. For all that Bones isn't as 'serious' a crime drama in the realm of something like Criminal Minds or SVU, there are some incredible nuggets of complexity hidden within the characterizations.
For example - The instances (not exactly infrequent) where Brennan exhibits almost casual emotional cruelty to Booth, in full cognizance and awareness of his emotional triggers. Is it malicious? Only perhaps subconsciously, and that too only when she's at her most turbulent. Is it strikingly analogous to Max's sometimes obliviousness to the depth of trauma he inflicted on his daughter? Absolutely.
In the show's defense, Brennan's struggle to understand and place emotional cues in context to people has been made clear from the beginning. As has the subtext that none of her barbs are ever meant to hurt but the truth as she sees it. Which is why, when her first response is being pedantic (YOU told me never to bring up your connection to John Wilkes Booth, I never promised) to Booth being clearly agitated and on the brink of a meltdown in the JFK and Secret Service episode - I wince, but I don't blame her. When she tells him bluntly that he's killed earlier and will kill again, she's not hitting him where he's already hurt, but trying to explain in her own way that what he does and who he is doesn't have to be so entwined.
But for the life of me I cannot attribute a justifiable reason to Brennan's decisions at the end of Season 7. Booth is in-charge of the Pelant case and she actually has no formal authority to go off on her own - atleast not without Booth's knowledge. Even if her meetings with her schizophrenic genius friend had panned out, it wouldn't have helped the actual legal case against Pelant. And he made a clear lethal THREAT against Christine! Brennan not only dismissed it, but also actively kept it from her daughter's father. Just - WHAT.
Also, her going off the grid was unfortunately the only option remaining to her - no doubt. But her taking Christine along was nothing but a monumentally self-serving decision. Under no circumstances can she claim that Christine would have been safer with a fugitive mother and grandfather. The utter tragedy is that it was clearly a trauma response - by taking an action which out of context is the exact opposite of what Max did, she nevertheless leaves behind the same wreckage. Not only did she stomp on Booth's own abandonment trauma, but turned around and did exactly what Rebecca had done, all the while being one of the very few who knew what having no access to Parker did to him. What a heartbreaking way to show how similar she is to Max - and prove the adage of 'hurt people hurt people'.
And I could write an entire essay about Booth and anger. How the utter terror of having inherited anything like his father's temper actually sublimated any healthy emotional outlet for his own, often justifiable, anger. I don't spend too much time thinking about his 'cop brutality' aspect - the 'badass hero cop' manhandling suspects is a shameful staple of the entire police procedural genre, and Booth is no better or worse than other characters in this sense.
But in terms of Booth the individual and person - it does seem to me like even those who love him most (Brennan, Cam, Sweets, Hank) clearly disapprove whenever he expresses real anger? Thereby indirectly cementing it even further in his psyche that he is exactly like his father.
He isn't allowed to be angry that his mother waltzed back into his life after two decades only to assuage her own conscience, because she was a victim too. He isn't allowed to be angry that the woman he loves basically emotionally traumatized him for three months, because she was the one on the run. He isn't allowed to be angry that another woman he loved - who altered her life trajectory only because she wanted to be with him, who till then was the only woman who actively CHOSE him, turned around and said that she always knew their relationship had an expiry date. He isn't allowed to feel resentment or relief or numbness at his father dying without any closure, because his grandfather is sad at losing his son.
His excellence at almost every physical activity out there makes sense when you realize that sports and the physical nature of his job(s) became the only real outlet that he had. But I always had the impression that in a better time and place, where the markers for masculinity weren't so rigidly defined, Booth would have been the creative kid. He's great with his hands, is brilliant at unstructured and intuitive thinking, and picks up crafts like origami and clay modelling in a jiffy. It's ironic, since Booth is able to fully embrace his innate sentimentality and emotional nature BECAUSE he ticks all the 'traditionally masculine' boxes.
Gah these two I swear.
