Jamie MacDonald (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
motherwellrules) wrote2014-01-01 02:05 am
motherwellrules) wrote2014-01-01 02:05 am
A Note on Characterisation
Obviously when fleshing out a minor character (and for all that he's fairly popular in the fandom, Jamie gets very little screentime) you have to extrapolate and fill in the gaps yourself. This is particularly tricky in The Thick of It, given that we see almost nothing of even major characters' home lives. With Malcolm - the other terrifying, shouty scotsman on the show - we get to see the other side: we get to see him at home, and given that he's essentially the main character, obviously he gets the most development. Jamie, on the other hand, appears in all of three episodes and doesn't take a starring role in any of them. We only ever see him on the job, usually in crisis mode.
In fact he's seen in anything other than crisis mode precisely once, and that's at the start of the episode in which he's introduced. And the Jamie we see there is a very different man to the one Malcolm dispatches to terrorise journalists and politicians in his absence. He seems to be on a fairly even keel, seriously discusses the incipient MoD scandal with Malcolm, and is even perfectly amiable toward Ollie when they're first introduced. It's only when things start going wrong that we really meet The Angriest Man In Scotland.
Psychotic rage and general emotional terrorism is the primary tool of the TTOI press office. It's how they get things done. For their brand of spin to work, they need pretty much everyone they associate with to be absolutely terrified of them. Jamie's temper is a tool, and he does have a handle on it.
My basis for saying this is literally a single moment, but it's an important one: even in full-on crisis mode - under incredible professional and personal stress, when his attempt to back Cliff Lawton as a rival candidate has collapsed and he's very probably about to lose his job - the second he's interacting with a "real person" (as Malcolm puts it), his manners are absolutely impeccable. He literally goes straight from balling out DoSAC's finest to immediately being all apologies when he bumps into a cleaning lady. And given that this is even though he's literally surrounded by people who it's to his advantage for them to believe he's absolutely psychotic, that's really telling.
So fans of The Thick of It may note that my Jamie is perhaps not quite the Jamie they're used to seeing. Worry not, when interacting with MPs, hacks, and other fellow soldiers on the political battlefield, he'll be every part the mad wee bastard we've come to know and love. But when threading with civilians - as will be the case in most cross-canon CR - I have to go off of what little we've seen of that.
[Note: The backstory I've got for him comes from a combination of reading too much into throwaway comments in the show, things Paul Higgins has said in interviews, the fact that he wears a wedding ring in S2, personal experience from growing up in and around Glasgow, and the entire fandom on AO3 being absolutely convinced that Jamie has daughters (I have no idea why, but I like it so I kept it). Your forbearance is appreciated since, as noted, wow do we get no background on fucking anyone]
In fact he's seen in anything other than crisis mode precisely once, and that's at the start of the episode in which he's introduced. And the Jamie we see there is a very different man to the one Malcolm dispatches to terrorise journalists and politicians in his absence. He seems to be on a fairly even keel, seriously discusses the incipient MoD scandal with Malcolm, and is even perfectly amiable toward Ollie when they're first introduced. It's only when things start going wrong that we really meet The Angriest Man In Scotland.
Psychotic rage and general emotional terrorism is the primary tool of the TTOI press office. It's how they get things done. For their brand of spin to work, they need pretty much everyone they associate with to be absolutely terrified of them. Jamie's temper is a tool, and he does have a handle on it.
My basis for saying this is literally a single moment, but it's an important one: even in full-on crisis mode - under incredible professional and personal stress, when his attempt to back Cliff Lawton as a rival candidate has collapsed and he's very probably about to lose his job - the second he's interacting with a "real person" (as Malcolm puts it), his manners are absolutely impeccable. He literally goes straight from balling out DoSAC's finest to immediately being all apologies when he bumps into a cleaning lady. And given that this is even though he's literally surrounded by people who it's to his advantage for them to believe he's absolutely psychotic, that's really telling.
So fans of The Thick of It may note that my Jamie is perhaps not quite the Jamie they're used to seeing. Worry not, when interacting with MPs, hacks, and other fellow soldiers on the political battlefield, he'll be every part the mad wee bastard we've come to know and love. But when threading with civilians - as will be the case in most cross-canon CR - I have to go off of what little we've seen of that.
[Note: The backstory I've got for him comes from a combination of reading too much into throwaway comments in the show, things Paul Higgins has said in interviews, the fact that he wears a wedding ring in S2, personal experience from growing up in and around Glasgow, and the entire fandom on AO3 being absolutely convinced that Jamie has daughters (I have no idea why, but I like it so I kept it). Your forbearance is appreciated since, as noted, wow do we get no background on fucking anyone]