She really did love him - in defence of Victoria
This essay sprung from watching VS and a few conversations with leda_speaks whom I thank for her insight.
Transcript extracts from Real due South
She really did love him - in defence of Victoria
I know when we think of villains in dS there is one name that crops up time and again - Victoria the dark haired beauty who came back into Fraser’s life and left a trail of devastation in her wake. It’s very easy to paint her as a cold hearted bitch and yet for everything she does, for all her actions odds are she really did love Fraser. Hate yes but also love.
Love you say, but she tried to kill Fraser!
Actually no, she didn’t. At no point does she attempt to kill Fraser. In fact she *can’t* even when she wants to. Take the moment toward the end when she holds the gun pointed at Fraser. We know she’s capable of killing; we see her shoot Jolly and Dief. And it’s inferred she’s killed at least one other person. Victoria is a killer but when she has the gun pointed right at Fraser, her finger on the trigger, she can’t do it. She can’t kill him. Instead she ends up kissing him. And kicking him out of the car.
When Fraser catches her she says the following:
Victoria: You son of a bitch, you set me up! I should have shot you!
I should have shot you. That would be tying up loose ends and exacting total revenge. Shooting Fraser with Ray’s backup gun would have done that but she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t shoot the man she loved.
In a way she’s weaker than Fraser. Fraser was able to turn her in that first time, even though he says he should have let her go he was able to ignore the love he had to do his duty. She could not ignore her love and let her hate win.
She couldn’t kill him, she loved him. Would she have eventually ended up killing him if he had got on the train? We will never know. There are other kinds of death. Her aim was to destroy who Fraser was, what he was, not his body.
But look what she did!
There is no denying that she did some pretty awful and bad things to Fraser and Ray but you have to ask yourself why. Revenge is a very simple explanation. One does not do all that she did for revenge. It’s too elaborate, too able to adapt. She did what she did out of love as well as hate. Everything she did was designed to destroy Fraser’s life as it was. She does it so he has no choice but go to with her. Consider the conversation they have in the strip club:
Fraser: You must really hate me for what I did.
Victoria: Yeah. Hate. Love. Those two emotions about cover it.
She even admits it this isn’t about hate. Fraser can see the hate but Victoria’s version of love is so twisted he doesn’t see that. Or does he? I mean he is desperate for the love he has for her to be reciprocated that dark and twisted as it is he still wants it. Why else run after the train?
Fraser: The girl in the car wreck was your sister.
Victoria: She borrowed my car. The police just assumed it was me. I had an opportunity, I took it. Fooled everybody.
Fraser: Except Jolly.
Victoria: Except Jolly. There were only two ways to end that relationship. One of them was with me dead.
The other of course being with Jolly dead. Again we can see if she wanted to end, end, things between her and Fraser she would kill him.
Fraser: What do you want, Victoria?
Victoria: You.
Fraser: No, you don't.
Victoria: Why do you think I did all of this?
Fraser: Revenge.
Victoria: Maybe. But I need you. I want you to go away with me.
Fraser: You know I can't do that--
Victoria: Why not? You don't have much to stick around here for. And you won't like prison.
This is her plan. She wants Fraser and the only way she can think of to get him is to get rid of the things that stood in her way last time - his Mountie devotion to duty and the law. Her plan has been designed to leave Fraser without those things so he has no choice but to go away with her.
Fraser: I'm sorry.
Victoria: I'm sorry too. Because I need you to make an exchange. If you don't, there's a key. This key fits a locker, and this locker has 25,000 dollars in sequentially numbered bills. The key is at your friend Ray's house. You have one hour to decide and then I call Internal Affairs and tell them where to find it.
[the door between them slides shut; Fraser runs through the back room tunnel, kicks in the door of her room, but Victoria has disappeared]
Let’s also look at the fact she goes after Dief and Ray. To hurt Fraser? Possibly, but they are also barriers to getting Fraser to go away with her. Diefenbaker is perhaps the more immediate threat when she shoots him but she soon realises that Ray too is a threat. Ray is the one other person Fraser loves (and you don’t even have to say slash love here it’s deep friendship love at the least) and who loves him back. That makes Ray a barrier and a threat and that’s why she makes the call. She makes the call to get Ray out of the way. Even Fraser seems to realise this:
Fraser: They're gonna to come after us.
Victoria: Not me, sweetie. [he sees 2 airline tickets] Put 'em in here.
Fraser: You made the call, didn't you?
Victoria: No loose ends.
Fraser: What about me?
Victoria: You're going with me. Right?
Fraser: No.
Again we see she wants him with her. There are two airline tickets, two. She makes the call to tie up loose ends and leave Fraser with nothing in Chicago. You have to admit it’s very clever.
She hated him!
Maybe but as you can see she also loved him. That is what makes her unstable. There’s this conflict within her. The hate side of her would probably have liked her to kill him, but she couldn’t because of the love.
Fraser was wrong to go after the train
He was, yes. He was such an idiot that I believe in future Ray should keep him locked up. But the fact remains she wanted him to go with her. Look at the joy on her face when she sees him running toward her. Is it because she’s revelling in her power over him? Maybe, but that’s a look of love if ever I saw one. It’s an open look from her, not guarded. And the devastation on her face when Fraser is shot - she clearly never wanted him dead. She lost Fraser and that’s a bigger blow to her than anything else.
Concluding...
So to my mind she loved him, she loved him to the point where everything she did was designed to get him. She could tell of the deep bond between Fraser and Ray and at times Fraser does behave as if torn between his love for Victoria and his love for Ray but that’s another essay.
Above all else she did love him and he loved her. Problem was as the song goes ‘sometimes love just ain’t enough’ and especially not in her case where it was so deep, so dark, so passionate and so tempered by hate it wasn’t healthy. She may have killed Fraser but she would have destroyed who he was, she would have destroyed Ray’s Benny and in a lot of ways that’s worse than simply killing him. But she loved the person she thought Fraser could be with her. Just as Fraser loved the person he thought she could be with him. In the end all they knew was a deep, dark, destructive love forged at the brink of death. It wasn’t a love that could never sustain life and in the end it played out that way.
Transcript extracts from Real due South
She really did love him - in defence of Victoria
I know when we think of villains in dS there is one name that crops up time and again - Victoria the dark haired beauty who came back into Fraser’s life and left a trail of devastation in her wake. It’s very easy to paint her as a cold hearted bitch and yet for everything she does, for all her actions odds are she really did love Fraser. Hate yes but also love.
Love you say, but she tried to kill Fraser!
Actually no, she didn’t. At no point does she attempt to kill Fraser. In fact she *can’t* even when she wants to. Take the moment toward the end when she holds the gun pointed at Fraser. We know she’s capable of killing; we see her shoot Jolly and Dief. And it’s inferred she’s killed at least one other person. Victoria is a killer but when she has the gun pointed right at Fraser, her finger on the trigger, she can’t do it. She can’t kill him. Instead she ends up kissing him. And kicking him out of the car.
When Fraser catches her she says the following:
Victoria: You son of a bitch, you set me up! I should have shot you!
I should have shot you. That would be tying up loose ends and exacting total revenge. Shooting Fraser with Ray’s backup gun would have done that but she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t shoot the man she loved.
In a way she’s weaker than Fraser. Fraser was able to turn her in that first time, even though he says he should have let her go he was able to ignore the love he had to do his duty. She could not ignore her love and let her hate win.
She couldn’t kill him, she loved him. Would she have eventually ended up killing him if he had got on the train? We will never know. There are other kinds of death. Her aim was to destroy who Fraser was, what he was, not his body.
But look what she did!
There is no denying that she did some pretty awful and bad things to Fraser and Ray but you have to ask yourself why. Revenge is a very simple explanation. One does not do all that she did for revenge. It’s too elaborate, too able to adapt. She did what she did out of love as well as hate. Everything she did was designed to destroy Fraser’s life as it was. She does it so he has no choice but go to with her. Consider the conversation they have in the strip club:
Fraser: You must really hate me for what I did.
Victoria: Yeah. Hate. Love. Those two emotions about cover it.
She even admits it this isn’t about hate. Fraser can see the hate but Victoria’s version of love is so twisted he doesn’t see that. Or does he? I mean he is desperate for the love he has for her to be reciprocated that dark and twisted as it is he still wants it. Why else run after the train?
Fraser: The girl in the car wreck was your sister.
Victoria: She borrowed my car. The police just assumed it was me. I had an opportunity, I took it. Fooled everybody.
Fraser: Except Jolly.
Victoria: Except Jolly. There were only two ways to end that relationship. One of them was with me dead.
The other of course being with Jolly dead. Again we can see if she wanted to end, end, things between her and Fraser she would kill him.
Fraser: What do you want, Victoria?
Victoria: You.
Fraser: No, you don't.
Victoria: Why do you think I did all of this?
Fraser: Revenge.
Victoria: Maybe. But I need you. I want you to go away with me.
Fraser: You know I can't do that--
Victoria: Why not? You don't have much to stick around here for. And you won't like prison.
This is her plan. She wants Fraser and the only way she can think of to get him is to get rid of the things that stood in her way last time - his Mountie devotion to duty and the law. Her plan has been designed to leave Fraser without those things so he has no choice but to go away with her.
Fraser: I'm sorry.
Victoria: I'm sorry too. Because I need you to make an exchange. If you don't, there's a key. This key fits a locker, and this locker has 25,000 dollars in sequentially numbered bills. The key is at your friend Ray's house. You have one hour to decide and then I call Internal Affairs and tell them where to find it.
[the door between them slides shut; Fraser runs through the back room tunnel, kicks in the door of her room, but Victoria has disappeared]
Let’s also look at the fact she goes after Dief and Ray. To hurt Fraser? Possibly, but they are also barriers to getting Fraser to go away with her. Diefenbaker is perhaps the more immediate threat when she shoots him but she soon realises that Ray too is a threat. Ray is the one other person Fraser loves (and you don’t even have to say slash love here it’s deep friendship love at the least) and who loves him back. That makes Ray a barrier and a threat and that’s why she makes the call. She makes the call to get Ray out of the way. Even Fraser seems to realise this:
Fraser: They're gonna to come after us.
Victoria: Not me, sweetie. [he sees 2 airline tickets] Put 'em in here.
Fraser: You made the call, didn't you?
Victoria: No loose ends.
Fraser: What about me?
Victoria: You're going with me. Right?
Fraser: No.
Again we see she wants him with her. There are two airline tickets, two. She makes the call to tie up loose ends and leave Fraser with nothing in Chicago. You have to admit it’s very clever.
She hated him!
Maybe but as you can see she also loved him. That is what makes her unstable. There’s this conflict within her. The hate side of her would probably have liked her to kill him, but she couldn’t because of the love.
Fraser was wrong to go after the train
He was, yes. He was such an idiot that I believe in future Ray should keep him locked up. But the fact remains she wanted him to go with her. Look at the joy on her face when she sees him running toward her. Is it because she’s revelling in her power over him? Maybe, but that’s a look of love if ever I saw one. It’s an open look from her, not guarded. And the devastation on her face when Fraser is shot - she clearly never wanted him dead. She lost Fraser and that’s a bigger blow to her than anything else.
Concluding...
So to my mind she loved him, she loved him to the point where everything she did was designed to get him. She could tell of the deep bond between Fraser and Ray and at times Fraser does behave as if torn between his love for Victoria and his love for Ray but that’s another essay.
Above all else she did love him and he loved her. Problem was as the song goes ‘sometimes love just ain’t enough’ and especially not in her case where it was so deep, so dark, so passionate and so tempered by hate it wasn’t healthy. She may have killed Fraser but she would have destroyed who he was, she would have destroyed Ray’s Benny and in a lot of ways that’s worse than simply killing him. But she loved the person she thought Fraser could be with her. Just as Fraser loved the person he thought she could be with him. In the end all they knew was a deep, dark, destructive love forged at the brink of death. It wasn’t a love that could never sustain life and in the end it played out that way.