Importantly, are Harold's glasses just for show?
I'm following astolat on tumblr now, and she reblogged a PoI AU where Harold's like 30, and John his 20 year old soldier bodyguard for a bit, and I'd usually not even click on that premise, cos people generally change so much in 20 years they're hardly the same characters, except, you know, astolat, and I'm a sad fangirl, so I read it, and liked it well enough *shrug*
Oddly, the bit I got hung up on was John handing Harold his glasses, and Harold was all squinty without, and that reminded me that I'm not convinced, canonically, that Harold needs glasses at all. Neery and I were discussing it the other day when we watched the ep where the serial killer took Harold's glasses and pretended to be him. Firstly, Harold's gaze was pretty damn sharp without the glasses, and secondly, the serial killer was either seeing Harold perfectly well through the glasses, or else he was already so subsumed by the role he was playing, which, I had the impression he was still trying the character on for size, and yeah, if you were a serial killer confronting someone who'd been hunting you, would you stand and chat to them with something distorting your vision? Just hypothetically.
Oddly, the bit I got hung up on was John handing Harold his glasses, and Harold was all squinty without, and that reminded me that I'm not convinced, canonically, that Harold needs glasses at all. Neery and I were discussing it the other day when we watched the ep where the serial killer took Harold's glasses and pretended to be him. Firstly, Harold's gaze was pretty damn sharp without the glasses, and secondly, the serial killer was either seeing Harold perfectly well through the glasses, or else he was already so subsumed by the role he was playing, which, I had the impression he was still trying the character on for size, and yeah, if you were a serial killer confronting someone who'd been hunting you, would you stand and chat to them with something distorting your vision? Just hypothetically.