application to he waits dreaming
✢ The Player
Player Name: Silent Tristero
Age: 22
LJ: yourcasabianca
AIM / MSN / Y!M: hodudududuh (AIM), easypeasyeasypeasy@gmail.com (MSN)
E-mail: easypeasyeasypeasy@gmail.com
Other Characters: Sherlock Holmes, Loki Laufeyson
✢ The Character
Character Name: Peter Guillam
Fandom: John LeCarré's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy/2011 film
Canon Point: Just prior to the discovery of the identity of the mole.
Age: 36
Appearance: Have a look.
Abilities / Powers: Guillam is an entirely normal fellow. Decent in a fight, knows how to use a variety of firearms but isn't extraordinarily talented with any of them. He is a spy and quite good at his job, but as of the current moment he's spent a long time out of active duty, so he may be a bit rusty.
Inventory: The clothing he's wearing (three-piece suit and overcoat), one leather bag with sundry files and papers and his address book, one rather old but well-maintained Webley Mk IV revolver, not loaded, and a handful of bullets.
Personality: Peter Guillam is a complicated fellow, as one might expect of a man who works in espionage. As one might also expect, one of his defining characteristics is loneliness. Though, as the book explicitly states, he has no family, he is not without friends, or at least people with whom he feels some camaraderie; nor is he without lovers in either the novel or the film, though the gender of the object of his affections varies between the two (note: I will be following film canon in this regard). Nonetheless he is isolated from them. His friends - exclusively coworkers - seem distant, as is necessary in an environment which must cultivate distance and secrecy. His lovers aren't permitted to know about his work, and in both novel and film the risk involved in that work leads him to drive them away.
There is, in fact, only one other person with whom Guillam seems to share some sort of genuine relationship: George Smiley. George appears to be something of a mentor of Guillam's, an idol, well-known for his work with the Circus and something of a personal friend. The relationship runs deeper than friendship, however. Smiley appears at least on the surface to be something of a father-figure to Guillam, who adores him without reservation and on more than one occasion threatens violence to those who make slights against him. I would argue, however, that Guillam does not see Smiley as a replacement for his own absent father, at least not consciously. He does not treat him as a father, but rather as a boss, a progenitor of the institution to which he remains loyal despite trying times, an institution which, given that his parents were also members, essentially raised him - yet still no progenitor of his own.
Nonetheless, Guillam's relationship with Smiley, and with his work by extension, reveals a number of important things about him. Firstly, that despite his training and the rather tremendous self-control he displays while performing his various acts of espionage, he is impulsive. He is, moreover, wildly suspicious, as a spy must be, but also overly trusting - upon discovering the identity of the mole, he is both shocked and personally insulted, as he'd regarded this man as something of a mentor and friend as well.
There's another complex facet to this feeling of betrayal which is also of import. Namely, that Guillam is head of the Scalphunters, the least well-regarded of the Circus' divisions. The Scalphunters do the organisation's dirty work - assassinations, kidnappings, blackmail, and so on. He was once, however, a field agent, head of a network in French North Africa, which was widely considered to be an extremely dangerous assignment, given only to skilled agents. It was the mole's leaked information that blew his cover and got him assigned to a home department. This, the sudden change from fieldwork, and dangerous fieldwork at that, which by all indications he performed quite skilfully, to what amounts to a desk job must contribute to his impulsiveness and to his overemotional responses to certain events.
He does not, moreover, seem particularly satisfied with his job at the beginning of either film or novel, and several times in the novel he complains to Smiley about how the organisation and hierarchy of the Circus has changed since Smiley's forced resignation. His dissatisfaction is only compounded by events in his personal life, which leads one to assume he is questioning his continued involvement in the organisation. Nonetheless he remains loyal to Smiley and carries out his assigned duties admirably - and more, in fact. Smiley is portrayed as brilliant, but absentminded, a small and unassuming man of more than middle age who is troubled by his past, his personal life, and reluctant to return to work at the Circus. Guillam acts as assistant and sounding board and, at times, something of a babysitter, compensating for Smiley's absentmindedness. He is dutiful and reliable despite distance on Smiley's part (which he doesn't take personally, as it is more or less the mode with which Smiley regards everybody).
For all his loneliness and dissatisfaction, however, Peter Guillam is not a miserable man. He can be warm and friendly, and to those who earn his affections he is extremely loyal, though it's unlikely he'll ever open up completely to anyone. Still, he can love deeply and be dutiful and considerate, and perhaps find contentment, however much of himself he continues to hide away.
History: Here
and here. (note: The second article doesn't explicitly say so, but Guillam was present through much of the goings-on in the film. With a few exceptions, where George Smiley goes, Guillam follows.)
First Person Sample: It's all gone to Hell, hasn't it? Everything. The Circus. The nation, its people, my life, everything. This bloody Cold War. They say it's fantastic for us and it is, we're needed like we've not been needed in ages, but it's still not like before. The risk is greater than ever and the results, minimal at best. We're squabbling amongst ourselves. Nothing seems to mean anything. Half of what we get is manufactured rubbish and the result of the rest is nothing visible, nothing a man might feel proud over when he sets his head down for the night. Nothing, not like the War. Those, I gather, were good times. Gone now.
I'm gone too, or I will be soon. Falling apart. I saw my entire network of agents hanged in the Maghreb and hardly batted an eye. Sad, sad affair, I still wake up shaking with rage when I dream of it but it's not the same as fear, it's not the same as jumping at every odd noise. A few acts of treason have me trembling and useless when I used to commit the same every day, albeit not against the country with which my true allegiances lay.
And he's gone. I loved him, I love him and he's gone. He's safe. I'm safe. But I can't help but wonder, for what? What do I gain in the end, when it's all going to fall apart in the end anyway? Why do I carry on doing these things for a country that will not remember me, when in doing so I must drive away a man who will?
Third Person Sample: theboystoodontheburningdeckwhenceallbuthehadfled ran 'round and 'round his head, 'round and 'round as though his brain were desperately trying to fill in the details between the abrupt stop there and the waking up here. It was failing. He could remember the rest of the poem, could recite it any day, could feel it like the sharp smack of the cane to the back of his hands, smell it like chalk dust, but that one recitation, that particular instance, failed to follow through. He was alone again, and in a strange place. Alone, and George needed him.
Needed. Funny word. Peter hauled himself to his feet and began to pace, rubbing dry palms over his face. Stubble. So he'd slept some time.
No, George didn't need him. He doubted George needed anybody, not really. Ann could come and go and Smiley went on just the same. After he'd left, been driven out, Peter hadn't seen him for ages. Years. It was taboo, of course, but nobody ever bothered to play by those rules. They could've met, just occasionally. Had a few drinks together, perhaps. But there'd been no communication at all from the end of that particular line, not until convenience (not quite necessity) had driven them back together.
In the end it hardly mattered. Peter cared for George. He would care for George, that brilliant man, brilliant and absent, so elsewhere, so caught up in himself and in the past that Peter couldn't reach him at all sometimes. It didn't matter. He could care for the body if not for the mind. It was better than anyone else bothered to do. George wasn't like a father to him, though in terms of absence and distance he was a good facsimile of Peter's. George was something more sacred. A national treasure, though hardly anyone knew it. They'd certainly not be able to tell by looking at him. George held them all together. He kept them all safe. Gave too much of himself and took nothing in return; somebody had to compensate. Ann wouldn't do it. Nobody else bothered to try, and Peter loved him, loved him for all that he did and all that he stood for, and so he stepped in. He was a remnant of old days, good days, worth holding onto.
Peter snorted at himself. That made poor old Smiley sound as though he belonged in a museum. Perhaps he did. He'd not be out of place, staring at the floor musingly through his thick lenses while the world spun on without him. Yes, Peter had to get home to him. They had work to do. They had to carry on wandering and thinking and even if Peter was left doing naught but carrying the coffee and opening doors it would be better, far better, than being here and alone. It would mean something. Just a tiny something.
Other: Thanks! :)