talk

[karate0kat]

I've been trying to figure out why Paul Ballard never bothered me the way he did most of the Dollhouse fandom.  And I've finally decided it's because he reminds me of my little brother

Comments

[mfirefly10]

While I definitely agree that Paul isn't a scary!stalker one should be terrified of, I've always been bothered by his Echo!obsession. And there are two main reasons for that:

A: In canon, there's no explanation for it other than Paul's savior complex and Echo's appearance. His obsession of her is based on nothing else. Just 'ooh she's pretty. I must save her now'

B: I think there was a very easy fix to explain Paul's obsession and I'm disappointed that the writers didn't see it. All they would've had to do was say that Caroline had gone to Paul for help regarding the Dollhouse and that he had turned her away. That he hadn't believed her and however many months later, he found evidence that the Dollhouse really did exist and that Caroline was missing. If that had been the reason behind his obsession, it would've made perfect sense to me and I wouldn't have been so negative about it.

Alas...the writers gave us no reason for Paul's obsession so it just came off as creepy to me.

[karate0kat]

In the original pilot Echo is sent to him imprinted as someone who's looking for her missing sister she believes the Dollhouse took. It's a rouse to see how much he knows and when he figures out something is wrong with her and confronts her she shoots him. Obviously this was changed, but that was still there in the first few episodes. There was a reason for him to be so invested in her specifically, and they could either suddenly drop it when they started writing new episodes after the redid the pilot, or they could just go with it.

I always just figured Paul fixated on her because she was the first tangible proof he had that the Dollhouse was real and he wasn't crazy. She was a specific goal, not a nebulous 'take down big shady corporation that nobody believes is real'. And yeah, she's hot, and he has a hero complex, so he had some white knight fantasies that were very possibly ill advised on the part of the writers.

[noybusiness]

That's basically what I thought. He finally had a face to put on a victim of the Dollhouse and it was a beautiful girl's face. I don't think real-life fixations need more complex explanations.