This is not intended to be a serious, scholarly paper.

**Sympathetic Questions**
        By Elise     

    Why are so many of us drawn to the character of Nicholas de Brabant in 
Forever Knight?  What is it about this eight hundred year old vampire that 
attracts us and holds our attention?  It is a certainty that the actor who 
plays Nick, Geraint Wyn Davies, is a very handsome fellow, but is that the 
only reason so many of us follow the show?  Could the sex appeal of the main 
character (and other characters) account solely for the reaction this show 
has induced in his fans?  Is that why we chat endlessly about the show, write
stories of our own (stories which number in the thousands), create fan clubs 
not merely for the actors, but also for the fictional characters as well?

    Or is it that, amazingly, we feel a deep sympathy for the character of 
Nicholas Knight?  Yes, we feel a sympathy for a character who, historically, 
has been considered an evil, demonic force for hell itself.  The vampire is 
a monster designed to prey upon the blood of us poor mortals, to suck our 
very souls from our bodies as well, for haven’t such beasts tempted mortals 
to join them in an eternal damnation.  And yet we do feel a sympathy, a 
kinship with Nick Knight. Why?  Have we descended so far into sin and 
inequity that we have forgotten our childhood religious training?  Have we 
become jaded to violence through the real world around us to such a degree 
that we simply accept Nick Knight and the evil world in which he lives?

    Who can deny that Knight has a past filled with evil, dark deeds, many of
which are best left unknown?  He has confessed and we have - through 
flashbacks - been witnesses to some of those sins.  Is there even one of the 
Ten Commandments he has not broken?  Willingly?  Again and again? 

    If he is, as he states, a creature of immense evil, why then do we feel 
sympathy for him?  Shouldn’t we, instead, shun and fear him?  Shouldn’t we 
abhor the people responsible for setting such a fiend before us in the guise 
of a hero?  Perhaps we should, but we don’t.  We can’t.  

    We can’t because Nick Knight is too human.  He is too much like us, and 
if we condemn him, we must condemn ourselves.  His character is a symbol for 
our own daily struggles to do what is right.  We see him as a man who made 
an inconceivably horrendous mistake- but still just a mistake.  Knight deeply
regrets his past actions and continually strives to atone for his sins.  He 
yearns for forgiveness and does everything in his power to find his path back
to grace.  That is what makes him human. This is what earns him our sympathy.
Knight’s eternal struggle with himself and his own nature, not his vampiric
nature but that of the man, is what bonds us to him for we, too, struggle 
with ourselves each and every day.  Knight’s struggles are divided into light
and dark only.  There are not gray areas for him.  He will not allow himself 
to see gray.

    The character of LaCroix, his master, personifies the struggles with his 
darker nature.  LaCroix, like a devil who sits on his shoulder, whispering 
impure thoughts in his ear, urges Nick to throw off his mortal bonds.  He 
preaches a world of sensual pleasures and selfish indulgences.  How many of 
us have fought this very temptation?  To do something just because we wanted 
to do so and the consequences be damned?  LaCroix demands Nick’s total 
obedience, and in return he promises eternal youth, joy, and delight.   He 
represents Nick’s id, and as we mortals do, so does Nick struggle to subdue 
and contain his id.  How ironic that the master vampire’s name means "light."
    
    On the opposite side, Nick must struggle with his super-ego.  Natalie, 
whose name means "birth", urges him to give up the blood, a symbol for the 
vampiric world.  Nick joyfully embraces Natalie, her love for him, and their 
combined attempt to "cure" or save him from the darkness.  But, like all of 
us, Nick cannot stand up for long to the super-human demands made by his 
super-ego.  He backslides into that seductive world causing additional stress 
on his relationship with her and emotional distress for himself.  Together, 
Nick and Natalie fail to realize that Nick’s darkness is natural darkness 
within all men not simply the evil of the beast.

   Nick’s salvation can come only from within.  Likewise, his damnation comes
from within as well.  He alone has the power to save or damn himself.  Like 
all of mankind, Nick is given free will and must choose for himself.  He must
learn to accept the dark "light" within himself as represented by LaCroix; 
however, in order to do so, he must follow the guidelines established for 
him by Natalie and become "reborn" through his own faith.

   Perhaps this whole television show is a Christian parable attempting to 
lead us back to the church.  Many religious themes such as sin and atonement,
salvation and faith are prevalent throughout the series.  Also, the names of 
the characters tend to lend themselves to such an interpretation.  Perhaps 
Lucien LaCroix, the light, is a facsimile of Lucifer?  Both names have the 
same meaning; both individuals fell into darkness through excessive pride: 
both serve the same function in offering up temptations.  Natalie Lambert 
functions as a guide for Nick back to the salvation he so desires.  Since 
her name means "the birth of the lamb," is she there to lead Nick back to 
the salvation promised by Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God?

   I have no answers for those questions, nor do I pretend to have them.  I 
raise these questions because I feel there must be something deeper, or a 
semblance of soemthing deeper, within the premise of Forever Knight.  The 
character’s names and their resemblance to Freud’s theory of the 
ego/id/superego can surely be no coincidence, nor can the Christian elements 
abounding within the story.  

   Perhaps one of you has other ideas on this matter and would be willing to 
share. 
   

Elise                                                                        
ejdeal @ SGA.Quik.com