Has House (or other main characters) Changed?

[barefootpuddles.livejournal.com]

One of House's mottos, and David Shore's themes, is that "people don't change". Yet for some of us, there is some compelling evidence that this may not be true.[Poll #1821759]


Please remember that this discussion is not the place to bash other ships, actors, or fellow fans. If you want to rant in a way that violates the comm rules, link people to your own journal. Otherwise, happy discussing!

Comments

[yarroway.livejournal.com]

Mostly, people do change IMO. Cameron and Thirteen did in ways that made sense. Foreman mostly didn't change at all. Chase changed in ways other posters have pointed out. Kutner changed drastically. He went from someone who had risen above tragedy to someone who destroyed himself. By tptb refusing to provide an explanation for this, it will forever be ooc in my book. I never bought their reasoning that in real life we often don't see someone's suicide coming and that we don't discover the reasons, because this show has never particularly concerned itself with RL and because that makes for a very unsatisfying story.

Wilson--has changed in all the ways other posters have said.

Cuddy--I've said previously that she changed around seasons 3 and 4. It has been awhile since I saw those early episodes, and I'm wondering if maybe we just saw more of her later, if the 'change' wasn't just the result of a broader view and more screen time. At any rate, after S5 I saw no subsequent change in her personality. Everything in S7 was something I had seen in previous seasons.

House--He's changed in major ways. He's gone from being a mostly rational if messed up adult with an idiosyncratic set of ethics that he adheres to, to being Dennis the Menace on Viagra. I stopped watching S7 when, in Pox, I realized I had no idea who Hugh Laurie was playing. The guy on my tv who tolerated the huddy mess, who didn't care about finding answers or saving patients or what the truth was, who did nothing but whine --I don't see House in there anywhere.

Others have brought up the violence. We've seen House be violent before in very minor ways. He hit Wilson with his cane twice (once over Stacy and once in Birthmarks) and hallucinated punching him once (not sure if that counts). He hit a patient's father, albeit for a specific medical reason. Smashing up Wilson's posters was weird but I could see House doing that if he were very off balance. But House was never violent or threatening to a woman. As much anger and hurt as he felt for Stacy, he never raised so much as his voice to her, let alone his hand. If he wanted to punish Cameron for leaving him and being happy, he could have done something to her rather than to Chase, yet he never even considered it. So House's violence in Moving On came out of the blue. Like the rest of S7 it made no sense and directly violated what we knew about House.

Since then it seem to me that the writers have tried very hard to justify last season's finale. The hitting and smashing this year stems from that, I think, though I was pleased when Wilson punched House. The worst of the mess this season came when House was shocking a patient's heart in Better Half, and he deliberately did it when he knew Foreman was touching the patient. Maybe I'm overreacting, but I have to assume there is a reason that people normally try to avoid doing that. Yet that scene was played for laughs.

[damigella-314.livejournal.com]

(standing ovation)

[chocolate-frapp.livejournal.com]

THIS. SO. MUCH.