kriadydragon: (Beast)
I present to you my first foray into the wonderful world of meta: A Neal and Patrick comparison. Written for [livejournal.com profile] month_of_meta.

I have to confess that though I do watch the Mentalist I'm a lot more familiar with White Collar, so a big thanks to [livejournal.com profile] wildcat88 for the much needed help and fixing of many mistakes and assumptions.

Neal and Patrick: A Meta-Flavored CI-off


Neal Caffrey from White Collar. Patrick Jane from The Mentalist. Our two favorite, lovable con artists. So much in common and, yet, such very different people. This is a topic that's been poking at my brain for some time, because I find both Neal and Patrick fascinating bad boys turned good guys but still retaining some of those “bad boy” attributes. What I find most fascinating is, as I mentioned before, how different they really are despite all the commonalities.

So what are the commonalities? Well, to put it incredibly lightly, both are – shall we say – not exactly the ideal law abiding citizens. To put it less lightly, they're con men, crooks, incredibly smart and incredibly slick. They're both informants for law enforcement and use their skills to help catch criminals. Both have found themselves in a situation so far over their heads that the end result was a tragedy that gave them both a taste for revenge. Both now consult for law enforcement. Oh, and they both have father issues, apparently; their fathers also less than ideal law-abiding citizens.

But then you look at their personalities, their methodology. I don't want to call this a Neal versus Patrick meta because it's not. It's more an exploration into where their commonalities diverge and how much they diverge.

If I were to describe both men in a nutshell, I would say that Patrick is a man who plays his cards close to his chest – strike that: he's a man who puts his cards in an iron lock box and hides the key. While Neal, on the other hand, wears his heart on his sleeve and anywhere else he can put it. Let's explore the details of what, exactly, I mean by this.

Starting with Patrick. Patrick's MO had been – past tense – that of a fake psychic swindling people of their money. But he gave it up. Remember that tragedy I mentioned? It was the loss of his wife and daughter. Patrick, in an unwise display of over-confidence, made the deadly mistake of verbally sticking it to the serial killer known as Red John on live TV. The result? Red John killed Patrick's wife and daughter, also killing the swindling confidence man aspect of Patrick along with them. Where once he was a fake psychic more than happy to manipulate people out of a lot of cash, he now despises the profession. But the skills he learned as a swindler he happily uses because they continue to serve a purpose and get the job done. Instead of a fake psychic, he's more like a psychologist or a profiler, able to figure people out and use what he knows to catch the bad guy of the week, and all in the hopes of one day catching Red John and exacting his revenge.

Neal is a Jack of all trades, in a way. Not just a con man but a forger and a thief and very good at what he does. So good that the only way the FBI were able to catch him was through his undying love for his girlfriend, Kate. Neal didn't give up this “profession” even while under the ever watchful eye of Agent Peter Burke. He continues to use all of his skills and knowledge, whether legal, barely legal or not legal at all, to help Peter catch criminals. But why is this unreformed criminal helping the FBI? Like Patrick, Neal has a goal in mind. Where Patrick wants revenge, Neal wants to find the love of his life, Kate. He's passionately certain that Kate didn't leave him, that she needs help, and he will do whatever he has to in order to find her. Like Patrick, Neal's working with law enforcement is voluntary – he's the one who talked Peter into it, after all – but unlike Patrick Neal can't come and go as he pleases. He's stuck where he is, limited by an anklet with a two mile radius, and walking on thin ice where his methods are concerned. While Patrick pretty much has free reign – or a heck of a lot more free reign compared to Neal – to take action how he sees fit.

With Patrick, his ability to con and manipulate is no longer the lifestyle it once was. It's a means to an end. He cut off that lifestyle like a rotting limb, shed it like bad skin until all that remained was the need to take down Red John by any means possible (although I'm sure taking down other full-of-themselves criminals by outsmarting them is a nice bonus).

With Neal, even though Kate is killed – also murdered – it's doesn't really change who Neal is. That is, at least not in the same way it changed Patrick. Neal seeks revenge, yes, but unlike Patrick the need for revenge doesn't come to define Neal. Kate's death didn't get him to shed his criminal side. When he has the man who he thought killed Kate sighted down the barrel of a gun, Peter manages to talk him down. When a second near-tragedy strikes – not resulting in death but close enough – it gets Neal to take a step back and rethink things. But Neal is still very much Neal, that criminal side still mostly intact despite what happened to one person he cared about and what nearly happened to another person he cared about. You almost get a sense that Neal's criminal side is a lot more hardwired into him than Patrick's, that for Patrick it was a lifestyle and one that paid well, while for Neal it was all about survival and so a need more than a want. I've heard people say that for Neal, living a life of crime is an addiction and one he's going to have a hard time quitting. It's worked for him, gave him a taste of the life he's always wanted, and to give it up – to use the amputation analogy again – would be like cutting off a limb that, to him, isn't rotten.

But one has to wonder what would happen if Neal suffered a tragedy similar to Patrick's. What would happen if, say, if Mozzie, Peter, Elizabeth – those he cares about – were brutally killed? Because while Neal didn't change as abruptly as Patrick, we are seeing a very gradual metamorphoses in Neal. Take, for example, the whole treasure debacle of season two/three, in which Peter and Neal not only discover Kate's killer but a U-boat full of Nazi stolen treasure (which Mozzie then takes and hides for Neal and him to make the ultimate escape). Season one Neal would have taken that treasure and high-tailed it out of New York in a heart beat... after he found Kate, of course. Season 3 Neal, however, dithers about it, and dithers, and dithers until finally deciding that he doesn't want to hightail it. He wants to stay, because he's happy where he is.

So is it possible for Neal to change? I would say heck yes. But unless some massive tragedy strikes Neal the way it struck Patrick, then it's a change that's going to take it's sweet time.

Neal also doesn't have what seems to be trust issues, unlike Patrick who seems to have a a lot of trust issues. I would even go so far as to label Patrick as a bit of a control freak. Case in point: he never tells anyone his plans. He gives instructions and expects everyone to follow them, and because his instructions always gets results – and because Lisbon and the team know that asking Patrick what the heck is going on isn't going to get them anything except a headache – they go along with it.

Neal, on the other hand, is more than happy to share his plans if possible (that is, if they're legal). He's quick to volunteer ideas and suggestions, and does so with the enthusiasm of a kid in a candy store – or a kid looking for praise. If it can happen, he wants the people around him in on his plans. He wants their help and input and wants to share the same joy he gets when doing something clever.

But Patrick, as was mentioned, also has a lot more free reign when it comes to how he catches the bad guy. Patrick is a free man. Neal isn't. The worst Patrick has to worry about should his plans cross a line is getting fired. Neal has to worry about getting thrown back in jail.

Neal is also someone who openly likes people. He cares, and you know he cares. He shows concern openly, listens closely, and even smiles genuinely. He's quick to help whoever needs help, whether through legal means or illegal means. No ifs, ands or buts; if someone needs his help, he's there.

Patrick... well, it can be hard to say with him, sometimes. Were you a shiny new viewer to the show going in without a clue as to what was going on and what to expect, you would probably write Patrick off as callous, uncaring and only interested in himself. But watch long enough and look closely enough and you do see someone who cares. Just not in the open, obvious way that Neal cares. He doesn't like praise or thanks and when he receives it, it makes him squirm like someone who thinks they don't deserve it. I've yet to see any of his plans put any of the team in harm's way (well, at least not on purpose. Accidents do happen). He helps one of the former CBI chiefs escape and hide out when she's accused of murder. He manipulates a situation in order to get his FBI friend off of Red John's trail in order to protect her. When the team was split up, Patrick got them back together. Now, I know what you're probably thinking – he just did that because he needs them to help him find Red John. But I'm sure that if it had been all about catching Red John, Patrick could have easily manipulated his new team into taking the case. But he didn't. He got his team back together. This, plus the fact that he relies so easily on them to go with his plans, shows that he does, in his own odd way, care about them. Even trusts them.

What I feel Patrick to be isn't someone who is cold and callous, but someone trying to keep his distance -for his sake and for the sake of the people around him, emotionally speaking. He knows that once he catches Red John, he will kill him – he didn't hesitate to kill the decoy Red John, after all – and that means going away for life if not something worse. Patrick figures his fate is sealed, so he's going with the flow until the moment of truth, floating along until he hits that brick wall known as Red John, and that means keeping emotional distance from the people around him. And because he's painfully aware of what Red John is capable of, there's a good chance that, to him, distance equals protection for those around him from Red John.

But Patrick can be dangerously devious. Take, for example, a killer who the CBI couldn't prove was a killer. Patrick manipulates this suspected killer to go on TV, boast the way Patrick did about how he knows Red John, sticking it to Red John the way Patrick had. By doing this, Patrick kills two birds with one stone – proving that Red John is still alive and ridding the world of another killer. He actually uses Red John, the person Patrick is trying to bring down, to help “take out the trash” so to speak. And when Patrick confronted the man he thought was Red John, he killed him without batting and eye.

This is something Neal wouldn't do. He may cross some legal lines, but Neal isn't the type who sees death as any kind of a solution – something Keller often scoffs at when it comes to Neal. Neal hates death, hates seeing people get hurt. He had a chance to kill Fowler but didn't, in part because he was talked out of it, yes, but you also know in part because Neal is as non-violent as they come (except for the occasional need to punch, oh, say, Keller from time to time. And shoot him in the leg to save Peter, but it's Keller's leg so who cares). He doesn't want to be violent, and is content with seeing the bad guys behind bars.

Both Neal and Patrick may be con artists and the aces up their perspective handler's sleeves, but when you get right down to it, you can just as easily say they're hardly alike at all.

Date: 2012-03-28 02:50 am (UTC)From: [identity profile] lunabee34.livejournal.com
ext_2351: (Default)
I don't know either of these fandoms, but I think you are totally cool for writing this! :)

Date: 2012-03-28 03:02 am (UTC)From: [personal profile] sholio
sholio: Neal from White Collar, hand on hat (WhiteCollar-Neal hat)
This is a really interesting character analysis! :D I'm far more familiar with one of these characters than the other - actually, since I've seen exactly one episode of The Mentalist all the way through, it's fascinating to compare my reactions to the character with the way that you analyze him (especially since, at the time I watched the episode, I had just convinced my mom to watch White Collar and was right in the middle of watching the first season with her, so I was comparing Jane to Neal all the way through anyway).

The episode that I saw was the one you referenced in the meta where Patrick gets the team back together by conning the other cops. It left me with an impression of Patrick as an unpleasantly ruthless and much less, hmm, people-oriented person compared to Neal - I guess that what I kept thinking about, watching the episode, is that I can't imagine Neal doing something like that to people on the good guys' side, or Peter letting him get away with it if he found out about it. It's not that Neal doesn't con the FBI sometimes, but not in that specific way - tricking them into, say, furthering his music box investigations is definitely not a good thing to be doing, but it strikes me as a different caliber of manipulation that manipulating them emotionally, making them fight and dislike each other and so forth. That left a bad taste in my mouth. I thought it was a good point at the end of the episode that Other Cop Guy is inadequate to be Patrick's handler because he can't control Patrick and keep him from doing things like that, but on the other hand, I didn't really like the things that it showed about how far Patrick is willing to go to get what he wants.

Having had this as my first impression of Patrick, it's interesting to read that he's willing to manipulate people into actually being killed, because again, it's hard for me to imagine Neal doing this deliberately. I'm not saying Neal's a saint, or that some of the things he does aren't potentially dangerous for other people - I really don't want to be making this comparison so much at Patrick's expense, especially since I'm not that familiar with the character *facepalm* - but, I guess, the thing that makes me like Neal despite his manipulative ways is his sweetness, the sense that he would go so far and no farther, and I never really got that feeling from Jane. On the other hand, though (am I running out of hands yet? *g*), I really haven't seen enough of Jane to make a fair assessment of him.

Date: 2012-03-28 05:02 pm (UTC)From: [identity profile] swanpride.livejournal.com
I'm not sure if I agree that Patrick Jane really gave up his ways. Like Neal, he is still using his old tricks to catch criminals. And he is still an arrogant sod who believes that whatever he does is the right, the only way. Before the death of his wife and child, he did it for money. And while he was not above milking his clients for their money, episodes featuring his "old self" already proved that there were certain things he wouldn't do, or he didn't like to do (like conning a deathly ill girl, making people so depended that they would give up their last penny for his help). Becoming a victim himself has surely hightened his dislike for victimizing innocents, but mostly, his focus shifted. He doesn't want the money anymore. He doesn't need it. He wants his revenge. And he will do whatever necessary to get it. Yes, he helps people along the way, but I'm sure he helped his carnie friends out too, the same way he know helps his police friends. And god help the people who get in his way. He will manipulate all of them, including his closest friends.

The only mistake Patrick Jane ever admitted to, is baiting Red John in his arrogance. Neal on the other hand constantly questions himself. Neal might manipulate people other people too, but there are certain lines he would never cross. He would never create an uproar in Peter's team, he would never sabotage Peter deliberatly. As you mentioned, Neal is very much a team player.

In my book, Neal, who basically spend his whole life searching for his place, is much closer to redemption than Patrick Jane, who is consumed by revenge, ever will be.

Date: 2012-04-01 01:40 pm (UTC)From: (Anonymous)
Oh, very interesting post! ;)

I watch both shows but enjoy white collar far more, and though I could definitely tell the similarities and differences in both cahracters, I had never given much thoughts into it. Glad you did.

I think in the end all of this sums up very well why I like WC more, and because as sholio said in her reply, there is a sweetness in Neal that I find lacking in Patrick Jane.

One thing though. When you mention how Jane never tells anyone his plans and gives intructions to others, I find it more a simple result of the writers wanting to prove to their audience how awesome and smart is Patrick, rather than a subtle attempt of their part at character development i.e. trust issues. Something that doesn't strike me that way when watching WC, because indeed Neal sharing his plans is very true to his character and his need to be at the center of the attention.

What they do in The Mentalist for me comes more as the inability of the writers to write the rest of the team as smart as Jane for fear that if they do, Jane won't come off as special anymore.

And hopefully I make sense.

Great post anyway.

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