Oh, god, I totally forgot about this! But here you go, Dale Cooper! :)
(1) He's damaged. And I'm not just referring to his history with Caroline. As much as he tries to suppress it, I have a feeling he's had a very screwed-up childhood and adolescence (well, he was basically a psychic kid, so that has to have left a mark) and a difficult personal life in general. So one of the reasons he's thrown himself into his work for the Bureau like that is that it gives him the sense of belonging and pride that his personal life has never been able to give him.
(2) He's tough. To himself, most of all; the standards he holds himself to are unbelievably high, and he keeps working hard every day to continue to meet those standards. But he can also be tough to others, and it's not always clear why he feels someone deserves to be handled roughly. He's capable of treating people with a great deal of respect, but he definitely doesn't extend that courtesy to everybody; especially at the start of the series, he's frequently very harsh to people for no obvious reason. So yes, he has a good heart, but he's also capable of tuning down his personal feelings completely if the case requires it, and he can be as cruel and petty as anyone.
(3) He has a damsel-in-distress complex. Caroline, Audrey, Annie, they all fit a similar pattern. He needs to feel needed by others, and he has issues with admitting that he himself needs others too, and never is that more clear than in his romantic involvements.
(4) He may be a genius at reading other people's thoughts and motivations, but he sucks pretty badly at reading his own.
(5) He's a great lover of life in all its facets, but I'm not sure if it all comes naturally to him. I've always believed that his excessive enthusiasm over everything ranging from food to wildlife to Twin Peaks in itself is also his coping strategy when it comes to dealing with the kind of ugly stuff someone in that line of work has to deal with. And rather than it just being his 'default mode', it's something he has to work at continuously. But that's very much a personal feeling; your mileage may vary, obviously!
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Date: 2012-12-20 01:10 pm (UTC)(1) He's damaged. And I'm not just referring to his history with Caroline. As much as he tries to suppress it, I have a feeling he's had a very screwed-up childhood and adolescence (well, he was basically a psychic kid, so that has to have left a mark) and a difficult personal life in general. So one of the reasons he's thrown himself into his work for the Bureau like that is that it gives him the sense of belonging and pride that his personal life has never been able to give him.
(2) He's tough. To himself, most of all; the standards he holds himself to are unbelievably high, and he keeps working hard every day to continue to meet those standards. But he can also be tough to others, and it's not always clear why he feels someone deserves to be handled roughly. He's capable of treating people with a great deal of respect, but he definitely doesn't extend that courtesy to everybody; especially at the start of the series, he's frequently very harsh to people for no obvious reason. So yes, he has a good heart, but he's also capable of tuning down his personal feelings completely if the case requires it, and he can be as cruel and petty as anyone.
(3) He has a damsel-in-distress complex. Caroline, Audrey, Annie, they all fit a similar pattern. He needs to feel needed by others, and he has issues with admitting that he himself needs others too, and never is that more clear than in his romantic involvements.
(4) He may be a genius at reading other people's thoughts and motivations, but he sucks pretty badly at reading his own.
(5) He's a great lover of life in all its facets, but I'm not sure if it all comes naturally to him. I've always believed that his excessive enthusiasm over everything ranging from food to wildlife to Twin Peaks in itself is also his coping strategy when it comes to dealing with the kind of ugly stuff someone in that line of work has to deal with. And rather than it just being his 'default mode', it's something he has to work at continuously. But that's very much a personal feeling; your mileage may vary, obviously!