Why Do I Like Patrick Jane?

First of all, who the heck is Patrick Jane? Well, this is how Wikipedia describes him:

" Patrick Jane is an independent consultant for a fictionalized version of the California Bureau of Investigation, and helps by giving advice and insight from his many years as a fake psychic medium. He uses his keen powers of observation, deduction, and knowledge of social engineering coupled with his genius to help lead the investigations. "

And here is how someone else's post (which I stumbled upon through the link of a picture of Patrick building a sandcastle) about 'The Mentalist' retells Wikipedia's definition and expounds a bit more:

" Patrick Jane used to make lots of money pretending to read minds and communicate with the dead. Then the serial killer Red John slaughtered his family and now he is a consultant with the CBI (California Bureau of Investigation). So, Jane is essentially an emotionally damaged, tortured woobie with a tragic past. He isn't very good at following rules and when he finds Red John he's "gonna cut him open and watch him die slowly like he did with my wife and child". He can also be a bit of a bastard and gets punched in the face a lot. "

Now we've got that clear, let's talk about why I'm writing this post. 

Intro

From seeing the previews and "Can you spot the mistake?" mind-twister commercials three weeks before the start of the series aired on StarWorld, I was super excited to watch 'The Mentalist'. 

And finally, this April 13, it came on, just after our usual episode of 'Monk'. Five minutes in, I told myself straight away that I had a crush on Patrick Jane.

You:

Me:

Reason #1:

Well, the very first thing that got me was his wit, positivity, and unpredictability. 

I mean, most of the time we love people who are spontaneous, optimistic, and do random stuff at the right place and right time, right? (Wow does that actually undermine the meaning of random? xD). Yep. Next reason.

Reason #2

Immediately after the first impression, my thing for blue eyes and suits - plus that disarming smile. We cannot forget that disarming smile.

(pictures cannot do Patrick's smile justice - so you can look at him eating an ice cream instead)

(WHATEVER. GIFs can do the job anyway)

To quote what followed that excerpt from someone else's post,

" Important things to know about Patrick Jane: Once you have seen him smile, you will spend the rest of your life trying to make him do it again and again. This is probably one of the reasons for why he is so good at manipulating people. "

Reason #3

His character has a LOT of depth. I tried to read up on his past without seeing much of the spoilers, and about his personal styles/skills/personality over at Wikipedia, which made me think how intricately orchestrated Patrick is behind the way we see him. I mean, this got me thinking while washing the dishes, before going to sleep, looking at my math tutor's diagrams, sitting on the balcony and staring at houses, yep loooool.

Some other side-subjects I researched and mulled over because of him were of ethics, psychology, social engineering, and our capacity to judge others.

Reason #4

Then, there is how Patrick uses his skills to solve cases. 

He plays mind games and hypnotises people to get evidence and manipulate them (much to the annoyance of Teresa Lisbon, their unit's leader); has lots of hare-brained ideas - LOTS I TELL YOU (but most of the time his ideas are right); pisses his colleagues off (especially Teresa, though it's obvious from the 1st episode he has an affinity for her #INSTANTSHIP)…

Reason #5

…but my favourite way with which he solves a case is when he gets real with the victims or the victim's loved ones and tells them stories about his past.


Patrick Jane: I have a daughter about your age, if I hadn't caused her death. Her and her mother.

Frankie O'Keefe: How? Patrick Jane: Out of arrogance. Stupidity. I made an evil man very angry and he killed them to make me sorry for what I'd done. And I am sorry. Being sorry is a far worse punishment than being dead. Everybody dies. Very few people ever feel truly sorry for the bad things they've done.

Hm. (Apparently, Kyle, one of my friends, told me he "couldn't see that dialogue happening in real life", while I saw it as a part of a deep conversation that often happens in fictional worlds where I usually am, and very rarely in real life.)

But there were some other questions his character asked me, questions like: why does he lie to know the truth, why does he like pushing the boundaries, does he like impressing people with the flare and flourishes of his work because he's actually very sad, is he revealing his past to certain people just to let them know his story and that he is a man who feels with them, or is it how he manipulates them to tell him the truth, what are his real goals, is he trying to fix himself, is he a truly broken man?

Even if I didn't know the answers to the other questions, they helped me answer the last one, and the answer is yes. 

Shane Claiborne said that, "People are drawn toward folks who have it all together, or look like they do. People are also drawn towards folks who know they don't have it all together and are not willing to fake it." 

That's why I think Patrick's brokeness is the most attractive thing of all, in a painful and sad way, because he at least has an idea of how it is to be human, however the appearances may seem. #wellthatescalatedquickly

So yeah, those are my reasons. And sorry guys, haha, this was for the sake of a blogging challenge I'm doing, and I wanted to do it right.

Till the next fictional crush,

OH, before I can forget, inspiration for my current theme comes from my friend Julia Alvarez's blog, "get it together, bud. hang tight!", which needs about 125729311 Liebster Awards! Thanks for being a constant source of inspiration, Julia :)