that such a person with such an upbringing would have that knowledge is not impossible or even improbable.
Yes. I think there's a lot to be said for Fraser being magical. Other Mounties are quite often not portrayed in a positive light (you mentioned the cover-up plan for the premise, but Thatcher and Turnbull are also played for ridicule--and while it's often for silly reasons, they make a great big point of the fact that Thatcher is power hungry, and that she and her superiors don't care who they stomp on to get what they want). I didn't feel this way when I started watching, but I've felt this way as they added more Mountie characters--I view Fraser as both an ideal and a reprimand. This is what you should be. This is what you should have been.
It gives the culture visibility
I was going to mention this. Of course, plenty of things that give visibility are also exploitive.
So maybe I think it's not something wrong with the show
Well, in my ideal world, genre doesn't exist. In my ideal world, a show like this could fluidly engage you with all that delight and laughter, then use that power to draw back and show a little of the truth, then move in again to delight you, and back and forth. I'm not sure that's possible, though. We take delight in certain things because they are frivolous and meaningless, and once you give them depth, you can experience a different kind of joy within, but you may not be able to do so without bittersweetness.
So, I mean, I'm glad genre exists, but giving things passes just due to genre isn't cool either. And that's not what you're doing; it's not what I'm doing either--what needs something in a certain genre fulfills for whom is important! But so is the void it leaves in its wake.
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Yes. I think there's a lot to be said for Fraser being magical. Other Mounties are quite often not portrayed in a positive light (you mentioned the cover-up plan for the premise, but Thatcher and Turnbull are also played for ridicule--and while it's often for silly reasons, they make a great big point of the fact that Thatcher is power hungry, and that she and her superiors don't care who they stomp on to get what they want). I didn't feel this way when I started watching, but I've felt this way as they added more Mountie characters--I view Fraser as both an ideal and a reprimand. This is what you should be. This is what you should have been.
It gives the culture visibility
I was going to mention this. Of course, plenty of things that give visibility are also exploitive.
So maybe I think it's not something wrong with the show
Well, in my ideal world, genre doesn't exist. In my ideal world, a show like this could fluidly engage you with all that delight and laughter, then use that power to draw back and show a little of the truth, then move in again to delight you, and back and forth. I'm not sure that's possible, though. We take delight in certain things because they are frivolous and meaningless, and once you give them depth, you can experience a different kind of joy within, but you may not be able to do so without bittersweetness.
So, I mean, I'm glad genre exists, but giving things passes just due to genre isn't cool either. And that's not what you're doing; it's not what I'm doing either--what needs something in a certain genre fulfills for whom is important! But so is the void it leaves in its wake.