A current Richard Armitage puzzle I’m pondering

It’s fun to ponder the paradoxical qualities and contradictions in a personality — something Richard Armitage has repeatedly said about his characters. One of the most valuable extrapolations I’ve made from things he’s said over the years is that, if, indeed, paradoxes are present constantly in the lives of the adults all around us, it’s acceptable, even natural, for there to be paradoxes in me or anyone else. Perhaps it’s the paradoxes that move us onward.

Some of these puzzles appear prominently in the view of Richard Armitage that we get as fans. The most intriguing parts of Richard Armitage’s biography, for those of us who think about it, lie in the most hidden pieces of his life. Although there’s not a tremendous overflow of information about any piece of his life, frankly, some periods are more well populated with photos and press than others. Where data is slim, historians operate by thinking about context clues. That this is a risky intellectual strategy in establishing anything with certitude is clear, but context obviously tells us something — it’s just a matter of determining what and making sure we qualify our conclusions appropriately.

Similarly, context-building is a major component of coming up with headcanon, something a lot of us do, the headcanon(s) we build about Armitage (via tropes) fascinate me. Who is Richard Armitage for me, for you? One of the most obscure parts of Armitage’s life is his childhood, and fans I know whom I’ve talked to have spent a fair amount of time speculating and building headcanon about it. In addition to its shrouded qualities, I think the interest in his childhood also gains energy from the fact that we assume childhood to be formative, and also because many of us (although not me) are parents.

Obscura was wondering about this question yesterday in the context of her own children’s paths: what happens when your child’s interests diverge from your own hobbies and strengths? Do you encourage a child against his inclination? Or do you support your child’s desires over your own judgment about what might be more practical or useful? And, by extension, how did Richard Armitage’s parents deal with this question, considering that, as Armitage has commented, there were one “singing granny” and no thespians in his family? CDoart asked that question — how did he get his parents to follow his desires — last fall.

It turns out that philosophy has something to say about this question. In the 1580 version of his essay on the education of children, Michel de Montaigne wrote,

The greatest and most important difficulty of human science is the education of children. […]  It is no hard matter to get children; but after they are born, then begins the trouble, solicitude, and care rightly to train, principle, and bring them up. The symptoms of their inclinations in that tender age are so obscure, and the promises so uncertain and fallacious, that it is very hard to establish any solid judgment or conjecture upon them. […] Cubs of bears and puppies readily discover their natural inclination; but men, so soon as ever they are grownup, applying themselves to certain habits, engaging themselves in certain opinions, and conforming themselves to particular laws and customs, easily alter, or at least disguise, their true and real disposition; and yet it is hard to force the propension of nature. Whence it comes to pass, that for not having chosen the right course, we often take very great pains, and consume a good part of our time in training up children to things, for which, by their natural constitution, they are totally unfit. In this difficulty, nevertheless […] they ought to be elemented in the best and most advantageous studies, without taking too much notice of, or being too superstitious in those light prognostics they give of themselves in their tender years …

That’s the dilemma, and I’m not sure it’s comforting to know that it’s been around for well longer than half a millennium — “you can’t force nature” vs. “don’t take your child’s inclinations all too seriously.” Montaigne was on my mind because I read him last summer with my students, but I think this question fascinates me for a number of additional reasons. First, I’ve identified a few affinities between my childhood and Armitage’s. Second, as my mother often said to me when I was younger, I was a hard child to parent (now I know that a lot of gifted children are hard to parent). But finally and probably most importantly, because I’m looking to excavate the source of the determination to be successful creatively, wherever that got shorted out earlier. If it’s going to be a “no more fear” year, how do I get to the place where the need to do something is greater than the fear of doing it? Where does it come from, that inner insistence that appears to have been present in Armitage’s life?

In other words — what I want to know is less about his parents, though I have my ideas — but as much about Armitage. The puzzle pieces that I want to put together in my picture of Richard Armitage include — the shy, solitary, quiet child; the dancer / performer; the (one presumes) polite people-pleaser; the student who was funny but not a swot and apparently not especially memorable for his schoolmates; and the child who convinces his parents to send him to stage school.

The answer, for me, and a lot of people I’ve been talking to lately, seems to lie in supportive parenting (something Armitage has said as well) in combination with individual will, determination, singleness of purpose — will to pursue certain goals, will to preserve one’s identity and desires, will to preserve a sphere of emotionality that one can touch upon creatively. A sort of “toughness despite / against” that protects an inner core. Several people I’ve been talking to lately have been musing about this question.

For instance, from DoritosFan:

I find some of the family parallels a little eerie … I think he must have been a relatively big pain to raise in that he seems to have been pretty single-minded in what he wanted to do. With open enrollment and specialty public charter schools, fostering an artistic kid is more achieveable for “regular” people now than it was when we (Armitage included) were kids.

Or, in a  commentary from WesternFan:

I’ve often thought I wanted to take parenting lessons from Margaret Armitage. Long before anyone thought it was wise to let a child “be” she taught two (I assume) to play to their strengths, not to their gender. Jaw drops to the floor, how did she know? What did she know? Perhaps there’s an instance of a trial run at conforming that she just couldn’t bear the result of? The sleepless nights while your adult “looking” 17 year old traipses the carny routes of Hungary. […] He had to have an internal part of himself that just wouldn’t take no for an answer.  An almost pathological need to do it himself that would keep him … hungry in London and not running home for help. I’m starting to see that part of me and understand that drive, oh if I could have realized it at 17, it staggers me. I don’t know many, make that ANY parents that look at their “weird” kid and think he’ll only be miserable if we try and make him “normal.”

From this viewpoint, Richard Armitage looks like the singleminded child who, as a result of his drive, as an adult, appears able to preserve intact mental toughness, determination, perseverance, strength — as well as an inner, open emotional core upon which he can draw in his creative work. He manages to draw the necessary boundaries around himself and increasingly, to be firm without being rude but still quiet and thoughtful and attentive in interviews, and to speak truthfully about his work, a work that involves a heavy level of subterfuge. The gentle, even at times retiring exterior and the emphasis on manners conceals a strong ambition.

As I’ve written in the past:

Notwithstanding this characteristic self-presentation as modest and without significant ego, key indices from his biography up to this period point equally to a personality strand we might (depending on our opinion of it) call individualist or even hedonist — a desire to work as he enjoyed and not as might be most practical or quickly remunerative, a persistent need to pursue his own desires in work as opposed to conforming to conventional vocational paths, the cultivation of physical grace and adventurousness, a willingness or even eagerness to try new things, an intellect that might be described as eclectic rather than focused, and a curiosity about the world and the people around him. In short: within the practical bounds available to him, Armitage was also someone who did what he wanted, following his own impulses, because it pleased him. Armitage’s early career steps reveal a readiness to do things because he enjoyed them or because they were interesting or provided a path to somewhere interesting, if not always a tendency to think immediately in the long term about preparation or consequences. London and the back stages of the West End might have been ideal places for a person like to this to mature […]. His willingness to stay in this milieu for so long suggests independent-mindedness, tolerance for uncertainty, and enjoyment of many aspects of things as they were. […] We might say that this pattern — along with his persistence in classical theater almost beyond his own capacity to tolerate a lack of larger roles on offer — suggests a seriousness even in his pursuit of personal fulfillment and enjoyment that is consistent, if not always congruent with, his values of industry and discipline.

I’ve also contrasted this vibe with what I’ve called his “missing killer instinct.”

I think when I wrote the material above, what I was identifying with was the desire to do what one wanted. But I think what I need to look for now are clues to preserving one’s will and excavating one’s emotions. And how to fit all of those things into one person. Where do we see Armitage’s singlemindedness coming across? How did he preserve it? And keep all the other things he wanted to keep?

~ by Servetus on January 14, 2014.