White Collar

[mastelsa.livejournal.com]

So I recently stumbled across the show White Collar on Netflix's instant watch list and after the first episode I was convinced that someone read The Thief, thought Gen was an awesome character (which, of course, he is) and decided to write a character that's extremely close to a modernized version (though Neal is more extroverted).  From Wikipedia with my editing in brackets: "[Neal Caffrey] is first introduced as a con artist serving out a four year prison sentence for bond forgery [though his suspected crimes include  and are not limited to counterfeiting, securities fraud, art theft, racketeering, and art forgery], but after escaping from prison... and being recaptured by the FBI, he agrees to help the Bureau in exchange for a shortened sentence. He wears a tracking anklet that keeps him within a two mile radius as part of the deal, and is under close supervision by the man who caught him, FBI Agent Peter Burke."  Neal is a con man, a forger, an artist, a thief, a charmer, a rogue, and a scoundrel. And he's very, very good at all of that.

Sound like anyone we know?
It's hard to find clips with good Neal moments, but the banter between him and Peter reminds me of Gen and the Magus.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZwsccHMM_o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MO8tNENIJ8&feature=relmfu
 Has anyone else ever seen this show and noticed the resemblance between Eugenides and the main character Neal?  

**EDIT** I want to clarify that I was not implying that White Collar is an ode to Eugenides. That first sentence doesn't translate well from expression to writing, but what I meant was that I saw a lot of similarities between the two characters. 

Greatness, etc.

[agh-4.livejournal.com]

Recently, the good old Shakespeare quote "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them" floated into my mind. So (so, so) I started thinking about which category fits Gen best. If you look at his reluctance to take on authority, mainly the authority of being king (and eventually truly king) it seems like he's definitely one of those who have greatness thrust upon them. It's the whole point of KoA, what he lies to himself about and tries to escape from.

But I also think that Gen was born great, or at least with a very strong potential for greatness. He's very talented in many ways, and even though he fears taking up all his power as king, it's not as though he needs to change himself to be king. He's totally capable, he just has the ?reason to show his greatness? thrust upon him.

And yet, he chose to be king, so does that mean that he achieved greatness? Also, if you look beyond the greatest greatness of being king (if that makes sense), there's the greatness of being his Queen's Thief and specifically a Thief who stole Hamiathes' Gift, twice. Those are greatnesses that Gen sought out himself, that he couldn't have achieved without his natural greatness.

What do you guys think? Does he fit in one category more than the others? Do any of the characters fit clearly in one of them? What are we even defining as "greatness"? Power? Skill? Leadership? Courage? General awesomeness (would you consider Costis great?)? Power that's used morally or effectively? Dee skuss!

Oh, and if Gen, or anyone, had greatness upon him/her, who did the thrusting?* The gods? The situation? Does it count if you thrust it upon yourself?

* uh, besides mwt :)