I've been watching through Leverage for the first time (just finished 4x17 The Radio Job) and reading fic concurrently so I don't spoil myself (soon as I finish an ep, then I can read all the fic posted up to the next ep's air date), and while my thoughts on the other characters are fairly simple, Hardison is much more complicated. I ended up writing a
five-paragraph essay (probably a terrible one as far as format goes, but this isn't English class, fortunately) on him:
I loved Hardison in the pilot immediately - he was witty, extremely talented, made a nice counterpart to Eliot, a computer geek (and geek in general! how awesome is that) and he does the information dumps very well. But his character definitely suffered the most from the pilot-to-full-season transition. (You know what I mean - where a character is one way in the pilot and then when they shoot the rest of the first season - and by extension, the whole show - they're just slightly different in various ways, from hair style to personality. Rizzoli & Isles was notable for that, with Maura being far more socially astute in the pilot and suddenly appearing as if she has Asperger's the rest of S1.) As the first season went on, I started to be very annoyed by his immaturity - for instance, we never saw an apology for leaving the team high and dry in the first part of The Mile High Job. And that's a HUGE no-no in my book, when you've gotten yourself into a situation where people are counting on you, you don't let them down, especially because you decided to play a game all night! Saving their lives on the plane didn't excuse his earlier behavior. Like, I know he's young but he seriously needs to grow up there. For example, I love Nate in all his messed-upness but the times I was really ready to shake sense into him were where his failures caused the team to suffer. Anyway, I think that's where I started to sour on Hardison some. The Ice Man Job pulled him way down in my books again; cockiness is a personality trait that really repels me. And the number of times when the rest of the team's in the field and trying to avoid serious danger, and he's chattering unnecessarily on the comms and possibly distracting them… that bothered me too. Like, you're generally safe and sound where you are, dude, but the others are in actual physical danger if you cause them to make mistakes because you can't be quiet for a few minutes.
I finally realized that there are three things that bother me about Hardison's personality that keep me from enjoying his wit and skills: he whines, he's got too big of an ego, and he doesn't fully respect the others on the team at times. The whining would be minor except he keeps doing it, lol. Eliot grumps about the team not respecting what he does once in a blue moon, and Parker muttered about crawling through ventilation shafts in The Two-Horse Job because no one else will do it, and even Sophie has whined a few times about Nate not respecting her, but Hardison does it way way more, to the point of having a full-out rant at the beginning of The Gold Job. Not like it's not understandable, but I think they ALL under-appreciate each other's work at times. Hardison just makes more of a fuss about it, maybe because they don't really understand what he does at all. But all of their roles are critical and they all need each other so Hardison's focus on "appreciate me, appreciate me" is rather egocentric. They don't do what they do just to get pats on the back from each other.
The ego is also that because he's SO incredibly good at HIS thing, it often seems he thinks he can do everything with a little practice. I don't think he'd ever be more than an average grifter (he can bluff like crazy but he doesn't read people and measure his responses the way a grifter can), there's no way he can really do what Parker does (even if he eventually gets comfortable with rigging stuff), he'll never be able to fight like Eliot though he is improving his basic defense skills a bit, and he will never be as good as Nate at being mastermind (at least the show had Nate point that out in The Scheherezade Job, and reinforce that by demonstrating the way to think in The Gold Job - Hardison is intelligent and clever but
this fic really says what I think about being mastermind). If he'd just stick to what he CAN do that he's very very good at, and be content with his role and position, I'd like him a lot more.
As far as the respect goes, it may seem silly to many, but I was very irritated bordering on angry with Hardison in The Office Job when it was revealed that he ate Eliot's sandwich - a sandwich that Eliot had spent a good deal of work preparing. I have mild Asperger's and food is a big issue for me, with lots of flavors and textures I can't eat, so I plan my meals out and often have something special for just me to eat because the rest of the food in the fridge are dishes I can't eat. For someone to go in there and eat my food would be a major upset to my day, especially if I'd put a lot of effort into it, so my sympathies are completely behind Eliot there. For Hardison to just go "I want this sandwich, I'm going to eat it even though Eliot made it for himself, and then I'm going to lie to him about it"… that's serious disrespect to others in my book. They're supposed to steal from rich powerful people, not each other!
So I
want to like Hardison, because I'm a computer geek (though I can't hack things) and being into fandom and other related geekery I would have a lot in common with him, but… I'm conflicted, obviously. And just when I'm super annoyed at him, then the show goes and does things like the end of The Boys' Night Out Job, where he reminds Nate of the good they've done. That Hardison? I would like the show to have shown more of
him.
EDIT: A friend of mine pointed out that Hardison is probably really insecure about his position, and that he blusters and is arrogant when he's actually nervous, and his worst offenses arise out of his insecurity. Which, I grant, ego can be a front for insecurity inside, so yeah, I can buy that. But then I'd like to see that *dealt* with, and we're not seeing it on the show. Maybe someone's written a good fic that does deal with it - I've only found one that I loved with Eliot pointing out that Hardison's too obsessed over being appreciated to realize it's not about that, it's about what they do *together*. So much of what I said still stands, I think.
EDIT #2: Watching through S5 (up to 5x10 so far), he seems a whole lot less annoying (except for that I still don't feel like he really gets Parker and blows her off at times when he shouldn't), so maybe he's improved? It's hard to get over a lot of past history, though. I've not gotten this annoyed with any of the others, but they haven't been as irritating, and where they've made mistakes, the show's generally shown them apologizing or somehow atoning for them (even Nate grows over the seasons and starts to open up). But these things really haven't been addressed so they're still there and bothering me about his character.
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