# Deadwood: A couple of questions **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 22, 2010, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deadwood-a-couple-of-questions/525982 "2010-01-22T10:54:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deadwood-a-couple-of-questions/525982/1 "2010-01-22T10:54:21Z")
\ Finished this for first time recently and found a couple of themes so fascinating (namely why the USA developed differently to the other British/Anglo-Saxon influenced nations, and childhood sexual and emotional abuse as the determiner of life opportunity). Superbly conceived and executed. Anyway, my questions: 1. Why did it matter to Trixie so much that Alma Garret marry Ellsworth? 2. I guess William Bullock may have died naturally but wouldn’t it have been more common (back then) to smother him? Fwiw, I’ve looked at a few of the previous threads and I’m surprised so many think Al Swearengen changed and became something other than an amoral, self-interested capitalist. I do, though, think Deadwood beat Hearst, at least this time - again, against popular opinion perhaps. Cheers for any views on those two questions. ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deadwood-a-couple-of-questions/525982/2 "2010-01-22T11:20:25Z")
1. Because Trixie, while a great character, is a great _stock_ character: the whore with the heart of gold. She could see that Ellsworth genuinely cared for Alma, and felt that he would be good for her. 2. No, I don’t think smothering your injured children was any more popular then than it is now. ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deadwood-a-couple-of-questions/525982/3 "2010-01-22T12:33:15Z")
I’m not convinced the frontier lifestyle allowed for mothers of brain damaged children to hand feed then, change their soiled underwear and generally care for them 24-hours a day. William was incapable of doing anything at for himself, including sitting up and dressing. I don’t think it’s difficult to imagine parents talking themselves into believing it would be a mercy killing, a kind of killing already demonstrated in Deadwood. I also don’t think Trixie was a cliched tart with a heart - I don’t know what you mean by ‘stock’; she was absolutely fundamental to several key story arcs. ---
**Author:** ![wedgehed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8edcca/32.png) [@wedgehed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wedgehed)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deadwood-a-couple-of-questions/525982/4 "2010-01-22T13:23:38Z")
1. Remember that Ellsworth made the marriage offer because Alma was pregnant with Bullock’s child. Alma needed a husband or an abortion. Trixie had had several abortions & used dope to get thru them. Trixie did not want Alma using dope because she had to be able to care for the squarehead orphan. 2. I don’t think that was common at all. ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deadwood-a-couple-of-questions/525982/5 "2010-01-22T13:46:52Z")
> [@PrettyVacant](#): > > I’m not convinced the frontier lifestyle allowed for mothers of brain damaged children to hand feed then, change their soiled underwear and generally care for them 24-hours a day. William was incapable of doing anything at for himself, including sitting up and dressing. > > I don’t think it’s difficult to imagine parents talking themselves into believing it would be a mercy killing, a kind of killing already demonstrated in Deadwood. The Bullocks were doing what any decent parents in any time or place would do: they were waiting and hoping and probably praying that William would recover. I don’t have any children myself, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to just strangle my child on day one if he was injured. I’d want to give him a chance to recover. Even if a modern hospital with MRI scans told me he was brain-dead, I still think I’d give him a bit of time just to make sure. In the 1870s in a frontier town, _of course_ they’d wait and see what happened rather than just write him off immediatley. > [@PrettyVacant](#): > > I also don’t think Trixie was a cliched tart with a heart - I don’t know what you mean by ‘stock’; she was absolutely fundamental to several key story arcs. Well, the tart with a heart _is_ a stock character. Look, I just found the Wiki article: > **[List of stock characters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_female_stock_characters#Hooker_with_a_Heart_of_Gold)** > > A stock character is a dramatic or literary character representing a generic type in a conventional, simplified manner and recurring in many fictional works. The following list labels some of these stereotypes and provides examples. Some character archetypes, the more universal foundations of fictional characters, are also listed. > Some characters that were first introduced as fully fleshed-out characters become subsequently used as stock characters in other works — for example, the Ebenezer Sc... If you’ve never heard of “stock characters” before, this Wiki article explains what they are: [Stock character - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_character) Being a stock character doesn’t mean the character can’t be interesting, or well-written, or crucial to the storyline, it just means that the _type_ is a common fictional device. ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deadwood-a-couple-of-questions/525982/6 "2010-01-22T14:23:35Z")
Well, on William Bullock, I suspect my scepticism about him barely lasting a day (plus the ways of the frontier), and your over-excitement about “strangling” a merely “injured” child probably won’t allow us to find an agreement, so lets leave that. In relation to Trixie, everything she ever does is for her own advantage – as you would expect for a whore who’s progressed to overseer and on to accounting classes), I can’t see the advantage for Trixie of promoting the marriage? Also, if she has a heart beyond the ordinary, I didn’t see that either? ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deadwood-a-couple-of-questions/525982/7 "2010-01-22T15:18:49Z")
> [@PrettyVacant](#): > > Well, on William Bullock, I suspect my scepticism about him barely lasting a day (plus the ways of the frontier), and your over-excitement about “strangling” a merely “injured” child probably won’t allow us to find an agreement, so lets leave that. How would they know for sure he was permanently brain damaged in 1876 in a frontier town? People do recover from serious injuries sometimes, and the level of medical knowledge they’d have had at that time meant that no-one could say for sure that he _wouldn’t_ get better. A fractured skull wasn’t always a death sentence, so give the kid a chance. I just don’t find the idea that they’d just write him off and smother him immediately at all believable. The characters did exactly what I’d expect people to do in that situation. > [@PrettyVacant](#): > > In relation to Trixie, everything she ever does is for her own advantage – as you would expect for a whore who’s progressed to overseer and on to accounting classes), I can’t see the advantage for Trixie of promoting the marriage? Also, if she has a heart beyond the ordinary, I didn’t see that either? Shooting Hearst was to her material advantage? She did it because she liked Ellsworth. They were, in an odd way, friends. Al spared Trixie, earlier in the series, because he _liked_ Trixie. Al let Trixie do things that no-one else would have dared to do because he _trusted_ Trixie. As much as either of them would trust anyone. Al is not a character that gives out friendship and affection easily, but what little he does have, he has for Trixie. All this is evidence that Trixie is, at heart, a decent person. She had to be tough to survive in that environment, but she did not, as some other characters did, let the decent human part of herself die. She was capable of kindness and compassion. That’s what makes a human being a good person, in fiction or in real life. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deadwood-a-couple-of-questions/525982/8 "2010-01-22T15:40:17Z")
> [@PrettyVacant](#): > > I don’t think it’s difficult to imagine parents talking themselves into believing it would be a mercy killing, a kind of killing already demonstrated in Deadwood. This isn’t something that people would have written down for posterity. While I could certainly imagine it happening there’s just no way to know how often it happened. > [@](#): > > I also don’t think Trixie was a cliched tart with a heart - I don’t know what you mean by ‘stock’; she was absolutely fundamental to several key story arcs. In American old west literary tradition one of the stock characters is the prostitute with a heart of gold. Other stock characters include the gunfighter, the gambler, and even the bounty hunter. These are character types that appear in old west story after old west story almost as if authors get them out of a stock room somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deadwood-a-couple-of-questions/525982/9 "2010-01-22T16:23:01Z")
> [@PrettyVacant](#): > > I’m not convinced the frontier lifestyle allowed for mothers of brain damaged children to hand feed then, change their soiled underwear and generally care for them 24-hours a day. William was incapable of doing anything at for himself, including sitting up and dressing. > > I don’t think it’s difficult to imagine parents talking themselves into believing it would be a mercy killing, a kind of killing already demonstrated in Deadwood. I didn’t see the end of _Deadwood_, but feeding, changing & caring for somebody 24 hours a day is not possible only in a modern hospital setting. It’s hard, unending work–just as many household tasks were in those days. Without modern medical science, hope would remain. And, without that science, the end would come naturally before too very long. I remember Al killing the preacher who was in growing pain from an apparent brain tumor. That was a “mercy killing.” Strangling a brain damanged child would be a “convenience killing.” In _Lonesome Dove_, Clara tended her unconscious husband until his death. Yes, it’s a novel–but one that shows McMurtrey’s knowledge of the Old West. ---
**Author:** ![Beadalin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@Beadalin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beadalin)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deadwood-a-couple-of-questions/525982/10 "2010-01-22T16:41:19Z")
Alma and Trixie had a genuine friendship, remember, and Trixie liked and respected Ellsworth, as well. They initially came to really know one another when Alma needed to kick her opium habit in order to care for Sophia. Trixie, in the beginning, wanted to protect Sophia. Sophia was probably one of the only children in town, so that made her precious for that alone. Moreover, she was a girl child, without a family, and Trixie knew all to well what happens to unprotected girls. So she set out to help Alma kick the habit so that Sophia would have a genuine protector. And through that, their relationship grew into real friendship. Over the course of the series they each, many times, did everything in their power to help each other, and Trixie was Alma’s only real confidant in town. Though their friendship was limited by their very different stations in life, they clearly like and trust one another. By the time Alma was pregnant and Trixie knew that Alma wanted to keep the baby, Trixie did what she could to help Alma do so. The only viable options for Alma were marriage or abortion, hence: marriage. And the only suitable candidate in town was Ellsworth, with whom Trixie was already on good terms with. ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deadwood-a-couple-of-questions/525982/11 "2010-01-22T18:40:48Z")
Beadalin - Thanks, all of that is tremendously helpful. I can see the relationship now more as a commentary on social class and female relationships through a frontier filter. I suppose the relationship grew because of Trixie’s rejection of the New York job offer. I also remember a scene where Jane attempted a friendship approach with Trixie and Trixie wierder her out, I presume intentionally. The girl is, of course, fascinating. The first thing that struck me was how she slowly became comprehensible as a town slowly took shape from chaos. But Trixie certainly projects her own childhood, as well. Cheers. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deadwood-a-couple-of-questions/525982/12 "2010-01-22T21:15:42Z")
> [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > I didn’t see the end of _Deadwood_, but feeding, changing & caring for somebody 24 hours a day is not possible only in a modern hospital setting. It’s hard, unending work–just as many household tasks were in those days. Without modern medical science, hope would remain. And, without that science, the end would come naturally before too very long. > > I remember Al killing the preacher who was in growing pain from an apparent brain tumor. That was a “mercy killing.” Strangling a brain damanged child would be a “convenience killing.” > > In _Lonesome Dove_, Clara tended her unconscious husband until his death. Yes, it’s a novel–but one that shows McMurtrey’s knowledge of the Old West. It was also common for a man’s brother (or even the woman’s cousin) to take on his deceased brother’s wife and family (as Bullock did in _Deadwood_). The object was not sex, it was taking care of family and making sure the woman’s reputation was protected. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deadwood-a-couple-of-questions/525982/13 "2010-01-22T23:23:29Z")
I can’t find the cite now, but I read somewhere that Martha’s son “died” because they were having problems with the actor’s family – a stage mother, or something. Whether or not that’s true, his death set the stage for some great scenes – the whores at the funeral (“Your breath smells like seven kinds of cock”), Martha tripping and falling (supposedly not in the script), and Seth reaching for Martha’s hand as they sat in those chairs by the window.