Victoria's Character

She is an evil witch who is also very greedy.  She comes to Chicago because she wants Fraser and the money from the bank robbery, too.  She'd rather kill Jolly than share the money with him and it obviously never occurs to her to just let him have the money.  She entices Fraser with her brief appearances in the streets of Chicago.  In theory, at least, she could have given up all thoughts of the stolen money, gone to Chicago and tried to make a life with Fraser.  It wouldn't have worked out, of course, but that would have been an honest woman's plan.  Victoria is anything but an honest woman. 

She wants revenge because Fraser has put her in jail.  She could never understand that he could love her and yet be so committed to duty that he could do such a thing.  Victoria's plot for revenge and getting the money and getting Fraser is a complex and fascinating one.  We see it revealed piece by piece with excellent plot development and direction.

She kills Jolly, in order to keep all the money, sets Fraser up, shoots Dief when he tries to stop her from stealing Fraser's gun.  She plots to destroy Ray and put him in prison--a totally innocent man--for no other reason than that he is Fraser's friend.  She has even planned that if Fraser won't go with her after the diamond exchange, she is going to shoot him with Ray's backup gun.  Of course, she can't bring herself to do it because she's in love with Fraser but his possible murder is part of her overall plan.  The plan is really brilliant.  She is perhaps not as completely evil as they come but only love saves her from attaining the ultimate degree of evil, i.e., murdering Fraser, and thereby tying up all "loose ends."

Others have said that Victoria had not planned to seduce Fraser.  She had planned to seduce Fraser from the beginning and she knew that it would be an easy task.  She needed to have access to his apartment in order to steal the gun in order to take advantage of any opportunity to kill Jolly.  She may not have imagined that Jolly would have managed to escape from prison but once she realized this, which she apparently knew while she was still in Alaska, she had to get rid of him or else give him, at the very least, his share of the money.  She certainly wasn't going to give him any of the money because that was not part of her greedy character.

Victoria Not Evil? 

There are some who maintain that Victoria is not evil.  Were we watching the same episode?  It doesn't get much worse than Victoria when it comes to evil unless you descend into the realm of psychopathic dementia.  In the case of demented psychopaths, you almost have to feel sorry for them because they're suffering from mental illness and are probably not responsible for their actions.  Victoria, on the other hand, is not demented, she is just bad.  Her conscience apparently doesn't kick in when the goals are whatever Victoria wants.

She is guilty of:

  • Theft

  • Framing innocent people

  • Shooting Fraser's beloved wolf.  (She needed to steal Fraser's gun in order to frame him for Jolly's murder.  Ray speculated that Dief was probably trying to stop her.)

  • Endangering her lover's life, (She sent him on the diamond exchange knowing how dangerous it was.  Of course, this was after he had turned her down after her request to have him go with her.)

  • Coercion and extortion; (If you don't, there's a key in Ray's house…")

  • Reneging on a promise to her lover not to frame his friend; (She calls Internal Affairs after Fraser has agreed to exchange the diamonds for her.)

  • Betrayal of honor among thieves; (She steals from Jolly and then murders him.)

  • Using Fraser's passion for her to set him up.

  • She shoots at Ray and Fraser in the train station, not caring whether she hit them or others in the crowded station.


She does all of the above with the goals of getting the money and getting Fraser, in more ways than one.  That she displays a modicum of human concern does not exculpate her and relieve her of the description of evil.  Assuming that after the diamond exchange, Fraser wouldn't go with Victoria, she had already planned to kill him with Ray's back up gun--"no loose ends."  Of course, she couldn't bring herself to do it and, instead, kicks him out of the car.

She doesn't shoot Fraser, according to her "no loose ends" plan, not because she is not evil but because she loves him.  She has another opportunity to kill him but doesn't--on the train platform.  Evil people can love.  She shows pain and regret at the end when Fraser is shot because she loves him and she's lost him again.  That doesn't relieve her of being evil.  It shows that she is human and can feel love and pain and regret.  I have to add of course that she doesn't have the diamonds either. 

Just as Fraser is good and can forsake his ideals for love and need, so is Victoria evil and can forsake her evil schemes for love.  She can feel human emotions including love, regret, emotional pain, greed, lust, revenge, etc.

What could one imagine that Victoria is thinking when she calls internal affairs after promising Fraser that she wouldn't if he will make the diamond exchange for her?  Ray is an entirely innocent man.  What motivates someone to frame an entirely innocent man?  Greed?  Love of the very possessive and "I don't give a damn" variety?  The love she felt for Fraser was hardly of the selfless kind.  She wanted him to come with her.  She recognizes as much as he does that they should be together.  But what kind of love is this?  I'll frame your friend, force you to come with me by framing you for murder and theft and shoot your dog,  If she truly loved Fraser with the kind of love that a good person is capable of, she would have gone to Chicago and tried to persuade him to have a permanent relationship.  She wouldn't have had to try very hard.

Let us also not forget (as I have recently posted to a couple of newsgroups) that the horrible Victoria knew where the stolen half a million dollars was when Fraser turned her in. I do not for one moment buy the theory that she was made into a bad person by her years in prison. She was bad when she went in and remained bad throughout her prison term. A poor innocent victim who was coerced into participating in a robbery that turned into felony murder might have volunteered the information concerning the location of the money to the authorities. But, of course, Victoria was no poor innocent victim. Alternatively, Victoria could have traded the information concerning where the money was for a lighter prison term. Of course, Victoria would never do something like that. She wanted the money for herself. What are a couple more years in prison when you can have the half a million dollars, that you helped steal, all for yourself.

Let us also not forget the very convenient death of Victoria's sister and the "Death in the family" sign on the restaurant. I can’t help but wonder why the writer of the episode, Paul Haggis, threw in the warning from Jolly to Fraser—“You think you know her. You don’t.” Jolly should have heeded his own warning.

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