doug eiffel is, in his own words, a man of many fears, but i think two of the most interesting ones are these twin fears he has about his self perception: he's afraid that no one will ever take him seriously. and he's even more afraid that they will.

i think a lot about his story in all things considered - what it betrays about eiffel's psyche that both minkowski and jacobi present versions of the narrative where they're in the right, but he has this fear. that he's screwing it up, that everything is his fault and everyone knows it, even when he's barely involved and just trying to help. that within his own narrative he is still in some way the one at fault, but also a victim of circumstance who everyone will jump to unfairly blame.

it's his attachment to this perception of himself - as the perpetual screwup, as tragically unlucky, as everyone's punching bag, as ultimately unimportant - that holds him back for so long. because the thought that he will only ever be those things, only ever his mistakes? that terrifies him. but it's safer than the alternative.

with his efforts to cast himself in that tragicomic role, taking eiffel seriously is such a central point to his character development (and specifically in what it indicates re: where he stands with the others) - everything about shut up and listen and constructive criticism, of course, but also. when hera connects with him in bach to the future by opening up about their shared insecurities, she shows him that she takes him seriously and tells him that he should take himself more seriously too. and minkowski can't fully understand eiffel or connect with him as a person until she comes to terms with his conviction and all the complexities that forces her to acknowledge in him.

it's so much scarier for doug "why the hell do you even care what i think? i'm so far beneath both of you that i shouldn't even register on your radars" eiffel to consider that maybe people can take him seriously, that maybe they already do. because if they want him around, if they value his effort, if they care about him and think about him and take the things he says to heart, then that means those things matter. and it means that he matters, which is terrifying both in what it challenges about his own self hatred and the weight it gives to his otherwise careless words and actions.

I have such emotional thoughts about Ep40 Limbo and Minkowski telling Eiffel "I'm sorry, okay? I didn't want it to matter. I was trying to make it not matter." It's such an insane thing to say about learning without any context or detail that your friend and crew member was convicted of kidnapping and child endangerment.

It's one thing to learn that someone did something awful and not to care because you don't care about them or their morals (the SI-5 approach). It's another thing to learn that someone did something awful and not to care because you can empathise with them and it's who they are now that matters (the Hera and Lovelace approach). And it's an entirely different thing to learn that someone did something awful and to want desperately not to care but to be unable to stop yourself from caring.

When there was no specificity to Eiffel's tragic backstory, Minkowski successfully made it not matter. Back in Ep15 What's Up Doc?, when Hilbert was hinting at Eiffel's secret that he wouldn't want Minkowski to know about, she trusted him with no "hesitance or doubt". In principle, on an abstract intellectual level, his past doesn't matter to her. But as soon as she has some of the specifics, her ability to trust him without question is shaken, because that trust isn't just about the abstract intellectual level. It's emotional too.

Eiffel really matters to Minkowski, so of course she doesn't want what she learned about his past to change that. But part of what matters to Minkowski about Eiffel is that she trusts him, that she believes that he does the morally right thing when it counts, and that he's the kind of person she thinks he is. The particular way in which he matters to her, when combined with her personality and her values, means that the bad things he's done in the past have to matter to her too. Because the way in which he matters to her is tied up in her sense of him as an ultimately moral person, the spokesperson of Team What's Wrong With Handcuffs.

In typical Minkowski fashion, she wants to make herself not care about it through sheer stubborn power of will. Maybe if she doesn't speak to him, she can pretend she doesn't know. Maybe if she pretends she doesn't know, she won't think about it. Maybe if she doesn't think about it, it won't matter to her. Maybe if it doesn't matter to her, then she can rebuild her idea of him as a good person on her own and she won't ever have to talk to him about it. But three months roll by, and it still matters to her. It still matters to her, and she still wants it not to.