#there's a lot of ableism baked into that m.o. and a soupçon of copaganda too

[mindfulwrath]

columbo is a great example of a character who is empathetic without necessarily being kind or compassionate.

while columbo can be both kind and compassionate, it’s rarely towards his victims (i.e., the murderer of the episode)

but one of the most frequent ways he gets onto the killer, finds a spot to start digging, is because something they do pings as emotionally incongruous. they say all the right things with the right intonation, but their actions--often very small actions--don’t match the emotional state they’re projecting. columbo gets right up into that emotional state, feels it all the way through, and then says: now why would you do something like that if you felt like this?

so while he is methodical, dogged, and perceptive, i think his greatest detective superpower is empathy; specifically empathy-without-compassion, empathy-without-kindness. the ability to fully put himself in someone else’s shoes and notice, with laser precision, when they don’t fucking fit.

#columbo #it's that 'gee that must have made you awful mad' type empathy #that 'gosh if I'D heard my wife had just been murdered i sure wouldn't remember to get the mail on my way in' type empathy #although as someone who does have Weird Emotions and tends to shut down+go thru the motions #there's a lot of ableism baked into that m.o. and a soupçon of copaganda too