There were a lot of layers with Sloan, who was originally intended to be a finite romantic spoiler which would ultimately lead back to a Clint/Viki reunion down the road. BTS issues (mostly Clint Ritchie's horrible tractor accident in 1993) delayed this and made the story run longer and end differently.
I do think Sloan was a good if complex man who loved Viki, and I liked him BITD as a viewer (in part because I was so familiar with Roy Thinnes). My opinion as an adult remains out with the jury as I see the material from the start. But what is fascinating upon review of the later years as the Victor saga escalated is how they very, very deliberately paralleled Sloan and Victor Lord even before his exit, in dreams, visions, etc. In addition to his arrival in town and fascination with the 'Great Man' directly leading into what became maybe the most famous story in the show's history, after the Todd Manning rape trial or Karen Wolek. These kind of parallels happen with men and women in real life, these Oedipal or other darker connections, but you rarely see them explicitly play out in soap opera in the text. Other than maybe Another World, with Mac Cory and Iris.
Juxtaposing Sloan and Victor was a very difficult needle for the writing to thread, but they did with a lot of nuance. I remember some scenes near the conclusion of the story in '95 or '96 where Viki, made whole again, comes to terms with how similar Sloan was to her father. I'll have to dig them up again. They were well done and respectful, but it is just somewhere most soaps would never, ever dare go with a 'good' character.
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Vee ·
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