Cuddy is a stand -alone character in House MD, she is the only character, perhaps besides Kutner, to truly believe in the ideals she lives by. Cuddy is the idealist of the show, the character that believes that good should and can triumph over evil. Many would argue that Cameron also shares these qualities, but I would argue that she has become hardened while working under House, and though I do not take that quality as a bad one, she is no longer the idealistic, empathetic girl that we were introduced to in season`1. Cuddy on the other hand, has not so much as changed as a character, but like LE explained once, like an cebola mais has been peeled away about her character as the show has gone on. Her idealism is part of her misery, her joy and her deep rooted morals that play a huge role in her dia to dia life and then in those major events in her life. This is an artigo that will explore and explain why I believe that Cuddy is an idealist and perhaps give a better understanding as to why she acts the way she does. The easiest way to break up this artigo would be into 3: House, patients and little statements.


House
One of the defining points of Cuddy’s character is how she views House. The most common pergunta that is asked of Cuddy is why did she hire House/ why hasn’t she fired him. The reason for this is that she thinks the best of him. She thinks that although he doesn’t always choose to do the right thing, that he can do the right thing. She sees the good in him that others don’t but often she’s blinded por this belief and therefore sometimes the expectations she holds for House are shattered por the reality that House can’t be the person she thinks he is. Never is this mais clear than in the end of the episode “Ugly” in which the viewers are treated to seeing Cuddy watching the documentary and smiling a smile that’s full of admiration and dare I say it love. She’s smiling this way because of Kenny’s heartfelt “Thank you Dr. House,” and her eyes light up and the viewers can actually see her idealism shining through. She knows that House had never intended on helping Kenny get the surgery, he had just admitted how the show had twisted his words, but she still interprets it in the sense that House has done mais good in the world. In reality Kenny got his surgery as a side effect of House curing him, House didn’t care about the surgery and Kenny’s quality of life, but we can see that Cuddy feels that she thinks deep down that he did. Cuddy generally has a pretty good understanding of House, she does indeed see the reality that is House, she plays his games, psycho-analyzes him, but sometimes that little picture of him she’s built up in her head comes crashing down because House hasn’t lived up to that picture and she becomes once again disillusioned. There are 2 other cases that show this idea strongly.

1)“Words and Deeds”/”One dia One Room”
House commented on the fact that Cuddy had been easily swayed and had allowed his proposal of electro-shock therapy to go through. He asked her if he was really that pathetic and she had answered that instead of the crazed stoned talk she normally got, his argument was calm, rational and had persuaded her. Cuddy then mentioned that the Detox was working. In reality House wasn’t truly detoxing and he never intended to remain detoxing, which is seen later in the seguinte episode when Cuddy sees him taking a Vicodin after she perjured herself in court when she thought he was getting better.

HOUSE: [amused] You perjured yourself to keep me out of jail. How're you...?

CUDDY: I only did that because I thought you were getting clean.
One dia One Room, Season 3, Episode 12

The fact that Cuddy’s motivation for perjuring herself in court was not to save her best diagnostician but it was because he was getting “better” gives the viewers a strong idea about how she feels about life. Cuddy gave House the benefit of the doubt even after he admits that’s he’s only doing it for show, again Cuddy chooses to believe in her picture she’s created about House.

CUDDY: So this is for real, this is not just a show for Tritter?

HOUSE: Absolutely it's a show for Tritter, and the Judge, unfortunately unless it's real, there is no show.
Words and Deeds, Season 3, Episode 11


2)“Human Error”
This is a moment between House and Cuddy that I totally adore because we truly see how very wrong Cuddy can be about House. We see the picture she has built up, and the horrible crash that leaves Cuddy unsure about whether she truly likes House or not as a person.

HOUSE: The patient’s husband prefers her not dead.

CUDDY: Or you want a storybook ending for the young man who crossed the ocean for his wife.

HOUSE: This is not an act, I don't care if--

CUDDY: Then pull the plug.

HOUSE: What if I can fix it? Maybe I just don't know it yet.

CUDDY: I know you care--

HOUSE: I don't care. I really don't care.
Human Error, Season 3, Episode 24

Cuddy believes that House can be romantic, want a happy ending, like she would. She has put herself into House, her ideals and then discovers, as House reminds her so crudely, that he is not that person. The look on her face is quite heartbreaking. Its confusion, disillusionment and even a slight hint of hurt plastered across her face and she comes to realize that House doesn’t care about the people in the hospital clothes but just the disease that’s plaguing them. It’s a cold wake up call to Cuddy who never makes the mistake that House cares again.
So just from these two examples we can see that Cuddy puts House up on this pedestal. As I said before her behavior with House, especially non-romantically, is the defining point of her character. Only somebody like Cuddy could have hired House, only someone who could see past the rough exterior and see what she does could stand to keep him. While she’s not always right about House, and often the “good” she sees is blinding, without her character it would be a stretch for House to still have a job because as like Cameron said “Any other administrator would have fired him years ago”.


House’s view of Cuddy
On the other hand we are told mais directly as viewers about Cuddy’s idealism through House talking. House classifies Cuddy in one speech he made, telling everyone how Cuddy thinks and almost directly says that she is an idealist.

HOUSE: Cuddy…..you see the world as it is and you see the world as it could be, what you don’t see is what everybody else sees, the giant gaping chasm in-between.
Humpty Dumpty, Season 2, Episode 3

THIS is my favorito moment of House MD ever. It’s such a beautiful way of describing how idealists think, and how Cuddy thinks. Cuddy sees reality; she understands the crappy stuff that goes on in the world. The difference between her and House/everybody else is that she also sees how reality could be, the good future it could have. She so believes in that future, that strong image in her mind that she doesn’t always see that it is impossible for it to happen (the chasm). She can’t see that there’s a very large difference between her dreams and reality and that things aren’t always attainable, no matter how much effort you put in. This quote, if nothing else in this paper, gives an explanation for every single action Cuddy’s ever taken. It is the most eloquent piece of writing, in my opinion, the show has produced about a character and so thoroughly describes someone in so few of words. I could gush about this quote all day.

Recently House has again commented on Cuddy’s idealism, but not consciously. In “Under my Skin” we see House's subconscious feelings about Cuddy and although it is a very small moment, even in his hallucinations, Cuddy still has that hope that doesn’t waver.

HOUSE: What if I can’t?
CUDDY: Opiate dependency can make you think you have mais pain than you really have………you’re going to be okay
Under my Skin, Season 5, Episode 23

Even in House’s mind she still so firmly believes that he can get past this and he can lead a “normal” life. I think it’s pretty self explanatory. House’s insights into Cuddy’s character not only give us direct understanding about how Cuddy’s mind works but also indirect understanding that we get from his own views and thoughts about her.


Patients
Cuddy rarely gets a patient to herself, so when an episode comes out that has Cuddy taking a severe interest in the case, the viewers are often treated to seeing how her objectivity wavers in face of her ideals.

House: His hand is a cesspool. And the crap is spreading.
Cuddy: You are being pretty aggressive about destroying a man’s livelihood.
House: Don’t give a damn about his livelihood.
Cuddy: He loses that hand, he loses his job. All of his jobs. He’s not like us.
House: He can’t work as a cripple?
[Cuddy is shocked por that statement, but recovers.]
Cuddy: He loses his home, his kid brother drops out…
House: American dream destroyed. Very sad, very emotional. Not one medical fact in the whole pathetic tale. You’ve lost perspective, Cuddy. You’ve stopped looking at this as a doctor. You’re atuação like someone who shoved somebody off their roof. You want to make things right? Too bad. Nothing’s ever right.
Humpty Dumpty, Season 2, Episode 3

As House has pointed out for us nicely, a large portion of why Cuddy is so against cutting off Alfredo’s hand is because of her own guilt (which could have another essay written about) but the fact that House mentions the “American Dream” already implies the idealism that lay in Cuddy’s motives. As common with all of her patients, she wants the best for them, not just medically, but she wants their lives improved or at the very least the same as before they came to the hospital. When the reversal starts happening, she freaks out because she wants things to be perfect. She does this again in Fetal Position.

House: You screwed up.

Cuddy: I saved a life. I saved two lives.

House: You let your maternal instinct get the best of you and nearly killed two people. In a case like this you terminate and mom lives 10 times out of ten. You do what you did, mom and baby both die 9.9 times out of 10.

Cuddy: Sometimes point 1 is bigger than 9.9.

House: No. It’s smaller. Exactly 9.8 smaller. Always is, always will be.
Fetal Position, Season 3, Episode 17

Again in this moment Cuddy focuses not so much on the medicine, but the outcome of the patient’s life. Albeit in this scenario she had mais than her ideals on the line, but she is so strongly driven por her emotions that she risks both Emma and her child in order to have them both live. Cuddy’s patients show what matters the most to Cuddy. In her dia to dia life as an administrator the most we see of what she truly thinks comes out around House or in the things she says. But when things truly matter, when she has a dying patient who is running out of time, it is always interesting to see the choices Cuddy makes based on the image she has in her head.


Little statements that are revealing
Finally there are little moments in the show, just pieces of dialogue that reveal that Cuddy tends to look towards the brighter side of life. Here are some examples of that, in increasing order of utopian type thinking, and little explanations as to why I picked these.

1)“You rented the English Patient and you gave money to Amnesty International.” (Adverse Events, Season 5, Episode 3)

For those of you who haven’t seen the English Patient it’s, very simply, about a nurse who nurses a plane crash solider back to health. The allusion is to Cuddy and House, Cuddy trying to nurse House back to normal and its obvious that Cuddy feels a sort of connection to the movie because she sees herself in the nurse. Plus the story is just generally idealistic, the type of movie that is tragic and yet slightly uplifting. Also it is needless to say this is the only mention of a character giving to charity ever and in that act alone we can see that Cuddy tries to make the world fit her image.

2)“Either you’re an altruistic, decent human being who is worried about my well being” (Insensitive, Season 3, Episode 14)

This might be because my philosophy class is discussing egoism and altruism in class at the moment, but the fact that Cuddy believes that altruism exits points to her romantic view of humanity.

3)“So alcoholics who successfully go through treatment don’t exist?” (Don’t Ever Change, Season 4, Episode 12)

Even I know that addicts never stop being addicts. This line shows that Cuddy doesn’t even consider the fact that people can’t change and become better, she immediately assumes the best of everyone, as long as they try.

4)“It just……shouldn’t be so hard” (Act your Age, Season 3, Episode 19)

This lovely little speech again shows the viewers that Cuddy sees the world as it is, it being incredibly hard to find someone to love, and then she sees is as it should be, in that it shouldn’t be so hard. The mini-monologue she has shows the frustration she has when she suddenly notices the giant chasm.

5)“Sometimes you get what you need” (Pilot, Season 1, Episode 1)

From dia one Cuddy sets up the hopeful message of the show. She adds the segundo clause to the lema of the show, reminding everyone that you are not doomed to being miserable. She reminds everyone that if you try and push for what you want, you may not get exactly that, but you’ll end up getting something that’s mais worthwhile anyways. THIS is why Cuddy's idealism is so important to the show, it lets the viewers see the positive and rather hopeful message that House MD is actually sending out.


Cuddy is an extremely intriguing character whose actions and thoughts are, as said before, completely unique in the show. She stands alone as the provider of hope, the character that even as everything else fails can still see what could be. Without her, House wouldn’t have a job, and the core message of the show could never be revealed. She lets House viewers know that the world isn't always about cynicism, doom and anguish. Is it any mais obvious that I’m completely in amor with this character?

EDITIED FOR HORRIBLE TYPOS!!!! *facepalm*