“I am incapable of turning away from a responsibility. My friends take advantage of that fact far too often.”
Sure, most of the time Wilson’s the selfless one, and House is the bastard who always takes advantage. But it is the fact that House’s genuine acts of self-sacrifice are so rare that make them all the more precious.
“I don’t owe you anything. Our entire relationship has been about you. My dying is about me.”
When Wilson disgruntledly expresses his anger at House’s seemingly selfish want for the former to live as long as possible despite the additional pain (both psychological and physical) he’d have to go through, we feel sorry for Wilson, the victim. We feel that House is, again, being the self-centred jerk he always is, even while his best friend is dying. But we often forget that House, too, is a victim of Wilson’s cancer; Wilson isn’t the only one suffering.
“It’s a basic truth of the human condition, that everybody lies. The only variable is about what.”
House doesn’t lie without reason. He usually lies when he has sometime to gain from it, but not here. Not now. He lies to Wilson to give his best friend hope and assurance; little does Wilson know that House is feeling the pain on his behalf. We all know how precious House’s Vicodin is to him, and yet, he engages in this act of self-sacrifice, this act of taking on the burden of pain so as to eleviate the pain of his dying best friend. What House fears most is pain; he is willing to face up to his greatest fear and endure the pain in order to give Wilson the hope of recovery.
Here, we see a different side of House; we see a side of House we always knew existed deep down inside him, but never often got to see. This is, in my opinion, what makes this scene so beautiful.
House isn’t always the selfish bastard he is made out to be through the eight seasons; House knows how to love a friend.
