I have to say, I'm in complete agreement with Rosie.  

Jack doesn't seem mysterious at all, as Rosie said he wears his emotions on his sleeve.  We don't have much of a back story nor home life, but the little bits and pieces we've gleaned have satisfactorily given him some depth without raising any mysterious questions.  He seems straightforward a hard-working, capable, empathetic, bloke who maybe used to party a bit, likes the rush of adrenalized situations, but is following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather of being a good detective.  And yes I would love to see him out of the work context, but it doesn't detract from the show/story.

Hal of course has 500 years of good to bad to good to worse... and in many ways I definitely see him as the most complex of the three.  There is the mystery of "good Hal" vs "bad Hal", in terms of can we truly believe he has multiple personas, if it's a coping mechanism, or if it's just the excuse invented by an addict... The mystery of his human life to explore, what abuses did he endure, was he "a good man" or was there a streak of bad in him... Thousands of women would love to see him seduce... 

but despite 500 years of story we haven't seen, despite his complexity, despite the fact that we know he lies, both to his friends and to himself, he puts on a mask, I feel in any ways we've cracked Hal.  He's OCD, neurotic, sardonic, selfish, fastedious, puritanical, dependent, odd, kind, loyal, remorseful, suicidey when he's good Hal; charismatic, seductive, capable, controlling, sadistic, cruel, selfish, lethal, reveling, power-hungry, bloodthirsty, homocidal, self-preserving when he's bad Hal.  

Flight is a complete mystery.  We know he was orphaned, he did petty (and not so petty) crimes, he got in with the wrong type of benefactor, he's good at "desk work", he's a terrible fighter, he's remorseful about his past and wants to be a good man...  But I feel we don't "KNOW" him.  He like Hal seems to wear a mask most of the time, he definitely acts differently depending on who he's with, even to the point of changing his accent (and I'm not just talking with Evelyn undercover where his Irish lilt became more pronounced.  He's arrogant and resentful most of the time, eager at others (would add meek, but even when eager, he's not that) But again, for some reason even with all this, I feel we've never seen the TRUE Albert Flight.  I like to think Bertrand was closer to his true self, but there really is no confirmation.  Unlike with Jack, the fact that we haven't seen him outside of work has added an air of mystery to him.

my

Maybe it's because I write Hal, I've had to get in his head and figure him out (or at least my own interpretation of him) that he's not as much of a mystery to me.   And I certainly could be misinterpreting him, even after lengthy discussions on him here, with other fic writers...

And by mystery I don't mean that he isn't complex and compelling, of the three he tops my list for those.  But I do feel that Damien showed us so much of his complexity in his performance whereas Flight he purposely kept very shrouded.  Hal has a mysterious past, the details of which we know only a teeny portion of, but we do know his patterns, his motivations.  In both his incarnations, good and bad.  He has bared his soul, so to speak, on many occasions.  

Flight on the other hand wears his four-piece suits like armour, keeping his vulnerability shrouded with arrogance and confidence.  It was only his last scene that we saw a crack in his shell, perhaps the truth to him.  I just feel we haven't seen enough of his vulnerabilities to get a good sense of his true motivations.  

Whimsy - I appreciate that in order to write about Hal, you need to pin down his personality and motivations....but, despite the years of obsessing about Hal, and discussing him, I have to say that I still feel I don't really understand him at all.  And I regularly change my mind about what I think his motivations are.

I would love to know what sort of man he was before he was turned...and which aspects of his vampire personality are human (and vice versa...)

Why does he go through this good/bad cycle (it's not typical of all vampires - Herrick, Mr Snow, Ivan, Hetty don't seem to have this issue)..and how long has it been going on for?  What made him decide that humanity did derserve his loyalty...sometimes?

Why did he lie to Lady Mary for so long...and how/why did he continue to visit her every year (including Bad Hal??)  And why did he leave her if she was keeping him 'clean'?

What is the link between his blood-lust and his vamp nature - the two don't always seem connected....?

If he didn't really believe in the devil...what was his motivation for telling Lady Catherine that they were at war with the devil, and for entering into a pact with her...and performing the ritual?  What exactly was the nature of his feelings for her?  He appears to be in full bad hal mode....and she's a werewolf!  And surely bad hal would revel at being in a full scale vampire/werewolf war?

Why exactly did he stay in Barry when he knew that the old ones were coming and how hard it would be for him to resist Mr Snow? And how exactly did Mr Snow's influence work?

Why did he recruit Cutler?  According to Herrick (in s3) the old ones don't recruit lightly...

What about the inconsistancy in his bad hal personality?  He is very different in 1850 to 1918 to 1950....

How on earth did he survive for 500yrs, when he seems incapable of winning a fight!?

How come a brothel bastard, who ran away to sea and ended up on a battlefield has such beautiful hands!?

..............

OK....I'll stop now!!

I have to say Rosie, you have such an excellent points its hard to even try to disagree with you   But I haven't voted yet, cause I was thinking (without good thinking) vote for Flight and then I really started to think about all these characters.

I waited so I could read more arguments about these characters and see if anyone can give me kind of direction, support some of my views and maybe change them or give new point of view. It's so hard to decide when you go deeper in this subject, I change my mind constantly so I think I needed some good arguments to argument with my arguments in my head.

Jack is out of the picture, like said he is the guy without back story, he drops some little crumbs here and there about his life but he seems so normal, hard working man, you can relate him for any normal person. When I sit back and thought about this character and read your excellent arguments about him I realized they support my first thoughts about Jack. He didn't pop in to my mind first, there was a reason but no words and now I have found words why Jack less mysterious character comparing on these three. 

But Hal and Flight. You could even write the word "mysterious" on Albert's forehead, he is the man of mysterious past, mysterious friends, mysterious future. But Hal has most mysterious mind.

SPOILER ALERT: I YOU HAVEN'T WATCH BH OR THAT LAST EXTRA SCENE AND YOU DON'T WANT TO SPOIL THE ENDING STOP READING RIGHT NOW!!! (unless you really, really want to, I can't stop you, but I can warn you).

But then I started thinking about the extra scene on BH dvd where they showed  how Hal, Alex and Tom were enjoying their human life (finally). Hal has two personalities. Good and bad. And when he was "being human" finally he first seemed to be good Hal, even though in that last scene when Tom ask are you good Hal or bad Hal and he answers: "both, neither, I can't explain it". And those last scenes and that extra scene troubles me. And then when he realize it's just Devils illusion, I can see that bad Hal coming out again.

Talk about mystery, that whole guy is a mystery. He has two personalities that switch places century after century and you could think that is affect from his long life and things he have done, like that lady Mary ghost who was completely nuts and then she was not, you know something about his past and yet you know only glimpses, just like you know about Flight. 

Maybe we know more about Hal than Flight which makes Flight kind of easy choice (at least I think he would be), but Hal's head is twitched by blood and age and no one can actually know what is going on in there. That last extra scene kind of prove me that, what do you think?

OK YOU CAN START READING NOW AGAIN :)

So my point really is that Hal is pretty mysterious because he has twitched mind and long past and we don't know all about it and those things about his past that makes Hal switch personality between good Hal and bad Hal. 

I can't decide. Yet. But I love this topic domino, put my mind to work  And it seems I'm not the only one 

hahahaha... who's sneaking in all sneakily and voting for Jack???

thanks to all who have voted already

here are the results so far:

HAL YORKE (Being Human)		18.2%
ALBERT FLIGHT (Ripper Street)		45.5%
JACK WESTON (Suspects)		36.4%

Agree? disagree? VOTE!

Thanks for adding your vote and thoughts Lisa!

Flight was described as a 'man of secrets' before we met him so our fascination with discovery was kindled pre- Flight and his secrets were not fully revealed for the entire series, the suspense and intrigue was powerful.. some people bemoaned the fact, saying that his character arc had fizzled out because it was so drawn out... i felt the contrary.

Reponses to this poll very much depend on your definition of mysterious.... Jack is the most mysterious in the sense that he is the least 'known' ... but it he the most emigmatic, intriguing, perplexing....?