1. Maggs is a strong man with certain weaknesses.

[Kristel]

1. Maggs is a strong man with certain weaknesses. What in his background might have caused the tendency toward romantic fantasy (about Phipps, for example) which is so much at odds with his general clear-sightedness? What makes him violent; what makes him kind and tender?

[Diane]

I think his connection with Phipps arose from a number of circumstances from his early life and his deportation. He probably saw some of his young self in Phipps. He associated Phipps with his lost son. He needed a last connection to his homeland after having lost everything else.

Maggs was an otherwise logical and practical man with this exception. He was so obsessed with Phipps that it clouded his good judgment.

He was violent as a result of growing up on the streets and being trained for a life of crime. Memories of his past and its injustices stir up these violent tendencies. Beneath that exterior is a kind-hearted and tender man who wants to believe in the good of other people.

[[deleted user]]

I think Diane has nailed this, I would just add that his relationship with Sophina was another tender spot.

[Patrick]

By providing for Phipps, he wanted him to avoid living the bad life he has lived as an orphan (thieving, being deported to Australia, etc.). His tendency toward romantic fantasy has developed from the things/people (his real mum, Sophina, his freedom) he had lost throughout his life and his desire to ensure that someone else (in this instance, Phipps) has enough or at least avoids losing so much.

The recollection of Sophina by others was sending him into a fury; any mention or allusion to his Australian past also irritated him.

[Pip]

I agree with all the above. He also had a romanticised idea of the England he had left behind. He found London changed, but on the coach trip to Gloucester he saw the countryside which he had remembered and which had sustained him through his flogging.

He was fooled by the miniature of George IV he carried, believing it was a likeness of Phipps. He had an idea of the gentleman Phipps would have become, thanks to his beneficence, but would have been devastated by the reality of the louche character Phipps had become.

All of the other characters fooled him, by not telling him where Henry Phipps was, and what sort of person, although they all knew this.