by: Jesse Baruffi
This blog post--someone dies! Is it Jesse? Is it Dave? You'll have to read on to find out!
Now before I get a call from Dave's lawyer for making threats or something, I'm simply making a point. Threatening to kill characters is a pretty big grab for attention in media. In most types of stories, we expect characters to go through the wringer in one way or another, but on the whole, characters can overcome or recover from their misfortunes. Death, however, is the big one. In just about all settings that are not Dragonball Z, death is rarely if ever conquerable. Once a character is dead, they're not coming back, which means that the story dynamic is changed irrevocably. Also, most major and important characters tend to die in memorable ways, so it tends to force us to ask not only who is going to die and how that will alter the story, but how they're going to die. It's all very compelling, and it draws us in. In and of itself, character death isn't a bad thing. People die in real life all the time, and in the hyper-realized world of fiction even moreso. The problem arises when death is used not as a culmination of character arc or theme, but as a cheap stunt to simply draw in readers or viewers. Character death as a source of drama is, you guessed it, something that Needs To Go Away.
Certainly the amount and severity of death in a story will vary based on the kind of story it is. A story where kids explore a magical world and learn about it will probably have a much smaller body count than a slasher movie or a war story, and this is fine. As I said above, death in a story should relate first to the story's plot and characters. Does a character death serve as a capstone to their personal development, or force those around them to perceive the world differently, to grow more mature perhaps, or fall into despair? Does it serve to remind the readers that life is short and precious, that some things are worth dying for, or that nature is cruel and merciless? These are only a few possible ways to make death work, but it must be organic, and frankly, the death of a major character should always have some sort of weight to it. Whether one character in a story dies or all of them do, it should mean something other than "Another Shocking Twist!" (I have a whole rant about shocking twists and sexy results, but that's for another day)
Some people make the argument that they enjoy stories where no one is safe, because it prevents them from being able to guess where the story goes, and to a certain extent I can understand this, but I disagree. I don't want characters in stories to be immortal, mind you, or feel no risk of failure, and I don't think every story should end with a perfect happy ending all around. I like many tragedies, and I enjoy unpredictable stories as well. But every character in a story should serve a purpose, and if that purpose goes unfulfilled or we're forced to question what the purpose was after they died and we have no answer or indication that there was indeed an answer at all, then their inclusion feels hollow and frustrating. Good examples of stories where characters seem to die at random include Lost and 100 Bullets. It's often endemic of stories that promise greater meaning than they deliver. Even if a death is unpredictable, it should still make sense.
Sometimes death is used to show how powerful or evil a villain is, and while I wouldn't write this off completely, it's very easy to overdo. We often expect our badguys to kill people, and we want to care about at least some of the people in question. Still, if every new villain who comes along has to provide at least one death (I'm looking at YOU, superhero comics!), then pretty soon, the impact is reduced and before long people groan and sigh in frustration at yet another dead character at the hands of yet another new big bad. It's easy to forget, but there are plenty of ways a villain can prove they're a serious threat besides a random murder. Just off the top of my head, capturing loved ones, being able to get inside the hero's head with pinpoint accuracy, winning over the populace to their side, taking away some advantage the hero assumes they have, corrupting an ally, or forcing the hero to break his or her moral code are all ways a villain can be scary without another ratings stunt death. That way, when the villain does commit a murder, it counts for something rather than just creating a law of diminishing returns. Good examples of this are The Joker from The Dark Knight, who prefers assassinating symbols of public trust and hope to just gassing kindergartens, and Sephiroth from Final Fantasy 7, whose shocking murder of Aeris makes perfect sense in retrospect because she could have stopped him on her own.
I shall brace myself thusly for the counterargument that random death is realistic: truth is stranger than fiction, they say, because fiction has to make sense. Sure, in real life, death is pointless and unfair, striking without warning or meaning as often as not. In real life, Alexander the Great died at 32 of a fever instead of in battle or by treachery or old age. But fiction is not real life and should not attempt to approximate it exactly. Fiction should not strive for realism. This sounds like a bad argument on my part, but consider. Real life is vast; absurdly, obscenely, unknowably so. It is also full of false starts, anticlimaxes, contradictions of logic and motivation, failure, complexity to the point of convolution, and inner workings to which absolutely no one is privy. Humans have learned a lot about the universe, but there's plenty we don't know, and more than that, there's probably plenty that we don't even know we don't know. To strive as a writer for true realism in our fiction is madness, not only because it tends to make for a lousy story, but because we will invariably fail. So does that mean we should toss out any concept of believability from our work, making it entirely absurd or glaringly full of artifice? Of course not. Instead of realism, however, what we should strive for is verisimilitude. For those who didn't pay as much attention in English class as I did, verisimilitude is the art of making the unreal seem real. How does one do this? Well, that's the question, of course, but the best answer I can give is that we must grab onto some aspect of reality, because while we humans can't always see the big picture, we can grasp facets rather well. This isn't to imply we're dumb; it's just that trying to show everything usually means that we'll ultimately show nothing. Picking one thing, however, or even a few, means we will be able to highlight some piece of the grand truth, and perhaps even get it right.
It's for this reason that I don't believe death in fiction should be random, unless the story calls for randomness. We as authors have to accept the notion that we are the ones in control of the world. Oh, sure, authors often say that stories take on a life of their own, and I can say that there is something to that. Sometimes, it is possible to create a world and its characters well enough that their actions surprise us, even if they make perfect sense. For this reason, a story can pull away from where the author initially intended it to go, but I don't buy the idea that creativity is just some magical force we have absolutely no control over. No matter what, the author is always at the wheel and shapes the world accordingly, and as such, must take responsibility for the events of their fictional worlds, including death. Much like fictional characters, authors should have a sense of agency, the idea that we are not merely puppets of fate, but that our actions lead us to our fates, both fair and foul.
I think what it comes to is that death in stories should parallel death in life only in that it matters. When confronted with death, most of us are affected by it. If our loved ones die, that loss has significance to us. If an acquaintance dies suddenly, it can force us to think about the fragility of life. If someone we think is evil or we hate dies, we may be forced to ask if it makes us happy, and what it says about us if we do. We may even feel sympathy for such a person, because though we may often wish unpleasant things on others, having them come true is another matter. For all that, I don't think it is right to use death to wring out cheap drama and pathos. That devalues death, and with it, life itself. Not to say I think people who write stories where characters die unsatisfyingly are the equivalent of murderers or the like, but as someone who believes stories matter, and are not just lies, we should try to tell those in as honest and sincere a way as possible to help us understand reality better and be better human beings.
Showing posts with label Things That Need to Go Away. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Things That Need to Go Away. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Monday, November 7, 2011
Things That Need to Go Away: "Now, It's Personal!"
by: Jesse Baruffi
Okay, let's get this out of the way: for the most part, when I talk about these things that need to go away, I probably should clarify that I generally don't mean most of them are so awful that they should never be used again (though some are). The reason a lot of the stuff I talk about gets overused is because to some degree at some point, it does work, and probably very well, and while imitation is the highest form of flattery, it is not necessarily the best way to create great works of art. Some things simply need to be moderated and approached with caution, but Things That Need To Be Moderated And Approached With Caution just isn't quite as catchy a title.
Such is the case with "Now, It's Personal!" the latest Thing That Needs to Go Away. This refers to the conflict between a hero and a villain in which it's not simply a matter of law and order, good and evil, survival, or prevailing ideals. It is, in fact, personal, between the characters. On a certain level, this can be highly entertaining and indeed drive the story. Adding a personal element can give the audience reason to care about a conflict between individuals, after all. The problem arises when EVERY conflict inevitably becomes personal because that's what the audience responded to best.
I have several examples of this. A big one is the Star Trek movies. Ask just about anyone what the best one is and they'll tell you it's Wrath of Khan. Why? Partially because of (SPOILER ALERT FOR A 30-YEAR-OLD MOVIE) Spock's death, but mostly because of the personal conflict between Kirk and Khan. Khan saw Kirk as having wronged him, and made it his mission to deliver revenge, along with a lot of Melville references. It's also kind of an interesting inversion because usually the hero has to seek revenge, or justice if they're more idealistic, against someone who did something bad to them, but in this case, the villain hates the hero. So okay, it's the popular one, fair enough. But why do they then have to copy it? I mean, Shinzon becomes Khan for Picard in Nemesis. Picard himself gets personal on the Borg in First Contact (this one I'm kind of okay with, as the Borg aren't exactly a person), and of course Nero becomes Khan for Spock in the new movie. Of course, Nero was completely insane, and his revenge was against a guy who actually tried to help him, but the crappiness of that movie matters less in this case than does the fact that he was out for revenge.
In every case, we're given some reason why it's personal, and frankly, after awhile all that personalness stops meaning anything. If every tale is a vengeance tale, stories of nothing but retaliation for past misdeeds, not only are we mired in the past, but no one is fighting for ideals anymore, and it's hard to see any side as particularly better than the other. A big example of this problem is superhero comics. Villains are all out for revenge against the heroes now. Again, I don't mind it in small to moderate doses. Dr. Doom, for example, wants to destroy Reed Richards, but that's just one piece of his motivation. He mainly wants to rule the world because he thinks he's the most qualified to do so, and hates that the accursed Richards stands in his way. This is actually more of a psychological flaw on his part, because it impedes his true goal. But when villains don't actually commit crimes except to destroy the heroes, and heroes aren't doing any good except to squash their personal rival villains, it takes away a lot of the idealistic themes of the genre. I'm nerdy enough to believe that superheroes were not born out of the desires of physically weak boys who want revenge on the world, but on the notion that given enough power, individuals of conscience would choose to make the world a better place and inspire others to do the same. As such, this ideal must, more often than it doesn't, come into conflict with those who believe that power is used for personal benefit, which most villains of the mundane and super variety are. Again, I'm not saying it should never be, or never become, personal, but the trend seems to be moving towards only the personal, and it begins to feel a bit hollow. I don't need Dr. Light, a second-string villain, to have to commit horrible rape against a hero's wife to be taken seriously. Couldn't he simply have a really nasty light beam that he uses to blackmail people or something? I don't know, that's just one example, but you see where I'm coming from.
Not everyone needs to have a personal mortal enemy. I don't, and chances are you don't either. Not every conflict between a cop and criminal has to have a tragic backstory, or sparring commanders on different sides of a war. These situations are compelling in and of themselves. Mainly, this comes down to a matter of impact. Save the personal stuff for special occasions, because otherwise, the visceral thrill of seeing two people who have a truly vested interest in each other's destruction becomes hollow. That way, when a conflict goes beyond the ideological and enters the realm of the personal, it truly means something.
Okay, let's get this out of the way: for the most part, when I talk about these things that need to go away, I probably should clarify that I generally don't mean most of them are so awful that they should never be used again (though some are). The reason a lot of the stuff I talk about gets overused is because to some degree at some point, it does work, and probably very well, and while imitation is the highest form of flattery, it is not necessarily the best way to create great works of art. Some things simply need to be moderated and approached with caution, but Things That Need To Be Moderated And Approached With Caution just isn't quite as catchy a title.
Such is the case with "Now, It's Personal!" the latest Thing That Needs to Go Away. This refers to the conflict between a hero and a villain in which it's not simply a matter of law and order, good and evil, survival, or prevailing ideals. It is, in fact, personal, between the characters. On a certain level, this can be highly entertaining and indeed drive the story. Adding a personal element can give the audience reason to care about a conflict between individuals, after all. The problem arises when EVERY conflict inevitably becomes personal because that's what the audience responded to best.
I have several examples of this. A big one is the Star Trek movies. Ask just about anyone what the best one is and they'll tell you it's Wrath of Khan. Why? Partially because of (SPOILER ALERT FOR A 30-YEAR-OLD MOVIE) Spock's death, but mostly because of the personal conflict between Kirk and Khan. Khan saw Kirk as having wronged him, and made it his mission to deliver revenge, along with a lot of Melville references. It's also kind of an interesting inversion because usually the hero has to seek revenge, or justice if they're more idealistic, against someone who did something bad to them, but in this case, the villain hates the hero. So okay, it's the popular one, fair enough. But why do they then have to copy it? I mean, Shinzon becomes Khan for Picard in Nemesis. Picard himself gets personal on the Borg in First Contact (this one I'm kind of okay with, as the Borg aren't exactly a person), and of course Nero becomes Khan for Spock in the new movie. Of course, Nero was completely insane, and his revenge was against a guy who actually tried to help him, but the crappiness of that movie matters less in this case than does the fact that he was out for revenge.
In every case, we're given some reason why it's personal, and frankly, after awhile all that personalness stops meaning anything. If every tale is a vengeance tale, stories of nothing but retaliation for past misdeeds, not only are we mired in the past, but no one is fighting for ideals anymore, and it's hard to see any side as particularly better than the other. A big example of this problem is superhero comics. Villains are all out for revenge against the heroes now. Again, I don't mind it in small to moderate doses. Dr. Doom, for example, wants to destroy Reed Richards, but that's just one piece of his motivation. He mainly wants to rule the world because he thinks he's the most qualified to do so, and hates that the accursed Richards stands in his way. This is actually more of a psychological flaw on his part, because it impedes his true goal. But when villains don't actually commit crimes except to destroy the heroes, and heroes aren't doing any good except to squash their personal rival villains, it takes away a lot of the idealistic themes of the genre. I'm nerdy enough to believe that superheroes were not born out of the desires of physically weak boys who want revenge on the world, but on the notion that given enough power, individuals of conscience would choose to make the world a better place and inspire others to do the same. As such, this ideal must, more often than it doesn't, come into conflict with those who believe that power is used for personal benefit, which most villains of the mundane and super variety are. Again, I'm not saying it should never be, or never become, personal, but the trend seems to be moving towards only the personal, and it begins to feel a bit hollow. I don't need Dr. Light, a second-string villain, to have to commit horrible rape against a hero's wife to be taken seriously. Couldn't he simply have a really nasty light beam that he uses to blackmail people or something? I don't know, that's just one example, but you see where I'm coming from.
Not everyone needs to have a personal mortal enemy. I don't, and chances are you don't either. Not every conflict between a cop and criminal has to have a tragic backstory, or sparring commanders on different sides of a war. These situations are compelling in and of themselves. Mainly, this comes down to a matter of impact. Save the personal stuff for special occasions, because otherwise, the visceral thrill of seeing two people who have a truly vested interest in each other's destruction becomes hollow. That way, when a conflict goes beyond the ideological and enters the realm of the personal, it truly means something.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Things That Need to Go Away: The Amazing Race of Hatred
by: Jesse Baruffi
Trying to deal with the endless tide of things people say on the internet that are wrong is almost certainly impossible, a Quixotic errand that is likely born of arrogance in and of itself. That said, there is one spectre of internet-born ignorance that I feel the need to address. Any piece of entertainment, especially one that has managed to last a long time, will eventually begin to lose steam for one reason or another in the eyes of the fans, whether because of an actually drop in quality, or simply a perceived one. Once this happens, it's only a matter of time before the Amazing Race of Hatred (I just made the term up, so don't bother searching for it) begins. Those who once praised this series for its novelty and quality begin talking about how early they realized it sucked, as if the sooner they realized it, the smarter they are. This is, you guessed it, something that needs to go away.
A great example of this is The Simpsons. At this point The Simpsons has been on the air for over two decades, which is a long time for a show by any reckoning. During that time, a lot has happened. When it first aired, various moral groups were blasting the show for how obscene it was, and how Bart saying "Eat my shorts!" was the most vile blasphemy ever uttered. Now, some of those same groups go so far as to say it's the most upstanding show on television. Even leaving that aside, the shock level is far tamer than, say, South Park or Family Guy or half of Adult Swim's lineup. The show clearly has enough fans to stay on the air, but very few people are talking about it the same way they used to, and a lot has changed and changed again as far as the concept goes. By the natural laws of entropy, some people have lost interest for one reason or another, which is perfectly fine and normal.
The problem arises when people brag about how early they stopped liking the show. The battle, usually inspired by nothing more grandiose than the mentioning of the show's name, goes something like this:
"Simpsons? That show's sucked since season 10!"
"No way, it's sucked since season 9!"
"Guys, I totally hated The Simpsons...since season 7!"
"Gasp! His elitism is superior to ours! Run!"
I am overstating to make a point, but the fact remains that this is sadly normal. Now, again, if a person simply dislikes the show, I don't have a problem with that. No piece of entertainment is innately owed loyalty. My problem comes from people who find a point of pride in disliking something they once liked. The Simpsons themselves got somewhat meta about this very thing in the Poochy episode, where Comic Book Guy declares one episode of Itchy and Scratchy to be the "Worst episode ever," like he was proud of it, obviously a shot by Simpsons writers at fans of their show, who so callously turned on them. Amusingly, internet people now use the phrase without the slightest hint of irony, without realizing that it was designed to mock crass, entitled pseudo-fans.
I can only attribute this to a desire to appear smarter than others. Being the one who points out the emperor has no clothes has always carried with it a certain amount of pride, and having knowledge before others do can make a person feel special. Now, I'm sure that some would argue that they are simply venting frustrations, and I can understand that. I rant and rave like a bloody madman when not writing posts about my D&D characters. Still, I don't understand being proud or happy at learning that someone I like has waned in quality. Even if The Simpsons has gone downhill, and you could probably make a persuasive case that it has, why is that something to be bragged about? Why would something I love getting worse make me happy. It's like saying, "I knew Grandma was dying since she was 56!"
I've said it before and I'll probably say it again. Like what you like, and don't what you don't. But partaking of something to hate it, or racing others to hate it doesn't make you part of the solution. Plenty of people watch bad TV to feel superior to it, but what do they think everyone else is doing? Here's a hint: the same thing. Watching the Kardashians or Jersey Shore or whatever spoiled bride show is on this week because you know they're bad doesn't make you better than people who watch them seriously. It makes you worse in a way, because you know it's bad and you support it. People who read comics crossovers they hate because they have to know what's going on are also wrong. I won't read comics by Bendis because I know I'm going to hate them. I've read a few and the dialogue is like acid in my brain, while the pacing would lose a fixed race against molasses. But I don't go out writing bad reviews of his work over and over and over. I just don't read it. Money is money to publishers, and your angry review of Fear Itself that you paid for isn't making Joe Quesada cry into his pillow stuffed with money.
Don't let stuff you dislike dominate your life or personality. If you must talk about it, try to engage the problem in a constructively critical way. There's enough out there that most people can find something to enjoy without fixating on what they hate, or bragging about it for that matter.
Trying to deal with the endless tide of things people say on the internet that are wrong is almost certainly impossible, a Quixotic errand that is likely born of arrogance in and of itself. That said, there is one spectre of internet-born ignorance that I feel the need to address. Any piece of entertainment, especially one that has managed to last a long time, will eventually begin to lose steam for one reason or another in the eyes of the fans, whether because of an actually drop in quality, or simply a perceived one. Once this happens, it's only a matter of time before the Amazing Race of Hatred (I just made the term up, so don't bother searching for it) begins. Those who once praised this series for its novelty and quality begin talking about how early they realized it sucked, as if the sooner they realized it, the smarter they are. This is, you guessed it, something that needs to go away.
A great example of this is The Simpsons. At this point The Simpsons has been on the air for over two decades, which is a long time for a show by any reckoning. During that time, a lot has happened. When it first aired, various moral groups were blasting the show for how obscene it was, and how Bart saying "Eat my shorts!" was the most vile blasphemy ever uttered. Now, some of those same groups go so far as to say it's the most upstanding show on television. Even leaving that aside, the shock level is far tamer than, say, South Park or Family Guy or half of Adult Swim's lineup. The show clearly has enough fans to stay on the air, but very few people are talking about it the same way they used to, and a lot has changed and changed again as far as the concept goes. By the natural laws of entropy, some people have lost interest for one reason or another, which is perfectly fine and normal.
The problem arises when people brag about how early they stopped liking the show. The battle, usually inspired by nothing more grandiose than the mentioning of the show's name, goes something like this:
"Simpsons? That show's sucked since season 10!"
"No way, it's sucked since season 9!"
"Guys, I totally hated The Simpsons...since season 7!"
"Gasp! His elitism is superior to ours! Run!"
I am overstating to make a point, but the fact remains that this is sadly normal. Now, again, if a person simply dislikes the show, I don't have a problem with that. No piece of entertainment is innately owed loyalty. My problem comes from people who find a point of pride in disliking something they once liked. The Simpsons themselves got somewhat meta about this very thing in the Poochy episode, where Comic Book Guy declares one episode of Itchy and Scratchy to be the "Worst episode ever," like he was proud of it, obviously a shot by Simpsons writers at fans of their show, who so callously turned on them. Amusingly, internet people now use the phrase without the slightest hint of irony, without realizing that it was designed to mock crass, entitled pseudo-fans.
I can only attribute this to a desire to appear smarter than others. Being the one who points out the emperor has no clothes has always carried with it a certain amount of pride, and having knowledge before others do can make a person feel special. Now, I'm sure that some would argue that they are simply venting frustrations, and I can understand that. I rant and rave like a bloody madman when not writing posts about my D&D characters. Still, I don't understand being proud or happy at learning that someone I like has waned in quality. Even if The Simpsons has gone downhill, and you could probably make a persuasive case that it has, why is that something to be bragged about? Why would something I love getting worse make me happy. It's like saying, "I knew Grandma was dying since she was 56!"
I've said it before and I'll probably say it again. Like what you like, and don't what you don't. But partaking of something to hate it, or racing others to hate it doesn't make you part of the solution. Plenty of people watch bad TV to feel superior to it, but what do they think everyone else is doing? Here's a hint: the same thing. Watching the Kardashians or Jersey Shore or whatever spoiled bride show is on this week because you know they're bad doesn't make you better than people who watch them seriously. It makes you worse in a way, because you know it's bad and you support it. People who read comics crossovers they hate because they have to know what's going on are also wrong. I won't read comics by Bendis because I know I'm going to hate them. I've read a few and the dialogue is like acid in my brain, while the pacing would lose a fixed race against molasses. But I don't go out writing bad reviews of his work over and over and over. I just don't read it. Money is money to publishers, and your angry review of Fear Itself that you paid for isn't making Joe Quesada cry into his pillow stuffed with money.
Don't let stuff you dislike dominate your life or personality. If you must talk about it, try to engage the problem in a constructively critical way. There's enough out there that most people can find something to enjoy without fixating on what they hate, or bragging about it for that matter.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Things That Need to Go Away: Superhero Analogues
by: Jesse Baruffi
Sometimes in comics it becomes apparent that an author wants to tell stories about a character they're not legally allowed to use. Usually it's Superman, because he is, to use the internet parlance, the ur-example of a superhero. Because they can't use Superman, however, they create a character who resembles but is legally distinct from him. This "character" probably has a lantern jaw, spit-curl hairstyle, the flight, strength, and invulnerability combo of powers, and a clever name like "Mighty-Man" or "Superion." This character is an analogue, and is something that needs to go away.
"But Jesse," you say, in your horrid, nasally internet voice filled with shame and regret, "there have been some great analogues! What about the Squadron Supreme? What about The Guardians of the Globe from Invincible? What about The Plutonian from Irredeemable? What about Apollo and the Midnighter?" To which I am forced to say yes, I have enjoyed some of those, but many of them branched off from their parent characters and became something in their own right. Not to mention, the aspects of those analogue characters that are the weakest are the ones they borrow, because it's all so bloody transparent. People borrow and steal in literature all the time, but literature is so vast and its proponents so snooty and erudite that they can be far more varied in their influences, and can't go for direct copies of characters. You don't see ten novelists a year breaking out, say, a Holden Caulfield analogue (and well that they don't. I would make war upon them to the seventh generation. I hate that little proto-hipster bastard). But in comics, our common language is, again, mainstream superheroes, which is two sets of characters controlled by two companies, several of which are nigh-universally recognized. So yeah, if you make a character who's designed to represent Superman, people are going to notice. As any good writing teacher will tell you, the last thing you want to do is break the narrative dream. You want people to be along for the ride, ignoring the man behind the curtain as much as possible because they care about how it's all going to turn out. The best way to break that is calling attention to what you're doing, and using obvious analogues forces the reader to realize it's all just artifice, instead of believing for the moment in the story itself.
Not to mention, most analogues are handled with about as much subtlety as Godzilla sodomizing the moon. "Ooh, he's Superman, but he's a self-righteous blowhard!" "Ooh, it's Wonder Woman, but she's a lesbian!" "Ooh, it's Batman, but now he's black! See? Because Batman is dark, and black people are...dark? But in a different way? Oh, man, I just got all racist there." Even my example characters are realizing just how silly it all is. I should point out that I'm not saying there's anything wrong with black or lesbian or any variety of diversified heroes; frankly, there should probably be more of them, but there seem to be unfortunate implications about how they get applied in these circumstances, and seriously, they do. It gets even worse when the analogue follows out to the supporting cast. Seriously, are we supposed to be impressed with characterization of a Flois Flane, daring reporter? Or Malfred the Manservant? Or Bex Buthor, criminal mastermind?
I can see people taking issue with what I'm saying here, based on the notion that nothing is original and there are only maybe two or three or ten actual stories in the world, depending on how smug the English professor they heard that idea from was. Again, I must concede that originality is perhaps the most dangerous and elusive game of all, and even in our best and most honest moments as creative individuals, we're probably cribbing from influences we don't even realize we have. If you want me to get all Jungian on your ass, I can break out the notion of archetypes, ideas that are pre-made and recur in various cultures in various forms, and that superheroes are in and of themselves an archetype of our culture. Funny enough, I don't actually have a problem with archetypes or even superhero archetypes. What I do have a problem with is endlessly passing off someone else's character with a different coat of paint as one's own and calling it pastiche or homage or satire. What's the difference? Well, let's look at a couple of characters of the same archetype who are in no way analogues of each other. The Flash and Quicksilver are both what we'd call speedsters, which is to say their sole power is running really really quickly, but that's pretty much where the similarities end. The Flash gained his powers in a lab accident while Quicksilver is a mutant. The Flash is a straight-laced, somewhat bumbling police scientist who manages to be late to everything despite his speed. Quicksilver is a former terrorist who is ridiculously impatient at how slow the world around him moves and as such is rude and nasty to just about everyone, even if there's a somewhat decent person buried in there. It would be hard to accuse those characters of being rip-offs of each other, even if the starting point is basically the same.
Originality is about the details, about taking old ideas and making them new, or taking a new spin on something that has been done before, or hell, actually doing something that no one has done before. While probably rarer than I know, I don't believe this last one is impossible. You may notice that my devil's advocate speaker from the beginning of this piece (man, this thing has more characters than a play by Beckett) left out perhaps the most classic set of analogues in the form of Watchmen. Alan Moore did indeed start with the Charlton characters, but rather than simply give them a palette-swap, he took only the most basic aspects and transformed them into characters in their own right, and rather than simply having them say something about the characters they started as, they had actual lives of their own and different ideas to express. For that reason, to my mind, they are as original as anything else out there.
Now, I realize that an analogue character is not plagiarism and we are supposed to see them as some form of commentary a lot of the time. But seriously, if you're working in superheroes, you don't need to copy what's already there to make your point. It's a genre where anything is possible, which is what a lot of people love about it. Why walk the safe path and use Superman Jr.? Why not blaze a new trail? Why not add to the lexicon instead of spelling someone else's words a little differently?
Sometimes in comics it becomes apparent that an author wants to tell stories about a character they're not legally allowed to use. Usually it's Superman, because he is, to use the internet parlance, the ur-example of a superhero. Because they can't use Superman, however, they create a character who resembles but is legally distinct from him. This "character" probably has a lantern jaw, spit-curl hairstyle, the flight, strength, and invulnerability combo of powers, and a clever name like "Mighty-Man" or "Superion." This character is an analogue, and is something that needs to go away.
"But Jesse," you say, in your horrid, nasally internet voice filled with shame and regret, "there have been some great analogues! What about the Squadron Supreme? What about The Guardians of the Globe from Invincible? What about The Plutonian from Irredeemable? What about Apollo and the Midnighter?" To which I am forced to say yes, I have enjoyed some of those, but many of them branched off from their parent characters and became something in their own right. Not to mention, the aspects of those analogue characters that are the weakest are the ones they borrow, because it's all so bloody transparent. People borrow and steal in literature all the time, but literature is so vast and its proponents so snooty and erudite that they can be far more varied in their influences, and can't go for direct copies of characters. You don't see ten novelists a year breaking out, say, a Holden Caulfield analogue (and well that they don't. I would make war upon them to the seventh generation. I hate that little proto-hipster bastard). But in comics, our common language is, again, mainstream superheroes, which is two sets of characters controlled by two companies, several of which are nigh-universally recognized. So yeah, if you make a character who's designed to represent Superman, people are going to notice. As any good writing teacher will tell you, the last thing you want to do is break the narrative dream. You want people to be along for the ride, ignoring the man behind the curtain as much as possible because they care about how it's all going to turn out. The best way to break that is calling attention to what you're doing, and using obvious analogues forces the reader to realize it's all just artifice, instead of believing for the moment in the story itself.
Not to mention, most analogues are handled with about as much subtlety as Godzilla sodomizing the moon. "Ooh, he's Superman, but he's a self-righteous blowhard!" "Ooh, it's Wonder Woman, but she's a lesbian!" "Ooh, it's Batman, but now he's black! See? Because Batman is dark, and black people are...dark? But in a different way? Oh, man, I just got all racist there." Even my example characters are realizing just how silly it all is. I should point out that I'm not saying there's anything wrong with black or lesbian or any variety of diversified heroes; frankly, there should probably be more of them, but there seem to be unfortunate implications about how they get applied in these circumstances, and seriously, they do. It gets even worse when the analogue follows out to the supporting cast. Seriously, are we supposed to be impressed with characterization of a Flois Flane, daring reporter? Or Malfred the Manservant? Or Bex Buthor, criminal mastermind?
I can see people taking issue with what I'm saying here, based on the notion that nothing is original and there are only maybe two or three or ten actual stories in the world, depending on how smug the English professor they heard that idea from was. Again, I must concede that originality is perhaps the most dangerous and elusive game of all, and even in our best and most honest moments as creative individuals, we're probably cribbing from influences we don't even realize we have. If you want me to get all Jungian on your ass, I can break out the notion of archetypes, ideas that are pre-made and recur in various cultures in various forms, and that superheroes are in and of themselves an archetype of our culture. Funny enough, I don't actually have a problem with archetypes or even superhero archetypes. What I do have a problem with is endlessly passing off someone else's character with a different coat of paint as one's own and calling it pastiche or homage or satire. What's the difference? Well, let's look at a couple of characters of the same archetype who are in no way analogues of each other. The Flash and Quicksilver are both what we'd call speedsters, which is to say their sole power is running really really quickly, but that's pretty much where the similarities end. The Flash gained his powers in a lab accident while Quicksilver is a mutant. The Flash is a straight-laced, somewhat bumbling police scientist who manages to be late to everything despite his speed. Quicksilver is a former terrorist who is ridiculously impatient at how slow the world around him moves and as such is rude and nasty to just about everyone, even if there's a somewhat decent person buried in there. It would be hard to accuse those characters of being rip-offs of each other, even if the starting point is basically the same.
Originality is about the details, about taking old ideas and making them new, or taking a new spin on something that has been done before, or hell, actually doing something that no one has done before. While probably rarer than I know, I don't believe this last one is impossible. You may notice that my devil's advocate speaker from the beginning of this piece (man, this thing has more characters than a play by Beckett) left out perhaps the most classic set of analogues in the form of Watchmen. Alan Moore did indeed start with the Charlton characters, but rather than simply give them a palette-swap, he took only the most basic aspects and transformed them into characters in their own right, and rather than simply having them say something about the characters they started as, they had actual lives of their own and different ideas to express. For that reason, to my mind, they are as original as anything else out there.
Now, I realize that an analogue character is not plagiarism and we are supposed to see them as some form of commentary a lot of the time. But seriously, if you're working in superheroes, you don't need to copy what's already there to make your point. It's a genre where anything is possible, which is what a lot of people love about it. Why walk the safe path and use Superman Jr.? Why not blaze a new trail? Why not add to the lexicon instead of spelling someone else's words a little differently?
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Things That Need to Go Away: The Definitive Run
by: Jesse Baruffi
Mainstream comics are tricky beasts. We are well past the point where just about anyone is creating much in the way of new characters, because why would they? It's not as if we're still in the times where people had to sign over their original characters to a guy with a cigar, top hat, and monocle for $43 anymore. If you have an original idea, you can take it to one of the indie publishers, publish it yourself, or release it on the internet, and people have done these things to varying degrees of success.
Still, mainstream is where the big money and security is, for better or worse, and that's where people are going to want to work. A combination of inertia and nostalgia generally guarantees that Marvel and DC are where people are going to want their superhero stories to come from, so people who want to make comics are probably going to gravitate there. Even people who start off indie and have talent are often going to be lured to the mainstream by the promise of a paycheck and a chance to leave their crappy grown-up jobs behind. I don't disparage this, as everyone has to make a living somehow and it's not my place to tell them to keep making their awesome indie book that no one bought instead of writing the latest Wolverine story and being able to live in a house instead of a studio apartment with eight roommates, even if the selfish part of me wishes that's exactly what they'd do.
My point in all this is, upon arriving at the mainstream and being put on a book and given the keys to the kingdom, there is often the temptation for a writer to want to leave their mark on a book. After all, plenty of writers made their bones this way, by changing a franchise book in some major way and being the influence others follow from there on out. Alan Moore transformed Swamp Thing with his run and people have been aping his ideas ever since (well, until all the recent unpleasantness). Walt Simonson's run on Thor is so good, and, frankly, complete that whenever a new writer starts on Thor, they talk about how much like his run their work is going to be. Frank Miller's Daredevil stories were so epic and noir that they've led every writer who followed to try topping each other in just how bad they can shit on Matt Murdock's life. These are often cited as The Definitive Runs on books. They define the characters and their worlds for years to come. It's easy to see why writers, eager to express themselves and build a name in a world where none of the characters are truly theirs, would be tempted to do this. It is, however, something that needs to go away.
So why is a definitive run bad? Well, in and of itself, it's not. Telling the best stories possible is exactly what creative people should do, and if they're lucky enough to have people enjoy these stories and be inspired by them, so much the better. The problem is when people become more interested in leaving the mark and less in telling the story. Obviously ascribing motives to others without knowing their minds isn't completely fair, but if a writer, for instance, retcons a particularly vile deed into the main character's past, kills a beloved supporting character, and leaves the hero with a completely shattered status quo for the next person to pick up, does it seem like they were trying to just tell enjoyable stories with that character, or were they trying to be noticed by doing things to the character that no one had before?
Attempting to create a definitive run or leave a mark is essentially the same as trying to buy fifty copies of The Death of Superman in the hopes that one day you'll be able to sell them and get rich. The reason these things worked in the past is because no one was doing them and no one expected it. Walt Simonson wasn't trying to force everyone after him to follow what he did (if you notice, he generally left Thor's world pretty close to what it was before he started by the end). For me, the most enjoyable mainstream books right now are not those trying to make their runs redefine the characters, but the ones focused on telling stories and ignoring everything else. Grand changes do sometimes happen when a writer just tells a story, but sometimes we just get to see the characters live in their world, and have fun with that. Why is that so terrible to so many people? Why do we need everything to Change Forever? If everything Changes Forever all the time, that change becomes meaningless. It's cynical, and on top of that, it rarely works.
Enough is enough, I say. Stop trying to create definitive runs. Create good runs. Great runs. Fun runs. Sad runs. If you're lucky enough to keep a character a long time, inhabit their world and see where it goes. If things change, great. If they stay the same, what's the harm? Your stories can still be enjoyable. Be the best writer you can and ignore how you'll be perceived. Ironically, it will probably improve your chances of actually creating something worthwhile.
Mainstream comics are tricky beasts. We are well past the point where just about anyone is creating much in the way of new characters, because why would they? It's not as if we're still in the times where people had to sign over their original characters to a guy with a cigar, top hat, and monocle for $43 anymore. If you have an original idea, you can take it to one of the indie publishers, publish it yourself, or release it on the internet, and people have done these things to varying degrees of success.
Still, mainstream is where the big money and security is, for better or worse, and that's where people are going to want to work. A combination of inertia and nostalgia generally guarantees that Marvel and DC are where people are going to want their superhero stories to come from, so people who want to make comics are probably going to gravitate there. Even people who start off indie and have talent are often going to be lured to the mainstream by the promise of a paycheck and a chance to leave their crappy grown-up jobs behind. I don't disparage this, as everyone has to make a living somehow and it's not my place to tell them to keep making their awesome indie book that no one bought instead of writing the latest Wolverine story and being able to live in a house instead of a studio apartment with eight roommates, even if the selfish part of me wishes that's exactly what they'd do.
My point in all this is, upon arriving at the mainstream and being put on a book and given the keys to the kingdom, there is often the temptation for a writer to want to leave their mark on a book. After all, plenty of writers made their bones this way, by changing a franchise book in some major way and being the influence others follow from there on out. Alan Moore transformed Swamp Thing with his run and people have been aping his ideas ever since (well, until all the recent unpleasantness). Walt Simonson's run on Thor is so good, and, frankly, complete that whenever a new writer starts on Thor, they talk about how much like his run their work is going to be. Frank Miller's Daredevil stories were so epic and noir that they've led every writer who followed to try topping each other in just how bad they can shit on Matt Murdock's life. These are often cited as The Definitive Runs on books. They define the characters and their worlds for years to come. It's easy to see why writers, eager to express themselves and build a name in a world where none of the characters are truly theirs, would be tempted to do this. It is, however, something that needs to go away.
So why is a definitive run bad? Well, in and of itself, it's not. Telling the best stories possible is exactly what creative people should do, and if they're lucky enough to have people enjoy these stories and be inspired by them, so much the better. The problem is when people become more interested in leaving the mark and less in telling the story. Obviously ascribing motives to others without knowing their minds isn't completely fair, but if a writer, for instance, retcons a particularly vile deed into the main character's past, kills a beloved supporting character, and leaves the hero with a completely shattered status quo for the next person to pick up, does it seem like they were trying to just tell enjoyable stories with that character, or were they trying to be noticed by doing things to the character that no one had before?
Attempting to create a definitive run or leave a mark is essentially the same as trying to buy fifty copies of The Death of Superman in the hopes that one day you'll be able to sell them and get rich. The reason these things worked in the past is because no one was doing them and no one expected it. Walt Simonson wasn't trying to force everyone after him to follow what he did (if you notice, he generally left Thor's world pretty close to what it was before he started by the end). For me, the most enjoyable mainstream books right now are not those trying to make their runs redefine the characters, but the ones focused on telling stories and ignoring everything else. Grand changes do sometimes happen when a writer just tells a story, but sometimes we just get to see the characters live in their world, and have fun with that. Why is that so terrible to so many people? Why do we need everything to Change Forever? If everything Changes Forever all the time, that change becomes meaningless. It's cynical, and on top of that, it rarely works.
Enough is enough, I say. Stop trying to create definitive runs. Create good runs. Great runs. Fun runs. Sad runs. If you're lucky enough to keep a character a long time, inhabit their world and see where it goes. If things change, great. If they stay the same, what's the harm? Your stories can still be enjoyable. Be the best writer you can and ignore how you'll be perceived. Ironically, it will probably improve your chances of actually creating something worthwhile.
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