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Evil, Inc.

2/29/2016

(Miscellaneous clearing-my-throat noises.)

(Okay, I’m ready. The next paragraph is said in my best Rod Serling imitation.)

Picture, if you will, an elderly woman, the doyenne of cultured civility in her small town. A spinster, her passion lies in two things: her prize roses --- admired by townspeople and visitors alike --- and her desire to ensure her small town is kept free from evil. The problem is, she harbours a dark secret concerning that desire: that the possibility of evil is being fed and nurtured by her. Ladies and gentlemen, presented to you tonight for your approval, an unlikely wolf in sheep’s clothing: Miss Adela Strangeworth.

Several posts ago (found here) I discussed a famous Shirley Jackson piece titled The Lottery. Today, I’m mentioning another of her short stories, one I like a lot. It’s called The Possibility of Evil, and is a delicious romp, like much of Jackson’s work, through the twisted halls of our collective subconscious minds. It’s also relevant to my subject: villains who happen to think they’re heroes. Is there such a beast, you ask? Oh, yes! I reply, rubbing my hands together in malicious glee. And they’re fun to read about. (Not so enjoyable to encounter in real life, though. Nope. Decidedly not.)

Miss Strangeworth is convinced it’s her mission to keep her town free from evil. How does one little old lady do that? Well, since she can’t don tights and a cape, by keeping people alert to the possibility of evil, of course. And how does she do that? By sending awful anonymous notes to people, notes dealing in suppositions, not facts. She sends one to the local grocer, suggesting his nephew might be stealing from the cash register; she sends another to the parents of a teenage girl, suggesting something inappropriate might be going on between the girl and her boyfriend; she sends yet another to the parents of a baby, suggesting the child is mentally defective because she’s slow to reach developmental milestones. Jackson is careful to point out none of these things would have occurred to people if Miss Strangeworth hadn’t brought them to their attention. In short, Miss Strangeworth’s stock-in-trade is a time-honoured technique used by humanity since we learned to communicate: raising suspicion and doubt. And my gosh, how easy it is to sow seeds of discord through their use, isn’t it? Is there a one of us who hasn’t fallen victim to whispered possibilities? But Miss Strangeworth... ah, she’s a pro at spreading fear and doubt and suspicion. She’s a real piece of work, all right.

And yet...

She’d regard herself as a hero, not a villain. She’s not going around deliberately trying to destroy people’s lives (even though that’s what she accomplishes). No, in her mind, she’s keeping evil at bay... doing her community a service... not doing anything wrong.

Part of the fascination with characters like that is we keep asking ourselves: how on earth can they possibly think that way? And the answer, unfortunately, is all too easy: humanity has an absolutely incredible talent to rationalize just about anything (which doesn’t lessen our fascination one iota). My dictionary defines rationalization as: to devise plausible explanations for one’s acts, beliefs, etc. usually in self-deception. Bang on, Mr. Webster. If we had the same capacity to be brutally honest with ourselves, a great deal of the suffering and misery extant in the world could be instantly eradicated. Sigh. (But then we would have much less fodder for our stories, too.)

Now, some villains know what they’re doing is evil... and they don’t care. They know they’re treading on other peoples’ rights, but it doesn’t matter to them, because those villains revel in their egocentricity: “my ideas, my philosophies, my actions are way more important than yours. A big, fat raspberry to what you want. My desire to control you is paramount.” And there’s nothing wrong with writing villains like that. Writers can have a great deal of fun writing them --- for example, the chief villain in my novel Gryphon’s Heir is just such a fellow. His name is Maldeus Falduracha, and he’s a pretty nasty piece of work, too, a real Mephistopheles type --- although I’m quite cognizant that sooner or later, I’m going to need to add another dimension to him, because otherwise, with bad guys like that, they just become cardboard cutouts and stereotypes. C.S. Lewis’ great book The Screwtape Letters features the letters written by a senior devil to a junior one. Now, there’s another terrific villain (who’s under no illusions he’s any kind of hero, by the way), but Lewis prevents him from becoming just another cardboard cutout villain by allowing a hint --- the merest hint --- of baffled, impotent rage about his situation. And we all know that frequently, beneath rage lies the doubt of rationalization.

But my suggestion is that if you can come up with a Miss Strangeworth in your writing, give her a try. Her type is great fun to read and write, too. Even when the townsfolk discover what she’s doing and wreak their vengeance on her, it never crosses her mind that maybe it’s all her own fault. Nope. Quite the contrary. She’s clueless to her own villainy right to the bitter end.

Sheesh. Talk about your rose with thorns. And Will was right: she wouldn’t smell any sweeter by another name, either.

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Yucky Wuv

2/22/2016

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My last post concerned famous literary couples I found interesting in (mostly) positive ways. After it went up, several friends who know me well asked --- knowing full well it had to be there --- for the other side of the coin: what literary couples did I find baffling, outrageous or creepy? Of course I had an answer. So today, I’ll heed one of my favourite Kingsley Amis aphorisms (“if you can’t annoy somebody, there’s little point in writing”) and plunge boldly into the topic of cringeworthy literary relationships.

Now, I’m completely aware this is very much an individual preference. Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so is opinion on relationships. Literature --- and real life, for that matter --- is full of couples everyone regards and says, “How did that happen? What do they see in each other?” My preferences may not be yours --- you may think the relationships listed are perfection personified. Neither of us is necessarily right. So with that caveat, here’s my very personal take on some literary relationships I was left scratching my head over --- and I’d be interested in hearing your top picks:

Romeo and Juliet from the eponymous play by William Shakespeare. Yeah, I know... history’s greatest lovers and all that. I may have called it the emo teenager play once or twice when teaching it. They’re in their mid-teens, for crying out loud (the demographic I deal with on a daily basis). Yes, I realize that definitions of when childhood ended and adulthood began were different 400 years ago. But I find both Romeo and Juliet terribly immature and, well, whiny. In the extreme. (Best dialogue in the entire play is Friar Laurence’s furious tirade chewing Romeo out for being such an infantile jerk.) And I have a big problem with the timeline. We’re talking five days here. Five days from “I don’t know you” to “I love you” to “let’s get married” to “I can’t live without you.” That’s not real love, folks, at least not in my books: it’s infatuation. I just wish the play was as great as the film Shakespeare in Love purports it to be.
Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley from the Harry Potter novels by J.K. Rowling. Opposites attract, we’re told. But... really? Smart, independent Hermione and buffoonish Ron? Say it ain’t so, Jo. Surely the poor girl can do better than that. I know the final book says they’re still married, decades later, but... how does she put up with him? And why? They just seem so mismatched.
Stanley and Stella Kowalski from A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams. Another mismatched couple, but from a different angle. Stella is so much more intelligent than Stanley, has so much more on the ball, and he... he’s just a brute. Sure, their relationship is strained to the breaking point by Stella’s dysfunctional sister, Blanche, who drops in for an indefinite stay, but her gradual nervous breakdown, exacerbated by Stanley’s vicious behaviours, doesn’t make him act like an animal; it merely brings his behaviours to the fore. Yikes.
The place of (dis)honour goes to Bella Swan and Edward Cullen in the Twilight novels by Stephenie Meyer. I read the first book when I saw many students reading it because I’m always curious to see what books they’re into. But I confess, I could only force myself to skim the remainder. The Bella/Edward relationship is both creepy (104 year old vampire and 17 year old girl) and terribly unhealthy on many levels --- many people have said it’s borderline abusive in numerous respects, and that Bella’s character is just a hollow placeholder for young teenage girls to insert themselves. And they’re right.

So what’s wrong with these relationships? Well, with Rowling and Williams, it’s not bad writing. And it’s not necessarily the unreality of their situations: after all, as I’ve noted before, people can, unfortunately, make really, really stupid decisions. They get involved in unhealthy relationships; they hook up with people totally unsuited to them --- physically, emotionally, intellectually, spiritually.

But is that what we want as writers for our protagonists? Unless we’re writing tragedy --- but even there, the Romeo thing strains my patience, miserable old cynic that I am. I don’t find Romeo and Juliet poignant... just ridiculous. Some story characters have, and need to have, unhealthy relationships, or we’ve got no story. But I guess what it boils down to is the vision I have for love among protagonists is of healthy relationships between equals, relationships that aren’t codependent --- in short, the kind of relationship we all hope for. (Unless, of course, you’re writing something like Death of a Salesman.) That doesn’t mean the relationship has to be perfect, or both characters have to be brilliant in everything, or pillars of strength 24/7. Each partner in a relationship brings strengths and vulnerabilities that hopefully the other partner complements.

But dysfunctionality on the scale of my list above? You don’t have to agree... but personally, I’ll leave that to other characters.

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True Wuv

2/15/2016

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When they finally returned, it was fully dark, countless stars glittering coldly in the sky above. Rhiss had extended his cloak about Lowri and put his arm around her as the air grew colder, so they proceeded slowly the final mile or two. As they topped the last rise and saw Lowri’s cottage below, the warm glow of firelight visible through the windows, Rhiss stopped to face Lowri. He wanted the moment to last forever. There was so much he wanted to say, and he knew, in all likelihood, there would be no further opportunity to speak to her alone for a long time. She looked up, dark eyes luminous in the starlight, a tiny, knowing smile playing on her face, and he was struck by the nearness of her grace and beauty. A surge of wistful, desperate longing coursed through him, and without speaking, he took her in his arms, leaned down and gently brought his lips against hers in a long and lingering kiss. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to do, and he felt her press against him in response.
-excerpted from Gryphon's Heir by D.R. Ranshaw

It was Valentine’s Day yesterday, of course. Ah, l’amour, he thought dreamily. And, in thinking thus, I was reminded of Rhiss, the protagonist of my novel Gryphon’s Heir, and Lowri, who is... well, Lowri is, as Rhiss notes, a “perplexing but utterly enchanting mix of strength and vulnerability.” As you might discern, Rhiss is quite taken with Lowri... and she with him. (By the way, the image I've included above is of a loving spoon, a tradition unique to Wales and therefore doubly appropriate with this particular post's theme.)

This led me to reflect on literary couples. Over a dozen others came swiftly to mind, from the sublime to the ridiculous to the creepy, but I’ll limit my reflections to five I find interesting:

Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: Lizzie Bennett was, I think, a feminist of sorts long before feminism existed, and her dynamic take on life is countered by the sullen, immensely wealthy Mr. Darcy, who comes across as an arrogant prig for most of the story. We discover much later that his arrogance is actually painful shyness and social ineptness. (I could relate when I was a young man, although not to his wealth). And we’re weepily glad when all the misconceptions are sorted out and love... true wuv... wins out and this couple are united in marriage.

Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in The Scottish Play (aka Macbeth) by Shakespeare: I didn’t say they were all happy literary couples, I said they were memorable. Every time I teach Macbeth, I find myself wondering: what on earth did these two see in each other? I realize that marriages at that time were often purely political, with neither bride nor groom sometimes having much say regarding choice of spouse, but... we’re talking about a woman who’s all in favour of dashing a baby’s brains out if it would bring her power, and a husband who, aside from observing that maybe his wife shouldn’t have kids, is perfectly prepared to go along with her murderous plans. Yikes. By the time they separately meet their deaths --- Macbeth’s dully shocked reaction to her suicide is one of the great Shakespearean monologues --- we’re more than ready to see the end of this psychopathic couple.

Yuri Zhivago and Lara in Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak: Yuri and Lara have one slight problem: he’s already happily married to someone else when they meet and fall in love. So, while on one hand, it’s easy to dismiss him as just another philandering jerk who wants to have his cake and eat it, too, I think there’s more to it. Set against the sweeping backdrop of World War I and the Russian Revolutions, Yuri and Lara don’t give in to their feelings until they’ve both been through enough hell to last more than several lifetimes. He’s an ordinary man swept up in great events, and he really wants none of it; he just wants to live his life with the woman he loves. And it doesn’t end well for either of them.

Arthur and Guinevere in a bunch of stories/poems/novels by Chretien de Troyes, Malory et al over 1000 years or so: you have to feel sorry for these two (three, if you include Lancelot). They’re deeply honourable people who really, really care for each other and want to do the right thing by each other. But, he sighed, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, isn’t it? And Arthur knows he has to be king before husband, which is just not a good recipe for a happy marriage... and so this doesn’t end well, either... although we’re left with a glimmer of hope for them in some undetermined future...

Aragorn and Arwen in The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien: I’m kinda cheating on this one because, while I periodically rant about film makers having the effrontery to change authors’ words, the plain truth is the film Aragorn/Arwen romance is much more interesting/passionate than the book one. Part of this, as I’ve also noted before, is that Tolkien’s female characters are painfully wooden. (The Eowyn/Faramir romance, for example, reads in the book like something lifted from the King James Version of the Bible, and is just about as exciting.) Arwen is prepared to give up immortality in her love for Aragorn, which is a fairly major sacrifice, and Aragorn is initially unwilling to allow her to do that. But unlike most of these couples, things end well for them --- although strangely, Tolkien, an ardent Christian, seems to imply that their deaths will sunder them forever.

Have you got a favourite literary couple? I’d be really interested to hear your thoughts on this one, because I’ve only barely scratched the surface here...

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Alas, Poor Yorick

2/8/2016

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35 years ago, a quietly brilliant, devastating film titled simply Testament was released by Paramount. Dealing with the after-effects of nuclear war, the story does not end well... for anyone. There’s nothing particularly physically graphic --- it focuses not on explosions and missiles, rather on spiritual/emotional aspects --- but it flays the emotions of cast and audience alike absolutely raw. When I use it with classes, I have to take the unusual step at film’s end of allowing the credits to run in their entirety, with lights off, because many students are quietly weeping and need time to collect themselves. It’s a terrific film --- but I cannot, for the life of me, understand how it was greenlit, because it is not the stuff of Hollywood blockbusters: it’s just thoughtfully, searingly tragic.

I mention this because recently I attended a live theatre production of Eurydice, the Greek tragedy of Orpheus and (you guessed it) Eurydice. A modernized version, it retained the essential elements and was both extremely well done and unbearably tragic, so much so that many in the audience --- possibly including me --- got fairly weepy. (The fact that my very talented oldest daughter played the lead role with passion and sensitivity had nothing to do with it, I swear.) Eurydice dies accidentally on her wedding day and her devastated groom is willing to travel even to the underworld to retrieve her. But that doesn’t go well, either...

Eurydice reminded me of Testament, and it got me thinking: why do we like tragic endings? To feel ennobled, watching the suffering of others? Don’t think so, despite what ancient Greeks thought. To learn a lesson? Maybe, although a good comedy probably adequately provides that for most of us. To get pointers on life? Not really. (When a ghost comes calling and tells you he’s your dad, foully murdered by his brother, and wants you to enact revenge, don’t do it --- yeah, that’s kind of a no-brainer, even if your name isn’t Hamlet.)

And writers have to be careful with tragic ends, because people can feel really betrayed, can’t they? Case in point: a romance has developed between my protagonist in Gryphon’s Heir and another character. I have no idea how --- or whether --- it will work out in subsequent books, although there have been intimations it may not. (Why don’t I know? Because Rhiss and Lowri, the two involved, haven’t got around to telling me... yet.) However, many readers, charmed by the romance, have already told me in no uncertain terms this is one affair of the heart that needs to end happily. (To which I shrug and declaim slowly, “Well, I’m not sure...” which for some reason, tends not to please them.) So it’s apparently okay for some characters to meet tragic --- or at least unfulfilled --- ends, but not others.

Returning to the question: partly, I suspect, we can’t help ourselves: there’s morbid curiosity in watching a train wreck in slow motion, isn’t there? We watch in awed fascination as life goes so terribly, completely off the rails in spectacular fashion. We want to turn away, but can’t help looking. And our own rather humdrum lives assume a certain blessed tranquility by comparison. Holy smoke, we think, puts my problems in perspective, for sure.

Partly it’s catharsis. The ancient Greeks probably had it right: emotional release is good for us now and again. A little slice of life, even tragic --- your life lesson for the day, I call it with my students --- provided gratis for your entertainment and edification.

But primarily, I think, tragedy makes for such great drama. We can really sink our teeth into it. Macbeth! we want to shout, don’t listen to those damned witches! They’re up to no good, you dummy! And while you’re at it, don’t listen to your wife, either! She’s a piece of work, all right! But he’s too busy ignoring our sensible advice --- thankfully --- so we spend the next several acts watching the train wreck inevitably unfold. I know folks whose lives are like that. Tragedy involves people making really, really bad choices --- although in fairness, events outside our control often seem to helpfully grease the skidway to hell --- and we all have our hamartia. Even otherwise decent people can (and do) make stupid, stupid decisions. So we can relate. Everyone has that fatal flaw --- in fact, some of us seem to possess many. And that’s the stuff of stories. Good stories. Wonderful, terrible, awful stories.

So lay on, Macduff: cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of... tragedy (sorry, Will.)

We’re watching with bated breath... even though we know this won’t end well. Or maybe especially because we know.

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Your Character Did WHAT?

2/1/2016

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I finally got around to watching Ridley Scott’s science fiction film The Martian recently, and really enjoyed it: I felt Scott atoned for his last abysmal foray into science fiction (the awful Prometheus), the film seemed reasonably scientifically accurate, and it told a clever, gripping story (with a few potholes, but then again, as Cinema Sins so accurately observes, no movie is without sin). Oh, and the primary spacecraft involved, the Hermes, was a very worthy descendent of 2001: A Space Odyssey’s Discovery (without a psychotic computer on board, thankfully). Very cool.

For those who haven’t read the novel or seen the film, The Martian deals with one man’s attempt to stay alive after a manned expedition to Mars is forced to make an emergency evacuation from the planet’s surface and leaves him there, believing him dead. Everyone thinks he’s dead. But he’s not, and he immediately has a choice to make: curl up and die, or somehow --- against huge odds --- survive until the next manned expedition arrives, which will not be for several years.

Obviously, he chooses not to curl up and die (we’d have no story if he did, or at least, a very different story) --- a choice that is both rational and irrational at the same time. It’s rational because the imperative to survive is the strongest drive hardwired into every living organism; it’s irrational because, on the surface at least, the odds against him succeeding are so massively overwhelming that it seems ridiculous to even contemplate it. That’s interesting in its way, but because of the innate survival imperative, not particularly remarkable. It’s what happens next that I did find remarkable: when the crew of the Hermes is belatedly informed of the protagonist’s survival (NASA knows long before them), they unanimously make a more or less mutinous decision to head back to Mars and rescue him. It’s doable, but very, very risky in a number of ways, mostly physical, some psychological.

It’s... irrational.

It’s irrational for five people to place themselves in lethal danger so that one person might be saved. (Mr. Spock would raise his eyebrow and solemnly declaim, “Highly illogical.” And he’d be right.)

But... it doesn’t strain credulity, because we see and hear and read about such kinds of situations every day. And that’s a boon when we write stories. Irrationality is the spice we add to the mix of any story.

People behave irrationally. They do so because of reasons both honourable and dishonourable. Love, redemption, altruism, guilt, hatred, jealousy, anger, lust for power, possessions or control --- our emotions are constantly provoking us to do things that, if we stopped and thought calmly for a moment, many of us wouldn’t remotely consider. And that is a gift to writers that’s been around ever since humans began telling stories. For example, Paris, Prince of Troy, abducted Helen, thereby bringing about the Trojan war; Hamlet listened to a ghost who may or may not have been his father make all sorts of accusations that set off a bloody saga of revenge; Jane Eyre believed she had been wronged by Edward Rochester and left his house precipitously, almost eliminating the chance of happiness for them both. Great literature is full of examples of people behaving irrationally. In tragic literature, these irrational actions destroy the people who make them; at other times, the story is about redemption from those irrational actions. Really, no action is too stupid in terms of human behaviour, unfortunately --- something which many people seem more determined than ever to prove nowadays, especially thanks to the internet and social media.

However, we need to take care that a story character’s actions aren’t too “unbelievably” irrational/stupid in the eyes of the reader, because if those actions appear a little too conveniently stupid --- convenient in plot terms, that is --- readers roll their eyes and mutter sceptically, “Seriously?” You can’t make irrationality into a deus ex machina. Well, you can, but as a writer you lose all credibility when you do so. Nor can characters become too irrational, unless they’re deliberately being written as mentally unstable.

So it’s a fine balance: people do stupid things for all kinds of reasons, but as story characters, they can’t be too stupid, because readers lose patience with them. So we just have to stick with it and search for that fine balance.

After all, to do otherwise would be irrational.

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D.R. RANSHAW

Evil, Inc.

Yucky Wuv

True Wuv

Alas, Poor Yorick

Your Character Did WHAT?

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