Shades of Villainry – Vicious by V.E. Schwab

Now that we at the Prosers have covered the multiple angles and nuances of villains, I have a book to recommend to you: Vicious, by V.E. Schwab.

I recommend clicking on the picture to get the full effect of the gorgeous artwork.


Blurb:

Victor and Eli started out as college roommates--brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in each other. In their senior year, a shared research interest in adrenaline, near-death experiences, and seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong.
Ten years later, Victor breaks out of prison, determined to catch up to his old friend (now foe), aided by a young girl whose reserved nature obscures a stunning ability. Meanwhile, Eli is on a mission to eradicate every other super-powered person that he can find--aside from his sidekick, an enigmatic woman with an unbreakable will. Armed with terrible power on both sides, driven by the memory of betrayal and loss, the archnemeses have set a course for revenge--but who will be left alive at the end?

Vicious is a book of many villains, many timelines, and many perspectives. It switches between POVs of multiple characters, but fortunately I never had any trouble following the plot or distinguishing between voices.

I complain all the time about fantasy that is too black and white, and Vicious is the exact opposite.  There are no heroes here, only different kinds of villains. I think there's just about one of every type of villain on Sheena's list here. In some ways, I think that was something of the downfall of the book – it's not that there weren't any sympathetic characters, or that I was confused about who to root for… I guess maybe there was too much gray, and so much exploration of concept. Those flaws don't make it a bad book, but they do keep it from being something I want to read over and over.

I know that's not the most glowing review in the world, but I actually do recommend the book. It was a quick and engrossing read, and it gave me quite a lot to think about, as a reader and as an author. Plus, it was all sorts of fun. If there's a sequel, I'm so there. Definitely recommended to anyone who enjoys a nuanced portrayal of heroism and villains.

Besides, who can resist a book with these official amazing trading cards? Again, I highly recommend clicking to get the full-size version.

As a side note, V.E. Schwab has the most amazing blurbs for her books. I want to read these ones ASAP:


A Darker Shade of Magic

Kell is one of the last Travelers--magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel universes--as such, he can choose where he lands.
There's Grey London, dirty and boring, without any magic, ruled by a mad King George. Then there's Red London, where life and magic are revered, and the Maresh Dynasty presides over a flourishing empire. White London, ruled by whoever has murdered their way to the throne--a place where people fight to control magic, and the magic fights back, draining the city to its very bones. And once upon a time, there was Black London...but no one speaks of that now.Officially, Kell is the Red Traveler, personal ambassador and adopted Prince of Red London, carrying the monthly correspondences between the royals of each London. Unofficially, Kell is a smuggler, servicing people willing to pay for even the smallest glimpses of a world they'll never see--a dangerous hobby, and one that has set him up for accidental treason. Fleeing into Grey London, Kell runs afoul of Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations, first robs him, then saves him from a dangerous enemy, and then forces him to spirit her to another world for a proper adventure.
But perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save all of the worlds, Kell and Lila will first need to stay alive--and that is proving trickier than they hoped.

Archived (YA, as Victoria Schwab).

Imagine a place where the dead rest on shelves like books.
Each body has a story to tell, a life seen in pictures that only Librarians can read. The dead are called Histories, and the vast realm in which they rest is the Archive.
Da first brought Mackenzie Bishop here four years ago, when she was twelve years old, frightened but determined to prove herself. Now Da is dead, and Mac has grown into what he once was, a ruthless Keeper, tasked with stopping often—violent Histories from waking up and getting out. Because of her job, she lies to the people she loves, and she knows fear for what it is: a useful tool for staying alive.
Being a Keeper isn’t just dangerous—it’s a constant reminder of those Mac has lost. Da’s death was hard enough, but now her little brother is gone too. Mac starts to wonder about the boundary between living and dying, sleeping and waking. In the Archive, the dead must never be disturbed. And yet, someone is deliberately altering Histories, erasing essential chapters. Unless Mac can piece together what remains, the Archive itself might crumble and fall.

Have you read anything by V.E./Victoria Schwab? What are your favorite books about villains?

To the Point

Where we live there are these less than pleasant weeds called goat-heads. As their name implies they are sharp and pointy like a goat's horns. Unfortunately they don't have the animal's habit of keeping grass short or they wouldn't be such an annoyance.

They are hard to get rid of and tricky to see. Goat-head thorns attach themselves to the soles of shoes and the little demons end up being transported onto our soft carpet. There they bury themselves in deep waiting for an unsuspecting foot.

At least this is what I image they do. It's hard to think of them as anything other than a demon when I step on one. The pain is quick. It jolts me out of my previous thoughts. There is usually some literally jolted as well when my foot instinctively jerks away from the goat-head.

The pain strikes a nerve and yanks me out of my previously comfortable moment*. It causes me to pull out the vacuum and go over the carpet several times to suck the little monsters up.

While annoying, the sharp pain does cause me to jump to action. As a writer I've had similar experiences to stepping on a goat-head. It's like a pin that swiftly pricks at my thoughts. That feeling that I've let myself get comfortable with my excuses.

In December I had the fortunate opportunity to interview Valerie Cameron-Walker for UGeek Magazine**.  She is a film maker and events coordinator for Fantasy Con. During her career she has become quiet accomplished in the arts. As she told about her past experiences as a dance instructor, volunteer and promoting companies Valerie mentioned something which hit me hard.

She said that sometimes people get stuck because they have a certain plan or path***. For example a person might expect to take film classes, graduate, work on a small film, then a larger one and on and on. This linear success rarely happens in the real world though.

To succeed a person should be willing to build their resume helping other people with their projects. This in turn creates friendships, connections and opportunities.

It caused me to reflect on my own career path. I had become so stuck in going from point A to point B. Anything less than that felt like a failure or unimportant. Lately I've realized that I have to rethink my goals and be more flexible. This openness has given me several opportunities I wouldn't have come across otherwise. One of which includes being able to post on this amazing blog with so many talented women.

Have you ever taken a job or volunteer opportunity which ended up helping you with your career? Maybe it gave you a new friend or way of looking at the world. I would love to hear about it.

-Deborah Moore


* If you've never stepped on one, imagine stepping on an invisible pin cushion.
**An Indy Magazine about geeky/nerd culture
***Note that there aren't any quotation marks. That's because I am paraphrasing.

Promises, promises

I've been listening to the podcast Writing Excuses for about as long as I've been writing seriously. It's been a tremendous source of inspiration and information for me as I've been climbing up the ladder towards becoming a published author. This year they're doing  a Writing Excuses Masterclass where they lead their intrepid listeners through the process of creating a novel from scratch. A few weeks ago one of their episodes was about using promises to outline a story. I've been thinking about promises in fiction ever since.

Promises of genre

The easiest to notice and understand, for me at least, are the promises made by genre. In a romance you'll always want two people who belong together even though they probably don't see it in the beginning. In the end they must end up together. Unless you're Nicholas Sparks but that's a whole other ball of wax.

In science fiction and fantasy which are the genres in which I feel most at home it has much more to do with the subgenre but even that's not a laser-proof indicator of what the story holds. Space opera in general promises adventorous good times and a happy ending with some sacrifices made along the way. It also promises some whizbang cool technology and space travels. The thing is though, that a space opera doesn't necessarily have to have a happy ending to be a space opera, nor does it necessarily need to be an adventure.

Epic fantasy makes different promises from urban fantasy which in turn makes different promises than steampunk. The problem with science fiction and fantasy as genres is that they're pretty young. They're still developing which means that the promises they make to the reader are not nearly as rigid as the promises more established genres like romance and thrillers make. Jeff Vandermeer's Southern Reach trilogy and Asimov's Foundation trilogy are both science fiction but they deliver a very different reading experience.

There are some few authors who manage to transcend the boundaries of genre to deliver a signature reading experience all their own. Neil Gaiman, Nnedi Okorafor and the aforementioned Nicholas Sparks are the three that come to my mind easily. But since most authors really, really aren't one of these people - I certainly am not - it's always a good idea to first and foremost keep in mind the promises made by the genre one has chosen to use.

Promises of tone

The second important promise an author makes to their reader is tone. Even within the same genre, the promises a dramatic story will give are entirely different from what a comedy gives. Robert Heinlein and John Scalzi deliver structurally very similar stories (according to Scalzi, this is by design) but again, the reading experience is very different. Tone can partly depend on the genre too. A children's book with a light and happy tone is more or less a must for anyone who actually wants people to read it whereas a YA book can be much more angst-ridden, although I'd still recommend adding lighter moments in there.

Of course there's more to tone than that. You couldn't write Sophie's Choice in a comic tone and expect people to go along with it. The dramatic material requires a serious tone. The same goes the other way too. Using a dramatic tone to narrate for example The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy would entirely defeat the purpose.

Promises of awesome

In my not so humble opinion the biggest promise every author ought to make is one of awesome. Whether that be in the form of transformative prose or the literal awesomeness of Howl's Moving Castle, it's important to endeavor not to waste the reader's time. If David Farland is correct in his theory of fiction being a form of emotional exercise then I think it's fair to say that we should strive to be worthy of that exercise. And we do that by being awesome. Although I'm not entirely sure that's something I know how to plan. Which is exactly what continuing education is for. 

What are the promises you like most? What are the promises you have most trouble with?

Why I Hate Villains

So we're talking about villains this month on the Prosers. And I have to confess something. Even after decades as an avid reader, and closing in soon on a decade as an avid writer, I really, really dislike villains. (Sidetone: while looking for an image to use to headline this post, I came across this amusing blog post about a Villain Chair. I want!)

There. I said it. Yep. I dislike bad guys. Intensely.

Image via Flikr User Sam Lavy shared via a Creative Commons license

I've spent a lot of time considering why this is, so let me unpack some of the reasons.

First, most bad guys are written pathetically two-dimensional. Or even just one-dimensional, if you want to get into theoretical geometry. They have a single-minded focus on ruining the life of the protagonist. Their only story purpose is to make life crappy for the main character, or scare the beejeesus out of the main character to keep him/her on the run. Or to kill the main character's mother/brother/uncle/dog.

These kinds of bad guys don't work for me for the primary reason of: WHY? What the heck is motivating bad guy to so single-mindedly pursue our treasured main character? And why does bad guy continue doing so even after a point at which most sane people would stop the pursuit? Mostly because it serves the story's purpose, not because it makes any kind of logical sense.

I also dislike the deep, dark baddie because I have trouble believing in that sort of person. Sure, there are some deep, dark baddies in the world and we read about them in the news, but they aren't as commonplace as popular fiction (genre or otherwise) wants you to believe. Of course the counter-argument is that we only tell stories of great conflict and a juicy bad guy helps create that great conflict, but ... yeah. Ugh! Isn't there more to a great story than just a nasty meanie who wants to make life miserable for the main character?

Even when the "bad guy" is part institution/part person, it still falls down for me. Primary example: Hunger Games. I have a hard time believing in the whole story premise because the badness of the government is so great, and the nasty man at the head so nasty, it starts to feel like watching a bad cartoon. I think I have a greater dislike for institutional baddies than most other types, perhaps due to reading too much dystopian fiction.

So what is the alternative if I don't want to see such nasty bad people? How to make a story work without a Big Bad for the main character to be set in opposition to?

Well one of my favorite kinds of stories are the kind where the conflict stems from the main character and some antagonist/oppositional force being at cross-purposes to one another. Stories where there is one character with goal A and another character with goal B and the pursuit of goals A or B mean thwarting the achievement of the *other* goal.

These are hard stories to pull off, but often tremendously satisfying. This usually requires for an investment in time on the part of the author to draw the antagonist/oppositional character fully. Often this is done by giving the antagonist the moral opposite characteristics of the main character. Since real people are morally complex and carry many different views about things, done well this can create a nuanced character that can be difficult to pigeonhole into a "bad guy" category.

Tamora Pierce does this to amazing effect with the last in the Beka Cooper series, Mastiff.

Maggie Stiefvater's Raven Boys series includes some weird stuff and several characters at cross-purposes to the main characters' quests (including a caricature or two of the traditional "bad guy," though she takes us into the POV of one in an effective way.) There's even a character in the second book in the series who is semi-antagonist, semi-mentor role, showing one of the principals how to use his magic. It's definitely a more compelling series to read than many others due to this layered complexity to the "bad guy" aspect of the story.

Isaac Asimov used to play with this quite a lot in his books, an example of one I recently read was Currents of Space. In this book, there is a "bad guy" who put the main character into the bad situation he finds himself in, but that character turns out to be a very minor player, instead the primary conflict is driven by information the main character learns gradually (coming out of an amnesiac episode) which is in direct opposition to how the institutional system the main characters live in operates. It's a more satisfying read because of this complexity, I believe.

Have you seen this in movies you've seen or books you've read? What about movies like Night at the Museum, where much of the conflict is driven by the weird magic of that world, although there's a few baddies as played by the old security team. (But even they aren't really "bad guys" but rather trying to achieve their own goals, which are somewhat understandable and sympathetic.)

What other examples can you think of?

V is for Villains

May is Villains Month at Prosers! This week, I'm reposting my villains discussion from a couple of years back. And in a couple of weeks, I'm going to talk about my newest favorite book about villains and villainous characters: Vicious by V.E. Schwab.

*****

All right, fantasy writers. We need to have a little chat. It’s about our villains – because they seem to be getting more and more clichéd as the years go by.

I give a large part of the blame to Tolkien. Lord Sauron is sort of the gold standard of villains, the predecessor to innumerable Dark Lords that harassed medieval villages, kidnapped heroines, and generally sought to plunge all that is good into darkness.

  

 In all honesty, I’m actually fine with the Tall, Dark and Evil. It’s those villains that are one step down that I really bother me: humans that are presented as so horribly monstrous or villainous that there’s basically no humanity left to them. Some thriller or mystery novels are especially bad about this, and seem to compete over how many negative traits they can give to their villains. It can get a little ridiculous. I've come across some villains who are evil, sociopathic, perverted, serial killers who also hate kittens and rainbows, and usually tries to sexually assault the heroine near the end of the story. What, were the authors afraid that the readers would be all, "Well, he's killed three dozen people, but he hasn't run over any puppies lately! Maybe he's not all that bad!"

 In anime, the evil level of any villain is easily determined by the size of his or her shoulder pads

Pretty much every author I talk to is aware of this issue. One solution that many of us choose is to give the villain a twist of good, a redeeming feature to make them seem less of a caricature and more human. More often than not, this ends up being a love for cats. Though villains’ cats are always sleek and well behaved, and don’t shred the Shroud of Evil into tiny pieces, or bat the Orb of Pain around the kitchen floor, or interrupt multiple times as the villain is trying to just get her friggin' blog post finished.

I’d like to propose the opposite. Instead of giving a bad guy a twist of good, why not instead start out your villain as a good person – with just a little twist of evil? I'm not necessarily talking about the bullied kid who suddenly turns psycopathic and sends flying monkeys after the school (I think I might be getting my Buffy the Vampire Slayer plots mixed up here). No, a person who is good, and who has been good, who has a chance of fate that makes them choose the wrong path. I'm also a big fan of people who believe they are doing the Right Thing.

I do understand the point of making a villain the epitome of evil. Then the hero doesn’t have to suffer any qualms about taking him/her/it out. I do sympathize – it can be a bit boring if we have to watch the hero suffer through agonies of guilt after utterly destroying someone who was essentially a good person. Let me know if you have any ideas on how to convey that. Other topics for study: how evil does an action have to be to merit punishment? What matters more, motives or action? What is the most essential trait of a villain - is it just opposing what the hero desires? Is that all it need to be, or should it be so much more than that?

Here are a few examples of interesting, complex villains.

Baron Wulfenbach

Is he evil? Is he good? Who knows? He does try to kill Agatha on a fairly regular basis. But he's Gil's father, and he's opposed to the Other, who seems to be the Big Bad in the series. And besides, am I really supposed to like a bad guy this much?

Here is a link to Baron Wulfenbach just trying to squeeze a little fun time into ruling an empire... though I think Othar wishes the Baron had a different idea of "fun."

http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20040105 (the feature on the Baron goes about 10 pages)

  

The Queen of Attolia

She might start out seeming rather like a caricature, but by the third book in the series, well....... Just read the whole Queen's Thief series. If you need more encouragement than that, go see the 800 posts we’ve made about the series, like here, here and here. Not to mention the one Melanie did just last week!)

Loki from the Avengers

I suppose you could argue that his complexity comes from the fact that he’s a trickster character rather than a true villain. He’s definitely more bad than good, but every so often, we get a glimpse of the pain underneath the evil. Plus, he’s hilarious.

Who are your favorite complex villains?

A Complete Guide to Villains

Handy Dandy SCALE OF EVIL

EVIL LEVEL HIGH. understanding low.: 

This is the villain Tim Curry would play. This is the villain whose prime motivation for doing the things is because the things are evil. And they are evil. So...you know, they are going to do that thing. 

Evilly.

Strength of using this character: Ooh boy does it feel good to see this kind of villain defeated. This type of bad guy was used in 2011's Battle Los Angeles, where the villains were super evil aliens and the heroes, this group of marines, were doing the awesome real life stuff marines do, but without any guilt, or justification or questioning, so there's a clear line between good guys and the villains. You get to have violence and explosions and fun stuff, and no hand ringing. ( I can't be the only one to watch James Bond kill extras and wonder if that person had children, can I?)

I was a beta reader for an awesome book with a minor villain who was an evil teenage popular girl, who was just nasty for no reason. I commented that this character didn't feel like a character, she felt more like an obstacle, Real people aren't that nasty, at least without a reason, so I suggested clarifying her motivation. When I read the final version, my friend didn't give the character any empathy or clarity. If anything, she made her worse. This character had no character arc, but we were able to see the hero's character arc because of her. At first the hero was cowed, and then she bristled, and then stood up for herself, and it was so satisfying because you didn't care about the bad girl at all.

Weakness of this character: I also don't remember her name. I also had to google marine fighting aliens because I didn't remember the name to the marine's fighting aliens movie, or a single detail about them. In fact, the more evil the villain is, the more righteous the heroes are, but if you get too perfect a hero can turn into propaganda, or worse, turn boring.

But this... this is so satisfying.

EVIL LEVEL HIGH/ Understanding level medium: 

This is the sweet spot Voldemort level of villains. Super bad guy, killer of children, totally needs to be defeated, possibly killed, but he is who he is for an understandable reason.  He wanted power, since he was powerless as a child, and sold his soul to get there.

Strength of using this character: High satisfaction level at ending, believably of actions and motivations.

Weaknesses of this type: It's been done before. Like a lot. Like so much it's easy to push it into mockable terrain. So you might want to keep searching to find an understandable reason for bad guy to be a bad guy that hasn't been done a thousand times, because again, this can get a tad bit boring.

Also these villains have to be gone a lot,( Possibly to a villain conventions) or the reader is going to start understanding them too much. As a writer, you have to walk a line and not have the villain be too understandable, because to understand someone means to have sympathy for them, and defeating a sympathetic villain can lessen the satisfaction.

which leads me to...

Evil level medium/ UNDERSTANDING HIGH: 

This is the Sue Sylvester level of Villain.

Strength of this character: At first it's SO AWESOME. Bad guys get to do stuff that good guys don't get to do, so this character is fascinating, and just understood/good enough that you get why they are doing these awful things you could never get away with doing. They start to grow, because that's what understood characters do, and then they are brave, ballsy, and awesome...but they've left a hole in the story.

Weakness of this character: The awesome doesn't last. Once you understand and like said villain, the story now has no villain. Which means the story has no conflict, so you're left with a choice. One, the villain can go right back to his or her evil ways, but then they are obnoxious, because it's like Why don't you just grow, you darn stagnant character. Or else they are replaced with someone who ends up a lesser copycat, because the story has a character based hole, so you need to find a replacement to fill it, but then the awesome character is still there, but without a purpose, or a job to do.

One solution, is to give that awesome character a different job to do. Let them be a love interest, a martyr, or a wisecracking sidekick, and find a COMPLETELY different villain, even if it means breaking the format and location of the story completely.

But also this can happen...

Or you can lessen their level of evil, and increase the understanding and do this...

Evil level low/ UNDERSTANDING HIGH: 

This is actually my favorite level of villain, and it's really rare to find stories like this one. But when they work, they really work.

Take this example. Our hero, a young woman training in magic. Our villain, a Prince, who has been taught his whole life to protect his sister, so when she goes to (THE PLACE) to train in magic, he goes to train to be her protector...Or Warder if you like. The Sister and the Hero meet, become best friends. Hero and Villain meet. They fall in love. Would be HEA, except The White Tower (a.k.a. THE PLACE) splits when the DIFFICULT TO SPELL LEADER is killed. Our hero, we'll call her Egwene, chooses one side and they elect her to become the new DIFFICULT TO SPELL LEADER. But our villain, Gawyn, chooses to side with a different DIFFICULT TO SPELL LEADER, because she was the adviser in his mother's court.

 His decision makes complete sense and is in line with his character, but choosing to support Elaida leads him to killing his mentor, and killing several innocent people. It's the kind of thing that if he had made the wrong choice, meant he was a bad person. So he has to convince himself that his side must be correct. Egwene made sacrifices herself, including risking her entire life, so she is certain that her choice was the correct one. So we have clear battle lines.

Now imagine with me that they go to battle, and Gawyn killed more people until he is standing in front of Egwene with his sword drawn, and he knows that the only way to stay in the right (mentally) would be to kill this impostor DIFFICULT TO SPELL LEADER, but he can't, because LOVE. And then he realizes all of the horrible things he's done weren't actually right, and he collapses under the guilt, and Egwene forgives him, and LOVE saves the day. SATISFACTION LEVEL High!

Strength of choosing this character: Villains don't have to be bad. Their goal just needs to be contrary to the goal of the hero. But when they lose, and they switch sides, it can lend weight to the satisfaction at the end. For justice to be satisfied, though, the hero can't kill a likable villain.


Weakness of this Character:  How much the bad guy needs to be punched in the face is directly correlated to the amount the reader is cheering on the hero to punch the guy in the face. So the more likable a villain is, the more likable the hero has to be, or else maybe the reader will switch sides, and not be satisfied with the hero winning. The hero will have to work twice as hard to win the side of the reader.

 Can you imagine if at the end Egwene decides she can't be a strong hero and let him go, so she has him killed for his crimes?

That's possible too, but then wouldn't that mean she's unjust leader? So then maybe her side wasn't the correct one? That can't happen either. Because they both are technically heroes, they both need to win, and they both need to lose.  Like maybe Egwene would have to lose her right to lead, or her pride, and her anger. There has to be a cost.

Evil level low/understanding level low: 

This is one of those times where there's isn't a villain. Imagine a story about a guy trying to push a rock up a hill. Or someone trying to get medicine but who has to travel through a storm to do it. Or a contemporary novel where the likable hero is also a teenager who is their own worst enemy.

Strength: When the villain is a storm, or a hill, or teenage hormones/immaturity, there's no soul wringing guilt when you defeat the bad guy. Sometimes it's just a story of grit, or friendship, or learning a real life lesson. It can be very relate-able, and create awesome heroes.

Weakness: It also can leave you feeling unsatisfied, because the ending just kind of happens, and you're left saying, oh so that's the end of the book then?

Evil level Medium/ Understanding level low:

Usually, when a villain is evil level medium/understanding level low, they are a trick villain, or what I like to call a SURPRISE JERKS villain. This is when you think one person is the villain, and then all of a sudden the curtain drops, and a semi-likable minor character is like, "Surprise, jerks! It was me the whole time."

The problem with a character like this, is that readers love to be surprised, but they hate to be tricked. So you need to have some clues as to the why the villain is doing this, otherwise it's going to seem like a mean trick. But if the clues are too obvious, then there will be no surprise.

So it's another fine line. I just read a book like this, The Chaos of Stars by Kiersten White (dug it), but I didn't really care about the villain so much, so while it worked, it didn't blow me away. The villain felt one note, because there wasn't really time to play all of the notes, and still be surprised.

However the love story was fantastic. (Melanie add this to your TBR pile.You'd dig it)

EVIL LEVEL HIGH/UNDERSTANDING LEVEL HIGH:

The Anti-hero, where the POV character is actually the villain.

Strength: Gives you cool characters. Like amazing, understandable, despicable, broken, fascinating, heartbreaking characters.

Weakness;

No seriously, when done well, this gives you stories like Sweeney Todd or Doctor Horrible's Sing Along Blog.

 But because they do evil things, you have to let the readers sense of justice be satisfied. so there needs to be consequences to their evil actions, which means yeah they are probably going to die and take people down with them. ( I can't wait for Dr. Horrible 2!)

Which is way better than when it is done poorly.

The Catastrophic History of You and Me didn't work for me for this reason.

The POV character was awful. She kept yelling and fighting with likable people, doing awful horrible what-are-you-doing?-you-are-so-stupid things, and then she got a Happy Ever After ending, and my sense of justice is like...no.

There were no consequences. She stole people's souls. She stole a baby's life...Yet she gets to ride of into the sunset with her love? Technically, yes she was dead, but still. The injustice burns, even though it's been a few weeks.

That's the main thing I hope you get from this post, (other than my strange love for gifs) is that if you break a readers sense of justice, they won't be satisfied, and they might actually get annoyed.

But if you use the sense of justice, then you get a satisfactory AWESOME ending.

Even if it means everyone dies.


~Sheena

An Ode to Wilson Fisk

Along with the rest of the world I am currently slightly obsessed (note, only slightly) with the new Netflix series Daredevil. The show is violent and gory as all get out but in the middle it's also vulnerable and somehow fresh even though it continues the grimdark direction taken by most superhero movies lately.

And I think part of why it's so good at it is down to the villain, Wilson Fisk. (Please note, this post may be somewhat spoilery about Fisk and his past. If that bothers you, please feel free to return after watching the available episodes.)

I've never really loved the Daredevil comic. I don't really know why, it's all about things that I usually enjoy. There's a hero who's at an extreme disadvantage against his adversaries, working class background, taking place in a city, the MC is a complete nerd etc. It should be right up my alley but for whatever reason, I never really connected with it.

That changed with the first episode of the Netflix series. Now, while I'm willing to admit that some of it may be because I fell hard for Charlie Cox (who plays Matt Murdock aka Daredevil in the series) in Stardust, that's not the whole truth of it.

For me the turning point of whether I just liked the show or loved it came when they started to delve deeper into the life of Wilson Fisk. The first time we actually meet Fisk, he is utterly captivated by a modern painting, titled "Rabbit in a Snowstorm" which is basically white paint slathered over a white canvas. The moment could have gone in so many ways that would have made the character cartoonish but instead Vincent D'Onofrio's (previously probably best known for his performance as Private "Gomer" Pyle in Full Metal Jacket) performance made the character into someone who is not only vulnerable but also a force to be reckoned with.

The man in the mirror

Later on, in episode 8, we see Fisk in his morning routine, getting ready to continue the conquering of the city. The kicker comes from the first time he sees himself in the mirror. Here is a man meticulously dressed in the most expensive suits money can buy and he still sees himself as a scared child, trying desperately to please a violent, misogynistic father while staying true to a cowed mother.

I wrote about writing women back in February and the Daredevil series (let's pretend that unfortunate movie never happened, okay?) has certainly applied similar advice to Wilson Fisk in spades. Fisk is a violent, horrific man who uses any and all means necessary to do exactly as he wants. There's a scene in one episode where he literally beats a man to death until there is nothing left of his victim's head. And yet... And yet the writers as well as D'onofrio's performance of him turn Fisk into someone who can almost be pitied. Almost.

Fisk wants something with all his being: he wants to save Hell's Kitchen. He wants to eliminate crime from the streets of the city, make it safe for people like him, people like his mother, people like his girlfriend. The trouble is, in his zealousness he has made deals with all the criminal elements of the city, from the drug cartel to the human traffickers. He doesn't think twice about leveling tenement housing mainly because the inhabitants are poor and some of them commit crimes of the sort he cares about.

The writers of the show keep drawing parallels between Fisk and Murdock and their respective quests to clean up or "save the city". On the surface, the two men want the same things, they just have very different methods of going about it. They're similar in a lot of ways, but their lives have taken different courses which have led them down very different paths.

Wilson Fisk in the series is a terrible example of humanity but as such he is also utterly, irrevocably, undeniably human. Kingpin (as he will no doubt be known at some point of the series) is one of the comic book bad guys who has been very often portrayed as being evil for the sake of evil, a mustache-twirling baddie from the silent films if you will. In this series he is human first and the evil, his evilocity if you will, rises from his humanity and the particular flaws that make Wilson Fisk the man he is.

The power of a diary

In 6th grade, I had one of those Epic Teachers, you know the kind who just really made a difference in your life? The kind whose smile sticks with you? Who's kind words buoyed you through childhood?

My 6th grade teacher's name was Mrs. Carroll. In my childhood, she was one of the first teachers to really see me, to see what I was capable of. I was a little bit of an oddball in a class of 40 Catholic grade schoolers. I knew so much and could do so much more than I showed in school, and Mrs. Carroll was onto me. But not in the "call on Karen in class and embarrass her in front of everyone" kind of way. Rather she'd quietly talk to me, invite me (and a few others) to stay late and help her clean the classroom (6th grade entertainment options for suburban Catholic schoolchildren were limited...) She took the time to know me. With 40 of us, many teachers simply couldn't. Or many would see I could do more and attempt to get me to show it. In grand fashion. Which never suited little introverted me (who always felt weird, not knowing how normal my preferences for quiet and books were for an introvert.) 

In one of those after-school chats she shared something really interesting. She told us that she had kept her journals and diaries from her teen years. She kept them so that when her kids, who were entering their teens at that time, whined at her, "Moooo-ooom, you just don't understand!" she could pitch them some journals and say, "Yes I do."

For whatever reason, out of all the many things we talked about, this one point has stuck with me through the years. And here I suddenly (time warp) find myself parenting an 11 year old and a 13 year old and ... omg. My diaries. 

I was particularly addicted to My Melody (in the Hello Kitty universe.) 

I was never a perfect diarist, but I did keep journals and diaries on and off from mid-elementary through to today. I have an entire box of them, and a digital file set from my early days parenting. (I may save those until my children are old enough, for ex parents themselves, to understand the context of the difficult days parenting small children... ;) )

Because of this, when I read this article by Heidi Stevens in the Chicago Tribune this week, I was enraptured. An entire BOOK composed of people's adolescent journal entries, along with essays from them today, putting those journal entries into context, adding the lessons learned, the growth that happened after, etc. 

What an amazing thing. I am off to scour the internet for my own copy of My Diary Unlocked: Stories of Teen Girls Heal the Inner Adolescent of Our Soul.

And maybe, just maybe, to hand my 6th/7th grade journal to my daughter who is finishing 6th grade...