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number5theboy · 4 years

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Please elaborate on how Five could've turned into the most insufferable character to watch

Thanks for asking me to elaborate on this text post:

@tessapercygranger, @waywardd1 and @margarita-umbrella also wanted to see a more detailed version of it, and I ended up writing an essay that’s longer than some of my actual academic essays. So buckle up.

WHY NUMBER FIVE SHOULD BE THE MOST OBNOXIOUS CHARACTER IN TV HISTORY, AND HOW HE MANAGES NOT TO BE

Number Five: The Concept That Could Go Horribly Wrong

Alright, let’s first look at Five in theory in an overarching way, without taking into account the execution of the show. The basic set-up of the character, of course, is being a 58-year-old consciousness in a teenager’s body, due to a miscalculation in time travel. Right off the bat, Five is bar none the most overpowered of the siblings; by the end of Season 2, no one has yet been able to defeat him in a fight. He is a master assassin – and not just any master assassin, but the best one there is – and a survival expert, able to do complex maths and physics without the aid of a calculator, shown to have knowledge of half a dozen languages, has very developed observational skills and, to top that all off, he can manipulate time and space to the point where he can literally erase events that happened and change the course of history. And Five knows how skilled he is; he is arrogant, self-assured and sarcastic, and his streak of goodness is buried deep inside. David Castañeda once described Five in an interview as 90% chocolate with a cherry in the middle, meaning that you have to get through a lot of darkness and bitterness before knowing there is a good core, and I think it’s an excellent metaphor. However, Five is also incredibly, fundamentally terrible at communicating with anyone, and, because he is the only one with time travel abilities, the character a lot of the actual plot - and the moving forward of it - centres around. Also he’s earnestly in love with a mannequin, who is pretty much a projection of his own consciousness that functions as a coping mechanism for all the trauma he has endured. All in all, this gives you a character who looks like a teenager, but with the smug superiority of a fifty-something, who a) is extremely skilled in many different things, b) has a superiority complex, is arrogant and vocal about it, and most of the superiority is expressed through cutting sarcasm, c) has one very hidden ounce of goodness that he is literally the worst at communicating to other human beings, d) is what moves the plot along but is also bad at talking to anyone else, meaning that the plot largely remains with him, and e) his love interest is essentially a projection of himself. Tell me that’s not a character who is destined to be just…obnoxious, annoying, egocentric, a necessary evil that one has to put up with to get through this show. There are so many elements of this characterisation that can and should easily make Five beyond insufferable, but the show manages to avoid it, and I’m putting this down to three aspects.

That Trick of Age and Appearance

Bluntly put, Five as a character would not work if he was anything else than an old man in a 13-year-old body. Imagine this character and all his skills and knowledge, but actually just…a teenager. Immediately insufferable. Same goes for him being around 30, like his siblings, all of which are stunted and traumatised by their father’s abuse. If Five, being comparatively unscathed by Reginald to the point where he explicitly does not want to be defined by his association with his father, were 30 like his siblings, it would just take the bite out of that plot point and also give him a lot less time in the apocalypse, reducing the impact it had on him as a person. And making Five his actual 58-year-old self would make him very similar to Reginald, at least on surface level, with the appearance and attitude. Five and Reginald are two fundamentally different people, but having one of the siblings being a senior citizen that’s dressed to the nines and bosses his siblings around in a relatively self-centred way does open up that parallel, and would take away from Five’s charm as a character. Because pairing the life experience of a 58-year-old with the appearance of a teenager gives you the best of both worlds. You get the other siblings (and a lot of the audience, from a glance in the tags of my gifsets) feeling protective and paternal about Five, but his age and experience also give the justifications for his many skills, his arrogance, in a way, and his ability to decimate a room full of people. It’s the very interesting and not new concept of someone dangerous with the appearance of something harmless, a child. This is also where Five’s singular outfit comes in. I know we like to clown on Five to get a new outfit, but I think what gets forgotten often is how effective this outfit is at making the viewer take him seriously. The preppy school uniform is the perfect encapsulation of the tension between old man in spirit and young teenager in appearance. The blazer, vest and especially the shirt and tie are quite formal, relatively grown up. They’re not something we, the audience, usually associate with a teenage boy wearing; it makes Five just a little bit more grown up. But there is also a reason characters in this show keep bringing up Five’s shorts and his socks, because those are not things that we associate with grown men wearing; they’re the unmistakably childish part of his school uniform. Take a moment and imagine Five wearing a hoodie or a t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers; would that outfit work for him as well as the uniform does? Would he be able to command the same kind of respect or seriousness as a character? I don’t think so; the outfit is a lot more pivotal in making Five believable than a lot of people give it credit for.

Writing Nuance

The other big building block in not making Five incredibly insufferable is the writing. Objectively speaking, I think Five is the most well-written, and, more importantly, most coherently written character on the show (which does have to do with the fact that the show’s events are all sequential for him), and his arc and personality remain relatively intact over the course of the two seasons. More to the point, a giant part of what makes Five bearable as a character is that he is allowed to fail. He is written to have high highs and low lows, big victories through his skills and his intelligence, but also catastrophic failures and the freedom to be wrong. His superior intellect and skillset are not the be-all end-all of the plot or his character, just something that influences both. His inability for communication has not (yet) been used to fabricate a contrived misunderstanding that derails the plot and left all of us seething; instead, it’s a characteristic that makes him fail to reconnect with the people he loves. This is a bit simplified, as he does find common ground with Luther, for example, but in general, a lot of the rift between Five and his siblings is that they can’t relate to his traumas and he does not understand the depth of Reginald’s abuse, which is an interesting conflict worth exploring. Another thing that really works in Five’s favour is that he is definitely written to be mean and sarcastic, but it is never driven to the point of complete unlikability, and a lot of the time, the context makes it understandable why he reacts the way he does. Most of the sarcastic lines he gets are actually funny, that certainly helps, but in general, Five is a good example of a bearable character whose default personality is sharp and relatively cold, because it is balanced out with many moments of vulnerability. Delores is incredibly important for this in the first season, she is the main focus of Five’s humanising moments, and well-written as she totes the line between clearly being a coping mechanism for an extremely traumatised man and still coming across to the viewer as the human contact Five needs her to be. In the second season, the vulnerability is about his guilt for his siblings, it’s about Five connecting a little bit better to them. There’s also his relationship with the Commission and the Handler specifically – which honestly could be an essay on its own – that deserves a mention, because the Handler is why Five became the man he is, and this dynamic between creator and creation is explored in a very interesting way – their scenes are some of the most well-written in the entire show. And TUA never falls into the trap of making Five a hero, he is always morally ambiguous at best, and it just makes for an interesting, multi-faceted character, well-written character, and none of the characteristics that should make him unlikeable are allowed to take centre-stage for long enough to be defining on their own. I know a lot of people especially champion the scenes where Five goes apeshit, but without his more nuanced characterisation, if he was like that all the time, those scenes would not hit as hard.

Aidan Gallagher’s Performance is Underrated

But honestly, none of the above would matter that much if the Umbrella Academy didn’t luck out hard with the casting of Aidan Gallagher. I think what he achieves as an actor in this show is genuinely underappreciated. Like, the first season set out to cast six adults having to deal with various ramifications of childhood trauma, and a literal child that had to be able to act smart and wise beyond his years, seamlessly integrate into a family of adults while seeming like an adult, traumatised by the literal end of the world, AND had to be able to create the romantic chemistry of a thirty-year-long marriage with a lifeless department store doll. The only role I could think of to compare is Kirsten Dunst in Interview with a Vampire, where she plays a vampire child who, because she is undead, doesn’t age physically, but does mentally, so she’s 400 in a child’s body. And Kirsten Dunst had to do that for a two-hour movie. Five is a main character in a show that spans 20 episodes now. That’s insane, and it’s a risk. Five is a character that can’t be allowed to go wrong; if you don’t buy Five as a character, the entire first season loses believability. And they found someone who could do that not only convincingly, but also likeably. As I said, he is incredibly helped by the costuming department and the script, but Aidan Gallager’s Five has so much personality, he’s threatening and funny and charming and arrogant and heartbreaking. He has the range to be convincing in the quiet moments where Five’s humanity comes to show and in the moments where Five goes completely off the rails. Most child actors act with other children, but he is the only child in the main cast, and holds his own in scenes with adults not as a child, but as an adult on equal footing with the other adult characters. That’s not something to be taken for granted. But even apart from the fact that it’s a child actor who carries a lot of the plot and the drama of a series for adults, Aidan Gallagher’s portrayal of Five is also just so much fun. The comedic timing is on point, he has the dramatic chops for the serious scenes, the mannerisms and visual ticks add to the character rather than distract from him, and his line deliveries, paired with his physical acting, make Five arrogant and smug but never outright malicious and unlikeable. It’s just some terrific acting that really does justice to the character as he is written, but the writing would not be as strong if it wasn’t delivered and acted out the way Aidan Gallagher does. He is an incredible asset for this show.

Alright, onto concluding this rambling. If you made it this far, I commend you, and thank you for it. The point of all of this is that Five, as a character, could have been an unmitigated disaster of a TV character. He is overpowered, arrogant, uncommunicative and could so easily have been either unconvincing or completely unlikeable, but he turned out to be neither. It’s a combination of choices in the costume department, decisions in the writing room, and Aidan Gallagher’s acting skills that make the things that should make him obnoxious and annoying incredibly entertaining, and I hope you liked my long-winded exploration of these. Some nuance was lost along the way, but if I had not stopped myself, this would’ve become a full-blown thesis.

#thanks for the ask again #TUA #The Umbrella Academy #Five Hargreeves #tua s2 spoilers #my meta #i guess #Replies #Anonymous

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comradesummers · 5 years

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I’m curious about 1. Top 5 TV shows, 11. Top 5 female characters and 20. Top 5 overrated characters

Hi, thanks for asking!

Top 5 TV shows

(This list is based on my current mood, and will probably change tomorrow)

1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Yeah, I know, what a shocker. It may be flawed, and old, and a little corny, but well, there’s a reason I dedicated a blog to it. No show means more to me than Buffy, and no show probably ever will.

2. Legends of Tomorrow

You know what, more shows need to be as batshit fucking crazy as Legends of Tomorrow is. More shows need to save the day via our main characters joining together to create a giant stuffed animal that hugs the bad guy to death. More shows need to give us killer unicorns, and sentient nipples, and hot girls with weapons who make out with each other.

Fuck the golden age of television, fuck everyone taking everything so goddamn seriously. Give me a pure, unadulterated, chaotic, drug-addled (I can only assume), queer, joyful, wonderful mess, and I will love and treasure it forever.

3. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

Look, it’s just really good. I don’t really have much to say, beyond just like, it’s great, and it has great songs, and great comedy, and great drama, and great acting, and great writing, etc. It’s not perfect, because nothing is, but I do genuinely believe that it’s one of the best uses of the medium of television that I’ve ever seen. If any show could make me buy into the golden age of television bullshit, it’s probably Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.

4. One Day at a Time

So there’s this interview with Gloria Calderón Kellett and Mike Royce, where they talk about how the basic structure of any episode of the show, is that there is a topic at hand, whatever it may be, and then we hear the conservative argument (Lydia), the progressive argument (Elena), and the mediator (Penelope). And like, yeah, that’s it, that’s the show. In that sense it’s super reminiscent of Norman Lear’s work in the 70′s - All in the Family was also basically just one big argument.

So, in addition to everything that’s obviously incredible about the show (funny, well written, loving, the representation, Rita Moreno’s very existence being a gift to us all, etc.), there’s just something so brilliant about the simplicity of the basic premise, the argument about traditionalism vs. progress, which is made far more poignant and interesting because the characters are Cuban American. Lydia isn’t Archie Bunker, because her desire to preserve her traditions isn’t rooted in bigotry, it’s rooted in the culture that she was forced to leave behind. And Elena, as admirable as her quest for progress is, often fails to see the importance of preserving that culture (illustrated most obviously by the fact that she doesn’t speak Spanish). And although Penelope represents the middle ground, she isn’t always right either.

Everyone has a point, and that’s what makes each new conflict so fun to watch.

5. Queer Eye

Queer Eye makes me happy. It really is as simple as that. It has perfected the formula of bringing joy to the world, and I think that is a truly impressive feat.

Top 5 female characters

(I’m going to keep it to one character per show, because otherwise I'd be here all day. Also, again, this list is based on my current mood. It could change tomorrow.)

1. Buffy Summers

Again, what a shocker. I don’t think I need to explain this one.

2. Elena Alvarez

I really had to struggle to choose between Lydia, Penelope, and Elena, because I love all three of them so so much. But I went with Elena because she’s the person I aspire to be. She’s awkward, and weird, and struggles socially, and she’s not always right, but she also fights for what she believes in, actively. It’s not just about arguing with her grandmother, it’s about taking action, even if that action can be a little awkward and Elena-y. And well, seeing a character like her, who isn’t just the regular armchair activist young person that’s so common on TV, is really important and inspiring and I love her.

3. Rebecca Bunch

She’s just kind of one of those characters that was iconic right out of the gate. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a character like Rebecca before, ever. And I haven’t seen any since honestly. It’s small stuff, like the fact that a character with Rachel Bloom’s body type is allowed to be aggressively sexual without being seen as disgusting or villainous for it. And it’s big stuff, like the portrayal of her mental illness, the fact that she was never written to be “likable” or whatever the fuck that means, but we loved her so much anyway. The show may have occasionally faltered, but Rebecca Bunch was always its center and its greatest achievement, and I will forever be grateful for her.

4. Regina Mills and Santana Lopez

Yeah, I’m cheating, this one’s a tie. My justification for the cheating is that these two are in the same category for me, in terms of characters that I love, but I’m kind of ashamed of choosing because of their garbage source material. So yeah, it would probably be more accurate to say that I’ve chosen the fanfiction versions of both of these characters, but in my defense, the fics are a lot better than the shows they’re based on. Also, kudos to both of these actresses for somehow making these characters interesting in spite of the writing they had to work with.

5. Petra Solano

Look, if it wasn’t already evident that I like type A control freaks, bonus points if they’re super fucked up, and extra bonus points if they’re into women, well it should be clear now. Petra in particular manages to walk the fine line of being easily the most tragic character of the show, and also easily one of the funniest, while also having one of the best redemption arcs I’ve ever seen. Idk how Grobglas and the writers managed to do all that, but it was really incredible to behold.

(I would like to extend my sincerest apologies to Veronica Mars, Amy Santiago, Rosa Diaz, Sara Lance, Zari Tomaz, and a bunch of other characters who have probably slipped my mind, all of whom would have made the list if I was in a different mood, or was currently obsessed with them. I love them all.)

Top 5 overrated characters

1. Wesley Wyndam Pryce

So, full disclosure, I’m just really not a fan of broody men who’s character development involves them being violent towards women and then brooding about it.

Wesley in particular, I get why people like him, he is a very well written and well acted example of this kind of character. But I’ve seen multiple people suggest that he’s the best character in the Buffyverse, and that drives me a little crazy. Like, no. Wesley becoming a broody asshole doesn’t make him a better character than Buffy or Willow or Cordelia or Gunn or Faith or anyone else, and I am so sick of that kind of broody man story being prioritized over every other kind of story.

2. Logan Echolls (please don’t kill me)

I actually like Logan, I think he’s a good character. I just wish the show, and subsequently the fandom, hadn’t prioritized his character over pretty much everyone else not named Veronica. But I do like him, to be clear.

3. Illyria (I’m so sorry)

Like really, I wish I liked her more. I guess it’s just because I was pissed they had to kill off Fred for Illyria, and she spent all of her time with Wesley, which didn’t do much to endear me to her. I guess maybe if she’d spent time with anyone else, I’d get why people like her, beyond Amy Acker being really good at her job. But she didn’t, and I just don’t get it.

I couldn’t think of a fourth and fifth one. As it turns out, I’m not a fan of the concept of something being overrated. All of the characters I named just aren’t necessarily my cup of tea, but that doesn’t mean I think they’re bad, they’re just not for me. And I don’t really like saying that people are wrong to like things. Plus, I just really couldn’t come up with anybody, and I really tried, I’m sorry.

#btvs #buffy the vampire slayer #legends of tomorrow #crazy ex girlfriend #one day at a time #odaat #queer eye #buffy summers #elena alvarez #rebecca bunch #regina mills #santana lopez #petra solano

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preserving-ferretbrain · 5 years

Text

Nildungsroman

by Dan H

Saturday, 27 September 2008

Dan finally identifies something that has been bugging him.~

I've always had a problem with Modern Fantasy. Not in the sense of "published within the last five years" (although there is also that) but in the sense of "set in the real world, only with magic and shit, which most people don't know about". Possibly that's Urban Fantasy.

This whole thing struck me while I was reading Cassandra Cla(i)re's City of Bones, which funnily enough seems to have a lot of traits in common with a certain other modern fantasy series that the author may or may not have heard of, and which I may or may not have said a few things about in the past, so these comments are slightly biased towards those two august tales, but I'll also be talking about other elements of the Geek Canon, including Buffy, Tolkein and Star Wars.

As ever, contains spoilers.

The Hero's Journey: Ur Doin It Rong

For what it's worth, I'm not actually a big fan of Joseph Campbell. I think the observation that lots of different myths have lots of things in common rates somewhere between "dog bites man" and "Bishop of Rome Espouses Nicene Creed" on the duh-o-meter. On the other hand, the Hero With A Thousand Faces One Of Which Is Luke Skywalker does nicely identify a basic structure which can, at the very least, make sure that a mythically-slanted story doesn't suck donkey balls.

Very broadly, the Hero's Journey has three stages: the departure, the initiation, and the return. The hero starts out as Joe Ordinary (or possibly as Joe Destiny), then goes off into the Crazy World of Magic Shit, then comes back a better and more complete man. Along the way he has to get eaten by a whale and meet a goddess, but that's basically the deal (any inaccuracies can be attributed to my not actually having read The Hero With A Thousand Faces and thus getting most of my information from Wikipedia).

Star Wars, as you probably already know, was based very, very, very (very, very, very) closely on the classic Campbellian journey (right down to including the trash compactor scene pretty much entirely to tick the "hero goes underground and bad shit happens" box). Early season Buffy actually holds fairly closely to the model as well, both in terms of its overall arc (at least in seasons 1-5) and the structure of individual episodes. An episode of Buffy usually opens with our heroine facing a Typical Teenage Problem, then getting drawn into a supernatural event which allowed her, at the end, to resolve her Real Life problem as well as lay the smackdown on some vampires. As I've argued before on Ferretbrain, I think Buffy lost its way around the point it stopped bringing everything back to the real world.

And that, in a roundabout way, is what I think is wrong with Modern Fantasy. If you blinked you might have missed it, so I'll say it again more explicitly. A lot of Modern Fantasy seems to be at least loosely based on the Hero's Journey, and while it does the departure and the initiation really well, it seems to write the whole "return" bit off as a waste of time. Modern heroes leave their home and family, descend into the underworld, and bloody well stay there.

Now I admit, part of this is going to be structure. In a TV series about fighting vampires (for example), you'll always get to the point where you can't view "going out to fight some vampires" as anything but routine, and you can only escalate so far before you have to play the "real life is the greatest battle" card or the "fighting the very essence evil itself" card (neither of which worked). On the other hand, part of it seems to be an issue with people actually missing the point of the Hero's Journey. I'm going to talk about both these phenomena, because I like to hear myself talk.

Sunnydalization: Myth Invades Reality

If, like me, you wasted your entire undergraduacy watching Buffy videos, and can quote pretty much the entire seven series end to end, including the "grr-arg" bits with the mutant enemy logo, you'll probably remember the bit in Prophecy Girl where Willow finds two dead bodies in the student lounge in Sunnydale High and, despite having seen at least a corpse a week for the past series, gets totally freaked out. When challenged about it, she says:

"I'm not okay. I knew those guys. I go to that room every day. And when I walked in there, it... it wasn't our world anymore. They made it theirs.

And at that point, Buffy changed subtly but irrevocably. Prior to that scene, Sunnydale was the real world, and the Hellmouth was the place where the monsters were. Every week, Buffy would battle the legions of hell, and every week she would come out and go to class and we would see exactly what she was fighting to protect. We'd see Jonathan and Cordelia and Harmony and the rest, all going on with their totally normal lives, totally unaware that little Miss Summers had been saving their collective assi.

After that moment, though, it all changed. Things got bigger and scarier, and the Demons didn't go back into their box. Buffy may have defeated the Master at the end of Season 1, but she failed to defeat the Hellmouth, and as the seasons progressed the line between the "reality" of Sunnydale and the Underworld of the Hellmouth became more and more blurred. In season three we are told that the mayor "built this town for demons to feed on" and by the end of season seven the two are so inextricably linked that the final closing of the Hellmouth actually destroys the town.

As I said above, I ultimately think this is an inevitable effect in a long running series. The first time a vampire attacks somebody on school grounds it's scary. The twelfth you just start to wonder why the school is still open. The Sunnydale body count became something of a running joke ("if we train hard, keep focus, and don't have so many mysterious deaths, Sunnydale is gonna rule") but while it was funny it also began to undermine the point of the show. What started out as a nice little town threatened by a supernatural enemy became itself a seat of magical corruption. By the end of series seven there is literally nobody normal left in Sunnydale, they've all evacuated because of the effects of the Hellmouth (even the more sympathetic demons get out of town).

What this means is that, by the end of the series, Buffy has literally nothing left worth fighting for, except possibly Joss Whedon's ropey feminist doctrine. The later series of Buffy fall flat because, as Sunnydale itself becomes a place of evil, the Slayer loses all contact with the real world.

Mugglism: The Family Romance

Ultimately, though, I can forgive Buffy for its structural flaws. What I have more trouble with is the peculiar tendency in a lot of Modern/Urban Fantasy to treat the Fantasy World as just flat-out better than reality.

The chronic offender in this case is, of course, the Wizarding World of the Harry Potter series. Harry is rescued from the dull, dreary (and psychotically abusive) Dursleys, the "biggest load of Muggles" Hagrid has ever seen. He is then taken away into the wonderful Wizarding world where everything is fabulous and magical. He then discovers that he is a figure of the utmost importance in said world, and people either treat him with awe or loathing, both of which he finds equally affirming, while the infallibly wise guardian of his new world assures him that he really is all that and a bag of chips. Meanwhile the author informs us in interviews that everything in the Wizarding world is indeed superior to everything in the real world.

Oh, and just to forestall the inevitable "but the Wizarding world is really dangerous" apologia, there are two things to say about that. Firstly, until Rowling writes a scene that actually reminds me of the Holocaust, instead of just vaguely alluding to people making Nazi salutes, real life has Rowling licked when it comes to being dark, man. Secondly, horrors of actual, non-school-based wars aside, "like the real world but nastier" is yet another way of saying "like the real world but better". I'm going to hark right back to my third ever Ferretbrain article here and say that one of the things that really impressed me about Pan's Labyrinth was the fact that the really scary thing in it was not the Faun, or the Labyrinth, or the dude with the eyes in his hands, but the brutal mass-murdering fascist.

Anyway, where was I. Oh yes. The "fantasy is better than reality" style of Urban Fantasy usually winds up being a version of the (Freudian, and therefore almost certainly no longer reputable) idea of the Family Romance. The belief, common in young children, that their parents aren't their real parents, and they're actually something different and special. Of course most of us then grow up and realise that our parents are pretty okay people, and that being a Magical Princess probably wouldn't be that great, and actually there's some pretty radical stuff in the real world which we could be getting on with (like writing for webzines or playing World of Warcraft).

A mythical journey in which the Hero leaves the real world and then never comes back is always going to seem, to me (and therefore to anybody who matters), to be fundamentally juvenile.

Pan's Labyrinth would have been completely meaningless if Ofelia did not ultimately end up confronting Vidal (albeit hopelessly), and the Lord of the Rings loses a lot of its impact if the Hobbits don't go back to the shire. Harry Potter may save the Wizarding World, but muggles like me have no reason to care about that. Stories like the Potter series work absolutely fine, as long as you're still labouring under the illusions that you're a beautiful unique snowflake, and the only people that matter are you and the few others you're willing to accept as equally special. The moment you - not to put too fine a point on it - grow the fuck up, and realise that everybody else (yes even the teachers at your school, yes even your parents, yes even the kids who are mean to you) are real people with their own lives and ideals, you have to let go of the belief that your secret world is the most important one.

I've not yet finished City of Bones, much less the whole "Mortal Instruments" series, but it's shaping up to go the same way as potter: a long story about somebody totally failing to grow up.

In Conclusion: Why Americans Damned Well Should Be Afraid of Dragons

Roleplayers in the audience will probably know that White Wolf Game Studio used to publish, as part of their risibly-entitled World of Darkness line a game called Changeling the Dreaming. It was a game about, like, the loss of innocence and the death of dreams, man. Players took on the role of Changelings, fairy spirits in human bodies, who were slowly losing their beautiful-unique-snowflakeness under the crushing "Banality" of the modern world.

As games went, it was alright, it fetishised childhood in a slightly iffy way, but otherwise was decent Guns and Wizards Urban Fantasy fare. What bugged me about it, though, was the way it essentially divided everything in the world into "Banal" (soul destroying and imagination crushing) and "Glamorous" (drawing on the power of the Dreaming, the wellspring of human imagination). In particular, what bugged me about it was that it assumed that "imagination" was associated purely with the trappings of medieval fantasy. An artist who paints grim cityscapes and urban decay is Banal, an artist who paints forests full of dancing elves is Glamorous.

Who Wants to be a Millionaire is Banal wish-fulfillment tapping into people's desire to get something for nothing. The hundred or so fairy stories about farmer's sons who get fantastically rich because of a stroke of good fortune are totally inspiring and bring out the best in humanity.

In her article Why are Americans Afraid of Dragons? Ursula le Guin observes (perhaps correctly) that the Fantasy genre is looked down upon in America, and that this is perhaps indicative of a society too obsessed with industry, productivity and profit, and distrustful of the imagination. Fiction in general, and fantasy in particular, encourages the reader to stop thinking about how they can best make a million bucks before they're forty and start thinking about any one of the million other things they could be doing. As Le Guin puts it:

"Fantasy is true, of course. It isn't factual, but it is true. Children know that. Adults know it too, and that is precisely why many of them are afraid of fantasy. They know that its truth challenges, even threatens, all that is false, all that is phony, unnecessary, and trivial... They are afraid of dragons, because they are afraid of freedom."

Of course the important thing to remember about this particular essay is that Le Guin is using "dragons" and "fantasy" as a shorthand for "fiction in general", and you could the mistrust of Fantasy in the twentieth century with the mistrust of the novel in the nineteenth. A lot of fantasy readers (and, by extension, some fantasy writers) go further. Like Changeling they come to view "elves and dragons and shit" as being synonymous with imagination, and to view imagination as the only virtue required in humanity, instead of as part of a healthy, well rounded personality.

Sensible proponents of Fantasy argue that it is perfectly okay to like dragons and wizards, and that the presence of fantasy elements does not make a story frivolous. Less sensible proponents of fantasy seem to want to argue that it is perfectly okay to like nothing except dragons and wizards, and that fantasy elements make a story more meaningful by their mere inclusion. This is particularly common in fandom and geekdom, where people are massively more inclined to focus on the details of a particular setting (elves, vampires, wizards) than on the actual contents of the narrative (destruction of rural England, coming-of-age in small town America, why suicide is totally heroic).

Obviously, I don't want a return to the nineteenth century, I don't want a world where nobody reads fiction, or where it isn't considered perfectly okay to pick up the odd bit of Laurel K Hamilton if you feel like something light and pulpy, but I am deeply concerned about a Fantasy genre that is coming to view fantasy as an end in itself. That's fine if you're aspiring to nothing more than light holiday reading, but a lot of fantasy (even, or perhaps I should say especially children's fantasy) takes itself very seriously, and it's ludicrous to try to deal with "real" issues in something that's totally divorced from the real world. You can't show us the reality of war in a world where everybody acts like an overgrown five-year-old and people only die when the author is trying to make a point.

Fantasy is not factual, and because it is not factual it must remain true, and the truth is that the real world matters, and that real people are amazing, and a Hero who doesn't return is no hero at all.

Themes:

J.K. Rowling, Books, TV & Movies, Sci-fi / Fantasy, Whedonverse

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Arthur B

at 15:31 on 2008-09-27I'm reminded a little, in fact, of Terry Gilliam's

Tideland

, which kind-of repudiates the fantasy-as-an-end-in-itself stance he took in some of his earlier films: in that one you have plenty of people who use fantasy as a means of escaping from the world around them, with the result that their lives are completely stagnant and horrible, and you've got the protagonist who uses fantasy to endure the world around her whilst still progressing through it, so she comes out the other end more-or-less unscathed and with a potential adoptive mum to boot.

You've glossed over an aspect of the Hero's Journey a little, which is that when the Hero returns to the everyday world he isn't just a fuller and more complete man, he actually enriches the everyday world by the fact that he's gone on this journey in the first place.

Lord of the Rings

is an exceptionally good example of this; not only are the Hobbits better people for having gone to fight Sauron, but when they get back they solve the Shire's problems and then (for the most part) become its primary movers and shakers for the next generation. Arguably, part of the problem with the way Buffy developed was that whilst Buffy's own real life problems were often solved by her adventures, she didn't so much enrich the community by her adventures so much as prolong the death throes of the status quo: things gradually get worse, and worse, and worse in Sunnydale until it all goes to shit. Harry Potter's magical studies not only have no beneficial effects for his community in the mundane world, he's actually legally prevented from letting that happen.

I think the problem with Hero's Journey type narratives in fantasy set in the modern day is that "it's the modern day, but with vampires" seems far too close to the real world, if you see what I mean. Back in the day it was sufficient for the hero to walk a long long long way away and people could accept that "oh, OK, way over there is the land of magic and adventure". The problem with the likes of Buffy and Potter is that the land of magic and adventure is

right on their doorstep

, and this actually makes the return to the real world slightly problematic; because the vampires and werewolves and death eaters are in such close proximity (physically and in terms of always getting in each other's face), you'd expect the hero to be concerned about them all the time. The reason

Narnia

does the Hero's Journey so well is precisely because Narnia is a mythic otherworld which it's non-trivial to get to, and I would argue that that's a requirement for any mythic otherworld in a Hero's Journey-based story: if you can get to the Hellmouth by walking down the street then that's not so much a Hero's Journey as a Hero's Morning Jog.

I suspect the answer is to use a different myth for modern-day fantasy.

Supernatural

seems to get a lot of mileage (no pun intended) out of the old Lone Ranger/Fugitive "Eternal Wanderer" story (which has the advantage that it's a lot easier to adapt to television, because you can spin it out for as long as you damn well like, whereas the Hero's Journey pretty much demands an end point).

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Andy G

at 20:52 on 2008-10-05Great article! That really put the finger on something that had been bugging me, except actually I hadn't realised it had been bugging me until I read the article. I was just wondering how you think Star Wars would fit into the pattern of the Hero's return, as you'd given that as an example of one closely written to the pattern, but it doesn't seem as clear-cut an example as the LotR or others where the magical world/magical powers are left behind?

Possibly a stupid question as you have clearly read a lot of stuff ABOUT fantasy (where on earth do you find it? I mean I do like to read fantasy, but I can barely ever find anything interesting written about it - except on Ferretbrain, of course) but have you read On Fairy Stories by Tolkien? It covers a lot of the themes from above, and it's one of my favourite essays with some really well-made points.

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Arthur B

at 21:15 on 2008-10-05As far as I can tell, the supposed precise mapping of

Star Wars

to the Hero's Journey is a bit ropey, and came about mainly because John Campbell was all "Hey,

Star Wars

fits the Hero's Journey perfectly" and George Lucas said "Oh... really? I mean, yes. Yes it does."

So working out where all the various bits and pieces fit in is sometimes tricky, but I think the Hero's Return is very much there, although it's pretty much described in a single scene - it's the bit at the end where they're all getting their medals and all the rebel forces cheer them. Having ventured into the depths of the Death Star's chasm and faced the dark lord, Luke emerges victorious and the community (said community being the rebellion) is enriched for it. That's all you really need for the Hero's Return - tenuous, I know, but so's the entire Hero's Journey idea to begin with.

(The end of Return of the Jedi is interesting in this light, actually - the community is having a big party, but Luke isn't really part of it - he's off at the edge, burning his father's body and communing with ghosts, his experiences finally alienating him from his community because he's endured so many things that have no parallel in the common experience of the war - hundreds of people can claim they were involved in the attack on Death Star II, for example, but only Luke actually saw Darth Vader's true face.)

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Dan H

at 16:29 on 2008-10-06

I've not read it actually (I'm far less well read than I pretend to be, I just shout my opinions loudly and hope people assume I've done some research).

As for Star Wars, the "real world" if you want to call it that in the SW saga is (IMO) the Rebellion, the big deal is that while Luke goes off and learns from Jedi Masters and confronts Darth Vader, it's the regular guys in the guns-and-bombs shooting war that he comes back to. Our Esteemed Editor also points out that Luke's return to Han and Leia is a quite literal return to family at the end of the series.

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Sister Magpie

at 20:38 on 2008-10-30Great article! I've been catching up and had just read your review where you asked why someone would have to add fantasy to New York City to find a sense of wonder--quoting that paragraph that's a beautiful image strangely undermined by the addition of werewolves, fairies, vampires and mermaids. (Central Park, Chinatown, the Hudson River are all far more interesting.)

I've always liked "our world, but with magic" in terms of books starting in our world rather than a totally different secondary world, but I totally agree with this--because as you say, setting something in our world and adding magic doesn't have to mean that our world is the world that sucks or can't hold it's own. A sense of home is always present in LOTR and that makes the Shire stand up as just as wonderful as any magical place.

It reminds me of the book Hatchet that I had to read a couple years ago for a thing I was doing on YA books. I have only ever read that book, but there are several in the series. It's not fantasy, it's about a boy who survives a plane crash and must survive alone in the Canadian wilderness. But in the end he's rescued and there's other books, some of which follow a "what if?" scenario where he never leaves the woods. What struck me about the synopses of the later books was that the main character pretty much wound up going off to live in the forest. He didn't like civilization any more and preferred his solitary life.

The idea seemed to be that the author enjoyed the more "real" life experience of fighting for your survival, hunting your own food etc. But I thought it made the whole series a failure by not realizing that the point of a Vision Quest is to find out how you can help your community. Deciding to be a hermit--a fine choice in other contexts--is here just selfish and avoiding the responsibilities of being an adult in the community.

It's just important to make the distinction between this really being a flaw in Urban fantasy and it being just something urban fantasists can use it for.

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Dan H

at 15:25 on 2008-11-17Hiya, sorry it took me so long to reply (this just in, doing NaNo is

hard

). Thought I'd clarify one particular point:

It's just important to make the distinction between this really being a flaw in Urban fantasy and it being just something urban fantasists can use it for.

Oh absolutely. By "a flaw in Urban Fantasy" I basically meant it in the specific, subjective sense (as in "this is something I consider to be a flaw in the works of urban fantasy which I have personally read") not a fundamental weakness of the genre.

I find it particularly infuriating since so much Urban Fantasy is either targeted at children or "young adults" and if there's one thing that young adults *don't* need to be told, it's that being an adult is for losers.

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Sonia Mitchell

at 01:52 on 2009-06-25Once again I know this is old, but I hadn't read any Campbell when you wrote this. I'm rehashing now I've read enough of

Hero With a Thousand Faces

to comment. Not all of it, I have to add (psychology texts bore me) but a fair amount (I'm also cribbing the exact terms from

here

because it's been a few months since I touched the book).

And while I agree with the points you make, Dan, I don't think HWATF backs them up. It's not a check-list of ingredients for a story, but a variety of factors of which some (not all) can be found in a given hero's journey. Refusing to return

a valid stage of the journey, even if it makes for an unsatisfying narrative. I agree that it marks Harry out as an immature hero, just as I think it does Achilles and the Sandman and the Pevensies (who never intended to return home in TLTW&TW). For most of us there does come that point where we stop thinking Dorothy's mad for wanting to go back to Kansas (we grow the fuck up, as you so rightly say), but nevertheless according to Campbell heroes who don't return are still heroes.

Suicide

can

be 'totally heroic' in the classical model Campbell's following, which isn't using heroes as role models. Working in the chivalric model, which I think maybe you are, naturally it isn't. And Harry Potter seems to strongly invite one to take the chivalric viewpoint, right up to telling us how 'gallant' Harry is for protecting a(n extremely competent) woman with an unforgivable curse. If nothing else, the cosmetic details (suits of armour, portraits of damsels, Arthurian treasures and constant references to Merlin) are knightly not classical, and invite one to take a certain perspective (there might be an article in this, actually...).

As far as I can tell, the supposed precise mapping of Star Wars to the Hero's Journey is a bit ropey, and came about mainly because John Campbell was all "Hey, Star Wars fits the Hero's Journey perfectly" and George Lucas said "Oh... really? I mean, yes. Yes it does."

Which I'd say is the right way to do things - treating. HWATF as a tool for analysis rather than an instruction manual on how to write fiction. I think consciously ticking off the elements of the hero's journey would make for a rather boring (not to mention contradictory) story, since the natural temptation would be to take them far too literally. I'll take tenuous any day :-)

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http://ruderetum.blogspot.com/

at 16:20 on 2009-09-10Great article and it immediately reminded me of Guy Gavriel Kay's Fionavar trapesty, which is a bit narnian in its basic plot, has some slight elements of urban fantasy and I thin generally is a surprisingly awesome take on what seems on the surfce to be an awfully cliched fantasy world. Commenting on heroic suicides, I think this one has one brilliantly haunting example and a few others might qualify as well.

But really made me recollec this is the development of Dave, who is kind of an average guy compared to the rest of the cast and doesn't get any cool pwers or even the girl or anything. But in a very awesome ending, without any sense of needless fanfare, you know that he'll return back to the real world and things will be okay.

I won't explain more because I'd hate to spoil it for any one and I guess it would be a bit tedious.

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#Ferretbrain #Harry Potter #J.K. Rowling #Buffy the Vampire Slayer #Ursula K. Le Guin #The Mortal Instruments #Cassandra Clare

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arcadefloorvibes · 5 years

Note

I know this is a lot and u dont have to do all of them but im interested: 3. 7. 13. 18. 21. 25. 34. 44. 46. 55. 57. 58. 69. 71. 76. 86. 97. 99.

It's perfectly fine to send me a lot, I love doing these!

3. What color are your eyes?

They're mainly grey but they change depending on the weather which is really weird. Example. Sunny day deep full grey, cloudy day grey with colored flecks. I got fully blue one day and that was awesome

7. What color is your hair?

I haven't seen my natural hair color since September, so I'm going off my eyebrow color and saying dark brown but at the moment my hair is a really nice turquoise color!

13. Any sibling?

Yep, three.

That's right, 3.

They're all my younger brothers and I'm really good friends with one who I've mentioned enough times that he has a code name, Kevin. (Which I find hilarious because that's the name he said he hates the most) he's mentioned in my plotagon animation on youtube (I'm ilovemazerunnerohandbooks if you want to check it out)

They're 13, *struggles to remember* Kevin is nine(?) and eight

Kevin is also a massive airhead and I wonder some days if he's deaf

18. Favourite tv show?

Aaaaaaah I don't have a favourite one so I'll say my favourites

Miraculous Ladybug (haven't seen season 3 because my brothers say I have to wait for them)

Nowhere boys (again can't watch because I have to wait for them)

Vs Arashi (a Japanese show that is hilarious and awesome)

And Mythbusters because making a machine to see if popcorn can make a house explode is entertaining

21. Sandals or sneakers?

Sneakers

I will only wear sandals if its a party or something

25. What color socks are you wearing?

I'm in bed currently but earlier today I was wearing socks with George Washington's face on them (heh George WASHinton because you wash your socks... I think it's funny)

34. Favourite actress

I've never actually thought of this, ooh, um Emma Watson

I like her and she's the only one that I could watch hours of interviews and things from (or Kaya Scoldalario (hope that's spelt right))

Good question though

44. What's your biggest fear?

The one I tell everyone is spiders because the bastards are everywhere and I hate them but my biggest fear is disappointing people

It's an inconvenient fear

If anyone says they belive I can do something I will push myself to do the thing so I don't disappoint them

I think the fear comes from when I was younger and did something bad my parents wouldn't get angry they would just say they were disappointed in me and that was worse that getting in trouble

46. What's your go to hair style?

My hair is short so I keep it with a fringe and as flat as I can possible get it because it bounces back anyway

55. What is your dream job?

Honestly I'm still working on that one, but I'm thinking a librarian

I get to be in my favourite place, the people who go there are like me, bookworms and nerds, sort books by alphabetical order and get paid for it and I constantly get book recommendations

Best job ever

57. Do you take shampoo and conditioner bottles from hotels?

Never been to a hotel so I wouldn't know but my grandparents do and they give me the nice smelling ones

58. Do you have freckles?

No I don't, but my eight year old brother does and I'm jealous

69. Do you play an instrument?

Kind of. I took cornet classes and joined a band for a month then stopped and I can kind of read piano sheet music and play with my right and left hand but not at the same time

71. Tea or coffee?

I like tea and I'll gladly have some tea with my sugar but if I'm told I can't have something I want it more I'll choose coffee

Caramel mocha is the best thing I have ever had

76. What color looks best on you?

Black, dark purple or dark red really vampy colors

Because of the blue hair, anything that contrasts with that is really good and I enjoy dark vampiric colors

Also I wear nothing but these colors so I don't know.

86. What is your phone background?

At the moment it's default because my parents help me with my business on my phone and I dont want them to see what I have but I have my ideal photo

Sebastian Michaelis looking freaking adorable

Seriously I'm obsessed with Black Butler at the moment to the point where I've designed a Sebastian Sim

You know shit is real when you're making sims

97. Dark, milk or white chocolate?

Dark chocolate with nuts is super good but milk works with everything so I'll go with that

And the final one 99. What is your zodiac sign?

I'm a Leo and from what I've read I am not very Leo at all

Thank you so much for sending me these, i love doing these game!

#maze girl #long post #ask me stuff #thank you!!!

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tiny-smallest · 7 years

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I FINALLY HAVE ENOUGH OF THESE TO POST.

With @the-vampire-inside-me‘s permission, meet Cain! Abel’s brother and the antagonist of his show, the character used to drive home his cartoon’s ham-fisted morals. As the villian of a Christian propaganda show I figured he should be Abel’s height and that a lot of black (as opposed to Abel’s white colors) was a good idea, red instead of blue, an X instead of the cross on Abel’s shirt, and of course, demon wings, horns, and a tail. Really drive home that “he’s the opposite of our good guy” thing. I needed to make the insides of his wings white so that you could actually hecking see him. The magician’s hat and the showman’s cane are there because Christian fundamentalists haaaaaaaaate magicians and showbiz in general, so I figured they’d want to portray these in a negative light.

“But wait!” you cry. “They’re making a cartoon; isn’t... isn’t that technically showbiz?”

Why yes, yes it is. Fundamentalists of any religion or philosophy are also massive hypocrites and I bet a lot of those faceless, fundamentalist Christian, corporate goons are cheating on their wives and enjoy amassing riches, neither of which are things the Bible condones.

Anyway, back to Cain. Brought to life probably after Abel ran away in an accident (they were trying to make a copy of Abel, but somehow, the character sheet they ran through the machine was Cain’s...) Cain escapes quickly and comes across Oliver, the redhaired kid, who he decides to relentlessly annoy because Oliver is obviously a Christian kid, and is weaker than himself, and he’s mad about the brief nonsense he went through at the studio.

Cain can be a bit of an asshole at times. What he doesn’t realize is that Oliver’s family is pretty abusive and happen to be the same kind of Christian fundamentalists that Abel’s show was for, to brainwash their kids.

He’s viewed Oliver as a one dimensional character because he hadn’t found his footing in reality yet, but after finding out about the abuse, he felt pretty bad and decided, to make up for being a jerk, to instead look after the kid. Cain kind of just showed up at Oliver’s house to bother him when he knew no one else was home; at first it was to torment Oliver, but after his decision to be nice, it became more of a friendly thing. It turned into Cain bringing him stuff Oliver wasn’t supposed to have (like music, certain books, other things that fundamentalists would vehemently not want their kids to have), they cooked together, Cain taught him to dance, Cain good naturedly annoyed the hell out of him (he frequently used him as an armrest when floating next to him, just because he could). Under his care, Oliver grew a backbone (with him alone but it was a start) and their interactions became basically snarking back and forth in a friendly sort of way. They came to really enjoy each other’s company. Cain even stopped smoking because Oliver really hates the smoke.

Eventually Oliver made another human friend, Eric, whose life was also terrible--a foster kid with no future, living in a home crammed full of other foster kids, with foster parents only keeping them around for the money. He anticipated being kicked out when he turned eighteen and decided that, if he was going to be on a timer, he was going to have fun with it. When things reach a boiling point with Oliver’s parents, Cain offers to take them both away, promising to look after them on the road. So after a lot of convincing a very scared Oliver, they ditch town. Many cities away, a town over from Toon Town, Oliver met and befriends some of my toon batim ocs (including Ihsan) with whom they struck up a friendship. These toons are friends with Anne Rye, who runs a shelter for newly created toons or toons who are down on their luck; it’s through Ihsan and her friends that Cain, Oliver, and Eric meet Anne Rye, a friendly human lady who seems pretty okay, but whom the three of them aren’t quite ready to trust yet. Meanwhile, Oliver has a book on magic that he found in a crawlspace in his old home, and he’s determined to master it-- someone has to understand the magic that brings toons to life to prevent its abuse, and while he didn’t sign up for this shit, he found the book so it looks like it’s happening anyway. Cain struggles to figure out who he truly is and what he wants, handling existential crisises and the responsibility of looking after two boys. Eric dreams of adventure and being a musician, determined to make something of his life to spite everyone who said it would amount to nothing.

Shenanigans ensue.

The irony in everything is that, opposite of Abel, Cain becomes gentler over time and is generally a funny trickster. He’s definitely got a temper and enjoys making people who get under his skin suffer, but he doesn’t hate humans and the large majority of his payback is nonlethal, nonviolent, like spitballs and paint bombs, ruining job interviews and dates with stealth and sabotage, etc. No pounding people into a bloody pulp like Abel unless they’re actually coming for his blood first. He struggles a lot, but he refuses to let the world harden him completely, and it really shows whenever you put a kid in front of him. Or put him in front of a racetrack.

Man, does he love watching races. He loves participating in them too, in the air. He can fly ridiculously fast. (And also float without the use of his wings, but he can only float like, a couple feet off the ground.)

He also comes to really miss his brother (who he mockingly called Abby a lot in the show because cutesy = humiliating for boys; gotta love the toxic masculinity that fundamentalists preach; the nickname eventually became far more of an affectionate thing to Cain then an attempt to belittle) and want him back in his life.

Unfortunately for Cain, the people who made his show are horrified that he escaped and the last thing they want is the villain of their show made real out there undermining their message by being seen as someone positive; it’s bad enough Abel got away and either disappeared or became someone negative (I have no idea if his studio knows the shit Abel gets up to or not).

Cain and his boys are in a lot more danger than they realize. These are people with an image to protect, and as anyone who follows politics can tell you, fewer people are more ruthless than hypocrites with a message to push and an image to uphold.

(And that is related to that last little drawing, but I can’t draw traumatized faces, apparently. At least I tried? Gotta go outside your comfort zone when drawing.)

Abel belongs to @the-vampire-inside-me

Cain is mine, as are pretty much everyone else mentioned here except Abel and the people who made the boys.

(Oliver is an old oc with many incarnations. Be warned he may pop up elsewhere; I already have him planned as a Lampblack City character, for example, and he’s also got another incarnation as well that I may be drawing!)

#the-vampire-inside-me #bendy and the ink machine #batim oc #cain #oliver #eric #i tried some more new things with this and only some of them worked but I TRIED #oliver doesn't get his scarf until after anne gifts it to him and i forgot #so there's an image of him with his scarf when he's not supposed to have it #oops #eric's supposed to be like part of the greaser counterculture but i can't draw leather jackets #there's an off model cain in here with his head the wrong shape but i do not have the strength to fix it i'm sorry #i tried experimenting with eye shapes and clothing folds #i think i forgot oliver's freckles in one panel ugh #i listened to 'go speed racer go' for like 90% of this and it's what inspired cain's love of speed #it basically encompasses a lot of his personality like he wants ADVENTURE and SPEED and FUN #my art #oliver gray

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movietvtechgeeks · 6 years

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Latest story from https://movietvtechgeeks.com/supernaturals-brendan-taylor-briana-buckmaster-jared-padalecki-jensen-ackles-pt-1/

'Supernatural's' Brendan Taylor on Briana Buckmaster, Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles Pt 1

I enjoyed the character of Doug when he was introduced back in Season 11, so I was overjoyed to see Doug return in last week’s Supernatural ‘Breakdown’. Which means I couldn’t wait to talk with Brendan Taylor, the actor who brought Doug to life. We caught up by phone the day after the episode, and despite being interrupted by multiple bouts of laughter and several US-to-Canada phone glitches, we had a great chat. Doug returns as the love interest of Sheriff Donna (Briana Buckmaster) who is also one of the stars of the proposed Supernatural spin-off, Wayward Sisters. We've split Brendan Taylor's interview with Lynn into two parts as it's very long as we know our Lynn gets deep with everyone on Supernatural. [caption id="attachment_53077" align="aligncenter" width="696"] Photos: Brendan Taylor[/caption] Lynn: I loved that episode so much last night!! Brendan: I’m quite happy with it! Obviously, reading the script, it was fun to read, and I think it was nice that compared to some episodes that maybe have more fantasy involved, this one had more realistic elements. L: It seemed like an old school Supernatural episode, getting back to those horror-film-in-42-minutes type thing, yet it also had emotionality and humor. That’s kinda what Supernatural is known for, being able to combine all those things in a way that actually works. It really was a solid episode. B: Yeah, it felt good. Amyn [Kaderali], the director, was really great. He gave us a lot of leeway and took a lot of our input. There were a couple of lines in there that Briana and I were able to offer some thoughts because Amyn hadn’t directed the show before, so we would say, we think the characters might say this or say it this way, and he was all for it. It was kinda cool. L: I love when that happens, and that Supernatural seems to be such a collaborative show. I have a game I play with Jensen Ackles where I try to guess all the lines that aren’t scripted, because sometimes they’re some of my favorites. Can you give me any examples of when that happened in this episode? B: Yeah, sure. One that I was thinking of that I thought worked well was when I go to sit in the car with Jensen and chat and give him the file, and I guess try to get some advice about Donna and so forth. His line is “well you’ll always be there for her, right?” And the scripted line is “absolutely” or “of course.” But what do I say? I thought Doug would say “you betcha.” L: (laughing) Oh yes B: Because he would! And that sort of dialect, anyone else saying “oh you betcha,” it could kinda come off as maybe sarcastic, but to a Minnesotan... L: Yes! B: There are many instances when Briana says that and it’s like, yes, that’s her way of saying it. L: I like that because in a subtle way that sort of establishes the relationship and the closeness and the similarity of Donna and Doug, you know? He says it too, like he’s right there with her, which is part of his importance to her. B: Exactly, yeah, that’s why I thought it was important too. The reason why we’re together and we get along – although the show alludes to us being together now for two years almost in real time, since Plush aired – we think and do things the same way and speak the same way, and I think that speaks to their connection for sure. L: I was impressed with some of the subtle things you did that I think showed us early on that maybe Doug was gonna have a problem with all this. There’s a scene where Doug and Dean and Marlon (the cashier-turned-vampire) are watching the live auction video for the first time, and Doug just flinches and turns away. It seemed to telegraph that even though obviously that’s a normal reaction, this isn’t going to be Doug’s thing. B: I think that’s a testament to the writing [by Davy Perez] as well, that we even have a scene where we all have to watch that. We all objectively are watching something that normally happens in Supernatural, people getting beheaded or whatever, but to watch someone see that as an outsider, I think we almost forget that Doug doesn’t know that. It’s not really brought up until then; it’s early on in the episode. To us as viewers who watch the show, that’s all normal in this world, but Doug is a reminder that this is not normal! (laughing) It’s not supposed to be normal. L: (laughing) Yes, we Supernatural viewers end up with a skewed view. B: And having said that, Doug is a cop, and he could have easily come across something like that, but he’s also a small town cop, and that’s a pretty intense thing to come across, the organized mutilation of people… L: At a live televised auction no less… Even for Supernatural, that was tough to watch. B: Yeah. I think it might be written that I look away, but I definitely made a point of making it clear that Doug can’t watch this easily. L: I liked that, the sort of telegraphing of how he’s going to react to all this. And I liked that in the first episode we saw Doug, he was mostly a comic character, he was sweet, he cared about Donna, but mostly he was there to be funny. And in this one, you definitely did get to be funny, but you got to show many other parts of Doug. He was brave, he was willing to do whatever, but at the same time, and this was beautifully written – he says I got into this to help people, not to behead vampires. B: Yeah, and I think that’s another important thing. You’re right, there’s a lot written that’s funny but there are still moments even in the first episode where Donna is a little harsh with me, and I call her out on it. By the end I say like you know, you’re treatin’ me like a punching bag. I like that resolution and Doug is like I’ve got baggage too, and I’m a person as well but a person who cares. And again, at the end I think a lot of people – I’ve seen some of the reactions, and I’ve been quite surprised, I didn’t know how this would all go down, to be honest. You would know better than me how many people have been given an opportunity to be a hunter and have turned it down willingly. L: Here’s the interesting thing, and I think it’s why this episode hit me so hard emotionally. I study fan psychology, and I’ve written lots of books on Supernatural and its appeal, and Doug’s struggle here is part of what made this episode so poignant. It was a call back to the times early on in Sam and Dean’s life when they had to come to the realization that they couldn’t sustain relationships with people outside the life. Either the person would leave because they couldn’t deal with it, or they would lie to them and that would come out and the person would feel betrayed. So watching Donna go through that with Doug, I think it was hard for Sam and Dean, it brought that back. And for long time viewers, it brought that back too. B: That’s a good point. Knowing the show somewhat and its history, it was important to see that – I mean, I saw it when it was all put together in editing, I wasn’t watching what other actors were doing at the time (laughing) – but seeing Sam and Dean respond to our issue it’s like you said, you can tell that there’s a history, they’ve been through this before. And then they have that chat in Baby. L: Yes, and that was so important. This episode was all about Doug and Donna, but it was also about Sam and Dean. It also gave us insight into the Winchesters, which is what the show is always about and why I love it so much. B: Another thing that I noticed or wanted to mention is that a lot of people were sort of asking, why did you [Doug] run away, why didn’t you stay? That last scene is a couple minutes, but in the time frame of waking up after being turned, trying to figure out what the hell’s going on - I don’t know how much memory you have of being a vampire (laughing) - but and then waking up and everyone asking how you’re doing and is Wendy okay and yeah and do you wanna join us, only having learned about these monsters that I became in at time frame of what, a half hour? L: Yeah and you were unconscious, so you’ve had like five minutes to process it! B: Yeah, it’s like I haven’t had the time to process any of this, and that combined with the dishonesty….You know, this was two years for them… L: Yes, and she hid it from him all that time. And that was part of what happened with Sam and Dean’s other relationships as well; they also didn’t tell the truth mostly, so for long-time fans, that hit hard. But I thought it was written, and you played it in a way that was 100% believable. That’s how I expected Doug to react. B: Yeah, I read it and of course when I found out I was back on the show, I was like OMG he just goes away? But then you do read it more, and it just makes sense, it’s too much to handle. I think that amplifies more what the hunters do also, to show how important it is and how different it is, what they do. Otherwise, everyone would be running around killing these monsters, and what’s special about that? L: And part of why they are such tragic heroes is that they make such sacrifices, and it is something special. B: It reminded me of Peter Parker and Mary Jane, that’s the common theme, they’re always back and forth and he can’t have her close because his enemies will know. She’s his biggest weakness etc. L: A theme on Supernatural as well, with Sam and Dean being each other’s biggest weakness – anyone you care about. And the reason the whole tragic hero thing is so compelling is because of that sacrifice and loss. Briana tweeted that you were an awesome scene partner in that last scene, you allowed her to go deep. What was it that you did that allowed you to give each other the ability to bring out such emotion? B: I didn’t know the director before this, but he pulled us aside – we shot that end scene my first day, not the first day of the episode, but my first day -- Which, to be honest, I was a bit nervous about just jumping in right away. L: OMG yes! B: Yeah, but it ended up being a bit of a blessing in disguise. As you know, those guys [Jared and Jensen] – I can’t keep a straight face around them… L: You and everyone else… B: They mess around, and they’re so good at it. Up to the very millisecond that the camera rolls, that they yell action, they’re screwing around, and they’re so dialed into what they do, they can do that. I mean, I wanna screw around more than anyone, but I don’t get the daily practice that they do. (laughing) We can get into it later, but there are some scenes that I just couldn’t deal. L: Oh yes, that’s on my list of questions. I was just doing the serious ones first…. B: Okay, so that scene, the director took us into the motel room set, and we got into our selves, and he did a sort of rough blocking on it and Briana and I both – it’s one of those things, we’re so lucky to be paired with someone who takes what we do seriously. And Briana is very well trained in what she does, in theater and musical theater, and she’s such a committed actress. I’m trained the same way in theater, and I take what I do very seriously too, and I want to spend as much time to sort of give as much as I can of myself to it. The more you honor that situation, the more it means, you know? Because if you look at it a certain way, not honoring that situation is doing a disservice to everyone who’s been through that. And that goes for every acting performance, whether it’s a relationship scene like that that people can relate to, or something very tragic or a tragedy that not everyone experiences. It’s your task as an actor to follow up that story, so you better honor it for what it is. L: That makes so much sense to me as a psychologist. The realism of it, that’s why it’s so validating to all of us to see our stories told, and that’s how you make sure that works. I love that. I would imagine that when one person is able to be vulnerable and open, it allows the other person to go there too. B: Yeah, exactly, it’s like ‘oh okay, we’re going there? We’re going there.’ I think that’s true. Oh, they cut a really great scene, unfortunately. L: Oh no, what was it? B: There’s a scene where Doug and Donna are eating fast food in D Train. It was right after Dean told Doug that they were related. We’re eating fast food, but it’s sitting there getting cold. I said something about “well, it’s the sort of thing you tend to say…” and before we got to talk about it, Dean calls and we have to go. I could see why they cut it, but it was a nice little moment that built the new awkwardness between us before she gives me “the talk.” L: There’s always something that gets cut out that we find out later and are like aww damn. B: It was a good little scene. But it was important to give all that, to be there for each other. She’s so great that way. And I also need to mention that the boys are too. In that scene, that was my first day and we’re doing coverage, and it’s a pretty emotional scene to repeatedly do. L: I’ll say B: And there are a lot of set ups and four actors, and I don’t know how much you know about the filming process, but they will often sort of jump ahead if the script is in two different parts and we only have to shoot the last half and the first part is off camera so we just sort of pick it up and move on. That only works sometimes, but you’re sometimes robbing the momentum of the scene. L: By picking it up in the middle? I can imagine. B: If you don’t act out the whole thing and you just start on this word and keep going, but everything comes from the previous moment, so performance wise it helps to go back, but there’s pressure to move on. And I think it was both Jared and Jensen who -- it’s the very last moment when I leave, and we were told to kinda jump right in, and they suggested, do you want to say that? Do you want to go back to the beginning of the scene? And you know, they’re both off camera, it’s not about them, the coverage is on me. L: Right. B: And they’re like, we’ll go back. And that’s the coolest thing about them being at the helm of the show. They’re like okay, let’s go back, and everyone just drops into line, the cameras move out of the way, it’s like whatever needs to happen for the core of the scene. L: And they could so easily, after 13 seasons, just not care about the show so much, or about the other actors’ performances, but they do care. Enough to ask what you needed, and to make it happen. B: Exactly, that’s really true. It’s very common, even with certain name actors, they’re often not even there for your coverage. They put someone in, a stand in, to read their lines. L: That would be so hard. I’ve heard a lot of guest actors say that Jared and Jensen just don’t do that. B: It’s a very selfish thing to do, when people do that. As far as I’m concerned, you can’t have a scene without the person there. Who cares where the cameras are, it doesn’t matter. That’s secondary. It’s about the scene, and everyone needs to be there and be invested and be at the same level of commitment when you’re not on camera because you expect it when you’re on camera. L: Exactly. I do think it’s pretty extraordinary that they still care so much about the show and the characters. B: They really do. Jensen has directed several episodes and he – I was so impressed because I spent years on the other side of the camera doing set dec – so I know that side very well. There are other skills you learn from being an actor too, how to be on your mark and in the light, and when there’s a lot going on you still try to gauge what’s happening. I remember we were rolling one time and Jensen just said like move one foot to your right because the light is coming down here… (laughing) He just kind of moved me, he was paying attention to my light! L: (laughing) He snapped into director mode! B: Yeah, he just wanted to get the best out of the scene and make sure I knew that was the light set up. Because you’re not always told that, you go where you kinda go, but he just knew that. That’s pretty remarkable to see that level of skill in something that’s so specific. L: And something that’s optional too. I’m always so impressed by their ability to joke around and then snap into character just like that, but also by how smoothly everything works on that set. B: Yeah, I think that’s partially why it’s been going for so long, because there are lots of sets that don’t do that. And I think they all kind of know what they have, you know? They have this show that is of importance and works a certain way, and obviously, it’s a top down thing as well. If people at the top, whether it be number 1 and 2 on the call sheet, or the producers and the directors, they’re all positive committed people and I think that trickles down. Especially when you see the results and the reception. You would be an outsider if you tried to change that vibe, and it’s just not allowed. L: And it wouldn’t be good for anyone, it works. B: It just wouldn’t be tolerated very long. Part 2 of Brendan Taylor's Supernatural interview is right here.

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