Making a Villain (update)

Bad guys don't need to wear black.
But then again, black can be awesome.

So, what do Moriarty, Modred, and Sauron have in common?

Easy, they're all bad guys.

What else to they have in common? While all villains in their respective stories, very little connects the three.  Moriarty is a math professor gone bad, seemingly to start a criminal empire for the sake of it; an intellectual exercise for fun and profit. Sauron, of Lord of the Rings, is a being of pure evil who wants to conquer the word., with him as the only free person in it.  Modred ... well, depending on what edition you're looking at, he's either a a pure tool of his mother, a weapon of evil, a manipulative little wretch, or, just guy who's gotten caught up in events that lead to a train wreck (honestly, just read Mary Stewart's novels...)

Creating a villain can be no different from creating every other character in a universe. A character is a character, and if you're trying to create a fully 3-Dimensional person on the page, it shouldn't matter if it's a protagonist or an antagonist. With Sauron, there is literally an entire backstory on him stretching back thousands of years (Tolkien, The Silmarillion); Modred was given a great deal of emotional and personal depth by Mary Stewart in her novels of King Arthur; and Moriarty ... well, he was a tool by Arthur Conan Doyle because he was tired of writing Sherlock Holmes, other people have stepped up to give Moriarty more of a back story, including Isaac Asimov.

But note, Moriarty actually has no lines in the single short story he appears in. The only dialogue he has is whatever Holmes relates to Watson. He technically doesn't even need a backstory, but he's inspired countless variations for villain. As far as iconic personal adversaries, he might be the beginning of the archetype for the mirror opposite for the hero.

In the case of my bad guys, I've done both extremes. For my Pius novels, I have the personal history going back to the antagonist's grandparents. They have hobbies and motivations and a history. They have back stories, and I could probably make books out of the bad guys I make ... but then again, the last bad guy as protagonist was probably The Talented Mr. Ripley. Unless that's your read on the entirety of Game of Thrones.

However, there are schools of thought behind making villains.  One is that "the villains really see themselves as the good guys; the heroes of their own stories."

That's crap. Total and complete crap.

Why is that crap? Because it makes a lot of presumptions. Starting with the presumption that the villain even believes about "right" and "wrong."  Good, bad, they're the ones with the weapon. Going back to Greek mythology, the only constant "moral" was that right and wrong were whatever the fickle gods decided it was. Hubris was the only constant sin they appeared to acknowledge. If we want real life villains, does anyone think a Saddam Hussein believed in anything but power? How about the abortion lobby? Does anyone think they care about "women's health"? They only murder a few million children a year in the name of "mercy."

And you can't merely dismiss villains as sociopaths. Why not? There are plenty of amoral little bastards out there whose only goal is whatever their whim is at the moment. They don't think over morals, ethics, Nietzsche, the will to power ... though you'd be surprised how many think they are beyond good and evil, because what's good and evil.

And you don't need to be a sociopath to have a mindset geared towards "this is what I want," and "this is what's good for me," and screw the rest of the universe. We call it social media. What are the thugs of Anti-Fa but weaponized social media mobs? If you have that type of a person, add together a total disregard for the consequences, and for anyone who gets in your way, you have a good, solid villain.

This is my school of villainy.  My bad guys don't care about what's right and wrong.  They don't care about anything but what they want. They don't even see themselves as the hero of their story ... because that presumes they believe in heroes and villains. If there's no right and wrong, then what's a villain? What's a hero?

Can characters have a code of honor and be a villain? Sure, why not?  Honor is generally considered a system based solely on pride. There's a reason pride is a deadly sin. And pride is all about "me."

And, no, a villain doesn't have to be pure evil -- torturing, sadistic rapist qualities are not a prerequisite. For some, not everything is about sex. And, hell, I live in New York, BDSM is considered a "subculture."

Hey, just because the character slashes someone's throat and watches their lifeblood coming out of them in spurts, chuckling manically, doesn't necessarily make them a bad guy. Though it could make them a fairly scary good guy? (If you ever get the chance, look up the first Mr. Moto film with Peter Lorrie. He plays a Japanese man in the 1930s, just as everything goes to Hell in the Pacific.  You seem him kill people in what looks like cold blood.  He always wears black gloves, black coats, and he always looks sinister. You have no idea what side he's on until the very end.)

On the other end of the equation, there are people who try to tell me that MacBeth was a tragic hero ... Really? That's like saying that all of the murderers caught by Columbo were heroes, as opposed to a murder mystery told from the killer's point of view. Here's a lesson to being a writer: if you're trying to make your hero tragic, don't give him a body count in the triple-digits that includes innocent women and children.

My point: you don't need a bad guy to be crazy for him to be evil. Nor do you need a sadist, a rapist, a pervert, sex-fiend, or Jack the Ripper.

Hell, I don't think any of my villains are that sort of psycho.

The enemy in A Pius Man, for example, is none of these. Will he kill everyone in his way? Sure. Will he go out of his way to utterly and completely destroy thousands if he can? Absolutely. Will he rape, torture, and maim for fun and profit? No.  Why? Because it's not efficient, a waste of time, and won't help him achieve his goals in the slightest.

The Love at First Bite series have demons and vampires as the bad guys, and they want to take over the world in the service of Hell. These bastards all know whose side they're on. They know they're working for the forces of Hell. You can't tell me they think they're the hero. (And no, you can't tell me that Lucifer is the hero of Paradise Lost -- he's the protagonist, but he's still the villain.)

Heck, the Saint Tommy NYPD series is ... oy. Again, possessed serial killer. A death cult and a warlock motivated by political power. I've got Jihadists who want to destroy Christendom so their culture can take over the world. There are anti-theists who have... a similar motivation. We won't even get into the eldritch horrors from beyond.

For the record, to write an antagonist, you just need one person to have competing goals with your main character. If you have a person with goals that run counter to the protagonist, then you have a good antagonist.

What that antagonist does makes them a villain. For a villain, you need someone who must be stopped, one way or another. And reasoning with them isn't even an option.

For a ton of good villains, and antagonists, I suggest you take a look at my Dragon Awards discussion post for some great novels that do this.

I may be strange

I'm a little odd.

You may have noticed.

Now, while I'm smart enough and well read enough that it's taken me decades to find a sizeable number of people who I can have a conversation with without dropping my vocabulary to that of a six year old, I'm also wired a little differently.

For example?  Well, I'll give you two.

First of all, we had some jackass talking about how The Lord of the Rings was racist against Orcs. You read that right. It wasn't some twisted way of saying that Orcs were "persons of color." It was that it was racist against Orcs.

You know, those charming, peace-loving, cannibalistic genetic abominations who will eat each other and any sapient creature they decide looks tasty.

As they say on the internet: Obvious troll is obvious.

This isn't even the stupid Tor argument from a few months ago where they tried to say that Orcs meant that Tolkien was "racist against humans" ... I wonder if these dumbasses realize that Tolkien was at the Somme. Where the people trying to kill him were German. And if Tolkien actually did hate anybody, it was probably going to be blond and blue eyed Kraut bastards. But I don't even think Tolkien was the type.

I was going to dedicate an entire blog to that. But no. Sorry. The stupid is just so obvious. We needed people to refute this?

The other thing that everyone reacted to last week?

That black and white morality is more interesting than shades of gray.

.... True. And?

Again, I was going to make a blog argument out of it, but ... no.

Now, obviously, this sounds strange coming from me, since I have characters who seem to dwell in shades of gray so dark, you'd think they were black. I have heroes who don't mind a bit of arm twisting, and the occasional outright torture, of people who have it coming... That's because they have it coming. Duh.

Hell, even Marco, from Love at First Bite, might be considered a sociopath, is certainly a little sadistic, and enjoys his job. But even he has hard limits, and constrains himself to inflicting his darkness on people who deserve it. Honestly, he's a few steps short of Dexter Morgan and he has definite lines he won't cross.

Frankly ... you can't have conflict if you dwell in endless shades of gray. It's why I wonder why anyone bothers with Game of Thrones, since, as Rawle points out in the above link, the readers spent endless amounts of time trying to see the good in a collection of incestuous, murderous psychopaths, and anyone with a moral code gets the shaft.

Again, I considered making a whole blog post about this.  But it just felt like such common sense, I felt stupid writing about it.

Then again, I suppose that if it were obvious, Watchmen and Game of Thrones wouldn't be that popular.

Oh well. I may be strange.

If you're interested in reading a book where the character believes in only black and white, with no shades of gray, then you're going to want to check out Hell Spawn. Because the great accomplishment here is that I've written a good man who stops short of being a Hallmark movie character.

Music blog: Over the Hills and Far Away

A while back, I was looking up the song "Over the Hills and Far Away."  It's an army song from the Napoleonic wars, and was first introduced to most people through the British tv movie series "Sharpe's Rifles." Richard Sharpe, the main character, was played by Sean Bean.... coincidentally the one who played Boromir in the video below.

"Over the Hills and Far Away," by Nightwish.  I found this one song while looking for the it's partner above. And, wow, was I in for a surprise. This was actually how I was introduced to Nightwish ... despite Ringo having them in several of his novels.

If you haven't already, check out some of the books below.

And if you have, please leave a review.

    

Epic Rap Battle: Tolkien vs Martin

There is a viewer warning here for R-rated language.

Then again, giving movie ratings lately, it's probably "PG-13."

And, for the record, I think we all know who wins this one. I usually don't declare victors in these sorts of things, but in this case, I think even the guys coming into this had a favorite....

Just a guess....

And, if you like that strange example of my sense of humor, you might want to try my NEW RELEASE: Sad Puppies Bite Back

Why Superversive fiction?

CS Lewis' demon, Screwtape, once had to advise his nephew Wormwood about a moment when the junior demon could not influence his targeted human. Screwtape patiently explained that Wormwood made the mistake of allowing the targeted human to read a good book. Any demon worth his sulfur should know that they must make certain that the humans they tempt must only be made to read important books. When people read good books that warm the soul, it cloaks them in a fog that a demon can't penetrate.

“Important” books like that have been why the term “literature” has always had a bad rap – especially 19ths and 20th century literature. Because, you will notice, that Lord of the Rings is rarely put in the literature section of a bookstore – if ever. I know of no English Literature program that will include Lord of the Rings as part of the curriculum. No. For “literature,” people are subjected to Steinbeck, or Lord of the Flies, or half of Russian literature, which makes you want to slit your wrists by the time you're done. To heck with being subversive, I would submit that much of the drivel labeled as “literature” is in fact corrosive to the human spirit, if not the human soul.

Much of the science fiction during the Cold War has the same problem. Ellison's I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream, may indeed be great literature, or even brilliant, but I do come away from it wondering why I cared, or why I read it. It's a good example of Cold War science fiction, filled with the despair for the future. Heck, one of the reasons Star Trek worked so well is that it was perhaps the first Cold War sci-fi that showed a world after World War 3 that didn't look like a variation on Mad Max or The Terminator.

So, that's why Superversive fiction has always been a mystery to me – not because I didn't understand the concept, but because I didn't see the need for the term. Growing up, I always understood the difference between fiction that edifies and fiction that doesn't. Which was my original problem with the concept of Superversive fiction. Shouldn't all fiction be Superversive?

Obviously, the deeper one looks at some of the fiction being shoved into the face of the general population, the more it becomes apparent that we need a Superversive movement, mostly because of all the works being labeled “important” and then thrust into the face of the general reading public, insisting that we should read it. Too much fiction tries to be “important” fiction, and in being “important,” goes for “reality” … only their reality is grim, dismal, and amazingly Unreal. If you're trying for literature, and making it a matter of despair, you're doing it wrong. Because, sorry, I've met people whose lives have been misery, and hope is quite abundant in them. To be Jean Paul Sartre about life is to invite suicide.

J. Michael Straczynski, in his comic The Book of Lost Souls, has one tale of a street artist who recently lost her boyfriend to drug abuse. Soon after, the mural she made of him has come alive, and is talking to her … and telling her to come and join him, offering her a needle. And it is not the voice of a demon, or a monster, but, as our hero explains,

“It is the voice of reason and resentment .… The voice of madness is the voice that Believes, despite all of the evidence to the contrary … that sustains us when logic demands that we surrender to the louder voice – the voice of reason, and resentment. And it always comes in the guise of those who love us most, who want only the best for us …. Someimes their motives are pure, wishing only to save us from pain. And sometimes the pain they wish to spare is their own, because if you can be convinced to set aside your own dreams, they can remain comfortable with their decision to do the same. The Voice of reason is the voice that tells us that our dreams are foolish ….[it sometimes becomes] a genius loci, the spirit of the place. And the spirit of this place is despair.”

And that's the problem with those “literary” souls who want to sacrifice their characters, and their audience, on an alter of “reality.” Sometimes, just because something is “rational,” doesn't necessarily make it true.

This concept of “the real” is as unreal as Tolstoy's lie, that "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way," an idea that probably requires being Russian to believe. Is there any more Russian concept than to believe that being happy is bland and uniform, but being miserable is unique? It is a lie, but perhaps Tolstoy didn't know that at the time. If those of the self proclaimed literati truly see the world as miserable as they write it, it does make me wonder why the authors in question just don't do away with themselves and leave the rest of us alone.

I would argue that most true literature is written by those who aren't trying. There is more truth in the hope of John Ringo's Black Tide series, than in the shallow materialism of Wagner's Ring cycle (his Twilight of the Gods has the hero die, the villain die, the king die and his sister die, the girl die, and her horse die, and the mermaids of the Rhine get their ring back and they live happily ever after … and why did we care?). Then you have the epic scope of John C. Wright's Iron Chamber of Memory and the magic around us, and the wonder and majesty of the world and the universe.

And if you doubt me that there's wonder and majesty in the universe, go Google some Hubble photos.

If you're writing a novel, and no one in it laughs, or has a reason to hope, or live … or writing sci-fi and fantasy without a sense of wonder … or you write about space without the terrifying beauty of what's in the dark … you might just be doing it wrong.

Just consider, for a moment, that Captain is about a psychically perfect human – not ubermench, not a superman, or a supernatural man, but essentially more preternatural – and that says and suggests more about the dignity and ability of the human person than anything in that Thomas Hobbes knockoff, Lord of the Flies. (Yes, I have problems with a whole book based upon one line by a philosopher who has no real concept about how human beings or society works).

To write well is to write Superversive. To write fun, entertaining books is superversive. Because to entertain well is to edify, to build up the reader. I would put more faith in Die Hard than in Lord of the Flies. I would put more faith in John Ringo, Larry Correia and Wright than all of the art films in the world. I'd rather read CS Forester and David Weber than Heart of Darkness or Lord Jim. Hell, I'd read any Ringo novel with a 90% casualty rate than anything by Stephen King.

At the end of the day, Superversive fiction – any fiction worth its salt – could be summed up by GK Chesterton: “Fairy tales are more than true, not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”

Which makes them a thousand times more real than anything most recent “literature” has to offer.

Why Superversive fiction? Because it might not be "real," but it's true.

Music to Write to: Into the West (Peter Hollens)

The Return of Everything

One, yes, I'm back. My guest has left for parts unknown (Iowa is greatly unknown to me) and I am now free and clear to right blogs again. The first thing I did was go over to the Catholic Geeks and pump out some articles, because I like to fulfill my obligations.

And, after finishing those news articles, I have to ask ... What is wrong with everyone lately?  Why is everyone and everything dedicated to reboots?

Okay, in some cases, I understand it. If it's a comic book something, fine, yay.  But why are people bothering bringing back crap that no one liked in the first place?

For example, Star Trek.  I understand bringing back Star Trek, because it's a force to be reckoned with, a franchise that's on the rebound.  So I understand having the return of Star Trek to the small screen.  Granted, in this case, it's smaller than usual, because it's "coming back" to computer streaming services, not to network or cable television. And, since the films are doing so well, it only stands to reason that Star Trek would take another stab at TV.

Star Trek has a fan base. It has some really die hard fans. These fans will cut you if you point out how DS9 ripped off Babylon 5. Star Trek is a franchise monster that's on the rebound.

THAT I understand.

But Van Helsing?  Remember that terrible Hugh Jackman film in 2004?  It's coming back, only to the Syfy channel and gender-swapped. And apparently with nothing to do with the original movie. None of the original people behind the film seem to be working on it, none of the cast are released, and it's being brought to us by the channel behind Sharknado.

Who thought this was a good idea? No one liked the original film, it died a horrible death at the box office, and it's so old, no one currently going to college probably even remembers it.  Honestly, it was 2004.  Do you remember that year very well?  It was the year after Lord of the Rings had finished, leaving Harry Potter to continue on inertia. Van Helsing was just a bad film.  And even worse, they've made it Vanessa Helsing -- unless it's Vanessa van Helsing, that means even THE NAME OF THE SHOW IS WRONG.  And if they make her nickname "Van," I'm going to throw rocks at the tv screen. That's such a stupid nickname, no one would swallow it.

Yes, I'm only pissed at the gender-swapping because they've managed to screw up the name in that route.

The Hobbit and the Piano Guys

This is a music blog sort of day. You may recall that these are the same people who brought you "Cello Wars" and my music blog featuring "Bring him Home" from Les Miserables.  If you don't recall them, you'll still like this -- they're doing the entire soundtrack of the Ring cycle (Tolkein, not Wagner) with two guys.

Enjoy all.

 

Music Blog: Lord of the Rings.

This was just fun. I think I've played this at least three dozen times since it came up.

Making a villain

Bad guys don't need to wear black.
But then again, black can be awesome.

So, what do Moriarty, Modred, and Sauron have in common?

Easy, they're all bad guys.

What else to they have in common? While all villains in their respective stories, very little connects the three.  Moriarty is a math professor gone bad, seemingly to start a criminal empire for the sake of it; an intellectual exercise for fun and profit. Sauron, of Lord of the Rings, is a being of pure evil who wants to conquer the word., with him as the only free person in it.  Modred ... well, depending on what edition you're looking at, he's either a a pure tool of his mother, a weapon of evil, a manipulative little wretch, or, just guy who's gotten caught up in events that lead to a train wreck (for the last version, I highly recommend Mary Stewart's novels.... in fact, just read her. Now)

Creating a villain can be no different from creating every other character in a universe. A character is a character, and if you're trying to create a fully 3-Dimensional person on the page, it shouldn't matter if it's a protagonist or an antagonist. With Sauron, there is literally an entire backstory on him stretching back thousands of years (Tolkien, The Silmarillion); Modred was given a great deal of emotional and personal depth by Mary Stewart in her novels of King Arthur; and Moriarty ... well, he was a tool by Arthur Conan Doyle because he was tired of writing Sherlock Holmes, other people have stepped up to give Moriarty more of a back story, including Isaac Asimov.

In the case of my bad guys, I tend to have the history of not only the antagonist's parents, but their grandparents. They have hobbies and motivations and a history. They have back stories, and I could probably make books out of the bad guys I make ... but then again, the last bad guy as protagonist was probably The Talented Mr. Ripley.

However, there are schools of thought behind making villains.  One is that "the villains really see themselves as the good guys; the heroes of their own stories."

My problem with that is that it presumes the villain cares about "right" and "wrong."  Good, bad, they're the ones with the weapon. How many people honestly think Saddam Hussein believed that he was doing "the right thing"? Or maybe his ultra-violent, raping, torturing sons? The equally late and un-lamented Osama?

If you're thinking that "oh, all those people were sociopaths" -- who says?  There are plenty of amoral little bastards out there. They don't think over morals, ethics, Nietzsche, the will to power ... though you'd be surprised how many think they are beyond good and evil.

This is my school of villainy.  My bad guys don't care about what's right and wrong.  They don't care about anything but what they want.
[More below the break]

The Politics of ... Captain America?

I don't think words can really convey how much I hate politics.  Even though I've done at least two blogs on the topic, around the Ground Zero Mosque, and the politics of my novel, and I would like politicians to just shut up already.

But now, someone had to go putting their politics into my comic book movies.

Before I continue, this is nothing new. Every time a superhero movie comes out, it must be metaphor for modern politics. The Dark Knight was seen by some idiots at the NYTimes as a commentary on the War on Terror.  Which is odd, I thought it was merely "the Joker is evil, and if we're going to catch the bugger, we're going to have to break a few laws to do it."

The Times were also instrumental in discussing the Lord of the Rings as metaphor as well, with the theatrical release of Return of the King's absence of Saruman being likened unto a missing Osama.  Instead, everyone who saw the Return of the King, special edition knows that Saruman was deleted from the film because of time issues.

Spoiler alert:

Saruman the White is dead.

So is Grima Wormtongue.

So is Osama bin Laden.

The end.

Now, somebody at Salon  has decided to make Captain America into something ... else.

After the July 22 release of the summer blockbuster "Captain America: the First Avenger," we'll probably see even more Captain Americas waving placards at protests for all parts of the political spectrum. The Red, White and Blue Avenger is and always has been a potent political image, but whose side would Captain America be on? Would he be a New Deal Democrat slinging his mighty shield for new public works programs or would he be rallying with the Tea Party to lower taxes on billionaires and gut Medicare? Whose Captain America is he anyway?

I can't make this up.

Captain America with an economic policy? Really? Doesn't he have enough problems with facing the forces of darkness every other day?  "Captain America, what's your stance on -- oops, this just in, Hydra's trying to take over the world again ... and Captain America just ran away from our reporters' questions!  How dare he!!!"

Anyway, the quote above is taken, as noted, from Salon.com. Someone sent me a National Review Online newsletter, with an interesting, non-political stance.

 Must he have a position on entitlement reform? Can't he spend most of his waking hours fighting the Red Skull, Crossbones, Hydra, and Avengers' management issues? (Picture him working out the schedule: "Can't leave Iron Man and Thor working the Friday night shift together; they'll take a Quinjet on a beer run and before the night is over, some building will get leveled, some villain will be pummeled and filing an excessive force suit, and some innocent bystander will touch some mystic artifact or advanced nanotechnology and 'have an origin.'" )

I may just be easily amused, but I find it funny that the National Review writers are nerds.

I'm a little embarrassed that someone has to write this down. And the sad thing is, the Salon writer seemed to be in deadly earnest. Argh.

But, seriously, someone has got to go on their meds.  Now.

Music to Write To: Winterborn, Cambreadth, and Over the Hills....

Sometimes your friends know best.

After months of doing non-fiction, "high-intellect" blog posts, some of my friends could see what it was doing to me better than I could. Let's just say that they could tell I was under a strain. Also, they found the posts boring.

So, time for something fun.

It's been a while since I posted a music blog, and I really think I should get back into the swing of posting whatever I like. Which include history, blowing stuff up on paper, and doing it to really cool music.

Here's some more stuff that I enjoy writing to.

Osama's death. One week later.

If you are sick and tired of listening to anything to do with Osama bin Laden, I recommend my short story from Saturday, "One Way to Stay Out of Jail." It has action, humor, and staying one step ahead of both cops and robbers.  Enjoy.

Now, onto this week ......


As more and more details leak out about Osama bin Laden's death, the situation becomes more, um, interesting.

I will, for the moment, ignore conflicting reports.  One report had Osama using a wife for a human shield. Another said he was simply shot outright, and the wife was still alive. We had help from Pakistan. Pakistan knew nothing about it. Pakistan supports our efforts, Pakistan threatens to blow us out of the sky if we ever do that again .....  One report by Eric Holder said that bin Laden's assassination was in "national self-defense." Bin Laden wasn't olding launch codes to a nuclear arsenal, and, to some accounts, didn't even have a weapon inside the mansion he was living in. If this was "national self defense," it must have been a "preemptive strike."  Or it was simply an assassination. So, we'll see exactly how the details shape up in the long run.


Fun Facts: Assassination

When I say assassination, I don't mean that as a derogatory term. There is a defense in Texas that is known as "he needed killing." I'm relatively good with that idea. I'm going to cry no tears for bin Laden. I personally believe all life is sacred up to the point when one person desecrates that sanctity. I don't care if you call it the code of Hammurabi, justice, revenge, or retribution (meaning "to repay," or "to pay someone what they are owed," or "payback"). My preference, as stated last week, is that we might have taken bin Laden alive. He had intelligence we could have found a use for.

However, I think justice was served. As I noted last week, Osama himself would have been put to death under Koranic law, if some people weren't just using it for their own convenience. And in a modern fashion ... where would we have put him? Solitary confinement in Guantanamo Bay for the rest of his life?  Maybe in general population somewhere in New York ...

Given those options, two to the head is the most merciful anyone could have been to him.

What is odd for me is the general reaction.  While it is not V-AQ day (as opposed to V-E or V-J day), I have the feeling this is as close as we're going to get. There will be no signing of a peace treaty with al-Qaeda, they keep saying as much.  So, the War on Terror will probably end with what's left of al-Qaeda hiding in the mountains in a few more years, and no one will notice.

German's Chancellor, Angela Merkel, has taken fire because she was "glad" the mission was a success. Some Europeans castigated her because the attitude wasn't "Christian" -- which is odd coming from a continent that told Pope John Paul II to shove Christianity where the sun don't shine.  And they're obviously ignorant of Christianity, since St. Thomas Aquinas even admitted that there is an argument for tyrannicide. And since Osama was the tyrant of his own little terrorist empire, I'm thinking he qualifies.

Germany's Siegfried Kauder said "I would not have formulated it in that way. Those are thoughts of revenge that one should not harbor. That is from the Middle Ages."  So is Maga Carta, movable type, an a whole bunch of other nifty stuff. Call it the "Dark Ages" all you like, buddy, but ignoring everything that happened from the fall of Rome to Rousseau is to miss a lot of stuff. Then again, he also said it was against international law .... and that the UN should create international law.  When international law is created, Mr. Kauder, get back to us.

Even the Dali Lama said it was okay the nail the bastard.

Fun Facts: Waterboarding.

How many people has the United States waterboarded? With all of the political jabbering, I figured that the CIA must have waterboarded every last person in Guantanamo Bay, and every prisoner in Iraq, Afghanistan, and whoever we could kidnap.

The final number .... Three.  Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.(The CIA says that KSM was waterboarded over 183 times. KSM himself says it was only 12 ... someone's math is screwed up.)


With a little research, I've discovered that nobody of consequence on the Right has argued that waterboarding, or any other form of coercive interrogation, should be even the first recourse in interrogation (or at all with legitimate prisoners of war). It's something in an interrogator’s toolkit for hard-core senior terrorist leaders, that's about it. And when I say nobody of consequence, I mean no one from the head of the RNC, down to friggin Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.

The usual critics of waterboarding have insisted that the tradeoffs involved don’t need to be debated, because coercive interrogation never yields any information of any use in any situation....

By waterboarding in 2007, the US got the name of a certain bin Laden courier. It was by following this courier that the US was able to find bin Laden.
So, never say never.

I don't know if you've ever been waterboarded. It's simple. Basically, put yourself into a position where you are upside down, or at least slanted on an angle so you're close enough. Pour water down your nose. Not a lot, maybe an ounce or two. Breathe through your mouth. Congratulations, you've been waterboarded. I've waterboarded myself once, and possibly more than the time and water limit suggested by CIA guidelines. It sucks, but it's not lethal, and there is no possibility of drowning.
Yes, I waterboarded myself for research. I'm a little wierd.

Fun Facts: Iraq.
 
Okay, KSM was waterboarded into getting us the courier who we followed to Osama. Iraq was an utter waste of time ....
 
Umm.....
 
According to Wikileaks, there was a fellow named Hassan Ghul (does anyone else want his first name to be Naz?) who added the final bit of intelligence that led us to the courier, and to Osama.
 
Where did we get this Ghul?  Iraq.
 
Damnit, more politics.
 
I know I'm going to get branded as being a member of some sort of right-wing organization, be it the Taxed Enough Already party, the Republican, the Glenn Beck party, what have you.  I've made my political statement, so you can label me what you will.
 
I am a very traditional person.  You could say I follow the Geneva convention, which states that illegal combatants have no rights.  However, that is a position under the traditional rules of war. Anyone who works for the enemy, who operates in your terrotory, and does not wear a traditional uniform, used to be given the label of "spy," and was eligible for a quick ticket to the afterlife.  And I don't mean a trial, I mean a field execution.  The traditional rules of war made certain everyone played by the rules, because violation meant death.

During the Cold War, we developed the concept of spy swaps. Everyone came home alive. But that was during a non-shooting war, and, somehow, those rules have expanded to every aspect of war.
 
I've been told by people I respect, that the United States is the civilized country, therefore we should give terrorists trials, and all the rights afforded to US citizens under the constitution. Considering that every other country on the planet does not extend their rights to non-citizens, I think that's a little daft, but what the hell.
 
The problem is that we it is a historical oddity to give trials to soldiers for acts of war. War criminals, even in Nazi Germany, were mostly civilians, or operating non-military organizations. We tried people who operated death camps, not soldiers fighting against other soldiers.

Most terrorists are not soldiers. They are illegal combatants. Had the Iraqi army stood and fought during the Iraq war in 2003, they would have fought other soldiers, and no one would have been prosecuted for defense against an incoming army.... unless, of course, they spent their time under Saddam killing unarmed civilians, in which case, they were screwed either way.

But I'm the sort of person who waterboards myself for research, so I'm a different sort of daft.
 
Personally....

Back to bin Laden a moment.
 
Can I at least be glad that we have checked Osama off the "to do list"? My first thought is more a matter of "About bloody time. We got the sucker. Whew."  Can I be glad that he won't be planning anything more? He won't be killing anyone else anytime soon? Assuming he's been doing anything lately? That this is the closest to justice he's ever going to get?

Though I am curious. How much of this exuberance is that he's dead, and how much is V-J day, 2011? How many are under the mistaken impression that his death means the end of every terrorist extremist psycho out there? Because that overblown rhetoric is the real danger. "Osama is dead, the threat is over." If that's the case, reality is going to become most unpleasant.  It's not V-J day. Or V-AQ day. It's a good start, though.

El-Alamein was the middle point of World War II, when things started to look good for the Allies. What Churchill said "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
The end of Osama is not the end. But this may, hopefully, be the beginning of the end.

And, while it will not be V-AQ day for at least a few more years, I suspect this will be the only time to have a party. Osama's death is a milestone. I'd have a party if he was captured. That he is taken off of the chessboard of the war is a reason for partying, no matter the method.

Osama is now a martyr.  But martyrs can't release video tape.

Postscript

Last week Nancy Pelosi credited President George W. Bush for getting Osama bin Laden. 

He was castigated for allowing waterboarding.... It got the name of the courier.

He was castigated for taking his eye off the ball and going into Iraq. It gave the US the "linchpin" to getting close to the courier.

Nancy Pelosi is saying good things about George Bush.... It may be the end of the world.

But what is he when he's at Home? Other Novel Ideas.

I've had people in my Real Life tell me that they're confused about what I'm selling at the moment.

I post on my personal pages about what I'm working on, while at the same time inviting them to look over A Pius Man. 

So, it might be a good idea to clear things up.

To do that, I think it's time to allow you a glimpse into my dark, dark mind.

The Infinite Crisis of DC Comics.

Ah, DC Comics..... You didn't think I had a grudge with Marvel, did you?

Last week, I took a look at Marvel comics, and how they've tried for yet another Marvel “event” every other week.

At the other end of the comic book universe, in DC Comics, there has been a crisis or two … hundred. They had an Identity Crisis, an Infinite Crisis, a Final Crisis, and one, three year War of the Rings (a Sinestro War, a Corps War, a Blackest night).

Spoiler Alerts all around.

Novels to films, a brief history

I have received the question, at times, about who should play characters in a film of A Pius Man.  This got me thinking about adaptations. Given the last decade of novel-to-film movies, the question becomes more interesting.

Looking at the slew of Harry Potter films, filmed comic books, etc, I find that Hollywood has obviously hired people who can read.

Why do I express surprise? I can answer that with another question.

Does anyone REMEMBER the 1990s?

Let's look at a few authors who had their work turned into films.

Michael Chrichton:

Author of such noted works as Jurassic Park, Congo, and Rising Sun, he probably had the most good fortune of any author short of Stephen King in having his books translated by Hollywood. And that's the sad part.

Anyone who's read Chrichton's work will appreciate a book I saw while shopping in London. Star Trek as Written By Other Authors—the short story as “written” by Chrichton had five charts and graphs over three pages. While no one missed those in the film versions, I'm sure they missed a few other things.

In Jurassic Park, the novel, the differences were numerous and frequent. There were dozens of Velociraptors, and part of the problem was that raptors had been escaping to the mainland. The park staff was more than the seven people we saw over the course of the film, and security was so well armed, there were moments when it looked like it was Park security versus the dinosaurs in an all out war that included missiles.

Back then, there were few complaints because, despite all the differences, it was still a fun movie, and to create a full adaptation would have required a miniseries. Elements from the first novel would be scattered throughout the next two films.

The Lost World: The sequel to Jurassic Park, the novel, was... better than the filmed version. While the novel followed up on the original enemy from the first one (the problems of Jurassic Park were caused by industrial espionage), the movie decided to make the primary adversary was the stereotyped “Evil Businessman #1.” Someone decided that the movie needed to be made into an endangered species riff, complete with an action lead played by.... Matthew Vaughn, playing an ecoterrorist? And we're going to throw in a cute kid, just because Spielberg likes cute kids. There's a reason that the third film consisted of little plot, less character, and mostly running.

Rising Sun: Someone must have been asleep on the job when looking up their cultural research. I can only conclude that Hollywood wasn't paying attention the day that the Japanese Emperor declared that both blacks and women were “inferior”... why else would they change make one of the lead policemen of this murder mystery into Wesley Snipes?



Tom Clancy: The major problem here lies in one book, one that I'm sure everyone remembers as a film.

The Sum of All Fears: The premise of the novel was simple. Middle Eastern terrorists nuke the Superbowl in order to prompt the United States and the Soviet Union into World War III. It's up the National Security Adviser Jack Ryan to talk everyone down.

I will usually grant a lot of leeway to people who adapt a screenplay. A lot. The previous film had been several years before, and Harrison Ford had moved on to other things. It would have been reasonable to have gone onto later novels, changed actors, and move on. Alec Baldwin had played Jack Ryan in the first film, The Hunt for Red October, I would not have objected to bringing him back. And they had already skipped one novel—The Cardinal of the Kremlin—due to the fact that there wasn't a Kremlin anymore. Taking the character of Jack Ryan from his post as CIA director (from the previous film, Clear and Present Danger) and making him NSA director (in Debt of Honor, the first post-Cold War novel), would have been nice and easy.

Instead, the film for Sum of All Fears was a series reboot about shiny new CIA analyst Jack Ryan (Ben Affleck), going up against.... wait for it... Neo-Nazis. Most of whom were taken out in an ending sequence reminiscent of a Godfather film.

So, wait, the movie comes out after 9-11-01, and for some reason, terrorists from the Middle East are inferior villains? Hollywood's racism is astonishing; somehow, European bad guys are superior to any other flavor of bad guy, especially if the Europeans are evil Nazis.



Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

The Relic: The first book in their series about mysterious FBI Agent Prendergast, who seems to specialize in X-Files quality strange, without the space-alien level stupidity. The Relic was a thrilling tale about a monster in the New York Museum of Natural History. When the book was first written, the museum in real life looked like a great setting for a horror film. Part of this team consisted of a graduate student Margo Green, her wheelchair bound mentor Dr. Frock, and, of course, Special Agent Prendergast. The mystery starts with what, exactly, could have killed a museum security guard in two blows—one to rip open the chest, and one to smash the back of the head clean off.

The adversary of the novel was a genetic mutation that was about eight feet long, like a cross between a panther and bug... it had an exoskeleton like an insect's chiton, only bulletproof. It survives an encounter with a SWAT team with full assault rifles and a grenade launcher.

The film... eliminated multiple key characters (one being Prendergast, goodbye series), killed off several who were necessary for any possible sequel, replaced everyone remaining with pure cliches, and made the creature a thirty to sixty foot monstrosity. This extra large beastie is supposed to have slipped into a small employee restroom to kill a guard, when it couldn't even fit into the hallway leading to the restroom. It manages to kill an entire SWAT team because they all run like scared rabbits—possibly frightened by the horrid graphics—and it starts bleeding because it took a few rounds from a .9mm handgun (to quote the governor of California, if it bleeds, you can kill it). But, no, in this film, they had to try blowing it up with bad CGI fire.



I'm going to cheat for the next few books. They are not the nineties, but they are film adaptations that went horribly sideways.



F. Paul Wilson—The Keep.

This one is interesting. F. Paul Wilson, Fordham graduate, agnostic, and all around interesting person, who even created a character with a rabid following—one so rabid Stephen King is President of the fan club.

One of his earlier books was called The Keep. It opens in 1943, with the German High Command getting a communication from an outpost in Transylvania: “Something is killing my men.” In another area of Europe, a man awakes, and knows he has to get to The Keep before everything ends. It essentially starts out as Dracula and ends as Lord of the Rings.

Enter: the movie. The author himself has concluded that the set of The Keep had a lot of white powder going up a lot of noses. Frequently. Not even Ian McKellen could save this train wreck. The synopsis of the film is as follows: creature kills Germans in WW2; a professor in the Keep makes deal with creature. Professor's daughter sleeps with guy who comes out of nowhere. Creature kills everyone in the Keep. Guy who comes from nowhere has an entrance with lots of light, creature goes away. Credits roll. Audience goes “huh?”


Clive Cussler—Raise the Titanic!

Before there was Indiana Jones, there was Clive Cussler. His main character is Dirk Pitt, one part old fashioned swashbuckler, one part nautical engineer. You may have seen the movie Sahara, made from another of his books—not a great film, but a decent popcorn movie. Better than this one.

Premise: there is an element that might be able to power a sonic-missile shield for the United States (this is the 70s). The only known sample was on board the Titanic, so, we—guess what—RAISE THE TITANIC! (this was before anyone knew how badly the ship had been totaled, so go with it). The book had everyone sail away on the resurrected vessel after a tense shootout with Soviet agents who had found out about the plan and tried to steal the precious material.

The movie, of course, had to have the Soviet bad guys come on board, and our hero scuttles the ship to make sure they don't get it. No victory, just a draw.

Movies of the day suffered from the Hollywood's idea of detente—there are no victories, only draws. If that was the only problem Raise the Titanic suffered from, it might have been salvageable. Instead, Hollywood took a fast paced, tightly written book, and turned it into a slow, ponderous mess. To tell you how bad it was, Clive Cussler saw Raiders of the Lost Ark and cried—mainly because it captured everything that he put into his own writing.


Today, I look at several adaptations—if you have major kvetches, I suggest holding off of them until my conclusions.

Lord of the Rings: Scenes lifted directly from the pages, dialogue from the novel, subplots taken from the appendix. You don't get much better than this. The major quibble I can conjure up is the buildup to the climax of the second film, The Two Towers—and I can blame that on the director's fondness for the buildup in the film Zulu, which felt like nothing but screaming “WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE.” Aside from that part of one film, I couldn't complain even if I wanted to.



Harry Potter: I read the books. They weren't bad for YA novels, and a nice parody of the English school system. The more you know about British culture, the funnier they were. Frankly, I thought the films improved on some things. Granted, some of what was left out of the films confused me... in movie three, there's no explanation for a major device of the film, or how another character knows of it. In #4, our protagonist asks why something went odd with his wand, and no answer is given. I say its odd because both “problems” could have been corrected with about three lines of dialog each. And, while confusing, no big deal. The end.



Comic books.

These are clumped together, and easy.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine: For a film that was studio mandated, it wasn't bad. Originally wanting to make Frank Miller's storyline about the mutant with anger management / memory / family issues, the people who did the film were ordered to make an origin story. Considering that the details of everyone involved in Wolverine's past were essentially turned into memory goulash, it was possibly the most comprehensible version they could come up with. I'm still confused about complaints that “Deadpool wasn't done well. He was just Ryan Renolds.” Considering that Deadpool wasn't the main character, and had, maybe, five minutes on screen, I don't think you can do anyone well in that amount of time.



The Spider-Man Films: The comic book career of Peter Parker looks like a rubric to diagnose bipolar disorder. Check. The whole Goblin family drama—mostly. Check. Parker puts on the black suit and turns from nerd to.... evil nerd. Big check. Though he could have taken tips from Neil Patrick Harris on being an evil nerd.

The biggest complaint has been about Spider Man 3, particularly on the character of Venom... well, as Sam Raimi said, “I had never read Venom in the comic books, since they came after my time. Because of that, I didn't have a natural inclination toward him. And when I read those comics, at [producer] Avi Arad's urging, I didn't understand where Venom's humanity was. I know that kids think he looks cool, and they think he's a good villain for Spider-Man. I actually didn't. What was it about Peter's own makeup that this villain represented some weaker or darker side to? Just looking like a dark version of him is not enough for me. The more I read [Venom stories], the less interested I became.” So, I get that. Though I wonder why he bothered putting Venom in a film if he didn't really like him.

Aside from that, there could be aesthetic quibbles—why they felt they had to make the Green Goblin look like a power Rangers, I don't know.


Batman Begins: I've had some people complain about the opening of the film, and how Bruce Wayne had been trained to become Batman. My usual response is that, if you read the comic books, the way it was done in the film contained the simplest, least convoluted explanation, as well as introducing the primary villain. And if there are any complaints about The Dark Knight, the best I can come up with is that the movie should have left off with catching the Joker, leaving Harvey Dent / Two-Face to be an ominous thread to be expanded into another movie. The last fifteen minutes felt odd, but having one of your key actors die in the middle of shooting can mess up a schedule a bit.



Now, aside from the above example, I will not say that modern day Hollywood adaptations are all perfect. That would be impossible. However, without lingering on minor quibbles, I can point you to several movies made recently that were based on books and made into something... different.


Shooter, based off of Stephen Hunter's novels about a marine sniper who had been framed for murder, turned into the usual conspiracy theory film about evil government employees messing around in Africa for one natural resource or another. That it starred Castro fan Danny Glover was a hint that the book would be rewritten.


[NOVEL SPOILER ALERT] The Bourne Identity was based off of Robert Ludlum's novel of the same name. A tv miniseries was made in the 1980s, starring Alan Chamberlain. The CIA had sent operative David Webb, war veteran, after assassin Carlos the Jackal, seeming to be another assassin and competitor named Jason Bourne. During the operation, he is shot in the head while fleeing a ship at sea, and awakes with amnesia. In piecing together the story of his life, he believes that he really is an assassin, the CIA thinks he has gone rogue, and the assassin he's hunting is returning the favor, and a civilian he saves from being gunned down in the crossfire is a female accountant who grows attached to him.

The movie: Boat, amnesia, perfect operative, check. Carlos the Jackal is replaced by African Dictator #1 from the nearest cliché yard, and the CIA isn't interested in listening to what happened to him, they all just want him dead. Period. Everyone involved on the CIA end dies, except for Julia Styles, using her amazing blonde powers. Bourne hooks up with a backpacking, gypsy-like female with no discernible education, intellect, or personality.

The Bourne Supremacy – The novel: elements in the government want to use David Webb to flush out another assassin, only this one has taken over the name of Jason Bourne. So, they kidnap his wife, the accountant he saved in the first novel, leaving clues that end him after this new Bourne. The CIA isn't the bad guy, but they are manipulative, which pretty much goes with the trade. Webb's other friends within the Agency lend him aide as he tries to find his wife.

The film: Still on the run as Jason Bourne, his girlfriend gets her head blown off by a Russian assassin on orders from a CIA administrator left over from an X-Men film .... Start your average revenge plot. Kill more CIA agents. Throw in some Russians, because they are obviously still the massive, intimidating threat that they were when they had a working government, now that they're taking orders from us, somehow.... huh? Julia Styles still manages to survive.

The Bourne Ultimatum—the novel is simple: Revenge of Carlos the Jackal. The film: obviously not, because they didn't have Carlos in the first film anyway.


In short, Hollywood has apparently become literate since the 90s—or, at the very least, is CAPABLE of adhering to source material such as novels and comic books. I'm certain that part of it has to do with a director appreciating the source material (Lord of the Rings), or a horde of slavering child fans who will tear them apart if they screw up the movie (the whole Harry Potter / Twilight franchise), or having the Intellectual Property owners run the studio (Marvel / WB). When you consider what has come in the past, things have improved.

Though, apparently, all bets are off when a film include Matt Damon or his clone (Mark Wahlberg). Still, even those films at least resemble the books they were based on to some degree. So, whenever you have a quibble about your favorite character in a novel / comic that's been adapted to film, or that elements had been changed, shifted or modified, always remember one very important lesson that I have learned over the years.....


It can ALWAYS be worse.

And if you don't believe me, ask the hordes of video game fans who have ever gone to see a Uwe Boll film of their favorite game.

How A Pius Man Came to be: Part 2

Part 2: Now what?

So, you're going to right a history novel that's both thrilling and accurate, without resorting to something over the top fantastical in the meantime?

The answer there is: that's nice, wake me when you're done.

Oh, darn, wait—I want to write it!

Now what?