Hey gang, it’s been pretty quiet on the Sanctum end – definitely taking a break from generators, the Writing Prompt Generator took a lot more out of me than I thought. Plus I’m busy with work, and am juggling some other projects. I have some conventions coming up. Also there’s some playing of Team Fortress 2 (Engineer-Pyro-Medic is my thing).
The Tumblr appears to be popular – and people keep signing up! I’ll consider jacking in some more generators and stuff into it.
The next generator or three will be some different things I’m kicking around – and that accumulated while working on the Writing Prompt. More stuff I wanted to do than anything else.
Also was wondering, with so many visitors a day, anyone think a get-together of some kind might be fun?
So about it for me. How are you?
Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach. He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.
Marvel, being one of the Big Two with DC Comics, has a large number of heroes in its stable. Many got their start during the 1960s, when the threat of nuclear war was a palpable threat but the power of the atom was being harnessed for beneficial means. Characters from this time featured a brush with radiations, from Peter Parker being bitten by a radioactive spider and gaining power to Professor Xavier taking in the children of the atom to become his X-Men. The focus of the review, Daredevil, was splashed as a young boy by radioactive waste leaking from a barrel*. The waste destroyed his sight but amplified his other senses, allowing him to see using a form of radar. The sight isn’t perfect; small details can’t be made out nor can he determine colour, but the power allows him to target opponents.
Matt Murdoch was the only child of “Battling Jack” Murdoch, a former pro fighter who got mixed up with organized crime to make ends meet. Matt’s mother was missing, presumed dead. After the accident, as Jack tried to go straight, Matt tested out the extent of his new found abilities. Unfortunately for Jack, there is no retirement plan from the mob. Matt soon became an orphan, but he was determined to be there for people who needed help. Murdoch worked his way through law school, and teamed up with Franklin “Foggy” Nelson to work in the old neighbourhood, Hell’s Kitchen. Where Matt Murdoch, lawyer, couldn’t get justice, Daredevil could. Along the way, Daredevil made a few enemies, including the Kingpin, who controlled crime in New York City, and Bullseye, the Kingpin’s assassin. Ben Ulrich, reporter for the Daily Bugle, was more thorn than enemy, but her did deduce that Matt Murdoch was Daredevil.
/Daredevil/ was created by Stan Lee and Bill Everett, with Jack Kirby providing the character’s original yellow and red costume, later replaced by an all red costume. While Lee was the first writer on the title, others followed, including John Romita, Sr, Roy Thomas, Marv Wolfman, and Frank Miller. Miller’s run in the 1980s was key to increasing the title and the character’s popularity, introducing a film noir style to the comic. Once given the reigns as writer, Miller changed Daredevil’s backstory, altered the personalities of the supporting cast and rogues gallery, and revitalized the title. The introduction of Elektra and her relationship and romance with Daredevil occurred under Miller’s watch.
For the 2003 film, Daredevil, script writer Mark Steven Johnson dug heavily into Frank Miller’s run on the comic. This is where I need to make an aside, to set up the remainder of the review. The version used for this review was the director’s cut, not the theatrical release. A featurette on the DVD goes into detail about the differences between the two. The theatrical release was mandated by the studio to be a PG-13 rated action film running under 100 minutes (actual runtime was 103 minutes) and included a romance between Elektra and Murdoch that was consummated onscreen. The director’s cut restored at least a half-hour’s worth of footage, including scenes between Matt and Foggy, a subplot about an innocent man accused of murdering a prostitute that led to a link through to the Kingpin, and Murdoch’s use of a sensory deprivation chamber to get peace. The cut also removed the love scene, showing Matt having to leave Elektra because of heroing business, and changing the plot, according to Johnson, from a “you stole/killed my girlfriend” ending to becoming a hero. The director’s cut has a total runtime of 133 minutes and received an R-rating from the MPAA.
The biggest change in the movie with the director’s cut was the feel of the movie. While there was still action, the changes brought the movie towards film noir, the same style that Frank Miller used during his tenure with the comic. The story starts in media res as Daredevil drops into a Catholic church. He explains what is happening, putting most of the movie as a flashback, starting with how he got the powers, how he lost his father, Jack “The Devil” Murdoch, to a mob hit, how he became the Man Without Fear. The first appearance of Daredevil is after Matt loses a case trying to prosecute a rapist; in costume, Murdoch tracks down the rapist and ensures that justice is served. Ben Ulrich, a reporter for the New York Post** specializing in urban legends***, has been following Daredevil sightings, trying to track down the elusive being. That night, Murdoch hears the murder of a young woman just before he seals himself inside his sensory deprivation chamber.
The next morning, Matt and Foggy meet for breakfast. Both notice an attractive woman enter the diner. Matt tries to get her interest, using his blindness as an opening for an introduction. When the woman leaves without telling Matt her name, he follows her to a playground. Naturally, the woman is annoyed at being followed and tries to show Matt the error of his ways, forcefully. They trade martial arts moves, nothing to injure the other, enough to first dissuade then to impress the other. Elektra Nachios gives Matt her name, but not her number or address; she’ll find him.
Afterwards, Matt rushes to the courthouse to meet with Foggy and their new client, a young man accused of murdering the woman Murdoch had heard overnight. Matt, able to hear the young man’s heartbeat, is reassured that the man is innocent and takes on the case. Meanwhile, the Kingpin, already upset about a leak in his organization, has to deal with a partner who wants to retire, Nicholas Nachios. The Kingpin calls in his best assassin, Bullseye. Bullseye has a power; he always hits his target, no matter what he throws.
An evening soiree later, Nicholas Nachios leaves in a rush, Elektra following. Matt detected the father’s elevated pulse and follows as Daredevil. He sees Bullseye take out the bodyguards and jumps into the fight to protect father and daughter. One of the first actions he has is to block a thrown missile from hitting Nachios. Or, as Bullseye put it, “He made me miss.” The fight ends when Bullseye hurls Daredevil’s baton at Nachios. An explosion makes it impossible for Daredevil to see the baton properly with his radar sense and the baton impales Nachios, killing him.
Elektra sees to her father’s funeral, then continues her training. She was never in a good place to see the fight and blames Daredevil for killing her father. Elektra manages to track down Daredevil; Bullseye tracks them both. In the major fight sequence of the film, Bullseye injures Daredevil and kills Elektra****. The flashback catches up to the beginning of the film as Bullseye enters the church to finish the job he started. During the fight, Matt discovers the identity of the Kingpin and that he was responsible for his father’s murder. Defeating Bullseye, Daredevil leaves the church to confront the Kingpin.
As mentioned, the movie uses the Frank Miller run on Daredevil to the point where Miller gets a cameo as well as Stan Lee. The film noir style is used for effect, giving the movie a grittier feel and setting up the sense of loss Murdoch has with Elektra. The acting holds up; Ben Affleck is able to be both Matt Murdoch and Daredevil, while Jennifer Garner makes Elektra memorable despite a lack of screen time. The main problem is pacing. Frank Miller’s run covered four years, a lot to pack into a two hour, fifteen minute movie. The director’s cut does involve most of the character’s supporting cast in one way or another, but there are moments where the film drags a little and where it feels rushed. A movie may have been the wrong format for the story told; a mini-series or a short TV series might have worked better, but wouldn’t have had the pull that a feature film does. It’s not even a case of too much story; the theatrical release managed to cut a subplot without too many issue. However, a longer format, one that could develop relationships, both beneficial and adversarial, would have helped.
Next week, Battle Beyond the Stars.
* The same radioactive waste then spilled into the sewers of New York and on to four adolescent turtles. Really.
** The Daily Bugle is considered to be part of Spider-Man’s mythos, and Sony has the rights to that part of Marvel while Twentieth Century Fox had the Daredevil rights, since reverted back to Marvel.
*** In a missed shout out, Ulrich mentions that there are no alligators living in the sewers of New York City. He never said a word about turtles. The alligator may have been the Spider-Man villain, the Lizard, if Fox had the Spider-rights instead of Sony.
**** Or apparently kills. She gets better for the spin-off movie, Elekctra.
However, there’s a flipside issue I want to address, that of Incompetent heroes and villains. Though I find the former more common than the latter, it’s still an issue with good worldbuilding.
Ever wonder how the hell this person is going to save the world, or how this moron managed to threaten it? Is their stupidity celebrated as a kind of victory? Does the world builder seem to want you to celebrate it?
Welcome to the world of the Incompetents, the dark side to Omnicompetence
A Familiar Tale
You know the story. The hero who manages to save the day despite being stupid/ignorant/etc. The villain with . . . really nothing going for them except they are somehow a threat. Some characters are even portrayed at being so good at what they do because of their stupidity, which is not a trait you want in doctors, programmers, or scientists let alone your hero and their archnemesis.
Sometimes this is played for laughs, which is fine in a comedy – much as an Omnicompetent character can also be played for laughs. In this case it may well fit your focus.
But other times, I think you know what I mean, the characters successes are so outrageous and unbelievable that you really don’t buy them because they are explained by (and not defeated by) their own incompetence. Just as surely as an Omnicompetent character distorts a world, so does a protagonist and/or antagonist who is so dumb you’re not sure they should be allowed to drive, let alone use the Orbital Death Ray.
These sound a bit like the classic Holy Fools, but I have a better name for them . . .
Unholy Fools
In many cases, I think these characters are distorted versions of the classic Holy Fool, characters that seem weird or dumb or foolish, but there is something greater at work. Somehow they succeed despite or even because of what makes them foolish, and yet you wonder how incompetent they are. They’re paradoxes who may be straightforward.
There’s a beloved tradition of these characters. Sometimes their foolishness is a lack of the B.S. others adsorbed. Others think differently. Yet others mess with people to make a point, appearing foolish. Finally some are ambiguous, and that’s the part of the story, making you wonder.
Captain Tylor of the anime series is a great example of a modern Holy Fool, and his very ambiguity is part of the story. Discworld has several Holy Fools who you later on find are not fools so much as some of their personality traits that seem to be flaws aren’t (not spoiling here).
The Holy Fool, frankly, is a damn hard character to create. If you’re a worldbuilder, you have to understand them inside out when the point is they’re mysterious. If you can do it right more power too you.
However, the Holy Fool sometimes seem to just be the Lucky Dumbasses who are annoying. Let’s call them Unholy Fools.
Thinking Like Children
What we often end up with in these “reverse Omnicompetents,” the Unholy Fools, are often childish characters who succeed for reasons that seem to be dumb luck or their dumbness is somehow a virtue. It’s not that they have a virtue that appears to be dumb (often a classic element of the Holy Fool or Holy semi-Fools), or that they lack a negative complicator, it’s literally they’re just stupid.
This happens in comedies, of course, but can happen in a lot of tales as well. The character who “is just doing their job” or “doesn’t know anything about that, but I know how to punch something” and so on is an Unholy Fool. They succeed supposedly as they’re not smart.
They’re not ambiguous, or differentially smart. There’s not that level of thought put to them.
I think characters like this are popular and easy to fall into as:
- They don’t make the readers or gamers feel inadequate.
- They thumb their nose at supposedly smart/talented people.
- They can be good for a laugh.
Of course after awhile the Unholy Fool here sort of grates on people because they are dumb, their successes aren’t believable, and . . . they don’t have reason to be the way they are. The successful idiot too easily is just another authors pet, verging on Mary Sue/Gary Stu territory. In fact, I’d say the Unholy Fool is more likely to be a Mary Sue than many Omnicompetent characters.
An, of course, a worldbreaker. Because, in the end, they’re just successful idiots for no reason
Did You FalL Into The Trap?
So how do you detect you’ve fallen into this trap?
Well first, as noted these Unholy Fools are worldbreakers. If you can’t explain their success, their like-ability, etc. that should set off your worldbuilding alarms. In your gut you probably know it.
Another sign is finding you didn’t think them out as well as you thought. If a character seems to coast, things seem to be “too” good for them despite their flaws, you may have fallen into this trap as well.
Finally, I think Unholy Fools are characters who in their incarnations, appeal only to a subset of people. If you notice some folks dislike a character and you don’t get why, yet others rally to defend them, that may be an indicator.
The best test simply is “can you explain why your character triumphed the way they did”in a manner that works in the world. Te audience may not know (that’s part of the fun with HolyFools) but you need to.
Comes and Goes
It’s odd writing this as I find when I first wrote Way With Worlds I didn’t see many Unholy Fools. Later I noticed quite a few of them popping up, I suspect as they can also be Mary Sues/Gary Stus and they appeal to anti-intellectualism. My guess is these kinds of characters and their appeal come and go with social tends as well.
So perhaps in another decade or two, this may get a laugh as people wonder “oh, who would write that?” But a few decades later . .. well, who knows?
Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach. He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.
This post originally appeared at The Oak Wheel on August 28th, 2014.
I’ll come right and say it: I’m tired of elemental systems that shamelessly rip from the Greek, Chinese, or Japanese, especially when they do so without really understanding what these people were getting at. Like, if you’re going to go with Air, Earth, Fire, and Water, would it kill you to read a little Empedocles, and maybe Aristotle or Proclus or something? Just doing that would give your system a blast of fresh air to differentiate it from the rest of the crowd.
But all this, it’s been done already. Like I want to say to every fantasy author who refuses to move beyond Tolkien, can we do something else now? I’m sure that somebody can play the old hat and make it look like new, but Sturgeon’s Law applies doubly-well when it comes to beating dead horses: most of it is sheer, undiluted crap.
The second half of this article will discuss some lesser-used elemental systems but first I want to discuss, you know, making your own. Discard your assumptions and everything you know or think you know about the universe. Get into the mindset of the culture that this system is embedded in, whether it’s magical or purely philosophical, and ask yourself “What would make sense to these people?”
Not everyone used the same elements. That’s why we have different systems to begin with. And— this cannot be emphasized enough— question all your assumptions. “Would they really think that this thing was fundamental or important, or is that just an idea that I’m bringing to the table?”
Limyaael gives a few examples of this philosophy in action: “Perhaps your own imaginary culture is very heaven-oriented, and chooses as the elements sun, stars, moons, and cloud. Perhaps the sky, earth, and sea are considered elements, and nothing else is, because nothing else is a place that humans can travel through. Perhaps snow and ice are important to northern cultures, but not to southern ones.”
But remember: “If you’re trying for a serious tone, the twee addition to elemental magic ruins it, especially when it has nothing in common with the other elements. Restrain yourself.”
Limyaael, incidentally, was (I think) referencing the Babylonian system in that second example of hers: it also included “wind,” for a total of four elements, and “sky” was analogous to the aether in the Greek system. It was non-terrestrial stuff (in one of my projects, where elementals seem to be partly influenced by cultural perceptions of their element, Sky elementals kind of resemble astronaut zombie things whose suits may only be “suits”).
There are three systems that I’ve dabbled notably in. The first is based on the Chinese Bagua or trigrams: Heaven, Wind, Water, Metal, Earth, Thunder, Fire, and Wood. The second was written for an entry in my Culture Column series: Absence, (three-dimensional) Space, Sky, Fire, Earth, Water, and Flesh. As the article explains each one was thought to lead to the next, and the thought process manages to be both logical for the culture and pretty unlike anything else that I’ve seen before.
The third, which doesn’t have a good presence anywhere on the web, was very biocentric and based on Bone (inanimate substance), blood (animating force), flesh (animate substance), fear (the compulsion away from things), and desire (the compulsion toward things). The latter two come into play because, in a possibly materialistic twist on the concept, the mind was considered to be just as much a part of the world as anything else, and it was decided that everything could ultimately be understood as either “wanting to get something” or “wanting to avoid something.”
Flesh, or animate substance, could exist without an animating substance, as demonstrated by the existence of things like earthworms and jellyfish, which apparently didn’t have any blood to speak of. On the other hand, things that did have blood could be counted on to become inanimate if they lost too much, so obviously there were some beings that needed an animating substance and some that were solely Flesh.
(I’ve said it before, but feel free to take any of the ideas that I drop in public)
If you’d like some homework then here’s a project for you: Figure out a system used by a people who reasoned that if the universe was born from chaos or void, then the real fundamental elements were absences, not presences. Before fire there was cold. Before light, darkness.
What else would there be in this system?
IRL elemental systems
The classic (and Classical) elemental system is Fire, Earth, Air, and Water. Aether was added by Aristotle, who reasoned that because the first four elements were corruptible but no change had ever been observed in the Heavens, the universe beyond must be made of another, incorruptible “quintessence.”
Aristotle assigned as well special qualities to the basic four: Air and Fire were hot, Air and Water were wet, Earth and Fire were dry, and Earth and Water were cold. Proclus thought that the elements had special qualities but gave his own system: Fire was sharp, subtle, and mobile and Earth was blunt, dense, and immobile. These could be considered “more fundamental” than the other two because they were fully opposed and shared no qualities. Air and Water were almost transitional: Air was mostly like Fire but lost sharpness in exchange for bluntness and Water went one step further, losing subtlety to denseness.
Jābir ibn Hayyān left out Aether and added “the stone which burns,” sulphur (representing combustibility) and mercury (metallic properties). Paracelsus built upon Hayyān’s additions and discarded the original system entirely in favor of sulphur (flammability), mercury (volatility), and salt (solidity). In burning wood, mercury/cohesion left in the form of smoke, the fire was the manifestation of flammability (which acted upon the mercury/volatility in the wood), and what remained in the form of ash was the salt, or solidity, of the wood.
In some astrological systems, the opposing forces were Air/Water and Earth/Fire. The Tibetan system was like the Classical but the fifth element was (three-dimensional) Space.
The Japanese Godai, which were broader and more symbolic than the Classical: Earth was solid things, Water was all liquid, Fire was that which destroyed, Air was moving things, and Void was things that were outside of normal experience.
The Chinese Wu Xing were also symbolic, more steps in a process than ever-distinct substances, and they are often translated as “movements” or “phases.” Wood fed Fire, which created Earth, which held Metal, which was used to hold Water, which nourished Wood. On the other side, Wood (roots) divided the Earth, which absorbed Water, which quenched Fire, which melted Metal, which chopped Wood.
If you base your system off of either of these then see what you create when you keep in mind that they’re not just the Classical Greek system with an element or two added on or switched out.
What else could you draw on? Howabout:
- The four (or five) humors: Sanguine/Blood, Melancholic/Black Bile, Phlegmatic/Phlegm, and Choleric/Yellow Bile (with the optional “Leukine,” associated with white blood cells). If you’re going for some kind of magic system, emotional powers based on the humors haven’t been overdone yet.
- The four (or five) cardinal directions: North, East, South, and West (with the optional “Center”). This may seem weird but if you’re inspired by the Tibetan emphasis on Space then you can be assured of having fresh territory to trod if you figure out how to base the elements entirely on Space.
- The seven chakras: Time/Space, Dark/Death, Aether/Light/Life/Lightning, Air, Fire, Water, and Earth.
“My grandmother used to tell me stories about the old days, a time of peace when the Avatar kept balance. But that all changed when the Nitrogen Republic attacked…”
Your turn: What’s another elemental system that you’ve found or made yourself?
Not much to update today – mostly because I’m taking a break from doing the Writing Prompt Generator. That one was pretty trying in retrospect and I definitely need some time off – though ironically I have three generator ideas in my head now. Maybe I need to put a server on my laptop so I can tinker at the coffee shops I write at.
One thing I did to is connect the Writing Prompt Generator to the Tumblr. That means that once a day you get a random prompt on top of the story and character prompts! I admit I’m having fun experimenting with the Tumblr.
OK, enough for me, time to sign off, queue up some Rifftrax, and relax!
Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach. He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.
