It has recently occurred to me that most ongoing storylines record the successes of the antagonists nearly as often as those of the heroes.
I'm sure you've noticed the cyclical nature of such tales. Take most ongoing comics, or movie series', or nearly any story dealing with some sort of good-verses-evil struggle. What tends to happen is that there is a protagonist, or sometimes an anti-hero, who the reader/viewer/listener is conditioned to cheer for. The hero will experience some sort of problem, such as a victory of his enemy, before rallying and ultimately emerging victorious at the end. But what if the order of such sagas were reversed?
Take Batman. His arch-nemesis is the Joker. In the comics that involve the two, usually the Joker hatches some plot, kidnaps some politician, blows something up, etc. Then Batman foils the Joker's plan, beats up all his flunkies and saves the day. And in the following comic, the same thing happens; Joker does something nasty, but Batman eventually wins. And in the next comic; repeat. But what if the order was swapped?
Let me try and explain. So in Issue #1, Joker wins, then Batman wins. In Issue #2, Joker wins, then Batman wins. But what if they released a comic which contained the last half of issue #1, and the first half of Issue #2? Then it would seem as though Batman defeats the Joker, but in the end, the Joker pulls ahead and emerges victorious. Either way, the same events are happening, and it turns out that the only reason Batman always wins is because that's the segment of time that the author chose to depict in his comic.
In reality, both parties tend to succeed just as often as not; the Joker wins just as often as the Batman. For without this back and forth conflict, what would they use to fill the comic book pages?
Saturday 28 July 2012
Thursday 19 July 2012
Give Me a Toaster, And I'll build You a Useless Contraption
Snerk! - *tinkle* - ka-BLAMMO!
"Eh? Wazzat?" Snitchfix looked up from his tinkerings.
"Master, master!" the scientist's mildly neurotic hunchbacked minion shrieked, "The western jointed calibrator just exploded! And I can't find your cat!"
Snitchfix sighed and stood up. "Mind the automaton, minion," he said as he began to clomp down the hall.
That's the third time this month, the doctor thought to himself, I really should have taken more time building the joints.
Though the minion wasn't really good at anything other than panicking and losing his cat, he had a remarkable ability to memorize the workings of most of the things that his master built, which made him valuable enough that Snitchfix kept him around.
The doctor didn't really like other beings, constructs or otherwise, because they had an annoying tendency to whine and complain when he would wreck something of theirs. Like that farmer who wouldn't stop chasing Snitchfix after that unfortunate incident with the clockwork guardbot and the barn full of cows. Snitchfix wasn't a malicious person, not really, and he did try to apologize, but eventually he just climbed back into his walking mansion and continued along his way, letting the farmer stomp and fume by himself.
It was small issues like that which kept the doctor from having any sort of an amiable relationship with the immediate civilization. And so he remained always on the move, traipsing around the countryside in his dilapidated walking house.
Now for the matter of this blown out joint. Just as Snitchfix arrived at accident did the whole contraption shudder to a halt, nearly knocking the doctor off his feet. Using his jacket sleeve to wipe away the soot, he got to work. Realigning a sprocket here, shifting a gear there, he began repairing the machine that he knew better than his own mother.
"Minion!" he yelled down the corridor, "Bring me my utility box!" Proud as he was of his house, Snitchfix was constantly overhauling various broken down mechanisms that he didn't build correctly the first time round. He was young and inexperienced back then. It wasn't really fair how early in his life he was rejected from society, but Snitchfix had since come to terms with, and even enjoyed, the near solitude that defined his life now.
His minion waddled over, plunking down a patchwork box full of strange gizmos. With the help of his tools, Snitchfix quickly remedied the problem, and within fifteen minutes the jointed leg creaked back into action, and the house was mobile once again.Snitchfix tossed his wrench to his minion and walked back to what he was working on before this inconvenience. Before settling back down to his work, he noted how pleasant the sound of machinery was.
------
I totally am not taking any inspiration at all from Howl's Moving Castle. Whatever would make you think that?
"Eh? Wazzat?" Snitchfix looked up from his tinkerings.
"Master, master!" the scientist's mildly neurotic hunchbacked minion shrieked, "The western jointed calibrator just exploded! And I can't find your cat!"
Snitchfix sighed and stood up. "Mind the automaton, minion," he said as he began to clomp down the hall.
That's the third time this month, the doctor thought to himself, I really should have taken more time building the joints.
Though the minion wasn't really good at anything other than panicking and losing his cat, he had a remarkable ability to memorize the workings of most of the things that his master built, which made him valuable enough that Snitchfix kept him around.
The doctor didn't really like other beings, constructs or otherwise, because they had an annoying tendency to whine and complain when he would wreck something of theirs. Like that farmer who wouldn't stop chasing Snitchfix after that unfortunate incident with the clockwork guardbot and the barn full of cows. Snitchfix wasn't a malicious person, not really, and he did try to apologize, but eventually he just climbed back into his walking mansion and continued along his way, letting the farmer stomp and fume by himself.
It was small issues like that which kept the doctor from having any sort of an amiable relationship with the immediate civilization. And so he remained always on the move, traipsing around the countryside in his dilapidated walking house.
Now for the matter of this blown out joint. Just as Snitchfix arrived at accident did the whole contraption shudder to a halt, nearly knocking the doctor off his feet. Using his jacket sleeve to wipe away the soot, he got to work. Realigning a sprocket here, shifting a gear there, he began repairing the machine that he knew better than his own mother.
"Minion!" he yelled down the corridor, "Bring me my utility box!" Proud as he was of his house, Snitchfix was constantly overhauling various broken down mechanisms that he didn't build correctly the first time round. He was young and inexperienced back then. It wasn't really fair how early in his life he was rejected from society, but Snitchfix had since come to terms with, and even enjoyed, the near solitude that defined his life now.
His minion waddled over, plunking down a patchwork box full of strange gizmos. With the help of his tools, Snitchfix quickly remedied the problem, and within fifteen minutes the jointed leg creaked back into action, and the house was mobile once again.Snitchfix tossed his wrench to his minion and walked back to what he was working on before this inconvenience. Before settling back down to his work, he noted how pleasant the sound of machinery was.
------
I totally am not taking any inspiration at all from Howl's Moving Castle. Whatever would make you think that?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)