The Color In Your Characters
The Color In Your Characters
I’m talking about secondary characters. The minor roles that give your world texture, give it context. I’ve always sort of gravitated to secondary characters in stories. Why? Pretty damned simple to sort out. Given the heterosexist world we live in, as a gayboy I had to often look for subtle clues if a secondary character was gay or not. Then it would be – ooh, what’s he doing? What’s he about?
It was always the secondary characters in stories that held my interest – almost more than the main characters. Actually, it’s the ensemble work that usually draws me in. I love great ensemble casts.
In Buffy the Vampire Slayer it was Xander and Spike that kept me going in that show. Willow too. Far more than Buffy (who always seemed one note in comparison to the other characters in her world). Don’t get me wrong I am a HUGE Buffy fan. Hell, put me down as a Joss Whedon fan, period.
The cast of one of my all time favorite shows – Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
There are many such shows that garnered my attention in great part because of the ensemble of secondary characters that fleshed out the world the main character had to play in.
In Downton, Cousin Violet (Dame Maggie Smith) of course provides just about as much color a human being can in a character.
Maggie Smith as Lettice in the brilliant play Lettice and Lovage.
I had the pleasure of watching Dame Maggie in Lettice and Lovage on Broadway when she was in the title role of Lettice Duffey. It was written for her and man oh man did it show. I was fifth row center (literally) and the air was electric – it tingled along my skin whenever she was on stage – and okay, she was the main character, but what it did do was give me a real sense of the subtleties of character development.
The brilliant and crisp play written for Maggie Smith – Lettice and Lovage.
Lettice Duffey was a broad character – one that would rival another monolithic strong woman character – Auntie Mame (Dennis). Yet, in both cases (Rosalind Russell and Maggie Smith’s turn as Mame and Lettice), they knew just the right amount of hubris to ground the character to make them infinitely accessible.
So yes, main characters can be just as colorful, just as compelling (they are main characters, after all) but for me, those actors who portray these iconic characters, when they get their teeth into a secondary role, you get such nuance and flavor from their portrayal that I can’t help but be drawn in.
Lois Smith (center) with Ryan Kwantan and and Anna Pacquin from True Blood.
It was that way with True Blood, too – I was all about Pam and Eric. Sookie and Bill were beside the point, say nothing of the brilliant, brilliant turn of Ryan Kwantan as Jason. But my first love in True Blood was always Lois Smith as Sookie’s grandmother. I just LOVE Lois Smith. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her in something I didn’t like her performance. She was never big and brassy. But lord does she permeate each scene she’s in. Her portrayal as Sookie Stackhouses beloved grandmother was carefully measured but incredibly believable. She was the grounding that Sookie needed to make her accessible. Without her in the beginning of the True Blood world, it would have not had the same balance. It would have been too fantastic. Gran kept us sane and safe (to a degree).
Okay, so you’re probably saying ‘yeah, but your just talking about acting and not story telling.’ The obvious retort is that plays and screenplays are just one more way to tell a story. Books acted out sort of thing. I come from theater so I tend to gravitate to that world whenever I think of storytelling. So the whole reason I am using performance storytelling as opposed to literary works is that I wanted to put as many people as possible on the same page in their minds. Much easier.
Freeman and Cumberbatch hamming it up – the modern take on Watson and Holmes.
But that’s not to say I can’t use some classic characters in literary circles that I can put out there to make my point – Dr. Watson to Sherlock? Though to be honest, it could be argued that John Watson was more of an elevated secondary character but he’ll do as an example. A story without John Watson just wouldn’t be right. Watson is our accessibility to the heady brilliance of Sherlock.
In Dorian Gray it is the secondary characters that give us our main characters color. They provide Dorian with the allure and the brutal sensuality – it is through their eyes, their voice that we get a flavor of Dorian before he ever hits the page himself.
Reeve Carney as Dorian Gray in the brilliant show “Penny Dreadful”
In my own story, Angels of Mercy, I tried to sort this out with my boys. Marco has his cousin Francesca, a wild but über hot cousin that as much as she is beguiling she is also the most loyal companion to Marco. It was important for me to have someone like her in Marco’s world to give him something to play against in his family life. In book one of the series, we don’t really get any real sense of Marco’s mother or father. It’s all about Frankie (Francesca) that we get a sense of Marco’s home life. I really love her for so many reasons. She’s a goddess on steroids but with a heart of gold underneath that Venus allure.
For Elliot, the main POV character of the first book, it’s his mother and his best friend Greg that give us a peek into Elliot’s world. Where Marco’s world is big and bright and full of adoration from the masses, Elliot’s is the exact opposite. All he has in his small world is Greg and his mother, and then Marco himself.
That was the question I had burning inside of me as Marco and Elliot began to form – I wanted to know what would happen if the geeky artsy shy out gay kid became boyfriend to the highest profile jock on campus. In book one, we sort of get that answer.
Yet, it isn’t just the characters that I’ve mentioned that are what provide texture to Marco and Elliot’s world. There’s Beau Hopkins. Caramel colored, massively beautiful and completely black of heart. Beau is the danger in this world. He’s a dark horse in a growing dark world for my boys. Beau is a user. He’s a manipulator. He comes from a very confining world of Football and religion. His father is a preacher in town and quite hard on his son. Beau, while formulaic in that he’s the atypical Preacher’s son, he also has a couple of surprises that Elliot gets him to admit something that only proves to tighten the screws on the horrific end to the first book.
If that weren’t enough, we have a very opportunistic cheerleader – Cindy Markham. She’s trouble in a pretty package with all the charm of a man-eating piranha. She’s a manipulator in a massively whacked out way – emphasis on MANipulate. She and Beau are the boys worst possible nightmare.
The final cover artwork. Blood included.
Then there’s the boy’s greatest asset – Elliot’s mother and best friend – Kayla Donahey and Greg Lettau. These are the boy’s home base. They are the rock that allow the boys to rise and dream beyond their existence in Mercy High. Then when the world seems full, the ensemble is set, I bring Danny Jericho into the mix. Danny’s the wild card. Danny’s the boy who will put all of the characters into a tailspin. He’s the great unknown. He’s also the boys secret weapon. Though he makes his appearance late in the book, he soon becomes the boy they can’t do without.
While the story is about the geeky gay kid and the über hot and popular jock and their reach for the stars, I wanted my secondary cast to be just as rich, just as textured – maybe even more so. I mean, I didn’t want termites in costume (which is what we call scenery chewers on stage). You know, characters that pull focus. Hopefully, if I’ve done my job, my characters embolden the story, they give it its legs.
And it only gets better with the second book (told from Marco’s perspective) in that the two secondary characters that I had in the background in book one come to the fore – Angus Carr and Nick Donahey. I LOVE THESE MEN! Oh, gods, how I fell in love with Elliot’s dad and Marco’s new found friend at his future school (Stanford University). These men are beyond brilliant. Angus just has his heart on his sleeve, he’s so amazing I get giddy like a school girl whenever he comes into the scene. I’ve already peppered the story I am telling with a secondary tale that I can always spin off in this world with Danny and Angus (yeah, that was a minor spoiler).
I am always thinking about my secondary cast. It’s how my main characters shine – at least to my way of thinking.
So whether it’s Kayla, Greg or Danny – Beau, Cindy or Francesca. It’s all about the textures in the background to my world that make everything just a bit more dense, a deeper flavor to the tale I am telling.
The stars of the show can only shine if they’ve got others behind them as the backdrop – the colors and textures that make them who they are. And I make it my business to know EVERY facet of their lives before they ever step onto the novel stage. They are fully fleshed out in my head before they utter their first words. It’s just how it goes with me.
I just can’t think of any other way to do it.
Keep Calm, The DOCTOR Is Near…
“Keep Calm, I’m the Doctor…”
Yeah, I’ll confess it now: I’m a Whovian.
I can’t help it.
There’s no therapy that I know of to cure me of my plight. Well, except the love and adoration that happens when you’re surrounded by other Whovians of the Doctor Who universe.
And ya know what? I don’t want a cure. No interventions required, thank you very much!
The Doctor is absurd, it asks much of its audience to suspend disbelief, it strains the boundaries of standard narrative and a cohesive universe as we know it. But that doesn’t matter one jot.
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Because the magic is what sustains us. The magic is in the writing. The magic in the characters, the worlds the beloved Doctor takes us to. The examining of our human condition and interpersonal relationships that only someone from the outside (who looks so much like one of our own) can hold a light and microscope to and let us see what makes us undeniably well, uh, human.
There isn’t much of what goes on in that universe that I don’t love. And I get to share it with family and friends and co-workers alike. One big Whovian family.
I came to the Doctor very late in life. My previous boyfriend was a Whovian from the classic era. I knew about it. I indulged his fascination with it (and in particular Tom Baker’s incarnation). I only started to take note of Doctor Who with Chris Eccleston’s Doctor. I know. I know. Really late to the party. That isn’t to say I haven’t done some catching up either.
The granddaughter and I have watched the early eps up on Netflix. Thank the heavens for Netflix. My Doctor’s are never far from reach.
And tomorrow we’re gifted with our new incarnation. Peter Capaldi.
Can’t wait…
He won’t be Matt. No one can be. But it’ll be great to see what Capaldi does with him. He’s supposed to be darker, more brooding.
Brooding is good. Don’t know if it’s sustainable over time. But it’ll be interesting to watch. Though I am not emboldened with some of the Whovian chatter about the chemistry disconnect between Jenna and Peter. That doesn’t bode well for the series if there’s any truth to it. It could just be Whovian fan drama stirring up what really isn’t there. But the picture opportunities at the world wide events have sort of bore this whole thing out. They seem a bit stilted together. Gone seem to be the youthful exuberance. It’s now something unknown, darker – mysterious. Even Clara doesn’t quite know what she’s got.
Neither do we.
In a very real way, I am bang over the moon on the sudden shift. We could’ve lapsed into complacency in Matt’s lovable turn as the Doctor. And like many I adore Matt Smith. You can’t help it. He just pulls that from you. It’s in the air – it just becomes electric.
Capaldi is darker. His temperament isn’t quite clear. It’s British… in every way that a man can be – but that’s the Yank in me that’s talking there.
Though Matt carried a certain air about him that had an American Cowboy swagger that even we Yanks could appreciate. Tennant was brilliant, as was Eccelston. But Smith was the real connection to the world for this character. HE threw the doors wide open.
Capaldi’s gotta build on it. Darkness is okay. Darkness can be cool. But if the chemistry between Clara and our newest Doctor don’t jive, then Houston, we’ve got a serious problem.
I hope it won’t come to that. I love this character (one of millions, I’m aware). I love this universe (it gave me Captain Jack Harkness for Chrissake and who doesn’t love a bit of John Barrowman goodness?).
We’ll just have to see what’s in store for ep 1 later on today… crossed fingers that it’s gonna be a whopper!
It’s all just timey-wimey stuff anyway.
My Character’s Meanderings… the road less traveled
Character Meanderings
-or-
How all the planning in your life can’t prepare you for the surprises your main character has in store for you…
Lovely footballers going at it…
It goes a little like this…
You never really know what surprises are in store when you write a novel (or a series – like I am). You can plan. You can outline to your heart’s content, but it never really sticks to the mold you’ve set when you have rich characters who organically want to say something in the moment.
I had one such moment a few days ago with one of my main characters (Marco Sforza) that came to me as an utter shock and knocked me for a loop (so much so that I had to step back for a few days just to absorb what it meant).
It wasn’t like it completely derailed what I wanted to do with my outline that I’d worked really hard on, but rather it was a small diversion that colored who he was and how he came to being the man he was becoming. It was significant enough that I couldn’t simply ignore it (for there are some writings that never make it into the book – I have to write them so I can be clear in my mind where things go – it’s not enough to just imagine them, they have to be down on digital paper so I can fully render them out).
And here’s how I sort of see Marco Sforza (if a slight bit older than in the book).
Marco is proving to be a rather complicated young man. Far more than I’d realized when I started the series. Complicated is good; it drives the drama forward – of that I have no doubt. And it appears that I am often just along for the ride – a vessel for him to channel and breathe life into him. There are many times where I feel he is communing with me and not the other way around. It’s how it goes most of the time. I know their world, I know what’s going to happen down the road. What I don’t plan are the little diversions that they bring to me along the way.
This model has been my inspirational source for Elliot Donahey in my story.
Elliot (Donahey) had such a moment for me in Volume 1 of the series when Danny entered the picture. I had no plans for Danny Jericho. Not really. I mean, I knew that Elliot would find someone who was gay (other than Marco) who he could become close to. Greg (Elliot’s on and off sidekick) is great and all, but there are just some places he won’t go. And Greg loves Elliot too, just not in the whole I’ll go gaily down rainbow road with you sort of way. There are limits a cool, secure in his shit kinda straight boy that he has for Elliot.
I mean, Greg is the Cyrano to Marco’s Christian. So Greg’s had more than his fair share of involvement in getting my two boys together. For a straight guy, Greg is über cool. Clark Kent/Superman cool. And by the way, sidebar: Greg Lettau and his brother Kevin are really real people in my life. Greg was an über cool geek kid who was smarter than fuck. I miss him and wonder what he ever got to. So yeah, Greg is one of three characters who relate to real people in the real world.
But Danny’s different. Elliot needs a GBFF in a BIG ol’ way. Danny does that for him. In ways Marco can’t be because he’s too close. Danny is the balance in the passion that drives them. He’s their remote eye to all things Marco/Elliot. Plus I have the added discovery that while I love my main characters it is a couple of side characters that have really stolen my heart (I actually get a bit giddy when I get to write about them): Angus Carr and Nick Donahey.
Angus sort of just sprang up organically (in the moment – I wanted a BFF for Marco’s second phase of his life when he goes to college. Angus will take that role front and center in Marco’s life). Nick, on the other hand, is my true passion in this story. Elliot’s perceptions of his father couldn’t be further from the truth. His father’s love for him goes far deeper than Elliot is comfortable admitting.
It’s something that is proving to challenge me as I write volume 2 of my Angels of Mercy series. Marco Sforza is a character worth the challenge. He is a jock who never waivers in his devotion to the guy he loves – society be damned. He is fully committed – the whole enchilada. But it was in discovering what he had to say to me as I write him that became a journey in and of itself.
And there’s the fleshing out of Marco’s relationship with his twin brother – Pietro. Pietro is far more complex than any of the boys and in some ways far more simplistic. Pietro does see black and white where the rest only see grey. He has to. He has his brother’s happiness to consider. And Pietro has been quite the busy bee in Marco’s life. Even when Marco doesn’t fully realize it.
My boys are right pieces of work. But I love them. My beta readers have often commented on how real they seem to them. One of them is now beginning his search for his own Elliot to love and call his own. So in a real way Elliot has achieved benchmark status. I’m cool with that. Elliot is far from perfect.
But aren’t we all? And isn’t that why we read things like Angels of Mercy? To glean some understanding that we’re not alone in the world. That we have quite a bit more in common with one another than we realize or want to admit. This common thread of our humanity and the way we either cope with what life throws at us – or watch like an enormous train wreck when it all comes crashing around you.
Drama – it’s the stuff of life. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
50 Shades of Gay
So I know it’s been a while.
Life inserted itself fully. There was work to be done. There was more writing and editing. Honestly, I don’t know what I am doing most of the time. I know what I like and I write to that. It’s a contemplative and fairly lonely existence. It is not something I talk freely about. Not that I am ashamed of what I do. I’m not. Let’s be clear about that.
I think that I needed some distance from my last long winded entry. Turning 50 was much bigger than I wanted it to be. Not in the celebrations or in the thick of the moment – they were all well and good. They are what made me what I am today – a collection of experiences and moments that have molded (for better or worse) into the man I am today.
There’s the hubby, our girls, the two cats – all the hallmarks of domesticity. Yet I burn with other thoughts and ideas. I have men coming up to me (in my mind – head out of the gutter now) who have their stories to tell. They burn with it too. I try to put passion into what I do. Tweaking it here, imbuing it there.
*sigh*
So I heard back from a publisher yesterday (one that I had to ping several times to get ANYTHING from them – something the hubby kept asking “Do you really want to work with a group of people that you constantly have to chase down?”) The hubby has a point. I write fiction that is predominantly gay in nature – it’s what I know. It’s what I am passionate about because in a sea of how we are not like everyone else out there (the heterosexual norm) I think our voices are important enough that I can’t help but write from that perspective.
Anyway, the publisher didn’t get what I was doing. They took a pass on the material. They didn’t get that it was more of a character study than a standard cookie cutter narrative. They’re obviously looking only at the profile margin. I am not there. I never want it to be about the money. The comments back weren’t even that helpful. They were conflicted (rushed and fantastical vs. prose that broke momentum – I mean, what the fuck do you do with absurd commentary like that?). It was very evident that they didn’t even really read the material or try to understand what I was doing. It is not your standard cookie cutter formulaic m/m romantic fair. It was never intended to be that. I know it’s different – THAT’S WHAT I AM TRYING TO DO! Jesus, it was evident to me that publishers don’t have a fucking clue what the market will bear.
I have given the book to people I’ve just met – who don’t know me well enough to know what I am fully about or about what voice I am trying to put out there. In each and every case thus far I have heard how they have emotively connected with my protagonist. How his inner monologue was what pulled them in. They got it. THAT’S the audience I am after. Not some housewife who wants to be swept cursorily away on some cookie cutter adventure for a few hours on some vapid inane storyline that will be instantly forgotten the moment the last page is flipped.
I have two beta readers who have read it and both are not avid readers. Both have said that my characters stayed with them. They loved that they knew so much about them that they wrote back and said that they felt real to them. They both said that this was the first book they’ve gotten through that they actually read like a fiend to finish it. One of which hasn’t read a book in 20 years. But he read through mine like a bullet train with no signs of stopping – almost in one sitting. So there is something there. I can feel it.
Another one is a young man in Britain who I met through a LGBT support site. He’s smart, bright and funny. He’s also hard on himself. My heart goes out to him in so many ways. He embodies my main character (Elliot) in so many ways. He told me that he identified with him and that the voice is very much where his head is at and it rang true for him. He’s in his early twenties (just beyond where my main character is). But the publisher doesn’t consider the market really. They look at statistics, they look at data. And I get it that its supposed to be the business of selling. I get that it’s supposed to be about the bottom line.
My work is epically long for the standard M/M fair. I know it’s not an easy work to market. For god sake you’re inside my main characters head listening to how he processes all of the information that keeps coming his way. And he has issues – it’s what drives the drama forward. But they didn’t get that. I know they didn’t. They just aren’t seeing the work for what it is.
“And it’s only one opinion.” They said. Yeah, it is – and it’s fairly clear that they aren’t invested in finding new talent as they profess to be. They just are struggling to survive selling the same cookie cutter formula (sorry guys/gals I have bought close to 700 books from the genre – as research on what types of stories are out there) and 98.9% of it is pure schlock. It’s absolute rubbish. But they sell what sold yesterday because it’s just GOTTA sell today too. Well, guess what, eventually they will get tired of the same bland Cheerios that you’ve been spoon feeding them. And no, changing the protag from your last best seller from a fireman to a police man doesn’t count as being creative. It’s the same formula. Shake it the FUCK up, will ya? Or the genre will tank.
In short it was a waste of a very long period of time that they could’ve just piped up and owned their fuckedupness in not managing their time well (at one point they actually used deadlines looming as a reason for the delay). They are a small publishing house. If they can’t manage the deadlines they have now and I got added to the mix… see where I am going with that?
So I realized that I’ll either have to keep looking or self-pub it myself. I have author friends who self-pub. It’s not an easy path because the type of stuff I write (while it is deeply rooted in a M/M (sometimes more) relationship slant and thus carries a bit of erotic undercurrent as all relationships do) isn’t mainstream. It isn’t what I think will sell millions and millions of copies.
But is that the type of success I am looking for? I don’t know. I think I’d much rather be successful at putting out something I think is of quality but may fall by and large completely unnoticed by the masses.
I was contemplating all of this when I came upon this little posting on HuffPo Gay Voices on gay men reading 50 Shades of Grey and commenting on it. Gay boys reviewing straight porn/erotica. I thought it was something that would get me to smile a bit. Gay boys have such an aversion to anything lady part wise… so I certainly expected some giggles over that. I got it.
Now here’s the deal – what I didn’t expect was the actual lines from this world-wide bestseller to actually be as badly written as they were. It seemed very amateurish or slightly – awkward when it came to the sex that was portrayed in the book. I am sure that the context helps but the actual inner monologue that they were reading was like some fourteen year old girl was trying to describe a sexual situation.
I was stunned…
See for yourself –
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I like Neil McNeil’s stuff on YouTube. He’s clever and he’s certainly crafty in telling his amusing slices of life (from a gay man’s perspective) and it’s light, it’s funny but there’s also a thread of really bright and innovative moments where he’s pulling back the curtain on how gay men survive in this hetero-normative world we’re immersed in. I think he’s pretty fucking brilliant and I love that he’s unabashedly gay in a big way. I admire his courage and his fortitude to get his stuff out there. He believes in what he does, he’s passionate about it, he doesn’t accept that someone else may not – or rather, he is unfazed by it all.
Then I think about my musical muse for Angels of Mercy (Jay Brannan) and how he doesn’t have a big record company backing him up. He doesn’t have a marketing department or a promotional touring company to do all of his stuff. It’s just him cranking out what he does because he’s passionate about it. And his passion is infectious. It permeates wherever he is.
I need to take a page out these men’s book. They strive forward. They press when the world presses back. So I will continue to develop Angels because I believe in what I am doing. I believe in the nature of the work. I take heart that the people who have read it want to read more (it ends on a cliff hanger – which by the way I was told by a publisher that series of that nature are not really what’s selling). Yeah, that’s why sequels in film and serialized television doesn’t work. That’s why the Potter series languished in obscurity.
Elliot and Marco will see the light. Even if I have to figure it all out on my own. I may not command a huge audience from it all, but in the end they will be unabashedly mine. They will be my boys/men – telling their own stories. Why? Because they come to me in dreams – both waking and in sleep. They have things to say. They have surprises even for me.
The hubby commented that Thomas Wolfe (who wrote the hubby’s favorite book – Look Homeward Angel amongst other things) that he had to shop his masterpiece around and really didn’t understand what he wrote in its entirety until he sat down with the editor who he would continue to work with during his writing career and they discovered the absolute breadth of what he’d assembled. Even he didn’t know what was in there. He just struck a creative vein and went with it.
That’s what Elliot and Marco are to me. Life’s blood in writing. They feed me in ways I had never imagined. I have to finish their tale; I have no choice.
Will it ultimately find an audience (of any kind)? I don’t know. I may never know (hell, I’m 50 – it could take several years or decades before it finds people who get me and what I am on about). I may get recognized long after I’ve expired from this world. I may never see the success. Or it could languish for all time. But ultimately, does it matter?
I need to tell their story no matter what. That’s what matters. It’s the only thing that matters.
Elliot is a sea of conflicting emotions. He’s an out gay kid who is shy and sticks to the shadows to survive the hell that is high school. It isn’t until the brightest light from that hellish world sees him and says – you’re mine – that he has to deal what a life in the light means. It isn’t easy for him – for them both.
But then again, isn’t the work we have to strive for it worth it? Doesn’t it make the attaining and the having all the more sweeter because of it?
So I’ll press on – navigating waters I am not sure I know how to do. But I’ll press forward and figure it out. I have a brain, I have friends and family for support. What more do I need to make a go of it?
Not a damned thing…
GAME OVER… Game of Thrones and the Evolution of DeathPorn
The Rise of DeathPorn on Cable TV
So I let myself stew a bit over the last episode [The Mountain and the Viper] of Game of Thrones (GoT). And before anyone starts prepping their retort to this little missive, let me just state the obvious: after 4 seasons I am fully aware that this show is about the rise to power and how many people it corrupts and kills along the way. I get it. You DON’T have to remind me.
But here’s the rub for me: I need a story where I can invest myself in the characters. As a writer I want the drama they bring to the story. Martin’s cavalcade of death and power amongst the most despicable kingdoms in his imaginary world is gritty, it’s horrid, it’s sensual, it’s grueling, it’s beguiling, and it’s nothing short of porn.
Oberyn’s (Pedro Pascall) Viper wailing upon the Mountain.
Exhibitionist DEATHPORN. On a scale that might even leave the ancient Roman’s gob smacked.
Case in point: FULL DISCLOSURE TIME: Admittedly I haven’t read one of the books. So I’ll cop to that right from the get-go. To be honest I’ve been too busy writing my own stories to have the time to invest in his world.
BUT having watched the four seasons of the TV show I have come to the realization that I have very little interest in the lives of the people who inhabit Martin’s visually compelling literary universe. From the adverts at the time it had two of my favorite character actors in the show: Mark Addy and Sean Bean. They had me hooked with just these two actors being attached to the project. Well, there was Jason Momoa too.
I was a Jason fan from his stint on Stargate: Atlantis a few years back. I also saw picts of this Kit Harrington guy and he sorta filled the bill as a sexy lead so yeah, I was all in. I was really into the season and contemplated reading the books. I read quite fast so it wasn’t a far cry for me to just jump into the fray and compare with the series what was happening on screen. But I yielded from getting into the books because I wanted to give the TV series a chance. TV and film can be so far off the mark from the original source work (see my previous rant about that whole myth that Hollywood perpetuates all under the guise of the ‘creative process’). I wanted to let GoT the TV series stand on its own. So I watched. I was intrigued. I was stymied – yeah I said stymied (more people should use this word more often – they walk around in that mode – completely stymied over how this modern world truly operates and yet, they seem to use the wrong word to describe it). So yeah, stymied at the small regard Martin seemed to have for his characters.
And believe me, I get pathos. As a writer, I got pathos coming out my ass. But here in is the rub of Martin’s work. While imaginative, bombastic and challenging as it may seem – ultimately what does it serve? Certainly not a character study – as you don’t have any of them around long enough to warrant a true evaluation of them. You get, at best, smatterings of their truer personae. And this ultimately is the singular gift Martin offers for his readers/viewers. Smatterings. Snippets of the fuller beings they could become. Now, again, I concede that I haven’t actually read the work (and I don’t think I will after last week episode – but I’ll come to that anon).
So Ned Stark and the King were my main focus for season one. Joffrey was a right shit so I lost complete interest in his being the villain. Don’t get me wrong, I really liked the actor’s portrayal – I had nothing against him. It was the vehemence of the character that got to me. It was one dimensional – cardboard – all that was missing was the handlebar mustache (admittedly that would’ve been hard for Jack Gleeson to pull that costume effect off – but it was there in spirit). I grew bored with him as the season one baddie.
Joffrey the Bad
Say nothing of writing Mark Addy (a brilliant character actor, btw) off so quickly. So I’d lost one of my beloved actors even before the first season had grown cold. A few eps later and Ned got the whack job of his life. So now I was out both of the reasons that I even started to watch the show. I contemplated leaving it at this point – except something altogether surprising happened: I sort of fell in love (as a writer/actor) with Arya and Bran Stark, and Jon Snow. So I hung in there for season 2.
Then we had some interesting gay characters spring up here and there – but already I noticed a trend: Gay characters were nothing more than a trifling to show Martin had any depth as a craftsman, but he quickly disposed of them. It seemed (to this gay writer at any rate) that they were nothing more than a marketing ploy. No real staying power. This is a HUGE negative in my book. Martin doesn’t get props for inclusiveness if he can’t bother to keep them around – cause here’s the nitty gritty about being gay Mr. Martin – we learn very quickly how to survive in a very hostile world. Far craftier than most straights would ever grant us credit for. But of course, they have nothing to compare it to. They don’t have to live their lives in denial until they have some relative ease with which to feel they can be themselves with friends and loved ones. So yeah, a life undercover tends to make one far more careful with their actions. So some of those deaths were nothing to advance the plot. They were porn.
And herein lies the crux of Martin’s world. I liken it to a weekly gladiatorial viewing by the TV viewing masses to see who else gets offed in a given episode.
And just to be clear – here is the complete run down of deaths of the major (and some minor) characters: I Googled it and found one site that had the body count of characters from the series at 208!
So, let’s review that little nugget: 208 character deaths in a series that has only had 4 seasons thus far. Perhaps only Walking Dead could boast a higher body count.
And let’s not toss in that tired line that: it’s a story about how power corrupts man. Yeah, got the memo on that one. But this takes it to the nth degree, doesn’t it? And ultimately to what end? To just see who makes it out alive? That’s what we’ve devolved into? Not about what makes the character’s tick? Not about the interpersonal nuances between them all? A writer writes stories hoping against the odds that their characters will be embraced by their intended audience. Well, Martin has effectively (for this reader/writer/actor) done an ample job of doing the opposite. I have lost all care for any of his characters (though I still have a small degree of it left for Arya, Bran and Jon).
But the rest? Nada.
You know what did it? What broke the proverbial camels back for me? Oberyn’s death.
Oberyn and his man-whore. Sexual tensions ensue. Pedro NAILS it!
I thought – “Wow, now we have a VERY interesting character to deal with. He was crafty, ballsy (in ALL the right ways) and didn’t give a shit about what the Lannisters thought about him. I was TOTALLY in his camp. I was loving this guy from top to bottom – and what a nice bottom he had too! He was all over the map in ways that none of the other trapped characters were. He was sensual, he was certainly pan-sexual, but more importantly he was unpredictable. A HUGE smattering of gray in a very grey world. But his grey was fucking neon gray – gray you couldn’t look away from.
And now it too is gone.
More Oberyn man love… hella hawt!
And I am not lamenting it because Pascall is one fuckalicious hottie of an actor (though it’d be a close second), no, ultimately it is the interesting things that Oberyn could’ve brought to the table in the long run. But not in Martin’s world. In that world the great takeaway is don’t invest yourself in any of them. It’s just not worth your efforts. You’ll reap no reward for the telling.
There’s nothing on display in GoT other than great art direction, some decent (if at times, over the top) acting, and brilliant costumes. The plot and delivery of the story – very one dimensional. A shock and awe that has long since worn off. So he can kill off characters – what this says to me is that he can’t make them last. He doesn’t know what to do with them all. So like a rotund Rumpelstiltskin he churns out character after character. If you lose one – well don’t worry, I’ve got eight more that I’ll throw your way only to hack them to bits too.
So that’s my takeaway. Martin can create but ultimately he doesn’t know what to do with them other than full on deathporn. Which is really the worst kind.
I am reminded of a question my cinematic idol, Alfred Hitchcock, once posed with Psycho – What happened if the audience was fooled into thinking Marion is the main character only to kill her off early in the film and reveal the true main character as her killer? An interesting perspective on things. With Martin he’s taken it to pornographic levels of death, blood and mayhem – but not to great end. Really it’s quite sad. I mean, sure he’s laughing all the way to the bank, but I just can’t go there any more.
At least with Spartacus, I knew what I was in for. I got that it was about gladiatorial death sequences and that any moment could be your last. But with GoT, the rollercoaster ride only has one bump, one twist and you see them coming a mile down the road. Even when it’s a surprise (as it was with Oberyn) it really isn’t. Martin’s done it all before. Only this time – I’m out.
SPARTACUS – Some hot man on man lovin’ goin’ on. AND THEY LIVED to have an HEA!
I am not a deathporn fanatic. I want characters who we have to struggle with and against. None of Martin’s are worth it (with the exception of my trio). Even Daenyris has become a cardboard cut-out. A caricature of her once noble self. It’s a good thing Kahl Drogo got bumped off when he did. His wife has proven utterly boring at this point. A one-hit wonder – with dragons no less. The shock and awe and the carnage to come won’t keep me hanging on.
I wish there was more to hang my hat onto here. But ultimately on which hook do I hang it on? Which one can I trust? Some may say that that is the reason for watching the show. Yeah, not so for me.
Unlike Spartacus, which was admittedly just as gory, just as harsh, just as convoluted, at least you got some redemption for the investments you made into the characters. And the GAY COUPLE fucking lived to have their HEA (Happily Ever After)!! Fucking aces in my book! You NEVER see that in a action/adventure setting…
But with GoT? I just lost interest.