Showing posts with label Spike. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spike. Show all posts

Monday, March 28, 2011

Redemption, Vengeance, Love, Hatred--Call It What You Will, It's Still Free Will

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman


Unlike animal behavior, human conduct is motivated (at times, at least). There is a reason for what people do or refrain from doing. The motives may be good or not so good, selfless or selfish, beneficial or harmful to ourselves or others.

To motivate a character, a writer (and, indeed, a director and an actor) needs to know not only what makes people tick in general but also something about the character he or she is depicting or portraying. For writers, such understanding is enhanced by knowing the character’s past, or back story. What happened in the past influences who we are and what we do in the present.


Like any other qualitative television series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer delves into its characters’ pasts, depicting their back stories so that viewers can get to know and understand these characters as well as their creators do. In the process, fans learn what makes Buffy Summers tick; why Rupert Giles is (at first, anyway) a stodgy, all-work, no-play kind of guy; what happens in Xander Harris’ home life to make him the clowning, but loyal, friend; the reason for Willow Rosenberg’s geeky, shy vulnerability; and why Cordelia Chase is snobby and sarcastic but, at the same time, has “layers” to her personality.

Some of the series’ characters seek redemption: Giles, for an irresponsible youth that included practicing dark magic that led to a friend’s death at the hands of a demon that he helped to summon; Angel, for the misery, suffering, and pain he caused his many victims when he was a soulless, bloodsucking creature of the night; Jenny Calendar for her betrayal of Giles, Buffy, and Angel.

Others are motivated by their desire to live normal lives, including their attempts to fit into the larger world and to be popular with their peers (Buffy, Xander, Willow, and, each in her own way, Cordelia Chase and Anya Jenkins).

Still others--and, sometimes, the same characters, at different times--are motivated by a desire for revenge: Buffy, Angel, Jenny, and Willow.

Spike is often motivated by either hatred or love, or, sometimes by both, for the same character, at different times (Drusilla and Buffy, for example), but he is also energized, at times, by vengeance, boredom, loneliness, or sheer mischievousness. More than any other character, except perhaps Giles’ childhood chum, Ethan Rayne, Spike is the show’s trickster.

Buffy is a show that, although its writers recognize genetic inheritance as a factor in human behavior, also insists, rather passionately, that human conduct stems, more often than not, primarily from characters’ exercise of free will. They are what they do; they do what they are, but they both are and do, more often than not, because of the choices they make. They elect to take this action or that or to refrain from doing one thing or another. In the process, from the raw material, so to speak, of their genetic inheritance, they create themselves. Their choices are what make them realistic, believable, likable, or hateful characters, despite the fantastic nature of the series itself.

Buffy is by no means perfect; especially after season five, it is easy to detect flaws, both minor and significant, but the series remains, although uneven, worthwhile television, and its creator and its talented stable of writers have much to teach other writers about how to create complex, dynamic, and intriguing characters whose actions stem from moral conflicts, existential problems, the conduct of others, the social demands upon them, their own natural abilities and weaknesses, and, most of all, their own free will.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

For a Writer, Too, Two (Or More) Heads Are Better Than One

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman


Dusted: The Unauthorized Guide to Buffy the Vampire Slayer by Lawrence E. Miles, Lars Pearson, and Christa Dickson, includes a sidebar concerning “Spike’s Nature” in which the author (presumably Dickson, since she waxes poetic about “the sight of James Marsters half-naked [sic]) suggests that the series’ writers view the same character differently, creator Joss Whedon seeing the vampire as redeemable and Doug Petrie as unredeemable. Other writers also have their own points of view concerning Spike’s nature: “Any attempt to work out whether he’s good, bad, or just going through his second adolescence is doomed to failure,” the author or authors conclude, “because frankly it’s hard to find three episodes in a row which all agree” (203).

In an earlier post, “Writing as a Schizophrenic,” I suggested that one way to layer a character (that is, to give him or her several, sometimes conflicting traits, making him or her a round and dynamic, as opposed to a flat and static, character) is to develop schizophrenia. Not real schizophrenia, of course. Vincent Van Gogh’s ear aside, there’s a limit at which an artist should draw the line when it comes to making personal sacrifices for the sake of his or her art (or the man or woman of his or her dreams). I meant imaginary schizophrenia or, even better, the sprouting of several heads, each with a mind of its own. By adopting different perspectives (political, religious, philosophical, and otherwise) and different points of view even among these perspectives (Democrat, Libertarian, Republican, conservative, moderate, liberal, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, atheistic, agnostic, dualistic, monistic, materialistic), one could add depth to one’s depiction of a character.


The authors of Dusted suggest another way of accomplishing the same enrichment of one’s characters: imagine him or her the way that several established authors might portray the same character. How might Stephen King depict your protagonist, antagonist, or other type of character? How might Dean Koontz represent the same literary person? How about Robert McCammon or Dan Simmons or Bentley Little? By sketching your character as other writers--and famous or at least well established ones, at that--might see him or her, you can yourself develop a richer understanding and appreciation of him or her. If the character is a complex one, you can even create various scenes that show his or her perhaps conflicting characteristics. Perhaps you started with a cartoon-style hero or villain. Now, he or she has developed into a dramatic persona worthy of William Shakespeare (or maybe King or Koontz, Whedon or Petrie).

Saturday, June 19, 2010

The Grand Entrance

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

Buffy Summers, the protagonist of the television series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, that bears her name, moves from Los Angeles to the “one-Starbucks town” of Sunnydale, California. She’s a young, nubile hottie, and, as she ascends the stairs leading up to the sidewalk that approaches her new high school, she catches the eye of Xander Harris as he arrives on the scene, aboard his skateboard (“Welcome to the Hellmouth“). Enthralled by the new coed, he is so busy examining her physical assets, instead of watching where he’s going, that he’s doubled over the handrail with which he collides as his vehicle flies out from under him. Not only is his mishap humorous, and perhaps deserved, but it also has the benefit of focusing the viewer’s attention upon him and, indirectly, upon the object of his attention, Buffy herself--or a portion of her, at any rate.

In another episode, “Lover’s Walk,” the vampire Spike runs over a “Welcome to Sunnydale” street sign as he returns to town.

In “Hell’s Belles,” Xander’s future self (or supposed future self) arrives at his younger self’s wedding to warn Xander not to go through with his marriage to former vengeance demon Anyanka Jenkins. The elder Xander makes his appearance carrying a bright red umbrella.


When Buffy goes to Sunnydale’s bus station in search of the male foreign exchange student who is supposed to stay with her and her mother, Joyce, during his visit to the golden state, she is surprised (as is the show’s audience) to discover that the student, Ampata, is a girl (“Inca Mummy Girl”).

Kendra Young, another slayer, activated, so to speak, upon Buffy’s earlier (and temporary) demise, is mistaken for an assassin, come to kill Buffy (whom Kendra herself mistakes for a vampire after she observes Buffy kissing her vampire boyfriend Angel) (“What‘s My Line, Part I”).



“Faith, Hope, and Trick” introduces not only the slayer Faith who is called after Kendra’s death at the hands of the vampire Drusilla, but the episode also introduces viewers to Faith’s nemesis, an ancient vampire named Kakistos and to his henchman, Mr. Trick, another, lesser vampire. As Faith dances with a young man at Sunnydale’s teen nightclub, The Bronze, his outdated dance moves make Buffy suspicious. Thinking he may be a vampire, Buffy follows him outside when he leaves with his dance partner, only to be astonished to see how quickly and easily the dark-haired beauty dispatches the fiend when he does attack her. Obviously, a new slayer has arrived in town. Earlier, Mr. Trick, chauffeuring Kakistos, orders a soda at the drive-through window of a local fast-food restaurant. Becoming hungry when Kakistos talks about devouring the slayer, Mr. Trick decides to pick up some food to go, and he drags the terrified restaurant clerk through the window, into the limousine.

What these scenes and incidents have in common is that each of them represents a grand entrance of sorts for the characters they introduce. By bringing a new character on the scene in an unusual, dramatic manner, rather than simply having him or her make an appearance in an ordinary, banal way, the series’ writers make the new characters stand out from everyone and everything else, and, from the very outset, these characters are memorable.

Once characters are established as regular or recurring members of the cast, viewers aren’t allowed to take them for granted. Through witty dialogue, the show’s writers keep viewers interested in the characters as the dramatic personae continuously deliver hilarious, often characteristic lines.

Narcissistic Cordelia Chase, for instance, after running over a fellow student during Driver’s Education class and breaking the girl’s leg, exclaims, “It’s the worst day of my life, and she’s trying to make it about her leg” (“Out o Sight, Out of Mind”). In another episode, Cordelia says, “Look, Buffy, you may be hot stuff when it comes to demonology or whatever, but when it comes to dating, I’m the slayer” (“Halloween”).

Xander, likewise, is full of comical one-liners, many of them targeting Cordelia’s vanity and arrogance: in reply to her question, asked while she’s complaining about having been awakened to give him a ride to Buffy’s house, “What am I now, mass transportation?” he quips, “That’s what a lot of the guys say, but it’s just locker room talk” (“What’s My Line, Part I”). Regarding a skimpy outfit Cordelia wears, Xander remarks, “I don’t know what everyone’s talking about, Cordelia. That outfit doesn’t make you look like a hooker” (“The Zeppo”).

The series has much to teach writers, and the importance of having a new character make a grand entrance and of keeping him or her interesting throughout the story (or series) by putting witty words in their mouths are two lessons that the show imparts to discerning viewers who want to be beguiling writers. In a later post, we’ll look at a few of the show’s other narrative techniques.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Understanding Monsters

copyright 2007 by Gary L. Pullman

Today, when we think of monsters, we envision something like Frankenstein’s creature, a troll, or a misshapen blob. That’s not what the word originally meant--or not quite what it meant. “Monster” initially referred to an animal or other creature (humans, for example) that were malformed, often because of a birth defect. The word “monster” meant, literally, “omen, portent, or sign,” according to the Online Etymology Dictionary, and monsters were regarded as “signs or omens of impending evil.” The sense of “abnormal or prodigious animals composed of parts of creatures,” a la many of the creatures of ancient Egyptian, Greek, and other mythologies, originated about 1385, the dictionary asserts, adding that the “sense of ‘person of inhuman cruelty or wickedness’ is from 1556.” By 1556, “monster” had come to also signify a “person of inhuman cruelty or wickedness.”

What was monstrous about monsters? The etymology of the word “monstrous,” the adjective derived from the noun “monster,” gives us a clue or two: “Monstrous,” according to the dictionary meant “unnatural, deviating from the natural order, hideous,” picking up the additional senses of meaning of “enormous” and “outrageously wrong” only later. The existence of monsters was once a subject of study known as teratology (from “teratos,” meaning “marvel” or “monster,” and “-ology,” meaning “study of”).

The etymologies of many of the words for monsters disclose the fears upon which many of them rested. Often, monsters were associated not only with death as such, but also with the horrible way in which one died at the hands--or rather, at the teeth and claws--of various monsters. Often, the unnatural creatures ate people alive, perhaps regarding them much as Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s vampire, Spike, thought of people--as “Happy Meals with legs.” However, a victim might be strangled (and then eaten, dead). For example, the Online Etymology Dictionary relates the following information concerning:
  • Manticore = man-eater
  • Ogre = man-eating giant
  • Orc = devouring monster
  • Sphinx = strangler.

A monster such as the water-dwelling afranc, with appetites for cattle rather than humans, was also feared, because, in eating the cattle, it deprived people of beef (although, it might be supposed, from the cattle’s point of view, the humans who consume them might also have been monsters). After all, what frightens us, as we observe in “Chillers and Thrillers: The Fiction of

Fear,” is really threats to the people and things we hold dear.

Some monsters suggest that we fear meaninglessness, too (a threat to our need to believe that our existence is important and purposeful). Some unnatural creatures imply that life, including human existence, might be absurd. One such monster is the moon-calf, whose name meant “abortive, shapeless, fleshly mass.” (One thinks of a tumor or an aborted fetus, perhaps.)

What’s most interesting to me is that the word “monster” is contrasted with the concept of normalcy, because a monster, originally, was a creature that was considered, in some way, unnatural. The ancients, of course, believed in natural laws. In physics, these were the laws of nature that controlled cosmic events. For society, similar laws of human nature controlled--or, at least, determined--what was right and proper conduct. These laws were inborn; they were the essential qualities with which one was born and which governed--or should govern--his or her behavior. To act against these natural laws was to act against nature, or to act unnaturally--to behave as a monster and, therefore, to become a monster.

Source Cited

Paranormal vs. Supernatural: What’s the Diff?

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

Sometimes, in demonstrating how to brainstorm about an essay topic, selecting horror movies, I ask students to name the titles of as many such movies as spring to mind (seldom a difficult feat for them, as the genre remains quite popular among young adults). Then, I ask them to identify the monster, or threat--the antagonist, to use the proper terminology--that appears in each of the films they have named. Again, this is usually a quick and easy task. Finally, I ask them to group the films’ adversaries into one of three possible categories: natural, paranormal, or supernatural. This is where the fun begins.

It’s a simple enough matter, usually, to identify the threats which fall under the “natural” label, especially after I supply my students with the scientific definition of “nature”: everything that exists as either matter or energy (which are, of course, the same thing, in different forms--in other words, the universe itself. The supernatural is anything which falls outside, or is beyond, the universe: God, angels, demons, and the like, if they exist. Mad scientists, mutant cannibals (and just plain cannibals), serial killers, and such are examples of natural threats. So far, so simple.

What about borderline creatures, though? Are vampires, werewolves, and zombies, for example, natural or supernatural? And what about Freddy Krueger? In fact, what does the word “paranormal” mean, anyway? If the universe is nature and anything outside or beyond the universe is supernatural, where does the paranormal fit into the scheme of things?

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word “paranormal,” formed of the prefix “para,” meaning alongside, and “normal,” meaning “conforming to common standards, usual,” was coined in 1920. The American Heritage Dictionary defines “paranormal” to mean “beyond the range of normal experience or scientific explanation.” In other words, the paranormal is not supernatural--it is not outside or beyond the universe; it is natural, but, at the present, at least, inexplicable, which is to say that science cannot yet explain its nature. The same dictionary offers, as examples of paranormal phenomena, telepathy and “a medium’s paranormal powers.”

Wikipedia offers a few other examples of such phenomena or of paranormal sciences, including the percentages of the American population which, according to a Gallup poll, believes in each phenomenon, shown here in parentheses: psychic or spiritual healing (54), extrasensory perception (ESP) (50), ghosts (42), demons (41), extraterrestrials (33), clairvoyance and prophecy (32), communication with the dead (28), astrology (28), witchcraft (26), reincarnation (25), and channeling (15); 36 percent believe in telepathy.

As can be seen from this list, which includes demons, ghosts, and witches along with psychics and extraterrestrials, there is a confusion as to which phenomena and which individuals belong to the paranormal and which belong to the supernatural categories. This confusion, I believe, results from the scientism of our age, which makes it fashionable for people who fancy themselves intelligent and educated to dismiss whatever cannot be explained scientifically or, if such phenomena cannot be entirely rejected, to classify them as as-yet inexplicable natural phenomena. That way, the existence of a supernatural realm need not be admitted or even entertained. Scientists tend to be materialists, believing that the real consists only of the twofold unity of matter and energy, not dualists who believe that there is both the material (matter and energy) and the spiritual, or supernatural. If so, everything that was once regarded as having been supernatural will be regarded (if it cannot be dismissed) as paranormal and, maybe, if and when it is explained by science, as natural. Indeed, Sigmund Freud sought to explain even God as but a natural--and in Freud’s opinion, an obsolete--phenomenon.

Meanwhile, among skeptics, there is an ongoing campaign to eliminate the paranormal by explaining them as products of ignorance, misunderstanding, or deceit. Ridicule is also a tactic that skeptics sometimes employ in this campaign. For example, The Skeptics’ Dictionary contends that the perception of some “events” as being of a paranormal nature may be attributed to “ignorance or magical thinking.” The dictionary is equally suspicious of each individual phenomenon or “paranormal science” as well. Concerning psychics’ alleged ability to discern future events, for example, The Skeptic’s Dictionary quotes Jay Leno (“How come you never see a headline like 'Psychic Wins Lottery'?”), following with a number of similar observations:

Psychics don't rely on psychics to warn them of impending disasters. Psychics don't predict their own deaths or diseases. They go to the dentist like the rest of us. They're as surprised and disturbed as the rest of us when they have to call a plumber or an electrician to fix some defect at home. Their planes are delayed without their being able to anticipate the delays. If they want to know something about Abraham Lincoln, they go to the library; they don't try to talk to Abe's spirit. In short, psychics live by the known laws of nature except when they are playing the psychic game with people.
In An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural, James Randi, a magician who exercises a skeptical attitude toward all things alleged to be paranormal or supernatural, takes issue with the notion of such phenomena as well, often employing the same arguments and rhetorical strategies as The Skeptic’s Dictionary.

In short, the difference between the paranormal and the supernatural lies in whether one is a materialist, believing in only the existence of matter and energy, or a dualist, believing in the existence of both matter and energy and spirit. If one maintains a belief in the reality of the spiritual, he or she will classify such entities as angels, demons, ghosts, gods, vampires, and other threats of a spiritual nature as supernatural, rather than paranormal, phenomena. He or she may also include witches (because, although they are human, they are empowered by the devil, who is himself a supernatural entity) and other natural threats that are energized, so to speak, by a power that transcends nature and is, as such, outside or beyond the universe. Otherwise, one is likely to reject the supernatural as a category altogether, identifying every inexplicable phenomenon as paranormal, whether it is dark matter or a teenage werewolf. Indeed, some scientists dedicate at least part of their time to debunking allegedly paranormal phenomena, explaining what natural conditions or processes may explain them, as the author of The Serpent and the Rainbow explains the creation of zombies by voodoo priests.

Based upon my recent reading of Tzvetan Todorov's The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to the Fantastic, I add the following addendum to this essay.

According to Todorov:

The fantastic. . . lasts only as long as a certain hesitation [in deciding] whether or not what they [the reader and the protagonist] perceive derives from "reality" as it exists in the common opinion. . . . If he [the reader] decides that the laws of reality remain intact and permit an explanation of the phenomena described, we can say that the work belongs to the another genre [than the fantastic]: the uncanny. If, on the contrary, he decides that new laws of nature must be entertained to account for the phenomena, we enter the genre of the marvelous (The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, 41).
Todorov further differentiates these two categories by characterizing the uncanny as “the supernatural explained” and the marvelous as “the supernatural accepted” (41-42).

Interestingly, the prejudice against even the possibility of the supernatural’s existence which is implicit in the designation of natural versus paranormal phenomena, which excludes any consideration of the supernatural, suggests that there are no marvelous phenomena; instead, there can be only the uncanny. Consequently, for those who subscribe to this view, the fantastic itself no longer exists in this scheme, for the fantastic depends, as Todorov points out, upon the tension of indecision concerning to which category an incident belongs, the natural or the supernatural. The paranormal is understood, by those who posit it, in lieu of the supernatural, as the natural as yet unexplained.

And now, back to a fate worse than death: grading students’ papers.

My Cup of Blood

Anyone who becomes an aficionado of anything tends, eventually, to develop criteria for elements or features of the person, place, or thing of whom or which he or she has become enamored. Horror fiction--admittedly not everyone’s cuppa blood--is no different (okay, maybe it’s a little different): it, too, appeals to different fans, each for reasons of his or her own. Of course, in general, book reviews, the flyleaves of novels, and movie trailers suggest what many, maybe even most, readers of a particular type of fiction enjoy, but, right here, right now, I’m talking more specifically--one might say, even more eccentrically. In other words, I’m talking what I happen to like, without assuming (assuming makes an “ass” of “u” and “me”) that you also like the same. It’s entirely possible that you will; on the other hand, it’s entirely likely that you won’t.

Anyway, this is what I happen to like in horror fiction:

Small-town settings in which I get to know the townspeople, both the good, the bad, and the ugly. For this reason alone, I’m a sucker for most of Stephen King’s novels. Most of them, from 'Salem's Lot to Under the Dome, are set in small towns that are peopled by the good, the bad, and the ugly. Part of the appeal here, granted, is the sense of community that such settings entail.

Isolated settings, such as caves, desert wastelands, islands, mountaintops, space, swamps, where characters are cut off from civilization and culture and must survive and thrive or die on their own, without assistance, by their wits and other personal resources. Many are the examples of such novels and screenplays, but Alien, The Shining, The Descent, Desperation, and The Island of Dr. Moreau, are some of the ones that come readily to mind.

Total institutions as settings. Camps, hospitals, military installations, nursing homes, prisons, resorts, spaceships, and other worlds unto themselves are examples of such settings, and Sleepaway Camp, Coma, The Green Mile, and Aliens are some of the novels or films that take place in such settings.

Anecdotal scenes--in other words, short scenes that showcase a character--usually, an unusual, even eccentric, character. Both Dean Koontz and the dynamic duo, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, excel at this, so I keep reading their series (although Koontz’s canine companions frequently--indeed, almost always--annoy, as does his relentless optimism).

Atmosphere, mood, and tone. Here, King is king, but so is Bentley Little. In the use of description to terrorize and horrify, both are masters of the craft.

A bit of erotica (okay, okay, sex--are you satisfied?), often of the unusual variety. Sex sells, and, yes, sex whets my reader’s appetite. Bentley Little is the go-to guy for this spicy ingredient, although Koontz has done a bit of seasoning with this spice, too, in such novels as Lightning and Demon Seed (and, some say, Hung).

Believable characters. Stephen King, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, and Dan Simmons are great at creating characters that stick to readers’ ribs.

Innovation. Bram Stoker demonstrates it, especially in his short story “Dracula’s Guest,” as does H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, Shirley Jackson, and a host of other, mostly classical, horror novelists and short story writers. For an example, check out my post on Stoker’s story, which is a real stoker, to be sure. Stephen King shows innovation, too, in ‘Salem’s Lot, The Shining, It, and other novels. One might even argue that Dean Koontz’s something-for-everyone, cross-genre writing is innovative; he seems to have been one of the first, if not the first, to pen such tales.

Technique. Check out Frank Peretti’s use of maps and his allusions to the senses in Monster; my post on this very topic is worth a look, if I do say so myself, which, of course, I do. Opening chapters that accomplish a multitude of narrative purposes (not usually all at once, but successively) are attractive, too, and Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child are as good as anyone, and better than many, at this art.

A connective universe--a mythos, if you will, such as both H. P. Lovecraft and Stephen King, and, to a lesser extent, Dean Koontz, Bentley Little, and even Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child have created through the use of recurring settings, characters, themes, and other elements of fiction.

A lack of pretentiousness. Dean Koontz has it, as do Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, Bentley Little, and (to some extent, although he has become condescending and self-indulgent of late, Stephen King); unfortunately, both Dan Simmons and Robert McCammon have become too self-important in their later works, Simmons almost to the point of becoming unreadable. Come on, people, you’re writing about monsters--you should be humble.

Longevity. Writers who have been around for a while usually get better, Stephen King, Dan Simmons, and Robert McCammon excepted.

Pacing. Neither too fast nor too slow. Dean Koontz is good, maybe the best, here, of contemporary horror writers.


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