Icarus's blog: "Augurs, Martyrs, and Agnostics"

Not long ago, a disturbed man with a revolver went into a locally televised PTA conference
made some wild demands, statements and claims
and concluded with the crazed, fat, selfish man drawing his gun pointing it at the man I assumed to be the super intendant

It was brutish
savage, selfish, inhumane, and ... mad.
The epitome of mad.

And the superintendant very calmly, and very sadly said
"Please don't, please don't- please"

He pulled the trigger, repeatedly.
Injuring several. Someone off camera returned fire.
Fatass went down and we were told took his own life.
We were told.

"I'm gonna die"

I'm gonna do what I want, I know what you don't want, I know what I want.
I'm gonna do what I want regardless. I have the power.

Let me reason with you- and present a rational argument that nobly sacrifices myself, and allays all guilt of the other hostages.

Nah- I've got six bullets and I intend to use all six.

Stop taxes okay!

Wild
Crazy, selfish acts.

And in the face of this madness, all I can ask is
please don't

please don't.

Just like Avatar 2 and Avatar 3- due out in 2016.
And the Phantom Menace 3D.

If you think about it

I'm kinda talking about another vicious, selfish, brutish act against humanity.

Its not as visceral as attempted murder, but it kills on another level.

Watching critical analyses of those movies, paired with my own understanding of selfishness has driven me to work on my own story and my own characters, and take them in a far more complex direction.
What I saw was a warning "Here's tyrannical, greedy, self indulgent unaware shit to avoid."

I don't -know- where my fantasy story is going. I haven't known since I was 12.
I should probably learn all those outliney, formulaic, poppsychology tricks screenwriters, pulp novelists, and cinematographers use.

I wanted to tell the story of a man's loss. His utter, and complete failure with a fantastic and imaginative backdrop. I don't know that I have that capacity, but I'm going to convert my thoughts, my injured brain into an extended metaphor- and hope that works. I think the main hurdle is telling it in an effective sequence. You can show a man lose everything and succumbing to his demons in one scene, but its much more agonizing and interesting over the course of years.

Wasn't Darth Vader infinitely more interesting BEFORE you saw Episodes 1, 2 and 3 (the full process of how he -became- Vader)?
He was already Darth -fucking- Vader, and you didn't NEED to know how it happened. It happened, and it was trillions of times more interesting, dark, and terrible in your imagination than the commercial and clusterfucked turdpile that was the prequelogy.

I've watched Spock.
A lot.
And his progress with humanity is more interesting, and incidental, and poignant than any other character on Star Trek.
I feel the same fondness for Wharf's character study and how he's constantly trying to be Klingon and being completely counter-intuited by modern Klingon morality, politics, and spirituality.
He sets out to be a paragon of warriordom and is constantly reminded that the people he aspires to be, that he overcompensates to be, are not stoic, disciplined, or honorable.
And he is constantly vilified, ostracized, and discarded by the very people he represents the best of- despite being religious, moral, and constantly acting in the best interest of his people.

The same can be said of dispassionate, analytical Spock. He is the least of humanity, and yet the most.

Here's what I'm going to do
perhaps as an exercise, perhaps as an honest to God unintentionally useful literary device
I'm going to take the core essence I feel of protoypical, and iconic characters
learn as much as I can from them

and I'm also going to portray some of my MTG decks
as characters.

Go ahead and roll your eyes on that last part.

One of my favorite book series is based on a DnD campaign some friends threw together in the 70's.
It worked fantastically because people weren't in 100% control of their environment, setting, circumstances or characters.
A confined, finite universe.

It worked a lot better than going from Darth Vader having an iconic and ominous red lightsaber that was only his
to
Every badguy ever having a red lightsaber.

Exar Kun's lightsaber was blue.
He blew up planets.

Naga Saddah used a sword and conquered half the galaxy.

Revan used a single purple lightsaber, and crushed the republic with bands of conquered mercenaries, fleets of mass produced warships, and superior planning and surprise attacks.

The Vader duals in 4 5 6 were slow paced, trudging, and seemed accurate to a man on robot stilts wearing corrective lenses and a respirator, but he was an unstoppable cybernetic marauding tyrant and they were just a backdrop/delivery device for his own personal high drama, like killing his best friend, or revealing himself to his beloved estranged and only son. (They -almost- did the marauding thing right in Force Unleashed, but then they kept throwing in acrobatic pewpew buttons)

Yoda and the Emperor had utter disdain for weaponry, and combat training until Lucas forgot his own fucking lore
and they were far more imposing without lightsabers. I was more afraid of Yoda dropping a ship on me than twirling balet ninjamoves which, he was visibly incapable of.

My Pox deck has limitations.
Sure it spreads disease and makes limbs fall off rapidly
but it does it to itself too.

My Cleric deck is -completely- dependant on 3 cards and hoardes of minions willing to sacrifice themselves.

My Zombie deck can be purged and circumvented
violently and efficiently.

My black artifact deck lacks direction.

My reanimator deck is formulaic and overspecialized.

My black speed deck fires or loses in divine wind style.

Spock is a great character.
He's cheeky, superior, and capable of immense loyalty and drama while being robotic, calculating and alien.

Qui-Gon Jinn is... impulsive, forgettable, device but ineffective, flat and robotic, but that was a failing of the writing and direction.

I get more out of Spocks backstory, what I know about Spock established over episodes, situations, and dialogue
and a simple eyebrow raise in response than my emotional response to Qui-Gon Jinn meditating in the face of a terrifying foe, and being stabbed in the chest and falling to his knees all slow high-drama style
with a god damn chorus of opera singers cescendoing at that very moment.

Establishing the character is more important than the action.

Its why Frasier has so much face-acting, and implied comebacks, or withheld dialogue and is reviewed as one of the smartest television shows of all time.
Its why no one told the actors that Colonel Blake was dead until Radar walked into surgery with the telegram, and the legitimate, unscripted, impromptu reaction that everyone had
in the middle of their job
and their consummate professionalism to
1. Hold the shot.
2. Stay in character.
3. Have their characters respond organically and true to the situation by pausing for one devastated and helpless moment, and then return to their crucial work

That's far more dramatic and hurt than Vader ripping off bandages/restraints and delivering the most canned, calculated knee-drop hammy "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" of all time.

People were not supposed to laugh at that scene.

The actors knew their characters and their situation.
The director/writers trusted their actors.
The scene was real via the establishment of the characters, and the devastation and horror of that exact moment.

It was genuine.

I think I'll talk about this more, after I've got some more notes, and maybe some more story down.

I have a tendency to do so.