When somebody destroys me, I want to feel it

[sovay]

I was browsing in Rodney's yesterday when I ran across the novelization of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003). I was morbidly curious, so I took ten minutes and read it. Like most novelizations, I think it was done from the shooting script, so it's an improvement on the finished film in that it includes some evidently deleted scenes in which character development occurs rather than clichés and explosions, but that didn't make it good. Mostly it reminded me that the movie annoyed me so much that I wrote 4300 words about it in 2006. I still like Jason Flemyng's Jekyll. He could have done with a better film around him.

And he's not the only one. Among characters I like, there is a small subset I have mentally classed as "better than the stories they came from." Sometimes it's an actor salvaging their screentime—I'm thinking of the time I kept watching The High Bright Sun (1964) just for Denholm Elliott's cynical British agent, or Mercedes McCambridge's torch-singing survivor standing head and shoulders above the psychobabble of The Scarf (1951), or the compulsive professionalism Peter Cushing brought to otherwise deadly roles like Henry Miles in The End of the Affair (1955). Sometimes it's the sense that a character got away from their author, like Waldo Butters in Jim Butcher's Dresden Files; he is so instantly and eccentrically himself that I was not surprised to find out he was intended as a one-off who just refused to stay offstage. Sometimes it feels like structural failure elsewhere in the narrative: Nicholas Flokos' Nike (1998) disappointed me by slamming a sudden hard right into tragedy for no good reason I could discern then or now, but its protagonist Photi Anthropotis is a lovely sad clown of a modern Greek luftmensch and I still feel very tender toward him more than fifteen years later. And every now and then I have absolutely no idea what happened, but it's a fact that I actively like Licinus Honorius of Mary Gentle's Ilario: The Lion's Eye (2006) even when I want to clobber much of the novel around him.

I could go on, but I'd rather ask you. Who are your favorite characters who deserved better stories? What narratives do you revisit just for the supporting cast or a choice subplot? (What narratives would you never revisit, but you remember that one bit really fondly?) Recommendations? Warnings? Can you fix it with fic? I'm going to see if it's too late in the day to buy donuts.

Comments

[movingfinger]

Someone defined the essential fanfic inspiration to me as being characters who are more interesting than the plots written around them.

[sovay]

Someone defined the essential fanfic inspiration to me as being characters who are more interesting than the plots written around them.

I know there are others—I didn't write it, but I could see the appeal of Harry Potter fanfic instantly because Rowling's world was so interesting and then she explored so little of it—but that's definitely the one that occurred to me about The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

[yhlee]

My favorite characters in Simon Green's Deathstalker Saga (space opera) are not anywhere near the main characters, but the antagonists, Captain John Silence and Investigator Frost, who have a very interesting not-remotely-sexual camaraderie and who turn down superpowers when offered to them, in contrast to the protagonists. (As it turns out, superpowers in this universe can turn around to bite you in the @$$, so Silence and Frost are not necessarily wrong on that point.) Silence and Frost do, however, serve a corrupt empire loyally. They're very interesting characters in contrast to the more standard gang of rebels, and although I like the series a fair bit as it stood, I would have welcomed seeing more of them.

[sovay]

the antagonists, Captain John Silence and Investigator Frost, who have a very interesting not-remotely-sexual camaraderie and who turn down superpowers when offered to them, in contrast to the protagonists.

They sound really interesting to me! Are their names typical of their culture or do they signify something about their bearers?

Silence and Frost do, however, serve a corrupt empire loyally.

I mean, in isolation, that's just a great sentence.

[yhlee]

Their names are typical of their culture but also signify something about their bearers. :p And they remain among my favorites of Simon R. Green's characters--better-developed than most of them. I love Green dearly, but he has this tendency to start phoning it in (I can't blame him, to be honest; he sells like hotcakes and produces at a rapid rate, so it's clearly a profitable strategy).

I would honestly recommend to you his Blue Moon Rising, his first published novel, which takes high fantasy and turns some of its tropes upside-down and sideways with a liberal dose of snark, and also without the phoning-it-in tendency of his later works. It features a virgin prince who rides a unicorn being sent to kill a dragon because his father the king is trying to get him killed to get rid of the excess heir. Except the dragon wants to be rescued from the swordswoman princess who was dumped at his lair. And that's just the beginning of their problems, including an infestation of demons, the politics of feudalism, a castle with unusual architectural problems, practical goblins, and some incredibly cool but fickle magic weapons. If any of this sounds interesting to you, I will send you a copy.

[skygiants]

Pursuant to other discussions, I just want to pick up all the characters in the Company books and gently deposit them in a narrative with a MUCH BETTER AND LESS GROSS ENDING. Mendoza especially, man, poor Mendoza.

I have just read a short story called "Sugar and Spice" in an anthology of female pulp authors that I will probably write up in the next few days. The story itself was not great -- 'beautiful girl and plain-but-interesting girl fight over men!' is a narrative I'm weary of -- but the plain-but-interesting girl was so interesting, sharp-tongued and angry and eccentrically rich and brilliant at literary criticism, that I very much wanted a much better story for her. And then of course there's all the women in Our Mutual Friend which I have expounded about at length elsewhere. And Gelis van Borselen of Dorothy Dunnett's House of Niccolo series, who is so furious about the idea of being relegated to the role of Exceptional Man's Love Interest that she decides the only way to escape that fate is to become HIS WORST ENEMY instead, and manages to hold onto it for a good six or seven books before being overwhelmed by narrative inevitability. I'm sure there are loads more I could think of. Probably at least 75% of them are angry mean-spirited women, I definitely have a type.

I keep reading all of Lindsey Davis' books for Helena Justina.

[sovay]

Mendoza especially, man, poor Mendoza.

I have to admit that was not the series finale I had even vaguely imagined, leaving it when I did. I know Baker is no longer alive to be interviewed, but do you know if anybody ever asked her what she was thinking? Like, does it make sense according to some mythological narrative that just happens to be as jaw-dropping and sketchy as mythological narratives often are when enacted by people who aren't gods? (Hades and Persephone, I am looking at you.)

but the plain-but-interesting girl was so interesting, sharp-tongued and angry and eccentrically rich and brilliant at literary criticism, that I very much wanted a much better story for her.

She sounds great. There are not enough heroines who are literary critics. I'm entirely serious.

And Gelis van Borselen of Dorothy Dunnett's House of Niccolo series, who is so furious about the idea of being relegated to the role of Exceptional Man's Love Interest that she decides the only way to escape that fate is to become HIS WORST ENEMY instead, and manages to hold onto it for a good six or seven books before being overwhelmed by narrative inevitability.

Does that mean they marry or she dies?

Probably at least 75% of them are angry mean-spirited women, I definitely have a type.

I have absolutely no idea why you enjoy film noir, nope.

I keep reading all of Lindsey Davis' books for Helena Justina.

Hm. I discovered Lindsey Davis shortly after Steven Saylor and John Maddox Roberts, but I never made it past Venus in Copper (1991) that I can recall. Worth going on with?

[skygiants]

I mean, a lot of it I think is just straight-up Holy Trinity & Madonna imagery, the messianic God-who-is-three-who-is-one and the eternal virgin whose immaculate conception allows him to give birth to himself, run through a literalism filter to make it all AS DISTRESSING AS POSSIBLE? I guess it could probably be more distressing, Baker could have tried harder to make it gross. But not that much harder.

They marry! - well, I mean, they actually marry in book four, after which Gelis is like "HAHAHAHAHA GOT YOU NOW I'M GOING TO DEDICATE MYSELF TO MAKING YOUR LIFE A MISERY, how about a NO-HOLDS-BARRED FIGHT to the ECONOMIC DEATH?" But by the eighth book they have reconciled and settled down to actual wedded bliss, so of course Gelis fades into the background while the hero deals with the actual series villain, and all their friends politely stop mentioning that they nearly killed each other multiple times and also between them brought a small country to economic ruin. Water under the bridge!

I find it hard to comment on the actual quality of Lindsey Davis' work -- I find some of it better and some of it worse, but overall it's very soothing to me. I do appreciate the long-running prosaic life-and-family subplots that wind through the series, all the nieces and nephews and brothers-in-laws and so on that make the characters feel a part of a genuine human network.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Sometimes it's the sense that a character got away from their author, like Waldo Butters in Jim Butcher's Dresden Files; he is so instantly and eccentrically himself that I was not surprised to find out he was intended as a one-off who just refused to stay offstage.

This reminds me of Methos in the Highlander TV series: a one-off character that audiences liked so much, they kept bringing him back in random episodes. And although when I first heard about the character concept (five thousand years old! Oldest living immortal!) I thought he was a terrible, terrible idea, he turned out to be the best thing on that show -- to the point where I think his role in the story was part of what elevated the show from "meh" to actually interesting.

(I also harbor a theory that Mercutio was trying to take over Romeo and Juliet when Shakespeare wrote it, and that's why he gets killed off when he does. Because otherwise the play would be The Mercutio Story Featuring Some Kids Whose Lines Aren't Nearly As Good.)

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

Mercutio! Yeah. I spent most of my time snerking at Romeo and Juliet.

Sideways to this, my sister read Hamlet when I read it (she's my younger sister, meaning she got to it earlier in her development when I did) and was so confused when I told her it wasn't a comedy. "But everyone dies at the end!" she protested. "It's completely ridiculous!" And...yeah.

[sovay]

Mercutio! Yeah. I spent most of my time snerking at Romeo and Juliet.

I think everyone imprints on Mercutio. Even in Tanith Lee's alt-historical Zeffirelli fanfic retelling Sung in Shadow (1983), Flavian "Mercurio" Estemba gets all the best lines.

"But everyone dies at the end!" she protested. "It's completely ridiculous!" And...yeah.

Oh, please tell me someone introduced her to The Revenger's Tragedy. It's meant to be like that. It is awesome. (I adore Alex Cox's dystopian Liverpool remix Revengers Tragedy (2002) and and also recommend it. Music by Chumbawamba. Sexual tension by Christopher Eccleston and Eddie Izzard.)

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

That . . . is an interesting definition of comedy. <g>

[sovay]

he turned out to be the best thing on that show -- to the point where I think his role in the story was part of what elevated the show from "meh" to actually interesting.

I keep hearing this about Methos! I've never seen the show. I've just been told I would like the character and for some reason I know that Peter Wingfield went back to get his medical degree in midlife and is apparently doing his residency somewhere this year.

(I also harbor a theory that Mercutio was trying to take over Romeo and Juliet when Shakespeare wrote it, and that's why he gets killed off when he does. Because otherwise the play would be The Mercutio Story Featuring Some Kids Whose Lines Aren't Nearly As Good.)

(I do not think I can subscribe to your theory, but I like it, if that makes sense. I don't actually hate Romeo and Juliet, but I imprinted on Mercutio in ninth grade—specifically, John McEnery as Mercutio in the 1968 Zeffirelli film—and it's never gone away.)

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I did not know that about Peter Wingfield. Good for him!

What makes Methos work is that the concept implies one kind of character, and the kind you get is entirely different. He's not a Wise Old Guru (except at random moments, when he is), nor is he a total badass, being entirely willing to run the hell away from whatever threatens him. And he's snarky, which automatically endears him to me. :-) Given that Duncan MacLeod is prone to taking everything very seriously, Methos provides some much-needed leavening.

Mercutio I think would have died anyway -- the part about him dying was me being tongue in cheek -- but he very much feels to me like one of those characters who had way more life than his author expected him to. And for the record, I actually do like R&J. It's comparable to Highlander in that way: I think the character makes the story better, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't have enjoyed it without them.

[gwynnega]

Another vote for Mercutio, who is way more interesting than Those Teenagers. Also, I am still bitter about Ralph Touchett's fate (even after I wrote a poem about it), and continue to think of Portrait of a Lady as his book.

[sovay]

Also, I am still bitter about Ralph Touchett's fate (even after I wrote a poem about it), and continue to think of Portrait of a Lady as his book.

It remains a really good poem.

[teenybuffalo.livejournal.com]

*pant huff gasp* YES hi, I'm here for the dead guys.

There was this book, Toothless, that I got as an audiobook in 2010 and listened to over and over. One-sentence summary: instead of the Second Crusade, Europe got the zombie apocalypse. Ok. The protagonists for part of the book are these three poor jerks in the army of the undead, who just want to get their evil grunt work done and not get re-killed in the process. Along the way their original names got lost, so they're called Toothless, Breakneck, and Curdle after their most prominent physical characteristics.

I wanted the whole book to be just about them, whining, sulking, trying to game the system, consoling each other, pitying themselves, and constructing bullshit nihilistic arguments that the zombie apocalypse was a good thing, if you took the REALLY long view. (Breakneck and Curdle were totally Those Two Villains. You know the trope: the amiable thicko and the sad twerp. Toothless was grandiose and prideful.)

In fact, only a quarter of the book was about them. The rest was well-written, but it wasn't what I checked in for. I checked in for my three horrible jerks caring about each other.

(Somewhere there is an Anne Rice quote that I can't be bothered to track down, where Lestat says something like, "Is there love in hell? Do devils walk with their arms around one another's shoulders, saying, 'Ah, you are my dear friend, how I love you'?")

Ooo! Anne Rice, and another dead guy! My favorite book she ever wrote is Servant of the Bones. The Servant in question is undead and has killed a lotta people, but at heart he's basically a hapless young guy from one of the Jewish families captive in Babylon in the time of Nebuchadnezzar. He signed up to do a distasteful ritual that would probably kill him, under the impression that it would help end the captivity in Babylon. He got subjected to a completely different ritual that DID kill him, and all that was left afterwards was his bones, coated in gold. These were supposed to house his spirit, as a genie-like servant for sorcerers to command. The bones do house his spirit, but his spirit is hopping mad, and who wouldn't be. Almost every time he's summoned, he leaps out, kills the sorcerer who's trying to command him, slaughters everyone else nearby just to make a point, and then goes back into the bones and pulls the covers over his head, as it were.

The book is about what happens on the occasions when Azrael, for that is his name, manifests and doesn't (just) start killing everyone in sight. The plot and tone is wildly uneven. The backstory about Azrael's human life is grand; I have little idea whether Rice did any research or just made shit up, but it's very convincingly told. The modern-day stuff is meh; murder, double-crossing, an omnicidal maniac cult leader with a biological weapon, and some stuff about contemporary Hasidim that I'm pretty sure is condescending/sickeningly cutesy/offensive and inaccurate. The only bright spot is that Azrael has a loving and fully described sex scene with an older woman who looks a lot like Anne Rice. ^_^

In short, Azrael needed to pack up his backstory and move to a better novel.

Non-dead-people-related:

The Dark Knight Rises by Christopher Nolan has two villains. One is Bane, who's so changed from his identity in the comics that he might as well be a new person. The other--

oh, by the way, spoilers for a movie that came out three years ago--

The other villain is Talia al-Ghul, a character who doesn't appear in comics and was invented just for the movie. There were a lot of dissatisfied comics fans going, "Why should we care about this character we've never heard of?" but I think that's silly. Talia and her lovely assistant Bane were better villains than that mess of a movie deserved, and I'd have watched a solid two hours of Disabled Warlord Guy and Evil Messiah Murder Girl manipulate people and blow shit up.

I think it comes down to the same thing as in my first example: terrible, disgusting people who care about each other and will always have one another's backs against the whole rest of the world. That's always going to make me care about people, quickly and completely.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

The other villain is Talia al-Ghul, a character who doesn't appear in comics and was invented just for the movie.

Nitpick (because it doesn't change your point), but Talia's been around in the comics for decades. I believe that she, like Bane, got changed rather a lot for the film.

[sovay]

I wanted the whole book to be just about them, whining, sulking, trying to game the system, consoling each other, pitying themselves, and constructing bullshit nihilistic arguments that the zombie apocalypse was a good thing, if you took the REALLY long view.

That sounds adorable. What went wrong? Who was the book really about?

"Is there love in hell? Do devils walk with their arms around one another's shoulders, saying, 'Ah, you are my dear friend, how I love you'?"

Most definitions of hell would say not, I think, because then it wouldn't be hell, like the fable where the only difference between the two regions—in each, the traveler sees plates and dishes of wonderful food and people who have no elbows, so that they can pick up the food, but they cannot put it in their mouths—is that in hell everyone is angrily, starvingly trying to feed themselves and in heaven all the people are reaching out and feeding one another. But then C'est d'Aucasin et de Nicolete would disagree:

"But in hell will I go. For to hell go the fair clerks and the fair knights who are slain in the tourney and the great wars, and the stout archer and the loyal man. With them will I go. And there go the fair and courteous ladies who have friends, two or three, together with their wedded lords. And there pass the gold and silver, the ermine and all rich furs, harpers and minstrels, and the happy of the world."

He got subjected to a completely different ritual that DID kill him, and all that was left afterwards was his bones, coated in gold.

Well, that's not horrifying!

Seriously, that is exactly the sort of detail that would have made it impossible for me to read the book when I was younger. Now I just look at it and wonder where Rice got the idea, because there's really not a precedent for it in Jewish ritual. Human sacrifice kind of went out after the Binding of Isaac.

Almost every time he's summoned, he leaps out, kills the sorcerer who's trying to command him, slaughters everyone else nearby just to make a point, and then goes back into the bones and pulls the covers over his head, as it were.

Aw. I'm sorry he didn't get a better book.

(Of course his name is Azrael. Is he actually supposed to be the Angel of Death or just a very angry sort of familiar spirit?)

Talia and her lovely assistant Bane were better villains than that mess of a movie deserved, and I'd have watched a solid two hours of Disabled Warlord Guy and Evil Messiah Murder Girl manipulate people and blow shit up.

Maybe you can file off enough of the numbers to give them a home in original fiction sometime. I'm not being flippant. Someimes fix-it fic is the only thing left to do.

[edit] terrible, disgusting people who care about each other and will always have one another's backs against the whole rest of the world.

Right: that made me think of the only scenes from the 2012 Les Mis I've seen. The Thénardiers are dreadful human beings, but I like them so much better as a mutually supportive couple than as a passive-aggressive disaster zone of codependent criminal behavior.

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

I remember two pairs of characters from two separate John Woo films who strike me very much as being like this: Castor and Pollux Troy (Nicholas Cage and Giovanni Ribisi) from Face/Off, as well as Emil Fouchon and Pik van Cleaf (Lance Henriksen and Arnold Vosloo) from Hard Target. In both cases, I can think of two separate fic writers who became totally obsessed with these characters and wrote a boat-load of fic that was all about them, to the exclusion of everybody else in the films. But it's difficult, because the films are not exactly terrible on their own...I mean, Face/Off is a crazy classic, while Hard Target is more of an acquired taste. For my money, though, both remain imminently watchable and full of people I'd hang with, on both sides of the moral divide. It's just that I definitely feel more of a pull towards villains, and always have. (In both cases, these characters also form sort-of couples--Castor and Pollux are brothers, one continually taking care of the other, while Emil and Pik may not be overtly sleeping with each other, but DAMN do the actors play it like they are.)

Oh yeah, and I'd totally watch an entire film about the central outlaw vampire trio of Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark, even though I love the film itself as it is: former Confederate soldier Jesse Hooker (Henriksen again), his woman Diamondback (Jeannette Goldstein) and their daredevil, spurs-wearing "son" Severin (Bill Paxton). Paxton used to joke that they sat around between takes brainstorming a prequel, and I would eat that up with a spoon.

[sovay]

(In both cases, these characters also form sort-of couples--Castor and Pollux are brothers, one continually taking care of the other, while Emil and Pik may not be overtly sleeping with each other, but DAMN do the actors play it like they are.)

There were a pair of gunmen like that in The Big Combo (1955) and I was really impressed; they were as explicit a couple as the writers could get around the edges of the Code and everyone in the theater seemed very sorry that they did not succeed in getting out of town before their boss sent them a bomb instead of a payoff. They were not very bright, but devoted to one another. Plus the immortal line, "The police'll be looking for us in every closet in town!"

Oh yeah, and I'd totally watch an entire film about the central outlaw vampire trio of Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark, even though I love the film itself as it is: former Confederate soldier Jesse Hooker (Henriksen again), his woman Diamondback (Jeannette Goldstein) and their daredevil, spurs-wearing "son" Severin (Bill Paxton).

Oh, God, I need to see that movie. lesser_celery has been telling me about it for years and all signs point to me loving it.

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

Sophia Croft from Persuasion. The only character so entirely marvelous that she could help me overcome my initial distaste for Fiona Shaw.

I overcame it, Sophie. All for you.

[sovay]

Sophia Croft from Persuasion. The only character so entirely marvelous that she could help me overcome my initial distaste for Fiona Shaw.

Speak to me of Sophia Croft! I have nothing against Fiona Shaw, but now I'm really curious.

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

*Who are your favorite characters who deserved better stories?*

I've spent days trying to answer this. I'm going with Miss Dredger and Miss George from Peake's "Mr Pye", though. They're formidable enough and I think they should have become friends without the aid of Pye and his "Great Pal". I don't know if they'd have solved or committed crimes, but chuck Thorpe in as their fraying boho sidekick and I'd be happy. Tintagieu deserved better, too. (It's the one Peake I keep sliding off.)

[sovay]

I don't know if they'd have solved or committed crimes,

That's a wonderful description.

but chuck Thorpe in as their fraying boho sidekick and I'd be happy. Tintagieu deserved better, too. (It's the one Peake I keep sliding off.)

It's a Peake I haven't read! You make the characters sound very attractive, if somewhat neglected by their author.