Lessons Learned

Duality was William Blake’s signature—the mix of innocence and experience, of grace and rage; it was what seemed to hold his works together. So maybe the quote at the beginning of John Gardner’s Grendel should have hinted at the duality within the pages, served as a sort of warning for the oncoming headache that was sure to settle deep into our skulls.

But we missed it.

That, however, didn’t make the duality any less present (or keep our heads from, y’know, cracking into thousands of tiny splinters). Innocence and experience, love and hate, good and evil, Dragon and Shaper—there is no set side that Grendel finds himself upon throughout the course of his story. And the best demonstration of this that I can find is that of the Dragon and the Shaper.

Most of my class seemed to claim in various discussions that, in the aftermath of his Chapter Five Meet the Dragon Migraine, Grendel settled into the ancient creature’s mentality. With that, though, I disagree. Even after chapter five, even after meeting the Dragon, Grendel makes comments or acts in ways that just don’t fit with the philosophies he has supposedly taken on. On page 76, Chapter 6, Grendel says “Though I scorned them, sometimes hated them, there had been something between myself and men when we could fight”. Where in that is the Dragon’s mentality of the human’s futility and “crackpot theories”? Where in that is the resignation to let things pass as they please?

Precisely. In that quote, Grendel demonstrates the duality that is so key to Blake’s writing. While he is, for the large majority, given over to Dragon’s pile of gold explanation, he still finds himself believing that there is (or at least was) more to his relationship with man. That he almost misses the feeling of belonging to something in the struggle, even if that was the antagonistic and violent retaliations; that now, with him charmed to the point of near-immortality, something is gone.

“Enough of that! A night for tearing heads off, bathing in blood! Except, alas, he has killed his quota for the season. Care, take care of the gold-egg-laying goose!” (93) is another prime example of Blake’s duality-heavy influence. The phrase “killed his quota” feels akin to the Shaper’s mentality, where there are rules, restrictions set in place like those of war—unspoken, but present nonetheless. There is a limit, a set number that Grendel allows himself to kill, or maybe requires of himself. And in that, we see the Shaper’s influence: Grendel will kill, he will enjoy doing it, but he will respect the balance and do no more than is absolutely necessary. That line however is immediately followed by a distinctly Dragon-esque line making reference to a “gold-egg-laying goose”. Geese sit on their eggs to protect them, to warm them, to guard them—as the Dragon does and tells Grendel to.

We missed the warning, got smacked in the face with Blake-esque duality, and were rewarded with migraines that felt like death, but, if nothing else, we gained one useful nugget of information for future readings:

Always look the quote up first. 

Cliche but Still Relevant (Never Thought I'd Find Myself Here)

The rage, the snap of anger and burning pain and tough-guy attitude, people understand. They can comprehend the chaos, can relate to it. People understand what has become known as the “Chaotic Good,” or even the “Chaotic Evil,” because they can wrap their minds around the assorted emotions that come with each side. Every villain has a backstory, every “big bad” has a purpose—even if it’s not as evident to begin with.

What audiences have a hard time understanding is the borderline-perfect character that still somehow has evident flaws; the one that holds true to their purpose, to their morals, without much visible emotion. A sort of neutral, lawful good.

And I get that—it’s hard to empathize with a seemingly emotionless character. It’s difficult to look at the borderline perfection of someone like Stefan Salvatore (from the CW’s hit TV series The Vampire Diaries) and cheer him on, especially when he’s standing against his love-wrecked, angry, and obviously faulted brother, Damon Salvatore—a fix him upper’s dream.

What people seem to miss, though, is the heart of Stefan’s character and his necessity for order and morality. Granted, without his raving addiction to human blood, it appears that the writers have “successfully cured him of anything interesting about his personality” (Damon, Season 1, Episode 21), but that’s the interesting part. Stefan, unlike most other characters, has two strictly unrelated sides to his portrayal—the good, moral, “uninteresting” Stefan and the blood-addicted, ripper-esque, terrifying Stefan. He’s probably the closest representation of a true addict in the entire series.

Viewers seem to cast this aside, however, as if his being a vampire makes his addiction any less valid. Yes, he’s a vampire. Yes, he’s addicted to human blood. Yes, it’s a fairly clichéd characteristic all things considered. But look at the other vampires that the show provides—Damon (who’s got more problems than LOST’s heroin-addict Charlie), Caroline Fell (with her personality issues heightened to the point of insanity), Katherine Pierce (a manipulative, maniacal seductress with more of a sense for self-preservation than for affection). Are any of them as helpless to resist their life source as Stefan? No.

And it’s this addiction, this helplessness, that makes Stefan Salvatore what he is: weak. He puts on a good show, pretends that he’s strong enough to resist his temptations, and does everything in his power to do so, but the fact of the matter is that he’s not what he says he is. He proves this over and over again by taking what is undoubtedly one of the worst routes for an addict to take.  He shuns human blood, completely cuts himself off, and denies himself even the smallest taste for decades. It just takes a drop to send him reeling again.

There’s more to characters than their surface personality, and while the “chaotic” or “bad” ones make audiences want  to learn their story, it’s the “lawful,” “boring,” and “moral” ones that seem to need it more. If the writers have done their jobs properly, then no protagonist is simply moral or a “hard ass” without a reason, no antagonist is “bad” without cause.

Next time, look for it. 

The Top Reason I'm Watching Lost: It's An AP Lit Nightmare, and It's Glorious

As I am in the process of starting JJ Abram's infamous project LOST (thank you Mr. Fortunato, Mom and friends, and the entire rest of the world) I figured it might be best to blog about it. So let's just kick this off with one of my favorite (as of Episode 3) blatantly obvious character and symbol.

John Locke (aptly named, as my mother oh so constantly reassures me) is, for starters, quiet. And I’m not talking we just crashed on a deserted island holy crap shocked sort of quiet; no, this is full-on morally ambiguous, potentially a massive villain quiet. He speaks to absolutely no one for a full episode—and, by the passage of time as we know it, a full day. His plane has crashed, there are (at minimum) dozens dead, and he could be stranded on this island for the rest of his life, and yet John is not fazed.

In part one of the phenomenon’s pilot, the island is drenched in an unexpected torrential downpour and the other survivors—still desperately hoping for rescue—seek refuge under the wreckage. Not John—of course not, right?—no, instead, the ever silent, eye-scarred, bald man plants himself in the middle of the beach sand and waits—rain washing over him. Is it a cleansing? Maybe, but I sort of doubt it. Cleansings don’t typically involve beach sand sticky with blood and fresh tears. They don’t involve a borderline maniacal smile and calm acceptance. No, cleansings are typically all grit and pain and fighting—a walk through the rain, yes, but one that leaves them more worn for the wear despite rejuvenation. But if not a cleansing, what is it? A descent into darkness? (No, that title falls to ex-rocker Charlie. But he’s another blog on his own.) To be completely honest, I’m not entirely sure what the rain means, except that John Locke is not at all what we expect—and he’ll stay that way until the end.

Moving onward to part two of the pilot, though, we see something even more interesting in the (undoubtedly extensive) novel that is John Locke—his first choice of companions is a 10 year old boy named Walter. It’s safe to say that Walter has daddy issues, complete with a lost dog and multiple spats that end in preadolescent rage-quits, which leaves him an open, easy target for another male role model. If we can even call John that. And it all starts with backgammon: “two players, one is light and one is dark” (Episode 2). And in that moment, with John providing both knowledge (starting with pointing out that backgammon is highly superior to checkers) and a secret, we see what is the first, though undoubtedly not the last, loss of innocence.

But of course we have yet to find out what the secret is.

So what, though? Why did JJ Abrams spend so much of his time putting details into this one character? Why waste hours on deciding how the camera pans over the rainy beach and the exact placement of John’s scar? The best and only answer I have as a newfound viewer is this: John Locke’s roll in LOST  is far from small, direct, or easily followed—and Abrams just wanted to give us a little heads up. How considerate of him.