In strategic military planning this “oops” concept is called 3rd, 4th, and 5th level consequences. In common language, it’s called Murphy’s Law. Or to quote Rosanna Dana Dana from the early days of Saturday Night Live, “It’s always something.”
A. IN ACTION
We all have ideas on how to better the world, hence the popularity of world-building games such as Age of Mythology, The Sims, and Spore. Myths, fiction, sci-fi, and fantasy feed this hunger to be creative, even if secondhand.
Technology is usually leaps and bounds ahead of the science that discovered it, much less the psychology of the users. University and government Ethics Departments attempt to address these issues, but technology moves at the speed of thought, and rational thinking about technology moves at glacial speed.
B. IN MEDIA
Since the dish ran away with the spoon and puppet Pinocchio wanted to become a real boy, we’ve told stories about our technology turning against us. Astrology explains some mechanical hiccups as Mercury in retrograde; so, weld a fin to that errant planet and your hard drive will never crash?
Pygmalion & Galatea, Svengali & Trilby, Pinocchio, “Petrushka,” “Capellia,” and Frankenstein are classic stories, ballets, and operas on the concept of a smart guy molding a statue, a girl, bits of wood, or body parts into something different and supposedly better.
Some movies and musicals are My Fair Lady, Vertigo, Gypsy, Educating Rita, Mona Lisa, Mannequin, The Perfect Man, Pretty Woman, The Little Mermaid, Blade Runner, Short Circuit, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, Lawnmower Man, Data on Star Trek, Millennium Man, A.I., I, Robot, and all Frankenstein films.
No-tech, low-tech, or bad-tech stories play on our fascination with and fear of our creations: Road Warrior, Westworld, War Games, The Terminator, Tank Girl, and the TV series Dark Angel. And don’t forget that smooth-talking, creepy supercomputer HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The demise of computers is a plot driver and character molder in many sci-fi stories, including the Dune novels, where super-smart human Mentats take over the jobs of computers. Manmade clones and droids battle it out pretty mindlessly in Star Wars movies, as do the Uruk Hai in The Lord of the Rings. But the Cylons in Battlestar Galactica pose sophisticated philosophical dilemmas, having self-evolved beyond mere machines to become idealistic, feeling humanoids.
C. IN YOUR CREATIONS
Inner Drives Center of Motivation - Throat: conscious creativity, science, literature, media.
The creator can be driven by love of logic, science, and technology, a desire to see what can be done. They’re often unconcerned about consequences because they’ve got the antidote, are distanced by space (“GM foods aren’t grown in my area”), or time (“I’ll be dead by then”).
As others warn of consequences, your Pygmalion rationalizes that if it’s all One Life, and if Separatism is the great sin, then genetic engineering mixing human and rice genes, chicken and tomato genes, etc. could be a step towards total unification. Or, have them quite willing to pay personal consequences for a supposedly greater good.
Technology, like electricity, or the Force of Star Wars, is neither good nor bad; show us this impersonal aspect both before and alongside of how it’s being ill-used by your characters.
There can be no redemption without realization, whether by the creator or the creature. Dramatic tension enters when they don’t agree on the nature of redemption (Frankenstein) and/or move at different speeds (Battlestar Galactica).
CONCLUSION
The impersonal Dark Forces of the world around us offer myriad opportunities for obstacles, challenges, and occasional allies for your stories. Add to those listed here. Expand a single incident into a snowballing major dilemma. Peer around the edges of normality for a unique perspective to open our minds to new realities.
With at least one Dark Force problem in your story, ideally one that reflects or enhances your theme or characters, you offer a richer relationship with your people and plot. Remember, the Force is always with you, and it’s up to you and your characters whether it’s Dark or not… and Dark is usually much more interesting.
4.
THE DARK BROTHERHOOD
– SUPRA-PERSONAL
Who is this Dark Brotherhood?
Where did they come from?
What do they want?
How do they get away with it?
How can we resist and/or defeat them?
You’ve transformed all your Dwellers on the Threshold and overcome inertia, procrastination, etc., but still can’t get that earth-changing project off the page and onto the screen? Is it the Dark Brotherhood holding you back? Ummm, probably not, unless you’re a really bright Light who can affect the lives of millions and change the course of history. Of course, we storytellers do have that ambition, and modern media now does have that reach, so maybe…
Are there really uber-powerful entities out to control the cosmos? Do deities play dice with lives and marbles with galaxies? And do the bad ones cheat?
Who knows? It’s impossible to prove one way or the other in real life, but for the sake of story, let’s explore. Some of this is already covered in the “What Dark Side?” chapter; here we’re specifically talking about powerful supra-personal entities, rather than just Evil as a concept or force.
WHO IS THIS DARK
BROTHERHOOD?
Often called the Dark Brotherhood, DB, or Black Magicians, this category also includes women, aliens, gods, demons, and nonhuman creatures. In many traditions these are former or current creators or rulers of the worlds they still strive to control. The Morning of the Magicians book is full of world legends about lost civilizations, Black Magicians, and manipulation of worlds.
Does the DB exist? Certainly there are always a select few beings at the top who run things, and not everyone agrees with them. Scurrilous or scapegoats, this pattern is a constant in human affairs. Are they as evil as the Star Wars films’ Evil Emperor and Darth Vader? Do they generate genocide? Or are all our evils homegrown? Most mythologies attribute atrocious things to the DB, whether out of reluctance to believe humans can be so horrid as to originate the awful things we do to each other, or reluctance to ascribe such wretchedness as befalls us to our otherwise benevolent gods.
A line in Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano suggests that if humans sobered up for three days, we’d die of shame on the fourth. Maybe this Dark Brotherhood idea is just a way to shunt aside our burden of guilt. Then again, maybe not.
WHERE DO THEY COME FROM?
Often from other worlds, eons, or dimensions. Lucifer and the Fallen Angels came from heaven. In Babylon 5, the dark Shadows are an ancient race back for one last try at conquering civilized space. Sumerian myths tell of extra-planetary resource hunters; Stargate expands on that idea. In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the high school sits over a hell mouth through which a really big bad guy tries to enter our reality.
Atlanteans, Lemurians, Mayans, the Thule, and the Anasazi are often said to have fallen because of DB influences, usually via a misuse of magic skills.
Like Star Wars’ Jedi Knights gone Sith, both Black and White Magicians train in the same system, up to a certain point. One reason the Wisdom training is so difficult is to hopefully weed out the bad and the weak. Remember all those warnings the Jedi Masters scowled about young Anakin Skywalker, and how he just didn’t fit in with the program early on? If only they’d listened to themselves.
On the other hand, all-powerful gods who dispense good and evil bear a striking resemblance to grown-ups when we ourselves are young, small, and powerless. The hold-over desire to have somebody big fix things, and the tendency to placate their moods to avoid punishment, can lead to cowering worship to guarantee good harvests. Spinning off of this tendency, conspiracy theories and religions offer the comforting idea that even in the midst of chaos and suffering, there’s somebody in control.
WHAT DO THEY WANT?
Power. More power. All the power. But just for them. Power is a deadly addicti
ve drug that can make you very selfish. In the progress towards enlightenment, the DB stops at the point that requires self sacrifice, so you can bet that anything they do is to their advantage, even if it looks otherwise.
HOW DO THEY GET AWAY WITH IT?
Balloon payments, like The Portrait of Dorian Gray where a young man’s portrait ages and shows his sins, while he stays beautiful… until the end. The Black Magician can divert Karma and consequences onto her followers, often by convincing them the suffering is good for their souls. Or, she can magically hold it at bay for lots of lifetimes, but then suffer horridly when it all comes due. Like lots of real estate speculations, it seems like a good deal at the time. In Harry Potter, Voldemort did a “flight from death” to postpone his Karma and bespelled Morfin to falsely confess to the murders of Voldemort’s father and grandparents.
The Dark Magician aligns with other DBs, can be strengthened by the devotion of humans, and is a master of illusion. They get humans to be the front men, like the politicians and power brokers in X-Files who worked for the aliens. And then there were the Nazis, Fascists of all stripes, the Janjaweed of 21st-century Darfur, and otherwise ordinary humans swept up in mob genocide. We often pay so much attention to the perpetrators that we ignore the instigators who might or might not be the Dark Brotherhood.
Disbelief. If no one believes you exist, you can get away with all sorts of evil because people will just pretend they don’t see it. In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams calls this an SEP: Somebody Else’s Problem.
HOW CAN WE RESIST AND/OR
DEFEAT THEM?
Ignorance and apathy are effective DB tools. If we don’t know and/or don’t care, they can get away with almost anything. If all it takes for Evil to triumph is the indifference of good people, move from passive to active and challenge them.
Higher frequencies can sometimes protect you from lower Dark frequencies, so always try to take the high road. See more in “Confronting the Dark Side.” Thankfully, the DB is ultimately like everything else: It carries within it the seeds of its own destruction… if you can afford to wait that long.
CONCLUSION
‘Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.
“The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam” translated by Edward
Fitzgerald
Who knows, maybe the Atlantean (lunar) and Aryan (solar) sorcerers did duke it out in the battle between Good and Evil eons ago. Maybe Greek gods Athena and Poseidon really did influence Odysseus’ ten-year journey home from the Trojan War. Perhaps the Illuminati really does run today’s Tri-Lateral Commission, the Prieure de Sion guards the bloodline of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, and the Venusians have lifted the post-Atlantean quarantine around our planet, opening us up again to extraterrestrial visitations. Great stories come from great imaginings and those about the Dark Brotherhood are some of the most imaginative of all.
III
THEY WALK ON
THE DARK SIDE
We’ve differentiated between aspects of opposition: the Dweller on the Threshold (personal), the Dark Forces (impersonal), and the Dark Brotherhood (supra-personal). Now let’s explore archetypes of individuals — human and nonhuman.
Sometimes characters are not complex enough; they’re two-dimensional, stereotypical. Sometimes they’re too complicated (especially in scripts and plays as opposed to novels), and need to be pared down for clarity. Read over the categories in this section and see which best fits your character’s strongest Inner Drive: power, acceptance, survival, accomplishment, etc. The descriptions, examples, and suggestions will help you align with these powerful universal archetypes. Then apply your own personal spin to make unique yet fully believable characters.
Just as the best stories have a plot and one or more subplots, so too will you want to have a main archetype for each character, and then modify it with at least one secondary archetype they are either letting go of or trying to become. Think of Angel and Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer — vampires yes, but seriously troubled by curses, computer chips in their brains, or desires to be something else. Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean struggles between basic pirate archetype and becoming an antihero, with a bit of the rake tossed in for good measure.
Other sections in this book will help you refine your characters’ approaches, actions, oppositions, and allies throughout the story. For now, focus on the category that best suits your character, and also determine a secondary one for deepening their personalities and problems.
5.
THE ANTIHERO
Sometimes it’s glaringly obvious who’s the bad guy. Other times, not so much. Evil is said to disguise itself as truth and beauty; death and destruction as power and seduction. The Antichrist is a scary idea because we can’t always tell the difference between good and evil.
In some traditions Lucifer and the other angels were to serve God, then God created humans and demanded angels serve mankind. This demotion rankled, and Lucifer refused to turn from his first love to serve the puny usurpers. Harsh words flew and war in heaven ensued.
Some hold that Lucifer (which means “light bringer”) is the good guy bringing humanity knowledge and freedom via higher consciousness, while Yahweh and his angels suppress us with ignorance and fear via organized religion. His Dark Materials trilogy follows this idea.
This paradigm plays out in the antihero, the individual who stands apart from society and breaks its rules. Yet, while sneering at the hypocrisy and corruption of the norm, they uphold a higher ideal and are harbingers of the future.
CHARACTERISTICS
A cynic is just a wounded romantic. Maybe, but they bury it deep within.
Disillusioned. Disgusted. Misanthropic. Self-centered. Often sharp-witted and sharp-tongued. No small talk. Foul language; or, no cursing whatsoever. Physical courage. Analytical mind. Seldom swayed by emotion, they can usually be bought, proving to themselves once again that all humans, even them, are venal.
Because they really don’t give a sht, they can do the dirty work nobody else will or can do. In Walter Hill’s slick rock-and-roll fable Streets of Fire, Tom Cody (note the cowboy name) gives the quintessential antihero line when he shrugs and remarks that guys like him always get sent to do the tough jobs.
Though very self-centered, when a greater good serves their own purposes, they go along, like Adam Baldwin’s character Jayne in Joss Whedon’s Serenity and Firefly.
A. IN ACTION
Antiheroes typically arise from over-regulated, corrupt, declining societies. They uphold the true ideal which the rest of society now just mocks or ignores.
Cultures follow a cycle from the founding in hardship, idealism, and innovation; the settling-in-and-civilizing; the growing sophistication; the over-regulation and over-indulgence; the decline and fall.
Because they harken back to the good old days, rough-and-ready antiheroes are more popular in a culture’s stories when people are disillusioned in the over-regulation stage and beyond. During the settling-in-and-civilizing and the sophistication stages, there is little sign of the antihero, as people deny their uncouth roots. Odysseus of Iliad fame, for instance, went from positive “wise” to negative “wily” over a couple hundred years in ancient Greece as the populace became more citified.
Gilgamesh of the Middle East, England’s Robin Hood, and depending on whether you were French or English, Joan of Arc, are real-life antiheroes.
Reilly, Ace of Spies, starring Sam Neill, is a suspenseful, sensual miniseries about an actual British superspy torn between his own dark desires and expedient loyalties in the early 1900s.
Al Swearingen in the HBO series Deadwood is based on a real person. He’s venal, vile, and violent but also inspires fierce loyalty and utter confidence. At rare moments, his almost tender compassion for a few select others is revealed. H
is actions are for both his own good and the good of the growing frontier community of Deadwood, for which he’s perfectly willing to slit your throat.
B. IN MEDIA
Antiheroes can be cast out or be outcasts by choice, as in the films Rebel Without a Cause, Taxi Driver, Chinatown, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Midnight Cowboy, Dirty Harry, and Payback, where Mel Gibson is a bad guy with a serious case of revenge for bigger bad guys.
The Japanese story of the 47 Ronin, Samurai without a master but still driven by honor to avenge him, has been told many times in Japanese films. Robert De Niro stars in the action-thriller Ronin, playing a modern C.I.A. version of this antihero. Rambo leans close to that archetype.
The Bride (Uma Thurman) in Quentin Tarentino’s Kill Bill films is an effective antiheroine, whose slowly revealed history makes us more and more compassionate for this killing machine. Her strong sense of justice even compels her to kill people she loves — or used to love, until they done her wrong.
Vin Diesel in the Chronicles of Riddick is a really bad man out to fight a really evil empire and save the universe. The Boondock Saints are brothers who assassinate mob figures in Boston because so-called good men are indifferent and the courts are ineffectual.
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