Interview with the Translator: Halloween & Zombies

Kate: The Hinman who attack Risai and Gyousuu’s group in Hills of Silver Ruins seem like a cross between zombies and werewolves. 

Do the Japanese have an interest in zombie popular culture? To the same extent as Americans? And do they link their zombies to Voodoo? (American zombies aren't really linked to Voodoo, but everyone pretends they are.)

Eugene: Like Halloween (which has exploded in popularity over the past decade), Hollywood horror has inserted itself into contemporary culture while becoming influential on the home-grown Japanese genres. Consider that an episode of Fruits Basket includes a running joke about "Jason" from Friday the 13th.

Vampires and zombies are two examples. The Japanese versions often tweak the origins stories but otherwise import them in recognizable form, such as the vampires in Call of the Night (a well done teen vampire dramedy). Hellsing gives us both vampires and zombies.

 

Hellsing employs the now standard trope of a secret government demon hunting corps. Hellsing takes place in England, and the group is led by a descendant of  Abraham Van Helsing. Demon Slayer, Jujutsu Kaisen, and Chainsaw Man have all used the same-only-different formula.

Voodoo references can be replaced by similar Shinto concepts. The idea of cursing someone via a symbolic representation of that person (commonly a paper or straw doll) is a common one in Shinto-based horror and goes as far back as at least the 11th century and The Tale of Genji.

The demon slayers in Chainsaw Man hack their way through a whole army of zombies in the big climax, though the zombies are just collateral damage on the way to taking out the Big Bad, an overpowered "gun demon" from the other side of the Pacific.

All the Ms: Mah to Mahoney

Ann Mah: Ann Mah, author of kitchen chinese and other books, showcases the difference between first-generation immigrants and second-generation immigrants. Although Mah, like Amy Tan, explores her connection to China, the experience and attitude is quite different. For one, Mah's stories seem less fraught with significance–though still more significant than, say, me exploring my “English” roots. In fact, the book refers to Amy Tan, claiming that the main character’s experience is NOT an Amy Tan novel. 

Karan Mahajan: Family Planning presents the relationship between a teenage boy and his father in a very large family in India. The writing is quite good! 

Kerri Maher: The Girl in White Gloves is a fictional retelling of Grace Kelly’s life with the focus on her marriage to Prince Rainier with flashbacks. Since the first chapter convinced me of what I’d heard–that her marriage was somewhat confining–and of what I believe about royal marriages to begin with (they are a fate worse than death), I didn’t read further. 

Naguib Mahfouz: I encountered an entire shelf of novels by Naguib Mahfouz. I then discovered that the author is a Nobel Prize winner. I chose Arabian Nights & Days, which is a “what happens after the fairy tale” story, of which I greatly approve! What happens AFTER Shahrzad tells her stories? And what is happening elsewhere? 

Shanna Mahin: What is it with California novels and short stories? They are full of angsty people on the edge of…something…doing...something. And they think the entire world is about that something. So they write books about discovering what everyone outside of California already knows: the whole world isn't about that. The first chapter of Oh! You Pretty Things nearly hooked me since it introduces a character–not the narrator–who might have a fascinating backstory. And then I realized that the book was about the narrator, who can't figure out how to get a new life without going to work for a celebrity. And I lost interest. 

Dennis Mahoney: Bell Weather, which takes place in an alternative history, starts with a fantastic rescue! It is one of those books I may come back to. 

Kristin Mahoney: Elfie Unperfect is an interesting case of a cover not matching up to the book’s initial tone. The initial tone is of a young Daria (fourth grade) who is more clueless than dry. Not entirely humorous. The humor seems more aimed at her own literal-minded cluelessness except the narrator comes across as too aware to be entirely clueless. I felt mostly nonplussed rather than amused. (For something maybe similar I do recommend, try the hilarious and dry-witted Anastasia Krupnik books by Lois Lowry instead.) 

The Royal Who Is Really Something Else

Zahler's book The Thirteenth Princess brings up the classic archetype: the royal disguised as a servant or ordinary person.

Twain's The Prince and the Pauper, of course, tackles the royal disguised as a peasant and the peasant disguised as a royal. 

I'll focus on the royal disguised as an ordinary citizen here. 

The book retells the fairytale of the Twelve Princesses. The tale is a great one since it offers so much scope to writers. The Twelve Princesses can be heroines. They can be snobs. Their parents can be cursed. They can be tyrants. The kingdom to where the princesses go to dance can be evil, amoral, or protective. 

And everything in-between! 

Zahler makes interesting choices. For one, Zita, the thirteenth princess is being raised as a servant. I'm not providing spoilers because the book begins with Zita already knowing. In fact, everyone already knows. 

I don't entirely buy the reason for Zita being raised as a servant. I think there was a more likely reason lurking in the corners of the book (and I'm not sure why the author didn't use that reason). The king later gets upset about what neighboring kings think. A man who worries about what neighboring kings think would treat his princess daughter as a princess, not matter how much he personally fears or hates or blames her for something. 

However, the "disguise" provides motivation for Zita to take on the quest. In addition--and here I thought Zahler provided excellent insights--Zita comes to realize that her sisters are in many ways as limited as she is. When I watched Manor House, I was struck by this truth. In many ways, the servants--who did not have easy lives--had better social relationships than the "uppercrust." The single sister of the lady of the manor got so depressed at her lack of scope (she was a working woman in contemporary life) that she left. In reality, of course, she would have had other singles and charity work to occupy her. However, her reaction does dovetail with accounts of women of that time. 

The middle classes truly always have been better off: not too poor to starve; not too rich to be forced into limiting social expectations. 

Zita is a good "fly on the wall" of the fairy tale! 

This final character analysis segues quite nicely into the next A-Z List. I enjoyed covering characters so much that the next list will do the same, only this time, the characters are characters transform: that is, their true personalities are revealed either because they take off an actual disguise or because they change over time. 

The next A-Z list will go by character rather than by author. 

 

Stop the Christie Murder: the Most Obvious Person in The Caribbean Mystery

My prevention detectives in A Caribbean Mystery wouldn't have to do much detection! They would simply need to listen to Major Palgrave. 

* * * 

The mystery illustrates how remarkable Christie was. It begins with boring Major Palgrave wittering on about his life experiences to Miss Marple. He is the master of the shaggy dog story and some of his shaggy dog stories have to do with murders. He tells Miss Marple about a particular murderer who kept repeating his "schtick" (rather like the Brides in the Bath murder) and lo and behold, that's what happens in the story! 

So how does Christie make it a mystery?

The first is the number of red herrings. There are so many people who might be murderers. The second is that Miss Marple begins to doubt whether the primary story Major Palgrave told her WAS the murder she should be looking out for, especially since he told more than one story. Is it a male murderer or a female murderer she should have her eye on? 

And since Christie has done this type of thing before--all the clues are there but the reader was misled about the true importance of a clue--the reader has every reason to trust Miss Marple's doubts...even though the actual murder plan is in plain view. 

Want to see the picture of a murderer?

Christie is sometimes accused of having the least-obvious person in the story be the murderer but, in fact, she almost always went for the most obvious person. Husbands kill wives. Wives kill husbands. Greedy people kill for money. And so on. 

We readers just feel that the murderer is the least-obvious person because Christie is that good! 

In this case, my prevention detectives simply need to look around for the couple that fit Major Palgrave's story and then keep an eye on the husband.  

Characters as Society: Yugi Yamada

One of my favorite mangaka (an artist who writes the manga' story and draws its characters) is Yugi Yamada. One reason I like her so much is that the characters come across as real, fleshy, non-abstract. 

Another reason I like Yamada so much is that she gives her characters friends and neighbors and co-workers, who are all different types with differing personalities. That is, they are not all students or all rivals or all co-workers. One series supplies a married couple with a baby; friends who are thinking about dating; friends who are already dating and even an ex-member of the group. 

Moreover, her characters tend to interrelate, so that one character in one manga may make an appearance in another. 

What Yamada does here is quite difficult. So often, "extras" in manga or books or even movies can become confusing or so similar, they simply blur together. I have often started books where the sheer volume of names being thrown at me results in me putting the book down. 

Yamada's triumph is that her social worlds, like her characters, feel real and fleshy, and yet the main story doesn't get lost. Readers see that world through a central conflict/arc. The world was created for the characters, not the other way around. 

 Yamada's characters have full lives, which is quite attractive. 

The Dumbest Trope of All Dumb Tropes

Okay--maybe there are dumber ones. But this one is pretty dumb:

The bad guys (or vampires in hiding) set up in a SMALL TOWN. 

And...they get pinpointed and "outed."

Well, duh. The whole point of the small town is that "everyone knows your name." It's all about the regulars, what so-and-so is doing this week. The sheriff quite literally walks around and asks folks how they are doing. 

I give a pass to Andy Griffith's "Aunt Bee Gets a Job" in part because the counterfeiters ARE stupid. They are EXACTLY the type of people who would buy into the trope. And their clients are equally stupid since one of them exchanges Aunt Bee's employment check for part of his fake cash. In truth, I quite enjoy the episode since I like the Andy Griffith "case" episodes where Andy puts together clues. The episode also offers some truly hilarious moments.

But when an author actually thinks "oh, of course, nobody will find my characters in this tiny town!" I have to surmise that the author is too dumb for me to read. 

Sayers explains in Unnatural Death better than everyone why CITY is the better hiding place:

To the person who has anything to conceal--to the person who wants to lose his identity as one leaf among the leaves of a forest--to the person who asks no more than to pass by and be forgotten, there is one name above others which promises a haven of safety and oblivion. London. Where no one know his neighbour. Where shops do not know their customers. Where physicians are suddenly called to unknown patients whom they never see again. Where you may lie dead in your house for months together unmissed and unnoticed till the gas-inspector comes to look at the meter. Where strangers are friendly and causal. London, whose rather untidy and grubby bosom is the repository of so many odd secrets. Discreet, incurious, and all-enfolding London.

Parker still tracks down the information he wants, but it takes him trekking through 37 law offices to find a witness. A less dedicated law officer would have give up! 

Cities are far better hiding places than small towns. 

The Dysfunctional MacBeths

The dysfunction in MacBeth's primary relationship isn't that Lady MacBeth talks MacBeth into killing the king. That's bad. But from a relationship point of view, it isn't automatically the thing that destroys the relationship. 

What destroys the relationship is that Lady MacBeth can't control what she has inspired. 

In Gaudy Night, Dorothy Sayers's characters discuss what happens when one spouse limits or pulls down the other, either intentionally or unintentionally. The problem with MacBeth entails the opposite behavior (one spouse pushes rather than limits the other) but it relates to the first: one couple is trying to design or fix or otherwise manufacture a "perfect" spouse. In Lady MacBeth's case, that perfect spouse is a king. In another case, a perfect spouse might be one who doesn't do that type of work or write that type of stuff or spend time on those kinds of causes. 

The ambitions are different but the intent and subsequent behavior is the same: organizing someone else's life to make one's own life feel organized. 

Lady MacBeth fails in the long run and she fails before it is clear that MacBeth is doomed. She fails because actions have consequences. The act of assassination didn't occur on paper. It occurred in real life. MacBeth didn't turn into a nicely ambitious bloke. He turned into a nut-case. 

I suggest, as have others, that even if MacBeth hadn't turned into a nut-case, he still would have failed Lady MacBeth. Again, actions don't have tidy consequences. Eventually, she would have become another enemy, another person standing in his way. It was only a matter of time. 

Better, truly, for people to know what they are marrying than to try to force a spouse towards what they imagine they are marrying. 

*MacBeth is one of those plays that works at the narrative level, no matter what its trappings--like Cinderella or Beauty and the Beast. A number of mystery shows have "done" Lady MacBeth, including Jake & the Fatman, Season 1, "Rhapsody in Blue." Strong parts for many actors!

Josephine Tey's Alan Grant

Repost from 2005.

* * *

The best description of Josephine Tey's novels is comedy of manners. My favorite of her books is To Love and Be Wise in which she lightly, but elegantly, satirizes modern novelists in a small village, including the super profound novelist, Silas Weekly, who writes about manure and adultery and corruption in rural locations. A character remarks that the literary press adored Silas until he became popular; then, they decided he was old hat.

Tey's detective is Alan Grant, and one of the nice things about Grant is that he is imperfect. I don't mean imperfect in the "let's deconstruct his flaws" sense; I mean imperfect in the sense that Tey herself stands apart from Grant. She doesn't defend him. 

With Ngaoi Marsh, I always feel that Marsh is trying to convince me what a truly nice guy Alleyn is. Christie is more detached from Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot, but in terms of detection, they make no errors. And Sayers was invested in explicating Wimsey's personality, which is entirely appropriate to the kind of novels that she wrote. 

But Grant is simply, just, this guy, ya know (as somebody says of somebody else in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). 

John Vine plays Grant

in 1988 Franchise Affair

He is fully admirable, being intelligent and diligent. Like Alleyn, he is looked up to by his sidekick, but Grant comes right out and admits that he likes a little adulation. (Alleyn has to pretend that he isn't being hero-worshiped, which must be a strain.) Grant is rather detached himself. His cousin, Laura, can never get him to marry, and Grant misses several opportunities simply because he isn't paying attention. He isn't absent-minded; his detachment comes from a kind of indifference; after all, Grant doesn't want to get married. He is more Archie Goodwin than Wimsey. His female love interest (sort of) is Marta, an actress, who doesn't want to get married either and usually scares men. She latches onto the confident Grant.

As well as tremendous confidence, Grant is somewhat prideful, not in the "I'm better than others" sense, but in his sureness about his own abilities. He has a "flare" for odd situations, but he isn't even remotely the insightful, thoughtful, concerned, all-knowing, tortured detective of so much detective fiction. He likes being a cog in a machine. And despise his flaws, he isn't unlikable. 

His full character is a remarkable feat of writing, in part because it is so lightly rendered. 

Tey books in order of my preference:

• To Love and Be Wise (Grant) 
• Franchise Affair (Grant has a cameo appearance) 
• Daughter of Time (Grant)  
• Brat Farrar  
• The Singing Sands (Grant) 
• A Shilling for Candles (Grant) 
• Man in the Queue (Grant) 
• Miss Pym Disposes

X is for the Unknown in Murder Mysteries

In mysteries, X often stands in for the murderer. In the show Person of Interest, the unknown factor is whether the "number" (or person) is the perpetrator or the victim of a crime. Is X about to commit a crime? Suffer a crime? Should X be stopped, helped, or protected? 

Agatha Christie has her detectives argue that in order to catch the murderer, the detective must understand the victim. What type of reactions and interactions did the victim invite? In reaction, is the murderer fearful, revengeful, desperate, angry, vain...? 

And some of the best mysteries have memorable murderers. 

*Spoilers*

From the Golden Age,  

Dorothy Sayers' Whose Body delivers a fascinating and cold-hearted murderer in The Dawson Pedigree. The fretful innocence of the victim--and how readily the community accepts the death--underscores the murderess's paranoid self-protection. 

The murderer in Ngaio Marsh's Light Thickens is inconsequential since the main "character" of the book is inconsequential since the victim is also inconsequential. The main "character" of the book is the play. Final Curtain, however, places the victim center-stage; he is an aging actor after all. His ego and self-satisfaction, his demands on family and constant will-changing account for the behavior of the murderer who mirrors him. 

Josephine Tey's To Love and Be Wise, like a few of her novels, involves no murder. Supposed victim and perpetrator of the investigated crime are one and the same, and the character of that person explains the double role.

Agatha Christie's Evil Under the Sun focuses almost entirely on the clever murdering couple. They attract all the notice. Christie, however, links their personalities to the victim's ultimately naive nature. She appears a slinky, manipulative tease, but she is actually, as Poirot states, "The eternal victim." 

None of the victims deserves being murdered.  The above writers were thankfully not disposed to excusing cruel and violent behavior. 

However, nearly all of them spend time presenting their victims and murderers as members of various networks from family to career: networks that evoke a strong and memorable response. Marsh indulged the most in random or pointless and tawdry murders (that is, realistic murders). But those random, pointless, tawdry victims and murderers are far less memorable. 

A classic murder, it appears, requires a definitive X.  

People Don't Change: Mesopotamian Sons

Cultures change. Technology changes. Understanding changes. 

Human nature truly doesn't change.  

Professor Amanda H. Podany of Great Course's Ancient Mesopotamia: Life in the Cradle of Civilization describes a kingly father and his letters to his sons. His sons were sub-kings since Mesopotamian dynasties were comprised of cities. Sometimes, kings ruled over multiple cities. Sometimes, they were subject to other kings. 

What is hilarious is not just the king's desire to dole out advice--doling out advice definitely seems to be part of the human condition and quite specific to certain personality types. Podany even says that the father "tended to micro-manage his son's administrations." 

What is more hilarious is that the father-king acts like all fathers in history despite the differing context. When one of his sons wants to build more idols, the father-king points out that more idols means more religious ceremonies which require more sacrifices of oxen and sheep except "you keep telling me you don't have enough oxen and sheep!"

Translation: Where are you going to get the money? From me?  

 The father-king also complains that the son can't make his own decisions: "Is there no beard on your chin?"

And he compares his sons to each other. So the older son tells the younger, "Write to me before you write to Dad." 

Human nature is a constant.  

Books to Movies: The Great and Intelligent Excision from The Lord of the Rings

One of Jackson's most intelligent decisions was to not present the Scouring of the Shire.

In the book, Saruman--let go through mercy by Treebeard--alongside the still odiously sycophantic but increasing resentful Wormtongue make their way to the Shire and cause havoc. In the face of regulation-happy bullies, Sam, Pippin, Merry rally the "resistance" and defeat the bad guys. Frodo monitors the event and prevents it turning into a massacre. Wormtongue, as in the extended version of the trilogy, kills Saruman. 

It's a great sequence! And I'm frankly at a loss as to why people keep creating movies about everything BUT The Battle of the Shire--unless Jackson is saving it to do himself. 

However, it would have not only made a long trilogy already even longer, it would have turned the entire movie on its head. 

The pay-off in the movie is that the hobbits have directly and indirectly saved Middle Earth. The book's pay-off is the same, but Tolkien never forgets that real consequences exist for real actions. Everybody in Gondor is happy but the effects of peace and more stable times have not yet entirely reached beyond Gondor and Rohan (and even there, there's a great deal of clean-up, including rebuilding Osgiliath, tracking down prisoners in Mordor; besides which, Shelob survived--and confronting Shelob is another potentially great movie!) 

The lack of "okay, life is complicated and bad stuff keeps happening and people can't relax" doesn't make the movie shallow. As I remark elsewhere, movies are deep in a different way from books. I'll discuss imagery in another post. For now, I will state that deepness occurs in moments. 

The book can have more "where are they now" chapters; in fact, to an extent, books demand this kind of wrap-up. But for a movie, such an ending "reads" rather like an essay which brings up a completely different topic in the conclusion...and I turn the page, wondering where the next five paragraphs are. 

So not including the Battle of the Shire was remarkably smart. 

It would still make a fantastic movie of its own.  

What Makes a Good Hero?

Below is a repost from 2011.

* * *

I first came up with a list of favorite heroes (main protagonists). I then used those heroes to create a list of good hero attributes:

• Booth from Bones as representative of the romantic hero.
• Patrick Jane from The Mentalist as representative of the troubled, semi-romantic hero.
• All the Stargate men (including Dr. Rodney McKay).
• Benton Fraser from Due South as representative of the solitary hero.

What attributes do these heroes hold in common that I find satisfying to watch?

1. The heroes are confident in a nonchalant way.

Jack O’Neill and John Sheppard take the prize here. I doubt there are two more nonchalant heroes on television. It is appropriate to pair them together since they are an extroverted and introverted versions of the same personality type.

The best example of their similar nonchalance comes from the pilot to Stargate: Atlantis where the following exchange takes place:

O’Neill: This isn't a long trip, so I'll be a succinct as possible.
Sheppard: (After a long silence.) Well, that's pretty succinct.
O’Neill: Thank you.

The remaining heroes are less nonchalant but still manage to confront danger and uncertainty with finesse. Okay, McKay gets a little wild and crazy and talks too fast, but in general, these heroes meet problems with aplomb. (McKay is actually the most heroic of the bunch because he overcomes a normal amount of cowardice and courage to perform truly courageous and selfless acts.) Patrick Jane's willingness to call things as they are gives him a bit of House confidence (without the brassness).

I return to this issue of confidence below--from a slightly different angle.

2. The heroes have a sense of humor.

The heroic aplomb is helped by the heroes having a sense of humor. Benton Fraser may seem an exception here, but I’ve always considered Fraser's “straight man” persona to be partly put on. He isn’t faking so much as he is deliberately being more himself.

Ray: This is what's wrong with you, Fraser. You see a problem, and you gotta fix it. You can't even go to the men's room without stopping and telling some simple stupid charmingly witty Inuit story that inspires people to take on the world's social ills!
Fraser: Well, I'm sorry, Ray, but I fail to see how a small group of people banding together to form a neighborhood watch constitutes a form of political anarchy.

The remaining heroes are given to excessive irony (Jack and John), rampant sarcasm (McKay), and quick repartee (Booth). I also have to add Patrick Jane's unbelievably mischievous and charming smile. All by itself, it makes you happy!

Another aspect of hero humor is the ability of the hero to not get pissed at the heroine/react defensively to subtext. This may actually cross the fiction/reality line because it is an attribute I admire and wish I could emulate.

A great example comes from Booth in the first season. Bones makes a promise to a little boy which Booth then keeps.

Brennan: I knew you'd back me up. I knew you wouldn't make me a liar.
Booth: How did you know?
Brennan: Because you want to go to heaven
Booth: But you don't believe in heaven.
Brennan: But you do . . .

Here's the kicker (or "kickster," as Bones would say): Booth just smiles. Brennan's assumptions don't bug him; he doesn't feel used or manipulated or out-of-control. (I will refer back to this particular dialog later.)

3. The heroes respect women without putting them on pedestals.

Because, let’s face it, putting women on pedestals is just another form of condescension. (A woman on a pedestal can’t interfere or contribute. She’s just supposed to stay there.)

Some of the heroes (Benton, McKay) are a little uncertain around women and make up for this, in Benton's case, with excessive civility (McKay is just rude). But none of them are dismissive.

The Stargate heroes win the prize for heroes who, without taking women for granted manage to take them for granted. It's the difference between undervaluing or ignoring someone versus assuming someone has the right to exist/be there/contribute. Booth, for instance, gets kudos for wanting Bones' opinion while not perceiving her as perfect. And Patrick Jane doesn't flare up when Lisbon takes a stand, like when she returns the lottery-won jewelry:

Teresa: All right, guys. It's been fun playing dress-up, but playtime is over.
Cho: I'm sorry, boss, what do you mean?
Teresa: This. (She gestures at the necklace Patrick gave her.) It's kind of a waste, don't you think?
Patrick: I would have bought world peace if I could. They didn't have it in the casino gift store. Very limited range of items for sale.
Teresa: You know what I mean.
Patrick: I know those emeralds look lovely with your eyes.
Teresa: Thank you. It's beautiful, but I can't keep it.
Patrick: I understand.

4. The heroes know themselves.

This raises a conundrum. The reason so many romance novels succeed is because the hero doesn't make his problems the heroine's problem. He takes care of things! Unfortunately, he also tends to be ultra-alpha and dominating, which becomes tiresome. Confidence and self-knowledge are not limited to ultra-alpha and dominating males.

Having said that, I will start with the most alpha of my listed heroes. One of Booth's most attractive qualities is that he DOESN'T kowtow to Bones. Regarding the dialog quoted above, one reason Booth doesn't get upset is because his ego isn't that fragile. This is very attractive.

However, leaving the confident factor up to men is rather unfair. One reason I get tired of books like Twilight (and a number of mystery series) is because the heroine runs around wondering if she is good enough and having her ego massaged by the confident male. Geez, wouldn't he get tired of this?

To continue, good heroes are never so tunnel-visioned, they don't know who they are. Booth is proud of being a beer-and-skittles guy. He doesn't pretend to be anything else although, like Benton and Jack, he sometimes emphasizes certain personality traits deliberately (he isn't as uninformed as he sometimes acts). He is a good father who has "stepped it up" and sees that stepping up as a defining part of his personality.

Patrick Jane has accepted his past mistakes to the nth degree. In some ways, he is too hard on himself, but in some ways, he isn't. Setting aside the Red John stuff, defrauding people isn't terribly kind. And there are enough flashbacks in Season 1 to make it clear that Jane did deliberately defraud some people, even when what he did hurt them emotionally.

All the Stargate guys are honest with themselves. One of my favorite examples is McKay when he tells a bunch of bad guys, " I don't know if you noticed or not, but I'm an extremely arrogant man who tends to think all his plans will work."

And Benton, who is actually quite hard to read, is never dishonest. About anything. He is occasionally self-deluded when he thinks he can help someone he can't. In the first season, he tries to save a deceitful, dark-haired woman from herself. In the final episode of that season, he and his partner have this exchange:

Ray Vecchio: Benny, not every woman with long dark hair tries to kill her lover.
Benton Fraser: Oh.

Ultimately, Benton always acknowledges what must be done.

5. The heroes are loyal/stick around.

Okay, guys, if you want to know how to attract/make a woman happy, this is it. The way to a woman's heart (in fact, I would argue, anyone's heart--see image) is loyalty.

Booth, of course, is way up the list. Actually, they all are, but Booth is the most obvious. One of my favorite quotes comes when Bones and Angela are discussing Bones' brother:

Bones: I worshiped him. You know? God, he was so cool. Everyone knew I was Russ Brennan's little sister. I wasn't cool or pretty, so being his sister...You know that game, Marco Polo? I'd be sitting in class, and I'd hear out the window, "Marco!" It'd be Russ, checking in on me, letting everyone know that I was his little sister.
Angela: Did you "Polo"?
Brennan: Yeah, sometimes it'd be the only word I said all day. "Polo." And then Mom and Dad disappeared, and Russ took off. Suddenly, no one cared where I was. I miss that. Someone caring where I am all the time. (My emphasis.)

At this point, you hear Booth call, "Bones. Bones. Where are you? Let's go!" off-screen. It is immeasurably touching.

Patrick Jane demonstrates that, whatever his behavior in the past, he did adore his wife and child. He also states that he will always have Lisbon's back. When she complains that she can't trust him because he's always doing crazy stuff, he responds, "Lisbon, I want you to know that you can trust me. No matter what happens, I will be there for you. I will. I need you to know that. Now, can I catch you?" (They are doing a trust exercise, and he does catch her.)

Of course, saying, "Trust me" isn't enough: actions speak louder than words. The Stargate guys always follow through. The creed, "We don't leave our people behind" may not always be good military policy, but it's good romance and hero policy.

And Benton, naturally, is Mr. Reliable. His reliability isn't confined to women; he is always there for his partner, neighbors, small children, pets, and total strangers!

To end, I'm going to give Bones the last word:

Booth: Mr. Decker, you and Donovan, you have a code word? Something to let him know that you sent me?
Decker: Paladin. Tell Donovan "Paladin."
(Decker leaves the room.)
Cullen: (stands) Paladin. Defender of the faith. Protector. Suits you, Booth.
(Cullen walks out.)
Bones: You know what? You tough guys are all very sentimental.

T.H. White and What Makes a King-to-Be

In my novella, The Wolf Boy Returns from Space, my king-to-be is more a young Alexander the Great than, say, Harry Potter. That is, he has a cold, observant, ambitious side even as a teen. He knows he has plans. 

T.H. White's Wart, however, is supposed to be a great king not for ambition but because he is good. 

So what is Wart like? 

One of the most interesting characteristics White gives Wart in his frankly medieval if anachronistic England is that he doesn't put himself forward. About Kay, the narrator states, "[He was] one of those people who would be neither a follower nor a leader, but only an aspiring heart, impatient in the failing body which imprisoned it." 

Wart, however, "admired Kay and was a born follower. He was a hero-worshipper."

These qualities may seem odd ones for a incipient king, especially in our current "stand up and defend your label!" society. 

The movie is a disappointment--

the best action sequences are

missing--but Wart's character

is fairly accurate.

In T.H. White's hands, however, Wart as follower makes him pure boy.  He is curious, courageous, quick-witted, quick-on-his-feet, engaged with everything he does. He loves things with his whole heart. His greatest trait, of which he is almost entirely unaware, is his empathy. He understands and loves Kay, so he begs Merlyn for an adventure for Kay. He eventually earns Kay's "honest love." 

Wart loves the glory of jousts and worries about the combatants being hurt. He begs a boon for Wat but also, ultimately, lets Wat and Dog Boy alone to do their own thing.

Wart's leadership qualities here dovetail with T.H. White's treatment of Robin W(H)ood. Of all the social/political orders Wart encounters, Robin W(H)ood's independent band are the most efficient, the happiest, and the most self-supporting. 

In sum, the Wart doesn't want to push others around. In one of the most touching passages of The Sword in the Stone, Wart tells Merlyn that as a knight, he would take on his responsibilities alone. 

He muses (he isn't bragging), "I would pray to God to let me encounter all the evil in the world in my own person, so that if I conquered there should be none [of the evil] left, while if I was defeated, it would be I who would suffer for it." 

Merlyn chides him for being "presumptuous" and unrealistic. Besides, nobody would let Wart do what he wishes. 

"I could ask," said the Wart. 

"You could ask," repeated Merlyn. 

Stop the Christie Murder: ABC Murders and More About Serial Killers and Profiling

As I have mentioned elsewhere, serial killers are difficult to catch. Recent events have brought home to me that although human beings are good at adjusting to reality, they expect human behavior to follow patterns/expectations. Those expectations can be frustrating. I suspect they also keep people stable and functional. 

We truly don't imagine the unimaginable on a regular basis! In fact, according to Benedict Carey, our brains are wired to forget things. We can only handle so much information and stimuli at once. And information without context or story is quickly forgotten or buried. 

Outlying behavior--sociopathic behavior--is not something people quickly recognized. 

*Spoilers*

Of course, with The ABC Murders, the entire point is that the "true" murder is hiding within a series of other murders. I don't entirely buy into this plot. The same human quality that keeps us from easily recognizing sociopathic behavior, keeps people from planning multiple murders to disguise a single murder. 

However, Christie does a fantastic job--years before FBI members tried to figure out how psychopaths' brains work--of creating a bad guy who is basically a serial killer at heart. That is, the bad guy may be a trifle too organized and cunning but he leaves the impression that he quite enjoyed the extra killings and might even have gone on to do more (he only messed up the last because he was becoming "disorganized" or panicking). 

What serial killer-like qualities does he have?

• He portrays zero remorse. 
• He inserts himself into the investigation. 
  
• He has an outsized opinion of his abilities (as mentioned elsewhere, serial killers aren't geniuses; they are simply trading on the human inability to imagine such awfulness). 
• He doesn't use a consistent approach to his killings but with the first two killings, he does seem to have a "type"--vulnerable woman who appear independent and are estranged from their significant others. 
• He settles on a method of killing when--as Christie often points out--a simple household accident would do the trick. 
• He can appear quite charming (as I mention with Ted Bundy, "charming" isn't an automatic with serial killers nor does it work like some kind of magic trick, but it is a classic characteristic). 

My investigators are no better than anyone else at recognizing sociopathy. However, with some training, they might be more suspicious of the bad guy than the police--or at least as  suspicious as Poirot. They might, consequently, be able to trail him and prevent the final killing. 

Note: I'm not a huge fan of profiling. If one reads Douglas's books, what becomes apparent is not the profiling but Douglas's willingness to try all kinds of approaches and investigation techniques alongside local law enforcement to catch the bad guys. That is, it is Douglas's outside-the-box thinking that makes the difference.

However, I do think that generation of profilers should be credited for upending an idea that was quite popular in the 1980s. I remember when parole was still considered some kind of magic cure by idealists, which led to a guy (I know his name, but I don't think evil smug people should be acknowledged) being released from prison because a bunch of New York intelligentsia were so impressed by his writing. He killed a young aspiring actor, Richard Adan, within a month. 

Profilers demonstrated how a socipathic personality can lie without regret, charm without blinking, produce all kinds of "oh, woe is me" reasons, swear to improve, and even--within the confines of the prison--behave well. Douglas comments that (1) he quite liked some of the serial killers he and others interviewed; (2) the FBI interviewers learned to attend these interviews armed with facts because the killers would lie their heads off; (3) good behavior in prison means absolutely nothing on the outside where real life, real chance, real challenges show up.

This type of common-sense profiling might have saved Richard Adan's life. 

Books to Movies: Return of the King & The Mouth of Sauron

In my review of The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies, I complain about the length of the battle. 

My biggest complaint, however, is that the 40 minutes contain way too many climaxes. There should have had two: when Thorin & Company emerge from the Erebor, and Thorin and Bilbo's final talk. 

Return of the King does much better. I know the movie was criticized for having too many endings--but I'm not bothered by THOSE extra 25+ minutes. I'm referring, rather, to the climax when the ring is finally destroyed. 

There is one "off" note in the extended version, which Jackson very smartly excised in the theater version: when Aragorn beheads the Mouth of Sauron. 

He was right to excise the scene because (1) it is a violation of the chivalric code that doesn't "shoot the messenger." I don't mind Han Solo shooting first because he is Han Solo and he does that type of thing. But Aragorn is supposed to be the high king of Middle Earth, and beheading any messenger is, in sum, "bad form." 

Jackson was also right to excise the scene because it is one too many climaxes. 

The climax of the entire trilogy is entirely dependent on Frodo and Gollum's struggle at Mount Doom. The ultimate rescue is one of Tolkien's eucastrophes. But the actual climax of book and film is the vanquishing of the ring. 

The entire sequence deserves two sub-climaxes and one major climax: Aragorn's speech; Sam's decision to carry Frodo; Frodo and Gollum's fight (which is itself the culmination of choices made by both characters). 

That's it!

Lobbing off the messenger's head is a spike in the overall climax and it gets in the way. That is, it creates a temporary feeling of relief when the entire sequence should be building up to Sauron's ultimate defeat. 

In the book, Gandalf seizes Frodo's "coat, cloak, and sword" from the Messenger and piles scorn on Sauron's minion. The Messenger retreats just as Sauron "sprang his trap." 

That is, Gandalf retrieves those things that belong to the Fellowship because Frodo was their companion, and he denounces Sauron. But in the face of what is to come, Gandalf's actions are more Norse than Greek myth--Thor raging at the dark rather than Zeus scattering evildoers. Our good guys are limited and they know it and they are doing what they do anyway. 

The triumph is all the more emphatic.  

Pacing truly is everything. 

The Prison Trope in Mysteries

A common trope in mysteries is a case that must be solved during a prison lockdown. 

It bores me only slightly less than mafia tales. And doesn't strike me as terribly different from plane or Titanic mysteries--the problem must be solved before we land! Or sink! Or die in a riot! 

The prison trope does have the merit of the mystery usually being linked to the riot in some way. In Murder She Wrote, the prison's poor conditions are linked to fraudulent behavior by several prison employees. Uncovering the reason for the first death leaves to uncovering the deceit. And Angela Lansbury does a more than credible job as the woman holding everything together. 

But. Still. I get weary of the surge in violence before the commercial break (where the commercial break obviously came when the show aired): "Oh, no, the prisoners are about to kill the hostages! Oh no, what will the detective do?!" 

One exception is the NCIS episode "Caged" with Martha Hackett as the man-killing serial killer. The episode ends with McGee proving that he can handle a difficult situation diplomatically and intelligently without losing his fundamental kindness. 

Monk sharpened and cleaned his shiv.

The prison trope still isn't one of my favorites. I always suspect that these episodes are like clairvoyant-shows-up episodes--they are thrown in there for the viewers who really, really like that kind of thing. Next week, the show can go back to less irritating crime stories.  

After all, even Due South and Monk and Bones did prison episodes. Though in all three cases here, the episodes were deliberately humorous.

Characters That Don't Change: Verne's Adventurers

It is a given in classical narration that the main characters will undergo some type of change. They will grow and develop and rejoice or despair and sink into disillusionment. They are occupants of Dante's circles, products of what they strove to become in the mortal realm. 

I more or less agree with the need for characters to change. 

There are, however, characters who remain entirely what the author established them to be. Verne's characters fall into this category. 

I write elsewhere how Jules Verne and H.G. Wells represent the two sides of the sci-fi genre. Verne belongs to the older side which focused on the world and discoveries around the characters. Wells, a decade after Verne's Journey, uses a modern approach with War of the Worlds, not only through first-person narration but through a detailed examination of the narrator's emotional state. Verne does not require this type of internal investigation. 

When Verne is put to film, however, the need for character change quite literally enters the picture. The Brendan Fraser version of Journey to the Center of the Earth provides a character searching for his parents and then having to deal with their loss. The 1959 version provides a villain and a romance as the main character, Lindenbrook played by James Mason, becomes more and more disheveled. 

Nearly every 20,000 Leagues' version stresses the choice Aronnax has to make between Ned and Nemo; in fairness to Verne, that choice is given space within the book; it just isn't as important as all the *wow* stuff Nemo drives his submarine through and around. 

The differences indicate several points: 

(1) film goers are products of a modern age that wants character development; we want more than simply a series of images or visual extravaganzas; 

(2) a liking for extravaganza lingers, however; a film that introduces us to an amazing world goes a long way to satisfying our desires--Jackson's Tolkien's films are some of the few I went to the theater to watch (rather than waiting for the DVDs) since I wanted to SEE big Middle-Earth; 

(3) nevertheless, a film requires story in a way that a book does not; I suggest one reason the book does not is not because people don't want characters to grow and change but because reading between the lines enables readers to identify characters with stories and personalities beyond what shows up on the page. 

Static characters have their place. Generally speaking, current writers need to know how to give characters weaknesses over which to stumble or conquer. But not all plots have made the same requirement because not all plots have had the same purpose.