John C. Wright's Blog, page 175

What Ever Happened to Scary Vampires?

The fine fellows over at SfSignal are having a conversation about what ever happened to scary vampires, and when and how they devolved into sexy vampires.

http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2010/09/draft-i-miss-scary-vampires/index.html

Let me share my own humble contribution to the conversation with my readers here, and solicit your comments.

My own personal theory is that romance in stories is more dramatic when the heroine is attracted to a man who is more powerful and more scary than she is. Those of you who do not think Lord Darcy is intimidating to Elizabeth Bennet must have read a difference version of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE than did I. Glance at the lurid covers of lurid romance novels in the supermarket, and you may notice a pattern: not only is the woman swooning in the arms of the male lead, the male is usually a figure of untamed masculine power, pirate or a Red Indian or a hot-blooded duel-fighting bravo with his shirt ripped open.

With no offense meant to any feminists in the audience, part of the appeal of romance is the appeal of a powerful, dangerous, and forbidden man — a manly man. Normally there is a tension between the needs of feminism (women do not want to be domineered) and the needs of romance (woman want a domineering man).

Urban fantasies and Buffy wannabes reconcile this tension by having a strong female protagonist, usually a vampire-slayer with a werewolf boyfriend, be attracted to a forbidden man of the enemy camp, namely, a vampire. Ordinary men (think of Riley from BUFFY) are simply not manly enough to compete with, and certainly not manly enough to impress, a monster-hunting chick with superhuman strength or mad kung fu skillz.

If the guy is a vampire, the romantic lead can be as masculine and as old-fashioned as need be, as well as being as dangerous and (most importantly) someone society FORBIDS her to love, without necessarily offending any modern feminist ideas. Very few men these days are persons women are forbidden to love: old barriers of race and religion and class do not have much story-telling power in them. The vampire-as-hunk stories can both appeal to the modern girl by having a strong female lead, and appeal to the old fashioned romance by having the man be a forbidden apple.

As mentioned by other answer above, this idea of vampires as dangerous male seducers dates back to Lord Byron (who, I believe modern science now proves, was a Nosferatu); but I suggest that there has a general distaste for dangerous and manly men in literature — the macho figure is often a figure of fun rather than admiration — which leaves a void for supernatural macho figures like vampires to fill.

As for the vampiress, from siren to vili to succubus to mermaid, all dangerous blood-drinking females of the darker parts of elfland have always been portrayed as sensual and irresitable. I cannot bring to mind even a single she-vampire from any story who was an ugly old hag. So that is nothing new.

Now, whether you find this trend disquieting and unhealthy is a separate question. Myself, I think there is something distinctly morbid about it. My seven-year-old son cannot walk through the aisles of bookstores these days because so many images of horror and skeletal rottedness leer from the blood-dripping cover art to every side of him. Perhaps he is over sensitive; or perhaps we have all been desensitized.

Wright's Writing Corner:Good vs. Bad – Part Two: Saving Deadly Dull Do-Right.

This week’s blog post is on keeping good characters from putting your readers to sleep. My old editor, Ken Rossignol, untiring crusader who restored by faith in what an honest newspaper can do, is mentioned:

Have you ever wondered why being a Goody Two-Shoes* is bad? I have. I mean being good is good, right? So, why shouldn’t we want to be good? What is implied in the term Goody Two-Shoes that makes even me cringe when someone applies it to me—and I do not drink or smoke.

I think the song lyrics capture the gist of it. The implication is that a goody-goody does not do anything. No drinking. No smoking. No loud parties. No wild lifestyle. No life.

The thought here is: if you are not being bad, your life is boring.

What about Deadly Dull Do-Right? The White Knight, the Hero With A Thousand Smiles. Picture him smiling in his white hat and his white suit. He does not just sit around. He does things. He rushes to right injustice. He saves the girl. He is never tempted, never ruffled, never late.

But he is…dull. From his perfect smile, to his upright posture, to his pristine clothing, he is dull. Just thinking of him makes us either yawn or squirm.

So, good people either stay home and do nothing, or they rush off seeking adventure and bore us to death.

Isn’t good…good?

You bet it is! But to be interesting in drama, a character cannot be conflict free. Staying home or getting everything right without even mussing one’s coat lacks conflict.

Contrast that with, oh say, my husband’s old boss who fought drunk driving and corruption with his tiny local newspaper. It started out as a fishing mag, but after his brother was killed by a drunk and he himself was injured in a separate accident, he decided to do something. He lost friends, even his godfather, because he would not compromise on his policy of printing the picture of those arrested for drunk driving. He had to wear a flak jacket because he had received death threats. But drunk driving went down in his county, and four years later the local county commissioners got voted out of office.

Not a dull day in that guy’s life!

http://arhyalon.livejournal.com/172589.html

Review!

Not me reviewing a book, my book being reviewed. THE GOLDEN AGE is being discussed over at Helm’s Deep:

http://helmz-deep.blogspot.com/2010/09/golden-age-part-1.html

http://helmz-deep.blogspot.com/2010/09/golden-age-part-2.html

The reviewer seem not displeased with it, which vindicates my effort.

Thinks of it as a never-ending, cosmic war. The enemy is any of those boring rainy afternoons when there is nothing on the telly suffered by folk the writer is never to meet, and if the writer’s humble book beguiles the afternoon, or provokes a laugh or starts a conversation or merely offers a refreshing diversion, then entropy has been defeated for a time, and the muse of space opera (Urania, perhaps?) can flourish her laurels in victory.

Constitutions Like Dust

I was reading a review of Isaac Asimov’s STARS LIKE DUST, his second published novel. The reviewer had this tidbit as the central paragraph of the review:

The main flaw with the book is the inclusion of the silly search for a mysterious document from Earth’s past which will utterly revolutionize the Galaxy. The document, in the end, turns out to be the Constitution of the United States. This subplot was added to the book at the insistence of Horace Gold, who was scheduled to serialize ...

St. James Matatmoros, Defend Us in Battle

One of my readers asked, quite reasonably, in what way, if the current Jihad is winning symbolic and psychological victories, any victory has been won?

The same day, I hear this news from Great Britain:

Six people have been arrested on suspicion of inciting racial [sic:] hatred after videos emerged on the internet apparently showing copies of the Koran being burned.

Officers detained two men on September 15 and four more yesterday and all six were bailed pending further inquiries...

Poetry Corner — The Poet of the Law

This poem, entitled only ‘To Edmund Clerihew Bentley‘, appears in the front matter of G.K. Chesteron’s THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY, his droll and nightmarish fantasy of philosophical policework, and the poem is by his hand. Certain of the lines have a biting pertinence to the affairs of our day–I am thinking particularly of disnatured science, decayed art, laughterless lust, plumed cowardice, shamelessness honored.

A cloud was on the mind of men, and wailing went the weather,
Yea, a sick...

St. James Matamoros, Have Mercy Upon Us

Family Security Matters reports:

Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore says he has raised over $50,000 for the construction of a mosque and Muslim community center near Ground Zero.

Moore made an appeal to his supporters on the ninth anniversary of 9/11 for donations to the construction project, pledging to match contributions up to $10,000.

Less than 48 hours later, five times that amount had poured into the contribution coffers as hundreds of people from around the...

St. James Matamoros, Pray for Us

Two articles from National Review Online:

Five Men of ‘Arabic Origin’ Arrested in Plot to Kill the Pope

[ Via: Fox News ]  

Developing: Five men were arrested Friday by British police over a potential threat to Pope Benedict XVI on the second day of his four-day visit to the U.K.

Police confirmed the arrests in a statement Friday, which revealed the men were detained by Scotland Yard detectives about 5.45am local time “on suspicion of the commission, preparation or...

The Parable of the Picture

 I believe the heart of his argument is that if everything is not ultimately ‘mechanical’ then the non-mechanical (be it spiritual or mental) must at some point interface with the mechanical world and therefore alter the course of the mechanical world. Whereby purely Newtonian mechanics would have led said atom/electron/whateveron to go ‘left’ all of a sudden it goes ‘right’ instead because of the interface of the mechanical and non-mechanical. This would seem to add energy (among...

Parable of the Chessmen

Part of an ongoing conversation:

“The true laws of physics, in your meaning, contain, as it were, “escape clauses” so that an electron moving according to someone’s will instead of according to Newton is still obeying the laws of physics. Is this a reasonable summary?”

No, it is not a reasonable summary; indeed, it is the opposite of what I said.

I wrote (see above) that the dichotomy you proposed was a false one — the choice is not between a brain-electron moving “according to”...