DESPOTS, BREAD AND CIRCUSES
In the past, antagonists in thrillers typically wore black hats and shot everyone, while protagonists wore white (or at least not-black) hats and, when pressured, shot reluctantly back. For many years this demarcation seemed inviolate. Why? The world up to the recent has been one of guns and bullets, where the white hats in one clever way or another stopped the bullets and saved the day.
Today, neither antagonists nor protagonists even wear hats, making them initially indecipherable from each other. Instead of shooting bullets, the antagonists project terror by assaulting and battering groups of nameless victims with drugs, famine, disease, or weapons of mass destruction. More interestingly, both antagonists and protagonists hide light and dark sides, and have a secret Achilles' heel. It seems like thriller readers nowadays seem to harbor a secret wish to mentally dive beneath the underbelly of our increasingly dangerous, gruesome, "in-you-face" world with impunity, and resurface feeling "outside" of it all. If the world up to now has been one of guns and bullets, then it appears to be becoming one of despots, bread and circuses. It's about being one of the "privileged victims" watching others being victimized by seemingly untouchable political "kings of crime." Move over ancient Romans, it's bread and circuses again!
But is it really? To the fearful or weary observer, perhaps. But careful observation reveals that It's not really about guns, bullets, despots, bread or circuses, but a subliminal societal fear of crumbling infrastructure. I hear it mentioned as a byline in an increasingly number of political speeches. In our contemporary world, we are all viewers from the outside, in fact, having a legitimate but unstated reason for the omnipresent, floating anxiety that accompanies our times. It's really all about the fear of losing one's society: safe and abundant food, water, medical facilities, and that ease of safe travel, the loss of any of which is a blatant invitation for a visit from the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. We see it everyday on television and read about it in the daily newspapers. I sense that people know this, but don't speak of it for fear that in the speaking, they might see that it's already happening. No one seems to have much room for thriller scenarios about individual ennui anymore. After all, what could ever be more "thrilling" than the collapse of the infrastructure a reader holds for granted? Think fall of the Roman empire and its affect on individual Roman lives. If there are to be future villains and heroes, then I submit they will intimately involved in the destruction or restoration of societal infrastructure, and what will be the topic of many contemporary and future thrillers like QUANTUM DEATH (Savant 2016) and TOTAL MELTDOWN (Borgo/Wildside 2011) - https://www.amazon.com/raymondgaynore...Raymond Gaynor
Today, neither antagonists nor protagonists even wear hats, making them initially indecipherable from each other. Instead of shooting bullets, the antagonists project terror by assaulting and battering groups of nameless victims with drugs, famine, disease, or weapons of mass destruction. More interestingly, both antagonists and protagonists hide light and dark sides, and have a secret Achilles' heel. It seems like thriller readers nowadays seem to harbor a secret wish to mentally dive beneath the underbelly of our increasingly dangerous, gruesome, "in-you-face" world with impunity, and resurface feeling "outside" of it all. If the world up to now has been one of guns and bullets, then it appears to be becoming one of despots, bread and circuses. It's about being one of the "privileged victims" watching others being victimized by seemingly untouchable political "kings of crime." Move over ancient Romans, it's bread and circuses again!
But is it really? To the fearful or weary observer, perhaps. But careful observation reveals that It's not really about guns, bullets, despots, bread or circuses, but a subliminal societal fear of crumbling infrastructure. I hear it mentioned as a byline in an increasingly number of political speeches. In our contemporary world, we are all viewers from the outside, in fact, having a legitimate but unstated reason for the omnipresent, floating anxiety that accompanies our times. It's really all about the fear of losing one's society: safe and abundant food, water, medical facilities, and that ease of safe travel, the loss of any of which is a blatant invitation for a visit from the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. We see it everyday on television and read about it in the daily newspapers. I sense that people know this, but don't speak of it for fear that in the speaking, they might see that it's already happening. No one seems to have much room for thriller scenarios about individual ennui anymore. After all, what could ever be more "thrilling" than the collapse of the infrastructure a reader holds for granted? Think fall of the Roman empire and its affect on individual Roman lives. If there are to be future villains and heroes, then I submit they will intimately involved in the destruction or restoration of societal infrastructure, and what will be the topic of many contemporary and future thrillers like QUANTUM DEATH (Savant 2016) and TOTAL MELTDOWN (Borgo/Wildside 2011) - https://www.amazon.com/raymondgaynore...Raymond Gaynor
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