Undead for Fun and Profit: Part I

"A Necromancer should use the undead for knowledge and defense, never for attack." ---the Bathrobe Goblin

Monsters have been used as gimmicks to make money, sell crap, and explain weirdness that was otherwise obscured through ignorance or in the occult.   Werewolves in 16th century France were used to explain certain brutal killings that people attributed to werewolves. In fact, there was a case in France during the mid 1500's where the defendant (Gilles Garnier)  pleaded "lycanthropy" to the court. At the time, this  was a perfectly reasonable plea, but still got Frenchy executed. The courts, however,  were satisfied with the "why."  

D'oh!

There were some cases of tuberculosis, in colonial American, that were linked to vampirism.   For example,  Billy Bob got sick, started coughing up blood, then got all corpsified.  After the burial, the other family members would start getting sick.  Given the medical "knowledge" of the time, they figured that Billy Bob was a vampire and that he was feeding off the rest of the family.    Worried that the now-fangy Billy Bob was a one of the undead, his friends and family would dig him up and drive  a stake in his heart.  Makes sense.  Why not? 

The monsters, in these cases, were used by  pre-industrial civilizations as societal coping mechanisms. They knew Frenchy was tearing people apart in the woods, but they had no idea WHY. "Oh, he was a werewolf. K,  I feel better knowing why."  American colonists didn't understand the idea of infectious pathogens entering the respiratory system: they just new that Billy Bob croaked and the rest of the family was getting sick.  Stake Billy Bob's bones and all will be right in the universe.  It worked for them.  It let them move on with their happy little lives. 

I know what you’re thinking.  "That's very interesting, but what relevance does that have for me?  I'm a 21st century Terran with a smart phone.  Behold! Angry Birds!  In the palm of my hand!!  Marvel at my technology! Marvel, I say!!!!"  Or something like that.

Part II will discuss the uses the undead can have for an aspiring 21st century Necromancer.  In the meantime, mull over 15th century werewolves while playing Fruit Ninja.

Lynn Thompson: American Zombie Slayer

I saw this and had to share it.  HAD.  TO.  As in, "an irresistable compulsion that cannot be restrained by logic or reason and must...MUST...be acted upon."

The gentleman in this video is Lynn Thompson, founder and president of Cold Steel, a company that designs and manufactures some outstanding edged weapons.  

Oh, Lynn, you glorious bastage!

What the hell is Goth? (Part II)

In the 18^th century, there was this eccentric Victorian chap named Horace Walpole.  Apparently, he was so obsessed with gothic architecture [see Part I] that he had his mansion-villa-crib-castle constructed in that fashion.  Some sources say that Walpole kicked off the Gothic Revival in England around this time (think of the Gothic Revival as a ‘medieval-retro’ trend that started at the beginning of the Victorian period). Regardless, he was one of the first to jump on this stylistic party wagon. 

Okay, this Walpole guy really dug medieval architecture, so what?   He was also obsessed with medieval romantic literature.  In 1764, his book - The Castle of Otranto [it’s a free book; how cool is that??]- was published.  For the time, it was supposed to have supernatural elements, but I haven’t come across anything that made me say, “Oh Noes, it’s the Talking Tentacle Raven!”  What I’m getting out of it is “Fear and Loathing in ‘ye Old Place of Antiquity.”  Tangent.

 When it was first published, it was subtitled “A Gothic Story.”  Allegedly.  I can’t confirm this and the copy made available by the GP lacks such a subtitle.  The book had some modest success, but the text itself wasn’t the revolutionary part. The book became a trendsetter for this genre and few different authors started playing with the style that Walpole coined.  We started to get the Shelleys and the Stokers, who entwined more supernatural elements into their plots.  As far as I can tell, this is where we get gothic horror.

 Today, the use of the word gothic seems to be synonymous with “old, spooky, and supernatural.”  You have to have all three to make it work.  For example, John McCain is old and spooky, but not supernatural.  Sarah Palin is spooky and supernatural, but not old.  Keith Richards is old, spooky, and supernatural [magic is the only reason that can explain A: how he’s still alive and B: the best part of POTC.], so I guess he could be gothic (he did wear make-up as Captain Teague).  Another tangent. 

Later (closer to our collective memories), it became the modern incarnation that most people know when they think of goth, the transition of which is beyond the kenning of my current attention span. 

Hot Topic, therefore, would not exist if not for the efforts of some Pre-Victorian (Elizabethan?) writer who was obsessed with architecture.   

Etymology Recap for goth and gothic: 

1.      Group of proto-redneck barbarians

2.      Type of artsy stuff that kicked off in France circa 1200, named after “1.”

3.      Reference to  kingy-knighty stuff (the late middle ages)

4.      Type of artsy stuff that made a come-back during the Victorian Era

5.      Type of artsy stuff that becomes synonymous with old, spooky and supernatural

6.      Wearing lots of black, dressing like a chick regardless of gender, and shopping at Hot Topic

What the hell is Goth? (Part I)

I’m pillaging eldritch lore and reading arcane tomes [which means I’m watching Ghostbusters on Netflix and reading poorly translated manga] to find some marrow-sucking tidbits for us to munch on.  I keep coming across words like Goth, Gothic and Gothic Horror. 

If you’re anything like me, you have odd reading habits [let’s be honest; in America, reading is odd] and you’ve also come across these words.   I realized that I have only the vaguest idea what these words mean and I cannot, in good(ish) conscience, continue to rant and rave about the necrotic nuances of the living impaired until I get these ambiguous adjectives brought to light.    Time to kill this beasty before it does any more damage.  By “damage,” I mean, “annoy me.”  Here’s what I have….

Goth:  Go back to about the time Rome fell (AD 400-something).  The Goths were a “group” (collective, culture, hive, swarm, zerg-rush) of Germanic (not German) people that stretched across Europe and parts of Russia (depending on the source).  Think, ‘white trash’ meets ‘Conan the Barbarian.’  Basically.  There’s more to it than that, but you get the gist.  I ain’t Dickens. 

Gothic:  Trying to find solid information online was mentally taxing. I suppose I could have gone to the library (or, as it is known to most Americans, the ‘libary.’), but I eventually gave up “researching.” Instead, I’m placing a link to the Dictionary.com listing for the word Gothic.  Basically, it says that gothic refers to: the aforementioned barbarians, a type of architecture that developed in France circa 1200, a European art AND music style from 1200 – 1400’s, and a term for the [late] Middle Ages.    

Gothic Horror:  Straight from the vaunted wiki:  “is a genre or mode of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance.”  So, Lady Gaga?

Now we have all this nifty intel. That really helps, right?

Hells No!! 

Where’s my Talking Tentacle Raven??!! How did we get Stoker and Poe out of Rome-sacking marauders?

Villain. Antihero. What’s next?

In folklore, vampires have been around for a very long time.  The legends and myths surrounding them (and similar critters) come from all over the world.  For fangbanging aficionados, I recommend an old book A Clutch of Vampires, by Raymond T. McNally.  I have no idea if this book is still in print, but it covers the broader brush-strokes of vampiric myths throughout the ages.  If you can find it, it’s a good read. 

Anyhoo, the vampire, in its modern incarnation, really took flight [get it?!?] after two things happened (in my opinion), both of which occurred in the late Victorian period.  The first event is the Jack the Ripper killings, in 1888.  The second event, the publishing of Dracula, by everyone’s favorite Irishman, a few years later in 1897.  [Just be clear, I don’t think ol’ Jacky was the first of his bloodthirsty tribe, but I’m betting that murders happening in the capital of the world’s largest empire (at the time, anyway) pushed the event into media-spectacle status; however, I digress…]

The mystery of this unknown assailant launched Jacky into celebrity status, sending ripples throughout London’s cultural hive-mind.  With Stoker’s aristocratic leach also making an appearance, this is the time period that we start to see romanticized monsters.  Initially, this took the form of Count Dracula (there were a few more before and after, but they just weren’t as charming), but that’ll change.

Before I start talking about serial killers, I need to divide this group of whackos into two distinct categories.  The first category is the real deal: the bona fide Slasher McGees. As far as I can tell, all serial killers (at least within the United States and within - say – the last 50 years) have weird, sexual hang-ups.  These sick frags are perverts that just BROKE.   I’m not a psychologist or forensic investigator, so I can’t say for certain what goes on inside their grey matter.  What I do know, real serial killers make for just unwholesome antagonists.

The second group of serial killers is the faux serial killers (what I’m calling “faux-rial killers”).   This group is purely fictitious, but audiences have seen them in one form or another.  Like the vampire, they’re romanticized monsters.  On film, two well-known faux-rial killers are Hannibal Lector and Jigsaw (from the Saw franchise).  Unlike real serial killers, these two Hollywood man-monsters don’t have odd obsessions with human nethers. Yeah, they might be on the broken side of the “crazy-not-crazy” scale, but it’s a sort of wicked that doesn’t make you want to wretch.    

[Two issues that will undoubtedly arise with the following:  One, when discussing Draky, I’ll be referencing the version that Coppola gave audiences from his 1990-something movie. I like that version, and (for anyone who’s read literature from that time period) it goes down a bit smoother.  Second, I know Jigsaw isn’t, technically, a serial killer; he never actually killed anyone.  It’s fiction.  Go with it.]

In Coppola’s version of Dracula, Draky becomes obsessed with Neo’s betrothed (the chica from Beetlejuice), believing her to be the reincarnation of his long-dead wife.  Over the course of the story, he performs odd acts of dastardliness that one might expect from a maladjusted Carpathian nocturnal marauder.  Keep in mind, despite his callous narcissism, Draky IS doing all this to become reunited with lost love.  In the end, Laurence Fishburne helps Neo kill Draky and bring peace between the vampires and the machines (I might be remembering that part wrong). 

Jigsaw, after being diagnosed with cancer or something, decides that some people don’t deserve the gift of life.  He puts these people in horrendous situations where they have to amputate body parts, kill other people, watch Jersey Shore, etc. in order to survive.   After they survive (in albeit mutilated and grotesque fashion), they presumably live happily ever after (some might call it PTSD). Jigsaw is understandably miffed that fate landed him a raw deal, while douchebags get to run around and be jolly and living.    The bottom line:  the goals of these two monsters were, at their cores (deep, DEEP at their cores) something that – once the layers of visceral rage are stripped away - an audience might identify with.  They both possess a crux that makes them identifiable as something resembling human. 

Jiggy and Draky are a far cry from a hero, but the possibility for empathy is there.  Monsters, by definition, don’t make for great heroes. They can, however, make for outstanding Anti-heroes.  The anti-hero is either: 1) a protagonist who could be a classical hero if not for an antisocial idiosyncrasy, or 2) a protagonist who wants to achieve the same goals as a “hero” but goes about doing so without PR in mind.   With faux-rial killers and vampires, contemporary fiction has two prominent examples of the “monster hero” – the antihero caught between his “nature” and his “morals.” 

Where Dracula is an undead abomination, the character Blade (from the Marvel IP of the same name) is a twice-damned human/vampire hybrid.  Unable to find a place in either society, the character Blade hunts naughty bloodsuckers and brings them to ashen justice. In the first movie [I’m not going into the comic – the continuity issues will make your brain bleed], Blade is found by an aged (human) vampire hunter who hugged him and reassured him that he’s a good boy (or whatnot). On the faux-rial killer side of the story, we have the character of Dexter Morgan [from the Lindsay novels and the oh-so-popular Showtime series]. Like the fictional serial killer of Hannibal Lector, Dexter experienced some horrible psychological trauma in his early childhood that made him all killy-killy-die-die.  However, unlike Dr. Fava Bean, Dexter had a mentor (in the form of his adapted father) that likewise hugged him and reassured him that he’s good boy (and such).  

Unlike the Doc and Draky, Blade and Dex have an anchor – a mentor from the muggle world – that grounds their monstrous impulses (whether the result of vampy DNA or just being loony).  With this relationship, a bridge is formed between what they ARE and what they COULD BE. They are a monster, but they want something resembling normal.  Tormented between their natures and “keeping their souls,” the results are “heroes” that are “gritty, dark, and edgy.”  [BTW, when describing an antihero, these three words are like Sarah Palin jokes:  they’ve been TO DEATH.  Move on.  If you’re writing an antihero, don’t use them. ]

What started in the Victorian era as a human-monster has slowly been evolving into a new type of popular hero.  In the last few decades, fiction has seen popularity rise for the antihero as the main protagonist.  Now, here’s what I want to know.  Why the fascination?  Why the withdrawal from the traditional knight-in-shining armor?  As a society, have we become jaded? As an audience, have we just become bored?  Is it a bad boy-rebel thing?  A cultural identification with the “ronin” archetype – the loner personified?  Does it have to do with economic uncertainty? Maybe audiences appreciate, now more than ever, the idea of a “hero” hell-bent on taking on the world.  Oh, if only I were a psychologist…..

Autonomous Killy-Mah-Jig

Regardless of medium, a narrative needs conflict and the resolution thereof.  Arguably, the simplest approach to the conflict/resolution is the tried and true, “I wanna do X, Y, and Z, but those jackwagons won’t let me.  Ima kill ‘em all!” It’s the basis for action movies (and some comedies).  There are times when a controlling artist (director, author, writer, etc.) will want to add a dramatic level of purity to the protagonist – the knight-errant who is pure of heart and noble of spirit. Or whatever. Unless the character isn’t planning on killing anything (and let’s face it:  audiences love them some bloodshed), that puts a damper on the level of badassry our conflicted hero can portray.  So, in the story, what bad guys can a self-righteous doo-gooder safely annihilate without messing up his karma or hair? 

The problem with most “bad guys” is they could wind up being too human.  The audience might sympathize with the lowly foot soldiers of Doominess when Hero Dogood lays on the smack-down.  For example, the American Revolutionary War pitted rebellious colonists [at the time, I guess they were terrorists] against a far-off imperial overseer (the Brits).  Fast forward to the modern era, and here we have the UK as USA’s supporter (sometimes the only one).  In the film Rambo III (MacDonald, 1988), the lead character was fighting Soviet Russians with the help of (what would become) the Taliban. Now, I realize these examples have their basis in reality (ish), but that foundation is real enough and getting audience to suspend their collective sense of belief is getting harder and harder.  What’s a gal to do?

 Zombies.  Personally speaking, I think every problem in life can be solved with the application of zombies [I don’t have time to go into getting your car’s oil changed with zombies.]  In regards to the particular story-world that they exist in [cosmology, mythos, syuzhet, whatever], the zombie is – at its core:  a soulless, non-sentient, methodical automaton following a primitive programmatic destructive impulse.  They are the “faceless” antagonists.  No one feels remorse about killing zombies.  Zombies are the perfect bad guy and the perfect vehicle with which to remove moral ambiguity from massive (and entertaining!) slaughter. 

So, every good guy needs to fight the undead? 

Nope.  There are several variations that adhere to the spirit of the zombie-as-antagonist.  Nothings says, “Soulless, hell-bent automaton” quite like the skeletal, gun-toting T-800 cyborg-robot-thing from the Terminator franchise (thank you, Mr. Avatar). 

When Star Wars first came out [I guess it’s now called ‘Star Wars:  Episode IV:  A New Hope…blah blah blah], audiences didn’t know what to make of Stormtroopers.  While we find out later what the Stormtroopers are, before Lucas vomited all over my childhood made the prequels, no one had a clue what to make of these incognizant white-clad soldiers.  Where they robots?  Clones?  The reanimated corpses of former QVC hosts?  Audiences did, however, understand that they were a faceless enemy that didn’t make them think any less of Luke when he shot them.

Although they don’t really fit the definition of the autonomous killy-mah-jig, Nazis deserve special mention. No one feels bad about killing Nazis.  It’s why they’re in a video game every year.  Seriously, you can take the world’s cutest puppy; put a little swastika on its tiny fury arm and, all of the sudden you go from, “Awwh, how cute!”  to “DIE YOU BASTAGE!”  It’s where the last Indiana Jones film went awry:  no Nazi killing?!?  WTF?!?  At least Tarantino got it right.  Along this vein is the ever-popular Nazi Zombie. 

What more needs to be said??

Apocalyptic Appeal: Zombies

I’m not sure if George Romero imagined that zombies would become cultural icons when he filmed Night of the Living Dead.   In an interview he gave during the documentary Zombimania, he said, “I didn’t want to re-invent the zombie; I liked the old zombie!”  In Night of the Living Dead, the film always referred to them as flesh-eaters, ghouls, or simply as they or them.  With the 21^st century well under way, the fictitious scenario on the “zombie apocalypse” has given risen to graphic novels, books, and scores of movies (both good and bad).  Why has this concept persisted for so long?

John Wayne’s westerns, Errol Flynn’s swashbuckling adventures, Renaissance Fairs,   That 70’s Show, Leave it to Beaver.  Suspension of belief notwithstanding, these genres, events, and television programs allow for avenues of escapism into the past. Compared to mundane reality, this escapism offers reprieve from the pressures of the daily grind.  It’s a funny quirk of human nature; we believe that the past represents a simpler, easy-going, period. 

Nor is escaping into the past a new notion.  The Greeks (from the “classical”-era) often placed their heroes of yore well into the past. Classical Greece was (more or less) a bastion of stability in the ancient world, yet their myths and legends always took place in their past, usually during the formative years of city-states, warlords and (in their imaginations) malevolent deities. So, the hell does this have to with zombies? 

In our fetishistic desire for a simpler time, the preternatural disaster of the “zombie apocalypse” brings us back to an ultimate simplicity: survival.  No bills, no traffic.  No boss, no time-clocks.  Taxes, 401k’s, photo enforcement zones, business meetings; they all become meaningless. In this shambling and moaning doomsday scenario, only one thing becomes relevant: you, not dying. 

What do you think?  Is that really the appeal?  The fantasy of, “live or die”?  If that’s our fantasy, what does that say about us?