There’s been so much going on. I’ve been finding it hard to stop my brain from switching back and forth between images from the stories I’m trying to write and stories of real people, if not an entire civilization, with a seemingly irrepressible drive towards the destruction of self and others. How can I infuse a story with tension and worry that’s different and meaningful – though echoing the times – when my mind won’t let go of CNN?!?!
I will do it. Others will, too. We’ll figure it out.
On a positive note, when all this began in Ukraine, there seemed to be this new, fresh sentiment on a global scale that war is wrong and that we as a world society want no part of it. Inertia against war – imagine that! I never would have expected it, but I swear I felt it. At long last, could we be coming to the point where war is just too damn disruptive, where conflict is bad for business, and as we all hope, doing good business leads to a decent standard of living for everyone? We value stability, or we ought to. Global modernity. True, we have plenty of examples of bad business and bad business practices, and I’ve shared my thoughts along those lines. But maybe our collective revulsion for this war, a war taking place in one of the most advanced societies on Earth, is a sign of where we’re headed. And maybe this revulsion can lead to a long-overdue group effort to eradicate the sort of misery that leads to war in other societies not as “advanced.” Some people have rightly pointed out that war has persisted in these other places in one way or another for a long time. Too long. This is our opportunity to turn a new page, and we should, because we have one hell of an environmental disaster looming. Once we’ve finished up with blasting a few cities to shreds, let’s hop on that.
I was being ironic. I don’t want cities blasted.
For escape, I read. I watch movies and series and documentaries on TV. Often when I’m lulled into a sort of mindless consumption mode, and feeling pretty happy about it, too, needing it, all of a sudden there will be this amazing scene that floors me. One such scene was in Vikings, on Hulu a week ago – for me a week ago. It’s been out a while. This was in season 4, I believe, when King Ecbert is once again sending his son Aethelwulf off to go do battle with the Vikings, who’ve just killed King Aelle and are on their way to Winchester to kill Ecbert and everyone else.
King Ecbert stands on a ceremonial platform in the town center, as he always does when sending his son to war – Ecbert himself is not a warrior but a powerful and devious statesman who’s managed to unite several kingdoms under his rule.
Hesitant, almost dazed, this time King Ecbert is not expecting a good outcome, instead he fears a horrific upheaval for his people. A beat too late, he marches off the platform, seizes his son’s face in his hands, and tells him that this is no time for Christian mercy but a time for brutality. The Vikings have come for revenge as a result of Ecbert’s direct actions which led to the death of their own king, Ragnar Lothbrok, but both kings had loved one another, or at least admired one another to a painful degree. As defeat looms, King Ecbert feels conflicted about what his son must face.
As I said, the beats of this exchange felt oddly off. Aethelwulf is to be everyone’s savior here, not Ecbert. When King Ecbert speaks to Aethelwulf of the need for ruthlessness in battle, off tempo and unnecessarily, their awkwardness at first presents like a mistake, as if the actors had flubbed their parts. But almost immediately, it’s apparent that no, all of these complicated emotions and subtle messaging were intended. The almost whimsical orchestration of the scene, the restrained script, and the director’s brilliance to have seen its value and kept it in – this is how great stories are told on screen. And in books. Not everything needs to be explained.
So, I loved that scene. Coincidentally, I’d been watching HBO Max’s Raised by Wolves at the same time – they share an impressive actor, Travis Fimmel. Raised by Wolves fascinates me as a storyteller. It’s beautiful and imaginative. Android psychology fascinates me; faith as a mental tool fascinates me. My complaint, and I think it goes to the root of most of the online rants (poor Campion) is the storytelling. I hated to think it, and certainly hate saying it, but the writing was not what it needed to be. As a fan of speculative fiction, I can run with one or two implausible aspects, but not a parade. For example, if you’re going to have a settlement on the edge of a sea of “acid water” that can boil away metal and burn away skin, you can’t have your characters standing on a rock at the shore wistfully breathing in the air – not without lung damage and likely death. No. How can the show’s writer (Aaron Guzikowski) ignore his own premise? The story is chaotic, often complex without purpose, and features lots of misdirection. Well, hard to say whether it’s misdirection or underdeveloped direction, and that’s kind of my point. And yet, I was totally captivated by the actors, particularly those who played androids Mother and Father, and to be honest Number 7 grew on me in the last season, which I did not expect. Empathy triggered by a non-verbal flying snake – that takes skill! Bravo! But in spite of the show’s overall gorgeousness, the writer seemed to have thrown in every “wouldn’t it be cool if” idea that popped into his head. I didn’t know what was going on half the time. But sometimes I figured it out later and was impressed with what he appeared to be trying to do, like gene-swapping similar to Orson Scott Card’s in his famous novel Speaker for the Dead. And I say all this even though I don’t want every little thing explained, and even though I am a compulsive analyzer – so that should tell you something. It pays to color within one’s own lines. Still, Raised by Wolves has been my guilty pleasure. Oh, that theme song! So mournfully resonant with everything that’s been going on, so tender. At the very least, I hope everyone involved has had fun making it, and I will look out for the next season, if there is one. There should be one, because they left me on a very suspended note!
I don’t know if what I’ve said captures my state of mind, and I had a mind to do that today, to share with you. It feels absurd sometimes to care so deeply about fiction when… uh…. You don’t need me to say it out loud, do you?
When too much is unsettled.
