Mortality in Speculative Fiction

MFD · 09-10-2009, 12:35 PM

To continue the discussion from the "Goddamn it, Marvel!" thread:

Mirai, my "So, SO much sarcasm" post referred to my previous post, where I said that Superman, the Spoiler, and Batman stayed dead for quite some time, while Bucky came back moments later.

And yes, everyone knows that we're secretly in the middle of Countdown to the Bat Crisis, featuring the Green Lanterns!

Seriously, though. I heard that Bruce was returning as a Black Lantern. Laaame!

Anyways, my major point! The most important thing in any speculative fiction is to set mortality rules. Contractual immortality, especially by fantastic means, is poor writing and doesn't help with a suspension of disbelief.

Rowling did a good job establishing death as a final end. Lost is doing a good job so far with "Whatever happened, happened" and "dead is dead". We'll see.

I understand that you need to keep these characters living, but they also need to be living in the world. Bats should have died of old age long ago, Dick should have taken his place.

If you can't manage that, at least manage some drama out of other sources. Superman's great! He can't die, sure! But he's an immigrant! He's white morality in a gray world! He's faced with the constant desire to do good, but how can he best accomplish that? Putting away criminals is fighting the symptoms of a disease.

How does he deal with that?

Professor Smarmiarty · 09-10-2009, 01:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MFD

Contractual immortality, especially by fantastic means, is poor writing and doesn't help with a suspension of disbelief.

Not necessarily but as long as the problems of immortality are dealt with. Think of say Dorian Grey or the Melmoth the Wanderer or the immortal people in Gulliver's Travels or even the elves of Tolkien. Immortality can be written well but it needs to be addressed as such. Most comic books just gloss over it and the fact that their characters live forever.

The Argent Lord · 09-10-2009, 01:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Smarty McBarrelpants

Not necessarily but as long as the problems of immortality are dealt with. Think of say Dorian Grey or the Melmoth the Wanderer or the immortal people in Gulliver's Travels or even the elves of Tolkien. Immortality can be written well but it needs to be addressed as such. Most comic books just gloss over it and the fact that their characters live forever.

Contractual immortality is the one where you don't die/stay dead because you're the main character and we want money.

Tev · 09-10-2009, 01:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Argent Lord

Contractual immortality is the one where you don't die/stay dead because you're the main character and we want money.

So it's not Highlander immortality......or is it? >_>

Archbio · 09-10-2009, 01:14 PM

Quote:

Not necessarily but as long as the problems of immortality are dealt with. Think of say Dorian Grey or the Melmoth the Wanderer or the immortal people in Gulliver's Travels or even the elves of Tolkien. Immortality can be written well but it needs to be addressed as such.

Hence contractual immortality.

Fifthfiend · 09-10-2009, 01:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MFD

Anyways, my major point! The most important thing in any speculative fiction is to set mortality rules. Contractual immortality, especially by fantastic means, is poor writing and doesn't help with a suspension of disbelief.

Rowling did a good job establishing death as a final end. Lost is doing a good job so far with "Whatever happened, happened" and "dead is dead". We'll see.

I understand that you need to keep these characters living, but they also need to be living in the world. Bats should have died of old age long ago, Dick should have taken his place.

I don't blame comics too hard given that they are 1. telling stories in a persistent universe that has run the course of (in DC's case) nearly a century, 2. these days a very very small piece of the overall entertainment media pie. Yes you or I the comics reader might love to see Dick finally take over the Batman legacy or Peter Parker just retire and have a kid but the problem is that when the movie industry goes to make a movie they want to make it about Bruce goddamn Wayne and the animated series launched out of that naturally also features the aforementioned Bruce Wayne so if your comics series Batman is Richard Grayson the former apprentice of Bruce Wayne etc. etc. etc. then you're gonna have a lot of people picking it up and going WTF WHO'S THIS GUY HE'S NOT REALLY BATMAN WWWWARGLEBARGLE.

Fuck in terms of raw population numbers you'd probably have like ten times as much public interest in a comic featuring Terry goddamn McGuinness taking over the Bat legacy than Dick or Tim or whoever.

It's no excuse in the case of the totally braindead shit like exhuming Barry Allen's corpse after 24 years or devil-divorcing Spider-Man after twenty years of comics* featuring him as a married character and a series of highly successful movies which feature his in-comics wife as his inevitable destined true love. But there are some characters where it just isn't reasonable to ever expect them to be retired.

It is kind of a shame in that the static character focus of comics does hack off a lot of good original concepts but short of getting Runaways: The Animated Series into production I don't know how you fix that.

*Note: I don't really include Hal Jordan here because the way they took him out it was basically inevitable that one Hal fan or another was going to retcon the fuck out of it and it ain't like anyone ever really told the Great Kyle Rayner Story that cemented him as The One True Green Lantern. But the Barry Allen thing is just a WTF on pretty much every level.

01d55 · 09-10-2009, 02:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fifthfiend

I don't blame comics too hard given that they are 1. telling stories in a persistent universe that has run the course of (in DC's case) nearly a century, 2. these days a very very small piece of the overall entertainment media pie. Yes you or I the comics reader might love to see Dick finally take over the Batman legacy or Peter Parker just retire and have a kid but the problem is that when the movie industry goes to make a movie they want to make it about Bruce goddamn Wayne and the animated series launched out of that naturally also features the aforementioned Bruce Wayne so if your comics series Batman is Richard Grayson the former apprentice of Bruce Wayne etc. etc. etc. then you're gonna have a lot of people picking it up and going WTF WHO'S THIS GUY HE'S NOT REALLY BATMAN WWWWARGLEBARGLE.

At this point why even pretend that you are writing for an audience that has been reading Batman since Bob Kane thought it would be cool if a dude dressed up as a bat and fought crime, an audience that consists of shit all nobody? Why not just stop publishing the continuing adventures of a dude whose adventures have continued for longer than his natural lifespan, start over from the beginning, and flat out say that is what you are doing instead of writing a story in which an Anti-Monitor from the anti-matter universe destroys everything and then recreates it except different (so you have to start midstream and nobody knows exactly what has or has not happened yet)?

You can blame comics for that.

Krylo · 09-10-2009, 04:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fifthfiend

the problem is that when the movie industry goes to make a movie they want to make it about Bruce goddamn Wayne and the animated series launched out of that naturally also features the aforementioned Bruce Wayne so if your comics series Batman is Richard Grayson the former apprentice of Bruce Wayne etc. etc. etc. then you're gonna have a lot of people picking it up and going WTF WHO'S THIS GUY HE'S NOT REALLY BATMAN WWWWARGLEBARGLE.

Not seeing how this is really a problem, as that I highly doubt people actually watch these things and then decide "Oh god, now I MUST READ THE COMICS" and those few that do are probably interested enough to actually figure out why Batman is a different dude now. Also, I'm pretty sure if Batman ended up being Dick Grayson AND it got popular, the movie/cartoon industries wouldn't have a problem making a movie/cartoon of Dick Grayson as Batman. It's not like the execs are all drowning in nostalgia and must make the Batman they knew. They just want easy money. Hell, they already made a cartoon of Terry McGinnis as Batman.

Sure, it'd be hard to change it right now, after so many years of this stagnant bullshit, and have Hollywood go along, but really that's not going to stop Hollywood from making movies of whatever version of Batman or whatever they think is going to make the most money.

Really, it's just the comic industry slowly killing any semblance of ingenuity and risk in the pursuit of 'safety' until they end up like newspaper 'funnies'.

Dracorion · 09-10-2009, 06:15 PM

Movie premise: Battle-hardened Bruce Wayne Batman dies on the job and it's up to his adopted son and protege Dick Grayson to take up the mantle of the Dark Knight.

Utter awesome movie or piece of crap?

Professor Smarmiarty · 09-10-2009, 02:44 PM

Sorry about above, I didn't understand what you were getting at with contractual immortality.

Because you won't get funding for it. The major comic books are a business and they like to play things safe and so do their partners and thier shareholders and their advertisers. They know Bruce Wayne sells comics so they are going to keep doing it.
It's the same reason Holliwood is obsessed with remakes at the moment, because they know they work and will turn a profit.
And unless you going to join me in my communist utopia, then it's pretty much not going to change because that is how business operates.

09-10-2009, 12:35 PM	#1
MFD THWIP! Join Date: Feb 2004 Posts: 1,626	Mortality in Speculative Fiction To continue the discussion from the "Goddamn it, Marvel!" thread: Mirai, my "So, SO much sarcasm" post referred to my previous post, where I said that Superman, the Spoiler, and Batman stayed dead for quite some time, while Bucky came back moments later. And yes, everyone knows that we're secretly in the middle of Countdown to the Bat Crisis, featuring the Green Lanterns! Seriously, though. I heard that Bruce was returning as a Black Lantern. Laaame! Anyways, my major point! The most important thing in any speculative fiction is to set mortality rules. Contractual immortality, especially by fantastic means, is poor writing and doesn't help with a suspension of disbelief. Rowling did a good job establishing death as a final end. Lost is doing a good job so far with "Whatever happened, happened" and "dead is dead". We'll see. I understand that you need to keep these characters living, but they also need to be living in the world. Bats should have died of old age long ago, Dick should have taken his place. If you can't manage that, at least manage some drama out of other sources. Superman's great! He can't die, sure! But he's an immigrant! He's white morality in a gray world! He's faced with the constant desire to do good, but how can he best accomplish that? Putting away criminals is fighting the symptoms of a disease. How does he deal with that? __________________ And The Lord did curse Caine for his sin, for by The Lord blood may only be repaid in sparkly glitter. - DFM 11:30

09-10-2009, 06:15 PM	#9
Dracorion Moves Like Jagger, Kupo! Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: To the south, a little to the left... Or to the right. Posts: 4,910	Movie premise: Battle-hardened Bruce Wayne Batman dies on the job and it's up to his adopted son and protege Dick Grayson to take up the mantle of the Dark Knight. Utter awesome movie or piece of crap? __________________ Dracorion's dumbass color is Royal Blue. If you see that color, you better run the fuck away.

09-10-2009, 02:44 PM	#10
Professor Smarmiarty Sent to the cornfield Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: K-space Posts: 9,758	Sorry about above, I didn't understand what you were getting at with contractual immortality. Because you won't get funding for it. The major comic books are a business and they like to play things safe and so do their partners and thier shareholders and their advertisers. They know Bruce Wayne sells comics so they are going to keep doing it. It's the same reason Holliwood is obsessed with remakes at the moment, because they know they work and will turn a profit. And unless you going to join me in my communist utopia, then it's pretty much not going to change because that is how business operates.