So I’m sitting in the break room at work trying to read but there’s a really gripping show on the History channel.  It’s a special on Nazi technology.  And then I got my idea for the real psycho to blog about for my Readings in the Genre class.  And no, it’s not the obvious Adolf Hitler.  No, I’m blogging about the horrible Josef Mengele, the doctor from Auschwitz, nicknamed the “Angel of Death” and user of many aliases to elude capture.  The filth that never was punished for his crimes.  As though his experiments aren’t bad enough, he died never having remorse or regret for what he did and insisting that he “had never personally harmed anyone in his whole life.” (quote from his son in an article in wikipedia) That to me is the definitive qualification for a psycho.

Josef Mengele experimented heavily on twins in the Auschwitz camp.  He apparently was a hereditary biologist before the Nazi regime and was given the power as the camp doctor to do what he wanted.  He’d separated the twins out from the masses heading for the chambers and be nice to them and give them candies.  And then the next moment shoot and dissect them while their bodies were still warm.   Or working on them while they were alive without giving them any anesthesia.  We’ve read some pretty gruesome things in this class, but Mengele takes the cake.  He’s truly what nightmares are made from.  I won’t scar you all with the details of his human experiments.  But it goes back to a theme I’ve seen discussed by classmates a number of times now.  It’s frightening what a person can do when given unlimited power and authority over others.  

This guy just makes my skin crawl.  I read about a number of real serial killers and others for this class.  But there’s just something about this guy that feels so much worse than most.  I just don’t understand how someone can be “nice” to the kids one second and then so brutal the next.  The best explanation I can come up is that he really, truly, believed that they weren’t humans at all.  Nothing more than blades of grass.

Throughout this class I’ve tried to find something of value to take from the real and fictional stories.  More than just what I can learn about the craft of writing.  My wife is always trying to help me see what positives can come out of such destruction.  That was kind of the tone of the afore mentioned special on the History channel.  No question, the Nazi regime was horrible.  But the special focused on the advancements for all of humanity in the form of science and technology.  Recording devices leading to our DVDs, or weapons leading to the jet engine and rocket technology to name a few.  The best I can come up about Mengele is that the rest of the world can be warned about giving someone too much power.  But I’m sorry, that’s not enough.  It’s disgusting that one, there are people in the world who think they can get away with anything, and two, that so many of them have gone unpunished.  Or unpunished for a while before getting caught.  Or getting caught but able to live a quiet life in prison instead of being punished the way they should be.  Oh, wait, that doesn’t sound Christian does it.  Well, on this point I refuse to back down.

While I love superheroes, I never collected any comic books until after high school. Most of what I know about the legends of Batman and the Joker is from Wikipedia or my friends growing up. Approaching this comic in the mindset of this Readings in the Genre course I was intrigued not only in Joker’s backstory but also in what he was trying to do. He’s trying to corrupt Gordon. It’s just like the move the Dark Knight. All he wants to do is corrupt the Batman by any means possible. He’ll do whatever he can to break someone down. In the movie, all he corrupts is Harvey Dent. Batman gets close when he uses the cell phone technology to find the Joker. But in the end he leaves the power with Fox because he knows that the power is too powerful.

So in The Killing Joke we see the question I’ve wondered for years. How will it end? Will they kill each other? This graphic novel isn’t just about trying to break down Gordon. It’s proving the point that “everyone is just one bad day away from crazy.” Both the Joker and Batman have horrible back stories. But we see the differences in their paths. But here’s the really interesting point. The Joker was already planning on crime even before the tipping point. So it’s not necessarily just about the bad day to turn someone. That’s why Gordon doesn’t crack. That’s why he’s determined to bring the Joker in “by the book.” Because his mind was set before he’s tortured. And it’s the same with the Batman. Bruce, the man, stands back at the beginning of the novel and asks how two people who don’t really know each other can the each other so much. And I think we hear regret in his voice. All the origin stories for Bruce Wayne involve a desire for vengeance. But not death. It sounds like Bruce is getting tired of the fight as Batman in this novel. But even in desperation Bruce overrides the vigilante Batman for reason. It is more important to bring the Joker in the right way.

And therein is the failing in the Joker’s plan.  He doesn’t understand that it’s more than just the “bad day.”  It’s the strength of character within the person and the decisions they’ve made before that “bad day” arrives.  That is why the Batman cannot be corrupted.  Because as dark as his life may be, Bruce still holds out on hope.  Why else would he approach the Joker at the end of the novel and offer the hand of friendship and love to help the Joker change?

Ultimately, I loved this.  It wasn’t what I was expecting.  But I’m not that experienced with DC comics as I am with Marvel.  But I thought this was a great insight into their characters and motivations.  Definitely dark in places but a fun end for the assigned readings.

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The latest work for my Readings in the Genre course at Seton Hill is Joyride.  Yep, nothing with joy there.  Just a psychotic, murderous, rampage for 200 pages.  I did not enjoy this at all.  I will try to focus on what I have learned as a writer and how to craft a villain.

First, an interesting quote towards the end of the novel:

“A victim will do some crazy things to stop being a victim, and maybe you did, too.  But that doesn’t make you crazy, and it doesn’t make you evil.” (page 190 Nook version)

I’m not surprised to see this at the end of the novel given what we were discussing over this last week in class.  What is the definition of crazy or evil?  The real truth we found is that all things are in the eye of the beholder.  As a Christian, my beliefs of what is evil is defined by the doctrine of Christ as revealed through the ancient prophets, himself in the New Testament, and as revealed through his living prophets today.  But I had to step out of that for a minute to examine the villains in these stories.  There is a simple matter of perspective and upbringing.  My Christian upbringing teaches me one thing but a Muslim upbringing would teach me something different.

I did not like how nearly everyone in the novel is damaged.  I was going to say “messed up” or “evil” but stopped myself because that is my perspective.  But it did feel like every character was deeply flawed.  And not just flawed in common ways like low confidence or something like that.  It felt like everyone had a history of abuse or abuser.  Usually sexual and physical but also neglect.  Now, my undergrad was Sociology so I know that studies are showing a rise in physical and sexual abuse and I’m not downplaying the severity of those crimes and what it can do to the victim.  So, I don’t really blame what Carol decides to do in the novel.  Especially to find that she had a history of this victimization since childhood.  But it got to the point in this novel where I didn’t want to continue because it felt forced.  I bet that was a method for the writer to really drive home Wayne’s purpose.  But he’s pretty messed up as it is.  (Think of the closet).

So I didn’t need to have what felt like all the other characters involved in abuse of some kind.  I think it could have been fine to give the other characters some attribute that bothered Wayne to the point of retaliation.  I have wonderful neighbors.  I trust them to babysit my girls.  But I hate their dogs.  And I’m a dog lover.  Just not theirs.  That’s similar to Wayne and Roberts.  What I’m trying to say is that from my perspective, it felt like every person in the novel had a blaring streak of evil.  Even Lt. Rule.  I just don’t think I needed such deep wounds in all the main characters.  I know that drew a commonality between them to tie them all together for Wayne.  But they started blending together instead of being individuals.  As the hero of the story, I’m fine with him having a flaw to make him more human.  Maybe I just read this novel at the wrong time in my life because it was really depressing.  I know we all have our past baggage.  And current baggage for that matter.  I certainly do.  But it was too depressing reading about all the abuse.  I know it’s out there but I have absolutely no patience with abusers.  So I found it hard to read the novel for that alone.

Here’s the other thing I’ve noticed over the course of these readings.  I’m fine having an uber-villain in the story.  And I thought I wanted to know more about what was going through their head and their motivations.  But I’ve found that for myself.  I’d rather keep them more as an enigma that the hero must conquer.  In my writing I’m all about deep loss and struggles to force out of my character the best they can be.   Because I know that life can be hard!  And I think there is more value in find the character who overcomes all odds to stand up in the end, victorious, over their trials.  I think that is what many people need.  Someone, whether real or fictional, that encourages them to greatness.  It is for that that I don’t understand the people who read about killers for the sake of diving into their lives and worshiping psychos.

So, ultimately, I have found the importance of finding a balance when writing about villains and heroes.  The balance, for me, is finding just how much do you NEED to write about the villain to get across the idea that they need to be taken out by the hero? How much is too much?  I generally right dark fantasy as the darkest I go.  Not straight up horror.  So, I may be pulling back on the details of my killers so that I’m telling just enough without crossing the line into what I consider horror.

Thanks for listening to my ramblings. Now, off to my day job.

“It’s dismissive to call him a lunatic.”  This line along with the title of this post really struck a cord with me in this film.  Our prompt in our class forum asks: What makes a person’s actions “evil” or “psychotic?”  What’s the real difference between insane and sane?  So, I’d like to open that up more here.  

John Doe feels justified in what he’s doing.  He is on a mission to remind and expose the evils in the world one heinous sin at a time.  Morgan Freeman’s character confesses his fear of being a father and “bringing up a child in a world like this” early in the film.  I think that definitely sets the tone for the whole story.  Doe sees the evil in the world and clearly feels that it needs to be exposed and punished.  Needless to say that is an extremely dangerous motive.  Throughout history he have stories of people acting under the instructions of their God or for a higher purpose.  Why is it we are more willing to accept their stories if they happened in ancient writing and not now?  Is it just hindsight that allows us to accept their stories.  If John Doe really existed in our world, how would he be viewed in 5, 10, 50, or 100 years.  History books are written by the victors.  With the information written now about Bundy and others, I don’t see how they could ever be seen as anything other than evil.  But when you have a person like Doe who views himself as a preacher, would people in the future ever see him as anything other than a killer?  I can’t even begin to answer this because it all depends on what values society will hold.  George Washington is a hero to the USA but was viewed as a rebel and criminal to the English in the 1700s.  But how do they view him now if at all?

“And so it was” that I am disappointed in this one.  For those that read this one, did you notice how often he used that phrase?  It started to grate on my nerves.  Queue a pause in reading and a review of my manuscript for over used phrases.

I came into his book with a lot of hope.  To date I had heard about Psycho, Hannibal Lector, and Stephen King.  But, I hadn’t read them before this class.  But, so far, the only pieces I hadn’t heard about at all were Church of Dead Girls and The Sculptor.  Based on our fearless leader, there’s a reason for that.  I felt like this had a lot of potential but there were too many things that just felt….. blah.  Seriously? He’s super strong? But a recluse as well.  That didn’t feel believable.  Now, I’m not saying that Dan Brown’s books are the best, but, in the aftermath of his Angels and Demons and DaVinci Code novels, I really felt like this was trying to ride on the coat tails of that success by bringing in the symbolism and art masterpieces for the villain.  Especially since when a single, beautiful, expert on Michelangelo is there to  help the authorities.  Yeah, it just felt too similar.  And at parts it felt like a personal love letter to Michelangelo.

But, what the villain does to the victims was definitely intriguing.  I don’t claim to be well versed in horror and murder stories but I don’t think I would have ever thought to turn victims into pieces of art.  That definitely takes a unique look at life and art to have come up with that.  While I didn’t like the novel as a whole, it was interesting to see how someone can fixate on something.  Our last book it was Annie Wilkes fixating on Paul/Misery and Paul fixating on finishing his novel.  This it was his work.  I think that is a very telling attribute to psycho killers in life and fiction to see how many of them view what they do as “their work?” That in of itself opens a wide world of psychosis and study.