“What can men do against such reckless hate?” The need for evil in drama.

At university I read an interview with a writer who had worked on Ultra Violet, a vampire series set in the UK.  In this interview he scoffed at the idea of the ‘good vampire’ and this got me thinking about the role of the bad and good characters in fiction.  In real life nobody is good and nobody is bad we all fall somewhere in the middle or at least have redeeming qualities such as being kind to our dogs, writing delicate poetry about snowdrops or playing Go.  In fiction the world is different and the grey character is confusing and difficult to have the right reaction too.  Who can truly enjoy the dismemberment of Gredal if you feel sorry for him?  Do not get me wrong there are times and places where greyness and the confusion associated with it are important tools for the narrative.  Greyness works well in Battlestar Galactica or The Walking Dead where the focus is thinking about remaining human in the face of overwhelming odds. 

In other cases a more mythological approach is better and an example is Starwars.  It was conceived of and produced in the 1960s and 70s when the narrative was about plucky resistance movements fighting for freedom against European empires.  It was created against the backdrop of the Second World War where people did not look too carefully at the Allies and Axis only the big picture of ours verses theres.  Now this is not a healthy way to look at the real world but it is essential for looking at a mythological war.  In real life both sides are hideous and have to engage in disreputable acts.  In mythology the hero is good and the baddy is bad.  One of the most offensive things about the recent Beowulf movie was Grendels mother making an equivalence between the violence of Grendel and Beowulf, to maintain the myth this can’t exist.

Orcs can’t have families, Cylons don’t have morality chips and the Bugs don’t make a distinction between soldiers and civilians making them enemies to be feared, honourable to fight.  When Theodred, full of despair, says “What can men do against such reckless hate” and Aragorn replies “Ride out with me!” The atmosphere is charged.  It would have deflated if Theodred had asked what he could do against reasoned dislike.  To be effective drama has to be a choice between good and evil and to maintain their quality the good characters must make the right choice.  To make the right choice there must be truely and unredeemable evil.  Reckless evil.

When real life questions such as “what about the other side?” come into play the conflict is robbed of its quality.  Sympathy for the devil, the good vampire, the sad zombie or feeling sorry for Grendel even the Balrog are at worst breakers of myth and best subject of satire as in Austin Powers and the henchmen.

The Bad Batch, Star War made good again

The Starwars universe is a mixed bag for me.  It was the first science fiction I was introduced to since I saw Return of the Jedi in the cinema in Northwich.  I couldn’t understand what was going on, I couldn’t read the subtitles and but I was overwhelming impressed by the Empire.  The next day I wore my dressing gown around my neck wanting to be Darth Vader.

Over the years my interest has waxed and waned and focus shifted.  As I have grown up I came to understand that empire is wrong (important lesson for an Englishman) but as I have gained a better understanding of morality I find the Rebellion wanting.  In my teens and twenties I saw grey heroes as better than absolutely good heroes but again I grew up and now want my goodies to be good and my baddies to be vanquished.  The rebellion is not as pure and good as I would like and the empire not quite evil enough.  In fact my enjoyment of the Star Wars mythos is punctured by the sheer mindless cruelty of the Republic.  This can be contrasted with Lord of the Rings, Gandalf pities the slaves of the Dark Lord and Faramir loves the sword not for itself but for what it protects.  It seems to me that the rebellion have very little vision for what they want to reestablish and happy throw away Imperial lives at the wave of a force powered hand.  The inhumanity of an Imperial Space Marine from 40K is preferable to the sanctimonious republic space wizards.

So I was pleased a few years ago to discover a series that did actually engage me and met my criteria of goodies and baddies.  That was The Bad Batch.  This series follows the adventures of a squad of defective clone troopers.  Unaffected by Order 66 because of their abnormalities and refusing to carry out atrocities they find themselves on the run from the Empire and engaging in a series of exciting missions.  The clones themselves are personable and engaging characters who you can root for (don’t get excited Australians) and buy into.  Hunter the moody tracker and leader is a fascinating character who seems the most well rounded.  He has a brotherly rivalry with Crosshair and is most hurt by Crosshairs betrayal of the group.  Wrecker is the tank a powerful but childlike character, comic relief without being a clown or joke a perfect foil to Tech who is a genius with an acid sense of humour and finally Echo who was a regular clone until he was captured and augmented with technology.  They are joined by Omega who is prima facie the ordinary character for the audience but who proves in the end to be as odd as all the others.

Tolkien Art – Representation and Interpretation

Daily writing prompt
Who are your favorite artists?
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Art appreciation is a skill that I am very proud of and whilst I am a disappointment on the creative side I have strong ideas about what makes good art and what makes bad art. Good art in my opinion requires something to say and the ability to say it. Bad art at worst doesn’t say anything and at best says the wrong thing. I once saw a representation of Eowyn fighting the Witch King. An iconic episode in the book and well done in the Peter Jackson films but horrifically butchered in this picture. I tried to find it for this blog but there were too many pictures with poor composition, lifeless expression and in some cases too few clothes that I gave up to focus on the excellence of my favourite Tolkien artists.

Tolkiens works have been an inspiration to artists for over seventy years and continue to be fertile grounds for all the arts to this day. This art can be very expensive and well received. My walls at home are covered in Tolkien maps and prints that I dare not tell my wife how much I paid for. That being said Tolkien fans, and I can say this because I am one, are a nightmare. Try drawing a Balrog with wings and you will get threats!

This writing prompt calls for me to discuss my favourite artist and I choose Jay Johnstone. Johnstone is a fine artist who creates art to complement peoples individual understandings of Middle Earth. Speaking to Johnstone in 2016 he explained to me that he was creating the art that might have been created after the war of the ring. His awesome portrait of Aragorn he explained was like the kinds of portraits of kings produced in the Middle Ages and send to other kings as gifts and propaganda pieces. We only need to think of the famous portraits of Henry VIII as an example.

I have two prints on my wall. The first is an image of Faramir preparing to storm Osgiliath on the orders of his increasingly unstable father. The piece is a perfectly reconstruction of a Medieval illumination with Faramir front and centre a figure of resignation to duty. Deeply moving for to me a man who is fascinating by duty and honour. This is a theme that speaks deeply to me as I have already said when talking about the ‘Eternal War’ painting from Warhammer 40K. To the left there is an, in medieval style, an idealised and unrefined image of Osgiliath populated by orcs bearing the banner of Sauron and his tower looming in the background. To the right we see Gandalf and Merry watching from an equally idealised and westernised Minas Tirith. Again this westernising and idealising is a medieval style and observing this is one of the reasons why this work is so astonishing and effective. My second print is of Tom Bombadil and Goldberry. It is a replica of an illuminated manuscript the text being some kind of Elvish that I can not read. Again it was a powerful piece which I bought at Oxonmoot for a sum I won’t be sharing with my wife. What I particularly like about this piece is the sense of fun around Tom and mystery, gracefulness and supernatural nobility around Goldberry. Just as in the text Tom can not keep his eyes off her, just as we can’t. She steals the show. Before them in the water are lilies which is a direct reference to The Fellowship of the Ring as that is what Tom collects as a gift for his ‘water maiden’ wife. And here we see the second criteria that I would suggest for good art. It is obvious to all but the blind that Johnstone is a talented artist and it is obvious from looking at his art that he fits the second criteria in that he has something to say and that is that he has obviously read the books and understands not just the words but the subtext as well. From Faramir we get the sadness and resignation of being loyal and dutiful to a unstable leader, from Tom we get the impishness and passion for his wife and from the water lilies we can see that he has an understanding of love and how that is played out in the Tolkien world. All this we can contrast with the obvious objectification of Ewoyn. The power of Jay Johnstone is that he gets it, he loves it and he tells us Tolkien fans about the world that we already love.

I was brought up in the pre-computer age… when pen and paper ruled the world.

Daily writing prompt
Your life without a computer: what does it look like?
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Despite being the venerable age of forty six I regularly work with children and the teachers who herd them. Most of these teachers with born in the 1990s, some in this century and have little to no conception of the world before computers.

I was born in 1978 and the computer was a magical mystical thing that was used by the Government and mega corporations like ICI (google it). You saw them in television and films performing amazing feats but if you ever did come across one it was regularly disappointing. Like the original Ai chatbots. The scientist who was showing it off knew the extra ordinary power of the machine and what it was doing but pong didn’t do it for me.

In the pre-computer age we still played games. These used our imagination to animate toys and dolls to living things with their own lives, desires and ambitions. I think that this is why the Chucky films are powerful. The inanimate, animated by thought and then going off on its own sweet way. The same is true of our own dark dreams about Ai and maybe they are equally valid.

In the pre-computer age we were far more social. Not on the Tube, that was always a very anti-social place. We talked in pubs, we had family meals and visited our friends. All of these have been suppressed by the modern computer age. Even cinema which Orwell considered deeply anti-social has suffered from the streaming era.

Finally in the pre-computer age the world was a much smaller place and we got to know it intimately. Again this was already under attack in the 1960s with the growth of cars and television but the ghost of the pre-technological world was there. The local pub was frequented with a relationship with the Landlord, nodding acquaintances with the other regulars, the playing field was a haunt of the local children and local traditions were remembered more.

The world is a very different place to the place where I grew up without computers. Do I miss it, yes. Would I want it for my child, definitely and do the advantages of the modern age outweigh the past, I don’t think so. I think it is just another way of living.

Warhammer, books and writing

Daily writing prompt
What is your favorite hobby or pastime?
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We are very blessed in the 21st century West to have so much free time that we can ask what our FAVOURITE hobby or pastime it. I think of my Grandparents who got to work early, worked, returned home and then went out again to study at the local college. In my own world I wake up, am out of the door for seven, do an easy job and then am home for four where I entertain myself until I go to bed.

My favourite pastime is reading and writing. I read a lot and have a huge collection of physical books, audiobooks and kindle books. I mostly read Tolien and Lewis but dabble in philosophy and history. The benefit of reading so much is that it gives me things to say. My blogging and writing is better when I have had a book to read that has stimulated my creative juices.

Alongside writing I collect Warhammer 40K models. Warhammer has been going since the middle of the 1980s and I became interested in 1989. They say that the hobbies and interests you develop at age eleven are the ones that stick with you and here I am at forty six still entranced and moved by the Space Marines.

Further to all this I am engaged by culture and civilisation. I love Churchcrawling, visiting the theatre and engaging with the community through activities where I can just be with people. Culture and civilisation are pretext whereby we can be together and not atomised. Being together is fundamental to the human condition, didn’t we miss it when the pandemic took it away from us?

Coventry (new) Cathedral

Coventry is blessed with having three Cathedrals. The first was dissolved by Henry VIII and the second was destroyed during the war. The third is a huge modernist structure connected to the second and running over the site of the first.

The cathedral is a very brave innovation drawing on modern architecture, glass and concrete in its design. A very untraditional building that shows off a profound collection of art and design.

Most moving is this powerful statue of the triumph of St Michael over the devil.

Weapons in The Hobbit

There are three weapons in particular that stand out in The Hobbit and these are the swords Glamdring, Orcrist and Sting. All three were recovered by the party from the horde of the trolls early in the book. Their identity and lineage are revealed by Elrond in Rivendell where they become the property of Grandalf, Thorin and Bilbo.

Glamdrings story extends back into the distant past where it was used by the King of Gondolin during battles and at the last battle of the city where it was lost. Glamdring is elvish meaning ‘foe hammer’ and is used to kill the Great Goblin of the cave when the Dwarves and Bilbo are captured in the Misty Mountains. It glows blue with pleasure at killing the Great Goblin and breaking goblin chains and is called ‘Beater’ by the Goblins.

Orcrist has a lesser lineage than Glamdring but remains a powerful and potent weapon made in the elder days by Elronds kin. The name Orcrist means ‘the goblin cleaver’ and has a nice onomatopoeia sound. The goblins call this sword ‘biter’ and just like Glamdring and Sting it glows blue when enemies come close. Gandalf saves Orcrist from the goblins when he rescues the dwarves and Bilbo but it is eventually taken from Thorin by the King of the Wood Elves when he is captured in Mirkwood. The King returns the sword to the dwarves after Thorins death and it is placed on his breast where it remains glowing in the dark if enemies approach so the dwarves can never be caught unawares.

In the trolls horde Bilbo finds a long knife that would do for him as a sword. Its name is given to it by Bilbo after he uses it to kill a giant spider in Mirkwood. Bilbo finds courage and pride in bearing a sword from the elder days which was made by the elves in the bitter goblin wars and is pleased with the effect that these weapons have on the goblins that see them. Sting returns with Bilbo to the Shire where he lends it to the museum at Mickle Delving.

Dashing Blades Barbershop, Coventry

Dashing Blades is the premier barbershop in the West Midlands, I will restrict myself to the West Midlands. It is situated in Fargo Village in Coventry and is part of the ‘hip’ vibe that is the KSI. This week it celebrates its tenth anniversary and is a remarkable success story.

I must confess and conflict of interest, I go to Dashing Blades. I have ever since it started in the main hall at Fargo and I haven’t been anywhere else since. Loyalty is something that makes me happy and for that loyalty I have made great friends with the owner Rob, and his little friends.

Rob is a facinating character who lives and breathes the Dashing brand. From his suits to his attitude, its just dashing. Over the years we have had some fun conversations in his chair and I never leave the shop not feeling uplifted and happy.

Congratulations Dashing Blades on ten successful years and the best is yet to come.

This is not a place for you…

Daily writing prompt
Tell us about a time when you felt out of place.
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Ever since 1990 I have been an avid fan of Warhammer 40k. I was entranced by the models and by the art. As a student I struggled to read but I lapped up Warhammer lore. It was life changing and even sublime. I remember it very clearly, the first time I owned a Space Marine even though it was thirty years ago.

I was attracted by the epic scale, the theatrics and the apocalypic nature of the setting. It is the same thing that thrills me in the later stages of Lord of the Rings. A sense that the plot has become too big and powerful than the narrative can bear. The image above is called the Eternal War and is a last stand image, for me intensely moving. It speaks of brotherhood and loyalty and a determination not to give up despite not being able to win. Another sublime thought and one that speaks directly to my ideas of happiness.

I dropped off collecting in my late teens on the mysteriously sophistical grounds that I was a grown up and this was a toy. Such logic makes me ashamed. But I returned to the hobby during university and after when I was feeling down and was looking for something familiar. My abeyance continued until my early forties when I had a really horrible experience and thought to myself ‘I really want to kill bad guys’. Best option Warhammer.

From my forties to now I have collected miniatures and played the games, sometimes at home and sometimes in store. But one day in store I had a profound feeling that playing a game in public surrounded by teenagers was something a bit wrong and unworthy of me. I was playing in a tournament and my opponent was about the same age as me when I started collecting all those years ago. I thought to myself the literal title of this writing prompt ‘this is no place for you’ so I took myself off to reflect.

This was a fundamental question because I was enjoying myself and playing with the miniatures in company was fun and made me happy. I was welcome and felt appreciated by the manager and the store workers so what was making me question my participation? When I really got down to it, what was bothering me was my over developed sense of personal dignity and pride. Did I want to be seen doing something childish? What if someone saw me? Then I laughed, such are the subtlest of the devils snares. This activity made me happy and if it made me happy I would do it even if I had to wear a clown costume.

Coventry Moot, The Rangers of Mordor Minor

Today I went to the Coventry Moot of The Rangers of Mordor Minor. This is of course a Tolkien thing. In the Tolkien Society local groups are called Smials after the dwellings of the Hobbits in Middle Earth. The Rangers of Mordor Minor are the Coventry Smial. We are called the Rangers of Mordor Minor because a few years ago I was a bit down on Coventry (because it is run by orcs) and took to calling it Mordor Minor. The Rangers in Lord of the Rings are men, usually of Dúnedain origin who spend their time in Orc controlled territories causing chaos. When I was a bit down about Coventry I wanted something that would be a resistance to what I saw as the mismanagement of our cultural affairs so the name The Rangers of Mordor Minor was born.

The group was quite active before Covid but fell into decline during and after Covid to the point where we had not met for some years. This month I got a little push from a member to start up again and it took me a week to put the event together. Thats not a boast because it was a meet up in a pub and a week is not enough time for the adverts to drum up lots of interest but we got three other members which including myself made a good four attendees.

The event was held in the Old Windmill pub in Coventry which is rapidly becoming a cultural hotspot for the city. It is the oldest pub in the city and a lovely venue. I was able to snag a room at the back where I laid out my Gondorian flag and tastefully arranged two Lord of the Rings books. Being a fan of Guinness, in particular the new 0% version, I grabbed a pint and waited for people to arrive.

When we had all arrived and the cheese board came (I made and mistake, ordered the big one and everyone was able to share, seriously it was huge) we started discussing the Smial, when we would meet and most importantly what we would read. Since we were all at various points of Lord of the Rings we came to the conclusion that we would all start our favourite epic again and start the Hobbit. I was moved by our self sacrifice in re-reading our favourite text.

Our next meet up is in October and if you would like to attend please find The Rangers of Mordor Minor on Facebook or drop me a comment and I will link you in.