Wanted Undead or Alive:. Джонатан Мэйберри

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СКАЧАТЬ such as cowardice or self-absorption, but who nevertheless find that inner spark when the chips are down. Han Solo is a great example. At the end of the second act of Star Wars: A New Hope (1977) he was ready to take his reward and bug out, but a pesky conscience brought him back into the fight, and in the nick of time.

      More tragic antiheroes are those who resist the call of heroism, or are even villains for a while, but who rise to the moment, often at their own expense. Annakin Skywalker’s heroism surfaced in the last few minutes of Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi (1983), and—sadly—he died. Antiheroes often have a short life span once they’ve reclaimed their better nature.

      A switch on the antihero is the kind who is viewed as a hero only by one side in a conflict. Certainly Joan of Arc was viewed as a heroine by the French people, but the English burned her as a witch. Hans-Ulrich Rudel was the most highly decorated Stuka dive-bomber pilot of World War II, and the only person to be awarded the Nazi Knight’s Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds. To the Allies, however, he was a monster. During the Depression, gangsters like John Dillinger were hailed as heroes by the common man. Everything is relative.

      Some people make great personal sacrifices that do tremendous good, but they do it without guns or bulging biceps, and often they fly under the radar and seldom get hung with the label of hero. Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Rosa Parks, the Dalai Lama, and the host of unsung people working without applause to combat poverty, disease, and ethnic genocide in third world nations.

      OPPOSING EVIL: CHOICE, DESTINY, OR RIGHT PLACE/WRONG TIME?

      In the supernatural world heroes are often pitted against challenges no ordinary mortal is meant to face. Hunting a vampire, slaying a werewolf, driving unclean spirits from a house or from a possessed person—these are challenges that separate heroes from the vast majority of humanity (who would rather run for the hills—and sensibly so!).

      What makes someone take that stand?

      Sometimes it’s love. When evil invades the home and targets one or more family members, it provokes a response that’s been hardwired into us since we were lizards. “Defend the species” is a primal response. “Defend a loved one” is simply the most recent coat of paint on that ancient reflex. Defending a loved one does, however, require more active choice than simple species protection because with higher mind comes rationalization and considered self-interest. There are people who will flee in the face of attack even if it means leaving their loved ones to die. Yes, it can be argued that self-preservation is as old an impulse as species defense, but we can overcome it in order to defend others. Opting to save one’s own life instead of someone else’s is a choice. Tragic, surely; even understandable in certain circumstances…but it isn’t heroic.

      A hero may oppose the threat even if he believes that it’s hopeless, or that he’ll die in the process. Heroic choices don’t always stand up to close logical scrutiny. But damn if they don’t elevate the spirit.

      Given a choice, a hero will opt to do some research, prepare some weapons or charms, maybe call on a few dozen buddies to help storm the castle. That’s another benefit of higher mind: strategic thinking. And common sense…let’s not forget common sense. A hero with some horse sense is likely to end the night as a live hero rather than a dead one.

      Sometimes heroism is determined by pure chance and a mix of bad luck (having to confront a monster at all) and good luck (living to talk about it). This kind of hero usually has no prep time, no encounters with cryptic mentors, and no chance to get up to speed. The moment looms and the person reacts, and through some action wins the day. The reason this person gets to be the “hero” is largely based on survival: he either has defeated the monster or saved someone else from the big bad. A person who merely “escapes” is not a hero—just a lucky s.o.b. who should now go out and buy a fistful of lottery tickets.

      FIGHTING EVIL

      A hero is often defined by his enemies. A person who fights a vampire the size and approximate strength of, say, Tickle Me Elmo is not likely to be rated among the greatest champions of all time. When St. George fought a fire-breathing dragon, that one made the record books. For stories to have real pop—be they mythic, biblical, or fictional—there has to be a Big Bad, and the bigger and badder the evil the more profound the struggle. It’s what makes a character into a hero. Beowulf fought Grendel and got serious points, but when he fought Grendel’s much more powerful mother, he became a much greater hero. That he later died while fighting a dragon (which also died) gives his life story a real “wow!” factor.

      In more modern heroic stories there is often a bigger power gap between hero and villain. Luke Skywalker versus Darth Vader, Clarice Starling facing down Hannibal Lecter, and Indiana Jones against the entire Nazi army are examples. Wits, resourcefulness, pluck, luck, and maybe some useful personal knowledge are common among the modern hero. Even when the hero is immensely tough—Spider-Man, for example—the villains tend to be an order of magnitude tougher, like the Rhino or the Hulk.

      People who believe they are empowered by God (or whoever is driving their particular belief system) can make formidable heroes. They can also be villains, depending on the point of view. During the Inquisition the Church was ostensibly the “hero” in a protracted battle against supernatural evil; however, in retrospect we can see that the Inquisition’s actions were a campaign of corruption resulting in a slaughter of innocent people.

      The burden on the hero who faces the supernatural is first to determine if the enemy is actually unnatural. Not an easy thing. A large part of the hero’s challenge, then, is studying the creature, devising a series of tests to establish its nature, determining which weapons will work against it, and then actually killing the thing. For this reason the smallest portion of virtually any monster story involves actually killing the monster.

      Most of it is the hunt.

      VILLAINS—NATURAL AND UNNATURAL

      Villains are the bad guy. Whether human, monstrous, alien, spiritual, or other, the villain is the person or being whose aim is to do some kind of harm. Real-world villains range from vicious dictators like President Robert Mugabe who has been accused of a laundry list of human rights violations to a snatch-and-grab thief who robs a convenience store.

      Some villains are reluctant, and many are villains only from the perspective of political or ethical ideology. This is the case in every war ever fought.

      Some villains fill that role briefly—perhaps a momentary lapse in which they succumb to greed or lust or one of those other pesky Seven Sins. Some are opportunists who see something and grab at it. The 2008 financial collapse was filled with bad guys of that kind.

      Some villains, on the other hand, revel in it. Villainy is their choice. They groove on the negative energy released from their actions. This, sadly, is a pretty large category that includes child molesters, rapists, mass murderers, corrupters of youth, and many others.

      Movies—perhaps more so than novels—are often structured to present the villain as the most interesting character. Filmmaker John Carpenter (Halloween, The Thing, The Fog) agrees and shared his views with us: “The villains always have the best parts. Darth Vader had the best part in Star Wars, the Wicked Witch had the best part in The Wizard of Oz, everybody loves villains. And these guys are just actors in makeup, but we all love them. They have a power to them. They’re strong. Everybody knows about them. So they become incredibly familiar. It’s hard to get people riled up and scared by them anymore because they’re so familiar to us. For Halloween we dress up as scary characters, but we love them, we enjoy them and celebrate them. That’s what movie storytelling’s all about.”

      So…why the great love affair with the bad guys? “The reason we bond so much with the СКАЧАТЬ