Contemptuous

They don't have to care.

They don't have to care what you think about them, really. What you think about their actions, how obvious it is that those actions are driven by an awful mixture of ideology and greed. They don't have to care how easy it would be to poke holes through the flimsy justifications that they parade around, if they offer any explanations at all.

They can do whatever they want, basically. Take whatever they want from anyone, and do their bidding based on that. Accept gifts and suggestions and donations. Place political pressure in places that the people preparing the gift baskets want it to be placed. Do favours for the investment groups or power companies that they used to work for, or that their families still work for, or that they actually still do consultancy work for.

Because such an obvious conflict of interest just doesn't get followed up on. It doesn't get pursued. Nobody cares. A paper-thin excuse gets slapped over it, and everything is okay. Nobody really cares.

They can play games with people's lives - torpedo our economy, rip out support and assistance for people that need it - with utter impunity. They can cut corners that kill people. They can literally deport people. They can literally deport the wrong people, and shrug, and nothing bad happens. No matter the outrage. No matter the anger. No wrists are slapped; no fines are brought; no criminal charges are pressed.

They can push agendas based on regressive and harmful attitudes, because that's what they want. Because that makes things easier for them, and it's what they believe, and it's what their wealthy and well-established families believe, and it's what their wealthy backers believe, and the people that those attitudes harm just aren't important to them.

They can do what they want, with the bare minimum of attention being brought to it, because most of the press is just fine with them being in charge. Because the people that own the newspapers like tax loopholes, and like operating without restriction. The millionaires that live a thousand miles away from this country for tax purposes but make their money here, selling news print full of racism, sexism and right-wing rhetoric.

They can let a pandemic ravage the country, and literally talk about letting it kill off the old and the poor, and do precious little to curtail it, and then send everyone back to work because the shareholders are feeling nervous. They don't have to go - but you do. They can do what they want. You do what they want. That's how it works.

Schools will reopen. So will businesses. People will get sick. People will die. They won't care. They will go out on Thursdays and clap, with smiles on their faces, knowing they robbed the people they are clapping for. Knowing that they are sentencing many of them to death.

It would be a display of shameless hypocrisy in a sane world, would be called out as such, would have them pelted with rotten vegetables and chased out of office.

We don't live in that sane world.

We live in a world where they do what they want, and they get away with it.

And I really don't know how we stop them doing it, short of a mass general strike, or literally tearing down their houses with our bare hands.

Until then, we get to be canaries in their coal mines.

If you'd care to share my blog with your friends, I'd appreciate that! If you'd like to thank me in a fiscal form for entertaining you a little bit, I do have a Patreon right here, but please - no pressure. Thank you for reading, and check my social media to the right to keep in touch.

NaNoWriMo Thoughts - I'm The Bad Guy, Duh

Villains!

Now I bet we have some villain fans in here, right? I know we do. The kind of people that want a plush Scar, or who argue that the Empire did nothing wrong (which I used to do a lot), or who just really, really like Loki.

Now I have talked about villains before, in this blog post over here. In which I talk about my seven favourite villains, actually. Today though, I'm going to talk about the kind that actually features in my NaNoWriMo novel - and some other kinds.

We all want to make the villain memorable, right?

Like who could forget this guy? Who... is ultimately only in this movie like THIS for five minutes and then becomes a big glowing orange eye on top of a tower?

The thing is - you take one look at this dude and you know what he's about. He's just evil. He's a big old nasty bastard and he likes to stab people and hurt people and his goal is to rule everything and so on and so on. And in the books, that gets achieved by a lot of exposition, but you get the impression that he's just absolutely malevolent.

And wants to control everything, because, you know. That's the story Tolkien is telling you. When Aragorn is made king again (spoilers) that's fine, because he kind of didn't want to for most of the story, but now he is king, and everyone is just cool with him being king because he probably won't chop down millions of trees and hyper-industrialise his medieval fantasy realm.

He's fallible, too. Sauron screws up on many occasions. Like he literally gets his ass merked because he didn't think a couple steps ahead and was, basically, arrogant. Of course nothing can escape his sight - his direct-line sight - across a broken and buckled volcanic landscape filled with faults and rocks and basically god's gift to stealth-game mechanics.

Arrogance is key.

You know who else is arrogant as all hell?

That's right, King Grape over here.

He was an asshole but I loved seeing him on screen. Walking around and doing shit and just being fucking evil. I loved watching him fight. I liked hearing him talk. Because he was unequivocally wrong but wouldn't back down on that fact in any way. Even when he gets himself killed - both times - neither time is he sat there going, oh shit, I did the wrong thing. Nah. He just knows his work is over, and he hates it.

He has that fantastic monologue at the beginning of the movie where he talks about failure - where he talks about the moment wherein you know you aren't going to succeed - and then never addresses the possibility ever again. Because he can't conceive of failure. Which in the end proves to be his undoing, because he bum-rushes into a situation that he thinks he can totally dominate and at no point considers retreat, even while doubling down on his absolutely lunatic plan of blapping half the universe (by threatening to blap the entire universe).

Memorable, right? You know what he wants. He establishes himself early. He's relevant to now because there's actual people espousing genocidal views gently while saying that it is logically speaking the best thing to do. Just like how in Tolkien's day there were plenty of men swaggering about demanding total control over everything, regardless of who it might benefit.

Who is this?

You would be forgiven for not knowing. She is from Bright. Her name is Leilah. She wants... uh...

...yeah I can't remember. I think she does magic or something. But if you didn't know I could make up any number of stories about how she's from the Blade TV series, or that she's a character from True Blood, or something.

The thing is, she's also a part of the story that Bright was trying to tell. I hated it, but it had a story, and it kinda told it. And she was part of it - and she was (as I recall) part of the Elves Are Actually Evil sub-genre, which is one of my favourites.

My NaNo story, the one I am writing, is about three things primarily.

1. Working out who you really are is important, and sometimes requires changes in your life.
2. Sometimes people will try and control you. Don't let them.
3. Capitalism ruins everything cool and empowers monsters.

That requires another, quite specific kind of villain.

That's right. BURKE CARTER J BABY

Or at least... he is similar to my antagonist in several ways. Specifically, with the arrogance - knowing full well that he won't get caught, even up to the point that he does get caught. Even when he has a gun stuck in his face, and is being told that he's going to be executed, he's unapologetic - he's just spinning words to get people to not shoot him. Because he can still get away with this. He can still have traded all 157 of those colonists away for a huge, huge profit, and handing the biggest bioweapon ever over to Weyland-Yutani.

Because in a system wherein acquisition of power is directly connected to acquisition of wealth, and in a culture wherein possession of power is as much a part of ensuring that others don't have power over you as it is about having power over others - shit is encouraged.

If Burke had more influence, more power, then he would probably have gotten away with it. He'd have had more resources brought to bear, could move more subtly. Would have more pawns to sacrifice.

He's established from the very beginning, is present throughout. That's important, too. He becomes a presence. Even if he's only in the background, he's there, and he is inherently connected to events.

The antagonist in my book is a lot like Burke, in a few ways; but there's some ways in which he differs. The primary one is power. Another - Burke can come across as kind of likeable if you've never seen the movie before, but there's no way you like my antagonist. There's just... not much you can do about it, because he doesn't have to justify his actions to anyone. He just does what he wants and nobody can really tell him no.

That's where the arrogance comes from.

Nobody's ever told him he is wrong. What he says, goes - and he has a literal fortune and an entire market to back him up on it. So of course, his opinions are cast iron facts, and not opinions. Which can be kind of dangerous, when those opinions are things like:

"People don't change. They think they do. They want to believe they do. They do not. They remain who they are, be that for good or ill. That is who they are. That is who all of us are…"

And especially when your fortune comes from a company whose job it is to prevent poor people from living in a post-scarcity society.

Villains.

(Also if this guy had an actor I think it would be a great role for Jeff Bridges.)

If you'd care to share my blog with your friends, I'd appreciate that! If you'd like to thank me in a fiscal form for entertaining you a little bit, I do have a Patreon right here, but please - no pressure. Thank you for reading, and check my social media to the right to keep in touch.