BBC's Robin Hood's Sir Guy of Gisborne
Before I post a fic based on it, let me talk for a moment about BBC's show, Robin Hood, the one with Richard Armitage. I should mention I never saw the third season, where he got even hotter.
The short version is, I think this was an awful show. The only reason I kept watching it was Guy of Gisborne. My interest in Guy had a lot to do with Richard Armitage being hot--more to do with it than I really like to admit. However, some part of my interest in Guy had to do with sheer incredulity that anyone could like him at all, and my conclusion that the show wanted us to be attracted to him despite our better judgments.
Obviously, some people probably like Sir Guy for some of the same reasons I was interested him: i.e., he is hot. This is very easy to understand.
The show, however, made him so disgusting that I would have assumed the show never expected us to be attracted to him, but for several reasons. One is he is Richard Armitage, and is obviously good looking. Even if you don't find that particular type attractive, you would see how someone could, whereas the Sheriff (just for instance) doesn't have the same things going for him. I am not by any means saying no one could find Keith Allen attractive, just that he probably wasn't cast for that reason, and he is not going to be written with an awareness that many people are going to find him sexy.
The next reason I assume the creators of the show understands that we might find him attractive is commercialism, the industry; I've seen enough shows like this. Sir Guy in this show plays the "bad boy". There are certain things the show does that suggest to me that like oh, say, Spike, Guy is meant to be the bad guy we shake our fists at since he thwarts our heroes, but at the same time we like him and feel rather sorry for him, and also are desperately attracted to him. That's the way this character is supposed to work.
My problem is that this show fails in that. Sir Guy is not a sexy villain except in appearance. Even that is somewhat . . . weird. Why is he so greasy? Why is his hair so bad? Maybe someone just made a bad choice with all the eyeliner, but from what I've seen of season 3, someone finally noticed that Armitage could look good, i.e., sometimes they washed his hair and blew it dry. It's not that I think Armitage wasn't attractive in seasons one and two. It's not that I don't think he wasn't just eye candy. But seriously, if he's meant to be eye candy, why those choices with his hair?
Don't get me wrong--I like him better with less blow-dried hair, not because it looks better (my God, is he hot in season 3) but because it makes me think he isn't just there to be eye candy. It makes me think he's greasy because the character calls for it--and the character certainly calls for it. It makes me think this show wants to show us this human being is ugly, even though he's pretty. But I don't think the show wanted to do that. I think it really was thinking of him as eye candy, and it just . . . failed.
As for the bad boy archetype, with Spike, we're given cause to see why he acts that way (namely, he's a vampire). With Sir Guy, we see some traits that could be considered somewhat redemptive: his love for Marian, primarily. But his love for Marian makes no sense. Half the time he's giving her up to the Sheriff. The other half the time he wants to own her and possess her. And yes, that's interesting, I'm fascinated by it, because it's icky, and I'm interested in people being icky and why they are that way. But the show doesn't seem to be aware his love for Marian is gross. Do they think it's sweet?
And when Guy turns around and feeds Marian to the wolves, or won't show and ounce of pity or compassion for anyone else even when she begs him to, we are never shown why. I can totally deal with the idea that he's a woobie and doesn't have anyone and the only one who loves him in his whole life is the Sheriff, and he's just a dog at the Sheriff's table and he hates it, but it's all he has. And yet, though sometimes Guy says he is lonely, we are never actively made aware of his loneliness. There's even an ep with a very nice woman who seems to love him and respect him, and Guy leaves his child by her in the woods to die. For no reason that we ever see, and his feelings for the mother seem equally disgusting.
As for the Sheriff, Guy is visibly disgusted by him. He's annoyed by him and hates him just as we do; it's evident on Armitage's face. And this would make so much sense if at the same time, Guy also loved him or depended on him, but it's unclear Guy needs to depend on him at all. Because the only thing that is really made clear is that Guy wants power, and he sticks to the Sheriff for this reason. This isn't easy to sympathize with as Guy wanting love or fatherly affection with the Sheriff would be, but I could still sympathize with it if we were shown at all what Guy thinks it's like to not have power. Couldn't we be shown how he feels about having a title and not any lands? About what it was like for him in the past, maybe, or what he fears it could be like? He's disdainful of other people, but couldn't we be given a hint, just some small parallel, that he's disdainful because he sees himself in people who are powerless?
Instead he just lumbers about being this great big troll, who by the way appears massively stupid. And yet, I remained fascinated.
Oh, and here's the weirdest thing. The Sheriff has Guy like, on a chain. A short one, and he can jerk Guy around wherever he pleases, and for no discernible reason, Guy does whatever the hell the Sheriff wants him to. Then Guy gets Alan-a-dale on a chain, and does the same thing. And while it's obvious Alan is somewhat gay for Guy, Guy doesn't appear to be aware of it. He also doesn't appear to be aware of the fact that the Sheriff might be gay for him to. And I'd think this show's Sheriff was just completely asexual, with his abhorrence of females and his total seeming lack of interest in anything but money and power, except for the fact that he keeps Guy. Guy fails over and over again. Vaisey (and it's still unclear to me how to spell the Sheriff's name; it's unclear to the internets, too) rages at Guy and calls him stupid, and then in the next episode lets Guy in on all his schemes. Sometimes Vaisey's schemes fail too, but for the most part, Vaisey isn't the one carrying them out; it's Guy, and it's Guy who's failing. This makes Vaisey seem relatively smart--how come he doesn't get a new lackey? How come he forgets how much Guy fails? And how come he seems to take so much delight in telling Guy he's a failure, and that he's stupid? And then Guy seems to totally starved for the allegiance of Alan, and Alan seems totally to buy in to the idea of Guy's power, when Guy has none. What?
And I would say that the show is completely unaware of all this, too, except there is a scene where Guy is dreaming of Marian. She's in bed with him, touching him, and then Marian turns into Alan. And then Guy wakes up and it was Vaisey all along. This seems to suggest something very deep and fucked up about Guy, and yet otherwise the show seemed singularly lacking in awareness.
Because the show wasn't giving me anything at all, but I knew he was supposed to be the attractive bad boy, I just started trying to get the whole character to make sense in my head by filling in my own details. This was hard to do, because a very good excuse for his behavior--again, him seeking love or approval from the Sheriff--had been stripped by the show. There's also the fact of the woman with the baby, and the fact that he is attractive. You can't just say he's desperately alone; you can't make him into Snape, whom nobody wants and nobody loves (except, secretly in my heart, the entire Malfoy family. Narcissa had the house-elves rush to make him cake when he came, and Draco was stupidly posturing in order to impress him, and after dinner Severus and Lucius had brandy, and they were the only people who made him feel like he belonged somewhere, except he didn't belong there either, did he). You can only say that Guy gets attention but does not get the attention he desires, and so sees himself as desperately alone.
In fact, it's truly horrific, the story you have to build for Sir Guy of Gisborne in BBC's Robin Hood, if you want him to make sense at all.
Why then did I write that story? I have no idea. It's extremely icky, and yet writing it was like crack. It's one of those fics I would read and come away from thinking, "Did someone think that was sexy?" Actually, I also come away from those stories and think, "Did they know how problematic that was?" Hopefully the one I wrote makes it clear that I do, though I think it would be a better story if I did not emphasize quite so hard in it that I know better. Still, I think it's interesting as a specimen of I-don't-know-what; why do people write the things they do?
The short version is, I think this was an awful show. The only reason I kept watching it was Guy of Gisborne. My interest in Guy had a lot to do with Richard Armitage being hot--more to do with it than I really like to admit. However, some part of my interest in Guy had to do with sheer incredulity that anyone could like him at all, and my conclusion that the show wanted us to be attracted to him despite our better judgments.
Obviously, some people probably like Sir Guy for some of the same reasons I was interested him: i.e., he is hot. This is very easy to understand.
The show, however, made him so disgusting that I would have assumed the show never expected us to be attracted to him, but for several reasons. One is he is Richard Armitage, and is obviously good looking. Even if you don't find that particular type attractive, you would see how someone could, whereas the Sheriff (just for instance) doesn't have the same things going for him. I am not by any means saying no one could find Keith Allen attractive, just that he probably wasn't cast for that reason, and he is not going to be written with an awareness that many people are going to find him sexy.
The next reason I assume the creators of the show understands that we might find him attractive is commercialism, the industry; I've seen enough shows like this. Sir Guy in this show plays the "bad boy". There are certain things the show does that suggest to me that like oh, say, Spike, Guy is meant to be the bad guy we shake our fists at since he thwarts our heroes, but at the same time we like him and feel rather sorry for him, and also are desperately attracted to him. That's the way this character is supposed to work.
My problem is that this show fails in that. Sir Guy is not a sexy villain except in appearance. Even that is somewhat . . . weird. Why is he so greasy? Why is his hair so bad? Maybe someone just made a bad choice with all the eyeliner, but from what I've seen of season 3, someone finally noticed that Armitage could look good, i.e., sometimes they washed his hair and blew it dry. It's not that I think Armitage wasn't attractive in seasons one and two. It's not that I don't think he wasn't just eye candy. But seriously, if he's meant to be eye candy, why those choices with his hair?
Don't get me wrong--I like him better with less blow-dried hair, not because it looks better (my God, is he hot in season 3) but because it makes me think he isn't just there to be eye candy. It makes me think he's greasy because the character calls for it--and the character certainly calls for it. It makes me think this show wants to show us this human being is ugly, even though he's pretty. But I don't think the show wanted to do that. I think it really was thinking of him as eye candy, and it just . . . failed.
As for the bad boy archetype, with Spike, we're given cause to see why he acts that way (namely, he's a vampire). With Sir Guy, we see some traits that could be considered somewhat redemptive: his love for Marian, primarily. But his love for Marian makes no sense. Half the time he's giving her up to the Sheriff. The other half the time he wants to own her and possess her. And yes, that's interesting, I'm fascinated by it, because it's icky, and I'm interested in people being icky and why they are that way. But the show doesn't seem to be aware his love for Marian is gross. Do they think it's sweet?
And when Guy turns around and feeds Marian to the wolves, or won't show and ounce of pity or compassion for anyone else even when she begs him to, we are never shown why. I can totally deal with the idea that he's a woobie and doesn't have anyone and the only one who loves him in his whole life is the Sheriff, and he's just a dog at the Sheriff's table and he hates it, but it's all he has. And yet, though sometimes Guy says he is lonely, we are never actively made aware of his loneliness. There's even an ep with a very nice woman who seems to love him and respect him, and Guy leaves his child by her in the woods to die. For no reason that we ever see, and his feelings for the mother seem equally disgusting.
As for the Sheriff, Guy is visibly disgusted by him. He's annoyed by him and hates him just as we do; it's evident on Armitage's face. And this would make so much sense if at the same time, Guy also loved him or depended on him, but it's unclear Guy needs to depend on him at all. Because the only thing that is really made clear is that Guy wants power, and he sticks to the Sheriff for this reason. This isn't easy to sympathize with as Guy wanting love or fatherly affection with the Sheriff would be, but I could still sympathize with it if we were shown at all what Guy thinks it's like to not have power. Couldn't we be shown how he feels about having a title and not any lands? About what it was like for him in the past, maybe, or what he fears it could be like? He's disdainful of other people, but couldn't we be given a hint, just some small parallel, that he's disdainful because he sees himself in people who are powerless?
Instead he just lumbers about being this great big troll, who by the way appears massively stupid. And yet, I remained fascinated.
Oh, and here's the weirdest thing. The Sheriff has Guy like, on a chain. A short one, and he can jerk Guy around wherever he pleases, and for no discernible reason, Guy does whatever the hell the Sheriff wants him to. Then Guy gets Alan-a-dale on a chain, and does the same thing. And while it's obvious Alan is somewhat gay for Guy, Guy doesn't appear to be aware of it. He also doesn't appear to be aware of the fact that the Sheriff might be gay for him to. And I'd think this show's Sheriff was just completely asexual, with his abhorrence of females and his total seeming lack of interest in anything but money and power, except for the fact that he keeps Guy. Guy fails over and over again. Vaisey (and it's still unclear to me how to spell the Sheriff's name; it's unclear to the internets, too) rages at Guy and calls him stupid, and then in the next episode lets Guy in on all his schemes. Sometimes Vaisey's schemes fail too, but for the most part, Vaisey isn't the one carrying them out; it's Guy, and it's Guy who's failing. This makes Vaisey seem relatively smart--how come he doesn't get a new lackey? How come he forgets how much Guy fails? And how come he seems to take so much delight in telling Guy he's a failure, and that he's stupid? And then Guy seems to totally starved for the allegiance of Alan, and Alan seems totally to buy in to the idea of Guy's power, when Guy has none. What?
And I would say that the show is completely unaware of all this, too, except there is a scene where Guy is dreaming of Marian. She's in bed with him, touching him, and then Marian turns into Alan. And then Guy wakes up and it was Vaisey all along. This seems to suggest something very deep and fucked up about Guy, and yet otherwise the show seemed singularly lacking in awareness.
Because the show wasn't giving me anything at all, but I knew he was supposed to be the attractive bad boy, I just started trying to get the whole character to make sense in my head by filling in my own details. This was hard to do, because a very good excuse for his behavior--again, him seeking love or approval from the Sheriff--had been stripped by the show. There's also the fact of the woman with the baby, and the fact that he is attractive. You can't just say he's desperately alone; you can't make him into Snape, whom nobody wants and nobody loves (except, secretly in my heart, the entire Malfoy family. Narcissa had the house-elves rush to make him cake when he came, and Draco was stupidly posturing in order to impress him, and after dinner Severus and Lucius had brandy, and they were the only people who made him feel like he belonged somewhere, except he didn't belong there either, did he). You can only say that Guy gets attention but does not get the attention he desires, and so sees himself as desperately alone.
In fact, it's truly horrific, the story you have to build for Sir Guy of Gisborne in BBC's Robin Hood, if you want him to make sense at all.
Why then did I write that story? I have no idea. It's extremely icky, and yet writing it was like crack. It's one of those fics I would read and come away from thinking, "Did someone think that was sexy?" Actually, I also come away from those stories and think, "Did they know how problematic that was?" Hopefully the one I wrote makes it clear that I do, though I think it would be a better story if I did not emphasize quite so hard in it that I know better. Still, I think it's interesting as a specimen of I-don't-know-what; why do people write the things they do?