Death of a Mentor
After reading His Dark Materials I manifested a mentor of grace and power. He was originally named Lord Asriel: is he not the epitome of passion, power and ambition? At any rate, my sixteen-year-old self adored him to the extent I resurrected him as my own. My pet mentor was re-named Lord Lieras.
Lord Lieras is about 180 years old but looks as if he could be any age between 36 and 54. He had his wonderful uses: without him, I wouldn't have slogged through my A-levels with that dictatorial order, I wouldn't have discovered my daemon and explored many issues in my mind without my dear Imaginary Mentor.
Yet now the day has come when he is dead. I tried to kill him off once by having him run over but a couple of days later he was lying ill on his chaise-longue cursing me for my rashness. The bane of being imaginary. Yet I've been trying to call upon his powers for the past couple of months and he's gone leaving an empty Edwardian apartment that is now fragmented like a masterpiece that has been dissolved by paint remover. He is gone at any rate. I cannot re-create his voice.
Imaginary characters to me are alter-egos. Their dictions come naturally, there's no pause-for-thought when deciphering what a character is or isn't doing. They're like a mysterious vapours that infiltrate the body and automatically form themselves into words. Now he's gone. The flame, the flare, the passion -- gone. To consciously re-create him is to defeat the point. Characters are not to be invented but discovered.
For some reason my characters were discussing their mortality as imaginary beings on 6th September 2003. Here is what they had to say on the matter.
Lord Lieras (in response to Whisperlow's melancholy pondering on the inevitability of being forgotten): This is why I'm making plans for my future already. I have decided that I will move to the North and live there happily until the end of my life. I have given myself my own mortality. I die satisfied and happy. I can therefore live seperately from Sharmin's own mind and her thoughts even after I am forgotten.
Whisperlow: *grins wryly* My future is uncertain. Everything about me is...uncertain. My name, my looks, my loves, my dreams... All I have is art and peace. I do not regret it since I have lived with it all my life. Yet sometimes I think I would like more... I would like to know what it is... to live. You are alive, IST. you have feelings and senses and all the rest of it. If I could die, I would and give all of it up for life. I only have mock senses. Forget IQ, forget intelligence, forget about complexity, about expectation; forget about the eyes of others or the sneers of unfounded dreads: think of yourself, think of that which is around you, think of celebration, hope and happiness. I am not half as sentimental as you take me to be, and IF I were, what harm would there be in it? I am only alive as less than a shadow. I may have nothing to lose but nothing to gain. I may not have the power or the eloquence of Lord L, I may not have the intelligence or sophistication to be respected, but I understand longing, desire, sadness... Like an actor on a stage, I am but a dream that springs from minds of things that are real. What will happen to those characters once the actors have discarded them? No. No one ever thinks of the fiction as real. No one ever thinks of me as real. Or him. Or They. Where did they go? Did they lift, did they fly or flee, where have they gone, like phantoms in a night's sky smashed to dust.
Whisperlow is my secondary mentor. In all truth he is not really a mentor at all and not even much of a friend but he hangs around drinking tea and owning the ineffable charm of a failure and dreamer. He is a conglomeration of different influences of my imagination from 12-14 but he re-emerged a couple of years later for unknown reasons. At any rate, I do not know if he is dead since he has never played as prominent a role as Lord L. but Lord L. has definitely disappeared.
It is good that he inscribed his fate two years prior to his disappearance for now I know where has gone: back to his rough terrain to invent and live his own life separate from my own. It's sad to say goodbye to him but now it leaves only my frightening, tremulous voice to guide me. Maybe I should have a cup of tea with Whisperlow.
Lord Lieras is about 180 years old but looks as if he could be any age between 36 and 54. He had his wonderful uses: without him, I wouldn't have slogged through my A-levels with that dictatorial order, I wouldn't have discovered my daemon and explored many issues in my mind without my dear Imaginary Mentor.
Yet now the day has come when he is dead. I tried to kill him off once by having him run over but a couple of days later he was lying ill on his chaise-longue cursing me for my rashness. The bane of being imaginary. Yet I've been trying to call upon his powers for the past couple of months and he's gone leaving an empty Edwardian apartment that is now fragmented like a masterpiece that has been dissolved by paint remover. He is gone at any rate. I cannot re-create his voice.
Imaginary characters to me are alter-egos. Their dictions come naturally, there's no pause-for-thought when deciphering what a character is or isn't doing. They're like a mysterious vapours that infiltrate the body and automatically form themselves into words. Now he's gone. The flame, the flare, the passion -- gone. To consciously re-create him is to defeat the point. Characters are not to be invented but discovered.
For some reason my characters were discussing their mortality as imaginary beings on 6th September 2003. Here is what they had to say on the matter.
Lord Lieras (in response to Whisperlow's melancholy pondering on the inevitability of being forgotten): This is why I'm making plans for my future already. I have decided that I will move to the North and live there happily until the end of my life. I have given myself my own mortality. I die satisfied and happy. I can therefore live seperately from Sharmin's own mind and her thoughts even after I am forgotten.
Whisperlow: *grins wryly* My future is uncertain. Everything about me is...uncertain. My name, my looks, my loves, my dreams... All I have is art and peace. I do not regret it since I have lived with it all my life. Yet sometimes I think I would like more... I would like to know what it is... to live. You are alive, IST. you have feelings and senses and all the rest of it. If I could die, I would and give all of it up for life. I only have mock senses. Forget IQ, forget intelligence, forget about complexity, about expectation; forget about the eyes of others or the sneers of unfounded dreads: think of yourself, think of that which is around you, think of celebration, hope and happiness. I am not half as sentimental as you take me to be, and IF I were, what harm would there be in it? I am only alive as less than a shadow. I may have nothing to lose but nothing to gain. I may not have the power or the eloquence of Lord L, I may not have the intelligence or sophistication to be respected, but I understand longing, desire, sadness... Like an actor on a stage, I am but a dream that springs from minds of things that are real. What will happen to those characters once the actors have discarded them? No. No one ever thinks of the fiction as real. No one ever thinks of me as real. Or him. Or They. Where did they go? Did they lift, did they fly or flee, where have they gone, like phantoms in a night's sky smashed to dust.
Whisperlow is my secondary mentor. In all truth he is not really a mentor at all and not even much of a friend but he hangs around drinking tea and owning the ineffable charm of a failure and dreamer. He is a conglomeration of different influences of my imagination from 12-14 but he re-emerged a couple of years later for unknown reasons. At any rate, I do not know if he is dead since he has never played as prominent a role as Lord L. but Lord L. has definitely disappeared.
It is good that he inscribed his fate two years prior to his disappearance for now I know where has gone: back to his rough terrain to invent and live his own life separate from my own. It's sad to say goodbye to him but now it leaves only my frightening, tremulous voice to guide me. Maybe I should have a cup of tea with Whisperlow.